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Breachproof is a unique strategy that plays completely differently from how I advocated playing in The Standard Style. When playing breachproof, you make your entire side of the playing field as resilient as possible, so that you can safely allow a breach -= hence the term “breachproof”. This contrasts with the standard style of play, where you focus on defending each turn in order to prevent a breach and get absorb.
When you’re playing in the standard style, since you’re not planning on allowing a breach anyway, you often make extremely vulnerable non-blocking units like Tarsiers – you’re playing with the mindset that if you allow a breach, you’ll lose. Because of this, breachproof and standard strategies look very different, with breachproof strategies having bulky units, while standard strategies will have lots of vulnerable units that are safely behind a row of blockers.
Although the contrasting unit compositions are the most visible difference between breachproof and standard strategies, that isn’t that important from a strategy perspective. Strategically, the key difference between breachproof strategies and standard strategies is how they handle defense. Standard strategies build enough defense to avoid a breach every turn, while breachproof strategies ignore the incoming damage and add on high health attackers instead. Since attack ramps up throughout the game, this difference becomes more pronounced as the game goes on.
Early on, although both sides may look different – since one is aiming for a breachproof setup while the other is not – they will both be doing the same thing, building up their economy and adding on tech buildings.
And, even once a small amount of damage is being dealt, both sides will still be doing pretty similar things. Defending is easy at this point, so not much of the standard player’s resources will be spent on defense. In fact, often defense is so easy at this point that even the breachproof player will defend for a short while, in order to get some absorb while it’s still possible at a low price.
It’s once the damage ramps up that you’ll see the big difference emerge – the standard player has to commit most or all of their resources to defense, while the breachproof player can still put all of their resources into making attack. The tradeoff from this is that the standard player can use their attack to destroy the breachproof player’s economy.
When all of the breachproof player’s economy is destroyed, the breachproof player will be at their peak attack. At this point, if the standard player can hold on and avoid a breach for a few more turns, they will be able to destroy the attackers and win; otherwise, they’ll lose.
Pros and Cons
So, the important difference between breachproof and standard strategies is how they handle defense. Which approach to defense is better?
The advantage for the standard player is that they get to absorb damage every turn, while the breachproof player doesn’t. This is a big point in favour of the standard play, and means that the standard strategy will be able to outvalue the breachproof strategy early on.
The advantage for the breachproof player is that, instead of having to make defense each turn to soak up incoming damage, the breachproof player allows incoming damage to go after their economy and attackers, relying on their units’ sturdiness. Just how much of an advantage this is depends on just how sturdy your breachproof units are, and how cost efficient the soak that the standard player uses is. Of these two factors, it’s the efficiency of the soak that matters more.
To give an extreme example of how soak changes things: if Wall only cost 1B, you would never want to go breachproof, because defense would be so cheap that you’d much rather just spend a small amount of resources to defend your Trinity Drones rather than let your opponent kill them. On the other hand, if Wall was way more expensive, and cost 7BB, you’d love going breachproof – while your opponent is busy spending 7BB every time they want to defend three damage, you get to make attackers with those resources instead.
The efficiency of soak changes a lot more than the efficiency of breachproof units. For example, in my game against Arkanishu, for most of the game I was killing Trinity Drones with my damage. But, his damage went from killing Walls, to Forcefields, to Rhinos and Drones! If the standard player is using Wall as soak, they’re outvaluing the breachproof player, but once they’re down to making Rhinos and holding Drones, it’s the breachproof player who is getting the better of the exchange.
So, in order for breachproof to make the most of their advantage, they need to be forcing out inefficient defense like Forcefields, Rhinos, or Drones. Because of this, breachproof works best when the opponent is going to have a difficult time defending – maybe there aren’t many defensive supplies in the set, or the opponent has committed to a strategy that is weak on defense (like double Animus). Alternatively, in the game against Arkanishu, there was a breachproof attacker – Iceblade Golem – that is extremely good at putting on pressure, and he wagered that that combined with Cryo Ray would be enough to force out inefficient soak and eventually break me.
Since breachproof does usually get out-valued and lose against an opponent who’s prepared against it properly, it is pretty rare for pure breachproof to be the correct strategy in a set. It’s much more common that breachproof is used later in the game – either as a reaction to the opponent committing to a strategy that breachproof can beat (like Chill), or as a transition later in the game when damage numbers have risen and defending has gotten harder.
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The IBM Broadmoor Campus redevelopment allows space and transportation opportunities that comply with Amazon's request for an HQ2 bid.
The IBM Corp. Broadmoor campus could be a front-runner among properties proposed in Austin’s bid for Amazon’s HQ2, said William Redd, executive vice president and senior managing director of Austin and Metro DC regions for Brandywine Realty Trust.“We’re still waiting to hear back [from Amazon]. There’s not a lot of places that could accommodate it. The Domain area is one of them,” Redd said following a presentation to the Gracywoods Neighborhood Association on Tuesday.The property occupies 1 million square feet on 66 acres along Burnet Road just east of The Domain. Brandywine Realty Trust, the Pennsylvania-based real estate firm that bought the campus , plans to redevelop it into a mixed-use property that would include office and residential space as well as two hotels, said Dave Anderson of the Drenner Group, the firm representing the developer.With Amazon’s bid requests including a desire for close proximity to public transportation as well as up to 8 million square feet of space, the Broadmoor campus development site appears capable of supporting the online commerce company's demands.Developers plan to request a zoning change from Austin City Council to allow for taller structures to be built on the site, which would expand the property's capacity, Anderson said.Under current land development code, Anderson said the property could still fit up to 8 million square feet.“Brandywine or anybody else could redevelop this site, under the existing North Burnet Gateway Plan to be 8 million square feet, so its not even being maximized from a pure numbers perspective,” Anderson said.Developers are also working with Capital Metro to incorporate an additional rail station on the property beyond the Kramer lane station as well as bus stops within the campus. In collaboration with the Austin Urban Trails Project, which is planning a trail connecting Braker Lane to the Kramer Rail Station , developers hope to add connections along the trail to the new rail station and the rest of the campus. | {
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Tech giant IBM and pharmceutical powerhouse, Roche have announced a parntership to advance something truly remarkable: Nanopore DNA sequencing. It’s no exaggeration to say that this technology could radically influence security, criminal processing, healthcare, even dating.
DNA decoding currently involves expensive, slow, painstaking use of breaking apart and labeling amino acids with marker chemcials, then applying complex sofware to solve the code. Nanopore DNA coding is markedly different: A nanopore is essentially a tiny hole that’s about 1nm across. If you plop a nanopore in a conducting liquid, and apply a tiny electrical charge across the liquid, then an incredibly small electrical current can form in the nanopore as ions flow through it from one electrode to another. This current is very susceptible to the nanopore’s size. Arrange it so that a strand of DNA is pulled through the nanopore, the pore current changes as the different amino acids slide by. Record this current’s changes, and you can work out the sequence of G, T, A, C amino acids in order. In other words, the nanopore very simpy lets you decode the DNA sequence in a similar way to how a tape recorder plays back music from an audio tape.
There’s much less fussing around with chemicals than older DNA methods, the equipment can be simpler, easier to run, faster, and thus cheaper. IBM and Roche will be developing IBM’s silicon chip-based nanopore tech, to produce a system which “offers true single molecule sequencing” according to the press release. The goal is to reduce the cost of DNA sequencing a whole human genome to between $100 and $1,000.
What’s the effect of all this on our lives? To start with it would change criminal forensics, and make it an even more exact science. It could revolutionize healthcare, allowing “personalized” treatments which is important as doctors are increasingly of the opinion that each individual can react in a unique way to diseases and medicines. It would facilitate the gene therapy cures for some of our worse genetic disorders. | {
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New Orleans magistrates who fund their own courts using a cut of the fines and bail they order defendants to pay have a financial conflict of interest and violate defendants' due process rights, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in not one, but two federal court cases. These decisions follow a pair of federal rulings from a year ago in which two judges for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana ordered New Orleans magistrates to stop jailing defendants who couldn't afford to pay fees or up-front bail costs.
Orleans Parish Magistrate Henry Cantrell was accused of typically setting a minimum bail of $2,500 for defendants and threatening defense attorneys who sought bail reductions. One defendant sat in jail for two weeks trying to collect the money. A second defendant was unable to pay bail and stayed in jail for more than a month before being freed. It just so happened that Cantrell's court got a chunk of any fines and bail money it collected. The court used that money to fund its operations.
Last year, Cantrell told the federal courts he had changed these practices and was no longer simply demanding large bail amounts that defendants couldn't pay. But he also appealed last year's rulings, asking the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to rule that setting the bail amounts and also funding the court with bail proceeds did not violate the due process rights of defendants.
On Thursday, a three-judge panel on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals flatly rejected Cantrell's request. In a 14-page ruling, the judges explained that if a magistrate needs bail money to fund court systems, he is incentivized to extract bail money from defendants. While Cantrell didn't pocket the money himself, these bail bonds paid for up to a quarter of some courts' budgets. Judge Gregg Costa wrote Thursday's decision affirming the lower court's ruling on bail: "Judge Cantrell has a direct and personal interest in the fiscal health of the public institution that benefits from the fees his court generates and that he also helps allocate."
This ruling focused specifically on the magistrates' demands of cash bail and their financial stake in making people pay. Last Friday, a separate 5th Circuit panel ruled that these same magistrates also have a conflict of interest when determining whether a defendant can afford to pay the fines and fees. That decision noted that when the collection of fines and fees goes down, it directly impacts the courts' operations, causing cuts in services and salaries. The magistrates then respond by trying to increase the collection of fines and fees to keep the courts operating.
Essentially, New Orleans funding its courts on the backs of the defendants that appear before that court is a huge problem. If the courts don't get money from the defendants, it won't be able to function. Costa bluntly notes toward the end of his ruling that the obvious solution to the conflict of interest is to not send these fees directly to the Judicial Expense Fund. Louisiana state law does not require the courts to be funded in this fashion. He concludes:
"[I]t may well turn out that the only way to eliminate the unconstitutional temptation is to sever the direct link between the money the criminal court generates and the Judicial Expense Fund that supports its operations."
Read yesterday's ruling here and last week's ruling here. Read more here about the financial struggles facing the New Orleans courts due to their dependence on fines and fees to pay for operations. | {
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A court in Khobar Governorate in eastern Saudi Arabia will hear the case against two people who allegedly helped a Saudi woman convert to Christianity. The defendants are a Saudi citizen and a Lebanese national.
Proselytizing by non-Muslims is illegal in Saudi Arabia, but the case is the first of its kind to be considered by a Saudi court.
A judicial source told Al-Riyadh newspaper Thursday that the Saudi general prosecutor referred the case to the court after the woman’s father filed a lawsuit against the two, saying they converted his daughter, 28, and helped her escape to Lebanon, where she currently lives.
The woman formerly worked at a governorate-affiliated company, where the Saudi citizen charged with helping her convert was also working. She traveled from there to Lebanon via Bahrain.
The source suggested that the woman may repent after returning home, as Muslim scholars can talk to her and try to convince her return to Islam.
Adding that the case may be part of a plan targeting young Saudis, the source called on the authorities to consolidate Islamic values among the country’s youths.
Ninety-seven percent of the Saudi population is Muslim, mostly Sunni, and although there are over 1 million Christians, mostly foreign workers, in the kingdom, no faith apart from Islam is allowed to be practiced.
Women in Saudi Arabia are required to have a male "guardian" whose approval they need to travel. | {
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Let me start by saying that the products featured in this post were provided to me free of charge courtesy of Kitty Kush Catnip/Trust Fund Pets, LLC. . This post may have affiliate links but this in no way will influence the review to follow and all opinions are my own.
Kitty Kush Catnip Review and Giveaway
There is little to no doubt that our Murfee likes catnip and I will admit that we indulge him. I have attempted to grow my own for him, but each time something unexpected happens to the crop. The first time we had a heat wave with wind and before I knew it the plastic pot disappeared. The second time we almost had a full crop and then magically it was gone. I am not sure if a neighborhood cat stole it, ate it or the magical catnip trolls took it. This last time life got in the way and I just plain forgot to give it the needed water and love it needed.
We had read that catnip does not affect cats under 9 months old, or until they reach sexual maturity, so we waited until he was about a year old. Ever since the introduction was made, Murfee and catnip are two peas in a pod. I recently came across a new product called “Kitty Kush Catnip ” that resembles a salt grinder but grinds cat nip instead!
The basic idea behind this product is that it comes prepacked with cat nip pellets that are infused with essential oils and compacted together. When you want to give your kitty some catnip all you do is turn the built in grinder much like you would turn a salt grinder. A little goes a long way due to the concentrated nature of this product – I literally did less then one full turn for Murfee and that was enough.
In case you are unfamiliar with catnip it is a plant that is from the mint family that when ingested by cats (it does not affect humans and dogs) gives them an almost intoxicated effect. This “intoxication” can include things that range from playful and energetic playtime to the opposite effect of sleep and lethargy. Generally speaking, catnip lasts from anywhere to 5 minutes to 15 minutes.
Kitty Kush Catnip comes in a UV protected package, what this means is that it will block sunlight (which can destroy the pellets potency). Also added is a moisture absorber that helps to regulate the inside of the can. What this really all means is that you can store this package just about anywhere; well anywhere safe from your feline companions. We tried to keep this on the counter, but as usual Murfee was a step ahead of us and spent an evening trying to bust in the package. In the morning the package was unaffected by his efforts and subsequently was been moved in a cabinet.
I do not know what the catnip does to my boys brain or body but it definitely affects him. For the happiness he exudes makes my attempts worth it. Since I am always going to give him catnip I am going to provide the best, freshest and most concentrated products I can find. I can tell you that I am never going back to the dried catnip that has a tendency to spread in places you do not want it – Kitty Kush Catnip is our new favorite cat item!!!
To purchase visit Kitty Kush Catnip or on Amazon.com I encourage you to visit Kitty Kush Catnip on Facebook and Twitter
GIVEAWAY: Kitty Kush Catnip is offering one of their Kitty Kush Cat Nip Grinders to 3 readers! (3) lucky winner’s will be selected at random to each win 1 Kitty Kush Catnip Grinder. I will be randomly choosing 3 people on September 14 (9/14/2015) to receive this prize! Open to residents in the US and Canada. To enter complete the entries below! Winner will be notified by me by email and prize will be fulfilled by Kitty Kush Catnip/TrustFund Pets, Inc.! Remember you have 48 hours to claim prize, or I will choose another winner. GOOD LUCK!!!
*
*
Win a Kitty Kush Catnip Grinder
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Mozilla plans to launch a change to the display of tab titles in the Firefox 53 web browser that gives title more room than it is currently the case.
I like Firefox's tab behavior better than that of Chrome. The core reasons are that Firefox won't reduce tabs to an unidentifiable mess when you reach a certain threshold, and that Firefox allows me to customize the display of tabs.
I have set a custom minimum width value for open tabs in the browser, and changed the general layout as well for instance in Firefox.
Firefox cuts off page titles if the tab width is not wide enough to display the full title text. The web browser does not just cut it off though, as it adds three dots to the end of the visible title to indicate that the title is not displayed in full.
The change in Firefox 53 sees the three dots removed from Firefox in favor of displaying a couple more characters of the page's title.
Check out the following two screenshots to see the difference. Please note that the width of the tabs in both screenshots is not identical.
The first screenshot highlights how too long page titles are displayed currently in tabs in the Firefox web browser. As you can see when you look at the first tab, three dots are displayed in this case that take up space.
The three dots are removed in Firefox 53 so that additional characters are displayed if a page title is too long to be displayed directly.
Fun fact: The bug suggesting the change was filed back in 2011:
Ala Chrome, using fadeout for text will probably give 1-2 more characters visible to the user, and just looks smoother.
It took this long because platform changes needed to be implemented first before it could be realized.
Firefox display tab titles like Google Chrome does when it reaches version 53.
Closing Words
Since most browsers display page titles no longer in title bars, tabs are the only visible browser UI source when it comes to the vital information. More information in tabs is always welcome, even if it means only one or two additional characters per tab.
The change benefits users the most who work with a medium or high number of open tabs at any point in time. (via Sören Hentzschel)
Now You: What's your take on the change?
Summary Article Name Firefox 53: Tab title improvement Description Mozilla plans to launch a change to the display of tab titles in the Firefox 53 web browser that gives title more room than it is currently the case. Author Martin Brinkmann Publisher Ghacks Technology News Logo
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Controversial billionaire George Soros is up in arms about Donald Trump again, claiming the US leader wants to “destroy the world” and needs to be kicked out of office.
Donald Trump is the “ultimate narcissist” who “is willing to destroy the world”, Soros told the Washington Post on Saturday. He added that, if the Democratic Party wins the general election this November in a “landslide” and proceeds with an impeachment, he would support removing the president from office.
READ MORE: US wouldn’t admit backing ‘euro-meddler’ Soros, yet Moscow’s asked to comment on troll farms – Putin
The two share a history of bad blood dating back to the 2016 election. As one of the top backers of Trump’s then-main rival, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Soros gave more than $10.5 million to her campaign, according to the DC-based Center for Responsive Politics. And Trump’s stunning victory later had reportedly caused Soros nearly $1 billion in losses.
Read more
Amassing his tremendous wealth through investments, Soros gained a reputation as one of the most profitable speculators in the stock market. He made around £1 billion in 1992, effectively crashing the British pound. The event became known as Black Wednesday, and remains one of the worst shocks experienced by the British economy.
After the fall of the Iron Curtain, liberal-minded Soros attracted more notoriety while funding a network of NGOs in Eastern European countries. Over the years, his views clashed with the Hungary’s right-wing government, led by the Fidesz party.
The nation’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, accused Soros of slandering Hungary and meddling in the country’s internal affairs, particularly trying to force Budapest to accept migrants and refugees. In 2017, Orban launched a campaign against the billionaire, fitted with anti-Soros billboards across the country’s capital, and tightened the laws on NGOs, prompting Soros’ Open Society Foundation to cease operations in Hungary. Soros’ spokesman denounced the campaign, accusing the Hungarian authorities of spreading anti-Semitism.
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DreamHack is a gaming festival that was first held in Mumbai back in 2018. We went to the event and loved it loads, it was India’s first international gaming festival with so much to do & explore every single day it was just phenomenal. It’s been held again in Delhi in 2019, where it was smaller than last year but still pretty awesome with fewer issues too.
We’ve asked a similar question to Marcus (Founder of DreamHack) at the first edition of the festival, that will we expect another DreamHack next year in India? All we got was an enthusiastic “let’s see”, making it clear that it does depend on how this year’s festival goes, the nation’s response to it.
DreamHack confirmed to be held annually in India
At the second edition of DreamHack, I interviewed Akshat Rathee, the Founder & MD of NODWIN Gaming (they’ve partnered with DreamHack to make the event happen in India). The interview’s here, and he gave me a ton of insight into the industry and what’s next for NODWIN.
During the interview, I asked NODWIN’s Founder & MD, Akshat Rathee, that will DreamHack happen annually in India? And he said yes!
Satyam: Dreamhack’s second edition looks awesome so far. It’s happening in Delhi this time around, so is Dreamhack now happening annually in India? Will it be held in a different city next time?
Akshat: The answer to the first question is – Yes! DreamHack is going to happen annually, every year in India. If it does really well this year, maybe we’ll do two of them, soon. But which city, that’s not decided yet.
This is great for the Indian esports industry – we’ve come across a lot of roadblocks (players hacking in international LANs, organizations cheating their athletes, to name a few) but thankfully everything’s moved forward well and we have multiple international companies inside our nations esports industry.
AFKGaming reported back in 2017 that Esports in India has a steady growth with a total prize pool of 2 Crore INR being awarded to players in various esports tournaments. Then in 2018, we observed multiple esports tournaments and a gaming festival that combined prize pool that far exceeded those statistics.
DreamHack Mumbai 2018 had a prize pool of 140,000 USD (1 Crore INR) which is an enormous amount of money to be awarded in esports. In that year, we saw a few other esports tournaments happen with a prize pool that huge – ESL One Mumbai 2019 with a prize pool of 300,000 USD (2.1 Crore INR), COBX Masters 2019 with a prize pool of 200,000 USD (1.4 Crore INR) being two instances.
As I expected, this year has been great for the Indian esports industry. DreamHack now confirmed to being held annually is amazing news for everyone – whether you’re a mobile esports player or into PC Gaming esports.
The fact that there are multiple international gaming organizations doing big things in our nation speaks volumes about the industry’s bright future.
Akshat Rathee went on to announce DreamHack Hyderabad 2020 on stage, a day after I interviewed him. The third edition of DreamHack is happening in South India now, and there’s something very exciting happening for CSGO Esports at this event – there will be qualifiers for everyone, every team in India to compete and secure a spot as a team battling out against signature teams at the next year’s CS:GO Invitational.
The Indian gaming community will look forward to Dreamhack, one of the biggest gaming festivals in the world, happening every year in India. | {
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Transversales: Ces équipes qui inspirent Thiago Motta pour sa carrière de coach | {
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Regulators from four Oregon communities are asking the state attorney general to look into whether surcharges charged by Comcast for such items as regional sports networks and broadcast retransmission licensing violate state consumer protection laws.
For both the leading cable operators, Comcast and Charter Communications, it’s only the latest flak for these surcharges, which keep rising even for customers who have rates for video services locked in for several years.
"That's a little bait-and-switchy," said Fred Christ, administrator of the Metropolitan Area Communications Commission, which regulates cable TV service in much of Washington County, to the Portland Oregonian.
RELATED: Comcast being investigated in New Jersey for HD surcharges
According to the paper, regulators in Multnomah and Washington counties, along with the cities of Milwaukie and Eugene, have written the Oregon Department of Justice, requesting an investigation of the surcharges.
"We would like to discuss whether you or your staff might see any paths forward under the Oregon Unlawful Trade Practices Act or other regulations," the regulators wrote.
"The cost of retransmission imposed by broadcasters continues to increase significantly as do the costs charged by regional sports programmers, and while these fees are increasing they only defray a portion of what we are being charged to be able to carry these channels,” Comcast responded in a statement.
RELATED: Comcast unable to get $100M Washington suit thrown out
Comcast is currently fending off a wave of investigations and class-action suits tied to such billing practices. The state of New Jersey, for example, kicked off an investigation 11 months ago over a $9.95 HD charge Comcast tacked onto skinny bundle services in several local markets.
RELATED: Comcast faces class-action suit over broadcast and RSN add-on fees
And in October, plaintiffs from seven states sued Comcast for RSN and broadcast surcharge fees, alleging consumer fraud, unfair competition, unjust enrichment and breach of contract.
"Comcast not only charged the fee to new customers, but also added the charge to the bills of existing customers in violation of their contracts which had promised a flat monthly rate for the term of the contract," lead plaintiff Dan Adkins of California said in the 79-page complaint. | {
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Abstract
SCOPE: Aberrant vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) proliferation is involved in atherosclerotic plaque formation and restenosis. Mediterranean spices have been reported to confer cardioprotection, but their direct influence on VSMCs has largely not been investigated. This study aims at examining rosmarinic acid (RA) and 11 related constituents for inhibition of VSMC proliferation in vitro, and at characterizing the most promising compound for their mode of action and influence on neointima formation in vivo.
METHODS AND RESULTS: RA, rosmarinic acid methyl ester (RAME), and caffeic acid methyl ester inhibit VSMC proliferation in a resazurin conversion assay with IC50 s of 5.79, 3.12, and 6.78 µm, respectively. RAME significantly reduced neointima formation in vivo in a mouse femoral artery cuff model. Accordingly, RAME leads to an accumulation of VSMCs in the G0 /G1 cell-cycle phase, as indicated by blunted retinoblastoma protein phosphorylation upon mitogen stimulation and inhibition of cyclin-dependent kinase 2 in vitro.
CONCLUSION: RAME represses PDGF-induced VSMC proliferation in vitro and reduces neointima formation in vivo. These results recommend RAME as an interesting compound with VSMC-inhibiting potential. Future metabolism and pharmacokinetics studies might help to further evaluate the potential relevance of RAME and other spice-derived polyphenolics for vasoprotection.
Full text access
Liu R, Heiss EH, Waltenberger B, Blažević T, Schachner D, Jiang B, Krystof V, Liu W, Schwaiger S, Peña-Rodríguez LM, Breuss JM, Stuppner H, Dirsch VM, Atanasov AG. Mol Nutr Food Res. 2018 Feb 5:e1700860. doi: 10.1002/mnfr.201700860. PubMed PMID: 29405576.
Keywords: Mediterranean spices; neointima formation; rosmarinic acid; rosmarinic acid methyl ester; Mediterranean spices bioactivities; vascular smooth muscle cells, cell proliferation; cyclin-dependent kinase 2; rosmarinic acid methyl ester as inhibitor of vascular smooth muscle cell proliferation.
Tropical rainforest, Queensland, Australia. Photo by Dr. Rohan Davis.
Analytical equipment. Photo by Atanas G. Atanasov.
Hep-2 signal activated cells. Image by Dr. Vassilis Doucas.
Flower blossoms at gardens by the bay Singapore-photo by Dr. Hemanth Kumar Boyina.
Saffron plants, Zapponeta (Foggia), South of Italy. Photo by Dr. Grazia D'Onofrio.
Blood cells colored with fluorescence dye. Photo by Dr. Davide Barreca.
Substance library. Photo by Dr. Nikolay Tzvetkov.
Lichens of the Eastern Morocco, Oujda, Morocco. Photo by Dr. Khalid El Bairi ©.
The Botanical Garden of Department of Pharmacognosy, University of Vienna, Austria. Photo by Atanas G. Atanasov.
Lagoon of the seven cities, a twin lake in the crater of a dormant volcano in the western part of the São Miguel island (Azores, Portugal). Photo by Dr. Ana Sanches Silva.
Central Australian desert scene. Photo by Dr. Rohan Davis.
HEK293T cells. Photo by Atanas G. Atanasov.
Tropical rainforest, Queensland, Australia. Photo by Dr. Rohan Davis.
Australian ocean scene. Photo by Dr. Rohan Davis.
Laboratory equipment. Photo by Atanas G. Atanasov.
Rhododendron arboreum flower. Photo by Devesh Tewari.
The Valley of Flowers, Himalaya, India. Photo by Dr. Rajeshwari Singh.
Bryce Canyon, Utah, USA. Photo by Dr. Anupam Bishayee.
Euphorbia prolifera Buch. (Ham) Ex. Photo by Devesh Tewari.
Foothills of Himalaya, India. Photo by Devesh Tewari.
The Valley of Flowers, Himalaya, India. Photo by Dr. Rajeshwari Singh.
Eco-School Festival, Leiria-Portugal, Spring 2018
Polygonum maritimum (L.) (Polygonaceae)- Ourdania beach (Ain Temouchent- west Algeria)- taken by PhD. EL HACI Imad Abdelhamid
Flower blossoms at gardens by the bay Singapore-photo by Dr. Hemanth Kumar Boyina.
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The International Natural Product Sciences Taskforce (INPST) maintains up-to-date lists with conferences, grants and funding opportunities, jobs and open positions, and journal special issues with relevance for the area of phytochemistry and food chemistry, pharmacology, pharmacognosy research, and natural product science.
Apply for the INPST 2018 Science Communication Award (Gold: 2000 USD / Silver: 1000 USD / Bronze: 500 USD) | {
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Officials say they have received no harassment complaints in centres, while refugees allege abuse in new HRW report.
Pregnant women and new mothers are among those fleeing war and economic devastation only to arrive in “appalling” detention-like conditions in Greek reception centres, according to a new Human Rights Watch (HRW) report.
Published on Friday, the report accuses Greek authorities of subjecting thousands of newly arrived refugees and migrants, who entered the country by via land borders, to “living conditions [that] do not meet international standards”.
The report highlights accusations of verbal and physical abuse at the hands of Greek police in three government-operated centres in northern Greece.
Among the thousands of refugees and migrants enduring decrepit living conditions in the reception centres are pregnant women, new mothers and survivors of sexual assault, the report alleged. Reported problems in the facilities were compounded by a lack of translators, it added.
Based on interviews with 49 asylum seekers and migrants, HRW’s new report accused authorities of warehousing new arrivals in malodorous, dark cells.
“People told us they were being treated so poorly in these facilities that they felt less than human,” said Hillary Margolis, women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.
“Greece has a responsibility to uphold basic standards of care for everyone in its custody, regardless of their immigration status.”
Identified in the report as Leila, a pregnant 24-year-old Syrian said: “I desperately need to go to the doctor to see how my baby is, but the doctor here said, ‘When you move to another camp, you’ll see a doctor there.'”
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Several interviewees told the rights group that they were subjected to or witnessed verbal harassment, while two alleged that police officers had beaten asylum seekers.
In response, Hellenic Police said they have received no complaints of violence, adding that they have “zero tolerance for human rights abuses”.
Stranded
The accusations come at a time when other European countries have voiced their desire to return more asylum seekers to Greece in accordance with the so-called “Dublin rules”.
Tens of thousands of refugees and migrants are bottlenecked in Greece, unable to leave owing to sealed borders across the so-called “Western Balkan route”. Those who do leave are only able to do so with the assistance of smugglers.
Women and children sit at the Moria camp for refugees and migrants on the island of Lesbos [File: Elias Marcou/Reuters]
As of May, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) estimated that 60,000 refugees and migrants were in the country, including at least 14,000 who were stuck on Greek islands.
More than a million people arrived in the country in 2016, according to the UNHCR, while upwards of 15,000 have arrived by sea so far in 2018.
This year, a growing number of refugees and migrants have reached the country by crossing the land border with Turkey in the north. Last week, Greek media reported that four people went missing after their boat capsized on the Evros River, situated on the Greece-Turkey border.
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Earlier this year, the Greek police said that 1,658 refugees and migrants were detained in March after crossing into Greece through the Evros River, which is situated on the Turkish border.
That number was more than five times higher than the same period in 2017, which saw only 262 people detained on the country’s frontier with Turkey.
Greek authorities have been accused of push backs on the border with Turkey. | {
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Future Content Blog
Hi Everyone,
For this week’s blog we thought we’d take a look at the post-release content plans for Total War: WARHAMMER, in particular what sort of content you might expect from Free content updates and DLC before Part II of the trilogy eventually arrives.
Of course, we mentioned when we originally announced the game that Total War: WARHAMMER would be part of a trilogy and that we’d be supporting it post-release with a range of content, but now that the New Content Team is getting stuck into the post-release schedule we can tell you a little bit more about our plans.
Free-LC
Over the last few years we’ve been releasing a load of free content alongside updates and paid-for DLCs; from new playable factions and units, free additional formats like Linux and Mac and even an entire Campaign Pack expansion.
For Total War: Warhammer, you can also expect a selection of content covering more of the iconic good stuff you’ll see in the main game; from new units offering new tactical potential in battle, to new magic lores to augment certain races’ spell-casting arsenal. Perhaps most importantly for long-term replayability, you can also expect to see the occasional new Legendary Lord who will shake up a race’s strategic potential in interesting new ways. Last but not least, towards the end of the year we will add a new playable race to the game, including new Legendary Lords, magic items, quest chains, and units. The image below gives you a rough idea of our plan on this, subject to change. The best way to keep up-to-date with new content as it drops is to follow us on our official Social Media channels, where we will always be announcing the latest news as it happens.
DLC
The World of Warhammer Fantasy Battles is vast, even covering it in three games would leave certain races and characters out of the mix. With DLC we’re able to expand the experience post-release and, much as with our previous games, there will be a range of sizes and types of DLC pack on offer. Subject to change, here’s the kind of packs you can expect to see:
Lord Packs
Themed on a specific rivalry or conflict from the Warhammer Lore, Lord Packs contain brand new Legendary Lords and supporting units and characters for existing playable races. They typically include:
• 2 new playable Legendary Lords with their own narrative quest chains, campaign bonuses and quest items.
