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M. Night Shyamalan’s mysterious drama “Wayward Pines” is returning to Fox on Wednesday, May 25th at 8pm ET. So, to give fans a taste of what to expect, Fox has released a 30-second teaser that show’s strange characters, unsettling and uneasy moments, and haunting intrigue. “A 10-episode, intense psychological thriller based on a best-selling novel and brought to life by executive producer and director M. Night Shyamalan, about a Secret Service agent on a mission to find two missing federal agents, whose investigation only turns up more questions.” “Wayward Pines” stars Carla Gugino, Terrence Howard, Melissa Leo, and Jason Patric. Add To Album Add To Album Like (7) Photog's Choice Cross-Data Photographer Lance C Broad - YBBN Spotters Group Airline American Airlines Version Boeing 777-223/ER Generic Type Boeing 777-200 Basic Type Boeing 777-200 Manufacturer Boeing MSN 33539 Line No. 555 Reg. N767AJ Code 7CB Location Los Angeles - International Region California Country USA Date Photographed May 2015 Cancel Search Correction Distinct Views: 2,379 Photo Added: October 10, 2015 Photo Copyright © Lance C Broad - YBBN Spotters Group. All rights reserved. Airliners.net is not affiliated with any entity mentioned or pictured herein. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. journey. Get The Brief. Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know right now. Please enter a valid email address. Sign Up Now Check the box if you do not wish to receive promotional offers via email from TIME. You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Thank you! For your security, we've sent a confirmation email to the address you entered. Click the link to confirm your subscription and begin receiving our newsletters. If you don't get the confirmation within 10 minutes, please check your spam folder. Write to Raisa Bruner at raisa.bruner@time.com. in's dual role that gave him and his corporation a virtual monopoly on what to photograph, and what to share with the public. The bottom line? If you think getting a straight answer from NASA about what is "out there" is difficult, just wait until the space corporations have complete control. In that respect, perhaps the NASA study is a realization - perhaps to late - that contractors are just that, contractors, and that the government needs to reestablish control over its own space archive. Perhaps, in a sense, the study is an admission that things are being hidden, even from it, and its public space program. It's an admission, perhaps, that an essential component of any secret space program is an archive... a secret one. See you on the flip side. Sometimes, sh*t happens. Recently released dash cam footage near the Altufyevo subway station in Moscow shows an extremely stinky situation. The clip starts with a vehicle pulling up to a group of stopped traffic waiting for the light to change. Without warning, a sewage suction tanker in the middle of the stopped traffic explodes, spewing poop water in all directions. A white car and a city bus parked on either side of the tanker suffered the worse damage during the accident. Luckily, it appears that their windows were rolled up. As the cammer drives by the tanker, the cabin can be seem completely intact, suggesting that no one was physically injured in the ordeal. However, we're sure the accident scarred a few people for life. River body believed to be missing student Jason Fyles Published duration 27 June 2013 image caption Jason Fyles was last seen on 16 May A body found in the River Tyne is believed to be that of a missing Newcastle University student. Jason Fyles was last seen in the Sandyford area of Newcastle early on 16 May after a night out with friends. His disappearance was said to be out of character and his family appealed for the 19-year-old to get in touch. The body found near the Millennium Bridge has not yet been formally identified, but police have confirmed they believe it to be Mr Fyles. After he went missing Northumbria Police released CCTV images of the student, who was originally from Southport in Merseyside.

Industrial control system operators running Rockwell MicroLogix 1400 PLCs have been warned about a vulnerability that exposes these devices in critical industries to attack. An undocumented SNMP community string has been discovered in programmable logic controllers (PLCs) built by Allen-Bradley Rockwell Automation that exposes these devices deployed in a number of critical industries to remote attacks. Researchers at Cisco Talos today said the vulnerability is in the default configuration of MicroLogix 1400 PLC systems. Rockwell Automation, meanwhile, said versions 1766-L32BWA, 1766-L32AWA, 1766-L32BXB, 1766-L32BWAA, 1766-L32AWAA, and 1766-L32BXBA are affected. “This vulnerability is due to the presence of an undocumented SNMP community string that could be leveraged by an attacker to gain full control of affected devices and grants the ability to manipulate configuration settings, replace the firmware running on the device with attacker-controlled code, or otherwise disrupt device operations,” Cisco Talos wrote in an advisory. “Depending on the role of the affected PLC within an industrial control process, this could result in significant damages.” According to an advisory published today by the Industrial Control System Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT), these PLCs are used in industries such as chemical, manufacturing, food, water, wastewater and others across Europe, the United States and Asia. Cisco Talos said it also found an undocumented “wheel” string that also enabled read/write capabilities and exposes devices to unauthorized settings changes or firmware updates. Cisco cautions that the wheel string could also allow access to other object identifiers. SNMP is a protocol used by many products for remote device management; in this case, for the deployment of firmware updates. “Due to the nature of this product’s firmware update process, this capability cannot be removed from the product,” ICS-CERT said in its advisory. Rockwell Automation provided a number of mitigations, including the use of a RUN keyswitch to prevent unauthorized firmware updates, and firewall updates to ensure SNMP requests from unauthorized sources are blocked. “While it is possible for operators to change the default SNMP community strings on affected devices, the fact that this SNMP string is not documented by the vendor drastically decreases the likelihood of this value being changed prior to production deployment of the PLCs, as most operators are not likely to even be aware of its existence,” Cisco Talos said. “Given the severity of this issue, and the fact that this functionality has not been removed from affected devices, it is recommended that mitigations be put in place to prevent the successful exploitation of this vulnerability in production environments.”

is a team known to perform really well versus international teams that they don’t often match up with. Beating EG 2-0 in Kiev Major groupstage and OG 2-0 in TI6 playoffs come to mind. They proved that this is still the case at MDL Macau. They went 5-0 vs CN/NA/SA but were 0-3 against EU/CIS Teams. They are set to compete in the Galaxy BattlesMajor where they got Direct Invites. They should perform well with the Filipino crowd cheering them on. T7. Navi Qualifying Points: 315 Notable Accomplishments: 4th at Dreamleague Major 3rd-4th at MDL Macau Minor The most well-known and perhaps beloved team in Dota 2 is finally back. The roster changes with the reliable carry Crystallize and the space creating Rodjer have proven to be really good decisions. Their rise started when they placed 2nd at the EU/CIS qualifiers for the Dreamleague Major which included top teams such as Liquid, Secret and Virtus Pro. Come playoff time, Navi had an unfortunate time matching up with VP and losing 1-2. Then they fell to the lower bracket where they defeated Fnatic 2-1 to face Newbee in the next round. Navi then proceeded to upset the best Chinese team, 2-1. Game 2 felt like such a TI7 draft for Newbee with their combo of Bloodseeker and Earth Spirit and the commonly picked Venomancer but this isn’t 7.06 anymore. With this win over Newbee, they secured themselves Top 4 and those precious qualifying points. They went on to lose to EG 0-2 in the next round. They performed okay-ish at MDL with wins over the bottom 5 teams except for LFY but losses against the top teams in the group stage. They lost to OG 0-2 in the first round of the playoffs placing them 3rd-4th. We won’t be seeing them in a while as they lost in the CIS qualifiers of the Galaxy Battles Major to Team Spirit. Although they will be playing the ESL One Genting Minor CIS Qualifiers. T7. Mineski Qualifying Points: 720 Notable Accomplishments: 1st at PGL Open Minor 2nd at SLi Minor One of the hottest teams early on in the season ended the season opposite to how they started. They last appeared in the Perfect World minor where they placed 7-8th and got eliminated early on. They started struggling a bit when 7.07 came out and they started losing these minor and major qualifiers to TNC and Fnatic who got better in their own right. That’s pretty much it so far for Mineski. They are set to compete at the Captain’s Draft Minor and the Galaxy Battles Major. 6. Vici Gaming Qualifying Points: 540 Notable Accomplishments: 2nd at Dota Pit Minor 2nd at Perfect World Minor The Chinese teams have not as strong as they were in TI7 with 4 of the top 6 coming from the Chinese region. Since the last power ranking, they have had one strong performance with a 2nd place finish at the Perfect World Masters in Shanghai. They beat the likes of Mineski, Team Secret, and LFY in the playoffs to get to the grand finals where they got swept by Newbee 0-3. They are perhaps the 2nd best Chinese team behind Newbee although they do have occasional qualifier losses to LGD and LFY. Internationally, this team performs well against teams like Liquid, VP, and OG. They are set to next compete in the Captains Draft Minor. T5. OG Qualifying Points: 540 Notable Accomplishments: 1st at MDL Macau Minor 3rd-4th at The Summit Minor The four-time major winners have made their mark in the Dota Pro Circuit season. They were really struggling to qualify for some minors and majors early on in the season with losses to Secret, mousesports, and SFTe-sports. But with Secret getting really good which results to skipping minors, OG is finally showing up on these important minors to get some of them precious Qualifying Points. Their first minor appearance was Dota Pit and it was a forgettable one. They placed 5th-6th and lost to Chinese teams Newbee and Vici Gaming to exit the tourney. Next was MDL and they decided to show up bigtime. They were top of the groups, going 6-2 with their only losses against Virtus Pro and Infamous. “It feels amazing, I feel like we’re back. We had a rough start but we’re back

Greek coalition proposes easing bailout terms Published duration 23 June 2012 media caption Mark Lowen reports from Athens on what the new government wants to do in Greece Greece's new coalition government has proposed an extension to the deadline for it to reduce its budget deficit by at least two years, to 2016. In a policy document, the government said its aim was for the fiscal target envisaged by the bailout deal to be met without further cuts to salaries and pensions. Greece is under huge international pressure to fulfil bailout terms. Polls last week ended a two-month deadlock over its implementation. Pro-bailout parties gained a narrow majority in parliament, despite widespread public anger at austerity measures stipulated in the bailout. Meanwhile Prime Minister Antonis Samaras is recovering after a successful eye operation on Saturday morning. The routine surgery was to repair a damaged retina. Mr Samaras is expected to leave hospital on Sunday. New Finance Minister Vassilis Rapanos is also in hospital after apparently fainting on Friday. His condition is said to be "stable and improving". He was originally due to be sworn in on Saturday. 'Avoiding layoffs' The document was published following agreement on policy goals between the coalition partners New Democracy, Pasok and Democraftic Left, and precedes a confidence vote in parliament. It includes provision for "an extension to the period for the fiscal adjustment by at least two years, so that the fiscal target is met without further cuts in salaries and pensions". "The aim is to avoid layoffs of permanent staff, but to economise a serious amount through non-salary operational costs and less bureaucracy," it said, quoted by AFP. Under the current bailout deal, Greece has agreed to take 150,000 civil servants off the payroll by 2015. Other provisions include: reviewing minimum wage cuts and measures to facilitate private-sector layoffs employers and unions to be allowed to set a private sector minimum wage rearranging taxpayers' arrears for the year so that they do not exceed 25% of income reducing VAT in catering from 23% to 13% extending unemployment benefits Greece's new cabinet was announced two days ago. All three parties have signed a agreement to fully support the coalition, giving it a majority of 29 in parliament. However, the cabinet is dominated by the conservative New Democracy party, after its left-wing partners Pasok and Democratic Left barred their MPs from joining. image caption Mr Samaras (L) and Mr Rapanos (R) are both in hospital They are represented by two party officials each. It is believed that they may not want to be associated with austerity measures. The BBC's Mark Lowen in Athens says the test for the new government will be to win significant concessions from eurozone partners in the weeks ahead. Inspectors from the troika of the EU, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund are due in Greece on Monday to review Greece's progress in meeting bailout conditions. And on Thursday EU leaders will discuss the crisis at a two-day summit. Eurozone officials say the bailout should only be revised to reflect the deeper recession, and delays to implementation caused by inconclusive elections in April and the subsequent failure to form a government. The country got an initial EU-IMF package worth 110bn euros (£89bn; $138bn) in 2010, then a follow-up this year worth 130bn euros.

7 Korean Crypto Exchanges Pass Government Security Inspection The South Korean government has released the results of its security inspection of cryptocurrency exchanges. Only seven of them passed all 85 of the inspection points. Fourteen previously-inspected exchanges still have not improved and 17 new crypto exchanges did not meet security standards. Also read: Indian Supreme Court Moves Crypto Hearing, Community Calls for Positive Regulations Only Seven Exchanges Passed South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT announced the results of its security inspection of cryptocurrency exchanges on Thursday, according to local media. In collaboration with the Korea Internet and Security Agency (KISA), the ministry inspected a total of 38 exchanges between September and December last year. Twenty-one of them were previously inspected between January and March last year while 17 exchanges were inspected for the first time. Following the previous inspection, recommendations were given to the 21 exchanges to improve certain security measures. Seven of them have since made the necessary improvements and met all 85 items on the inspectors’ checklist. The 85 items checked “include system security such as administrative security, network separation and account management … and virtual currency wallet management,” Money Today elaborated. The seven exchanges that passed the inspection are Upbit, Bithumb, Gopax, Korbit, Coinone, Hanbitco, and Huobi Korea. An official of the Ministry of Science and ICT was quoted by Newsprime as saying: Most of them have weak security except for the seven facilities that satisfy all 85 inspection items. Most Exchanges Need to Improve Most of the cryptocurrency exchanges inspected did not meet basic security standards. The 14 previously-inspected exchanges have not made the required improvements, government officials told reporters. These 14 exchanges showed that they still need to improve on 51 security items on average, so they “could be exposed to the risk of hacking attacks at all times,” Zdnet Korea noted. As for the 17 new crypto exchanges, the news outlet added that their “overall security level was found to be weak.” Newsprime elaborated: By examining 85 items of the basic security requirements for 17 newly identified exchanges, it has been confirmed that the security level [of these exchanges] is generally weak due to the lack of 61 [security] items on average. The news outlet further detailed, “In particular, it has been confirmed that most of the dealers have a low level of security such as network separation and access control as well as the lack of establishment and management of security systems such as basic PC and network security.” The ministry said it will continue to review and inspect crypto exchanges for security flaws, with a focus on protecting investors from hacking incidents. What do you think of only seven crypto exchanges passing the Korean government security inspection? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock and the Korean government. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section.

Hillary Clinton celebrates greets the crowd after winning the New York state primary election on April 19. | AP Photo Clinton camp: Sanders is all but done The Democratic front-runner's aides say that Sanders' time has run out. Hillary Clinton's top strategist on Wednesday suggested that Bernie Sanders' path to the Democratic nomination is virtually non-existent and will continue to shrink as the Democratic front-runner picks up delegates in the weeks to come. Remarking that Sanders faces a "pretty daunting" deficit after the campaign's "resounding victory" in the New York primary, chief Clinton pollster and strategist Joel Benenson said the former secretary of state's lead grew "even more insurmountable." Benenson also rejected the notion that Sanders has any path to catch Clinton, noting that the campaign has continued to add to its pledged delegate lead, "and the real estate is disappearing beneath his feet." "Next Tuesday, these races are going to be closely contested, but more than 400 delegates come off the table," he continued. "He just doesn’t have enough left to make a credible case that he can do what he’s gotta do to get within striking distance of us even.” The latest declaration comes as the race continues to take on a more vigorous, contentious and increasingly personal tone. In an interview with POLITICO's Glenn Thrush, a senior Clinton aide remarked of the rival campaign, "We kicked his ass tonight... I hope this convinces Bernie to tone it down. If not, f--- him.” But the Sanders campaign showed no sign of backing down Wednesday. "We still have a path to the nomination, and our plan is to win the pledged delegates in this primary," Sanders wrote in a fundraising email to supporters soliciting a $2.70 donation. "Next week five states vote, and there are A LOT of delegates up for grabs. I am going to keep fighting for every vote, for every delegate, because each is a statement of support for the values we share. As that email hit inboxes, senior Sanders adviser Tad Devine appeared on CNN to extol his candidate's "very powerful message" on the economy going forward into states like California, which votes June 7. “We lost more than we thought we would yesterday. We thought the race would be a little bit closer, we’d pick up some more delegates," Devine conceded. "But we can still do it." Pointing to exit polls in New York that suggested voters saw Clinton running the more unfair campaign, Devine also noted that more people also said their campaign was energizing the Democratic Party. “I think Bernie Sanders’ case was heard in New York. She succeeded in her home state, but I think more voters will respond to it all across this country, all the way through California and the District of Columbia [which holds its Democratic primary June 14],” Devine said. Responding to a question about Sanders’ poor performance with African-American voters in New York, Devine again admitted that the campaign had to do better to win in a general election but noted that the Clintons have a “strong footprint there, and we congratulate them.” “Yeah, but Tad, it’s like the end of April at this point," CNN's Kate Bolduan remarked. "I mean, what more reintroduction do you have time for?” “Well, I think we have a lot of time. We’ve got over 1,400 delegates still to be picked. We’ve got huge states like California still and I think we’ll be able to demonstrate by the time we get to the end of this process that Bernie Sanders’ appeal is across the broad spectrum of the party," he said, adding that only Sanders can bring in young people and independents in a general election. After next Tuesday's contests in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, Benenson said Sanders will have to win 60 percent of the remaining delegates. Sanders "will do really well" in those states, Devine remarked. "He’s going to win not just states, he’s going to have to win massive landslides," Benenson claimed. "He’s only done that in two states, where he’s gotten 57 or 58 percent of the delegates: Vermont and New Hampshire. That happened months ago. All these states he’s been winning and adding on, he hasn’t been piling up net delegates at the 58-42 range that he would need. It’s just not doable for him. He can point to all the states on the map that he wants to, but he has no evidence." After Clinton trounced Sanders in New York, she leads the Vermont senator 1,428 to 1,151 in pledged delegates.

More than 40 dogs have vanished from a North Texas county over the past two months, leaving behind no clues in a mystery that's devastated their owners. "I'm horrified," said Robin Lewis, whose family lost their black Lab, Jack, from their Decatur home in December. "It's been really difficult trying to explain Jack's gone, and are we ever going to see him again?" said Lewis. "They're heartbroken. I'm heartbroken. My husband's heartbroken." Jack is just one of dozens of dogs who have vanished in Wise County. On the very same day Jack disappeared, Decatur Mayor Martin Woodruff lost his daughter's pit bull and Great Dane, who disappeared from Woodruff's fenced-in back yard. "Police dispatch said after several hours that this is very unusual," said Woodruff. Lewis agrees. "I think it's very suspicious that three very large, friendly dogs disappear in the same neighborhood at the exact same time," she said. Since November, 40 dogs have been reported missing, according to the Wise County sheriff. There's no physical evidence that proves the dogs were taken. Still, neighbors have a growing suspicion that all the missing dogs are not just a coincidence. "It's really disheartening to think that there are people out here that would do this," said Woodruff. "It begs the question of where are these dogs going? And who's taking them? And what are they doing with them?" said Lewis. The Wise County sheriff said investigators don't have any descriptions of possible suspects or their cars. But he said people should be on the lookout for anything that looks unusual that might help bring forward answers. CasinoCoin has announced an enhancement to its current technology, which is primarily designed for the regulated online gaming sector. Peer-to-peer cryptocurrency will launch a significant upgrade by expanding the current blockchain system which should increase its further growth and adoption. The main reason for this technology advancement is the liquidity of the coin. By increasing it from 40 million to 40 billion, cryptocurrency users and operators will be given bigger freedom in regards to fractioning the coin. Furthermore, a newly established Ripple technology infrastructure gained support from dominant banking corporations due to improved functionality and faster transaction times. Bitcoin will not be affected by the Foundation’s goals of becoming the number one currency in regulated gaming markets at large extent, considering its great distribution and awareness. Nonetheless, CSC has gathered a new team, whose main tasks will be to raise consciousness about the brand and implement further blockchain upgrades. Migration to the new technology will be handled manually between November 25, 2017 and February 14, 2018 to ensure maximum security, while staying completely transparent. All users are advised to visit CSC’s homepage and get informed in detail about how the upgrade will be carried out. The team also agreed to answer questions on popular discussion websites, Reddit and Discord. To keep its customers up-to-date, CasinoCoin will display transaction IDs of processed coins on the webpage, as part of its transparency operations. All coins which do not get processed and moved onto the new blockchain, will be donated to a non-profit Foundation as means of payment for future operations, brand marketing or further development. For this cause, CSC has appointed numerous senior industry professionals including Lee Fenton (Gamesys), Britt Boeskov (Kindred Group) and Sam Hobcraft, (OPL Gaming Group).

LONDON -- Arizona Cardinals quarterback Carson Palmer will have surgery to repair his broken left arm when the team returns home and could miss anywhere between eight weeks and the rest of the season, coach Bruce Arians said Sunday night after a 33-0 loss to the Los Angeles Rams. Drew Stanton, who finished 5-of-14 for 62 yards and an interception in place of Palmer, will take over as the Cardinals' starter beginning Nov. 5 at San Francisco after their bye this weekend, Arians confirmed. "We played with Drew before, you know," Arians said. "We have lost [Palmer] long. Drew has played and won a lot of games for us. "All the confidence, he and Blaine [Gabbert] stepped up to take over the quarterback job." Arians said he won't consider playing Gabbert ahead of Stanton, who's 6-3 when starting in place of Palmer since they became teammates in 2013. Stanton was 5-3 in 2014, when Palmer missed 10 games with a shoulder and knee injury. Stanton missed the last two games that season with his own knee injury. Gabbert has 40 career starts in his seven-year career, including three years with the Jacksonville Jaguars, who made him the 10th overall pick in 2011, and three with the San Francisco 49ers before he signed with Arizona in May. "He's our No. 2," Arians said of Stanton. "I don't skip two and go to three." Carson Palmer is out at least eight weeks after suffering a broken arm in Sunday's loss. AP Photo/Matt Dunham Palmer suffered the injury late in the second quarter as he was hit by Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald with 5:48 left in the first half on a pass that was intercepted by safety Lamarcus Joyner. Palmer tried to go back in on Arizona's next series, Stanton said, but wasn't allowed. He didn't return for the rest of the game. Palmer was evaluated by team doctors on the sideline. He jogged around the field and to the locker room shortly after, making sure not to move his left arm while he ran. As Palmer tried to get back in the game, Stanton was unsure whether he was going in. "Unfair to Drew because Drew hasn't had any practice," Arians said. "I thought he did as well as he could today. He'll do a lot better next week." Stanton, who said he's developed a good studying system with Gabbert, feels ready to assume the starting role. "I feel great," Stanton said. "That's why you put the time and effort in to be prepared. You never want to see something like this happen, especially to Carson. We've been together for five years. My heart goes out to him and really this team. Losing a guy like that that, [he's] a Pro Bowler, a potential Hall of Famer. It's tough. And losing a friend and a teammate. "Unfortunately that's what happens in this league."

Using Mail Drop allows you to send larger files over email than typically allowed by uploading the sent file to iCloud from Mail app in OS X, and then passing the link to download that file onto the recipient. The default MailDrop threshold for mail attachments is 20MB before kicking in and offering the service, but some email providers don’t allow files over even 10MB to be sent through their mail servers. Fortunately, with a little command line magic, you can change the file size limit before MailDrop is requested for transmitting a file. If you’d like to adjust the minimum attachment file size threshold for sending files over MailDrop in the Mac Mail app, you can do so with a defaults command string in the OS X Terminal. If you make a change and decide you’d rather revert back to the default file size, you can do that too. Changing the MailDrop Attachment Size Threshold for Mail App in OS X Quit out of Mail app if it’s currently open Open the Terminal and enter the following defaults write command, changing the numbers on the end to represent the size in KB to become the new minimum attachment threshold (the setting below will be 10MB): defaults write com.apple.mail minSizeKB 10000 Hit return and then re-launch Mail app Send any file over 10MB and Mail app will prompt you to use MailDrop (iCloud must be enabled on the Mac) MailDrop requires using the Mail app in OS X with iCloud and OS X 10.10.x or newer, the rest is quite simple and just a matter of attaching larger files to an email and selecting to use MailDrop as described here. One of the fastest ways to quickly initiate a Mail Drop is by dragging a file onto the Mail app icon in the Dock which is over the threshold. If you want to revert back to the default MailDrop setting in OS X Mail, just use the following command string in the terminal: defaults write com.apple.mail minSizeKB 20000 Relaunch Mail app for the change to take effect. From the sending side of things, MailDrop is only available for use in Mail app, if you use something like web-based Gmail or another mail client as your default email client, you will not have the option to use the service when sending files out. For the recipient, however, it doesn’t matter what email service you use, you’ll get the same download link to get the attachment. This handy defaults string was passed our way by a reader, heads up to AppleTips.nl for discovering the appropriate syntax.

. Go Brad! COMMENT #27 [Permalink] ... colinjames said on 5/28/2010 @ 9:00 pm PT... SreeBee rocks, just had to say that; to the article... dang! why does Patterico hate the truth? What a total p#ssy not letting you link or comment on his site, while we're subject to his special brand of stupid on far too many an occasion (NOT suggesting you ban him; bravo for being the bigger man). However, I fear his toxic comments are polluting my brain. I've never seen a lawyer with such a poor grasp of logic- and the eagerness to display it! And as for the couple bright one's who don't seem to get this article- it's not even COMPLICATED for pete's sake, you're hopless. Anyways, there's two distinct and diametrically opposed aspects to this story- On one hand, it's just a typical example of rich and/or white and/or connected people getting a slap on the wrist for crimes if, committed by poorer, browner, anti-GOP groups of people- they would have received harsher treatment, severe punishment, and much more negative MSM coverage as well. ON THE OTHER HAND, we have a group that's possibly well-connected (and certainly they had numerous MEDIA connections) to GOP leadership on some level, illegally entering and planning to WIRETAP a Democratic U.S. Senator's phone, POST 9-11, post-ANTHRAX (remeber that?); there's possible involvement and/or training from a U.S. Intelligence Agency... and the whole thing is swept under the rug by MSM, while the CRIMINALS are fiercely defended by extreme reich-wing bloggers? Holy Bizarro-World Batman... COMMENT #28 [Permalink] ... Chris Hooten said on 5/28/2010 @ 10:37 pm PT... Hey floridiot, that chicken nugget guy did punch the guy in the face several times as he went out the door, so I don't feel so bad about him being arrested. COMMENT #29 [Permalink] ... Chris Hooten said on 5/28/2010 @ 10:45 pm PT... Also, colinjames, the FBI cleared them of trying to wiretap the actual phone system, wiretap is being used in a broader sense. They did not have equipment on them capable of setting up a phone wiretap. They were wiretapping in the more modern use of the word, pertaining to electronic surveillance. I have never heard that intelligence agencies might have been involved in training. Any links to that info? COMMENT #30 [Permalink] ... tBoy said on 5/30/2010 @ 5:55 am PT... The AP errors keep coming. As of 5/30/2010 the AP is still reporting he posed as a pimp in the video: http://www.dailyworld.co...s+video+deleted+by+court COMMENT #31 [Permalink] ... lmk said on 5/30/2010 @ 6:17 am PT... CNN is still also using the "dressed as a pimp" line. Maybe they were repeating the AP feed, maybe not. COMMENT #32 [Permalink] ... colinjames said on 5/31/2010 @ 10:38 am PT... #29, I did use 'possible', I'll try to find the links where I read about one of the arrestees having some kind of ties. It was speculation based on something I'll have to try and dig up later, no time now. COMMENT #33 [Permalink] ... SreeBee said on 5/31/2010 @ 10:38 am PT... Apparently James the Turd is going to attempt to circulate more of his (doctored) videos with the intention of taking down HUD... in Detroit of all places. I guess, as someone who kids himself about "standing up to power", he really does so by targeting impoverished communities in Detroit... such a "powerful" nemesis there James. THAT KID SPEWS OUT MORE NOXIOUS FILTH THAN THE BP OIL LEAK! (In my opinion, it’s no coincidence that he was in NOLA vomiting out his garbage at the same time that the tanker exploded and the oil began to leak. Outside of being a colorful analogy, the two events echo each other in an eerily poetic manner.) As someone originally from the Detroit metro area, and as someone who went to school in Detroit itself, I take such strong exception to the fact that this

Investigative journalism created the conditions for Michael Flynn's resignation from his national security adviser post. Journalists at The Washington Post, The New York Times and other outlets spoke with government officials who provided vital information about Flynn's contacts with Russia. The sources insisted on anonymity, making it difficult to ascertain their agendas. But the sources caused journalists to dig for more and more details about Flynn's calls. One story became 10 stories, and 10 became a hundred. "The only reason we're finding out about it now is because a patriot did leak this to The Washington Post, did get this information out there, or else we wouldn't even have known about it," Joe Scarborough said on MSNBC on Tuesday morning. Evan Osnos of The New Yorker tweeted, "The Flynn story is a reminder of a big truth: Journalism lives. And principled public servants who got the story out are hidden heroes." Another Trump administration critic, The Atlantic senior editor David Frum, wrote, "Tonight's resignation reminds both why patriots should cherish a free & independent press -- and why Donald Trump so fears & hates it." Related: Flynn resigns amid controversy over Russian contacts The tone on Fox News was strikingly different. Steve Doocy, co-host of the pro-Trump "Fox & Friends" morning show, asked, "Whatever happened to secrets in Washington?" Conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham explicitly criticized the leakers. Monday night's developments may further heighten tensions between the president and the press. Editors at outlets like The Post remain concerned about Trump's attacks on the media and the possibility of leak investigations and prosecutions. Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, is slated to hold a briefing at 1 p.m. ET Tuesday. He will surely be asked about the Flynn controversy and who knew what when. It all started more than a month ago, on January 12, when the Trump transition team was preparing to move into the White House. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius cited a single "senior U.S. government official" while reporting that "Flynn phoned Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak several times on Dec. 29, the day the Obama administration announced the expulsion of 35 Russian officials as well as other measures in retaliation for the hacking." Ignatius asked: "What did Flynn say, and did it undercut the U.S. sanctions?" He said the Trump transition team did not respond to his request for comment. Three days later, Vice President Mike Pence told John Dickerson on CBS' "Face the Nation" that Flynn and the ambassador had not discussed "anything having to do with the United States' decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia." Pence said he had spoken to Flynn directly about it. There were a number of followup stories, joined by noisy speculation about Flynn's contacts. But further investigation was needed to get to the bottom of it. Last Thursday, The Post cited "nine current and former officials" in a story headlined "National security adviser Flynn discussed sanctions with Russian ambassador, despite denials, officials say." The New York Times quickly matched the story and said there was a transcript of the discussions. The chronology suggests that some officials in the government sought to alert the public to Flynn's contacts by leaking to the press. Toward the end of the day on Friday, President Trump surprised members of the press corps by saying he had not seen the Post's bombshell report. Related: Flynn's resignation doesn't end controversy While speaking with journalists on Air Force One, Trump was asked about it, and he said, "I don't know about that. I haven't seen it. What report is that? I haven't seen that. I'll look into that." Some commentators found that very hard to believe. Over the weekend and into Monday, pressure mounted, with inquiries from reporters and constant chatter from television commentators. Trump aides found themselves without firm answers. In a 4 p.m. interview on Monday, Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway said Flynn had the president's "full confidence." One hour later, Spicer said something much less confident -- that the president was "evaluating" Flynn. On Tuesday's "Today" show, Matt Lauer asked Conway whether she was "out of the loop," and she said, "No, not at all. Both were true. The president is very loyal, he's a very loyal person, and by night's end Mike Flynn had decided it was best to resign. He knew he'd become a lightning rod." On CNN's "New Day," Republican congressman Chris Collins of New York said Flynn "did what he thought was in the best interests of the country" by resigning, and "I think it's just time to move on." Anchor Chris Cuomo responded: "Congressman, there is zero chance

THE PORT ADELAIDE FOOTBALL CLUB has confirmed it will enter the ballot for the leadership of Australia. After numerous changes of the nation's prime ministership since 2010, the club has decided enough is enough. There’s going to be a new Power in Australia. “Clearly there’s dissatisfaction with having one person leading government within the major parties, so we’re running our whole club on an inclusiveness campaign,” a club spokesperson told portadelaidefc.com.au. “We know the key to a strong and successful government is about stability and good, sensible leadership. “Historically we’ve had pretty strong leadership at the club – just four football department leaders - our coaches - since 1997, and a total of six since 1950; our off-field leadership has remained stable for some time. “While we’re out of this year’s AFL finals race, we believe we’re well-placed to contest and win the leadership race for Australia. “Our club's motto is that We Exist to Win Premierships and Make Our Community Proud. “When it comes to national affairs, we exist to win elections to make the community proud. “Certainly we’ve felt we’re a club for all Australians, and if successful, we’ll govern for all Australians.” It's not the first time Port Adelaide has dipped into the public commentary on the nation's leadership. Back in 2013, it weighed in on the spill between Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd with a jibe on its own leadership group. The death of Daisy leaves the aquarium with only two cetaceans Daisy the harbour porpoise was a month old when rescued by the aquarium in 2008 VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The Vancouver Aquarium is mourning the loss of yet another high-profile marine animal. Daisy, a harbour porpoise, died on Thursday. She was just a month old when rescued by the aquarium in 2008. The aquarium says there was a change in her behaviour earlier this month and because of that was receiving round the clock care. Preliminary necropsy results indicate she had pulmonary disease. The harbour porpoise is a species of special concern on the BC coast. Latest estimates put their average lifespan at eight -12 years. Qila and Aurora, a mother and daughter set of belugas, died within weeks of each other last fall. The death of Daisy leaves the aquarium with only two cetaceans – Helen, a Pacific white-side dolphin and Chester, a false killer. VIDEO: Another marine mammal has died at the Vancouver Aquarium @NEWS1130 @BT_Vancouver pic.twitter.com/YWeXOtlTLj — James Cybulski (@cballnews) June 16, 2017 Daisy was nine. On Thursday, the aquarium announced it would legally challenge the park board for imposing a ban last month on the display of cetaceans. The amendment means the cetaceans currently at the aquarium can remain there, but no others can be brought in. The aquarium argues the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation did not have the legal authority to make the change.

TAIPEI (REUTERS) - Taiwan reported 22 new coronavirus cases on Sunday (April 19), almost all of them sailors who had been on a friendly visit of Taiwanese navy ships to the small Pacific island state of Palau last month. Taiwan has to date been relatively successful at controlling the coronavirus due to early prevention and detection, and last week celebrated three days in which no new cases were reported. But on Saturday, Taiwan said that three cadets who had been part of the mission to Palau, one of only 15 countries to maintain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, had been infected, and that 700 sailors were being quarantined and tested. The 21 sailors whose positive tests the government announced on Sunday bring the total cases in the navy to 24. Speaking at a news conference, Taiwan Health Minister Chen Shih-chung said the cases had so far only been discovered on one of the three ships that had visited Palau, but that further investigations were needed before they could say where exactly the sailors had contracted the virus. Navy deputy commander Mei Chia-shu gave a deep bow in an expression of apology at the same news conference for the infections and not properly carrying out prevention measures. "We will exert all efforts to look after our infected personnel and care for their family members," he said. The sailors had all disembarked on Wednesday upon arriving back in Taiwan. The ships had docked at Palau from March 12 to 15. Palau President Tommy Remengesau told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday that his country of 20,000 people had not had a single case of the coronavirus and that he was going to close borders to keep the virus out. Related Story Taiwan's medical staff voice concerns in spite of highly praised coronavirus outbreak prevention measures Related Story Coronavirus explainers: What you should know to protect yourself Related Story Coronavirus visual guide: Interactive graphics on the pandemic Palau has received help from Taiwan to fight the virus, including testing suspected cases and receiving face masks from Taiwan. Taiwan's presidential office said on Saturday that President Tsai Ing-wen had been at the ceremony to welcome back the ships but had only waved to the sailors from the shore and had not been exposed to the risk of infection. These are the first coronavirus cases reported in Taiwan's military. The new cases bring Taiwan's total to 420, six of whom have died.

when the return of growth will take place. Nevertheless, it has the optimistic prediction that growth rates could be quite strong when the economy starts recovering (even if after such a long depression the ceiling itself may have been affected by years of underinvestment and an immense loss of human capital). Can the plucking model explain the last European boom-bust-recovery cycle? Let’s take a look at all European countries that entered recession around 2007-2009, and have made some gains towards recovery since then. Our sample contains all EU countries except the ones that didn’t experience a recession (Poland) or a recovery (Croatia and Greece), using annual GDP data from the AMECO database. Source: Ameco, Bruegel calculations As can be seen in Figure 3a above, our very simple regressions suggest that the size of the contraction is predictive of growth rates during the recovery (the P-value is 0.000). On the other hand, the size of the boom that precedes the recession – Figure 3b – is not predictive of the yearly average GDP contraction in a way that is statistically different from zero (P-value of 0.598). These results appear to validate the plucking theory predictions made by Friedman. In other words, the strong recoveries observed in European countries like Latvia and Estonia seem to be directly proportional to the size of their GDP-losses during the crisis. If these quick recoveries are the natural counterpart of the previous recessions, it makes it difficult to infer anything on the success or failure of the policies implemented since the beginning of the crisis, and therefore to use these countries as role model in order to recommend similar policies to other European countries. NASA is preparing to reveal a “major science finding” regarding Mars on Monday, with the agency planning a special news conference to announce the findings. The event will take place at 11.30 a.m. EDT (4.30 p.m. BST) on Monday, and you will be able to watch it live on NASA TV, which we have handily embedded below. Reporters will be onsite and asking questions by phone, while the public can get involved via #AskNASA. What will the announcement be about? Well, you’ll have to wait and see, as NASA won’t be releasing any more information to the public until then. Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream Taking part in the news conference will be Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA Headquarters; Michael Meyer, lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters; graduate student Lujendra Ojha of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta; Mary Beth Wilhelm of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California and the Georgia Institute of Technology; and Alfred McEwen, principal investigator for the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Such events for NASA are not unprecedented, but they do usually herald a major discovery. In July, NASA convened a similar conference to announce the discovery of Kepler-452b, the most Earth-like planet found outside the Solar System to date. While this latest event won’t be announcing life on Mars, its implications could be vital in understanding more about the Red Planet. So tune in on Monday for a groundbreaking discovery about a world that we think was once rather similar to our own.

