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Of the many major announcements Google made at its annual developer conference last week, from the debut of a connected jacket, to a smart home device to rival Amazon's Echo, one overshadowed them all: Daydream. Daydream, which will launch this fall as part of the newest version of Android, is Google's first high-quality virtual reality platform for mobile phones. It lumps all your phone's VR content into one app. You'll still need to wear a headset, and use a small remote control to navigate your virtual world, but Daydream should make interacting with apps in a virtual space feel as easy and natural as sending a text. YouTube, Google Photos, Street View, and other, non-Google apps, such as Netflix and Hulu, are being rebuilt for the platform — this isn't just something niche or exclusive to gamers. But that's the (near) future. There's already a lot of cool VR content you can enjoy today — even Coachella got in on the action. To do that, though, you still need a headset. Luckily, there are a few super affordable options you can grab to get accustomed to VR before Daydream lands this fall. I recently tested out three that work with your iPhone or Android phone: I Am Cardboard's EVA Virtual Reality Viewer (left, $25), the DSCVR Virtual Reality Viewer (above, $30), and Speck's recently released Pocket VR Viewer (below, $70). EVA, DSCVR, and the Pocket VR Viewer are all riffs on Google Cardboard, a novelty cardboard device that Google released in 2014. It lets anyone enter a virtual world for a mere $15. While all three variations that I tried serve their purpose — giving you the chance to experience virtual reality — I liked the $30 DSCVR viewer best. The headset is made of sturdy plastic, with a button in the upper-right corner that's useful for responding to commands on the accompanying Google Cardboard app. To get started using it, all you have to do is scan its QR code with your phone to connect the device with your phone, secure your phone in a slot in the front, and then look through the lens to start exploring Paris (or elsewhere).EVA is also easy to set up. It has a small, sliding controller on the left-hand side, as opposed to a button on top. The one downside here is that the viewer is made of foam. Yes, that made it more comfortable than the other options, but definitely not as sturdy. It kept falling apart in my hands after I placed my phone in front of the lens. Last was Speck's Pocket VR Viewer. The headset is an innovative way to bring your VR on the go — the viewer folds up so that it's flat. But when you insert your phone into the device, you don't just see the screen; you see the white edges around it. That's not a deal breaker, but it does detract from what's supposed to be a totally immersive viewing experience. Testing all three made it clear how essential a streamlined VR platform like Daydream is, and how major the technology could be if it delivers on its promise. While Daydream will only work with Android phones when it launches in the fall (prepare to have your iPhone loyalty tested), there's still a growing amount of VR content you can enjoy — on any smartphone — today. Just grab a cheap viewer and go for a (virtual) roller coaster ride.

Technology

Virtual Reality

James Mattis, the retired four-star general who resigned as defense secretary on Thursday, has long been viewed as a legendary figure in the U.S. military. One particular story, told in 2003 at an ethics lecture  organized by the Center for the Study of Professional Military Ethics, perfectly explains why former staffers saw Mattis as a "cult figure. " In 1998, a now retired General Charles C. Krulak had been preparing for an annual tradition where he delivered hundreds of Christmas cookies to post guards. On Christmas day at around 4 a.m., Krulak headed to Virginia, to the command center at Quantico. Once there, he asked the lance corporal who the officer on duty was. "Sir, it's Brigadier General Mattis," the lance corporal answered, as Albert C. Pierce, a director at the ethics center, explained at the lecture. "No, no, no. I know who General Mattis is. I mean, who's the officer of the day today, Christmas day?" Krulak asked with persistence. General Mattis, the soldier repeated. A short time later, Mattis appeared, fully dressed in his uniform complete with his sword. Krulak then asked the seasoned military leader why he chose to be on duty. As Pierce explained: "General Mattis told him that the young officer who was scheduled to have duty on Christmas day had a family, and General Mattis decided it was better for the young officer to spend Christmas Day with his family, and so he chose to have duty on Christmas Day." "That's the kind of officer that Jim Mattis is," Krulak later said. Those who worked for Mattis recount many similar examples where Mattis put his team's needs ahead of his own. In his book, "One Bullet Away," former Marine captain Nate Fick describes his experiences with Mattis while in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. "No one would have questioned Mattis if he'd slept eight hours each night in a private room, to be woken each morning by an aide who ironed his uniforms and heated his MREs," he writes in the book. "But there he was, in the middle of the freezing night, out on the lines with his Marines." Mattis' actions are a timeless reminder that even the toughest leader can embrace compassion. In fact, "Mad Dog" Mattis was known to caution leaders not to allow their passion for excellence to destroy their compassion for their subordinates. After all, as Mattis once explained, our ability "to build trust and harmony" is as critical as our ability execute any task.

Military

US Army

(CNN)Authorities will take another look at the decades-old Atlanta child murders, re-examining evidence in the hopes that technological breakthroughs might point to a definite killer in the cases, most of which were never solved, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said Thursday. The point is not to vindicate convicted murderer Wayne Williams, who was implicated as the prime suspect in the slayings, but to provide closure to the families of victims who have long sought answers about their children's killers, said Bottoms. The mayor was 9 when the murders began and now has four children of her own. Though there were adult victims -- two of whose killings led a jury to convict Williams of murder, putting him away for life -- at least two dozen were children between the ages of 7 and 17. Bottoms recently spoke to Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields, she said, to see if there is any evidence that could be re-examined "that may give some peace -- to the extent that peace can be had in a situation like this -- to the victims' families." The city, Fulton County and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation will be examining never-before-analyzed evidence and re-examining other evidence in the case, though officials did not promise any outcomes that would change the 40-year-old narrative. "We don't know what we'll find," Shields said, but the city feels an obligation to do everything it can to provide answers and will look through every box of evidence to see if something warrants closer analysis. "As we stand, there are some heavy hearts that still exist in our community," said Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard, explaining the case would be the first task for his office's newly formed conviction integrity unit. One of those hearts belongs to Catherine Leach, whose 13-year-old son, Curtis Walker, is counted among the unsolved murders. She thanked officials for their interest in reopening the cases and lamented that it wasn't done sooner. "I've been going through this for a long time. I have been let down," she said. "It seems like the Atlanta missing and murdered children have been forgotten in this city. ... I don't think it's right for all these kids to be killed in this city and nobody was concerned about it." She added, "I want some closure. I want to know who killed Curtis." Killings caught national attention The case -- which included 29 killings, mostly of black children, between 1979 and 1981 -- terrified parents and children in Atlanta, which pre-1996 Olympics and a major airport expansion, was not the megalopolis it is today. Interest also abounded nationally. Sammy Davis Jr., Frankie Sinatra and The Jacksons performed at benefit concerts to raise money for victims' families. the murders spawned a 1985 CBS miniseries starring James Earl Jones, Morgan Freeman and Martin Sheen. Even today, Netflix's second season of "Mindhunter" is expected to delve into the case, and Payne Lindsey -- of 'Up and Vanished" podcast fame -- devoted a later project, "Atlanta Monster," to the Atlanta child murders. Donald Albright, executive producer of "Atlanta Monster," told CNN that while he remembered hearing about the case growing up in California, he often wondered why it didn't draw the national outrage that should accompany reports of so many missing and slain children. He feels the disappearances and deaths of children of color go underreported today and that the race of the Atlanta victims had to play a factor, he said. "It didn't affect all of America, and I wanted to ask the question: Why is that?" he said. "The attention paid to some cases is not the same as (that paid) to black victims. It's not a new story." In 1981, President Ronald Reagan's administration allocated more than $2 million to help track leads and fund after-school youth programs. Years after Williams' arrest, it was revealed that authorities had investigated the Ku Klux Klan as part of their probe into the murders, and Williams, in a CNN documentary, would curiously decline repeatedly to discuss whether he received CIA training that included the proper means to execute a choke hold. Though the Atlanta Police Department declared he was responsible for most of the child murders, Williams was arrested Father's Day 1981 and charged not in the youngsters' slayings, but in the murders of Nathaniel Cater and Jimmy Ray Payne, both adults whose bodies had been discovered in the Chattahoochee River. He was found guilty of both killings in 1982 and sentenced to life in prison. The former news reporter and wannabe music producer was 23 at the time. He was convicted with the help of then-nascent forensic technology that connected dog's hairs and numerous fibers -- some from Williams' home and car -- to Cater and Payne. One juror would tell CNN decades later that he and others felt the chances were "astronomical" that anyone else could've been connected to all of the various fibers found on the bodies. The case was far from over, however. It would continue popping up for years. Atlanta 'in a panic' Then-DeKalb County Police Chief Louis Graham, controversially expressing doubts that Williams was behind the murders, reopened five cases from his jurisdiction in 2005 -- to no avail. Most recently, in 2010, Williams spoke to CNN after forensic experts said human hairs found on the body of 11-year-old victim Patrick Balthazar could not exclude Williams as the boy's killer. Williams has always maintained his innocence, questioning the disappearance of certain evidence and accusing investigators of manipulating other evidence. "The bottom line is nobody ever testified or even claimed that they saw me strike another person, choke another person, stab, beat or kill or hurt anybody," Williams told CNN, "because I didn't." He said Atlanta was "in a panic" over the killings and was bent on convicting a black man because arresting a white man might have sparked a race war and "Atlanta would've gone up in flames." "That fiber evidence may well have been manipulated in this case, point blank and simple, simply because they had a suspect -- it was Wayne -- and that manipulation no doubt has continued even after my trial and up until this point," Williams told CNN. Retired FBI scientist Harold Deadman, who testified about the hair findings in Williams' 1982 trial and later became head of the FBI's DNA lab, said in CNN's 2010 documentary, however, that the hair found on Patrick's body was the strongest finding possible with this particular type of testing. "It would probably exclude 98% or so of the people in the world," Deadman said. Of 1,148 African-American hair samples in the FBI's database, the FBI said only 29 had the same sequence -- in other words, only 2½ of every 100 African-Americans. None of the Caucasian or Hispanic hair samples in the data base had this sequence. When those samples are added in the total, the odds rise to almost 130-to-1 against the hairs coming from someone other than Williams.

Crime

Murder

BEIJING, Oct 22 (Reuters) - * China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, known as Sinopec, said it has secured 8.81 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas for northern China for the upcoming winter heating season, state-owned Xinhua News Agency reported on Tuesday * That was up 15.5% from 7.63 bcm in the previous heating season * CNOOC Group, China’s largest offshore oil and gas producer, plans to supply around 24.5 bcm gas, or 1.5 bcm more than last year, across the country, Xinhua reported * The country’s top oil and gas producer, China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) did not give the amount of gas it will supply in the winter, but said that it will boost output in major gas fields such as Changqing, Tarim and Southwest fields (Reporting by Muyu Xu and Dominique Patton; Editing by Susan Fenton)

Technology

Energy

A border-state Democrat in the House says he does not think Republican lawmakers will “stand up” to President Trump on the “zero tolerance” policy leading to separating families at the southern border. Rep. Ruben GallegoRuben GallegoCongressional Hispanic Caucus calls for answers on Mississippi ICE raids Congressional Hispanic Caucus members call for diversity within the Fed 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 MORE (D-Ariz.), speaking to Hill.TV “Rising” host Krystal Ball, said he thinks that most GOP lawmakers are “cowards” who will not stand up to the president. In an interview that aired Wenesday, Gallego said that while some Republicans have publicly stated their opposition to the controversial policy, he expects most GOP lawmakers to fall in line with the president. “It’s a good development. It shows you that public pressure is starting to have at least some effect,” Gallego said. “[But] I think, at the end of the day, Republicans are going to go back to their true nature. They’re going to be cowards. They’re not going to stand up against Donald Trump.” “To rely on the Republicans, whether it’s the House or the Senate to actually have any type of spine when it comes to this — I doubt it," Gallego added. Gallego said he expects to see from Republicans eager to show they care about migrant children, but does not expect those actions to be backed up by results. “I expect to see some Kabuki Theatre to make them look like they care about those kids,” Gallego said. “But at the end of the day, they're [Republicans] more afraid of Donald Trump, his tweets and the Republican base than about caring about these kids and their families.” Gallego's comments come amid backlash to the policy as news that hundreds of children as young as toddlers are being sent to at least three already-operational “tender age” detainment facilities in Texas. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have criticized the administration over the policy, pointing to statements from pediatricians who have visited the centers calling the practice “child abuse” and demanding a halt to the separations. President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump pushes back on recent polling data, says internal numbers are 'strongest we've had so far' Illinois state lawmaker apologizes for photos depicting mock assassination of Trump Scaramucci assembling team of former Cabinet members to speak out against Trump MORE, however, continues to defend the policy and in a Tuesday tweet warned of undocumented immigrants seeking to “infest” the country. “We must always arrest people coming into our Country illegally. Of the 12,000 children, 10,000 are being sent by their parents on a very dangerous trip, and only 2000 are with their parents, many of whom have tried to enter our Country illegally on numerous occasions,” Trump wrote on Twitter. "Democrats are the problem. They don’t care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13. They can’t win on their terrible policies, so they view them as potential voters!" he continued in another tweet. — John Bowden Republican strategist Marissa Martinez predicted Monday that former Vice President Joe Biden will win the Democratic nomination, citing his fundraising prowess. A senior adviser to Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign said Monday that former Vice President Joe Biden’s greatest vulnerability is his “pro-corporate policies.” A senior adviser to Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign said Monday that the Vermont senator and progressive rival Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) aren’t necessarily competing for the same group of voters. Conservative commentator Patrice Onwuka ripped Ben Shapiro on Friday after the conservative commentator said that it is a “you problem” if someone has to work more than one job to support themselves. Iowa Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann criticized Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) after the lawmaker questioned whether there would be “any population of the world left” if not for rape and incest. Support for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) among college students climbed to its highest mark since April, according to a new weekly Chegg-College Pulse poll. A former FBI intelligence officer said Thursday that combating right-wing extremism and white nationalism poses a serious challenge for security officials going into 2020. The head of a flight attendants union that represents nearly 50,000 members across the country said Thursday that there is “broad support” within the labor movement for “Medicare for All.” A former campaign staffer on President Obama's 2008 campaign is calling on John Hickenlooper to end his White House bid and instead launch a Senate run in Colorado. Ken Cuccinelli, the acting head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, told Hill.TV on Wednesday that the number of migrants coming to the U.S. southern border has dropped significantly since record-highs in May. Law professor Richard Hasen said Wednesday that expanding the number of justices on the Supreme Court should be a “last resort” for lawmakers. Ken Cuccinelli, the acting head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services,  defended his controversial remarks about the poem etched on the Statue of Liberty in an exclusive interview with Hill.TV Tuesday afternoon.  Republican strategist Holly Turner said Tuesday that former Vice President Joe Biden’s recent string of gaffes won’t necessarily hurt his chances to take on President Trump in the 2020 election. Foreign affairs expert Gordon Chang predicted on Tuesday that the United States and China won’t reach a comprehensive trade deal before the 2020 U.S. elections. Security analyst Gordon Chang on Tuesday criticized President Trump's language on ongoing protests in Hong Kong, saying the U.S. has a much more vested interest in the embattled city than what the president has indicated. Conservative commentator Dennis Prager said Monday that tech giants like Google and Facebook need to decide whether they are publishers or open forums. A top Iowa Democratic Party official said Monday that 2020 presidential candidate Tom Steyer has an advantage in the state thanks to his name recognition and ties to various grassroots organizations. Iowa Democratic Party official Troy Price on Monday said that President Trump’s ongoing trade war with China is among the top concerns among voters in the Hawkeye State, saying the battle is starting to hurt local farmers. Former Vice President Joe Biden’s gaffes are unlikely hurt him in the long run, particularly among moderate voters, a Democratic strategist said Friday in a Hill.TV interview. 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

Government

(Adds Macron applauds move; Ireland says in negotiations with Apple on terms of payment) By Philip Blenkinsop BRUSSELS, Oct 4 (Reuters) - The European Commission said on Wednesday it was taking Ireland to the European Court of Justice for its failure to recover up to 13 billion euros ($15.3 billion) of tax due from Apple Inc, a move labelled as “regrettable” by Dublin. The Commission ordered the U.S. tech giant in August 2016 to pay the unpaid taxes as it ruled the firm had received illegal state aid, one of a number of deals the EU has targeted between multinationals and usually smaller EU states. “More than one year after the Commission adopted this decision, Ireland has still not recovered the money,” EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said, adding that Dublin had not even sought a portion of the sum. “We of course understand that recovery in certain cases may be more complex than in others, and we are always ready to assist. But member states need to make sufficient progress to restore competition,” she added. The Commission said the deadline for Ireland to implement its decision had been Jan. 3 this year and that, until the aid was recovered, the company continued to benefit from an illegal advantage. Apple is appealing the case. Vestager, who was also announcing a demand for Amazon to pay about 250 million euros in taxes to Luxembourg, declined to comment on possible penalties on Ireland if it were not to comply with an eventual ECJ ruling against it. Ireland’s finance ministry said it had never accepted the Commission’s analysis in the Apple state aid decision, but was committed to collecting the money due pending Dublin’s own appeal of the ruling. Ireland, it said, had been in constant contact with the Commission and Apple for more than a year and was close to setting up an escrow account. This would include the hiring of at least one investment manager to handle the fund. “It is extremely regrettable that the Commission has taken this action, especially in relation to a case with such a large scale recovery amount,” the ministry said in a statement. Ireland’s Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said that in addition to work on the escrow account, the government was in “commercially sensitive” talks with Apple about the exact terms of the transfer. “I believe we will get a good outcome at the end of it,” Donohoe told state broadcaster RTE. Vestager told a news conference that in other cases of illegal tax advantages, such as Fiat in Luxembourg, Starbucks in the Netherlands and a Belgian scheme for 35 companies, the money was recovered even before appeals were exhausted. However, the amounts involved were far smaller. The Commission said that Ireland had made progress on calculating the exact amount due, but was only planning to conclude the work by March 2018 at the earliest. Ireland, like the Benelux countries, faces criticism from bigger EU states that they are siphoning off tax revenues and the bloc’s governments are negotiating reforms. French President Emmanuel Macron applauded the latest efforts of the European Commission in a tweet on Friday. “Bravo to Europe for acting with determination to get tax rules and justice respected,” Macron said. ($1 = 0.8507 euros) (Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels, Conor Humphries in Dublin; Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Andrew Heavens)

Politics

International Relations

Several tweets from Thursday night mentioned a hostage situation in a Buffalo Grill restaurant, and in the Negresco and Le Méridien hotels. The French Interior Ministry responded in a tweet that there was no hostage situation. This man's face keeps appearing on social media in the aftermath of major tragedies, including, for example, the EgyptAir crash and the Istanbul airport attack last June. According to France 24, "several online articles, including on the BBC website, reported at the time that 'trolls' enjoyed circulating pictures of fake victims of the accident, 'in order to trick the media'." On Thursday night, in the immediate aftermath of the attack in Nice, pictures and video of a fire near the base of the Eiffel Tower began circulating on social media. Some people suggested this could be another attack linked to the one in Nice. But the Paris police department tweeted to say it was an accidental fire related to the Bastille Day fireworks display in the city: "Do not circulate false rumors. No fire in the #TourEiffel. An accidental fire took place on the Iéna bridge. It has been extinguished." At the time of publication, no group has claimed responsibility for the attack. On Thursday night and Friday morning, however, several people online, including the deputy director of Paris Match, claimed that ISIS was behind the events. Less than a year after he was wrongly being accused of being responsible for the attacks in Paris, an image circulating online claims Veerender Jubbal was involved in the Nice attack.

Crime

Terrorism

March 24 (Reuters) - Hakers Enterprise Co Ltd: * Says it will pay cash dividend of T$2.4 per share for 2016 Source text in Chinese: goo.gl/LEbAOd Further company coverage: (Beijing Headline News)

Finance

Investment

Georgia Supreme Court Justice Keith Blackwell’s six-year term expires at the end of this year, and the state is supposed to hold an election in May to choose his replacement. Then something bizarre happened. And one of the central players in this narrative is the Republican governor who is widely viewed as an enemy by the voting rights community, due to credible allegations that he engaged in voter suppression that tilted the state’s 2018 gubernatorial race in his favor. In late February, just a few days before the deadline for candidates to replace Blackwell to file to run in the May election, Blackwell sent a letter to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, announcing that he intends to resign from the state Supreme Court effective November 18 — a few weeks before his term was scheduled to expire on December 31. (The May election is intended to choose a new justice who will take office after Blackwell’s term expires.) Then, on March 1, Kemp’s office informed the state’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, that the governor intends to appoint someone to replace Blackwell — that appointment would presumably take effect on November 18, when Blackwell steps down. In response, Raffensperger, the state’s top elections officer, decided to cancel the May election. Raffensperger’s lawyers claim that the governor’s appointments power kicked in as soon as the governor accepted Blackwell’s resignation — although it is not at all clear why the governor could appoint someone to serve beyond the remainder of Blackwell’s term. If the May election does not happen, the result could be chaotic, as it’s far from clear who, if anyone, would occupy Blackwell’s seat after the departing justice’s term expires on December 31. As a constitutional matter, Raffensperger’s decision to cancel the election is highly dubious. The Georgia Constitution provides that “all Justices of the Supreme Court and the Judges of the Court of Appeals shall be elected on a nonpartisan basis for a term of six years.” Though the governor may appoint people to the state Supreme Court when a vacancy arises, such an appointee typically “shall serve for the unexpired term” of the person they were appointed to replace. So, while Kemp almost certainly can appoint someone to replace Blackwell, that replacement would serve from November 18 to December 31 of this year — and that’s it. The May election is intended to fill the seat beginning on January 1 of next year. There’s also a more basic reason why Raffensperger’s decision seems to be at odds with the state constitution. Yes, the governor has the power to fill vacancies on the state Supreme Court, but Blackwell’s seat is not vacant. Blackwell still occupies that seat. He is currently performing the duties of a justice on the court, and he intends to do so until November 18. As John Barrow, a former Democratic member of Congress who intends to run in the May election, argues in a lawsuit seeking to reinstate that election, “the fact that a vacancy may occur between the election date and the date on which the winning candidate is to be sworn into the position provides no basis to refuse to hold the election at all.” In fairness, there is a fairly technical argument that Blackwell’s seat should be “deemed vacated,” even though Blackwell is still a state Supreme Court justice. A Georgia state law provides that “all offices in the state shall be vacated ... by resignation, when accepted.” Kemp sent a letter to Blackwell formally accepting his resignation on February 26. But even if Kemp does have the power to name a replacement for Blackwell right away, instead of waiting until Blackwell actually leaves the court, it’s not at all clear what happens on January 1. Kemp’s appointments power appears to be limited to the power to fill Blackwell’s seat until December 31. If no election takes place before that date, there will be no one to fill the seat at the beginning of 2021. Perhaps Kemp will argue next January that the seat is, once again, vacant — and that he has, once again, gained the power to fill that seat. But that seems like an end run around his state constitution. Again, that constitution provides that “all Justices of the Supreme Court and the Judges of the Court of Appeals shall be elected.” It only gives the governor the power to fill a vacancy if an elected justice leaves their post midway through their term. One reason why this effort to cancel an election is potentially alarming is that Gov. Kemp was credibly accused of effecting changes in the voting system that benefited him while he held Raffensperger’s job. In 2018, Kemp simultaneously served as Georgia secretary of state — again, the state’s chief elections officer — and ran as the Republican candidate for state governor. That was, itself, a remarkable conflict of interest. In that role, Kemp’s office purged more than a million names from the state’s voter rolls. He also placed about 53,000 voter registration applications on hold because they ran afoul of an “exact match” law that required information on voter registration forms to precisely match information on file with the state’s Department of Driver Services and the Social Security Administration. Thus, for example, if a hypothetical voter was listed as “Tyrone Williams-Smith” on a voter registration form, and “Tyrone Williams Smith” (without a hyphen) in the state’s driver services records, that could be enough to deny this person the right to vote. An Associated Press analysis determined that 70 percent of the voters affected by this policy were black. A federal judge eventually ordered the state to relax this policy. Similarly, just days before the 2018 election, Kemp accused the state Democratic Party — without any evidence to support this claim — of attempting to hack the state’s voter registration system. Kemp eventually won his race over Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams by a narrow margin of about 55,000 votes. A Georgia state judge heard Barrow’s lawsuit, as well as a similar suit brought by Barrow’s Republican opponent Beth Beskin, on Friday. The judge says she plans to hand down a ruling early this week.

Politics

Government

I spend a lot of time thinking about Captain America. I think about how, after six Marvel Studios films featuring Chris Evans in the role, we’ve gotten to the point where it’s impossible to trace where Evans ends and where Cap begins. I think about how he’s evolved from a character whose duty was to serve his country into a character whose country let him down. I think about how he bicep-curled a helicopter. And after seeing Avengers: Infinity War, and after seeing Evans tweeting about his character’s presumed cinematic end, I’ve thought a lot about what happens when Captain America dies. “We don’t trade lives,” Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Cap, tells Vision around Infinity War’s midpoint, explaining that the Avengers leave no men, women, or any other forms of life behind. But as we see half the world’s population (including some of our favorite Avengers) decimated at the movie’s end, it’s not hard to foresee an outcome in next year’s Avengers 4 where Cap is put in the position of trading his life for others. It’s been eight years since Evans donned the stars and stripes for Captain America: The First Avenger. In that time, he’s evolved from a selfless patriot to a man out of time to a prodigal son. Now, with the future of the universe at stake, the table is set for what could be the biggest moment in the character’s cinematic life. Given Cap’s character arc, which has always been underscored by his selflessness, and how much Infinity War emphasized his stance on “trading lives,” it certainly seems like a noble sacrifice to save the universe lies in his future. And even if it somehow doesn’t come to that, he’s already cemented his legacy as Earth’s most enduring Avenger. One of the biggest revelations in Infinity War is Thanos’s motivations for culling the universe: He believes that in order to sustain life, we have to reduce it by half. Resources are finite, and life is a burden on those resources. Eliminate life to an ideal degree (roughly half, according to Thanos’s math), and both life and resources reach an optimal level. In other words, Thanos believes in trading lives. The ultimate example of his willingness to trade is his choice to throw his adopted daughter Gamora off a cliff in order to obtain the Soul Stone. His sights are set on completing the Infinity Gauntlet and using it to create his vision of a utopia. Killing his daughter, whom he seems to genuinely love, is the price he’s willing to pay. Steve Rogers and everything he stands for — and, by extension, the standard for what superheroes in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe strive to be — are the antithesis to Thanos. When faced with the choice between ripping the Mind Stone from Vision’s forehead and killing him, or protecting Vision and risking the fate of half the universe, Rogers refuses to trade a single life in the name of preserving his and countless others’. He’d rather die fighting than sacrifice an innocent to avoid the fight. This stance is remarkable for a couple of reasons. First, Vision is an AI — Tony Stark’s computer program upgraded with the power of an Infinity Stone — which raises the question of whether Vision is even “alive” to begin with. Also, in contrast to Gamora and Thanos, Vision isn’t someone with a particularly distinct relationship to Steve Rogers. But despite this, Cap doesn’t hesitate in choosing to save Vision at all costs, risking the lives of Avengers and Wakandans alike to protect him. When Avengers 4 unfolds next year it will most likely involve the resurrection of its vaporized heroes (especially those with confirmed sequels on the schedule). Because of this, I’d expect there to be a continued emphasis on Steve’s “we don’t trade lives” mantra — it’s one of the few lines he’s given in Infinity War, and it’s repeated — in contrast to Thanos’s worldview. There’s just too much symmetry and thematic opportunity there for Marvel to ignore it. It wouldn’t surprise me if in Avengers 4, in order to undo Thanos’s massive cull, Steve Rogers would have to sacrifice himself to undo the damage of not trading Vision’s life — that he would be faced with having to “trade lives” to get back all the lives that were lost. And the only life Cap would be fine with trading would be his own. (It also wouldn’t surprise me if some sort of Soul Stone mythology leads to a confrontation between Cap and Red Skull, the supervillain from Captain America: The First Avenger who’s revealed to be the keeper of the Soul Stone in Infinity War.) Cap sacrificing himself for the greater good would feel like the ultimate inverse of Thanos’s decimation: giving his life to save the people he loves, instead of killing someone he loves in the name of a greater good. It’s a sacrifice that only Cap could make. Back in 2008, Marvel found itself a hero in Iron Man’s Tony Stark, who was sardonic, quippy, and smarter and cockier than his peers. Compared to other relatively earnest cinematic superheroes of the time, like the X-Men and Spider-Man, Tony Stark was the “cool” superhero we needed. “It takes about two minutes of watching Robert Downey Jr. in action in Iron Man 3 — in any of his appearances as the armored Tony Stark, in fact — to realize what the other Avengers are lacking: Charisma,” Graeme McMillan wrote in Time in 2013, bemoaning the Cap’s stiffness and earnestness in comparison to the Avengers’ other leader. But a lot changes in five years. With the way the Marvel Cinematic Universe has since shaken out, with Tony Stark at fault for creating Ultron and ripping apart the Avengers in Civil War, Downey’s portrayal of an artisanal tech jerk hasn’t aged particularly well. (And while I don’t blame Marvel or Downey for this, I can’t see Elon Musk without thinking of the smarminess of Tony Stark, and vice versa.) Tony Stark’s cocksure genius has gone from being an asset to a liability, for the character and the franchise alike. And in those same five years, Cap has become the more endearing hero. Ever since his first appearance in 2011’s The First Avenger, Steve Rogers has been defined by his spirit — it’s the reason he, in spite of his physical deficiencies, was chosen for the super soldier experiment. In 2012’s The Avengers, he’s a thawed-out man out of time; he has all the powers of a super soldier, but beneath his superhero surface is that scrawny guy who’s a grandpa among his peers. He’s a relic of America’s golden age, and his earnestness and selflessness feel like relics as well: too good and sweet to be of our contemporary time and place, and directly at odds with the modern sensibilities of Tony Stark. But Cap’s evolution into the heart of the modern MCU begins with the surreal revelation in 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier that the country and the government he believed in and fought for has spoiled since he left it, forcing him to redefine his heroism in relationship to the government that first made him a hero. Then in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, he’s completely at odds with the government, defying orders to save and protect his friends and the greater good, while Tony Stark aligns the remaining Avengers with the government in the name of atoning for the damage he caused by creating Ultron. Clashing with Tony’s contemporary sarcasm, Steve’s earnestness becomes timeless. His heroism isn’t undertaken out of duty like Tony’s, but rather woven into the fabric of his being. Tony Stark’s goodness saves him from himself, while Steve’s goodness is quantified in saving others. Infinity War ends with a cliffhanger and a twist. Thanos eliminates half of the universe — and half of the Avengers — as the movie fades to black. But in a post-credits scene, Nick Fury is seen sending a distress call to someone he believes can save the day: Captain Marvel. We know very little about the upcoming 2019 Captain Marvel film other than that it’s set in the 1990s and that its titular superhero, Carol Danvers, a.k.a. Captain Marvel, is an Air Force pilot caught in the middle of a war between two alien races, probably the Kree and the Skrulls. Setting the movie in the 1990s, and then possibly sending the character into space to deal with cosmic threats, could help explain why Captain Marvel hasn’t already appeared on Earth at some point in the MCU’s 10-year history. But with the Avengers and the universe in tatters, the table is set for Captain Marvel to make her debut and rally the troops. It also feels like the time when the original core Avengers will pass the torch to the next generation of Marvel heroes. Evans hasn’t detailed the specifics of his Captan America contract, but he told Good Morning America during the Infinity War press tour: “I don’t know what’s next — but by 2019, that’s it.” And this week he tweeted about how grateful he was for the memories and the experiences of playing (in past tense) the character. Officially wrapped on Avengers 4. It was an emotional day to say the least. Playing this role over the last 8 years has been an honor. To everyone in front of the camera, behind the camera, and in the audience, thank you for the memories! Eternally grateful. Assuming Evans isn’t bluffing, there will be a storytelling opportunity for Captain America to pass his leadership of the team to another captain who happens to share many of his defining qualities (time displacement, an outsider to the core group, a US service member). It would make sense that Cap would sacrifice himself, but also that he would see to it that the Avengers are left in capable, caring, and responsible hands. There’s thematic precedence for this in the comics that Avengers 4 could easily draw on for this scenario. In Captain Marvel No. 1, written by Kelly Sue DeConnick and drawn by Dexter Soy, Carol and Cap have a strikingly pertinent discussion about her taking the name “Captain Marvel” and leading the team. It’s primarily a conversation about legacy: Carol doesn’t want the title because she doesn’t want to be seen as stealing or besmirching the original Captain Marvel’s good name. Reading over that scene made me think about the title of Captain America as it stands in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel has, over the past seven years, created a humanity in Captain America. In taking up that mantle, Steve Rogers has become one of the most beloved characters in pop culture, and the defining spirit of the first generation of Avengers. Should Avengers 4 be his last hurrah, it will also necessarily be a celebration of his legacy.

