text
stringlengths 5
144k
| label
int64 0
9
| id
int64 0
100k
| label_text
stringclasses 10
values |
|---|---|---|---|
NEW YORK -- The New York Rangers wanted to put some distance between themselves and the Florida Panthers on Monday night. It wasn't pretty but the Rangers did earn breathing room in the standings. Despite squandering a two-goal lead in the second period, the Rangers asserted themselves with a dominant third period to emerge with a 6-3 victory at Madison Square in a game that was far more competitive than the score would indicate. The score was 3-3 entering the third period, with the Panthers holding a 22-17 edge in shots. The Rangers responded with a 21-shot onslaught in the final 20 minutes that resulted in the second goal of the game from left winger Rick Nash (his league-leading 31st), and goals from defenseman Dan Boyle and right winger Mats Zuccarello. The win pushed the Rangers to 62 points, 10 more than the ninth-place Panthers, who have lost seven of eight. "We all felt we had more to give," Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist, who made 33 saves, said of the feeling in the locker room at the second intermission. "You come together as a group going into the third, playing a team that's right behind you (in the standings), it's an important game." The Panthers were dominant early, holding an 8-1 shot advantage after left winger Aleksander Barkov scored 4:09 into the game to make it 1-0. A few minutes later, the Panthers had a chance to make it 2-0 on a power play, but disaster ensued. Center Nick Bjugstad's pass to the blue line was too hard to handle for defenseman Aaron Ekblad. Nash grabbed the loose puck and scored on a breakaway to pull the Rangers into a 1-1 tie. "I gave a dud of a pass to Ekblad," Bjugstad said. "He was caught flat-footed. It was a suicide pass by me. We have to bear down in situations like that." The shorthanded goal was Nash's fourth man-down goal and 30th overall. "It's a nice accomplishment," Nash said of reaching 30 for the first time as a Ranger. "It just shows how good my linemates are, how good the team is doing. Personal success always comes after team success." A power-play goal from center Kevin Hayes early in the second period followed by a goal by defenseman Marc Staal that deflected off Panthers center Sean Bergenheim at 9:48 gave the Rangers a 3-1 lead. The lead would be short-lived, as center Dave Bolland and left winger Brandon Pirri responded with goals less than three minutes apart to send the game into the third period tied at 3. Boyle scored what turned out to be the game-winner at 8:10 of the third period on another fluky bounce. Boyle pulled the puck off the half-wall, curled to the middle and whipped the puck toward the net. The puck deflected off the stick of Panthers defenseman Willie Mitchell and past a helpless Panthers goaltender Roberto Luongo, who made 32 saves on a night he received little help from teammates. "We're finding ways to lose games," Panthers coach Gerard Gallant said. Zuccarello's goal that pushed the score to 5-3 was his first in 11 games and second in 21 games. "I'm more of a passer so I don't really care who scores," Zuccarello said. "But I can feel the pressure from (the media) and everyone around to score goals, so I'd like to score some more goals as well. So it's nice to get a goal now and then." Left winger Carl Hagelin had a chance to make it 6-3 on a penalty shot with 3:19 remaining, but Luongo made a relatively easy stop. It mattered not, as Nash converted into an empty net with 1:53 to go and the Rangers further solidified an already solid playoff position in the East. "Every game is important, especially against Florida," Zuccarello said. "Florida is in ninth place. It's not like they're a bad team. They battled hard and they have a good team, but at the end we came away with two points and that's huge." NOTES: Panthers RW Jimmy Hayes, brother of Rangers C Kevin Hayes, played at Madison Square Garden for the first time. The brothers squared off in a game in Sunrise, Fla., on Dec. 31 this season, a game won by the Rangers 5-2. Both players attended Boston College. ... Hayes and LW Tomas Kopecky replaced LW Tomas Fleischmann and LW Scottie Upshall in the Panthers' lineup. ... Rangers RW Lee Stempniak was back in the lineup in place of LW J.T. Miller. Miller has zero points in his past seven games. ----------------------------------------------- | 1 | 6,100 | sports |
The Tim Peel "summit" apparently had a casualty: Tim Peel. The NHL indefinitely suspended Peel, an official since 1999 and more recently an object of scorn over a series of high-profile blown calls, for meeting with Puck Daddy's Greg Wyshynski at a New York bar, according to a report by Montreal's 98.5 Sports . Wyshynski, Peel's loudest critic, wrote a nice piece that ran on the website, focusing on Peel's side of the story and what it's like to speak, face-to-face, with someone you rip as part of your job. The 98.5 report, which was in French, seemed to focus on the fact that the 90-minute meeting occured at Foley's pub in Manhattan last Thursdat. Peel was scheduled to work the next day and photographed with a shot in his hand. It's also worth noting that the report said that Peel was suspended indefinitely; on Friday, he missed Penguins-Devils, then worked a Rangers-Hurricanes game on Saturday per @ScoutingTheRefs . So if he was suspended, it was for one game. (The report also referred to Wyshynski as a fan, rather than a hockey journalist, and failed to name him or Puck Daddy, which is ridiculous, but another issue entirely.) Another possible reason for Peel's suspension, though, would have to be the manner in which he discussed two blown calls. The first was a diving call on Ducks defenseman Sami Vatanen earlier this season. From Wyshynski: But Peel knows it was a bad call, to the point where he skated up to the Ducks bench and apologized the next time he officiated an Anaheim game. So why make it? Well, because the NHL wanted a crackdown on diving, and with that mandate, he felt compelled to make that call. The second was a four-minute roughing/holding call on Alex Ovechkin in the Capitals-Penguins game the night before the meeting: Peel admits it was a call he wouldn't have made in a 1-1 game, and wouldn't have made without knowing that the NHL wants this penalty for the sake of "game management," in order to ensure a 4-0 game between two rivals doesn't get out of hand. Peel said he went over to Barry Trotz after the call, explained it, and the coach, having seen this episode before, said he understood. That's great, illuminating stuff. It's also not the sort of candor you'd expect out of a ref. Given that the league doesn't allow officials to speak with the media at all, it also wouldn't be a surprise to see them react this way over inside info on "crackdowns" and the adverse effect they can have on games. A shame, yes, but a surprise no. Still, the irony of the situation is unavoidable; Peel's mistakes didn't publicly get him in trouble. Talking about them apparently has. | 1 | 6,101 | sports |
PHILADELPHIA Veterinarians say a dog is recovering after surgery to remove parts of a pair of calf-high leather boots the animal had eaten. The Veterinary Specialty and Emergency Center in Philadelphia says the 4-year-old mixed breed named Vince ate parts of both boots on Friday. Specialists say the volume consumed was so large that the dog's stomach was unable to pass the material into the small intestines, so the pet underwent surgery Saturday. Specialists say surgery or endoscopy is often needed when dogs eat something they shouldn't, since it can obstruct the digestive tract and perforate the intestines. If pets are experiencing vomiting, lethargy or lack of appetite, it may be a sign a foreign object is present, and the animals should be taken to a veterinarian as soon as possible. | 5 | 6,102 | news |
Tiger Woods has dropped to 56th in the World Rankings, and Vegas thinks he has no chance at winning at Torrey Pines over the weekend. Will we see Tiger at full speed at any point this year? | 1 | 6,103 | sports |
SAN JUAN, P.R. The prestige of Cuban baseball, earned through decades of dominating international amateur tournaments, has received a boost from the stellar major league performances of defectors such as Jose Abreu, Aroldis Chapman, Yasiel Puig and Yoenis Cespedes. However, those defections and many others have diminished the quality of play in the island's top league and taken some of the luster off the national team. A disappointing performance in the 2013 World Baseball Classic, where Cuba failed to make it out of the first round, and last year's embarrassing 1-3 record in a long-awaited return to the Caribbean Series have further brought the Cubans' reputation into question. Chagrined by seeing league champion Villa Clara bounced out early in last year's Caribbean Series a tournament pitting the winners of winter leagues in the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Puerto Rico and Mexico Cuban officials redoubled their efforts to bolster the team. The club representing the Communist country at this year's competition resembles the national squad that swept through the Central American and Caribbean Games last November, with longtime stars Yulieski Gourriel, Frederich Cepeda and Alfredo Despaigne among the 16 "reinforcements'' twice as many as last year that have fortified Serie Nacional reigning champ Pinar del Rio. The improvement was not evident right away, as Cuba took a 2-1 loss Monday in the tournament opener against Mexico, the two-time defending champion. Anthony Vasquez, a 28-year-old left-hander who spent most of last season with Class AA Bowie (Md.) in the Baltimore Orioles organization, combined with three relievers to limit the Cubans to six singles. Gourriel, Cepeda and Despaigne went a combined 1-for-10. "Baseball is unpredictable,'' manager Alfonso Urquiola said. "When you look at our roster, we're an offensive team. But things don't always go the way you want them to. Obviously we expect more from our team.'' So do the folks back home, where the decision to field a team that resembles Pinar del Rio in uniform only a mere three of its players started Monday has generated considerable debate. By comparison, the Venezuelan representative Caribes de Anzoategui has just three reinforcements, or players borrowed from another team to strengthen the league winner. Baseball success on the international stage is a major source of pride in Cuba, where fans follow the exploits of defectors in the big leagues even when the government brands them as traitors. Their achievements five natives of Cuba played in last July's All-Star Game has emboldened more of their former teammates and opponents to leave the island in pursuit of riches and a new life. Nonetheless, a scout for a major league team who has long followed Cuban baseball believes there is still plenty of talent left. He points to Gourriel as a player who would make an impact in the majors right now, and accomplished hitters like Cepeda and Despaigne as possible big-league DHs. Gourriel's brother, infielder Lourdes Gourriel, is among a group of youngsters who would be high-level major-league prospects, among them pitchers Hector Mendoza and Norge Luis Ruiz. But this is not the Central American Games. "Here they're playing against some guys who have been in the major leagues,'' said the scout, who spoke on condition of anonymity for competitive reasons. "It's not that easy. But the talent is there.'' The Cubans pride themselves on playing fundamental baseball, and yet a lapse in judgment helped turn Monday's game in favor of Mexico's entry, the Tomateros de Culiacan, which only managed three hits. Cuba led 1-0 in the sixth when, with one out and a runner on second, starting pitcher Freddy Asiel Alvarez fielded a grounder and threw late to third rather than taking the sure out at first. Joey Meneses drove in the tying run on a fielder's choice, and Mexico scratched out the go-ahead score on pinch-hitter Walter Ibarra's single in the seventh. The loss put Cuba in the position of having to recover the next two days when facing the Dominican Republic, a traditional power, and host country Puerto Rico. Then again, Mexico manager Benji Gil pointed out that Cuba was not the only country with a stacked team. "All the teams that are here are the champions of our respective leagues, so we're all loaded,'' Gil said. "They have players who are stars at the international level. We have stars who are fighting to get to the major leagues, and some who are already there. Nobody's here on vacation. We're all here trying to win the tournament.'' GALLERY: Cuban stars hitting it big in MLB | 1 | 6,104 | sports |
February 14 is a money pit. No matter how you spend the holiday (Dinner? Movies? Drinks? Dancing? Partner yoga? Takeout?) you're going to be spending on the holiday. And, oh right, you need an outfit to wear, too. While you could just recycle that old red mini you've worn for five years, Valentine's Day is the perfect excuse to dress to impress whether you're fancying up for your partner or your three best friends. But, pulling out the sartorial stops doesn't mean pulling out a wad of cash. It's easy to look great without breaking the bank. To prove it, we rounded up 30 dresses that each ring in under $50. Click through to find the one that'll make your V-Day that much sweeter. You'll look fly especially if you layer this over cool culottes. H&M Long-Sleeve Dress, $24.95, available at H&M . The contrasting color and Charlie Brown-esque stripes are what makes this cool. endless rose Nantucket Swirl Dress, $44, available at Shopbop . Orange you glad this throw-on is an option? Pied A Terre Woven Couture Tee Dress, $30.95, available at House of Fraser . Just enough print without being too loud. & Other Stories Aurora Print Dress, $45, available at ABC Carpet & Home . A deep V for V-Day. Sunday Best Rand Dress, $48, available at Aritzia . Imagine twirling on the dance floor in this. Front Row Shop Flounce Dress, $44.10, available at Front Row Shop . Elongate your silhouette with this dress' subtle planing and turtleneck. Boohoo Kayla Turtle Neck Panelled Fit and Flare Dress, $20, available at boohoo.com . This + bottle of wine + main squeeze = perfect. Nasty Gal Cecilia Dress, $47.60, available at Nasty Gal. Get the layered look without even trying. Element 'Magnolia' Burnout Velvet Skater Dress, $46, available at Nordstrom . This dress would look great with a bold bracelet and clutch. Topshop Midi Bodycon Dress, $40, available at Topshop . Heading to a movie and dessert afterwards? This casual dress is for you. Missguided Oversized Brushback Sweater Dress Grey, $41.80, available at Missguided . The A-line hem gives this dress a little something extra. Mango Ruffle Skirt Dress, $39.99, available at Mango . Channel your inner-'90s girl for a night out with your main crew. Oh My Love Strappy-Back Skater Dress, $49, available at Urban Outfitters . Pilgrim-chic for a buttoned-up affair. Romwe Bow Collar Flouncing Black Dress, $21, available at Romwe . The double hem gives this frock visual interest. Glamorous Ice Blue Racerback Slip Dress, $49, available at Koshka . If you want something classic... Chic Wish Jubilant Red Flare Hem Dress, $43.90, available at Chic Wish . This is how you pull off the pajama-dressing trend for a night out. LOFT Petal Piped Shirtdress, $29.88, available at LOFT . For a chill evening at your neighborhood bar. Forever 21 Marled Side-Slit Maxi Dress, $22.90, available at Forever 21 . Pretty all by itself, or paired over jeans as a tunic. Warehouse Fondant Floral Print Dress, $27, available at Warehouse . Ideal if you decide to stay in for the night. Motel Trixy Hooded Dress in Black Fleece, $42, available at Motel Rocks . This classic navy shade gives you free reign to go wild with accessories. AQUA Quilted Mock Neck Sleeveless Dress, $61.60, available at Bloomingdale's . The criss-cross is sexy, but not too over-the-top. Miss Selfridge Cross Neck Black Dress, $44, available at Miss Selfridge . The lady in red is dancing with me. Akira Tulip Hem Bright Red Mini Dress, $44.90, available at Akira . If you want to go the sultry route. ASOS Long Sleeve Bardot Mini Body-Conscious Dress, $41.69, available at ASOS . This works great for that laid-back dinner. Gap Plaid Shirtdress, $35.99, available at Gap . One-shoulder dresses are very right now. Pixie Market Studio Sequin Dress, $40, available at Pixie Market . Add a statement necklace, and you're set. Ann Taylor Rounded Hem Shift Dress, $54.99, available at Ann Taylor . Layer under a white tee and it's even better. Express Striped Stretch Knit Tube Dress, $39.99, available at Express . This looks pretty on its own, or layered under an evening jacket. New Look Black Wrap Front Midi Dress, $37.73, available at New Look . Not your average high slit. Lulus Passion for Fashion Backless Wine Red Maxi Dress, $48, available at Lulus . | 4 | 6,105 | lifestyle |
It's safe to say Mariah Carey didn't have one of her best performances at the Jamaica Jazz and Blues Festival Friday night. | 8 | 6,106 | video |
The Irish capital Dublin has been transformed in recent years into a modern European city without losing its charm and tradition. A blogger and marketing expert from Finland shows us her adopted country - from the world famous Trinity College to smart designer boutiques to the Guinness museum. | 2 | 6,107 | travel |
Richard Sherman will have Tommy John surgery in the offseason, and we ask David Carr what impact this will have on Sherman's playing style. | 1 | 6,108 | sports |
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV will recall more than 228,000 Jeep Cherokees to upgrade the software as their airbags could unexpectedly inflate without a crash, the New York Times reported on Monday. The company will upgrade software governing the side-curtain and seat-mounted side airbags in vehicles from 2014-2015 model years, the New York Times said. (http://nyti.ms/1tYmvre) The recall includes more than 168,000 vehicles in the United States, the Times said. The action comes after Chrysler engineers' investigation into reports of airbag systems deploying inadvertently, sensing a potential rollover, the New York Times said. Monday's recall follows U.S. federal safety regulators announcement on Saturday that Toyota Motor Corp, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Honda Motor Co will recall about 2.1 million older vehicles to fix defects that could cause air bags to deploy when they are not supposed to. (Reporting by Kanika Sikka in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker) | 3 | 6,109 | finance |
Amazon.com Inc., aiming to bolster its brick-and-mortar operations, has discussed acquiring some RadioShack Corp. locations after the electronics chain files for bankruptcy, two people with knowledge of the matter said. Amazon has considered using the RadioShack stores as showcases for the Seattle-based company's hardware, as well as potential pickup and drop-off centers for online customers, said one of the people, who asked not to be named because the deliberations are private. The possible move, discussed as part of RadioShack's looming trip to bankruptcy court, would represent Amazon's biggest push into traditional retail. Amazon joins other potential bidders, including Sprint Corp. and the investment group behind Brookstone, in evaluating RadioShack stores, people familiar with the situation said. RadioShack has more than 4,000 U.S. locations and is moving toward a deal to sell a portion and close the rest, according to some of the people. Sprint has discussed buying 1,300 to 2,000, they said. Craig Berman, a spokesman for Amazon, didn't respond to a request for comment. Merianne Roth, a spokeswoman for Fort Worth, Texas-based RadioShack, declined to comment, as did a representative for Brookstone. As part of the negotiations, Sprint and RadioShack have discussed co-branding the stores, two of the people said. Liquidation isn't inevitable: It's possible that another bidder could emerge that would buy RadioShack and keep it operating, the people said. Amazon's talks also may not lead to a deal. Fire Smartphone Retail locations would put Amazon on more of an even footing with Apple Inc., which has hundreds of stores in choice shopping districts. While Amazon's Kindle has been a breakthrough success, some of its other devices haven't connected with consumers. Its Fire smartphone didn't sell well and contributed to a $170 million inventory writedown in the third quarter of last year. Amazon continues to invest in new hardware as it pushes beyond its core business of selling things online. In November, it introduced the voice-activated Amazon Echo speaker that lets people stream music and add things to Amazon shopping lists. The company also has opened temporary "pop-up" shops to entice shoppers during the holidays. RadioShack traces its roots to 1921, when it began as a mail-order retailer for amateur ham-radio operators and maritime communications officers. It expanded into a wider range of electronics over the decades, and by the 1980s was seen as a destination for personal computers, gadgets and components that were hard to find elsewhere. In more recent years, competition from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and an army of e-commerce sellers -- including Amazon -- hurt customer traffic. NYSE Suspension In a sign of RadioShack's escalating woes, the New York Stock Exchange said Monday it would suspend trading of the stock immediately. The exchange took the step after RadioShack failed to submit a business plan that would address its lack of compliance with NYSE rules. Companies listed on the exchange are required to have an average market value of at least $50 million for 30 straight days or shareholder equity of that amount. Before the suspension announcement, the shares tumbled 13 percent to 24 cents on Monday. RadioShack has lost about 90 percent of its value over the past year. RadioShack received a rescue financing package from Standard General in October, and the hedge fund would serve as the lead bidder in a filing and provide debtor-in-possession financing after filing, people familiar with the matter said. The investment firm arranged $535 million of first-lien loans in October and is the biggest shareholder of the retailer. Liquidating the stores would let RadioShack avoid a battle with lenders over control of the company. Stores Within Stores RadioShack CEO Joe Magnacca has been remodeling stores and revamping the retailer's product lineup in a bid to revive sales. Still, the former Walgreen Co. executive hasn't halted a decline at the electronics chain, which has posted more than two years of losses. In one scenario discussed during negotiations, RadioShack considered keeping its name alive as a store-within-a-store concept involving wireless carriers, two of the people said. Sprint, meanwhile, is expanding its chain. CEO Marcelo Claure told investors at a conference last month that the company would be adding retail locations. "This is a year in which we intend to grow our distribution dramatically," Claure said. "You are going to see the opening of more and more Sprint stores as this is one area that we work on." --With assistance from Scott Moritz in New York and Spencer Soper in San Francisco. To contact the reporters on this story: Katie Benner in San Francisco at [email protected]; Jodi Xu Klein in New York at [email protected]; Lauren Coleman-Lochner in New York at [email protected] To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nick Turner at [email protected]; Shannon D. Harrington at [email protected]; Sarah Rabil at [email protected]; Pui-Wing Tam at [email protected] | 3 | 6,110 | finance |
Nose tackle Terrence Cody was indicted on 15 counts of animal cruelty by a Baltimore grand jury Monday, shortly after the Ravens cut the 26-year-old NFL veteran. The charges include two felony counts of aggravated animal cruelty related to the death of his Bullmastiff, the Baltimore Sun reported. Cody could be sentenced to up to three years in prison for each of the felony charges if convicted. The Baltimore County state attorney's office said Cody is not under suspicion of dog fighting. In addition to the felonies, Cody is also charged with five misdemeanor counts of animal abuse or neglect. The indictment also includes a misdemeanor charge of illegal possession of an alligator and five misdemeanor counts of animal abuse or neglect of the alligator. The nose tackle was also hit with possession of drug paraphernalia and marijuana. Cody's agent, Peter Schaffer, issued a statement last month that said his client's dog had died after suffering from worms. He said there was no animal cruelty. The Ravens were aware that Cody was under investigation for animal cruelty when team officials announced Jan. 23 that they would terminate his contract. The team did not give a reason for the move. "This young man's dog has died, and the Ravens were so worried about possible ramifications from the league that they took a pre-emptive strike," Schaffer said. "If I find out that anyone holds anything against my client because of this, I will take every and all legal action to make sure my client's rights are vindicated and that he's made whole." Cody, 26, was scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent on March 10, when his one-year, $730,000 contract expires. The Ravens had high hopes for Cody, who was drafted in the second round of the 2010 draft out of Alabama. But he has struggled with weight issues, conditioning problems and injuries during his five-season NFL career. Cody, who underwent hip surgery after the 2013 season, played in just one game this season. His best season was 2011, when he started all 16 games and made 34 tackles. He had 87 tackles and two pass deflections in his five seasons with Baltimore. | 5 | 6,111 | news |
PHOENIX (AP) -- Someday, the Phoenix Suns will beat the Memphis Grizzlies. BOX SCORE: GRIZZLIES 102, SUNS 101 They haven't done it in two years and it looked as though they finally had one Monday night. But Suns turnovers and clutch Memphis scoring spelled another loss to the Grizzlies. Jeff Green converted a three-point play with 4.5 seconds to play and the Grizzlies rallied from seven down in the final 1:35 to beat the Suns for the seventh straight time, 102-101. "I'd been struggling all game and I just wanted to come through for the team," Green said. Marc Gasol blocked Markieff Morris' shot at the finish to preserve the victory. "We are lucky," Memphis coach David Joerger said. "We are happy to get out of here with a win in a game where it probably should have gone the other way." The Grizzlies, who won their seventh in a row overall and 11th in the last 12 games, scored the final eight points after Isaiah Thomas' 3-pointer put Phoenix up 101-94 with 1:49 to play. Thomas scored all 24 of his points in the second half, 16 in the fourth quarter, and Phoenix used its three point-guard lineup to take a seven-point lead after trailing most of the game. Mike Conley led Memphis with 23 points. Zach Randolph scored 19, including 17 in the second half. In their previous game, on Jan. 11, the Grizzlies won in Memphis in double-overtime. With Phoenix leading 101-99, Conley missed a jumper under pressure, but Green grabbed the rebound, scored and was fouled by Eric Bledsoe to go to the line for the winning basket. "He made a great play, but I don't think I fouled him," Bledsoe said. The final play was designed for Morris, but Bledsoe said that on the inbounds pass he tried to get it to Thomas, who was open. Morris grabbed the pass before it got to Thomas and took the shot with Gasol in his face. Morris said he didn't see Thomas and was just doing what he was supposed to do on the play. Bledsoe scored 21 and Goran Dragic 15 for the Suns, meaning the three point guards combined for 60 points. Memphis led 82-74 when Bledsoe came in with 9:45 to play to put the trio of guards on the court together. From there, the Suns outscored the Grizzlies 24-9, with a 17-4 run putting them up 98-91 when Bledsoe made two free throws with 3:31 remaining. "When we do play that lineup, nine times out of 10 it works to our advantage," Thomas said. "It's tough to guard three aggressive guards out there." Coach Jeff Hornacek said he went with the small lineup, against the big Grizzlies, because the pace had been so slow. "We needed some life and energy and that group got us going, got us back in the ballgame," he said. Bledsoe blamed himself for mistakes down the stretch. "It's my fault. I made two critical plays that can't happen, two turnovers," he said. "They came down and got easy looks at the basket, free throws." TIP-INS Grizzlies: Tony Allen played despite a sore right hamstring and ankle. ... Randolph, named the Western Conference player of the week on Monday, got a technical foul early in the game then sat for the next nine minutes. ... Memphis opened a four-game road trip. Suns: The Suns missed their first seven free throws, then made their next 11. ... Phoenix last beat the Grizzlies on Feb. 5, 2013. The Suns last beat them in Phoenix on Dec. 12, 2012. ... Markieff Morris picked up his 11th technical foul, tying him with Russell Westbrook for most in the NBA. Hornacek has eased his brief policy of benching anyone who gets a "T" for the rest of the game, so Morris stayed in. ... Gerald Green had two turnovers and a foul and took no shots in 3:26 on the floor in the first half. He didn't play again. | 1 | 6,112 | sports |
Katy Perry celebrated her Super Bowl halftime performance by getting a tattoo Sunday night. Check out what she got. | 1 | 6,113 | sports |
EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) Tom Izzo sounded glad the game was over. It always means a lot for Michigan State to beat Michigan, but there was a sense that Izzo and his team had a bit less to gain this time, playing at home against a rival that has been dealing with major injury problems. The Spartans ended up being pushed to overtime Sunday, but they shut the Wolverines out in the extra session to win 76-66 - and now Michigan State doesn't have to play again until next weekend. ''All in all, it was a win,'' Izzo said after the game. ''I think it is a good week to have off. I don't know if we adjusted well to the week we came off of, but we need to shore up some things. Yet, we're 6-3 and tied for second in the league. That ain't all bad.'' The Spartans (15-7, 6-3) have reached the halfway point of the Big Ten season, and they are part of a five-way tie for second place behind No. 5 Wisconsin. After losing Adreian Payne, Gary Harris and Keith Appling off last season's team, Michigan State has adjusted reasonably well. If overtime losses to Notre Dame and Maryland had gone the other way, the outlook for the Spartans might look a lot better. Of course, Michigan State also needed overtime to beat Northwestern and injury-plagued Michigan - and both those games were in East Lansing. ''We just haven't put it all together. We can't get guys putting it together,'' Izzo said. ''When (Travis) Trice is playing well, (Denzel) Valentine isn't. (Branden) Dawson is better and the most consistent player.'' Dawson had 19 points and 10 rebounds Sunday - the senior's sixth double-double in his last eight games. Valentine was terrific as well, finishing with 25 points, seven rebounds and seven assists. The Wolverines have given other teams problems recently with zone defense, but the Spartans didn't seem all that bothered. ''I was really impressed by Valentine,'' Michigan coach John Beilein said. ''Obviously, they have a lot of other good players on the team as well but I thought he really stood out in that he was able to pick us apart with different things we did one-on-one, zones, everything. When you have a tall guy who can really see like that, and can shoot, it really makes your team really go.'' Michigan State settled in nicely after a poor start offensively, but the Spartans allowed Michigan to hang around. Spike Albrecht and Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman scored 18 points each for the Wolverines before Michigan State held Michigan scoreless in overtime. Payne and Harris were both first-round draft picks last year, and this season's Michigan State team doesn't boast quite as much star power, but when Dawson and Valentine are both playing well, the Spartans can be tough to beat. Trice is a 40-percent shooter from 3-point range for his career, although he's only at 36 percent this season. Junior Matt Costello gave Michigan State a lift in overtime Sunday and finished with 10 points and seven rebounds. Michigan State was ranked No. 37 in the RPI as of Monday afternoon, according to rpiforecast.com. Unlike Michigan, the Spartans don't seem to be in too much danger of missing the NCAA tournament, but with so many teams deadlocked in the Big Ten standings, it's hard to say where Michigan State will end up. The second half of the conference slate starts Saturday for the Spartans, when they host Illinois. A home game against Ohio State looms the following weekend, and that contest could be crucial if Michigan State wants to establish itself as the top threat to Wisconsin for the regular-season title. ''We have to get better if we're going to have a chance later in the season, at the end of the year,'' Izzo said. ''If you ever needed a week off, this one is needed.'' | 1 | 6,114 | sports |
