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Family and friends remembered the 14 victims of the Dec. 2 shooting attack in San Bernardino, Calif., as "hard-working, family-loving, gentle people." All but one worked for the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health with attacker Syed Rizwan Farook. | 8 | 96,900 | video |
Proponents of so-called "net neutrality" were given a huge win last winter when the Federal Communications Commission ruled that broadband providers must treat all web traffic equally. Now, the issue has gone to court. On Friday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Appeals Court for the D.C. Circuit heard the counter-argument from the powers of the U.S. broadband industry, AT&T, CenturyLink, Verizon, Comcast, Charter and Time Warner. To those tech providers, the FCC had overstepped its bounds and jeopardized their businesses when they issued a regulation on the Internet in February. For example, the USTelecom, a group lobbying on behalf of broadband providers, had argued that with the government's new rules consumers could face more costs. "It went how I would have expected it. The [judges] ran through it exactly the way they said … Both sides had their best guys out there," said Kate Forscey of advocacy group Public Knowledge. "I tend to think that the FCC has finally put its strongest foot forward." In February the FCC backed Netflix, YouTube, Twitter, essentially every Web service by guaranteeing access to American homes. "The net neutrality debate is about who picks winners and losers online: Internet service providers or consumers. Today, the FCC settled it: Consumers win," Netflix said after the ruling. Net neutrality or what has also been called the open Internet -- a regulation that forbids service providers from blocking, throttling and charging companies more for fast connections -- was official. But that wasn't the last word and now the U.S. broadband industry is getting its day in court. "USTelecom believes the FCC used the wrong approach to implementing net neutrality standards, which our industry supports and incorporates into everyday business practices," said USTelecom President Walter McCormick back in April. The 'Bazooka' Classification The Court of Appeals granted Internet providers over two hours to make their case. Telecoms and other Internet service providers had taken issue with the reclassification under Title II, the same regulation that applies to long distance telephone companies that allowed anyone access to the pipes. When the FCC made its ruling in February, it was considered the strongest possible statement in favor of net neutrality and a big setback for the U.S. broadband industry. "This time the FCC used like a bazooka, the most strong and wide ranging section of the act, the Title II. It's extremely unlikely that, on the same grounds [as 2014], it will be ruled against. I expect it will be upheld," said Nicholas Economides, a professor of economics at NYU Stern School of Business who has defended the regulations on regulations before Congress in October. The mobile industry, also covered by the ruling, see themselves as a different category than broadband networks. Mobile companies affiliated with The Wireless Association took issue with which statutes directly applied to them, since those documents specifically use the words "commercial" services. As Public Knowledge noted , these companies define themselves as "private." Additionally, there were 20 minutes allotted to an argument on the First Amendment, where Alamo Broadband Inc attempted to classify ISPs as speakers, not providers. However, Pantelis Michalopoulos of Steptoe & Johnson, a lawyer for the intervenors, including Netflix, Inc., Dish Network Corp. and Comptel, issued that such an argument was not viable when he was in court Friday. Keep Waiting Economides was also confident the FCC was on firm legal ground and cast doubt on the argument that Title II regulation would hamper access to broadband. "We are facing very rapidly expanding demand on this. So, if the companies come and say, look we won't be able to invest enough in expanding demand, they're essentially accepting defeat. Of course they're going to expand," Economides said. But some said the FCC ruling won't be enough to protect net neutrality. "It's time to put the FCC's authority on firm legal footing with legislation that avoids the weighty baggage of Title II's Depression-era utility-style of regulation," said Doug Brake, policy analyst with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, in a statement. Blake called Friday's oral arguments "a wake-up call on the need for a legislative solution to the decade-old problem of finding legal authority for open Internet rules." Industry experts said they do not expect a ruling by the Court of Appeals on Friday's arguments until the first quarter of 2016. Regardless of outcome, the appeals process could go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. | 3 | 96,901 | finance |
A new superbug is on the rise in the United States, and it's a big one. Dubbed the "phantom menace" by scientists, the carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriacae (CRE) has the potential to become widespread thoughout the country. The CRE family is known to be resistant to most antibiotics, and therefore very difficult to treat. The bacteria can also be quite deadly up to 50 percent of infected patients die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Health officials say CRE is one of the country's most urgent health threats. The specific bacteria that earned a report from the CDC on Thursday is a relatively new brand of the bacteria. Unlike the other, more common types of CRE, the superbug carries a plasmid a mobile piece of DNA capable of breaking down antibiotics with an enzyme. It gets worse; the bacteria also has the ability to transfer that plasmid and its antibiotic resistance to normal bacteria present within our bodies. Currently, this type of CRE is rare and hasn't been a focus of testing due to the fact that it is actually less antibiotic-resistant than other, more common types of CRE. For this reason, health officials gave it its ominous nickname. "This is a tricky drug-resistant bacteria, and it isn't easily found," CDC Director Thomas Frieden told The Washington Post . "What we're seeing is an assault by the microbes on the last bastion of antibiotics." One example of the problems CRE bacteria are capable of causing is a recent incident in China, where plasmids gave the bug's resistance to an antibiotic called colistin. Many health professionals consider colistin one of the last lines of defense against certain dangerous bacteria such as this. These bacteria "are of greatest public health concern because of their potential for rapid global dissemination," the report said. It is important to note, however, that these infections are not something the general populace needs to worry about quite yet. Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist and professor of preventative medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville told Live Science that microbiologists, public health officials, and infectious disease experts are paying close attention for everyone. Schaffner explained that even if bacteria are only resistant to certain types of antibiotics, its concerning to experts because this reduces the number of treatments doctors can use to take out the infections. Doctors need several types of antibiotics available, he said, and the more options there are, the better. Source: Lyman M, Walters M, Lonsway D, Rasheed K, Limbago B, Kallen A. Notes From The Field: Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae Producing OXA-48-like Carbapenemases United States, 2010-2015. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Centers for Disease Control. 2015. | 4 | 96,902 | lifestyle |
When it comes to show-stopping centerpieces, nothing gets jaws on the floor quite like a massive hunk of roasted meat. However, cuts like pork shoulder , beef rib roast , and lamb leg or shoulder can be intimidating to home cooks. We get it: Those suckers are expensive, and there's a big fear of over- or under-cooking half of your grocery budget for the week. You don't have to waste your money just don't make these common mistakes. 1. Not Seasoning the Night Before Roasting It Not only do you need to season the meat aggressively, you need to do so the night before you plan on cooking it. Explains Rick Martinez, associate food editor: "You're essentially doing a quick dry brine with salt and pepper." This will give the seasoning ample time to permeate beyond the roast's interior. Just rub the roast liberally with kosher salt and pepper (and whatever other spices you'd like to use), and set it, uncovered, on a sheet tray or roasting pan in the fridge. 2. Not Letting it Come to Room Temperature Don't even think about taking the meat directly from the fridge to the oven. It will take longer to cook, not to mention roast unevenly. Give the meat an hour or two at room temperature before roasting it. 3. Going Too Low and Slow Nobody likes gray, rubbery meat. But a golden-brown, crackly crust? That's something everyone wants. This is achieved at higher cooking temperatures. You could sear the meat before roasting it to kick-start the browning process, but most big cuts of meat are too big for a skillet on the stovetop. Get the same effect by starting the roast in an oven set to a high (in the 450? range) temperature. Once the meat starts to brown, reduce the heat to something in the 300-325? range so the exterior doesn't burn before it's cooked through. 4. Carving it Right Away You probably know that meat should rest before carving or slicing it. But when it comes to multi-pound roasts, the ten minute-nap you gave your steak last night will not suffice. Let the roast sit for at least 30 minutes before carving it. Not only will you capture all of those precious juices, it will make the job infinitely easier (no burnt fingers or messy cutting boards). Don't worry about the roast becoming cold; it will hold heat surprisingly well. Plus, you can always gently reheat the meat at the table by pouring a quick pan sauce over the top. 5. Slicing the Wrong Way You should always slice meat against, not with, the grain . This makes for tender, melt-in-your-mouth roasts. If you've ever cooked a roast to perfection and still found it tough or chewy, it's likely that it wasn't sliced correctly. Using a very sharp knife helps and makes for a more attractive presentation. Cook the recipe at the top of this page: Crown Roast of Pork | 0 | 96,903 | foodanddrink |
Samsung has agreed to pay smartphone rival Apple just over $548 million in a years-long patent battle in federal court in California. The South Korean electronics colossus said in a legal filing Thursday it will pay Apple the partial judgement awarded but reserves the right to get money back if the amount is modified or overturned on appeal or if the validity of patents at issue is successfully challenged. Apple said in the joint filing that it disagrees with Samsung's contention that it has a right to be reimbursed. A court in September awarded Apple the partial judgment. Samsung's options narrowed to simply paying the money or trying to take its fight to the US Supreme Court. The hefty sum is significantly less than the billion dollars Apple sought at the outset of the 2012 patent trial in Northern California, and doesn't put to rest an argument over who should pay Apple's legal costs said to total $1.8 million. "Samsung has confirmed to Apple that it will pay Apple the $548 million partial judgment directly," attorneys representing the companies said in the court filing. The payment was to be made within 10 days of Apple delivering an invoice to Samsung on Friday, according to a joint filing. In another sign that the long-running legal fight would drag on, Apple also asked the court for a green light to file a motion asking for supplemental damages for products that weren't calculated into the award. Arch-rivals Samsung and Apple decided last year to drop all patent disputes outside the United States, marking a partial ceasefire in a long-running legal war between the world's two largest smartphone makers. The companies have battled in close to a dozen countries, with each accusing the other of infringing on various patents related to their flagship smartphone and tablet products. But neither has managed to deliver a knock-out blow with a number of rulings going different ways, and an announcement they agreed to drop all litigation outside the United States suggested a line was finally being drawn. However, the agreement came with one key caveat, with the two giants stressing that they would continue "to pursue the existing cases in US courts." | 3 | 96,904 | finance |
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -- Larry Fedora believes his North Carolina Tar Heels deserve a spot in the College Football Playoffs if they snap Clemson's 15-game winning streak Saturday night in the ACC championship. "I most definitely do," The Tar Heels fourth-year coach said Friday at a news conference. "If we beat the No. 1 team in the nation, then I believe this team deserves to be in the College Football Playoff." Clemson coach Dabo Swinney agrees. "We've got three top-10 teams in this league," Swinney said. "I don't think there's any question that the ACC should be in one of them games. But what do I know? I just hope we're the one there." A win would be a big boost for the Tar Heels' (11-1, 8-0 ACC, No. 10 CFP) resume given the national stage, but wouldn't guarantee them entry into the playoff. Data curated by PointAfter The eighth-ranked Tar Heels would likely need outside help to leapfrog the teams ahead of them. But first there is the matter of beating Clemson (12-0, 8-0 ACC, No. 1 CFP). Earning their first ACC championship in 35 years means the Tar Heels will have to slow down sophomore quarterback Deshaun Watson, the ACC player of the year and a Heisman Trophy candidate. Swinney said Watson is the "complete package," comparing him to former New York Yankees relief pitcher Mariano Rivera. Watson has never lost a game as Clemson's starting quarterback. "He really doesn't have a weakness," Swinney said. ".... He's a tough one to beat. He's not perfect. He's not some superhuman man. He makes mistakes, but you're going to have to beat him. I mean, he's not going to beat himself." Fedora knows that. Watson torched North Carolina for 435 yards passing and a school-record six TDs last season. The Tar Heels defense has improved dramatically this year under new coordinator Gene Chizik, but will face the best quarterback and perhaps wide receivers they've seen all season. "He can extend plays," Fedora said. "And the thing I think that's most impressive about him is his poise. I don't think you ever see him get rattled. ... They've got a rock that they can rely on, and I think he makes it extremely difficult for a defense." ___ Some other things to know about Saturday night's ACC championship game: DO-OVER: North Carolina's only loss came on this field to South Carolina in Week 1. In that game, senior quarterback Marquise Williams threw three interceptions, two in the end zone, while the Tar Heels curiously only gave just 12 carries (none in the red zone) to top tailback Elijah Hood in the 17-13 loss to South Carolina. Don't expect the latter to happen again; Hood ranked second in the ACC in with 1,280 yards rushing and 16 rushing touchdowns. If Williams avoids the turnovers, the Tar Heels can score with anybody. DABO'S 100TH GAME: Swinney is leading his 100th game. Swinney, in his seventh full season, said it's hard to control when you reach a milestone. "A lot of people's 100th game is against East Taboga Community College and it is what it is," he said. "But to the ACC championship game with your 100th, it's special." A BIG RETURN? In a game with both teams boasting prolific offenses, the Tar Heels could find an edge with punt returner Ryan Switzer. He's returned two punts for touchdowns of 78 and 85 yards this season, and has seven for his career one shy of matching the NCAA career record. Punt returns are an area of emphasis for UNC and directed by Fedora personally, so the Tar Heels could help their chances by springing Switzer for a big one. PAST TITLE TILTS: The last time North Carolina and Clemson played with so much at stake may have been Nov. 1981, a 10-8 Tiger victory that was part of their 12-0 national championship run. Clemson was ranked second and the Tar Heels eighth, marking the first-ever meeting of top 10 teams in ACC history. Clemson prevailed and remained undefeated when defensive tackle Jeff Bryant recovered a lateral in the fourth quarter. "There's only been one 12-0 at Clemson and we've tied that record," Tigers tight end Jordan Leggett said. "We're making history as we go." DOMINANT STARTS: UNC has been downright dominant in the first half of games in November. They led 38-10 at half in a 66-31 win against Duke, 31-0 at half in a 59-21 win against Miami the following week. Then they ran out to a 35-7 lead in last weekend's 45-34 win at North Carolina State. __ AP Sports Writers Pete Iacobelli in Columbia, South Carolina and Aaron Beard in Chapel Hill, North Carolina contributed to this report. | 1 | 96,905 | sports |
We spotted UFC superstar Conor McGregor on the beach in Los Angeles, and just when you thought he wasn't thinking about fighting, he decided to grapple with his girlfriend. | 8 | 96,906 | video |
We caught up to Jada Pinkett-Smith as she and Willow hit the beaches of Hawaii, and the 44-year-old looked stunning. | 6 | 96,907 | entertainment |
Aaron Mann paddles the Rio Olympic course for the first time. | 1 | 96,908 | sports |
The biggest stars from Kylie Jenner to Lady Gaga have been upping their wig game lately, and ET is showing how faux locks can spice up your look for the holidays. | 8 | 96,909 | video |
But don't panic it's by remote. | 8 | 96,910 | video |
WASHINGTON The woman who carried out the San Bernardino massacre with her husband came to the U.S. last year on a special visa for fiances of U.S. citizens, raising questions about whether the process can adequately vet people who may sympathize with terrorist groups. Authorities said Friday that Pakistani citizen Tashfeen Malik, 27, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group and its leader under an alias account on Facebook just moments before she and her husband, Syed Farook, opened fire on a holiday banquet for his co-workers, killing 14. They later died in a gunbattle with police Wednesday. Malik, who had been living in Pakistan and visiting family in Saudi Arabia, had passed several government background checks and entered the U.S. in July 2014 on a K-1 visa, which allowed her to travel to the U.S. and get married within 90 days of arrival. Malik was subjected to a vetting process the U.S. government describes as vigorous including in-person interviews, fingerprints, checks against U.S. terrorists watch lists and reviews of her family members, travel history and places where she lived and worked. The process was began when she applied for a visa to move to the United States and marry Farook, a 28-year-old Pakistani-American restaurant health inspector for the county who was raised in Southern California. Foreigners applying from countries recognized as home to Islamic extremists, such as Pakistan, undergo additional scrutiny before the State Department and Homeland Security Department approve permission for a K-1 visa. It was not immediately clear what information Malik provided as a part of the background check by the State Department and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services or when she became radicalized. "This is not a visa that someone would use because it is easy to get into the US, because there are more background checks on this type of visa than just about anything else," said Palma Yanni, a Washington-based attorney who has processed dozens of K-1 visas. "But fingerprints and biometrics and names aren't going to tell you what is in somebody's head unless they somewhere have taken some action." The government's apparent failure to detect Malik's alleged sympathies before the shootings will likely have implications on the debate over the Obama administration's plans to accept Syrian refugees. Attorneys representing Farook's family deny that he or his wife had extremist views. On Friday, ABC News reported that the address in her Pakistani hometown that Malik listed on her visa application does not exist. In response to a question about the ABC report, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said: "We are actively reviewing all of the information provided in the visa application and sharing it with our interagency partners as it relates to the investigation." The vetting process for refugees is similar, though not identical, to the one for fiance-visa applicants. "Uncle Sam just looks on as an approving cupid and doesn't pay as much attention as he should to the issuance of these visas," said David North, a senior fellow with the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for stricter immigration policies. Refugees also submit to in-person interviews overseas, where they provide biographical details about themselves, including their families, friendships, social or political activities, employment, phone numbers and email accounts. They provide biometric information, including fingerprints. Syrians are subject to additional classified controls. Republican lawmakers and governors across the U.S., as well as advocates for stricter immigration enforcement, have challenged the effectiveness of the vetting process for refugees. Refugees must apply to become a legal permanent resident after a year. But almost as soon as they arrive, they are eligible to work and apply for some benefits. Those who come to the U.S. on a fiance visa must marry a U.S. citizen within 90 days or leave the country. Following the marriage, the immigrant becomes a conditional resident for two years and must ask the U.S. government to remove those conditions at the end of that waiting period and undergo another background check. If the request is approved, the immigrant receives a green card. Immigrants can apply to become U.S. citizens five years after winning a green card. "Can we improve the system as technology grows? There is always room for improvement, but to indict the entire fiance visa system because of this is not the right path," said David Leopold, a past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Even those who intersected with Malik in California could not offer much insight, as she was rarely seen in the Muslim community. The couple was married Aug. 16, 2014, and held their wedding reception at the Islamic Center of Riverside, said Dr. Mustafa Kuko, the center's director. Kuko said he never met Malik because the party was divided into separate spaces for women and men. "She never came to our mosque except once when they had their reception, and that night there were so many people around, my wife doesn't recall exactly how she looks or who she is," Kuko said. "We never saw her again." The mosque in Redlands, where the couple lived, had no record of Malik attending services or enrolling in programs for Muslim women. "We really don't know anything about that sister," Khaled Zaidan, chairman of the board of directors of the Islamic Community Center of Redlands, said. "It really is a mystery what happened on Wednesday, how a woman could drop off a 6-month-old and commit a horrific crime killing all those innocent people." ___ Burke reported from San Francisco. Follow Garance Burke at http://www.twitter.com/garanceburke | 5 | 96,911 | news |
In what has become a pretty much annual ritual, taxpayers and tax preparers are waiting on Congress to renew dozens of expired tax breaks. The deductions and credits, some of which are commonly used by consumers and small businesses, expired at the beginning of the year. But lawmakers still have time, since tax returns won't be filed until early next year. The tax breaks would need to be reinstated for 2015. As of Friday afternoon, legislators had not reached a bipartisan deal, according to Julia Lawless, a spokeswoman for U.S. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). "Members are continuing discussions to develop a workable package that will provide responsible tax relief for American families and job creators," she said in a statement. While Congress may decide to bring back most of the credits at least temporarily, some of them may be made permanent and others could be eliminated. About 1 in 7 taxpayers could be affected by the changes, according to estimates from H&R Block . "It does make tax planning and business planning more difficult when things are up in the air," said Jackie Perlman a research analyst for the Tax Institute at H&R Block. Here are the tax breaks that could go away unless lawmakers bring them back State and local sales tax deduction . Taxpayers have typically had the option of deducting their state and local income taxes or their state and local sales taxes, but the option for deducting state sales tax expired this year. The break has been especially helpful for people in the seven states that don't charge income taxes . But even some consumers who pay state income taxes may have saved more on taxes in the past by deducting sales taxes instead of income taxes in years when they made major purchases, such as a car, Perlman says. Educator expenses deduction. This break let teachers deduct up to $250 of unreimbursed expenses . That would include money spent on books, computer equipment and other supplies. Tuition and fees deduction. Families were able to reduce their taxable income by up to $4,000 by deducting money spent at a college, university or community college. The credit was allowed for single people making up to $80,000 and married couples making up to $160,0000. Charitable distributions from an IRA. This break allowed taxpayers who were at least age 70 1/2 to rollover up to $100,000 to a charity from their IRA. The donation would count as the required minimum distribution that IRA holders need to take out after age 70 1/2. And consumers using this option would not need to pay taxes on the amount donated, making it more tax-efficient than donating straight cash. Mortgage debt relief. Any debt that gets forgiven is typically registered as taxable income, but this tax break saved people who lost their main homes to foreclosure from having to report the remainder of their mortgage as income and from having to pay taxes on the amount. Mortgage insurance deduction. Mortgage insurance premiums could previously be deducted as part of the mortgage interest deduction to reduce a person's taxable income. But that will no longer be the case if Congress fails to act. | 3 | 96,912 | finance |
