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Journalist Catherine Mayer is an expert on Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, and she examines his unconventional life in a new book, Born to Be King: Prince Charles on Planet Windsor. Catherine visited our New York studio to speak about the many hours she logged with Prince Charles as she researched the book and to share about her observations on the relationship he shares with his sons, William and Harry, and daughter-in-law Kate.
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entertainment
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One of the most unfair facts of life is that the length of your relationship and the intensity of your sex drive often have an inverse correlation. The longer you're with your guy, the more you warm to the thought of spending your lives together until you both die, hand-in-hand, The Notebook -style. Your comfort level skyrockets, and your feelings for him will probably reach depths you couldn't even have imagined. But as that happens, your urge to have sex often weakens as time goes on, sometimes going into complete hibernation for long periods much like a bear does in winter. Luckily, there are a few things you can do to break out of the dreaded sex rut. 1. Role play. Surprise him with a different wig every night of the week. Try out different accents. Meet up at a bar, pretend you don't know each other, and try to get the other person to go home with you. Using your imagination in this way will force you to think outside the box. Plus, you'll feel a little like you're having sex with someone totally different. 2. Change up the location. For a month, make the bed off-limits. You can do it on the kitchen floor, in the shower ( just be careful! ), or in your car at 3:00 a.m. Switching up the location of the action will help add a sense of newness to your sex life and you'll have to get innovative you can't do regular old missionary, no matter how much you love it, when you're crammed into the front-seat of your car. 3. Do things out of order. Most couples fall into a routine. Maybe you guys always kiss, then he goes down on you, then you do missionary , then you get on top. When the progression is so ingrained, it's natural that you'd both get a little bored. To combat this, make a concerted effort to jump around in your regular repertoire. 4. Have midnight sex . Sleep is precious, but so are orgasms. Having a dreamy quickie can help shock you out of your routine in a snap. 5. Just make out. Mutual teasing is part of what makes dating someone new so sexy, but that thrill dissipates when you know the other person is pretty much a sure thing. Commit to only making out for a week or so. Push him up against a wall, plant one on him until he's good and ready, then walk away. Encourage him to pull you onto his lap as you walk by, run his fingers through your hair and kiss you deeply, then stop just when you're at the height of excitement. Soon enough, you'll want to rip each other's clothes off the way you did in the beginning. 6. Give each other massages. When you get used to your partner's body, you might started taking it for granted and vice versa. Engaging in long, drawn-out massages will help you realize just how amazing the other person's body is. You'll both notice all the little things that originally turned you on so much about each other in the first place. 7. Add an element of danger. If you're both comfortable with it, 50 Shades of Grey -ifying your life can make you so obsessed with having sex, it's hard to get anything else done! Give this advice for adding some kinkiness into your sex life a spin. What tips do you have for getting out of a sex rut? Has your guy tried anything to help spice things up? If he did and it left you scratching your head, here are a few reasons guys do certain things in the bedroom.
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lifestyle
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CNBC's Courtney Reagan tracks oil supply and rig count data as oil comes to a close for the day.
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finance
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There are a lot of studies that say what a person's eye color says about them. Patrick Jones (@Patrick_E_Jones) has several facts you probably don't know.
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lifestyle
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Gisele Bündchen will walk in one more fashion show before retiring from runway work altogether. E! News reports that the 34-year-old supermodel plans to focus solely on fashion shoots and campaigns. Her last show will be at São Paulo Fashion Week for Colcci on April 20th, because she wanted to end her runway career in her native Brazil. Bündchen has been cutting back on runway appearances anyway over the past few years, but she notably made an appearance for Chanel's Spring 2015 "feminist" protest. Her recent, high-profile non-runway work includes a Chanel No. 5 campaign and an Under Armour contract.
| 4 | 12,404 |
lifestyle
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NEW YORK On Thursday afternoon, thousands of fans skipped work or school to attend an event that is as integral to this city's March calendar as the annual St. Patrick's Day parade. Few seats were available for the Big East men's basketball tournament quarterfinal matchups between Villanova and Marquette and St. John's and Providence. For the 33rd consecutive year, Madison Square Garden is hosting the Big East tournament, a tradition that endures even through the myriad changes and realignment in college athletics. The league's diehards remain a devoted bunch despite the conference's recent upheaval. Soon, though, the Big East will face more competition. In 2018, the Big Ten is holding its postseason tournament at Madison Square Garden, a week before the Big East tournament is held at the same arena. And in 2017 and 2018, the ACC tournament is coming to Barclays Center in Brooklyn, about a half hour away. "I think for a basketball fan in New York City, it's like a bonanza," Big East commissioner Val Ackerman told USA TODAY Sports. "My observation is that these tournaments attract fans of their schools. We probably weren't getting a Duke fan anyway to come to the Big East tournament, so now they have some place in New York to go. I think that's going to be very exciting for Duke and for the ACC and certainly for those fans. We're in a big city. I think there's plenty of room here for these events." Those power conferences will not be permanent fixtures in New York, at least for the immediate future. The Big Ten tournament will be held in Chicago in 2019 and 2021 and Indianapolis in 2020 and 2022, while the ACC tournament will take place in Charlotte in 2019 and Greensboro in 2020. Meanwhile, the Big East tournament has signed a contract to play here until 2026. Ackerman said she has not had discussions with Madison Square Garden representatives about extending the deal, although that is not unusual because there is so much time remaining on the current agreement. "For the time being, we're just kind of living our lives here," she said. "It's kind of far out in the future, but I can't imagine the Big East not being here. Hopefully that's going to be the arrangement for many, many years to come." Joel Fisher, executive vice president of Madison Square Garden Sports, said arena officials have enjoyed working with the new version of the Big East. In late 2012, the presidents of the seven Big East schools that did not have Football Bowl Subdivision programs announced they would split from the conferences' other members. A few months later, the sides finished their negotiations with the football-playing schools rebranding as the American Athletic Conference and the seven other schools retaining the Big East name and the rights to continue playing the men's basketball tournament at Madison Square Garden. "The relationship we have with the Big East has been a great thing for Madison Square Garden," Fisher said. "We've been thrilled to be partners with them for so many years. It's historically and continues to be one of the best events on our calendar every year. People anticipate it, look forward to it. We're thrilled to have the Big East tournament here." *** Fisher began speaking with Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany a few years ago about playing its tournament at Madison Square Garden. In December, they announced the deal, which also includes Big Ten men's basketball and hockey doubleheaders at Madison Square Garden from 2016 through 2019. The Big Ten will promote its conference inside and outside the arena, as well. Delany, who grew up in New Jersey, has been interested in promoting the Big Ten in New York and other Eastern cities, especially after the additions of Rutgers and Maryland. This past summer, the Big Ten opened an office in New York with four full-time employees. Its headquarters remains in Chicago. "I think our actions are consistent with what we said we wanted to do, which is not to visit that area but to live there," Delany said. "Whether it's offices or playing events or getting distribution for Big Ten Network, we've tried to become part of that community and embrace that (Northeast) corridor." The Big East and Big Ten have already established a good working relationship, according to Ackerman and Delany, who have known each other since they started working on USA Basketball initiatives in the 1990s. Beginning next season, the conferences will play eight men's basketball games against each other on the first full week of the season as part of the Gavitt Tipoff Games, which is named after Big East founder Dave Gavitt. The deal runs through 2022. There are no plans for the Big Ten tournament to return to Madison Square Garden beyond that, although Fisher said he would like to have both tournaments at the arena. "It's hard to speculate on what will happen with all the conferences," he said. "But if we could have the Big Ten and the Big East here every year, that would be tremendous." *** For now, the Big East has Madison Square Garden all to itself, and it is thriving in its second year. Ackerman, a trained attorney who began her tenure on July 1, 2013 after more than 20 years as a sports executive, compared the conference's first year to a start-up company. She had to hire a staff, find new headquarters and build relationships with people inside and outside the conference. Now, the Big East has 21 full-time employees and an office in midtown Manhattan, the only conference with a primary headquarters in New York City. The new league blends programs with longtime ties to the old Big East with a group of schools from the Midwest that have strong basketball traditions. Providence, St. John's, Georgetown and Seton Hall are original members of the conference that started in 1979, while Villanova joined the following year. Butler, Creighton, Marquette, DePaul and Xavier round out the Big East. Six of the ten Big East teams are expected to make the NCAA tournament: Villanova, Georgetown, Providence, Xavier, Butler and St. John's. "It's more exciting than ever," said Ackerman, who worked with Gavitt when they were both involved with USA Basketball and the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. "Everything that I thought the league could become seems to be happening. It's a marathon, not a sprint. But I think we're very happy about where we are after two years since the conference really came together in a new way." Coaches and players seem pleased with the arrangement, too. Georgetown coach John Thompson III, who is coaching in his 11th Big East tournament, has been coming to the event since his father coached the Hoyas. He hasn't noticed much of a drop-off in fan interest or the league's success on a national level. "The Big East is the Big East," Thompson III said. "We started over again two years ago and everyone thought that it's going to fall apart. It's just not going to happen. This conference was built for basketball." Meanwhile, St. John's coach Steve Lavin said the tournament would remain a major event when the ACC and Big Ten compete for the city's attention. "New York's a pro town, and yet the Big East tournament demonstrates the appreciation that New Yorkers have for college basketball, for the amateur spirit," Lavin said. "When you have New York City and Madison Square Garden as the location and venue, it's tough to beat. And then you add the heritage, the tradition, the good teams and it distinguishes itself as the premier conference tournament in the country."
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sports
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Chicago's Joakim Nordstrom's late-game hit on Arizona's Oliver Ekman-Larsson will result in a disciplinary hearing Friday. Nordstorm was called for boarding for his hit from behind on the Coyotes All-Star with 38 seconds left in regulation. He caught him with some force in the numbers. After the game, coach Dave Tippett told reporters that the defenseman likely would be able to play on Saturday.
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sports
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If you don't like math or the mathematical equation Pi, it's ok! Lindsey Granger went to talk to a college professor about how Pi is used in real life and found some other delicious ways to celebrate National Pi Day.
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video
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A fired Univision TV presenter has apologised in an open letter after likening Michelle Obama to a character from the film Planet of the Apes. Rodner Figueroa made the remarks while commenting on an internet video about a make-up artist who transforms himself into various celebrities. He said his remarks were meant to be critical of the artist's work, not an attack on the US president's wife. Univision said the remarks were "completely reprehensible". "Well, watch out, you know that Michelle Obama looks like she's from the cast of `Planet of the Apes,' the movie," Mr Figueroa said in a live broadcast on Wednesday during a segment on the top-rated Spanish-language network in the US. The show's other hosts immediately challenged the remark and commented that Ms Obama was very attractive. "But it is true," Mr Figueroa said in response. In the letter addressed to the first lady, Mr Figueroa said: "I would like to explain that my remark was not directed at you, but at the result of an artist's depiction of you that I found wasn't accurate." He went on to ask Mrs Obama for forgiveness and accepted responsibility for the remarks that could be "interpreted as offensive or disrespectful to you personally, or to any minority in the times we live". He also noted that he voted for President Barack Obama during the previous two elections, and made reference to his own multi-racial background. Analysis: Thomas Sparrow, BBC Mundo Latinos in the United States have overwhelmingly supported President Obama during his six years in office, so Figueroa's racial comment on the First Lady has been met with both surprise and reprehension. Figueroa, who is of Venezuelan descent, had been working for Univision for many years and is a well-known talk-show host, who won an Emmy in 2014. Univision used strong words to dismiss him, clearly with the intention to settle the issue as quickly as possible and avoid any repercussions. After all, Univision is the most important network for Latinos in the country and a sprawling media empire that also competes with English-language outlets. The First Lady's office has not responded to the controversial remarks or the apology. Mr Figueroa won a Daytime Emmy Award in 2014 for his work. He worked for Univision for 17 years.
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news
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Dazed parents wander the aisles of the Disney store in a manic search for the right Elsa dress or Anna doll, the endlessly repeated refrain of Let It Go ringing in their ears. Are they ready for another instalment of Frozen fever ? "I bloody well hate them all," says one man, staring at the 60-euro ($70) price tag on a shiny turquoise dress. He was one of many grimly determined parents making a dash through the Champs Elysees branch of the Disney store in Paris on Friday, looking for more merchandise to sate the bottomless hunger of their charges back home. The prospect of a Frozen sequel, officially announced a day earlier by Disney, does not fill them all with instant delight. "More songs, more marketing? Yes, we're certainly worried," said Sylka Pax from Belgium, who has an eight-year-old girl. "It drives us a little crazy but it has some advantages," she added on reflection. "We took part in a quiz the other day and I immediately recognised the Frozen song in the music section." - 'No light at end of tunnel' - The parenting world has yet to recover from the sensory and financial assault launched by Disney in late 2013, when Frozen burst out of nowhere to become the single most important thing in the lives of millions of children. That has meant several hours of Christmas Day lost to the construction of a Frozen castle -- whose broken pieces then become hidden booby traps around the house. It has meant many mornings of struggle to convince a daughter she should wear her school uniform rather than an Anna dress. And it has meant hearing the song "Let It Go" more times than is medically advisable. "We've got a five-year-old who sings it at the top of her lungs all day -- Let it goooooo!" says Disney store shopper Carol Austin-Groome, from Britain. "And she does not have a good singing voice." She is not alone. Even Prime Minister David Cameron admitted last month to having heard the song "more times than I care to remember" thanks to his four-year-daughter Florence who regularly "launches into song" in front of his security detail. London's Little Rascals children's entertainment company says the will to organise Frozen parties has slowly melted away in the past year. "It's diminished recently, not really among the kids, but among the parents," says founder Andrew Bloomer, adding that Frozen parties still account for around a quarter of his business. He fears for the sanity of some customers if the sequel triggers another wave of "Frozen fever". "They saw a light at the end of the tunnel and now it's gone," he said. A desperate search In another aisle at the Disney store, Yusuf Sogul is desperately looking for an Elsa doll before he catches his flight back to Istanbul. "My daughter is seven years old. She has phoned us twice today and I have many messages on Whatsapp telling me to get it, but they only have the big one -- it won't fit in my luggage," he says, slightly panicked. At the London branch of the store, some parents put a more positive spin on the Disney cash-cow, which has become the fifth-highest grossing film of all time. "It's the only movie she has watched all the way through," said Anna, from Gothenburg in Sweden, buying a Frozen bag for her seven-year-old daughter. "Normally she has ants in her pants but with Frozen she sits and watches it. So it's a good thing. And I love the music." While some fathers may be dreading the coming ice storm of a Frozen sequel, they also know they will have their revenge when an even more powerful force hits the screens. "I couldn't care less," said London-based father Graeme Harrison. "Because the boys and I have now got Star Wars Episodes XII AND XIII movies to look forward to."
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AURORA, Colo. A woman walking past a Colorado pizza shop was hit by a car, landed on its hood and was pushed through a plate glass window into the store. Amazingly, she immediately hopped off the car amid debris and escaped serious injury. A surveillance camera captured Wednesday's incident outside and inside the Pudge Brothers Pizza shop in Aurora. KUSA-TV reports (http://tinyurl.com/ou47p9j ) the car's driver apparently hit the gas pedal instead of the brake, jumped the sidewalk the woman was walking along, and crashed into the store. No one inside was hurt. Aurora police didn't immediately return a phone call seeking additional details, including the identities of the woman and the car's driver. ___ Information from: KUSA-TV, http://www.9news.com
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Chicken is everyone's favorite white meat. It's a versatile protein that you can sauté, grill, bake, roast or put in a slow cooker. Whether you love simple recipes that highlight individual flavors, or you prefer recipes that pack a punch, chicken can be the perfect vehicle to take your cooking to the next level. One of the great things about chicken is there are no limits to what you can create in the kitchen. For the seasoned cook, chicken is a tried-and-true staple that keeps people coming home for dinner night after night. If you are just starting your journey in the kitchen, chicken is an easy place to start and you're only a few steps away from creating memorable meals. Because there are so many great chicken dishes, it's easy to get overwhelmed. But have no fear, we've rounded up some wonderful, popular chicken recipes to inspire your cooking. From classics like chicken noodle soup and southern fried chicken, to new favorites, these recipes are nothing short of delicious! Click ahead to get cooking.
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foodanddrink
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Fingerprints linked to a convict accused of killing of a Holocaust survivor in 1980 could have been left on any day not just the day of the brutal murder, an expert witness testified Thursday. Retired NYPD Detective David Jackle, 81, admitted to defense attorney Paul Franzese that the three fingerprints the prosecution says prove that Ernest Mattison, 52, was responsible for the murder of the 73-year-old Cecil Schiff, could have been made at any time before the murder. "The fingerprint has a timestamp?" Franzese asked. "No," replied Jackle, who dusted prints from the Schiff's Flushing apartment while partner Det. Gerald Donohue took snapshots in the aftermath of the slaying more than 30 years ago. Schiff was found beaten, robbed and strangled. The prints, taken from jewelry boxes and other items that were strewn about in Schiff's ransacked apartment, are key pieces of evidence from an era when crime scene investigations had yet to rely on DNA evidence. Photos shown in court on Thursday depicted Schiff sprawled out on a sofa chair, head titled back, glasses still on, after he died from being strangled, according to authorities. Two large puddles of blood were visible on the floor nearby. Detectives working the cold case traced some of the old prints to Mattison, who was already serving a 10-year sentence for an unrelated robbery when he was charged him with Schiff's murder in 2012 more than 30 years after the Sept. 10 incident. Jackle retired in 1988 after 31 years on the job the same year the first conviction based on DNA evidence took place in the United States.
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The path to wealth isn't always smooth. 23 millionaires reveal why they struggled at their jobs In their song "If I Had a Million Dollars," the Barenaked Ladies sing about all the fun and lighthearted things they could buy with that kind of cash. That being said, making a million dollars is actually quite a monumental task. Building a net worth of that size takes an immense amount of planning and time. These industry giants and celebrities weren't always the polished A-listers they are now, and it certainly wasn't a straightforward trajectory to the top. Click through to learn more about the struggles these millionaires faced on the job and in life. Selena Gomez Occupation: Singer and producer Net worth: $60 million One of the most famous millennial millionaires, Selena Gomez has been open about how her personal health struggles have impacted her career. She took time off from her jet-set career due to depression and anxiety associated with lupus, a disease she has struggled with for years. Gomez has spoken candidly about her road to success , growing up in Hollywood, living with lupus and the issues that led to checking herself into rehab. She told People she was taking a year-long break to focus on "maintaining my health and happiness." Tom Brady Occupation: Football player Net worth: $180 million Despite being among the greatest of all time in the football world , Tom Brady struggles to maintain his position in a profession not known for its longevity or job security. In an interview with GQ, Brady said, "I was the kid that was the 199th pick that never had the body for it. People didn't think I'd play one year in the NFL, and now I'm going on my 17th year." Fighting to play past his prime and chase youth, he's declared he intends to play until he's 45, and he uses himself as a case study in his new book, "The TB12 Method." However, analysts from ESPN consider this quest for physical transcendence a dangerous game. Kylie Jenner Occupation: Reality star and cosmetic mogul Net worth: $50 million The youngest of the Kardashian-Jenner clan, Kylie Jenner spent her entire childhood on TV. Her recent spinoff show was all about the struggle of growing up in the spotlight. In an interview with Complex magazine, Jenner was quick to note that "fame isn't bad," but growing up in the spotlight can be challenging. "It's probably the hardest thing," she said. "You don't know who you are. I didn't know who I was a year ago, and I still don't know exactly who I am now. You're trying to grow up and make mistakes and everybody's watching." Sean Combs (aka Diddy) Occupation: Rapper, actor, producer and fashion designer Net worth: $820 million Sean Combs is one of the many celebrities who didn't grow up with money . But that's exactly how he got his work ethic. In an interview with CBS, he got personal. "I was brought up by my mother and my grandmother," Combs said. "My father was killed when I was 3. And one day, I had, you know, asked my mother for a pair of sneakers. And the look on her face that she couldn't afford it it just made me realize that I needed to step up as a man." It was that kind of drive that took him from working four paper routes to cleaning gas station bathrooms to topping the Forbes' list of wealthiest hip-hop artists. Cristiano Ronaldo Occupation: Soccer player Net worth: $400 million Arguably the best soccer player in the world, Cristiano Ronaldo said his career almost never even got off the ground. In an interview with the Mirror, Ronaldo revealed how he used to sneak out of his dorm to do extra workouts because players and coaches said he was too small. "It's true, I was skinny," he said. "I had no muscle. So I made a decision at 11 years old. I knew I had a lot of talent, but I decided that I was going to work harder than everybody." Justin Bieber Occupation: Singer Net worth: $265 million Very few celebrities have had as many public faux pas as Justin Bieber. From erratic behavior to bizarre arrests, the singer fell into a deep hole fans were unsure he could dig himself out of. "It might seem awesome from the outside, but I'm struggling," Bieber told Billboard. "I started going through the motions. I felt like people were judging me all the time. I came out alive. I came out swinging. But I was close to letting [fame] completely destroy me." Amy Schumer Occupation: Comedian and actress Net worth: $16 million Amy Schumer makes a living based on her self-deprecating humor, but that doesn't mean the trolls and insecurities don't get to her. "You have days where you're like, 'I am a lump of garbage and I should be on a curb,'" Schumer told PopSugar. "Every year you look back, and you're like, 'I was so great then and I was stressing about how I look, I just want to get back to that at this point.' You know you're going to feel like that year from now." Mark Wahlberg Occupation: Actor Net worth: $255 million A triple-threat actor, rapper and producer, Mark Wahlberg is a hustler above all else . Growing up in the spotlight with the musical group New Kids on the Block, Wahlberg became addicted to drugs at a young age. He told the Chicago Tribune, "I've never been shy about sharing my past and the bad decisions I've made and being affiliated with gangs, being incarcerated." His goal now is to inspire and provide hope that you can always turn it around. Adele Occupation: Singer Net worth: $185 million Even after her successful early albums, the soulful crooner found it difficult to create at the same level. In an exclusive interview with I-D Vice, Adele said she wrote a few songs for her album "25" and got rejected. "My manager was like, 'This isn't good enough.' Yeah, it knocked my confidence a bit, but I also knew," she said. "And then I flew Rick Rubin over, to play him the songs and he was like, 'I don't believe you.' That's my worst fear: people not believing me. So I went back to the drawing board." Usain Bolt Occupation: Olympic track and field Net worth: $60 million With a lofty goal to be the greatest athlete of all time, Usain Bolt is not what one would call humble. But that doesn't take away from how hard he's worked for what he has. "Everybody says winning's easy for me," he told the Guardian. "I'm like, 'Why would you say that?' Yes, it looks easy. But it's not. There's a lot of work and dedication. It's rough. I want people to understand that what they see on the track is because I work so hard to get there." Kenny Chesney Occupation: Musician Net worth: $170 million One of the most successful country performers of all time , Kenny Chesney is one of the best examples of starting from the bottom and working your way up. He was fired from one of his first gigs at a local Nashville hot dog stand after only three days. Even success didn't guarantee things were going to be easy. Chesney told Hot 20's Katie Cook about the time after his first No. 1 single took off: "It was a very unsure time of my life. I didn't really know where my music was going to take me." Gordon Ramsay Occupation: Celebrity chef Net worth: $160 million In the kitchen, you're constantly under pressure. But with three Michelin stars and 35 restaurants under his belt, life couldn't be better for Gordon Ramsay. It hasn't always been caviar dreams, however. As Ramsay explained in a Reddit AMA, "I came out of my training in Paris, after getting my ass kicked in some of the best restaurants in the world. I took some time off ... to regenerate." Beyoncé Occupation: Singer and media mogul Net worth: $350 million Queen B leads a rather private life but has been known to give a rare interview or two on her success as a female artist. In a candid conversation with Elle, Beyoncé recalled her early day with musical group Destiny's Child. "The label didn't really believe we were pop stars," she said. "They underestimated us, and because of that, they allowed us to write our own songs and write our own video treatments." She asserted the label's lack of faith was exactly what cemented the group's future. It's when "I became an artist and took control ... we had a vision for ourselves … and created it on our own." LeBron James Occupation: Basketball player Net worth: $400 million LeBron James' success cannot be denied, yet he still struggles with blocking out the noise and judgement. He vented to Slam Online about being viewed as a stat more than a person. "Where they rank me, who I'm better than, who I'm not better than I call that barbershop talk," James said. "That's gonna happen. No matter if you like it or not, it's gonna happen. It happens with the greatest of all time [...] With Muhammad Ali, it's who's better, him or Floyd [Mayweather Jr]? Who's better, Tom Brady or Joe Montana or Aaron Rodgers or Peyton Manning? It's barbershop talk." Ellen DeGeneres Occupation: TV personality Net worth: $400 million It's been a whopping 20 years since Ellen DeGeneres shocked the nation as one of the first openly gay LGBTQ celebrities. Uncertain how it would affect her image and future, DeGeneres decided to embrace it. "I wasn't sure if I was going to work again, and although I was out, I was still trying to alter myself," she told the New York Daily News. "I slowly gained the confidence to be authentic, and what I've learned about other people is that they strive to be authentic, too." Conor McGregor Occupation: UFC fighter Net worth: $85 million From plumber apprentice to championship fighter, Conor McGregor never had it easy. "When things were really bad I didn't have a pot to p--- in," McGregor told Rappler. "Really, nothing. I'm not a stupid guy and it was hard standing in a dole queue." Howard Stern Occupation: Radio personality Net worth: $600 million While he generally makes his money doing the interviewing, Howard Stern is much less comfortable on camera. "I hate doing talk shows," Stern told Jimmy Kimmel in an interview. "It's so unnatural. Everyone evaluates you. How did he do? Was he funny? Did he pull his pants down? Was he farting? He wasn't good enough. It makes my neuroses crazy." David Copperfield Occupation: Magician Net worth: $930 million You might know him from his sleight of hand, but this magician is not a one-trick wonder. The recipient of 21 Emmy awards and 11 Guinness World Records, David Copperfield has been named a "living legend" by the U.S. Library of Congress. Copperfield told Forbes, "I'm blessed and cursed with never being satisfied. ... Rarely do I feel completely satisfied with a show. Usually, I obsess about how each little thing can be enhanced, improved. It's a difficult way to live." Did You Know? 10 Celebrities Who Are Richer Than You Think Blake Ross Occupation : Founder of Mozilla Firefox Net worth: $150 million This young millionaire learned he suffered from an identifiable mental phenomenon by unwittingly clicking on a Facebook article about it. The rare condition is called aphantasia, which Blake Ross described as "being blind in the mind." Being unable to conceptualize images has made it exponentially harder for Ross to communicate complex concepts simply because of his brain structure. He described the condition and how it has affected his life in a Facebook post: "I've always felt an incomprehensible combination of stupid-smart. I missed a single question on the SATs, yet the easiest conceivable question stumps me … What did you do today? I don't know." Andrew Mason Occupation: Founder and former CEO of Groupon Net worth: $230 million Some CEOs are notoriously figurehead positions and well-versed at passing the buck. Not Andrew Mason. In fact, he perhaps took too much ownership. "After four and a half intense and wonderful years as CEO of Groupon, I've decided that I'd like to spend more time with my family. Just kidding I was fired today," Mason stated in his departure letter, as reported by Tech Crunch. "From controversial metrics in our S1 to our material weakness to two quarters of missing our own expectations and a stock price that's hovering around one quarter of our listing price, the events of the last year and a half speak for themselves. As CEO, I am accountable." Who's on the List? CEOs That Have Saved or Sunk Major Corporations Pete Cashmore Occupation: Founder and CEO of Mashable Net worth: $20 million Navigating the digital media landscape is never easy, and sometimes it involves selling off part of your core business. In the company's major shift from digital publishing to mobile media, Pete Cashmore had to learn to roll with the punches and embrace an uncertain future. The announcement he sent to his team was decisive yet somber. "Last week we announced a funding round to put Mashable on more platforms, including television," Cashmore said. "This new focus means we have to change the way our teams are organized, and involved some very tough decisions. …Today we must part ways with some of our colleagues in order to focus our efforts." David Karp Occupation: Founder of Tumblr Net worth: $200 million David Karp dropped out of formal high school at 15 and founded Tumblr when he was just 20. He admits the early days were a struggle due to the platform's unexpected success. In a Medium interview, Karp explained, "We hit a lot of scaling bottlenecks all at once." His team had been "adjusting and expanding our infrastructure to handle all this new traffic every month," he said. But "the traffic … really shot up like crazy." The numbers were staggering and unexpected, and a lot of updates planned for subsequent months were forced to happen much sooner than expected, creating a lot of chaos. Follow Their Footsteps: 15 Rich Influencers Who Didn't Need a College Degree Matt Mullenweg Occupation: Founder of WordPress Net worth: $40 million Responsible for a company that at one time powered 22 percent of the web, Matt Mullenweg called his creation of WordPress "basically a big experiment." He knew the path ahead wasn't always clear or straightforward. In an interview with Mapping the Journey, Mullenweg explained how he transformed an open source project into a platform used by millions of developers around the world, noting that the adaption was gradual nothing happened overnight. Essentially, it was a waiting game to find the tipping point. "The biggest challenge that we're running into," Mullenweg said, "is that people who are very comfortable or attached to the way that things currently work, can sometimes be scared of changes." Up Next: 7 Harsh Realities of Being a Millionaire
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Gisele Bundchen is retiring from the runway: Relive some of her best looks The queen of the catwalk is officially hanging up her heels. Gisele Bundchen, perhaps the gold standard on the catwalk, is saying goodbye to the runway after 20 years. The supermodel announced that her final runway walk will be at the Colcci show during São Paulo Fashion Week in April. Considering Gisele is Brazilian, it's a fitting end to a decorated runway career. Gisele, 34, will continue to model, but will no long strut her stuff on the long catwalks of the fashion world. Click through to see some of the highlights of Gisele's incredible career. Gisele Bundchen in the runway to show her collection of lingerie brand in partnership with Hope in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on May 12, 2011. Gisele Bundchen wears a creation by Hope during the Hope Lingerie Show in Sao Paulo, Brazil on May 12, 2011. Model Gisele Bundchen walks the runway during "Fashion's Night Out: The Show" at Lincoln Center in New York on Sept. 7, 2010. Gisele Bundchen rocks the catwalk in New York. Gisele Bundchen wears a creation by Italian fashion designer Riccardo Tisci for Givenchy's fashion house spring-summer 2012 ready-to-wear collection presented on Oct. 2, 2011. Gisele Bundchen launched her very own lingerie collection, for Brazilian company Hope, which she premiered on the catwalk in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Gisele Bundchen Paris Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2012 Ready To Wear - Givenchy - Catwalk. Paris, France on Oct. 2, 2011. Gisele Bundchen wears a creation by Hope, during the Hope Lingerie Show, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on May 12, 2011. Gisele Bundchen at The 7th Annual Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in Bryant Park in New York on Nov. 13, 2001 Gisele Bundchen walks in the 10th Victoria's Secret Fashion Show on Nov. 9, 2009. Gisele Bundchen wears a Spring/Summer design from the Colcci collection during Sao Paulo Fashion Week in Sao Paulo on June 13, 2010.