Entertainment

Movies

CMS - IN KCF MODEL, PARTICIPATING NEPHROLOGISTS, NEPHROLOGY PRACTICES WILL GET ADJUSTED CAPITATED PAYMENTS FOR MANAGING CARE OF ALIGNED BENEFICIARIES

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(CNN)There was an unexpected face among the first responders to Wednesday's attack near the House of Parliament in London. Tobias Ellwood, a Conservative Member of Parliament, was seen tending to a man lying outside of Westminster Palace. Surrounded by a throng of police officers and emergency personnel, Ellwood was seen crouching on the cobblestone street applying pressure to the bare, bloodied torso of the victim. The man the politician was trying to save was a police officer who died, a witness on the scene told CNN. The witness asked not to be named, citing details that are now under police investigation. Authorities identified the deceased officer as Keith Palmer, 48, a 15-year veteran. Press Association photojournalist Stefan Rousseau captured the moment. A few yards away, another person was also receiving medical attention as law enforcement enveloped the premises. Armed police were called in to assist in the situation, which is being described by the British government as a "terrorist incident until we know otherwise." Before his political career, Ellwood served in the British Army for five years, leaving with the rank of captain. At the scene, Ellwood's face was smeared with blood. Sadly, this is not the first time such an attack has marked his life. Ellwood's brother Jon died in the 2002 bombings in Bali. Wednesday's incident began when a car was driven over Westminster Bridge, hitting and injuring a number of members of the public and three police officers. The car then crashed near the parliament building and at least one man, armed with a knife, continued the attack by trying to enter parliament, authorities said. Three people were killed, including the police officer. At least 20 people were injured. The man believed to be the attacker was fatally shot by police. The emotion of those at the scene was palpable, even as details about casualties and the nature of the attack continued to roll in. Ellwood's fellow MPs applauded his bravery, calling him "an absolute hero." "Huge respect...for his heroic efforts today," tweeted Maria Caulfield. "I'm grateful to the police and proud of Tobias Ellwood," tweeted Tom Tugendhat. "A good man helping another." This story has been updated to reflect the latest number of fatalities from London Metropolitan Police.

Entertainment

Television

Celebrity chef Jose Andres proposed an end to his long-simmering feud with President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday, asking the real estate mogul if the two could make a charitable donation to a veterans organization instead of continuing their legal fight. “Mr. @realDonaldTrump can we end our lawsuits and we donate $ to a Veterans NGO to celebrate? Why keep litigating? Let's both of us win,” Andres wrote on Twitter, a favorite social media platform of Trump’s, on Tuesday afternoon. Andres and Trump have been locked in a legal battle since July of 2015, the same month that Andres pulled out of plans to open a restaurant inside the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. The chef, who owns multiple restaurants in the D.C. area and across the country, abandoned his deal with the hotel after Trump launched his presidential campaign by calling Mexicans rapists and drug dealers. Geoffrey Zakarian, another celebrity chef, also reversed course on plans to open a restaurant in Trump’s Washington hotel in the wake of the Manhattan billionaire’s campaign announcement. In addition to scuttling his planned restaurant in the Pennsylvania Avenue luxury hotel, Andres campaigned with Hillary Clinton, appearing with her at a rally on the same day that the Trump attended a ribbon cutting ceremony for the newly-opened property in October.

Politics

International Relations

Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, who represents the Youngstown area of the state recently visited by Donald Trump, says Republicans have been telling him they will vote for Hillary Clinton if the election is close. "I know we're gaining moderate Republicans that are kinda fallen in the John Kasich camp of they just can't vote for this guy and they're gonna vote for Hillary," Ryan said. "Especially in a close election, I think if it would start to be a blowout they may go Libertarian just to say they didn't vote for a Democrat. I know, I've had a lot of Republicans say to me, that if it is close they're gonna vote for Hillary because they can't let him be president." Recent polls of Ohio have shown Clinton up four to five points in the state. "So we're picking up those moderate Republicans and we've got to make sure that we don't lose some of those working class Democrats," he added. The congressman stated earlier he thought the election was "leaning Hillary" currently but Democrats still had a lot of work to do.

Politics

U.S. Government

Tesla has lots and lots of cars to build so Elon Musk will be sleeping at his electric car factory. That's what the Tesla CEO tweeted Monday after an Information article about his deeper involvement in Model 3 production went out.  Musk bristled at the premise of the story: That he was stepping in to oversee the electric sedan's production as senior VP of engineering Doug Field was being pushed out.  Musk insisted it's "better to divide & conquer, so I’m back to sleeping at factory." The billionaire noted, "Car biz is hell." About a year ago, I asked Doug to manage both engineering & production. He agreed that Tesla needed eng & prod better aligned, so we don’t design cars that are crazy hard to build. Right now, tho, better to divide & conquer, so I’m back to sleeping at factory. Car biz is hell … — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 2, 2018 At the end of a quick back-and-forth with the reporter Musk got a bit snippy, tweeting, "Uhh, hello, I need to build cars." Uhh, hello, I need to build cars — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 2, 2018 He really does need to build cars. The Model 3 production has been worrying investors with an unverified memo showing 2,000 cars made per week. That's below a 2,500 cars per week goal for this time of year. Meanwhile, Tesla's dealing with a complaint about unfair labor practices from the National Labor Relations Board and the fallout from leaked emails asking employees to "prove a bunch of haters wrong" and volunteer to work on the Model 3 line during their time off. Last year production goals fell far behind. At one point instead of a promised 1,500 Model 3s, only 260 were made. By the end of the year Tesla was supposed to be hitting 20,000 cars per month.  Moody's also downgraded Tesla's credit rating last month — and a fatal crash in a Tesla Model X last month was revealed to be in Autopilot mode. Looks like Musk isn't going to be doing much sleeping on factory floors or elsewhere.

Business

Investment

Apple just reported earnings for its third quarter of 2016, and managed to beat Wall Street expectations — although expectations were set fairly low after disappointing earnings last quarter. Apple reported $42.4 billion in quarterly revenue for its third quarter 2016, and quarterly net income of $7.8 billion ($1.42 per share). That compares to $49.61 billion for this time last year; and a quarterly net income of $10.7 billion in the same quarter last year. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected $1.38 per share on $42.11 billion in revenue. In terms of iPhone sales in the third quarter, it was another relatively weak quarter for the device, although again, Apple managed to beat short-term expectations. Apple sold 40.4 million iPhones in the fiscal quarter ending June 25th, less than the 47.5 million sold in the same quarter a year ago but beating some analyst expectations of around 40 million iPhone sales. Apple sold 40.4 million iPhones this quarter — less than a year ago, but still beating expectations Same with iPads: Apple sold 10 million of them, down nearly 9 percent from the same quarter last year, but managed to beat Wall Street expectations and revenue on iPads is up 7 percent. Some investors seemed to like the news, as Apple's stock jumped up after today's earnings release. There was at least one other bright spot in the earnings: Apple says its App Store revenue was its highest ever, and its services business grew 19 percent year over year. As we noted last quarter, Apple has also started to emphasize its cloud services, not necessarily devices, as a key revenue generator for the company, as it tries to wring more profits from existing device users. Apple's quarterly earnings report prior to this one was a particularly rough one, during which the company saw its year-over-year revenue decline for the first time in 13 years. Much of that was attributed to a slowdown in iPhone sales and the fact that Apple hasn't release a must-have new product in awhile. Because of last quarter, expectations were set very low for this one: Apple at the time projected another revenue decline for the third quarter, a 15 percent year-over-year drop. For the fourth quarter of this year, Apple is projecting revenue between $45.5 billion and $47.5 billion — higher revenue than the current quarter, but still less than it earned a year ago during the same quarter ($51.5 billion).

Technology

Apple

Before he died in March, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Alex Tizon penned an incredible story for The Atlantic detailing his family’s secret slave in America. The publication’s June cover story describes the complicated life of Lola Pulido, a domestic servant who immigrated from the Philippines with Tizon’s family in 1964. She lived with and served the family for decades (when Tizon inherited her from his parents in 2001, he insisted on paying her $200 a week and offered to take her back to the country she left) — until she died in 2011. Tizon’s shocking story describes her inhuman, abusive treatment while serving his parents in America. “She lived with my family for 56 years. She raised me and my siblings, and cooked and cleaned from dawn to dark — always without pay,” Tizon writes. “I was 11, a typical American kid, before I realized she was my family’s slave. He continues: “No other word but slave encompassed the life she lived. Her days began before everyone else woke and ended after we went to bed. She prepared three meals a day, cleaned the house, waited on my parents, and took care of my four siblings and me. My parents never paid her, and they scolded her constantly. She wasn’t kept in leg irons, but she might as well have been. So many nights, on my way to the bathroom, I’d spot her sleeping in a corner, slumped against a mound of laundry, her fingers clutching a garment she was in the middle of folding.” The author passed away suddenly at the age of 57 from natural causes before The Atlantic could publish his emotional story — but his family gave the publication permission to run it posthumously. “He started writing the story five, six years ago,” Tizon’s wife, Melissa Tizon, tells PEOPLE. “He tried over and over again to start, but he couldn’t get it. It was a very difficult piece for him to write, Lola had always been a huge part of his life and an important part of his life, but he had to tell the story in the right way.” Melissa admits it was “painful” reading her husband’s story — for many reasons. “I cried,” she says. “I cried through the whole thing, I didn’t think I was going to read the whole thing at once, but [when he was still alive] he handed me a copy and I couldn’t stop reading it and I cried during the whole thing because I learned a lot about Lola that I did not know. It was painful and I was horrified that Lola had gone through what she had gone through in her life. “It made me miss her so much, and wish I could go back and spend more time with her and love her and appreciate her.” The grieving widow — who has one biological daughter and one step-daughter with her late husband — says she wasn’t aware of the extent of the abuse Lola endured early on in her life. “[Alex’s family] never used the word ‘slave,’ ” she says. “That word was never, ever in the [family] vocabulary until Alex started writing this piece last year.” Melissa, who is also Filipino, says having relatives acting as household helpers is not uncommon in the culture — and she assumed that’s what Lola was to the Tizon family. “When I first met Lola I thought, ‘Oh, here’s another family member living with them,’ and I came to realize she had a role, she was a domestic helper really and she served Alex’s mom and I knew bits and pieces, but I didn’t really understand it all and I had no idea how mean and abusive his parents were to her,” she says. “I had no idea that Alex grew up witnessing that and his brother and sisters witnessed that and how painful it was for them to grow up with. “I didn’t know that. That’s what I found out reading the story. It made me realize how much he had gone through.” In the story, Tizon admits feeling ashamed of his family’s treatment of Lola. Tizon writes: “Admitting the truth would have meant exposing us all. We spent our first decade in the country learning the ways of the new land and trying to fit in. Having a slave did not fit. Having a slave gave me grave doubts about what kind of people we were, what kind of place we came from. Whether we deserved to be accepted. I was ashamed of it all, including my complicity.” After the death of Tizon’s mother, Lola moved in with him and Melissa. He paid her $200 a week, most of which she sent home to family members. And on her 83rd birthday, Tizon paid for her to return to the Philippines. Tizon writes: “Her house was gone. Her parents and most of her siblings were gone. Childhood friends, the ones still alive, were like strangers. It was nice to see them, but … everything was not the same. She’d still like to spend her last years here, she said, but she wasn’t ready yet. ‘You’re ready to go back to your garden,’ I said. ‘Yes. Let’s go home.’ ” Melissa says her late husband and his four siblings offered time and time again to take her back to the Philippines. “They tried so hard when they were old enough to help her get out of the situation she was in with their parents,” says Melissa. “They gave her ways to move in with them or help her get back to the Philippines, but at that stage in life she had so much devotion to Alex’s mom, that she always wanted to stay and it wasn’t until Alex’s mom died in 1999, that she was finally free. And when we gave her options again saying ‘You can live with any of the siblings or go back to Philippines, we’ll take care of you.’ She finally felt like she could take one of those options, so chose to live with Alex and I.” Over the years, Lola became the glue that held Tizon’s “dramatic” family’s together. “She was the matriarch,” explains Melissa. “It doesn’t forgive the horrible situation before, but in the last part of her life we tried to make the best out of it for her. We took her to the Philippines a few times during the last 12 years of her life to see if she wanted to move back there, but she always wanted to come home because she missed everybody here.” When Lola died in 2011, Tizon, a former Seattle Times reporter, asked the paper to write an obituary. At the time, the reporter, Susan Kelleher, conducted an extensive interview with Tizon, but claims he omitted the fact that she was a slave. In a story published by the paper Wednesday, that same reporter said Tizon lied to her. “Tizon lied to me, and through me, to our readers, depriving Ms. Pulido of the truth of her life, and the rest of us an important piece of our history,” writes Kelleher. “And for that I am truly sorry.” But Melissa says her late husband did not mean to mislead Kelleher. “He wasn’t trying to trick anybody or try to make the obit writer complicit in a situation — that’s not him,” she says. “He’s not even alive to defend himself, but at that time he hadn’t come to grips with what Lola’s role was in the family and with the obit we wanted to honor this wonderful woman. Alex wouldn’t have intentionally misled the reporter who wrote the obit, he wouldn’t’ do that but he himself did not understand the truth of the situation. “And he was such an excellent reporter he covered all his bases, that I wouldn’t be surprised if he was still alive if he had gone back to that reporter and said, ‘Hey I’ve had personal revelations, this is coming out just to let you know.’ ” Seattle Times executive editor Don Shelton tells PEOPLE in a statement: “This has been a challenging moment for our newsroom, especially in light of our longstanding relationship with Alex. When our editors and reporters read his piece in The Atlantic, we knew we needed to correct the reporting we had done in 2011 at the time of Ms. Pulido’s death. Susan Kelleher’s story does that, while capturing some of the pain and conflict we all feel.”  Melissa says her family has received some backlash online for “romanticizing” slavery since The Atlantic story made headlines. “People say we romanticize the slave and slave owner relationship,” she explains. “But the best way I could describe Lola’s relationship with the family is like the dynamic of the family in that movie The Help.” And she says her late husband wouldn’t “shy” away from the criticism either. “He would say, ‘Yes, you are right. What happened to her was really horrific and that’s what I tried to explain in my piece.’ He always believed everyone had an epic story and Lola factored so much into his life that he felt compelled to write it and possibly to raise awareness for others in a similar situation,” Melissa says. “He was never afraid to confront the things he was ashamed about or the demons. He would just dive right in and tackle it and he would want people to not be afraid to be honest with themselves, too.”

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Ask Well Q. What are symptoms of heart disease? Can you tell if you have heart disease without having tests done? A. The classic warning signs of heart disease and heart attacks are chest pain, often described as a feeling of pressure or a tight band around the chest, and shortness of breath during physical exertion that subsides when you’re at rest, said Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, a spokeswoman for the American Heart Association. But symptoms may be more subtle. If you find yourself suddenly struggling to carry out normal daily activities, breaking out in a sweat, or becoming nauseated when walking or going upstairs, she said, “the first thing you should think of is your heart.” Call 911 and seek medical care immediately; you could be having a heart attack, the first symptom of heart disease for many. “The one who knows your body best is you, and the more you keep track of how you feel, the better off you are,” Dr. Steinbaum said. “The one message I try to get across to people is to get checked out if they’re having any symptoms. If you’re wrong, it’s fine — so what? But if you’re right and you don’t go, you could die.” Other symptoms to pay attention to include pain in the neck, jaw, back or shoulders; vomiting or gastrointestinal symptoms; swelling in the ankles, legs and feet, which can be an indication of heart failure; and heart palpitations or a fluttering in your chest, which may indicate an abnormal heartbeat or arrhythmia and be accompanied by lightheadedness, dizziness or near fainting. Some people may experience atypical symptoms like sweating, nausea or even flulike symptoms rather than classic chest-clutching pain, Dr. Steinbaum said. Rosie O’Donnell, the talk show host, experienced such unusual symptoms during her 2012 heart attack – which she has described as “hot, exhausted, pain, pale, puke,” or HEPPP — that she didn’t seek medical attention until the next day. Even if you have no family history of cardiovascular disease, you may be at risk because of advancing age, smoking, lack of exercise, poor diet, chronic conditions like diabetes, stress and anxiety or depression, social isolation or excess body weight, particularly abdominal fat, Dr. Steinbaum said. A visit to the doctor for tests will tell if you have specific risk factors for heart disease like high blood pressure or high cholesterol, which can be treated with medications, dietary changes and other measures. “The more honest you are about the lifestyle you have, the better your chances of preventing something from happening,” Dr. Steinbaum said. Do you have a health question? Ask Well

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There’s a new world record for the most retweeted post in the history of Twitter — and it’s about chicken nuggets. Perhaps you thought Ellen DeGeneres’s fabled 2014 Oscar night selfie, which featured a celebrity-studded ensemble and racked up 3.4 million retweets, could never be surpassed. After all, it was reportedly worth $1 billion, and we all know numbers don’t lie. But the unthinkable has happened, and our previously naive worldview has been shattered by a more cynical reality that suggests the one thing Americans love more than celebrities is fast food. Ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to introduce you to the figure now widely known as “Nugget Guy.” Last month, a teenager from Reno, Nevada, Carter Wilkerson, tweeted at Wendy’s with the following inquiry: @carterjwm 18 Million “Consider it done,” Wilkerson replied, and he promptly went to work crafting the world’s most viral tweet: HELP ME PLEASE. A MAN NEEDS HIS NUGGS pic.twitter.com/4SrfHmEMo3 Crude, but effective. Since then, Wilkerson — frequently referred to as the Nugget Guy — has become a viral celebrity, with a “verified” checkmark for his Twitter account, a rivalry with The Ellen Show, and a constant courtship by brands of all stripes trying to get a piece of Wendy’s free-publicity pie. This is the most important thing you’ll watch today. Bradley Cooper and I need your help. pic.twitter.com/jUbv5YCpQf Ellen’s tongue-in-cheek embrace of Wilkerson’s quest took the game to a whole new level. Before Ellen (B.E.), Wilkerson was just a guy wanting free food. But After Ellen (A.E.), there was a race, and a record. And we all know records were meant to be broken. Then, it happened: On May 9, the Guinness Book of World Records certified Wilkerson’s tweet as the most viral tweet of all time — and distributed an official press release to mark the occasion: Guinness World Records, the global authority on record-breaking achievement, can confirm that 16 year old Carter Wilkinson, of Reno, Nevada, has shattered the Guinness World Records title for Most retweeted message on Twitter. Surpassing the previous record held by Ellen DeGeneres, Carter’s tweet has racked up 3,435,067 retweets as of May 9 at 10:37 AM ET Wilkerson’s victory was hailed by many as a victory for all mankind, while the New York Times summed up an existential rumination on the nature of internet virality with, “Anyway, the Nugget Kid will be getting his free chicken nuggets.” Unsurprisingly, as word of Wilkerson’s triumph spread on Twitter, the news was also met with plenty of skepticism — and rightfully so: Nugget kid is getting his nuggets despite falling 15 million RTs short. Participation trophy culture strikes again. It’s true that 3.4 million tweets — that number appears to be holding steady in the wake of Nugget Guy’s victory — is a far cry from the staggering 18 million benchmark Wendy’s initially set; but given all the free publicity the company has received, it seems all too happy to have gone back on its word: .@carterjwm is now the most retweeted tweet of all-time. That’s good for the nuggets, and $100k to @DTFA. Consider it done. #nuggsforcarter pic.twitter.com/k6uhsJiP4E The jubilance over Wilkerson’s record-setting achievement has highlighted a fundamental truth about American culture: While Ellen’s selfie may have once caught the public’s attention, Wilkerson’s quest for free food clearly caught its soul. pic.twitter.com/jcVdp1lSsi @carterjwm if you make it, the tweet with most RTs in history is gonna be about someone asking @Wendys for free chicken nuggets. I love this app. Thus, on this day, America learned that it can still unify around a worthy common cause dumb internet distraction. Enjoy those nuggs, Carter. For you have taught us that #nuggsforcarter are truly #nuggsforall.

Technology

Social Media

The Minnesota Court of Appeals temporarily revoked an air-pollution permit state regulators issued to a Glencore Inc-controlled company for a $1 billion copper-nickel mining operation, handing environmentalists an additional victory after the court yanked the project’s mining and dam-safety permits in January. A three-judge panel on Monday said there was enough evidence that the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) had failed to adequately probe whether PolyMet Mining Corp had sought a “sham permit” by not telling regulators of possible plans to expand its mining operation in the state’s northeast. To read the full story on Westlaw Practitioner Insights, click here: bit.ly/2y6IrJs

Law

Civil

About 6 percent of voters in Virginia's Republican primary were Democrats, according to a CNN exit poll. That jibes with anecdotal evidence of Democrats voting in the opposite party's primary strategically — though whether "strategically" translated into "for Donald Trump" (because they thought Trump would be easy to beat) or "against Donald Trump" (because they were horrified by the prospect of a Trump presidency) isn't yet clear. But this number should be taken with two big grains of salt. First, it's a small sample size from an early exit poll in a state that's still too close to call. Second, Democrats crossing the aisle in Virginia is a time-honored tradition. In 2012, 5 percent of Virginia's Republican primary voters were Democrats, according to CNN. In 2008, 3 percent were — during a bitterly fought Democratic primary when Democrats had good reason to weigh in on their own party.

Politics

U.S. Government

Soulja Boy vehemently denies attacking the woman who filed a police report against him, alleging kidnapping ... and, we're told he says this is a simple case of a woman scorned. Sources connected to the rapper tell TMZ, the alleged victim -- Kayla -- is flat-out lying when she says Soulja beat her and then took her in his garage and tied her to a chair for 6 hours. Our sources say the real story is this ... Soulja had been dating Kayla but ended the relationship, and she was irate. They say Kayla came to Soulja's house on Friday night, heavily under the influence, and crashed her car in his driveway ... hitting the curb. A crowd of people were partying inside the house and heard the crash. A woman who is Soulja's manager then came outside and told Kayla she was not welcome and she should leave. Our sources say, Kayla then attacked the manager and the 2 began fighting. We're told Soulja never went outside his home and never even saw Kayla. As for Kayla's injuries ... we're told it was at the hands of Soulja's manager, who was defending herself against the attack. Soulja's people call Kayla's allegations "100% fabricated." The police took a kidnapping report Saturday from Kayla and are still investigating.

People

Names

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombian former FARC rebel leader Rodrigo Londono, known by his nom de guerre Timochenko, was hospitalized on Thursday with chest pains and is under observation, the group said in a statement. Timochenko, who in late 2016 signed a peace agreement with the government and is now a presidential candidate, suffers from heart problems and had surgery in Cuba while negotiating the accord. The former rebel commander was taken to hospital with chest pains after conducting his daily exercise routine, the group said. Timochenko is running for president for the group’s new political party, which kept its famous initials by renaming itself the Revolutionary Alternative Common Force. He suspended campaigning last month due to security concerns after angry protests disrupted campaign stops. Many Colombians remain angry at the FARC, infamous for kidnappings, bombings and displacements, and believe its members should be in prison, not campaigning. Recent opinion polls have shown Timochenko has as little as 1 percent support. The party has focused its political platform on fighting poverty. Reporting by Helen Murphy; Editing by Leslie Adler

Politics

Government

Vimeo, which has been moving over the past several months to further invest in its original content and creator community, announced this morning it has acquired VHX, a company providing a platform for premium over-the-top subscription (OTT) video channels. Deal terms were not revealed, but Vimeo will bring on the entire 22-person VHX team, including co-founders and a large number of biz dev employees, as a part of the acquisition. VHX was founded by Jamie Wilkinson and Casey Pugh in 2010, according to CrunchBase, and had raised $10.25 million from investors including Comcast Ventures, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Union Square Ventures, and others. It had developed a video distribution platform that let creators sell their work online, via their own websites – basically, everything that used to be sold via DVD whether TV shows, live concert footage, comedy specials, educational content, etc., VHX could now help to distribute. The company took a leap into mobile at the beginning of the year, with new capabilities for publishers to launch their own custom apps. Its OTT platform had around 30,000 active subscribers to 100 SVOD channels, notes Variety. VHX’s website says that it had 9,321 titles on sale, and had seen over a million paid transactions. According to Vimeo, the aim with the deal is to now take Vimeo’s over-the-top solution to studios, agencies, domestic and international broadcasters, and existing subscription services looking for a lower-cost solution. “Online video is expanding from a few, mainstream subscription services into a flourishing world of interest-based streaming channels, much like the evolution from broadcast to cable television,” said Vimeo CEO Kerry Trainor, in a statement, . “Vimeo is home to the world’s leading video creators and the viewers who love them, and we’re excited to add VHX’s team and technology to our streaming marketplace. As the video universe continues to unbundle, Vimeo offers the ideal home for the next generation of premium video channels serving passionate global audiences.” Vimeo today reaches over 280M monthly users, the company reports, in over 200 markets. It had begun allowing its creators to make more money from their content starting last summer, when it expanded from offering just video rentals and sales to letting creators charge subscriptions, too. With VHX, it will now have a suite of subscription video tools that will let it help not only individual creators, but those with larger content catalogs, including programmers and other media companies.

Technology

Startups

NEW YORK, Oct 30 (Reuters) - Former Exxon Mobil Corp Chief Executive Rex Tillerson is expected to take the stand on Wednesday in a closely watched civil lawsuit accusing the company of hiding the true cost of climate change from investors. The case in Manhattan state court, which kicked off last week, is the first of several lawsuits pending against major oil companies related to climate change to go to trial. The lawsuit, brought by New York's attorney general, alleges that Exxon falsely told investors it had properly evaluated the impact of future climate regulations on its business using a proxy cost of up to $80 per ton of carbon emissions, but internally used figures as low as $40 per ton or none at all. It says Exxon caused investors to lose up to $1.6 billion. Exxon has assailed the claims as false and politically motivated. In his opening statement, Theodore Wells, a lawyer for the company, said that after Tillerson became chief executive in 2006, the company put in place a robust system to manage the risk of increasing climate change. Tillerson served as Exxon CEO from 2006 to 2017, and U.S. secretary of state under President Donald Trump from 2017 to 2018. Wells said the $80 per ton proxy cost represented a "global," "macro-level" assessment of the cost, while lower figures, known as greenhouse gas or GHG costs, were used for particular capital projects depending on circumstances. He said Exxon never told investors the two numbers were the same. Last Thursday, just two days after the New York trial began, Massachusetts filed a similar lawsuit accusing Exxon of misleading investors and consumers for decades about the role fossil fuels play in climate change. Both Massachusetts and New York began investigating Exxon after news reports in 2015 saying that its own scientists had determined that fossil fuel combustion must be reduced to mitigate the impact of climate change. Those reports, by InsideClimate News and the Los Angeles Times, were based on documents from the 1970s and 1980s. Exxon said the documents were not inconsistent with its public positions. Exxon and other oil companies including BP Plc, Chevron Corp and Royal Dutch Shell Plc face lawsuits by cities and counties across the United States seeking funds to pay for seawalls and other infrastructure to guard against rising sea levels brought on by climate change. The companies have said in court filings that they cannot be held liable for climate change. (Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Peter Cooney)

