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These doctors are concerned you won't be able to afford the medicines they want to prescribe you. A national group of more than 140,000 physicians on Tuesday joined a coalition dedicated to reversing the growing trend of high-cost specialty drugs, which are being blamed for straining the finances of patients, insurance plans and public health coverage programs. The move by the American College of Physicians came a day after the Obama administration said it is asking Congress to give it power to negotiate with drugmakers over the prices of costly prescription medication provided to Medicare beneficiaries. "The pricing of specialty drugs lacks transparency and rationality," said ACP President David Fleming as he announced that his group of internists, the second-largest physician association in the U.S., was joining the Campaign for Sustainable Rx Pricing . "We're seeing the introduction many patent-protected drugs with monopolistic pricing power that fail to demonstrate a relationship between their price and their value to the health-care system," said Fleming. "Though many of these medications offer great promise, the price tag for health-care clinicians and patients is simply too much to bear." Bob Doherty, ACP's senior vice president of governmental affairs and public policy, said the high price of some prescription drugs is "creating barriers" to patients' needs for treatment. He cited several examples of members of the group who have seen patients with serious conditions, who are unable to afford the medications that their doctors think would work best for them. John Rother, president of the National Coalition on Health Care , which leads the Campaign for Sustainable Rx Pricing, said the high prices of a small group of specialty drugs threaten to "bankrupt" the health-care system. "We need to establish a drug-pricing structure based on value and data-driven evidence and balance between the interests of innovative drug manufacturers and those of society and our health-care system," he said. Rother also said having the ACP join the campaign would help "bring pressure" to change the current pricing situation. The campaign said that specialty prescription medicine prices are "skyrocketing," noting that in 2013 "specialty drugs accounted for less than 1 percent of U.S. prescriptions but for more than 25 percent of prescription spending." The campaign noted predictions by CVS Health (CVS) that specialty drugs, by the end of the decade, "will account for roughly 50 percent of the total drug spend" despite being just 2 to 3 percent of all prescriptions. "There appears to be no end in sight ... to the price increase. And even more troubling is there appears to be no justification for the prices drug companies are charging," Rother said. "Simply put, the prices for these drugs are unsustainable, and every day patients and their doctors are confronting this reality." Concern about rising costs of specialty drugs has been gaining increased attention since the 2013 launch of Sovaldi, a highly successful hepatitis C medication manufactured by Gilead (GILD) that costs an eye-popping $84,000 for a 12-week regimen. Hepatitis C, which is a liver disease, affects more than 3 million Americans. Drug manufacturers argue that they are entitled to recoup the sky-high costs of developing new treatments as well as to make a profit. But the high prices are counteracting a historic slowdown in health-care spending growth, and putting stress on government-run Medicaid and Medicare programs, which cover the poor and elderly, respectively. Those programs are the largest purchasers of health services in the U.S. A Robert Wood Johnson Foundation report issued last week found that "most" of the 4.7 percent growth in health-care spending in the first half of 2014, compared to 3.6 percent in the same period of 2013, "was attributable to a jump in spending on prescription drugs specialty drugs in particular." "As for the fourth quarter [of 2014] spending on prescription drugs continued its rapid growth, on average 11 percent higher for October and November as compared to the same months last year," wrote Katherine Hempstead, the author of that report. On the same day as that report, data released as part of the Truveris National Drug Index found that the prices of brand-name drugs increased by nearly 15 percent in 2014, while the prices of specialty drugs "jumped 9.7 percent." After factoring in a 4.9 percent increase in the price of generic drugs, Americans were paying, on average, 10.9 percent more for prescription medication last year compared to 2013. "Drug costs across all categories are becoming an escalating concern for patients, employers, insurers and lawmakers," said Bryan Birch, chairman, president and CEO of Truveris, which analyzes drug pricing and benefits. "Looking at macro-industry trends, including consolidation, regulation and formulary pressure, we expect this price inflation to continue to put pressure on American households and employers in 2015." But currently, Medicare is barred from negotiating with drugmakers over the prices of medications used by beneficiaries of Medicare Part D, the prescription benefit arm of the program. President Barack Obama , in his budget released Monday, isn't asking for the power to haggle over the price of all drugs, just the ones that are high cost. "We share the president's deep concern about the rapidly rising cost of high-priced specialty drugs and brand-name medications, and we applaud the proposal in the budget that would reduce wasteful spending on prescription medications," said Joe Baker, president of the Medicare Rights Center. "We strongly support proposals to allow the federal government to negotiate prices for breakthrough medicines." However, it remains far from clear whether Obama has any chance of getting his proposal through Congress. Dr. Scott Gottlieb, an American Enterprise Institute scholar and practicing physician, said, "I still think there is a strong political consensus for preserving market-based pricing of life-science innovation in the U.S." While "sentiment can change quickly in Washington ... I don't see this issue going anywhere for the remainder of the Obama term," Gottlieb said. "Nothing passes this year, or next." But he noted that a continued influx of Republicans with more populist backgrounds could alter the political calculus and make it easier to pass drug-price control legislation. The pharmacy industry's trade group blasted Obama's proposal. "The president's budget contains harmful proposals that fundamentally alter the structure of the Medicare Part D program," said John Castellani, president and CEO of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. "Medicare is a wildly successful program, keeping costs low for both beneficiaries and taxpayers through plan competition and negotiation, while also helping hold down other health-care costs by improving adherence to needed medications." Castellani said Obama's proposal "could jeopardize that access" seniors have to medicines "by driving up premiums, reducing choice and restricting coverage." The conservative Heritage Foundation said "government price controls will not improve" the performance of Medicare Part D, whose "competitive market-based approach has proven successful in reducing costs and expanding access" to prescription drugs. | 3 | 6,500 | finance |
As long as customers are made aware of that decision. A senator from North Carolina is totally cool with restaurant employees not washing their hands after they use the restrooms because, capitalism. According to the District Sentinel , Republican senator Thomas Tillis declared at the Bipartisan Policy Center Monday that businesses should be allowed to opt out of washing their hands " as long as customers are made aware of the situation " through "proper disclosure, through advertising...or whatever else." The senator argues that after word spread that employees do not wash their hands, the free market would take care of eliminating the business. Tillis appears to have forgotten the number of people that could be negatively affected by that decision through illnesses before any sort of economics could gain enough power to come into play. Daily Kos points out that to Tillis, making sure that businesses are free "to operate under any conditions they'd like" is more important than public health and safety. A report from the CDC reveals that the "spread of germs from the hands of food workers to food" is the largest cause of food contamination by restaurant workers. Proper hand washing helps reduce the spread of germs from hands to food and from food to other people. It's so important that if inspectors catch employees not washing their hands well, the restaurant could be shut down . | 0 | 6,501 | foodanddrink |
Zoo animals took adorable selfies after cameras were left in their enclosures. Gillian Pensavalle (@GillianWithaG) shows you the photos. | 8 | 6,502 | video |
Lovers of the 1960 classic To Kill a Mockingbird have reason to rejoice. Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishing, announced Tuesday it would publish a "new" novel by Harper Lee. Go Set a Watchman was in fact finished earlier than To Kill a Mockingbird . Though it was completed in the mid-1950s, the novel was only recently rediscovered by Lee's lawyer. "It features the character known as Scout as an adult woman and I thought it a pretty decent effort," Lee, now 88, is quoted as saying in the publisher's press release announcing the new novel. "My editor, who was taken by the flashbacks to Scout's childhood, persuaded me to write a novel from the point of view of the young Scout. I was a first-time writer, so I did as I was told." The resulting novel, featuring a young Scout Finch and set in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, has sold more than 40 million copies and has been read by schoolchildren in classrooms across the country. It received the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1961, and the 1962 film adaptation starring Gregory Peck earned three Academy Awards. The book, considered among the great American classics, has been lauded and in some cases banned for its handling of racial inequality and sexual taboos. But after To Kill a Mockingbird appeared in 1960, Lee never published a second novel. Lee herself had thought her old manuscript for Go Set a Watchman had been lost, but her lawyer, Tonja Carter, discovered it in 2014 attached to a typescript of To Kill a Mockingbird . "I hadn't realized it had survived, so was surprised and delighted when my dear friend and lawyer Tonja Carter discovered it," Lee says. "After much thought and hesitation I shared it with a handful of people I trust and was pleased to hear that they considered it worthy of publication. I am humbled and amazed that this will now be published after all these years." Lee's book will be hitting shelves just as another "new" novel will be published by another revered literary hero, Ayn Rand. In December, New American Library, a branch of the Penguin Books USA, announced that a novel by the late Rand would be published in July. Rand, best known for her philosophical novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged , first wrote Ideal in 1934 but set the novel aside, writing it as a play instead. More than eight decades after she first wrote it, Ideal will be the first Rand novel published in nearly 60 years. Lee's Go Set a Watchman will break the reclusive author's silence when it's released on July 14, 2015. It tells the story of an adult Jean Louise Finch, nicknamed Scout, returning to her childhood hometown to visit her father, Atticus Finch, a lawyer who in To Kill a Mockingbird defends a black man accused of raping a white woman. "I, along with millions of others around the world, always wished that Harper Lee had written another book. And what a brilliant book this is," Michael Morrison, president and publisher of HarperCollins US General Books Group and Canada who negotiated the deal for Lee's second book, says in the press release. Soon after the announcement, Twitter was flooded with reactions and alternate titles for Lee's second novel, the To Kill a Mockingbird sequel readers never thought they'd get. Can we all just take a minute and have a GLOBAL EPIC FREAKOUT over this 2nd Harper Lee novel thing. Ok. Thanks. http://t.co/AcX3h3f7Zh Ryan Brown (@ryanlenorabrown) February 3, 2015 As if being a @HarperCollins author couldn't be any cooler--HARPER LEE!!! @ABBalzer , this is epic! Marcie Colleen (@MarcieColleen1) February 3, 2015 An actual picture of me in my class today when I found out about the new Harper Lee novel. #SoFreakinExcited pic.twitter.com/8y05gKagKW Hailey Cooper (@HaileyCoopah14) February 3, 2015 Harper Lee's new book will be titled "How to Kill a Mockingjay." It's actually Hunger Games fan fiction. Sonny Bunch (@SonnyBunch) February 3, 2015 2 Kill 2 Mockingbirds RT @AP : BREAKING: 'To Kill A Mockingbird' author Harper Lee to publish second novel this summer. Neetzan Zimmerman (@neetzan) February 3, 2015 | 5 | 6,503 | news |
Conrad Hilton, younger brother of Paris Hilton, has been arrested in connection with a violent outburst on an airplane. During a flight from London to Los Angeles last July, Hilton allegedly went crazy and began threatening flight attendants and punching the plane, eventually being restrained and handcuffed in his seat. According to eyewitness accounts reported by TMZ, the 20-year-old hotel heir had a terrifying meltdown on the long flight, allegedly screaming at staff on the plane, "I am going to f------ kill you!" and "I will f------ own anyone on this flight… they are f------ peasants." Other passengers say Hilton punched the bulkhead just inches from one flight attendant's face. Among the other threats Hilton allegedly yelled during his tirade: "I could get you all fired in 5 minutes. I know your boss! My father will pay this out. He has done it before." He allegedly screamed that while grabbing a flight attendant's shirt. When Hilton eventually fell asleep, the captain had crew members restrain him in his seat ahead of the plane's descent. Hilton's attorney, O.J. Simpson lawyer Robert Shapiro, tells TMZ that Hilton took a sleeping pill before his outburst, and suggests that it led to his aggressive behavior. Back in November 2011, Gossip Cop reported that a then-teenaged Hilton crashed into two parked cars in Brentwood, California. He was not injured. | 6 | 6,504 | entertainment |
DENVER Chipotle said Tuesday that its fourth-quarter profit rose 52 percent as customers continued flocking to its restaurants. The Denver-based company said sales surged 16.1 percent at established locations as customer visits grew. For the year, it rose 16.8 percent. The figure is considered an important metric of financial health because it strips out the volatility of newly opened and closed locations. Total revenue rose 27 percent, but analysts expected overall sales to grow even faster in the quarter, and sales slid in extended trading. For many, Chipotle's surging popularity is emblematic of the changing fast-food industry. Its customers like that they can walk down a line and say exactly what they want on their bowls and burritos. That ability to easily assemble orders to taste is in contrast to places like McDonald's or Burger King, where people have to make special requests to hold the ketchup or onions on their burgers. Chipotle also burnishes its image by touting the quality of its ingredients, and its "food with integrity" slogan helps draw a distinction between itself and the junk food reputation of traditional fast-food chains. Last month, for instance, Chipotle said it stopped serving pork at a third of its restaurants after a supplier violated its animal welfare standards. Meanwhile, the shifting expectations around food have hurt McDonald's, which is fighting to hold on to customers. McDonald's remains far bigger with more than 14,000 U.S. locations Chipotle has nearly 1,800 but it's facing competition from a slew of smaller rivals that are touting the quality of their ingredients. McDonald's guest counts at established U.S. restaurants have declined for the past two years. For the quarter, Chipotle earned $3.84 per share. That topped the $3.79 per share analysts expected, according to FactSet. Sales came to $1.07 billion, slightly short of the $1.08 billion analysts forecast, according to FactSet. In 2015, Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. expects sales to increase by a low- to mid-single-digit percentage. The company's stock fell 5.5 percent to $686.83 in after-hours trading. The shares have gained 34 percent over the past 12 months. | 3 | 6,505 | finance |
Behati Prinsloo, Victoria's Secret model and frequent source of hair envy, has added fringe to her already spectacular mane. The model was first spotted with her bangs over the weekend, during an event to celebrate the Super Bowl. The change-up, however, has apparently been a long time coming. "It's something she'd been considering for a while," says Wes Sharpton, hairstylist at Hairstory Studio and the man behind Behati's new 'do. "She wanted something that wasn't going to rob her of options [when styling her hair]. She wanted to add a little more magic to her face." Aside from lending a very on-trend '70s look, this type of wash-and-go fringe makes styling a breeze no more spending a huge chunk of time with a dryer trying to manipulate it into place. "The trick to Behati's bangs is that they're actually a little shorter in the center than they are on the sides, near her face," Sharpton says. He says to dry the center of the bangs first, and then, while the hair is still hot, place your hand over that section and hold it against your head until it's cool. While it's cooling, keep that hand in place and move your dryer back and forth horizontally, so those longer pieces on the sides flip out and wave. "It gives the hair an undone vibe," he says. Before you throw up your arms and claim you can't pull this off, Sharpton insists that just about every girl can. "You just have to consider what your life looks like, what looks good on you, and how [the bangs] are going to fit in," he says. If you're more low-maintenance, or have super-curly hair you like to air-dry, then a wispier style, like Behati's, could be up your alley. If you want to see how your bangs would look without some major blowdry action, ask your stylist to diffuse them before you accept 'em and walk out the door. "Diffusing your bangs doesn't use major heat, so you'll get a better idea of what [they] will look like air-dried," Sharpton says. You can also ask her or him to teach you how to blowdry them yourself. Chances are, if you've been debating fringe for a while, now is the opportune time to finally go ahead and make the snip. But, if you need a little more coercing, we put together a handy-dandy guide to bangs for you. Enjoy! Like this post? There's more. Get tons of beauty tips, tutorials, and news on the Refinery29 Beauty Facebook page! | 4 | 6,506 | lifestyle |
WASHINGTON A Cary, N.C., woman who says she can now afford health insurance was among a group of 10 Americans invited to the White House on Tuesday to stand behind President Barack Obama as he went on the offensive against House Republicans who voted again to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Spurred by opponents' efforts to repeal the law, Darlene Whitted, a 53-year-old customer service representative, wrote the president in December to tell him that there were people like her who wouldn't have health insurance had it not been for his work. Whitted said that when her monthly premiums had risen to over $400, she dropped her insurance in 2012. She lived for a year hoping nothing would happen. She again attained health insurance through the Affordable Care Act the first year it was available. She says she now pays just $22 a month for insurance. "I just wanted to encourage the president to know that there are people out here who appreciate the Affordable Care Act," she said in an interview. Now that Republicans control both chambers of Congress, they have launched a new attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Obama charged lawmakers with playing politics with people's health. Providing health care to U.S. citizens, he said, "is not some political, ideological bet. It's about people." "My understanding is the House of Representatives has scheduled yet another vote today to take health care away from the folks sitting around this table," Obama told reporters Tuesday. "I don't know whether it's the 55th or the 60th time that they are taking this vote. But I've asked this question before: Why is it that this would be at the top of their agenda?" The White House receives more than 40,000 letters, emails and faxes every day. Staff members go through the mail and select 10 letters for the president to read each night. Obama cited those letters in a speech this summer in Kansas City, Mo. "Folks tell me their stories they tell me their worries and their hopes and their hardships, their successes," he said. "Some say I'm doing a good job. But other people say, 'You're an idiot.'" While the House of Representatives has voted more than 50 times to repeal or cut back the health care law, Republican Study Committee Chairman Bill Flores, R-Texas, and Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Ala., who sponsored the legislation to repeal the law, said it's the first time that newly elected lawmakers have a chance to fulfill their campaign promises to try to end the law. "It is an unmistakable reminder that the priorities of America's new Congress are not dictated by special interest groups," they said in a joint op-ed for TownHall.com, a conservative website. "Instead, our priorities flow from conversations going on around kitchen tables across the country." Obama has threatened to veto any legislation that repeals or diminishes the health care law. On Tuesday he encouraged Americans to sign up for health care before the Feb. 15 deadline of open enrollment. Whitted was part of a group of men and women intended to put a face on the benefits of the Affordable Care Act. Several said they might not have been alive if it weren't for the health care law. Whitted is an active member of the Democratic Women of Wake County. She said her family has contributed less than $500 to Obama's campaigns over the years. Whitted said she has no idea why her letter was chosen, but she doesn't mind playing a political role in Obama's offensive against Republicans. She encouraged it. "I'm glad he's fighting," she said. "I would have liked to see him fighting beforehand." | 5 | 6,507 | news |
Take-Two Interactive beat analysts' expectations in the latest fiscal quarter, with profits flat as sales rose by more than $180 million compared to the same quarter last year. The Grand Theft Auto V and NBA 2K15 maker reported a profit of $212 million, or $1.87 per share, on sales of $954 million in the holiday quarter. Wall Street was expecting earnings of $1.52 per share, on revenue of $798 million. Take-Two shares were trading up 6 percent after the bell. With a PC version of GTA V and the multi-platform launch of a new series, Evolve, on the horizon, Take-Two raised its outlook for the current fiscal year, which ends in March, forecasting earnings per share of $1.65 to $1.75 and sales between $1.65 billion and $1.7 billion. The multiplayer shooter game Evolve, which launches next week, was available recently as a free "open beta," which Take-Two said paid off. Videos of people playing the beta generated 3.7 million "unpaid YouTube viewers" and 1.7 million unique viewers on Twitch, the company said on a call with investors. Grand Theft Auto V, which was originally released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2013, got a remastered edition for the latest generation of consoles in November, and to date the company has sold "nearly 10 million" units of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions into stores. Meanwhile, subsidiary 2K Games launched the latest versions of its NBA and WWE sports titles, as well as new titles in the Borderlands (shooter) and Civilization (strategy) franchises. One interesting footnote: Unlike competitor EA, which recently said digital sales are starting to eclipse retail , Take-Two's PC and console-first strategy has made its digital revenue growth more sluggish. Digital, including both full game downloads and microtransactions in games like GTA, represented 22 percent of total revenue in the latest quarter, versus 17 percent in the same quarter one year before. | 3 | 6,508 | finance |
Trace Gallagher reports | 8 | 6,509 | video |
Risking funding for the Department of Homeland Security in a spat over immigration "makes absolutely no sense," President Obama said Tuesday in a meeting with his Cabinet. "The Department of Homeland Security contains numerous agencies that every single day are keeping the American people safe. They need certainty in order to do their jobs," Obama said. "The notion that we would risk the effectiveness of the department that is charged with preventing terrorism and patrolling our borders, making sure the American people are safe, makes absolutely no sense." Obama's comments on Tuesday follow a string of warnings from the White House, which is looking to ratchet up pressure on congressional Republicans to pass a funding bill. Republicans passed a short-term extension of DHS funding late last year in hopes they could use the threat of a shutdown as leverage to force Obama to roll back his executive actions offering deportation relief and work permits to as many as 5 million illegal immigrants. But Senate Republicans failed in a Tuesday vote to advance the House plan which Obama has already threatened to veto leaving GOP leaders scrambling to find alternative riders they could include that might satisfy the far right while also drawing Democratic support. Earlier Tuesday, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Senate Democrats who had expressed opposition to the president's plan were being tested on whether they were "all talk." He also said Republican leaders on that side of the aisle needed to rally votes. "The fight must be won in the United States Senate," Boehner said. "It's time for Senator [Ted] Cruz [(R-Texas)] and Senator [Jeff] Sessions [(R-Ala.)] and Senate Republicans and Senate Democrats to stand with the American people and to block the president's actions." | 5 | 6,510 | news |
A vendor who struck out in a food fight with the Mets over selling kosher hotdogs at Citi Field is taking another swing with a lawsuit alleging the ballpark reneged on a deal with him to sell kosher Italian ices. Jonathan Katz, of KJD Inc. in New Jersey, is stepping up to the plate in Brooklyn Federal Court claiming he had an agreement with Citi Field officials to peddle ices from portable carts over a 10-year period. But the deal fell through "without explanation" right before Opening Day 2009, KJD's lawyer Jason Cyrulnik told the Daily News. Instead, Citi Field went with another vendor, which distributed kosher flavored ices from stands operated by the ballpark's chief concessionaire Aramark, according to the suit filed Tuesday. Katz's previous beef arose after the Mets' management reconsidered the wisdom of selling kosher hot dogs and hamburgers on the Jewish Sabbath because observant Jews are not supposed to cook on Friday night or Saturday which are game days that also draw a large number of fans. Brooklyn Federal Judge Jack Weinstein tossed out that suit in 2012 after finding that Katz's Kosher Sports Inc. did not have a contract to sell its products at all events. Cyrulnik insisted that the latest suit is a straight breach of contract dispute and does not have anything to do with the hot dog case. The ices contain certified kosher ingredients and are scooped out of a tub. Citi Field offered Katz lemonade stands as a consolation prize after losing out on the ices concession, but that deal turned sour, too, after the vendor refused to release the ballpark from its alleged obligations under the Italian ices deal. There was no immediate comment from the Mets organization. Katz is seeking monetary damages on lost profits he estimates to be more than $5 million. [email protected] | 5 | 6,511 | news |