The first image of the female San Bernardino shooter Tashfeen Malik has been released by ABC News. Attorney's representing the family of the gunmen Syed Farook, said they knew nothing about the couple's massacre plans and was completely shocked by the news. The San Bernardino attacks are now being treated as an act of terrorism and the attorneys are cooperating with the FBI's investigation. | 5 | 96,913 | news |
After just two weeks of availability, it is possible that Adele's 25 has smashed more records than the title has sold (and that's quite a few). Nielsen (via Billboard) reports today that the blockbuster album has officially sold at least one million copies in its second week. That makes Adele the first artist to manage that feat, and it's quite the accomplishment. In a time when most people have stopped purchasing albums, the British superstar has been able to convince millions upon millions to rush out to stores and online outlets and spend their hard-earned money on her art, week after week. That's meaningful, and it speaks both to Adele's power as an artist, as well as the public's appreciation for what she's creating and the fact that it has a real, monetary value. 25 made history last week when it surpassed even the greatest expectations, selling 3.38 million copies in a single week. That is almost one million units greater than the previous record holder, NSYNC's No Strings Attached , which sold just over 2.4 million back in 2000. Since then, no album has even been able to hit the two million mark, so Adele is also the only artist in history to hit three million in a week. The history books have also been keeping track of the very few albums that have managed to sell at least one million copies in a week, with Adele's third effort becoming just the twentieth to do so . Now there will need to be an asterisk on that list, marking 25 as the only album in history (or, since Nielsen's SoundScan began properly tracking sales in the United States) to do so twice. Nielsen hasn't delivered the total sales for week two of 25 just yet (they are set to be announced on Sunday evening), but by shifting at least another million, that brings the album's total sales to around 4.4 million. It is highly unlikely that the record will be able to sell another million in week three, but it is far from done. With a handful of charting weeks left in 2015, it is all but a sure thing that 25 will hit 5 million copies sold by the end of the year, but exactly how many CDs and digital downloads it has the power to move is anybody's guess and we've all learned by now not to get too attached to predictions when it comes to Adele. 30 Under 30 In Music: The Class Of 2015 | 6 | 96,914 | entertainment |
A teenager named Bud Weisser is accused of trespassing on the grounds of a brewery named Budweiser in St. Louis, Missouri, the local police department said on Friday. The 19-year-old was arrested on Thursday at 6:48 p.m. after an altercation with brewery security officers. "Upon arrival, it was learned that the suspect had entered a secured area at the Budweiser Brewery and was asked to leave by security officers," police said in a statement. A 19-year-old named Bud Weisser was arrested for trespassing at the Budweiser Brewery in St. Louis. St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department Authorities say Weisser resisted arrest, for which he faces charges along with trespassing. Anheuser-Busch, Budweiser's parent company, did not respond to request for comment about the coincidentally named teenager's alleged trespassing. It's unclear exactly how Weisser feels about the planned $105 billion merger between Anheuser-Busch and SABMiller. | 5 | 96,915 | news |
Tiger Woods says he and ex-wife Elin Nordegren are now besties! It's true! The golfer says they talk all the time adding that he tells his kids, "The reason why mommy and daddy don't live under the same roof is because daddy made some mistakes." Tiger got candid on his relationship with ex Lindsey Vonn revealing the reason for their split saying, they never had time together, adding the relationship was fantastic, but it was doing an injustice for both of them. | 6 | 96,916 | entertainment |
Oil prices fell below $40 Friday after OPEC decided to maintain current production levels. Here are the key takeaways from the group's contentious meeting. Photo: Getty Images | 3 | 96,917 | finance |
Diminutive men need not apply when it comes to dating Adriana Lima, and that includes you, Justin Bieber! Last year, there were racy whispers that the Victoria's Secret model and the "What Do You Mean" singer hooked up at the Cannes Film Festival. Adriana, who split with her husband of five years in 2014, staunchly denied those rumors, even saying that Justin doesn't meet her physical requirements. "Let me tell, you, OK I'm gonna tell you this. Anybody below 6'7", you know how I call them?" she asked Andy Cohen on Dec. 3, before answering her own question, "friends." Adriana's feisty response came after the "What Watch Happens Live" host brought up the report, asking, "I read somewhere that you and Justin Bieber hung out. Did you two ever date?" "Where did you read that?" Adriana shot back, looking disgusted. Andy attempted an explanation while Adriana kept pressing for answers. "Where? Where?" she asked. The tension was palpable when Andy said, "I read it a year ago. It was kind of buzzing about." Adriana, now stranger to being a subject of the rumor mill, rolled her eyes and said, "Oh my gosh, no, no." Andy's questions weren't entirely out of line. In the same month that Adriana announced the end of her marriage to former NBA player Marko Jarić (who is 6'7", by the way), Us Weekly reported that The Biebs and the model hit it off. "Justin pursued her hard. They were talking nonstop. They went home together around 5 a.m.," a source said at the time. Adding fuel to the fire, Justin posted a photo of he and Adriana at the time. He captioned it, "I think she foreign, I think she foreign." Adriana and Marco share two daughters, Valentina, six and Sienna, three. | 6 | 96,918 | entertainment |
Helima Croft, RBC Capital Markets, gives perspective to OPEC and the outcome of the meeting which ended without a decision. The Fast Money traders weigh in. | 3 | 96,919 | finance |
Former CONCACAF president and FIFA executive Jack Warner indicted on new corruption charges. | 8 | 96,920 | video |
In an exclusive interview, U2's lead singer, Bono, tells Fareed Zakaria that he has been working on a song called "The Streets of Surrender" set in Paris. | 3 | 96,921 | finance |
So much for the idea that Zack Greinke was going to the Giants or Dodgers . Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports is reporting that the star right-hander has agreed to terms with another NL West team, the Arizona Diamondbacks. Jon Heyman of CBS sports added that it's a 6-year-deal. This makes the Diamondbacks a better team. But unless they've got another big move or two in them this offseason, it doesn't make them a better team than either the Los Angeles Dodgers or San Francisco Giants. The Diamondbacks bullpen ERA in 2015 was 3.56, 13th in Major League Baseball. Their ERA for their starting rotation was 4.37, good enough for 23rd in baseball. Obviously, Greinke will help the cause of the starting rotation, but that isn't exactly what you'd call desirable rotation from one through five. As great as Greinke is, he doesn't provide a big advantage over the aces of the Dodgers and Giants Clayton Kershaw or Madison Bumgarner. After Greinke in the rotation comes Patrick Corbin, followed by some combination of Rubby De La Rosa, Robbie Ray, and Chase Anderson, with Archie Bradley likely at least having a chance to take over from one of the latter three. It's not bad, but I can't imagine a Diamondbacks fan feeling great about any combination of three of those pitchers going into a big series against Los Angeles or San Francisco, let alone teams like the Cardinals, Pirates, Nationals, Cubs, and Mets. Even though the Arizona offense led by all-world Paul Goldschmidt and a solid all-around player in A.J. Pollock is solid and will score runs, the rotation needs to be improved with at least one more star. Also, while Greinke's career ERA in Arizona's Chase Field is a respectable 3.34, he'll be making a hitter's yard his home for the only time in his career, excluding his brief run with the Milwaukee Brewers. Now, if the Diamondbacks add another arm in the rotation and at least 1-2 quality bullpen pitchers, then they become legitimate threats in the NL West. Until then, while they've made themselves better and the three-time defending NL West Champs worse, the Diamondbacks are still a team that lacks the overall balance needed to be the division's best. | 1 | 96,922 | sports |
With Eddie Lacy leaving Green Bay's dramatic win Thursday night with an ankle injury, the Packers brought in former Broncos running back Montee Ball in for a workout, according to NFL.com . Lacy left the game after just five carries and 4 rushing yards. Backup running back James Starks didn't do much better with 15 yards on nine carries. MORE: The most controversial calls of the NFL season Ball, a star at Wisconsin, was cut by Denver in the offseason after two disappointing seasons in a Broncos uniform. He managed just 731 rushing yards in 21 games after being selected in the second round of the 2013 draft. As a Badger, Ball set an FBS record with 83 total touchdowns, 77 rushing, over his four-year career. Ball could provide depth for Green Bay if Lacy misses an extended period of time. Starks and John Crockett are the two healthy backs left on the active roster. | 1 | 96,923 | sports |
Follow these money-making tactics to keep your wallet full this Christmas season. | 4 | 96,924 | lifestyle |
New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski has been ruled out for Sunday's game against the Philadelphia Eagles with a knee injury, the team announced on Friday. The Patriots released an update on Tuesday, calling Gronkowski "week-to-week" with a bone bruise and right knee sprain that he sustained last week against the Denver Broncos. He was carted off the field in the fourth quarter after a hit to the leg from Darian Stewart and did not return. Julian Edelman (foot) was also ruled out, and Danny Amendola (knee) is listed as questionable. If Amendola is forced to sit, quarterback Tom Brady will once again be forced to lean on Brandon LaFell and Scott Chandler in the passing game. Kickoff between the Eagles and Patriots is set for 4:25 p.m. ET. - Kenny Ducey | 1 | 96,925 | sports |
U.S. equities posted their best one-day gain since October on Friday after the November non-farm payroll report came in slightly better than expected. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 2.1%, the S&P 500 surged 2.1%, the Nasdaq Composite went up 2.1% and the Russell 2000 ended the day 1.1% higher. What's more, treasury bonds firmed, the dollar strengthened, gold gained 2.4% and oil fell 2.4% to close at $40.11 after OPEC's meeting didn't result in a production cut. Defensive telecom stocks led the way with a 2.7% gain, while energy stocks lagged 0.5%. And troubled action-cam maker GoPro Inc (NYSE:GPRO) lost 4.9% after suffering an analyst downgrade, likely cutting into Ambarella Inc's (NASDAQ:AMBA) rally Friday. November non-farm payrolls grew by 211,000 positions, slightly ahead of the 190,000 Wall Street was looking for as the unemployment rate held steady at 5.0%. The labor force participation rate moved up slightly while average hourly earnings grew 2.3% over last year. Read More: 5 Gold and Silver Stocks You Should've Bought To be fair, stocks have blasted higher on payroll Fridays regardless of the result: They did it back in September (big miss) and October (huge beat). Thus, the bigger factor in today's rise was probably comments from European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi reinforcing his commitment to returning inflation to target and bolstering economic growth by unleashing additional stimulus measures, if necessary. This eased some of the disappointment seen on Thursday by an incremental expansion of existing stimulus measures (six-month bond buying extension, small interest rate cut) by the ECB, when more was expected. Because stepping back, the fears that've kept the Dow below the psychologically important 18,000 level remain in play: Worries over the consequences of a likely Federal Reserve interest rate hike at the Dec. 16 policy announcement, made all the more probable by Friday's solid employment report. Remember, stock price weakness seen on Wednesday and Thursday were driven, in large part, by comments from Fed Board Chair Janet Yellen that consistent job market gains were increasing her confidence that the annual inflation rate would soon return to the Fed's 2% target. She added that even tepid monthly payroll gains of less than 100,000 would be enough to keep the recovery on track. We got much more than that last month. But maybe we should simply take today's job gains and stock market rally at face value: Investors are happy to see the economy shrugging off a myriad of headwinds, from a recent slowdown in U.S. factory and services sector activity to terrorist attacks and weakness in crude oil and high-yield bonds, to keep putting more and more people to work. If so, then the bulls will need to maintain the upward momentum heading into the Fed's rate hike announcement, which economists at BNP Pariibas said was now "all systems go." And that means finally pushing the Dow Jones Industrial Average back over the 18,000 level that hasn't been crossed since July. Because otherwise, this looks like Wall Street shenanigans ahead of coming post-rate hike weakness suggested by ongoing weakness in small-cap stocks, commodities, high-yield bonds, utility stocks and transportation stocks. Consider the chart above comparing the strength in the Dow Jones to weakness in high-yield corporate bonds (red line) and commodity prices (blue line). A decision by OPEC to leave production unchanged on Friday in a continuance of its strategy to lower prices to recapture market share from U.S. shale oil producers will keep the pressure on energy prices, which in turn, will keep the pressure on overall corporate profits due to the drag from energy producers like Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) and Chevron (NYSE:CVX). The drop in junk bonds reflects an acknowledgement by bond traders that the credit cycle is turning, default rates are set to rise, and that deeply indebted U.S. shale oil producers will be increasingly squeezed in the months to come. Sure, steady job gains are great. Yet it's hard to see stocks shrugging off all the other factors discussed here. Especially the fallout from the first rate hike in nearly a decade. That's why I continue to recommend precious metals positions to Edge subscribers, which are rising as fear and uncertainty rises, including Kinross Gold Corporation (NYSE:KGC) which is up 15.1% since the position was first recommended on Nov. 19. Anthony Mirhaydari is founder of the Edge and Edge Pro investment advisory newsletters. A two-week and four-week free trial offer has been extended to InvestorPlace readers. More From InvestorPlace Amazon.com, Inc.: AMZN Prime Shutting Out Walmart, Target for the Holidays Smash the Piggy on These 5 Canadian Dividend Stocks GoPro Inc A Major Liability for Ambarella Inc Stock (AMBA, GPRO) The post Stocks Surge on Payrolls Gains, Euro Stimulus Hopes appeared first on InvestorPlace . | 3 | 96,926 | finance |
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo with counterparts from around the globe pay tribute, at Place de la République, to the victims of the November 13th attacks. | 8 | 96,927 | video |
Whether located indoors in the kitchen or outdoors on the patio, a home bar can be a scene of rest, relaxation, and revelry during your potlucks and cocktail parties. But if there are more drinks to go around than there are seats, your guests will spend most of the party playing a game of musical chairs. To prevent a lack of seating from hampering your hosting duties, we've handpicked five DIY bar stools that would elevate the ambiance of your bar and have every guest flocking to it. SUCH GREAT HEIGHTS This industrious, adjustable-height stool from Ana White will feel right at home in an industrial-style kitchen or bar. Like the DIY maven, you can achieve this look by cutting and assembling rectangular scrap wood planks for the legs and cross beams, a square with angular-cut corners for the seat, and a round for the booster seat. Drill an all-thread rod from the booster seat to the cross beams to construct the adjustable-height mechanism and ensure that no order is too tall for your home bar. THE THREE-PLY APPROACH When creating an ultra-flexible work environment for his wife, the handy husband at Subtle Takeover devised this modern, elevated stool from rustic plywood to accompany her standing desk. Cut from plywood into three pre-drilled planks for the seat, front leg, and back leg, the stool can easily be glued and screwed together. A coat of polyurethane over the finished furniture heightens its style in the refurbished workspace though this workhorse of a stool easily transitions from the office to the bar. INTO THE WOODS Nothing is better than pulling up a seat at the outdoor patio bar with this rustic all-wood stool from DIY Pete . Start by cutting your cedar lumber supply into lengths for the legs, seat, support beams, and seat back. Pete's detailed guide to cuts at seven different lengths and exact spots for holes will walk you through each step of the weekend woodworking project. Once you finish attaching the seat boards to the support, test them out while you call up friends and family to invite them over. PIPE UP This industrial pipe stool from Love Grows Wild is the best seat at the bar bar none. Give the idea some legs specifically, four legs by assembling together pipe, pipe fitting, 90-degree elbows, and caps. After adding a floor flange to the top of each leg, secure the round, wooden seat to the top of the stool. Let the seat go au naturel, or stain or paint it to make a splash long before drinks are served. SPLIT PERSONALITY The blogger at Remodelando la Casa wasn't always sitting pretty in these inviting, industrial-style stools. After observing the clash between her modern bar stools and rustic kitchen, she settled on a hybrid of the two styles. To mimic the DIYer, create the wood round from pine, poplar, and plywood boards, all glued and cut to size for a comfortable seat. Then simply spray-painted metallic base of an existing stool to marry the old world with the new, and finish off with the addition of the new tops. | 4 | 96,928 | lifestyle |
Let's look at some timeless songs for the holiday season. It is that time of the year again… no matter where you look, you re going to hear a selection of timeless holiday-season classics. So get ahead of the game and check out some songs sung by your favorite pop stars! (Pictured) All I Want For Christmas Is You (1994) by Mariah Carey Blue Christmas (1964) by Elvis Presley "Last Christmas" (1984) by Wham! The Christmas Waltz (1954) by Frank Sinatra "My Only Wish (This Year)" (2000) by Britney Spears "Every Day's Like Christmas" (2015) by Kylie Minogue Wonderful Christmastime (1979) by Paul McCartney Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree (1958) by Brenda Lee "Winter Things" (2015) by Ariana Grande Thank God It s Christmas (1984) by Queen Santa Claus Is Comin to Town (1985) by Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band Little Drummer Boy (1982) by David Bowie and Bing Crosby Christmas All Over Again (1992) by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers "Christmas Wrapping" (1981) by The Waitresses Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) (1963) by Darlene Love 2000 Miles (1983) by The Pretenders Fairytale of New York (1988) by The Pogues feat. Kirsty MacColl "Little Saint Nick (1964) by The Beach Boys Happy Xmas (War Is Over) (1971) by Plastic Ono Band Jingle Bell Rock (1957) by Bobby Helms The Chanukah Song (1995) by Adam Sandler Do They Know It s Christmas? (1984) written by Bob Geldof (L) and Midge Ure (R) and performed by Band Aid Run Rudolph Run (1958) by Chuck Berry Frosty the Snowman (1950) by Gene Autry and The Cass County Boys Christmas in Harlem (2010) by Kanye West Father Christmas (1977) by The Kinks River (1971) by Joni Mitchell The Night Santa Went Crazy (1996) by Weird Al Yankovic Christmas in Hollis (1987) by Run-D.M.C. "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" (2011) by Michael Bublé | 6 | 96,929 | entertainment |
UVA football names Bronco Mendenhall as its new head coach. ACC Commissioner John Swofford thinks that the three new ACC head coaching hires will strengthen the league. | 1 | 96,930 | sports |
Do you like winter? How about extreme sports? Well if you said yes to both, then you probably are familiar with skiing and snowboard. And we all remember our first few days on the mountain. Usually those days were followed by a whole day in bed from the soreness from your joints. Well, you can relate to these people in this video. | 8 | 96,931 | video |
Germany is wild. | 8 | 96,932 | video |
NEW YORK -- Mark Malik, the New York hedge fund manager who once faked his death to avoid repaying an investor, was found guilty of fraud after a two-week trial in New York state court. The jury convicted Malik, 33, of all 28 counts, including grand larceny and securities fraud. He faces up to 20 years in prison. "Our message is clear: if you commit securities fraud in New York, we will bring you to justice," said New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in announcing the guilty verdict Tuesday. Malik, who was born Moazzam Ifzal Malikwas, was arrested earlier this year for allegedly stealing over $800,000 from a local and international investors. Malik presented himself to investors as an experienced trader with a degree from Harvard University, Schniederman said. In fact, his previous jobs included work as a traffic agent for the New York Police Department and as a waiter and bus boy for Max Brenner in Manhattan's Union Square neighborhood. During the trial, Malik took the witness stand against the recommendation of his attorney. Wearing a khaki pants and a grey sweater, he told the jury that he dreamed of working on Wall Street after getting large tips of between $50 and $100 from a former Max Brenner customer. One day Malik asked the customer what he did for a living and he said he worked on Wall Street, Malik said. That prompted Malik to seek a job on Wall Street, where he worked briefly at a brokerage firm before soliciting money for his hedge fund, which went by various names including Wolff Hedge. Malik's investors also took the stand to testify that he toyed with them when they asked for their money back. "I had excuses, delays," testified New York real estate agent William Breedlove, who lost $12,000 to Malik. The wannabe hedge fund manager would claim that "he was busy, that he was travelling, that he was trying to recruit other investors, that he was bust with markets and could not get back to me," Breedlove said. Malik once went so far as to fake his a heart attack to avoid repaying investors, according to the government. In September 2013, a fictitious employee named Courtney sent an e-mail to an investor who had been asking for his money back to report that they delay was because Malik had died. "Mr. Malik has been (sic) passed away with the heart attack after accident. We will dissolve the fund shortly," the e-mail said. Follow USA TODAY reporter Kaja Whitehouse on Twitter: @kajawhitehouse --- Watch: Why hedge fund investors are losing patience | 3 | 96,933 | finance |
Alabama commit Eddy Pineiro is showing off on Twitter again. Back in June, Pineiro posted a video of himself kicking a 73-yard field goal. On Tuesday, the top kicker recruit in the nation went even bigger, this time nailing a 77-yard boot. Pineiro, a former soccer player, committed to the Tide in June after attending Alabama's special teams camp. He secured a scholarship offer after impressing head coach Nick Saban. Pineiro originally intended to play soccer at Florida Atlantic but was not cleared academically by the NCAA. He played soccer last year at ASA College, a junior college in Miami. 77 yarder the grind don't stop working hard to be the best. pic.twitter.com/p5s4GQVpAi Eddy Pineiro (@eddypineiro1) December 1, 2015 We have a feeling everyone in Tuscaloosa will make sure Eddy sticks to American football. | 1 | 96,934 | sports |
Jimmy Kimmel and Paul Scheer bombard Game of Thrones actor Michiel Huisman to find out once and for all if Jon Snow is still alive. | 8 | 96,935 | video |