Qatar's foreign minister on Monday denied reports that one of five high-level Taliban detainees transferred from the Guantanamo Bay prison to Qatar has attempted to re-engage in militant activity. "It's totally false," Foreign Minister Khaled al-Attiya said. "They are living according to the agreement we signed with the United States." The five men were transferred from Guantanamo last May as part of an exchange that freed U.S. Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, who walked off his military post in Afghanistan in 2009 and was captured by militants. Under a deal struck by U.S. President Barack Obama and Qatar's emir, the five are supposed to be closely monitored to ensure they don't return to militant activities. CNN reported last week that U.S. military and intelligence officials suspect that one of the five, whom it did not identify, had "reached out" to suspected Taliban associates in Afghanistan to encourage militant activity. If confirmed, the development could present a political headache for Obama, who wants to close the Guantanamo facility and has accelerated the transfer of its remaining detainees. But al-Attiya, speaking at a forum sponsored by The Atlantic magazine, said there was no cause for concern. U.S. and Qatari security agencies "will monitor and pick up anything that will happen," he said. "I can assure you, no one has made an attempt to go back" to Afghanistan, he added. Al-Attiya, who met earlier in the day with Secretary of State John Kerry, also pressed Qatar's position that the coalition fighting Islamic State in Syria should broaden its focus to include the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The narrow focus on Islamic State "is sad," he said. "In fact, the regime was the magnet to attract the terrorist groups" to Syria, al-Attiya said, adding that only by replacing Assad "can we get rid of any terrorism in the region." (Reporting by Warren Strobel; Editing by Bernard Orr) | 5 | 6,115 | news |
Sports Weekly takes an in-depth look at each major league organization during the offseason, from the major leagues to the farm system. We start with teams with the worst records and move up. *** Though the New York Mets finished four games below .500 in 2014, they entered the offseason looking like potential contenders for 2015, thanks to a wealth of starting pitching. And when he gave up his first-round draft pick to sign 35-year-old free agent Michael Cuddyer to a two-year deal, general manager Sandy Alderson practically announced to the world that the Mets were ready to go all-in for a postseason run after an agonizingly long rebuild to bolster a farm system left barren by Omar Minaya. But things got quiet in Flushing, N.Y., soon after the Cuddyer signing, with the club doing nothing to date to address a need at shortstop or to make use of its pitching depth to create a more balanced roster. In four years running the cash-strapped club, Alderson has done a remarkable job flipping veteran assets for promising talent. The trades of Carlos Beltran, R.A. Dickey, Marlon Byrd and John Buck none signed beyond the season in which he was traded returned the Mets young contributors Zack Wheeler, Travis d'Arnaud and Vic Black, plus a couple of top prospects. And the club has shown a good developmental touch, graduating players such as Jacob deGrom, Juan Lagares and Jeurys Familia to the majors in recent seasons. What Alderson has not done yet, of course, is build a winning team out of the organization he has overhauled. With all that starting pitching, it looks like the Mets have a real shot at crossing the .500 mark for the first time since 2008. But unless they add a top-flight offensive player before opening day, the Mets will need bounce-back seasons from veterans David Wright and Curtis Granderson and continued success from less proven players to avoid trotting out another mediocre lineup. Steady second baseman Daniel Murphy is the only player on the club who has been healthy and effective for the last two seasons. The Mets have been linked to acquiring Colorado Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki. And while the likely cost in prospects for a player of Tulowitzki's caliber might be unbearable to the team's typically prudent front office especially given Tulowitzki's significant injury risk adding another star to complement Wright would make the Mets look like immediate contenders in a division seemingly weakened by the Atlanta Braves' offseason dismantling. *** POSITION-BY-POSITION (*prospect): Catcher: After a miserable start to the season that earned him a brief demotion to Class AAA Las Vegas in June, d'Arnaud returned to the majors and posted a .805 on-base-plus-slugging percentage (OPS) the rest of the way, showing the offensive promise that made him a prized piece in the trade that sent Dickey to the Toronto Blue Jays. But d'Arnaud has a somewhat lengthy injury history and a below-average throwing arm, suggesting he could eventually move out from behind the plate, though it's unlikely to happen in 2015. Anthony Recker likely will return as d'Arnaud's backup, though lefty-hitting non-roster invitee Johnny Monell could take that spot with a strong spring training. If anything happens to d'Arnaud, the Mets likely will turn to prospect Kevin Plawecki for most of the playing time at catcher. Depth chart: d'Arnaud, Recker, Monell, *Plawecki. First base: Forced to choose between two power-hitting first basemen in their late 20s, the Mets looked smart for shipping Ike Davis to the Pittsburgh Pirates in early 2014 and giving regular playing time to Lucas Duda. Mountainous Duda broke out with a 30-homer campaign, marrying a patient approach with the type of power to make Citi Field look small. Under team control through arbitration until after the 2017 season, Duda should hold down first base and the cleanup spot. Free agent acquisitions Cuddyer and John Mayberry Jr. could spell Duda vs. the toughest lefties. Depth chart: Duda, Cuddyer, Mayberry, Murphy, Eric Campbell. Second base: Murphy made his first All-Star appearance in 2014 for doing the same thing he does every year: a batting average around .290 with doubles power, a handful of steals and sure-handed defense without a lot of range at the keystone. Murphy is a popular player among the team's fans and front office, but he is slated for free agency after the season and could be considered for a trade. His good lefty bat and ability to play three infield positions should make Murphy valuable to the Mets in 2015, but the club has options to replace him if he's moved. Shortstop Wilmer Flores might fit best at second base, and prospect Dilson Herrera acquitted himself nicely in an 18-game cameo appearance late last season. At 5-10 and 150 pounds, Herrera looks unlikely to develop big-time home run power, but he does pack some punch off his great bat speed. Depth chart: Murphy, Flores, Ruben Tejada, *Herrera. Third base: Wright established career lows in on-base percentage and slugging percentage in 2014 as he tried to play through an injured left shoulder that appeared to affect his swing. Wright, 32, might never again achieve the MVP-caliber heights of his mid-20s, but he remains the Mets' best chance at having an elite offensive player in their lineup if he can stay healthy and productive for a full season. He did, after all, post a .892 OPS over 2012-2013, and he should get a boost from new Citi Field dimensions that finally cater to his gap power. If he gets hurt, Murphy or Flores likely will slide to third base. Depth chart: Wright, Campbell, Murphy, Flores. Shortstop: For most of Flores' minor league tenure, nearly every scouting report said he lacked the range to stick at the most difficult position in the infield. The Mets even moved Flores off shortstop for all of the 2012 and 2013 seasons, shuffling him around the remaining infield positions for stints in Class AA, Class AAA and the majors. But Flores was hardly a disaster in 50 big-league starts at shortstop in 2014, using his strong arm to play deep and make up for his lack of range. Unless they find a better option, the Mets likely will turn to Flores for everyday duty at shortstop and hope he hits well enough to mitigate any defensive inadequacies. If he can't, steady-handed but offensively limited Tejada will take the job. Depth chart: Flores, Tejada, *Matt Reynolds, *Danny Muno. Left field: Granderson endured an up-and-down campaign in his first season with the Mets after signing a four-year, $60million free agent deal. The veteran outfielder struggled out of the gate, caught fire in May, then slumped again for most of the second half. With the addition of Cuddyer, Granderson looks likely to move full time to left field, a position that will better hide his below-average throwing arm. Reunited with former New York Yankees hitting coach Kevin Long under whom he flourished Granderson will look to take advantage of Citi Field's newly realigned outfield dimensions and make good on his big contract. Depth chart: Granderson, Mayberry, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Matt den Dekker. Center field: Juan Lagares emerged as one of the most exciting defensive players in baseball in 2014, combining great range with strong instincts and an accurate arm to earn his first of what will likely be many Gold Glove Awards. He's so good on defense that he won't really need to hit much to maintain a starting position, but Lagares improved offensively in 2014 and seemed to respond well to the club's late-season directive to steal more bases. If those trends hold, Lagares should open 2015 as the Mets leadoff man and, quietly, as perhaps their most valuable position player. He paced the club with a 5.5 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) in 2014 good for seventh best in the National League. Nieuwenhuis or den Dekker, both lefty hitters, should back up Lagares. Depth chart: Lagares, Nieuwenhuis, den Dekker, *Brandon Nimmo. Right field: Before what turned out to be a quiet offseason, the Mets drew early offseason attention by forgoing a first-round draft pick to sign Cuddyer to a two-year free agent deal. Cuddyer, a childhood friend of Wright, gives the club a good right-handed contact hitter with the potential to drive in runs, plus the defensive flexibility to spell Duda or Granderson against tough lefties. As the biggest offseason addition, Cuddyer might seem a bit disappointing. But he should prove useful if he can stay healthy. Fellow right-handed-hitting free agent pickup Mayberry will likely fill in if Cuddyer hits the disabled list. Depth chart: Cuddyer, Mayberry, Nieuwenhuis, *Cesar Puello, *Nimmo. Starting pitching: The Mets have a good type of problem on their hands with too much starting pitching to handle. Ace Matt Harvey will be 17 months removed from Tommy John elbow surgery and should be fully healthy in plenty of time for opening day, though the Mets will likely limit his innings throughout the season. Harvey will join reigning rookie of the year deGrom and young fireballer Wheeler to form one of the most exciting young trios of pitching talent in the majors. Veterans Bartolo Colon, Jon Niese and Dillon Gee give the Mets six viable big-league starters. And that's not including top prospect Noah Syndergaard, who likely will open the year in the Class AAA rotation along with a promising crop of less heralded starters. Armed with "97 (mph) and a hook from hell," to quote manager Terry Collins, 22-year-old Syndergaard is likely ready for the majors and could get a call as soon as the Mets have a need. Left-hander Steven Matz has yielded eight home runs in 276 minor league innings and his walk rate has dropped at every level. He should start 2015 behind Syndergaard in the Class AAA Las Vegas rotation and could hit the majors by midseason if the Mets develop a need. Depth chart: RHP Harvey, RHP deGrom, RHP Wheeler, LHP Niese, RHP Colon, RHP Gee, RHP *Syndergaard, RHP *Rafael Montero, LHP *Matz, RHP *Matt Bowman, RHP *Gabriel Ynoa, RHP *Cory Mazzoni. Bullpen: The Mets bullpen finished 2014 so strong that it's easy to forget Jose Valverde and Kyle Farnsworth both were used in the closer's role early in the season after incumbent Bobby Parnell needed Tommy John surgery. Collins has said the job will be Parnell's to lose when he returns, but 25-year-old Jenrry Mejia could make that decision difficult if he continues the success he enjoyed after moving from the rotation in May. Jeurys Familia locked down the eighth inning for the Mets in his rookie campaign, and Josh Edgin emerged as a great option against tough lefties. Depth chart: RHP Parnell, RHP Mejia, RHP Familia, LHP Edgin, RHP Vic Black, RHP Carlos Torres. *** PROSPECTS TO WATCH RHP Noah Syndergaard: One of the consensus top starting pitching prospects, Syndergaard, 22, had a 4.60 ERA in 133 innings at Class AAA Las Vegas in 2014. His strong rate stats suggest his struggles had less to do with him than the brutal pitching environment in the Pacific Coast League. Barring a trade, the Mets' depth at the big-league level will give him the time he needs to polish his game at Class AAA. IF Dilson Herrera: Acquired in the August 2013 trade that sent Marlon Byrd and John Buck to the Pittsburgh Pirates, the diminutive infielder hit .323 with a .858 on-base-plus-slugging percentage across high Class A and Class AA before a short and relatively successful stint with the big-league club late in 2014 as the youngest player in the majors. He's a rangy defender at second and boasts good speed on the bases, and he won't turn 21 until March. But with Daniel Murphy manning second for now, Herrera likely will start the year at Class AAA Las Vegas. OF Brandon Nimmo: The Mets selected Nimmo with the 13th overall pick in the 2011 draft, then he spent the next two seasons in ballparks notoriously tough on left-handed hitters, maintaining strong on-base percentages but showing little to no power. He beat up on Florida State League pitching in the first half of 2014 but saw his batting average drop upon a midseason promotion to Class AA Binghamton (N.Y.). Nimmo, who will be 22 by opening day, probably is still at least a year away from contributing in the majors. LHP Steven Matz: Drafted in the second round out of high school in 2009, Matz didn't pitch professionally until 2012 after an extended recovery period from 2010 Tommy John elbow surgery. Matz, 23, has stayed healthy and effective for two full minor league campaigns, reaching Class AA and excelling there in the second half of 2014. The lefty has a low-90s fastball, a good curve and a developing changeup. | 1 | 6,116 | sports |
NEW YORK -- Guards Alan Anderson and Jarrett Jack combined to shoot 4-for-17 over the first 47-plus minutes Monday night. BOX SCORE: NETS 102, CLIPPERS 100 However, the with the game on the line, the Brooklyn Nets got huge baskets from the duo in the final seconds to cap a frantic, come-from-behind, 102-100 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers at the Barclays Center. Anderson made a clutch four-point play with 15.3 seconds left to give the Nets a lead, then Jack calmly drained a foul-line jumper with the score tied at 100 and 1.3 seconds left. The Nets emerged with an improbable victory in a game in which they trailed 98-90 with 1:11 remaining. "I have to give my coach (Lionel Hollins) and teammates credit to put the ball in my hands with the game on the line," said Jack, who scored six points Monday after posting 35 points in a 127-122 overtime loss to the Toronto Raptors on Saturday. "I had to come up big for my team. They all had faith in me." Jack made just two of 10 shots from the floor prior to the game-winner. Similarly, Anderson knew that time was running down and he had to be clutch. "I just had to catch and shoot," Anderson said. "Blake (Griffin, who fouled out on the play) played me too much, and I was able to execute. I think we were all able to knock down shots. That was the key." Anderson connected on just two of seven attempts before his final shot, but he helped the Nets erase an 11-point, fourth-quarter deficit. "It wasn't just one guy," Jack said. "It was a combination of everyone all across the board." Brook Lopez paced the Nets with 24 points off the bench, the fourth time this season that the 7-foot center has tallied 20 or more as a reserve. Forward Joe Johnson had 22 points, including a huge 3-pointer in the comeback, right after he misfired on two free throws. Nets guard Deron Williams, playing in his first game since Jan. 7, scored 15 points, also in a reserve role. Williams missed the previous 11 games due to fractured rib cartilage. "We've lost a lot of tough games," Hollins said. "So to get a win tonight means a lot. At the end of games, you need players to step up. These guys battled like heck down the stretch. They've all been in big games before. When you get in moments like this, you just play. You can't worry about your record." The Nets (19-28) lost four straight overall and six straight at home prior to Monday night. It was the first home win of the calendar year for Brooklyn, which dropped 12 of its prior 14 contests. The Clippers (33-16) received a stellar effort from center DeAndre Jordan, who posted the first 20-20 of his career, scoring 22 points and collecting 20 rebounds. He had seven dunks. Jordan missed 10 of 12 free throws, but coach Doc Rivers didn't seem to mind. "D.J. had great energy tonight and might have been the only one to have it for us," Rivers said. "He plays with such great spirit and heart every night. He does everything right for us. I just think he should walk onto the floor of the All-Star Game and have someone tell him he can't play. Who's going to stop him?" The Clippers also got 20 points from guard Chris Paul, who hit a running layup with seven seconds left that tied the game at 100, setting up Jack's heroics. Griffin added 13 points, seven assists and six rebounds before fouling out on Anderson's shot. Forward Matt Barnes scored 12 points. The Clippers shot just 32 percent from the line (8-for-25), while the Nets were not much better (8-for-18, 44.4 percent). NOTES: Nets GM Billy King said he is not looking to trade any of the team's top players, namely PG Deron Williams, C Brook Lopez and SF Joe Johnson. "We're not actively shopping anyone," King said. "We have had discussions about trades, but we're not looking to trade. We're not going to make a trade simply to make a trade. That would be foolish." ... Williams declared himself fit for action after missing 11 games with fractured rib cartilage. For now, he will come off the bench and Jarrett Jack will remain in the starting lineup. ... Clippers F Blake Griffin had 31 points, 13 rebounds and five assists in 35 minutes in a 105-85 win over the San Antonio Spurs on Saturday. It was the first time an NBA player achieved such statistics in so little time since Kevin Love did it in 2013. ... Clippers C DeAndre Jordan saw his streak of 36 games with a blocked shot end. It was the longest active streak in the league. ----------------------------------------------- | 1 | 6,117 | sports |
Wayne Selden scored 19 of his 20 points in the second half to lead No. 8 Kansas to an 89-76 victory over No. 11 Iowa State. | 1 | 6,118 | sports |
TORONTO (AP) -- Khris Middleton scored 25 points, Giannis Antetokounmpo had 12 points and 12 rebounds, and the short-handed Milwaukee Bucks snapped a six-game losing streak against the Toronto Raptors with an 82-75 victory Monday night. BOX SCORE: BUCKS 82, RAPTORS 75 Jared Dudley scored 14 points and John Henson had 12 for the Bucks, who never trailed despite playing the final 28 minutes with only eight players. They held on for their fourth consecutive win while scoring just nine points in the fourth quarter. Reduced to nine players when guard Brandon Knight was ruled out before the game with a sore right quadriceps muscle, Milwaukee lost another body when guard O.J. Mayo was ejected after picking up a double technical at 4:07 of the second. Jonas Valanciunas had 12 points and 13 rebounds, DeMar DeRozan scored 16 and Lou Williams 12 for the Raptors, who had won six straight overall. Toronto, which won back-to-back overtime games at Brooklyn and Washington on Friday and Saturday, was playing for the fifth time in seven days. Kenyon Martin scored 9 seconds into the fourth quarter to give the Bucks a 75-60 lead, but they didn't score again for more than eight minutes. Back-to-back 3-pointers by Patrick Patterson and Greivis Vasquez brought Toronto to 75-68 at 8:24 of the fourth. Tyler Hansbrough tipped in a missed shot by Williams to tie it at 75 with 3:45 left before Antetokounmpo finally snapped Milwaukee's scoring drought by making one of two from the line at 3:26. The Bucks missed 15 straight field goal attempts before Dudley's 3 at 2:08 gave them a 79-75 edge. Antetokounmpo added another free throw and, after a turnover by Kyle Lowry, Dudley sealed it with a jumper. --- TIP-INS Bucks: Milwaukee is 17-0 when holding its opponent below 90 points. ... Jorge Gutierrez started for Knight, who had started all 47 previous games this season. ... Besides Knight, the Bucks are also without rookie Jabari Parker (left knee), Ersan Ilyasova (right groin), Zaza Pachulia (right calf), Damien Inglis (right ankle) and Kendall Marshall (right knee). C Larry Sanders is serving a 10-game suspension for a drug violation. Raptors: Forward James Johnson (right hamstring) missed his third straight game. ... Toronto matched a season low with 14 points in the first quarter. The Raptors also scored 14 against New Orleans on Jan. 18. ... This was the first of five straight home games leading into the All-Star break. Toronto is 18-8 at home. ... Valanciunas leads the Raptors with 16 double-doubles. UP NEXT Bucks: Host Lakers on Wednesday night. Raptors: Host Nets on Wednesday night. | 1 | 6,119 | sports |
SEATTLE Washington legalized marijuana more than two years ago, but in much of the state, there's still no place to get the sanctioned stuff: More than 100 cities and counties have banned pot businesses, making it tough to undermine the black market. Lawmakers think they have at least a partial solution: paying the locals to let licensed weed come to town. Under bills introduced in both houses in Olympia, the state would share a chunk of its marijuana tax revenue with cities and counties but only if they allow approved marijuana businesses in their jurisdictions. It's an approach that has worked to some degree in Colorado, said Kevin Bommer, deputy director of the Colorado Municipal League. "It definitely made a difference," he said Monday. "Without it, you would not have as many municipalities in Colorado approving retail marijuana sales." Washington's legal pot law, Initiative 502, passed with 56 percent of the vote in 2012. But in many parts of the state especially in central and eastern Washington voters opposed it. Officials in many cities have imposed bans on the pot businesses, seeing little reason to let them operate, and courts have upheld their authority to do so. In Poulsbo, a city west of Seattle, a slim majority of voters approved the legal pot law, but the city adopted an outright ban on marijuana businesses. Councilman Ed Sterns said the ban was motivated entirely by the lack of revenue sharing. Sterns serves on the board of the Association of Washington Cities an organization that was formed to press the state to share liquor revenue after alcohol prohibition ended in 1933. Local governments continue to get a cut of liquor revenue, and if the state does the same with marijuana, Sterns said he'd urge Poulsbo to reconsider its ban. "The impacts are entirely local planning, permitting, inspection and most importantly good community policing," Sterns said. "Those impacts are partly mitigated by revenue sharing." Since legal marijuana stores opened in Washington last summer, the state has collected $20 million in pot taxes. In Colorado, sales and excises taxes on pot hit $50 million in the first year of legal sales, with about $6 million sent back to local governments. But even in Colorado, three-quarters of the state's 281 cities ban marijuana businesses. Under I-502, the tax money was dedicated largely to health care: After the state paid off a few items, including the cost of administering the new law, half of the remaining tax collections were directed to a program that provided health insurance for low-income workers. Under the national health insurance overhaul known as the Affordable Care Act, that program vanished. Some lawmakers, led by La Center Republican Sen. Ann Rivers, want to split the money that would have gone to it: One-third of it would go to cities and counties based partly on how much pot-related revenue they generate for the state. The rest would go into the state's general fund. Sen. Karen Keiser, a Democrat from the Seattle suburb of Kent, said at a committee hearing on the measure Monday that she was concerned about the turn away from health care, noting that local health departments are chronically underfunded. The issue is one of many facing lawmakers on the marijuana front the most pressing of which is reconciling Washington's unregulated, largely untaxed medical marijuana system with taxed and regulated recreational sales. Other measures under consideration include requiring a vote of the public for communities to ban pot businesses, and allowing communities greater flexibility in where the businesses can be located. ___ Follow Johnson at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle | 5 | 6,120 | news |
Best known for playing Greg Brady on "The Brady Bunch," Barry Williams is back on television with "A Very Barry Branson." In the new Great American Country series, Williams welcomes viewers into his home life in Branson, Missouri, and to tag along as he puts together his '70s-style musical variety show. "Branson is located in southwest Missouri in the beautiful Ozark Mountains," says Williams, 60. "As a resort destination, it offers everything with a distinct outdoors feel: hiking, biking, riding, fishing, water-skiing, cliff jumping, mini golf, go carts, laser tag and amusement parks. And, of course, lots and lots of entertainment with nearly 100 live music shows -- and not all of them are country!" For more information on Williams, check out his website ( http://70smusiccelebration.com/ ). He also recently created a Twitter account ( https://twitter.com/mrbarrywilliams ), where fans may stay in touch. Q. You were born and raised in California. Do you miss it? A. Sometimes! Los Angeles was a great place to grow up with so many things to see, do and appreciate. Most everyone talks about the weather there, and for good reason. For me, the Pacific is the great drawing card. I spent many years living on the ocean from Santa Monica to Malibu, and it is simply spectacular. Q. What is your favorite vacation destination? A. I have been fortunate to travel most of the world and have crisscrossed the United States multiple times. When I want to get away, enjoy, relax, chill and be happy, (I go to) Maui, Hawaii, buy a Mai Tai and hit the beach. Hawaii offers a diverse number of activities to enjoy and one of them is just taking it easy. Too often I have gone on a vacation only to discover when I return that I need time to recover from my vacation! The only thing I have been longer in my life than a "Brady" is a surfer. So, when visiting the islands, my activities are, surf, beach, rest, sleep and eat. Q. What was the first trip you took as a child? A. It was a family vacation to Lake Arrowhead not far from Los Angeles. I loved everything about it. Being with my family, the ride up the mountain, the friends we knew there, the smell of the many, many pine trees, feeding the squirrels from the porch. Plus, I learned to water ski in that lake, something I continue to enjoy to this day, only now I ski in my Branson backyard known as Table Rock Lake. Q. Where have you recently visited? A. New York. I loved the culture, museums, theatre, food and rich ethnic diversity. To me, it truly represents the melting pot and I enjoy interacting with the locals. There are a million places to discover, and every time I go, I find one or two more. Recently, I took the Staten Island Ferry from Battery Park. It's beautiful going out where the Hudson River meets the Atlantic, cruise past Lady Liberty and Ellis Island, turn around and come back. Q. What's the most important thing you've learned from your travels? A. Research where you are going and what you anticipate doing and seeing. Pack lightly, be early, don't rush, do not plan too many things to do, have your travel documents with you and up to date and don't leave anything in your hotel room when you check out. Q. Where are your favorite weekend getaways? A. I like to get off the beaten path and find small towns that I can drive to. There are a bunch of them in the Midwest that I have discovered for the weekends. One of them is a little art town just south of Branson called Eureka Springs in Arkansas, lots of colorful people, good artisan shopping and food. It has a rich history. Q. Where would you like to go that you have never been to before? A. United Arab Emirates. I don't know too much about it, but from the photos I have seen and the people I know who have been there, it looks like a place (I want) to visit. Q. When you go away, what are some of your must-have items? A. Toothbrush, swimsuit and workout clothes. Q. What would be your dream trip? A. I would love to cruise the Mediterranean for a month in a large yacht during the springtime, stopping and visiting small islands and countries along the way. (Jae-Ha Kim is a New York Times bestselling author and travel writer. You can respond to this column by visiting her website at www.jaehakim.com . You may also follow "Go Away With..." on Twitter at @GoAwayWithJae where Jae-Ha Kim welcomes your questions and comments.) | 2 | 6,121 | travel |
Landon Donovan made an appearance in a humorous commercial for Wells Fargo Bank. | 1 | 6,122 | sports |
If anyone deserves an apology, this airline says it's them. A Memphis mom who claims she was rudely booted off her Frontier Airlines plane over a sarcastic remark to a flight attendant last week is now being lambasted as a "belligerent and argumentative" woman, allegedly by fellow passengers. The prickly descriptions released to the Daily News by the airline's corporate communications director on Monday follows Nicki Gazlay telling WMC that she was mistreated Wednesday after questioning the apparent requirement that she remove her five-month-old from his Ergobaby carrier. Gazlay argued that she had kept her son in the baby carrier throughout past Frontier flights without issue. When she was again reminded to remove her son, she said she sarcastically snapped back. "Of course I am going to comply; I'm going to do whatever you say because you are the queen of this airplane," she recalled her response to WMC. "She then says, 'You're off.'" The astonished mom said she grabbed her belongings and exited the plane, and then was forced to purchase another ticket for a different flight. Though she appears to be still sizzling over what she called total mistreatment, fellow passengers and employees onboard the plane have allegedly described it as an entirely different story. "The attendant was very polite but the passenger became belligerent immediately," the airline cited one passenger as describing Gazlay. That unidentified passenger claims Gazlay was informed that wearing the carrier during flight is against FAA policy. Despite this she remained "blatantly disobedient. All the passengers that (I could tell) were very uncomfortable with this situation." A second passenger also allegedly described Gazlay as "immediately" becoming "argumentative and belligerent to the attendant." The descriptions matched a third posted on WMC's website by a man claiming to have also witnessed the tense scene. "We support the actions of our flight crew 100% as they did exactly what they were trained to do in professional manner," the airline said in a statement. "I'll even go one step further and state on the record that it is Ms. Gazlay that owes our crew and the customers that witnessed the event an apology," stated Communications Director Todd Lehmacher in an email. ON A MOBILE DEVICE? WATCH THE VIDEO HERE. [email protected] | 5 | 6,123 | news |
These news glasses have the potential to help blind people see. | 8 | 6,124 | video |