Energy

Oil

In a major ethical leap for the tech world, Chinese start-ups have built algorithms that the government uses to track members of a largely Muslim minority group. The Chinese government has drawn wide international condemnation for its harsh crackdown on ethnic Muslims in its western region, including holding as many as a million of them in detention camps. Now, documents and interviews show that the authorities are also using a vast, secret system of advanced facial recognition technology to track and control the Uighurs, a largely Muslim minority. It is the first known example of a government intentionally using artificial intelligence for racial profiling, experts said. The facial recognition technology, which is integrated into China’s rapidly expanding networks of surveillance cameras, looks exclusively for Uighurs based on their appearance and keeps records of their comings and goings for search and review. The practice makes China a pioneer in applying next-generation technology to watch its people, potentially ushering in a new era of automated racism. The technology and its use to keep tabs on China’s 11 million Uighurs were described by five people with direct knowledge of the systems, who requested anonymity because they feared retribution. The New York Times also reviewed databases used by the police, government procurement documents and advertising materials distributed by the A.I. companies that make the systems. transcript Chinese authorities already maintain a vast surveillance net, including tracking people’s DNA, in the western region of Xinjiang, which many Uighurs call home. But the scope of the new systems, previously unreported, extends that monitoring into many other corners of the country. The police are now using facial recognition technology to target Uighurs in wealthy eastern cities like Hangzhou and Wenzhou and across the coastal province of Fujian, said two of the people. Law enforcement in the central Chinese city of Sanmenxia, along the Yellow River, ran a system that over the course of a month this year screened whether residents were Uighurs 500,000 times. Police documents show demand for such capabilities is spreading. Almost two dozen police departments in 16 different provinces and regions across China sought such technology beginning in 2018, according to procurement documents. Law enforcement from the central province of Shaanxi, for example, aimed to acquire a smart camera system last year that “should support facial recognition to identify Uighur/non-Uighur attributes.” Some police departments and technology companies described the practice as “minority identification,” though three of the people said that phrase was a euphemism for a tool that sought to identify Uighurs exclusively. Uighurs often look distinct from China’s majority Han population, more closely resembling people from Central Asia. Such differences make it easier for software to single them out. For decades, democracies have had a near monopoly on cutting-edge technology. Today, a new generation of start-ups catering to Beijing’s authoritarian needs are beginning to set the tone for emerging technologies like artificial intelligence. Similar tools could automate biases based on skin color and ethnicity elsewhere. “Take the most risky application of this technology, and chances are good someone is going to try it,” said Clare Garvie, an associate at the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law. “If you make a technology that can classify people by an ethnicity, someone will use it to repress that ethnicity.” From a technology standpoint, using algorithms to label people based on race or ethnicity has become relatively easy. Companies like I.B.M. advertise software that can sort people into broad groups. But China has broken new ground by identifying one ethnic group for law enforcement purposes. One Chinese start-up, CloudWalk, outlined a sample experience in marketing its own surveillance systems. The technology, it said, could recognize “sensitive groups of people.” “If originally one Uighur lives in a neighborhood, and within 20 days six Uighurs appear,” it said on its website, “it immediately sends alarms” to law enforcement. In practice, the systems are imperfect, two of the people said. Often, their accuracy depends on environmental factors like lighting and the positioning of cameras. In the United States and Europe, the debate in the artificial intelligence community has focused on the unconscious biases of those designing the technology. Recent tests showed facial recognition systems made by companies like I.B.M. and Amazon were less accurate at identifying the features of darker-skinned people. China’s efforts raise starker issues. While facial recognition technology uses aspects like skin tone and face shapes to sort images in photos or videos, it must be told by humans to categorize people based on social definitions of race or ethnicity. Chinese police, with the help of the start-ups, have done that. “It’s something that seems shocking coming from the U.S., where there is most likely racism built into our algorithmic decision making, but not in an overt way like this,” said Jennifer Lynch, surveillance litigation director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “There’s not a system designed to identify someone as African-American, for example.” The Chinese A.I. companies behind the software include Yitu, Megvii, SenseTime, and CloudWalk, which are each valued at more than $1 billion. Another company, Hikvision, that sells cameras and software to process the images, offered a minority recognition function, but began phasing it out in 2018, according to one of the people. The companies’ valuations soared in 2018 as China’s Ministry of Public Security, its top police agency, set aside billions of dollars under two government plans, called Skynet and Sharp Eyes, to computerize surveillance, policing and intelligence collection. In a statement, a SenseTime spokeswoman said she checked with “relevant teams,” who were not aware its technology was being used to profile. Megvii said in a statement it was focused on “commercial not political solutions,” adding, “we are concerned about the well-being and safety of individual citizens, not about monitoring groups.” CloudWalk and Yitu did not respond to requests for comment. China’s Ministry of Public Security did not respond to a faxed request for comment. Selling products with names like Fire Eye, Sky Eye and Dragonfly Eye, the start-ups promise to use A.I. to analyze footage from China’s surveillance cameras. The technology is not mature — in 2017 Yitu promoted a one-in-three success rate when the police responded to its alarms at a train station — and many of China’s cameras are not powerful enough for facial recognition software to work effectively. Yet they help advance China’s architecture for social control. To make the algorithms work, the police have put together face-image databases for people with criminal records, mental illnesses, records of drug use, and those who petitioned the government over grievances, according to two of the people and procurement documents. A national database of criminals at large includes about 300,000 faces, while a list of people with a history of drug use in the city of Wenzhou totals 8,000 faces, they said. Using a process called machine learning, engineers feed data to artificial intelligence systems to train them to recognize patterns or traits. In the case of the profiling, they would provide thousands of labeled images of both Uighurs and non-Uighurs. That would help generate a function to distinguish the ethnic group. The A.I. companies have taken money from major investors. Fidelity International and Qualcomm Ventures were a part of a consortium that invested $620 million in SenseTime. Sequoia invested in Yitu. Megvii is backed by Sinovation Ventures, the fund of the well-known Chinese tech investor Kai-Fu Lee. A Sinovation spokeswoman said the fund had recently sold a part of its stake in Megvii and relinquished its seat on the board. Fidelity declined to comment. Sequoia and Qualcomm did not respond to emailed requests for comment. Mr. Lee, a booster of Chinese A.I., has argued that China has an advantage in developing A.I. because its leaders are less fussed by “legal intricacies” or “moral consensus.” “We are not passive spectators in the story of A.I. — we are the authors of it,” Mr. Lee wrote last year. “That means the values underpinning our visions of an A.I. future could well become self-fulfilling prophecies.” He declined to comment on his fund’s investment in Megvii or its practices. Ethnic profiling within China’s tech industry isn’t a secret, the people said. It has become so common that one of the people likened it to the short-range wireless technology Bluetooth. Employees at Megvii were warned about the sensitivity of discussing ethnic targeting publicly, another person said. China has devoted major resources toward tracking Uighurs, citing ethnic violence in Xinjiang and Uighur terrorist attacks elsewhere. Beijing has thrown hundreds of thousands of Uighurs and others in Xinjiang into re-education camps. The software extends the state’s ability to label Uighurs to the rest of the country. One national database stores the faces of all Uighurs who leave Xinjiang, according to two of the people. Government procurement documents from the past two years also show demand has spread. In the city of Yongzhou in southern Hunan Province, law enforcement officials sought software to “characterize and search whether or not someone is a Uighur,” according to one document. In two counties in Guizhou Province, the police listed a need for Uighur classification. One asked for the ability to recognize Uighurs based on identification photos at better than 97 percent accuracy. In the central megacity of Chongqing and the region of Tibet, the police put out tenders for similar software. And a procurement document for Hebei Province described how the police should be notified when multiple Uighurs booked the same flight on the same day. A study in 2018 by the authorities described a use for other types of databases. Co-written by a Shanghai police official, the paper said facial recognition systems installed near schools could screen for people included in databases of the mentally ill or crime suspects. One database generated by Yitu software and reviewed by The Times showed how the police in the city of Sanmenxia used software running on cameras to attempt to identify residents more than 500,000 times over about a month beginning in mid-February. Included in the code alongside tags like “rec_gender” and “rec_sunglasses” was “rec_uygur,” which returned a 1 if the software believed it had found a Uighur. Within the half million identifications the cameras attempted to record, the software guessed it saw Uighurs 2,834 times. Images stored alongside the entry would allow the police to double check. Yitu and its rivals have ambitions to expand overseas. Such a push could easily put ethnic profiling software in the hands of other governments, said Jonathan Frankle, an A.I. researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “I don’t think it’s overblown to treat this as an existential threat to democracy,” Mr. Frankle said. “Once a country adopts a model in this heavy authoritarian mode, it’s using data to enforce thought and rules in a much more deep-seated fashion than might have been achievable 70 years ago in the Soviet Union. To that extent, this is an urgent crisis we are slowly sleepwalking our way into.”

Politics

International Relations

Last week, Netflix users raised concerns that the company was targeting African American users by race in the way it promoted films---highlighting black characters who sometimes had only minor roles in a movie. The debate began after Stacia L. Brown, creator of the podcast Charm City, tweeted a screenshot of the promotion she was shown for Like Father, featuring two black characters, Leonard Ouzts and Blaire Brooks, who had “20 lines between them, tops,” rather than the movie’s famous white stars, Kristen Bell and Kelsey Grammer. Brown, who is black, posted a handful of other examples where Netflix highlighted black actors, presumably to entice her to watch, even though the films’ casts were predominantly white. https://twitter.com/slb79/status/1052953490664935424 In response, Netflix issued a carefully worded statement emphasizing that the company does not track demographic data about its users. “Reports that we look at demographics when personalizing artwork are untrue,” the company said. “We don't ask members for their race, gender, or ethnicity so we cannot use this information to personalize their individual Netflix experience. The only information we use is a member's viewing history.” The company added that the personalized posters are the product of a machine-learning algorithm that it introduced last year. In other words, Netflix cares about keeping you hooked, rather than your race. Yet the focus on explicit questions about race is something of a dodge, allowing the company to distance itself from an outcome that researchers say was easily predictable. “If you personalize based on viewing history, targeting by race/gender/ethnicity is a natural emergent effect,” Princeton professor Arvind Narayanan tweeted in response to Netflix’s statement. “But a narrowly worded denial allows companies to deflect concerns.” The company’s effort to optimize every aspect of the service, down to its thumbnail promotional images, was on a collision course with racial and ethnic identity. That’s because a sophisticated data-tracking operation like Netflix knows some viewers are bound to watch content that reflects their own race, gender, or sexuality. So it likely anticipated that artwork based on that viewing history would reflect preferences in race or gender. While users might appreciate suggested categories like “Movies with a strong female lead,” hyper-targeting thumbnails inevitably ran into a problem. The algorithm may have been testing seemingly innocuous variables, such as whether minor movie characters could entice viewers. But it applied the formula to a repository of content that reflects bias in Hollywood, where people of color are offered fewer and less prominent parts. Highlighting minor black characters in a predominantly white movie such as Like Father left Netflix users like Brown feeling manipulated. Did Netflix anticipate this outcome? The company’s response to WIRED skirted the question: “We are constantly testing different imagery to better understand what is actually helpful to members in deciding what to watch. The goal of all testing is to learn from our members and continuously improve the experience we are delivering,” a company spokesperson said by email. Why bother customizing down to the thumbnail? “We have been personalizing imagery on the service for many years,” the spokesperson added. “About a year ago, we began personalizing imagery by member as we saw it helped members cut down on browsing time and more quickly find stories they wanted to watch. In general, all of our service updates and feature[s] are designed around helping members more quickly find a title they would enjoy watching.” The spokesperson would not elaborate on what aspects of our viewing habits are used for personalized imagery. “We don't go into depth on this topic as much of it is proprietary,” the spokesperson wrote. Whether Netflix’s profiling was intentional or not, Georgetown law professor Anupam Chander thinks the company owes users more transparency. “It’s so predictable that the algorithm is going to get it wrong," he says. "Black people have so few actual speaking parts, trying to promote a movie to me as a person of color might pull out the side character who is killed in the first 10 minutes.” Chander adds that Netflix is missing an opportunity to educate its users. “The worry here is manipulation, and the way to avoid being manipulated is to be an educated consumer. The companies need to educate us about how their products and their algorithms work.” Chander considers himself a savvy consumer, but until Tuesday, he didn’t know that the thumbnails Netflix serves him are just as personalized as its movie selection. Selena Silva, a research assistant at University of California at Davis, who co-authored a recent paper on racially biased outcomes, also sees room for more candor from Netflix. Algorithmic decisionmaking has dangerous consequences for black and Hispanic people when used in areas like criminal justice and predictive policing. In those cases too, technologists behind the algorithms may not explicitly ask about race. There are plenty of proxies, such as high school or zip code that are closely correlated to race. In those arenas, there is no visibility, whereas “Netflix could easily explain everything that’s happening, if it’s making large populations uncomfortable,” Silva says. “When it’s something as trivial like artwork being shown to advertise a movie, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t need to be hidden.”

Entertainment

Television

(For a live blog on European stocks, type LIVE/ in an Eikon news window) Feb 24 (Reuters) - A jump in number of coronavirus cases outside China hit European shares on Monday, as investors feared the outbreak will take a bigger toll on global growth than anticipated. The pan-European STOXX 600 tumbled 2.5% by 0816 GMT, on pace for its biggest percentage loss since October, with all the major regional indexes down over 2%. Milan shares tumbled 3.7% to its lowest in nearly three weeks as Italy saw the biggest flare-up of coronavirus cases in Europe, with three people dying of the illness since Friday and more than 150 cases reported. Among the worst performers on the STOXX 600 were airline stocks, with EasyJet, Ryanair, Air France and Lufthansa down between 7% and 11%. Europe’s travel & leisure index tumbled 4%. Luxury goods makers, miners, automakers, technology and banking shares all sensitive to global growth sentiment were down more than 3%. Primark-owner Associated British Foods slid 3% as it warned of potential supply shortages on some lines later in the 2019-20 financial year if delays in factory production in China are prolonged due to coronavirus. The focus now shifts to the release of Ifo institute’s business climate index for February, expected to inch lower to 95.3 points from 95.9 points in January. (Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)

Industry

Manufacturing

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek police were searching on Friday for a Turkish woman and her three children missing after a boat carrying nine people capsized in the Evros river separating Greece from Turkey, police said. Police rescued four men aged between 24 and 40 and one child, a police official said, after being informed of the incident in northern Greece early on Thursday. “According to their statements, they had boarded a boat aiming to reach Greece from Turkey,” a police spokeswoman said. “They said that their boat crashed on a rock, a tree or something else during their transfer and it capsized. Since that moment a woman and her three children are missing,” she added. The old smugglers’ route across the river border between the two countries is increasingly used by refugees fleeing war in Syria and elsewhere. Turks have also used the route in recent years following a failed coup attempt against Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in 2016. It can take five to six minutes to paddle across the Evros river, whose fast-moving waters are treacherous. The police spokeswoman said the rescued men and the child were taken to a reception-and-identification center, while police were still looking for the missing people. It was not clear whether those rescued had requested asylum. Reporting by Renee Maltezou and Angeliki Koutantou, Editing by William Maclean

Politics

International Relations

Adjusting the acoustics of modern automobiles is not only about comfort or pizazz. There are safety considerations, too. Advanced driver-assistance features like lane departure warnings, automated braking systems and vehicle or pedestrian proximity alerts generate their own bells and chimes. But such sonic alerts can create dangerous distractions, leaving drivers unable to determine which sounds are critical. “We spend a lot of time tuning those beeps and pings and assessing the quality of the chimes,” said Alan Norton, senior technical leader for audio quality at Ford Motor. Electric vehicles, with their virtually silent motors, present a separate set of challenges. Especially at low speeds, an electric vehicle provides no audible sounds that might alert pedestrians, cyclists or other drivers to the car’s presence. “Normally, you expect to hear a car coming,” said Grant Courville, a senior director at the software company QNX. And so, for several years, designers of electric vehicles have experimented with added sounds called external pedestrian alerts that would warn those nearby that a car was approaching. The electric Nissan Leaf uses such a system, aptly named the Approaching Vehicle Sound for Pedestrians. It is set off automatically at speeds below 16 miles per hour, emitting a noise from a speaker in the front of the car that sounds like a muted version of a Harrier jet taking off. At 19 m.p.h., the Leaf’s wheels generate enough noise to turn pedestrians’ heads, so the speaker shuts off. (In reverse, the Leaf sounds like something from a “Star Trek” fan’s garage, emitting a phasers-on-stun sound effect.) As yet, though, there is no industry standard for electric vehicle warnings, which is why many electric cars — including the Tesla Model S — do not have them. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been instructed by its parent, the Department of Transportation, to develop a rule for such pedestrian safety sounds. But the agency has several times postponed putting such a rule into effect. One difficulty, audio engineers say, is that lower-frequency sounds, which travel farther at lower volumes, lack the kind of directionality that could tell someone stepping off a curb where a car was coming from. Conversely, higher frequency sounds tell listeners where the sound is coming from but require more volume to alert people that a car is headed their way. Within vehicles, meanwhile, audio programmers continue to work on systems to reduce potentially hazardous sonic distractions. In sport utility vehicles with three rows of seats, for example, it can be difficult for a driver to talk to someone in the very back. “You’re probably tempted to turn around and take your eyes off the road,” Mr. Courville said. So QNX has developed a system that detects when the driver is speaking, and it uses a nearby microphone to pick up his or her words and send them through the rear speakers. “You shouldn’t have to yell for in-car communications,” Mr. Courville said.

Technology

Innovation

Shares of CVS Health and Aetna rose Thursday on a report the Department of Justice won't challenge their merger. Bloomberg reported the news, citing trade publication Reorg Research. Aetna declined comment. CVS said it does not comment on "market rumors." Drugstore chain and pharmacy benefits manager CVS announced in December it would acquire health insurer Aetna for $69 billion in a deal that could reshape the health industry. Some had feared the Department of Justice would seek to challenge the deal like it did AT&T's acquisition of Time Warner. CVS shares rose nearly 3 percent, while Aetna's shares increased 2 percent. Shares of Cigna and Express Scripts also rose on the news. The health insurer Cigna is in the process of acquiring pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts. Express Scripts declined comment. -CNBC's Bertha Coombs contributed to this report

Pharmaceuticals

Pharmaceuticals

The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to vote Friday on Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Supreme Court. Most of the members of the panel have already made their minds up, putting the spotlight on 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, an Arizona Republican who is undecided. Flake is retiring at the end of this Congress and has frequently tangled with 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. The vote comes about 24 hours after Christine Blasey Ford offered testimony to the panel about her accusation that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when the two were in high school.  Kavanaugh on Thursday afternoon appeared before the panel and forcefully denied those allegations, hammering Democrats for their handling of the controversy. The Hill will be providing live updates on the panel's vote. The full Senate could hold its confirmation vote next week. Judiciary panel approves Kavanaugh, sending nomination to full Senate 2:01 p.m. The Judiciary Committee voted to advance Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination on Friday after Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said he secured a deal to delay a floor vote on the nomination for a week to allow the FBI to investigate sexual assault allegations. It's still not clear whether Kavanaugh can get to at least 50 votes on the Senate floor, which would allow Vice President Pence to break a tie and confirm him to the Supreme Court. GOP Sens. Susan CollinsSusan Margaret CollinsCook Political Report moves Susan Collins Senate race to 'toss up' The Hill's Morning Report — Trump and the new Israel-'squad' controversy Trump crosses new line with Omar, Tlaib, Israel move MORE (Maine) and Lisa MurkowskiLisa Ann MurkowskiThe Hill's Morning Report - Progressives, centrists clash in lively Democratic debate Senate braces for brawl over Trump's spy chief Congress kicks bipartisan energy innovation into higher gear MORE (Alaska) remain undecided. Sens. Joe ManchinJoseph (Joe) ManchinSunday shows - Recession fears dominate Manchin: Trump has 'golden opportunity' on gun reforms Trump vows to 'always uphold the Second Amendment' amid ongoing talks on gun laws MORE (W.Va.) and Heidi HeitkampMary (Heidi) Kathryn HeitkampPence to push new NAFTA deal in visit to Iowa Al Franken says he 'absolutely' regrets resigning Trump nominees meet fiercest opposition from Warren, Sanders, Gillibrand MORE (N.D.) are undecided on the Democratic side after Sen. Joe DonnellyJoseph (Joe) Simon DonnellyLobbying world Trump nominees meet fiercest opposition from Warren, Sanders, Gillibrand GOP frets over nightmare scenario for Senate primaries MORE (Ind.), another Democrat up for reelection in November in a red state, said he would vote "no" on Kavanaugh. – Alexander Bolton and Jordain Carney  Flake: Delay Kavanaugh vote for FBI investigation 1:51 p.m. GOP Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.) said Friday that the full Senate vote on Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination should be delayed for up to a week to let the FBI investigate several sexual assault allegations. Flake said he was voting for Kavanaugh with the understanding that Republican colleagues would support a one-week delay to give the FBI time to investigate. "I have been speaking with a number of people on the other side … in regard to making sure that we do due diligence here," Flake said. "I think it would be proper to delay the floor vote for up to but not more than one week in order to let the FBI do an investigation, limited in time and scope," he added.  "I will only be comfortable moving on the floor until the FBI has done more investigation than they have already,” Flake continued. “It may not take them a week. I understand that some of these witnesses may not want to discuss anything further but I think we owe them due diligence.” – Jordain Carney 1:30 deadline passes with no vote and plenty of confusion 1:37 p.m. The 1:30 p.m. deadline for having a vote on Kavanaugh has come and gone without an explanation from Grassley. Flake, who announced this morning he would vote for the nominee but also expressed doubt about what to make of Kavanaugh’s testimony Thursday, has been missing from the hearing room for a while, prompting speculation he may have changed his mind or may want a delay before a panel vote. Flake emerged briefly from the anteroom and asked Sen. Dianne FeinsteinDianne Emiel FeinsteinTrump administration urges Congress to reauthorize NSA surveillance program The Hill's Morning Report - More talk on guns; many questions on Epstein's death Juan Williams: We need a backlash against Big Tech MORE (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the committee, to follow him back inside for a private discussion. He had a deeply concerned expression on his face.  Flake said he felt compelled to support Kavanaugh in the absence of corroborating evidence backing up Ford’s claim that he committed a sexual assault in the early 1980s. Republicans have filed back and forth to the committee's anteroom and there have have been intense whispered conversations among members for the past 40 minutes.  – Alexander Bolton Delay in action as lawmakers wait for vote 1:23 pm There’s a pause in the action as Republican senators have finished speaking and the locked-in vote on Kavanaugh isn’t due to take place until 1:30 p.m. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck GrassleyCharles (Chuck) Ernest GrassleyWhite House denies exploring payroll tax cut to offset worsening economy Schumer joins Pelosi in opposition to post-Brexit trade deal that risks Northern Ireland accord GOP senators call for Barr to release full results of Epstein investigation MORE (R-Iowa) says the committee will “stand at ease until the next gavel.” In the meantime, there have been a number of bipartisan discussions behind the dais.  Sen. Ben SasseBenjamin (Ben) Eric SasseThe Hill's Morning Report - Trump lauds tariffs on China while backtracking from more To cash in on innovation, remove market barriers for advanced energy technologies Feds face mounting pressure over Epstein's death MORE (R-Neb.) chatted intensely with Sen. Sheldon WhitehouseSheldon WhitehouseSenate Democrats push Trump to permanently shutter migrant detention facility To cash in on innovation, remove market barriers for advanced energy technologies Democrats give cold shoulder to Warren wealth tax MORE (D-R.I.) while Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) whispered remarks back and forth with Grassley.  Whitehouse raised the possibility that the vote may need to be delayed but Grassley rejected the notion. “Mr. Chairman, given what’s happening in the interim, I think more time is needed. I think you could get a unanimous consent to push the vote back pretty easily, if you need a few more minutes,” Whitehouse said.  Grassley replied: “We made a decision to vote at 1:30. If there’s some reason to change that then we’ll have to change it, but I’m not even going to get into discussion about that right now.” – Alexander Bolton Committee room nearly empty of Democrats 1:02 p.m. Democrats have left the committee room after delivering their statements of opposition against Kavanaugh and now only Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Conn.) is left on the Democratic side of the dais. It looks like the vote on Kavanaugh will be 11 to 0 with every Republican member of the panel supporting him and every Democrat abstaining in protest. Blumenthal panned Kavanaugh’s testimony before the committee as threatening and full of rancor. “The person we saw come before us yesterday was filled with such rancor and anger,” he said. “I cannot accept that he would be an impartial and objective justice on the United States Supreme Court.” – Alexander Bolton Kennedy: Kavanaugh hearing a 'grotesque carnival' 1 p.m. GOP Sen. John KennedyJohn Neely KennedyMORE (La.) knocked his colleagues for their handling of Kavanaugh's nomination and the sexual assault allegations against him, comparing it to a "grotesque carnival" and "an intergalactic freak show."  "As far as I'm concerned Congress has hit rock bottom and started to dig," Kennedy told his colleagues. He added, referring to comments from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), that how women are treated in America "does matter."  "This is no country for creepy old men or young men or middle aged men. But this is no country in my opinion, at least not the kind of country I want to live in, without due process," Kennedy said. Kennedy also lashed out at whoever leaked Christine Blasey Ford's letter detailing her assault allegation, which was initially given privately to two members of Congress.  "You know who you are. You should bow your head in shame in my opinion and you should hide your head in a bag every day for the rest of your natural life," Kennedy said. – Jordain Carney  Tester to oppose Kavanaugh 12:26 p.m. Sen. Jon TesterJonathan (Jon) TesterNative American advocates question 2020 Democrats' commitment House Democrats targeting six more Trump districts for 2020 Budget deal sparks scramble to prevent shutdown MORE (D-Mont.) said Friday that he will oppose Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination. Tester said Friday that he has a myriad of "concerns" about Kavanaugh, but could not get an in-person meeting with him to discuss the issues. “I have concerns that Judge Kavanaugh defended the PATRIOT Act instead of Montanans' privacy. I have concerns about his support for more dark money in politics. I have concerns about who he believes is in charge of making personal health decisions," Tester said. Tester added that he had "deep concerns about the allegations of sexual assault against Judge Kavanaugh." Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, the first of Kavanaugh's accusers to come forward publicly, testified before the Judiciary Committee on Thursday. Tester noted that because he couldn't schedule a meeting with Kavanaugh the "only information I have is from what he said in his hearing." Republicans don't need Tester's vote to confirm Kavanaugh. They have a 51-49 majority and can lose one Republican senator before they need help from Democrats. No Republican senator has said she or he will oppose Kavanaugh. Moderate GOP Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) are the two Republican senators who remain undecided. Tester is the latest Democrat from a state President Trump won in 2016 to say he will oppose Kavanaugh. Democratic Sens. Joe Donnelly (Ind.), Bill NelsonClarence (Bill) William NelsonAl Franken says he 'absolutely' regrets resigning Democrats target Florida Hispanics in 2020 Poll: Six Democrats lead Trump in Florida match-ups MORE (Fla.) and Doug Jones (Ala.) also announced their opposition following Thursday's hearing. Tester and Nelson did not support Trump's first Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, and were viewed as likely "no" votes on Kavanaugh. Donnelly was one of three Democrats who supported Gorsuch. Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.) remain undecided. – Jordain Carney Kavanaugh's alma mater calls on Senate to delay vote 12:16 p.m. The dean of Brett Kavanaugh’s alma mater is calling on the Senate Judiciary Committee to postpone its vote on whether to send Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Supreme Court to the Senate floor for a vote.  Dean Heather Gerken on Friday called for further investigation into the sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh in a statement released by Yale Law School.  “I join the American Bar Association in calling for an additional investigation into the allegations made against Judge Kavanaugh,” she said. “Proceeding with the confirmation process without further investigation is not in the best interest of the court or our profession.”  Dean Gerken Joins the ABA in Calling for Further Investigation. pic.twitter.com/SYAsVHwsi7 In a letter Thursday night, American Bar Association (ABA) President Bob Carlson urged Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and ranking Democrat Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) to hold a confirmation vote on Kavanaugh only after the FBI has conducted an investigation.  "We make this request because of the ABA’s respect for the rule of law and due process under law," he wrote. "The basic principles that underscore the Senate’s constitutional duty of advice and consent on federal judicial nominees require nothing less than a careful examination of the accusations and facts by the FBI." In a statement White House Spokesman Raj Shah noted the ABA is separate from the independent Standing Committee, which rated Kavanaugh "well-qualified."  "The ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary is separate and independent from its parent organization and has rated Judge Kavanaugh unanimously well-qualified. That hasn't changed," he said.  – Lydia Wheeler Whitehouse says Kavanaugh's 1982 calendar may corroborate Ford’s claims 11:20 a.m. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a former prosecutor and state attorney general, held up an enlarged copy of Kavanaugh’s high-school calendar from the summer of 1982 and argued that it may corroborate Ford’s allegation. He emphasized that the calendar made reference to attending a small party with two boys, Mark Judge and Patrick J. Smyth, whom Ford said were present at the house where she says Kavanaugh assaulted her. Kavanaugh confirmed Thursday to outside counsel Rachel Mitchell that his calendar referred to Judge and Smyth. Whitehouse on Friday seized on that as significant evidence. Whitehouse noted that Christine Blasey Ford testified that Kavanaugh, Judge, Smyth and another boy were at the house when she was assaulted. He pointed to a calendar entry showing those three and others getting together for beers at “Timmy’s” house on July 1 of that year. “We know Bart Kavanaugh [sic] was there cause it’s his schedule and here’s Judge and here’s P.J.,” he said, referring to Smyth. “Here are all those three named boys and others at a house together just as she said.” He noted that Kavanaugh wrote on his calendar that they gathered for “skis,” a slang term for beers, also known as brewskis. “They were drinking, just as she said,” he said. Whitehouse acknowledged that neither Ford nor the other girl she said was at the party were listed on the calendar but argued there could be a credible reason for that. “If you had just sexually assaulted one of the two girls. Would you add the girls names to your calendar? I doubt it,” he said. “This may — may — be powerful corroborating evidence that the assault happened, that it happened that day and that it happened in that place,” he said. “But with no FBI investigation we can’t tell.” Grassley later disputed Whitehouse’s interpretation of the calendar. He noted Kavanaugh wrote that six boys were at the July 1 party. “Dr. Ford said there were four boys there. The calendar lists six plus Kavanaugh, that’s seven. That’s the wrong gathering,” Grassley said. – Alexander Bolton Donnelly announces opposition to Kavanaugh 11:40 a.m. Sen. Joe Donnelly (Ind.), one of only three Democrats who voted for President Trump’s first Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, says he will oppose Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s second pick to the high court. Donnelly, who faces a tough reelection in a state that Trump carried by double digits in 2016, was considered one of the Democrats most likely to back Kavanaugh. “I have deep reservations about Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination to this lifetime position and, as I stated, we have been unable to get all the information necessary regarding this nomination, despite my best efforts. Only 113 people have ever served on the Supreme Court, and I believe that we must do our level best to protect its sanctity,” he said in a statement.  – Alexander Bolton Graham: I'm a 'single white male,' but I won't shut up 10:50 a.m. GOP Sen. Lindsey GrahamLindsey Olin GrahamTwo-thirds of Republicans support 'red flag' gun laws: NPR poll Red flag laws won't stop mass shootings — ending gun-free zones will Pelosi warns Mnuchin to stop 'illegal' .3B cut to foreign aid MORE (S.C.) said during the meeting on Friday that he knew he was a "single white male" but he wouldn't "shut up."  "I know I'm a single white male from South Carolina and I'm told I should shut up, but I will not shut up if that's okay," Graham said.  Sen. Lindsey Graham: "I know I'm a single white male from South Carolina, and I'm told I should shut up, but I will not shut up, if that's okay." https://t.co/WBteDQMJWE pic.twitter.com/aIRlYDXj46 Graham didn't say what prompted his remark. Sen. Mazie HironoMazie Keiko HironoDemocratic senator on possibility of Trump standing up to the NRA: 'That's just such BS' Schumer to Trump: Demand McConnell hold vote on background check bill Graham moves controversial asylum bill through panel; Democrats charge he's broken the rules MORE (D-Hawaii), a fellow member of the Judiciary Committee, said earlier this month that "the men of this country" should "shut up and step up for once."    Graham has been fervently supportive of Kavanaugh's nomination. He characterized the allegations against President Trump's nominee as being in the "twilight zone."  "All I can say about Ms. Ford, I feel sorry for her and I do believe something happened to her ... but I don't believe it was Brett Kavanaugh. And as a prosecutor you couldn't get out of the batters box," Graham added.   He added that Ford's allegations were not enough to charge or get a warrant against Kavanaugh.   "How are you supposed to defend yourself? Is the burden really on you to prove that you were not at a party 35 years ago and they won't tell you where it was or when it was?" Graham asked.  – Jordain Carney  Leahy: Senate Judiciary Committee has lost all independence 10:35 a.m.  Sen. Patrick LeahyPatrick Joseph LeahyAppropriators warn White House against clawing back foreign aid House panel investigating decision to resume federal executions Graham moves controversial asylum bill through panel; Democrats charge he's broken the rules MORE (Vt.), the longest serving Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, blasted Republicans for jettisoning their independence in their push to get Kavanaugh confirmed by next week. “This Judiciary Committee is no longer an independent branch of Congress, and we’re supposed to be. The Senate is supposed to be,” he said. “We’re an arm in a very weak arm of the Trump White House,” he said. “Every semblance of independence has disappeared. It’s gone. And I think that’s something historians will look at and call it a turning point in the United States Senate.” Leahy accused Republicans of months of breaking “precedent after precedent in a manic rush to fill a Supreme Court seat.” He said the committee is poised to advance a nominee “credibly accused of sexual assault and the committee hasn’t even conducted a meaningful investigation.” Leahy grew louder and angrier as he wrapped up his comments. He warned that the committee’s failure to take Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony more seriously would likely dissuade victims of sexual assault from coming forward in the future. “How this committee handles this nomination [is] a reflection of how seriously our society views credible claims of sexual misconduct,” he said. – Alexander Bolton Democrats hold presser after walkout  10:31 a.m. Democrats on the Judiciary Committee held an impromptu press conference in the hallway of a Senate office building after walking out of a meeting where a vote is imminent on whether to send Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Senate floor. Sen. Kamala HarrisKamala Devi HarrisHarry Reid: 'Decriminalizing border crossings is not something that should be at the top of the list' Warren offers plan to repeal 1994 crime law authored by Biden Sanders leads Democratic field in Colorado poll MORE (D-Calif.), who was joined by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), slammed Republicans for refusing to conduct an FBI investigation into the sexual assault allegations against the nominee. “This is about raw power. You’re seeing that displayed in this hearing this morning, you’ve been seeing it from the process in the beginning,” she said. Hirono said there are still some senators who haven’t decided how they are going to vote. “I hope they are searching their souls and will do the right thing,” she said. Hironi said Kavanaugh’s opening statement was too partisan to be a Supreme Court justice. “I have never heard a Supreme Court justice come out and say there is a vast left-wing conspiracy to undermine his nomination,” she said. She also said Democrats had not coordinated the walkout. “We did not coordinate walking out. You know we feel this in here,” he said pointing to her heart. – Lydia Wheeler House Democratic women protest vote on Kavanaugh 10:06 a.m. A group of female House Democratic lawmakers suddenly stood up in silent protest of Kavanaugh while Grassley was in the middle of his opening statement. Grassley appeared distracted by the move but plowed through his remarks while the Democratic lawmakers stood, looking at him solemnly from the back of the room. The protesters included Reps. Debbie Wasserman SchultzDeborah (Debbie) Wasserman SchultzParkland father: Twitter did not suspend users who harassed me using name of daughter's killer Hillicon Valley: Senate Intel releases election security report | GOP blocks votes on election security bills | Gabbard sues Google over alleged censorship | Barr meets state AGs on tech antitrust concerns House committee leader questions Trump on efforts to secure elections MORE (Fla.), Sheila Jackson LeeSheila Jackson LeeJackson Lee: 'Racism is a national security threat' Most oppose cash reparations for slavery: poll Poll: Most Americans oppose reparations MORE (Texas), Carolyn MaloneyCarolyn Bosher MaloneyReport: Americans unprepared for retirement Senate approves fund to provide compensation for Sept. 11 victims Here are the 95 Democrats who voted to support impeachment MORE (N.Y.), Barbara LeeBarbara Jean LeeOvernight Health Care: Planned Parenthood to leave federal family planning program absent court action | Democrats demand Trump withdraw rule on transgender health | Cummings, Sanders investigate three drug companies for 'obstructing' probe Democrats demand Trump officials withdraw rule on transgender health House Democratic leadership member backs impeachment inquiry MORE (Calif.), Nydia Velázquez (N.Y.) and Grace NapolitanoGraciela (Grace) Flores NapolitanoLatina leaders: 'It's a women's world more than anything' The Hill's 12:30 Report: Muller testimony dominates Washington The Hill's Morning Report — Mueller day finally arrives MORE (Calif.). The moment caused a minor commotion in the room as reporters looked to see what the Capitol Police would do. As an officer approached the lawmakers, they silently filed out of the room. – Alexander Bolton Feinstein: Kavanaugh was aggressive and belligerent 10:13 a.m. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Brett Kavanaugh was aggressive and belligerent Thursday when he came before the committee to deny allegations of sexual assault. “Candidly, in the 25 years on this committee, I have never seen a nominee for any position behave in that manner,” she said. “Judge Kavanaugh used as much political rhetoric as my Republican colleagues and what’s more he went on the attack.” Feinstein then quoted Kavanaugh directly, recalling how he called some Democratic committee members an embarrassment, accused them of lying in wait and replacing advice and consent with "search and destroy." “This was not someone who reflected an impartial temperament or the fairness and even handedness one would see in a judge,” she said. “This was someone who was aggressive and belligerent. I have never seen someone who wants to be elevated to the highest court in our country behave in that manner.” – Lydia Wheeler Democrats walk out of hearing room in protest 9:50 a.m. Four Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee walked out of the hearing room in protest after Republicans decided along party lines to schedule a “time certain” vote on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh for 1:30 p.m. Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) and Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) walked out of the room, causing a burst of activity from photographers in the well of the hearing room who captured the moment. “I strongly object. This is just totally ridiculous. What a railroad job. My answer is no, no, no!” Hirono yelled out shortly before leaving the room. Harris declined to vote, staying silent to protest Republicans' handling of the nomination, as did Sen. Cory BookerCory Anthony BookerCastro qualifies for next Democratic primary debates Eight Democratic presidential hopefuls to appear in CNN climate town hall Biden, Buttigieg bypassing Democratic delegate meeting: report MORE (D-N.J.). A clearly frustrated Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) rebuked the photographers for standing up to take snapshots of the Democratic protest, obstructing the view of the audience, and threatened to kick them out. “I’m sure a lot of people are irritated right now,” Grassley said as he wrapped up his comments. He also reproached Harris for remaining silent during the roll call scheduling a vote on Kavanaugh. “It breaks our rules and customs,” Grassley said. The panel is expected to approve Kavanaugh's confirmation on Friday given the support of a key Republican, Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.). – Alexander Bolton Republicans reject effort to subpoena Mark Judge 9:53 a.m. Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee rejected an effort by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) to subpoena Mark Judge in a party-line vote. Christine Blasey Ford alleges that Judge witnessed Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assault her at a high school party in the early 1980s. Kavanaugh has denied wrongdoing and Judge says he does not recall such an incident. Blumenthal said Ford's testimony showed there were "details in that story that can be corroborated and other facts that can be uncovered if we hear from other witnesses." "[Judge] has never been interviewed by the FBI. He has never been questioned by any member of our committee. He has never submitted a detailed account of what he knows and so I move ... that we subpoena Mark Judge," Blumenthal added. But Grassley read a letter that Judge sent the committee on Thursday. Judge says in the letter that he "never saw Brett act in the manner Dr. Ford describes." "Brett Kavanaugh and I were friends in high school, but we have not spoken directly in several years. I do not recall the events described by Dr. Ford in her testimony before the US Senate Judiciary Committee today. I never saw Brett act in the manner Dr. Ford describes," Judge said in the statement to the committee. Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) both refused to vote on the matter in a symbolic rebuke of the process. – Jordain Carney Flake's 'yes' vote comes despite Trump clashes 9:45 a.m. Sen. Jeff Flake's (R-Ariz.) support for Kavanaugh could set up President Trump for a major win, despite their fierce differences over the past two years. Flake denounced Trump when he announced his retirement from the Senate in October. In a memorable floor speech, he warned the GOP was heading in the wrong direction on Trump’s leadership, urging fellow Republicans that “we must stop pretending that the conduct of some in our executive branch are normal.” “Reckless, outrageous and undignified behavior has become excused as telling it like it is when it is actually reckless, outrageous and undignified,” he said. Flake has also emerged as one of Trump’s toughest Republican critics on trade and has led the effort to pass legislation that would rein in the president’s power to impose tariffs. But that didn't appear to come into play with his support for Kavanaugh. – Alexander Bolton Flake to vote 'yes' 9:32 a.m. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) says he will vote in favor of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, ensuring his nomination's passage through the Senate Judiciary Committee.  “While some may argue that a different standard should apply regarding the Senate’s advice and consent responsibilities, I believe that the constitution’s provisions of fairness and due process apply here as well. I will vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh,” Flake said. He added that while he found Ford’s testimony to be “compelling,” he “left the hearing yesterday with as much doubt as certainty.” "I wish that I could express the confidence that some of my colleagues have conveyed about what either did or did not happen in the early 1980s, but I left the hearing yesterday with as much doubt as certainty,” he said. – Jordain Carney Nina Totenberg arrives for vote 9:20 a.m. National Public Radio’s legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg, who broke the story about Anita Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment against then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas in 1991, has arrived for the historic committee vote. Totenberg is telling fellow reporters some of her recollections about Thomas’s confirmation, which narrowly passed the Democratic-controlled Senate.   She tells colleagues that it appears that Kavanaugh has enough votes to pass. Hearing room opens for business.   8:50 a.m. Senate staff have opened the Judiciary Committee hearing room where Christine Blasey Ford and Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh testified for nearly eight hours Thursday. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said late Thursday evening that he wasn’t sure whether Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), the only swing vote on the panel, would decide to advance Kavanaugh’s nomination. Flake did not give any indication to colleagues which way he was leaning during a meeting of the entire Senate GOP conference late Thursday. The committee is scheduled to begin debate on Kavanaugh at 9:30 a.m. and a vote is expected later this morning. Grassley, however, declined on Thursday evening to commit to actually holding a vote since Flake’s position remains undecided. Reporters and staff are being asked to show identification to get anywhere near the room. – Alexander Bolton  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