NASSAU, Bahamas (AP) -- Jordan Spieth feels like he's on vacation in the Bahamas. On the golf course, he's all business. Spieth rallied from a rugged start Friday with three straight birdies, and then a surge on the back nine carried him to a 6-under 66 and a share of the lead with Jimmy Walker and Bill Haas going into the weekend at the Hero World Challenge. "The grind is still there," Spieth said. RELATED: Leaderboard He had to work hard just to keep pace on a calm, muggy afternoon is the islands, where the wind wasn't strong enough to blow out a match and it showed in the scoring. Rarely has this holiday event with an 18-man field featured so many players near the lead. For one brief moment on the back nine, there was a seven-way tie for the lead. Walker, who began working on a new move in his swing just over a week ago, drove the ball as well as he has all year on his way to a 67. Haas, who received one of the two sponsor exemptions to the tournament hosted by Tiger Woods, had a 66. They were at 11-under 133. Patrick Reed (65), Chris Kirk (65) and Bubba Watson (67) were one shot behind. Spieth is wrapping up a big year, and he seems intent on going out in style. He traveled from Sydney to the Bahamas (with a brief stop at home in Dallas to do laundry) and began his push up the leaderboard with an eagle on the par-5 11th hole from about 30 feet. He followed with two more birdies to get a share of the lead. "It's still all about rest," Spieth said. "Coming off how much golf we've been playing, I'm still going to be about making sure I'm resting. ... But on the golf course, I'm still getting as intense and upset and highs and lows that I experience at a normal PGA Tour event." Spieth also was at 11-under 133 a year ago in the Hero World Challenge at Isleworth in Florida. That was good for a two-shot lead, and a 63-66 weekend allowed him to win by 10 shots. This is far different. Half of the field was separated by only three shots. "The scores are just really good, which makes for an exciting weekend, and I'm just happy to hold my own weight for two days," Haas said. "I think if I shoot 11 under on the weekend, then I'll have a really good shot. Simple as that sounds, that's the way you've got to keep it. If I play well, I think I'll have a chance. But if I don't, there are so many players that are playing well, the best players in the world, I'll fall back pretty quickly if I don't." Walker went to see Butch Harmon at the start of last week in Las Vegas to start working on a move where his head moves at impact, which keeps him from having to rely so much on timing. It's coming together nicely -- and quickly. "Driving the golf ball today, I haven't had that much fun in a long time, to be honest," Walker said. No one has been playing more than Reed, or more places. And he's been playing well. He has recorded top 10 finishes in five tournaments since the Tour Championship in Hong Kong, Malaysia, twice in Shanghai and Dubai. He's happy with his performance, though far from satisfied. "I know to get to all my goals I need to get Ws," he said. "Top 10s, top 5s aren't going to cut it where I need to get to. Those are good fill-in weeks, but we need to get in contention a little more. We need to close some tournaments off." Not everyone took advantage. Billy Horschel had eight birdies and no bogeys on his card, which ordinary would please him greatly -- except that he took a double bogey on the par-3 second hole, and a quadruple-bogey 9 on the par-5 11th hole without hitting into the water. He had a plugged lie under the lip of a bunker that he shanked into a bush, and his troubles ended with what he called a "good putt for a 9." "This round today is very much how my year went," Horschel said with a grin. Anirban Lahiri of India, who also received a sponsor exemption, was a little more exasperated. Lahiri felt as though he hit the ball well enough to be double digits under par. Instead, a double bogey on the 18th hole gave him a 70 and he was six shots behind. It felt worse. "If my mom had putted, she would have shot 65," Lahiri said. Justin Rose couldn't get home fast enough after his round of 72, which didn't take long because Albany is now his primary residence. That made it even more frustrating. "You'd think I had never seen these greens before," Rose said. | 1 | 96,936 | sports |
A campus police officer killed in the Planned Parenthood shooting was honored Friday for volunteering to rush to the clinic as shots rang out, an act those who knew him say was driven by his sense of purpose and faith. (Dec. 4). | 8 | 96,937 | video |
Since the beginning of time, one epic struggle has dominated the holiday season: cats vs. Christmas trees. So are you Team Cats or Team Christmas Trees? | 8 | 96,938 | video |
12 enormous ice blocks, transported from Greenland, have been installed in a circle at the in front of the Pantheon in Paris. The blocks have been arranged to form a clock, symbolising the urgency of the fight against climate change. | 8 | 96,939 | video |
Brendan has a Check Out in our December issue and hooked up this 5 Trick Fix all over the streets of NYC. Video / JP Blair, @Waylon_Bone, @JohnValenti | 1 | 96,940 | sports |
Porsche is officially in the race to create a more mainstream electric car industry by the end of the decade. The German company owned by Volkswagen says it will spend $1 billion to create the Mission E, an electric that will go from zero to 100 km per hour (62 mph) in 3.5 seconds, travel 300 miles on a single charge, and recharge 80% of its battery in 15 minutes. The Mission E appears aimed to compete with market leader Tesla at the high end of the market. No price was given for the car. But the Dec. 4 announcement hardening up an unveiling of the Mission E concept car announced in September also strikes a second important chord: It is potential PR relief for Porsche's parent company after a seemingly relentless drumbeat of scandal over VW's emissions-testing equipment. Only a day earlier, Ulrich Hackberg, a senior executive at VW-owned Audi, resigned over his link to the emissions issue. Hackberg is one of eight company officials suspended after VW admitted installing "defeat" devices that allowed its cars to meet emissions requirements while continuing to spew pollutants into the air. Until now, electrics have largely sold only to a niche market environmentally or fashion-minded motorists, mainly. The race to mainstream them begins next month, when GM unveils its $30,000, 200-mile Chevy Bolt. In March, Tesla plans to unveil its $35,000 Model III, also promoted as traveling 200 miles on a single charge; the company has said the Model III will go on sale in 2017. Both Audi and now Porsche are poised to provide substantial competition. But VW itself seems likely to push very hard into electrics given the black eye its previously-touted diesel-driven cars have suffered of late. | 3 | 96,941 | finance |
Several backpacking and holiday stories have gone viral this past year, including the hand-holding traveling couple, and a Kiwi packpacker who didn't let go of his GoPro. Now, Norwegian Johan Kaos has added his own video to the mix, except this one has a slight twist. Instead of the usual adventures, the video makes it look like Kaos simply followed his girlfriend Ida Kvammen Mork on her travels.The video was shot in different locations in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand Vietnam, Myanmar, Singapore, Malaysia and Australia before returning home to Oslo, Norway. Credit: YouTube/JohanKaos | 2 | 96,942 | travel |
The woman involved in the shootings in San Bernardino , Calif., on Wednesday passed through two rounds of criminal and national security background checks as she obtained a "fiancé visa" and later a resident green card to live in the United States, federal officials said. Those checks turned up no negative information about the woman, Tashfeen Malik, a federal official said Friday. But after the F.B.I. said Friday that it was investigating the shootings as an act of terrorism Ms. Malik pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in a Facebook post the day of the attack officials were scouring her immigration record to see if there were any revealing details they might have missed. "There was nothing she presented that would have been flagged," a federal official said, speaking anonymously to discuss a fast-moving investigation involving several federal agencies. But, he said, "We're going back right now and double-checking and looking over everyone's shoulder who was involved." Sign Up For NYT Now's Morning Briefing Newsletter The information that Ms. Malik came to live in this country legally has heightened concern about security reviews in the immigration system. It has also renewed a tense debate in Washington, particularly after the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris provoked a furor in Congress and among state governments about the vetting of refugees from Syria and Iraq. On Thursday, two Republican senators, Ted Cruz of Texas, who is running for president, and Jeff Sessions of Alabama, demanded that the Obama administration provide them with detailed information on the immigration history of Ms. Malik, who came to the United States and married Syed Rizwan Farook, an American citizen whom officials have identified as her partner in Wednesday's shooting that killed 14 people and injured 21. Ms. Malik, 29, was granted a K-1 visa, also known as the fiancé visa, in Pakistan in July 2014, the officials said, and she traveled to the United States that month. The review process for a K-1 visa is "not as strict" as the vetting for refugees, Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman said. But immigration officials said the K-1 review was more extensive than the vetting of a foreigner who planned to only visit. Mr. Earnest said Obama administration officials were examining Ms. Malik's journey to this country to see if any policies should be changed. As a routine part of the visa and green card applications, Ms. Malik gave fingerprints and other identifying information, which were passed twice through background checks using the State Department's watch lists and the immigration, counterterror and criminal databases at the Department of Homeland Security and at the F.B.I. For the K-1 visa, Mr. Farook, 28, initiated the application to bring in his fiancée, who provided a Pakistani passport. Adhering to standard procedure for the K-1 visa, Ms. Malik had to demonstrate to State Department consular officials in Pakistan that their relationship was legitimate, and that she and Mr. Farook intended to marry in the United States within 90 days after she received the visa. Mr. Farook had to prove that he and Ms. Malik had met in person at least once in the previous two years, typically done by providing photos showing them together, personal messages and travel reservations. After the 90-day period, a K-1 visa expires and cannot be renewed. As part of that review, Ms. Malik had a personal interview with a consular officer in Pakistan, federal officials said. The couple came to the country in July 2014 on a flight that originated in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, two federal officials said. According to a certificate obtained by The Associated Press, the two were married in Riverside County, Calif., in August 2014, within the 90-day time limit. On Sept. 30, 2014, Mr. Farook applied for a green card to make Ms. Malik a permanent resident, based on her marriage to an American citizen. There is no limit on the number of green cards available to spouses of citizens, so the process generally moves quickly. Since green cards are granted by a different agency, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, Ms. Malik had to undergo more background checks, probably providing a new set of fingerprints, officials said. It is routine for an officer from the citizenship agency to interview both spouses, but officials there could not confirm that Ms. Malik was interviewed, citing privacy concerns. Under the standard procedure, the couple would have had to provide documents and undergo questioning, primarily to persuade immigration officers their marriage was not fraudulent. Typically the officer would interview the spouses separately, often asking highly personal questions about foods or pastimes the other spouse enjoyed or other intimate details, to make sure the immigrant and the spouse lived together. Ms. Malik received a conditional green card in July 2015, officials said. After two years, the couple would have had to apply again to get a regular green card, showing they were still married. Both were killed in a shootout with police on Wednesday, leaving behind a 6-month-old daughter. Correction: December 4, 2015 This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: An earlier version of this article gave an incorrect age for Tashfeen Malik. She was 29, not 27. | 5 | 96,943 | news |
The final installment of Big Mountain Monday features James Doerfling taking a steep ride in first person view. | 1 | 96,944 | sports |
The cloud in less than a decade has gone from being primarily viewed as a tool to improve IT economics and flexibility to a force that's systematically transforming the economy and, I should add, redefining the role of the CIO. How did the cloud get to this point? And what's coming next? Perhaps some history and a recent report provide clues. I've been closely following cloud computing for a number of years, having posted my first cloud blog in March of 2008. A few months later I gave a presentation at a cloud-based conference. The overall sense at that conference was that something big and profound was emerging in the IT industry. Cloud computing could well be The Next Big Thing, like the advent of personal computers in the 1980s and the Internet in the 1990s. Cloud has fulfilled those early expectations, having made much progress in a relatively short time. As I look back at its evolution over the past few years, I think of cloud as having gone through three main, overlapping phases. Early adopters viewed cloud as computing-on-demand. Next, cloud introduced a much more disciplined approach to the architecture and management of large IT infrastructures. And by now, cloud has become accepted as a major transformational force in IT, in business, and in the economy in general. Let me discuss each of these phases. Cloud as utility computing In its early years, cloud was primarily viewed as improving the economics, flexibility and agility of IT. Instead of having to buy and operate their own hardware and software products, users could now obtain the computing resources they needed over the Internet on demand. The prevailing metaphor used to describe this new form of utility computing was the evolution of power plants in the 19th century. In the early days of electricity, companies usually generated their own power with steam engines and dynamos. But with the rise of highly sophisticated, professionally run electric utilities, companies stopped generating their own power and plugged into the newly built electric grids. Cloud service providers offered computing-as-a-service, with near unlimited scalability at very attractive prices. Instead of having to buy computing resources up front, users now had the flexibility of only paying for whatever cloud resources they actually used. In addition, cloud offered business users the agility they increasingly demanded to keep up with the pace of technological and market changes. Turning to an external cloud service provider was often a faster and less costly way to implement a new application than relying on the internal IT organization. We saw a proliferation of so-called shadow IT, where departmental and business users acquired what they needed directly from a cloud service provider, bypassing the central IT organization. Cloud as the industrialization of IT Many data centers had evolved over the years with little architectural discipline or company-wide governance. A number had grown through mergers and acquisitions, with the different companies involved bringing their own separate equipment, architectures and processes. Different departments insisted on getting their own servers for their own business applications, rather than using the global, shared facilities. Such legacy data centers often spent the bulk of their energies on the maintenance and integration of their varied applications. Not surprisingly, these older companies were challenged to keep up with born digital Internet companies, especially when it came to customer-facing applications. These applications generally required a more agile development approach to respond to fast changing market conditions, as well as the ability to efficiently support the fast growing volumes of mobile users and devices. The massive scalability, flexibility and agility required to support these new workloads was now driving a much needed industrialization of IT. IT had to become much more disciplined in every aspect of its operations, as had been the case with manufacturing about 30-40 years ago. Before that time, most manufacturing plants were fairly inefficient by almost any measure, and were turning out products of varying quality. Then, following the success of Toyota and other companies around the world, business started to apply engineering discipline as well as a holistic, systems-wide approach to manufacturing processes. Company after company embraced the Toyota Way, Six Sigma, Lean Production and similar methods in their manufacturing and logistics operations - leading to major improvements in their productivity and quality. Data centers have now become the production plants of cloud-based services, a transformation that's been pioneered by born-to-the-cloud companies like Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc.'s Google, and Salesforce.com Inc. Cloud computing requires very well-engineered IT infrastructures, applications and mass customized services. The architectural standards and management disciplines of public cloud providers are being embraced by older companies, as they develop private clouds so they too can efficiently deliver high quality services to their own customers, business partners and employees. Cloud as the transformation to digital business Beyond utility computing and the industrialization of IT, cloud is now a major force that's shaping the economy and helping every company on its digital business journey. The job of the CIO is now more exciting... and much more challenging. In a few short years they have moved from architecting the enterprise to leading the digital enterprise forward. This phase of cloud was nicely summarized in a recently released Verizon Communications Inc. report, State of the Market: Enterprise Cloud 2016. The report points out that in the past few years, "we've seen cloud go from a newcomer to part of the established order." Indeed, the report continues, companies are not sitting still. As cloud increasingly becomes the norm, the edge it gives a company is falling. It still has a major role to play in delivering competitive advantage, but using cloud is now just table stakes. It's not enough to think cloud first. To derive significant competitive advantage from cloud you need to think how you can leverage it to enable digital transformation, change how you do business, and disrupt your market. For the majority of companies, hybrid is the preferred cloud model. These organizations are using public clouds for non-sensitive workloads, private clouds for more sensitive ones, and on-premise traditional applications for difficult-to-move and highly sensitive workloads. Most such companies have multiple public and private cloud providers. Their key challenge is tying it all together into a well-functioning, integrated IT architecture. The Verizon study highlights the rise of private clouds. With the falling costs of technology, companies feel less compelled to turn to the shared infrastructures of public clouds to realize the economic benefits, other than for not-so-sensitive, highly scalable workloads with widely varying peaks and valleys. They welcome the added reassurance provided by the dedicated infrastructures of private clouds. In reality, public versus private does not adequately describe the wide variety of cloud options now available. Choosing among them, workload by workload, comes down to a few basic points: the risks profile of the workload; the proportion of the workload and associated data residing on the company's premise versus the provider's; and whether the company has the skills to manage its cloud environment. The report concludes with a few recommendations: Keep projects short: Six months is a good upper limit to help maintain momentum and keep up with technology changes. Don't try to do it alone: Cloud is complicated, broad, relatively new and rapidly moving. It's hard to keep abreast of all the changes in cloud technologies and capabilities and many companies don't have the required skills and experience to manage cloud projects on their own. Improve IT-business cooperation: Cloud is redefining the role of the CIO organization. As IT now permeates every nook and cranny of the business, close cooperation between the lines of business and the IT function is more important than ever. Managing a hybrid enterprise infrastructure--comprised of on-premise applications and a portfolio of public and private cloud providers--is a highly specialized discipline. Continually reassess security: While managing risk continues to be a major topic when discussing cloud, "fewer than 5% of companies had experienced a significant data breach that was directly attributable to a cloud-based service… As cloud became more pervasive within organizations, IT had to step in and make sure that it was properly managed from a policy, control and compliance standpoint. The result has been a decline in shadow IT projects, clearer definitions of expectations and greater service-provider transparency. So now when we ask about cloud, most companies say that their cloud environment is as secure, if not more secure, than their traditional infrastructure." Don't forget the network: Connectivity is critical to the success of cloud projects, especially for mission-critical workloads. Dedicated cloud connections should be used as needed to improve performance and reliability. "Cloud's now firmly established as a reliable enterprise workhorse, and what's most interesting is how it's driving transformation. Organizations are using cloud to create new customer experiences, re-engineer their business processes and find new opportunities to grow." Being an early believer in cloud computing, it's gratifying to see how much progress has been made in just a few years. I'm convinced, much more is to come. Irving Wladawsky-Berger worked at IBM for 37 years and has been a strategic advisor to Citigroup and to HBO. He is affiliated with MIT, NYU and Imperial College, and is a regular contributor to CIO Journal. | 3 | 96,945 | finance |
There's a reason so many of us are guilty of using the word "Alzheimer's" to describe any and all cognitive decline: Somewhere between 60 and 80% of all dementia cases are due to the disease, which affects an estimated 5.3 million Americans . Understandably, it's a major area of research, since we still don't totally understand the brain changes believed to cause Alzheimer's disease. The hallmark symptoms difficulty remembering names, conversations, and recent events are thought to be due to plaques (a buildup of pieces of a protein called beta-amyloid), and tangles, which are twisted pieces of another protein called tau. As the disease progresses, it can lead to difficulty communicating, behavior and judgment changes, and even trouble swallowing or walking. Some of a person's risk for Alzheimer's and other types of dementia comes down to an unlucky genetic hand. Luckily, quintessentially healthy habits keeping weight and blood pressure in check, quitting smoking, following a Mediterranean diet that ward off any number of other diseases might help us prevent cognitive decline , too. "Preventing memory loss comes down to trying to have a healthy, well-balanced life," says Deniz Erten-Lyons, MD , associate professor of neurology at Oregon Health & Science University and the director of the Clinical Care and Therapeutics Program at OHSU's Layton Aging and Alzheimer's Disease Center. When it comes time for care rather than prevention, a doctor will first rule out underlying treatable causes of a faltering memory, which can include vitamin deficiencies, thyroid problems , and liver or kidney disease. In many of these cases, dementia-like effects are reversible with treatment, Erten-Lyons says. In rare cases, autoimmune diseases and even infections like syphilis or HIV can lead to some memory changes, as can strokes or tumors, which are ruled out with brain scans. Those imaging tests also help doctors recognize patterns of brain shrinkage, which may or may not point to an Alzheimer's diagnosis. While it's by far the most frequent cause of dementia, it's not the only one. Here are a few of the other types you should know about and how to keep yourself healthy. Vascular Dementia About 10% of dementia cases are thought to be due to reduced blood flow in the brain from a blood clot or partially blocked blood vessel, otherwise known as vascular dementia, according to the Alzheimer's Association. These blockages may cause strokes, Erten-Lyons says, which can lead to decline in executive function, like difficulty with planning and organizing, she says. How to keep your brain healthy: Think heart health (which really applies to all dementia prevention, Erten-Lyons says): You want to avoid any hardening or clogging of your blood vessels, which means keeping cholesterol and blood pressure stable, avoiding or managing diabetes, and quitting smoking if you haven't already, she says. Watch: How to Prevent a Stroke> Dementia With Lewy Bodies In November, People magazine published an interview with Robin Williams' widow Susan, who explained that his 2014 death by suicide was due, at least in part, to dementia with Lewy bodies. Lewy bodies are clumps of a protein called alpha-synuclein that gather in the cortex area of the brain, resulting in similar memory loss and difficulty thinking as with Alzheimer's disease. (Whether or not having Lewy body dementia raises suicide risk seems up for debate .) Lewy body dementia differs from Alzheimer's, however, in that it often involves sleep disturbances, hallucinations, and muscle rigidity like that seen with Parkinson's disease. "We commonly see decline in the brain's ability to interpret what you see," Erten-Lyons says. Patients with Lewy body dementia might get lost while driving because familiar places no longer look familiar, she says, or they might not be able to find their own bathroom once the dementia advances. It's also particularly difficult to treat, she says. "The treatments we give for hallucinations, for example, may make the Parkinson's disease-like symptoms worse, and the treatment for the physical symptoms may make the cognitive problems worse," she says. Behind Alzheimer's, it's the second most common form of dementia, according to the Lewy Body Dementia Association , affecting an estimated 1.3 million Americans. How to keep your brain healthy: You basically