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) -- Malcolm Brogdon scored 17 points and No. 3 Virginia's defense locked down in the second half to beat No. 12 North Carolina 75-64 on Monday night. Justin Anderson added 16 for the Cavaliers (20-1, 8-1 Atlantic Coast Conference), who responded to their first loss of the season by blowing open a tight game at halftime for an impressive road win. Coming off Saturday's loss to Duke in one of the program's biggest home games in years, Virginia erased a 33-32 halftime deficit by shooting 50 percent while holding the Tar Heels (17-6, 7-3) completely in check to build an 18-point lead and improve to 8-0 in true road games this year. After shooting 52 percent in the first half, UNC went just 11-for-29 (38 percent) after halftime while preseason ACC player of the year Marcus Paige struggled for open looks against Brogdon's constant defensive harassment. | 1 | 6,125 | sports |
We thought we had seen it all when the Seattle Seahawks made arguably the biggest mistake in Super Bowl history Sunday night to lose to the New England Patriots. The most tumultuous of all NFL seasons had finally ended. The offseason had begun. Within hours, however, we were reminded that there is no offseason in the NFL. The games might end, but the league's hold on the American news cycle goes on and on and on. About 12 hours after Russell Wilson was intercepted at the goal line in Arizona, word came that Johnny Manziel, the troubled and often outrageous Cleveland Browns quarterback, was entering rehab. For what exactly, we don't know, but it certainly is time for him to get his life together. Not long afterward, there was news that the federal judge overseeing the NFL's $765-million concussion settlement wants more changes before she'll approve the deal. U.S. District Judge Anita Brody said the NFL should expand payment for some claims by the approximately 5,000 players who have sued the league seeking damages for head injuries. This is a story that is never going away in football, soccer, hockey and all kinds of other sports. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell led off his Friday news conference by lauding statistics that he said show a drop in hits to defenseless players and a decrease in concussions, and announced that he will appoint a chief medical officer for the league soon. Three days later, the topic was back again, this time thanks to Judge Brody. Those two stories Manziel and concussions would have been enough of a postscript on the day after the most-watched Super Bowl in history. But there was more. Next up was a story out of Baltimore that the Ravens had officially terminated the contract of defensive tackle Terrence Cody before he was indicted by a grand jury on animal cruelty charges. I know what you're thinking. The Ravens, again? Yes, the Ravens, again. Cody faces 15 charges, including two felony counts of aggravated animal cruelty, related to the death of his dog, a Bullmastiff from Spain. Cody also is facing a misdemeanor charge of illegal possession of an alligator and five misdemeanor counts of animal abuse or neglect of the alligator. And, he was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of marijuana. "The fact that the NFL has created such an atmosphere of hysteria that tramples on due process rights, the right of law and common decency is a tremendous problem in our league and our society," Cody's agent, Peter Schaffer, told The Baltimore Sun . "This young man's dog has died, and the Ravens were so worried about possible ramifications from the league that they took a preemptive strike. If I find out that anyone holds anything against my client because of this, I will take every and all legal action to make sure my client's rights are vindicated and that he's made whole." Good to know. And then, just when we thought the day-after-the-Super-Bowl was done producing news, there was this: Pro Football Hall of Famer and TV commentator Warren Sapp was arrested in Phoenix on suspicion of soliciting a prostitute and allegedly assaulting two women. Upon hearing this news, the NFL Network said that Sapp's contract had been terminated. Whew. That's quite a news day for a league whose season is officially over. But we really shouldn't be surprised. Omnipresent is the word that comes to mind. The NFL is everywhere, all the time. It certainly doesn't need games to keep right on going. Follow Christine Brennan on Twitter @cbrennansports . | 1 | 6,126 | sports |
It's no secret that Mountain View and Uber are friends , what with Google Ventures investing $258 million into the ride-sharing service in 2013. But if both companies really are developing their own ride-sharing services that use driverless cars, as some publications are saying, then these friends will turn into rivals in the future. Now, Uber might be years behind Google when it comes to autonomous cars , but TechCrunch says the company's teaming up with Carnegie Mellon scientists to develop its own technology. While the ride-sharing service didn't go into detail when it announced the partnership earlier, TC reports Uber is building a robotics research lab in Pittsburgh, PA for the newly hired lead engineers, scientists and commercialization experts. Carnegie Mellon's scientists are known for creating advanced , autonomous robots and even Mars rovers , so they definitely have the skills to get it done, especially if they were truly hired en masse. TC even says Uber has begun putting together engineering workstations worth several hundred thousand dollars for its new employees, so they can begin developing the core technology necessary to build a fleet of driverless taxis. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick mentioned in the past that he'd replace human drivers with autonomous cars if possible and that fares would be cheaper if that happens. Add that to the fact that the company's now valued at around $40 billion, and this report's not that hard to believe. Google, on the other hand, has been working on a ride-hailing app "most likely in conjunction with its long-in-development driverless car project" for a quite a while now, according to Bloomberg . Its employees have reportedly been test driving it for the company, so David Drummond (Google's chief legal office who also joined Uber's board of directors after Mountain View's investment) was able to show Uber some screenshots of the app, perhaps in the essence of transparency. While Mountain View hasn't confirmed this piece of info yet, it has talked about using its driverless cars as a taxi service before. At this year's Detroit Auto Show, for instance, Chris Urmson (who leads Google's self-driving car project) said there's a possibility for its autonomous cars to be used as a shared vehicle. Just like current ride-sharing services, you'd be able to call one through an app and ask it to take you to your destination. Bloomberg says the Uber board is now debating whether to ask Drummond to resign, and its executives are "deeply concerned" that Google is about to become its staunchest rival. Aside from Google having a lot more money, Uber relies heavily on the former's map data (its app was even integrated into Google Maps, if you recall), and losing access to it would be devastating. The publication also notes that a recent Google Now update adds data from Lyft, but not from Uber. Whether that means the companies' relationship has already soured remains to be seen, but thus far, Google still seems to consider both Lyft and Uber as friends. @business We think you'll find Uber and Lyft work quite well. We use them all the time. - Google (@google) February 2, 2015 TechCrunch , Bloomberg , Uber | 3 | 6,127 | finance |
After chain smoking cigarettes and blasting music, Carlos Zuluaga became so incensed he killed the family's four pets and beat his uncle to death, tying his hands with an electrical cord, wrapping him in a rug and depositing the body in a barren field six blocks from his home, police said Monday night. A day-long investigation by police, sparked by Zuluaga's mother's worries about her missing brother and her missing pets, ended Monday with the gruesome discovery of what police believe is Carlos Nino's body, a dead cat in a crate and three dogs dead and buried behind the family's Southwest Miami-Dade home. After hours of questioning, police said Zuluaga, 30, confessed to murdering his 54-year-old uncle and disposing of the body in the field. He has been charged with second-degree murder with a deadly weapon. Family members say Zuluaga suffers from drug abuse and schizophrenia and hadn't taken his medication for three months, according to Miami Herald news partner CBS4. "The totality of the circumstances is what raised the alarms,'' said Det. Alvaro Zabaleta, a spokesman for Miami-Dade police. "When you have an area rug missing, dead animals buried and a missing relative you unfortunately have to suspect the worst.'' According to the arrest affidavit, Zuluaga's mother and aunt, who lived with Zuluaga and Nino, had gone on a brief vacation, leaving the two men in the home at 12910 SW 148th St. Rd., near Zoo Miami. The mother called her brother throughout the weekend and he told her that Zuluaga, her son, "was not allowing him to sleep by smoking cigarettes and playing music all night.'' When the women returned home at approximately 8:30 p.m. Sunday, the mother realized her three dogs were not barking. When she asked her son about the dogs, he told her they had "disappeared,'' police said. When she asked him about his uncle, he told her he had "disappeared'' as well. The mother began to search her home and noticed the rug was missing and fresh sod was planted in the backyard, police said. She asked him about the missing rug and he told her that "disappeared'' as well. The mother called her nephew- her sister's son - and asked him to come to the house. He began digging where the fresh sod was and found three dead dogs with trauma to their necks. He found the cat in a crate, also with trauma to its neck, the affidavit said. At about 11 p.m. Sunday, the mother called police, Zabaleta said. Police immediately focused on Nino's nephew. They suspected foul play because several of Nino's personal belongings - his wallet and car keys and gray Volkswagen - were still at the home. Police called in bloodhounds to search for Nino in wooded areas near the home and along the banks of the canals that run through the South Dade neighborhood, known as Deerwood Estates. Late Monday morning family members led police to a field near Southwest 126th Avenue and 143rd Street, where the body was found on a dirt road that curves out of view from the street behind some townhouses. Luis Nino told CBS4 he and three brothers found their brother's body inside a carpet with a towel and bandage around his head. He said the hands of his brother, Carlos Nino, were tied with an electrical cord. "We are upset and overwhelmed by this," Luis Nino told the station. | 5 | 6,128 | news |
Star-Lord Chris Pratt and Captain America Chris Evans place bets on Super Bowl. | 1 | 6,129 | sports |
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) -- Now that Missouri has bid farewell and joined the Southeastern Conference, a new archrival is emerging for Kansas. Its name is Iowa State. The 223rd consecutive sellout in historic Allen Fieldhouse was definitely louder for the Cyclones on Monday night than it was two days earlier when Kansas State came calling. When the No. 8 Jayhawks got hot in the second half and raced to an 89-76 victory over the 11th-ranked Cyclone team that handed them a road loss the month before, the windows seemed to rattle in this 60-year-old arena. Wayne Selden Jr., who scored 19 of his 20 points in the second half, admitted he'd been ''haunted'' by the 86-81 loss back on Jan. 17. The pain persisted ''that day, that whole next day. Maybe a little bit after,'' said Selden. ''We had to get onto the next (game). But a sense of urgency came back when we knew we had them next.'' Selden, after missing all three of his shots and scoring only one point in the first half, drilled four of his first five 3-pointers after intermission, often finding himself virtually unguarded on the right wing, as the Jayhawks (19-3, 8-1 Big 12) padded their lead in the Big 12 race to 1 1/2 games. Georges Niang had 24 points for Iowa State (16-5, 6-3), which dropped out of a second-place tie with West Virginia. Making sure to give Kansas State plenty of respect, Kansas coach Bill Self agreed the Cyclones, at least for now, are quicker than just about anyone to get Jayhawk blood boiling. The Cyclones were gunning for their third straight victory over Kansas `I think it's cyclical. But right now, for sure,'' said Self. ''Right now, the way it sits, K-State would be our biggest rival but you could make a case that Iowa State has emerged as our other rival. Certainly the last couple of years, without question.'' Despite success at home in the Big 12 tournament against Kansas in recent years, the Cyclones have lost 10 straight in Allen Fieldhouse. ''What has Bill lost in this building, nine times?'' said Iowa State coach Fred Hoiberg. ''It's tougher than hell to walk out of this building with a win.'' Leading 35-28 after a seesaw first half, the Jayhawks reeled off a 14-6 run the first 4 minutes, 45 seconds after intermission, with Selden scoring eight points, including two uncontested 3-pointers. Iowa State called time out and tried to regroup after Selden's second 3-pointer put Kansas on top 49-34. But unable to stop Kansas' transition game, the Cyclones never got the lead under nine points. ''Selden was great,'' Hoiberg said. ''You have to take your hat off to him. He hit some tough shots. He hit a couple where I didn't think our urge3ncy was good enough.'' Perry Ellis's three-point play gave the Jayhawks breathing room at 77-63 with less than 3 minutes left. Ellis had 17 points and Kelly Oubre Jr. had 16 for the Jayhawks, who are gunning for their 11th straight Big 12 title. Bryce Dejean-Jones had 14 points for Iowa State and Monte Morris had 12. Niang's steal and Jameel McKay's dunk sliced the lead briefly to single-digits at 54-45 but Kansas scored the next seven points, four on Oubre's baskets and three on a shot by Selden, who was 5 for 7 from behind the arc. TIP-INS Kansas: The Jayhawks are 91-15 all-time at home against Iowa State but the Cyclones are responsible for three of Kansas' nine home losses since the Big 12 opened play in 1996-97. With 12 points, Frank Mason recorded his 19th straight double-digit game. Iowa State: The Cyclones were held four points below their league-leading scoring average. They now have at least 15 assists in all but five games. Cyclones had a 41-38 rebound edge. STAT LINES Kansas: In regular-season play, No Bill Self Kansas team has been beaten twice by the same team in the regular season. The Jayhawks had five players in double figures and 22 assists, five more than the Cyclones, who came into the game leading the conference in assists Iowa State: Iowa State's first-half shooting of 35 percent was its lowest of the season. With nine rebounds, Bryce Dejean-Jones led both teams. But the Cyclones had five players with at least five, as did Kansas. QUOTABLE: ''`Kansas played a great basketball game. This building explodes when they get those points in transition'' said Hoiberg. UP NEXT: Kansas is at Oklahoma State on Saturday. Iowa State hosts Texas Tech on Saturday. | 1 | 6,130 | sports |
Russell Westbrook comments on the 104-97 win over Orlando. | 1 | 6,131 | sports |
With the Timberwolves in town, Mavericks point guard J.J. Barea hosted a cohort of his former teammates for the Super Bowl on Sunday at his Dallas-area home. BOX SCORE: MAVERICKS 100, TIMBERWOLVES 94 He and one of his guests, Ricky Rubio, struck up a friendly wager -- or "apuesta," as both the Puerto Rican and the Spaniard would say in their native Spanish tongue. Barea put his money on the Patriots, while Rubio took the Seahawks. "It didn't go well," Rubio said with a smile. "I don't know why (the Seahawks) didn't go for Marshawn Lynch (on Seattle's final offensive play). But it was a fun game to watch." This was a genial bet between friends (Barea spent three years backing up Rubio in Minnesota before reaching a buyout with Minnesota and signing back with the Mavs before the start of the season). But since Nov. 7, Rubio had been submerged by helplessness of the most serious kind, watching in anguish as the Wolves stumble toward the top of the NBA Draft Lottery odds chart. A day after Super Sunday, at long last, things were back under Rubio's control. The highlight-prone point guard made his long-awaited return from a severely-sprained left ankle, tallying 10 points on 4-of-9 shooting and four assists in 21 minutes, 22 seconds during Minnesota's 100-94 loss at the American Airlines Center. It was Rubio's first game action since Nov. 7, when he drove hard to the rim against Orlando's Willie Green and landed on the side of his ankle in the Wolves' fifth game of the season. Rubio missed 42 contests -- eight fewer than he did when an ACL in the same leg cost him part of the 2011-12 and 2012-13 seasons, his first in the league. "Trust me," Rubio said, according to SB Nation's Tim Cato, "I was dying inside that I wasn't able to play and help (my teammates)." Saunders said this past weekend three different specialists had cleared Rubio to play Monday. He started but was capped at the 20-minute threshold, which meant backup Mo Williams -- who returned from a three-game absence due to hip soreness -- played the final minutes as the Wolves (8-40) almost came back from a 21-point deficit. That was largely due to Rubio, who attacked early, accounting for Minnesota's first eight points, and threw several of the nifty passes that have made him so popular. The most pronounced was a transition alley-oop to rookie Andrew Wiggins that made it 91-85 Dallas with 6:04 remaining. The Wolves got within 96-94 at the 1:52 mark but didn't score again. Starting in place of injured Rajon Rondo (orbital fracture in left eye and broken nose), Barea scored Dallas' final four points, and Minnesota missed three shots on one possession that could've brought it within a score of the lead with less than 30 seconds to go. Monta Ellis led the Mavericks (33-17) with 23 points, while shooting guard Kevin Martin had 23 for Minnesota. "It was tough" to take Rubio out late, Saunders said. "You could see he was favoring it a little bit at the end. He was limping a little bit when he was running, so we can't take any chances on that." Rubio had been practicing for about two weeks and watching games from behind the Wolves' bench, often getting in teammates' ears during timeouts and hopping out onto the floor with enthusiasm when one of them made a play. Between rehabilitation sessions, he worked on his oft-criticized jump shot with shooting coach Mike Penberthy. It looked good Monday night, as Rubio seemed to have the necessary lift he tends to neglect on jumpers. "His shot has almost been remade," Saunders said. "We might look back in a year and say maybe the best thing that ever happened was having those three months off where he was able to really break down his shot and work on his shot and become a consistent shooter." With the sprain keeping him out well past his self-appointed target return date of Christmas, reporters and fans in the Twin Cities began to question Rubio's mettle and dedication to returning. But Saunders recently revealed the sprain came with a bone bruise and some tissue damage that kept Rubio out almost 10 weeks. His was the first of a string of injuries that completely derailed a season that was already developmental in nature when Wiggins replaced Kevin Love as the franchise's centerpiece. Monday marked the first time since Rubio went down that he, Martin and center Nikola Pekovic started a game together. And so begins the next stage of the Wolves' full-on rebuilding process. Shortly before his injury, Rubio inked a four-year, $56 million extension. It's his job to facilitate a high-octane offense featuring Wiggins, Shabazz Muhammad and the rest of Minnesota's promising youth and providing some much-needed perimeter defense, all while nurturing the young guys' development. With the league's worst record, the Wolves will have opportunities to further build around Rubio and Wiggins. As long as the former can stay healthy. "He's a guy that makes the team better instantly by his passing ability, other than that his shooting ability, his tenacity to guard the basketball," power forward Thaddeus Young said. Follow Phil Ervin on Twitter | 1 | 6,132 | sports |
John "Mac" McQuown yanks on a chain and hoists open a metal roll-up door with a clang. In a flowery aloha shirt, shorts and sandals, he looks like a retiree with little more on his mind than sipping a mai tai by the pool. But McQuown is actually one of the architects of the modern investing system, and he's far from retiring, Bloomberg Markets magazine will report in its March issue. This story appears in the March 2015 issue of Bloomberg Markets magazine. "Come here, I want to show you something," he says on a sunny afternoon in California's Sonoma Valley. He steps inside a workshop filled with band saws and other woodworking tools. A gnarled tree trunk the size of a sofa has been cut down the middle lengthwise, revealing ribbons of grain beneath its bark. "I'm going to make a table out of that," says McQuown, 80, in the down-home cadence of his Midwestern roots. A mechanical engineer, McQuown likes to make things at Stone Edge Farm, his 16-acre (6.5-hectare) estate nestled between two mountain ranges north of San Francisco. In his metal shop, he machines parts for the natural gas- fired microturbine he's installed in the compound. Rows of cabernet sauvignon vines hang heavy with ripening purple fruit destined for his winery. He even keeps hundreds of thousands of bees to make his own honey. Yet what McQuown truly loves to create is something that can't be seen, heard or tasted. He's a financial engineer, a maker of methods and instruments that enable investors to exploit what he likes to call "distortions" in the capital markets. His latest handiwork is a hybrid security that embeds a credit-default swap, the derivative that helped push the global financial system to the edge of ruin in 2008, in a corporate bond. By joining the two securities into an instrument called an "exchangeable bond," or eBond for short, McQuown says companies will be able to transform junk-graded debt into the equivalent of AAA-rated notes. And he's hoping it will help him take advantage of possibly the biggest imbalance he's seen in a career that stretches back to the dawn of quantitative investing -- a looming liquidity crunch in the $8 trillion U.S. corporate bond market. McQuown says reinventing the corporate bond to make it less risky should make it easier to trade. "The market is bumping into its own boundaries," McQuown says, "and this has created a necessity for solutions." McQuown is bringing out his "synthetic" instrument as years of near-zero interest rates have thrown the debt market into flux. Since January 2009, corporations have issued $7.2 trillion in U.S. dollar-denominated bonds, a 39 percent jump over the prior six years. Meanwhile, new U.S. and international capital requirements have forced JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and other banks to reduce the risks on their books. Wall Street's primary dealers used to stockpile bonds so they could instantly match buyers and sellers. Now, they've whacked their supplies of fixed-income securities by 76 percent, to $55 billion as of Jan. 5 from about $250 billion in 2007. The result: an unprecedented gap between outstanding bonds and available liquidity in the world's No. 1 source of capital for corporations. "That's dangerous," says Daniel Gallagher, a commissioner with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. "We've had this long bull run in the bond market, but what happens when interest rates rise and there's more pressure to sell than to buy? Liquidity could dry up, and that could make it harder and more expensive for companies to issue new bonds, and that could impact the broader economy." The eBond joins a wave of exotic new securities that are hitting the capital markets seven years after the crash. Intercontinental Exchange, or ICE, in Atlanta, for example, has introduced futures based on CDS indexes. And Amundi SA, a Paris-based asset management firm, is one of many companies plying investors with automated "smart beta" exchange-traded funds designed to beat the market with little or no increase in fees. "There's a lot of action, a lot of experimentation, in the market now," says Josh Galper, the managing principal of Finadium LLC, a finance research firm based in Concord, Massachusetts. "But innovation does not always reduce risk -- it just moves it around." McQuown says his eBond will enable investors to jettison their credit risk because the swap, which is essentially a form of insurance, will cover their losses should the debtor fail. To garner such protection now, an investor must purchase a swap separately to cover a bond. "We've finally figured out a way to make a bond default- free," says McQuown, a partner at eBond Advisors LLC, a New York-based firm that's producing the new security. The newfangled instrument, which McQuown developed with fixed-income entrepreneur Richard MacWilliams, has won the support of influential figures in finance. Nobel Memorial Prize-winning economist Robert Merton and former BlackRock Inc. Vice Chairman Blake Grossman are among the investors in eBond Advisors. And John Reed, the one-time chairman of Citigroup Inc. and the board of trustees at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is an adviser to the firm. "It's an important idea that deserves to get off the ground," says David Booth, co-founder and co-CEO of Dimensional Fund Advisors, an Austin, Texas-based investment firm with $381 billion in assets and another backer of the venture. "The way bonds trade now is abysmal, and if we can make the bond market as liquid and transparent as the stock market, that's a socially desirable outcome." The eBond evokes a long line of inventions that were supposed to tame the markets but instead wrought havoc. In 1998, hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management needed a $3.6 billion bailout from 14 global banks after its mathematical models for government bond arbitrage blew up following Russia's default. Ten years later, a raft of mortgage-backed securities meant to neutralize risk crashed much of the world's economy. John Bogle, the founder of index mutual fund pioneer Vanguard Group Inc. and a champion of no-nonsense investing, has crossed paths with many financial engineers, including McQuown. He's as skeptical as ever that their work yields lasting benefits for investors. "I liked McQuown, and he's probably a genius -- I have no problem saying that," Bogle, 85, says. "But geniuses pursue complexity. Any innovation in the financial field is likely to fail. Most are designed to enrich the sellers and impoverish the buyers." Yet McQuown isn't an alchemist who made his name cooking up toxic securities. He actually shares Bogle's passion for open, cost-efficient markets. Forty-four years ago, McQuown applied the theories of economists William Sharpe, Eugene Fama, Fischer Black and Myron Scholes to invent the first equities index portfolio. The breakthrough helped usher in the era of passive investment in an array of stocks across the market, now the linchpin in many a 401(k) fund. Sharpe, Fama and Scholes were eventually awarded Nobel Memorial Prizes for their work; Black died before he could be honored. In the 1990s, McQuown and two partners devised a way to use a company's stock price to predict how likely it was to default on its debts. The analytical tool, which the trio sold to Moody's Corp. in 2002 for $220 million, is a fixture on trading floors worldwide. Today, McQuown is a partner in DCI, a $5 billion fixed-income hedge fund in San Francisco. "Mac's one of those guys who's been very influential behind the scenes," says Booth, a billionaire who donated $300 million to what became the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 2008. "To bring about fundamental change, you need great thinkers and researchers, but you also need implementers. People like Mac don't win Nobel Prizes; they implement the ideas of the guys who do. He's a catalyst." Now McQuown and MacWilliams, eBond Advisors' managing partner, are betting they can move a market that has proved impervious to change. For the past 25 years, the two men have watched as equities trading has become as easy and accessible as online shopping. When it comes to bonds, little has changed since the days when Michael Lewis played liar's poker with his pals at Salomon Brothers in the 1980s. Eight out of 10 deals are still executed by two traders on the phone, according to Greenwich Associates, a research firm in Stamford, Connecticut. Wall Street's top 10 banks still control 90 percent of trading in corporate bonds. And the market is still fragmented into tens of thousands of bond issues because a single company can sell scores of unique notes with varying maturities and interest rates. "We've had a transparent equity market since it began, but we still don't have a transparent debt market," McQuown says. "Instead, we have all these bilateral arrangements with highly levered and highly volatile dealers. There's no reason in the world why corporate bonds shouldn't trade like equities." For entrepreneurs and market stalwarts alike, such structural flaws aren't a worry; they're an opportunity. BlackRock, the No. 1 global investment firm, with $4.3 trillion in assets, has formed a strategic alliance with MarketAxess Holdings Inc. to offer investors an alternative to what it calls a "broken market." New York-based Electronifie Inc. is one of several startups coming online to help investors bypass banks and find liquidity in "dark pools," which are private exchanges used to trade stocks. Banks, too, are joining the push. Late last year, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Credit Suisse Group AG and 10 of their rivals allied with more than a dozen investment firms to form a global trading network dubbed Project Neptune. (Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, also operates an electronic trading platform for fixed-income securities.) "Investors have been building larger and larger positions of credit exposure in their portfolios, and they're going to need alternative ways to exit them," says Richard McVey, chief executive officer of MarketAxess, the No. 1 digital hub for corporate bonds in the U.S. "This is a massive capital markets problem, and it needs to be solved." McQuown, still spry, with a mop of snowy hair, a California tan and a kung-fu grip of a handshake, isn't interested in starting an electronic trading platform. He and MacWilliams have set out to reinvent the bond itself. Peter Aherne, head of North America capital markets, syndicate and new products at Citigroup, agrees that the eBond could be a breakthrough. "By linking credit protection and a bond in a single security, I would expect there to be portfolio benefits in terms of risk management and trading opportunities," Aherne says. "More buyers for these securities should enhance the liquidity of the bonds." "There's a lot of experimentation in the market. Innovation does not always reduce risk." But as McQuown and MacWilliams introduce their new product, they may find fund managers underwhelmed by the idea of a riskless corporate bond. "The way we make money for our clients is by assessing risk and generating risk-adjusted returns, and if you have a security that hedges that risk premium away, then why is it compelling? I would just buy Treasuries," says Bonnie Baha, the head of global developed credit at DoubleLine Capital, a Los Angeles firm that manages about $56 billion in fixed-income assets. "This product sounds like a great idea in theory, but in practice it may be a solution in search of a problem." And, of course, fusing a security as straightforward as a bond with the notorious credit-default swap does ring a lot of alarms, says Phil Angelides, former chairman of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, a blue-ribbon panel appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009 to conduct a postmortem on the causes of the subprime mortgage disaster. In September 2008, American International Group Inc. didn't have the money to back the swaps it had sold guaranteeing billions of dollars' worth of mortgage-backed securities. To prevent AIG's failure from cascading through the global financial system, the U.S. Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury Department executed a $182 billion bailout of the insurer. "When you look at this corporate eBond, it's strikingly similar to what was done with mortgages," says Angelides, a Democrat who was California state treasurer from 1999 to 2007. "Credit-default swaps were embedded in mortgage-backed securities with the idea that they'd be made safe. But the risk wasn't insured; it was just shifted somewhere else." McQuown and MacWilliams counter that soon CDSs will not pose the systemic threat they did in 2008. Back then, they were traded between two parties in an unregulated and unaccountable system. To bring the $19 trillion CDS market out of the shadows, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 mandated that most of these securities be traded through exchanges and processed by clearinghouses that guarantee settlement and record every transaction in a database open to regulators. The SEC is writing rules to implement the measure. (Bloomberg LP operates a swap execution facility for trading these derivatives.) The two men are betting these new safeguards will ease worries about swaps. ICE, the No. 1 global clearinghouse for credit derivatives, will process the swaps used to create eBonds. ICE requires sellers of swaps to backstop their contracts with various margin accounts. If the seller fails to pay off, then ICE can tap a "waterfall" of margin funds to make the investor whole. In the event of a market crash, it can call on clearing members such as Citigroup and Goldman Sachs to pool their resources and fulfill swap contracts. There's still a danger that the banks themselves may be unable to muster cash in a crisis. But this shared responsibility marks a sea change from the bad old days when investors gambled their counterparties would make good on their contracts. It's late afternoon at Stone Edge Farm, and McQuown is meeting with MacWilliams and eBond Advisors CEO Bryan Jennings in his billiards room as shadows stretch across the swimming pool outside. The three men are discussing the restructuring of the derivatives market since the crash. "We could never have developed eBonds without Dodd-Frank and centralized clearing," says MacWilliams, 62, an easygoing man who rides in the Krewe of Hermes parade in his hometown of New Orleans every Mardi Gras. "In 2008, it wasn't the swap that was broken -- it was trust and faith in the system," adds Jennings, 48, who headed fixed-income capital markets and derivatives at Morgan Stanley from 2003 to 2012.. "It's absolutely stupid to have a derivatives market based on bilateral trading," McQuown chimes in. "And to load up dealers with an inventory of credit-default swaps is the second- dumbest thing imaginable. Centralized clearing is one of the benefits of '08, and I think it'll change the debt markets." As he strolls the grounds, it's quickly evident that the proprietor of Stone Edge Farm is a man of eclectic tastes. Vegetable beds teem with squash and tomatoes and 40 125- year-old olive trees have been replanted with geometric precision in parallel rows. McQuown, who grew up in a farming family in northern Illinois, employs his own arborist to tend to the live oaks and California bay trees on his estate. He's inclined to go overboard when he delves into new projects. Years ago, his wife, Leslie, bought him a backyard telescope only to see it go untouched. When McQuown finally decided he needed "to know" astronomy, he purchased a "deep-sky" telescope with a 20-inch mirror and housed it in a three-story- high observatory clad in rust-colored steel that resembles a Mayan pyramid. "He hasn't changed that much since I first met him more than 50 years ago," says Fama, 76, a finance professor at Chicago Booth. "He has a basic curiosity about everything." After earning a degree in mechanical engineering from Northwestern University and then an MBA from Harvard in 1961, McQuown embraced an emerging discipline called computer science. As a young analyst in Smith Barney's corporate finance unit in Manhattan, he spent his weekends renting time on an IBM 7090, a room-sized mainframe installed in the basement of the Time- Life Building. McQuown wanted to see if he could predict how stocks would perform, so he built a database and then slept next to the whirring machine as it ran his programs. He says with a laugh that he failed in his quest. By 1970, McQuown was leading the management sciences research division at Wells Fargo & Co. in San Francisco. He was blown away by Fama's theory that equity prices reflect all available information, so it's virtually hopeless to beat the market over time. McQuown also studied Sharpe's work. Sharpe had developed formulas, including one that came to be known as the Sharpe ratio, to quantify the relationship between risk and return and concluded, as did McQuown, that a wise way to make money in the stock market was essentially to invest in all of it. This particular stream of thought arrived at a time when investors typically put their faith in star stock pickers. "It was an exciting time because finance and investing were in a pre-scientific era," recalls Sharpe, 80. "Mac was a guy who said, 'Surely we can bring economics and mathematics to bear in this area and optimize a portfolio.' That required algorithms and serious computing power." "Geniuses pursue complexity. Any innovation in the financial field is likely to fail." In July 1971, McQuown's team of brains unveiled a $6 million portfolio that tracked 1,500 equities trading on the New York Stock Exchange for the pension fund at luggage-maker Samsonite. It would take Bogle, who developed his Standard & Poor's 500 Index mutual fund in 1975 separately from McQuown, to bring low-cost index investing to the masses through Vanguard. More than four decades later, index-based mutual funds and exchange-traded funds hold $10 trillion in assets, according to Statista Inc., a New York-based research group. The project left McQuown with an unshakable belief that financial engineering could make investing more efficient and less risky. It could also prove quite lucrative, as he found when he shifted into credit analysis in the 1990s and formed a firm in San Francisco called KMV with Stephen Kealhofer, a University of California at Berkeley finance professor, and Oldrich Vasicek, a Czech mathematician. The trio recognized that credit ratings often don't accurately reflect a company's likelihood of defaulting on its liabilities. So they developed complex mathematical formulas based on a company's stock option pricing to calculate this probability with greater depth than can be found in conventional credit reports. As an entrepreneur, McQuown savored exploiting such inefficiencies. In 2004, at the age of 70, he co-founded DCI with Kealhofer to profit by predicting and managing the default risk in corporate bonds and CDSs. Yet McQuown was also driven by an engineer's desire to replace a flawed machine with a better one. For years, McQuown and MacWilliams had kvetched about how antiquated the bond market seemed compared with stocks, futures and other securities. MacWilliams had gotten to know McQuown in the early 1990s, when he headed EJV Partners LP, a bond data provider that did business with KMV. In the aftermath of the 2008 crash, the two men rapped by phone daily about how to take advantage of the restructuring of Wall Street. "There is a clear thread from Wells Fargo to the eBonds concept," says David Coulter, the vice chairman of Warburg Pincus LLC, the New York-based private-equity firm, and an adviser to eBond Advisors. "Once again, Mac's asking 'How do markets function? Are they efficient? And if not, what can we do about it?"' When President Obama signed Dodd-Frank in July 2010, McQuown and MacWilliams found their opening in Title VII of the 848-page law. Credit-default swaps, developed in 1994 by Blythe Masters, an economist then working on JPMorgan's derivatives desk, were originally designed to help banks cover losses in the event their borrowers failed. Within 14 years, the instrument's purpose had become warped as banks and insurers sold unsecured swaps supposedly to guarantee subprime mortgage-backed bonds. Now, McQuown and MacWilliams are wagering that this maligned derivative will ultimately justify its usefulness. They point out that the junk bond, another innovation that was once viewed as a financial weapon of mass destruction, has become an uncontroversial tool. With investors required to trade and clear swaps in an open and accountable marketplace, "We can return credit-default swaps to their original purpose--to transfer risk," MacWilliams says. To create the new instrument, eBond Advisors' lawyers added three sections to the standard contract that bond issuers provide to bond buyers. Even so, McQuown and his partners may have difficulty finding investors willing to sell the swaps to embed in the eBond because the market has yet to fully recover from the crash. In the second week of January, investors traded $86 billion worth of contracts, a 37 percent drop from the same week in 2011. Moreover, Jennings is having a hard time persuading chief financial officers to take a chance on using eBonds amid the fixed-income boom. "No one has a problem raising capital right now," Jennings says. "The biggest challenge, without a doubt, is overcoming the question of, 'Has anyone else done it?"' There's a bigger problem with the eBond -- and, for that matter, with financial engineering in general -- says Wallace Turbeville, a senior fellow at Demos, a New York-based think tank. The bond is a simple instrument with a debtor and creditor that's proven its utility for centuries. The eBond inserts a third party into the transaction -- the seller of the swap embedded in the security who now bears its credit risk. Such machinations may be designed with good intentions, but they just further convolute the marketplace, says Turbeville, a former investment banker at Goldman Sachs. "Why are we doing this? Is our society better off as a result of this innovation?" he asks. "You can't destroy risk; you just move it around. I would argue that we have to reduce complexity and face the fact that it's actually good for institutions to experience risks." Back at Stone Edge Farm, it's a balmy evening and McQuown has invited MacWilliams and Jennings to join him and Leslie for dinner at an outdoor table. The couple's chef serves a deconstructed eggplant Parmesan salad with heirloom cherry tomatoes and rocket from the farm's organic garden, and glasses are filled with the 2006 vintage of McQuown's cabernet sauvignon, which sells in the secondary fine- wine market for $110 a bottle. As the conversation turns to "complexity theory," an interdisciplinary approach developed by physicists at the Santa Fe Institute to analyze systems such as the oceans or the brain, McQuown is in his element. For him, the capital markets are an ever-changing machine to be tuned and re-engineered indefinitely. McQuown's breakthroughs with index funds and credit-default analysis worked to the benefit of investors. The question now is, will his tinkering do the same as the bond market heads into a crucial transition? "There's going to be a lot of experiments, and more power to those that are trying to figure out solutions," McQuown says on the phone a few weeks later. "Otherwise, we'll end up with financial dysfunction, and there's really no reason for that." He's about to describe an idea for a new type of mutual fund when he has to hop off the call. Someone calls from the gate. It's a group of researchers from the Institute for the Future, a Palo Alto, California-based group that forecasts social and technological trends. They're not interested in bonds or CDSs. No problem. The engineer is happy to show them how his microturbine and solar array will soon shift his entire compound off the grid. Edward Robinson is a senior writer atBloomberg Markets in London. @EddieRob235, [email protected] To contact the author on this story: Edward Robinson at [email protected] To contact the editor on this story: Stryker McGuire at [email protected] | 5 | 6,133 | news |
A California doctor is taking a hard stance -- refusing families who refuse to vaccinate. CNN's Dan Simon reports. | 5 | 6,134 | news |
You may find yourself thinking about how much cheese you consume on a daily basis. Are you feeling guilty? Don't be! Cheese is a beautiful and wonderful thing that does nothing but make this world a better place. Want proof? Here are 11 facts that prove cheese is only capable of proving happiness in this dark, cruel world . 1. It makes you feel better about making mistakes, since cheese was probably invented by accident. According to the International Dairy Foods Association , the origins of cheese date back to more than 4,000 years ago. Legend has it that an Arabian merchant was traveling across the desert with milk inside of a pouch made from a sheep's stomach. The heat mixed with the pouch lining's rennet caused the milk to develop into curds and whey. The merchant drank the whey and dared eat the curd, which he loved. Obviously. 2. Because you're not alone... at least when it comes to macaroni and cheese. According to the American Cheese Society , "in any given twelve-week period, approximately one-third of the population of the United States will eat macaroni and cheese at least once." That's either disturbing or comforting, depending on how much cheese you eat. 3. And at one point in time, macaroni and cheese was one of Oprah's "Favorite Things." ' That's right. Among the cashmere sweaters and expensive jewelry, Oprah named Beecher's "World's Best" Mac 'N' Cheese as one her "Ultimate Favorite Things" in 2010. "The best part [is] it comes frozen," Oprah said . "All you have to do is heat it up, and you've got yourself some good eatin' from Beecher's." 4. Because the good folks over at Wisconsin Cheese have created the ultimate wine and cheese pairing device for you. You might as well use it. The Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board created the "Cheese Cupid Pairing Tool," in which you can pick whatever wine you're drinking and it will tell you the best cheeses to eat with it. There's even an app you can download . 5. Speaking of Wisconsin, a county in the state once saved a lot of money by pouring cheese brines on icy roads. Some years ago, a highway employee named Emil Norby of Polk County thought of a great way to save money on salting all the icy roads during Wisconsin's brutal winters: by using cheese brines leftover from the dairies. Guess what? It worked, and Norby ended up saving the county around $40,000 in rock salt costs that year. 6. Because sometimes all it takes to bring a pasta from good to great is a sprinkling of Parmesan on top of it. Life tip: Never say no when a waiter asks, "Would you like some cheese sprinkled on top of that?" 7. Ricky Gervais might be more into cheese than you are. He once told Bon Appétit : "I've probably had -- let's see -- two different types of cheese today. I had a little mid-morning snack of cheddar on toast and then a little cheese snack later on. I mean, the amount of exercise I need to do to stay a healthy weight is incredible. If I just cut out the food, I'd have a six-pack. I'd look like Matthew McConaughey. The only reason I work out is to live longer so I can eat more cheese and drink more wine." Respect. 8. Because there's quite the cheese selection for those who keep kosher. New York City's Brent Delman, who is also known as the "Cheese Guy," has a line of about 30 certified kosher cheeses that he sells in the New York area. According to the New York Times , Delman was able to create the cheeses by convincing cheesemakers in the U.S., Italy and Argentina to separate part of their production so that rabbis could observe the process to make sure nothing unkosher, like animal rennet, slipped into the mix. 9. And if you're a vegetarian, you can eat Swiss cheese as a great source of vitamin B-12. All vegetarians know that they need to obtain vitamin B-12 from sources other than meat. And one of those sources is Swiss cheese! SF Healthy Eating reports that out of 12 types of cheese, Swiss has the most vitamin B-12. A one-ounce serving contains 0.95 micrograms, which is 39 percent of the recommended daily intake. 10. Because you can always turn your addiction into a job. Yes, there are jobs that require you to eat cheese all day long. In 2014, The New York Times interviewed a man who has one of the best jobs in the entire world . Craig Gile is a cheese grader at the Cabot Creamery Cooperative in Vermont. His job consists of checking to see how the "cheeses are maturing to discern when they are at the peak of the aging process, and at their optimum flavor." 11. And, finally, because all the best party foods include cheese. | 0 | 6,135 | foodanddrink |
Obama's 2016 spending blueprint proposes to boost spending on infrastructure and social programs for middle-income Americans, funded in part by tax hikes on the wealthy and corporations. The budget is "a broader blueprint for America's success in this new global economy," Obama said on Monday in Washington. "We've got some fundamental choices to make about what kind of country we want to be," he added. Among other things, the budget proposes to: spend hundreds of billions on public works through a tax offset on the profits US companies have amassed overseas; impose a tax hike on the wealthy and trust funds in return for tax credits for lower income earners; create a new infrastructure bank; consolidate US government agencies - and increase the capital gains rate from 23.8 to 28 percent. The document must be approved by Congress to take effect, which is unlikely. The conservative Republican party now controls both houses of Congress for the first time in Obama's presidency. Many Republicans support extra military spending, which Obama is proposing to do by reversing defense spending limits, but oppose increased domestic outlays. Obama maintains the US economy has recovered enough to justify his tax plan. But Republicans disagree: they say the budget should focus on eliminating the foreshadowed $474 billion deficit. House Speaker John Boehner and other Republican leaders say the budget they'll produce later this year will achieve balance within 10 years. "Today, President Obama laid out a plan for more taxes, more spending, more of the Washington gridlock that has failed middle-class families... the American people can't afford a repeat of the same old top-down policies of the past," Boehner said. Republican Hal Rogers, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, criticized the budget as "irresponsible" and a "huge wish list of additional spending." But rejecting the plan could put the Republicans in the awkward position of rejecting tax cuts for middle-class families. Nancy Pelosi, leader of the Democratic minority in the House, said the plan was "a forward-looking budget" that "contributes to our long-term economic growth by providing bigger paychecks and better infrastructure for working families." | 5 | 6,136 | news |
Virginia went on an 18-4 run in the second half en route to a 75-64 win over North Carolina. Justin Anderson scored 16 points and dished seven assists in the win. | 1 | 6,137 | sports |
A fan who says he was injured when an overhead camera cable snapped and whipsawed in the grandstand during the 2013 Coca-Cola 600 has filed suit against Fox Sports and Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord. Patrick Carpenter filed suit last week in civil court in Randolph County saying he was injured and scarred on his right arm and shoulder after the synthetic cable fell and was then snagged by passing race cars on the track. Patrick said he suffered permanent impairment of his right arm. Fox and the speedway declined to comment on the suit. Carpenter, represented by Michael Lewis and D. Stuart Punger of Winston-Salem, said in the suit that Fox and the speedway were negligent in not better inspecting and protecting spectators from the overhead cable and camera rig, called a CamCat. Carpenter was seated in the grandstand near Turn 4 when the accident occurred on Lap 121 of the May 26, 2013, race. About 10 people were treated after the accident. Carpenter is the first to file a suit. Fox suspended use of the camera rig at Sprint races and conducted an investigation into what occurred, although the remains of the cable were in poor condition after they were ensnared by 19 cars. Results of the investigation are not being made public because of litigation, said Fox spokesman Lou D'Ermilio. Carpenter's suit seeks more than $10,000 in damages. | 1 | 6,138 | sports |
Randi Kaye reports on a doctors office that is considering banning unvaccinated kids out of fear of spreading measles. | 8 | 6,139 | video |
Apple's sapphire plant project in Arizona didn't work out, so Apple is investing another $2 billion to convert the facility into a massive data center, the Wall Street Journal's Daisuke Wakabayashi reports (paywall): The company plans to employ 150 full-time Apple staff at the Mesa, Arizona, facility, which will serve as a command center for its global network of data centers. In addition to the investment for the data center, Apple plans to build a solar farm capable of producing 70-megawatts of energy to power the facility. For context of what a 70-megawatt solar facility entails, one Arizona solar plant, Solana , says its output is 280 megawatts, supplying some 70,000 houses with clean energy. Apple boasts that it is "the only company in our industry whose data centers are powered by 100% renewable energy." The announcement comes after Apple's sapphire partner, GT Advanced Technologies, filed for bankruptcy last year. The facility was to "produce 30 times as much sapphire as any other plant in the world," Wakabayashi wrote last year (paywall). At the time, Apple was already consuming "one-fourth of the world's supply of sapphire to cover the iPhone's camera lens and fingerprint reader." Meanwhile, the sapphire question still needs an answer. The Apple Watch is set to go on sale in April, and certain models include sapphire screens. Apple had also reportedly intended to start making iPhones with sapphire displays. As long-time Apple watcher John Gruber asks today , "So does this mean we aren't getting sapphire iPhone displays, or that Apple is going to procure them elsewhere?" | 3 | 6,140 | finance |
The U.S. government is mulling over providing the Ukrainian military lethal weapons such as Javelin antitank missiles as well as other arms and ammunitions to help them fight pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing American officials. The latest development followed previous reports that the U.S. is considering supplying more weapons and military equipment to Kiev. The renewed discussion over providing lethal aid to Ukraine centers on whether the move would prompt Russia to reduce its assistance to separatists or provoke it to ramp up the support further, worsening the situation, the Journal reported . "It's hard to predict how it would play out," a senior U.S. official told the publication. "But what has to be factored into the decision is, of course, the Moscow reaction." Some officials in the U.S. government believe that a lethal aid would help Ukrainian forces better defend themselves from rebels who have been using heavy weapons allegedly supplied by Russia. But, there are other observers, who argued that Kremlin is capable of countering the U.S.-provided arms, which could further deteriorate the situation in eastern Ukraine. The U.S. has been already providing non-lethal military equipment, such as counter-mortar detection units, body armor, binoculars and small boats, to Ukraine. But, Washington has so far delayed any decision on providing lethal weapons as it sought a diplomatic solution to the Ukrainian conflict. However, with emergence of new fighting between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian rebels, the White House and the U.S. military leaders have begun reevaluating the question of lethal aid. Javelins are self-guided missiles that are designed to hit and destroy heavily armored military vehicles. Being a shoulder-launched weapon, Javelin can be used by a foot soldier, but the U.S. wants Ukrainians to mount the weapon on vehicles to allow them to maneuver more quickly against enemy tanks and other vehicles, the Journal reported. According to a report by the Washington-based Atlantic Council, the U.S. should send $3 billion in arms and equipment, including missiles, drones, armored Humvees and radars, to Ukraine. The report also urged the government to coordinate with Poland, Baltic States, Canada and Britain for further military assistance to Kiev. "We are not arguing for a military solution, we believe the Ukrainian military cannot beat the Russian military, and right now the Russian government has shown no interest in a diplomatic settlement," Jhon Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and one for the authors of the report, told Reuters . "For there to be a real diplomatic settlement the military solution has to be denied to the Kremlin." | 5 | 6,141 | news |
I love it when I convince people to engage with the Europe I show them. But when they become engaged with each other in Europe ... I like it even more. Recently I heard from someone who took his girlfriend on one of my recommended hikes near Muerren, Switzerland. "I convinced Emily to get one last photo of the view together before it got dark, even though we were both tired and hungry -- and she very much wanted to relax and have a nice meal. I set up my tripod and when she thought we were just going to pose for a photo, I got on one knee and proposed. She said yes!" Love is in bloom all over Europe. Couples embrace while walking the banks of the Seine River in Paris or meet along the Via dell'Amore ("Pathway of Love") in Italy's Cinque Terre. At romantic spots in St. Petersburg you'll see newlyweds with their photographers. After the wedding ceremony, the bride and groom are practically obligated to drop by a dozen or so picturesque locations for wedding pictures. They'll occasionally make a traditional toast with champagne, then break their glasses to proclaim their love -- watch your step! When people ask me for romantic destinations in Europe, I steer them away from traditional spots like Venice, Paris, or the Greek Islands. For true romance, I like to suggest stay-a-while getaways that are slightly off the radar, such as Hallstatt, Varenna, Gimmelwald, Aero, and Beilstein. For a cozy hideaway, look for the offbeat areas, where creaky locals walk gingerly on creaky floorboards, and where each balcony sports a flowerbox. The tiny town of Hallstatt, positioned picture-perfectly on the shore of Lake Hallstatt in Austria, is just such a place. It's a gentle land -- idyllic and majestic -- where lakes and mountains are shuffled sloppily together ... the perfect place to commune with nature (and one another), Austrian-style. On Italy's Lake Como, Varenna whispers "luna di miele" (honeymoon). This village oozes romance. Easily accessible by train, on the less-visited side of the lake, Varenna has a romantic promenade, a tiny harbor, and narrow lanes. You'll pass wisteria-drenched villas, evocative vistas, and lakeside lovers embracing the moment. It's just the right place to savor a cappuccino or "aperitivo." There's wonderfully little to do here, and it's very quiet at night. It's places like this where I really feel the romance of Europe. Or take Switzerland's tiny mountain hamlet of Gimmelwald. This traffic-free village hangs nonchalantly on the edge of a cliff high above the Lauterbrunnen Valley in the Swiss Alps. At the dawn of Switzerland's age of big-time tourism, the farmers inhabiting this tumble of rough-hewn log farmhouses voted "no" to development. While other cliff-hanging villages became soulless resorts, Gimmelwald survives as a traditional Swiss mountain community. Its two 700-year-old streets, a zig and a zag, are decorated by drying laundry, hand-me-down tricycles, and hollowed stumps bursting proudly with geraniums. Denmark's sleepy isle of Aero is the perfect time-passed world in which to wind down, enjoy the seagulls, and cherish the one you're with. It's a place where sailors -- out of work after the rise of steam-driven boats -- decided that building ships in bottles was more their style. Aeroskobing is the island's village in a bottle. It's small enough to be cute, but just big enough to feel real. The government, recognizing the value of this amazingly preserved little 18th-century town, prohibits modern building anywhere in the center. It's the only town in Denmark protected in this way. In Germany, cozy Beilstein is Cinderella-land -- touristy but tranquil, except for its territorial swans swimming on the Mosel River. This "Sleeping Beauty of the Mosel" was only accessible by boat until about 1900, and it still seems lost in time. It's what some visitors hope a Rhine River hamlet might be -- a peaceful, romantic village slipped between impossibly steep vineyards and the river. Above the town are castle ruins with a postcard panorama -- there's even better views at the top of the lone surviving tower. Wherever couples go, they usually fall under romantic Europe's magic spell. And for singles, there's no denying that the romance of travel can sometimes spark a travel romance. But there are always a few outliers. I discovered this recently at a fabulous restaurant in Florence that was serving hearty farmers' food: grilled meats, high-quality seasonal vegetables, fresh herbs, prized olive oil, and rustic Tuscan bread. As I was savoring my meal, I heard a newlywed woman give the cuisine the wildest compliment. She told her husband, "Marrying you was fine, but this dinner makes the entire honeymoon." (Rick Steves ( www.ricksteves.com ) writes European travel guidebooks and hosts travel shows on public television and public radio. Email him at [email protected] and follow his blog on Facebook.) | 2 | 6,142 | travel |
Cuba warned the United States on Monday that it wants American diplomats to scale back aid for Cuban dissidents before the two countries can reopen embassies in each other's capitals. The long-time adversaries are negotiating the restoration of diplomatic relations as a first step toward reversing more than five decades of confrontation. Officials for both governments met in Havana in January and a second round of talks is expected to be held in Washington this month. But Cuba's lead negotiator said in an interview broadcast on state television that if the United States wants free movement for its diplomats in Cuba, it must stop using them to support the political opposition. "The way those (U.S.) diplomats act should change in terms of stimulating, organizing, training, supplying and financing elements within our country that act against the interests of ... the government of the Cuban people," Josefina Vidal said. "The total freedom of movement, which the U.S. side is posing, is tied to a change in the behavior of its diplomatic mission and its officials," said Vidal, Cuba's top official for U.S. affairs. Washington has long criticized the communist government for repressing opponents of the one-party system. While public support for dissidents is limited, they receive plenty of attention from U.S. and Western diplomats. The United States says it supports Cuban activists who exercise their right to freedom of expression. The restoration of diplomatic ties could happen before a regional summit in Panama in April, when U.S. President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro would meet for the first time since shaking hands at the funeral of Nelson Mandela in December 2013. Obama and Castro spoke on the phone the day before their separate but simultaneous announcements on Dec. 17 that they would attempt to end their Cold War-era hostilities. The warning by Vidal suggested there were obstacles to restoring diplomatic ties, which has been seen as a relatively easy first step before the two sides try to resolve deeper differences on matters such as human rights and the U.S. economic embargo of Cuba. Vidal said the conduct of Cuban diplomats in Washington was "impeccable", while suggesting the Americans were meddling in internal Cuban affairs. "Matters of the internal affairs in Cuba are not negotiable," Vidal said. "Nor are we going to negotiate matters of an internal nature regarding Cuban sovereignty in exchange for lifting the embargo. Beyond that, everything else is a process of negotiation." (Editing by Paul Tait) | 5 | 6,143 | news |