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Senate Republicans are preparing to reprise their long-standing efforts to achieve majorsavings in Medicaid and federal food stamps by turning the programs over to the states in the form of block grants. Under that approach, the federal government would pay the states a lump sum instead of a portion of the programs cost. The states would then have more control over setting standards for the programs and would assume more of the overall cost. The Wall Street Journal first reported on Thursday that Senate Budget Committee Chair Mike Enzi of Wyoming and other Republican leaders will include the plan in their fiscal 2016 budget proposal that will be unveiled sometime next week. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a member of the Budget Committee, told The Journal that the plan offers more flexibility on the ground. The proposals for overhauling two of the premier social safety-net programs are certain to touch off another major fight between the GOP and the Democrats over domestic spending policies as the 2016 presidential campaign begins to heat up. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the new ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, vowed yesterday to do "everything in my power to make sure we pass a budget that does not harm the most vulnerable Americans." Although the food stamp caseloads dropped 11 percent last year as the economy continued to improve, some GOP lawmakers see the potential for further cuts to the $74 billion program, which has increased more than 45 percent since President Obama took office. The committee's new chair, Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX), said, "We have seen the overall unemployment rate fall, yet the number of long-term unemployed remains high." Senate Republicans agree with this assessment, and hope to embed an overhaul of the vital nutrition program in the upcoming budget document. House Republicans sought to convert the food stamp program to a block grant for the states as part of last year's budget process, but failed to make any headway with the Democrats still in charge of the Senate and President Obama and advocates for the poor opposed to such a change. If that proposal had been implemented, it was projected to save $125 billion between 2019 and 2029, according to the Wall Street Journal. It is not clear whether the Senate Republicans will embrace a similar reduction target and whether they would try to impose it over the coming decade or in a shorter period of time. Either way, such a change "would be huge and would irrevocably alter the program moving forward," Stacy Dean, vice president for food assistance policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said today in an interview. "One in seven Americans and one in four children use this program. To cap and cut its funding structure would permanently alter the face of the safety net, and it would cause enormous damage." Last year's House Budget Committee blue print also estimated savings totaling $732 billion over the coming decade if the Medicaid program were converted to a block grant. Medicaid is a state-federal health program that covers nearly 70 million poor and disabled Americans and is a frequent target of conservative lawmakers. The Medicaid block grant proposal drafted by then-Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) and approved by the House in March 2013, would have cut federal Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program funding by 31 percent by 2023, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. That's because the funding would no longer keep pace with health care costs or with expected Medicaid enrollment growth as the population ages. Those cuts would have come on top of the Republicans' efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion. Top Reads from The Fiscal Times : Social Security Watchdog: I See Dead People How Many Agencies Does It Take to Change a Lightbulb? 10 Outrageous Examples of Government Waste
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Russian President Vladimir Putin said he'd spent more enjoyable evenings. German Chancellor Angela Merkel talked of a "glimmer of hope" but said she was under "no illusions". A month after the ceasefire deal which she and French President Francois Hollande thrashed out with Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko at marathon overnight talks in the Belarus capital Minsk in February a peace of sorts is holding in eastern Ukraine. The artillery and rockets that pounded the towns and villages of the Donbas region over the past year have been pulled back from many parts of the frontline, as called for by the Minsk agreement. And while government forces and pro-Russian separatists continue to trade fire in a handful of areas, civilian casualties have dropped dramatically, triggering a refugee trickle homewards. But if Ukrainians, still reeling from a war they see as not of their making, have learnt anything this past year it's to keep their guard up. From the capital Kiev, home of the Euromaidan protests that sent Russian-backed president Viktor Yanukovych packing last year, to Donetsk, capital of one of two regions that rose up against Kiev after his ouster, the peace is invariably described as doomed. - Unconvinced by ceasefire - "What we have is not peace. We're still at war," said Dmytro Nikitin, a 30-year-old former Maidan activist, who stands guard in his free time over the iconic square in a pair of fatigues, along with other "volunteer" police. Like many people in central and western Ukraine the burly guard suspects the separatists -- and the Russian soldiers that Kiev and the West believe are leading them in battle, something Russia denies -- of using the ceasefire to regroup. "In this time the terrorists are becoming very strong and we are doing nothing," he complained, using the government's label for the separatists. The ceasefire is also viewed with suspicion in the rebel statelets of Donetsk and Lugansk "people's republics," where months of shelling caused massive destruction in some areas, leaving a deep well of resentment towards the "fascist" government in Kiev. "I have no hope or faith in this ceasefire. We still hear shells falling, even if it's less frequent than before," said 30-year-old Igor who lives near Donetsk's bombed-out airport, where the fighting that has killed over 6,000 people continues on a near daily basis. The failure of an under-resourced monitoring mission from the OSCE to properly vet the ceasefire has added to the climate of suspicion, with both sides accusing the other of keeping heavy weapons close at hand to fight another day. Seen from Kiev, that fight is likely to be over the majority Russian-speaking port of Mariupol, which Ukraine suspects Moscow of coveting. The government has accused the separatists of massing forces near the city but while skirmishes continue close by, the much-feared march on Mariupol against which Western leaders had warned Moscow has failed to materialise. - Not about territory - "I don't think Russia or the rebels want Mariupol. I never thought that this was about territory in the first place. I think what Russia wants is control over Kiev's political decision-making and Minsk II pretty much handed them that," Kadri Liik of the European Council on Foreign Relations told AFP. Liik was referring to the political aspects of the Minsk deal. The accord gives Ukraine until the end of 2015 to amend its constitution to allow for "decentralisation" and to adopt legislation giving the separatist regions a form of self rule. Only then will the state's control over the border with Russia in separatist areas be restored. - The Donbas model - Liik said she expected Russia to weigh heavily on the constitutional negotiations, to keep Ukraine out of the West. "Basically they want to be sure they can always manipulate the Ukrainian debates in ways they consider necessary. That way they will always be able to block any serious process towards joining NATO and manipulate Ukraine's relationship with the European Union." For Balazs Jarabik of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Putin is playing a waiting game. Moscow, he said, was banking on Ukraine's already ailing economy tanking further so that people in other majority Russian-speaking eastern cities, such as Kharkiv and Odessa would be "pissed off with the Kiev government" and revolt. For the moment however, no other region seems inclined to follow the separatists down the path of a rebellion, which has displaced over 1 million people and wrought "merciless devastation" according to a recent UN report. "Russia is essentially in trouble when it comes to soft power at the moment," said Jarabik. "Donbas is essentially a war zone. None of the neighbouring regions want another Donbas."
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In a move reminiscent of The Onion 's version of Vice President Biden, who loves muscle cars and sets up the fog machine for the State of the Union, the real-life Biden posted a Vine on Friday of him doing arm curls while on the phone. In the video, produced for the first lady's #GimmeFive fitness challenge, Biden says that he does "a million of these a day" while talking on the phone. The dumbbell appears to say that it weighs 30 pounds. The initiative is set to receive some high-profile press in the coming days. On Monday, Michelle Obama will appear on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" to tout the program and participate in a dance-off with the show's host. The #GimmeFive program is taking place in honor of the fifth anniversary of Obama's "Let's Move!" campaign to fight childhood obesity.
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Rumors of a new high-performance Porsche Boxster appear to be true. Buried deep within the Volkswagen Group's summary of its 2014 financial earnings is the confirmation that sometime this year Porsche will launch the Boxster Spyder, considered to be the top-down version of the Cayman GT4. Previous speculation suggested a number of possible names including Boxster GT4, Boxster Spyder RS, and even the Boxster Club Sport. But in the end, Porsche is going with Boxster Spyder. With the name out of the way, it's now a waiting game for engine specs, chassis modifications, and price. The Boxster Spyder will likely make more power than the Boxster GTS (330 hp and 273 lb-ft of torque from a 3.4-liter flat-six), with the possibility of it sharing the Cayman GT4's 3.8-liter flat-six, which itself is cribbed from the 911 Carrera S. For the Cayman GT4, the engine is detuned to make 385 hp and 310 lb-ft. Additionally, a six-speed manual is currently the sole gearbox choice for the Cayman GT4. Related Link: Research the 2015 Porsche Boxster Also unknown is if the Boxster Spyder will share the Cayman GT4's handling upgrades. As we discovered in our first drive of the GT4, its front suspension and tires are sourced from the 911 GT3, while other goodies include sticky Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2s, a fixed rear wing, and active dampers. With the 2015 Geneva auto show already in the books, it's possible that the Boxster Spyder could debut at the Frankfurt show this September or in Los Angeles later in the year. Source: Porsche Related Story: All the Cars That Go 200 MPH
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MADISON, Wis. A 19-year-old biracial man who was unarmed when killed by a white Madison police officer was shot in his head, right arm and torso, according to preliminary autopsy reports released Friday. The reports from the Dane County Medical Examiner don't say how many times Tony Robinson was shot on March 6, or whether he was shot while facing or turned away from the officer, but they determined he died from "firearm related trauma." The medical examiner didn't say when a final report would be released, but said the results of toxicology tests aren't expected for several more weeks. Robinson was fatally shot by police officer Matt Kenny after the officer was summoned to a call that the young man was jumping in and out of traffic and had assaulted someone. Authorities said the officer heard a disturbance and forced his way into an apartment where Robinson had gone, and fired after Robinson assaulted him. There have been numerous peaceful protests since the shooting, often drawing about 1,000 people. The shooting exposed racial disparities in the capital city of 240,000, nearly 90 religious leaders wrote in an open letter released Friday. "Tony's death has laid bare the truth that our social contract does not provide the same benefit for all members of our community; and that our policies, practices, and attitudes stack the deck against and criminalize black and brown skinned members of our community at an alarmingly disparate rate," the letter said. Members of the local school and county boards and the City Council said in a separate letter released Friday that the community "must do better" at ending "shameful" racial disparities. Police originally described Robinson as black, but family members have said he embraced a biracial identity from having a white mother and black father. Messages left with a family spokesman and community members weren't immediately returned Friday. Attorney General Brad Schimel has declined to go into any details about the shooting, saying releasing information in bits has caused turmoil in other racially charged officer-involved shootings in the U.S. over the last year. The Wisconsin Department of Justice is investigating the shooting under a state law that requires an outside agency to look into any fatal police shootings. Schimel has said he hopes to have the bulk of that investigation done and submitted to the local district attorney in two weeks. Division Administrator Dave Matthews asked people to be patient, stressing that the investigation is massive. Authorities have said they're looking at what every witness was doing in the hours leading up the shooting. Kenny wasn't wearing a body camera, but agents are examining video recordings from squad cars that arrived after the shooting and from devices people were carrying, he said. Matthews called the time it will take to review all the recordings "daunting." A memorial for Robinson with flowers and written messages has been set up at the shooting scene. Robinson's funeral is scheduled for Saturday. ___ Associated Press writer Scott Bauer contributed to this report.
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Thousands of fans of British author Terry Pratchett signed a petition on Friday asking "Death" -- one of the characters in his best-selling Discworld science-fantasy novels -- to revive him. "Bring back Terry Pratchett", was the simple message in the missive carried on the change.org website, which had more than 5,000 signatures. "Death -- are you sure you're ready to meet your maker?" said one signatory, Tim Lidbetter. Another, Iain Sutherland, said: "Terry Pratchett turned Death from a figure of hate into a much loved and sometimes welcomed character. "No-one else cared about you Death. You owe him!" Sara Edwards wrote: "I think that Terry Pratchett would kind of like the idea of petitioning Death." Pratchett, who sold more than 85 million books worldwide, died on Thursday aged 66 after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease. One of the recurring characters in the Discworld novels was Death, a strangely endearing creature who is fond of cats -- and whose utterances on the page are written in capital letters. Many fans quoted from his works in their tributes on Twitter, including one of his most famous lines: "'DON'T THINK OF IT AS DYING,' said Death. 'JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH.'"
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A Venezuelan opposition activist arrested during last year's anti-government rallies has died in custody. Rodolfo Gonzalez, aged 63, hanged himself in his cell at the headquarters of the country's secret service in Caracas, his lawyer told the BBC. He said this happened after Mr Gonzalez had learned he would be transferred to one of Venezuela's notoriously dangerous common prisons. The government has appointed a prosecutor to investigate the death. "Rodolfo was in a serious physical condition and didn't feel right about going to a prison such as that," lawyer Jose Vicente Haro told BBC Mundo correspondent Daniel Pardo. Mr Gonzalez's daughter also confirmed the death of her father. 'No transfer plans' Interior Minister Gustavo Gonzalez said there were signs that the opposition activist killed himself. But he denied that the authorities were planning to move him from the facilities where he was being held in Caracas. "We never considered any plan to transfer him to another detention centre in the country as part of the media have been saying," the minister said. Rodolfo Gonzalez, a former civil aviation captain, was an active opponent of the government of President Nicolas Maduro, taking part in mass demonstrations that rocked Venezuela in February-March 2014. Dozens of people on both sides of the political divide were killed during the unrest. Human rights groups criticised the Maduro government for what they described as its tough approach in dealing with the rallies. This also prompted the United States to impose sanctions. At least 40 people arrested during the protests remain in jail. Among them is opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, who gave himself up to the authorities in February last year after being charged with inciting violence. The government says right-wing sectors in Venezuela and abroad encouraged young people to engage in violent acts in order to oust President Maduro.
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PITTSBURGH (AP) The Pittsburgh Steelers say they have agreed with quarterback Ben Roethlisberger on a contract extension. The team announced the deal Friday on Twitter without giving details. The move keeps the two-time Super Bowl winner in Pittsburgh beyond a previous deal that was set to expire after the 2015 season. The 33-year-old cornerstone of the franchise threw for 4,952 yards last season, breaking his own team record and tying with Drew Brees for the most yards passing in 2014. Roethlisberger also had 32 touchdowns and nine interceptions. Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert said last month that negotiations with Roethlisberger had begun with the goal of keeping him in black and gold for the rest of his career. Roethlisberger enters his 12th season this year.
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(Updates with tender offer date in sixth paragraph.) (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. government wants to buy up to 5 million barrels of crude to store in its strategic reserve on the Gulf Coast. The Energy Department wants the crude delivered to its Bryan Mound storage cavern near Freeport, Texas, in June or July, according to a pre-solicitation notice posted on federal websites today. The purchase follows a 5 million-barrel test sale last spring, when oil prices were nearly double what they are now. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve purchase comes as booming shale oil production has pushed private oil inventories in the U.S. to 449 million barrels, the most in records dating back to 1982. The reserve has 691 million barrels and 36 million barrels of empty space. "Commercial storage is filling up," said David Hackett, president of Stillwater Associates, an energy consulting firm in Irvine, California. "If they buy domestic oil and put it in the SPR, that creates 5 million more barrels of space in commercial storage." The law requires the Energy Department to use the funds from last year's test sale to purchase replacement crude, Robert Dillon, spokesman for Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said in an e-mail. The government plans to officially post its tender offer on its websites about March 23, according to the notice. Peak Inventory The purchase will be the first for the reserve since it reached its peak inventory level of about 727 million barrels in December 2009. It released 31 million barrels in 2011 to help offset supply disruptions caused by upheaval in the Middle East and North Africa, and exchanged 1 million with Marathon Petroleum Corp. after Hurricane Isaac blocked tankers from delivering crude to the company's Garyville refinery in Louisiana. The SPR, which was created in the 1970s in response to the Arab oil embargo, has four underground storage caverns in Texas and Louisiana. The Bryan Mound site has 241 million barrels in storage now. When the reserve finished filling in 2009, it held the equivalent of 80 days worth of crude imports to the U.S. Booming domestic oil production from shale wells has cut inbound shipments since then, and the reserve now holds 94 days of imports based on 2014 data. "This is all happening at the same time that a debate is going on about whether we really need 700 million barrels in the SPR given the increase in production in the U.S., so it is surprising," said Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates LLC in Houston. --With assistance from Lynn Doan in San Francisco. To contact the reporters on this story: Sarita Williams in Houston at [email protected]; Dan Murtaugh in Houston at [email protected] To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Marino at [email protected] Richard Stubbe
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"Let me guess. You want to move to Los Angeles to become an accountant."
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David Harrison was once a first-round pick who seemed destined for NBA greatness, but the former Indiana Pacers center has fallen on hard times since exiting the league following the 2007-08 season. According to Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports, the former University of Colorado standout was working at a McDonald's restaurant to make ends meet as recently as two years ago. Per Spears: "Harrison made $4.4 million before taxes during four seasons with Indiana and also played in China professionally for three seasons. He said almost all of that money is gone. Now 32 and without a college degree, Harrison said he's having a hard time finding a job." "I was embarrassed because of where I could be in life," Harrison told Yahoo Sports. "Everybody has to work and make a living somehow. I have two children. They don't care where I work. They just need to eat. "People were showing up trying to take my car. My house was in foreclosure. I didn't have any income. I just had everything going out. I have child support to one son. I have a really big family and I have to take care of them, even through [sic] I'm not playing in the NBA. I needed money." Harrison had the potential to be a great player at 7 feet tall and 280 pounds, but he never managed to live up to expectations. He averaged just five points and three rebounds per game over the course of four seasons, and he was never able to make it back to the NBA. Although Harrison didn't develop into the player many thought he could be, Pacers play-by-play broadcaster Mark Joseph Boyle remembers him as a unique individual: Sad. This was one of the more fascinating guys we've had come through here in my time. http://t.co/3fHuQJ6UQh Mark Joseph Boyle (@Mark_J_Boyle) March 13, 2015 Harrison didn't have many highlights over the course of his NBA career, but one of the was undoubtedly his involvement in the "Malice at the Palace" brawl between the Pacers, Detroit Pistons and fans. Ron Artest famously started a melee on Nov. 19, 2004, when he went into the stands and attacked a fan after having a drink thrown at him. Harrison was accused of punching a 67-year-old fan, per Spears, and he was ultimately fined, placed on probation and forced to perform community service. While it was a black mark on the NBA, Harrison recalled a funny moment during the aftermath of the incident, via Spears : Ron says, "Hey, my bad guys. I'm sorry. I didn't know I had so many real [expletives] on this team." Then he says out loud, "Hey, do you think we are going to get fined?" Anthony [Johnson] says, "[Expletive] a fine, Ron. They are going to suspend us." Then Ron was literally like my 6-year-old son and [said], "Oh man, you think they're going to suspend us? I don't want to be suspended." And everyone starts laughing. As infamous as the "Malice at the Palace" was, that memory comes from a time when Harrison was a rookie and filled with promise. Even though Harrison flamed out in the NBA, most probably assume that former first-round picks are set for life. That wasn't the case with Harrison, and he now serves as a cautionary tale to young NBA players about the importance of saving money and preparing for life after basketball. Follow @ on Twitter
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Man carjacked by the Boston bombers testifies in court about his harrowing ordeal. Alexandra Field reports.
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Arsenal midfielders Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Jack Wilshere will not be fit for international duty with England later this month, Gunners manager Arsene Wenger revealed on Friday Oxlade-Chamberlain suffered a hamstring injury during the second half of Arsenal's 2-1 FA Cup quarter-final win at Manchester United on Monday. And Wenger expects the 21-year-old, who had just returned to the side following a groin problem, to be sidelined around "three or four weeks", which rules him out of contention for the Euro 2016 qualifier against Lithuania at Wembley on March 27 and the friendly with Italy in Turin four days later. Wilshere, meanwhile, is recovering from minor surgery to remove studs from the pin in his ankle, and is also expected to need a few more weeks recovery time. "It is a classic hamstring. That means he (Oxlade-Chamberlain) will be out for three weeks, four weeks maximum. He will not be available for England as well," said Wenger, whose side host West Ham on Saturday as they looked to cement their place in the Premier League's top four. "It is very frustrating for him because he played more games than ever this season. He has shown again on Monday night what an important player he can be for Arsenal and for England. "He is keen to play for England and I think it is a big blow for him. "Alex knows as well that it is the type of injury where you can recover quickly and come back, but it is not an ideal moment." Wenger confirmed he had not yet spoken to England manager Roy Hodgson, who will name his squad for the upcoming internationals next Thursday. The Gunners boss, though, is confident Wilshere can recover to play some part in the end-of-season run-in. "He had a little inflammation of his ankle, so we decided to do it (the surgery) now," Wenger said. "We had to rest him anyway, so we decided to get these screws off instead of doing it at the end of the season, when there is England again. We wanted to combine both together. "I don't know how long it will be before he returns because we have to respect the progression of his training. "It has taken a bit longer and I don't really know why at the moment, but I am hopeful it is a matter of weeks now."