Aug 31(Reuters) - Synchro Food Co Ltd * Says it will offer an off-floor distribution of 205,000 shares on Tokyo Stock Exchange between Sept. 15 and Sept. 21 * Offering price will be determined based on the closing share price of the day before the distribution * Says the limitation for distribution is up to 100 shares for each customer Source text in Japanese:goo.gl/ifFjhf Further company coverage: (Beijing Headline News)

Technology

IT

Senate GOP leaders are eyeing a vote as early as Thursday on a compromise proposal to bar people with terrorist ties from purchasing firearms, which would tee up yet another floor fight over gun policy just days after the chamber rejected four measures on the issue. The plan, written by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and a handful of deal-making senators, is still expected to draw notable Republican opposition because of how it's drafted. Under her bill, someone who is unable to buy a gun gets to appeal that decision only after he or she has already been denied the purchase — a deal-breaker for many GOP lawmakers. Indeed, the National Rifle Association issued a statement Tuesday afternoon dismissing the bill — effectively ensuring that a flood of GOP lawmakers will oppose it. “Keeping guns from terrorists while protecting the due process rights of law-abiding citizens are not mutually exclusive,” said Chris Cox, the executive director of NRA's Institute for Legislative Action. “Unfortunately, Senator Collins and others are focusing their efforts on unconstitutional proposals that would not have prevented the Orlando terrorist attack.” One influential Republican, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas), said he could not support Collins’ bill as written due to “concerns about the lack of due process on the front end.” “But I’m happy to work with them so we can move this to a place where we get the largest number of people,” said Cornyn, who said the chamber will vote on the measure on Thursday. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the measure would get a vote, but declined to commit to a firm date. Still, Republican leaders aren’t twisting arms on the vote, allowing members to vote their conscience. Democrats and Republican leaders were mostly non-committal on the emerging bipartisan proposal, with Cornyn highlighting Second Amendment concerns and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) questioning why the bill isn’t broader. The likely Democratic leader in the next Congress said the bill is a “step in the right direction,” but then highlighted why it will be so difficult for Republicans to support: He proposed calling it the “Buck the NRA” bill. Neither McConnell nor Minority Leader Harry Reid said whether they will support the legislation. A group of Republicans looking to strike a deal and several senators up for reelection met privately Tuesday morning with McConnell, Cornyn and Senate Republican Conference Chairman John Thune Tuesday morning. Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire are joining Collins in pushing the compromise, along with centrist Democratic Caucus members like Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) and Angus King (I-Maine). Collins, Ayotte and Flake met with GOP leaders along with Republican Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio, Marco Rubio of Florida and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania to gauge the prospects of the legislation. "I've looked at every proposal," Rubio said as he headed into the meeting Tuesday. "If there is a way to keep guns out of the hands of terrorists without infringing on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens, I'm open to it." The Collins-led bill would prevent people on the no-fly list and the Secondary Security Screening Selectee list, which prompts extra security scrutiny at airports, from buying guns with an appeals process. People who are on the broader terrorism watch list or have been within the past five years would be able to purchase firearms without being blocked, but the FBI would be notified. “Our goal is simple and straightforward: we want to make America safer,” Collins said at a news conference announcing her compromise. “All of us are united in our desire to getting something significant done on this vital issue.” Democrats also discussed the matter at a party lunch, where Heitkamp made the pitch to her colleagues on why they should embrace the Collins compromise. Some Senate Democrats such as Bill Nelson of Florida, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico are supporting the compromise. For her part, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said Tuesday afternoon that she wanted to meet with Collins to flesh out some provisions in the Maine senator’s bill that Feinstein wanted clarified. Clearing the 60-vote threshold may be difficult with the election just under five months away and several Senate Republicans running tough reelection bids. Collins’ measure shares many of the same features as Feinstein’s bill, which garnered 47 votes in favor on Monday night. Portman said he was evaluating the Collins’ plan but did not make commitments one way or the other. Toomey, meanwhile, issued a statement Tuesday saying he would support it. Other Republicans urged their GOP colleagues to back the compromise — and had tough words for the gun lobby. “To my friends at the NRA, I understand your concern about denying somebody the right to buy a gun, that’s a constitutional right,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who also supports the Collins measure. “But every right, whether it’s speech or buying a weapon or any other constitutional right, has boundaries on it.”

Politics

Firearms

Maryland’s highest court on Thursday postponed the trials of the Baltimore police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray last year, to consider whether one officer can be compelled to testify against the others. The trial of one of the officers, Edward Nero, was about to begin and the Circuit Court in Baltimore was scheduled to hear pretrial motions on Friday and begin jury selection on Monday. The decision by the state Court of Appeals pushes back the trial date by at least a matter of weeks, and possibly by months. Mr. Gray, 25, suffered a fatal spinal injury last April 12 while in police custody after being arrested for possession of what the police described as an illegal switchblade knife, and he died a week later. Prosecutors contend that he was injured while riding, handcuffed but not seat-belted, in the back of a police van, and that officers failed to get him medical aid until it was too late. The first of the six officers charged in the case, William G. Porter, stood trial last fall, but a jury was unable to agree on a verdict on charges of involuntary manslaughter, assault and misconduct. The judge declared a mistrial in December, and Mr. Porter is scheduled for retrial later this year. That mistrial disrupted the plan of the State’s Attorney’s Office, which intended to win an initial conviction, and then use Mr. Porter as a witness against other officers charged in relation to Mr. Gray’s death. But with Mr. Porter’s case still pending, his lawyers have argued that forcing him to testify against the others would violate his right not to incriminate himself. A Circuit Court judge, Barry G. Williams, ruled that Officer Porter could be compelled to take the stand at the trials of two officers, but not against the other three. Prosecutors appealed the judge’s decision, while the defense maintained that no such appeal was allowed under state law. On Thursday, the Court of Appeals agreed to take up the question of Officer Porter’s testimony, and granted a motion by the state Attorney General’s Office to postpone the criminal cases until that matter is decided. The high court scheduled oral arguments for March 3. Judge Williams has ordered all parties not to speak about it outside of the court. One officer, Caesar R. Goodson Jr., the driver of the police van, faces a charge of second-degree murder, and he and two others are charged with involuntary manslaughter. The other three, including Officer Nero, face lesser charges, including assault and official misconduct. The death of Mr. Gray, who was black — like those of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., Eric Garner in Staten Island, and others — fueled scrutiny of the treatment of black men by the police. After his death, demonstrations paralyzed much of Baltimore for days, at one point descending into rock-throwing and arson, and prompting the governor to summon the National Guard.

Crime

Murder

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - A planned new Holocaust museum in Budapest has divided Hungary’s Jewish community and triggered international concerns that it will downplay the wartime role of Hungarians in the persecution and deportation of Jews. Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s right-wing government plans to open the museum next year to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the deportati7on of Hungarian Jews to death camps in German-occupied Poland. More than half a million Hungarian Jews were among six million Jews killed in Europe during the Holocaust. In a Sept. 7 decree the government granted ownership of the new museum, called the House of Fates, to the Unified Hungarian Jewish Congregation (EMIH), one of the three registered Jewish groups in Hungary. The permanent exhibition, to be set up by the EMIH with government help and housed in a former railway station, will be based on the concept of historian Maria Schmidt, who is an ally of Orban and owns a pro-government weekly. It will use personal histories to explore the 1938-48 period in Hungary, with particular focus on children, and will also feature temporary exhibitions and education programs. But the project, first announced in 2014, has drawn criticism from Israel’s Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center. “The museum concept clearly avoids addressing the role and responsibility of... Hungarian leaders of that era for the plight of the nation’s Jews, and their eventual abandonment to the hands of Nazi Germany,” Robert Rozett, Director of the Yad Vashem Libraries, said in a statement last month. It also seeks to gloss over the role of ordinary Hungarian citizens, he said. “It is implied that Hungary was actually a nation of rescuers. This is a grave falsification of history.” The head of EMIH, Rabbi Slomo Koves, said the museum remained open to suggestions from others, including Yad Vashem, adding that only about half of the concept was so far ready. Koves said he wanted to give young visitors “an emotional relation to the story” along with all relevant context. Hungary began ostracizing and discriminating against Jews under its right-wing ruler Miklos Horthy long before World War Two, when it was an ally of Nazi Germany. In 1944 the Germans invaded Hungary to stop it switching sides and in just eight weeks, with the collaboration of the authorities, some 437,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to the Auschwitz death camp. Tens of thousands of others were herded into ghettos in Budapest and killed, mostly by Hungarians. The World Jewish Congress has suggested that Hungary put the museum under the supervision of an international body such as Yad Vashem, the U.S. Holocaust Museum and the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities (MAZSIHISZ). The chairman of MAZSIHISZ, Andras Heisler, echoed that call, adding: “We’ve received much support from the government but this... dividing of the Jewish community affects us very negatively.” Orban told parliament this month the opening of the museum could wait until the disputes surrounding it “die down”. Budapest already has a Holocaust Memorial Center in a former synagogue that was opened in 2004. Orban has repeatedly declared a policy of zero tolerance on anti-Semitism but has also risked angering Jews with remarks about “ethnic homogeneity” apparently aimed at right-wing voters and has been accused of trying to whitewash Hungary’s past. In 2014 Orban’s government erected a monument to victims of the Nazi occupation that critics said depicted Hungarians only as passive victims, absolving them of guilt. But Orban has also spoken of “the very many Hungarians who chose evil over good”. Gergely Gulyas, Orban’s cabinet chief, said the government would bear responsibility for the content of the new museum. “We bow our heads before the victims of the Holocaust who became victims because the Hungarian state was unable to protect its own citizens and collaborated in the deportations,” he said. Editing by Gareth Jones

Other

Other

I have a big, dumb, deep, goofy voice. But I’m reminded of it only when I hear a recording of myself while playing back an interview — or when friends do impressions of me, lowering their voices several octaves. My high school classmate Walter Suskind has one of the deepest voices I’ve ever heard in person. His experience has been similar to mine. “My voice sounds pretty normal in my head,” he said. “It’s when I catch the echo on the back of the phone or when I hear myself when it’s been taped that I realize how deep it is. Also, when people come up to me and, to imitate my voice, go as deep as they possibly can and growl in my face.” He added, “I’ve been told that the one advantage to voices like ours is we make really good hostage negotiators.” (Here’s Walter on an episode of “Radiolab.” His segment starts at about 12:20, and the host immediately comments on his voice.) Many people have heard their recorded voices and reeled in disgust (“Do I really sound like that?”) Others are surprised how high their voices sound. The indie musician Mitski Miyawaki, who has earned praise for exceptional control over her singing voice, said that she, too, is often unpleasantly surprised by her speaking voice, which she perceives as “lower, more commanding,” than it sounds to others. “And then I listen to a radio interview and I’m like ‘uuuch,’ ” she said, making a disgusted noise. “I listen to my voice and I go, ‘Oh it sounds exactly like a young girl.’ ” There’s an easy explanation for experiences like Ms. Miyawaki’s, said William Hartmann, a physics professor at Michigan State University who specializes in acoustics and psychoacoustics. There are two pathways through which we perceive our own voice when we speak, he explained. One is the route through which we perceive most other sounds. Waves travel from the air through the chain of our hearing systems, traversing the outer, middle and inner ear. But because our vocal cords vibrate when we speak, a second path is introduced internally, in which those vibrations are conducted through our bones and excite our inner ears directly. “The effect of this is to emphasize lower frequencies, and that makes the voice sound deeper and richer to yourself,” Professor Hartmann said. Except when it doesn’t: Professor Hartmann’s explanation makes sense for many people, including Ms. Miyawaki. But it does not quite work for my classmate Walter or for me. John J. Rosowski, a professor and researcher at Harvard Medical School who specializes in the middle ear, filled in the gap. He said that there might be variation in our perception given that, within the two pathways Professor Hartmann outlined, there were more nuanced ways for sounds to be perceived by the inner ear. “There are multiple paths that these vibrations take to get to the skull,” Dr. Rosowski said. “They include the vibrations of the skull itself, which can vary.” He said that other factors influencing the way vibrations of the voice could travel to the brain included interaction with cerebrospinal fluid, the clear liquid that sits within the brain and spine, and variations in sound pressure in the ear canal. This variety of routes would naturally “introduce variation in how people perceive their own voices,” he said, and would probably explain why Walter and I are always surprised by our recorded voices. Professor Hartmann said, however, that he was surprised that I was always so surprised. “You have a voice on the lower side of normal,” he conceded, “but it’s not enormously deep.”

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Other

  Val Chmerkovskiy and Jenna Johnson have said goodbye to the ballroom (for now) and hello to bikinis and board shorts. Following the season 25 Dancing with the Stars finale Nov. 21, when the couple snuck in a sweet kiss following their live sultry number, the pair headed south of the border, where they are enjoying a vacation in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. On Saturday, the DWTS pro, 31, shared numerous sunset photos — which he snapped — of his dance troupe member girlfriend, 23, looking back at the camera and sporting an adorable bikini on the beach while holding his hand. “Life’s beautiful.. when I spend it with you ❤️👑” he captioned the series of snapshots, which included one their fingers interlocked. A day later, the couple upped their adventure game and got wet and wild when they rode dune buggies on the beach. Chmerkovskiy and Johnson have been dating off and on for the past two years, but their romance seems to have taken a more serious turn in recent months. In September, Chmerkovskiy gushed about his girlfriend’s “incredible talent” on the ballroom floor. “I’m a huge fan. I think she’s the best girl here, so I’m excited to see her here,” he said. “Jenna is a huge asset to the show.” And in August, he revealed that he was “in love” with Johnson and possibly ready to take their relationship status to the next level: “I’m in a great place and I’m in love, and I’m very grateful for that.”

Relationships

Weddings

During a pandemic, maintaining the public’s confidence in government is a matter of survival. And right now, Americans’ faith in institutions is scraping historic lows. Along with efforts to develop vaccines and treatments, the coronavirus should prompt an effort reminiscent of the Manhattan Project to rebuild trust in our country’s institutions. That mission must be a bipartisan national priority, regardless of who wins the election in November — and it should begin immediately.  What would a national strategy to restore trust in government entail?  First, Americans trust institutions that function. Several of ours are lacking. Confidence in the military and postal service remain relatively high because most Americans believe they operate effectively. In contrast, the bulk of the U.S. government is relying on institutions designed in the 19th century and technology from the 20th century to solve the challenges we face today. The results are predictable and painful.  Harnessed correctly, technology could go a long way toward fixing this challenge. There are some promising templates for building public institutions that are fit for this purpose. Countries as different as India and Estonia have developed high-quality digital citizenship platforms. These systems provide a foundation for services ranging from voting and taxes to public benefits and health care.  The U.S. could create open-source digital platforms that would dramatically improve the flow of information, resources and services between institutions and individuals, for a fraction of the price it is planning to spend on medical supplies to combat COVID-19. Citizen data wallets would streamline the portability of health records. Digital IDs and asset tracking platforms could speed the transfer of supplies to the jurisdictions and individuals that need them most. Such advancements must be coupled with security measures to protect against data breaches and misuse, and officials must be transparent about the protocols in place. These new "rails" would help federal, state and local agencies provide a far more effective response to the coronavirus.  Second, as digitized institutions come online, they should be hardwired to provide information to the public. Good data saves lives.  In Andhra Pradesh, which has some of the best public data infrastructure in the Global South, health advocates and officials saw that some districts were experiencing a spike in blood markers for early onset diabetes. Their response — diverting brown rice to replace the white rice normally distributed to residents in need — prevented thousands of cases of diabetes and untold human suffering. When used responsibly, open data is powerful medicine.  Third, citizens need to have confidence that information held by the government won’t be manipulated. Historically, many nations have struggled with this challenge. It’s a growing concern in the U.S. When the country of Georgia wanted to overcome a legacy of Soviet-era government data falsification, it adopted a solution to digitally lock down key records such as property titles so that even a corrupt official with full access to the system couldn’t erase critical information. Citizens should demand that all government agencies incorporate similar accountability mechanisms. The task of rebuilding confidence in our institutions is too important to leave it up to the government alone. It will depend on effective oversight and advice from civil society and the private sector. Much of the legitimacy of these efforts will be a function of whether those neglected by and estranged from our current institutions see themselves represented in the process to develop solutions.  Reversing the collapse of confidence in government may require significant long-term investment, but doing nothing is far more expensive. The costs of the status quo are staggering. The technology to solve these problems exists. The question is whether we will succeed in making it accessible. Doing so will help counter the overwhelming — and accurate — sentiment that our systems just aren’t working. As much as we wish it were not the case, reviving the country’s confidence in institutions is about to become a matter of life and death. The White House’s attempted use of disinformation to curb a market sell-off and the news that government health experts must filter their statements through the Office of the Vice President won’t help.  Replenishing our national reservoir of trust is not only critical to protecting Americans from COVID-19, but also to irrigating our efforts in every other field of endeavor. It’s time to leverage a new generation of tools to repair and restore the public’s confidence in our institutions and tackle this challenge with the urgency it deserves. Going forward, our lives depend on it.  Tomicah Tillemann is executive director of the Digital Impact and Governance Initiative (DIGI) at New America. He served as a senior adviser to former Secretaries of State Hillary ClintonHillary Diane Rodham ClintonDemocrats start hinting Sanders should drop out Biden faces tricky test in unifying party The Hill's Campaign Report: Defiant Sanders vows to stay in race MORE and John KerryJohn Forbes KerryBuilding trust in a time of COVID-19 On The Trail: Warren falls victim to the electability obsession Democratic insiders stay on the sidelines in 2020 race MORE.  View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2020 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

Politics

Government

Secretary of State Mike PompeoMichael (Mike) Richard Pompeo2020 predictions: Trump will lose — if not in the Senate, then with the voters Rapid turnover shapes Trump's government Linda Ronstadt: Trump is 'like Hitler, and the Mexicans are the new Jews' MORE announced new sanctions against Iran on Thursday, targeting individuals in the judicial courts and security services in response to fallout from popular protests in the country that started last month.The move by the Trump administration comes as part of its maximum pressure campaign on Tehran to rein in the country's nuclear ambitions and negotiate an end to its pursuit of a nuclear weapon.Pompeo said Thursday that the State Department is also imposing visa restrictions on current and former Iranian officials found to be responsible or complicit in human rights abuses against peaceful protesters. He did not name the officials subject to the new restrictions, but said they would also extend to family members.ADVERTISEMENTgoogletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display("dfp-ad-incontent_desk_1");});“Thugs killing people’s children will not be allowed to send their own children to study in the United States of America,” Pompeo said.The secretary announced new sanctions on two judges in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Court: Abdolghassem Salavati and Mohammad Moghisseh, whom the administration charged with handing out harsh and excessive sentences for human rights activists, political prisoners and protesters, including the death penalty, 100-year prison terms and public lashings.The Treasury Department said in a statement that Salavati has earned the moniker “Judge of Death” and was also the judge who sentenced to 10 years American citizen Xiyue Wang, who spent three years in an Iranian prison before being released in a prisoner exchange on Dec. 7.“We’re glad we won Xiyue’s release,” Pompeo said, “but he should have never been sentenced or jailed in the first place.”The secretary made his remarks during a symposium held at the State Department addressing Iran’s record on human rights abuses and emphasizing a commitment by the U.S. to stand with the Iranian people.ADVERTISEMENTgoogletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display("dfp-ad-incontent_desk_2");});The move follows an increasing pattern by the Trump administration to single out Iranian individuals for sanction designation in an effort to show solidarity and support to the broader Iranian public.Pompeo’s statements are also serving to counter accusations by Iran’s leaders that the U.S. is behind the popular protests.“The United States will stand, and has stood under President TrumpDonald John TrumpFive environmental fights to watch in 2020 Lawmakers close to finalizing federal strategy to defend against cyberattacks The 7 big Supreme Court cases to watch in 2020 MORE, with the Iranian people,” Pompeo said. “Our public support, our moral support is important. Our calls for justice matter. A call for a normal nation with a real economy, for accountability.”Iranians took to the streets in mid-November to protest an abrupt rise in fuel prices. The peaceful demonstrations quickly spread to over 100 cities but was met with a brutal crackdown by Iranian security forces.Human rights groups estimate that more than 300 people have been killed, more than 4,000 have been injured and 7,000 have been detained.The secretary said Thursday that Tehran stands accused of killing “hundreds and hundreds of protestors since mid-November, possibly 1,000.”Within a week of the start of the protests, the Treasury Department announced sanctions on Iran’s Minister of Information and Communications Technology in response to reports of an internet and communications blackout in the country.Pompeo called for Iranians to send video and photographic evidence of human rights abuses the department could use to identify and punish perpetrators. To date, the department has said it has received approximately 36,000 communications.The video and photographic evidence shared with the department helped inform the sanctions and visa restrictions announced Thursday, the secretary said.“These are serious measures, they are thoughtful measures that took us a little bit of time to get to the right place.”Pompeo also admonished Tehran for its persecution of minority ethnic and religious groups and announced that the U.S. was redesignating Iran as a “country of particular concern under the International Religious Freedom Act,” a precursor to sanctions aimed at protecting religious minorities.The U.S. International Commission of Religious Freedom has designated Iran as a “country of particular concern” in subsequent annual reports on what it describes as egregious violators of religious freedom. “I have a message for the leaders of the regime,” Pompeo said. “If you seek to recover respect from your people and the world, if you seek stability and prosperity for a once great nation, you must respect the commitments that you’ve made, you must respect human rights.” Iranian-American groups, supportive of international efforts to promote human rights in Iran, say the Trump administration has other tools that can show solidarity with the Iranian people, including ending the ban on Iranians traveling to the U.S. and expanding exemptions for trade and telecommunications that allow Iranians to access international communication applications.“We would encourage the administration to update and expand trade exemptions on telecommunications tools that would promote civil society in Iran and work to end the Travel Ban against the Iranian people,” said Morad Ghorban, director of government relations and policy for the Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans.“The ban is counterproductive to engaging the Iranian people and supporting their democratic aspirations.” View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2020 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

Politics

International Relations

PARIS (Reuters) - French inflation slowed more than expected in May to its lowest level in nearly two years, according to preliminary EU-harmonized data from the INSEE statistics agency on Wednesday. Consumer prices rose 0.2% in May, giving a 12-month inflation rate of 1.1% - the lowest rate since September 2017, INSEE said. Economists polled by Reuters had an average forecast of 1.2% for May after inflation came in at 1.5% in April. Separately, INSEE said that producer prices fell 0.6% in April from March, giving a 12-month rate of 2.2%. Reporting by Leigh Thomas, Editing by Dominique Vidalon

Real Estate

Housing

March 29 (Reuters) - R ENERGY 1 : * ACQUIRES PHOTOVOLTAIC PARK - SYSTEM FROM ELVIEMEK Source text : bit.ly/2ux7P8Y Further company coverage: (Gdynia Newsroom)

