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NBC announced Donald Trump will be the first 2016 presidential candidate to host the show this season. | 8 | 94,300 | video |
Tonka is aiming to get your attention with its three life-sized Tonka trucks, the latest among them a 2015 4Runner turned into a Tonka Overlander. | 9 | 94,301 | autos |
Steak ! We love to go out for it, but cooking it at home is another tale. What temperature is medium-rare again? Gah, what does it take to achieve the perfect sear? If you're guilty of searching the web every time you're suddenly inspired to retry cooking a filet , this recipe is for you. It comes from Cook's Illustrated . Instead of pan searing the steak first, then finishing it in the oven, the CI team recommends the opposite. Slow roast the steak in the oven at a low temperature, then sear it over the stovetop for the last few minutes. The results are killer. Go forth and impress yourself and then everyone else who gets to eat one of your juicy, perfectly cooked steaks. From Cook's Illustrated Pan Seared Thick-Cut Strip Steaks Notes Rib-Eye Steaks: Buy two thick steaks, and cut each in half. Filet Mignon: Cut 2-pound roast into four steaks and press each piece to flatten. Strip Steaks: Buy two thick steaks and cut each in half. Rib-eye or filet mignon of similar thickness can be substituted for strip steaks. If using filet mignon, buying a 2-pound center-cut tenderloin roast and portioning it into four 8-ounce steaks yourself will produce more consistent results. If using filet mignon, increase the oven time by about 5 minutes. When cooking lean strip steaks (without an external fat cap) or filet mignon, add an extra tablespoon of oil to the pan. If desired, serve with a pan sauce, relish, or butter. Ingredients 2 boneless strip steaks, 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 inches thick, about 1 pound each (see note above) Kosher salt and ground black pepper 1 tablespoon vegetable oil Directions Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 275°F. Pat steaks dry with paper towel. Cut each steak in half vertically to create four 8-ounce steaks. Season entire surface of steaks liberally with salt; gently press sides of steaks until uniform 1 1/2 inches thick. Place steaks on wire rack set in rimmed baking sheet; transfer baking sheet to oven. Cook until instant-read thermometer inserted in center of steak registers 90 to 95°F for rare to medium rare, 20 to 25 minutes, or 100 to 105 °F for medium, 25 to 30 minutes. Heat oil in 12-inch heavy-bottomed skillet over high heat until smoking. Place steaks in skillet and sear steaks until well-browned and crusty, about 1 1/2 to 2 minutes, lifting once halfway through to redistribute fat underneath each steak. (Reduce heat if fond begins to burn.) Using tongs, turn steaks and cook until well browned on second side, 2 to 2 1/2 minutes. Transfer all steaks to wire cooling rack and reduce heat under pan to medium. Use tongs to stand 2 steaks on their sides. Holding steaks together, return to skillet and sear on all sides until browned, about 1 1/2 minutes. Repeat with remaining 2 steaks. Transfer steaks to wire cooling rack and let rest, loosely tented with foil, for 10 minutes while preparing pan sauce . Arrange steaks on individual plates, spoon sauce over steaks, and pepper to your liking; serve immediately. More stories from Cook's Illustrated: Pan Seared Flank Steak With Sriracha-Lime Butter Making Cheap Steak Tender (With Your Knife) Equipment Review: Steak Knives Information Category Main Dishes, Beef Cuisine North American Yield 4 steaks | 0 | 94,302 | foodanddrink |
Bret Bielema is a character and everybody can agree on that. But his recent transgressions may have crossed the line, many believe. This past weekend against Alabama, Bielema pulled a sketchy move after Razorbacks defensive end Hjalte Froholdt and Crimson Tide offensive lineman Cam Robinson dragged each other out of bounds near Arkansas' sideline. While Robinson was being separated from the sideline by referee, Bielema stepped in and appeared to flop as if Robinson pushed him . It drew a flag and led to Bielema celebrating with a little dance. If it was what it appeared to be, it's quite the dirty move, and SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey had to make a statement on the incident . Amid the backlash, Bielema had an interesting quote for his critics, passed along by Sports Talk's Bo Mattingly . Bielema on the criticism: "Bring it on, baby. It just is what it is when you're 2-4. It's a world full of hate." Bo Mattingly (@SportsTalkwBo) October 13, 2015 This probably won't be the last time we hear from Bielema. | 1 | 94,303 | sports |
First impressions are the most lasting. Ensure that your home makes a memorable one by designing an entryway that features dazzling decor, functional furnishings, bold lighting fixtures, and smart storage solutions. Get inspired with 14 entryway ideas from homeowners like you. Mat Finish This woodland-inspired entryway invites nature inside while leaving bad weather at the door . Assorted jute, sisal, or cloth mats help dry off and air out sopping shoes and boots, while wicker baskets stash gloves and scarves. High Art Creativity and pragmatism aren't mutually exclusive especially in this unconventional and space-saving wall art gallery . Hang hats or other personal collections on the wall with pegs, hooks, or even thumbtacks for an artful storage solution. Guiding Light Don't let a bleak foyer make your doorstep seem dark and uninviting. Lighten up with a minimalist DIY hanging pendant. (Check out this tutorial to learn how to make your own.) Precut wood molding helps expedite the project, while a simple electrical wiring technique ensures that your entryway will radiate warmth and charm (and light). Sole Purpose Gain twice the efficiency by constructing a double-duty bench that offers both shoe storage and a comfortable woven jute-and-cotton perch in a compact footprint. The roomy shoe rack, which consists of a layer of furring strips mounted under the bench, can tame any entryway's unruly footwear . See the tutorial for more info. Clutter Cure Transform an underutilized entryway into a vibrant, multipurpose household hub with the addition of space-smart accents. Here, a bench with cubbies and woven baskets, an umbrella stand, and a ladder that's been repurposed as a shelving unit lend an air of well-ordered whimsy. Extended Family Get your family's reminders and organizational habits on effortless autopilot with a can't-miss check-in station like the one described in this tutorial . Cubbies for everyday essentials and personalized, painted bulletin boards will corral everyone's stuff in one convenient location and help keep track of plans and activities. Reflection Perfection Your guests will see themselves in the comfort of your happy home, reflected in a leather-bound mirror placed strategically at your entry. Accentuate the mirror of your choice with a space-efficient demilune console table for an all-around incredible design. Tight-Quarters Titan If your foyer lacks storage space and you're nervous at the prospect of erecting teetering, sky-high cabinets build your own credenza from an IKEA cabinet that's been wrapped in plywood and mounted low on the wall. Although this clever solution is expansive enough to display cherished mementos and store plenty of essentials, its slim profile and floating installation keep it visually light in a long, narrow space. Dresser for Success Keep your foyer clutter-free with a hardworking dresser that can conceal mail, keys, and personal effects discreetly behind closed drawers. Place the dresser to the side of your entry to facilitate easy access without blocking foot traffic. Knock on Wood Warm up a cold entryway with the homey ambience of wood by erecting a plank wall of budget-friendly plywood as shown in this tutorial . With wood stained in a variety of shades, a row of practical hooks, and a bold hanging clock , this entry lets your guests really know they've arrived. Keep It Simple For a truly elegant and understated storage solution, install a shelf made of pallet wood and supported by austere brackets as seen in this tutorial . The narrow shelf accommodates decorative accessories and must-have items, and leaves ample floor space for umbrellas and boots, without impeding the flow of traffic. On the Hook You'll be able to take your guests' coats, hats, and bags without delay if you have a generously sized coat rack right next to your front door. This rustic storage solution is made from scrap wood and outfitted with plenty of bargain-buy wall hooks . Hang a favorite plaque above the rack to offer all who enter a warm welcome. Metal Mettle Don't wait for the other shoe to drop before you install an inventive, wall-mounted shoe rack. With the help of this tutorial , you can construct a sleek, functional rack of your own using copper pipe and floor flanges. As an added benefit, it's extremely easy to clean between and underneath this metallic marvel. It's a Date Unlike traditional calendars, a conspicuous, customized chalkboard calendar like this one is a real attention-grabber. Hang the calendar at eye level to ensure that you'll be ready for whatever's coming your way. | 4 | 94,304 | lifestyle |
Where my girls at? The friend you call when you need haircut feedback is totally different from the one you call when you need a decent cry. Here, the 19 types of friends we firmly think every woman should have in her arsenal. (Bonus points if some of your pals fall into multiple categories.) Element 1 1. The one who supports your every decision. 2. The one who tells it like it is. (Bangs = bad decision.) 3. The one you've known for 20 years. 4. The one you've known for 20 minutes. (Thank God you don't have to finish out that insufferable work conference alone.) Element 2 5. The one who somehow always gets you in a little trouble. 6. The one who somehow always gets your issues with your sister. 7. The one whose couch is permanently available for takeout dumplings and Real Housewives. Element 3 8. The one who's just a little bit smarter than you. 9. The one who's just a little bit cooler than you. 10. The one who you kind of have a crush on. 11. The one who who makes you laugh so hard you snarf Diet Coke. Element 4 12. The one whose background so exactly mirrors your own that she also remembers some esoteric candy sold only in Maryland between the years of 1985 and 1991. 13. The one with such a wildly different background that she teaches you something new every time you see her. 14. The one who's a total flake but really fun when she finally does show up--two hours late. 15. The one who's so reliable, you list her as your emergency contact. 16. The one who can keep a secret--even when that secret is that you once made out with the surly Starbucks barista. 17. The one who's a straight man. 18. The one who's a gay man. 19. The one who can always be counted on to throw a Halloween party (and take the reins on organizing a Golden Girls group costume). | 4 | 94,305 | lifestyle |
The most famous game in Royals history did not win a playoff series. The human memory is a tricky thing. The moments that stick out often leave out critical details. They can be something like the star of the show, but would be meaningless or even nonexistent without supporting actors and a crew to make it all worth remembering. You know why this is being brought up today. The Royals just kept their season alive with a stunning comeback in Houston. If they have the storybook ending, the eighth inning of Game 4 against the Astros will live forever. But if not? Washed away by history. This happens over and over and over again in sports. We have examples here locally, across the country, and throughout history. There is a story about Mike Moustakas you should hear. But since we are here in Kansas City, we will start with that unforgettable Saturday night in 1985. Game 6 of the World Series. The Denkinger Game did not win the series and, actually, even that call did not win the game for the Royals. Not by a long shot. Denkinger blew the call, but the Cardinals still had to blow the game. Jack Clark had to drop the pop-up. Darrell Porter had to give up the passed ball. Todd Worrell had to give up the hits. All of that, and the Cardinals still had to lose Game 7 the next night. The best individual performance in Royals history did not win a playoff series. This was Game 3 of the American League Championship Series in 1985. We have come to call this The George Brett Game. In Toronto, they often add an expletive between the George and the Brett. This was the night Brett yelled to his teammates, "Climb on my back." He is a first-ballot Hall of Famer, one of the best 30 or so players of all-time, and he was never better than that October night in Kansas City. Brett homered in the first, saved at least one run with perhaps the best defensive play of his life in the third, doubled off the wall and basically bullied his way around the bases in the fourth, homered again in the sixth, then singled and scored the winning run in the eighth. All of this after essentially calling his shot before the game. All of that, and, well, it did not win anything more than one game of a league championship series. The Royals still had to win three of the next four just to advance to the World Series. These are not outliers cherry picked from history to make a point. This is the rule. Andy and Vahe preview ALDS Game 5 The Star's Andy McCullough and Vahe Gregorian discuss the deciding game of the Royals-Astros AL Division Series, which will be at 7 Wednesday night at Kauffman Stadium (TV: FS1). Johnny Cueto starts for the Royals and has been inconsistent and the Astros have to bounce back from a deflating loss in Game 4. David Tyree's helmet catch did not beat the previously undefeated Patriots in the Super Bowl. Eli Manning was sacked on the next play. The Giants still had to go 25 yards, the winning touchdown coming four plays later when Manning lofted the ball to Plaxico Burress in single coverage near the corner of the end zone. The Flu Game did not win the 1997 NBA Finals. Michael Jordan was amazing that night in Game 5 - 38 points with seven rebounds and five assists and three steals and a walk back to the huddle leaning on Scottie Pippen like a man lost in the desert. But the Bulls did not with the championship with the Flu Game. They did that a few nights later, in Game 6. The Bill Buckner Game did not decide the 1986 World Series. The Mets scored the winning run when the ball went through Buckner's legs, but that was Game 6. Two nights later, the Red Sox had a 3-0 lead going into the sixth. They bullpen imploded, and the Mets celebrated. The Steve Bartman Game did not decide the 2003 National League Championship Series. Even if we concede that Moises Alou would've caught that ball if Steve Bartman hadn't leaned over the railing, the Cubs still led 3-0 with one out in the eighth inning at that point. They still had to meltdown, and even after that, they still had to blow another lead the next night in Game 7. We could play this game all day. The Royals have some of this in their recent history, too. Last year's Wild Card Game will live forever here. It is often said that Kansas City sports changed that night, that a town learned to love baseball again through an epic comeback in a winner-take-all playoff game. There is some truth in there, for sure, but how different would it be remembered if the Royals were swept by the Angels in the ALDS, instead of sweeping the Angels and then the Orioles? Still would've been an unforgettable night, and still would've given Kansas City an actual playoff series for the first time in 29 years. But the run to the World Series allows a town to fully embrace that moment. The Astros, actually, have been on the other side of this little phenomenon. Maybe you remember Albert Pujols' home run off Brad Lidge in the 2005 NLCS. The ball shot off of Pujols' bat and traveled what felt like a thousand feet. Cameras caught Andy Pettitte, Lidge's teammate, mouthing oh my god at the sight. In the moment, it sure seemed as if Pujols had pushed the series into the Cardinals' control. Lidge would go from saving 42 games in 2005 to a 5.28 ERA the next year. Questions about that home run would follow him the rest of his career, even as he remade himself as a perfect closer - 48 for 48, including the playoffs - with the World Series champion 2008 Phillies. But the Astros came back from that Pujols home run to win the series two days later in St. Louis. Depending on the moment, we might remember Pujols' home run for its majesty. But without winning the series, it is demoted from A Moment to a footnote. That is the Royals' challenge now. This is a completely different team than a year ago, when winning that Wild Card Game meant success. They are too good to be satisfied now. "Our ultimate goal is to win the World Series," Royals manager Ned Yost said. "Anything short of that is going to be a goal unaccomplished. It means a lot." To Yost's point, here is the Moustakas story. In the wake of that incredible comeback in Houston on Monday, the Royals' clubhouse was an intense mix of joy and relief. Nearly everyone in that room used the word "crazy" to describe what happened, and most of them used it more than once. Jarrod Dyson suggested asking the Lord how that happened, because, "I don't know, man." Moustakas stopped to talk to some reporters. He was the one leading the dugout cheers after the seventh inning, the loudest voice among many loud voices. This has always been Moustakas' move. This part of his personality - a desire to lead, a willingness to immerse in the bigger cause - was one of the first things mentioned after the Royals made him the No. 2 pick in 2007. Moustakas did not use the word "crazy." Instead, he talked about showing up to the ballpark the next day to take batting practice and ground balls. Someone asked if he would watch Monday's game again, or even just the eighth inning. Moustakas shook his head. "No," he said, "because we have to go win another game." [ Johnny Cueto will start Wednesday night, but Royals could use quick hook in Game 5 of ALDS ] Royals wear KCFD hats, shirts in tribute to fallen firefighters During their workout Tuesday at Kauffman Stadium, Royals players including Mike Moustakas and Eric Hosmer, the son of a firefighter, wore KCFD hats and shirts as a tribute to Larry J. Leggio and John V. Mesh, who were killed when the wall of a burning structure collapsed Monday night in Kansas City. Sam Mellinger: 816-234-4365, @mellinger | 1 | 94,306 | sports |
Presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Jim Webb discuss their views on the American military. | 8 | 94,307 | video |
Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders answers a question about the Black Lives Matter movement at the CNN Democratic debate. | 8 | 94,308 | video |
Our fast-paced lives and increasingly hyper-connected world may be fun and exciting, but it can also be exhausting. When we think of a real vacation, we picture escaping the bustling cities and swapping car alarms for crickets. While backpacking up a mountain could do the trick, we're more inclined to pick a hotel that offers the same secluded setting, but with all the amenities of a resort. So if you're looking for a peaceful getaway, we've found 12 amazing hotels that are super remote. They may take a little bit of work to get to, but their serene and relaxing environments make them well worth the journey. 1. Point Grace, Turks and Caicos Point Grace is a luxury boutique enjoying a beautiful remote location on Grace Bay beach in Turks and Caicos. It has 28 one- to four-bedroom suites decorated in a British Colonial style; picture vaulted ceilings, mahogany wood floors, and elegant clawfoot bathtubs. Luxe amenities include an ocean-side spa, a quiet pool, and lush garden grounds filled with bougainvillea and hibiscus. There are two on-site restaurants, but suites have full kitchens if you really want to stay holed up. 2. Geejam, Jamaica Geejam touts itself as a "private hotel" and with only five modern cottages, it definitely delivers. The resort is tucked in the lush foothills of Port Antonio, about a two-hour drive from Kingston International Airport. There are no communal spaces, not even a lobby, except for the Bushbar restaurant. The on-site beach is small but lovely, in-room spa treatments can be arranged, and there's even a recording studio. Rooms vary; one has a swimming pool, one has an outdoor whirlpool, and two have their own steam rooms. The vibe is relaxed and quiet, making it ideal for isolation-seeking couples. 3. andBeyond Xaranna Okavango Delta Camp, Botswana If you're looking to be seriously remote, check out andBeyond Xaranna Okavango Delta Camp. The luxurious safari lodge is on an island in Botswana's Okavango Delta, requiring transport by small plane, safari vehicle, and a boat. Both hotel amenities and safari experiences are included: excellent food; guided excursions (game drives, bush walks, river cruises); and tented suites. The nine "tents" are fully screened in and complete with high-end features like huge soaking tubs, four-poster beds, and private pools. 4. Punta Caracol Acqua Lodge, Panama The Punta Caracol Acqua Lodge consists of nine two-story cabanas built on stilts above the crystal waters of the Caribbean Sea. The suites are charmingly rustic rather than chic -- there is very limited electricity -- and each has a large deck with lounge chairs and a ladder for easy access into the water. Breakfast and a three-course dinner are included in the rate. A 30-minute boat ride from Almirante, the lodge is a truly remote, peaceful retreat for travelers wanting to relax on their deck with a book or take out the free kayaks and snorkel gear. 5. St. Francis Resort, Bahamas Just a little over an hour-long flight from Miami International Airport, the St. Francis Resort is located on Stocking Island, a ten-minute boat ride from Exuma. The property has just eight rooms in a remote spot surrounded by lush vegetation and two pretty beaches. The rooms are spacious with private balconies and stunning ocean views, but the patterned comforters are a bit dated. If you're craving interaction, the on-site restaurant is usually bustling with guests and boaters. Free in-room breakfast, kayak and hobicat rentals, and Wi-Fi are added perks. 6. La Bandita, Tuscany La Bandita is an upscale countryside inn with eight rooms and gorgeous views of the Tuscan landscape. It's in an old country house that was refurbished in 2007 to a more modern, minimalist look. Although it normally functions as a B&B, the entire property can be rented out. The property is isolated, and guests must drive down a bumpy dirt road lined with Cyprus trees for about 20 minutes to reach it. There's a pretty pool, steam room, and a full-time gourmet chef who prepares fresh, delicious meals. 7. Pigeon Cay Beach Club, Bahamas The intimate, budget-friendly Pigeon Cay Beach Club is located on beautiful and secluded Cat Island in the central Bahamas. With only seven beachfront cottages, the atmosphere is friendly and laid-back but also private. The simple, rustic cottages have dated decor and no TVs or Internet, but they include fully equipped kitchens and furnished outdoor spaces. The beach is the best part of Pigeon Cay -- it's quiet, secluded, and gorgeous with turquoise blue water and powdery white sand. This isn't an updated or lavish property, but the very affordable rates make Pigeon Cay a good choice for those looking to get lost in Cat Island's natural beauty. 8. Santhiya Koh Phangan Resort & Spa, Thailand The gorgeous Santhiya Koh Phangan Resort & Spa sits just north of Koh Phangan's northeastern Thong Nai Pan Noi Beach and is one of the island's top luxury options. But to get to it, guests must either take a 40-minute speedboat ride from Koh Samui or drive 45 minutes from Koh Phangan pier. Its quiet hillside location (complete with sweeping ocean views) and the beautiful, intricate wood carvings that characterize its design are stand-out features. The beach here is lovely but small, though a better beach can be accessed on foot within five minutes. Some rooms have swim-up access, and some villas have private pools. The included breakfast buffet spread is impressive, and the main restaurant has great ocean views and hosts theme nights with live music. 9. Petite Anse Hotel Grenada The Petite Anse Hotel Grenada is a charming, upper-middle-range hotel with a remote location on the island. From the airport, it takes about an hour and a half, along a long, narrow, very windy road tracing up the west coast of the island, to reach. Its 13 rooms are situated in natural gardens on a hill overlooking the sea, with views of the Grenadine islands. It's not a luxury property, but it has a small pool, pretty beach, and a cozy restaurant and bar. Petite Anse feels like a well-kept secret, and it's a perfect respite for those looking for an escape from the pre-packaged, generic beach holiday. 10. Raven Hall Hotel, Yorkshire The 52-room upper-mid-range Raven Hall Hotel is situated on a coastal cliff that offers sweeping views of the surrounding moors and Robin Hood's Bay. Though the remote location is a 30-minute drive to the nearest towns, the hotel is in the middle of the beautiful North York Moors National Park, with a main hiking trail running through its 100-acre grounds. Rooms have a contemporary Scandinavian design, and for guests seeking something more spacious and private, eight environmentally-friendly Finnish lodges are available with kitchenettes and lovely porches. There are a plethora of amenities, including an on-site restaurant that serves locally-sourced seasonal foods in an elegant space with panoramic views over the countryside and bay, as well as a nine-hole golf course built into the cliffside and a lovely indoor pool with sauna. 11. Cabbage Key Inn, Cabbage Key Island, FL The Cabbage Key Inn is a mid-range property offering six quaint rooms and eight cottages on a beautiful, secluded island that is reachable only by boat. The 100-acre island is filled with nature trails and lush flora and fauna, plus an on-site marina. Rooms feature original wood floors and private antique-style bathrooms, and some have fireplaces (though no TVs). Cottages feature fully equipped modern kitchens, separate living rooms, and multiple bedrooms, as well as exceptional water views; some have private docks and screened-in porches. Cabbage Key Inn Restaurant and Bar serves tasty American classics and is popular with guests as well as locals and boaters. 12. Virgin Islands Campground, Water Island The Virgin Island Campgrounds is located a quick eight-minute ferry ride away from St. Thomas. The campground is natural and lush, in keeping with the environment and vibe of this small island. The property provides an elevated camping experience, or "glamping," as the staff calls it. There are six tented, screened cottages with queen-size beds as well as an indoor suite with a private living room, kitchen, and bedroom with a king bed. There are shared toilets, showers, and cooking facilities for the cottages. It's not for everybody (it is a campground, after all), but the property, and Water Island, is a special place for those who enjoy laid-back, quiet nature. ------------------------------------------ In case you missed it: >> The 19-hour S'pore-NY flight is coming back >> 40 celebrity mothers who gave birth after 40 >> 18 gorgeous transgender models >> Asian Dinners That a Busy Beginner Cook Can Master ------------------------------------------ | 2 | 94,309 | travel |
Check out the top plays from the ice on Tuesday, including Connor McDavid's first career goal and Jason Spezza's hat trick. | 1 | 94,310 | sports |
DOUBLE amputee Tatsiana Khvitsko has defied all odds to become a competitive runner and crossfitter on prosthetic blades. The 24-year-old was born in Belarus and has no legs and just three fingers on her left hand and one on her right as a result of Chernobyl radiation. After her parents sent her to an orphanage Tatsiana looked set to be rough, but doctors from America brought her to Kansas and gave her a new lease of life. No she runs half marathons and has made a name for herself in the crossfit scene after taking up weightlifting last year. Videographer / Director: Shaun Cloud Producer: Rebecca Lewis, Chloe Browne Editor: Sonia Estal | 7 | 94,311 | health |