Abstract Context Recent increases in infectious disease mortality and concern about emerging infections warrant an examination of longer-term trends. Objective To describe trends in infectious disease mortality in the United States during the 20th century. Design and Setting Descriptive study of infectious disease mortality in the United States. Deaths due to infectious diseases from 1900 to 1996 were tallied by using mortality tables. Trends in age-specific infectious disease mortality were examined by using age-specific death rates for 9 common infectious causes of death. Subjects Persons who died in the United States between 1900 and 1996. Main Outcome Measures Crude and age-adjusted mortality rates. Results Infectious disease mortality declined during the first 8 decades of the 20th century from 797 deaths per 100,000 in 1900 to 36 deaths per 100,000 in 1980. From 1981 to 1995, the mortality rate increased to a peak of 63 deaths per 100,000 in 1995 and declined to 59 deaths per 100,000 in 1996. The decline was interrupted by a sharp spike in mortality caused by the 1918 influenza epidemic. From 1938 to 1952, the decline was particularly rapid, with mortality decreasing 8.2% per year. Pneumonia and influenza were responsible for the largest number of infectious disease deaths throughout the century. Tuberculosis caused almost as many deaths as pneumonia and influenza early in the century, but tuberculosis mortality dropped off sharply after 1945. Infectious disease mortality increased in the 1980s and early 1990s in persons aged 25 years and older and was mainly due to the emergence of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) in 25- to 64-year-olds and, to a lesser degree, to increases in pneumonia and influenza deaths among persons aged 65 years and older. There was considerable year-to-year variability in infectious disease mortality, especially for the youngest and oldest age groups. Conclusions Although most of the 20th century has been marked by declining infectious disease mortality, substantial year-to-year variation as well as recent increases emphasize the dynamic nature of infectious diseases and the need for preparedness to address them. Over the last 100 years, North America and Europe have experienced a substantial decline in mortality and an increase in life expectancy. The "theory of epidemiologic transition" attributes these trends to the transition from an "age of pestilence and famine," in which the mortality pattern was dominated by high rates of infectious disease deaths, especially in the young, to the current "age of degenerative and man-made diseases" in which mortality from chronic diseases predominates.1,2 According to estimates from the Global Burden of Disease Study, infectious diseases now account for only 4.2% of all disability-adjusted life years lost (DALYs, a measure of the burden of diseases and injuries) in countries like the United States with established market economies, whereas chronic and neoplastic diseases account for 81.0%.3 Until recently, it was assumed that the epidemiologic transition had brought about a permanent reduction in infectious disease mortality in the United States. However, the emergence or reemergence in the 1980s of such diseases as the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and tuberculosis demonstrated that gains against infectious diseases cannot be taken for granted.4,5 An outbreak of avian influenza in Hong Kong in late 1997 by a strain (H5N1) not previously known to infect humans6 is a reminder that pandemic influenza continues to pose a threat. In the United States, mortality due to infectious diseases increased 58% from 1980 to 1992,7 a trend that was unforeseen. To determine when this trend began and to characterize longer-term trends in the United States, we examined US mortality records since 1900, when the federal government first began to track mortality data annually. Methods Sources of Mortality Data Data were obtained from yearly tabulations of causes of death on file at the Division of Vital Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics and from public use mortality data tapes from 1962 through 1996. The US federal government began publishing mortality statistics on an annual basis in 1900 after establishment of the death-registration system.8 Initially, data were gathered only from the "death-registration area," which included 10 states, the District of Columbia (collectively known as the "death-registration states"), and 153 cities outside these states. The system was gradually expanded to include all states by 1933. All registered deaths were entered into the system for every year except 1972, when a sample of half of all deaths was entered. Deaths occurring in military personnel outside the United States were not included.8 The cause or causes of death obtained from death certificates were coded according to the particular revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) that was in use at the time (successive revisions were implemented starting in 1900 [ICD-1], 1910 [ICD-2], 1921 [ICD-3], 1930

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The World Cup Final is Sunday, and there are three areas which could tip the scales in favor of a Croatian upset or an expected French title. [ MORE: PST’s World Cup roundtable ] Kante and Pogba vs. Modric, Rakitic, Brozovic Yes, Antoine Griezmann is a midfielder, but he’s a fourth forward if N'Golo Kante and Paul Pogba are at their very best. Croatia’s midfield triangle has been responsible for much of its World Cup success, and will need to keep that up if it hopes to collect an upset. Mandzukic renews acquaintances with La Liga CBs… Two goals in the Champions League semifinals against Real Madrid, one the year before in the final, and an assist in that UCL run-up versus Barcelona. So, yes, Real’s Raphael Varane and Barca’s Samuel Umtiti have tangled with him a time or two. And the big Croatian striker Mandzukic really seems to be rounding into form. …And Giroud versus Lovren and Co. Olivier Giroud has yet to score in the tournament, but sleeping on his industrious performance up top is a mistake. Dejan Lovren has branded himself “one of the best defenders in the world” based on this tournament and his Champions League run with Liverpool. If France needs to whip crosses toward Giroud, we’d expect things could look a bit like the below highlight reel. Check around the 1:00 mark of this video: Follow @NicholasMendola The leaker who allegedly got hold of an Xbox One dev kit and released a slew of information to the Internet has warned that if he is arrested today, he’ll spill everything he knows. The individual known as Superdae told Gizmodo that he expects to be charged today, after several months of investigation. If he is arrested, and therefore can’t log into his FTP server this evening (Perth time) an automated system will give out its IP, user name and password via Twitter, offering read-only access to an alleged collection of top secret info. Gizmodo says the server is packed with “juicy” files, and Superdae claims to have information about the Xbox One that Microsoft does not want leaked. In a later report on Kotaku, the server was said to contain software development kits for the PlayStation 4; Xbox One and Wii U; information on the pulled from hacks of Epic Games; Blizzard; Unitied Front Games and THQ; and unfinished versions of unreleased games like Company of Heroes 2 and WWE 14, as well as mysterious Epic projects known only as Kilo, Lima and Orion. Superdae gave out plenty of info regarding the console ahead of its reveal, much of which seems to have been correct. Superdae’s attempt to sell a couple of Durango dev kits on eBay resulted in a visit from the FBI and West Australia police, which Microsoft has denied any involvement with. Subscribe to the VG247 newsletter Get all the best bits of VG247 delivered to your inbox every Friday! Enable JavaScript to sign up to our newsletter Thanks, Kotaku.

NEWARK, NJ - Approval for an 8-story residential building near Lincoln Park was put on hold at a zoning board meeting Thursday to reassess parts of the project, including parking. M&M Development, based in Newark, wants to add an additional four floors to a vacant warehouse at 84-94 Parkhurst St. The plan would create 58 one and two-bedroom apartments with 11 basement parking spots, 22 spaces for bikes and a jitney drop-off area that would take residents to Newark Penn Station. The words “Goldsmith Lofts” appeared on site plans that were presented to board members at the meeting. Sign Up for Newark Newsletter Our newsletter delivers the local news that you can trust. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. You have successfully signed up for the TAPinto Newark Newsletter. Jennifer Carrillo-Perez, an attorney for the developer, said the project would be part of a new redevelopment plan that is slated for the city. It will be called either Gateway South or the Lincoln Park South Redevelopment Plan, but hasn’t been fully approved yet, she said. “Part of that is a jitney service that's going to be provided to the residents,” Carillo-Perez said of the city’s slated redevelopment plan. “They're trying to create more density in those areas because there's some abandoned and open areas and warehouses that are under-utilized.” Zoning board members had concerns over the number of spots that were available for the project and the building’s height. Carillo-Perez asked to adjourn the application after hearing those concerns. “Eleven spots for 58 units just doesn’t add up for me,” said zoning board member Rosemarie Ruivo, The project would technically be located in a zoning area that only allows low-rise buildings. It’s directly south of a different area that would allow taller buildings though, said the project’s planner, Christopher Kok. The 8-story building would also act as a sound buffer to traffic on McCarter Highway, he added. The project’s location is over a mile away from Penn Station. Kok said parking lots for some nearby businesses on McCarter Highway are actually part of the public right of way, so residents would be able to utilize those spot. "It's very unusual, but it's part of the public right of way,” Kok said of the parking lots. The plan would also include affordable units, Kok added. The zoning board agreed to adjourn the application at the request of the developer’s attorney. It’s scheduled to be heard in March 2019. Find TAPinto Newark on Facebook and Twitter. Download the TAPinto mobile app for Android or iOS.

Tech. The man who’d repeatedly talked about bringing a car company from China to America stood in Outer Mongolia, grinning about the 15 million square foot facility going up there. Neither Republican campaigns nor reporters had noticed it. America Rising found it buried on the GreenTech site. Other hits followed, all on this theme, but McAuliffe won anyway. “McAuliffe was a better candidate, no doubt, than four years ago,” offers Miller. “He was on message. They knew their candidate’s weaknesses. He benefited by not being a new candidate—he goes off message and, oh, that’s just Terry, acting crazy! That’s just Terry, being folksy again. In 2013 a lot of the media felt that stuff had been asked and answered.” “The campaign kept him from doing one-on-one interviews,” says Pounder. “The one interview he did, the [Virginia political reporter] Ryan Nobles interview, we used in every ad! The ad that tested the best was from that interview.” “Very few press gaggles after his events,” adds Pounder. “But hiding a candidate is not a path to success in statewide races,” says Miller. “That’s not a path to success for [Kentucky Senate candidate] Alison Lundergan Grimes or [Georgia Senate candidate] Michelle Nunn. The hard questions are going to get asked and answered.” America Rising is counting on candidates being questioned in states that have been voting Republican for president or where the local Democratic party has been losing elections: Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana, North Carolina. “Think about where the battleground map is,” says Miller. “This or that remark might not be that damning in Massachusetts, but many of the competitive races are happening on turf that Romney won.” Republicans need to win six Senate seats to take total control of Congress, and they realize they could have done this earlier if they hadn’t nominated losers in a few 2010 and 2012 races, or if millions of dollars hadn’t been blown on stupid ads. All their tracking can serve as a foundation for the 2014 contests. “Something in a research file now that doesn’t seem relevant may be relevant six months from now,” says Pounder. “The benefit of working on this full time, through the cycle, is that you’ll stay aware of it.” “I think there’s a misconception that this is happening in order to catch [Iowa Senate candidate] Bruce Braley saying he’s upset with the lack of towels in the House gym during the shutdown. That’s fun, that gets on Jimmy Kimmel, that’s not the point. Three months from now if there’s a controversy regarding some local official in Arkansas, we can go back and we know what Mark Pryor said about it. When the NSA thing popped last summer, probably nothing any of these candidates said about the NSA had ever raised a red flag. But now we’ve catalogued that information, so when the next NSA pops up, we know what they said.” “If we were sitting here a year ago,” says Pounder, “nobody would have said ‘if you like your plan, you can keep your plan’ would be an issue. OK. Kay Hagan has said it numerous times. Mark Pryor has said it once or twice. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Then you go back to everything they’re starting to say since the debate started. They didn’t just say, ‘if you like your plan you can keep it.’ They said, if you like your doctor, you can keep him.’ They said, ‘I do like the public option.’ They said, ‘maybe Obamacare didn’t go far enough.’ They were intricate players in the debate, and most of that is on video.” Why would support for a public option hurt a candidate? “It fits in because you ask: You thought Obamacare’s implementation was bad? They wanted to go even further.” America Rising is the freezer of the Republican party, storing messages and narratives are, that can be taken out at the right moment, microwaved, and served to voters.

The body of an eight-year-old boy who had been missing for nearly two weeks has been found in his father's partner's car, police in Spain have said. Gabriel Cruz was last seen alive in the small southeastern village of Las Hortichuelas on 27 February. Hundreds of volunteers joined the search and his parents, Angel Cruz and Patricia Ramirez, who are separated, gave a series of emotional interviews. Angel Cruz's partner, Ana Julia Quezada, was a regular presence during days of searching through local countryside. Image: Gabriel's body was found in his father's partner's car. Pic: @ PCivilElEjido People in Spain are now calling for the death penalty to be reinstated following the discovery of the little boy's remains. Spain's Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido announced that they had been found in Ms Quezada's car on Sunday. Later in the evening, a mob of protesters gathered at the police station in Almeria, where Ms Quezada is being held, clapping their hands and shouting "death penalty". There were also calls for capital punishment on social media, with others calling for Ms Quezada to be given life in prison. However, Gabriel's mother says she does not want to hear "words of hate" and that justice must "run its course". She was in tears as she spoke to reporters, wearing a T-shirt with Gabriel's smiling face on it. Image: Hundreds of people helped search for Gabriel. Pic: @ PCivilElEjido Spain is currently debating whether to abolish the punishment of imprisonment without parole, or to widen it to include other offences. It was re-introduced in 2015 for rare cases including serious murders. Several petitions have appeared online. One of them - signed by more than 220,000 people - requests Ms Quezada's extradition to her native Dominican Republic, so she will not enjoy "the comfort of Spanish jails". But Gabriel's mother told Spanish radio: "Let justice run its course. What remains now is faith and all the good acts that took place and that brought out the best in people. "It can't end with the image of this woman or with words of hate." Her words were backed by famous Spanish film director JA Bayona, who tweeted: "What an extraordinary woman setting the example! "No one can take another human being's life, and especially not the state. "That must be an example for all. RIP little Gabriel."

seen her before. “In which case, I want to be all lady. So lady. As lady-like a lady as is humanly and Asguardianly possible. Not like, prissy? But way female.” “Hrmm, yes, we'll want long skirts, some flowing pants, perhaps? Jewel tones will go well with your skin, maybe some embroidery, we want to stay away from any harsh geometry or anything too structured or suggestive of armor, though we also don't want to suggest sages' robes, either, so perhaps some tucked waists?” Pepper looks up, expecting Darcy's opinion on that. Coulson clears his throat, just softly, barely even qualifies as a noise, but Darcy knows damned well he's laughing at her. “Sounds great,” Darcy replies, with maybe a touch too much feeling. “Tell me about standards of modesty, Thor,” Pepper commands. Thor sends Darcy a pleading look. “What bits of me shouldn't be hanging out if I don't want to get offered a pouch of gold in exchange for my company?” Darcy translates. Thor, unbelievably, turns red. It's far too adorable, and Darcy makes a mental note to tease him about it for, oh, approximately forever. But later, when she doesn't need his dubious expertise to avoid making an ass of herself in front of royalty. Other royalty. Maybe this won't be so bad? After all, Thor isn't so bad and he's - “None would dare show you such disrespect,” Thor chokes out. - an idiot. An idiot who sounds so uncomfortable that for a moment Darcy considers the possibility that he's swapped bodies with Steve. “Pretend they would,” Pepper suggests dryly. “Pretend she was someone other than your guest. How should she dress to be considered respectable?” “You should not bare your legs the way you do,” Thor tells Darcy miserably; he has the look of a little boy who expects his mother to pop out of the woodwork and smack him upside the head for talking to a woman about women's legs. “A woman may wear breeches, but unless she is a warrior, they should not... display.” “Long skirts, loose and flowing pants.” Pepper is nodding. “If she is a warrior, then it is fitting that she should be proud to display the strength of her body – you have seen the Lady Sif, and how she attires herself, of course,” Thor hastens to add; he's apparently spent enough time around Jane and her incendiary feminism to realize that what he's saying is possibly offensive by Midguardian standards. “But since I don't have wicked thigh muscles to show off, the assumption is if I'm dangling my legs out there, it's to draw attention to what's -” “Yes, we all understood that,” Pepper interrupts, while Thor turns purple, and Darcy just raises a brow at him. “What about arms?” “Arms?” Thor all but whimpers. “Are bare arms or tightly fitted sleeves acceptable?” “.. yes?” Thor says, clearly utterly confused as to why they wouldn't be. Pepper nods and keeps on with her electronic note-taking. “And necklines?” Thor looks like he wants to jump out the window. “How about high necklines, but a bit of emphasis on the girls, cut-wise?” Darcy suggests, which saves Thor from having to answer but doesn't really do much to make him stop looking nigh-suicidal. “Point out the womanly-ness, but keep it non-trashy. Good?” “I think so, yes,” Pepper nods, and looks at Thor for approval. “I will defer to the good Lady Pepper's wisdom,” Thor says carefully, at which Pepper looks annoyed, and Coulson has to clear his throat again. “After this, you get to tell me about political history and genealogy and who wants to kill who and all that,” Darcy promises Thor, who looks only marginally relieved – well, that'd make her day. “What I've got to offer, dude,” she apologizes, shrugging. “You wanted somebody to bash heads with, you should have put in a good word for Steve. So, is it time to throw me to the wolves yet?�

This week’s announcement by the federal government that it intends to sole-source the purchase of F-18 E/F Super Hornets to fill a perceived “capability gap” in Canada’s military commitments is spin-doctoring at best — and at least, a questionable use of defence dollars. To begin with, the notion of an “urgent” capability gap is a fabrication, created by the Liberals to ensure that parochial party promises are kept. There is no pressing need to rush this decision. Canadians were given assurances by professionals in the Canadian Armed Forces that the CF-18 fleet could be kept fully operational until 2025, giving them plenty time to properly procure a replacement fighter. All the necessary work has been done already to run a competitive procurement process that meets commitments and requirements. We don’t need to take five years to run a competition and make a decision. The Defence Policy Review was supposed to be released in early 2017. Surely this week’s replacement decision could have waited until then — particularly when National Defence Minster Harjit Sajjan admits that the Super Hornets will not be fully operational until the late 2020s. Meanwhile, Australia plans to phase out their Super Hornets in favour of F-35s. The U.S. Navy plans to phase out its Super Hornets by 2040, giving Canada roughly 10 years of common use before the Super Hornet becomes prohibitively expensive to maintain — and technically redundant. By the time the first Canadian Super Hornet is operational, the U.S. Air Force will have transitioned to the F-35 for NORAD operations, which will require upgrades to NORAD infrastructure. This sole-source purchase is not a logical solution, especially when there will only be 18 Super Hornets to fill the “capability gap” that, according to the minister, 77 CF-18 Hornets cannot meet today. The RCAF will need to support two platforms, two training systems, and two maintenance and logistics systems during the transition. That will be hugely expensive. The RCAF will need to support two platforms, two training systems, and two maintenance and logistics systems during the transition. That will beexpensive. The Liberal government was elected on a platform of transparency and a promise to consult Canadians. It is evident that the Standing Committee on National Defence shaped the public discussion on fighter requirements to match the Liberal narrative — and then cherry-picked the responses to suit this replacement decision. This puts the integrity of the current government in question on all issues of governance they put to the public. The government may appear to be consulting Canadians, but it’s becoming clear that they do not care to listen as experts from all areas clearly were of the opinion that an open competition would be the best means for selecting a replacement fighter. Economically, the decision is also suspect. The CF-18 and the Super Hornet are two distinctly different airplanes both in size and content. The Super Hornet is physically 25 per cent larger and the two aircraft have no internal avionics systems in common. So the RCAF will need to support two platforms, two training systems, and two maintenance and logistics systems during the transition. That will be hugely expensive. Using Australian and Kuwaiti purchases as indicators, Canadians will spend roughly US$5 billion to procure a marginal capability for the 2030s that will not meet current commitments, will be technologically inferior by then and will logistically expensive. This simply isn’t a cost-effective path to take. The economic rationale for this decision rings hollow for a government not known to concern itself with military commitments. Sole-sourcing of military equipment is warranted when there is full military support for the identified equipment and it provides clear value for the defence dollar. The C-17 and the C-130J purchases were good examples of this. But the Super Hornet decision meets neither of these criteria. It’s obvious that political gerrymandering in the military procurement process continues unabated. The claim that this is an interim solution is nonsensical. The numbers of fighters involved, the full costs and the timeline do not add up. The rationale for sole-sourcing of the Super Hornet is ridiculous, wrong on so many levels — while the decision-making process itself is being driven by the same factor the Liberals criticized when the Conservatives were in power: parochial politics. One must question whether it’s the intention of this government to emasculate the fighter force so future governments can’t simply “whip out our CF-18s and show them how big they are” when we’re called upon to provide Canadian security to the international community. The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.

Was he doing his Christmas shopping? Well-dressed monkey in a winter coat and diapers escapes car and heads to Ikea An unaccompanied monkey wearing a stylish winter coat and a diaper surprised Sunday shoppers at a Toronto Ikea. The fashionable rhesus macaque, sporting a miniature shearling jacket, was first spotted in the parking lot, before roaming around and eventually being cornered inside the store. Police believe that the pet had been in a car before escaping from both a crate and the vehicle to look around Ikea. Canadian police said: 'It's a smart monkey.' Scroll down for video Warm and dry: The monkey that visited Ikea was wearing a thick winter coat and a diaper Darwins law: The Ikea monkey is back in the news, this time as a court battle rages over who owns him Shopper Bronwyn Page told Toronto CTVNews of when she spotted the unusual customer outside the store: 'We saw a crowd of people and a little animal and I was like ‘oh my gosh it’s a monkey.’ Page first believed that the seven-month-old animal was fake but discovered otherwise when the monkey showed signs of distress. 'It started darting all over the place. It was scared.' She added: 'It was very bizarre to see a real live monkey there. It was really small and just funny dressed in the coat.' Unusual customer: The monkey was first spotted in Ikea's parking lot. The trial, set to continue June 10 and 11 will determine who owns Darwin Distress: Owner Nakhuda says authorities tricked her into giving up ownership of Darwin after he escaped into Ikea, though she knew it was illegal to have him in Toronto Toronto animal services eventually caught the monkey inside the store. The primate's owners, who had been shopping in Ikea, came forward after the incident. They now face $240 fine for having an illegal pet. The rhesus macaque species is not endangered but it is against the law to keep the animal in Ontario. The monkey remains in the care of animal services but is said to have recovered from its stressful shopping experience and is in good health. News of a monkey in a coat visiting Ikea quickly went viral on social networks. On Twitter, #Ikeamonkey trended and there are least two parody accounts. There is also an Ikea Monkey page on Facebook. A new internet meme also developed, with the warm and smart monkey being depicted in a range of unlikely situations. Internet craze: The Ikea monkey was celebrated online and depicted in a range of different scenarios. Here he takes a trip to Toronto's CN Tower Political adviser: On this occasion the famous macaque helps out Toronto's mayor Rob Ford VIDEO: Dapper monkey shocks shoppers at IKEA

explain how other factors in the climate system, such as dust particles, water vapour and clouds, can modify the effect on climate of rising levels of greenhouse gases – either decreasing or increasing the temperature rise. That helped cause the cooling from 1940-1975. Today, a consequence of this is that as dirty emissions from coal-fired power stations are cleaned up, the true greenhouse warming from our CO2 emissions is being unmasked. Credit: Thin Ice Climate Uranium’s radioactive decay produces one form of the element thorium, called thorium-230. Uranium dissolves in the water corals take up, but thorium-230 doesn’t. That means there is no thorium-230 in corals when they first form, but the amount increases over time as uranium decays to form it. And uranium turns to thorium-230 much more slowly that carbon-14 to carbon-12, meaning the method can reach back further. With some corals only growing near the sea surface, the method gave Wally’s team a chance to look at how sea levels rose and fell over the course of ice ages. Testing corals sent from Barbados, David saw ice ages 82,000, 105,000 and 124,000 years ago, matching the gaps Milutin’s theory predicts. “The often-discredited hypothesis of Milankovitch must be recognized as the number-one contender in the climatic sweepstakes,” Wally wrote in the journal Science. Evidence grew quickly from ‘cores’, cylinders of ancient mud drilled from the sea bed, or ice from glaciers, confirming Milutin’s theory. Cores like the one collected at Camp Century in Greenland and analysed by Willi Dansgaard also backed Wally’s idea – still outrageous to many scientists – of rapid changes. Wally himself was quick to point out each ice age showed the same ‘sawtooth’ pattern: a spurt of rapid warming was followed by a gradual descent back to cold. Finding this ice age timing prompted an obvious question: How long until the next one? The world was in the middle of a cooling period that seemingly belied earlier predictions from Guy Callendar about CO2-driven temperature rises. Though an ice age would be centuries or millennia away some scientists called it ‘an immediate concern’, writing in 1972 to then US president Richard Nixon to warn him. But in 1975, as articles voicing this warning were appearing, Wally argued just the opposite. He wrote that warming produced by rising CO2 levels in the air documented by Dave Keeling could emerge in a ‘surprising’ and ‘dramatic’ way. “At that time the first Greenland ice core record came out, and Willi Dansgaard found that it had 80 and 180 year temperature cycles,” Wally told me. “I took his cycles and extrapolated them into the future, made the gigantic assumption that they were global and that a natural cooling was balancing out the warming. If that were true then the Dansgaard cycle would turn around and global warming would be enhanced by natural warming.” Though later data hasn’t supported the short-term cycles, the cooling trend did stop the same year. And looking back now, our adoption of a phrase originating from his Science paper’s title shows how timely it was. He called it: “Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?” This is the first blog entry of two on Wally Broecker’s contributions to climate science. Now read the second part. Further reading: Spencer Weart’s book, ‘The Discovery of Global Warming’ has been the starting point for this series of blog posts on scientists who played leading roles in climate science. Robert Kunzig and Wally Broecker’s book, ‘Fixing Climate’ does a much better job of explaining climate change through personal stories than this series of blog entries. Wally Broecker (2012). The Carbon Cycle and Climate Change: Memoirs of my 60 years in Science Geochemical Perspectives DOI: 10.7185/geochempersp.1.2 Wallace S. Broecker (1965). Absolute Dating and the Astronomical Theory of Glaciation Science DOI: 10.1126/science.151.3708.299 Wallace S. Broecker, Jan van Donk (1970). Insolation changes, ice volumes, and the O18 record in deep-sea cores Reviews of Geophysics DOI: 10.1029/RG008i001p00169 Wallace S. Broecker (1975). Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming? Science DOI

(See the end of the chapter for notes.) With nightmares plaguing Kaiyo throughout the night, it's clear that she's at her wit's end. How long will it take someone to snap...? Chapter Text “You really think escape is possible, don’t you?” “No. You’re trapped here. Forever.” “Well... you know how to leave. Just give in.” “Stop trying to hide your true intentions, Kaiyo...” “We’re always here.” “You useless bitch.” I awoke with a start, drenched in sweat, hyperventilating. Due to the darkness of the room, I had no idea what time it was, nor did I know what kind of scene I was making. I quickly got out of bed, panting for breath and falling to the floor. I looked up at the door. It was open, and standing there was... a shadow. I fell away from the door, scrambling backwards as it walked into the room and closed the door behind it. I got to my feet, shaking the still sleeping Ini. “Ini... Ini, please wake up...” No response. I sat next to her, putting my knees to my chest and looking around frantically at the room, wondering where the shadow had gone. “You fear the unknown? Well, here I am.” The voice felt like it was coming from inside my own head. I covered my ears, to no avail- whatever was assaulting me was internal. “What’s wrong, Kaiyo? Scared?” “T-This is a nightmare.” I closed my eyes, curling further into a ball. “This is just a nightmare... this isn’t happening.” I opened one eye when I felt a hand grab my knee. In front of me was the shadowy figure, their gnarled hand almost threatening to tear into my flesh. “This isn’t real enough for you, Kaiyo? I’m not real enough for you?” Then, the figure leant in, revealing their face was... I screamed, trying to move, but I was frozen in place. I struggled meaninglessly against their grip as they made a smile too wide for a normal person to be able to do. “... It was real enough for your mother.” That’s when I woke up for real. I screamed my lungs out, tossing the blanket off and collapsing to the floor, much to the surprise of Ini who bolted upright and away from me. “No! No more! Please!” I begged, like begging was even necessary. “I don’t wanna... I don’t wanna!” “H-Hey! Excuse me!” Ini was at my side in moments. “Hey... ma’am, who are you? What’s going on...?” I didn’t even care that she didn’t remember me. I threw my arms around her, crying into her shoulder. Ini, with nothing better to do, hugged back, whispering comforting things into my ear. “H-Hey... It’s okay... I guess you had a nightmare?” Ini patted my back. “I get them all the time. You just got to remember they aren’t real! That’s what Daddy says.” I don’t know how long we held each other for. All I know is that by the time Ini finally let go- read, made me finally let go- A familiar chime was playing. Familiar to them. Not for me. Ding! “Ladiesss and Gentlemen! It isss officially day time. You may now leave your roomsss and explore of your own accord.” Ini got to her feet. “Well, stranger, looks like it’s time to go play! You coming with?” “N-No. Not yet.” I got to my feet, a little carefully in case my back gave out. “I, uh... need to check something first.” “Okay!” Ini skipped out of the room, whistling as she went. The second the door was closed, I threw myself back onto the bed and screamed into the pillow. Then, with a heavy heart, I got back to it. I

The former CEO of Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. will get a $9 million US severance payout, the company disclosed Tuesday in a U.S. regulatory filing. The Laval, Que.-based company said Michael Pearson's last day with the company was May 2. It said he is due the severance payment within 60 days of that date. Pearson is also eligible for a pro-rated performance bonus for the 2016 financial year. The company also disclosed that Pearson has agreed to make himself available to consult with Valeant at a rate of $83,333 US per month plus expenses through the end of this year. After 2016, he will get $15,000 US for each month he provides consulting services to the company. Pearson will also be eligible to get $3,750 US per day, plus expenses, to co-operate with Valeant on any material issues, including any federal, state or regulatory probes. After joining Valeant in 2008, Pearson oversaw a period of growth that saw Valeant evolve into a stock market darling. However, that growth brought with it a big debt load, and government scrutiny after the company jacked up the prices on some drugs. Pearson was replaced as Valeant's top executive by Perrigo CEO Joseph Papa. WASHINGTON--Florida Sen. Marco Rubio announced Tuesday that he had finally finished paying off his student loan debt this year using proceeds from sales of his autobiography. Rubio was honored Tuesday night at the Jack Kemp Foundation Awards dinner, where he made a case for broad policy reform, including changes to the nation's education system. "We need to reform our federal college grant and loan programs. To me college affordability is an issue that is very personal. Because the only reason why I was able to go to college--the only reason--was because of federal grants and loans. But when I graduated from law school, I had close to $150,000 in student debt," Rubio said after accepting the award. "That's a debt I just paid off just last year with the proceeds of my book 'An American Son,' the perfect holiday gift and available on Amazon for only $11.99." As late as this summer, Rubio said he was one of the few members of Congress still paying off loans. The 41-year-old Republican senator graduated with a bachelor's degree from the University of Florida in 1993 and received his law degree from the University of Miami in 1996. According to his latest income disclosure form filed in 2010, Rubio still had between $100,001 to $250,000 in debt when he was elected. PHILADELPHIA — Patrik Laine encountered a grand total of one boo when he stepped onto the ice Thursday for the first shift of his first game against the Philadelphia Flyers. The city’s rugged fans know hockey well enough to spot a powerful adversary worthy of their badgering. But Laine, the Winnipeg Jets’ 18-year-old right wing, got a reprieve. That sort of oversight probably will not last. Entering the weekend, Laine had a league-leading 12 goals in his first 18 games, five of them on the power play, and had quickly established himself as a force. Laine, the second pick in this year’s N.H.L. draft, had twice as many goals through Thursday’s games as the player taken first, Auston Matthews of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Matthews scored four goals in his first game but entering the weekend had gone 11 games without a goal. Not that Laine was paying much attention. “It’s not my job to think about those things,” Laine, a Finn whose last name is pronounced Line-ay, said Thursday. “He’s going to focus on what he’s doing, and I’m focused on my job.”

Saitek X-55 Rhino HOTAS System Review Page 1 of 8 INTRODUCTION If you were a teenager in the 90's then you probably know that compared to that time combat flight and space simulators are almost non-existent today mainly because this particular genre doesn't have as many fans as it used to (perhaps age has something to do with that). You see back then we had the joy of playing not one but several space simulators like the entire Wing Commander series (I/II/III/IV/V/Privateer), Frontier: Elite II and Frontier Wars, Tie Fighter, X-Wing, X-wing VS Tie Fighter, Starlancer, Freelancer and Decent: Freespace I/II along with many regular combat flight simulators like Strike Commander, F-14 Fleet Defender, Jane's ATF, Jane's IAF: Israeli Air Force and of course Falcon 4.0. Fortunately game developer legends like Chris Roberts (creator of the Wing Commander, Starlancer, Freelancer and Strike Commander games/series) and David Braben (creator of the Elite Frontier series) have returned and are currently working on two separate massive space simulators called Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous. Alone these two may not be just enough to "even" things between now and then but with the help of other upcoming and not as "known" space simulators like No Mans Sky gamers may actually have something to keep them busy for a long time to come. To enjoy these games however in all their glory gamers are not only required to own high-end systems but also need to have a Joystick capable of giving them the edge they need like the X-55 Rhino HOTAS system by Saitek. Mad Catz Interactive, Inc. (“Mad Catz”) (NYSE MKT/TSX: MCZ) is a global provider of innovative interactive entertainment products marketed under its Mad Catz® (gaming), Tritton® (audio), and Saitek® (simulation) brands. Mad Catz products cater to passionate gamers across multiple platforms including in-home gaming consoles, handheld gaming consoles, Windows® PC and Mac® computers, smart phones, tablets and other mobile devices. Mad Catz distributes its products through its online store as well as distribution via many leading retailers around the globe. Headquartered in San Diego, California, Mad Catz maintains offices in Europe and Asia. For additional information about Mad Catz and its products, please visit the Company’s website at www.madcatz.com Roughly 5 years ago Saitek introduced the revolutionary X-65F, a very high quality HOTAS system which basically combined a force-sensing flight stick identical to the one used in the F-16 (although the force-sensitive technology is used in the F-22A and newer jets) with a dual throttle. Some small issues however along with its hefty price tag made the X-65F a weapon of choice mostly for flight enthusiasts thus "forcing" Saitek to do the next best thing which was to work on a brand new model placed closer to their very successful X-52 Pro HOTAS system. So just like the X-52 Pro (and unlike the X-65F) the X-55 Rhino makes use of a single spring to simulate the force needed to move the stick and since not every person has the same hands Saitek supplies not one but four different springs of varying resistance which the end user can quickly swap. The X-55 is also the first HOTAS system by Saitek to feature two individual USB connections so if you just want to use the flight stick or the dual throttle you can only use that and save space on your desk. Sounds interesting? We feel the same way so let's move forward with our review of the X-55 Rhino HOTAS System by Saitek.

which incentivizes them to look after the health of the network. Dash was the first project to use masternodes, in Dash’s case they enable the InstandSend and PrivateSend features of the network and collect 45% of the block reward. There’s a list of masternode cryptocurrencies (geared towards investors/owners) here. A cryptocurrency that uses Proof of Stake to achieve consensus gives power to holders of the currency. This means that to understand who has power within that network it is important to consider how coins are distributed (both the initial distribution and ongoing block rewards and transaction fees). Holders of the currency run, and in a sense own, the network. Proof of Work miners have relatively high costs (the hardware they bought and the electricity to run it) and must therefore sell some proportion of the rewards they earn to cover those costs. This ensures a steady flow of the currency into the market. Proof of Stake nodes have very low operating costs, they aren’t using large amounts of energy (this is one of the attractions of PoS), and so can retain more of the rewards they receive. Stakers don’t have the same pressure to sell a portion of their rewards. In a system where all of the block rewards or inflation goes to stakers they could effortlessly retain their share of the currency while the holdings of non-stakers would be continuously diluted. An individual who owned 50% of the coins at the start could retain that 50% share and the associated power just by running some nodes — users of the currency that aren’t staking would effectively be paying rent to a landlord in the form of transaction fees. 14. Contemporary debates in blockchain governance I will use the rest of this post to situate my perspective in relation to three seemingly widely read blog posts about blockchain governance, and on-chain governance specifically, that were published in November and December 2017. Each of these to provide compelling accounts from individuals who are influential in the blockchain space, they are well worth reading. Fred Ersham’s blog post — Blockchain Governance: Programming Our Future Vlad Zamfir’s blog post — Against on-chain governance — Refuting (and rebuking) Fred Ehrsam’s governance blog Vitalik Buterin’s blog post — Notes on Blockchain Governance On-chain governance means that the protocol includes a formal process for adopting changes to the consensus rules. Off-chain governance is the norm for blockchains. There is some process (this post has so far considered Bitcoin and Ethereum’s process) through which the various actors agree to make a change and download a new version of the software which implements the new rules at a certain block height — or, some actors reject the change and the blockchain splits. Decred is the only project I know of that has functioning on-chain governance of protocol changes, so I will describe this in some detail. Decred is the project I’m most interested in, because it relies on voting to govern the protocol (and soon, the project development subsidy). In fact, one of the reasons I started writing this post was because the three posts above which speak to on-chain governance of protocol changes don’t mention the only project that’s actually doing it. 15. Decred Decred uses both Proof of Work and Proof of Stake to enforce the consensus rules. PoW miners receive the largest share of the block reward (60%), they have the same role as in Bitcoin. Proof of Stake miners/validators/voters receive 30% of the block reward, their role is to vote on changes to consensus rules and to check that miners are enforcing these rules properly. The remaining 10% goes into a project subsidy fund. Decred holders can buy tickets by locking up some amount of DCR until their ticket is called to vote. For every new block that is mined, five tickets are drawn pseudo-randomly from the pool of live tickets. At least three of these tickets must vote to approve the block or the PoW miner will not receive their reward. When a ticket votes successfully the ticket price is returned to its owner plus a reward. Tickets vote after an average of 28 days. If a ticket has not voted after 142 days it expires and can be revoked, returning the locked DCR to the ticket owner — around 0.5% of tickets expire before they are called to vote. The target size of the live ticket pool is 40,960 tickets, the price of a ticket goes up or down depending on whether the ticket pool is above or below this target. Locking funds for an unknown duration of up to four months to buy tickets is Decred’s mechanism for incentivizing voters to look after the health of the network. To have significant influence one must lock a considerable amount of DCR, if your voting choices cause DC