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Jane Poynter has a mesmerizing way of describing what it will be like to be shuttled to the ends of the Earth in the souped-up space balloon being developed by her company, World View. You'll arrive at the launch site predawn, Poynter says, and step inside a comfortable capsule with a few other passengers. You'll lift off the ground, and float upward for an hour and a half, gently rising at a speed of about 1,000 feet a minute. When you arrive at the top of the atmosphere, Poynter says, you'll see "the most unbelievable panorama of stars" around you. The sun, rising up over the ground below you, will begin to creep over the horizon and light up the Earth below. You'll hover in that place for about an hour before gliding back to the ground using a rectangular parachute called a parafoil. Oh, and there will be appetizers and booze. Mustn't forget about the appetizers and booze. Today, this vision is still the stuff of Poynter's imagination, but recently, that vision moved a lot closer to reality when World View completed a flight that took its balloon 100,000 feet in the air, and safely landed it using a parafoil . Though parafoils have been used by the military to airdrop huge pieces of equipment, this was the first time one had ever successfully drifted down from 100,000 feet. World View still has a long way to go before it can bring actual human beings this high. The test flight carried only research equipment, but its success suggests World View is steadily inching its way toward making a balloon ride to space possible. "This means it works, which is pretty crucial," Poynter says, laughing. "That was the big, risky part of the whole development. We still have some refinements to do on it, but we've at least proven that it'll work, which is huge." The Race to Space Of course, World View is far from alone in its mission to bring average people to space. Space tourism has become the obsession of some of the world's most accomplished businessmen, from Elon Musk to Richard Branson. But while these players have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build their own spaceships, World View is taking a comparatively simple and more affordable approach. Poynter won't say exactly how much the company has poured into developing its space balloon, but she predicts by the time it's ready for launch as early as 2016, World View will have spent less than $100 million on development. That means tickets aboard a World View balloon $75,000 each will also cost less than half as much as a ticket on one of Virgin Galactic's flights, she says. "It's all about making space as accessible as possible, so eventually, everyone can go if they so choose," Poynter says. From Biosphere to Balloons World View is just the latest venture for Poynter and her husband, Taber MacCallum, who met in the early `90s as crewmembers in Biosphere 2, an experiment in which a group of researchers spent two years living inside a glass and steel structure to see whether they could live off the land within the enclosed dome. After leaving Biosphere, Poynter and MacCallum launched Paragon Space Development , a company that creates life support systems for organizations like NASA, with the eventual hope of supporting manned missions to Mars. Last fall, however, Poynter and MacCallum announced they were stepping down from their role at Paragon to focus full time on World View, an idea that Poynter says MacCallum first proposed back in 2011. The pair had spent years talking to astronauts about their travels to space, Poynter says, and always heard it described as a life-changing experience. They decided they wanted to recreate that experience for other people, but the challenge was figuring out how. It wasn't until MacCallum suggested using balloon technology, which had traditionally been used to carry equipment such as weather observation gear to near-space, that Poynter and MacCallum felt they had an idea that was actually achievable. "If you're not getting into developing a new rocket or designing a spacecraft, it doesn't require completely new technology," Poynter says. "It seemed like an incredibly accessible way to do it." Getting to Space Sooner When it's complete, World View's balloon will consist of three parts: a helium balloon, not unlike the ones NASA has used for years to take payloads to space; a standard parafoil used by the military that World View has adapted to its own needs; and a capsule that borrows from existing spacecraft design. "We don't have to invent technology," Poynter says. "We're just pushing the boundaries of how this technology is being used." All this means World View may be able to begin shuttling passengers to space sooner, and more affordably, than other players in this field. According to Poynter, tickets have already been selling. In the meantime, World View has begun working with NASA on commercial applications for its technology. Just last weekend, World View completed its first major commercial mission, carrying research equipment built by university students to near space as part of NASA's Flight Opportunities Program. The goal of this program is to let researchers take advantage of the growing number of commercial flight companies out there. World View's balloon allows these researchers to test how their technology performs at a fraction of the cost of other types of technology. "These devices can't be tested on the ground, so getting them to those altitudes, above the majority of the atmosphere, you can see these instruments work in the vacuum of space," says Ron Young, program manager for NASA Flight Opportunities. "These balloons are give us a huge advantage in terms of a gaining cost effective access to space-like environments." And for World View, this partnership means the company can begin bringing in revenue to fund more research and development for its space tourism business, which could take several more years to, quite literally, get off the ground. But when it does, Poynter says she'll be first in line for the journey. "I could give you all these high concept ideals about why we're doing this," Poynter says, "but at the end of the day, its because I want to go."
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The struggling world economy can mean great deals for tourists. Here are five places where prices have dropped and exchange rates favor American travelers.
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Here's a breakdown of what data points to know about Obamacare. As of February 22, 2015, nearly 11.7 million people had signed up.
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Hate it when this happensâ¦
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The Cowboys didn't wait long to find a replacement for DeMarco Murray. Darren McFadden signed a two-year deal worth a possible $5.85 million with a $200,000 signing bonus. McFadden, 27, arrived at Valley Ranch on Friday. The Cowboys lost Murray to NFC East rival Philadelphia on Thursday, with Murray signing a five-year, $42 million contract, with $21 million guaranteed. McFadden will get far less than that. The Oakland Raiders selected McFadden with the No. 4 overall choice in 2008, 18 picks before the Cowboys took McFadden's Arkansas backfield mate, Felix Jones. McFadden, though, has had an injury-plagued career, missing 29 games in his seven seasons. He has dealt with toe, knee, hamstring, shoulder, groin, foot and ankle injuries. In 2014, he played a full 16-game season for the first time in his career. McFadden has 1,038 career carries for 4,247 yards, a 4.1 per carry average, and 25 touchdowns. He has caught 211 passes for 1,769 yards and five touchdowns. And he has lost 12 of 17 fumbles in his career. The Cowboys remain likely to draft a running back, with holdovers Joseph Randle, Lance Dunbar, Ryan Williams and newcomer McFadden fighting for roster spots and eventually playing time. Murray had 497 touches for the Cowboys last season, including 449 in the regular season. McFadden has never had more than 270 touches in a season. Dunbar, Randle and Williams have combined for 293 touches in their careers. So it could end up being running back by committee for the Cowboys.
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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. Kevin White wanted to show NFL scouts that he's more than just a fast wide receiver, setting out to showcase his ability to run routes and catch passes at West Virginia's pro day on Friday. White ran a 4.35-second 40-yard dash at the NFL Combine. He didn't participate in timed drills Friday but took 15 throws from former teammate Clint Trickett. "People are talking about my 40 time and how fast and well I did," White said. "But now the question mark is am I great route runner? Can I move and get in and out of my route and catch the ball? I thought I answered those questions today. "Whatever I have to prove I'm the number one guy, I'll do it. I'm not trying to hide anything. I love competing and coming out here and have fun" White and Alabama's Amari Cooper are projected first-round picks in next month's draft and both want to be the first wide receiver taken. White said he would be perfectly happy being picked fourth overall in the draft by the Oakland Raiders, who are starting fresh with new coach Jack Del Rio. "I feel like I'm the best receiver in the draft class, hands down," White said. "I'm not taking anything away from the other guys from the draft class. Me and Cooper had words and we're cool. Being a competitor, I have to say myself, even if I wasn't." White had a breakout season in 2014, setting a school record with at least 100 yards receiving in the first seven games. His production slowed late in the season as teams double covered him. White was selected a second-team All-American and was a finalist for the Biletnikoff Award, which went to Cooper as the nation's outstanding receiver. White finished with 109 catches for 1,447 yards and 10 touchdowns. None were more impressive than his one-handed, over-the-shoulder catch in the end zone with Baylor's Xavien Howard draping him. "He just attacks the ball phenomenally," Trickett said. "Anytime it's up there, he wants it to be his. He makes sure it is his, and if it's not his, he makes sure it's not going to be someone else's." White said he was trying to "be pretty" and catch Friday's last throw over his shoulder and ended up dropping it. "I should've just caught the ball," he said. "I just wanted to show the scouts how versatile (I am). I thought I did a good job today." Eleven other West Virginia players participating in drills Friday, among them wide receiver Mario Alford. Alford improved on his 4.43 time in the 40 from the NFL combine, running a 4.28 on Friday.
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McDonald's is supposedly considering adding popular health food kale to the menu. It would be part of a series of changes made to help the fast food chain's image. Patrick Jones (@Patrick_E_Jones) has the rest.
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The Pittsburgh Steelers announced Friday that they have agreed to a new five-year contract with quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. Financial terms were not revealed. Roethlisberger was in the final year of an eight-year, $102 million deal and was set to make $11.6 million in 2015. Roethlisberger, 33, has led the Steelers to two Super Bowl victories (and a loss) in 11 seasons as their quarterback. He had one of his best seasons in 2014, setting career highs by completing 67.1 percent of his passes for 4,952 yards and 32 touchdowns. The Steelers lost a home wild-card game to the Baltimore Ravens to conclude the season. At a conference announcing the deal Friday, Steelers president Art Rooney II stressed the importance keeping the franchise quarterback so the team can contend for more titles. "Having Ben has been a great run that we've had," he said, "so we're really excited to continue the opportunity that having a player like Ben gives us to be competitive and to try and compete for championships. There's no other way to do it these days in the league." Roethlisberger said, "This is where I want to be, and I'm just happy that I can be here. Our first and foremost goal is winning Lombardi Trophies. I think we've got a good young football team with a lot of talent and a lot of ability, and that's what I said coming over here: Is there room in that trophy case for more trophies? Because that's got to be our goal."
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Thanks to some bikes and a bunny, this summer an international audience will discover what the locals already know: Utrecht is a vibrant, architecturally distinctive and happening place hidden in the shadow of Amsterdam, its famous neighbor to the north. My most recent visit to the Dutch city of 330,000 was in early February, when one of the few signs of its anointment as the host of the "Grand Depart" for this year's Tour de France was a minimalist statue of a red bicycle in the town center. In July, the world-famous bike race will stage its start here before moving on to France, a two-day event expected to draw a couple hundred bike racers and upwards of 750,000 spectators. A 100-day countdown of celebratory activities kicks off March 26. Even without such fanfare, Utrecht, in the Netherlands, is lively. With more than 70,000 students at the city's two universities, there's always something going on and a lot of people going out. I live an hour away, in the opposite direction from Amsterdam, so I drove in and brought my bike. Because many tourists arrive by train from Amsterdam, a 30-minute trip, I started my tour at the station which means at the mall. Yep, the only route from the central station into a medieval town full of character is through a modern shopping center devoid of it, a sad fact that will happily change with a planned, years-long station overhaul. Many locals pride themselves in hating the Hoog Catharijne mall, but there are a couple things worth checking out before you head into town. First, there's the aforementioned bunny. The mall presents your earliest opportunity to meet Miffy in this incarnation a 6-foot-tall plastic statue, which kids (and some adults) hug, kiss and climb over but it will not be the last: If you don't already know Miffy, you will by the time you leave Utrecht. The beloved bunny star of children's books that have sold more than 85 million copies in dozens of languages, plus two television series and a movie was created by native son Dick Bruna. Although you wouldn't know it by her baby-smooth skin, Miffy (who goes by Nijntje in Dutch) just turned 60. To celebrate, she gets two new museum exhibits and a turn as the Tour de France's mascot, with her likeness topping the race's pace cars. One worthwhile stop before fleeing the mall is a little-known overlook from the top floor of the V&D department store. Take four escalators up to reach its restaurant and patio, from which the eastern expanse of the city unfolds, including the 368-foot Dom Tower, an Utrecht landmark. Later, if you're able, you should climb the Dom's 465 steps to the top for a stellar view of the region all the way to Amsterdam, 25 miles away, on a clear day. Although Utrecht is walkable, from here you might want to rent a bike and join the multitude of two-wheelers. I cycled toward the Centraal Museum via the still-sleepy Oudegracht ("Old Canal"), a curving brick-lined street that by the afternoon would become clogged with pedestrians. The Oudegracht, Utrecht's version of a promenade, follows the city's main waterway and is lined with shops and bustling cafes. Below street level, along the 11th-century canals, lies the city's most distinctive architectural feature: its system of brick wharfs and cellars. The wharfs started as docking areas for delivery boats, while the cellars were used for storage. These days, many of the narrow, deep cellars serve as apartments and businesses. Stairways allow you to climb from canal level to street level, and many restaurants have water-facing patios both up- and downstairs. From spring through fall, a parade of tour boats, private motorboats, paddle boats and kayaks traverse the waterways, turning Oudegracht into an even merrier destination. My visit to the Centraal Museum was quick, because most wings were closed for a renovation adding exhibit space and an airier design, which has since been completed. The permanent collection here contains both historical and contemporary works and includes a fantastic assortment of furniture by Dutch architects and designers Piet Klaarhamer and his famed student, Gerrit Rietveld, who created the iconic "Red and Blue Chair," the furniture version of a Mondrian painting. The museum also oversees the Rietveld Schröder House, 10 minutes away by bicycle (and if you're still on foot, you can borrow a bike from the museum). The house, reflecting the early 20th-century De Stijl movement, is on the UNESCO World Heritage List. In the bunny department, the exhibit "Miffy, From 1955 to Today," runs from summer to early fall and has areas for adults and children. On Sept. 5, the museum will inaugurate a permanent re-creation of Bruna's studio, using furnishings and materials donated by the 87-year-old illustrator and writer. A short hop across the street and also part of the museum is the Dick Bruna House, a paean to all things Nijntje (and her creator) and soon to be renamed the Miffy Museum. The building closes July 6 for a complete refurbishment, with an expected reopening in December. I hope they keep my favorite part a small room whose walls are plastered with Miffy books in dozens of languages. Rounding out the rabbit hunt, I tracked down the cute Miffy traffic lights in front of the Bijenkorf department store and the Miffy sculpture on the Nijntje Pleintje (it means square, and the name rhymes in Dutch). The diminutive bronze statue was made by Bruna's son, Marc. "That's a lot smaller than I expected," I said to a woman planting daffodil bulbs in a dirt bed there. "Everyone says that, but I think it suits our little square," she said. "It's nice that so many people come by to see her." Conveniently, I'd ended up just around the corner from one of my favorite shops, Eindhoven. Heinz Schiller opened the shop in late 2013 to showcase emerging Dutch designers. Its name is a nod to the Design Academy Eindhoven, an hour south, whose many famous graduates include clever clockmaker Maarten Baas and the creative team at Job, Joris & Marieke, an animation studio whose short film "A Single Life" was nominated for an Oscar this year. (The studio also made an adorable film for Utrecht to promote the Tour de France.) Schiller looks for up-and-coming talent, especially during the annual Dutch Design Week. "We like to help give them a place to start, because it's not so easy to find that in the beginning," he said. To celebrate the Tour, Schiller was displaying three fantastical bikes by metal artist Victor Sonna that look like they'd ridden off a Dali painting, with crazy curves and vinelike handlebars. Other items in the store included a sophisticated slate-covered buffet from prolific designer Stephan Siepermann and colorful mod-looking vinyl-cushioned stools and benches by Visser & Meijwaard. I headed for my other favorite design spot, Workshop of Wonders, a high-end shop that showcases international designers and studios that have already emerged. Every four months, owner Gerrit Vos turns his showroom into a themed exhibit. Up through May is "Northern Delights," featuring new creations from northern Europe, include Denmark's Noergaard-Kechayas and Stefan Diez of Germany. And, mais oui, Vos promises to highlight French studios come Tour time. The focus of the city center is the cathedral tower (the unfinished cathedral collapsed centuries ago). Even if you don't take the tour to the top, at least give the tower a look and consider that it sits atop the remains of the original Roman city, dating back 2,000 years. A new attraction that opened in the summer, Dom Under, takes visitors through both authentic and re-created ruins. At the recommendation of a friend who knows I favor lunch spots that focus on fresh ingredients without making a big deal about it, I popped into Daen's to refuel. I was impressed that Daen's makes its own hummus, ketchup, granola and other items that are easy enough to buy not the Dutch norm. The cozy and colorful cafe and wine bar is connected to a trendy clothing store of the same name. In warmer weather, I would have headed to Daen's patio for some serious people-watching. Owner Willem Van Oostrum, who opened the shop a few years ago in the former fire station, told me he's noticed a surge in visitors and a new wave of stores and restaurants in the last few years. "It's nice to see people looking outside of Amsterdam for something to do," he said. "Utrecht is compact, a little more authentic." It's also getting a little cooler, too, in part thanks to Puha, a clothing and lifestyle shop featuring young designers. The owners literally put the stylish side of Utrecht on the map with its Puha Shop Route, a fold-out map and app that notes the "in" spots for eating, drinking, shopping and sleeping. Several of those places are their neighbors on Voorstraat, a once-seedy address. "It used to be a not-so-nice back alley, and now it's the center of things," said co-owner Taam Karsdorp. She and her partner, Said Belhadj, opened the store five years ago in part to give creative friends a reason to stay in Utrecht. "I thought, I'm going to create a place for them to sell their work," Karsdorp said. "When we started, there were just a few little shops. Now it's a whole scene." Voorstraat standouts include Revenge, selling fashion-forward clothing and shoes for men and women, with a hair salon in the back; and Klijs & Boon, known for its exclusive Scandinavian labels, including Danish designers Henrik Vibskov and Han Kjøbenhavn. If Utrecht has a hipster headquarters, it's surely the Village Coffee, a tattoo-filled joint where you almost always have to speak loudly to be heard. It was started by two locals after both had spent time in the United States. Lennaert Meijboom became interested in coffee production while working for a surfing company in Hawaii, and Angelo van de Weerd studied up on coffee culture when he was a roadie with a Belgian rock band touring the East Coast. (The shop often hosts warm-up shows for touring bands playing larger venues.) "I really got into the whole coffee-shop scene," said van de Weerd. "At home, we only had chains and super-boring shops." On my last stop, at a tiny boutique called the Hunted, I met owners Joyce Snijders and Soleil Sturm, who have become local celebrities for selling a line of clothing stamped with "Utca," an underground nickname for Utrecht. It started when they took their original streetwear designs to a fashion trade show in Amsterdam and a prospective buyer asked them what part of the city they were from. "I said, 'We're not from Amsterdam, we're from Utrecht,' " Snijders recalled. "He said, 'Good luck with that.' " The women, in their 20s, turned the snub into inspiration and unveiled the clothing line they call Utca's Finest. "It's just exploded," Snijders says. "Until January, we only had an online store, but everyone begged us to open a shop. People tell us they can't wait to wear our Utca shirts outside of Utrecht, especially in Amsterdam." More from Travel : Travel Guide Ski Guide Caribbean Guide Diane Daniel lives in Veldhoven, the Netherlands. She can be contacted at www.bydianedaniel.com.
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If you give too much credence to mainstream diet trends, you're pretty much doomed. Maybe you'll identify with the Paleo culture and become convinced that eating like a caveman is the way of the future. Or maybe you'll jump on the "carbohydrates are the source of all your weight loss woes" bandwagon and subscribe to ketogenic dieting. Maybe you'll take it a step farther with more extreme things like cleanses, unclogging hormones and biohacking. The truth is: There is no "one true diet." While this concept doesn't have the sizzle to sell millions of books and millions in supplements, it works . What is the truth about dieting? It has several parts, or tiers, and can be envisioned as a pyramid of descending importance that looks like this: Energy Balance Macronutrient Balance Food Choices Nutrient Timing Let's look at each of the layers in detail. No. 1: Energy Balance Energy balance is the overarching principle of dieting. This dictates your weight gain and loss more than anything else. Energy balance is the relationship between the energy you feed your body and the energy it expends. This is often measured in kilocalories. The bottom line is that meaningful weight loss requires you to expend more energy than you consume, and meaningful weight gain (both fat and muscle) requires the opposite more consumption than expenditure. A century of metabolic research has proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that energy balance, operating according to the first law of thermodynamics , is the basic mechanism that regulates fat storage and reduction. No. 2: Macronutrient Balance Next on the diet pyramid is macronutrient balance. In case you're not familiar with the term, the dictionary defines macronutrient as "any of the nutritional components of the diet that are required in relatively large amounts: protein, carbohydrate, fat and minerals such as calcium, zinc, iron, magnesium and phosphorous." You've probably heard that "a calorie is a calorie," and while that's true for matters relating purely to energy balance and weight loss and gain, a calorie is not a calorie when we're talking body composition. Sure, you can follow Professor Mark Haub's lead and lose weight by eating nothing but protein shakes, Twinkies, Doritos, Oreos and Little Debbie snacks. But we don't want to just gain and lose weight. Our goal is more specific: We want to gain more muscle than fat and we want to lose fat, not muscle. And with those goals, we have to watch more than just calories. We have to watch our macronutrient intake too. If you want to go beyond "weight loss" and learn to optimize your body composition, the macronutrient you have to watch most closely is protein. Your carbohydrate and dietary fat intakes can be all over the place without derailing you, but eating too little protein is the cardinal sin of dieting for us fitness folk. Eat too little protein while restricting your calories for fat loss and you'll lose a significant amount of muscle as well. (This is why weight loss isn't enough. Lose muscle and you lose weight, but you're going backward in your quest to build an impressive physique.)Eat too little protein while eating a surplus of calories to maximize muscle growth and you'll build less muscle. This is one of the reasons "bulking" has a bad rap. When done improperly, it packs on way more fat than muscle and is counterproductive in the long run. What is too little protein? If you're relatively lean and aren't dieting for fat loss, you should set your protein intake at 0.8 to 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight per day. If you're relatively lean and are dieting for fat loss, you should increase your intake slightly to 1 to 1.2 grams per pound of bodyweight per day. ( Research shows the leaner you are, the more protein your body will need to preserve muscle while in a calorie deficit for fat loss.) If you're overweight or obese, your first priority should be fat loss, and your protein intake should be set at 1 to 1.2 grams per pound of lean mass per day. No. 3: Food Choices There are no such things as "weight loss" or "weight gain" foods. They are figments of diet hucksters' imaginations. As Professor Haub showed proved, you can lose fat eating whatever you want so long as you regulate your intake and maintain a state of negative energy balance. However, certain foods make it easier or harder to lose and gain weight due to their volume, calorie density, and macronutrient breakdown. Generally speaking, foods that are "good" for weight loss are those that are relatively low in calories but high in volume. Examples of such foods are lean meats, whole grains, many fruits and vegetables and low-fat dairy. These types of foods also provide an abundance of micronutrients, which are especially important when your calories are restricted. Foods not conducive to weight loss are high in calories and low in volume and satiety. These foods include caloric beverages, candy, bacon and other sugar-laden goodies. Quite a few "healthy" foods fall into this category as well: oils, butter, low-fiber fruits, and whole fat dairy products, for example. The more we fill our meal plans with calorie-dense, low-satiety foods, the more likely we are to get hungry and overeat. As a rule of thumb, if you get the majority ( approximately 80 percent) of your calories from unprocessed, nutrient-dense foods, you can fill the remaining 20 percent with your favorite dietary sins and be as healthy, muscular and lean as ever. No. 4: Nutrient Timing Last on the pyramid is nutrient timing and the simple fact is: How often you eat and when you eat do not really matter. Increasing meal frequency doesn't speed up your metabolism. Eating carbs at night doesn't make you fat. The "anabolic window" is more fiction than fact. One of the many beauties of our bodies is they are incredibly good at adapting to meet the physical demands we place on them, and so long as you get the other points of the pyramid right, you have a lot of leeway here at the bottom. That said, I do think it's worth noting that there is evidence that eating protein, in particular after a workout, is better for long-term muscle growth. Personally I play it safe and eat about 40 grams of protein within an hour of weightlifting, and I'd recommend you do the same. The Bottom Line If you've struggled to find a diet that actually works, you now know the way. Learn how to manipulate energy balance, keep protein intake high and adjust carbohydrate and fat to meet your needs and preferences, eat a wide variety of nutritious foods "supplemented" with some indulgences, and eat on a schedule you prefer, and you'll never look back.