San Francisco - Robin Williams' children and wife have gone to court in a fight over the late comedian's estate. In papers filed in December in San Francisco Superior Court, Williams' wife, Susan, accuses the comedian's children from two previous marriages of taking items without her permission and asks the court to exclude the contents of the Tiburon home that she shared with Williams from the jewelry, memorabilia and other items Williams said the children should have. The children, Zachary, Zelda and Cody, counter that Susan Williams is "adding insult to a terrible injury" by trying to change the trust agreement and rob them of the late actor's clothing and other personal items. "The Williams' children are heartbroken that Petitioner, Mr Williams' wife of less than three years, has acted against his wishes by challenging the plans he so carefully made for his estate," attorneys for the children said in court papers. James Wagstaffe, an attorney for Susan Williams, said Monday that his client was only seeking guidance from the court about the meaning of certain terms in the trust. "This is not ugly," he said. "I would not say this is anticipated to be a highly contested proceeding." An attorney for the children, Allan Mayer, declined to comment. Williams died at his Tiburon home in August. The coroner ruled his death a suicide that resulted from asphyxia caused by hanging. Susan Williams has said the actor and comedian was struggling with depression, anxiety and a recent diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. Williams had publicly acknowledged periodic struggles with substance abuse, and he had entered a substance abuse program shortly before his death. According to the coroner's report, his wife told an investigator that Williams did not go there because of recent drug or alcohol abuse, but rather to reaffirm the principles of his rehabilitation. Williams' trust granted his children his memorabilia and awards in the entertainment industry and some other specific personal items, according to court documents. Susan Williams says that because he wanted her to continue to live at the Tiburon home, it makes sense that he intended only for his children to have the specific personal items he delineated that were kept at another home he owned in Napa. "Any other interpretation would lead to Mrs. Williams' home being stripped while Mrs Williams still lives there," her attorneys wrote. The children dispute that interpretation, saying there were no specific limits on the location of those items. The two sides also disagree over items put in storage, watches Williams owned and his memorabilia. | 6 | 6,144 | entertainment |
Kim Kardashian West wants to have a photograph with Jesus. The 34-year-old reality TV star is preparing to release her book Selfish , which is jam-packed with sexy 'selfies' of herself, but she admits there's a few people she wishes she could have a picture with, including the central figure of Christianity, her late father Robert Kardashian and sex symbol Marilyn Monroe. During a Q&A with T-Mobile, one fan asked: "If you could take a selfie with anyone, dead or alive, who would you choose?" To which Kim replied: "My dad. Or Jesus. Or Marilyn Monroe. I can't decide. #KKW #KimsDataStash (sic)." Meanwhile, despite a clothing line, make-up line, TV show and various other projects under her belt, the brunette beauty insists her 19-month-old daughter North - whom she has with her husband Kanye West - is her greatest achievement in life. When a fan asked the curvaceous babe what her biggest achievement is, Kim replied with: "Having my daughter is my biggest achievement. #KKW #KimsDataStash (sic)." The 'Keeping Up With the Kardashians' star may have a busy globe-trotting career, but she insists her priorities shifted once she became a mother to little North. When asked how she juggles her schedule, Kim replied: "All the things you used to do, you just don't care about anymore. Your child becomes the #1 priority #KKW #KimsDataStash (sic)." | 6 | 6,145 | entertainment |
Papa John's is having a nightmare situation unfold in some markets on some channels. Commercials for the NFL's official pizza chain are airing that congratulate the Seahawks on becoming back to back Super Bowl champions. Whoops. This Vine was recorded from the Esquire Network on Monday Night. Well, that's not ideal. Other Twitter users from a wide variety of markets are apparently seeing the same ad pop up. Someone made a huge mistake. Cue up the tweets about a vast conspiracy against the Patriots and the NFL wanting the Seahawks to win. | 1 | 6,146 | sports |
Richard Sherman was was running his mouth during the game, but he was one of the first players to congratulate Tom Brady after winning Super Bowl XLIX. Does this change your impression of Sherman? | 1 | 6,147 | sports |
Doctors discuss the fears | 8 | 6,148 | video |
If being $3.3 million richer after Sunday's Super Bowl is what Nevada sports books consider a worst case scenario, imagine the riches if a last minute play, second-guessed around the world, had gone a little differently. "I can't even tell you how many millions of dollars changed hands," said Johnny Avello, director of the Wynn's sports and race book of the game-ending moment that had the Seahawks throwing an interception at the end zone. He and others banked on a Seahawks win since the Patriots were favored, ever so slightly. The state's 191 sports books won $3.3 million of the total $116 million wagered on the Super Bowl, said Nevada Gaming Control Board officials Monday. The amount was a drop from last year's record-breaking bets totaling $119.4 million when sports books kept $19.7 million after the Seattle Seahawks' easily overtook the Denver Broncos 43-8. Wynn, Westgate Las Vegas and William Hill sports book operators said the New England Patriots' 28-24 win over the Seattle Seahawks represented the worst case scenario for their businesses based on the bets placed. Plenty was at stake with gamblers wagering six-figures, in some cases, for either team. At least one gambler wagered $1 million on the Patriots. "That bet happened here," Avello said. But for the grace of side bets some of the sports books' losses might have been greater. William Hill won $1,000 on the coin flip that turned up tails. "That was a good start for us," said Michael Grodsky, spokesman for William Hill which operates 105 sports books and a smartphone app in Nevada. "Could have used a little better finish." William Hill's win was a modest one, down compared to last year, but the total amount of wagers with the sports book was up 10 percent year over year, he said. Westgate Las Vegas lucked out on the coin flip, too, and the number of pass attempts. By the time the confetti settled and Patriots Bill Belichick washed the Gatorade from his hair, Jay Kornegay from Westgate said he eked out a small win thanks to some of the few hundred side bets that went their way. He compared it to what the sports book might rake in on a regular season college football Saturday. "Overall, no complaints, outside the late interception," he said Monday. And the atmosphere inside his sports book as the suspense swelled, "was unbelievable," he said. Then there's the bets that don't have anything to do with on-field play aren't allowed in Nevada's sports books. Off-shore and international betting sites offered returns based on whether Patriots coach Bill Belichick might crack a smile, what color Gatorade would end up on the head of the victor coach (it was blue) or if Punxsutawney Phil the groundhog would or wouldn't see his shadow. Oddsmaker and syndicated columnist Ben Eckstein with online site America's Line which offers advice on picks, personally picked the Seahawks to win. He also personally bet singer Idina Menzel of "Frozen" fame would take longer than two minutes to sing the national anthem, though. When she did, he and his family including his 6 and 7 year old grandchildren cheered. He recorded two minutes, five seconds on his stopwatch. "I killed it," Eckstein said, adding that he wouldn't be surprised if the singer could hold a single note for two minutes. He guessed right, too, that there would be more than 8.5 punts. "There are those props that you can really dig your teeth into and make some money on," he said, referring to some of the proposition bets. "It wasn't a bad day overall." He estimated he lost a few bucks, the cost of a cup of coffee, after all was counted. Johnny Avello from Wynn said his sports book lost money but it wasn't his largest loss. On Monday, he had already moved on and talked about taking basketball bets and the start of March Madness in seven weeks. At least there wasn't a safety during Sunday's game. For two out of the last three years, Avello said his book lost six figures in the first seconds of the game when the rare score occurred. He and others have their odds ready for the next Super Bowl for weeks. Westgate and William Hill odds favor the Seahawks 5-1 with the Patriots 6-1. Avello has the Seahawks at 6-1 and the Patriots at 8-1. "We just love what we do." Avello said. | 1 | 6,149 | sports |
Walt Disney Co. 's $5.5 billion theme park in Shanghai, previously set to open by the end of this year, will instead open in the first half of 2016, people close to the project said. Though the media giant hasn't announced a specific launch date for its sixth park, a joint venture with companies owned by Shanghai's government, Chief Executive Robert Iger said as recently as last April that it would be in 2015. The city's mayor said last week that basic construction should be completed this year. To maximize the impact of the opening, Disney is more likely to open the theme park in the spring than during the unpleasant winter months, or close to China's Lunar New Year holiday in early February. State-owned Shanghai Shendi owns 57% of Shanghai Disney Resort, and Disney owns 43%. The companies' investments are proportional to their ownership shares. The precise reasons for the delay aren't clear. The park is being constructed in partnership with Shanghai Shendi, meaning Disney doesn't have total control. In addition, Mr. Iger last April said the two companies were expanding the park's ambitions and investing an additional $800 million in its construction. An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com. | 3 | 6,150 | finance |
On the eve of their second Super Bowl in as many seasons, the Seattle Seahawks offered star running back Marshawn Lynch a massive contract extension. The deal will reportedly pay Lynch upwards of $10 million in 2015. His original contract a four-year, $31 million pact was slotted to pay the running back $5 million next season, which was to be the final year of the deal. If Lynch accepts, he would likely become the second-highest paid running back in the league to Adrian Peterson. | 8 | 6,151 | video |
STEPHENVILLE, Texas As the governor proclaimed Monday "Chris Kyle Day" in honor of the Navy SEAL made famous by the Oscar-nominated movie "American Sniper," this small Texas town geared up for the trial of Kyle's accused killer, fellow Iraq war veteran Eddie Ray Routh. Kyle, 38, gained fame as one of the country's most lethal snipers during four tours of duty in Iraq and with his book about his experiences. He was gunned down two years ago Monday during target practice with Routh. Kyle's friend Chad Littlefield, 35, was also shot to death. Routh, 27, was being held at Erath County Jail on Monday in lieu of $3 million bail. Routh is charged with two counts of murder and one count of capital murder, according to jail records. The prosecutor has said he will not seek the death penalty. Jury selection is scheduled to start Thursday, Erath County District Court Clerk Wanda Pringle said. The trial will get underway the following Wednesday and is expected to last two weeks, Pringle said. Erath County has a population of about 40,000 and lies about a hundred miles southwest of Dallas. Pringle summoned 800 jurors from a pool of 30,000 and they will be questioned in smaller groups by the judge Thursday and Friday, then by attorneys Monday and Tuesday, she said. Routh's Fort Worth-based attorney, J. Warren St. John, has requested the trial be moved because of publicity surrounding "American Sniper," and although his latest request is pending, the judge has so far refused. District Judge Jason Cashon, former Erath County district attorney, issued a gag order in July 2013 that bars lawyers and Routh's relatives from discussing the case. The jury will not be sequestered, Pringle said, despite concerns about juror safety after a bomb threat was called in Jan. 26 to the local newspaper, the Empire-Tribune. The newspaper's managing editor said Monday that sheriff's investigators reviewed its phone records but have not identified a suspect. Local officials responded with stepped-up security surrounding the courthouse that will include added metal detectors, security escorts and shutting down a two-block radius as of Saturday with added law enforcement from other state, county and local agencies, according to Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper Earl Gillum. "We've been working on this for months and months. They've done everything they can to address security. Matter of fact, I have officers sitting at the back right now," Pringle said, gesturing to the rear of the courtroom, "The jurors will be well taken care of." Court staff set aside 21 of 113 seats in the courtroom gallery for relatives of Routh and Kyle, although it was unclear who will attend, Pringle said. She said court staff already feel overwhelmed as the trial approaches. "We've done murders and we've done capital murders, but we've never done to this extent," Pringle said. | 5 | 6,152 | news |
The son of Maryland's offensive coordinator may be facing the Terps in a few years. Four-star Gilman (Md.) quarterback Kai Locksley has made his final college decision, flipping to the Texas Longhorns Monday months after initially committing to the Florida State Seminoles. The son of Maryland offensive coordinator Mike Locksley, Kai was one of the area's top quarterbacks. This likely won't be the last time Maryland fans see Kai: the Terrapins and Longhorns will play each other in 2017 and 2018. Locksley was a part of a three-quarterback class with the Seminoles, and has a clearer path to playing time at the position with Texas (although he still may end up at wide receiver or defensive back). Locksley is considered a four-star prospect by the 247Sports Composite . He ranks as the No. 23 athlete in the country and the No. 6 player in the state of Maryland. The Terrapins are expected to sign one quarterback in the 2015 class -- West Virginia gunslinger Gage Shaffer -- and have shifted their focus entirely to 2016 star Dwayne Haskins. | 1 | 6,153 | sports |
You're personally paying more for health services. But good luck trying to shop around for a better deal. A new analysis finds that Americans with health insurance through their employers paid almost 7 percent more for out-of-pocket medical costs in 2013 compared to 2012 rising from an average of $662 per person annually to $707. The increase comes as more people are enrolled in so-called high-deductible health plans, which require them to directly bear a larger share of health costs. The same study by the Health Care Cost Institute also looked at what people paid out-of-pocket for services in nine states, and found a wide range of costs. Some people paid less out-of-pocket for certain services, while others getting the same services in the same state paid significantly more, according to HCCI. The study examined variations in costs of five services: new doctor visits, cataract removal, colonoscopies, lower leg MRIs and pregnancy ultrasounds. "Some may interpret the out-of-pocket variations as discouraging, but the results demonstrate that there are real opportunities for consumers to save on health-care spending," noted the HCCI report entitled "Shopping for Health Care Makes 'Cents' for Consumers." Those opportunities come from discretionary medical services that can be scheduled by patients, and which they can theoretically shop for based on price. HCCI's Executive Director David Newman said, "I'm not going to be shopping for the ambulance and the hospital during my heart attack." Nationally, on average, the prices people directly paid for a new doctor's visit varied by $19, according the report. But within that average was a wide range. In Arizona, the study found, there was an average of $10 difference in what people actually paid for their share of a new doctor's visit, while in Wisconsin there was an average $35 variation in what people paid. For surgical procedures, the variation is even more dramatic. For cataract removal, there was a national average variation of $444 in out-of-pocket costs paid by patients. But in Wisconsin, out-of-pocket costs varied by $989. In Georgia, they varied by $490. "The variation in consumer out-of-pocket payments for a lower leg [MRI] was $342 nationally," HCCI said. "In several states, including Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin, payments varied by more than $410." Eric Barrette, author of the HCCI report, said, "If people spend a little time, and it's worth it to spend the time...they can save $10, $15, $20 for a new doctor's visit." "On the other hand, they can save $200, $300, or $400 on cataract removal," Barrette said. But while the obvious strategy for people who want to limit their out-of-pocket medical costs is to shop around for the best price, that's often easier said than done. "Today, consumers are flying blind when it comes to health-care prices. They don't know what they are buying or how much it will cost," said Newman, HCCI's executive director. "The lack of transparency of medical prices is a growing problem since consumers are financing a larger and large proportion of their care." Newman said peoples' reluctance to ask providers about prices, providers' lack of knowledge about what share of the cost that patients will pay and variation in insurance plan designs all conspire to thwart efforts to effectively shop for medical services based on price. Health providers charge different insurers different rates for the same services. "It's difficult," Newman said, referring to the challenges consumers face in getting a handle on what they'll end up paying. "We're trying to make it a little easier," he said, noting HCCI's plans to launch two price transparency tools this year, the first which is due to launch in the next several weeks. Newman said he thinks there will increased consumer demand for such transparency as more people enroll in high-deductible health plans, particularly customers of government-run Obamacare exchanges. Individual health plans sold on those marketplaces often have higher deductibles than people covered by job-based group health plans. "These folks are looking for price information," Newman said of people with large deductibles. "We need to provide the information." | 3 | 6,154 | finance |
The International Court of Justice has rejected claims of genocide by Serbia and Croatia against each other during the Croatian war of secession from Yugoslavia. The Croatian government had alleged that Serbia committed genocide in the town of Vukovar and elsewhere in 1991. Serbia later filed a counter-claim over the expulsion of more than 200,000 Serbs from Croatia. About 20,000 people died during the 1991-1995 war, mostly Croatians. The Croatian town of Vukovar was devastated when it was occupied by Serbs for three months in 1991. Tens of thousands of ethnic Croats were displaced, and about 260 Croat men were detained and killed. Four years later, the Croatian military's Operation Storm bombarded the majority ethnic-Serb Krajina area, forcing about 200,000 people from their homes. Speaking in court on Tuesday, Judge Peter Tomka dismissed both the Croatian claim and the Serbian counter-claim. Forces on both sides had carried out violent acts during the war, Judge Tomka said. However, neither side had provided sufficient evidence to demonstrate the "specific intent required for acts of genocide". Croatia filed its initial case with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) - the top UN court - in 1999, accusing Serbs, led by President Slobodan Milosevic, of targeting ethnic Croats during the conflict. It wanted Serbia to pay compensation for damages "to persons and properties as well as to the Croatian economy and environment". In 2010, Serbia responded to Croatia's case with a countersuit, saying that ethnics Serbs were expelled when Croatia launched its 1995 operation to retake territory captured by Serbs. Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic earlier described the verdict as "one of perhaps the most important events for our bilateral relations with Croatia". "It will probably be the end of a process that has lasted for 15-20 years [and] will put an end to both sides' fight to prove who the worst criminal is," he told reporters on Sunday. Croatian Justice Minister Orsat Miljenic previously said the government's main goal was to "present what happened in the war and that was aggression against Croatia". Relations between the two countries have improved in recent years but in 2012 Serbia was outraged when Operation Storm commander Ante Gotovina was cleared on appeal by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Last week, ahead of the verdict, Vukovar resident Kata Lozancic told Reuters news agency she believed genocide had taken place in her town. "Everything from cultural and natural sites, to people, everything was destroyed," she said. A refugee in Serbia, identified only as Dragica, expressed unhappiness at the Croatian government's claims. "They expelled us Serbs, and now they [claim they] are not criminals, and we are," she told Reuters. Former Yugoslavia was a Socialist state created after World War Two. It consisted of six republics: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. The federation began falling apart in the early 1990s. Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Macedonia declared independence, sparking conflicts with the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army. All four countries were eventually recognised as independent by the UN. In 2006, Montenegro also emerged as a sovereign state after a referendum for independence, ending the former Union of Serbia and Montenegro. UN 1948 Genocide Convention Act committed with intent to destroy in whole or part a national, ethnical, racial or religious group Killing members of the group Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group Deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring physical destruction Imposing measures intended to prevent births Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group | 5 | 6,155 | news |
Malcolm Brogdon scored 17 points and Justin Anderson added 16 points and 7 assists to lead #3 Virginia over #12 North Carolina 75-64. Marcus Paige led the Tar Heels with 15 points. The Cavaliers improve to 8-1 in the ACC while North Carolina falls to 7-3 in conference. | 1 | 6,156 | sports |
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Paul Millsap and his Atlanta teammates didn't sound terribly concerned about the end of the Hawks' franchise-record 19-game winning streak. BOX SCORE: PELICANS 115, HAWKS 100 After all, the Hawks' 115-100 loss to surging New Orleans on Monday night -- in a game marked by Anthony Davis' ferocious play -- was only Atlanta's third defeat in 36 games. "We've got a lot of season left," Millsap said when asked to put the recent winning streak in perspective. "Nineteen games, that's good. We lost one -- 19-1 now. So it's just regrouping. ... We can't let one loss turn into two losses." Davis, returning from a left groin strain that sidelined him one game, had 29 points and 13 rebounds to help the Pelicans win for the sixth time in seven games. New Orleans' recent run of good form has included victories over other contending squads, such as Dallas and the Los Angeles Clippers, and has pulled the Pelicans (26-22) within a game of Phoenix (28-22) for eighth place in the Western Conference. "We just need to continue to do what we've been doing," Davis said. "The past couple games, we've been rebounding, defending, sharing the ball. We don't care who scores. That's what we have to do." That sounds a lot like the recipe Atlanta has been using to pile up an Eastern Conference-leading 40 victories. "They had us on our heels from the very beginning," Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer said. "They deserve a lot of credit for us not starting well. "Give our guys a lot of credit for a lot of good work over the last month," Budenholzer added. "Tonight wasn't our night. I am very proud of them. We'll get back to work." Jeff Teague scored 21 for Atlanta, but the Hawks fell behind by double digits in the first quarter and trailed the rest of the way, getting within single digits for only a few brief stints. Eric Gordon scored 20 points for New Orleans, while Tyreke Evans scored 15 points and tied a season high with 12 assists for the fourth time in five games. Millsap had 15 points and Kyle Korver 12 for the Hawks, who made only seven of 22 3-point attempts. Omer Asik grabbed 17 rebounds for New Orleans, which outrebounded Atlanta 52-32. Davis grabbed eight of his rebounds on the offensive end, including one on a missed 3 that he corralled with his right hand and slammed home in one roundhouse motion. Ryan Anderson added 15 points for the Pelicans, who outshot Atlanta, 50 percent (43 of 86) to 44.9 percent (40 of 89). Atlanta briefly got as close as seven in the third quarter when DeMarre Carroll, returning from a strained left Achilles that sidelined him two games, hit back-to-back 3s to make it 60-53. But New Orleans kept scoring, and soon after went back up by 12 when Evans banked in a 3 late in the shot clock. Gordon's minutes were limited by foul trouble, but his backup, Jimmer Fredette, responded to additional playing time with 10 points, including a 3 that put the Pelicans up by 17 in the fourth quarter. Soon after, Asik's putback dunk gave New Orleans its largest lead at 101-82 and the crowd erupted, seemingly sensing there was no way Atlanta could recover during the last 6:03. TIP-INS Hawks: Carroll played 23 minutes and finished with six points in his return. ... Atlanta came in having won 12 straight against Western Conference opponents and 12 straight on the road. ... The Hawks failed to hit 10 3s for only the second time in 16 games. ... Al Horford, who had eight points, shot below 50 percent for the first time in 10 games. Pelicans: Davis had 19 points by halftime, when New Orleans led 55-42. ... Davis has scored at least 20 in 11 straight games. ... The Pelicans improved to 17-6 at home. ... Gordon has had at least 20 points and seven assists in two straight games for the first time in his career. WARNING SIGNS The Hawks had looked a bit shaky in their previous victory over struggling Philadelphia, blowing a 21-point lead before escaping 91-85. In the first half in New Orleans, Atlanta shot 37.8 percent (17 of 45), including 2 of 14 from 3-point range. "We were a little off, but that happens in games. We were due for one, but (New Orleans) just played well," Teague said. UP NEXT Hawks: host the Washington Wizards on Wednesday night. Pelicans: host the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday night. | 1 | 6,157 | sports |
As Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey waited to depart on a trade mission to Israel in 2012, his entourage was delayed by a late arrival: Mr. Christie's father, who had accidentally headed to the wrong airport. A commercial flight might have left without him, but in this case, there was no rush. The private plane, on which Mr. Christie had his own bedroom, had been lent by Sheldon G. Adelson, the billionaire casino owner and supporter of Israel. At the time, he was opposing legislation then before the governor to legalize online gambling in New Jersey. Mr. Christie loaded the plane with his wife, three of his four children, his mother-in-law, his father and stepmother, four staff members, his former law partner and a state trooper. King Abdullah of Jordan picked up the tab for a Christie family weekend at the end of the trip. The governor and two staff members who accompanied him came back to New Jersey bubbling that they had celebrated with Bono, the lead singer of U2, at three parties, two at the king's residence, the other a Champagne reception in the desert. But a small knot of aides fretted: The rooms in luxurious Kempinski hotels had cost about $30,000; what would happen if that became public? It did not, for the moment. But it would not have been the first or last time that Mr. Christie's desire for celebrity access and expensive trips has raised eyebrows. The governor, a Republican now preparing a run for president, shot to national prominence as a cheese-steak-on-the-boardwalk Everyman who bluntly preached transparency and austerity as the antidote to bloated state budgets. But throughout his career in public service, Mr. Christie has indulged a taste that runs more toward Champagne at the Four Seasons. He has also quietly let others pay the bills. That tendency the governor himself says he wants to "squeeze all the juice out of the orange" has put him in ethically questionable situations, taking benefits from those who stand to benefit from him. Mr. Christie is hardly the first politician, in either party, whose embrace of luxury travel has prompted criticism. Hillary Rodham Clinton, for example, a potential Democratic candidate for president, is known for her dependence on private planes often paid for by others. Last month, Mr. Christie prompted a state ethics inquiry after he flew to at least three games of the Dallas Cowboys, his team since boyhood, on the plane of the owner, Jerry Jones, whose company had received a contract with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey after the governor recommended it. A spokeswoman for Mr. Christie, who is currently on a three-day trip to London, did not dispute the details of the trip to Israel and Jordan, which were described in interviews with several people close to the administration or involved in the trip, and in documents seen by The New York Times. But the spokeswoman, Maria Comella, described King Abdullah as "a friend" the governor met at a salon-style dinner in New York hosted by Michael R. Bloomberg, who was the mayor at the time. "King Abdullah invited the governor and his family to Jordan as his personal guest so the two families could spend time together," she said on Sunday. Ms. Comella also said Mr. Adelson had not been personally lobbying the governor against the online gambling bill. In the end, Mr. Christie signed the bill. He cited pressure from unions that argued it was needed to keep casinos open, and the need for revenue to balance the budget. Mr. Adelson later told a somewhat different story: He said Mr. Christie told him that had he vetoed the bill, as Mr. Adelson would have wanted, it would have been overridden. That, in retrospect, seems unlikely. Republicans in the Legislature have previously changed their positions rather than override a veto by Mr. Christie. The governor has also been a guest on the private plane and in the stadium box of Woody Johnson, the owner of the New York Jets and another opponent of the gambling bill. Early in his tenure, Mr. Christie set up a group to entice foreign businesses to New Jersey. That group, Choose N.J., is financed by companies that are forbidden by pay-to-play laws to donate to the governor, because they have business before the state, including legal work, and contracts for roads and infrastructure. (Last month, Choose N.J. announced that it had appointed as its president and chief executive Michele Brown, one of Mr. Christie's closest confidantes and a neighbor, who has worked for him since his days as a United States attorney.) The group partly financed the 2012 trip to Israel, as well as three trips the governor has taken over the last year, to Mexico, Canada and his current destination, London. Mr. Christie's foreign travel has helped him build his credentials and his contacts as he prepares to run for president. Choose N.J. sounded dubious in a report last year about enticing business from Britain. Interest was strongest, it found, from Belgium, France, Germany, Israel, Sweden and Switzerland. But London is a prime market for fund-raising among American expatriates: In 2012, President Obama and Mitt Romney raised more money in Britain than in any other foreign country. While previous New Jersey governors have flown commercial for trade missions, Mr. Christie flew privately for three. (His spokeswoman said he flew commercial to London.) He has taken family on all. He stays in five-star properties: the King David in Jerusalem, the Intercontinental in Mexico City. The hotel in London, the Corinthia, has a Baccarat chandelier and masses of flowers refreshed every morning. Mr. Christie's entourage takes over conference rooms laid out with elaborate spreads of food at all hours. Ms. Comella said Mr. Christie's office sought a lower rate for government officials whenever possible. Letting the king pay for his three-day weekend in Jordan back in 2012 would not have been allowed if Mr. Christie were, say, president or a United States senator; it is illegal for federal employees to accept gifts of more than nominal value from agents of foreign governments. An executive order Mr. Christie signed in 2010 allows New Jersey governors to have travel and related expenses paid by foreign governments; it does not specifically address gifts such as the parties the king held for him, but the governor's staff said it was covered under a provision that allowed gifts from personal friends. Mr. Christie has described it as a matter of opportunity. "I relish these experiences and exposures, especially for my kids," he told a reporter for The Times last summer. "I try to squeeze all the juice out of the orange that I can." As he has traveled more widely, particularly during the last year, when he led the Republican Governors Association, Mr. Christie's first-class tastes have become well known. He made it clear when he campaigned for Mr. Romney in 2012 that he would do out-of-state events only if he was given a private plane, even during the primary, when the candidate's wife was still flying commercial to save money. The Romney campaign came to understand that he preferred a Cessna Citation X, which, its manufacturer boasts, has exotic wood interiors and a Rolls-Royce engine. While many high-profile Republican politicians resist insinuating themselves into celebrity circles, Mr. Christie seeks them out Howard Stern in the Hamptons; Donald J. Trump at Jean-Georges in Manhattan, where the menu begins at $128 per person. He danced onstage with Jamie Foxx at a celebrity benefit at the Hamptons in August before a crowd that included Barbra Streisand, Paul McCartney, Jack Nicholson and Robert De Niro. State taxpayers paid for Mr. Christie, his wife and two aides to travel to the 2013 Super Bowl in New Orleans, as New Jersey prepared to host the 2014 game. Airfare for four passengers came to $8,146; Mr. Christie's hotel for three nights cost $3,371. He has fought to shield the cost of his travel. The Super Bowl expenses were revealed only after a judge's order in a lawsuit brought by The Record, a newspaper in northern New Jersey. In response to other lawsuits and public records requests, the governor's office has argued that he is not subject to disclosure laws regarding travel, or that it does not have the records. Groups like Choose N.J. and the Republican Jewish Coalition, which also contributed to the Israel trip, do not have to disclose their expenses. As United States attorney for New Jersey, Mr. Christie developed a reputation for flouting the rules on travel. A Justice Department report after he left office found that he was the prosecutor who most often exceeded the charges allowed for hotel stays in different cities, without properly searching for a cheaper alternative, or justifying any exemption from the rules. He stayed at a Four Seasons in Washington and a new boutique hotel in Boston, for example, at more than double the cost allowed for those cities. The report concerned hotel stays, but Mr. Christie's preference for car services over taxis earned a footnote: He paid $236 to travel four miles from the airport in Boston, and $562 for a round-trip between Central London and Heathrow. Mr. Christie, who by then was governor, declined to be interviewed by investigators preparing the Justice Department report. The revelations in the report prompted the Justice Department to tighten rules about exemptions to stay in costly hotels. Correction: February 2, 2015 This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: An earlier version of a picture caption with this article misstated when Gov. Chris Christie attended a birthday party for Howard Stern. It was on Jan. 31, 2014, not on Friday. | 5 | 6,158 | news |