Rule No. 1 of recruiting: don't make promises you can't keep. Are you listening, Baylor? During a recruiting event on the school's Waco campus, there was a poster displaying attractions supposedly coming to town soon, including Pappadeaux, In-N-Out Burger, Whole Foods and Omni Hotels kids these days only like the finest lodging, OK? MORE: Seven reasons to hate Signing Day | Trevor Knight responds to Katy Perry | 10 greatest Baylor players Baylor recruiting poster (Waco Tribune) The problem? Baylor apparently stretched the truth as a way to sway recruits to attend its school. An image of the board spread on social media causing mass excitement about these new businesses around town, but the majority had not announced plans to build in Waco. In fact, a Pappas Restaurant Group spokesperson told the Waco Tribune outright that they were not building any locations in the area. Baylor Associate Athletics Director Nick Joos thinks the board was just speculation by the athletics marketing department. "Everything Waco is important to Baylor, especially when you're recruiting 18- to 22-year-olds," Joos said. "There's been a lot of drawings about the kind of town Waco could look like that's been a part of the sales pitch in the past, and I think some of the potential of what people have as visions for the development of downtown as well, things others use when they're trying to pitch businesses to come to Waco." To be fair, I probably would have attended a university if it was promising In-N-Out Burger. | 1 | 6,512 | sports |
A young viewer gets the surprise of his life when he dances with his idol live on our stage. | 8 | 6,513 | video |
An ethnic Serb Kosovo minister was sacked on Tuesday, the day before another protest over a statement that insulted the ethnic Albanian majority and sparked a wave of protests. "From today on minister (Aleksandar) Jablanovic is not a part of the Kosovo government," Prime Minister Isa Mustafa told reporters, without taking questions or saying whether the Serb minister had quit or was dismissed. Jablanovic told a local TV channel in Pristina: "I do not agree with the decision of the Prime Minister Isa Mustafa. I did not want to resign." In Belgrade, a top Serbian government official in charge with Kosovo, Marko Djuric, said "Mustafa's unilateral decision to sack Jablanovic... was deeply wrong." His departure is aimed at defusing the outrage sparked a month ago when Jablanovic called a group of ethnic Albanians "savages" for trying to prevent Serb pilgrims from visiting a monastery in western Kosovo at the Orthodox Christmas. The ethnic Albanians had claimed the pilgrim group included "war criminals". Jablanovic later publicly apologised for his comments but continued to be the target of protests across the breakaway Serbian territory. Thousands of protesters demanding his dismissal have taken to the capital's streets on two occasions. The nationalist opposition Self-Determination movement has called another "mass protest," for Wednesday. Last week's demonstration turned violent. Police used tear gas and water cannon to disperse stone-throwing protesters who attempted to penetrate government buildings. At least 80 people were injured, including 56 police officers, while over a hundred protesters were arrested. Some 120,000 ethnic Serbs live in Kosovo, 90 percent of whose 1.8 million people are ethnic Albanians. Mustafa included three Serb ministers in his 21-member cabinet in a bid to improve relations with Kosovo's largest minority group, as well as with Serbia, which does not recognise the territory's independence declared unilaterally in 2008. | 5 | 6,514 | news |
"Suge" Knight pleads not guilty to murder stemming from a fatal hit-and-run incident, then is hospitalized for an unspecified condition. Nathan Frandino reports. | 6 | 6,515 | entertainment |
SAO PAULO (AP) IndyCar is not considering returning to Brazil this year after local organizers surprisingly canceled the series' season opener citing financial difficulties. As Brazilian promoters began refunding tickets for the event originally scheduled for Brasilia on March 8, IndyCar's governing body said Tuesday it wasn't looking for another race in the country. ''There are no plans to race in Brazil at this point in time,'' IndyCar said in a statement sent to The Associated Press. IndyCar had already announced Monday it will not replace the Brasilia race with another event that weekend, but local organizers had been looking for options to keep Brazil on the calendar. There were reports about possibly racing in the neighboring city of Goiania, which recently renovated its track. Despite dismissing current plans to race in Brazil, the series acknowledged that a member of its track operations visited the Goiania facility after the cancellation of the Brasilia event. IndyCar also said that ''representatives from Brazil'' were in Indianapolis on Tuesday to discuss the cancellation of the Brasilia race, but it did not elaborate. The surprise decision not to race in Brasilia came as a huge disappointment for IndyCar, which won't be able to start its season until March 29 in St. Petersburg, Florida. IndyCar said it was ''economically protected'' from the hasty cancellation by the local government in Brasilia, which is in the midst of a serious financial crisis. The race had already generated costs both for Brazilian organizers and the series. ''IndyCar and its partners shipped several containers including tires, tire mounting equipment and fuel prior to cancellation of the event,'' the series said. ''This equipment will be arriving in Brazil this week before being re-routed back to the U.S.'' The local government in Brasilia acknowledged there was a $27 million fine for a breach of contract, but said it was valid only for the contract between IndyCar and promoter Band TV. In its statement announcing the refund of the nearly 15,000 tickets already purchased for the race, Band TV reiterated Tuesday that the local government was the sole responsible for the event's cancellation. It also said it was taking legal measures to avoid losses. IndyCar also had to deal with a race cancellation in 2012, when an event in China had to be scrapped from the calendar midway through the season. --- Follow Tales Azzoni at http://twitter.com/tazzoni | 1 | 6,516 | sports |
Michael Keaton has already delivered a few memorable speeches during this award season, and when he told reporters his special formula for the perfect speech, he came back to a few key elements, including his family and the fact that he is so grateful. It's heartwarming to see Keaton describe his feelings during his comeback, so check out the full interview from the Oscar Nominees Luncheon now. | 8 | 6,517 | video |
The story lines change by the minute when it comes to recruiting, but here are five to keep an eye on when Wednesday rolls around: USC, Florida: Roller-coaster ride Emotions will run wild, we're just not ready to say which emotions. But USC and Florida coaches will be on the edge of their swivel office chairs. The Trojans have the clearer route to a happy day. Five-star prospects Iman Marshall and Rasheem Green are expected to come aboard, as is 4-star John Houston. Florida's situation is a more up in the air. Auburn with its new star assistant coach Will Muschamp have the ear of five-star prospects Martez Ivey and Byron Cowart. And Ole Miss would love to once again (see Laremy Tunsil) swoop in and snag a Florida talent like CeCe Jefferson. Along with those 5-star prospects, the Gators have their eye on additional 4-star targets and have the room to add a boatload of last-second talent. HAYES: Time for USC to turn elite recruits into championships | Muschamp effect The Big Ten splash We all know something good is ahead for Michigan after hiring Jim Harbaugh. Look for some action in Ann Arbor possibly a surprise steal or two on Signing Day. Since winning the national championship, Ohio State has been the talk of recruiting. Urban Meyer is chasing down talent, even if it's committed elsewhere. Meyer and Harbaugh are going to spice up this league and quickly erase that silly notion that the Big Ten can't keep pace. The Big Ten will have plenty to brag about at the end of Wednesday. MORE: Tracking the 25 best uncommitted prospects | 5-star QB rankings since 2005 It's not over yet Remember, this isn't really a "signing day" it's simply the first day of a national signing period that goes on for months. Kids rarely wait it out though because college coaches want their classes wrapped up Wednesday. Coaches will put the pressure on recruits to sign the first day available. Still, a few kids will extend the signing period and even take a few more official visits that's permitted by the NCAA. So sit tight, there still could be more to come after Wednesday. MORE: Top recruiters | Top 25 players | Announcement schedule Something weird A recruit will pull a rabbit out of a hat. Or a puppy. Or a baby gator. Who knows? There's always somebody who announces his decision in a non-traditional way. Who will it be on Wednesday? BENDER: Seven reasons to hate National Signing Day | Looking back at 2011's Top 10 Alabama ... again The Crimson Tide will be pushed to the limit Wednesday, but look for Alabama to win its fifth straight mythical national recruiting title (according to the 247Sports composite ranking). It'll be the Tide's seventh title in eight years, with only 2010 (Florida) standing in the way of eight consecutive. Alabama's day might be quiet compared to USC, Florida, UCLA or Auburn, but at the end of the day, Bama fans will be smiling. BRADLEY: Why Alabama isn't going away recruiting Brian McLaughlin is a Sporting News contributor. Follow him on Twitter: @BrianMacWriter | 1 | 6,518 | sports |
Spears shows off her new undies line | 8 | 6,519 | video |
The U.S. economy stands to gain $10 trillion by 2050 if American children's math and science test scores improve to match those from Canada, according to a study issued this week by the Washington Center for Equitable Growth . The study is based on math and science test scores from the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment exam, which tested the academic ability of 15-year-old students around the world. Among the 34 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development that took the 2012 PISA exam , America's scores rank 24th. South Korea, Japan, Finland, Estonia and Switzerland round out the top five, while Canada ranks 7th. The study largely attributes the gap between the U.S. and its northern neighbor to a growing education gap within the U.S. itself. "In general, there are large gaps in the educational outcomes among children from families with lower and higher socioeconomic status," Robert Lynch, Washington College economics professor and visiting fellow at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, said in the report. "These gaps contribute to subsequent economic inequality, with the relatively poor performance of children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds reducing U.S. economic growth. Thus, closing income or class-based educational gaps would promote faster and more widely shared economic growth." The study cites historical data from the U.S. Census Bureau suggesting the bottom 10 percent of American households only saw mean household incomes increase by about 15 percent between 1967 and 2013, with respect to inflation. The top 10 percent, meanwhile, saw mean household incomes increase 59 percent over the same period. Investments in education are one proposed solution to closing this gap. The authors of the study reason a more educated youth population will develop more desirable skill sets for the working world and ultimately foster a more skilled labor force. "The theoretical basis for the relationship between additional schooling and economic growth is straightforward," Lynch writes in the report. "Educational attainment increases human capital, resulting in the enhanced productivity of a nation's workforce, increases the rate of technological innovation, and facilitates the diffusion and adoption of new production techniques, all of which help boost economic growth." By just improving American children's average PISA test score to meet the average score of all 34 OECD member nations, the study estimates the U.S. would expand its GDP $2.5 trillion by 2050 1.7 percent higher than it would be without such an improvement. That would in turn translate to an increased $902 billion in government revenues. By 2075, the U.S. economy would be worth $14 trillion more than if the status quo remains unchanged, netting the government an additional $5.2 trillion, according to the report. If U.S. children matched Canada's average science and math scores, U.S. GDP would balloon an extra $10 trillion by 2050 and $57.4 trillion by 2075, bringing increased government revenues of $3.6 trillion and $21.5 trillion, respectively. And if the U.S. improved its test scores to match the average academic performance of its top 25 percent most advantaged students thereby eliminating a now sizable socioeconomic education gap the U.S. economy would gain an extra $14.7 trillion by 2050 and $86.5 trillion by 2075. The government would rake in an additional $5.3 trillion by 2050 and $32.4 trillion by 2075. "If investments were made that raised U.S. math and science scores up to the OECD average, then the U.S. would experience $72 billion more in GDP growth each and every year for the next 35 years," according to the report . "Thus, we should be willing to invest up to $72 billion per year for the next 35 years to raise U.S. achievement scores up to the OECD average." According to the U.S. News/Raytheon STEM Index , U.S. results on the PISA exam improved steadily from 2006 to 2009, but have since been on the decline and now are just slightly lower than they were in 2000, the base year for the Index. The report from the Washington Center for Equitable Growth notes that investments made in early stages of a child's education pay back the biggest dividends in terms of development. President Barack Obama's 2016 federal budget proposal released Monday outlines an $80 billion child care overhaul plan that sets aside $750 million to provide preschool access to four-year-olds from low- and moderate-income households. National Head Start programs' funding also increased by $1.5 billion in the proposed budget. But perhaps the most widely-discussed tenet of the president's proposal is the free community college program that will cost the government an estimated $60 billion over the next 10 years. Though the president's budget does allot sizable funds to education and child development services, it has been largely criticized by several members of the GOP-controlled Congress. It is generally considered highly unlikely the document will pass through Congress in its entirety. Copyright 2015 U.S. News & World Report | 3 | 6,520 | finance |
J M Smucker Co (SJM.N), the maker of Folgers coffee, said it would buy pet food maker Big Heart Pet Brands, known for brands such as Meow Mix and Milk-Bone, for $3.2 billion to enter the pet food market. Smucker said it would offer about 17.9 million shares to Big Heart's shareholders and pay $1.3 billion in cash. Big Heart, formerly Del Monte Corp, changed its name following the sale of its fruit, vegetable, and other consumer foods business in February last year. San Francisco-based Big Heart is jointly owned by private equity firms Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co LP, Vestar Capital Partners, Centerview Capital and AlpInvest Partners Inc. Smucker said it would assume about $2.6 billion of net debt of Big Heart, bringing the total deal value to about $5.8 billion. Smucker said it expects to incur about $225 million in one-time costs related to the transaction. The transaction is expected to close by April. (Reporting by Amrutha Gayathri in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty) | 3 | 6,521 | finance |
With pro-Russians and ex-Communists in the cabinet, Greece's new hard-left government has sparked concerns of a strategic shift towards Moscow -- but Athens has its eyes firmly on Europe, experts say. The main governing Syriza party no longer advocates Greece leaving NATO, but Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias has highlighted the country's historic ties with Russia and condemned the EU's "spasmodic" approach to Moscow. Defence Minister Panos Kammenos, leader of the nationalist junior coalition partners Independent Greeks, makes no secret of his belief that Russia is Greece's natural ally and visited Moscow only a few weeks ago. So when the government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, a former Communist, last week protested against an EU statement threatening further sanctions against Russia over Ukraine, many saw the influence of the Kremlin. But Tsipras has sought to calm speculation over a shift towards Moscow, just as he has moved to ease tensions with Greece's international creditors. Visiting Cyprus on Monday, he repeated his desire to help form a "bridge" between Europe and Russia -- but dismissed any speculation that his government might turn to Moscow for financial aid. Constantinos Filis, research director at the Institute of International Relations in Athens, said he did not anticipate any strategic change in Russia's direction. "Greece will change its rhetoric, try to improve its ties and try to ask for a more balanced Western policy towards Russia. But I do not see any U-turn in the coming weeks and months," he told AFP. Fyodor Lukyanov, the Kremlin-linked chairman of the Moscow-based Council on Foreign and Defence Policy, said Greece was focusing all its attention on negotiating a way out of its painful bailout programme. "Whatever their sympathies with some people here, Tsipras will try to position himself as a responsible Greek leader which will mean solving problems and not creating new ones," Lukyanov told AFP. - Syriza-Russia ties - Syriza's victory in January 25 elections sparked fears of fresh turmoil in the eurozone, but when Russia's ambassador to Athens became the first envoy to meet Tsipras, alarm bells also rang over the foreign policy implications. Tsipras visited Moscow to meet Russian officials in May 2014, two months after Russia annexed Crimea, and spoke against the eastward expansion of the NATO military alliance. Kotzias has also been photographed with Russian nationalist Alexander Dugin, an anti-western writer accused of strong fascist views who is said to be the go-between of Moscow and Europe's radical parties. The Financial Times reported the two men had met several times in Moscow and that Kotzias invited Dugin to lecture at the University of Piraeus in 2013. Kotzias condemned the FT report as "groundless", while a spokeswoman for Dugin refused to comment, telling AFP that he speaks to foreign media "only for a fee." Daniela Schwarzer, Europe programme director of the German Marshall Fund think tank, said Russia had been trying to extend its influence in southeast Europe through "propaganda, party financing and Moscow-paid NGOs". Greece and Russia have cultural and historical ties, including through the Orthodox Church, although Tsipras showed his secular instincts by taking a civil rather than a religious oath of office. - Courting EU allies - Analysts say Greece's objection to the EU statement on Russian sanctions was mainly a way of making its voice heard -- Athens protested that it had not been consulted beforehand. They also note that its perceived closeness to Russia is a useful bargaining chip in Greece's economic negotiations. Greece claimed credit for watering down EU threats against Russia at a ministerial meeting in Brussels last week, but Filis does not expect a Greek veto at the EU summit on February 12. "The Greek government will not risk isolating itself from the rest of Europe for the sake of Russia," he said. US President Barack Obama's surprise support for Greece's anti-austerity cause last weekend may also encourage Athens to toe the line. Theodore Couloumbis, professor emeritus of international relations at Athens University, said the new government had so far shown that its priority was courting European allies. The Russian ambassador on Tuesday invited defence minister Kammenos to Moscow in the near future, but Tsipras and his finance minister were this week visiting Paris, London, Rome and Brussels. "If you look at the body language, the visits and the contacts of the Greek government -- to where are they going? To other EU countries," Couloumbis said. | 5 | 6,522 | news |
The Islamic State group called for fresh attacks against France in a video released Tuesday, nearly a month after a deadly Islamist assault on a Paris magazine shocked the world. In the video, an unidentified, masked jihadist is seen surrounded by militants calling on French Muslims to quit their country for IS' self-proclaimed "caliphate", which covers parts of Iraq and Syria. In the video, which was widely shared on Twitter and jihadist forums by IS supporters, the masked fighter calls for more killings in France. He asks supporters to attack police and military targets, as well as those who participated in mass protests last month to condemn the killing of 12 people at the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on January 7. The attack was claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, but has attracted praise from jihadist groups elsewhere. The fighter in the video also demanded that France release Islamist detainees and allow them to leave the country. Three soldiers were wounded in the French city of Nice on Tuesday by a knife-wielding assailant, leaving two injured, a police source said. In September, France joined the US-led coalition carrying out air strikes against IS militants in Iraq, but it has not joined the United States in its aerial campaign against the jihadists in Syria. | 5 | 6,523 | news |
Four major national retailers Walmart, Target, GNC, and Walgreens have been accused by The New York State attorney general's office of selling "fraudulent and potentially dangerous" store-brand herbal supplements, reports The New York Times . Quality tests conducted on these store-brand supplements found that four out of five store products did not actually contain the herbs on their labels, and instead often contained cheap fillers like powdered rice, houseplants, and "substances that could be dangerous to those with allergies." As the investigation specifically targeted nationwide store brands, the findings indicate that the deceit goes far beyond New York. At Walmart, for example, a supplement sold as the Chinese herb ginkgo biloba, which is thought to enhance memory, "contained little more than powdered radish, houseplants, and wheat despite a claim on the label that the product was wheat- and gluten-free." At Target, three out of six products did not contain the herbs on their label ginkgo biloba, St. John's wort, and valerian root but did contain powdered rice, peas, and carrots. Many medical and health professionals have long rallied for a more stringent process of quality control regarding dietary and herbal supplements, which are currently exempt from the regulatory process of prescription drugs. The New York State attorney general has ordered all four retailers to remove all fraudulent products from store shelves, and submit detailed explanations of each company's quality control process. "Mislabeling, contamination and false advertising are illegal," said Eric T. Schneiderman, the state attorney general. "They also pose unacceptable risks to New York families especially those with allergies to hidden ingredients." Creighton R. Magid, a partner at the international law firm Dorsey & Whitney, commended the state attorney general for efficiently discrediting the supplements, even without FDA monitoring. "Attorney General Schneiderman is taking aim at these herbal supplements not by attacking their efficacy or health risk, which would be more difficult to prove, but by alleging false labeling something that can presumably be proved with a lab test to establish the actual ingredients," said Magid. "Unless the manufacturers or retailers can show that the ingredients of these products are as shown on the labels and not merely powdered versions of a junior high lunch these products will probably start disappearing from store shelves rather quickly." | 7 | 6,524 | health |
HURST, Texas -- The shock of getting traded has worn off for new Texas Rangers right-hander Anthony Ranaudo. Now Ranaudo, who was acquired last week from Boston for Robbie Ross Jr., is going about the business of trying to make a favorable impression with his new employers. Ranaudo was one of several Texas players working out at Hurst L.D. Bell High School Tuesday. He threw for new pitching coach Mike Maddux Monday and is taking the new few days in the Metroplex to get to know his new teammates. The Rangers already know something about Ranaudo. They drafted him out of high school in 2007 but he ended up signing with LSU. Ranaudo was a first-round pick for Boston in 2010 and the 25-year-old made his major-league debut last year with the Red Sox. He went 4-3 in seven starts with a 4.81 ERA. The numbers weren't what Ranaudo had hoped for but at least he has an idea of what to expect if he makes it past the competition for the No. 5 starting spot in the Texas rotation. "I know it was only seven starts and maybe 40 innings, but just learning the game, learning the strike zone, learning the hitters, learning some of their approaches," he said. "I think those are some of the biggest things I took away. Obviously it wasn't an extended period of time but I was familiar with the strike zone, learning what is a major league strike and the difference in what's a quality strike and just throwing a strike. I think those are the big things I take away and those are probably the things I'll take to spring training with me." He allowed 10 homers in 39 1/3 innings for the Red Sox, one more than he allowed in nearly 140 innings of Triple-A work. He thinks that had a lot to do with his work load and the fact that there's a difference between throwing a strike and a quality strike, especially to major-league hitters. Ranaudo has three pitches he's comfortable with, a four-seam fastball, a curve and a changeup. He thought his changeup got better with Boston because he had to throw it more because the fatigue made his curveball less effective. He's also spent the offseason working on his slider. Ranaudo is now in the mix for the No. 5 spot along with the likes of Ross Detwiler, Nick Tepesch and Nick Martinez. While winning a job out of spring in a top priority, he knows he can only control so much. "If my name's in that discussion then that's great," he said. "Being new to an organization and not being familiar might work to my advantage where I'm not worried about pecking order and stuff like that. Obviously there are pretty established guys in the rotation. I know there are opportunities and if I take care of the stuff I can take care of I might be in a position for that and if that works out that's great. I'm just trying to take the approach of new organization trying to make a good impression and show them what I'm capable of and going out there and competing." Briefly • The Rangers have moved up the sale of individual tickets for the season to Feb. 27. The sale begins at 8 a.m. and is for all games but Opening Day. • The Rangers have invited left-hander Martire Garcia to big-league camp as a non-roster player. Garcia pitched for Class A Myrtle Beach, Double-A Frisco and Triple-A Round Rock last season. He posted an ERA of 2.59 in his 23 games. • The spring training broadcast schedule will include 15 radio broadcasts on 105.3 FM (The Fan) as well as four on FOX Sports Southwest. The first FSSW game is the March 21 game in San Antonio against the Los Angeles Dodgers. MORE FROM FOX SPORTS SOUTHWEST: - Highest paid coaches in college football - Ranking NFL quarterback salaries - Oldest player on every NBA team - Famous Dallas Cowboys fans | 1 | 6,525 | sports |
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) For North Carolina's newest senator, having employees wash their hands is an issue the free market should decide. Speaking at an event at the Bipartisan Policy Center on Monday, Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, was discussing regulatory policy when he told the story of when he was a state legislator. Tillis said when he was having coffee, a constituent asked if he believed it was important to have employees to wash their hands before handling food. But Tillis said it actually illustrated his point. "I don't have any problem with Starbucks if they choose to opt out of this policy as long as they post a sign that says we don't require our employees to wash their hands after leaving the restroom," he said. "The market will take care of that." While likely meant to be humorous, the comments come at a time when Republican politicians have come under scrutiny for their views on public health. In light of the recent measles outbreak in certain states, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a possible Republican candidate for president, said while his children are vaccinated, it was important to give parents an amount of choice. Meanwhile, Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky and also a possible presidential candidate, told CNBC it was "a matter of freedom" for parents to decide whether their kids should be vaccinated. But President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, considered to be the Democratic frontrunner for 2016, both said vaccination was important. | 3 | 6,526 | finance |