Technology

Renewable Energy

(Reuters) - Anadarko Petroleum Corp said on Monday it would negotiate with Occidental Petroleum Corp over its $38 billion cash-and-stock bid, after determining it could get a better deal than its agreed $33 billion sale to Chevron Corp. The development represents a breakthrough in Occidental Chief Executive Vicki Hollub’s two-year effort to buy Anadarko, one of the top U.S. oil and gas producers in the lucrative Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico. Anadarko announced a deal with Chevron on April 12 after snubbing a higher bid from Occidental, prompting Occidental to try to upend the Chevron deal. “We hope Anadarko will proceed quickly to secure this superior transaction for its shareholders,” an Occidental spokeswoman said. Anadarko said its board had unanimously decided that Occidental’s offer could result in a “superior proposal” but added that its deal with Chevron remained in effect until it decided to cut a new deal with Occidental. Anadarko asked Chevron on Sunday if it wanted to raise its bid and Chevron declined, people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Monday. Chevron is reluctant to pay more for Anadarko and does not want to be drawn into a bidding war, the sources said. Chevron also wants to see if Occidental will manage to ink a deal for Anadarko, and whether Occidental shareholders will support it, one of the sources said. “We believe our signed agreement with Anadarko provides the best value and the most certainty to Anadarko’s shareholders,” Chevron said in a statement on Monday. Chevron and Occidental are vying for one of the biggest prizes in the oil industry: Anadarko’s nearly quarter-million-acre holdings in the core of the Permian Basin, the top U.S. shale field. The two companies each control land adjacent to Anadarko’s properties and expect a deal will add deposits that can produce supplies for decades using low-cost drilling techniques. Occidental unveiled its bid for Anadarko last Wednesday, offering to pay for it half in cash and half with its own shares. Chevron’s deal with Anadarko was structured as 25 percent cash and 75 percent stock. Occidental’s stock was down 2.38 percent to $59.85. Anadarko shares were up 0.4 percent to $73.05, slightly below the value of Occidental’s offer. Under the terms of the merger agreement, Chevron has four days after being notified by Anadarko’s board to respond with a counter-offer. If Anadarko proceeds with a sale to Occidental, it will have to pay Chevron a $1 billion deal breakup fee. The acquisition of Anadarko would add nearly a quarter million acres to Occidental’s holdings in the Permian shale basin, and double its global oil and gas production to 1.4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day. A key hurdle that Occidental has to overcome in its negotiations with Anadarko is that its proposed deal is contingent on Occidental shareholders voting to approve it. These could make a deal more vulnerable to shareholder agitation. For example, activist hedge fund Starboard Value LP tried to shoot down Bristol-Myers Co’s $74 billion deal to acquire biotech Celgene Corp earlier this year by trying to convince Bristol-Myers shareholders to vote it down. It was ultimately unsuccessful. A deal with Chevron offers more certainty to Anadarko in that regard, because Chevron shareholders will not be given a vote. Anadarko shareholders will be given a vote on the sale of the company, be it with Occidental or Chevron. Chevron and Occidental also have put forward different estimates on the value of the operational synergies they can derive from Anadarko. Chevron projects the synergies to be worth $1 billion a year, while Occidental says it can extract $2 billion annually in synergies. Reporting by Arathy S Nair in Bengaluru and David French in New York; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Bill Trott

Energy

Oil

NEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - India’s ambitious target to build 20 million new homes for the nation’s poor is failing slum dwellers and those living on the city’s streets, Leilani Farha, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, has warned. She said India, which has the world’s largest number of urban poor and landless people, is trying to address the “scourge” of inadequate housing through its ‘Housing for all’ policy that vows to provide homes for all families by 2022. But opponents fear this construction program focuses too much on driving economic growth with a concentration on new houses rather than the need to upgrade and provide services to existing communities in city slums or living on the streets. “For every luxury unit created, an untold number of households may be evicted and rendered homeless,” Farha told a conference at the U.N. office in Delhi, calling for a moratorium on evictions and obligations to address homelessness. “I am extremely concerned for the millions of people who experience exclusion, discrimination, evictions, insecure tenure, homelessness and who lack hope of accessing affordable and adequate housing in their lifetimes.” Farha made her comments after a two-week tour through India which included visits to Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. During her trip, she spoke to a range of city residents, including the homeless people described as “pavement dwellers”. An estimated 65 million people, or 13.6 million households, are housed in urban slums, according to the 2011 Indian census which estimated an additional 1.8 million people in India were homeless. Farha said the Indian government’s push to encourage development of more housing nationally threatened to become what she described as a “a zero-sum game”. “Its drive to become an economic giant through real estate investment and development of infrastructure is creating homelessness and housing disadvantage,” she said. A Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation study in 2012 estimated that the urban housing shortage affected some 18.7 million people, with 96 percent of citizens in this group earning an annual income below $3,000. The ‘Housing for all’ scheme has been cited to potentially boost the country’s economy by 3.5 percent by 2022, according to the Fitch group rating agency, India Ratings. Farha said India’s ‘Housing for all’ project aims to build 20 million dwellings with toilets, water and electricity by 2022 which would be provided for 100 million low income households. She said this had a positive impact on residents gaining security of tenure for the first time. But Farha said the program did not cover people living on India’s city streets with no national law reform plan, policy or program to address urban homelessness, which left women particularly vulnerable. “I met many women who had fled violent households and with few housing options, were left destitute living on the side of a road,” Farha said. “Women face multiple layers of discrimination with respect to access, control and ownership and inheritance of housing, land and property.” The Bengaluru-based Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) says the government’s vision of a slum-free India can succeed only if the focus is on upgrading existing housing for communities rather than constructing new units. But the Minister for Housing and Urban Poverty, Venkaiah Naidu, said the ‘Housing for all’ program addresses the shortcomings of earlier schemes and would be more “workable”. Farha will present a detailed report of her India findings in March 2017 to the U.N. Human Rights Council which appoints independent experts or special rapporteurs to examine and report back on a country situation or a specific human rights theme. Reporting by Manipadma Jena, Editing by Paola Totaro; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit news.trust.org

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Housing

In conversation, Wavy Gravy introduces himself with a self-deprecating giggle as “hippie icon, flower geezer, temple of accumulated error.” It’s a formidable way to sum up the legacy the man born Hugh Romney, whose offbeat peaceful political activism, groundbreaking work with the Hog Farm commune, and unforgettable showing at the Woodstock festival made him a counterculture legend. But, true to his charming humility, this self-proclaimed honorific neglects to mention his monumental charitable work, which has transformed him into something approaching Mother Theresa with a clown nose. A 2009 documentary dubbed him “Saint Misbehavin’,” and that’s as good a title as any. Last Saturday, the 82-year-old presided over a star-studded benefit concert at Oakland, California’s historic Fox Theater marking the 40th anniversary of the Seva Foundation, an organization he helped create. Friends like Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Joan Osborne, and longtime Grateful Dead mates Mickey Hart and Bob Weir were among the many who lent their services and saluted the organization dedicated to expanding access to eye care in developing nations and eliminating avoidable blindness within our lifetime. To date, they have restored sight to more than five million people and has provided eye-care services to at least 40 million people. “Seva is a Sanskrit word that means service to humankind,” he explains. “We first gathered 40 years ago in a circle in Hartland, Michigan.” In addition to himself and wife Jahanara Romney, this initial group included renowned epidemiologist Dr. Larry Brilliant, spiritual teacher Ram Dass, Indian ophthalmologist Govindappa “Dr. V” Venkataswamy and Nicole Grasset, the senior adviser for the World Health Organization smallpox eradication campaign. Even a young Steve Jobs got involved as an early financier. “It was a mixed bag, but I was the only clown,” says Wavy. (“Clown,” defined by Mr. Gravy, as “A clown is a poet who is also an orangutan.”) Despite their different backgrounds, they were drawn together by a common mission. “We were looking for something to do to help alleviate some of human suffering. We all wanted to do that,” he tells PEOPLE. “Eighty percent of the people in the world that are blind do not need to be blind and can get their sight back with a simple cataract surgery that takes 15 minutes. We also sew little intraocular lenses into the eye. So, let’s say you’re a Tibetan farmer and you break your glasses — it would take you like three days to get the new glasses on a mountain trail, whereas with intraocular lenses, they live inside your eye.” In the early days of the organization, Wavy was tasked with securing musical acts for their first benefit shows. “It’s my particular gift because of my experience at Woodstock (and what have you) that I do have access to musicians that other organizations don’t.” While the cause was obviously worthwhile, it wasn’t exactly an easy sell. “I was assigned to try and get the Grateful Dead — good luck with that! — to do our first concert. Everybody always dreams that if they have a great cause, they can just call up the Rolling Stones. But it’s very, very difficult to get artists to play for free. I went to the airport in Detroit and who was on the airplane but the Grateful Dead — and they did not have parachutes. So I started in on the drummers. And by the time the plane landed in San Francisco I had the Grateful Dead agreed to do our first show.” In addition to four decades of Seva, Wavy is preparing for another milestone: the 50th anniversary of Woodstock. Last week, the festival’s co-creator Michael Lang announced that he would be holding another three days of peace, love and music this August in Watkins Glen, New York. Though the lineup has yet to be announced, many hope that Wavy will make yet another appearance. “I would not be surprised if I did,” he says. “I’m there for Michael and he knows that. Whatever he wants to do I’m there for him.” Half a century on, Wavy still recalls the original gathering as “absolutely, jaw-droppingly amazing” — and not just because of the lineup that included Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, the Who, Santana, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Joan Baez, Joe Cocker, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and so many more. “It wasn’t just the music. It was all these different people from all over the country who thought they were the odd kid in town, who suddenly came together. Then there were half a million of us to work on the environment, or stop the war. Music brought us together.” And Wavy, along with his cohorts in the Hog Farm, famously kept everyone fed. “When I made the announcement I said, ‘Good morning, what we have in mind is breakfast in bed for 400,000,’ which Entertainment Weekly picked as one of the top entertainment lines of the 20th century. And it just popped out of the top of my head without thinking, which is the best way to do things. It’s the intuitive clown way.” Befitting his status as a modern street philosopher, Wavy brims with words of wisdom that he’s quick to share. “There’s a line that guides me that I got from Ken Kesey: ‘Always put your good where it’ll do the most.’ Seva has become my guiding thing. But other people, you just open up yourself like a sail to the wind and some breeze will lead you somewhere. Like you might get involved with the Heifer Project, or the various anti-war things in Berkeley. There’s a lot to do.” He adds another bon mot from William Butler Yeats: “In dreams begin responsibility. So if you dream it, you can be it.” And finally, one from himself: “If you don’t have a sense of humor it just isn’t funny anymore. I maintain laughter is the valve on the pressure cooker of life. If you don’t laugh at stuff you end up with your brains on the ceiling.”

Entertainment

Television

Jan 24 (Reuters) - SHW AG : * Manufacturer of fully electric vehicles cancels major order * Manufacturer cancelled order and requested SHW Automotive GmbH to cease its preparations for the start-up of series production * As main reason for cancellation, manufacturer states nonalignment of technical specifications for axle drive pumps with requirements of model in question * SHW does not consider reasons given by manufacturer to be valid * SHW is therefore assessing legal effectiveness of order cancellation as well as its legal consequences and reserves right to claim damages * Order lifetime sales volume was about 100 million euros ($107.39 million) Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: ($1 = 0.9312 euros) (Gdynia Newsroom)

Technology

Automotive

The scientific term for crunching hard-shelled creatures to death in your teeth before swallowing them is called “oral-crushing durophagy” — and a massive, extinct otter called Siamogale melilutra may have been a champion at it. The giant otter was the size of a small human, weighing in at more than 110 pounds when it roamed southwest China six million years ago, National Geographic reports. But don’t imagine that this was a cuddly fuzzball: this ancient otter’s bite, described Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports, was probably more powerful than that of any otter species alive. Cute creatures are chronically underestimated — and to underestimate an otter would certainly be a mistake. Sea otters crush tough prey with rocks on their own bellies and laugh at the spiky defenses of sea urchins. (Still not convinced? A pregnant sea otter crawled onto on a rock outside the Monterey Bay Aquarium last year and delivered a pup by yanking it out of herself.) Cape clawless otters in Africa eschew tools entirely; they crunch through crab shells with only their teeth. When the crabs are especially large, these otters roll over on their backs to catch dropped food on their tummies — fierce, furry, and practical. The ancient Siamogale may have been the fiercest otter yet: by comparing 3D models of its jaw to those of other otters, scientists estimate that its bones were six times tougher than they should have been based on today’s species. We don’t know exactly what it ate, but turtles, frogs, fish, and shellfish were all on the menu back then. And if the scientists are right, not much could have stood in this oral-crushing durophage’s bone-snapping, shell-crunching way.

Other

Other

Ask and you shall receive! Anna Kendrick took to Twitter Monday night, seeking some help in the kitchen. “Hi, I’m Anna, I’m alone tonight and I’m looking for a strapping muscular man to come over because butternut squash is hard to dice,” Kendrick, 30, wrote. Lutz, 31, responded, “Hi, Anna. What kind of knife do you have?” The Pitch Perfect star has taken to Twitter before to document her time, not in the kitchen, but in her bedroom closet. The actress cleaned out her closet, live-tweeted the entire occasion, and got more than 100,000 combined reactions from fans. Here’s to hoping (and wishing) that Kendrick responds to Lutz’s question.

Names

People

Most people think of music as a form of art. But for thousands of Americans like me, who make our living creating music, it’s also a business.  I’ve been a professional songwriter long enough to remember when a hit song would earn you enough money to pay the rent for a while. Sure, it might not get you a mansion in Beverly Hills, but a hit song once meant enough money in royalties to live comfortably. I was able to put my kids through college on the royalties I earned from my “Old Fashioned Love Songs.” But in 2016, the royalties songwriters once earned from sales of records, CDs and music downloads are shrinking dramatically as more and more consumers choose streaming. The average amount of royalties songwriters earn for a song streamed a million times on the major audio streaming services is only about $125. It's barely enough to buy a nice steak dinner for two, much less pay the rent and put food on the table.  You don’t have to be an economist to see that songwriters are facing some troubling trends in the marketplace. In theory, a robust collective licensing system, such as the one that’s existed in this country for more than 100 years, should foster both music and commerce, enabling both those who create and those who use music to flourish alongside one another.  Billions of people around the world benefit from this synergy each time they turn on the radio driving to work, fall in love on the dance floor, go shopping at the mall, watch their favorite show on television or stream the latest release from a hot new artist on their smartphone. People’s lives are touched. Businesses prosper. Music creators get paid.  It’s almost a perfect circle — or at least it was. Wonderful technology brought us streaming. But it has arrived so fast and forcefully that our nation’s outdated music licensing laws have not been able to keep pace with how people enjoy music today. World War II-era regulations are allowing some corporate internet giants, who control all the most popular pipelines of music delivery, to prosper at the expense of music creators.  Songwriters know there are no guarantees of success in our profession. But when they do succeed, and millions of people listen and love their work, they should be fairly compensated.  Instead, at a time when songwriters’ music is being used more than ever before and streaming revenues are skyrocketing by more than 45 percent in the past year alone, songwriter royalties have remained relatively flat.  Without question, this is because our laws treat songwriters differently than any other copyright owner. The free market determines the value of a person’s work in every other creative industry, be it books, movies, video games, television or painting. And yet, for the past 75 years, the federal government has largely decided how songwriters are compensated.  Fully three-quarters of the average songwriter’s income is regulated by a web of outdated federal laws, which includes “consent decrees” that haven’t been updated since before the iPod hit the market.  Given the competitive realities of today’s music marketplace, it’s absurd that American songwriters, the ultimate small business, are more heavily regulated by the federal government than the giant corporations that use and profit from the music we create. And so my advice to aspiring young songwriters has changed in recent years. While I will always celebrate and encourage the creative spirit of songwriters, I now have an additional message, one that is more political and more urgent: Educate yourself about copyright law. Get involved in the fight to modernize our music licensing laws. Be outspoken about the inequities in the current system, because it won’t correct itself. We must fight for change.  I know today’s music creators are facing serious challenges, and yet, I am hopeful that by raising our collective voice, we can bring about reforms to our music licensing system that will keep America’s music industry alive and thriving. Paul Williams is an Oscar, Grammy and Golden Globe-winning Hall of Fame songwriter and the president and chairman of the board of The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers 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.

Technology

Music

TOKYO, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Tokyo prosecutors on Thursday issued arrest warrants for a former U.S. special forces soldier and another person suspected of smuggling former Nissan Motor Co boss Carlos Ghosn out of Japan, Kyodo news reported. Prosecutors also issued a warrant for Ghosn for illegally leaving the country, Kyodo said. Ghosn fled to Lebanon, his childhood home, as he was awaiting trial on charges of under-reporting earnings, breach of trust and misappropriation of company funds, all of which he denies. (Reporting by Junko Fujita; Editing by David Dolan and Christian Schmollinger)

Business

Management

It’s been more than a week since a detainee at Victorville — a prison complex in California being used by Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) — was diagnosed with chickenpox. About 1,000 immigrants were moved here as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on asylum seekers; authorities claim that they were medically screened on entry to the prison.   Victorville puts into stark relief our government’s responsibility toward those whom they detain or deport and all those with whom they interact. It also raises questions about how screening and treatment decisions are being made for our detainees, and what exactly is being done to protect public health. Running an operation like Victorville with little transparency, conflicting aims (holding detainees/caring for them/prohibiting access to them), and a lack of systematic approaches to health screening can — in the hectic situation that exists — cause problems. These can have adverse health effects on new entrants into the U.S., but also the much wider circle of their contacts. The crowding of 800 Victorville workers with 1,000 detainees creates perfect conditions for the transmission of communicable diseases. Stress and poor nutrition further increase that risk. Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico — the nations from where most of these detainees are fleeing — all have vaccination programs against infectious diseases like Varicella (chickenpox), Influenza, Hepatitis B and Diphtheria. Their reported vaccination coverage rates are high overall. Mexico’s is between 93 and 99 percent, El Salvador’s varies from 90 to 93 percent, 93 to 98 percent in Guatemala, and 88 to 93 percent in Honduras — depending on vaccine. However, many entrants from these countries come from rural areas where coverage is spotty and reporting less reliable. Of even greater concern are more consequential diseases common in Central America such as Dengue fever, Malaria, Chikungunya and Zika, which are not vaccine preventable. Local Dengue and Zika outbreaks within our borders have been attributed to infections in those crossing the border; however the contribution of detainees to these outbreaks is unknown. There’s another issue: while examinations of immigrants - with visas and paperwork for legal entry — are thorough, examinations of refugees — who arrive undocumented and without permission — are variable, depending on local conditions of detention, staffing and information systems. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) publishes screening guidelines for physicians administering pre-departure examinations in immigrants’ home countries, which are to occur several weeks prior to departure for the US. These exams include appropriate vaccinations and treatments for malaria and intestinal parasites. Upon entry, further examinations are conducted for physical or mental disorders — including communicable diseases of public health significance or drug addiction, which render applicants ineligible for admission. But, refugees are only examined on arrival. Specificity regarding what is being done, where and with what results is lacking. Are the exams consistent? Are they thorough? Once an asylum seeker has made a formal application, the law requires their examination by a physician and vaccination; but, according to the CDC, there is very little data on the health problems of asylees after they migrate to the U.S. Examining and caring for refugees is a gargantuan task. ICE Health Service Corps (IHSC) currently cares for about 13,500 ICE detainees in 21 U.S. facilities, and an additional 15,000 in 120 non-IHSC-staffed detention centers. In 2015, ICE conducted nearly 200,000 intake screenings; 87,078 physical exams; 126,486 sick calls; 21,245 urgent care visits; 90,276 mental health interventions and filled 234,001 prescriptions. In 2016, 1.49 million foreign-born individuals moved to the United States, a 7 percent increase from the 1.38 million coming in 2015. Refugee screenings in California give us a glimpse of what public health officials face. From 2014-2017, approximately 70,000-85,000 refugees resettled in the United States annually; California receives 15 to 17 percent. California’s screening results show that nine percent of refugees were infected with tuberculosis, 18.6 percent suffered from dental caries, and nearly 28 percent of refugees from African nations suffered from schistosomiasis. ADVERTISEMENT <!--//--><![CDATA[// ><!-- googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display("dfp-ad-mosad_1");}); //--><!]]> In addition, 27.7 percent of refugee children suffered from elevated lead levels. There is insufficient information on how these problems were treated, with the possible exception of tuberculosis.   Increasingly, detainees report that they are fleeing violence in Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico, and these refugees can apply for asylum once on U.S. soil. The president’s order on refugees may limit the number that will be accepted, but not the numbers seeking entry into the U.S.: the United Nations Refugee Agency reports refugees filing asylum applications from Mexico alone jumped from 2,000 in 2014 to 14,000 in 2017. Until stability is restored in Central America, we can expect more refugees who come despite knowing our “zero-tolerance” policies. Interning asylum seekers on our southern border creates challenges to addressing the health of thousands of detainees, as well as guards and support workers detailed to serve in our internment facilities, and others in these communities. Holding thousands of detainees from cities and rural areas together puts those with diseases and others with little immunity to them in close contact. Infectious diseases like chickenpox are only one indication of the dual challenges we face in trying to identify and treat health care problems of detainees while protecting our collective public health. Jonathan Fielding, M.D., is a professor of public health and pediatrics at University of California, Los Angeles. 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

For the first time since she gave birth to her second child, daughter Amalia, Natalie Portman stepped out on the red carpet. While she's kept a low profile since little Amalia's arrival, Portman's high-fashion return involved a lot of Dior and one completely flawless look. Vogue reports that Portman made an appearance in the South of France to celebrate her brand-new campaign fragrance campaign for Miss Dior — she's been the face of Dior Beauty since 2010. During a pre-Cannes Film Festival event, Portman hosted 150 guests at the Château de la Colle Noir. Not only was it the first time that fashion fans would lay eyes on the new campaign, it was the first time most fans saw Portman post-baby. For the occasion, Portman wore a velvet dress from Dior's fall 2017 collection. And although she's the face of the brand's beauty arm, she kept her makeup and hair simple and understated. "Miss Dior is the fragrance of the heart, so it's nice to be here to celebrate this perfume of love," Portman said, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "This new campaign of ‘What would you do for love?’ is so beautiful to celebrate at this incredibly magical place on Earth." Vogue adds that Portman and her stylist, Kate Young, often go for more low-key looks, even for high-glam events like this. While a few of the guests wore straight-from-the-runway Dior looks, Portman's easy, breezy look had her looking polished and pretty without looking overdone. The navy dress didn't get any extras, save for a Fred Leighton cuff and simple sandals. The night ended with a fireworks display — Portman and her husband, Benjamin Millepied, looked on alongside fellow guests Aymeline Valade and Lily Donaldson — but the most explosive thing may be the knowledge that Portman's back on the red carpet scene. Which means there are plenty more major fashion moments to come. Read These Stories Next: The Fashion Buys You Should Never, Ever Spend Money On 5 Surprising Bra Facts You Only Learn From Bra Fitters (NSFW) Our Editors Share The Best Jeans You Can Buy Without Trying On

Other

Other

* Investors cling to hopes of eventual compromise * China private manufacturing PMI surprisingly strong * Yen softens on stimulus, pound slips on opinion polls * Asian stock markets: tmsnrt.rs/2zpUAr4 By Hideyuki Sano TOKYO, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Global shares rose on Monday and oil rebounded after upbeat China manufacturing surveys and as investors clung to hopes Beijing and Washington could reach a compromise in trade talks. MSCI’s index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan gained 0.46%, reclaiming some of its loss on Friday while Japan’s Nikkei jumped 1.11%. U.S. stock futures gained 0.31% to near record highs after a dip in a truncated U.S. session on Friday due to Thanksgiving holiday. Mainland Chinese shares also went higher, with the bluechip CSI300 index rising 0.59% from a three-month low hit on Friday. The market enjoyed a boost after the Caixin/Markit Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) index rose to 51.8 in November from 51.7 in the previous month, marking the fastest expansion since December 2016. “Output and new orders are both strong. The survey seems to suggest domestic demand is pretty strong even if one cannot have unrestrained optimism on the economic outlook,” said Naoki Tashiro, president of T.S. China Research. MSCI’s broadest gauge of world shares ticked up 0.1% and stood within reach of its all-time peak hit in January 2018. While U.S. legislation supporting Hong Kong protesters last week raised concerns about U.S.-China trade negotiations, investors are nonetheless holding the broad view that a further escalation in the trade war can be avoided. “It looks a bit difficult for two countries’ leaders to shake hands and sign a deal this month. What is more likely is to essentially kick the can, with China buying more U.S. farm products while the U.S. postpones its next tariffs,” said Hiroyuki Ueno, senior strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Asset Management. “Markets will consider such an arrangement as a de facto deal whether they officially sign it or not,” he said. Investors have long thought that the United States will avoid imposing an additional 15% tariff on about $156 billion of Chinese products on Dec. 15 after signing a deal with China. The two countries have been so far unable to bridge the gap over existing tariffs on Chinese goods, with Beijing demanding scrapping them as a part of any trade deal. A trade deal between United States and China was now “stalled because of Hong Kong legislation”, news website Axios reported on Sunday, citing a source close to U.S. President Donald Trump’s negotiating team. China’s Foreign Ministry last week lambasted U.S. legislation signed by President Donald Trump on Wednesday backing protesters in Hong Kong as a serious interference in Chinese affairs. In the currency market the yen weakened, helped also by expectations that Japan could put together a large-scale fiscal spending package to bolster its economy. The dollar rose 0.3% to 109.73 yen, a six-month high. The euro stood little changed at $1.10175, bouncing back from seven-week low of $1.0981 hit in U.S. trade. The British pound slipped 0.24% to $1.2912 after opinion polls during the weekend showed Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party saw its lead over the opposition Labour Party narrow. Oil prices bounced back a tad after a big slump on Friday on record high U.S. crude production. The market drew support from expectations that OPEC and its allies are likely to extend existing oil output cuts when they meet this week , with non-OPEC oil producer Russia supporting Saudi Arabia’s push for stable oil prices amid the listing of state oil giant Saudi Aramco. Brent crude futures rose 1.34% to $61.30 a barrel while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude gained 1.70% to $56.11 per barrel. Editing by Sam Holmes

Finance

Investment

Vice President-elect Mike PenceMichael (Mike) Richard PenceFEC chair calls on Trump to provide evidence of NH voter fraud Five years after Yazidi genocide, US warns ISIS is rebounding Log Cabin Republicans endorse Trump MORE on Sunday dodged a question on whether President-elect Donald TrumpDonald John TrumpPossible GOP challenger says Trump doesn't doesn't deserve reelection, but would vote for him over Democrat O'Rourke: Trump driving global, U.S. economy into recession Manchin: Trump has 'golden opportunity' on gun reforms MORE has confidence in FBI Director James Comey. "You'll have to ask him about that," Pence said on "Fox News Sunday." "I know it's been a subject of some commentary of this last week, but at the end of the day, I know that, whether it's our security at home or abroad, that the president-elect is going to put the safety and security of the American people first." Pence said the president-elect has had conversations with Comey. When pressed, Pence reiterated that it would be a good question for Trump after his inauguration later this week. Trump over the past week has criticized the intelligence community.  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

Government

Officials with Britain’s Defense Ministry on Monday called for greater cooperation on cybersecurity between NATO and the European Union.  The demands come in the wake of Britain’s vote to leave the EU, which British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon indicated Monday would not affect Britain’s security cooperation with other European nations. Fallon and Stephen Lovegrove, the Defense Ministry’s permanent secretary, both said in separate remarks on Monday that NATO and EU should strengthen cooperation on cybersecurity.  “NATO is not an organization solely about European security. It is an alliance for Euro-Atlantic security including the U.S. homeland and the waters in between,” Lovegrove said in a speech at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C., Monday afternoon. “We have perhaps grown too comfortable considering our shared ocean is safe, somewhere we don’t have to worry too much about. That is wrong.” “Against evermore complex problems, we must bring together military and nonmilitary responses, and that means making the most of the agreement at Warsaw last year to invigorate the strategic relationship between NATO and the EU, including cooperation on cybersecurity and boosting cooperation counter-hybrid capabilities,” Lovegrove said.  He specifically cited threats from Russia’s “hybrid model” of warfare.  Separately, Fallon made a similar call for deepened cyber cooperation between the two partnerships during a meeting of the European Union defense ministers in Brussels on Monday.  “Today I have urged the EU to cooperate more closely with NATO, to avoid unnecessary duplication and to work together on new threats, including cyber,” Fallon said, according to quotes posted on the ministry’s website. Russia’s cyber and influence campaign targeting the United States presidential election has stoked fears about the potential for future cyberattacks aimed at European elections.    In February 2016, NATO and the EU agreed to a technical arrangement to boost information sharing on cyber-related matters. NATO member states also recognized cyberspace as a domain of operations in which the alliance must defend itself and pledged to boost their cyber defenses at the Warsaw Summit last July.  More recently, NATO deepened cooperation on cyber defense with Finland, which shares a border with Russia. NATO has also boosted its traditional defenses in Europe in the face of mounting Russian aggression in Ukraine. Moscow has described the buildup as a threat to its own security. 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.

Military

Defense

SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS, Belgium (Reuters) - McLaren’s Stoffel Vandoorne will have a 35-place grid penalty for his home Belgian Grand Prix on Sunday due to power unit changes. McLaren’s engine partners Honda confirmed the rookie would collect the penalty, that will leave him either last on the grid or starting from the pit lane, after an update aimed at improving reliability. “Unfortunately Stoffel will receive a grid penalty at his home grand prix, but it is important for us to introduce updates as soon as they are ready,” said Honda’s Formula One head Yusuke Hasegawa. Drivers are penalized for exceeding their allocation of power units, and component parts, for the season. Vandoorne, who will be the first Belgian to compete in his home race since Jerome d’Ambrosio in 2011, has scored one point so far this season with the Honda power unit lacking performance and reliability. He said he was still looking forward to the weekend and racing in front of his home fans for the first time in Formula One. “The penalties were kind of inevitable with the issues we had earlier this season. Every new part we bring to the car now is giving us grid penalties and it’s a shame to start the weekend like that. “But with the weather here, there’s maybe a lot of opportunities possible.” McLaren announced on Wednesday that the 25-year-old would be continuing with them next season. His Spanish team mate Fernando Alonso, a double world champion, is still considering his options. Honda said Alonso, who finished sixth in the previous race in Hungary, would not face any grid penalties this weekend. Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Jon Boyle

Sports

Motorsports

Jan 4 (Reuters) - Oil explorer Cairn Energy Plc said it successfully flow-tested an appraisal well situated around 100 kilometres off the coast of Senegal. “The results help to confirm the overall scale and extent of the resource base in Senegal and further appraisal activity is expected to lead to future revision of the estimates,” Chief Executive Simon Thomson said. The company, whose projects stretch from Greenland to Senegal, said in August that it expected to start drilling operations at its oilfields in the west African country in the fourth quarter. Cairn Energy is the operator and 40-percent owner of three blocks off the coast of Senegal, while other stakeholders include oil major ConocoPhillips, which owns 35 percent. (Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru; Editing by Sunil Nair)

Oil and Gas

Exploration and Production

Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) privately met with billionaire donor Ron Burkle as he considers possibly running for president in 2020, CNBC reported Thursday. CNBC reported that sources said that the two men had met in Los Angeles last month. However, it’s unclear what the pair discussed. The publication also reported that Kasich hosted a speaking event at Burkle’s home. The governor spoke about leadership and police reforms during his talk and a Q&A session, but the donor did not attend the event. Burke, who co-founded the investment firm Yucaipa Companies, is well-known for donating to candidates and causes of a variety of political backgrounds. Kasich, who ran for president in 2016, has not ruled out a primary bid to challenge President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump pushes back on recent polling data, says internal numbers are 'strongest we've had so far' Illinois state lawmaker apologizes for photos depicting mock assassination of Trump Scaramucci assembling team of former Cabinet members to speak out against Trump MORE in 2020. "I don't know what I'm going to do. In politics I'm still a young man, and I don't know," Kasich told CNN. He is finishing his second term as governor of Ohio, but term limits block him from running again. A poll released earlier this month showed Trump leading Kasich by 6 points in a hypothetical 2020 New Hampshire primary. 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

(Reuters) - London Stock Exchange (LSE.L) said it will buy back 200 million pounds($248.74 million) of its shares, as it tries to placate shareholders following the collapse of its merger with Deutsche Boerse (DB1Gn.DE). The British exchange made the announcement late on Wednesday, hours after the European Commission formally blocked the deal with its German rival. The Commission said the deal would have resulted in a monopoly in the processing of bond trades. LSE said in February it would face costs of around 175 million pounds for the deal and it will still have to pay a significant portion of that despite the merger not going ahead. The buyback will happen in two tranches, with the first beginning on Thursday and consisting of up to 100 million pounds of shares. Barclays and RBC will be managing the buyback. Reporting by Rachel Armstrong, Editing by Lawrence White

Business

Investment

CARACAS (Reuters) - Two U.S. senators on Wednesday will ask the Trump administration to investigate whether ZTE Corp, the Chinese telecommunications company, violated U.S. sanctions by helping Venezuela set up a database that monitors the behavior of its citizens. In a letter, Senators Chris Van Hollen and Marco Rubio will ask the U.S. secretaries of state, treasury and commerce to determine whether ZTE worked with individuals cited by U.S. sanctions, used U.S. components unlawfully or helped Venezuela’s government flout democratic processes or human rights. The letter, following a Reuters investigation of the database and an associated Venezuelan identity card program published Nov. 14, will go to the cabinet officials on Wednesday, according to aides to the two senators. ZTE (000063.SZ), which this year paid $1 billion to the U.S. government in relation to sanctioned business in Iran and North Korea, didn’t respond to a request for comment for this story. Venezuela’s Information Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment. President Nicolas Maduro, grappling with hyperinflation and an economy in freefall, has long argued that U.S. sanctions are part of an “economic war” by Washington to topple his leftist government. Officials at the U.S. State, Commerce and Treasury departments didn’t respond to requests for comment early Wednesday. Van Hollen, a Democrat, and Rubio, a Republican, have been vocal backers of previous U.S. measures against ZTE. The company, of which a Chinese state firm is the largest shareholder, is accused by many Western officials of helping China export surveillance tactics and equipment to authoritarian governments around the world. ZTE has increasingly worked with Venezuela’s government in various projects there, mostly in ventures with Compania Anonima Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela, or Cantv, the state telecommunications company. Many senior Venezuelan officials, including Maduro and Cantv President Manuel Fernandez, have been sanctioned by Washington because of what successive U.S. administrations have deemed authoritative behavior and human rights violations by the government of the Andean country. Neither Fernandez nor a Cantv spokeswoman responded to requests for comment. In its investigation, Reuters found that ZTE helped Caracas build a database that can track citizens’ behavior through a national identity card. The ID, the “fatherland card,” can compile data including financial and medical histories, usage of social media, political affiliation and whether a person voted. One area of concern for the senators is whether ZTE installed components made by Dell Technologies Inc DVMT.N in the database. One document reviewed by Reuters indicated that ZTE used storage units built by the U.S-based company in equipment it installed for Cantv. In their letter Wednesday, the senators ask “whether ZTE violated U.S. export controls with respect to the installation of data storage units built by Dell.” A spokeswoman for Dell told Reuters it had no record of a sale for that purpose. The senators also ask the U.S. administration to determine whether ZTE’s work in Venezuela breaks the terms of the $1 billion agreement it came to earlier this year with the Commerce Department related to previous sanctions violations. Additional reporting by Karen Freifeld in Washington and Anne Marie Roantree in Hong Kong. Editing by Paulo Prada.

