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We're used to seeing the same kind of celebrity photos: They're either paparazzi shots (your favorite celebrity goes to Starbucks, too!) or hand-on-hip red carpet poses. So at this year's Sundance Festival, we tried something different: We asked photographer Victoria Will, in collaboration with the Penumbra Foundation, to create tintype (a 19th-century photo technique) portraits of some of the biggest names in Hollywood. By Elizabeth Griffin and Photographs by Victoria Will Sundance Film Festival's biggest stars go back to the 19th century. Dianna Agron Kevin Bacon Alison Brie Connie Britton Toni Collette Jennifer Connelly Billy Crudup Blythe Danner Brooklyn Decker Rosemarie Dewitt Lena Dunham Joseph Fiennes James Franco Patrick Fugit Judith Godreche Adrian Grenier Mamie Gummer Chanel Iman Lisa Kudrow Karine Vanasse Malin Ackerman Brie Larson Spike Lee James Marsden Nick Nolte Robert Redford Saoirse Ronan Amy Ryan Jason Schwartzman Jason Segal Michael Shannon Molly Shannon Alia Shawkat Alexander Skarsgård Cobie Smulders Jason Sudeikis Olivia Thirlby Lily Tomlin Kristen Wiig Jessica Williams | 6 | 7,200 | entertainment |
A is for Actually, And that mansplaining tone; B is the Block button They can mansplain alone. C is for Clickbait And things you won't believe in; D is for the dogs And the cats who can't even. E is for your emails Stacked 8,000 tall. F is for "F--k it! I'm deleting them all!" G is for Gamergaters, May they fall off a cliff; H is for Hard G (That's the sound that starts "GIF.") I is for IRL, And a nice, real-life chat; J is for JK, Because who wants to do that? K is for killing it, Which all startups do. L is for losing money (They do a lot of that, too). M is for monocles Tiaras , and deviled eggs . N is for Normcore: Now THAT'S a fake trend with legs. O is for #OBAMA, And #BENGHAZI, and #MICHAELMOORE, P is for pointing out What the Caps Lock is for. Q is for quitting Your time-wasting apps. R is for your inevitable And shame-filled Relapse. S is for Snapchat And the unpleasant dick pics, T is for Tinder And when you unpleasantly pick dicks. U is for Uber, And its attempts to make nice; V is for Vox (CORRECTION: It's for Vice). X is for XD, And ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, and all good emoji, Y is for Yo As in "Please never Yo me." Z is for zero, The f--ks you should give When facing your critics: "I was feeling my look! Can I live?!?!" That was the Internet From A until Z. And if you disagree Well, that's fine with me: Just lay off the Caps Lock, And hit me with your best block, And for my sake, And your sake, Let's let each other be. | 5 | 7,201 | news |
Scientists said Wednesday they had amassed the first evidence to back theories that people fall into two broad categories -- promiscuity or faithfulness -- when it comes to sex. Why humans seem to be an exception among mammals on the matter of sexual relationships has long been a puzzle. Other mammalian species are emphatically polygamous or monogamous as a group. But as everyone knows anecdotally, Homo sapiens do not fall into one neat category or the other. Everyone knows of couples that are sexually faithful, but also of men cut out to be cads rather than dads. What has been lacking are the statistics to show these differences, which is a key step to explaining them. Now a team at the University of Oxford say they have found just that. "We observed what appears to be a cluster of males and a cluster of females who are more inclined to 'stay,' with a separate cluster of males and females being more inclined to 'stray' when it comes to sexual relationships," said Rafael Wlodarski, an experimental psychologist and study co-author. Wlodarski and a team looked at two potential indicators of sexual behaviour. One source was an online questionnaire on sexual habits, completed by 585 North American and British respondents between the ages of 18 and 63, who on average were nearly 25. - Finger length - The other was data obtained from 1,314 British men and women -- an investigation based on something known as the "2D:4D" ratio. What lies behind the 2D:4D idea is that the length of one's ring finger indicates the level of the hormone testosterone to which one was exposed in the womb. The longer your ring finger is, compared to your index finger, the higher the likely concentrations of foetal testosterone. This in turn has been linked to a higher statistical likelihood of promiscuity. Comparing the questionnaire results to the 2D:4D study gave the investigators the data they craved, they wrote in the British journal Biology Letters. Put together, the datasets showed that 57 percent of men were more likely to be promiscuous, and 43 percent faithful. This balance inversed among women -- 47 percent fell within the "stray" category and 53 percent in "stay". Taken alone, the 2D:4D study, based on a purely physiological characteristic, yielded higher "stray" numbers for both men and women -- 62 percent and 50 percent respectively. The higher number of "stay" candidates in the questionnaire study may be explained by the influence of life experience and culture. This very difference underlined the need for caution in interpreting their results, the researchers said. "Human behaviour is influenced by many factors, such as the environment and life experience," said Robin Dunbar, a professor at the Oxford unit that did the research. "What happens in the womb might have only have a very minor effect on something as complex as sexual relationships." How can different sexual behaviours be explained? Seen through a Darwinian lens, sex with multiple partners boosts the chances of offspring -- of passing on one's genes. A long-term sexual relationship requires more personal investment. But it increases chances that the offspring that results from the sex will survive. "This research suggest that there may be two distinct types of individuals within each sex, pursuing different mating strategies," said the authors. ri/mlr/jm | 7 | 7,202 | health |
Gunmen attacked a Greek-owned tanker while it was waiting to load off Nigeria late on Tuesday, killing its Greek deputy captain and taking hostage three other crew, Greece's coastguard said on Wednesday. The attack on the vessel Kalamos, which had a crew of 23 and was sailing under a Maltese flag, took place at Qua Iboe, a sea area between Cameroon and Nigeria, the coastguard said. "The foreign and shipping ministries have taken the necessary actions for the rescue of the hostages," Greece's Deputy Shipping Minister Thodoris Dritsas said in a statement. The ship had sailed from China to Nigeria to load. Greece's shipping ministry said the rest of the ship's crew was safe. (Reporting by Lefteris Papadimas and George Georgiopoulos; editing by Andrew Roche) | 5 | 7,203 | news |
"Here's the ball, Adrian. See what you can do with it." The Minnesota Vikings offense used to be simple: Hand the ball to game-breaking running back Adrian Peterson and hope for the best. The idea worked, for the most part, particularly when Peterson carried Minnesota into the playoffs in 2012 behind maybe the best season ever posted by a running back. Peterson won the NFL MVP award in his comeback from major knee surgery and was the face of the Vikings, his exploits lauded league-wide. Forcibly, Minnesota's identity changed last year. The offense became less about the running back and more about emerging rookie quarterback Teddy Bridgewater. As the Vikings coaches and front office met to discuss their roster, the elephant in the room was the 6-foot-2, 217-pound, three-time All-Pro running back. "I think a lot of it will depend on Adrian's situation," Minnesota general manager Rick Spielman said in January. "But I also know just initially as I've started putting a little bit of the draft stuff together, it's a pretty good running back class this year. I think it's one of the better running back classes in depth-wise that has come out in a while." Peterson was set to be the focal point again in 2014 before he was charged with injuring his 4-year-old son and missed the final 15 games of the season. He had 21 carries for 75 yards in his only game of the season. The legal ramifications have been cleared with Peterson pleading no contest. His NFL career, and his time with the Vikings, is anything but clear. Friday, Peterson will have a hearing in a Minneapolis court in his lawsuit against the NFL. He's facing a possible reinstatement on April 15, but the hope is he will be reinstated immediately. For a young team trying to build under coach Mike Zimmer, and with holes still to fill after missing the playoffs for the fourth time in five seasons, Peterson is the biggest uncertainty in the offseason. Once he's reinstated, Peterson will have to decide if he wants to return to Minnesota. The team seems obliged to respect the preference of the franchise's all-time leading rusher. "Adrian was always great with me," Zimmer said at his season-ending press conference. "I think he's a good person. I think obviously he's a great running back and if it works out that way and things work out and he gets his life in order -- that's the most important thing, he gets his life in order, he gets the opportunity to come back -- then I will be in his corner whatever the decision is made." The Vikings will have to decide whether they want him back. After all, Peterson will be a 30-year-old running back at the start of next season who will count $15.4 million against the salary cap. Peterson has smashed conventional wisdom before, but he's a highly paid, aging back in a league that has diminished the value of running backs. Zimmer seems open to a reunion, but many obstacles will have to be overcome before Peterson is back in purple. Is restructuring a contract, which made Peterson the highest-paid back in the NFL in 2011, a possibility? It's a question only Peterson would be able to answer. If he was a free agent, he'd be in high demand even after a year off and at his age. Potentially he could be a trade target, but would Minnesota receive the value of perhaps the league's best running back? Doubtful. Peterson still has three years remaining on his contract. Pairing Bridgewater with Peterson would be an interesting combination to move forward. Peterson has been one of the league's best backs ever since arriving in the NFL as a first-round draft pick by the Vikings in 2007. But even some of Peterson's best seasons, and when Minnesota's offense was at its best, was when the team had Brett Favre quarterback. The offseason plans will include surrounding Bridgewater with more playmakers. Finding one better than Peterson would be tough. "When I first got the job, one of the things that I wanted to make sure I did was to develop a relationship with Adrian, to try cultivate him into working with me in this program," Zimmer said. "I felt like over the short period of time that we were together that we had done that. So I really like the kid. I hope what's best for him." From a statistical standpoint, Minnesota certainly missed Peterson but was able to post respectable rushing numbers. The Vikings were 14th in the NFL with 112.8 rushing yards per game. They were tied for 10th with an average of 4.4 yards per rush. Matt Asiata led the team in rushing with 570 yards but was more of a plodding, power back in averaging 3.5 yards per carry. Rookie Jerick McKinnon showed explosiveness and better-than-expected power running in finishing with 538 rushing yards in just 11 games and averaging 4.8 yards per carry. In limited exposure, Joe Banyard had 21 carries for 88 yards, a 4.2 yards-per-carry average. Asiata is also a restricted free agent after making $570,000 last season. "I don't know," Zimmer said when asked if a tandem of Asiata and McKinnon is enough. "I think both of them did a good job. They both have different qualities and I think those are all things we'll talk about as we get going (into the offseason)." If the Vikings, or Peterson, choose to part ways, Minnesota could look to add another piece to the backfield. The top option would be addressing the position in the draft. As Spielman said, there's a highly touted group of running backs available. The Vikings likely wouldn't feel the value would fit their position drafting at No. 11 overall. Several possibilities could be available in the second to middle rounds. The running back class is highly regarded but will likely start falling in the late first-to-second round range, including Wisconsin's Melvin Gordon, Georgia's Todd Gurley and Nebraska senior Ameer Abdullah. The depth of the position also includes Boise State's Jay Ajayi, Alabama's T.J. Yeldon, Indiana's Tevin Coleman, Miami's Duke Johnson and Minnesota's David Cobb; all projected by some to be picked by the end of the third round. There are few No. 1 options in free agency. Dallas' DeMarco Murray, who could return to the Cowboys, is considered the top free agent. Justin Forsett had a breakthrough season with Baltimore and is set to be a free agent. Other options include New Orleans' Mark Ingram, San Francisco's Frank Gore, New England's Shane Vereen and Stevan Ridley, Buffalo's C.J. Spiller, Oakland's Darren McFadden and San Diego's Ryan Mathews. First, the Vikings will need clarification on Peterson, which could arrive soon after Friday's hearing. The rest will make for an interesting offseason for Minnesota and its former identity on offense. Follow Brian Hall on Twitter | 1 | 7,204 | sports |
The 31 Best Gyms in America 2015 Starting with our original list of about 51 gyms (compiled from our round-up of the best gyms of 2013 , publicly available stats, and other expert lists), we asked you to vote for your favorites also allowing write-in votes to account for any gyms that weren't mentioned on the preliminary list. In compiling our ranking, we considered your votes with the most weight and from there gave points to the gyms that best exemplified the factors you said were most important (cleanliness, community, and membership cost). The results represent a healthy mix of all different types of gyms across the U.S. From well-known fitness franchises and small town training centers to some of the most upscale and exclusive clubs in the country, these are 2015's best American gyms. No. 31 D1 Sports Training, Various Locations Co-owned by Tim Tebow and Peyton Manning, D1 operates 21 athletic-based training facilities across the country. Many serious athletes train with D1, but the gym offers programs for exercisers of all ages and abilities. Training options range from sport-specific development for youth athletes all the way to low impact workouts for adults and even family-friendly packages. d1sportstraining.com -Katie Rosenbrock No. 30 Nike World Headquarters Campus, Beaverton, Oregon Two soccer fields, a tennis court, a putting green, and a running trail set on one of the most beautiful fitness spaces in the country; we would expect nothing less from the super sports giant Nike. The campus is decorated with their sponsored pros memorabilia and statutes in their likenesses, some pros have even visited. The man-made Lake Nike brings it all together in the middle of campus and though this gym isn't open to everyone, it tops the list on wow factor alone. nikeinc.com -Diana Gerstacker No. 29 Bev Francis Powerhouse Gym, Syosset, New York For serious lifters and bodybuilders aiming to make serious "gains," this gym, founded by female powerlifting champion Bev Francis, has been dubbed the "East Coast Mecca." Established in 1986, the gym has been a go-to training facility for hardcore weight lifters for almost 30 years. Bev Francis prides itself on offering hassle-free, "no-hype" memberships for both short- and long-term trainees and provides one-on-one training services, personalized fitness programs, and a fully-stocked pro shop. bevfrancis.com -Katie Rosenbrock No. 28 South Carolina Barbell, Columbia, South Carolina South Carolina Barbell isn't your typical bodybuilding gym, it's focus on total body fitness across multiple platforms shatters that stereotype. With mixed martial arts and yoga classes in addition to the cardio and strength equipment, this fitness facility has it all. Add to that the array of supplements available in the gym and South Carolina Barbell is practically a one stop fitness shop. southcarolinabarbell.com -Diana Gerstacker No. 27 Exos (Formerly Athletes' Performance), Various Locations This training center for elite and professional athletes may have rebranded its name and look, but its all-around high-quality standards haven't changed a bit. With a core focus on improving performance, Exos' main goal is to help each client "defy average." Phoenix Ariz. is the gym's flagship location (it was originally opened in Tempe) and since its inception in 1999 the brand has expanded to several more locations across the country, all of which include top of the line amenities. For example, among a 7,404-square-foot training space, the San Diego Calif. facilities include an EAS Sports nutrition bar, physical therapy treatment space, private massage rooms, and an athletes' lounge. athletesperformance.com -Katie Rosenbrock No. 26 Peak Performance, New York, New York This top gym based in New York City boats an expert staff and a state-of-the-art facility, both of which are ready to meet your personal fitness goals. In order to help with lifestyle changes, Peak Performance also offers nutritional consulting, massage therapy, and laundry services. peakperformancenyc.com -Diana Gerstacker No. 25 Drive 495, New York, New York This New York City gym specializes in golf-specific training, offering members top-tier trainers and uncrowded, up-scale facilities that are unrivaled by any other golf training gyms in the country. Most impressive of all: the club's giant cinema-style golf simulators allow members to virtually play their favorite courses around the world without ever having to leave Manhattan. driveclubs.com -Katie Rosenbrock No. 24 Metroflex Gym, Various Locations If you've ever wondered where those super ripped guys and girls went after the Planet Fitness lunk alarm sounded, Metroflex Gym is the place. This gym caters specifically to competitive bodybuilders, even offering diet help and posing tips for no extra charge. Planet Fitness can poke fun all they want but Metroflex has trained more than 100 champion bodybuilders, powerlifters, and martial artists. metroflexgym.com -Diana Gerstacker No. 23 Quads Gym, Chicago, Illinois As one of the most popular places to workout in Chicago, this gym offers members both high-quality exercise equipment and an exceptional atmosphere. The facility was founded over 35 years ago by two friends in search of a no-nonsense workout space. Their goal was to create a gym where members could simply "lift weights and get stronger" and current members say that Quads still exemplifies that sentiment today. One online review praised the gym for catering to members who are concerned with one thing: results. quadsgym.com -Katie Rosenbrock No. 22 DeFranco's Gym at the Onnit Academy, Austin, Texas Previously located in Wyckoff, N.J., DeFranco's is no typical gym, it's a finely tuned training space, building some of the strongest athletes out there. The pro clientele includes 13-time world champion of the WWE Triple H, linebacker for the Houston Texans Brian Cushing, and pro rugby player Alex Corbosiero, among many others. The hardcore gym has also been featured in many fitness publications, further cementing its elite status. defrancostraining.com -Diana Gerstacker No. 21 Curves, Various Locations This women-only gym is well known for its upbeat strength training classes designed to target every major muscle group in just 30-minutes. The franchise boasts a realistic but still effective approach to health and fitness that helps busy women conquer the many challenges associated with diet and exercise. The gym recently teamed up with Jillian Michaels to provide members with innovative workouts that combine the gym's signature strength training routines with functional bodyweight exercises for ultimate strength-building and fat-burning effects. curves.com -Katie Rosenbrock No. 20 Town Sports International, Various Locations You probably know this chain of gyms better by their regional names Town Sports International owns Boston, Washington, Philadelphia, and New York Sports Clubs, and they also operate three fitness centers in Switzerland. Starting at $40, all facilities offer group fitness classes and select locations offer basketball courts, pools and saunas. mysportsclubs.com -Diana Gerstacker No. 19 Retro Fitness, Various Locations In addition to up-to-date facilities, personal training services, and other typical gym amenities like group fitness classes and smoothie bars, what's most impressive about Retro Fitness is its affordability. For just $19.99 a month members gain access to every single Retro Fitness facility across the country, many of which feature extra amenities like cardio movie theaters, physical therapy, and P90X classes. retrofitness.com -Katie Rosenbrock No. 18 Blink Fitness, Various Locations Blink Fitness thinks of everything, right down to the colors of the walls in their gyms. They say the colors used are scientifically proven to enhance your workout, the music selection is carefully chosen to boost motivation, and their staff puts mood above muscle to give you the best possible experience. Starting at $15 a month, Blink Fitness has more than 35 locations in the Northeast and they're growing, so they're certainly onto something. blinkfitness.com -Diana Gerstacker No. 17 Planet Fitness, Various Locations Planet Fitness prides itself on providing the everyday exerciser with "judgment-free" workout zones, calling other fitness facilities out for catering to members who exhibit "Lunky behavior", intimidating other members as a result. And not only is this fitness franchise on a mission to offer a more welcoming and relaxing exercise atmosphere, but with their most exclusive membership package topping off at just $19.99 per month, they're offering one of the most affordable all-access gym memberships in the country. planetfitness.com -Katie Rosenbrock No. 16 The Sports Center at Chelsea Piers, New York, New York Simply put, a New York icon. The Sports Center at Chelsea Piers offers almost anything you could need when it comes to fitness: three full-sized basketball courts, a six lane 25-yard lap pool, indoor rock climbing, sand volleyball, specialized triathlon training and that's just scratching the surface. "Best gym or sports club of New York, and possibly of the entire country," said one reviewer. chelseapiers.com -Diana Gerstacker No. 15 The Institute of Human Performance, Boca Raton, Florida IHP caters to all types of exercisers and athletes, providing a facility that caters to everyone from weight loss candidates and physical therapy patients to serious athletes and weight lifters. The Florida-based gym offers a variety of membership plans, personal and semi-private training programs, and even sport specific conditioning programs. One online review praised the facility for its up-to-date equipment and fitness gadgets. "All the trainers and clients are so supportive and cheer you on as you are working hard," she wrote. "This is a place to go in, work hard, and go home." ihpfit.com -Katie Rosenbrock No. 14 Mike Boyle Strength & Conditioning, Massachusetts Three locations in Massachusetts round out the line-up for this fitness brand, proving that less is sometimes more. The team at Mike Boyle Strength & Conditioning includes an in-house physical therapist, five massage therapists and a team of professional training staff, ready to take care of whatever you need. Whether recovering from injury or just looking to get in the best shape possible, the team at MBSC is there to help you take on that challenge. bodybyboyle.com -Diana Gerstacker No. 13 Train Station, Saint Albans, Vermont This gym may be located in a small town, but that doesn't mean it isn't well loved. The Vermont facility promises to help members "reach their destination" (aka their goals) quickly and effectively through personal training programs, unique classes, and a non-intimidating atmosphere. One voter said they love this gym for its "great hometown feel" and exceptional staff. trainstationvt.com -Katie Rosenbrock No. 12 Club 24, Connecticut This Connecticut-based fitness franchise offers members a little more than just the weights and ellipticals--group classes, tanning, and massage is included in the membership, which starts at $5 a week, after the $10 enrollment fee. There's also a cardio cinema and smoothie bar at select locations. There are currently six Club Fitness 24 centers, but they'll be adding another gym soon. club24gyms.com -Diana Gerstacker No. 11 LA PALESTRA Center for Preventative Medicine, New York, New York LA PALESTRA operates several upscale fitness facilities within New York City, calling itself "a hybrid between the medical and fitness industry." Their Center for Preventative Medicine is a swanky Manhattan fitness center that caters only to those who an cough up the cash for its pricey membership, which according to NY Magazine is somewhere in the range of $300 a month. Housed within the historic Hotel Des Artistes, the interior boasts exquisite architecture and relaxed lighting with the aims of serving as a tranquil escape from a busy urban environment. This particular location features exercise equipment, as well as physical therapy rooms, patient seminar and examination rooms, and even offices for doctors. lapalestra.com -Katie Rosenbrock No. 10 Anytime Fitness, Various Locations More than 2,400 locations worldwide and you can access any of them with a basic membership that really sets this gym apart. Anytime Fitness is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year with clean and secure facilities. The average cost of membership is $39 and based on the sheer number of locations in 19 different countries, this membership might be the perfect choice for the frequent traveler. anytimefitness.com -Diana Gerstacker No. 9 LA Fitness, Various Locations One of the country's most popular big-box gyms, our readers wrote in to acknowledge LA Fitness for its convenience and affordability, also noting that many locations offer a wide variety of fun group exercise classes to choose from. "They have great group exercise class options and affordable memberships that allow you to attend multiple locations," one reader said. lafitness.com -Katie Rosenbrock No. 8 Lifetime Fitness, Various Locations In addition to large facilities outfitted with great equipment, Lifetime Fitness offers childcare at many of their locations, which accommodate children as young as three months old, all the way up to 12 years old. While parents get in a workout with a piece of mind, members can also enjoy pools, personal fitness instruction, and healthy food options at select locations. lifetimefitness.com -Diana Gerstacker No. 7 Equinox, Various Locations This fitness franchise is known for its upscale amenities. Visit any Equinox club and you'll find top-notch spa facilities, the trendiest group exercise classes, and even in-house apparel shops for buying the latest and greatest workout gear. Equinox isn't just a gym, it's an exercise experience of the most luxurious kind. equinox.com -Katie Rosenbrock No. 6 24 Hour Fitness, Various Locations With more than 400 gyms across America, all open 24 hours a day, this franchise offers maximum convenience and customization. Amenities vary by location, some offering just the essentials to get you fit, while others include saunas, steam rooms, and Kid's Clubs. Memberships start at $30 a month and certified personal trainers can create customized training programs for an extra charge. 24hourfitness.com -Diana Gerstacker No. 5 Results U, Edgewater, Maryland This Maryland-based private gym prides itself on offering members a unique experience different from the "endless, boring cardio routine" that many gym-goers grow accustomed to. With a focus on weight loss and sports performance, the gym provides everything from youth and adult training programs to team camps designed for athletes who want to stay on top of their game during the off-season. results-u.com -Katie Rosenbrock No. 4 Sporting Club at the Bellevue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Conveniently set in the center of Philadelphia, the Sporting Club at Bellevue is a 93,000-square-foot urban fitness oasis. Praised for knowledgeable personal trainers, cleanliness, and a variety of amenities, the club is a big hit with Philly locals and out-of-town visitors alike. Just a few notable extras include the indoor track, boxing facilities and the full-size NBA basketball gym. As one member put it, "it's more than a gym, it's a club." sportingclubbellevue.com -Diana Gerstacker No. 3 MVP Sports Clubs, Florida and Michigan This gym was an initial contender for our list last year, but it didn't end up making the final cut. This year, it shot straight to the top of our rankings thanks to happy members who wrote in to let us know why it's such a great place to work out. "I voted for MVP Sports Clubs because they are always taking my considerations into thought and constantly providing me with new and improved options for my needs," one survey respondent said. Another touted its services writing in to say that MVP has exceptional group fitness classes, all of which are included in membership costs. mvpsportsclubs.com -Katie Rosenbrock No. 2 Zenergy Health Club and Spa, Ketchum, Idaho You haven't seen a premier health club until you've seen Zenergy. The 48,000-square-foot facility offers guests an amazing spa, nail salon, hair studio, tanning services and then there's the incredible fitness facilities. Of course there's a cardio and strength training space, but there's also tennis and squash courts, indoor cycling and a yoga studio, and we must mention the indoor and outdoor saline pools. Zenergy has been featured on CNBC.com and in Shape Magazine as one of the "coolest" and "most luxurious" health clubs in the country and it's truly a one-of-a-kind experience. zenergyts.com -Diana Gerstacker No. 1 Parisi Speed School, Various Locations Thanks to its enthusiastic members who are entirely satisfied with all this gym has to offer, Parisi Speed School effortlessly stole the number one spot on our best gyms list this year. The franchise has more than 85 locations in about 30 different states all with the mission of helping its members improve their athletic abilities. "[Parisi has] exceptionally enthusiastic and encouraging instructors," one survey respondent said, adding that the gym will get results for anyone who puts the time in. parisischool.com -Katie Rosenbrock | 7 | 7,205 | health |
ACC Digital Network host Tom Werme catches up with Miami Hurricanes head coach Al Golden to recap this year's recruiting class. Listen as Golden talks about signing Booker T. Washington running back Mark Walton who will be filling the void Duke Johnson left as well as bulking up the offensive and defensive lines and the recruit he thinks will make the biggest impact in the the near future. | 1 | 7,206 | sports |
Two employment reports issued this week show small business job growth is slowing, but employees are working longer hours and making more money. ADP's National Employment Report and Intuit's Small Business Employment and Revenue Indexes launched this week ahead of the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Employment Situation report to be released on Friday. The independent reports concur that job growth among relatively small businesses slowed in January from the month before. The Intuit report suggests companies with fewer than 20 employees added 10,000 fewer jobs in January than in the month before. And the ADP report indicates businesses with fewer than 50 employees added 37,000 fewer jobs in January than in December. But Federated Investors' chief equity strategist Phil Orlando notes that small businesses made up 37 percent of the 213,000 new private sector jobs added in January. Jobs added at large businesses with more than 500 employees accounted for only 19 percent of the month's job growth. "When I look at this report at 213,000 [new jobs], I say, 'OK, on the surface, that's a little disappointing,'" says Orlando. "But the fact that 81 percent of the jobs came from small or mid-cap companies, that gives me some confidence that February and March's numbers are probably going to be pretty good." Orlando says information and communication constraints at smaller companies inherently lead to delays in hiring reports to the federal government and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He notes that the ADP report in particular is subject to multiple revisions. The ADP report last month initially reported 106,000 jobs were added at small businesses in the month of December. That number has since been revised to 115,000. "Because of the lack of sophistication of a smaller company, it may be a month or two before ADP and/or the government figures out that Joe's Pizzeria had a new waitress come on," Orlando says, suggesting small business job growth could be revised up in the coming months. And although both reports indicate small business hires are cooling, the Intuit indexes show existing employees at such companies are working record hours. Hourly workers at companies with fewer than 20 employees worked an average of 112 hours in January, the highest monthly total since Intuit started tracking such data in 2004. Such workers' average compensation also rose to a record $2,841 in January, up $12 since December and $105 year-over-year. "Longer work hours drove most of the increase in compensation, but some was also due to a higher hourly wage. Both of these appear to be due to the recovering economy," economist Susan Woodward said in an Intuit indexes news release . Average revenue per business grew 0.4 percent in December for the 251,000 companies surveyed in Intuit QuickBooks Small Business Revenue Index, which lags a month behind Intuit's employment index. The average small business on the index brought in 4.4 percent more revenue in December than they did a year prior. Copyright 2015 U.S. News & World Report | 3 | 7,207 | finance |