, she is unlikely to go in that direction. Instead, in a speech on Feb. 26, 2007, she called for an Apollo Project for energy that would end "tax breaks for big oil" and subsidize research and development of clean fuels. Hillary on energy is a disaster, but so has been every administration for a long time. U.S. energy policy is a huge and stupid tragedy, and Hillary will play a lead role in continuing it. Hillary hasn’t moved an inch on HillaryCare. The Congress, with benighted public support, has moved in her direction, enacting universal health care piece by piece. Hillary will extend health care benefits and introduce price controls on insurers. She wants full and universal coverage for all Americans. On paper everyone will have health care. In reality, there will be rationing and price controls. American health care will deteriorate even further. Will Americans care? Will they fly to India or Thailand where they can get better, faster, and cleaner health care? Hardly likely. Unlike Canadians suffering with their national health care system who have been coming here, where will Americans turn? They will wait, suffer, and die before their time. The only bright side is that this will provide a background for those who see some advantage in running against the system and drastically changing it. Nothing less will suffice at this point than completely dismantling the health care monstrosity. Hillary on health care is a continuing disaster. George Bush II played his role in this tragedy by introducing the prescription drug benefit and failing to reform the system in any way. In another sign that she does not understand economics and/or wants to make political hay, Hillary wants women by law to be paid the same as men are. This sounds good to untutored American ears, who think this is a matter of simple justice. However, if women were systematically being underpaid for no good reasons, wouldn’t those same businessmen who are supposed to be so greedy rush in and hire them at $0.75 on the dollar? Shawn Ritenour explains some of those good reasons for men-women pay differentials here, and Thomas E. Woods, Jr. explains that "never-married women of comparable education and experience and who work full time have the same incomes as their male counterparts" here. Raising women’s pay above the market level that takes into account compensating differentials (related to such factors as on-the-job training, length of tenure, job interruption, and time spent with family) will put women out of work. In an interesting pair of contradictory statements from the Hillary campaign site from which I draw her positions, we are told that "Hillary has stood firm as an advocate for a woman’s right to choose." Hillary favors Roe v Wade. She is in favor of abortion. But a few sentences later we read this: "As president, Hillary will continue her lifelong fight to ensure that all Americans are treated with respect and dignity." Apparently, babies in the womb do not count as Americans. Moreover, Hillary is known as a champion of children: "America is ready for a president who fights for our children." She has a long slate of legislation relating to children, including a new proposal to extend pre-kindergarten schools to all 4-year-olds. Why then does she not favor the babies who would be born? Maybe it’s because they can’t vote. Hillary on the American family is yet another continuing disaster. In the Clinton II realm, the government will step up its invasion of the family. The State long ago crossed the boundary into American family life in a largely unnoticed and unheralded stealth invasion. Hillary will extend the State’s victory over the American family and consolidate that control. Like all presidents, Hillary can be counted on to push for a number of favorite hobby-horses. Hers are many. They include public schools in overseas countries, support of Israel, government reform, voting reform (including same-day registration and an Election Day holiday), and working with the U.N. Political government under Hillary will grow larger, just as it has under just about every president ever elected. This process can go on for some time as there is a lot of ruin in a country. When major American establishment figures start talking different games than the ones we’ve been hearing for the last 100 years, then we’ll know that some real change is in the air. This has not happened yet. In the meantime, the only consolation is that the State is running into diminishing returns. We can see this in the projected deficits to fund the government’s programs. We can see it in the difficulties and cutbacks in countries overseas. Economics is a constraint on how far the State can go. Clinton II will be operating under constraints. Unfortunately, they are not yet tight enough to prevent her from continuing the tragic policies of her predecessors and placing her own personal stamp

The Government has been dealt a huge blow as the High Court ruled its benefit cap is unlawful and illegally discriminates against single parents with young children. Conservative ministers are now likely to be forced to change or scrap one of their flagship welfare policies, which limits the total amount of benefits a household can receive to £23,000 a year in London and £20,000 elsewhere. The ruling was made in response to a judicial review brought by four lone parent families who said the cap would have a severe and disproportionate impact on them. Ministers had attempted to have the case thrown out but were rejected by the court, which ruled earlier this year that the case must be heard as a matter of urgency. The Government said it was “disappointed” with the latest ruling and will appeal against the decision. Delivering his verdict, High Court judge Mr Justice Collins said the benefit cap was causing “real damage” to lone parent families, and, in a further blow to ministers, said “real misery is being caused to no good purpose”. “Those in need of welfare benefits fall within the poorest families with children”, he said. “It seems that some 3.7 million children live in poverty and, as must be obvious, the cap cannot but exacerbate this. The need for alternative benefits to make up shortfalls is hardly conducive to the desire to incentivise work and so not provide benefits. There is powerful evidence that very young children are particularly sensitive to environmental influences. Poverty can have a very damaging effect on children under the age of five.” “The cap is capable of real damage to such as the claimants. They are not workshy but find it, because of the care difficulties, impossible to comply with the work requirement. Most lone parents with children under two are not the sort of households the cap was intended to cover... Real misery is being caused to no good purpose.” The most ridiculous reasons people had their benefits sanctioned Show all 16 1 /16 The most ridiculous reasons people had their benefits sanctioned The most ridiculous reasons people had their benefits sanctioned "One case where the claimant’s wife went into premature labour and had to go to hospital. This caused the claimant to miss an appointment. No leeway given" The most ridiculous reasons people had their benefits sanctioned "It’s Christmas Day and you don’t fill in your job search evidence form to show that you’ve looked for all the new jobs that are advertised on Christmas Day. You are sanctioned. Merry Christmas" The most ridiculous reasons people had their benefits sanctioned "You apply for three jobs one week and three jobs the following Sunday and Monday. Because the job centre week starts on a Tuesday it treats this as applying for six jobs in one week and none the following week. You are sanctioned for 13 weeks for failing to apply for three jobs each week" The most ridiculous reasons people had their benefits sanctioned "A London man missed his Jobcentre appointments for two weeks because he was in hospital after being hit by a car. He was sanctioned" 2011 Getty Images The most ridiculous reasons people had their benefits sanctioned "You’ve been unemployed for seven months and are forced onto a workfare scheme in a shop miles away, but can’t afford to travel. You offer to work in a nearer branch but are refused and get sanctioned for not attending your placement" 2013 Getty Images The most ridiculous reasons people had their benefits sanctioned "You are a mum of two, and are five minutes late for your job centre appointment. You show the advisor the clock on your phone, which is running late. You are sanctioned for a month" The most ridiculous reasons people had their benefits sanctioned "A man with heart problems who was on Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) had a heart attack during a work capability assessment. He was then sanctioned for failing to complete the assessment" Rex The most ridiculous reasons people had their benefits sanctioned "A man who had gotten a job that was scheduled to begin in two weeks’ time was sanctioned for not looking for work as he waited for the role to start" The most ridiculous reasons people had their benefits sanctioned "Army veteran Stephen Taylor, 60, whose Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) was stopped after he sold poppies in memory of fallen soldiers" 2014 Getty Images The most ridiculous reasons people had their benefits sanctioned "A man had to miss his regular appointment at the job centre to attend his father’s funeral. He was sanctioned even though he told DWP staff in advance" 2014 Getty Images The most ridiculous reasons people had their benefits sanctioned "Ceri Padley, 26, had her benefits sanctioned after she missed an appointment at the jobcentre - because she was at a job interview" Jason Doiy Photography The most ridiculous reasons people had their benefits sanctioned "A man got sanctioned for missing his slot to sign on - as he was attending a work programme interview. He was then sanctioned as he could not afford to travel

Clarification: Well, that was a dumb headline. Of course it's been available on PC. We meant to say it is available on Steam. Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 3D, the spacecraft combat game loved by Nintendo 64 and PC gamers nearly two decades ago, has finally made it onto Steam. The game appeared on GOG last year and gave some users difficulty in getting it to run properly, and it appears the Steam edition may take some wrangling as well, if the topics in this forum thread are any indication. Still, it does offer partial joystick support, with Xbox One controllers being the best bet. Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 3D is $9.99. Star Wars Battlefront gameplay Warner Bros. just sent out their 2017 movie preview press kit, and it includes a bit of new Justice League information. Or at the very least, official confirmation on some rumors. For one, Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor will in fact be back. Eisenberg had said he would appear, but now it’s official in a Warner Bros. press release. Also appearing in Justice League will be Connie Nielsen, who plays Queen Hippolyta in Wonder Woman. That’s definitely new information! The last thing worth noting… Justice League writer Chris Terrio has an executive producer credit. Justice League will be released in 3D and 2D in select theaters and IMAX on November 17, 2017. We flew out to visit From Software in Tokyo for our new cover story on Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. While we were there, we interviewed lead game designer Masaru Yamamura and learned all about the process of designing the game's combat. As you'll see in the video above featuring some new gameplay footage, not all of your muscle memory and tricks from Dark Souls and Bloodborne will carry over into Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Watch the interview to learn what Yamamura sees as the biggest changes to From Software's combat formula, the difficulty of designing Sekiro, and how the game was originally inspired by the Tenchu series. Click on the banner below to learn even more about Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice throughout the month. guide is complete without an awesome gift card program! What if you want to buy a Glorious product for someone else? What if you are in the mood for some Glorious gifts, but don't know what to get? Don't worry, as we got you covered yet again! :) Our Glorious gift cards are the PERFECT gift for any PC gamer. Buying a gift card, you take out all the guesswork and get a guarantee that you'll deliver the perfect present to your friends and family. We got 4 different options: $10, $25, $50 and $100 cards. Can't get a more complete gift guide for gamers than this, can you (inb4 Odin comments)? A light earthquake has shaken Southern California, and authorities say there have been no reports of damage or injury. The United States Geological Survey reports that the quake with a preliminary magnitude of 4.0 occurred just after 2 a.m. Thursday. It was centered about eight miles (12 kilometers) northeast of Trabuco Canyon, California, which is located 31 miles (49 kilometers) southeast of Anaheim. The quake had a depth of about 6 miles (10 kilometers). The Orange County Sheriff's Office tells The Associated Press that there have been no reports of damage or injury. The Southern California earthquake comes two days after a magnitude 7.9 quake in the Gulf of Alaska triggered a tsunami warning for Alaska's coastal communities. is, I don’t know why anyone should fight to lose. But I also know that I’m not willing to accept that this is my only option and neither should you. No one ever said we could only shift one Overton window at a time. So let’s pack this Court. A longer version of this essay was published on our website on October 10, 2018. If you appreciate our work, please consider making a donation, purchasing a subscription, or supporting our podcast on Patreon. Current Affairs is not for profit and carries no outside advertising. We are an independent media institution funded entirely by subscribers and small donors, and we depend on you in order to continue to produce high-quality work.

... far! In terms of band size, this isn't much different from my other Fantasie bras, but somehow the band feels a bit firmer. The wing height is the same, so perhaps the elastic used here is wider, or the solid powermesh might have more retention than the printed versions. It is a little large but stays in place. I will probably alter it eventually since the leotard back should be pretty easy to shorten. The cups of Susanna remind me of a slightly deeper, more rounded version of the Elsie/Camilla/Frances cut I like. The bottom 3 piece cup is firm single layer tricot, the upper cup is single layer mesh, and the entire cup has a sheer floral lace overlay. The silky fabric used on Fantasie printed bras is very thin but firm, and I feel that this tricot/lace combo has a little more give. The cup depth is also a little bit deeper, so overall the shape looks nice and rounded. The side support panel has some give, and there is some natural stretch along the seams that makes it fit more flexibly than in the more rigid styles. The upper cup edge is this same type of seam, which is firm but has a bit of yield from natural stretch. It isn't as elastic as the top edge of Elsie/Camilla/Frances, but not totally rigid like Caroline/Harriet/Estelle. It gives me a great natural shape on both sides, which can be kind of tricky to fit due to my asymmetry. It also looks great with foam pads to wear as more of a t-shirt bra! The only real complaint I have about the fit is that I feel the wires are a bit narrow on me. They have a nice gentle curve like the Elsie/Camilla/Frances ones, but I feel that the ends of the wires are a bit more vertical. Since Fantasie wires are very firm, any wire shape that's a little off can feel noticeable. I could use slightly wider wires that are a touch more open at the top, though this isn't close to pinching like the ones on the Caroline Plunge. Styling-wise, this has a full lace covered cradle, lace trim fabric topped on textured satin straps, and small lace bows. The edging of the elastic along the band and cradle looks a bit like scallop shells, so it overall gives the bra a more frilly appearance than many other styles. I am so happy that I ended up with Petal, since the other colorways didn't appeal to me much, though I like the fit so much that I'm trying to pick up more! The shape of this bra seems to be the most universally flexible and should suit most breast shapes except tall roots, as most Fantasie bras are pretty closed at the top and will cut into tall roots.

The vinyl editions of Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein’s “Stranger Things 2” soundtrack have been revealed. One version—an “Upside Down Inter-dimensional Blue Vinyl”—is out December 22 in North America (via Lakeshore). Then, on January 12, Invada is releasing three versions for the rest of the world. There is a standard 180 gram black vinyl, a “Crystal Clear Vinyl” (with blue and white splatter), and a “Purple Crystal Vinyl” (with white splatter), which is a mail-order exclusive. They all have cover artwork by Kyle Lambert, as well as a gatefold design with a piece called “Hopper in the Pumpkin Patch.” Check out Lakeshore’s vinyl and Invada’s mail-order exclusive below. The “Stranger Things” composers recently made an appearance on the “Song Exploder” podcast to talk about show’s theme music. Millie Bobby Brown (who plays Eleven) showed off her rapping skills as a guest on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.” Butternut squash info This collection of butternut squash recipes showcases this wonderfully versatile ingredient. It is a remarkable star in soups, roasts, pasta, risotto, salads and even desserts, due to its sweet, rich flavour and its wonderful texture. Marcello Tully's spicy butternut squash soup will warm the cockles during the winter months, as will Dominic Chapman's brilliantly simple soup recipe. A popular ingredient in vegetarian recipes, Andrew McKenzie's uses it as the filling for his elegant squash and truffle ravioli. The richness of the squash also stands up well to many meats and fish, as with Galton Blackiston's pairings of roast cod with ratatouille and roast duck with squash mousse. Silky and sweet, squash is an excellent addition to dessert recipes. Robert Thompson's bavarois of butternut squash is served with a refreshing quince sorbet, while Simon Hulstone's makes an ice cream to serve with his delicate rose and almond tansy pudding. Have a read of our article on how to cook butternut squash to ensure you get it right every time. Detroit — Police have arrested a second suspect Wednesday and are searching for two others in connection to a nonfatal triple shooting in the city's Greektown district. Delano Ward, 26, of Farmington Hills was taken into custody Wednesday afternoon in Oak Park, police said. He is one of four men allegedly involved in a shooting that took place at 11:55 p.m. Sunday in Greektown. The four were walking east on Monroe when one of them pulled a weapon and fired multiple shots into a crowd, police said. Injured were three men, ages 23, 24 and 32. After the shooting, the suspects fled the location. All three victims received treatment at a hospital for non-life threatening injuries and were listed in temporary serious or stable condition. On Monday, Detroit police arrested one suspect, a 23-year-old, at his home in Livonia. Police continue to search for the two other suspects involved in the shooting. "We will find you and we will arrest you," Chief James Craig said. srahal@detroitnews.com Twitter: @SarahRahal_ , "Not bad for 4 o'clock in the afternoon. I like it." "There are 10 press and 10 protesters, so basically 20 protesters," he added. The first arrival at the event, more than three hours before it began, was Doug Milyiori, who manages a Bed, Bath & Beyond store in Wichita Falls. He brought his three sons — Dominic, 17, Nicolas, 14, and Gabriel, 13 — whom he took out of school for the occasion. “It's a very important election,” Milyiori said. “I don't want to talk bad about people, but the left has just gone crazy, violencewise, yelling at people all the time.” As an example, he cited the folks who recently chased Cruz and his wife, Heidi, out of a Washington restaurant, upset with the senator’s support for Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination for the Supreme Court. “Man, that’s family time, just leave the guy alone,” Milyiori said. “You don’t see Republican protesters doing that to Democrats.”

�t all horror movies. Sam Peckinpah appealed the original rating of his ultraviolent epic western, winning the case. Zentropa Entertainments/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Photo by Zentropa Entertainments/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Nymphomaniac Lars von Trier laughs in the face of your NC-17 rating. He founded the first mainstream film company to produce hardcore porn, after all. For Nymphomaniac, the director digitally edited the genitals of porn stars onto his A-list actor’s bodies for unsimulated sex scenes. The film was given an NC-17 rating, but Von Trier opted to go unrated, like many of his graphic movies. Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! We have Pedro Almodóvar’s lusty kidnapping tale to thank for inspiring the implementation of the NC-17 rating, which helped countless films from being unfairly categorized as porn. But the case wasn’t won without controversy and a legal battle. Studio Miramax filed a suit against the MPAA about the movie’s original X-rating, inspiring debates about censorship. They lost, and the film was released unrated. But when Henry & June was released, the ratings overlords decided to join civilization and introduced NC-17. L.A. Zombie Queer cinema icon Bruce LaBruce’s hardcore zombie flick stars well-known porn stars like François Sagat and Wolf Hudson, and doesn’t give a damn (see: a gory circle jerk). Read our recent interview with the director. Wild at Heart Bob’s Big Boy lookalike and Americana-obsessed director David Lynch saw his ‘50s facade shattered when the MPAA tried to brand Wild at Heart with an X rating. A few edits later, the film became the second Oscar-nominated movie to receive an NC-17 rating (along with Henry & June). The Gore Gore Girls Don’t expect anything G-rated from Herschell Gordon Lewis, the director nicknamed the “Godfather of Gore.” Inside Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo’s home invasion shocker is brutally violent and involves a pregnant woman, so naturally it received an NC-17 rating upon release. Hunting Lane Films/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Photo by Hunting Lane Films/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Blue Valentine Derek Cianfrance’s 2010 film resurrected the eternal NC-17 debates about sexual double standards when it was given an NC-17 rating for a scene featuring cunnilingus between a husband and wife. Star Ryan Gosling joined the fight against the MPAA, calling the ruling sexist. The studio appealed the decision and won. Ichi the Killer With a reputation for horrific violence, Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike’s story of feuding yakuza gangs features a villainous lunatic with sadomasochistic tendencies. The creep even slices off his own tongue. NC-17? Duh. La grande bouffe Four friends venture to a remote villa where they gorge on sex and food, hoping to eat themselves to death. Tropic of Cancer Mostly because we want to force you to watch Rip Torn play horny Henry Miller. Bad Education But of course any film from provocateur Pedro Almodóvar involving transsexuality and Catholicism would be given an NC-17 rating by the MPAA. Basic Instinct It’s amazing what can happen when a woman crosses and uncrosses her legs. Paul Verhoeven’s sexual thriller was originally given an NC-17 rating, but the director cut several seconds of footage due to pressure from the studio. “Actually, I didn’t have to cut many things, but I replaced things from different angles, made it a little more elliptical, a bit less direct,” he said in a 1992 interview. Young Adam From Variety on this Tilda Swinton and Ewan McGregor-starring British drama: Though [the film is] set in the socially and sexually hidebound Britain of the early ’50s, sex is the defining force in all the characters’ lives. From the opening shot of a young woman’s body, naked except for a petticoat, pulled from the waters around Glasgow, film has an undercurrent of charged sexuality in which copulation is portrayed devoid of romance and as a purely physical release from social or emotional frustrations. Delta of Venus See it to complete your tour of the Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller-inspired erotic cinema canon.

Please Share This Story! Bayer, a company completely given over to Sustainable Development, is making its entry into the intelligence world by investing in a geospatial innovation center in St. Louis. GEOINT means real-time tracking of everything that moves. ⁃ TN Editor Sledgehammers breaking through a mock wall signaled the construction start of the new “Geosaurus, Powered by Bayer” Innovation Resource Center at T-REX, a St. Louis based advanced technology incubator. Geosaurus will serve as the latest pillar in St. Louis’ efforts to become the global leader in geospatial intelligence, excellence and expertise. Last year, T-REX was awarded a $500,000 grant from Bayer to support the creation of a new geospatial innovation space that would be located inside the nonprofit’s downtown St. Louis building. To accommodate “Geosaurus, Powered by Bayer”, crews are renovating T-REX’s entire 14,760-square-foot fourth floor. With an emphasis on entrepreneurship, innovation, workforce development, partnerships with area universities and training programs, Geosaurus will provide collaborative content and programming for advancing the geospatial industry. It will also become a talent pipeline for companies like Bayer and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, which is relocating its Washington, D.C. headquarters to a site that is less than two miles away from T-REX. By 2026, it’s estimated that companies operating within the “Geosaurus, Powered by Bayer” Innovation Resource Center will create more than five thousand new geospatial industry jobs and generate more than $500 million in economic growth for the St. Louis region. “St. Louis has so many incredible geospatial resources across the region, and Geosaurus will be the thread that connects them,” said Patricia Hagen, President and Executive Director of T-REX. “This is where innovations will be fostered; talent will be cultivated and partnerships will be formed.” T-REX is home to more than 200 companies, including those focused on geospatial intelligence such as Geodata IT, SAIC, Optimal Geo, UNCOMN and Boundless, which Bayer began a collaborative relationship with in 2017 to coordinate open source geospatial code to the Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS 4 G) community. “Geospatial intelligence is becoming a high priority for agriculture as well as other industries that rely on highly technical and precise mapping data,” said Al Mitchell, Vice President of Corporate Engagement for Bayer. “Bayer is excited to partner with T-REX in the development of Geosaurus, which will help to further define St. Louis as an innovation and technology hub.” One of the first companies moving into Geosaurus will be the Combatting Wildlife Trafficking Geo-Analytic Hub, which is working to harness geospatial analytics and predictive modeling for efforts to stop global poaching. Joining Mitchell and Hagen at today’s “wall smashing” ceremony were St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson, Downtown STL, Inc. CEO Missy Kelley and St. Louis Development Corp. Executive Director Otis Williams. St. Louis architectural firm Remiger is designing the “Geosaurus, Powered by Bayer” space. Construction of the new center is expected to be completed in August 2019. Read full story here…

Even today, arguments abound on the nature of video games as art, expression, and on the impact their content has on society and people. Since the earliest advent of video games, people have argued they may negatively impact young people and the world as a whole. Of those arguments the most common was and continues to be that violence in games makes children, and even adults, more aggressive and criminal. Studies are done regularly attempting to demonstrate this, and even the American Psychological Association continues to hold that this is the case. However, many experts in the field claim that the research proving it is flawed and that there is just as much if not more potential for games to have a positive influence. These arguments found their ultimate battle ground in the Supreme Court of the United States in 2011, the case of Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (or Brown v EMA for short). This trial is well-known by many politically savvy gamers as the case that finally set the precedent that video games are protected speech, in the same way other forms of art and entertainment media are. But what else did it accomplish for video games and free speech as a whole? A History of Accusations Long before Brown v EMA, there were numerous attempts by organizations and states to restrict the sale of violent video games, both generally and specifically to minors. In the mid-2000s, there was a surge of legislation and cries for legal enforcement, following a string of particularly violent mass shootings, such as Columbine. Pro-family groups and individuals, as well as politicians, figures in the media, and parts of the academic community, argued that perpetrators of mass shootings may have been inspired or influenced by violent images in video games. Findings from the FTC show that the voluntary ESRB prevented a vast majority of Mature sales to minors. The Entertainment Software Association, or ESA, was among several organizations representing the video game industry who fought against such attempts at legislation. Among these is a 2005 Michigan bill to make the sale of Mature and Adult Only games to minors illegal, a 2006 Illinois bill of the same nature, and a 2008 Minnesota law that would have fined minors themselves for attempting to purchase Mature games. Minnesota appealed to the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals, but the court reaffirmed that the law was unconstitutional. There was also a federal bill presented in 2005, titled the Family Entertainment Protection Act, which was presented by now Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. That legislation died in committee. The onslaught of legislation is what resulted in the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board, or ESRB. Gamers are very familiar with the simple ratings that can be found on virtually every game they purchase. The ESRB is a voluntary body that developers and distributors can join of their own volition. The vast majority of the industry in the United States uses the ESRB, with most distributors enforcing their own rules about selling games to minors. An investigation by the Federal Trade Commission into the enforcement of ratings and selling of mature content, found that video game distributors were the most efficient at enforcing their voluntary ratings, beating out every other entertainment industry, with an 87% success rate in 2010. Pro-industry groups have consistently argued that video games are correlated with a decrease in violent crime, likely because it acts as a distraction for youth who may otherwise engage in more reckless or violent activities. Critics of organizations like the American Psychological Association's stance on video game violence say that the culture of academia is skewed against research that demonstrates no correlation. Two researchers offered the opinion piece, A Hornet’s Nest Over Violent Video Games, alleging that the academic community treated those who didn't believe in the correlation between video games and violence akin to climate change deniers, and that distortion of findings were rampant. An article in the British Journal of Psychiatry says that "moral panic" following intense tragedies may have significant biases on video game violence research. California's Attempt Former California Senator Leland Yee. In 2005, Senator Leland Yee introduced AB 1179 to the California Assembly. The bill would have made sale of games the state determines as violent to minors illegal, punishable by a fine of up to $1000 and would have required clear labeling on the front of game boxes, marking mature games for players 18 and over. The language of the bill defined violent content based on five descriptors of violence: "cruel," "depraved," "heinous," "serious physical abuse," and "torture." Oddly enough, AB 1179 was originally introduced not having anything to do with video games but was actually a bill allowing foster care workers to administer life saving injections for diabetes and other medical issues. However, after it had already passed the Assembly, and had been amended twice in the Senate, Lee completely gutted the original purpose of the bill, replacing it with the video game restriction law. The law determined the limits of free speech using an alternative version of the Miller test, a Supreme Court standard used to identify obscenity of a sexual nature

A commercial satellite captured images of the Wise Honest being loaded with coal at Nampo, a seaport in western North Korea, on March 14, 2018, U.S. officials said. United Nations investigators said it was intercepted by Indonesian maritime authorities in the East China Sea about two weeks later hauling 25,500 tons of coal worth nearly $3 million. U.S. officials said the ship previously was used to import dump trucks, spare parts, cranes, tires and mining machinery to North Korea. The crew sought to conceal the ship’s nationality and cargo, prosecutors said. Documents falsely claimed the Wise Honest’s home port was in the West African nation of Sierra Leone. The vessel also turned off an automatic identification system intended to alert other ships of its course and location. The AIS signals, which are required for international voyages, had not been used since August 2017, U.S. officials said. The ship’s captain was charged in Indonesia with violating its maritime laws and convicted, according to the U.S. complaint. The fate of the rest of the crew, originally about two dozen North Koreans, was not disclosed. On July 17, 2018, a U.S. judge issued a warrant to seize the ship. Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, would not say when U.S. officials took custody, saying only that it happened recently. North Korea does not have diplomatic relations with the United States, but its representatives can challenge the civil forfeiture in federal court in New York. If they do not or are not successful, U.S. authorities can sell the ship at auction. Staff writers Wilkinson and Megerian reported from Washington and Kim from Seoul. Staff writer Eli Stokols inWashington contributed this report. to-wear dresses, shawls, scarves and rebozos, and her mobile fashion laboratory Taller Flora rolls from one indigenous people to another and results in a demi-couture line. In 2013 she published her book, The Barefoot Designer: a passion for Radical Design and Community, in which she declares the future is handmade. It’s accompanied by an exhibition on the process of making, which has recently travelled to museums in LA and Asia. Between them, the couple has an impressive collection of textiles and art. Fernández is drawn to fine cottons from the town of Xochistlahuaca in Guerrero that are dyed with mud, cochineal, indigo and snails and loves the thick, rough wools from the highlands of Chiapas, Puebla and Tlaxcala. Her tablecloths are embroidered with fantastical animals by shamans from Hidalgo. Reyes swaps works with contemporaries such as Spanish artist Santiago Sierra while collecting Mexican works from the likes of Ernesto Mallard and the late Mathias Goeritz. Between the master bedroom and the two children’s bedrooms is space for one of ‘the best hammocks in Mexico’. These are woven by women from cooperatives in Izamal in Yucatán and Calkiní in Campeche, take two months to make and can sleep a family of four. So hectic are the couple’s schedules that finding the time to curl up in their hammock is a fantasy rather than a reality. Time for that later. Right now, their unique version of mexicanidad is in hot demand, and it’s their mission to provide it. As originally featured in the December 2015 issue of Wallpaper* (W*201)

bad was it? As for nuking India, when the nukes start flying, I want you to be under one. Then you would feel what nuclear holocaust is like. P.S. I hope I don't get sued for contributing to the death of an idiot. Name: Coolguy Website: blah Referred By: Just Surfed On In From: somewhere Time: 1999-01-01 04:17:20 Comments: Let me tell you something. IF you can sit and take the time to respond to every bad message that was written to you then YOU must be the dork, a loser with no life. What lame brain idiot takes the time to point out such things as misspelled words, etc.. You might think you are funny when making fun of those people by telling them how to use a gun and stuff but trust me when I tell you this... YOU AREN'T!! You are such a moron yourself! You stoop down to their level when you do such stupid things. WHy don't you accept criticism and GET OVER IT!!! No one cares about your stupid negative comments. You must have no life. Also... Your flight fiction is terrible. The plots suck, especially the one with that psycho guy. You have a corny sense of humor and I wish that you would lighten up and GET A LIFE, LOSER! Editorial Comment: Now "Coolguy", let me comment on your idiocy. You tell me that I have no life. Why don't you look at YOURSELF. If you have time to write a composition about this page at 4:17 in the MORNING on New Year's Day, then there is something severely wrong with you. And you say you're from "somewhere". Why not say "from around Monroe-Woodbury, New York with the ISP of Frontier." That's where your IP tracked down to. And maybe you should read this quote from your ISP: It is not acceptable to use Frontier services or facilities for any purposes which violate U.S. or state laws or to transmit any communication which would likely be highly offensive to any recipients. Illegal activities include, but are not limited to: -sending, receiving, transferring, or storing highly offensive files When Frontier Internet becomes aware of possible illegal activities, Frontier Internet may turn any information over to appropriate law enforcement agencies. Frontier Internet will review alleged violations of the Acceptable Use Policy on a case by case basis. Clear violations of the policy which are not promptly remedied by the relevant customer may result in appropriate action by Frontier including termination of Frontier services without refund of fees paid. So you see Coolguy? Not so cool now huh? And if one more thing pops up in my guestbook from you, it will be cruising down to Frontier. Got it? And you tell me my fiction sucks. Let's see some of YOUR writing. I'd be glad to read it. Oh, but then I forgot. You spend so much time writing nasty messages in guestbooks that you don't have time to write anything intelligent. And since you left NO e-mail and NO website, I assume you're just a wimp hiding behind the Internet. And you tell me to get a life? You mean like yours? I rather create websites than leave nasty messages in guestbooks. Leaving nasty messages isn't my idea of a life. And tell me this- WHAT THE H*LL DID I EVER DO TO YOU?!?! Website: Referred By: Just Surfed On In From: Time: 1999-01-01 21:07:28 Comments: i don't know you, but already i can tell that you are a couple condoms short of an orgy. first of all, why bother in allowing people to sign your guestbook if you don't respect people's opinion and plan to belittle them for all to see. i'm willing to bet that you will look up this message and you will put it in your little feedback page, and try to weasel your way to pity. well, feed on this. thank you for your time. THE WORLD IS A LESBIAN! Editorial Comment: Now what is this? Now that this section is open, every idiot on the Internet is commenting on it! This is no exception. By reading the first sentence of this entry, I can already tell that this person is a total moron. If your'e going to leave an intelligent message, write something INTELLIGENT. Obviously this message (which was written by another Frontier Internet customer [refer to the previous entry]) was written by a person with an I.Q. of 1 point. "Coolguy", I'm looking at you. There is heavy suspicion that it is you. And if it isn't, would the writer refer to the previous citation from the Frontier Acceptable Use

that she would need him again, very shortly in the future. Still. It was a little disappointing to not be included with the actual retrieval part of the mission. I could understand why, objectively, you wouldn't want to send a Special Jounin and a Chunin to do an ANBU's job but… we'd been the ones who found it and worked it out. "You can always help with the paperwork," Aoba commented, under his breath. "This seal is very important," I said solemnly. I wasn't that disappointed. And yeah, I was pretty eager to get my hands on those notes. I'd hand over a hundred interesting missions to ANBU if it meant I got to study them. Even limited access to anything about Edo Tensei was priceless. No one else knew just how much. I was scheduled in to look at them the next day, and since it was late and no one else had anything for me to do… I went home. I scavenged some food for dinner out of the fridge and settled into the lounge where dad and Shikamaru were playing shogi. Shikamaru was wearing the Shadow Hand, using it to carefully but dexterously pick up the small wood shogi pieces and move them. I tried not to feel too pleased about it. "Did your mission go well?" Shikamaru asked, with a kind of forced neutrality and levity. "Exceptionally," I answered. Then waved my chopsticks in dads direction. "Sorry about that." "I haven't been called in, so I assume it's not an emergency," he said, with a touch of resignation. "Nah," I said, shrugging a shoulder. "I'm sure you'll hear all about it tomorrow, anyway." "Something to look forward to," he said dryly. "What happened?" Shikamaru interrupted. "What went wrong?" "Nothing went wrong," I said, though that was a matter of interpretation. "It was a search and rescue. We searched. We rescued. There was just… some additional stuff." Actually, that was pretty much the theme of my Sensor Squad missions. Complete but extra. I wasn't exactly sure I could talk about it anyway. Certainly the 'extra' was classified, just because it wasn't finished. Also ANBU were involved. That tended to mean classified. Shikamaru gave me a searching look, full of hesitancy. "You seem happy about it." "Well, yeah," I said, a little surprised. "We saved a couple of kids. Nobody got hurt. It was a good mission." A long one, maybe, but one long day wasn't the same as weeks of them in a row. And it was a different kind of tired, when you knew you were accomplishing something. "How were things here?" I asked, instead of following that thought. "It's fine but Kofuku-oba wants you back in R&D," Shikamaru said. As if I had been gone longer than a day. "Mmm," I said, vaguely. "Can't. Have to do some sealwork for Tsunade." There was silence and the click-clack of shogi pieces on the board. "Have you thought about trying to teach some of the researchers about fuuinjutsu?" Dad asked, casually but carefully. I blinked at him. "Uh. I don't actually know that much about it," I said. "I mostly just make it up as I go along." But I could see why he was suggesting it – if they were going to have a hand in regulating seals and such, then it would be better if they actually knew what they were working with. And also… there'd be much less pressure on me to go and do it for them. I chewed on my lip, thoughtfully. "I did mean to submit some stuff to the clan archives. I could clean it up a little and give it to you." It was nowhere near good but I could strip out the worst of the egregious errors. "That would be a good start," Dad acknowledged. "But its difficult subject matter to learn without a teacher, isn't it?" It wasn't like I'd never complained about that. And I'd only started getting really good at seals after Jiraiya had given me pointers. And I'd stumbled across access to information most people didn't have access to, as well. "It's not that easy," I deflected, though it was a weak defense. "I could talk about it for a whole week and only cover exploding notes." His lips quirked into a smirk. "Then start there." It wasn

. In the video, Tiny announces that Patriot Prayer will begin a campaign to “Demask Antifa.” Gibson later claimed that the vandalism was a false flag: But the right-wing groups who have been targeting the IWW house for a week called the vandalism a “false flag,” despite repeated threats posted by Patriot Prayer supporters in videos on social media targeting antifascists and the Democratic Socialists of America. (At least one of the far-right videos also names Portland mayor Ted Wheeler as a target of the group’s malice.) Gibson posted on Facebook less than two hours after IWW made photos of the damage public, accusing antifascist activists of trying to frame his group. “Antifa came up to the Democratic Socialist of America house (their own house) yesterday and put graffiti on it pretending that we did it,” he wrote on Facebook. “Wait this graffiti looks very similar doesn’t it?” According to SPLC, Gibson announced later that night: Gibson announced Thursday that Patriot Prayer plans to attend all upcoming meetings of local socialist organizations. After finding a scheduled meeting of the International Socialist Organization had been cancelled, he and several of his associates went to the IWW building and recorded a video calling for socialists to engage in dialogue with their group. “Death to antifa,” a Facebook user commented. https://twitter.com/DJ_Tw34k/status/1089270147368374272 On Friday, January 25th, Gibson continued to stoke the fires online. On Facebook, he issued threats against local bar and music venue Cider Riot for hosting an antifascist musical event over the weekend, and encouraged his supporters to stake out the venue and photograph people going inside and outside of the building. The same day, it is revealed in the media that a local socialist event on campus has been cancelled due to threats of violence from Patriot Prayer. As Katie Shepard wrote: Portland Community College cancelled an on-campus event planned by the Portland Democratic Socialists of America after right-wing agitators threatened to show up and disrupt the teach-in. [A]n email from PCC public safety officials shows that the college cancelled the event after threats. “PCC Public Safety was made aware of a possible planned disruption to tonight’s event that may have had an impact on the safety of the academic community and event attendees,” writes campus safety officer Lt. Erik Hargrove in an email to Green. “To ensure the event could be held safely, and successfully, a mutual agreement between Public Safety and the organizers was made to accommodate the event at a date/time that sufficient pre-planning could take place.” DSA co-chairwoman Olivia Katbi Smith says the cancellation was not mutually agreed upon. “Portland DSA is extremely disappointed to announce that Portland Community College’s campus security department has cancelled this evening’s teach-in for economic rights and climate justice because of threats from the right-wing street gang Patriot Prayer,” she said in a statement. “A handful of Patriot Prayer members have suggested on social media that they planned to attend the event, and PCC’s security has deemed themselves unable to respond appropriately. We strongly disagree with this decision, which was made without consulting our organizers or our dedicated safety team.” https://twitter.com/Kherman112/status/1090401629679976448 The next day on January 26th, Joey Gibson and goons arrived at a small anti-ICE protest and proceed to look for “ANTIFA” that had masks on. Finding only one underage protester with a mask, they surround him and proceeded to pull his bandana off. Ironically, many Patriot Prayer members also had masks wrapped around their necks. https://twitter.com/Kherman112/status/1089739476417503232 Later, Gibson and friends were taped running after people on the street, with one Patriot Prayer member engaging in the chasing visibly wearing a large knife. Someone dressed in all black associated with Patriot Prayer also attempted to infiltrate the anti-ICE protest and film people, but was quickly found out and confronted. The person then made a hasty retreat, and ran down the street, only to be seen talking to police before leaving the area. Joey Gibson and Russell Shultz appear to ride in style – in the back of a police car. Local activists contend that Joey and Shultz are receiving a ride to an anti-ICE protest in which they harassed and assaulted someone. At the ICE rally, Gibson states on a livestream that everyone, from the “Left to the Right” will not be allowed to wear masks anymore and that he will remove them at demonstrations. This is ridiculous, as many people wear masks at

, curves, uh, sliders…you just need practice. And unfortunately, Badarrow’s pretty good. Hey Badarrow! Don’t throw splitters for game one! It’s not fair!” Badarrow looked up. He grimaced at Erin, but nodded reluctantly. The next ball he threw was a curve. This time Wesle connected with it though. The man was so surprised that he barely got to first base before the Cave Goblins got the ball. The players cheered, and Jasi went up to bat. “Fastballs! It’s just game one!” The Hob pitcher was clearly put upon, but he obliged Erin by tossing a fastball…nice and slow. Jasi was so surprised she missed the first ball. Erin slapped her forehead, but Badarrow’s antics had amused the crowd. And more importantly, the Players of Celum were now competing to get a hit. Jasi managed to bunt to first, but she got tagged out. Wesle ran to second, and then all the way to third as Emme smashed a ball straight past Badarrow. The next actor struck out, and it was Kilkran, the former [Blacksmith] who took up the bat next. Badarrow threw a deceptively easy pitch. Kilkran smashed the ball out to left field. Wesle charged home and scored. The Players cheered as Emme ran for second. The Cave Goblins had a ball, but they fumbled it getting it to Numbtongue. Emme ran to third. And then Numbtongue threw. The ball snapped into Rabbiteater’s glove as Emme was two-thirds of the way to his base. She turned to run, but the Hob sprinted at her. He tagged her out instantly. “Alright! That’s three outs! Switch sides!” The Players groaned and the ones who hadn’t had a chance to bat groaned as they put them down. But they seemed pleased. Quite a few slapped Wesle’s back and they took to the field with good nature. But Erin wasn’t fooled. Her eyes were on the Goblins as they meekly took up position at bat. She saw them glancing at each other and making covert signs she could half-understand. “Hey Jelaqua. What do you think of the game?” The Selphid was sitting with the adventurers, taking turns combing Mrsha’s fur. She looked up from the pampered Gnoll. Her mouth was full of popcorn. Dipped in fish sauce. Apparently it was better that way, according to her and Seborn at least. She shrugged. “Looks fun. The Players can hit the ball. Unlike Moore.” “Are you trying to hurt my feelings, Jelaqua?” “I’m just saying…we should get that Wesle guy on our team. When can we play?” “After five points. But the Goblins—well, just watch them, would you?” “For what?” “Just watch.” The adventurers sat up a bit as Erin went back to the game. She looked hard at Headscratcher. The Hob smiled at her. Innocently. Erin looked at Rabbiteater, Shorthilt, Badarrow, and Numbtongue. She narrowed her eyes. They looked a bit too eager. And she had a funny thought. “You guys take it easy, okay?” The Hobs nodded obediently. Headscratcher squared up to bat as Wesle took the pitcher’s mound, which was in fact, more grass. The [Actor] was clearly keen to get his own back and he threw a ball into the mitt that Emme held twice. Both times it dropped. He met Headscratcher’s eyes as Erin shouted. “Play ball!” The first pitch came in hard and fast and dropped. Headscratcher swung and missed. Wide. The Players laughed as the Hob stared at the ball in Emme’s mitt. Wesle grinned and threw a second pitch. This one was a fastball and went right over Headscratcher’s bat. The Humans cheered. Erin just watched Emme throw the ball back. She saw Headscratcher glance at his fellow Hobs. They gave him a tiny nod. The Hob turned back as Wesle wound up for a throw. The third pitch was a curve. Headscratcher watched it come. He drew back his bat, took a breath and roared

Margaret Atwood's latest novel is set some time in our post-apocalyptic future. But, it turns out, that future might not be that far off. "The Heart Goes Last" tells the story of couple Stan and Charmaine who give up their freedom for security in the planned community of Consilience — subjects of the Positron Project. Inside Consilience they live for one month in a normal home with normal jobs; and the next month they serve time in the Positron private prison, trading places with another couple that move into their normal home. Credit: Courtesy of Random House Atwood took umbrage at the word apocalyptic when describing the novel. “[It’s] not apocalyptic, just financial meltdown — like the one we just had,” she says. The beginnings of the novel are uncomfortably reminiscent of the 2008 financial crisis. Stan loses his job. He Charmaine are forced to leave their foreclosed house and live in their car. The only job that Charmaine can find is a shift at a once fancy night club that has become a de facto brothel. “I would call it a twisted version of our current reality, which is also in itself rather twisted,” says Atwood, “Housing shortages for all kinds of people, especially young people, that’s with us now. For-profit prisons are also a current reality in the United States, Atwood points out. In a particularly chilling passage in the book, Atwood describes her dystopic view of the evolution of the prison system. "Prisons used to be about punishment, and then reform and penitence, and then keeping dangerous offenders inside. Then, for quite a few decades, they were about crowd control — penning up the young, aggressive, marginalized guys to keep them off the streets. And then, when they started to be run as private businesses, they were about the profit margins for the prepackaged jail-meal suppliers and the hired guards and so forth." But the fiction isn’t far off from the reality she says emphatically. “It is unconstitutional to have slavery and forced labor [in the United States], but not if you’re a convicted criminal. So some of that is going on now,” says Atwood. Before they sign on to the Positron Project, Stan and Charmaine tour the utopian Consilience. But they have nagging concerns about how it runs. In fact, Stan's brother Connor even warns them that there's something fishy going on here. But, in the end it's the luxury of clean bath towels that clinches the deal. “You know when you don’t have a good set of bath towels, [Consilience] could be pretty darn appealing,” quips Atwood. But it’s not really a good set of bath towels that coaxes Stan and Charmaine to trade their freedom for security. It's fear, says Atwood. “When people are really, really scared, they will trade what we fondly think of as civil liberties and freedom. They will trade aspects of that for being told that they are protected and safe,” says Atwood. Lately there has been a surge of dystopic literature, according to Atwood. “[Dystopic fiction] comes in waves. In the literary landscape, I would say with The Handmaid’s Tale in 1995, nobody was really doing it at that time. They had in the ‘30s and ‘40s, so we had Brave New World and George Orwell,” says Atwood. “In the 19th century it was all utopias. It was all wonderful versions of the future, because that’s what they believed. They believed that things were going to get better and better. “ In the 1930s and ‘40s the dystopia was the present state of affairs and the utopia was in the future. “But after the first world war, the second world war, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, etc., we have trouble believing in utopias,” says Atwood. Today's current view of a dystopic future is a product of people’s uncertainty about the future — especially amongst young people, says Atwood. “[Young people] are writing and reading a lot of fictions like that. Some are just beleaguered fantasias such as the Hunger Games, but other are climate-based fictions. People are worried, quite rightly so, about a changing planet and also a changing and unstable financial landscape,” says Atwood.