Walt Disney Co's (DIS.N) quarterly revenue rose 8.8 percent, helped by an increase in visitors to its theme parks in the holiday quarter and higher sales of toys and merchandise based on its hit movie "Frozen". Net income attributable to Walt Disney rose to $2.18 billion, or $1.27 per share, in first quarter ended Dec. 27, from $1.84 billion, or $1.03 per share, a year earlier. Revenue rose to $13.4 billion from $12.3 billion. (Reporting By Lehar Maan in Bengaluru and Lisa Richwine in New York; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty) | 3 | 6,527 | finance |
To the ladies of the Miss Amazon pageant: why is everybody stressing about this thing? I mean, it's just plastic. | 8 | 6,528 | video |
Manchester United saw off Cambridge United 3-0 in their FA Cup fourth round replay at Old Trafford on Tuesday, in a game that was about as comfortable as had been anticipated. Goals from Juan Mata , Marcos Rojo and James Wilson set up a meeting away at Preston North End in the next round. The game kicked off 20 minutes late courtesy of traffic problems, though when it did get underway, United's defence was still nowhere to be seen. A lousy giveaway in midfield allowed Cambridge striker Tom Elliott to charge straight through one-on-one with David de Gea, though fortunately he slipped and scuffed his shot against the post. It was an ominously bad start from United, who followed it up with a few minutes of Moyesian crossing tactics without much success.However, eventually one did pay off. After 25 minutes Ángel Di María's ball from the left found Marouane Fellaini at the back post, with the Belgian nodding down for Juan Mata to tap in from point-blank range. As is so often the case, the opening goal allowed United to look considerably more relaxed on the ball, and just over five minutes later it was 2-0. A brilliantly inventive dink from Robin van Persie in a crowded penalty area was glanced home by TBB's new favourite Marcos Rojo, who netted his first goal since arriving from Sporting Lisbon in the summer. The second half started with United still looking dangerous. Within minutes of the restart van Persie looped the impressive Paddy McNair's cross wide from inside the box; shortly before Wayne Rooney stung the palms of Cambridge keeper Chris Dunn. An even better save soon followed, with van Persie's spinning effort on Di María's long ball parried to safety. But, eventually the third and final goal did come, with substitute James Wilson lashing it into the far post with a fine strike from the edge of the box inside the final 20 minutes. | 1 | 6,529 | sports |
Roughly one in three people who took an online survey would prefer to risk an earlier death rather than take a pill every day to prevent heart disease. About one in five would be willing to pay at least $1,000 to avoid taking a pill every day for the rest of their lives. The study "reinforces the idea that many people do not like taking pills, for whatever reason," said Dr. Robert Hutchins of the University of California, San Francisco. "Most physicians I know are very well aware of that, however, so it reiterates that we should be having discussions with patients about what their priorities are, and if they value the extended life they might get from taking a pill more than the effect on their quality of life for having to take that pill every day for the rest of their life," Hutchins added, in email to Reuters Health. Hutchins and his colleagues designed the survey to find out, hypothetically, how much time at the end of their lives people would be willing to give up just to avoid taking preventive medications every day. They also asked how much people would pay to avoid having to take pills, and how much of a risk of death they'd accept to avoid taking drugs to prevent cardiovascular disease. The pills would be free, and participants were told to ignore potential side effects. A thousand people mostly women and of an average age of 50 completed the online survey, the researchers reported in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. In "real life," four out of five were taking daily medication, with 54 percent taking at least three pills a day. Overall, about 70 percent said they wouldn't trade any weeks of their lives to avoid taking a pill every day. But more than 8 percent were willing to trade up to two years of life to avoid taking pills every day. And roughly 21 percent would trade between one week and a year. About 13 percent would accept a small risk of death to avoid taking a pill every day, and 9 percent would risk a 10 percent chance. About 62 percent weren't willing to gamble any risk of immediate death. On average, respondents said they'd pay $1,445 to avoid taking a pill each day for the rest of their lives - but 41 percent said they wouldn't pay any amount. Hutchins thinks the findings are useful to biotech researchers who are developing new ways to administer medicines. "What if we can deliver medication like aspirin and statins without someone having to take a pill? It would almost certainly increase compliance while also improving that person's quality of life by removing the hassle of having to take a pill daily," Hutchins said. Dr. Mario Garcia, chief of the Division of Cardiology and co-director of the Montefiore-Einstein Center for Heart and Vascular Care in New York was concerned that study participants might not accurately reflect the general population. Still, Garcia was impressed that such a large number of people would be willing to take medication every day. "There were almost 70 percent of people who would take a pill a day even to live one week longer, and that's remarkable," he said. But on the other hand, Garcia said, people often don't like to pay for medications. "Clearly people will be compliant if they don't have any side effects," he said, "On the other hand, they probably wouldn't be willing to pay out-of-pocket too much. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/XaY6j7 Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, online February 3, 2015. | 7 | 6,530 | health |
Bayern Munich dropped points for a second successive Bundesliga game after Benedikt Howedes' late goal saw Schalke come away from the Allianz Arena with a 1-1 draw. The German champion played with 10 men for 73 minutes following Jerome Boateng's sending off in the first half and the visitor's numerical advantage ultimately showed. Bayern came into Tuesday's meeting smarting from a 4-1 thrashing at the hands of Wolfsburg last time out, and it looked as though it would face another struggle when Boateng was sent off for a foul on Sidney Sam in the box inside the opening 20 minutes. But Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting, who has 10 goals in all competitions this season, saw his weak effort saved by Manuel Neuer. It seemed the visitor would be left to rue that missed opportunity when Arjen Robben headed in Xabi Alonso's corner midway through the second half, but Howedes produced a similar finish from Sam's set piece in the 72nd minute to earn his team a share of the spoils. Despite dropping points for the second time in a row, Bayern maintain its eight-point advantage at the top of the Bundesliga thanks to Wolfsburg's 1-1 draw at Eintracht Frankfurt. The Bavarians - who made three changes from the defeat to Wolfsburg - dominated possession in typical fashion in the opening exchanges, but it was Schalke which wasted a golden opportunity to go ahead in the 18th minute. Boateng clumsily brought down Sam inside the area and was shown a straight red card, but Choupo-Moting's tame spot-kick was easily saved. Neuer was called into action again a minute later, parrying Sam's powerful drive from the edge of the box. Schalke emerged for the second half with a different goalkeeper, as 19-year-old Timon Wellenreuther made his first senior appearance after Fabian Giefer was unable to continue because of a hamstring injury. The young keeper was tested 12 minutes after the interval, beating away a shot from Robben, who made space for himself with a darting run. Wellenreuther was beaten 10 minutes later, though, as Bayern substitute Robert Lewandowski prodded a pass back into play from close to the byline, and the ball took a deflection off a defender before squeezing in at the near post. However, much to the ire of Pep Guardiola, who ran down the touchline to remonstrate with the linesman, the officials decided the ball had gone out before Lewandowski's intervention. But Bayern was not to be denied for long as, from the resulting corner, Robben headed in Alonso's cross via a slight deflection. Yet its lead lasted just five minutes as Howedes rose highest to glance in Sam's corner and level matters, ensuring Bayern's wait for a win following the midseason break goes on. | 1 | 6,531 | sports |
PHOENIX (AP) A former child star on the 1990s sitcom "Moesha" was arrested in Arizona on Super Bowl Sunday on suspicion of drunken driving and possession of marijuana, authorities said Tuesday. Marcus Paulk, 28, was pulled over early in the morning in Scottsdale after driving "dangerously close" to a fire truck and two police cars stopped on the side of the road with their emergency lights flashing, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office said. He smelled of alcohol and had a bag of marijuana in his pocket, the arresting deputy reported. Paulk is best known for his role on the UPN family comedy "Moesha," which ran from 1996 to 2001 and featured pop star Brandy. It's unclear if he was in the Phoenix area for Super Bowl festivities, where several celebrities made appearances. Paulk, who lives in Woodland Hills, California, told the deputy he smoked pot earlier in the day and drank Hennessy cognac before driving, authorities said. His blood-alcohol content registered at 0.109 percent. The legal limit is 0.08. A judge set bail at $2,000. The sheriff's office said Tuesday that Paulk had been released. Shirley Wilson and Associates, which represents Paulk, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A Los Angeles native, Paulk made numerous TV appearances as a child actor before landing the role of Myles Mitchell on "Moesha," which was set in South Central Los Angeles. Brandy played Moesha, and Myles was her smart-mouthed kid brother. The series was a hit for the UPN network, ending with a forever-to-be-unresolved cliffhanger: Myles was the victim of a kidnapping. Paulk's films include the 1997 "One Night Stand," starring Wesley Snipes and Robert Downey Jr., and the 2006 "Take the Lead," starring Antonio Banderas and Alfre Woodard. _____ AP Television Writer Frazier Moore contributed to this report. | 6 | 6,532 | entertainment |
Two second half goals from German international Mario Gomez gave Fiorentina a 2-0 win over AS Roma in the Italian Cup quarter-finals on Tuesday and set up a last four meeting against Juventus. On a rain-soaked night at the Stadio Olimpico Fiorentina grabbed the opener, somewhat against the run of play on 65 minutes, following a sweeping counter-attack down the left wing. Manuel Pasqual skillfully controlled a looping ball down the flank and his pin-point cross was met by Gomez who brilliantly flicked the ball past the despairing dive of Lukasz Skorupski and in off the post. Then with time running out Gomez popped up again inside the penalty area, calmly created a yard of space, and then drove the ball high into the net on 89 minutes to put the result beyond doubt. It took the 29-year-old German's tally since January 21 to five goals in an emphatic return to form -- but for Roma the poor run goes on as this defeat follows four successive draws which has cost them ground in the title race with Juventus. Fiorentina will meet Juventus in the first leg on March 4 in Turin. Fiorentina won the last of their six Italian Cups in 2001. The second semi-final will feature Lazio against either Napoli or Inter Milan, who meet on Wednesday. Roma, who came into the tie second in Serie A and seven points behind Juventus, took the game to the visitors in a one-sided first half that reaped no goals. The capital club generated nine shots at goal and three on target while Fiorentina, who lie sixth in the Italian top flight failed to muster a single shot on goal. Romanian 'keeper Ciprian Tatarusana was by far the busier of the two custodians and had to be alert on several occasions to deny Belgian midfielder Radja Nainggolan and Roma skipper Francesco Totti. Fiorentina who began life without Colombian winger Juan Cuadrado, who signed with Chelsea on Monday, struggled to create sustained pressure on Skorupski in the home goal as Roma dominated possession as well as opportunities. The match opened up after the break as both teams went looking for the winner but it was Gomez who was the hero with his two late goals. | 1 | 6,533 | sports |
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. A construction worker saved a child from a domestic dispute that ended Tuesday when a man shot and killed his wife and turned the gun on himself, police said. At least two construction workers heard the screams of a child coming from a house under renovation in a neighborhood near downtown Scottsdale, police Sgt. Ben Hoster said. One of the workers ran into the home and found a husband and wife fighting over a gun, he said. The worker wrestled the gun from the husband and took the wife and child outside, Hoster said. The husband later emerged from the home with a handgun and told the worker to take the child away from the scene, he said. The worker complied, and the husband shot and killed his wife then himself, Hoster said. "He is a hero for saving that kid's life," Hoster said of the worker. The two dead were identified Tuesday night as Douglas Drewer, 46, and Sarah Drewer, 33. Police had recently dealt with domestic issues at the couple's home. They served an order of protection on the husband Friday, took away several guns and ordered him to stay away from the wife and the home, Hoster said. Police said the child and another child belonging to the couple were in the custody of the police crisis intervention team. Hoster said the construction worker would be protected under the state's good Samaritan laws despite entering the house without permission and fighting with the husband. | 5 | 6,534 | news |
Is there anything Nick Jonas can't do? | 8 | 6,535 | video |
J. M. Smucker Co. wants to feed the entire family including the pets. The Orville, Ohio-based food company said Tuesday that it is buying pet food maker Big Heart Pet Brands in a $3.2 billion cash-and-stock deal, giving it a presence in the fast-growing $21 billion pet food industry. Big Heart Pet Brands, based in San Francisco, owns brands such as Meow Mix, Milk-Bone, Kibbles 'n Bits and Pup-Peroni. Smucker, whose brands include pantry staples such as Crisco, Jif and Folgers, says that the acquisition will add $2.4 billion in sales for its fiscal year 2016, with an estimated growth rate of 4 to 5 percent over the next few years. It had revenue of $5.61 billion in its last fiscal year that ended in April. CEO Richard Smucker said that the company sees pet food as a third platform for growth, along with its food and beverage businesses. The deal "enables us to now serve the mealtime and snacking needs of the whole family," he said. Smucker has slowly expanded over the years, adding brands such as Folgers in 2008. The company will pay $1.3 billion in cash and issue 17.9 million shares of its common stock for Big Heart. It also will assume $2.6 billion in debt. It values the deal at $5.8 billion when including debt. Big Heart is owned by a group of investors, including several private investment firms. Shares of Smucker rose almost 5 percent to $110.99 in extended trading Tuesday following the announcement. | 3 | 6,536 | finance |
Sen. Rand Paul gave false and misleading statements about vaccine safety in two separate interviews, including a claim that "many" children have developed "profound mental disorders" after vaccinations. There is no evidence that any currently recommended vaccine causes brain damage or other mental disorders in otherwise healthy children. Severe reactions do occur but are extremely rare. Vaccine safety has become a central topic in recent weeks as a measles outbreak that began at Disneyland in California has spread. Between Jan. 1 and Jan. 30, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 102 people had confirmed cases of measles, a disease that the CDC declared "eliminated" from the United States in 2000 because of the highly effective vaccine. In recent years, a small but growing number of parents have avoided the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine because of fears related to debunked and fraudulent science. Paul, a Republican from Kentucky who is considering a 2016 presidential bid and who also formerly was a practicing physician, said on CNBC that vaccines could cause serious problems in children. Paul, Feb. 2: I have heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking, normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines. The senator's office was unable to provide a single example of a vaccine causing a mental disorder. Nor did his office provide any information on the specific type or types of mental disorders or vaccines that caused disorders to which Paul was referring. We contacted several experts on immunizations, however, and all of them agreed that there are no such links between common vaccines and mental disorders. "The comments made by Rand Paul are worrisome, as they don't seem to be based on scientific data," said Marietta Vazquez , an associate professor of pediatrics at Yale University School of Medicine and a member of the U.S. Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices , a group convened by the CDC to advise on vaccines. "Indeed, there are no reported cases of profound mental disorders that I know of." There have been some reports of "lowered consciousness" or permanent brain damage after a vaccine is given for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (whooping cough) or measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) , but the CDC says that these are so rare that a cause-and-effect relationship cannot be determined. The diseases these common vaccines prevent, on the other hand, can cause serious problems: One in 1,000 children with measles will develop a swelling of the brain that can lead to mental retardation, and between 1 and 2 in 1,000 will die, according to the CDC . Pertussis is even more dangerous : One in 300 children with whooping cough will develop brain complications, and 1.6 percent will die. Vazquez said in an email that serious adverse events can indeed occur with common vaccines, but they are exceptionally rare. Serious allergic reactions to the MMR vaccine, for example, occur at a rate of less than 1 in every 1 million doses , according to the CDC. The modern anti-vaccination movement stems largely from a 1998 paper published in The Lancet that linked the MMR vaccine to the development of autism. The Lancet retracted that paper, and an investigation by the British Medical Journal found the work to be fraudulent. The paper's author, Andrew Wakefield, had his medical license in the United Kingdom stripped . More recently, Rep. Michele Bachmann spread further anti-vaccine sentiment by repeating a story about the vaccine for human papillomavirus, an infection that causes cervical cancer, and its theoretical link to "mental retardation." We wrote in 2011 about that claim , which is entirely baseless. The Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, released a report in 2011 summarizing the safety of all vaccines the CDC recommends for children. There is sufficient evidence, the report said, to reject the link between MMR and autism, as well as a link between MMR and type 1 diabetes; between inactivated influenza vaccine and a facial nerve disorder known as Bell's palsy; between the diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough vaccine and type 1 diabetes; and between the inactivated influenza vaccine and exacerbation of asthma. The report did find some links that are "convincing," including several related to the varicella (chicken pox) vaccine and the chance of getting the virus itself from the vaccine. The MMR vaccine is also known to cause fever-related seizures, which the IOM noted "are generally benign and hold no long-term consequences," and in very rare cases involving those with compromised immune systems (which is among the medical reasons for delaying or skipping some immunizations), the vaccine is known to cause a disease called measles inclusion body encephalitis. Six common vaccines can cause anaphylaxis, or severe allergic reaction. Several other links between vaccines and adverse events were found to be "generally suggestive," though "not firm enough to be described as convincing." The vast bulk of reported problems (135 different links out of 158 studied) are so rare as to make it impossible to establish or reject a cause-and-effect relationship. Institute of Medicine, August 2011: Vaccines offer the promise of protection against a variety of infectious diseases. Despite much media attention and strong opinions from many quarters, vaccines remain one of the greatest tools in the public health arsenal. Certainly, some vaccines result in adverse effects that must be acknowledged. But the latest evidence shows that few adverse effects are caused by the vaccines reviewed in this report. James Cherry , a professor of pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, told us that some of the concerns about vaccines and brain damage actually extend further back, to the whooping cough vaccine administered in the early 1980s. There were claims that that vaccine was causing brain damage. Cherry published a review in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1990 that cited several studies that found no such effects. The modern pertussis immunization is included in one vaccine with tetanus and diphtheria, and the compound that was falsely linked to brain damage decades ago is no longer present, Cherry said. The CDC acknowledges that there have been reports of permanent brain damage, but notes that "[t]hese are so rare it is hard to tell if they are caused by the vaccine." Earlier on Feb. 2, Paul also appeared on Laura Ingraham's radio show and spoke about vaccines. Paul, Feb. 2: I was annoyed when my kids were born that they wanted them to take hepatitis B in the neonatal nursery, and it's like, that's a sexually transmitted disease, or a blood-borne disease, and I didn't like them getting 10 vaccines at once, so I actually delayed my kids' vaccines and had them staggered over time. The hepatitis B vaccine is administered at birth because it can prevent transmission of the disease from mother to child. According to the CDC, hepatitis B infections in children have dropped 95 percent since 1990 as a direct result of that vaccine. As with other vaccines, the danger from hepatitis B immunizations is extremely low. Severe reactions occur in less than 1 in 1 million cases, and soreness and fever occur more frequently . Furthermore, Paul's contention that getting multiple vaccines at once could be risky is unfounded. Several studies have found that multiple vaccinations in a short period do not raise the risk of serious reactions. For example, in 2013, a study published in the Journal of Pediatrics found that increasing exposure to the compounds found in vaccines does not raise the risk of autism spectrum disorders. Another study in Pediatrics in 2010 found that children vaccinated on time showed no adverse neuropsychological effects at 7 to 10 years of age compared with those whose vaccines were delayed; by some measures, the children vaccinated on time performed significantly better. One other study found that delaying the MMR vaccine actually increased the risk of seizures . "It's stupid," said Cherry, referring to the idea of delaying and staggering immunizations. By delaying them, "that will allow these illnesses to occur. It's no big deal when there's nothing around and everybody is vaccinated, but it's a big deal now" because of the measles outbreak. On CNBC, Paul changed his claim of "10 vaccines at once" to "five and six," which more accurately reflects the CDC immunization schedule. The hepatitis B vaccine is the only vaccine given at birth , with others following after a few months. Public health officials have expressed concern that measles will reestablish a foothold in the U.S. In a press briefing on Jan. 29, U.S. Assistant Surgeon General Anne Schuchat noted that the 644 cases reported last year were the most in 20 years. Though it is relatively unfamiliar in this country, measles is still very common around the world, with about 20 million cases annually. Schuchat, Jan. 29: In 2013, about 145,700 people died of measles across the world. … One in 12 children in the United States is not receiving their first dose of MMR on time. She also noted that the MMR vaccine is safe, effective and "highly recommended." But a small percentage of parents use religious and "philosophical" exemptions to avoid vaccinations; for example, in California, where the newest measles outbreak began, in the 2013-2014 school year, 17,253 children (3.1 percent of all children enrolled in kindergarten) received philosophical exemptions. A spokesman from Paul's office said in an email that the senator "believes that vaccines have saved lives, and should be administered to children. … He also believes many vaccines should be voluntary and like most medical decisions, between the doctor and the patient, not the government." Dave Levitan | 5 | 6,537 | news |