WEST JORDAN, Utah A man accused of trying to kidnap a young Utah girl from her bedroom probably won't use mental health as part of his defense, his lawyer said Monday. However, drugs might have been a factor in the case of 48-year-old Troy Morley, who is charged with felony child kidnapping in the attempt that was thwarted by the 5-year-old girl's father, attorney Roger Kraft said. Morley's father, Gary Stokes, said his son was slipped unidentified drugs at a motel and didn't know what he was doing when he tried to take the child early the morning of Nov. 7. He said his son might have taken the girl because he was worried about being shot by police. "He went to everyone's house trying to get help because he didn't know what was wrong with him," said Stokes, who shared a similar story last month. "He wasn't using his head that day." Detective Robert Webb has said that after his arrest a few blocks from the girl's home, Morley rambled about drug cartels, the FBI and voices coming from a radio. At a court appearance Monday, Kraft said he will not be seeking a competency review to determine if Morley is mentally fit for trial. Judge Charlene Barlow gave lawyers more time to investigate evidence. Morley is due back in court March 2, but Kraft said it might be some time before Morley enters a plea in the case. Prosecutor Nathan Evershed said the state is completing final tests and interviews in the case. Morley is being held on $2 million bail. A judge decided last month that there is enough evidence for Morley to stand trial on kidnapping and other charges. Police say Morely stopped at a hotel in the Salt Lake City suburb of Sandy on his way back from Nevada because he was tired. But he later left and started walking around the neighborhood where the girl lives with her parents, Stephanie and Aaron Edson. Morley told the detective he discovered a door ajar at their home, went inside and found the girl in her room. The sound of the front door opening woke the couple, who were especially concerned when they heard her voice because their daughter has cerebral palsy and physical limitations that make it difficult for her to walk. They say they didn't leave a door open. Aaron Edson followed Morley outside and calmly asked him to give the girl back. Morley handed her over and said he needed to go to a church, but to call the FBI if anything happened to him. | 5 | 6,159 | news |
Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N) is nearing deals to sell more than $10 billion in assets, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The planned sales include cellphone towers and parts of its landline phone business, the WSJ reported. (http://on.wsj.com/1Akj7ct) Different buyers are involved in the deals, which could be announced late this week, the WSJ added. A Verizon spokesman declined to comment. | 3 | 6,160 | finance |
Republicans on Monday gave scathing reviews of President Obama's nearly $4 trillion fiscal 2016 budget request, signaling much of it will never see the light of day in Congress. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) was among many who criticized Obama for not offering a balanced budget and contrasted the president's proposal with GOP priorities. "It may be Groundhog Day, but the American people can't afford a repeat of the same old top-down policies of the past," Boehner said. "While the president budget's is about the past, our budget will be about the future. We will address our government's spending problem and protect our national security. Our budget will balance, and it will help promote job creation and higher wages, not more government bureaucracy." The budget asks Congress to bust spending ceilings in the next fiscal year by raising discretionary spending by $74 billion. If the blueprint were enacted by Congress, the White House said the deficit would fall to $474 billion, 2.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by the end of fiscal 2016, and debt, as a share of the economy, would decline over the next 10 years. In Obama's State of the Union address last month, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) recalled the president promised to introduce a budget that would contain "practical, not partisan" ideas. "Unfortunately, what we saw this morning was another top-down, backward-looking document that caters to powerful political bosses on the left and never balances ever," he said. While administration officials cast the plan as a way to benefit the middle class by raising taxes on the wealthy and large financial institutions, GOP lawmakers said the proposals aren't a solution to helping that same demographic. The request "serves as a punch to the gut of hard-working taxpayers who are still struggling from stagnant wages and higher costs caused by this failed, Washington-knows-best agenda," said Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), the House majority whip. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) blasted the spending increases, arguing that the president was asking for billions "without any realistic way of paying for it." Still, the budget serves as a guide for the appropriations panels when determining how much money to allot agencies each year. Roger said his committee would be examining Obama's requests closely. "As always, despite the President's huge wish-list of additional spending, the Appropriations Committee will take a very close look at the President's request, conduct vigorous oversight over federal agencies, and go line-by-line to make decisions that are justified and that use each and every tax dollar wisely and appropriately." The proposal on Monday is the seventh budget Obama has sent to Capitol Hill since 2009 and the first he's sent to a GOP-controlled Congress. Republicans' initial opposition to the 2016 budget could foreshadow more partisan fights over spending over the next two years. | 5 | 6,161 | news |
Katy Perry rocked the Super Bowl halftime show and even surprised all of her fans by including Missy Elliott and Lenny Kravitz. Keri Lumm (@thekerilumm) has some of the best reactions on Twitter. | 8 | 6,162 | video |
Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers has praised striker Daniel Sturridge after making his long-awaited return from injury over the weekened | 1 | 6,163 | sports |
Feb. 2 -- Today's "BWest Byte" is $14 billion, for the amount of money President Barack Obama dedicated to cybersecurity defense in his budget. Bloomberg's Shelby Holliday reports on "Bloomberg West." | 8 | 6,164 | video |
A guilty dog has a pizza box stuck to its head. | 8 | 6,165 | video |
By now you know all about how Atlanta Hawks have become the Greatest Team to Ever Play Basketball. Nineteen wins in a row. Wins in 33 of their last 35 games. Owners of the NBA's top offensive rating (124), fifth-best defensive rating (94.3) and second-best net rating (29.7). They have three All-Stars ( Al Horford , Jeff Teague , Paul Millsap ) and a fourth player, Kyle Korver , who probably should have also been named to the team. The Toronto Raptors , the No. 2 team in the East, trail Atlanta by seven games. It's been an exciting time for the Hawks franchise and its fans. It's also one that is in jeopardy of coming to an end. Here are the Hawks' next four games: at New Orleans Monday night, home against the Wizards Wednesday night, home against the Warriors (!) Friday night, at the Grizzlies on Sunday night. That is a brutal a four-game stretch. It begins Monday with a game that should not be overlooked. The Pelicans are now 25-22 after winning five of six and have the NBA's player efficiency rating leader in Anthony Davis set to return from injury. New Orleans is an impressive 16-6 at home, and has won seven of its last 10 games, including Friday's victory against the streaking Clippers without Davis. The next game on the schedule might be the easiest. The Wizards are 31-17 and an impressive 13-10 on the road. Still, they've lost to the Hawks twice this year and only seven teams in the league are allowing opposing backcourts to score fewer points per game than the Hawks, according to HoopsStats.com . That does not bode well for the Washington attack, which is predicated on the creativity of guards John Wall and Bradley Beal . But the Warriors on Friday pose a major problem for Atlanta. While the Hawks' defense has been great this season, it's also allowed opponents to shoot a league-high 26 three-pointers per game. Part of what makes the Hawks so great is that they only allow opponents to hit 34 percent of these shots, the seventh-best number in the NBA. Say the Hawks somehow manage to emerge from those three games with their winning streak intact. The last step: beating the streaking Memphis Grizzlies, winners of six in a row, in their building. With Zach Randolph in the lineup, Memphis has gone 31-8. They came close to beating the Hawks on the road without Randolph earlier this month. The Timberwolves and Celtics (both road games) come after that. If Atlanta is able to make it to that Minnesota game on Feb. 9 with its win streak intact (at that point it would be at 23), there should be absolutely no doubt they are the best team in the league. | 1 | 6,166 | sports |
African football legend Samuel Eto'o is already in the bad books of new club Sampdoria after his failure to show up for a training session on Monday was described by coach Sinisa Mihajlovic as showing a "serious lack of respect". The 33-year-old three-time African player of the year -- who helped Inter Milan to an historic treble of league, Cup and Champions League in 2010 -- left the ground without an explanation following morning training and his attitude did not go down well with the famously combative Mihajlovic. "He gave me no explanation and I consider that to be a serious lack of respect towards myself and the rest of the team," the Serbian handler told sports daily la Gazzetta dello sport. Mihajlovic denied there had been a rift between himself and the player who signed from Premier League club Everton last week on a three-and-a-half year contract. "There has to be two people to have an argument and he took this action on his own. After the morning training I didn't see him or hear from him," said Mihajlovic. "I do not know why he left or what the club is going to do now," added Mihajlovic. Club president Massimo Ferrero played down the incident, telling the Italian press it was "just a difference of opinions and of little importance. Stay calm, the 'Samp' is solid." Eto'o has won three Champions League titles, two with Barcelona and one with Inter Milan, as well as two Africa Cup of Nations' trophies with Cameroon although he has had relatively undistinguished well-paid spells of late with Chelsea and Everton. | 1 | 6,167 | sports |
The top 15 restaurants in Asia If the way to your heart is through your stomach then come fall in love with the scrumptious spreads offered by the best restaurants in Asia. Click through to see which cuisine catches your fancy. 15. Bo Innovation, Hong Kong, China Chef: Alvin Leung Style of food: Experimental Chinese Standout dish: Caviar, smoked quail egg, crispy taro Contact: Shop 13, 2F, J Residence, 60 Johnston Road, Wan Chai, Hong Kong. +852 2850 8371 Website: www.boinnovation.com 14. Les Amis, Singapore Chef: Sebastien Lepinoy Style of food: Modern European Standout dish: Caviar on petals of potato salad with condiments of herbs. Contact: 1 Scotts Road, Shaw Centre, Singapore 228208. +65 6733 2225 Website: www.lesamis.com.sg 13. Caprice, Hong Kong, China Chef: Fabrice Vulin Style of food: Modern French Standout dish: Langoustine lasagne with veal sweetbreads and chanterelle mushrooms in shellfish bisque Contact: Four Seasons Hotel, 8 Finance Street, Central, Hong Kong. +852 3196 8860 Website: www.fourseasons.com/hongkong 12. Iggy's, Singapore Chef: Masahiro Isono Style of food: Light and fresh with clean Japanese flavours Standout dish: Tuna belly, pinot noir, yam, hearts of palm, garlic oil Contact: Hilton Hotel, 581 Orchard Road, Singapore 238883. +65 6732 2234 Website: www.iggys.com.sg 11. Mr And Mrs Bund, Shanghai, China Chef: Chef-Patron Paul Pairet and head chef Raphaël Vetri Style of food: High-end contemporary French bistro cooking Standout dish: Candied lemon & lemon tart Contact: Bund 18, 6/F, 18 Zhongshan Dong Yi Lu, Shanghai 200002. +86 21 6323 9898 Website: http://www.mmbund.com 10. 8 1/2 Otto E Mezzo Bombana, Hong Kong, China Chef: Umberto Bombana Style of food: Contemporary Italian Standout dish: 'Fassone' veal tenderloin, fresh porcini mushroom, barley Contact: Shop 202, Landmark Alexandra, 18 Chater Road, Central, Hong Kong. +852 2537 8859 Website: www.ottoemezzobombana.com 9. Lung King Heen, Hong Kong, China Chef: Chan Yan Tak Style of food: Dim sum and modern Cantonese Standout dish: Sautéed lobster with vegetables in fermented bean sauce Contact: Four Seasons Hotel, 8 Finance Street, Central, Hong Kong. +852 3196 8880 Website: www.fourseasons.com/hongkong 8. Ultraviolet by Paul Pairet, Shanghai, China Chef: Chef-patron Paul Pairet and head of research Greg Robinson Style of food: Globe-trotting avant-garde Standout dish: Chocolate foie gras tartines Contact: c/o Bund 18, 6/F, 18 Zhongshan Dong Yi Lu, Shanghai 20000. +86 021 6323 9898 Website: www.uvbypp.cc 7. Waku Ghin, Singapore Chef: Tetsutya Wakuda Style of food: Modern Japanese Standout dish: Marinated botan shrimps with sea urchin and Oscietre caviar Contact: Atrium 2, Level 2, Marina Bay Sands, 10 Bayfront Avenue, Singapore 018956. +65 6688 8507 Website: www.marinabaysands.com/ 6. Restaurant André, Singapore Chef: Chef-patron André Chiang and executive chef Johnny Jiang Style of food: Delicate Southern French nouvelle cuisine using ingredients from small, artisanal producers Standout dish: Memory warm foie gras jelly with black truffle coulis Contact: 41 Bukit Pasoh Road, Singapore 089855. +65 6534 8880 Website: www.restaurantandre.com 5. Nihonryori Ryugin, Tokyo, Japan Chef: Seiji Yamamoto Style of food: Time-honoured Japanese dishes cooked with contemporary edge Standout dish: Sea perch grilled over charcoal and topped with roasted rice and a black vinegar glaze Contact: 1st Floor, 7-17-24 Roppongi, Minato, Tokyo 1060032. +81 3 3423 8006 Website: www.nihonryori-ryugin.com 4. Amber, Hong Kong, China Chef: Culinery director Richard Ekkebus and chef de cuisine Maxime Gilbert Style of food: Classical French with subtle Hong Kong influences Standout dish: Hokkaido sea urchin in lobster jelly, with cauliflower, caviar and crispy seaweed waffle Contact: The Landmark Mandarin Oriental Hotel, 15 Queen's Road, Central, Hong Kong. +852 2132 0066 Website: www.amberhongkong.com 3. Gaggan, Bangkok, Thailand Chef: Gaggan Anand Style of food: Indian cuisine with an ultra-modern twist Standout dish: Papdi chaat 2050 Contact: 68/1 Soi Langsuan, Ploenchit Road, Lumpini, Bangkok 10330. +66 2 652 1700 Website: www.eatatgaggan.com 2. Narisawa, Tokyo, Japan Chef: Yoshihiro Narisawa Style of food: French cooking using Japanese ingredients Standout dish: Inori (Prayer) Contact: Minami Aoyma 2-6-15, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107 0062. +813 5785 0799 Website: www.narisawa-yoshihiro.com 1. Nahm, Bangkok, Thailand Chef: David Thompson and head chef Prin Polsuk Style of food: Little-known, big-flavour sharing plates drawn from centuries-old Thai cookbooks Standout dish: Guinea fowl curry with shampoo ginger and holy basil Contact: Ground floor, Metropolitan Hotel, 27 South Sathorn Road, Bangkok 10120. +66 2 625 3388 Website: www.comohotels.com/metropolitanbangkok Click here to check the full list..... | 2 | 6,168 | travel |
Legislation that would allow people with concealed-gun permits to carry firearms into public schools and government meetings won easy approval from the Wyoming House of Representatives on Monday after a debate over rising gun violence in U.S. schools. The bill, supported by leaders of the Republican-led House, would repeal "gun-free zones" carved out around elementary and secondary schools, as well as colleges and universities. Passed on a 42-17 vote, the measure also would grant concealed-carry permit holders the right to take their guns into meetings of the state Legislature and local government meetings. The bill must clear the Republican-controlled state Senate before it can be submitted to Governor Matt Mead, also a Republican, for his signature or veto. Mead has in recent years sought to welcome firearms-related companies to Wyoming by promoting it as a gun-friendly state. Wyoming would not be the first state to enact such a law. Utah allows individuals with concealed-carry licenses to bring their weapons onto school property, and Texas allows teachers with such permits to do so if they have permission from the school district superintendent. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, seven states now have provisions allowing the carrying of concealed weapons on public college and university campuses - Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Oregon, Utah and Wisconsin, because of recent state legislation and court decisions. Backers of the Wyoming bill argued it would increase the safety of children enrolled in Wyoming's 48 school districts by allowing school employees, from teachers to janitors, to be armed in class and on campus grounds. Supporters pointed to the 2012 massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, where a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School, as a shooting in which lives might have been saved if school staff members had been armed. "The only way to meet that force is to have legally armed, responsible citizens," Republican state Representative Kendall Kroeker said. Democrats and others who opposed the bill sought unsuccessfully to amend the measure to leave it up to local school systems to decide whether to opt out of their gun-free classifications. Opponents also asserted that backers were raising "phony" alarms about infringements on constitutional gun rights. Supporters like Republican state Representative John Eklund said: "I do want my grandchildren to be safe in school, and a gun-free zone is the worst possible option." (Reporting by Laura Zuckerman in Salmon, Idaho; Editing by Steve Gorman and Peter Cooney) | 5 | 6,169 | news |
Here's a sad industry truth: Thanks to the breakneck pace of the retail cycle, it's easier than ever for fast-fashion brands to debut knockoffs of designer items mere days after the originals walked off the runway. Meaning, swarms of customers can scoop up cheap-o versions of Fashion Week favorites long before the real thing even hits stores. Now, some designers have found a way to combat forgery by beating the imitators at their own game. According to The Wall Street Journal, labels like Proenza Schouler and Mary Katrantzou both creators of standout prints that are often targeted by knockoffs have decided to focus on crafting custom high-quality fabrics, instead. Their thought being, it's easy for brands to replicate crazy runway shapes (like those Alexander McQueen armadillo heels ), but faking handmade metallic lace or embroidered jacquard? That's nearly impossible. This also explains Katrantzou's choice last season to ditch her signature digital patterns in favor of intricately constructed pieces in more ethereal silhouettes. As she explained to WSJ , "It's impossible [for mass-market chains] to come close to the quality and the craftsmanship. I think it's also the way to build a luxury brand." She has a point. As much as we love the London designer's wild motifs, maybe the lower-priced versions are better suited for collabs and one-offs . High-quality collections take time, and the fact that you can't buy them just anywhere is exactly what makes them so special. | 4 | 6,170 | lifestyle |
Everyone out. Right away. The message by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) at the end of January didn't leave any room for interpretation: The situation in Libya is tense. Reason for that security warning was the recent attack on the Corinthia Hotel in Tripolis where gunmen killed nine people - five of them were Britons. Terror organization "Islamic State" (IS) has claimed responsibility for the attack. IS as well as other terror groups such as Ansar-al-Sharia are likely to carry out attacks on foreigners again, the FCO statement said. In addition to the risk of being kidnapped, foreigners could also be caught in indiscriminate gunfire or shelling. The German Foreign Office also advises German citizens not to travel to Libya. Citizens from Western countries run the risk of being kidnapped at all times, the agency states. The terror organizations also target citizens from other regions. At the beginning of January, Christian foreign workers from Egypt were kidnapped. A few days later, Copts in the port city of Sirte were taken. Their whereabouts are still not known. It's also unclear what happened to the two Tunisian journalists Sofiane Chourabi and Nadir Chetari. Both disappeared in the Libyan province of Ajdabiya in September of last year. At the beginning of January, a jihadist website reported that both had been killed. This has caused a stir in Tunisia and saw many people taking to the streets to commemorate them. A few days later, the Tunisian foreign ministry said it had obtained new information about the whereabouts of the two - what meant little else than that they believe they are still alive. Some Libyans sympathize with the Islamists IS systematically makes use of the chaotic conditions in Libya. For months, rivaling governments fought for power. After two days of negotiations in Geneva, the General National Congress which is not the internationally recognized government said it would continue to partake in future talks if it were granted a seat within the country's political sphere. But to this date, the two rivals compete for power. And the IS exploits that, says Libya expert Hasni Abidi, Director of the Geneva-based Study and Research Center for the Arab and Mediterranean World. IS was especially active in the country's Southeast, he said. Some of the regions are no longer under the control of regional authorities. "Furthermore, some of the citizens in Tripoli, Bengasi and other cities sympathize with IS," he said. According to studies by security and Middle East expert Daniel Byman at the Georgetown University, IS uses a different kind of expansion strategy than al-Qaeda. The latter was organized more like a franchise system: The terror organization supported local groups financially, logistically and through training. In turn, the new partners committed to carrying out attacks for al-Qaeda. These attacks were supposed to mainly focus on targets abroad to push Western states to end collaborations with what al-Qaeda deemed illegitimate Arabic rulers such as Saudi Arabia. But al-Qaeda soon had to learn that their new partners had different things in mind and their strategy didn't always work. 'Remaining and expanding' IS, on the other hand, teams up with organizations that focus less on attacks abroad, but more on terror at home. Their goal - to topple the government - should not happen via attacks abroad, but by local cells establishing themselves right there in the country and then pushing local authorities out. That principle is called "Baqiya wa tatamaddad" - remaining and expanding. Through that principle, IS has already conquered wide swaths of Iraq and Syria and established what they call a caliphate. Individual groups should help spread the caliphate further into different regions which then ultimately should be linked together to create one big caliphate. In terms of geostrategic setup, Libya is perfect for such a strategy as its borders are hard to control in the south, close to the Sahel zone as well as in the west. That's where fighters move in to Libya, said Abidi. And they help boost the presence of IS fighters. The attacks and kidnappings of the past weeks show that the group is present in every big city of the country. IS also attracts more and more members of al-Qaeda-linked Ansar-Al-Sharia group it might very well be that IS is going to absorb the group in its entirety as it has done with Al-Nusra Front in Syria. In addition to attacks and kidnappings, IS fighters are also patrolling the cities to police what they call Islamic behavior in accordance with Sharia law. That means no tobacco sales and no business during prayer hours. Some citizens are drawn to such rules. It's them but also foreign fighters that help enforce these rules. A failed state? In order to stop IS, firm military action is needed, said Abidi. Furthermore, there needs to be more pressure on stakeholders. Based on fighting in former Yugoslavia, he suggests a treaty that follows the Dayton Agreement. In 1995, after three weeks of negotiations, political representatives from Serbia, Croatioa and Bosnia-Herzegovina respectively agreed on political structure and distribution of power. Such a model could also be a way out for Libya. "If the actors don't come together, Libya will cease to exist." Author: Kersten Knipp /sst Editor: Gregg Benzow | 5 | 6,171 | news |
Whether you're stuck in the house because of a blizzard or it's just your day off, the winter season often calls for a lot of time spent indoors. It's always nice to wrap up on the couch with a good book or veg out watching a movie. But after awhile, all the lying around can make you a little stir crazy, right? Plus, the lack of sunlight and all the unnatural heat can be super drying on our hair and skin and leave us looking dull and lifeless. So we say: Take advantage of this stay-at-home hibernation time when you're not in a hurry for once, and treat yourself to some good old pampering. You'll feel productive and pretty, both problems solved. Here are five ways to indulge and some good items to stock up on for future days spent snowed in. HAIR: WEN by Chaz Dean Healthy Hair Care KitWhen you have a little more time on your hands, this three-product hair treatment is a great way to revive your dry winter hair, get rid of frizz, and add shine and body to limp locks. Start by rinsing your hair. Massage a generous amount of the Sweet Almond Mint Cleansing Conditioner into your scalp for a few minutes, then rinse it out. Next, spray the Replenishing Treatment Mist from the middle of your hair to the ends. Finally, apply the Re Moist Intensive Hair Treatment liberally throughout your hair and let it sit for 20 to 30 minutes. Now is your time to sit in front of the TV while the mask works its magic.$42; sephora.com FEET: Baby Foot Exfoliant Foot PeelSince you're spending so much time off your feet, why not give them a little extra love, too? This Japanese foot mask and cult beauty favorite made with natural extracts will give you more bang for your buck than actually getting a pedicure. Sure, it won't paint your toenails for you, but it will get rid of all those nasty dead skin cells on the bottom of your feet (you know what we're talking about). The layer of skin on the soles of our feet is thicker than anywhere else on our body, which makes it easy for dead cells to accumulate and harder for them to be removed by simple exfoliation. Enter Baby Foot: Just wash your feet, step into the gel-filled socks, and wear them for an hour while you relax before you wash them off with soap. In about five days (sorry, no instant gratification here) all the dead skin cells will peel away and you will be left with, yes, feet as soft as a baby's.$25; beauty.com FACE: Lumafirm Freeze-Dried At-Home IntensifierThis treatment is a little different from your typical antiaging at-home mask. In fact, Kim Lee, an educator at Pevonia, calls the unique vitamin B2-, vitamin C-, potassium-, and iron-rich formula the first ever "natural face-lift." But all you have to do is wet your skin and apply it to your face, neck, and décolleté, then massage in the product until it is fully absorbed into your skin and you will see an immediate firming, smoothing, and brightening effect. "There are no acids or hydroquinone in the formula," explains Lee. "With this natural approach, you will see results most dramatically around frown lines, age spots, and on dark under eye circles, and your skin will look youthful and flawless. " $22; pevonia.com NAILS: Caption Nail KitGiving yourself a manicure is a pretty obvious at-home beauty activity, but if you use a nail kit from Caption it may just feel like a whole new experience and make you look like you stepped out of the salon. The polish itself looks and acts like a gel, but without the need to use a UV light. Meaning, it lasts just as long as a gel manicure and has that chip-free gleam, but it has none of the health risks. Yup: truth. The caption nail kit comes with a base coat, polish, top coat, and drying drops, because even though you have extra time around the house, no one likes to wait for their nails to dry. $40; captionpolish.com BODY: Oyin Handmade Bath ProductsA long, soothing bath is the most indulgent and restorative of snow-day activities. Run the hot water, light a candle, and shake this fizzy milk powder into the tub. Soak until you are fully relaxed and the beads of cocoa butter will absorb into your skin, leaving it ultra-soft to the touch. After your bath, apply this blended body oil all over your damp skin to seal in all the moisture. It also works as a great massage oil if you have someone to indulge with on your day off. Fizzy Milkshake Bath Powder, $13; oyinhandmade.com After Bath Blended Body Oil, $12; oyinhandmade.com | 4 | 6,172 | lifestyle |
Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel was fastest for the second day in a row in Formula One testing in Spain on Monday but champions Mercedes again did the most laps despite a water leak on Lewis Hamilton's car. Quadruple world champion Vettel, who moved from Red Bull at the end of last year, did 89 laps before rain swept in at the Jerez circuit and was almost a second faster than the rest. Reigning champion Hamilton did 91 laps on his first day in the new Mercedes, ending the day fourth fastest and adding to the whopping tally of 157 laps put in by his German team mate Nico Rosberg on Sunday. "The priority right now is to put in the laps, not set fast times, and there were lots of positives today," said Hamilton. "We got good mileage and hopefully we'll get even more in the next two days." Brazilian Felipe Nasr was second fastest in a Ferrari-powered Sauber, with Finland's Valtteri Bottas third in a Williams. Lotus made their first appearance of the season, after arriving late and failing to get on track on Sunday, with Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado completing 41 laps in the new Mercedes-powered car. McLaren had another tough day getting to grips with their new Honda-powered car. After Fernando Alonso completed only six laps on Sunday. Britain's Jenson Button managed just seven on his first day at the wheel. The 2009 champion's best and completely unrepresentative lap was more than 30 seconds slower than Vettel's fastest. Red Bull suffered a setback when Russian Daniil Kvyat damaged the car's front wing, leaving the team without a replacement. Kvyat continued without the wing for several laps. "As with everybody else the pressure to get the car ready on time for this test meant that we didn't have a replacement here," said race engineering head Guillaume Rocquelin. "However, there are plenty of routine checks that need to be done, systems checks that go on all the time in the background, so we could at least get through a lot of that work today, which is why we sent Dany out for some laps without recording a time." Red Bull said a replacement wing would arrive in time for Tuesday. Only eight teams are taking part in the test, with Force India absent. The season starts in Australia on March 15. (Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by Justin Palmer) | 1 | 6,173 | sports |
That didn't take long. After testing five-year lows near $2 per gallon recently, prices at the pump will rise through February, a new report said on Monday. However, increases will be slight and perhaps short-lived if crude oil supply continues to outstrip demand. Data from the American Automobile Association (AAA) said average gas prices across the country have increased for the last seven days in a row and will likely will keep moving upward. That uptick comes after a record 123-day period of steady declines, the organization said. Fuel prices have dropped more than a dollar per gallon in a single year, from an average of $3.30 per gallon in January 2014 to $2.11 last month the cheapest monthly average since April 2009. The pending price jump results from refinery issues and more stable crude oil costs, according to the AAA. Refineries begin an annual "maintenance season" around this time of year, which typically cuts production and accounts for a slight bump in prices. This year, however, customers should expect pump prices to increase between 30 50 cents per gallon between early February and the middle of spring slightly higher than the 22-cent average seasonal jump seen in the last five years. The price of domestic crude, or West Texas Intermediate (@CL.1) , (WTI) has also somewhat stabilized, after collapsing by 50 percent since June 2014. A boom in American oil production, economic concerns in Asia and Europe, and weak demand from consumers pulling back on travel and driving in the winter months has sent oil reeling. The crude market is still volatile, and prices could drop quickly if supplies build up again, even as drivers rev up their engines in spring. Customers will still be paying lower prices than in previous years, the AAA noted, and currently more than half of all gas stations in the US are selling gas for less than two dollars per gallon. The states paying the most for gas include traditionally high price havens. Hawaiians are paying $3.11 per gallon, and Californians are edging out Alaskans by one cent, paying $2.65 per gallon. The cheapest gas is in Idaho $1.85 per gallon while Texas, Oklahoma, and South Carolina are right behind all paying $1.87. | 3 | 6,174 | finance |
HARRISON, N.J. (AP) Tim Cahill and the New York Red Bulls are parting ways. The Major League Soccer team announced Monday that the Australian midfielder will not return for the upcoming season. The former Everton star signed with New York as a designated player in July 2012, and he played a major role the following season in helping the Red Bulls win the Supporter's Shield, scoring seven of his 11 goals with two assists in the final 11 games. The all-time leading goal scorer for Australia, Cahill hopes to announce his future plans soon. | 1 | 6,175 | sports |
Both mom and baby boy are in excellent condition | 5 | 6,176 | news |
Written by Charlotte Campbell Hutchison Who says loving someone from afar isn't love? See why the relationships between these famous faces and certain family members are kept at a safe distance. 50 CENT FAMILY MEMBER: Marquise Jackson, son The rapper/actor's ( watch him perform ) son called him out on Facebook for missing his high school graduation, but 50 says he wasn't invited. "My relationship with my oldest son is dictated by his actual mother, and because his mother has developed negative energy toward me [it's tough]," the rapper said. Amid father-son woes, 50 and ex-pal Floyd Mayweather are feuding and Marquise reportedly has turned to the boxing champ when feeling slighted by his dad. BING: WHAT MARQUISE SAID ABOUT MAYWEATHER | SEE 50 & SON Adele FAMILY MEMBER: Mark Evans, father Abandoned by her father since the age of two, the "Rolling in the Deep" singer ( watch her perform ) was softening to the idea of rebuilding a relationship with him until he sold a story about her to a London newspaper. Never one to mince words about her father ( see his pic ), the singer told Vogue, "I was actually ready to start trying to have a relationship with him. He's f**king blown it. He will never hear from me again." BING: WHAT EVANS SAID ABOUT ADELE Christina Aguilera FAMILY MEMBER: Fausto Aguilera, father "The Voice" judge and Grammy Award-winning singer ( watch her perform ) and her mother Shelly claim that her father was physically and emotionally abusive, with the singer saying, "Growing up I did not feel safe. Feeling powerless is the worst feeling in the world. I turned to singing as an outlet. The pain at home is where my love for music came from." Fausto denies the abuse allegations, saying, "I never abused them in any way and they know that. Shelly and I disagreed on a lot of things and we both had hot tempers. I'm sorry to have ever raised a hand to my wife, but it was never brutal like Ike and Tina Turner." BING: IS THERE HOPE FOR RECONCILIATION ? Drew Barrymore FAMILY MEMBER: Jaid Barrymore, mother The " He's Just Not That into You " actress and daughter of late film legend John Drew Barrymore and aspiring actress Jaid successfully filed for emancipation from her parents at the age of 15. Barrymore has remained estranged from her mother for most of her life, stating in 2014, "It's the hardest subject in my life. I've never just been angry with her. I've always felt guilt and empathy and utter sensitivity. But we can't really be in each other's lives at this point." BING: WAS JAID A NO-SHOW AT DREW'S WEDDING ? | SEE THEM TOGETHER Halle Berry FAMILY MEMBER: Renee Berry, half-sister Although the pair remained close during childhood, the Oscar winner ( in what film ?) eventually cut off her late estranged father's family, including half-sister Renee who said, "I'm sad to say it seems like she does not want anything to do with us. I have not spoken to her in about five years. I tried to contact her through her website, to congratulate her on her Oscar, but no one got back to me. We would like to meet Nahla. We are desperate to understand why Halle is so upset, why she feels she cannot be with us." BING: WHAT RENEE SAYS CAUSED THE RIFT Kim Zolciak Biermann THE FAMILY MEMBERS: Joe & Karen Zolziac, parents The fallout between the " Don't Be Tardy " reality TV star and her parents played out on camera and ended up in a courtroom, resulting in a three years and counting standoff since the pair has spoken to their daughter and grandchildren. Accusations flew on both ends, with her parents calling her a money-hungry pathological liar with four children by different men. Responding to the comments, Biermann said, "Reading the accusations and opinions coming from my dad of all people really tore me up inside." BING: WHY THE PARENTS TOOK HER TO COURT Mariah Carey FAMILY MEMBER: Alison Carey, sister The "We Belong Together" diva may be too busy focusing on her impending divorce from Nick Cannon to hear the pleas of her estranged sister Alison, an HIV positive former prostitute and mother of two ( see her pic ). After Mariah cut off ties, big sis took her plea public, stating, "There's been a lot of water under the bridge. I've done things that were wrong. She's done things that were wrong. But I've reached out to her many, many times through the years in every way I could think of to try and ask her for her forgiveness and see if we could start over. We are the only sisters each of us will ever have. I don't want Mariah to think I only want her for her money, like everyone else does. I want her to love me again. I want her to be my sister again." BING: WHY DID THEY BECOME ESTRANGED ? Macaulay Culkin FAMILY MEMBER: Christopher "Kit" Culkin, father The " Home Alone " film star started acting at the age of four. He was born to a struggling actor whose earnings were scarce and at times, nonexistent. After Macaulay aced his first audition, Kit became his manager and resident stage dad, earning him a bad reputation throughout the industry and with his son. When Kit and the millionaire child star's mother Patricia separated, a bitter two-year custody battle ensued. Patricia won custody and by then Macaulay, who always desired to be a regular kid, retired from acting at the age of 14. Two years later, he took a drastic step toward securing his independence from his mother and estranged father. BING: WHAT DID THE ACTOR DO ? Stacey Dash FAMILY MEMBER: Damon Dash, cousin The "Clueless" actress has been hitting a lot of nerves in the African-American community, to the point that it has caused a rift between her and the former music mogul cousin she once looked up to. "My family and I have not spoken. My cousin Damon and my brother [Darien, CEO of DME Interactive Holdings] were role models to me because they were great capitalists. Now we're not really talking because they were the ones who told me to keep my mouth shut. They felt that I should do certain things because I'm black," said Dash, who also admitted to being at odds with "certain friends." BING: WHY ARE THEY ESTRANGED ? Bethenny Frankel FAMILY MEMBER: Bernadette Birk, mother According to the " Real Housewives of New York " comeback star, every element of dysfunction imaginable occurred in the Frankel household -- fear, violence, alcoholism and mental illness to name a few -- which caused friction between mother and daughter since Bethenny's teens. Speaking out on her famous daughter's marriage to then-husband Jason Hoppy, Birk told reporters, "Right now, he is a good father, but soon she won't need him and she will dump him. Her husband seems like a really nice guy, but it won't last. He is really too weak for her." BING: WHAT WAS FRANKEL'S RESPONSE ? Ariana Grande FAMILY MEMBER: Edward Butera, father The "Bang Bang" singer ( watch her perform ) told Seventeen magazine, "Falling out of touch with my dad [was the toughest thing I've ever dealt with]. It's private, but it happened last year. It took me so long to be okay with it. The thing that got me there was embracing the fact that I am made up of half my dad, and a lot of my traits come from him," she admitted. "So much of me comes from my father, and for so long, I didn't like that about myself. I had to accept that it's okay not to get along with somebody and still love them." BING: ARE THE PAIR STILL ESTRANGED ? Kate Hudson FAMILY MEMBER: Bill Hudson, father The "Almost Famous" actress was born to two famous parents, Academy Award-winning actress Goldie Hawn and musician Bill Hudson , but has always considered Hawn's longtime partner Kurt Russell to be her father. In a 2000 Vanity Fair interview, the actress stated, "[Bill Hudson] doesn't know me from a hole in the wall. But I don't care. I have a dad [Russell]. The bottom line is, you call your kids on their f**king birthday. I'm glad I had a dad who was there on my birthday." Making matters worse, Bill wrote a tell-all book in which he lashed out at his famous daughter. BING: READ A QUOTE FROM THE BOOK Angelina Jolie FAMILY MEMBER: Jon Voight, Father The dysfunction that comprises the " Maleficent " actress' relationship with her famous father has existed since Voight left the family when Jolie was less than one year old. In 2002, Jolie legally removed Voight as her surname leading her father to publicly claim that the actress suffered from serious mental problems. In the wake of her mother Marcheline Bertrand 's death in 2007, the two began taking steps toward repairing their relationship. At that time it had been more than six years since they had last spoken. BING: WAS VOIGHT INVITED TO HER 2014 WEDDING ? Nicole Kidman FAMILY MEMBERS: Connor & Isabella Cruise, children It's been years since the " Rabbit Hole " actresses publicly discussed the son and daughter she adopted with ex-husband Tom Cruise. After the divorce, the kids chose to stay with Cruise and the practice of Scientology, from which Kidman walked away. Many speculate her abandonment of the practice to be the cause of the estrangement. In 2007, she stated "I've chosen not to speak publicly about Scientology. I have two children who are Scientologists … and I utterly respect their beliefs." BING: WHAT SHE SAID ABOUT THEM Demi Lovato FAMILY MEMBER: Patrick Lovato, father Divorce can be a hard pill to swallow for any child, no matter his or her fame, fortune. When the singer ( watch her perform ) and actress' parents divorced, Lovato showed no interest in continuing her relationship with father Patrick. Following his death from cancer in 2013, Lovato created a treatment scholarship fund in his honor. BING: HER FEELINGS TOWARD HER FATHER Courtney Love FAMILY MEMBER: Frances Bean Cobain, daughter After not being seen together in more than five years, the rocker and her daughter reunited ( see them together ) for the Sundance premier of a new documentary about Frances' late father and former Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. The pair's relationship has been marred in the past with court battles involving restraining orders and guardianship changes with the only communication being occasional well-wishes via Twitter. BING: LOVE'S VIEW ON RECONCILIATION Madonna FAMILY MEMBER: Anthony Ciccone, brother The "4 Minutes" singer's millions aren't making their way to brother Anthony , who has lived on the streets and in shelters battling alcoholism for several years, just a few short miles from the Ciccone family vineyards. Ciccone said, "Madonna doesn't give a s-t if I'm dead or alive. She lives in her own world. I never loved her in the first place, she never loved me. We never loved each other." BING: WHERE THE RELATIONSHIP STANDS NOW Vanessa Minnillo-Lachey FAMILY MEMBER: Helen Bondoc, mother The former " Dads " actress' mother had no clue her daughter was marrying Nick Lachey because she wasn't invited to the wedding. According to an interview Bondoc gave in 2011, the pair hadn't spoken in 12 years. Minnillo's father says Bondoc dropped the future model-actress and her older brother off at his residence in 1991 and never returned. BING: MINNILLO'S FELLINGS ABOUT HER MOTHER Kelly Rowland FAMILY MEMBER: Christopher Lovett, father Back in 2013, the former Destiny's Child group member's ( watch them perform ) father made a public plea to his daughter to allow him back in her life, claiming she was taken away from him at the age of seven. The singer's estranged father stated in interviews, "So many previous years have passed and I'm getting old. I just pray she comes back into my life before it's too late. I hoped I could make it up to her. But I'm still waiting for that day. I own a big home now and have retired so I don't want any of Kelly's fortune, I just want her love." BING: IS THERE HOPE FOR RECONCILIATION ? Meg Ryan FAMILY MEMBER: Susan Jordan, mother Ryan's mother had dreams of becoming a stage actress, so in 1976 with her marriage unraveling, she left her husband and children behind to pursue her dreams. By the time she returned, Ryan was in college and acting in TV commercials to make ends meet. The two remained cordial and made strides in their relationship, but when Jordan publicly criticized Ryan's future husband Dennis Quaid , both the relationship with the " When Harry Met Sally " actress and the invitation to her star-studded wedding were revoked. BING: JORDAN'S FEELINGS ABOUT RYAN Ariel Winter FAMILY MEMBER: Chrisoula Workman, mother In 2012, the " Modern Family " star's sister Shanelle became her legal guardian, citing physical and emotional abuse, permanently removing the actress from her mother's care. Court documents alleged Workman insulted Winter's weight and deprived her of food. Winter said, "I had body insecurities when I was younger. I still do. Every girl has insecurities mine were heightened at the time because my mother wasn't supportive. I didn't know my sister much growing up, and I wasn't really allowed to see her. I know now that my sister is the type of person I'd aspire to grow up to be like. It's really interesting how close you can get with somebody in such a short period." BING: WHAT ADDITIONAL ACTION DID WINTER TAKE ? | 6 | 6,177 | entertainment |
"Want a side salad with that Big Mac?" Don't expect to hear this at McDonald's anytime soon. McDonald's (MCD) , fresh off a menu revamp, is specifically advising workers against promoting the side salad as an option with its extra-value meals, at least in some locations. (The meal comes with either an order of medium fries or salad.) "Do not suggest side salad as an option, customer should request it when they order," read an internal memo to workers at one East Hanover, New Jersey location that CNBC visited on Thursday. In an email, McDonald's spokeswoman Lisa McComb told CNBC that while no particular side is specifically suggested, customers are made aware of both choices based on the menu board and through their own questions and make choices based on that. "The chart is simply a quick reference guide that is part of a broader restaurant training tool to assist crew in efficiently taking customers' orders. Customers are made aware of the choice of side via the menu boards so the intent of the signage is to remind crew it's not necessary to recite it as an option so they can focus on accurately and efficiently ringing up the order," she wrote. While McDonald's may not be aggressively featuring the salad option in its restaurants, the chain has gone to extensive lengths to promote its healthier fare elsewhere, such as its recent addition of Cuties clementines to its kids' meal side choices. During its latest investor day, McDonald's singled out the West Coast as a place where salads sell well. Historically though, salads have not been a huge sales driver for the chain, unlike its popular french fries. Outgoing CEO Don Thompson told investors in mid-2013 that salads have ranged from about 2 to 3 percent of sales since the chain introduced them. | 3 | 6,178 | finance |
A mass call-up Monday by separatist authorities aimed at boosting their forces in east Ukraine to 100,000 fighters sparked mixed reactions from inhabitants in rebel bastion Donetsk. While some met the call-to-arms -- which the pro-Russian rebels said was voluntary -- with jingoistic fervour, others who spoke to AFP dismissed the plan as fantastical or said they had no intention of signing up. "I wouldn't give it too much credence," said Alexander, 28. "Either it's wrong or they're saying it for Ukrainian media," said the pro-separatist transport manager. Standing with his girlfriend Yelena on his arm, Viktor Tishchenko, 41, said he was willing to volunteer after seeing the devastating impact of fierce fighting between rebels and government troops. "The events of the last few months have led to this mobilisation," he said. "After seeing cities and houses bombed for the past six months, many people will volunteer." Alexei and Ivan, two computer engineers in their thirties, would also agree to fight. "Of course. You have to defend your homeland," said Alexei. "We're always ready!" chimed in Ivan. But even for these loyalists of the rebels' self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, the figure of 100,000 sought by rebel chief Alexander Zakharchenko seems unfeasibly high. "Look around," they joked, pointing at the half-deserted streets. "Where are you going to find all of them?" "A lot of people have left or don't want to go to war," said student Daniil, 24. For him, the idea of facing mortar and rocket fire on the frontline was difficult to stomach. "When the time comes, I'll think about it," Daniil said. "But I am not a soldier and I don't want to become cannon fodder." "There are two choices: either I go to fight or I leave for Russia." - 'A war between brothers' - While some were considering joining the rebel ranks, others said that they would be opposed to the idea. "I would refuse to go. This is a war between brothers," said lawyer Vyacheslav, 30. "I have friends who are pro-Russian and others who support Ukraine." Elsewhere, web designer Vitaly said he was increasingly feeling trapped by the rebel rulers of the city. "There is continual fighting and you can die at any time and now they announce a supposedly voluntary mobilisation," he said. "It is voluntary at gunpoint. If it's for real it's nothing more than suicide." The insurgents had announced the call-up would start in 10 days because that is the amount of time it takes to get permission from Ukrainian forces to leave the region, he claimed. "There is no possibility to escape," he said. "Every day, I feel a little bit more a hostage" of the separatist authorities. | 5 | 6,179 | news |
INDIO, Calif. A big-rig hauling frozen chicken collided with a truck carrying bees in Southern California, igniting a fireball that quickly cooked the chicken. The California Highway Patrol says the crash on Interstate 10 near Palm Springs occurred shortly after 7 a.m. Monday. The truck with the chickens burst into flames and was incinerated, but the driver escaped with minor injuries. The driver hauling the bees was not hurt, although highway patrol officers on the scene reported bees buzzing everywhere. Photos, meanwhile, showed chunks of blackened, highway-roasted chicken. The crash closed the interstate's westbound lanes, and highway patrol officers kept traffic flowing by directing vehicles onto the center median. A beekeeper was summoned, and the cleanup was expected to last several hours. | 5 | 6,180 | news |
The 10 Best Coffee Makers On The Market There's nothing better than waking up to the smell of fresh coffee. The experts at FindTheBest helped us find the best coffee makers on the market. The products are ranked based on FTB's Smart Rating scale, which accounts for features, carafe, type, ratings, and approval from the Specialty Coffee Association of America. Whether you're for a jumpstart in the morning or an afternoon pick-me-up, here are the machines that will brew you the best cup. 10. Brew Express BE-104C ($199) The Brew Express BE-104C can make up to four cups at a time and comes with a thermal carafe. The drip coffee maker is one of four makers with the Certified Home Brewer distinction from the Specialty Coffee Association of America. 9. Keurig K65 ($257) The Keurig K65 is a single cup pod coffee maker. Insert a machine-compatible pod, add water, preset the timer, and you will wake up to a fresh cup of coffee every morning. The coffee maker self-cleans and has coffee strength settings, so you can adjust the brew to your specifications. 8. Bosch Tassimo Hot Beverage System TAS5542UC ($148) If you need a larger batch system, buy the Bosch Tassimo Hot Beverage System TAS5542UC coffee maker, which brews up to eight cups at a time. The pod-type maker is slightly less expensive than the average eight-cup pod brewer, and yields high-quality coffee. 7. Braun CafeHouse Pure AromaDeluxe ($105) The Braun CafeHouse Pure AromaDeluxe is a drip coffee maker that makes up to 10 cups at a time. It comes with great features like automatic shutoff, a portable glass carafe, and brew pause, which allows you to pause the machine mid-brew. 6. Hamilton Beach 49618 ($40) Not only is the Hamilton Beach 49618 coffee maker very affordable, it can brew up to 12 cups at a time. The dishwasher-safe machine also has automatic shutoff and brew pause, as well as brew strength settings. Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/best-coffee-makers-2015-1#ixzz3QcfGSyG2 5. Bonavita BV1900TS ($199) The stainless steel Bonavita BV1900TS comes with a thermal carafe to keep your coffee warmer longer and is dishwasher safe. The eight-cup drip coffee maker also comes with a two-year warranty. 4. Bonavita BV 1800TH ($160) Similar to the other Bonavita to make the list, the Bonavita BV 1800TH drip coffee maker also brews up to eight cups at a time. The coffee maker has automatic on and off functions, a hot plate, and a water level indicator. 3. Cloer 5609 ($127) The Cloer 5609 coffee maker comes with many programmable settings and can make up to 12 cups of coffee. The drip coffee maker uses basket-shaped paper filters and has a portable glass carafe. 2. Braun CafeHouse Sommelier ($110) The 10-cup Braun CafeHouse Sommelier has a portable thermal carafe so your coffee stays warmer longer. The machine also comes with a two year warranty and a hot plate. 1. Capresso CM300 ($90) The Capresso CM300 coffee maker is the only brewer on the list to earn a 100 on the Smart Rating scale. The affordably priced drip machine has automatic on and off, brew pause, a water level indicator, programmable settings, and is dishwasher safe. The coffee machine comes with a portable stainless steel thermal carafe and a one-year warranty. | 0 | 6,181 | foodanddrink |
Isn't the Fed going to raise rates this year? Don't tell that to the bond market. Investors continue to binge on 10-Year Treasuries and yields are not far from record lows. | 3 | 6,182 | finance |
If they can survive out there, so can you. Sienna Miller Kate Moss Nikki Reed Analeigh Tipton Jennifer Lopez Brooklyn Decker Naomi Campbell Chloe Sevigny Taylor Swift Julianne Moore Margot Robbie Kat Dennings and Josh Groban Emma Stone Sarah Paulson Suki Waterhouse Yoko Ono Ryan Reynolds Kellan Lutz Lena Dunham Hailee Steinfeld Chris Pine Gina Rodriguez Rashida Jones | 4 | 6,183 | lifestyle |
Jackie Brittain and Bob Socci break down the Patriots Super Bowl Victory over the Seattle Seahawks. To see more Patriots videos download the Patriots DeskSite. | 1 | 6,184 | sports |
I am a beauty editor, so I have an overabundance of beauty products at my desk. It's my job, right? Okay, yes, but if I had to narrow down my supply to the essentials that I reach for on a daily basis, these are the items that I absolutely have to have and would recommend to anyone else looking for a small but effective office makeup kit. Kérastase Carré Lissant Smoothing Sheets If you are prone to frizzy hair, this product should be at your desk, in your purse, and basically in reach at all times (luckily the packaging is so small, it totally can be). The sheets, which could be mistaken for teeny versions of the ones you throw in the dryer, solve pretty much all on-the-go hair problems. Used on clean hair, the sheets get rid of the frizz from at-home blow-drys, as well as the static you get from a sleek salon blowout. Then, on between-washing days, they freshen things up and hide grease so you can go the extra day without anyone noticing. $28.50; kerastase-usa.com Aveda Stress-Fix Concentrate No matter your profession, work is stressful. Personally, in moments when I'm feeling overwhelmed, I take a whiff of this roller ball. Its lavender essence has soothing aromatherapeutic powers and smells much lovelier than most other stress relief products out there. The restorative effect is similar to going outside for some fresh air but, on truly crazy days, it has the advantage of being instantaneous. $24; aveda.com Benefit Cosmetics Pocket Pal When I have plans after work, I always want to freshen up my look beforehand, but I don't like to lug my makeup bag with me all day. Instead, I just stash this multi-tasking Benefit product in my desk drawer. Just before happy hour, I use the dual cheek and lip stain to add a flush of color and the gloss to make me just a touch sleeker and more polished. When I'm done, I've gotten some life back in my face, so at least I don't look like I spent the whole day staring at a computer.$20; benefitcosmetics.com H20 Plus Eye Oasis Instant Hydrating Stick When that 4 o'clock lethargy rolls in and my body thinks it needs sugar or coffee to wake up, I try to reach for this little guy instead. One swipe of the cooling elixir underneath each eye not only makes me look more awake by calming any puffiness, it also makes me feel energized, too, thanks to the caffeinated formula.$25; ulta.com Butter London Scrubbers I used to appreciate that too-cool-to-care chipped nail look, but these days a messed up manicure really bugs me. I'd rather go polish-free than have something less than perfect, especially at work. So just in case my mani begins to deteriorate when I'm at the office, I always have these nail polish wipes on hand. Just one tissue will inconspicuously remove two hands worth of polish without smelling up the office. It's brilliant.$10; ulta.com Crabtree & Evelyn Avocado, Olive & Basil Ultra-Moisturising Hand Therapy Offices are either highly air-conditioned or overly heated (don't you love burning up in the winter and freezing in the summer?) and all that recirculated air can be super drying to your skin. To fight that, I am constantly applying this luxurious cream infused with macadamia nut oil, shea butter, avocado butter, basil, and olive extracts throughout the day. It moisturizes my hands and gives my fingers a nice little rub-down (and a break from typing). Plus, it just sounds so delicious, doesn't it?$8; crabtree-evelyn.com | 4 | 6,185 | lifestyle |
1. It gives you a rosy glow. Just like any other form of physical exercise, having sex boosts your circulation. To deal with this increased blood flow, the small capillaries in your face expand, giving you a pretty, healthy flush like you've just run a really fun 5K. 2. It staves off signs of aging. Consider sex a supplement to your anti-wrinkle cream. Balanced estrogen levels don't just keep skin soft, they also keep it plump. In addition, sex can help boost your immune system, says Julie Karen, M.D., which minimizes inflammation, a process that, over time, breaks down collagen and elastin. 3. It banishes breakouts. Who knew? Doing the dirty actually helps clean out your pores. During sex, your body releases mood-boosting hormones called beta-endorphins, which have an anti-inflammatory effect. Your levels of cortisol the notorious stress hormone that exacerbates acne tend to be lower when you're doing it on the regular. Cue clear skin. 4. It hydrates skin. Regular action keeps hormone levels in check, says sexologist Yvonne Fulbright, Ph.D. This is key with estrogen, which plays a large role in how well-moisturized your skin is. Plus, it also promotes collagen production! 5. How the pill plays with your skin. The latest oral contraceptives are actually FDA-approved to treat acne. How? They decrease the production of androgens (hormones that put oil glands into overdrive) so they can't make skin go haywire, stopping hormonal acne at the source. It isn't instant. "It could take about three months until [hormones] get totally normalized," says Dr. Karen. It's not a magic bullet either other things can cause breakouts, so don't abandon your acne regimen entirely. | 7 | 6,186 | health |