want to make your brain as well-developed as possible. The concept is technically called cognitive reserve, Erten-Lyons explains. Depending on our own unique cognitive reserve, we start showing dementia symptoms earlier or later than someone else with a similar pattern of brain decline, she says. So far, most of the research on cognitive reserve has been in observational studies, she says. Still, there's reason to believe things like high education levels and brain-stimulating hobbies might help ward off symptoms of all types of dementia, even, in this case, with Lewy bodies. Parkinson's Disease Dementia When those same alpha-synuclein clumps gather in a part of the brain called the substantial nigra they seem to damage nerve cells that produce dopamine, according to the Alzheimer's Association . There, they can cause the hallmark movement problems of Parkinson's disease, like tremors and a slowing of movement, and also eventually dementia similar to that seen with Lewy bodies. About 1 million North Americans are living with Parkinson's, according to the National Institutes of Health . Somewhere between 50 and 80% of those people will experience Parkinson's disease dementia, according to the Alzheimer's Association , but the time it takes to progress from the movement concerns to the memory challenges can vary from person to person . Typically, if a person has had Parkinson's for at least a few years before cognitive changes begin, he or she will be diagnosed with Parkinson's disease dementia, Erten-Lyons says. If cognitive changes began before or within a year of physical symptoms of Parkinson's, the diagnosis would instead be Lewy body dementia. How to keep your brain healthy: Frighteningly, there's no known cause of Parkinson's disease or its related dementia. Some specific genetic variations seem to increase the risk of the disease and exposure to certain toxins might too, but both carry only a small risk, according to the Mayo Clinic . There's not much research on ways to prevent a disease when we don't know the cause, but some studies have linked caffeine intake with a lower risk of Parkinson's. Frontotemporal Dementia This category of dementia, as its name suggests, is characterized by the degeneration of nerve cells in either the frontal or the temporal lobes of the brain (the ones behind the forehead or behind the ears, respectively). Frontotemporal dementia, which accounts for around 10% of all dementia cases, according to the National Institute on Aging , can look different in different people's brains but usually causes changes in personality, behavior, and communication skills . "For example, a person may become impulsive and uncharacteristically start making large purchases without consulting their spouse," Erten-Lyons says. "It's a significant enough change from before that it will affect work performance or social relationships." How to keep your brain healthy: Unlike vascular, Lewy body, and Alzheimer's dementia, there are no medications that can stabilize, no matter how temporarily, frontotemporal dementia, Erten-Lyons says. It's therefore incredibly important to adopt healthy lifestyle factors that promote cognitive reserve and reduce additional injury, like strokes, to the brain, she says. Mixed Dementia Making things even more complicated is the fact that a person may also have a combination of various brain changes at the same time. Most commonly, this mixed form of dementia is a combination of vascular dementia and Alzheimer's disease, Erten-Lyons says. In patients over 80, it's more common than not that dementia is mixed . How to keep your brain healthy: Just like the symptoms and brain changes of mixed dementia can be a muddled melting pot, so too are the strategies for prevention: Incorporate a bit of all of the above. And the sooner the better, since the presence of more than one type of dementia in the brain might hasten the onset of symptoms, according to the Alzheimer's Association. More on MSN 9 Coloring Books to Help Grownups De-stress The Best Foods to Fight Fatigue | 7 | 96,946 | health |
Tributes began to pour in Thursday for some of the 14 people who were killed on Wednesday in a shooting spree in San Bernardino. Here are some of their stories. | 8 | 96,947 | video |
Usher has confirmed he's a married man. Reports suggested the "Yeah!" singer and Grace Miguel exchanged vows in September, but neither the bride nor groom have spoken about the big day until now. Usher said, "We were in Cuba." This is Usher's second marriage he was previously wed to stylist Tameka Foster, the mother of his two children, Usher Raymond V and Naviyd Ely, from 2007 to 2009. Usher and his ex were embroiled in a bitter custody battle for three years over its two sons, ending with the singer winning sole custody. | 6 | 96,948 | entertainment |
FBI Director James Comey said that while law enforcement is treating the San Bernardino shootings as a terrorism case, there is currently no evidence indicating the two dead gunmen were part of a larger group or network. Photo:AP | 8 | 96,949 | video |
Louis van Gaal has revealed that he is ready to quit as Manchester United manager if he feels he no longer has a connection with his players. The Dutchman has received significant criticism in recent months following United's underwhelming performances, even if the team sits third in the Premier League table and has qualification for the Champions League knockout stages in its own hands. Van Gaal is confident that he still has the backing of the players, though, and has made it clear he would immediately throw in the towel if he felt that was no longer the case. "The most important thing in my opinion is the chemistry between players and staff," he explained. "That chemistry is the most important thing and when I have the feeling that the chemistry is there, I will always work to my utmost best. "But when I have a single feeling that it is not like that, I'm the first coach that quits and I have proved that already with my former clubs and former jobs. I don't think there is another coach who decides to quit himself because of the money aspect, but I am like that. United resumes Premier League action at home against West Ham on Saturday, having been held at joint leader Leicester City last time out. The team's Champions League pool campaign concludes with Tuesday's visit to Wolfsburg, which the Red Devils will replace at the summit of Group B with a win. | 1 | 96,950 | sports |
The Arizona Diamondbacks have agreed to a six-year, $206 million deal with free-agent right-hander Zack Greinke, according to sources, FOX Sports MLB insider Ken Rosenthal reports. The contract includes deferred money, Rosenthal says. The deal is pending a physical. Greinke average annual value of $34.42M shatters previous record of $31M shared by Price and Miguel Cabrera. Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 5, 2015 Greinke, 32, led the majors with a 1.66 ERA this past season, when he went 19-3 for the Los Angeles Dodgers. He also struck out 200 batters in 222 2/3 innings and finished second in the NL Cy Young Award voting. In his past three seasons with the Dodgers, he went 51-15 with a 2.30 ERA. A three-time All-Star and the 2009 AL Cy Young Award winner, Greinke is 142-93 with a 3.35 ERA and 8.1 K/9 ratio during his 12-season major-league career. The deal comes several days after free-agent left-hander David Price agreed to a seven-year, $217 million contract with the Boston Red Sox. | 1 | 96,951 | sports |
In honor of Walt Disney's birthday, here's 10 things you may have not known about Mickey Mouse! | 8 | 96,952 | video |
As Macedonia continues to allow entry only to refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, thousands of others are stranded at the border. Rough Cut (no reporter narration) | 8 | 96,953 | video |
OPEC's decision to roll over its production policy will ripple through the global oil market. OPEC held the line at Friday's meeting, despite a global glut. Market speculations about Saudi Arabia suggesting an output reduction dissipated when the cartel decided to roll over its high-production policy. "There's been a lot of misinformation this week," said Michael Cohen, head of energy commodities at Barclays told CNBC's "Power Lunch." "The meeting was a non-event, and that's what we expected." OPEC president and Nigeria's oil minister, Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, told CNBC that the leaders decided to "keep the current actual," and clarified the output to be about 31.5 million barrels per day (bpd). Before this report, OPEC's crude production was believed to be 30 million bpd. Oil prices settled lower on Friday after OPEC's move to retain market share. U.S. crude settled 2.7 percent lower Friday, at $39.97 a barrel. Internationally traded Brent was down 80 cents, or 1.8 percent, at $43.05 at 2:33 p.m. EDT, having fallen earlier this week to a low of $42.43, within cents of August's 6-½ year trough. Despite low oil prices, U.S. stocks traded nearly 2 percent higher Friday, as investors cheered a solid jobs report and remarks from ECB President Mario Draghi. "I think they took the path of least resistance because they're not going to get the cooperation from the non-OPEC members like Russia, Mexico, or Kazakhstan," Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates told CNBC's "Closing Bell." "On the other hand, you have Iraq saying were going to produce more next year," he continued. Lipow forecasts continued slides in oil prices, noting that "I expect that inventories in the U.S. will go above 500 million barrels next quarter, and the markets simply won't like it." The energy sector in the U.S. has been challenged by overleveraged companies, with dozens of North American producers having filed for bankruptcy so far this year. "Essentially, what you have to see is non-OPEC supply continue to decline, and that's what we expect next year," Cohen said. Although there's volatility in the energy sector, Sam Margolin, an analyst at Cowen and Company, is bullish on Chevron Asphalt Plant (CVX) , Marathon Petroleum (MPC) , and Valero Energy (VLO) stocks. He claims that the refinement industry has benefited all year from low oil prices. Reuters contributed to this report. | 3 | 96,954 | finance |
From the sweet sounds of Nat King Cole to the one and only Mariah Carey, check out our picks for the cannot-be-denied cream of the Christmas-CD crop. | 8 | 96,955 | video |
In case you have been living under a rock, Kobe Bryant released a poem announcing his retirement this past week, but that hasn't stopped the five-time champion from talking smack. Kobe has often boasted of his unstoppable drive, but in a rare shift from his usual tone, he admits there is one player who can stop the Black Mamba's drive. | 8 | 96,956 | video |
The FBI said Friday it is officially investigating the mass shooting in California as an act of terrorism, while an official said the woman who carried out the attack with her husband had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group on Facebook. (Dec. 4) | 8 | 96,957 | video |
The Sabres got two third-period goals from Evander Kane and held off the Coyotes 4-2 Friday night. Max Domi had both of the Coyotes goals. | 1 | 96,958 | sports |
There are conflicting reports about Zack Greinke's contract with the Diamondbacks, but it is reportedly worth between $195 and $206 million. Is he worth that much? | 1 | 96,959 | sports |
BYU is looking for a new head coach, but at least they aren't starting from scratch right now BYU football suddenly needs to find a new head coach, as Bronco Mendenhall surprised the college football world and accepted the head coaching job at the University of Virginia on Friday. The Cougars will have a unique and challenging search ahead of them, but at least they won't be without a headman immediately. In his press conference Friday evening, Bronco Mendenhall made it clear exactly when he'd be formally taking over the duties in Charlottesville....after the Las Vegas Bowl. Bronco: I think my players know who I am and they currently are my priority. Says he won't do anything w/ UVa until after Vegas Bowl. #BYU Jarom Jordan (@jaromjordan) December 5, 2015 That's potentially frustrating news if you're a Virginia fan, since it means Mendenhall is waiting to get really into recruiting or assembling a staff, but it's great news if you're a BYU fan. This means the program doesn't need to worry about a messy leadership change while preparing quickly for a bowl game, or having to worry about giving the job to an interim coach should they spring an upset. The Las Vegas Bowl would also present the chance for Mendenhall to earn his 100th win with BYU, an achievement that could be made even more special if it happened to come against Utah, a possible opponent in the bowl. | 1 | 96,960 | sports |
As the Islamic State amped up attacks around the world, the Pentagon responded by bravely announcing that American women will now be put in direct ground combat. Whereupon "military intelligence" secured a permanent place in the Encyclopedia of Oxymorons. The new decree opens 220,000 military jobs to women including Army Special Operations forces and the Navy SEALs. "They'll be allowed to drive tanks, fire mortars and lead infantry soldiers into combat . . . and everything else that was previously open only to men," said Defense Secretary Ashton Carter. Commander in Chief Barack Obama promised an even stronger military , as "our armed forces will draw on an even wider pool of talent." Notably missing from the historic news conference was Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and past Marine commandant. Dunford, apparently unwilling to ignore experience and empirical evidence, had recommended that infantry and armor positions remain closed to women. The Marines were the only service branch to request the ability to make exceptions to the new rule. There's plenty of evidence that women and men as groups aren't equal in the demands of combat, even if some women may be and some men may not be. The few and far between shouldn't be the basis for institutional overhaul, though this seems to be our template for mandates these days. Among the evidence ignored by Obama, Carter and others are the results of a nine-month field test by University of Pittsburgh researchers who found that all-male USMC units outperformed mixed-gender units in 93 out of 134 ground combat tasks (69 percent). This observation is no criticism of military women, who are just as determined, courageous and committed as their male counterparts. But contrary to what our government seems to think, the requirements of combat can't be compromised to meet social goals of gender equality. Likewise, proud assertions that allowing women in combat is yet another advance for equality akin to racial integration and acceptance of gays is nonsense. Gay men and black men are still men and the vast majority of women in close combat will never be their equal. Because of physical differences, including the fact that men have 40 percent more upper body muscle mass, women are at a disadvantage in combat, which often requires long deployments of deprivation and hardship, including toting 60 to 100 pounds of equipment. It also means fighting close up aggressively pursuing the enemy with the expectation of possible physical contact. Plainly put, women do not have an equal opportunity to survive. If this isn't a feminist argument, I don't know what is. But many feminists don't recognize it or refuse to for reasons that are understandable, if misguided. Being blocked from combat prevents women from rising to the highest ranks. Rather than tweak the rules of promotion, a more sensible approach, the military is placing women where they don't belong and risking military effectiveness. Although Carter said that women won't likely qualify for many of the jobs and that posts will be assigned based on merit, not gender, only a fool believes this will last for long. How soon before men begin complaining that women are given special treatment? Furthermore, once women are assigned to combat, there will be no argument against drafting women. The catechism of choice suddenly means no choice. Arguments for women's inclusion in combat, meanwhile, are far from convincing. Often cited is the fact that women found themselves on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan against military rules at the time and were killed and maimed the same as men. This seems hardly a case for assigning a job title to justify a mistake. Other problems will present themselves in time, but we already know what they are. When women are treated differently or aren't up to the task, men will resent it, damaging the unit cohesion that's crucial to survival. As a Marine combat veteran who commanded both an infantry platoon and a rifle company in Vietnam wrote me in an email: "It's hard for me to imagine how women . . . under heavy fire and carrying 60 pounds of equipment, would have survived." Another veteran of the same war summed it up, if indelicately: "There is a difference between a bunch of candy-ass officers trying to get promoted for being politically correct and a combat battle-ready Marine unit in the field." What he said. Read more from Kathleen Parker's archive , follow her on Twitter or find her on Facebook . Read more here: Ray Mabus: U.S. Navy secretary: Women should be among the few and the proud The Post's View: Women in combat The Post's View: Let women serve in elite military units | 5 | 96,961 | news |
Khari Price throws up a shot at the end of the half and sinks it from three-quarters down the court and puts Southern Miss ahead of Alabama. | 1 | 96,962 | sports |
In the Knicks 108-91 victory over the Nets, Kristaps Porzingis and Carmelo Anthony combined for 47 points, while Lance Thomas had a nice putback dunk. | 1 | 96,963 | sports |
The judges have deliberated, and America's next top model is… Nyle DiMarco ! The 26-year-old model becomes the second male winner of the series -- following Keith Carlos, who won cycle 21 -- and the only deaf contestant to compete on the reality competition show. He's also the final model to land on top after creator and host Tyra Banks announced the series' cancellation midway through the cycle. WATCH: Tyra Banks Reminisces About 'Bittersweet' End of 'ANTM' From the beginning of cycle 22, the judges -- Banks, Kelly Cutrone, and J. Alexander -- and other contestants made a big deal about his hearing, but being deaf didn't seem to be a disadvantage. In fact, DiMarco said it helped him in the competition. "The biggest advantage of me being death is that my language requires me to move my body," DiMarco told ET in September, "so it's easy for me to show movement in my body and brings the best of me in photographs." WATCH: 'ANTM' Contestant Nyle DiMarco Names His Sexiest Feature and Signs 'Top Model' Phrases DiMarco quickly became a fan favorite thanks to his washboard abs, piercing blue eyes and charming persona. But he also delivered fierce photos each week, winning two elimination challenges and only landing in the bottom two once. While the competition itself may be over, DiMarco's career is just beginning. The budding model told ET that he hopes to become the next male supermodel and to create an equal space for men in the modeling world. " America's Next Top Model changed my life because I am more aware of the modeling world and I have a great network now," he said of the experience, adding: "I have even more fans than I did before." MORE: 6 'ANTM' Contestants Who Actually Went on to Become Famous Oh, we bet he does! You can check out more about DiMarco in ET's exclusive interview with him below. Check back next week when we sit down with the big winner to catch up on everything that's been going on since the competition aired. | 6 | 96,964 | entertainment |
Since the global financial crisis, high youth unemployment has been a problem across the world. But even though the issue is widespread, the causes and the effects vary greatly within each country. Business Insider took a closer look at the economic and geopolitical factors that have led to continued high youth unemployment in 47 countries, as well as some of the major regional and global trends. Given that many of the countries on our list do not release official monthly (or even annual) economic data, we used the estimated 2014 youth-unemployment rates from the International Labour Organization . 47. Libya Reuters/Anis Mili 2014 youth unemployment rate (est.): 24.5% Percentage of population aged 15-24 | under 24: 17.77% | 44.29% Chronic youth unemployment was one of the issues leading to the toppling of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 . A 2014 report by the African Development Bank notes that youth unemployment continues to be high as postrevolutionary economic recovery was mostly focused on oil (which has since seen some troubles ), as well as continued political instability in recent years. Source: ILO , CIA World Factbook 46. Sudan 2014 youth unemployment rate (est.): 24.9% Percentage of population aged 15-24 | under 24: 20.5% | 60.65%. A 2012 report by the AfDB said that an estimated 62% of students in higher education were studying humanities, while only 32% the sciences. But employment opportunities for youth are in agriculture (42%), public services (19%), and trade (19%). Employers are starting to hire foreign workers to fill the gaps. Additionally, South Sudan's 2011 independence from Sudan was economically sticky as 75% of oil reserves are in the former, while the refineries and major pipeline remain in the latter. Source: ILO , CIA World Factbook 45. France 2014 youth unemployment rate (est.): 25.3% Percentage of population aged 15-24 | under 24: 11.82% | 30.48% "After six quarters of continuous decline in youth unemployment, the situation of French youth deteriorated in 2014 leaving 24.7% of the youth labor force unemployed in the first quarter of 2015," according to a 2015 report by the OECD . Moreover, France was only one of three countries in Europe that saw the proportion of youth with temporary jobs rise. "To a certain degree, temporary employment among youth can be viewed as an increasingly standard phenomenon in the career path," notes a report by the ILO . Source: ILO , CIA World Factbook 44. Slovenia 2014 youth unemployment rate (est.): 25.7% Percentage of population aged 15-24 | under 24: 9.76% | 23.14% The economic problems of 2007 to 2012 put recent grads at a disadvantage. Plus, young people are more likely to take temp jobs, making them more likely to be fired in hard times. "According to the methodological approach of self-perceived unemployment, 36.1% of young people were unemployed [in 2013], compared to only 21.1% reported by Eurostat," notes a First CEPYUS-FES Youth Survey . "This large difference can be explained [by the fact that] young people actually perform some kind of occasional work, but do not consider it a real job and therefore consider themselves unemployed." Source: ILO , CIA World Factbook 43. Hungary 2014 youth unemployment rate (est.): 26.1% Percentage of population aged 15-24 | under 24: 11.44% | 26.24% Although right up there with the worst of them in 2012, Hungary saw the greatest drop in youth unemployment in the last two years, with the number falling below the EU average. Over the course of 2014, youth unemployment fell by 5%, which was the third-largest drop in EU member states, according to the Ministry for National Economy . As of 2015, the youth unemployment rate is at 19.2%. The Hungarian government attributes this reversal to the expansion of the private sector . Source: ILO , CIA World Factbook 36. to 42. Labour Force Organization The chart above "reflects the cyclical nature of youth unemployment and reminds us of the often repeated tenet that youth are among the most severely impacted by economic crises," says the ILO . Data from previous economic crises suggests that it takes about four to five years from the resumption of economic growth to get back to precrisis levels. But it takes longer for youth employment to bounce back. Case in point: It's almost 10 years since 2007, and the global youth unemployment rate remains above the precrisis rate. 42. Puerto Rico: 27.1% 41. Ireland: 27.7% 40. Barbados: 28% 39. Maldives: 28.1% 38. Bahamas: 28.1% 37. Poland: 28.4% 36. Bahrain: 28.6% 35. Yemen 2014 youth unemployment rate (est.) : 28.9% Percentage of population aged 15-24 | under 24: 21.12% | 62.21% Nearly half of Yemen's population lived below the poverty line, and about 50% of children suffered from malnutrition in 2013 . Now, Yemen is in the middle of a civil war . Unemployment was one of the reasons for the recent instability, according to the BBC . Notably, in 2012 a UN report suggested that youth unemployment "may be a source of instability and breakdown of the democratic process in the region if ... new governments fail to find adequate solutions." Source: ILO , CIA World Factbook 34. Bulgaria 2014 youth unemployment rate (est.): 29.7% Percentage of population aged 15-24 | under 24: 9.95% | 24.48% Bulgaria has slowly and painfully been transitioning to a market economy since the end of Communist rule. Although overall unemployment has been falling and inflation has been tamed, incomes and living standards are still low, according to the BBC . A 2012 report by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung found that Bulgarian education was lower quality, and youths who left school early were further disadvantaged. Furthermore, social status "amplifies the risk of being unemployed." Youth unemployment rate was reportedly down significantly to 21.6% by December 2014, according to data from Eurostat . Source: ILO , CIA World Factbook 33. Saudi Arabia 2014 youth unemployment rate (est.) : 30% Percentage of population aged 15-24 | under 24: 19.11% | 46.18% Saudi Arabia relies heavily on a large foreign population (with a large chunk coming from India). Moreover, Saudi nationals tend to work in the public sector and have little incentive to join the private sector or to improve productivity, according to HSBC economist Razan Nasser . But Saudi Arabia's youth population is large, so it could run into the need for job creation as these people get older. And although there has been some improvement in female economic participation, rates are still far below world averages. Source: ILO , CIA World Factbook , Business Insider 32. Iran 2014 youth unemployment rate (est.): 30.4% Percentage of population aged 15-24 | under 24: 17.58% | 41.27% There is a mismatch between what people in Iran's large youth population are training/educating themselves for and what kinds of jobs are actually available. Moreover, the overall population doubled since the 1979 revolution, while the number of university students has increased by 25 times as much. "Many young Iranian men, who have higher education and are unemployed, are losing faith in the value of education," according to a 2014 Global Post report . This has led to a high brain-drain rate in Iran, with tens of thousands of well-educated students leaving annually. Source: ILO , CIA World Factbook 26. to 31. International Labour Organization Interestingly, as absolute poverty continues to drop and more people are getting educated, young people are becoming more choosy: They don't immediately have to settle for whatever jobs they can find, but will sometimes wait around to see if they can get one of the coveted jobs aka those that are "worth" their education. "This is one of the reasons why youth unemployment rates, defined according to the standard 'strict' definition are higher in middle-income than low-income countries," notes the ILO. 31. Dominican Republic: 30.6% 30. Georgia: 31.5% 29. Jordan: 31.8% 28. Albania: 32.3% 27. Suriname: 32.8% 26. Slovakia: 33.8% 25. Jamaica 2014 youth unemployment rate (est.) : 34.3% Percentage of population aged 15-24 | under 24: 21.46% | 49.43% Jamaica, along with Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Bahamas, saw the highest youth-unemployment rates in the Caribbean, according to a 2014 study by the World Bank . Although there was limited data available on the Caribbean, World Bank analysts suggest that poor educational attainment and disadvantaged family backgrounds predispose many to unemployment. "Youth unemployment ... generates discouragement, disaffection, isolation, and lack of ownership and of purpose among youth," the World Bank says. "These sentiments in turn increase the chances of youth engaging in risky activities such as [teen pregnancy], substance abuse, and crime and violence." Source: ILO , CIA World Factbook 24. Botswana 2014 youth unemployment rate (est.): 35.3% Percentage of population aged 15-24 | under 24: 21.49% | 54.15% Botswana is one of the most stable countries in Africa , and is now considered a middle-income nation. It is the world's largest diamond producer , and the government wants to diversify into other sectors. But even with economic prosperity, there are extremely poor pockets within the country, and there is a significant population of illegal immigrants from Zimbabwe. Additionally, about 20% to 30% of adults in Botswana are HIV-infected, according to the World Bank . Source: ILO , CIA World Factbook 23. Gabon 2014 youth unemployment rate (est.): 35.7% Percentage of population aged 15-24 | under 24: 20.29% | 62.35% Gabon is one of the bigger oil producers in Africa, which has led to huge economic growth over the last decade. Oil alone accounts for 45% of GDP, 60% of budget revenue, and 80% of exports, according to World Bank figures . Unfortunately, the oil business is not very labor-intensive, and only about 5% of the population actually works in the sector. About one-third of Gabonese citizens still live below the poverty line even though the GDP per capita is relatively high. Source: ILO , CIA World Factbook 22. Iraq 2014 youth unemployment rate (est.) : 35.9% Percentage of population aged 15-24 | under 24: 18.98% | 59.23% Iraq's " picture continues to darken " politically and economically. The country's extremely young population has a high unemployment rate, most notably among educated youths and university grads. In fact, the higher the educational attainment, the higher the unemployment rate. The economic activity rate (EAR, measuring how many people in a certain age group are active or potentially active in the labor market) for 15- to 29-year-olds was just 38.4%. But illiterate individuals saw the highest EAR (76%) among males, according to a 2014 UN report . "Unemployment is one of the major causes of tension among the youth ... This feeling intensifies among poor young people ... the increasingly widespread feeling of injustice ... fuels the social and economic polarization that generates impoverishment and exclusion," the UN report noted . Source: ILO , CIA World Factbook 21. Portugal 2014 youth unemployment rate (est.) : 35.9% Percentage of population aged 15-24 | under 24: 11.41% | 27.09% Many Portuguese youths have left the country in search of other opportunities abroad. Additionally, some analysts have pointed out that Portugal's unemployment rate is actually worse than it seems, as statistics omit some people who are technically unemployed. Although Portugal's rate was lower than that of others' in 2013, "the rate is notable for its longer-run trend: Youth unemployment in Spain, Greece and Italy was stable or falling in the first half of the decade, but in Portugal youth unemployment has been trending upward since 2000," according to the St. Louis Fed . Source: ILO , CIA World Factbook 20. Namibia 2014 youth unemployment rate (est.) : 36.8% Percentage of population aged 15-24 | under 24: 23.11% | 54.06% Namibia is a stable country in southwest Africa that gained independence from South Africa in 1990. While it has grown economically in the last 25 years, the unemployment rate has been virtually unchanged since independence . Youth unemployment is higher in rural areas than urban areas, and unemployment is higher among females than males. Most people tend to be "in elementary occupations (25.5%) followed by service and sales (17.6%), skilled agriculture (15.5%), and craft and trade (14.8%), according to the Namibia Statistics Agency . Source: ILO , CIA World Factbook Youth unemployment is particularly striking in North Africa and the Middle East, with both regions around 30%. International Labour Organization Education and other labor-assisting programs have been implemented in many North African and Middle Eastern rates, and, indeed, the youth in the region are "doing well in terms of near universal education" even among women. But the ILO notes that " the persistent high unemployment among both youth and adults in the regions denotes the deep-rooted structural elements that cannot be resolved by supply-side policies alone." Moreover, the presence of extremist groups in these regions adds an additional risk, which you can read about in more detail in specific slides. 19. Cyprus: 37.1% 18. Lesotho: 37.3% 17. Italy: 38.3% 16. Egypt: 39.3% 15. Montenegro: 40.5% 14. Armenia: 40.6% 13. Tunisia 2014 youth unemployment rate (est.): 40.7% Percentage of population aged 15-24 | under 24: 15.53% | 35.56% Tunisia's National Dialogue Quartet navigated the country through the post-Arab Spring turmoil and laid the groundwork for democracy, and recently won the Nobel Peace Prize . But at the same time, the country's youth unemployment has only gotten worse . Some analysts have noted that these unemployed youths are then targeted by extremist groups. A high youth-unemployment rate "helps prepare an environment where it's easier for that narrative to take root. It makes some of them more receptive," J. Peter Pham, director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council, told IB Times. "For the person looking for a job or struggling to make ends meet, macroeconomic theory doesn't put bread on the table." Source: ILO , CIA World Factbook 12. Swaziland 2014 youth unemployment rate (est.): 44% Percentage of population aged 15-24 | under 24: 22.26% | 58.25% Swaziland is one of the last absolute monarchies left , and King Mswati III has been ruling since 1986. Many in Swaziland have lost their jobs in recent years as the garment and sugar export sectors lost trading concessions, and the labor market deteriorated significantly from 2007 to 2010. "With these rates and trends, youth unemployment ceased to be an economic issue only. As the 2011 experiences from North Africa showed, if unaddressed, the low and declining youth employment could lead to social and political unrest," according to a 2013 paper by the AfDB . Source: ILO , CIA World Factbook 11. Mauritania 2014 youth unemployment rate (est.) : 44.9% Percentage of population aged 15-24 | under 24: 19.9% | 59.08% Mauritania is one of the leading exporters of iron ore and also has major potential with gold and copper. Additionally, it's a "modest" oil producer and has big natural-gas deposits in the Banda region. But the poverty rate remains high, and there is a lack of human capital-intensive sectors and governance issues, and the country is highly susceptible to exogenous shocks, according to the World Bank . Notably, even though Mauritania has a high youth-unemployment rate, the country did not experience popular uprisings like other North African nations did in 2011, as the AfDB points out . Source: ILO , CIA World Factbook 10. Serbia 2014 youth unemployment rate (est.) : 46.6% Percentage of population aged 15-24 | under 24: 11.46% | 26.2% Serbia is currently trying to get EU membership, and is thus looking at "painful" reforms, according to the BBC . "The employment conditions of young workers make them particularly exposed during times of economic crisis," notes a report by the ILO . "Whereas adult workers often enjoy full-time and open-ended contracts, most Serbian youth are engaged in the informal economy, holding flexible part-time and fixed-term contracts. They are thus often the first ones to be dismissed from employment. They also sometimes return to education and their labor force participation rate is reduced." Source: ILO , CIA World Factbook 9. Croatia 2014 youth unemployment rate (est.): 49.5% Percentage of population aged 15-24 | under 24: 11.92% | 26.34% Croatia was growing at 4% to 5% annually before the financial crisis, but hasn't been able to get back on its feet. "Progress in addressing inactivity and unemployment, the main cause of the recent rise in poverty, remains slow," according to the World Bank . Most recently, after Hungary closed its boarders, thousands of refugees were redirected into the Balkans, including into Croatia . Given that the Balkans already have their own economic problems, a huge influx of refugees could add some risk. Source: ILO , CIA World Factbook 8. South Africa 2014 youth unemployment rate (est.) : 52.9% Percentage of population aged 15-24 | under 24: 18.52% | 46.95% Each year, only about 15% of students who begin a degree at a South African university or technical college graduate. Many dropouts can't afford to pay the tuition especially those in the much-poorer black population. These people who leave school then do not have the required skills demanded for the labor market. Earlier in 2015, universities wanted to increase the cost of education by 10% to 12%, which led to mass protests by South African students in October . The students were ultimately successful, as universities decided not to increase fees in 2016. Source: ILO , CIA World Factbook 4. to 7. International Labor Organization While Europe has been all over the headlines for high youth-unemployment rates over the last half-decade, Asian regions and part of sub-Saharan Africa have seen relatively low rates, according to data from the ILO. Additionally, youth-unemployment rates have been decreasing in Central and South-Eastern Europe (non-EU) and the Commonwealth of Independent States, Latin America, the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa in the medium and long terms. 7. Macedonia: 54.32% 6. Réunion: 54.41% 5. Martinique: 54.7% 4. Guadeloupe: 55.1% 3. Spain 2014 youth unemployment rate (est.): 58.2% Percentage of population aged 15-24 | under 24: 9.56% | 25.01% Not only does Spain have an insanely high youth-unemployment rate, but it also has the highest school-dropout rate in Europe . Spain went through a decade-long construction boom when many young people dropped out of school to snag these well-paid construction gigs. But when the construction boom was over, Spain was left with a bunch of unskilled 20-somethings without jobs, according to Reuters . Now, unskilled Spaniards are turning to jobs that immigrants have been doing, and skilled workers are settling for jobs they're overqualified for. Source: ILO , CIA World Factbook 2. Bosnia and Herzegovina 2014 youth unemployment rate (est.) : 60.2% Percentage of population aged 15-24 | under 24: 12.36% | 25.84% Private-sector jobs in Bosnia and Herzegovina " offer very low wages and poor working conditions" and "workers are vulnerable to exploitation. With demands for employment so high, employers can constantly leverage the threat of layoffs." Plus, Bosnia has a brain-drain issue, too. Additionally, as with other Balkan countries, the influx of migrants could add more risk. "We have much empathy in the region for migrants but countries across the region are poor, their institutions are not yet developed, and most states can barely deal with the daily problems of government, never mind a migration crisis," Sead Numanovic, a former editor of a leading Bosnian newspaper, told The New York Times . "These countries just don't have the capacity." Source: ILO , CIA World Factbook 1. Greece 2014 youth unemployment rate (est.) : 64.8% Percentage of population aged 15-24 | under 24: 9.72% | 23.73% Greece has been front and center in 2015 during its battle against its European creditors. But the country's economic problems have been building for a long time. Almost half the time since its independence has been spent in a financial crisis, corruption has cost the country 8% to 10% of GDP per year, and upper-middle-class professionals have dodged taxes for years. Unfortunately, many youths have graduated into this economy. Over half of those between the 25 and 34 live at home , and many have a hard time finding jobs. Source: ILO , CIA World Factbook And now, for something a bit more fun, check out: 30 crazy things you didn't know about Russia | 3 | 96,965 | finance |
'Kelly File' guest's wife was in conference room where rampage took place | 8 | 96,966 | video |
NEW YORK (AP) -- Two days after beating their division rival in a shootout, the New York Islanders went to the tiebreaker again to down one of the top teams in the Western Conference. Frans Nielsen and Kyle Okposo scored in the shootout to lift the Islanders to a 2-1 victory over the St. Louis Blues on Friday night for New York's fourth straight win. BOX SCORE: ISLANDERS 2. BLUES 1, SO The Islanders improved to 10-2-1 against Western Conference teams this season and are 5-0-1 in their last six games. They also won by an identical score against the New York Rangers on Wednesday night. The Islanders are now just three points behind the Washington Capitals and the Rangers for first place in the Metropolitan Division. "You want to try to win the division," New York's Ryan Strome said. "I don't think a lot of guys look at that, but as you pile up these wins it's going to add up." Mikhail Grabovski tied it early in the third period for the Islanders, and Thomas Greiss, making his third start in four games, stopped 31 shots through overtime and then denied Kevin Shattenkirk and Vladimir Tarasenko in the shootout. Greiss improved to 8-3-2 this season and has given up just six goals on 91 shots while winning his last three games. The backup goalie in his first season with the Islanders said he didn't change his approach in his first shootout this season. "You just do the same thing and sometimes there's some luck, too, a couple of bounces here or there," he said. "Just do your thing and don't worry too much about it." Shattenkirk scored late in the first period and Brian Elliott finished with 24 saves through overtime. Elliott was starting for the first time in 17 days after Jake Allen started the last seven games for St. Louis. "We played a strong game, just didn't get the win," Shattenkirk said. "We had a lot of chances. Their goalie was really good." The Blues had won five straight meetings against the Islanders before New York won 3-2 in overtime at St. Louis on Oct. 24. "I'm really impressed with their hockey team," Blues coach Ken Hitchcock said. "Four good lines and six strong D. They will be trouble for teams out west. We played some good hockey and still couldn't beat them right now." Grabovski tied it at 6:39 of the third. He brought the puck across the blue line and dropped it for Strome, and Strome passed it back to Grabovski streaking toward the net. After he was stopped on his initial shot, Grabovski fired the rebound over Elliott's glove. "I saw Grabo go to the middle, I went to go behind him and he made a great drop pass, I just fed him and he made a great finish," Strome said. "We were kind of buzzing a little bit tonight, had some good chances. Good to finally get one and help the team out." The win was the Islanders' first this season when trailing after two periods, and the Blues lost for the first time when leading after two. "Our guys played well tonight defensively, gave up a few chances in the second," Islanders coach Jack Capuano said. "Greiss made some big saves for us that held the score where it was." Shattenkirk gave the Blues a 1-0 lead in the final minute of the first period. After the Islanders were whistled for icing, Paul Stastny won the faceoff against Casey Cizikas in the left circle, and Tarasenko got the puck in the high slot. He passed it to Shattenkirk, who sent a one-timer from the top of the left circle past Greiss with 26.8 seconds left in the period. The Islanders' Brock Nelson briefly left the game early in the first period after taking a shoulder hit from St. Louis' David Backes to the high chest 3:22 into game. Blues defenseman Colton Parayko also went to the locker room early in the third after he tangled with an Islanders player, got his leg caught and fell awkwardly to the ice behind St. Louis' net. He returned to the ice several minutes later. NOTES Tarasenko began the day eighth in the NHL with 92 shots this season. He had four in the game and has had at least one shot in 73 consecutive regular-season games. The Islanders were the last team to hold him without a shot, during a 6-3 loss at St. Louis on Dec. 11, 2014. ... Shattenkirk has three goals and eight assists in 13 games since returning from a 10-game injury absence.... The Islanders are 2-1 while wearing their Brooklyn-themed black-and-white uniforms. ... Grabovski scored in overtime at St. Louis on Oct. 24 to give the Islanders the win. | 1 | 96,967 | sports |
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. _ San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook had contact with people from at least two terrorist organizations overseas, including the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front in Syria, a federal law enforcement official said Friday. His wife and fellow shooter, Tashfeen Malik, also pledged allegiance to an Islamic State leader in a Facebook posting, two federal law enforcement officials said. The revelations came as the FBI formally announced it was investigating the shooting rampage as an act of terrorism. FBI Director James Comey said the assailants showed signs of "radicalization" but that there was no evidence they were part of a larger terrorist network. Farook and Malik died in a police shootout Wednesday, several hours after bursting into a holiday potluck for the San Bernardino County Health Department and killing 14 people. As the investigation expands, the law enforcement source said, agents are trying to learn more about the couple's contacts in the U.S. and overseas, "especially those in Pakistan," where Farook visited and Malik was born. One key question, said the official, "is if they had any weapons or terror training in Pakistan." The source described "some kind" of contact between Farook and people from the Nusra Front and the radical al-Shabab group in Somalia. It's unclear what type of contact or with whom. Authorities in Pakistan also said Friday that they were investigating whether Malik had ties to Islamic militant organizations. Officials cautioned that Malik's Facebook posting did not mean that the militant group directed Malik and her husband to carry out the Wednesday attack, and that investigators think it instead suggests that the couple had become self-radicalized. One of the officials said the Facebook post was made under a different name and had since been removed. A Facebook spokesman confirmed that the company took down the profile page that included the post cited by law enforcement officials. He said the post was discovered a day after the shooting when Facebook employees conducted a search of the site for the shooters' names. The company's policy, he said, was to remove posts that "support or glorify" terrorism. The post had gone up Wednesday about 11 a.m. PST, around the same time the shooting began, he said. He said Facebook provided the contents of the post to law enforcement. Witnesses and police have said Farook, a county public health worker, had been at the holiday party but left, possibly after a disagreement with a co-worker, and returned with Malik to attack the gathering. That could be construed as workplace violence, the law enforcement source said, noting that evidence and witness recollections suggest that they shot Farook's supervisors first. Or, the source said, "after they got away" and were missing for several hours, they might have hoped to launch a previous plan for an even larger strike. An acquaintance who prayed with Farook at a San Bernardino mosque told the Los Angeles Times that the shooter said he liked his wife because she wore a "niqab," a veil that covered almost all of her face. Nizaam Ali, 23, said Friday he thought that Farook liked Malik's niqab because it showed she was religious and wasn't embodying "the modern role of women today, working and all that." Ali, a student at California State University, San Bernardino, said he occasionally talked to Farook at Dar al Uloom al Islamiyah of America mosque. Ali remembered Farook saying something like, "That's what really made me interested in her, that's what made her stick out from the other women." Ali said he thinks wearing a niqab is courageous, especially in the West where people aren't familiar with such clothing. The two men agreed about that, he remembered. "Other than that, his wife never came up in other conversations," he said. He said Farook met his wife online, a practice Ali said is common among his friends. "In our community, it's different," he said, noting that it's difficult for Muslim men to find women to marry. "Internet has become something that eases it." Ali said he had met Malik on a few occasions, but the niqab obscured her face. "If you asked me how she looked, I couldn't tell you," he said. The couple were married in Islam's holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia last year, according to Farook's co-workers at the Health Department and others who knew them. The Saudi Embassy in Washington confirmed that Farook spent nine days in the kingdom in the summer of 2014. Authorities said that when he returned to the U.S. in July 2014, he brought Malik with him on a fiancée visa. After a background check by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, she was granted a conditional green card last summer. The couple's infant daughter was born in May, according to records. Malik was 29, according to records. San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan had erroneously given her age as 27. Farook, a U.S. citizen of Pakistani descent, was 28. An attorney representing Farook's and Malik's family said Malik never spoke about Islamic State or terrorism. "As far as I know, there was no discussion of any of that (among family members)," Mohammad Abuershaid said. The couple hadn't been married that long, he said. "It wasn't like the family had much time to get to know her." Abuershaid said the family was very conservative and that it would have been unlikely that Malik discussed her thoughts on world events, including the trouble in the Middle East, with her in-laws. "Tashfeen was an individual who kept to herself most of the time," Abuershaid said. He added that she was a soft-spoken housewife who stayed at home with the baby. The family has met with the FBI and plans to meet with agency officials again Monday, the attorney said. Another lawyer for the family said family members were shocked to learn about Malik's and Farook's involvement. "There's never been any evidence that either of the two alleged shooters were aggressive (or) had extremist views," said David Chesley. A federal law enforcement source said Malik and Farook made an unsuccessful attempt to destroy their electronic devices. David Bowdich, the assistant director in charge of the Los Angeles FBI office, said investigators have recovered evidence of multiple explosive armaments and that the assailants attempted to destroy their "digital fingerprints." He added that two crushed cellphones were found in a trash can. Comey said the FBI was trying to determine if the assailants were inspired by foreign terrorist organizations. "We are spending a tremendous amount of time, as you might imagine, over the last 48 hours trying to understand the motives of these killers and trying to understand every detail of their lives," Comey said. "We know that this is very unsettling for the people of the United States. What we hope you will do is not let fear become disabling, but to instead channel it into an awareness of your surroundings." Farook and Malik had amassed an arsenal of 2,000 9 mm handgun rounds, 2,500 .223-caliber assault rifle rounds and "hundreds of tools" that could have been used to make explosive devices, authorities said. The couple fired at least 65 shots when they stormed a party at the Inland Regional Center, where about 80 people had gathered. Twelve of the 14 dead and 18 of the 21 injured were county employees, police said. Hours later, the couple exchanged gunfire with police on San Bernardino streets, launching bullets into homes and terrifying residents. Farook and Malik used two assault rifles and two semiautomatic handguns, all of which were bought legally, according to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. On Friday morning, dozens of reporters were let inside the Redlands town house where Malik and Farook lived. The doors and windows were boarded up, and the home was sparsely decorated. The upstairs had a crib, baby toys and children's books. In the middle of the living room, a copy of the Quran rested on a small black table. On another table was a lengthy list of items the FBI had seized in its investigation: Christmas lights, an iPhone, boxes and bags of ammunition, letters, a passport and gun accessories. ___ (Staff writers Veronica Rocha, Richard Winton, Kate Mather, Ron Lin, Joseph Serna, Matt Stevens and Corina Knoll contributed to this report.) | 5 | 96,968 | news |