JERUSALEM (AP) The Israeli military began deploying hundreds of troops in cities across the country on Wednesday to assist police forces in countering a wave of deadly Palestinian shooting and stabbing attacks that have created panic across the country. The military's planned deployment of six companies marks the first implementation of measures by Israel's security Cabinet to counter the attacks that have intensified dramatically in recent days. The Cabinet met late into the night and announced steps early Wednesday that included allowing police to seal off points of friction or incitement. Many of the recent attackers have come from Arab areas of Jerusalem, prompting calls to seal off those neighborhoods to contain potential attackers. In a new step, Israeli forces placed makeshift checkpoints in Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem to monitor traffic leaving the areas. The Cabinet, which was meeting again Wednesday, also decided to strip residency rights and demolish homes of some attackers and draft hundreds more security guards to secure public transport. Israeli police said 300 soldiers had already been incorporated into their deployment in Israeli cities, while security in Jerusalem had previously been reinforced. In new violence Wednesday, Israeli police said an Arab attacker stabbed a 70-year-old woman, moderately wounding her, as she attempted to board to bus near Jerusalem's crowded central bus station. The attacker was shot and killed by forces in the area, police said. Earlier, police said they shot and killed an Arab man after he pulled out a knife and attempted to stab them. His identity was not immediately known. In recent weeks, eight Israelis have died in a string of stabbings, shootings and the stoning of a car, while 31 Palestinians have been killed 14 of them identified by Israel as attackers, the rest killed in stone-throwing clashes with Israeli forces. Israel's internal security minister said Wednesday that the bodies of dead Palestinian attackers would not be returned to their families for burial. Gilad Erdan said the funeral processions of Palestinians who killed Israelis often turn into "an exhibition of support for terror and incitement to murder." He said Israel should not allow them to "enjoy respect and ceremonies" after their deaths. The funerals are a frequent flashpoint for clashes and often include calls for revenge. Erdan suggested the attackers be buried without fanfare in distant cemeteries where previous Palestinian killers have been buried. The comments come after a particularly bloody day Tuesday in which a pair of Palestinian stabbing and shooting attacks in Jerusalem killed three Israelis and another two attacks took place in the normally quiet Israeli city of Raanana. Three Palestinians, including two attackers, were also killed. The government has been unable to stop the violence, carried out mostly by young Palestinians unaffiliated with known militant groups and apparently acting on their own. The violence erupted a month ago over the Jewish New Year, fueled by rumors that Israel was plotting to take over Jerusalem's most sensitive holy site, sacred to both Muslims and Jews. Israel has adamantly denied the allegations. Israel says the violence has been fueled by what it says is rampant incitement against Jews and Israelis on social media spread by Islamic groups and the Palestinian leadership. In a briefing to foreign journalists Wednesday, Israeli Cabinet minister Yuval Steinitz said it had less to do with political differences and more with anti-Semitic incitement to create a religious war. He showed Palestinian videos and animations that glorified the stabbings of Jews in the Old City of Jerusalem and the killing of a Jewish settler couple in the West Bank in front of their children. He also quoted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' recent statement where he blessed "every drop of blood spilled for Allah" and that Jews desecrated a Jerusalem holy site with their "filthy feet." "This is not new. It is just a new wave of terrorism and violence and this time it's totally clear that the main approach here is a religious approach," Steinitz said. "It's all about horrible, anti-Jewish, racist incitement." Palestinians say the violence, coming at a time when prospects for gaining independence appear nil, is the result of years of occupation and failed peace efforts. "Israel is an occupier in Jerusalem. It should end its occupation. This is the key to peace and stability," said Saeb Erekat, a top Palestinian official. "Decisions such as the ones adopted by the Israeli Cabinet pour gasoline on the fire," he added. "Measures of collective punishment and killings and arrests and demolishing houses and confiscation of lands will only lead to the escalation of the situation." The Palestinian envoy to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, said Israel was acting in a "savage" way, pointing to the mounting Palestinian death toll. In a brief speech Wednesday, Abbas called for a peaceful "national struggle." He also threatened to submit a case to the International Criminal Court against what he called Israel's "extrajudicial killings" of Palestinians. The clashes erupted last month when young Palestinians barricaded themselves inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City, hurling stones and firebombs at police. The violence quickly spread across Israel and into the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Clashes continued Wednesday between Israeli troops and Palestinian protesters in the West Bank city of Bethlehem. The Obama administration issued a strong condemnation of Palestinian incitement and assaults against Israelis. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he planned to visit the region soon to try and encourage calm. ___ Associated Press writer Edith Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report. | 5 | 94,312 | news |
ANKARA, Turkey Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has complained to the U.S. ambassador about reports of possible weapons aid to Syrian Kurdish forces which are affiliated with Turkey's Kurdish rebels. Davutoglu said Wednesday there was a risk of such weapons falling into the hands of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, and being used against Turkey. A local Kurdish official said the U.S. had provided 120 tons of weapons and ammunition to the Kurdish militia in Syria fighting the Islamic State group. The U.S. military did not confirm delivery of weapons or ammunition to Syrian Kurds in the last week. Davutoglu said: "Turkey cannot accept any kind of cooperation with terror organizations that have declared war against Turkey." | 5 | 94,313 | news |
Using the Hubble Telescope, NASA has produced a new 4K resolution portrait of Jupiter. | 5 | 94,314 | news |
It was a strange moment in American politics. Five presidential candidates were asked during a nationally televised debate whether or not they were capitalists. The answer is normally taken for granted in the United States. Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, has shaken up the Democratic primary and rattled American political conventions. The self-declared democratic socialist has made significant gains against Hillary Clinton in early primary states and in the third quarter raised nearly as much money without the support big donors - $25 million (21.9 million euros) compared to Clinton's $28 million. "There is a mood this year in the electorate of a rejection of standard political discourse and standard political candidates," Alan Schroeder, author of "Presidential Debates: 50 years of High Risk TV," told DW. "Bernie Sanders has this message that's resonating with a lot of people." His message is about income inequality and the system that produces it. Sanders rails against the "billionaire class" and calls the campaign finance system "corrupt." The senator points to Scandinavian countries, with their generous social welfare states, as role models for the United States. While it might be the year of the political outsider, the establishment will only move so far: "We are not Denmark," Hillary Clinton said during an exchange with Sanders over the merits of capitalism. "We are the United States of America." But Sanders has succeeded in pushing the debate to the left. Clinton agreed that something has gone wrong in America's economic system, that capitalism has "run amok" and created inequities. According to Clinton, the next president must "save capitalism from itself." 'Quagmire in a quagmire' Though Sanders has become a political force, it's still Clinton's nomination to lose. According to Schroeder, she has all of the advantages of an establishment candidate the support of big donors, name recognition, the experience of running for president before and her service as secretary of state. But Clinton has her share of weaknesses. A question about Russian President Vladimir Putin's intervention in Syria quickly turned into a debate about her support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It's the vote that cost Clinton the presidential nomination in 2008 to Barack Obama. "Leading us into Iraq under false pretenses and telling us, as a people, that there were weapons of mass destruction there was one of the worst blunders in modern American history," said Martin O'Malley, the progressive former Governor of Maryland. The former secretary of state remains more hawkish on foreign policy than her primary opponents. She supports establishing a no-fly zone over Syria. Sanders called the Syrian civil war "a quagmire in a quagmire" and vowed to keep the United States from becoming more deeply involved. Sanders record on guns While Clinton was criticized for her voting record on Iraq, Bernie Sanders had to defend his mixed record on gun control. The issue has become increasingly important in the Democratic Party, particularly in the aftermath of the mass shooting in Oregon, the latest of many nationwide. In the 1990s, Sanders voted five times against legislation that would have expanded the waiting period to buy a firearm. He also voted to give firearms companies immunity from lawsuits. The Vermont senator said he supports background checks and voted for a ban on assault weapons, but he comes from a rural state where there's little gun control. "I was in the Senate at the same time," Clinton said. "It wasn't that complicated to me. It was pretty straightforward to me that he was going to give immunity to the only industry in America." The Vermont senator said he supports background checks and voted for a ban on assault weapons, but he comes from a rural state where there's little gun control. Voter trust According to Bruce Newman, the most important issues in presidential politics is voter trust. Polling has indicated that a majority of Americans don't think Clinton is trustworthy amid a scandal over the use of her private email address to conduct official business as secretary of state. At the end of the day, her position on the issues will likely be more important. "The voters are asking themselves 'do I really care if she's not completely honest, but I think she can change my personal life and make my situation better,'" Newman, the author of "The Marketing Revolution Politics," told DW. Throughout the debate, no candidate was really able to weaken Clinton, according to Newman. Governor O'Malley performed well and he's respected in the Democratic Party for his progressive record in Maryland, but he barely registers in the polls. Senator Jim Webb of Virginia, a Vietnam veteran, is a conservative Democrat who's done little campaigning. Lincoln Chafee, the former governor of Rhode Island, was once a Republican and has changed his political affiliation three times. "Nobody even came close to touching or putting any kind of chink in the armor in Hillary Clinton's lead," Newman said. "She made it very clear tonight that she's the only serious viable candidate." Author: Spencer Kimball, Chicago Editor: Kathleen Schuster | 5 | 94,315 | news |
A study out of Austria is saying that people who like their coffee black are more likely to have psychopathic tendencies. Patrick Jones (@Patrick_E_Jones) explains. | 8 | 94,316 | video |
Hillary Clinton receives surprise respite from attacks over her use of a private email server as US Secretary of State, with rival Bernie Sanders becoming an unlikely defender during a Democratic presidential debate. | 5 | 94,317 | news |
Dermatologist Sandra Lee answers viewers' top skin care questions, including whether you should really be worried about spider bites. | 7 | 94,318 | health |
Democratic presidential candidates participate in first televised debate from Las Vegas. Julie Noce reports. | 5 | 94,319 | news |
Americans live in one of the richest countries in the world. So why are so many unhappy? Here's a look at five reasons why. Photo: Getty Images | 3 | 94,320 | finance |
Do you believe your student loan debt was worth it? | 3 | 94,321 | finance |
LAS VEGAS Lamar Odom didn't last long at the glittering intersection of championship success and Hollywood celebrity. Cut loose by his beloved Los Angeles Lakers, followed everywhere by reality television crews, the humble kid from Queens who married into the Kardashian clan saw his life spiral out of control, and so did everyone else. Khloe Kardashian tried to hide his addictions, then told the world she couldn't save him. The two-time NBA champion landed on Skid Row, a regular tabloid target. RELATED: The fall of Lamar Odom, starring the Kardashians Then he seemed to drop out altogether before he was found unresponsive in a brothel and hospitalized, bringing his estranged wife, his former teammates and the world's attention back to his side Wednesday. Hospital authorities would not comment on the condition of the 35-year-old former NBA forward, but the Rev. Jesse Jackson was among his visitors Wednesday. Jackson said Odom was on life support and improving. "Apparently from what the doctor said, he was much better off today than yesterday. He at least has some responsiveness now," Jackson said. "He's got tubes in him now, but we felt inspired by his presence." Odom, who was embraced by teammates and television fans alike for his Everyman approach to fame, was found face-down and alone Tuesday after spending four days at the Love Ranch, a legal Nevada brothel. Odom started "throwing up all kinds of stuff" after a 911 operator told them to turn him on his side, Love Ranch owner Dennis Hof told The Associated Press in a phone interview. Odom had "spent time socializing with some of my girls," but wasn't seen taking any illegal drugs, Hof said. In a recording of a 911 call, Hof's spokesman Richard Hunter said Odom was breathing but in a "deep sleep" and had fluid coming from his nose and mouth. "He sounds like he's snoring a little bit. But he is breathing consistently," Hunter said. It was Odom's first visit to the Love Ranch, and he told employees he did cocaine before he arrived Saturday, Hunter said. Odom also took up to 10 tabs of an over-the-counter sexual performance enhancer over the course of his stay, Nye County Sheriff Sharon Wehrly said at a news conference. Sheriff's Detective Michael Eisenloffel described the enhancers as supplements and said Odom bought them at the brothel. With a search warrant, authorities took a blood sample from Odom early Wednesday to determine what was in his system. The results could take weeks, Eisenloffel said. Odom spent most of his 14-year NBA career in Los Angeles with the Lakers and Clippers, becoming a fan favorite before he sought even more fame with the Kardashians. His one-month courtship of Khloe before their huge 2009 wedding was taped for the E! network, and Odom appeared on nearly two dozen episodes of "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" as well as other family spinoffs, including his own "Khloe & Lamar" show in 2011 and 2012. Khloe Kardashian called him "Lam-Lam" and worried openly about him on the show. Even after they split in 2013, cameras recorded her calling him and checking on his welfare. People always seemed to root for Odom, whose prematurely weathered face wore the impact of his personal tragedies in a friendly way. And news of his hospitalization brought an outpouring of dismay and encouragement from his friends and family. Kobe Bryant joined Kardashian and some of Odom's childhood friends at his bedside after a Tuesday night Lakers game in Las Vegas. "I'm obviously hoping that he can pull through this, and that in some fortunate way this becomes the beginning of a different ending," said Derek Fisher, the New York Knicks coach and Odom's longtime teammate with the Lakers. Even his once-estranged father, Joe Odom, was at the hospital, according to his grandmother, Florence Odom. Authorities were called to the Crystal, Nevada, brothel at about 3:15 p.m. Tuesday. The 6-foot-10 Odom was too tall for an available helicopter, so he was driven by ambulance to Sunrise Hospital & Medical Center in Las Vegas. In a statement, Hof, the brothel owner, said: "He largely kept to himself, and at no time did he engage in any drug use in the presence of anyone in the house. He did drink alcohol from our bar, and was taking some herbal sexual enhancement capsules." Hunter added Love Ranch workers are trained to "stop the party" if drugs are seen, and Odom was aware of the brothel's strict anti-drug policy. Odom was staying in its "best VIP suite" on an open-ended reservation, and was accompanied by two women, Hunter said. He spent an amount beyond five figures, which would have been negotiated privately between the women and Odom, he said. The prostitutes are independent contractors who get 50 percent of the price. Odom emerged as one of the most promising basketball talents of his generation after a difficult childhood in Queens, where his mother died of cancer when he was 12 and his estranged father was addicted to heroin. Drugs and crime were rampant in his South Jamaica neighborhood, and he never forgot where he came from, writing tributes to his mother and grandmother on his sneakers before games. Tall enough to play center and skilled enough to be a playmaking guard, the rangy kid with a beautiful shot and exceptional ball-handling skills drew comparisons to Magic Johnson when he played on a traveling youth team alongside Ron Artest, his future Lakers teammate. Despite an abbreviated college career marked by scandal and an arrest in Las Vegas, Odom's talent was so coveted that he was picked fourth in the 1999 NBA draft by the moribund Clippers. Suddenly, he was "living like a 19-year-old rock star," he said. Soon after, he was suspended for smoking marijuana. Odom had two children during those years, Destiny and Lamar Jr., with an ex-girlfriend, Liza Morales. The 2006 crib death of another infant son, Jayden, attributed to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, prompted Odom to consider quitting basketball. He played the next season displaying a T-shirt bearing his son's photo in his locker. Odom loved wearing purple and gold, and his selfless play won him the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year award in 2011. He won a second straight NBA title in 2010 while playing alongside Artest, now known as Metta World Peace. But his basketball career faded as his life became a spectacle. He was heartbroken in December 2011 when the Lakers attempted to trade him; he eventually landed in Dallas, where reality TV crews followed. "The year he got traded people wanted to say, `Oh, it's because of the show.' No one wanted to bring up the accomplishments he had when we were filming," Khloe Kardashian told the AP in a 2013 interview. Still, Odom's behavior increasingly worried family and friends. He pleaded no contest to drunk driving after an arrest in August 2013. Kardashian filed for divorce four months later and has been dating Houston Rockets star James Harden. The divorce has not yet received final approval from a judge. When cameras caught up with Odom on a sidewalk in August, he blamed the media for his downfall. "Y'all have discredited me, beat me down, took my confidence, took everything away from me. You will not do it again," Odom told TMZ in an interview. "To everybody that I know and that supports me, I'm sorry but it's just it. The dog has to bite back." -------- Beacham reported from Los Angeles. Contributors include Associated Press writers Kimberly Pierceall and Ken Ritter in Las Vegas, Andrew Dalton and Beth Harris in Los Angeles, and Alicia Rancilio in New York. | 1 | 94,322 | sports |
The poll, released on Tuesday, showed that an ever-growing number of Germans are losing faith in the words repeatedly expressed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel: "We can manage this." Only one in three participants of the poll (33 percent) now agree with the chancellor - a decrease of 11 percent since approximately six weeks ago. Around 64 percent of Germans polled were found to disagree. The opinion was widely shared across all of Germany's main political groups - the Social Democrats (SPD), the Left Party, the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), and the CDU's Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) - with 59 to 62 percent disagreeing with Merkel. Declining support for more refugees Supporters of Germany's Greens were at odds, however, with 49 percent of the party's voters agreeing with the chancellor and 51 percent disagreeing. The results also showed that 56 percent of people surveyed think there were already too many refugees in Germany. This figured has risen by 10 percent in just one month. Only one in five Germans (20 percent) were found to believe that the country could still accommodate more asylum seekers. Cristicism from within The chancellor has come under scrutiny for her handling of the refugee crisis in recent works, even from fellow party members. Leader of the CSU, Horst Seehofer, has repeatedly demanded limits on the number of asylum seekers entering Germany and last week threatened that the CSU would take the federal government to the Constitutional Court over its refugee policy. "One view is that this is a great migration of modern times that you need to accept and manage. The other - my school of thought - is that immigration must be controlled. I want to control and limit them," Seehofer said on Sunday. The poll was conducted by YouGov on 1,198 people in Germany between October 9 and 13, 2015. Author: Kate Brady Editor: Kathleen Schuster | 5 | 94,323 | news |
Australia rugby scrumhalf Will Genia praises his coach and his own Scottish counterpart, Greg Laidlaw. | 8 | 94,324 | video |
BEIJING (Reuters) - China said on Wednesday it had no plans to send military ships to Syria to fight with Russian forces after reports in overseas media that it was planning to do so. Chinese media has picked up Russian and Middle Eastern news reports that China would fight alongside Russia in Syria, and that China's sole aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, could participate too. Chinese media has also described these reports as speculative nonsense. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying, when asked if China had or would send forces to Syria, told a daily news briefing that she had also noticed the reports. "I can tell you that as for China's warships, for example the Liaoning, whether it has gone to join, for this issue, as far as I know, there is no such plan. At this time the Liaoning is in a phase of carrying out technical training and military exercises." She did not elaborate. Russia last month began air strikes on targets in Syria in a dramatic escalation of foreign involvement in the civil war. This has been criticized by the West as an attempt to prop up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, rather than its purported aim of attacking Islamic State. The United States and its allies have also been carrying out air strikes in Syria against Islamic State, and have supported opposition groups fighting Assad. The Liaoning is generally considered by military experts to be a training carrier, while China builds its own carriers and works out how to operate them. China's Defense Ministry said it had nothing to add to Hua's comments. The Global Times, an influential tabloid run by the ruling Communist Party's official People's Daily, said in an editorial on Wednesday it was "unfounded rumor" that China would interfere militarily in Syria. "It's not China that brought chaos to Syria, and China has no reason to rush to the frontlines and play a confrontational role," it said. While China generally votes with fellow permanent United Nations Security Council member Russia on the Syria issue, it has expressed concern about interference in Syria's internal affairs and repeatedly called for a political solution. China, a low-key diplomatic player in the Middle East despite its dependence on the region for its oil, has warned many times military action cannot end the crisis. (This story has been corrected to fix quote, lead, headline to make clear that spokeswoman was talking about military ships) | 5 | 94,325 | news |
Your lips will feel great and you'll save money! | 8 | 94,326 | video |
Airbnb is giving people the chance to spend Halloween night in the Catacombs of Paris. As Mara Montalbano (@maramontalbano) explains, you just have to tell them a story. | 8 | 94,327 | video |
Silicon Valley leaders like Nick Woodman, Marc Andreessen, Nikesh Arora, Leah Busque and others explain which industry is next for a big shakeup. | 3 | 94,328 | finance |
Glug glug. | 8 | 94,329 | video |
Hong Kong's flagship carrier Cathay Pacific has suspended flights over Iran and the Caspian Sea after the European Aviation Safety Agency issued a warning about missiles being fired at Syria. The EASA stepped in as Russia intensifies its air campaign against Islamic militants in Syria. Last week Moscow launched a salvo of cruise missiles from its warships in the Caspian. Cathay said Wednesday it had suspended flights in response to the dangers. The air safety fears come as investigators Tuesday issued their final report into the fate of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, concluding it was shot down by a Russian-made BUK missile fired from war-torn eastern Ukraine. The Boeing 777 was downed last year, killing all 298 people on board. "In view of the situation in the region, Cathay Pacific suspended all flights over Iran and Caspian Sea since last Thursday until further notice," it said in a statement. The airline said it had received safety advisories from both the EASA and the United Nations' International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) but added that neither had made specific recommendations to carriers. Cathay already has a long-term policy not to overfly Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine and Syria, the statement said. In its safety bulletin released last week, EASA said "missiles en-route to Syria crossed airspace in Iran and Iraq below flight routes used by commercial transport aeroplanes". The missiles had been launched from the Caspian Sea, it said, adding that the advisory was to "create awareness" for airspace users. Australian carrier Qantas said Wednesday that it had chosen not to suspend flights over the area. "The Europeans said that those issues were there, but didn't make any recommendations or changes to what airlines do," said chief executive Alan Joyce. "If there was a problem, and if does turn into being a problem, Qantas will not be flying aircraft through that airspace. But the information that we have is it is safe to do so." Qantas flies over Iran on its Dubai to London leg. Russia said Tuesday its air force had hit 86 "terrorist" targets in Syria in the past 24 hours -- the highest one-day tally since it launched its bombing campaign on September 30. Washington and its allies -- engaged in their own air war against the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq -- accuse Moscow of targeting moderate Western-backed rebels and seeking to prop up President Bashar al-Assad, a longtime Russian ally. | 5 | 94,330 | news |
This is not a paid endorsement for LinkedIn not that I would turn away its money but I do think LinkedIn is one of the greatest professional networking tools available today. No matter where you are in your career, from student to seasoned employee, you can leverage LinkedIn. Here are some high-impact (but-low effort) strategies to try out: 1. As a student High school and college students (and a few helicopter parents) have much to gain by accessing the Education section of LinkedIn. Hidden under the Interests drop-down menu, Education enables you to explore different colleges and universities. You can check out rankings by career focus. For example, want to be an accountant? Villanova University leads the list for new graduates who land accounting jobs after receiving a degree in accounting. You can investigate different career paths and review the roles graduates have taken after college. You can even keep of track of your interests for future deliberation and research. In short, LinkedIn helps to show the "rubber meets the road" connection between academic institutions, majors/fields of study and what jobs their graduates land with those degrees. Of course, you still have to get into the school, do well, go to interviews and so on but, the data displayed per university is a very powerful way to connect academics to the world of work. 2. When you're ready to intern A proven way to land an ideal internship is to reach out to prospective employers that interest you. Many employers never post an internship on a job board or attend a career fair. But they may be very willing to let you prove yourself during an informational meeting. Often, hiring authorities do not believe they have the time or bandwidth to bring on an intern. However, if you use LinkedIn as a means to research desired companies and career paths, send a well-written inMail message to request an informational meeting and then conduct a professional interview, then you may actually get a shot at a project with a targeted company or a referral to someone else who is hiring. At the very least, you will learn many things that will help you land (or excel in) a future internship. The key to all of this is being prepared and professional. LinkedIn's Company pages and People Profiles are a researching goldmine when you take on this proactive networking tactic. 3. Once you're a career employee who's ready for a promotion Many professionals quickly realize that the grass isn't always greener somewhere else. Sometimes the best way to get ahead is to add more value where you are. Mid-career professionals can get bored (and stale) when they stay in one role for too long. However, most hiring managers are stretched very thin and rarely have time to think about how to improve their own career, let alone those of their employees. Successful professionals realize that to move forward (or even sideways), they need to suggest new tasks and projects. One way to start this is to use LinkedIn to look up other professionals or job listings with your job title. See what they "do" or what is required. You can also look at roles connected to your role i.e., careers related to what you do or roles that may be a promotion away. When you review the duties and responsibilities of others, you have an excellent list of new responsibilities or increased value you can add to your employer. By suggesting additional ways to contribute that are on trend professionally for your industry, you add a new dimension to your work and you have made it easy for your manager to increase her overall team contribution. This is a pretty powerful return for a few hours of reading profiles and open job listings on LinkedIn. 4. When you're changing career paths The key to changing career paths is to have an idea of how your skills can be applied in another industry and have connections who can help you be considered for a seemingly unrelated role. To tackle this, you can start with Find Alumni to reconnect with old classmates or do a People search to look up previous colleagues (or neighbors and so on.) As you find people from your past, take some time to see what they are doing today. Does their LinkedIn profile show involvement in nonprofit, project-based or volunteer endeavors that appeal to you? Are they members of networking Groups on LinkedIn? All of these data points are searchable and can help to uncover potential new roles and areas of interest for a career change. Additionally, when you reconnect with people from successful times in your past, you increase your confidence and feeling of self-worth. Making a career switch can be an arduous process. Employing a strategic approach by leveraging LinkedIn to reconnect and explore can make a tough experience more manageable and boost the results. In short, LinkedIn is chock-full of information that can be sliced and diced multiple ways to allow users to implement more strategic research and networking strategies. Users in every phase of their professional development can leverage LinkedIn to get an advantage for their future. Now, if only you can remember the password you used when you created the account … | 3 | 94,331 | finance |