Politics

Government

Even as analysts are forecasting declines in auto sales in the United States this year and next, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles believes the time is still ripe for expansion. On Tuesday, the Italian-American automaker said it planned to spend $4.5 billion over the next three years to update several Detroit plants and retool an engine plant to make Jeeps, an effort the company said would create about 6,500 new jobs. While moving forward, it also took a step back, trimming operations at an Illinois plant and eliminating almost 1,400 jobs. The other big American automakers, General Motors and Ford, have been cutting jobs and production. But Mike Manley, Fiat Chrysler’s chief executive, said he was confident that the American economy would remain on track. “The economic indicators as we see them are still strong,” he said in a conference call with reporters. He also noted that the updated plants would produce three large Jeep models — vehicles that are experiencing growth as consumers gravitate toward sport utility vehicles and increasingly abandon sedans. The plan, Mr. Manley said, “is an investment in Jeep as our core brand.” The Jeep brand has benefited as American consumers have flocked to S.U.V.s and other roomier vehicles, and have turned away from sedans and compacts. In 2018, two-thirds of new vehicles sold nationwide were classified as trucks, up from half in 2013. Overall new-vehicle sales in the United States are expected to be lower this year, and the pace of Jeep sales has slowed in the first two months of the year, leaving dealers with heavy inventories. As of Feb. 1, Fiat Chrysler had enough Jeeps on dealer lots to last 166 days, up from 116 on Jan. 1. “I think there is some risk for FCA,” said Charles Chesbrough, a senior economist at Cox Automotive. “I don’t think people are expecting the market to collapse, but it is slowing down.” The plan is the first major initiative announced by Mr. Manley, who was named chief executive in July after his predecessor, Sergio Marchionne, died unexpectedly after shoulder surgery. Mr. Manley had headed the Jeep brand under Mr. Marchionne. Fiat Chrysler intends to convert its Mack Avenue Engine plant in Detroit to produce a new seven-passenger Jeep model and the new version of its Jeep Grand Cherokee, a move that will add 3,850 jobs. Mr. Manley said construction would start in the second quarter. Plans for the plant’s conversion had surfaced in news reports in December. The company will also update another Detroit plant, known as Jefferson North, to be able to make the next-generation Grand Cherokee as well as the Dodge Durango, another S.U.V., creating 1,000 additional jobs. A third plant in Warren, Mich., that currently makes an older version of the Ram 1500 pickup truck will be modified to also make two other new vehicles — the Jeep Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer. That will bring 1,400 jobs to the Warren factory. Mr. Manley said the plant modifications would allow Fiat Chrysler to start making electric versions of its Jeep models, if customer demand increased. While the company is expanding in Michigan, it said it would lay off 1,371 of the 5,464 workers at its plant in Belvidere, Ill. The factory, where Fiat Chrysler makes Jeep Cherokees, employs three crews of workers, and runs two 10-hour shifts six days a week. The job cuts will take effect May 6, after which the plant will operate two eight-hour shifts five days a week. A Fiat Chrysler spokeswoman said the carmaker had no plans to transfer Belvidere workers to the Michigan plants where jobs are being added. Fiat Chrysler was ahead of most of its competitors when it stopped making sedans in 2016 to focus on pickups, S.U.V.s and other large vehicles, whose sales were rising as gasoline prices declined. G.M. and Ford are now scrambling to catch up. G.M. announced last year that it would close two plants in the United States and a third in Canada that make cars. Ford said last year that it would stop making sedans, and is undergoing a broad restructuring to improve profitability. Both G.M. and Ford are eliminating thousands of salaried jobs as part of their cost-cutting efforts.

Automotive

Vehicles

In the months leading up to the United Kingdom's referendum on its European Union membership, President Barack Obama urged Britons to think carefully about the choice ahead of them. Leaving the EU would move the U.K. to the “back of the queue” on trade deals, he warned in April, and cast doubt upon the global institutions created in the wreckage of World War II. Hillary Clinton, too, cautioned Britons against scuppering decades of ever-growing trans-Atlantic cooperation. In April, Jake Sullivan, her top foreign policy adviser, said the Western alliance has always been “strongest when Europe is united.” Donald Trump, on the other hand, while at times a full-throated supporter of Brexit, cautioned in a TV interview, “I don’t think anybody should listen to me because I haven’t really focused on it very much.” But on Friday, after British voters stunned the world by voting for “Leave,” Obama declared that Brexit will not affect the “special relationship” after all, even as he lost his trans-Atlantic partner, British Prime Minister David Cameron, who tendered his resignation. Meanwhile, Leave supporter Boris Johnson, a colorful upper-crust Conservative who has drawn comparisons to Trump, emerged as the leading candidate to take Cameron’s place. Obama sought to reassure, saying he recognized that “the people of the United Kingdom have spoken, and we respect their decision,” but the special relationship would remain unchanged. It was left to Vice President Joe Biden to express the White House’s dismay, acknowledging during his Ireland trip that the U.S. had “preferred a different outcome.” “I do think that yesterday’s vote speaks to the ongoing changes and challenges that are raised by globalization, the president said later at a forum at Stanford University, in his only allusion so far to the sort of populist rage represented by Trump and the Brexit movement. Clinton, meanwhile, went on the attack, telling American voters that the Brexit vote “only underscores the need for calm, steady, experienced leadership in the White House to protect Americans’ pocketbooks and livelihoods, to support our friends and allies, to stand up to our adversaries, and to defend our interests” — an unmistakable shot at Trump and a reminder of her experience as secretary of state. “It also underscores the need for us to pull together to solve our challenges as a country, not tear each other down,” she added for good measure. And Clinton sought to reinforce her economic message aimed at “everyday Americans,” arguing that the “first task has to be to make sure that the economic uncertainty created by these events does not hurt working families here in America.” Trump by then had already celebrated the Brexit vote as vindication for his brand of nationalism-fueled politics, speaking to reporters in Turnberry, Scotland, to promote one of his golf courses. “Basically, they took back their country. That’s a great thing,” he said — never mind that Scots overwhelmingly voted to remain in the EU, with the country's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, calling a second vote on Scottish independence “highly likely.” And the Manhattan mogul laced into Obama directly, saying, “The U.K. has been such a great ally for so long, they’ll always be at the front of the line. They’ve been amazing allies, in good times and in bad times.” Trump also slammed Obama and his former secretary of state for misreading the political moment. “I'm surprised that Obama came over here and was so bold as to tell people here what to do,” Trump said. “And I think that a lot of people don’t like him and I think if he had not said it, I think your result might have been different. But when he said it, people were not happy about it and I thought it was totally inappropriate.” “And then she doubled down and she did the same thing,” Trump added. “They're always wrong, and that’s the problem with them.” In his formal statement sent to reporters, Trump was more statesmanlike, pledging to “strengthen our ties with a free and independent Britain, deepening our bonds in commerce, culture and mutual defense. “The whole world is more peaceful and stable when our two countries — and our two peoples — are united together, as they will be under a Trump administration,” he said. Clinton, declaring the aftermath of Brexit a “time of uncertainty,” didn't address Trump’s comments directly in her own statement. But her top aides held a conference call in which they unloaded on the presumptive Republican nominee in far sharper terms. Trump, Sullivan told reporters, “proves again and again that he is temperamentally unfit for the job. “The American people need a steady hand at times of uncertainty, not a reckless egomaniac,” he said. “Donald Trump actively rooted for this outcome and the economic turmoil in its wake,” Sullivan said of the Brexit vote, adding that from Clinton’s perspective, “it really matters who's actually sitting in the Oval Office.” “We have the wherewithal to help American families to weather all kinds of storms, but it takes strong, effective leadership — but Donald Trump just doesn’t have it,” Sullivan added. Nolan D. McCaskill , Annie Karni and Daniel Strauss contributed to this report.

Politics

UK

(Adds quotes from CEO interviews) Aug 28 (Reuters) - Hudson's Bay Co said on Wednesday it would sell its Lord + Taylor department store business to fashion rental service company Le Tote Inc for about $100 million, as the retail operator culls its portfolio to a few key brands. The retail company has been selling businesses and closing stores over the past few years to focus on luxury department store chain Saks Fifth Avenue and Hudson's Bay in Canada to shore up its finances as shoppers skip brick-and-mortar stores to shop online instead. Le Tote will pay Hudson's Bay C$99.5 million ($74.95 million) in cash when the deal closes and another C$33.2 million in cash after two years. Hudson's Bay will receive a 25 percent equity stake in Le Tote and two seats on the company's board. "It allows us to focus on Saks and its upside potential," said Hudson's Bay Chief Executive Helena Foulkes, adding that the company is simplifying and streamlining Hudson's Bay in Canada. The deal with Le Tote comes months after Hudson's Bay Executive Chairman Richard Baker offered to take the Canadian retailer private in a C$1.74 billion deal. A special committee of Hudson's Bay's board said Baker's offer for the company was "inadequate," while shareholders, who must approve the deal, have opposed it because it does not provide enough value. Hudson's Bay's sale of the Lord + Taylor business is the latest of several divestitures. The retailer announced in 2017 it would sell Lord + Taylor's Manhattan flagship to co-working space manager The We Company. Earlier this year, Hudson's Bay sold its remaining stake in its German real estate venture for C$1.5 billion. APPAREL RENTAL Lord + Taylor has seen its fortunes fall while Saks Fifth Avenue has managed to increase sales. Under the deal, Le Tote will acquire the Lord + Taylor brand and related intellectual property, while assuming operations of 38 stores, Lord + Taylor's digital channels and the associated inventory. Le Tote will set up drop-off points for its apparel rental business in the stores, in its first move into bricks and mortar, said Chief Executive Rakesh Tondon. Le Tote will use its technology to improve product recommendations and personalized shopping experiences at Lord + Taylor, he said. "We want to keep the Lord & Taylor brand (and) energize it, (but) not change too much too quickly," Tondon said. Apparel rental is a small but fast-growing part of the struggling clothing sector, with retailers like Bloomingdale's and Banana Republic launching subscription services this month alone. Le Tote competitor Rent the Runway entered a deal with Nordstrom in June to install 'drop-off boxes' in Nordstrom stores for customers to return rented clothing. ($1 = 1.3275 Canadian dollars) (Reporting by Jessica DiNapoli and Debroop Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva and Steve Orlofsky)

Business

Retail

DIAGNOSING MENTAL illness is difficult. Giving broad names such as “schizophrenia” and “bipolar disorder” to particular sets of symptoms helps psychiatrists and patients discuss and treat what is going on, but many traits are symptomatic of more than one such named condition, giving plenty of scope for mislabelling. Moreover, the specialised interviews required to detect the presence of particular traits are time-consuming and require specific training to conduct. A shortcut to reliable psychiatric diagnoses would therefore be desirable. Justin Baker, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, and Louis-Philippe Morency, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh, think they have one. As they told the International Conference on Multimodal Interaction in Boulder, Colorado, on October 19th, they believe they can extract a lot of relevant information from patients’ speech patterns. Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor's Picks. Rather than tackle all mental illness at once, Dr Baker and Dr Morency focused on psychosis. This is the experience by a patient of hallucinations or delusions—in other words of a “reality” at variance with the general consensus of other people. Psychosis is particularly symptomatic of schizophrenia, but is also common in bipolar disorder. And it is, in turn, capable of division into traits of its own, such as impulsive hostility, emotional withdrawal, conceptual disorganisation and delusions of grandeur. These can be used to refine an initial diagnosis of a broader condition. To test the idea that patterns of word use might help diagnose such traits, Dr Baker and Dr Morency let their computers loose on transcripts of 53 interviews with 28 psychotic patients at the McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. These were people who had been studied thoroughly by conventional psychiatric techniques. They had therefore had their specific psychotic traits classified. And patterns the two researchers did indeed find. For example, patients who commonly used power-related words like “important”, “superiority” and “exploit” generally turned out to have the traits of delusions and grandiosity. Conversely, there was an inverse correlation between patients’ use of words relating to time and space, such as “yesterday”, “lately” and “nearby”, and the trait of poor reality monitoring. Those who rarely or never used these words showed significant detachment from reality. In addition to these specific correlations, the overall severity of a patient’s psychosis, regardless of the detailed pattern of traits, appeared to correlate with his use of emotionally loaded words. The absence of positive words in a transcript, and a preponderance of negative ones, such as “gloomy”, “dark” and “sadly”, was characteristic of those whose psychotic disorder was severe. Nor was frequency of word use the only signal that Dr Baker and Dr Morency’s computers picked up. They also noticed patterns in phenomena called sentence repair and language perplexity. Everyone repairs sentences from time to time during conversations, saying things like “John likes, I mean, loves Mary.” But constant repairing is rare in the mentally healthy. Dr Baker and Dr Morency, however, found it common in patients who had the psychotic traits of apathy, avolition and defensiveness. Language perplexity is a measure of how easy it is, partway through a sentence, to guess what is coming next. The harder it is to do this for a given individual’s speech, the more perplexing is his language. And the more perplexing a psychotic patient’s language is, Dr Baker and Dr Morency discovered, the more likely it is that his particular traits include excitement and conceptual disorganisation. The study Dr Baker and Dr Morency have carried out is small, and so will need confirmation using larger groups of patients. But if that confirmation comes, it will give psychiatrists a new diagnostic tool. And it is a tool that might eventually be applied to areas other than psychosis. Dementia and Parkinson’s disease, too, are thought to shape speech in subtle ways as they begin to develop. The Baker-Morency approach might thus permit earlier diagnosis of these conditions as well.

Other

Other

CAPE TOWN, Oct 17 (Reuters) - South Africa’s Public Investment Corporation, one of the continent’s largest asset managers, has not ruled out investing in struggling state-owned airline SAA, its chief executive said on Tuesday. “We are not closing the door on SAA,” CEO Dan Matjila told parliament’s finance committee, adding that South African Airways would first need to improve governance and implement a turn-around strategy before being considered. The PIC manages South African government employee retirement funds and has been in the spotlight recently after reports the finance ministry requested money from the pension fund to bail out struggling state firms. Reporting by Wendell Roelf; Editing by James Macharia

Politics

Government

May 17 (Reuters) - Futures clearing firm Rosenthal Collins Group LLC appointed Brian Ager as president to its institutional foreign exchange division in New York. Ager, who has spent more than three decades in the financial services industry, served as senior director of New York FX sales and trading for RJ O’Brien & Associates, since 2011. (Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru)

Technology

Computer Science

Our interest was beaked — er, piqued — this week when Country Living highlighted a rather unique Etsy find: a crocheted Christmas sweater for chickens. The piece, ranging in size from extra-small (4.5 in. from the neck to the bottom) to large (9 in.) and retailing for $14.99 to $18.45, is red with white trim and wooden Santa-emblazoned buttons. Custom colors are available, too. “Do you have laying hens outside in the cold?” reads the description by seller Animal Fun and Fashion. “Don’t ruffle any feathers! Get those girls in a sweater to keep them happy and warm.” “A perfect Christmas gift!” he or she adds. Positive comments tout the adorableness of the product and the “perfect fit,” however, some on Country Living pointed out that it can actually be dangerous to keep chickens in clothing because of their feathers. In response, the seller wrote, “I have been advised that these sweaters may not be safe for chickens to wear constantly. They can interfere with molting, or their feet can become tangled in the yarn if the fit is not correct. Buyer holds all responsibility for the safety of their chickens.” While the items are currently sold out for the season, here’s hoping it’ll be restocked in the months ahead.

Other

Other

Taylor Swift talks all about being lovestruck in her latest song “Gorgeous” — and Swifties can’t help but think the pop star is talking about current boyfriend Joe Alwyn. The third song off her upcoming album, Reputation, dropped at midnight Friday, hours after Swift teased sneak peeks on social media. Though few fans and followers speculated that Alwyn was the inspiration behind “…Ready for It,” it’s clear “Gorgeous” is about Swift’s romance with the British actor. “You’re so gorgeous/ I can’t say anything to your face/ ‘Cause look at your face/ And I’m so furious/ At you for making me feel this way/ But what can I say?/ You’re gorgeous,” Swift sings in the chorus. In addition, the Grammy winner mentions “ocean blue eyes” which (not so) coincidently is the same color as Alwyn’s eyes. “Ocean blue eyes looking in mine/ I feel like I might sink and drown and die,” she sings. Later on, Swift belts out: “You make me so happy it turns back to sad/ There’s nothing I hate more than what I can’t have.” PEOPLE confirmed in May that Swift, 27, and Alwyn, 26, were dating. She had been largely out of the spotlight since February, and it turns out she had been secretly seeing Alwyn. And in late August, a source close to the singer told PEOPLE exclusively that the couple is still “very happy together” and continuing to spend time together out of the spotlight. “Her decision to keep her relationship with Joe quiet is making her happy,” said the source. “They have been getting to know each other slowly without any pressure.” GORGEOUS IS ABOUT NO ONE OTHER THAN JOE ALWYN — Regina Philange🐍 (@SwiftieAditi) October 20, 2017 #GORGEOUS is about joe alwyn guys deal with it — cleve (@cleveageee) October 20, 2017 Ok so Tay Tay definitely talking about #JoeAlwyn in #Gorgeous ! No? — JUst DaY DReamiN (@Shawty4Short) October 20, 2017 Taylor Swift's new song "Gorgeous" is the realistic twenty-something love child of "Enchanted" and "Teardrops on my Guitar" pic.twitter.com/wG9CSdccDb — Izzy Kornman (@izzykornman) October 20, 2017 ‘You make me so happy’ thank you @josalw THANK YOU for making our sunshine happy I can’t even 😻😭😻 #Gorgeous pic.twitter.com/eI7s54K84F — ShaniaRepuTAYtion🐍 (@swiftiespeaking) October 20, 2017 Swift even mentions her beloved Meredith Grey and Olivia Benson: “Guess I’ll just stumble on home to my cats, alone, unless you wanna come along.” #Gorgeous BUT SERIOUSLY NO ONE MAKES FUN OF @taylorswift13 BETTER THAN TAYLOR SWIFT! PURRRFECT! 😹 @taylornation13 pic.twitter.com/edvDyqJwSy — OFFICIAL_TAY_AUS (@OFFICIAL_TAY_AU) October 20, 2017 Last week, Swift had personally visited a fan in the U.K., and was accompanied by with Alwyn’s younger brother Patrick. Full lyrics below: Available for preorder now, Reputation drops Nov. 10.  

Music

Pop

A group of mostly Democratic lawmakers on Monday asked for information about the 2,300 migrant children separated from their families under the Trump administration’s since-halted immigration policy. Eleven senators, including Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, signed the letter asking the agencies responsible for reuniting families for weekly updates until every separated child is back with their parents. The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services are tasked with reuniting families separated because of the controversial immigration policy. “We are deeply concerned by reports of chaotic attempts to reunify parents and children that have been separated at the border,” the letter says. “The hastily-signed order provided no clarity on how to reunify families, or how to handle families that have already been separated or new families that cross the border seeking asylum.” The letter is addressed to HHS Secretary Alex Azar and Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen. It also was signed by Sens. Richard Blumenthal, Cory Booker, Bob Casey, Tammy Duckworth, Mazie Hirono, Ed Markey, Tina Smith and Bill Nelson. The letter demands the agencies provide lawmakers with a list of separated children, a list of their parents and other adult family members, and a third list that links the two. Additionally, the lawmakers want a “detailed briefing” explaining how the agencies are working to reunite the families. Lawmakers stipulated the response should not include names or other identifying information in an effort to protect migrants. “We are concerned that even as the Administration works to reunify families, it continues to deport adults and family members who had children taken from them — reducing their chances of reunification even further,” the letter said.

Politics

Immigration

Misconceptions from the 1970s are still haunting us to this day. Some are relatively harmless, like the idea that culotte pants are something any human should wear. Others, like the idea that fat and cholesterol are responsible for rampant obesity and heart disease, are less benign. Three prominent cardiologists are putting their collective foot down this week in an editorial in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Stop freaking out about saturated fat, they say (though not in those words)—you're missing the point. Our obsession with the perceived ills of saturated fat go back to a 1977 senate hearing on health that led to a set of dietary guidelines being issued for all Americans. At the time, scientists understood that saturated fat, found in foods like eggs and meat, could raise low density lipoprotein (LDL, or "bad," cholesterol). High levels of LDL in turn was thought to be responsible for heart-disease risk. The original recommendations told Americans to eat carbohydrates instead of fatty foods like meat, cheese or oil. To meet the new demand for less fat in the diet, the food industry changed formulas, creating fat-free versions of foods like sour cream and yogurt, mostly replacing fat with sugar. Taking the dietary recommendations to heart, Americans started eating more sugar and other refined carbohydrates. So began the obesity epidemic and its associated ills. Since those times, research has increasingly found that lowering LDL cholesterol may not be the answer to preventing heart disease. For one thing, current research points to another marker of heart disease risk: a low ratio of total cholesterol to high density lipoprotein (HDL, or "good," cholesterol). One way to lower the ratio of total cholesterol to HDL cholesterol? Replace calories from refined carbohydrates with calories from foods high in saturated fat like nuts or olive oil, the very foods Americans were told to avoid in the 1970s. Heart disease is also not as simple as researchers thought back in the 1970s, when it was seen as a matter of preventing fat from entering the arteries. While the focus has traditionally been on clearing very obstructed arteries, most serious cardiac events, like heart attacks, occur when a plaque ruptures in areas where there is less than 70 percent obstruction of an artery, the editorial points out. Changing decades of dietary dogma is not simple; a visit to any grocery store will still turn up shelves of fat-free products full of sugar and other fat substitutes marketed as healthy alternatives. Changing prescribing habits is equally challenging. For years the prevailing wisdom in the medical community has been focused on lowering LDL cholesterol, usually with a category of drugs called statins. The focus on keeping LDL cholesterol numbers below certain guidelines has become so intense that statins have become one of the most prescribed medications in the US. Those lingering misconceptions, in both physicians and the general public, and the harm they cause, is what prompted the cardiologists to write their editorial. As one of the editorial's authors, Rita Redberg, professor at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine and editor of JAMA Internal Medicine, put it, "I see more and more patients every week who want to reduce cardiovascular risk but don't want to suffer the myriad adverse effects of statins. There is a lot of interest in healthy lifestyle." The editorial calls for a "paradigm shift" in how cardiovascular disease is treated. The three cardiologists lay out a series of simple recommendations for heart health: Taking regular brisk walks more than three times a week for a half hour at a time, eating a Mediterranean style diet that includes foods like olive oil, nuts, oily fish and lots of vegetables, and reducing stress as much as possible. Saturated fat, they remind the reader, is not bad for you. "There has been a lot of discussion of the evils of saturated fats for many years, re-education based on our new knowledge and understanding takes time," explains Redberg. While the doctors' recommendations are reasonable, creating change in people's habits is notoriously difficult. Solving all problems with the right pill is very appealing, and probably part of the reason statins became so heavily prescribed in the first place. But Redberg is hopeful: "I think public health campaigns as well as health professionals need to focus on the importance of diet, regular physical activity and time for relaxation with friends and family. A healthy lifestyle reduces risk of heart disease, is associated with living longer and a better quality of life." Read This Next: We're All Guinea Pigs in a Failed Decades-Long Diet Experiment

Nutrition

Healthy Eating

Mario’s next big adventure, Super Mario Odyssey on Nintendo Switch, follows the open-world formula established by Super Mario 64. In Odyssey you’ll explore huge spaces, uncovering secrets and collectables, traversing everything from the rooftops of skyscrapers to icy underground caverns. I had the chance to play a 10 minute-long demo of the game here at E3, and while it introduces a number of clever and inventive new gameplay twists, there was one aspect that stood out the most: this game is really hard. The area I played — New Donk City — is a New York-style urban cityscape, complete with tall buildings, yellow taxis, green parks, and properly proportioned humans who look bizarre standing next to the squat, cartoonish Mario. Much like in its predecessors, one of the big goals of Odyssey is to collect things. In this case, they’re objects called power moons, and you need to gather a certain number of them to move on to the next big area. (Nintendo says there are significantly more moons to find in Odyssey than the “stars” and “shines” in previous games.) Some are obvious, glowing temptingly on top of skyscrapers or tucked away in back alleys. Other moons can be earned by completing tiny objectives or larger missions. Many can be earned through experimentation. Super Mario Odyssey designers want you to engage with the world and discover how it reacts. You can bounce on cars like they’re trampolines, climb your way up lampposts, and slide down glass buildings. Some stages feature pixelated warp pipes that turn the game into an old-school side-scrolling experience, complete with a moon at the end. I earned my first moon by leaping into a game of jump rope and successfully making a handful of hops. The core of the experience feels largely familiar. Mario still has his traditional jumping and climbing abilities. But new in Odyssey is his sentient hat Cappy. It’s not just a new character, complete with huge expressive eyes, but a new tool. You can toss Mario’s hat to collect coins, attack enemies, and activate objects like an electronic zip line. Perhaps most notable, the hat also takes over the power-up role for Mario; throw it at certain enemies, vehicles, and other characters, and Mario will take control of them, turning the plumber into everything from a tank to dinosaur to his oldest nemesis, the lowly goomba. Cappy also changes up traversal: if you toss the hat in front of you, it can double as a platform to reach new areas. These additions made the game feel more complex than what I’m used to from a Mario game. At one point, I struggled to make a long jump between two buildings, only to realize I needed the help of my hat to get across. If you’ve played a lot of Mario before, the new abilities force you to change the way you think about these spaces, and in my brief time with the game it felt slightly overwhelming. Part of that has to do with just how much there is to do in each level. In addition to collecting coins and moons, there was also a main quest line to follow, which involved finding a series of musicians scattered throughout the city. It’s a big enough place that Odyssey includes a mini-map complete with objective markers to help you your way around — the only other entry in the series to do this was Super Mario 64 DS. This complexity is combined with some surprisingly tricky level design, which results in a game that isn’t as easy to pick-and-play compared to other Mario titles. It gets even harder when you factor in motion controls that — during my brief experience — felt frustratingly imprecise. You can use the Joy-Con controllers to simulate tossing Mario’s hat, but in my demo the aiming felt off, and I was able the throw with accuracy maybe 50 percent of the time. When I reverted back to standard controls, I found it much easier to hit targets. The structure of the game may lend itself well to the hybrid nature of the Switch. It’s a game that you can play for long sessions in order to follow the missions, or in short bursts while you collect a few moons in portable mode. It’s a structure somewhat reminiscent of the bite-sized shrines in Switch launch title The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, making the game another great example of the Switch’s flexibility. Of course, it’s impossible to get a proper sense of what a huge game like this is like by playing for such a short time. Super Mario Odyssey introduces new ideas and mechanics that seem like they will take some time to get used to, as they significantly alter a very familiar formula. What is clear from even just a few moments, though, is that this is a game bursting with ideas, and one that brings back a style of game that Mario has been missing for years. 10 minutes in New Donk City isn’t enough. Super Mario Odyssey is coming to Nintendo Switch on October 27th.

Technology

Video Games

VLADIMIR PUTIN marked his state-of-the-nation address on March 1st by announcing the development of a new, unstoppable nuclear missile that NATO has apparently nicknamed “Satan 2”. People who know about rocketry think this technology may be either unfeasible or not very useful, but that is beside the point. The jumbo-nuke is intended as a statement and, given that Russia is already in breach of arms control treaties that held good even through the cold war, it is not the sort of statement that can be shrugged off as merely the deluded ramblings of an ageing strongman. What, then, was the response of the president of America to this apparent threat? Donald Trump found time to tweet about plenty of other things on the day Mr Putin made his announcement. He had nothing to say about super-sized rockets. If this were another president, it might be possible to dress up his silence as strategic patience, or some other grand synonym for doing nothing. Yet neither strategy nor patience are words that come to mind when thinking about the 45th president. This omission is the latest in a long line stretching back to 2016 and beyond. Last week Mike Rogers, who is in charge of Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, told Congess that he did not have the president’s go-ahead to disrupt Russian attempts at election hacking. “Clearly what we have done hasn’t been enough,” he said. When Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russian nationals in February for trying to influence the outcome of the presidential election, the White House issued a statement that did not come close to condemnation (“it is more important than ever to come together as Americans”). The Republican Party trusts the president so little on Russia policy that its members in Congress voted to take sanctions out of the White House's hands. Mr Trump fired James Comey and toyed with firing Mr Mueller. And then there is the oddly laudatory tone which the president adopts when speaking about his Russian counterpart. Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor's Picks. Taking these things together, it is sensible to ask why Mr Trump behaves so guiltily if he has nothing to hide. And it is highly tempting to fill in the gaps in our knowledge with supposition. The headline of a recent column by Tom Friedman in the New York Times—"Whatever Donald Trump is hiding on Russia, it's hurting all of us now"—captures this line of thinking, which is common among even the president's more level-headed opponents. It is seductive but, in your blogger's view, wrong. And it is wrong in a way that is reminiscent of a previous large-scale failure of imagination on the part of right-thinking people. In the run-up to the Iraq war, Saddam Hussein played a game of cat-and-mouse with UN weapons inspectors. The governments of America and Britain believed, on the basis of intelligence that turned out to be thin, that Saddam's government possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that were banned by international treaties. The Iraqi dictator's refusal to allow Hans Blix and co. to roam around Iraq looking for WMD seemed to confirm this. Why would Saddam risk war with much more powerful armies over chemical and biological weapons that he did not actually have? It made no sense. Occam's razor suggested that the obvious explanation was the right one: Saddam had WMD and was refusing to give them up. The result of that logical leap is still with us now. Occam's razor slipped, right by the jugular vein, costing the lives of more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians and more than 4,000 American troops. The Iraq war is also one reason why the West is now exhausted and short of confidence when faced with populists who say that its elites don't know what they are doing. Those who argued that Saddam must have WMD because his behaviour was so obviously that of a guilty person made an error of empathy, rather than of logic. They asked themselves one question: if I were the ruler of Iraq and I possessed no banned weapons, would I welcome UN inspectors in? They answered: yes of course. They should have asked another: if I were a violent dictator with my own personality cult, but who possessed no banned weapons, would I welcome UN inspectors in? It is easier to see how the answer to that question could be no. Now back to Mr Trump. The right question to ask is not: if I were a president and I had a compromising secret involving Russia that I wanted to keep, would I fire Mr Mueller? It is: if I were Mr Trump, how would I behave? Asked that way, many other motivations for his otherwise inexplicable behaviour present themselves: pique, frustration, annoyance, arrogance, a sense of injustice, a desire to finally build that elusive tower in Moscow at some future date. Your blogger's contention is not that we should ignore the possibility that Mr Trump and his presidency are compromised in some way we are yet to discover. Plenty of people think that is the case. After all, here is a man whose campaign paid a porn star to keep quiet about the affair she says they had while he was married to the now First Lady. It is not a stretch to think that the Russian secret services, who try to collect kompromat on almost anyone, would have tried it with Mr Trump when he was in town. But we do not know yet, and that anyone who suggests otherwise is stretching the available facts beyond their breaking strain. To say this is journalistically unsatisfying and psychologically unappealing. The most enjoyable op-ed to read is the most strident one. We are all attracted to people who seem more certain about things than we are ourselves. Yet we also know that wisdom consists in doubting. This is not to excuse the president's Russian omissions, which show that he has repeatedly failed to act in the national interest, and which ought to be enough to condemn him. It is to remember past mistakes and to try to make different ones next time.