Briefly, seriously, no kidding, really, a running quarterback from Navy was a Heisman Trophy candidate. Or as the Heisman folks grandly prefer, an aspirant. In theory, all 15,000 or so college football players are Heisman candidates, just as any dubious dreamer can be a candidate for president because this is America, where such things are not discouraged. But common sense and abundant evidence weigh against the prospect of such things happening, Roger Staubach and Bernie Sanders aside. Yes, any college football player may win the Heisman. And any dump truck might win the Indy 500. Chances are fat and fatter. This is not a comment on heavy-waisted linemen, because trim defensive backs and lanky wide receivers are generally out of luck too. Non-quarterbacks need a gimmick, and a couple have pulled it off. Cornerback Charles Woodson won over Peyton Manning but only because he also played offense; receiver and kick returner Desmond Howard won because he had the PR sense to strike the Heisman pose. Blockers and tacklers do not win, although any one of them may be "the most outstanding player in college football," the only Heisman directive. The model for the Heisman Trophy preferred by its creator was one of a player tackling another. It was classic, contact football, equally representing offense and defense. Designer Frank Eliscu thought the pose the Downtown Athletic Club selected, the lone, stiff-arming runner, looked too much like a toy, and Eliscu was a sculptor, not a maker of dolls. The Heisman is college football's glamour award and it almost always goes to a glamour position. Quarterback is the most glamorous but almost always oversold and almost always the product of a coach's offensive system. Yet a quarterback has won the Heisman every year but twice this century, which may account for Navy quarterback Keenan Reynolds getting popular support. The consideration of Reynolds was driven by the fan vote, a sponsored Internet device to keep the pot stirred. Why not give the thing to someone who is not likely to tarnish it? More likely it is that among the college quarterbacks, there is not a Cam Newton in the bunch. Nor is there a Tim Tebow nor a Johnny Manziel, boy wonders who never grew beyond a fresh and unreliable appeal. Nothing is more dependable than a Heisman winner betraying the promise represented by that little stiff-arming trophy. The list of Heisman busts is longer than the list of Heisman heroes, and this is not counting Reggie Bush, who has been wiped off the list altogether, reducing this century's non-quarterbacks to one, Alabama's Mark Ingram. Running backs generally have proved more justified than quarterbacks. For every Ron Dayne or Rashaan Salaam there is an Eddie George, a Barry Sanders and a Bo Jackson, a Marcus Allen or Earl Campbell. We are tipped that this year's winner will be another Alabama rusher, Derrick Henry, but through the weeks others have been just as tipped, giving next week's final reveal more than the customary drama. It was taken on faith, or at least on trust, that the winner of the Heisman was worthy, and if he never would be a substantial pro he would not, upon reflection, be less than what he was thought to be, and that was the best college football player in the land. Of late, in spite of increased hype and its own staged TV ceremony, the Heisman has become the most absurd and overblown creation this side of the spork. Of the 79 Heisman winners, only 19 were also the first pick in the NFL draft. And of those, only three - Paul Hornung, Earl Campbell and O.J. Simpson - are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, though Jim Plunkett also belongs there. I don't buy the argument that Heisman votes are for college players and not for future pros, because future pros are exactly what college players are in college to be. I look at it this way. If anyone bothered to give a prize to the next great rocket scientist, they would give it to the guy whose rocket they would ride in. I never would get into any rocket made by Johnny Manziel. Bernie Lincicome is a special contributor to the Chicago Tribune. | 1 | 96,969 | sports |
The birthday girls, twins Mia and Melia, didn't want presents this year. Instead, they asked family and friends to donate money for the medical bills of of 6-year-old Reese Baker. | 8 | 96,970 | video |
Hello, core of steel! Planks are the exercise move that many people love to hate , but it's hard to deny their ab-tightening powers. If the static plank isn't doing it for you, check out this easy-to-master variation from Refinery29. The best part? It only takes a minute. Check out the video and add it to your next workout. Strong looks good on you. Also on HuffPost: | 4 | 96,971 | lifestyle |
A small body inside the Kuiper Belt was photographed by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft as it swiftly moved through deep space. | 8 | 96,972 | video |
Thirty-two workers have died after an Azeri offshore oil platform caught fire in the Caspian Sea. Rough Cut (no reporter narration). | 5 | 96,973 | news |
BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) Azerbaijan's state oil company SOCAR said Sunday that it was still searching for 29 workers missing after a fire swept through an offshore oil platform. But in an acknowledgment that they were unlikely to be found alive, the company asked the four other countries who share the Caspian Sea to search their own territorial waters for bodies of the missing oil workers. SOCAR said notices were sent to the border guard services of Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan. The missing workers were on a lifeboat that toppled into heavy seas late Friday after the oil platform caught fire when an underwater gas pipeline was damaged in the storm. A ship that had been sent to help with the rescue operation recovered the body of one of the workers who had been in that lifeboat and saved three other workers, the company and emergency services said. In all, 33 workers were rescued. SOCAR said the platform in the offshore Guneshli field was still burning Sunday because it had reached one of the oil wells. The company first expressed hope that the fire would be extinguished by the end of the day, but later said it was now expected to happen Monday morning. SOCAR's first vice president, Khoshbakht Yusifzadem, said the company was working with Azerbaijan's emergency services to search for the 29 missing workers by helicopter and ship. The Guneshli 10 platform, which went into operation in 1984, services 24 oil wells and four gas wells, producing 920 tons of oil and 1 million cubic meters (35 million cubic feet) of gas per day. | 5 | 96,974 | news |
Mozarella sticks don't have to mean messy deep-frying. | 0 | 96,975 | foodanddrink |
A book that briefly appeared on live television while media representatives were in the home of the San Bernardino shooters has received more than a dozen negative reviews on Amazon. Tashfeen Malik and Syed Farook's landlord allowed media into their home on Friday, two days after the attack that killed 14 people during a holiday party at the county public health department, where Farook worked. Authorities had made a sweep of the space before the landlord allowed the media inside, but ethical and legal questions arose as cable television journalists rifled through the family's personal belongings. Among the items to appear on the broadcasts were personal effects including identification of non-suspects and toys belonging to the couple's infant. In one instance, a CNN anchor held up the book, Common Mistakes Regarding Prayer , in a live shot. As was first pointed out by a Twitter user, the book has recevied 13 one-star reviews on Amazon in the last 24 hours. Legions of Amazon reviewers trash book found in SB shooters' apartment. https://t.co/SeSwCBwaNw pic.twitter.com/QLFAEIJIFU southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) December 5, 2015 Prior to appearing on television, the book did not have any reviews. The book is touted to be "a valuable aid to Muslims hoping to perfect their prayers." It was published in 2010 by Shaykh Mashhur Hasan Salman. A biography of the author on Call to Islam says he has written five books and lives in Jordan. "This is a book used by the two terrorists who killed all those people in San Bernardino, as shown in the televised tour of their house after the massacre," writes one Amazon reviewer. "So judge for yourself what kind of people this book appeals to." Other reviews speak negatively about Islam (Malik and Farook were Muslims) and urge potential buyers of the book to "turn to Jesus Christ." While the FBI is investigating the shooting as an act of terrorism, the couple has not been directly linked with any known major terrorist group, though the Islamic State on Saturday claimed they were followers, Reuters reported. Their relatives have repeatedly said they did not appear to be radicalized in advance of the attack. Numerous Islamic organizations have condemned the attack, as has the family of Farook and Malik. "Islam does not agree and does not support any kind of actions that occur like this. It does not support killing," Mohammad Abuershaid , one of the two attorneys representing the family, said during a press conference on Friday. | 5 | 96,976 | news |
Tony Robbins If you want to be the best, you have to learn from the best. "Successful people look at other successful people as a means to motivate themselves," writes T. Harv Eker in "Secrets of the Millionaire Mind." Tony Robbins If you want to be the best, you have to learn from the best. "Successful people look at other successful people as a means to motivate themselves," writes T. Harv Eker in "Secrets of the Millionaire Mind." Successful people share the smartest thing they've ever done with their money If you want to be the best, you have to learn from the best. "Successful people look at other successful people as a means to motivate themselves," writes T. Harv Eker in " Secrets of the Millionaire Mind ." "They see other successful people as models to learn from. They say to themselves, 'If they can do it, I can do it.'" Business Insider asked several successful people about the smartest thing they ever did with their money. If you want to start building wealth, take notes on what they had to say: Craig Barritt/Getty I built up an emergency fund. Alexa von Tobel, founder and CEO of LearnVest.com, author of "Financially Fearless": "I am forever grateful for having built up my emergency savings during my first job out of college, which allowed me to start LearnVest. Without that extra cash set aside, I wouldn't have had the ability to take that crazy leap (in the heart of the recession) and help make financial advice accessible for Americans across the country." I paid myself first. Tony Robbins, motivational speaker, author of the bestseller "MONEY: Master The Game" "In a nutshell: Set aside a portion of my income to start to build my critical mass and committed to paying myself first. "Explained further: One of the best pieces of advice that I received came from Ken Blanchard. I first met Ken when I was 24. At that time I was writing my very first book. It went on to land a spot on the New York Times Best Seller list, and I was gaining momentum and building my business. "Like most people, I had already heard of George S. Clason's 1926 classic, 'The Richest Man In Babylon' the day that Ken pulled me aside for a talking-to. I was aware of a central concept in the book, the simple idea of paying yourself first that is, taking 10% of your income and setting it aside to grow and protect you in the future. But Ken connected with me, and imparted a message at this critical time that I was coming into myself as a young businessman he taught me something that many business owners don't realize. "He said: Tony, any amount of money that you feed your business, it will eat. So in writing a book, you are doing something here that is outside of the business. You are doing something that is going to support the company hopefully by bringing in new fans of your work, who then maybe engage with your brand, and do business with your company. Since the company is getting that benefit, make sure you take the profits of your book and set them aside, and never allow them into your company's account. This is the most important career advice given to me by another man and I want to pass it on to you. Remember Tony: A business is always hungry. "Decades have gone by since Ken Blanchard spoke those words to me. I now have over 20 companies and I'm actively involved in running a dozen of them. Throughout the years, those words never left me. In fact, they became the basis of financial independence as I know it." I bought an Apple Quadra 800. "In the Fall of 1993 I took my hard earned money from an internship as a software engineer at Hewlett-Packard and bought an Apple Quadra 800. Although this computer cost me a significant portion of my entire summer's earnings, it was one of the smartest things I have done with my money because of the opportunities it led me to in my career. "In many ways, that purchase represented the beginning of my financial independence. I bought the computer because I had just declared my major in Computer Science. This decision led me to the best job I had ever had. I then decided to personally reinvest the earnings into equipment that I believed would further my development. More importantly, rather than placing a further burden on my parents, it was my first significant independent purchase. "It's hard to quantify the value of investing in your own skills, and then having them rewarded with financial independence, but looking back now over 20 years in the software industry, it's hard not to be nostalgic for that Quadra 800." I made my money work for me. Steve Siebold, self-made millionaire, author of "How Rich People Think:" "The rich taught me how to use my wealth as a lever to generate more wealth. It's been an unfair advantage I've had for many years. "The most recent example of leveraging wealth would be the purchase of the Bona Allen Mansion near Atlanta. This purchase and renovation project has attracted attention to our business from all over the world. We've received emails of congratulations, offers from larger companies to purchase the property, and ideas for restoration from as far away as China, Brazil, and Australia. The Mansion is a six acre compound that not only serves as our new headquarters, but as a world-class marketing tool that puts us on par with our larger competitors. That's what leveraging money is all about: You invest one dollar and get ten in return." I started a business. David Bach, best selling author, entrepreneur, motivational speaker: "The smartest thing I ever did was take $5,000 to start my business, FinishRich Media. I started it on a coffee table in my kitchen, with nothing but a dream and an idea to teach a million women about money with a program I had created called Smart Women Finish Rich. "I hired an attorney who created the company structure legally, opened the accounts properly, and built the business from day one to be a 'real business.' Within a few years we had sold 'Smart Women Finish Rich' to Random House, launched our Smart Women Finish Rich Seminars nationally, and produced a PBS special and, over the next decade we taught over a million women the steps to living and finishing rich. Today, 12 books later, the FinishRich Brand has seven million books in print in over 19 languages and 50 countries." I invested in myself. Lewis Howes, lifestyle entrepreneur, business coach, author of "The School of Greatness:" "The smartest thing I ever did was invest in myself, because my personal brand will always be around. I put money back into my design and my content for my personal development and growth, and for my team." I lived below my means. Ashley Fieglein Johnson, Chief Financial Officer of Wealthfront: "I never spent to the level I was earning. I always stashed away bonuses and part of my checks into investment accounts and savings accounts. The few instances where I did go 'underwater' were the times when I was investing in business, real estate, or other similar opportune investments. I could afford to participate in these types of ventures because I always had savings to fall back on." | 3 | 96,977 | finance |
Kelly Osbourne says she has been banned from two parks because she is too protective of her niece. The 31-year-old Fashion Police host said she is extremely fond of her brother Jack's 3-year-old daughter Pearl, Daily Mail reports. "I've been banned from two parks in the area because this kid was mean to my niece, and I yelled at the child and the child's mother!" Kelly said. Kelly's baby fever only goes that far, though. When asked if she wanted one of her own, she did not quite give in. "I'm not ready yet. I'm too selfish right now!" | 6 | 96,978 | entertainment |
A suspected Islamist militant and two members of his family are killed in northern Lebanon after the man blew himself up during an army raid on his home, security and medical sources say. Nathan Frandino reports. | 8 | 96,979 | video |
Mary Owen wasn't welcomed into the world until more than a decade after Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life made its premiere in 1946. But she grew up cherishing the film and getting the inside scoop on its making from its star, Donna Reed who just so happens to be her mom. Though Reed sadly passed away in 1986, Owen has stood as one of the film's most dedicated historians, regularly introducing screenings of the ultimate holiday classic, including during its annual run at New York City's IFC Center (now in its tenth year). She shared some of her mom's memories with us to help reveal 25 things you might not know about It's a Wonderful Life. 1. IT ALL BEGAN WITH A CHRISTMAS CARD. After years of unsuccessfully trying to shop his short story, The Greatest Gift , to publishers, Philip Van Doren Stern decided to give the gift of words to his closest friends for the holidays when he printed up 200 copies of the story and sent them out as a 21-page Christmas card. David Hempstead, a producer at RKO Pictures, ended up getting a hold of it, and purchased the movie rights for $10,000 . 2. CARY GRANT WAS SET TO STAR IN THE ADAPTATION. When RKO purchased the rights, they did so with the plan of having Cary Grant in the lead. But, as happens so often in Hollywood, the project went through some ups and downs in the development process. In 1945, after a number of rewrites, RKO sold the movie rights to Frank Capra, who quickly recruited Jimmy Stewart to play George Bailey. 3. DOROTHY PARKER WORKED ON THE SCRIPT. By the time It's a Wonderful Life made it into theaters, the story was much different from Stern's original tale. That's because more than a half-dozen people contributed to the screenplay, including some of the most acclaimed writers of the time , Dorothy Parker, Dalton Trumbo, Marc Connelly, and Clifford Odets among them. 4. SCREENWRITERS FRANCES GOODRICH AND ALBERT HACKETT WALKED OUT. Though they're credited as the film's screenwriters with Capra, the husband and wife writing duo were not pleased with the treatment they received from Capra. "Frank Capra could be condescending," Albert said in an interview , "and you just didn't address Frances as 'my dear woman.' When we were pretty far along in the script but not done, our agent called and said, 'Capra wants to know how soon you'll be finished.' Frances said, 'We're finished right now.' We put our pens down and never went back to it." 5. CAPRA DIDN'T DO THE BEST JOB OF SELLING THE FILM TO STEWART. After laying out the plot line of the film for Stewart in a meeting, Capra realized that, "This really doesn't sound so good, does it?" Stewart recalled in an interview . Stewart's reply? "Frank: If you want me to be in a picture about a guy that wants to kill himself and an angel comes down named Clarence who can't swim and I save him, when do we start?" 6. IT WAS DONNA REED'S FIRST STARRING ROLE. Though Donna Reed was hardly a newcomer when It's a Wonderful Life rolled around, having appeared in nearly 20 projects previously, the film did mark her first starring role. Though it's difficult to imagine anyone else in the role today, she did have some competition from Jean Arthur. "[Frank Capra] had seen mom in They Were Expendable and liked her," Mary Owen says. "When Capra met my mother at MGM, he knew she'd be just right for Mary Bailey." 7. MARY OWEN IS NOT NAMED AFTER MARY BAILEY. Before you ask whether Owen was named after her mom's much beloved It's a Wonderful Life character, "The answer is no," says Owen. "I was named after my great grandmother, Mary Mullenger." 8. BEULAH BONDI WAS A PRO AT PLAYING STEWART'S MOM. Beulah Bondi , who plays Mrs. Bailey, didn't need a lot of rehearsal to play Jimmy Stewart's mom. She had done it three times previously in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , Of Human Hearts , and Vivacious Lady and once later on The Jimmy Stewart Show: The Identity Crisis. 9. CAPRA, REED, AND STEWART HAVE ALL CALLED IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE THEIR FAVORITE MOVIE. Though their collective filmographies consist of a couple hundred movies, Capra, Reed, and Stewart have all cited It's a Wonderful Life as their favorite movie. In his autobiography, The Name Above the Title , Capra took that praise even one step further, writing : "I thought it was the greatest film I ever made. Better yet, I thought it was the greatest film anybody ever made." 10. THE MOVIE BOMBED AT THE BOX OFFICE. Though it has become a quintessential American classic, It's a Wonderful Life was not an immediate hit with audiences. In fact, it put Capra $525,000 in the hole , which left him scrambling to finance his production company's next picture, State of the Union. 11. A COPYRIGHT LAPSE AIDED THE FILM'S POPULARITY. Though it didn't make much of a dent at the box office, It's a Wonderful Life found a whole new life on television particularly when its copyright lapsed in 1974 , making it available royalty-free to anyone who wanted to show it for the next 20 years. (Which would explain why it was on television all the time during the holiday season.) The free-for-all ended in 1994 . 12. THE ROCK THAT BROKE THE WINDOW OF THE GRANVILLE HOUSE WAS ALL REAL. Though Capra had a stuntman at the ready in order to shoot out the window of the Granville House in a scene that required Donna Reed to throw a rock through it, it was all a waste of money. "Mom threw the rock herself that broke the window in the Granville House," Owen says. "On the first try." 13. IT TOOK TWO MONTHS TO BUILD BEDFORD FALLS. Shot on a budget of $3.7 million (which was a lot by mid-1940s standards), Bedford Falls which covered a full four acres of RKO's Encino Ranch was one of the most elaborate movie sets ever built up to that time, with 75 stores and buildings, 20 fully-grown oak trees, factories, residential areas, and a 300-yard-long Main Street. 14. SENECA FALLS, NEW YORK IS "THE REAL BEDFORD FALLS." Though Bedford Falls is a fictitious place, the town of Seneca Falls, New York swears that they're the real-life inspiration for George Bailey's charming hometown. And each year they program a full lineup of holiday-themed events to put locals (and yuletide visitors) into the holiday spirit. 15. THE GYM FLOOR-TURNED-SWIMMING POOL WAS REAL. Though the bulk of the film was filmed on pre-built sets, the dance at the gym was filmed on location at Beverly Hills High School. And the retractable floor was no set piece. Better known as the Swim Gym, the school is currently in the process of restoring the landmark filming location. 16. ALFALFA IS THE TEENAGER BEHIND THAT SWIMMING POOL PRANK. Though he's uncredited in the part, if Freddie Othello the little prankster who pushes the button that opens the pool that swallows George and Mary up looks familiar, that's because he is played by Carl Switzer , a.k.a. Alfalfa of the Little Rascals. 17. DONNA REED WON $50 FROM LIONEL BARRYMORE ... FOR MILKING A COW. Though she was a Hollywood icon, Donna Reed born Donnabelle Mullenger was a farm girl at heart who came to Los Angeles by way of Denison, Iowa. Lionel Barrymore (a.k.a. Mr. Potter) didn't believe it. "So he bet $50 that she couldn't milk a cow," recalls Owen. "She said it was the easiest $50 she ever made." 18. THE FILM WAS SHOT DURING A HEAT WAVE. It may be an iconic Christmas movie, but It's a Wonderful Life was actually shot in the summer of 1946 in the midst of a heat wave, no less. At one point, Capra had to shut filming down for a day because of the sky-high temperatures which also explains why Stewart is clearly sweating in key moments of the film. 19. CAPRA ENGINEERED A NEW KIND OF MOVIE SNOW. Capra who trained as an engineer and special effects supervisor Russell Shearman engineered a new type of artificial snow for the film . At the time, painted cornflakes were the most common form of fake snow, but they posed a bit of an audio problem for Capra. So he and Shearman opted to mix foamite (the stuff you find in fire extinguishers) with sugar and water to create a less noisy option. 20. THE MOVIE WASN'T REQUIRED VIEWING IN REED'S HOUSEHOLD. Though It's a Wonderful Life is a staple of many family holiday movie marathons, that wasn't the case in Reed's home. In fact, Owen herself didn't see the film until three decades after its release. "I saw it in the late 1970s at the Nuart Theatre in L.A. and loved it," she says. 21. ZUZU DIDN'T SEE THE FILM UNTIL 1980. Karolyn Grimes, who played Zuzu in the film, didn't see the film until 1980. "I never took the time to see the movie," she told Detroit's WWJ in 2013. "I never just sat down and watched the film." 22. THE FBI SAW THE FILM. THEY DIDN'T LIKE IT. In 1947, the FBI issued a memo noting the film as a potential "Communist infiltration of the motion picture industry," citing its "rather obvious attempts to discredit bankers by casting Lionel Barrymore as a 'Scrooge-type' so that he would be the most hated man in the picture. This, according to these sources, is a common trick used by Communists." 23. THE MOVIE'S BERT AND ERNIE HAVE NO RELATION TO SESAME STREET . Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 3.0 Yes, the cop and cab driver in It's a Wonderful Life are named Bert and Ernie, respectively. But Jim Henson's longtime writing partner, Jerry Juhl, insists that it's by coincidence only that they share their names with Sesame Street 's stripe-shirted buds. "I was the head writer for the Muppets for 36 years and one of the original writers on Sesame Street ," Juhl told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2000. "The rumor about It's a Wonderful Life has persisted over the years. I was not present at the naming, but I was always positive [the rumor] was incorrect. Despite his many talents, Jim had no memory for details like this. He knew the movie, of course, but would not have remembered the cop and the cab driver. I was not able to confirm this with Jim before he died, but shortly thereafter I spoke to Jon Stone, Sesame Street 's first producer and head writer and a man largely responsible for the show's format … He assured me that Ernie and Bert were named one day when he and Jim were studying the prototype puppets. They decided that one of them looked like an Ernie, and the other one looked like a Bert. The movie character names are purely coincidental." 24. SOME PEOPLE ARE ANXIOUS FOR A SEQUEL. Well, two people: Producers Allen J. Schwalb and Bob Farnsworth, who announced in 2013 that they would be continuing the story with a sequel, It's a Wonderful Life: The Rest of the Story , which they planned for a 2015 release. It didn't take long for Paramount, who owns the copyright, to step in and assure furious fans of the original that "No project relating to It's a Wonderful Life can proceed without a license from Paramount. To date, these individuals have not obtained any of the necessary rights, and we would take all appropriate steps to protect those rights." 25. THE FILM'S ENDURING LEGACY WAS SURPRISING TO CAPRA. Of the film's classic status, Capra noted : "It's the damnedest thing I've ever seen. The film has a life of its own now and I can look at it like I had nothing to do with it. I'm like a parent whose kid grows up to be president. I'm proud… but it's the kid who did the work. I didn't even think of it as a Christmas story when I first ran across it. I just liked the idea." | 6 | 96,980 | entertainment |