The Twins are “closely monitoring” the market for catchers, including the likes of A.J. Pierzynski, Derek Norris, Jonathan Lucroy and Alex Avila, reports Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. It’s not certain at this time how available each of those names might be, but Berardino writes that the Braves are open to trading Pierzynski, which comes as no surprise when considering that he’s a 38-year-old veteran playing on a one-year deal for a club that is seven games back in its division. One can imagine that the Tigers, who as of last night are reportedly planning to be sellers at the trade deadline, would be open to moving free-agent-to-be Avila. Pierzynski has a $2MM base salary in 2015, of which roughly $841K remains. His contract also contains incentives based on games started behind the plate. To this point, he’s already earned $100K for reaching 60 starts, and he’ll earn an additional $50K for his 65th, 70th, 75th and 80th starts at catcher. He’ll earn $100K every fifth start from 80 through 100, allowing him to max out at $2.7MM. He’s hitting.280/.316/.432 with six homers this season, and it’s also worth noting (as Berardino points out) that the Twins reportedly made Pierzynski a two-year offer to return to Minnesota prior to the 2014 season. He instead chose to sign with Boston. Minnesota’s plenty familiar with Avila, whom they’ve watched behind the plate for the Tigers dating back to 2009. However, he’s earning a not-insignificant $5.4MM this season and has played in only 34 games, hitting.192/.333/.293. Avila’s career behind the plate has been threatened by concussions, and as a club that is more than familiar with the ill effects of concussions (see: Justin Morneau, Joe Mauer, Corey Koskie), the Twins may desire more certainty. Both Norris and Lucroy would represent long-term upgrades over incumbent Kurt Suzuki as opposed to mere rentals. Norris is under club control through 2018 and is eligible for arbitration for the first time this winter, but he’s also struggled in his transition from Oakland to San Diego. Norris has followed up a.270/.361/.403 line in 2014 with a.231/.278./.401 line in 2015. He’s certainly hitting for more power — he has a 38 point increase in his ISO, and his 11 homers already top last year’s 10 — but his walk rate and average have plummeted. Norris’ line-drive rate is down from 18.7 percent to 12.9 percent, which, paired with an increased strikeout rate, helps to explain the dip in his average. Lucroy could very well be the prize of the catching market. He’s a premium defender in terms of both controlling the running game and pitch framing, and he’s also produced a.291/.353/.455 batting line dating back to 2012. His production has been slowed this season, in part by a fractured toe sustained earlier in the year. However, he’s hitting.274/.335/.382 dating back to June 1, and two of his three homers this season have come in the past eight games. Lucroy’s contract, though, is perhaps the most appealing part about a potential acquisition; he’s earning $3MM in 2015 before a $4MM payday in 2016 and a $5.25MM club option for the 2017 season. That Minnesota is seeking an upgrade behind the plate is reasonable, considering the difficulty that Suzuki has had at the plate since signing a two-year, $12MM extension on July 31 last year. Suzuki had an excellent first half in Minnesota, but it was largely BABIP driven, and he closed out the year hitting.248/.290/.366. This year’s been even worse for the former A’s/Nats backstop, as he’s hitting just.227/.283/.303, making him one of the least effective bats in baseball. He’s also caught just 19 percent of attempted base stealers — 13 percent below the league average. The Twins, though, value the comfort that the pitching staff has with Suzuki, his clubhouse presence and his durability.Those positive traits, of course, would still be in play were he to transition to a backup role, even if only for the remainder of the 2015 season.

Hello, friends, let us immediately dispense with the pleasantries. Today I shall review several theological tomes. As a reminder to the female members of my audience, I remain steadfastly married. Book #1: The Poky Little Puppy MY FRIENDS, THE BLASPHEMY PRESENT IN THIS SO-CALLED CHILDREN’S BOOK WOULD CURDLE THE BLOOD OF MARTIN LUTHER. NOT SINCE THE HEYDAY OF AIMEE SEMPLE MCPHERSON HAVE I WITNESSED SUCH BLATANT HERESY UNLEASHED UPON THE SIMPLE MINDED METHODIST RABBLE. HERE WE SEE THE PROTAGONIST, THE TITULAR LAZY CANINE, EXHIBITING CLEAR DISREGARD FOR SCRIPTURES IN HIS SLUGGARDLY WAYS….FOR WHAT? TO EAT HIS BROTHERS’ AND SISTERS’ DESSERT? THE ONLY ACCEPTABLE PART OF THE BOOK IS THE END, WHERE THE PUPPY IS GIVEN RIGHTEOUS JUSTICE AND HAS HIS STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE TAKEN AWAY. DISCIPLINE: THE SWEETEST DESSERT OF ALL, I’M AFRAID. ONE OUT OF FIVE STARS Book #2: Mr. Bell’s Fix it Shop MY FRIENDS, THIS LECHEROUS BOOK DOES NOT EVEN ATTEMPT TO HIDE ITS HERESY, BUT BRAZENLY FLAUNTS IT: THAT MR. BELL CAN INDEED FIX BROKEN HEARTS! THERE CAN BE NO DOUBT THAT THIS BOOK IS A DIRECT ATTACK ON THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLDWIDE CHURCH. MY FRIENDS, IF MR. BELL CAN FIX OUR BROKEN HEARTS THEN WHY DO WE NEED JESUS? FALLACY! LET US RETURN MR. BELL TO THE DEPTHS OF HELL WHERE HE AND SATAN CAN DINE ON AS MUCH CABBAGE SOUP AND ROAST BEEF AS THEY PLEASE. ZERO OUT OF FIVE STARS Book #3: Scuffy the Tugboat MY FRIENDS, I SHALL NOT SIT IDLY BY AS THE BRIDE OF CHRIST IS DEFILED BY THE RAMPANT OCCULTISM OF SCUFFY THE TUGBOAT. HOW MANY OF OUR CHURCH NURSERIES CONTAIN A COPY OF THIS TREATISE ON PAGAN ANIMISM? THERE EXISTS NO SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCE TO SUGGEST THAT CHILDREN’S TOYS POSSESS A SOUL! TO CLAIM, EVEN IN JEST, THAT A TOY CAN THINK AND SPEAK IS TANTAMOUNT TO APOSTASY. MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS, I HAVE NOT SEEN SUCH UTTER DISREGARD FOR ORTHODOXY SINCE THE SHAMEFUL WORKS OF THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA. ZERO OUT OF FIVE STARS ***** ***** Enjoy this blog? Check out my Patreon page to support it Don’t enjoy this blog? Check out my books on Amazon, which are even worse *****

ased attribution of 20th century warming [and] Climate models are not useful on decadal time scales So, the Stadium Wave model goes a long way to explain recent surface temperature trends, and seriously calls into question the viability of climate models that show a strong human influence on global warming and that predict future catastrophic warming. For this reason, the Stadium Wave hypothesis brings up key questions, and if there is evidence either supporting it or falsifying it, that would be of utmost importance. The paper under consideration here, “On Forced Temperature Changes, Internal Variability and the AMO” by Michael Mann, Byron Steinman, and Sonya Miller, addresses the Stadium Wave issue (and other matters). This is a very complicated study and if you really want to understand it I recommend getting at least a Masters Degree in Atmospheric Science then sitting down with it for a long time. The way I got through the paper was asking the lead author a bunch of questions. Here, I mainly want to address the Stadium Wave issue. The short version of the story is this: Curry’s Stadium Wave is an artifact of her methods. A second and probably more important finding is that the AMO, previously thought to have contributed to warming surface temperatures over the last ten years, is now thought, based on this new analysis, to have contributed to a relative flattening out of the warming, and thus may account for the so-called “hiatus” in part. Previous work, including that done by Curry but also others, treated the AMO as a long term change in sea surface temperature that could be identified by removing other signals using some standard statistical techniques, most notably “detrending.” Detrending is where you have a known (or presumed) signal that imposes a certain pull on the system over time. This is then numerically removed from the signal as a linear adjustment. For example, if I want to know the average heart beat rate of a set of people, I could just hook them up to a monitor and collect data and get an average. But say I don’t want my signal to be messed up by certain factors, such as caffeine intake, aerobic exercise, or watching episodes of exciting TV shows. So, I estimate the effects of these other activities on heart rate using some independent information and come up with a linear fudge factor. Then, I record when my subjects are drinking their Latte, engaged in their Cardio-Kick class, or watching The Walking Dead. For those periods of time I adjust the heart rate data based my numerical model of those effects, and the result is the detrended heart rate. A more straight forward use is found in climate studies. We know that there is long term global warming caused by the release of fossil Carbon (mainly as Carbon Dioxide) into the atmosphere. So if we want to observe something like the AMO all by itself, we take the long term temperature record of sea surface in the Atlantic, subtract a numerical value representing anthropogenic global warming over time, and what is left should be the AMO. But there is a problem with that technique. The relationship between different variables in a complicated system has to be known or assumed to do this kind of adjustment. For example, let’s say that drinking a latte before Cardio-Kick makes the effects of Cardio-Kick five times more intense on the heart rate. If you didn’t know that, than your detrending of heart rate would get messed up. If you knew about this non-linear relationship, you could adjust for it, but if you don’t know about it, or assume it to be not significant and thus ignore it, than your results will be wrong. Here’s another analogy that may help. Let’s say you know how to drive a car. That includes how to steer the car through a turn. This involves turning the wheel in a certain direction a certain amount as the car goes through the curve, then straightening out the wheel to go straight after the curve. Now, lets say you get a job flying a high performance fighter jet. But, you slept through flight school. Now, you are flying the jet and you want to make a small turn, so you turn the “wheel” of the plane a bit, then straighten it out to continue in a straight line after the turn. If you did that, you would actually tilt the plane with your first turn of the wheel, and it would stay tilted indefinitely thereafter, continuing with the turn. To properly turn the jet you have to tilt it, let it start flying in the new direction, then untilt it. In other words, if you fly a jet fighter like you drive a car, you will fly it wrong because you made incorrect assumptions about the relationships between the key variables leading to the final outcome (the direction you are going in). I recommend that you don�

Weightlifting Technique Problems: When You’ve Tried Everything & Nothing Works There's one inspirational quote I've seen a million times. You've probably seen it too. It's the one that says, "If you can DREAM it, you can ACHIEVE it!" Great little motto, right? When I was a teenager, I used to dream about winning an Olympic gold medal someday. Now I'm 42, and it never happened. I dreamed it, but I didn’t achieve it. Kinda kicks that quote right in the testicles, doesn’t it? I've thought about making my own poster that says, "You can DREAM it, but you're NOT necessarily going to ACHIEVE it!" Actually, I could market a whole line of these things. We could call them “Reality-Based Motivational Messages.” Here are a few more ideas we could use: “At some point in YOUR LIFE, you might realize that you are a MID-LEVEL ACHIEVER.” “It’s hard to be a GOOD COACH and TEAMMATE when you HATE ALMOST EVERYBODY.” “BEING GOOD AT STUFF might NOT be within YOUR CAPABILITY.” “You might need to MODIFY YOUR EXPECTATIONS about how ATTRACTIVE YOUR SPOUSE will be.” You might think this stuff has nothing to do with weightlifting. And you would be wrong, damn you! DEAD WRONG! Just follow me on this, okay? Let’s say you’re a coach, and one of your athletes has a technical problem. In fact, let’s pick an example to work with. Let’s say this athlete has a habit of jumping forward in the snatch. Ooohhh, I’m probably hitting close to home with this one, right? Jumping forward is fairly common, especially in the snatch. The longer you coach, the more you’ll see it. It’s generally regarded as a problem, for several reasons. It creates difficulties with the receiving position, it can potentially increase the risk of injury, and it’s a pretty strong indicator that the athlete is making some mistakes in the way they’re pulling the bar to the finish. I don’t want to belabor the point, so let’s just go with the understanding that it’s a glitch and it needs to be fixed. Now, you’re the coach in this situation. You see the lifter jumping forward. You know it’s wrong, so you try to fix it. Most likely, you try a variety of verbal cues and corrective exercises to do this. Basically, you can see the athlete doing something wrong and you know multiple methods to solve the problem. You implement these methods, and guess what? They don’t work. The athlete keeps jumping forward. At some point, this starts to get frustrating because the athletes simply can’t do what you’re trying to get them to do. You know they’re doing something wrong. They know they’re doing something wrong. You know it needs to get fixed. They know it needs to get fixed. You know how to fix it. They try to do what you’re telling them to do. And the end result is…they’re still jumping forward. Listen, this is a rough predicament. You feel like you’re not a good coach because you know what “perfect” looks like and you’re trying to get your athletes there…and it’s not happening. On top of that, the athletes are getting discouraged. They know they’re doing something wrong, and it’s driving them nuts that they can’t change it. They might feel like they’re letting you down. Or they might start to question you because your solutions don’t seem to be helping. Want to make this even more maddening? Let’s say you’ve been working with an athlete for two or three years trying to fix the problem, and it still hasn’t happened. This, my friends, is one of the REALITIES of coaching. It’s a lot like the motivational posters we talked about. The phrase “If you can DREAM it, you can ACHIEVE it!” is a description of things functioning in a perfect world. It sounds wonderful, but what the hell are we supposed to do when we find out we’re not living in a perfect world? How can we deal with a situation where we’ve got

Writing on Facebook, two prominent Russian environmentalists have taken Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein to task for meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin without criticism, saying her silence “silences our struggle.” In a video posted to YouTube (see below) last year, Stein thanked her supporters for making her trip to Russia possible as part of a conference sponsored by Russia Today, where she sat at a table with the Russian strongman. ADVERTISEMENT Speaking about “basic human values, human rights, around the need for international law,” Stein criticized a “U.S. policy of domination” without once mentioning life under Putin. This did not sit well with Yevgenia Chirikova and Nadezhda Kutepova who took to Facebook to express their displeasure with Stein for ignoring their plight, reports Radio Free Europe. “After your visit to Moscow and your meeting with Vladimir Putin you said that ‘the world deserve[s] a new commitment to collaborative dialogue between our governments to avert disastrous wars for geopolitical domination, destruction of the climate, and cascading injustices that promote violence and terrorism.'” they wrote. “We agree with you. But how can this new “collaborative dialogue” be possible when Mr. Putin has deliberately built a system based on corruption, injustice, falsification of elections, and violation of human rights and international law?” “How is it possible to have a discussion with Mr. Putin and not mention, not even once, the fate of Russian political prisoners, or the attacks against Russian journalists, artists, and environmentalis ts?” the letter continued. “Is it fair to speak with him about ‘geopolitics’ and not mention new Russian laws against freedom of speech, restrictions on NGOs and activists, or the shameful law that forbids ‘homosexual propaganda?'” “By silencing Putin’s crimes you are silencing our struggle. By shaking his hand and failing to criticize his regime you are becoming his accomplice. By forgetting what international solidarity means you are insulting the Russian environmental movement,” they concluded, before asking for Stein to address their situation, saying they hoped, “our questions will not go unanswered,” by the Green Party presidential nominee. ADVERTISEMENT According to the Green Party, the plea has been forwarded to Stein, with spokesperson Scott McLarty saying, “I think the letter exaggerates Dr. Stein’s alleged deference to President Putin.” Watch the Stein video — posted on YouTube last December — below:

and turning on the lights and Tom walking past me. He sits down in my living room and asks for drinks. I got two glasses of tap water and set them down on the table. He started bragging about himself and particularly bragging about how he was such close friends with Bob Redford. I’m baffled that the anchor of NBC Nightly News is boasting about his movie star friends. He pats the sofa. As I sit, reluctantly again, I look down at his hands and I made a mental note of how swollen his knuckles were, a reminder of just how much older than me he was. In the same exact way as in 1994, he reached behind my neck and tried to force my head toward him and force me to kiss him. I broke away again. I said, “You need to go.” And incredibly, he said, “Can you walk me to a taxi?” I thought, “You just tried to assault me, but you expect me to walk you to a taxi?” Even though I know I was not in any way at fault in what happened to me with Brokaw, I still suffered years of humiliation and isolation. I really do hope that by me telling my story and by shining this light, Comcast will understand why it’s so essential to hire outside counsel to investigate this deeply rooted problem. The quest to maintain our teacher certification is endless. We graduate with our Bachelor’s, take exactly 3 deep, freeing breaths…and start on our Master’s Degree. Or our National Boards. Or an additional certification area. And, aside from the money that I’m continually shelling out for these classes, qualification tests, and reprints of my certificate that don’t equate to commensurate pay raises, I’m ok with that. I’m a lover of learning, as they say. I don’t mind reading the research (once I can actually find it). I don’t even mind writing the papers (if I can ever find a day I’m not writing lesson plans). But OH MY GOSH. Citing the $!#@ sources takes me just as long as writing the whole thing. A comma here, two spaces and then a period there…and do you use the whole author’s name or just the initials? And doing it wrong knocks off ten points. Because you wrote the long date instead of the short. Oh…No more. You guys, I think Google is on our side. It’s like they hired teachers and asked, “What can we do to make your life easier?” And then they did it. Check it out. A double daily bonus event for Dragon Trials and The Imperial Onslaught started at Jan 24 22:00, 2019(PT). Use this event to power up your teams! ■Event details During this event, the amount of rewards you can receive from daily bonuses in Dragon Trials and The Imperial Onslaught will be doubled (2x)! Additionally, if you have a 7-Day Pack (Double Bonus) active, the rewards for Dragon Trials and The Imperial Onslaught bonus will be quadrupled (4x)! This is your chance to upgrade your adventurers and dragons! Here are the daily bonuses for Dragon Trials: ・Dragonfruit and Ripe Dragonfruit ・Windwyrm's Scale, Waterwyrm's Scale, and other types of dragon scales Get dojo facilities and powerful wyrmprints from Treasure Trade! Here are the daily bonuses for The Imperial Onslaught: ・Dyrenell Aes, Dyrenell Argenteus, and Dyrenell Aureus ・Vermilion Insignia, Azure Insignia, and other types of insignia ■Availability Period Jan 24 22:00, 2019(PT) to Jan 30 21:59, 2019(PT) ■Note The event schedule and content may change without warning. Thank you for playing Dragalia Lost.

There was a time, not so long ago, when it was widely considered suicidal for an American politician to pay hush money to porn stars, cosy up to Russian leaders, or use national security dollars to buy foreign interference at election time. In those quaint days of yore, an experienced politician might have steered well clear of anything that smacked of being on the wrong side of civil rights. Once a point of pride, Trump name reportedly scrubbed from New York ice rinks Read more At some point over the last generation, even the conservatives who hate today’s civil rights came to love yesterday’s civil rights. Martin Luther King Jr was no longer a Commie revolutionary but a beloved national icon. Segregation and the Klan’s reign of terror was as obviously, stunningly immoral as Nazism. Until today, and until Donald Trump. You may not have known this, but Trump is himself a victim, no different from the poor souls who were publicly tortured and murdered by the Klan and its mobs. Despite his German roots, and his family’s business history of race discrimination, Trump thinks he’s suffering just as much. “So some day, if a Democrat becomes President and the Republicans win the House, even by a tiny margin, they can impeach the President, without due process or fairness or any legal rights,” tweeted the president who has no recollection of a predecessor called Bill Clinton. “All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here – a lynching. But we will WIN!” Trump is strange, but he’s not a strange fruit. And so it came to pass that the only people who can stop Trump’s conviction at his forthcoming impeachment trial were forced to spend the day talking about lynching. To do so, you need to suspend a little reality and a lot of self-respect. You need to become a human shell that blurts out words with no meaning, that sparks thoughts with no intelligence. To wit: one Hogan Gidley, who holds the hallucinatory role of deputy press secretary in Trump’s West Wing. Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘“The president’s not comparing what’s happened to him with one of our darkest moments in American history. He’s just not,’ Hogan Gidley told reporters.’ Photograph: Erik S Lesser/EPA “The president’s not comparing what’s happened to him with one of our darkest moments in American history. He’s just not,” Gidley told reporters, ignoring Exhibit A in the day’s proceedings: the president’s tweet that did just that. “I understand there are many people in the media who don’t agree with his language. He has used many words to describe the way he has been relentlessly attacked.” He has indeed used so many words, to such remarkable effect. Much like the hapless Hogan himself. They flow like endless rain into a paper cup. As a defence of the president’s position, Hogan’s explanation is the equivalent of going back to bed to pull the covers over your head. There’s a reason why there are no White House press briefings any more: because you literally can’t make sense of the boss without getting fired, indicted, or shamed into permanent unemployment. Other Republicans not employed by the White House found it easier to express what they thought. Both Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leaders in the Senate and House, said they disagreed with Trump’s choice of words. Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican, went even further by saying that Trump should retract his comments immediately. “May God help us return to a better way,” he tweeted. The almighty ought to be busy in Syria right now, so this unusually orange challenge rightly falls into the lap of Republicans like Kinzinger himself. Like a fatberg blocking the sewers of Capitol Hill, Trump’s sense of victimhood and love of lying is creating unbearable pressure in a system designed to flush away an extraordinary volume of political waste material. So Republicans were talking about Trump’s self-styled lynching instead of defending Trump from the blockbuster impeachment evidence of his current ambassador to Ukraine. Until now, Trump has drawn what he might call a “red line in the sand” around the notion that there was no quid pro quo in Ukraine – no withholding of military aid in exchange for political dirt on the Biden family. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney. Photograph: Leah Millis/Reuters But ambassador William Taylor flatly contradicted Trump’s defence, much like his chief of staff Mick Mulvaney did last week –

At the beginning, we'll require the namespaces that contain functions for GPU programming. Functions that work with OpenCL are in the uncomplicate.clojurecl.core namespace of the ClojureCL library. ( require'[ uncomplicate.clojurecl.core :refer :all ]'[ uncomplicate.clojurecl.info :refer :all ] ) nil Although most concepts of OpenCL are similar to what we've seen with CUDA, the environment setup is a bit more detailed. That's because OpenCL does not support only GPU's, and only from one vendor, but multiple hardware devices from multiple vendors. It has to offer a choice of drivers and supported versions, at the same time. The entry point is the concept of platform. The platforms function returns a sequence of platforms available on the system: ( map name-info ( platforms ) ) AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing My machine reports one platform: AMD. ( def amd-platform ( first ( platforms ) ) ) #'user/amd-platform Different platforms support different versions of OpenCL standard, and some additional vendor-specific extensions. Each platform can be used to access the appropriate hardware. What devices do I have on AMD's platform? ( map name-info ( devices amd-platform ) ) Hawaii Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790K CPU @ 4.00GHz Now I know that there is one Hawaii GPU's (R9 290X) and one CPU that can be accessed through AMD's platform. Let's grab the handle of the first device: ( def my-amd-gpu ( first ( devices amd-platform ) ) ) What is the type of this object and how does it look like? my-amd-gpu #object[uncomplicate.clojurecl.internal.impl.CLDevice 0x3f393c1e "#CLDevice[0x7f34a472bfb0]"] Having the handle of the device, we can proceed in a fashion similar to the Hello CUDA tutorial. Comedian Steve Rossi of Allen & Rossi Dies at 82 UPDATE: He worked with Marty Allen in the 1960s in the popular stand-up act; they appeared with The Beatles three times on 'The Ed Sullivan Show.' Steve Rossi, the handsome straight man who teamed with bushy-haired Marty Allen to form the popular comedy act Allen & Rossi of the 1960s, died Sunday in Las Vegas. He was 82. Rossi "has left the stage," his website reported, surrounded by friends and family that included his wife, Karma. He had cancer and died at a hospice, according to the Las Vegas Sun. Allen and Rossi joined forces in 1957 and appeared dozens of times on The Ed Sullivan Show, including three times with The Beatles. “I spoke to John [Lennon] and to Paul [McCartney], and they had a terrific sense of humor," Rossi recalled. "They knew who we were. It was, ‘Mr. Rossi, what a pleasure to meet you.’ I said, ‘We really are the stars of this show, whether you want to believe it or not. That’s why 76 million people are tuning in!’ They laughed. We only had about 9 million on our other appearances.” Steady performers in comedy clubs and Vegas casinos, they released a string of comedy albums, appeared on game shows and were regulars on The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson and The Merv Griffin Show before splitting up in 1968. They starred as American tourists in France in the 1966 Paramount film The Last of the Secret Agents? A native of New York, Rossi at age 16 received a scholarship to Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles and earned his bachelor's degree. He sang and toured with Mae West before teaming with Allen. Handsome, tall and lean, Rossi made for a funny visual counterpoint to the short, round Allen. “We had a lot of great years together. He was a wonderful straight man, he was a wonderful talent and a wonderful man,” Allen, 92, told the Sun. Twitter: @mikebarnes4

EMV CVM Database Show all cards Search for a card Network: American Express Debit Discover JCB MasterCard UnionPay V PAY Visa Issuer: Alliant Credit Union Ally Bank American Express Andrews Federal Credit Union Bank of America Barclaycard BBVA Compass Bank BMO Harris Bank California Coast Credit Union Capital One Charles Schwab Bank Chase Citibank City National Bank Discover First National Bank of Omaha First Premier Bank First Tech Federal Credit Union Goldman Sachs Harvard University Employees Credit Union HSBC ICBC Library of Congress Federal Credit Union Navy Federal Credit Union Nusenda Credit Union Old Second National Bank Patelco Credit Union PayPal Pentagon Federal Credit Union PNC Bank Provident Bank San Francisco Federal Credit Union Santander Bank SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union Service Credit Union SF Fire Credit Union Square State Department Federal Credit Union State Employees Credit Union (North Carolina) STCU SunTrust Bank Synchrony Bank TD Bank Titonka Savings Bank Transferwise U.S. Bank United Nations Federal Credit Union USAA Venmo Veridian Credit Union Wells Fargo Bank Rewards Program: None Cash Rebate Mortgage Rebate Statement Credit/Purchase Eraser Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Alliant Rewards American Airlines AAdvantage American Express Membership Rewards Apple Rewards Asiana Club Miles Avios Bank of America WorldPoints Barnes & Noble Gift Card Carnival FunPoints Chase Ultimate Rewards Choice Privileges Citi ThankYou Rewards City National Rewards Club Carlson CURewards Delta Air Lines SkyMiles Diamond Plus Points Diners Club Rewards Disney Rewards Expedia+ Rewards Extra Awards First Tech Rewards Flexpoints Rewards Frontier Airlines EarlyReturns Gap Rewards Go Far Rewards Harvard Alumni Card Rewards Hawaiian Airlines HawaiianMiles Hilton Honors Holland America Line Rewards HSBC Rewards Hyatt Gold Passport IHG Rewards JetBlue Airways TrueBlue Korean Air SKYPASS Lowe's Business Rewards Marriott Bonvoy Miles & More MyCruise Rewards Navy Federal Rewards Nordstrom Rewards Nusenda Rewards O2 Rewards Patelco Rewards PenFed Pathfinder Rewards PenFed Platinum Rewards PenFed Premium Rewards Plenti Princess Cruises Rewards RCI Elite Rewards Santander Rewards SchoolsFirst FCU Member Rewards Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Spirit Airlines Free Spirit STCU Rewards SunTrust Rewards The Ritz-Carlton Rewards U.S. Bank Altitude Points U.S. Bank FlexPerks U.S. Bank Perks+ Uber Cash UNFCU Rewards United Airlines MileagePlus United TravelBank USAA Rewards Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Wyndham Rewards Features: No Annual Fee No Foreign Transaction Fee Contactless Offline PIN Online PIN Signature No CVM Priority: No Preference PIN Signature Card Type: Credit Debit Prepaid For over a year now, banks in the United States have been rolling out credit cards with chips. These cards are known as EMV cards. These cards are sometimes called "Chip and PIN" credit cards, but in fact many of them will ask for a signature rather than a PIN. Some cards will ask for a signature in some cases and PIN in others. It all depends on what Cardholder Verification Methods, or "CVMs", the card supports, and in what priority order they are listed on the card. Why does this matter? In the United States, most people today are used to swiping their card, then signing a receipt or digital pad. As such, most EMV credit cards being issued in the US are primarily Chip and Signature, so it's not a big deal. However, in other countries, EMV credit cards have been in use for several years and in many of them, Chip and PIN is standard. Most people there are used to entering a PIN rather than signing, and some merchants refuse to accept a card when the customer is prompted to sign. In addition, there are some places, particularly unattended locations like gas pumps and public transit ticket machines, that are set up to require a PIN. So Americans travelling to other countries may wish to obtain a credit card that supports a PIN. Unfortunately, most banks do not advertise what CVMs their cards support. And different people have different things they care about, so there's no one "best" card. Instead, this site aims to collect basic data about EMV credit cards being issued in the United States and allow visitors to search based on that data to find the card that suits their needs. The operators of this site wish to express their thanks to the members of the FlyerTalk discussion board, through which they've learned a lot about EMV and from which much of the data from this site was extracted. Regarding Debit cards: Most debit cards are listed twice, once for the CVM list that applies if you select "debit" at checkout (when you'd normally enter a PIN with a magstripe debit card) and a second time for the CVM list that applies if you select "credit" at checkout (when you'd normally sign with a magstripe debit card). The "debit" CVM list is shown with the "Deb

published in Nature. “Weak radio waves in the medium-wave band are sufficient to disrupt geomagnetic orientation in migratory birds, according to a particularly well-controlled study,” Nature reports. It added, “Interference from electronics... can disrupt the internal magnetic compasses of migratory birds.” A 2013 study published in Environment International, “A review of the ecological effects of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF),” concluded, “In about two-third[s] of the reviewed studies ecological effects of RF-EMF [were] reported at high as well as at low dosages.” A June 2011 study published in Ecosphere, titled “Impacts of Acute and Long-Term Vehicle Exposure on Physiology and Reproductive Success of the Northern Spotted Owl,” found that while the spotted owl is able to compensate for a low level of increased noise pollution and vehicle presence up to a threshold, “beyond which disturbance impacts may be greatly magnified – and even cause system collapse.” The northern spotted owl is an endangered species. While more studies on the impact of electromagnetic radiation on larger animals are underway and the results pending, the negative impacts on birds in the proposed war-gaming areas are clear. (Photo: Dahr Jamail) Richard Jahnke, the president of the Admiralty Audubon Society located on the Olympic Peninsula, submitted comments to Greg Wahl, the environmental coordinator for the US Forest Service, who is fielding comments about the Navy’s war games plans. Jahnke’s letter, which he provided to Truthout, clarifies the impact on birds in the war game area: “The western side of the Olympic National Park has a unique soundscape. A location in the Hoh River valley was identified as the quietest place in the lower 48 with respect to anthropogenic sound (see onesquareinch.org for further info).” Sullivan sees many holes in how both the Forest Service and Navy have gone about making the war game exercises happen without following proper protocol. Jahnke noted how the Navy’s so-called EA did not assume any economic impact, hence categorically excluding that from their analysis. Of this he stated, “The planned range may alter the attractiveness of this region as a destination for tourists and there is potential for significant economic impact. Since this region is already economically stressed, even small variations in overall economic activity may result in large, relative impacts. The Navy should, therefore, assess the potential economic impact before proceeding.” According to the Admiralty Audubon Society, the Pacific Coast is part of the Pacific Flyway, which makes it a critical pathway for migratory birds, with an estimated 1 billion birds migrating along the flyway annually. “The Navy’s assessment includes little discussion of indirect impacts of EMR [electromagnetic radiation] on wildlife and does not incorporate the most recent, best available science,” Jahnke wrote, adding, “Since successful migration is critical to the survival of a migrating species, potential navigational impacts must [be] evaluated. However, these potential impacts are not considered in the current EA and hence the potential impacts were not assessed.” Thus, the Admiralty Audubon Society has gone on record in recommending that the Navy’s EA and its associated “Findings of No Significant Impacts” not be adopted. “The deficiencies documented above are significant and must be addressed,” Jahnke stated. “For these reasons, the EA does not meet the requirements of law and a full environmental impact statement under NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] must be prepared.” Navy officials said that they “did not know” the impact of the electromagnetic radiation emissions “on small animals.” The Forest Service’s Greg Wahl chose to parrot the Navy’s finding of “no significant impact” for the war games project. Forest Service Response Wahl chose not to respond to Truthout’s repeated requests for comment on how the Navy’s plans would have “no significant impact” on wildlife or humans in the affected areas. Dean Millett, Olympic National Forest’s district ranger, downplayed impacts of the Navy’s plans, and told reporters that the Forest Service roads where most of the emitters will be located “are remote,” and added, “They don’t get much traffic unless there is some activity going on in the area.” He claimed the electromagnetic radiation transmissions would “cease if large animals come into the area where the exercise is taking place,” and said he “was not concerned about the electromagnetic radiation emissions�

AT&T's outspoken senior vice president of regulatory affairs Bob Quinn is coming out with guns blazing on the outcry over the company's recently-announced restrictions on FaceTime over cellular, saying that interest group Public Knowledge and others have "rushed to judgment" on their possible infringement of the FCC's relatively mild Open Internet regulations that apply to mobile. In many ways, it's exactly the line we expected AT&T to take. Quinn's post, a seven-paragraph missive that seems to talk down to AT&T's detractors in places, notes that "customers will continue to be able to use FaceTime over Wi-Fi irrespective of the data plan they choose," as if to say that AT&T could or should have some sort of control over what mobile apps its customers use over broadband networks that it doesn't even manage. The more interesting language, though, is where Quinn attempts to argue why the move doesn't violate FCC rules: Our policies regarding FaceTime will be fully transparent to all consumers, and no one has argued to the contrary. There is no transparency issue here. Nor is there a blocking issue. The FCC's net neutrality rules do not regulate the availability to customers of applications that are preloaded on phones. Indeed, the rules do not require that providers make available any preloaded apps. Rather, they address whether customers are able to download apps that compete with our voice or video telephony services. AT&T does not restrict customers from downloading any such lawful applications, and there are several video chat apps available in the various app stores serving particular operating systems. (I won't name any of them for fear that I will be accused by these same groups of discriminating in favor of those apps. But just go to your app store on your device and type "video chat.") Therefore, there is no net neutrality violation. Quinn somehow argues that the rules only apply to downloaded apps — "the rules do not require that providers make available any preloaded apps," he notes — which seems to suggest that if Apple were to make an unrestricted, unblocked version of FaceTime available in the App Store, there's nothing AT&T could or would do about it. That could have broader implications going forward for every mobile platform, too: Google Talk on Android and any Skype integration coming to Windows Phone, for instance. But at the end, Quinn admits what we all could've probably guessed: this is as much about AT&T's concerns that its "4G" network — which is extraordinarily fragile in places like downtown Chicago — will buckle under additional load: We are broadening our customers' ability to use the preloaded version of FaceTime but limiting it in this manner to our newly developed AT&T Mobile Share data plans out of an overriding concern for the impact this expansion may have on our network and the overall customer experience. Of course, limited data buckets were already designed with capacity management in mind, so that's not really a good answer. Quinn says that the company's new Mobile Share plans "were designed to make more data available to consumers" (emphasis his), but it's unclear what exactly that means, and he never ventures to explain it. There's no indication that AT&T is backing down from this — not that anyone expected it to — so we'll have to see how far Public Knowledge, Free Press, and others are going to take the fight.

