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For years, consumer advocates have claimed that binding arbitration clauses have quietly but dramatically limited consumers' ability to seek justice and have their day in court. On Tuesday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released results of a broad study that appears to support those claims. While a majority of banking customers are subject to arbitration agreements that restrict their ability to join class-action lawsuits, three-quarters of consumers are unaware of the agreements, and only 7% realize a clause in the agreements restricts their ability to sue in court. "Tens of millions of consumers are covered by arbitration clauses, but few know about them or understand their impact," said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. "Our study found that these arbitration clauses restrict consumer relief in disputes with financial companies by limiting class actions that provide millions of dollars in redress each year. Now that our study has been completed, we will consider what next steps are appropriate." Arbitration is intended to provide dispute resolution outside the traditional court system. In recent years, many consumer contracts have included a "pre-dispute arbitration clause" where such a clause exists, either side can generally block lawsuits, including class actions, from proceeding in court. Instead, disputes are heard by an arbitration panel. Industry groups argue that arbitration saves money, which in turn lowers consumers' costs for services; but opponents say the process unfairly favors corporations over consumers. The Dodd-Frank financial reform bill banned arbitration clauses in mortgage contracts and enabled the CFPB to make more rules about their use. The study, released in advance of a hearing to be held Tuesday in Newark on arbitration clauses, is the first step in potential rule-making. Here are a few of the study's most important findings: Tens of millions of consumers are covered by arbitration clauses. For example, in the credit card market, card issuers representing more than half of all credit card debt have arbitration clauses impacting as many as 80 million consumers. In the checking account market , banks representing 44% of insured deposits have arbitration clauses. Companies do well in arbitration proceedings. Consumers filed roughly 600 arbitration cases per year on average in the markets studied: The CFPB's review of case data from the leading arbitration administrator indicates that between 2010 and 2012, across six different consumer finance markets, 1,847 arbitration disputes were filed. More than 20% of these cases may have been filed by companies, rather than consumers. In the 1,060 cases that were filed in 2010 and 2011, arbitrators awarded consumers a combined total of less than $175,000 in damages and less than $190,000 in debt forbearance. Arbitrators also ordered consumers to pay $2.8 million to companies, predominantly for debts that were disputed . Arbitration clauses can act as a barrier to class actions. By design, arbitration clauses can be used to block class actions in court. The CFPB found that it is rare for a company to try to force an individual lawsuit into arbitration but common for arbitration clauses to be invoked to block class actions. For example, in cases where credit card issuers with an arbitration clause were sued in a class action, companies invoked the arbitration clause to block class actions 65% of the time. No evidence of arbitration clauses leading to lower prices for consumers. The CFPB looked at whether companies that include arbitration clauses in their contracts offer lower prices because they are not subject to class action lawsuits. The CFPB analyzed changes in the total cost of credit paid by consumers of some credit card companies that eliminated their arbitration clauses and of other companies that made no change in their use of arbitration provisions. The CFPB found no statistically significant evidence that the companies that eliminated their arbitration clauses increased their prices or reduced access to credit relative to those that made no change in their use of arbitration clauses. There's plenty of consumer confusion. The CFPB surveyed credit card consumers to analyze the extent to which they were aware, and understood the implications, of arbitration agreements. Among those who said they understood what arbitration is, over three-quarters acknowledged they did not know whether their credit card agreement contained an arbitration clause. Of those who thought they did know, more than half were incorrect about whether their agreement actually contained an arbitration clause. Among consumers whose contract included an arbitration clause, fewer than 7% recognized that they could not sue their credit card issuer in court. "Many consumers have no idea that they have been stripped of their rights until it is too late," said Theresa Amato, executive director of consumer advocacy organization Citizen Works. "It's time for the CFPB to use its power to ban these unfair forced arbitrations and class action waivers to correct the widespread problems their own research reveals. This article originally appeared on Credit.com .
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In rural America, where there are more guns, fewer people, and fewer doctors than in the urban U.S., young people are at particular risk of suicide. A study published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics analyzed suicides among people aged 10 to 24 between 1996 and 2010, and found that rates were nearly doubled in rural areas, compared to urban areas. While this gap existed in 1996 at the beginning of the data set, it widened over the course of this time period, according to Cynthia Fontanella, the lead author on the study, and a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center. Both adults and adolescents are at greater risk of suicide in remote areas of the U.S., according to a 2006 literature review . But suicide is in general more common among adolescents and young adults: It's the third leading cause of death for people aged 15 to 24, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , the second for people 25 to 34, and the 10th most common among the general population. More than half of the youths who killed themselves in this time period did so with a firearm, and gun suicides (though generally on the decline) were particularly common in rural areas nearly three times more common. This may be because gun ownership is higher in rural regions. According to 2014 Pew data , 51 percent of people in rural areas kept a gun at home, compared to 25 percent in urban areas, and 36 percent in the suburbs. "Suicide is in many ways the oft-ignored part of gun tragedy in America, the part that few talk about, especially those who resist any efforts to decrease access to guns," writes Frederick Rivara, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington, in an editorial accompanying the study . He points out that 86 percent of suicide attempts using guns end in death, compared to 2 percent of attempts using drugs. "Rural residents often grow up with guns, have guns in their homes and there's just a general culture of guns in rural areas," Fontanella says. Even so, she says, suicide rates by all methods were higher in the country than in the city. The factors that might contribute to this disparity make a snarled web of many threads. Gun access is just one of those. Rural life is isolating and getting more so. Only 15 percent of U.S. residents live in non-metropolitan areas, which account for about 72 percent of the country, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And these areas continue to lose population. Plus, "a lot of young people are out-migrating because of the lack of employment opportunities," Fontanella says, "which can lead to heightened degrees of social isolation for those left behind." For those who feel isolated, or who suffer from mental health problems that can lead to suicidal thoughts, home might not be the most comforting place. The 2006 review suggests that stigma around psychological disorders is often high in remote areas, and at least one study found that some rural regions of the U.S. (the Great Plains and Mountain West, specifically) tend to have cultures that value individual autonomy. Both of these factors could deter people from seeking help. Even if sought, help could be hard to find. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation , there are nearly 4,000 areas in the U.S. designated as having shortages of mental health care professionals, with only about 51 percent of the country's total need met. So rural residents may have to travel long distances to get appointments, or visit primary care physicians instead of mental health specialists. (It's worth noting that for those who need immediate help, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available 24 hours a day.) "Folks that live in rural areas tend to go to their primary care doctor for services because there's less stigma," Fontanella says, "so integrating mental health care in physical health care settings [would be one way to address the issue], by having a mental health practitioner on site, or through video conferencing… But it's going to be hard to generate the numbers of mental health practitioners to get where we need to go. So in general, we need to improve the entire system of care." This article was originally published at http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/03/the-growing-risk-of-suicide-in-rural-america/387313/
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Many risks, but big rewards if you're right Healthy investing is a lot like healthy eating: Make sensible choices carefully proportioned within a diet of moderation. We get it. But everyone needs at least a little sizzle--in their diet and in their portfolio. Perhaps, like a Walter Mitty of the investing world, you've secretly dreamed of getting in on the ground floor of a groundbreaking trend or technology that will change history and inform the future. The 13 stocks highlighted below are all about breakthroughs, innovation and disruption. You're not likely to find them in broad market benchmarks; only one of the stocks, Nvidia, is a member of Standard & Poor's 500-stock index. And just as spicier fare isn't suited to those with weak stomachs, these stocks aren't for the faint of heart. Nor are they for bargain hunters, except when a bout of market volatility gives you a chance to buy on a dip. But if you believe in a world in which cars drive themselves, robots keep house and science finds cures for cancer, consider investing in these transformative trends. And even if you don't buy into them, at least be aware that you ignore them at your peril. "You may not care about these new or disruptive companies," says Cathie Wood, CEO of Ark Investment Management, where she runs a collection of actively managed exchange-traded funds that seek to cash in on innovation. "But they're going to disrupt many of the companies in your portfolio." For a look into the future, read on. The Internet of Things The Internet of Things is a concept so enormous it's hard to wrap your brain around. Think of the IoT as nothing less than the dawn of inanimate consciousness, says Stifel, Nicolaus, an investment firm. Embedded sensors, processors and communication technology are in effect waking machines from a catatonic state, extracting intelligence from the physical world that we can then use to make people healthier, cars safer, homes cozier and cheaper to maintain, factories and farms more efficient, and cities more livable and environmentally friendly. Applications for the IoT are practically infinite. Nearly 5 billion connected things will be in use in 2015, according to Gartner Inc., a technology research firm. By 2020, the number of "things" will grow to 26 billion, encompassing everything from smart watches, smart cars and smart home appliances to networked factory machines and citywide energy grids. That will amount to some $1.9 trillion in revenues generated or savings realized. The structural change resulting from the IoT will be akin to the industrial revolution, says Goldman Sachs. Skyworks Solutions exemplifies how the IoT is rewiring corporate strategies. Skyworks makes smartphone chips for such powerhouse customers as Apple and Samsung, and the company is profiting from the rollout of smartphones in China. But CEO David Aldrich is leveraging decades of experience in mobile connectivity to make Skyworks a conduit to all manner of IoT devices. "The common denominator is efficient connectivity, and that's where we excel," says Aldrich. The company's Broad Markets division, a proxy for its IoT exposure, is already helping to make up for the seasonal revenue slumps endemic in the mobile-phone chip business. The division contributes roughly one-fourth of the company's total revenues, and sales in the segment grew at a rate of 26% last year. "Over the next 10 years, it could be half the business," says Aldrich. "The Internet of Things is the biggest growth phenomenon in our lifetime. If you're a technology company and you're not there, you're not going to grow." Connected cars are at the forefront of the IoT. Within the next five years, roughly one in five vehicles on the road worldwide will be connected to the Internet, predicts Gartner. Eventually, cars will be self-driving. But before we take our hands completely off the wheel, expect to see widespread adoption--very possibly required by regulators--of technology aimed at assisting drivers. Adaptive cruise control adjusts to the traffic around you, for instance, while automatic braking stops your vehicle when another car or a pedestrian materializes in your path, and lane-departure warnings keep you from drifting. Currently, only about 5% of cars worldwide have active safety features. Mobileye is the single most important enabler of such active safety features, says Dan Roarty, manager of AllianceBernstein's AB Global Thematic Growth Fund. The company, headquartered in Israel, designs and develops camera-based driver-assistance technology--integrated hardware and software that in essence become the eyes and the brains of the car. Mobileye has clocked millions of miles on the road, garnering an 80% share of the active-safety market and a five-year lead on anyone else, says Roarty. Analysts on average expect the company's earnings per share to nearly double in 2015 and again in 2016. Two others to consider: Silicon Laboratories is a semiconductor company that makes a broad portfolio of energy-efficient, IoT-enabling products, including sensors, microcontrollers (the brains of a device) and the hardware that facilitates Internet connectivity. NXP Semiconductors known for its security features, enables the secure connection for Apple Pay. Robots are for real Robots have always held a cultural allure for Americans, from Gort in The Day the Earth Stood Still, to the Jetsons' maid, Rosie, to Star Wars' C-3PO. Robots today may not conform to the fantastic notions of Hollywood screenwriters. But they are an increasingly important, growing and widespread segment of the workforce. The auto industry remains the largest market for robots. But they can also be found neutralizing land mines for the military, fulfilling orders in warehouses and assisting in surgical procedures in hospitals. Robots are being designed to pick fruits and vegetables. In Japan, where there are 323 robots for every 10,000 human workers, robots are being developed to assist the elderly and the disabled. And a hotel opening in Nagasaki this summer will be partially staffed by robots that will check in guests, carry luggage and clean rooms. The International Federation of Robotics estimates that 1.3 million to 1.6 million industrial robots are in use. In 2013 (the latest year for which figures are available), nearly 180,000 robots were sold, the most ever in a single year. Spending on robots worldwide is expected to jump from an estimated $27 billion in 2015 to $67 billion by 2025, says the Boston Consulting Group. The surge will be driven by falling prices, improving capabilities and rising demand as global workforce growth begins to decline and wages rise, particularly in China. The key to building a better robot is imbuing it with humanoid senses--only better. While the human eye can see 30 frames per second, for example, robots today can see thousands of frames per second. Cognex is a leading developer of machine-vision technologies used to monitor production lines, guide assembly robots, detect manufacturing defects and track parts. Cognex systems help automate the manufacture of cell phones, aspirin bottles and vehicle wheels, among other things. Factory automation should account for more than 80% of the company's revenues in 2015, and that segment is growing by 20% a year, according to Canaccord Genuity, a Canadian financial-services firm. Canaccord predicts that the share price will reach $55 within a year, up more than 40% from the current level. On the home front, maybe Rosie isn't so far-fetched after all. The robotics federation expects 31 million robots to be sold for personal use from 2014 through 2017, most tasked with domestic chores. You may be familiar with the Roomba vacuum cleaner, made by iRobot. The company claims roughly 75% of the robot vacuum market. That's less than 20% of the U.S. market for higher-end vacuums, leaving plenty of room for growth, even with vacuum leader Dyson scheduled to enter the robotics market later this year., blocking , IRobot also makes bomb-disarming robots for the military. That segment is struggling as U.S. defense spending declines and troops are pulled from harm's way. But the company's disciplined research and development in that area are driving innovation in broader product lines focused on three key robotic capabilities: the ability to navigate, perceive the surrounding environment and interact with it. IRobot's "telepresence" bots--at about $70,000 each, they look like a mobile stand with a screen on top--allow doctors to consult from afar, or business people to meet or manage remotely. After mapping out your office (or factory floor or medical center), the bots can show up automatically for scheduled events or simply enable you to virtually roam distant halls at will, interacting with those you meet. For the time being, the Roomba accounts for 75% to 80% of iRobot's profits, says Morningstar analyst Adam Fleck. But as other products gain ground, that percentage is bound to decline. Says Brian Gesuale, an analyst at the Raymond James brokerage, "iRobot's ambition is to be a robot company, not a vacuum company." Making medicine personal A decade ago, sequencing one human genome cost $10 million and several months' worth of computing power. Today, the cost is $1,000 and a day of computing, and within a few years, say researchers, the cost of mapping the complete set of a human being's genetic information will drop to $100 and a few minutes. This genetic intelligence is ushering in an age of personalized medicine, with one-size-fits-all protocols giving way to more customized--and therefore more effective--treatments for cancer and other challenging diseases. President Obama called the practice "precision medicine" in his State of the Union address and earmarked $215 million in the federal budget to help fund its development. The change is evolutionary and revolutionary at the same time. "I try to avoid military analogies, but we're moving from World War II-era carpet bombing to dropping laser-guided bombs down chimneys," says Gavin Baker, who tracks transformative technology as the manager of Fidelity OTC Portfolio. For example, each cancer tumor has its own genetic mutations, which change over time. Sequencing and re-sequencing the tumor will reveal which treatments will be most effective at any given point. "Instead of being diagnosed with breast or colon cancer, you'll be diagnosed as to mutations," says Baker. Within 20 years, cancer could become a manageable disease instead of a terminal one, he says. The prime mover in personalized medicine is Illumina , which makes gene-sequencing tools and equipment. Illumina claims 70% of the sequencing market, which is growing at a 10% annual rate and is expected to approach $25 billion in revenues by 2020. In addition to mapping human genomes, the company's equipment is used to sequence viruses (including Ebola), bacteria, plants for the agriculture industry--just about any organism. Oncology and prenatal screening are promising growth areas. Potential rivals will have a tough time unseating Illumina, but that doesn't mean the stock is without risk. One serious misstep or failure to keep on the cutting edge of technology could inhibit Illumina's long-term success, says Morningstar analyst Michael Waterhouse. The stock, which has soared by more than sevenfold since October 2011, is certainly not cheap, trading at 60 times estimated 2015 earnings. But as the number of genomes sequenced grows from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of millions, bulls say, Illumina's earnings should continue to expand by at least 20% annually over the next few years, driving the share price ever higher. Athenahealth isn't a sexy biotech with a potential cure for cancer. The electronic medical records firm started by helping doctors collect fees from insurers, which it does efficiently. But in a basic way, Athena also makes personalized medicine possible, says Elizabeth Jones, a former physician who comanages the Buffalo Discovery Fund. "When I practiced medicine, I would see patients in the ER, and I wouldn't know what drugs they were on, what their allergies were or if an old EKG existed," she says. "That's ridiculous. That information is all there, somewhere." Even today, most medical practices are isolated islands of patient information. Athena's cloud-based platform makes it easier for data to travel among providers, giving a more complete picture of patients. Athena claims some 62,000 providers as customers, representing 62.5 million patients. As it gathers more information into its cloud, "Athena will be able to do predictive analysis at a very high level," says Fidelity's Baker. That allows for early intervention or preventive care that can both improve outcomes and cut costs--vital in a medical system that's transitioning from paying doctors by the visit or the procedure to paying for keeping patients healthy and costs down. Athena's earnings are likely to be down this year because of acquisition costs, and its stock trades at a stiff premium--124 times estimated 2015 earnings. Is that too much for a company that says it is building the health care Internet? Athena is the purest play on the migration of medical data to the cloud, says Ark Investment's Wood. "This is a winner-take-most stock." Blocking cyberattacks There's nothing like a giant health insurer's computer system getting hacked to remind us of the critical importance of defending against cyberthreats. The massive breach at Anthem, which put at risk the sensitive personal data of millions of customers, is the latest in a long line. The number of U.S. data breaches exposing individuals to the risk of identity theft hit a record high of 783 in 2014, up 28% from 2013, says the Identity Theft Resource Center. Our growing connectedness intensifies the risk. The Internet of Things links everything from our cars to our coffeepots to the Internet, while more of our personal data gets stored in the cloud. Consider this dire observation from the World Economic Forum's 2015 Global Threat Report: "There are more devices to secure against hackers and bigger downsides from failure: Hacking the location data on a car is merely an invasion of privacy, whereas hacking the control system of a car would be a threat to life." Cyberattacks have become business as usual, says Sarbjit Nahal, a strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. A recent survey of 257 companies, in varied industries and headquartered in seven countries, found that they experienced an average of 1.6 attacks each week. As a result, the information-security market is expected to grow more than 10% annually, from $96 billion in revenues in 2014 to nearly $156 billion in 2019, according to market research firm MarketsandMarkets. RBC Capital Markets analyst Matthew Hedberg believes high-profile breaches could lead to U.S. government regulation aimed at beefing up cybersecurity. Palo Alto Networks is well positioned to benefit. What differentiates Palo Alto from its peers is its ability to defend against attacks all along the data pathway--in the cloud, along the network and in devices themselves. The company's sales growth is consistently outpacing the information-security market as a whole, gaining market share relative to competitors. Hedberg sees sales growth of 41% in the fiscal year that ends this July, with roughly 30% growth in each of the following two years. The stock, which has tripled since November 2013, now trades at 170 times estimated earnings for the 2015 fiscal year, a premium ratio that Hedberg says is justified by the company's impressive growth prospects. Indeed, analysts expect earnings to double in the fiscal year that ends in July 2016. The recent cloudburst of data breaches should mean more customers for LifeLock . The company protects consumers against identity theft by monitoring new-account openings, credit applications and other identity-related activities, then alerting subscribers to suspicious activity. Businesses, including lenders, retailers and cable-TV firms, use LifeLock to authenticate customer IDs and gauge the risk of fraud in any given transaction. LifeLock has been under its own cloud, presenting opportunity for intrepid investors. The company recently set aside $20 million to settle any charges that might stem from a Federal Trade Commission investigation into whether LifeLock is complying with earlier orders to fairly represent its services. The charge against earnings decimated 2014 results, and the growth in the number of new subscribers dipped in the fourth quarter. Blame the FTC matter for distracting the top brass, says analyst Rob Breza, at the investment firm of Sterne Agee. But he thinks the issue will be settled soon and that LifeLock is already back on track, substantially boosting spending on marketing to take advantage of the spate of highly publicized data breaches. "Is the company broken? I don't think so; 2015 will be a year of growth," says Breza. LifeLock's stock has dropped 36% from its record high, set in February 2014, and now trades at a reasonable 22 times estimated 2015 earnings. Breza, who sees earnings jumping 31% in 2016, predicts that the stock will reach $20 within a year, up one-third from the current price. One other company to watch: FireEye whose recently purchased forensic security division has become the go-to source for investigating breaches, including Anthem's. Managing big data The collection, transmission and analysis of data underlie every megatrend we've been talking about, with people, businesses and now things adding to the digital explosion. The digital universe is doubling in size every two years, according to International Data Corp., a technology market-intelligence firm. By 2020, there will be almost as many digital bits as there are stars in the universe. The data we create, copy and consume annually will reach some 44 zettabytes, or 44 trillion gigabytes--enough to fill up nearly 688 billion midrange iPhone 6's. And yet, by IDC's most recent measure, less than 5% of potentially usable data is currently being analyzed. The opportunities are enormous for companies that are able to marshal and make sense of the exploding volume of unstructured information. If you're a gamer, you may have heard of Nvidia Corp. the semiconductor company that invented the graphics processing units for computer video games back in the 1990s. But the company's future rests on the power of big data, says Wood, the Ark ETF manager. "Nvidia is in every one of our funds," she says. "Its chips can handle unstructured data--social networking data, sensor data, genomic data--unlike those of any other chip maker out there." The company is making a push into the assisted-driving and auto "infotainment" market as well. Wedbush Securities deemed the stock a "top pick for 2015," based on solid growth in an array of Nvidia's products and the company's propensity to return cash to shareholders. Nvidia is one of only two stocks on our list that pay a dividend. It sports a 1.7% yield. (The other dividend payer is Skyworks, which yields just 0.6%.) Splunk makes sense of machine-generated data. The company's software allows customers to monitor, correlate, search and analyze massive streams of data in real time, putting Splunk right at the heart of the Internet of Things. For example, a Coca-Cola executive revealed at a Splunk-hosted conference last fall that the beverage giant, using Splunk's software, was able to see that sales at vending machines on college campuses spike right before weekly airings of the hit TV show The Walking Dead. Splunk counts customers among a variety of industries, including retail, energy, manufacturing, financial services and travel. The technology is a natural fit for information-security applications, and about 40% of Splunk's revenues are tied to cybersecurity, says AllianceBernstein fund manager Roarty. Investors should bear in mind that Splunk, which went public in 2012, is investing heavily in the growth of its business. That means current profits are modest, although revenues are expected to grow at a 32% clip this year. After losing money in 2013, Splunk earned an estimated 4 cents a share last year. Analysts forecast profits of 11 cents per share this year (or $13.3 million) and 27 cents in 2016. Copyright 2015 The Kiplinger Washington Editors More lists on MSN Money: 5 market rules Warren Buffett insists you follow 5 reasons McDonald's will win in 2015 4 reasons Kroger is winning the grocery wars
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U.S. stocks fell, wiping out gains for the year, as the dollar strengthened to near a 12-year high versus the euro amid speculation the Federal Reserve is moving closer to raising interest rates. Intel Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc. lost at least 1.8 percent as technology companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index led declines. United Technologies Corp., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Home Depot Inc. dropped more than 1.3 percent to pace losses among the biggest companies. The S&P 500 had retreated by 1.4 percent to 2,050 by 4 p.m. in New York, falling below its average price for the past 50 days for the first time since Feb. 9. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 332 points, or 1.85 percent, to 17,663. The Nasdaq 100 Index tumbled 1.67 percent. "A continuation of dollar strength and euro destruction is certainly raising some concerns," Michael James, a Los Angeles- based managing director of equity trading at Wedbush Securities Inc., said in a phone interview. "I don't think there was any one specific event or item that caused this, but the fact that it's a trend that's been going on for the last several weeks is concerning given the levels we're at now." Concern the Fed may start raising interest rates this year amid a strengthening economy has weighed on equities and helped boost the dollar. In his last speech as president of the Fed Bank of Dallas, Richard Fisher said the central bank should begin to gradually raise rates before the economy reaches full employment to avoid triggering a recession. Dollar Strength The S&P 500 fell 1.6 percent last week, the most since January, as data showed the jobless rate reached the central bank's range for what it considers full employment. Policy makers next meet on March 17-18. The Fed stands out among major central banks in accepting a higher exchange rate as a sign of economic strength. Peers from Sydney to Wellington, Tokyo, Zurich and Frankfurt are cutting rates and buying government bonds to stimulate growth and, in the process, sometimes weakening their currencies. The dollar has rallied this year versus 14 of 16 major currencies, including the yen, pound, euro and Brazilian real. "The dollar's going up so much so fast you wonder what it does to U.S. economic growth down the road, to profitability," Jim Paulsen, the Minneapolis-based chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management, which oversees $338 billion, said by telephone. Broad Declines The S&P 500 has entered the seventh year of a bull market, pushing valuations near a five-year high. The index has more than tripled from its bear-market low on March 9, 2009, buoyed by three rounds of Federal Reserve bond-buying and low interest rates. Tuesday's drop was broad-based as nine of the S&P 500's 10 main groups retreated, and four out of five stocks fell. All but three of the 24 developed-nation indexes declined while the MSCI All-Country World Index sank 1.5 percent, the most in two months. Technology, financial and industrial companies paced declines in the U.S., down at least 1.4 percent, with financials falling the most since January. Apple Inc. slid 1.5 percent. The company dropped 0.4 percent yesterday after presenting new products and services at an event in San Francisco, including a smartwatch. Micron Technology Inc. and Intel fell more than 3.1 percent, while hard-disk maker Seagate Technology Plc lost 4 percent to its lowest since October. Semiconductor companies in the S&P 500 have lost 6 percent since March 2, and reached their lowest level in a month. Banks Drop Banks and insurers dropped at least 2.1 percent as the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield retreated the most in two weeks. Wells Fargo & Co. slipped 2 percent, Citigroup Inc. lost 2.8 percent and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. fell 1.6 percent. MetLife Inc., the largest U.S. life insurer, has been pressured by low bond yields, which limit investment income on a portfolio valued at more than $500 billion, mostly in fixed- income holdings, Chief Executive Officer Steve Kandarian said in a conference call last month. United Technologies sank 3 percent, the most since Jan. 27, and 3M Co. dropped 2 percent as industrial companies in the benchmark index lost 1.5 percent. The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index jumped 10 percent to 16.58. The gauge, know as the VIX, rose 14 percent last week, its biggest jump in five weeks. The S&P 500 is down 0.3 percent for the year, after rallying 11 percent in 2014 and 30 percent in 2013. The equity benchmark trails all but one of 24 developed markets in 2015, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Dollar General Corp. and Oracle Corp. are among the final companies to post quarterly results over the next week as the earnings season comes to a close. Around 74 percent of companies that have already reported beat profit projections, while 56 percent topped sales estimates. Analysts predict profit at S&P 500 companies will drop 5.1 percent in the current quarter after a 4.4 percent increase in the final three months of 2014, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
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Do you really know your money? You would be surprised how many people don't know anything about their all-important relationship with their finances. You may think you're pretty financially savvy, but if you can't answer these five questions you may need to get better acquainted with your money. 1. Monthly Income This may seem very basic, but more often than not people can't answer how much money comes into their home. That means knowing the gross and net income. Almost everyone knows what their salary is, roughly, but when it comes to pre- and post-tax income per month, many people have no clue. Look at your next paystub and take note of both your gross (pretax) and net (post-tax and other deductions) pay. This knowledge really comes in handy when putting together your budget. 2. Monthly Expenses This one goes hand-in-hand with knowing your monthly income. While knowing how much you have coming in each month is important, it's equally important to know how much you have going out. Get a grip on your expenses . Take the time to write down everything you spend your money on in a given month. You'd be surprised what expenses you have over and above your rent/mortgage, car, utility and insurance payments. An understanding of your expenses can help you identify areas where you're overspending and can reveal new ways for you to save. If you want to have a well thought out and effective budget, knowing both your income and expenses is pivotal. Without this knowledge, you won't know what you can (and can't) afford and you could easily spend beyond your means. 3. Net Worth You may think that a 'net worth' is only for wealthy people. Not so fast: Net worth, simply put, is the difference between what you own and what you owe. This begins with your bank account, income and expenses. Assets such as investments, cars and real estate all factor in to your net worth as well. Knowing your net worth provides you with a straightforward financial snapshot. If your number is positive, you can give yourself a pat on the back. If it's negative, you might want to take a closer look at your finances so you can diagnose the problem, and create a plan to get you into the positive. 4. Debt-to-Income Ratio While your net worth compares all of your assets to what you owe, a debt-to-income ratio shows you specifically how much debt you have compared to how much money you're making. The first step to figuring this out is to pull up your credit report (to get the most accurate estimate pull it from all three bureaus, in case there is a debt that is reported to one and not the others; also make sure there are no errors in how your debts are reported). Once you've checked your free annual credit reports , you can monitor for changes. Tally up your monthly debt payments, and divide them by your gross monthly income (money before taxes and other deductions). As you could have guessed, the lower this number is the better off you'll be. Ideally you want to keep that number below 35%. 5. Your Invested Income You may know the number in your savings account, (this is invested income, too, despite the small return) but do you know if you're making the most of your money? Ask yourself what your money is doing for you. Is it sitting in the bank to use for a rainy day, or is it working to make you more money? Work with a trusted adviser to come up with a plan. Even if you're just starting out with your first job, wrangle your money and make it start working for you. If you already have some investments, ask yourself if you know what the money is invested in, not just the old, "oh, it's in an IRA." Know who manages it, what you earn, what the money is invested in and what kind of returns you get. The younger you are, the more freedom you have to make that young money work hard to earn you the most possible future money. Finally, your money should be in line with your future goals. Know what those goals are and the compatibility with your money. Saving money alone is not enough when it comes to having good financial health. You have to make sure you're paying attention to what amount of your savings is for what, and whether you're not on track for the big things. When it comes to managing your money, it's easy to get overwhelmed if you don't really know your money. Between knowing all the terms and numbers, you can quickly lose track and get discouraged. However, if you take the time get to know your money and how it impacts your life, it'll be easy to see that financial health comes down to being in the know. So the next time you want to have a close relationship with your money situation, take a deep breath, and jump in as if you were interviewing your money for a job … to work for you. More from MSN Money: 24 things you need to know to build credit 5 last-minute tax tips to save money and stress 5 countries where you should buy a second home
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The group Endangered Bodies started a Change.org petition to have the 'Feeling Fat' emoji removed from Facebook. Keri Lumm reports on the petition that already has over 16,000 signatures and the sparked the Twitter hashtag #fatisnotafeeling.