COLUMBIA, S.C. - Former Steve Spurrier assistant coach Jon Hoke will join Spurrier's staff again this week, a member of the USC Board confirmed on Wednesday. ESPN also is reporting the hire of Hoke. Hoke coordinated Florida's defense under Spurrier from 1999 through 2001 and has coached in the NFL since 2002. His name has been associated with the Gamecocks since last month. "If there is a coach out there that I believe can help us it's my job to do what is best for our team," Spurrier said this past month. "All of our guys are good coaches. They're working hard. There is not going to be any big turnover or anything like that." Spurrier has said several times he doesn't plan to fire any of his current coaches, so he would have to move an on-field coach into an administrative role to make room for Hoke or any other new hire. In Lorenzo Ward's third year as defensive coordinator, South Carolina fell to No. 94 in the country in total defense in 2014, allowing more than 432 yards per game as the Gamecocks finished 7-6. Spurrier could not be reached immediately for comment. He is scheduled to meet with the media at 4 p.m. to discuss national signing day. The USC Board of Trustees will hold a called meeting at 3 p.m. Thursday, which apparently will include the approval of hiring of Hoke. | 1 | 7,208 | sports |
Cordell Broadus, the son of rap music star Snoop Dogg, signed a letter of intent Wednesday to play collegiate American football at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). The recruitment of the high school receiver with the famous father had been the subject of a mini-series on ESPN and Snoop Dogg, a well-known fan of UCLA arch-rival Southern California, was even wearing a UCLA jersey at his son's announcement. "UCLA is the best fit for me," Broadus said. "I had a great connection with the coaches. I just want to play in front of my family and keep ballin' on the field and get a great degree." Broadus caught 39 passes for 602 yards and 11 touchdowns this past season for Bishop Gorman of Las Vegas, which won the Nevada state high school championship for schools its size. Broadus was among hundreds of top players to select colleges on the first day prep star athletes could finalize their university choices, a major time for US college coaches and their multi-million-dollar gridiron programs. US colleges are the prime talent producers for National Football League teams. | 1 | 7,209 | sports |
Russell Fredrick, aka Rusty Fred, is a barber offering to give bad haircuts to children who won't behave. Gillian Pensavalle (@GillianWithaG) shows you the photos. | 8 | 7,210 | video |
Our recruiting insider Allen Trieu examines the team's latest recruiting class including who will be next season's impact freshmen. | 1 | 7,211 | sports |
Lydia Ko has a plan this season to be like any other golfer on the LPGA Tour. While that is a worthy goal it is a little unrealistic. Not when you are 17 years old and already No. 1 in the Rolex World Rankings. Not when you've already won six times and picked up a $1.5 million check for the CME Group Tour Championship and Race To The CME Globe. Not when you finished second, one stroke back, in your first tournament of 2015 as she did in the Coates Golf Championship that was won by Na Yeon Choi. And certainly not when you are getting tweets from entertainer Lorde and Emmy and Oscar nominated actor Don Cheadle. Even if you admit that "it is less than before, but I do still get nervous on the first hole." But that hasn't stopped Ko, playing this week in the Pure Silk Bahamas LPGA Classic in Paradise Island, from trying to sell the notion that she's just still part of the pack. "Yeah, it's obviously a huge honor to be in that ranking position but, I'm trying to just go with it, just concentrate on my game," she said. "I mean, I'm very proud to be in that position, but at the same time I'm trying to just kind of block it out and just be like another golfer, being on the course and just enjoying my time out here." She will admit that getting contacted by recording artists and famous actors is pretty cool and not something everybody gets to experience. She laughed when it was suggested that Cheadle could become president of her fan club, but says the biggest surprise was Lorde. "I mean she was Billboard Chart No. 1 with her song Royals," she said. "And I'm a huge fan of her music and she sent me a tweet... And I was like, oh my God, I thought, oh my God, because I'm a huge fan for her and that's somebody and somebody of that status to give me a tweet like that, that was pretty awesome." As for her golf game, she said her "short game has improved" but when she says he can see herself having a good year she means that literally. "Probably the biggest change is my look," she said when asked about changes in her game from this time in 2014. " Me wearing contacts and just visually, to me everything looks a little larger. So that's probably the biggest change for me." Getting to No. 1 is sometimes easier than staying at No. 1 so Ko is all ears when others who have been in her position talk to her. "I think some of the best advice I got was from Stacy this morning, she said, concentrate on your game, it's pretty awesome to be there, but you're playing good golf and just don't worry about everything else that goes on," she said about LPGA superstar Stacy Lewis. "So it was really cool for me to have somebody like her tell me that kind of thing and it really went into my heart and I really want to thank her for saying those things." Ko also does well keeping her own counsel. Asked what she splurged on with the $1.5 million purse from last year it turned out she "bought some accessories and I got my mom to buy a bag that she wanted." That was followed by a statement that you don't often hear from teenagers: "You get $1.5 million dollars in a week, it doesn't mean you spend it the day after.....I think the biggest present for me was just being able to go back home and just chill out with my friends." As for 2015, she plays it as it lays and won't worry about numbers -- whether on the course or on the Rolex charts. "Every tournament is a new week and you just never know what's going to happen, so I'm just going to take it shot by shot, tournament by tournament, and hopefully I'll have a good season," she said. "It was an awesome rookie season last year, so to say that, oh, I want to have more top‑10s and more wins that would be kind of a little greedy in a way so I just want ... to enjoy being out on the TOUR for the second year." | 1 | 7,212 | sports |
Happy birthday, Facebook! Mark Zuckerberg's company turns 11 today, and it's a bigger part of our lives than ever. We spend our free time scrolling through friends and friends of friends' photos from years gone by. And we post details about our most important and not so important moments. In short, it's been a love-hate relationship through the years. Zuckerberg took to his Facebook page Wednesday to talk about friendship in celebration of the special occasion. "Today is a day to celebrate friends. It's also Facebook's birthday, but today isn't about celebrating us," he wrote. "It's about friendship." He added: "Thank you for being part of our community of friends. Let's turn today into a day to celebrate a friend. #friendsday." In its more recent years, Facebook's business has been booming. Fortune took a look at some fascinating business facts about the social media giant. Here are 11 of them: 1. The company makes about $8 billion in annual revenue Facebook makes most of its money from advertising. Not every ad (or user) is equal, according to a recent Fortune story . In fact, an average ad in Norway goes for $1.28 per click, for example. In Venezuela, it's just 5 cents. That's a big difference based on the user's location. The Boston ad firm Nanigans spends about $500 million on behalf of clients with Facebook. 2. And of the money made from ads, mobile is becoming increasingly huge Nearly three-quarters of Facebook's ad revenue comes from mobile advertising accounting for a whopping $2.5 billion in the fourth quarter. Nearly 38% of users do so exclusively through mobile devices. For more, check out Fortune's video highlighting Facebook's mobile advertising business. 3. Part of its business plan is to change the world Facebook FB has a bit of an oddball business strategy, which Zuckerberg recently outlined . He wants to help everyone get connected online through his Internet.org project. Is that a good business decision considering that cost and the limited potential benefits of closing the digital divide? "It matters to the kind of investors that we want to have because we're a mission-focused company," Zuckerberg told a skeptical analyst on his company's latest earnings call. "Part of the sub-text of your question is that if we were only focused on making money we'd simply focus on selling more ads in the U.S. But that's not the only thing we think about here." 4. Facebook is leading the way in virtual-reality A year after acquiring virtual reality company Oculus VR for $2 billion, Facebook recently announced that it would create a an in-house studio to help Hollywood use virtual reality in its films, according to Reuters . Although it's mostly been focused on video games until now, Oculus' move into movies is a potential sign of what's to come. 5. The company is going to remove fake news stories Facebook has been a mixed bag when it comes to news. Some shared by its users is high-quality. Others are simply fiction. Last month, Facebook said it would work harder to combat fake news in its news feed. "People often share these hoaxes and later decide to delete their original posts after they realize they have been tricked," Facebook said. "These types of posts also tend to receive lots of comments from friends letting people know this is a hoax, and comments containing links to hoax-busting websites." The Onion, however, doesn't have much to fear, writes Time . 6. Facebook wants to help find missing children As part of its mission to help change the world for the better, the company said in January that it will post Amber Alerts for people in relevant geographic locations when a missing child in the area is reported. The company is partnering with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for the project. 7. Facebook is preparing to do battle with Google The social network said in December that it'd be ramping up its internal search feature to help make it easier for users to find what friends have posted in the past. And, unsurprisingly, the focus is on mobile. That signals the early stages of a search turf war with Google GOOG, which has been leading that space for ages. 8. It may also be beating out YouTube, also owned by Google, for video supremacy Facebook may eventually be the top platform for video sharing , according to social media analytics firm Socialbakers, which tracked data on the profiles of 20,000 public figures and companies. November marked the first time that the number of uploads directly to Facebook exceeded that of YouTube. That's another potential hit to Google, YouTube's parent company. 9. Facebook is also working on a project to help out at work Called "Facebook at Work," the company released an app for professionals in January for the workplace. It's supposed to be an alternative to email and help improve workflow, much like workplace apps Yammer, owned by Microsoft, and Chatter, owned by Salesforce. Check out a Fortune video highlighting the new feature. 10. The acquisition of WhatsApp lost the company money last year Facebook acquired the mobile messaging service WhatsApp for $21.8 billion, but it's since lost the company cash. In fact, although WhatsApp made about $16 million in revenue for the first half of 2014, it lost $232 million from stock-related expenses, according to a Fortune article from October. But the messaging service is quickly gaining users with over 700 million as of January. 11. Facebook got a lot of flack for a controversial study on its users Last year, Facebook apologized to its users for an experiment in 2012 in which it manipulated the kinds of posts users would see in their feeds to gauge their emotional reaction. After becoming public, the experiment created a firestorm. Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer eventually apologized. "It is clear now that there are things we should have done differently," Schroepfer said in a blog post. "For example, we should have considered other non-experimental ways to do this research. The research would also have benefited from more extensive review by a wider and more senior group of people. Last, in releasing the study, we failed to communicate clearly why and how we did it." | 3 | 7,213 | finance |
The burning alive of a Jordanian pilot by the Islamic State group has shocked and angered Jordanians, uniting them behind their government's vow to intensify its military action against the jihadists. Jordan is one of several Arab states to have joined the US-led campaign against IS in Syria and Iraq, and has taken part in air strikes against jihadist positions since September. Concerns were raised at the time that an air war in the two countries, both of which share a border with Jordan, could impact security at home. But the execution of airman Maaz al-Kassasbeh in a gruesome video released Tuesday "will prompt more Jordanians to get behind their army" and demand revenge for the pilot's death, analyst Mohammad Abu Remman said. Kassasbeh's murder has even prompted speculation the kingdom may prepare ground troops to confront IS. In a statement Wednesday, King Abdullah II vowed a "severe" response, saying "the blood of martyr Maaz al-Kassasbeh will not be in vain". In the video, a man said to be Kassasbeh, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, is burned to death in a metal cage. A masked militant is seen lighting a trail of flame which eventually engulfs the pilot. As news of the killing broke, Jordanians came out onto the streets to denounce Kassasbeh's death and demanded revenge against IS. His father Safi al-Kassasbeh, who belongs to an influential tribe, called for "very severe retaliation" against the jihadists. State television showed a black banner with an image of the pilot while playing patriotic songs as well as programmes about the army. "Today there is a broad consensus in Jordanian public opinion on the need for a war against (IS) and a firm response," said Remman, a researcher at the University of Jordan's Centre for Strategic Studies. "Jordanians have realised for the first time since we've talked about the international coalition against IS that they are in a state of war," he added. Amman "could increase its participation in the coalition and ask to review the strategy it has adopted which is limited to air strikes," said analyst Hassan Abu Haniyeh. "Jordan could consider a ground invasion." Jordan's last military engagement in the region came in the 1973, when it sent soldiers to Syria as part of an Arab coalition against Israel in the Yom Kippur war. - 'People want revenge' - While public support for the deployment of troops to Syria this time had been lacking, Kassasbeh's death has changed how people see IS, according to political writer and columnist Labib Kamhawi. "Jordanians are so angry and would strongly support any action that leads to strong retaliation," he told AFP. "People want revenge." Following confirmation of Kassasbeh's death, which state television reported had occurred on January 3, government spokesman Mohammad al-Momani warned that Jordan's response would be "earth-shattering". "Whoever doubted the barbarity of IS, here is proof... and whoever doubted the unity of the Jordanian people, we will prove them wrong," he said. The authorities moved quickly to respond to the killing by executing two Iraqi jihadists who had been on death row, including would-be suicide bomber Sajida al-Rishawi. IS had demanded her release in return for keeping Kassasbeh alive. On Wednesday the Islamic Action Front, the political wing of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood which has opposed Amman's participation in air strikes, criticised "the odious crime committed by the terrorist organisation" IS. Large crowds gathered close to the capital's international airport to welcome home King Abdullah, who cut short a visit to the United States after hearing of Kassasbeh's murder. Religious Affairs Minister Hayel Abdulhafiz called on citizens to pray for Kassasbeh in mosques throughout the kingdom. His brutal death "will unite Jordanians... and will provide popular legitimacy to Jordan's participation in the international coalition," said political analyst and writer Fahd Khitan. | 5 | 7,214 | news |
Tiffani Thiessen, best known for her roles on "Saved By the Bell" circa 1990s, and in the original "Beverly Hills 90210" has scored a new cooking show in which she lets viewers into her home as she hosts dinners with her celebrity friends. Set to premiere on The Cooking Channel later this month, "Dinner at Tiffani's" will feature Thiessen in her 'favorite' role, that of dinner host, she said. Throughout the series, Thiessen will travel down memory lane with old castmates such as Mario Lopez, Elizabeth Berkley and Jason Priestley and sit down to dinner with other celebrity friends such as Lance Bass, Seth Green, and Nathan Fillion. Fans will get a peek into Thiessen's personal life as mom, wife and homemaker and learn her tips for throwing dinner parties. Expect dishes like roasted dates with smoked bacon and goat cheese, and gourmet pizzas topped with ricotta, arugula, grapes, pine nuts and lemon zest, and watermelon champagne cocktails. Thiessen is the latest TV celebrity to parlay her fame into a cooking show. Alfonso Ribeiro, best known for his role as Carlton Banks on "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," will host "Unwrapped 2.0," which explores favorite snack foods on The Cooking Channel. Over on The Food Network, Valerie Bertinelli has teamed up with Duff Goldman to co-host "Kids Baking Championship" which premiered this week. "Dinner at Tiffani's" premieres February 25 at 10 pm ET/7 pm PT in the US. Fans can also stream the pilot on CookingChannelTV.com/Tiffani beginning February 9. | 0 | 7,215 | foodanddrink |
Leading up to Sunday's Grammy Awards, this year's nominees are spilling about their biggest hits. Turns out, Ariana Grande didn't even know she would be collaborating with Nicki Minaj and Jessie J until "Bang Bang" was already made! Take look at the video to find out what Beyoncé told Sam Smith upon meeting him for the first time. | 6 | 7,216 | entertainment |
Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs, added $1 billion to her net worth Wednesday after Walt Disney Co. surged to a record. Jobs owns 7.69 percent, or 130.6 million shares, of the Burbank, California-based company through a family trust, according to Disney's January proxy statement. The 51-year-old is the largest shareholder of the world's biggest entertainment company, and has a $18.5 billion fortune, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Disney jumped 7.63 percent to close at $101.28 in New York, making it the best performer in the Standard and Poor's 500 Index. The company reported first-quarter net income rose 19 percent to $2.18 billion, or $1.27 a share, beating the $1.07 a share average of analysts' estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Profit from the hit movies "Frozen" and "Guardians of the Galaxy" flow from the film studio to other parts of the company. In December, Disney will release "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" and is gearing up to introduce related attractions at its theme parks in California, Florida and Shanghai, now set to open in spring 2016. "We are developing plans right now for a substantial increase in 'Star Wars' presence in multiple places," Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. "Our Imagineers are hard at work. You'll see a lot more 'Star Wars' at Disney and Disney parks in the future." Frozen, Mickey Profit from consumer products rose 46 percent to $626 million on the continued strength of the 2013 release "Frozen." Revenue increased 22 percent, the company said. Disney Channel properties, Mickey and Minnie, Spider-Man and Avengers also contributed. "They are just outstanding, despite some tough comparisons," said Bill Smead, chief executive officer of Smead Capital Management Inc. in Seattle, which owns Disney stock. "You can sell a lot of stuff with 'Frozen' characters. That's got to be a 100 percent markup." Candace Pugatch, a spokeswoman for Jobs at Emerson Collective, didn't immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment. The billionaire also inherited a stake in Apple when her husband died in 2011. The Cupertino, California-based company also hit a record Wednesday and is up about 8.3 percent this year. "The stock's at a new high and Disney recently increased its dividend," Robin Diedrich, analyst at Edward Jones & Co. in St. Louis, said in a telephone interview. "If you're a shareholder of Disney, you've done very well." --With assistance from Christopher Palmeri in Los Angeles. To contact the reporter on this story: Anders Melin in New York at [email protected] To contact the editors responsible for this story: Peter Newcomb at [email protected] Alexis Leondis | 3 | 7,217 | finance |
Twitter (TWTR) investors have been less than impressed in the past year, sending the microblogging site's stock down 40 percent, even after a rally to kick off 2015. Yet, when compared to the other top U.S. Internet companies, Twitter is still being priced for #awesomeness. Of the six biggest U.S. consumer Web companies by stock market capitalization (Google, Facebook, Amazon.com (AMZN) , Yahoo, LinkedIn (LNKD) and Twitter), Twitter is the only one that doesn't make money. And still investors value the company at 20 times revenue, compared with a price-to-sales ratio of 16 for Facebook (FB) , the second-most richly priced of the group. The others trade for between two and 14 times sales. Twitter Chief Executive Officer Dick Costolo has a lot on his shoulders heading into the San Francisco-based company's fourth-quarter earnings report Thursday afternoon. Analysts on average predict sales growth of 87 percent from a year earlier to $453.1 million, according to a Thomson Reuters survey. The company is expected to report that its loss narrowed to 24 cents a share from $1.41. None of the other Internet companies even approach Twitter's sales growth rate, with Facebook the closest at 49 percent in the latest quarter. Because investors are betting that Twitter will outpace rivals for many years to come, Costolo has not only to show that revenue is growing faster than at other companies, but that a healthy number of users will continue to join the service. As an advertising business, Twitter needs more eyeballs for marketers to reach and needs people staying on the service for longer periods of time. "While revenue and profitability are important, we believe the focus remains on user growth (arguably the most important metric for the business) and engagement," wrote Shyam Patil , an analyst at Wedbush Securities, in a Feb. 2 report. Patil has a "neutral" rating on the stock and a $40 target price, slightly above Tuesday's closing price of $39.79. A Twitter spokesperson declined to comment for this story, citing the quiet period ahead of earnings. In the third quarter, Twitter's monthly active user growth slowed to 23 percent on a year-over-year basis to 284 million, following growth of 24 percent in the second quarter and 25 percent in the first. Patil predicts that trend will continue, with the number of users increasing 19 percent in the fourth quarter to 287 million from 241 million a year earlier. That makes squeezing more money out of each user critical. But it's not easy in a market where Facebook and Google (GOOGL) , along with services like Pandora (P) , Yelp (YELP) and Pinterest, are battling for consumer attention and ad dollars. According to a report last month from eMarketer , Twitter's share of the U.S. mobile ad market will rise to 3.8 percent in 2016 (total pie: $40.2 billion) from 3.6 percent last year (total pie: $19 billion). Twitter has one distinct advantage over the competition: the hashtag. Any major sporting event, political scandal or entertainment story drives people to converse on their devices, and the most vibrant conversations frequently take place on Twitter. For example, during the live broadcast of Sunday's Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks, more than 28.4 million global tweets were sent that were related to the game and halftime show, up from 24.9 million last year. Trying to turn more of that engagement into ad dollars is where Twitter is dedicating a ton of resources. Twitter spends about half its revenue on research and development, compared with 29 percent for Facebook and 16 percent for Google. Fewer than half of analysts covering Twitter recommend buying the shares. Pivotal Research analyst Brian Wieser is in the minority, and he's bullish enough to place a $50 price target on the shares. Efforts to make money from users not logged into the service as well as from Twitter feeds on other media sites will soon start to pay off, Wieser wrote in a Jan. 14 report. "We think there is increasing reason for positivity around the company's ability to monetize its platform," he wrote. | 3 | 7,218 | finance |
At the height of the fear, as Ebola last September swept across West Africa and seemingly threatened the world with a deadly pandemic, the professionals tasked with battling such perils issued a warning that resonated with chilling effect: Absent effective action, the globe could wind up confronting as many as 1.4 million Ebola cases by late January. So estimated the researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. But as January came and went, the CDC reported a minute fraction of that scary estimate. There were only 22,369 cases , the agency said last week. The World Health Organization said new cases were emerging at a rate of fewer than 100 a week the slowest the disease has spread since June. In a sign of the growing sense that Ebola has been effectively contained, the pharmaceutical company Chimerix last week halted trials of one of two drugs that were being tested on actual patients to treat Ebola in Liberia, saying only "a handful" had enrolled in the trial. How communities in West Africa and beyond dodged the worst prognosis for Ebola is in part reflective of what some experts describe as a highly effective public health campaign -- albeit, following a tragically fumbled beginning. Yet the CDC also now acknowledges that the worst-case scenarios it described last fall appear to have amplified, prompting the agency to reevaluate the models it employs to produce its estimates, and the way it communicates data to the public. Some epidemiologists now fret that the enormous disparity between the worst estimates and the reality could leave the world complacent in the face of the next potential pandemic, as the public tunes out necessary warnings. "You may start to lose the public's trust next time we have an epidemic," says Gerardo Chowell, an expert in infectious disease modeling at Georgia State University. "When we have avian flu, for example, we may have trouble trying to communicate to the world and to donors that this may be a catastrophe." By the CDC's reckoning, the warnings it issued played a vital role in provoking regional governments and international agencies to come forward with a tremendous amount of aid, with this infusion of energy and resources ultimately playing a key role in keeping the disease at bay. Ebola was indeed raging last September when the CDC released its estimates for the long-term growth of the epidemic. On the same day the CDC issued its warning that Ebola cases could burgeon to as many as 1.4 million in two of the most affected countries, the WHO reported that the number of cases had doubled to nearly 7,000 within the previous month alone. The CDC projected that, absent a much-intensified campaign, the world might face a low estimate of 550,000 cases of Ebola in Liberia and Sierra Leone alone by January 20, 2015. "When we first created the model, we all hoped that we would not see that," says Michael Washington, who leads the CDC's modeling task force. The headline numbers in these detailed projections quickly swept through the media, encouraging a sense that a potential crisis was at hand. Still, the CDC's report also included caveats that either did not make their way into media accounts, or were buried beneath a wave of alarming talk: The outbreak might be contained with appropriate interventions in place. "As these measures are rapidly implemented and sustained, the higher projections presented in this report become very unlikely," the CDC researchers spelled out in their report. They added that aid agencies could effectively end the epidemic by admitting more patients to hospitals for appropriate care -- about 70 percent of existing Ebola patients, they estimated. Chowell, the Georgia State University expert, says this context was largely ignored by reporters who covered the outbreak. But he also thinks the outsized attention to the worst case scenario underscores a need for the CDC and other infectious disease authorities to reconsider how they engage with the public and whether they ought to emphasize more realistic ranges in the future. The authorities also need to examine the basics of their models, says Chowell, asserting the CDC's worst-case estimate failed to take one important factor into account -- that as communities in affected areas began mobilizing this would slow the epidemic. "There was no consideration in that work of that fact that people would change behavior," Chowell says. "Once the epidemic started to hit their towns, the population would start to realize that indeed, there is a virus that is spreading and killing their family members." A reconsideration of how the authorities ought to assess the dangers of an epidemic and how they ought to engage with the public is now underway. Officials with the CDC recently met with representatives from WHO at Georgia Institute of Technology to discuss the lessons they learned from Ebola. None of this is likely to be easy, for the simple reason that epidemics are by their nature fast-changing. The trajectory of transmission spreads as people hear about and react to the dangers: The degree to which the authorities sow fear has direct influence over the course and magnitude of the epidemic itself. And all of this is hard to capture in the models wielded by epidemiologists to predict what comes next. "It's easier to predict a number based on everything will stay the same but if you want to include some changes in your model, that's usually difficult to answer," says Hasan Guclu, a biostatistician at the University of Pittsburgh, who specializes in infectious diseases. "You really don't know what's going to happen." The CDC was constrained by the quality of its data. Modelers were working mostly from case numbers in situation reports published by WHO, which only reported cases at the country-level. Chowell says it would have been far more valuable to look at how the number of cases changed in districts over time. WHO, however, failed to start making this information available to the international scientific community until October. "The reality is that WHO had the data and they used it, but in the early stage of the epidemic when the predictions were published by the CDC, those data were not available to the international research community," Chowell says. "It was available too late." Tarik Jašarević, a representative of WHO, denies that district-level data was available before October, saying the organization did not have enough resources on the ground for data collection and reporting until then. Guclu says there is still a critical lack of high-resolution data in rural versus urban areas, where the spread of the disease could look quite different. Washington and Manoj Gambir, who is second-in-command on the CDC's task force, admit that modeling a disease as it breaks is no easy task. "We tried to make some reasonable assumptions," Washington says about working with preliminary data. Gambir adds that a model is, by definition, a way to look at a situation in its developing stages before all the information emerges. "Modeling has its forte in a situation where there aren't necessarily a lot of data available. When there are a lot of data available, modeling takes a little bit of a backseat," Gambir says. | 5 | 7,219 | news |
The unexpected surprises of national signing day began early for Notre Dame - and this had nothing to do with recruits. Despite a report that emerged Wednesday morning saying former Michigan coach Brady Hoke was set to join Irish coach Brian Kelly's staff, a Notre Dame source said the move is "not happening." Hoke later confirmed that he wouldn't be joining Notre Dame while serving as a signing-day analyst for the CBS Sports Network. "Brian and I have been friends for many, many years, coaching against each other in the MAC," Hoke said. "(He) and I had a discussion ... but I'm not going (to be) coaching defensive line at Notre Dame. ... I'm not going to South Bend. It's time to go south for a little bit, but not South Bend." A report from coachingsearch.com earlier Wednesday said Hoke was all but signed to the Irish staff. The move would have possible because a spot on the Irish defensive coaching staff is opening up since defensive backs coach Kerry Cooks is expected to bolt to Oklahoma. Hoke has ties to the Notre Dame staff. He played for outside linebackers coach Bob Elliott when he was at Ball State while defensive line coach Mike Elston played for Hoke for two years when Hoke was an assistant at Michigan. Hoke famously said Notre Dame was "chickening out" of its rivalry with Michigan after the Irish decided to halt the series after 2014. | 1 | 7,220 | sports |