Unless you're one of the brave souls who dive into a new adventure headfirst, you probably prefer to test the water a bit by taking the toe-dip approach. For toe-dipping travelers who have their sights set on the most epic experiences, "gateway trips" are a great place to start. The right gateway trip which depends on the destination and corresponding activities is designed to deliver the intangible high necessary for you to feel before you commit to taking your travel to the next level. For most people who (strategically) choose these getaways, it doesn't take long to get hooked all. Here are four unforgettable gateway trips that may actually be as amazing as the destinations they lead up to. Today Trip: Yellowstone National Park Tomorrow Trip: African Safari One day you dream of donning your binoculars and zooming in on a black rhino in the Okavango Delta, but for now, you're not even sure you can find your passport. There's nothing wrong with that. Thanks to places like Yellowstone National Park , you don't have to leave American soil to say you've gone on a safari. The definition of safari is "an expedition to observe animals in their natural habitat" and you can easily do that in Yellowstone (no whipping out your passport, exchanging currencies or struggling with Swahili). Perhaps the biggest inconvenience that you'll encounter in this 2.2 million-acre park is a herd of bison in the middle of the road. Almost 5,000 bison roam Yellowstone's valleys and plateaus, and an encounter with these North American members of the Bovidae family isn't that dissimilar to an encounter with their African brethren, the buffalo. You can also bank on seeing elk in Yellowstone especially if you're staying in Mammoth Hot Springs where these deer-on-steroids are famous for roaming around like they own the place. Because of their size, they're much more impressive than red deer the largest species of deer you'll see in Africa. Another extraordinary animal you may spot on a Yellowstone safari is the pronghorn antelope: North America's fastest land animal. Seeing one sprint at more than 60 mph should tide you over until you can see its African antelope counterparts, the kudu and wildebeest. While you have zero chance of hearing a hyena giggle in Yellowstone, the park does boast a few famous (or infamous) wolf packs. These reclusive residents are more active during the winter months whereas the summer months provide a great opportunity to spot black and grizzly bears. Yellowstone is home to mountain lions, but reported sightings are rare, so if catching a big cat on camera is your goal, you'll have to save that for your African safari. Today Trip : Canadian Rockies Tomorrow Trip: Alps The Canadian Rockies are perfect if you're pining for snow-capped mountains in a foreign country, but you don't want to deal with a lousy exchange rate. The Canadian dollar is currently trading at $.81 on the $1.00 whereas the euro is at $1.15. Sure, the Canadian Rockies aren't as high as the Alps, but you also won't have to worry about running into suspender-clad yodelers if that's not your thing. Hike 10,000+ ft. peaks by day and at night, relax in chalets that will have you fooled into thinking you can sip your morning coffee while drinking in views of the Matterhorn. Trek up to Moraine Lake to see turquoise-blue waters not unlike those you'll see in the Dolomites, and then take advantage of that awesome exchange rate by spending some time shopping in the mountain town of Banff. The beauty of exploring in the Canadian Rockies is that you don't have to travel too far from home in order to climb in high elevations and earn that precious passport stamp. Your dollar goes much further, and if your vacation days are limited, you really only need 4 to 5 days to do the region justice. On the other hand, the Alps require more substantial investments of money and time. But after you realize how rewarding a trip to the Canadian Rockies is, you'll be reading to start saving up. If the Rockies' Athabasca Glacier is like an appetizer, then Mont Blanc is the main course. Today Trip: South Dakota Tomorrow Trip: The Netherlands If taking a cycling tour is on your bucket list, but you haven't been able to convince your travel companion to hop the next flight to Holland, pitch them South Dakota instead. It's stateside, plus it's home to the historic George S. Mickelson Trail that runs 109 miles through the Black Hills between the mining towns of Deadwood and Edgemont. This scenic path of packed gravel is used by cyclists, hikers, horseback riders, skiers, and in restricted areas, snowmobilers. The Mickelson Trail can't compete with Amsterdam when it comes to canal crossings, but it does feature more than 100 converted railroad bridges and four rock tunnels. Although the Black Hills are home to the highest point east of the Rockies (Harney Peak is 7,244 feet. above sea level) and the terrain ranges from mountainous to flat, the Mickelson Trail is relatively level with climbs averaging only a four percent grade. Cyclists can begin their day by pedaling through spruce pine forests and end it by meandering through windswept prairies and cattle pastures. Windmills and fields of tulips aren't waiting around every corner, but wildlife usually is and the trail does run by the mind-boggling Crazy Horse Memorial which may one day be the world's largest mountain carving. Mountains, or even hills, aren't a reason for visiting the Netherlands, but cycling certainly is. After logging a few miles on the Mickelson Trail in the Black Hills, your partner will feel prepared to take their pedaling skills across the pond. Today Trip: Alaska Tomorrow Trip: Peru Looming ominously at 20,320 feet above sea level, Mount McKinley makes Alaska home to the highest point in the United States. In fact, the Last Frontier lays claim to the seven tallest mountains in the country. This is what makes it the perfect stateside adventure to try before attempting to tackle a trek in the Peruvian Andes. ( Salkantay , the eleventh highest peak in Peru is a few hundred feet taller than McKinley.) Even if you're not planning on summiting these sky-high peaks, if your goal is to log some hikes at impressive altitudes, Alaska is a great place to start. Of course, no trip to Alaska or Peru is complete without running into wildlife. In terms of hoofed-animals, the moose (one of Alaska's state symbols), can be seven times larger than Peru's llama-like guanaco. A sighting of an Alaskan bear, whether it's a polar bear, Kodiak, or grizzly, will definitely mitigate any fears you'd have of running into Peru's spectacled bear. Also known as Andean bears, South America's largest land carnivores weigh up to 400 lbs. whereas Alaska's bears can weigh upwards of 1500 lbs. While a trip to Alaska probably won't prepare you for what you'll find in Peru's Amazon jungle, it's an excellent place to practice your photography skills. Capturing a herd of caribou on camera is much easier than capturing a shot of the elusive, lone jaguar. A lesson or two in Alaskan native history will also give you a good foundation for learning about the natives of Peru. Like the Incas, Alaska's Inuits practiced animism the belief that all things, living and non-living, had a spirit. They credited major calamities as well as unfavorable daily occurrences such as storms and death to angry spirits. Both cultures made offerings in attempts to appease nature which was important given the often unforgiving environments they lived in. As harsh as they are beautiful, both Alaska and Peru fall under the "extreme" category when it comes to destinations. By using Alaska as a precursor, you'll be better positioned to understand and respect the elements you'll encounter on the other side of the Equator in Peru. | 2 | 6,538 | travel |
College basketball fans will not get a sneak peek at the NCAA tournament bracket or the tournament's top seeds before Selection Sunday. The possibility of an early unveil had existed -- in the form of a weekly or one-off television show -- because of the popularity of ESPN's weekly rankings release during the lead-up to the College Football Playoff. Dan Gavitt, the NCAA vice president of men's basketball championships, had told USA TODAY Sports in November that the Division I men's basketball committee had noticed the buzz around the Playoff rankings release and had been discussing what college basketball could do to drum up interest in a similar fashion. For now, at least, the basketball committee is sticking with what it's done in years past: Selection Sunday only. The committee decided, during meetings at the NCAA Convention held in late January, that it did not want to unveil any top seeds or a full bracket before Selection Sunday, either in the form of a weekly show or a one, or two-time special. Gavitt said the decision to skip an early unveil is for this season, and could change in the future. He confirmed the decision to USA TODAY Sports on Tuesday afternoon; CBSSports.com initially reported the decision. Parts of this decision stem from the structure of the Playoff's weekly show and rankings reveal, the way the football season is laid out compared to basketball and the way the NCAA tournament uses conference champions as automatic qualifiers. "There just didn't seem to be a lot of appetite for something that would be very, very similar to what the CFP did," Gavitt told USA TODAY Sports. "Something that's unique and special about basketball is that there is one moment, one time, Selection Sunday where it's all revealed. It's appointment viewing because of the nature of that." Gavitt said he thinks discussions will continue around this topic in the future because there were members of the committee who saw the benefits of releasing information early both in terms of drumming up interest for the sport, but also transparency. Part of the decision to pass on an early unveil this season was due to logistics; the committee met in January, with Selection Sunday less than two months away. If college basketball were to release some information early, it would want it to be in the right fashion, with plenty of time to plan how to deliver that information. At this point, it seems very unlikely that any future pre-Selection Sunday unveilings would include a full bracket. The No. 1 seeds, or the top four seed lines? That's more likely -- and they wouldn't come in a weekly TV format. "If there's hope for something in the future, it would be in a much more limited way," Gavitt said. "There's a possibility that that could be something the committee considers in the future. I want to make the point on the overall bracket, there's very little if any appetite for that. "The top four No. 1 seeds, the top four seeds in each region -- things like that, not on a weekly basis. Maybe once, twice, three times before (Selection Sunday)." | 1 | 6,539 | sports |
SAN FRANCISCO Two years ago, Andrew Mason faced an unexpected detour when he was ousted as CEO from the online discount site he founded, Groupon. Now the tech executive's back on the entrepreneurial path, with an iPhone app selling unconventional audio tours of major cities. It's called you guessed it Detour. Seven different San Francisco expeditions, released Tuesday, meander from the city's beatnik bars to the weathered docks of the bay while regaling listeners with colorful tales about local lore. Each excursion costs $5. If Detour follows the course Mason's charting, the audio tours will span the globe within the next five years and the app will become a standard accessory for vacationers or city dwellers just looking for a fun way to learn more about where they live. "Most of the audio tours that exist today are about what's popular inside museums," Mason says. "What we are trying to do is turn the world into a museum." Mason, 34, became rich by trying to create the world's biggest bargain bin. In 2008, he transformed an online service devoted to social causes into Groupon Inc., which offered steep discounts on everything from restaurant meals to hot-air balloon flights if enough people bought them. By late 2011, Groupon had become an Internet sensation valued at $13 billion in an initial public offering of stock that turned Mason into a billionaire. Things unraveled quickly as Groupon battled copycat services from hundreds of rivals, including Google Inc. and Amazon.com, and the thrill of the deal faded for many consumers. By early 2013, Groupon's stock had plunged nearly 80 percent below its IPO price of $20, triggering Mason's firing. The collapse shrunk the value of Mason's stake in Groupon from $1.5 billion to about $228 million. Without sounding bitter, Mason looks back on Groupon as a "stupid, boring idea that just happened to resonate." He no longer dwells on what went wrong at the company. "I Google it from time to time, but I have moved on," Mason says. Mason, a former punk band keyboardist known for his flippant humor, initially spent his time after Groupon making a quirky album called "Hardly Workin.'" He then moved from his longtime home in Chicago to San Francisco to focus on Detour an idea that he had pondered even before launching Groupon. He recalls becoming frustrated when he and his future wife vacationed in Rome in 2007 and could only find mundane audio tours that shackled listeners to a group of fellow travelers. Mason figured some company would eventually make a more versatile mobile app for audio tours, but he couldn't find one each time he went on vacation. So he decided to try to do it himself, especially once he realized he couldn't think of anything else better to do after his whirlwind success at Groupon. "My mind got corrupted, so I basically had to work through all the old ideas I had before I became successful," Mason says after arriving to an interview on his Vespa scooter. He is drawing upon his own personal wealth to finance Detour, which so far has just 10 employees in addition to freelance writers who help script the audio tours. Apple's app store already is stocked with audio tours and guidebooks for cities around the world, but most of those focus on familiar landmarks. Detour points out some of San Francisco's top tourist destinations, but Mason is trying to highlight "hidden stories" about the city's past. One tour consists of a 90-minute jaunt through the old haunts of Jack Kerouac and other iconoclastic writers who catapulted San Francisco to the forefront of the Beat Generation during the 1950s. Another 75-minute stroll traipses through San Francisco's grittier sections accompanied by the narration of Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow. Detour won't be as easy to copy as Groupon, Mason hopes, because of the technology powering it and the creative stories woven into it. Detour also uses Bluetooth signals to connect multiple people on different phones so friends or family can listen together. When it's open, Detour tracks a listener's location to allow the tours to be taken as quickly or as slowly as desired. The flexibility means the app can automatically adjust for pit stops in restaurants and bars or other distractions. Mason says Detour only tracks users' locations to steer them through their journeys. His to-do list includes expanding the new app's itinerary to include New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Austin, Texas, as well as London and Paris. He also jokes that he may explore another musical detour by making a Christmas album this year. "I feel like I need to gift the world with my take on 'Jingle Bells,'" he says. | 5 | 6,540 | news |
NEW YORK Snoopy and Charlie Brown are getting a new corporate buddy. Iconix, the brand licensing company that owns the "Peanuts" gang of characters, said Tuesday that it is buying the rights to cartoon character Strawberry Shortcake for $105 million. It will buy the pink-haired character from greeting card company American Greetings. The New York company hopes to breathe new life into the 35-year-old brand with possible clothing, toy and TV show or movie deals. The deal is expected to close within 45 days. Strawberry Shortcake, who has freckles on her face and wears a strawberry-shaped hat, first showed up on greeting cards in 1980. Since then she has been made into a doll and has been featured on products as varied as pajamas, cosmetics and food. Cleveland-based American Greetings tried to sell the brand several years ago, but the deal fell through. American Greetings, which sells cards and wrapping paper, also owns the Care Bears and Holly Hobbie characters. Strawberry Shortcake has more than 350 licensing deals around the world, Iconix said. The character "resonates across multiple generations from daughters to mothers to grandmothers," said Leigh Anne Brodsky, a managing director of Iconix's entertainment unit. "We see many opportunities to grow this brand worldwide," she said in a statement. Iconix Brand Group Inc. mostly owns and licenses clothing brands such as Joe Boxer, London Fog, Badgley Mischka and Candie's. It first entered the entertainment industry in 2010, when it bought the rights to the Peanuts characters from newspaper publisher E.W. Scripps Co. for $175 million. An animated film, "The Peanuts Movie," will be released by 20th Century Fox later this year. In a separate purchase, Iconix said Tuesday that it bought the North American rights to athletic brand Pony for $37 million from Chinese investment holding company Symphony Holdings Ltd. Shares of Iconix rose $1.20, or 3.6 percent, to $34.91 in afternoon trading Tuesday. | 3 | 6,541 | finance |
Planes struggle to land in England | 8 | 6,542 | video |
Two people on a joyride earned a bit of bad karma when they fled the scene after their ATV spun out of control and into a parked car. WCVB caught the crash. | 8 | 6,543 | video |
PENSACOLA, Fla. Officials say a Florida man suspected of stealing a car took off on foot from a traffic stop and briefly eluded deputies while he grabbed a nap under a nearby trailer. The Pensacola News Journal (http://on.pnj.com/1AnV10m) reports that deputies followed the sound of 37-year-old Kevin Lee Barbour's snoring described as a "snorting wild boar" to discover him Sunday night in Santa Rose County. Officials say deputies tried to stop Lee, of Pensacola, after noticing his vehicle didn't have tag lights. They say that when the deputy activated his siren, Barbour pulled off the road and ran. The deputy gave followed but lost sight of Barbour. He was in the Santa Rosa County Jail on Tuesday, accused of driving with a suspended license, vehicle theft and resisting an officer. ___ Information from: Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal, http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com | 5 | 6,544 | news |
When driverless car leader Google made a $258 billion investment in ride-hail leader Uber back in 2013, the marriage seemed headed toward a world of on-demand autonomous taxis that render car-ownership in cities totally optional . But the honeymoon appears to be ending, according to Brad Stone of Bloomberg Business . Citing unnamed sources, Stone reports "signs that the companies are more likely to be ferocious competitors than allies" : Google is preparing to offer its own ride-hailing service, most likely in conjunction with its long-in-development driverless car project. [Google's David] Drummond has informed Uber's board of this possibility, according to a person close to the Uber board, and Uber executives have seen screenshots of what appears to be a Google ride-sharing app that is currently being used by Google employees. Google would not confirm (nor explicitly deny) the report instead issuing what Stone calls a "cryptic tweet" about how Uber and Lyft "work quite well." Uber, meanwhile, recently announced a partnership with Carnegie Mellon to develop its own driverless car technology in Pittsburgh. Even if both sides are just hedging their bets, as Slate's Will Oremus suspects , there are clearly some robotic wheels in motion. A split would no doubt hurt Uber more than Google. Catching up on driverless technology and digital navigation on par with Google Maps is a far bigger hurdle than building an app and amassing a network of freelance drivers. For its part, the don't-be-evil Google might be wary of going all in with a company that seems to attract scandal at every turn . To get a sense of just what's at stake here, we turned to recent research from Daniel Fagnant and Kara Kockelman, who have been modeling possible networks of shared driverless taxis in Austin, Texas. Their latest simulations, presented at a transportation conference in January , suggest an optimal fleet size of 2,118 taxis to serve Austin. Assuming a purchase price of $70,000 per vehicle, fares of $1 per mile, and no competition, an operator could see a 19 percent return on investment. It's obviously way too early to know if these price points might actually be accurate (let alone the accuracy of the Bloomberg report). But it's safe to say there's a lot of money on the line for whichever company masters the driverless taxi scheme. Certainly enough to fight over. | 5 | 6,545 | news |
These Olaf cupcakes are the perfect treat to melt any Frozen fan's heart this Valentine's Day. With just a few candies, a little bit of frosting, and some sweet hearts, these Olaf cupcakes are a great way to show your friends and family how much you love them. | 8 | 6,546 | video |
Infants quarantined after child at the same day care contracted measles | 5 | 6,547 | news |
Rob Gronkowski went on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Monday and talked about the fight that took place at the end of Super Bowl XLIX. What do you make of Gronk's quote? | 1 | 6,548 | sports |
This is a good time to change your life and buy a rental property. Nobody is saying being a landlord is easy, what with late-night calls about bursting pipes or the police being at your house to break up a big party. But a key part of wealth creation is creating passive income money you earn while not actively working for it, and that's where being a landlord can help. The idea is simple: Buy a property, rent it to reliable tenants and let them pay down the mortgage for you until the home is paid for. At that point, the entire value of the home is yours, along with any rent you earn after the mortgage is paid off. If you're on the fence, know that this is a good time to become a landlord. According to Real Property Management , a Salt Lake City property management firm, the rate of U.S. home rentals has grown 31% since 2006. Homeownership rates are at 19-year lows, and stagnant incomes are leaving Americans short of the cash they need to buy, RPM says. Plus, with more rental consumers looking for space, landlords are able to charge higher rents. The average rental rate rose last year, the company says. In fact, RPM estimates the U.S. rental market to be strong throughout 2015. "Even though the economy is improving, many families will continue to view renting homes as more financially feasible than buying in the foreseeable future," says Robert Pifke, chief marketing officer at the company. "In the year ahead, landlords should expect the rental market to be steady as she goes." To get started, you'll need cash, or at least access to cash at a reasonably low rate of interest if you're mulling over a loan. Obviously, the more cash you can pop down on a property, the sooner you'll make your investment back and the lower your mortgage costs will be. Read More: Housing Bubble Ahead? Some U.S. Markets Might Be Ready to Pop You also need the mindset to "get dirty" and take on a hands-on approach to being a landlord. If you have do-it-yourself skills, you can buy that "unique fixer-upper" at a discount price, renovate it yourself and rent it out at a premium. This will take time, and yes, time really is a commodity. But you'll need the time to whip your rental property in shape, so account for that obligation beforehand. You'll also need to choose good tenants. While this is no exact science, some rules apply: Make sure your rental candidate makes at least three times the income of your total monthly property rental rate. Get good references and check credit scores. If a credit score is lower than you like but you like the applicant, ask for more proof of reliable income and get more money in the down payment and security deposit. It really does take the right stuff to be a great landlord. An entrepreneurial spirit, a hands-on, can-do approach and some good old-fashioned business savvy (along with time) are the ingredients in mastering the rental property game. And right now, it's a game that's paying off handsomely for the right players. | 3 | 6,549 | finance |
NEW YORK (AP) "To Kill a Mockingbird" will not be Harper Lee's only published book after all. Publisher Harper announced Tuesday that "Go Set a Watchman," a novel the Pulitzer Prize-winning author completed in the 1950s and put aside, will be released July 14. Rediscovered last fall, "Go Set a Watchman" is essentially a sequel to "To Kill a Mockingbird," although it was finished earlier. The 304-page book will be Lee's second, and the first new work in more than 50 years. The publisher plans a first printing of 2 million copies. "In the mid-1950s, I completed a novel called 'Go Set a Watchman,'" the 88-year-old Lee said in a statement issued by Harper. "It features the character known as Scout as an adult woman, and I thought it a pretty decent effort. My editor, who was taken by the flashbacks to Scout's childhood, persuaded me to write a novel (what became 'To Kill a Mockingbird') from the point of view of the young Scout. "I was a first-time writer, so I did as I was told. I hadn't realized it (the original book) had survived, so was surprised and delighted when my dear friend and lawyer Tonja Carter discovered it. After much thought and hesitation, I shared it with a handful of people I trust and was pleased to hear that they considered it worthy of publication. I am humbled and amazed that this will now be published after all these years." Financial terms were not disclosed. The deal was negotiated between Carter and the head of Harper's parent company, Michael Morrison of HarperCollins Publishers. "Watchman" will be published in the United Kingdom by William Heinemann, an imprint of Penguin Random House. According to publisher Harper, Carter came upon the manuscript at a "secure location where it had been affixed to an original typescript of 'To Kill a Mockingbird.'" The new book is set in Lee's famed Maycomb, Alabama, during the mid-1950s, 20 years after "To Kill a Mockingbird" and roughly contemporaneous with the time that Lee was writing the story. The civil rights movement was taking hold by the time she was working on "Watchman." The Supreme Court had ruled unanimously in 1953 that segregated schools were unconstitutional, and the arrest of Rosa Parks in 1955 led to the yearlong Montgomery bus boycott. "Scout (Jean Louise Finch) has returned to Maycomb from New York to visit her father, Atticus," the publisher's announcement reads. "She is forced to grapple with issues both personal and political as she tries to understand her father's attitude toward society, and her own feelings about the place where she was born and spent her childhood." Lee herself is a Monroeville, Alabama native who lived in New York in the 1950s. She now lives in her hometown. According to the publisher, the book will be released as she first wrote it, with no revisions. "To Kill a Mockingbird" is among the most beloved novels in history, with worldwide sales topping 40 million copies. It was released on July 11, 1960, won the Pulitzer Prize and was adapted into a 1962 movie of the same name, starring Gregory Peck in an Oscar-winning performance as the courageous attorney Atticus Finch. Although occasionally banned over the years because of its language and racial themes, the novel has become a standard for reading clubs and middle schools and high schools. The absence of a second book from Lee only seemed to enhance the appeal of "Mockingbird." Lee's publisher said the author is unlikely to do any publicity for the book. She has rarely spoken to the media since the 1960s, when she told one reporter that she wanted to "to leave some record of small-town, middle-class Southern life." Until now, "To Kill a Mockingbird" had been the sole fulfillment of that goal. "This is a remarkable literary event," Harper publisher Jonathan Burnham said in a statement. "The existence of 'Go Set a Watchman' was unknown until recently, and its discovery is an extraordinary gift to the many readers and fans of 'To Kill a Mockingbird.' Reading in many ways like a sequel to Harper Lee's classic novel, it is a compelling and ultimately moving narrative about a father and a daughter's relationship, and the life of a small Alabama town living through the racial tensions of the 1950s." The new book also will be available in an electronic edition. Lee has openly started her preference for paper, but surprised fans last year by agreeing to allow "Mockingbird" to be released as an e-book. | 5 | 6,550 | news |
Beware of pills and tablets that promise to make it easy to knock of pounds. Though we spend billions on them, our health experts caution that they don't work and may be harmful. | 7 | 6,551 | health |
Stars add the right bit of sparkle to their looks with their stylish bracelets, bangles and handcuffs. Click through to check out some stunning designs. Julia Roberts A Tiffany & Co bracelet in platinum with custom-cut diamonds lent a stylish twist to Roberts' androgynous look. Anne Hathaway A custom-designed star bracelet by James Banks Designs was the star of Hathaway's look. Kaley Cuoco A stylish diamond bracelet from Forevermark was the highlight of Cuoco's look. Gwen Stefani Edgy Chanel bracelets complemented Stefani's fun getup. Selena Gomez The young star picked Neil Lane gold bracelets with her black gown. Viola Davis A cuff bracelet accessorised Davis' all-white look. Marion Cotillard The only accessory Cotillard chose was an elegant Chopard bracelet. Naomi Watts A diamond and emerald Bulgari cuff bracelet accessorised Watts' attire. Jessica Chastain Chastain painted a classic picture in a mesh Piaget diamond bracelet. Christina Hendricks Hendricks stacked up her wrist with Neil Lane bracelets. Sarah Paulson Paulson looked picture-perfect in the 'day and night' bracelet and bangles by David Webb. Emily Blunt A dainty floral Lorraine Schwartz bracelet with matching earrings accentuated Blunt's stylish gown. Diane Kruger Kruger added sparkle to her already-glittering look in a Kwiat and Marina B bracelet. Lena Dunham Dunham paired her red dress with a dainty pearl and gold bracelet. Kate Beckinsale An edgy Lorraine Schwartz bracelet accessorised Beckinsale's glamorous look perfectly. Amy Adams Adams chose a classic Tiffany & Co diamond bracelet with her powder blue gown. Allison Williams A classic Cartier diamond bracelet dazzled on Williams' wrist. Cindy Crawford A Harry Winston chain bracelet was the perfect accessory adorning Crawford's wrist. Salma Hayek A stunning diamond cuff bracelet perfectly complemented Hayek's off-shoulder white gown. Julianne Moore With Chopard bangles on her wrist and a glittering gown to match, Moore was a delightful vision. Jennifer Aniston A simple Neil Lane diamond bangle bracelet sat perfectly on Aniston's wrist. Jessica Alba A serpentine diamond bracelet from Bulgari added an oomph to Alba's look. Lily Aldridge A unique Maiyet gold bracelet adorned Aldridge's wrist. Rose Byrne Byrne picked a modern Tiffany & Co gold bracelet with her outfit. | 4 | 6,552 | lifestyle |