Politics

International Relations

This story requires our BI Prime membership. To read the full article, simply click here to claim your deal and get access to all exclusive Business Insider PRIME content. Best Buy could unlock up to $46 billion in revenue with the company's healthcare investments, according to a report out Monday from analysts at Morgan Stanley.Best Buy's current annual revenue is $43 billion, meaning healthcare could be a big part of Best Buy's long-term revenue growth, according to Morgan Stanley's projections.As other retailers like Walmart and Amazon enter the healthcare space, Best Buy is tackling the massive healthcare industry by focusing on tech-enabled senior care.In the past year, Best Buy has spent $1 billion on healthcare acquisitions. The company's new CEO previously oversaw the acquisitions and growth in the healthcare space.Click here for more BI Prime stories. The $3.5 trillion healthcare industry faces continued disruption. Best Buy, the consumer-electronics giant, is entering the US healthcare market by focusing on using technology to help care for seniors. And analysts at Morgan Stanley think the company will reveal new details about its ambitions at an investor event Wednesday.For the past few years, Best Buy has been growing out its healthcare division. Now, Best Buy's healthcare strategy could unlock $11 billion to $46 billion total revenue over time, Morgan Stanley analysts said in a note Monday. With Best Buy's annual revenue at about $43 billion, the potential for growth is significant.Best Buy's move toward healthcare solutions follows the trend of big retailers entering the market. With healthcare costs on the rise, retailers see an opportunity to win patients over with more convenient places to receive care at a lower cost. Walmart, for instance, is planning to build health clinics to offer a breadth of services conveniently and at lower prices than its rivals'. In 2018, Amazon purchased the online pharmacy PillPack, which mails prescriptions to people who take multiple medications, packaging them together based on dose.Read more: Companies like Walmart, CVS, and Amazon are beefing up their healthcare strategies. Here are their plans to upend the $3.5 trillion industry.The analysts said Best Buy's focus in senior care helped set Best Buy apart from its rivals."We don't think the market fully grasps Best Buy's commitment to Health," the analysts wrote. "We believe Best Buy has a durable competitive advantage in senior care, its niche in the healthcare services market."Best Buy's focus on technology to care for the aging American populationPreviously, Best Buy's health strategy hadn't extended beyond fitness and wearables technology like Fitbits. But in 2018, BestBuy acquired GreatCall, which makes safety devices for older adults.That focus on technology for seniors helps Best Buy stand apart from other firms exploring health clinics or new ways to dispense medication.An aging US population creates a growing customer base for Best Buy. The US Census Bureau has estimated that there were 48 million people in the US ages 65 and older in 2015 and has projected that number to almost double by 2060.  Looking at long-term growth, the analysts noted that Best Buy served seniors who wanted to live at home as well as their caregivers. The company could also benefit by persuading insurers to pay for some of its services, the analysts said.In the past year the company has spent $1 billion on healthcare acquisitions focused on senior care, Morgan Stanley said:In 2018, the company acquired GreatCall for $792 million, the largest acquisition in the company's history. GreatCall offers senior-friendly smartphones and wearables as well as health and safety monitoring devices. GreatCall was generating annual sales of $300 million before Best Buy's acquisition, and the analysts expected GreatCall's growth to remain consistent. In May, Best Buy acquired Critical Signal Technologies for $126 million. The company, which focuses on remote patient-monitoring products and services for seniors living independently, has 100,000 senior subscribers and works with 1,500 payers and 900 providers, the analysts said.Most recently, Best Buy acquired BioSensics, which specializes in wearable sensor technology. For $21 million, Best Buy bought the healthcare technology arm of the company, including its data science and engineering team. The Morgan Stanley analysts point out that this is Best Buy's most "direct attempt at in-sourcing valuable expertise."The goal of the acquisitions is to use technology to monitor the health of seniors so that if something goes awry, doctors can intervene sooner rather than later. While that may reduce the costs that come with hospital visits, the analysts noted that it could allow for Best Buy to take a piece of the profits in a "mutually beneficial transaction.""Best Buy is becoming a pioneer in the use of healthcare monitoring to extend the lives of, and reduce medical costs for, seniors," the analysts said. "Few other companies have the expertise to play, let alone win, in this space."Read more: Wall Street is betting is betting Walmart's latest push into healthcare could disrupt the $3.5 trillion industryTake a look inside Walmart's newest health clinic that's just the start of its push into healthcare Walmart is opening health clinics, but that's just the start. We got the full story from the exec leading its push into the $3.5 trillion US healthcare industry.A feud between Amazon's pharmacy and the healthcare industry exemplifies just how disruptive the tech giant could be Featured Digital Health Articles: - Telehealth Industry: Benefits, Services & Examples - Value-Based Care Model: Pay-for-Performance Healthcare - Senior Care & Assisted Living Market Trends - Smart Medical Devices: Wearable Tech in Healthcare - AI in Healthcare - Remote Patient Monitoring Industry: Devices & Market Trends

Business

Technology

A political nonprofit group aligned with House Republican leadership will spend $1 million on a radio ad campaign praising GOP lawmakers’ efforts to revamp the tax code. American Action Network (AAN) will run radio ads in 34 congressional districts, supporting Republican members of House leadership, members of key tax-related committees and vulnerable incumbents representing swing districts. The radio ads, some of which will air in Spanish, thank members for “fighting to cut taxes for working families and make our tax code simpler and fairer.” The campaign is the latest push to drum up momentum for the Republican effort to cut personal and corporate tax rates, eliminate several deductions and increase the number of Americans paying taxes. “When it comes to tax reform, middle-class tax cuts and eliminating special interest loopholes should be Congress’s number one priority. ” said Corry Bliss, AAN's executive director. “We will continue to urge Congress to put American families and job creators first, members who fail to do so will be held accountable.” Republican leaders are still trying to craft a plan that gets consensus support from House, Senate and administration leadership. While Republicans are united around basic tax reform principles, they’ve yet to agree on a formal legislative proposal or outline. The GOP also faces challenges in passing whatever tax bill they produce through budget reconciliation, a process that would allow Republicans to avoid a Democratic filibuster in the Senate. Lawmakers will need to pass another budget resolution to try the process, and fights over funding President Trump’s border wall and several other programs could complicate the process. 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

Government

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal jury on Monday found two former New York stockbrokers liable for trading on confidential tips about an IBM Corp acquisition, despite a major appeals court ruling that made insider trading cases harder to pursue. In a victory for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, a federal jury in Manhattan found former Euro Pacific Capital Inc brokers Daryl Payton and Benjamin Durant liable for engaging in insider trading. The trial came after a 2014 appellate ruling limiting the scope of insider trading laws forced prosecutors to drop criminal charges against Payton, Durant and three others. The SEC continued to press civil charges over trades the two men placed before IBM announced its $1.2 billion acquisition of SPSS Inc in 2009. Payton, 39, and Durant, 40, conceded they traded on non-public information. But they argued that their trades did not constitute illegal insider trading, a position they adopted after the appellate ruling. Scott Morvillo, Durant’s lawyer, said he was confident the verdict would be reversed on appeal. Payton’s lawyers declined to comment. The trial came amid ongoing litigation over what constitutes insider trading, an issue the U.S. Supreme Court last month said it would review. The trial followed a December 2014 ruling by a federal appeals court in New York holding that traders could be held liable only if they knew a tip’s source received a benefit of “some consequence,” not just friendship, in exchange. After the ruling, which overturned two hedge fund managers’ convictions, a federal judge threw out guilty pleas by Payton and three other men in the IBM case. While prosecutors then dropped the criminal case, the SEC, facing a lower burden of proof, elected to move forward. According to the SEC, in 2009, Michael Dallas, an attorney at IBM’s law firm, told his friend Trent Martin that he was working on IBM’s acquisition of SPSS. While Dallas expected Martin, a Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc analyst, not to tell anyone, Martin bought SPSS stock and told his roommate, Thomas Conradt, a Euro Pacific employee, the SEC said. Conradt then told four Euro Pacific colleagues, including Payton and Durant, who made $629,472 and $254,141, respectively, trading in SPSS before the deal’s announcement, the SEC said. Payton and Durant countered that Martin received nothing that would constitute an illegal benefit for his information, nor did they know about any benefit if it existed. The case is Securities and Exchange Commission v. Payton et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 14-04644.

Law

Legal

Nov 21 (Reuters) - At&T Inc * At&T Inc - Fox Networks Group and At&T expand multi-platform distribution agreement including Directv NOW * At&T Inc -Parties have also agreed on a framework for Fox Broadcasting Company programming to be delivered to Directv customers nationwide Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:

Television

Broadcasting

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday that she isn’t sure there will be an infrastructure bill this year, dealing another blow to lawmakers clamoring for a sweeping infrastructure package. "I don't know that there will be one by the end of the year,” Sanders said during the White House press briefing. Her remark is in line with President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump pushes back on recent polling data, says internal numbers are 'strongest we've had so far' Illinois state lawmaker apologizes for photos depicting mock assassination of Trump Scaramucci assembling team of former Cabinet members to speak out against Trump MORE’s own statement earlier this year that an infrastructure overhaul would likely come after the November midterm elections.  "I don’t think you’re going to get Democrat support very much. And you’ll probably have to wait until after the election, which isn’t so long down the road. But we’re going to get this infrastructure going,” Trump said in late March. While the administration formally unveiled its infrastructure framework in February, it failed to gain traction in Congress, as lawmakers shifted to other priorities like immigration and a large government spending bill. Speaker Paul RyanPaul Davis RyanEmbattled Juul seeks allies in Washington Ex-Parkland students criticize Kellyanne Conway Latina leaders: 'It's a women's world more than anything' MORE (R-Wis.) in early March also cut short hopes for a large package, saying the president’s infrastructure plan would likely come to fruition in five or six different pieces of legislation. In his explanation, Ryan pointed to two must-pass bills: the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization, which Congress passed last month, and the omnibus spending package. He also referenced the Water Resources Development Act, a water infrastructure bill Congress re-ups every two years. Amid the uncertainty over the future of the rebuilding plan, White House infrastructure policy adviser D.J. Gribbin left the administration, which has yet to announce his replacement. 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

Government

LONDON — Thomas Pink, the upmarket British shirt and suit retailer owned by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, announced the appointment of John Ray as its creative director on Thursday, just hours before London Fashion Week Men’s kicked off with its fifth anniversary party. Mr. Ray, who is Scottish, was previously creative director at the smaller London brand Dunhill, which he left in February 2016. Thomas Pink, which was founded in 1984 by three Irish brothers — James, John and Peter Mullen — and was named after the 18th-century London tailor who designed the iconic British red hunting coat, was bought by the French luxury group LVMH in 1999. The move on Thursday is likely to provide Mr. Ray with some challenges. While Thomas Pink is one of the best-known shirt makers for both men and women and it has expanded overseas in recent years — including in China, Hong Kong and the Middle East — the company has posted considerable losses. It has faced particularly intense competition in its home market, forcing it to lower prices and to resort to more sales promotions. In 2014, the company won a trademark battle with the American lingerie retailer Victoria’s Secret, after the British high court found that the introduction in Europe of a Victoria’s Secret brand called Pink had caused “a detriment to the repute” of Thomas Pink. The similarity in the names and in the design of product labels could lead people to associate Thomas Pink with “sexy mass-market appeal,” the judge found. The British shirt maker said in a statement on Thursday that the appointment of Mr. Ray, a graduate of Central Saint Martins and of the Royal College of Art, a fashion industry veteran, and the former creative director of men’s wear at Gucci, would play “a key role in the renaissance of the brand.” Christopher Zanardi-Landi, who became president and chief executive of Thomas Pink in April, said that he was “really excited that John is joining us.” “His understanding of British craftsmanship and detail is second to none, and we share an emotional common vision on Thomas Pink’s future direction,” Mr. Zanardi-Landi said. Mr. Ray said that his first designs for Thomas Pink would be unveiled for the autumn/winter 2018 collection. “For those of us who are British, it holds a strong emotional appeal and potential,” he said of the brand. London Fashion Week Men’s runs through Monday. With the departure of blockbuster brands like Burberry and Coach from the schedule, and with J. W. Anderson showing at Pitti Uomo in Florence, Italy, this month, rising stars such as Craig Green, Grace Wales Bonner and Charles Jeffrey have been left to fly the flag for London fashion. International imports to the fashion week calendar, such as the Korean brand Songzio and the American label Band of Outsiders, will also attract interest, as will stalwarts like Vivienne Westwood, which is returning to the London lineup.

Other

Other

Most of us have found ourselves in this situation at some point in our lives: We make an appointment for a much-needed dusting to lose those raggedy split ends... only to leave the salon with a drastic new haircut that was only supposed to be an inch. When we say "most of us," that includes Kylie Jenner, who hit up her regular hairstylist Jesus Guerrero for a trim recently and ended up with a chop (supposedly) beyond her expectations. Jenner shared a snap of her damp, chin-length strands — no extensions to be found — on Instagram, writing, "@jesushair said he was giving me a trim and cut off all my hair." Depending on whose version of events you believe, however, Jenner may have been in on it all along. Guerrero responded to his client's video by writing, "@kyliejenner is trying to play me." One thing's for sure: Jenner is most definitely exaggerating when she says that all of her hair was cut off — she still has plenty, and we can think of a million different ways to style it. Whether it was the initial goal for the haircut or a case of both stylist and client getting scissors-happy, Jenner's new bob is right on trend. Plus, the beauty mogul has a world of wigs and extensions at her fingertips, so long hair is always just a backcomb and a clip-in away. Related Content:

Beauty

Hair

HARARE (Reuters) - A court in Zimbabwe on Thursday appointed Robert Mugabe’s daughter to identify assets left by the late former leader so they can be distributed to his beneficiaries, his lawyer said. Zimbabweans are keen to know how much wealth Mugabe accrued during his 37 years in power. Many assume that he and his family amassed a vast fortune - perhaps as much as $1 billion, according to a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable from 2001. The Master of High Court in Harare appointed Bona Chikore executor of her father’s estate, the Mugabe family lawyer Terrence Hussein told reporters, adding that this had been agreed by family members. Hussein said Mugabe’s wife Grace and Bona attended Thursday’s meeting at the court but sons Robert Jr and Bellarmine Chatunga were away. They, however, gave written consent that their sister should be appointed executor. For many years, Mugabe and Grace were widely reported by Zimbabwean and foreign media to have deposited money and bought properties abroad, including in Asia, where they spent most of their annual family holidays. The family has denied this. But a legal dispute that spilled into the public in 2014 over a $5 million villa in Hong Kong suggested Mugabe’s family had been buying overseas property. The government said it owned the house. Hussein said journalists and United States and Britain, who were critical of Mugabe, should prove that he had properties abroad so they could be registered with the court. “This is the good thing about saying falsehoods, those falsehoods will be exposed. Where are the properties?” Hussein said when asked about reports that Mugabe had properties abroad. Hussein told Reuters on Tuesday that the process of establishing Mugabe’s assets would take some time, casting doubt on a state media report that the former leader left $10 million and some properties in the capital. Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by Alison Williams

Politics

Government

LONDON, (Reuters) - Euro zone business activity accelerated last month, a survey showed on Wednesday, the latest piece of evidence to suggest the worst may be over for the bloc’s economy. IHS Markit’s final euro zone composite Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), seen as a good indicator of economic health, rose to a five-month high of 51.3 in January from December’s 50.9. That beat a preliminary estimate which suggested no change from the previous month but remained close to the 50 mark separating growth from contraction. “A further rise in the headline PMI to the highest since last August adds to evidence that the tide may be turning for the euro zone economy,” said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit. Williamson said the PMI pointed to quarterly GDP growth of 0.2%, in line with the latest Reuters poll prediction. However, the data were largely collected before the coronavirus outbreak spread further beyond China’s borders, which has raised risks to global growth. Demand strengthened last month. The new business index rose to 51.3 from 50.6, prompting firms to hire staff at a faster rate than they did in December. A sister survey on Monday suggested the worst may be over for factories in the region too. But possibly of concern to policymakers, the PMI for the bloc’s dominant service industry slipped a bit to 52.5 from 52.8. Services firms were at their most optimistic since April. The business expectations index rose to 61.9 from 60.7. Reporting by Jonathan Cable; Editing by Catherine Evans; mailto:[email protected]; +44 20 7542 4688

Economics

Macroeconomics

Invoking family stories of coming to America, many left-leaning voters in the multiethnic city of Racine say immigrants should enter legally. RACINE, Wis. — In this old manufacturing city that supported Hillary Clinton in 2016, dislike for President Trump runs wide and deep. Images of crying children at the Mexican border typically serve as Exhibit A on the list of grievances that Democratic voters cite against the president. Many of those same voters also express strong views opposing illegal border crossings, often rooted in their own family stories of coming to America. If you want a chance at the American dream, they say, you should play by the rules. “I think everybody should come in the right way, just like our ancestors did,” said Christy Cowles, 59, a retired city worker who is a fan of Senator Bernie Sanders. Voters like Ms. Cowles present a conundrum for Democrats as they navigate the sensitive topic of immigration. While many Democrats express a desire to ease the way for aspiring immigrants, party leaders also worry that an immigration agenda that shifts too far left could alienate voters in tightly contested states like Wisconsin, ranging from avowed liberals like Ms. Cowles to coveted swing voters. In the first round of Democratic debates in June, candidates staked out aggressively liberal positions on immigration, with near-unanimous support for decriminalizing illegal border crossings. The idea was first advanced by the former secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Julián Castro, who is among those scheduled to be onstage Wednesday night in the second set of debates. Jeh Johnson, the head of homeland security during the Obama administration, criticized the concept as tantamount to permitting open borders. Since then, another candidate, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, also slated to appear Wednesday night, said he would virtually eliminate immigration detention. Join us for live analysis on debate night. Subscribe to “On Politics,” and we’ll send you a link. In Tuesday night’s debate, Senator Elizabeth Warren took the lead, arguing in favor of decriminalizing illegal border crossings. “As Americans, what we need to do is to have a sane system that keeps us safe at the border, but does not criminalize the activity,” she said. Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio, one of several candidates staking out a more moderate approach, responded by saying, “If you want to come into this country, you should at least ring the doorbell.” In a sign of the escalating concerns within the party, several Democratic governors this month expressed alarm about open borders rhetoric. And a document recently circulated to House Democrats from party consultants advised a more moderate approach — suggesting the party emphasize a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who “work hard and pay their taxes” but also stress the importance of secure borders. [Sign up for our politics newsletter and join the conversation around the 2020 presidential race.] “Beyond policy, the best frame on immigration acknowledges the problem and talks about solutions — both addressing border security and a path to earned citizenship,” read the memo, which was addressed to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. A recent Gallup poll found that immigration tops the list of issues that Americans view as important. Mr. Trump’s demands for a wall at the Mexican border, as well as tighter restrictions on immigration, have emerged as an emotional issue in the presidential campaign. The president and his supporters have called Democrats soft on enforcement, while Democrats counter that the wall and inhumane treatment of those seeking asylum are antithetical to the core values of the United States. There are few places where the topic is more contentious than in Wisconsin, a swing state where it has been used as a cudgel against Democrats, even in local races for elected positions with no role in federal immigration policy. Rob Grover, a Democrat who ran for the Wisconsin Assembly last year, said he was surprised when a flier paid for by the Wisconsin Republican Party arrived in local mailboxes suggesting he wanted to abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Mr. Grover, who describes himself as conservative on immigration issues, said he had never expressed such a view. He lost his race in western Wisconsin. Immigration has emerged as an issue in other state races as well, with right-leaning appeals that appear designed to inflame anti-immigrant passion, according to Ben Wikler, chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, who blamed huge last-minute spending around immigration and other issues for defeating the Democratic candidate in this year’s Wisconsin Supreme Court election. Special interest groups — on both sides of the race — reported spending more than $4 million in an effort to sway its outcome. With its Democratic city center and a surrounding rural area that skews Republican, Racine County is known for swinging from one party to another, serving as a national bellwether in predicting the outcome of presidential races. In 2016, the county voted for Mr. Trump. And in this swing district, some local Democrats have speculated that immigration helped torpedo their efforts last year to win the congressional seat held by the former House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, according to Fabi Maldonado, a Racine County supervisor and immigration advocate. The Democratic candidate, Randy Bryce, had been arrested while protesting Mr. Ryan’s position on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which delays deportation and allows work permits for undocumented immigrants brought into the country as children. “There was internal fighting in the Democratic Party over whether he was too open about supporting illegal immigration,” Mr. Maldonado said. “Some of that might be true, but you have to be for immigration rights if you want Latinx voters to turn out.” Ms. Cowles, the retired city worker, said that her forebears arrived in Racine a century ago from Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Germany, joining a wave of European immigrants who settled this lakefront city 30 miles south of Milwaukee. African-Americans arrived during the Great Migration and, more recently, the Latino population has swelled to about 20 percent. The city has largely embraced its multiethnic mosaic. Tortillas are sold on the same block as kringles, the Wisconsin state pastry introduced here by Danish immigrants. The Racine City Council recently endorsed the idea of permitting driver’s licenses for undocumented residents. Interviews here with more than a dozen Democrats and left-leaning voters revealed disagreement on immigration. Some favored more relaxed policies and others urged a cautious approach, recalling stories passed down through generations about how their own ancestors struggled to find sponsors before arriving at Ellis Island. Kevin Hughes, who retired from a factory that makes V05 shampoo, said he favored more liberal policies. “Everybody is going somewhere else to try to make a better life for their family,” said Mr. Hughes, 59. “Why would you want to criminalize that?” Maria Haenel, 35, who was born in Illinois to Mexican parents, held a similar view. “Even if immigrants that have come over the border, even if they don’t have papers, they should be given a chance to get a work visa, or a student visa, or some type of help to stay here and be able to live the American dream,” said Ms. Haenel, a caregiver for elderly people. Yet some members of Racine’s Mexican-American community said they worried about opening up borders too liberally. Lewis Mendoza, 68, takes pride in the contribution of Mexican people to the Wisconsin economy, particularly in the dairy industry, where a high percentage of workers are believed to be undocumented. “There was a time when blue-eyed, blond-haired people did that job,” said Mr. Mendoza, a Democrat who voted for Mrs. Clinton. “You don’t see any white people anymore. It’s all Mexican people. What are you going to do if you send them back?” But Mr. Mendoza, a veteran who has worked as a dishwasher in Racine restaurants alongside undocumented workers, also expressed skepticism about migrants who enter the country illegally. “As far as just jumping over a fence or something, I don’t know about that. I’m a little leery about that,” he said. Racine is known for its ethnic festivals, many held on the shore of Lake Michigan. A lakefront fair last week sponsored by the Roma Lodge, an Italian welfare association, featured fireworks, Frank Sinatra music and a dinner of mostaccioli and ravioli. Jim Faraone, a former board member of the organization, was in charge of selling lottery tickets to raise money for local health charities. Mr. Faraone, a Vietnam veteran, is a swing voter, having supported both Barack Obama and Mrs. Clinton, but also Mr. Ryan, a Republican. He also expressed skepticism about an overly broad border policy. “They shouldn’t be here unless they came in legally; it’s the only way,” said Mr. Faraone, 77, whose father immigrated from Italy and developed the home building business that Mr. Faraone later operated in the area. Echoing Mr. Trump’s warnings, Mr. Faraone expressed fear that other countries were offloading “murderers and other criminals” into the United States. Ginny Ziolkowski, 70, also said she swung from one party to another, most recently supporting Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton, but before that the Republican president George W. Bush. As for Mr. Trump, “I personally can’t stand him,” she said as she took in the view at Racine’s lakefront. But Ms. Ziolkowski, whose late husband was the Racine County executive — a lakefront park here bears his name — said she leaned conservative on immigration issues and opposed providing health care benefits to undocumented migrants, another idea some candidates endorsed during the first debates. It’s clearly an issue the Trump campaign feels works in its favor; on Tuesday, it released a new ad blasting Democrats for supporting the idea. “I feel they need to come in legally if they want to live here,” Ms. Ziolkowski said. “And they should not be getting education, health care and other benefits.” Jonathan Martin contributed reporting from Washington.

Politics

US

ROME, Oct 30 (Reuters) - Nine people have been killed in Italy as violent storms batter the country for a third day, with several regions on high alert. The breakwater walls in the chic seaside resort of Rapallo, in northeast Italy, were destroyed by fierce winds overnight, allowing in a surge of water that toppled yachts over and inflicted heavy damage on the port area. “The exceptional wave of bad weather leaves us with a dramatic toll: nine dead, four serious injuries and one person missing,” said Interior Minister Matteo Salvini. Italy’s Civil Protection agency said the last person to have been found dead was a surfer in the Adriatic sea town of Cattolica. The agency on Tuesday declared the highest level of alert on several regions, mainly in the north, where storms were expected to continue all day. An orange alert, the second highest on the scale, was issued for the central regions of Abruzzo and Lazio - which includes the capital Rome - where gale-force winds topped 100 kph on Monday. Authorities in the lagoon city of Venice had barred access on Monday to the central St Mark’s Square, which was heavily flooded. The national fire brigade said it had intervened in 7,000 cases across the country and that one of its staff had died, crushed by a tree during a rescue operation in a small town in South Tyrol. Nonetheless, the main highways across the country were open, with closures only on secondary roads. The weather was expected to improve from the late afternoon, “giving the country a truce” an official from the civil protection agency told Reuters. Meanwhile, heavy snowfall across south-central France, with up to 40 cm (16 inches) falling in some towns and villages, has caused chaos on the roads and knocked out electricity to nearly 200,000 homes, authorities said on Tuesday. Reporting by Giulia Segreti and Massimiliano Di Giorgio; Editing by Alison Williams

Disaster

Flood

ROME/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The Liberals in the European Parliament have turned down a request from the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement to join their group, putting Italy’s second-largest party in an awkward position as it had already left its former partners. 5-Star’s members had voted earlier on Monday to break their alliance with the anti-EU UK Independence Party in favor of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), but ALDE declined, citing deep-seated incompatibilities. “There is insufficient common ground to proceed with the request of the Five Star Movement to join the ALDE Group,” leader Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister, said in a statement. “There remain fundamental differences on key European issues.” Political opponents in Italy seized on the failed overture to Verhofstadt, a keen federalist whose pro-EU views 5-Star has previously ridiculed, as a sign of the movement’s incompetence. “If until yesterday 5-Star screamed against the euro and Europe, how could they join up with a group that has always taken the diametrically opposite position?” said Michele Bordo, a lawmaker from the ruling Democratic Party (PD). “The only problem here is the consistency of the 5-Star Movement.” Some 78 percent of 5-Star’s members who participated in an online vote on Monday backed the proposal by the party’s founder Beppe Grillo to abandon UKIP and hook up with ALDE. The move prompted an angry reaction from UKIP founder Nigel Farage, who said Grillo had “joined the establishment”. Grillo’s blog, 5-Star’s main mouthpiece, said “the establishment” had blocked its entry into the third largest group in the Brussels parliament. Verhofstadt had paved the way for its entry into ALDE but could not convince a majority of its 68 members. 5-Star said it would try to put together a new group called the Direct Democracy Movement in time for the next parliament in 2019, but gave no indication of where its members would go now. Italy’s main opposition party rejects traditional left-right ideological labels and so has no natural home among the main political families in Brussels. Its policies include holding a referendum on membership of the euro zone, universal income support for the poor, tax cuts for small businesses, and clean energy. It attacks the Brussels establishment but does not want Italy to leave the EU. Grillo said on Sunday he had also approached the Greens about a possible alliance, but had been rebuffed. If ALDE had accepted 5-Star, the Italian group would have been seen as entering mainstream politics and moving away from the anti-establishment fringes, perhaps reassuring other EU capitals that have grown uneasy about its rising popularity. Additional reporting by Francesco Guarascio in Brussels and Isla Binnie in Rome; Editing by Louise Ireland