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video
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Ricky Gervais has led tributes to the late 'Simpsons' co-creator Sam Simon. Sam, who was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2012, passed away aged 59 on Sunday (03.08.15) at his home in Los Angeles. Writing on Twitter, 'The Office' star said: "RIP Sam Simon. Heroic humanitarian & genius co-creator of The Simpsons. D'oh, indeed. (sic)" Sam created the show alongside James L. Brooks and Matt Groening in 1989 and stayed at the helm for four years, writing episodes as well as doing other creative roles including showrunner. Seth MacFarlane, the creator of animated comedy 'Family Guy', also paid tribute to Sam. He wrote: "Had the mind of Sam Simon not paved the way for all of us in prime time animation, I wouldn't have a job. He will be sorely missed." Whilst Boy George wrote simply: "R.I.P Sam Simon!" Television personality Conan O'Brien praised the "gifted & genuinely good guy", writing on Twitter: "Sam Simon's contribution to the spirit of sharp, well-observed comedy is incalculable. Awful to lose such a gifted & genuinely good guy." Sam's colleagues also paid tribute to his "phenomenal talents". Matt Groening said: "(His) phenomenal talents, sharp intelligence and sly sense of humour (will be missed). He is gone from our industry too soon. (sic)" Whilst the show's executive producer Al Jean said: "He was a genius and a great humanitarian in ways public and private. "I personally owe him more than can be repaid, but I will do my best to help every animal I can in his memory." Sam was an eager animal rights activist and philanthropist and publicly announced he would be leaving his estimated $100 million fortune to charity in November last year. The award-winning writer, producer and director confirmed he would be donating his millions to Save The Children, PETA and his own foundation, which helps to feed hundreds of hungry families in Los Angeles every day.
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entertainment
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Los Angeles Lakers forward Julius Randle, who is recovering from a broken leg, was cleared to participate in non-contact basketball activities Monday. Randle, who picked seventh in 2014 NBA Draft, suffered the season-ending injury during the first game of the season. "I don't even think about. I don't feel it," Randle told The Los Angeles Times. "No pain, no soreness, no nothing." Lakers coach Byron Scott said Randle, who had surgery to repair the leg and to replace a screw in his right foot originally inserted after a high school injury, will hopefully start playing in a few months. "This is all in preparation for getting him ready for summer league," Scott told the Times. "Each week, we'll try to amp it up a little bit. By June, he should be running up and down the court."
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sports
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SEXY chef Mary Jean Dunsdon brings new meaning to hotpot - baking a range of cannabis infused dishes. The 35-year-old has her own cooking show 'Baking A Fool' of myself where she entices viewers with her sultry cooking style. And the glamour girl even poses nude amongst crops of marijuana - which is legal for medicinal purposes in her hometown of Vancouver, Canada. Videographer / Director: Tom Davidson Producer: Jack McKay / Nick Johnson Editor: Joshua Douglas / Ian Phillips
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video
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Taylor Swift has reportedly insured her legs for $40 million. Morgan Manousos (@MorganManousos) has the details.
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video
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Shares in Credit Suisse surged after the Swiss bank sought to turn the page on a period of scandals and fines by replacing its CEO, Brady W. Dougan, with the head of British insurer Prudential, Tidjane Thiam. Dougan will step down at the end of June to give way to Thiam, who helped Prudential expand into emerging markets in recent years. Credit Suisse shares were up 7.5 percent on the news, trading at 24.90 francs per share in midday trading in Switzerland. The Swiss bank's chairman, Urs Rohner, said in a statement that Dougan had kept Credit Suisse Group AG "on track in recent years despite a complex environment and considerable headwinds in the global financial services industry." Dougan, an American who joined Credit Suisse First Boston in 1990, successfully steered the Swiss bank through the 2008 financial crisis but failed to prevent it from paying billions in fines for helping foreign clients evade taxes. Last year, the bank agreed to pay U.S. authorities $2.6 billion in penalties for helping clients dodge taxes. The bank last month amended its fourth quarter 2014 earnings release to reflect an additional 230 million francs ($230 million) in charges for litigation and investigations in the United States related to mortgages. Thiam, who was born in Ivory Coast and also holds French citizenship, comes to Credit Suisse with a strong track record at Prudential, where he successfully expanded into developing markets, said Rohner. The bank said Thiam speaks English, French and German an asset in Switzerland, where the bank still has a large retail business and many employees. Thiam said he looked forward to maintaining "the strong momentum of the franchise and (serving) our clients in Switzerland and around the world."
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finance
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Tech investors swing for the fences and often ignore price, hoping to get in on "disrupters" that can overturn an industry. Companies don't need profits to get steep valuations (see Twitter, Tesla, and Box). The mood now resembles that of the first dotcom era , which ended 15 years ago when the bubble burst in March 2000. But the lesson of that episode isn't just "don't go there." There were smart ways to buy tech in the 1990s. Price did matter, combined with two other factors: a catalyst or a financial cushion. The same is true now. Here are three cases to illustrate the point: Case 1: Apple's Decisive Turn Today Apple is the world's biggest company, worth $683 billion. In 1997, though, Apple was a $3 billion computer maker bleeding market share. It traded at around six times earnings, vs. 20 for the S&P 500. A cheap stock price wasn't enough to make it a deal. "In tech, you have to have some semblance of a catalyst, because investors sooner or later demand revenue growth," says Paul Meeks, a portfolio manager for Saturna Capital. His firm purchased Apple in 1998 at a split-adjusted price of $1.17, which it still owns today at $127. Saturna couldn't have seen the iPod or the iPhone coming. Its catalyst was the return of Steve Jobs, which signaled an overhaul of how Apple did business. Jobs immediately negotiated his company's survival by getting a $150 million investment from rival Microsoft, and then jump-started research and development, which led to 1998's hit iMac. Case 2: Cash Saves Dell In the early '90s, PC maker Dell made big missteps, including a failed launch of notebook computers. At one point in 1993 the stock had lost two-thirds of its value. Dell still had a decent amount of cash on its balance sheet, though, allowing it to fight another day. That was key for Westwood Holdings' buy decision in 1993, says chief investment officer Mark Freeman. In 1997, Dell reached Westwood's target price with gains of about 1,700%. Case 3: Oracle in 2015 A cheap stock that passes both the catalyst and cushion tests today is the enterprise software giant Oracle. Investors fear that new cloud-based services, which allow users to access software online, will eat into Oracle's business. That's held the stock at 13 times earnings. But Edward Jones analyst Bill Kreher argues that Oracle's own cloud push could be a catalyst, allowing the company to cross-sell more to its customers. This will "bolster ongoing maintenance revenues," he says. Meanwhile, Oracle has $40 billion in cash, a strong defense against would-be disrupters. Read next: Who will win the battle of the tech titans?
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finance
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LONDON (AP) With a title already secured and their Premier League title prospects enhanced, Chelsea's players have enjoyed a strong start to March. ''There is a great buzz around the place,'' Chelsea defender Gary Cahill said. ''The (League) Cup final was huge in terms of the atmosphere around the club and the dressing room.'' And an earlier embarrassing exit from the FA Cup had the benefit of providing Chelsea with a week of rest going into Wednesday's Champions League game against Paris Saint-Germain. Although Chelsea drew 1-1 in the first leg at PSG, the London club left the French capital better placed to advance than in the previous year's quarterfinals. The Blues overcame a 3-1 deficit then to advance on away goals by winning 2-0 at Stamford Bridge. While Chelsea currently holds a five-point lead in the Premier League - with a game in hand - PSG trails Lyon by a point in the French league. Here are some are some things to know going into the second leg: --- FINISHING STRUGGLING PSG coach Laurent Blanc is worried that his team's poor finishing in recent weeks could prove costly at Stamford Bridge. Although PSG easily beat Lens 4-1 on Saturday, his players missed a glut of chances - with wingers Javier Pastore and Ezequiel Lavezzi both extremely wasteful in that game and in the previous week's 0-0 draw with Monaco. ''We'll need to be more clinical against Chelsea, I don't need to spell out why,'' Blanc said. ''We'll have fewer chances over there.'' PSG traditionally relies heavily on Zlatan Ibrahimovic for its goals, but his form has not been great since he came back from a nagging heel injury. Although the Sweden forward's 16 goals in 26 games this season is a credible haul, it is a significantly lower ratio than he managed in the two previous campaigns and includes five penalties. Edinson Cavani has 18 goals this season, and his form is improving, but if those two are off form then PSG will need goals from the midfield. However, Thiago Motta has not scored so far this season, Blaise Matuidi has managed one goal - against Lens on Saturday - and Marco Verratti just two. But David Luiz has found his range since stepping up from central defense to midfield, and the former Chelsea player has found the net in his past two matches. --- COSTA'S GOAL SEARCH The most significant addition to the Chelsea squad since hosting PSG a year ago was Diego Costa. The Spain striker has netted 16 Premier League goals this season, but his finishing has evaded him in the last six games in all competitions. And the former Atletico Madrid player is still searching for his first European goal in a Chelsea shirt. --- POLICE PRESENCE The behavior of fans will be in the spotlight around London on Wednesday after racism by Chelsea fans in Paris last month. A black commuter was filmed being forced off a train by supporters who then chanted: ''We're racist and that's the way we like it.'' Matches between PSG and Chelsea have also led to violent clashes between hooligan elements of both clubs in the past. PSG published a message from British police addressed to its traveling fans on its website Monday, advising fans not to ''frequent pubs near to the stadium, before and after the game.'' --- AP Sports Writer Jerome Pugmire in Paris contributed to this report.
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sports
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The perfect résumé is one of the most crucial aspects of every job search. Thankfully, Mark Slack, a career advisor at Resume Genius, has created a comprehensive guide to help you build the perfect résumé. Looking for resume advice, but don't know where to begin? There are so many websites offering resume and career advice that it's hard to choose between all of them. In some cases, you'll find a webpage that contains several links to different resources, but with little explanation about what the links offer. That's not very helpful. So I'm going to take a different, more helpful approach. I'll do these four things for you: Create a step-by-step resume writing process Curate "Best of the Best" links for each part of the process Explain how those links can help you, and Let other experts guide you through crafting the perfect resume Let's get started. Step 1: Getting a Rough Draft on Paper The hardest part of writing your resume (or doing anything) is just getting started. If you've never written one before, it can be intimidating. Fortunately, there are now resume building software tools that you can use to make your life easier. Resume software will write your rough draft for you. You just need to type in your job titles, and pre-written job description bullet point suggestions will pop up - just click them to add them to your resume draft. Link pack #1: Resume Genius Resume Maker CareerIgniter Pongo Resume How you should use these links: Use any of these pieces of software to write a draft of your resume. Don't be shy about adding excessive amounts of job bullet points, because you'll cut them down and refine your resume later. Right now, you just need to get rough information on paper. Once you're finished, don't purchase the finished resume - just use the raw material generated by the software to mold your resume into a professional document. (You can download your resume as a .txt file on any of these sites without entering a credit card.) If you feel like that's the end of it, you're dead wrong. While this software can give you a quick draft of a generic resume, you still need to edit it up to make it professional and strong. Step 2: Introducing Your Resume Now that you've let the resume makers do the hard lifting for you, and your resume is full of raw material, it's time to refine that mess of information into a professional document. The first step is deciding how to introduce your resume to the hiring manager. The way you introduce your resume will largely depend on how much work experience you have. Link pack #2: How to Write a Career Objective - none/some work experience How to Write a Qualifications Summary - some/significant work experience How to Write a Professional Profile - some/significant work experience How you should use these links: Click the link that best represents how much work experience you have. If you have some/significant amounts of work experience, a Qualifications Summary or a Professional Profile are both acceptable ways to introduce your resume. Each link gives an in-depth description for how to write each type of introduction, and why you should choose one or the other. Read over the content in those links, and use the information to craft an introduction to your resume. Step 3: Choosing a Resume Format There are three ways to present information on your resume: in the reverse-chronological, functional, and combination formats. The format you need to use is determined entirely by the nature of your work experience. Each format was developed to frame information about your work experience in the most positive light possible, (and to conceal "bad" information like work gaps). Link pack #3: What Resume Format Is Best For You? Reverse-Chronological vs. Combination vs. Functional Why You Shouldn't Use a Functional Resume How you should use these links: The first two links are similar, though they cover the material differently. The first link gives a basic rundown of the different types of resumes, and why you should use a particular format. The second link does the same, but also gives examples of what each resume will look like. The final link makes an argument against using the functional format entirely. I included it because it makes a persuasive argument that this format is outdated and ineffective. Your best bet is to stick with a reverse-chronological or combination format. Step 4: Refining Your Work Experience If you used the resume software links in Link Pack #1 pack to write a rough draft, you probably have a lot of generic bullet points for each of your job experiences. Kept in their current condition, a hiring manager's eyes will glaze over and they'll put your resume into the "no" pile. You'll need to spruce this section up with some professional resume writing tips. To perfect your resume, you'll need to cover a lot of territory in this step - but it will be worth it to land that job. Link pack #4: Keeping Your Resume Relevant - keeping the hiring manager interested How to Quantify Your Resume - telling the hiring manager the scope and scale of your skills and abilities Action Verb List - giving your resume a professional tone How to Beat an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) - making sure your resume gets past resume-reading software How you should use these links: You'll need to read all of the links in this set. Start from the top, and work your way to the bottom. The link about keeping your resume relevant will help you to "trim the fat" of your rough draft, allowing you to delete unnecessary bullet points. The write-up about quantifying your resume will help you to change your generic bullet points into achievement-oriented arguments for why you're the best candidate. The action verb link will give your resume a professional sounding tone that hiring managers are used to seeing. Finally, the link about ATS will help ensure that your resume isn't instantly rejected by resume-reading software. Take care with this step! Step 5: Refining Your Education If you're a student, you have an especially hard time writing a resume because you have little to no experience. Don't worry too much - employers are aware that you're a student, and that filling up a page is difficult for you. Nonetheless, you'll need strategies for displaying information about your academic career that will pique the interest of hiring managers - and that is what this link pack will help you do. Link Pack #5: How to Write an Education Section How to Write a Resume With No Work Experience Student Resume Examples How you should use these links: I would recommend reading through all of these links and giving the student resume examples a glance for good measure. They contain excellent strategies for how to format the education section of your resume to maximize displaying your academic achievements and academic activities in a way that is relevant to your potential employer. The first link tells students of all types (high school, college, professional) how to write the education section. The second link gives strategies for displaying non-career related experience on your resume. The final link gives examples you can look through to help you visually understand how your education section can look. Keep in mind that if you have plenty of professional experience, your education section only needs to be minimal. Step 6: Creating Your Skills Section The skills section may be the most misunderstood part of a resume. Hiring professionals and resume experts have all kinds of contradicting opinions about what is kosher to include in the skills section, and what isn't. Rule of thumb: You can get away with including irrelevant skills if you're a high school or college student, because your personality traits may matter more to hiring managers if you're young and inexperienced. If you're older with more work experience, just stick with including relevant skills only. Link pack #6: How to Write the Skills Section List of Skills to Include (Hard and Soft) Skills Section Writing Guide How you should use these links: The first link teaches you what information is important to include in your skills section, and what you should leave out. If you're struggling to come up with skills you can include on your resume, the second link provides a huge list of skills, both "hard" and "soft," that you can use. One link here is probably enough to read, but I wanted to give a selection. The final link is a step-by-step writing guide, if you feel like you still need help. Step 7: Selecting a Resume Template (or Creating Your Own) You've got all of your information nicely trimmed and edited, so now it's time to put it into a sharp looking template. If you read the link about ATS software, (do it!) you'll remember that your resume template should be simple. Keep in mind, simple doesn't necessarily mean boring or ugly. It just means you can't use images or strange icons and fonts. Link pack #7: Resume Genius Template Designs Microsoft Templates Google Templates How to Design Your Own Resume Template How you should use these links: Contrary to what you may read elsewhere, using a downloaded resume template is acceptable. People who argue that hiring managers will recognize resume templates and judge you as being lazy also tend to be selling expensive resume writing services. In other words, there's a conflict of interest. Therefore, I've linked three databases of free resume templates. Choose your favorite design (that is ATS friendly!), and start putting your information into the template. If you're the Do It Yourself type, the final link gives you resume design guidelines in a step-by-step format. It's perfectly acceptable to design your own layout. Conclusion Using the links above, you'll be able to write a professional resume from start to finish. These are some of the best guides and examples on the web, so you can be sure you're getting good advice. Need a little extra boost of confidence? Make sure you get professionals and peers you trust to look over your resume and make sure it's perfect. Then, send it out with some well-targeted cover letters, and watch the interview requests stream in!
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lifestyle
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A new report by The Intercept says that researchers working for the CIA have been involved in a "multi-year, sustained effort" to crack Apple security measures on iPhones and iPads. Documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden detail a number of initiatives, including an attempt to crack encryption keys implanted into Apple's mobile processor, and a method compromising Xcode the Apple tool used to create the vast majority of iOS apps. The ongoing battle between spies and tech companies Although the report doesn't include details of any successful operations against Apple, it highlights the ongoing battle between national security agencies and technology companies, as well as the hypocrisy of the US government. It was only in March this year that President Barack Obama criticized China for its plans forcing tech companies to install security backdoors for government surveillance. Instead, as The Intercept notes, China is only following America's lead. "If U.S. products are OK to target, that's news to me," Matthew Green, a cryptography expert at Johns Hopkins University's Information Security Institute told The Intercept . "Tearing apart the products of U.S. manufacturers and potentially putting backdoors in software distributed by unknowing developers all seems to be going a bit beyond 'targeting bad guys.' It may be a means to an end, but it's a hell of a means." A comprised version of Xcode would allow spies to tap iPhone and iPad data US researchers' efforts to target Apple's products, as well as those from competitors like Microsoft, were presented at a secret annual CIA-sponsored conference known as the "Jamboree." In a presentation from 2012, researchers from Sandia Labs gave a talk titled "Strawhorse: Attacking the MacOS and iOS Software Development." In it, they showed how a comprised version of Xcode would allow spies to siphon off iPhone and iPad data, create "remote backdoors" on connected Mac computers, and disable core security features on Apple devices. It's not clear how spy agencies would get developers to use the comprised version of the software. A separate presentation showed how a modified OS X updater could be used to install keyloggers on Mac computers. Another from 2011 discussed different methods that could be used to hack Apple's Group ID (GID) one of the two encryption keys that Apple places on its mobile devices. One method involved studying the electromagnetic emissions of the GID to extract the encryption key, while another focused on a "method to physically extract the GID key," according to leaked presentation notes. "Spies gonna spy." The documents do not specify how successful or not these methods have been, nor do they give any examples of specific hacks carried out by the CIA and other US intelligence agencies. "Spies gonna spy," Steven Bellovin, a computer science professor at Columbia University and former chief technologist for the FTC, told The Intercept . "I'm never surprised by what intelligence agencies do to get information. They're going to go where the info is, and as it moves, they'll adjust their tactics. Their attitude is basically amoral: whatever works is OK."
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CIA researchers have worked for nearly a decade to break the security protecting Apple phones and tablets, investigative news site The Intercept reported on Tuesday, citing documents obtained from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. The report cites top-secret U.S. documents that suggest U.S. government researchers had created a version of XCode, Apple's software application development tool, to create surveillance backdoors into programs distributed on Apple's App Store. The Intercept has in the past published a number of reports from documents released by whistleblower Snowden. The site's editors include Glenn Greenwald, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his work in reporting on Snowden's revelations, and by Oscar-winning documentary maker Laura Poitras. It said the latest documents, which covered a period from 2006 to 2013, stop short of proving whether U.S. intelligence researchers had succeeded in breaking Apple's encryption coding, which secures user data and communications. Efforts to break into Apple products by government security researchers started as early as 2006, a year before Apple introduced its first iPhone and continued through the launch of the iPad in 2010 and beyond, The Intercept said. Breeching Apple security was part of a top-secret program by the U.S. government, aided by British intelligence researchers, to hack "secure communications products, both foreign and domestic" including Google Android phones, it said. Silicon Valley technology companies have in recent months sought to restore trust among consumers around the world that their products have not become tools for widespread government surveillance of citizens. Last September, Apple strengthened encryption methods for data stored on iPhones, saying the changes meant the company no longer had any way to extract customer data on the devices, even if a government ordered it to with a search warrant. Silicon Valley rival Google Inc said shortly afterward that it also planned to increase the use of stronger encryption tools. Both companies said the moves were aimed at protecting the privacy of users of their products and that this was partly a response to widescale U.S. government spying on Internet users revealed by Snowden in 2013. An Apple spokesman pointed to public statements by Chief Executive Tim Cook on privacy, but declined to comment further. "I want to be absolutely clear that we have never worked with any government agency from any country to create a backdoor in any of our products or services," Cook wrote in a statement on privacy and security published last year. "We have also never allowed access to our servers. And we never will." Leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron have expressed concern that turning such privacy-enhancing tools into mass market features could prevent governments from tracking militants planning attacks. The CIA did not immediately reply to a request for comment. (Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)
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news
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A 7-month-old girl was found dead in the Little Village neighborhood Monday morning, her throat cut by a power saw, authorities said. Police found the child, identified as Rose Herrera, after being called to a building in the 2800 block of South Avers Avenue on the West Side about 9:40 a.m., according to police and the Cook County medical examiner's office. Authorities said a relative, a 52-year-old woman, used a circular saw to cut the baby's throat, apparently because she wouldn't stop crying. The woman initially tried to shove something in the baby's mouth - possibly cloth - to get the girl to quiet down, a source said. The woman then tried to kill herself and was found by another relative, according to authorities. The woman was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where she was stable and in police custody. Detectives were conducting a "domestic-related murder investigation," police said. Illinois Department of Children and Family Services said it was investigating the relative in the death of the child. There was no prior contact with the family, the agency said. No other children were present in the home at the time, officials said. The girl's father got a call Monday morning at work at a grain elevator in Beecher, according to his friend, Ben Llamas, who works with him. "He adored her," Llamas said of the father, who is 23. Llamas said he drove him to the house on Avers. "He was upset," Llamas said, but didn't talk about what happened. "There's nothing better than kind of minding your own business," Llamas said. "We just drove in silence. He was in shock." A relative said the father's family does not know what happened. "We have no idea," the relative said, asking not to be named. "We just got the news that she passed away and that's all we know. She had no health problems, she was a good baby. "We don't know yet, they haven't said anything," he said. The relative said the girl would have turned 8 months old March 16. Brenda Saucedo, 32, who lives on the same block, said she knows the woman who was taken into custody. "She was a nice person, she came to my house," said Saucedo, who is pregnant and came outside with her 4-year-old son Issac. "I'm shocked; she would never do this. It had to be somebody else." A woman who lives nearby had seen the baby at a health clinic recently. "I held her hand and I was hugging her," said the woman, who asked not be identified. "She had a little flu. "She wanted to be hugged, she was a happy baby," the woman said. "She was very pretty." Neighbors said several people live in the home, possibly from one family. "They were really good people," Francisco Arreola said in Spanish. "I would always see them and they were very happy. I never heard them fight or anything. They were very good people. It's very difficult, very sad that they killed a child of 8 or 9 months. I heard there was crying." Marcella Gentil, 28, held her 1-year-old daughter Tiffany and said through tears how "sad" it was to hear of the death of an infant. "It's sad. It's sad, period," Gentil said. The family at the Avers address were "quiet neighbors," she said. "It's ridiculous, why hurt your child?" Francisco Arreola, who lives next door, told reporters through a translator that he heard crying upstairs but not much else because he'd been sleeping. He has known the people who live there more than 20 years, and there is at least a mother, father and two daughters who live there. "They never had any problems," he said. Llamas said he and the child's father grew up together in Beecher and went to grade school together, but the father is originally from Chicago. "His parents know my parents," Llamas said. Check back for more information.
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news
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Sigma Alpha Epsilon house A racist chant by several members of a University of Oklahoma fraternity that was caught on video led to outrage from the school's president and the organization's banishment from campus . Above, the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house at the University of Oklahoma on March 9, 2015. SAE video surfaces Video still from a clip uploaded by Unheard Movement to their YouTube channel on March 8, 2015, which appears to show members of the University of Oklahoma's Sigma Alpha Epsilon house chanting racist lyrics. Reaction to SAE video Post-it notes decrying the SAE video cover a door at the University of Oklahoma Student Union, March 9, 2015. Student reaction to video Students question University president David Boren about the SAE video at a forum on March 9, 2015. University President Boren During a forum on March 9, 2015, University President David Boren condemned the SAE video. Reaction to SAE video Graffiti reading "Tear it down" on the side of Sigma Alpha Epsilon house, March 9, 2015. Dismantling SAE Workers begin removing the Greek letters from SAE house, March 9, 2015. Moving out of SAE Students carry furniture from SAE house, March 9, 2015, after University of Oklahoma president David Boren severed the school's ties with the national fraternity. Packing up SAE Students load a truck with furniture from SAE after the fraternity's on-campus house was closed down by the University of Oklahoma administration. SAE dismantled Workers carry away the Greek letters from Sigma Alpha Epsilon house after the University of Oklahoma severed its sites with the national fraternity, March 9, 2015.
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Brazilian Felipe Nasr will get his first taste of Formula One action for real when he makes his debut for a revitalised Sauber team at the Australian Grand Prix this weekend. Nasr impressed as Sauber showed encouraging speed and reliability in pre-season testing, going fastest on the second day of the first test in Jerez and completing a mammoth 159-lap session on his last day of testing in Barcelona before heading to Melbourne. "I wouldn't say I am surprised. I would say I am a lot more confident considering the position of the team last year," the 22-year-old told AFP. The Swiss team endured a horror 2014 as they failed to register a single point in 19 races. "This year's position seems a lot stronger. It gives a lot of confidence to the team and the drivers. "It is good that we are able to push the car forward and improve in many areas, but there is still room for improvement. "The main goal is clear. Myself together with the team, we want to be back in the points as soon as possible." Nasr is only one of a host of talented newcomers to the top level of motor sport alongside 17-year-old Dutch sensation Max Verstappen, his Toro Rosso teammate Spaniard Carlos Sainz Junior and Britain's Max Stevens in the revived Manor. He also joins Felipe Massa as the second Brazilian on the grid, but it is from another of his compatriots that he has drawn inspiration to forge a career in Formula One. "I liked Ayrton Senna the most," he said of the three-time world champion, who died tragically during the San Marino Grand Prix in 1994. "Being Brazilian I learned so many things about him as a driver as a person on and off the track, so many videos, documentaries, I enjoyed watching him. I would put him as my idol." Like his hero Senna, Nasr made his mark by winning the British Formula Three championship in 2011 before moving in GP2 series for the last three years. However, he recognises he has had to work hard on both his physical and mental preparation for the step up to F1. "Since I got the news I would be coming to Formula One I have been working a lot harder on the physical side and on the mental side. "If I look back now I don't know if GP2 was the certain step to do it, but I also think I learned a lot in GP2 as you use the same tyres, the same circuits and the car is quite close to a F1 car." After a promising winter, the real test of what Sauber and Nasr are capable of will be put the test in Melbourne.
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sports
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Archaeologists in London have begun digging up some 3,000 skeletons including those of victims of the Great Plague from a burial ground that will become a new train station, the company in charge said. A team of 60 researchers will work in shifts six days a week over the next month at the Bedlam burial ground to remove the ancient skeletons, which will eventually be re-buried at a cemetery near London. Crossrail, which is building a new east-west train line in London, said the dig near Liverpool Street station was being carried out on its behalf by the Museum of London's archaeology unit. The company said in a statement that the bones would be tested to "shed light on migration patterns, diet, lifestyle and demography" of Londoners at the time. "Archaeologists hope that tests on excavated plague victims will help understand the evolution of the plague bacteria strain," Crossrail said. The Bedlam ground was used between 1569 and 1738 -- a period that spanned Shakespeare's plays, the Great Fire of London and numerous plague outbreaks. The excavation is also expected to further uncover the remains of an ancient Roman road, where Crossrail said that several artefacts such as horseshoes and cremation urns have already been found. The area was London's first municipal burial ground and was named after the nearby Bethlem Royal Hospital or "Bedlam" -- the world's oldest psychiatric institution, which has since relocated outside London. The burial ground was used by Londoners who could not afford a church burial or who chose to be buried there for religious or political reasons. Members of the Levellers, a 17th-century political grouping that advocated popular sovereignty and religious tolerance, are believed to be buried there. Following excavation, constructors will build a new ticket hall for Crossrail's Liverpool Street station. "The Bedlam burial ground spans a fascinating phase of London's history, including the transition from the Tudor-period City into cosmopolitan early-modern London," said Jay Carver, Crossrail lead archaeologist. Nick Elsden, a project manager from Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA), said: "There are up to six metres of archaeology on site in what is one of the oldest areas of the city, so we stand to learn a great deal". Crossrail is one of Europe's biggest construction projects and the company said that more than 10,000 artefacts have been uncovered so far in multiple excavations at some 40 sites. Preliminary excavations at Liverpool Street in 2013 and 2014 uncovered more than 400 skeletons.
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Four rescuers heard woman's voice, but mother was found dead
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news
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SUMMERFIELD, Fla. Hold the cheese. Thieves made off with a refrigerated tractor-trailer filled with $85,000 worth of shredded mozzarella cheese bound for a Hungry Howies Pizza distribution center in central Florida. The truck was reported stolen Sunday. The Ocala Star-Banner reports the driver and his girlfriend left the trailer at a truck stop in Summerfield on Saturday evening while having a mechanic check the truck. Marion County Sheriff's officials say the woman reported the truck was missing Sunday. Deputies say a hauler was also reported missing from the lot Saturday, presumably to take the trailer. The missing trailer has white mud flaps with "Hudsonville Trailer Sales" on them. It also has a Michigan license plate. The trailer is valued at $62,000. ___ Information from: Ocala (Fla.) Star-Banner, http://www.starbanner.com/
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How long can the current Apple TV survive? The sleek streaming box has stayed the same, more or less, for just over three years now. Sure, there's been a steady stream of new apps and software features, but the components and basic experience have barely changed. Meanwhile, we've seen Roku, Amazon, Google and others bombard the market with rival hardware that offer new, modern takes on navigation and discovery. We're still waiting on a major Apple TV refresh, but in the meantime the company has dropped the price of its set-top box yet again; now, you can pick one up for £59 rather than £79 in the UK. It's hard not to see this latest discount as a stop-gap measure. Price drops are always welcome, of course, but after three years even the most devout Apple fans will be hoping for an upgrade. Even so, the Apple TV is still a competitive bit of kit. If you compare it side-by-side with other sub-£100 set-top boxes, the list of features that it's missing out on is still relatively small. Most of the major streaming services are there (Amazon's Prime Instant Video is a notable exception) and AirPlay streaming is still invaluable for Mac, iOS and even Android users, if you're willing to download a third-party app like AllCast. At £59, it's also a tad cheaper now than most of its biggest rivals. It's an unusual tactic for Apple, which normally prides itself on offering a best-in-class experience with a luxurious price-tag to match. Settling for second-best and undercutting the competition just isn't its style. Nevertheless, it's a move that could shift a few more Apple TVs off store shelves. At least until the company launches its long-rumoured Apple TV successor, which some suspect is now cancelled or stuck in development limbo due to uncooperative TV providers. Alas, the wait for truly à la carte TV channels and programming continues...