A new shower design recycles used water by quickly filtering and then reusing it. | 8 | 6,553 | video |
John Boehner doesn't like making laws, but he does like not dying from preventable diseases. | 8 | 6,554 | video |
Data show sector will have a strong year Homebuilder stocks have lagged, but data points up for housing. After a slowdown in China, a political shakeup in Greece and a pretty volatile January for stocks at home, some investors are thinking about getting defensive in 2015. But one segment of the U.S. economy remains a boon for investors: The housing market. Yes, the major homebuilding stocks, including Toll Brothers Inc (NYSE: TOL ) and PulteGroup, Inc. (NYSE: PHM ), have also run into trouble since January. And yes, longer term, the sector as measured by the SPDR S&P Homebuilders (ETF) (NYSEARCA: XHB ) has underperformed in the last year. But look at the recent data, and I think you'll agree there are many signs pointing to a booming housing market in 2015. Click ahead for 10 particular data points worth noting. Housing starts are strong Last week, housing starts hit their highest level in seven years , with new-home construction up 4.4% in December, according to the latest numbers. That pushes up 2014's total to over 1 million housing starts, the highest mark since 2007 and up almost 9% from 2013. Permits are strong, too Permit numbers also looked good. While overall permits filed in December for new construction did fall a bit, the overall drop was driven by a dip in filings for apartment buildings. Regarding the all-important single-family home portion of permits, that figure actually rose at its fastest pace since January 2008, with a 4.5% increase. Consumer sentiment is high Thanks to a recovering job market and low gas prices, consumer confidence is at an 11-year high . As Americans feel more secure in their finances, this is naturally a boon to the housing market as folks feel confident enough to take on a mortgage and buy a house. Housing prices still are up While the pace of increases in home prices has mitigated, the trend is still higher. In the most recent S&P/Case-Shiller report of prices in major U.S. housing markets , prices were up 4.6%. Critics will note that's down sharply from double-digit gains a few years ago, but it's important to remember that the housing market crashed because of unsustainable pricing. A leveling off in growth is a good thing in the long run. And as long as prices are trending modestly upward, buyers aren't going to be scared out of purchases. Homebuilders are confident, part 1 According to the National Association of Home Builders , sentiment remained strong among U.S. residential-construction companies in January. While the group's measure of builder confidence did fall slightly to a reading of 57, anything over 50 is considered positive. Furthermore, the reading is stronger than it was at the beginning of 2014, signaling good year-over-year momentum. Builders are confident, part 2 If you want a tangible measure of confidence, consider a recent Wall Street Journal report from a Las Vegas builder trade show that noted an "air of optimism" at one of the largest trade shows in years for the business. In fact, the WSJ quotes the chief economist of the National Association of Realtors, who is projecting a 41% jump in new-home sales this year over last. That growth rate is a bit too dramatic to trust in my book, but the giddy optimism that would spark such a prediction is at least a good measure of how confident builders are feeling. Hurdles drop for first-time buyers In the wake of the financial crisis, regulators and the mortgage industry were concerned with enacting more stringent lending standards to stabilize the American housing market and the economy. But now, the pendulum is swinging back the other way, with the Federal Housing Administration drafting plans to boost lending to those with lower income levels and first-time home buyers. Though the idea of lenient lending practices reminds some of a return to the old days of "liar loans," facilitating responsible lending to less-than-perfect borrowers is good for low-income Americans, and good for the housing market as a whole. Builders cater to lower-income buyers Lest you think this is all government-led shenanigans to help low-income homebuyers, some of the nation's largest builders have also seen the opportunity in lower-priced homes. Specifically, D.R. Horton Inc. (NYSE: DHI ) announced last spring it will build homes in the $120,000 to $150,000 range , roughly half the median home price in the U.S. in an effort to connect with first-time buyers. Lennar Corp. (NYSE: LEN ) isn't far behind, with a project of its own in the $175,000 to $200,000 range . Connecting with 'down-market' homebuyers is good for overall prices and for demand. Foreclosures at pre-crisis levels A recent report from real estate data provider RealtyTrac shows foreclosure filings in 2014 were down 18% over 2013, and hit the lowest level since 2006 . Furthermore, bank repossessions for 2014 were down 69% from their peak during the mortgage meltdown. That's an undeniable sign of health. What interest-rate hike? There has been plenty of bluster in the past year or so about how rising rates will hurt the housing market by increasing the cost of borrowing. But 30-year fixed-mortgage rates are now at 3.8% while the typical mortgage was offered at a 4.5% rate a year ago . So while there may be an interest-rate increase in store for us sometime in the future, let's not act like we won't be able to afford a mortgage. | 3 | 6,555 | finance |
Twitter is no longer just a social network it's now a full-blown ad network. The company has just announced plans to let advertisers promote their tweets on to other websites and apps, in effect turning its ad platform into a full network for posting advertisements across the net. The company is launching the service with partnerships with Flipboard and Yahoo Japan. Advertisers with promoted tweets, which let a company pay the firm to put a tweet in other users' timelines, will now be able to pay extra to push the content on to the other two websites entirely. Twitter's Ameet Ranadive explains : "Let's say Nissan is running a Promoted Tweet campaign on Twitter, but also trying to reach similar audience on a mobile application like Flipboard. Through this new partnership, Nissan could run a Promoted Tweet campaign on Twitter, with specific creative and targeting, and simultaneously run the campaign off Twitter, with the same targeting and creative in the Flipboard app. "Best of all, because Flipboard already integrates organic Tweets into the app, the Promoted Tweet will have the same look and feel that is native to the Flipboard experience." While the move has the potential to expand the reach of Twitter's promoted tweets, potentially making them far more valuable to advertisers, it also risks undermining the uniqueness of the company's service. In its long-running war with the much-larger Facebook, Twitter's real-time nature is its most valuable asset. The company has already put that to good use pairing up with TV companies to promote the (heavily twitter-identified) hashtag as the go-to way of targeting watchers on social media, to the extent that even when Facebook hosted political debates in Britain this week, the event was named #asktheleaders. A selection of Twitter adverts. Photograph: Twitter But in promoting tweets on other websites, the company is asking advertisers to give up on real-time in favour of evergreen content. On the other hand, that's not that different form how they use the site anyway which could mean that Twitter has finally worked out how to increase the average revenue per user without simply increasing the number of adverts on the site. | 3 | 6,556 | finance |
WASHINGTON (AP) The white potato has been ostracized by health officials for several years but no more. It's now back in favor. The Institute of Medicine says people aren't getting enough starchy vegetables or potassium and fiber, nutrients that are plentiful in potatoes. In a new report released Tuesday, the agency reversed itself and said white potatoes should be eligible for subsidized vouchers under the government's Women, Infants and Children program. The program gives needy pregnant women and mothers government-subsidized food vouchers to ensure good nutrition for their families. The Institute of Medicine recommendations are used by the Agriculture Department in setting its list of foods eligible for the program. Congress voted to make white potatoes eligible for the WIC program late last year. | 7 | 6,557 | health |
Deb Firestone remembers the day her father called home. It was Feb. 4, around 5 in the afternoon. Her mother had gone out to an important meeting the first lady was going to be there leaving Firestone, 16, at home with her two younger brothers and the music teacher. They were sitting at the electric organ in their split-level suburban home when the phone rang. Being the oldest, Firestone answered. "Deb?" It was her father's voice. Firestone doesn't remember what she said. Because what do you say across 6,500 miles from your dining room in Rockville to someplace in Iran where your father is being held hostage? While the organ lesson continued, Deb and her dad exchanged small talk, almost as if he were checking in at the end of a day's work. As if he were about to head home. He was there, and yet he wasn't there. And that, says Firestone, is pretty much what it's been like for the 35 years since that call. Firestone's father, Bruce German, was the budget officer at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 when it was overrun by militant Iranian students. He was seized and held captive for 444 days with 51 other hostages. He came home in 1981, and then, maybe a year later, when the White House welcome ceremony was a mere memory and the well-wishers had put away their yellow ribbons, he moved out, leaving his wife, with whom he had exchanged so many loving letters, and their three children, about whom he had talked with his fellow hostages. That, at least, is how Firestone, 51, remembers it. Her mother, Marge German, is still irked that a meeting with Rosalynn Carter made her miss her husband's call. And Bruce German chooses not to tell his story publicly and declined a request to be interviewed. He lives in Pennsylvania, and Firestone says she rarely gets to speak with him. Not on his birthday or at Christmas. Not on the Nov. 4 anniversary of his capture, or on Jan. 20, the date the hostages were released. Firestone says he wasn't at her wedding or at her brothers' weddings; that he doesn't know his six grandchildren; and that he last saw her daughter, now 13, when she was about 4. "He misses big things, he misses small things," the sixth-grade math teacher reflects, her voice quavering. "I hold on to one little shred of hope . . . he's letting time go by, and you can't get that back." The remaining hostages 13 of the 52 have died are keenly aware that they can't recover lost time, so they are looking with increasing urgency for another kind of restitution. They have turned to Congress in a bid for compensation for their captivity for solitary confinement and mock firing squads, for beatings with rubber hoses and being hung, like laundry, over open elevator shafts, or run, blindfolded, into trees. And for the toll all this took on their families. They've pinned their hopes on legislation sponsored by Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia (home state of three former hostages), which "almost made it," the Republican senator says, into December's mammoth spending bill. They're watching negotiations underway between the United States and Iran, wondering whether there will finally be an end to the diplomatic standoff prompted by their horrifying ordeals and how that might affect their cause. And, 35 years on, as some of the hostages live out their last years, they are aware that if anyone is to benefit from a long-awaited windfall, it will probably be the next generation Firestone's generation. Because their own time to get justice is running out. 'Look at how many lives they ruined.' The Tehran hostages have been repeatedly frustrated in their quest for compensation because of a clause in the agreement that secured their freedom. The 1981 Algiers Accords the deal Algerian diplomats brokered between the United States and Iran that finally brought the 50 men and two women home barred the hostages from taking legal action against Iran. When they've tried, the State Department has argued against its own diplomats and the people who protected them that the accords are still binding. A deal is a deal, after all. And this one succeeded in ending one of the most traumatic episodes of late-20th-century American history. The upshot? Not only has Iran never paid a penalty for overrunning the embassy, violating fundamental principles of diplomatic immunity that reach back to antiquity and are codified in a 1961 treaty, but a number of the former hostages say they feel let down by the country they signed up to serve. Don Cooke, just 25 when he and the other hostages were freed, clearly recalls former-Secretary of State Cyrus Vance saying immediately after their release that the U.S. government would find a way to compensate the hostages for the injustices they had suffered. "The frustration," says John Limbert, a junior Foreign Service officer at the time who spent many months in solitary confinement, "is that our own government has opposed us and has implicitly worked in concert with the Islamic Republic. . . . It's like some kind of a bad John le Carre novel." Having failed to win compensation for the hostages through the courts, Thomas Lankford, the Alexandria-based lawyer who represents them, turned to Congress. "We tried to fashion a remedy from fines and penalties for companies and individuals sanctioned for doing business with Iran illegally," he says. "Plus a surcharge." And they were, he believes, on the "lip of success" at the end of last year when it seemed Isakson's legislation might be included in the $1.1 trillion spending bill. Lankford slipped out of his seat at an Aaron Neville concert late one December night to finesse some key language, only to learn the next morning that it hadn't made it into the bill. On the Jan. 20 anniversary of the hostages' release, Isakson issued a statement saying he planned to reintroduce legislation soon. He continues to back the hostages' quest out of a sense of "equity," he says. Now, some of the former hostages wonder whether their cause might come up in the ongoing talks over curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions, whether compensating them could be part of an ultimate diplomatic deal. The United States is providing some sanctions relief to Iran as part of those negotiations, freeing up about about $490 million in Iranian revenue held abroad every three weeks. In an e-mail, a State Department official expressed sympathy with the hostages' plight but says the "talks are focused on one issue and one issue only ensuring that Iran cannot acquire a nuclear weapon" and that "we will continue to work with Congress to explore options" to compensate the former hostages. That may be the way of Washington. But it leaves further frustration and existential questions in its wake. "There needs to be some kind of impact" on the states that sponsor terrorism, Firestone says. "Look at how many lives they ruined." Those ruined lives documented in memoirs, reimagined in movies and relived in unrelenting nightmares are now the baseline for the chillingly formulaic calculus of attaching price tags to historic wrongs, like the settlements with the Japanese interned during World War II, the 9/11 victims' compensation fund, or the ongoing debate about reparations for slavery . So what's the going rate for depression, divorce, substance abuse and premature deaths linked to 444 days of unmitigated stress? For long days whiled away in mental institutions? Should somebody like Cooke , who says the experience in Tehran left him with "a greater appreciation for living my life . . . that life is something to be treasured," get the same amount as another former hostage who is eager to hide his name because he's still convinced the Iranians will come over and kill him? What would it take to make whole the family of the late Leland "Jumper" Holland, the Army attache who worked in intelligence and thus was singled out to suffer, according to his son John Holland, who used to help his mother manage her husband's bouts of crouching, mumbling fear? They all suffered, says Lankford, who emphasizes that he is simply asking that these hostages and their families be treated like other victims of terrorism. "When you live in fear of your every breath being your last, it changes everyone." The figure Lankford names is $448 million. That, he explains, is in keeping with a historic standard applied by U.S. courts of $10,000 per hostage per day of captivity or about $4.4 million per head, and half that amount for each spouse and child. Although it is far more than the $50 per day that each hostage received from the government in the 1980s, it is a paltry request compared with the sums (including punitive damages) that U.S. courts have awarded in some cases. Associated Press journalist Terry Anderson won $341 million after being imprisoned for nearly seven years in Lebanon. American University of Beirut administrator Thomas Sutherland was awarded more than $350 million after being held almost as long. Both collected tens of millions from Iranian money held by the Pentagon, according to Washington lawyer Stuart Newberger of Crowell & Moring, who represented them. Other victims of terrorism who have won judgments but not yet received a payment see some benefit in the legal process itself. "It was important if an injustice had occurred that we use justice and the rule of law to the best effect that we could," says Susan van de Ven, whose father, Middle East scholar Malcolm Kerr, was shot in the back of the head by Hezbollah gunmen in 1984 when he was president of the American University of Beirut. Van de Ven, whose book, "One Family's Response to Terrorism ," explores the moral complexities of seeking compensation, recalls the six years of methodical deliberations that she went through with her mother and close relatives (including her brother, former NBA star and Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr) before deciding to bring suit almost 20 years after her father's death. "We felt very conflicted about using the U.S. legal system when we felt the U.S. government had had a role to play in the problem my father found himself in," recalls van de Ven, whose family has had deep ties in the Middle East for generations. Suing for damages, she says, "is an imperfect system, but far better than retribution." The Tehran hostages argue, similarly, that their cause is not only about the money. The "principle of accountability" is compelling, says Limbert, who went on to become deputy assistant secretary of state for Iran and whose wife is Iranian. "The idea that the Iranian authorities endorsed the action and benefited from it and were never held accountable." Compensation won't change what's happened, says Firestone, "but it would at least show us that the U.S. cares." Notes from a crisis The television is on in the split-level Rockville home where Firestone picked up the call from her father 35 years ago and where Marge German still lives. The screen shows footage of the terrorist attack at Charlie Hebdo, of ordinary Parisians demonstrating solidarity with the dead journalists. Scenes like that sometimes bring the pain back, mother and daughter point out as they sit at the dining-room table. At times, they say, "It's still very, very raw." They are talking not only about the 444 days of the crisis, when Marge German sent packages of pineapple-raisin cookies along with her letters to Tehran and arranged for the hostages to get subscriptions to the Sporting News. They are thinking about the years since then, about how the stay-at-home mom who'd given up her career as a budget analyst found herself cobbling together Pell grants and student loans to put Firestone and her brothers through school. There's no knowing how their lives might have played out if the hostage crisis hadn't happened. What role, if any, the prolonged captivity and mock executions played in what came next. Whether everything might have been different had there been more support for the hostages and their families once they were reunited. People simply didn't talk about post-traumatic stress order back then, says Firestone. German is writing a memoir about the crisis. She started 35 years ago, never imagining the arc the narrative would take. She flicks through the neatly typed pages, reading from the notes she took the day she missed her husband's call and remembering how she questioned Deb after meeting Mrs. Carter, eager for new details about her absent spouse. Several other families got calls that afternoon, German says. She has a theory that the Iranians knew about the meeting with the first lady, so that when the hostages were finally allowed to telephone home, they would find their wives were out. That's just the kind of thing the hostage takers would do, she says. To break their victims' spirits and wreak havoc in their families' lives. | 5 | 6,558 | news |
Paz de la Huerta looks oh, I don't know moderately ridiculou s in Vivienne Westwood's spring 2015 campaign, photographed by none other than Juergen Teller. { Fashion Copious } Unlike the now-defunct C. Wonder , Tory Burch is growing... big-time. The brand, which was valued at $2.25 billion during its 2012 stock sale, is now reportedly valued at $3.25 billion, and sources report that $200 million worth of the company's shares were traded in the most recent stock swap. With things looking this good, it seems like it will only be a matter of time before the private company goes public. { WWD } Balmain's Olivier Rousteing talks about the return of the "curved woman" and how he tries to combat racism through his runway casting. Oh, and the one woman that could turn him straight? Not Kim K, guys. That would be Rihanna. { Telegraph } Gisele Bündchen looks typically goddess-like with sun-kissed skin, a smoldering gaze and beachy waves on the cover of Vogue UK. The supermodel talks about her family, her dream of living like Tarzan and Jane (no joke) and her earliest memory, which involves some chicken eggs and cows. { Vogue UK } Homepage Photo: Theo Wargo/Getty Images This article was written by Gemma Kim from Fashionista and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. | 4 | 6,559 | lifestyle |
In the past 15 years, widespread internet access has transformed nearly every aspect of how Americans live. In that time span, Facebook has changed the way we connect with one another, Uber has made it easier for us to get from place to place, and YouTube has brought a seemingly infinite number of entertainment possibilities to our fingertips. But what about the next 15 years? How will the internet change from what it is today? And more importantly, how will new advancements make our world a fundamentally different place than it was before? The Onward, Internet project, developed by the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, is asking people to submit their ideas for what they'd like to see next on the internet. Some of these suggestions are a little fantastical (" more unicorns "!), while others are more practical (" protect my bank codes better "). We did our own research on what experts predict the internet will look like 5, 10 and 15 years from now. In general, we can expect the internet to continue expanding to places it has never been accessible before: far-off, rural locations around the world, inside our household appliances, maybe even on Mars. Here's what we learned: In 5 years Five years from now, everyone in the world will be able to use the internet, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt predicted in 2013 . Here in the US, 87% of the adult population is already online , up from 66% in 2005. In the coming years, nonprofit organizations and internet service providers will work to sign up the remaining 13% of Americans through programs like Connect2Compete , a partnership between the nonprofit EveryoneOn and several major cable companies that allows low-income families to purchase broadband service at a reduced rate. And while we think of the internet today as something we access from computing devices like laptops and smartphones, in five years, billions of household items from washing machines to door locks will have internet connectivity. For instance, your refrigerator might have sensors on it that can figure out when you're running low on milk, and that can then use the internet to send an alert to your smartphone. Pretty cool, right? The technology research firm Gartner expects the so-called "Internet of Things" to grow from the fewer than 1 billion connected objects that existed in 2009 to more than 25 billion in 2020 . Meanwhile, the investment bank Morgan Stanley estimates that number wind up being as high as 75 billion . In 10 years People will be so connected via the internet that they will be able to create new digital "nations" with other people who share their interests, early internet pioneer David Hughes predicted in a report published by the Pew Research Center's Internet Project . As a result, Hughes says, traditional countries could have less influence over the people within their geographic boundaries. University of Michigan associate professor Nicole Ellison predicts that all this connectivity will also make the world a more empathetic place. Ellison tells the Pew Research Center that the internet will make people living in the developed world more aware of how difficult it is for people living elsewhere to find food, health care, clean water, and education. As a result, she says, people in developed nations will be inspired to work even harder to help solve these problems. In 15 years Learning will be easier than ever, predicts Matt Mead, the chief investment officer of Nesta, a UK charity focused on innovation. In a report published by the accounting firm Grant Thornton , Mead writes that educators will use widespread internet access to teach students more effectively. He says that teachers will be able to use virtual schools to give students the information they need, and that machine-learning technology will help teachers personalize the lessons on these websites based on students' strengths and weaknesses. And Earth might not be the only place where the internet will make it easier to obtain information. According to io9's George Dvorsky, there very well could be internet access on Mars by 2030. While that might sound like something out of science fiction, NASA is planning for interplanetary internet connections right now. In a 2012 test , International Space Station commander Sunita Williams controlled a robot located on the ground in Germany while she was in space. You can submit your own suggestion for the future of the internet at the Onward, Internet site . This post is sponsored by the NCTA . Find out more about Sponsored Content . | 3 | 6,560 | finance |