After being arrested for bank robbery, police found multiple 'how-to' guides on the criminals cell phone. Gillian Pensavalle (@GillianWithaG) explains. | 8 | 7,221 | video |
Can you tell the difference between Mindy Kaling and her character on The Mindy Project? Salvador Perez, the show's costume designer, is here to put your Mindy knowledge to the test! | 8 | 7,222 | video |
Ole Miss head coach Hugh Freeze isn't 100% confident QB Chad Kelly will stay out of trouble. | 1 | 7,223 | sports |
Get Rid of Belly Fat with These Foods You can blitz the belly fat by adding these 11 foods to your diet. Here's what the experts have to say about them: Almonds "Almonds have protein, fiber, and fat, which can help satiate the tummy, reduce hunger levels, and fill you up so you can potentially eat less later. Fiber makes us feel full and protein helps us feel satisfied. The heart-healthy fat in almonds has been suggested to reduce cholesterol levels. With the combo of the three together (protein, fiber, and fat), almonds are a good food choice for watching your waistline. Take note: just because a food is deemed 'healthy,' it doesn't give a green light to eat as much as you want. A standard portion of almonds is one ounce or about 24 almonds. Portions are still important when trying to lose belly fat. Add almonds to your diet by crushing a few almonds and sprinkling over your salad. Enjoy an easy afternoon snack of almonds and fruit to control hunger levels so that when dinner rolls around, you are ready to eat but not starving. This way you can control your dinner portions better." Sarah Koszyk Avocado "Avocados contain heart-healthy mono-unsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) and beta-sitosterol, which may assist with lowering cholesterol, inflammation, and even visceral fat. In addition, MUFAs are suggested to help control blood sugars, which can also affect our waistline when they are increased. Avocados are also high in fiber, which helps with feeling full and satisfied after eating. A serving of avocado is two tablespoons. Enjoy a delicious snack of avocado toast. Add avocado over your chili." Sarah Koszyk Black Beans "Individuals who eat plant-based proteins, such as beans, regularly have been shown to have smaller waistlines. Aim to incorporate more black beans into your weekly eating pattern or try swapping out animal protein for beans every so often. Black beans are great as a base to homemade veggie burgers and are a hearty addition to soups and stews. You can also combine black beans with your favorite salsa for a satisfying dip paired with whole grain crackers." McKenzie Hall Dark Leafy Greens " Dark leafy greens like kale , spinach, and collard greens are have both a high fiber and high water content. This means that these greens help keep us full for longer. Their fiber content also aids with digestion and prevents bloating and constipation." Jackie Topol Grapefruit " Grapefruit has long been lauded as a miracle fruit for weight loss. Studies have found that naringin, an antioxidant that gives grapefruit its bitter taste, may help with controlling blood sugar and metabolizing fat that is consumed in the diet. This, in turn, may have some beneficial effect on weight management. The citrus fruit is also 91 percent water so it will keep your belly full. Keep in mind that grapefruit can interact with a number of medications including statins, calcium-channel blockers, and immunosuppressive drugs." Jackie Topol Lentils " Lentils are rich in fiber and protein, which helps satisfy your appetite and keeps your blood sugar steady (no spikes or crashes!). A 2010 study found that people who substituted lentils and whole grains for refined carbohydrates lost weight and had a smaller waist circumference. A half-cup serving of lentils contains eight grams of fiber and nine grams of protein, and only 115 calories and 0 grams of fat." Jackie Topol Olive Oil " Studies have shown that olive oil can increase the feeling of satiety when eaten in a meal, when compared to other fats. In general, fat takes longer to digest than protein or carbohydrates, so it will stay in your stomach longer and likely make you eat less. That being said, you shouldn't start dousing your food in olive oil, as each tablespoon contains 125 calories. Use a small amount in your salad dressings, roasted vegetables, grain dishes, or dips." Jackie Topol Raspberries "Enjoying more high-fiber foods such as raspberries, which have nine grams of fiber per cup, a nutrient associated with lower abdominal fat. Add frozen raspberries, which are available year-round, to your breakfast smoothie for a boost of fiber in the morning. You can also use add thawed and mashed frozen raspberries to whole grain peanut butter toast for a satisfying, high-fiber breakfast or snack." McKenzie Hall Salmon "Salmon is a great source of omega-3 fatty acids. Omega-3s are heart-healthy fats that can help reduce fat storage by lowering cortisol levels. Cortisol is a stress hormone and when we're stressed, cortisol rises in the body, affects our visceral fat (the fat in your abdomen that surrounds your organs), and causes inflammation and insulin resistance, resulting in more belly fat. Aim for three four-ounce servings of salmon a week (that's 12 ounces total). Grill some salmon and add to a salad. Include salmon in a frittata or scramble. Trade your hamburger for a salmon burger." Sarah Koszyk Tart Cherries "Tart cherries contain anthocyanins, which are antioxidants that can reduce inflammation. Tart cherries have been suggested to alter abdominal adiposity in rats, according to a study published in the Journal of Medicinal Food . Therefore, tart cherries can possibly assist with reducing belly fat and decreasing inflammation. Eat tart cherries whole (these are different that the pitted cherries typically consumed from the produce department) or drink the juice. A serving of tart cherry juice is four ounces. Make sure the juice doesn't contain any preservatives or added sugars and is just 100-percent juice." Sarah Koszyk Walnuts " Eating as little as a quarter-ounce of tree nuts daily, such walnuts, has been linked with lower abdominal fat. Add chopped walnuts to your salads for crunch or stir into your morning bowl of oatmeal for an added boost for protein and heart healthy fat." McKenzie Hall | 7 | 7,224 | health |
Seasonal Superfoods to Keep You Healthy All Winter Long Seasonal Superfoods to Keep You Healthy All Winter Long There are a number of nutrient-dense foods available during the colder months, and cooking with these ingredients can help keep you healthy. Avocado There's a reason avocados have become so popular; they're delicious and loaded with health benefits. A source of "good" fat, avocado can help you absorb more nutrients from other foods and may even help lower "bad" cholesterol. Beets From the root itself to the leafy green tops, beets are full of nutrients. The root portion of the beet is rich in fiber and minerals and the tops are a good source of vitamin C. Carrots Your body converts the beta-carotene in carrots to vitamin A, which plays an important role in immune health. Because beta-carotene is a fat-soluble vitamin, you'll get the most benefit if you eat carrots with a little bit of fat. Try drizzling carrots with olive oil and roasting them in the oven. Chia Seeds If you're not a fan of these omega-3- and omega-6-rich seeds once they start absorbing liquid (like they do in chai drinks or puddings), try using them instead of poppy seeds in baking, sprinkling them in salads, or using them along with bread crumbs to crust chicken or fish. Dark Chocolate Easily our favorite superfood, dark chocolate (with a cacao content of 70 percent or higher) is the most delicious way to get your antioxidants and immune-boosting zinc. Although a 100-calorie square of dark chocolate is a great standalone snack, you can cook and bake with dark chocolate, too. Fennel Like other superfoods, fennel offers big nutritional benefits for very few calories. This licorice-tasting vegetable can help boost your immune response and is a good source of vitamin C. Garlic Garlic has a long history of medicinal use, owing to its antibacterial and antiviral properties. Mince it and add it (raw) to spice up salad dressings or sauté it in a pan just about any time you're cooking onions. Jicama The fiber in this crunchy root vegetable has inulin, a sugar that has a probiotic effect and also helps promote bone health. Considering that jicama is also a great source of vitamin C and potassium, we'd say it's time to start eating more of it. Salmon Aside from being one of the best dietary sources of vitamin D, salmon is also rich in heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin E, a powerful antioxidant. Tangelo Eating just one of these sweet citrus fruits a day will fulfill of your daily recommended dietary intake of vitamin C. Use tangelos (a tangerine grapefruit cross) anywhere that you would normally use oranges or tangerines. Wheat Germ The germ is the most vitamin- and mineral-dense part of a wheat kernel, and as little as two tablespoons a day can provide you with everything from B vitamins (which are good for your heart) to immune-boosting zinc. Try sprinkling raw wheat germ into protein shakes and oatmeal. | 7 | 7,225 | health |
The talk coming into Wednesday was about USC, but it's the other team in town that's grabbing all the headlines. Allen Trieu from Scout.com chats with Campus Insiders' Ray Crawford about how the Bruins reeled in a haul of top prospects. | 1 | 7,226 | sports |
Allen Trieu from Scout.com tells our Ray Crawford which program exceeded expectations, which freshman will dominate next season, and which freshman will likely not live up to expectations in 2015. | 1 | 7,227 | sports |
Texas A&M head football coach Kevin Sumlin opens up to Bruce Feldman and Stewart Mandel about Johnny Manziel in a candid interview on national signing day. | 1 | 7,228 | sports |
I remember the moment I knew our new neighborhood was not going to work. It was August, and my toddler and I walked to a playground. We passed a school with a playground, no kids. We passed many yards with signs of children, but no kids. It was morning and it was hot. We arrived in the park, hidden behind the cape houses, and began playing. There were no large trees to shade the play equipment. And, in the half hour that we played, there were no kids. I felt angry. I felt like an idiot. My husband had the car for the day. We returned to our rental house and the yard I had been so excited about, yet all I could think about was how it was time to move. I had moved houses almost every year of my life after college. I had lived in three large cities and one foreign country before we moved as a family to New York. I thought I had moving down. Moving with a child is the first hurdle, but orienting yourself and young children in a new home can be a huge challenge. We moved from San Francisco to a suburb of Buffalo, choosing what looked like a kid-dense, walkable neighborhood. There were three playgrounds, a community center, a library, and a large grocery store within walking distance. The landlords assured us the neighborhood was full of young families. We had looked at apartments in the city but were swayed by the idea of renting a house, with a yard, which was more proximate to work. All good except no one walked, save for exercise. Children did not seem to gather on playgrounds. It was Summer. Everyone seemed to be . . . gone. My modes of socializing with my toddler in California - going outdoors to playgrounds or walking to cafes or just simply walking - failed. It was also too hot to be outside for large parts of the day, unless you were at the beach or pool. Something I had forgotten after five years in the Bay Area. One could always go outside. There was no, ahem, Winter. I began to understand why people had playrooms. Before we settled, I wanted to take more time during our rental year exploring the suburbs and city neighborhoods before choosing a long-term home. We gave up on this plan. We identified where we wanted to live as quickly as possible and moved again within six months - into Buffalo, into a denser neighborhood, where neighbors were out more and there was a popular playground nearby. Much to my benefit, mothers immediately told me about a group of moms with preschool children that met regularly in the evenings. I grilled these moms, I studied their habits, I took all of their advice. Moving is always a risk. When we moved into our current home in Winter, I had no idea just how many young families lived around us. Maybe we got lucky. Still, it has taken me years to figure out our new hometown in terms of what to do with young kids. Like many smaller cities, Buffalo is a large community of small towns and suburbs beyond the city itself, all of which operate independently. In addition, the sort of knowledge you need to establish a new routine is not easily found online, which is true of almost all but the largest US metro areas. This was all compounded by the fact that we moved here not knowing anyone. Sounding familiar? If you find yourself in a new city with kids, learn from my mistakes and save yourself loads of time. Your challenge is to find things to do and meet people as you do it. The age of your children will determine what you might be looking for. Exploit your natural networks - the people you work with and/or choose child care with are people you likely share habits with. The easiest way to meet parents with kids is through day cares and preschools. If you are not working, many communities also have cooperative preschools for young children. Seek out community centers and organizations like the YMCA that have built-in programs for kids or offer activity-based child care, even for infants. Visit nature centers. Try out churches. If you have older children, volunteering can be a great way to meet families that share your values. Find a newcomers club to meet people who also feel lost and ignorant. The clubs are often run by people who have been in your position and are looking to give back. Look for social groups on Facebook, especially ones for just you. (My favorite local group here is called the Buffalo Beer Goddesses, and it's women who meet to enjoy beer.) Check out gymnastics centers, trampoline "parks," and the pools and splash pads in Summer. Sign up for something: music class, yoga, or swimming lessons are all things you can do with babies and toddlers, and most of these activities offer free trials. Explore: plan day trips and adventures, try farmers markets. These are places to meet new people and gain insight into your new home's natural beauty and regional culture. As it turns out, Western New York is a hiking, skiing, and boating paradise. There are delightful seasonal and historical outings along the Erie Canal and in state parks like Fort Niagara. Go to the library. Look into memberships at the zoo or the science or art museum; as your child grows, these places are ones you can return to again and again, for different events and classes. Be bold: invite yourself to things. I consider myself a reserved person, but I have completely changed my tactics now that I have children to socialize. Ask parents, ask parents, ask parents. While we were in our rental, it turned out that there was a playgroup and busy playground near us, just a bit farther away, where parents could pay to join a play space at the community center. I only know because I kept asking parents. Try new things, try to reserve judgment. Even if you don't understand the natives at times, it is necessary to step outside your comfort zone. It's a good time to worry less about whether you like people or may be compatible and just network. Look for local websites that collect kid-friendly events for parents. Be patient. Finding the people you really want to be with and the things you really enjoy doing with your children - especially as they grow - takes some time. But I've found that time to be fully worth the work. Winter is a whole other ball game. But if I can do it in Buffalo, so can you. | 4 | 7,229 | lifestyle |
Philippe Coutinho celebrated his new contract with a sensational stoppage-time winner as Liverpool left it late to beat 10-man Bolton 2-1 and secure progression to the FA Cup fifth round. Steven Gerrard's 700th Liverpool appearance looked set to end in defeat when a 59th-minute penalty from Eidur Gudjohnsen put Bolton ahead in Wednesday's fourth-round replay. However, Raheem Sterling's fine volley pulled Liverpool level with four minutes remaining - following the dismissal of Neil Danns - and the Championship side was subjected to further heartbreak when Coutinho, who signed a new long-term deal at Anfield earlier this week, found the net with a sublime 25-yard strike. Defeat would have been harsh on Brendan Rodgers' men, who hit the woodwork on three occasions prior to their late goals. Liverpool will now travel to Crystal Palace in round five, while Bolton will return to Championship action having given its more illustrious opponent a major scare over 180 minutes. Home goalkeeper Andy Lonergan had to be alert early on to deny Gerrard - who followed Ian Callaghan and Jamie Carragher in reaching 700 games for Liverpool - and Sterling as the visitors made a fast start. The underdogs could well have taken the lead when David Wheater connected with Liam Feeney's free kick, but the center back's header was well held by Simon Mignolet. Liverpool responded by going even closer to an opener, as Sterling picked up the ball inside the area and curled a superb effort that rattled off the post. Mignolet was called into action again to keep out a dipping half-volley from Bolton's joint top scorer Matt Mills, who led the line rather than occupying his usual position in defense. Bolton made a strong start to the second period and was buoyed further when Sterling started limping, with an apparent recurrence of an ankle knock picked up in the first half. That didn't stop the forward twice testing the Bolton defense breaking through only to be halted by Dorian Dervite's terrific last-ditch tackle before forcing Lonergan into another fine stop. Liverpool was left stunned when referee Roger East penalized Martin Skrtel for a foul on Zach Clough in the area, with Gudjohnsen coolly side-footing home the resulting spot kick. However, Bolton then suffered a setback when Danns picked up a second yellow card for a late challenge on Joe Allen and Liverpool twice hit the woodwork, through Jordan Henderson and Emre Can, as the Reds surged forward in search of an equalizer. Former Bolton forward Daniel Sturridge was introduced by Rodgers, but it was Sterling who eventually equalized with a controlled left-footed volley from Can's exquisite pass. Coutinho then took center stage, firing a dipping shot beyond Lonergan to leave Bolton devastated. | 1 | 7,230 | sports |
This April will mark 45 years since The Beatles broke up. That may come as a shock to members of a certain generation born between 1946 and 1964, of which I am a shocked member. Though few of us are walking around with Beatle haircuts anymore, the Fab Four still seems very much with us. While they shaped the boomers in many ways, as a personal-finance writer, I'm intrigued by one way that's rarely discussed: How we think about money. That's a thesis raised in Candy Leonard's recent book, Beatleness: How the Beatles and Their Fans Remade the World . First Purchase: Beatles Albums "For many young fans, their first experience going to the store with friends, or saving allowance money, or earning money from lawn mowing or babysitting, was about buying Beatle stuff. Diverting lunch money was also common," Leonard, a sociologist as well as a Beatles buff, writes. "Fans remember knowing approximately when the next record was coming out, calculating how much they'd have to save each week, and budgeting." It's probably no coincidence that half the Beatles records you see at garage sales and thrift shops these days still carry the names of their former owners, written in childish script on their sleeves. The albums were that precious to us. Reimagining What a Millionaire Is The Beatles also showed us that it was possible to make money, and gobs of it, by doing something fun. Before they arrived on the scene, our notion of millionaires tended towards stuffy old men with stuffy old enterprises like railroads, banks and steel mills. As The Beatles hit it big, though, many of us badgered our parents into buying us guitars a few of us actually learned how to play one. From 'Money' to 'Taxman' The Beatles' songs, too, often dealt with money, proving that they were giving the matter some thought, as well. Money (That's What I Want), a cover of a 1959 R&B hit that appeared on their second American album in the spring of 1964, was pretty clear in its message. But Can't Buy Me Love , a Lennon-McCartney original released that summer, began to show some ambivalence. By the time of Taxman in 1966, Baby, You're a Rich Man in 1967, and You Never Give Me Your Money in 1969, they seemed fed up with the whole concept. Fans, too, were beginning to become skeptical not of The Beatles themselves, but of the commercialism that swirled around them, Leonard told me. When some discovered that the albums released in the U.S. were different from the U.K. versions ones sold here typically had fewer songs they felt cheated. Accept No Substitutions But American teenagers also got a useful lesson in the workings of the marketplace from The Beatles. I know I did, as a young innocent, when I went to buy my first Beatles record. I picked an album that looked like the real thing but turned out to be an obscure orchestra playing their songs. Fortunately, a kindly cashier tipped me off. I left with a 45 of I Want To Hold Your Hand as well as a lifelong habit of reading product labels and wondering what the catch is. Skeptical or not, many of us have remained loyal customers ever since. "Boomers have purchased the Beatles catalog in so many formats and different remasterings, especially over past 40 years or so," Leonard says. "As recently as November, a box set came out all in mono. And fans buy it again and again." Of course the Beatles weren't the only band with a thing or two to say about money. Pink Floyd ( Money ), The Grateful Dead ( Money Mone y), The O'Jays ( For the Love of Money ), and Frank Zappa ( We're Only In It for the Money ) all made contributions to the genre, as have musicians ever since. But, as in so many other things, the lads from Liverpool had the greatest and longest-lasting impact. As Leonard puts it: "The Beatles weren't merely the soundtrack to important events in fans' lives, they were the actual substance of the events and triggered the rite of passage from children to consumers." Greg Daugherty is a personal finance writer specializing in retirement who has written frequently for Next Avenue. He was formerly editor-in-chief at Reader's Digest New Choices and senior editor at Money. | 3 | 7,231 | finance |
The brutal tactics of ISIS militants repel those outside its ranks. But the beheadings, mass executions and crucifixions aren't designed to win hearts, minds or tests of logic. "A group like ISIS I associate more with the Khmer Rouge than, say, with the North Vietnamese more with a group that has a kind of death cult at its heart and that needs bodies in order to prove itself," says New Yorker staff writer George Packer. "Looking at its actions, they seem driven more by those kinds of mystical forces than by reason." ISIS, which calls itself the Islamic State, released a video on Tuesday purporting to show the execution of a Jordanian fighter pilot by burning him alive. Lt. Moaz al-Kasasbeh appears to be inside of a cage when an unidentified jihadi brandishes a torch, igniting a flammable liquid that has drenched the pilot's clothing. "People who leave their comfortable lives to join ISIS might actually find the ultra-violence of ISIS exciting and somehow fulfilling, and it might almost prove to them that ISIS is serious," Packer says. "It satisfies the more apocalyptic longings that ISIS and its members have to purify the world of non-believers and apostates, and to galvanize and lift the hearts of the believers." Packer says calls for "purification" are key for any extremist group when they call for ridding "the world of these contaminants whether it's the Jews, whether it's the Christians, whether it's the Slavs, whether it's the seculars, whether it's the intellecutal Cambodians." ISIS also isn't following a logical playbook when it comes to military tactics. In a recent article for The New Yorker, Packer writes that the battle for Kobane, a Kurdish town on the Turkish-Syrian border, offers another example of how ISIS defies conventional logic. ISIS leaders sacrificed more than 1,000 of their fighters in a battle they eventually lost, reducing the city to post-apocalyptic rubble in the process. Yet Kobane's strategic importance is questionable. But despite what might seem like blunders, Packer says ISIS isn't likely to run aground anytime soon. "Although it sounds as though they ought to be eminently beatable, given what seem like the tactical and strategic mistakes they've been making, they have a lot going for them," Packer says. "They have a divided Middle East, they have an alienated Sunni population in Iraq and Syria, and that's very fertile ground for them to recruit and to impose their will. ISIS is going to be haunting us for a very long time." | 5 | 7,232 | news |
US fast-food giant Yum Brands reported Wednesday a swing into a fourth-quarter loss, saying its recovery in China from a tainted meat scandal was taking longer than it expected. The parent of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell restaurant chains said it had a net loss of $36 million in the October-December quarter compared with a net income of $321 million a year ago. Adjusted earnings per share, a gauge closely watched by Wall Street, fell 29 percent to 61 cents. The Louisville, Kentucky-based company said its earnings were affected by the July tainted meat scandal involving a former supplier, after a strong first half of the year. "While the sales recovery in China continues to be slower than expected, we anticipate a strong second half of 2015 as the turnaround gains momentum, led by menu innovation across the year," said Greg Creed, Yum's chief executive, in a statement. "Our top priority is to recover sales in China and capture the significant profit leverage we have in this business," Creed said. Creed said the company, which has more than 4,600 KFC restaurants and 1,100 Pizza Hut restaurants in China, plans to open least 700 new units in China. Yum maintained its 2015 full-year forecast of at least 10 percent growth in earnings per share. Worldwide sales in the fourth quarter grew three percent, weighed down by an 11 percent fall in the China division. Fourth-quarter revenues gained four percent at nearly $4 billion. For all of 2014, Yum reported a 3.7 percent fall in net income to $1.05 billion. Adjusted earnings of $3.09 per share were up four percent. Revenues rose one percent to $13.28 billion. Outside of China, the company said there was momentum in its KFC chicken chain and Mexican-style Taco Bell restaurants. Creed said the company would open more than 2,100 new international restaurants this year, "further strengthening our lead in emerging markets." Investors welcomed the results which were posted after the market closed. Yum shares were up 1.4 percent at $74.69 in after-hours trade. | 3 | 7,233 | finance |
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) Brad Keselowski will become a father this NASCAR season. Keselowski announced Wednesday on his blog that he and girlfriend Paige White are expecting a daughter. He did not announce a due date, and requested privacy for his unborn child. The 2012 NASCAR champion wrote he accepts life as a public figure, but his daughter ''hasn't signed up for any of that.'' He asked for attention to remain focused on him. Keselowski also addressed having a child before marriage. He wrote this is the happiest he's ever been and credited White. He said his family and White's family both come from humble backgrounds, and it's created a support system for the Team Penske driver. ''I know that we're not doing this in the traditional order of things,'' he wrote. | 1 | 7,234 | sports |
There is a downside to cheap oil prices just ask the U.S. workers associated with the country's oil boom. Yes, lower energy prices help many consumers by slashing spending at the gas pump and for heating homes money these consumers presumably will spend on other goods. But as oil prices fall, it becomes harder for energy companies to maintain profitable margins. In response, the exploration companies are already cutting back on their investments, which often means layoffs, as fewer hands are needed to work a declining number of rigs. That means within the oil patch, low energy prices may be more of a curse than a blessing for retailers who depend on energy industry workers to buy their products. As the recent global glut of crude oil shows little signs of abating inventories rose again to a record high oil prices continue to tumble. West Texas Intermediate crude (.OWTI-XX) prices are down about 60 percent since June. Stifel said the U.S. oil rig count is 24 percent below its October 2014 level. BHP Billiton (BHP-AU) said it plans to cut its rig operations by 40 percent this year. BP (BP.-GB) announced plans to cut capital expenditures by 13 percent in 2015. Numerous energy producers have announced layoffs, from the oil and gas division of General Electric (GE) to Schlumberger (SLB) . Nomura and Wells Fargo analysts have detailed which retailers in their coverage areas may be most impacted if the U.S. oil production boom slows. The Nomura analysis includes the following nine states: Texas , Oklahoma , Louisiana , New Mexico , Colorado , Pennsylvania , Kansas , Utah and Arkansas . The Wells Fargo analysis looks at the impact in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, New Mexico, North Dakota and Wyoming . While smaller in market cap than its department store competitors, Nomura retail analyst Bob Drbul notes Stage Stores (SSI) is "particularly exposed to oil-sensitive regions, with more than 40 percent of its store base in the South Central region [of the U.S.], including around 250 stores in Texas." Texas is the U.S. state most associated with the oil boom, but Drbul said, "the state is currently less economically reliant on oil than other less diversified state economies." Wells Fargo analyst Paul Lejuez said retailer Boot Barn (BOOT) has 38 percent of its stores "in potentially affected states and a portion of its business caters directly to oil and gas workers." However, JPMorgan retail analyst Matthew Boss told investors that at a breakfast meeting Boot Barn CEO James Conroy told an investor group the fear is overdone, explaining only 15 of 166 stores are "disproportionately reliant on oil," with no impact to date, and added that lower gas prices nationwide are benefiting their core, pickup-truck-driving consumer. A quarter of Wal-Mart's (WMT) U.S. stores are located in the nine oil-reliant states explored by Nomura, as well as a quarter of Ross Stores (ROST) . Piper Jaffray analyst Neely Tamminga lowered her "overweight" rating on Ross Stores shares to a "neutral" call "in view of what we believe may be increasingly negative data points around oil-driven economies namely Texas." Fifteen percent of the off-price retailer's stores are in the Lone Star State. Plano, Texas-based department store J.C. Penney (JCP) is only slightly less concentrated, with 22 percent of its locations in these regions. A fifth of Target's (TGT) stores are located in areas dependent on the oil economy and 18 percent of off-mall department store Kohl's (KSS) locations. Sixteen percent of TJX Cos. (TJX) and Macy's (M) stores are in areas overexposed to oil economies, with a similar store-base concentration for higher-end department store Nordstrom (JWN) . But it's not just the U.S. regions analysts are watching when gauging the threat of a slowing oil boom. Areas of Canada that have seen economic benefits from the boom in recent years may soon be experiencing the opposite. Wells Fargo points out that 21 percent of Vancouver-based Lululemon (LULU) stores are in Canadian oil-reliant economies. Thirteen percent of children's clothing-maker Carter's (CRI) store base is in Canada, followed by 9 percent of L Brands (LB) , American Eagle Outfitters (AEO) and Michael Kors (KORS) stores. | 3 | 7,235 | finance |
Global oil prices slid Wednesday following a three-day rally as US crude stockpiles struck the highest level for 30 years. US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for delivery in March tumbled $2.92 to $50.13 a barrel compared with Tuesday's close. Brent North Sea crude for March shed $2.05 to trade at $55.87 a barrel in London afternoon trade. WTI had soared $3.48 Tuesday to record its highest finish since December 31, while Brent jumped $3.16 to a similar closing peak, as dealers cheered signs that the oil industry is tightening exploration activities to cap a supply glut. But data Wednesday from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed that US commercial crude inventories jumped last week by 6.3 million barrels to hit 413.1 million -- the highest level since 1982 according to data compiled by the EIA. It was the highest level for 75 years when looking at the data on a monthly basis. Ken Hasegawa, an energy trading manager at Newedge Group in Tokyo, said the crude market was "extremely volatile" after the three-day rally that began Friday saw prices surge nearly 20 percent. "It has become increasingly difficult to discern the direction of the prices of crude oil, but the fundamentals remain unchanged," Hasegawa told AFP. He added that prices could "fluctuate by increasing up to $10 and falling up to $10" in the short term. Deep cuts in capital spending by major oil companies, including new announcements Tuesday by BP and BG Group, had suggested there would be tighter supplies in the future. The Baker Hughes North America rig count report for the week to January 30 showed a drop of 128 rigs to 1,937. That compared with 2,393 a year ago. Some analysts however remain doubtful that the current oil price rebound will be sustained as supplies still outweigh demand in the immediate term. The oil market has lost more than half its value since June largely owing to a surge in global reserves boosted by robust US shale oil production. The problem was exacerbated in November after OPEC decided to maintain output levels despite plunging prices. The 12-nation Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cartel pumps about 30 percent of global crude supplies. | 3 | 7,236 | finance |