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Barnes & Noble Inc (BKS.N), the largest U.S. bookstore chain, reported a 14 percent rise in quarterly profit, helped by cost cutting in its Nook digital business. The company said on Tuesday net income rose to $72.2 million, or 93 cents per share, in the third quarter ended Jan. 31, from $63.2 million, or 86 cents per share, a year earlier. Revenue declined to $1.96 billion from $2.0 billion. (Reporting by Yashaswini Swamynathan and Ramkumar Iyer in Bengaluru; Editing by Joyjeet Das)
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finance
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Drinking just one glass of wine makes you appear more attractive than when you're sober, according to British researchers who caution that drinking more makes the effect go away. In the study, a group made up of 20 men and 20 women, all of who were heterosexual, were asked to rate the attractiveness of people in a series of photos. The models in the photos were depicted after drinking either 250 ml of wine or 500 ml of wine. Regardless of the case, all models had also been photographed sober. Study participants rated the models as being more attractive after drinking one glass of wine -- 250 ml -- than they were in their sober photos. Yet the models who had drank more than one glass --500 ml -- didn't bring in the same high rankings, at least not when compared to their sober photos. To explain their results, the research team presumes the increased allure comes from increased blood flow that brings on facial flushing. Light drinking could also boost the spirits in a manner that becomes visible in subtle smiles and increased relaxation. The study was published in the journal Alcohol and Alcoholism.
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health
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If you're fortunate enough to have a pension and if you're given the option of choosing a lump-sum payment before or in retirement chances are good you aren't getting the information you need to make an informed decision. That's the primary finding from a new study from the Government Accountability Office. The title sums it up nicely: "Participants Need Better Information When Offered Lump Sums That Replace Their Lifetime Benefits." The GAO notes that, since 2012, a growing number of large pension-plan sponsors have given selected workers and retirees the option of receiving their retirement benefits in the form of a lump sum, instead of a series of regular payments. Typically, individuals are given a specific time frame or "window" say, a month in which to decide whether to exercise that option. While such limited-time offers are legal, "questions have been raised," the GAO states, "about participants' understanding of the financial tradeoffs associated with their choice." As such, the agency reviewed 11 packets of information provided by retirement-plan sponsors offering lump sums to almost 250,000 participants. The GAO found that the packets "consistently lacked key information needed to make an informed decision or were otherwise unclear." In particular, the study found that: -- Materials from sponsors often didn't specify how the value of the lump sum compared to the value of the lifetime monthly benefit provided by the plan. -- Many packets didn't clearly indicate the mortality assumptions or interest rate used, "limiting participants' ability to assess how the lump-sum payment was calculated." -- Few of the packets explained to participants about the benefit protections they would keep by sticking with their employer's plan. For instance, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the agency that insures defined-benefit pensions when a sponsor defaults, provides full or partial protections for workers and retirees. "This omission is notable," the report states, "because many participants GAO interviewed cited fear of sponsor default as an important factor in choosing the lump sum." The GAO is recommending that the Department of Labor and the Treasury Department "improve oversight" of lump-sum offers and "clarify guidance on the information sponsors provide to participants." Meanwhile, the report identifies eight key types of information that workers and retirees need "to have a sound understanding of a lump-sum offer." If you find yourself with such an offer, this report is essential reading.
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finance
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Kevin Spacey has to remind people he is not the US President. The 55-year-old actor portrays scheming Head of State Frank Underwood in Netflix drama 'House of Cards' and is astonished that people seem to get his real life mixed up with that of his alter ego. He said: "Very often we get questions that [suggest] nobody has a clue we are actually paid to pretend we are other people. "What planet do you live on where you can't tell the difference anymore? Have we become so celebrity-obsessed that there is no longer a difference between a character and an actor? I hope not... "People sometimes have to be reminded, I'm not Frank Underwood. I'm an actor named Kevin Spacey." And Kevin can't understand why people believe there must be some aspects of Frank's dark personality which are shared by him. He told the New York Daily News newspaper: "That's a complete falsehood. That's like saying in order to play Richard III, I have to have murdered people to get to where I am." However, he understands it can be hard to distinguish between the actor and the character if they undertake interviews and other appearances in the same costume they wear on screen. Clad in a suit and tie - which is what Frank typically wears - he said: "I never do interviews like that, because I think it is so important to protect the character you play."
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entertainment
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Real Madrid will become the first side in the history of the Champions League to record 11 straight wins if it beats Schalke at the Santiago Bernabeu on Tuesday night. Carlo Ancelotti's side has won its last 10 in European football's premier club competition since losing 2-0 at Borussia Dortmund in the quarterfinal second leg last April. Back-to-backs wins over Bayern Munich in the semifinals were followed by a dramatic extra-time victory over city rival Atletico in the Lisbon showpiece, before group-stage successes against Basel, Liverpool and Ludogorets (twice each) and a 2-0 first-leg triumph at Schalke in the second round last month. A win on Tuesday would see Ancelotti's side better Bayern's 10 wins secured between April and December of 2013 at the end of Jupp Heynckes' reign and the beginning of Pep Guardiola's tenure at the Allianz Arena. Barcelona's eight-match winning streak in 2002-2003 is the third best run in the competition, while Dortmund racked up eight consecutive victories en route to the trophy in 1996-97, and another Guardiola side (Barca 2011-12) managed seven straight successes.
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John Malone's Liberty Global and Discovery Communications, who have been linked in the past with Formula One, have become shareholders in the new Formula E electric series. Formula E said in a statement that the two companies had secured minority investments. No figures were given but the Hollywood Reporter indicated the combined investment was approximately $55 million for a one third stake. "It is a significant step forward for Formula E to receive the backing of two major global media companies when we are barely halfway through our first season," said Formula E chief executive Alejandro Agag. "The experience and knowhow they bring will provide a significant boost to Formula E." Reports last year suggested Liberty Global and Discovery Communications were interested in buying a combined 49 percent stake in Formula One from rights holders CVC and Lehman Brothers. Formula E is holding its fifth round of the season in Miami this weekend. (Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Justin Palmer)
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autos
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A special United Nations team on hazardous asteroids has been dissolved after completing its task of setting up organizations to deal with planet-threatening space rocks. The UN's Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space formally dissolved its Action Team 14, in recognition of the group's successful completion of its mandate to coordinate international mitigation efforts for near-Earth object (NEO) threats, officials announced last month. "Action Team 14 coordinated the establishment of the Space Mission Planning Advisory Group (SMPAG) and the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN), and thus played a vital role in the international community's response to any potential near-Earth object impact threat," said Elöd Both of Hungary, chair of the subcommittee. [ Potentially Dangerous Asteroids (Images) ] "Everyone's contributions made possible that IAWN and SMPAG now exist and have work plans for the next several years. Their existence is truly a tangible and very important step in protecting Earth from an impact by an asteroid or in mitigating the consequences if the Earth should receive an impact," said Sergio Camacho, who served as chair of Action Team 14 (AT-14). A real threat It has been more than two years since a sky blast rocked the Chelyabinsk region in Russia, caused by a previously undetected space rock that fragmented high in the atmosphere. The detonation on Feb. 15, 2013, injured more than 1,000 people and damaged property, letting loose window-shattering shock waves over an extensive region. [ Meteor Blast Over Russia: Complete Coverage ] Many experts regard the Russian meteor explosion as a global wake-up call about the very real dangers that asteroids present. IAWN and SMPAG are designed to help the world deal with that threat. IAWN's purpose is to establish a worldwide effort to detect, track and physically characterize NEOs, to determine those that are potential impact threats to Earth. This network consists of a partnership of scientific institutions, observatories and other interested parties performing observations, orbit computation, modeling, and additional scientific research related to the impact potential and effects of asteroids. The primary purpose of the SMPAG is to prepare for an international response to an NEO threat through the exchange of information, development of options for collaborative research and mission opportunities, and conducting NEO threat mitigation planning activities. SMPAG is currently chaired by the European Space Agency (ESA). Both groups have had their first meetings. Working together For some, the closing down of AT-14 is bittersweet. "I have been working in the Action Team 14 since 2008. That's just when it started with the task to develop a recommendation on how to react to an imminent impact threat on an international level," said Detlef Koschny, head of near-Earth-object activities at ESA's Space Situational Awareness office in The Netherlands. "Now the work of the action team is done … and I think we can all be proud," Koschny added. "We have indeed accomplished our task. A way forward is in place and being implemented by the formation of the IAWN and SMPAG. It was great to be part of this team." The success of AT-14 underscores the fact that, despite potential political differences, " countries can work together productively to deal with global threats," said Ray Williamson, retired director of the nonprofit Secure World Foundation and a member of AT-14 for some six years. Williamson said that AT-14 provided the expertise and the necessary pursuit of organizational detail to make the process of the UN's Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space go successfully. That success, Williamson said, led to producing the organizations capable of meeting the asteroid threat now and in the distant future. "Well, it took longer than I would have thought seven years but I think it produced a worthy result with international support for establishment of the IAWN and SMPAG," said Lindley Johnson, NASA NEO programs executive within the Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C. "Although still in large part led by U.S. efforts, it has shown the space agencies and offices in countries around the world they can make a worthwhile and important contribution to efforts to find and track the impact hazards, and in determining what we do when we find a credible impact threat," Johnson said. What now? Former NASA astronaut Tom Jones is chairman of the Association of Space Explorers (ASE) committee on near-Earth objects. ASE is an international nonprofit professional and educational organization of about 400 astronauts and cosmonauts from 36 nations. It has played a leadership role in calling global attention to asteroid threats for decades. "As the Action Team 14 closes out its activities at the United Nations, with well-deserved recognition, what the UN must now sponsor are discussions on how to authorize and execute an international deflection effort , so that those vital details are in place when we are confronted by an impact threat," Jones said. ASE, he added, will continue to urge progress in this area. One result from the work of AT-14 is a call to bring together international disaster response agencies in an impact disaster planning advisory group, said William Ailor, distinguished engineer at the Center for Orbital and Re-Entry Debris Studies at the Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo, California. Ailor, also a participant in AT-14 deliberations, said such an advisory group could become aware of the nature of an asteroid impact threat and look at responses to an asteroid impact that might involve agencies from multiple nations. "This recommendation has not been approved," Ailor said, "but disaster response agencies in several nations have had tabletop exercises to acquaint themselves with how such a threat might evolve and how response to an impact disaster might compare to disasters caused by earthquakes, tsunamis, tornados and hurricanes ." Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is former director of research for the National Commission on Space and is co-author of Buzz Aldrin's 2013 book "Mission to Mars My Vision for Space Exploration" published by National Geographic with a new updated paperback version to be released this May. Follow us @Spacedotcom , Facebook or Google+ . Originally published on Space.com . The 7 Strangest Asteroids in the Solar System Photos: Asteroids in Deep Space Photos: Russian Meteor Explosion of Feb. 15, 2013
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POWAY, Calif. Knees bent and elbows locked, Christian Ellis stood in a swirl of gun smoke, clutching the base of a 9 mm Glock 17. It's the same firearm carried by police officers across the country, but seconds before firing, Ellis pulled out an orange slide and snapped it onto the weapon. A metal sphere now hung in front of the muzzle. When he fired, the bullet buried itself into the sphere, sending it hurtling toward a target down range. "It knocks the person down. It's going to break some ribs," said Ellis, chief executive of Alternative Ballistics, the maker of the device. "It's going to feel like a professional baseball player swung a hammer and hit you in the chest." But it's unlikely to kill. After a year of controversial police killings that have inflamed cities across the country, police departments have embarked on an urgent search for new tools that can spare lives while protecting their own. Manufacturers say these "less-lethal" weapons are designed to fill a critical gap between stun guns and live rounds, allowing officers to strike with enough force to knock down an attacker from farther away than they could using a Taser. Instead of viewing these weapons as niche items, officials are considering whether they can be widely deployed even as standard patrol weapons to reduce fatal police shootings. The Ferguson Police Department in Missouri the epicenter of recent anti-police demonstrations has tested Ellis' sphere and is considering deploying the weapon on its fractured streets, officials have said. "It's hard to believe in an era where we have drone technology, where we could get a bomb through somebody's window and you could hit them at a dinner table 3,000 miles away with precision, we're still using 1800s technology for policing," said Eugene O'Donnell, a former New York City police officer and assistant district attorney who now serves a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. But the push to adopt less-lethal weapons also has sparked concern among police officers, who say they complicate an already chaotic decision of when to use force. To use these devices, experts say, police officers would have to ignore basic academy training when facing life-or-death situations. For example, Ellis' device can only be fired once. Most officers are trained to fire multiple times during a lethal force situation. "I applaud anyone who tries to come up with something," said Steve Ijames, acting chief of the Republic, Mo., Police Department and a nationally recognized expert on the use of less-lethal force. "But when you balance all of the issues, the potential benefit with the potential risk and what we are asking officers to do in situations, it simply defies logic." The Ferguson Police Department, Ellis said, contacted Alternative Ballistics in Poway just a few weeks after Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old African-American man. The Aug. 9 shooting touched off months of angry, at times violent, demonstrations in Ferguson. The demonstrations spread across the country, turning the St. Louis suburb into a flash point for a national discussion on police, race and deadly force. After other controversial police killings were met with similar fury in New York City, Cleveland and Los Angeles, vendors said many police departments began looking at alternative weapons. "There are situations where lethal force may be justified, but does a bullet really need to be utilized to solve that situation?" Ellis asked. The challenge in designing less-lethal weapons is balancing officer safety, stopping power, speed, range and flexibility. Police departments already have nonlethal alternatives, such as stun guns, batons and shotgun beanbag rounds. But they all have limitations in range, convenience and stopping power. The latest movement is designing compact weapons that can be used by an officer in most situations, with the option of firing either lethal or nonlethal rounds. Ellis said the sphere, which is made from a metal alloy, is designed to carry a bullet's force, allowing it to function similarly to other so-called impact rounds, such as beanbags or rubber bullets. He said the device is best used when an attacker is more than 20 feet away from an officer. Unlike beanbag rounds, the sphere can be fired from a pistol and, if the projectile fails to stop an attacker, the officer can immediately follow up with a live round. To make nonlethal weapons more acceptable, companies are designing more flexible weapons. Bruzer Less Lethal International in Indiana is selling a pistol that can fire a variety of rounds including beanbags, rubber bullets, gas pellets, and soft shells that expand on contact, called "pancake rounds." Tommy Teach, co-founder of the company, said the two-shot device can be carried at the hip like a regular service weapon. An officer could switch to a standard handgun if the launcher failed to stop an assailant. But the idea of mixing lethal and nonlethal force has been met with skepticism from officers and police officials. Sid Heal, a retired commander with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and chairman of strategy development for the National Tactical Officers Association, said mixing technologies creates too many variables in a situation when an officer's life could be in jeopardy. "I think it's more dangerous to the suspect than the officer, for the simple fact that the human mind is not going to be able to process both the threat and the changing situation fast enough to tell the brain to stop pulling the trigger," he said. "It really turns the whole safety prioritization concept on its head." Rick Wyant, a forensic scientist who has testified in more than 100 use-of-force cases, said even if police leaders could train officers to fire just once in a dangerous situation, it is unlikely that those devices would be able to stop an advancing attacker in one or two shots, meaning officers might have to follow up with a lethal round anyway. "More often than not when you get this focused, targeted aggressor, you're not going to get compliance within one shot," Wyant said. Still, officers say they're willing to try new technology if it can lower fatalities. "I remember a lot of instances where it could have been used," said Vicente Calderon, a retired California Highway Patrol officer, referring to Ellis' sphere. "It's an excellent tool because it gives the officers another option." O'Donnell, the former New York City police officer, said he believed devices like those being tested by Ferguson and other places are pushing departments to consider new ways of confronting threats on the streets. Just as the advent of stun guns and chemical sprays decades ago changed the way officers deal with close-range threats, the new nonlethal weapons could allow police to handle more distant attackers without killing them. "This is a decades-old conversation, so that's why it's all the more remarkable," he said. "We know what needs to happen here. Deliver into the hands of the cops, a nonlethal weapon."
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At the very first Tribal Marijuana Conference held last weekend in Tulalip, WA, the former chairman of the Moapa Paiute tribe, William Anderson, tall and dignified and walking with a cane, explained to me what brought him: "I was just laying in bed in pain. I couldn't get up, I couldn't get up to go to the bathroom or go to the kitchen because I was in so much pain." An infection in his foot had spread to his spine and deteriorated the bone, exposing nerves. Doctors replaced the bone with titanium steel. For two years, the infection, even with prescription creams and antibiotics, kept coming back. The Indian Health Service recommended amputation of his foot. "I just prayed to the Great Creator, 'Please, help me with my pain. Please, help me get up so I can function as a normal human being.'" Then he remembered a documentary he had seen years earlier about medical marijuana, and how it was used by cancer patients for pain relief. He ordered a topical cannabis ointment, and when he applied it he felt immediate relief. The conference brought together some 75 tribal representatives, along with hundreds from the state and federal level in addition to cannabis industry leaders on the Tulalip tribe's $200 million resort and casino in Washington state. This was in response to a Department of Justice memo directing US attorneys nationwide not to prosecute federally-recognized tribes conducting marijuana-related businesses on reservation land so long as they meet nine criteria, including the prevention of criminal elements from profiting from marijuana sales, and keeping cannabis products away from minors. While most of the presentations at the conference addressed the legal, infrastructural, and financial concerns of running a marijuana business on the reservation, Anderson's story highlights the incredible medical needs faced by many tribal members. Native Americans have the highest rates of high-risk drinking and suicide of any American ethnic group, according to research from the NIH and CDC , respectively. In the past two decades, opioid deaths and cancer rates have continued to climb. On Anderson's reservation, tribal members' health had been harmed by a coal power plant that blew coal ash through their community; its waste ponds poisoning their ground water. They fought back and shut down the plant, but this story is all too common throughout "Indian Country;" Native American communities pay a heavy price, both in regards to environmental and public health, for US energy development. Amanda Reiman, manager of marijuana law and policy at the Drug Policy Alliance, assured tribal leaders at the conference that cannabis could actually help Native American communities battling addiction. A recent study (paywall) found that marijuana acts not as a "gateway drug," as it is often characterized, but as a less harmful replacement for alcohol. In states that have legalized medical marijuana, the researchers found that the number of alcohol-related traffic fatalities per year decreased by as much as 11%. It is estimated that, in the United States, alcohol-related deaths total 88,000 per year. The statistics are even more dire for Native American communities: nearly 11.7% of Native American deaths are alcohol-related , compared to 3.3% for all Americans. Another study published just last year in JAMA Internal Medicine found that opioid mortality rates were lower by 25% in states that had legalized medical marijuana. Native Americans have seen opioid-related (prescription painkiller) deaths increase since 2000 to a rate that is 3 times that of African-Americans and Hispanics, according to the CDC . Nationally, these drugs now kill more people than car crashes. As the medical establishment has reigned in opioid over-prescription, patients who had become addicted to painkillers have increasingly turned to heroin once associated with big cities, but now a booming trade in poorer, rural areas. Last week, the Saginaw Chippewa tribe in Michigan banished two tribal members for trafficking in heroin. On Feb. 20, a couple from the Lummi tribe in Washington state were sentenced to prison for conspiracy to distribute heroin and methamphetamine. "Heroin and methamphetamine trafficking has no place in any of our communities, least of all on tribal lands," said acting US attorney for the Western district of Washington, Annette L. Hayes. "Last week I convened a heroin summit to focus community resources on battling what has become a growing epidemic of opioid abuse. I commend the work of our tribal partners, the Lummi, to lead in the effort to prevent heroin use and overdose deaths." Meanwhile, yet another study made headlines after finding marijuana to be 114 times less deadly than alcohol. Alcohol, followed by heroin and cocaine, was found to be the most dangerous recreational drug. Tobacco came in fourth, and cannabis a distant last. With all the research and evidence regarding the safety and innocuousness of marijuana piling up, it is no wonder that the federal government has taken baby steps to revise its once harsh prohibition of the drug. For example, a US district judge in Sacramento, CA, heard the final arguments on Feb. 11 on a hearing regarding the constitutionality of the 1970 Controlled Substances Act that classified marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug . This is the first reconsideration of the act's claims that marijuana has "no accepted medical use" a rather foolish assertion considering that that 23 states and the District of Columbia now permit the distribution and consumption of medical marijuana. She is expected to rule within the next week. Still, many Native Americans, long used to fighting addiction in their communities, see the opportunity for the sale of marijuana on their lands as yet another Trojan horse delivered by the US government. They worry about its implementation. Troy Eid, chair of president Obama's Indian Law and Order Commission was cautious. "I think it is very good for tribes to look at and think about how they might want to influence changes in the federal law," he said. "Having said that, there are no changes in federal law here. I can tell you as a former US attorney, the nine different criteria that they laid out are not sufficient to provide protections to tribes or tribal members, tribal citizens. So, you are really rolling the dice." For Native American communities, the issue of marijuana legalization represents both unique challenges and prospects for success. It hinges on careful negotiation with multiple federal agencies, from the DEA to the IRS. The unique relationship federally-recognized tribes have with the US as "domestic dependent nations" a designation that recognizes both the inherent sovereignty of pre-existing indigenous nations, but also reflects the power of the US to limit the exercise of that sovereignty is a careful dance that tribes have had to conduct with the most powerful nation in the world for decades; and this new opportunity may serve as a long-awaited chance to restructure that relationship, just as casino-gaming did a generation ago. "This issue was a historic moment for the United States," Robert Odawi Porter of Odawi Law PLLC, a former president of the Seneca Nation of New York, and one of the organizers of the conference explained to me, "and what the Justice Department did was to invite 'Indian Country' to have a historical moment. No different than any other major decision our ancestors have had to make. Tribal leaders are now going to have the same opportunity to think through whether legalizing marijuana was a good thing." The conference ended with tribal leaders agreeing to meet again in Las Vegas on Mar. 12 at the Reservation Economic Summit to vote on a charter for a new inter-tribal cannabis trade organization. Douglas Berman, a presenter at the conference, and a professor of law at Ohio State University, noted, "There are relatively few industries with so many novel dimensions to it that haven't already gotten commercialized to the point it is difficult for new players to enter." "I think tribes can be first to market here. I really do," said Hilary Bricken, a cannabis attorney in Washington state, and another of the organizers of the conference. She urged tribes to consider entering the marijuana banking services industry. Although Bank of America has agreed to handle Washington state's marijuana tax income, only small credit unions have taken on lending to legal, licensed marijuana businesses. A few tribes have gotten involved as payday lenders, but full realization of reservations as "off-shore banking" magnates on the mainland US has not yet occurred. A niche banking services market like marijuana could provide the impetus. Les Parks, vice chairman of the Tulalip tribe's board of directors, shared a video of a local Seattle television-news report on the medical marijuana extract CBD, which is used to relieve epileptic seizures and hold big dreams for tribes in the pharmaceutical industry. "We can lead this country in CBD drug development and be the next big pharmaceutical company," he said. A number of Native Americans came with cannabis company partners to the conference. William Anderson was one of them. He is working with Strainz, a medical cannabis products and services company. "This cannot just be about making a quick buck, but about economic development and being more independent, not dependent on the government, which I don't like but is unfortunately the reality for our people," Anderson explained. As a former tribal chairman, he's had experience doing just that. Under his leadership, his tribe not only got rid of the coal plant, but opened the first solar plant on any reservation in the country, and has since been approved to build a second. But in the end Anderson is a believer in the power of medical marijuana to help Native American people deal with chronic pain. "I'm really grateful to be here today, to just talk and to shake hands with people," he said. "This is what I want to bring to Indian people out there. To show that there are other ways to get help."
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LOS ANGELES They seem as common as squawking gulls, and true Angelenos may not even bother to look up when one of the LAPD's 17 helicopters rattles their windows, its spotlight searching for a carjacked Camry or an assault suspect hiding under a jacaranda. In a city of 469 sprawling square miles, few doubt that more bad guys would get away without the nation's largest police helicopter fleet to help chase them. Now the LAPD is pioneering the use of helicopters to stop crimes before they start. Tapping into the data-driven policing trend, the department uses heat maps, technology and years of statistics to identify crime "hot spots." Pilots then use their downtime to fly over them, on the theory that would-be criminals tend to rethink their nefarious plans when there's an airship hovering overhead. What some see as an innovative tool for keeping the peace, however, others call a deafening intrusion. As iconic as palm trees, LAPD helicopters "ghetto birds" in some quarters have played a "good cop-bad cop" role in popular culture for decades. The benign "whirlybirds" that flew out of a San Fernando Valley airport on crime-solving missions in the 1950s TV series of that name became ominous "helicopter gunships" in dystopian author Mike Davis' "City of Quartz," and omnipresent LAPD "spinners" in Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner." The Los Angeles Police Department began exploring the deterrent approach a few years ago with a new model called predictive policing that deployed officers and patrol cars to areas where data suggested crime was more likely to occur. Criminologists say the use of helicopters is a natural, if highly unusual, expansion of that policing strategy. So far, LAPD officials say, the stats show the strategy is having a positive effect. Months of data show that the number of serious crimes reported in the LAPD's Newton Division in South L.A. fell during weeks when the helicopters conducted more flights. "It's extremely cutting edge," says Capt. Gary Walters, who heads the LAPD's air support unit. "It's different. It's nothing that we've ever done before with this specificity." During the week of June 21, 2013, the helicopter unit flew 36 times over Newton, which saw 125 crimes reported in that period. During another week in July, the number of flights rose to 91 and the recorded crimes dropped to 86. The most pronounced difference came last September. During the week of Sept. 13, when the helicopter unit flew over Newton 65 times, the division recorded 90 crimes. A week later, the number of flights dropped to 40 and the number of reported crimes skyrocketed to 136, with rises seen among almost all types of crime, including burglary, car theft and thefts from vehicles. Craig Uchida, a policing consultant who analyzes data for the LAPD and offers advice on crime prevention strategies, says it is too early to prove a definitive link between the flights and drops in crime. But the results so far, he said, are encouraging. "Certainly it provides another layer and blanket of security for our folks," says Capt. Ed Prokop, who until recently oversaw the Newton Division. And the preventive flights sometimes yield unexpected results. In March 2014, a pilot was checking a hot spot where, on Friday nights, crooks had been stealing vehicles, burglarizing cars and assaulting people, says Sgt. Tony DeMolina, a veteran LAPD pilot. While watching for such activity, the pilot spotted something else: strobing light spilling from an illegal rave inside a massive warehouse. The ravers would park their cars in nearby alleys easy prey for would-be thieves. After the raves ended, DeMolina said, the attendees would themselves become targets. Once the pilot connected the raves to the ongoing crimes, DeMolina alerted Newton officials. Extra patrols shut future raves down, he says. Pasadena police say they have adopted a variation of the strategy in which they send their department helicopters over areas that have seen recent upticks in burglaries or other crimes. Officials with the L.A. County Sheriff, Orange County Sheriff and Long Beach police say their helicopter pilots are generally aware of areas of recent criminal activities and may fly overhead while on assignment. But few agencies use as methodical an approach as the LAPD. Professor Geoffrey Alpert of the University of South Carolina, a policing expert who has studied the use of police helicopters in Miami and Baltimore, says the choppers can deter crime in the short-term but criminals will likely return when they're not around. "You are deterring the criminals but you aren't getting rid of them and their intent," he says. "Those criminals could strike in a different time and place." Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, an associate professor of law at the University of the District of Columbia, agrees that helicopters have a "great deterrent value." But, he says that during a time of increased public concern over police militarization, a loud and visible helicopter could make residents feel like the police are an occupying force. Police departments increasingly say that one of their goals is to "engage the community" and a hovering helicopter can get in the way of that, Ferguson says. "(Americans) are sending a message that they don't want our police militarized, they don't want that occupying army feel. And the use of helicopters fits in that frame." Peter Bibring, a senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union's Southern California chapter, said using helicopters to monitor neighborhoods could set a problematic precedent for how the LAPD conducts other surveillance. Critics challenged the LAPD last year when it received two drones from Seattle police. The department does not use the drones they remain locked away until the Police Commission decides if and how they might be used but they have still sparked privacy concerns. "If this experience is successful," Bibring says of the helicopters, "this could be a preview of how one day the LAPD could use drones for this purpose." Walters, commander of the LAPD's air support unit, says the program was recently expanded to include the department's Devonshire Division in the San Fernando Valley. Cmdr. Sean Malinowski, who helped develop the predictive policing model the LAPD now uses, says the helicopter project represents how innovative policing has become. He says there is "untapped potential" for similar projects. "The future of this thing is going to be how creative cops can be in using predictive or other data-driven strategies," he says. "That gets people pumped up to do something different. It kind of injects life into the crime-fighting."
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You're pre-approved. Many people who have experienced bad credit might agree that these words seem like a light at the end of the tunnel. They mean that a lender wants to consider extending credit to you, and they'd like you to apply. (Though keep in mind that pre-approval doesn't guarantee approval.) Not to downplay the importance of increased peace of mind, reduced stress levels and better access to credit but, arguably, one of the many joys of improving your financial standing is becoming wanted again. While you might not be ready to take on the risk of accumulating more debt, simply knowing that you can is often an extra boost of confidence. In order to rebuild your credit you must demonstrate that you are responsible with credit, and one way to do that is through credit cards. However, consumers seeking to establish new credit should take a careful look at terms for some of the products offered to individuals who have bad to fair credit. The Right Credit Cards for You Secured cards are a common credit-building tool; they require an upfront cash or collateral deposit that will eventually serve as the limit for the card. Then there are subprime credit cards, which don't require an upfront deposit, but often have high interest rates and fees, and low limits. If you've received an offer for a high-cost credit card, that doesn't necessarily mean that's your best, or only, option. This is why it's important to do your research and shop for the best deal you can find. For both subprime credit cards and secured credit cards , be on the lookout for ones that carry high fees that could have an impact on your credit utilization ratio, especially if you have a low credit limit. When it comes to your credit score, your debt usage is the second biggest factor in your credit score and using less than 30% of your credit limit is preferable (10% is even better). Say you have a $300 limit, and a $75 annual fee this utilizes 25% of the credit limit, then you decide to make a purchase over $15, which will put you over the ideal utilization percentage. Not only is the card striking your pocket, it's also potentially hurting your credit score. Furthermore, some cards have monthly fees that can also bump up your utilization, so it's important to do your research and look for a card within your credit range that offers the lowest fees and lowest interest rates. There are a variety products and options available to help consumers improve their credit standing. If you are looking for ways to improve your credit or want to find a less costly credit option you can still rebuild your credit without credit cards as well. This article originally appeared on Credit.com .