Twitter is rolling out plans for a new revenue stream: Twitter ads that don't appear on Twitter. Starting today, the company will start running its core "Promoted Tweet" ad unit on other people's apps and sites. It's kicking off with Flipboard, the social news reader app, and also plans to run the ads on Yahoo Japan. The idea is a basic one. Advertisers who are already buying ads on Twitter can run the same ads, in the same format, on places outside of Twitter that display Tweets; Twitter will share revenue with the third-party platforms. Here's an example of a Flipboard ad: Tease it out, and you end up with Twitter's version of an ad network, which rival Facebook has already brought to the market. Twitter is pitching the plan as a way for advertisers to expand their reach beyond Twitter's core; a blog post announcing the deal says there were 185 billion "Tweet impressions" beyond Twitter's own site and apps in the third quarter of last year. Twitter won't come out and put it this way, but this pitch is also designed with Wall Street in mind. The company has been telling investors, who are worried about its user numbers, that it can make money beyond its monthly active user base of 284 million people*. Now it has a real-life example to show them. Not a coincidence: Twitter posts its fourth-quarter earnings Thursday afternoon. The ad announcement is one of a flurry of new product rollouts the company has shown off in recent weeks, including a new video feature , a group messaging feature and an "instant timeline" feature meant to help new users . To beat this into the ground: Twitter told Wall Street that it was going to deliver most of this stuff a few months ago , at its first analyst day presentation. As the Wall Street Journal reported, Twitter's ad team previewed its newest plan at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month. But Twitter executives have been talking about porting the "promoted Tweet" ad unit outside of Twitter for some time, and that strategy became clearer after it bought mobile ad exchange MoPub in 2013. For now, this is still closer to a concept than a full-blown product: People familiar with Twitter say that at the start, Twitter's ad team will be working with advertisers on a case-by-case basis to manually expand Twitter ad buyers to other platforms. But eventually, they'd like this to be an automated process, so that people who are buying eyeballs on Twitter can click a box and buy eyeballs lots of other places, too. Related: Twitter ad boss Adam Bain will be onstage at our Code/Media conference Feb. 17 and 18. You can hear from him and 19 other fascinating speakers by grabbing one of our last tickets here . *That's Twitter's last reported monthly user number, which will go up this week when Twitter reports its Q4 earnings. | 3 | 6,561 | finance |
With baseball's off-season dealings all but complete, USA TODAY Sports examines the moves of all 30 teams. The grades for the National League: A+ San Diego Padres : Newly hired general manager A.J. Preller made eight trades that radically changed the face of the Padres. In separate deals, he acquired Matt Kemp, Justin Upton and Wil Myers to form a powerful outfield trio. He also acquired catcher Derek Norris and third baseman Will Middlebrooks. A Washington Nationals : General manager Mike Rizzo dished out the largest contract for a right-handed pitcher seven years and $210 million for Max Scherzer to guarantee the Nationals again will have the best rotation in the majors. Last season, the staff led the league with a 3.03 ERA. Scherzer had an 82-35 record the last five seasons with the Detroit Tigers. The addition of Casey Janssen helps fortify a bullpen that lost Tyler Clippard and Rafael Soriano. Chicago Cubs : The addition of Joe Maddon changes the landscape in the Windy City. The Cubs then added Jon Lester, who has averaged 15 wins and a 3.47 ERA since 2008, and re-signed reliable starter Jason Hammel. The Cubs also snagged veteran catcher Miguel Montero in a trade with the Arizona Diamondbacks. B+ Miami Marlins : Owner Jeffrey Loria gave Giancarlo Stanton a record 13-year, $325 million contract that includes a no-trade clause. The Marlins also traded for established players in second baseman Dee Gordon, third baseman Martin Prado and right-handed pitchers Mat Latos, Dan Haren and Aaron Crow and signed free agent first baseman Michael Morse. B St. Louis Cardinals : Jason Heyward, 25, fills the void in right field after the death of prospect Oscar Taveras. In the trade with the Braves, the Cardinals dealt pitcher Shelby Miller, who has 26 victories in a little more than two seasons in the majors. But the Cardinals had the pitching depth to make the deal. Heyward, who is heading into his sixth big-league season, has won two Gold Gloves and averaged 20 homers per 162 games. Pittsburgh Pirates : The Pirates took a hit when they lost catcher Russell Martin to the Toronto Blue Jays. But they rebounded by retaining left-hander Francisco Liriano and welcomed back to the rotation A.J. Burnett, who won 26 games for them between 2012 and 2013. All-Star Josh Harrison will have a permanent home at third base after the Pirates cut ties with first basemen Ike Davis and Gaby Sanchez. B- Los Angeles Dodgers : The Dodgers hired Andrew Friedman as president of baseball operations and Farhan Zaidi as general manager. Together they brokered many big deals that have L.A. in position to make another pennant run. Outfielder Matt Kemp, second baseman Dee Gordon and pitcher Dan Haren were traded. Shortstop Jimmy Rollins was acquired to replace Hanley Ramirez. And pitcher Brandon McCarthy signed a one-year deal. C+ Atlanta Braves : John Hart, the new president of baseball operations, traded outfielders Jason Heyward and Justin Upton, catcher Evan Gattis and reliever Jordan Walden. He cut ties with right-handers Kris Medlen and Brandon Beachy and lost starters Gavin Floyd, Ervin Santana and Aaron Harang to free agency. The focus is on 2017, when the Braves move into a new stadium, as they added starter Shelby Miller. San Francisco Giants : They lost third baseman Pablo Sandoval to free agency but traded for third baseman Casey McGehee, re-signed pitcher Jake Peavy and added Nori Aoki as a backup outfielder. Also returning are pitcher Ryan Vogelsong and reliever Sergio Romo. The move that might get the least amount of attention is the loss of third-base coach Tim Flannery manager Bruce Bochy's right-hand man during their three titles. C- New York Mets : They made the offseason's first free agent signing, giving outfielder Michael Cuddyer a two-year, $21million contract Nov.10. But Cuddyer turns 36 in March. He is a year removed from winning the NL batting title but is injury prone, averaging 93 games over the last three seasons. The Mets lose a first-round pick in this year's draft and haven't upgraded shortstop or the rotation. Arizona Diamondbacks : New chief baseball officer Tony La Russa and general manager Dave Stewart signed free agent Cuban outfielder Yasmany Tomas to a six-year, $68 million contract. With Tomas, 24, they get raw power at a relatively cheap price. Arizona also traded for pitcher Jeremy Hellickson but lost shortstop Didi Gregorius, left-hander Wade Miley and catcher Miguel Montero in offseason trades. Philadelphia Phillies : They looked to unload their aging, high-priced stars over the winter. General manager Ruben Amaro Jr. parted ways with Jimmy Rollins but didn't find matches for pitcher Cole Hamels or first baseman Ryan Howard. He dealt outfielder Marlon Byrd and pitcher Antonio Bastardo, but that didn't put much of a dent in the $179million payroll. Cincinnati Reds : They lost two of their five starters in trades, Mat Latos to the Marlins and Alfredo Simon to the Detroit Tigers. They got several prospects but no one to make an impact in 2015. The one big addition was outfielder Marlon Byrd, 37. Milwaukee Brewers : The Brewers got first baseman Adam Lind in a trade with the Toronto Blue Jays and exercised their option with third baseman Aramis Ramirez. The rotation will miss Yovani Gallardo, who was traded to the Texas Rangers. D Colorado Rockies : Most significant offseason move was signing part-time catcher Nick Hundley. They still could lose shortstop Troy Tulowitzki and outfielder Carlos Gonzalez, who have been talked about in offseason deals, but those might be unlikely, given their hefty contracts and recent injury history. GALLERY: Offseason MLB trades | 1 | 6,562 | sports |
From a "Genie in a Bottle" to "Stripped" to "Back to Basics," here's how Christina Aguilera's style has evolved dramatically over the years. | 4 | 6,563 | lifestyle |
Shannon Ray does her version of 50 Shades of Grey-inspired smoky eye. | 4 | 6,564 | lifestyle |
In 1972, somebody lost one of the great muscle cars for $51.45, the sum for which the Bedford National Bank of Bedford, Iowa, repossessed this real R-code 1970 Plymouth Hemi Barracuda convertible. Wade Ogle ran across a copy of this old lien in the files he inherited as he prepared his 'Cuda for Mopars at the Strip this past spring. He credits Galen Govier for sending the Iowa DMV a couple bucks for a title history in 1992. Wade is perhaps the preeminent collector of E-Body Hemi convertibles in the world. He owns a '70 'Cuda convertible, a '71 'Cuda convertible, and a '70 Challenger R/T, also a Hemi, also a convertible. Production figures total 12 for the '71 Hemi 'Cuda convertible and 18 for the '70 model. Many sources incorrectly record the '70 Hemi 'Cuda convertible total as 14. There were 14 built for domestic sale, but three more were built for export to Canada and one for export to England. Follow MSN Autos on Facebook Wade breaks down the 18 further into 12 automatics and six with four-speed transmissions. Wade's ride is one of these six four-speeds, fitted with a select few options. He figures the first owner ordered the car with performance in mind, but "on a budget." The car has "no power anything," Wade says. In fact, aside from the Hemi motor and convertible body style, the original owner paid extra just for the four-speed, In Violet High Impact paint, Rallye gauge package, AM radio, tinted windshield, undercoating, and Track Pak, consisting of the maximum cooling system, Hemi suspension, and Dana 60 axle fitted with the base 3.54:1 gears in a Sure-Grip differential. Even the convertible top on this multimillion-dollar 'Cuda is manual. More classic muscle cars on MSN Autos "It's almost irresponsible that a car like this could exist," says Wade. "With this much power, but inadequate suspension, tires, user controls, and braking system, this particular car should have been wrapped around a tree on its first day out." In 2007, Wade bought the car from Steve Klein who, with his partner, bought it in 2001 for roughly $375,000 from longtime owners Kevin and Sandy Faris. This six-figure price was unheard of at the time for an unrestored, color-changed car. However, less than two years later a '71 Hemi 'Cuda convertible sold for a cool million dollars even. Prices would go on to double and even triple, reaching three to five-plus million at their zenith. The Farises found the car in 1972 at Bryant Motors in Plattsmouth, Nebraska. Joe Bryant had purchased the repossession from the Bedford National Bank for $750. The 'Cuda was believed to have been sold new to a heavy-footed 18-year-old through Baxter Chrysler/Plymouth in Omaha, which later sold the car, now with 8,000 miles on it, to a Roger Davison in the summer of 1971. A friend bought the car three weeks later and owned it for six months before the bank's repossession. The very night Bryant's dealership got the 'Cuda, the owner's brother-in-law spun a bearing. Bryant pulled the wounded Hemi and transmission and, with 10,223 miles on the clock, sold the powerless car to the Farises as-is for $850. Bryant also sold off the Dana 60 but installed a B-body Dana 60 as part of the sale. Kevin Faris installed a 340 Six Pack motor and covered the Shaker opening in the hood with a Super Stock scoop. A year or so later Bryant called the Farises and asked if they would like to buy the original 426 they kept tripping over in their shop. The price was $325. Money was tight, but the Farises said yes and also agreed to redo the wiring in Bryant's house in exchange for the original transmission. A couple of years after the Farises bought the 'Cuda, the paint became an issue. Wade believes Chrysler had quality problems with the In Violet because the paint decayed rather rapidly. The Farises took the car back to Bryant Motors for a custom paintjob a psychedelic deep silver metalflake on top and purple with multicolored metalflake flames along the lower side that remained on the 'Cuda even after the sale to Klein. Wade recently put the car back to stock but was criticized for removing the custom paint. Wade says, "The paint became like folklore because it was on this car so many years. That was the custom one, the crazy custom one." As it turned out, the custom paint helped save the car. 1967 Chevrolet Corvette 427 vs 1968 Porsche 911L The Farises pulled the motor and painted the entire engine compartment and trunk silver. They painted the transmission and the driveshaft bright orange. All that thick and expensive paint, and the care the Farises subsequently took with their customized prize, protected this 'Cuda from the harsh conditions that ate away at so many other cars. Wade says, "Although they were going the full custom route, the Farises had the foresight to preserve as much of the car's originality as possible." The 340's custom motor mounts left the Hemi's K-member intact; they kept the manual steering components when they converted to power steering; and as they made other performance improvements over the years, "they wisely kept the original components, including the original bellhousing, starter, distributor, and idler arm. I got the car virtually intact, with all its factory parts." Prior to applying the psychedelic paint, the Farises carefully removed and kept the original Shaker decal from under the hood, the door VIN decal, the tire pressure decal from the driver-side quarter, and even the jack instruction decal from the trunk lid. They also kept the original fender tag and repainted it silver, preserving the metal in pristine condition. When Steve Klein bought the car, he contracted Galen Govier to perform a comprehensive inspection. Per Govier's report, the points of contention were the incorrect paint and general wear, plus the incorrect B-Body axle. In the car they found two pristine copies of the factory broadcast sheet, and Govier confirmed that the engine, transmission, broadcast sheets, fender tag, and body codes were factory correct for the car. During Klein's seven years of ownership, the colorful 'Cuda adopted the name The Bass Boat, as its metalflake paint was similar to the finish found on many fishing boats. One year at the Mopar Nationals, Klein's friends filled the 'Cuda with fishing poles. Wade had no qualms about the repaint to stock, and neither did his restorer, Roger Gibson. The early custom paintjob, and the foresight of the Farises, preserved the car's originality to the point that Gibson said this was one of the best bodies he had ever seen. The car was restored using its original parts whenever possible and primarily treated to N.O.S. and excellent date-code-correct used parts when not. To correct the 'Cuda's only flaw, Wade found a pristine E-Body Dana 60 axle assembly with a date code to match the 'Cuda's February 1970 scheduled build date. As a nod to the car's eclectic history, Wade wisely kept some of the psychedelic components the metalflake-slathered Shaker bubble, trunk lid, and grille assembly and mounted them on a special display to honor the car's colorful past. Wade bought the 'Cuda for slightly less than Klein's eBay asking price of $1.8 million. He sees value here for several reasons, primarily the unique character of the E-Body Hemi convertibles, particularly in the 'Cuda. "Chrysler did what nobody else did. They put the best engine they had into their pony car convertible," he says. "Chevrolet didn't make a Camaro ZL1 convertible. Ford didn't make a Boss 429 Mustang convertible. Pontiac offered their Trans Am in a convertible in 1969, but none were ordered with the exotic RA-IV engine." Wade says, "The 'Cudas and Challengers were the smallest body style with the biggest engines. That's what a muscle car is all about: small body, big engine. And although the Challengers are more rare, the shorter wheelbase and arguably sportier styling of the 'Cuda are why they garner the most attention from collectors today." While the Hemi 'Cuda convertibles soared in value alongside other muscle cars through the first decade of this 21st century, reaching up to $2.2 million for an orange automatic at Barrett-Jackson in January 2006, rarity and desirability appear to be keeping these drop-top pony cars immune to economic pressures. Earlier this year one of the other 12 automatic '70 Hemi 'Cuda convertibles, a white-on-red, no-excuse example, sold at auction for $1.705 million. And to think somebody in Iowa let the car go back to the lien holder for $51.45! That's the kind of provenance few multimillion-dollar collectibles can boast. At a Glance 1970 Hemi 'Cuda Owned by: Wade & Aster Ogle, San Jose, CA Restored by: Roger Gibson Restoration, Scott City, MO Engine: 426ci/425hp Hemi V-8 Transmission: A-833 4-speed manual Rearend: Dana 60 with 3.54 gears and Sure-Grip Interior: Black vinyl bucket seat Wheels: 15x7 steel with dog dish hubcaps Tires: F60-15 Goodyear Polyglas GT Special parts: Track-Pak, Hurst Pistol Grip shifter, Rallye gauges, In Violet High Impact paint, AM radio, tinted windshield, undercoating Do you have a Rare Find story to share? Contact Jerry Heasley at [email protected] or on Twitter @JerryHeasley . Mechanic converts $400 rust bucket into America's best custom car | 9 | 6,565 | autos |
Iggy Azalea has soared to stardom as a rare white woman in hip-hop, but her meteoric rise has triggered a backlash that reveals much about the music business's fault-lines on race and gender. The 24-year-old Australian, who released her first full album just nine months ago, is up for four Grammy awards on Sunday, including the prestigious Record of the Year for her smash hit "Fancy." But even as Azalea wins plaudits from the industry and packs arenas, detractors see her as uncanny or even offensive -- a white, blonde woman who raps in an accent that is identifiably African American. Her most vociferous critic has been fellow rapper Azealia Banks, a black woman who has accused Azalea of mocking African Americans. Banks, who has never been nominated for a Grammy, charged that Azalea -- whom she taunted as "Igloo Australia" -- shied away from issues important to the black community such as police brutality. "When they give these Grammys out, all it says to white kids is, 'Oh yeah, you're great, you're amazing, you can do whatever you put your mind to.' "And it says to black kids, 'You don't have shit -- you don't own shit, not even the shit you created for yourself,'" Banks said in a radio interview. Azalea -- who moved to the United States as a teenager to pursue her hip-hop dreams and has been romantically linked to African American men -- has denounced Banks as a "bigot." "There are many black artists succeeding in all genres. The reason you haven't is because of your piss poor attitude," Azalea wrote on Twitter. - Hip-hop now global - Hip-hop has gone global since its birth in New York in the 1970s -- and Azalea is hardly a trailblazer as a white rapper. The all-time best-selling rapper -- Eminem -- is white, as are Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, the duo who won four Grammys last year. But a more unique factor is Azalea's gender. No women, black or white, have come close to achieving the sales of hip-hop's leading men, some of whom are notorious for misogynistic lyrics. James Braxton Peterson, a scholar of hip-hop at Lehigh University, said that the music's US audience was now predominantly white -- but also male -- meaning that Azalea was able to connect with a ready audience of white girls and women. "Hip-hop culture is a black American art form that, much like jazz and the blues and other art forms before it, has transcended the origins of its emergence," Peterson said. Peterson said it was unrealistic to stop the globalization of hip-hop, which has become a potent political force in parts of the world as diverse as France, Ghana and the Gaza Strip. Yet hip-hop, by its very nature, draws more questions about artists' identities, he said. "In most other musical forms, if somebody else writes your lyrics, that's fine, that's pretty normal. But in hip-hop, if someone else is writing your lyrics, it calls into question all sorts of questions of authenticity," he said. Azalea has been dogged by accusations of using ghostwriters. Nicki Minaj -- one of the most acclaimed female rappers --- was widely seen as criticizing Azalea last year when she said that the world should know, "When you hear Nicki Minaj spit, Nicki Minaj wrote it." The Trinidad-born Minaj later accused the media of putting words in her mouth and has congratulated Azalea on her success. - What is genuine? - It will never be known if Azalea would have achieved similar success if she rapped in Australian brogue. British hip-hop artists such as The Streets and London Posse kept their accents and enjoyed success, although not on the massive scale experienced by Azalea. Despite the charges of inauthenticity, Azalea -- like many rappers -- has injected herself into the music. In "Work," one of her first songs, she raps of her struggles to start in hip-hop and declares: "People got a lot to say / But don't know shit 'bout where I was made." But her lyrics have also faced close scrutiny. She apologized for another song in which she described herself as a "runaway slave master" -- a phrase she insisted was metaphorical and not racist. Azalea, a prolific user of Twitter, recently wrote she was annoyed by strangers trying to "set the guidelines for how I should act or what's genuine for me." "I'm myself, as strange as I may be, daily," she wrote. | 6 | 6,566 | entertainment |
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MINNEAPOLIS LeBron James didn't have to wait. The game was over. The Cleveland Cavaliers had won their 10th consecutive game, beating Minnesota 106-90, pulling away with James scoring 16 of his 36 points in the fourth quarter. The victory finished a stretch of four games in five nights for the Cavs, and James was worn out. But James had one more play to make. James stood near the far basket at the Target Center with two Cavs employees, hands on hips, patiently waiting for teammate Kevin Love, the former Timberwolf, to finish a radio interview. Love's stressful return to the city he called home for six seasons ended successfully with Love grabbing 17 rebounds to go with 14 points, and James wanted to show his appreciation. They clasped hands and hugged briefly under the basket, then headed down the tunnel to the locker room together. "It was all our responsibility as his teammates and his brothers to protect him tonight," James said. "We didn't know what to expect, but he could lean on us throughout everything that happened today. For us, we had to go out and help him get a win." Love heard mixed boos and cheers when introduced, then steady boos whenever he touched the ball the first three quarters. The reaction wasn't unexpected. When Love threatened to opt out of his contract next summer -- a controversial clause stemming from former Wolves basketball operations chief David Kahn's refusal to give Love a maximum five-year extension in 2012 the Wolves had little choice but to trade him. The three-team deal last August landed the Wolves overall No. 1 pick Andrew Wiggins from the Cavs, the centerpiece to yet another rebuilding effort for a franchise that last made the playoffs in 2004. Minnesota won't see postseason this season. It has the NBA's worst record at 8-40, which took some doing in a league where Philadelphia started 0-17 -- a streak that ended against the Wolves -- and the Knicks slog through an historically abysmal season. Injuries, notably Ricky Rubio's badly sprained right ankle, haven't helped. Rubio is finally back in the lineup after missing 42 games. The 19-year-old Wiggins provides one thin ray of hope that the Wolves might have gotten value for Love. His 33 points in that game against Cleveland tied the Wolves record for a teenager shared by Kevin Garnett and Stephon Marbury. Wiggins and James guarded each other most of the night, and though Wiggins kept Minnesota in the game with a 23-point first half, James schooled him at crunch time. "In this league, it's a no-mercy league," Wiggins said. "It's kill or be killed." Others were more complimentary. James called Wiggins "a great talent." Minnesota Coach Flip Saunders, who orchestrated the Love trade, said, "He showed tonight he's got the potential to be a superstar in this league." And Wolves veteran guard Kevin Martin added, "He's going to be a special player. We've seen that since Day One, and over this past month he's been unbelievable. He took the challenge tonight and he succeeded." Love's skill was easy to discern with the Wolves as the best player on a bad team. He led the league in rebounding in 2010-11, averaged better than 20 points per game three times and played in three All-Star Games, last season's as a starter. His value, and worth, may be tougher to determine in Cleveland with better players around him. While Love still averages a double-double (17.1 points, 10.4 rebounds), his scoring, rebounding, overall and 3-point shooting percentages are all down from last year. He has gone from being a star to a talented support player for a team that last month added guards Iman Shumpert and J.R. Smith from the Knicks and center Timofey Mozgov from Denver. The Cavs took off, winning 11 in a row after Monday's 97-84 win against Philadelphia, once James returned from left knee and lower back strains. Cavs first-year Coach David Blatt, who drew criticism last month for saying Love wasn't a max player yet a reference to Love's contract, Blatt later said, not his ability praised Love for fitting in. "He's averaging a double-double," Blatt said. "If you want to compare him to last year's numbers, maybe there's a difference. But that is still pretty good production for anyone, anywhere. He's doing that on a team where there are other players with the same type of capability in one respect or another. I think what he's doing is actually quite special. "And I also think Kevin has been asked to do things here is that maybe in the past he wasn't asked to do because of the load on him offensively. He's really, really improved and embraced his defensive role on the team as well. I see that as a big upgrade, perhaps, on his play from before, which by all means was outstanding." Said Love: "I'd be lying if I said it wasn't an adjustment. I'm trying to find different ways to be as efficient as possible. It's something I prided myself on here. There are different ways for me to affect the game. I'm still figuring that out on this team. We still have 35-plus games left. That will continue to evolve and change and get better." Love struggled to pinpoint the best way to judge his season. "I don't know how to answer that. I don't really know," he said. "I came to the Cavaliers to win basketball games, and we're doing that now." | 5 | 6,569 | news |
Is the millennial generation forsaking Budweiser for Jim Beam? That's the question many liquor industry insiders and experts are asking as bourbon sales continue to grow. A new report, released today by the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS), shows that sales of bourbon and Tennessee whiskey soared by 7.4% in 2014 to 19 million 9-liter cases, outpacing such categories as single-malt Scotch (6.4%), tequila (5%) and vodka (1.6%). (Overall spirits sales increased by 2.2% to 210 million cases, according to the council.) And some bourbon brands and product lines are seeing more dramatic spikes. For example, the line of high-end (or "super premium") bourbons produced by the Jim Beam unit of spirits conglomerate Beam Suntory, including Knob Creek, Basil Hayden's, Bookers and Maker's, is up 27% in 2014, according to Nielsen, which gathers spirits market data. Basil Hayden's alone soared by 44%. The news comes at a time when American beer sales have been on a decline they're down 4% over the last five years to 2.79 billion cases. (That means that consumers are still drinking considerably more beer than spirits, even if there's a shifting trend.) Some beer brands are facing an even tougher time: Domestic sales of Budweiser are down 28% over the past five years, according to a published report. Most industry watchers point to the fact that those splashy Super Bowl ads notwithstanding, millennials just don't seem to be as interested in mass-market brews like Budweiser as their parents were. (Craft brews are a different story: Sales of those were up 18% through the first half of 2014, according to the Brewers Association, a trade group; nevertheless, craft beer constitutes only 10% of the overall U.S. beer market.) In a survey by Consumer Edge, a research group, 40% of drinkers between the ages of 21 to 27 said they were "getting tired of the taste" of mass-market beers. But why bourbon as the alternative, especially compared with other spirits? Experts say it's for a variety of reasons, including the spirit's inherently appealing taste: Bourbon must be made from a mix of grains that includes at least 50% corn in turn, that corn component lends a sweetness to the liquid. "It's generally a smooth, fairly drinkable spirit," says Noah Rothbaum, an industry authority and author of the soon-to-be-released book, "The Art of American Whiskey." Plus, at a time when many of the popular single-malt Scotches sell for $50 or more, bourbon is simply an affordable alternative, often priced well below that mark. A case in point: Tincup, a new and much acclaimed bourbon-style whiskey that sells for around $25. The relatively low price point was key to Jess Graber, the Colorado-based distiller who launched the brand. "It's good enough, but you don't have to break the bank to buy it," he says. | 3 | 6,570 | finance |