Data breaches are a fairly regular occurrence these days. Celebrities, billion-dollar corporations, and even governments are targeted by malicious hackers for various cybercrimes. Data breaches that result in the theft of information are often among the most damaging of cybercrimes and are as real a threat as any faced by companies and firms. A majority of companies that have been ransacked due to a data breach are at a critical juncture when they realize they are the victims of an attack. More often than not, data breach management isn’t prioritized, not until it’s too late. Critical juncture time. It’s at this time where more mistakes are made. Crucially, mistakes are even made when telling one’s customers about a data breach wherein the customer’s data is stolen and in the hands of criminals. Press releases often do a poor job of communicating the extent of the damage done and certainly doesn’t do enough to reassure customers. With a few vital guidelines, it is possible to clearly communicate and inform your customers of a data breach. Make sure they hear it from you first Ensure that you are the one telling your customers that their data has been stolen. While this is a bitter pill to swallow, it is entirely essential. Have the necessary resources and the manpower to know where the stolen data has landed up by employing and/or using the services of a capable and efficient data breach response team. Gather all the necessary facts when you suspect foul play with a data breach before communicating the facts to your customers. Keep them in the loop and let them know what you know. This ensures that your customers still trust your company even if they are disappointed with such incidents. They need to hear it from you first. Headlines are often made when noted security journalist and cybersecurity researcher Brian Krebs reveals a data breach. As a security researcher and journalist, he is always at the top of his game when breaking stories about data breaches suffered by companies. More often than not, Krebs contacts and informs the targeted organization to inform them of the cyberattack if they aren’t aware of it already. Security researchers such as Krebs and white-hat hackers have a crucial role to play in reinforcing cyber defenses and bringing light to vulnerabilities that can be targeted by malicious hackers. If a security researcher or a journalist puts up the information before you get the chance to do so, do the next best thing. React. Quickly. Acknowledge news reports if you need to. Embracing silence is quite possibly the worst thing you can do while news of a breach spreads, bringing with it panic and rumors that only leads to more chaos. Skip the template. Tell it straight Scanning through press releases, statements and announcements made by organizations suffering a breach, there’s a common theme among them all. The following phrases are fairly common in an annoyingly significant proportion of company statements following a breach. “In figuring among a growing list of companies, we have suffered a data breach.” “We have been the victim of a systematic and sophisticated cyber-attack.” “Cybersecurity has always been our number one concern.” “We are currently notifying our customers and urge caution.” Security experts, researchers, analysts, cryptographers and even malicious hackers know that a totally secure system cannot be designed nor achieved. Quite simply, there is no system in the world which is 100% secure. Even the most advanced cybersecurity measures fall prey to breaches. Trade secrets and critical information are always under threat, even among organizations that are well prepared for a cyber-attack and a breach. Cyber-threats may not be inevitable, but they aren’t completely unavoidable. Companies that value customer data and information privacy above all else are also vulnerable to data breaches. Unlikely as it may seem, their claims of prioritizing cybersecurity above all else can be true, making them unfortunate targets and subsequent victims of a hack. The unfortunate truth for companies is that customers care little for such priorities after a breach. They are seeking reassurances. They’re looking for information about the breached data and want to know what the company is doing to safeguard their data after the breach. Tell it straight. Put yourself in their shoes and let them know exactly what they want to hear. Do not employ silence. Don’t hide your mistakes. Embrace transparency Organizations are often caught between a rock and a hard place after a breach. It’s that critical juncture, again. The decision makers are caught in between saving the company’s pride by putting self-preservation above all else and being entirely forthcoming and clear about a data breach while not shying away from the matter. Companies’ announcements and press releases are often pinned to a remote corner on their own website. This

KABUL, Afghanistan — Defense Secretary Jim Mattis arrived in Kabul for an unannounced visit Friday. Mattis and Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were meeting with Army Gen. Scott Miller, the new commander of NATO troops in Afghanistan. They were to discuss progress on peace talks with the Taliban, despite a deteriorating security situation and turmoil in the Afghan government. Mattis is scheduled to conduct a town hall meeting with troops, attend a weekly memorial service and meet with senior Afghan leaders, officials said. Miller assumed command of NATO forces in Afghanistan on Sunday, arriving as Washington faces growing questions over its strategy to force the Taliban into talks to end the grinding conflict. Speaking with reporters this week, Mattis said he was hopeful about peace talks with the Taliban. "Right now, we have more indications that reconciliation is no longer just a shimmer out there, no longer just a mirage," Mattis said. "It now has some framework. There's some open lines of communication," he added. Over the summer, a top U.S. State Department official met with Taliban officials in Qatar to lay the groundwork for broader peace talks. The U.S. government has pointed toward the Taliban's accepting a temporary truce in June as a sign of why the talks should be viewed with hope. "The most important work that has to be done is beginning the political process and reconciliation," Dunford told reporters traveling with him. "What we are trying to do in the military dimension is convince the Taliban that they cannot win on the battlefield and that they must engage in a peace process." Now that Gal Gadot of the “Fast & Furious” franchise is locked to star as Wonder Woman alongside Ben Affleck as Batman and Henry Cavill as Superman in Batman vs. Superman, it’s time to consider the possibility that the narrative could veer in the direction of the Superman/Wonder Woman comics in which the Man of Steel and the Warrior Princess are a super-power couple. While talking to Amy Adams about David O. Russell’s American Hustle, she took the time to tell ComingSoon.net’s SuperHeroHype about how she’d feel if Wonder Woman’s presence led to a love triangle: “Am I interested? I don’t know. I mean, we’ll see. I hope that I can be involved with a woman on screen where we’re not in a love triangle. That would be fun. Maybe where we team up together and we work as teammates instead of adversaries.” Considering the source material has now covered both a romantic and platonic version of the Superman-Wonder Woman relationship, it could go either way and there is a possibility Adams could get what she wants to a degree. The idea of Lois Lane feeling threatened by Wonder Woman’s presence, but Superman insisting she means nothing to him right before all parties team up to fight a common enemy seems like a likely option. Check out the clip of Adams discussing the possibilities for the July 17, 2015 release below and keep an eye out for our full interview with the American Hustle star on ComingSoon.net as we near that film’s December 13th limited release.

Introduction SoChain's fast blockchain API is the easiest, most cost-effective way to build applications on Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Zcash, and Dash. We also offer Test Networks for developers to get started in a sandbox environment. Currency is just the first application of the Blockchain, and there's alot more to come. We're helping you make the future happen. This API is fast, and free. If you'd like to see more features, or if you need an obscenely large number of API calls, talk to us. We're happy to help. To get started, check out our basic code examples. Using this API is simple: no login or API key required. How quickly can you get started? Here's a Javascript example to get basic network information for the Dogecoin Blockchain: $.get( "https://sochain.com/api/v2/get_info/DOGE", function( response ) { // success! use the data any way you like }); We aim for the highest reliability in our systems. The following stats show our API's performance over the last 31 days. These stats were collected by a third party. Note: The above statistics are for our public-facing infrastructure. Our private infrastructure has a guaranteed uptime of 99.99%. You can read more about it in the Rate Limits Section. Rate Limits The public infrastructure for SoChain allows 300 requests/minute free-of-charge. Additional tiers are coming soon. Change Log June 16, 2018 Auto convert Litecoin P2SH addresses to legacy P2SH version. May 26, 2018 Added Zcash mainnet (ZEC) and testnet (ZECTEST). March 18, 2017 Added Dash mainnet (DASH) and testnet (DASHTEST). July 11, 2015 Confidence rating now considers double spend volume. Ratio of double spends to total transactions determines the maximum confidence achievable by a transaction. June 20, 2015 The default network is Bitcoin (BTC), instead of Dogecoin (DOGE). December 13, 2014 Confidence rating now changes to 0.0 if a double spend is detected. Also added field is_double_spend to the response of the get_confidence API call. December 11, 2014 Added Network Confidence rating for unconfirmed transactions. September 14, 2014 Bugfix in get_address_balance. Now correctly returns balance for given number of confirmations. Go to the API. July 18, 2014 Added realtime balance updates to Pusher/websockets. Go to the API. Added dynamic balance updates to address pages. Check it out by donating at the DevFund page. June 14, 2014 Bug fix: Get Unspent Tx now correctly discards transactions that having been spent even if the spending transaction has not been confirmed. June 12, 2014 Bitcoin main net (BTC) added to Explorer, and API. Added support for CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing). Added time (UNIX time) field to Get Received Tx, Get Spent Tx, and Get Unspent Tx. June 4, 2014 Added version, and locktime to Get Transaction. June 1, 2014 Removed SAME-ORIGIN restriction from REST API. You can now use the JSON dataType with Javascript. You no longer need to use JSONP for Javascript accesses, although we will keep supporting it. Added Javascript, Ruby/Ruby on Rails, and Python examples to get you started. See them here. May 31, 2014 Added Litecoin main network to the Blockchain Explorer. Enabled pagination for get_unspent_tx, get_received_tx, and get_spent_tx. The APIs are now limited to 100 transactions per call, and you can retrieve transactions that occurred specifically after a certain transaction ID. The script field in these API calls is now called script_asm, and we have added script_hex alongside the ASM as well. API calls affected are: Get Unspent Tx, Get Received Tx, and Get Spent Tx. These API calls now return a maximum of 100 unconfirmed transactions as well. Minor change: price API (Realtime and REST) asked for an optional 'base_currency' parameter, but it read 'base_pair.' This is fixed. See the changes in the appropriate API. Minor change: added network hash rate to Get Info. May 28, 2014 In-depth API documentation and new, granular API calls to save you bandwidth and time. Javascript (JS), Ruby, and Python examples coming soon! Added support for Litecoin main network, Bitcoin

(CNN) The results are in from the one of the largest and broadest surveys of health in the United States. And although many of the findings are encouraging -- more Americans had health insurance and fewer smoked cigarettes in 2015 than in previous years -- the gains were overshadowed by rising rates of obesity and diabetes. Every year since 1957, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been asking Americans 18 and older about their health and the health of their family members as part of the National Health Interview Survey. The new report contains data from the 2015 survey, which included more than 100,000 people. "There are some positives that we see" in the report, said Brian Ward, health statistician at CDC's National Center for Health Statistics and one of the authors of the report, which came out this week. One such positive was that participants seemed to have more access to health care in 2015 than in recent years, based on their answers about whether they were insured and had a place to go for medical care, such as a doctor's office or clinic. However, the big negative is that the rate of obesity in the United States is continuing its upward march. In 2015, 30.4% of Americans 20 and older said they were obese, up from 29.9% in 2014. Although the 2015 rate is not significantly higher than the previous year's, it represents a continuation of a trend that has been going on since at least 1997, when researchers began using the current survey and when only 19.4% of Americans said they were obese. "That is not a good trend there," Ward said. "[But] it is not necessarily anything unexpected." Black Americans report higher obesity rates Other surveys say the problem is even worse. In 2012, the National Health and Nutrition Survey found that 34.9% of adults 20 and older were obese. For that survey, CDC researchers measured the weight and height of more than 9,000 Americans to calculate their BMI, or body mass index. Adults with a BMI of 30 or higher are considered obese, whereas those between 25 and 29 are "overweight." That approach probably gives a more accurate picture of obesity in the United States, because people tend to overestimate their height, driving down their BMI, in self-reports, said Michael W. Long, assistant professor at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University. Still, "the National Health Interview Survey is one of the most important ongoing surveys," said Long, who was not involved in the new research. It can give an idea of how much obesity has increased over the years, because the amount that participants misestimate their height or weight is probably pretty constant, he said. And because the survey includes so many people, researchers can look at obesity rates in different age and racial groups. The CDC researchers found that rates of obesity were higher among blacks than Hispanic and white adults. Forty-five percent of black women reported that they were obese, compared with 32.6% of Hispanic women and 27.2% of white women. Similarly, 35.1% of black men said they were obese, compared with 32% and 30.2% of Hispanic and white men, respectively. Adults between the ages of 40 and 59 bore the highest burden of obesity. In this age group, 34.6% of people said they were obese, compared with 26.5% of adults 20 to 39 years old and 30.1% of adults 60 and older. "[The 40 to 59 age group] is really where you see a lot of the effects of obesity on diabetes-related morbidity and mortality, and you see premature deaths related to heart disease and are starting to see some of the cancers related to obesity," Long said. The other discouraging finding from the report is that the number of Americans who said they had been diagnosed with diabetes continued to rise. Among people 18 and older, 9.5% said they had diabetes in 2015, compared with 9.1% in 2014. The increase between years was not huge, but as with obesity rates, it suggests a continuing upward trend. In 1997, only 5.1% of Americans had diabetes. The rise in diabetes is probably due in large part to the rise in obesity, Long said. Nevertheless, people who are obese can still take steps to reduce their risk of diabetes, such as improving diet and increasing physical activity, he added. Fewer smokers, more insurance The National Health Interview Survey indicated other trends, as well: • About half of adults said they are getting the recommended amount of exercise, a rate that has not changed much since 2009. Although physical activity is important for weight maintenance and has other health benefits, food and diet are playing a bigger part in driving the obesity epidemic, Long said. • The number of Americans of all ages who reported not having health insurance has been dropping, from 14.4% in

This essay draws on the author’s latest book, This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality, published in the United States by PublicAffairs this month. ¤ IDEAS REPLACED with feelings. A radical relativism that implies truth is unknowable. Politicians who revel in lying openly, shamelessly, as if being caught out is the point of politics. The notion of the people and the many redefined ceaselessly, words unmoored from meaning, ideas of the future dissolving into nasty nostalgias with enemies everywhere, conspiracy replacing ideology, facts equated to fibs, discussion collapsing into mutual accusations, where every argument is just another smear campaign, all information warfare … and the sense that everything under one’s feet is constantly moving, inherently unstable, liquid … Almost a decade ago I left Russia because I was exhausted by living in a system where, to quote myself invoking Hannah Arendt, “nothing is true and everything is possible.” Those were still relatively vegetarian days in Moscow — before the invasion of Ukraine — but it was already a world where terms like liberal or democracy were used to mean their opposite, where paranoia was increasingly replacing reasoned argument, and where spectacle had pushed out sense. You were left with only gut feelings to lead your way through the fog of disinformation. I returned to the thing once known as “the West,” living in London and often working in the United States, because, in the words of my naïve self, I wanted to live in a world where “words have meaning,” where facts were not dismissed as “just information war.” Russia seemed a country unable to come to terms with the loss of the Cold War, or with any of the traumas of the 20th century. It was ultimately, I thought, a sideshow, a curio pickled in its own agonies. Russians stressed this themselves: in Western Europe, America, things are “normalno” they would tell me. If you have the chance, that is where you send your wives, children, money … to “normalnost.” Back in the West, however, I soon noticed things that reminded me of Moscow. A familiar triumphant cynicism was prevalent in the restaurants and offices of Mayfair and Manhattan, among the money and image launderers who served the newly minted global rich. No one here was even pretending they were part of some great story of liberal democracy, of capitalism as a moral project, of that notion of “freedom” that supposedly won the Cold War. “Free markets, free people” went the mantra of The Wall Street Journal, which you found in marbled meeting rooms or at glistening black bars; but no one believed that anymore. Yet the refined anarchy of this world still seemed very aloof from the rest of America or England. Television and newspapers looked no madder than usual. America had always had loony cable channels, but in my many trips to DC, politicians still talked more or less within the boundaries of reasoned argument. Then came the revolutionary year of 2016, and things began to go topsy-turvy. Brexit, the US elections, the bombing to bits of Aleppo: “normalnost,” and with it many norms, went out the window. Since then there has been the emboldening of the conspiracy peddling by so-called populists throughout Europe; tsunamis of social media hysteria; fake news, post-truth, alternative facts, and the sort of polarization where people can’t talk to each other anymore without spitting. Sitting in upper-middle-class homes in New Jersey or Peterborough, I would hear phrases that replicated almost word for word those I had heard throughout Russia: “You can never know the truth about anything these days. There is just too much information and disinformation out there. I just have to follow my instincts, go with my emotions.” Not only were attitudes I had witnessed in Russia uncannily prevalent in the West, but Russia itself was also headlining Western news all the time. Invading Ukraine, bombing Syria … Russia was definitely back among the big boys of politics. And then it transpired that President Putin was employing covert cyberhacks and leaks to discredit Western leaders, organizing masked social media campaigns to “subvert democracy” and influence elections, so that one began to suspect that behind every unusual Twitter or Facebook account there was a Kremlin troll spouting conspiracies. Russia had gone from being a niche interest to being an agenda setter. President Putin smirked at me from newsstands and from the top of the Ten O’Clock News. “You thought you could get away?” he seemed to be saying. Despite all my efforts to leave Russia, it had followed me. Why? Are we suddenly living in a Russian-like world that Putin has

is to use routing to put all orders with the same buyer ID into the same shard. Then nearly all of your queries can be completed within the shard matching the routing key. Organize data by date if your query has a date range filter. This works for most logging or monitoring scenarios. We can organize indices by daily, weekly, or monthly, and then we can get an index list by a specified date range. Elasticsearch only needs to query on a smaller data set instead of the whole data set. Plus, it would be easy to shrink/delete old indices when data has expired. Set mapping explicitly. Elasticsearch can create mapping dynamically, but it might be not suitable for all scenarios. For example, the default string field mappings in Elasticsearch 5.x are both "keyword" and "text" types. It's unnecessary in a lot of scenarios. Avoid imbalanced sharding if documents are indexed with user-defined ID or routing. Elasticsearch uses a random ID generator and hash algorithm to make sure documents are allocated to shards evenly. When you use a user-defined ID or routing, the ID or routing key might not be random enough, and some shards may be obviously bigger than others. In this scenario, a read/write operation on this shard would be much slower than others. We can optimize the ID/routing key or use index.routing_partition_size (available in 5.3 and later). Make shards distributed evenly across nodes. If one node has more shards than other nodes, it will take more load than other nodes and may become the bottle neck of whole system. Tune indexing performance For indexing heavy scenarios like logging and monitoring, indexing performance is the key metric. Here are some suggestions. Use bulk requests. . Use multiple threads/works to send requests. Increase the refresh interval. Every time a refresh event happens, Elasticsearch creates a new Lucene segment and merges them later. Increasing the refresh interval would reduce the cost of creating/merging. Please note, documents only can be available for search after a refresh happens. Relationship between performance and refresh interval From the above diagram, we can see that the throughput increased and response time decreased as the refresh interval increased. We can use the request below to check how many segments we have and how much time is spent on refresh and merge. Index/_stats?filter_path= indices.**.refresh,indices.**.segments,indices.**.merges Reduce replica number. Elasticsearch needs to write documents to the primary and all replica shards for every indexing request. Obviously, a big replica number would slow down indexing speed, but on the other side, it would improve search performance. We will talk about it later in this article. Relationship between performance and replica number From above diagram, we can see that throughput decreased and response time increased as the replica number increased. Use auto generated IDs if possible. An Elasticsearch auto generated ID is guaranteed to be unique to avoid version lookup. If a customer really needs to use a self-defined ID, our suggestion is to pick an ID that is friendly to Lucene, such as zero-padded sequential IDs, UUID-1, or Nano time. These IDs have consistent, sequential patterns that compress well. In contrast, IDs such as UUID-4 are essentially random, which offers poor compression and slows Lucene down. Tune search performance A primary reason for using Elasticsearch is to support searches through data. Users should be able to quickly locate the information they are looking for. Search performance depends on quite a few factors. Use filter context instead of query context if possible. A query clause is used to answer “How well does this document match this clause?” A filter clause is used to answer “Does this document match this clause?” Elasticsearch only needs to answer “Yes” or “No.” It does not need to calculate a relevancy score for a filter clause, and the filter results can be cached. See Query and filter context for details. Compare between query and filter Increase refresh interval. As we mentioned in the tune indexing performance section, Elasticsearch creates new segment every time a refresh happens. Increasing the refresh interval would help reduce the segment count and reduce the IO cost for search. And, the cache would be invalid once a refresh happens and data is changed. Increasing the refresh interval can make Elasticsearch utilize cache more efficiently. Increase replica number. Elasticsearch can perform a search on either a primary or replica shard. The more replicas you have, the more nodes can be involved in your search. Relationship between performance and replica number From above diagram, you can see the search throughput is nearly linear to the replica

tough loss to the Falcons. It was reported that he was sobbing afterwards and was comforted by his quarterbacks coach Marcus Arroyo. I wonder if Jay Cutler has ever cried in the locker room after a heart-breaking loss? No way, he’s too busy pointing the finger at everyone else, making excuses, and thinking about his plans after the game to care that much. This is the kind of emotional display that McCown’s teammates will remember and help gain their trust. I don’t know about you but when I go to battle I want to know that my teammates right beside me are as invested as I am and will lay it all down on the line to do whatever it takes to win. This is what makes McCown such a great leader and someone you want to hitch your wagon to. McCown’s going to come out firing in the Nation’s Capital this Sunday and will do his best to lead the Bucs to a much-needed win. In the process he can help your fantasy team win if you’re in need of a bye week replacement. Here is my fearless forecast for Josh McCown. 31-44 328 yards, 3 TDs, 1 INT, 3 rushes for 18 yards Stay Away QB Plays Jay Cutler vs Minnesota Vikings (ZERO) Can someone please get the Tampa Bay General Manager on the line so we can work a deal to get Josh McCown back in exchange for Jay Cutler?! If I owned a Jay Cutler jersey I would have burned it by now like most Cleveland Cavaliers fans burned “King James” jerseys when he left for South Beach. Ok maybe I’m going a little overboard but Cutler and Coach Trestman better figure something out and fast. We’re already heading into week eleven and the Bears have yet to win a home game. I’d like to be optimistic but instead I have to be realistic about their chances of winning this game. Minnesota has a very underrated defense that has allowed the 4th fewest passing yards in the league this year. When you take into consideration they’ve recorded the 2nd most sacks this year behind Buffalo with thirty. I’m seeing visions of Jay laying on his back a lot. Everson Griffen is a BEAST and has nine of the Vikings thirty team sacks and is going to add to this impressive total. Meanwhile, Cutler has thrown four interceptions in the last three games after tossing two more on Sunday night. The bottom line is the Vikings have the playmakers on the defensive side to shut down the Bears offense period. Brandon Marshall hasn’t practiced all week and although he’s played before without practicing there has to be a level of concern here. If Marshall is held out the ship will sink along with Cutler. I would be safe and steer your ship clear of this Cutler nightmare altogether. 26-39 247 yards 1 TD, 2 INTs Russell Wilson @ Kansas City Chiefs (ZERO) What’s going on with Russell Wilson lately? Maybe he’s “Sleepless in Seattle” or maybe he’s just not the player everyone thought he was after his incredible rookie year. You would think that the return of center Max Unger and left tackle Russell Okung would be the cure-all for him but apparently not. Wilson has been MIA since week 7 when he exploded against the Rams for 419 yards of total offense and three touchdowns. In the three games since he’s thrown for a total of 550 yards and only one touchdown. His saving grace has been his ability to pile up the rushing yards and he did run for 107 yards and a rushing touchdown last week vs the Giants. The Seahawks are a smash-mouth football team and are perfectly fine with grinding down opposing defenses using their stable of running backs led by Marshawn Lynch aka “Beast mode.” They ran the ball 45 times last week while Wilson attempted only 17 passes, which was a season-low for him. If you consider that Lynch is a free agent after this season, it makes sense that they’re fine with riding him until the wheels fall off. It’s like that old beater car that you drove back in college until you got your first “real” job. You got really attached to it and it got you around but when it finally broke down it wasn’t worth the money it would cost to fix it. The Seahawks have their identity and they’ll have to stick with the blueprint this week vs a Chiefs defense that has allowed the least passing yards to opposing quarterbacks. Russell Wilson is a low-end QB1 until further notice and one that I would only be streaming in good matchups. Do yourself a big favor and bench Russell Wilson this week before you blow your chances of making the playoffs. 17-28 169 yards 1 TD 2 INTs, 8 rushes for 42 yards Mark Sanchez @ Green Bay Packers (Z

JamazVu Profile Joined January 2011 Peru 62 Posts #2 IM FENIX FIGHTING LanTAs Profile Blog Joined September 2010 United States 1079 Posts #3 but anways Liquid fighting too! GoGo DeMuslim!!!!!!! :D I can't wait to see DeMuslim and White.ra! :D the rest of the games are mirror matchups (not my favorite),but anways Liquid fighting too! BigLighthouse Profile Joined October 2010 United Kingdom 423 Posts #4 Im optimistically excited about tonight, dont let me down! Predicting sheth, hero, fenix and demuslim,but I wouldnt mind Cruncher pulling an upset, or white-ra. LunaSaint Profile Blog Joined April 2011 United Kingdom 619 Posts Last Edited: 2011-09-14 19:23:29 #5 Fenix/WhiteRa from the get-go, amazing ♥ Seems like a solid first day, will definitely be tuning in to this. Simpel Profile Joined July 2011 Denmark 6 Posts #6 Hmm, last time i saw, HerO wasn't playing zerg? Choboo Profile Blog Joined January 2011 Sweden 2088 Posts #7 Do Hero think this is some all-star match or what? SaSe fan club manager Kieofire Profile Joined June 2011 United States 1786 Posts Last Edited: 2011-09-14 19:27:02 #8 Excited for tonight, looking forward to the Vibe-Sheth match-up and also to see HerO get a win! Also change that logo next to HerO to Protoss. haha AxiR Profile Joined October 2010 Germany 944 Posts Last Edited: 2011-09-14 19:27:16 #9 Is there an EU reboradcast? Bagi Profile Joined August 2010 Germany 6789 Posts #10 Sucks that there has to be 2 mirrors, but the White-ra and Demuslim matches should be epic. AsmodeusXI Profile Blog Joined July 2007 United States 7135 Posts #11 Oh God... Sheth gonna be SO tired. GL GL. Writer TL > RL. BNet: Asmodeus#1187 - LoL: DJForeclosure - Steam: asmodeusxi | www.n3rddimension.com Swad1000 Profile Joined January 2011 United States 365 Posts Last Edited: 2011-09-14 19:32:15 #12 Heros off racing and Cruncher went in the future 18 thousand years to play in a tournament for practice. Hero still 2-0 easy 20011 SK Gaming NA Champions Trophy July MIhata Profile Joined April 2011 Bulgaria 156 Posts #13 So pumped for White-ra - Finix "Very important caster" - MC about himself. | MC | Boxer | Grubby | Jangbi | MMA | Polt | InCa | Symbol | zarepath Profile Blog Joined April 2010 United States 1626 Posts #14 Hero's TLPD often goes back to a Zerg BW player. It's been fixed. "Your efforts you put in will never betray you." - Flash | "If I'm not good enough, I don't wanna win." - Naniwa MrSexington Profile Blog Joined July 2010 United States 1767 Posts Last Edited: 2011-09-14 19:32:15 #15 On September 15 2011 04:27 AsmodeusXI wrote: Oh God... Sheth gonna be SO tired. GL GL. If it's the same as NASL Season 1, these games were played on Monday. The games are played Monday-Friday and they're broadcast 2 days later for post-production/rescheduled games. If it's the same as NASL Season 1, these games were played on Monday.The games are played Monday-Friday and they're broadcast 2 days later for post-production/rescheduled games. thatsundowner Profile Joined July 2011 Canada 295 Posts #16 On September 15 2011 04:27 AsmodeusXI wrote: Oh God... Sheth gonna be SO tired. GL GL. Is NASL live this time around? Last season the games were played a few days beforehand Is NASL live this time around? Last season the games were played a few days beforehand "you're gonna fail" in latin NASL.tv Profile Joined April 2011 699 Posts #17 On September 15 2011 04:27 Ryuu2 wrote: Is there an EU reboradcast? Is there an EU reboradcast? Added EU Rebroadcast time to thread. Added EU Rebroadcast time to thread. ToDieFoR Profile Blog Joined January 2011 United States 52 Posts #18 So excited about this :D GL SHETH :D :D ellirc Profile Joined February 2011

prepared meals (the meatloaf might be better than Mom’s, just saying), and matching, dollar for dollar, customer donations to local food banks. Much like H-E-B in Texas, the employee-owned Hy-Vee just seemed like it was there, in any way it possibly could be, for the communities they serve; this will have come as no great surprise to the Midwesterners lucky enough to shop there on a regular basis. 4. New Seasons Go less often sounds like the sort of advice you’d expect from your local public health official, rather than a low-margin business hoping to make a modest profit, but Portlanders quickly became accustomed to hearing the exhortation from their favorite hometown supermarket chain, which was only asking to be loved a little bit less, just for a little while, until the smoke cleared. Not only a kick-ass grocery store stocked with high-quality and often organic product, but also something of a gathering place for each community it serves, New Seasons also proved to be an industry leader on the safety front, requesting face coverings for everyone, way back in April. Shoppers at the Northwest’s little gift to itself, if only we were all so lucky, responded to the company’s moves with overwhelming positivity; one store employee mused that nearly every day felt like the day before Thanksgiving. While still primarily a Portland area thing (and how), there are now two equally excellent stores elsewhere—one in suburban Seattle, and another in San Jose. 5. Market Basket While lesser New England chains dithered, the head-and-shoulders-above regional favorite announced that their associates had always been able to wear masks and gloves, if they so preferred; up went the plexiglass shields and in came the crowds. Like everyone else in the hard-hit region, the family-owned company couldn’t escape the virus entirely, even if it tried damn hard, but some relationships are built to last. Long after the dust settles, after people stop banging on about grocery stores being essential businesses, Market Basket will remain just that, wholly essential, both to its local customer base and the streams of summer people, who, for example, not that we’d know anything about this, pay too much for their Cape Cod rentals and then roll up on the Bourne store after sitting in so much bridge traffic, filling up what room is left in the car with groceries that are at times so affordable, shoppers from less lucky places might wonder if the prices aren’t a mistake. 6. Lidl Just when we thought we couldn’t love this fast-spreading European import even the slightest bit more (you’ve never had a better cheap chain supermarket croissant in this country, promise), the company came out with a first-in-the-business promise to cover all costs of coronavirus testing and hospitalization, for any employee unlucky enough to need either one. They’d already stepped up to the plate last fall with medical coverage for everyone, whether part-time and full-time—Lidl isn’t just trying to change the way Americans shop for groceries, it could end up changing the way grocery store employees work. Image zoom © Martin Divisek/Bloomberg via Getty Images What’s so great about a store filled to the brim with mostly unrecognizable brands? Just ask the home cooks across the Atlantic that rely on them for their low-cost, often high-quality product; not to be impolite, but if it’s good enough for French home cooks, it’s good enough for you. Right now, interested shoppers can find the stores everywhere from Northern New Jersey into Georgia; with any luck, they’ll eventually end up nationwide, and then stay that way. 7. Winco Foods Kudos to the manager at this Boise-based chain with the bright idea to ensure social distancing while customers waited in line to enter—why not hand out a freshly-sanitized cart to each one, saving already stressed out workers from the messy work of enforcing social distancing rules? This spartan, employee-owned treasure—known for one of the largest, most reasonably-priced bulk aisles in the business, a temporary victim of the pandemic—has for years been a favorite in the inland Northwest; lately, their reach has extended all down the west coast to sunny San Diego, as well as further inland. Winco’s stores, brimming over with affordable store brand goods, have been a lifesaver for cash-strapped shoppers on the West Coast, faced in recent years with an exorbitant rise in the cost of living, and now struggling their way into an economic downturn. Stores tend to be remarkably spacious on a good day; lately, with capacity significantly lowered,

of the standard objective-reward videogame structure. As the player slays more and more Colossi, the pervasive tone of the game changes from one of noble questing and honour (kill the Colossi to resurrect the maiden) to one of sadness and selfishness (lay waste to these giants to satisfy your own desires). It wouldn't be especially controversial to suggest that Wander actually fulfils the narrative archetype of villain (albeit under the guise of the bereaved adventurer). I like to think of Wander not as a naive but well-meaning warrior, but as a foreign invader, come to plunder the land's magic and to slay its inhabitants. You, then, as the player, are complicit in this evildoing. Lord Emon, who pursues Wander but arrives too late to stop him slaying the Colossi, is the game's real hero. Shadow of the Colossus' ending is exceptional not in spite of its vagueness, but because of it. The striking ending isn't unresolved as much as it's unexplained: the uncharacteristically frantic sequence of dramatic events and sudden plot twists doesn't explain itself in any coherent, rational way. Instead, it invites the player to extrapolate an explanation that best fits his or her interpretation of the game's events. Accordingly, the internet is rife with myriad interpretations of what is going on. But as much as we can glean from the ending, there are many questions that remain unanswered. Is the horned boy revealed in the final moments Wander reborn, Wander punished? Is it even Ico, in a twist that would establish SotC as a prequel to the developer's earlier game? And why is the world of the game forbidden? Is it because the Colossi are dangerous, or because they are sacred? Or (my favourite interpretation) because the landscape of SotC is actually a prison for Dormin, and the Colossi his jailors? My interpretation: Wander's death is very definite, a penance for his murder of the Colossi, a denouement that establishes the game as a traditional revenge tragedy, with both Wander and Emon acting as revenger. Alternate interpretations, however, remain valid: maybe Wander killed Mono himself, and his quest to resurrect her isn't one of selfishness, or even love, but one of guilt? My point being that Shadow of the Colossus' ending is exceptional not in spite of its vagueness, but because of it. This enables the player to conceive of an ending that best suits her own moral and aesthetic proclivities. I like to think of SotC as an anti-hero narrative, one which questions the usual role of the player as a doer of good. But the alternative reading, that Wander is a mistaken, misunderstood but ultimately noble man, is valid, too. ** Playdead's 2010 puzzle platformer Limbo is even more narratively minimalist than Shadow of the Colossus. The brief synopsis describing a boy looking for his sister makes up the full extent of the game's narrative certainty; everything else one might say about the plot is pure speculation. The player guides the boy through various landscapes until, a few hours later, the game abruptly ends. The final sequence consists of the boy being flung through what I assume is a pane of glass, before re-entering the forest in which the game began. There he encounters his sister, who, though facing away from him, looks up as if she senses his presence. The credits then roll and the game is over. Limbo's ending willfully disregards the sense of player entitlement and the expectancy of reward. I'm aware that Limbo's refusal to explain itself is the source of much frustration among certain players, who like to label the ending as anti-climactic, as if the player is due a set of clear answers. Limbo's ending willfully disregards this sense of player entitlement and the expectancy of reward. This is just one of the many ways that Limbo expresses a disinterest in the usual narrative structure of videogames: there's no dialogue, no tutorials, no characters as such, no villain and only one potentially endless and cyclic level. The ending is, in itself, the game's final puzzle, just as minimalist, brief and beautiful as any of the other obstacles the player encounters. Thus any satisfaction the player derives from Limbo's ending is entirely dependent on his or her willingness to creatively engage with the limited material available. My particular reading is that the boy is himself dead, but since arriving in limbo he has forgotten his own death. The ending, with the boy breaching a pane of glass, serves to violently remind him of his death. Now, having accepted his fate and his place in limbo, he's able to see his sister (who's alive) tending his grave. The way in which she gently lifts her head implies that she can feel his presence in some way. Maybe he's a ghost