• 2 new Lords to serve as generals.
• A new unique Unit.
• New elite Units of Renown*.
Units of Renown’ are elite versions of otherwise already existing units. They might have upgraded stats, different arms or armour, or an unusual ability or two. Typically they’ll reflect the theme of the Pack, probably having been instrumental in the conflict. Given their power and rarity, you might only be able to field one unit of them at a time, or they may be subject to other restrictions.
Race Packs
Race Packs introduce a new playable Race to the game, either as a first appearance, or adding a full Unit roster, Heroes, Lords and playable Legendary Lords to non-playable existing races in the core game. They might typically include:
• A new playable Race added to the Grand Campaign and Multiplayer game.
• New Legendary Lords with their own narrative quest chains, campaign bonuses and quest items.
• New Lords to serve as generals.
• New Race-specific Heroes (where applicable).
• New magic items and mounts.
• Race-specific unique Units.
• Race-specific building, technology and skill trees.
Campaign Packs
A supercharged version of a Race Pack, Campaign Packs not only contain a brand new Race for use in the Grand Campaign and Multiplayer, but also add a new Challenge Campaign to the game. Themed on an epic event from the Warhammer Lore, these self-contained Campaigns will present a distinct and challenging scenario. Contents might typically include:
• A new Challenge Campaign featuring the Pack’s new Race; a self-contained mini-campaign, with a set of escalating victory conditions to suit both new and very experienced veteran players alike.
• Adds a new playable Race to the Grand Campaign and Multiplayer game.
• New Legendary Lords with their own narrative quest chains, campaign bonuses and quest items.
• New Race-specific Heroes.
• New Lords to serve as generals.
• New magic items and mounts.
• New Race-specific, unique Units.
• New Race-specific building, technology and skill trees.
These packs are subject to change and when we announce each pack we will detail the content so you’re able to see exactly what each contains. We’ve got a pretty good idea of what we’re aiming to do with new characters and races, but do you have a favourite? What would you like to see next? | {
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Jaylen Hands is ready to show people who Jaylen Hands really is. His journey to the NBA has, in his own words, “been a lot of ups and downs” but the 6’3 point guard is poised and says he’s ready for a new opportunity, this time as a point guard for the Long Island Nets.
Hands was recently signed to a G League contract under the league’s relatively new Draft Rights provision which allows teams to assign a second draft pick directly to their G League affiliates while retaining their rights. The UCLA guard was drafted 56th by the Nets who used the Clippers second round pick to acquire him.
It’s a little bit of a comedown for Hands who was ranked 20th in the high school class of 2017, ranked higher than Trae Young and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. His high school mixtapes and highlight reels pulled in a million views and he was nicknamed “Baby Westbook” for his combination of skills and athleticism. Among his fans at Foothills Christian were Joe Tsai’s kids. Tsai, who hadn’t bought into the Nets at that point, even gave him a shoutout when UCLA played in China as a freshman, saying he had watched him in high school.
Hands had hoped for a one-and-done career, but stuck around for two years. He led the Pac-12 in assists last season, but was seen as a bit raw, too turnover-prone. So he lasted into the second round. Now, Hands is on a different path to the bright lights of the “L.” He realizes everyone’s journey is different and that he’s working to become a better, more polished player.
“It was a fun way for me to be honest with you,” Hands told NetsDaily. “High school was great but I realized once I got to college [UCLA] that I did not know a lot about the game of basketball. I was more or so just an athlete.
“So my journey [is] from going from someone running around making highlights to becoming a true player, a true point guard,” said the 20-year-old. “I think people like Trae [Young] and Shai [Gilgeous-Alexander], everyone’s journey is different. So for me, it’s just keeping my head down, keep working, and like I said, I’m very excited to be with the Nets. It’s really a great organization. So for me, my journey has been a lot of ups and downs but more so becoming a better player. That’s my biggest thing.”
Following his draft selection, Hands did not put too much thought into where he would be playing. Whether Brooklyn or in Long Island, he was excited just to be drafted. According to Hands, he didn’t know the intricacies of NBA contracts — and the possibility that he’d be headed to Long Island for his rookie season. Once things started to unfold after Summer League, he realized that he would be playing for Long Island, not Brooklyn.
“I know, for me, I got drafted and I was very excited. I went to Summer League and I was actually in Brooklyn for a very long time,” Hands explained. “I was just really excited being drafted by a great organization that I didn’t really put too much time into where I would play but when stuff started to unfold, I kind of realized that I would be down here. I am just excited to be here and get better. The coaches are really good and so is the organization so I am just excited.”
Whether he’s with the Brooklyn Nets or the Long Island Nets, Hands says he’s already sensed that the organization is “one big family.”
That was very much evident, he said, when he worked out with Kyrie Irving and Spencer Dinwiddie. He learned a lot about the game and particularly the point guard position. He spent a lot of the summer with them in L.A, working out, scrimmaging against the best. He also got to know them pretty well.
“I was with them all summer,” Hands told NetsDaily. “I got to Long Island literally two weeks ago and I was living in Brooklyn, working out with them; over the summer in LA. So I got to know them pretty well. They are really good.”
“I asked a lot of questions,” Hands said. “Just an observation, you don’t see how fast Kyrie really is until you’re there in person. You don’t realize how strong he is in the legs, how much intricate, how educated he is with finishing, how much comes from his legs and just positioning and how on point he is.”
“Spencer, how talented he is,” Hands added. “You can see how strong people really are in person. Their work ethic and it’s really great to just be there and experience it.”
Now, he hopes to take what the learned from the masters and utilize it in his own game, starting this week in the Nets camp at the Yes, We Can Community Center in North Hempstead, home of Long Island’s practice facility.
“This is a new experience for me,” Hands explained. “I never done it before, playing in the G League, but I actually like it a lot. The coaches really care. They are right about what they preach that Brooklyn and Long Island are one big family. The same things we did in Brooklyn are the same things we do here so I really like it.”
Shaun Fein, the Long Island Nets new head coach, sees a lot of potential in Hands. He’s working with him on point guard skills and teaching him the Nets system.
“Jaylen is still a young point guard and is learning our system,” Shaun Fein told NetsDaily. “I think he is very explosive when he has space and the things we are working on with him is becoming a point guard and organizing the team. When to take his shots and getting other guys involved. He is still learning some things but he has a lot of talent so we can work with that.”
Hands, of course, sees this as only the beginning of his NBA career. Hands wants both Nets team to be successful this season and develop his game too. He does not know when he will puts on a Brooklyn Nets uniform but hinted that it could be soon. For now, he just wants to show people that he is Jaylen Hands, not just a second round draft pick.
“I love basketball,” he said. “That’s what I do, live, breathe, and eat. I like music a lot. I am just a cool person. I am really excited to be here and get better. I want the [Brooklyn] Nets to do great, I want us [Long Island] to do great. I want everyone to do their thing and have a great overall experience this season.”
“I want to be a player in this league for a long time,” Hands told NetsDaily. “That’s my only thing. I do not know when that time is going to come. I think it is soon. Just keep my head down, working, show people that I am me, Jaylen Hands.” | {
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Parece que la psicopatía "pesada", la que gusta de mancharse con sangre, está dejando sus marcas con un reguero de hechos conmocionantes para la sociedad. Hurlingham ahora, el anestesista de Palermo, el asesinato de Candela Rodríguez, el encargado Jorge Mangeri? Sin embargo, esta psicopatía no es más que otra de las expresiones de la psicopatía que nadie quiere ver o, al menos, que a muchos les cuesta ver: la psicopatía cotidiana.
El psicópata que está entre nosotros disfrazado de "persona común y corriente". Aterra este concepto, el de que el depredador deambula disimulado entre nosotros y que en algún momento nos hará sufrir o, incluso, nos matará.
Mangeri era un "portero bueno"; el anestesista, un "médico dedicado", el masacrador de Hurlingham un hombre "sin estridencias" de quien incluso su madre dice que "algo le hicieron" para que haya hecho lo que hizo. Parecían comunes, pero hicieron lo que hicieron. Psicópatas disfrazados de normales. Al acecho.
Para evitar el pánico, la población, al enterarse de los asesinatos, califica a sus autores de locos, de enfermos. La mente normal no puede concebir que alguien le pegue un tiro en la panza a una embarazada: tiene que estar loco, no hay otra explicación.
Pero el psicópata, en realidad, no es un loco, ni un enfermo mental: es un distinto, tiene una manera de ser distinta. Tiene un vacío de emociones y de sentimientos, carece de amor, de solidaridad, de empatía. Es frío, calculador, egocéntrico y cosificador. Para él los demás no son personas sino objetos, cosas, utilitarios para sus fines. Con mente de estratega va tras sus objetivos sin importarle las consecuencias sobre los demás.
Nada de esto muestra a quienes lo rodean; al contrario, disfraza este hielo interno con una actuación acorde a lo que le exige el medio para no ser descubierto. Puede simular un gran amor, una gran solidaridad, puede clamar por justicia, puede liderar o parecer un ser simple y bonachón. Es persuasivo, incluso fascinador.
Cuando comete un acto psicopático y los vecinos se enteran no lo pueden creer porque "se comieron" el personaje que les armó el psicópata, nunca lo vieron venir.
Un médico rompiéndole la cara a una pareja en medio de una noche de drogas, un vecino que protagoniza la balacera civil más nutrida de la historia criminal argentina con el consiguiente tendal de muertos, un portero que viola, mata y tira a la basura a una adolescente de su edificio?
En primera instancia se cree que estos hechos son puntuales, reacciones del momento, y sin embargo son finales de procesos. Procesos elaborados en las mentes de estos psicópatas que sólo esperan la oportunidad para descargarse con hechos criminales.
¿Se pudieron prever estos actos? No. Porque la sociedad no quiere aceptar que existen los psicópatas, duerme mientras ellos maquinan sus planes depredadores.
Cuando se imponga el debate necesario y se difundan adecuadamente los conocimientos sobre estos seres, entonces sí la sociedad tomará los recaudos adecuados para evitar su agresividad. Así, la población tendrá la educación necesaria para detectarlos apenas muestren sus rasgos y huir de las penurias a las que sería sometida.
Médico psiquiatra, especializado en psicopatías | {
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Expectant fathers are taking to Google to find out what to do when their wives are pregnant. But far from finding out what sort of 'help' they can be, or searching for useful things that would actually prepare them for their new arrival, a far greater question is perplexing them. | {
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Comic book writer Jay Faerber of Noble Causes, Titans and Copperhead has a new original graphic novel out from Image Comics in January. With art from his collaborator on Image's Near Death, Simone Guglielmini and Gigi Baldassini, coloured by Ron Riley and cover by Jacob Phillips. Jay posted to Twitter saying,
I've got a new graphic novel out in January. It's a novel-length thriller called OVER MY DEAD BODY, about Markham, a hitman who switches sides after a near death experience. If you like John Wick or Jack Reacher, I think this is gonna be right up your alley. It's ALL-NEW and it's sort of a sequel to my old book, NEAR DEATH.
And we've found a handy dandy Amazon listing that says more and comes with an equally handy cover quote from Brian K Vaughan.
A prison warden's daughter has fallen in with a separatist militia, and the warden's only chance to rescue her is his most dangerous inmate: Markham, a notorious contract killer. Markham claims that after a near death experience gave him a glimpse of Hell, he wants to atone for his past sins and start saving lives instead of taking them. So the warden's giving him one last shot at redemption. But is Markham ready to die for that shot? OVER MY DEAD BODY is an all-new original graphic novel, a fast-moving, pulpy thriller for fans of Jack Reacher and John Wick, featuring characters from the acclaimed NEAR DEATH comic book series. "A killer crime book with a very sharp hook." —BRIAN K. VAUGHAN (SAGA, PAPER GIRLS)
Here's that Jacob Phillips cover…
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It's going to take a lot more than concrete and machines to manufacture iPhones in the U.S. CNBC recently spoke with Dejian Zeng, a graduate student at NYU's Wagner School of Public Service, who spent last summer working undercover building iPhones at Pegatron, one of Apple's manufacturing partners.
CNBC: TJ Fabian
After returning from the trip, which was organized by NYU and China's Labor Watch, Zeng said he's convinced that U.S. workers aren't going to be shuffling into factories to build iPhones any time soon. How exactly does a student at a prestigious U.S. university end up in China, sitting quietly on a stool, inserting parts into iPhones, one by one? Zeng walked CNBC through his decision to spend six weeks in a factory working 12 hours shifts Monday through Saturday, mostly during the night, and what he discovered along the way.
Dejian Zeng
"I just showed up"
It turns out getting into an iPhone factory isn't that hard. "They just gave me the address of the factory and I just went. I just showed up. When I was there I saw people holding luggage waiting in a long line, so I just stood in the line," Zeng told CNBC in an interview. "When it was my turn they asked for my ID, asked to see my hand and asked me to recite the English alphabet. I got in after that. It took less than 30 seconds. You don't have to apply or have any skills."
Dejian Zeng
Zeng told CNBC he went to the factory because China Labor Watch was expecting a strike, and it wanted boots on the ground in case a strike occurred to understand how it happened. Zeng said China Labor Watch had done research and had noticed that, while wages weren't terrible, Pegatron's factory was cutting down the subsidies it offered workers on things like food, which ultimately meant workers were getting paid less. As he phrased it, Pegatron was using a bit of a loophole to save money while also meeting wage labor requirements. Zeng also claims he saw several violations, such as mandatory overtime, which he addressed in an open letter to Apple in March.
Dejian Zeng
Why it can't happen here
Now that he's seen how a Chinese iPhone factory operates, Zeng doesn't believe that Apple or other companies will be able to build competitive factories in the U.S., no matter what politicians want them to do. "The first thing I can think of from a labor perspective is that the wages are unacceptable for American workers. So, in the factories, I was getting paid about 3100 yuan, or $450, per month. I don't think American workers can accept those kind of wages based on living conditions and prices here," Zeng said. "Even if they relocate factories to the U.S. they'd replace workers with robots," Zeng said. He said Pegatron already uses robots to apply cameras to iPhones, and to drop batteries into the devices. Robots, Zeng said, are more precise than human workers, and precision is particularly important for those two components.
Dejian Zeng
The only reason human labor is still used, he believes, is because it's cheaper in some cases. "We are using labor in China instead of a machine because labor is cheaper than maintaining machines. If you relocate factories to the States you need to think of how to manage the workers," Zeng explained. Zeng never saw the strike he was there to monitor, but he believes that sort of strike could easily happen in the U.S. "We don't have labor unions in China. Unions are strong organizations in the States, and that could cause a lot of trouble with management." He added that high turnover and lack of labor leadership makes strikes unlikely in China. "The turnover rate is extremely high, people leave after 2 weeks or a month. For ordinary workers, it's very hard to have a thought that, 'hey I don't like this, we need to organize.' It needs to be middle management, a line manager, someone who holds meetings with you every day and who gives demands, and if they said during a meeting 'we need to strike tomorrow and we need to fight for wages,' I could see that. But that's not happening."
Dejian Zeng
Even China is getting too expensive | {
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Guild Wars 2 MMORPG Guild Wars 2 Because you can’t have a guild without having wars. If you tend to prefer story-driven games, this MMORPG actually builds a storyline around your actions. It’s a great way to stay involved when you get tired of fighting for fighting’s sake.
Developed by ArenaNet and published by NCSOFT, Guild Wars 2 uses a dynamics event system as opposed to traditional quests to create the story within its persistent world. Select your race choose your profession, pick your skills and join the fight.
74 Metascore MMORPG
Trove MMORPG Trove This sandbox MMORPG allows you to play as a pirate, a dinosaur tamer, a headless knight, and more. Developed and published by Trion Worlds, Trove invites players to build a world, explore others, fight, and go home (it’s the only place you’ll be safe, after all).
The game is visually reminiscent of Minecraft, but offers plenty more dungeons to explore, abilities to master and bosses to defeat. And because everyone’s competing with Fortnite these days, there’s a battle royal mode to keep the kids happy.
NA Metascore MMORPG
EVE Online MMORPG EVE Online Surprisingly, this is only one of the few MMORPGs set in space as opposed to a fantasy world. EVE Online features over 7,800 star systems to explore and conquer, and its unscripted setup means you can do so at your discretion.
Its persistent world of mining, piracy, manufacturing, trading, exploration, and combat will keep you entertained for a very long time, and there’s now a limited free-to-play to help you get started. EVE Online has even been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, for crying out loud!
NA Metascore MMORPG
SMITE MOBA SMITE This free to play third-person MOBA from the developers of Paladins allows players to control a god and get into the thick of the team-based combat with the game’s third-person perspective.
You get five free gods (from the available 80-plus) when you sign up, and new content is released every two weeks. Start off in the newbie-friendly arena mode and build up your skills until you’re ready to become a Grandmaster in the SMITE World Championship (or just have fun with the numerous promotions events).
NA Metascore MOBA
Xonotic Shooter Xonotic Totally free and totally open-source, this first-person shooter runs on a modified Quake engine and is inspired by Unreal Tournament and Quake (but with enhanced player movement). This means you can play classic modes such as deathmatch and capture the flag, but you can unlock 14 more for a wide variety of intense combat options.
And as you’d expect when hearing the names Quake and Unreal Tournament, Xonotic, is a rare first-person shooter action amongst the other games on our list.
NA Metascore Shooter
The Elder Scrolls: Legends Collectible Cards The Elder Scrolls: Legends A collectible card game featuring two-player turn-based combat (against a human or computer opponent). The cards are based on characters and creatures from The Elder Scrolls, pitting the player character against a High Elf named Naarifin who intends to fulfill the Culling with the help of an army of demons.
The game is free-to-play, with expansion sets available for purchase (including one that features elements from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim). The latest—Houses of Morrowind—was just released in April of this year.
NA Metascore Collectible Cards
Super Crate Box Action Super Crate Box This is certainly one of the more unique freeware games on our list. Super Crate Box provides old-school arcade action mixed with the intense excitement of modern survival games. The enemies won’t quit coming, and the only thing you have to stop them is one of 14 weapons provided at random by the crate box.
Pick up your weapon, kill as many as you can, then hit up the crate box for a new, different weapon. If you don’t stop the enemies before they reach the firepit they’ll return even faster. May the odds be ever in your favor, or something like that.
NA Metascore Action
SuperTuxKart Racing SuperTuxKart SuperTuxKart is a kart racer with several racing modes for single and multiplayer action, as well as plenty of characters to obtain and use.
There are 21 to unlock within the game’s story (it involves a kidnapping and a race-to-save-your-friend element if you must know), but with the open source model, there are plenty more to download via add-ons. SuperTuxKart has some pretty impressive, colorful racing environments that are fun to drive through.
NA Metascore Racing
IMAGE Shooter Marathon Oh, Marathon, glorious Marathon. One of the all-time great first-person shooters for the Mac is still available, and it’s available for free. You can’t call yourself a Mac gamer without having played this.
Marathon broke new ground in the first-person shooter genre across all platforms, which is quite an achievement as it was only available for Mac OS. Developed before microtransactions were even a thing, it’s totally free to play from start to finish. Still a blast to play despite its age.
NA Metascore Shooter
The Plan Experimental The Plan “A fly ascends to the skies, pondering the pointlessness of its brief existence.” They say a fly’s life is only three days, but it’s not like it knows that, right? A fly doesn’t know death from Shinola.
But we do, and that makes this “experiment” from the developers of Among the Sleep a beautiful bit of relaxing freeware. It doesn’t last much more than five minutes, but isn’t that kind of perfect? Gorgeous visuals and simple gameplay to share with others.
NA Metascore Experimental
Unturned Adventure Unturned Work with friends to survive a zombie-infested land (because that always turns out so well). This F2P game comes from the creator of the Battlefield and Deadzone games in Roblox, bringing with it similarly blocky graphics that make the proceedings a bit more lighthearted than your usual zombie fare.
You’ll be up against nature and other players—not just zombies—as you attempt to fortify your stronghold in the Yukon, Hawaii, Russia and other official and community created maps. Also, you have access to jet skis and helicopters. As you should.
NA Metascore Adventure
The Expendabros Action The Expendabros Video games have thankfully become quite diverse over the past decade, but every now and again you just want to help some old-school arcade burly men go on an old-school action mission of intense side-scrolling mayhem.
The Expandabros may be nothing more than a short but free way to try out Broforce, but we see nothing wrong with that when you get to control guys like Broney Ross, Bronar Jenson and Toll Borad. Take down a ruthless arms dealer and his army of soldiers, artillery and circular saws exactly as ‘80s action heroes would want you to.
NA Metascore Action
Realm Grinder Role-Playing Realm Grinder In this “clicker” from Divine Games you’re a monarch out to expand your realm. You’ll start with nothing more than a meager farm and a strong desire to explore, build, upgrade, and attack. Are you good? Are you evil? Let the other players decide.
Your concern should be solely with clicking to get rich. Whether you get there by dealing with elves, demons or any of the other dozen factions is up to. How much you spend it also up to you; Realm Grinder is free-to-play, but microtransactions are available if you tire of clicking.
NA Metascore Role-Playing
Iron Snout Action Iron Snout Not content to hide in his house of straw, this little pig would rather defend himself with cleavers, athletic equipment, and whatever else he can find...including the body parts of his enemies. This free brawler is bloody and violent, but its colorfully cartoonish and often humorous presentation help to keep the proceedings light.
The fast-paced action is enhanced by simple controls that helps you get started quickly, but you’re going to need some practice to unlock all of the game’s achievements.
NA Metascore Action
OpenRA Strategy OpenRA This is your chance to play one of the earliest (and finest) real-time strategy games for free, as OpenRA is pretty much just Command and Conquer. The classic real-time strategy game from Westwood Studios has been made available through and maintained by the open-source community, and has been updated to run natively on modern operating systems and screen resolutions.
So, although it retains the visual style of the 1995 original, it plays just fine on your iMac or MacBook. OpenRA offers many “modern features” as well, including dual-button mouse input, fog or war, and streaming support.
NA Metascore Strategy | {
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Tăriceanu, teoria conspirației în fața tuturor ambasadorilor români: ”Există suficiente probe că mişcările de stradă nu sunt autonome”
Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu a declarat luni în fața tuturor ambasadorilor români că ar exista ”suficiente probe” care arată că protestele masive din România ”nu sunt autonome”. Șeful Senatului a reluat tema predilectă a penalilor, spunând că protestele sunt „cutii de rezonanţă ale unor grupări politice ce ocupă de regulă funcţii la vârful statului, dar şi ale unor instituţii de tip special, atât parchete, cât şi servicii”.
Tăriceanu, șeful Senatului și partener de coaliție cu PSD, a comparat protestele din România cu mișcările de tip Occupy și Indignados, dar și cu protestele naționaliste violente din Europa Centrală a anilor 20-30 din secolul trecut.
„De vreo două decenii şi-a făcut simţită prezenţa în lumea occidentală, în democraţiile reprezentative, o altă formă de violenţă colectivă: violenţa străzii, a mişcărilor de tip Occupy, Rezist, Indignados, Uniţi salvăm. Nu este vorba cel mai adesea decât de o violenţă de limbaj şi de atitudine. Încă rar, din fericire, această violenţă ia forme agresive, amintind de Europa Centrală a anilor ’20 sau ’30. În realitate, noul populism nu are nevoie de violenţa brutală a gestului, atâta timp cât obiectivul mişcărilor de stradă de pe Wall Street până în Piaţa Victoriei este acela de a inspira neîncrederea societăţii în guvernele democratic alese, în reprezentarea politică şi în valorile liberale. Clasa politică a cărei legitimitate este dată de votul universal şi de procedurile parlamentare este prezentată ca fiind global coruptă şi incompetentă. Această patologie a violenţei difuze ce mizează pe generalizarea neîncrederii în instituţiile democratice este prezentă în proporţii diferite în toate societăţile occidentale, numai că la noi ea prezintă, însă, câteva trăsături agravante, există deja suficiente probe că în România mişcările de stradă ce au loc cu repetiţie nu sunt mişcări sociale autonome, ele sunt doar cutii de rezonanţă ale unor grupări politice ce ocupă de regulă funcţii la vârful statului, dar şi ale unor instituţii de tip special, atât parchete, cât şi servicii, care de 15 ani au creat pentru România un brand de ţară adoptat fără rezerve sau examinare critică de o parte a societăţii civile şi de presă. Acest brand este – România este o ţară coruptă, clasa politică este coruptă”, a spus Tăriceanu la Reuniunea anuală a diplomaţiei române, potrivit Agerpres.
Foto: Pagina de Facebook | {
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By Jan Jarrett
"The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania's public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people."
This coming Jan. 15, either Tom Wolf or Scott Wagner will raise his hand and take a binding oath to uphold the Pennsylvania Constitution.
Jan Jarrett (PennLive file)
Among the duties the next governor will be obliged to carry out under its provisions is the protection of our air and water and the natural beauty of the Commonwealth as required by the Constitution's Environmental Rights Amendment.
Between now and Election Day, Nov. 6, both candidates need to tell Pennsylvanians how they intend to fulfill that legal responsibility.
The primary season has not given us much of a preview of either of the candidates' environmental and conservation agendas.
Wagner's campaign website contains no mention of environmental policy except indirectly - he pledges to roll back "overregulation."
His trash hauling company, Penn Waste, has incurred fines from at least 30 violations of environmental regulations. He has publicly addressed climate change, attributing it to the earth moving ever closer to the sun and the increasing body heat from a growing population.
Environmental policy took a back seat during Governor Wolf's first term. There were a few bright spots.
In the politically complex forum of the Delaware River Basin Commission, Wolf voted with the governors of Delaware and New York in favor of a resolution to place a permanent ban on fracking in the Delaware watershed.
He also signed bipartisan legislation that will put the Pennsylvania solar industry on an equal competitive footing with solar businesses in other states, a welcome recognition of the economic development potential of the clean energy sector.
But neither candidate has laid out anything near a vision or plan for how he will protect Pennsylvania's air and water now; and what he can do to conserve our natural resources for our grandchildren.
Other governors have achieved landmark conservation and environmental protections.
The late Gov. Robert P Casey Sr.'s administration successfully promoted one of the first significant investments in conservation with Key 93, a $100 million conservation bond and a permanent fund, the Keystone Recreation, Park and Conservation Fund, which gets its revenue from a portion of the real estate transfer tax.
Former Gov. Tom Ridge created Growing Greener, funded by a fee on garbage dumped at landfills, that provides grants to local organizations for conservation, watershed restoration and recreation projects
Ex-Gov. Ed Rendell signed the first legislation requiring energy suppliers to obtain 18 percent of their power from renewable and alternative energy supplies.
Rendell successfully campaigned for $625 Growing Greener II bond which was overwhelmingly approved by voters, and issued the $650 million Alternative Energy Investment bond, the largest bond for any purpose in state history.
The next governor faces a daunting list of environmental challenges.
The air in many parts of Pennsylvania is among the worse in the nation. We have thousands of miles of streams and rivers which do not support fish or provide clean drinking water.
The legacy of unregulated historic coal mining has left us with 180,000 acres of unproductive, dangerous and ugly polluted land that holds back economic development in coal communities. And Pennsylvania remains a major global source of the pollution that is disrupting the climate.
Neither Wolf nor Wagner will be able to adequately address these problems without a Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) that is fully staffed, adequately funded and independent of political pressure.
The Environmental Rights Amendment puts the responsibility of safeguarding our air, water and future environmental quality squarely at the doorstep of the Commonwealth.
The Department of Environmental Protection is the state agency charged with carrying out most of those responsibilities.
The good news is that solutions to our environmental problems abound. Both candidates can find a comprehensive list of policy options in the Pennsylvania Common Conservation Agenda that contains ideas from 25 of the Commonwealth's environmental and conservation organizations.
Both candidates for governor will be bound by the Environmental Rights Amendment to protect our air and water and leave our grandchildren an environment that is at least as good as we now enjoy.
They owe the voters their plans for how they will carry out that duty.
Jan Jarrett, a former head of the environmental group, PennFuture, is the principal of Ad Hoc LLC. She writes from Harrisburg. | {
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パナソニックはこのほど、「ムダ毛の処理」に関する調査結果を発表した。同調査は3月1日～8日、全国47都道府県に在住の20～30代女性4,700名を対象にインターネットで実施したもの。
薄着の季節、ムダ毛が他人に見えないか気になるか尋ねたところ、91%が「気になる」と回答した。ムダ毛の処理漏れで困った経験はあるかという問いには、72%が「ある」と答えている。
薄着の季節に「他人のムダ毛」を目撃したことがあるか尋ねると、69%が「ある」と回答した。具体的な部分を聞くと、「腕」(48%)が最も多く、「ワキ」(45%)、「アシ」(32%)と続いた。ムダ毛を目撃した経験がある場所については、「電車」(28%)が多く、次いで「プール」(24%)、「オフィス」(23%)となっている。
目撃したことがある他人のムダ毛
他人のムダ毛を目撃した経験がある場所
ムダ毛の目撃談を都道府県別に聞くと、「花巻は温泉が多い。温泉では色々な場所のムダ毛が気になる」(26歳・宮城県)、「恋愛成就で有名な神社で、前にいる女の子の背中が大きく開き、背中がムダ毛だらけ」(29歳・佐賀県)、「阿波踊りシーズン、浴衣や甚平はワキ部分が開いているので、ワキ毛目撃率が高い」(33歳・徳島県)などのコメントが寄せられた。
薄着の季節に、自分のムダ毛の処理漏れに気づいたことがある場所について尋ねると、1位は「オフィス」(26%)、2位は「温泉」(24%)、3位は「プール」(22%)だった。
自分のムダ毛の処理漏れに気づいたことがある場所
現在の「腕」や「ワキ」のムダ毛処理方法をきくと、「腕」は73%、「ワキ」は63%がカミソリで処理していると回答した。一方、現状の「ムダ毛処理」に十分満足しているかどうか尋ねると、64%が「満足していない」と答えている。 | {
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Monday, we’re talking about Utah’s youth suicide problem. A recent report declared suicide the leading cause of death for the state’s 10- to 17-year-old kids. On top of that, the suicide rate here is more double the national average. Health officials, suicide prevention advocates, educators, and parents are struggling for answers, as are kids themselves. We’ll look at the many factors contributing to the problem and ask why suicide is such a problem here in Utah.
On Monday, September 12, at 7 p.m., KUED Channel 7 is airing a new locally-produced documentary called Hope Lives: Preventing Teen Suicide. DETAILS
Daniel Parkinson and Michael Barker's article "The LGBTQ Mormon Crisis: Responding to the Empirical Research on Suicide" appeared on the blog RationalFaiths.com. An expanded version of the article, combined with insights from a related article by Benjamin Knoll, was published in the Summer 2016 edition of the Mormon journal Dialogue (fee required).
If you or someone you know needs help or support: | {
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A private plane caught fire when it made an emergency landing at Istanbul’s Ataturk International Airport Thursday. Four people were injured.
Three crew members, two pilots and a flight attendant, and one passenger were injured Dogan news agency reports.
Atatürk havaalaninda uçak kazası uçak ikiye ayrıldı alev alev yanıyordu. pic.twitter.com/PdJMHnb7qU — 🕋 (@mstfyildirim1) September 21, 2017
The Cyprus-bound private jet crashed soon after taking off, Milliyet reports. All air traffic to and from Ataturk was halted but has since been resumed, AP reports.