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finance
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Rule Kentucky out of this equation. At 31-0 the Wildcats are clearly the class of the conference and the hands down favorite once the SEC Tournament begins Wednesday. A sneaky team that could make a run? What about Vanderbilt. Seemingly dead in the water after seven straight losses to open SEC play, the Commodores (19-12, 9-9) have won eight of their final 10 games, good enough to grab the seventh seed and a date with 10th-seeded Tennessee on Thursday. They need to win the SEC Tournament to make March Madness, but, if the unthinkable happens and UK somehow stumbles, maybe Vanderbilt slips into the field. "When we were 1-7 a few weeks ago, 9-9 didn't look like much of a possibility, so I'm really proud of our basketball team for fighting its way back and having a very good month of February and March," Vanderbit coach Kevin Stallings said during Monday's SEC teleconference. "We have been shooting the ball well lately. We are careful that we don't want that to be fools gold for us because if you're going to win in tournament play you're going to have to win with defense and rebounding." In their regular season finale, the Commodores made 54.5 percent of their shots from the field and 56.5 percent from 3. The Dores were led on offense by super freshman Riley LaChance, who, for his 19-point performance was named the SEC's Freshman of the Week for the fourth time this year, tying former Moss Point standout and Kentucky shooter Devin Booker. Vanderbilt heads into the SEC Tournament conference-bests in field goal percentage (47.1) and 3-point percentage (39.3). If VU makes a run, it could meet UK in the championship game Sunday. What would a team have to do to hand Kentucky its first loss of the season? "I guess the only thing that I can see if someone can bank in a bunch of 3s against them, but nobody does that," Stallings said. "Their defense is so good and those guys play so well together defensively, you can sit there and say someone is going to have to hit a bunch of 3s, but nobody does. I'm not sure what it would take. "Kentucky has one of the best teams of my coaching lifetime in college basketball." Seeing (Big) Blue So much for a "neutral court." The SEC Tournament will be held in Nashville, but there's little doubt whose fans will fill Bridgestone Arena. Every year Kentucky fans flock to the tournament and buy up any available tickets for as long as UK is alive. This year won't be any different. "Kentucky has a great fan base and people travel well. I don't know if they have had a fan make a basket yet," Georgia coach Mark Fox said. "You still have to worry about their team because they have a great team. If we're fortunate enough to play Kentucky, we'll worry about the monsters in uniform. That's enough to get your attention." Much-needed rest The double-bye comes at a good time for LSU and Georgia. LSU forward Jordan Mickey injured his left shoulder in Wednesday's 78-63 loss to Tennessee and the Tigers are hoping he can return in time for Friday's 2 p.m. game against the winner of Mississippi State/Auburn and Texas A&M. Even with extra time off, UGA guards Kenny Gaines (sprained left foot) and Juwan Parker (Achilles injury) may not be back in time for Friday's 8 p.m. game.
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Pakistan has lifted its moratorium on the death penalty in all capital cases, officials said Tuesday, after restarting executions for terrorism offences in the wake of a Taliban school massacre. The interior ministry has directed provincial governments to proceed with hangings for prisoners who had exhausted all avenues of appeal and clemency, a senior official told AFP. Another government official confirmed the news. Pakistan has hanged 24 convicts since resuming executions in December after Taliban militants gunned down more than 150 people, most of them children, at a school in the restive northwest. The partial lifting of the moratorium only applied to those convicted of terrorism offences, but officials said it has now been extended. "The government has lifted the moratorium on the death penality," the senior interior ministry official told AFP. "The interior ministry has directed the provincial home departments to expedite the executions of all condemned prisoners whose mercy petitions have been rejected by the president." The home secretary of southwestern Baluchistan province, Akbar Hussain Durrani, confirmed to AFP the government had issued instructions to resume executions. "We have received a letter from federal government asking to expedite all death penalty cases for executions whose mercy petitions have been rejected," Durrani told AFP in provincial capital Quetta. Until December's resumption, there had been no civilian hangings in Pakistan since 2008. Only one person was executed in that time -- a soldier convicted by a court martial and hanged in November 2012. Rights campaign group Amnesty International estimates that Pakistan has more than 8,000 prisoners on death row, most of whom have exhausted the appeals process. Supporters of the death penalty in Pakistan argue that it is the only effective way to deal with the scourge of militancy. The courts system is notoriously slow, with cases frequently dragging on for years, and there is a heavy reliance on witness testimony and very little protection for judges and prosecutors. This means terror cases are hard to prosecute, as extremists are able to intimidate witnesses and lawyers into dropping charges. Human rights campaigners and the European Union have been highly critical of the resumption of executions. Sarah Belal of the Justice Project Pakistan (JPP) rights group condemned the move to extend executions as "irresponsible", saying it put the lives of vulnerable citizens at risk. "We've seen time and time again that there is immeasurable injustice in Pakistan's criminal justice system, with a rampant culture of police torture, inadequate counsel and unfair trials," she said in a statement. According to JPP research there are more than 500 mercy petitions currently with President Mamnoon Hussain, and 19 have already been rejected. In the latest case, an anti-terrorism court in Karachi on Monday issued death warrants for two men convicted of murder during a house robbery. The two men, Mohammad Afzal and Mohammad Faisal, are due to be sent to the gallows on March 17.
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Solar Impulse 2 took off from Oman Tuesday bound for India, on the second leg of its epic bid to become the first plane to fly around the world powered solely by the sun. The aircraft took off from Muscat at 6.35 am (0235 GMT) for what is expected to be a 16-hour, 1,465 kilometre (910 mile) journey over the Arabian Sea to Ahmedabad in India. Pilot Bertrand Piccard was at the controls, taking over from fellow Swiss aviator Andre Borschberg. "I will remember #Oman forever!" Piccard tweeted prior to take-off. More than two hours after leaving Muscat, Piccard was over the Arabian Sea, according to a website monitoring his progress. On Monday Borschberg had touched down in Muscat after the first leg of the journey, 13 hours and two minutes after leaving Abu Dhabi. "The adventure has started," Solar Impulse chairman Piccard, 57, said just after Borschberg took off in the early morning from Abu Dhabi's Al-Bateen airport, on a journey that the aviation industry ridiculed when it was first unveiled. Borschberg spoke of an "emotional" trip, telling reporters in Muscat he cruised at 6,000 metres (almost 20,000 feet) because the trip was "short". Piccard is set to fly higher on the trip to Ahmedabad, Borschberg said. UN chief Ban Ki-moon hailed the venture and congratulated the pilots. "With their daring and determination, we can all fly into a new sustainable future," his spokesman said. - Research and testing - Si2's takeoff, which had originally been scheduled for Saturday but was delayed by high winds, capped 13 years of research and testing by the two Swiss pilots. The pair are hoping the project will boost technology and awareness surrounding environmentally sustainable transport. Live video streaming on the www.solarimpulse.com website monitoring the unique aircraft's progress showed the pilot, wearing an orange jumpsuit, breathing using an oxygen mask. The wingspan of the one-seater Si2 is slightly bigger than that of a jumbo jet, but its weight is around that of a family car. From Muscat, it will make 12 stops on an epic journey spread over five months, with a total flight time of around 25 days. Later legs will take it to Myanmar, China, Hawaii and New York. Landings are also earmarked for the midwestern United States and either southern Europe or North Africa, depending on the weather conditions. The longest single leg will see a lone pilot fly non-stop for five days and nights across the Pacific Ocean between Nanjing, China and Hawaii, a distance of 8,500 kilometres (5,270 miles). - Intensive training - Borschberg and Piccard will alternate flying the plane, which can fly on autopilot during rest breaks. Both pilots have undergone intensive training in preparation for the trip, including in yoga and self-hypnosis, allowing them to sleep for periods as short as 20 minutes but still awake feeling refreshed. All this will happen without burning a drop of fuel. While in the air, the pilots will be linked to a control centre in Monaco where 65 weathermen, air traffic controllers and engineers will be stationed. A team of 65 ground staff will travel with the two pilots. The plane is powered by more than 17,000 solar cells built into wings that, at 72 metres, are longer than on a Boeing 747 and approaching those of an Airbus A380 superjumbo. Thanks to an innovative design, the lightweight carbon fibre aircraft weighs only 2.3 tonnes, about the same as a family 4X4 and less than one percent of the weight of the A380. The Si2 is the first solar-powered aircraft able to stay aloft for several days and nights. The propeller-driven craft has four 17.5-horsepower electric motors with rechargeable lithium batteries. It will travel at 50-100 kilometres per hour, but slower at night to prevent the batteries from draining too quickly.
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travel
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In addition to launching new MacBooks and revealing its smartwatches' release date, Apple has also issued software updates to protect its devices from the FREAK bug. If you recall, the security flaw allows hackers to force weaker encryption on Safari (and Android browser) users visiting certain websites, including a few owned by the government. The weaker encryption makes it easier and faster for them to break into users' accounts and steal sensitive info, that's why Cupertino promised to issue a patch as soon as possible. To secure iPhones and iPads, you just have to install iOS 8.2, which also comes with Apple Watch support. MacBook users who have OS X Mountain Lion, Mavericks or Yosemite installed will get an update notification, while those who own the company's streaming box have to download Apple TV 7.1. The latest software updates also come with other security patches for both Mac and iOS, so don't forget to download them when you can.
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Zoe Saldana feels like she is the only person who understands her sons. The 'Guardians of the Galaxy' star and husband Marco Perego welcomed twin boys Cy and Bowie into the world last November and she is delighted with the strong bond she has already developed with her babies. She said: "When they cry, you as a mother feel like you're the only one who understands them. You have that second nature, unspoken word with your children and you know exactly what they are crying for and what they need. It's really beautiful." The 36-year-old beauty thinks the hardest part of being a parent is "leaving home" and already knows she'll find it hard being separated from her sons as they get older. She added to The Hollywood Reporter: "I know that I'm going to be dealing with that forever because now that they are here it's hard to do everything else. They're so new and so delicious." It was recently claimed having the twins has brought Zoe and 35-year-old Marco even closer together. A source said: "They are overjoyed with the love Cy and Bowie have brought into their life. Zoe and Marco have gotten even closer during Zoe's pregnancy and first few weeks with their baby boys. "Marco has been such a loving supporting husband, helping Zoe around the house and taking care of her, giving her back rubs and a lot of sweet love. "Everyone in Zoe's family really thinks he is a wonderful man."
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entertainment
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The Australian consul general to Bali leaves the Indonesian island where two convicted Australian drug traffickers will be executed. Duration: 00:40
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video
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Poached eggs are like the holy grail of breakfast. They're delicious, healthy and totally luxurious.They're light but filling, and breaking into a perfect poached egg to reveal a runny yolk is one of life's greatest joys. Poached eggs are pretty much everything you could want in a breakfast food, and they're also lovely for lunch or dinner, we might add. The issue, of course, is that poached eggs are a little tricky to make. They don't have to be if you follow a few handy tricks. Despite their notorious reputation, poached eggs are easier to make than you might think. We're all familiar with the classic tip of pouring a few drops of vinegar into the water before adding your eggs, or the clever muffin tin trick . But here's a poached egg trick you may not know: Boil an egg for 10 seconds before cracking it into the water. This trick comes from none other than Julia Child . First, Child pokes the large end of an egg with a pin to release any air that might cause the egg to crack, and then she boils the egg for exactly 10 seconds. The quick boil helps the egg retain its shape. You can totally handle this. After the egg cools enough to handle, you can poach the egg however you like -- with the aid of a poaching device or by creating a funnel in the simmering water and gently pouring the egg into the middle of it. Whichever route you take, the ever-so-slightly boiled egg should have a better chance of sticking together after the 10-second boil. Watch this instructional video from The New York Times , and enjoy your perfectly poached eggs. Want to read more from HuffPost Taste? Follow us on Twitter , Facebook , Pinterest and Tumblr .
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foodanddrink
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Arsenal FA Cup hero Danny Welbeck admits that he found it "hard" on his return to Old Trafford as his goal sunk Manchester United on Monday. Welbeck pounced on Antonio Valencia's under-hit back-pass, rounded David de Gea and netted to give the Gunners a 2-1 win and a place in the semifinals. The England international joined the north Londoners on deadline day in September last year after growing up at United and was pleased to be welcomed back by the home fans. "It was a great reception," Welbeck told Arsenal's official website. "It was hard for me but I tried to be respectful." Much was made of Welbeck's decision to celebrate after he scored the winner in the 61st minute but the 24-year-old says that he was just happy to have helped Arsenal into the last four. "It was about being professional, keeping my focus and motivation," the striker remarked. "I kept plugging away and then got on the end of Antonio Valencia's back-pass, beat David de Gea and got the winning goal. "I'm just really pleased we're through to the next round."
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sports
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@brianmcgorty wants to know what the best jersey in sports is.
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sports
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Hundreds of millions of Asian men alive today could be descendents of just 11 dynastic leader who lived up to 4,000 years ago, according to researchers at the University of Leicester in the UK. The study , published in the European Journal of Human Genetics, looked at the Y-chromosome - the chromosome passed from father to son - in around 5,300 Asian men from more than a hundred different ethnic groups and nationalities. Most Y-chromosome types are extremely rare and so the prevalence of common Y-chromosome types amongst those they found in the Asian men they tested suggests hundreds of millions of people alive today were descended from just a handful of common ancestors, according to the researchers. "We found that overall, about 37% of them carried Y-chromosome types that descend from these 11 founders," says Professor Mark Jobling from the University of Leicester who was the project's leader. "So we extrapolated that to Asia as a whole. It's a bit dodgy, but if you did that there's more than a billion descendents. I would say hundreds of millions is probably right though. We can't really be sure just by multiplying it by the population of Asia because there are some parts of the continent that we didn't sample very well in our study. I would say hundreds of millions is a good ball-park figure." In the report, Professor Jobling explains how the chromosomes for some lineages may have become so prevalent: "The youngest lineages, originating in the last 1700 years, are found in pastoral nomadic populations, who were highly mobile horse-riders and could spread their Y chromosomes far and wide. For these lineages to become so common, their powerful founders needed to have many sons by many women, and to pass their status - as well as their Y chromosomes - on to them. The sons, in turn, could then have many sons, too. It's a kind of trans-generation amplification effect." Although the team are not completely sure about who the dynastic leaders are, as they would have to test their remains to be sure, Genghis Khan is widely thought to be one. "His lineage was previously discovered in a study which showed this very common kind of Y-chromosome, and they ascribed it to him because the distribution of the Y-chromosome type fits Khan's empire very well", says Professor Jobling. He explains that the study found the Y-chromosome first developed around a thousand years ago, and it's believed to have originated in Mongolia. "If you put those together, you can guess it was him." He adds that that while these Y-chromosome clusters are prevalent in Asia, there is also a European example of a figure who is thought to be related to around three million men alive today. "There's a similar kind of descent from a founder in Ireland, a medieval founder and that's been identified with somebody called Niall of the Nine Hostages , but that might actually be a mythical figure," he says. "Nonetheless there is a very common Y-chromosome type in Ireland that descends from somebody who lived around about a thousand years ago."
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news
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Few sensations feel as weird as when your body decides to do its own thing. Muscle twitches, hiccups, and bloody noses out of the blue can make you wonder exactly who's in charge. Here, the reasons behind some of the strangest body behaviors and when you should see a doc. 1. Random sharp pains You're minding your own business when suddenly it feels as if someone's stuck you with a pin. Then the feeling goes away, never to return. "It's the hypochondriac's muse," says Marcela Espinosa, MD, an internal medicine physician with HealthCare Partners Medical Group in Los Angeles. "Sharp pains that last for a second or two then go away are something we all experience from time to time and are usually benign." If the pain returns or increases in intensity, it's best to see a doctor. 2. Hiccups that make it hard to talk Chewing gum, drinking soda, and eating to excess can all trigger hiccups. What happens is that muscles in your upper chest suddenly contract and you take in air, then your voice box closes, creating the "hic" sound, says Espinosa. "Most hiccups go away on their own or after drinking a glass of water. They're usually harmless, unless they don't go away, which signals a condition called 'intractable hiccups,' which is rare." See a doctor if this happens. Otherwise deep, slow breathing to relax the muscles should help. 3. Jerking awake just as you start to fall asleep You're just dozing off when bam! You wake up suddenly. Called "hypnagogic or hypnic jerks," the sensation results from sudden brief muscle contractions and affects up to 70% of the population, says Allen Towfigh, MD, medical director of New York Neurology & Sleep Medicine. "These occur as the brain transitions the body from wakefulness to sleep. Hypnic jerks can happen when you're sleep deprived or stressed." They're usually not anything to worry about unless they occur frequently, which requires further investigation. 4. Yawning when someone else yawns Yawning when you see another person yawn (or even when you read this paragraph about yawning) is common and is not linked to tiredness or energy levels, according to a study published in the journal PLOS ONE. The study, which involved 328 participants, confirmed that some people are more susceptible to contagious yawning than others. Overall, 222 of the participants yawned contagiously at least once. Interestingly, contagious yawning decreased with age but did not appear to link to empathy or time of day, as previously believed. 5. Your nose bleeding out of nowhere Nosebleeds are usually scarier than the root cause, says Espinosa. "They typically occur because of dry nasal passages (like on airplanes) or picking your nose." Irritation due to allergies, cold, sneezing, blowing your nose too hard or overuse of decongestant nasal sprays can also trigger a nosebleed, since small blood vessels in the nose bleed when irritated. "Most stop on their own," says Espinoza. To halt the flow, keep your head forward, and squeeze just below the bony part of your nose and hold for 10 minutes before checking to see if the bleeding has stopped. If it doesn't stop within an hour, go to an emergency clinic. 6. Sneezing in bright light If looking at light reflecting off snow makes you sneeze, you've experienced a photic sneeze reflex. "We think this occurs when wires in the brain are crossed," says Sandy T. Feldman, MD, medical director of ClearView Eye & Laser Medical Center in San Diego. "The trigeminal nerve is responsible for sensation of the eye as well as the nose, but through different branches. In the case of a photic sneeze reflex the light is mistaken by the brain as an irritant to the nose." A genetic trait, most people with photic reflex sneeze one to three times in succession, but it can be up to 40! 7. Feeling "twitchy" A rapid muscle twitch in your arm or leg or even your eyelid is quite common and not anything to worry about, says Espinoza. Caused by minor muscle contractions in one area, most go unnoticed. Lack of sleep, stress, exercise, and anxiety can worsen or trigger twitches, but they usually go away after a couple days. "They can also be a sign of an autoimmune disease or a side effect of a medication such as an antidepressant or estrogen," says Espinoza. See a doctor if the twitching persists or is accompanied by muscle weakness. 8. Walking in your sleep Medically known as somnambulism, sleepwalking may seem harmless and even humorous, but it's one of the leading causes of sleep-related injury, says Towfigh. Episodes can last from a few seconds to longer than a half hour and are usually characterized by unresponsiveness to the environment, mental confusion, and varying degrees of amnesia following the event or the next morning. "Seizures and other complex disorders such as REM-sleep disorders can cause similar symptoms, therefore it's important to seek the help of a sleep specialist or medical professional," says Towfigh. More from MSN 9 Things Your Hands Say About Your Health 7 Things Your Gas Is Trying To Tell You
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Hillary Clinton should explain her exclusive use of private email while serving as Secretary of State, according to Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the Senate's number two Democrat. "I'd like to hear her explanation," he said Monday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "I don't know the answer and I think it's only fair to say to Hillary Clinton, 'Tell us your side of the story.'" Durbin said he agreed with fellow Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) who called for Clinton to address the controversy during an appearance on Sunday's "Meet the Press" on NBC. Feinstein told Clinton to "step up and come out and state exactly what the situation is," and added that as the presidential frontrunner, "silence is going to hurt her." Clinton has endured weeks of speculation since a New York Times article uncovered her use of private email, and a number of Republicans have accused her of trying to shield some of her emails from disclosure. The Clinton camp has been silent on the issue outside of one statement issued to the media, but she'll reportedly address the situation during a press conference soon, according to multiple media reports.
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The new MacBook represents Apple's vision for " the future of the notebook ." That future is defined by thinness, lightness, and an almost total abandonment of external connectivity ports. Other than the mandatory headphone jack, there's just one port available on the MacBook: a USB Type-C connection that takes care of power, data transfers, and display output. Here's how Apple explains its choice of connector: "As long as we were going to include a port for charging the new MacBook, we wanted to make sure it was the most advanced and versatile one available." There was once a time when Apple saw the connected future built around a pair of boldly titled interconnects: Thunderbolt, for laptops and desktop computers, and Lightning for its mobile iOS devices. But the company's pursuit of a completely wireless laptop now bodes poorly for the future of Thunderbolt and even casts some doubt over the long-term prospects of Lightning. Co-developed by Intel and Apple and introduced in the 2011 MacBook Pro, Thunderbolt promised to be the thing that made us leave USB behind. In simple terms, Thunderbolt is a much fatter and faster pipe for data transfers than USB, and it makes it possible to connect big storage arrays and high-resolution displays to your MacBook. Some four years after its introduction, however, Thunderbolt is still narrowly focused on high-end applications and hasn't been adopted or aggressively promoted by many PC makers beyond Apple. The future is easy and convenient like USB, not superpowered like Thunderbolt USB 3.1 with the smaller, reversible USB Type-C usurps the entire purpose of Thunderbolt cables for regular consumers. It lets you plug in your external hard drives which make up the vast majority of the 50 Thunderbolt products on Apple's online store and pushes video out to external displays. Type-C is easier to use than Thunderbolt and appears to be cheaper to implement, making it a no-brainer upgrade. Simple, less expensive, and still fast. Apple is stridently asserting the new MacBook as its best MacBook ever, and its choice of interconnect is telling. The future, at least for mainstream consumers, is easy and convenient like USB instead of superpowered but expensive like Thunderbolt. The established high-end connector isn't going away immediately, as Apple used the same event to announce Thunderbolt 2 upgrades for the MacBook Air and Pro, but it will be swimming upstream to remain relevant in the face of an oncoming deluge of Type-C peripherals and devices. The ubiquity of USB has already assisted in the demise of one Apple-led interconnect, FireWire, whose downfall began in similar fashion to today. FireWire was first phased out in 2008 in Apple's consumer laptops which is exactly what the new MacBook is and then disappeared from the Pro lineup within four years. Coincidentally, it was Thunderbolt that stepped into FireWire's place as the solution for high-speed connection needs. Fat Thunderbolt connectors will never be used to connect or charge your phone, but that's what the new USB cable can do, and mobile devices like the Nokia N1 tablet are already moving to adopt it. I suspect we'll see USB Type-C embraced widely and quickly, with it serving to replace Micro USB cables for phones and simplifying many people's lives. Who needs Lightning when the new USB connector is just as good? That leaves Apple's Lightning connector for mobile devices as a big fat question mark. Lightning was a great upgrade over Apple's previous 30-pin connector, but its symmetrical design and ability to both power a device and transfer data from it are now duplicated by USB Type-C. From a user's perspective, there's little reason to want Lightning over Type-C. The former is an Apple-only standard, whereas the latter is destined to become the universal method for connecting anything to everything. Philips has been first to use Lightning for the unconventional purpose of connecting headphones to your iPhone . First and, so far, last. It's a little surprising not to see greater enthusiasm for a wider range of Lightning peripherals, but then the licensing costs associated with it are probably substantial enough to curtail experimentation. Accessory companies seem to be focusing on making the popular types of peripherals that will recoup their licensing fees. It's those same licensing revenues that Apple enjoys that lead me to doubt it would want to ever mess with its Lightning connector. Plus, Lightning is a tiny bit thinner than Type-C, which actually matters in mobile devices that are starting to struggle to fit the headphone jack . The road to complete wireless freedom is paved with USB connectors Even if it would make the world a better place by harmonizing all mobile devices around a single cable standard, replacing Lightning with USB Type-C appears unlikely. There's no reason why Lightning and USB Type-C can't coexist: Apple just needs to put one connector on either side of the cable (and probably bundle that cable in its next iPhone's box). The newly detailed Apple Watch also shows that the company isn't quite ready to fully commit to Type-C for all its wired needs. In spite of representing the latest in Apple's technology, the Watch uses a full-size USB plug for its charging cradle, making it slightly less futuristic but a lot more widely compatible. Wireless everything is evidently Apple's overarching objective. The bridge to getting us there, on the evidence of the new MacBook, will be USB Type-C. The Thunderbolt's rumble has been quietened, and the Lightning's shine has been dulled. The omnipresent USB port looks set to retain its title as the world's favorite connector, only in a slimmer, prettier, and easier shape.
| 5 | 10,746 |
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The Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that runs Wikipedia, is filing a lawsuit against the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), challenging the US government's mass surveillance programs. The nonprofit will be joined in its efforts by eight other organizations and is being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). "Our aim in filing this suit is to end this mass surveillance program in order to protect the rights of our users around the world," said the foundation in a blog post. the lawsuit will focus on upstream surveillance The full complaint has been published by the ACLU , with Wikimedia explaining it will focus on "upstream" surveillance the direct interception of vast amounts of data by tapping internet infrastructure such as undersea cables. This method of surveillance has been authorized in the US under the 2008 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act (FAA) to monitor "non-US persons" only. However, as Wikimedia notes, this approach casts a wide net, capturing the data of many US citizens as well as innocent internet users overseas. Although this is not the first attempt to sue the NSA, other lawsuits have been concerned with phone-tapping rather than upstream surveillance. "By tapping the backbone of the internet, the NSA is straining the backbone of democracy," wrote Lila Tretikov, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, in a blog post . "Wikipedia is founded on the freedoms of expression, inquiry, and information. By violating our users' privacy, the NSA is threatening the intellectual freedom that is central to people's ability to create and understand knowledge." Wikimedia says the NSA has violated the us constitution Wikimedia says it believes that the NSA's surveillance practices violate the US Constitution's First and Fourth Amendments those protecting free speech and unreasonable search and seizure. It says the spy agency's practices, first revealed in documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, also violate Article III of the Constitution, which establishes the authority of US courts. In an op-ed in The New York Times , Tretikov and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales argue that NSA surveillance not only harms US citizens, but also those working in oppressive regimes overseas. They give the example of the 2011 Arab uprisings, during which Egyptian spies boasted they were in "constant contact" with the CIA even as Wikipedia users in their country updated articles with information about the then-illegal protests. "a loss for everyone who uses wikipedia and the internet." "If that user knows the NSA is routinely combing through her contributions to Wikipedia, and possibly sharing information with her government, she will surely be less likely to add her knowledge or have that conversation, for fear of reprisal," write Wales and Tretikov. "Imagine this decision playing out in the minds of thousands of would-be contributors in other countries. That represents a loss for everyone who uses Wikipedia and the internet." Unfortunately, it's difficult to unambiguously prove that this data is being collected and this means that Wikimedia will have a hard time winning its case. In order for the case to be considered, the plaintiffs will have to prove that they were affected by the NSA's actions. The NSA, however, can argue that plaintiffs can't know if their communications were intercepted in the first place a stance that has been effective in the past , simply because secret surveillance programs are, by nature, secretive. For Wales and Tretikov, however, there can be no other option: "Privacy is an essential right. It makes freedom of expression possible, and sustains freedom of inquiry and association. It empowers us to read, write, and communicate in confidence, without fear of persecution. Knowledge flourishes where privacy is protected."
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Connor is a young NBA fan from Bellingham, Washington. Unfortunately, ever since the Seattle Supersonics left, he hasn't had a team to call his own. Rather than wait for a team to come to him, he decided to send out a letter to every franchise, asking why he should be a fan of their team. Only one team, the Minnesota Timberwolves, responded, and their letter back to him was great -- not to mention pretty convincing. The team's first three points: 1. Andrew Wiggins will be a superstar in the NBA 2. Andrew Wiggins will win the 2015 NBA Rookie of the Year Award 3. Andrew Wiggins was voted MVP of the World vs. USA game at the 2015 NBA All-Star Game in New York We think the Wolves might be optimistic about Andrew Wiggins. There's are seven more points on the Wolves' list too, culminating with: 10. KG IS BACK HOME! (h/t @ZacharyBD )
| 1 | 10,748 |
sports
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After years of producing some of the most vaunted dramas on television, HBO was in trouble. It was 2007, and some of the channel's biggest hits, including The Sopranos and Sex and the City , had run their course, and the channel's pipeline of premium programming had run dry. AMC's Mad Men , a show HBO had passed on, was dominating water cooler conversations. "I think we learned something as a company," says HBO President Michael Lombardo of that lull. "You need to keep those scripts coming and be ready for the next thing. Now we wake up anxious to find a different show." Fast-forward to the present. HBO has rebounded, thanks in part to standout shows such as Girls , Game of Thrones and Last Week Tonight With John Oliver . But the channel is at yet another crossroads. For years, it's been available only with a package of paid channels, but the pay-TV universe is shrinking as viewers increasingly abandon cable for online, on-demand services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. In 2014, 125,000 TV subscribers dropped off the books of the top 13 pay-TV providers in the U.S. to join the 10 million or so broadband households that don't subscribe to paid television. The industry calls them cord-cutters, but that's a misnomer. These people are more tethered to the cord than ever; they're just pulling a different kind of content through it. Which is why, beginning this spring, HBO will begin selling $14.99-a-month stand-alone subscriptions for a service called HBO Now, decoupling the premium channel from the cable machine that's made it billions. "When you subscribe to HBO Now, you will have access to all our programming, past, present and future," HBO CEO Richard Plepler said at an unveiling with Apple last week. The move throws HBO in direct competition with Netflix and Amazon, among others, at a time when the battle for eyeballs has grown more and more fierce. Whether HBO's plan works may depend on its ability to find the next Game of Thrones . The channel is a nice addition to the hundreds of cable or satellite offerings, but on its own, HBO may not seem as attractive for the price, especially if other channels continue to come up with HBO-quality television. Plagued by Glitches Five years ago, the idea that Netflix, Amazon or even Hulu would invest in original programming seemed ridiculous. They were tech companies, and television is a hits business. Then, in 2011, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings cited HBO as his biggest competitor, even though the company had no original content and HBO had just started HBO Go, its online streaming service. But then came Netflix's breakout shows, House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black, which were both green-lighted in 2013. As Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos told GQ that year, "The goal is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us." Today, Netflix has slightly more revenue than HBO and an edge in U.S. subscribers (38 million vs. 30 million). But HBO has more than five times the profit ($1.8 billion), in large part due to the channel's ability to command premium pricing for high-end original series and movies. The company is also starting its new venture during boom times. Despite pay TV's decline, subscriptions to HBO and its sister network, Cinemax, are growing, up 2.8 million in 2014, their biggest tally of new subscribers in 30 years. "I think HBO is still king of the block," says Michael Nathanson, an analyst at the research firm MoffettNathanson. "They raised their game in the last couple of years. Just because the others have one or two great shows does not mean they are HBO." To propel its new service, HBO is looking for a different kind of distributor. Apple TV (which is HBO's initial launch partner), TiVo, Amazon and some cable operators, such as Cox and Cablevision, want to offer HBO with broadband for customers who don't subscribe to pay TV and probably never will. At the same time, HBO will be making it easier for viewers to cut the pay-TV cord, and no one really knows if what replaces cable will be anywhere near as lucrative for TV networks. Some believe HBO will benefit from moving outside the cable bundle. "HBO is one of the world's best brands," says Rich Greenfield, a tech and media analyst at research and brokerage firm BTIG. "The greatest inhibitor to HBO's growth has been the $70-plus buy-through." Jeff Bewkes, CEO of Time Warner, HBO's parent company, has long said the premium channel would ditch cable. The question was always when. Last year, discussions about HBO Now grew more serious, as Time Warner's higher-ups debated whether the company should build its own Netflix-like service. But during the most recent season of Game of Thrones , glitches plagued HBO Go, further throwing into question the viability of a broader on-demand service. The channel had hired a team of ex-Microsoft engineers in Seattle to shore up HBO Go and build HBO Now, but when the estimate came back last year, Time Warner blanched: It was going to cost more than $1 billion to build a distribution system on par with Netflix, and it wouldn't be ready until 2017. Late last year, HBO abandoned those plans. The channel contracted with Major League Baseball Advanced Media, which streams baseball games on the Web and powers other live sports programming. The new service will begin in April. 'A Huge Gamble' In the short term, HBO Now's success may hinge on the public's continued appetite for Game of Thrones. The service will launch with the fifth season of the series, a medieval fantasy epic that's the network's biggest hit since The Sopranos . The show isn't like the channel's typical programming. When HBO created it in 2010, the channel was better known for serious-minded dramas than shows about dragons. "It was a huge gamble [for HBO]," wrote co-creators David Benioff and Dan Weiss in an email. The competition for the next big show is going to get very expensive. Netflix has committed to 320 new hours of original programming in 2015. Because many of its competitors are pouring money into new shows, HBO will be relying on its renowned development process to create new hits. Entourage , for example, was in development for two years before HBO shot the pilot. For now, the channel's access to the best ideas and to top writers, directors and actors is its biggest advantage. "When creators think about their content, we've heard that their choices are one of three: HBO, Netflix or FX," says Nathanson. "Spending more money doesn't guarantee success." HBO has often dominated water cooler conversations, but that talk is a lot broader than it used to be. Today, there's so much good television but not enough time in the day to watch it all, even for those who are deeply committed, or deeply unemployed. Which means the competition for viewers' attention is more heated. "You are inundated by the number of new shows, new networks, new digital networks" says Lombardo, the HBO president. "What happens when there is too much volume? How do you let a consumer know a show exists?" The answer, he says, may be for HBO to pump as much money into marketing as it does into its programming. Yet the channel is taking a risk with HBO Now. Lombardo may be eager to find the next "it" program, but because HBO no longer has a monopoly on premium television, non-subscribers may be satisfied with what they already have. Lombardo, however, remains confident that the new service will be successful. "A certain part of this job is just luck and magic," he says. "[But] people watch more than one network. I don't know if there is a winner."