When Marty McFly and "Doc" Brown burst into 2015 in a time machine, straight from the year 1985, they encounter a brave new world of garbage-fuelled flying cars, self-tying shoes and robot waiters. For audiences in 1989, when CDs were the height of hi-tech, science fiction comedy "Back to the Future II" portrayed an exciting world 30 years down the line in which people would flit around on gravity-defying hoverboards, sporting self-drying, auto-adjusting clothes, and dogs are walked by drones. Disappointingly, many of the gadgets anticipated by script-writers who dropped the movie's oddball pair -- and their hot-rod DeLorean time machine -- into the "future" on October 21, 2015 have failed to materialise. Yet in many ways, the 2015 of reality is even more radically altered from what filmmakers Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale could have imagined, say futurists who study and project trends. What we can do with smartphones now was almost inconceivable then. "Their capabilities today, including access to all information on the planet, would have absolutely astounded even most futurists of 30 years ago... who didn't imagine a phone would be for anything other than speaking and texting," Sydney-based futurist Ross Dawson told AFP. "Back when the movie was made, people looking at the reality of today would find it quite mind-boggling." Technology we would now struggle without -- such as Google and Wikipedia, social networking sites Facebook and Twitter, smartphone GPS, and online shopping, would have been hard to envisage when the movie came out. - World without email - In the film, Marty, played by a young Michael J. Fox, receives a dismissal notice at home by fax -- a now-clunky technology that seemed cutting-edge in the 1980s. The Internet revolution was lurking just around the corner, and the world had yet to receive email. In 1985, only about a quarter of US households had a microwave oven, and videocassette recorders (VCRs) were the must-have viewing technology. Today you can buy a home 3-D printer on the Internet for a few hundred dollars, which can produce anything from a gun that squirts water to one that shoots bullets. We can "download" songs and "stream" films -- terms that did not even exist in 1985. We can edit the human genome to fix disease-causing DNA, we have grown hamburger "meat" from cow muscle cells, and we have placed a robot probe on a comet hundreds of millions of kilometres from Earth. "Humans very quickly get used to innovations and take them for granted," said Dawson, founder of the Future Exploration Network, which offers scenario planning services. Still, the film did get some things right. We do have flat screens, live video-calling, tablet computers, and portable up-to-the-minute weather apps. Though not yet in full swing, we also have biometric technology for paying bills or unlocking doors with a fingerprint, and off-the-shelf smart glasses similar to those worn by Marty's offspring. - More sci than fi? - "It was actually quite visionary of them to get so many things right," said Thomas Frey of the DaVinci Institute, a futurist thinktank. "They depicted it in kind of a comical, goofy way actually, but I think they did quite a phenomenal job back then of anticipating things that must have seemed fairly ludicrous at the time." Some predictions were ahead of their time. Thirty years ago, most futurists would have given flying cars by 2015 "greater than 50-50 odds," independent futurist Jack Uldrich told AFP by telephone from Minneapolis. "There are some companies that are working on flying cars, but what they don't have is that take-off (vertical) lift," as demonstrated by Doc's DeLorean. Innovators have drawn inspiration from the movie: California-based firm Hendo is creating a hoverboard which works on magnetic repulsion. Shoemaker Nike is working on sneakers with self-tightening "power laces" like the ones Marty wore. - What next? - Sci-fi has influenced scientific advancement through the ages, but the task may become harder as technological development accelerates exponentially. Will humans be teleporting, travelling in time, or discover the secret to eternal life by 2045? Who knows, the experts say. "One of the things which we could very easily see in 30 years is... humanoids and other robots just being a complete part of our environment," Dawson said. Also likely is "people using their thoughts to control the world around them, even to use their thoughts to communicate directly with other people." Dawson foresees a future not with flying cars per se, but rather self-driving pods -- a cheaper and safer alternative. One thing that the movie got wildly wrong: lawyers have not been "abolished". "I think a lot of people wished that had come true," quipped Uldrich -- but then who will settle disputes between humans and robots in the future? | 5 | 94,332 | news |
The five Democratic candidates took the debate stage -- how did they do? John Berman reports. | 5 | 94,333 | news |
Washington DC - Democratic candidates for US president, meeting in their first debate on Tuesday, clashed over foreign policy and the best use of American military power in the escalating conflict in Syria. Hillary Clinton, former secretary of state and favourite for the Democratic nomination, said the United States should take a more assertive role in Syria by creating a safe zone to protect civilians and send a forceful message to Russian President Vladimir Putin. "It's important that the United States make it very clear to Putin that it's not acceptable for him to be in Syria creating more chaos, bombing people on behalf of [President Bashar] Assad, and we can't do that if we don't take more of a leadership position," Clinton said in the debate. While she praised President Barack Obama for engaging in talks with the Russians on Syria, her advocacy of a stronger US policy would involve greater military intervention and drew criticism from her leading challenger, Senator Bernie Sanders. "Let's understand that when we talk about Syria, you're talking about a quagmire in a quagmire," Sanders responded. "We should be putting together a coalition of Arab countries who should be leading the effort." RELATED: Clinton and Sanders spar openly in first debate Sanders said he supports Obama's effort "to thread a tough needle here" by opposing Assad and simultaneously fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) without putting US forces into combat. "I do not support American ground troops in Syria", and imposing a no-fly zone would create "a very dangerous situation", Sanders said. Former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley said Clinton is too quick to resort to the use of military force. "I would not be so quick to pull for a military tool," O'Malley said. Addressing Clinton, "a no-fly zone in Syria, at this time, actually, secretary, would be a mistake", he added. Clinton has the major financial and political backing of the Democrat establishment in the US, but Sanders has been drawing large, enthusiastic crowds of 10,000 to 20,000 to rallies, raising significant funding from small donors, and is tied with Clinton in polls in Iowa and leading New Hampshire, two early primary states. The debate over Syria matters because as the crisis worsens, how the US presidential candidates would handle US policy in the Middle East region will be a critical question going into the 2016 general election. So far, Obama has declared the US will not get into a proxy war with Russia and is pursuing talks with Moscow to create safe zones for civilians and initiate negotiations toward a political resolution of the conflict. RELATED: The Democrat debate: Will it make a difference? Republican candidates have painted Obama as weak and ineffective in foreign affairs and have pledged to use the US military more aggressively overseas, including putting boots on the ground to fight ISIL and promising to reverse the Iran nuclear agreement. "We have a president who doesn't have a clue," Republican frontrunner Donald Trump said in the first Republican debate in August. "I would say he's incompetent, but I don't want to do that because that's not nice." Jeb Bush has said he would cancel the nuclear deal with Iran, and expand US troop presence in Eastern Europe to deal with Putin, who he called a "bully". Marco Rubio has charted a substantive foreign policy course for himself. A member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he penned a manifesto in an influential magazine arguing for a more robust assertion of American power on the world stage. The American electorate is divided along partisan lines about US foreign policy and national security. "The rise of ISIS has had clear impact on attitudes across the board, but especially among Republicans," said Carroll Doherty from the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan organisation in Washington that surveys American attitudes and how events shape public opinion. In March 2014, 57 percent of Republicans said the US should use overwhelming military force to deal with "terrorism". In February 2015, 74 percent of Republicans supported military action, a 17 percentage-point increase in less than a year. In both surveys, two-thirds of Democrats said reliance on military force creates hatred and engenders more violence. "This is a fundamental point of disagreement between Republicans and Democrats; how to address terrorism and the threat of terrorism around the world," Doherty told Al Jazeera. RELATED: Trump: I would send Syrian refugees home Americans have yet to fully digest the import of events in Syria even though a 55-percent majority say they were hearing a lot about the crisis at the end of September. According to a Pew survey , the public reaction followed partisan lines: 67 percent of Republicans said "no" to the US accepting more refugees, and 69 percent of Democrats said "yes". In the short term, Europeans expect the US to do what's feasible and that is provide more financial support to the struggling UN food aid and refugee assistance programmes, and to accept more people than it has so far, said Matteo Garavoglia , a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. The US State Department plans to increase its quota of Syrian refugees from 1,500 to 10,000 next year, subject to security screening and background checks. That compares to the 800,000 Syrian refugees Germany will accept. The US has pledged $1.5bn in funding to UN programmes for Syria this year and Congress is advancing a spending bill to provide more. "All this falls into a far broader issue. The question is what to do and nobody has the answer yet," Garavoglia told Al Jazeera. "There is a huge debate within the policy community here in the US and there is no consensus." Whoever is elected president will face a difficult reality of limited US leverage and bad options in Middle East when they take office in 2017, said Aaron David Miller , a scholar at the Wilson Center in Washington. Anything the candidates say now cannot be seen as determinative about what they'll do once in office, he said. For now, the presidential candidate debates in the US are aimed at core party primary voters who tend to hold more sharply defined views. The tone and quality of debate will shift when the two major parties nominate their candidates and the contest moves towards the decisive 2016 general election. "Other than terrorism and appearing to stand tall, I'm not sure most Americans are all that interested in what Vladimir Putin is doing in Syria, or whether Egypt is going to turn into a democracy," Miller told Al Jazeera. "When most Americans look at presidents and foreign policy they are thinking, 'Is this person commanding, poised? Is this person going to make America look good? Is this person tough but do they have wisdom, prudence, and does he or she know what she's talking about it?''' Miller said. | 5 | 94,334 | news |
Facebook has been pushing video pretty hard lately and today is sharing its plans on making sure users have even more ways to watch tiny movies of their friends and from pages they follow. The most compelling of these experiments is a dedicated video tab that shows all the videos shared by folks and entities someone follows. It's bit like a cross between Instagram and YouTube within the social networking company's main app. This new feature will be tested on a small group of users to see how they respond to having almost instant access to videos without having to wade through political postings by family members and their friend's baby bump photos. In addition to the dedicated tab, Facebook is also testing a bunch of other video features. One of these is Suggested Videos, a YouTube-like way of surfacing videos that you might find interesting based on what you're currently watching. It's also testing a way for folks to watch while still having access to the rest of the newsfeed. And finally, it's experimenting with a save button for those moments when you can't watch a clip and would like to bookmark it for later viewing. Like Instant Articles , all of this adds up to more ways to keep you inside the Facebook experience. The fewer instances you're pushed out of the newsfeed, the happier you make the company and its advertisers. The tests are being tried out on iPhone with web testing coming soon and Android support coming in a few months. Testing New Video Experiences on Facebook Posted by Facebook Media on Tuesday, October 13, 2015 Facebook Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/10/13/facebook-video-hub/ | 5 | 94,335 | news |
While drumming up support on the campaign trail, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has touted the supposed benefits of building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, saying it would be "easy, and it can be done inexpensively." He has even suggested getting Mexico to pay for the construction. Walls, fences and barriers haven't just been built to stem immigration, but for security reasons, too. There is already a multi-billion-dollar fence stretching for hundreds of miles along part of the border between the U.S. and Mexico, but it's had mixed results like other walls and fences around the world. Here are some of the notable precedents. Great Wall of China Trump has compared his grand plan of a U.S.-Mexico border wall to the Great Wall of China. Construction on the 13,000-mile wall began in the 3rd century B.C. and continued into the 14th through 17th centuries under the Ming dynasty. Originally built to prevent attacks on China from the north and meant to keep out Manchu invaders, the wall ultimately failed to do so. Manchurians broke through the wall, prompting the fall of the Ming dynasty and heralding the start of the Qing dynasty. Today, the wall is a UNESCO World Heritage site and receives millions of visitors every year. Berlin Wall More than a decade after the end of World War II, the government of what was then East Germany (the German Democratic Republic) began the construction of a wall in Berlin to prevent Western "fascists" from entering the Communist country and to keep East Germans from defecting to the West. The 96 mile-long wall fell on November 9, 1989, a defining moment of the 20th century remembered for jubilant scenes of people scaling and hacking off pieces of the wall. The following year, East and West Germany were reunified. Slivers of the Berlin Wall today stand outside the United Nations headquarters in New York and in the Newseum in Washington, D.C. Belfast Peace Walls Just like the city's murals to fallen Loyalist and Republican fighters and victims, Belfast's Peace Walls have become an unlikely tourist attraction in a city still prone to episodic violence. The walls, which separate Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods in Belfast, were first built in 1969 during The Troubles, a particularly brutal period of sectarian violence that began in the late 1960s and lasted for 30 years. Made from concrete, corrugated iron and bricks, and sometimes topped with several feet of wire, parts of the wall are covered in graffiti odes to its counterpart barrier in the Middle East. (Palestinian flags are a common sight in Belfast's minority Catholic areas, while Israeli flags flutter in some Protestant neighborhoods.) In 2013, Northern Irish lawmakers proposed tearing down the peace walls by 2023, but many residents believe violence would reignite if the walls were removed. West Bank Wall Sometimes referred to by Palestinians as the "Apartheid Wall" or their "Berlin Wall," construction of the wall between the West Bank and Israel was started in 2002 by the government of then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to protect Israelis from Palestinian suicide bombers. It costs $260 million each year for Israel to maintain, Al Jazeera reports. The barrier is partly a 6-foot high electronic fence, partly a 26-foot high concrete wall, and the entire structure is around 435 miles long, more than twice the length of the Green Line (199 miles), the officially recognized border between Israel and the West Bank, according to 972 magazine. Israel/Egypt Israel has another fence along its western border with Egypt, which was built to stem the "unfettered flow of illegal infiltrators, the smuggling of drugs and weapons" into Israel, according to the Defense Ministry, and to keep African migrants out of the country. Construction on the $400 million fence began in 2011 and took two years. Stretching 140 miles along the border, it stands between 15 and 20 feet high and is topped with barbed wire. The wall was a success: 43 African migrants entered Israel in 2013, compared to 17,000 in 2011. Hungary Earlier this year, and to the alarm of humanitarian organizations, Hungary announced plans to construct a fence along its southern border with Serbia to prevent asylum seekers from entering the country en route to northern and western Europe. Hungary has nearly completed its fences with both Serbia and Croatia at a cost of 100 million euros ($117 million), a move that international human rights group Amnesty International says violates international law. Hungary has also made it a criminal offence to enter the country illegally, although around 4,000 people are passing through a narrow gap in the fence every day, Al Jazeera reports. | 5 | 94,336 | news |
Mexico's 1-0 victory over Panama put a cap on the Ricardo "Tuca" Ferretti era, as El Tri prepare to open a new chapter. "No te vayas, Tuca no te vayas," fans in Toluca sang to the interim manager, and why would they want him to go? Four matches, no defeats, one trophy the record at the end of the Tuca era is a good one. But go he must, back to the less stressful, high-paying job he has at Tigres. Even if he wanted to stay, which he said over and over again that he didn't and doesn't, there's a new man stepping in. Colombian manager Juan Carlos Osorio watched over the match, with endless cutaways from the TV broadcast showing the new manager taking in the game from high above the field at Estadio Nemesio Diez. There was plenty for him to like, which is good because he'll have to get right to work. The next time Mexico takes the field it will be in World Cup qualification matches, where there is only a bit of room for error and the consequences of slacking off could be grave. The former Chicago Fire and New York Red Bulls boss already knows about some of the stars he'll have at his disposal, players like Hector Moreno and Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez. What he's likely more concerned about is where the depth will come from when he heads to the World Cup. Carlos Vela, who scored the lone goal in the match, is also a known quantity. But after Vela's struggles with Real Sociedad, Osorio will be pleased to see the 26-year-old back on the score sheet. It had been months since Vela scored, and a player like him is more than capable of turning a rough patch into a streak after breaking the snide, even if his goal was of the poached variety rather than the creative kind that has earned him his reputation as a dangerous player. Even more encouraging will be the performances of some of the younger, lesser-known Mexico players. Arturo Rivas and Miguel Herrera started at center back and put in a better shift than other depth center back options before them. The combo stayed tight and made it very difficult for Panama to find anything but long-range efforts. That's good news for a team that only months ago was playing Rafa Marquez, 36, and Maza Rodriguez, 33, among its first-choice players. Moreno and Real Sociedad center back Diego Reyes look to be ingrained for the near future, but having options in case of injury or club commitment will be a huge plus. Behind the defenders, goalkeeper is something of a question. Guillermo Ochoa is getting no club action while Jesus Corona is out of form. Alfredo Talavera came up with several big stops, as he has in previous national-team showings. Though 33 years old isn't too advanced in age for a goalkeeper, Talavera might not be the future for Mexico. With that said, Osorio could certainly call on the Toluca shot stopper in the short term while he waits for players like gold-medal winner Tono Rodriguez to mature. Jonathan Orozco, the 29-year-old Monterrey keeper, could also be an option for the future. And in the midfield, seeing Jonathan dos Santos look sharp will excite Osorio, but perhaps not as much as the continued maturation of Javier Guemez. After starring at Tijuana, inexperience and injuries kept the 23-year-old from being a factor. He played in both this window's matches and didn't look out of his depth, something that will bode well for Osorio's options. Tactically, Mexico was limited once Jose Juan "Gallito" Vazquez was ruled out of the match because of injury, but Guemez could be a force in World Cup qualification. All in all, Mexico's win over Panama won't be remembered for much, but it could be a jumping-off point for Osorio to find success. If he can make the most of the talent Mexico has, El Tri fans will soon be singing his name with love as well. | 1 | 94,337 | sports |
And it was actually pretty boring? | 8 | 94,338 | video |
These home decorations may be a bit tacky, but don't even try to tell us you don't secretly want one. 1. Studio Bocca lip sofa A classic! This couch shaped like a red lipstick-stained smooch is something every gal has always wanted in her boudoir. (AllModern, $1,100) 2. Dog & fire hydrant bookends The iconic image of a dog peeing on a fire hydrant can be yours to giggle at every day if you buy these metal bookends . Sure, it looks like the dog is peeing on your books, but maybe that's where you keep your copy of all those fancy books your college English professor made you read. (Etsy, $65) 3. Salt Magic salt and pepper shakers When you pick up these salt and pepper shakers that allow you to magically season your meal, you're going to claim it's "for the kids." Your secret is safe with us. (BaronBob.com, $11) 4. Aquarium coffee table Just in case the movie you're watching is that boring, an aquarium coffee table will provide hours of fun for everyone - except the fish, who will almost certainly dart into the glass every time someone puts down the remote. (Wayfair, $769) 5. Han Solo trapped in carbonite desk Because nothing says "I'm a serious professional" like a desk made from a replica of a beloved sci-fi icon . (Tom Spina Designs, contact seller for pricing) 6. Lava lamp Yeah, they're kinda '70s, but there's something charming about watching the colorful goo ebb and flow just like having a fish tank coffee table you don't have to feed or clean up after. (Jet, $35) 7. (Faux) Bear skin rug Picture it: Cozying up with your man on a faux bear skin rug next to a roaring fire... a glass of pinot resting comfortably in your cupped hand as he feeds you a chocolate-dipped strawberry. This is the life! (Walmart, $179) 8. LEGO light switch plate The best way to use this outside your kid's room is in the garage. Of course, it's also fun to build up so many LEGOs around the switch that your sweetie has to dismantle it to turn the light on. (ThinkGeek, $10) 9. Slightly-too-creative garden gnomes Regular garden gnomes are decreasing in popularity. Perhaps it's because they are so overdone. But some manufacturers have taken the garden gnome to the next level. From ghoulish zombies to cheeky pranksters like this mooning garden gnome , we'd all really like one of these to tell our neighbors how we really feel in a socially acceptable format. (Amazon, $10) 10. Giant bean bag chair Remember when you were in college when a bean bag chair wasn't just acceptable, it was cool? Me neither. But boy are they cozy... and one you can sleep on is even better. (Brookstone, $240) | 4 | 94,339 | lifestyle |
A political debate is a very serious topic typically and viewers often turn to the audience takeaways to people watch. For the GOP debate, there was the "random hot guy" sitting behind one of the moderators. For the Democratic debate on Tuesday, it was a possible Santa/wizard spotted. Social media immediately took notice and began sharing the photo of the audience member around the Web. Many people were desperate to hear the mysterious wizard's opinion on the issues discussed. Our personal Texas/wizard favorite was when one user gave a shout-out to ZZ Top. Or maybe the man isn't a wizard at all, but instead Joe Biden sizing up the competition. | 5 | 94,340 | news |
Los Angeles Lakers shooting guard Kobe Bryant played in only 35 games last season after suffering a torn rotator cuff in his right shoulder, and the 37-year-old star claims the 2015-16 campaign could be his final one in the NBA. Lakers fans are hoping he has enough left in the tank to last the entirety of the season and that he can help the team return to the playoffs. Bryant, however, got banged up a bit in Tuesday's exhibition game against the Sacramento Kings. The Lakers guard drove to the hoop but banged knees with Rajon Rondo in doing so. He did stay in the game for a short while but later went to the sideline to get checked out, and then made his way to the locker room. The team announced Bryant suffered a lower-leg contusion, and he did not return to the game. The nature of the injury didn't look to be too serious, but you can't blame the team for being careful with its superstar. | 1 | 94,341 | sports |
Dave Ross takes you through Tuesday's top stories, including the Cubs advancing to the NLCS, the Dodgers forcing a Game 5 and Connor McDavid's first career NHL goal. | 1 | 94,342 | sports |
Sarah Ray was on the way to her wedding reception, when she saw her Grandmother's car involved in an accident, and ran to the scene in her wedding dress. Keri Lumm (@thekerilumm) has the story. | 8 | 94,343 | video |
In this edition of the 120 Mixtape, a football player makes a field goal without a holder and Frank Kaminsky shows off his dance moves. | 1 | 94,344 | sports |
Summary We found several falsehoods and misleading claims in the Democratic candidates' first debate: Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revised her earlier statement on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, claiming that she said she "hoped" it would be a "gold standard." At the time, she said it was a gold standard. Sen. Bernie Sanders claimed that his plan to lift the cap on income subject to Social Security taxes would extend the program's finances and expand benefits. He neglected to mention that the new taxes would not be used to calculate benefits for those paying them, a break from historical practice. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley claimed that "70 percent of us are earning the same, or less than we were 12 years ago." Not true. Average weekly earnings for rank-and-file workers are up 5.8 percent. Former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee said that his state "had the biggest drop of the unemployment rate over my four budgets of all but one state." Actually, four states had larger percentage point drops, and 10 states had larger percentage declines over his tenure. Sanders claimed that African American youth unemployment was 51 percent, but that figure pertains to underemployment, which includes those working part-time and looking for full-time work. Clinton claimed that "we lose 90 people a day from gun violence." That's true, but only a third of those deaths are from homicides. Sanders wrongly said that the U.S. had "more wealth and income inequality than any other country." The U.S. ranks 42nd in income inequality and 16th in terms of wealth held by the top 1 percent. Clinton said that using a personal email account "was allowed by the State Department." It was, but federal rules also required Clinton to turn over her emails before she left office. She did so nearly two years after she left. Analysis The Democratic candidates for president former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Sen. Bernie Sanders, former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee and former Sen. Jim Webb gathered in Las Vegas for their first debate on Oct. 13, hosted by CNN and Facebook. Clinton on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Clinton revised her earlier position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed trade agreement between 12 Pacific Rim countries, claiming that she merely said she "hoped" it would be a "gold standard." But her earlier support was more unequivocal. The topic arose when debate moderator Anderson Cooper asked Clinton if some of her recent position changes were tied to political expediency, and he specifically referenced Clinton's recent decision to oppose the TPP. "You supported his trade deal dozens of times. You even called it the 'gold standard.' Now, suddenly, last week, you're against it," Cooper said. "Will you say anything to get elected?" Clinton said that over the course of her career, her values and principles have remained consistent, though some positions have evolved as she "absorb[s] new information." "You know, take the trade deal," Clinton said. "I did say, when I was secretary of state, three years ago, that I hoped it would be the gold standard. It was just finally negotiated last week, and in looking at it, it didn't meet my standards. My standards for more new, good jobs for Americans, for raising wages for Americans. And I want to make sure that I can look into the eyes of any middle-class American and say, 'this will help raise your wages.' And I concluded I could not." But Clinton didn't add the "hoped it would be" qualifier when she made the initial comment about the TPP in 2012. "This TPP sets the gold standard in trade agreements to open free, transparent, fair trade, the kind of environment that has the rule of law and a level playing field," Clinton remarked in Adelaide, Australia, on Nov. 15, 2012. "And when negotiated, this agreement will cover 40 percent of the world's total trade and build in strong protections for workers and the environment." Two days later, in Singapore, Clinton again sang the praises of the TPP. "The so-called TPP will lower barriers, raise standards, and drive long-term growth across the region," Clinton said . "It will cover 40 percent of the world's total trade and establish strong protections for workers and the environment. Better jobs with higher wages and safer working conditions, including for women, migrant workers and others too often in the past excluded from the formal economy will help build Asia's middle class and rebalance the global economy." We should note that Clinton's comments were made, in part, to promote the administration's ongoing negotiations of the TPP. Clinton tempered her language in support of the TPP after leaving her post as secretary of state, and moving toward a run for the presidency. As she wrote in her 2014 book " Hard Choices ": "Because TPP negotiations are still ongoing, it makes sense to reserve judgment until we can evaluate the final proposed agreement. It's safe to say that the TPP won't be perfect no deal negotiated among a dozen countries ever will be but its higher standards, if implemented and enforced, should benefit American businesses and workers." Earlier this month, Clinton took a formal position against the TPP. "I still believe in the goal of a strong and fair trade agreement in the Pacific as part of a broader strategy both at home and abroad, just as I did when I was Secretary of State," Clinton said in a released statement . "I appreciate the hard work that President Obama and his team put into this process and recognize the strides they made. But the bar here is very high and, based on what I have seen, I don't believe this agreement has met it." Clinton is free to change her mind based on "new information," as she put it. And some of the details of the trade deal, which was negotiated in secret, likely changed over time. But Clinton wasn't qualifying her support for the plan back in 2012. She didn't say she "hoped" it would be a "gold standard." She said it was a gold standard. Sanders and Social Security Sanders claimed Social Security's finances could be extended and benefits expanded by simply taxing incomes above the current cap of $118,500 . Sanders: And the way you expand [Social Security] is by lifting the cap on taxable incomes so that you do away with the absurdity of a millionaire paying the same amount into the system as somebody making $118,000. You do that, Social Security is solvent until 2061 and you can expand benefits. Sanders is referring to legislation he has sponsored, the " Social Security Expansion Act. " It would increase future benefit payments and partially pay for that by applying employment and self-employment payroll tax not only to earnings up to the current cap, but also over $250,000, and by levying a new 6.2 percent tax on investment income over $200,000 for a single person or $250,000 for married couples filing jointly, with no upper limit on the amount to be taxed. The chief actuary of the Social Security system analyzed the latest version of Sanders' proposal last March, and concluded that it would indeed extend the life of the Social Security trust funds to 2065 (not 2061). But Sanders failed to mention two key points. First, those subjected to the higher taxes would see no benefit from them. Unlike current payroll taxes, the new levies would not be used as a basis for calculating future benefits for those paying them, a sharp break from historical practice. Second, benefits would eventually have to be cut anyway. The actuary estimated that under current law the system could pay only 77 percent of scheduled benefits starting in 2033. Under the Sanders plan to tax the affluent, expanded benefits could be paid for 32 years longer, but then Social Security could support only 88 percent of promised benefits. O'Malley's Mangled Wage Statistic Again O'Malley repeated a dubious talking point that we've criticized before: O'Malley: Our middle class is shrinking. Our poor families are becoming poorer, and 70 percent of us are earning the same, or less than we were 12 years ago . As we reported in June , O'Malley is citing outdated figures that don't reflect a spike in real wages and earnings that has taken place over the past year or so. He bases the claim on a study by the liberal Economic Policy Institute that was current only through 2014. Using the most current figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, "real" (inflation-adjusted) average weekly earnings of rank-and-file, non-supervisory workers were 2.2 percent higher in August than they were a year earlier, and 5.8 percent higher than they were in August 2003 the 12-year period O'Malley specified. Chafee and Rhode Island Unemployment In his introductory remarks, Chafee claimed that Rhode Island had a larger drop in the unemployment rate than every state but Nevada while he was governor. That's not correct for his total time in office. Chafee: As governor, I came in at the depths of the recession and we turned my state around. Rhode Island had the biggest drop of the unemployment rate over my four budgets of all but one state. It happens to be Nevada, where we're having this debate. We contacted a spokeswoman for Chafee's campaign to get an exact timeframe for his claim, but we didn't hear back. Rhode Island's unemployment rate was 11.2 percent in January 2011 when Chafee came into office, and it was 6.5 percent in January 2015 when he left office. That's a decline of 4.7 percentage points and, perhaps more important, a percentage decrease of 42 percent. Nevada's unemployment rate dropped 6.5 percentage points over that time period. But California , North Carolina and Florida , with declines of 5 percentage points, 4.9 percentage points and 4.8 percentage points, respectively, also had larger declines than Rhode Island. So four states, not one, had larger drops based solely on percentage points. Furthermore, when looking at the percentage decline, which may be a better way of comparing declines between states, 10 states, including Nevada, had a larger percentage decrease in the unemployment rate, and two states had a percentage decrease roughly the same as Rhode Island's. Sanders Exaggerates Youth Unemployment As he has done many times before , Sanders overstated the unemployment rate for black and Hispanic youths. Sanders : African American youth unemployment is 51 percent. Hispanic youth unemployment is 36 percent. It seems to me that instead of building more jails and providing more incarceration, maybe just maybe we should be putting money into education and jobs for our kids. We have written about this once before. Sanders gets his figures from a June report by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. But the report clearly labels those figures as the rate of under employment, not unemployment. The report said "51.3 percent of young black high school graduates are underemployed, compared with 36.1 percent of young Hispanic high school grads and 33.8 percent of white high school grads." That was the average for a 12-month period, ending in March. EPI says it arrived at those numbers by using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' broadest measure of underemployment, known as the U-6, for high school graduates ages 17 to 20 who are not enrolled in further schooling. The U-6 includes not just those officially counted as unemployed, but also discouraged workers, those marginally attached to the labor market and part-time workers who want to be working more. BLS does not publish data for the 17-to-20 age group, so we could not verify EPI's report. It does, however, provide data for high school graduates ages 16 to 24 years old who are not enrolled in further schooling. In September, the unemployment rate for this age group was 24 percent for African Americans, 11.6 percent for Hispanics and 10.7 percent for whites. Clinton on Gun Violence In talking about the need for stronger gun control, Clinton said: "I think that we have to look at the fact that we lose 90 people a day from gun violence. This has gone on too long and it's time the entire country stood up against the NRA." Annual gun deaths do average about 90 people a day, but only a third of those are homicides. Most gun deaths are suicides a violent act, but not a crime, as some voters may think Clinton's claim implied. According to the most recent figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , there were a total of 33,636 firearm deaths in 2013. That's 92 per day for the year. Sixty-three percent of them, or 21,175, were suicides. Homicides totaled 11,208, and the rest were unintentional discharges (505), legal intervention/war (467) and undetermined (281). Sanders Wrong on U.S. Inequality Ranking Sanders doubled down on a bogus claim that the income and wealth gaps between the affluent and the poor are larger in the United States than anywhere else: Sanders: We should not be the country that has … more wealth and income inequality than any other country. This is simply false. When we first criticized Sanders for a similar claim back on May 28 , he at least qualified it by saying U.S. inequality was the widest of any "major" country. As we said in May, that's true only if Sanders excludes nations such as Russia, Turkey and Brazil from his definition of "major." But in the debate, Sanders substituted "any" for "major," and turned what we charitably called an exaggeration into a flat-out falsehood. We found that the U.S. ranked 42nd in income inequality using the " Gini index ," a widely used measure of inequality, according to the World Bank. And as for wealth, the U.S. ranked 16th in the share of wealth held by the richest 1 percent, out of the 46 economies studied. Russia, Turkey, Egypt and Brazil were among those whose top 1 percent held more of their nations' wealth. That was according to the 2014 " Global Wealth Databook ." Clinton's Emails When asked about her unusual email arrangement as secretary of state, Clinton said, "What I did was allowed by the State Department." That's not the full story. Clinton conducted government business exclusively using a personal email account ([email protected]), and those emails were stored on a private server. As we have written before , the State Department and the Clinton campaign have cited a National Archives and Records Administration rule issued in 2009 that said federal agencies that allow the use of personal emails must preserve them "in the appropriate agency recordkeeping system." So personal emails were allowed. But federal rules also required Clinton to preserve her work emails "at the end of the Secretary's tenure or sooner if necessary." She did not turn over copies of her emails to the State Department until Dec. 5, 2014 nearly two years after she left office on Feb. 1, 2013. Also, whether the State Department allowed it or not, Clinton's decision "to conduct all e-mail correspondence through a private e-mail network, using a non-.gov address, is inconsistent with long-established policies and practices under the Federal Records Act and NARA regulations governing all federal agencies," according to congressional testimony of Jason R. Baron, a former director of litigation at the National Archives, who is now a lawyer at Drinker Biddle. by Eugene Kiely, Brooks Jackson, Lori Robertson, Robert Farley and D'Angelo Gore Sources Kiely, Eugene. " More Spin on Clinton Emails ." FactCheck.org. 8 Sep 2015. State Department. " Daily Press Briefing ." 3 Mar 2015. Hillary for America. " Updated: The Facts About Hillary Clinton's Email ." Undated. Accessed, 14 Oct 2015. State Department. " Records Disposition Schedules ." Undated. Accessed, 14 Oct 2015. Office of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Press release . 10 Mar 2015. Klapper, Bradley and Matthew Lee. " Hillary Clinton Resigns Formally From Secretary Of State Post, John Kerry Sworn In ." Associated Press. 1 Feb 2013. Baron, Jason R., cochairman, Information Governance Initiative. Written submission to the Senate Committee on Judiciary . 1 May 2015. " The Ed Show ." MSNBC. 22 Jul 2015. U.S. Department of State. Hillary Clinton: Remarks at Techport Australia . 15 Nov 2012. Clinton, Hillary. "Delivering on the Promise of Economic Statecraft." Bras Basah, Singapore. Project Vote Smart. 17 Nov 2012. Clinton, Hillary Rodham. " Hard Choices ." Simon & Schuster. Google Books Excerpt, Page 69. 2014. Taylor, Jessica. " Clinton Breaks With Obama To Oppose Asia Trade Deal. " NPR. 7 Oct 2015. Jackson, Brooks. " Sanders Exaggerates Inequality ." FactCheck.org. 28 May 2015. Credit Suisse Research Institute. " Global Wealth Databook ." Oct 2014. Jackson, Brooks. " O'Malley's Mangled Wage Statistic ." FactCheck.org. 3 Jun 2015. Bureau of Labor Statistics. " Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National); Average Weekly Earnings of Production and Nonsupervisory Employees, 1982-1984 Dollars ." Data extracted 13 Oct 2015. Goss, Stephen C. " Letter to The Honorable Bernie Sanders ." Office of the Chief Actuary, U.S. Social Security Administration. 26 Mar 2015. Klein, Ezra. " Bernie Sanders: The Vox conversation. " Vox. 28 Jul 2015. Kiely, Eugene. " Sanders Overstates Unemployment Rate ." FactCheck.org. 31 Jul 2015. Davis, Alyssa. " Young Black High School Grads Face Astonishing Underemployment ." Economic Policy Institute. 8 Jun 2015. Bureau of Labor Statistics. " Table A-15. Alternative measures of labor underutilization ." 2 Oct 2015. Bureau of Labor Statistics. " Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey; Unemployment Rate Not Enrolled in School, High School Graduates, No College, 16-24 yrs., Black or African American ." Data extracted 14 Oct 2015. Bureau of Labor Statistics. " Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey; Unemployment Rate Not Enrolled in School, High School Graduates, No College, 16-24 yrs., Hispanic or Latino. " Data extracted 14 Oct 2015. Bureau of Labor Statistics. " Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey; Unemployment Rate Not Enrolled in School, High School Graduates, No College, 16-24 yrs., White ." Data extracted 14 Oct 2015. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Detailed Tables for the National Vital Statistics Report (NVSR) "Deaths: Final Data for 2013." U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Local Area Unemployment Statistics . Accessed 13 Oct 2015. Ballotpedia.org. Lincoln Chafee . Accessed 13 Oct 2015. | 5 | 94,345 | news |
The quest for the ultimate jukebox has a new entrant. Due in stores this holiday season, the Electric Jukebox ($229) transforms your television and home entertainment system into an easy-to-use music machine. The small device, about the size of a deck of cards, connects via Wi-Fi or Ethernet to access an extensive CD-quality music catalog of more than 30 million songs, similar to that offered by streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music. Sound comes through speakers in your TV or home theater setup. You use a wireless remote similar to the Nintendo Wii controller to peruse the service. "The device we know that everyone has and increasingly has fantastic speakers is your television," said CEO Rob Lewis, who formerly was CEO of U.K.-based music tech company Omnifone. "Essentially what this is doing is turning your TV into a jukebox." Lewis notes that nearly half of U.S. homes use a sound bar speaker with their TV, something that would serve well for music listening. He and the team at Electric Jukebox, headquartered in London, think that the TV can be a boon to the music industry just as it has for Hollywood with streaming video. "Many hope to join streaming music, but haven't done it," Lewis said. "We hope this is a way that we can bring them back into music industry and have them listening to music again. We are offering something in a box that you can plug in and in two minutes be playing music." More than 135 million in the U.S. use music streaming services, but only a fraction -- about 13% -- pay for a subscription, according to research firm MusicWatch . The Electric Jukebox, which is available for pre-order now on the company's web site (orders placed before Oct. 21 save $30 off the price) includes a one-year subscription to the advertising-free music service in the price of the product. The device is available in the U.S. and the U.K. The company's executive team includes several music industry executives including former EMI Music CEO and chairman Alain Levy and former U2 manager Paul McGuinness. Electric Jukebox is also enlisting artists to serve as evangelists for the product when it launches. "It's like a 'walking into a music store' experience," said multiple Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow in an interview. "For me, one of the things that's been missing from the music experience the last few years is the communal experience. I grew up with music being a shared experience of buying an album, studying the artwork, having friends over and dropping the needle … That was really a huge part of my love of music, sharing it with my friends and my family." I can't tell you what this is today, but I promise I will tomorrow! pic.twitter.com/n1pCvLqNZA Sheryl Crow (@SherylCrow) October 13, 2015 She likes the ability to easily create playlists by using the remote, which also lets you search using your voice. "For people who are not necessarily savvy with technology, it's really simple and very inclusive. Even kids can join in on it," said Crow, who will be among artists that have curated playlists available on the service. "I would say if I can work it anybody can." Electric Jukebox addresses a music industry weak spot, says MIDiA research analyst Mark Mulligan. "The labels need a way to reach the more passive music fans," he said. "Whether the TV itself is the right platform for that is another question ... but the concept of winning back some of the living room for music is a valid one." Follow Mike Snider on Twitter: @MikeSnider | 5 | 94,346 | news |
Economic growth is set to slow in Sub-Saharan Africa to 3.7 percent this year from 4.6 percent in 2014, its weakest pace since 2009, mainly due to the drop in commodity prices, the World Bank has said in its latest Africa Pulse report. Joel Flynn reports. | 3 | 94,347 | finance |
A pioneering solar plane which recently broke a world record for continuous flight is preparing for its latest mission - to fly above the Amazon. Jim Drury reports. | 8 | 94,348 | video |
A closer look at the next generation of food. | 8 | 94,349 | video |
Bank of America (BAC) delivered quarterly earnings that topped analysts' expectations on Wednesday. Shares of Bank of America rose more than 2 percent in premarket trading following the announcement. (Get the latest quote here.) (BAC) The banking giant posted third-quarter adjusted earnings of 37 cents per share, reversing a year-earlier loss related to a multibillion-dollar settlement with the U.S. government over mortgages. Total revenue on a fully taxable equivalent basis fell 2.4 percent to $20.91 billion. Analysts expected the company to post earnings per share of 33 cents on revenue of $20.77 billion, according to a Thomson Reuters consensus estimate. "The key drivers of our business deposit taking and lending to both our consumer and corporate clients moved in the right direction ... and our trading results on behalf of clients remained fairly stable in challenging capital markets conditions," Chief Executive Brian Moynihan said in a statement. BofA's noninterest income, which includes revenue from equity and bonds trading and mortgage banking, rose 1.6 percent to $11.17 billion. BofA, which has paid more than $70 billion in legal fees since 2008, said those costs fell for the third straight quarter, dropping to $231 million from $6 billion a year earlier. The company's shareholders voted down the splitting of the chairman and CEO positions on Sept. 22. Shares of the banking giant have lagged considerably this year when compared with those of other major banks. Bank of America's stock has fallen more than 10 percent in that time, while shares of Well Fargo (WFC) and Citigroup (C) have both dropped about 5 percent, according to FactSet. Reuters contributed to this report. | 3 | 94,350 | finance |
HealthGrove consulted U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission data to find the products that cause the most injuries to American adults ages 61 and up. The Most Dangerous Products for the Elderly Dangers found around the home cause thousands of unintentional injuries and deaths each year, especially for older adults ages 61 or older. Slips, trips, and falls cause the majority of fatal and nonfatal injuries among the elderly. As we age, lower body strength, eyesight, and balance can deteriorate, making older people more susceptible than others to injury. These injuries can have the worst outcomes for this demographic of people. According to the Centers for Disease Control, between 20 percent and 30 percent of falls among adults ages 65 and older result in hip fractures, head lacerations and head trauma.These injuries can make it more difficult for older adults to live independently. Although these injuries are the result of accidents, the experts at HealthGrove believe that it is important to be aware of the most dangerous products for the elderly (classified for this study as those ages 61 and up). Using the most up-to-date data on product injuries from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, HealthGrove used annual injury reports from 1997 to 2014 to create a list of the most dangerous products for the elderly. Note, while porches, flooring and showers are virtually unavoidable home fixtures, it's important that people know which commonplace products cause the most injuries to aging Americans. #20. Non-Power Tools Power tools aren't the only tools threatening the elderly. In America, an average of 18,340 annual injuries to older adults ages 61 and older are caused by non-power tools. #19. Porches and Balconies With time, the surfaces of porches and balconies can erode and become uneven or jagged, making them a trip, slip, and fall hazard. Porch and balcony-related injuries cause an average of 19,096 injuries for older adults in the U.S. each year. #18. Cycling They say once you learn how to ride a bicycle, you will never forget. Although this might be true, cycling causes an average of 19,450 to older adults annually. As balance and eyesight weaken, cycling on two wheels can be hazardous. #17. Footwear Surprisingly, one of the most dangerous products to the elderly is on their feet. Each year an average of 19,552 footwear-related injuries occur to adults ages 61 or older in America. #16. Plastic Containers The plastic containers that you store your leftovers in might appear harmless, but data proves otherwise. Plastic containers, including plastic bottles, jars, bags and wrapping products, cause an average of 20,552 injuries to older adults in the U.S. annually. #15. Walls and Ceilings Walls and ceilings are hard to avoid. An average of 28,750 reported injuries to older adults are caused by walls and ceilings each year. When balance is compromised, a quick slip can cause your head to collide with the wall, causing serious injury. #14. Garden Tools (Excl. Lawn Mowers) Gardening is a pastime many older adults enjoy, but gardening might be more dangerous than one would think. An average of 29,743 gardening-related injuries affect older adults in the U.S. each year. #13. Ladders and Step Stools Ladders and step stools are dangerous to anyone, but especially to older adults whose balance and eyesight might be compromised. Step stools and ladders cause an average of 30,210 injuries to the elderly each year in the U.S. Note: Our data source changed its product categorization scheme in January 2003, resulting in the spike seen in the visualization. #12. Doors (Excl. Garage Doors) We all have slammed our hands in a door at least once. Each year, doors cause an average of 34,167 injuries to older adults. Note: Our data source changed its product categorization scheme in January 2003, resulting in the spike seen in the visualization. #11. Toilets Toilets might appear harmless, but they actually inflict an average of 34,263 injuries to the elderly each year. Older adults are more susceptible to leg weakness and sitting down on a toilet can be extremely difficult. It is important that you set up handlebars next to the toilet for support in homes with aging adults. #10. Knives If you cook, you likely work with sharp knives on a daily basis. Older adults fall victim to an average of 35,341 knife-related injuries each year in the U.S. #9. Power Tools It goes without saying that power tools can be dangerous, especially to those with poor eyesight and coordination. Power tools cause an average of 36,978 injuries to older adults each year in the U.S. #8. Showers and Bathtubs When surfaces become wet, they become slippery. Shower and bathtubs cause an average of 51,252 injuries to the elderly each year in America. Make sure that you have rugs outside of your shower to prevent falling on the way out. #7. Crutches, Canes and Walkers Crutches, canes and walkers are known to help with balance, not cause injury. But these walking aids must be used correctly, and can cause falls and slips if they are not. Each year in the U.S., crutches, canes and walkers are responsible for an average of 55,731 injuries to older adults. #6. Wheelchairs As leg strength deteriorates, wheelchairs become a necessity. Whether it's transfers in an out of the chair, tips and falls, collision accidents, or component failures, an average of 62,999 wheelchair-related injuries occur to the elderly in the U.S. each year. #5. Furniture (Excl. Beds and Chairs) The fifth-most-dangerous product on this list in terms of annual injuries to older adults is furniture, with 67,119 average reported incidents. Furniture, excluding beds and chairs, includes but is not limited to desks, dressers, tables, and chests, can get in the way if you are not looking where you are going. #4. Chairs and Couches Recliners, rocking chairs, folding chairs, stools and couches are responsible for an average of 81,452 injuries to older adults each year in America. A lack of balance might be the cause of injuries in stools and rocking chairs, causing falls and tumbles. Note: Our data source changed its product categorization scheme in January 2003, resulting in the spike seen in the visualization. #3. Beds As leg strength weakens, it becomes increasingly difficult to get in and out of bed. An average of 99,763 injuries to older adults in the U.S. occur each year from beds. Note: Our data source changed its product categorization scheme in January 2003, resulting in the spike seen in the visualization. #2. Stairs Falling down a flight of stairs can cause serious injuries, some even fatal. An average of 187,130 stair-related injuries occur to older adults ages 61 and over each year in America. It is important to make use of handles and wear socks or shoes with a grip when going up or down a flight of stairs. #1. Carpets, Rugs and Other Flooring Carpets, rugs and other flooring are the most dangerous products to older adults in America, causing an annual average of 385,063 injuries. Slipping, tripping and falling are common for older adults. It is important to use a walker or a wheelchair if balance is failing and it is becoming difficult to walk.Research Other Conditions on HealthGrove | 7 | 94,351 | health |
The 2016 Fiat 500X is all-new to the Italian automaker's lineup after a very memorable fall 2014 debut, complete with a sexually charged set of commercials to promote it. If you listened to Fiat, the 500X is "ready for anything." And although that may be true, we wouldn't take this baby crossover off-road. It's definitely more suited to the city streets, where it stands out from the rest of its segment with its good handling and small stature. The 500X targets other models with funky exterior designs, such as the Nissan Juke and Chevrolet Trax, but adds more personality and a more cohesive exterior and interior design; everything about the small crossover was done with intention. The overall exterior design is in line with the rest of the Fiat lineup, and although it shares a platform with the Jeep Renegade, this vehicle is all Fiat. But looks aren't enough for consumers to purchase the 500X. Slightly smaller than the 500L, it also offers plenty of room for passengers and cargo. Rear legroom might be tight for taller passengers, though. Related Link: Research the Fiat 500X Fiat offers the 500X in five trim levels: Pop, Easy, Lounge, Trekking, and Trekking Plus. We got behind the wheel of both the entry-level Pop with the 1.4-liter Multiair turbo engine with six-speed manual transmission and the Trekking, which gets its power from a larger 2.4-liter Tigershark Multiair2 engine with a nine-speed automatic transmission. The slight differences between these two models were made apparent when we took them both out on a modified handling course. In the Pop model, the steering wasn't as tight as in the Trekking model, and even with the manual transmission, the Pop didn't feel as sporty as the higher trim. However, the transmission was smooth and easy to use, and it had a light clutch that those learning to drive a manual will find pretty easy. During the quick, tight turns of the handling course, the Pop handled well, with sharp turns and enough power to accelerate out of the corners quickly. Hopping into the Trekking model was like driving a different car altogether. The sharper steering gave us more confidence, it had better grip in the corners, and with the selectable drive modes, it was easy to find the right setting both on and off the small course. Under normal driving conditions, the 2016 Fiat 500X Trekking's 180 hp and 175 lb-ft of torque provide decent acceleration, given the small crossover weighs just less than 3,000 pounds. At slower speeds, the nine-speed auto seems to shift seamlessly through the gears, but once up to highway speeds, those shifts, whether up or down, become jerky and jolt both driver and passengers. The nine-speed does have the option for manual shifting, but the system is slow to respond, which takes out the enjoyment of such a feature. The Pop model, on the other hand, offers a bit more driving enjoyment, as the six-speed manual is smooth and engaging. The clutch isn't stiff, and the gear ratios are just the right length that even beginners will have no trouble behind the wheel. Like with the driving characteristics, the difference in the interior continues to give us the impression that the base Pop and more upscale Trekking model are drastically different. The base model offers few standard features, including black or gray cloth seats that are manually adjustable, and almost no active driver safety features. The Trekking model, on the other hand, gets more amenities, a more upscale interior, and the Uconnect system that's intuitive and easy to use. However, the 6.5-inch display is rather small compared to that in the Chevrolet Trax. It is larger than the one in the Nissan Juke, though. The subcompact crossover segment is fairly new, but some models have already begun to fall behind. Fiat hopes the all-new 2016 500X offers just enough to get consumers interested. Younger buyers may find the base model offers a good fit for affordability and personality, and those wanting a more upscale but still fun experience may opt for a higher trim level. The 500X has a competitive edge in many aspects and clings to the persona of Fiat, but it also has its drawbacks. Regardless, for those shopping in the small CUV segment, the 2016 Fiat 500X is definitely worth at least a test drive. 2016 Fiat 500X AWD (Trekking) BASE PRICE $25,900 PRICE AS TESTED $28,100 VEHICLE LAYOUT Front-engine, AWD, 5-pass, 4-door SUV ENGINE 2.4L/180-hp/175-lb-ft SOHC 16-valve I-4 TRANSMISSION 9-speed automatic CURB WEIGHT (F/R DIST) 3,307 lb (61/39%) WHEELBASE 101.2 in LENGTH x WIDTH x HEIGHT 168.2 x 70.7 x 63.1 in 0-60 MPH 8.5 sec QUARTER MILE 16.6 sec @ 82.3 mph BRAKING, 60-0 MPH 116 ft LATERAL ACCELERATION 0.76 g (avg) MT FIGURE EIGHT 28.7 sec @ 0.59 g (avg) Follow MSN Autos on Facebook | 9 | 94,352 | autos |