A captive killer whale that has been performing for decades at the Miami Seaquarium deserves the same protection as a small population of endangered orcas that spend time in Washington state waters, the federal government announced Wednesday. But the National Marine Fisheries Service said the whale's inclusion in the endangered listing for southern resident killer whales does not impact the animal's stay at the Florida facility where she has been since 1970. "This is a listing decision. It is not a decision to free Lolita. It's not a decision that she should be free," said Will Stelle, regional administrator for the Fisheries Service's West Coast region. It does not affect the conditions of the orca's captivity or care at this time, nor is the Miami Seaquarium required to do anything as a result, Stelle said. He added the agency is focused on doing what it can to recover the wild population of Puget Sound orcas, which now numbers 78. Animal rights groups called it a victory and said the decision opens the way for them to argue that the whale's living conditions violate provisions of the federal endangered-species law. "Now that Lolita is protected, a whole host of remedy is open to us to demand that Lolita be treated with respect," said Jessica Blome, an attorney with the Animal Legal Defense Fund. Lolita was 4 or 6 years old when she was legally rounded up in 1970 and later sent to the Miami facility. When the federal government protected Puget Sound orcas as endangered species in 2005, it excluded captive animals. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals Foundation and others petitioned in 2013 for Lolita to be included, and the Fisheries Service did so on Wednesday. Activists say that she belongs in the wild, not a small pool, and should be returned to her home waters. They want her released into a protected marine pen near the San Juan Islands north of Seattle, where she would be monitored and cared for until she can gradually reconnect with other wild orcas. But the Miami Seaquarium is not proposing to move the whale, according to Fisheries Service, a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "She's not going to be released," Robert Rose, curator for the Miami Seaquarium, reiterated Wednesday. "We're disappointed with the rule. We do not agree that she should be listed. We feel that there's flawed science there." Rose said more efforts should be focused on the conservation of Puget Sound orcas, rather than an animal that has been well-cared-for over the past 45 years, and that releasing Lolita into the wild would not only harm her but the wild orcas, as well. NOAA officials made clear Wednesday that they're far from weighing her release and that any future decision to release Lolita will require extensive scientific review. Such a review would take into consideration not only what's good for Lolita, but what's good for the wild population of endangered orcas, Stelle said. Stelle added that it's not as simple as opening the gates and freeing the animal. The agency noted concerns over disease transmission and the ability of a captive animal to find food, among other worries. "Imagine if you've been in captivity in a tightly managed environment, fed by humans for the last 40 to 45 years," he asked. "Are you ready to be released out in to the wild and fend for yourself?" But animal activists are hopeful. They say Lolita is being kept under deplorable conditions in a small tank that's not shaded and without other whales for companions that would violate provisions of the Endangered Species Act. "We hope that this listing decision will help her transition from a life of captivity to a life with her family in the wild," Blome said. | 5 | 7,237 | news |
HONOLULU (AP) University of Hawaii's former basketball coach is disputing charges leveled against him in an NCAA notice of allegations and says the school owes him more than $1.4 million. The collegiate sports governing body alleges that Gib Arnold acted unethically and knowingly influenced others to provide false or misleading information regarding violations during his tenure. Arnold says the $1.4 million UH owes him as termination payment will provide him with the resources to fight the NCAA allegations. Arnold said his contract entitles him to an amount of severance money equal to what he accrued since his contract began on July 1, 2011, The Honolulu Star-Advertiser (http://ow.ly/IuLZb) reported Wednesday. He said he will ''most fiercely defend'' himself against two Level I allegations, which is the most severe category. He was fired on Oct. 28. Athletic Director Ben Jay declined to comment. ''UH decided they would rather pay me the contract price - three and a half years' salary and bonuses totaling over $1.4 million - to terminate me `without cause' and pay nothing,'' Arnold said. ''That decision, made when the athletic department was already millions of dollars in the red, tells you the university did not have confidence that the facts they heard amount to cause for dismissal.'' The university paid Arnold the remainder of his 2014-15 salary in a lump sum of about $346,000. If the allegations are upheld, Arnold could face a suspension from coaching at NCAA institutions. He said he will use the mandated 90 days to prepare a defense. --- Information from: Honolulu Star-Advertiser, http://www.staradvertiser.com | 1 | 7,238 | sports |
Our Crimson Tide insider Kirk McNair examines the team's latest recruiting class including who will be next season's impact freshmen. | 1 | 7,239 | sports |
The Harlem line train reached Valhalla, N.Y., around 6:30 p.m., rolling beside a cemetery. Riders had settled into the relative calm of their Tuesday evening commutes on the Metro-North Railroad texting, reading, listening to music. Chris Gross sat in the front car, watching a Mel Brooks movie. Nearby, on Commerce Street, a line of cars had clustered at the crossing gate for the tracks, a fit of traffic that owed to an earlier crash on the Taconic State Parkway. At the front of the line was a woman who, for reasons still unclear to the authorities and witnesses, had ended up on the wrong side of the gate in her Mercedes sport-utility vehicle. The train operator, seeing the obstruction in front of him, apparently applied the emergency brakes. Then the jolt arrived. In a flash, rail passengers tumbled into the aisle, flames whipping all around them. The front car filled with smoke and screams. The electrified third rail had been pried loose and ripped through the train. The fire was visible from the second car, sending travelers into a mad retreat to the back of the eight-car train where others knew little of the horror at the head. In the front, Mr. Gross strained to regain his bearings. "I turned over and looked," Mr. Gross said on Wednesday morning on ABC. The man in front of him appeared to have lost his leg below the knee. In the chaos, Mr. Gross said, another man, with burns on his hands, managed to pry open an emergency latch so they could escape. The man plunged his hands in the snow, seeking relief. Nearby, at the front of the train, the vehicle smoldered. The S.U.V. had been pushed 400 feet after contact. And 400 feet from the site of the crash's nexus, it remained in the middle of the track, wrapped around the train amid the blast. One official briefed on the investigation said it appeared the woman had gone outside her car at one point before the crash, frantically waving at the Metro-North train to stop in time. It was dark, fellow drivers recalled, and perhaps she did not know at first that she had passed the gate. At one point, she appeared to drive forward, a witness said, only to find herself stuck on the tracks. At least one car had backed up to give her space. As the fire raged, emergency responders arrived, trying to crack open the doors. Passengers were seen jumping out of windows. The train operator moved through the front car, in a bid to evacuate riders amid the carnage, before smoke inhalation forced him to leave. At the rear of the train, there was less intense panic, at first. Steven Lichtenthal, from Bedford Hills, N.Y., rode in the back of a middle car. Riders were told over the intercom that the train had hit a car and were asked to stand by. Then the intercom went out. Passengers from the front shouted at their peers to move back. "But we couldn't," Mr. Lichtenthal recalled in an electronic message to The New York Times. "We didn't want to evacuate without official word because we didn't know if the tracks were still electrified or cause mass panic or craziness." He eventually walked down a ladder through an emergency exit, seeing the fire for the first time. He joined a small group of travelers, trudging through deep snow to safety. Word of the smoldering scene spread quickly. The Westchester Medical Center received a notice about the crash at 6:44 p.m. Three minutes later, it was declared a "mass casualty incident." Hospital staff members rushed to clear 40 patients out of its emergency department. They prepared for a crush of victims. They received a dozen. Relatives and friends tried to reach those they knew aboard the train, praying for a response. The intensity of the explosion ensured that uncertainty would reign. And so, the most trying exercise, identifying the six deceased, stretched well into Wednesday. By the morning, most of the bodies had still not been definitively identified. Officials said they had been charred beyond recognition. Administrators at the hospital expressed astonishment that the toll not been even more severe. But the grimmest arithmetic remained. "I would have rather had six more patients," said Dr. Ivan Miller, medical director of the emergency department at Westchester Medical Center. | 5 | 7,240 | news |
Funny celebrity photos for February 2015 Jared Leto loves saying his name out loud: Letooooooooo! Leslie Mann told a riddle to her husband, Judd Apatow: "Hey, what did the five fingers say to the face? Slap!" Scarlett Johansson wants no part of John Travolta's lips. You never know what they'll say ... Paging Idina Menzel. We're not saying that Rita Ora has flatulence, but the woman to the far right isn't enjoying whatever Rita is leaving in her wake. #CropDusting. Words Jennifer Aniston heard for the first time that night from the three to her left: You can't sit with us! And then Tim McGraw went all Mike Tyson on Faith Hill. It wasn't pretty. Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell: Prepare Sir Mix A-Lot voice ... Baby's got back! Little known fact about Scott Eastwood: He's a master power walker. They said Tim Tebow didn't have a shot at being an NFL player because he couldn't catch. Now he's proving them wrong. Look at him catching a cab just fine! Keep proving them wrong, Tim! Andre 3000 likes to think he's a human airplane. Come fly with me! Paula Deen brought a food processor to a laser tag fight. It didn't work out well. That moment when Donny Osmond realized all his fans were geriatrics. Is there a doctor in the house? Jimmy Fallon has a strange growth coming from his left shoulder. You gotta get that checked out, homey. Jenny McCarthy ... personal space, honey, ever heard of it? Back away! "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" is only a saying, Lizzie Caplan. It's nothing you should be taking literally. The new and improved Justin Bieber is apparently more apt to flash ping pong paddles than derogatory hand gestures. We like the new Justin! Someone should tell Charlie Day that air quotes are only effective when using two hands. This is not what Mae Whitman had in mind when she asked Aubrey Plaza for a few pointers. No, no, no! Jessie J, the Duckface is ONLY allowed on Instagram, and even that is questionable. Things got awkward when someone asked Sarah Silverman if her hips lie. Unfortunately for Lady Gaga, the last time we saw something this happy, outrageous and purple, we were watching an episode of "Barney." Nicole Murphy be like, "Hey, remember me?" Followed by crickets and radio silence ... Bueller? Bueller? Roselyn Sanchez has jazz hands and she doesn't care who knows it! Helen Mirren is about to teach us all how to "dougie." Watch and learn. ... And just then it just dawned on Rachel McAdams that she once had Ryan Gosling within her grasp! Weird Al Yankovic decides the Grammys red carpet is a fantastic spot for a "Dancing With the Stars" tryout. Sign that man up! You've heard of hammerhead sharks? Behold, the world's first hammerhead human. Maria Bello, you are a pioneer! Gotta be honest, not one of Kendall Jenner's better runway looks. Elisabetta Canalis is riveted by her date -- they're very into each other. And right now Elisabetta is thinking, "I dated George Clooney! Where did I go wrong?!" When life gives you lemons, squirt it in Joe Jonas' eye and let him watch basketball. It will be fun ... maybe not for Joe. Katy Perry wants you to join the army! (Famous poster -- look it up, kids.) Eva Longoria may not be a desperate housewife, but she's desperate for some devolumizing shampoo. Ed Sheeran may need a wardrobe upgrade, but we're just "Thinking Out Loud" over here. See what we did there? She may only be 18, but Zendaya Coleman is kind of mouthy, right? Some guys have all luck when shopping for non-blinding pants, but Rod Stewart isn't one of them. Look, the oranges in the box match Pierce Brosnan's tan. What a coincidence. Jeff Bridges is so excited about "Shark Week" that he's convinced himself he is one. Seal obviously thinks he's on a motion ride at Disneyland ... Without anyone noticing, Jerry O'Connell got some surgical enhancements. He's gonna need a bra because actress Erin Wilhelmi isn't gonna continue to support him. Lara Spencer is thinking, "Mirror, mirror, in my hand, who is the greatest anchor in all the land?" Peter Sarsgaard hates when you have to shield your eyes from that treacherous moon glare! It's blinding to ... almost no one. Odds that Kris Humphries is listening to Kayne West? We know, we know, "Heartless" joke ... and another one! We're sure Kris is "Stronger" now ... Sorry, we're really trying to have "Mercy" on Kris. You heard of a chain gang before? Sarah Jessica Parker shows off her rain gang. Confirmed, Donald Trump's hair looks every bit as disturbing from high elevation as it does on the ground level. Man, his wife must be thanking her lucky stars that he's got four inches on her! That one time Kristen Stewart noticed that baby got back! All we asked DJ Steve Aoki was where the restroom was. Worst. Directions. Ever. If Sloth from "The Goonies" needs a day off, British celebrity Nadia Sawalha is a shoo-in as a replacement. | 6 | 7,241 | entertainment |
If you're searching for the perfect Valentine's day gift for your special someone, ditch the chocolate and flowers. There are a few modern and unique gifts that are sure to melt their heart. Krystin Goodwin (@krystingoodwin) has a few of the best gifts for Valentine's Day! | 8 | 7,242 | video |
Learn ways to treat varicose veins and tips for avoiding developing them in the first place. | 7 | 7,243 | health |
WASHINGTON The horrifying murder of a Jordanian pilot, made public this week, suggests that U.S. efforts to stop the Islamic State extremist group are ineffective, making it more likely that the 2016 election campaign will become a debate about ground troops. President Barack Obama has launched waves of airstrikes at Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria, but he steadfastly rules out sending ground troops into combat. At least six potential Republican presidential candidates won't dismiss that option. Others, though, hedge when asked how they'd proceed beyond criticizing Obama's airstrikes-only strategy as ineffective. Dealing with the Islamic State is risky political business. Politicians have to be careful that they don't appear to be taking advantage of fear and outrage over the group's brutality. And they know that ground troops are not a crowd-pleasing idea, since a war-weary public has vivid memories of the lengthy U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Americans are increasingly worried about terrorist threats and want heightened readiness and a tough response. A recent Pew Research Center survey found combating terrorism inching ahead of the economy as Americans' top priority for Obama and Congress. Two-thirds were concerned that the Islamic State was a major threat to this country. The drumbeat of horrors keeps the apprehension fresh. The beheadings of hostages, the killings at the offices of satirical Paris-based magazine Charlie Hebdo and the burning alive of Jordanian Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh intensify the concern. Republicans, far more than Democrats, have for months sensed an opportunity to use terrorism policies to their advantage, and aren't relenting. "There is a Democrat in the White House, so it's a little easier (for Republicans) to be hawkish," said Craig Robinson, editor of TheIowaRepublican.com, a partisan website. Add to that the prospect of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee, even though she was in office in 2011, when American forces killed terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. As a U.S. senator, Clinton voted in 2002 to authorize President George W. Bush to use military force in Iraq, a vote she later said she regretted. "Republicans likely view her as being weak on foreign policy," said Robinson. Clinton said last month that military action against Islamic terrorists was "critical." She did not get more specific about U.S. ground troops. Republicans argue that weakness from the Obama administration, including the withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq, allowed the rise of the Islamic State. "We should not be surprised," former Virginia Gov. James Gilmore said of Tuesday's murder. "When the good guys step out and leave a void, the bad guys step in and fill it." Ground troops, many suggest, could or should be an option. Among their views: Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry. He "believes we shouldn't take options off the table when it comes to protecting America's interests," said spokeswoman Lucy Nashed. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson. "If you need ground troops to take 'em out, you put in ground troops," he told McClatchy in a recent interview. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. "We have to be prepared to put boots on the ground if that's what it takes," he told ABC on Sunday. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. The fight against the Islamic State "might require some element of U.S. ground power in order to finish the job," he told CNN last fall. He continues to think the U.S. shouldn't take options off the table. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. He suggested "ground troops on the American side to supplement a regional force . . . with large enough numbers to defeat" the Islamic State. He called for about 10,000 American support personnel "to make sure that we win not only in Syria but in Iraq." Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has been a supporter of U.S. airstrikes, though he said Obama had acted improperly by not seeking congressional authorization first. In December, he introduced a resolution providing that consent, which hasn't been taken up for a vote. It included a section limiting how ground forces could be used. It said such forces could be used "for limited operations against high value targets or as necessary for advisory and intelligence gathering operations." Ground power could also be used to protect or rescue U.S. citizens or military personnel from "imminent danger" posed by the Islamic State. Others are less specific. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas suggested Tuesday, "The question of what is to be required should be a military question driven by the objective." The problem with Obama's foreign policy, he said, is that "the objective has not been focused appropriately on destroying ISIS. Rather, it has been a photo op foreign policy." Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush told a New York audience last fall that the rise of the Islamic State has come partly because of allies' inability to trust Obama and his policies. His office didn't respond to requests for comment. Nor did former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's political committee. Former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton wanted to see a more focused strategy. "The United States needs an objective more than anything else," he said. "Asking about U.S. ground forces before asking about what our objective should be is a propaganda technique encouraged by the White House, and which reveals all the weaknesses of current administration thinking." Asking anyone to predict the specifics of policy two years ahead is probably an impossible task, though. "I can't tell you today what is the best policy for whatever crisis is to come," said former Gov. Gilmore, who headed an influential high-level congressional panel before and after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that assessed threats and recommended policies. What is clear is this, said Carroll Doherty, Pew director of political research: "There's always potential for national security and terrorism to be an issue." | 5 | 7,244 | news |
AMMAN, Jordan There was one feeling that many of the Middle East's fractious clerics, competing ethnic groups and warring sects could agree on Wednesday: a shared sense of revulsion at the Islamic State's latest excess, its video showing a Jordanian pilot being burned alive inside a cage. In Syria, the government denounced the group that has been fighting it for months, but so did Qaeda fighters who oppose both the government and the Islamic State. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian government for once agreed on something, the barbarity of the militant group for the way it murdered the Jordanian, First Lt. Moaz al-Kasasbeh. Grand Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the head of Cairo's thousand-year-old Al Azhar institute and a leading Sunni scholar, was so angered that he called for the Islamic State's extremists to be "killed, or crucified, or their hands and legs cut off." In a way that the beheadings of hostages had not, the immolation of Lieutenant Kasasbeh united the Arab world in an explosion of anger and disgust at the extremists, also known as ISIS or ISIL, or to most Arabs by the word "Daesh," derived from the extremists' Arabic acronym. The sense of anti-Daesh unity made for strange scenes throughout the region. Jordan's King Abdullah II, caught by surprise in Washington when the video was released, returned home not to anger at his absence, but to a hero's welcome. Crowds lined his route from the airport to cheer Jordan's decision to promptly retaliate by executing two convicted terrorists, both with connections to the Islamic State, only hours earlier. Never known as a charismatic leader, King Abdullah got rave reviews at home for his tough talk in Washington, where in a meeting with congressional leaders he said his retribution would remind people of the Clint Eastwood movie "Unforgiven." While the propaganda video, with its vows to kill other fighter pilots bombing Islamic State positions, was clearly aimed at trying to scare Jordan out of the American-led coalition fighting the extremists, it seems to have had the opposite effect among many Jordanians. Jordan is one of a half-dozen Arab countries actively participating in the coalition, in addition to Iraq, and Jordan's government spokesman said the kingdom would now step up its involvement. "I guess in a way we lost a pilot, but at the same time I think the government gained a collective support for fighting them, in Jordan and from all around too," said Adnan Abu-Odeh, a former head of Jordan's intelligence service. "Daesh have made a big error. When you are weakened as they have been, you try to make your supporters think you are strong by being more monstrous, but this time they went too far." In Syria, where a chaotic four-year insurgency provided the Islamic State with an incubator, both those supporting President Bashar al-Assad and those opposing him condemned the act, as did their foreign backers. Iran, the Syrian government's most important ally and no friend of Jordan, called the pilot's killing "inhumane and un-Islamic." Al Manar, the television station of another ally of the Syrian government, the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, called it "the most gruesome" of many atrocities committed by the Islamic State. Qatar, which opposes Mr. Assad, likewise condemned the killing as "contravening the tolerant principles" of Islam. Turkey, blamed by many in the region for allowing foreign fighters to cross its borders into Syria, where some join the Islamic State, also chimed in. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called it an act of "savagery" that had no place in Islam, adding, "I curse and damn the burning of the Jordanian pilot." Denouncing the Islamic State as a "diabolical" terrorist group, Al Azhar's leader and grand imam, Mr. Tayeb, cited Quranic verses to show that Islam forbids the burning or mutilation of enemies at war. "This vile terrorist act," he said in a statement issued by Al Azhar, "requires punishment as cited by the Quran for oppressors and spoilers on earth who fight God and his prophet, that they be killed, or crucified, or their hands and legs cut off." Al Azhar, a seat of Islamic learning, considers itself a beacon of moderation and tolerance for the Sunni Muslim world, and the statement offered no explanation for the incongruity of Mr. Tayeb's advocating some of the same medieval punishments typically employed by extremists. Mainstream Arab leaders reacted to the immolation in a categorically different way to the long string of hostage beheadings that preceded it. Partly that may have been because, according to many commentators Wednesday, burning someone alive is prohibited in Islam as a punishment that belongs to God alone, applied in hell. Beheadings, on the other hand, have a long Islamic history. Others, while condemning the Islamic State, sought to draw attention to the Syrian government's barrel bombings of cities that, according to Human Rights Watch and other organizations tracking the conflict, kill far more civilians than the extremists however depraved and attention-grabbing the militant group's methods. Khaled Khoja, the president of the main Syrian exile opposition group, linked the pilot's participation in the struggle against the Islamic State directly to his own country's opposition's struggle against Mr. Assad. "Moaz's blood has mingled with the soil of our beloved Syria, and whose remains mingled with those of hundreds of thousands of Syrians killed by Assad's barrel bombs and the terrorist group ISIS," Mr. Khoja said in a statement. "While I strongly condemn this barbaric act, which symbolizes pure evil that the terrorist group represents, and the deepest of depravity to which they are prepared to sink, I call upon the peoples and governments of the world to stand by the Syrian people and end their suffering caused by the Assad regime and ISIS alike." Ken Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, said that both forms of killing should be condemned. "ISIS's despicable conduct shouldn't make us lose sight of the largest killer of civilians in Syria: Assad's barrel bombs," he said in an email. "The world has been reluctant to address them out of a misguided sense that nothing should be done that might constrain the fight against ISIS, but barrel bombs have little if any military significance. They are so inaccurate that the Syrian air force doesn't dare drop them near the front line for fear of hitting its own troops." "It will be hard to win the hearts and minds of the Syrian people by arguing that they should stand up to ISIS's atrocities while ignoring the government's," he said. | 5 | 7,245 | news |
These companies thrive during tough economies It's no secret that dividend-paying stocks often come out ahead during a market sell-off. In 2008, when Standard & Poor's 500-stock index nosedived 37%, the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats, an index of large companies that have raised their dividends every year for the past 25 years, surrendered a more tolerable 22%. But dividends don't always protect you against the worst of a market drop. Consider Bank of America ( BAC ), which had been a steady dividend payer up until the financial crisis. Then, in 2008, the stock gave up a whopping 63%. How dividend-paying stocks perform "depends on the type of bear market you have," says Chris Philips, a senior investment analyst at Vanguard. That being said, some dividend stocks have a better record than others. Here, we've identified nine such firms based on their performance during three hostile periods: the bursting-of-the-tech-bubble bear market, from 2000 to 2002, when the S&P 500 plunged 47.4%; the financial-crisis-related 2007-09 disaster, during which the index plummeted 55.3%; and the 2011 correction, a five-month period during which the S&P stumbled 18.6%, just shy of the 20% drop that typically defines a bear market. These companies have products or services that consumers will pay for, even in a tough economy. Seven out of the nine stocks boast yields higher than the S&P 500's 1.9% payout. And eight of the nine companies derive the bulk of their sales in the U.S., leaving them relatively insulated from the negative effects of a powerful dollar (when the greenback strengthens, overseas profits translate into fewer dollars). Prices and other figures are as of January 28. Down market dates are March 24, 2000, to October 9, 2002; October 9, 2007, to March 9, 2009; and April 29, 2011, to October 3, 2011. Companies are listed alphabetically. Abbott Laboratories Share price: $43.41 Market capitalization: $65.4 billion Yield: 2.2% Headquarters: Abbott Park, Ill. Down market total returns: 2000-02 bear market: 26.0% 2007-09 bear market: -11.6% 2011 correction: -2.8% Health care needs are growing steadily, and Abbott Labs ( ABT ), a diagnostics, medical-device and nutritional-formula company, is profiting. In 2013, the firm spun off its brand-name-drug business, AbbVie ( ABBV ). Last year, Abbott announced that it would sell its generic-drug operations in foreign developed markets but hang on to the business in developing nations. The moves should allow Abbott to focus on faster-growing regions. An aging population and broader insurance coverage in the U.S., for example, will help drive sales of medical devices in 2015, according to investment bank Barclays. Abbot has the most global exposure of the companies on our list, with 69% of sales coming from foreign markets in the third quarter of 2014. And although a strong dollar could hurt overseas profits in the near term, company execs believe the market in China alone for in-vitro diagnostics (tests to detect health conditions and diseases) could grow by an average of more than 15% annually through 2018. The Clorox Company Share price: $107.10 Market capitalization: $13.9 billion Yield: 2.8% Headquarters: Oakland, Calif. Down market total returns: 2000-02 bear market: 28.6% 2007-09 bear market: -22.9% 2011 correction: -6.6% During a market downturn, stocks of companies that make essential consumer goods tend to do better than most. Clorox ( CLX ), which makes household cleaning and other supplies, is one of the best examples. The company owns category-leading brands, including its namesake bleach and Glad trash bags. As such, from 2008 to 2010, Clorox was able to increase sales by an average of 4.5% annually. The company also continued to raise its dividend, which it has upped every year since 1977. Lately, competition has put pressure on core segments of the business, such as bleach, disinfecting wipes and cat litter. But Clorox has taken steps to roll out new products. Sales edged down by 0.3% in the fiscal year that ended in June 2014, but analysts expect revenues to climb for the fiscal year that ends this June. Clorox gets about 20% of its revenues overseas. Consolidated Edison Share price: $70.85 Market capitalization: $20.8 billion Yield: 3.7% Headquarters: New York, NY Down market total returns: 2000-02 bear market: 61.3% 2007-09 bear market: -25.6% 2011 correction: 10.8% You won't have to worry about overseas exposure for Consolidated Edison ( ED ). The holding company derives 100% of its revenues from two utilities that supply electric and gas service to millions of customers in and around New York City. The vast majority of the company's business is regulated, which helps Con Ed earn steady profits. So during the financial crisis, the firm was able to keep raising its dividend. In fact, Con Ed has increased its payout for 41 consecutive years. Rising interest rates could put pressure on the utility's stock, but Con Ed's investments in solar energy projects and system upgrades should help spur modest growth, by 1.3% in 2015, if analysts are correct with their forecasts. The stock's hefty yield is nearly twice that of the S&P 500, providing extra protection should the bear strike. General Mills Share price: $54.08 Market capitalization: $32.7 billion Yield: 3.0% Headquarters: Minneapolis, Minn. Down market total returns: 2000-02 bear market: 34.8% 2007-09 bear market: -11.9% 2011 correction: -0.8% General Mills ( GIS ) owns a pantryful of iconic brands, including Cheerios, Häagen-Dazs