In the movie of his life, Scott Rigsby would cast Mark Wahlberg in the title role. Scratch that. In the movie of his life, Scott Rigsby will cast Mark Wahlberg in the title role. After all, dreaming big is what Rigsby does. In 2007 at age 39, he became the first person with prosthetic legs to swim the 2.4 miles, bike the 112 miles and run the 26.2 miles of the Ironman World Championship in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. "We all have our 'unthinkable.' It's just that we need to find that and get the right people around us to make that thing happen," Rigsby said at an American News Women's Club event in the District of Columbia last week. He's working to turn his book, "UnThinkable," into a movie. Here's a preview of his story and the lessons athletes of any level can learn from it: 1. Have a Dream. At 18 years old, Scott Rigsby had the same dream most young men from his small, rural hometown of Camilla, Georgia had: "To go to college, meet a pretty girl, meet another pretty girl, meet another pretty girl, marry one of those pretty girls," have a family and live happily ever after, he says. But that dream was shattered when an 18-wheeler hit the trailer behind Rigsby and his friends, who were riding in the back of a pickup truck. Rigsby was thrown over the side, dragged down the highway and eventually pinned under the trailer. "My life radically changed in nine seconds, because that's how long it takes for a person to be dragged 324 feet on the pavement going 45 miles an hour," says Rigsby, whose right leg was amputated immediately. Twenty years and another leg amputation later, Rigsby had a new dream: To complete the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii. "If I could accomplish this, I could redefine the limits for amputees," he writes in his book. 2. Dream Big. Most health experts will tell you to make small, manageable changes to meet your goals. They'll tell you to make those goals realistic so you don't set yourself up for failure. Not Rigsby. When he set his goal to complete the 2007 Ironman World Championship, Rigsby had never swum with artificial legs, and he didn't own a bike. He hadn't run 0.2 miles with his prosthetics, let alone 26.2. "So, to recap: I was too old, too fat, too tired and too broke," he writes in his book. Even his dad was discouraging, telling Rigsby he should have pursued this dream 20 years ago, when he was in his athletic prime. Rigsby knew he was right. "We can't change our past, but we can do something about today that can impact our tomorrow," he says. "So what I could do was focus on what I could do, not the laundry list of what I could not do." 3. Ask, " What Can I Control?" In the years between Rigsby's accident and his Ironman dream, Rigsby was suicidal, addicted to prescription drugs and struggling to hold down a job. "I felt like Rip Van Winkle, and I had fallen asleep and woken up one day and somebody had told me about his terrible dream that I had slept through my 20s," he says. One turning point? When a doctor told Rigsby he could amputate his left leg, which had literally and figuratively been weighing him down . "It was just simply a doctor telling me, 'You have a choice,'" he recalls. That mantra proved to be crucial years later, when Rigsby hit a strong headwind at mile 80 of the Ironman's biking portion. After 10 more miles with little progress, he wanted to quit. But then, he says, "I realized that I had had my focus wrong: I had been trying to focus on things that I could never control the wind and the heat." So he turned his focus to something he could control his heart rate by shifting the gears. Rigsby was back in the race. "If we could find one thing that we can focus in on, it will totally change our perspective, it will change our day, it will change our week, it will change our year," he says. 4. Do It for Others. Rigsby was only about 3 miles from the Ironman finish line when he hit another low. Sweat was pooling inside the liners of his prosthetics, but if he took the time to take them off, dump them out and replace the liners as he'd done throughout the race up until then he wouldn't make the race's 17-hour cutoff. The prosthetics, he says, began "to rip the flesh off my legs, every agonizing step." "How do you push through that kind of pain when you're that close to your finish line?" he asks. "You won't. You'll give up, you'll quit if you're not playing a role in a bigger story." But Rigsby was. He was doing it for wounded military members whom he hoped to inspire with his story. He was doing it to pave the way for other amputees. He was doing it for his older brother, who was born with a form of mental retardation. "He would love to feel that kind of pain, he would love to know that his legs work," Rigsby says. So Rigsby put one carbon foot in front of the other for 3 more excruciating miles. Sixteen hours, 42 minutes and 42 seconds after he began, Rigsby crossed the finish line. "When all that's at stake is us, we give up but not if we're in the service of others," he says. "We will go through hell and back for our friends, for our family, for our loved ones. When it's not about us." Copyright 2015 U.S. News & World Report | 7 | 6,187 | health |
It's tough putting a manly spin on Valentine's Day, by far the girliest of all holidays, but it can be done! Here are 30 gift ideas that scream thump their chest and bellow, "V-Day dude." 1. Instead of chocolate-covered strawberries, give him chocolate-covered bacon. Or bacon candy. Bacon brittle! Really any bacon-based sweet will do. And if your dude doesn't have much of a sweet tooth, try getting him some fancy, artisanal beef jerky. Or steaks! Or, to put it another way: meat. Dark-Chocolate-Dipped Strawberries, GODIVA, $42 for 6; Bacon Peanut Brittle, SIR FRANCIS BACON, $10; Bacon Tool Kit Lollipop Set, BACON FREAK, $11; Chocolate Bacon Bar, VOSGES (Available at Amazon), $8 2. Instead of roses, give him a cactus. The cactus is by far the manliest of plants, and certain varieties even sort of look like roses with their green bases and bright bulbous heads. And, much like your love, they will live and continue to grow long after Valentine's Day (and the roses he got you) have gone. That said, should your man be the clumsy type, a big thorny cactus may not be such a good idea. In that case succulents are another thoroughly masculine plant and what guy wouldn't love a terrarium? Especially one that features a tiny blood-soaked zombie rising from the grave. "Braaaaains Heaaaaarts!" 12 Roses and Vase, AVA'S FLOWERS, $43; Zombie Terrarium, DESIGN PUBLIC (Available at Houzz), $145; Exotic Hardwood Potted Cactus and Succulents, MODGREEN (Available at Houzz), $68; Ceramic Duo Potted Cactus and Succulents, MODGREEN (Available at Houzz), $21 3. Don't think hearts , think blood . It's not hearts that will make your man's pulse race, it's the stuff inside them the blood! Specifically, spilling said blood. Virtually, that is. Heart Coin Purse, EXPRESS, $13; Game of War Fire Age, MACHINE ZONE, INC (Available on iTunes), Free (In-App Purchases); Zombie Gunship, LIMBIC SOFTWARE (Available on iTunes), Free (In-App Purchases); Shark Attack 3D, SHARKWEED LLC (Available on iTunes), Free 4. Stuffed animals, no. Mounted animals, yes! It doesn't have to be real taxidermy. Even the fake stuff looks pretty cool. Giant Teddy Bear, GIANTTEDDY.COM, $80; Rhinoceros Head Wall Decor, ONE KING'S LANE, $79; Antelope Head Wall Decor, ONE KING'S LANE, $49; Bear Head Wall Decor, ONE KING'S LANE, $149 5. No sweet, floral scents. Only rugged, woodsy smells will do! This big-ass Feu de Bois candle from Diptyque is the ultimate man scent gift. Not only does it smell like a campfire at midnight, but the canister is so huge, he can use it as a trash can once the candle finally burns out, so even his garbage will smell appealing and manly!Candles not his thing? Well, every guy has to bathe and most could benefit from some nice cologne. Just make sure you get a gift receipt in case his particular man scent is a little more sandalwood and peppercorns than tobacco and spice. Bonbon Perfume, VIKTOR & ROLF (Available at Saks Fifth Avenue), $115; Feu de Bois Candle, DIPTYQUE, $290; Black Pepper Body Scrub Bar, MOLTON BROWN, $22; The One for Men, DOLCE & GABBANA (Available at Sephora), $50 6. He won't know what to do with a standard bath-and-body gift set, but a hickory grilling kit Man Crate will speak to him on a deep, primal level. For the man who does appreciate a good at-home pampering, Man Can is a great alternative to traditional bath-and-body baskets. And, of course, there is always the original dude gift basket: the power tool combo kit. Oh, the power. THE POWER! Pink Marshmallow Buttercream Trio, PHILOSOPHY (Available at MACY'S), $24; The Man Can, PLUM ISLAND SOAP COMPANY (Available at Gifttree.com), $50; Hickory Grilling Crate, MAN CRATES, $65; Three-Piece Combo Tool Kit, MIKITA (Available at Amazon.com), $150 7. Champagne may be romantic, but beer is his true bubbly of choice. Any beer-related gift will do. It's beer. Mini Rosé Sparkling Wine, CHANDON, $8; "99 Ways to Open a Beer Bottle Without a Bottle Opener" by Brett Stern, GIFTS.COM, $10; IPA Beer Making Kit, WILLIAMS-SONOMA, $45; Corkcicle 2 Pack Chillsner Beer Chiller, GIFTS.COM, $29 8. He may never actually redeem that spa gift card you spent so much money on, but every dude's gotta shave. Or not shave. Either way, facial hair maintenance is the one constant in every man's grooming life. If only the same could be said for nose-hair trimming. Beard Conditioning Oil , WILD MAN (Available at Amazon), $20; The Art of Growing a Beard by Albert Siringo, Marvin Grosswirth, Edward Whitehead, DOVER, $8; Fusion Contemporary Shaving Kit , THE ART OF SHAVING, $280 9. Instead of a sexy negligee for you to wear, give him a much-needed man-gerie upgrade of his very own. A lot of dudes don't have strong feelings about women's lingerie either way. If you love it, you should wear it, but as far as many guys are concerned, lingerie is just one more thing delaying your much-anticipated nakedness. If you really want to give him a treat, replace his worn out old BVDs and fraternity sweats with something new and soft and actually appealing, because if you don't, he is literally going to wear that garbage until it disintegrates. Ruffle Heart Babydoll, VICTORIA'S SECRET, $33; Hoodie, 2(X)IST, $66; Jogger Sweatpants, ABERCROMBIE & FITCH, $66; Boxer Briefs, CALVIN KLEIN, $28 10. Sunglasses are pretty much the dude equivalent of sparkly diamond earrings. Hey, even if your man does wear jewelry, you have a better chance of being struck by lightning after winning the lottery than you do of getting him a piece he actually wants to wear. Do yourself a favor and stick to the tried-and-true menswear accessory staples: watches, sunglasses, and baseball caps. Diamond and Gold Earrings, DANNIJO, $3000; Watch, SWATCH, $150; Varsity Cap, GENTS, $99; Sunglasses, COACH, $248 | 4 | 6,188 | lifestyle |
The Blues' captain was ejected in the team's 4-3 win Sunday over the Washington Capitals. Here's some good news for the Blues, who just lost Kevin Shattenkirk to the dreaded "lower body" injury for who knows how long. David Backes won't be suspended for his hit on Karl Alzner of the Washington Capitals. Alzner was bloodied on the play, which according to the NHL Rule Book necessitates an automatic game misconduct. The Blues killed off the five-minute major that came after the play. The NHL's Department of Player Safety have determined that no extra discipline is necessary. The Blues still managed to win against the Capitals without three of their top nine and their best defenseman. I don't know if they'd be that lucky against Tampa Bay on Tuesday night. | 1 | 6,189 | sports |
NHL players have reservations about a potential move to use three-on-three play in overtime next season to decrease the number of games decided by shootouts. "My real concern is that top guys are going to be put in these situations, and there will be more wear and tear on them," NHL Players' Association executive Mathieu Schneider told USA TODAY Sports. The rules change, to be discussed at the annual general managers meetings in March, has gained traction with GMs because the use of three-on-three this season in the American Hockey League has resulted in 74.8% of overtime games being decided before the shootout. That figure is 45% in the NHL. GMs discussed the idea at length at their November meetings and wanted more time to study the AHL results and consider the ramifications before formally considering a change. "It's something that's interesting and that we are watching, but it's certainly not anything we have made any decisions on," NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said. "Part of it is I don't think there is a consensus view that there is a 'problem' with the current format that we need to be solving for." Schneider, who played 21 seasons, said he is not fully convinced that three-on-three play will translate as well to the NHL game. "We've seen over the years that rules that are implemented in leagues below and they don't always have the intended effect when we bring them to the NHL because the players are more consistent and more talented," Schneider said. "I'm not sure we would see the same results at the NHL level." Current NHL rules call for five minutes of four-on-four play and then a shootout if no winner is determined. The new AHL rule calls for three minutes of four-on-four play and a shift to three-on-three at the first whistle after three minutes. The AHL goes to a shootout if there is no winner after seven minutes. Schneider, a special assistant to NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr, said his assumption is the NHL rule change proposal would be to stay at a five-minute overtime because increasing the number of minutes played is a non-starter for players. Los Angeles Kings defenseman Drew Doughty, one of the NHL leaders in average ice time, said he had played in a three-on-three situation because of penalties and found it taxing. "It was tiring, really tiring," Doughty said. "You'd come back on defense and make a play and then it is continuous three-on-two, three-on-two. It's tiring, but I think it would make overtimes finish quicker. With the way our team has been in the shootout (1-7), I think I could go with three-on-three." For a rule to be changed, it has to be recommended by general managers, and then it goes to the Competition Committee, which consists of players and team officials. Then it goes before the NHL's Board of Governors for final approval. Since surveys show that fans like the shootout, the NHL isn't looking to eliminate the tiebreaker. The aim of the potential change is to decrease the number of shootouts. The situation is complicated by the fact that coaches usually play conservatively late in the third period of a tie game because they want to ensure that they will get the one point for getting to overtime. That leads to more games getting to overtime. "Shootouts are cool for fans, but it's a tough way to lose a point," Doughty said. One offseason change was to have teams switch ends in overtime to create a longer skate to the bench for line changes in hopes that teams would get caught more often on bad changes. "The same coaches that are protecting their tie game to get to the shootout four-on-four, they are going to do that three-on-three as well," Schneider predicted. "If you are sitting back in the overtime in four-on-four, you can do that three-on-three." Schneider said NHL players have not formally been polled about three-on-three because it was tabled at the last GM meeting. But Schneider said it was brought up at an NHLPA board meeting and "the room was fairly split." Schneider has been talking to NHL players who have experience with three-on-three in the AHL. The AHL results have been dramatic. In 2013-14, only 35.3% of overtime games were decided before the shootout. That means twice as many are being decided in OT under the new format. Of the 122 goals that have been scored in OT in the AHL, 71 have been scored four-on-four and 51 have been scored three-on-three. If GMs want to proceed with the rule change proposal, Schneider said the players will be canvassed before the rule is considered by the Competition Committee. He would also suggest it be tried next preseason. "So players get a better feel for it and coaches can kind of see it," Schneider said. "So we can get a handle of what it looks like at the NHL level instead of jumping in with both feet." That plan was effective in the introduction of hybrid icing, which wasn't fully embraced by players at first. "To my surprise, guys liked that and that's why we ended up going with it in the regular season," Schneider said. | 1 | 6,190 | sports |
What's better than a wintry white wedding? Fur Throws Succulent Boutonniere Gold Glamour Cookie Treats Pinecone Centerpiece Antler Placecards Flower-Draped Trellis Tree-Lined Archway Vintage Winter Abandoned Backdrops Great Views Marshmallows & Cinnamon Ringbearer's Basket Set the Stage | 4 | 6,191 | lifestyle |
In an interview on NBC's "Today" show, President Obama said there is "every reason" for parents to get their children vaccinated. | 7 | 6,192 | health |
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) Giants first baseman Brandon Belt has agreed to a $3.6 million, one-year contract that avoided salary arbitration. Belt hit .308 with two RBIs in the World Series after missing time over the final 2 1/2 months with a concussion. He played in only 61 regular-season games, batting .243 with 12 homers and 27 RBIs. During batting practice in July before a game at Miami, two Giants accidentally threw balls to Belt at the same time. One of the throws hit him in the face. Belt experienced nausea, headaches and dizziness in the aftermath, and feared his season might be done. San Francisco manager Bruce Bochy had his doubts, too, especially when Belt's symptoms returned for a second time. Belt played five games in August after coming back, then missed six more weeks when the symptoms recurred. Following Belt's agreement Monday, new third baseman Casey McGehee is the Giants' player left in arbitration. | 1 | 6,193 | sports |
Kitty Litter turned 68 in January. That's 334 in cat years long enough for one man's accidental invention to become a $2 billion industry. The product's huge profits, however, are matched by a hefty unintended consequence: In the United States alone, pet litters gobble up 5 billion pounds of mined clay each year. Most of that ends up in landfills, quite literally soiled. Here's how the litter industry got this way. When World War II ended, a man named Edward Lowe returned from military duty and went to work for his father in South Bend, Ind. The pair sold bulk shipments of sand, sawdust and clay to heavy industries in the area. According to an archivist named Heidi Connor, who until recently managed Lowe's papers , local companies such as Whirlpool originally used sawdust to soak up oil spills. The risk of fire, however, made clay a preferred replacement. Lowe would ultimately make millions from what happened next. One day in 1947, his father received a sample shipment of a new clay product but he was already loyal to a different brand. "He would have nothing to do with this order of clay, and left it in their storage garage," Connor says. It sat around until one of Ed Lowe's acquaintances, Kaye Draper, asked him if he knew any good absorbents for pet waste. At the time, the pet industry was still young. In 1947, cats were often left to roam outdoors. Pet owners who brought felines inside tended to bring a bit of the outdoors with them. Some owners used ash or soil. Draper filled her cat box with sand. The problem, of course, was that sand releases a fine silica dust and it tends to track paw prints all over the house. So Lowe suggested that she test out the sample material that was sitting in storage. It was made of fuller's earth , which is useful for its positively charged crystal structure. Because positive ions attract water, the clay can absorb large quantities of cat waste while controlling odors. Lowe launched the brand Kitty Litter to harness his surprise finding. At first, he gave out samples at cat shows and farm and garden stores. Eventually, he set up a network of brokers who distributed the product nationally. Competitors including Clorox were quick to launch rival brands. A cat-litter arms race ensued: Lowe expanded his research and development budget to $4 million, in hopes of producing a litter that was highly absorbent, low in odor and light in weight. To this end, he even built a custom research facility with professional litter sniffers, and he began referring to his conference room as the "war room." Of course, every war has its dirty secrets. Hundreds of cat years after Lowe's discovery, clay remains a key raw material for a dizzying array of litter products. The sheer quantity produced each year has a weighty environmental impact. According to the American Pet Products Association, there are 95 million pet cats in America. That's three times the cat population in 1970, which helps explain why huge multinationals have been drawn to the litter market. Pet products are a growing industry, and those millions of cats require a lot of clay. Using statistics from the U.S. Geological Survey , it's possible to figure out exactly how much. In 2012, 2.4 million tons of clay were used to make pet litter. That's enough to fill 180,000 dump trucks. (By comparison, the solid waste output of Rhode Island was just 1.5 million tons in 2012.) The clays that become cat litter are extracted from open-pit mines in 11 states. The portion that becomes cat litter has a short life span: Though extracted as a virgin material, used litter soon ends up back in the ground at the dump. Producers recommend throwing used litter away, because flushing can cause plumbing problems and spread parasites. In principle, clay litter is largely made of dirt, so this shouldn't be especially harmful. But modern litters include chemical scents, clumping agents and anti-dust sprays including PTFE, a plastic better known as Teflon. All those additives end up in the trash, too. There are alternatives to clay-based litters, including products made from newspaper and corn. Some cats don't like them, though, and even litters made from recycled materials get thrown away. With all this in mind, the legacy of Edward Lowe who died in 1995 is a mixed bag. On the one hand, the product he pioneered made indoor cat ownership simpler and cleaner. The rise of commercial cat litters may even explain why indoor cat populations grew so quickly, to the point that felines have overtaken canines as America's most popular pet. At the same time, cat litters made consumers dependent on a supply chain that converts a natural resource into waste. For Lowe, however, cat litter was pay dirt. Once he realized its potential, he devoted his life to refining and marketing it. He sold the company for $200 million in 1990, and it was eventually acquired by Ralston Purina and then Nestlé. "They used to call it a 'tee-hee' industry," former Lowe archivist Connor says. "We're laughing all the way to the bank." Gross is a freelance writer and public radio producer. | 5 | 6,194 | news |
Russell Brand and Diplo's former flame Katy Perry was literally wearing flames during her Super Bowl halftime performance on Sunday, and her exes were digging it. | 8 | 6,195 | video |
After relegating Mike Richards and his enormous contract to the AHL last week, the Kings extended a goodwill gesture by inviting the forward on the team's scheduled trip to the White House to be recognized as 2014 Stanley Cup champions. Bitter, embarrassed or indifferent, Richards rebuffed the offer over the weekend and won't accompany his former teammates to meet with President Obama, according to the Los Angeles Times . MORE: Zamboni driver arrested for DUI "It's a personal decision," Kings center Jarret Stoll said. "That's all I can say." The Kings waived Richards on Jan. 27 in a somewhat surprising move. The former Flyers captain played key roles on the Kings' 2012 and 2014 Stanley Cup teams but had been toiling on the roster amid the worst season of his career, with five goals, 15 points and a minus-7 rating in 47 games. The $29 million still owed to Richards over the next five years also probably had something to do with it . Richards, 29, was scoreless with two shots and a minor penalty in his first game with the AHL's Manchester Monarchs on Saturday. Monarchs defenseman Jeff Schultz, who played 27 games with the Kings last season, accepted his invitation. | 1 | 6,196 | sports |
Will a measles outbreak persuade more parents to vaccinate their children? That's the question people are asking as concern grows about the outbreak linked to Disneyland that has spread to 67 cases across seven states. Some doctors have expressed hope that parents will be more likely to get their children immunized. I hope they're right, but research suggests that the long-term effects of the outbreak could be worse, not better. The social and political conflicts we've seen emerge over the outbreak threaten to polarize the issue along political lines and weaken the social consensus in favor of vaccination. Measles was declared eradicated in the United States in 2000, but vaccination is still crucial to protect against a resurgence due to cases imported from overseas. The Disneyland outbreak, which was probably caused by just one infected person, highlights just how explosively contagious the disease can be. Despite the anxiety that some parents are feeling after the outbreak, it's not clear that even such a vivid reminder of a vaccine-preventable disease will change many people's minds given the resistance we continue to see from hesitant parents. In a previous study, my co-authors and I found that a series of messages used by public health officials to convey the dangers of measles, mumps, and rubella had no effect on parents' intention to vaccinate. Even events as high profile as the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School tend to have only a brief effect on public opinion toward the issue in question as was observed in Washington State, where a recent pertussis outbreak did not change vaccination rates. Moreover, the outbreak has fueled a backlash against the anti-vaccine movement that is likely to be counterproductive. Dr. James Cherry, an infectious disease specialist at U.C.L.A., for instance, labeled parents of unvaccinated children "selfish" and "dumb," while a Los Angeles Times columnist, Michael Hiltzik, called for treating "the anti-vaccination crowd" as "public enemies." If we've learned anything in politics over the last few decades, it's that this kind of language is likely to be polarizing,driving people away rather than persuading them. What's even more dangerous is politicizing the debate over vaccines. Comments by Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey calling for "balance" in the vaccine debate after President Obama said Americans should "get your kids vaccinated" could have a similarly perverse effect, turning a public health issue into a matter of partisan allegiance. The extensive coverage we've seen of the Disneyland outbreak could also confuse parents by exaggerating the size of the anti-vaccination movement and the prevalence of unvaccinated children. I share the concern of many public health officials about rising vaccine exemption levels in some states, patterns of school- and community-level clustering and widespread misinformation about the safety of vaccines. High levels of vaccination are needed to maintain herd immunity. However, news articles focusing on an extreme and unrepresentative group of anti-vaccine parents and celebrities may cause others to wrongly infer that their views are mainstream. Dan Kahan, a professor at Yale Law School, finds that exposure to news media coverage attributing disease outbreaks to declining vaccination rates or to commentary attacking vaccine opponents as "anti-science" causes people to significantly underestimate current rates of vaccination. Research on social norms campaigns has likewise found a risk of boomerang effects if messages inadvertently normalize undesirable behavior like binge drinking. In fact, the social consensus in favor of vaccination is overwhelming. Even after recent increases, for instance, only 3 percent of kindergartners in California had an exemption from vaccination. We should strengthen and reinforce this norm, not create an uproar that calls it into question. A better approach is to work in a more targeted fashion to help health care providers identify at-risk patients and communicate with them more effectively. Likewise, we should support community, business, educational and health groups in areas at greater risk of outbreaks and help them promote the importance of vaccination within their communities. Trusted friends and neighbors can be more effective advocates than government health agencies. Finally, it may be time to reconsider overly lenient state exemption policies that fail to strike an appropriate balance between public health and personal autonomy. The Disneyland outbreak may not change most people's minds about vaccines, but if it causes policy makers to re-evaluate the status quo, this horrible episode might do some good after all. The Upshot provides news, analysis and graphics about politics, policy and everyday life. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our weekly newsletter. | 5 | 6,197 | news |
MILAN (AP) Juventus allowed Sebastian Giovinco to join MLS side Toronto FC early Monday as it re-signed Alessandro Matri on loan. Giovinco was due to link up with his new Canadian club in July, once his Italian contract expired, but Juventus confirmed the five-foot-four forward, known as the Atomic Ant, has ended his time in Turin on the final day of the transfer window. Matri spent two and a half seasons with Juventus, winning two league titles, before he was bought in 2013 by AC Milan, whose manager at the time was current Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri. The 30-year-old Matri is still owned by Milan, but was on loan at Genoa and Juventus came to an agreement with the club to sign him until the end of June. AC Milan has also brought back a former player, with Luca Antonelli joining from Genoa in a permanent deal. Antonelli, who has seven Italy caps, progressed through the ranks at Milan, but made only one senior appearance before signing for Parma in 2008. Antonelli and fellow Italy defender Gabriel Paletta have signed until 2018, taking Milan's number of new players to six. Milan has also signed Alessio Cerci, Suso, Salvatore Bocchetti and Mattia Destro in a busy transfer window for the Italian giant as it bids to turn around its season. Paletta joined from Serie A struggler Parma. The 28-year-old made his Italy debut last year and was part of the Azzurri's disappointing World Cup campaign. Meanwhile, former Italy forward Marco Borriello has left Roma for a third spell at Genoa, this time in a permanent transfer. Borriello spent the 2007/08 season at Genoa in a co-ownership deal with Milan and was the league's third highest goalscorer. He was also the club's top scorer in 2102/13, on loan from Juventus, as he helped Genoa avoid relegation. Borriello has not made an appearance this campaign for Roma, which signed two strikers at the weekend, with the arrival of Seydou Doumbia and Victor Ibarbo. | 1 | 6,198 | sports |
LOS ANGELES (AP) Oprah Winfrey and the director of the Oscar-nominated movie "Selma" are creating a drama series for Winfrey's TV channel. The project from Winfrey and filmmaker Ava DuVernay is inspired by the Natalie Baszile novel "Queen Sugar," the OWN channel said Monday. Winfrey will serve as executive producer and will play a recurring role, the network said. DuVernay will write, direct and executive produce the drama, her first TV series. Former talk show queen Winfrey increased her presence on OWN's non-scripted programs (including "Oprah Presents: Master Class") to help steady the channel after its rocky start. The new drama will mark her acting debut on OWN after several big-screen projects and network TV movies. Winfrey's recent movies include "Lee Daniels' The Butler" and DuVernay's film about the 1965 voting rights campaign led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. "Selma," which earned DuVernay a best-director nod at last month's Golden Globe awards, is nominated for best picture and best song at the Feb. 22 Academy Awards. Production on Winfrey and DuVernay's drama series is scheduled to begin later this year, OWN said. The contemporary series will follow a woman who leaves her affluent Los Angeles life to move with her teenage daughter to an inherited sugar came farm in the South. In a statement, DuVernay said she was "captivated by the idea of a modern woman wrestling with identity, family, culture and the echoes of history." Winfrey, who boosted many an author's fortunes with her talk show's book club, said she loved Baszile's book and "immediately saw it as a series for OWN." A debut date for the series was not announced. | 6 | 6,199 | entertainment |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.