Politics

Government

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice sucks. A lot. But don't worry — the future of this franchise isn't totally fried yet. There's still time to fix it.  The movie didn't find many fans here at Mashable. Critics in general picked apart what was seen as an incomprehensible story and baffling character motivations.  Even wider audiences weren't too jazzed about the movie. The $170 million opening weekend box office broke all sorts of records, but with a CinemaScore of "B," Dawn of Justice is in the same boat as Catwoman, Elektra, Green Lantern and Daredevil. Ouch. Warner Bros. may spend the next three months counting box office dollars, but at some point the studio's going to have to think about the long-term. Dawn of Justice is the first big piece in the DC Comics Cinematic Universe, and it's a dud. Some things need to change. Not everything, mind you. Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman was great, if criminally underused. Batfleck delivered an unexpected take on Gotham City's Dark Knight, but — once you get over the surprise of a more brutal Batman — it was at least consistent. And Affleck is a pro. Even Superman, played by the ever-wooden Henry Cavill, has some neat stuff going on. For all the problems in the movie that center around his character, the way his alien "otherness" leans into creepy is at least unique.  Superman's always been the goody-goody. He still is in these movies. But he's also a creepy flying alien man with bulletproof eyes. There's something genuinely unsettling about the way he hovers in the air, surveying devastation as his cape flutters behind him. Don't forget Lex Luthor. We'll always love Gene Hackman's Lex, but Jesse Eisenberg's Zuckerbergian take is the Lex that the 21st century deserves. The things that make him familiar are the same ones that make him scary. Finally, as sloppy and downright goofy as the continuity-building was, it was there. And it was exciting to glimpse the wider world of superhumans. Even if Aquaman totally looked like he was about to have a "Not Penny's boat" moment. There's so much bad. Mountains of bad. Where do we even start? The script. It's the rotten core of this bad apple. Nearly everything that's detestable about Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice can be blamed on the garbage story and the lines it forces each character to utter. The principal problem is how much the movie seems to rely on its audience having intimate knowledge of the key players. Character development is non-existent, to the point that things stop making sense after a while. Did you know Wonder Woman's human name is Diana Prince? If you don't, it was probably super-confusing when that flight attendant called out "Ms. Prince!" as the Woman of Wonder ran off to go help her future super-pals. The script. It's the rotten core of this bad apple. Do you know who Darkseid is? Or the Flash? You probably didn't pick up on the import of that weird dream sequence. Most people know who Robin is, but would someone who doesn't read comics understand that this armor belonged to him? Then there are the scads of plot holes. It's frankly amazing that a movie with a 153-minute running time doesn't put enough focus on fleshing out its characters, but here we are. Blame the script. Blame the director, too. Zack Snyder's creative execution is a mess. Fixing this dog isn't going to be easy, though a steep box office drop-off in week two and beyond would help to usher in some changes. Unfortunately, this is a situation where the things that should happen don't line up with the things that have even a remote possibility of happening.  Take Snyder. He needs to go. Dawn of the Dead was an exceptional remake and 300 featured some of the most dazzling imagery in cinema history, but he shouldn't be running the show on 10 years of continuity-building. Go see Watchmen again and try to argue that point. Snyder is a visual storyteller. A pictures guy. He makes things look amazing, but he's never demonstrated any capacity for building a complex narrative. Sadly, he's already booked for both parts of Justice League, and that's not likely to change.  In a perfect world, Suicide Squad — out in August — is stupendously amazing, does huge box office business and emboldens WB to make some creative changes on the DCCCU initiative.  Suicide director David Ayer doesn't have the lengthiest resume, but he's turned out some strong meditations on urban decay in multiple films. And the DCCCU is currently awash with urban decay. Don't overlook Affleck, either. He's a big director man now. He even scored an Oscar for Best Picture with Argo. He acquits himself well in Dawn of Justice despite the garbage script. What if he claimed the creative throne from Snyder? He'd certainly bring along Chris Terrio, the writer of Argo. Terrio also co-wrote Dawn of Justice, but he gets the benefit of the doubt over his writing partner, David Goyer. Goyer's done some fine work in Hollywood — the Blade series, Dark City, the Constantine TV series, Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy (the first two, at least). But he's inconsistent.  For every Blade there's The Crow: City of Angels, or Jumper, or The Unborn. He wrote the first two Call of Duty: Black Ops games, which are incomprehensible. So Terrio, who wrote the Oscar-winning Argo and not much else, gets the benefit of the doubt. He can stay. Goyer goes. The likelihood that any of this happens is almost non-existent, but WB needs to do something. The record-busting box office for Dawn of Justice is good news for 2016, but fans are going to start fleeing if the creative direction continues on its current course. Then again, Transformers has gotten four movies so far and at least three more are coming. We might be screwed. Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Entertainment

Movies

Feb 1 (Reuters) - Medical device maker Boston Scientific Corp posted a quarterly loss versus a year-ago profit as it incurred a $842 million charge due to changes in the U.S. tax law. The company reported a net loss of $615 million, or 45 cents per share, in the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, compared with a profit of $124 million, or 9 cents per share, a year earlier. Net sales rose 10 percent to $2.41 billion. Reporting by Tamara Mathias in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur

Business

Technology

(Reuters) - Flexion Therapeutics Inc’s pain drug was found to be effective in a late-stage study, taking the company one step closer to its first ever U.S. marketing approval. Flexion’s shares jumped about 38 percent in extended trading on Tuesday as the announcement revived hopes for the drug, which is touted to rake in peak U.S. sales of at least half a billion dollars. The drug, Zilretta, was found successful in reducing pain in patients with moderate to severe osteoarthritis knee pain compared with a placebo, months after failing to meet the main goal in a mid-stage trial. Osteoarthritis is a form of degenerative arthritis that affects 27 million Americans. It is caused by the progressive breakdown and eventual loss of cartilage, and is characterized by pain, swelling and decreased mobility of the affected joint. Most existing therapies, including opioids, offer limited effectiveness, and can pose the risk of serious side effects. “Zilretta has the potential to become an important new non-opioid treatment in a therapeutic area that hasn’t seen meaningful innovation in many years,” Chief Executive Officer Michael Clayman said, adding that the company is now preparing to submit a marketing application for the drug. The drug has the potential to become the standard of care, analysts said. “I think this (data) blows a lot of the current therapies out of the water if you just look at efficacy numbers,” Cantor Fitzgerald’s Chiara Russo told Reuters. Russo estimates Zilretta to generate adjusted U.S. peak sales of $860 million and worldwide sales of $920 million by 2021. Laidlaw & Co’s Jim Malloy, who forecast peak U.S. sales of $650 million by 2020, said the drug will likely hit the market by the second half of 2017, assuming the FDA does not take issue with the fact that the drug failed a prior study. Patients in the study received either the drug, Zilretta, or a commonly used treatment called triamcinolone acetonide (TCA) or a placebo. The main goal of the 486-patient study was to assess the magnitude of pain relief induced by Zilretta versus a placebo at 12 weeks. Reporting by Natalie Grover in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty

Pharmaceuticals

Drugs

next Image 1 of 2 prev Image 2 of 2 MEXICO CITY – President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Sunday released a seven-page letter he sent to U.S. President Donald Trump detailing how he plans to improve Mexico&aposs economy and security when he takes office in December so that Mexicans do not feel the need to migrate. "There will be many changes," he promised in the letter. "And in this new atmosphere of progress with well-being, I&aposm sure we can reach agreements to confront together the migration phenomenon as well as the problem of border insecurity." Lopez Obrador also suggested the two countries draft a development plan backed by public funds and invite Central American countries to join, with the aim of making it "economically unnecessary" for Central Americans to migrate. Marcelo Ebrard, who is slated to become Mexico&aposs foreign minister, read the letter aloud to reporters gathered at Lopez Obrador&aposs political party headquarters. Ebrard said Trump had received the letter. The incoming Mexican president plans to cut government salaries, perks and jobs. Savings from those cuts, he says, will be directed toward social programs and infrastructure. He also plans to reduce taxes for the private sector in the hopes of spurring investment and job creation. Lopez Obrador said Sunday that some of his future collaborators in government posts have offered to work for free during his six-year term. Several of his proposed Cabinet members are independently wealthy. "It&aposs an enormous privilege to participate in a process of transformation. There&aposs no price on this," the president-elect said. He said he will publish salaries of government employees, from high-ranking ministers to police officers. He also said his political party, Morena, will turn down the extra public financing it is supposed to receive next year because it won additional seats in Congress. Lopez Obrador said Morena could collect up to 1.4 billion pesos ($73.5 million) and more than double what it was allocated for 2018. Mexican electoral authorities assigned the party 650 million pesos for this year. "That&aposs too much in an atmosphere of austerity," Lopez Obrador said. He said he doesn&apost want Morena to turn into an economic power with career politicians who forget that their mission is to serve the people.

Finance

Economics

SYDNEY, July 24 (Reuters) - KKR & Co has agreed to purchase the international business of food company Campbell Soup Co for $2.2 billion, including its popular biscuits brand Tim-Tams, the Australian Financial Review reported on Wednesday. The U.S. private equity firm was told it had won an auction for the business overnight, beating Australian rival Pacific Equity Partners, the newspaper said, citing anonymous sources. Representatives for KKR and PEP did not immediately return requests for comment. A Campbell Soup spokeswoman said the U.S. company’s Australian unit, Arnott’s, had not been sold. “The process to divest Arnott’s and the rest of our international operations is ongoing. We do not comment on rumor and speculation,” she told Reuters by phone. Campbell’s international unit, along with its “fresh” business, was put up for sale in August last year after the company was pressured by investors to improve profitability and stock performance. Earlier this month, it sold its Danish unit Kelsen Group to an affiliate of Nutella maker Ferrero SpA for $300 million. (Reporting by Paulina Duran; Editing by Stephen Coates)

Food and Drink

Food

May 3 (Reuters) - Jinyuan Cement Co Ltd: * SAYS IT PLANS TO ISSUE UP TO 1.21 BILLION YUAN ($190.59 million) CONVERTIBLE BONDS Source text in Chinese: bit.ly/2I5wrLJ Further company coverage: ($1 = 6.3487 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting by Hong Kong newsroom)

Finance

Banking

The family of one of R. Kelly's alleged sex slaves is demanding a meeting with their daughter ... but ONLY if her alleged captor isn't there. A family attorney for Joycelyn Savage's parents fired off a letter to Kelly's attorney, Steven Greenberg, Monday morning that spelled out a request for an in-person meeting between Joycelyn and her folks, Timothy and Jonjelyn Savage. They don't want R. Kelly there. In the letter, obtained by TMZ, the Savages' lawyer says some of Kelly's former associates have made threats against Tim and Jonjelyn, which they say are now being investigated in Henry County, GA. This appears to be a different criminal investigation than the one that's already underway in nearby Fulton County, GA. The Savages also make another thing clear ... they're terrified for their lives and refuse to meet with Joycelyn in Chicago without the presence of law enforcement. The Savages say they want to meet with Joycelyn to determine once and for all whether her relationship with Kelly is in fact consensual. Ideally, they'd like to meet in Atlanta ... but say they're willing to meet in Chi-Town, only if it's at the State Attorney's Office. You'll recall ... this is just the latest attempt by the Savages to make contact with their daughter, which began long before "Surviving R. Kelly" aired on Lifetime.

News

Politics

How many times have you gone into a store and found the shelves need restocking of the very item you want? This is a frequent problem, and it’s difficult, especially in larger retail establishments, to keep on top of stocking requirements. Zebra Technologies has a solution: a robot that scans the shelves and reports stock gaps to human associates. The SmartSight robot is a hardware, software and services solution that roams the aisles of the store checking the shelves, using a combination of computer vision, machine learning, workflow automation and robotic capabilities. It can find inventory problems, pricing glitches and display issues. When it finds a problem, it sends a message to human associates via a Zebra mobile computer with the location and nature of the issue. The robot takes advantage of Zebra’s EMA50 mobile automation technology and links to other store systems, including inventory and online ordering systems. Zebra claims it increases available inventory by 95%, while reducing human time spent wandering the aisles to do inventory manually by an average of 65 hours per week. While it will likely reduce the number of humans required to perform this type of task, Zebra’s senior vice president and general manager of Enterprise Mobile Computing, Joe White, says it’s not always easy to find people to fill these types of positions. “SmartSight and the EMA50 were developed to help retailers fully capitalize on the opportunities presented by the on-demand economy despite heightened competition and ongoing labor shortage concerns,” White said in a statement. This is a solution that takes advantage of robotics to help humans keep store shelves stocked and find other issues. The SmartSight robot will be available on a subscription basis starting later this quarter. That means retailers won’t have to worry about owning and maintaining the robot. If anything goes wrong, Zebra would be responsible for fixing it. Zebra made the announcement at the NRF 2020 conference taking place this week in New York City.

Robotics

Artificial Intelligence

When the Wachowskis were filming bullet time scenes for The Matrix they had an elaborate rig with dozens of cameras in a green-screened studio. But, as professional freestyle skier Nicolas Vuignier demonstrates, you can get a pretty similar effect just by whirling an iPhone round your head on the end of a string. The video above was filmed entirely on an iPhone 6 (which came out of the ordeal unscathed), and although Vuignier makes it look easy, he says it took "almost two years of tinkering and tweaking" before he got the results he wanted. A making-of video is also in the works, says Vuignier, although if you're into skiing, his channel has quite few videos — including this evocative one showing him skiing through a forest at night, with a lit flare in his hand. Maybe he'll combine this with his centrifugal iPhone skills at some point? Well, he is a professional skier after all, if anyone can manage it he can. Tips and Tricks: To take your Snapchat game to another level

Sports

Disability Sports

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Ferrari’s Formula One championship leader Sebastian Vettel took pole position at the Hungarian Grand Prix on Saturday as Mercedes title rival Lewis Hamilton missed out on a record-equalling career 68th. The German’s Finnish team mate Kimi Raikkonen sealed Ferrari’s front row lockout, with the Italian glamour team back to their best after recent setbacks while Mercedes wondered where their previous pace had gone. “The car was fantastic today, it was really a pleasure to just go around,” said Vettel after taking his 48th career pole on a hot afternoon at the Hungaroring. His sizzling time of one minute 16.276 seconds was an absolute record for the slowest permanent circuit on the calendar. “Obviously the last race wasn’t great for us but it doesn’t matter now,” added the four-times world champion, who finished seventh at Silverstone two weeks ago with a late blowout slashing his lead over Hamilton to a single point. Hamilton will start from a disappointing fourth place on the grid and alongside his Finnish team mate Valtteri Bottas. The triple champion had been hoping to match Michael Schumacher’s all-time pole record with his sixth in Hungary, a circuit where he has won five times already, and had set the fastest lap of the second phase of qualifying. But he had to abort his first run in the final part after running wide, complaining of vibrations to the tyres, with the pressure piled on as the clock ticked down and no margin for error. “We knew they were quick and we were aware of their pace. I don’t know if they brought an upgrade but I think we did quite well considering,” said the Briton. “You can’t overtake here so it’s most likely going to be a train unless we can do something on strategy.” Ferrari had not swept the front row in Hungary since 2004, when a dominant Schumacher led Brazilian team mate Rubens Barrichello. That year was also the last time anyone other than Hamilton has won at the Hungaroring from pole position and the last year in which the winner in Hungary went on to take the world championship that same season. “They’ve been quick all weekend,” said Bottas. “Coming to qualifying we knew it should be close and they would be tough to beat and they had the upper hand today. “They’ve clearly got everything right for this track and we still have work to do in circuits like this. But let’s see tomorrow.” The top six places on the grid went in team order, with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo qualifying fifth and sixth. Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg was seventh, but will take a five place penalty for a gearbox change. That will raise McLaren’s Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne to seventh and eighth respectively. While one Briton had seized all the attention at the front end, another stood out at the back with Paul di Resta making his first appearance in qualifying since 2013 as a last-minute replacement for an unwell Felipe Massa at Williams. The Scot, who had never driven a 2017 car before and faced the monumental task of getting to grips with it in a matter of minutes, qualified an impressive 19th and ahead of Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson. Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Pritha Sarkar

Sports

Motorsports

(The following statement was released by the rating agency) Link to Fitch Ratings' Report: 2017 Outlook: Dutch Insurance here LONDON, December 05 (Fitch) Fitch Ratings has a negative sector outlook for Dutch life insurance in 2017, reflecting expectations of a decline in premium income and weak profitability. However, insurers' strong capitalisation and low investment risk will help them to absorb the pressures they face and Fitch's rating Outlook for the sector is therefore Stable, indicating that most Dutch life ratings are likely to be affirmed over the next one to two years. The Dutch non-life sector will face continued pricing competition and low investment yields in 2017. Despite this, the Dutch non-life sector outlook is stable, reflecting Fitch's expectation that insurers will cut costs and successfully adapt to a potentially higher claims environment by raising their premium rates. We expect profitability in the health segment to recover in the medium term once capital has been managed down to a level viewed as appropriate by the government and the public. Insurers are responding with similar strategies to tackle low investment yields and onerous capital requirements in the Dutch market. Apart from cost savings and the shift in product mix, insurers increasingly compete on product innovation and improved customer service. This is in response to insurance customers becoming more insurance-savvy and demanding greater convenience. With limited strategic differentiation between insurers, efficient operation becomes the differentiator for market share and profitability. NN Group's takeover approach to Delta Lloyd reinforces our expectation that M&A activity in the Dutch market could accelerate. Fitch believes that prevailing market and regulatory conditions are an incentive for M&A activity. These conditions include low growth in demand for insurance, the attraction of greater scale and cost synergies to offset pressure on profitability, and capitalisation benefits for risk diversification under S2. The full report, '2017 Outlook: Dutch Insurance' is available at www.fitchratings.com or by clicking the link above. Contact: Willem Loots Director +44 20 3530 1808 Fitch Ratings Limited 30 North Colonnade London E14 5GN Andras Sasdi Associate Director +44 20 3530 1805 Media Relations: Athos Larkou, London, Tel: +44 203 530 1549, Email: [email protected]. Additional information is available on www.fitchratings.com ALL FITCH CREDIT RATINGS ARE SUBJECT TO CERTAIN LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS. PLEASE READ THESE LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS BY FOLLOWING THIS LINK: here. IN ADDITION, RATING DEFINITIONS AND THE TERMS OF USE OF SUCH RATINGS ARE AVAILABLE ON THE AGENCY'S PUBLIC WEB SITE AT WWW.FITCHRATINGS.COM. 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Investment

Bonds

Losing to the urban neighborhood of Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia, may not be the end story for the more than 230 cities that attempted to win the bid for Amazon's second headquarters. According to AOL co-founder Steve Case, the 14-month-long bidding process may have triggered these cities to keep the energy going and feel more empowered to build thriving ecosystems. "Even though it ended up with one city winning and lots of other cities kind of losing," he said, "those cities can turn into winners if they keep the battle going and keep the community working together and saying, 'What can we do to be a better magnet for capital and for talent, and how do we create a culture around creativity and optimism and possibilities that will result in many cities rising perhaps faster than they would have otherwise?'" Case, the co-founder, chairman and CEO of investment firm Revolution and author of the New York Times best-selling book "The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur's Vision of the Future," revealed his theory at CNBC's Capital Exchange event in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. The event featured candid conversations about how business and government can better collaborate to create jobs and economic growth. He said that of the 230 communities that applied, there were just a few who could really meet Amazon's requirements, so the time and energy and dollars those cities spent on trying to lure Amazon could have been better exercised by focusing on their own start-up scenes. What attracted Amazon to Crystal City: its connectivity to Northern Virginia, Washington, D.C., and the rest of the United States, as well as excellent digital infrastructure, an educated workforce and prime development land. "A lot of people put a lot of energy into it but didn't really have a shot," said Case. "If those 230 other places that tried and failed to get Amazon, if they just took half of the time and energy and passion they put into making the Amazon bid—rallying the community, getting people working together collaboratively—and half of the dollars they put on the table as an economic incentive to lure Amazon and refocus it on their start-up community, they perhaps can create the next Amazon. "In the long run it may end up being something that will be transformative in terms of what we are trying to achieve in terms of 'rise of the rest,' leveling the playing field, in terms of opportunities and job creation and so forth."

Technology

Social Media

The 32-year-old, who hasn’t played in the N.F.L. since the 2016 season, is expected to work out for teams on Saturday. Quarterback Colin Kaepernick has been invited to work out for N.F.L. teams this weekend, possibly a step toward a return to the N.F.L. for the first time since the 2016 season. The news set off a flurry of speculation. Some fans said they hoped Kaepernick could help their team. Some said they didn’t want him because of his history of kneeling during the national anthem to protest social injustice and police brutality. And some suggested the workout was a sham designed to put a good face on what they considered Kaepernick’s blackballing by the N.F.L., noting that the workout will be on Saturday, when teams travel to away games. Will Kaepernick, 32, finally get back in uniform? If he does, will he be a starter or a clipboard holder? Could his running skills give him a role as a part-time wildcat quarterback? Let’s take a look at some possible landing places, though it is not confirmed how many teams or which ones will scout him. The Bengals are making the right noises about having faith in the rookie Ryan Finley, who didn’t show much in his one start. They also have a veteran backup in Andy Dalton. But the team is 0-9. Coach Zac Taylor was thought of as a guy who would take chances, and he has to be desperate for a win. At this point in the N.F.L., there is no greater gamble than bringing in Kaepernick. The online bookmaker Sportsbetting.ag has listed the Bengals as the favorite to sign Kaepernick, followed by the Pittsburgh Steelers (who are already on their backup, Mason Rudolph) and the Baltimore Ravens (he would fit the system currently tailored to Lamar Jackson and Robert Griffin III). The Lions were getting good production out of Matthew Stafford until he hurt his back. And Jeff Driskel was poor in his one start replacing him. The main question is how badly Stafford is hurt. The Lions played it close to the vest over the weekend, ruling him out only at game time. His status going forward is uncertain, but there have been reports that he has fractures, which sounds pretty serious. Stafford is known for playing despite injury, so few will be surprised if he comes back soon. If not, and if the Lions can’t live with Driskel, Kaepernick could be an option. The Colts have had terrible luck at quarterback, with Andrew Luck choosing to retire in August and Jacoby Brissett sitting out last week with an injury. That left the team in the hands of Brian Hoyer, who was 18 for 38 with three interceptions in a loss to the woeful Dolphins. Especially if Brissett’s injury problems are longer term, the Colts could be looking for quarterback help. Of quarterbacks with five or more starts, Sam Darnold has the worst statistics. The Jets have also sent out Luke Falk and Trevor Siemian to start this year. They weren’t good either. The Jets seem still to be committed to Darnold. But the veteran Kaepernick would seem to be a better backup and mentor than David Fales (career starts at quarterback, 0), who is currently the No. 2. When the season started, most Bears fans were high on Mitch Trubisky and the team’s future. Now the Bears, 12-4 last season, are 4-5, and the doubts have gone from a trickle to a torrent, even after last week’s three-touchdown performance in a win over Detroit. The backup Chase Daniel hasn’t set the league alight either. The Dolphins have probably had the worst quarterback play in the league, switching between Ryan Fitzpatrick and Josh Rosen (they’re terrible at most other positions as well). But they look less likely to shake up their team than they were a few weeks ago, since Fitzpatrick has been playing better and they have an unlikely two-game winning streak. The Panthers are 5-4 and still have playoff chances, but they have lost Cam Newton for the season. Luckily, Kyle Allen has been more than able in relief. Still, with Allen’s backup being a rookie, Will Grier, and with Newton possibly leaving town before he ever plays for the Panthers again, Kaepernick could be a hedge against uncertainty. Let’s be honest. Kaepernick is not exactly an unknown quantity. Teams have had multiple chances to sign him over almost three years, and all have passed. Is a workout open to every team really going to change any minds? Will any team really want to anger some percentage of its fan base and deal with news media headaches for an aging quarterback to stand on the sideline? Despite the candidates out there, any team signing Kaepernick is far from a sure thing. Benjamin Hoffman contributed reporting.

Sports

Football

In case we hadn't yet established that ageism in Hollywood is a thing, hear this. At the tender age of 28, Elizabeth Banks was deemed too old to play Mary Jane Watson in Spider-Man. Note that Toby McGuire was 27 when he took on the leading role in the movie. Sigh. “I screen-tested for the role of Mary Jane Watson in the first Spider-Man movie, opposite Tobey Maguire," the actress and director told Glamour U.K., according to The Guardian. "Tobey and I are basically the same age and I was told I was too old to play her. I’m like, ‘Oh, okay, that’s what I’ve signed up for.’” The role went to Kirsten Dunst, who was 18 at the time. Sadly, this is not too surprising. After all, Maggie Gyllenhaal was considered too old at 37 to play a 55-year-old man's love interest. Clearly, when ageism and sexism combine, you get some pretty enraging casting decisions.

Entertainment

Television

EditorsNote: Subbed photo; minor fixes, tightening throughout Max Kepler and Nelson Cruz homered and Michael Pineda pitched seven strong innings to lift the visiting Minnesota Twins to a 6-2 victory against the Chicago White Sox on Friday night. Pineda limited the White Sox to two runs on six hits with a walk and five strikeouts, keeping Chicago’s bats cold as the club lost its fourth straight. Minnesota grabbed early control of the game with a five-run second-inning against White Sox rookie right-hander Dylan Cease. Byron Buxton’s RBI sacrifice fly and a run-scoring single by Cruz bookended the scoring between Kepler’s three-run home run. Kepler’s club-leading 27th homer of the season was the team’s 200th of 2019 and came in Minnesota’s 103rd game. With the blast, the Twins became the fastest team in major league history to reach 200 home runs, eclipsing the 2005 Texas Rangers, who hit their 200th and 201st home runs in the team’s 122nd game. Ten Twins have at least 10 home runs this season. Chicago responded with Adam Engel’s two-run homer in the third inning against Pineda (7-5) that closed the gap to 5-2. The next two batters reached ahead of No. 3 hitter Jose Abreu with none out, but Abreu grounded into a double play, and Ryan Goins flew out two batters later to end the inning. Cease (1-3) responded to the Twins’ big second inning by retiring nine in a row. He allowed five runs on seven hits with three walks and four strikeouts. He has yielded at least three runs in each of his four career starts, and his ERA is 6.86. Cruz, who went 3-for-4, provided an insurance run with a solo shot in the seventh, his 26th of the season. It was Cruz’s seventh home run in five games and his ninth in his past 10 games. Miguel Sano was 2-for-4. Leury Garcia and Jon Jay had two hits apiece for Chicago. —Field Level Media

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In the year since Pakistani investigators raided Axact, a Karachi-based software company accused of raking in hundreds of millions of dollars with a vast Internet degree scam, Pakistani and American investigators have been busy dismantling its operations. Fourteen Axact employees, including the chief executive, await trial on charges of fraud, extortion and money laundering. Bank accounts in Pakistan and the United States have been frozen. Investigators have uncovered a tangled web of corporate entities — dozens of shell companies and associates, from Caribbean tax havens to others in Delaware, Dubai and Singapore — used to funnel illicit earnings back to Pakistan. New details suggest that Axact’s fraud empire, already considered one of the biggest Internet scams on record, is bigger than initially imagined. Over the past decade, Axact took money from at least 215,000 people in 197 countries — one-third of them from the United States. Sales agents wielded threats and false promises and impersonated government officials, earning the company at least $89 million in its final year of operation. Those findings stem from financial and customer records, company registrations, sworn testimony, communications between Pakistani and American officials, and hundreds of hours of taped phone conversations filed in court. The records have been made available to The New York Times in the months since a Times article detailing the company’s scheme prompted police raids and the collapse not just of Axact, but also of the company’s new national news channel, Bol. The case against Axact, which at first seemed a rare instance in which tycoons with powerful connections were being held to criminal account, has increasingly appeared in recent months to be in jeopardy. The leading prosecutor quit with little explanation, hinting that he had come under political pressure to soft-pedal the case. A trial date for the company’s executives has not been set, and several judges have dropped out of the case. Some media analysts, noting that Axact’s jailed chief executive, Shoaib Ahmed Shaikh, has publicly boasted of his work for the Pakistani military, speculate that his powerful connections may yet work in his favor. “There’s been a huge amount of speculation and analysis and deep-throated conspiracy theories,” said Hasan Zaidi, a filmmaker and media analyst based in Karachi. “Initially, there was a lot of surprise that Axact’s operations were being tackled so quickly, particularly given the view that it was being backed by the boys,” he added, using a common euphemism for the military’s Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency. “But now the interest has died down, and I don’t think it will ever be solved — even through a court case.” Axact had been in business for nearly 10 years at the time of the arrests in May, and the company and its founder appeared ever more eager to step into the public spotlight, seemingly unconcerned about the risk. Most prominently, Axact was preparing to introduce Bol, a television network with 2,200 employees that had started test transmissions in the days before the police raids. Comparing himself to Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Mr. Shaikh had touted Axact as Pakistan’s leading software exporter. He laid out an ambitious plan to provide education for millions of Pakistani children, and he wreathed himself in patriotism: In the corner of his office, near a passage leading to a bedroom and a private swimming pool, the eagle-crested Axact company flag stood alongside a furled Pakistani standard. Once the police investigation began, Mr. Shaikh instructed subordinates to burn company documents at a vacant lot and to destroy computer drives, some of which were later cast into the sea, another executive testified to the police. But Mr. Shaikh could not prevent the seizure of a vast trove of data, some recovered from computer disks as they were being deleted, that led investigators to conclude that Axact’s main business was providing fake degrees. The police found more than one million blank educational certificates and evidence of 300 fictitious educational websites, many with American-sounding names like Columbiana and Brooklyn Park, that sold fake degrees to hundreds of thousands of people around the world. Some knowingly bought effortless degrees to pad résumés or to help in immigration, and a handful have been publicly embarrassed. Last month, Myanmar’s new finance and planning minister, U Kyaw Win, admitted that his doctorate came from Axact’s Brooklyn Park University. “Now I am ashamed to call myself a Ph.D.,” he said. Many other customers, investigators quickly realized, had fallen victim to an elaborate and aggressive fraud, going to Axact-run websites for a legitimate online education only to be intimidated into making ever larger payments. Hundreds of hours of taped phone conversations, extracted from Axact servers and cited by prosecutors, showed sales agents impersonating American lawyers or State Department officials in an effort to collect more money from customers, mostly in the Middle East. In one recording from 2014, Riaz Ahmed Shaikh, a Pakistani living in Abu Dhabi, pleaded for respite from “Jacob” — a man who he believed was calling from the legal office of a university in California but was in fact an Axact sales agent in Karachi, according to police records. “Please, please, Mr. Jacob,” said Mr. Shaikh, who said he had already paid $150,000 to Axact. “I have sold all of my assets to pay this last amount. I am not eating well. I am not sleeping well.” “Look, you’re not paying that much,” the sales agent cajoled, before holding out a threat of possible police action. “Just another $10,000.” Axact executives took extraordinary measures to disguise their links to fraud. In a lawsuit in the United States, in which former customers of the online Belford High School were seeking damages, Axact officials persuaded an attendant in the company’s cafeteria to pose as the founder of the school, a police report said. The worker, Salem Kureshi, conducted a webcam video deposition in 2011 for the American court. In it, he merely moved his lips while, off camera, an Axact official voiced a set of evasive answers for the American lawyers, Mr. Kureshi told the police. After the police raided Axact last year, Mr. Kureshi added, executives paid him $250 to go into hiding in his hometown, 700 miles from Karachi. In Pakistan, the plight of Axact’s victims has been largely overshadowed by the media furor surrounding the Bol network, which had hired some of the country’s most prominent journalists before it closed. With their salaries suddenly cut off, many employees took to the streets to protest, saying Axact was the victim of a conspiracy by rival news organizations. Shoaib Ahmed Shaikh insists that he earned his wealth through legitimate software exports. He has hired Shaukat Hayat, a lawyer whose client list includes Pervez Musharraf, the former Pakistan president, to defend him. In a telephone interview, Mr. Hayat said the case against Mr. Shaikh and his fellow executives had been cooked up by the news media. “They have not committed any illegal action,” he said. Mr. Shaikh also faces scrutiny from American investigators. In a letter to the Pakistani authorities in February, United States officials said the F.B.I. had identified Axact as a “diploma mill” that operated a “worldwide web of shell companies and associates.” Three of the main shell companies, registered in Delaware, were found to have been owned by Mr. Shaikh or his associates, the letter said. Other company documents point to shell holdings in the British Virgin Islands, Cyprus, Dubai and Panama. In several instances, Mr. Shaikh appears to have used a pseudonym, Ryan Jones, to sign company documents. He became a citizen of St. Kitts and Nevis, a small Caribbean island that sells passports to rich investors. In the Belford case, lawyers have obtained a court order freezing three American bank accounts containing $675,000. In a sworn statement, Mr. Shaikh admitted ownership of some of those accounts. His sister, Uzma Shaheen, who lives in Chicago, has been called to testify. Documents filed in court show that Ms. Shaheen transferred more than $37 million from American bank accounts to Axact in Pakistan in recent years. Still, much of Axact’s global network remains undisrupted. It controls 32 other bank accounts — in the United States, Ireland, Dubai, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize, and Singapore — that are thought to contain millions of dollars, according to prosecution documents. And in Pakistan, the case has run into quicksand. Two judges have recused themselves without explanation; so has Zahid Jamil, an ambitious prosecutor who built much of the case against Axact but quit abruptly in February, citing unspecified circumstances “that make it impossible for me to proceed further.” Contacted by phone, Mr. Jamil declined to comment. Nighat Dad of the Digital Rights Foundation, an Internet advocacy group in Pakistan, said the Axact case showed that good laws also needed political will if they were to succeed. “If the evidence is so clear, and there is so much of it, then why is the case against Axact taking so long?” she asked. “Something must be happening behind closed doors.”

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