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WASHINGTON, March 13 (Reuters) - An Iraq War veteran pleaded guilty on Friday to charges of running into the White House armed with a knife before being tackled, a security breach that helped lead to a shake-up in the U.S. Secret Service. Omar Gonzalez was charged with climbing over the White House fence on Sept. 19 and racing across the north lawn. He burst through the front door and reached as far as the executive mansion's East Room before Secret Service agents subdued him. "Are you guilty?" U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer asked Gonzalez, who was dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit. "Yes, yes, your honor," said Gonzalez, formerly of Copperas Cove, Texas. He gave his age as 43, though prosecutors had said he was 42. Gonzalez was carrying a folding knife when he was arrested and told a Secret Service agent that he needed to tell President Barack Obama that the atmosphere was collapsing. The Obamas were not in the White House when the incident occurred. Gonzalez, who has no prior convictions and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, pleaded guilty to federal charges of illegal entry with a dangerous weapon and assault on a federal officer. He faces up to 10 years in prison for the illegal entry charge and eight years for the assault accusation, plus hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. Collyer said prosecutors and the defense had agreed that sentencing guidelines called for 12 to 18 months in prison and possible fines. Sentencing is set for June 8. Gonzalez will also undergo supervised release after he leaves prison, and conditions include avoiding contact with the Secret Service, Collyer said. The security breach was among a series of embarrassments for the Secret Service, which is charged with guarding the president and his family. The agency's director stepped down in October. In the most recent incident, two senior agents are under investigation after driving a government car through an area at the White House where colleagues were investigating a suspicious package. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, said in a statement the car crash allegations added to incidents that had caused Americans to question confidence in the agency. But he said he was encouraged that the agency had asked the Homeland Security Department's inspector general to investigate the incident. "My committee will continue its oversight to help restore the integrity of the Secret Service," he said.
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AVONDALE, Ariz. Kurt Busch returned to the NASCAR garage Friday, preparing to make his 2015 Sprint Cup Series debut at the same track where allegations of domestic violence first came to light last November. Busch is back in the No. 41 Chevrolet, sponsored by Stewart-Haas Racing co-owner Gene Haas. But the moniker over his door no longer reads ''Outlaw.'' Instead, Busch's signature is there in white lettering. Busch's suspension -- in effect since Feb. 20 -- was lifted by NASCAR on Wednesday after three races when Busch met the sanctioning body's terms. He met an outside expert's program guidelines and was not criminally charged for the alleged act against his ex-girlfriend. His Stewart-Haas Racing teammates said they were pleased to welcome back the 2004 Cup champion at Phoenix International Raceway. "I think everybody is just excited we're able to put it all behind us," Kevin Harvick said Friday. "I don't really know much about it other than it seems like it's on its way to being over. Having Kurt back in the car is an asset to everybody at Stewart-Haas Racing. Everything he does inside that race car is a benefit to us. Definitely looking forward to just worrying about racing the cars." Danica Patrick, who swapped teams with Busch late last year, said having the intended SHR driver lineup back together was "good in and of itself." "For anyone who has been involved in legal and law proceedings of any kind, you know there's no timeline for any of it things take a long time and then they just happen," she said Thursday. "I'm really glad to have him back as a teammate. But you can never anticipate when the time will come when you know (about legal situations being resolved)." NASCAR said this week Busch would be eligible for the Chase if he wins and is in the top 30 in points by the cutoff. Follow Gluck on Twitter @jeff_gluck
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Watch A-10 player of the year Tyler Kalinoski win the game for Davidson with this driving layup as time expired in the Wildcats' 67-66 comeback win over La Salle.
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New footage has emerged of the three British schoolgirls who went missing last month - apparently to join the so-called Islamic State in Syria.
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. If Florida's games against Kentucky this season had only been 23 to 30 minutes long, the Gators would've been golden against the top-ranked Wildcats . As each contest lasted the standard 40 minutes, though, Florida was instead swept in three meetings and swept away Friday in the Southeastern Conference quarterfinals. As they did in two previous upset attempts, the Gators took it to Kentucky early and hung around into the second half. Also similar, however: the Cats' closing kick to outclass their overmatched opponent. UK stayed unbeaten with a 64-49 win at Bridgestone Arena, better known as Rupp Arena South, and will face the winner of Auburn-LSU in Saturday's semifinal.Florida (16-17) made the Cats (32-0) work for a while. The Gators jumped out to a 10-5 lead in the first four minutes, outscoring super-sized UK 8-2 in the paint. But freshman Karl-Anthony Towns' ferocious rebounding he had eight first-half boards and twins Andrew and Aaron Harrison's offense steadied the Wildcats. They combined for 13 points on 5-of-10 shooting, with no turnovers, in the first half as Kentucky pushed back for a 31-27 lead at intermission. With 17 minutes to go, Florida was within two points. Sound familiar? The Gators led by nine in the first half and were tied with 12:09 to go in the first meeting. They trailed by just three with 10:28 left in the second. This time, the Cats used a 9-0 run to pull away, punctuated by Aaron Harrison's 3-pointer in transition that made it 42-31 with 14:03 remaining. Florida had a little fight left, cutting the deficit down to five with almost eight minutes to go but then Towns snared an offensive rebound, banked in the putback and got fouled. His three-point play all but buried Florida. Freshman Tyler Ulis' 3-pointer with 4:37 left was the dagger. When it dropped, UK led by 15 which grew to 17 and he roared. The 20,000-seat arena, filled to the rafters with blue-clad Cats fans, roared with him. And Kentucky's unblemished run rolls on. Aaron Harrison finished with 13 points, Andrew with nine. They hit 8 of 17 shots. Towns had 13 points, 12 rebounds (six offensive) and a block. Junior 7-footer Willie Cauley-Stein had nine points, four boards and two blocks. Kyle Tucker writes for The Courier-Journal, a Gannett paper.
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Dropping a molten nickel ball onto objects yields interesting results, but the scientists are most interested when it's dropped in water.
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The words barefoot, beleaguered and body-searched best describe how air travel feels anymore, but Richard Branson and his team of red-uniformed Virgin Atlantic employees are doing their darndest to bring back the glory days with the help of several new 787 Dreamliners . "This aircraft is a game changer for us; it's the most cutting edge plane out there," explains Nik Lusardi, design manager for the airline. He's right about that; the Dreamliner boasts larger windows, spacious "vaulted" ceilings, better cabin humidity and a seriously quieter ride. This plane is the Mercedes of the airways right now and Lusardi's team gave it a distinctly Virgin spin with clever solutions to the problem of fixed space. Indeed, the interior is an impressive stylistic and space achievement. Consider the ordinary seat pocket reimagined into a softer, more expandable item for more give to keep knees from rubbing against it during flight. With all of the small tweaks, Lusardi's team was ultimately able to squeeze in 1 ½ inches of more legroom per seat without removing anything no minor achievement. Lusardi admits they ruffled some feathers along the way, "The manufacturers get really tired of us because we were always asking for special modifications," such as the built in neck pillow for each seat and a better seat cushion for maximum padding. Boarding the Dreamliner is its own glamorous moment. The entire plane is bathed in a relaxing lilac and orange glow part of a special lighting system that took Lusardi and his team seven weeks to perfect. They designed lighting for arrival, take-off, nighttime and work time. They even managed to develop a special window dimmer (no shades on this aircraft) so that natural light can be tuned to body clocks. The TV screen, (each passenger gets a screen ranging from 9" to 11" wide) is thinner, and all of the trims and finishes are swanky, with rich dark browns and red tones. "We made sure we expressed the Virgin DNA throughout," says Lusardi. The plane is also one of the first to have international Wi-Fi as well as new technology such as InSeat Chat, which allows you to send messages to other passengers during the flight, and USB ports in each seat. In the Upper Class cabin, the trademark Virgin bar positively glows because of special mica added to the textured Corian surface. It's all a bit dazzling as flight attendants circle around taking drink orders. Both the Upper Class bar and the Economy Comfort "Wonder Wall" (a dedicated area with self-serve snacks and drinks) were designed to promote customer interaction. "Our fliers want to be social. Having these spaces is important to us as a brand," says Lusardi. He admits the design process was a huge challenge, but he notes, "It would be boring if it wasn't a challenge." If a Dreamliner isn't on your preferred route, take heart, they ordered 16 in all and expect delivery of 15 by 2018. Currently the planes are flying from JFK, Newark, Washington and Boston.
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SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - Idaho lawmakers have passed a bill banning indoor tanning for children under 13 and requiring parental consent for those aged 14 to 18 to address the state's rising skin cancer rate. The bill, which must still be signed or vetoed by the governor, passed the Idaho legislature this week after emotional testimony from skin cancer survivors and pleas by groups such as the American Medical Association to address the nation's growing incidence of melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. The legislation is similar to laws in place in states such as Delaware and New Hampshire, said Karmen Hanson, program manager for the National Conference of State Legislatures. But she said it is not as restrictive as bans in California and 10 other states, where anyone under 18 is prohibited from using ultraviolet tanning devices. Forty-one states regulate the use of tanning facilities by children or teens, she said. In 2012 and 2013, Idaho lawmakers rejected more restrictive teen tanning bans after appeals by the indoor tanning industry for the state to adhere to its tradition of limiting government. But leaders of the Republican-controlled legislature who sponsored this year's legislation pointed to a call last year by the U.S. Acting Surgeon General to reduce sun-bed usage to help prevent skin cancer, and an announcement in May by the federal Food and Drug Administration that it was reclassifying tanning beds as moderate risk devices, from low risk. State Representative John Rusche, the Lewiston Democrat who had twice pushed for broad bans on indoor tanning by teens, said on Friday that the measure sent to Governor C. L. "Butch" Otter, who has not said if he will sign it, is a step in the right direction. "It certainly will lower the UV exposure among pre-teens and early teens and reinforce for parents that they really shouldn't be having kids exposed to cancer-causing radiation," said Rusche, a pediatrician. But John Overstreet, head of the Indoor Tanning Association, said opponents of indoor tanning are overstating the link between the devices and skin cancer. "There is no science that supports moderate exposure to ultraviolet light, inside or outside, as a dangerous risk," he said. Melanoma rates have been rising for the past three decades, according to the American Cancer Society, and it is the most common form of cancer for Americans aged 15 to 29. (Reporting by Laura Zuckerman; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Sandra Maler)
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health
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A rogue owl that has terrorised a northern Dutch city for the past year, forcing citizens to arm themselves with umbrellas at night, has finally been caught, officials announced Friday. Dubbed the "terror owl" by residents of Purmerend north of Amsterdam, the aggressive European eagle owl is suspected of more than 50 attacks on humans, swooping silently from above and leaving many of its victims bloody and bruised. "The animal was trapped by a falconer today," the Purmerend city council said in a statement, issued Friday evening. "It's in good health and is currently being kept in a temporary facility awaiting a transfer once a proper permanent home has been found," it added. The large owl is suspected of a spate of mysterious attacks on citizens over the last year, prompting the city to advise evening strollers to arm themselves with umbrellas for protection against aerial assaults. "The attacks were getting heavier," the city said, adding "many people were afraid to go out of their homes." As the owl is a protected animal, the city had to get special permission to trap the creature. Once that was granted, a falconer set out on a bird-hunt. In one of the owl's many assaults, two members of a local athletics clubs were attacked last month, with one runner requiring stitches for six head wounds caused by the nocturnal bird of prey's talons. Owl experts have said the bird's behaviour was unusual, meaning it was either raised in captivity and associated humans with food, or had heightened hormone levels because of the start of the breeding season. The European eagle owl is one of the largest owl species, with a wing-span of up to 1.80 metres (almost six feet) and weighing up to three kilos (seven pounds). City council member Mario Hegger said he had mixed feelings about the owl's capture. "On the one hand, you would of course rather leave such a magnificent beast alone," he said in the statement. "But on the other hand, the situation could not continue. We had to do something," Hegger said.
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Dear complete and total strangers at Costco, I know you watched as we navigated our vehicle into the crowded parking lot. You stood in awe as we wedged our trendy 15 passenger mega-van into a parking space between a two door Miata and a very roomy shoebox-on-wheels called a Smart Car. You saw us attempt to unload our family with as much class, decorum and organization as we could humanly muster… and 23 minutes later file toward Costco with our seven progeny and three carts for our weekly shopping trip. I can only imagine your thoughts as one wailing child sported an open-toed sandal on his right foot and a rubber boot covered in duct tape on the left. You correctly saw that a second child was wearing pajama pants at least three sizes too short paired with a faded Thomas The Train pajama shirt, because he refuses to dress with his eyes open. I've given up. Our toddler sported an ensemble perfect for an afternoon on a yacht. Another youngster was flawlessly dressed for a cold afternoon at a ski resort. The child sitting in the cart wailing was doing so, not because he hates shopping at Costco on the contrary but because we don't let him shop at Costco naked. You stared at our mobile carnival with a slight measure of horror and a greater measure of bewilderment. "Why on earth do they have SEVEN children?" you asked yourself. Now, I'd like to pause here and take the time to point out that the number seven is really not that large. If I had told you that I owned seven goldfish, you might have curiously asked if I had other pets as well. If I had told you that I owned seven pairs of shoes, you might have shrugged and looked bored. If I had told you that I had seven dollars, you may have found my financial status tremendously lacking. But observing that I have seven children seemed to evoke the same amount of shock as if I had asked you to lasso a bald eagle and eat it with your feet. After making it past the Costco entrance bouncer, we maneuvered our troupe through various onlookers in order to fill up the carts and consume every available food sample. It must have horrified you as you watched a tall, lanky teenager in poorly made cut-offs and a Seahawks jersey scoop up 14 paper samples of microwaveable beef wellington, down them in 3 bites and then reach for more. You see, this kid is the reason we shop at Costco in the first place. I can credit him as the reason we upgraded to the EXECUTIVE Membership after a checker said to me, "Mrs. Diaz, our records indicate that you spend more at Costco than the average family." I'll bet. At our house he is known as The Very Hungry Teenager. This kid can eat an entire meal, then want 2 sandwiches, 3 large carrots, a slice of watermelon, 4 mini bagels with cream cheese, a bowl of cereal topped with a fried egg, 6 pickles and a cookie, then look at everyone at the table and ask with a straight face, "Are you going to finish that?" So you see? We are bound to the Costco warehouse establishment like an airborne rock is bound to the laws of gravity. We practically live at Costco and have made a habit of noticing reactions to our family from fellow patrons who are pushing their carts overloaded with frozen burritos, cheesy-poofs, vats of mayonnaise, candy bars and weight-loss supplements. Since discussing my fertility with complete and total strangers in the cheese aisle is what I LIVE for, I was more than happy to respond to your impertinent curiosity. In fact, fellow club members, I have loved answering your varied questions so much that I've compiled a list for you to refer to in case you happen to encounter us again, and so others who remain unaware can be ready for us with NEW questions next time around. Ready? Here we go. Q: Cute baby. Is she your last? A: This year, yes. Q: Why do you have so many kids? A: Because it will increase our odds of ending up in a good nursing home. Q: Do all of your kids have the same dad? A: Uh…so far…. Q: What is your food bill like each month? A: How much is your mortgage? Q: How will you ever pay for all of their college tuition? A: Well bless your heart for taking a look at us collectively and still believing my kids could qualify for entrance into any institution that isn't traveling with trained animals, acrobats and clowns. Q: Does it get pretty loud at your house? A. Didn't catch that. What did you say? Q: Are you trying to be like that other family? The one on TV with the nineteen kids? A: Oh yeah, baby. Because the number 7 is just.so.close. to the number 19. Heck, I'm almost there. Q: Why is that one taking his clothes off? A: Don't worry about him. He'll stop undressing when he realizes we're buying mustard. There now. I hope that satisfied some of your curiosity. Looking back, I'm sure you have subconsciously blocked out the savagery of what you saw in our check-out lane. Let's just say it involved a twirling sister, a sprawling brother, escaped oranges, a Flop Tantrum, and a flying churro. After St. Peter (the receipt angel and exit-guardian), gave us his nod of approval to move on out, we trekked the circus back to the van and headed home. Much to your relief and silent applause, I'm sure. That leaves me here, sipping coffee and recollecting another Costco adventure that I look forward to each and every week. You are always welcome to join us on our next shopping trip, of course. We like new friends. I'll even put you to work pushing a cart. But you'll have to swear upon chocolate milk that you won't show us up by dressing like normal people do. Which means you'll need to be wearing attire suitable for a day on a yacht. Or a slumber party. Or a ski resort. The post To the Complete and Total Strangers From Costco appeared first on Scary Mommy .
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Having beaten Florida on March 7 to complete a perfect 31-0 regular season, Kentucky found itself facing the Gators again just six days later to open the 2015 Southeastern Conference Tournament at Bridgestone Arena. Top-ranked Kentucky won the third meeting this season between the teams, too, eliminating Florida 64-49 and advancing to Saturday's semifinals. "I wasn't happy with how it started, but it was a good win. The kids fought, did the stuff they had to do," Kentucky coach John Calipari said. "But the reality of it is, we didn't play with as much energy as Flroida played with to start the game." Florida defeated Alabama 69-61 in the SEC Tournament on Thursday to advance to Friday's quarterfinals knowing they had to upset Kentucky to keep their slim NCAA Tournament dreams alive. The third matchup of the season proved to be a slugfest as Kentucky (32-0) ended the first half with a slim 31-27 lead over Florida (17-17). But Kentucky began to push away early in the second half. Up 33-31, the Wildcats outscored the Gators 9-0 to grab a 42-31 lead, its largest of the game at that point. Freshman guard Tyler Ulis swished two free throws, freshman forward Trey Lyles hit a jump shot and sophomore guard Aaron Harrison made two free throws followed by a 3-pointer to force a Florida timeout. During the three-minute stretch, Florida missed all three shots from the field and had two turnovers. "It's been an incredible learning experience for me," Florida coach Billy Donovan said. "From the standpoint as a coach, it was a real challenge this year to get them to be a team. They never really wanted to deal with the truth. I'm not sure even today that they are willing to deal with the truth. "I think it was a team a little bit more wrapped up in themselves. They didn't quite understand the level of sacrifice needed." A 3-pointer by senior center Jon Horford stopped the bleeding and the Gators went on a 7-2 run to trim their deficit to 44-38 with 11:51 to play. The game remained close before Kentucky freshman center Karl-Anthony Towns provided some breathing room with an old-fashioned three-point play to make it 53-45. Two free throws by Lyles pushed the margin to 55-45 with 6:42 remaining. A jumper by sophomore guard Andrew Harrison 2:25 gave Kentucky its biggest lead of 17 points at 64-47 and capped a 14-2 run. "They have a will to win," Calipari said. "And we have enough playmaker kind of players -- Andrew to Aaron to Karl and now Trey. We've got a lot of guys that aren't afraid to make the play. To be that kind of player, you cannot be afraid to make the game-winning play. None of those kids are." Towns led Kentucky with a double-double of 13 points and 11 rebounds. Aaron Harrison added 13 points Horford paced Florida with 15 points on 7-of-10 shooting from the field. Junior guard Eli Carter added 11 points. Despite a capacity crowd that was estimated at 95 percent Kentucky fans, Florida made the most noise early, jumping out to a 10-5 lead. The Gators hit five of their first seven shots to force a Kentucky timeout. "I thought we had some moments," Donovan said. "I thought we played very, very well. Certainly, we got off to a good start, which was positive." But during the course of the first half, Kentucky righted itself to retake the lead at 18-17 on a full-court steal and drive by freshman guard Devin Booker with 8:40 to play in the half. From that point, neither team was able to secure control, though Kentucky did break away from a one-point game with 2:24 to play to build the four-point advantage at intermission. Kentucky shot just 36 percent from the field (12-of-33) in the first half. Andrew Harrison led the scoring with seven points and Aaron Harrison added six. Towns scored only four points but had eight of Kentucky's 19 rebounds. Florida finished the first half shooting 45 percent from the floor (13-of-29). Hill and Horford led the Gators with six points each. NOTES: Kentucky entered postseason play on the heels of a 31-0 perfect regular season. It was the first time in 39 years that a member of a power-five conference accomplished the feat. Indiana was the last in 1976 and went on to finish 36-0. ... Kentucky's 31-0 record also marked the first time a Southeastern Conference team completed the regular season undefeated. ... Kentucky became the first team since Nevada-Las Vegas in 1990 to go from start to finish as the No. 1 team in the AP poll. ... Florida's Billy Donovan became the second coach to reach 500 victories before his 50th birthday. He was 49 years, 274 days. Bob Knight was 48 years, 81 days.
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PHOENIX President Barack Obama says there's still work to do to fix problems in the Veterans Affairs Department. Obama is making his first visit to the veterans' hospital in Phoenix. That's where treatment delays triggered a national examination last year into health care services for veterans. Obama says everyone knows there have been significant problems at the Phoenix facility. He says VA Secretary Robert McDonald is "chipping away" at the problems. Obama says he joins Arizona's senators in their concern that information isn't getting out to veterans. He's also pointing to mental health and suicide prevention as areas that still need work. Obama says trust can be lost quickly. He's promoting the need to restore trust and confidence in the VA system.
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news
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Silly Psaki, coups are for kids! And by kids we mean the entire span of American history.
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Marc Jacobs's new fragrance is set to launch this summer at Sephora, with the designer returning to his roots with a gardenia-based scent. Mod Noir will use the same floral notes Jacobs used on his first foray into the fragrance over 10 years ago, Women's Wear Daily reports. According to the site, the new perfume will hit Sephora shelves in the US in June and launch globally in July. Jacobs has worked with perfumer Jean-Claude Delville at Symrise on the new scent, which reportedly features green top notes, a gardenia core and musky overtones. It will come in two sizes (1 oz. and 1.7 oz.) as well as a rollerball version. "When fragrances first started, I was superexcited about being able to do it," Jacobs told Women's Wear Daily, "and I thought, 'Well, we'll see how it goes. If it works, then we'll do more, and if it doesn't, we'll try again to do something else.' The best test is the customer." Mod Noir will join the ranks of Jacobs's successful fragrance creations, including Daisy, Honey, Dot and Marc Jacobs Men.
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American Conference player of the year Nic Moore scored 20 points and the top-seeded Mustangs (25-6) held off East Carolina 74-68 Friday in the quarterfinals of the American Athletic Conference. Markus Kennedy, the league's sixth man of the year, added 15 points and six rebounds. SMU lost to Houston in their opening game of the 2014 AAC and ended up as runner-ups in the NIT. This year, the Mustangs were tied with the eighth-seeded Pirates at 64 with 4 1/2 minutes left. But SMU closed the game on a 10-4 run, hitting eight free throws down the stretch to win their first conference tournament game in nine years. ''I think last year we probably would have packed it in,'' said Larry Brown, the Mustangs' Hall-of-Fame head coach. ''But we've matured a little bit, and I think have handled adversity much better.'' Terry Whisnant and Antonio Robinson each had 18 points for East Carolina, which made 15 of its 35 3-point shots, but missed its last six attempts from behind the arc. The Pirates finish the season at 14-18. ''We got good looks and as a coach, I think that's what you want,'' said East Carolina coach Jeff Lebo. ''We knew coming in that we would have to shoot a lot of 3s to win this game.'' East Carolina's first six shots Friday were all from 3-point range and they made five of them, taking an early 19-9 lead while holding SMU to 4 of 14 shooting during that span. SMU responded with a 19-3 run, taking a 28-22 lead on a Cannen Cunningham layup. Moore had 11 first-half points and SMU scored 15 points on eight Pirate turnovers to take a 37-32 lead into the half. SMU led by seven points after the opening bucket of the second half. But East Carolina went on a 16-5 run, taking a 48-44 lead on one of Robinson's four 3-pointers. Moore responded with a 3-pointer that sparked a 10-0 run for the Mustangs, who retook the lead on a dunk by Ben Moore. But ECU stayed in the game by hitting 3-pointers. An 11-2 run, featuring 3s from Robinson, Paris Campbell and Whisnant put them back on top 62-61. ECU was 11 of 30 from 3-point range during the team's first meeting, a 77-54 SMU victory. Kennedy put the Mustangs up for good with a conventional 3-point play that made it 67-64. The league's sixth man of the year hit two more to push the lead to 69-64 after drawing the fifth foul on ECU's Marshal Guilmette. ''They came out making shots,'' said SMU guard Ryan Manuel, who hit four of his five shots to finish with eight points. ''They had nothing to lose and I think we just stuck with it and after the game we came out with the win.'' SMU had 17 second-chance points and forced 15 East Carolina turnovers. East Carolina lost three of its last four regular-season games heading into the tournament and needed overtime Thursday to beat UCF by a point. TIP-INS SMU: The Mustangs dominated inside, outscoring ECU 44-16 in the paint, and 17-2 on second-chance opportunities. ...The Mustangs only loss in their last eight games came on this court two weeks ago to UConn. EAST CAROLINA: The Pirates had won four of their last six meetings with SMU, but lost their only regular-season matchup this year by 23 points. Pirates coach Jeff Lebo played for SMU's Larry Brown when Brown coached the NBA's San Antonio Spurs. QUOTEABLE: Jeff Lebo on his team's 3-point shooting: ''As a shooter myself, I don't know why they miss or why they make. I wish I knew that, I'd be doing something else, probably.'' UP NEXT SMU: Plays winner of Friday's quarterfinal matchup between Temple and Memphis. East Carolina: Season over.