and Yoplait. So it may come as no surprise that in the fiscal year that ended in May 2009, when consumers were keeping a tight grip on their wallets, sales at General Mills expanded 8% from the previous year. The stock couldn't escape the market's sell-off during the financial crisis, but the loss was dramatically smaller than the S&P 500's 55% rout. Today, General Mills is struggling to appeal to health-conscious consumers, but the firm is making changes, including offering high-protein Cheerios. The company "has proven able to adjust over time to consumers," says investment bank RBC Capital Markets. In the quarter that ended in November, 28% of General Mills' sales came from abroad. Hormel Foods Share price: $52.40 Market capitalization: $13.8 billion Yield: 1.9% Headquarters: Austin, Minn. Down market total returns: 2000-02 bear market: 59.7% 2007-09 bear market: -15.0% 2011 correction: -9.4% During hard times, households eat more Spam, the precooked canned meat. That helps Hormel Foods ( HRL ), which makes Spam and other processed foods, such as deli meats, bacon and Skippy peanut butter. One particularly bright spot is Hormel's Jennie-O Turkey Store division, which saw sales climb 11% in the August-October quarter of 2014 from the same period a year earlier. In the latest quarter, Hormel generated a mere 5% of its sales overseas. The stock's yield isn't huge, but Hormel has raised its dividend for 49 consecutive years, including a 25% hike in November. One short-term negative: The stock trades at 21 times estimated earnings for the fiscal year that ends in October, near the high end of its range for the past two decades. McCormick & Co. Share price: $71.86 Market capitalization: $9.3 billion Yield: 2.2% Headquarters: Sparks, Md. Down market total returns: 2000-02 bear market: 71.5% 2007-09 bear market: -14.2% 2011 correction: -8.0% When the going gets tough, smart investors spice up their portfolios with McCormick ( MKC ). Consumer purchases account for roughly 60% of sales at the giant spice maker. Food manufacturers and restaurants make up the rest, so even as fewer people eat out during hard times, demand from home cooks helps prop up business. For example, in the fiscal year that ended in November 2008, which occurred during the Great Recession, McCormick's earnings expanded 12% from the previous year. McCormick is not without its challenges. It faces increased competition from private-label firms, and a strong U.S. dollar could hurt results overseas sales account for about one-third of total revenues. The stock trades at 20 times estimated earnings for the fiscal year that ends in November, compared with its average 10-year forward price-earnings ratio of 18, according to Citi Research. On the plus side, McCormick has raised its dividend for 29 straight years, most recently in November, with a hike of 8%. Ross Stores Share price: $93.66 Market capitalization: $19.5 billion Yield: 0.9% Headquarters: Dublin, Calif. Down market total returns: 2000-02 bear market: 79.2% 2007-09 bear market: 10.1% 2011 correction: 4.3% A bear market killer, Ross ( ROST ) is the only stock on our list that was in the black in each of the past three downturns, a remarkable accomplishment. Plus, Ross, the largest off-price apparel and home-goods chain in the U.S., is a pure domestic play. The company has been doing brisk business as budget-conscious consumers hunt for deals. Over the past decade, earnings have increased by an annualized 18.2%. And since initiating a dividend in 1994, Ross has boosted it every year. Analysts at Canaccord Genuity, a Canadian investment bank, believe Ross's sales and earnings growth will start to slow in coming years. But lower gasoline prices could give Ross shoppers more spending power, and analysts on average still expect profits to climb a comfortable 10% in the fiscal year that ends in January 2016. Southern Company Share price: $52.17 Market capitalization: $46.9 billion Yield: 4.0% Headquarters: Atlanta, Ga. Down market total returns: 2000-02 bear market: 137.9% 2007-09 bear market: -22.7% 2011 correction: 8.9% Like Con Ed, this utility derives all of its profits and revenues in the U.S. Southern ( SO ) provides power services to more than 4.4 million customers in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Mississippi. Strong economic performance in the South is helping boost earnings, which are projected to grow by 3.3% annually for the next few years. Although two projects, a nuclear power plant in Georgia and a clean-coal facility in Mississippi, are pressuring earnings over the short term because of cost overruns, they should boost Southern's results down the road. Meanwhile, says Argus Research, dividends should climb 3% to 3.5% a year over the next few years, helping to prop up Southern's generous yield. Wal-Mart Stores Share price: $86.82 Market capitalization: $279.8 billion Yield: 2.2% Headquarters: Bentonville, Ark. Down market total returns: 2000-02 bear market: -4.0% 2007-09 bear market: 7.4% 2011 correction: -4.2% Wal-Mart's ( WMT ) low prices look especially appealing when the economy is stumbling. For the fiscal year that ended in January 2009, the discount retailer's sales grew 3.5% at U.S. locations open at least a year. In comparison, same-store sales at Target ( TGT ), a higher-end competitor, fell 2.9% for the same period. In the quarter that ended last October, Wal-Mart generated 29% of its sales outside of the U.S. Wal-Mart must defend its turf from a growing number of online retailers and discount chains. But low gas prices will pad the wallets of shoppers and help boost Wal-Mart's earnings, which analysts estimate will expand by 4.8% in the fiscal year that ends in January 2016. That's up from an estimated 2.2% increase for the current fiscal year. | 3 | 7,246 | finance |
MONTPELLIER, France (AP) The ATP says it is looking at the circumstances of a Tunisian tennis player's retirement from a match after winning the first set in a French tournament Wednesday, citing an injury that keeps him from facing an Israeli in the next round. Malek Jaziri quit after winning the first set 6-3 against sixth-seeded Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan in the first round of the Open Sud de France. Tournament organizers said in an email to The Associated Press that Jaziri, who called for a trainer twice during the match, ''suffered again from an elbow injury he picked up'' at the Australian Open. Had Jaziri beaten Istomin, he would have played Israel's Dudi Sela in the next round. In 2013, Tunisia's tennis federation ordered Jaziri to withdraw from a match against an Israeli opponent at a second-tier tournament in Uzbekistan. Jaziri had been scheduled to play Israel's Amir Weintraub in the quarterfinals of the ATP Challenger tournament in Tashkent. He withdrew before the match. The ITF subsequently banned Tunisia from the 2014 Davis Cup, saying that the Tunisian federation was guilty of ''interfering with international sporting practice.'' The ATP confirmed that Jaziri's latest retirement was due to an elbow injury, ''as verified by the ATP physiotherapist on-site,'' but started to examine the case. ''Given a previous incident involving the player's national federation in 2013, we are looking into any wider circumstances of his withdrawal as a matter of prudence,'' the ATP said in a statement to the AP. The 65th-ranked Jaziri, who lost in the third round at the Australian Open, also withdrew from the doubles, where he would have faced an Israeli opponent. He and Spanish partner Marc Lopez had been set to play Jonathan Erlich of Israel and Cermak Frantisek of Czech Republic in the quarterfinals. The Tunisian tennis federation did not reply to emails and phone calls seeking comment. Arab countries have for decades observed, to varying degrees, boycotts against Israeli athletes in protest over the situation of the Palestinians. | 1 | 7,247 | sports |
Allen Trieu from Scout.com tells our Ray Crawford which program exceeded expectations, which freshman will dominate next season, and which freshman will likely not live up to expectations in 2015. | 1 | 7,248 | sports |
Embattled Argentine President Cristina Kirchner sought to keep the focus on a string of deals with China during a visit to Beijing Wednesday as she became embroiled deeper in a high-profile scandal at home. Kirchner met with Chinese President Xi Jinping as it emerged that Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman had drafted an arrest warrant for her before his death in mysterious circumstances. After signing 15 agreements, the pair discussed at length a series of projects the two countries are collaborating on including dams, railways and nuclear plants. "We believe in Argentina we'll have an unbeatable opportunity to learn from their scientists, technicians," Kirchner said, referring to a deal on space technology. This is the second time the two leaders have met in the past year after Xi visited Argentina during a trip to Latin America last summer designed to boost China's economic ties with the continent. China has a total of $23 billion invested in Argentina, mostly in energy, mining, the financial sector and agriculture. Kirchner said she had been determined to make the trip, despite being advised not to travel by doctors as she was still recovering from breaking her ankle. The Argentinian president arrived in China on Tuesday as prosecutor Viviana Fein admitted a 26-page warrant for Kirchner's arrest, dated June 14, 2014, was discovered after Nisman's death from a gunshot wound. Nisman, 51, died on the eve of an appearance before Argentine lawmakers in which he was expected to accuse Kirchner of mounting a cover-up over the 1994 bombing of a Jewish centre which left 85 people dead and 300 wounded. It was the worst terror strike on Argentina's soil in its modern history. In a criminal probe released four days before his death, Nisman alleged Kirchner and other officials had struck a deal with Iran aimed at shielding Tehran officials linked to the 1994 bombing in exchange for lucrative trade agreements. Kirchner has not yet responded to the discovery of the draft warrant. The Argentine leader will conclude her trip to Beijing on Thursday. | 5 | 7,249 | news |
Good news, "Frozen" fans: Disney Cruise Line just added Arendelle to their summer 2015 itinerary. Starting this summer, Disney Cruise Line guests will get to participate in brand new experiences inspired by the mega-hit movie Frozen. Select Disney Magic and Disney Wonder ships to Europe and Alaska will offer various Frozen-themed activities, including character meet and greets, deck parties, and a three-song stage production ("Let it Go" is, of course, on the lineup). The ships themselves will also undergo an Arendelle makeover for one full day of wintery action. Guests will wake up to find the atrium lobby covered in icicles and decks adorned with giant snowflakes and snow-covered rocks; the dinner menus will also have a Nordic twist (since Arendelle isn't a real place, but it sure kinda looks like Norway ). Kids can mingle with Olaf, Anna, and Elsa before going on a chocolate scavenger hunt and learning a maypole dance (because history). And for those adults who don't really want to build a snowman, the nightclub will be serving up frozen specialty drinks all night. For more information or to book a vacation, visit Disney Cruise Line's website or call (888) 325-2500. See more about Disney-inspired cruises on CNTraveler.com . More from Condé Nast Traveler: Top 28 Cruise Lines in the World 9 Mistakes to Avoid When Booking a Cruise Places in Norway That Inspired Disney's Frozen | 2 | 7,250 | travel |
When you want extra leg room for a long flight, premium economy seats are a good idea, but you probably won't get your money back if you don't use them. Q: I booked two tickets from Calgary to Mumbai, via Amsterdam, with Delta/KLM for $3784. I upgraded each segment to premium economy for a total of $742. Four months before the flight, I had to cancel due to ill health. I was told I would receive a refund, less a penalty of $350 per ticket, which I accepted, but months later still no response regarding the premium economy upgrade, even after my travel agent contacted the airline. I would appreciate it greatly if you could help. Mahesh S., Dewinton, Alberta A: Premium economy, or as Delta and KLM call it, Economy Comfort, has become a popular product, particularly on long-haul flights. It's a good way to get a bit more space without breaking the bank. You're also less likely to get into a kerfuffle when you recline your seat. (Although the Knee Defender seat fight that kicked off last year's rash of leg room disputes happened in United's Economy Plus.) Truth is, altercations and bizarre behavior have been breaking out for all kinds of reasons, from improperly served macadamia nuts, to crying babies denied alcohol. The only thing for sure about a premium economy seat is that it will have more leg room than a regular economy seat. On a nine-hour flight, that's often worth the extra scratch. A good thing to know: If you cancel your ticket, the premium economy upgrade fee is almost always non-refundable. As stated in Delta's Economy Comfort Terms and Conditions,"If a customer voluntarily changes his/her flight or seat selection once purchased, a refund for the original seat purchase will not be provided." An airline will, on the other hand, refund the cost if you cannot occupy your upgraded seat because it moves you for reasons such as aircraft changes, cancelled flights or overbooking. Be sure to read the terms and conditions associated with the upgrade for your airline before you make the purchase. And remember, seat assignments are never guaranteed. In this case, even though it appeared Mahesh would not receive a refund, we contacted Delta because it had not responded to him or his travel agent. Both Delta and KLM, which operated the Calgary to Amsterdam segment, agreed to make an exception and processed all upgrade fees. He received a credit of $742. In its reply to us, Delta stated, "We realize that each customer's circumstance is different and while we have formal policies in place, we rely on our employees to have situational flexibility to make the best decision for our customers." That approach, which seems more present at Delta these days, is probably one of the reasons it has become the top ranked domestic carrier for customer service . What tends to matter most is how a company responds to a problem, not whether or not there is one. That being said, keep in mind that whenever you purchase a non-refundable ticket or reservation, "non-refundable" means non-refundable. Once a company reviews your request and says, "No," there's little we or anyone else can do. Have a travel question you want answered? Email [email protected], or tweet us @CNTraveler #dearombudsman. See more about economy tickets on CNTraveler.com . More from Condé Nast Traveler The Best Cities in the World 15 Places You Won't Believe Exist How Not to Look Like a Tourist in Paris | 2 | 7,251 | travel |
The only Al-Qaeda plotter convicted over the 9/11 attacks has told American lawyers that members of the Saudi royal family donated millions of dollars to the terror group in the 1990s. French citizen Zacarias Moussaoui, dubbed the "20th hijacker," made the revelations in court papers filed in a New York federal court by lawyers for victims of the attacks who accuse Saudi Arabia of supporting Al-Qaeda. The Saudi embassy denied the allegations, branding Moussaoui "a deranged criminal whose own lawyers presented evidence that he was mentally incompetent." At trial in 2006, his lawyers argued that he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and he exhibited stormy and unpredictable behavior in court. In testimony he said he created a database of Al-Qaeda donors, including members of the royal family, such as former intelligence chief Prince Turki al Faisal and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who was Saudi ambassador to the United States for 22 years until 2005. Moussaoui said he met in Afghanistan an official from the Saudi embassy in Washington to discuss Al-Qaeda's plots to attack the United States, and that he was supposed to meet the same man again in the US capital for help on a plot to shoot down Air Force One. He also claimed there were direct dealings between senior Saudi officials and then Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, saying he traveled to Saudi Arabia twice to deliver handwritten letters between the Al-Qaeda mastermind and senior Saudis, including Prince Turki. Denying the claims, the Saudi embassy said in a statement: "The September 11 attack has been the most intensely investigated crime in history and the findings show no involvement by the Saudi government or Saudi officials." Moussaoui, who was found criminally responsible at his trial in 2006, pled guilty to plotting the deadliest terror attacks in US history and is incarcerated at a supermax prison in Colorado. A defense psychologist testified at Moussaoui's trial to say he exhibited classic symptoms of schizophrenia. Across 127 pages of transcript, Moussaoui said the money from wealthy Saudi donors was "crucial" to Al-Qaeda in the late 1990s. He talked about donations of two to three million dollars and said top-ranking officials were close to bin Laden -- a fellow Saudi -- through social connections. | 5 | 7,252 | news |
Turtlenecks are the new tees. (At Elizabeth and James) Replace your classic white or black T-shirt with a turtleneck, which is a great layering piece that will keep you warm. Elizabeth and James shows it with a fitted strapless dress, creating a great way to make a little dress that is NSFW suddenly become office appropriate. Uniqlo Cashmere Turtleneck Sweater, $50; uniqlo.com The Sweater Scarf. (At Suno) Get acquainted with the new way to wear your sweater around your neck! It's a smart thing to do because, honestly, committing to put a sweater fully on your body is so last season. (Just kidding.) But it does create some cool proportions. Gap Cocoon Sweater, $50; gap.com The Skirt Belt. (At Donna Karan) Donna Karan has come up with a great new layering trick that maximizes the way you can wear both your skirts and dresses. Using a mini skirt as a waist cincher on a column gown is genius because it adds a bit of texture and breaks up the monotony of a long dress. River Island Gold Tone Sequin Mini Tube Skirt, $50; riverisland.com The Amal Gloves. (At J.W. Anderson) At the 2015 Golden Globe awards, Amal Alamuddin donned a pair of white gloves with her Dior gown. This is a sartorial choice that will live on in infamy for sure but it did get me thinking: Why aren't gloves more of a thing? J.W. Anderson styled a pair of white gloves with almost every look this season. The result? Instant fancy lady. Wear them and you're on your way to scoring yourself a Clooney. Maybe. Maurizio Pecoraro Nappa Leather and ViscoseGloves, $500; luisaviaroma.com Athluxury is the upgraded athleisure. (At Nili Lotan) You can't escape luxury gym clothes no matter where you go. Every brand from Acne to Celine is on board with this trend and the only place to go is up. Cue Nili Lotan's prefall collection, where a grey sweatshirt is cleverly mixed with a silk evening skirt and sneakers. Acne Studios Bird Cropped Cotton-Blend Sweatshirt, $240; mytheresa.com Unexpected asymmetry. (At Thakoon) You guys, just about anyone can do a high-low dress (dress that is short in the front and long in the back) or an asymmetrical hem, but what's really innovative is what Thakoon has done with this prefall collection. He has decided that you truly only need one sleeve. I cannot yet confirm this is true, but it probably is. In the meantime, you can test the waters with this more subtle asymmetrical shirt from Moschino. Moschino Asymmetric Shirt, $398; farfetch.com Choked Up. (At Christopher Kane) '90s nostalgia continues! This time Christopher Kane channels The Craft. The black choker he pairs repeatedly throughout his collection with modern silhouettes provides the ideal backdrop for juxtaposing such a throwback piece. Get witchy with it! ASOS Moon Choker Necklace, $15; asos.com Shirt tails...woo hoo! (At Thom Browne) Speaking of '90s nostalgia, shirt tails...woo hoo! (obviously sung to the tune of Duck Tails, the preeminent animated program of our time) are making themselves known. Thom Browne made an extra-long shirt dress and paired it with a mini skirt suit. Genius! Let those tails fly, ladies! T by Alexander Wang Ripstop Poplin Shirt Dress, $281; farfetch.com Great lengths. (At Proenza Schouler) Stylish women are always experimenting with proportions. Take one of our faves, Ramya Giangola, in a look similar to this Proenza Schouler's prefall dress. See? You actually can wear fashion months in advance. All it takes is a little creativity and a lot of guts. Calvin Klein Collection Prudence Knit Dress,$822; farfetch.com Azalea Rissa Pleated Maxi Skirt, $55; azaleasf.com Leggings > Tights. (At Lanvin) Tights are not always the chicest way to stay warm, since they can distract from an outfit or just serve as a general reminder of something you wore often as a 4-year-old. A great alternative, and one of my personal favorites, is to use leather leggings instead. Check out what Lanvin did in their prefall collection with this dress and ankle boot on Jamie Bouchert. That's how it's done. Michael Michael Kors Leather Leggings, $839; mytheresa.com | 4 | 7,253 | lifestyle |
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) Predators goaltender Pekka Rinne has been cleared to return from a knee injury that kept him out the past three weeks, and he will start Thursday night against the Anaheim Ducks. Nashville re-assigned goalie Marek Mazanec back to Milwaukee in the AHL on Wednesday, and coach Peter Laviolette said after practice Wednesday that they pushed back Rinne's return to err on the side of caution. Laviolette told reporters Rinne now is ready to go. "He's going to have to continue to work hard and get back into the game shape that he was in," Laviolette said. "He was right on top of his game. By the way, he looks out there right now he's on his way back." Rinne hurt his knee Jan. 13 against Vancouver with the Predators expecting the goalie to miss at least three weeks and possibly up to five weeks. He wound up missing eight games. Though he also sat out his first All-Star Game to recover. Rinne had been skating the past week. The two-time Vezina Trophy finalist returns still sitting leading the NHL with 29 wins. He also ranks second with a 1.96 goals-against average and a .931 save percentage. The Predators are tied with Anaheim atop the Western Conference with 72 points with a game in hand, and they are 3-1-1 in their past five games with Carter Hutton stepping up in Rinne's absence. Hutton got a shutout win Sunday in Pittsburgh. "Carter has been playing really well, and I think I was fortunate to take my time and make sure that I'm 100 percent when I come back," Rinne said. | 1 | 7,254 | sports |
Shoppers often waste money at the grocery store without realizing it. We asked Melissa d'Arabian , Food Network host and author of the best-selling book Ten Dollar Dinners , about some of the most common mistakes they make. Here are the expensive blunders and easy ways to fix them. 1. Paying full price for meat. " Meat is usually the most expensive item on your dinner plate," d'Arabian says. She suggests checking circulars for "loss leaders" highly discounted items that get shoppers into stores. Often, cuts of pork, beef, and chicken will be 50 to 75% off. Buy this meat in bulk then freeze it for later. 2. Being a slave to a recipe. Instead of buying every item on a long recipe list, think about ingredients you already have and could swap in. " Lemon juice is an acid, so try using another acid, such as vinegar or orange juice in its place," d'Arabian told us. "Soft leafy herbs such a cilantro, mint, basil and parsley, are often interchangeable." 3. Not using the freezer. You can save a lot of money by freezing bread, bacon, herbs (d'Arabian freezes fresh herbs with oil in ice-cube trays), and tomatoes. Buy these items in bulk when they're on sale, and you'll save even more. 4. Thinking that "inexpensive" ingredients don't warrant budget shopping. Yeah, a can of beans is pretty cheap. But d'Arabian points out that you can buy five cans' worth of dried beans for the price of one can. Check out her blog post for how to portion out and cook your own. 5. Not doing math in the produce aisle. Most produce items are available pre-packaged or loose. "Take 10 seconds to do some quick math to determine the per-pound price of a package before deciding whether to buy loose or packaged," d'Arabian says. Usually, potatoes and carrots are cheaper packaged, while mushrooms, apples, and oranges are cheaper by themselves. 6. Grabbing a big cart. "Studies have shown that grocery stores can do one simple thing that will result in you unwittingly spending more money: put out bigger grocery carts!" d'Arabian says. "Use this information to your advantage and always select the smallest cart available." If the store only has carts, fill up yours with less expensive products like produce before hitting the snack aisles. 7. Splurging in the wrong department. Replacing rib-eye steak with filet mignon can cost you an extra $15 per pound, d'Arabian says. Instead, treat yourself in the produce aisle. Expensive wild mushrooms or heirloom tomatoes cost $1 or $2 more, but will make your meal a lot nicer. 8. Overlooking the salad bar. "A handful of hazelnuts from that aisle will set you back only 20 or 30 cents toast, chop, and sprinkle over green beans or in an inexpensive lettuce salad and you have a fancy restaurant-worthy dish," d'Arabian says. "The salad bar is also a great way to grab a small quantity of a high-impact ingredient (such as high-quality briny olives for a tapenade)." 9. Not asking the grocery staff for help. " Ask the person behind the butcher counter for advice on how to cook an unfamiliar cut of meat that is on sale, or ask if he will break down a large inexpensive pork loin into a variety of cuts: chops, cubes, and a few smaller roasts," d'Arabian recommends. 10. Getting bogged down by a list. " Be open to guidance from the sales prices," d'Arabian shares. "I usually just write 'vegetables for dinner' on my list, and let the prices be my guide when I'm in the produce aisle." 11. Not knowing the prices of the things you buy most. In order to shop smarter, you need to know how much essential items like chicken breasts, milk, or diapers cost normally. That will help you spot a bargain at the store. Make a list of the items you buy most so you can stock up when there's a sale. 12. Thinking that saving only happens at the store. " Ask any restaurateur: Half the battle in saving money is in inventory management. Manage your pantry and ingredients wisely, and you will save money!" d'Arabian says. "Also important: managing your leftovers. Remember, the most expensive ingredient in your kitchen right now is the one you throw away." | 0 | 7,255 | foodanddrink |
Tiger Woods returns to Torrey Pines, where he has won eight times including his most recent major title, still struggling to recover his touch after the worst round of his professional career. Woods practiced Wednesday on the eve of the opening round of the PGA Farmers Insurance Open on the same course where he captured his 14th major crown at the 2008 US Open. But the former world number one has fallen to 56th in the world rankings, in danger of failing to qualify for a World Golf Championships event for only the second time in his career, and he's a 50-1 longshot with Vegas oddsmakers in the wake of an 82 last Friday to miss the cut at the Phoenix Open. "I was in the back yard chipping a lot, hitting plenty of golf balls, analyzing it," Woods said of his weekend after he skipped the Super Bowl to work on his game with advisor Chris Como. "My good is really good. Unfortunately my bad is really bad." Woods has looked uncomfortable with his swing and unhappy with his short game and spoke Wednesday of trying to put his game into proper shape in time for the Masters in April more than making a run at another Torrey Pines title. Como's changes to Woods' game, based on his swing styles from younger days, run at odds with those of previous Woods coaches Sean Foley and Hank Haney. - Swing changes test Tiger's resolve - As Woods tries to reconcile the differences, establishing new patterns has come as hard as managing his once-mighty chipping game. "The patterns are polar opposites," Woods said. "That's just like it was when I first started working with Sean versus Hank. They are completely different release patterns. I went through the same exact phase that I'm going through right now. "It's just battling, trying to find it, at the same time trying to get feel and develop new patterns. When you're under the gun, you got to hit a shot, you just get so target oriented that sometimes old patterns come out. "I know what the fix is, but can I save it during the swing itself." The humbling failure of a player who dominated the game 15 years ago has prompted plenty of comments about what Woods needs to do to restore some semblance of the form that gave him 79 career PGA titles, three shy of Sam Snead's all-time record, and put him within reach of Jack Nicklaus' landmark of 18 major wins. Part of the problem has been the nagging back injury that ruined Woods' 2014 campaign after he won five times in 2013. "I think he's capable of turning it around," US veteran Fred Couples said. "He has got a lot of speed. He's hitting it a mile. He hasn't played much golf in a year and a half and I don't know how good anybody would be after that." Woods, who plays alongside fellow Americans Rickie Fowler and Billy Horschel in the first two rounds, could jump back into the rankings top-50 with a top-five finish. He needs to crack the top 50 by the end of the month to qualify for March's WGC event at Doral. - Tiger's game 'a mess right now' - Woods has not won a major title since limping through a playoff on a broken leg to defeat Rocco Mediate at the 2008 US Open at Torrey Pines. And Mediate is stunned at how far Woods' game has fallen. "It's a mess right now," Mediate said last week on The Golf Channel. "For some reason the best short game that was ever alive in the history of golf is gone." England's Justin Rose, the 2013 US Open winner, says the lack of playing can lead to a lack of success upon returning and that can take a toll on confidence. "He's coming off injury and was coming off not playing very much," Rose said. "Obviously he's getting back into playing and he's playing in some different tournaments, which I think is good to see. But in terms of the short game and the chipping, of course it is always surprising to see that. "But it just shows golf is a hard game and it's a game of confidence as well and sometimes if you haven't played much confidence can disappear. So it's going to take a little while to get back into tournament mode, get himself in contention. Start to feel good again and the rest comes back pretty quickly." | 1 | 7,256 | sports |