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Businesses invest trillions in IT security each year to protect confidential and private information in the digital world. While effective, these technologies and protocols are not ironclad, and the one thing they definitely can't protect is the security of physical documents. It may sound silly, but paper is making news despite the recent focus on cyber security. A few weeks ago, a Brooklyn warehouse caught fire and scattered thousands of confidential documents around the city. Wired recently profiled a dumpster diver who makes more than $250,000 annually by collecting electronics from corporate dumpsters. Consider for a moment the information you regularly print. Only our most sacred and personal documents ever make it off the screen and onto paper. Tax returns, W-2s, bank statements, investment reports, contracts, etc., contain private information that in the wrong hands could become a serious liability. There's a serious risk lurking in your employee's trash can. No one goes through trash cans anymore, right? It may sound trashy (no pun intended), but dumpster diving is gaining momentum. Matt Malone, the dumpster diver, estimates that he makes an average of $2,500 a night searching dumpsters of retailers for resalable products. Rob Greenfield is on a mission to encourage more people to save food from the landfill. He has already convinced more than 1,000 people to join him in dumpster diving, and is offering to pay fines for anyone who is ticketed in the name of reducing food waste. But valuable products and food are not the only things that can be found in the dumpster. For many businesses, there is something far more valuable at stake: Confidential business information including employee records, customer information and business financial information. The problem with paper As the world is becoming increasingly aware of the importance of protecting our digital identities, some of the simplest ways of protecting business information can be easily overlooked. Threats to corporate information security are not always digital, and the protection of physical documents is often discounted. We may think we're living in a digital age, but research shows that 89 percent of businesses are still using hard copies for record keeping. For example, while electronic tax filing continues to increase year over year, more than 19 million people in the U.S. filed their taxes the old-fashioned way in 2014, according to the IRS. Even if you are filing online and managing your employee and contractor forms electronically, odds are that you're still hitting the "print" key quite often for your CPA and records. Recent headlines make it clear that we need to better protect private information, and solutions may be easier and more effective than you thought. Are your employees putting you at risk? Laws and regulations are in place to ensure the proper and responsible disposal of certain documents. For example finance, HR, and legal department documents, as well as anything with personally identifiable information (including the majority of the required documentation for tax returns), should be shredded to a super micro-cut, or 6,200 shreds per 8.5″ x 11″ sheet. Compliance is not guaranteed, though, and regulations are not all-encompassing. Paper shredding may be one of the simplest ways to keep information secure, and 24 percent of people surveyed agreed that it is the most important thing a company can do, according to Swingline's Stack-and-Shred survey . Despite this, nearly half of respondents (45 percent) said their employers don't always use a paper shredder or shredding service to destroy sensitive business information. Of those, 20 percent reported they never shred. Overall, more than a quarter of respondents admitted to tossing sensitive documents straight to the dumpster without shredding, leaving valuable information at risk. Securing your hard copies In Houston, hundreds of improperly discarded documents containing personal information from a local tax preparer were discovered in a dumpster. We've also seen pharmacy and patient records finding their way to the dumpster. A few weeks ago, a Brooklyn warehouse caught fire and scattered thousands of confidential documents around the city. It's not unheard of for businesses to be the targets of criminal information seekers. In fact, it's one of the vulnerabilities that businesses often overlook. While the information security will continue to dominate headlines, and as businesses increase investments in cyber security, don't forget to implement the policies, processes and equipment to secure printed documents, as well. Make the small investment in a high-tech shredder with auto-feed and other security features to make it easy for employees to comply. Don't overlook the risks that may be sitting in the bottom of your employee's trash can. Thomas. W. Tedford is U.S. president of ACCO Brands America , where he is responsible for sales, marketing and operations in the U.S., Canada, and Latin America for iconic office product brands, including Swingline, Cambridge, Mead, Day-Timer and more.
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As a high school senior in Checotah, Oklahoma, Underwood showed her familiarity with the curling iron. With a winning smile and kinky waves, Underwood was declared the champion of the fourth season of American Idol and released her first album, Some Hearts. "A curling iron gives too perfect of a curl," hairstylist Melissa Schleicher has said of the star's waves. "The flatiron gives a looser look. But to avoid bends in the hair, you have to keep the flatiron moving." She released Carnival Ride and hit Fashion Rocks sporting a side ponytail with a little something extra: "[Clip-in extensions] to add length and body," according to her hairstylist Melissa Schleicher. Underwood rocked a blond curls at the Country Music Awards. Underwood shimmered in ivory shadow at the American Music Awards. Underwood lit up the Staples Center at the Grammys, picking up her third award and performing her smash hit "Before He Cheats." "It's always great coming back to Idol," Underwood said at the Idol Gives Back concert. "Every time they want me to do anything, I'm here." The singer's third album, Play On, debuted at the top of the charts. Underwood announced her engagement to NHL player Mike Fischer-and debuted a cute and curly bob. At the Grammys, the singer made her eyes pop with faux lashes by Stephen Moleski, who spilled that he will be designing a special style for her upcoming nuptials: "It's a tapered feathered lash-shorter on the inside corner, thick and fluffy everywhere else." At the Golden Globes, the newlywed stood tall in a modern take on a beehive. The pro performer added hot pink extensions to her blond mane for the Academy of Country Music Awards. Classic Carrie: A loose, pretty updo and dark lashes. For the BMI Country Awards, Underwood highlighted her hazel eyes with shades of metallic. Dramatic, feathery lashes were the focus of Underwood's Grammys look. Lush, side-swept curls for the CMA Awards. The singer debuts a classy-casual side ponytail. The expectant mom wears a faux lob on the red carpet. As a high school senior in Checotah, Oklahoma, Underwood showed her familiarity with the curling iron. As a high school senior in Checotah, Oklahoma, Underwood showed her familiarity with the curling iron. "Some people think all country singers wear cowboy hats and rhinestones," Carrie Underwood has told InStyle. "I'm changing that image." From taking home the top prize on American Idol, to scoring three number-one albums, to collecting five Grammys, Underwood has proven herself as a major star. And with her favorite smoky eyes ("me and black eyeliner go way back") and pumped-up locks ("I wish that big hair would come back in style") Underwood shows that she can turn on the glitz-even without rhinestones. "You want people to see you and think, 'Wow! She looks awesome,'" Underwood has said. "'Wow! She's a star.'" 2005 With a winning smile and kinky waves, Underwood was declared the champion of the fourth season of American Idol and released her first album, Some Hearts. 2006 "A curling iron gives too perfect of a curl," hairstylist Melissa Schleicher has said of the star's waves. "The flatiron gives a looser look. But to avoid bends in the hair, you have to keep the flatiron moving." 2007 She released Carnival Ride and hit Fashion Rocks sporting a side ponytail with a little something extra: "[Clip-in extensions] to add length and body," according to her hairstylist Melissa Schleicher. 2007 Underwood rocked a blond curls at the Country Music Awards. 2007 Underwood shimmered in ivory shadow at the American Music Awards. 2008 Underwood lit up the Staples Center at the Grammys, picking up her third award and performing her smash hit "Before He Cheats." 2008 "It's always great coming back to Idol," Underwood said at the Idol Gives Back concert. "Every time they want me to do anything, I'm here." 2009 The singer's third album, Play On, debuted at the top of the charts. 2009 Underwood announced her engagement to NHL player Mike Fischer-and debuted a cute and curly bob. 2010 At the Grammys, the singer made her eyes pop with faux lashes by Stephen Moleski, who spilled that he will be designing a special style for her upcoming nuptials: "It's a tapered feathered lash-shorter on the inside corner, thick and fluffy everywhere else." 2011 At the Golden Globes, the newlywed stood tall in a modern take on a beehive. 2011 The pro performer added hot pink extensions to her blond mane for the Academy of Country Music Awards. 2011 Classic Carrie: A loose, pretty updo and dark lashes. 2011 "Some people think all country singers wear cowboy hats and rhinestones," Carrie Underwood has told InStyle. "I'm changing that image." From taking home the top prize on American Idol, to scoring three number-one albums, to collecting five Grammys, Underwood has proven herself as a major star. And with her favorite smoky eyes ("me and black eyeliner go way back") and pumped-up locks ("I wish that big hair would come back in style") Underwood shows that she can turn on the glitz-even without rhinestones. "You want people to see you and think, 'Wow! She looks awesome,'" Underwood has said. "'Wow! She's a star.'" 2012 "Some people think all country singers wear cowboy hats and rhinestones," Carrie Underwood has told InStyle. "I'm changing that image." From taking home the top prize on American Idol, to scoring three number-one albums, to collecting five Grammys, Underwood has proven herself as a major star. And with her favorite smoky eyes ("me and black eyeliner go way back") and pumped-up locks ("I wish that big hair would come back in style") Underwood shows that she can turn on the glitz-even without rhinestones. "You want people to see you and think, 'Wow! She looks awesome,'" Underwood has said. "'Wow! She's a star.'" 2012 Lush, side-swept curls for the CMA Awards.
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lifestyle
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So what's the biggest trade in the markets right now? Could it be the one-way bet on European fixed income, with Draghi's massive bond-buying program set to obliterate anyone who challenges ludicrously low bond yields? Or the tech bull position with the Nasdaq around year-2000 highs? For now let's ignore the collapse in eurozone yield and the nose-bleeding valuations in tech and concentrate on my favourite trade - the brutal battle being fought in the oil market. Last week, InterContinental Exchange revealed that the hedge-betters and speculators were piling into the oil trade in levels not seen since the middle of last year. You remember the middle of last year, that was when crude was still at $110 per barrel, pretty much double where it is now. So are we setting ourselves up for another massive bout of volatility after a few weeks of relatively calm price action? The longs are out in force, according to the data but are they too early in calling an end to the oil price rout? Brent may have had a fantastic rally in February, having plummeted to the low $40s region after last year's rout. But was that a dead cat bounce ignoring the still dreadful near term fundamentals? Despite a lot of excitement about the falling rig count and the huge number of job expenditure cuts across exploration and production, there is still over-production not only in the US but also across the world. In fact, if you believe the bears, then the US will shortly run out of storage space above ground. The guys who've been in the industry and have seen cycle after cycle like this keep telling me that the cure for lower prices is lower prices. But when will we see supply and demand responses to $50-60 oil? Well, many of the global wells just can't afford to stop just yet, whether it is because of the need for Middle Eastern petro-dollars of the demanding Texan bank manager who still expects the oil well-related loan to be serviced. Surely the key factors in where we go next have still to come to the fore this year and we are still at the appetiser stage. For many June, will be the main event. That month is when the next scheduled Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries meeting is due to take place and it is possibly the most likely time we will see a supply response from the group representing around a third of global production. The end of June just also happens to be the deadline for the Iran nuclear deal. If -- and it's a big "if" -- Iran gets a framework agreement by the end of this month, the country will be desperate to ramp up production of oil as quickly as possible. And, believe me, it may take them months if not years but they really want to ramp it up. Iran doesn't just want to up its levels from the current 2.8 million barrels a day. It wants to first get to the 4 million barrels it was producing back in 2008 and then it wants to keep going on and on and on. That will set up Iran for a huge row with Saudi over OPEC production levels. Yes, the Iran production growth story is just one but it makes factors such as Libya's piddly production oscillation and rig count obsessions in the US pale into insignificance. So for me the phoney war going on in the oil market at the moment may just result in a stalemate until the middle of the year. That is when we may get the real battle. The one that may just justify at least one side of the extreme calls from $20 to back up to $90 per barrel. - By Steve Sedgwick, anchor of CNBC's Squawk Box Europe
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finance
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By Sean Tomlinson At some point over the next few days or weeks, Michael Vick will sign with a new team. It'll be his third different NFL outpost over the last three years, and another backup role in which he's left to feebly hold on to a career. That's who Vick is now. He'll turn 35 before the start of next season, and time usually doesn't look kindly upon quarterbacks of that vintage. He likely won't be guaranteed a Week 1 roster spot wherever he lands. So barring a youth-foundation infusion or some similar miracle, this free agency period may become the end for Vick, a time when he reaches his final football resting place. Let's take on a quick exercise then: How will we remember the Vick experience when it's finally over? That depends on exactly what you expected. (Quick aside: I'm discussing only Michael Vick the football player here. Michael Vick the dog fighter was punished and served time.) VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Oag8iBB7HE Nothing has really changed about Vick during his 12 seasons. He's always been absurdly fast, and even now at his advanced age his speed still tops all but a small handful of his position peers. He's always had a booming arm, too, one capable of launching balls with seemingly a flick of the wrist. Those are the rosy and warm thoughts that come to mind immediately. Then there's a reality which was also clear way back when he was drafted in 2001: Vick is a brittle mess. The drawback of his speed is the body type required to have it. Vick is 6'0" and weighs 215 pounds, and the similarly mobile Colin Kaepernick is 6'4, weighing 230 pounds. So far in his career Russell Wilson (5'11" and 206 pounds) has been the rare combination of small, mobile and healthy. He hasn't missed a game yet over three seasons, and the difference is that Wilson knows when and how to avoid contact. Vick never learned that skill, and it resulted in numerous injuries that shortened seasons. He's still logged only one full 16-game year. Yet Vick has made history when healthy. Sure, ultimately accuracy has been his downfall, with not nearly enough touch to match his arm strength (career completion percentage of 56.1). But throughout his career he's been able to manage that inaccuracy, and keep it tolerable next to the running ability that elevated him to a unique talent. Scroll down the list of single-season rushing highs by quarterbacks , and you quickly notice something: Vick's name, repeatedly. His 1,039 rushing yards in 2006 is still the highest single-season total of all time. Of the top 10 seasons, three belong to Vick. That athleticism has kept him employed for this long. There's always the hope that maybe oh, just maybe after an injury Vick will trot in triumphantly off the sideline as the backup, and his fleet-footed ways will be the defining difference in the game. Or maybe the season? No, probably not, but an intoxicating allure follows the mobile quarterback. Even if he's a known project whose development plateaued long ago. Ultimately, that will be Vick's legacy once he finally departs. He did enough to hold on, and enough to forge a lengthy career for himself, playing well into his mid 30s. But durability and an unwillingness to avoid chaos have held him from reaching a ceiling that was far higher than holding on. Or maybe instead the Vick experience we're watching now is his ceiling, with several seasons of brilliance scattered between many more full of sprayed balls and bad decisions.
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sports
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Burger King is saying bye-bye to sugary sodas in kids' meals, a quiet change that follows similar moves by McDonald's and Wendy's earlier this year. USA Today first reported the unannounced menu switch, which will involve replacing fountain drinks with fat-free milk, low-fat chocolate milk and apple juice in Burger King Kids Meals. Soft drinks will still be offered, but they'll be nixed from the Kids Meal menu. The fast-food behemoths have reportedly stopped marketing sodas to kids due to pressure from consumer advocacy groups working to end childhood obesity. McDonald's, for instance, has partnered with The Alliance for a Healthy Generation , founded by the Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association, NPR reports . Burger King made the switch as part of an "ongoing effort to offer our guests options that match lifestyle needs," Alex Macedo, president of Burger King North America, told USA Today. Margo Wootan, director of the consumer advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest , says she lobbied for two years to get Burger King to make the change. USA Today reports : "It will help children eat better now, as soda is the leading source of calories in children's diets," says Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy for the group. "It also helps to set kids on a path toward healthier eating in the future, with fewer kids becoming conditioned to think that soda should be a part of every eating out occasion."Sugary soft drinks are a top source of calories in children's diets and can contribute to obesity, Wootan says. The percentage of children ages 6 11 years in the U.S. who were obese increased from 7% in 1980 to nearly 18% in 2012. Similarly, the percentage of adolescents ages 12 19 years who were obese increased from 5% to nearly 21% over the same period, reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The menu change will have a colossal impact on the beverage industry, USA Today reports, because so many Americans who drink soda now started when they were kids. But it also signals a nationwide mindset change. Major fast-food chains are beginning to improve the quality of their food and drink choices in the face of public demand. McDonald's announced last week that it's removing human antibiotics from its chicken , a move that advocates hope will eventually raise the quality of all meat products, from the processing plant to the restaurant.
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health
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A record-breaking attempt to fly around the world in a solar-powered plane has completed its first leg.
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Want to drink your beer and eat it, too, on St. Patrick's Day this year? Try out these delicious recipes made from Guinness as a perfect match to your pint. Guinness Beef Pot Pies Get your recipe here. Chocolate Guinness Sweet Potato Cake Get your recipe here. Roast capon with hay, chestnut pulp, Guinness and oyster sauce Get your recipe here. Guinness Cheddar Biscuits Get your recipe here. Grilled Ribeye Steak with Guinness Marinade Get your recipe here. Guinness Brownies Get your recipe here. Braised Lamb Shanks and Baked Beans with Molasses Get your recipe here. Irish Black Bread Get your recipe here. Guinness Sausage Casserole Get your recipe here. Lobster Tails Steamed in Beer Get your recipe here. Beer-Braised Pork Chops Get your recipe here. Rarebit soldiers Get your recipe here. Spicy Portuguese Pulled Pork & Cabbage Get your recipe here. Guinness Snickerdoodles Get your recipe here. Beer-Battered Cod and Chips Get your recipe here. Chocolate Guinness Cake Get your recipe here. Chipotle Cheddar Chicken Bangers & Mash Get your recipe here. Mini Beef And Guinness Pie Get your recipe here. Guinness-Glazed Lamb Chops Get your recipe here. Guinness Beef Stew Get your recipe here. Irish Chicken Wings with Guinness Get your recipe here. Guinness Corned Beef With Homemade Spicy Mustard Get your recipe here. Dark Chocolate and Guinness Cookies Get your recipe here.
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foodanddrink
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The former NFL player doesn't like his old team asking the Supreme Court to OK same-sex marriage. Former SMU and New England Patriots running back Craig James is upset that sports teams, including the Patriots, have signed on to a brief urging the Supreme Court to make gay marriage legal in the country. He called it the work of Satan. Speaking on the "Washington Watch" radio program, hosted by Tony Perkins of the anti-gay Family Research Council, James was asked his opinion of the Patriots and other sports franchises joining 379 companies signing the brief. Right Wing Watch has the audio: James: A locker room is a cohesive deal. A locker room is a place where everybody has different belief systems but you just get along. In my opinion, I look forward to seeing now, if management tells you and the coaching staff tells you that you better not say anything about the other side, you talk about implosion in the locker room. I know the believers I was with, my teammates -- and there were a lot of believers in that locker room -- we wouldn't have been quiet for a moment, we would have spoken up. Perkins: Do you think there are going to be more players that say, "Hey wait a minute, that's fine if they want to do that and live that lifestyle, but for me, as a follower of Jesus Christ, I have an obligation to speak out, in a loving way, but to speak the truth nonetheless?" James: I have to say that ... the thought of me filing something in the Supreme Court on behalf of players, I had pause. I'll run through a wall with you guys [but] ... if I were a current player in that locker room and my livelihood depended on me being quiet or losing it because of my belief system, I worry, I wonder. So, that's Satan working on us. That's not Satan working, that's the American legal system and it's not a surprise James feels this way. He came out as anti-gay during his failed bid to win a U.S. Senate seat in 2012, saying that being gay is a choice. He later lost his job on Fox Sports because of his views on gay people and he then alleged discrimination based on his religious beliefs. By supporting the brief, the Patriots and the other companies did not say their employees had to agree with them, so there is no coercion here. James now works for the Family Research Council , and he can rest assured that his current employer shares the same views on gay people that he does.
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Who knew Lance Stephenson was a Taylor Swift fan? In Sunday's victory over the Detroit Pistons, the struggling guard for the Charlotte Hornets stole Anthony Tolliver's balance with a nifty crossover, then proceeded to shake it off ... shake it off.
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video
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Serena Williams returns to the WTA and ATP event at Indian Wells this week for the first time since 2001 while defending men's champion Novak Djokovic is seeking his fourth title. World number one Williams, who captured her 19th Grand Slam singles crown at this year's Australian Open, announced last month in Time magazine she was ending her boycott of the tournament over racial insults from her 2001 run to the title. Williams won the Indian Wells crown in 1999 at age 17 and again in 2001 when she rallied to beat Kim Clijsters in the final after a controversial semi-final walkover when her sister Venus, who is not returning, pulled out rather than play Serena. Many spectators felt robbed of the chance to see the siblings play, thinking it a move mandated by their father Richard to enable Serena to save precious energy for the final, and hecklers expressed frustration and anger so strenuously that Williams struggled under the verbal venom. "It has been difficult for me to forget spending hours crying in the Indian Wells locker room after winning in 2001, driving back to Los Angeles feeling as if I had lost the biggest game ever -- not a mere tennis game but a bigger fight for equality," Williams wrote in Time. "I said a few times that I would never play there again. And believe me, I meant it. I admit it scared me. What if I walked onto the court and the entire crowd booed me? The nightmare would start all over." Williams says she has grown to forgive those whose actions kept her away for so long. "I'm just following my heart on this one," Williams wrote. "Indian Wells was a pivotal moment of my story and I am a part of the tournament's story as well. Together we have a chance to write a different ending." Only Czech number four Petra Kvitova, the reigning Wimbledon champion, and 17th-ranked Venus Williams are absent from the top 20 on the women's side, where play begins on Wednesday. Serena and Russia's second-ranked Maria Sharapova, like all of the 32 top seeds, will have a first-round bye and start later in the week. Italy's 16th-ranked Flavia Pennetta is the defending women's champion. On the men's side, Djokovic hopes to claim back-to-back crowns in the California desert after claiming his fifth Australian Open title, and eighth major singles trophy, this year at Melbourne. The 27-year-old Serbian star also won Indian Wells finals in 2011 and 2008 before conquering Swiss icon Roger Federer in last year's final. Also bidding for a fourth Indian Wells championship is Spain's Rafael Nadal, who won in 2007, 2009 and 2013. Federer seeks his fifth Indian Wells trophy after sweeping titles from 2004-2006 and taking the top prize in 2012. Since 2003, the only Indian Wells champion not from among that star trio is 2010 winner Ivan Ljubicic, although 2009 runner-up Andy Murray of Britain hopes to change that.
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sports
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Surveillance video emerges showing Dzokhar Tsarnaev at the scene of the Boston Marathon bombing. Natasha Howitt reports.
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news
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New Zealand has received an "eco-terrorist" threat to poison baby formula, Prime Minister John Key said Tuesday, in a scare that risks further denting the country's "clean, green" reputation. Police said they were taking the issue seriously after small packages of baby formula containing poison were sent with anonymous letters to the National Farmers Federation and dairy giant Fonterra. "Whilst there is a possibility that this threat is a hoax, we must treat the threat seriously and a priority investigation is underway," deputy commissioner Mike Clement said. Authorities warned parents to examine packaging for signs of tampering and supermarkets removed formula cans from shelves to storerooms so shoppers could not access them directly. Police said the motive behind what they termed a blackmail attempt was the use of a poison called 1080 for pest control, which some critics say kills native wildlife. Asked how he would characterise the threat, Key replied: "It's a form of eco-terrorism without doubt. "The person's motive is to try and bully the government into not using 1080 (but) the reality of anyone carrying out this threat are extremely low," he added. Even if it was a hoax, the scare comes at a sensitive time for New Zealand's dairy industry, which is recovering from a botulism scare last year involving Fonterra. It was eventually declared a false alarm but not before potentially toxic formula was yanked off shelves from China to Saudi Arabia. New Zealand is the world's largest dairy exporter and infant formula is a major component, with annual exports to China alone totalling NZ$3.0 billion (US$2.2 billion). Infant Formula Exporters Association chairman Michel Barnett said the industry did not need another crisis. "This could be extremely damaging for New Zealand's exports offshore," he told TVNZ. "Not just dairy, not just milk formula, our whole reputation as an exporter of food is at risk as a result of this nutter." The New Zealand Food and Grocery Council said extra testing had been introduced to reassure parents, adding that it had "absolute confidence" that products were safe. "This is an attack on Brand New Zealand," it said. "Our country has a reputation for producing safe, high-quality food products which are in demand around the world, and this coward's letter doesn't change that at all. "These letters are an attack on all New Zealanders, designed to gain publicity and cause the maximum damage to the New Zealand economy." The threat, originally made in November, was to contaminate products unless 1080 was banned by the end of March. Clement said a team of 36 officers had been investigating the threat since November and appealed for public assistance tracking down the blackmailer.
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Solar Impulse, the fuel-free aeroplane, has successfully completed the second leg of its historic attempt to fly around the world. Project chairman, Bertrand Piccard, piloted the vehicle from Muscat in Oman to Ahmedabad in India, crossing the Arabian Sea in the process. Tuesday's journey took just over 15 hours. The distance covered - 1,468 km - set a new world record for a solar-powered plane. The vehicle has another 10 legs ahead of it over the course of the next five months. Included in that itinerary will be demanding stretches when the craft has to fly over the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Piccard is sharing the flying duties with project partner and CEO, Andre Borschberg, who made Monday's inaugural trip from Abu Dhabi to Muscat. Solar Impulse arrived in Ahmedabad in darkness, its wings illuminated by LEDs, and its propellers driven by the energy stored in its batteries. The plane had left Muscat at 06.35 (02:35 GMT) and put its wheels down at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport at 23.25 local time (17:55 GMT). Preparations are already under way for the next leg to Varanasi in northeast India, although mission planners say that will not be for another four days, at least. The time will be spent carrying a campaigning message on the topic of clean technologies to the local Ahmedabad people, and the wider Indian population. The Solar Impulse project has already set plenty of other world records for solar-powered flight, including making a high-profile transit of the US in 2013. But the round-the-world venture is altogether more dramatic and daunting, and has required the construction of an even bigger plane than the prototype, Solar Impulse-1. This new model has a wingspan of 72m, which is wider than a 747 jumbo jet. And yet, it weighs only 2.3 tonnes. Its light weight will be critical to its success. So, too, will the performance of the 17,000 solar cells that line the top of the wings, and the energy-dense lithium-ion batteries it will use to sustain night-time flying. Operating through darkness will be particularly important when the men have to cross the Pacific and the Atlantic. The slow speed of their prop-driven plane means these legs will take several days and nights of non-stop flying to complete. Piccard and Borschberg - they take it in turns to fly solo - will have to stay alert for nearly all of the time they are airborne. They will be permitted only catnaps of up to 20 mins - in the same way a single-handed, round-the-world yachtsman would catch small periods of sleep. They will also have to endure the physical discomfort of being confined in a cockpit that measures just 3.8 cubic metres in volume - not a lot bigger than a public telephone box. The Solar Impulse venture recalls other great circumnavigation feats in aviation - albeit fuelled ones. In 1986, the Voyager aircraft became the first to fly around the world without stopping or refuelling. Piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, the propeller-driven vehicle took nine days to complete its journey. Then, in 2005, this time was beaten by the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, which was solo-piloted by Steve Fossett. A jet-powered plane, GlobalFlyer completed its non-stop circumnavigation in just under three days. Andre Borschberg is a trained engineer and former air-force pilot, he has built a career as an entrepreneur in internet technologies. Bertrand Piccard is well known for his ballooning exploits. Along with Brian Jones, he completed the first non-stop, circumnavigation of the world in 1999, using the Breitling Orbiter 3 balloon. The Piccard name has become synonymous with pushing boundaries. Bertrand's father, Jacques Piccard, was the first to reach the deepest place in the ocean (a feat achieved with Don Walsh in the Trieste bathyscaphe in 1960). And his grandfather, Auguste Piccard, was the first person to take a balloon into the stratosphere, in 1931. and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos
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In cold drizzle Takayuki Ueno combs a desolate winter beach for the bones of his three-year-old son, unable to move on in his grief until he finds the remains of a boy killed by Japan's monstrous tsunami four years ago. Only the ageing of his daughter, born six months after disaster struck, marks the passage of time for a man who can find no closure until he finds the bodies of the dead -- one of thousands of living victims of a disaster that is still playing out. "My daughter Sarii will start going to kindergarten this April, start doing things that her brother couldn't," he said. "I can't help thinking how short his life was, only three years." March 11, 2011 is engraved on Japan's collective psyche; the day a terrifying 9.0 magnitude undersea earthquake sent the ocean barrelling into the coast. The roiling black waters killed almost 19,000 people as they flattened communities and poisoned farmland. They also set off the worst nuclear catastrophe in a generation, pushing reactors at Fukushima into meltdown and spewing a pall of invisible -- but toxic -- radiation into the air, leaving a vast area out of bounds. "No one came here to help. I was the only thing moving in this whole area," Ueno, 42, told AFP on the barren shore at Minamisoma, on Japan's northeast coast. "As soon as the first reactor explosion hit, everyone disappeared. So I started searching for the missing by myself," he said. "We desperately needed help, with so many people missing. But no one came. It was 40 days after the tsunami -- April 20 -- when troops came to search," Ueno said. "It was the nuclear accident. That's why they came so late and left so quickly." The body of his eight-year-old daughter Erika was found close to the family home, which lies slightly north of the 20-kilometre (12-mile) exclusion zone thrown up around the battered plant. His dead mother, 60, was also found nearby. Frozen in time By the end of March 2011, Ueno and a small band of volunteers braving the radiation had worked their way through the gutted shells of broken buildings to the beach, where they chanced upon seven bodies almost immediately. Over the following months, they discovered several dozen more corpses. But three-year-old Kotaro was not among them. "I could hold Erika and say I am sorry," he said. "I've wanted to gather Kotaro too in my arms and say sorry. I've wanted so much to find him." Ueno is one of thousands of people afflicted by the tsunami unable to turn the page on the horror of 2011. For them, grief is frozen in time because they cannot find the bodies they need to mourn. For others, who may have lost no-one to the waters but were made homeless by the disaster, there are other challenges. While the exclusion zone around Fukushima Daichi has shrunk, tens of thousands of people remain unable to return to their homes because of worries over elevated radiation levels there. "There has been considerable progress in overall recovery from the devastation," said Tadateru Konoe, President of the Japanese Red Cross (JRC). "However, there have been critical delays in rebuilding communities. Particular attention must be given to the needs of many elderly and other vulnerable people who have been unable to get back on their feet." 'Somebody needs to do this' The JRC says while many of the large-scale facilities such as hospitals or nursery homes are finished, there is a go-slow on the rebuilding of permanent homes for the displaced, who live in temporary housing, or are crammed in with relatives. "Whereas the living conditions of younger generations have by now mostly returned to normal, the situation is more serious for a large number of elderly people who lack a supporting family network and have not yet been able to restore their lives," the organisation said in a statement. For Ueno, the invisible poison of the battered nuclear reactors hangs over his head like a cloud as he gropes for an end to his personal tragedy. On a miserably cold morning a few days ahead of the fourth anniversary of the tsunami, he and several others scoured a beach 17 kilometres from the stricken plant. "Late last year, a human body was found in this area, the upper body and lower body severed," Ueno said. "But the head is still missing." There are occasional glimmers of hope; DNA tests on bone fragments found in nearby Namie last November were identified this week as belonging to a 13-year-old girl, missing since the waves swept in, the Asahi Shimbun reported. Despite knowing that he has been exposed to fallout from the plant, he will not stop. "Somebody needs to do this, walking along the shore, otherwise there is no possibility that anyone will be found," he said. "I am alive now. I will do what I can."