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A Canadian opposition leader on Friday compared Prime Minister Stephen Harper's handling of Islam to Russian President Vladimir Putin's crackdown on gays, ratcheting up political rhetoric over the religion as Harper's ruling Conservatives seek re-election in October. Harper said this week that the niqab, a face-covering veil worn by some Muslims, was "rooted in an anti-women culture" as he defended the government's desire to ban women from wearing a niqab during the oath of citizenship. While Canadians and Harper himself typically celebrate multiculturalism, the sudden furor over wearing the niqab comes as Harper's Conservatives warn Canadians they are under threat from "jihadist terrorism," a threat best met by new tougher security legislation Harper will campaign on. Thomas Mulcair, leader of the left-of-center opposition New Democratic Party, on Friday told Ottawa radio station CFRA that Harper was pandering to Islamophobia. "It's not dissimilar to what we see with the president of Russia, who uses a minority there, the lesbian, gay, bisexual community ... and he goes after them with great relish because he knows that it's going to resonate with a part of the population," Mulcair said. Harper spokesman Rob Nicol said Mulcair was fearmongering. "The comparison to Putin is absurd. No Western leader has stood up to Putin's regime and called him out as strongly as Prime Minister Harper and our Conservative government," Nicol said. The government, on heightened alert after two attacks last year on Canadian soldiers in Ottawa and Quebec by Canadian converts to Islam, in January introduced legislation that would allow Canada's spies to interrupt suspected terrorists' travel plans and communications. But the political debate over the bill, broadly condemned by pundits as unnecessary but supported by skittish Canadians, has shifted from security to the place of Muslims in Canadian society, with the niqab as a Conservative vote-winning target. Amira Elghawaby, human rights coordinator at the National Council of Canadian Muslims, said she was very concerned with how Islam was being discussed. "It is extremely important to weigh our words carefully and to be sure that when we're talking about violent extremism and criminal behavior, that we do so without alienating, marginalizing and casting this pall of suspicion over the more than 1 million Canadian Muslims," she said. The opposition Liberals and New Democrats, both to the left of Harper politically, said Canadian women do not need to consult the prime minister on their clothing choices. (Reporting by Randall Palmer)
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As a physician, I'm used to my patients asking, "What would you do if you were me?" when we're discussing treatment options. Over the past few years, though, they started making different inquiries, too, such as: "What do you do to stay healthy?" "How do you find the time to exercise?" "Do you lift weights?" "Do you eat gluten?" "Fat?" "Sugar?" "How do you get your kids to eat vegetables?" And even, "Do you cook?" Clearly, they were craving authoritative guidance on living a healthy lifestyle, but they also wanted to know what worked in the real world. They see me as someone who has a similar lifestyle -- like many of my patients, I balance a demanding job and family responsibilities -- but who also has insider knowledge of what really works and what isn't worth my (or their) time. And from talking to other health-care professionals, I know that my patients weren't the only ones hungry for this information. That's why I teamed up with the editors of Prevention to write What Doctors Eat . We got health experts from around the country to share their personal eating tips, and as we combed through their tips, we noticed a pattern. Although personal tastes differ, the brain doctor, the cardiologist, the oncologist, the obstetrician, the registered dietitian, and the exercise physiologist all follow the same fundamental eating principles. Want to eat like a doctor and stay lean and healthy for life? Think of this list of expert-approved eating rules as your cheat sheet to developing a healthy relationship with food. 1. Eat often. Nearly all health experts stress the importance of eating frequently to keep your metabolism and energy up and to avoid becoming so ravenous that you overeat when you finally do sit down to a meal. The "three meals plus two snacks a day" approach appears to be the best one for weight loss and weight maintenance. In a study in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics , researchers found that people who were at a healthy weight and those who had lost weight both regularly ate two snacks a day. Snacking also appears to prevent weight gain. In another study, researchers followed more than 2,300 girls for 10 years (from about age 10 to age 20). Those who ate less frequently had an average increase of 1 body mass index unit and 1/2 inch in waist size more than girls who ate six times a day. How does eating often help? There's really no evidence to support the belief that it keeps your metabolism humming, but the opposite is absolutely true: If you cut back too far on calories, you're embarking on a self-defeating proposition: The lack of calories slows your metabolism. And probably the biggest benefit of eating often comes from the effect it has on blood sugar (glucose) levels and, therefore, insulin production. When glucose and insulin are in balance, your appetite is on an even keel. That not only helps reduce hunger but also simply makes you feel better. 2. Pair carbs with protein or fat. Carbs are not evil. They're essential fuel, and they're your body's preferred energy source. On top of that, whole foods that are classified as mostly carbs -- whole grains, fruits, vegetables -- come packed with vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals that are important for disease prevention. They can also be high in fiber, which helps keep you feeling full and satisfied. However, when you eat carbs by themselves, your body converts them into glucose faster than it would if you were eating something that slowed digestion (such as protein or fat) at the same time. An elevated glucose level causes a spike in insulin, which leads to a crash in blood sugar, which then results in extreme hunger. If that happens on a regular basis, your body switches to starvation mode, slowing your metabolism to conserve energy. Translation: You burn fewer calories in everything you do. 3. Don't fear fat. According to a survey from the International Food Information Council, just 20 percent of people think that all fats are equal when it comes to health, but 67 percent try to cut as far back on all fats as they can. That's a mistake, because how much fat you eat doesn't really have an impact on your weight or your risk for disease. It's the type of fat and the total calories you take in that really matter. There are four general categories of fat: polyunsaturated, monounsaturated, saturated, and trans. With the exception of trans fat, your body needs all of them. Fat is a major component of every cell in your body. It helps you absorb fat-soluble nutrients from low-fat foods, keeps your skin and hair healthy, and makes your brain work more efficiently. Some types of polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats also protect against disease and control inflammation. Saturated fat raises cholesterol levels and also increases your odds of developing insulin resistance (which can lead to diabetes), but you still need some of it in your diet. Cholesterol, which is primarily made from saturated fat, is an important building block for hormones. 4. Never skip breakfast . Skip the morning meal and chances are good that you'll end up consuming more calories overall simply because you are hungrier. Think about it: If you finish dinner at 7 p.m. And don't eat again until noon the next day, you have gone without food for 17 hours. You think you're helping yourself drop pounds because you're cutting out calories, but you're actually causing your body to store more fat because it doesn't know when the next influx of energy is coming. In addition, eating breakfast has been associated with lower blood glucose and cholesterol levels, and skipping it is linked to constipation and menstrual pain. 5. Never eat standing up. At one point or another, we have all stood in front of the refrigerator with the door open, eating leftovers or ice cream right out of the container. And even if you aren't guilty of this little healthy eating blooper, I'll bet you've eaten a meal while doing something else -- like watching TV or answering e-mail -- that diverts your attention away from what you're putting in your mouth. It's a habit that many of our experts have broken, because when you don't concentrate on your food as you're eating it, it doesn't quite register in your body. You could call it calorie amnesia: You can't really remember what you ate, so you don't get as much satisfaction from it. As a result, you find yourself craving something else not long after your meal. And The science bears this out. In a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition , researchers had one group of participants eat a meal while playing computer solitaire and another group eat without any distractions. The solitaire group had a hard time remembering what they ate, and they felt less full. What's more, they ate twice as much when cookies were offered half an hour later. 6. Spend time in the kitchen. Cooking allows you to control the nutritional quality and calorie counts of your meals. To say that restaurant portions tend to be large is an understatement. On average, the typical restaurant meal has 50 percent more calories than a home-cooked meal. But those calories aren't the only worrisome things you're being served: A survey of restaurant meals by the RAND corporation uncovered the sad fact that 96 percent of the nearly 30,000 chain restaurant menu items tested exceeded daily saturated fat and sodium recommendations. And don't think the local bistro is any healthier: Chefs use a lot of salt, oil, and butter in their cooking, and big portions are just as common in independent restaurants. 7. Eat a pound of produce a day. That's what the World Health Organization recommends, and it's what most of our health pros do. It's not difficult. A large apple, for instance, can easily be one-third of a pound. Tomato sauce counts. So do beans and lentils. Studies show that people with a high intake of fruits and vegetables weigh less. They also get fiber, vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals that protect against cancer and heart disease. "Eat the rainbow" has become a bit of a cliche, but it's the best way to think about it. The compounds that give plants their pigments--green, purple, blue, red, orange, yellow -- aren't just pretty. They're powerful antioxidants, and you want to eat a variety of them. Even white vegetables are good for you: Every ounce of them you eat each day reduces your stroke risk by 9 percent. 8. Have one meatless day a week. Meatless Mondays, semi-vegetarian, vegifore, vegan until 6 o'clock, flexitarian -- these are just some of the words used to describe a way of eating that emphasizes plant foods but doesn't totally eschew dairy, meat, poultry, or fish. Maybe the best way to think about it is to consider yourself a vegetarian most of the time. In fact, one survey found that two out of three people who describe themselves as vegetarians actually eat this way. Most of the people in the Mediterranean (Italy, Greece, and Spain) follow this kind of diet, and study after study has shown that they have lower risks of chronic diseases. Researchers at Loma Linda University school of public Health in California found that the occurrence of diabetes in semi-vegetarians was about half that of people who ate a typical nonvegetarian diet. Harvard researchers found that limiting red meat intake to no more than 10 1/2 ounces a week could prevent 1 in 10 early deaths in men and 1 in 13 in women. And cutting out one serving of red meat per day lowered the risk of premature death by 7 to 19 percent, depending on whether the meat being eliminated was a burger or a roast or processed red meat. Another study showed that semi-vegetarians live an average of 3.6 years longer. 9. Go fish twice a week. Two servings of fish each week is pretty much a universal health recommendation from organizations like the American Heart Association and the USDA. And many of our health pros eat fish more often than that. Fish is the best source of omega-3 fatty acids, a polyunsaturated fat that is anti-inflammatory. Omega-3s lower heart disease risk, protect your brain, and are also important for a healthy pregnancy for both mother and baby. Several of our experts frequently make delicious fish recipes. 10. Desugar your diet. Evidence that added sugar plays a role not just in weight gain but also in heart disease, diabetes, cancer--and even wrinkles!--is steadily mounting. The average per son eats 22 teaspoons, or 88 grams, a day. (Each teaspoon weighs 4 grams.) That's 352 calories' worth. The American Heart Association recommends a maximum daily intake of just 5 teaspoons for women and 6 for men, which means that if you have one soda, you've exceeded your limit. Follow "The Doctors' Diet," though, and you likely won't get close to 6 to 9 teaspoons. We use some sugar in our meal suggestions, where it really makes a difference in flavor, but we keep it to a minimum. Most of the sugar people eat isn't added to food by the teaspoon, though--it's in processed and packaged products. And separating added sugar from naturally occurring sugar in fruits, some vegetables, dairy products, and whole grains isn't easy. The amount of sugar listed on food labels is the combination of both natural and added sugars in one serving of the food. Sugar has many names--high-fructose corn syrup, glucose, sucrose, honey, maple syrup, barley malt, beet sugar, cane juice, and cane sugar, to name a few--so reading the ingredients list can help. The best way to keep your added sugar intake low is to eat real foods. 11. Separate your mood from your food. Stress can ruin the best-laid diet plans. According to a survey by the American Psychological Association, 40 percent of respondents reported emotional eating -- that is, eating for reasons other than hunger, such as feeling pressured, anxious, sad, or bored. (Interestingly, studies have found that being happy also causes people to eat more.) Stress appears to change the brain's response to food, making appetizing food more enticing -- and it affects where your body stores fat. When your stress hormones are high, you tend to have more abdominal fat, which is linked to an increased risk of heart disease and diabetes. In a University of California, San Francisco, study, mindful eating and meditation helped women feel less stressed and reduced stress hormones. The women in the study lost belly fat, even though they did not change what they ate. Exercise is also a terrific stress reliever. 12. Move every day. Okay, this isn't a diet tip, exactly, but exercise and diet are so closely linked that it can't be ignored. Health experts may not do "exercise" every day, but from climbing the stairs in the hospital to walking their dogs at home, they do move. And being physically active often leads you to eat better. Some of that may just be a natural side effect of wanting to be healthy, but some researchers believe that exercise actually changes your brain so you are better able to resist temptation or so that the hormones that control your appetite are more balanced. People who get 2 1/2 hours of moderate activity a day have lower levels of inflammatory markers in their bloodstreams. And exercisers are more sensitive to insulin (which lowers your risk for diabetes) and are less likely to develop dementia later in life. Exercise helps you sleep better, too, and people who get enough high-quality sleep are more likely to be slim. Adapted from What Doctors Eat by Tasneem Bhatia, MD 6 Reasons Why You're Gaining the Weight Back 6 Surprising Things That Can Lower Your I.Q. 5 Little-Known Benefits of Strength Training
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Rihanna is Dior's newest celebrity face, according to WWD . She will be starring in the fourth installment of Dior's "Secret Garden" video series , another new turn for the brand as each video has previously centered around a model instead of a celebrity. Rihanna will also be featured in a Dior print ad campaign, due to run sometime this spring. Dior's decision to sign on Rihanna nicely mirrors the younger, cooler direction creative director Raf Simons has been hard at work on since joining the French house in 2012. Jennifer Lawrence also young, American, modern will continue to front advertisements for the Miss Dior fragrance, with Charlize Theron sophisticated, blonde presumably still in the brand's celeb roster as the face of the J'Adore Dior scent, a role she's held for over a decade .
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Will Muschamp faces a different set of challenges these days. The Auburn defensive coordinator is trying to improve a defense that faded badly last season, teach his scheme to new players and fashion some semblance of a pecking order for the depth chart. It's all familiar territory for Muschamp even if the day-to-day tasks have changed from his time as Florida's head coach that ended just a few months ago. ''I was very involved defensively at Florida and regardless of popular opinion I wasn't as much on offense,'' Muschamp said after a recent practice. ''Should have been, but I wasn't. I enjoy coaching. I enjoy being in the meeting room. I enjoy a lot of things that as a head coach you get pulled away from your meeting room, your position players, the defense, that preparation. ''But I was extremely involved with that in my time at Florida.'' Auburn coach Gus Malzahn hired Muschamp two weeks after his up-and-down tenure with the Gators ended. It didn't come cheap, and brought increased expectations for a defense that has played second fiddle to Malzahn's offense. Muschamp is believed to be college football's highest paid assistant with a three-year deal worth some $1.6 million annually. Florida also owed him $6.3 million for the final three years of his contract. Muschamp fielded highly rated defenses at LSU, Texas and a previous stopover in Auburn. He's charged with fixing a defense that allowed at least 31 points in the Tigers' final four games against FBS offenses, all losses. Wisconsin's Melvin Gordon abused Auburn for 251 rushing yards in an Outback Bowl defeat. The hire paid dividends when Auburn beat Florida out for highly rated defensive end prospect Byron Cowart. Muschamp has some talent to work with, including linebackers Kris Frost and Cassanova McKinzy and cornerback Jonathan Jones. Plus, defensive end Carl Lawson is back this spring after missing last season with a knee injury that left Auburn without much of a pass rush. Georgia transfer Tray Matthews also could provide a boost after sitting out last season. It's still about the teaching in Auburn's first week of spring practice. ''This is about my sixth time doing this, as far as implementing a new system,'' Muschamp said. ''A lot of trial and error through those years, and figuring out probably the best ways to get things taught in a timely manner for the players.'' His message: ''Just give us effort right now and we'll coach the rest of it.'' Muschamp was an observer in bowl practices. He brought in his former Florida secondary coach Travaris Robinson, an Auburn alum, in the same role. Lance Thompson came over from Alabama to coach linebackers. Having Muschamp in charge has been an eye-opener for the Tigers in the initial practices. ''He was definitely intense,'' Jones said. ''He knows what he's talking about, so he expects high expectations of us, and we've got to meet his high expectations. He's not going to lower them.'' Malzahn has repeatedly talked Muschamp up as ''the best defensive coordinator in college football.'' It's a partnership that does allow Muschamp to pick the brains of Malzahn and offensive coordinator Rhett Lashlee on what works best against the no-huddle offenses that are becoming so prevalent at the college level. ''That's what good staffs do, they share ideas,'' Muschamp said. ''They make sure that we're able to share information, practice the right way, prepare our football team totally to be successful. That's what's been a great experience so far.'' --- Follow John Zenor on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jzenor
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WAUKESHA, Wis. Two young Wisconsin girls accused of stabbing their classmate to please the horror character Slender Man must stand trial as adults for attempted homicide, a judge ruled Friday. Both girls face a count of being a party to attempted first-degree intentional homicide, which automatically places them in adult court under Wisconsin law. They each could face up to 65 years in the state prison system if convicted. Both defendants and the victim, Payton Leutner, were 12 at the time of the stabbing. Both girls' attorneys have argued that the girls legitimately believed they had to kill Leutner to protect their families from Slender Man's wrath. Anthony Cotton, an attorney for one of the girls, called his client a schizophrenic in court Friday. Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren found there was enough evidence to order a trial in adult court. The defense teams had asked him to dismiss the charges during a hearing last month. They contended second-degree attempted intentional homicide would be a more fitting charge because the girls, as misguided as they were, thought they were defending themselves and their loved ones from Slender Man by attacking Leutner. Second-degree attempted intentional homicide is a lesser crime that prosecutors would have to pursue in juvenile court. The girls could be held in the juvenile system only until they turn 25. After delivering a half-hour analysis Friday of statutes governing homicide charges and potential defenses, Bohren rejected the self-defense claims. He noted that the girls also thought killing Leutner would make them Slender Man's servants, earn them the right to live in his mansion and prove to others the creature was real. Those motivations outweigh self-defense, he said. The girls' attorneys promised Friday to keep trying to move the case into the juvenile system. Bohren set hearings on transferring the girls for May and June. Prosecutors allege the girls had plotted for months to kill their friend. They coaxed her into attending a sleepover at one of their homes in May and the next morning lured her into a wooded park in Waukesha. They stabbed her 19 times and then fled, according to court documents. Police captured them later that day on city's outskirts as they were trying to walk to far northeastern Wisconsin's Nicolet National Forest, where they believed Slender Man lived in his mansion. A passing bicyclist found Leutner and called for help. According to a criminal complaint, a doctor told investigators that one of the stab wounds just missed her heart. The Associated Press isn't naming either of the girls charged in case they end up in juvenile court, where proceedings are closed to the public.
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Former Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed (pictured above with police escort) was sentenced to 13 years in prison on Friday, an official from his Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) said, after he was found guilty of terrorism charges. A three-judge panel unanimously found Nasheed guilty of ordering the arrest of Criminal Court Chief Judge Abdulla Mohamed in 2012. The judge's arrest spurred a mutiny by police and troops that ended in Nasheed's resignation. Nasheed has said he was forced to resign at gunpoint over the judicial row, and his allies have called it a coup. He was arrested at the end of February this year, prompting a large rally in his defense in the capital, Male. Originally brought up on corruption charges, prosecutors then filed much more serious terrorism allegations. He was refused bail and ordered to stay in police custody until the conclusion of his trial. Mohamed Nasheed was the first democratically elected president of the Indian Ocean nation after 30 years of autocratic rule by Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. The path to democracy has been frought with difficulties, with many public insitutions, including the courts, accused of remaining loyal to the Gayoom family. Current President Abdulla Yameen is former strongman Gayoom's half-brother. Former President Nasheed consistently denied ordering the judge's arrest. During the trial, his lawyers pulled out in the middle of proceedings as they accused the court of rushing the hearings and allowing them only three days to prepare his defense. The MDP have said the only purpose of the trial is to eliminate Nasheed as a contender for the presidency in 2018. They also claimed he was being denied medical attention while awaiting his hearing. Current President Abdulla Yameen has denied that the trial was politcally motivated. The United States and regional power India have voiced concerns over the charges, and Indian Prime Minister Modi recently avoided visiting the Maldives on a trip around the region, as pro-Delhi Nasheed was on trial and a pro-China administration is now in power in Male. es/msh (AP, AFP, Reuters)
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Whether you were on the receiving end of heartbreak or had the unpleasant task of doing the dumping, breaking up is the worst. Sometimes it might feel like your future dating life will be so uneventful, it might as well have tumbleweeds rolling through it, or that you'll never meet anyone who quite lives up to the beauty of what you had with your ex. It's only natural that you'd consider getting into a rebound relationship, but here are a few things you should consider first. Pro: A new guy is the perfect distraction. Who can spend too much time worrying about her ex when she's got a new guy to contend with? A rebound relationship can help soften the emotional blow of being single until your heart doesn't feel like one big bruise. Rebound relationships: bubblewrap for your heart. Con: There's such a thing as too much of a distraction. Just because you're dating a new guy doesn't mean you should completely ignore your feelings about your breakup, but it's easy to do. That means you won't actually be able to process the hurt, learn from it, and eventually change for the better. Pro: It's proof you're not undateable. On the days when you feel like you'll be forced to marry your vibrator because no one else will have you, someone who wants to spend time with you is concrete evidence that you're at the very least likable. Con: What happens if the rebound goes badly? If you think the rebound could turn into something and he doesn't agree, that's like doubling down on the heartache. Not the best solution when you already have one breakup to deal with in the first place. Pro: New orgasms. You might score the jackpot of rebound relationships and find a guy with so much sexual talent, his penis could win American Idol , The Voice , and X-Factor all at once. It'll prove that even though what you had with your ex was special, there are other men out there you can enjoy. Con: Guys who fail at giving orgasms. If you hook up with a guy who fumbles things in the bedroom, is only about his pleasure, or you suspect might think a clitoris is the name of a swanky hors d'oeuvre, it might just make you miss your ex's bedroom moves. So then you'll probably text him , engage in ex sex, and have to start the getting-over-him process all over again. What do you think are the pros and cons of rebound relationships? Have you ever gotten into one? Did it help you move on or make it harder?
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A Spanish judge on Friday upheld a tax fraud case against FC Barcelona's current and ex-chairmen over the signing of striker Neymar, taking them a step closer to a possible trial, a judicial source said. Wrapping up his preliminary investigation, a judge at the National Court in Madrid ruled there were grounds for suspecting tax fraud by Barca's chairman Josep Maria Bartomeu and his predecessor Sandro Rosell, the source said. The court, Spain's top criminal tribunal, upheld the charges against the two and the club as a whole and referred the case to the state prosecution service -- one of the last steps towards a possible trial. "Judge Pablo Ruz decided to proceed with the case... and rejected the request by Bartomeu and Rosell for the case to be dismissed," the source told AFP. The judge suspects the club understated the real cost of signing Neymar in order to "surreptitiously evade or reduce the payment to the public treasury". The club has denied any wrongdoing. In a statement it vowed to appeal against Friday's decision immediately. It said its attempts at a defence were being disrupted by the "abnormal swiftness" with which the case was moving forward. State prosecutors now have 10 days to present formal accusations. The judge will then have to rule whether the two defendants and the club should be sent to trial. Following months of investigations, Ruz said the two defendants were suspected of three counts of tax fraud worth a total 13 million euros ($13.6 million) relating to the signing of the star striker in 2013. The club has said it paid 57 million euros overall to sign Neymar from Brazilian club Santos, but the judge suspects the real amount was more than 83 million euros. The case comes at a sensitive time as Bartomeu is hoping to run for another term when the club elects its next chairman later this year.
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DuPont (DD.N) rejected hedge fund Trian Fund Management LP's proposal to add two nominees each to the chemical conglomerate's board and the board of a unit the company plans to spin off, in a letter to activist investor Nelson Peltz. The company said on Friday that it was prepared to accept one of Peltz's nominees, John Myers, in an attempt to end a proxy war with Trian. Peltz told CNBC on Thursday that DuPont's offer of one board seat was not enough. Peltz wants two of his fund's nominees, including himself, on the DuPont Board and two on the board of Chemours, the performance chemicals business DuPont plans to spin off later this year. Direct representation by a Trian principal cannot result in a "mutually acceptable resolution", DuPont said in the letter, which follows Peltz's call with DuPont Chief Executive Ellen Kullman on March 11. (http://1.usa.gov/18jzhqi) Trian, which owns a 2.7 percent stake in DuPont, has been urging the company to spin off its volatile materials business, a proposal that has been repeatedly rebuffed. Since its investment, "Trian has been singularly focused on a high-risk agenda to break up and add excessive debt to DuPont," Kullman said in the letter. Trian said in February that it was "open-minded" about keeping the company together. DuPont named two of its own nominees, Ed Breen and Jim Gallogly, as directors last month, rebuffing Peltz's demand for a board seat. Peltz told DuPont that he supported Breen and Gallogly, the company said in Friday's letter. "With the addition of one of your current nominees, three current DuPont directors would have your express approval and support," Kullman said. Rival Dow Chemical (DOW.N) averted a proxy fight with Dan Loeb's hedge fund, Third Point LLC, last November, by agreeing to add four independent directors to its board. DuPont's shares were little changed in after-market trading on Friday. (Reporting by Kanika Sikka in Bengaluru; Editing by Simon Jennings)
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Jeb Bush was defiant on Friday in defending his support for Common Core, arguing that he wouldn't back down from his support for the education standards just because political winds have turned against him. "You don't abandon your core beliefs, you go try to persuade people as I'm doing now," Bush said at a Nashua Chamber of Commerce business roundtable in New Hampshire. "I think you need to be genuine. I think you need to have a backbone." Bush said it was "wrong" for the federal government to offer money to states to get them to adopt Common Core, "but that doesn't mean the standards are wrong." He also argued that the federal government should play no role in creating the education standards. "Put a big iron fence around it, bury it, over and out," Bush said. Bush's support for Common Core is believed to be among his biggest liabilities in the Republican primaries, but he has repeatedly shown he has no intention of moving to the right on this, or immigration reform, to appease the base. Common Core has become toxic in conservative circles; many Republicans believe the federal government wrongly coerced states to adopt the standards by offering stimulus money and is using congressional gridlock to keep them trapped in it against their will. Bush did not implement the standards while he was in office, but has promoted them through his education foundation. Early in the campaign cycle, Bush has sought to highlight his education reform record during his time as governor, arguing that he raised standards, expanded school choice and oversaw a massive turnaround in graduation rates in Florida, especially among minority groups. Bush is on his first political trip to New Hampshire in more than a decade as he moves closer to launching a bid for the White House in 2016.