Six-year-old Rafael Barkan isn't unlike many car-obsessed kids. He spends his time playing with Hot Wheels, learning about cars, and attending local car shows when he can. But one little thing sets him apart: his ambition. According to his dad, Steve Barkan, Rafael is an ardent fan of the Chevrolet El Camino , but instead of dreaming about buying a classic of his own, he thinks General Motors should put it in production again. His request (inscribed in his own handwriting in a letter to GM CEO Mary Barra) is simple: To Mary Barra GMC CEO [sic] Please start making El Caminos again. Thank you. From Rafael Barkan and Steve Barkan As if that well-worded (and adorable) letter weren't enough, Rafael took his request to the streets, starting an online petition to prove to Barra that there was enough interest in a new El Camino . The week-old petition already has 1,082 signatures, more than the goal of 1,000 that Rafael specified. If you agree with Rafael (which this author certainly does), you can sign your X on the petition here and discuss it with other fans. How cool would it be if Rafael's ambitions resulted in a new El Camino for all of us? Source: iPetitions | 9 | 6,571 | autos |
Marine animal kills cancer cells, mitigates side effects of chemotherapy | 7 | 6,572 | health |
AMMAN (Reuters) - Islamic State militants released a video on Tuesday appearing to show a captured Jordanian pilot being burnt alive in a cage, a killing that shocked the world and prompted Jordan to promise an "earth-shaking" response. A Jordanian official said the authorities would swiftly execute several militants in retaliation, including an Iraqi woman whom Amman had sought to swap for the pilot taken captive after his plane crashed in Syria in December. Reuters could not immediately confirm the content of the video, which showed a man resembling airman Mouath al-Kasaesbeh standing in a small black cage before being set ablaze. The furious reaction of the Jordanian authorities made clear they treated it as genuine. Jordan, which has been mounting air raids in Syria as part of the U.S.-led alliance against Islamic State insurgents, would deliver a "strong, earth-shaking and decisive" response, a government spokesman said. "The revenge will be as big as the calamity that has hit Jordan," army spokesman Colonel Mamdouh al Ameri said in a televised statement confirming the death of the pilot, who was seized by Islamic State in December. The fate of Kasaesbeh, a member of a large tribe that forms the backbone of support for the country's Hashemite monarchy, has gripped Jordan for weeks and some Jordanians have criticised King Abdullah for embroiling them in the U.S.-led war that they say will provoke a backlash by militants. The king cut short a visit to the United States to return home following word of Kasaesbeh's death. In a televised statement, he said the pilot's killing was an act of "cowardly terror" by a deviant group that had no relation to Islam. Jordan had sought to swap the pilot for Sajida al-Rishawi, the Iraqi woman militant who was sentenced to death for her role in a 2005 suicide bombing in Amman that killed 60 people. Islamic State had demanded her release in exchange for the life of Japanese hostage Kenji Goto. However, Goto, a veteran war reporter, was later beheaded by the group, with images of his death released in a video on Saturday. The Jordanian security source said Rishawi would be executed "within hours". The Jordanian military might also escalate attacks on Islamic State, said retired air force General Mamoun Abu Nowar. "We might even see in a couple of days the rate of sorties increased dramatically. We might have some special operations against their leadership too," he said. In the Islamic State video, Kasaesbeh is interviewed, describing the mission he was due to carry out before his jet crashed. The video also showed footage of the aftermath of air strikes, with people trying to remove civilians from debris. A man resembling Kasaesbeh is shown inside the cage with his clothes dampened, apparently with flammable liquid, and one of the masked fighters holds a torch, setting alight a line of fuel which leads into the cage. The man is set ablaze and kneels to the ground. Fighters then pour debris, including broken masonry, over the cage which a bulldozer subsequently flattens, with the body still inside. The video shows a desert setting similar to previous videos of killings. DEMAND FOR REVENGE In the pilot's hometown of Karak in southern Jordan, people demanded revenge. "I want to see Sajida's body burnt and all the other terrorists in Jordanian prisons ... Only then will my thirst for revenge be satisfied," said Abdullah al-Majali, a government employee among dozens of demonstrators in the centre of Karak. Relatives of the pilot also gathered in Karak and urged calm after anti-government protests broke out in the town. They said it was up to the government to take revenge for them. Jordanian state television said on Tuesday that Kasaesbeh had been killed a month ago, on Jan. 3, and a source close to the Jordanian government said Amman had been picking up intelligence for weeks that the pilot was killed some time ago. Given that Jordan's own intelligence indicated the pilot was dead, the government decided it could not possibly release the woman absent convincing proof the pilot was still alive, the source said, and such proof never arrived. The White House said the intelligence community was studying when the video was recorded and that U.S. President Barack Obama had ordered his team to devote all resources to locate other hostages held by Islamic State. Obama rearranged his schedule on Tuesday to make sure he saw King Abdullah before the Jordanian leader flew back to Amman, a source familiar with the situation said. A staunch U.S. ally, Jordan is part of the alliance against the Islamic State group that has seized large areas of Syria and Iraq. King Abdullah has defended the campaign against domestic criticism, saying that moderate Muslims need to combat a group whose ideology and brutality have insulted Islam. The United States announced on Tuesday that it will increase annual aid to Jordan to $1 billion from $660 million to help it pay for the cost of housing refugees from Iraq and Syria and to fight Islamic State. Obama praised Kasaesbeh for his bravery and said he was "in the vanguard of the effort to degrade and defeat the threat" posed by militants from Islamic State, also known as ISIL. "Today, the coalition fights for everyone who has suffered from ISIL's inhumanity," Obama said in a statement, adding that the group's "hateful ideology" would be banished to "the recesses of history." Leaders around the world voiced outrage at the brutal killing. "It is incomprehensible how human beings are capable of such a cruel act," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel. In the video, the burned man wore orange clothes similar to those worn by other foreign Islamic State captives who have been killed since the U.S.-led coalition started bombing the militants in July. Islamic State has previously released videos showing the beheadings of five U.S. and British hostages and said that it killed two Japanese captives in the same way. It has meted out the same treatment to many more Arab prisoners, including Syrian government soldiers. The militants have stepped up the gruesome killings while coming under increased military pressure from the air strikes and a ground campaign by Kurdish and Iraqi troops to reverse their territorial gains in Iraq and Syria. Islamic State emerged out of al Qaeda in Iraq. It expanded into Syria as the country was plunged into a civil war estimated to have killed 200,000 people since 2011. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said on Tuesday that 51 civilians, including children, had been killed by Syrian air force strikes inside the country within the past day. The U.S.-led coalition says it does not coordinate with the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad, described by Washington as part of the problem. It does work with the Iraqi government, which is also fighting Islamic State. (Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy in Cairo, Oliver Holmes, Tom Perry and Mariam Karouny in Beirut and Mark Hosenball, Julia Edwards, Arshad Mohammed and Roberta Rampton in Washington; Editing by Mark Heinrich, Crispian Balmer and Howard Goller) | 5 | 6,573 | news |
Last week, we got a dose of style inspiration from an interesting source: Kanye West released the video for "Only One," his new song with Paul McCartney, which stars his daughter North wearing the cutest fur-lined, army green parka with winter boots. While this particular outfit was as #normcore as they come, West somehow had every fashion lover on the Internet searching for ways to get the look. We have a feeling that the newest project featuring West and McCartney will have the same effect. Rihanna teamed up with the aforementioned duo on her track "FourFiveSeconds" the first single off of her upcoming album and the official video was released on Tuesday. The stripped-down acoustic tune has a similarly simple video, shot in black and white with the trio of artists styled in head-to-toe denim looks. It's predictably fashionable, and Rihanna's dewy, wet-look hair and makeup are top notch. Girl looks good . Directed by top photography duo Inez and Vinoodh, we think the whole thing could pass for a retro Gap commercial minus West's aggressive dance moves, however. This article was written by Alyssa Vingan from Fashionista and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. | 4 | 6,574 | lifestyle |
ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) -- Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain defeated Andreas Seppi of Italy 7-6 (4), 6-3 Sunday in the final of the Zagreb Indoors for his fourth career ATP title. The third-seeded Garcia-Lopez rallied from 4-1 down in the first-set tiebreaker, winning six straight points to clinch the set. Seppi earned the first break of the match for a 3-2 lead in the second, but Garcia-Lopez responded again by winning the next four games. He clinched the win when Seppi sent a backhand into the net. ''This was very emotional. He played good tennis to get to 4-1 in the tiebreaker, and I think it was very important to win the long rally at 4-3,''Garcia-Lopez said. ''When I broke back in the second set I think he was very disappointed.'' Garcia-Lopez had never defeated Seppi in four previous meetings. ''I have never played good against him, I was not in good shape,'' he said. "His style is not good for my game, he is solid from both sides. Today I tried to change the rhythm.'' The fifth-seeded Italian made 40 unforced errors. ''It was a difficult match. I think he played very good tactically,'' Seppi said. ''Sure it did not feel nice to lose the set after being 4-1 up. At 4-3 we played a long rally ... I was still pretty calm after I lost the set, I was even a break up in the second, but I lost concentration in the middle of the second set.'' | 1 | 6,575 | sports |
A freshman GOP senator argued this week that the government should not require food workers to wash their hands after using the toilet, saying "the market will take care of that." Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) called routine hygiene rules an example of government overreach at an event hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center on Monday. "I don't have any problem with Starbucks if they choose to opt out of this policy as long as they post a sign that says, 'We don't require our employees to wash their hands after leaving the restroom,' " Tillis said to audience laughter in a clip captured by C-SPAN. "That's probably one where every business that did that would go out of business," he conceded, "but I think it's good to illustrate the point, that that's the kind of mentality we need to have to reduce the regulatory burden on this country." Tillis's remark comes as the Republican lawmakers grapple with the mounting debate over another public health issue childhood vaccination. While Tillis was not asked about the matter, his colleague Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said repeatedly on Monday that most vaccines should be voluntary. "I'm not arguing vaccines are a bad idea," Paul told CNBC . "I think they are a good thing, but I think the parent should have some input." Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and other GOP lawmakers have urged parents to vaccinate their children , a sign of an emerging rift in the Republican Party on the issue. | 5 | 6,576 | news |
Looking to get away without the hassle of spring break crowds? These alternative destinations are still easy to get to and beautiful but offer the charm and serenity that you won't find at the conventional retreats. Whether you are looking to get away for 48 hours or 4-8 days, here are our recommendations for 5 Alternative Spring Break Getaways. Tulum, Mexico Cancún is one of the world's most famous spring break destinations, luring more than 100,000 spring breakers from the United States alone each year. 80 miles south of Cancún, on the southern edge of the Riviera Maya, lies a strip of beach and jungle that has become a hot spot for yoga enthusiasts and eco-travelers. Over the past decade, Tulum has attracted all sorts of stylish expats who have helped turn a once desolate area into a chic beach destination. Tulum is surrounded by ancient Mayan ruins, magnificent stretches of coastline, and cenotes -- sinkholes that create caves and underground rivers -- which were used by the Maya for religious ceremonies. With an abounding wealth of ancient history and natural beauty, these historic lands will enrich your spirit and relax both body and mind. Where to Stay: Casa Violeta (www.bnbfinder.com/casavioleta) Carmel-by-the-Sea, California The charming one-square-mile village of Carmel-by-the-Sea is picture perfect. It has no street lights, parking meters, or even numbered addresses, but don't let the low-key appearance fool you: there is a lot going on in this vibrant destination. Carmel boasts over 100 art galleries, a seemingly endless array of great restaurants, and a delightful variety of local artisan shops. Carmel has a European feel, but the Pacific coastline, with its rugged cliffs and majestic cypress trees, is quintessential California. While in the area, take the legendary Seventeen Mile Drive, which winds along the coast and through the redwood forest, past historic mansions and the world-famous Pebble Beach golf course. The drive offers a number of scenic turn-off points -- don't miss the iconic Lone Cypress, which has been perched on a granite hillside overlooking the Pacific for more than 250 years. Where to Stay: Tradewinds Carmel (www.bnbfinder.com/tradewindscarmel) Alamo, NV Where else can you see Elton John perform, work on a cattle ranch, and investigate UFOs all in one weekend? Only in Nevada. When it's time to decompress after the pool parties and craps tables of Sin City, head 90 miles north to the ranching town of Alamo. Bountiful fishing lakes, natural hot springs, and Native American artifacts make Alamo a true embodiment of the American West. Alamo is also home to the Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge, which features over 5,000 acres of open wetlands and lush grasslands, and a diverse range of plant and animal life. Just 12 miles north of Alamo is the secretive Area 51 -- explore the Extraterrestrial Highway, chow down on an Alien Burger, and meet the UFO enthusiasts who visit this site from all over the world. Where to Stay: A Cowboy's Dream Bed & Breakfast (www.bnbfinder.com/acowboysdream) Fredericksburg, Texas 80 miles west of Austin is an area known as Texas Hill Country. The rolling hills, winding creeks, and limestone cliffs are not only beautiful, but also fertile ground for winemaking. Texas Hill Country boats more than 30 wineries, and is the second-most visited wine region in the U.S. behind California's Napa Valley. Take a self-guided tour on the Wine and Wildflower Trail where you can sample the wares of 38 participating vineyards. 18 miles north of Fredericksburg is the Enchanted Rock State Natural Area, where you can enjoy impressive trails and spectacular vistas. The centerpiece is the Enchanted Rock itself, a dome-shaped pink granite formation that rises 425 feet above Central Texas. Where to Stay: Carriage House Fredericksburg (www.bnbfinder.com/carriagehousefredricksburg) Amelia Island, Florida Located off the northeastern coast of the Sunshine State is the tranquil beauty of Amelia Island. Ranked by Condé Nast Traveler as one of "North America's Top 10 Islands," this 13-mile long haven has pristine waters and immaculate beaches. Amelia Island offers plenty in the way of aquatic activities, from surfing, to kayaking, to jet skiing. If traveling by air is more your speed, you can enjoy aerial tours of the island by trike flying or skydiving. Once you are back on land, the island offers 117 holes of golf, as well as shopping in the Victorian-era Center Street, a sprawling 50-block area of homes and buildings that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Where to Stay: Hoyt House Bed & Breakfast Inn (www.bnbfinder.com/hoythouse) -- Mary White, Founder of BnBFinder.com | 2 | 6,577 | travel |
Canadian Ice climber Will Gadd completed perhaps the most spectacularly famous ice climb in the history of the world, climbing up the ice of a frozen Niagara Falls in the dead of winter. Jen Markham (@jenmarkham) has the amazing video. | 8 | 6,578 | video |
Let's take a look at the top five recruiting classes in college football for next season. Which class would you rather have? | 1 | 6,579 | sports |
President Barack Obama reacts to news of a video appearing to show Islamic State burning Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kasaesbeh alive. | 5 | 6,580 | news |
When Ford announced the merger of its Ford Racing, Ford SVT, and Team RS performance divisions into one entity called Ford Performance, the Blue Oval also said it would deliver 12 performance vehicles by 2020. Last month's Detroit auto show saw the reveal of the Ford GT , Shelby GT350R , and F-150 Raptor , and this week the automaker has revealed the new Ford Focus RS . Although two generations of the Ford Focus RS have been offered across the pond and other markets, for the first time the RS model will be available in the U.S. While the current front-drive Ford Focus ST is powered by a 2.0-liter EcoBoost I-4 rated 252 hp and 270 lb-ft of torque, motivation for the all-wheel-drive Focus RS will come from a 2.3-liter EcoBoost four-cylinder "producing well in excess of 315 horsepower," according to the automaker. The Focus RS-specific 2.3-liter EcoBoost features a new low-inertia twin-scroll turbo with a larger compressor as well as a larger intercooler and less restrictive intake and exhaust. The six-speed manual features a short-throw shifter along with a stronger clutch and internals. Inside, the new Ford Focus RS gets partial-leather Recaro sport seats, a leather-wrapped flat-bottom steering wheel, alloy pedals, unique gauges, and a revised center stack with SYNC and Sony audio system. Increased aerodynamics over the Focus ST include a new more aggressive front splitter, rear spoiler, underbody panels, and diffuser. Other cosmetic updates include revised rocker panels and fender flares. Exterior colors include Nitrous Blue, Stealth Gray, Absolute Black, and Frozen White. "The all-new Focus RS is a serious machine with high-performance technology and innovative engineering that sets a new benchmark for driving exhilaration on the road and track," said Raj Nair, group vice president, Global Product Development, Ford Motor Company, in a release. "The RS line has a proud history of technical breakthroughs that have migrated to mainstream Ford vehicles to benefit all of our customers, and the new Focus RS is no exception." The third-generation Ford Focus RS hatchback's all-wheel drive system is a first for the model. The new setup is dubbed All-Wheel Drive with Dynamic Torque Vectoring Control and uses twin electronically controlled clutch packs on each side of the rear drive unit to manage the front-rear split as well as side-to-side torque vectoring on the rear axle. Vehicle sensor inputs including steering wheel angle, lateral acceleration, yaw, and speed are monitored 100 times per second to determine where to allocate power. Ford says the system can send up to 70 percent of torque to the rear axle and up to 100 percent of the rear torque to either wheel. The all-wheel drive system works in conjunction with Electronic Stability Control (ESC) and the brake-based Torque Vectoring Control system. Additionally, the suspension receives stiffer springs, bushings, and anti-roll bars as well as two-mode electronic dampers. The electric power steering system has also been reprogramed, while the front suspension features a more rigid knuckle and shorter-link arms. Standard tires on the Ford Focus RS are a specially developed Michelin Pilot Super Sport or an available Pilot Sport Cup 2 tire, both sized 235/35R19. Several wheel styles will be available including a forged alloy wheel with a black finish. While Ford released the first-generation Focus RS in 2002 and the second-generation in 2009, the third-generation Focus RS will be the 30th car to use the RS badge. Other models include the 16-valve 1970 Escort RS1600, turbocharged 1985 Sierra RS Cosworth, and all-wheel-drive 1992 Escort RS Cosworth. Source: Ford | 9 | 6,581 | autos |
Find out who made the top 50 and who won this year's coveted accolade for style according to GQ. GQ's best dressed men in Britain 2015 GQ has released its iconic best dressed men in Britain list for 2015. Find out who made the top 50 - and who achieved the coveted number one spot. Go on, place your bets now... 50: Jay Jopling (art dealer) 49: Prince George (royalty) 48: Allen Leech (actor) 47: Sam Riley (actor) 46: David Beckham (footballer) 45: Tom Hardy (actor) 44: Aaron Taylor-Johnson (actor) 43: Sir Paul Smith (menswear designer) 42: Rafferty Law (musician and model) 41: Mark Strong (actor) 40: Taron Egerton (actor) 39: Charlie Casely-Hayford (menswear designer) 38: Roger Moore (actor) 37: David Bailey (photographer) 36: Skepta (musician) 35: Noel Fielding (comedian) 34: Thomas Heatherwick (designer) 33: Max Irons (actor and model) 32: John Simpson (journalist) 31: Miles Kane (musician) 30: Lord Richard Rogers (architect) 29: Bill Nighy (actor) 28: Mat Collishaw (artist) 27: Mark Ronson (musician) 26: Wayne Rooney (footballer) 25: Romeo Beckham (model) 24: Hugh Van Cutsem Jr (godfather to Prince George) 23: Matt Smith (actor) 22: Oliver Cheshire (model) 21: Alasdhair Willis (creative director) 20: Tinie Tempah (musician) 19: Tom Ford (fashion designer) 18: Sir Elton John (musician) 17: Jim Chapman (fashion blogger) 16: Nick Cave (musician) 15: David Bowie (musician) 14: Cillian Murphy (actor) 13: Dermot O'Leary (presenter) 12: Luke Evans (actor) 11: Luke Day (fashion director at GQ style) 10: David Furnish (partner of Elton John, left) 9: David Gandy (model) 8: Douglas Booth (actor) 7: Prince Charles (royalty) 6: Idris Elba (actor) 5: Nick Grimshaw (presenter) 4: Alex Turner (musician) 3: Jamie Dornan (actor) 2: Benedict Cumberbatch (actor) 1: Eddie Redmayne (actor) | 4 | 6,582 | lifestyle |
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles U.S. (FCA US) is recalling a total of 228,181 2014 and 2015 Jeep Cherokee SUVs to reprogram the parameters of the airbag system software. In a small number of instances, the side-curtain and seat-mounted side airbags inadvertently deployed when drivers were executing "extreme" maneuvers, which triggered the system to deploy, sensing an impending rollover. FCA says it's unaware of any injuries or accidents associated with inadvertent deployments. Related link: Research the Jeep Cherokee Dealers will recalibrate the system software for affected models, changing the deployment parameters for the airbag system. The recall covers 2014 and 2015 Cherokees. Of the models affected, 168,092 are in the U.S., 19,557 in Canada, 4,133 in Mexico, and 36,399 outside the NAFTA region. Especially in Trailhawk trim, the new Cherokee is capable of a much higher level of off-road driving than comparable crossovers in its class. This capability has probably emboldened some owners to take their vehicles on challenging trails, possibly more challenging than anticipated by the product planners. FCA claims the reprogrammed software will increase the threshold for deploying the airbags while remaining compliant with all current applicable safety regulations. Owners can call the FCA customer hotline at 800-853-1403 or the NHTSA Vehicle Safety Hotline at 888-327-4236. Source: FCA US | 9 | 6,583 | autos |
Shares of office supply chain Office Depot Inc. (NASDAQ:ODP) skyrocketed by more than 20 percent Tuesday on reports the company and rival Staples Inc. (NASDAQ:SPLS) , the largest U.S. office supplies retailer, are in "advanced talks" to merge, as the Wall Street Journal reported Monday evening, citing people familiar with the matter. The report comes after activist hedge fund Starboard Value wrote a letter to Staples on Jan. 20, pressuring the company to merge with rival Office Depot. Starboard revealed in December it had taken a 6.1 percent stake in Staples and increased an existing stake in Office Depot to 9.9 percent. Framingham, Massachusetts-based Staples is currently valued at $12.14 billion, while Office Depot, which merged with rival OfficeMax Inc. in 2013 for $1.2 billion, has a market capitalization of around $4.85 billion. Staples posted stronger-than-expected quarterly sales and profit in November as demand for office supplies jumped in the third quarter following six quarters of decline. However, the company warned that its sales would fall in the holiday quarter. The company also said it would shut 170 of its more than 1,500 U.S. stores in North America this year, higher than the 140 stores it had previously estimated. Staples' fiscal third-quarter net income rose to $216.8 million, or 34 cents per share, from $135.2 million or 21 cents per share, a year earlier. But revenue declined 2.5 percent to $5.96 billion from a year earlier. Staples will report its annual results on March 6. Meanwhile, Boca Raton, Florida-based Office Depot reported strong third quarter earnings in November. Office Depot raised its full-year outlook for adjusted operating income to a new range of $255 million to $265 million, compared with "not less than $200 million" it had previously expected. Office Depot is scheduled to announce fiscal fourth quarter earnings and full year results on Feb. 24. Shares of Office Depot soared 20.45 percent in early trading Tuesday to $9.19 on the Nasdaq, while Staples' stock price jumped more than 11 percent to $19.02. In the last three months, shares of Staples have gained 47 percent to $15.74, while shares of Office Depot have soared 77 percent to $7.45. | 3 | 6,584 | finance |
Barcelona has voiced its "surprise, indignation and total disagreement" at the public prosecutor's recommendation that Josep Maria Bartomeu be investigated for fraud over the club's deal to sign Neymar. The acquisition to bring the Brazil international to Catalunya in 2013 has created great controversy, with the club initially claiming it had spent 57.1 million euros on him, only to later admit that it took €86.2m to complete the move. Bartomeu and the club are accused of fraud to the tune of €2.8m and the latest documents encouraged judge Pablo Ruiz to press charges against the current president as well as former chief Sandro Rosell. But Barcelona has protested the innocence of both men and insists it has not broken the rules in the acquisition of the 22-year-old, imploring the judge to disregard the latest recommendations from the prosecutor. "FC Barcelona wishes to express to its members its surprise, indignation and total disagreement with the public prosecutor's petition for the club and its former president Sandro Rosell to face trial for presumed misdemeanours in the transfer of the player Neymar da Silva Santos Jr," a statement read. "In recent months, FC Barcelona has declared its innocence, and has provided all of the documentation requested on numerous occasions and which has been supported by various judicial testimonies. The club has also been advised at all times by specialists in tax law. "With respect to the specific request by the Public Prosecutors Office to charge President Josep Maria Bartomeu for a supposed tax offence in 2014, FC Barcelona also wishes to declare its utter disagreement. "It is FC Barcelona's wish for the judge hearing this case to reject the requests being made by the Prosecutors Office, as all of the actions involved in the player's transfer process were conducted with no intent whatsoever to breach the law in any way." Later on Tuesday it was confirmed that Bartomeu will indeed be charged, with the Barca president facing a court date in the Catalan capital on Friday, Feb. 13. The club has also been given a period of five days to present all of the pertinent paperwork relating to the tax payments it is alleged to have missed. | 1 | 6,585 | sports |