For Real Madrid, the fact that Cristiano Ronaldo couldn't play against , serving the second game of his two-match ban, was the least of their concerns. So was the actual result of the contest. While Los survived with a 2-1 victory over behind goals from James Rodriguez and Rodriguez, they also saw Sergio Ramos and James Rodriguez leave with injuries and Marcelo pick up a yellow card that could keep him out of Saturday's key fixture against Madrid. It was a best of times, worst of times sort of afternoon for Real Madrid. The first half was an interesting one. Real Madrid nearly gave up a cheap goal in the opening minutes, as split the defense and was one-on-one with IkerCasillas after a defensive miscommunication. The keeper came up big for Los Blancos, however, making a key save. Minutes later, Ramos had to leave the game with an apparent hamstring injury. He was replaced by Nacho. That could be a problem in the near future, as ESPN FC tweeted: Sergio Ramos replaced by Nacho less than 10 minutes into Real Madrid's match with Sevilla. Big worry with El Derbi coming up at the weekend. ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) February 4, 2015 Missing Ramos against Atletico Madrid would be a major blow for Los Blancos. Then things got better, as James Rodriguez opened the scoring with a fantastic goal. His far-post run was rewarded by Marcelo, who whipped a perfect cross into the box that was met by Rodriguez's diving header. Bleacher Report UK passed along an image of the goal: James Rodriguez goes airbourne to give Real Madrid the lead over Sevilla: ▶️ http://t.co/scxaj6xpgM pic.twitter.com/RZeS2LZXzv Bleacher Report UK (@br_uk) February 4, 2015 Rodriguez has certainly been prolific this season for Los Blancos, as Squawka Football tweeted: James Rodriguez has now directly been involved in 22% of Real Madrid's goals in La Liga this season. (7 assists, 8 goals). Squawka Football (@Squawka) February 4, 2015 Perhaps more importantly, he's been more prolific than the man he essentially replaced in Real Madrid's attack, per Opta Jose: 8 - James Rodríguez has now scored eight goals in La Liga, more than Angel Di Maria did in any of his four seasons for @realmadriden . Rhythm OptaJose (@OptaJose) February 4, 2015 Real Madrid nearly gave up the lead minutes later, however. Vicente Iborra played a lovely through ball to Vitolo, who rounded Casillas and seemed destined to score. But to the dismay of Sevilla supporters, his shot on goal hit the woodwork and stayed in the field of play. Vitolo 's tough luck continued in the 22nd minute, as his far-post header half-volley was stymied by Casillas, who had himself quite the first half at Vitolo's expense. But minutes after that save things got bad for Real Madrid once again, as Rodriguez had to leave the game and was replaced by JeseRodríguez . ESPN FC has more: Real Madrid have had to make their second first-half sub as James Rodriguez, having his foot examined, makes way for Jese. ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) February 4, 2015 The injuries continued to pile up in the first half, though in the 32nd minute the injury bug bit Sevilla, as keeper Beto had to leave the game after a collision with Karim Benzema as he was trying clear a ball in the box. It appeared that Benzema caught Beto in the head with a raised knee as he went to play the ball. Sergio Rico was brought on to replace Beto and was almost instantly beaten, as Benzema's low cross was deflected by Isco and ended on the feet of Jese, who calmly sent the ball past a helpless Rico. The score was aided by a horrendous pass from Carlos Bacca, however, as Dermot Corrigan of ESPN tweeted: Gasp from everyone as Bacca played that all straight to Isco unmarked 45 yards out with space in front of him... Dermot Corrigan (@dermotmcorrigan) February 4, 2015 Jese was certainly dynamic in the first half, as Squawka Football noted: Jesé since coming on for Real Madrid in the 27th minute: 1 shot1 goal 100% pass success. pic.twitter.com/5815qBB0MN Squawka Football (@Squawka) February 4, 2015 Benzema then should have made it 3-0 in the 38th minute after Gareth Bale played him free on goal with a brilliant pass, but the French striker somehow sent his shot wide. Real Madrid continued to threaten early in the second 45. Jese hit the post 49th minute, while Rico was forced to make a brilliant save in the 55th minute, as Isco weaved his way through several defenders and put a shot on frame, only to be denied by the Sevilla keeper. Sevilla had their chances, however. Somehow, Iborra managed to completely get himself crossed up in front of goal after a perfect cross left him with the most basic of finishes to cut the deficit in half. He couldn't capitalize, however, an indication that perhaps he was playing out of position, per Jonny McConnell of Squawka Football: If anything tells you that Iborra shouldn't be playing as a striker it's that miss Jonny McConnell (@jonnysfootyblog) February 4, 2015 Finally, in the 82nd minute Bolton managed to get on the board. Iago Aspas, who came on for the uninspiring Bacca, easily put away Vitolo's cross from the touch line to cut the lead in half. That set up a nervy finish for Real Madrid, though Los Blancos managed to hold onto their 2-1 advantage and sneak away with the win. Grades Paul White/Associated Press Isco, Real Madrid: A Isco was in the middle of everything for Real Madrid. He played key passes to his teammates. He was the key figure in setting up Real Madrid's second goal. He nearly scored himself after a brilliant run through Sevilla's defense. He looked the part of the perfect creative midfielder in this one, helping Los Blancos overcome Ronaldo's suspension and Rodriguez's injury. Vitolo, Sevilla: B+ There's always the tricky decision to make of how much a player should be punished for missing clear opportunities, since he also put himself in the position to make a play in the first place. Though he really should have scored in this game, he did notch an assist and was regularly Sevilla's most threatening attacker. Were he better, Sevilla might have secured a point. Had he not played at all, Sevilla would have been quite meek going forward. Jese Rodriguez, Real Madrid: A- Replacing James Rodriguez is no easy task, but Jese did so with aplomb, scoring what would ultimately be the game-winning goal and buzzing from the moment he entered the game, giving Sevilla's defenders fits. It's a testament to Real Madrid's attacking depth that Jese started this match on the bench. Post-Match Reaction Daniel Ochoa de Olza/Associated Press In La Liga terms, this was a huge win for Real Madrid. The club went four points clear of Barcelona and seven points clear of Atletico Madrid with all three clubs having played 21 games. Los Blancos are certainly in the driver's seat in La Liga play. It might also be a very detrimental victory. While Ronaldo will return for Saturday's clash against Atletico Madrid, Ramos and Rodriguez could end up missing the match due to injury, while Marcelo will likely miss the contest after picking up a yellow card in the match. Real Madrid director Emilio Butragueno addressed Marcelo's cards and the injuries after the match, per AS English on Twitter: Butragueño: "Yes, we'll appeal Marcelo's yellow card. We don't think it deserved a card". AS English (@English_AS) February 4, 2015 Butragueño: "Ramos has a muscle problem. We need to see over the next 48 hours. We are concerned". AS English (@English_AS) February 4, 2015 Butragueño: "Ramos has a muscle problem. We need to see over the next 48 hours. We are concerned". AS English (@English_AS) February 4, 2015 Playing without those three players could be a killer against Real Madrid. On the other hand, getting Ronaldo back is sure to be a huge boost. It will be very intriguing to see their starting 11 come Saturday. As for Sevilla, they remain in fourth place and in the last spot for Champions League qualifying, though by a single point over Valencia. They'll face lowly Getafe on Sunday, a match they'll be expected two win. | 1 | 7,257 | sports |
Illustrated by Ly Ngo. Can't get enough of the smiley face with heart eyes? Well, according to this year's Match.com Singles In America survey, you might be having a little more bedroom fun than the rest of us. The results suggest that emoji might offer a surprising window into your sex life. The survey collected data from a nationally representative sample of 5,675 single Americans and found that those who frequently use emoji in their texts are also likely to be having more sex. Over half of single emoji users reported having sex in 2014 compared to 31% of singles who somehow manage to leave out the occasional winky face, embarrassed monkey, or smiling poop. The frequent emoji-ers were also more likely to report having sex monthly than the other survey responders. Sure, this is probably more than a little bit ridiculous. How much can you extrapolate from (or flirt with) an eggplant emoji, really ? But, Time.com reports that this pattern holds up for people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, so there's clearly something going on here beyond just the "kids" with their "sexting." The data revealed some curious gender differences as well: Women were more likely to use the basic, happy smiley face and the kissing-lips emoji than men, while men favored the kissing face and heart eyes more than women did. Last year's survey revealed other deep dating truths, such as the fact that women are not super interested in your dick pics. Honestly, we're more into that cartoon eggplant. And, for you science-minded readers, there may be more than one reason to say "hello" with a rocketship. | 4 | 7,258 | lifestyle |
Liverpool fought back to reach the FA Cup fifth round with a 2-1 victory over 10-man Bolton Wanderers to keep alive talismanic captain Steven Gerrard's hopes of a Wembley swansong. The Liverpool captain turns 35 on the day of the FA Cup final and Reds supporters had seemingly already pencilled a trip to Wembley into their diaries. But with Liverpool trailing with just four minutes of the 90 left in this fourth-round replay at the Macron Stadium, the dream of Gerrard climbing the steps to lift the famous old trophy appeared to be in their dying embers. However, Raheem Sterling cancelled out Eidur Gudjohnsen's penalty before Philippe Coutinho scored a quite brilliant injury-time winner to seal a meeting with Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park in the next round. "You have to keep your patience and keep the width in the game, especially against 10 men," a relieved Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers told the BBC. "It was a great pass by Emre Can for the first goal and a great finish for the second goal. "This is a competition we want to do well in and thankfully we're into the next round against Crystal Palace." His Bolton counterpart Neil Lennon, who has engineered a revival in the club's fortunes since taking over in early October, was fuming over the referee Roger East's performance. "I'm not happy with the referee tonight at all," stormed the 43-year-old Northern Irishman. "Neil Danns' first yellow card was not a booking and I'm not convinced that our penalty was a penalty either." Gerrard, who will leave Anfield for Major League Soccer outfit LA Galaxy when his contract expires in the summer, clocked up his 700th career appearance for Liverpool. Only Jamie Carragher (737) and Ian Callaghan (857) have worn a red shirt with the Liverbird on their chest more than Gerrard. With former Liverpool striker Emile Heskey absent with a hamstring injury, Lennon sprang something of a tactical surprise. Lennon deployed defender Matt Mills as a lone forward with veteran Gudjohnsen and rookie Zach Clough just in behind as Wanderers mirrored Liverpool's 3-4-2-1 system. Sterling buzzed with intent in the early stages and on 15 minutes he glided past David Wheater and into the area, forcing Bolton goalkeeper Andrew Lonergan to make a diving save. Wheater threatened for the Trotters at the other end when he got on the end of Liam Feeney's free-kick into the box, but his header was straight at Simon Mignolet in the Liverpool goal. Liverpool went close early in the second half and Dorian Dervite's brilliant last-ditch tackle denied Sterling after he was put through on goal, with Lonergan clawing away the curling effort from the Reds youngster that followed. However, it was Bolton that struck a minute before the hour when Martin Skrtel, unable to cope with Clough's quick feet, carelessly gave away a penalty with a cumbersome challenge. Gudjohnsen confidently stroked the resulting spot-kick past Mignolet, although Bolton's hopes of hanging on to that lead for the remainder of the contest diminished when Danns was shown a second yellow for lunging at Joe Allen. Rodgers introduced Fabio Borini and Daniel Sturridge in an attempt to give his side more potency in the final third and fellow substitute Henderson struck the post with a deflected shot while Emre Can rattled the crossbar. Liverpool's relentless pressure eventually told and Can was instrumental as he lifted a superb ball into the path of Sterling, who guided a left-foot volley through Lonergan's legs and into the net with four minutes left. With extra time looming Coutinho then provided a moment of brilliance in added time to complete Liverpool's comeback when he struck a quite brilliant long-range effort into the top-right corner of the net. | 1 | 7,259 | sports |
New York - With speculation flying, Bruce Jenner's mother opened up Wednesday about his gender journey. Esther Jenner, 88, has been besieged by calls from the media in recent days, but the widow in Lewiston, Idaho, isn't interested in fueling gossip. Instead, in a wide-ranging, nearly hour-long phone interview, she praised her Olympian son for his courage, stopping short of some details that have been floated by unnamed sources online and in tabloids. Bruce Jenner, who won gold as a decathlete in the 1976 Summer Games, has not publicly spoken about transitioning to a woman. His appearance has gradually become more traditionally feminine. A publicist for the 65-year-old Jenner would not comment about his mother's remarks. Nor would E! Entertainment on word that Jenner will appear in a reality series about his journey. Highlights from Esther Jenner's conversation with The Associated Press: AP: Have you spoken to Bruce recently about his transition? Jenner: It was brief and I said I was proud of him and that I'll always love him. I never thought I could be more proud of Bruce when he reached his goal in 1976, but I'm more proud of him now. It takes a lot of courage to do what he's doing." AP: He has opened up in terms of his gender identity, which he is now owning, as opposed to hiding like so many transgender people have to do? Is that right? Jenner: That's absolutely right. He said, 'Mom, I'm still the same person.' He said, 'I'm still going to race cars, I'm still going to fly airplanes and I'm going to get my helicopter license.' AP: How did it feel for him to come to you and explain? Jenner: When I first learned about it, yes, of course it was a surprise. AP: In a lot of cases, families really suffer from that kind of announcement. Jenner: The family is close and very supportive of Bruce and we're supportive of each other. AP: Was it a shock? Jenner: It was a shock. It's hard to wrap your mind around it. AP How did he explain it to you? Jenner: He said, 'I want to be honest about my identity and I know this is coming out in the press.' He started by saying, 'We need to have a long, serious talk.' I am at peace with what he is and what he's doing. | 6 | 7,260 | entertainment |
If the latest rumors from OK! Magazine are true, Kate and William could be welcoming a baby girl to their family. A palace insider told the tabloid the couple found out the happy news during their 21-week scan. Of course, now the big question (if we do believe the tabloid, which we admit, is iffy) is what will they name their daughter. "They decided then and there that no matter what anyone said, they were sticking to naming their baby girl after her late grandmother," the sourced told OK!, referring to William's mother, the late Diana, Princess of Wales. In September, the Daily Mail spoke to Andrew Morton, who chronicled Diana's life in the book Diana: Her True Story . He also put forth the idea that Kate and William would name a daughter after his mother. He claimed the pair had settled on Elizabeth Diana Windsor. This is the second child for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Their son, George, who is third in line for the throne of England, was born in July 2013. Whatever the sex and whatever the name, there's no doubt that much of the world will be tuned in for the arrival of this second royal baby, who is due in April. ( Good Housekeeping ) | 6 | 7,261 | entertainment |
By Charlie Carroll, author of Peaks on the Horizon: Two Journeys in Tibet Everyone knows Tibet at least, they think they do. The word alone conjures images of monks, meditation, and mountaintops; of blue skies, white ice, and red robes; of a spiritually pure Shangri-La. Yet, in truth, few people know the reality of 21st-century Tibet, and that's because it is one of the least trammelled areas in the world. Getting to Tibet is difficult the borders spend more time closed than open but it's not impossible. Here are some lesser-known facts about Tibet to study up on before you journey there. 1. Tibet is huge. Though it may seem dwarfed by the rest of China, don't be fooled. Approximately two-thirds the size of Western Europe, Tibet is colossal, and travelers can spend an age simply getting from one town to the next. 2. And that's just the TAR. What we think of as Tibet is officially known as the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR). Many Tibetans, however, believe their homeland extends into what they call "Greater Tibet": Tibetan prefectures in the Chinese provinces of Yunnan, Sichuan, Gansu, and Qinghai. More ethnic Tibetans (2.9 million) live in these prefectures than in the TAR itself (2.5 million), and Greater Tibet is almost twice the size of the TAR. 3. Tibet is known as "the roof of the world." Like much of the rest of China, which seems to have the monopoly on superlatives (the largest dam, public square, standing army, and even escalator), Tibet adds to the records by virtue of its sheer height. Averaging approximately 13,000 feet above sea level, it has the highest mountain, lake, railway, road, and tunnel in the world. 4. As a result, the air in Tibet has 40 percent less oxygen. When traveling in Tibet, your heart rate and breathing patterns will modify themselves to increase your blood's oxygen-carrying capacity. This can take a few days, and many people experience altitude sickness during the acclimatization. Altitude sickness can cause severe headaches, breathlessness, irritability, nausea, and even death. The only cure for altitude sickness is, quite simply, to descend. 5. Most of the yaks in Tibet are not actually yaks. Yaks are well known as the Tibetan animal because they are perfectly suited to the high altitude. But, in fact, Tibetan yaks are now an endangered species, with only 15,000 left. The large bovine beasts most prevalent across Tibet are dzo: a hybrid between a yak and a cow. 6. Tibet has not always been a peaceful and isolated land. Thanks largely to the diplomatic work of the 14th Dalai Lama, Tibet is often equated with pacifism. Yet between the seventh and ninth centuries, Tibet controlled an empire that stretched out into parts of modern-day Nepal, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and even a large swathe of China. This Tibetan empire was conquered and maintained via the same bloody and ruthless means that any empire in the history of the world has utilized. 7. Tibet was a legally independent nation until 1950. Chinese schoolbooks will tell you that Tibet has been a part of China for the last thousand years, and perhaps more, but this is false. China and Tibet may well have argued over territories for a thousand years and, in 1913, the Tibetans even agreed to sign a proclamation that gave China control over foreign affairs, but China never signed the accord. Thus, Tibet was never legally and officially a part of China until 1950 and whether or not it legally became a part of China at that point remains up for debate. 8. Tibetans are still a heavily oppressed people. Thousands of Tibetans attempt to flee over the Himalayas every year. The official punishment for this is imprisonment, though many are shot by border guards, and those who remain live under constant military surveillance. It is illegal to carry a photograph of the Dalai Lama or a Tibetan flag, or even to utter the words " Bo rangzen " ("Free Tibet"), yet many still do, and arrest, imprisonment, re-education, and torture are rife. 9. But you should still go to Tibet. You may have ethical and moral qualms about visiting a land where such oppression occurs on a day-to-day basis. You may worry that, by visiting, you will only be contributing to the system which keeps this in place especially since most Tibetan tour operators are owned by Chinese companies. But you should still go. One of the Dalai Lama's most oft-quoted assertions is that people should visit Tibet, and then they should tell the world about it. It is only by doing this that the truth of the Tibetan situation will be kept alive. 10. Tibet is truly unique. There is, quite simply, nowhere else in the world like it. Go and find out for yourself. You will return with a heady mixture of thoughts, feelings, and emotions but I guarantee that not one of them will be disappointment. Charlie Carroll is the author of Peaks on the Horizon: Two Journeys in Tibet , published by Soft Skull Press on February 10, 2015. He is also the author of On The Edge(Monday Books, 2010), serialized in the Daily Mail and The Week and described by The Telegraph as "remarkable." Charlie has spoken on BB C Radio's "5Live" and local BBC radio stations, and written for The Guardian and The Big Issue. Peaks on the Horizon is his U.S. d ebut. ]]> | 2 | 7,262 | travel |
Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard became just the third player in the club's history to make 700 appearances for the Merseysiders when he was included in the starting side to play Bolton Wanderers in a FA Cup fourth-round replay at the Macron Stadium on Wednesday. The 34-year-old midfielder has spent his entire career at home town club Liverpool, having had a 25-year association with the Anfield side since coming on to their books as a schoolboy. However, the former England captain will leave Liverpool at the end of this season, with Gerrard set to follow in David Beckham's footsteps by joining the Los Angeles Galaxy in North America's Major League Soccer. Only winger/midfielder Ian Callaghan, with a club-record 857 appearances, and Gerrard's former team-mate Jamie Carragher (737) have turned out more times in senior competition for Liverpool than the current Reds skipper. | 1 | 7,263 | sports |
JEREZ, Spain (AP) A reinvigorated and new-look Ferrari team has emerged as an early front-runner to challenge for this year's Formula One championship, after posting quicker times than Mercedes in all four days of pre-season testing this week. Kimi Raikkonen gave Ferrari another boost with the best time on Wednesday's fourth day- the quickest from anyone all week - after new teammate Sebastian Vettel was fastest over the first two days. ''These past few days of testing have produced encouraging signs. The team has worked well, both at home and at the track,'' said team principal Maurizio Arrivabene, who replaced Marco Mattiacci late last year in a turbulent year for Ferrari that also saw the resignation of long-standing team principal Stefano Domenicali in April. ''But above all, I am pleased that the group has rediscovered its motivation and team spirit,'' Arrivabene added, alluding to the rifts that tore Ferrari apart in 2014. Raikkonen, the 2007 F1 champion, clocked a best lap of 1 minute, 20.841 seconds on the Jerez circuit in southern Spain. However, with two further sessions left before the start of the new season, Arrivabene remains wary of forecasting success - understandably so, seeing as Ferrari failed to win a race last year for the first time since 1993. ''I don't think our competitors - one in particular (Mercedes) - have shown their true potential,'' he said. ''I think we will only discover the truth about them and about ourselves at the last Barcelona test session.'' Marcus Ericsson was second quickest Wednesday, just over one second behind for Sauber, and defending F1 champion Lewis Hamilton third fastest for Mercedes. They all completed more than 100 laps: Hamilton topping with 117. ''It's been one of our highest weeks (in terms) of mileage,'' Hamilton said. ''The things we have to work on can be easily rectified.'' Two more testing sessions- in two and in three weeks' time - should be to Raikkonen's liking, given that he holds the lap record on Barcelona's Catalunya circuit. But Mercedes still looks the car to beat when the season opens on March 15 in Australia, since Ferrari's pace is still hard to qualify given that it could be running on a lower fuel load. ''They look like they are doing shorter runs, so more kind of qualifying attacking runs, which we are not,'' said Hamilton, hinting that Mercedes still has speed to spare. ''I would imagine we'll have more parts there (in Barcelona), more mechanical test items,'' the 30-year-old Hamilton said. Nico Rosberg's two sessions on Sunday and Tuesday produced 308 laps of largely smooth and faultless driving, whereas Hamilton's were slightly more difficult. Hamilton stopped just short of 100 laps on Monday, losing time because of a water leak, and on Wednesday span the car. ''Nothing much really, it was just a bit damp,'' Hamilton said, playing down the mishap. ''I was the first on slicks.'' The problems continue for both McLaren and Red Bull, which has the inexperienced 20-year-old Russian Daniil Kvyat driving instead of Vettel. Kvyat broke the front wing on Monday and missed most of Wednesday's morning session after returning to the garage early. Despite boasting two-time champion Fernando Alonso and 2009 F1 champ Jenson Button, McLaren is still scrambling. A troublesome power unit, meanwhile, limited McLaren to only 12 laps over the first two days and 32 on Tuesday - the lowest of any team on day 3 of testing. There was a slight improvement this time, with Button managing 35 laps. | 1 | 7,264 | sports |
Katy Perry's dancing sharks broke out as fan favorites of Super Bowl XLIX. The sharks appeared on stage with Perry while she performed the Pepsi halftime show . Since then, the Internet went on a mission to uncover the identities of both of the sharks. We already know the shark pictured on the right is long-time Katy Perry backup dancer Scott Myrick , but who's the left shark? Perry's backup dancer Bryan Gaw took to Twitter and Instagram to reveal he's the face behind the meme that has become known as " left shark ." Here's a good look at Gaw: Left shark went viral after video appeared online that made it appear as if Gaw's shark was dancing out of sync with Myrick's shark on stage. Many accused "left shark" of not having his moves nailed down. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter , Perry's choreographer RJ Durell claims it was all part of the plan to make the left shark look silly. "The sharks were given two main objectives," said Durell. "One, perform Katy's trademark moves to the 'Teenage Dream' chorus, which they both did perfectly; and two, to have loads of fun, and bring to life these characters in a cartoon manner, giving them a Tweedledee/Tweedledum-type persona." NOW WATCH: Forget 'Fifty Shades' the 'Magic Mike XXL' trailer is out and it's intense | 5 | 7,265 | news |
The World Bank is investigating the handling of a $1 billion loan from China to help fund poor countries, sources familiar with the matter told AFP Wednesday. The global development lender was quick to stress that the probe did not implicate Beijing, which increasingly is an important force in the bank's activities. But the probe will examine how key bank units, including the International Development Association and International Finance Corporation, created an unusual structure to accomodate the Chinese loan. World Bank President Jim Yong Kim confirmed the probe in an internal message to staff Tuesday that was obtained by AFP. He noted that some staff "have raised concerns over the handling of transactions related to a concessional loan." "Management took these concerns seriously and promptly retained an outside law firm with expertise in conducting internal reviews, to ensure a careful and impartial fact finding," he wrote. Kim stressed that the review is looking at internal processes and policy compliance, with "no suggestion" of staff misconduct. "The concerns expressed also did not question the intentions of any donors that provided concessional loans," he added. The probe, to be conducted by the Locke Lord Edwards law firm, will come on top of months of turmoil within the bank over the reforms Kim has introduced since becoming president in July 2012. The bank's treasurer, Madelyn Antoncic, first raised questions in December over the handling of China's decision in 2013 to loan $1 billion to the IDA, the bank's funding arm for the poorest countries. Because China's government did not have a formal mechanism for granting interest-free loans to an institution like the World Bank, Beijing added a $300 million grant, of which $179 million was to cover the interest payments for the loan. The bank then created a structure for the IDA to service the loan: it combined the Chinese funds and bought a $1.179 billion bond issued by the IFC, which is the bank's arm to finance private sector development activities. The probe into the handling of the Chinese loan comes on top of tensions created in the bank by Kim's restructuring, which has included cutting staff and the departure of a number of top aides to his predecessor. It also highlights top bank personalities previously at odds: treasurer Antoncic and chief financial officer Bertrand Badre, who, according to a bank source, approved the unusual arrangement for the Chinese loan. Last year revelations that Badre had both a huge salary and bonus sparked widespread criticism by bank staff, and eventually he did not accept part of the bonus. Badre's office did not immediately respond to AFP inquiries on the issue. A bank spokesman said that the institution's "commitment to financial integrity is paramount, and we work to diligently safeguard the resources entrusted to us by our shareholders." | 3 | 7,266 | finance |
Our Ducks insider Robby Boydstun examines the team's latest recruiting class including who will be next season's impact freshmen. | 1 | 7,267 | sports |
Gonzalo Higuain pounced on an Inter Milan defensive error to hit an injury-time winner for Napoli to secure both a 1-0 win and a place for the holders in the Italian Cup semi-finals on Wednesday. Inter coach Roberto Mancini, who spent four success-laden seasons at the helm of the Nerazzurri from 2004-2008, had led Inter into four Cup finals, winning twice, in his previous spell in charge. The match looked to be heading for extra-time but in the 93rd minute Algerian international Faouzi Gholam, in his first game for Napoli since returning from the Africa Cup of Nations, found Higuain in space down the left with a long throw-in. It caught defender Andrea Ranocchia off guard and the Inter Milan captain could only look on as Higuain outpaced him before beating Juan Pablo Carrizo with a superbly-placed shot inside the far post. Napoli will now meet Lazio in the two-legged semi-final with the winner meeting either Juventus or Fiorentina in the final. Juventus beat Parma 1-0 last week to book their semi-final spot while AC Milan were ousted from the competition by Lazio after a 1-0 defeat. Napoli won the fifth Italian Cup in their history last season with a 2-1 defeat of Fiorentina at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome. However the club's success, and the match, was overshadowed by violent incidents outside and inside the stadium. One fan, Ciro Esposito, was shot in the chest and died on June 25 after being in a coma for two months. | 1 | 7,268 | sports |
CNN's David Molko reports. | 8 | 7,269 | video |
"It's almost like an... animal butter!" | 8 | 7,270 | video |
Tumbling oil prices were supposed to boost growth in a host of major oil-importing economies. It isn't necessarily working out that way. Some governments have moved already to shore up their revenues by raising gasoline taxes or cutting fuel subsidies. At the same time, falling oil costs have pumped up deflation fears across Europe and Japan, adding to the risk that consumers and businesses will hold back on spending and investment, dragging on growth. China has raised fuel-consumption taxes by 50% since November. Gasoline prices have soared in Indonesia as the authorities eliminated subsidies altogether. High taxes in Japan mean pump prices have fallen only 15% in the past six months, compared with a 40% decline in the U.S. Taxes also blunt the fall in Europe: premium gasoline prices have fallen 29% in the U.K. and 32% in France. Brazil has trimmed subsidies and raised taxes to shore up its deteriorating finances. As a result, some consumers there are paying an extra 7% or more at the pump than they did last week. Oil prices posted their largest one-day drop in two months Wednesday after U.S. data showed crude supplies near 80-year highs. U.S. crude oil for March delivery sank 8.7% to $48.45 a barrel. Brent, the global benchmark, declined 6.5% to $54.16 a barrel. Past oil-price declines have often signaled a global slowdown as demand for crude collapses. But they also have often been followed by a ramping up of growth. The 60% fall in oil prices between November 1985 and March 1986 helped fuel five years of global growth that averaged near 4%. A raft of economists and policy makers in recent months has shrugged off concerns that falling oil costs might be a harbinger of a slowdown, arguing the windfall for oil importers would more than offset the hit major crude exporters would take as their revenues tanked. As recently as early December, the International Monetary Fund said that cheaper energy could add nearly a percentage point to gross domestic product for most advanced economies. European Central Bank President Mario Draghi has called the effect of falling oil prices "unambiguously positive." To be sure, there are signs oil's fall is trickling into some economies. The IMF cited the oil-price decline as a primary reason for an upgrade in its forecast for the U.S. economy last month. Cheaper fuel also has provided a boost to retail sales in the eurozone. Spending by households in France, for example, rose by 1.5% on the month in December, according to data released Wednesday. Sales across the eurozone were up 2.8% in December compared with a year earlier. India's purchasing managers index, a gauge of factory-floor conditions, has improved in recent months, potentially reflecting better profit margins at local companies because of lower oil costs. In Japan, a weaker yen and cheaper fuel are giving many economists reason to raise their growth forecasts. And more potential benefits could emerge. "There's been insufficient upward revision of forecasts outside the U.S. due to energy," said Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "There are still going to be positive effects from the shock, they just haven't shown up yet." But with more data pouring in from around the world, the impact is hardly uniformly upbeat. The risk of a deflationary mind-set among consumers and businesses has emerged as a major challenge in the eurozone and Japan, both of which are struggling to avoid falling back into recessions. Low or falling prices for goods and services can restrain consumer spending, deter business investment, cap wages and add to debt headaches. Oil is a major driver of that slowdown in inflation the biggest since the depths of the financial crisis more than five years ago. Last week, the European Union's statistics agency reported consumer prices were 0.6% lower in January than a year ago. "If you think that prices are going to stay low, that will dramatically affect your behavior," said Ayhan Kose, lead author of the World Bank's flagship Global Economic Prospects report. The more oil prices lower inflation expectations in Europe and Japan, the less effective new central bank easy-money policies meant to spur growth will be, Mr. Kose said. "It will require more to deliver the same impact, and the impact will be less potent," he said. Both the IMF and the World Bank lowered their outlooks for growth in many major economies outside the U.S. last month. Political and economic headwinds are offsetting any gains seeping in from cheaper energy costs. In Italy, Japan, France, South Korea, China and other major oil importers, consumer confidence is waning, according to Nielsen's latest report on sentiment around the world. As consumer optimism falls, people are more likely to save than spend and businesses grow wary of new investments. "There's a lot of uncertainty around the strength of economies around the world," said Louise Keely, senior vice president at Nielsen and president of the Demand Institute, a non-profit think tank that studies consumer behavior. "That means the drop in fuel prices doesn't necessarily flow through into consumer sentiment." Hannes Baumgartner, a director of a trucking division at Italy-based transport and logistics company Fercam AG, said falling fuel prices have cut the company's costs but aren't likely to change its investment strategy. "We're mostly worrying about the volatility in prices," he said. Japan's chemical industry, a big user of imported oil, welcomed the cheaper input costs. But many companies say cheaper oil might push customers to demand discounts for items like plastics, tires, synthetic fabrics and detergents. "Too much volatility isn't desirable," said a spokesman for Sumitomo Chemical Co. Price growth is also anemic in China, reflecting weak consumer and business confidence. "The lower oil price is bringing more deflationary pressure rather than helping the economy," said Vincent Chan, a research analyst at Credit Suisse. Big Chinese companies are hobbled by overcapacity the result of years of profligate investment and are unlikely to boost spending on plants and other capital outlays just because energy prices fall, said Mr. Chan. Write to Ian Talley at [email protected] and Brian Spegele at [email protected] Corrections & Amplifications An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of market-research firm Nielsen NV as Nielson. (Feb. 4, 2015) | 3 | 7,271 | finance |