LAS VEGAS, Nev. The first Democratic presidential debate lived up to its billing Tuesday night as an energized Hillary Clinton sought to assert her dominance over the field, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) attempted to rally progressives to his cause, and three other candidates looked for a breakthrough moment. But who saw success and who saw their hopes wither on the Las Vegas stage? WINNERS: Hillary Clinton Republican and Democratic strategists found common ground on one point on Tuesday night: Clinton was the runaway winner. The former secretary of State showed the benefits of being the most experienced debater on the stage, armed with substantive points on policy, well-practiced rebuttals to expected lines of attack and some neat soundbites. After spending months being pummeled in the controversy over her use of a private email account, Clinton's back was up against the wall and she was facing a growing threat from the ascendant Sanders. But she might very well have stopped the rot and muted anxious voices within the Democratic Party in Las Vegas. Polished and poised, she hit Sanders on issues including gun policy. She also took several opportunities to slam Republicans and embraced the history-making nature of her campaign to become the first female president, something she was reluctant to do in 2008. Best of all, she got an unexpected gift from Sanders when he weighed in on the email controversy. "The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails," he said to applause from the audience and a handshake from a broadly grinning Clinton. President Obama With the president's approval rating hovering around 42 percent, a number of pundits had wondered if the candidates on the stage Tuesday night would distance themselves from him. None did, at least in any substantive way. To the contrary, most were eager to display their admiration. Asked about racial justice, for example, Clinton lauded the president as "a great moral leader on these issues." Skepticism about Obama was couched in the most gentle of terms. Asked if a future Clinton administration would in effect be a third term for President Obama, the former secretary of State merely said she would go "further" than the incumbent president. MIXED: Bernie Sanders The Vermont senator had his moments, but he was neither as fluent nor as effective as Clinton. He made emphatic points about income inequality and his reasons for calling himself a democratic socialist. But Clinton clearly gained the upper hand over him at times. "I think we should look to countries like Denmark, like Sweden and Norway, and learn from what they have accomplished for their working people," Sanders said at one point, near the start of the debate. But Clinton shot back, "We are not Denmark. I love Denmark. We are the United States of America." Vice President Biden The Vice President hasn't announced whether or not he'll run for the top job and CNN's decision to keep a lectern backstage in reserve for him proved unnecessary. On one hand, the strength of Clinton's performance on the debate stage may have narrowed Biden's window to enter the race. Still, Biden might have fared even worse had he entered the debate under-prepared and rusty, only to face Clinton at her best. LOSERS: Everyone else Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb and former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee couldn't gain traction on Tuesday night. O'Malley could have been the breakout candidate of the debate, but had no truly memorable moments, with the exception of a strong closing statement. Webb spent considerable time complaining that he was being all but ignored by Anderson Cooper and other questioners. Chafee took implicit jabs at Clinton by twice noting that his public career had been free of scandals, but the point never stuck, and he stumbled badly at times. | 5 | 94,353 | news |
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured new images showing the clearest details of Jupiter to date. Rendered in 4K Ultra HD, the planet's famous Great Red Spot appears more orange than red. Photo: YouTube/NASA | 8 | 94,354 | video |
Simon Cowell Simon Cowell is "absolutely livid" after a snippet of One Direction's new single was leaked. The four-piece boyband are gearing up to release their new single 'Perfect' on Friday (10.16.15) but their label, which is run by the music mogul, have been left feeling furious due to a 30-second clip of the song being shared without their consent. An insider told The Sun newspaper: "Syco has gone absolutely ballistic that someone one of the boys trusted has covertly recorded the song and shared it. They had a strategy in place and hardly anyone got to hear the song so they could keep it entirely under wraps before its release on Friday. Now that's all been put at risk." It was previously revealed the track, which was penned by members Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson, was inspired by Harry's short-lived romance with US superstar Taylor Swift, which ended in January 2013. A source said: "Harry would never get too specific about Taylor in a song, but the lyrics are definitely going to get fans speculating. "He doesn't want to dish the dirt but a relationship as intense as theirs has provided lots of inspiration." | 6 | 94,355 | entertainment |
Perrie Edwards, the former girlfriend and fiancée of Zayn Malik, cannot understand why he would want to film a reality show despite being shy in front of the cameras. Edwards reportedly believes that Malik, who shot to fame with his band One Direction, must be "desperate" if he plans to go ahead with reality television. "Perrie doesn't understand why on earth Zayn would want cameras following him around 24/7, which is what would happen if he was to star in his own reality show," a source told Hollywood Life , adding: "She thinks he's just confused and desperate to fit in with the LA scene. Back in London, Zayn always complained about the paparazzi following him around. He always talked about his lack of privacy and how he wished he could just walk down the street without being harassed." The source went on to say, according to Hollywood Life, "He never liked reality shows. He always said they were too gimmicky and mindless," adding: "Plus he's way into his privacy, so why he would want the whole world in on his every move is completely out of character. He must be really lonely, that's what Perrie sums up." Reports last week said that 22-year-old Malik, who left the band in March to pursue a solo career, was in talks with E! and other networks to star in his own reality show that will portray his life after One Direction. "Zayn is talking to E! and other networks about a reality show that will document his time after being in One Direction and working on his new music. It will counter when new music comes out, so it's not going to be any time soon, but within the year. Don't expect it to come out in 2015!" a source told Hollywood Life last week. Edwards and Malik were engaged in August 2013 and broke up in August this year, without revealing the reason behind the split. Last month, Malik posted a photo on his Instagram page with a mystery woman, who had his arm around her. Malik's fans had slammed the singer in comments to the photo, for getting over Edwards so soon. A later report by Hollywood Life had identified the woman as Carlyn Bryan and had added that Malik was dating several girls at the same time. | 6 | 94,356 | entertainment |
The 'fun size' versions of your favorite Halloween candy have less calories than the standard versions, but as Mara Montalbano (@maramontalbano) tells us, those calories can still add up. | 8 | 94,357 | video |
Stewart Mandel previews the rivalry matchup between Michigan State and Michigan at the Big House. | 1 | 94,358 | sports |
The Turkish interior ministry on Wednesday fired Ankara's top police chief and two other officials as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan admitted security shortcomings may have led to a double suicide bombing in the capital that killed 97 people. There has been growing anger against Erdogan and the government for alleged security lapses over the worst attack in modern Turkey's history Saturday where two suicide bombers blew themselves in a crowd of peace activists. Announcing the first dismissals in the wake of the disaster, the interior ministry said the chief of Ankara police Kadri Kartal as well the head of the city's police intelligence and security departments had been sacked. It said they had been removed on the suggestion of investigators "to allow for a healthy investigation" into the atrocity. In his first public remarks over the bombings, Erdogan admitted there were security shortcomings but said their magnitude would be made clear only later. "There must undoubtedly be a mistake, a shortcoming in some place. Of what dimension? This will emerge after examinations," he told reporters late Tuesday. With pressure growing to dismiss Interior Minister Selami Altinok, Erdogan said: "If there's any negligence of duty, then both the prime minister and related units will take steps needed. Nobody should doubt it." He announced that he ordered the State Supervisory Council (DDK), an inspection body attached to the Turkish presidency, to undertake a special investigation "to handle (the attack) from a different perspective". Its probe will be held in parallel with the regular police and judicial investigation. The DDK has in the past probed state-sensitive issues like the death in 1993 of former president Turgut Ozal, which many regard as suspicious. An information ministry official told AFP that two people with alleged links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) had been detained on suspicion of having prior knowledge of the attack and sharing the information nine hours prior to the attack on Twitter. Erdogan on Wednesday made his first visit to the attack site outside Ankara's main railway station, laying flowers for the victims alongside visiting Finnish President Sauli Niinisto. - 'We know the killer!' - The attack has raised political tensions to new highs as Turkey prepares for a November 1 snap election, with polarisation within the country now greater than ever. The attack targeted thousands of people gathering for a peace rally of union, leftist and Kurdish activists criticising the government's current offensive against Kurdish militants. The pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), which lost several members in the blasts, has accused the authorities of, at the very least, severe negligence over the bombings. In protests after the blasts, demonstrators have held up banners such as "killer Erdogan" and "we know the killer!". The authorities have angrily ridiculed claims of state complicity in the attacks. The government has said the Islamic State (IS) group is the prime suspect behind the attack, which also injured more than 500. Without giving further details, Erdogan said on Tuesday that Turkey had received intelligence indicating that the Ankara attack may be linked to Syria, where IS jihadists have captured swathes of territory up to the Turkish border. There have been growing indications that the authorities are focussing on possible parallels or even links to a July 20 suicide bombing at a peace rally in Suruc on the Syrian border that killed 34. The government blamed IS for that attack, which also targeted a gathering of pro-Kurdish and leftist activists. Over the weekend and on Monday, police arrested dozens of people with suspected links to IS in cities stretching from the Mediterranean resort of Antalya to the southern city of Adana. Erdogan said the Ankara attack culprits will be brought to justice but warned "some patience is needed" as DNA tests are carried out on the remains of the two suicide bombers. Turkey's NATO allies have long pointed the finger at Ankara for not taking a tougher line as IS militants seized swathes of northern Iraq and Syria. But following months of Western pressure, Turkey is now a full member of the US-led coalition against IS and allowing American jets to use its Incirlik air base for raids, potentially making it a more likely target for IS attacks. | 5 | 94,359 | news |
Southwest rolled out a 72-hour, nationwide fare sale Tuesday (Oct. 13) in which the prices of its flights are roughly based on distance. Dozens of the carrier's shortest routes are available for fares of less than $100 round trip. The sale fares are good on Southwest's nonstop domestic flights between Dec. 2 and Dec. 16 and between Jan. 5 and Feb. 10. Friday and Sunday flights are excluded, and additional day-of-the-week restrictions apply for flights to Florida, Nevada and Puerto Rico. Still, for customers who can navigate schedule restrictions, the sale drops fares to less than $100 round trip on many U.S. routes. But bargain hunters must act quick; the sale concludes at the end of the day Thursday (Oct. 15). The sale mirrors similar promotions from previous years in which Southwest pegged sale fares to mileage thresholds. In those sales, for example, Southwest priced flights of 500 miles or less at $49 each way and increased from there. Flights of 501 to 1,000 miles cost $99 each way and flights of 1,001 to 1,500 miles cost $129 each way. Flights of more than 1,500 miles went for $149 each way. While Southwest no longer uses a precise mileage component, its latest sales have appeared to closely mimic the distance-based sale strategy. The carrier's four advertised sale-fare tiers $49, $99, $129 and $149 each way are in line with the fares it offered on its distance-based sales of years past. The broad distance-oriented fare sales, which Southwest rolls out twice a year, usually cover travel for periods where demand typically is weak. The latest sale, for example, covers the first two weeks of December, when travel slows between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The sale also covers the first month of the year, another period when both corporate and leisure travel typically is light. By reducing fares during such times, Southwest and other airlines look to stimulate sales when they would otherwise fly with many empty seats. Whatever the details, travelers can snag advertised round-trip fares as low as $98 on short routes. Many routes, such as Chicago-Minneapolis, Los Angeles-San Francisco and Baltimore-Boston, showed fares as low as $98 (including taxes). Fares on longer flights generally increased incrementally in correlation to the distance flown. Despite the deals, the scope of Southwest's recent big sales appears to have become somewhat more limited than in previous years. Some of the carrier's sub-500-mile routes such as Atlanta-New Orleans and Baltimore-Charleston, S.C were not being sold for the lowest $49 fares. Instead fares on those routes and a number of Southwest's other short routes were going for higher sale fares of $63 to $73 each way. And there were several cities -- mostly ones where the airline offers few flights of 500 miles or less -- where there were no $49 sale fares. Still, those details and restrictions also were true during the carrier's last big sale in June, when Southwest had to apologize and extend its sale after a crush of deal-hunters overwhelmed its website . On the flip side, a small number of other short Southwest routes such as Chicago-Memphis and Charlotte-Baltimore were available for even less than $49. Those routes displayed at least some fares ranging from $44 to $47 each way. Four routes from California's Ontario airport were listed at $46 each way, including Oakland, Phoenix and Sacramento. Deal-seekers will have to move fast to lock in those prices. Southwest's sale runs only through the end of the day Thursday (Oct. 15), and the cheapest fares will disappear as they sell out. For the short routes that are priced at $49 each way, that makes for round-trip fares of less than $100 on many city-pairs -- including taxes and fees. Among Southwest's sub-$100 round trip options: Chicago Midway- Pittsburgh; Boise-Spokane, Wash.; Charlotte-Baltimore; Cleveland-Baltimore; Columbus, Ohio-Washington National; Dallas Love-New Orleans; Denver-Salt Lake City; Detroit-Baltimore; Houston Hobby-Memphis; El Paso-Los Angeles; Grand Rapids, Mich.-St. Louis; Indianapolis-Washington National; Los Angeles-Albuquerque; Nashville-Kansas City; San Jose, Calif.-San Diego.; San Francisco-Los Angeles; St. Louis-Omaha; Austin-Harlingen, Texas; and Greenville, S.C.-Baltimore Tickets must be purchased Thursday by 11:59 p.m. in the time zone of the originating city. | 3 | 94,360 | finance |
Truly a clever way to do it! | 8 | 94,361 | video |
We just fist out the seeds, right? | 8 | 94,362 | video |
Robots have transformed the lives of tradesmen and laborers, but lawyers, architects, and doctors tend to believe that their careers are safe from the advances of artificial intelligence. This belief is entirely wrong, according to the upcoming book, Future of the Professions: How Technology will Transform the Work of Human Experts . The authors, Richard Susskind, UK government advisor and visiting professor at Oxford Internet Institute, and his son Daniel Susskind, lecturer at Oxford University, have conducted hundreds of interviews and drawn on economic and sociological theory to reach their challenging conclusion: AI will dramatically transform the middle-class working landscape. In the near-term, the Susskinds argue, artificial intelligence will simply accelerate the efficiency of professions. But then robots will start to take over more work, and humans will find the roles of "doctor" or "lawyer" replaced with such less glamorous-sounding titles as "empathizer," "knowledge engineer," or "system provider." "It's hard to escape the conclusion that there will be less for people to do," Daniel Susskind tells Quartz. "If machines and systems take on more and more tasks, as we see them doing, then it begs the question: What will be left for people?" In their book, the Susskinds argue that the very top professionals may survive, but that number will be relatively small: The best and the brightest will endure the longest those who can perform tasks that cannot or ought not to be replaced by machines, and tasks that we prefer to leave in the hands of human beings. But there will not be a sufficiency of these tasks to keep armies of professionals in gainful employment. "The perception is that a lawyer drafts a unique legal document for each client and there's something of the craftsman to it all," Susskind says. "Architects are perceived as leaning over their easel with a pencil, scratching away and designing buildings." But in fact, he explains, when you divide the work of each profession into distinct tasks, many actions can be "routinized" into standard operating procedures that can be carried out by computers. For example, retrieving legal documents , building complex constructions , marking students' work , and diagnosing patients could all potentially be done by robots. And not only could computers match humans at these tasks they could be better at them than us. Susskind says that robots are able to process far more data than humans: A new medical journal article is published every 40-something seconds. If 2% of that medical literature is relevant for a doctor, then it would take 23 hours a day to read all those journal articles. That's just not possible. Some of these systems can scan, read, digest these huge bodies of work that would be impenetrable for ordinary people. And even professional duties we see as distinctly "human" could be carried out by AI. Just because machines can't feel in the way that humans can, it doesn't mean they can't display empathy when it's needed for the job. Indeed, emotionally sensitive robots currently exist . "It's a fallacy to think that the only way a machine can perform a task is to do it the way that a human does it," Susskind says. Meaning that robots can display empathy without necessarily feeling distinctly human emotions. Just because futuristic job titles such as "knowledge engineers" sound less exciting, doesn't mean that working alongside robots will be any less fulfilling, write the Susskinds. "The word 'robot' comes from the Czech word robota which means drudgery and toil. A lot of these machines are getting rid of routine tasks that professionals are happy to see go," says Susskind. "Teachers don't want to spend all their time marking, and these systems can free doctors up to spend more time with their patients." Though AI may be able to complete the bulk of professional work, Susskind says there should be a public discussion about robots' roles in morally sensitive situations, such as issuing death sentences and turning off life support machines. "I feel deeply uncomfortable with that, but it may be that for some tasks machines can make these decisions more effectively and efficiently," he says. Overall, the Susskinds point out that professionals have long been "gatekeepers" that keep bodies of knowledge away from people with less resources, only disseminating it upon considerable payment. There's a danger, they say, that technology could make new gatekeepers but it's also possible that expert information will be more widely shared. And allowing machines to carry out professional work means that these services will be more accessible and affordable than ever before. There's already evidence that this is happening, according to the Susskinds: In 2014, US tax authorities received 48 million electronic tax returns that were prepared using online tax software rather than a tax professional. An open-source building platform, WikiHouse, designed a house that could be printed and assembled for less than £50,000 . There are more visits to WebMD every month than visits to all the doctors in the US. More people signed up to Harvard's online courses in one year than attended the university in its 379 years of existence. We may not need to make a decision about robotic judges within the decade, but it's clear that we will soon have to adapt to robots working their way up the career ladder, right alongside the rest of us. | 5 | 94,363 | news |
NEW YORK The ball spun off his glove in defiance. Clayton Kershaw spun through the air in frustration. BOX SCORE: DODGERS 3, METS 1 It was happening again. It was the seventh inning of an elimination game and it was happening again, the best pitcher on the planet imploding again, the Dodgers season cratering once more. Leading off the seventh inning of a Dodgers' must-win Game 4 of the National League division series Tuesday night, the New York Mets' Yoenis Cespedes hacked a bleeder about 30 feet down the third-base line, where it ticked off the glove of pitcher Kershaw. Moments later, Cespedes was standing on first, nearly 45,000 Mets fans were on their feet and the Dodgers' 3-1 lead was caught between Kershaw's history and histrionics. This was Matt Adams. This was Matt Carpenter. This was every nightmare from Kershaw's elimination losses in the last two years come to life one more time. Don't say you weren't thinking this at home, because you were. Don't think the Dodgers were ignoring it in the dugout, because they couldn't. Said Manager Don Mattingly: "Cespedes hits that chopper to lead off the inning and (it's) like, 'Oh, here we go ... '" Said catcher A.J. Ellis: "There's no secret the seventh inning has kind of been a tough spot for him these past few postseason outings, so the flood of emotions that happens after Cespedes' dribbler ... " Kershaw's burden was visible, vibrant and hanging from his broad shoulders as he briefly visited with Ellis before returning to the top of the mound alone amid a Citi Field full of flapping orange flags and jeers. And then, with a giant shrug and six mighty heaves, he shook it. Finally, he shook it. In what was probably the greatest of the 1,6752/3 innings he has pitched in his career, the man the Mets' David Wright called "a beast" slayed the beast. Travis d'Arnaud fouled out down the first-base line. Lucas Duda flied out to center field. Wilmer Flores grounded out to a diving third baseman Justin Turner. End of inning. End of narrative. Clayton Kershaw finally won a truly big one, saving the Dodgers season with seven brilliant innings in a 3-1 win that tied the best-of-five series at two games apiece and sends it to a deciding Game 5 for teammate Zack Greinke Thursday at Dodger Stadium. "Glad I did it, I guess," Kershaw said later. "I mean, there's no curse or anything." Not anymore, there's not. He's won 116 major league games including the postseason, but this was the biggest. He's won three Cy Young Award and an MVP, but this was bigger. He not only kept the Dodgers season alive by allowing just one run on three hits with eight strikeouts in seven innings, but he did it while pitching on three day's rest for the first time this season. "He deserves this moment. He deserves to be on this stage (with) the great postseason performances of the past," said Ellis. Mattingly wouldn't specifically say that Kershaw had just removed a giant primate from the name on his jersey, but you could tell he knew it. "I'm actually really happy for him ... everything that you're supposed to be, he is ... this guy's an animal, the way he works, represents us, the game of baseball, himself," said Mattingly. ''He's really a credit to the game and so you're really happy for him to be able to do that tonight." The Mets worked the pitch count on him early, with David Wright even drawing a one-out walk in the first, but Kershaw continually fought to survive. He allowed a home run to Daniel Murphy for the second time in the series with one out in the fourth, but then retired the next two hitters without the ball leaving the infield. He allowed a two-out single to Lagares in the fifth, but then struck out pinch-hitter Michael Cuddyer on four pitches. Then, of course, he finished it off with that breathtaking seventh inning, six pitches to retire three hitters, ending the game tiring with the 94 pitches and short rest, but ending it a winner in the postseason for only the second time this season. And, oh, by the way, he also singled to start the Dodgers third-inning, three-run uprising, and then later even tried to reach first on a surprise bunt that went foul. "He definitely wanted this badly and I'm so proud of him...especially getting those last three outs, which were the toughest for him tonight," said Ellis. Kershaw has tried to avoid reliving the past during his postseason drought, and wasn't thrilled to bring it up again in the postgame press conference. He was even snippy when I began the questioning by asking about his mindset when that ball tipped off his glove and how he survived that usually fateful seventh inning. "That's really the first question I'm answering?" he said. "I don't I mean, yeah, it was frustrating to give up a hit like that. That's all I got for you. Good question." He understandably may not want to discuss it, but the elimination-game burden was there, and now, in a flash of glory the Dodgers hope will shine for another three weeks, it's not. Zack Greinke? Your turn. | 1 | 94,364 | sports |
This series of GWODs was designed exclusively for Greatist by Bodeefit . For more information about the exercises in this workout, or to see video demos of each movement, follow the links below the graphic. Be sure to note the results of your workout so you can track your progress as you go. Before you tackle this workout, try this quick and effective full-body warm-up . It's just five simple moves but hits every major muscle group and gets your heart pumping. Breathe! Complete 10 reps of each of the following movements, then 15 reps, then 20 reps as fast as safely possible. Jumping Squats Elevated Push-Ups Burpee Box Jumps Want to kick up the intensity? Move your feet higher to make the elevated push-ups more difficult. And don't forget to check back tomorrow for a totally new (but equally awesome) GWOD! | 7 | 94,365 | health |
Key points - Diageo to sell most of its wine business - Train firm promises quickest London to Scotland service - UK unemployment data due at 09:30 - Official report criticises UK water industry profits | 3 | 94,366 | finance |
Research shows that 45% of Americans usually make New Year's Resolutions, while only 8% are successful in in achieving them. What is it about those 8% that make them so different? It might sound simple, but it comes down to their habits. Here are 11 you simply must have if you want to reach your goals: 1. Set specific goals Unfortunately, one of the things that derails many goal-setters is that they lack a specific finish line. "Lose weight" is vague do you succeed if you lose one pound? Instead, people who always reach their goals have a habit of being very specific about what they want to accomplish like "lose 10 pounds in 3 months." 2. Schedule time to work on goals Successful people know that time doesn't carve itself out. If they have a goal they're serious about, they schedule specific time to work on it. They keep these appointments sacred, just as if they were meeting with clients. The habit of scheduling time to work towards your goals ensures you'll always reach them. 3. Set smaller goals on the way to the big goal Many people start off with huge goals that inspire them, but are, unfortunately, hard to attain. When you have huge goals, it's important to break them down into smaller "milestone" goals, so that you can not only track your progress, but stay encouraged throughout the process. 4. Realize all attributes can be improved Some people get discouraged and give up on their goals simply because they think they aren't good enough to achieve them. Those who meet their goals realize this isn't the case even intelligence or personality can be improved over time. By making a habit of improving all attributes, you'll reach your goals more easily. 5. Habitually persevere For those who regularly achieve their goals, the saying "When the going gets tough, the tough get going" is a way of life. By realizing that the path to their goals will be difficult, they prepare themselves to push through. Having a habit of perseverance is essential if you want to be someone who meets your goals. 6. Write your goals down People who are successful have a strong habit of writing down every goal they set, along with the date it was achieved. This gives them a record they can use to encourage themselves, while also making the goal seem more concrete. 7. Replace bad habits with good ones Making a goal to stop doing something is not nearly as effective as making a goal that involves doing something new. If you have a bad habit to overcome, focus on creating a new behavior in that situation. Something like, "When I feel angry at my child, I'll take 10 seconds before speaking" is a specific, positive habit, versus saying, "I'll never get angry at my child." 8. Don't make excuses Many people who don't achieve their goals end up making excuses. Those who are successful don't hide behind excuses instead, they see failures as a chance to recalibrate and try again. Make a habit of refusing to give in to excuses instead, empower yourself to keep moving toward your goal. 9. Make goals that help others Having the motivation to keep going when the path to a goal gets rough is very important. Those who are successful at reaching their goals set achievements that mean a lot to them. Often, they focus on goals that help others. When you know you're doing good, it's easier to keep moving toward success. 10. Have a habit of being healthy Being fit might seem like a goal in itself, but ultimately, it helps you achieve your other aims. Those who are successful seem to have endless energy, and they get this way by keeping their body moving and eating well. By making healthy choices, you set yourself up for success. 11. Stay humble about your abilities Those who are most successful in reaching their goals know they always have something new to learn, grow, or improve in. By staying humble and teachable, they're able to accept help and generate success, over and over again. Reaching your goals consistently isn't about having super-human power, it's about harnessing the power of habit. With these 12 habits, you'll be much more likely to reach your goals consistently. | 4 | 94,367 | lifestyle |