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Consumer inflation in China recovered in February but deflationary pressure still mounts as the world's second largest economy slows. Jane Lanhee Lee reports.
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finance
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The USWNT got through to the Algarve Cup final despite a 0-0 draw with Iceland, and will face France. As Grant Wahl explains, Jill Ellis is searching for answers as attention turns to the World Cup this summer.
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sports
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Earlier this month, Spirit Airlines added a route from Chicago to Latrobe, the hometown of the much-beloved host of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood . It's the only commercial airline that operates out of the modest Pennsylvania town of 10,000, a fact that is representative of everything that's made the airline noteworthy in recent years. It boasts remarkably low fares but charges fees for everything from baggage to peanuts to re-booking to drinks. Its airplanes are spartan, with smaller seats that don't recline, and they feature ads for booze and casinos and more. It pays many of its employees lower wages, offers stingier benefits, and runs its planes for more hours each day than its competitors. The result is something of a paradox. Spirit made waves when a Consumer Reports survey late in 2013 gave the company one of the lowest scores ever. Yet its ultra-low fares have allowed Spirit to broaden its customer base to those who otherwise couldn't afford to fly hence the service to Latrobe earning the airline one of the highest profit margins in the industry. A lot of people hate it, and a lot of people are flying it. Thinking through that paradox can tell us a lot about how we conceive of economics in the era of inequality. What Spirit Airlines clarifies is that different business models are needed to serve groups of customers with different levels of collective purchasing power. Walmart is another example of this. In an economy where the share of lower-wage jobs is set to grow , and middle-wage jobs are set to shrink , a business model that can cheaply provide food, clothing, electronics, and all the other odds and ends of daily life is a boon to low-income Americans. As Spirit Airlines CEO Ben Baldanza told NPR's Planet Money in 2014, other airlines charge higher fares because they build the price of carrying baggage, food, drinks, and customer service into the price of the ticket. By stripping out those things, Spirit can let cash-strapped customers choose what they want to pay for, while offering them the actual act of travel for cheap . "They're elitist," Baldanza said in response to Consumer Reports . "That survey never asked customers about the price of their ticket." But there is a flip side. In order to get those low prices, Walmart pays its employees poorly, offers scant benefits, often treats them like disposable widgets, and busts unions. As the biggest private employer in the country, it sets the terms for the rest of the retail industry, creating a downward ratchet in which low-income people can only afford to shop at Walmart which grows the company, which then insures all those people stay low-income. The downsides of Spirit Airlines' model are modest by comparison. An uncomfortable and annoying five-hour flight is hardly the worst thing that can happen. However, if Spirit's lower wages and benefits become a model for other airlines as competition becomes more fierce, that wouldn't be good. The problem is already spreading . The danger here is treating the distribution of incomes as something that just "happens," like some people being born short and others born tall. Planet Money rightly pointed out that economists differentiate between "stated preference" and "revealed preference." Spirit Airlines' terrible rating with Consumer Reports ? That's the stated preference. But the fact that Spirit keeps selling tickets and has those high profits? That's the revealed preference. But revealed preferences aren't really "preferences" so much as what people will put up with given the constraints of their real-world options. That has a considerably different ring to it. It suggests the problem isn't really Spirit; it's the broad economic circumstances that necessitate Spirit's business model in the first place. It's a reminder that the income distribution is itself a variable in play. And one that can itself be analyzed, critiqued, morally judged, and, most importantly, changed . That distribution certainly isn't the fault of Baldanza or Spirit. But the necessity of Spirit Airlines is something of a canary in a coal mine as is the response. Maybe being turned off by Spirit's business model isn't just upper class obtuseness. Maybe it's our moral instincts trying to tell us something about the nature of the economy we've created.
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finance
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Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is urging black men to do more to help stop the killing in Baltimore - a call to action some applauded as a blunt truth, while others said the city government needs to step up as well. In her State of the City address Monday, the mayor said more black men must become involved as mentors, tutors and community activists if the city is to reduce homicides - which, she noted, often involve black men killing black men. "Too many of us in the black community have become complacent about black-on-black crime," she said afterward. "While many of us are willing to march and protest and become active in the face of police misconduct, many of us turn a blind eye when it's us killing us." All but 22 of Baltimore's 211 homicide victims last year were black males. Munir Bahar, a longtime community activist and an organizer of the 300 Man March, said the mayor was sending the right message. "More black men need to step up and answer the call," Bahar said. "City officials can't raise children. That's not their job." Bahar said city residents need to get creative about ways to change the environment for young people, citing a vacant building in Southwest Baltimore that he said has been turned into a fitness-training and community center. "Our neighborhoods are in distress because the community hasn't built the infrastructure to stop these kids from becoming killers, drug dealers and drug addicts," Bahar said. Leon Purnell, director of the Men and Families Center in East Baltimore, said he's been working to do just that, but he's not sure how much longer he can keep his 20-year-old nonprofit going. He said the city's been working against him, rather than helping the center serve the thousands who rely on it each year. "Through these doors, we've saved thousands of people," Purnell said Monday at a rally for the center. "Don't tell me it's not making a difference." The center teaches parenting skills and computer classes, offers help transitioning out of prison and administers preventive health care. It's had to relocate, Purnell said, after city inspectors cited the facility last month for code violations. Rather than help him address the problems, Purnell said, the city was quick to shut the center down. Purnell said he's paying $800 a month to rent a space a few blocks away, but coming up with the money from his $250,000 annual budget is a hardship. He wants the city and the state to help pay for the center's work. The Rev. Cortly "C.D." Witherspoon, president of the Baltimore chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said if Rawlings-Blake wants to be successful in her call to action, the city must invest in the Men and Families Center and programs like it. "The integrity of our city hinges on centers like this," Witherspoon said at Monday's rally. "What we believe in is what we invest in. Our integrity is tied to that." Witherspoon said the center's supporters will come together this month to devise an action plan to save the nonprofit. Kevin Harris, a spokesman for Rawlings-Blake, said the city stands ready to support the center, but to ignore the code violations would have been "reckless and negligent." "There are so many opportunities out there for people who are engaging African-American males the right way, in a safe environment, that it would be irresponsible to not step in if we see a potential situation that is not safe," Harris said. "The mayor through a broad number of initiatives clearly supports the engagement for young people and black males." Harris pointed toward the administration's construction of new recreation centers, a summer jobs programs for youth and a re-entry program that's helped more than 3,000 ex-offenders find work. Ralph Moore, a community activist, said Rawlings-Blake needs to think even bigger. He believes the answer to decreasing homicides will be found in jobs, and he wants city and state leaders to do more to recruit businesses and good-paying employment. "We don't have enough quality job training and quality education and enough jobs that pay decent wages," Moore said. "As long as we don't have training for jobs and decent wages, that other stuff is important, but it is not the answer." In her address, Rawlings-Blake laid out a plan designed to create jobs by bolstering small businesses. Of her call to reduce violence, the mayor said the city would hold a forum this month to recruit men "committed to making a difference in the lives of our children" and dedicated to bringing down the number of African-American men killed each year. She said the Rev. Jamal Harrison Bryant, pastor of Empowerment Temple, would lead the forum. Bryant declined to comment. "Our African-American men need to believe in their future," Rawlings-Blake said. "We will reach out to organizations that are already working on this issue, and we will encourage others to join," she said. "We will not do it alone. We cannot do it alone. And most importantly, we cannot afford to fail." City Councilman Brandon Scott praised the mayor's comments, and said any black man in Baltimore who is not mentoring a young person is "not a man." "If we could see 10,000 mentors of these young men, I believe we would see a great change in the violence," Scott said. "They're clamoring for attention, but they're not getting it. We need men to reach back and pull these young men up." [email protected] twitter.com/yvonnewenger [email protected] twitter.com/lukebroadwater
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Conservatives don't like to talk about race. And there are some very good reasons why. The first is that the left constantly and spuriously plays the race card against the right. Conservatives spent decades saying that welfare hurt the very people it was supposed to help by disincentivizing work. They were accused of being racists for saying that until conservatives passed welfare reform, which is now widely acknowledged as one of the most successful anti-poverty programs in recent decades. Conservatives spent decades saying that public housing hurt the very people it was supposed to help (and as someone who partially grew up in public housing, I can vouch for that) and that the best way to provide housing for all was to deregulate the sector. Conservatives were accused of being racists for saying that even though the position is now widely accepted by the left . This is the phenomenon called Krauthammer's Law conservatives think people who disagree with them are wrong; liberals think people who disagree with them are evil; and as a conservative often on the receiving end, I can vouch for the fact that it is extremely frustrating. The second reason that conservatives don't like to talk about race is that accusations of racism in public life can be extremely powerful, are basically impossible to disprove, and tend to be refereed by the national media, which is largely made up of progressives who tend to regard conservatives as guilty of ill will until proven otherwise. This combination makes those attacks extremely toxic, and accounts for much of the peculiar defensiveness of conservatives on race issues. The third reason is that conservatives are suspicious of the overarching liberal narrative on race. Taxes, deficits, whether to go to war with country X or not these are narrowly defined issues with widely accepted parameters. By contrast, some narratives about race make it the all-encompassing issue that has driven, drives, and will drive all public policy, and which can only be ameliorated through radical changes in the socio-political order. It doesn't have to be this way, but this tendency creates an impression in the minds of many conservatives that to buy even one piece of the narrative is to buy all the narrative. There are also some bad reasons why conservatives don't like to talk about race. Just because the left fits the story of racism within an all-encompassing narrative doesn't mean that the right has to choose between granting the point and selling its soul. For instance, it's enormously frustrating when the left calls attention to problem X, and proposes misguided public policy Y in response; and the right, instead of criticizing the misguided public policy and offering a better alternative, simply vociferously denies that X is a problem. We see this with the minimum wage and, paradigmatically, global warming . The right should be able to grant as it does on its best days that, yes, structural racism is a real thing but the best way to combat it is through conservative public policy. The second bad reason is what you might call insensitivity. Consider Barro's Law : "Conservatives so often get unfairly pounded on race because, so often, conservatives get fairly pounded on race." Take one of our most dispiriting frequently reoccurring events: a black kid is shot by a white police officer. Often, the circumstances are murky. It's a Rorschach Test. Now, imagine two different people. The first, who is white, has only had positive interactions with the police, and police officers have always behaved courteously and professionally toward them. The second person, who is black, has had negative experiences with the police experiences that the person has reason to believe were driven only by the color of their skin. The white person may naturally give the benefit of the doubt to the police officer, and the black person may not. Now, we know that law-abiding black people's experiences with profiling are real. But is the white person's reaction "racist"? That toxic word is not the one I would use. A more sober assessment of the situation is simply that the first person has had a range of life experiences that make it harder for them to imagine that someone has had a different range of life experiences. Now, some on the left understand this, and this is why we get frequent calls for "a national conversation on race." To understand why that makes conservatives shudder and shriek, see my three good reasons above. All of which is a very roundabout way of talking about the very sad case of the city of Ferguson, and how conservatives should deal with it. From the start, liberal activists poisoned the well by trying to make a young man who had committed robbery the day he was shot the poster child for police racism and excessive violence. But it still remains the case that, as a recent Department of Justice report makes clear , Ferguson's police department routinely and unjustifiably behaved in an absolutely thuggish manner, and in a way that was largely race-inflected. This is precisely why conservatives should care about this issue. Here we have not some grand narrative of oppression, but instead a very specific problem: bad policing. This is a problem conservatives care about, and should care about, because conservatives care about the rule of law (which should apply to everyone equally), because conservatives care about the Constitution, and because conservatives care about law and order. The last point is crucial as any policing expert will tell you, the single worst thing that can happen for crime is for the police to lose the trust of the community they're supposed to police. The great revolution of community policing, largely promoted by the right, which cleaned up cities including New York, is not just about "broken windows" it is also about police officers who are present on the beat and are trained to earn the trust of the community so that they will have the leads they need to solve crimes. Ferguson's problem was "worse than a crime, it was a blunder." The problem with racist cops isn't just that they're racist, it's that they suck as cops. By and large, America has made tremendous progress on issues of race legal discrimination, cultural discrimination, economic opportunity. But there are areas with much work to be done, and those areas where it is most urgent are also those that are right in the right's wheelhouse: issues of criminal justice reform, with the conservative war on prisons , issues of school choice, and finally issues of policing and law and order . Time to go to work.
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The number of people who own guns has declined dramatically since 1975, but overall sales are increasing as a shrinking number of owners purchase ever more guns. The number of Americans living in a household with at least one firearm is at the lowest level recorded, according to the latest General Social Survey, which released its data for 2014 this week. The GSS found that 32 percent of Americans either own a firearm or live with someone who does, tying the record low only seen earlier in 2010. This marks a significant decline since the 1970s and 1980s when about half of all Americans had a gun in their household. However, a growing number of firearms are now concentrated in the hands of fewer people than they were in the 1980s, the survey found. The decline is likely due to the falling popularity of hunting, The Associated Press reported . In 1977, 32 percent of people said they lived in a household with at least one hunter. The latest figures show less than half of that number. The General Social Survey is conducted by NORC, an independent research organization based at the University of Chicago. The survey comes in the face of a boost in gun sales, with pre-sale background checks jumping by 2 million in 2009, CNBC reported . Production also jumped 31 percent between 2011 and 2012, the latest year for which numbers are available, according to figures from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The rise has been attributed to President Barack Obama's reelection in 2012 and his attempts to introduce harsher gun laws, and a trend of increased production during Democratic presidencies, Bloomberg reported . In 2014 from January through July, pre-sales background checks totaled 6.95 million, a rise of 88% compared to the same period in 2005, according to National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association for America's firearms industry. The Pew Research Center also found growing support for gun owners, with more Americans favoring gun rights over gun control for the first time in over two decades. The percentage of people who support the requirement of a permit for gun ownership is also at its lowest level since 1987, according to GSS. The GSS also found a shrinking gender gap in gun ownership, with 35 percent of men owning a gun, down from 50 percent in 1980. The percentage of women with guns has been almost steady since 1980, with 12 percent now claiming they own a gun. Those over the age of 65 are also significantly more likely to own a gun, with 31 percent owning a gun compared with only 14 percent of adults under 35. The survey also found that higher-income households were more likely to own a gun than those in lower-income households. Gun ownership rates also varied by race, as 4 in 10 white Americans lived in households with a gun compared with less than 2 in 10 blacks and Hispanics, the survey concluded.
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finance
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Old buildings in the heart of Colombo have been converted into one of the first carbon neutral hotels in Southeast Asia. CNN's Anna Coren reports.
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Mysterious, middle-of-the-night drone flights by the U.S. Secret Service during the next several weeks over parts of Washington usually off-limits as a strict no-fly zone are part of secret government testing intended to find ways to interfere with rogue drones or knock them out of the sky, The Associated Press has learned. A U.S. official briefed on the plans said the Secret Service was testing drones for law enforcement or protection efforts and to look for ways, such as signal jamming, to thwart threats from civilian drones. The drones were being flown between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because this person was not authorized to publicly discuss the plans. The Secret Service has said details were classified. Some consumer-level drones, which commonly carry video cameras, are powerful enough to carry small amounts of explosives or a grenade. The challenge for the Secret Service is quickly detecting a rogue drone flying near the White House or the president's location, then within moments either hacking it to seize control over its flight or jamming its signal to send it off course or make it crash. The Secret Service has said only that it will openly test drones over Washington, but it declined to provide details such as when it will fly, how many drones, over what parts of the city, for how long and for what purposes. It decided to tell the public in advance about the tests out of concern that people who saw the drones might be alarmed, particularly in the wake of the drones spotted recently over Paris at night. Flying overnight also diminishes the chances that radio jamming would accidentally affect nearby businesses, drivers, pedestrians and tourists. It is illegal under the U.S. Communications Act to sell or use signal jammers except for narrow purposes by government agencies. Depending on a drone's manufacturer and capabilities, its flight-control and video-broadcasting systems commonly use the same common radio frequencies as popular Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technologies. Jamming by the Secret Service depending on how powerfully or precisely it works could disrupt nearby Internet networks or phone conversations until it's turned off. Testing in the real-world environment around the White House would reveal unexpected effects on jamming efforts from nearby buildings, monuments or tall trees. Signals emanating from an inbound drone such as coming from a video stream back to its pilot could allow the Secret Service to detect and track it. Federal agencies generally need approval to jam signals from the U.S. telecommunications advisory agency, the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration. That agency declined to tell the AP whether the Secret Service sought permission because it said such requests are not routinely made public. The Federal Aviation Administration has confirmed it formally authorized the Secret Service to fly the drones and granted it a special waiver to fly them over Washington. The agency declined to provide specifics about the secret program. In January, a wayward quadcopter drone, piloted by an off-duty U.S. intelligence employee, landed on the White House lawn. At the time, the Secret Service said the errant landing appeared to be accidental and was not considered a security threat. The agency had been looking at security issues surrounding drones before the January crash, but the crash of that drone led the agency to focus more attention on security issues surrounding small, unmanned aircraft that can be hard to detect. Previously published reports have disclosed that the Secret Service already uses jammers in presidential and vice presidential motorcades to disrupt signals that might detonate hidden remotely triggered improvised explosive devices. Researchers with the Homeland Security Department's science and technology directorate are working on strategies to interdict an unauthorized drone flying inside security areas. The research arm of DHS is trying to balance security concerns of the small, hard-to-detect devices, with the burgeoning commercial use and interests of hobbyists. Likewise, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration said last week it's studying how the U.S. can resolve privacy risks with increasing use of drones. The Homeland Security Department hosted a two-day meeting last month with industry officials, law enforcement and academics to discuss balancing security and commercial interests and establishing security practices. Days later, the Secret Service, which is part of the Homeland Security Department, distributed a three-sentence press release saying it will "conduct a series of exercises involving unmanned aircraft systems, in the coming days and weeks." Trying to keep drones out of a secure area can be tricky. There are basically three ways to stop a drone, said Jeremy Gillula, a staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation: block the radio signals linking the drone to its controller, hack the aircraft's control signals and trick it into believing it is somewhere else, or physically disable it. Some drone manufacturers program a "geo fence" location coordinates their drones treat as off-limits and refuse to fly past into the drone's programming. Police could physically knock a drone out of the air with a projectile or use a net to catch it. "If it were me that would actually be the first thing I would think about doing," Gillula said. "You would have to basically encase the White House in this net. It sure wouldn't look pretty, but in some ways it would be the most effective way."
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finance
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Eleven months on from their last visit to Chelsea's Stamford Bridge, Paris Saint-Germain return on Wednesday looking for confirmation of their place among the Champions League elite. In last season's quarter-finals, PSG came to London with a 3-1 lead from the first leg and with a huge 13-point advantage at the Ligue 1 summit, only to crash out after Demba Ba's 87th-minute strike took Chelsea through on away goals. This season, a round earlier, the tie is even more evenly-balanced at 1-1, and it is Chelsea who are dominating domestically, five points clear in the Premier League with a game in hand, while in France, PSG trail Lyon by a point. But in contrast to last season's London trip, PSG have Zlatan Ibrahimovic fit and in form, with the giant Swede having scored his third goal in four games and provided a delightful assist for Javier Pastore in Saturday's 4-1 defeat of Lens. Laurent Blanc's side have now gone 14 games without defeat in all competitions and despite their failure to recapture last season's heights, they remain in contention for an unprecedented four-trophy haul. "Of course we have belief against Chelsea," said Blanc. "We're in an unfavourable situation because they scored that famous goal (Ba's goal) that meant Paris didn't reach the semi-finals for the second year in a row. "But we have to do the same thing as them. If we're as clinical as Chelsea were, I'll take it." With PSG's owners, Qatar Sports Investments, having taken over at the Parc de Princes eight years after Roman Abramovich first brought his rubles to Stamford Bridge, the French champions have had to face the barrier of Financial Fair Play (FFP), which Chelsea did not have to worry about when Jose Mourinho was building the first great team of the Abramovich era. The FFP sanctions that PSG were hit with last year restricted their close-season transfer activity, but they were nonetheless able to splash out an astonishing 50 million euros ($54.5 million) to sign David Luiz from Chelsea. - 'Specific things' - The Brazil centre-back aimed a tongue-in-cheek barb at Mourinho earlier this week, responding to a question about what made the 'Special One' so special by saying: "But he's special for you, not for me!" Luiz deputised in defensive midfield for the first leg, but with Thiago Motta fit again after a calf injury, he is expected to return to central defence alongside Thiago Silva, who was rested against Lens. In Lucas Moura's absence, Pastore has been tipped to get the nod to line up alongside Ibrahimovic and Edinson Cavani -- who cancelled out Branislav Ivanovic's opener in the first leg -- in Blanc's three-pronged attack. Only John Mikel Obi is definitely out for Chelsea, with Nemanja Matic expected to return after a two-match domestic suspension despite hurting his ankle during the celebrations that followed the 2-0 League Cup final victory over Tottenham Hotspur. Chelsea have had over a week to prepare for the game, having not played at the weekend, and centre-back Gary Cahill says they have left no stone unturned. "We've been able to really work on specific things in preparation for it," the England defender, whose side hope to reach the last eight for the fourth time in five years, told the Chelsea website. "We know the quality of PSG and the job that lies ahead of us. It's going to be like a final, a big one-off game, and we'll be ready to go out there and give it everything we have to get us into the next round." The first leg was overshadowed after mobile phone footage emerged showing a group of Chelsea supporters preventing a black Frenchman from boarding a Paris Metro train prior to the game and chanting racist songs. Chelsea reacted by banning five fans from Stamford Bridge and inviting the victim, known as Souleymane S., to attend the second leg, but he is believed to have declined the invitation.
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Conference tournaments will give the nation's best teams opportunities to boost their credentials to claim one of the four No. 1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament. There is one big, blue exception. Unbeaten Kentucky has virtually locked up a top seed no matter what happens in the Southeastern Conference tourney this week in Nashville. The unanimous No. 1 team in the Top 25, the Wildcats are looking to become just the eighth squad to stay atop the poll wire to wire. After Kentucky, ACC powers Virginia and Duke appear to be in good shape for top seeds, though an early slip in the conference tournament for either might cloud the outlook. Much will depend on what happens with other contenders during this frenzied week in college basketball. Villanova, Arizona and Wisconsin are among teams that could improve their resumes for a top seed even though some coaches aren't ready to look ahead to Selection Sunday. "I don't know. I know Johnny Appleseed," Badgers coach Bo Ryan said after his team's 72-48 victory this weekend at Ohio State. "I don't look at that. We always turned the channel at home when they start talking seeds." A No. 1 seed for Villanova could carry extra weight for the Big East, two years after a high-stakes shuffle left the league without marquee programs Connecticut, Louisville, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh and Syracuse. The Wildcats could make a league-wide statement by winning the Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden. "From my perspective, without question, I think they are deserving of a No. 1 seed," Butler coach Chris Holtmann said Monday. "I think they would have earned the right to have that opportunity given how strong our league has performed out of conference." A look at candidates for No. 1 seeds: BIG BLUE LOCK: Kentucky (31-0, 18-0). RPI, 1; Strength of schedule, 26: The only surprise here would be if the Wildcats are not the No. 1 overall seed come Sunday. ACC POWERS: Duke (28-3, 15-3). RPI, 5; Strength of schedule, 12: Winners of 11 straight, the Blue Devils could lock up a top seed by winning the ACC tournament. Virginia (28-2, 16-2). RPI, 6; Strength of schedule, 22: See Duke, above. The Cavaliers and Blue Devils are 1-2 in the ACC tournament. If the bracket holds through Saturday's championship game, it may be just a matter of which team ends up atop which NCAA region. The South region final is in Houston; the East region final is in Syracuse. GO WEST That leaves the West, where the regional final will be held in Los Angeles. Each contender likely needs to win its league tournament to have the best shot at a No. 1 seed. Teams listed in order of Top 25 ranking: Villanova (29-2, 16-2). RPI, 3; Strength of schedule, 27: Wildcats could assure themselves of defining top seed by taking Big East tourney crown in New York. Unbeaten in six Top 25 games. Arizona (28-3, 16-2 Pac-12). RPI, 7; Strength of schedule, 34: Getting to final in league tourney and beating third-seeded Utah, which has a better RPI and strength of schedule then second-seeded Oregon, would help. Wisconsin (28-3, 16-2 Big Ten). RPI, 4; Strength of schedule, 11: Likely lock for No. 2 seed. If they don't get a top seed, the Badgers could face being placed in the Midwest as the second seed to Kentucky. That could set up a potential rematch of last year's Final Four game won by the Wildcats, 74-73, in a regional final to be played in Big Ten country. Gonzaga (30-2, 17-1 West Coast). RPI, 8; Strength of schedule, 81: A loss to BYU on Feb. 28 left Gonzaga needing the most help among potential No. 1 seeds. Likely needs to win conference tourney and have other contenders lose early. Kansas (24-7, 13-5 Big 12). RPI, 2, Strength of schedule, 1: Jayhawks are 3-3 since Feb. 16 going into the conference tourney as Big 12's top seed. Like Gonzaga, Kansas needs help to move up a seed line in the NCAAs, though a tougher schedule may give Jayhawks more consideration.