China is taking aim again at foreign luxury car makers such as Audi (NSUG.DE), BMW (BMWG.DE) and Mercedes-Benz (DAIGn.DE) by allowing unauthorized dealers to sell imported cars - so-called 'parallel imports' - in a move to rein in high-end car prices. Publicly, Beijing says a pilot scheme, which officially kicks off in Shanghai's free trade zone next week, will promote competition and give consumers more choice, but people close to policymakers say it's the latest in a series of measures aimed at bringing down prices that are far higher in China than elsewhere. For the luxury car marques, the move comes on top of weakening sales growth in the world's biggest market, tensions with dealers, and a recent price fixing probe. A lawyer who attended a closed-door seminar last year said officials at the Ministry of Commerce and the National Development and Reform Commission, China's top economic planner, made clear their intention was to cut the price of high-end imported cars. "Legalizing parallel imports is part of a broad anti-monopoly campaign by the government to improve market order and bring down prices of imported cars," he said, asking not to be identified as he is not authorized to speak to the media. In an emailed proposal reviewed by Reuters, the China Automotive Technology and Research Center (CATARC), a government-affiliated think-tank, lobbied Beijing a year ago to legalize parallel imports "to break monopoly and promote competition." Sales of premium cars rose by more than a fifth last year to around 1.6 million vehicles, according to consultancy Automotive Foresight (Shanghai) Co Ltd, but still account for less than 10 percent of China's total car sales. Together, Audi, BMW and Mercedes have around 70-80 percent market share in the premium segment. More than 20 dealers have applied to join the pilot scheme, where imported luxury models will be sold at a 10-20 percent discount to those available through authorized channels, said an official at the Shanghai Waigaiqiao Automobile Exchange Market Co Ltd, the market organizer. A BMW 650i xDrive Convertible that sells from $97,900 in the United States, can cost close to 2 million yuan ($320,179) in China. That scale of price differential has come under fire from Chinese media, and regulators last year fined a Chinese venture of Audi and the local sales unit of Fiat's Chrysler (FCAU.N) a combined $46 million for price fixing. GREY MARKET China has had a grey market in auto sales for some time, centered around the northern port city of Tianjin where about half of China's total car import deals are done. But buyers have been cautious given the lack of quality guarantee and after-sales service on unauthorized cars. That will change under the new scheme. "The main significance (of the pilot scheme) is that buyers will now be legally entitled to warranty packages," whether their imported car comes through an authorized or unauthorized channel, said IHS Automotive analyst Namrita Chow. Analysts said it was difficult to gauge the likely impact on car prices given a lack of clarity over which models come under the parallel import scheme. In an emailed statement, Audi said its dealer network in China was "very well prepared for competition," while BMW said it doesn't expect any "substantial" impact on its China business. Daimler, which owns Mercedes-Benz, said it was too early to comment. ($1 = 6.2573 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Editing by Ian Geoghegan) | 3 | 7,272 | finance |
US researchers have found a way to turn a common smartphone into a quick and easy device to conduct field tests for HIV and syphilis. Using an attachment that costs $34 to make -- a far cry from the standard $18,000 for diagnostic tests -- blood drops are tested for the diseases' antibodies in minutes instead of hours, said the research led by Columbia University engineers. When plugged into a smartphone's audio jack, scientists said it mimicked the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), a well-known test for HIV, and "performed almost as well." The initial study, involving 96 women in Rwanda, is published in the journal Science Translational Medicine. Experts hope that this lab-on-a-chip device could be a helpful tool, especially in places where field clinics are set up to help remote or underserved populations. The team, led by Samuel Sia, associate professor of biomedical engineering, is aiming for larger clinical trials first. "Our work shows that a full laboratory-quality immunoassay can be run on a smartphone accessory," said Sia. "Coupling microfluidics with recent advances in consumer electronics can make certain lab-based diagnostics accessible to almost any population with access to smartphones. This kind of capability can transform how health care services are delivered around the world." The study was funded by a Saving Lives at Birth transition grant -- which is backed by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Gates Foundation, government of Norway, Grand Challenges Canada, the World Bank and the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation. | 5 | 7,273 | news |
Long-reigning world heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko likens his next challenger, Bryant Jennings of Philadelphia, to the Rocky Balboa character of film fame. But the towering Ukraine who has ruled the division for nine years does not predict a happy ending for Jennings in their April 25 clash at Madison Square Garden. "I think Bryant is Rocky Balboa," Klitschko said Wednesday referencing the lead character in Sylvester Stallone's "Rocky" series. "He's from Philadelphia. He's someone who started late in boxing. He's a top contender. I can see the desire and will, the way he carries himself. Makes me think this fight is going to be exciting. This is his life chance." But Klitschko likes his chances as holder of five heavyweight belts and a 63-3 record. "As the champion, I am the Bad Man. I am the Baddest Man on the Planet in boxing," said Klitschko, who has made 17 title defenses during an uninterrupted reign started in 2006 for the second longest heavyweight run behind legendary Joe Louis. Jennings is 19-0, but at 6-3, 225 pounds and wearing a black tee shirt with "I MATTER!" lettered on the front, looked like a kid brother as he stared up at Klitschko for photographers. "I'm ready because I've got to be ready," Jennings, 30, told Reuters about measuring up to the task. "Size? In the NBA at one point (former Philadelphia guard) Allen Iverson was the most dominant player on the court and was amongst the smallest. "I bring youth. I bring will. I bring heart. I bring speed. I have a fighting spirit. I'm relentless." Klitschko, 38, says he takes fights one at a time, but could not help but think ahead to a clash with former sparring partner and knockout artist Deontay Wilder. Wilder owns the WBC belt previously held by Klitschko's brother Vitali, who after retiring from boxing was elected mayor of Kiev, Ukraine's biggest city. Winning that belt would complete the Klitschko collection. "We need to do it and we have to do it," Klitschko said about a match with Wilder. "There is certainly a reason why I'm back here and why I'm fighting on U.S. television live on U.S. soil," said Klitschko, who has fought in Europe exclusively since his last Garden bout in 2008. "(Wilder) is the most valuable opponent for me to fight and the price is the title that he has." (Editing by Frank Pingue) | 1 | 7,274 | sports |
Aural pleasure, like any other kind of pleasure, is subjective. No two individuals are turned on in the exact same manner. Some like their sexy tunes smooth, sensual, and intimate. Others like them loud, aggressive, and with a driving beat. They all are, however, personal perhaps even instinctive.Yes, tracks exist that are universally known to get the boots knocking (lookin' at you D'Angelo). But, those roundups and playlists have been done time and time again. So, we went ahead and figured it's time to add some spice to the traditional Barry White and Marvin Gaye-laden sex music scene. We spoke with various influencers, musicians, and designers to see what songs turn them on. The results are fanciful and unexpected, but that's what keeps the bedroom exciting, no? Aural pleasure, like any other kind of pleasure, is subjective. No two individuals are turned on in the exact same manner. Some like their sexy tunes smooth, sensual, and intimate. Others like them loud, aggressive, and with a driving beat. They all are, however, personal perhaps even instinctive. Yes, tracks exist that are universally known to get the boots knocking (lookin' at you D'Angelo). But, those roundups and playlists have been done time and time again. So, we went ahead and figured it's time to add some spice to the traditional Barry White and Marvin Gaye-laden sex music scene. We spoke with various influencers, musicians, and designers to see what songs turn them on. The results are fanciful and unexpected, but that's what keeps the bedroom exciting, no? "Motivation," Kelly Rowland "This is hands down the most sexy song it drives us crazy. The instrumental alone is so sexy, and then the vocal is amazing, especially when she sings up high." Grace Chatto of Clean Bandit Photo: Courtesy of Motown. "Closer," Nine Inch Nails "It ticks all the boxes. It's good for strutting, thrusting, stripping, and dancing. Plus, what's sexier than telling someone you want to feel them from the inside?" Johnny Love of Health Goth Photo: Courtesy of Interscope Records. "By Your Side," Sade "Sade's 'By Your Side' is actually my favorite song of all time. I'm such a sucker for romance. I love the sultriness and it oozes sexiness in a romantic way. Who doesn't want to be told the sweet things she sings in this song? It just makes you feel good." Sevyn Streeter, musician Photo: Courtesy of Epic. "Kiss," Prince "No better way to set the mood than a little wah-wah guitar and a sexual grunt. Prince's 'Kiss' is undeniably hot and reminds us that it's not just about looks or money to get the sparks flying all night." Cash Cash, musicians Photo: Courtesy of Warner Bros. "Love You From The Inside Out (The Pinches Mix)," Cole Medina "Any record with a marriage of gravy funk and swave disco is sexy for me. It reminds me of a dance lineup of Soul Train, sock dancing carefree with your lover at home, or cruising through the city with windows half down in the summer, laughing echoes of bliss. Shit is absolutely, sexy, real life." Grace Lee, founder of Liaison Femme Photo: Courtesy of Globetrotter. "Wild Horses," The Rolling Stones "There's something about the rawness of the recording and the simple poetry of the lyric, or just the fact that it's Mick Jagger, but this song could get anyone's pants off ASAP." LIGHTS, musician Photo: Courtesy of UMe. "Body Party," Ciara "I think Ciara's 'Body Party' is probably my favorite sexy song. I probably listened to it exclusively for several months straight and just wandered around my house seducing inanimate objects, pretending I had the sexual prowess Ciara possesses in the music video. I cease breathing normally when the song comes on. Is that TMI? Whatevz." Arabelle Sicardi, BuzzFeed beauty editor Photo: Courtesy of Epic. "I'm Not In Love," 10cc "Turn it on the morning after; the smooth and sensual mood will compliment any hangover putting you right back in the passion of the night. P.S. if you don't know the meaning behind the band name look it up." Milo Greene, musicians Photo: Courtesy of ISLAND MERCURY. "Earned It," The Weeknd "It gives me the feels." Melanie Martinez, musician Photo: Courtesy of Republic Records. "Je T'aime...Moi Non Plus," Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin "Timeless, manages to be both hot and beautiful not necessarily an easy needle to thread. It's as sexy and as French as a song can get. Serge and Jane were rumored to have been getting busy in the recording booth when they recorded it. Includes the line 'Je vais et je viens, entre tes reins' (loosely: "I go and I come, between your loins") and much convincing heavy breathing from Birkin, seemingly on the verge." John Norris, Fuse News Photo: Courtesy of Verve Forecast Records. "Right Down The Line," Gerry Rafferty "This song is to love what an orgasm is to sex." Nelleke, DJ Photo: Courtesy of Parlophone UK. "Something About Us," Daft Punk "The song is slow and sensual. Even though the voice is a robot, it somehow evokes more emotion and feeling than most human vocalists can." The Knocks, musicians Photo: Courtesy of Parlophone France. "Freak Like Me," Adina Howard "This smash debut single from 1995 is still just as sexy as the day it was released. Adina Howard's aggressive sexual lyrics weren't very common at the time, and this song helped pave the way for many female emcees/singers that followed. 'I want a freak in the morning, a freak in the evening…' Don't we all though? Adina just wasn't afraid to let us know." BRENMAR, producer/DJ Photo: Courtesy of Rhino/Elektra. "Damaged Goods," Gang of Four "This was my boyfriend in college and my's sex song. I get goosebumps and floods of erotic energy when it comes on." Juliana Huxtable, artist/DJ Photo: Courtesy of V2. "Untitled (How Does It Feel)," by D'Angelo "I'm a huge R&B fan and that song, with that video, is just so smooth." Lindsay Degen, Degen-NYC Photo: Courtesy of Virgin Records. "Would You Mind," by Janet Jackson "'Would You Mind' is one of the sexiest songs of all time. It's hot and steamy, layered with moans and erotic lyrics that are definitely rated R and speak to the sexual tone of the song, but the end of the song is what takes the kills. She didn't even get to climax!" Kitty Cash, DJ Photo: Courtesy of Virgin Records. "Nice and Easy," Susan Cadogan "I think that a lot of reggae records with female vocalists are sexy, but between the lyrics and the pulsing rhythm, this is an all-time melter." Jesse Cohen of Tanlines Photo: Courtesy of Sanctuary. "Touch My Body (Cyril Hahn Remix)," Mariah Carey "It was the first song Christine sent me, and it made me realize she was interested in being ~*more than friends*~" Becca McCharen, Chromat Photo: Courtesy of PMR Records. "Let's Stay Together," Al Green "That voice mixed with those lyrics can lure anyone into a bubble bath." Leslie Kirchhoff, photographer/DJ Photo: Courtesy of Fat Possum. "Nude," Radiohead "I had a lot of sex to that song when I was in high school. My sex life could really use a new Radiohead album right now." Hari Nef, actress/model/artist Photo: Courtesy of Warner/Chappell Music. "Strong," London Grammar "It's a simple song with an amazing vocal. It slowly builds with a soft and powerful vibe." Alex Wolvf of Max Elto Photo: Courtesy of Columbia. "One In A Million," Aaliyah "This is the sexiest because of how slow and burning it is, but Aaliyah sounds at her most powerful. This is no teenage girl cooing about her crush, this is a woman letting her know that what she's got is a serious, serious thing." Leila Brillson, Nylon editorial director Photo: Courtesy of Atlantic/Q Records. "Freak Me," Silk "'Let me lick you up and down / Til you say stop / Let me play with your body baby / Make you real hot / Let me do all the things you want me to do / Cuz tonight baby I wanna get freaky with you' I couldn't have said it better myself. Also, 59% of people 20 and under were conceived while this song was playing. That is definitely a true fact, making this literally, THE sexiest song of all time. End of story." Mark Solomich of Junior Prom Photo: Courtesy of X-Ray Records. "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?" Rod Stewart "Well, I'd like to dedicate this song to Christine Hahn." Vince Barli, BOND Hardware Photo: Courtesy of Rhino/Warner Bros. "Prom Night," Anamanaguchi "It's the perfect romantic jam for this generation because it's flirty and to the point." Amy Cakes, Degen-NYC Photo: Courtesy of Redeye Label. "Walk On By," Isaac Hayes "This song has always made me go all mushy inside it's that sort of feeling where you feel like you are melting a little, and that feeling is pretty damn sexy." Chelsea Leyland, DJ Photo: Courtesy of Stax. "Ooh La La," Goldfrapp "This track is sinfully delicious. It's the perfect foreplay song to a night out or a night in. Goldfrapp's vocals are smoke room sexy for the space age. It's lip-bitingly good." Hayden Manders, R29 Assistant Entertainment Editor Photo: Courtesy of Mute. "Addictive," Truth Hurts & Rakim "The sexiest song of all time for me would have to be 'Addictive by Truth Hurts and Rakim' because tantric sex just isn't the same without a hypnotic Bollywood beat." DJ missglitt3r, artist/designer Photo: Courtesy of Aftermath. "Freak Me," Another Level "We believe that it's the sexiest song ever made." Coasts, musicians Photo: Courtesy of Northwestside Records. "Herfra hvor vi står," Quadron "Herfra hvor vi stå" is sung in Danish, and that went over my head for the first few times I listened. The slow tempo, the horns, the emotion in it stuck with me. I'm a sucker for romance it's sexy to me. It's one of those songs that would play during a montage (assuming everyone pictures their life as scenes from their Lifetime movie like I do) over some makeup/breakup make-out session in your buildings hallway. I've never looked up the translation. I'm scared it's a song about death or something and that would might screw up my perception of it." Chris Bernabeo, photographer Photo: Courtesy of Vested in Culture/Epic Records. Like this post? There's more. Get tons of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and cat videos on the Refinery29 Entertainment Facebook page . Like us on Facebook we'll see you there! | 6 | 7,275 | entertainment |
Minute-by-minute tracking of aircraft in distress is set to be introduced next year, airline officials said Wednesday, as the industry aims to prevent a repeat of the mystery surrounding the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight 370. An international aviation summit in Montreal gave strong backing to plans to monitor flights in real time, making it easier to pinpoint the location of planes lost at sea. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Council is now expected to ratify the proposal in November, making it obligatory for all airlines starting in 2016. "Global tracking will not prevent accidents," said ICAO chairman Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu, but it will mean no more lost jets. The plan was prompted by the disappearance of flight MH370 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in what remains one of history's great aviation mysteries. The aircraft, with 239 people on board, has never been found, nearly a year on. Currently, radar can track a plane but coverage is spotty and fades when aircraft are out at sea or they are flying below a certain altitude. Under the new rules, airlines will be required to track their aircraft using a system that routinely gives their location at 15-minute intervals. "When an airplane is in distress, the system will repeat the signal every minute," Aliu told a press conference. This would include any unexpected change in altitude or deviation from a flight path. Thus, search and rescue officials would be able to more accurately pinpoint a flight's last known location within six nautical miles (11 kilometers). According to officials, this measure is the quickest and easiest fix to a growing air safety concern - locating downed aircraft. "We can do it today and it's not expensive," said Nancy Graham, director of the ICAO's Air Navigation Bureau. The head of the International Air Transport Association, which speaks for the airline industry, agreed. "A number of airlines are planning to improve now the ways of tracking their airplanes," IATA president Tony Tyler said. Ejectable black boxes Once a plane is found, and beyond rescue operations, it then becomes important to determine why it ran into trouble in order to try to avoid future disasters. At the Montreal meeting due to wrap up Thursday, delegates agreed in principal on adding secondary ejectable floatable black boxes on all commercial jetliners, making them easier to retrieve in an air crash at sea. The technology, which has already been approved for military aircraft, has not been used in civil aviation because up until a few years ago air accidents have mainly happened during take-off or landing. Black boxes are generally found easily on land. But in recent years more and more passenger jets have crashed into the ocean raising the need for new technology to help find the black boxes. These recorders are critical in air crash investigations as they provide information on how the planes were operating and the conversations of the pilots. Investigators say they help explain 90 percent of crashes. They will be mandatory on new aircraft designed after 2021. European manufacturer Airbus announced last month that it would start equipping its long-haul A350 and A380 jetliners with ejectable black boxes much sooner. Its main competitor Boeing has said the technology needs more study. Also decided at the conference was a new way to disseminate warnings about the imminent risks of flying over war zones. An online repository is to be created containing all risk information, much of which is currently available to carriers but is often fragmented. The creation of a central database administered by the ICAO is in response to the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 last July after being shot down over eastern Ukraine. | 5 | 7,276 | news |
Our Cowboys insider John Holcomb examines the team's latest recruiting class including who will be next season's impact freshmen. | 1 | 7,277 | sports |
On Monday, after Taylor Swift announced that she wouldn't perform at this year's Grammys , we here at HuffPost Entertainment tweeted the following: The Grammys just got more boring: Taylor Swift won't perform http://t.co/J8571Wc0Ue?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000618 HuffPostEnt (@HuffPostEnt) February 2, 2015 Two days later, how wrong we were! On the heels of news that Kanye West and Katy Perry have been added to the roster of performers, comes this gem: Beyoncé will be there too! Us Weekly broke the news after speaking with Common , who will perform the Oscar-nominated song "Glory" from "Selma" with John Legend during the broadcast: "We do have an incredible introduction to our performance," Common said on Saturday. "A segue into our song 'Glory,' as a tribute to 'Selma,' being done by the great Beyoncé. That's one of the greatest talents you can have, helping us segue into it. To co-create a performance with someone like her. It's good." Rumors that Beyoncé would perform were first reported by Billboard . According to both that site and Us, Beyoncé will sing "Take My Hand Precious Lord" as a tribute to "Selma," the Best Picture-nominated film about Martin Luther King Jr. A representative for the Grammys was not immediately available for comment. | 6 | 7,278 | entertainment |
DENVER (AP) Free agent pitcher Kyle Kendrick and the Colorado Rockies have agreed to a $5.5 million, one-year contract. The 30-year-old right-hander is 74-68 with a 4.42 ERA in eight major league seasons, all with the Philadelphia Phillies, and has won 10 games or 11 games six times. Kendrick, whose agreement was announced Wednesday, is a durable sinkerball specialist, but has a 5.26 ERA in seven career appearances at Coors Field. He allowed 25 homers last year, when he went 10-13 for the second straight season. His 32 starts and 199 innings were career highs. Left-hander Yohan Flande was designated for assignment. He went 0-6 with a 5.19 ERA last year in 10 starts and six relief appearances. | 1 | 7,279 | sports |
General Motors is slashing prices on four models Chevrolet Cruze and Equinox, GMC Terrain, and Buick LaCrosse by introducing new base models with less equipment. As with most cars at the end of their lifecycle, these model lines are currently selling at big discounts. To lower prices even further, GM has introduced new base models that lack some equipment that was previously standard, such as satellite radio, floor mats, and a spare tire. (We've heard from many of you that you want a spare tire in your car. So be sure to ask whether a car you're considering has one.) Don't let the low sticker prices on the models here distract you older cars like these often sell at a big discount. We recently found savings of $1,255 off the Cruze LS, $2,237 off an Equinox, and $2,960 off a LaCrosse. The new base models aren't eligible for many of those discounts, at least not yet. Eric Evarts Chevrolet Cruze L The new Cruze L gets the base, nonturbocharged 1.8-liter engine that's in the Cruze LS but not XM radio, floor mats, or a spare tire. The Cruze L also lacks the updated display with a compass found in other 2015 Cruzes. The Cruze L sells for $16,170, compared with $18,570 for the LS. The Cruze L is on its way to dealers. Chevrolet Equinox L and GMC Terrain SL These midsized, front-wheel drive-only SUVs also don't get the updated display with the compass or rear floor mats, though they do have front floor mats. The Chevrolet Equinox L and GMC Terrain SL get unpainted black plastic mirrors in place of body-colored mirrors, and since they're SUVs, they retain their spare tire. The Equinox L sells for $22,120, about $3,300 less than the LS. The Terrain SL lists for $24,070, or $3,400 less than the SLE1 (the former base model). The Equinox L and Terrain SL will be available this spring. Buick LaCrosse 1SV This V6 sedan comes with the same smaller 17-inch wheels and tires as the four-cylinder LaCrosse, and lacks a cargo net. It stickers for $31,065 $2,570 less than the next cheapest V6 LaCrosse. The LaCrosse 1SV will be available this spring. More from Consumer Reports: Worst cars of 2014 in Consumer Reports' tests 5 best used cars for teen drivers Best & worst car values Consumer Reports has no relationship with any advertisers on this website. Copyright © 2006-2015 Consumers Union of U.S. | 9 | 7,280 | autos |
The European Central Bank on Wednesday cut off Greek banks' access to a key source of much-needed cash, piling fresh pressure on the country's new government to reach a deal with international creditors. In a decision that rattled financial markets, the ECB said it would no longer allow Greek banks to use government debt, which has a junk rating, as collateral for loans. The announcement came just hours after new Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis held his first talks with ECB chief Mario Draghi as part of the country's push to renegotiate Athens' 240-billion-euro ($270 billion) EU-IMF bailout. Stock markets fell on the news, while the euro tumbled by more than one percent against the dollar. The ECB move will likely feature heavily in Varoufakis's keenly-awaited first talks with German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble on Thursday, whose country is seen as the strongest opponent of any easing in the terms of the massive debts Greece has built up. Both Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Varoufakis -- whose far-left Syriza party stormed to victory in elections on January 25 -- have been touring Europe in recent days to build support for a new debt agreement with creditors. Elected on a pledge to end austerity policies imposed on Greece as part of its bailout, Tsipras faces the delicate task of convincing his European partners to reverse course while ensuring Athens still gets the aid required to avoid a default. In Brussels, Tsipras struck an upbeat note after talks with European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker and EU president Donald Tusk, saying he was optimistic of a "viable and mutually acceptable solution". A Greek government source said Tsipras and Juncker discussed plans to "jointly" create a four-year reform plan for Greece, as well as a bridging deal to give Athens time to draw up plans for reforms including on corruption and tax evasion. But Tusk acknowledged that resolving the showdown over Greece's debt was likely to be "difficult" and needed "cooperation and dialogue as well as determined efforts by Greece." - 'Fruitful' ECB talks - Ahead of the ECB talks in Frankfurt, Varoufakis told the German weekly Die Zeit that the ECB "should support our banks so that we can stay afloat", acknowledging that Greece was "a bankrupt country". The former economics professor later described his talks with Draghi as "very fruitful". But after a meeting of its policy-setting governing council late Wednesday, the ECB said it was taking the step to end the special waiver for Greece because "it is currently not possible to assume a successful conclusion of the programme review". The waiver, which will end on February 11, had allowed banks to pledge their Greek bonds as collateral, even though the securities did not meet standards for a minimum credit rating. Separately, a Financial Times report suggested that Draghi might block a key element of Athens' plan. According to the FT, which cited officials involved in the deliberations, the ECB is refusing to raise an agreed cap on the amount of short-term treasury bills that Athens can issue from 15 billion euros to 25 billion euros. Greece faces key payments on its debt at the end of February and again at the end of May. - Next stop: Berlin - The International Monetary Fund -- the third part of the so-called "troika" that oversees Greece's bailouts along with the European Commission and ECB -- said meanwhile it was not in debt talks with the Greek government. The new Greek government has blamed its fiscal problems mainly on the austerity shackles fixed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Athens says these restrictions have choked growth in an economy that has shrunk by a quarter, failed to cut unemployment that stands at over 25 percent, and made it impossible to service a mountain of debt worth 1.75 times its annual economic output. But Merkel tried to squash the talk that Syriza could play on divisions within Europe, insisting that there were no substantial differences between major eurozone nations. "I don't think that the positions of the member states of the eurozone with regard to Greece differ, at least in terms of substance," Merkel said. In a bid to quell western worries over the new Greek government's closeness to Russia at a time of Cold War-style tensions, Varoufakis said meanwhile that Athens would "never" seek loans from Moscow. Greece's defence minister Panos Kammenos also told AFP that Athens remained committed to its NATO role despite its relationship with Russia. Greece's political turmoil continued at home in the meantime, as judges sent 72 members of neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn, including its leaders, for trial for crimes including murder. | 3 | 7,281 | finance |
Queen Elizabeth II says she will not adopt any more corgis due to health concerns. Mara Montalbano (@maramontalbano) has the story. | 8 | 7,282 | video |
On Your Skin The problem: Jowls and wrinkles may be the result of eating too many processed foods. As sugar digests, it bonds to collagen and impairs the molecule's function (a process called glycation). High-fructose corn syrup causes about 10 times more glycation than glucose, the sugar found in starches. The solution: Rebuild collagen by eating lysine, which is found in fish, lean meats, and low-fat dairy. Or get a really great wrinkle cream. On Your Waistline The problem: Fructose, which is often added to processed foods (even ostensibly healthy ones like whole-grain bread), causes energy to drop at the cellular level. "This leads to a reduced metabolic rate and increased fat storage," says Richard J. Johnson, M.D., author of The Sugar Fix . "It's why bears eat thousands of berries before they hibernate: to store fat." The solution: Starting this year, nutrition labels have to say how much sugar is added versus what occurs organically. Take a look. On Your Brain The problem: When sugar hits your stomach, the activity level of orexin (a neurotransmitter that triggers wakefulness) plummets, spiraling your brain into a fog for up to three hours. The solution: Food coma isn't inevitable: According to recent research in the journal Neuron , you can counteract it with a serving of protein. Less practical: Give yourself a 180-minute buffer before trying to be productive. On Your Mood The problem: Researchers at California State University found that people who ate approximately two dozen grams of sugar in a sitting (the average amount in a candy bar) had a quick energy spurt but an hour later reported less energy and a more stressful mood than beforehand. The solution: Channel that rage. University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban is known to take down two Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies (a total of 28 grams of sugar) for breakfast every morning. He's obligated to scream a lot. And he makes nearly $7 million a year. On Your Pancreas The problem: Your daily Coke, Gatorade, or fresh-pressed juice ups your risk of developing diabetes by 26 percent, say Harvard researchers. The solution: Experts think that because sugary drinks are new (evolutionarily speaking), the brain isn't designed to register their calories, meaning you won't feel full and will likely overeat later. Drink high-electrolyte, unsweetened beverages like coconut or maple water and stay away from the -ades. On Your Heart The problem: People who get 25 percent or more of their calories from added sugar have a 275 percent higher chance of death from heart disease than those who get 10 percent or less. The solution: There isn't one except, well, cutting back on sugar. Step away from the juice and eat a real (protein- and fat-rich) meal. • • • Also on Details.com: Can You Out-Exercise Bad Eating Habits? 7 Physical Effects of Sleep Deprivation The 24 Rules for Looking (and Feeling) Better in 2015 | 7 | 7,283 | health |