Drawing down your retirement accounts is a complex task that requires expertise. | 3 | 96,981 | finance |
Makani GoogleX is ramping up recruiting at Makani, hinting that the ambitious project to create "energy kites" that generate cheap wind power is moving closer to reality. In the past few months, Google has posted more than 30 Makani job openings ,and a recent posting on the company's LinkedIn page boasts that the team is "growing rapidly." The division has said that its experimental technology can produce 50% more energy with 90% less materials than traditional wind turbines. The 16 most recent postings on Google's hardware engineering careers page advertise positions at Makani, including electrical engineer of avionics hardware, aerodynamicist, and offshore wind program manager. Other postions hint that the project could be moving closer to releasing a real product. For example, Makani is looking for a sales engineer, to be the "customer-facing expert on Makani's revolutionary new wind power technology as it's presented to customers for the first time." Google acquired Makani in 2013, after investing $15 million in the startup several years before. It joined Google's moonshot lab, Google X, and has remained within X even as Google segmented itself into stand-alone divisions under parent company Alphabet earlier this year . Google has invested in a variety of other alternative energy projects, including solar facilities and wind farms, mainly in an effort to use green energy in its massive data centers. Revolutionizing wind energy In typical GoogleX fashion, Makani's aims are " uncomfortably ambitious ," but its efforts haven't been as broadly publicized as other moonshot projects like self-driving cars or Project Loon's internet bearing balloons. Makani's tackling the idea that it's possible to use the same aerodynamic principles as conventional wind turbines, with lightweight electronics and smart software in place of massive amounts of steel. Makani's energy "kites" don't resemble the type you see on beaches or in fields on windy days: They're plane-like machines tethered to ground stations. Rotors on the kite launch it high into the air, where it then starts to rotate, driving an on-board generator to produce electricity, which moves down its tether to a grid below. Earlier this year, Makani started testing a 600kW energy kite in Alameda, California, and has been testing earlier versions of its machines in Hawaii since 2008. RAW Embed Makani's wind kites can reach higher altitudes than traditional wind turbines, which lets them access stronger and steadier winds to produce more energy. Plus, the require less ground space, which will them a more viable option than conventional wind turbines all around the world. Here are the areas where wind speedswind speeds reach productive levels for traditional 100 meter turbines, versus Makani's kites, which reach 250 meters: RAW Embed "Wind power has been a source of renewable energy for decades, but only 3% of the world's power comes from the wind," Makani writes on its website . "Incremental improvements to existing wind technologies are not enough to make clean energy globally significant." RAW Embed Business Insider reached out to Google about its surplus of open positions at Makani and will update if we hear back. NOW WATCH: Facebook's ridiculously large drones will beam internet from the sky | 3 | 96,982 | finance |
Small numbers of migrants who have spent days stuck at Greece-Macedonia border board buses and trains taking them back to Athens. Deborah Lutterbeck reports. | 8 | 96,983 | video |
PHILADELPHIA (AP) Danilo Gallinari scored 24 points, including the go-ahead slam dunk with under a minute remaining, to lead the Denver Nuggets to a 108-105 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday. Will Barton added 16 points for the Nuggets, who ended a five-game road trip by winning their second straight after snapping an eight-game skid on Thursday. Robert Covington scored 18 points and Isaiah Canaan had 15 for Philadelphia, which dropped to 1-20. Philadelphia rookie Jahil Okafor sat out the second of a two-game suspension imposed by the team on Wednesday after the release of a second video from a nightclub fight in Boston on Nov. 25. The Nuggets trailed for the entire second half before Jameer Nelson tied the game at 102 with 1:26 remaining with a 19-foot stepback jumper. After Canaan missed a drive on the 76ers' ensuing possession, Nelson went baseline and set up Gallinari for an easy dunk to make it 104-102 with 47.9 seconds remaining. | 1 | 96,984 | sports |
Emma Watson Nowling took a quick break from soccer practice Thursday night to greet a man walking by the sidelines. "Little Emma went up and gave the guy a hug," Emma's soccer coach, Mario Scicluna, said. Later that night, that man, Timothy Nelson Obeshaw, shot 7-year-old Emma and her mother, 37-year-old Sharon Elizabeth Watson, in the parking lot of the Taylor Sportsplex before turning his 9mm pistol on himself, according to Taylor police. Authorities described Obeshaw as a family friend. Emma died from her injuries. Watson is in serious condition at a local hospital, police said. Police said family members described the 57-year-old Obeshaw who had lived with Watson and her boyfriend at their home in Belleville before recently moving to a home in Taylor as mentally unstable. A motive, though, remains unclear, according to police. "Police found evidence that Obeshaw believed someone was trying to perform mind control on him," according to a news release from the Taylor Police Department. Police said the girl and her mother were at the Sportsplex for soccer practice. Obeshaw was there, too, and "there was what appeared to be friendly interaction between the three at the start of practice," the release says. Scicluna said Obeshaw had attended Emma's games before. Obeshaw arrived about 15 minutes after practice started at 6:30 p.m., Scicluna said. "As he was walking by the sidelines, (Emma) went up and gave him a big hug and went back to her training," he said. Scicluna didn't notice any signs of trouble. But as the mother and daughter were preparing to leave just before 8 p.m., Obeshaw, who had registered the handgun in his name in Belleville in September, shot them in their vehicle, then killed himself, police said. The gun was recovered, according to police. Scicluna said he learned something was wrong when he saw "the panicked looked on some of the parents running the other way," and the flashing lights of police cars. About 40 children were at practice that night. "A lot of the families are in shock and were traumatized by what happened," he said. Scicluna said he had been coaching Emma, who plays as part of the Waza F.C. soccer club, for about two months. She was always smiling, he said. "She was a fun, excited girl," he said. "As time went on, she developed her soccer skills very rapidly, and was showing a lot of enthusiasm for the game. She had a bright future ahead of her." Scicluna is starting a GoFundMe page to raise money for Emma's family. He said players will honor her with a moment of silence at soccer games this weekend. | 5 | 96,985 | news |
No. 19 Arizona upset No. 13 Gonzaga 68-63 Saturday. The Wildcats outscored the Bulldogs 40-25 in the second half to get the road win. | 1 | 96,986 | sports |
Pilot and passenger were uninjured | 8 | 96,987 | video |
Early next year, when Republican voters begin to select their 2016 presidential nominee, they will not just be choosing one individual from among a large field of candidates. They will also be choosing among competing theories about what the party needs to do to win the White House. One choice pits what Donald Trump represents the appeal of a strong personality against what House Speaker Paul D. Ryan spoke about in the past week: the power of a conservative agenda. The other choice highlights strikingly different models for winning primaries and general elections, embodied in the campaigns of Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. On Thursday, Ryan delivered his first major speech since taking over the top leadership in the House. He used it to sketch out his ambitions for his first year as speaker. His aims include helping to deliver a Republican victory in the presidential race. He pledged to use his House majority over the next year to set forth, as he put it, a conservative policy agenda that would provide "a complete alternative to the left's agenda." [ Ryan offers formula for GOP victories in 2016 ] The program, which he sketched only in the broadest of strokes, includes comprehensive tax reform, stripping away federal regulations, restructuring safety-net programs, repealing the Affordable Care Act and rebuilding U.S. military forces. It is an agenda for smaller central government at home and a more robust presence abroad. "If we want to save the country, then we need a mandate from the people," he said. "And if we want a mandate, then we need to offer ideas. And if we want to offer ideas, then we need to actually have ideas." Ryan conceded that President Obama would probably veto much of the conservative legislation that Congress might pass. But his larger aim, he said, would be to provide a substantive policy foundation that would be embraced by the party's eventual nominee in 2016. Though he decided not to enter the 2016 race as a candidate, Ryan clearly hopes to play a central role in shaping his party's direction. His recommendations, substantively and politically, will resonate among the party elite. Trump's candidacy is the antithesis of Ryan's approach anti-elite in almost all respects. He has put forth some policy proposals, but that's hardly the basis of his appeal. His ideas lack ideological consistency. He does not offer a conservative alternative to the left. Instead, he offers an alternative to what many angry conservatives regard as weak leadership, whether from the president or their own party leaders. Trump has tapped into the frustrations of people at a gut level. Right now, that's been driving the GOP contest far more than policy ideas. As Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said when he quit the Republican race last month: "We spent a lot of time developing detailed policy papers. Given this crazy, unpredictable election season, clearly there wasn't an interest in those policy papers." In Trump, people are responding to a candidate who projects strength and who gives voice, often using the crudest of rhetoric, to grievances about the way the country is changing, symbolized by the issue of immigration. His supporters appear not to be looking for ideological purity, an optimistic vision or a well-packaged policy agenda. Trump sits on one side of a major cleavage within the party, one that is based not on ideology but rather on levels of education. According to a new national CNN/ORC poll, among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents without college degrees, Trump laps the field, with 46 percent support to 12 percent for Cruz, 11 percent for retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and 8 percent for Rubio. Among those with college degrees, Trump is fourth, though tightly bunched with Cruz, Rubio and Carson. [ Trump talks tough, mocks his rivals ] The CNN national poll underscores the grip Trump has on a significant portion of the Republican electorate. At 36 percent, he leads his nearest rival by 20 points. More important may be the current perceptions of his leadership on the issues. More than half the GOP electorate sees him as best able to handle the economy, an issue on which his nearest competitor is 46 points lower. His lead on handling the federal budget is 41 points. On immigration, he has a 34-point lead over his closest competitor. He has a 31-point advantage on dealing with the Islamic State (though only a 13-point advantage on foreign policy generally). Half the GOP electorate sees him as having the best chance of winning the general election in 2016. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Paris, some people thought that support for Trump, who has no experience in national security issues, would begin to sag. It did not. The CNN poll was completed before the shootings in San Bernardino that left 14 dead and 21 wounded. In the aftermath of the carnage there, which is being investigated as possible terrorism, Trump's broadsides could find more support. So that's one competition, ideas and agenda vs. personality and images of strength. In the other, Cruz and Rubio represent conflicting interpretations of the changing face of America and how candidates maneuver through a polarized electorate. Do voters want a unifying figure, or is the coming general election a tribal clash in which pure motivation and mobilization are more important than persuasion and reconciliation? Rubio is a candidate of hope and optimism. He salts his stump speech with talk of American renewal and economic resurgence. The subtext of his optimistic message is that he can best unite the entire Republican Party. He is seeking to bridge the divisions between the GOP establishment and a powerfully disaffected grass roots. He and his advisers accept the demographic changes as inexorable, shifts that require Republicans to expand their support among the growing nonwhite portion of the electorate. He offers himself as the candidate who not only would provide a generational contrast to Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, but also would be seen by voters as a more likable and less polarizing leader than Clinton. [ After California attacks, Cruz highlights opposition to gun control] Cruz's message is more apocalyptic, appealing to what he sees as a disaffected conservative base and seizing on the realities of a polarized nation. From their Houston headquarters, he and his team see a Republican Party in which the balance of power has been shifting from the establishment to a more disaffected core of conservative voters. They believe that the financial bailout votes in 2008 marked a line of demarcation within the party and that a tipping point has been reached that has caused the grass roots to rise up against Washington, Wall Street and those politicians who do their bidding. The campaign seeks to consolidate the right tea party, evangelical and libertarian. Cruz wants not so much to find a way to straddle the party's divisions but to crush the establishment. Looking to the general election, he and his advisers argue that demographic changes have not realigned the electorate decisively in favor of the Democrats. They also believe that after the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, both of whom ran on the theme of bringing the country together and failed to do so, voters are skeptical of candidates who make a similar appeal. They see Clinton and her rival Sen. Bernie Sanders tacking left because, they say, both leading Democratic candidates recognize the need to do the maximum possible to keep the progressive base active and energized. They believe the same is required for Republicans to turn out conservatives who sat out the past two elections. The nominating contest ultimately will resolve these conceptual conflicts and in doing so reveal more than we know now about the Republican Party and its future. The first real clues will begin to arrive in less than 60 days. | 5 | 96,988 | news |
Before Simon Wheatcroft starts running near his home in Doncaster, Great Britain, he finds where the grass begins on his left and takes one step to his right, positioning himself in the center of a ribbon of sidewalk. Like any run, light poles and street signs jut slightly onto the path on occasion. While a general runner easily passes by, Wheatcroft must always remember where these objects are because he is blind. He can't see the obstacles in front of him, so he relies on a mental map he created that blends his knowledge of familiar terrain and the mileage audio alerts through the app, RunKeeper. For example, that sharp dip he knows in the pavement may mean he needs to anticipate an upcoming right turn. When he hears a specific distance on the app, say 1.5 miles, he knows to drift to one side to avoid an obstacle like a fire hydrant. In this manner, Wheatcroft has memorized a regular 3-mile route that, along with a handful of out-and-back offshoots, allows him to run up to 12 miles solo. He hovers around 9-minute per mile pace. Any faster and he says his memory wouldn't be able to keep up. "Running without a guide is freedom," Wheatcroft, 33, told Runner's World . "In other ways, my life is relatively controlled in terms of the areas I go to and having to use mobility aids. Running was something I can do by myself." When he was 13, Wheatcroft was diagnosed with a degenerative eye condition called Retinitis Pigmentosa. He gradually began losing his vision, and four years later, he became legally blind. Initially, he refused a mobility aid, but as his eyesight worsened by the age of 28, he started using a long cane. A couple years later, he got a guide dog named Ascot. Around the same time in 2010, Wheatcroft decided he needed to lose weight. He couldn't afford a gym membership or a treadmill, so he went out to the soccer field behind his house and began running back and forth across the length of the pitch. Eventually, he built up to a mile. "Running on the soccer pitch wasn't too difficult," Wheatcroft said. "The hardest thing about it was getting to it. One day, they planted trees between my house and the pitch. I usually went there without my cane, and I bumped into a tree." Soon the field became boring and had its other challenges like pedestrians with dogs. So he went to an unfinished airstrip nearby where there were no cars. The area allowed him to pick up his pace and learn how to sense the ground underfoot. Once that became easy to navigate, he transitioned to the sidewalk. Instead of a human guide, Wheatcroft spent $6.99 on the mobile app RunKeeper, which provides audio cues for pace and distance run. He realized it could help him better memorize a route because he could pair landmarks with mile markers. "At first, I wasn't sure if it was possible," Wheatcroft said. "The only mistakes I made with poles and lampposts and traffic lights were the first few times I went running because once you hit them once, you definitely remember where they are." Once he learned a route, Wheatcroft could continue to build his endurance. Because his pace is limited, he focused on distance and began training for marathons and ultramarathons. Wheatcroft retraces his steps on his main route for his long runs, going out and back over and over until he's reached his intended goal. His longest solo effort to date is 30 miles. Though he prefers running for the sake of it, Wheatcroft has raced in a handful of marathons and ultramarathons, all with a sighted guide. Last year, he ran the New York City Marathon in 5:13:18, which he completed shortly after running the more than 200-mile distance to the city from RunKeeper's headquarters in Boston . At this point, Wheatcroft's eyesight is nearly gone. All he sees are big washes of color and his peripheral and central vision is severely compromised. Yet he's running farther than he ever has and is planning to attempt a race solo. Next year, he is signed up to run the Four Deserts Series Sahara Race in Namibia. There, he'll use GPS coordinates to navigate each mile across the 250 kilometer distance, and he plans to carry a radio to call for help in case he gets lost. "I'm not really competitive," said Wheatcroft, who now works as a motivational speaker. "I just like to see what's possible." | 7 | 96,989 | health |
The Dodgers start the winter meetings this coming week in Nashville with a gaping hole in their starting rotation, thanks to Zack Greinke signing with Arizona. But the Dodgers are trying to remedy that, with free agent right-hander Hisashi Iwakuma the latest target, per Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports. Iwakuma turns 35 in April, so he presumably wouldn't require the long-term commitment of younger pitchers like Johnny Cueto , or the five-year deal signed by Jeff Samardzija with San Francisco earlier on Saturday. The Giants , even after agreeing to terms with Samardzija, are also interested in Iwakuma, as are the Mariners , per Rosenthal. The Dodgers, as you might imagine, are linked to just about every available starting pitcher on the market, with Jon Heyman of CBS Sports specifically mentioning Iwakuma, Cueto, Mike Leake , Kenta Maeda, and of course "maybe more." Iwakuma was 9-5 with a 3.54 ERA and 3.74 FIP in 20 starts with Seattle in 2015, with 111 strikeouts and just 21 walks in 129⅔ innings, including pitching a no-hitter on Aug. 12 against the Orioles . He missed seven weeks on the disabled list with a right lat strain from the end of April until the first week of July. From Aug. 1 through the end of the season, Iwakuma was 7-3 with a 2.63 ERA in 12 starts, with 74 strikeouts and 13 walks in 82 innings. He also missed the first month of the season in 2014 with a sprained right middle finger. Iwakuma finished third in American League Cy Young Award voting in 2013, and over the last three seasons has averaged 27 starts, 176 innings, 150 strikeouts and a 3.17 ERA, a 117 ERA+. Among the 54 pitchers with at least 500 innings from 2013-2015, Iwakuma ranked 10th in ERA, 21st in FIP (3.45) and 11th in xFIP (3.17). Iwakuma during that span also ranked 10th in K-BB% (17.5 percent), just below ninth-place Greinke (17.9 percent). He has struck out between 21.3 percent and 21.7 percent of his batters faced in each of his three full seasons as a starter. Seattle made Iwakuma a qualifying offer, so signing him would cost the Dodgers their first-round pick, currently with the other signings at No. 23 overall in the 2016 draft. The Mariners would receive a compensatory pick in between the first and second rounds should he sign elsewhere. An ancillary benefit of Iwakuma signing would be adding the "Kuma Bear" hats to the gift shop . | 1 | 96,990 | sports |