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NEW YORK Hillary Rodham Clinton was expected to take questions from reporters Tuesday afternoon to address her email practices at the State Department, following a week of scrutiny over her use of a private email account as secretary of state. The potential 2016 Democratic presidential candidate planned to discuss her use of the private email account following a speech at the United Nations, according to a person familiar with Clinton's thinking. The person spoke on condition of anonymity and was not authorized to speak on the record. Clinton ignored the issue at a forum Monday while fellow Democrats urged her to speak out and predicted she would about her decision to conduct business while secretary of state in a private email account. Republicans are ramping up their attention on the issue. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois the No. 2 Senate Democrat became the first member of the Senate Democratic leadership to call on Clinton to publicly explain her side of the story. "She should come forward and explain the situation," Durbin said Tuesday on MSNBC. "I think it's only fair to say to Hillary Clinton: Tell us your side of the story. ...What did you put on this personal email?" At the White House, spokesman Josh Earnest said President Barack Obama indeed knew she was using a nongovernment account during her tenure. Obama had indicated earlier that he only learned of that from recent news reports. Earnest said the president actually learned from those news reports of Clinton's privately run email server, but was familiar with her private account earlier because the two had exchanged emails when she was in office. Obama did not know at the time that she was using private email exclusively, Earnest said. Clinton spoke Monday at a carefully choreographed two-hour event involving her No Ceilings project at the Clinton Foundation, highlighting economic and educational opportunities for women and girls. She took no questions. When she sat down to lead more informal conversations with invited speakers, participants appeared to be reading from teleprompters. The Republican National Committee used the vacuum to keep the pressure on Clinton, noting a State Department policy requiring all outgoing employees to turn over job-related materials before leaving. The policy required such employees to sign a "separation statement" declaring they had "surrendered to responsible officials all unclassified documents" related to official business during their employment. Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement the "fact that Hillary Clinton did not abide by the same rules her State Department employees had to comply with is just the latest example of how the Clintons think the rules don't apply to them." Clinton left the State Department in early 2013. It was not immediately clear if Clinton signed the agreement but State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the secretary of state is supposed to follow such department policies. A Clinton spokesman did not immediately comment. During the past week, the State Department has faced a torrent of questions about Clinton's email practices, increasingly referring them to Clinton and her team. Psaki, at her daily briefing Monday, repeatedly directed reporters' questions about the topic to Clinton's advisers. Clinton is under scrutiny over whether she fully complied with federal laws requiring government officials to preserve written communications involving official business. She used her own email server, traced to her hometown in Chappaqua, New York, giving herself more control over her email. Democrats have defended her, but Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California made waves Sunday when she urged Clinton to offer a detailed explanation. "From this point on, the silence is going to hurt her," Feinstein said. On Monday, Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said Clinton will probably address the matter and should. "I think that you're going to hear something from Secretary Clinton this week," she said on MSNBC. "I'm fairly certain it will be soon. I think that's very important." Last week, Clinton said in a Twitter message that she wanted her emails released by the State Department as soon as possible but did not address why she does not put them out herself immediately. Clinton's spokesmen and the State Department have said she never received or transmitted classified information on her private email account, in which case there would be no concerns that disclosure of her messages could compromise national security. The State Department is reviewing 55,000 pages of emails that she has turned over and Republicans in Congress have said they plan to review her email practices. Clinton is approaching a public decision on a 2016 presidential campaign and remains the leading prospect for the Democratic nomination if she seeks the White House again. __ Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in New York and Steve Peoples in Washington contributed to this report. __ Follow Ken Thomas on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/KThomasDC
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PARIS The young men hovering around the benches at the Saint Laurent fall 2015 fashion show Monday night are as thin as whips. They are wearing skinny jeans, faded T-shirts and black leather jackets. One has hair that's bleached platinum. Others have dark locks that have been clipped close but with enough length on top to create, with a bit of help from gel, something akin to a rooster's crown. They look as though they have just rolled in from playing an underground concert venue with the other members of their indie band. They look cool. Not naturally relaxed and charismatic, but studiously so. They have observed themselves in a mirror and they know that in a selfie they look best in three-quarter profile and with their shoulders rolled forward. Their ping-pong repartee makes it clear that they are enormous Saint Laurent fans and regulars at the brand's shows. Designer Hedi Slimane has connected with this crowd by tapping into the independent music scene, the aesthetic of Los Angeles and that period from the Saint Laurent archive when the founding designer was still a young man stumbling out of night clubs and into the dark wee hours with a crew of debauched friends. These are the young men and their female counterparts who have helped Slimane define luxury in his reinvention of Saint Laurent. The clothes for fall are as they have been since Slimane took the creative reigns here in 2012. They tap into a moment in music history. This time it is punk. His gang of models stomped down the runway which rose from the floor on what appeared to be some sort of chain and sprocket system wearing black leather motorcycle jackets, leather leggings, lampshade mini-skirts with stiff crinolines, shredded stockings and Technicolor furs. There were tight minidresses in black with metallic shimmer. They bared one shoulder, some adorned with a single giant bow, colorful waist details or nothing at all. Slimane loves a rock-and-roll homage, and he has transformed pieces of that vernacular into classics within his collection. Time and again, he offers car coats and minidresses, skinny pants and sharp-shouldered blazers. The fabrics and embellishments change, but the silhouettes remain the same. The aesthetics of Saint Laurent are boozy and sweaty. The clothes do not look expensive on the runway although they most certainly are in stores. There is a certain wanton, tawdriness to them. They reek of rebellion and ennui. The commercial success of Saint Laurent is undeniable. But more than improving the bottomline of parent company Kering, the brand has forced several questions on the industry as a whole: What is luxury fashion? How do we define value? What exactly do we want our clothes to do for us? And where does a pair of ripped pantyhose which one editor only half-jokingly suggested would probably sell for a whopping $800 a pair fit into that story? In the past, luxury was always equated with perfection. The cost of a garment was, to some degree, reflected by its appearance of flawlessness. Hermès contines to function within that model. And in the first collection by the brand's new designer, Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski, it adhered to that philosophy. Her narrow leather trousers, decadent mink pullovers and riding jackets with removable linings are all precisely described right down to the fabrics, silhouettes and mineral content of the jewelry in a booklet handed out at Monday evening's show. The details, the provenance all matter. Vanhee-Cybulski brought a soupçon of youthful vigor and edge to the collection, but she did not veer far from the brand's legacy of perfectly understated luxury. The Hermès model, however, is increasingly rare. And for those customers who long for clothes that are the equivalent of five star restaurants with hovering waiters, finger bowls and lemon sorbet palate refreshers they are often at a loss. Even when Old World houses are revived and reinvented, perfection is not the aspiration. Why? Because it's too easy for it to look matronly and boring. That's what designer Guillaume Henry struggled with in his debut at Nina Ricci. (He succeeds designer Peter Copping who became creative director at Oscar de la Renta.) (How does the next chapter at Oscar de la Renta look, now that Oscar is gone?) The clothes at Nina Ricci were dull. The full-cut camel trousers and matching coats looked beautifully made but did not speak to the imagination. His sheer lace dresses seemed more like distractions than serious proposals. Henry's best work was in his outerwear, such as a glamorous patchwork fur car coat. But at some point, a woman goes inside and has to doff her jacket. Henry did not offer her many enticing options for what to wear underneath. Today, fashion aims to offer a modest aura of cool, a palpable connection to contemporary culture and ease. Luxury has become a perfect white T-shirt worn with wash-and-go hair. Stella McCartney is often hailed as a consummate woman's designer. The suggestion is that she understands how to create clothes for modern women young mothers, in particular because she is one herself. But what ultimately defines her aesthetic is a willingness to cede perfection to another day. Life is hectic and time is limited. Who has the wherewithal to truss oneself into some elaborate get-up accompanied by impeccably blown-out hair and a full face of makeup? Luxury, for many people, means time. I don't want to think about my clothes! That's the plea from many women who are ready to plunk down their credit card for any frock that makes getting dressed faster and easier without sacrificing style. McCartney's collection, which she showed Monday morning in front for an audience that included her father Paul McCartney, was a mix of thick, ribbed knit tunics, trousers with a narrow ruffle at the hem, floral embroidery that was purposefully imperfect to imbue it with character and ivory dresses with insets of metallic brocade. One can envision McCartney's clothes on the street and not just in some rarified, fancy neighborhood, but in the city, down in the subway, in the thick of life. There are other designers whose work has a connection to the street. But of all of them, Saint Laurent represents something unique. Rarely has a fashion house with such high-brow bona fides, one that essentially is the Establishment, made such a concerted effort to pull away from that legacy. Not in the quality of the garments, but in the aesthetics, the presentation, the aura. He has done so by appealing to customers on a visceral level, not an intellectual one. He is not a designer like Chitose Abe, whose Sacai collection takes basics like a white shirt and reworks them into something surprising and challenging to the eye. Her fall collection, for instance, leaned heavily towards outerwear actual coats as well as skirts and jackets that at a glance looked as heavy and daunting as a shearling bomber but were, in fact, light and could be worn without need of a polar vortex. There is nothing evidently intellectual about Slimane's work. It shouts and rages, curses and moans. His models, with their dark eyeliner and wild hair, stomped down his runway practically breathing fire. His women don't want to get lost in their head. They don't want to overthink or parse. Slimane has defined modern luxury, in part, as the ability to break free and not care. At a time when everyone is pulled in countless directions, who wouldn't want to turn away? Slimane's work taps into that desire and then some. There's no walking away. There's no retreat. The collection leans in close. And yells.
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lifestyle
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BMW's reputation precedes it. Putting the roundel on a vehicle brings expectations. Because it has the BMW badge, it must be a sporty, fun-to-drive vehicle, and it must be built to the highest standards of German quality. These are a few preconceived notions consumers have formed about the brand over the years. But are those assumptions always well-deserved? A few days behind the wheel of an X3, BMW's fourth-best-selling vehicle in 2014, shed some light on the subject. Our 2015 X3 was an xDrive28i model equipped with the ubiquitous turbocharged 2.0-liter I-4 and all-wheel drive. The X3 was refreshed for the 2015 model year, but the base turbo-four engine still makes the same 240 hp and 258 lb-ft of torque. The refresh brings some welcome changes, however. The styling has been brought up to date with the rest of BMW's lineup, with headlights that connect with the kidney grilles and a few other minor details. Our X3 as equipped rang up at $50,200, including more than $8,000 worth of options. That's a lot of cash, but it does get you a good amount of content. It's also not outrageous for the class. A Range Rover Evoque , which starts slightly higher than the X3 at $42,025, recently came in equipped to $61,070. If you don't need all-wheel drive, you could opt for the new-for-2015 rear-drive X3 sDrive28i, which starts a bit cheaper at $39,450. Related Link: Research the 2015 BMW X3 The eight-speed automatic transmission is marvelous as usual, but steering wheel-mounted paddle shifters were sorely missed. However, you can still pull the gear selector to the left for Steptronic mode to manually shift quickly and precisely. When left in Automatic mode, the gearbox likes getting into high gear as quickly (and seamlessly) as possible. There were times when the crossover stayed in high gear even at low speeds, hampering acceleration. But a deliberate application of the throttle forces the transmission awake and causes it to downshift. Switching to Sport mode also seems to do the trick. Acceleration with the 2.0-liter turbo is brisk for a crossover, with the X3 recording a 6.0-second 0-60 mph time in our tests. The quarter mile came in 14.7 seconds at 91.3 mph. That compares favorably to the previous X3 xDrive28i with the 240-hp, naturally aspirated, 3.0-liter I-6. Our long-term 2011 X3 took 6.7 seconds to get to 60 mph and 15 seconds to complete the quarter mile. The X3 is also more than a match for its turbo-four-powered contemporaries. A Lexus NX200t recently put down a 7.0-second 0-60 time, and a Range Rover Evoque hit 60 mph in 7.4 seconds. Even the 302-hp, twin-charged I-4 of the Volvo XC60 T6 was only able to scoot it to 60 mph in 6.3 seconds, though that engine currently only comes paired with front-wheel drive. Related Story: 19 Most Dependable Cars on the Road Braking improved over the six-cylinder xDrive28i, with the 2015 model stopping from 60-0 mph in 114 feet compared to 125 feet for the 2011 model. The 2015 was also quicker around our figure-eight course, posting a time of 26.9 seconds at an average of 0.77 g versus 27.8 seconds at 0.61 g for the last xDrive28i we tested. The Range Rover Evoque is slightly quicker at 26.7 seconds and a higher average of 0.79 g. The BMW, however, bests others in the category, including the Audi Q5 and Lexus NX, which posted 27.1 seconds at 0.76 g and 27.2 seconds at 0.65 g, respectively. Though the X3 wouldn't be out of place on a curvy road, it's better suited for the highway and city streets. The ride is smooth and quiet, with minimal road noise making it into the cabin. The seating position gives you a commanding view of the road, and the unobstructed greenhouse provides great visibility. The head-up display that comes with the $3,150 technology package is convenient and well-placed, though we wish there was a way to make the numbers bigger. Although the cabin is nice enough, some staffers weren't sold on the interior design and quality. The dash and door panels use a soft-touch, rubbery material, but the dashboard's look is sterile and uninteresting. The Burl Walnut wood trim looks and feels like plastic despite using genuine wood veneers, and the leather upholstery is stiff and feels dry. However, the visible, textured grain is a nice touch. When we pressed certain buttons, the plastic trim surrounding the radio and HVAC controls creaked. So if buyers are expecting the highest level of German precision and craftsmanship, they might be somewhat disappointed. If they want a nice, safe-looking interior that's comfortable and feels premium, then the X3's interior fits the bill. Related Video: Consumer Reports 2015 American Top Pick Cars No one denied that the X3 was spacious inside. I had legroom to spare sitting in the back seat behind a 6-foot driver, and rear headroom was also more than adequate. In the driver's seat, ergonomics are very good. The armrests are well-placed and provide plenty of cushioning. All of the controls are within reach, and the infotainment system's menus are intuitive and easy to navigate. The touchpad on the iDrive control knob makes inputting destinations quick and painless, though the voice recognition isn't half-bad, either. The rear cargo area offers ample space with the back seats up, and the standard cargo rails with tie-down points are useful if you need to secure something. If you don't, you can slide them up and out of the way. The X3 xDrive28i is a solid pick in a segment that continues to offer buyers more and more choices. With its blend of performance, comfort, and utility, the X3 will please not only the casual crossover shopper who wants something premium and usable but also the driving enthusiast who needs something bigger but still wants a sporty ride. In the X3's case, the reputation that precedes it is earned. 2015 BMW X3 xDrive28i BASE PRICE $41,450 PRICE AS TESTED $50,200 VEHICLE LAYOUT Front-engine, AWD, 5-pass, 4-door SUV ENGINE 2.0L/240-hp/258-lb-ft turbo DOHC 16-valve I-4 TRANSMISSION 8-speed automatic CURB WEIGHT (F/R DIST) 4,215 lb (48/52%) WHEELBASE 110.6 in LENGTH x WIDTH x HEIGHT 183.8 x 74.1 x 66.1 in 0-60 MPH 6.0 sec QUARTER MILE 14.7 sec @ 91.3 mph BRAKING, 60-0 MPH 114 ft LATERAL ACCELERATION 0.82 g (avg) MT FIGURE EIGHT 26.9 sec @ 0.77 g (avg) EPA CITY/HWY/COMB FUEL ECON 21/28/24 mpg ENERGY CONS., CITY/HWY 160/120 kW-hrs/100 miles CO2 EMISSIONS, COMB 0.82 lb/mile
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autos
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LOS ANGELES Farmers Field had a prime location in downtown Los Angeles, big-time boosters, a builder with an impeccable professional sports resume, even a name and sponsor rare for a project in the planning stages. What it did not have was an NFL team attached. And in the end that was all that mattered. Just months after it was the latest, greatest hope for bringing the NFL back to the city for the first time in 20 years, the stadium project was declared dead by its developer AEG on Monday. Its demise was sped by a pair of competing stadium plans that had the unbeatable advantage of having NFL owners and their teams attached. "We are no longer in discussion with the NFL or any NFL team," said Ted Fikre, vice chairman of AEG, which owns the NHL's Los Angeles Kings and the downtown Staples Center, home of the NBA's Lakers and Clippers. The developer had spent five years and at least $50 million on the project, but AEG now says it will focus on other downtown development projects. The announcement leaves two clear contenders for the NFL's return to the area for the first time in two decades, both in cities just outside Los Angeles: A stadium in Inglewood proposed in January with the backing of St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke, and a project in Carson announced last month with the joint backing of the Oakland Raiders and San Diego Chargers. The downtown project which would have been unusual for the NFL where most venues are in suburbs instead of city centers appeared to gain new life in October when the developer asked for and received from the city a six-month extension for its deadline to attract an NFL team for the project. AEG cited "new dialogue" with the league. But Fikre said Monday that it will allow that extension to expire in April with no renewal. The project's boosters included Mayor Eric Garcetti, much of the City Council and local business leaders. Michael Eisner, former chief executive at the Walt Disney Co., told The Associated Press in November that Farmers Field would have been an ideal addition to the re-emergence of downtown LA. "It just felt to me that if we could pull this off, particularly in the downtown area, that the renaissance of Los Angeles ... could be enhanced," he said. "I'm a Disney guy," Eisner said. "I'm looking for the end of the movie to be happy." Garcetti's spokesman, Yusef Robb, said the priorities of the mayor's office "have always been about accelerating downtown's revitalization," but City Hall will be happy to cheer for a team and a stadium outside its borders. "In terms of football, we continue to stand with the fans we would welcome a team anywhere in our region that delivers the greatest benefit to our communities and economy," Robb said in a statement. In Inglewood, the City Council bypassed several environmental and other hurdles late last month by adding its stadium project to an already-approved development underway at the former Hollywood Park racetrack. That would appear to put it at the forefront of Southern California cities jockeying to build NFL facilities. St. Louis and the state of Missouri are working just as quickly to provide a proposal to build a new home there to keep the Rams. In Carson, stadium backers turned in enough signatures last week for a ballot initiative that would allow a Chargers-Raiders joint stadium on the site of a former landfill. But those two teams have said the move to the Los Angeles area would come only if their current hometowns fail to offer desirable deals. Amid what was becoming a frenzy, the NFL circulated a memo earlier this year reminding team owners that in the end, the league and the league alone will decide whether a team and which team will move to the Los Angeles area.
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sports
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Sam Simon, the nine-time Emmy Award-winning comedy writer and producer who helped develop "The Simpsons" has died.
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news
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Fernando Alonso's mysterious crash has put McLaren on the back foot before the Formula One season has even started in what threatens to be another tough year for the team. Speculation over the accident during testing is increasing rather than abating as Alonso prepares to sit out this week's season-opener in Australia on medical advice. A report that Alonso, 33, thought it was 1995 and he was still in go-karting when he regained consciousness was dismissed as "nonsense" by his manager Flavio Briatore. But Briatore said the circumstances of last month's crash in Barcelona, which concussed Alonso and gave him at least temporary memory loss, were "very strange". "I saw footage, which Bernie Ecclestone sent me, where we see that the impact is not so hard," Briatore told Sky Italia. "(Ferrari's Sebastian) Vettel is behind, he passes, and you see Fernando crashes without any apparent reason. "We have to see if there is a steering problem. We have not had any information on that from McLaren." Questions over the incident will be prominent in Melbourne this week as McLaren fight the fall-out and hope their misfiring cars can reach the chequered flag. The celebrated British team has already denied that Alonso suffered an electric shock in the cockpit, and Briatore said tests had not indicated any existing health problems. "If Fernando had had a problem, a heart problem, a small stroke, a blood clot; it can happen even to a great sportsman," said the Italian. "And we have seen that absolutely all the examinations and tests made on the driver were negative." - 'Pain, lots of pain' - The controversy has raised the pressure on a team that limped through testing, with the MP4-30 clocking only 30 laps during the final session -- the least of any team. McLaren have renewed their association with Japanese engine supplier Honda, a partnership which conquered F1 from 1988 to 1991 with Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost at the wheel. But the mechanical problems which curtailed their testing look set to keep McLaren uncompetitive for at least the early part of the season. Alonso is also a returning partner after a tempestuous spell in 2007 when he fell out with the team and was embroiled in the "Spygate" scandal before terminating his contract early. The early stages of their reunion have not been promising, although Alonso tried to make light of the crash when he launched a #wheredidyouwakeuptoday thread on Twitter. Alonso is in training for the second race in Malaysia, when he is expected to reclaim his seat from stand-in Kevin Magnussen and begin his partnership with Jenson Button. But regardless of his crash, it could be a long season for an outfit which will start with an uncompetitive car, a high-profile new driver and a rebuilding relationship with Honda. "There is going to be pain, lots of pain," 1996 world champion Damon Hill told the Daily Mail. "The McLaren-Honda thing has to work at some point, but Formula One is so difficult now. There is so much technology and you are taking on so many strong teams. "I expect a modest beginning, but from whatever they start at you want to see a trajectory which is pushing to regular top sixes and a podium at the end of the season."
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sports
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CNN's Errol Barnett interviews Solar Impulse chairman Bertrand Piccard, who is trying to be the first to fly around the world in a solar-powered plane.
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news
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What does an all-day battery life of 18 hours really consist of? That's what Apple's promising it's debut smartwatch will offer. Thankfully, it's also detailed a bunch of other power-draining use cases to allay / confirm (delete as appropriate) any battery-life fears. This typical use battery life apparently consisted of: "90 time checks, 90 notifications, 45 minutes of app use, and a 30-minute workout with music playback from Apple Watch via Bluetooth" Apple notes that this was a preproduction model from this month, and even offers all the other reasons why you might not get the same numbers, stating that "Battery life varies by use, configuration, and many other factors; actual results will vary." Placing a call through the watch will allow you to talk to your wrist for just three hours, while at the opposite end of the use spectrum, just wanting to see the time on the display will mean the watch can eke out up to 78 hours of use -- entailing four time checks every hour, but nothing else. Apple's listed its results and testing methods here , but here's the quick and easy version: Audio Playback Test : Up to 6.5 hours Workout Test (with heart rate sensor) : Up to 7 hours Charge Time : About 1.5 hours to 80%, about 2.5 hours to 100% Apple
| 3 | 10,781 |
finance
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Ride-hailing app Uber, under the microscope due to a handful of driver assaults on passengers in some cities, pledged in a blog post to sign up one million female drivers globally by 2020. The ride service did not provide comparable figures for how many women drivers are on the Uber service globally today. In the United States, about 14 percent of its 160,000 drivers are female, the company said, and the company adds thousands more drivers each month. "Uber does not require (minimum) hours, and it does not require a schedule," said Salle Yoo, Uber's general counsel, in an interview Monday about why women might find working for Uber attractive. "It offers the chance to be entrepreneurial, the chance to balance work and family." Women passengers won't yet have the ability to request women drivers, Yoo said. She stressed the app's safety features, including the notification of who a driver is, and the ability to share an estimated arrival time with others. The pledge comes as the rapidly expanding company deals with fallout over incidents of assaults by drivers from Boston and Chicago to New Delhi. In the highest-profile case, an Indian woman said in December her driver raped her in Delhi, leading to outcries and a temporary ban of Uber in that city. The female driver initiative is timed to a United Nations gathering in New York Tuesday evening celebrating women's rights, where Yoo will speak. Uber screens drivers, including using background checks that vary from country to country, but doesn't hire them as full employees. Instead, it lets drivers use its smartphone-based app to connect them to passengers looking for a paid ride, and takes a cut of the fare.
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finance
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China has banned the harvesting of transplant organs from executed prisoners, a senior official said, but international medical practitioners warn that inmates' body parts may simply be reclassified as "donations" instead. High demand for organs in China and a chronic shortage of donations mean that death row inmates have been a key source for years, generating heated controversy. Since the start of this year, authorities have demanded all hospitals stop using organs harvested from executed prisoners, Huang Jiefu, head of the China Organ Donation Committee, reaffirmed on the sidelines of annual legislative meetings underway in Beijing, according to reports. "China's organ donation industry has entered a new stage of development in which voluntary donation will be the only source of organs," Huang, a former vice health minister, said in an interview with China Business News published Tuesday. Yet experts have voiced scepticism about the pledge, arguing that organs will continue to be harvested from inmates but that they will now be classified as "donations". In a letter to The Lancet, a group of five medical professionals from the United States, UK and Australia -- including the executive director of non-profit Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting -- wrote that "current statements from China have a disconcerting sense of deja vu". "China has avoided the end of use of organs from executed prisoners for a long time, with failed promises dating back to 2008," the five wrote in a letter in this week's issue of the medical journal. "Additionally, prisoners have been redefined as citizens with the right to donate their organs, but the practice has not stopped," they wrote. In a separate letter, four specialists from the United States, Germany, and Canada called on China to open its system to international inspections. "China still uses organs from executed prisoners," they wrote. "The only difference is that these organs are now categorised as voluntarily donated organs from citizens. This change would officially bypass international ethical guidelines, and the unethical practice might never end." They pointed to an interview last year in which Huang told the Beijing Times that death-row prisoners are still citizens and thus "they also have the right to donate organs". "We aren't opposed to death row prisoners voluntarily donating their organs. We aren't depriving them of the right to donate," Huang said in the interview, noting that organs obtained from inmates would be entered into China's national voluntary organ donation system. China banned trading in human organs in 2007, but demand for transplants far exceeds supply in the country of 1.37 billion people, opening the door to forced donations and illegal sales. Organ donations are not widespread as many Chinese believe they will be reincarnated after death and therefore feel the need to keep a complete body.
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news
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A Malaysia Airlines towelette was found on a Western Australian beach four months after MH370 vanished, investigators revealed Tuesday, but they said it was impossible to know if it came from the missing plane. Flight MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014 with 239 people on board and no sign of the aircraft has ever been found. It is thought to have gone down in the Indian Ocean off Australia's west coast. It emerged that a towelette -- a wet wipe usually served on board with drinks or meals -- with the Malaysia Airlines logo was discovered on a beach at Thirsty Point, some 200 kilometres (124 miles) north of Perth. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), which is leading the underwater search for the plane, has previously looked at items washed up on beaches in Australia's west but none have ever shed light on what happened -- and it said the towelette was no different. "A 6cm x 8cm moist towelette in wrapping branded with the Malaysia Airlines logo was found at Thirsty Point on 2 July 2014. It was handed in to the Western Australian police," the bureau said in a statement after the discovery was reported by Australian media. "It is unlikely, however, that such a common item with no unique identifier could be conclusively linked with MH370." One year on, mystery continues to surround the fate of the Boeing 777-200 aircraft that disappeared from air traffic control radar after taking off from Kuala Lumpur on a flight to Beijing. Analysis of satellite data later revealed it flew for more than six hours after contact was lost, and suggested it crashed into the southern Indian Ocean after running out of fuel. Malaysia's handling of the disaster has been criticised from the start and an interim investigation report released Sunday uncovered a dud beacon battery and more potential missed opportunities to track the plane. However, the airline said the battery on the separate cockpit voice recorder -- good for 30 days once activated -- was up-to-date and would have transmitted a signal once it hit water. Sunday's report said investigators had probed a range of issues including the personal, psychological and financial profiles of the jet's captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah and his co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid, as well as the backgrounds of the 10 cabin crew. But although some suspicion had fallen on the cockpit crew, the report mentioned no evidence implicating either of them. It also said that according to available data and maintenance records, nothing alarming was detected in the plane's major mechanical systems. Australian officials have expressed cautious optimism that the plane would eventually be found, and Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said Canberra, along with Malaysia and China, remained committed to the search. So far more than 26,000 square kilometres -- over 40 percent -- of the priority zone of the seabed where the plane likely went down has been searched using specialist equipment. "The families deserve answers and we are doing all we can to get them," Truss said. Searchers hope to have completed the designated underwater search area by May.
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news
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An incision from the surgeon's scalpel sends liquid oozing over the surface of a the lung, but on this occasion it doesn't matter if something goes wrong -- the doctor can simply create another model with a 3D printer. The ultra-realistic lung -- wet, soft, and complete with tumours and blood vessels -- is one of a range of organs being produced by a Japanese firm that will allow surgeons to hone their skills without hurting anyone. "With the wet model, doctors can experience the softness of organs and see them bleed," said Tomohiro Kinoshita of creator Fasotec, a company based in Chiba, southeast of Tokyo. "We aim to help doctors improve their skills with the models," he added. From guns to cars, prosthetics and works of art, 3D printing is predicted to transform our lives in the coming decades, researchers say, as dramatically as the Internet did before it. The so-called Biotexture Wet Model, which will come onto the market for surgery training and medical equipment-testing in Japan in as early as April, is created by scanning a real organ in minute detail and creating molds on a 3D printer. That shell is then injected with gel-type synthetic resin to give it a wet, lifelike feeling in the surgeon's hands. Each one is designed to exactly mimic the texture and weight of a real organ so it can react to the surgical knife in exactly the same way. 'Close to living organ' Maki Sugimoto, a medical doctor who has tried samples, said the wet models are almost "too realistic". Seen without their context, he said, it would be easy to mistake them for the real thing. "The touch is similar to that of the real liver," said Sugimoto, who is also a special instructor at Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine in Kobe, western Japan. "I suppose that not only young, inexperienced doctors but also experienced doctors can perform a better operation if they can have a rehearsal first," he said. Toshiaki Morikawa, a medical doctor at Jikei University Hospital in Tokyo, also said: "The current models are too simple and details of anatomy are not accurately reflected." "But this is obviously superior as it's produced precisely and is very close to the living organ in quality," he said. For Morikawa, the world of 3D printing, which works by building up layers of material, offers endless possibilities for medicine, including maybe one day functional organs for use in transplants. "Considering future progress in life sciences, I think it is an urgent and significant theme that this outstanding technology should be modified for application to biology," he said. Fasotec began pre-sales of wet model bladders and urethral tubes in October, with a price tag of 15,000 yen ($127). The firm plans to expand sales overseas and has already received enquiries from other Asian countries, the company's Kinoshita said.