Mobile game developer Glu Mobile Inc said it would partner with top-selling singer Katy Perry to develop a new mobile game, which will include the "Firework" singer's voice and likeness. The company, known for its popular "Kim Kardashian: Hollywood" game, said it expects to release the game in the fourth quarter. Shares of Glu, which also reported a 78 percent jump in fourth-quarter adjusted revenue, rose 14 percent to $4.39 in extended trading. Katy Perry, who hosted the Super Bowl XLIX Halftime Show on Sunday, is known for hit singles such as "Teenage Dream," "E.T." and "Roar." "Kim Kardashian: Hollywood" is a free-to-download mobile game where the user can create a celebrity avatar and interact with celebrities in a virtual world filled with parties, paparazzi and luxury homes. The top-grossing game, which was released in June last year, accounted for about a third of Glu's adjusted revenue for 2014. Adjusted revenue rose to $76.2 million, beating the average analyst estimate of $63.8 million. The company reported a profit of 11 cents per share, excluding items, for the quarter ended 31 December. This trumped the average analyst estimate of 2 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. | 6 | 7,284 | entertainment |
Jurgen Klinsmann discusses the state of the USMNT, including his preparations for the upcoming Gold Cup, how he feels about players returning to the MLS and more. | 1 | 7,285 | sports |
When you're strapped for time but still craving fast, easy, fresh meals, turn to one of our new favorite quick-comfort dinners made for busy weeknights. Our favorite? A hands-off risotto cooked in the oven and topped with a bright and nutty kale pesto. "The rice cooks most of the way through in the oven, but stirring in the beginning and at the end ensures it still gets creamy like the best restaurant risotto," says associate food editor Claire Saffitz , who developed the recipes below. Recipe: Blistered Edamame C'mon, who doesn't love edamame? Consider this the adults-only version; sautéed, spicy, and highly snackable. Recipe: Miso-Glazed Turnips A simple stovetop technique transforms turnips by deploying a secret ingredient that may be hiding in the back of your fridge. Not sure what to do with that leftover tub of white miso? Try whisking a tablespoonful into your favorite vinaigrette, mashing some into potatoes along with milk and butter, or mixing with softened butter and serving with radishes. Recipe: Bratwurst and Red Cabbage Any night can be Oktoberfest with our one-skillet method for crisped beer-poached brats. For the ultimate leftovers sandwich, halve brats lengthwise and layer on seeded rye bread with cabbage mixture, Russian dressing, and thinly sliced Swiss cheese. Spread a thin layer of Russian dressing over the outside of the bread (yes, you heard us), and griddle until golden brown and melty. Recipe: Oven Risotto with Kale Pesto Forget slaving over a pot of painstakingly slow-cooking rice on the stove. This rice is so self-sufficient it doesn't need your constant attention, and it's happy to share the spotlight with a nutty green winter pesto . | 0 | 7,286 | foodanddrink |
When the annual Sports Illustrated: Swimsuit Issue hits newsstands Feb. 9, readers may notice something a little different. For the first time ever, the magazine will feature a plus-size model. Ashley Graham, age 27, will be the first size 14-16 model to appear in the much-hyped annual issue. Graham's appearance is part of an ad for the plus-size bathing suit company, swimsuitsforall . She says in a statement: "I know my curves are sexy and I want everyone else to know that theirs are too. There is no reason to hide and every reason to flaunt." Graham, a Nebraska native who was discovered in a mall at age 12, has previously appeared in campaigns for Levi's, Target, Hanes, Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom, Macy's, Old Navy, and many more. Just last year, she was one of five plus-size models that earned a spot on IMG's coveted modeling roster. In 2010, Graham starred in a commercial for plus-size clothing retailer Lane Bryant that was later banned for apparently being too hot for TV . Lane Bryant, however, argued that networks stopped airing the ad because they're "turned off by big gals." In a recent essay for The Edit , Graham writes of body image: I was told to look up to Marilyn Monroe and J.Lo, because those were the only two curvy women considered beautiful. We need role models for young girls who say, 'Embrace your curves. Who cares that your body isn't perfect?' There's too much anorexia, obesity and suicide in this generation and nobody is addressing the issue. Young girls don't have much to look at, curvy women are not on covers of magazines, they're not talked about on social media as much as other celebrities. Jennifer Lawrence is the media's poster girl for curves [but] she's tiny. | 4 | 7,287 | lifestyle |
CNN Safety Analyst David Soucie discusses TransAsia crash. | 5 | 7,288 | news |
Investors got another wild ride on Wednesday as stocks mostly moved lower as crude oil suffered its worst one-day slump in two months. This was a marked reversal from the nascent rebounds of the past two days as the situation in Europe took a turn for the worse. In the end, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained a fraction, the S&P 500 lost 0.4%, the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.2% and the Russell 2000 lost 0.5%. West Texas Intermediate fell 0.1% to close at $48.45 a barrel, pulling down energy stocks that led the way higher on Tuesday. The Energy Select SPDR (NYSEARCA:XLE) lost 1.7%. Dow component Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS) surged 7.6% on boffo Frozen merchandise sales as apparently everyone younger than 12 really does, in the end, want to build a snowman. 5 Tech Stocks That Are Breaking Down But plastic princesses weren't enough to overcome the headline that hit late in the session. The European Central Bank dropped a bomb heading into the closing bell by announcing it would no longer accept Greece's sovereign bonds as collateral by Greek banks seeking low-cost funding. Instead, Greek banks would need to borrow from their national central bank at a higher cost. As a political move, this signifies a hard line by the European establishment against Athens particularly since it comes hours after Greece's finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, met with ECB chief Mario Draghi as part of the new government's aggressive pan-eurozone tour to secure support for its renegotiation efforts. It will also further destabilize Greek financial markets, which will put pressure on Athens to acquiesce. Technically, this also signifies that the ECB is moving to protect itself from a possible Greek exit and limit the ability of Athens to issue additional short-term debt which will be needed after Feb. 28 without the consent of the European establishment. The justification was that the ECB could no longer "assume the successful conclusion" of Greece's bailout review later this month. The new government has already backtracked on austerity commitments promised by previous leaders. This represents a clear intensification of the situation in Europe and greatly reduces the odds that Greece will secure the debt relief its voters are clamoring for amid ongoing economic stagnation and a 26% unemployment rate. It's a showdown. And an agreement, if one is to happen, isn't going to be found until markets suffer some fear and panic first with the resulting selloff focusing the minds of politicians. And that means that the machinations of the euro will continue to dictate the direction of the U.S. dollar and thus, crude oil. And crude oil's movements have been a dominant factor for U.S. stocks via energy heavyweights like Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM), which surged 11.4% from its low on Friday into Tuesday's highs. In response, I have been recommending clients maintain a defensive posture focusing on asset classes, such as volatility and precious metals, that are poised to do very well in this environment. This includes mining stocks like Yamana Gold Inc. (USA) (NYSE:AUY) which gained 6.1% for Edge subscribers today. And it includes Feb $11 call options on Barrick Gold (ABX) recommended to Edge Pro subscribers on Jan. 13 that are now carrying a gain of nearly 280%. Anthony Mirhaydari is founder of the Edge and Edge Pro investment advisory newsletters. More From InvestorPlace 5 Stocks to Buy for February Gilead Stock Tanks: Opportunity or Omen? Staples Is a Screaming Buy After ODP Deal The post Stocks Rocked as ECB Rejects Greek Debt appeared first on InvestorPlace . | 3 | 7,289 | finance |
Charlie Sifford was banned from being a PGA member because of its Caucasian-only clause when he played the Rubber City Open in 1958 at Firestone. He was paired with an 18-year-old amateur from Ohio playing in a PGA Tour event for the first time. That was Jack Nicklaus, who went on to set the modern standard of greatness in golf with 18 majors. He considers what Sifford achieved to be equally important. Facing racial taunts and death threats, Sifford broke the color barrier in golf by becoming the first black member of the PGA in 1961. He won twice on the PGA Tour and was rewarded for his courage later in life as the first black inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame. In November, he joined Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer as the only golfers to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In a letter supporting Sifford's nomination for the Medal of Freedom, Nicklaus wrote, "His legacy is not about the records he broke, but the barriers he broke." Sifford died Tuesday night at age 92. President Barack Obama expressed his condolences on the death of Sifford, who he said faced "indignity and injustice even as he faced the competition." "Though his best golf was already behind him, he proved that he belonged, winning twice on tour and blazing a trail for future generations of athletes in America," Obama said in a statement. "I was honored to award Charlie the Presidential Medal of Freedom last year for altering the course of the sport and the country he loved. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family, his friends, and his fans." Sifford's influence stretched from Nicklaus and Palmer to Tiger Woods, who often referred to Sifford as his "grandpa." "Terrible loss for golf and me personally. My grandfather is gone and we all lost a brave, decent and honorable man. I'll miss u Charlie," Woods tweeted on Wednesday. Woods often has said if not for Sifford, Teddy Rhodes, Bill Spiller, Lee Elder and other blacks who only wanted a chance to play, he might have not have taken up the game. "But he fought, and what he did, the courage it took for him to stick with it and be out here and play, I probably wouldn't be here," Woods said about Sifford when he finished his pro-am round Wednesday at Torrey Pines. "My dad would never have picked up the game. Who knows if the clause would still exist or not. But he broke it down." Sifford learned the game as caddie in North Carolina, where he earned 60 cents a day. He would give 50 cents to his mother and use the other 10 cents to buy a cigar, which became his trademark later in his career. He won five straight national titles in the all-black United Golf Association before taking on the PGA. There were some events that Sifford could play without being a PGA member, but that didn't make it easy. In the Phoenix Open, he once told of finding human feces in the cup on his first hole. But he fought on with the advice of Jackie Robinson, who broke the color barrier in baseball. Sifford told of meeting Robinson in his book, "Just Let Me Play." Robinson asked if he was a quitter, and Sifford told him that he wasn't. "He said, 'If you're not a quitter, you're probably going to experience some things that will make you want to quit,'" Sifford wrote. Sifford asked Gary Player to present him at his 2004 induction to the World Golf Hall of Fame. Player told Golf Channel on Wednesday that he kept in touch with Sifford in recent months and the message Sifford left him was, "Learn to accept adversity. Keep fighting." "He paved the way," Player said. "Having had similar lives to him, there is one thing that stands out in my mind. Evil will prevail unless good men make a stand. And that applies to Charlie Sifford." PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem went to Washington in November when Sifford received the Medal of Freedom. Sifford was playing the Champions Tour he won the 1975 Senior PGA Championship five years before the 50-and-older circuit was created when Finchem first joined the tour. "It's a real loss because he was a pioneer, he suffered all kinds of difficulty playing as an African-American, and it's just a sad day," Finchem said. "We all ought to take a minute and remember the impact that he had on the game." Nicklaus said it was a day to mourn Sifford's loss and celebrate what he achieved. He said of that Rubber City Open in 1958 that he could not have had a better person at his side than Sifford, who he described as "kind, gracious and a true gentleman." "Charlie helped pave the way for my tour career, but in the much larger picture, he helped pave the way for so many in the game of golf," Nicklaus said. "Charlie led by example, handling himself with great class and dignity inside and outside the ropes. Because of steadfast pioneers like Charlie, the PGA Tour I joined in 1962 was a tour that welcomed all. We can't underestimate the impact Charlie's career has had on the face of golf today." | 1 | 7,290 | sports |
Following reports at the end of last year that Samsung's Austin manufacturing plant was working on the early batches of A9 system-on-chips (SoC) for the presumptively named Apple iPhone 7, it appears that the South Korean manufacturer will be the lead manufacturer for most, if not all, of the SoC components for Tim Cook's next-generation smartphone. One of Samsung's key advantages in the process is its mastery of fabrication at 14nm ( reports Re/Code , citing sources familiar with the matter). This allows more transistors to be packed into a smaller space, all while drawing less power. The attractiveness of those benefits for any smartphone should be clear. Apple has previously worked with Samsung on the internals of various iPhones, but moved away from its arch rival to source a significant percentage of the A8 chips for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus from the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. It is believed that 70% of the A8 chips came from TSMC, with Samsung providing the balance. With the iPhone 7 presumably moving out of hand-built test models and starting down the fabrication stage for a September 2015 release, decisions around the companies to handle the components would be expected around this time. While Apple designs the hardware and chips inside its devices, it does rely on third-party manufacturers to meet the order requirements, which is where Samsung's semi-conductor business comes in. Samsung has two main fabrication plants, in South Korean and in Austin, Texas. Given Apple's push for 'made in America' I would expect much of the A9 fabrication to go to the Lone Star State (or Samsung's partner, Global Foundries, and its facility in Saratoga Springs NY). While it might seem unusual for Apple to be dealing with Samsung while Samsung's Galaxy range is in competition with the iPhone , it's worth nothing that the two divisions in the South Korean company are poles apart in terms of performance. While the smartphone division is haemorraging cash Samsung's semiconductor division is returning an increase in profits by supplying many components as part of the smartphone value chain. An issue that this deal would raise is one of leverage. Previously with two companies able to fabricate the A8 chips, Apple would have been able to bargain from a position of relative strength - the two companies could be played off against each other. If Apple was to jump to 14nm, it would be beholden to a single manufacturer Samsung which could lead to some interesting negotiations in the medium- to long-term. Given Tim Cook's use of the supply chain as a strategic weapon , he will realise that he is handing over one of the economic levers on one of Apple's most profitable portfolios. The gains from going to 14 nm must outweigh the political disadvantage this could create. With the A9 going into production, the irony is that Samsung is turning a profit by using an Apple design (with Apple's blessing, of course). Both Samsung and Apple have refused to comment on the deal. Galaxy Note 4 vs iPhone 6 Plus | 3 | 7,291 | finance |
Joel Klatt on the importance of developing talent once a school has signed a player. | 1 | 7,292 | sports |
Namhansanseong is a unique mountaintop fortress in South Korea, with more than 13-hundred years of history. CNN's Jonathan Mann reports. | 2 | 7,293 | travel |
Johnny Depp and Amber Heard have officially tied the knot, multiple sources are reporting. According to People, the couple married at their Los Angeles home Tuesday. E! News has confirmed this, as well as Us Weekly. According to all three outlets, a bigger ceremony is set to take place on Depp's private island in the Bahamas this weekend. HuffPost has reached out to both actors' reps for comment and will update this story if and when one comes through. Depp, 51, and Heard, 28, met on the set of the 2011 thriller "The Rum Diary." The pair was first romantically linked in 2012, and news of their engagement broke in January 2014, after Heard was spotted wearing an engagement ring. The "Pirates of the Caribbean" star indirectly confirmed the engagement news to the Associated Press in March 2014, saying, "The fact that I'm wearing a chick's ring on my finger is probably a dead giveaway -- not very subtle," lifting up his hand to reveal a diamond band. The wedding marks Heard's first marriage and Depp's second. The actor married makeup artist Lori Allison in 1983 before they separated two years later. Depp has two children with his former girlfriend Vanessa Paradis: Lily-Rose, 15, and Jack, 12. Congratulations to the newlyweds! | 6 | 7,294 | entertainment |
Following a rough start, things are looking up for the Cavaliers. LeBron James wants to keep it that way by any means necessary. James told reporters on Wednesday he's wiling to do whatever it takes the team to keep going in a positive direction, even if it means coming off the bench. MORE: NBA trade deadline | Pro sports leagues 'planning for new gambling reality' | Howard out at least a month "It's all about the team and for me being the leader of the team, it doesn't matter. Whatever this team needs in order for us to win, I'll come off the bench. I'm serious. I'll come off the bench," James said after practice Wednesday. "If it helps our team, that's what it's about, man." The Cavaliers are on an 11-game winning streak, currently the longest in the NBA. "It's about a team and how we all fit together, how the five guys on the court fit together, how the eight guys or 10 guys on the bench all help the guys that are on the floor and so on and so on," James said. "So, sacrifice is the biggest word in team sports, but it's not about saying it. It's about doing it, as well. It's about living it." Though he appreciated James' offer, Cavs coach David Blatt isn't planning on bringing his star player off the bench. But he does appreciate his leadership. "LeBron is a champion and he's not only a great player, but he's a great teammate and he wants his guys, his teammates, to do well and he wants the team to do well," Blatt said. "And that's a big positive; it's a really big positive." | 1 | 7,295 | sports |
Things You Didn't Know About Eggs Things You Didn't Know About Eggs Chicken eggs are one of the most commonly eaten foods on the planet, and also one of the most versatile. They can be fried , poached , hard-boiled , deviled , coddled , shirred , or scrambled , and are incorporated, both cooked and raw, into thousands of recipes. They're the glue that holds much of the food we eat together, from brownies to meatloaf , and on top of all that, they're delicious and nutritious. But we bet that there are some things that you didn't know about the incredible versatile egg . The Most Common Breed of Egg-Laying Chicken is the White Leghorn The breed was first imported to America in 1828 from the Italian port city of Livorno; leghorn is an anglicization of the city's name. (Fans of the old Loony Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons may remember the strutting, stentorian rooster Foghorn J. Leghorn.) Iowa is America's Top Egg-Producing State Nearly 15 billion eggs are produced in Iowa every year , with the egg industry employing about 8,000 workers. Other top egg-producing states include Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania. 219 Million Male Chicks are Killed by the Egg Industry Each Year If only female chickens lay eggs, then what happens to all the male ones? Since leghorns aren't considered viable meat producers (as opposed to broilers, which are raised exclusively for meat production), unfortunately the most obvious answer is the correct one. One Leghorn Produces About 280 Eggs Per Year Leghorns are lightweight and mature quickly, and also don't brood (sit on top of the eggs and behave threateningly toward all who approach), so they're perfectly suited to egg production. Some produce up to 320 eggs per year. Hens start laying eggs at 19 weeks, and as they get older, the eggs grow in size; the largest eggs are called Jumbo (30 ounces per dozen), while the smallest are called pee-wee (15 ounces per dozen). You'll Exceed The Recommended Daily Cholesterol Limit If You Eat Two Eggs per Day Each large egg contains about 186 milligrams of cholesterol, and the USDA recommends that we limit our cholesterol intake to 300 milligrams per day. Fresh Eggs Have Cloudy Whites The whites of fresh eggs are cloudy, those of old eggs are clear. Fresher eggs are also more difficult to peel than older eggs, because the "air cell" surrounding the inside of the shell increases in size over time. While eggs can still be used within three weeks of the "sell-by" date on the carton, we suggest you use fresher eggs for poached and fried eggs and older eggs for scrambled eggs and omelettes, because the older an egg is, the more it "spreads out." Only 1.8 Percent of Eggs are Laid in Organic Conditions We all want to eat more organic foods, presumably, but in fact a very small percentage of eggs are produced in accordance with the USDA National Organic Program standards , and these eggs cost about twice as much as standard eggs. In order to be certified organic, the hens can't be treated with any hormones or antibiotics, and their feed can't contain any genetically modified ingredients or any ingredients treated with pesticides or herbicides, and can't be grown with fertilizers that contain chemical or synthetic additives. They're Loaded with Vitamins and Minerals While they may be high in cholesterol, eggs are a lot more than just that and protein. They also contain antioxidants that help with eye health (lutein and zeaxanthin), vitamins A, B12, D, riboflavin, folate, and phosphorous, and an essential nutrient called choline, which helps with brain function. That White String is Called the Chalaza You know how when you crack an egg, there's the white (called the albumen), the yolk, and that strange white string? It's actually called the chalaza, and its job is to hold the yolk in place in the center of the white. It's completely edible, but is sometimes removed in baking for aesthetic reasons. The Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road? It's the oldest joke in the book, but did you know where it first appeared? In the March 1847 edition of The Knickerbocker, a New York-based monthly magazine: "...There are 'quips and quillets' which seem actual conundrums, but yet are none. Of such is this: 'Why does a chicken cross the street?['] Are you 'out of town?' Do you 'give it up?' Well, then: 'Because it wants to get on the other side!'" How droll! | 7 | 7,296 | health |
@greens_in_reg wants to know if Nate Robinson could help a team make the playoffs. | 1 | 7,297 | sports |
By David Fox For better or worse, Oklahoma will not be a victim of what we're going to call the "Oklahoma Effect." This is the trend in which a lopsided bowl win leads to a team facing unattainable expectations the following year. Why the "Oklahoma Effect"? The Sooners finished 2013 with a 45-31 win over then-No. 3 Alabama in the Sugar Bowl behind the play of quarterback Trevor Knight. OU's win over the powerhouse Crimson Tide led to almost everyone putting the Sooners into their playoff projection for 2014. As it turns out, that bowl win was fool's gold. Oklahoma finished 8-5 and was out of the mix by early October. The 2014 calendar year began with such optimism for Bob Stoops and ended with the worst season of his career in Norman. And we're not just picking on Oklahoma. This could have been the West Virginia Effect only two seasons ago. And another team before that. Bowl results are weird. Maybe one of these days we'll learn our lesson and view a bowl result with more even-handed judgment. This is our attempt to temper expectations for teams that might start 2015 in the overrated category because of one bowl result. Clemson The result: Defeated Oklahoma 40-6 in the Russell Athletic Bowl. Why we might overrate Clemson: The Tigers were one of the great stories of bowl season as senior quarterback Cole Stoudt, a longtime backup who eventually lost his starting job to a freshman, completed 26-of-36 passes for 319 yards and three touchdowns. Stoudt is gone, but the quarterback of the future is here in Deshaun Watson. The Tigers, though, enter 2015 missing a few key pieces. Offensive coordinator Chad Morris is off to SMU, and six of the top eight leading tacklers, not least of which linemen Vic Beasley and Grady Jarrett, were seniors. The string of four consecutive 10-win seasons may be in jeopardy. Georgia The result: Defeated Louisville 37-14 in the Belk Bowl. Why we might overrate Georgia: Rising sophomore Nick Chubb will be on the Heisman short list to start next season after a 266-yard effort against the Cardinals' steady defense. Beyond Chubb, though, Georgia is starting over on offense with Brice Ramsey, Faton Bauta and Jacob Park entering a quarterback competition under a new offensive coordinator. The defense made major strides last season under coordinator Jeremy Pruitt, but four key seniors depart the front seven. The SEC West crossover schedule against Alabama and Auburn won't be very forgiving. Georgia Tech The result: Defeated Mississippi State 49-34 in the Orange Bowl. Why we might overrate Georgia Tech: Give the Yellow Jackets credit. They finished strong with wins over Clemson, Georgia and Mississippi State. A two-point loss to Florida State was the Jackets' only loss in the final seven games. Hopes will be high for returning quarterback Justin Thomas and a defense with only four senior starters at the end of the year. A major question will be the departure of standout offensive guard Shaq Mason and the top four running backs. Missouri The result: Defeated Minnesota 33-17 in the Citrus Bowl. Why we might overrate Missouri: Call this one a market correction. After two seasons of underestimating Missouri only to watch the Tigers win the SEC East, Mizzou is sure to get the benefit of the doubt in 2015. Missouri might burn that leap of faith. The Tigers' pass rush is going to take a hit without end Markus Golden and tackle Matt Hoch, who played alongside both Golden and Michael Sam. Quarterback Maty Mauk never really developed last season, including a 12-of-19 performance for 97 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions in the bowl. His top four receivers in 2014 were all seniors, leaving Nate Brown's five catches as the most among returning wide receivers. Tennessee The result: Defeated Iowa 45-28 in the TaxSlayer Bowl. Why we might overrate Tennessee: To be clear, Tennessee is on an upward trajectory. The Volunteers won four of their last five, the only loss by eight to Missouri, and they're a player again in SEC recruiting. It may be tempting, then, to look at Tennessee as a top 25 team or SEC East contender. The backfield of Josh Dobbs and Jalen Hurd will be the headline names for Tennessee, but let's pump the brakes on Tennessee until the 2014 and 2015 signing classes rebuild the offensive and defensive lines. | 1 | 7,298 | sports |
DALLAS - Ohio State pulled away from Oregon in the fourth quarter of the first national championship game of the College Football Playoff, leaving little doubt that the best team won. Now that the 2014 season is over and we're back to projecting and judging on "paper season," the 2015 Buckeyes look like they might be the best team again. And with the trophy back in Columbus, it's fair to think Ohio State will be good enough to win another one. Eleven of Ohio State's 22 listed national-title game starters were freshmen or sophomores. Next month, Urban Meyer will sign his fourth top-10 recruiting class in as many years. Four starting offensive linemen return, the secondary loses only its top cornerback and whoever ends up being the starting quarterback will have a championship resume -- and won't be the only Heisman Trophy candidate in the Ohio State backfield. One day before the NFL Draft's early-entry deadline, no Buckeyes have declared. Meyer's team is loaded. "Well, I think we'll be very good," Meyer said of 2015. "I think we have to watch for complacency in the program, and we're going to watch that very closely. We have a little bit of transition of coaching staff. This is a very complicated machine, college football, when you start thinking about all the different hurdles that are along the journey." Every program has moving parts. Only a few are even in Ohio State's galaxy in terms of talent right now. Three quarterbacks have experience and eligibility, though Braxton Miller and Cardale Jones have outside options. J.T. Barrett could be recovered from his leg injury in time for spring practice. Whoever's taking the snaps will have Sugar Bowl and national championship game MVP Ezekiel Elliott to run the ball and try to run his streak of consecutive 200-yard rushing games to four. Three of the four offensive linemen who were new starters a year ago will be returning starters. Even with losses at tight end and wide receiver, the Buckeyes will return talent and experience. The defensive line will return consensus All-American Joey Bosa, five of the listed front seven and seven listed starters in all. "We've just got to stay a hungry team," Elliott said. "We're losing some great seniors, but we have a lot of great young players that will step up. This year was just a great year to learn a lot of things, and I think we'll be the same team next year, as long as we stay humble, we grind hard in the off-season, don't let our heads get too big, I think we'll be here next year." Said Bosa: "We know we can get back. We have a bunch of talent, and we'll put in the work." Speaking 10 hours or so after the Buckeyes celebrated their championship on the AT&T Stadium field, Meyer said he wanted to celebrate and sleep -- not necessarily in that order -- before talking about the quarterback situation or the possibility of a repeat in Arizona next January. "I've got a bunch of really good players," Meyer said. "I love our coaching staff. The word repeat, we'll have that conversation (but) certainly not today. It's about enjoying it. Elite warriors, which I consider these guys, when they accomplish their mission, they celebrate. The next thing they do is learn from it, and then the final thing is they look forward to the next mission, next assignment. "Right now we're in the celebration phase. Eventually we're going to get to the learn from it phase, and then the next guys like this wait for the next mission. So that's the pattern we're going to have, and repeat, and those kinds of things, that's certainly not in the conversation right now." Meyer warned that the "human element...is very dangerous" in terms of overconfidence, complacency and outside influence. He likes the makeup of his team but knows success can bring its own set of new problems. The celebration phase has begun. Though the future can wait, it appears to be very bright. "I think the biggest thing with Coach Meyer, he just demands excellence out of everybody," Elliott said. When the time comes, he'll demand that the Buckeyes get back to work. | 1 | 7,299 | sports |
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