Extensive delays at Istanbul-IST following the crash of a private jet on landing. https://t.co/fP90CKhojJpic.twitter.com/mzNhggnyLd — Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) September 21, 2017
Airlive reports the plane tried to return to the airport when a failure alarm was triggered. The tire exploded during the landing.
Firefighters were waiting on the runway once the pilots raised the alarm. They fought to extinguish the fire, which has since been brought under control.
Flight Radar reports the aircraft was a Cessna 650 Citation 7, with the registration TC-KON. The plane was operated by Koçoğlu Aviation belonging to EuroAir, Dogan reports.
At this stage it isn’t clear what caused the plane’s alarm to be triggered. | {
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Food, Wine, & Dining, Pets & Animal, Health & Wellness, Seasonal & Current Events
By Kelly Tenny Published: October 01 2014
You couldn’t ask for a better time to try out a Long Island vegan or vegetarian restaurant!
Not only is October National Vegetarian Month, today, October 1st, is World Vegetarian Day! World Vegetarian Day was originally coined by the North American Vegetarian Society, a non-profit educational organization formed with two simple goals: to educate people on the positive benefits that a vegetarian lifestyle can give and to act as a support system for fellow vegetarians of the world. The day itself, as stated by the North American Vegetarian Society, was established in 1977 to create, “an annual celebration to promote the joy, compassion and life-enhancing possibilities of vegetarianism.”
There are many reasons why an individual would choose to convert to a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle. For some it is moral motivation, an objection to the killing and use of other sentient life. For others it is health-related, religious, or environmental reasons. Vegan and vegetarian lifestyles, though very similar in name, are quite different from one another and often get mixed up. The main difference between someone who practices veganism and someone who practices vegetarianism is vegans do not consume or use any sort of animal products or animal by-products. Vegetarians on the other hand abstain from consuming meat but continue to eat products like dairy and sometimes eggs.
Now that you’ve had a quick lesson on the history of National Vegetarian Month/World Vegetarian Day and know the difference between veganism/vegetarianism, it’s time to move on to where you can actually find these enticing Long Island vegan eateries and delicious vegetarian restaurants!
Tiger Lily Café – Vegan, vegetarian and non-vegetarian options!
156 E Main Street, Port Jefferson, NY 11777
631-476-7080
House of Dosas – All vegetarian menu!
416 S Broadway, Hicksville, NY 11801
516-938-7517
3 Brothers Pizza Café – Separate vegan and non-vegetarian menus!
75 Merritts Road, Farmingdale, NY 11735
516-755-1100
Tula Kitchen – Vegan, vegetarian and non-vegetarian options!
41 East Main Street, Bay Shore, NY 11706
631-539-7183
Z Pita – Vegetarian and non-vegetarian options!
217 Main Street, Port Jefferson, NY 11777
631-475-7508
Tullulah’s – Vegetarian and non-vegetarian options!
12 Fourth Avenue, Bay Shore, NY 11706
631-969-9800
BBD's – Vegan, vegetarian and non-vegetarian options!
49 Route 25A, Rocky Point, NY 11778
631-849-1620
Love Lane Kitchen – Vegetarian and non-vegetarian options!
240 Love Lane, Mattituck, NY 11952
631-298-8989
Witch’s Brew – Vegan, vegetarian and non-vegetarian options!
311 Hempstead Turnpike, West Hempstead, NY 11552
516-489-9482
Granny's – All vegan desserts!
1153 Jericho Turnpike, Commack, NY 11725
631-543-7501
Sweet To Lick – All vegan desserts!
78 Hillside Avenue, Williston Park, NY 11596
516-385-8833
[Source: North American Vegetarian Society]
Photo by Kelly Tenny | {
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Vitor Belfort. Chael Sonnen. Nick Diaz. A rematch with Phil Davis.
Few fighters have found themselves with more options coming off a loss than former UFC light heavyweight champion Lyoto Machida.
"The Dragon," who lost a highly controversial decision to Davis at UFC 163, has been linked to as many potential dance partners as anyone save Sonnen himself in recent weeks.
But as Machida explained on Monday's edition The MMA Hour, a match with fellow Brazilian and fellow former light heavyweight champ Belfort is the match which interests him the most.
"I would like to fight with him," said Machida. "I would like to show my technique against his technique and have a great show in Brazil."
Of course, that's just one potential opponent. Let's go through the list:
Sonnen, whom Machida called out via Twitter on Saturday: "Last Saturday I saw the fight, Shogun against Sonnen, and I saw a great opportunity to fight Sonnen too," Machida said. "Sonnen is a great name and he's a big name, I think I can beat him. He's talked bad about me back in the day."
Diaz, a fight idea which has since been shot down: "Dana told me about Diaz. He's a great opponent too."
Davis, obviously, was a sore spot, given that most of the MMA world felt Machida won their fight: "I loss that fight to Phil Davis, but I'm not convinced on that fight," he said. "Because it wasn't fair for me. I'd like to do another fight.
"My last fight I was looking for Phil Davis inside the octagon," Machida continued. "But he run away all the time. He tries to take me down at thew end of the round. I was looking for the fight but he was just wrestling. He landed but he didn't hit me hard. Didn't hit me any time. The next time I look for the fight all the time. I want a next chance."
But it all comes back to a fight with Belfort, a fight which Machida seems to want more than his potential foe.
"Everybody has your own reason to accept the fight," Machida said. "He's a big name in Brazil and around the world. I think he's a great opponent for me this time. It doesn't matter for me this time, the reason he doesn't accept this fight."
Machida said he'd like to fight Belfort at middleweight. He also made it clear that at this point in his career, he'd be willing to take a tweener role at 185 and 205, similar to former middleweight champ Rich Franklin.
And who knows? With his friend and campmate Anderson Silva no longer the middleweight champ, perhaps a door could open to a potential run at current titleholder Chris Weidman.
"The future belongs to God," said Machida. "Anderson is not the champion anymore but he has a big challenge at the end of the year against Weidman again. I believe in Anderson, but each moment has it's special time. Nobody knows who can become champ again." | {
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Bengaluru and Delhi are the best cities for women entrepreneurs in India, according to the report. While Bengaluru ranks 40th, Delhi is on the 49th position in the list of top 50 global cities topped by New York City
At the 8th Annual Dell Women Entrepreneur Network Summit, Dell announced findings of the 2017 Women Entrepreneur Cities (WE Cities) Index, revealing how 50 top global cities are fostering high-potential women entrepreneurs (HPWE).
Bengaluru and Delhi are the best cities for women entrepreneurs in India, according to the report. While Bengaluru ranks 40th, Delhi is on the 49th position in the list of top 50 global cities topped by New York City.
Other cities in the top 20 are Bay Area, London, Boston, Stockholm, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Singapore, Toronto, Seattle, Sydney, Paris, Chicago, Minneapolis, Austin, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Atlanta, Amsterdam and Portland.
Building on the past five years of Dell research on HPWE, cities are ranked on five important characteristics: capital, technology, talent, culture and markets. These pillars were organised into two groups — operating environment and enabling environment. The overall rating is based on 72 indicators; 45 of these, nearly two-thirds, have a gender-based component. Individual indicators were weighted based on four criteria: relevance, quality of underlying data, uniqueness in the index and gender component.
“It is in the world's best interest that women entrepreneurs thrive everywhere. The WE Cities Index can be used as a diagnostic tool to help ensure that lawmakers are enabling women entrepreneurs to succeed," said Elizabeth Gore, entrepreneur-in- residence at Dell.
"Globally, women's entrepreneurship rates are growing more than 10 per cent each year. In fact, women are as likely or more likely than men to start businesses in many markets. However, financial, cultural and political barriers can limit the success of these businesses," said Karen Quintos, EVP and chief customer officer at Dell, as per the report.
Delhi and Bengaluru have always been in news for women’s safety issues. This survey is good news for the community of women who have flocked from different parts of the country to aspire and establish their own ventures. | {
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Earth Day 2018: Everything you need to know This year's Earth Day falls on Sunday, April 22.
People around the world will come together this weekend to celebrate the planet and to take action to protect it.
Here's everything you need to know about Earth Day 2018.
When is Earth Day?
First celebrated in 1970, Earth Day takes place worldwide on April 22.
This year's event falls on a Sunday.
What is Earth Day and why do we celebrate it?
Various events are held annually on Earth Day across the globe to show support for protecting the environment.
U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson, a Wisconsin native, is largely credited for organizing the first Earth Day in spring 1970, a time when it was still legal for factories to spew noxious fumes into the air or dump toxic waste into nearby streams. That's because the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency didn't exist then, and there were no laws to protect the environment.
Nelson recruited Harvard University professor Denis Hayes to coordinate and promote Earth Day nationally. The event was a success.
Twenty million Americans took to the streets on April 22, 1970, demanding action on environmental pollution. That December, Congress authorized the establishment of a new federal agency, the EPA, to ensure environmental protection. The passage of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act and many other landmark environmental laws followed soon after, according to the EPA.
Earth Day went global 20 years later, mobilizing 200 million people in dozens of countries and putting environmental issues on the world stage.
Now, more than 1 billion people in 192 countries are estimated to participate in Earth Day activities every year, according to Earth Day Network, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that organizes the event worldwide.
What is the 2018 theme?
This year's Earth Day is dedicated to providing the information and inspiration needed to eventually end plastic pollution, according to Earth Day Network.
Many of us use or encounter plastic every single day, even if we don't realize it. There's single-use plastics, such as bags, bottles, plates, utensils and straws. But there are also plastics in our electronics, cars, clothes and paint.
So what happens to all this plastic? Some of it gets recycled. But a lot ends up in landfills or is simply littered as plastic pollution, which gets into our waterways.
Plastic is made to last forever -- it cannot biodegrade. Disposed plastic materials can remain in the environment for up to 2,000 years and longer, according to a 2009 article published in scientific journal Chemistry & Biology.
Earth Day Network has called the management of plastic waste a "global crisis."
"Plastic pollution is now an ever-present challenge. We can see plastics floating in our rivers, ocean and lagoons, littering our landscapes and affecting our health and the future of billions of children and youth. We have all contributed to this problem –- mostly unknowingly," Valeria Merino, vice president of Global Earth Day at Earth Day Network, said in a statement.
An estimated 275 million metric tons of plastic waste were generated in 192 coastal countries in 2010, with 4.8 to 12.7 million metric tons entering the ocean, according to findings in a 2015 study led by Jenna Jambeck, an environmental engineer at the University of Georgia.
Recent research commissioned by Orb Media, a nonprofit journalism organization based in Washington, D.C., found that 94 percent of drinking water in the United States and 93 percent of bottled water sampled from nine countries are spiked with chemically-laced plastic particles, many of which have been linked to major diseases.
In recent years, many countries have taken steps to ban bisphenol A (BPA), phthalates and other chemicals from plastics in some products.
"There is a growing tidal wave of interest in ending plastic pollution and some countries and governments are already in the vanguard. Earth Day Network believes we can turn that tidal wave into a permanent solution to plastics pollution," Earth Day Network president Kathleen Rogers said in a statement.
This year, Earth Day Network will mobilize its global network of non-governmental organizations and grassroots groups, as well as local elected officials, faith leaders, artists, athletes, students and teachers "to build a world of educated consumers, voters and activists of all ages who understand the environmental, climate and health consequences of using plastic," according to Rogers.
How can I get involved?
While recycling is important, Earth Day Network says it's not nearly enough to bring an end to plastic pollution.
"You may be lulled into thinking it is OK to consume disposable plastic products because you plan to recycle them, but many plastics can’t be efficiently recycled and will end up in the landfill or littering the planet, even in the most remote places," Merino said. "Also, some localities lack the most basic infrastructure to manage waste and to sort and recycle plastics. For this reason, it is much more important to focus on reducing your own level of plastic consumption."
Here are some suggestions from the Earth Day Network on how to reduce your plastic footprint:
Every time you consider buying a disposable plastic item, ask yourself: Do I absolutely need this? Can I use something else that I already have? Could I buy something that I can use long-term instead?
Properly dispose plastic products and be careful not to toss plastic products near waterways, beaches or in open spaces.
Pick up plastic trash whenever you see it, especially in ponds, streams, rivers and on beaches.
Don't buy products containing microbeads, which are plastic particles commonly found in exfoliating body washes and facial scrubs. Instead, purchase products that have natural exfoliates.
Wash synthetic clothes less frequently to reduce the amount of microfibers that are released.
When possible, purchase clothing and other items made of natural fibers when possible.
Get involved in local legislation and regulation to reduce and recycle plastics. | {
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In the same way, corporate events provide wider insight and perspective. As knowledge sharing and networking have become highly essential in B2B culture, events allow vast opportunities in terms of building brand reputation and audience linkages.
But marketing these events is another thing altogether. And sometimes, it’s more difficult than simply preparing the accommodations and looking for people to keynote the programs.
Considering you have lot in your hands in organizing the event, we are here to offer event lead generation solutions that include:
Measurable invitation campaigns via phone and email.
Audience profiling to pinpoint personalities that match your requirements.
Accurate reporting of turn out projections.
Follow-up messaging for participants.
We make sure that your list of attendees is filled with people who are not only interested, but eager to attend your events. This is because we have the right tools in our arsenal and the best people to handle your campaign.
Do you have an event to promote? An event of high value to everybody in your industry? We’re inviting you to talk with us about that.
See? We’re just that good. | {
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yeah, if you could give me Karma because it's my cake day That'd be great
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Choosing the right learning center is an important first step when you want to reinforce your understanding of a specific subject. At our Eye Level Learning Center, our instructors are here to improve your overall comprehension, and we welcome students of every age and expertise. We'll do what it takes to accommodate your needs, and our staff are ready to consult with you about your goals. | {
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JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa’s High Court blocked the government’s attempt to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Wednesday, the latest blow to scandal-plagued President Jacob Zuma from an assertive post-apartheid judicial system.
The entrance of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is seen in The Hague, Netherlands, March 3, 2011. REUTERS/Jerry Lampen/
Justice Minister Michael Masutha said the government would press ahead with withdrawing from the Hague-based tribunal, noting that the ruling was based largely on procedure - that the decision to pull out did not pass first through parliament.
The ICC, which was launched in July 2002 and has 124 member states, is the first legal body with permanent international jurisdiction to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Pretoria notified the United Nations of its intent to withdraw in October, starting a year-long divorce period that would have made South Africa the first country to quit the court in October this year.
However, High Court Judge Phineas Mojapelo told the government to tear up its withdrawal notice, saying it was “unconstitutional and invalid” because it had not passed through parliament.
The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), which brought the court application, said the ruling was a reminder of South Africa’s departure under Zuma from the international idealism that typified its foreign policy under Nelson Mandela.
“This is a victory for the rule of law and indeed for our country’s human rights-based foreign policy which Zuma and his cronies have tried so hard to depart from,” DA spokesman James Selfe said.
“Clearly Zuma and his ANC have absolutely no respect for the constitution.”
‘INTENTION STILL STANDS’
Masutha said the ruling amounted to a delay that would not stop the government’s bid to leave an institution that some African governments feel unfairly targets Africans and which Pretoria said was at odds with its diplomatic immunity laws.
“The intention to withdraw still stands, as this is a policy decision of the executive,” he told Reuters.
Pretoria announced its intention to leave in 2015 after the ICC criticized it for disregarding an order to arrest Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, accused of genocide and war crimes. Bashir has denied the accusations.
Since taking office in 2009, Zuma, 74, has been plagued by accusations of corruption, which he has repeatedly denied, while senior ANC officials have backed him. But near record unemployment has exacerbated discontent with his government.
In March, the Constitutional Court ordered Zuma to repay some of $16 million spent on enhancing his Nkandla home in rural KwaZulu-Natal province. Zuma, who weathered a motion of no-confidence in parliament over the cost of the renovations, has since paid back more than $500,000 as required by the court.
The ICC has had to fight off allegations of pursuing a neo-colonial agenda in Africa, where most of its investigations have been based.
Three African states - South Africa, Gambia and Burundi - last year signaled their intention to quit the ICC. Gambia’s President Adama Barrow, elected in December, said earlier this month that the tiny West African nation would remain in the ICC. | {
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Gefascineerd door de heersende hokjesgeest gaat de Hokjesman op veldonderzoek binnen de leefwereld van aansprekende Nederlandse subculturen. Met een knipoog naar de klassieke volkenkundige, gestoken in driedelig pak met strik, ontleedt hij de mens als groepsdier.
De allerlaatste aflevering van De Hokjesman is in mei 2016 uitgezonden, maar alle afleveringen zijn nog online terug te zien via deze pagina. En/of bestel de dvd van het laatste seizoen via de link rechts. | {
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TOKYO (Reuters) - Kazuhiro Hasegawa has been driving a taxi in Tokyo for three years. It’s a job he enjoys, despite 18-hour shifts.
Masaki Shimizu, owner of a hedgehog cafe and who also works at the IT firm, en Factory, poses with a hedgehog at his ChikuChiku cafe in Tokyo, Japan, April 26, 2018. REUTERS/Toru Hanai
But recently, he said, it has not been enough to make ends meet.
The 4.5 million-4.8 million yen ($41,110-$43,850) a year he makes from his primary job is far short of what he needs to cover a mortgage and university for his son, Hasegawa said.
“I have no choice but to work two jobs, as income is unstable,” said Hasegawa, 51, who earns several thousand yen a month from a side job shooting and editing videos for businesses. “There’s no rest. I try to avoid being short of sleep as that would cause trouble driving a taxi.”
Japanese workers like Hasegawa are signing up for second jobs in record numbers to earn extra cash as wages stagnate, stirring hopes of a rise in consumer spending but adding to fears of overwork in a society notorious for long hours.
Facing a labor crunch, many companies welcome the influx of part-time workers. And the government has loosened rules that banned or discouraged employees from taking second jobs.
The result is that a record 7.44 million Japanese will work at least two jobs this year - or about 11 percent of the workforce - up from 5.33 million in 2015, according to Lancers Inc, which helps freelancers find jobs.
That lags behind countries like the U.S., which have been embracing the “gig economy” for longer. About 20 percent of the U.S. workforce had second jobs in 2017, data show.
The shift in Japan aligns with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s goal of creating a workforce that can adapt to economic changes and offer more individual freedom, which he says will promote growth.
Indeed, people working two jobs will contribute an estimated 7.8 trillion yen to the economy, Lancers data showed.
But there is a dark side.
Japanese workers need to put in roughly 11 percent more hours than they did in 1997 to make the same salary. In the meantime, Tokyo’s annual cost of living for an average household is about $3,300 a month, government data shows, a 6 percent decrease from 1997.
Working two or three jobs to make ends meet undercuts the government’s “work-style reform” efforts, including proposed caps on overtime in response to cases of “karoshi,” literally death by overwork.
Slideshow ( 5 images )
“It could raise the risk that one person ends up working over 100 hours (of overtime) by assuming 50-hour jobs at two firms,” said Kotaro Kurashige, an attorney of Anzai Law Office, who represents management in labor disputes.
“What the government is trying to do is full of inconsistencies,” he said. “Making up for cuts in overtime pay by assuming side jobs elsewhere is like putting the cart before the horse.”
LIFETIME EMPLOYMENT
The emerging trend highlights the decline of Japan’s lifetime employment system, in which workers in the decades after World War Two were guaranteed job security in exchange for devotion to their employers.
Such positions are much rarer these days. A large number of workers taking second jobs would traditionally be nearing retirement age; nearly half of Japanese workers with two jobs are older than 50, according to Lancers.
“There’s no such thing as lifetime employment anymore,” said Masaki Shimizu, 32, who on top of his regular job at internet start-up En Factory Inc, runs a coffee shop where patrons can pet live hedgehogs and has two other side jobs.
“I need these side jobs to master new skills and expand my own strengths,” Shimizu said.
Natsuko Anastasia Ariyama, 25, said she earned about 200,000 yen a month from her full-time job as a university staffer and an additional 20,000 yen from a side job as a writer and translator. She does not get overtime pay, nor has she gotten a raise.
“I have started doing a second job last year to earn spending money,” she said, adding that the extra work gives her a sense of security as well.
ATTRACTING TALENT
Japanese companies have traditionally demanded that their workers be fully committed to their employers.
But more are softening their views on the subject, including Rohto Pharmaceutical Co, SoftBank Group Corp, photocopier maker Konica Minolta Inc and Shinsei Bank Ltd.
Diaper maker Unicharm Corp in April started letting its 1,500 full-time employees hold second jobs. The decision was made partly to lure workers amid a labor shortage and to encourage current employees to acquire new knowledge and skills.
“We judged that benefits from side jobs outweigh potential risks such as overwork, leakage of information and brain drain,” said Yukinari Watanabe, a senior human resources manager of Unicharm.
So far only one employee, a man in his 50s, has responded, asking to become a basketball coach for middle and high school students.
“We need to be a company that will attract capable workers,” Watanabe said. “We also feel that workers need to acquire skills that can be used anywhere as you never know what may happen in this era of uncertainty.”
NEW RULES
After Abe called for more labor mobility, the government has tried to clear the way for companies to allow side jobs.
In January, the labor ministry removed a rule banning second jobs without an employer’s permission. Now workers must only inform their employer before taking on another job.
But recent cases of people working themselves to death have also led Abe’s government to propose labor reforms such as a cap on overtime of 100 hours per month.
Many workers count on overtime pay, however, and caps would reduce that income, said Hisashi Yamada, research director at Japan Research Institute.
So as long as people can skirt that by taking additional jobs, the trend of working for more than one company will probably continue, Yamada said.
But if it spreads workers too thin, it could erode Japanese employment culture, Yamada said.
“Many Japanese firms still want employees to focus on their main job, so Japan won’t turn into a country like America right away, where gig economy jobs are widely available,” he said. | {
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The alleged torture, dismemberment and killing of Saudi citizen and US permanent resident Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul has triggered justifiable outrage throughout the United States and around the world. But amid the outcry over Khashoggi’s death, many media and public figures still fail to acknowledge the war crimes Saudi Arabia is committing in Yemen with US assistance.
Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post, had written critically about the Saudi government and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The Post reported that Mohammed had recently attempted to lure Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia in an operation resembling an extrajudicial “rendition,” where a person is forcibly removed from one country and taken to another for interrogation. Bloomberg reported that the United States knew the Saudis planned to seize Khashoggi because US intelligence services had intercepted communications between Saudi officials discussing the plan. According to Turkish sources, participants in Khashoggi’s killing and dismemberment were Saudi operatives.
Six days after Khashoggi’s disappearance, New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman made the astounding claim, “If Jamal has been abducted and murdered by agents of the Saudi government … [i]t would be an unfathomable violation of norms of human decency, worse not in numbers but in principle than even the Yemen war.”
Friedman’s attempt to minimize the enormity of the carnage, including over 6,000 civilian casualties and the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, resulting from three years of war in Yemen is not uncommon. Vicki Divoll, former CIA attorney and instructor at the US Naval Academy, told The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer in 2009, “People are a lot more comfortable with a Predator [drone] strike that kills many people than with a throat-slitting that kills one.”
In fact, Saudi Arabia is committing war crimes in Yemen and the US government is aiding and abetting them.
Saudi-US War Crimes Committed in Yemen
The Saudi-led coalition is bombing Yemen in order to defeat the Houthi rebels who have been resisting government repression. This war is the culmination of a long-standing grievance the Houthis have had with the state, which was weakened during the Arab spring. Yemen is strategically located on a narrow waterway that links the Gulf of Aden with the Red Sea.
Saudi Arabia is committing war crimes in Yemen and the US government is aiding and abetting them.
In August, the coalition dropped a 500-pound, laser-guided MK 82 bomb on a bus at a market in Dahyan, killing 51 people, including 40 children. The bomb was manufactured by Lockheed Martin, a leading US defense contractor. Provision of that bomb was part of a US-Saudi arms deal last year.
The August bombing conducted with US-manufactured weapons was not an isolated incident. In 2016, the coalition used a similar bomb to kill 155 people at a funeral in Sana’a.
As recently as October 13, a Saudi-led airstrike killed at least 19 people and injured 30 when it hit a convoy of buses carrying civilians escaping an attack on Hodeidah. The coalition has mounted more than 50 airstrikes on civilian vehicles in 2018 alone.
Targeting civilians is a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention.
By furnishing a bomb with knowledge it would likely be used to commit a war crime, US leaders could be tried for aiding and abetting a war crime under customary international law. They supplied the bomb used in the August 2018 bus attack, knowing a similar one was used in the 2016 funeral bombing.
Trump Administration Lies to Congress About Attempts to Minimize Civilian Casualties
On September 12, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo certified to Congress “that the governments of Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates are undertaking demonstrable actions to reduce the risk of harm to civilians and civilian infrastructure resulting from military operations of these governments [in Yemen].”
However, as New York University Professor Mohamad Bazzi noted in The Nation, “the administration’s assurances contradicted virtually every other independent review of the war, including the recent report by a group of UN experts and several Human Rights Watch investigations that found the Saudi coalition culpable of war crimes.”
On August 28, the Group of Eminent International and Regional Experts on Yemen, appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, documented the likely commission of war crimes by parties to the war in Yemen. The group of experts concluded that coalition airstrikes have caused most of the direct civilian casualties, hitting residential areas, weddings, funerals, markets, detention facilities, medical facilities and civilian boats.
The Trump administration is lying to Congress about the coalition’s efforts to minimize civilian casualties. The Wall Street Journal quoted a classified memo revealing that Pompeo certified Saudi-Emeriti compliance with the minimization requirement, notwithstanding opposition by several military and regional experts at the US State Department, “due to a lack of progress on mitigating civilian casualties.”
The Trump administration is lying to Congress about the coalition’s efforts to minimize civilian casualties.
A new law requires that the administration certify to Congress every six months that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are doing enough to minimize civilian casualties or the US will cease refueling operations in Yemen. Pompeo’s certification was motivated by a desire to protect a forthcoming $2 billion weapons sale to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, according to the classified memo.
US leaders are mindful of their potential liability for aiding and abetting Saudi-UAE war crimes in Yemen, according to documents acquired by Reuters pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request.
Pushback From Congress on US Assistance to Saudi Arabia
In March, a bipartisan resolution that would have ended US support, including refueling and targeting assistance, for Saudi military actions in Yemen, was defeated in the Senate by a vote of 55-44. A similar resolution was voted down in the House of Representatives. The resolutions invoked the War Powers Resolution, which allows the president to introduce US Armed Forces into hostilities or imminent hostilities only after Congress has declared war, or in “a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces,” or when there is “specific statutory authorization,” such as an Authorization for the Use of Military Force.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), co-sponsor of the Senate bill, stated, “Some will argue on the floor today that we’re really not engaged in hostilities, we’re not exchanging fire. Please tell that to the people of Yemen, whose homes and lives are being destroyed by weapons marked ‘Made in the U.S.A.,’ dropped by planes being refueled by the U.S. military on targets chosen with US assistance.”
Meanwhile, Donald Trump is doing a two-step to avoid blaming Saudi Arabia for Khashoggi’s death.
But Congress is pushing back.
On October 10, a bipartisan group of 22 senators sent a letter to Trump, triggering the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which requires the president “to determine whether a foreign person is responsible for an extrajudicial killing, torture, or other gross violation of internationally recognized human rights against an individual exercising freedom of expression, and report to the Committee within 120 days with a determination and a decision on the imposition of sanctions on that foreign person or persons.”
The letter states that Khashoggi “could be a victim of a gross violation of internationally recognized human rights, which includes ‘torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, prolonged detention without charges and trial, causing the disappearance of persons by the abduction and clandestine detention of those persons, and other flagrant denial of the right to life, liberty, or the security of person.’”
It calls on Trump to impose sanctions on “any foreign person responsible for such a violation related to Mr. Khashoggi,” including “the highest ranking officials of the Government of Saudi Arabia.”
The timing of this scandal is tricky for congressional Republicans. Several GOP Congress members are demanding an aggressive US response if Saudi Arabia is responsible for Khashoggi’s killing. But with the November 6 midterm elections less than three weeks away, many could face a backlash with voters if they distance themselves from Trump.
Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission. | {
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Many adults eat too much salt Scientists suggest we may add extra salt to our food because it boosts our mood, even though we know too much is bad for us. University of Iowa researchers writing in Psychology and Behavior say salt may act as a natural antidepressant. Tests on rats found those with a salt deficiency shied away from activities they normally enjoyed - a sign of depression. But experts warn eating too much salt is linked to high blood pressure. The body needs sodium - which along with chloride makes up salt - to function, but having too much and raising blood pressure is linked to an increased risk of stroke and heart attack. The UK's Food Standards Agency says the average adult should eat no more than 6g of salt a day. Intake is falling, but last year the average was 8.6g. Around three-quarters of the salt we eat comes in pre-prepared foods. The findings are published as the FSA renewed its advice for people to eat more healthily. It backed an independent panel of experts warning that celebrity chefs were promoting high-fat recipes, and contributing to the obesity crisis. Cravings The tests carried out by US researchers found that when rats were deficient in salt, they shy away from activities they normally enjoy, like drinking a sugary substance or pressing a bar that stimulates a pleasant sensation in their brains. Psychologist Kim Johnson, who led the research, said: "Things that normally would be pleasurable for rats didn't elicit the same degree of relish, which leads us to believe that a salt deficit and the craving associated with it can induce one of the key symptoms associated with depression." This research may help us to understand why some people still eat too much salt, even though they know it's bad for them
Consensus for Action on Salt and Health She said it a loss of pleasure in normally pleasing activities is one of the most important features of psychological depression. And she said there were signs salt could be addictive. One sign of addiction is using a substance even when it is known to be harmful - and even though people know they should cut their salt intake, they like the taste and find low-salt foods bland so continue to eat it. Another strong aspect of addiction is the development of cravings if something is withheld. The University of Iowa team say tests they carried out showed similar changes in brain activity whether rats are exposed to drugs or salt deficiency. "This suggests that salt need and cravings may be linked to the same brain pathways as those related to drug addiction and abuse." 'More depressing' But a spokesman for Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH), which campaigns to raise awareness about the health risks of eating too much salt, said: "Our bodies need a very small amount of salt to function, but nothing like the quantities that most of us eat. "This research may help us to understand why some people still eat too much salt, even though they know it's bad for them. "I personally have never felt depressed by not eating too much salt: I think it would be far more depressing to have a heart attack or stroke that could have been avoided by not eating so much salt."
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The VR Cover may provide the Oculus Quest a solution to its latent discomfort.
The standalone Oculus Quest VR headset is currently receiving critical praise across the Internet for its high accessibility and low friction. Following a celebrated launch late last month, the Quest is now sitting at a 4.6 review score on Amazon. So it’s hard to imagine that Quest fans (of which I consider myself a big one) have anything but nice things to say about its wholly untethered design. Unfortunately, the Quest has one major flaw that’s difficult to overlook.
In order to pack in all the tech that keeps it running independently, Oculus needed to sacrifice the wieldy-ness of the original Rift CV1 design that the Quest is based on. As a result, there seems to be a trend of users complaining that the Quest is poorly balanced in terms of weight, that it leaves marks on their foreheads, and that it simply isn’t pleasant to wear for any prolonged period of time.
After spending three hours in the pleather Oculus Quest Foam & Interface Basic Set and another three hours in the machine-washable cloth Oculus Quest VR Cover, I found that the latter completely mitigated all comfort issues I’d had with the bare Oculus Quest facial padding.
It’s possible that I simply react better to cloth than I do to pleather, but I was able to complete multiple workouts in BOXVR and Dance Central VR without the usual red marks left across my face and forehead afterward.
When you purchase the basic Oculus Quest VR Cover, you can expect to receive:
Two cloth covers.
A lint-free cleaning cloth.
A quick setup pamphlet.