Rapper Jay Z has attended the start of a copyright trial over his 1999 hit Big Pimpin' in Los Angeles. The star is accused of using the melody of Egyptian songwriter Baligh Hamdi's 1957 song Khosara Khosara without permission. Lawyers for Jay Z and producer hip-hop Timbaland say they secured the appropriate rights to feature the tune in the chorus. Jay Z is due to testify on Wednesday, along with an expert on Egyptian music. The case has taken years to get to court, with Hamdi's nephew, Osama Ahmed Fahmy, first filing a legal complaint in 2007. 'Moral rights' Mr Fahmy's lawyer Peter Ross claimed Jay Z had purposefully avoided asking permission because they knew it wouldn't be granted because of the risque lyrics used on Big Pimpin'. "You have to go to the composer himself, or his heirs, play the work, and get his approval," Mr Ross said. "That he never did." He also accused the rapper of violating Hamdi's "moral rights" - a legal concept he claimed was well-established in Egypt which would have required the musicians to get permission to use elements of Khosara Khosara in a song celebrating a promiscuous lifestyle. Jay Z's lawyer Andrew Bart argued that the explicit lyrics of Big Pimpin' should not be discussed in relation to the trial, as a depiction of the words as "vulgar" and "disgusting" could prejudice the jury against the rapper. US District Court Judge Christina Snyder agreed, saying examining Jay Z's lyrics would be irrelevant in this case. Timbaland's lawyer Christine Lepera said the producer used Hamdi's tune - which featured in a 1957 Egyptian film and became a major hit - without realising it was owned by EMI Music Arabia. The producers later paid $100,000 (£65,300) to the record label to acquire the licence. But Ms Fahmy argued the payment was inconsequential, and that only Hamdi's heirs had the right to approve a derivative work of the musician's composition. 'Undeserved income' Ms Lepera also denied Big Pimpin' used major elements of Hamdi's work, saying much of its music was simple and not subject to copyright. She added that Mr Fahmy's legal claim was an "effort to get an undeserved income". The trial is the second high-profile musical copyright case, after a federal jury ruled earlier this year Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams plagiarised Marvin Gaye in their hit Blurred Lines. Gaye's family were initially awarded $7.4m (£4.8m), but that was later reduced to $5.3m (£3.5m). | 6 | 94,368 | entertainment |
Halloween is the perfect time to coordinate your family into one costume scheme. Keri Lumm (@thekerilumm) has some ideas that are fun for any family. | 8 | 94,369 | video |
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and his Finnish counterpart lay flowers and hold a moment of silence at the scene of the deadly bombings in Ankara. Rough Cut (no reporter narration). | 5 | 94,370 | news |
Hong Kong's flagship airline began rerouting flights last Thursday after the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) said Russian cruise missile strikes on Syria could pose a danger to passenger aircraft. Russia last week launched cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea hitting targets in Syria, where Moscow has upped airstrikes to support the Assad regime. The missiles flew over Iranian and Iraqi airspace "below flight routes used by commercial transport aeroplanes," EASA said. The EASA issued the advisory without providing recommendations to avoid Iranian airspace. Cathay Pacific already avoids the airspace above Iraq, Syria, Ukraine and Afghanistan. The announcement comes as the Dutch investigators concluded Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down last year by a Russian-made BUK missile launched from eastern Ukraine. All 298 passengers died. cw/kms (AFP, dpa) | 5 | 94,371 | news |
Still wondering if you're a Carrie, a Miranda, a Charlotte, or a Samantha? It has been exactly 17 years since Sex and the City first premiered on HBO and instantly pushed cosmos, Post-it note break-ups, and Mr. Big into the cultural lexicon, and affection for the groundbreaking series has yet to diminish. The Sarah Jessica Parker-starring show offered a fresh, funny, and very frisky look inside the lives of four very different New York City gals. But even a show as beloved and written about as Sex and the City still has some secrets to spill, and we've found a handful of trivia bits that might surprise even its most hardcore fans. 1. CARRIE BRADSHAW ISN'T EXACTLY CANDANCE BUSHNELL. Even casual fans of the series know that Parker's character is based on author Candace Bushnell, who penned her own sex column in The New York Observer back in the 1990s, which she then adapted into the essay collection also known as Sex and the City. Although Bradshaw and Bushnell have a lot in common, they're not the same woman. Bushnell started writing for the Observer in 1994, using her own name and adventures to seed her wickedly funny column with salacious, true-life tidbits. But writing such stuff under your own name can be tricky Carrie found that out the hard way plenty of times and Bushnell eventually started writing stories about "Carrie" and her friends. Although she still pulled these stories from her own life, her semi-autobiographical heroine afforded Bushnell a special kind of freedom. You can still read some of her original columns over at the Observer's website. 2. CARRIE'S ADDRESS ISN'T REAL. Carrie supposedly lived in a very chic apartment for the entire run of the series a rent-controlled Upper East Side brownstone located on East 73rd Street, between Park and Madison Avenues. Swanky location, right? Too bad it was doubly fictional. Carrie's building number was 245 (a nonexistent street number that, if it did exist, would be located further east, between Second and Third Avenues) and the exterior shots were actually filmed in the West Village, at 66 Perry Street. 3. SAMANTHA AND MIRANDA'S ADDRESSES AREN'T REAL EITHER. Although the other ladies moved around during the course of the series, each of them had their own signature abode, none of which actually exist. Samantha's Meatpacking District loft at 300 Gansevoort Street isn't real (that address doesn't exist), while Miranda's Upper West Side apartment is also fictional. Charlotte's chi-chi address at 700 Park Avenue is, however, a real one, and it's home to a 21-floor co-op that specializes in large apartments. 4. SARAH JESSICA PARKER WANTED TO QUIT THE SHOW EARLY. Even though Parker had a no-nudity clause in her Sex and the City contract (which explains all those sexy scenes that feature Carrie in cute bras and nothing less), she was still nervous about the sexual content of the series. Back in 2010, she told The Sun, "I was not comfortable with nude scenes, scenes with sex toys, or vulgar language so I did not do any ... My character, Carrie, kissed a lot of men but that's as far as it went. I had the maturity to control my panic about the whole series and what it meant. At one point, after the pilot show of Sex and the City was made and they wanted me to sign up for the series, I wanted to get out of it." 5. IT'S THE ONLY CABLE SERIES TO WIN THE EMMY FOR OUTSTANDING COMEDY SERIES. Although HBO has had great success with their dramatic series, Sex and the City is still the network's only comedy series to win Emmy gold. In fact, it's the only cable series that has ever won, but that could change soon as other cable offerings, such as Silicon Valley and Veep, continue to be nominated in the category. For now, however, SATC holds the distinction. The series won the Emmy in 2001 and was nominated five other times. 6. THE FOURTH WALL-BREAKING LASTED FOR MORE THAN ONE SEASON. Early episodes of Sex and the City feature one majorly jarring element that was later jettisoned from the rest of its run: characters breaking the fourth wall and talking directly to the camera. Although Miranda, Charlotte, and random supporting characters did it in the pilot episode (even Skipper did it!), eventually only Carrie turned to the camera to chat it up. Most fans remember this as a strange quirk of the series' first season, but it actually lasted until the second season, as its last appearance reared its ugly (and talkative) head in "The Freak Show," the third episode of season two. 7. IT'S STILL THE INSPIRATION FOR A BUS TOUR. It makes sense that Sex and the City, one of those "oh, it's like New York City is its own character!" series, spawned a bus tour of the show's various NYC-set locations back in 2001. But it's a little surprising that the tour is still going. Run by On Location Tours, the three-and-a-half-hour tour has now been operating for twice as long as the series was on the air, and it shows no sign of slowing down. It operates seven days a week, complete with stops at Magnolia Bakery (for cupcakes) and Bleecker Street (for shopping). And, yes, it does drive by Carrie's stoop (the one on Perry Street, naturally). 8. NATASHA ONLY APPEARED IN SEVEN EPISODES. Sex and the City featured a ton of very memorable recurring characters, from Candice Bergen as Enid Frick, Carrie's Vogue editor, to Frances Sternhagen as Bunny MacDougal, Charlotte's one-time mother-in-law. But few guest stars had quite the same impact as Bridget Moynahan as Natasha Naginsky, Mr. Big's second wife. Considering how deeply the introduction of Natasha changed Carrie's life (and her relationship with Mr. Big), it's surprising that Moynahan only popped up in seven episodes, spread out over the second and third seasons. Her last appearance? The 17th episode of season three, "What Goes Around Comes Around," in which Carrie desperately tries to make amends. 9. THE SHOW ADDRESSED 9/11 IN ITS OWN WAY. The September 11th attacks occurred in between half-seasons, as the fourth season was split in two and the first run ended on August 12, 2001. When the show returned on January 6, 2002, the opening credits had been altered so as to not show the Twin Towers, which originally appeared twice, once with the show's title, once with "Starring Sarah Jessica Parker." Of the change, led by producer Michael Patrick King, Parker who watched the towers collapse told New York Magazine: "Like the rest of us, I had had all sorts of mixed feelings about the Twin Towers ... But once they were gone, they were beloved. " They were replaced in the credits by the Empire State Building. 10. THE SHOW DIDN'T ACTUALLY INVENT THE COSMO. The ladies' cocktail of choice, the pink-hued vodka sipper, may have risen to frothy fame thanks to the series, but the drink is believed to have been invented way back in the 1930s. Although its exact provenance is up for debate (no one can agree on whether it was first made in Provincetown or Miami or somewhere else), no one questions that its '90s popularity is due to its many, many appearances on the show. Pair it with a Magnolia Bakery cupcake and you've got yourself one heck of a Sex and the City snack. 11. THERE WAS A REAL MR. BIG. Given the true-life (and true-love) events that inspired Bushnell's original columns, it should come as little surprise that there was a real Mr. Big and he has actually been identified. Although the series' Big was a big-time financier and entrepreneur, his inspiration Ron Galotti was a publisher whom Bushnell met at a party in 1995. The pair dated for about a year, but his presence was felt in her columns and in Carrie's own story for years to come. 12. KRISTIN DAVIS USED TO HIDE THE SHOW FROM HER FAMILY. Davis was concerned that the show's risqué subject matter and even its title! would shock her family, so she didn't tell her grandmother about it and asked her parents not to watch it. But her attitude changed over time, and she later confessed that her parents had started watching the show after her grandmother passed away. Davis' dad, a psychology professor, really got into it, even using the show as part of his college lectures on "Marriage and Sexuality." 13. KIM CATTRALL WAS WORRIED SHE HAD BEEN CAST AS SOMEONE'S MOTHER. As the oldest member of the cast, Cattrall was a little blown away by the fact that the series wanted her to play the role of Samantha Jones, a sexy singleton, and not someone's mom. Back in 2002, she commented, "I never thought I'd be playing this character at this age in my life ... I thought I'd be playing somebody's mum ... The other girls on the show are 10 years younger than I am, so I have to get enough sleep and work out and watch what I eat. Just running around New York City is a good way to keep in shape." 14. THE SHOW'S FINALE REALLY WAS INTENDED AS AN ENDING. Although Sex and the City has spawned two feature films and rumors of a third movie continue to swirl producer Michael Patrick King (who directed both of those films) originally believed that the show ended just as it was meant to. In 2004, mere months after the show aired its final episode, King said at a panel, "Nothing we did in the series was altered to save something for the movie ... This is exactly the way we wanted to end the series. We're proud of what we did." 15. SARAH JESSICA PARKER PUSHED FOR DIVERSITY. When Blair Underwood joined the cast as a love interest for Miranda back in 2003, it marked the injection of a long-needed bit of diversity in the show's cast. Of the casting, Cynthia Nixon (Miranda herself) said, "We all of us, and no one more than Sarah Jessica, had lobbied for this for a long, long time ... I'm a huge fan of the show, but if we had area in which we really could use improvement, it's certainly this one ... I think it's about time." | 6 | 94,372 | entertainment |
Delta Air Lines announced $1.4 billion in adjusted net income for the third quarter on Wednesday, or $1.74 per diluted share, amid low fuel prices and solid demand from travelers. Richard Anderson, Delta's CEO, said the strong performance that marked a 45% improvement over the same period a year early was expected to continue during the final three months of the year. "Our team consistently delivers best-in-class operations and service to our customers, develops innovative solutions with our global partners and produces strong returns for our shareholders," Anderson said in a statement, as "demand remains solid and fuel prices have dropped materially." Delta saved $1.1 billion in fuel costs during the quarter, compared to the same period a year earlier, according to Paul Jacobson, chief financial officer. The airline had the best on-time rate in August at 85.47% among the top dozen airlines, according to the Transportation Department. Delta also had 100 days so far this year without any mainline flight cancellations, compared to 95 days during all of 2014, Jacobson said. Delta's operating revenue declined $71 million, or 0.6%, during July, August and September. Passenger-unit revenue declined 4.9%. But the airline increased the rate of paying first-class travelers by 8 points to 56%. Delta produced more than $75 million more revenue during the quarter from branded fares. "Our commercial initiatives are delivering solid benefits as we've expanded our revenue premium to the industry, strengthened our hubs in New York, Seattle and Los Angeles, and deepened our partnerships around the globe," Ed Bastian, Delta's president, said in a statement. | 3 | 94,373 | finance |
Ben Roethlisberger reportedly wants to be in the lineup Sunday so he can face former offensive coordinator Bruce Arians and the Arizona Cardinals. And while the Pittsburgh Steelers are not specifically ruling out the possibility that their franchise quarterback has healed sufficiently from a sprained MCL and bone bruise to take the field, sources have deemed the likelihood of it actually occurring as a "long shot." ESPN's Adam Schefter provided the original update regarding Roethlisberger's eagerness to return to action, which conflicted with CBS Sports' Jason La Canfora's reporting that indicated the quarterback was targeting Oct. 25's game against the Kansas City Chiefs as a realistic return date. Roethlisberger suffered the injury during Pittsburgh's 12-6 victory over the St. Louis Rams on Sept. 27. The original prognosis was that he would miss between four and six weeks, so if he was somehow able to return to action so quickly, it would be a testament to his legendary toughness combined with quick recuperative powers, although it is believed he will be wearing a knee brace upon his return. Given his previous comments about his anticipated return to action, it's unlikely Roethlisberger will provide any definitive answers regarding when he'll be back on the field, as he previously refuted reports he was shooting to be in the lineup for the aforementioned game against the Chiefs, saying, "Rather than put a number on it, lets just take it one week at a time." The Steelers have held their own in Roethlisberger's absence, going 2-1, including the win over the Rams in the game he was injured. A stern test awaits the team, though, against Arians' formidable Cardinals squad, but it would be a risky endeavor indeed for Roethlisberger to hurry himself back into action solely to play his former coordinator. | 1 | 94,374 | sports |
In the ongoing struggle of policy makers to contain government health care costs, one of the most perplexing challenges has been coping with often huge variations in Medicare spending throughout the country. The government's cost for providing the same Medicare services to seniors can vary by thousands of dollars, depending on where they live. The controversy dates back to 2009, during the congressional debate on Obamacare when a New Yorker article by Atul Gawande explored why some communities in the U.S. including McAllen, Texas have much higher health care costs that other regions. Gawande concluded that these increased costs were likely due to the culture of medical practice in the region, which resulted in more unnecessary and costly care and procedures. A study released late last week by the Kaiser Family Foundation tells the story: Although Medicare per capita spending nationwide averaged $9,415 in 2013, per capita spending on average totaled $13,140 in 20 counties with the highest levels, but only $6,726 in the 20 counties with the lowest levels. As the chart below illustrates, Medicare per capita spending in 2013 was twice as large in the 20 highest-spending counties than in the 20 lowest-spending counties. The 20 counties with the highest unadjusted Medicare per capita spending in 2013 were primarily located in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and the South. In contrast, most of the counties with the lowest per capita spending were in the West. For years, researchers have argued that the differences in Medicare spending across the country were prompted by variances in the way doctors and hospitals treated and billed their patients with some ordering inordinate numbers of medical tests or failing to coordinate the medical services. Experts believed that many of those problems and excesses could be overcome by "policy interventions," such as change in the financial incentives for health care providers. But other researchers have argued, in effect, that "geography is destiny" and that much of the variation in cost has to do with the beneficiaries' general health and socio-economic status, as well as how frequently areas residents require costly hospitalization and post-operative services. While the report doesn't take a stand on the predominant factor, these vastly different regional costs may well become an issue when and lawmakers finally tackle additional health care reform. The 2010 Affordable Care Act included a number of provisions designed to encourage greater efficiency in the delivery of care for Medicare beneficiaries by modifying incentives for providers to reduce excess costs and improve quality of care and they may have contributed to bringing down costs in some areas. Yet even with such efforts, deep differences in per capita Medicare costs persist throughout the country. "We did do an analysis that suggests the gap between the highs and the lows has narrowed," said Tricia Neuman, a senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation and the director of its Program on Medicare Policy. "The fact that it's narrowed raises interesting questions as to why that has occurred" but the study stopped short of advancing a theory. "The Affordable Care Act may well have been a factor and some of the other initiatives that have been put out," she added. "For example, we saw a narrowing with respect to durable medical equipment spending, and there was a competitive bidding effort that the administration did. And there was some narrowing with respect to home health services." "But we really didn't set out to do any causal analysis," she said. While the study's authors avoided clear conclusions about the factors at play in creating the geographic cost disparities, it does provide a detailed look at the typical high-cost county Here are four brief factors that help to explain the counties with the costliest Medicare costs: The 20 counties had sicker and poorer beneficiary populations, on average, and a substantially greater share of black and Hispanic beneficiaries. Hospital inpatient care is more than twice as higher than in the lowest-spending counties. The counties also stand out for having more post-acute care providers per capita and fewer physicians than the 20 lowest-spending counties. | 3 | 94,375 | finance |
NEW YORK Clayton Kershaw got through the seventh inning, and the Los Angeles Dodgers got through the fourth game. And all it means is that this National League Division Series is headed where it was always supposed to end up. We've been through Chase Utley, and we've been through the old and new stories of Kershaw's postseason performances. We've seen Yoenis Cespedes hit baseballs as hard as anyone can and run as fast as anyone can. We've seen Justin Turner, a guy the New York Mets once non-tendered, emerge as such a star that in the fifth inning Tuesday night, the Mets intentionally walked him, and the sellout crowd at Citi Field booed him. And all it did was set up what could be a winner-take-all Game 5 for the ages a Thursday night Dodger Stadium matchup between Jacob deGrom and Zack Greinke that looks so good and so evenly matched that even Kershaw didn't want to pick a favorite. "You know what, it's probably dead even, to be honest," he said after a 3-1 Game 4 win that mattered more to him than he wanted to admit. "As good as Zack is and has been the whole year, deGrom has been the same." The Dodgers built a $300 million team with only two dependable starting pitchers, but at least they're both great pitchers. They felt OK falling behind two games to one because they had their two aces lined up, and after Kershaw delivered Tuesday (one run on three hits in seven innings), they're fine with counting on Greinke to do the same Thursday. The Mets built their $100 million team around their young starters, and while they would have loved to wrap the series up behind Steven Matz on Tuesday, they're fine counting on deGrom on Thursday. "We feel confident," David Wright told reporters. "Jacob threw a great game out there the last time." DeGrom was brilliant in Game 1 on Friday, back when the story was still that Kershaw's seventh innings in the postseason never end well. That one ended with Wright's two-run single off reliever Pedro Baez and with Kershaw losing his fifth straight postseason start. Dodger fans can remember them all, including the Game 4 last year that ended their season in St. Louis. You know Kershaw remembers, too. His main goal Tuesday was to push this series to Game 5, but by doing so, he was going to change the way people talked about him, too. "You could sense some relief after he came out of the game," said A.J. Ellis, Kershaw's personal catcher and close friend. Ellis said Kershaw seemed a little too amped up early in Game 4, when his fastball was a little faster than usual but his curveball wasn't as crisp. Kershaw went to a three-ball count on each of the first three batters, but the Mets didn't score, and he settled in, looking like the three-time Cy Young Award winner he is. The Dodgers got him a lead with their three-run third inning, and Kershaw held it. He gave up a solo home run to Daniel Murphy (just like in Game 1), but he didn't allow another runner to get into scoring position. The Mets did get the leadoff runner on base in the seventh, when Cespedes' dribbler went off Kershaw's glove in front of the mound. Dodgers manager Don Mattingly admitted to "Here we go again" thoughts, and so did Ellis, who went to the mound. "Just trying to keep positive thoughts in there," Ellis said later. This time, Kershaw got through the seventh, with the help of a fine play by Turner to stop Wilmer Flores' two-out shot down the third-base line. This time, a Kershaw start in October ended the way so many Kershaw starts from April through September have ended. He was a Cy Young candidate again this year, although he'll likely finish third in the voting behind Jake Arrieta of the Chicago Cubs and Greinke. DeGrom could get votes, too, and would get a lot more if voters were allowed to consider his seven shutout innings and 13 strikeouts in Game 1. "He's just very impressive, you know, just very tough to square up," Kershaw said. "If you can get strikeouts on heaters like he can, it's really tough." DeGrom was the winner in Game 1. Greinke was the winner in Game 2, albeit with the help of Utley's infamous takeout of Mets shortstop Ruben Tejada. Now they match up in Game 5, which means anyone who wanted this to be a great series is already a winner. The Chicago Cubs, who wrapped up their division series Tuesday night, might enjoy it most of all, because with Games 1 and 2 of the National League Championship Series set for Saturday and Sunday, they know they won't see deGrom or Greinke in either one. The Dodgers' two-starter strategy might not work too well if they reach the NLCS, since pitchers other than Kershaw and Greinke would need to start three of the seven games. But it might be enough to get them there. It has gotten this series to the Game 5 it deserves, to the Game 5 the rest of us had hoped for. This series looks a little like the division series the St. Louis Cardinals and Philadelphia Phillies played in 2011 the one that ended with Chris Carpenter facing Roy Halladay in Game 5. That one ended up 1-0 in favor of Carpenter. No one would be surprised if this one does, too. Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report. Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball. | 1 | 94,376 | sports |
Former NBA star Lamar Odom is hospitalised after being found unresponsive at a brothel in Nevada. Rough Cut (no reporter narration). | 8 | 94,377 | video |