Spy photographers have spotted a prototype of the next-generation Kia Sportage out for cold-weather testing. The current-gen Kia Sportage has been with us since 2010, so it's right about time for a redesign. While heavily disguised, there are a few key flashes of design which give us a glimpse at the Sportage's future. Kia already previewed its next generation of SUV design with the KX3 concept, which debuted in late 2014, showing the corporate nose and overall design. This prototype, however, looks to wear a grille found already on the Kia Optima, Cadenza , and K900 . We see some influence from the KX3 concept on the camouflaged Sportage, with redesigned headlamps (mounted higher on the front of the vehicle than the current generation) that give the Sportage a more premium appearance. The heavily-camouflaged prototype appears to share the same high roofline as the current Sportage, while longer rear doors give way to redesigned rear taillights and a revised lower rear end. On the inside, we see the Sportage receives a new, redesigned three-spoke steering wheel, and what appears to be a redesigned center stack. If the larger Sorento is any indicator, expect the next Kia Sorento to benefit from improved interior materials, technology, and clean design. The current 2015 Kia Sportage starts at $22,645 when equipped in base LX form, which includes a 182-hp inline four-cylinder engine. The next-gen Sportage will likely make its debut in the coming year, as the compact crossover segment continues to gain popularity and market share. | 9 | 6,586 | autos |
Terry Beckner Jr., the No. 13 national recruit according to the 247Sports Composite , committed to Missouri on National Signing Day. Beckner is a consensus five-star recruit, listed as the No. 3 defensive tackle in the nation, who received an elite composite rating of 0.9918. At one point, he was ESPN's No. 1 overall recruit. Missouri was expected to keep Beckner nearby, choosing the Tigers over Auburn, Florida State and Ohio State. Mizzou students went all in to welcome Beckner on a visit last weekend. "Florida State has a good relationship with Beckner, and Ohio State is impressive under Urban Meyer," says SB Nation's Bud Elliott . "But Missouri develops defensive linemen with the best of them, and distance is often a major factor, so the Tigers are my pick." For more Mizzou, visit Rock M Nation . Beckner is a 6'4, 293-pound pass rusher with a reported 40-yard dash time of 4.89 seconds. During his senior season at East St. Louis High School in St. Louis, Ill., Beckner racked up 116 tackles, three sacks and an interception that he returned for a touchdown. He took official visits to each of his final four schools: Missouri, Ohio State, Auburn and Florida State, and also received interest from LSU. With no clear-cut consensus for the top prospect in the nation, there's an argument to be made for Beckner as the No. 1 recruit. Wescott Eberts think he's one of five players with an argument as the No. 1 prospect because of his versatility: "Despite weighing 293 pounds, Berkner is arguably the No. 1 because he's strong enough to play inside at nose tackle if necessary, can penetrate the backfield as a three-technique defensive tackle (since he has tools like the spin move shown above), and is even a threat off the edge. He can use speed-to-power or pure bull-rush techniques to collapse the pocket." According to a scouting report by Bud Elliott , that versatility would be best put to use as a strong-side defensive end, where Beckner would be a perfect fit: "Beckner is not just about size and speed. He also displays good body control and bend, and is not just a straight-line player. In several highlights, he is able to change course, pursue a ball carrier and bring him down. "And Beckner is not just a run-stopper at defensive end. He shows good burst for his size, and with his length and the threat of a bull-rush thanks to his strength, he should be able to build off that with more complementary moves at the next level." | 1 | 6,587 | sports |
Lance Armstrong through the years Lance Armstrong stands on the winners' podium after the 21st stage of the 92nd Tour de France in 2005. President Bill Clinton holds up a yellow US Postal Service jersey given to him by Lance Armstrong in the Rose Garden of the White House in 1999. Lance Armstrong poses for a 2004 photo shoot at the Royal Scandinavian Inn in Solvang, Calif. Lance Armstrong pedals during the fifth stage of the Giro d'Italia, Tour of Italy in 2009. Lance Armstrong readies for the start of the 16th stage of the 91st Tour de France cycling race in 2004, a time trial between Bourg d'Oisans and L'Alpe d'Huez. Lance Armstrong holds a baby kangaroo as he speaks with the media before stage two of the 2009 Tour Down Under. Lance Armstrong at the start of the ninth stage of the 90th Tour de France in 2003. Lance Armstrong was awarded the Most Courageous Rider jersey by then-California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger after his 10th place finish in the Prologue of the AMGEN Tour of California in 2009. Lance Armstrong talks to Oprah Winfrey during an interview on Jan. 14, 2013. Lance Armstrong kisses then-girlfriend Sheryl Crow at the 2004 Tour de France. Lance Armstrong atop Mt. Bonnell in Austin in 1996. Lance Armstrong rides during training in Wilmington, Del. in 1994. Lance Armstrong in Austin in May 1998. Lance Armstrong acknowledges his seven career Tour de France wins in 2005. Lance Armstrong crosses the finish line and wins the 17th stage of the 2004 Tour de France. Lance Armstrong addresses participants at The LIVESTRONG Challenge Ride at the Palmer Events Center on October 21, 2012, in Austin, Texas. Ivan Basso, Lance Armstrong, Levi Leipheimer and Floyd Landis, from right, pedal up the Aubisque pass during the 16th stage of the Tour de France in 2005. On July 23, 2000, Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong rides down the Champs Elysees with an American flag after the 21st and final stage of the cycling race. Lance Armstrong reads a French sports newspaper before a training session in Nantes, France, two days before the start of the 86th Tour de France in 1999. Lance Armstrong, right, in a 1996 road race competition. | 1 | 6,588 | sports |
The New England Patriots won their fourth Super Bowl since 2001 on Sunday. Is this New England team the greatest dynasty in the history of the NFL? | 1 | 6,589 | sports |
Researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia have found that being envious of your Facebook friends can lead to depression, a finding that should give some of us pause. Based on a survey of 700 students, the study found that users who engage in "surveillance use" "brows[ing] the website to see how their friends are doing compared with their own lives" versus simply using the site to contact friends and family can experience symptoms of depression. "We found that if Facebook users experience envy of the activities and lifestyles of their friends on Facebook, they are much more likely to report feelings of depression," said Margaret Duffy , a professor at the MU School of Journalism. "Facebook can be a very positive resource for many people, but if it is used as a way to size up one's own accomplishments against others, it can have a negative effect. It is important for Facebook users to be aware of these risks so they can avoid this kind of behavior when using Facebook." In short, hate-viewing photos of your friend's fancy vacation or scrolling through your friends high-price purchases brings you down. "We found that if Facebook users experience envy of the activities and lifestyles of their friends on Facebook, they are much more likely to report feelings of depression," said Duffy. Obviously this is a fairly small and specific sample and the signs of depression are manifold but these findings are an interesting data point and could help folks who find themselves obsessed with social media and unable to tell why they feel so awful. This could be a reason. The study appeared in the journal Computers in Human Behavior . | 5 | 6,590 | news |
Kristina Buhrman downplays her role evacuating children from a burning bus. Now she is one of CNN's Extraordinary People. | 5 | 6,591 | news |
BBC television saw another major sports competition disappear from its roster of live events when it was revealed Tuesday that from 2017 the British Open golf tournament would be broadcast exclusively live by satellite broadcaster Sky on a five-year deal. The announcement by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, the tournament organisers and the sport's ruling body, will see the end of 61 years of live, free-to-air, coverage on the BBC when Sky broadcasts the 146th British Open at Royal Birkdale, north-west England, from July 16-23, 2017. However, the BBC will still offer a daily highlights programme on television and live coverage on radio and online. Meanwhile, the BBC will have live coverage of this year's edition at St Andrews and the 2016 tournament at Royal Troon, another of the Scottish courses on the British Open list. "We believe this is the best result for The Open and for golf," said R&A chief executive Peter Dawson. "Importantly, the new agreement will enable us to increase substantially our support for golf in the United Kingdom and Ireland." But with golf participation in Britain already in decline, England's Lee Westwood labelled the change of Open broadcaster "an absolute disgrace". Now attention is set to turn to Rugby Union's Six Nations Championship as the next event the BBC could 'lose' when the broadcast rights come up for renewal in 2017. As a result of Britain's 'crown jewels' list, certain sporting fixtures such as the FA Cup final must be shown live on one of the country's free-to-air channels. But as well as facing competition from Sky, the BBC has seen terrestrial rivals such as Channel Four take over "protected events" such as horse-racing's Grand National. | 1 | 6,592 | sports |
Can you keep up? | 8 | 6,593 | video |
The course of true love never did run smooth, especially when one is an infamous mass murderer serving a life sentence. Charles Manson, 80, and 27-year-old fan Afton Elaine Burton have yet to wed despite time running out on their marriage license, said Terry Thornton, spokeswoman with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The couple's license, drafted in November, expires Thursday. Inmate weddings take place on the weekends, during visiting hours. "A Manson wedding did not take place," she said. Manson is incarcerated in Corcoran State Prison. Initially sentenced to death for his role in the 1969 slayings of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and six others in Los Angeles County, Manson had his sentence changed to life in prison when California's death penalty was abolished for a time in the 1970s. He has been denied parole a dozen times, and his next parole hearing is scheduled for 2027, when he will be 92 years old. He has been in prison since 1971. It is unclear why a wedding has not been held. Thornton said she couldn't speculate or speak on the couple's behalf. According to records with the Kings County Clerk-Recorder, Manson and Burton applied for the marriage license on Nov. 7. Manson is allowed to have "contact visits," so there would have been no glass between the couple during the wedding ceremony, Thornton said. Inmates also are allowed to wear wedding rings, she said. But Manson does not qualify for overnight family visits - better known as conjugal visits. Burton, who also goes by the name Star, had said what she wanted out of the marriage: As Manson's wife, she would have been better able to work on his case. The expiring license indicated that Burton intended to take Manson's last name if they had married. They could still apply for another marriage license. James McGrath, a New York City photo agency editor, said he maintained contact with Burton and that she intended to obtain another 90-day license and go ahead with the marriage. Manson wouldn't be the first of his murderous family to marry while in prison. Susan Atkins, a Manson follower who was convicted of eight murders, married twice while she was serving 38 years of a life sentence before dying at the age of 61. Manson follower Charles "Tex" Watson, 68, married, fathered four children and divorced while in prison before prison officials in the mid-1990s banned conjugal visits for inmates with life sentences. The slayings for which the Manson family were convicted all occurred in the summer of 1969. In July, Gary Hinman, 34, a musician, was stabbed to death after refusing to turn over his money and property to Manson. About a week later in early August, four Manson followers - Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, Watson and Linda Kasabian - made their way through the Hollywood Hills to the Benedict Canyon estate rented by Tate and her husband, director Roman Polanski. Steven Parent, 18, a friend of the estate's caretaker, was the first to die. Before being stabbed to death, Tate, 26, begged for her unborn child to be spared. Also killed were hairstylist Jay Sebring, 35; Voytek Frykowski, 32, a friend of Polanski's; and Abigail Folger, 25, a coffee heiress and Frykowski's girlfriend. Later, Manson himself entered the Los Feliz home of Leno LaBianca, 44, owner of a small supermarket chain, and tied up LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, 38. He left them to die at the hands of Watson, Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten. Donald "Shorty" Shea, a hand at the Spahn Ranch in Chatsworth, where the Manson family lived for a time, would be killed later and his body concealed on the ranch for years. He was the last victim whose killing yielded a conviction. | 5 | 6,594 | news |
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. A woman accused of killing her 5-year-old son by feeding him salt through a stomach tube calmly "watched and waited" for the poisoning to take effect, summoning help only after he began writhing and retching, a prosecutor said Tuesday. In her opening statement at the murder trial of Lacey Spears, Assistant District Attorney Doreen Lloyd said she researched, planned, carried out and tried to cover up the killing of her blond, blue-eyed son, Garnett-Paul. "It seems to go against nature," the prosecutor said. "But Lacey Spears is not like most people." She said Spears enjoyed the "attention and sympathy" she received from having a sick child. Spears, of Scottsville, Kentucky, had documented Garnett's declining health on social media. She wiped away a tear as the prosecutor spoke. Defense lawyer Stephen Riebling told the jurors there are no eyewitnesses and no direct evidence that the 27-year-old Spears poisoned her son. He added: "There is no evidence in this case that legitimately answers the question 'Why?'" Lloyd alleged Spears fed her son the salt in the bathroom of a Nyack Hospital room after he was admitted. The mother had told doctors he was having seizures. Lloyd told jurors they would see hospital video showing mother and son twice going into the bathroom and then see Garnett become ill soon afterward both times. He died of high sodium levels that caused swelling of the brain. But the bathroom is out of the range of the camera, and Riebling noted that no one saw Spears feed her son salt. He said, in context, Spears' actions show a caring mother. He implored the jurors to "set aside emotion." Riebling also appeared to blame the hospital, in the New York suburbs near the Spearses' Chestnut Ridge home, noting it was only there that a high sodium level was detected. The defense lawyer said the prosecution case was "riddled with reasonable doubt." The Spearses lived in Chestnut Ridge at the time of Garnett's death. Lacey Spears moved to Kentucky afterward and was living there when she was arrested. Garnett's death ended a short life filled with doctor and hospital visits that his mother tirelessly documented in thousands of postings on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and a blog. Many of the postings will be in evidence, along with Spears' online research into the dangers of sodium in children and hospital records from New York, Florida and Spears' native Alabama. Also in evidence is a feeding bag prosecutors believe was used to hold the salt and which they say she tried to hide after Garnett's death. Defense attorneys have insisted that there will be no mention of Munchausen by proxy, a disorder in which caretakers secretly harm children to win sympathy. Some experts believe that disorder fits Spears' actions. | 5 | 6,595 | news |
Robin Williams (Credit: AP/Dan Steinberg) Maybe it really is about the tux. Six months after Robin Williams hanged himself in his Bay Area home, the actor's widow and his three children from his two prior marriages are now embroiled in an increasingly hostile and deeply personal battle over his estate. Is it a dispute motivated by greed or grief? In a December San Francisco Superior Court filing, Williams' widow, Susan Schneider Williams, claims that property was "unilaterally removed" from the couple's home mere days after her husband's death. It goes on to note that she "lost her husband through a shocking and emotionally charged event that occurred in their own home in Tiburon. Since the incident, she was not given time to grieve her loss free from the frenetic efforts to interfere with her domestic tranquility and even short-term continuity of her home with two high school boys." Mrs. Williams, who married her husband in 2011, claims she wasn't interested in items relating to his career, like "suspenders that Mr. Williams wore on the 'Mork & Mindy' show," but had wished to keep the tuxedo he wore for their wedding, as well as "personal collections of knickknacks and other items that are not associated with his famous persona." But in a January response, Williams' adult children Zak, Zelda and Cody Williams say that Susan Williams' "premature and unwarranted" filing adds "insult to a terrible injury." Noting conspicuously that she was their father's wife "less than three years," they say she "acted against his wishes by challenging the plans he so carefully made for his estate." And they add that those alleged knickknacks are in fact a "carefully amassed" collection of "Japanese anime figurines, theater masks, graphic novels, bicycles, walking sticks, Native American articles and movie posters." According to a report in SF Gate , Williams' will left his estate to his children in trust, including "clothing, jewelry, memorabilia, awards, personal photos taken before his marriage to Susan Williams, and property at a second home in Napa." But it also established a trust for his wife, which included the Tiburon home and its contents, as well as " all costs related to the residence." Mrs. Williams is now petitioning for "all expenses associated with daily upkeep as well as unexpected renovations and improvements" of the home, which the Williams children claim is evidence of "the greed that appears to be driving petitioner's actions." Estate battles where there's big money at stake always make for juicy headlines. Last year, the contentious fight over the fortune of Truong Dinh Tran , the real estate mogul who died with a $100 million fortune, no will and sixteen children and several ex-wives turned into a minor Philadelphia circus show. The dispute over socialite Brooke Astor's estate dragged out for five years in an ugly public court case. And when a person is a beloved public figure, as Robin Williams was, there's an additional question of not just his assets but his memorabilia. Do those suspenders belong with his family -- or in the Smithsonian, next to Mr. Rogers' sweater? And is Susan Williams just a grieving widow "frightened of the co-trustees invading her home," or, as her stepchildren seem be asserting, motivated by avarice? The Williams saga is a high stakes one. But anyone who's lived through the loss of a family member, whatever their fortunes, whatever their cultural legacy or lack of, probably has their own mini version of the current celebrity drama. A few weeks ago I was out with a friend who regaled me with the story of the bitter sibling feud that erupted their parents died, over the contents of their family home. And when a family member who co-raised me died a few years ago, other relations were in and out of the house so swiftly I never recovered my own few childhood possessions. I didn't care about money. There was no money. But I still look on eBay for a replica of the figure of a fat, smiling monk she kept on her dresser, even though I know it would never have the value of the one that sat in her bedroom for decades. I still wish I had the stupid cheap set of plates we ate dinner off. There's no question that even if you factor out the money and property and other items that Williams clearly parceled out to his wife and children, what's left in dispute is worth a great deal of money. Yet I suspect that even if it weren't, you'd still be left with a widow and children bickering over the possessions of a man they all seem to have loved very deeply. Death particularly a sudden one is so shocking, so goddamn permanent, it can leave you grasping for any little piece of the person who's gone. As a colleague says, "I think it's about retaining some measure of control in a situation when you really have none." It's not just stuff. It's not just knickknacks and it's not just priceless artifacts either. It's the things that person held. The things you shared together. Little memories of trips you took together or meals you shared. Or the clothes you wore on your wedding day. I don't know the motivations of Susan Williams or the Williams children. But I do know that Times writer is Dave Itzkoff is on to something when he notes both sides' fascination with the "tangible, deeply personal reminders of the irrepressible, manic imagination that drove his performances as a comedian and actor." Who doesn't, when someone beloved dies, want to touch something they touched? Who doesn't hope to feel a bit of the person lost, still lingering within that talisman? This article was written by Mary Elizabeth Williams from Salon and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. | 6 | 6,596 | entertainment |
Rick Rubin has worked with and produced some of the most iconic artists in history -- Kanye West, Jay Z, Adele, Johnny Cash and Beastie Boys, to name a few. Taking to the Genius lyric annotations, Rubin has shared a wealth of insight and details about working with these artists, anecdotes from the recording process and even commented on artists who he hasn't had the opportunity to work with, like Hozier and Beck. Below, Rubin's thoughts about Kanye and his latest song, "Only One" (featuring Paul McCartney). I was in St. Barths two days before the single came out. Kanye said, "I'm thinking about putting out 'Only One' tomorrow at midnight." I said, "Should we mix it?" He was like, "It hasn't really changed it's pretty much what it was." I hadn't heard it in almost two months, so I asked him to send it to me, and he did. And I said, "I think this can sound better than it does." We never really finished it finished it. So we called all the engineers and I'm trying to get all this to happen all remotely and we got maybe three different engineers. This is the day before New Year's Eve, and we're all finding studio time, getting the files. Then they all start sending me mixes. I thought one was better than the others, and Kanye agreed. One guy mastered it, because it was due, and they turned it in. I had another guy master it, and it was better, but it was already too late. I think it switched the following morning. It was in real time! Like as soon as it was better, we had to switch it. That's how it works in Kanye world. It used to really give me anxiety, but now I just know that's what it is. That's how he likes to work. ...Kanye is a combination of careful and spontaneous. He'll find a theme he likes quickly, and then live with that for a while, not necessarily filling in all the words until later. At the end, he'll fill in all the gaps. He was upset at one point when I said that he wrote the lyrics quickly. He's right they percolate for a long time, he gets the phrasing into his brain, lives with it, and then lines come up. It definitely starts from this very spontaneous thing. On "Only One," a lot of those lyrics came out free-form, ad-libs. The song is essentially live, written in the moment. Some of the words were later improved, but most of it was stream of consciousness, just Kanye being in the moment. | 6 | 6,597 | entertainment |
By Jason Rowan In what has to be an extremely flattering development for Chandler Parsons, the Dallas Mavericks star and apparent heartthrob has been named the "most handsome young NBA star by Japanese fans" according to a WOWWOW Inc. Japan, an outfit that broadcasts NBA games in that country. In a nifty certificate Parsons personally and proudly displayed, the esteemed "award" features the following message: Mr. Chandler Parsons For good looking guy on and off the court Award. You have been chosen the most handsome young NBA star by Japanese fans. Officially recommended by Eir Kimura (WOWWOW NBA Broadcaster) Wishing you the best this season and hoping that you will remember that all your Japanese fans are with you. 2 February 2015 Quite the honor, indeed. ESPN Dallas' Tim McMahon notes in a tweet that perhaps Parsons is secure enough in his relative handsomeness that an award announcing such was not necessary. "Like his ego needed boost," McMahon dryly notes. Far be it from anyone to dispute the notion that Parsons is in fact a handsome NBA player. In fact, if there was a Lank Thompson of NBA players, Parsons certainly would be one of the guys who could fit the bill. | 1 | 6,598 | sports |
Jordan will execute Wednesday an Iraqi would-be suicide bomber on death row and other jihadists after having vowed to avenge the murder of a Jordanian pilot by Islamic State jihadists, an official said. "The sentence of death pending on... Iraqi Sajida al-Rishawi will be carried out at dawn," the security official said on Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity. Rishawi, the would-be bomber, was condemned to death for her participation in deadly attacks in Amman in 2005, and IS had offered to spare the life of the Jordanian fighter pilot, Lieutenant Maaz al-Kassasbeh, if she were released. "The death sentence will be carried out on a group of jihadists, starting with Rishawi, as well as Iraqi Al-Qaeda operative Ziad Karbuli and others who attacked Jordan's interests," the security source said. "Jordan's response will be earth-shattering," Information Minister Mohammed Momani said earlier on television, while the army and government vowed to avenge the pilot's murder. "Whoever doubted the unity of the Jordanian people, we will prove them wrong," said Momani, who is also government spokesman. "The pilot did not belong to a specific tribe or come from a specific governorate, he was the son of all Jordanians, who stand united," he said. State television also reported that King Abdullah II of Jordan would cut short a visit to Washington and return home in the wake of the pilot's murder. The king had held talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Washington on Tuesday before going into a meeting with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Capitol Hill. One of America's most stalwart allies in the Middle East, Jordan is taking part in US-led air strikes against the Islamic State group in Syria along with several other Arab countries. | 5 | 6,599 | news |
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