And the Oculus Quest Foam & Interface Basic Set will instead come with:
A facial pad with velcro lining.
Two pleather covers.
A lint-free cleaning cloth.
A quick setup pamphlet.
The difference between both, besides the price ($19.99 for the cloth VR Cover and $29.99 for the pleather Oculus Quest Foam & Interface Basic Set), is in how each one sits on your face. The pleather VR Cover consistently dug into and irritated my cheeks, and I found it more difficult to keep the headset on while getting into my BOXVR rhythm.
The regular cloth VR Cover, however, sat much more comfortably once I adjusted the straps on top and on both sides of the headset. As with the other cloth covers from VR Cover, this one will soak up your sweat and reduce the chance that you’ll grunge up your headset by sweating through the styrofoam padding. The benefit of using the pleather cover, on the other hand, comes from how easy it is to clean it. Simply wipe it down with alcohol after you’ve finished playing.
From a utility standpoint, it’s unpleasant to sweat directly into the Quest’s factory foam padding. In fact, I waited to get the VR Cover in the mail before going hard in both BOXVR and Dance Central VR. But I’m certainly glad that I did. VR Cover provides a set of armor that separates your face from the headset.
For those of you who want to jump into VR for a full 2.5 hours of battery life (or more) with increased comfort, this is a no-brainer. Functionally, the two covers are exactly what we got on other headsets such as the Oculus Rift CV1. But they make a much more pronounced difference on the Quest — a device that is far more front-heavy, and less comfortable as a result.
Our final verdict is that the cloth VR Cover is an essential purchase if you own an Oculus Quest, regardless of whether or not you personally have an issue with how the headset fits on your face. Despite having a less-than-stellar time with the pleather VR Cover from the foam replacement set, I know that I’m going to continue washing and reusing the cloth cover for as long as I own an Oculus Quest.
It’s worth noting that VR Cover sent us a package of items for this review. According to the company’s website, cloth VR Covers aren’t set to ship until June 20th at the earliest. Meanwhile, pleather Oculus Quest Foam & Interface Basic Sets are projected to ship out on July 10. | {
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MEXICO / MONTEVIDEO.- El presidente uruguayo, José "Pepe" Mujica , acostumbrado a hablar sin pelos en la lengua, desató durante un fin de semana un conflicto diplomático con México, después de hablar sobre la desaparición de 43 estudiantes, hace dos meses, en ese país. Finalmente, el ex tupamaro debió rectificar su apreciación de que México es un "Estado fallido" después de que el gobierno de Enrique Peña Nieto pidió al embajador uruguayo dar explicaciones.
La polémica estalló con la publicación el viernes de una entrevista de Foreign Affairs Latinoamérica en la que Mujica calificó de "terrible" la situación de México, y aseguró que desde lejos parece que el país fuese "una especie de Estado fallido, que los poderes públicos están perdidos totalmente de control, están carcomidos".
"Es muy doloroso lo de México. Yo apelo a que México reaccione en su ética y en su moral", agregó.
Mujica, quien concluye su mandato en marzo de 2015, sostuvo que la desaparición de los jóvenes se debe a la corrupción, instalada como una "tácita costumbre social" y que México está obligado a aclarar el caso "caiga quien caiga, le duela a quien le duela y tenga la consecuencia que tenga".
Peña Nieto sumó así un problema diplomático a la indignación popular por la desaparición de los estudiantes en Guerrero –y su presunta masacre- y a las denuncias de corrupción contra la primera dama.
La Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores (SRE) de México manifestó ayer un "sorpresa y rechazo categórico" a las declaraciones de Mujica y citó al embajador de Uruguay en México, Jorge Alberto Delgado, para que diera explicaciones.
En respuesta a Mujica en un comunicado, las autoridades mexicanas reafirmaron además su "compromiso de continuar las investigaciones con claridad, transparencia y responsabilidad".
Rectificación
Anoche, poco después de la medianoche, el mandatario uruguayo rectificó su declaración en una nota difundida por su despacho, en la que ofreció a México "apoyarle en todo lo que pueda facilitar el enfrentamiento de este difícil momento".
"Las crudas noticias que nos llegan sobre las consecuencias del narcotráfico en países como Guatemala, Honduras y ahora México, nos gritan una verdadera lección de dolor", dijo el mandatario, al subrayar que "no son, ni serán, estas naciones, estados inocuos o fallidos".
Mujica expresó su "solidaridad con México, su sistema político y su gobierno", y manifestó "confianza en el capital político que reside en sus partidos y sus instituciones democráticas".
"Medimos la dimensión del enemigo que México enfrenta, pero creemos en las reservas éticas y en el compromiso tácito de todos los que se sienten orgullosamente mexicanos, y confiamos en su fuerza para enfrentarlas y vencerlas", concluye el comunicado.
Peña Nieto, también en problemas con Chile
El caso de la desaparición hace dos meses de los estudiantes en Iguala, en el estado sureño de Guerrero, por orden de un alcalde y a manos de policías coludidos con narcotraficantes, tiene a Peña Nieto en su peor crisis desde que asumió el poder en 2012, con protestas en México y presiones de la comunidad internacional.
Además de los roces con Uruguay, otro foco de fricción se abrió con Chile por la detención del chileno Laurence Maxwell durante una multitundinaria protesta en la capital mexicana el pasado jueves, que acabó en un enfrentamiento entre enfurecidos manifestantes y antimotines frente al Palacio Nacional.
Encabezadas por los padres de Maxwell, medio centenar de personas protestaron pacíficamente ayer en las puertas de la embajada de México en Santiago para denunciar "irregularidades" en el proceso en que fue acusado de homicidio en grado de tentativa, asociación delictuosa y motín, junto con otras 10 detenidos en la protesta.
"Está clarísimo que nuestro hijo no tuvo ninguna participación en ningún hecho violento, o sea que nos hace pensar que detrás de esto hay gato encerrado", declaró Alberto Maxwell, padre de Laurence.
La embajada de México en Chile reaccionó asegurando que "desde el primer momento de la detención, las autoridades consulares chilenas fueron debidamente notificadas" y que los detenidos "gozan de todas las garantías que la ley mexicana otorga".
El caso de los estudiantes ha salpicado a los partidos de todo el espectro político, al desnudar los profundos e históricos problemas de corrupción, violencia e impunidad que persisten en México.
Agencias AFP, Reuters y diario El País (GDA) | {
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Samantha pink wird von nacho vidal gefickt
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Remy lacroix wird erotisch hypnotisiert | {
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A US-chartered oil exploration ship seized by the Venezuelan navy in Caribbean waters disputed with neighboring Guyana has arrived at Venezuela's Margarita Island.
Venezuelan authorities say the ship's 36 crew members, including five US citizens, will be held on board while an investigation continues.
Admiral Angel Belisario Martinez told local station Union Radio on Sunday that the research ship was conducting "unauthorised scientific work" in Venezuela's exclusive economic zone.
He said the case had been turned over to prosecutors.
The vessel was conducting a seismic study for Anadarko Petroleum under a concession from Guyana.
Guyana's government says the crew was well within Guyana's territorial waters.
On Friday, Venezuela's foreign ministry said in a statement that the vessel was detected and intercepted because "it was carrying out illegal activities" within an ocean border area claimed by Caracas.
Guyana earlier said that a Venezuelan navy ship had confronted the Teknik Perdana on Thursday as it explored off the coast of Essequibo.
"Venezuela expresses its most energetic protest" because of the prospecting and exploratory activities on the "Venezuelan maritime ocean bed" carried out by the Teknik Perdana, Caracas said.
Venezuela and Guyana remain locked in territorial disputes concerning the Essequibo region, a wrangle that dates back to the 19th century.
The Guyana statement said the Teknik Perdana had been conducting a multi-beam survey of the seafloor when it was stopped.
"One point is clear and that is that the Teknik Perdana was in Guyana's waters when this incident took place," the foreign ministry statement said, demanding the immediate release of the ship and its crew.
"The government of Guyana is of the firm belief that the actions taken by the Venezuelan navy vessel constitute a serious threat to the peace of this sub-region and the government of Guyana therefore strongly condemns these actions," it added. | {
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“I like to live always at the beginnings of life, not at their end. We all lose some of our faith under the oppression of mad leaders, insane history, pathologic cruelties of daily life. I am by nature always beginning and believing and so I find your company more fruitful than that of, say, Edmund Wilson, who asserts his opinions, beliefs, and knowledge as the ultimate verity. Older people fall into rigid patterns. Curiosity, risk, exploration are forgotten by them. You have not yet discovered that you have a lot to give, and that the more you give the more riches you will find in yourself. It amazed me that you felt that each time you write a story you gave away one of your dreams and you felt the poorer for it. But then you have not thought that this dream is planted in others, others begin to live it too, it is shared, it is the beginning of friendship and love.
[…]
“You must not fear, hold back, count or be a miser with your thoughts and feelings. It is also true that creation comes from an overflow, so you have to learn to intake, to imbibe, to nourish yourself and not be afraid of fullness. The fullness is like a tidal wave which then carries you, sweeps you into experience and into writing. Permit yourself to flow and overflow, allow for the rise in temperature, all the expansions and intensifications. Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terrors, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them. If it seems to you that I move in a world of certitudes, you, par contre, must benefit from the great privilege of youth, which is that you move in a world of mysteries. But both must be ruled by faith.”
+ Anais Nin
For more on Anais Nin, and the source of this particular quote, visit BrainPickings.org which will quickly become one of your favorite blogs. | {
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INVESTIGATIVE SUMMARY
Findings of Misconduct by an FBI Deputy Assistant Director
Office of Inspector General
Dept. of Justice
May 29, 2019
The OIG Investigation Summary Letter concluded that the DAD engaged in misconduct when the DAD:
disclosed to the media the existence of information that had been filed under seal in federal court, in violation of 18 USC § 401, Contempt of Court;
provided without authorization FBI law enforcement sensitive information to reporters on multiple occasions; and
had dozens of official contacts with the media without authorization, in violation of FBI policy.
found that the DAD engaged in misconduct when the DAD accepted a ticket, valued at approximately $225, to attend a media-sponsored dinner, as a gift from a member of the media, in violation of federal regulations and FBI policy.
Prosecution of the DAD was declined.
–##–
Office of the Inspector General U.S. Department of Justice OVERSIGHT* INTEGRITY * GUIDANCE A Review of Various Actions by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice in Advance of the 2016 Election
Just Released May 29, 2019 Report:
Allegations of procedures not followed within the department;
Agency procedures were followed but there were inconsistencies in procedures, practices, and norms which lead to misconceptions of wrongdoing and bias.
Allegations investigative decisions based on improper considerations;
Comey’s actions were based on his perception of institutional interests of the FBI not political bias. His actions negatively impacted the perception of the FBI and DoJ as fair administrators of justice. His actions usurped the right and role of Attorney General and upset the proper balance between investigative and prosecutorial functions and the accountability principles that guide law enforcement in the United States.
Allegations McCabe should have been recused;
No ethics violations – recusal on Clinton investigation at first not required, he did recuse later in October 2016 but did not fully comply with recusal. No evidence of financial ties between McCabe and Clintons. FBI secrecy for McCabe recusal made no sense.
Allegations Kadzik improperly disclosed non-public information;
Did not commit ethics violation but used poor judgement – even though he was implicated in casual relationship with Podesta and leaked investigation heads up to the man. He was also linked to the Clinton campaign through his son. Kadzik came in for quite a lot of scrutiny in the OIG report.
Allegations DoJ and FBI employees improperly disclosed non-public information; and,
There was no evidence of malicious or deliberate release but there were inconsistencies in procedures, practices, and norms. Some projected an appearance of bias as well as raised questions of objectivity and thoroughness. Documentary or testimonial evidence were not found.
Their actions raised clouds of doubt and honor within the department. The damage they did went far beyond the Midyear Investigation and harmed the agencies involved as a whole bringing into question the integrity of the agencies and ability to present unbiased conclusions.
Allegations certain FOIA documents released October 30 and November 1, 2016 and a Twitter account to improperly release the information were influenced by improper considerations.
No improper FOIA releases. Everything was done according to internal procedures in place. Clinton FOIA handled no differently than any other requests. No evidence of expediting selected requests or delaying others.
–##–
I get how people are becoming disillusioned, disenfranchised, and disgusted by what has for years been a two-tier justice system …………….
This report is nothing more or less than the same sleight-of-hand government investigation of itself. It recommends AGENCY changes but like other occasions does not implicate or indict its fellow workers to the extent that we clearly see criminal offenses and civil corruption.
It may “recommend” but in the end we already know the findings. Comey did the same thing in front of the cameras when he listed all the indictable offenses against Hillary Clinton and in summation said “No, move along, nothing wrong here.”
This is a 520 page document going into detail of everything so they said. It makes reference though to an important fact which they do not expound upon — there was no documentary or testimonial evidence found.
What do they look for if the information included emails, texts and a million other documents? Do they need a document penned in blood of the accused saying something or directing others involved in a clandestine plot to overthrow the sitting president?
Ask accused people standing in front of juries how many had such solid, conclusive direct evidence presented to convict them of wrongdoing or how much of it was circumstantial.
There are vague references to possible wrongdoing but in general the report is a bunch of “whoooey” concerning the breaking of current laws by specific members on both internal and external activities.
If we expect an OIG report to be damning and damaging then we obviously are screwed because an OIG does NOT do that. They report inconsistencies, irregularities, but do not apparently demand full investigations or indictments within their departments.
They reviewed more than 1.2 MILLION documents, talked to more than 100 witnesses multiple times each. Witnesses including the following: Comey, Lynch, Sally Yates, and Bill Clinton as well as a huge number of FBI agents and others.
All of this has consumed the OIG Departments energies since June 2018. It reviewed a MIDYEAR INVESTIGATION begun by the FBI in July 2015 after the OIG referred information to them, the Comey public release of declination findings, and more.
Those who took part in the Midyear Investigation included the DoJ National Security Division, DoJ Attorneys for Eastern District of Virginia, and FBI field and Washington DC offices. That investigation was looking into the Clinton Email scandal which included unauthorized use of devices transmitting classified information.
Those 568 pages include their recommendations to the DoJ and the FBI that are policy and procedure. They do not draw conclusions on guilt or innocence but rather their discoveries and what they concluded from the evidence. According to the statement they wrote on (iii),
“a determination by the OIG that a decision was not unreasonable does not mean that the OIG has endorsed the decision or concluded that the decision was the most effective among the options considered. We took this approach because our role as an OIG is not to second-guess valid discretionary judgments made during the course of an investigation, and this approach is consistent with the OIG’s handling of such questions in past reviews. In undertaking our analysis, our task was made significantly more difficult because of text and instant messages exchanged on FBI devices and systems by five FBI employees involved in the Midyear investigation. Chapter Five… Strzok was not the sole decision maker for any of the specific Midyear investigative decision…in some instances Strzok and Page advocated for more aggressive investigative measures in the Midyear investigation, such as the use of grand jury subpoenas and search warrants to obtain evidence.
–##–
According to a second OIG Report presented with the Semi-Annual one, the OIG still have over 1,000 investigations yet to be completed according to their chart.
–00–
DECLINED? What the heck….who declined OIG, DoJ, FBI? Who in the department signed off on refusing to indict the DAD? Say What?
I know I barely scanned the document – I got disgusted just reading the summaries and conclusion paragraphs. Hopefully someone else will have more patience and not be so worried about blood pressure so that a better interpretation of this damn report can be made. For now I am seething. Please share if so. Because at the moment, I simply have to put it down and grab my heart medicine.
Citizens get totally shafted once again and the guilty go free.
Once again we are seeing those with ties to the Democrat elites pandered to, protection of government hierarchy Democrats, and leftist party members skating unscathed through the justice system while the rest of the country has to worry about a single picture or a single post on social media………………UN-believable.
WTF!
–Uriel–
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Buyers or Sellers
The New York Mets took all the headlines Sunday afternoon by trading for All-Star Marcus Stroman. Everyone around the league expected the Stro-Show to take his HDMH trademark to another location, but the Mets were not on anyone’s radar. This news shocked the league and left fans quite confused. The 50-55 New York Mets were not expected to be buyers at the deadline, and they are actively shopping Noah Syndergaard and Zack Wheeler.
Noah Syndergaard and Edwin Diaz
Brodie Van Wagenen (Mets GM) has taken a win-now approach to a team that does not seem ready for that strategy just yet. On the surface the deal does not make a ton of sense, as the Mets are still shopping some of their top arms. However, they successfully cornered the pitching market and upgraded their current rotation. Rumors are flying about trades involving Noah Syndergaard, but I would be surprised to see him get dealt. The Mets did not re-sign DeGrom to be the face of their rebuild. Edwin Diaz could be on the move as his ERA is more than double what it was last season and nobody is benefiting from the Mets keeping Diaz besides opposing hitters. The Mets may be selling, but they are going to keep anyone who will have value to the team next season.
Marcus Stroman headed home
Stroman is signed through the 2020 season, and it seems as though they are going to keep him around to beef up their already quality rotation. The Long Island native is having a terrific season, and brings a fire that the team does not currently have. Marcus is 6-11 with a 2.96 ERA and 99 Ks in 124.2 IP. Stroman is considered a ground-ball pitcher, which could be a problem as the Mets rank 24th in fielding percentage. What is great about the move is that he can be traded next deadline if the team does not take another step in 2020.
Zack Wheeler
Zack Wheeler (7-6, 4.71 ERA) should be on the move in the next coming days and the Mets should get some quality prospects in return as they have just removed a top arm from the market, increasing Wheeler’s value. The pitching market this deadline and this off-season is rather weak. The Mets should be able to find a team that is desperate to make a move and get a quality return for a player that has yet to live up to expectations. Wheeler has not done much to be desired, but he is a strikeout pitcher. Wheeler has 137 Ks in 124.1 IP in 2019. Dealing Zack Wheeler should be a good change for both Zack and the Mets because both sides could use a fresh start. | {
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*Graphic Child Abuse Warning!* Republican Judge And Church Pastor Whips The Devil Out Of His Daughter With A Belt For Playing A Video Game.
Note: to turn off these warnings you need to set the 'safe mode' to OFF (on the top right) | {
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Because the social contract has been broken across the world.
Because power stands a chance not to be immediately perverted if, and only if it runs from the bottom to the top, and local confederal assembly structures hold executive, legislative and judiciary power, leaving administration to simple revocable delegates. [Libertarian municipalism]
Because those are the radically democratic foundations erected in Rojava, and notably in Afrin, on the basis of an ethics conceptualized by Emmanuel Kant and developed by the Kurdish liberation movement: a law taking its source in the full recognition of the human being, in the belief in the activity, dignity and quality of rational individuals who create the laws.
Because the full quote is “man is a wolf for man when he does not know who he is” (Plautus). Which is why a profoundly human society must have “a human face” and allow for meeting the other community actors “face to face” [Bookchin] through local assemblies of no more than 150 people with whom our brain allows us to maintain a stable human relationship.
Because the deployment of the practice of assemblies is our best chance at guaranteeing the taking of ecological decisions, at the local and the global scale, along with inclusion of all kinds, of all ethnic groups, and all faiths, and the taking into account of non-human animals via specific committees.
Because as soon as we deprive a category of human beings from the power to legislate, whatever the reason for this distinction, we cease to recognize them as rational beings who can deliberate on “what to do” in whatever concerns them. They are deprived of all potential for action on life. They are considered like non-persons, un-living.
Because this is the foundation on which Nation-States rest, which only truly consider as persons those who have the power to legislate, or to intervene in this creative process.
Because Nation-States are the framework preserving the laws allowing the appearance of legal persons with powers greater than themselves, via their exaggerated power of influence on said legislative process.
Because the presence of an inordinately unbalanced power was at the very origin of the creation of a representative government, the necessary condition for its birth, deemed too dangerous otherwise, no matter how equalitarian it may have claimed to be at the time.
Because yesterday’s industrial bosses and today’s multinational firms are, by their vested interests and omnipotent influence the true governors of the prison-ship on which we are all condemned to struggle at their feet, the one whose steel hull applies the legal requirements delivered by the State they have set up, heaving and drifting on the deadly waters of the individual corruption of local representatives.
Because this ghost-ship is headed by a soulless one, a concentrate of death impulses stemming not from human beings but from a dumb mechanism that has spread faster than the plague across all spheres of human life on earth: the reduction of costs in order to better serve the financial market. From this springs the savage competition to be the one raking in the most profits, from there infinite growth in a finite world. An age-old curse initiated by a sorcerer’s apprentice: man, and now landing on his head. A Pandora’s box that never ceases to haunt us.
Because the Nation-States, through cajoling and their monopoly on organized violence, are the main actors of our subjection to the inequalities of access to resources, giving us the illusions of participating in the maintenance of the jails constituted by state borders and in the maintenance of economic distinctions they feed and protect.
Because politicians taking part in Nation-States place the interest of the peoples at the service of their personal glory, as well demonstrated by the self-proclaimed Sultan-Khalif and his ever so obliging French counterpart, known as “Jupiter”, two examples that satisfy a rule with no exceptions.
Because the interest of those who preside these democracy mascarades often find themselves intimately linked with those of the leaders of multinationals. Sometimes, State interests combine with the personal interests of the heads of State and turn into hard cash in their noble pockets. In one specific instance, the President’s son-in-law happens to be Minister of Energy, thus allowing for the enrichment of his family through trading in oil with ISIS.
Because we must stop blindly believing that there are benefits to the centralization of power and social wealth in other hands than our own. Claiming that the excesses of the pyramidal power structure can be ignored, given the decisional benefits flowing from it, amounts to legitimizing the death by malnutrition of 3,5 million children per year and the murder of hundreds of thousands of human beings, in a world producing largely enough to nourish its inhabitants and capable of providing them with conditions allowing their access to happiness.
Because it is in this overall context, one in which humanity’s main expenditures are weapons and advertising (in an attempt at self-persuasion), one in which Turkey is the second power in NATO with 720 646 active forces and weapons drawn from very profitable European expertise, one in which the Turkish army is stomping on the greatest attempt of this beginning of the 21st century to supply the bases for a rich and secure life for all humanity in centuries to come, with no limitations caused by social or ecological destruction.
Because at this very moment, we are witnessing a crime against humanity in Afrin, as designated in the following description:
Any one of the following actions committed in the framework of a generalized and systematic attack launched against any civilian population in full cognizance of this attack: a) Murder
b) Extermination
[…]
h) Persecution of any group or identifiable collectivity for political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural or sexual motives.
[…]
k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering or grave breaches to physical integrity or physical or mental health.
The first reports attest to this, images and videos showing the death and wounding of scores of children, women and men among the civilians, because they are Kurdish or simply because they find themselves in Afrin, as happens to be the case for hundreds of thousands of refugees and internally displaced Syrians.
Because this is not a novelty. One of the first uses of this indictment was against the Armenian genocide, executed by the Ottoman empire to which Erdoğan refers so often.
Because in Turkey, negationism of the Armenian genocide is institutionalized, as a refusal of all “denigration of Turkish identity” (known as “turcity“). This was the reason why the writer and Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk was brought before justice for having declared: “One million Armenians and 30 000 Kurds were killed on these lands, but no one other than I dares say so.” The repression against the Kurds is also institutionalized since it is a consequence of the establishment of Turkey’s frontiers in the Sykes-Picot agreements signed by France and Great-Britain, and that consideration of the Kurds as sub-citizens was recognized by the President in 2009, after 85 years of denial. The ban on the Kurdish language, commonly spoken by 20 % of the population in Turkey, is still in force.
Because this repression keeps on accelerating, notably since the 2016 coup d’Etat, opening wide the field to an unstinting tracking of pro-Kurdish opponents, be they intellectuals, artists, PKK militants or not. Against the whole background of exacerbated nationalism, which does not fail to remind us of “the darkest hours in History” provoked by a famous mustachioed-one who also referred to the Ottoman empire in his extermination methods against all who were not recognized by the national-state.
Because this attack is in the context of a conflict ongoing in Syria for the past 7 years, a civil war that has no further interest than to serve the imperialistic fervors of the traditional super-powers and their respective alliances, including fascist fundamentalists devoted to their profits with no ethics whatsoever. I refer you here to Dilar Dirik‘s excellent article [published by ROAR ] : “The offensive could not have been launched without Russia’s agreement, as it controls the air space above Afrin, as well as the consent of Assad and Iran. […] At the same time, the United States […] remain silent on the ambition of their NATO ally to sacrifice the heroes of the war against ISIS.” The Syrian people have nothing to gain, having already lost everything in this civil war now turned into a “grey zone” allowing for the USA’s “petro-business as usual”, or the immoral commercial exchanges, no matter how devastating they may be to ecology.
Because the struggle for the liberation movement is certainly not without faults and contradictions, but it remains the greatest attempt at giving life to libertarian ideals in the world, and it puts these demands on view in transnational diplomacy, forcing the leftist forces across the world to better define their ideas, to develop ideologically so as not to remain in the wordless confusion that capitalism and its agents have managed to impose on them.
Because the lack of human dignity, representative of this ruling system, goes so far as to make an open reference to “1984” by calling this military operation “Olive Branch”, in the manner of a dystopian super-dictatorship, falsifying its abject reality even before re-writing the course of history. In speaking of the attempt at libertarian communism of 1936, Orwell said: “Homage to Catalonia.” Let’s re-establish his heritage and cry: “Homage to Rojava.”
In the name of human happiness, we arrest you, “democracies” that no longer bear anything other than the name, whether you be Occidental, Oriental or from elsewhere.
In the name of human happiness, we arrest you, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, you, your megalomania, your autocracy and your clannish logic.
Let’s Support Afrin !
Afrin • Au nom du bonheur humain, nous vous arrêtons ! Cliquez pour lire
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Por respeto hacia la labor de las autoras y traductoras, puedes utilizar y compartir los artículos y las traducciones de Kedistan citando la fuente y añadiendo el enlace. Gracias. | {
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Greek Finance Minister Christos Staikouras announced last week that Greece would be lifting its capital controls effective September 1ST, allowing the free movement of money in and out of the country for the first time in over four years. This move, a potent sign of the country’s return to normalcy after its three bailouts since 2010, is part of the new government’s plan to boost the economy by facilitating greater domestic and foreign investment.
Greece’s economy has been steadily growing since its low point in 2015, with capital controls having been slowly relaxed. Most recently, firms needed permission from Greece’s central bank to move sums greater than 100,000 euros per day outside the country, while individuals could transfer up to 4,000 euros every two months.
In July, Bank of Greece Governor Yannis Stournaras – with support from the European Central Bank’s banking supervisory arm – recommended that these restrictions be lifted after observing a sustained increase in bank deposits. Meetings followed between officials from Greece’s Finance Ministry, heads of Greece’s banks, and regulators from the Hellenic Capital Market Commission, with restrictions having been officially lifted on Sunday.
The capital controls were first put in place in July 2015, at the height of negotiations over Greece’s debt burden between the country’s international creditors and the left-wing Syriza government.
After former Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, called a referendum on the bailout terms negotiated with Greece’s lenders, the European Central Bank cut off emergency liquidity assistance to the country’s banking system. The move provoked fears of a widespread banking system collapse, triggering Greeks to withdraw deposits en masse – preferring to hold cash or move their deposits into banks elsewhere in the eurozone. In response, and in a bid to stem the outflow of money from the country, capital controls were imposed by the government.
Actors across Greece’s political spectrum praised the move to lift capital controls, which sailed through parliament with support from all parties except the hardline communist KKE. Government and opposition, however, both sought to claim credit for the initiative. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who took power when his New Democracy party won a sweeping victory in July’s elections, highlighted that a “new cycle of optimism has begun for the economy and banking system”, framing his party’s election as a restoration of confidence in the Greek economy after four years of Syriza rule.
Euclid Tsakalotos, a Syriza MP who served as finance minister in the previous government, countered that removing capital controls was the direct result of his administration’s economic policies, and that New Democracy was taking advantage of Syriza’s heavy lifting.
Reactions from the business community have been widely positive, as lifting the restrictions will facilitate greater foreign direct investment into Greece, and serve as a powerful symbol that the country has emerged from its state of crisis. The Greek government hopes that the reform will also spur credit rating agencies to upgrade Greece’s status, allowing it to borrow at a lower cost on international capital markets.
The European Commission also praised the decision, with its spokeswoman calling it “an important milestone and yet another sign that confidence continues to build on Greece’s economic recovery”. Allowing free capital movement could also provide an investment boost to nearby Cyprus, a country with strong economic ties to Greece.
After announcing the move, Mitsotakis met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin. While the German leader praised the new government’s reform efforts, no easing of the financial terms of Greek debt were promised. Nevertheless, the two leaders agreed on the general direction of reforms to stimulate greater investment in the Greek economy, noting that as the Greek economy grows it will be easier to repay debts. | {
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“SING ME ANOTHER LOVE SONG, MY LOVE”
I sat by him whom my heart pant for
I searched in him for what ails his heart
The more I try, the farther I felt him slip
Farther away from me, I felt him slip
Gone were the days when I could see
In him whom my heart pant for
The glow and warmth of love in his songs
His words were soothing balm upon my soul,
They engulfed me with his hopes and desires.
He sings his life to me in words filled with
Memories of hopes lost in desires
He sings his life to me in love songs
He is the hero I have given my life to
He is the champion that rescued my life
From a chain of clustered misadventures
But, I felt I am losing him yet again
His smiles are a shadow of themselves
His embraces are devoid of affection
Kisses have turned peck devoid of warmth
He is a shadow of whom my heart pant for
Prodding and caressing I coax my heart
Into his, reaching into depth overlaid
By societal exigent and pressures
I peeled them off him whom my heart pant for
I am not going to beg for whatsoever may betide
The joy and love of whom my heart pants for
I love to hear him sing me his love songs
I love to hear the love songs of his life
Sing me a love song, I entreated him
Sing me another love song I employed him
Sing me the love stories of your life I sort him
Sing me another love song my soul to revive
In the depth of his heart, I heard him sing
They begin slowly to flow once again
Disjointed and hesitant the lyrics were
Yet, I love to hear him sing those love songs
Then I sing for him, whom my heart pant for
My own love song; a song of reverence and worship
“Lord, I love you dear, with sorrow, pain, and your Life
You rescued me, I love you my dear Lord Omnipotent.”
What Joy that flows into my life, as I could once again
Hear his response to me in celestial love songs
They came in torrent, like rain drops, saturating me
In a bliss of warm, heartfelt, and hopeful love songs. | {
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As a City Member, we want to make sure you’re getting the most possible value from your Membership. The Ticket Trade-In Program allows you to return tickets from matches you're not attending in exchange for City Tokens that can be used for seat upgrades or to add tickets for future matches. This way tickets won’t go unused.
City Members can trade-in tickets from up to eight (8) matches during the 2020 regular home season. If you are returning tickets more than 48 hours in advance of a match, the value of the City Tokens you receive is equal to the price you paid for that match as part of your Membership. Tickets returned less than 48 hours before the scheduled kick-off time will receive 50% of the ticket price you paid. Variable pricing will apply.
Please see below for what’s new, how to sign up and use the program, and for some frequently asked questions. Sign up today to get started!
Read the Ticket Trade-In Terms & Conditions here. | {
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Transcript
Hey and welcome to EmberScreencasts. Today we’re going to be talking about closure actions. They’re a new feature that was introduced in Ember 1.13, and they’re going to be taking much greater prominence in Ember 2.0.
Let’s take a look at the app we’ll be working with today. It’s changed a little bit since the previous iterations. So we have three different types of accessories, these are done with a component, and then you click what color you want and it’ll change. You can also hit none. Now currently we have this set up with 1.x actions, the type of actions it’s been using for a long time. We’re going to show you how that works, how the new ones work, and how those are different.