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Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) argued for criminal justice reform at a historically black college in Maryland on Friday, in what has become a staple of his message to young voters and minorities ahead of a potential presidential run in 2016. Paul, who has frequently nodded to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s idea that there are "two Americas," said in his speech at Bowie State University there's one America where citizens are free to pursue their lives freely, and one where the federal government piles on with unnecessary laws, burdensome fines and regulations, and overly strict sentencing guidelines that contribute to keeping minority groups mired in poverty. "Those of us who have jobs and have lived fairly privileged lives don't know what it's like to pay fines and penalties on top of other fines and how someone's life can spiral out of control because of this," Paul said. The Kentucky Republican argued that civil forfeiture and mandatory minimum sentencing laws must be reformed, and highlighted bipartisan bills he's worked on to expunge the records of former criminals that would make it easier for them to find work. Paul said the laws currently on the books have created a situation that is "somewhat like segregation." "There's a racial outcome to this," Paul said. "I don't think it's intentional, but it's real, and we should do something about it." Paul pointed to two recent racially charged incidents that have provoked protests across the country as evidence of there's "an undercurrent of unease." Ferguson, Mo., has been on edge since a white police officer fatally shot an unarmed black teenager after an encounter on the street last year. The incident led to a Justice Department investigation that found widespread abuses within the criminal justice system there and ultimately led to the resignation of the police chief. And in New York City, protests erupted after a grand jury declined to indict a police officer responsible for the choke-hold death of Eric Garner, who was suspected of selling loose cigarettes on the sidewalk. Paul blamed politicians for creating laws that lead to police harassment, and unnecessary fines and arrests. "What reason do we have for politicians telling the police they have to take someone down for selling a cigarette that's not taxed," he said. "There are other ways … I blame the politicians, they write these rules." Paul has been outspoken about the racial unease that he sees permeating the country, and he's long been an advocate for scaling back drug laws and reforming the criminal justice system. The Kentucky Republican is a sponsor on a new bill that would legalize medical marijuana on the federal level for states that have legalized it. Paul has also talked at length about expanding the GOP's appeal to the next generation, and many believe his libertarian-leaning views on issues like drug policy and criminal sentencing reform could appeal to a younger set of voters.
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JERUSALEM Four days before Israel's general election, public opinion polls on Friday pointed to a widening lead for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's main rival. However, the polls also suggested that some 15 percent of the electorate remained undecided, and Israeli elections are known for substantial last-minute vote swings. Netanyahu's camp appeared to take seriously his apparent electoral peril. The prime minister, who until now had made almost no campaign appearances, embarked on a blitz of media interviews and speeches. A series of polls on Friday - the last such surveys that will appear before the vote - showed the center-left Zionist Union, headed by Isaac Herzog, with its largest lead yet, outpolling Netanyahu's conservative Likud by between two and five seats in the 120-member Knesset, or parliament. In Israel, votes are cast for parties, not individuals. The prime minister insisted that the Israeli public still backed him, though polls pointed to more people wanting him gone than for his tenure to continue. Netanyahu said voters perhaps mistakenly believed he would agree to form a "unity" government with Herzog's bloc, a scenario the Israeli leader has ruled out. "The majority of the public wants me as prime minister, but some think they can enjoy both worlds and vote for another national party and have me as prime minister," the Israeli leader told several news outlets. "Anyone who wants me as prime minister must vote for Likud." Warning of his dovish rivals' supposedly soft positions on the Palestinian issue, Iran and terror, the prime minister sounded a familiar note: that the country's security belongs in his hands. But he acknowledged he risked being tossed out of office "if the national camp doesn't come to its senses and vote for Likud." According to the polls, only half of the Likud voters of 2013 intended to vote for the party this time around. On Friday, Netanyahu reached out to voters over Facebook, taking questions from the public on a range of issues. He claimed Herzog and opposition candidate Tzipi Livni, with whom Herzog has said he would rotate the premiership, would make concessions under international pressure that would endanger Israel's security. "They want to capitulate; we want to stand strong," he said. During the campaign, Herzog crisscrossed Israel with multiple daily appearances and interviews. Netanyahu largely refrained from direct campaigning, relying on his stature as the incumbent to keep him in the public eye. After focusing on security and Iran's controversial nuclear program for much of the campaign while skirting the socioeconomic challenges that trouble many Israelis, Netanyahu acknowledged high housing costs and pledged to address the issue. According to polls, Netanyahu's party has lost considerable support to centrist parties focusing on concerns such as the cost of living. While Netanyahu's camp sounded the alarm to regain lost support, his rival urged his own backers to keep going full steam and avoid complacency. "The polls show the trend clearly; we're on our way to victory," Herzog said on Facebook. "But to form the next government we need a much bigger camp." With the campaign clock ticking down, candidates and campaigners were out in force Friday, competing for attention in crowded public venues. Herzog was attending a rally in the southern city of Ashdod and an open-air market in Tel Aviv, among other stops. Commentators noted the Zionist Union's growing lead, but warned not to count Netanyahu out. "Nothing is final," columnist Ben Caspit wrote in Friday's editions of the Maariv newspaper. "The gap is not inerasable." (Sobelman is a special correspondent. Times staff writer Laura King in Cairo contributed to this report.)
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President Obama has long bemoaned the fact that China and other trade rivals have left the U.S. in the dust when it comes to building their highways, bridges and other infrastructure investments vital to the long-term health of their economies. "If they [China] need to build some stuff, they can build it. And over time, that wears away our advantage competitively," the president said in a speech to business leaders last December to rally Congress in support of highway and infrastructure spending. Unlike the U.S., developing countries like China, India and other areas in Asia and Africa are at the early stages of building national highway systems, including bridges and tunnels. Their investment should be substantial. But in some cases, what they are building eclipses America's 60-year old systems in design, material, and technology. The American Society of Civil Engineers pegs the U.S. infrastructure spending gap at $125 billion a year just to maintain and repair highways and bridges. In a report card, the civil engineers group gave the nation's infrastructure the unfortunately low grade of D+, noting a tremendous backlog and a desperate need for modernization. Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers recently noted that total federal, state and local government investments in infrastructure is just enough to cover repairs and upgrades of bridges, roads, airports and rails. There's practically nothing left for expansion. That means the "net" increase in spending for new projects as a percentage of the overall economy is roughly zero. Essentially the U.S. is just running in place trying to deal with the mounting demands for new job-generating infrastructure. David Wessel, director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution, wrote this week he could hardly believe Summers' assertion. He decided to check the numbers to determine whether the Harvard economics professor was "hyping the data" to make his point. What Wessel found buried in a mountain of data compiled by the Bureau of Economic Analysis largely backs up Summers: Net federal public investment spending for defense and non-defense in 2013 the latest year for which data are available works out to roughly zero. "Non-defense investment spending, which was nearly 1 percent of GDP in the mid-1960s and hasn't come close to that since was about $9.8 billion in 2013, or a paltry 0.6 percent of GDP," Wessel wrote. "Mr. Summers wasn't exaggerating." As the chart below shows, the majority of government investment in the U.S. is done at the state and local level and not by the federal government. State and local spending soared in the housing boom years before the financial crisis, Wessel said, when those governments were flush with cash and it collapsed in 2010. A December 2013 Congressional Budget Office study on federal investments further documented the sorry trend. In 2010, the federal government spent $63 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars or 0.4 percent of GDP on physical capital for transportation by highway, mass transit, rail, water and air, according to the CBO. That year, states and localities invested $68 billion for the same purposes, which also worked out to be 0.4 percent of the overall economy. With time running out this spring on a temporary spending patch for the troubled federal Highway Trust Fund , Congress and the Obama administration are still far apart on a new long-term program for restoring and expanding the nation's infrastructure. One big question is how the Republican-controlled Congress and the Democratic administration will come up with the money to finance future spending. There's a more important question as well: Will lawmakers and Obama ultimately decide to let the country limp along for another few years by financing the bare necessities for maintaining the existing system or will they go bold and somehow get beyond a net investment of zero? Top Reads from The Fiscal Times : The Five Big Questions Hillary Left Unanswered This Lethal Laser Could Cripple ISIS and Other Enemies Social Security Watchdog: I See Dead People
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By Doug Kyed The New England Patriots might have found their new third-down back. Free-agent running back Reggie Bush will visit the Patriots on Friday, a source told ESPN's Field Yates. Bush only played 11 games in 2014 because of injuries, but he ran for 297 yards on 76 carries with two touchdowns and added 253 yards through the air on 40 catches. Bush is one year removed from his most productive NFL season. He ran for 1,006 yards and four touchdowns on 223 carries in 2013 with 54 catches for 506 yards with three touchdowns. Bush originally was drafted No. 2 overall out of USC by the New Orleans Saints. He has spent the previous two seasons with the Detroit Lions after spending two years with the Miami Dolphins and five seasons with the New Orleans Saints. Like Shane Vereen, who was signed away from the Patriots by the New York Giants, Bush is a versatile pass-catcher out of the backfield who can provide some playmaking ability. The Patriots showed interest in other third-down backs Roy Helu, who was signed by the Oakland Raiders, and C.J. Spiller, who was scooped up by the New Orleans Saints.
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Will Ferrell is officially in the annals of baseball. Baseball Reference, the online encyclopedia of America's Pastime, has given the "Anchorman" star his own page on the site after Ferrell played in five different spring training games in Arizona on Thursday. Ferrell didn't exactly light up the stat sheet, but therein lies the fun. Some highlights from his page : • His name is listed as: "John William Ferrell (Manimal)"; • He's quite versatile in the field: "Position: P-C-1B-2B-SS-3B-LF-CF-RF-DH"; • It says he bats right-handed, with bats in quotation marks to poke fun at his feeble efforts; • His weight is listed as "220ish"; • His age is calculated out to the thousandths place: 47.240; • He will be eligible for salary arbitration in 2018 and free agency in 2021; • His list of transactions from his one day in the big leagues: -- March 12, 2015 : Signed by the Oakland A's as an undrafted amateur free agent. -- March 12, 2015 : Traded to Seattle Mariners for Comedic Actor to be Named Later -- March 12, 2015 : Joined Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in unknown transaction. -- March 12, 2015 : Traded to Chicago Cubs for a washing machine. -- March 12, 2015 : Traded to Arizona Diamondbacks for a Churro Dog and D-Bat Dog. -- March 12, 2015 : Claimed off waivers by Cincinnati Reds, Norm MacDonald released. -- March 12, 2015 : Granted unconditional release by Cincinnati Reds. -- March 12, 2015 : Signed by Chicago White Sox as Free Agent. -- March 12, 2015 : Traded to San Francisco Giants for unknown compensation. -- March 12, 2015 : Traded to Los Angeles Dodgers for unknown compensation. -- March 12, 2015 : Traded to San Diego Padres for unknown compensation. All in all, a great day. If you missed any of the highlights from his trip around baseball, they're worth a look . Especially this classy move he pulled while playing for the Padres. Before his odyssey began, Ferrell told a radio interviewer that he expected to raise $1 million to be used for college scholarships for cancer survivors. The entire tour was being chronicled by HBO for an upcoming special. Memorabilia from his journey is to be sold at auction on MLB.com with proceeds going to Cancer for College and Stand Up to Cancer. In his farewell speech, Ferrell introduced Craig Pollard, the founder of Cancer for College, saying the organization had given 2,000 scholarships to children with cancer over the past 20 years. Ferrell decided to coincide the benefit with the 50th anniversary of the time Bert Campaneris became the first player in major-league history to play all nine positions in the field in one game. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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sports
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Reggie Wayne is class personified. The veteran wide receiver spent 14 seasons with the Indianapolis Colts, racking up six Pro Bowl appearances along with three selections as a first-team All-Pro. The team decided not to offer him a new contract this year, making him a free agent. On Friday, Wayne sent a letter to all the Colts fans via the IndyStar . Here it is in full: With the 30th pick in the 2001 NFL draft, the Indianapolis Colts decided to take a chance on me. They allowed me to wear the horseshoe and represent the organization. With that pick they made my childhood dream come true. I bled blue and white for 14 years, and I was truly grateful for the opportunity to play a kids game week in and week out. Everyone who plays this game has to make a huge "sacrifice" to become the best football player they could possibly be. I laid it on the line every day and stayed committed to achieve the ultimate goal of winning a championship. During this same time, Jim Irsay and the Irsay family embraced me as one of their own. Jim's door was always open to me no matter the situation or the circumstance. For that I will always be thankful. I am humbled to have had the opportunity to call myself a Colt. To Coach Mora, Coach Dungy, Coach Caldwell and the man I have known since my college days, Coach Pagano - you and your staffs always put in time to help me perfect my craft. You allowed me to evolve as a player on the field. You accepted me for who I am and trusted me to be a vital part of the team. To every teammate that has laced up with me throughout my Colts career - thank you for playing with heart, passion and dedication. We were successful because of our selflessness as we worked towards a common goal. We always treated each other with TRUST, LOYALTY and RESPECT. To the state of Indiana, Colts Nation and especially the 317 - thank you for making this my home away from home. As a Louisiana kid, I came from a community that really embraces its own, and Indianapolis did that with me from day one. That made my transition here all those years ago so easy, and now there are so many of you that I call my friends. I am going to miss the REG-GIE chants before every home game, where each time I felt like I got a personal "good luck" wish from each of you. My goal every game was to give everyone in the stadium and at home watching on TV all I could because all of you deserved nothing less. I can't thank you enough for all the love and support all of you have given me. Thanks for everything Colts Nation! Reggie Wayne, #87 Good luck, Reggie!
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sports
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A man accused by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of helping mastermind anti-government protests in early 2014 committed suicide early Friday in an intelligence service prison, his lawyer said. The defense attorney told AFP that Rodolfo Gonzalez, 63, had hanged himself after becoming "distressed" in recent days when he was told he would be moved from the prison administered by SEBIN, Venezuela's intelligence service, to a normal prison. Gonzalez was "distraught over his transfer to an ordinary prison, with highly dangerous inmates," said his lawyer, Jose Vicente Haro. He added that Gonzalez, whose case has not yet reached trial, suffered poor health that "did not permit him to live under such conditions." The Venezuelan attorney general's office said on its website that it would investigate the circumstances surrounding Gonzalez's death. The man's daughter Lissette Gonzalez confirmed her father's passing on Twitter. "We are leaving SEBIN. I regret to confirm that my dad died last night," the university professor said. She has said the government's accusations against her father, a former civil aviation pilot, were based on testimony from "citizen volunteers" -- government supporters who leave anonymous tips about anti-government activities. She also said the accusations brought against him included "criminal associations" with a student and two other people whom he did not know. His lawyer said Gonzalez "participated in the demonstrations as might any Venezuelan citizen" but denied that he was keeping arms and explosives in his home, as authorities allege. Two days after Gonzalez's April arrest, Maduro accused him of being "one of the masterminds" behind the opposition protests that rocked Venezuela in early 2014 and left 43 people dead. Opposition and human rights organizations have widely denounced arrests made during the protests, including the jailing of opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez.
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news
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Photos of a huge gator lounging near the 7th hole at Myakka Pines Golf Club in Englewood, Florida, quickly went viral after they were posted on the club's Facebook page this week.
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video
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GERMANTOWN, Md. A Pennsylvania man who was hearing voices in his head killed a pastor because he thought the clergyman was possessed by demons, police said Friday. Roland Zinneh, 38, went to a home Tuesday night where Connery Dagadu was renting a room. He asked the pastor to help pray with him about the voices he was hearing, police said. The next morning, the owner of the home, heard a commotion and found Dagadu on the basement floor unresponsive, police said. When officers arrived, they saw Zinneh at the front door jumping and pacing. He retreated into the home when they approached and broke a window with his hands. After a struggle, Zinneh was taken into custody and began yelling: "Demons! I kill demons!" according to police Zinneh, of Darby, Pennsylvania, was charged with first-degree murder in the asphyxiation of Dagadu, 57, of Germantown. It wasn't clear exactly how Dagadu was killed. Police spokeswoman Cpl. Rebecca Innocenti said Dagadu was pastor of World Impacting Center, which he operated out of the rented basement. Court records do not list an attorney for Zinneh. He was taken to a hospital for treatment, and is now being held at the Montgomery County Detention Center. During questioning, police said Zinneh told them he fought with Dagadu.
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news
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The State Department will shut down parts of its unclassified email network in an effort to oust hackers that have been inside the system for several months. "As a part of the Department of State's ongoing effort to ensure the integrity of our unclassified networks against cyber attacks, the Department is implementing improvements to the security of its main unclassified network during a short, planned outage of some internet-linked systems," spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement released Friday. The department did not offer further detail about the scope or the timing of the outage, saying only that it takes "activity of concern … very seriously." The system is believed to be infected by Russian hackers, though it remains unclear which pieces have been compromised. The decision to partially shut down the system follows a request to Congress for funds to "re-architect" both the classified and unclassified networks at the department because of "known security vulnerabilities." Once they breach a system, sophisticated hackers can find ways to entrench themselves for months or years without detections. Experts say one of the only ways to purge them is to isolate pieces of the system and comb through them bit by bit.
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Taylor Swift and More Stars Wearing Green In honor of Saint Patrick's Day on March 17, click through to see Taylor Swift, Kendall Jenner, Scarlett Johansson and more stars wearing green, starting with the "Shake It Off" singer. Taylor donned a green Julien Macdonald gown with black embellishments for the 2015 ELLE Style Awards in London on Feb. 24, 2015. Kendall Jenner strutted her stuff in an H&M ensemble featuring a chevron print in multiple shades of green during Paris Fashion Week fall/winter 2015 on March 4, 2015. Scarlett Johansson flaunted her post-baby body in an emerald green Atelier Versace confection, which she paired with a matching statement necklace, at the 2015 Academy Awards . Alessandra Ambrosio accessorized with a green scarf at the Balmain presentation during Paris Fashion Week fall/winter 2015 on March 5, 2015. Julianne Moore looked flawless in a beaded emerald green Givenchy gown at the 2015 Screen Actors Guild Awards . Anne Hathaway covered up with a forest green Burberry coat while out and about in New York City on Jan. 20, 2015. Salma Hayek donned a green velvet Saint Laurent frock at the fashion house's presentation during Paris Fashion Week Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2015 on Jan. 25, 2015. Chris Martin kept warm in a light green sweater while out and about in Los Angeles on Feb. 1, 2015. Rita Ora rocked an olive green ensemble by Au Jour Le Jour while visiting a studio in London on Feb. 12, 2015. Mindy Kaling donned a custom green sari sheath by Salvador Perez at the 2015 Costume Designers Guild Awards . Elsa Pataky stunned in a green Angel Sanchez sheath at the 2015 G'Day USA Gala . Robert Pattinson traveled in style in forest green pants at LAX airport in Los Angeles on Feb. 16, 2015. Sophia Bush looked lovely in a green curve-hugging Dsquared2 dress at NBCUniversal's 2015 Winter Television Critics Association press tour in Pasadena, Calif., on Jan. 16, 2015. Ellie Goulding added a pop of color to her look with Acne Studios' green satin bomber jacket during a visit to Capital Radio in London on Jan. 20, 2015. Laverne Cox donned a green Halston Heritage gown at Entertainment Weekly's 2015 Screen Actors Guild Awards pre-party . Henry Cavill looked cozy in a green hoodie while traveling through London's Heathrow Airport on Feb. 3, 2015. Patricia Arquette looked gorgeous in a forest green Vivienne Westwood gown at the 2015 Screen Actors Guild Awards . Helen Mirren wowed in a lacy green Dolce & Gabbana gown at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival premiere of her film " Woman in Gold " on Feb. 9, 2015. Jessica Szohr donned a green Patricia Bonaldi dress at the 2015 Elton John AIDS Foundation Oscar Viewing Party. Jane Fonda turned heads in a bright green Balmain jumpsuit at the 2015 Grammy Awards .
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entertainment
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@skcih_ffej wants to know if Johnny Boychuk is worth his contract with the Islanders.
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sports
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A year after his "Flash Boys" book rocked Wall Street, Michael Lewis thinks the stock market is still rigged. Last March, the author ignited a prolonged, heated dedbate about high-frequency trading, which uses sophisticated computer algorithms to execute orders in fractions of a second. Lewis profiled Brad Katsuyama and IEG, which developed a system that seeks to level the playing field for investors. In an essay for Vanity Fair , Lewis said the market's "invisible scalp" persists, even though regulators have taken action against several Wall Street institutions over the past year due to trading violations. "The rigging of the stock market cannot be dismissed as a dispute between rich hedge-fund guys and clever techies," Lewis wrote for the magazine's April edition. "It's not even the case that the little guy trading in underpants in his basement is immune to its costs." Lewis said he was both surprised at the intensity of the controversy since the book's release and disappointed that the furor against high-frequency trading hasn't become more widespread. He specifically mentioned a heated debate, televised live last April by CNBC , between Katsuyama and William O'Brien, the head of the BATS exchange, that virtually stopped Wall Street in its tracks. Some supporters argue that HFT has helped lower trading costs while others say the only ones penalized are hedge fund managers whose frequent trades can get front-run by the lighting-fast systems. Lewis rejected both arguments. As for Katsuyama, Lewis praised the way he has handled the firestorm following the publication of "Flash Boys." "The controversy that followed the book's publication hasn't been pleasant for them, but it's been fun for me to see them behave as bravely under fire as they did before the start of the war," Lewis said. "It's been an honor to tell their story." For more on the story, go here .
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finance
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From kitesurfing across the English Channel to traversing the Atlantic Ocean by hot air balloon, Richard Branson 's taste for adventure is as insatiable as his business drive. The founder of the Virgin Group, Branson has started myriad companies and branded railways, cruises and airlines to conquer land, sea and air. Now he has turned his gaze to the final frontier: space. His Virgin Galactic, which is 38% owned by Abu Dhabi-based investment firm Aabar, has raised some $390 million to privatize space travel and eventually propel paying citizens out of Earth's orbit. "Space has always fascinated me," Branson, 64, explains. "As a young boy, looking up at the stars, I found it impossible to resist thinking what was out there and if I ever would experience space first-hand." Virgin Galactic encountered a serious setback in November 2014, when a pilot died during a failed test flight. Branson says he is proud of how the Virgin Galactic team has come together after what he described as a "deeply saddening accident." Branson is no stranger to often grave misadventures, in business and travel. He famously capsized and had to be rescued while attempting the fastest Atlantic Ocean crossing in 1985, while his three attempts at circling the globe in a hot air balloon failed. "Every successful businessman will have experienced set-backs and failures they're lying if they say they haven't," says Branson, today worth an estimated $4.9 billion. "Virgin has had some tremendously successful businesses and some that have not quite worked out. Virgin Cola springs to mind the product wasn't distinct enough from Coca-Cola." Well-versed in bouncing back from missteps, thrillionaire Branson has wise words for wily adventurers. "The important thing is to take what you have learnt from the experience and apply it to your future ventures going forward," Branson advises. "Treat failure as a lesson on how not to approach achieving a goal, and then use that learning to improve your chances of success when you try again. Failure is only the end if you decide to stop." As for adventuring, Branson says he will "never" quit. He still kiteboards daily on his British Virgin Isles home Necker Island and does not intend to stop anytime soon. "Life is the ultimate adventure and I plan to be pushing the boundaries for many more years." The current holder of four world records for sea and air endeavors, we asked Richard Branson about his top adventure trips. View the slideshow for more: Richard Branson's Top 5 Adventure Trips
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travel
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EUFAULA, Okla. (AP) Authorities say the pilot of a medical helicopter died and a nurse and paramedic were injured when their helicopter crashed in remote woods in eastern Oklahoma. Officials at EagleMed LLC said Friday that pilot Matt Mathews was killed in the crash. Nurse Kim Ramsey and paramedic Ryan Setzkorn have non-life threatening injuries. The Federal Aviation Administration says the aircraft, an Airbus AS350, was flying to McAlester from Tulsa when it crashed. No patients were on board. The crash was reported late Thursday and searchers on foot and all-terrain vehicles found the wreckage about 4 a.m. Friday. The U.S. Air Force assisted in locating the crash site west of Eufaula, about 120 miles east of Oklahoma City. EagleMed is based in Wichita, Kansas.
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news
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Barcelona star Luis Suarez has again hit out at the British media, claiming he is "missed" by the press in England. The Uruguay international, 28, left Liverpool for Barcelona ahead of the 2014-15 campaign, yet continues to endure a frosty relationship with areas of the press in the UK. Suarez claimed he was being targeted by some publications in 2013 and hit out at coverage of his bite on Giorgio Chiellini at the World Cup last year. And after suggestions emerged that Suarez had tried to bite Manchester City's Martin Demichelis in the Champions League clash at the Etihad last month, the former Ajax man says he has had enough. "I do not know whether the British press have something against me, but they do seem to miss me," Suarez told BeIn Sports. "They criticize me a lot and are always looking for things to attract attention. They published a picture of me supposedly biting Demichelis, but these images then disappeared when they realized it was fake... "That was when I said it was enough and to leave me alone. It is tiresome, but they keep looking for something." The former Ajax attacker has been in sublime form in the past few weeks after initially struggling for Barca, yet he has insisted that he never worried about his difficult start to life at Camp Nou. "I am very happy at Barca, it was a dream come true to play for the best team in the world. I am playing my part and that makes me relax and feel important," he said. "There was a period when I created chances, but failed to score. That did not worry me, though. I am very critical of my own performances, especially when I saw I did not contribute with goals and assists. But I did help the team when I didn't score and I always felt important." Suarez has netted 13 goals in 26 appearances in all competitions for Barcelona so far in 2014-15.