The word ‘poverty’ is not well liked. There are few words that can evoke as much tear-jerking grist for the political mill as this single, three syllable word. Say it aloud and then close your eyes. Some of us may imagine the smokestacks of Victorian London being scrubbed by scrawny children who have to wheeze into their shirt sleeves. Flick a penny at them and they will tip their frayed top-hats at you. Some see a tiny African boy with gray hair and a belly bloated by starvation. He won’t have long to live unless you pick up the phone and call now. Others think of Chinese peasants in black rags planting rice for fourteen hour days with bent and aching backs. Whatever your thoughts, whatever the images, none of them are good. Poverty is, by definition, a word signifying a grim reality. The Random House Dictionary defines poverty as the state of “having little or no money, goods, or means of support.” This definition does not mince words. It clearly states that there is a lack of something, a scarcity, a relentless and enduring absence — much like what is in the heads of your average American voter. We inhabit a material world and we therefore tend to think of more stuff as better; and, as such, the great lack of stuff caused by poverty will always be bad. Having a bathtub is a lot better than not having one, and certainly cleaner. Most would agree that having food to eat is considerably better than starving. Of course, there are some people who deem poverty a virtue but they’re all hare-brained hermits and Quakers so nobody takes them too seriously. Maybe it is because of these holy, hermetical airs that the word ‘poverty’ is sometimes paired with lofty words like ‘noble’ and ‘hard-working’. At other times, in decidedly less religious company, we hear people speak of ‘crippling’ and ‘abject’ poverty. This is a powerful word and if our own eyes are to be believed, probably more powerful than poverty itself. It is a word that can shake the world. In fact, it is so easy to tug people’s heartstrings with the word ‘poverty’, that the word has done far more to create poverty than cure it. The left has turned the word into a club which they can use to bludgeon the middle class. Rest assured that when the taxman comes to skim the fat off of your hard day’s work, he will claim to do it on behalf of someone else’s poverty. He will call it the first great step in the “war on poverty” or the “poverty relief act” or the “poverty prevention program.” If the left is feeling cryptic they will couch their legislation in roundabout terms that still suggest the old smokestacks and withering Kenyan babies: “affordable care,” “social security,” “supplemental nutritional assistance,” and so on. It is plain to see that with the help of their clubs the leftists have turned poverty into a lucrative industry. This kind of theft is a perfectly good reason for Americans to stand up and complain while the club is a perfectly good reason to sit back down again. And that is exactly what white, middle class Americans have done for decades — we gripe quietly in our homes or in hushed tones around the water cooler at work, but not openly, and never so loudly as to attract attention. We raise our children on the supposed virtues of white-funded ethnic diversity so that we can continue to gripe with a forced smile; after all, the bitter pill is a lot easier to swallow if you convince yourself ahead of time that cyanide must be good medicine. The success of this industry might be one reason why the left has been looking rather red faced and worried as of late: the meteoric rise of the Western world’s standard of living, thanks primarily to free enterprise, has stamped out genuine poverty. It is a lot easier to rob Peter to pay Paul when Paul wears a pair of dusty overalls and a straw hat; when he wears name-brand shirts, designer jeans, and two-hundred dollar shoes, Peter may start to get skeptical. And now Peter is getting very skeptical indeed; the water cooler talk is getting a little louder at work and the griping has roped in the neighbors. A growing sense of unease is spreading. Poverty in America has transformed from soot-faced coal miners who live in a one room shack by the railroad to blubbery Jaquita who drives a Cadillac and has a thousand-dollar weave in her hair. By most estimations, when a nation’s poor live

I — Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) May 21, 2018 The only thing more insecure than Trump is his phone. — YS (@NYinLA2121) May 22, 2018 Here's the President allowing adversaries to listen into his calls because he can't be bothered to protect the nation's secrets. Can anyone make a real argument for why this isn't a bigger deal than Hillary's emails? (You can't)https://t.co/3ROrkkrUsF — Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) May 21, 2018 Am I wrong that there's, like, a 100% chance the phone has been hacked? https://t.co/TMPn0g1gcu — Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) May 21, 2018 Gonna be wild when the WH cancels the North Korea summit and NK responds by uploading sound files of every phone conversation Trump has had over the last year and a half. — Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) May 21, 2018 Also on HuffPost Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. I voted for Trump to keep the minimum wage hike down, retain our constitutional gun rights, and keeping close to the constitution and immigration. I can now start planning my next boutique without the threat of a minimum wage hike. I can afford to get sick while I’m working 60 hours a week to get my business off the ground. The fear of the taxation-to-death threat will lessen. Trump is a businessman. He will pave the way for me to start dreaming again. Until this election I was independent. This election I declared myself Republican for the first time. My friends are mostly liberal Democrats. They say I’m the poorest Republican they know. I hope that the silent majority stops being bullied by the loud minority. Trump promises to rebuild our army and fight for our safety, I look to see terrorism defeated and the war on cops to end, a solid declaration of war on Isis and a halt to the preference of immigrants before citizens. I hope welfare will be scaled back and employment will once again become the preferred way to support oneself. I cried when I heard Trump won. There is once again hope for the American Dream! – Heather, 43, Kansas, small business owner *Some names have been changed. Judge Napolitano tonight weighed in on the latest in the IRS targeting scandal. There are new questions about the legality of leading Democrats, like Carl Levin, putting pressure on the IRS to target conservative groups. Meanwhile, the IRS continues to delay releasing documents that detail its correspondence with top Democrats. Napolitano said it appears that a group of Democrats in Congress pressured IRS officials “to exercise their power to infringe on the free speech and associational rights of Americans in an effort to nullify or reduce the effect of a Supreme Court decision with which the president disagrees.” Some Republicans have been trying to get a list of all the lawmakers that the IRS had been talking to leading up to the scandal, but the IRS has delayed releasing documents six times already. “They want to delay this until Barack Obama is out of office, and they hope that this will die,” Napolitano said. Get more analysis from Napolitano: Judge Nap: What's Obama's Motivation for Failing to Enforce Immigration Laws? Judge Nap: Idea of Chaplain for Atheist Soldiers Is 'Political Correctness Gone Crazy' Judge Nap on Geithner Book: Admin Has Been Lying From Day One

Ottawa has added a twist to its long-running effort to buy new fighter jets, opening the door to new spending on upgrades that would prolong the lifespan of its fleet of CF-18s while further delaying a decision on the controversial process according to government documents and sources. A change in the procurement document that is made available to potential suppliers invites manufacturers to propose new scenarios for maintaining and renewing Canadian air power. Sources said the changes in the eligible options make it easier for manufacturers to propose a "mixed fleet" of upgraded CF-18s and other fighter jets, or a later delivery of new jets as the CF-18s fly beyond their planned phase-out. Story continues below advertisement The new proposal is the latest shift of position by the Harper government after last year's highly critical report by Auditor-General on a planned sole-sourced purchase of 65 F-35 fighters. The government has hit the "reset button" on that troubled, $40-billion file, but it remains a moving target – an ongoing irritant to a Conservative government that prides itself on fiscal responsibility. The government – through the National Fighter Procurement Secretariat, created in the aftermath of the Auditor-General's report – is going through an "options analysis" to determine which scenarios meet its needs. The changes are among a number of new elements in the final version of the secretariat's questionnaire to five aerospace firms, which is designed to obtain technical information on the aircraft in the running for the contract. Another questionnaire is in the works to obtain financial information on all fighter jets, but that one has also undergone significant changes that stand to further delay the process. There is no firm timeline for the acquisition, but there is speculation in Ottawa that the government will want to delay the final announcement until after the 2015 general election. The firms in the running for the contract have launched lobbying and public-relations campaigns to position themselves in the event that Ottawa launches a full-blown open competition for new fighters. The most vocal manufacturers have been Lockheed Martin, which is touting its F-35 as a full technological generation ahead of its rivals, and Boeing, which argues that its Super Hornet offers better overall capabilities than the F-35 at half the cost. The other firms in the running are Saab (Gripen), Dassault (Rafale) and Eurofighter (Typhoon). The CF-18s first entered into service in 1982, and are currently programmed to be phased out between 2017 and 2023. A source who has been briefed on the ongoing replacement process said Ottawa could push back the acquisition of new jets as it contemplates the "capabilities, costs and risks" of all of its options, including "extending the CF-18." Story continues below advertisement "It could provide the government with the opportunity of delaying the acquisition. If the government decides that it prefers to wait, it will have that option," the source said. The government said that the upgrades could allow manufacturers to prolong the lifespan of the CF-18s as a "bridge" to the delivery of new fighters later in the decade. "Extending the CF-18 is consistent with the commitment to examine all options, including bridging options," Public Works spokeswoman Lucie Brosseau said. The government has added a new line in the questionnaire that will seek to gauge whether the aircraft capabilities that are being promoted by the various manufacturers are based on "test flights, simulators or past deployments." The question is particularly relevant in terms of the F-35, which is still in development, while the other aircraft in the running are already operational. The government has also made it clear that the fighter jets are being purchased "first and foremost" to defend Canadian soil. In the draft version of the questionnaire, Ottawa called for the new aircraft to contribute to the efforts of the Canadian Forces to defend Canada and North America, and contribute to international peace and security, without clearly prioritizing Canadian sovereignty. The new emphasis on Canadian sovereignty could have a greater impact on the F-35, which is deemed by some experts to be the most effective fighter in international coalition alongside the American military. However, rival manufacturers have been boasting that a twin-engine jet such as Boeing's Super Hornet offers superior performances on Canadian soil, such as Arctic patrols. Story continues below advertisement The procurement secretariat has yet to state when it will send out a second questionnaire seeking financial information from the five manufacturers. The draft version of the document called on the firms to provide "estimates of the full life-cycle cost of the aircraft," which would have entailed a thorough estimate including acquisition, sustainment and operations budgets for four decades. However, the government will now only seek "cost estimates of the aircraft," which will not allow for a full financial comparison of the rival fighters. The financial questionnaire will also not include any questions on the

matter because I'm working my ass off, and I didn't want to talk myself into this fight to get embarrassed in my hometown or HBO at that. I've only been on HBO one time. They never invited me back.” There was a brief moment when he punched his way back into contention – and perhaps with one more win, a return to HBO having come much sooner. Thompson threw the boxing world for a loop with not one, but two knockout wins over David Price on the road in England. Price was an unbeaten heavyweight prospect seemingly on the cusp of contention heading into his Feb. ’13 clash with Thompson, who hadn’t fought since his repeat loss to Klitschko seven months prior. All the American southpaw needed was one clean shot – a clubbing right hand - to shatter the hopes and dreams of a rising talent 12 years his junior. Thompson didn’t hesitate to accept a rematch, returning to England five months later. This time, he was forced to climb off the canvas to repeat the feat, but did so in five rounds to prove there was still plenty left in his gas tank – enough to where he agreed to a title eliminator with unbeaten Kubrat Pulev. A win would have put him in line for a third shot at Klitschko, but the clock struck midnight on his Cinderella run as he dropped a competitive but clear points loss on the road in Germany. It kicked off a stretch of three losses in his last five fights, his only wins coming over a faded, underachieving Odlanier Solis on the road in Turkey. The sub.500 run over that period was enough to convince the World Boxing Association (WBA) – whom recognizes Ortiz as its interim titlist – to not sanction this weekend’s fight, which goes on as a non-title affair. It’s of little concern to Thompson, who just over four months ago began searching for a new line of work and now once again finds himself a win away from being right back in the mix. And make no mistake, a win on Saturday will once again put any talks of retirement on the back burner. “I mean, at this age, honestly, it's a fight-by-fight basis,” Thompson admits, not wanting to look any further than Saturday evening. “I'm not 24. Hell, I'm not even 34. I'm 44. So what I say changes fight to fight, how I feel. Yes, I have been thinking about retirement. I'm 44. Who doesn't think about retirement as a fighter or any professional athlete at 44? “Does it mean I'm not wound up for this fight? Hell no! It's absolutely got my juices pumping. And that's bad news. The worst thing they can think is that I'm retired. So don't come in here thinking it's a payday for me, because I don't look at the payday. I look at the payday after this fight. You feel me? Forget retirement talking to the fighter.” Given his last performance and his age, it was naturally the main topic of conversation. Yet interestingly, Thompson finds himself back in the ring sooner than his most recent conqueror, as Scott has yet to land a significant fight despite being linked to several rumored bouts. Despite scoring the win that night, Scott boasts an in-ring style that doesn’t exactly appeal to his heavyweight peers. Thompson won’t have to worry about finding his opponent this time around. In Ortiz, he faces perhaps the most physically gifted heavyweight in the world today, one who can box and brawl equally well. So while Thompson comes in as a considerable underdog, the sense is that this matchup gives him a much better chance at making a highlight reel – for better or for worse. “Of course I was going to give it one last run. I lost to Malik, yes, but Malik absolutely has the wrong style for me and I wasn't in the best shape I should have been,” notes Thompson. “Not to say I'm going to be in a whole lot better shape for this fight. But it's a different fighter. He's not running. “We're going to meet in the middle of the ring and we're going to decide what's going to happen. And just like he try to knock me out, I'm going to try to knock him the f*** out.” Jake Donovan is the managing editor of BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox

Noted Good Guy Mark Zuckerberg. Photo : David Ramos ( Getty Images ) In what might be the shortest time yet for an Onion headline to nearly mirror reality, Facebook has backed off plans to share sensitive info about your inner life with doctors and hospitals. And all it took was the company being embroiled in a cataclysmic data-sharing scandal. As first reported by CNBC on Thursday, Facebook’s secretive research arm, Building 8, was looking to start a project that would have had them share users’ anonymized data with several major US hospitals. This combined data would then seemingly allow doctors to get more relevant insight into their patients’ lives and act appropriately. One example of how this could have worked, described by CNBC, would have had hospitals send home nurses to patients recovering from major heart surgery deemed to have no nearby friends or family based on their Facebook profile. Facebook had reportedly gotten as far as enlisting its scientists to talk to major organizations like the American College of Cardiology and the Stanford University School of Medicine about the project. But the dream—for the moment—is no more. “This work has not progressed past the planning phase, and we have not received, shared, or analyzed anyone’s data,” Facebook said in a statement to CNBC. According to CNBC, both Facebook data and the hospital data would have been stripped of any identifying markers like a person’s name before it reached anyone. A common cryptographic method known as hashing would have been used to match the sets of data to one another. Seemingly learning nothing from its own history, though, the project leaders reportedly didn’t even discuss whether Facebook users should have been told in advance about their little experiment. Contrast that with Apple’s smoother (if still scary) forays into the health world, which include an app that asks users if they’d like to voluntarily link their medical records up to their iPhones, for instance. Alas, since everyone is still mad about the 2015 Cambridge Analytica data breach (which saw up to 87 million Facebook users’ data mined by the company), Facebook apparently thought it best to just take things down a notch for now. “Last month we decided that we should pause these discussions so we can focus on other important work, including doing a better job of protecting people’s data and being clearer with them about how that data is used in our products and services,” their statement said. Bravery, thy name is Zuck. Meanwhile, in other news, Facebook just admitted that many of its 2.2 billion users could have had their data pilfered by “malicious actors” up until yesterday when the company introduced new data-sharing restrictions. [CNBC]

In 2014, Berkeley, California, added a 1-cent tax on every ounce of sweetened drinks sold within city limits, making it one of a handful of cities in America to implement the politically controversial “soda tax.” Three years later, there’s evidence that the soda tax drastically changed the way Berkeley residents hydrate. Essentially, the soda tax worked. Based on the survey results from 1,513 Berkeley residents between 2014 and 2017, Kristine Madsen, Ph.D., the faculty director of UC Berkeley’s Food Institute, found that sugary drink consumption in Berkeley has decreased by 52 percent since the soda tax was implemented. Consumption habits in nearby cities without the same long-standing soda tax remained the same. The new research was published in a paper Thursday in The American Journal of Public Health. The work builds on a 2016 study that showed a 21-percent decrease in drinking soda (and other sugary beverages) in Berkeley’s low-income neighborhoods after the tax was approved by voters. “When you think about public health advertisements, it’s kind of countering messages that go out from the industry,” Madsen tells Inverse. “It tells people that too much soda is bad for you, and that can have some effects.” The health effects of sugary drinks, from diabetes to obesity, are well-documented. At the federal level, taxing the sale of “junk food” hasn’t gained any traction, but Berkeley and Philadelphia have taken it upon themselves to tax drink distributors, raising soda prices overall. The concept of a sugar drink tax has taken hold in other countries, too. Berkeley's 2014 soda tax caused massive drops in sugary beverage consumption over three years. Pxhere Two Ways the Soda Tax Changed Drinking Habits in Berkeley The soda tax is about more than just imposing economic obstacles to buying sugary drinks, says Madsen. The first that happens is that it seems to cause a shift in attitude about the health effects of those beverages. "Once the tax passes, it’s pretty good evidence that your community has decided that drinking a lot of soda isn’t a great thing. “When you implement a soda tax, there is a bunch of media around it, so people start to think, ‘Maybe soda isn’t too good.’” The second thing that happens is that the public stops buying soda. “Then, once the tax passes, it’s pretty good evidence that your community has decided that drinking a lot of soda isn’t a great thing.” Before 2014, residents in Berkeley reported cracking open a sugary drink more than once per day (an average of 1.25 times across survey participants). But after 2014, residents reported drinking sugary beverages less than once per day — an average of 0.5 times per day across participants. Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco all implemented soda taxes before a June 2018 initiative banned city, town, or county-level taxes on sugary drinks. Wikimedia Commons This measurable change in drinking habits is crucial, especially because a line of criticism of the soda tax is that it may impact sales of drinks — which would not necessarily change how many sugary beverages people actually consume. But the study shows that whether or not people bought less soda, they definitely drank less soda. Madsen also compared the soda consumption habits in Berkeley to demographically similar neighborhoods in Oakland and San Francisco, which both levied soda taxes later than Berkeley did. Oakland’s soda tax went into effect in 2017, and San Francisco levied its own soda taxes in 2018, so the bulk of these surveys were taken before the soda taxes went into effect in both cities (though in Oakland some surveys were conducted one to three months after their soda tax went into effect). Overall, there was no significant change in sugary drink consumption in Oakland or San Francisco over that time — showing that the soda tax did have measurable effects in Berkeley. Will The US Ever Pass a Soda Tax? A soda tax would be implemented to shift how the public views the health effects of sugary drinks. But implementing such a tax on a large scale would not be easy. One major obstacle is that Americans are particularly sensitive to the idea: “The appetite for them isn’t there,” she says. "The overreach of industry is really scary. Beverage companies may also play a role in this perception, as they have done their best to influence public policy in their favor. As Inverse previously reported, public health researchers at Harvard have documented how the Coca-Cola Company has shaped China’s public health agenda. And in June 2018, a new California law banned city-level food and beverage taxes on sugar beverages for the next 13 years,

Former U.S. Ambassador to Zambia Daniel Foote. (U.S. State Department) The U.S. ambassador to Zambia, Daniel Foote, is being recalled by the State Department because his criticism of Zambia's laws against homosexual behavior and the jailing of a gay couple sparked criticism from the country's president, who has declared that Zambia is saying "no to homosexuality" and that pro-LGBT activists "should go to Hell." In a Dec. 2 press statement, Ambassador Foote -- appointed to his position in 2017 by President Trump -- harshly denounced Zambia's government for enforcing "discriminatory and homophobic laws, under the false flags of Christianity and culture," and for inaccurately associating HIV/AIDS with homosexuality. Zambian President Edgar Lungu. (Getty Images) The Republic of Zambia, in south central Africa, is a former British colony that is strongly Christian, about 75% Protestant and 20% Catholic. "I was shocked at the venom and hate directed at me and my country, largely in the name of 'Christian' values, by a small minority of Zambians," said Amb. Foote in his statement. "I thought, perhaps incorrectly, that Christianity meant trying to live like our Lord, Jesus Christ." "I am not qualified to sermonize, but I cannot imagine Jesus would have used bestiality comparisons or referred to his fellow human beings as 'dogs,' or 'worse than animals," allusions made repeatedly by your countrymen and women about homosexuals," declared Foote. The ambassador also noted that Zambia receives $500 million in U.S. aid each year, and claimed that some Zambian officials had stolen "millions of dollars in public funds." On Dec. 15, Zambian President Edgar Lungu announced that he had written to the U.S. State Department, asking that Foote be recalled. In red, the Republic of Zambia. (YouTube) "We have complained officially to the American government, and we are waiting for their response," said Lungu, as reported by CNN. "[W]e are waiting for their response because we don’t want such people in our midst. We want him gone." On Dec. 24, Reuters reported that Foote would be leaving Zambia and the State Department "remains committed to [its] partnership with the Zambian people." Earlier in December, Foote had complained that two homosexual men were convicted and imprisoned (in 2019) for "having sex against the order of nature." Foote said he was "horrified" by the court's ruling and claimed that same-sex behavior "hurt absolutely no one." The two men were sentenced to 15 years in prison. Zambia's laws against homosexuality were inherited from its British colonizers (since 1911) and carried over into independence (in 1964). The anti-homosexual law is defined under the same law proscribing sodomy and bestiality. Gay "marriage" is also prohibited. Commenting on the sentencing of the two men, President Lungu told Sky News, “We are saying no to homosexuality. Why should we say we are going to be civilized if we allow it … are you saying that we’re very primitive now because we’re frowning on homosexuality?" (Getty Images) “Even animals don’t do it," said Lungu, "so why should we be forced to do it because we want to be seen to be smart, civilized and advanced and so on?” According to PinkNews, Lungu in 2017 said, “Those advocating gay rights should go to Hell.... That issue is foreign to this country.”

Latino, African American and Asian American Democratic members of Congress said on Wednesday they plan to "fight together" against Trump administration policies that impact their communities. The chairs of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), and Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) — collectively known as the Tri-Caucus — met Wednesday on Capitol Hill with the five Democratic senators of color as part of a strategy to bring Democratic minority legislators together as a bloc. They said this was an effective way to push back against any Trump administration policies or GOP proposals they consider detrimental to the Asian American, Black, and Hispanic communities. “We want to show our constituents that there is real power in our voting bloc,” said CHC chair Michelle Luján Grisham. “They can’t get anything passed nor govern effectively without us. This is also way to ensure that we continue to do our jobs and are more proactive.” CBC Chair Rep. Cedric Richmond D-LA) told reporters these bicameral coalitions send a very important message not only to the Washington, D.C. crowd but to the country. The Morning Rundown Get a head start on the morning's top stories. This site is protected by recaptcha "I hope that they see these communities have come together in lock step, to fight for issues that are going to better these communities because we’re all tied together,” said Rep. Raymond. All together there are 127 voting members in the Tri-Caucus. First on their radar screen are the current budget negotiations and the looming possibility of a government shutdown, should no agreement be reached by Friday. The legislators said they intend to make their voices heard on that issue and beyond. RELATED: White House Unveils 'Biggest Tax Cut' in History “We’re doing this to come together and make sure that we have a strong voice especially considering what is coming down with the Trump administration, said CAPAC chair Judy Chu (D-CA). “This president’s budget is unacceptable. It’s reverse Robin Hood, robbing the poor to help the rich, and we’re going to use our unity as a force against it,” said Rep. Chu. Sen. Robert Menéndez (D-NJ) said that while collectively the Tri-Caucus and the Democratic senators are in the minority, it is still a significant voting bloc to contend with, not only for Republicans but also the Democratic leadership in both the House and Senate. “In the house, the Tri-Caucus membership is a significant bloc, so any time the Republican leadership needs votes they will have to respond to the Tri-Caucus. That’s a powerful opportunity,” said Menéndez. He also said it's an opportunity "to send a message to our own leadership about the positions that we have that we are solid on and therefore if you need our votes to move forward, you’re going to have to with the policy issues that are important to our community.” Rep. Richmond said the members won't allow themselves to be "pitted one against the other" and quoted Booker T. Washington, who said "we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand." Follow NBC News Latino on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

a great thing, but is not always. Cedric Bixler has two main vocal styles. Now, one of those is a punk rock bark that recalls Rage Against the Machine's Zack de la Rocha. The other is an operatic wail that resembles Ronnie James Dio. The self-conscious aggression of the de la Rocha bit is tiresome, I find, but the Dio channeling is odd and occasionally fun. Take "Sleepwalk Capsules," if you will, for example. In the song's chorus, he's in full-on metal god mode. You could even say his soaring pitch conjures the image of a youthful Tom Cruise sitting in the cockpit of an F-15 fighter. But under Governor Bush's plan, it would not. What he proposes is that we strip Tom Cruise naked, kill his family, burn his house and shoot down his fighter. Now, I see a time when-- Jim Lehrer: Mr. Gore, your time is up. Governor, do you have a rebuttal? George W. Bush: Well, no. Jim Lehrer: Then, on to the next question. This comes from Mr. Hannity Colmes and will be fielded by Vice President Gore. Hannity Colmes: What song on Relationship of Command do you feel most encapsulates its strengths and weaknesses? Al Gore: Definitely "Invalid Litter Dept." The slower passages of this song are really not what the American people need at this time, with its 80's metal guitar tone and know-it-all spoken word vocals. And honestly, you'll find yourself wanting to hate it. Tipper certainly hated it. But the chorus of the song is such a fist-pumping, singalong triumph you'll find yourself returning to it again and again. And that's really this album in a nutshell: alternately annoying and powerful. Jim Lehrer: Governor Bush? George W. Bush: In the great state of Texas, we have a saying: people with afros should be shot. [gasping laugh] People need to have consequences for their afros, and that consequence is death. During my term as Governor, I've fried hundreds of men, and it wasn't always easy. You know, sometimes the switch jammed, or we'd get low on power or something. But I know one thing: there cannot be a harsh enough penalty for bad hair. Now, technically At the Drive In have not committed a crime, but what would you do if it was your hair? What would you do if your four year-old daughter came home from school, crying, with all them products dripping down her cheeks? I'm sure you'd want the maximum penalty implemented. I know I would...

Are cryptocurrencies useful for remittances? The United States-Mexico remittance corridor is one of the largest in the world. During 2018, Mexico received over $35 billion in migrant remittance inflows. Most of these remittances are sent by electronic wire transfers, which represent about 96% of all remittances. The complexity behind the execution of these transactions can create high costs for money transmitters which turn directly into higher fees for clients. Globally, the average cost of a 200-dollar remittance is 7%, but there is significant cost variance depending on the region where the remittance is being received. South Asia is the cheapest region for receiving money at 5.2%, while the most expensive region is Sub-Saharan Africa at 9%. Latin America stands as the second cheapest at 6.3%. Technology can have a positive impact on the time and effort required to send and receive remittances. For Mexico specifically, it is estimated that digital remittances could save recipients approximately fifteen days over the course of their lives, nearly 100 million hours in aggregate for the economy and almost $450 million in economic value based on the average income of a Mexican citizen. The latest World Bank Report from June 2019 shows that mobile money is the cheapest method for funding a remittance transaction at an average cost of 4.88%. This figure is relevant for two main reasons. First, the average cost of mobile money to fund a remittance transaction is closer to the United Nations sustainable development goal to reduce the global average cost of remittances services to less than 3% by 2030. Second,the average cost of a transaction funded by mobile money is more than two percentage points cheaper than transactions financed by a bank account (6.99%) or cash (6.97%). Besides reducing the costs that Mexican families must accrue sending money across the border, mobile money is important because the vast majority of Mexicans operate without a bank account (56%) or access to financial services. The reason for this is that the majority of the population still considers the costs of financial services to be too high, or they live too far from a bank branch. This creates an economy where 90% of all transactions are still being carried out in cash. The digitization of money and financial services is a great way of incorporating people to the digital economy, allowing a reduction of costs and the need for cash. Cryptocurrencies offer a great alternative for people who send and receive remittances since cryptocurrency networks charge meager transactional fees as compared with traditional wire transfers and cryptocurrencies can allow transactions to be completed in a matter of minutes instead of days. When a Mexican uses a remittance company that is powered by cryptocurrency technology, they can save between 2.83% and 5.62% for a 300-dollar remittance. By using cryptocurrencies, costs may decrease between 50% and 90% compared with traditional methods. By partnering with companies in the United States, Bitso has been able to deliver remittances to Mexican families since 2015, which has added up to a significant impact in the savings of families. According to our estimates, if all remittances sent to Mexico were cryptocurrencies, Mexican families could save an average of $1.6 billion per year. Data shows that most Mexican families use remittance funds to cover basic needs such as food, health, and education. In the last couple of months, Bitso has seen exponential growth in the volume of remittances sent from the United States to Mexico. By leveraging the technology of a cryptocurrency exchange, Bitso is able to provide other financial institutions with on-demand liquidity for global payments. This allows transactions to be sent in less than 90 seconds, which is profoundly less time that the 3 to 5 days it takes using traditional methods. Data released by the Mexican Central Bank shows that from January to August 2019, $23.8 billion have been sent to Mexico from the U.S., which would make for an average of $682 million being sent every week. The volume that Bitso is currently operating for cross-border transactions has been steadily growing for the last few months. We believe it will continue to grow as usage of our remittance infrastructure increases and continues reducing transaction costs for our clients. The following graph shows the volume of the leading institutional money transmitters using Bitso. Bitso’s new remittances product has been officially operating for four months. The way the product works is the following: a money transmitter receives the money as it would traditionally but converts it into crypto at a crypto exchange in the US, afterwards it is sent to Bitso and converted to Mexican pesos. It is a fairly straightforward process, and as mentioned earlier it can be done at a fraction of the cost and time. Currently, with the new product Bitso processes around 2.5% of all US remittances sent to Mexico and this percentage is on target to grow 15% per week. By the end of 2020, Bitso has the objective of

Greystone: History reduced to rubble Barring a successful appeals court challenge by preservationists who have yet to win a single battle, the demolition of historic Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital is expected to be completed by Dec. 10. Gone, but not forgotten, according to the New Jersey Department of Treasury, which is overseeing the controversial $34.4 million demolition and remediation project in Parsippany. A state consultant is undertaking several measures that were identified in consultation with its Historic Preservation Office, according to Treasury spokesperson Joseph Perone. "The documentation will include an enhanced narrative history of the Kirkbride Building based on additional research and large-format photography, which will document all room types and views of the building," Perone told the Daily Record. First, the consultant will prepare Historic American Building Survey documentation for the Kirkbride building, the massive centerpiece of the Greystone campus, where a total of 26 buildings or structures will be razed. Treasury also is working on the development of a website interpreting the history of the property and designs for on-site interpretive signage, according to Perone. The documentation will include an enhanced narrative history of the Kirkbride Building based on additional research and large-format photography, which will document all room types and views of the building. Certain elements of the building will also be preserved, Perone said. "The contractor has had conversations with the Morris County Parks Commission in response to its request to secure certain elements of the Kirkbride Building envelope," Perone said. David Helmer, executive director of the Morris County Park Commission, confirmed those discussions that he said he initiated after learning of the decision to demolish the Kirkbride, a 673,000-square-foot building that once housed thousands of patients beginning in 1876, when it opened as part of a national initiative to revolutionize the humane treatment of the mentally ill. But most of the buildings on the sprawling campus, have fallen into dangerous disrepair and are riddled with toxic substances ranging from mold and lead paint to asbestos, prompting Gov. Chris Christie's administration to move forward with demolition despite public outcry and formal expressions of interest to repurpose the property by developers, some of whom claim to be able to fund the entire project with private funds and tax credits. Treasury awarded the demolition contract in August to the New York-based Northstar Contracting, which has offices in East Hanover. Actual demolition of the Kirkbride began on April 6. Perone confirmed on Friday that Northstar has agreed to donate to the county portions of the Kirkbride including part of the stone veneer, two marble columns from the front of the building and two cast-iron light poles. "The contractors have been very cooperative," Helmer said. Perone added that about 65 percent of the remaining demolition waste, including concrete and masonry, will be recycled on site for use as clean fill, significantly reducing the amount of waste that otherwise would go to a landfill. Schedule of demolition Northstar has not responded to several requests for comment and information about the project, but the Daily Record obtained the demolition schedule through an Open Public Records Act request. That schedule lists a completion date of Dec. 10 for the Kirkbride, and a total project completion date of Feb. 15, 2016, including backfill, seeding of the remediated ground and removal of demolition equipment. Once the project is complete, the state plans to turn over stewardship of the remaining 165 acres of Greystone as open space to Morris county authorities. The land will be formally deeded to the county for $1 once the bonds used to pay for the project are paid. Morris County previously obtained about 300 acres of the original Greystone campus — also for $1 —in 2003, and used it to establish Central Park of Morris County. A new Greystone hospital facility was opened on another portion of the property in 2007. With more of the Kirkbride being demolished every day, the nonprofit group Preserve Greystone, which has led the fight to save the Kirkbride and other historic structures on the campus, continues to criticize the Christie administration for what they term as a failure to recognize the historical significance of Greystone. Preserving its memory simply is not enough, according to Preserve Greystone President John Huebner. "All the markers and websites in the world won't undo what they've done," he said. "We've worked to preserve the real thing, and see it put it to good use. Tangible objects and physical spaces like buildings make history real for people, literally. The Kirkbride building can't be replaced by a website or a marker in the grass. There is no equivalency. It's like the difference between having a book about old cars on your coffee table, or a restored classic car in your driveway."

trends in developing countries; and regarding global numbers more generally. Regarding their own population size, first, it is helpful to summarize a few salient elements of Malthus’ argument in An Essay on the Principle of Population (2004 [1798]). Malthus claimed that while the means of subsistence develop in a linear manner, population grows exponentially. These different tempos reach a critical threshold as productive land is exhausted; a situation of disequilibrium he associated with more developed countries like Britain. Either population growth must thenceforth be reduced through rational means, notably by sexual abstinence, or, if these ‘preventive checks’ fail, more painful ‘positive checks’ will ensue as the unsustainable excess falls victim to famine, disease or war, thereby restoring balance (Malthus 2004). It is hardly surprising that such views should have provoked antagonism. Anti-natalist ideas about curtailing the proliferation of the human species challenged deep-seated traditional beliefs. In raising the specter of excessive numbers, the population question crossed vitalist and religious taboos regarding the sanctity of life and privileging of human life. It challenged Enlightenment ideas about humans’ mastery economists’ views on the engine of prosperity, humanity’s most fundamental ideas about the sacred, life and death, as well as on some of its most enduring identities and rituals regarding the family, marriage and sexuality. Demographic change entails three principal variables: fertility, mortality and migration. All provoke profound ethical questions, especially once the state involves itself biopolitically in their modification. During the 1960s, Malthusianism nevertheless acquired fresh resonance in advanced industrial countries where there was renewed anxiety about a population explosion (Ehrlich 1972, Meadows et al. 1972, Goldsmith and Allen 1972). Despite the post-war baby boom the rate of increase here was relatively modest, but the multiplication of increasing affluence by larger numbers suggested imminent catastrophe. The Malthusian alternative between choosing limits or facing disaster was widely spoken about. New reproductive technologies and feminist challenges to conventional gender roles seemed to make population stabilization more viable, yet the task of restoring equilibrium between population and environment seemed no less difficult given predilections for sustained economic growth. Reducing population nevertheless became integral to an environmental sensibility that mobilized new social movements and found common cause with new left critiques of consumer capitalism (Marcuse 1964, 1972). Limits-to-growth arguments accordingly provided the framework for a radical discourse in which economic and population growth were recognized as mutually reinforcing and equally exponential, thus exceeding the capacities of a finite planet. Restoring balance suggested a fundamental social transformation in which fewer people might use technology creatively to improve the quality of lives sustained by less toil, wasteful consumption or excessive reproduction but enriched by a more harmonious relationship with nature. By 1969 even President Richard Nixon was warning Congress that the domestic pressure of 200 million Americans was threatening democracy and education, privacy and living space, natural resources and the quality of the environment (Nixon 2006, pp. 775, 777). Official reports to both the American (1972) and British (1973) governments advised stabilizing population numbers in the national interest. Yet this antigrowth orientation would shortly fall into abeyance, with the very language of limits or constraint being rejected. On a second level, developed countries express concern about population growth in developing countries, where most increase now occurs. I want to emphasize here the way this concern rebounded to reframe their own views on the population question. On the one hand, radical arguments for controlling fertility in economically advanced nations were complemented by support for population control policies in the global South, where they provoked accusations of racism. My account of population-shaming shows how third-world suspicion about first-world motives rebounded to render the topic uncongenial to democratic publics. On the other hand, while many governments in developing countries still struggle to contain their burgeoning populations (United Nations 2011), new anti-Malthusian discourses in developed countries are helping to reframe their views, thanks to the circulation of transnational discourses through bodies like the United Nations or World Bank and via non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and academic currencies. So even here, the epic story of runaway population growth that formerly galvanized efforts at fertility reduction has become muted: despite regional demographic differences, discursive frameworks are increasingly global and hegemonic. Population-fatalist. These generally recognize that the multiplication of relatively small but expanding ecological footprints in poor countries plus the larger ones imprinted by richer individuals are collectively responsible for exacerbating phenomena like climate change (Wire 2009, O’Neill et al. 2010). As the Living Planet Report 2008 concludes, ‘with the world already in ecological overshoot, continued growth in population and per person footprint is clearly not a sustainable path’ (WWF 2008, p. 29). While such claims suggest that world population numbers are hesitantly being re-problematized

“It wasn’t really possible to score it as a narrative feature,” reveals “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” composer Carter Burwell. Because this latest Western from Joel and Ethan Coen comprises six short vignettes, Burwell couldn’t “establish some theme at the beginning and develop it, and then two hours later tie it together.” Each of the stories are “different in tone,” so a consistent melody “would’ve been completely at odds with the actual structure of the film.” Watch our exclusive video interview above. SEE Tim Blake Nelson (‘The Ballad of Buster Scruggs’) sings, dances and kills, but ‘I could never think of him as a psychopath’ [EXCLUSIVE VIDEO INTERVIEW] Burwell, who has scored all but one of the Coens’ 18 films, tried his level best to find a way that “music could maybe tie it all together” since the directors wanted “Scruggs” to work “as a single film.” With “all the stories being individual, all the characters being individual, and after they shot it all the looks of each chapter being so individual, music was, in a way, the last resort to try to really string it together.” Ultimately, he couldn’t find “something that could appear musically in all six stories.” So instead, he looked at each short on its own. For instance, the second segment, “Near Algodones,” which features James Franco as a would-be bank robber, is shot in the style of a “spaghetti western” with “a great sense of emptiness” in the framing, “so the score also has a sense of emptiness.” Burwell used a “slide guitar with some electronic treatments” to give it a “stripped-down quality” typical of Sergio Leone films. SEE Zoe Kazan on co-writing ‘Wildlife’ and co-starring in ‘The Ballad of Buster Scruggs’: ‘I felt so protective of her’ [EXCLUSIVE VIDEO INTERVIEW] Contrast that to “The Gal Who Got Rattled,” where Zoe Kazan plays a woman experiencing several hardships on a wagon train. “It certainly has the most score,” Burwell explains. “It is the most like a traditional western in that the music is there playing the hopes and dreams of this wagon train heading for Oregon.” He wanted the score “to give you reason to believe that it’s all going to work out for these people, that there is some hope.” Burwell was nominated at the Oscars for scoring “Carol” (2015) and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” (2017), both of which also brought him Golden Globe and Critics Choice nominations. He received additional Globe and Critics Choice bids for “Where the Wild Things Are” (2009). For his work on TV, he won an Emmy for the limited series “Mildred Pierce” (Best Movie/Mini Score in 2011) and also contended for its main title theme music. Be sure to check out how our experts rank this year’s Oscar contenders. Then take a look at the most up-to-date combined odds before you make your own Oscar predictions. Don’t be afraid to jump in now since you can keep changing your predictions until just before nominations are announced on January 22. SIGN UP for Gold Derby’s free newsletter with latest predictions