So currently we’re using two nested components, color-selector and control-accessory , within the actions route. We’ll start at the lowest level. Here is where we’re looping through all the colors and we’re able to hit a button. And so when we hit that button it calls the changeItem action, and then what it does is it goes to the component file, to the JavaScript part of it, and it finds that action. And then it’s going to send the action up. And so what we have here in the one that’s above it, so when we’re declaring the color-selector , we poke a hole in it for changeItem . And so this will catch that changeItem action, like alright, I know what changeItem is, and I’m going to try and find a changeItem action on me. And what do you know, there is one. Then it does the exact same thing. It’s like alright, I know what changeItem is, I’m going to send changeItem up again.
Now here in the template of our controller, we’re doing something a little bit different. Instead of just sending it up to changeItem , because we have three different iterations to control-accessory , we’re sending it up to different actions. The action we send it up to changes depending on what the item is that we’re talking about within that component. And then of course in the controller we’re defining the different actions as well as the things they change, hatColor , necklaceColor , and shoeColor . If any of this was confusing to you, I recommend you go to my previous episode on Ember 1.x actions and components where it’s explained in more detail. We’re going to be moving on to the Ember 1.13 and 2.0 actions.
So let’s start with the mindset we need to have about these new function-passing actions. So previously we were grabbing an action, we were passing it up, catching it, passing it up again. We kept on passing it up until it hit the controller and we actually did something with it. In our new mindset, we’re going to be taking that function on the controller and pushing it down into the component, and the component can call that action. So let’s see what that looks like in action.
So here in the controller template, we’re going to be passing down an action. And the way we do that is to use the action helper and then the name of the action. We’ll see in the next episode different things you can use this for. So this is much more flexible than the old way.
So we’re sending down the action using handlebars subexpressions. That’s what the parentheses mean. And if you’re confused about that, then you can check out my episode on it, Episode 24.
So now moving down the control-accessory template, here we have the old version where it was recognizing, hey, when you pass up that action, here’s where we’re going to send it. But now we’re passing down the function. So we’re going to call the attrs hash. And attrs is a new thing introduced in 1.13 that takes all the values that you put in a component. So changeItem , itemName , and itemColor are attrs that are available here. So we’re going to use attrs.changeItem and that will pass down the function. And what that means is that this changeItem on the component, it is no longer necessary, so we can get rid of that. And if you have deeply nested components, this is going to save you a lot of code. So then we go down, we go down to the color-selector component and instead of sending the action, what we’re going to do is call this.attrs.changeItem . We’re calling a method instead of sending an action. And so this is the changeItem method that has been passed down through the control-accessory and through the controller.
So getting rid of a lot of code in your nested components is one of the easiest benefits to see from switching to the Ember 1.13 and Ember 2.0 actions. However, there are lots of new cool things you can do with it that just weren’t possible before. In our pro-episode this week, we’re going to be talking about how to use parameter currying, a new feature in closure actions, to do some really cool metaprogramming. Using this metaprogramming, you can add accessories incredibly easily just by adding to a list and then the metaprogramming takes care of the rest for you. So we just added those two, and here they are, already working. I look forward to showing you the details. | {
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It turns out Londoners aren’t as hungry for food trucks as many thought.
More than a year after city council voted to roll out a pilot project with the mobile eateries, only five trucks are on the road and two of the early entrants have already quit the business.
At first, the city capped the number of allowed food trucks at eight. But that was removed last year to make it easier for entrepreneurs to get the financing for their trucks to feed what had appeared to be a hefty appetite in the city for the mobile eateries.
At about $80,000 and up, the steep cost to buy and equip a food truck without a guarantee there would be a licence available left a bad taste in the mouths of prospective entrepreneurs, said Orest Katolyk, the city’s bylaw enforcement boss.
Omar Hanan, owner of the downtown Barakat restaurant, had one of the first food trucks to hit London’s streets, but after about a year he sold it.
His truck, Tahini’s, specialized in Mediterranean fusion food.
“I had it the whole summer downtown, but I felt like the people in London were not welcoming of food from a food truck,” Hanan said.
But a greater problem than Londoners not being very receptive to getting their meals on wheels, said Hanan, was the small profit margin in the business.
“It’s very little profit for a lot of work,” he said. “Even if (business) did pick up, it’s really not worth the hassle.”
Shelby’s Food Express, another starter in the food truck business, also lost its taste for it, choosing to focus on its two restaurants instead.
Co-owner Yazan El-Shalabi didn’t renew his licence this year and is trying to sell the truck.
“It’s not about not working out, it’s about me finding the time,” he said.
“What we’re finding is that the established restaurants that went into the food truck business are getting out of the food trucks,” said Katolyk. “But the ones that are starting are ones that don’t currently have bricks-and mortar restaurants operating.”
While many other cities embraced food trucks early on, the concept took a while to be allowed in London because of concerns from restaurant owners — who pay city taxes and fees — that their business would suffer from the street vendors. Similar concerns erupted years earlier, over street hot dog carts.
But that excuse rings hollow for Harley MacIntyre, the owner of bricks-and-mortar Shmokey’s BBQ and The Walking Fed food truck.
“I say, ‘Hey, if you’ve got a problem with food trucks, you better make better food,’” said the French-trained chef.
His food truck has been popular with Londoners, he said.
“You would not believe how many people take the picture of it and come up beside it because they love the series (The Walking Dead),” he said.
But he’s had a tough time serving up grub streetside.
“Mostly, I’m just doing events because there’s not really that many prime locations in the city for us to operate.”
But despite some bumps in the road, other entrepreneurs are braving the streets and putting their pedals to the metal.
“I think it’s a great business for many people,” said Ricardo Cavaco, the owner and operator of Bifana Boys, which specializes in Portuguese food.
“It’s a great outlet for people that like to cook,” said the executive chef for a downtown restaurant, adding he hopes to get the truck out on the road more.
“We’re really still part-time. I feel that it’s been received really, really well,” he said. “We’ve developed a really good following. I think Londoners are ready for it — it’s just a slow start so far.”
[email protected]
twitter.com/AzzuraLFPress
FOOD TRUCKS ON THE ROAD | {
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Story highlights We used to hear how great motherhood is; now, we see in film and TV how terrible it is
Postpartum psychosis is a rare and serious mental illness featured in the new film "Tully"
This story contains spoilers about the movie "Tully."
(CNN) For most of cinematic history, on-screen mothers have been a tame bunch. They were observers and healers, drivers and cheek-crumb wipers. They could be wise but rarely were given the chance to reveal how they earned this wisdom. Back stories, with all their tension and grit, have a way of humanizing us, and mothers weren't allowed to be fully human.
No more. A new crop of entertainment about motherhood has turned its eye toward the inner lives of motherhood, exploring feelings and storylines that were long overlooked. "Tully," a new film featuring Charlize Theron, is about a mother's experience with feeling lost -- and, eventually, kind of found -- after the birth of her third child.
It's joined by television shows like "The Letdown," "Catastrophe" and, to some degree, "Big Little Lies," whose plots largely revolve around the darker side of life with children. There are also the many parenting memes and hashtags that, if read in isolation, make parenting sound like purgatory.
The struggles they portray aren't new -- they're the manifestations of "the problem with no name" examined by Betty Friedan's 1963 book "The Feminine Mystique" -- but the fact that characters are hashing it out on the screen is new.
These stories do important work. They embolden many to reject the specter of idealized motherhood that still looms over women. Still, the net effect is a grim one. We've gone from a unnaturally seamless portrayal of motherhood to a pockmarked one, when the reality is often somewhere in between. We used to hear, again and again, how great motherhood is. Now we hear, again and again, how terrible motherhood is. An improvement? Sure. But it's far from ideal. | {
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You are what you eat. And yet most of us have very little idea of what it is we’re putting in our bodies. Take the 2013 scandal that revealed processed beef products in Europe had been contaminated with horsemeat. The discovery sent shockwaves throughout the food industry and left consumer confidence at rock bottom.
It also exposed just how complex and global our food supply chains have become. But according to a new study that tracks the origin of our food products, this isn’t a recent development.
In fact, we’ve been exchanging food crops for so long that today, almost 70% of crops that form the basis of a national diet (think tomatoes in Italy, potatoes in Ireland or chili peppers in Thailand) come from another region.
The researchers visualized their results in an interactive map that allows you to see where exactly different food products come from. And some of them might surprise you.
Nothing as American as apple pie, right? Maybe not, because apples originated in Asia and Europe. And while British tennis fans have been eating strawberries and cream since the 19th century, the fruit originated in North and South America.
Click on the map to explore the full interactive version Image: International Center for Tropical Agriculture
“The numbers affirm what we have long known – that our entire food system is completely global,” the lead researcher told journalists.
This article is part of our globalization series. You can read more here. | {
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CARSON, Calif. – The LA Galaxy this week began preseason preparations under their third new head coach in as many seasons, and the biggest issue facing the club as Guillermo Barros Schelotto starts to install his way of playing is what to do about the excess Designated Player.
How about keep him?
The Galaxy have four DPs after a new contract boosted Zlatan Ibrahimovic to that status, and they can possess just three when the season kicks off March 2 against the Chicago Fire at Dignity Health Sports Park. The most persistent speculation has concerned Giovani dos Santos' departure, either via a transfer, with LA likely picking up part of his salary, or the club buying out his contract – or a trade sending Romain Alessandrini to Montreal, but Barros Schelotto would prefer to keep all four.
Watch, perhaps, for one of the holdovers – Alessandrini, dos Santos, or his brother Jonathan dos Santos – to take a restructured deal or for the Galaxy to use Targeted Allocation Money to lessen his impact under the salary cap.
“We don't have any problem about the [Designated] Player,” Schelotto said after Wednesday's training session during LA's first media availability of the preseason. “We are talking with the player about that, and no problem. ... I think maybe it can happen. I think we need to talk with him.”
Which “him” it is, the club isn't saying, but Alessandrini thinks he's earned his DP stature.
“If I have to choose, I stay there. I stay, like, as a DP,” the French winger said. “I don't want to be too much confident, but we work I did the last two years, I think I have to stay like a DP. We'll see what's going to happen.
“The club has to make a choice. Soccer is complicated sometimes, but it is what it is. We'll see what [the club is] going to do, and we have to accept it.”
Neither of the dos Santos brothers spoke Wednesday, and Ibrahimovic said he was hopeful all three remained with the club: “Hopefully, everybody gets satisfied and happy, and we can continue to work just like we're doing.”
The Galaxy opened camp Sunday and are training twice a day most of the first week; they have 23 players under contract, plus draft picks midfielder Emil Cuello from SMU and forward Don Tchilao from Oregon State. And Galaxy II defender Diedie Traore also appears to be in the team's plans at the moment.
There is ample talent and depth in midfield, and LA are happy with their goalkeeping situation after announcing Wednesday they'd signed Re-Entry Draft choice Matt Lampson. Another forward would help, and the backline is a work in progress.
“I think we have a really good roster, but maybe we can get [additional players], more in defense,” Schelotto said. “We are seeing our possibilities. We have important players like Ibra, Romain, both Dos Santos, so we will see what possibilities we have so that all our players have the freedom to feel comfortable on the field and give their best.”
Contento de ver la buena predisposición de los jugadores. Empezamos el trabajo para conseguir las metas que este Club merece.
First pre-season days in the books! Happy with the players’ receptiveness. We’ve kicked off 2019 with eyes on the goals that we need to achieve. #Since96 pic.twitter.com/kB20v20hH8 — Guillermo Barros Schelotto (@GBS_Oficial) January 24, 2019
MLS's MVP when he led Columbus Crew SC to the 2008 MLS Cup title, Schelotto emphasized attacking soccer with strong defensive organization during his coaching tenures with Lanus and Boca Juniors, and that's what players expect to see from the Galaxy.
“His vision is to attack, get organized, more tactical,” Ibrahimovic said. “I think you all know his philosophy from his previous clubs. So I think it fits us good.”
Ola Kamara said Schelotto has started unveiling the vision of how he wants to play.
“He wants us to defend,” the Norwegian forward said, “but he also wants us to play good attacking football where everybody's involved and [he] wants to play along the ground. He's been pretty clear about that the first couple of days.”
Schelotto himself is more coy.
“I think we first have to find our style of play, be committed, and from then on see what our possibilities are, based on what we have,” he said. “We'll see that as soon as we start playing games.” | {
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Twitter has said that tweets posted early Tuesday morning by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk that irresponsibly call for restrictions put in place to defend against the spread of COVID-19 don’t violate its guidelines around inaccurate or disputed information about the coronavirus that could cause harm. Musk tweeted a series of things on Tuesday, including an endorsement of a controversial Wall Street Journal op-ed with the caption “Give people their freedom back!”
A Twitter spokesperson told TechCrunch that these tweets, which also include an urging to “FREE AMERICA NOW,” are “not currently in violation of the Twitter rules. According to the company, it has said previously that it’s not enforcing punitive or corrective action on each instance of tweets about COVID-19 that don’t provide a full picture or that appear to contain info that’s disputed by other sources.
Twitter says that it has removed over 2,400 Tweets since March 18 when it implemented its new policy, and that its automated filtering systems have addressed in some way or another as many as 3.4 million accounts which seemed to be spamming or providing manipulative info regarding COVID-19 discussions. Thus far, however, some of the most influential sources of have not been subject to punitive or corrective action under the policy.
President Trump’s tweets calling to “liberate” states, for instance, which bear a content and formatting similarity to the new tweets by Musk, have not been removed or disputed by the social network, and Twitter provided a similar statement about those missives not currently violating its rules.
Trump and Musk represent some of the most influential Twitter users, with 78.9 million and 33.3 minion users respectively, so their voices have outweighed impact on the community and public discourse relative to spam or automated misinformation accounts. In both cases, these messages indirectly seek to encourage the curtailing or disruption of social distancing, isolation and quarantine measures, even as the U.S. surged past 1 million diagnosed cases this week, with many more likely undiagnosed and therefore unaccounted for in the total.
States are already beginning to ease restrictions, and seeing resurgences in case numbers. Some more rural states that previously seemed less impacted are seeing spikes, even as they began to partially reopen, including Iowa. Leading experts including Dr. Anthony Fauci of the U.S. federal coronavirus task force have warned against the consequences of relaxing rules too soon, and the WHO and CDC are still warning of the impact of opening up too soon as well. | {
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¿Dónde están los "perdidos" de México?
Pie de foto, El patrullaje de las calles de las grandes ciudades mexicanas parece no dar los resultados esperados.
El pasado fin de semana, más de una veintena de personas desaparecieron en el destino turístico de Acapulco. Según la fiscalía del estado de Guerrero, se trató de un caso más de "privación ilegal de libertad". Pero para algunas organizaciones civiles consultadas por BBC Mundo representa el último ejemplo de un fenómeno en aumento en México: la desaparición de hombres jóvenes y profesionales, de quienes, en muchos casos, nunca más se llega a saber.
"Desde 2009 hemos visto un incremento considerable de personas desaparecidas, a menudo en grupo", explica Blanca Martínez, directora de la organización Fuerzas Unidas por Nuestros Desaparecidos de Coahuila (Fuundec).
"Son gente común y corriente, trabajadora —añade Martínez— y no hay datos que permitan presumir su involucramiento en algún tipo de actividad ilícita ni participación en el crimen organizado".
Fuundec documentó 82 casos de desapariciones desde 2007 sólo en el estado de Coahuila, en el noreste del país. Casi todas las víctimas eran jóvenes varones con empleo, algunos de ellos en viaje de trabajo y procedentes de otros estados del país. No hubo amenazas, no se pidió un rescate ni se extorsionó a las familias.
¿Era "narco"?
Yolanda Morán sabe mejor que nadie qué significa que un familiar se desvanezca.
Su hijo Dan Jeremeel Fernández, un contador de 35 años, nunca llegó a la estación de Torreón (Coahuila). El 19 de diciembre de 2008, ella le esperaba allí para pasar juntos las navidades, como era tradición desde hace años. Pero lo único que Yolanda Morán encontró fue el auto de su hijo, con el maletero lleno de pisadas y un casquillo de bala en el asiento.
"Las autoridades me preguntaban si mi hijo andaba gastando mucho dinero, si lucía muy fastuoso o si andaba metido en líos… si era narco", recuerda indignada Morán, que nunca recibió una llamada de su hijo o del posible secuestrador.
"Incluso me decían que quizás se quedó dormido con alguna mujer", dice Morán, que especula con la posibilidad de que Dan Jeremeel viva ahora explotado por alguna organización criminal.
"No sé si lo tienen secuestrado, empaquetando hierba o si le hacen trabajar como extorsionador", lamenta.
Los "levantados"
Este tipo de desapariciones no son las únicas en México. Desde comienzos de los años 90, la frontera norte sufre los llamados "levantones", en los que las organizaciones criminales secuestran —a menudo en plena vía pública— a sus víctimas, que en ocasiones tienen alguna relación con bandas rivales.
"Generalmente nunca más se sabe de ellas", dice Víctor Clark Alfaro, director del Centro Binacional de Derechos Humanos, con sede en Tijuana. "Y si se sabe es porque aparecen ejecutadas en algún cementerio clandestino horas, días o semanas después", aclara.
A diferencia de los casos de secuestro tradicional, el destino de los "levantados" es incierto y no hay comunicación con los familiares, explica Clark: "No reclaman un rescate, son el cobro de facturas al enemigo, al bando contrario".
El Centro Binacional de Derechos Humanos, que renunció hace una década a documentar casos tras recibir amenazas de muerte, estima que miles de personas habrían sido "levantadas" en toda la frontera desde 1990, de acuerdo a los casos reportados en la prensa.
Perdidos
Pie de foto, Martínez indica que las personas secuestradas y que nunca más aparecen son "gente común y corriente, trabajadora".
Sin embargo, no se sabe a ciencia cierta cuántas personas han sido "levantadas" en México en los últimos años, reconocen las propias organizaciones. El miedo a denunciar, la falta de testigos o en ocasiones la imposibilidad de identificar los cadáveres dificulta la elaboración de un registro de estas desapariciones o incluso su investigación por parte de las autoridades.
En algunos estados sí existen fiscalías especializadas en "desapariciones forzadas" e incluso la Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos (CNDH) tiene entre sus misiones la defensa de desaparecidos.
Pero en la práctica, estos organismos no gozan de competencias para actuar si no hay indicios de la participación de agentes del estado, como militares o policías, le dice a BBC Mundo Santiago Corcuera, ex presidente del grupo de Naciones Unidas sobre Desapariciones Forzadas.
"Lo que vemos ahora no son sólo desapariciones llevadas a cabo por el Estado o con su aquiescencia, son venganzas entre grupos de narcotraficantes. Y se están presentando casos de gente que no sabemos quién se las llevó", cuenta el ex relator de la ONU. | {
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Episode notes
Heathers
Liza Mandelup is an award winning film director from New York residing in Los Angeles. Starting her career in photography, she graduated from New York’s School of Visual Arts and embedded herself in fascinating communities for photo series that culminated in two photo books. In 2018, Liza received the prestigious Sundance Documentary Fund grant for her film, following a handful of online teen heartthrob boys to chronicle the curious rise of a burgeoning yet fleeting economy.premiered at Sundance Film Festival and went on to win the Special Jury Award for Emerging Filmmaker. She was also named by Filmmaker magazine as one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Cinema in 2018 and one of 10 Documentary Filmmakers to Watch by Variety.
The movie that Liza chose to discuss ties in effortlessly with her own film Jawline – that would be 1988’s dark comedy Heathers. April and Liza discuss the nature of being a teenager and just how serious everything feels. Liza talks about interviewing all the wannabe influencers for her film Jawline and how, no matter the place, everyone dressed the exact same. She also discusses the effects of “follow culture” and how that is demonstrated in both Heathers and Jawline.
You can stream Jawline on Hulu now.
And if you haven’t seen Heathers yet, watch it now!
With April Wolfe and Liza Mandelup.
You can let us know what you think of Switchblade Sisters on Twitter or Facebook.
Or email us at [email protected].
Produced by Casey O’Brien and Laura Swisher for MaximumFun.org. | {
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Venduti a una banda di criminali per pochi euro. Potrebbe essere arrivato a un punto di svolta il caso dei tre italiani Raffaele Russo, suo figlio Antonio e il nipote Vincenzo Cimmino, scomparsi in Messico quasi un mese fa. Quattro poliziotti di Tecalitlan, la località dello stato di Jalisco dove i tre connazionali - tutti di Napoli - sono spariti il 31 gennaio scorso, sono stati arrestati per averli "consegnati" a un'organizzazione criminale. Già rinviati a giudizio, per loro è scattato un anno di carcere preventivo.Gli agenti hanno confessato ma non hanno rivelato il nome della banda alla quale gli italiani sono stati dati né a quale prezzo. La zona di Jalisco è nota per i rapimenti lampo, specie di stranieri, ad opera di bande vicine ai narcotrafficanti in cambio di denaro. Secondo la famiglia dei tre napoletani, i loro cari sarebbero stati venduti dai poliziotti che li avevano bloccati per "43 euro". "14 euro a persona", denunciano i parenti, che da giorni vivono nell'angoscia e oggi hanno rivolto un appello al governo italiano a "muoversi". La Farnesina ha confermato l'arresto dei quattro poliziotti - tre uomini e una donna - e ribadito di seguire il caso "con la massima attenzione" attraverso l'ambasciata d'Italia in Messico, che lavora in stretto raccordo con le autorità locali.
Il punto essenziale da capire ora è a chi siano stati venduti i tre italiani e dove si trovino in questo momento. A Jalisco, ma anche negli stati di Michoacan e Colima, proseguono serrate le ricerche con l'uso di unità cinofile. La procura locale, che quattro giorni fa ha ricevuto il responsabile italiano dell'Interpol, punta sulla 'Jalisco Nueva Generacion', una banda che controlla alcune aree della zona e con cui i tre italiani potrebbero essere entrati in contatto. Secondo le autorità messicane, Russo (60 anni) avrebbe utilizzato una falsa identità e si sarebbe registrato in alcuni hotel sotto il nome di Carlos Lopez. Fonti locali vicine alle indagini - citate dai media - riferiscono inoltre che aveva precedenti per frode in Italia e si dedicava alla vendita di generatori elettrici fabbricati in Cina ma spacciati per tedeschi. Nel 2015 era stato arrestato per frode e corruzione nello stato di Campeche e alla fine del 2017 era impegnato in 'affari' nello stato di Michoacan.Tutte notizie smentite seccamente dai familiari dei tre napoletani che le bollano come "dicerie" e difendono i lori cari ribadendone l'assoluta estraneità a organizzazioni di narcotrafficanti. Sono "brave persone", "semplici venditori ambulanti" che si trovavano in Messico per lavorare.Cinque giorni prima della sua scomparsa Raffaele si era riunito con il figlio, 25 anni, e il nipote, 29, in un hotel di Ciudad Guzman. Questi ultimi due sarebbero arrivati in Messico insieme ad altri sei italiani, tra i quali altri due figli di Russo, Francesco e Daniele. E' lui che, rientrato in Italia, ha riferito delle ultime ore dei tre scomparsi. | {
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A man from the Kankakee area who was working on a short film along with six friends died after falling 48 feet Saturday at Starved Rock State Park.
Daniel King, 30, of Bradley died after falling from near the top center of Council Overhang, a partial cave-like indentation in a canyon wall near the Kaskaskia and Ottawa canyons trailheads, according to Illinois Conservation Police Sgt. Phil Wire.
“The sad part is, he had a 2-year-old and a 5-year-old, and the 2-year-old had his third birthday the day after his death,” Wire said this morning.
Wire confirmed the death and said Conservation Police responded around 10 a.m. Saturday for a report of a man falling at Council Overhang.
Wire said the man, along with six others with Glass Darkly Films, were given a permit to film at the park.
King left the trail to get on top of the Council Overhang cave to drop film “effects” by dropping something from above for the video. Wire said there are no trails to the top of that cliff, and King may have climbed a retaining wall from along Route 71 to get to the spot.
“Though they did have a (film) permit, they do not have a permit to go off the trails,” Wire said.
A small dead tree broke off about a foot from its roots either before or during the fall, Wire said.
A source listed with Glass Darkly Films did not wish to comment to the newspaper.
Wire said he’s not sure what type of short film the group was trying to make, but they were making smoke near a canoe in a creek below the cliff and King was dropping or preparing to drop paper from atop the overhang.
Utica fire chief Ben Brown said the fire department was called at 10:03 a.m. and remained at the scene for an hour.
Oglesby Fire Department and Wallace Fire Department also responded, while La Salle Ambulance manned the Utica fire station.
This is the second fatality from a fall at the park in 2019. The last death was in July when a man, who entered a restricted area, fell 31 feet off of a bluff behind Starved Rock Lodge.
Craig Sterrett can be reached at (815) 220-6935 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @NT_NewsEditor. | {
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Thank you secret santa! you put in so much effort in cutting the dictionary... so clever. Definitely made my holidays! Keep being awesome | {
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A designer I work with was presenting comps at a recent team meeting. She had done a wonderful job piecing together the concept for a design system, from components to patterns and everything in between that would make any front-end developer happy.
But there was a teeny tiny detail in her work that caught my eye: the hover state for links was a squiggle.
Default link (top) and hover effect (bottom)
Huh! Not only had I not seen that before, the idea had never even crossed my mind. Turns out there are plenty of instances of it on live sites, one being The Outline. That was the one that was implementation that inspired the design.
Cool, I figured. We can do something like a linear background gradient or even a background image. But! That wasn’t the end of the design. Turns out it’s animated as well. Again, from The Outline:
Screenshot from The Outline article (source)
Whoa! That’s pretty wild. I wasn’t sure how to approach that, honestly, because animating any of my initial ideas would be difficult, especially for cross-browser support.
So, how did The Outline do it? Turns out, it’s SVG. We can make a squiggly path and animate it pretty easily:
See the Pen Squiggle by Geoff Graham (@geoffgraham) on CodePen.
But how does that work with a link? Well, we can use SVG on the background-image property:
See the Pen Squiggle by Geoff Graham (@geoffgraham) on CodePen.
But that’s kinda crappy because we can’t really animate that. We need better values for that. However, we can inline CSS directly on the SVG in the background-image property. We can’t simply copy and paste the SVG code into the property, but we can with some proper encoding:
See the Pen Squiggle by Geoff Graham (@geoffgraham) on CodePen.
And, since SVG can contain its own styles within the markup, the animation can be tossed right there in the background-image property, the same way we would do it with CSS in an HTML document head or inline CSS in HTML.
See the Pen Squiggle by Geoff Graham (@geoffgraham) on CodePen.
We can style it up a little differently, if we’d like:
See the Pen Link Effectz – Squiggle by Geoff Graham (@geoffgraham) on CodePen.
This is inspiring!
I have no idea if an animated squiggle makes for a good user experience and, frankly, that’s not the point of this post. The point is that The Outline had a fun idea with a slick CSS implementation.
That got me thinking about other non-standard (perhaps even unconventional) hover styling we can do with links. Again, tossing aside usability and have a grand ol’ time with CSS…
The Border to Background Effect
Maybe that same bottom border on the default link can grow and become the full background of the link on hover:
See the Pen Link Effectz – Background on hover by Geoff Graham (@geoffgraham) on CodePen.
Heck, we can even do something similar horizontally:
See the Pen Link Effectz – Horizotonal Background by Geoff Graham (@geoffgraham) on CodePen.
The Outlined Text Effect
Let’s strip out the font color and leave an outline behind.
See the Pen Link Effectz – Outline on hover by Geoff Graham (@geoffgraham) on CodePen.
The Raised Text Effect
Another idea is to raise the text as if it grows out of the page on hover:
See the Pen Link Effectz – Raised text on hover by Geoff Graham (@geoffgraham) on CodePen.
The Font Swapper-oo Effect
This is so impractical that it makes me LOL, but why not:
See the Pen Link Effectz – Swap font on hover by Geoff Graham (@geoffgraham) on CodePen.
The “Turn it Up, Chris” Effect
Sorry, Chris. You know you love it. ❤️
See the Pen Link Effectz – Turn it up, Chris! by Geoff Graham (@geoffgraham) on CodePen.
What can you come up with?
Have ideas? Let me know in the comments and I’ll toss ’em in the CodePen collection I’ve started. | {
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If any of you have been reading the NFL news lately or you watched Vanderbilt wide receiver, Jordan Mathews, vomit on the field, you have been inundated with discussion about concussions and the possible effects (Turns out that it may not have been a concussion, but, who really knows). I am here to tell you that I met with Verizon at CES 2013, just hours after they presented their new helmet technology to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.
CES 2013: Verizon Sports Technology Can Be Used For Good In the NFL (via Hubtuit)
Basically, the helmets communicate with satellites that relay the data to software. This all happens real time. So, whether or not Mathews had a concussions we would know how hard his head hit the ground. This could instantly notify the trainers and the NCAA about whether or not he may have a concussion. They could then determine whether or not he should come out. I mean, what player wants to come out of a potential game winning drive? Further more, what coach wants to lose their best player on such a drive? There needs to be a way to objectively look at the situation.
In fact, I imagine that this technology could be used from Pop Warner all the way up to the NFL. Like an odometer, every football player would know how many miles they have on their brains and there can be a point where, like Roberto Duran, the League says, "No Mas".
This does bring some very interesting questions to mind though. What if Tom Brady had more miles on his brain than the accepted limit? Would the NFL want to lose their meal ticket? What about the NFLPA? Would they want to lose players that make considerable salaries and potentially diminish their dues? Then, there are the players themselves. Would they want to give up big money to protect their brains in a sport that is commonly looked at as a sport of modern gladiators?
As with all great potential solutions there may be more red tape stopping it than true willingness to actually solve the problems. What I do know is that the 700+ million that the NFL is paying to the players is now a drop in the bucket compared to what future suits can seek based on the precedent now being set.
What do you think? Is this a good solution? What is holding it up? And, what could those shoes in the video do for the live game experience? Can you imagine seeing Jacoby Ford's acceleration speed on a kick-off return flying down the field? | {
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IN SEPTEMBER 2000 the heads of 147 governments pledged that they would halve the proportion of people on the Earth living in the direst poverty by 2015, using the poverty rate in 1990 as a baseline. It was the first of a litany of worthy aims enshrined in the United Nations “millennium development goals” (MDGs). Many of these aims—such as cutting maternal mortality by three quarters and child mortality by two thirds—have not been met. But the goal of halving poverty has been. Indeed, it was achieved five years early.
In 1990, 43% of the population of developing countries lived in extreme poverty (then defined as subsisting on $1 a day); the absolute number was 1.9 billion people. By 2000 the proportion was down to a third. By 2010 it was 21% (or 1.2 billion; the poverty line was then $1.25, the average of the 15 poorest countries’ own poverty lines in 2005 prices, adjusted for differences in purchasing power). The global poverty rate had been cut in half in 20 years.
That raised an obvious question. If extreme poverty could be halved in the past two decades, why should the other half not be got rid of in the next two? If 21% was possible in 2010, why not 1% in 2030?
Why not indeed? In April at a press conference during the spring meeting of the international financial institutions in Washington, DC, the president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, scrawled the figure “2030” on a sheet of paper, held it up and announced, “This is it. This is the global target to end poverty.” He was echoing Barack Obama who, in February, promised that “the United States will join with our allies to eradicate such extreme poverty in the next two decades.”
This week, that target takes its first step towards formal endorsement as an aim of policy round the world. The leaders of Britain, Indonesia and Liberia are due to recommend to the UN a list of post-2015 MDGs. It will be headed by a promise to end extreme poverty by 2030.