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news
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Sorry, drivers; prices are on the rise again Gas prices in every state are higher than they were one month ago. While the nationwide average price of $2.45 per gallon is far lower than levels one year ago, it has risen steadily for over a month, the longest string of consecutive daily increases in more than two years. The average price of gasoline in California rose by nearly a dollar in the past month to $3.39 per gallon, by far the largest increase and the highest gas price nationwide. Based on statewide average prices of regular gasoline as of March 9 from AAA's Daily Fuel Gauge Report, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the 10 states with the highest gas prices. Avery Ash, a spokesman for AAA, explained that gas prices rise around this time every year primarily due to seasonal maintenance and production shifts. Last year, prices increased in the spring due to refinery issues in the Midwest. This year, the bulk of the increases have been on the West Coast, especially in California. According to Ash, high regional gas prices this year can be attributed to increasing crude oil costs, routine refinery maintenance, and unexpected production issues. The distance the gasoline needs to travel from crude oil production centers explains to a large degree the price of gasoline in a given state. The majority of refineries are located in the Midwest and around the Gulf Coast. According to Ash, transporting fuel "from the Gulf Coast through pipeline up to the northeast requires additional transportation costs," and this can lead to "some challenging supply distribution dynamics for the Northeast, especially during the storm season." Four of the 10 states with the highest gas prices are located in the northeastern United States. Hawaii, the state with the second highest average cost of gasoline, is also located a great distance from oil refineries. In addition to a state's location and the associated transportation costs, state gasoline taxes also have an impact on gas prices. With the exception of Alaska, drivers in all of the 10 states with the highest gas prices paid much higher total gasoline state taxes and fees than the average national gas tax rate of 29.89 cents per gallon. In addition, all drivers pay a federal excise of 18.4 cents per gallon. To identify the states with the highest gasoline prices, 24/7 Wall St. examined the 10 states with the highest statewide average prices per gallon of regular gasoline on March 9 from AAA's Daily Fuel Gauge Report. We also reviewed the U.S. Energy Information Administration's (EIA) 2013 Refinery Capacity Report, which breaks out production capacity and the number of operable refineries by state. Capacity figures cited are from January 2014 and reflect the number of barrels of oil that operating refineries can reasonably be expected to produce in a calendar day. Also from the EIA, we reviewed figures on total oil production by state for 2013. We looked at gas taxes per state from the American Petroleum Institute, which are current as of January 2014. Annual 2013 unemployment rates came from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Data on roads, vehicle miles, and gasoline consumption came from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). Additionally, from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, we looked at regional price parity as a proxy for cost of living. Read on for the 10 states with the highest gasoline prices. 10. Vermont > Price per gallon: $2.54 > Operable refineries, 2014: None > Refining capacity (barrels per day): N/A >Total state and federal tax per gallon: 50.37 cents (13th highest) The average cost of regular gasoline is $2.54 per gallon in Vermont, the 10th highest price nationwide. Vermont's excise tax on gasoline of 12.10 cents per gallon is lower than the national average rate of 20.64 cents. An additional 19.87 cents per gallon is levied in Vermont, the fifth highest non-excise gas tax rate. The relatively high taxes partly account for the higher gas prices in the state. Since Vermont is not located near any large production facilities, which are found predominantly in the western and midwestern United States, the cost of transporting fuel to the state also explains the high prices. The majority of other high gas price states had relatively high unemployment rates in 2013. 9. Connecticut > Price per gallon: $2.55 > Operable refineries, 2014: None > Refining capacity (barrels per day): N/A > Total state and federal tax per gallon: 61.62 cents (5th highest) Connecticut spends more than all but seven other states on its roads. The state also taxes its drivers more than all but four other states. In 2012, the state spent $478,281 per mile of state-controlled highways, more than three times the national average of $158,783 per mile. As a result, residents pay among the highest gasoline prices in the nation. Connecticut drivers pay 43.2 cents per gallon in state gasoline taxes compared with a national average of 29.89 cents. The state's taxes pushed the average price of gas up to $2.55 per gallon, about 10 cents higher than the national average price. Connecticut drivers bought 1.44 billion gallons of gasoline in 2013 to drive about 30.9 billion miles, a rate of about 21.5 miles per gallon compared with a national rate of 22.1. 8. Pennsylvania > Price per gallon: $2.62 > Operable refineries, 2014: 4 (9th highest) > Refining capacity (barrels per day): 596,000 (6th highest) > Total state and federal tax per gallon: 68.9 cents (the highest) While Pennsylvania voted in 2013 to eliminate its excise tax on gasoline and diesel, other state taxes and fees on motor fuels add more than 50 cents to gas prices per gallon in the state. Combined with the federal gas tax, Pennsylvania drivers pay nearly 70 cents per gallon in gas taxes, or 26.3% of the total average price. Often, high gas prices can be the result of low oil refinement in a state. This was not the case in Pennsylvania, where nearly 600,000 barrels of oil were refined per day in 2014, the sixth highest production rate in the country and up only slightly from 2013. Still, in-state oil refinement was likely unable to keep pace with the state's gasoline consumption, as residents purchased more than 5 billion gallons of gasoline in 2013. 7. New York > Price per gallon: $2.63 > Operable refineries, 2014: 0 (19th lowest) > Refining capacity (barrels per day): - (20th lowest) > Total state and federal tax per gallon: 63.49 cents (3rd highest) New York has one of the highest costs of living in the nation. In addition to relatively expensive everyday goods, high rent and home prices, New York drivers pay an average of $2.63 per gallon of gas, the seventh highest gas price in the country. Total state gas taxes totalled 45.09 cents per gallon at the beginning of this year, the third highest gas tax rate in the nation. There were 411 New Yorkers per square mile on average in 2010, one of the higher population densities in the country. New York City, where the population is most concentrated, has an exceptionally strong public transportation system, which may alleviate the effects of high gas prices on commuters. Residents of New York, one of the nation's most populous states, were among the largest consumers of gasoline, purchasing a total of nearly 5.4 billion gallons in 2013, the fourth highest figure nationwide. 6. Washington > Price per gallon: $2.84 > Operable refineries, 2014: 5 (7th highest) > Refining capacity (barrels per day): 631,700 (5th highest) > Total state and federal tax per gallon: 55.90 cents (7th highest) Washington drivers pay the sixth highest gasoline prices in the nation. Perhaps because of the relatively high gas prices, Washington drivers used about 20.9 miles per gallon in 2013, 5% below the national rate of 22.1 miles per gallon. Prices declined about 80 cents per gallon in the last year. Gasoline prices in the state peaked last July at just under $4.00 per gallon and plummeted all the way to $2.30 per gallon in January before creeping back up. The price of a gallon of gasoline in Washington increased by 23.5% since the beginning of the year compared with a national increase of 16.8%. Also at 24/7 Wall St.: 10 Disappearing Middle Class Jobs 5. Nevada > Price per gallon: $2.88 > Operable refineries, 2014: 1 (24th highest) > Refining capacity (barrels per day): 2,000 (21st lowest) > Total state and federal tax per gallon: 51.55 cents (10th highest) Since peaking last summer, gas prices across the nation have fallen by an average of $1.20 per gallon to $2.45. In Nevada, however, gas prices have dropped by only $1.00 to $2.88 per gallon, the fifth highest price in the country. Gas taxes are often one reason for high prices. As of March 2015, Nevada's state gas taxes are among the highest in the country at 33.15 cents per gallon. High gas prices may dissuade people from driving in Nevada. Residents drove an estimated 24.6 billion miles on public roads in 2013, one of the lower mileages of any state. The high gas prices may also be the result of minimal oil refining capacity in the state. The only operating refinery in Nevada had an operating capacity of just 2,000 barrels per day in 2013, the smallest refinement capacity among states with refineries. 4. Oregon > Price per gallon: $2.88 > Operable refineries, 2014: 0 (19th lowest) > Refining capacity (barrels per day): - (20th lowest) > Total state and federal tax per gallon: 49.47 cents (14th highest) Oregon is one of several states with the highest gas prices that is located on or near the west coast. Gas prices in the region have skyrocketed recently, largely due to the recent ExxonMobil refinery explosion. The refinery provided a large share of the regional gas. Drivers in Oregon pay $2.88 per gallon, up more than 60 cents from the beginning of the year -- a considerably larger increase than the increase across the nation. Despite the spike, gas prices are still far lower than they were one year ago when the average cost was $3.51 per gallon of regular gasoline. As in most states with relatively high gas prices, Oregon levies higher gasoline taxes than most of the country. Further, Oregon is the only state other than New Jersey where self-service gas stations are not permitted. Also at 24/7 Wall St.: Cities With the Highest (and Lowest) Unemployment Rates 3. Alaska > Price per gallon: $2.90 > Operable refineries, 2014: 6 (4th highest) > Refining capacity (barrels per day): 243,805 (15th highest) > Total state and federal tax per gallon: 29.70 cents (the lowest) Despite relatively low gasoline taxes and a relatively large number of operable refineries, Alaska has almost the highest gasoline prices in the country. Alaskans pay on average 45 cents per gallon more than the national average. According to a recent article in the Alaska Dispatch News, relatively high costs of doing business and a less competitive wholesale gas market in Alaska largely explain the state's exceptionally high gas prices compared to the rest of the country. Taxes on the other hand, are very low, with total state and federal taxes on gasoline totalling less than 30 cents per gallon, the lowest nationwide. Low tax revenue may account in part for the similarly low investment state officials have committed to infrastructure. With 12.7% of Alaska roads classified as bad, only Hawaii had more of its roads in bad shape. In 2012, Alaska put aside just $93,989 per mile of state road for repair and maintenance, one of the lowest per mile appropriations in the country. 2. Hawaii > Price per gallon: $3.13 > Operable refineries, 2014: 2 (17th highest) > Refining capacity (barrels per day): 147,500 (21st highest) > Total state and federal tax per gallon: 63.40 cents (4th highest) Even without taxes, gas in Hawaii would be more expensive than in most states, likely due to the added challenges of transporting gasoline to the state. Perhaps as a result, the state has one of the highest costs of living in the country, of which oil and gas prices are a major component. In addition to a high overall cost of living, Hawaiian drivers must pay 45 cents per gallon of gas in state taxes, a higher tax than in all but three other states. The demands of the state's economy may also drive gas prices higher. In 2013, nearly 4.5% of the state's GDP came from the transportation and warehousing sector, which relies heavily on gas and is sensitive to high gas prices. Nationally, less than 3% of the GDP was attributed to the sector. Also at 24/7 Wall St.: The States Where the Rich are Getting Richer 1. California > Price per gallon: $3.43 > Operable refineries, 2014: 18 (3rd highest) > Refining capacity (barrels per day): 1,876,171 (3rd highest) > Total state and federal tax per gallon: 63.79 cents (2nd highest) California currently has the nation's highest price of gas, at $3.43 per gallon. Prices have skyrocketed in the state recently, up by more than 80 cents per gallon from one month ago. California is home to 18 refineries, by far the most compared to other states with expensive gasoline. The cost of crude is the largest component of gas prices. And while close proximity to refining operations often helps lower gasoline prices, this has not been the case in California. The explosion at an ExxonMobil refinery located outside Los Angeles at the end of last month accounts for much of the recent price spikes in California and the surrounding region. To make matters worse, California gasoline must meet a range of specifications not required outside of the state. As a result, it has been relatively difficult for California's gas sellers to make up for lost supply from the explosion by importing from other sources. Gas taxes are also especially high in the state. Drivers paid 45.39 cents per gallon in state taxes and fees as of the beginning of this year, the second highest state gas tax rate nationwide.
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An incision from the surgeon's scalpel sends liquid oozing over the surface of a the lung, but on this occasion it doesn't matter if something goes wrong -- the doctor can simply create another model with a 3D printer. The ultra-realistic lung -- wet, soft, and complete with tumours and blood vessels -- is one of a range of organs being produced by a Japanese firm that will allow surgeons to hone their skills without hurting anyone. "With the wet model, doctors can experience the softness of organs and see them bleed," said Tomohiro Kinoshita of creator Fasotec, a company based in Chiba, southeast of Tokyo. "We aim to help doctors improve their skills with the models," he added. From guns to cars, prosthetics and works of art, 3D printing is predicted to transform our lives in the coming decades, researchers say, as dramatically as the Internet did before it. The so-called Biotexture Wet Model, which will come onto the market for surgery training and medical equipment-testing in Japan in as early as April, is created by scanning a real organ in minute detail and creating molds on a 3D printer. That shell is then injected with gel-type synthetic resin to give it a wet, lifelike feeling in the surgeon's hands. Each one is designed to exactly mimic the texture and weight of a real organ so it can react to the surgical knife in exactly the same way. - 'Close to living organ' - Maki Sugimoto, a medical doctor who has tried samples, said the wet models are almost "too realistic". Seen without their context, he said, it would be easy to mistake them for the real thing. "The touch is similar to that of the real liver," said Sugimoto, who is also a special instructor at Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine in Kobe, western Japan. "I suppose that not only young, inexperienced doctors but also experienced doctors can perform a better operation if they can have a rehearsal first," he said. Toshiaki Morikawa, a medical doctor at Jikei University Hospital in Tokyo, also said: "The current models are too simple and details of anatomy are not accurately reflected." "But this is obviously superior as it's produced precisely and is very close to the living organ in quality," he said. For Morikawa, the world of 3D printing, which works by building up layers of material, offers endless possibilities for medicine, including maybe one day functional organs for use in transplants. "Considering future progress in life sciences, I think it is an urgent and significant theme that this outstanding technology should be modified for application to biology," he said. Fasotec began pre-sales of wet model bladders and urethral tubes in October, with a price tag of 15,000 yen ($127). The firm plans to expand sales overseas and has already received enquiries from other Asian countries, the company's Kinoshita said.
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HALIFAX, N.C. A tractor-trailer with a 127-ton load, so big that it required a special permit and a state trooper escort, got stuck at a difficult railroad crossing with time enough to warn train dispatchers. But there's no indication anyone alerted Amtrak before a passenger train slammed into it, injuring 55 people. The truck was pulling an electrical distribution center nearly 16 feet tall and 16 feet wide, built by PCX Corp. in Clayton, North Carolina, for a customer in New Jersey. "It was a big project," Dean A. Di Lillo, a PCX Corp. vice president, told The Associated Press on Tuesday. He declined to put a value on the unit destroyed in Monday's crash. The load stretched for 164 feet longer than half a football field and required 13 axles to distribute the truck and load's combined weight of 255,000 pounds, the permit shows. The tractor-trailer followed a backroads route that included some extremely tight squeezes, including the sharp left turn in Halifax, North Carolina, from a two-lane road, over the tracks and onto another two-lane road where it got stuck. A clearly established protocol requires constant contact between a truck driver, the trooper escort and the train dispatcher when trucks carry oversized cargo across tracks, a former federal railroad regulator told the AP. But State Highway Patrol spokesman Jeff Gordon said drivers, not troopers, are responsible for warning off trains. Amber Keeter, 19, was stuck in traffic in her car with her baby directly behind the tractor-trailer as it tried to negotiate the left turn across the tracks at the intersection of highways U.S. 301 and N.C. 903 in Halifax. She told The Associated Press that the truck driver, his assistant in a flag car and a trooper spent a considerable amount of time trying to prepare for the crossing, and then got stuck on the tracks for about 8 minutes before the train roared around a curve. "It was so long they couldn't make the turn," she said. She rolled down her window and asked the flag man if he could call someone to stop the trains, "and he said he didn't think so," she said. Then, "the railroad lights started blinking, and so the tractor-trailer driver tried to gun it forward," she said. The driver jumped out "just a couple of seconds before" the crash. Protocol calls for troopers escorting trucks to "clear their routes and inform the railroad dispatchers what they're doing," said Steve Ditmeyer, a former Federal Railroad Administration official who teaches railway management at Michigan State University. Even if they lose contact, they can reach a dispatcher through toll-free numbers that have been posted at these crossings for decades, he said. "That dispatcher would have immediately put up a red signal for Amtrak and radioed Amtrak to stop," he said. In this case, the train engineer "didn't know about the truck until he was coming around a curve. He had no long vision," Ditmeyer said. CSX spokeswoman Kristin Seay wouldn't say if anyone called before the crash. "That's all going to be part of the investigation," she said. Most people treated at hospitals were released by Tuesday, and about a dozen of the train's 212 passengers had already continued their journey by bus to Richmond, Virginia, where they could take another train. "We're just thankful that we're still alive. It could have been really worse. God was really with us," said Lisa Carson, 50, of Philadelphia. The Federal Railroad Administration's database shows at least five previous crashes at the same Halifax crossing, all involving vehicles on the tracks. The most recent was in 2005, when a freight train hit a truck's "utility trailer." In 1977, an Amtrak train hit a car at 70 mph. The driver got out in time, but a railroad employee was injured, that accident report said. Monday's was the third serious train crash in less than two months. Crashes in New York and California in February killed a total of seven people and injured 30. The Federal Railroad Administration is continuing to interview witnesses and will review onboard recorders from the train in Monday's crash. The agency's associate administrator, Kevin Thompson, said the tracks reopened about 15 hours later, and that CSX was repairing the crossing's safety equipment. Gordon said the driver tried to back up to make a second attempt with a wider swing to cross the tracks, but there was too much traffic behind it. The approach of the New York-bound train from Charlotte, North Carolina, set off warning lights and the crossing arms came down, prompting the driver to flee. "I saw him jump out of the truck when he knew he couldn't beat it. ... I heard the train noise and thought, 'Oh, my God, it's going to happen,'" said eyewitness Leslie Cipriani, who recorded the crash on her cellphone. The truck driver, John Devin Black of Claremont, escaped without injury, but the conductor, Keenan Talley of Raleigh, was among the injured. Gordon said the tractor-trailer is owned by Guy M. Turner Inc. of Greensboro. The company did not respond to an email requesting comment. ___ Drew reported from Halifax and Waggoner from Raleigh in North Carolina. Also contributing were Associated Press writers Mitch Weiss and Michael Biesecker in Raleigh and Alan Suderman in Richmond, Virginia.
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The Dubai Design District hopes to nurture the cities innovative spirit.
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Vanguard Group differs from other mutual-fund providers in notable ways, including its well-honed obsession with keeping shareholder expenses lower than its rivals. Vanguard also takes a less-appreciated but equally standard-breaking approach toward exchange-traded funds. Unlike other major ETF providers, Vanguard doesn't divulge the daily holdings of its stock ETFs. Instead, Vanguard reports month-end portfolio data with a 15-day lag. This opaqueness stands out, given Vanguard's reputation as a champion against financial-market practices that can disenfranchise individual investors. For many, lack of disclosure has long frustrated shareholders of both actively run funds and index funds, which typically release holdings quarterly. Vanguard's reasoning So what does Vanguard have against daily portfolio disclosure for the ETFs? "It's really in the interests of our shareholders," says Doug Yones, head of Vanguard's domestic equity indexing and ETF product management. Daily reporting can encourage so-called front-running and free-riding by opportunistic traders, Yones says. In front-running, sophisticated traders jump ahead of institutional buying and selling. For example, when an index is reconfigured, the changes can affect share prices of constituents. In free-riding, savvy market players piggyback on institutional trading. "Front-running and free-riding really reduce the investment performance earned by shareholders," Yones says. The Vanguard approach is notable because when it comes to transparency, ETFs are the anti-mutual-fund. Investors can see every stock an ETF held at the close of trading yesterday with the exception of Vanguard's offerings. Such openness in fact is a selling point for investors and financial advisers who don't want any surprises after surviving the 2008 stock-market meltdown. Vanguard's independence on this matter puzzles some ETF industry observers. "The sunshine of transparency means index-linked funds are less likely to stray from their mandates," says Matt Hougan , president of researcher ETF.com. "Otherwise they're saying 'trust me.' And I do trust Vanguard, but as a general rule I don't trust everyone." The transparency issue evidently hasn't hurt Vanguard. Its ETFs are competitive on both price and performance, and while their trading volume isn't as great as offerings from leaders including BlackRock Inc. 's iShares and State Street Corp. 's SPDRs, for many investors the Vanguard name is a seal of approval. ETFs from Vanguard competitors that post daily holdings, such as iShares and SPDRs, seem to be succeeding in closely mirroring their underlying indexes. "We're not afraid of the transparency," says Paul Lohrey, head of U.S. iShares product design and quality. "It serves the investor well. It gives the marketplace a good, clear understanding of what they're owning and how it will track the index." And in fact, the indexes Vanguard ETFs track may be one reason why the firm opposes daily disclosure. Most Vanguard U.S. stock ETFs mimic proprietary indexes from the University of Chicago's Center for Research in Security Prices, or CRSP. But neither CRSP indexes nor the FTSE benchmark for most Vanguard international-stock ETFs are heavily used. Widely tracked indexes such as those from MSCI, S&P Dow Jones Indices and Russell Investments, by contrast, are tougher to front-run or free-ride. "Our daily holdings disclosure does not necessarily provide actionable information," says Lohrey of iShares. Vulnerable ETFs? FTSE and CRSP indexes march to their own drummer. Accordingly, says Todd Rosenbluth, director of ETF and mutual-fund research at analysts S&P Capital IQ, "what's inside isn't always as obvious." If Vanguard revealed daily holdings, its trading patterns might become vulnerable to opportunistic traders. "Front-running and free-riding are real costs," Yones says. "Everything we do is in the interest of the holder of the fund."
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Romania's Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu has apologized to his visiting German counterpart for handing him a booklet during a televised news conference that mixed up a map of Germany with one of France on the cover. Frank-Walter Steinmeier paid a one-day visit to Romania on Monday to hold talks on bilateral relations, NATO, east Ukraine and to mark 135 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries. "Due to a regrettable technical error, exclusively on the cover of the booklet, the border of the maps of Romania and France - with the latter being covered by the German flag - was printed," the ministry said in a statement late on Monday. "The Romanian foreign minister has directly conveyed profound regret for this situation to his German counterpart." It is the second time in just over a month that Romania's foreign ministry has had to apologize for a mistake. In February the Romanian embassy in Paris sent out invitations for a reception and accidentally attached a spreadsheet with unflattering descriptions of guests such as "undesirable" or "ghastly". (Reporting by Radu Marinas; Editing by Matthias Williams/Hugh Lawson)
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British shoe designer Sophia Webster has designed a pair of shoes in collaboration with Coca-Cola to promote their personalized name campaign during Paris Fashion Week. On display at Parisian department store Printemps, the high heels feature the brand's iconic red and white logo, as well as the slogan "Share a Coke with Sophia." The heel is a playful stack of red hearts. One of the beverage behemoth's latest marketing campaigns has been to emblazon bottles with the most popular first names in countries around the world. The department store took to Twitter to show off their latest heels.
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Natalia Vodianova is a supermodel, Woman of the Year and a true example of what it means to work your way to the top. After selling fruit illegally as a child to support her impoverished family, Vodianova moved to Paris at 17 to pursue a modeling career. She also has a surprising story of her discovery. She told Glamour : I didn't know the business. These poor girls were lined up in short skirts. They were all scared. There was this guy walking along, looking at them, and I could see how much he enjoyed it. He was the biggest asshole. I stood in the corner, and some other guy took a picture of me. That was how I was discovered, really. Vodianova looks gorgeous as Glamour's first solo model cover in four years, fronting the mag for its "beauty" issue. She may be a beauty icon to many, but how did she find her icon? "I watched Soviet films made in the 1940s, '50s, '60s, '70s, because that's what was on, and a certain kind of light and beauty were part of the propaganda," she told the mag, adding, "these women had eyeballs that were whiter than snow. Huge smiles. So when everything was tough, what people were seeing on TV were these motivational images; there was always a bit of strength through the suffering. When I discovered foreign films, Audrey Hepburn became my icon. She's so full of life. I love 'Roman Holiday,' 'Sabrina.'" Click here to see more images from the shoot, and be sure to pick up your copy of Glamour, on newsstands March 17.
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CNNMoney's Christine Romans shares her secrets for a dream retirement.
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Eric Striker is a senior linebacker and captain on Oklahoma's football team, but he will never be more important to the university than he's been in the last couple of days. Striker helped expose an ugly display of racism at Oklahoma that quickly spiraled into a national story with Striker appearing on CNN. To recap the story if you are not up to date: On Sunday, a video surfaced of some members of the SAE fraternity chanting on a bus "there will never be a n----- in SAE" while fist-pumping. Striker saw the video and posted an angry, expletive-filled rant on the social media app Snapchat. The story then exploded, and on Monday Oklahoma players skipped practice to protest racism on campus , with the support of head coach Bob Stoops and other university leaders alongside. OU president David Boren immediately severed ties between the school and SAE, giving those in the frat 24 hours to pack their stuff and leave the house, and said the school is investigating those in the video and will take as harsh an action as allowed under federal law (which probably means expulsion for some). Striker, meanwhile, became the face of the story because of his viral Snapchat rant. While Oklahoma players did not speak to reporters on Monday, Striker reached out to Jason Kersey of The Oklahoman, who covers the team, because he wanted to fully express his thoughts and not let the angry, F-bombing video be the lasting representation of him. He apologized for the language he used in the Snapchat video but not the message behind what he said. In his interview with The Oklahoman , Striker intelligently and articulately displayed what it means to be a leader and to be looked up to by a group of people (in this case, as captain, his teammates). Here are some of his quotes that should be heard clearly and passed along: On personal identity: "I hate to be defined as a football player. I've got a great personality. I'm humorous. I'm a political science major. I love everybody. I'm a people person. Football is not who I am. All you know is the number '19' on the back of my jersey." On the importance of educating people about race: "A lot of these kids coming in here don't know anything about other races. I've taken African-American courses with white people, and they've had their whole minds changed ... I hope this message reaches all across the country, to kids coming up in Little League and on through high school ball. You're gonna do your thing, but don't rely on football. You are a human being. You are a person." On African-Americans ligthly using the N-word: "We need to straighten up and stop using the word. Period." On being labeled: "I feel like as a young black person, I'm always looked at as a threat. We intimidate people without them even getting to know us. We all are people. We all get sick. We all have to use the restroom. We are all human beings." On his rant: "I want to apologize if I offended anybody with my curse words. I'm just very hurt. It's 2015, and this is still happening." Teddy Mitrosilis works in content production at FOX Sports Digital. Follow him on Twitter @TMitrosilis and email him at [email protected].
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Google isn't standing still with its wearable platform now that Apple has given the press a chance to use the Apple Watch . A source knowledgeable with Android Wear's product road map tells The Verge that the next software release will turn on Wi-Fi support, meaning that features like notifications and Google Now will work when a Bluetooth connection is unavailable. Most Android Wear watches already have Wi-Fi built in, so a simple software update should activate the feature for them. Along with the Wi-Fi update, there will be at least two additional, smaller updates. The first is gesture control. Users will be able to flick their wrist to scroll through notifications and Google Now cards, rather than needing to use their other hand to swipe on the screen. The UI will also get some tweaks, with easier access to both Android Wear applications and contacts. Finding applications in Android Wear right now requires either spoken commands or digging through an extra layer of menus. Most Android Wear watches already have Wi-Fi built-in Just yesterday, Apple revealed the last pieces of information about the Apple Watch that we were waiting for. Apple detailed support for what looks to be a surprisingly robust ecosystem of apps and services that will work with its Watch, which will likely cut into any head start Android Wear managed to get. Google has recently become more vocal about Android Wear on its blogs, detailing developer APIs for Wear and a growing ecosystem of apps . Of course, direct comparisons between the two watch platforms can only go so far. Neither smartwatch works with the competitor's smartphone: Android users can't use the Apple Watch, and iPhone users can't use Android Wear. But because of that lock-in, it's important for both companies to work to maintain something like feature parity, so as to prevent users from wanting to switch platforms because they'd like to use a different smartwatch. That sort of concern may seem small while the smartwatch market is so nascent, but if Apple and Google have their way, it won't remain a small market for very long.
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The Internet loves lyrics. As soon as we could connect to the web, we used it to connect with our favorite music and we keep finding new ways to do that. At first it was clunky websites that gave you lyrics though not necessarily the right ones and plenty of ads for tracks and ringtones you didn't want. But now musicians and fans alike are getting creative with videos that showcase lyrics in new ways. YouTube has played a big part in the rise of lyric videos, but it's not a new concept. George Michael and Prince both toyed with the concept in the 1980s and early 1990s, when they just didn't feel like making music videos for their singles. Going further back, there's Bob Dylan 's iconic, homemade cue-card video for " Subterranean Homesick Blues " from 1965. That static style simply words fading in and out over the audio carried over to the Internet when fans started making their own lyric videos. "They were just ripping the song from iTunes and putting it up," says Kevin O'Keeffe, an entertainment writer for The Atlantic. Then things got more interesting: For his 2010 hit "F--- You," Cee-Lo Green shot a regular music video for the radio-friendly version of the song. But he also produced a slick, animated lyric video for the R-rated original. "It's sort of the form that we know now as the lyric video," O'Keeffe says. "It's one blue screen and it's words appearing basically on top of each other and sliding in and out and everything. It's exuberant about it as it happens. The words 'F--- You' literally just jump onto the screen harder than anything else." That song's popularity helped launch a tidal wave of lyric videos from artists like Justin Timberlake , Neko Case , Ariana Grande and Katy Perry with her "Roar" video. Now the lyric video is even having an influence on music videos: Check out the animated lyrics all over the music video for "Lie, Cheat, Steal" by Run The Jewels. But innovation in the lyric world doesn't end there. If lyric videos are a great introduction to a song, sites like Genius offer crowd-sourced, annotated lyrics for those who want the stories and meanings behind the words. The site started with rap, but it's since branched out to music of any genre not to mention Shakespeare and the State of the Union address . "For anyone who loves these facts and loves these words, it feels very helpful," says Sasha Frere-Jones, a veteran music critic who's now an executive editor at Genius. "We're dealing with production, culture, transmission of symbols." For example, find the hidden meaning in first the line of Taylor Swift's " Blank Space ." "' Incredible Things ' is the name of her perfume, and every single person I showed it to and they are definitely people who like and know Taylor were like, 'What? I didn't know that,'" Frere-Jones says. "And I'm like, 'Yep, it's product placement.' Literally nobody knew that. First of all, including me." This story is based on an interview from PRI's Sideshow podcast with Sean Rameswaram
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It's time to welcome spring. Here's a look at gardens in bloom and balmy sunny afternoons around the world. London, Britain A pair of geese can be seen at St James' Park. Kent, Britain A mother-daughter duo enjoy a warm afternoon at Royal Tunbridge Wells' Dunorlan Park. Madrid, Spain Almond trees in full bloom. Muelheim, Germany Riders enjoy the weather as forecasts predict spring-like weather with mild temperatures for the next few days in Germany. Marseille, France People sunbathe on a beach during a warm and sunny day. Egmond aan Zee, Netherlands Locals enjoy a walk along the beach. Paris, France Tourist boats make their way along the River Seine. Seattle, USA A mother shares a moment with her daughter. Athens, Greece Part of Athens and its Acropolis are pictured as wild early spring flowers blossom atop the Lycabetus hill. Seattle, USA Daffodils in full bloom in view of the Space Needle. Paris, France Shadows are cast on the ground as people enjoy a sunny day in the Tuileries Gardens. Hamburg, Germany People take a stroll in a park on a sunny afternoon.
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You can dress them up in adorable coordinating clothing and illuminate them in the most optimum lighting. You can use the fanciest camera money can buy. You can have an arsenal of creative props and the most spectacular location and recall a million cute poses you saw on Pinterest. But when it comes to capturing a group photo of your kids, it's a total crap-shoot (no pun intended!). There's a reason pro photographers are so in-demand, and it's this: trying to get a good picture of a gaggle of kids is about as pointless as man-nipples. Unless you're a trained professional, photographing kids is mostly just an exercise in frustration, and it typically goes something like this … Phase One : Optimism. You start out with the best of intentions. They look so cute ! Look at those adorable outfits and that freshly-combed hair! This is going to be such a good picture. You're going to Instagram the heck out of this. Or maybe you'll get a great new Facebook cover photo. Or both! You call them over and tell them you'd like to take their picture. You artfully arrange everyone, ignoring the fact that they look less than thrilled. You are upbeat, hoping your cheerfulness will rub off on them and they'll have the happy, glowing faces you envision. They're holding the pose! Yessss! This is gonna be the BEST PHOTO EVER. Phase Two : Reality. You prompt them to smile, but then encounter your first problem: one or more of them is making the "picture face." You know the one the over-exaggerated smile/grimace hybrid that looks like a deer in the headlights. A constipated deer. You tell them to look more natural. "But not that natural," you say to the one who takes that as a cue to make his face all droopy. Okay, he finally looks normal. Everything looks good. Let's do this! You raise the camera to capture the perfect shot but wait, it's out of focus. By the time you push a few buttons on the camera (and utter a few choice words), someone has either a) stood up, b) started fighting, or c) decided to look everywhere but where they're supposed to be looking. By this time, their composure is crumbling fast. As soon as one is re-posed, another pops up, like a game of Whac-A-Mole. Phase Three : Desperation. Everybody's patience is ebbing away especially yours. Your voice gets that "edge" to it when you say things like … Smile. SMILE. SMIIII-LE. Scoot in closer. … CLOSER. (most often accompanied by wild waving of one hand) He is supposed to be touching you. No, your brother does not stink. Come on, you guys. Look right here. Look at me. LOOK. AT ME. Stop making that face. Stop pinching. Stop looking so disgusted. Seriously, just let me get a picture. Please. We'd have been done hours ago if you'd just stand here and smile like a normal human being and look at the camera for two seconds and can we PLEASE! JUST! GET! A PICTURE! Phase Four: Defeat. Your visions of that perfect photo have faded, and now you're just on a mission to capture a shot where everyone's eyes are on the camera and no one looks like they're drunk. You've abandoned the hope of having them maintain the cute pose, and settle for them all being clumped together closely enough to fit into the frame. Instead of "cheese" they ask if they can say "buttholes" and you're too tired to care; at least it makes them smile naturally. You take a million photos in rapid succession in the hopes that one just might be at least kind of decent. You finally tell them you're finished, because you're so over it at which point they scatter to the four winds like dry leaves. And when you finally scan your weary way through the camera roll, deleting the ones that are blurry or otherwise unacceptable, you realize with dismay that your very best shot ended up looking something like this. But you put too much effort into getting the photo to delete it. You decide to post it anyway and pretend like you weren't actually trying to get them to pose like you didn't just spend ten minutes failing to arrange them. You can always caption it, "LOVE capturing these candid photos of the kids!" for good measure. The post Photographing Kids: The 4 Phases of Suckage appeared first on Scary Mommy .
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