Although there has been talk of Bad Religion splitting with Greg Hetson for over a year, and recent Bad Religion performances have featured Mike Dimkich in the Hetson slot, the guitarist has officially announced that he has left the band. The guitarist said via Twitter: "As some people noticed I have left Bad Religion. Thanks to everyone for 29 plus years of support." Last May, Bad Religion's Jay Bentley stated "Greg Hetson is dealing with some personal issues. If he wishes to make a statement we will support that, if he chooses not to we will support that. Mike Dimkich is indeed helping us out right now, and we are genuinely appreciative." “bid goodbye to the uncertainty and general state of dread that 2016 will likely be remembered for” and hinted that they will be announcing new tour dates around the release of their album. [JC] LISTEN TO: The Art Of Not Knowing [stream] That By Discord Things Increase [stream] Weathered Eyes [stream] FOLLOW ONLINE: Facebook | Twitter Written by Jon Barlow [JB], Bradley Cassidy [BC], Neil Criddle [NC], Julia Conopo [JC], Callum Griffin [CG], Mike Heath [MH], Zach Redrup [ZR], Andrew Roberts [AR] and Chris Yeoh [CY] > On Saturday, 11 August 2012 at 08:17:13 UTC, Walter Bright wrote: >> No, it ain't much, some of it is jury rigged, and there's a heluva lot more work to do. But we've got liftoff! >> >> ---------- --------- --------- --------- >> import core.stdc.stdio; >> >> extern (C) int main() >> { >> puts("hello world "); >> return 0; >> } >> ---------- --------- --------- --------- >> >> dmd -c -m64 hello.d >> cl hello.obj >> hello >> >> hello world! > > Congratulations! > But the possibility of acceding to generate so files? s King Kong Escapes! The Kong suit isn’t the best, but the movie is so much fun it’s hard to notice or care. It’s clear that Honda, Tsuburaya and co. are Kong fans through and through. Kong shines as a sympathetic, yet utterly primal, untamed and bad-ass monster hero. Even with the addition of a robot clone and James Bond supervillains, it’s no accident that King Kong Escapes hits many of the same story beats and emotional core that the original did. Godzilla might be King of the Monsters now, but he wouldn’t have gotten there if King Kong hadn’t blazed that trail first. My Santa sent me everything I ever wanted, and more! My wishes were something for a modern Solar Flare deck and crap rares... I got both a Life from the Loam and Knight of the Reliquary, with an additional foil Supreme Verdict (not pictured)! Also included was a number of the crappiest rares you could wish for (Yay Hunted Lamasu!). That's not all! The best part of the gift were the lands with miniature alters, needles to say the baloon-reddit-alien-mountain is just perfect! They are very personal, cute, and are just what I think alters should be. Thank you very much Santa, you're the greatest! A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…The events and players are very familiar, but something isn’t quite right. Luke Skywalker valiantly attacks the Death Star, fires his torpedoes and … they miss their mark! Welcome to a Star Wars you never imagined, a Star Wars shattered, where the possibilities are ENDLESS! The first in a series of non-continuity Star Wars stories which are sure to delight fans of all ages. Taking off from the end of events in the movie, readers will follow Luke, Han, Leia, C-3P0, and R2-D2 on a journey every bit as action-packed and fantastic as the original trilogy. DOWNLOAD

Workflows are some of the most powerful tools in the toolbox of any AEM developer, however, due to some questionable UI choices in the TouchUI, they are somewhat buried. To understand why, let’s take a look at the process for starting a workflow from the AEM Assets console: Image credit Ahmed Musallam Which of course leaves our authors wondering… Naturally, we have the option to just deal with the usability challenge and address it with author training, but what if you wanted to extensively use workflows? Making authors use a hard to find feature is going to impinge adoption so how can you improve the user experience without extensively customizing the AEM UI? Sling Resource Merger You’ll notice that the AEM UI components show up under the path /mnt/overlay[path], which means they are actually generated by Sling Resource Merger. This Apache Sling feature generates a merged set of resources based on multiple source paths, in the example of the AEM Assets UI, combining the paths: /apps/dam/gui/content/assets /libs/dam/gui/content/assets The Digital Essentials, Part 3 Developing a robust digital strategy is both a challenge and an opportunity. Part 3 of the Digital Essentials series explores five of the essential technology-driven experiences customers expect, which you may be missing or not fully utilizing. Get the Guide into a single path: /mnt/overlay/dam/gui/content/assets As with most AEM / Sling functionality, Resources under /apps will take precedence over resources under /libs, thus enabling a clean way to override the default AEM UI without making any modifications of /libs. NOTE: Any modification / override will need to be maintained, so keep in mind that during an upgrade the node structure, resource types or attributes may change so keep that in mind when deciding whether or not to overlay a default feature. Step 1: Add the Workflow Action To push the workflow button up in the selections action list, you can copy: /libs/dam/gui/content/assets/jcr:content/actions/selection/create/items/createworkflow to /apps/dam/gui/content/assets/jcr:content/actions/selection/startworkflow and then update the sling:resourceType AND variant attributes to display as a regular action instead of a sub-action. Step 2: Order the Workflow Action By default the new workflow action will be put at the end of the action bar, so let’s have Sling Resource Merger insert the action between before some of the other actions. For example to place the Workflow button before the Extract Archive button, add the attribute: sling:orderBefore=”extractarchive”. When you refresh the Assets UI, you can now see that the button is now directly following the create button: Step 3: Hide Create > Workflow Since we don’t want the same action to be available in multiple places, we can hide the original button by adding a node at: /apps/dam/gui/content/assets/jcr:content/actions/selection/create/items/createworkflow with the property sling:hideResource=true Additionally, to prevent the create button from shifting to the last position, we need to set sling:orderBefore=”startworkflow” on the node: /apps/dam/gui/content/assets/jcr:content/actions/selection/create Try It Yourself I’ve created a ready to go package if you wanted to try the tweak yourself. As noted above, you will need to check across AEM versions. I’ve tested it on 6.4 and 6.5, but even between those versions the icon for workflow has changed. Download the Package I hope this helps you understand how you can use Sling Resource Merger to tweak the AEM UI as well as having some ideas of what impact this can have on your upgrade process.

new probationary cops, a squad of cops will intentionally escalate a situation to the point of physical altercation to see if the probationary cop will engage and go along...if he doesn't...he is in the probationary period and they will see that he is dismissed for "failing to properly engage". Imagine being pulled over for something insignificant and the cop escalates the situation intentionally and you get battered, just to see if a probationary cop will engage--I saw this personally--in this case, the probationary cop was a good guy, a veteran--and got canned because he wouldn't participate in the illegal act. MOST Cops don't want to "protect and serve" the public. I used to think the job made cops the way they are...but I was wrong. The job ATTRACTS a certain type of individual. There was not much difference between the criminals we worked with, and the cops. Cops want to "protect and serve" EACH OTHER. Police work "serves" a purpose for them, for their egos, for their need to control. This causes a strong psychological addiction to the job--and they will do what they have to to "protect" and feed their addiction. Cops see it as a "war"--they have screwed up psyches and believe it is them verses the rest of the world...you could be an innocent little old church lady...but you are not a cop...so you are the enemy...because they believe it is "war" they see themselves on one side and EVERYONE ELSE on the other side. MOST cops are only capable of ALL GOOD or ALL BAD thinking. Cops are ALL good, everyone else is ALL bad. If they arrest a Mexican for stealing...ALL MEXICANS ARE BAD. If they arrest a church deacon for molesting a child...ALL CHRISTIANS AND CHURCH PEOPLE ARE BAD--and cops will treat them as such. BUT--if a cop beats his wife...THEY'LL COVER FOR HIM...BECAUSE HE IS ON THEIR SIDE. Does this make sense?? If you see a cop turn on another cop...it is usually a white cop against a Mexican, black, Christian, cop...because they have had experiencing with "bad" segments of those groups. Good, moral, Christian, Constitution respecting cops--WILL NOT LAST in the job--and if a reason can't be found to fire them--they will never advance beyond patrol officer. They will never become a sergeant or any type of administrator...because somewhere along the line...THEY REFUSED TO LIE FOR ANOTHER COP OR AGAINST A CITIZEN. Both my spouse and I left LE with our heads held high, knowing we would never be advanced or promoted due to our refusal to lie and violate the Constitutional rights of American citizens. We both have bachelors degrees--I have that and an additional undergraduate degree...but individuals who tested lower and had ONLY A HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION are being advanced and given positions of authority over others. Nepotism is also a big problem in LE--cops kids, spouses, nephews, brothers, get hired all over whether or not they are the best candidate. If you're a cop reading this...you need to do the right thing. You need to obey the law and the Constitution no matter what you are taught, how you were trained, and what may happen to you. DO NOT LIE FOR OTHER COPS. DO NOT LIE ABOUT PROBABLE CAUSE. BE A MORAL AND GOOD PERSON. If you are pulled over by a cop or a cop responds to a situation in which you're involved...remember...YOU ARE THE ENEMY, THEY HATE THE CONSTITUTION, AND THEY WILL LIE. KNOW YOUR RIGHTS. KNOW YOUR LOCAL LAWS. KNOW YOUR CONSTITUTION. KNOW THAT IF YOU'RE NOT A COP--MOST COPS SEE YOU AS THE ENEMY-- As ugly as this is...it is the truth. I'm going to drop some truth bombs here. There are going to be a lot of butt hurt cops and LE on here...but that's because they love LE more than they love the Constitution. It is a tough job--no doubt--but there is no excuse for what goes on.I left because I love the Constitution, and I won't lie for other cops, or in court, or to make an arrest or bring a charge. Both my spouse and I care about the public and keeping people safe. We care about people reaching their full potential. We believe everyone makes mistakes (think about being a dumb teen) and it is more important to help people, than to bully them into submission. We also believe there are certain segments of society that cannot be redeemed or reformed and must be imprisoned to keep the public safe

The responses of consumption and prices in Japan to the COVID-19 crisis and the Tohoku earthquake Tsutomu Watanabe It has only been a month since the coronavirus shock emerged in Japan and its full nature is still unclear. This column compares the responses of consumption and prices to the COVID-19 shock and another large-scale natural disaster that hit Japan, the Tohoku earthquake in March 2011. The responses of supermarket sales and prices at a daily frequency during the two crises are quite similar. However, evidence suggests that whereas people expected higher inflation for goods and services in the wake of the earthquake, they expect lower inflation in response to the coronavirus shock, suggesting that the economic deterioration due to COVID-19 should be viewed as driven mainly by an adverse aggregate demand shock to face-to-face service industries such as hotels and leisure, transportation, and retail, rather than as driven by an aggregate supply shock. It has only been a month since the coronavirus shock emerged in Japan and its full nature is still unclear. However, various kinds of data are starting shed some light. In this column, I will outline the features that have come into view and will use these as a starting point to consider the future. Starting with the supply side, since people (=workers) stay at home, they cannot engage in production activities. Of course, some work can be carried out remotely, so that staying at home does not mean that all production activities cease. However, work such as working on a production line in a factory cannot be done remotely since it requires collaboration. Deaths through viral infections mean that the number of workers declines. This happened in the pandemic of a hundred years ago, the Spanish flu, which started in 1918 and ended in 1919. The Spanish flu is thought to have killed 2% of the global population, and deaths were concentrated among those in their prime working years, causing a fall in production. Turning to the demand side, people (=consumers) staying at home leads to a slowdown in consumption activities. For certain types of services, contact with staff or other customers is inevitable. A typical example is entertainment such as watching sports events or going to the movies. Firms that provide such services are diverse and, in terms of conventional categories, belong to industries such as hotels and leisure, transportation, retail, and so on. I will refer to these services collectively as face-to-face (F2F) industries. Another channel through which coronavirus infections can affect aggregate demand is the increase in uncertainty. It is known that when people are faced with serious uncertainty and no one knows what the future holds, they assume the worst and then choose the best action based on this assumption (e.g. Nishimura and Ozaki 2017). In the case of the Spanish flu a hundred years ago, loss of supply capacity also affects wages and prices. According to Barro et al. (2020), the decline in the labour supply due to the pandemic raised prices of goods and services by 20 percentage points at least temporarily. In terms of a recent example for Japan, when the Tohoku earthquake struck in 2011, GDP fell sharply and prices rose. This is another example where the shock to supply was dominant (Watanabe et al. 2015, Carvalho et al. 2016). In contrast, during the 2008 global financial crisis, prices fell along with the decline in GDP in developed countries including Japan. This indicates that the demand shock was dominant. The coronavirus shock is both a supply and a demand shock, but knowing which of these is more salient is a key issue for understanding how the coronavirus affects the economy. What credit card data tell us about current consumption patterns To obtain a first tentative sense of the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, I use various kinds of data from February onward, when the outbreak started to gather pace in Japan, to examine whether the coronavirus shock is primarily a demand or a supply shock. Figure 1 shows how credit card spending in the first half of March differed from the second half of January, just before the coronavirus shock. The red bars show expenditure on services, while the blue bars represent spending on goods. In services, travel spending has fallen substantially by 57% compared to the second half of January, while spending on most other services such as eating out and transportation has also declined. Thus, spending on F2F industries has dropped sharply. An important thing to highlight is that the decline in spending in F2F industries is mainly due to a decline in the number of consumers spending on those services (i.e. the extensive margin) rather than due to a decline in the average of spending on those services per person (i.e. the intensive margin). Turning to spending on goods, on the other hand, spending at supermarkets has increased significantly, reflecting stockpiling. Figure 1 Credit card purchases Source: Nowcast Inc

1877 Half Dollar Pedigrees The following is the most complete listing of these patterns ever attempted. Sources include Armand Chapma's notes, Lester Merkin's 1968 appraisal of the Krouner-Coronet Coin FPL patterns and additional researches by Saul Teichman and the various auction sales noted. Questions or updates to this listing should be sent to me at Saul.Teichman@ey.com I have added estimated grades based on photos I possess or from the auctions they were sold in. Some coins described as choice may be gem. Photo links are provided - click on the Judd / Pollock numbers. Note: Any Judd or Pollock numbers missing from this listing are either unconfirmed or do not exist! Many in the sixth & seventh editions of Judd were misinterpretations of the Scott catalog plates by Kosoff. These include J1509A-C, J1523A-B and J1541A-B, the latter pedigrees in Judd belonging to J1537-J1538 for example from the Scott Catalog although J1537 was mispedigreed and doesn’t exist. At least one example of each of the 44 known varieties listed below was offered between 1993 and 1999 – a first to my knowledge. Many of these patterns are on lightweight planchets leading to the possibility that they are actually copper which has been silver-plated. There are at least 5 or 6 coins of this year which are known to be silver-plated including the Garrett example of J1519. Another possibility for their being lightweight is that they were struck on leftover standard silver planchets from 1870. I believe that these planchets were used on coins struck early in the year. William Barber’s Sailors Head Design J1501/P1654 1) Doughty 4/1891, Reed, Durham Museum – ICG65 dark toned (weighs 192.7 grains not 197.9 grains as in Pollock) 2) Cogan in 1883, Garrett-JHU, Garrett I, M.B. Simons, Sieck-81 ANA, Evans-B/M 8/98 at $26,450, southern collection as NGC64, Simpson collection - PCGS64 J1502/P1655 1) Smithsonian - choice proof 2) Doughty 4/1891, Reed, Durham Museum – ICG63RB with a couple of spots on portrait 3) Lohr, Cox-Stacks 4/62?, 66 ANA, Coronet Coin FPL, Champa, Bass-HWBRF - gem proof mispedigreed in Pollock, the Bass Foundation inventory and the Bowers and Merena Sylloge of the Bass coins. 4) Judd, Numismatic Enterprises 2/66?, Kaplan, Champa-B/R 5/72, Sieck-81 ANA, Tangible Assets (Coin World ad 2/93), Teletrade 3/3/93 as PCGS65RB, ANR 1/05 (not sold) - PCGS66RB 5) Stacks Inventory in 1988, Auction 88 at $5775, Superior 10/89 as PCGS63BN at $9900, Superior 5/90 as PCGS63BN at $6325, Superior 10/91 at $6600 as PCGS64BN, B/M 8/96 (not sold) - PCSG64BN 6) Farouk-Sothebys 2/54, Bergin-Stacks 6/84 - cleaned, lacquered (same as last rehabbed?) 7) Dibello-Stacks 5/70, Queller-Heritage 1/09 at $29,900 as NGC66BN, Simpson-Heritage 9/20 at $20,400 - PCGS65BN, Pollock plate The Numismatic Enterprises 2/66 coin is either #4 or #3; the Lohr, Cox-Stacks 4/62 coin may be #5 if it is not #3 Head of P1664-P1669 appears to be the first Morgan head of this type and was used only on J1503 - J1507 Main Features: Less hair which doesn’t extend beyond cap edge, no initial ‘M’ on neck, first leaf points past ‘R’, third leaf touches letter ‘I’ in Pluribus. To view both obverses click here Note: All described as silver are apparently light in weight! I have not weighed my circulated example. J1503/P1664 1) Maris 6/1886, Garrett-JHU, Garrett I, Fred-B/M 11/95 at $12,650 as PCGS63, K. Goldman as NGC64, Superior 7/03 (not sold), ANR 12/03 (not sold), Heritage 1/19 FUN at $27,600 - NGC

to NRS by 1987, 94, 95; A 1995, 738; 1997, 346; 2007, 2299; 2009, 23) NRS 41.0335 Actions against certain officers and employees of political subdivisions for acts or omissions of other persons. 1. No action may be brought against: (a) A sheriff or county assessor which is based solely upon any act or omission of a deputy; (b) A chief of a police department which is based solely upon any act or omission of an officer of the department; (c) A chief of a fire department which is based solely upon any act or omission of a firefighter or other person called to assist the department; (d) A member of the board of trustees of a county school district, the superintendent of schools of that school district or the principal of a school, which is based solely upon any act or omission of a person volunteering as a crossing guard; or (e) A chief of a local law enforcement agency which is based solely on any act or omission of a person volunteering as a crossing guard. 2. This section does not: (a) Limit the authority of the State or a political subdivision or a public corporation of the State to bring an action on any bond or insurance policy provided pursuant to law for or on behalf of any person who may be aggrieved or wronged. (b) Limit or abridge the jurisdiction of any court to render judgment upon any such bond or insurance policy for the benefit of any person so aggrieved or wronged. (Added to NRS by 1969, 563; A 1987, 216; 1995, 99; 1997, 1584; 2005, 316) NRS 41.0336 Acts or omissions of firefighters or law enforcement officers. A fire department or law enforcement agency is not liable for the negligent acts or omissions of its firefighters or officers or any other persons called to assist it, nor are the individual officers, employees or volunteers thereof, unless: 1. The firefighter, officer or other person made a specific promise or representation to a natural person who relied upon the promise or representation to the person’s detriment; or 2. The conduct of the firefighter, officer or other person affirmatively caused the harm. Ê The provisions of this section are not intended to abrogate the principle of common law that the duty of governmental entities to provide services is a duty owed to the public, not to individual persons. (Added to NRS by 1987, 216; A 2005, 317) NRS 41.03365 Actions concerning equipment or personal property donated in good faith to volunteer fire department. No action may be brought under NRS 41.031 or against an immune contractor or an officer or employee of the State or any of its agencies or political subdivisions for damages caused by any equipment or other personal property that was provided by any of them, in good faith and without charge, to a volunteer fire department for use by the volunteer fire department in carrying out its duties. (Added to NRS by 2003, 329) NRS 41.0337 State or political subdivision to be named party defendant. 1. No tort action arising out of an act or omission within the scope of a person’s public duties or employment may be brought against any present or former: (a) Local judicial officer or state judicial officer; (b) Officer or employee of the State or of any political subdivision; (c) Immune contractor; or (d) State Legislator, Ê unless the State or appropriate political subdivision is named a party defendant under NRS 41.031. 2. No tort action may be brought against a person who is named as a defendant in the action solely because of an alleged act or omission relating to the public duties or employment of any present or former: (a) Local judicial officer or state judicial officer; (b) Officer or employee of the State or of any political subdivision; (c) Immune contractor; or (d) State Legislator, Ê unless the State or appropriate political subdivision is named a party defendant under NRS 41.031. 3. As used in this section: (a) “Local judicial officer” has the meaning ascribed to it in NRS 41.03377. (b) “State judicial officer” has the meaning ascribed to it in NRS 41.03385. (Added to NRS by 1975, 896; A 1977, 481, 1537; 1979, 1731; 1987, 540; 2013, 1494) Legal Representation NRS 41.03375 Definitions. As used in NRS 41.03375 to 41.03473, inclusive, unless the context otherwise requires, the words and terms defined in NRS 41

Perverse Incentives I: The Beltway Bandits [ US & Them I – Us & Them II – Us & Them III – Us & Them IV ] It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” – Upton Sinclair (probably) Empire-Builders The INCB is one of several institutions which labours effectively on behalf of Orwell’s War. They are a UN institution, but they are American in nature, mission, and largely in personnel. I include them with the Beltway Bandits (the DEA, ATF, and company) because they are products of the same US domestic politics, and were originally staffed by US domestic operatives. Their governing mission is inherently bureaucratic: self-perpetuation. As long as the Drug War remains official international policy, they get to sound important and say nice things about a sickening list of human rights abuses around the world: “Time and again, the INCB has simply turned a blind eye to international standards, human rights, science and even basic decency.” Bureaucracies are organisms which eat budgets and seek to survive. No such organism can admit it is wrong easily, let alone admit that the entire rationale for its existence is misguided. As a result, the INCB is currently in a direct confrontation with the sovereign nation of Uruguay, and look likely to be publicly humiliated: President Mujica’s not for turning. Behind all the propaganda and theatrics, the INCB are the international arm of a Beltway empire-building exercise which would have stunned even Nixon had he seen what it would become. I covered the origins of this Napoleonic enterprise when I spoke of Harry Anslinger, but it only starts with him. What mattered is the institutional legacy his personal ambition left behind him, and the way US governmental incentives created a self-feeding war machine. To cover the DEA and its associated support troops I’ll need to go back into Anglinger’s methods. The Guy with the Dogs… Imagine yourself in New Deal Washington in 1937. The members of the committee considering Anslinger’s law are Democrats, and have been fighting against reactionaries like the AMA for years. The nation is in the midst of a tectonic realignment of the relationship between government and citizen, and here in the middle of it is a bill no-one cares about proposed by a major federal figure over the opposition of almost no-one. The bird-seed guys have other options: done. The rope guys have other options: done. The AMA, who’ve opposed lots of New Deal legislation for bad reasons, have a substantive problem; but no-one on the committee gives two hoots what the AMA think any more. And Federal Bureau chief Harry Anslinger has testified that ‘marijuana causes insanity, criminality and death’. Why does he think these things? Well, he has this guy with the dogs. The guy (a pharmacologist at Temple University) testified to Congress and, I quote: … claimed that he had injected the active ingredient in marihuana into the brains of 300 dogs, and two of those dogs had died. When asked by the Congressmen, and I quote, “Doctor, did you choose dogs for the similarity of their reactions to that of humans?” The answer of the pharmacologist was, “I wouldn’t know, I am not a dog psychologist.” The guy with the dogs constituted the whole of the evidence that marijuana should be prohibited. If he’d injected nicotine into the brains of three hundred dogs, a whole lot more than two would have died; why he or anyone else thought that his work was a useful clinical investigation of marijuana use in humans is simply too surreal to contemplate. Since cannabinols would not be isolated in the laboratory until the 1950s, he was also lying, and knew it. Such was the power of Hearst-backed propaganda, and a Beltway bandit with a big budget. And the guy with the dogs didn’t stop there. … who turned into a bat. At Anslinger’s national conference on marijuana in 1938, thirty-nine out of forty-seven delegates recused themselves on the grounds that they had no idea why they’d been invited in the first place. That left Harry Anslinger, his aides, the American Medical Association counsel, and the guy with the dogs. Of those two options it is no surprise that Anslinger appointed the guy with the dogs, James C. Munch, as the FBN’s official expert on marijuana. That led to him being called as an expert witness by defense lawyers in a murder trial who wanted to plead an insanity defense by virtue of marijuana causing insanity, criminality, and death. At that trial, Munch passed from obliging falsehoods to outright fantasy in defense

Boris Johnson has been urged to “fess up” over who paid for his £15,000 luxury Caribbean holiday after a Tory donor denied funding the New Year trip. Labour has warned the Prime Minister that he must announce who stumped up the money for the getaway or else face a parliamentary investigation. The PM and girlfriend Carrie Symonds accepted accommodation for a private holiday in St Vincent and the Grenadines as a post-election victory escape. READ MORE: Boris Johnson's £15,000 Caribbean holiday paid for by Carphone Warehouse founder Mr Johnson’s entry in the Commons’ register of members’ interests recorded that the trip was paid for by Carphone Warehouse co-founder David Ross. But multi-millionaire businessman Mr Ross told the Daily Mail he helped put the Conservative Party leader in touch with companies providing accommodation, but denied fronting up the money or the villa. Labour has called for the PM to provide answers over the trip or else face a parliamentary inquiry. “Boris Johnson must come clean about who has paid for his luxury trip,” said Jon Trickett, the party’s shadow cabinet office minister. “If he fails to do so, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards should step in and make him fess up. Mr Johnson’s entry in the Commons’ register of members’ interests recorded that the trip was paid for by David Ross, but the Carphone Warehouse co-founder denies funding the holiday, stating he only helped arrange it. “The public deserves to know who is paying for their Prime Minister’s jaunts.” Mr Johnson had already faced criticism at the time for failing to cut the festive break short following the break-out of international tensions when the US killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani on January 3. Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry accused Mr Johnson of “sunning himself” while leaving cabinet secretary Mark Sedwill to chair three emergency Cobra meetings about the assassination. In a declaration published on Wednesday, Mr Johnson announced in the MPs’ register that he had accepted “accommodation for a private holiday for my partner and me, value £15,000”. The private holiday lasted from December 26 to January 5, according to the entry in the register, and names Mr Ross as the financial provider. But Mr Ross told the Mail the former London mayor had asked him for help finding accommodation on the island Mustique, where he and his girlfriend reportedly stayed, but that he had not provided the villa. A spokesman for the Grimsby-born businessman, reportedly worth more than £650 million, told the newspaper: “Boris Johnson did not stay in David Ross’s house. “Boris wanted some help to find somewhere in Mustique, David called the company who run all the villas and somebody had dropped out. READ MORE: Boris Johnson to make changes to government ranks “So Boris got the use of a villa that was worth £15,000, but David Ross did not pay any monies whatsoever for this.” The jaunt provided Mr Johnson with a break after the election campaign which produced a Conservative landslide for the first time since the 1980s. A Number 10 spokeswoman said: “All transparency requirements have been followed, as set out in the register of members’ financial interests.”

A new study from the China National Renewable Energy Centre shows that China can rely on renewables for more than 60 percent of its total energy needs, including transportation, by 2050. Electricity could be supplied 85% from renewables and just 7 per cent from coal, writes Bobby Magill of Climate Central. But to achieve these targets, China needs to deregulate its electricity markets. From a climate change perspective, China’s carbon footprint is huge: It consumes nearly as much coal as every other country in the world combined. And it’s the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter. But it may be possible for China to shake most of its reliance on fossil fuels, in part by producing more than 85 percent of its electricity and more than 60 percent of its total energy needs from renewables by 2050, according to a study published Monday. China 2050 High Renewable Energy Penetration Scenario and Roadmap Study China 2050 High Renewable Energy Penetration Scenario and Roadmap Study Showing that it’s feasible for China to fully embrace renewables to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions is critical as it heads into the Paris international climate negotiations in December, and as it works to achieve its emissions reductions goals under the climate pact China and the U.S. struck in November. Under the pact, China agreed to peak its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and increase the use of non-fossil energy by 20 percent. The study, by the China National Renewable Energy Centre and a variety of other Chinese organizations with support from the U.S. Department of Energy, shows China can do a lot more than that. It’s both technologically and economically feasible for China to rely on renewables for more than 60 percent of its total energy needs, including transportation, by 2050, the study says. On the way there, China has the ability to reach the peak of both its fossil fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions by 2025. China in 2050 could get more than 85 percent of its total electricity from renewables, 64 percent of of which could be from wind and solar power. Under that scenario, only 7 percent of its power would come coal after having developed more than 200 gigawatts of electric power storage. “For this target, we need to work together, especially USA and China,” both of which have large populations and big economies, Li Junfeng, director general of China’s National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation, said at a news conference in April announcing the report. Critics in China have said the cost of renewables is too high to achieve those goals, but the high use of renewables in Germany and other European countries shows that China can do it too, Wang Zhongying, director of the China National Renewable Energy Center, said. The environmental and social costs of coal-fired power plants outweigh the costs of developing renewables in China, he said. Many of those social costs are tied to China’s poor air quality, which in Beijing, Shanghai and other major cities, is some of the worst in the world, leading to significant public health problems. Air pollution alone has decreased life expectancy in northern China by 5.5 years, a problem that has led to water contamination and scarcity. The environmental problems connected just to pollution cost China about 3.5 percent of its GDP. Renewables replacing coal-fired power plants will go far to clean up both the air and water in China, Junfeng said. China’s coal consumption could peak before 2025. Credit: China National Renewable Energy Center The Chinese study builds upon the U.S. Department of Energy’s research showing that it’s technically feasible and cost-effective for the U.S. to obtain at least 80 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2050, and that wind can supply 20 percent of U.S. electricity by 2030. “The bottom line is, within the U.S. studies, you can do this,” Samuel Baldwin, Chief Science Officer of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, said. “Within an operational level, the costs are quite reasonable.” Baldwin said that many of the myths about renewables — including that renewables won’t be able to become a major supplier of energy because the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine — can be cost-effectively overcome with technology and electric power system management as different kinds of renewable energy sources can work together to provide a steady stream of energy regardless of the weather or the time of day, he said. That can only happen in China if the country deregulates its electric power market and establishes a competing market by 2025, Zhongying said. If no such power market is established, “there is no hope for our study,�

The boys come up with a brilliant new idea for celebrity guests in season 2 Unless you’ve been living in a very remote place where the internet hasn’t been invented, such as most of the Lizard Peninsula, then you will be well aware that The Grand Tour is returning on 8th December. A big part of last season was the celebrity guests who came to a variety of unfortunate ends, including a failed parachute and being attacked by wild animals. For season 2 though, the boys are under strict instructions to keep their guests alive and well. Meaning they had to come up with an idea for what do with them in the only way they know how. Loading... We are so excited for the return of the show, we can even forgive the boys for dismembering a poor innocent Alfa Romeo 156 in the name of entertainment. The Grand Tour drops on Amazon from December 8th with new episodes weekly. Are you excited for the return of the boys? Let us know in the comments. MOBILE, Ala. -- The Chicago Bears assuaged concerns about the potential departure of offensive coordinator Mike Tice on Monday with an announcement that the coach is no longer in the running for the Oakland Raiders head coaching job. "I would've loved to go through the process," Tice told ESPNChicago.com on Monday night. Scheduled to interview with the Raiders on Tuesday at the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala., Tice received a phone call Sunday night -- according to a league source -- from his agent Jimmy Sexton with news that Oakland decided to move into the second-interview phase of the process, and didn't want to wait until Tuesday to interview the coach. Tice had been vacationing in Florida and California, and during that time the Raiders -- after receiving permission last week to interview the coach -- spoke to two candidates they immediately became interested in taking to the next phase of the process, according to the source. That led to the Raiders calling Sexton to cancel Tice's interview. smoke and dust. I walked on bits of glass. I left Kinan with people in the street and went back into the yard to check on the rest of the family. I found bodies lying on the ground covered in blood, with their clothes torn. Everything was full of shrapnel and blood. Some neighbors came with flashlights. When they lit up the yard, I was shocked – I saw the bodies of my three sons, ‘Abd al-Hafez, Mahdi and Ibrahim, my wife, my granddaughter Dina, and my daughter-in-law Suha. The two other little ones, Rakan and Nur, were lightly injured. I went into shock. The neighbors held me because I couldn’t stand. I felt like I was going to faint from the horror of it. The missile fell on my family with no warning. I assume they wanted to hit ‘Abd al-Hafez, but what did the rest of the family do wrong? Why did they kill an entire family? of cyclones." The results were so different from reigning views that the researchers not only double-checked their calculations, but ran them through 16 separate climate models. While the storms experienced in Balaguru's childhood may have scared him back then, the research they inspired is helping him and other scientists better understand past and future storms. As he said, "There is still room for a lot of discovery when it comes to tropical cyclones." The Stories Behind the Science series takes a look at the process and drama of the research behind a selection of major studies supported by the Department of Energy's Office of Science. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information please visit https://science.energy.gov. Shannon Brescher Shea is a senior writer/editor in the Office of Science, shannon.shea@science.doe.gov.

Triangles will be formed and chemistry will heat up this winter on Glee — and we’re not talking about story arcs involving geometry or science. (As if the students of William McKinley High School actually attend classes in the first place!) TVLine’s intrepid reporters caught up with the cast of Fox’s high-school musical at Sunday’s Television Critics Association bash to get the scoop on what’s in store for several of the show’s power couples: Sebastian and Blaine | While Grant Gustin’s troublemaking Warbler appeared to have his eye on Kurt’s preppy boyfriend in the first half of Season 3, the colder weather will put a chill on their sexually charged interplay. “It’s actually going less in a flirtatious direction [between Blaine and Sebastian], and more of [Sebastian] just being a d***,” says Gustin. “I’m not necessarily trying to split up [Kurt and Blaine].” In other words, don’t be in a rush to put a for-sale sign on Klaine’s chic holiday chalet. ‘There Will Not Be a Glee Spin-off,’ Says Fox Boss — So What About Rachel and the Other Seniors? Artie and a Mystery Lady | “Artie gets some lovin’ in the first episode back,” says Kevin McHale. “He goes after one lady — a current cast member, she’s not a series regular. That narrows it way down. Way down.” While McHale neither confirms nor denies his character will hook up with tone-deaf but increasingly amusing Sugar Motta (Vanessa Lengies), he did admit that Artie’s romantic stock is on the rise in general in 2012, thanks in part to the attention of Cheerios co-captain Becky. “She wants her some Artie,” teases McHale. Will and Emma | News of Will proposing to Emma in next Tuesday’s episode has been widely reported, but what prompts him to get down on bended knee? “I’m trying to not give away things, but Emma basically lets Will know that she’s ready to move forward,” says Jayma Mays. That said, don’t bet your entire bank account that Miss Pillsbury will be interviewing wedding planners before the school year is out. “There could be many reasons” that Emma might turn down Will, says Mays, adding that the title of the episode, “Yes/No,” is an apt one. “We wanted it to be a bit ambiguous because they do touch on some issues they have been pondering for each other. They’re being very mature.” Sam and Mercedes | “Right now there’s a love triangle going on,” says Chord Overstreet of his character returning to McKinley to find Mercedes paired with towering football star Shane. “I don’t know where it’s going, but I’m having fun.” Mike and Tina | “Mike and Tina did have a little fight [during the fall],” says Harry Shum, Jr., acknowledging Mike’s fury at Tina confronting his father, “but now it’s good.” Looks like in this case, the end — Mr. Chang getting on board with Mike’s dancing dreams — justified the means. Kurt and Blaine | Look for Kurt to sing “Ben” to Blaine in Glee‘s upcoming Michael Jackson tribute episode. “I have no idea [why it was chosen], but I know it was voted the worst song in history by some group,” says Chris Colfer. “[The song] was about a rat, but we’re singing it about Kurt’s boyfriend. I’m not sure what the connection is!” Alas, though, the chorus doesn’t find a lyric change from “Ben” to “Blaine.” “That would have been clever, though,” reasons Colfer. Kurt and Karofsky | Colfer says he’s betting that Max Adler’s homophobic-bully-turned-gay-bar-enthusiast will return before the season is over. “I love that character,” Colfer says. “I love that he’s kind of like a good guy now.” Brittany and Santana | While some fans have expressed dismay that Brittany and Santana have yet to seal their romance with a kiss, costar Jane Lynch says

In 2013, sub-Saharan Africa had a deficit of an estimated 1.8 million health workers, according to a WHO report—this deficit is projected to rise to 4.3 million by 2035. There are a number of reasons for the shortfall, including a lack of funding for education and training, international migration and career changes among health workers, illness, premature retirement, and even premature deaths. But one reason is particularly glaring: The inadequacy of the region’s current healthcare education system. Currently, there are only 170 medical schools serving the 47 countries of sub-Saharan Africa. Of those countries, 6 have no medical schools, and 20 have only one medical school. Beyond the shortage of available health workers there is also a problem of access, with significant disparities between urban and rural areas. At the top, a small minority receives care that rivals that of higher income countries, and a somewhat larger minority of urban dwellers enjoys access to hospital care. But because the majority of rural communities lack both health workers and infrastructure, many patients bypass essential primary or preventative care. If they’re able to pay for it, rural residents may attempt access care at hospitals. But without a comprehensive primary care infrastructure, many must rely on local chemists or traditional healers. Even where health workers are available, facilities can be short-staffed, with poor continuing-education training and few opportunities for professional development. “The workload is too much. We have many patients and staff is not enough. The equipment is not adequate. There are no materials to work with,” says one midwife in a functional primary care facility in Nigeria. She went on “These make us want to transfer to a hospital where they have more staff.” But the same problems affect hospitals in urban areas. According to Dr. Remi Oyedeji, a specialist working in a Nigerian hospital: “The poor state of the primary care centers puts a heavy burden on the specialist facilities.” He added, “The bulk of patients are seen at specialist hospitals, which leaves patients who really need specialist attention without the timely care they need.” Clearly, revamping these systems so they might sufficiently cover the growing demands of universal primary care, a goal of many countries in the region, is a tall order. Improving the quality of health care will not only require efforts to improve the overall number of health workers, but also strategic action dedicated to improving distribution channels, infrastructure, and bolstering continuing-education. These challenges are now receiving more attention, with plans to improve the governance and education of human resources for health organizations at national and sub-regional levels. As part of that effort, in February 2015 General Electric was selected by the Kenyan government to serve as a key technology partner in the massive healthcare transformation for Kenya and East Africa. GE plans to launch the new Kenyan GE Healthcare Skills and Training Institute, which will offer biomedical and clinical applications training courses and, at a later date, leadership, technical and clinical education courses. It expects to train over 1,000 healthcare professionals over the next 3 years. “By increasing access to preventative screenings, we aim to aid doctors in better detecting, diagnosing and treating non-communicable diseases, including cancer and cardiovascular disease, at an early stage,” said Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Health, James Macharia. He went on, “This has the potential to significantly reduce costs associated with late-stage diagnosis and also improve patient outcomes, enabling citizens to live fuller and healthier lives.” The Skills Institute is part of a broader three year, $100M investment in healthcare education by GE in the Eastern and African Growth Markets region. The project is aimed at supporting knowledge-sharing and capacity-building across East Africa, and will progress from an initial focus on skills and training, to leadership and technical development courses. Large-scale public-private partnerships like these represent the kind of ongoing commitment to healthcare needed to help reduce the sub-Saharan’s worker shortage. Ultimately, they are driving a burgeoning systemic transformation that will go far in helping reduce the health worker skills gap, improve overall job prospects and build both a sustainable national healthcare system and private healthcare sector. This article was produced on behalf of GE by the Quartz marketing team and not by the Quartz editorial staff.