There is a lot of debate about what exactly counts as poverty and how best to measure it. But by any measure, the eradication of $1.25-a-day poverty would be an astonishing achievement. Throughout history, dire poverty has been a basic condition of the mass of mankind. Thomas Malthus, a British clergyman who founded the science of demography, wrote in 1798 that it was impossible for people to “feel no anxiety about providing the means of subsistence for themselves and [their] families” and that “no possible form of society could prevent the almost constant action of misery upon a great part of mankind.” For most countries, poverty was not even a problem; it was a plain, unchangeable fact.
To eradicate extreme poverty would also be remarkable given the number of occasions when politicians have promised to achieve the goal and failed. “We do have an historic opportunity this year to make poverty history,” said Tony Blair, Britain’s prime minister in 2005. Three years before that, Thabo Mbeki, South Africa’s president said that “for the first time in human history, society has the capacity, the knowledge and the resources to eradicate poverty.” Going further back: “For the first time in our history,” said Lyndon Johnson, “it is possible to conquer poverty.” That was in 1964. Much will have to change if Mr Kim’s piece of paper is not to become one more empty promise. So how realistic is it to think the world can end extreme poverty in a generation? To meet its target would mean maintaining the annual one-percentage-point cut in the poverty rate achieved in 1990-2010 for another 20 years. That would be hard. It will be more difficult to rescue the second billion from poverty than it was the first. Yet it can be done. The world has not only cut poverty a lot but also learned much about how to do it. Poverty can be reduced, albeit not to zero. But a lot will have to go right if that is to happen.
Growth Decreases Poverty
In 1990-2010 the driving force behind the reduction of worldwide poverty was growth. Over the past decade, developing countries have boosted their GDP about 6% a year—1.5 points more than in 1960-90. This happened despite the worst worldwide economic crisis since the 1930s. The three regions with the largest numbers of poor people all registered strong gains in GDP after the recession: at 8% a year in East Asia; 7% in South Asia; 5% in Africa. As a rough guide, every 1% increase in GDP per head reduces poverty by around 1.7%.
GDP, though, is not necessarily the best measure of living standards and poverty reduction. It is usually better to look at household consumption based on surveys. Martin Ravallion, until recently the World Bank’s head of research, took 900 such surveys in 125 developing countries. These show, he calculates, that consumption in developing countries has grown by just under 2% a year since 1980. But there has been a sharp increase since 2000. Before that, annual growth was 0.9%; after it, the rate leapt to 4.3%.
Growth alone does not guarantee less poverty. Income distribution matters, too. One estimate found that two thirds of the fall in poverty was the result of growth; one-third came from greater equality. More equal countries cut poverty further and faster than unequal ones. Mr Ravallion reckons that a 1% increase in incomes cut poverty by 0.6% in the most unequal countries but by 4.3% in the most equal ones.
The country that cut poverty the most was China, which in 1980 had the largest number of poor people anywhere. China saw a huge increase in income inequality—but even more growth. Between 1981 and 2010 it lifted a stunning 680m people out poverty—more than the entire current population of Latin America. This cut its poverty rate from 84% in 1980 to about 10% now. China alone accounts for around three quarters of the world’s total decline in extreme poverty over the past 30 years.
What is less often realised is that the recent story of poverty reduction has not been all about China. Between 1980 and 2000 growth in developing countries outside the Middle Kingdom was 0.6% a year. From 2000 to 2010 the rate rose to 3.8%—similar to the pattern if you include China. Mr Ravallion calculates that the acceleration in growth outside China since 2000 has cut the number of people in extreme poverty by 280m.
Can this continue? And if it does, will it eradicate extreme poverty by 2030?
To keep poverty reduction going, growth would have to be maintained at something like its current rate. Most forecasters do expect that to happen, though problems in Europe could spill over and damage the global economy. Such long-range forecasts are inevitably unreliable but two broad trends make an optimistic account somewhat plausible. One is that fast-growing developing countries are trading more with each other, making them more resilient than they used to be to shocks from the rich world. The other trend is that the two parts of the world with the largest numbers of poor people, India and Africa, are seeing an expansion of their working-age populations relative to the numbers of dependent children and old people. Even so, countries potentially face a problem of diminishing returns which could make progress at the second stage slower than at the first.
There is no sign so far that returns are in fact diminishing. The poverty rate has fallen at a robust one percentage point a year over the past 30 years—and there has been no tailing off since 2005. But diminishing returns could occur for two reasons. When poverty within a country falls to very low levels, the few remaining poor are the hardest to reach. And, globally, as more people in countries such as China become middle class, poverty will become concentrated in fragile or failing states which have seen little poverty reduction to date.
The sweetest spot
In a study for the Brookings Institution, a think-tank in Washington, DC, Laurence Chandy, Natasha Ledlie and Veronika Penciakova look at the distribution of consumption (how many people consume $1 a day, $2 a day and so on) in developing countries. They show how it has changed over time, and how it might change in future. Plotted on a chart, the distribution looks like a fireman’s helmet, with a peak in front and a long tail behind. In 1990 there were hardly any people with no income at all, then a peak just below the poverty line and then a long tail of richer folk extending off to the right (see chart 2). As countries get richer, the helmet moves to the right, reflecting the growth in household consumption. The faster the rate, the farther to the right the line moves, so the strong 4.3% annual growth in consumption since 2000 has pushed the line a good distance rightward. But the shape of the line also matters. The chart shows that in 1990 and 2000, the peak was positioned slightly to the left of the poverty line. As the shape moved to the right, it took a section of the peak to the other side of the poverty mark. This represents the surge of people who escaped poverty in 1990-2010. At the moment the world is at a unique sweet spot. More people are living at $1.25 than at any other level of consumption. This means growth will result in more people moving across the international poverty line than across any other level of consumption. This is a big reason why growth is still producing big falls in poverty.
But as countries continue to grow, and as the line continues to be pulled to the right, things start to change. Now, the peak begins to flatten. In 2010, according to Mr Chandy, there were 85m people living at or just below the poverty line (at a consumption level between $1.20 and $1.25 a day). If poverty falls at its trend rate, the number of people living at $1.20-1.25 a day will also fall: to 56m in 2020 and 28m in 2030.
This is good news, of course: there will be fewer poor people. But it means the rate of poverty reduction must slow down, even if consumption continues to grow fast. As Mr Chandy says, unless growth goes through the roof, “it is not possible to maintain the trend rate of poverty reduction with so many fewer individuals ready to cross the line.”
So what impact, in practice, might diminishing returns have? Messrs Chandy and Ravallion try to answer that by calculating what different rates of household consumption mean for poverty reduction and how much household income would have to grow to eradicate extreme poverty.
Mr Ravallion provides an optimistic projection. If developing countries were to maintain their post-2000 performance, he says, then the number of extremely poor people in the world would fall from 1.2 billion in 2010 to just 200m in 2027.
This would be a remarkable achievement. It took 20 years to reduce the number of absolutely poor people from 1.9 billion in 1990 to 1.2 billion in 2010 (a fall of less than half). Mr Ravallion’s projection would lift a billion people out of poverty in 17 years and implies almost halving the number in just ten (from 2012 to 2022).
But even this projection does not get to zero poverty. The figure of 200m poor implies a poverty rate of just over 3%. To get to zero would require something even more impressive. Mr Ravallion estimates that to reach a 1% poverty rate by 2027 would require a surge in household consumption of 7.6% a year—an unrealistically high level.
Drops of good cheer
Mr Chandy and his co-authors get similar results. They take a projection of falling poverty based on forecasts of consumption by the Economist Intelligence Unit, our sister company. If growth were two points better than forecast, then the poverty rate would be just over 3%; if two points worse, it would be almost 10%—a big disappointment. If income distribution within countries gets progressively better or worse (ie, if the poorest 40% do better or worse than the top 10%), then the range of outcomes would be the same as if growth were higher or lower. And if you combine all these variables, then the range is wide indeed, from a miserable 15% poverty rate (lower growth, more inequality) to a stunning 1.4% (higher growth, less inequality).
Two conclusions emerge from these exercises. First, the range of outcomes is wide, implying that prospects for eradicating poverty are uncertain. The range is also not symmetrical, suggesting the risk of failure is greater than the hope of success. It is also noticeable that no one is forecasting zero poverty. If that were taken as the post-2015 target, then it would be missed. However, reducing the rate to 3% would lift a billion people out of poverty and that would be remarkable enough. In the best case, the global poverty rate falls to a little over 1%, or just 70m people. That would be astonishing. To get to these levels, the studies suggest, you cannot rely on boosting growth or improving income inequality alone. You need both.
Second, the geography of poverty will be transformed. China passed the point years ago where it had more citizens above the poverty line than below it. By 2020 there will be hardly any Chinese left consuming less than $1.25 a day: everyone will have escaped poverty. China wrote the first chapter of the book of poverty reduction but that chapter is all but finished.
The next will be about India. India mirrors the developing world as a whole: growth will push a wave of Indians through the $1.25 barrier over the next decade (see chart 3). The subcontinent could generate the largest gains in poverty reduction in the next decade (which is why the current Indian slowdown is worrying). After that, though, continued growth will benefit relatively comfortable Indians more than poor ones. The last chapter will be about Africa. Only in sub-Saharan Africa will there be large numbers of people below the poverty line. Unfortunately they are currently too far below it. The average consumption of Africa’s poorest people is only about 70 cents a day—barely more than it was 20 years ago. In the six poorest countries it falls to only 50 cents a day. The continent has made big strides during the past decade. But even 20 more years of such progress will not move the remaining millions out of poverty. At current growth rates, a quarter of Africans will still be consuming less than $1.25 a day in 2030. The disproportionate falls in Africa’s poverty rate will not happen until after that date.
Make Bono history
Deng wrote chapter one The record of poverty reduction has profound implications for aid. One of the main purposes of setting development goals was to give donors a wish list and persuade them to put more resources into the items on the list. This may have helped in some areas but it is hard to argue that aid had much to do with halving poverty. Much of the fall occurred in China, which ignored the MDGs. At best, aid and the MDGs were marginal. The changing geography of poverty will pose different aid problems over the next 20 years. According to Mr Chandy, by 2030 nearly two-thirds of the world’s poor will be living in states now deemed “fragile” (like the Congo and Somalia). Much of the rest will be in middle-income countries. This poses a double dilemma for donors: middle-income countries do not really need aid, while fragile states cannot use it properly. A dramatic fall in poverty requires rethinking official assistance. Yet all the problems of aid, Africa and the intractability of the final billion do not mask the big point about poverty reduction: it has been a hugely positive story and could become even more so. As a social problem, poverty has been transformed. Thanks partly to new technology, the poor are no longer an undifferentiated mass. Identification schemes are becoming large enough—India has issued hundreds of millions of biometric smart cards—that countries are coming to know their poor literally by name. That in turn enables social programmes to be better targeted, studied and improved. Conditional cash-transfer schemes like Mexico’s Oportunidades and Brazil’s Bolsa Família have all but eradicated extreme poverty in those countries. As the numbers of poor fall further, not only will the targets become fewer, but the cost of helping them will fall to almost trivial levels; it would cost perhaps $50m a day* to bring 200m people up above the poverty line. Of course, there will be other forms of poverty; the problems of some countries and places will remain intractable and may well require different policies; and $1.26 a day is still a tiny amount.
But something fundamental will have shifted. Poverty used to be a reflection of scarcity. Now it is a problem of identification, targeting and distribution. And that is a problem that can be solved. | {
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LONDON — More than 360,000 people, angered by Donald J. Trump’s call to ban the entry of Muslims into the United States, have signed a petition accusing him of hate speech and asking the British government to bar him from the country.
So many people have signed the online petition that Parliament is now required to consider debating the matter.
The text of the petition, titled “Block Donald J. Trump from U.K. entry,” cited British laws against hate speech.
“The U.K. has banned entry to many individuals for hate speech,” it says. “The same principles should apply to everyone who wishes to enter the U.K. If the United Kingdom is to continue applying the ‘unacceptable behavior’ criteria to those who wish to enter its borders, it must be fairly applied to the rich as well as poor, and the weak as well as powerful.” | {
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We’re very happy to introduce the first version of our Steam integration within Castle Story!
Today’s update will fix several little nasty bugs and introduce two exciting additions. First of all, the Castle Story Steam Workshop which will allow you to share and subscribe to community made maps. Secondly, the Multiplayer Steam Integration, allowing you to connect to friends’ multiplayer lobbies through your Steam friends’ list!
Steam Workshop
We’re happy to introduce the first version of Castle Story’s Steam Workshop!
The workshop, accessible via Castle Story’s Community Hub, will allow you to subscribe to maps created by fellow community members and play them in single or multiplayer! Joining a lobby that is hosting a community made map will simply download the file onto your machine.
You can also share maps you’ve created in the newly introduced World Editor via the Workshop tab at the bottom left of the sidebar.
We can’t wait to see the content you guys will share on the Workshop!
Multiplayer Steam Integration
You can now connect to friends via the Steam friends’ list! If your friend is in a Multiplayer lobby, simply right-click their name on Steam and select “Join Game”! This feature will largely simplify the ability to connect to multiplayer games.
Smaller stuff
Switched Crystal and Shard icons in the World Editor so the Crystal has the bigger flag.
Fixed an issue with the Bricktrons’ walk cycle when they’re carrying a bag making the animation jittery and the speed inconsistent.
Fixed an issue where you could skip Bricktrons’ climbing animation.
Fixed an issue where archers and warriors would sometimes stop attacking automatically.
Fixed an issue where Bricktrons no longer told you if their path is blocked.
Fixed an issue where Bricktrons would drop blue crystals in enemy’s Crystals if they were closer.
Fixed an issue where arrows passed right through Bricktrons! Ouch.
Fixed an issue where the mines would sometimes not find existing storage on the client in multiplayer games.
Fixed missing localization string for the column in the taskbar.
Fixed an issue where the host couldn’t save a multiplayer game if the client left.
Fixed an issue where the repair task didn’t place any blueprint for the client in Multiplayer games.
Fixed an issue where mines would be missing on Plateau Mont-Royal for clients in multiplayer games.
Fixed some strange terrain transitions in Soft pipeline on far away LOD s.
Discuss on our Forums | {
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Check out our new site Makeup Addiction
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Indian team members celebrate after the final. (Agency Photo)
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NEW DELHI: Indian women's hockey team lifted the Hero Hockey World League Round 2 defeating Poland 3-1 in a high-intensity final at the Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium on Sunday.The final also marked the completion of 200 international caps for skipper Ritu Rani , who scored in the 59th minute, and 100 caps for goalkeeper Savita. Deepika was declared the player of the match while Polish skipper Marlena Rybacha was declared the player of the tournament."I hope after watching us win on the home turf more girls will get attracted to the sport. It was a tough match. Any team can win an easy match," Ritu said. On her 200th appearance, she said: "For a moment I thought of the journey I have completed since my first cap in 2006. It was an emotional moment."The Indian women, in the fourth minute, had their first opportunity to take the lead through a penalty corner but the Poland defence stood firm. Indians had another penalty corner in the ninth minute but Poland was not going to let the hosts have it easy.Poland's marking and India's fast-paced attack saw an action filled match that was heading towards a goalless first half when Vandana Katariya took a reverse shot from the left in the 15th minute to put the home team 1-0 ahead in the match. The Polish girls showed a lot of fight and equalized in opening minute (17th minute) of the second quarter through a penalty corner which was executed with planned variations. Oriana Walasek finished a well-orchestrated move.Giving the spectators enough to cheer for, the Indians launched fast counters. Vandana Katariya, who finished as the top scorer of the tournament with 11 goals, got injured after colliding with the Polish goalkeeper.Both teams looked for opportunity through the third quarter with India conceding two back-to-back penalty corners. But the hosts soon launched a counter-attack and Rani, playing her first tournament since the Asian Games after recovering from a dislocated shoulder, netted the ball from an acute angle in the 44th minute to make it a 2-1 lead.The hosts kept up their attack and Ritu Rani deflected a pass from Poonam Rani in the 59th minute to seal the issue with a 3-1 scoreline.In earlier matches, Malaysia beat Thailand 3-0 to take the third spot while Russia stunned Kazakhstan 9-0 for fifth place. For seventh position, Ghana overcame Singapore 2-1.@TOISportsNews | {
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THE idea that climate change will lead to war is often raised by environmental pessimists, and a meeting on the climatic past of South-East Asia, held last month in Dalat, Vietnam, suggests it is not such an unlikely thought. The meeting was organised by the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, part of Columbia University, some of whose researchers have been trying to reconstruct the pattern of South-East Asia's monsoons over the past few centuries. One matter they raised was the possibility that two periods of conflict in the area, in the 15th and 18th centuries, were provoked by droughts.
Historical records of the climate in Asia are lamentable outside India, where the weather-obsessed British collected good data during the 19th and 20th centuries. The observatory's researchers had therefore to rely on tree rings.
This is hard in South-East Asia. Many of the larger, and therefore older specimens in the area's forests have been logged. Even among those that remain, seasonal differences in the rings' growth rates are less noticeable than those that mark summer and winter in temperate climes. Ironically, the diversity of species in tropical forests also presents dendroclimatologists with problems. They would prefer just one or two types of tree, so that they could compare several samples of each more easily.
Nevertheless, Brendan Buckley, one of the observatory's researchers, found that a conifer called Fokienia hodginsii, which can live for more than 1,000 years, gave him the marker he needed. Using it, he has built up a series of tree-ring chronologies from Thailand and Vietnam that indicate a period of severe drought across mainland South-East Asia in the early 1400s.
This was the period when the city of Angkor in present-day Cambodia went into rapid decline, a fact that some historians have blamed on invasions by the rival Siamese and Champa kingdoms. Dr Buckley's data, however, suggest another possibility—that Angkor's canals and reservoirs ran dry and that the invasions were therefore a consequence of decline, rather than its cause. Similarly, another prolonged drought in the 18th century, which was noted by foreign visitors to Siam (modern-day Thailand), coincided with a series of political upheavals that included the sacking of the Siamese capital by Burmese invaders.
The question is what causes such droughts in South-East Asia? El Niño, a periodic warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean, is part of the answer. It corresponds with a weaker south-west monsoon and a longer dry season. It cannot, however, be the whole explanation. Dr Buckley's tree cores show that the 18th-century drought in Siam lasted 30 years or more. That should have corresponded with a warmer Pacific but according to Kevin Anchukaitis, another of the observatory's researchers, data from coral suggest it did not.
The answer may lie in the Indian Ocean, which also influences monsoon patterns, rather than in the Pacific, and there is some evidence that the Indian Ocean was indeed cooler during the 18th-century drought. The details, though, remain obscure—which serves as a reminder of just how much remains to be found out before even the local climate truly becomes explicable. | {
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The Turnbull government has resisted pressure from the United States to increase Australia’s military commitment to the fight against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
But it has signalled it is open to providing further humanitarian support to the troubled region and would also increase the number of Australian defence force personnel in the anti-Isis coalition headquarters.
A spokesman for the defence minister, Marise Payne, said Australia had considered a request from her American counterpart, Ash Carter, “in light of the substantial contributions we are already making to train Iraqi security forces and to the air campaign”.
“The US has asked 40 or so other countries, including European countries, to consider expanded contributions to the coalition, following the attacks in Paris,” the spokesman said in a statement on Wednesday.
“The government has advised Secretary Carter that our existing contributions will continue.”
The spokesman said Australia was well placed to make an important contribution to command roles, and would increase the number of ADF personnel in coalition headquarters from 20 to 30.
“Our aircraft in the Middle East are available to provide additional airlift support to benefit coalition humanitarian efforts,” he said.
“The Australian government is also considering providing further humanitarian support for Syria and Iraq in the coming months.”
The government would, however, keep its our contribution under “ongoing review in consultation with our coalition partners”.
Malcolm Turnbull is due to travel to Washington DC next week to meet with Barack Obama on his first official visit to the US since ousting Tony Abbott as prime minister. The fight against Isis is expected to be high on the agenda. | {
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UPDATE: I’ve posted some updated graphs and arguments here: https://twitter.com/econoar/status/1034137784154382336
Cryptocurrency supply models have long been a hot topic of conversation and no one has the “right” answer. However, I do think there are some metrics that can be used to justify certain supply models and enough years of history have passed to help us with the decision.
It is well known that once Proof of Stake is implemented on Ethereum, inflation will drop to around 0.5–1% on the network. However, the recent delay in Casper has once again brought up the debate around the built in “difficulty bomb” on the protocol along with what block rewards should be until Casper is implemented.
In the Metropolis hard fork, Ethereum reduced block reward issuance from 5 to 3. This was justified due to a large jump in Ether price and had no adverse effects on the network. Currently, Ethereum is rewarding 3 ETH per normal block and 2.625 ETH per uncle block to miners. This is creating around 25,500 ETH ($12mn) per day putting us at a yearly inflation rate of around 7.4%. Here is a snapshot of historical inflation:
And for the sake of comparison here is Bitcoin:
As you can see, Bitcoin’s current yearly inflation rate sits around 4.25%.
One proposal on the table for Ethereum’s Constantinople fork is EIP-1234 which would reduce block rewards from 3 ETH to 2 ETH until Casper is implemented. I’m strongly in favor of this proposal to be put into the Constantinople fork and will do my best to justify it below.
There are a myriad of factors in play when it comes to cryptocurrency supply models. However, it’s important to understand that miner rewards and fees are paid out in order to secure the network. Given this, I think it’s important to look at total miner rewards and fees paid out daily in order to help fully understand miner incentives and network security. To see this we can translate daily payouts (block rewards + fees collected) to miners in both BTC and ETH to USD and compare them across time.
As seen above, the two are pretty close and at times Ethereum has actually paid more out to miners than Bitcoin. It’s hard to compare network security and the financial incentives involved across chains but I think a simple baseline we can use is coin market cap. If a network is a factor more valuable than another, its users should be willing to pay that factor more in value to protect it. We can therefore use market cap as a metric to analyze if a network is overpaying miners. So, let’s compare the ETH to BTC market cap ratio to the ETH to BTC miner payout ratio over time. In theory, these should be aligned. However, they are not at this time:
Ethereum is at 34% the market cap of Bitcoin but is paying out miners at an 80% rate compared to Bitcoin. This appears to be well overpaying and justifies the idea of another block reward issuance reduction. In theory, these ratios when compared to each other should be close to 1 but it’s currently closer to 2.5:
Shout out to @panekkkk on the idea for this graph
Let’s take a look at what Ethereum’s inflation and supply graphs would look like if block rewards stay the same until the end of 2019 versus if we drop issuance to 2 ETH.
Total supply would get to 111,200,000 by the end of 2019
Total supply would get to 107,800,000 by the end of 2019
Most importantly, how would the market cap versus payout ratios look if supply was reduced (assuming flat price from today):
They become much closer, aligning the value of the networks versus how much is being paid to keep them secure.
In conclusion, I think EIP-1234 should be strongly considered by the community and included in the upcoming Constantinople fork. Even more importantly, if Casper is delayed again and supply continues to grow at the current rate, we are setting ourselves on a better path by reducing inflation now. | {
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india
Updated: Dec 03, 2018 23:39 IST
Detailing the service’s future plans, Navy chief Admiral Sunil Lanba said on Monday the case for the second Indigenous Aircraft Carrier or IAC-II has received the necessary impetus, although it was still at least a decade away. He said the carrier would have a displacement of 65,000 tonnes, conventional propulsion and would deploy the electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS) offered by the US.
Lanba added that this would ensure that India would have at least two carriers operating at any point and that the third carrier’s construction could begin within three years.
Lanba said submarine specific guidelines for building next-generation submarines in India under the government’s strategic partnership model would be released shortly. He said 32 warships and submarines were currently under construction in Indian shipyards, and the government has given its approval for an additional 56 warships and six submarines.
Commenting on a contract awarded to Anil Ambani-owned Reliance Naval and Engineering Limited to build offshore patrol vessels for the navy, Lanba said the order had not been cancelled but it was being looked at.
“RNEL is undergoing corporate debt restructuring and they have been taken to the court by their bankers…No preferential treatment is being given to RNEL. Their bank guarantees have been encashed by the navy, we have taken punitive action,” Lanba said.
Asked to compare India’s capabilities with the navies of China and Pakistan, he said, “As far as the Indian Navy is concerned, we have only one front. And that is the Indian Ocean. We have overwhelming superiority over Pakistan navy in all fields and domains. In the Indian Ocean region, the balance of power rests in our favour compared to China.” | {
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Body cam video released by the Detroit Police Department captured the tense moments as uniformed officers raided a home filled with undercover cops posing as drug dealers.
The incident resulted in two injured police officers, a special operations supervisor being reassigned and an investigation being launched into what led to the botched sting.
READ MORE: Ohio cop sorry for shooting photographer after he mistook his camera for a gun
“This is probably one of the most embarrassing things I’ve seen in this department,” Detroit Police Chief James Craig said Monday during a news conference. “In fact, it’s probably one of the most disappointing things I’ve experienced in my entire 40-year career.”
Police from the department’s 11th precinct had planned to conduct the raid of house in their region on Nov. 8 that was suspected of being used to sell drugs.
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Unaware of an undercover operation carried out in the home by 12th precinct cops, the armed officers conducting the raid moved in.
The uniformed officers confronted a pair of men a few doors down from the home at the centre of the raid. Those men, who were actually undercover police from the 12th precinct, were forced to the ground and a shotgun was pointed at them.
READ MORE: Police mistake breast cancer patient for woman wanted for killing her own baby
That’s when police acted on their search warrant and raided the home, confronting several officers inside the home.
The video captured several officer pushing and shoving. “Don’t put your hand on your guns,” one officer can be heard saying on the video.
“At one point during this situation, one officer grabbed another,” Chief Craig said, adding that’s when punches began to fly.
“[The] supervisor did not have control of the situation … and had a tendency to get the officers from the 12th Precinct excited to the point we have this very embarrassing situation,” Craig said. Tweet This
READ MORE: ‘We’re doing a movie’ actor yells at police after being shot at
One officer suffered injuries to his mouth, while another sustained an injured eye — leaving the department with a black eye of its own.
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“I am thankful that no one was more seriously injured,” Craig said.
A similar 1986 incident of mistaken identity resulted in the deaths of Officer Jack Buffa and Officer Mark Radden. Buffa and his partner were in plain clothes when they raided a home. That’s when Radden and his partner, also not in uniform, responded to the home after reports of gunfire.
The two pairs of officers encountered each other and Buff and Radden suffered fatal injuries in a gunfight.
An internal investigation is now reviewing all the bodycam video and is looking into what caused the communication breakdown. | {
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Lance Berkman, who played college ball at Rice before manning the outfield and first base for the Houston Astros, dodges high heat thrown by sports journalists outraged over his opposition to a spaced-out Space City law giving transsexual “women” access to the ladies’ room.
The city’s voters decide on the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) this November. Berkman urges voters to cast “no” ballots in a commercial:
No men in women’s bathrooms. No boys in girls’ showers or locker rooms. I played professional baseball for 15 years, but my family is more important. My wife and I have four daughters. Proposition 1, the bathroom ordinance, would allow troubled men to enter women’s public bathrooms, showers, and locker rooms. This would violate their privacy and put them in harm’s way.
Mark Townsend at Yahoo Sports calls Berkman’s position “a troubling display of intolerance that simply can’t be defended or outright ignored.” NBCSports.com’s Craig Calcaterra dubs Big Puma’s stance “pretty damn vile.” At Deadspin, Kamer Salaf insists to his readers of the former Astro’s ad: “This is not a joke.”
Not so long ago, on The Milton Berle Show and Monty Python’s Flying Circus, men dressed as women as a joke. But transsexualism now ranks as an uber-serious subject. Laugh at your own risk.
Along with Bruce Jenner, America transitioned. The United States of Tolerance isn’t big enough for Tone Loc (he “don’t fool around with no Oscar Meyer wiener”), Crocodile Dundee (“That was a guy, a guy dressed up as a sheila”), Mr. Garrison (“Hey, I’m pregnant everybody! Now I can go down to the clinic and have an abortion!”), and Ray Davies (“I know what I am and I’m glad I’m a man and so is Lola”). They now join Lance Berkman in the “pretty damn vile” pile.
Come to think of it, the exclusivity of the ladies’ room discriminates against not just transwomen but cismen (Yes, that’s a word. You’re welcome.) as well. The benighted glimpse a mere triangle topped with a dot on the door. The enlightened see a swastika. Public ladies’ rooms remain the last bastion of bigotry, with their symbols of hate effectively announcing “no men allowed.” If HERO lived up to its acronym, it would allow dudes and not just dude-looks-like-a-lady dudes equal rights to these chauvinistic enclaves.
However jarring to 21st-century, urban-hipster sensibilities, some people feel uncomfortable undressing and using the toilet around strangers (and even close friends) of the opposite sex. Even more shocking, some people regard human beings born with a penis, XY chromosomes, and the capacity to produce massive amounts of testosterone as male. Modesty, and a desire for privacy, compels such atavistic beings to assert a right to use the bathroom among their own kind. Alas, the Constitution’s penumbral right to privacy applies to a woman’s freedom to harpoon a baby with a saline needle, not to use the restroom segregated from the stares of that creepy, crossdressing dude in The Silence of the Lambs. The WC must become PC.
People who hang out in public restrooms generally fall into two camps: the really sick or the really sick. It’s likely that very few transgenders wish to remain past their welcomes. But like Vince Wilfork or Abe Vigoda or Andy Dick or John Tesh in the girls’ room, the welcome runs out once they walk in. Even in public restrooms people desire privacy. Co-ed works for college. The water closet? Not so much.
One suspects that a majority of voters in America’s fourth largest city cast a “pretty damn vile” no vote. To loosely paraphrase Richard Nixon, we’re all bigots now.
Later, those forgoing gender-reassignment surgery undergo a frontal lobotomy. Rejecting a transgender suitor’s entreaty to go to the prom, laughing at John Cleese playing Anne Elk, and quickly evacuating the lavatory when a woman made in a laboratory enters to evacuate all morph from normal to microaggression to hate crime.
I have seen the future, and it’s berserk. | {
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WASHINGTON (AP) - Thousands of federal employees began their weekends gripped with doubt, uncertain of when they’ll be able to return to work and how long they’ll have to go without being paid after a bitter political dispute in Washington triggered a government shutdown.
Many government operations will continue - U.S. troops will stay at their posts and mail will get delivered. But almost half the 2 million civilian federal workers will be barred from doing their jobs if the shutdown extends into Monday.
The longer the shutdown continues, the more likely its impact will be felt. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, said Republicans and Democrats share the blame.
“Political gamesmanship, an unwillingness to compromise, and a lack of resolve on both sides have led us to this point,” McCain said in a statement Saturday.
How key parts of the federal government would be affected by a shutdown:
___
IRS
A shutdown plan posted on the Treasury Department’s website shows that nearly 44 percent of the IRS’ 80,565 employees will be exempt from being furloughed during a shutdown. That would mean nearly 45,500 IRS employees will be sent home just as the agency is preparing for the start of the tax filing season and ingesting the sweeping changes made by the new GOP tax law.
The Republican architects of the tax law have promised that millions of working Americans will see heftier paychecks next month, with less money withheld by employers in anticipation of lower income taxes. The IRS recently issued new withholding tables for employers.
But Marcus Owens, who for 10 years headed the IRS division dealing with charities and political organizations, said it’s a “virtual certainty” that the larger paychecks will be delayed if there’s a lengthy government shutdown.