Even if you're not doing soul-crushing workouts on the daily, it's likely you feel cramped, sore, or stiff more often than not. Think about it: Most of us spend the majority of the day not using any muscles at all, sitting and slouching over a keyboard, which can wreak havoc on your hips, back, shoulders, neck, and more. And while there's no doubt exercise is amazing for your body, it can also lead to tight muscles and annoying aches. That's where these moves come into play. Stretching is important as it lengthens your muscles, allowing you to use them to their fullest capability, explains Kristin McGee , a yoga and Pilates instructor in New York City. "It helps increase blood flow to our muscles, improves our physical performance, decreases risk of injuries, and enables our muscles to work effectively," she says. Plus, stretching wakes us up, helps us breathe better, sleep better, and gives us better posture . Feeling tight in all the wrong places? We tapped McGee and other fitness experts, including trainers and physical therapists, for the best stretches you can do for every part of your body. Let the healing begin! 1. Neck The neck is a central portal and superhighway for our entire nervous system, explains David Reavy, PT, owner of React Physical Therapy in Chicago, IL. "Lack of moving during sleep is a big reason the neck becomes tight," he says. "To add insult to injury, those who have a desk job and who are sitting for most of the day are constantly pulled forward, so the neck and back are slouched for hours at a time." Try: Upper Trap Stretch Sit with a straight back and place right hand on right shoulder. Place left hand on right side of head and tilt head to the left, using just bodyweight (not pulling). Hold for 10 seconds then switch sides. Alternate: Chin Tucks Sit up straight with back in neutral and tuck chin into chest, like you are trying to give yourself a double chin. Hold for three seconds. Repeat 10 times. For extra pressure, place two fingers on chin when you tuck. 2. Shoulders If your shoulders are in a poor position (typically upward rotated, anteriorly tilted), then they will become tight. "You hunch because your scapula won't fully go in the other direction, and you end up losing full range of motion," Reavy says. Try: Scapula Retractions Stand tall and squeeze shoulder blades together as hard as you can. Hold for three seconds then release. Repeat 12 times. Alternate: Doorway Pec Stretch Stand in doorway. Bend right elbow 90 degrees (palm facing front, fingers towards the sky) and place forearm on outside of doorway. Step forward with left foot and lean forward until you feel a stretch in your pec. Hold for 10 seconds then switch arms. 3. Triceps A main reason triceps tend to feel tight is because of muscle imbalance, says Ben Wegman, trainer at The Fhitting Room in New York City. They're generally weaker than the biceps, the muscle opposite them. Since triceps are worked less often in day-to-day activity, they'll feel tighter when isolated and activated in exercise, he explains. Try: Overhead Triceps Stretch Reach right arm over your head, bend at the elbow, and place left hand on the front of the right elbow. Gently pull right elbow back and down until you feel tension. Hold for 10 seconds. Release and repeat on the opposite side. Alternate: Cross Body Triceps Stretch Reach your right arm across body at about shoulder level. Place your left wrist on outside of the right elbow and pull your right arm gently toward body. Stop when you feel a stretch in the right triceps and hold for 10 seconds. Release and repeat on the opposite side. 4. Forearms Your forearms are engaged during daily activities like carrying a purse, gym bag, or groceries; typing on a computer; or using a cell phone. "We often don't think to stretch our forearms, but it's a good idea to do so to keep our wrists healthy and to use our arms efficiently," McGee says. Try: Eagle Arms Stretch Spread arms out to sides. Bend elbows and cross right arm in front of left in front of your chest. Then wrap right wrist behind left, so arms are wrapped twice, palms touching one another. (If that's too hard, press backs of hands together.) Hold for 10 seconds. Release and switch arms. Alternate: Tabletop With Hands Flipped Stretch Get down on all fours, hands stacked under shoulders, hips stacked directly over knees. Turn one hand at a time so wrists are facing forward, fingers facing back towards knees. Hold for 30 seconds. 5. Wrists If you're hoping to lift heavier weights at the gym, it's necessary that you build grip strength. Working on grip strength helps strengthen your forearms, which allows you to build more muscle overall, but it also affects the wrists, potentially causing tightness, Wegman explains. Try: One-Arm Assisted Wrist Stretch Reach right hand out in front of you, parallel to the ground. Flex wrists back, fingers pointing towards ceiling, palms facing forward. Spread fingers wide and gently pull back on thumb with left hand. Hold for a few seconds. Move on to pointer finger, then middle finger, and so on, holding each finger for a few seconds. Release and repeat with the opposite hand. Alternate: Prayer Stretch Start with palms together in front of chest just below chin. Slowly lower your hands toward your waistline, keeping hands close to your stomach and palms together, until you feel a mild stretch in your wrists and forearms. Hold for 15 to 30 seconds. Repeat 2 to 4 times. 6. Back Our backs control so much of our movement and are very delicate. "Our lats, glutes, paraspinals, and abs are all connected to our backs, which is why we need to keep our back strong and in use," Reavy says. "But because almost every movement affects the back, it's easy for people to hurt it with the slightest movement." Try: Standing Extension Stand with feet hip-width apart, hands on hips, and slowly lean backward until you feel a stretch in your lower back. Hold for 3 seconds. Repeat 12 times. Alternate: Lower Trunk Rotation Lie on your back, knees bent with feet flat on the floor, hip-width apart. Keep back flat and let both knees fall to right side. Hold for 10 seconds then repeat on opposite side. 7. Abdominals "Our abs and obliques are our endurance muscles for every activity we do," McGee explains. "We use our core for everything from lifting and squatting to picking things up to classes like yoga and Pilates, where we use our own bodyweight to support ourselves." Try: Upward Dog Lie facedown, bend elbows, and place palms on floor next to chest. Pointing toes, press tops of feet into floor and press chest up as you straighten your arms and lift thighs and knees off floor. Keep chest open and look up. Alternate: Bridge Stretch Lie faceup, knees bent with feet flat on floor, hip-distance apart. With glutes engaged, push through heels and lift hips into air, resting on shoulders. Interlace hands underneath hips and puff your chest to your chin to stretch open entire abdominal region and sides of waist. Hold for 30 seconds. 8. Glutes "Glutes are the heaviest part of your body and a prime mover complex that helps you walk, run, and jump more efficiently," explains Andia Winslow, trainer at Mile High Run Club in New York City. And since they're used so frequently, they can get tight easily. Try: Figure 4 Stretch Lie faceup and bend both knees so feet are resting flat on floor in front of you, hip-distance apart. Draw right leg off ground and cross it over the left, so right ankle is resting against left knee. Reach hands through and grab back of left thigh, lift, and pull left leg in towards chest. Hold for 10 seconds then switch legs. Alternate: Seated Twist Stretch Sit on floor with both legs fully extended in front of you. Lift right leg, bend knee, and cross it over left leg, placing foot on the ground. Hug right leg into your chest. Hold for 10 seconds then switch legs. {{promotion.placement.html}} 9. Hip Flexors These muscles help your legs move, so you use them more than you could imagine. Whether you're walking, running, or cycling, your hip flexors are involved. And when you're at a desk all day, you're making them even tighter. "When we sit, the hip flexors are dormant and shortened, so they tend to get tight, cramp, and pull on our lower backs," explains McGee. Try: Crescent Lunge Stretch Start on all fours. Step right foot forward between hands and lengthen the left leg back, placing left shin and top of left foot on the floor. Let hips fall towards the floor as you lunge into front knee and bend back, opening up through the chest with arms extended overhead. Hold for 10 seconds then switch sides. Alternate: Dancer's Pose Stand tall and lift right leg behind you, bending at the knee. Catch top of the foot with right hand. Keeping left leg straight, slowly raise right foot behind you and lean slightly forward. Left arm lifts to ceiling in front of you. Balance for 10 seconds then switch legs. 10. Quads "If you're not using the posterior chain properly (glutes, hamstrings, etc.), the quads take on the extra work," Winslow explains, "and because most folks don't stretch properly, this leads to undue tightness and soreness." Not warming up properly and fatigue can also cause the quadriceps to cramp up. Try: Heel-to-Butt Stretch Stand tall and lift right leg behind you, bending at the knee. Catch right foot with right hand. Keeping right knee pointing down and both knees close, pull right heel into glutes. Hold for 10 seconds then switch legs. Hold onto a chair or couch with unused hand if you have trouble balancing. Alternate: Lying Heel-to-Butt Stretch Lie facedown, legs stretched out behind you. Bend right knee and grab right foot with right hand, pulling heel towards glutes. Keep right knee parallel to ground, both knees together. Hold for 10 seconds then switch legs. 11. Inner Thighs "Your inner thighs might not be the most powerful muscle group, but that doesn't mean they can't get tight," says Liz Barnet, certified trainer at Uplift Studios and SLT in New York City. "Whether from underutilization, lack of functional movement, or just sitting in a chair with your legs crossed, your inner thighs can get just as tight as your more active muscle groups." And you don't want to ignore them as that can create muscle imbalances. Try: Seated Saddle Stretch Sit with legs extended straight out in front. Separate them to respective sides as wide as you can, sitting equally on both sit bones. Flex toes up towards ceiling, sit up straight, and begin walking hands out in front of you as far as possible. Make sure to keep your back straight that's more important than how far you go. Hold for 30 seconds. (If you can't touch the floor, grab a yoga block or just touch with fingertips.) Alternate: Frog Pose Stretch Kneel on a cushioned surface like a yoga mat or rug with hands flat on the floor in front of you. Start to separate knees apart, keeping shins and tops of feet pressing down into ground. If it's too intense, support more of your body weight with your hands and upper body. Hold for 30 seconds. 12. Hamstrings "The hamstrings are very easy to pull and/or injure," Wegman says. "This can be due to many factors, including not warming up before exercising, tight quadriceps pulling your pelvis forward and tightening the hamstrings, and weak glute muscles." Your glutes work in tandem with your hamstrings and can overload your hamstrings if they're weak. Try: Scissor Hamstring Stretch Stand with feet together. Step your right foot back about two feet behind left, staggered, and bend forward from hip joint, keeping your back and both legs straight. Either keep hands on hips or place gently on shin. Hold for 30 seconds then switch sides. Alternate: Good Morning Stretch Stand with feet hip-width apart. Interlace your hands behind your head. With a slight bend in knees, hinge at hips and bend forward, keeping back flat. Hold for 10 seconds then release. Repeat two more times. Stop if you feel your back start to round. 13. Calves "Your calf muscles tend to be one of the most worked muscle groups due to the constant nature of being on your feet all the time walking, running, and standing," Wegman says. Lots of factors can cause them to cramp, including insufficient stretching, fatigue, poor blood circulation in the legs, dehydration, and deficiencies in vitamins, such as magnesium, potassium, and calcium. Ever experience a charley horse? That and other spasms in the calf muscles are caused by these vitamin deficiencies as well as dehydration. Try: Wall-Assisted Calf Stretch Stand a little less than arm's distance from wall. Keeping feet parallel, step right foot forward until toes touch wall in front of you. Bend your right knee and lean forward to place hands on wall while keeping back leg straight and pressing heel into the ground. Hold for 30 seconds and switch legs. Alternate: Downward Dog Start on all fours, hands stacked under shoulders, hips stacked directly over knees. Walk hands forward slightly on the floor until arms are straight. Spread your fingers apart to allow for a broad base of support. Engage abs and push hips up towards ceiling, coming onto your feet. Keep your heels on the ground and gently try and straighten your knees. Hold for 30 seconds. 14. Achilles/Ankle While the Achilles is a small tendon, it's not too fragile. "The issue becomes that we overuse our soleus (or deep calf muscle) and plantar fascia, putting the Achilles in a constant stretch, which makes our gastrocnemius or upper calf muscles and our glutes inefficient," explains Reavy. "Muscles need to lengthen and then shorten with every movement, and in this case the muscle is so tight there is a constant pull on the Achilles, which isn't good." Try: Soleus Stretch Standing with feet hip-width apart, step right foot forward about two feet and plant foot firmly on ground. Lift toes of right foot toward ceiling and dig heel into ground. Alternate: Planter Fascia Ball Stretch Place tennis ball or lacrosse ball under right foot. Apply as much body weight as comfortable as you roll ball under bottom of foot. Roll for 30 seconds then switch feet. 15. Feet Who knew such a small body part would have 20 muscles? "It's easy to neglect our feet and strain them when we wear shoes that aren't supportive, or overuse them in training, especially to compensate for weaker muscles," McGee says. Try: Hero Pose Kneel on floor then sit back onto legs. Open legs wide, pushing feet out to the sides and sit between heels, leaning back as far as possible. Hold for 30 seconds. If you don't have the range of motion to lean back all the way, stay upright, keeping back straight. And place a mat or towel above calves if it's too painful. Alternate: Upward Dog Start in plank position. Keeping abs engaged, let hips drop towards floor as your chest opens up through your arms, and slowly place tops of each foot on floor. Press firmly into all ten toes and hold for 30 seconds. | 7 | 94,378 | health |
"I can feel the boob sweat already..." | 8 | 94,379 | video |
LAS VEGAS After Ronda Rousey knocked out Bethe Correia in August at UFC 190, anti-doping staff working for the UFC informed Rousey they needed to collect a blood sample. It was late on that night in Brazil. The media and her entourage were waiting. And Rousey was captive for at least 20 minutes. Jeff Novitzky, the former federal agent now in charge of UFC's anti-doping staff, was waiting when the collectors emerged with Rousey's blood. " 'What was her reaction?' " Novitzky recalled asking. "They were like, 'She couldn't thank us enough. She said thank you guys so much for coming down here. You traveled all the way from the United States to do this, I can't tell you how much I appreciate what you're doing.' " Not only has Rousey become the face of the UFC, she's become one of the biggest ambassadors for the UFC's new anti-doping program, according to Novitzky. "That's really important, that our top athletes are ambassadors because they're role models not only to the public, but to our other athletes,'' he said. "And when they heard Ronda Rousey out there confirming this is a great program and something good for UFC, I think that not only the public listens, but our other athletes listen.'' | 1 | 94,380 | sports |
An auction house says a photo dating from 1878 bought for just two dollars at a Fresno California junk shop depicts legendary American Old West outlaw Billy the Kid, and could fetch $5 million at auction. Jen Markham (@jenmarkham) has the story. | 8 | 94,381 | video |
Markets continue to be volatile, and ace fund manager Neil Woodford continues to seek out the best opportunities. As such, there was a good deal of trading reported in the latest update from the CF Woodford Equity Income Fund. A number of moves caught my eye. In particular, Woodford dumped Centrica (LSE: CNA), and pumped more money into GlaxoSmithKline (LSE: GSK), Rolls-Royce (LSE: RR), Legal & General (LSE: LGEN) and AA (LSE: AA). Out of gas Woodford's sale of British Gas owner Centrica follows on from a disposal of SSE in July, and leaves the fund holding just one utility: mid-cap electricity generator Drax . Woodford had been a keen buyer of Centrica earlier this year, despite the company's "disappointing dividend cut" ; indeed, he had added to the holding as recently as June. However, August saw the fund reduce its position, and the sale of the remainder of the holding in September has come with an explanation: " [We have] become more concerned about its exposure to the oil price and increasing competition and regulation in downstream energy markets, both here in the UK and in the US. We think the company will now struggle to deliver growth much above low-to-mid single digits, which combined with a reduced cash return, leads to a modest total return expectation. At the prevailing valuation, therefore, the shares can no longer justify their position in the portfolio". Centrica trades on a 12-month forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 12.9, with a prospective yield of 5.3%. The valuation doesn't look altogether unappealing, and investors may take some comfort from the fact that it's not so much that Woodford sees Centrica as an awful prospect, but more a case of seeing better value elsewhere. As the fund update puts it: " [Centrica] has become the latest victim of the intense fight for capital between existing positions and new ideas". Four tops GlaxoSmithKline, Rolls-Royce and Legal & General were FTSE 100 underperformers during September. Woodford and his team noted: "As is often the case over shorter time periods, fundamentals have played no part in these moves. When this happens, the logical thing to do is to buy more, which is exactly what we have done". Indeed, in addition to these blue-chip heavyweights, the fund "took advantage of share price weakness to add to a wide range of holdings" , including FTSE 250 firm the AA. GlaxoSmithKline has long been a core income holding for Woodford, and it's not hard to see why he might want to buy more at this stage. The pharma giant currently offers a prospective 12-month yield on the ordinary dividend of 6.1%, which will be bumped up to 7.6% by an expected one-off special dividend. Legal & General is Woodford's only FTSE 100 holding in the financial sector, and he sees it as a strong growth-and-income candidate. L&G currently trades on a forward P/E of 12.1 with a yield of 5.8%. Rolls-Royce and the AA don't boast the high yields of Glaxo and L&G. The aerospace group offers a prospective 3.3%, while the roadside recovery firm offers 3.6%. However, the two companies have other attractions. Rolls-Royce is going through a sticky patch, but Woodford looks past a P/E of 15.1 on depressed earnings, and sees long-term value in the stock. Meanwhile, the AA self-tagged "Britain's fourth emergency service" has some utility-like qualities, and, I would note, an appealingly low P/E of 11.6. Woodford's track record is so outstanding over such a long period that his views on companies are always worth listening to. However, private investors do have some advantages over institutional fund managers, and there are a number of simple and straightforward steps you can take to boost your returns. To help you on your way, the Motley Fool has produced a FREE guide: " 10 Steps To Making A Million In The Market ". This free wealth guide comes with no obligation -- simply click here for your copy. G A Chester has no position in any shares mentioned. The Motley Fool UK has recommended Centrica and GlaxoSmithKline. We Fools don't all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. | 3 | 94,382 | finance |
Disneyland is celebrating its 60 th anniversary this year. This kind of staying power is rare today. I'm certain that you probably know several amusement parks that have opened and closed over the course of your life. Yet, as anyone who has waited an hour or more in the Pirates of the Caribbean line knows, the popularity of Disneyland is as strong as ever. This is despite shifting demographics, the rise of video games and all the other societal changes that have sunk so many other businesses. A book or more could be written on how Disneyland has maintained its popularity, but let me just hit some of the highlights that teach us lessons that can be applied to virtually any business. Disneyland employs cast members Everyone working at Disneyland is called a cast member. Those two little words immediately and without any ambiguity communicate the ultimate objective of the theme park. They are there to create an all-encompassing entertainment experience for the guests. As a cast member, employees know that their "performance" is being viewed by the "audience" all the time. There is an image that must be maintained. Shakespeare said that all the world's a stage. Walt Disney said that all of the Magic Kingdom is a stage. Always changing with the times "Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world," declared Walt Disney on July 17, 1955, the day Disneyland opened. People who have visited several times over the course of their lives know that this is true. The planners at Disneyland never rest on their laurels and that would have been very easy to do. It takes guts to shut down a popular ride and totally redo or replace it. I'm writing this 60 years after Walt Disney spoke those words on opening day. It's impressive to note that the concept he communicated then "Disneyland will never be completed" is still a central guiding principle of the company. It's just five words and it offers a tremendous amount of direction. It doesn't take 50 pages of detailed bullet points to keep an organization moving forward. Attention to detail One of the first things that will impress a visitor to Disneyland is that no detail is overlooked. This extends all the way to the park's commitment to not allow even a single stray piece of garbage to litter the streets. Smartly uniformed cast members armed with brooms and dustbins are constantly on the prowl for any windblown wrapper or kernel of popcorn. Of course, this attention to detail to the various themes throughout the park is what makes visitors fall in love with the experience. This is a reason employees need to view themselves as cast members rather than "soda stand attendants" or "cashiers." The magic of the Disneyland experience starts the moment you step onto the tram outside the massive multi-story parking lot and it doesn't stop until you leave the park…usually as near to closing time as you can manage. The power of branding Disney is one of the most valuable and powerful brands in the world. When we see a product that carries the official brand, we immediately associate all the good feelings we experienced at Disneyland with whatever is inside the box. We transfer Disneyland's commitment to excellence to any product that carries the same brand name. Finally, let me note that Disneyland and the Disney empire carry the name of its founders and from what I know the principles that guide it come straight from Walt Disney and his brother/co-founder Roy Disney. If you have a clear vision and can communicate it so others see it as well, you can just as effectively lead your small business into the future. | 3 | 94,383 | finance |
SN college football writer Matt Hayes talks about the large potential amount of coaching jobs that might become available at the end of this season. | 1 | 94,384 | sports |
The Taliban on Tuesday announced their withdrawal from Kunduz, two weeks after their stunning capture of the northern Afghan city that marked their biggest military victory in 14 years of war. The tactical retreat after prolonged street battles comes as the insurgents make an unprecedented push to seize other big cities across multiple provinces. The announcement comes days after the government claimed to have recaptured the city, where insurgents burned down government buildings, gunned down opponents and freed hundreds of prisoners. "The (Taliban) ordered its mujahideen to withdraw from the main square, markets and government buildings to the outlying rural areas... in order to reinforce their defense lines and reserve their strength for effective future operations," the group said on its website. The Taliban said that they were capable of retaking the city after the successful "conquest", during which various Afghan military equipment and government documents were seized. Afghan soldiers, backed by NATO special forces and US air support, have been combing the city to flush out pockets of insurgents hiding in civilian homes. As fighting abates, local residents are slowly emerging from their homes after days of crippling food, water and electricity shortages. The fall of Kunduz on September 28 was a stinging blow to Western-trained Afghan forces, who have largely been fighting on their own since the end of NATO's combat mission in December. As the insurgency spreads, concerns are mounting that the city's seizure was merely the opening gambit in a new, bolder strategy to tighten the Taliban's grip across Afghanistan. Around 2,000 Taliban insurgents threatened to storm Ghazni on Monday, triggering fierce clashes around the outskirts of the southeastern city. And last week the militants attempted to overrun Maimana, the capital of northern Faryab province. Afghan forces repelled both assaults, but they triggered alarm as the insurgency threatens large urban centres for the first time since the Taliban were toppled from power in 2001. - 'Reign of terror' - "With this kind of guerrilla fighting focused around big cities, the Taliban are exerting enormous pressure on overstretched Afghan forces," Kabul-based military analyst Atiqullah Amarkhil told AFP. "The Taliban know they can't control a city for long, but capturing one, even momentarily, is a huge propaganda win." Security officials said the militants had slowly infiltrated Kunduz during the recent Eid festival, launching a Trojan Horse attack that enabled them to capture it within hours. The lightning capture of the city sent thousands of residents fleeing as the Taliban set up camp in civilian homes and conducted door-to-door searches for Afghan soldiers and government staff. Amnesty International condemned the Taliban's "reign of terror", citing civilian testimonies of mass murder and gang rapes by militant death squads. Health officials have said that more than 60 civilians were killed and around 400 wounded in the fighting, but the real toll is estimated to be much higher. The Taliban's incursion into Kunduz, barely nine months after NATO's combat mission concluded, has raised troubling questions about the capabilities of Afghan forces. The NATO coalition said Tuesday that US and Afghan forces carried out one of their largest joint operations in southern Kandahar province, dismantling a major Al-Qaeda sanctuary in the Taliban's historic heartland. The news came after a series of setbacks. NATO forces are under pressure after a US air strike on October 3 pummelled a hospital in Kunduz run by Doctors Without Borders (MSF), killing at least 12 staff and 10 patients. The medical charity shut down the trauma centre, branding the incident a "war crime" and demanding an international investigation into the strike, which sparked an avalanche of global condemnation. NATO also confirmed that two Americans, two Britons and a Frenchman were killed in a helicopter crash in Kabul Sunday, though the coalition ruled out any insurgent activity behind the incident. | 5 | 94,385 | news |
The search for BEVO XV has began. Tuesday afternoon, the University of Texas announced mascot BEVO XIV would be retiring following a cancer diagnosis: AUSTIN, Texas Beloved University of Texas mascot BEVO XIV, whose given name is Sunrise Studly, has been diagnosed with Bovine Leukemia Virus and, following a triumph in the AT&T Red River Showdown, is being retired effective immediately. Following a preliminary diagnosis of the illness last week, which was recently confirmed by several of the state's top veterinarians and his long-time veterinarian Dr. John Tarlton, an extensive evaluation of BEVO XIV's comfort and quality of life opportunities was conducted and ultimately resulted in the decision to retire him from his role. Moving forward, he will rest comfortably on the ranch and in the company of John T. and Betty Baker, the owners and caretakers of both BEVO XIV and his predecessor BEVO XIII. "BEVO XIV is a special animal," said Ricky Brennes, Executive Director of the Silver Spurs and BEVO XIV's regular travelling partner. "He truly embraced his role and loved engaging with people at games and special events, and at his ranch where he will continue to live - he was clearly the leader of the herd." The search for BEVO XV will begin immediately, and will be led by the Silver Spurs Alumni Association. It will focus on finding the same majestic qualities as previous longhorns that have worn the famous BEVO halter. The timeframe for selection and training has not yet been finalized, but it is anticipated that BEVO XV will be on the sidelines for the 2016 football season, including Thanksgiving, the 100th Anniversary of BEVO's first appearance at a Texas Football game. BEVO XIV began his tenure at the age of two in 2004, and was on the sidelines for many historic moments. BEVO XIV was a part of back-to-back Rose Bowl victories, including the January 2006 win that resulted in the most recent Longhorns' BCS Football National Championship. In addition to his prominent position on the sidelines at Texas Football games, BEVO XIV made multiple appearances at special events, including the second inauguration of President George W. Bush. "BEVO XIV has served as part of a great tradition, and was a rallying point for Longhorns fans," said UT President Gregory L. Fenves. "We all have warm memories of him as he heads in to retirement." "BEVO is much more than a mascot," said Howard Nirken, a founding member of the Silver Spurs Alumni Association and former UT Student Body President. "BEVO embodies the courage and strength of our university, and brings joy to the thousands of children, fans and alumni, and stands for the same principals of our university winning with integrity." The necessary funds to support the care and transport of BEVO are provided by the Silver Spurs BEVO Endowment. The endowment also funds scholarships for UT students and provides financial support for the primary charity of the Silver Spurs, the Neighborhood Longhorns Program. BEVO XIV and the Silver Spurs have assisted in providing nearly $250,000 in the last two years to support the Neighborhood Longhorns Program, which is an educational incentive program operated in partnership with the Austin Independent School District (AISD) in 30 Title 1 elementary and middle schools. "BEVO XIV has served the university and the Longhorns family extremely well in his tenure," said Texas Interim Men's Athletics Director Mike Perrin. "We are thrilled he heads in to retirement with a victory over Oklahoma as his last game, and look forward to welcoming BEVO XV, who will be the same strong symbol his fourteen predecessors have been since 1916." Perhaps BEVO can take solace in the fact that the Longhorns rallied around his illness to upset No. 10 Oklahoma in the Red River Showdown last weekend. Though the fourteenth BEVO will be missed, his legacy will not be forgotten. BEVO XIV became the first to enter the world of social media; he has his own Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts. He was also a part of 107 victories, seven of which came in bowl games. The 2,100-pound steer with the given name Sunset Studly can now retire and, hopefully, recover, to bask in those Texas sunsets that became his namesake. [email protected] Twitter: @NRMoyl | 1 | 94,386 | sports |