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sports
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Germany's top court said Friday that Muslim teachers can wear the Islamic headscarf in class as long as it doesn't disrupt school activities, in a ruling likely to revive emotional debate. The Constitutional Court said Muslim teachers in state schools could no longer face a blanket ban on the headscarf, effectively revising its 2003 decision that left the door open to it being barred. Judges at the Karlsruhe-based court in southwest Germany said a ban could only be justified if the wearing of the Islamic headscarf led to a "sufficiently concrete danger" of disruption in the school, or of "state neutrality". The ruling is likely to relaunch a longstanding debate in a country with around four million Muslims amid recent divisive protests against the supposed "Islamisation" of Europe. Since 2003 several of Germany's 16 regional states, which are responsible for education, have banned teachers wearing the Muslim headscarf following the top court's initial ruling. The Constitutional Court had said it was up to each state to write its own laws on the issue. But in their decision published Friday following a complaint by two Muslim women, the judges ruled that an outright ban fell foul of the basic right to religious freedom in Germany. The judges also said that Christian values and traditions should not be given preference, as is the case in Germany's most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). The two plaintiffs, a teacher and a school social worker, from western NRW state had lodged the complaint against the ban. Nurhan Soykan, general secretary of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, welcomed the ruling, saying that even if it did not amount to a "general permit" for the headscarf, it sent a "positive message". Germany saw weekly protests begin late last year by the populist PEGIDA movement, Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident, but the marches in the eastern city of Dresden have waned recently. The country, home to the biggest Turkish community outside of Turkey, has heatedly debated the headscarf issue since neighbouring France passed a law in 2004 banning the wearing of headscarves or any other "conspicuous" religious symbols in state schools.
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news
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DeMarco Murray signed with the Philadelphia Eagles on Thursday and that did not sit well with many fans. Let's look at some of the fan reaction to the DeMarco Murray signing.
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sports
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Japan's Toyota Motor Corporation has joined the group of leading sponsors of the Olympic Games in an agreement that runs until 2024, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said on Friday. The car maker becomes the first company of its kind to join 11 other global brands on the IOC's top sponsorship program (TOP) in a deal reported to be just under $1 billion. Toyota, the world's biggest car manufacturer by volume, is also the third Japanese company to join TOP, after Panasonic and Bridgestone as the Olympics prepare to go to Tokyo in 2024. Both have also signed up to 2024. "Toyota is the world leader in its field and this partnership signifies a strong commitment to the future of the IOC and the Olympic movement," IOC President Thomas Bach said in the Japanese capital. The contract will officially run from 2017 to 2024 but Toyota, the third sponsor to commit to 2024, has marketing rights in Japan with immediate effect. "Long-term partnerships are the backbone of our commercial programs and they enable the financial security of the entire Olympic movement," IOC marketing chief Tsunekazu Takeda, who is also Vice-President of the Tokyo 2020 Games, said. Although it does not reveal contract details of its sponsorship agreements, the deals with its top sponsors generate more than $100 million per quadrennium. "We will do everything possible to fulfill our new role in The Olympic Partner Programme and to justify the trust that the IOC has placed in us," said Toyota President Akio Toyoda. "The addition of the mobility category to The Olympic Partner Programme is important recognition for our entire industry." Other major sponsors, including McDonald's, Samsung, Coca-Cola and Atos, have signed up until 2020 or beyond. (Reporting by Keith Weir, Writing by Karolos Grohmann, editing by Ed Osmond)
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autos
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If the only interest you earn is in your bank account, you might want to look at the stock market.
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finance
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Best Deals on Sedans Discounts are available on a wide array of sedans this month, spanning from compacts all the way to large, luxury models. Often the greatest potential savings are associated with cars that are due, or even overdue, for replacement. But with this round, there seems to be a variety of models that the manufacturers simply feel the need to grease sales a bit. Among this group, only the Hyundai Sonata Hybrid faces imminent retirement. Conversely, several such as the Chrysler 200, Hyundai Sonata, Kia K900 are relatively fresh to market. This list is strictly based on dollars saved. (Our Best New Car Deals list routinely covers just models that meet the stringent performance, reliability, and safety criteria to be Consumer Reports recommended.) Although we highlight one specific configuration, there are similar savings available on other variations. Each vehicle highlighted below is available with a 10- to 15-percent discount off the retail price in national incentives. Some may also carry additional regional or other special incentives. Specific pricing details on these and other trim variations are available on the model pages, along with complete road tests, reliability, owner cost, and other key information. The vehicles are listed in alphabetical order. Chrysler 200 Redesigned for 2015, the 200 is well-equipped, but loses road test points for its ride and handling qualities. Engine choices are a fairly polished 3.6-liter, 295-hp V6 or an underwhelming though efficient 184-hp, 2.4-liter four cylinder that returned a very good 30 mpg overall. Both are paired with a nine-speed automatic that is neither particularly smooth nor responsive. The V6 is a much nicer engine than the four cylinder and can be had with all-wheel drive. The center console includes a charging station and a rotating knob instead of a conventional gear selector. The cabin is quiet, but handling is clumsy, making the 200 feel like a larger car, and the ride is rough and unsettled. Available safety features include forward-collision and lane-departure warnings, and a self-parking system. Make & model Expires MSRP Invoice Potential savings off MSRP 2015 Chrysler 200 C AWD 3/31/15 $31,520 $30,373 $3,916 Chrysler 300 Chrysler's roomy and luxurious 300 is one of the best large sedans on the market. Inside, you'll find plenty of space for five adults and a comfortable cabin decked with attractive trim. The punchy 5.7-liter V8 comes paired with a smooth eight-speed automatic. But the 3.6-liter V6 version, which also uses the eight-speed box, brings a stately ride and responsive handling while averaging a good 22 mpg overall in our tests. With the V6, the 300 is a bargain luxury sedan and our preferred choice. All-wheel drive is optional. The Uconnect touch-screen infotainment system is one of the best in the industry. The 2015 model got a mild styling update, a rotating knob for gear changes, a big driver-info screen in the gauge cluster, and a stack of modern safety gear. Make & model Expires MSRP Invoice Potential savings off MSRP 2015 Chrysler 300 Platinum AWD 3/31/15 $45,890 $43,594 $3,847 Ford Taurus The Taurus is quiet, rides comfortably, and has lots of features. But it feels like Ford put styling ahead of interior comfort and driver visibility. And the convoluted MyFord Touch control system doesn't help matters. Fuel economy from the 3.5-liter V6 is 21 mpg. The six-speed automatic can be slow to shift and is not very smooth. All-wheel drive is offered on the V6. A more fuel-efficient turbo four-cylinder is available. Handling is responsive but not sporty, and the turning circle is wide. The SHO version, with standard all-wheel drive, is quick but not as engaging to drive as you might think. A rear-view camera is standard for 2015. Reliability of the Taurus has improved to average. Make & model Expires MSRP Invoice Potential savings off MSRP 2015 Ford Taurus SEL AWD 3/31/15 $32,160 $30,418 $3,940 Hyundai Elantra The Elantra sedan combines nimble and secure handling with a fairly comfortable ride. The 1.8-liter four-cylinder and six-speed automatic deliver solid performance and a very good 29 mpg overall. Some versions get a more powerful 2.0-liter four-cylinder. The car is well-equipped for the price, the controls and features are logically laid out, and rear-seat room is fine for two adults. Our major gripe is the pronounced road and engine noise. The GT hatchback has more adventurous styling and is competent enough. Fuel economy of 27 mpg overall is nothing special, and the hatchback suffers from a loud cabin and stiff ride. But, it does have potentials savings of 15 percent of MSRP. Reliability has been above average. Make & model Expires MSRP Invoice Potential savings off MSRP 2015 Hyundai Elantra Sport (auto) 3/31/15 $23,425 $22,669 $3,928 Hyundai Equus Hyundai's flagship competes with the largest luxury sedans, but it costs a good deal less. The Equus does a commendable job at absorbing and hiding all but the most severe impacts, but body motions can be a bit buoyant and give the car a busy feeling on some surfaces. Handling can best be described as ponderous, with a lot of body lean and steering that lacks any feedback. The standard V8 has smooth and refined power delivery, and the eight-speed automatic does its job with little notice. The interior is spacious and well-finished, but some controls are complex. Available features include adaptive cruise control and a lane-departure warning system. Overall, the Equus doesn't quite measure up to the established luxury brands. Factor in the available discounts, and the Equus significantly undercuts its European competitors. Make & model Expires MSRP Invoice Potential savings off MSRP 2015 Hyundai Equus Ultimate 3/31/15 $69,700 $65,844 $4,063 Hyundai Sonata The Sonata is a competitive but ho-hum family sedan with a quiet cabin, a comfortable ride, and good rear-seat room and access. Handling is sound and responsive enough. But the SE we tested had lackluster tire grip, affecting braking and emergency handling. Most Sonatas have a 2.4-liter four-cylinder, which returned 28 mpg overall in our tests, with a 2.0-liter turbo four-cylinder optional. Both engines are mated to a six-speed automatic. The Eco model features a 1.6-liter turbo four-cylinder paired with a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. Controls are easy to reach and simple to use. Available safety features include forward-collision mitigation, lane-departure warning, and blind-spot detection. Make & model Expires MSRP Invoice Potential savings off MSRP 2015 Hyundai Sonata 2.0T Limited 3/31/15 $34,350 $32,594 $3,006 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid The Sonata Hybrid is still based on the previous generation Sonata. Although it gets better fuel economy than its non-hybrid doppelganger (33 vs. 27 mpg overall), the trade-off in drivability, refinement, and braking performance is high. The car stumbles and hesitates as it makes the transition from electric to gas power and sometimes shakes and vibrates. As a result, it scored too low to be recommended. A new hybrid version comes in June, hence the big discounts now. Make & model Expires MSRP Invoice Potential savings off MSRP 2015 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid Limited 3/31/15 $30,325 $28,831 $4,385 Jaguar XF The midsized Jaguar XF may be the sportiest-handling car in its class, with agility and steering feel that surpass the Audi A6 and BMW 5 Series. The ride is compliant and composed but has an underlying firmness. Most versions will have the supercharged 3.0-liter V6 and eight-speed automatic, which combine to deliver smooth, effortless power. The base engine is a four-cylinder; three powerful V8s top the range. Our AWD V6 proved very quick and agile. Low-slung, coupelike styling takes a toll on access and visibility. The cabin is beautifully finished, with a near-bespoke quality, but it is snug, especially in back. The controls are needlessly complicated, made all the worse by a fussy, slow-reacting touch screen. Make & model Expires MSRP Invoice Potential savings off MSRP 2015 Jaguar XF Supercharged 3/31/15 $71,800 $66,880 $3,418 Jaguar XJ The capable, luxurious XJ sedan comes in regular- and long-wheelbase form, with available all-wheel drive. It appears all variations are heavily discounted right now. Powered by its midlevel engine, a refined 470-hp 5.0-liter V8, the big XJ is quiet and very quick, and handles with grace and agility. The ride is supple and steady. The plush interior is crafted with genuine wood trim, copious amounts of leather, and abundant chrome details. But some controls are confusing. The complex touch screen for the climate, audio, and navigation systems responds slowly, and learning your way around it takes some study. Our tested long-wheelbase XJL has a sumptuous backseat, but the low roofline impedes head room and access, and the trunk is small. Make & model Expires MSRP Invoice Potential savings off MSRP 2015 Jaguar XJ 3/31/15 $75,125 $69,939 $4,484 Kia K900 Kia's new flagship is the brand's first rear-drive model and cousin of the Hyundai Equus. It is offered with a smooth and punchy 420-hp V8 or a 3.8-liter V6. The K900 is like a traditional freeway cruiser: more comfortable wafting along in a straight line than carving corners. The base infotainment system uses a 9.2-inch screen; top trims get a 12-inch display. A central controller manages the menus and selections, but it takes some getting used to. The cabin is very roomy. Safety options include blind-spot and lane-detection systems, rear cross-traffic alert, a wraparound camera, and front-collision warning. Make & model Expires MSRP Invoice Potential savings off MSRP 2015 Kia K900 Luxury 5/4/15 $60,800 $57,048 $3,797 More from Consumer Reports: Best and worst three-row vehicles Safest and most lethal late-model cars Best new cars for under $25,000 Consumer Reports has no relationship with any advertisers on this website. Copyright © 2006-2015 Consumers Union of U.S.
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Cars come in all shapes and sizes, but the dominant silhouette on American highways and byways belongs to the ubiquitous four-door sedan. These classically configured cars range from affordable, subcompact models to ultra-luxury land yachts, crossing every price point in between. When it comes time to select the perfect sedan for your needs and budget, the choices may be overwhelming at first. That's where Consumer Reports comes in, cutting through the marketing hype with a comprehensive program that spans more than 50 tests and evaluations. To ensure we evaluate representative vehicles, every one of those cars is purchased anonymously, giving us the same dealership experiences as consumers. As a result, we can rate and rank without fear or favor. (Learn about how we test cars.) In the sedans category, there are numerous excellent models well worth considering. But there are even more that frankly shouldn't make the cut. To accelerate your shopping process, we've picked the 10 best sedans across several key categories, putting emphasis on the popular, and price-sensitive, compact and midsized sedan classes. Each car here ranks among the best in class for road test performance, has average or better predicted reliability, and performs adequately if included in government or insurance-industry crash tests. Or simply put, these are the best new sedans on the market today and ones we strongly recommend. Click through to read the complete road tests, along with scanning reliability, owner cost, owner satisfaction, pricing, and other data. Or use our search tools to compile your own list based on the factors that matter most to you. Jeff Bartlett Compact car: Subaru Impreza Base MSRP price range: $18,195 - $23,295 The Impreza's interior packaging is outstanding, especially when you put friends (whom you want to remain your friends) in the backseat. Recent ­improvements have made it quieter inside. The ride is more comfortable than in some pricier cars. It drinks more fuel than its peers, but you're getting all-wheel drive as a benefit. We don't like the slackness and drone of most continuously variable transmissions, but with recent ­improvements Subaru has managed to mask those quirks. Subaru also has finally embraced the need for a contemporary infotainment system. The Impreza is among the pricier compact sedans, but it's a strong value. Compact car: Kia Forte Base MSRP price range: $15,890 - $21,890 There's a lot to like in the Kia Forte for those in the market for a small car. Unassuming in nature yet considerably more refined than previous Kia compact sedans, the Forte feels mature and solid, thanks to having a quiet cabin and one of the most comfortable rides in its class. Kia's Forte provides generous interior room and a wide assortment of amenities. Our tested base LX sedan got 28-mpg overall with the smooth 1.8-liter four-cylinder and six-speed automatic. Handling is very secure but not particularly agile. All EX versions get a stronger 2.0-liter four-cylinder, and the SX coupe and hatch use a 1.6-liter turbo. The spacious interior is quiet for a compact car, and the controls are logically arranged. Part of the appeal for the Forte is that it offers features not usually found in the class, such as front/rear heated and ventilated seats. Predicted reliability is average, and owner satisfaction is better than average. Midsized sedan: Ford Fusion Base MSRP price range: $22,500 - $36,630 If you seek an engaging midsized sedan, look no further. The Fusion is a delight to drive, with a supple ride and agile handling rivaling that of a European sports sedan. All trim levels and powertrains feel solid and upscale, with a well-finished and quiet cabin and comfortable seats. But the rear seat is somewhat snug, and the MyFord Touch interface is an annoyance. Most Fusions get either a 1.5- or 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder matched with a six-speed automatic. The 1.5-liter does the job, but the 2.0-liter packs more punch and better suits the car. We recorded 24-and 22-mpg overall, respectively, which is among the lower performers in the category. The Hybrid turned in an excellent 39-mpg overall. Reliability has been average or better for all versions. Midsized sedan: Subaru Legacy Base MSRP price range: $21,695 - $29,595 Most sedans are excellent appliances they do their job, but few people wake up excited to drive them. The Legacy exceeds those drab, rental-car expectations, providing a quiet, comfortable, and roomy package that also has the best ride among its peers. Its 26 mpg might seem lackluster, but that's with the reassurance of all-wheel drive. Years ago, quirky folks bought Subarus to be practical and pragmatic. Now it's simply a great car with mainstream appeal and impact. If you need a wagon for its cargo space, the Legacy's Outback sibling is an excellent choice, as well. Midsized sedan: Toyota Camry Base MSRP price range: $22,970 - $31,370 The Camry delivers smooth, dependable transportation that skews toward comfort and convenience. Its 2015 freshening offers upgraded interior electronics, more intuitive controls, reduced cabin noise, suspension tweaks that keep the ride steadier, and more interesting exterior styling. Because of the popularity of the sporty SE trim, Toyota has added a higher level XSE and SE Hybrid. The Camry more than holds its own among other family sedans with responsive and secure handling. The interior is quiet, and the ride soaks up bumps without much complaining. There's plenty of room inside and controls are easy to use, except for some tight-packed touch-screen buttons. All Camrys come well-equipped, with a standard backup camera and power driver's seat. Each of our tested Camrys the LE four-cylinder, XLE Hybrid, and XLE V6 score within a few points of each other and cater to a wide spectrum of buyers, from the green-oriented hybrid to the semi-luxurious V6. A long history of strong reliability provides yet another selling point for this fuss-free sedan. Large sedan: Chevrolet Impala Base MSRP price range: $27,060 - $40,660 For decades, the Impala nameplate was synonymous with the image of a bad rental car. Make no mistake, this Impala humbles the Toyota Avalon and even the Lexus ES 350. Large and roomy, the Impala has comfortable seats and rides like a true luxury car. The suspension is supple yet responsive, without the body roll that plagues many big cars. The cabin is hushed. For those of us with diminishing eye-sight , the controls are big, intuitive, and easily understood. The only drawback is limited rear visibility due to its high rear deck and deep parcel shelf. You can get one nicely equipped for $35,000, with affordable optional forward-collision and lane-departure warning systems. A caveat: Only the V6 version meets our reliability standards. Luxury compact car: BMW 328d xDrive Base MSRP price range: $32,950 - $62,000 The BMW 3 Series is an excellent car that boasts high quality, attention to detail, and a long list of high-tech features. The car is agile, steady, and well balanced even when pushed hard. Ride comfort, cabin quietness, and interior fit and finish are all impressive. The turbo four-cylinder makes the 328i quick yet returns a frugal 28-mpg overall. The diesel 328d that trades off some top-end acceleration for even better fuel economy with 35 mpg overall. And the 328d's 49-mpg highway mileage gives the car a lengthy driving range of 735 uninterrupted miles. With some diesel clatter, the 328d is a little noisier than the 328i, but we didn't find it offensive. Fun and efficient, the 328d is a luxury car with a rational side. Luxury car: Audi A6 Base MSRP price range: $44,800 - $75,500 Quick, nimble, and effortless, the A6 pampers you with extravagant surroundings and a plush ride. But at its heart, this Audi remains a driver-focused machine faithful to its core value of crisp handling on a curvy road. The seats are bolstered for hard cornering yet are comfortable on that 6-hour whisper-quiet cruise to wine country with a trunk that will store your year's supply of Riesling. The interior's styling and layout display functional elegance without showy glitz a fit-and-finish leitmotif that makes fans of Design Within Reach all squishy inside. All functions are within a finger reach of an infotainment system that becomes logical with some practice. Fuel economy is commendable when combined with the security of the Quattro all-wheel drive. Hit five out of six Powerball numbers? Then take your reward. Luxury car: Lincoln MKZ Base MSRP price range: $35,190 - $37,080 The upscale MKZ is the most appealing and well-executed Lincoln in recent memory. Based on the Ford Fusion, it has a luxurious, quiet interior, and its ride and handling rival some high-end European sports sedans. Powertrains include a 2.0-liter turbo four-cylinder and a 3.7-liter V6, each matched with a six-speed automatic. There's also a hybrid, which returned a near-class-best 34-mpg overall in our tests. The push-button gear selector and touch-sensitive controls for climate and audio functions are frustrating to use. And the modern styling compromises cabin access and rear-seat room. Reliability has been average for all versions. Sports sedan: Buick Regal Base MSRP price range: $29,990 - $39,810 Fans of German autobahn cruisers are breaking out their venom-tipped quill pens as they read this. An American car an American front-drive car is one of our Top Picks? Unbelievable! Surprisingly agile, the Regal defies Buick's brand stereotype. Because it's an Opel underneath, it has that Teutonic ride control that provides a Europhile driving experience. Close your eyes, and you'll think you're driving an Audi a very good Audi at that. The 259-hp, 2.0-liter turbo is sharply integrated with a six-speed automatic and available all-wheel drive, and it remains responsive across a linear power band. The IntelliLink infotainment system is intuitive. The value-for-money equation is strong. You can even get a Regal with a stick shift to bolster your sport sedan credentials. It may not be as luxurious as the German giants, but a well-equipped Regal delivers a lot for the money. More from Consumer Reports: Best and worst three-row vehicles Safest and most lethal late-model cars Best new cars for under $25,000 Consumer Reports has no relationship with any advertisers on this website. Copyright © 2006-2015 Consumers Union of U.S.
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With its sewer system under siege, tallying millions of dollars in equipment damage across its underground maze, New York City is confronting a menace that has gummed the gears of plumbing networks around the world: the common wet wipe. In recent years, the intersection of evolving hygienic sensibilities and aggressive industry marketing has fueled the product's rise. Wet wipes, long used for baby care, have grown popular with adults. Some of the products are branded as "flushable" a characterization contested by wastewater officials and plaintiffs bringing class-action lawsuits against wipes manufacturers for upending their plumbing. Often, the wipes combine with other materials, like congealed grease, to create a sort of superknot. "They're really indestructible," said Vincent Sapienza, a deputy commissioner for the city's Department of Environmental Protection . "I guess that's the purpose." The city has spent more than $18 million in the past five years on wipe-related equipment problems, officials said. The volume of materials extracted from screening machines at the city's wastewater treatment plants has more than doubled since 2008, an increase attributed largely to the wipes. Removal is an unpleasant task. The dank clusters, graying and impenetrable, gain mass like demon snowballs as they travel. Pumps clog. Gears falter. Then, there is the final blow, wrought by an intake of sewage that overwhelmed a portion of a north Brooklyn treatment plant. "Odor control," a sign there reads. But on a recent afternoon, the second word had disappeared behind a wayward splotch: It was a used wipe, etched with a heavenly cloud design. The city is not alone. Wet wipes, which do not disintegrate the way traditional toilet paper does, have plagued Hawaii and Alaska , Wisconsin and California . Sewer systems have been stuffed in Portland, Ore., and Portland, Me. Semantic debates have visited Charleston, W.Va., challenging the latitude of "flushability." "I agree that they're flushable," said Tim Haapala, operations manager for the Charleston Sanitary Board . "A golf ball is flushable, but it's not a good idea." The consummate cautionary tale is that of London, where in 2013 a collection of wipes, congealed cooking oil and other materials totaled 15 tons, according to Thames Water , the utility company that removed it. It was known, like some previous occurrences, as the fatberg . "We reckon it has to be the biggest such berg in British history," Gordon Hailwood, an official with Thames Water, said at the time. For wipe manufacturers, heavy investments in products for adults have resonated with customers. Market research, cited in a Bloomberg News article last year, suggested that from 2008 to 2013, sales of the moist flushable wipes had grown 23 percent to $367 million. In New York, city officials are tackling the problem in various ways. A City Council bill, which has the backing of the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio, was introduced last month to prohibit advertising certain moist wipes as flushable. The environmental department has begun work on a public awareness campaign concerning the importance of proper wipe disposal: throwing them in the trash. Emily Lloyd , Mr. de Blasio's environmental commissioner, who also served in that role from 2005 to 2009 and was sanitation commissioner from 1992 to 1994, recalled the warning she received during a return tour of a wastewater plant last year: "You're not going to believe what's happened with baby wipes." And it is residents, Ms. Lloyd noted, who bear the extra cost. "That goes, obviously, on the water rates," she said. "It's an expense we didn't have before that now we have." High-profile wipes champions have included the television host Dr. Mehmet Oz; he has since reversed course after conferring with wastewater experts. In a segment outlining his change of heart , he advised viewers to return to regular toilet paper, manually moistened if possible. Industry representatives chafe at the suggestion that they have operated irresponsibly. The prime culprits, they say, are customers who ignore label warnings. Dave Rousse , president of the Association of the Nonwoven Fabrics Industry , a trade group representing wipes manufacturers, said a vast majority of problems derived from "nonflushable wipes inappropriately flushed." The group has teamed up with municipal officials and advocacy groups to promote proper disposal. The industry even pitched in with a logo. "It's the symbol of a stick man dropping something in the toilet, with a slash bar across the stick man," Mr. Rousse said. But environmentalists say the industry must do more, calling for improved labeling and refined standards for what is considered flushable. While companies like Procter & Gamble have maintained that their flushable wipes are compatible with municipal pumps, wastewater authorities have long argued that guidelines are not stringent enough. At issue, primarily, is an industry trial known as the " slosh box test ," designed to gauge disintegration thresholds. Critics say the test, which rocks wipes back and forth in a crate of water, does not properly mimic the wastewater system, allowing manufacturers to claim flushability for a product that may be too sturdy for treatment systems. The test is "a lot more turbulent than the flow that you find in a wastewater pipe," said Cynthia Finley, director of regulatory affairs for the National Association of Clean Water Agencies . Flushed materials, she added, generally move "on very gentle slopes." Mr. Rousse agreed that the test "can be modified," but added that only 5 or 6 percent of wipes were designed to be flushable, suggesting that much of the trouble involved improper disposal. City officials have emphasized that they are not anti-wipe. The Council bill would keep the "flushable" label off any product that does not pass a third-party test approved by the environmental protection commissioner, but would not imperil sales, supporters say. "We're not banning wipes," said Councilman Antonio Reynoso , a co-sponsor. He said the bill would simply ban the "flushable" label for products that emerge from the wastewater treatment process "almost as new." On a recent afternoon at the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in Brooklyn, heaps of wipes flushable or otherwise had survived the underground journey intact. They clung to walls and wires, hanging off gears and horizontal rails, with some discarded atop a metal sheet. A sewage treatment worker, Michael Brady, approached with a rake, sidling up beside the machines. He cleared the materials off the sheet, into a small trash bin. "It's kind of gross," Mr. Brady said, scraping the bottom clean.