___
HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES DEPARTMENT
Half of the more than 80,000 employees will be sent home. Key programs will continue to function because their funding has ongoing authorization and doesn’t depend on annual approval by Congress. But critical disruptions could occur across the vast jurisdiction of HHS programs - including the seasonal flu program.
Medicare, which insures nearly 59 million seniors and disabled people, will keep going. And so will Medicaid, which covers more than 74 million low-income and disabled people, including most nursing home residents.
States will continue to receive payments for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which covers about 9 million kids. However, long-term funding for the program will run out soon unless Congress acts to renew it.
Deep into a tough flu season, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will be unable to support the government’s annual seasonal flu program. And CDC’s ability to respond to disease outbreaks will be significantly reduced.
___
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Many of the nearly 115,000 Justice Department employees have national security and public safety responsibilities that allow them to keep working during a shutdown. Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team investigating Russian meddling in the presidential election will also continue working. His office is paid for indefinitely.
The more than 95,000 employees who are “exempted” include most of the members of the national security division, U.S. attorneys, and most of the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, U.S. Marshals Service and federal prison employees. Criminal cases will continue, but civil cases will be postponed as long as doing so doesn’t compromise public safety. Most law enforcement training will be canceled, per the department’s contingency plan.
___
STATE DEPARTMENT
Many State Department operations will continue in a shutdown. Passport and visa processing, which are largely self-funded by consumer fees, will not shut down. The agency’s main headquarters in Washington, in consultation with the nearly 300 embassies, consulates and other diplomatic missions around the world, will draw up lists of nonessential employees who will be furloughed.
Department operations will continue through the weekend and staffers will be instructed to report for work as usual on Monday to find out whether they have been furloughed.
___
DEFENSE DEPARTMENT
The U.S. military will continue to fight wars and conduct missions around the world, including in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. And members of the military will report to work, though they won’t get paid until Congress approves funding.
Mattis said in a departmentwide memo Friday that “ships and submarines will remain at sea, our aircraft will continue to fly and our warfighters will continue to pursue terrorists throughout the Middle East, Africa and South Asia.”
But Mattis said during remarks on Friday at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies that a shutdown will still have far-reaching effects on the Defense Department.
Weapons and equipment maintenance will shut down, military intelligence operations would stop and training for most of the reserve force would be put on hold, he said. And any National Guard forces heading out to do weekend training duty around the country will arrive at armories and be told to go home.
___
U.S. INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES
The workforce at the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies will be pared down significantly, according to a person familiar with contingency procedures.
The official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity, said employees who are considered essential and have to work will do so with no expectation of a regular paycheck.
While they can be kept on the job, federal workers can’t be paid for days worked during a shutdown. In the past, however, they have been paid retroactively even if they were ordered to stay home.
___
HOMELAND SECURITY DEPARTMENT
A department spokesman said nearly 90 percent of Homeland Security employees are considered essential and will continue to perform their duties during a government shutdown.
That means most Customs and Border Protection and Transportation Security Administration workers will stay on the job, according to the department’s shutdown plan, dated Friday.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement will be staffed at about 78 percent, meaning more than 15,000 of the agency’s employees will keep working. The Secret Service, also part of Homeland Security, will retain more than 5,700 employees during the shutdown.
___
INTERIOR DEPARTMENT
The Interior Department said national parks and other public lands will remain as accessible as possible. That position is a change from previous shutdowns, when most parks were closed and became high-profile symbols of dysfunction.
Spokeswoman Heather Swift said the American public - especially veterans who come to the nation’s capital - should find war memorials and open-air parks available to visitors. Swift said many national parks and wildlife refuges nationwide will also be open with limited access when possible.
She said public roads that already are open are likely to remain open, though services that require staffing and maintenance such as campgrounds, full-service restrooms and concessions won’t be operating. Backcountry lands and culturally sensitive sites are likely to be restricted or closed, she said.
Yet the shutdown had an instant impact on two of the world’s top tourist destinations: the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.
The National Park Service announced that both New York sites would be closed “due to a lapse in appropriations.” The park service said the closure of the Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island was effective immediately and until further notice.
For ticket refunds, visitors were instructed to contact the Statue Cruises company that runs ferries to the statue and Ellis Island, the historic entry point in New York Harbor for immigrants to the United States that is now a museum.
___
TRANSPORTATION DEPARTMENT
More than half - 34,600 - of the Department of Transportation’s 55,100 employees will continue working during a shutdown. The bulk of those staying on the job work for the Federal Aviation Administration, which operates the nation’s air traffic control system.
Controllers and aviation, pipeline and railroad safety inspectors are among those who would continue to work.
But certification of new aircraft will be limited, and processing of airport construction grants, training of new controllers, registration of planes, air traffic control modernization research and development, and issuance of new pilot licenses and medical certificates will stop.
At the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, investigations on auto safety defects will be suspended, incoming information on possible defects from manufacturers and consumers won’t be reviewed and compliance testing of vehicles and equipment will be delayed.
The Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, whose operations are mostly paid for out of the Federal Highway Trust Fund, will continue most of their functions. The fund’s revenue comes from federal gas and diesel taxes, which will continue to be collected. But work on issuing new regulations will stop throughout the department and its nine agencies.
___
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the agency’s infectious disease chief, said a government shutdown will be disruptive to research and morale at the National Institutes of Health but will not adversely affect patients already in medical studies.
“We still take care of them,” he said of current NIH patients. But other types of research would be seriously harmed, Fauci said.
A shutdown could mean interrupting research that’s been going on for years, Fauci said. The NIH is the government’s primary agency responsible for biomedical and public health research across 27 institutes and centers. Its research ranges from cancer studies to the testing and creation of vaccines.
“You can’t push the pause button on an experiment,” he said.
___
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has instructed workers there to come to work next week even with a shutdown. Pruitt said in an email to all EPA employees on Friday that the agency had “sufficient resources to remain open for a limited amount of time.” He said further instructions would come if the shutdown lasts for more than a week.
The instructions from Pruitt are different from how the agency has operated during prior shutdowns and the contingency plan posted on EPA’s website. A spokesman for the agency said earlier on Friday that the December 2017 plan was no longer valid.
___
Associated Press writers Sadie Gurman, Joan Lowy, Michael Biesecker, Lolita Baldor, Andrew Taylor, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Laurie Kellman, Deb Riechmann, Matthew Lee and Marcy Gordon contributed to this report.
___
Contact Richard Lardner on Twitter at http://twitter.com/rplardner
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A huge collection of the best blog tips for Wordpress, Blogger and all blog platforms.Tips from creating your blog to writing tips, widgets, design, templates and themes, SEO, social media and more. | {
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Man behind massive bet that bitcoin could hit $50,000
Ari Paul, BlockTower Capital CIO and co-founder, discusses buying bitcoin options and what it could mean for the price of bitcoin in the future. | {
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A grandfather in China has won the hearts of Chinese netizens after it was found that he has traveled 60 kilometers (37 miles) on foot just to deliver some eggs to his beloved grandson.
Police in Guizhou Province reportedly spotted the elderly man on Monday slowly walking on the side of a freeway near the city of Zunyi, Shanghaiist reports. He was found to be carrying dozens of eggs in a plastic container with him.
When questioned by local authorities, the man, who was believed to be in his eighties, revealed that he was on his way to visit his grandson. He said he was worried that his hard-working grandson was not eating well so he thought of delivering eggs to him.
The thoughtful octogenarian left his home at around 7 a.m. on Monday morning and had been walking for 12 hours when the police saw and stopped him. He has already covered 60 kilometers.
He revealed that he opted to not take the bus so he could save some money. Unfortunately, however, some of the eggs inside the container had broken during his long walk.
The police escorted the grandpa to his grandson who was surprised by his arrival. The grandson explained that he was not expecting that his grandpa was going to visit him that day. He added that he would take his grandpa out for a nice meal during his visit.
Here’s grandpa’s heartwarming gesture making the news in China: | {
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A far-right mob brutally beating counter-protesters while yelling “faggot.” A series of pipe bombs mailed to the prominent liberals who are most featured in right-wing conspiracies. A white supremacist murder of two black senior citizens in a Kentucky grocery store. The mass shooting of eleven worshipers at a synagogue in what is described as the worst anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history.
All these events have happened in just over a fortnight. More crucially, they all bear hallmarks of violent, far-right bigotry, which President Donald Trump still refuses to call out and denounce.
Proud Boys’ attacks
Events started spiraling on Oct. 12 after the Proud Boys, a “Western chauvinist” group who frequently ally with other far-right groups, left a talk at the Metropolitan Republican Club in New York City. Their leader, Gavin McInnes, had taken part in a “lecture” at the club in which he re-enacted the murder of a Japanese socialist politician. When the Proud Boys were confronted by counter-protesters, they violently attacked them, yelling “Do you feel brave now, faggot?”
One day later, a “Flash Mob for Law and Order” in Portland, Ore., in which the Proud Boys took part in also descended into violence.
Soon after the New York attack, the NYPD announced it was seeking charges of riot and assault against nine members of Proud Boys. So far, five men affiliated with the group have been charged, and a sixth man was arrested on Friday. Among those charged, at least two were also members of prominent skinhead gangs. One of them was part of a far-right organization linked to the brutal beating of two grad students in 2017; another attended last year’s Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va.
Attempted pipe bombings
On Oct. 22 police were called to investigate after a crude explosive device was delivered to George Soros, the billionaire and prominent liberal philanthropist. Soros is routinely the central figure in far-right conspiracy theories, which mainstream Republicans have now picked up. The most recent conspiracy theory about Soros, also parroted by “mainstream” conservatives, including elected officials, claims Soros is covertly funding the migrant caravan in Mexico headed towards the U.S. border.
BREAKING: Footage in Honduras giving cash 2 women & children 2 join the caravan & storm the US border @ election time. Soros? US-backed NGOs? Time to investigate the source! pic.twitter.com/5pEByiGkkN — Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) October 17, 2018
One bomb quickly turned into a cascade. Over the next three days pipe bombs were discovered to have been sent to prominent Democrats, including Hillary and President Bill Clinton, President Barack Obama, former Attorney General Eric Holder, the offices of CNN, and others. On Friday, officials arrested Cesar Sayoc, a Trump devotee who frequently attended rallies and who had engaged with far-right conspiracy theories online.
Kentucky hate crime
In the midst of the panic over the pipe bombings, a hate crime in Kentucky initially flew under the radar. Gregory Bush, 51, entered the Kroger supermarket in Louisville, Ky. and shot two elderly African-Americans before being arrested. According to police, Bush initially tried to enter an African-American church, as white-supremacist mass murderer Dylann Roof had done in 2015.
According to one witness, Bush engaged in a brief standoff within the supermarket with a white bystander who was armed. “Don’t shoot me and I won’t shoot you,” Bush was reported to have said. “Whites don’t kill whites.”
Synagogue mass shooting
On Saturday, as authorities were still piecing together Cesar Sayoc’s motives, another attack unfolded. A gunman had entered the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Penn. and killed eleven worshipers — most of them elderly — before engaging in a gun battle with police. He was taken into custody and will be charged with 29 criminal counts, including charges related to hate crimes.
Pittsburgh Public Safety Director Wendell Hissrich called the crime scene “one of the worst I’ve ever seen.”
(3/3) "It is time to treat domestic terrorism as the national threat that it is, and track, analyze, and punish political violence at the federal level. Winning the fight against domestic terrorism is not about parties or political views; it is about ending political violence.” — FBI Agents Assoc. (@FBIAgentsAssoc) October 24, 2018
It emerged that the shooter, Robert Bowers, was a rabid anti-Semite. He’d repeatedly aired extreme, hateful views on Gab, a far-right-friendly social media site, and told a SWAT officer in the aftermath of the attack that “all Jews must die.” Federal prosecutors have now filed hate-crime charges against him. Gab, meanwhile, is rapidly being “deplatformed.”
It’s not hard to the common thread between the suspects or attackers in these cases. An embrace of the conspiracy theories which have now become popularized by the GOP, clues to online radicalization that could have been picked up earlier by tech companies hosting that hate speech, and, of course, a hatred and targeting of minorities.
If these attacks were carried out by anyone else — ISIS, MS-13, Hezbollah or any other of the perpetual conservative boogeymen — there would be ear-splitting outrage from the GOP. But as it is, and despite the “domestic terror” warnings of law enforcement agencies like the FBI, the attacks are treated as separate, isolated incidents from whom the Trump administration can absolve blame, and place on others.
There’s little reason to expect there won’t be more incidents: the president himself has doubled down on blaming the media for the recent wave of violence.
“There is great anger in our Country caused in part by inaccurate, and even fraudulent, reporting of the news,” Trump tweeted on Monday morning. “The Fake News Media, the true Enemy of the People, must stop the open & obvious hostility & report the news accurately & fairly.” | {
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China has backed Russia in a tense standoff with the US and Europe that has erupted following the pro-West revolution in Ukraine.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov discussed the unfolding crisis in its southern neighbour in a phone conversation with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi.
"The foreign ministers of both countries exchanged views on the situation in Ukraine. They noted the coincidence of positions on this aspect," a spokesperson for the Russian ministry said, Itar-Tass news agency reported.
The phone call came after Russia's G8 partners, including the US and Britain, condemned the Kremlin's decision to deploy troops in Crimea, purportedly to protect the ethnic Russians living there from radicals and extremists.
China's state news agency Xinhua accused western powers of adopting a Cold War- like mindset towards Russia, trying to isolate Moscow at a time when much needed mediation is need to reach a diplomatic solution to the crisis in Crimea.
"Based on the fact that Russia and Ukraine have deep cultural, historical and economic connections, it is time for Western powers to abandon their Cold War thinking. Stop trying to exclude Russia from the political crisis they failed to mediate, and respect Russia's unique role in mapping out the future of Ukraine," Xinhua wrote in an opinion piece.
"Right now, the West should show more appreciation for what Russia can do to solve the crisis in Ukraine. Given Russia's historical and cultural influence in the country, the Kremlin is the piece that cannot be missing in this political puzzle."
Ukraine's new government has accused Russia of declaring war by reportedly sending thousands of military personnel into the Crimean peninsula where it already has a large naval base.
Last week the Russian parliament authorised President Vladimir Putin to use military force to protect Russian interests all across Ukraine.
The move was described as "understandable" by Xinhua's opinion writer Lu Yu.
"It is quite understandable when Putin said his country retained the right to protect its interests and Russian-speakers living in Ukraine," Lu wrote.
"Crimea is a multi-ethnic region enjoying autonomy after Ukraine gained independence from the Soviet Union in August 1991. According to the 2001 Ukrainian Census, 58.3 percent of the Crimean population are ethnic Russians and most of them hold Russian passports."
[UPDATE 12:17 GMT] China's Foreign Ministry has issued a statement to clarify its stance over
"China upholds its own diplomatic principles and the basic codes for international relations, which have also been implied on the Ukraine issue," China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said.
"Meanwhile, we have also taken the historical and contemporary factors of the Ukraine issue into consideration." | {
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(Reuters) - Delta Air Lines Inc. said it would refund $30 to conservative commentator Ann Coulter after she unleashed a Twitter tirade over being reassigned to a seat with less leg room, and the airline called her string of insults “unacceptable and unnecessary”.
FILE PHOTO: Commentator Ann Coulter addresses the Conservative Political Action conference (CPAC) in Washington, February 12, 2011. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo
“We’re sorry you did not receive the preferred seat you paid for and will refund your $30,” the airline told Coulter on Twitter.
“Additionally, your insults about our other customers and employees are unacceptable and unnecessary,” Delta said in a second tweet.
Delta appeared to have deleted its tweets after they were posted on Sunday afternoon, but not before they were shared thousands of times.
Coulter, one of America’s best-known and most provocative pundits on the political right, ripped the airline with a series of tweets on Saturday and Sunday, saying she was “kicked out of a carefully pre-booked seat to a less desirable seat, without explanation, apology, etc”.
She also directed her ire at the “dachshund-legged woman” who took her seat with extra leg room, posting a picture of her.
Coulter, who has 1.6 million followers, likened Delta employees to Nurse Ratched, the heartless villain in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, called Delta the “worst airline in America”, and suggested the ideal job for a Delta employee would be prison guard, animal handler or an East German policeman.
The incident generated some social media sympathy from people dissatisfied with airline service, a topic that went viral in April when a man was dragged off a United flight to make room for a flight crew in transit.
But some of the sentiment turned on Coulter when Delta revealed that the upgrade she was denied was worth only $30.
“Only people like Ann Coulter could make one take the side of the airline. I will book my next flight with @Delta,” said Twitter user Mark Curtis.
Delta representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Coulter responded on Twitter by saying she was still waiting for an explanation why her seat assignment was changed. | {
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The latest Quinnipiac poll of Florida Republicans brings somber news for the campaigns of Sen. Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush. Despite their long-records of political office in the Sunshine State, both men trail outsiders in their quest for the Republican nomination.
Rubio is third with 14 percent support while Bush is fourth with just 12 percent support.
As in other states, real estate developer Donald Trump and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson win the top spots among Florida Republicans. Trump continues to lead the field with 28 percent support, up 7 points from August. Carson is second with 16 percent support.
It is noteworthy that Trump’s support among Florida Republicans is more than Rubio and Bush earn combined. This is not how major candidates normally poll in their home states.
“The generally more energized Republican party members, who backed former Gov. Bush and Sen. Rubio when they ran for office in the Sunshine State, are deserting the establishment candidates for the outsiders – specifically Trump and Carson,” Peter Brown, assistant director of Quinnipiac polling, said.
There has been a compression in the candidates’ support since the last Quinnipiac poll at the end of August. Lower tier candidates have lost support as the campaign has progressed, with voters moving towards the top-tier of candidates. Carly Fiorina and Ted Cruz both earn 7 percent support in Florida, while all other candidates occupy margin-of-error territory.
In August, a number of the lower tied candidates polled outside the margin of error. Trump has gained the most from the shifting support, rising 7 points, while Bush has experienced the sharpest drop, falling 5 points. Rubio and Carson each picked up a handful of points, with Fiorina and Cruz have remained steady.
“Those who were waiting for Donald Trump’s campaign to collapse will need to wait longer,” Brown said.
More interesting than Trump’s continued lead in Florida, however, are the apparent struggles of the Bush and Rubio campaigns in their home state. The anti-establishment wave building within the Republican party looks set to sweep away a lot of otherwise successful politicians. | {
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The couple's lovemaking was described as 'unnatural' A woman who was given an anti-social behaviour order banning her from making loud noises during sex has admitted breaching the order. Caroline and Steve Cartwright's love-making was described as "murder" and "unnatural" at Newcastle Crown Court. Neighbours, the local postman and a woman taking her child to school complained about the noise. Cartwright, 48, from Washington on Wearside, pleaded guilty to three counts of breaching the Asbo. She will be sentenced on 18 January. At an earlier hearing, next door neighbour Rachel O'Connor told the court she was frequently late for work because she overslept having been awake most of the night because of the noise. She said: "The noise sounds like they are both in considerable pain. I cannot describe the noise. I have never ever heard anything like it." Neighbour Rachel O'Connor said the couple sounded like they were in pain In November, Cartwright appealed against a noise abatement notice imposed in 2007, as well as the subsequent Asbo, which banned the couple from "shouting, screaming or vocalisation at such a level as to be a statutory nuisance". Her bid was rejected by Recorder Jeremy Freedman, who said: "It certainly was intrusive and constituted a statutory nuisance. "It was clearly of a very disturbing nature and it was also compounded by the duration - this was not a one-off, it went on for hours at a time. "It is further compounded by the frequency of the episode, virtually every night." Sunderland City Council told the court they had recorded noise levels of up to 47 decibels using equipment installed at Cartwright's neighbour's house. World Health Organisation guidelines state that 30 decibels is enough to cause sleep disturbance.
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Updated 2020/07/26, with the help of the following, in the comments: JC Walking dead & xjumper65 Updated 2019/09/08, with the help of ... | {
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Texas House Speaker Joe Straus on Wednesday further brought the battle lines over the "bathroom bill" into focus, saying lawmakers should be "very careful" about doing anything that makes the state less economically competitive.
“There’s been a lot of work put into our state’s economic success," Straus said in a speech to the Texas Association of Business, which has vocally opposed the legislation. "We want to continue that success, and we want Texas to keep attracting the best and the brightest. One way to maintain our edge is to send the right signals about who we are."
The remarks amounted to Straus' most dour yet on Senate Bill 6, which would require transgender people to use bathrooms in public schools, government buildings and public universities based on "biological sex." It also would pre-empt local ordinances that protect transgender individuals from discrimination in public accommodations.
Straus has previously called the proposal, a priority for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, not the "most urgent concern of mine."
On Wednesday, Straus emphasized that he was not speaking for all House members but expressing a personal view and reflecting the concerns of constituents in his San Antonio-based district. The city is set to hold the Final Four in 2018, and Straus detailed all it has done to prepare for the college basketball event.
"Many people where I come from get concerned about anything that can slow down our overall job-creating machine," Straus said. "They are also watching what happened in North Carolina, and they are not enthusiastic about getting that type of attention," Straus added, referring to the state that incurred controversy when its lawmakers pushed a similar bill.
While Patrick has been outspoken about the legislation, Gov. Greg Abbott has not commented on it since its release. Straus applied some pressure on Abbott to weigh in, saying his view could make a "big difference."
"If you are concerned — I know many of you are — now is the time to speak up," Straus told TAB members.
Speaking with reporters after his remarks, Straus was asked if he intended to "bottle up" the bill in the House. He only said he was hoping for a "big conversation" among members on the proposals as well as the thousands of others that get filed every session. He also told reporters he has had "very little" communication with Abbott and Patrick about the legislation, though he noted the session is just beginning.
Straus' remarks at the Texas Association of Business conference came a day after it heard from a bathroom bill supporter, Attorney General Ken Paxton. He pitched Senate Bill 6 as narrowly focused and not affecting businesses, and he urged the crowd to consider parents' safety concerns.
Read more of our related coverage:
The so-called bathroom bill has drawn national attention to the Texas Legislature. But what would the proposed bill actually do? We've annotated the text to explain in plain English how the bill would impact communities across Texas.
State Rep. Matt Schaefer proposed a rule requiring people in the Capitol to use bathrooms corresponding to their biological sex during a House floor debate in the first week of the 2017 legislative session.
Disclosure: The Texas Association of Business has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune. A complete list of Tribune donors and sponsors can be viewed here. | {
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I seem to be the only person alive with no clue as to who has poisoned four people in Wiltshire. I am told that only Russians have access to the poison, known as novichok – though the British research station of Porton Down, located ominously nearby, clearly knows a lot about it. Otherwise, I repeat, I have no clue. I suppose I can see why the Kremlin might want to kill an ex-spy such as Sergei Skripal and his daughter, so as to deter others from defecting. But why wait so long after he has fled, and why during the build-up to so highly politicised an event as a World Cup in Russia?
Who, us? Russia is gaslighting the world on the Skripal poisonings | Alexey Kovalev Read more
Four months on from the crime, the Skripals have been incommunicado in a “secure location”. Barely a word has been heard from them. Theresa May has persistently blamed Russia. She has called the incident “brazen and despicable”, and MI5 condemned “flagrant breaches of international rules”. But I cannot see the diplomatic or other purchase in prejudging the case, when no one can offer a clue.
As to why the same person or persons should want to kill a couple, unconnected to the Skripals, on an Amesbury housing development, the questions are even more baffling. It seems a funny sort of carelessness. Did the couple pick up the infecting agent nearer the original site, eight miles away? Might the new poisoning be an attempt to divert attention from the earlier one? Could it be a devious plot, to make it seem that novichok is available on every street corner, from your friendly neighbourhood drug dealer? Or perhaps one of the victims, Charlie Rowley, has mates in Porton Down? Perhaps someone is showing off, or panicking, or behaving like a complete idiot. Who knows?
The most obvious motive would surely be from someone out to embarrass Vladimir Putin - one of his enemies
Since I have not a smidgen of an answer to any of these questions, I feel no need to capitulate to the politics of terror and fear. I can open my front door without cleaning my hand. I can visit Wiltshire in peace and safety and marvel at the spire of Salisbury Cathedral. I can revel in the remains of the bronze age Amesbury archer – whose death from bone disease has finally been resolved by the scientists. Where knowledge is nonexistent, ignorance is bliss.
That clearly does not apply to government ministers, for whom ignorance is not a sufficient condition for silence. The home secretary, Sajid Javid, said it was time “the Russian state comes forward and explains exactly what has gone on”. His security minister, Ben Wallace, had earlier reached the same conclusion, given that the Russians “had developed novichok, they had explored assassination programmes in the past, they had motive, form and stated policy”.
Like Javid, he asserted “to a very high assurance” that Russia was to blame, and spoke of “the anger I feel at the Russian state. They chose to use a very, very toxic, highly dangerous weapon,” and should “come and tell us what happened”. Since Moscow vigorously denies any involvement, it is hard to see how the Russians would now “explain”.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Specialist officers in protective suits investigate the first novichok incident – the poisoning of the Skripals, in Salisbury. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images
Surely, three months after the poison attack on the Skripals, ministers could have produced some evidence for all these accusations? I am at a loss to see what motive the Kremlin might have to commit murders on foreign soil during the buildup, let alone the enactment, of a sporting event that is of mammoth chauvinist significance to Russia.
Clearly it is possible that freelancers, wildcats or private contract killers could have operated at many removes from the Kremlin. But who knows? The most obvious motive for these attacks would surely be from someone out to embarrass the Russian president, Vladimir Putin – someone from his enemies, rather than from his friends or employees. But once again we have no clue.
As it is, all we can see are the devious tools of the new international politics. We see the rush to judgment at the bidding of the news agenda. We see murders and terrorist incidents hijacked for political gain or military advantage. Ministers plunge into Cobra bunkers. Social media and false news are weaponised. So too are sporting events.
Sport is the most flagrant. The plea that “politics should be kept out of sport” is as hopeless as demanding the exclusion of corruption and fraud. The very phrase, “international” sport, drips with politics. Why else do politicians shower sports festivals with taxpayers’ cash? As the Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz would say, such events are the continuation of war by other means. Witness the obscene glee with which the British tabloids greeted Germany’s ejection from the World Cup last week.
Any politicians or heads of state who grace an international sporting fixture – not least one as self-congratulatory as an event hosted by Russia – cannot pretend their presence is apolitical. Hence the pressure on Theresa May to boycott the World Cup because of the Wiltshire poisoning – assuming that she ever intended to go, that is.
To all this there is an easy way out. As we flounder through the novichok morass without a jot of evidence, these crimes should be treated as they remain, local cases of attempted murder. They should be detached from global power plays, political grandstanding and penalty shootouts. They belong to the Wiltshire police and their advisers.
If nothing eventually emerges to implicate Moscow in the poisonings, more fool the politicians. If they were indeed a Russian plot, then the time to get justifiably angry is when this has been proved. Until then, I recommend the tennis.
• Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist | {
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To know more about Mitoshi CrytoLottery, kindly visit https://www.mitoshi.io/ | {
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(Photo by Netflix/courtesy Everett Collection)
The 50 Best Horror Movies on Netflix
Last updated May 5, 2020
Looking for the best scary movies on Netflix? After a guided map of the most terrifying dingy dungeons, creaky manors, home-invaded houses, and deeply dark woods you can find on the streaming service? Then your search has led you to your glorious streaming doom: The 50 Best Horror Movies on Netflix!
We’ll get right to the really good scary Netflix movies you can find, such as Train to Busan, the popular South Korean zombie flick. Or A24’s The Witch, which transports viewers to 17th-century New England and into the clutches of mysterious evil. And before Jordan Peele’s update comes out, you can watch the original Candyman. And that’s alongside Netflix horror originals, like Gerald’s Game, The Platform, and Bird Box.
How did we whittle down our list of horror? We took every last scary movie on Netflix that had at least 20 reviews, and sorted them by Adjusted Tomatometer, a weighted formula that takes into account several factors, including the movie’s release year and its number of reviews. The older the movie, and the more reviews it has, the stronger its case. What emerges is a portrait of which films unnerved and spooked out critics, have the potential to get audiences’ heart racing, and maybe even broke new ground and bones for the genre. So enough delaying the inevitable: Here are the 50 best Netflix horror movies to stream and scream right now!