The world's fast-food giants would very much like to kill the dollar menu. In the hopes of pushing average customer bills higher, the big players have been easing away from items that cost a mere buck. McDonald's and Wendy's both replaced their dollar menus in recent years with value-oriented sections called the Dollar Menu & More and Right Price Right Size Menu, respectively, where items might cost $1, $2, $3, or even $5. Burger King recently warned that increasing the minimum wage could destroy the fast-food dollar menu entirely, with the idea that it would be impossible to keep serving low-price items while covering higher employee costs. Yet as all signs indicate the dollar menu is being phased out, just this week Wendy's unveiled a new promotion with a remarkably cheap price: the "4 for $4," in which a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger, a four-piece chicken nuggets, small French fries, and a small drink cost a total of $4. In other words, each item essentially costs $1. Wendy's move is the latest to demonstrate fast food's love-hate relationship with cheap prices. The industry loves that $1 items and low-price promotions drive traffic into restaurants, while hating that such tactics are necessary. There is also genuine concern that such promotions could, in fact, be hurting revenues as more customers order off the cheap side of the menu. So even as fast food chains are trying to steer customers away from low-price items, sometimes by removing them from menus entirely, they remain addicted to cheap deals because of the constant need to boost restaurant visits. Instead of adding items at a flat $1-per price, however, Wendy's and others are trying out new pricing strategies that'll typically ensure each customer winds up spending well over $1 or $2. In 2014, Taco Bell's "Dollar Cravings" menu was unveiled with a dozen or so items priced around $1 apiece; most are so small that you'll need to order a few to fill up. This past summer, McDonald's had a double cheeseburger and fries promotion for $2.50, and customers who were tempted to bite on that generally spent more than $3 because they added a drink. Several fast food outlets have settled on $5 as the magic price point: A full meal that costs only five bucks is viewed as a terrific value. Fast food companies prefer this new approach in that it all but guarantees customers are spending more than the measly $1 or $2 they might have otherwise had the dollar menu options been better. At the same time, both Wendy's at McDonald's have acknowledged that their shifts away from the dollar menu haven't been all that successful in wooing price-conscious customers. "We know our Right Price, Right Size Menu is not a sufficient value proposition to continue to attract value-seeking consumers," Wendy's CEO Emil Brolick acknowledged, according to industry publication Nation's Restaurant News . Hence the need to up the ante and turn heads with the new 4 for $4 proposition. One reason Wendy's and others may feel especially compelled to push menu options with great value (if not great profits) right now is that the world's largest fast food operator just launched a major change that amounts to a stealth value menu section. We're talking about McDonald's all-day breakfast . As MarketWatch noted, the average all-day breakfast menu item costs $2.71, more than $1 cheaper than the average for the Dollar Menu & More. The advent of all-day breakfast gives fast food fans more options that are cheaper than the standard lunch or dinner meal. This is good for McDonald's, at least in that it'll help increase visits and orders. But it could cause trouble for fast food in general McDonald's included because it'll increase the likelihood that customers spend less on each trip to the drive-thru. SPONSORED: Get smart advice on picking a college and paying for it, check out MONEY's best college value rankings, and find the school that best fits your student, all at the MONEY College Planner . | 3 | 94,387 | finance |
Atlanta Falcons head coach Dan Quinn indicated Tuesday it is the team's expectation that Julio Jones will be good to go for Thursday night showdown with the New Orleans Saints. But the dynamic wide receiver was somewhat cryptic with his comments concerning his potential availability. "He did the walk through last night and did that today," Quinn said, via NFL.com. "From what we saw, he's doing good and we anticipate him playing for the game." Jones, meanwhile, was unwilling to give a full confirmation regarding whether he expects to be on the field Thursday after being hampered with a nagging hamstring issue over the past few weeks, including last Sunday's 25-19 win over the Washington Redskins. "That's my plan, to play," Jones said Tuesday, via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution . "But who knows?" Despite his limited explosiveness, Jones nevertheless played in 73 of 80 snaps in Sunday's overtime win, making five receptions for 67 yards, definitely a downward deviation from his dominant play the first few weeks of the season. But Jones indicated he doesn't have to be 100 percent to play, as he understands he can still contribute even if he's not completely healthy. "If I can go, I am going to go," he said. "I am going to have to be really down bad not to go out there and play. If I feel like I am putting myself in danger as far as going out there and not being able to make a defender miss, then I won't go. If I feel like I can do that and help my team by drawing coverage and doing my job, I'm going to go." In his first three games before the injury, Jones has made 34 receptions for 440 yards and four touchdowns. But his productivity in the win over the Redskins was a modest improvement over the four catches for 38 yards he had in the previous week's win over the Houston Texans. So it appears he's on the slow road to recovery at the very least. | 1 | 94,388 | sports |
Let's go through the biggest matchups of Week 7, & while we're at it let's also learn to make spectacular crawfish hush puppies. | 1 | 94,389 | sports |
NEW HARTFORD, N.Y. (AP) The fatal beating of a young man and the savage attack on his younger brother by relatives and fellow members of an upstate New York church was intended to get them to confess their sins, investigators said, but they still haven't determined what those supposed sins were. Police said spiritual "counseling" at the Word of Life church turned into an hours-long attack Sunday night in which Lucas Leonard, 19, and his 17-year-old brother, Christopher, were pummeled with fists and kicked. They suffered injuries to the abdomen, genitals, back and thighs. Eventually, Lucas Leonard stopped breathing and relatives took him early Monday to a hospital, where he died, police said. Authorities went to the church and found his younger brother, who was hospitalized in serious condition. "Both brothers were subjected to physical punishment over the course of several hours, in hopes that each would confess to prior sins and ask for forgiveness," Police Chief Michael Inserra said Wednesday. He said investigators were still working on details of what provoked the attack. The brothers' parents, Bruce and Deborah Leonard, were charged with manslaughter in Lucas' death. Four other adults were charged with assault in the younger brother's beating, including Sarah Ferguson, 33, the victims' sister. All the suspects pleaded not guilty. Lawyers for the parents and the sister had no comment. Seven children, four of them Ferguson's, were turned over to child welfare authorities. Police said more arrests are expected as the investigation continues. "We're not alleging that they intended to kill their son," Inserra said of the parents, but "they were attempting to seriously hurt their son, and he died as a result." After Lucas Leonard was brought to the hospital, police suspected his younger brother had been hurt, too, but his relatives wouldn't tell officers where he was, the chief said. After searching for hours, police found him on the second floor of the church. Word of Life has existed for as many as 30 years in New Hartford. The beatings took place at the red-brick former elementary school that serves as both a church and a communal home for several members of the congregation, including one of the suspects. It has long stirred curiosity and suspicion in New Hartford, a once-thriving mill town of 22,000 people about 50 miles from Syracuse. Nearby, in the village where the Leonard brothers lived with their parents, neighbors recalled a highly religious family that kept mostly to itself. "I'm really afraid. In my heart I don't think this is the first incident," said Eva Monaghan, who lives around the corner. "Over all the years, I can't imagine this is the first thing. Maybe nothing as bad. Around town, it's considered a cult." The police chief, however, said he had no indication Word of Life was anything but a church and a home. Nancy Kneller, who used to work at a Catholic church next door, said local residents had long been suspicious of the place. "Why are they so secretive? Why are there no kids out playing?" she said. Still, she added, "I think they're good people that made a bad decision." The Leonards live in nearby Clayville, a village of 350 people, in a two-story, wood-frame duplex. The sister lived in the attic with her own children, a neighbor said. Lucas and Christopher Leonard read the Bible two hours a day at their parents' insistence and "weren't really allowed to go out of their house" for sleepovers, said another neighbor, Nicole Howard. The brothers "weren't allowed to do normal things, but they tried to be as normal as they could be." The Leonards home-schooled their children, eschewed TV and did not take part in Halloween, either leaving home or turning off all the lights, neighbor Jim Constantine said. Some Christians do not observe Halloween because of its pagan origins and macabre themes. The children weren't entirely isolated from everyday life, though: Lucas Leonard routinely was hired to watch Constantine's dog when he was away, including this past weekend. "Pleasant kid. No bad talk," Constantine said. "No nothing. ___ Associated Press writers Chris Carola in Albany, New York, and Jennifer Peltz in New York City contributed to this report. | 5 | 94,390 | news |
There's a conservative rebellion simmering in the U.S. House of Representatives. House Speaker John Boehner is resigning under pressure, and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, his expected successor, dropped out of the race for Speaker last Thursday. As the House GOP emerges from the current chaos, the previously little-known Freedom Caucus finds itself in a potential kingmaker's role. The caucus endorsed Florida Congressman Daniel Webster (who is not a Freedom Caucus member) for Speaker, which played a major role in driving McCarthy from the race. A former Speaker of the Florida House with a voting record that is close to the ideological center of the GOP caucus, Webster won Freedom Caucus support by promising to run the House far more democratically than his predecessors, giving caucus members a voice in the legislative process that they heretofore lacked. Who are the Freedom Caucus members and what do they want? The Caucus consists of at least 36 conservative legislators. (The Freedom Caucus doesn't keep a public tally of its members, so its membership is best determined by taking a survey of past reporting.) They have been described as a " brat pack " of " un-American " " far right" conservatives who "want to rule the world. " The Republican Party establishment, the business lobby, and the news media have painted the Caucus's members as radical extremists. Yet they are very much a product of recent trends in the party. The caucus is overwhelmingly male, geographically diverse, and contains both religious "values voters" and more libertarian-oriented conservatives. Members are about twice as likely to belong to minority groups than their other GOP colleagues. About 80% were elected in or after the Tea Party Revolution of 2010, compared to just more than half of non-caucus members. As a consequence, they also hold less senior roles than many of the party colleagues. Another notable difference between Freedom Caucus members and other house Republicans is that Freedom Caucus members on average seem to have stronger and more extensive educational pedigrees than do their GOP colleagues. Of Freedom Caucus members, about one-fourth attended top-50 universities according to one ranking , compared to about 12% of GOP non-freedom Caucus members. They are more than twice as likely to have doctoral degrees and roughly three times as likely to have a medical or dental degree as their GOP colleagues. Overall, caucus members have substantially more educational attainment than non-members, and, on average, attended more prestigious academic institutions. Their educational background means that Freedom Caucus members are almost invariably used to being in a small conservative minority surrounded by liberals. They are not afraid of being unpopular, or of holding views that are disapproved of by institutional leadership. They have generally thought through and are comfortable defending the conservative premises of their arguments. When combined with their lack of seniority, it paints a picture of the Freedom Caucus members as bright junior legislators who do not look kindly on an established leadership that has largely failed to achieve conservative goals it has promised the voters. As Margaret Thatcher said: "First you win the argument, then you win the vote." To a great extent, the Freedom Caucus is telling GOP leadership that it has forgotten how to win the argument for conservatism. In many cases, it has not even shown much desire to make the argument. As Ted Cruz, a notable Senate friend of the caucus, said regarding his own fights with GOP leadership: "You don't have to win every fight; you don't even have to fight every fight; but you do have to stand for something." Conservative voters are tired of winning elections but losing legislatively. They are tired of a " 100 year majority " that has yet to overturn, or even send for a veto, any major pieces of liberal legislation. The Freedom Caucus's ascendance represents the frustration of the more than three quarters of GOP voters who are supporting a presidential candidate who emerged on the national political scene during or after the Tea Party Revolution of 2010. And it is reflective of GOP voters' disgust with the current party establishment that Marco Rubio, currently being touted as the "great establishment hope" for those major donors looking for an alternative to Jeb Bush, was originally elected on a Tea Party platform in the face of National Republican Senatorial Committee opposition and with the enthusiastic support of conservative firebrand Jim DeMint . Whatever the group's tactical or strategic shortcomings, the Freedom Caucus seems to attract representatives who are interested in winning the battle of ideas for conservatism. If they can combine that zeal for "winning the argument" with the electoral and institutional savvy of some of the more senior members, many of whom know how to "win the vote," it could allow the GOP House to have a highly effective, conservative and substantive governing majority. But whether this happens will be largely determined by the next House GOP leadership, who will have to work with the Freedom Caucus far more effectively than Boehner and McCarthy did. At a time of considerable intellectual ferment on the right, the GOP coalition may not survive an establishment counter-revolution. | 5 | 94,391 | news |
The fact New York Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist doesn't know how many suits he owns proves he's in a different league than most of us when it comes to fashion. "Too many," Lundqvist says. "The good thing about living in both Sweden and New York is I have a place to put suits when I'm running out of space in New York." Whatever the total, it's the right number for a player who is generally regarded as the NHL's best-dressed player, someone who has helped the league move off the sports pages and into fashion magazines and photo spreads. "He's been elected not only Sweden's, but the entire world's best-dressed man on various occasions," says Jonas Eriksson, digital editor of Nordic Style Magazine. "… His reputation in Sweden is that he is always well-dressed, wearing impeccable, cool outfits most often exclusive suits." Lundqvist could be viewed as the symbol of how modern NHL players have dressed up their image, leading to more commercial and corporate opportunities for the league and its athletes. It was clearly the European influence that has helped the NHL to step up its game off the ice. "So many nations are represented on the league's ice but the ones that stand out, sartorially, are the Europeans, most notably the Scandinavians, like the Swedes," says Nic Screws, style director of Bloomberg Media. "They have long been comfortable with developing a personal style and having confidence in showing that off. American and maybe even Canadian men are still playing catch up." If you took a poll, the Swedish players would probably be voted the NHL's best dressed group. "I would like to think we are," Colorado Avalanche Swedish player Gabriel Landeskog says, chuckling. "But I'm sure if you ask our North American friends, I'm sure they have a different opinion." The fashion recognition is not limited to the Swedes. Canadians Joffrey Lupul (Toronto Maple Leafs), Patrice Bergeron (Boston Bruins) and Tyler Seguin (Dallas Stars) are among others who have been asked to do fashion spreads. Still, none of them have been invited to be a special guest at Milan Fashion Week like Lundqvist has. "I don't think a lot of guys can keep up with Lundqvist," Landeskog says. Ottawa Senators defenseman Erik Karlsson, considered the second-best dressed Swede, tries. "I think we have pretty fashionable styles because we are a small fashionable country," Karlsson says. "We grow up and we are taught to look proper," Vancouver Canucks center Henrik Sedin says. It's not as if the Swedes are over the top with how they dress. "Swedes like Lundqvist favor minimalism the idea that less is more, or that quiet can still make a statement," said Screws, who has worked with Carl Hagelin, a Swedish forward on the Anaheim Ducks. "They like dark colors and slim silhouettes. Think skinny ties and skinnier pants. They would never consider a 'regular' or 'classic' fit style of tailoring -- always modern, or Euro-cut." Landeskog sums up his fashion sense this way: "I would rather be comfortable and look OK than be uncomfortable and look great." The Swedes do take some razzing from teammates over their Euro flair. "I remember the first year I came over I was wearing some super tight jeans and I got in trouble for that," Arizona Coyotes defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson says. The oddity of the Swedes' fashion reputation in the NHL is they are not considered their country's best dressed athletes. "They may not be 'poorly' dressed but rather dull in comparison to other athletes," Eriksson says. "It is mostly soccer players that are more fashion forward and seen on magazine covers and at red carpet events." Former NHL player Tom Laidlaw, who played with the New York Rangers and Los Angeles Kings in 1980s, said NHL players' style has come a long way. He says he only owned one suit and a couple of sports coats when he played. He recalls that former Rangers player Mark Pavelich owned a clip-on tie that he carried around to adhere to the team rule of wearing a tie on the road. "Obviously players have more money now," Laidlaw says. "We used to fly commercial, and if a guy fell asleep we would put shaving cream on him or cut his tie in half. Obviously today you wouldn't do that because the suit might be $5,000 and the tie might be $500." Still, Laidlaw recalls that Swedish player Anders Hedberg was the best-dressed player on the Rangers. "You could tell it was important to him." Laidlaw said. Fashion was not as important to the other players. "We would joke around," Laidlaw says, "about how we picked our suit jackets based on how big their pockets were so we could carry more beers out after the game." | 1 | 94,392 | sports |
Alex Ovechkin was a healthy scratch from the Capitals' lineup Tuesday for "personal reasons" as Washington hosted the Sharks. Capitals coach Barry Trotz said the star left winger was a game-time decision after he missed the team's morning skate earlier Tuesday. Ovechkin arrived at Verizon Center about an hour before puck drop, but did not participate in pregame warmups. The team did not elaborate on the reason for his absence. MORE: Classic photos of Alex Ovechkin Ovechkin has only missed 22 games in 10 seasons with Washington, and just 12 since 2010. Ovechkin netted the go-ahead goal and an assist in the Capitals' season-opening win over the Devils on Saturday. He tallied 53 goals and 28 assists in 81 games last season, leading the league in goals for the third consecutive season. | 1 | 94,393 | sports |
HARRISON, N.J. (AP) -- Storm clouds hover over U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann. The Americans finished fourth in the CONCACAF Gold Cup, their poorest performance since 2000. They lost a playoff against Mexico on Saturday for the region's berth in the 2017 Confederations Cup. Not even Tim Howard's first game in goal in 15 months stopped the slump. Joel Campbell's 70th-minute goal led Costa Rica over the overwhelmed U.S. 1-0 in an exhibition Tuesday night, the Americans' fifth defeat in six games. The U.S. has lost three straight home games for the first time since 1997. Klinsmann turned meteorologist for his analysis. "There are not only sunshine days," he said. "We had a lot of sunshine, 2012, 2013, 2014. Now it's raining a little bit, and you've got to go through that. Maybe you have to go through a little bit of mud as well." Costa Rica outshot the U.S. 14-5, and the Americans created almost no scoring chances. Klinsmann changed eight of his starters from Saturday, keeping only defender Geoff Cameron, midfielder Jermaine Jones and forward Jozy Altidore. And all three were replaced at the start of the second half. "I understand if some people are really critical because of the disappointment with the Gold Cup and because of the big disappointment on Saturday, and I respect that," Klinsmann said. "But at the same time, when everything goes not my way, I get even hungrier to turn it around the other way." U.S. Soccer Federation President Sunil Gulati has repeatedly backed Klinsmann, who took over in 2011 and is signed through 2018 as coach and technical director. Klinsmann created a stir this week when he sent Fabian Johnson home to Germany, angry he asked to be substituted in the 111th minute against Mexico. Still, there was a bit of good news for the U.S. The under-23 team beat Canada 2-0 on second-half goals by Marc Pelosi and Jordan Kiesewetter and will play Colombia in March for a spot in next year's Olympics. The youth team lost to Honduras on Saturday, wasting a chance for one of CONCACAF's automatic berths. "I'm going to look everywhere for younger players hopefully developing," Klinsmann said, "and hopefully getting to a point where that transition that we talk about since more than a year really happens." Howard, now 36, took a one-year sabbatical from the national team after making 15 saves in the 2-1 round-of-16 loss to Belgium at last year's World Cup, wanting to use international breaks for family time. When Howard returned last month, Klinsmann installed him as his No. 2 behind Brad Guzan, the 31-year-old who had been Howard's primary backup. Klinsmann anticipates the pair will rotate going forward. "We have two exceptional international-caliber goalkeepers and we need both of them," he said. Before a crowd of just 9,214 in almost two-thirds empty Red Bulls Arena, Howard tipped Campbell's 25-yard shot over the crossbar in the 59th. A turnover by second-half sub Jonathan Spector led to the goal. Dave Myrie, who had just entered, crossed for Campbell, and the forward beat Danny Williams into space and sent a 12-yard, left-footed shot just past Howard's outstretched right arm into the far corner. Campbell, who has struggled for playing time at Arsenal, scored his 11th international goal but first since Costa Rica played Uruguay in last year's World Cup. Howard made an excellent sliding stop on Marcos Urena in the 88th. "It was just great to pull the shirt on again and get all the hype and the talk over with," Howard said. "I was just wanting to get a shot and just get back into the swing of things." The Americans open qualifying for the 2018 World Cup against St. Vincent and the Grenadines in St. Louis on Nov. 13, then play at Trinidad and Tobago four days later. "Every cycle is a rebirth and you have to shake things up," Howard said. "You have to try new players. Other players get older. Some of your best players who are top dogs today are going to be old as dirt in 2018 and they're not going to be able to perform. So there's that balance, right, of getting a result today versus trying to bleed new guys in. So it's not doom and gloom. I think we're a good team." He predicted "we'll get two wins against St. Vincent, against Trinidad, and everybody will be happy again." Klinsmann used his weather metaphor. "Sooner or later the clouds will pass by," he said, "and we're going to find some sun again." | 1 | 94,394 | sports |
Former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley defends his record as Baltimore mayor during the CNN Democratic debate. | 8 | 94,395 | video |
Former President Bill Clinton took to Twitter on Tuesday night to tweet a photo of himself watching his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on television at the Democratic debate. "What happens in Vegas," Clinton wrote in his tweet. "is I watch @Hillary Clinton prove she's the most qualified candidate for POTUS." "ImWithHer," he added in a hashtag. What happens in Vegas...is I watch @HillaryClinton prove she's the most qualified candidate for POTUS. #ImWithHer pic.twitter.com/ax1d56Whwt Bill Clinton (@billclinton) October 14, 2015 The photo shows the former president sitting in a hotel room watching his wife on the big screen. So far, the former president has mostly been on the sidelines of his wife's campaign, with the exception of some fundraisers, much to the displeasure of top Democratic strategists and donors. He's expected to take a more prominent role as the Democratic primary heats up. | 5 | 94,396 | news |
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Alex Ovechkin sat out the Washington Capitals' game Tuesday night against San Jose because of personal reasons. The Capitals sent out a note on Twitter about 35 minutes before the game saying Ovechkin would not play. They had confirmed earlier in the day that the left wing did not take part in the team's morning skate, and coach Barry Trotz said he would be a game-time decision. Ovechkin had a goal and an assist in Saturday night in Washington's season-opening victory over New Jersey. The Russian star missed only one game last season. | 1 | 94,397 | sports |
According to a recently published study, Miami, New Orleans, and a number of other US cities are already beyond the point of being saved from rising sea levels. | 8 | 94,398 | video |
CHICAGO (AP) -- Joe Maddon posed for a selfie on the field with his wife. Jon Lester sprayed champagne with his young son. Rocker Eddie Vedder partied on the mound. For the Chicago Cubs and their ever-hopeful fans, this bash was a long time in the making. Kyle Schwarber, Anthony Rizzo and Javier Baez homered and the fresh Cubs clinched a postseason series at Wrigley Field for the first time ever, beating the St. Louis Cardinals 6-4 Tuesday to win the NL Division Series in four games. "This is all just baseball fantasy, right?" a drenched chairman Tom Ricketts said. BOX SCORE: CUBS 6, CARDINALS 4 Only once since they last brought home the World Series in 1908 had the Cubs won a playoff series and never before had they finished off the job at their century-plus-old ballpark. But with a raucous, towel-waving crowd jamming the Friendly Confines, the North Siders gave generations of fans exactly what they wanted. And as they gathered in the pulsating neighborhood, the lit-up marquee at Wrigley Field said it all: Cubs Win. "I can only imagine what the next thing is going to look like," said Lester, the lefty who twice won the World Series with Boston. "And the next thing after that." The crowd started roaring before the first pitch. And when closer Hector Rondon struck out Stephen Piscotty on a ball in the dirt and catcher Miguel Montero made the tag to end it, the Cubs came streaming out of the dugout. "They deserve it," Rizzo said in the middle of the party. "Hopefully, this is just a taste of what's to come." Up-and-comers all season under their first-year manager, Maddon's bunch of wild-card Cubs had arrived. As the music blared and the strobe lights flashed in the clubhouse, Cubs players and coaches soaked each other. Then they took the celebration back onto the field as fans went crazy -- Vedder, from the local area, pitched right in. The Cubs will face the winner of the Los Angeles Dodgers-New York Mets matchup. The Mets took a 2-1 lead into Game 4 Tuesday night. Chicago will play Game 1 Saturday on the road. No team was hotter down the stretch than Chicago, which finished third in the majors with 97 wins after five straight losing seasons. The Cubs knocked out the two teams that finished ahead of them in the NL Central, beating Pittsburgh in the wild-card game and sending St. Louis home after it led the majors with 100 wins. "I think we're too young to even realize what we just did," young slugger Kris Bryant said. "It truly is a special time right now." The banged-up Cardinals had reached the NLCS in the last four years. "It was just unfortunate," St. Louis manager Mike Matheny said. "This is a team that was as impressive to watch from Day One as any team I've ever been around." "That's always hard to walk away from. We had an opportunity maybe to get back home and do things differently, but they took advantage of the opportunities they had," he said. Rizzo's solo drive to right off losing pitcher Kevin Siegrist in the sixth put Chicago back on top 5-4 after St. Louis scored two in the top half. As if the fans were already hollering at the top of their lungs after that home run, they were really screaming after Schwarber's monstrous shot leading off the seventh. The ball landed on top of the right-field videoboard and wound up nestled against a railing on the front edge. The late drives by Rizzo and Schwarber along with Baez's three-run homer off John Lackey in the second came after Chicago set a postseason record with six long balls in Monday's win. And with the ball flying out again, the Cubs won for the 12th time in 13 games. Cubs starter Jason Hammel allowed two runs and three hits. He exited after giving up a leadoff walk to Jhonny Peralta in the fourth. Seven relievers combined to hold the Cardinals to two runs and five hits the rest of the way. Trevor Cahill picked up the win and Rondon worked the ninth for the save. Hammel settled down after giving up a two-run homer to Piscotty on the game's fourth pitch. He also singled in a run with two out in the second before Baez connected against Lackey, the man the Cardinals were counting on to keep their season going, to make it 4-2. Lackey gave up four runs and four hits over three innings after outpitching former teammate Lester in a dominant series opener. The Cardinals, playing without catcher Yadier Molina (left thumb), failed to advance in the postseason after winning at least one series the previous four years. "I definitely think the ballpark had something to do with this. They also have a really good lineup," Lackey said. St. Louis scored two in the sixth to tie it. But the rally ended with Tony Cruz -- who drove in a run with a two-out double -- getting thrown out at home by Jorge Soler trying to score on Brandon Moss' RBI single to right. "I will be shocked if they're not in the World Series or winning it," Piscotty said. "They're playing well. You got to tip your hat." NOTABLE The Cubs are headed to their fourth NLCS. ... Chicago batters hit 10 homers in the series. TRAINER'S ROOM Cardinals: Matheny said he planned to have Molina in the lineup after the loss in Game 3, but the injured thumb did not make enough progress overnight. Cruz started in his place. Cubs: SS Addison Russell had tests Tuesday morning on his hamstring and didn't play. "I haven't gotten any finalized conclusions from anybody yet," Maddon said. "He's not going to play today, of course." Baez took Russell's spot. | 1 | 94,399 | sports |
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