The Finnish government is currently drawing up plans to introduce a national basic income. A final proposal won't be presented until November 2016, but if all goes to schedule, Finland will scrap all existing benefits and instead hand out 800 euros per month to everyone. It sounds far-fetched, but it's looking likely that Finland will carry through with the idea. Whereas several Dutch cities will introduce basic income next year and Switzerland is holding a referendum on the subject, there is strongest political and public support for the idea in Finland. A poll commissioned by the government agency planning the proposal, the Finnish Social Insurance Institution or KELA, showed that 69% support (link in Finnish) a basic income pan. Prime Minister Juha Sipilä is in favor of the idea and he's backed by most of the major political parties. "For me, a basic income means simplifying the social security system," he says. But for those outside Finland, the plan raises two obvious questions: Why is this a good idea, and how will it work? It may sound counter-intuitive, but the proposal is meant to tackle unemployment. Finland's unemployment rate rose to 11.8% in May (though it was back down to 8.7% in October) and a basic income would allow people to take on low-paying jobs without personal cost. At the moment, a temporary job results in lower welfare benefits , which can lead to an overall drop in income. Previous experiments have shown that universal basic income can have a positive effect. Everyone in the Canadian town of Dauphin was given a stipend from 1974 to 1979, and though there was a drop in working hours , this was mainly because men spent more time in school and women took longer maternity leaves. Meanwhile, when thousands of unemployed people in Uganda were given unsupervised grants of twice their monthly income, working hours increased by 17% and earnings increased by 38%. One of the major downsides is the cost of handing out money to every single citizen. Liisa Hyssälä, director general of Kela, has said that the plan will save the government millions. But, as Bloomberg calculated , giving 800 euros of basic income to the population of 5.4 million every month would cost 52.2 billion euros a year. The government expects to have 49.1 billion euros revenue in 2016. Another serious consideration is that some people may be worse off under the plan. As the proposal hasn't been published yet, it's not yet known exactly who will lose out. But those who currently receive housing support or disability benefits could conceivably end up with less under national basic income, since the plan calls for scrapping existing benefits . And as national basic income would only give a monthly allowance to adults, a single mother of three could struggle to support herself compared to, for example, a neighbor with the same government support but no children and a part-time job. Finally, the proposal raises the question of whether it's really fair to give a millionaire the same amount of welfare as someone who's truly struggling. Finland's constitution insists that all citizens must be equal, though, of course, equality can be interpreted in many different ways. So far, there's no definitive answer as to whether national basic income will create a more or less equal society | 5 | 96,991 | news |
WACO, Texas (AP) -- No. 12 Baylor's season has gone from sweet to bitter and battered. Down to a fourth quarterback because of yet another injury, the Bears lost their Sugar Bowl chance after falling 23-17 to Texas on Saturday in their regular-season finale. "We just have to try to salvage the year by going to a bowl game and winning the bowl game," Baylor coach Art Briles said. RELATED: TEXAS 23, BAYLOR 17 A picture-perfect day on the banks of the Brazos River, which marked the final home game for 19 seniors and standout junior receiver Corey Coleman, was marred by their third loss in four games and a bench-clearing melee in the first quarter. "The crazy part, this is probably the best Baylor team that's been here, and the record doesn't say it," said Coleman, the FBS leader with 20 TD catches who was recognized with the seniors before the game and confirmed afterward that he plans to forgo his senior season for early entry in the NFL draft. Baylor (9-3, 6-3 Big 12) went into November undefeated after junior quarterback Seth Russell, then the top-rated FBS passer suffered a season-ending neck injury Oct. 24. Freshman Jarrett Stidham won his first start, but broke a bone in his ankle in his third one before Chris Johnson started the last two games -- only to get hurt Saturday. Even after their rain-drenched, double-overtime loss at TCU the night after Thanksgiving, the Bears were in line to be the Big 12's representative in the Sugar Bowl against an SEC team, with the expectation that league champ Oklahoma (11-1) will get into the College Football Playoff. That would now be Oklahoma State (10-2). Tyrone Swoopes, making his first start for Texas since the opener, threw for 151 yards with a touchdown and ran for another score. The Longhorns (5-7, 4-5) held on after building a 20-0 halftime lead, but still have consecutive losing seasons for the first time since 1988-89 in the old Southwest Conference. "We have something to build on that we can take into the offseason," second-year coach Charlie Strong said. "Not pleased with the year we had. You look at it, you go beat Oklahoma, you bounce back and go on the road and go beat Baylor. I don't have an answer for this team. I wish I did. I wish every week could have been like this." The NCAA approved a plan this week to make teams with 5-7 records eligible for at least two bowl bids, and as many as five, based on their Academic Progress Rates. Those selections will be made in order of best available APR, and there were at least seven teams above Texas on that list. Johnny Jefferson ran for 158 yards for Baylor, and had enough yards to convert a fourth-and-4 with 2:31 left before defensive tackle Poona Ford stripped the ball loose and fell on it. Baylor still had a chance after the Longhorns punted, but Jefferson's pass from the Texas 47 on the last play of the game was incomplete. Jefferson, a running back with a stronger arm, attempted the pass instead of Lynx Hawthorne, the fourth quarterback. Hawthorne, a junior receiver who last called signals in high school, ran for a touchdown. But he was only 10 of 22 for 64 yards with two interceptions after Johnson had concussion-like symptoms from a hard hit when he fumbled on a run in the first quarter. "The realization sets in that a lot of the gameplan's essentially out the window," said Briles, who went to mainly wildcat formations after halftime. The Bears were within 20-17 when Hawthorne scored on an 8-yard keeper with 9:40 left. He took off toward the right sideline, planted his right foot near the 3 and dived forward with the ball in his stretched-out left hand to break the plane for the score. After being intercepted by Duke Thomas late in the first quarter, Hawthorne made the tackle along the Texas sideline and was coming up off his knees when he got shoved back to the ground by safety P.J. Locke III. With Texas celebrating the play and Baylor players trying to protect Hawthorne, a melee ensued. The Bears came across the field from their bench, and there were several scuffles even with referees and coaches between them trying to keep the teams separated. Bears receiver Corey Coleman gave Locke a two-handed shove. The only penalty was unsportsmanlike conduct against Kevin Vaccaro, though it appeared the Texas safety tripped over Hawthorne after Locke's shove. Locke also caused the fumble with the hit the knocked Johnson out of the game. Anthony Wheeler's recovery at the Baylor 18 led to Swoopes' 9-yard keeper for a 17-0 lead. ------ AP college football website: collegefootball.ap.org | 1 | 96,992 | sports |
Slipped into the major, bipartisan education bill that passed the House Wednesday night, the Every Student Succeeds Act , is a provision that doesn't have anything to do with students, or with education at all. Related Congress is getting rid of No Child Left Behind. Here's what will replace it. Hidden on page 914, near the end of the bill, is a formal request for a presidential pardon for Jack Johnson, the first black champion of heavyweight boxing, who died in 1946. Johnson was convicted in 1913 under the Mann Act, an anti-prostitution law that was used, essentially, to prosecute him for a consensual interracial relationship. Efforts to repair Johnson's tarnished legacy sneaked into the bill courtesy of an amendment from Sen. John McCain, a boxing fan who has been introducing legislation on the matter since 2004. But a pardon for the boxer has become a bipartisan cause, a way to grapple with the racism of history at a time when Americans are increasingly interested in those questions. Johnson was a superstar in America's most popular sport Johnson was a celebrity in his day like none other an African-American champion who was unapologetic about his greatness, and about his preference for dating white women in the early 1900s, at a time when that was taboo. At the turn of the 20th century, boxing was a tremendously popular sport, and an increasingly regulated, legitimized one, at a time when sports were becoming more important in American life. And like much of American life at the time, it was segregated; black boxers generally did not fight white ones, and vice versa. Johnson broke that color barrier. The son of former slaves, born in Galveston, Texas, he fought the reigning Heavyweight Champion of the World, Tommy Burns, in 1908 and won. Burns was white. And Johnson's triumph kicked off a search for a "Great White Hope," a boxer he would be able to beat. In the end, Jim Jeffries, a champion boxer, came out of retirement to fight Johnson two years later. The fight was deemed the "Battle of the Century" the first of several boxing matches in the 20th century to get that moniker and "it was seen by nearly the whole country as a symbolic race war," Gerald Early, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, wrote . Johnson won. The aftermath was a surge of bloody, racist violence, and a search for another way to bring Johnson down. A racist conviction for a consensual relationship brought Johnson down (MPI via Getty Images) Jack Johnson, around 1910, when he was the world's leading boxer. Johnson was a braggart. This was standard for most boxing champions, but Johnson was the first African-American boxing champion, and so what was acceptable for a white man was unacceptable for him, as Early wrote: Johnson did not seem to care what whites thought of him, and this bothered most whites a great deal. He was not humble or diffident with whites. He gloated about his victories and often taunted his opponents in the ring. (This behavior was not unique to him as a champion boxer. Many boxers, notably John L. Sullivan, acted this way. It was unique for a black public figure.) But the biggest scandal at the time was that Johnson liked to date white women. His first wife was white, and he had dated other white women, including prostitutes. At the time, the government was trying to fight prostitution, and one of the tools it had to do so was the Mann Act, which made it a crime to transport someone across state lines for the purpose of prostitution. An earlier case against Johnson didn't stick he married the woman in question but in 1913 Johnson was charged with a Mann Act violation involving Belle Schneider, a white prostitute with whom he'd had a consensual, off-again, on-again relationship. He was found guilty and sentenced to a year and a day in jail, which he avoided by fleeing the country. In 1920, he returned and spent nearly a year in federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas. He died in a car crash in 1946. A pardon for Johnson has become a bipartisan cause At the time, Johnson's prosecution was seen as a thinly veiled excuse to punish him for his relationships with white women even the prosecutor admitted it, according to filmmaker Ken Burns , who made a documentary about Johnson called Unforgivable Blackness in 2004: After the verdict, the district attorney said that "it was [Johnson's] misfortune to be the foremost example of the evil in permitting the intermarriage of whites and blacks." After the documentary, Burns filed a petition with the Department of Justice for a formal pardon for Johnson. He's not the only supporter: McCain, as well as Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, are both boxing fans who have long been in favor. McCain has been introducing legislation calling for a pardon since 2004. The education legislation is just the latest attempt to achieve that goal. | 1 | 96,993 | sports |
Syracuse vs. Georgetown: #14 Cuse lost on the road to their traditional rivals the Hoyas, 79-72. The Orange went into battle without Jim Boeheim, who began his 9-game suspension, so assistant coach Mike Hopkins took the helm. Michael Gbinije had 23 points but it wouldn't be enough as the Orange would fall. | 1 | 96,994 | sports |
Santa takes a dip at the Adventure Aquarium in Philadelphia | 8 | 96,995 | video |
BERLIN (AP) -- Bayern Munich fell to its first Bundesliga loss of the season on Saturday as Fabian Johnson helped Borussia Moenchengladbach to a 3-1 win against the defending champion. The United States international put the result beyond doubt in the 68th minute, two minutes after Lars Stindl made it 2-0. Bayern, which was unbeaten with 13 wins from its previous 14 games, paid the price for missing several chances in the first half when Oscar Wendt opened the scoring in the 54th. Franck Ribery came on with 15 minutes remaining and marked his return after 269 days out injured by scoring Bayern's consolation in the 81st. "When you play against Bayern Munich, you have to play with conviction and the guys did that," said `Gladbach coach Andre Schubert, who has eight wins and two draws since taking over. Before Schubert, `Gladbach had lost its opening five games. Japan star Shinji Kagawa scored in the third minute of injury time to give Borussia Dortmund a 2-1 win at Wolfsburg and cut the gap on Bayern to five points. Dortmund was leading through Marco Reus' 32nd-minute strike but looked to have dropped two points when Ricardo Rodriguez equalized with a penalty in the first minute of injury time. However, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who also set up Reus, sent Lukasz Piszczek's cross back toward goal for Kagawa to have the last say. "It was incredible how we came back," Dortmund midfielder Sven Bender said. Also, Hertha Berlin defeated 10-man Bayer Leverkusen 2-1, Augsburg won 1-0 at Cologne, Mainz won 3-1 at Hamburger SV, and Ingolstadt drew 1-1 with Hoffenheim, which equalized in the fifth minute of injury time through Mark Uth. Bayern had an unchanged lineup from the weekend before for only the second time in 131 competitive games under Pep Guardiola. `Gladbach started with three at the back, unlike the usual five that Bayern typically faces. The visitors dominated the first half, with Javi Martinez heading over early on before Xabi Alonso, Rafinha, Robert Lewandowski and Thomas Mueller all tried their luck. Kingsley Coman should have scored in the 25th when he hit the post with the goal at his mercy. `Gladbach improved and then stunned the visitors by taking the lead. Johnson crossed from the left, Wendt sent it on with his heel, then got the ball back from Raffael and curled it inside the far post beyond the helpless Manuel Neuer. "After the goal we lost our order a bit. `Gladbach did well," Guardiola said of the first league goal Bayern had conceded after the break this season. The second and third followed shortly afterward. Neuer couldn't prevent Stindl from poking the ball past him from close range on a volley, two minutes before Johnson sealed it after a high ball from Julian Korb. Ribery's answer -- after good work from Mueller and Arturo Vidal -- was too little, too late to prevent Bayern's first defeat. "Normally it would be 2-0 or 3-0 to us," Ribery said of Bayern's early chances. "It's football, it's a pity. We're partly to blame ourselves. But it's football, it goes on." U.S. defender John Anthony Brooks sealed Hertha's win over Leverkusen with a header from a corner in the 60th. Hertha went ahead in the seventh through Vladimir Darida, and the visitors' task was made more difficult 10 minutes later when Sebastian Boenisch was sent off for a challenge on Yanni Regaesel. Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez equalized with Leverkusen's first shot on goal in the 29th. In Hamburg, Jairo Samperio scored a contender for goal of the season in the 16th. The Mainz midfielder was lying on the ground when he volleyed Johan Djourou's clearance over Jaroslav Drobny and inside the far post from a difficult angle. Jairo made it 2-0 with a powerful shot in off the far post in the 51st, and Christian Clemens sealed the win in the 75th. Djourou's consolation came in the last minute. Raul Bobadilla scored Augsburg's winner with a free kick in the 64th, shortly after Cologne forward Anthony Modeste had a penalty saved by Marwin Hitz. Modeste slipped as he was taking it and TV replays appeared to show Hitz using his studs to soften the penalty spot beforehand. | 1 | 96,996 | sports |
Dino Babers will take over as the head coach at Syracuse, the school announced Saturday. The announcement, which has been expected, comes on the day after Babers led Bowling Green to a 34-14 victory against Northern Illinois to claim the Mid-American Conference championship. Babers, 54, was 18-9 in two seasons with the Falcons, including 10-3 this year. Bowling Green played in the MAC title game in both years.e. Babers, who will become Syracuse's first African-American head coach, replaces for Scott Shafer, who was fired Nov. 23. The Orange were 4-8 this season. According to Babers' contract with Bowling Green, he will owe the university a $200,000 buyout for terminating the deal and accepting a job with another school. In four seasons as a head coach, including Eastern Illinois (2012-13) and Bowling Green (14-15), Babers is 37-16. He is known for his offensive acumen he worked for Art Briles and runs an offense based on Baylor's and he has a deft hand as a quarterbacks coach. Bowling Green quarterback Matt Johnson set a MAC single-season record for passing yards (4,721) on Friday night, surpassing former Miami (Ohio) and Pittsburgh Steelers star Ben Roethlisberger. | 1 | 96,997 | sports |
Facebook, Google and Twitter are stepping up efforts to combat online propaganda and recruiting by Islamic militants, but the Internet companies are doing it quietly to avoid the perception that they are helping the authorities police the Web. On Friday, Facebook Inc said it took down a profile that the company believed belonged to San Bernardino shooter Tashfeen Malik, who with her husband is accused of killing 14 people in a mass shooting that the FBI is investigating as an "act of terrorism." Just a day earlier, the French prime minister and European Commission officials met separately with Facebook, Google , Twitter Inc and other companies to demand faster action on what the commission called "online terrorism incitement and hate speech." The Internet companies described their policies as straightforward: they ban certain types of content in accordance with their own terms of service, and require court orders to remove or block anything beyond that. Anyone can report, or flag, content for review and possible removal. But the truth is far more subtle and complicated. According to former employees, Facebook, Google and Twitter all worry that if they are public about their true level of cooperation with Western law enforcement agencies, they will face endless demands for similar action from countries around the world. They also fret about being perceived by consumers as being tools of the government. Worse, if the companies spell out exactly how their screening works, they run the risk that technologically savvy militants will learn more about how to beat their systems. "If they knew what magic sauce went into pushing content into the newsfeed, spammers or whomever would take advantage of that," said a security expert who had worked at both Facebook and Twitter, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue. One of the most significant yet least understood aspects of the propaganda issue is the range of ways in which social media companies deal with government officials. Facebook, Google and Twitter say they do not treat government complaints differently from citizen complaints, unless the government obtains a court order. The trio are among a growing number that publish regular transparency reports summarizing the number of formal requests from officials about content on their sites. But there are workarounds, according to former employees, activists and government officials. A key one is for officials or their allies to complain that a threat, hate speech or celebration of violence violates the company's terms of service, rather than any law. Such content can be taken down within hours or minutes, and without the paper trail that would go with a court order. "It is commonplace for federal authorities to directly contact Twitter and ask for assistance, rather than going through formal channels," said an activist who has helped get numerous accounts disabled. In the San Bernardino case, Facebook said it took down Malik's profile, established under an alias, for violating its community standards, which prohibit praise or promotion of "acts of terror." The spokesman said there was pro-Islamic State content on the page but declined to elaborate. ACTIVISTS MOBILIZE Some well-organized online activists have also had success getting social media sites to remove content. A French-speaking activist using the Twitter alias NageAnon said he helped get rid of thousands of YouTube videos by spreading links of clear cases of policy violations and enlisting other volunteers to report them. "The more it gets reported, the more it will get reviewed quickly and treated as an urgent case," he said in a Twitter message to Reuters. A person familiar with YouTube's operations said that company officials tend to quickly review videos that generate a high number of complaints relative to the number of views. Relying on numbers can lead to other kinds of problems. Facebook suspended or restricted the accounts of many pro-Western Ukrainians after they were accused of hate speech by multiple Russian-speaking users in what appeared to be a coordinated campaign, said former Facebook security staffer Nick Bilogorskiy, a Ukrainian immigrant who helped some of those accounts win appeals. He said the complaints have leveled off. A similar campaign attributed to Vietnamese officials at least temporarily blocked content by government critics, activists said. Facebook declined to discuss these cases. What law enforcement, politicians and some activists would really like is for Internet companies to stop banned content from being shared in the first place. But that would pose a tremendous technological challenge, as well as an enormous policy shift, former executives said. Some child pornography can be blocked because the technology companies have access to a database that identifies previously known images. A similar type of system is in place for copyrighted music. There is no database for videos of violent acts, and the same footage that might violate a social network's terms of service if uploaded by an anonymous militant might pass if it were part of a news broadcast. Nicole Wong, who previously served as the White House's deputy chief technology officer, said tech companies would be reluctant to create a database of jihadists videos, even if it could be kept current enough to be relevant, for fear that repressive governments would demand such set-ups to pre-screen any content they do not like. "Technology companies are rightfully cautious because they are global players, and if they build it for one purpose they don't get to say it can't be used for anything else," said Wong, a former Twitter and Google legal executive. "If you build it, they will come - it will also be used in China to stop dissidents." TRUSTED FLAGGER There have been some formal policy changes. Twitter revised its abuse policy to ban indirect threats of violence, in addition to direct threats, and has dramatically improved its speed for handling abuse requests, a spokesman said. "Across the board we respond to requests more quickly, and it's safe to say government requests are in that bunch," the spokesman said. Facebook said it banned this year any content praising terrorists. Google's YouTube has expanded a little-known "Trusted Flagger" program, allowing groups ranging from a British anti-terror police unit to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a human rights organization, to flag large numbers of videos as problematic and get immediate action. A Google spokeswoman declined to say how many trusted flaggers there were, but said the vast majority were individuals chosen based on their past accuracy in identifying content that violated YouTube's policies. No U.S. government agencies were part of the program, though some non-profit U.S. entities have joined in the past year, she said. "There's no Wizard of Oz syndrome. We send stuff in and we get an answer," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, head of the Wiesenthal Center's Digital Terrorism and Hate project. (Reporting by Joseph Menn; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Tiffany Wu) | 5 | 96,998 | news |
The latest iteration of the Battle of Ohio features two teams in mirror image. The Bengals (9-2) travel to Cleveland to face the Browns (2-9), two squads staring at each other from opposite sides of the AFC North standings. But the Bengals do have something to play for. As of now, they sit in position to enjoy a first-round bye come playoff time, but the Broncos (also 9-2) remain a persistent, ever-present threat to take that No. 2 seed. The Browns, meanwhile, will start Austin Davis in the latest episode of the Johnny Manziel saga that saw the mercurial quarterback benched upon the release of a TMZ video . Maybe Davis can play his way into a high ranking of the Browns' 23 QBs since 1999 . It wouldn't take much. MORE: Week 13 picks, straight up | Picks against the spread | Injury reports' biggest losses Here's what you need to know in order to watch Bengals-Browns on the big screen. What time is the Bengals vs. Browns game? The Bengals-Browns game will kick off at 1:00 p.m. ET. What channel is the Bengals vs. Browns game on? In select markets, Fox will air Bengals vs. Browns. Who is on the Bengals injury report? Vontaze Burfict , linebacker Knee injury Probable Tyler Eifert , tight end Neck injury Doubtful Leon Hall , cornerback Back injury Questionable George Iloka , safety Groin injury Questionable Adam Jones , cornerback Foot injury Questionable Dre Kirkpatrick , cornerback Ankle injury Probable Emmanuel Lamur , linebacker Ankle injury Probable Chris Lewis-Harris , cornerback Ribs injury Doubtful Who is on the Browns injury report? Andrew Hawkins , wide receiver Concussion Out Justin Gilbert , cornerback Concussion Out Taylor Gabriel , wide receiver Concussion Out Joel Bitonio , guard Ankle injury Questionable Joe Haden , cornerback Concussion Out Nate Orchard , linebacker Groin injury Questionable Randy Starks , defensive end Knee injury Questionable Johnny Manziel , quarterback Elbow injury Probable Armonty Bryant , defensive end Elbow injury Probable Who will win the Bengals-Browns game? SN's David Steele likes the Bengals , 33-16. Our Vinnie Iyer agrees, though he thinks it will be a little closer . | 1 | 96,999 | sports |
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