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On Thursday the extremists released the half-hour recording, purported to be from "Islamic State" (IS) spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani. Adnani pledged IS would "blow up the White House, Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower" before taking over other major world cities, such as Rome and Jerusalem. "We will make your lives black and dark," he said. He also predicted the group would expand further into the Middle East, into countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates. IS has taken control of major parts Iraq and Syria. Adnani denied that the extremist group had suffered setbacks, saying it was actually growing in strength. "Our caliphate is resisting and it is advancing in the right direction. We are fighting the Crusaders and the rafidah (Shiites) and day by day the Islamic State is becoming strong," he said. The tape was released to coincide with the announcement IS had "accepted the allegiance" of Nigerian militants Boko Haram. A message on Saturday attributed to Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau proclaimed the group's loyalty to IS. Although he had mentioned IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in previous videos, this was the first official declaration of formal allegiance. Adnani's reply in Thursday's tape said that they welcomed Boko Haram's pledge, using the group's Arabic name, which means they can spread their control to parts of Africa. "We announce to you the good news of the expansion of the caliphate to West Africa because the caliph (…) has accepted the allegiance of our brothers of the Sunni group for preaching and the jihad." The message comes as the United States is drawing up a draft resolution to put together a regional force to fight Boko Haram. Iraqi forces are planning a coordinated attack on the city of Tikrit on Friday, after entering the IS-held city on Wednesday. Adnani insisted that "the victories proclaimed by coalition are only illusions," and only "inches of land" had actually been recaptured.
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Those buying RadioShack Corp.'s stock, even for mere pennies, are just wasting their money. So says the company. The failed consumer electronic retailer's shares tumbled 30% in morning trade Friday to 13 cents, but based on the company's view, they should be down 100%. In light of the recent trading volume in its stock, RadioShack felt compelled late Thursday to repeat its warning that its shares will likely end up being worthless in the pending Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. "Equity holders of a company in Chapter 11 bankruptcy generally receive value only if all claims of a company's secured and unsecured creditors are fully satisfied," the company said in a statement. "RadioShack said it believes that the claims of its secured and unsecured creditors will not be fully satisfied, leading to the conclusion that RadioShack common stock has no value." Despite Friday's selloff, the stock was still trading 30% above its closing price of 10 cents on Feb. 5, the day RadioShack filed for bankruptcy, after years of fighting to stay solvent. The stock closed above 20 cents as recently as Monday, and daily volume since Feb. 5 has averaged 4.1 million shares.
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finance
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A date falls on this Saturday that only comes once every 100 years and geeks around the world are very excited. It's Pi Day, the celebration date of the number that is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. The celebration is held annually on 14 March, because 3/14 spells out the first three digits of π, or pi, which is 3.14. But it's not just any Pi Day. This year is the first time in a century that the date is 3/14/15, which describes the first five digits of pi, 3.1415. Mass elation will peak at 9.26:53am when the date and time will describe pi to 10 digits. Originally a US-based initiative to promote mathematics to pupils hence the American date format, 3/14 Pi Day has in recent years transformed into a kind of nerd Christmas, commemorated all over the world by children and adults often by eating pie. At Morriston comprehensive school in Swansea pupils on Friday brought in pies as one of many maths-themed activities. "It's the first time we've done Pi Day, but I think it's here to stay," said maths teacher Philip Jones. "We're always trying to encourage maths as more than numbers, and this is fun. It's nice for maths to have something that is just our day." Events in Wales have been encouraged by the Welsh government, which declared it Pi Day Cymru as a way of honouring the Anglesey-born mathematician William Jones, who came up with the idea of pi in 1706. Jones was not the first person to realise that the circumference of a circle divided by the diameter is a number that defies easy calculation. But he was the first to denote the ratio by the symbol π, suggesting it in a book as an abbreviation of either the word periphery or perimeter. The circle is the most elementary two-dimensional shape you can draw. You can do it with a pair of compasses or a pencil tied to a piece of string. The root of fascination with pi is the fact that the ratio of the circle's two simplest measurable quantities the distance around it and the distance across it produces a number that is so complicated: its digital expansion continues for ever, churning out a sequence of digits with no apparent pattern. Five fun facts about Pi The contrast between the simplicity of the definition and the complexity of the result has helped turn pi into an iconic cultural symbol. It is a metaphor for the mysteries of mathematics glorified in many ways, in a song by Kate Bush, a film by Darren Aronofsky and even a perfume by Givenchy. Mathematicians have turned the search to find more and more digits of pi into an epic quest. Archimedes got to two decimal places in the third century BC. Now pi is known to 13.3tn decimal places, a result announced online in October by an anonymous computer scientist using the name Houkouonchi. Quite apart from its role in science, however, pi is also the only number that has inspired its own literary genre, "pilish", in which the length of words in a sentence is determined by pi's digits. For example: It's a bash, a party: celebrate pi! The first word has three letters, the second one, the third four, and so on. The Shakespeare of this style is American Mike Keith whose novella Not a Wake follows pi for 10,000 digits. Pi has also inspired a competitive sport: pi memorisation, where practitioners must recite as many digits in pi from memory. Akira Haraguchi, 69, from Japan, claims to have set a new record by reciting 100,000 digits in public which took him 16hr 30min. "To me, reciting pi's digits has the same meaning as chanting the Buddhist mantra and meditating," he says. "Everything that circles around carries the spirit of the Buddha. I think pi is the ultimate example of that." The official Guinness World record is held by Chao Lu, from China, who recited pi to 67,890 places. Writing in pilish and pi memorisation competitions are common ways to celebrate Pi Day, but the most popular activities usually involve the eating of pies, an appropriate pun since pies are often circular. In the US, where Pi Day still has the highest visibility, shops embracing the event are pricing pies at $3.14. Another happy coincidence is that 14 March is Albert Einstein's birthday, which adds a scientific respectability to the festivities. In Princeton, New Jersey, where Einstein lived for the last two decades of his life, Pi Day is one of the biggest days of the year, with dozens of events including a parade, pie-throwing and an Einstein lookalike competition. Northfleet school for girls in Gravesend, Kent, has celebrated Pi Day for the last few years, says science teacher Julie Davis. "It is definitely becoming a bigger deal. What's nice about pi is that it's universal everybody uses the same symbol." Because Pi Day this year falls on a Saturday, most school activities take place on Friday. Sue Thaw, maths teacher at St Bede's Inter-Church school in Cambridge, asked her students to compose "piems", poems in pilish. "Pi day is a great way of engaging students and getting them to explore maths in a different way. I'll be doing it again next year." Alex Bellos is the author of Alex's Adventures in Numberland and Alex Through the Looking-Glass.
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Amanda Davies breaks down the biggest tech and driver changes for 2015 from the season's curtain-raiser at Albert Park Circuit.
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The Saints have traded away Jimmy Graham and continue to make questionable moves this offseason. Dan Hellie weighs in on what's going on down in the Big Easy.
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sports
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Jurors on Friday saw grainy black-and-white videos from a nightclub where Aaron Hernandez allegedly got into a dispute with Odin Lloyd a little more than 48 hours before the man was murdered. Hernandez, wearing a gray hoodie and a baseball cap, appeared in several of the images -- including one sequence in which patrons were shown entering Rumor, located in Boston's theater district. Prosecutor Brian Griffin stopped the video and asked Rumor manager Zeid Nabulsi what was happening in the video. "We pat down every individual that walks into our club," Nabulsi said. That followed earlier testimony from a valet manager at a nearby hotel who said he saw Hernandez, after leaving the club, with a gun in his waistband. Prosecutors have alleged that Hernandez, angry with Lloyd after a confrontation at that club, orchestrated his murder two days later less than a mile from the home of the then-New England Patriots tight end. Jurors also heard from Jeffrey London, who promoted events at nightclubs in Boston and knew Hernandez. "He came to various events that I would put on, I would say fairly frequently, during the season, sometimes during the off-season," London said. The night that Hernandez and Lloyd went to Rumor, London said he was outside the club, where his job was "taking care of clientele that would spend a lot of money, athletes, celebrities." More witnesses from Rumor are expected to be called. Prosecutors have alleged that Hernandez arranged to meet Lloyd and at the same time summoned two associates, Ernest Wallace Jr. and Carlos Ortiz, from Bristol, Conn., to his home in North Attleboro late the night of June 16, 2013. From there, the trio allegedly set out for Boston -- roughly an hour's drive -- at about 1:10 a.m. on June 17. After picking up Lloyd in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood, Hernandez allegedly drove the group back to North Attleboro, pulling into a secluded area in an industrial park less than a mile from the player's mansion. Hernandez faces one count of murder and two firearms charges in the slaying of Lloyd, a 27-year-old semi-pro football player who was dating Shaneah Jenkins, the sister of Hernandez's fiancee. Prosecutors have not said who they believe fired the fatal shots, and Ortiz and Wallace also have been charged with murder and will be tried separately. Under a Massachusetts law often referred to as "joint venture," a person can be convicted of murder even if someone else carried out the actual killing. To prove that, prosecutors would have to convince the jury that Hernandez knowingly participated in the killing and did so with intent. Other testimony Friday centered on shoes -- and a possible double-edged sword for the prosecution and defense alike. Jurors saw photographs of shoes resting on the floor in Hernandez's guest bedroom that were allegedly worn by him and two suspected accomplices, Carlos Ortiz and Ernest Wallace Jr., when Odin Lloyd was killed early the morning of June 17, 2013. Video from the home of the now-former New England Patriots tight end led detectives to conclude that Hernandez was wearing a pair of black and white Air Jordan XI Retro Low sneakers, that Ortiz was wearing a pair of brown Nike Air Jordan Winterize Spizike Dark Cinder Black shoes, and that Wallace was wearing a pair of a pair of Cesario Lo Red Herringbone shoes. When detectives searched the home on June 18, 2013, and June 22, 2013, they did not find any of the shoes. Then, last November, prosecutors were preparing for Hernandez's trial and going through photos and video taken during the searches and they saw three pairs of shoes neatly lined up along a wall in a basement bedroom, according to a search warrant that was first obtained by the Attleboro Sun Chronicle. According to the warrant, which was subsequently sealed, those shoes are believed to be the ones the three men were wearing when Hernandez's home surveillance pictures captured images of them when they returned to the player's home around 3:30 a.m. on June 17, 2013 just minutes after detectives believe Lloyd was killed. Detectives overlooked those shoes when they searched Hernandez's home in the days after Lloyd's death, and when they went back with that new search warrant in November -- 17 months later -- they were long gone. Much more testimony is expected about the shoes -- prosecutors allege that a footprint near Lloyd's body was left by a Nike Air Jordan. Hernandez has separately been indicted on multiple murder and assault charges in a July 16, 2012, shooting in South Boston that left two men dead and another wounded. In the Boston killings, prosecutors have alleged that Hernandez became enraged after a man bumped him on a nightclub dance floor, spilling his drink, and failed to apologize. They alleged that Hernandez later followed the man and his friends as they drove away from the club, then pulled up next to their car at a stoplight and opened fire with a .38-caliber revolver, killing Daniel De Abreu, 29, and Safiro Furtado, 28, and wounding another man. That trial originally was scheduled to begin May 28, but the judge there indicated recently he would push it back given the anticipated length of the trial in the Lloyd case. No new trial date has been set.
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The U.S. State Department said on Friday it was working with Congress to provide about $70 million in new non-lethal assistance to the Syrian opposition fighting President Bashar al-Assad. The aid comes as the U.S. military separately prepares to train and equip Syrian rebels to fight Islamic State militants in Syria. The non-lethal aid will go toward basic community services, supporting "vetted units of the armed opposition," digital security training, and documentation of war crimes and other violations by the Syrian regime, the State Department said. "As we have long said, Assad must go and be replaced through a negotiated political transition that is representative of the Syrian people," said Alistair Baskey, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, in a statement. The non-lethal aid, announced on the fourth anniversary of the revolution against Assad, brings total U.S. support to the Syrian opposition to nearly $400 million since the start of the revolution, the State Department said. (Reporting by Emily Stephenson and Roberta Rampton; Editing by Sandra Maler)
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LONG BEACH, Calif. A 15-year-old boy walking home from school was stabbed to death for his backpack, California authorities said. Keshawn Brooks was assaulted as the suspect tried to snatch his bag Thursday afternoon outside Stephens Middle School in Long Beach, police said. The suspect ran off. Brooks, a freshman at nearby Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo High School, was given first aid by witnesses before paramedics arrived. The teen was rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead from serious stab wounds. After interviewing witnesses, investigators named 18-year-old Giovanny Montelongo as a suspect. He was taken into custody Thursday evening at a Long Beach residence on suspicion of murder, said police spokeswoman Nancy Pratt. "This was a murder, done outright, and he did not deserve this," Brooks' father, Keeyon Layton, said at a Thursday evening press conference. "And to the people who came to his aid, I would like to thank you, very much. It pleases me that he was not alone during his time of death." The killing occurred as parents were picking up students at the middle school, police said. Investigators and Brooks' father implored any witnesses to come forward. Montelongo was held without bail as a requirement of one of three outstanding warrants unrelated to Thursday's incident, Pratt said. The warrants were sealed because the previous alleged offenses occurred when he was a juvenile, she said. Pratt didn't know if Montelongo has a lawyer. He was scheduled to be arraigned on Monday. The Long Beach Unified School District was providing grief counselors for students Friday.
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CONCORD, N.H. In a direct step toward a run for the presidency, Hillary Rodham Clinton is hiring political staff to guide her Democratic primary efforts in the early voting state of New Hampshire. The team in waiting is made up of top operatives to Sen. Jeanne Shaheen's successful re-election bid in 2014, when she survived a Republican wave that knocked out many other Democrats. Mike Vlacich, Shaheen's campaign manager, will serve as Clinton's state director, said a New Hampshire Democrat with knowledge of the move. The Democrat spoke on condition of anonymity because people will not be officially hired until Clinton announces a campaign. Clinton is expected to announce her 2016 White House bid in the next few weeks, a race that presents few primary rivals at this point in contrast to the crowded Republican contest. The former secretary of state has been trying to dig out from a controversy over her use of a private email account and server after acknowledging days ago that she should have avoided relying exclusively on personal email while at the State Department. Word of her hirings in New Hampshire came as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, expected to be a leading contender for the Republican nomination, is in the state on his first visit in years. In addition to Vlacich, Clinton is turning to Kari Thurman, Shaheen's political director, and Harrell Kirstein, Shaheen's campaign communications director, to serve in the same functions for her, the source said. Clinton won the 2008 New Hampshire primary and many prominent New Hampshire Democrats are already backing her assumed campaign, including Democratic National Committeewoman Kathy Sullivan. Democrats recently told The Associated Press that she has begun retaining staff in the early voting states of Iowa and South Carolina as well. Vlacich emerged from the 2014 election as one of the most successful Democratic operatives in the country, helping Shaheen beat back a challenge from Republican Scott Brown, a former senator from Massachusetts, when Democrats lost competitive races across the country. Vlacich's wife, Liz Purdy, is also a Clinton confidante, serving as a top adviser to Clinton's 2008 bid in the state. "Mike is the kind of person who can just pull activists together," said Peter Burling, a former Democratic National Committeeman from New Hampshire. "I think that's going to be an essential part of this next campaign, getting Democrats to come out and participate." Robby Mook, Clinton's likely campaign manager, also has ties to Shaheen, serving as her 2008 campaign manager. In Iowa, Clinton's campaign is expected to be run by Matt Paul, a longtime adviser to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, a former Iowa governor. South Carolina Democrats have told AP that Clinton will again hire Democratic consulting firm Sunrise Communications, owned by Darrell Jackson, a state senator and pastor. ___ Associated Press writers Ken Thomas and Steve Peoples in Washington contributed to this report.
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PHOENIX President Barack Obama is making a first-time visit to the Arizona veterans' hospital that triggered a national examination into how the government cares for its former service members to get an appraisal on the health system's progress and its lingering needs. Obama will travel to Phoenix on Friday to draw attention to the Veterans Affairs Department response to widespread mismanagement where VA workers falsified waiting lists to conceal chronic delays in care. The visit comes amid questions from lawmakers who say veterans are still not benefiting from changes in the law that were meant to improve their access to care. A month ago, Obama drew criticism for traveling to Phoenix without stopping at the VA hospital. Joined by the new VA secretary, Robert McDonald, Obama is expected to meet with veterans, VA employees, veterans' groups and elected officials, including Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake, the two Republican senators from Arizona. McCain has been especially critical of the administration's response to the VA's troubles. The White House defended the VA's actions to correct problems. "Long after it fades from the headlines, this is something a lot of people have been working on and that he president feels strongly about," White House spokesman Eric Schultz said. The White House said Obama would announce the creation of an advisory committee to address ways to improve the VA's service to veterans. The committee would consist of representatives from the private sector, veterans' organizations, government, health sciences and academics. Friday's visit comes at the end of a two-day West Coast trip by Obama. He was in Los Angeles on Thursday attending a Democratic Party fundraiser and taping an appearance on ABC's late-night show "Jimmy Kimmel Live." The Phoenix VA Medical Center prompted the scrutiny last year following reports that dozens of veterans died while awaiting treatment at the hospital. The ensuing scandal prompted the ouster of VA Secretary Eric Shinseki. The agency's Phoenix director, Sharon Helman, also lost her job. A series of government reports said workers throughout the country falsified wait lists while supervisors looked the other way. While veterans encountered chronic delays, the reports found managers who falsely appeared to meet on-time goals received bonuses. An administrative judge concluded Helman was not at fault over delays in care and secret waiting lists, but determined the agency was justified in firing her because she accepted improper gifts from a health care organization. The Phoenix office brought a respected former director out of retirement to take controls of the office for a one-year assignment. Glen Grippen told an Arizona legislative panel this week that the Phoenix office has hired 320 new staff since January 2014, is opening three new Phoenix-area clinics and is preparing to remodel its main Phoenix hospital. The VA says that between May 1 and Dec. 31 of last year it completed more than 37 million appointments nationwide, 1.8 million more than for the same period in 2013. The Phoenix VA health care system completed more than 476,000 appointments between May and Jan. 31 of this year, an increase of 19 percent over the previous year. The VA also said the Phoenix system completed 94 percent of appointments from October through January within 30 days of the date preferred by the patient. But the doctor who sounded the alarm on problems with the Phoenix VA and helped bring about the changes said he is still frustrated about what he sees as a slow pace in reforms being carried out. He said McDonald has a nearly impossible job. "If I ask you to go out and lift a 10,000-pound boulder and you go out and give it your best and can't do it, does that make you a bad guy? No. The boulder was just too big for anyone to lift," Dr. Sam Foote told The Associated Press on Thursday. "And that's somewhat of the situation that they're in." Foote retired from the VA before bringing the allegations to light. Congress approved a sweeping law last year to overhaul the VA and appropriated money to make it easier for veterans to get VA-paid private health care. It also limits the time VA employees have to appeal firings for alleged wrongdoing. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, complained Thursday that "the vast majority of this money remains unspent and the expanded accountability authority has rarely been used." ___ Kuhnhenn reported from Los Angeles.
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A spokesman for Vladimir Putin on Friday denied rumours swirling in the European media that a baby had been born to the Russian leader. Several news outlets reported that a woman romantically linked to Putin in the past had given birth, a possible explanation for the leader's unusual absence that has sent the Russian rumour mill into overdrive. "Information that a child has been born to Vladimir Putin is not true," Dmitry Peskov told Forbes Russia. "I am planning to appeal to people who have money to organise a competition for the best journalistic hoax," he added. The Russian Twittersphere has been alive with speculation over the whereabouts of the typically omnipresent 62-year-old, after he cancelled several meetings this week. Russian state-media aired footage of Putin meeting at his residence outside Moscow with the head of the country's supreme court Friday in a sign that it was business as usual. Putin was last seen in person on March 5 at a press conference with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and footage of him released by the Kremlin since then has been claimed to be dated. Speculation earlier this week had focused on the leader's possible ill-health, which Peskov denied. "There's no need to worry, he's absolutely healthy," Peskov told Echo of Moscow radio station on Thursday. He said Putin was busy with Russia's economic crisis and has "meetings constantly, but not all meetings are public." Asked if Putin's handshake remains firm, Peskov laughed and said: "It breaks your hand." "As soon as the sun comes out... and it starts smelling of spring, people start getting delusions," Peskov told TASS agency. The rumours come as Putin's approval rating hit 88 percent, a record high in his 15-year rule, TASS reported Friday citing figures from the state-controlled VTsIOM polling agency. Putin's popularity has soared since Russia's annexation of the Black Sea Crimea peninsula a year ago.
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'Palcohol' has gained federal approval, but multiple states are beginning to ban it before it hits their shelves, citing numerous health risks.
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If you're a sugar addict, there are a few helpful ways to help you kick the habit. Krystin Goodwin (@krystingoodwin) has the best tips to help you break up with sugar!
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Some things happen every year because, legally or practically, they just have to. The president submits a budget request to Congress every year because the law requires him to do so. The Constitution calls for the president to apprise lawmakers of the state of the union from time to time, which has, by custom, turned into an annual address near the beginning of each session of Congress. Then there are things that happen every year even though they don't have to or clearly shouldn't. That includes the annual crisis over adjusting the payments to Medicare providers, which is now looming again over Capitol Hill. Unless Congress takes action by the end of the month, reimbursement levels will drop by 21 percent. The issue was born with the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, an omnibus spending bill that included a provision meant to keep Medicare payments in line with economic growth every year by applying a "sustainable growth rate," or SGR, adjustment to them. The SGR calculation was, to put it plainly, catastrophically wrong. It would have cut payments so sharply that physicians would have started refusing to see Medicare patients, creating a crisis that nobody in Congress wanted to be blamed for. So the so-called Doc Fix was born. It's a measure that temporarily suspends the SGR adjustment. Congress has now been "temporarily" suspending it for more than a decade. Leaving SGR on the books and correcting it on an emergency basis every year causes real problems. Not only does it create unnecessary stress and uncertainty for the medical profession, it also screws up federal budget accounting. The Congressional Budget Office, when assessing federal spending, is generally constrained by the law as it is written. So, when CBO looks at the Medicare program, it is required to assume that the SGR will be applied as the law requires, resulting in drastically lower costs than the program will actually incur. The biggest barrier to actually fixing the SGR problem permanently is money. Over a 10-year budget window, keeping physician payments through Medicare competitive will cost a lot. A proposal that passed the House of Representatives last year would cost $215 billion over 10 years. It's money that we are going to spend anyway, but Congress hasn't been willing to bite the bullet and pass legislation admitting that reality. The yearly fixes, with all the problems they cause, are less painful politically because of the artificially smaller price tag. Ironically, the Doc Fix process has, at least, helped to reduce the federal deficit somewhat. The annual adjustments to doctors' reimbursement have, unlike many things Congress does, been largely paid for by making other cuts to health care spending. Nevertheless, budget watchdogs continue to call, every year, for the enactment of a permanent doc fix. Will this be the year? A current deal being considered in the House of Representatives would repeal the Doc Fix, pairing it with a two-year extension of the Children's Health Insurance Program, at a cost of more than $200 billion over 10 years, according to a report from Modern Healthcare on Friday afternoon. Whether a deal is truly in sight or not is questionable. According to this latest report, the deal would offset only about $70 billion of the cost through reductions in other spending. That leaves a minimum of $130 billion that would be added to the federal budget over the next 10 years, with the total only growing after that. Getting that kind of a spending increase through the House of Representatives would require House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to cut a deal with Democrats in order to advance the bill without help from his party's strongest deficit hawks. Boehner, who is already on thin ice with the conservatives in the House for folding on a controversial Department of Homeland Security funding bill earlier this month, would be taking a real political risk with such a move. The bill would also need to get through the Senate, where conservative hardliners would no doubt object strenuously to the bill's addition to the deficit. In a recent report , the Committee for a Responsible Budget called on Congress to implement a permanent fix, perhaps along the lines of the bill passed by the House last year. "The replacement would represent a marked improvement to Medicare's payment system," the report found, "better rewarding high-quality and more coordinated care, rather than simply the number of services provided." Hope springs eternal. Top Reads from The Fiscal Times: Blowback Continues from Tom Cotton's Iraq Letter Where in the World Is Vladimir Putin? Obama Budget Adds $6 Trillion to Budget Over 10 Years: CBO
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