The former public officer of Australia's oldest and richest Aboriginal land trust has pleaded guilty to stealing close to $500,000 from the beneficiaries of the trust, while another $33.5 million of trust funds remain unaccounted for. Key points: The guilty plea related to theft of property from Groote Eylandt Aboriginal Trust beneficiaries The guilty plea related to theft of property from Groote Eylandt Aboriginal Trust beneficiaries The money was spent on vehicles, boats, quad bikes, and cash payments to a friend The money was spent on vehicles, boats, quad bikes, and cash payments to a friend Ms Lalara's sentence is expected to be handed down next week Rosalie Lalara, 59, pleaded guilty in the Northern Territory Supreme Court to stealing property from the beneficiaries of the Groote Eylandt Aboriginal Trust (GEAT) to the value of $475,000 in the space of approximately 12 months beginning in June 2011. Agreed facts read to the court on Tuesday revealed Ms Lalara, who was the public officer of GEAT from 2011 to 2013, spent the trust money on multiple four-wheel drives, boats, quad bikes and trailers. There were also cash payments to a close friend, Ben Tamwoy, who was not a beneficiary of GEAT and so was not entitled to benefit from the Trust's money. The agreed facts detailed eight trips Ms Lalara and Mr Tamwoy made to car and boat yards in Cairns and Darwin between 2011 and 2012 where Ms Lalara purchased up to 15 boats at a time with trust money. While the majority of boats made their way to beneficiaries on Groote and Bickerton islands, in total 12 vehicles bought by Ms Lalara were given to Mr Tamwoy or his friends based in Queensland, none of whom were beneficiaries of GEAT. Prosecutor Damien Jones told the court on Tuesday, Ms Lalara's motivation for stealing from the trust was "purely personal … that is to ingratiate yourself with Mr Tamwoy and his family". "She is bestowing him with lavish gifts — boats, cars, quad bikes," Mr Jones said. He added even a rugby league club he was "sort of associated with", the Injinoo Crocs, was given $14,000. In April 2012, Ms Lalara bought 11 boats at a total cost of about $429,000. The largest of these, a Surtees Silver Bullet worth $79,000 and a dinghy valued at $35,000, were given to Mr Tamwoy. The other nine boats purchased by Ms Lalara were never collected. Ms Lalara's lawyer Marty Aust pointed out $400,000 worth of goods bought by Ms Lalara had been reclaimed by GEAT's lawyers and police, although their resale raised just $67,800, according to court documents. Got a confidential news tip? Email ABC Investigations at investigations@abc.net.au For more sensitive information: Text message using the Signal phone app +61 436 369 072 No system is 100 per cent secure, but the Signal app uses end-to-end encryption and can protect your identity. Please read the terms and conditions. The lawyer said Mr Tamwoy had told Ms Lalara he would come to Groote and act as role model to young men in the community. Mr Aust claimed there was "never a romantic relationship" between Ms Lalara and Mr Tamwoy. He said when "angry mobs turned up at her house screaming and chanting and wanting her blood", Ms Lalara turned to Mr Tamwoy for support. The ABC reported in November 2015 that $34 million of GEAT money was spent between 2011 and 2013. Much of this was spent on beneficiaries of GEAT but poor record-keeping means there is little evidence of exactly where and to whom the money went. What is GEAT and why is it so rich? In the 1960s the traditional Aboriginal owners of Groote and Bickerton islands, off the coast of Arnhem Land, signed a royalty agreement with mining company BHP. It was the first agreement of its kind in Australia between Aboriginal people and a mining company. Groote Eylandt's manganese mine — now owned by South32, a subsidiary of BHP — pays tens of millions of dollars a year in royalties to the beneficiaries of GEAT. Groote and Bickerton islands often appear in lists of the richest postcodes in Australia. The small population of the two islands and large royalty payments over 50 years make the Aboriginal beneficiaries of GEAT wealthy individuals, on paper. But despite the hundreds of millions of dollars paid into GEAT for the benefit of the community, education and health outcomes on the islands remain poor. The prosecution submitted a victim impact statement on behalf of "

In his speech after the shooting at a community college in Oregon in which nine people died and seven were injured, US president Barack Obama acknowledged that the failure to pass meaningful gun laws has been the most frustrating and disappointing aspect of his entire presidency. He contrasted the US to Great Britain and Australia, noting that America was the only developed nation that had failed to pass “common sense gun safety laws – even in the face of repeated mass killings”. ADVERTISEMENT We know that other countries, in response to one mass shooting, have been able to craft laws that almost eliminate mass shootings. Friends of ours, allies of ours – Great Britain, Australia, countries like ours. So we know there are ways to prevent it. In the stark light of this judgement, it is worth revisiting what laws were introduced in Australia and Great Britain, what worked, and why. 1996 – a deadly year Both countries acted decisively after mass shooting outrages in 1996, although in neither case was the critical incident the first spree killing the country had experienced. In March that year, an embittered lone gun man entered a school in Dunblane, Scotland, armed with four handguns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. He killed 16 five and six-year-old children, a teacher and then himself. In Port Arthur, Tasmania, some six weeks later, a young man with learning difficulties and two semi-automatic rifles killed 35 people. John Howard, then Australia’s newly elected prime minister, moved rapidly in the wake of the Port Arthur shooting, agreeing a new set of gun control policies for adoption by the federal government and the eight states and territories of Australia. Proposals included: A ban on semi-automatic rifles and pump-action shotguns (importation, ownership, sale, possession, manufacture or use). A firearm “buyback” scheme compensating gun owners for any prohibited firearms surrendered. Comprehensive firearm registration and gun owner licensing. A requirement that all gun licence applicants prove a “genuine reason” for owning a firearm. Secure firearm storage. Uniform national gun laws. Over one million firearms, almost a third of the civilian gun stock, were surrendered over the following decade. ADVERTISEMENT In Great Britain, although a judicial inquiry, The Cullen Report came to a cautious and measured compromise proposal, this was swept away by a strong tide of national opinion favouring a handgun ban. This led the outgoing Conservative government of John Major to prohibit all handguns down to.22 calibre and the incoming New Labour government under Tony Blair to prohibit even these smaller calibre weapons, via amendments to the 1968 Firearms Act. But, in each case, this was not the end of the story. What happened in Australia In both countries, the new gun control laws ultimately made substantial contributions to public safety and a declining profile of firearm related violence (homicide and suicide). But the impact of the new laws was neither simple and direct, nor immediate. ADVERTISEMENT As the first graph below shows, the proportion of Australian homicides committed with firearms had been tracking downwards prior to 1996 as some states implemented tougher regulations in the wake of earlier shooting outrages. Author provided ADVERTISEMENT The 1996 legislation contributed to the falling trend in Australian violence but for a few years after 1996, violence involving illegal, never-licensed handguns, often in the possession of drug and biker gangs, and semi-organised criminals, surfaced as a problem. But with semi-automatic rifles out of the picture, the police were better able to focus upon the criminal handgun problem. Since the new laws, Australia has experienced no further mass shootings. There is no internationally agreed definition of a mass shooting, but the FBI uses a threshold of four fatalities. Britain struggled with ‘junk guns’ A similar set of issues surfaced in Britain. For the four years following the 1997-8 handgun bans, apparent crime involving handguns seemed to double, as the second graph below shows. UK Home Office., Author provided ADVERTISEMENT Several things were happening at once. First, the 1980s and 90s saw a significant upturn in gang-related activity in the UK. Many of the new young gangsters were using replica, air-weapon and imitation firearms as part of their “threat”. At the time police chiefs began referring to replica, air and BB guns as “fashion accessories”. There was also an influx of significant numbers of converted and reactivated weapons from eastern Europe. Ultimately, as the more disaggregated gun violence trends in the graph reveal, Britain was develop a unique “junk gun” economy. British law enforcement was also undergoing a steep learning curve in terms of understanding and responding to gun violence. The 2006 Violent Crime Reduction Act addressed the availability and misuse of these air weapons and imitation guns allowing police, who

Reserve Bank of New York (where the bulk of the world’s monetary gold was stored at the time). That is, if only people could have found a way to shift the gold from one country to another, the depression of the 1930s would not have been so great. Fourth, economists blame the gold standard for sustaining and deepening the Great Depression. What makes this view most compelling is the fact that the sooner a country left the gold standard and regained discretionary control of its monetary policy, the faster it recovered. The contrast between Sweden and France is striking. Sweden left gold in 1931, and by 1936 its industrial production was 14 percent higher than its 1929 level. France waited until 1936 to leave, at which point its industrial production was fully 26 percent below the level just 7 years earlier (see here and here.) Similarly, when the U.S. suspended gold convertibility in March 1933—allowing the dollar to depreciate substantially—the financial and economic impact was immediate: deflation turned to inflation, lowering the real interest rate, boosting asset prices, and triggering one of the most powerful U.S. cyclical upturns (see, for example, Romer). Turning to financial stability, the gold standard limits one of the most powerful tools for halting bank panics: the central bank’s authority to act as lender of last resort. It was the absence of this function during the Panic of 1907 that was the primary impetus for the creation of the Federal Reserve System. Yet, under a gold standard, the availability of gold limits the scope for expanding central bank liabilities. Thus, had the Fed been on a strict gold standard in the fall of 2008—when Lehman failed—the constraint on its ability to lend could again have led to a collapse of the financial system and a second Great Depression. Finally, because the supply of gold is finite, the quantity available to the central bank likely will grow more slowly than the real economy. As a result, over long periods—say, a decade or more—we would expect deflation. While (in theory) labor, debt and other contracts can be arranged so that the economy will adjust smoothly to steady, long-term deflation, recent experience (including that with negative nominal interest rates) makes us skeptical. This brings us back to where we started. Under a gold standard, inflation, growth and the financial system are all less stable. There are more recessions, larger swings in consumer prices and more banking crises. When things go wrong in one part of the world, the distress will be transmitted more quickly and completely to others. In short, re-creating a gold standard would be a colossal mistake.

The Canada Revenue Agency has launched a new snitch line for ratting out people who funnel money offshore to dodge taxes, with cash rewards promised for successful tips. People ready to inform on offshore tax cheats can call as of today, Revenue Minister Kerry-Lynne Findlay announced, and if the tip pans out, receive a reward of between five and 15 per cent of the cash collected. “This will be a critical tool for recovering taxes that might otherwise be lost to tax cheats,” Findlay said at a news conference Wednesday in Vancouver, almost 10 months after the government announced in its last budget that it would create the hotline. The Offshore Tax Informant Program, as it's known, has strict conditions: It only offers rewards where the tax cheater owes more than $100,000 to the federal government, not including interest or penalties. The unpaid taxes must arise internationally, from accounts or assets held outside Canada. To ensure no one profits from a crime they committed, people convicted of tax evasion can’t report information related to their own case. Even if a tip is successful, the CRA admits "it may take several years" before informants receive any cash. That's because the agency will only hand out a reward once all avenues of appeal have been exhausted by the tax cheater who was snitched on. Anyone in the world can call. There’s a toll-free line in North America and tipsters can call collect. U.S. banker got $104M snitch reward The reward for snitching someone out ranges from five to 15 per cent of the taxes the CRA ultimately collects, depending on the quality and relevance of the tipster's information and how co-operative they are with the revenue agency. Lawyer Jonathan Garbutt, who helps wealthy clients move money offshore using methods he affirms are legal, said the new snitch line wasn't well planned and the CRA will be inundated with bogus claims. “I have zero confidence in the CRA to sort the gold from the sewage,” Garbutt said. “They're going to waste a lot of time, money and effort on a program that's just going to be more hassle than it's probably worth.” For years, other countries have rewarded people who snitch on tax cheats. The United States has had the legal authority to pay for tax tips since the 19th century. It spent a decade finessing its process and in 2006 upped the rewards to 15 to 30 per cent of the tax windfall it recovers. It only solicits serious cases with strong evidence. In what is thought to be the biggest such reward in U.S. history, former Swiss banker Brad Birkenfeld received $104 million for ratting out his former employer, UBS, and helping authorities go after the bank's clients for tax evasion. Canada's revenue minister says she’s confident the CRA can handle the influx of calls and will readjust if it can’t. “If it means we need to have some more people or repurpose some employees or whatever, there's flexibility to do that as we go along,” Findlay said. Rejected tips in past The new Canadian hotline is part of a government campaign with $15 million in new money over five years to beef up the fight against international tax cheats. Every year in Canada it’s estimated up to $8 billion in tax revenue is lost because of money stashed offshore. The CRA has been approached in the past by whistleblowers with scads information on Canadians with money stashed in secret offshore accounts. But in both known large cases — a leak of data from a Liechtenstein bank in 2007 and last year's leak of offshore financial records — the informants sought rewards and the revenue agency had to turn them away due to its then-policy of not paying for tax-evasion tips. The CRA eventually got the leaked data in those cases from its partner tax agencies in other countries. The new tip hotline comes at a time when the CRA is facing huge cuts: It's losing more than 2,500 staff and its budget will shrink by $259 million by 2018. The agency has cut 37 offshore auditor jobs since 2008-2009 but says those positions were simply moved to another department. Liberal Senator Percy Downe, who has repeatedly called the government soft on offshore tax evasion, pointed to a recent auditor general’s report that raised concerns about the CRA’s ability to handle the increasing influx of offshore tax intel. “What is the point of giving CRA more information if they do not have the resources to make use of it? The government needs to reverse its cuts at CRA,” Downe said in a statement. Tipsters can call the Canada Revenue Agency's new offshore hotline at 613

managers were accused: Matthieu Tenenbaum, who was deputy director of Renault's electric-vehicle program; Michel Balthazard, who was a member of the Renault management board; and Bertrand Rochette, a subordinate of Balthazard who was responsible for pilot projects. Various media reports — mostly from Le Figaro — claim that the State Grid Corporation of China opened bank accounts for two of the three managers (it is unknown which two). Money was allegedly wired through Malta, and Renault's investigators found deposits of 500,000 euros (about $665,000) and 130,000 euros (about $175,000) respectively in Swiss and Liechtenstein bank accounts. Assuming this is true, it is still unclear what the money was for. Given that the three executives had positions close to the electric-vehicle program, it seems that some related technology was the target. Patrick Pelata, Renault's chief operating officer, said that "not the smallest nugget of technical or strategic information on the innovation plan has filtered out of the enterprise." In other words, Renault uncovered the operation before any technology was leaked — or it is intentionally trying to downplay the damage done in order to reassure investors and protect stock prices. But Pelata also called the operation "a system organized to collect economic, technological and strategic information to serve interests abroad." Renault is convinced a foreign entity was involved in a sophisticated intelligence operation against the company. The question is, what foreign entity? On Jan. 13, Renault filed an official complaint with French authorities, saying it was the victim of organized industrial espionage, among other things, committed by "persons unknown." French Industry Minister Eric Besson clarified Jan. 14 that there was no information to suggest Chinese involvement in the case, though he previously said France was facing "economic war," presuming that the culprits came from outside France. The source for the original rumors of Chinese involvement is unclear, but the French clearly backed away from the accusation, especially after Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei called the accusation "baseless and irresponsible" on Jan. 11 (of course, even if the Chinese were the culprits they would certainly not admit it). The Chinese have definitely targeted energy-efficient motor vehicle technology in the past, in addition to the Ford and GM cases, and Renault itself is no stranger to industrial espionage activities. In 2007, Li Li Whuang was charged with breach of trust and fraudulent access to a computer system while working as a trainee at Valeo, a French automotive components manufacturer, in 2005. The 24-year-old was studying in Paris when she was offered the trainee position at Valeo. Investigators found files on her computer related to a project with BMW and another with Renault. The new Renault case, however, is very different from most Chinese espionage cases. First, it involved recruiting three French nationals with no ethnic ties to China, rather than first-generation Chinese. Second, the alleged payments to two of three Renault employees were much larger than Chinese agents usually receive, even those who are not ethnic Chinese. The one notable exception is the case of Larry Chin, who is believed to have received more than $1 million in the 30 years he spied for China as a translator for U.S. intelligence services. Renault executives would also be paid as much or more in salaries than what was found in these bank accounts, though we don't know if more money was transferred in and out of the accounts. This may not be unprecedented, however; STRATFOR sources have reported being offered many millions of dollars to work for the Chinese government. Another problem is the alleged use of a Chinese state-owned company to funnel payments to the Renault executives. Using a company traceable not only to China but to the government itself is a huge error in tradecraft. This is not likely a mistake that the Chinese intelligence services would make. In Chin's case, all payments were made in cash and were exchanged in careful meetings outside the United States, in places where there was no surveillance. Thus, STRATFOR doubts that the Renault theft was perpetrated by the Chinese. The leak suggesting otherwise was likely an assumption based on China's frequent involvement in industrial espionage. Still, it could be a sign of new methods in Chinese spycraft.The Shriver and Renault cases could suggest that some Chinese intelligence operations are so sophisticated that counterintelligence officers are unaware of their activities. They could mean that the Chinese are recruiting higher-level sources and offering them large sums of money. Chin, who got his start working for the U.S. Army during the Korean War, remained undetected until 1985, when a defector exposed him. There may be others who are just as well hidden. However, according to STRATFOR sources, including current and former counterintelligence officers, the vast majority of Chinese espionage operations are perpetrated at low levels by untrained agents. There is little indication that the Chinese have switched from the high-quantity, low-quality mosaic intelligence method, and cyber-espionage activities such as hacking Google demonstrate that the

The zoot suits. The neatly pressed skirt suits with matching pillbox hats and sensible court shoes. The gloves, the handkerchiefs, the reinforced cardboard suitcases (also known as “grips”) and the fixed, toothy smiles. More often than not, when people talk of the arrival of black people on British shores, the narrative includes some or indeed all of the above. They almost always mention the following, too: Tilbury docks, Essex, 22 June 1948; the Empire Windrush; the West Indies and calypso music. Sometimes, the storyteller might mention the fact that the ship’s passenger list held the names of 490 men and only two women (there was a stowaway, whose fare was paid for by a ship-wide whipround). The arrival of the Empire Windrush was an important event not only for much of West Indian life in this country, but for British society itself – without it, what would the UK look like today? But while this story, retold every October for Black History Month, is a part of the rich history of black people in the UK, it is by no means the whole story. There has been a black presence in the UK since the construction of Hadrian’s Wall (which began in AD 122) – a fact long overlooked. Now the organisers of an exhibition at the recently opened Black Cultural Archives (in Windrush Square in Brixton, south London) are hoping to skewer some myths regarding black life in the British Isles. The archives’ inaugural exhibition, Re-imagine: Black Women in Britain, has brought together a number of black women who made the country their home over the centuries. The stories of these women and their contributions to British life are a necessary corrective to the idea that we are somehow “new” to Britain. Consider Mary Prince, an enslaved woman from Bermuda – whose personal account of slavery was published in 1831, and was the first account of the life of a black woman in Britain. “I have been a slave myself,” she wrote. “The man that says slaves be quite happy in slavery – that they don’t want to be free – that man is either ignorant or a lying person. I never heard a slave say so.” She eventually lived and worked at the home of the Scottish writer Thomas Pringle, secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society. Adelaide Hall, who in 1941 became Britain’s highest-paid female entertainer. Photograph: Museum of the City of New York/Archive Photos/Getty The exhibition features some well-known women: Crimean war nurse Mary Seacole, entertainer Adelaide Hall (who in 1941 replaced Gracie Fields as Britain’s highest-paid female entertainer) and justice campaigner Lady Lawrence among them. But it also has non-household names and stories. From slavery to the upper echelons of English society, across the naval service and the entertainment industry and in social and political activism, these women have left their mark. Dr Suzanne Scafe, reader in Caribbean and postcolonial literature at London South Bank University has published several essays on black British women’s autobiographical writing. She suggests that the exhibition should act as a trigger for the visitor: the aim is to pique interest that will inspire further digging. “It prompts you to think about other stories,” she says. “I think no exhibition can be fully comprehensive. The purpose is really just to make a statement of our presence. It is important for people to recognise that Britain has always been a mixed society, that black women have always played a role in this society. I think it does that.” A few of the women who could use a higher profile are the activist and publisher Jessica Huntley, who was also involved in the Black Parents Movement, and Claudia Jones, often described as the mother of the Notting Hill Carnival. There’s also the story of Seaman William Brown, which all but cries out for a film to be made: she was the first black woman to serve in the Royal Navy (the Annual Register 1815 remarked that “her features are rather handsome for a black”). One of the women who left a huge legacy is Olive Morris, a Lambeth-based community organiser and activist whose name remains stubbornly unknown. She was born in Jamaica in 1952 and died in 1979, but in her short years achieved a staggering amount: she co-founded the Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent and the Brixton Black Women’s Group. By the time she died of a non-Hodgkin lymphoma at the age of 27, she had also helped set up, in the city where she went to university, the Manchester Black Women’s Co-operative and the Brixton Law Centre, and was active in the Black Panther movement, too.

JS: Go ahead, it’s fine. JM: And they created a school for these new incoming people, an optimistic sort of 70s school. There was a lot of high taxes, but everybody there had kids. You just didn’t move there without kids. The houses were kind of big, they weren’t big by modern standards, but they were big by 1960s, 1970s standards. They weren’t ranches. They had an upstairs. And a lot of the families didn’t have a lot of money, but had a few kids. So, you couldn’t live in Princeton — you couldn’t afford that — and you wanted to live in a neighborhood… not just farm houses. So, that’s what everybody did. Everyone in my neighborhood was from somewhere else. A lot of the things that I didn’t understand about American suburbia, I learned from watching television and movies later. JS: My parents moved us from Brooklyn to Long Island when I was 9 years old. To Woodmere. Part of what’s called the “five towns” on the South Shore. I never felt like I fit in Long Island. I never felt like I belonged there. Did you feel like you belonged where you grew up? JM: I didn’t feel like I didn’t belong there. I felt there might be a fictitious place where I belonged. But I was born and raised in one town — I never moved. And I have a very male fear of change. And so I kind of just thought I would just live there forever. I didn’t really think it through. I just was very emotionally attached to my house. And through that town I kind of learned about the passage of time: how a place is not the same place. I didn’t go to college after high school. Everyone in my school for the most part without exception went… it was a very exceptional thing not to go to college. It was just what the school was for. It was a really great public school kicking ass of the private schools. People were really well-prepared for academics. They were not necessarily prepared for college, socially, but they were prepared for academics. JS: And so, growing up in this town and you’re fascinated by sound. JM: My brother had records, my sister had records. I just always kind of liked what they liked. My brother listened to classic rock with a heavy prog rock leaning. So, if you look up there I have a huge Yes collection. I deeply love Yes. JS: A lot of kids, including myself were into Yes growing up. I saw them live a few times. JM: It’s a funny thing with Yes… There’s always two bands in the world: the kind of psychic image that we’ve created of a band, that was almost universally shared. Yes is a band where you say it and the people who don’t really listen to Yes have the same vision of them in a kind of pompous hyper-ornate bubble. But there’s also a different band in there that I think is really great. JS: They were actually cool at the time when they first came out. Everyone thought it was cool. It wasn’t uncool till a bit later on. JM: Yeah, exactly. It wasn’t uncool at all. I think they suffered a punk rock backlash. They definitely got hit. JS: So, you’re listening to your brother’s record collection … JM: Yeah… But what he also had, was David Live, the David Bowie record. And I thought that cover was really scary, because I remember that age when I was afraid of stuff — I was afraid of Star Trek. The intro to Star Trek just scared me. I didn’t want to watch it. I was afraid of the Sleestak from Land of the Lost. And I was afraid of the David Bowie cover. JS: Did he have other David Bowie albums? JM: I think he had that and Changesonebowie. JS: The greatest hits. JM: Yes. He wasn’t buying Ziggy and stuff like that. He was kind of a jock. But I remember because I’m born in 1970, and it was 1977 when punk rock is happening when I’m seven years old, and it’s not a thing to me. And my brother is like, “You know people talk about punk rock all the time, well that’s the first punk rocker.” He’s 16 and sort of angry at punk rock, as of course punk rock is coming to destroy the rest of his records except for David

VR on the Mind The technology for virtual reality (VR) has been growing in leaps and bounds over the past few years. From teaching us chemistry to helping us design cars, the virtual world is becoming more and more dominant in our everyday lives. However, VR is still hampered by the necessity for users to wear clunky headsets and possibly other gear. While these are becoming more user friendly, we wanted to know when we will be able to bypass all that equipment to simply connect VR to our minds directly. We asked Futurism readers what they thought and got a range of predictions. The decade with the most votes was the 2030s, taking 36 percent of readers’ votes. One such vote came from Kevin Kealey, who noted our progress in mapping the human brain and predicted this knowledge would soon allow VR techs to place electron inputs and outputs in the right places. “[T]he whole brain will be mapped and fully understood very soon,” Kealey commented. “We know where emotions come from. We know how to control them. We know most invasive techniques to place things within the body.” While we still have a long way to go before we truly comprehend the complexity of the human brain, we are making progress in mapping it — even using VR to help get the job done. What The Experts Have to Say These guesses aren’t too different from some that are coming from experts in the field. For example, Dan Cook, founder of EyeMynd BrainwaveVR, has been working on tech that will allow users to interact in VR using their brainwaves — no headset or controller needed. “Ten years from now, this will seem obvious,” Cook said in an interview with the Guardian. “Computers are becoming fast enough that we can detect and interpret all the signals of the brain in real time.” Cook bases his technology off of the principles we observe when people dream. The mind can “see” and “hear” without using eyes or ears, and we should be able to harness that neurological ability, Cook argues. Others in the field are more skeptical about the state of brain-computer interface (BCI) technology. An international group of researchers determined that methods for interacting with virtual environments through our thoughts “remain in their infancy,” as they wrote in a study published in Computer. “Major research challenges must be tackled for BCIs to mature into an established means of communication for VR applications,” the researchers concluded in the paper. While we may have to wait a number of years before we can enjoy a virtual world sans headset, companies are continuing to invest in BCI and VR technology. Who knows where the science will be by the time they finally release Magic Leap. See all of the Futurism predictions and make your own predictions here.

Unseated Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has spoken to RT in her first TV interview since being suspended from office by the country’s Senate. She says that the old Brazilian oligarchy is behind the impeachment process, and vows to fight the “coup.” RT: Hello and welcome to The Interview. Today we undoubtedly have a very special program, as we have the great honor to interview the President of Brazil, Madam Dilma Rousseff. She’s going through a difficult time now, and it’s a difficult time for Brazil as well. Madam President, thank you very much. I’d like to thank you for your time and for the trust you have in RT – thank you so much. Dilma Rousseff: Thank you for giving me this opportunity to address the Russian people. RT: Before we start talking exclusively about political issues, my first question, if I may, is more personal. Currently you’re staying at the Alvorada Palace, in exile of sorts in your own county. How do you feel about that? I’m asking because many Brazilians are asking me this question in the streets. They want to know how you feel and whether you feel strong enough at this difficult hour. Read more DR: I’m fairly optimistic. I keep fighting not only to remain President, but also – and first and foremost – for the democratic rights in my country. To tell you the truth, I don’t intend to stay cooped up in my official residence, the Alvorada Palace. I want to go to many Brazilian cities and meet many people. This way I can tell Brazil, and maybe even the entire world, about what’s really going on in the country and how we intend to counter what we believe is a coup attempt. RT: Speaking of the impeachment, the coup and the trial, I’d like to ask you – is this basically a soft coup, without weapons and violence? Moreover, to which extent do you think this coup is aimed against you, and to which extent not only against Brazil, but against its allies, say, the BRICS countries? DR: I think it’s an impeachment process, to remove me from the office. Our Constitution provides for an impeachment, but only if the President commits a crime against the Constitution and human rights. We believe that it’s a coup, because no such crime has been committed. They put me on trial for additional loans [from state banks]. Every president before me has done it, and it has never been a crime. It won’t become a crime now. There is no basis for considering it a crime. A crime has to be legally defined. So we believe this impeachment is a coup, because it’s clearly stated in the Constitution that only a crime of malversation can serve as basis for impeachment. The actions currently under scrutiny do not, strictly speaking, fall under that category. Besides, Brazil is a presidential republic. You can’t remove a president or a prime minister who hasn’t committed a crime. We’re not a parliamentary republic, where a president can dissolve the congress, which, in turn, can call for a vote of no confidence out of purely political reasons. So it’s impossible to impeach a president in Brazil based solely on political reasons or political distrust. We believe that what’s happening now in Brazil is an attempt to replace an innocent president involved in no corruption-related legal proceedings in order for the politicians that lost the 2014 election to control the state bypassing the new election. That’s what’s happening. This is an attempt to replace the entire political program that includes both the social and economic development aspects and is aimed at tackling the crisis that Brazil has been going through in recent years with a program clearly neoliberal in nature. This program provides for minimizing our social programs in accordance with the minimal state doctrine. This doctrine is at odds with all the Brazilian legal norms regarding healthcare, construction and ensuring that our people have their own houses, availability of high-quality education and minimum wages guaranteed to the poorest part of the Brazilian population. They want to do away with these rights and at the same time they conduct an anti-national policy, for example, when it comes to Brazil’s oil resources. Significant subsalt oil reserves, lying 7,000 m below the surface, were discovered recently. The ministers were saying that exploring these reserves was impossible, but now we’re extracting a million barrels daily from subsalt oil reserves. Undoubtedly, they were saying that thinking to change the legislation in order to guarantee access to these reserves to international companies. Moreover, in terms of foreign policy, starting from Lula da Silva and throughout my presidency, we have been seeking to strengthen ties with Latin American, African, BRICS countries and other developing nations, in addition to the developed

Black people shot dead by police in the US were more than twice as likely as the white people killed by an officer to have been unarmed, according to a new study which suggests there is an “implicit bias” against minorities within law enforcement. The researchers, who studied the known fatal shootings by police in 2015, also found people from non-black minority ethnic groups were more likely to have been fatally shot than whites when they were not posing an immediate threat to the officers or other civilians. A paper about the study in the Criminology & Public Policy journal stressed that the “overwhelming majority” of people shot dead by police had been armed with a “deadly weapon” at the time. But 93 of the total of 990 fatal police shootings – just under 10 per cent – did not have any kind of weapon. Fifteen per cent of black people killed were not carrying a weapon at the time, compared to six per cent of whites and 11 per cent of other minority groups. Twenty-four per cent of the black people shot dead were not attacking anyone at the time, compared to 17 per cent of the white people and 31 per cent of non-black people from other ethnic groups. Dr Justin Nix, of Louisville University, said: “Our findings are suggestive of implicit bias – minorities were significantly more likely to have been fatally shot as a result of an apparent threat perception failure by officers.” The figures were based on information compiled by The Washington Post, whose journalists scoured public records, media reports and other sources in an attempt to find out the total number. The researchers appealed to the US Government to set up an official record of police shootings, saying: “Without more comprehensive data, we simply cannot determine whether the police disproportionately use force against minorities on a national scale.” A number of controversial shootings and deaths of black men at the hands of the police and others has sparked significant protests in the US and the Black Lives Matter campaign amid suspicions that some of the officers involved are racists. The Bahamas government was moved to issue a warning to its young black men to “exercise extreme caution” when interacting with American police. The journal paper said it was “possible that some police officers harbour explicitly biased attitudes toward minorities”. Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Show all 15 1 /15 Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Kandy Freeman participates in a Black Lives Matter protest in front of Trump Tower in New York City, U.S. January 14, 2017. Stephanie Keith/Reuters Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower People participate in a Black Lives Matter protest in front of Trump Tower in New York City, U.S. January 14, 2017. Stephanie Keith/Reuters Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Hawk Newsome, a Black Lives Matter activist, leads a protest outside Trump Tower in New York City on January 14, 2017. Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Hawk Newsome (C) leads a chant during a Black Lives Matter protest in front of Trump Tower in New York City, US. January 14, 2017. Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower People participate in a Black Lives Matter protest in front of Trump Tower in New York City, U.S. January 14, 2017. Stephanie Keith/Reuters Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower An NYPD officer speaks with a Black Lives Matter leaders during a protest in the snow outside Trump Tower in New York City on January 14, 2017. Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Kandy Freeman participates in a Black Lives Matter protest in front of Trump Tower in New York City, U.S. January 14, 2017. Stephanie Keith/Reuters Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower An NYPD officer speaks with a Black Lives Matter leaders during a protest in the snow outside Trump Tower in New York City on January 14, 2017. Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Carol Garza, a Black Lives Matter supporter, protests outside Trump Tower in New York City on January 14, 2017. Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower People participate in a Black Lives Matter protest in front of Trump Tower in New York City, U.S. January 14, 2017. Stephanie Keith/Reuters Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower A Black Lives Matter supporter protests in the snow outside Trump Tower in New York City on January 14, 2017. Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images Black Lives Matter organises march to Trump Tower Black Lives Matter activists march in front of Trump Tower on January 14, 2017 in New York City. Kevin Hagen/Getty Black Lives Matter

WASHINGTON -- House GOP leaders on Friday abruptly canceled a vote on a bill to update the George W. Bush-era No Child Left Behind education law after struggling to find support from conservatives. The bill would keep the annual testing requirements on schools but would give more freedom to states and districts to spend federal dollars and identify and fix failing schools. Conservative opponents said it doesn't go far enough to let states and districts set education policy. Groups such as Heritage Action for America and the Club for Growth are among the opponents. "We have a constitutional duty as members of Congress to return education decisions to parents and states," Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., wrote this week on Facebook. Democrats also dislike the bill and said it would abdicate the federal government's responsibility to ensure that poor, minority-group, disabled and non-English-speaking students go to good schools and that billions of federal education dollars are spent wisely. The White House threatened to veto the bill, calling it "a significant step backwards." Senior Republican officials said it was unclear when a vote would occur. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to publicly discuss private negotiations. "I look forward to continuing to discuss with my colleagues the conservative reforms in this legislation, and I expect we will have an opportunity to finish this important work soon," Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., the sponsor of the bill, said in a statement. Kline, chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, said the delay happened because the debate over funding the Homeland Security Department had taken priority on the House floor. The bipartisan 2002 No Child Left Behind law was a signature achievement of Bush, and its authors included the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and current House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. It sought to close significant gaps in the achievement of poor and minority-group students and their more affluent peers. The law mandated annual testing in reading and math for students in grades three to eight and again in high school. Schools had to show student growth or face consequences. But its requirement that all students be able to read and do math at grade level by 2014 proved elusive. President Barack Obama's administration in 2012 began allowing waivers around some of the law's more stringent requirements if schools agreed to certain conditions, like using college- and career-ready standards such as Common Core. Those standards have been adopted in more than 40 states and spell out what English and math skills students should master in each grade. They are a political issue in many states because they are viewed by critics as a federal effort even though they were developed by U.S. governors. House Republican leaders have used their bill to show their opposition to the Obama administration's encouragement of the Common Core state standards because it prohibits the federal education secretary from demanding changes to state standards or imposing conditions on states in exchange for a waiver around federal law. It also eliminates many federal programs, creates a single local grant program and allows public money to follow low-income children to different public schools. Dan Holler, a spokesman for Heritage Action for America, said conservatives were upset that amendments weren't allowed on provisions their group supported that included eliminating federal testing mandates, allowing states to opt out of the law and allowing public money to follow low-income students to private schools. Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 House Democrat, noted that the same bill that was pulled from the floor Friday got no Democratic votes when it was passed by the House in 2013. "How sad that, in an issue so important to our country, that we don't have a bipartisan bill," Hoyer said. In the Senate, Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., the chairman of the chamber's Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and Patty Murray, D-Wash., the committee's senior Democrat, said they are working on a bipartisan proposal to fix the law. Alexander said this week that he's hopeful he can get something to the Senate floor in March. A Section on 02/28/2015

The Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver has named nine clergymen who have criminal convictions or lawsuits settled against them related to cases of sexual abuse dating back to the 1950s. In a report published Friday morning, the diocese revealed the results of a months-long investigation into cases of sexual abuse by its clergy, but says it can't name all the accused because of privacy laws. "I realize that no expression of regret can repair the horror of what happened," Archbishop Michael Miller said in a letter introducing the report. "For those occasions when we failed to protect you or when we were more concerned with the Church's reputation than with your suffering, I am truly sorry and ask for your forgiveness as I strive to make amends and bind your wounds." CBC's The Fifth Estate has reported that this is the first of Canada's 60 Latin Rite archdioceses and dioceses to make information about convicted priests public. Clergy who were criminally convicted: Paul J. Blancard George Gordon John McCann, OMI Harold McIntee, OMI Alfred Frank Louis Sasso Clergy with lawsuits settled: Lawrence Edward (Damian) Cooper Antero Sarmiento Clergy named in other public cases: Edwin Budiman John Eason Some of the charges against the men date back to the 1950s and involve child victims as young as six or seven. McIntee, who worked in parishes in Ucluelet and Tofino, in the Diocese of Victoria, was charged with multiple counts of sexual abuse in 1989. He served two years in jail for abusing 17 boys in British Columbia over 25 years. Many of his victims were boys in residential schools in Kamloops, Prince George, and Victoria. McCann was convicted in 1991 of six counts of sex abuse of girls under 16 in the 1970s when he was serving at St. Augustine's Parish and St. Peter's in New Westminster. After serving 10 months in jail, he served as a priest in the Diocese of Victoria and the Archdiocese of Ottawa. 31 recommendations for reform The 31 recommendations in the document are the result of an internal review commissioned in 2018 by Miller to examine church files dating back to the 1950s. In July, the committee reviewing the files submitted its recommendations, including that it was essential for the names of clergy who were deemed "credibly accused" be released publicly. However, the chair of the committee, lawyer Mary Margaret MacKinnon, explains in Friday's report that those names can't be published because of Canadian privacy legislation, notably B.C.'s Personal Information and Protection Act. She says discussions are ongoing about setting up administrative tribunals to determine probable wrongdoing and what can be made public in Canada. "We should be able to disclose the names in a limited fashion, perhaps in the parish where that offence has alleged to have occurred, to see if there are other people who have been affected," said MacKinnon in the report. "We can also publish factual findings — for example, that somebody has been removed from ministry." A statue of Pope John Paul II welcomes visitors to the Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver. (Ben Nelms/CBC) The information contained in the internal review was uncovered in an investigation by The Fifth Estate that aired on Nov. 17 into how the church has dealt with abuse allegations over the years. The internal review showed the archdiocese was aware of 36 cases of abuse since the 1950s by its clergy, including 26 involving children. The review also found three of their priests had fathered children. Miller created a working group in September to come up with responses to those recommendations, including a pledge by the archdiocese to create an independent intake office to receive new allegations of abuse.