#50 47 Meters Down (2017) 53% #50 Adjusted Score: 59.172% Critics Consensus: 47 Meters Down doesn't take its terrifying premise quite as far as it should, but its toothy antagonists still offer a few thrills for less demanding genre enthusiasts. Synopsis: Two sisters vacationing in Mexico become trapped in a shark cage on the ocean floor. As their oxygen starts to... Two sisters vacationing in Mexico become trapped in a shark cage on the ocean floor. As their oxygen starts to... [More] Starring: Claire Holt, Yani Gellman, Matthew Modine, Santiago Segura Directed By: Johannes Roberts
#49 The Craft (1996) 55% #49 Adjusted Score: 57.764% Critics Consensus: The Craft's campy magic often overrides the feminist message at its story's core, but its appealing cast and postmodern perspective still cast a sporadic spell. Synopsis: Sarah has always been different. So as the new girl at St. Benedict's Academy, she immediately falls in with the... Sarah has always been different. So as the new girl at St. Benedict's Academy, she immediately falls in with the... [More] Starring: Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell, Rachel True Directed By: Andrew Fleming
#43 Sinister (2012) 63% #43 Adjusted Score: 68.435% Critics Consensus: Its plot hinges on typically implausible horror-movie behavior and recycles countless genre cliches, but Sinister delivers a surprising number of fresh, diabolical twists. Synopsis: Sinister is a frightening new thriller from the producer of the Paranormal Activity films and the writer-director of The Exorcism... Sinister is a frightening new thriller from the producer of the Paranormal Activity films and the writer-director of The Exorcism... [More] Starring: Ethan Hawke, Juliet Rylance, Fred Dalton Thompson, James Ransone Directed By: Scott Derrickson
#42 St. Agatha (2019) 64% #42 Adjusted Score: 64.181% Critics Consensus: St. Agatha makes admittedly uneven use of its story's well-worn religious tropes, but the overall effect may still be just chilling enough for horror fans. Synopsis: It's the 1950's in small town Georgia, a pregnant con woman on the run seeks refuge in a convent hidden... It's the 1950's in small town Georgia, a pregnant con woman on the run seeks refuge in a convent hidden... [More] Starring: Sabrina Kern, Carolyn Hennesy, Courtney Halverson, Lindsay Seim Directed By:
#41 13 Sins (2014) 65% #41 Adjusted Score: 65.898% Critics Consensus: 13 Sins may be derivative of other horror films that made their moral points with more finesse, but it atones with a grim sense of humor and sleek style. Synopsis: A cryptic phone call sets off a dangerous game of risks for Elliot, a down-on-his luck salesman. The game promises... A cryptic phone call sets off a dangerous game of risks for Elliot, a down-on-his luck salesman. The game promises... [More] Starring: Mark Webber, Rutina Wesley, Devon Graye, Pruitt Taylor Vince Directed By: Daniel Stamm
#40 Insidious (2011) 66% #40 Adjusted Score: 71.291% Critics Consensus: Aside from a shaky final act, Insidious is a very scary and very fun haunted house thrill ride. Synopsis: Saw franchise veterans James Wan and Leigh Whannell team with Paranormal Activity writer/director Oren Peli to give the familiar haunted... Saw franchise veterans James Wan and Leigh Whannell team with Paranormal Activity writer/director Oren Peli to give the familiar haunted... [More] Starring: Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Ty Simpkins, Lin Shaye Directed By: James Wan
#38 Child's Play (1988) 71% #38 Adjusted Score: 74.299% Critics Consensus: Child's Play occasionally stumbles across its tonal tightrope of comedy and horror, but its genuinely creepy monster and some deft direction by Tom Holland makes this chiller stand out on the shelf. Synopsis: Child's Play seems to have been concocted by a parent who went berserk after standing in line for hours on... Child's Play seems to have been concocted by a parent who went berserk after standing in line for hours on... [More] Starring: Catherine Hicks, Chris Sarandon, Brad Dourif, Dinah Manoff Directed By: Tom Holland
#37 The Ring (2002) 71% #37 Adjusted Score: 76.893% Critics Consensus: With little gore and a lot of creepy visuals, The Ring gets under your skin, thanks to director Gore Verbinski's haunting sense of atmosphere and an impassioned performance from Naomi Watts. Synopsis: A disturbing videotape appears to hold the power of life and death over those who view it in this offbeat... A disturbing videotape appears to hold the power of life and death over those who view it in this offbeat... [More] Starring: Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson, David Dorfman, Brian Cox Directed By: Gore Verbinski
#33 The Perfection (2019) 72% #33 Adjusted Score: 75.345% Critics Consensus: Led by a pair of compelling performances, The Perfection is a smart, gripping thriller that barbs its wild twists with cutting wit. Synopsis: When troubled musical prodigy Charlotte (Allison Williams) seeks out Elizabeth (Logan Browning), the new star pupil of her former school,... When troubled musical prodigy Charlotte (Allison Williams) seeks out Elizabeth (Logan Browning), the new star pupil of her former school,... [More] Starring: Allison Williams, Alaina Huffman, Steven Weber, Logan Browning Directed By: Richard Shepard
#31 Candyman (1992) 75% #31 Adjusted Score: 79.785% Critics Consensus: Though it ultimately sacrifices some mystery in the name of gory thrills, Candyman is a nuanced, effectively chilling tale that benefits from an interesting premise and some fine performances. Synopsis: Researching urban folklore, a University of Chicago student snoops around the housing projects of Cabrini Green to find more about... Researching urban folklore, a University of Chicago student snoops around the housing projects of Cabrini Green to find more about... [More] Starring: Virginia Madsen, Tony Todd, Xander Berkeley, Kasi Lemmons Directed By: Bernard Rose
#28 Scream (1996) 78% #28 Adjusted Score: 81.974% Critics Consensus: Horror icon Wes Craven's subversive deconstruction of the genre is sly, witty, and surprisingly effective as a slasher film itself, even if it's a little too cheeky for some. Synopsis: The sleepy little town of Woodsboro just woke up screaming. There's a killer in their midst who's seen a few... The sleepy little town of Woodsboro just woke up screaming. There's a killer in their midst who's seen a few... [More] Starring: David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Drew Barrymore Directed By: Wes Craven
#26 Await Further Instructions (2018) 80% #26 Adjusted Score: 74.31% Critics Consensus: A yuletide nightmare full of familial angst and slithering scares, Await Further Instructions is a genre treat that pretty much any horror fan will want in their stocking. Synopsis: It's Christmas Day and the Milgram family wake to find a mysterious black substance surrounding their house. Something monumental is... It's Christmas Day and the Milgram family wake to find a mysterious black substance surrounding their house. Something monumental is... [More] Starring: David Bradley, Grant Masters, Neerja Naik, Sam Gittins Directed By: Johnny Kevorkian
#25 Paranormal Activity (2009) 83% #25 Adjusted Score: 89.498% Critics Consensus: Using its low-budget effects and mockumentary method to great result, Paranormal Activity turns a simple haunted house story into 90 minutes of relentless suspense. Synopsis: A haunted house makes no secret of the fact it's not pleased with its new tenants in this independent tale... A haunted house makes no secret of the fact it's not pleased with its new tenants in this independent tale... [More] Starring: Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat, Mark Fredrichs, Amber Armstrong Directed By: Oren Peli
#16 Cargo (2018) 88% #16 Adjusted Score: 90.437% Critics Consensus: Cargo takes a refreshingly character-driven approach to the zombie genre that's further distinguished by its Australian setting and Martin Freeman's terrific lead performance. Synopsis: Stranded in rural Australia in the aftermath of a violent pandemic, an infected father desperately seeks a new home for... Stranded in rural Australia in the aftermath of a violent pandemic, an infected father desperately seeks a new home for... [More] Starring: Martin Freeman, Natasha Wanganeen, David Gulpilil, Anthony Hayes Directed By: Yolanda Ramke, Ben Howling
#14 Creep (2015) 89% #14 Adjusted Score: 89.146% Critics Consensus: A smart, odball take on found-footage horror, Creep is clever and well-acted enough to keep viewers on the edges of their seats. Synopsis: Looking for work, Aaron (Patrick Brice) comes across a cryptic online ad: "$1,000 for the day. Filming service. Discretion is... Looking for work, Aaron (Patrick Brice) comes across a cryptic online ad: "$1,000 for the day. Filming service. Discretion is... [More] Starring: Mark Duplass, Patrick Brice Directed By: Patrick Brice
#13 Zodiac (2007) 89% #13 Adjusted Score: 97.637% Critics Consensus: A quiet, dialogue-driven thriller that delivers with scene after scene of gut-wrenching anxiety. David Fincher also spends more time illustrating nuances of his characters and recreating the mood of the 70s than he does on gory details of murder. Synopsis: Based on the true story of the notorious serial killer and the intense manhunt he inspired, Zodiac is a superbly... Based on the true story of the notorious serial killer and the intense manhunt he inspired, Zodiac is a superbly... [More] Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., Anthony Edwards Directed By: David Fincher
#11 The Witch (2016) 90% #11 Adjusted Score: 102.946% Critics Consensus: As thought-provoking as it is visually compelling, The Witch delivers a deeply unsettling exercise in slow-building horror that suggests great things for debuting writer-director Robert Eggers. Synopsis: In this exquisitely made and terrifying new horror film, the age-old concepts of witchcraft, black magic and possession are innovatively... In this exquisitely made and terrifying new horror film, the age-old concepts of witchcraft, black magic and possession are innovatively... [More] Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie, Harvey Scrimshaw Directed By: Robert Eggers
#9 1922 (2017) 91% #9 Adjusted Score: 91.977% Critics Consensus: Thanks to director Zak Hilditch's patient storytelling and strong work from lead Thomas Jane, 1922 ranks among the more satisfying Stephen King adaptations. Synopsis: 1922 is based on Stephen King's 131-page story telling of a man's confession of his wife's murder. The tale is... 1922 is based on Stephen King's 131-page story telling of a man's confession of his wife's murder. The tale is... [More] Starring: Thomas Jane, Molly Parker, Dylan Schmid, Kaitlyn Bernard Directed By: Zak Hilditch
#7 Backcountry (2015) 92% #7 Adjusted Score: 93.121% Critics Consensus: Tense, well-acted, and at once atmospheric as well as brutally impactful, Backcountry marks a memorably assured debut from writer-director Adam MacDonald. Synopsis: In this terrifying and critically-acclaimed thriller, a young couple's romantic camping trip becomes a tale of survival as they face... In this terrifying and critically-acclaimed thriller, a young couple's romantic camping trip becomes a tale of survival as they face... [More] Starring: Missy Peregrym, Jeff Roop, Eric Balfour, Nicholas Campbell Directed By: Adam MacDonald
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Raymond Poincaré’s aide delivered the news during the break between the third and fourth course of his languid Sunday lunch at the Longchamp racecourse: “the Archduke, heir to the throne of Austria and his morganatic wife were just assassinated.” The sun was shining down on the Paris elite that afternoon in June 1914; the flowers were in full bloom. France’s President chose not to skip dessert. The Times of London, historian Sean McMeekin records, thought the event insignificant compared to the looming civil war in Ireland. Paris media mostly ignored it, transfixed by the shooting of a newspaper editor by the Foreign Minister’s mistress.
The shot that was to claim 37 million lives was barely heard next door — but unexpected consequence followed improbable cause in lockstep, as Europe marched towards Armageddon.
Contours of Modi’s world
For Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the events that transformed the world a century ago hold out some important lessons. Large swathes of text have been written about how he ought to face the next 13/12, or 7/7 or 26/11; by probes across India’s eastern borders or skirmishes on the western one. Each of these might indeed prove to be grave challenges. His true tests, however, will be made up of the unforeseen: events that will be forged in fearful new asymmetries of power that are remaking our world.
Mr. Modi’s foreign policy debut — his invitation to South Asian leaders for his swearing-in — has demonstrated that he has a flair for glittering theatrical gesture. His aides know, though, that while audiences will likely applaud a good act, other actors aren’t so easily impressed.
For much of his 10 years in office, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh looked out on a benign world, built around one, singular circumstance: the direct engagement of the United States, then the world’s undisputed superpower, in Asian wars.
Fearful that regional conflict could undermine its position, the U.S. worked hard to defuse regional crisis. In Kashmir, following the 2001-2002 India-Pakistan crisis, violence levels fell dramatically each year. India, in turn, was compelled to moderate its responses to events like 26/11. Dr. Singh’s energies, though, were largely left free to pursue India’s overarching strategic objective: getting as close as was possible to double-digit economic growth.
Later this year, though, all but small numbers of U.S. troops will leave Afghanistan — marking the end of this benign decade. India’s lesser concern is that the U.S. will strike a deal with Pakistan, allowing its military to resume low-level warfare against India in return for ensuring the stability of the Kabul regime. The greater concern is that the withdrawal will mark a turning-inward of the U.S., leaving Asia without a great power to enforce the rules of the global system.
Changing balance of power
Perhaps the biggest fact of the new world is this: U.S. supremacy is no longer uncontested. Even as the U.S. implements deep cuts to military spending, China’s naval power is growing. China’s DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) poses the first credible threat to the U.S.’ once-invincible Pacific fleet. Its blue water, submarine and littoral naval capabilities are increasing dramatically, along with its air force, helped by its massive economic resources.
Though the U.S. still enjoys an overwhelming preponderance of military power, scholars Andrew Erickson and Adam Liff note, the People’s Liberation Army increasingly “has the resources, capabilities and confidence to attempt to assert China’s interests on its contested periphery, particularly in the Near Seas (Yellow, East, and South China Seas).”
For countries across East Asia, the changing balance of power in Asia is an existential concern: Vietnam, the Philippines, South Korea and Japan have all clashed with China or its proxies on the seas, much as has India in the inner Himalaya. Shinzo¯ Abe, Japan’s Prime Minister, has sought to draw India into a closer military relationship with his country, aware that a nuclear-armed ally will buy his country insurance in case the U.S.’ promises of protection prove illusory. India, aware of the potential costs of an adversarial relationship with China, has held back — but Mr. Modi’s regime may find itself in circumstances that necessitate a tough call.
In the arc of states around the Persian Gulf — from where India draws the bulk of the oil and gas it needs to feed its hungry economy — similar forces are at work. Saudi Arabia, fearful that the U.S.’ rapprochement with Iran might one day leave it with a hostile, nuclear-armed neighbour, has begun to contemplate what the commentator Faisal al-Yafai has called “a farewell wave to America.” U.S. power, some in the Kingdom argue, has been unable to protect its neighbours, Iraq and Yemen; new alliances, and new deterrent capabilities, are needed.
Challenges in the neighbourhood
Last month, Pakistan’s Army chief General Raheel Sharif was the pre-eminent guest at the “Sword of Abdullah,” a Saudi military exercise where the Kingdom for the first time displayed its Chinese-made CSS-2 missiles — nuclear-capable missiles which, it has long been rumoured, were purchased for doomsday use with Pakistani-provided warheads. The message was lost on no one.
India’s immediate neighbourhood, meanwhile, is seeing the emergence of a new kind of Pakistan, where central authority is being degraded by Islamist assault. Though the prospect of the country’s tactical nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists isn’t high, at least in the medium term, the Lebanon-isation of the border isn’t. In the future, Islamist forces could launch small-scale attacks — with no worthwhile government forces which could restrain them, no matter how much international pressure there was.
New Delhi knows it has no ready responses to address threats emanating from Pakistan. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, back in 1951, massed forces in Punjab, threatening to strike deep inside Pakistan if it went to war in Kashmir. In 1965, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri demonstrated what would happen if it did. In 1999 and 2001, though, Pakistan’s nuclear weapons deterred a conventional military response. There’s long been talk of developing offensive covert means or limited war means to deter Pakistan — but the consequences have never been carefully thought through, nor a programme for capacity-development framed.
To deal with India’s challenges from the East, too, is proving difficult. New Delhi is investing in an entire new corps to fight defensive wars in the Himalaya, and investing in new hardware. It’s going to prove impossible to outspend China in an arms race — so smarter means are going to have to be found to ensure India’s borders are defensible.
It is hard to imagine, today, that the U.S. will allow India’s immediate or wider neighbourhoods to slide into war. It is worth considering, though, that the reason that brought it to the region is vanishing. For the past five years, the world has seen an energy revolution, thanks to massive finds of shale oil and gas in the U.S. The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that the U.S. will, for a time, become the world’s largest oil producer by 2017, ahead of Saudi Arabia, In 2035, it would be net self-sufficient.
Planning ahead
Like Europe in the early 20th century, Asia has entered a fraught period of change. China fears its rise will be shackled by the very international system that nourished its rise. From the South China Sea to the Himalaya and Persia’s deserts, new arms races and alliances are evident. Russia is again demonstrating muscle, responding to what it sees as threatening western encroachment into its near-neighbourhood. Even European militaries have been forced to reconsider how they might deter Russia, unaided by the U.S. West Asia is sliding into chaos.
In 1914, Europe’s leaders lurched into war, lacking the diplomatic tools to prevent one and the military tools needed for victory: as they lunched, the world had changed. For a decade, Indian strategists have assumed that economic growth and integration will usher in a secure future — but Europe was economically better integrated in 1913 than at any point in the past. Mr. Modi’s national security team cannot afford to live in illusion. Their swearing-in invitation to South Asian leaders has been hailed by New Delhi cheerleaders as epoch-defining — but courtiers have rarely encountered a Prime Minister they did not proclaim was a genius. His team will need to look out at the world with an open mind, and plan for the battles of the future.
Ensuring a secure future for India needs all the tools of political, economic and military persuasion that nation states use to shape the course of history. India needs to acquire the best ones it can — and keep them sharp for the day they may have to be used.
[email protected]
India’s neighbourhood is seeing the emergence of a new kind of Pakistan, where central authority is being degraded by Islamist assault.
Narendra Modi must plan for the looming battles of the future — not prepare to fight yesterday’s wars again. To do that, he will have to give
India new tools of political, economic and
military persuasion | {
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1. Campaign (PvE) — the Progression Milestone
The “main” progression of the game, seen right when you log in. Think of it as a “saga” map, but unlike all of the other turn-based-RPGs, when you’ve completed a level in AFK you can never replay it. This mode is not meant for farming, its meant for progression.
Core Loop Pressure: The difficulty of each level increases linearly, spiking at boss levels. This creates stoppage points that slowly push you to have a strong team of 5 heroes. This functions as both the onboarding mode and the overarching milestone marker of the game.
Pacing: You can play this mode as often as you’d like… until your team isn’t good enough to progress. This gives the game a very fast progression feeling in the beginning, which turns into a clear progression block by the mid game. Eventually you aren’t making progress in this mode and are instead pushed to play in other modes (or pay)
2. Idle (PvE) — the Appointment Mechanic
This is the automated (idle) portion of the game. At the bottom of the screen (see “2” above) your recently used team will automatically be fighting an endless mob of enemies. This functions as the “Idle” part of the game -- when you’re not playing, your heroes are still earning EXP, Coins and Weapons. This functions as your appointment mechanic - eventually your chest will become full with all this automatically collected rewards.
Core Loop Pressure: the rewards are dependant on how far you progress in the campaign, so it’s always the best idea to have your best team play as far as possible in the campaign before leaving them to grind it out while you sleep.
Pacing: This functions more as your “come back” or “appointment” mechanic -- this is what creates the compelling push notifications, reminding you to open up the game
3. Peaks Of Time (PvE) — Secondary Progression Milestone
Opened up late in progression, this takes a page right out of common in-game events from most CCRPG games. Each quest can only be completed once, so this acts just as an additional vector of progression of players besides the PvE Campaign.
Core Loop Pressure: this mode is all scripted, and does not scale with your level -- so similar to PvE Campaigns, this mode is paced to slowly increase the pressure on your top team.
Pacing: No energy -- pacing is only based on the stats of the opposing team.
4. Labyrinth — Collection Pressure
Labyrinth is similar to “Galactic War” in SW:GOH, or gauntlet mode in other CCRPGS. However in AFK, this mode is unlocked very early in progression (which is a great decision). In this mode, you are tasked to go as far into the labyrinth as you can every 48 hours. Whenever a hero of yours dies, they can no longer be used for the rest of the event.
The Labyrinth has its own shop as well -- rewards which can only be earned if you are engaged in this mode. This solidifies the value proposition of this mode to the player -- in order to access the high quality rewards, you need to engage
Core Loop Pressure: Because of the perma-death -- this pressures the player to bring in the widest collection of heroes possible. The more heroes you bring in that are levelled up, the farther you’ll go. This includes even your “garbage” heroes -- they can help out even in the beginning.
One interesting design they have here is relics -- every few stages you have an option to choose one of 3 relics that remain with you throughout the event. These typically benefit certain types of hereos -- pushing you to use more of them while the event is active.
Pacing: The event resets every 48 hours, so this is all about the time pressure to go as far as you can with your relics.
5. King’s Tower — Race to the Finish
Similar to Peaks of Time and Campaign, this mode is another permanent progression mode. Players attempt to reach the “top” of the tower to get more and more rewards.
Core Loop Pressure: Similar to Campaign and Peaks, this is about pulling together the top team you can.
Pacing: Similar to Campaign and Peaks, this mode can be played endlessly, but eventually you won’t be able to win against a tougher team.
6. Arena — PvP
Similar to Arena in SWGOH, this mode is all about working your way up a leaderboard. Players compete against offline versions of other player’s teams, attempting to work their way up the ladder before the seasonal reset (14 days)
Improving from SWGOH, they have multiple arenas running at the same time -- allowing players to choose which competition they are more likely to be competitive within, and even allowing players to spectate the “Legends Championship” as it runs -- giving players more teasing of the top teams in the game.
Core Loop Pressure: small resource rewards. No clear pressure.
Pacing: This is the only mode which is paced with a currency.
7. Bounty Board — Back Bench Utility
A longer timer system which allows you to put your collection to good use. Each bounty contains a reward (seen as 20 gems above) with a requirement for 2 heroes. These heroes can be any level, but must be apart of certain factions.
Core Loop Pressure: This is a good way to incentivize players to keep even their under levelled heroes, just so they can send heroes on these bounties and go on as many bounties in parallel as possible
Pacing: Bounties are longer timer exercises, so you’re typically only sending out heroes 1-2 times per day, in large batches in parallel. This is a major appointment mechanic, driving the player to come back each day.
So overall the modes are: 3 permanent progression modes, 1 appointment mechanic, 1 cyclic event, 1 PvP mode, and a mode for utilizing your back bench of heroes. This is strong, and the variety of progression modes gives players plenty of methods of measuring their progress. It makes for a fast feeling progression in the beginning, which eventually pushes players to spend or be limited to the paced modes: Arena, Bounty, or Labyrinth. | {
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A massive shift in awareness has come about in the US over the last decade. In many areas, the American public is beginning to not only see things in a different and more lucid light, but beginning to question that which has gone mostly unchecked for decades: the mainstream narrative.
When it comes to cannabis, despite the obvious mainstream anti-cannabis agenda, this nation has made its intentions known. Yet congress and the majority of government officials continue to drag their feet and give the topic the eternal political run-around in day-to-day politics; especially when it comes to action and the acknowledgment of what the American majority actually wants. This lack of action in regards to cannabis speaks louder than any words and is happening for the typical political motivation: money. The case of Alysa Erwin has become a beacon of hope and signal of change for those who are told their only option is to suffer the horrendous and terrifying effects of chemotherapy and its dismal success rate of about 3%.
When Alysa Erwin was 14 years old, she started noticing an odd sensation in her neck. She began experiencing debilitating headaches, blurred vision, nausea, major body pain, changes in personality and mood, and just felt sick and overall abnormal. During the many visits with their local doctor, the office refused to give her any scans and continually labeled her a hypochondriac, both behind her back and to her face.
After months of this unhelpful and patronizing administrative incompetence, Alysa’s mother, filled with frustration, took her back to the local hospital demanding some sort of brain scan. It was only then that a CAT scan was given. After seeing the build-up of fluid in her brain, she was next given an MRI. This was when it became apparent that her discomfort was not just a figment of her imagination, but that she was suffering from a serious ailment. Then, following an onslaught of tests, in the Spring of 2011, she was diagnosed with Grade 3 anaplastic astrocytoma — brain cancer — at the University of Michigan hospital.
Due to the state in which her cancer was in at the time, the doctor was unable to administer any certain types of radiation. Yet, Alysa had made it clear that she did not want liquid chemo either way, so she was prescribed chemotherapy in pill form. Her parents were told she might live 18 to 24 months with chemotherapy treatments, but after only five days of its use, Alysa was overwhelmed by the sickening side effects and decided to discontinue the therapy. It was then that Alysa’s grandparents gave the Erwin family a desperately needed peek through the Orwellian shroud the American government maintains on the topic of cannabis; specifically its miraculous medical value.
Alyssa’s grandparents introduced her to Rick Simpson Hemp Oil, and the Phoenix Tears Foundation, and after watching the video What if Cannabis Cured Cancer it was then that her regiment of cannabis oil began.
The change in Alysa was seemingly miraculous. After being bedridden in pain and unable to eat, she ingested a half-gram in half an hour. Soon she was up, smiling and eating. Her first three-month checkup showed no further cancer growth. By January 2013, about the time she was expected to die based on the original projection, Alysa’s MRI showed her to be cancer-free.
According to the Phoenix Tears website, it is important for a cancer survivor to stay on what’s called a “maintenance dose” (Rick Simpson uses it himself to remain cancer-free after fighting off his skin cancer) to ensure the cancer does not return; as any cancer survivor will tell you, it all to often does, especially with the use of radiation chemotherapy.
“Once you have brain cancer like that, you always have to be on the oil,” says Alysa’s mother, Carly Erwin. “What’s the maintenance dose? We don’t know. Wish we had doctors on board because they’re so many questions. It’s awful.”
Due to the continuing Federal Government restrictions on cannabis and its research, despite the overwhelming evidence to support its medical efficacy, Alysa’s doctor would not discuss the cannabis oil treatment with the Erwins other than to say, “keep doing what you’re doing.” In the fall of 2013 the Erwins lost access to a continuous supply of cannabis oil. Their access to the life saving substance began to dangerously fluctuate. When they were able to acquire the much-needed oil, the quality wildly varied, so they weren’t sure how much to use. Maintaining a continuous supply can be quite dangerous because the user is technically operating on the fringe of the law, as well as it being very expensive. The Michigan Medical Marihuana Act doesn’t allow possession of more than two ounces at a time for patients, so they are required to continually and frequently go out in search of something that could land them in jail, even though it will most likely save their lives.
In January of 2014, an MRI still showed no cancer. Yet in April, the test was done with a different kind of machine, which showed a small spot on Alysa’s brain. At that time the doctors were unsure if the spot was simply due to the differing technology used. The family then left the hospital with the explicit understanding that the doctor would look into the abnormality and get back to her, which never happened.
“I thought no news is good news,” Alysa’s mother told us.
In the months that followed, Alysa began to lose weight and get sick once again. On July 21, she weighed 88 pounds. They immediately made an appointment with the doctor for the 24th, and after traveling all the way to Ann Arbor, they were told that her cancer had returned. The doctors gave her the same prognosis she received the last time: that the best they could do was extend the time she had left, but that her cancer was terminal and there was nothing else that could be done.
Of course the Erwin family was already well aware of the inaccuracy and fallacious nature of that statement and have since cured her cancer with cannabis oil for the second time. The reality is that these doctors are choosing not to advise the one thing that could actually save her life, for fear of some shadowed entity that will swoop down to relieve them of their medical license. At what point did the medical field become more about what the establishment wants and less about what the doctor believes can actually help a patient?
It was this very lack of concern for the actual patient (as opposed to their big pharma corporate sponsors) that forced Alysa to go without her maintenance dose of cannabis oil in the first place, which would have almost certainly kept her cancer at bay. If it wasn’t for the restrictive laws in place in Michigan and the nation as a whole, millions of dying Americans might have been given a second chance at life. These archaic Federal laws continue to keep this life-saving plant out of the hands of the millions who are told every day that no options are left to the them; or worse, that chemo is their only choice, when in fact, it is their only hope.
Sources: http://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/alysa-erwins-cancer-is-back-and-doctors-wont-help-her-with-cannabis-oil-treatment/Content?oid=2240758, http://www.cancertruth.net/2015-february-newsletter/#sthash.0JEDmBOR.dpbs, anecdotes.me/alysa-erwin-beat-terminal-brain-cancer-twice/ | {
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NEW YORK, United States — “My idea for him was a centrefold — a cross of Burt Reynolds and Paul Ryan,” says InStyle editor-in-chief Laura Brown, gazing adoringly at a mini-spread of Stephen Colbert from the magazine’s upcoming September issue, hanging on the wall of her office on a boiling July morning. “He turned up with that suit already.” The suit in question was cut-off well above the knees. Colbert wore it with mischievous aplomb.
The “Late Night” talk-show host is an unlikely choice for a September fashion issue cover, but an even more unlikely one for InStyle. But such is the no-holds-barred attitude of Brown’s new era at the magazine, which she has rapidly revamped since arriving at the helm in August 2016. The Hollywood-focused, fly-over-state-friendly magazine is now slicker, livelier and funnier. “The tone is there,” says Brown. “Voice-y, not shoute-y.” And suddenly not all that off-brand for Colbert.
While he is better known for his political wit than his sartorial sensibilities, Brown wanted to feature him as a “Man of Style” (a column that predated her arrival) not because of his tailoring, but his spirit. He was game for the unconventional shoot, which sees him channelling “Peach Pit, Beverly Hills 90210,” she explains. “He is an absolute national treasure. He makes us feel better.”
Colbert’s InStyle cover is one of five subscriber-only special editions (about 100,000 issues each) that the magazine is releasing for September. The cover queen, however, is pop star and most-followed-human-on-Instagram Selena Gomez, who will grace all the magazine’s newsstand versions.
“Of course, as an editor, it gives you a sense of security to have someone like Selena on your issue, period, let alone September,” says Brown, who only decided to expand the cover editions after looking over the range of photographs in the 450-page issue.
Gomez and Colbert share top billing with model Carolyn Murphy; Marc Jacobs, Salt N Pepa and LL Cool J, who are photographed in the designer’s Autumn 2017 collection by Hype Williams alongside Biz Markie, Kurtis Blow and Alek Wek; and rising model Dilone. (There is also one alternative Gomez cover.)
The cover assortment is an apt metaphor for Brown’s fresh approach to InStyle. She told BoF in February that her mantra coming into the job was a literal interpretation of the title: what’s in the zeitgeist. But a new focal point has emerged: inclusivity, but not the activist kind that many women’s magazines are suddenly embracing post-Trump.
“Everyone’s in, just come and do a picture, style something, do a video, everyone’s included,” she says. “Everyone’s going to look great and everyone’s going to make everyone feel better.” Consider it Brown’s own antidote for the times. And it was a compelling invitation for news anchor Katie Couric, actress Laura Dern, Time editor Nancy Gibbs, writer Roxane Gay, actress Megan Mullally, comedian Julie Klausner, novelist Emma Freud, writer Lindy West and burlesque dancer Dita Von Teese. All these women contributed writing to the issue, on topics range from lust to sadness and ageism to career advice.
By engaging high-profile names from fashion and beyond and not relying on the typical magazine profile, Brown is also banking on the fact that each contributor will be more likely to share their content with their own audiences. “I have the cutest network of publicists because I have all of these people promoting what they’ve done for InStyle, from Nancy Gibbs to Selena Gomez,” says Brown. “We get this exponential social promotion.”
“Whether someone sees it online in the magazine or through their own social media people that they are following, all they are hearing about is InStyle,” says Kevin Martinez, senior vice president of fashion at Time Inc. “This is the big secret that we have here.”
Every print feature also comes with a video element, which the magazine says has fuelled a 730 percent increase in video views year-over-year. “It is key to our success, it’s what we’ve seen really big growth in,” says Brown, adding that she manages InStyle’s video strategy down to individual Boomerang shots (an app that turns images into a GIF-like loop) and Instagram Stories posts. “We treat each bit of content — I don’t even use the word content — as a story,” she says.
As for InStyle.com, led by site director Ruthie Friedlander since October, Brown says it has been a slower evolution. “We will be huge without paying for traffic — read into that what you will,” says Brown. “If video is an example of what the potential is, I think the rest will come along.”
Everyone’s in, just come and do a picture, style something, do a video, everyone’s included.
With over 144,000 followers on her own personal Instagram account — which is both charming and approachable, far from the “Devil Wears Prada” editor stereotype — Brown is an expert when it comes to creating shareable, likable content. She has more followers on the powerful platform than any other editor-in-chief in American fashion.
“Everything we do, we start with Laura,” says Martinez. “We talk about her social media strengths, we talk about how she is building that brand through social media. ‘We are the social media fashion magazine, we are the voice of style and this is how you can engage with us in print and digital and video.’”
Despite the decline of print advertising as brands follow consumers online, Martinez is bullish on InStyle’s business turnaround. If the new direction has alienated some older readers, the magazine argues it has picked up younger ones at the same time.
“I’ve never had numbers like this in my entire career,” says Martinez, adding that business from European fashion and luxury advertisers is up 30 percent year-over-year in September, an issue with 251 ad pages. (For context, September 2016’s issue had 270 ad pages.) “In the past maybe that was 8 or 10 percent of the book [were European luxury brands]... We’ve totally changed the DNA within a six-month period,” he says. Total paid and verified subscriptions are up 2.85 percent year-over-year in the first half of 2017 to over 1.5 million.
Meanwhile, parent company Time Inc’s print advertising revenue declined 9 percent in 2016. The company, which posted total revenue of $3.08 billion in 2016, does not break out financials for InStyle, but says InStyle ranks sixth among US magazines in US advertising revenues.
Martinez attributes this to Brown’s approachability, fashion credibility and, of course, her digital presence. “A brand is an extension of who the editor-in-chief is and obviously she came in here as a major social media star,” says Martinez. “Everything is done 360 degrees, she insists on that... People in Milan and Paris and London who are watching this, they want to take advantage of this.”
“If there’s a spend to be made, we’ve done well,” says Brown, describing her “jazz-handing” for brands and agencies. “This is a sales job. I used to say that before I was an editor-in-chief too.”
So is the redesign complete? Brown resists the notion, acknowledging she’s only overseen six full issues. “But we’ve come so far, so quickly,” she says. “My boss came in and looked at it and he was like, yeah, you did what you came to do. You took this thing and you went waboosh [flipping over an imaginary book]. I don’t know how you’ll spell that. Waboosh.”
Editor's Note: An earlier version of this article misstated the number of subscriber-only issues. InStyle is releasing approximately 100,000 issues of each cover, not 10,000.
Related Articles:
Laura Brown Talks New InStyle Strategy
The Thinking Behind the Latest Round of Layoffs at Time Inc. | {
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OTSEGO, MI — Zeus, the Otsego, MI, Great Dane who was the world's tallest dog, has died at age 5.
Zeus' owner, Kevin Doorlag, said Zeus died last week of symptoms of old age. Zeus would have celebrated his sixth birthday in November, Doorlag said.
Zeus stood 44 inches at the shoulder, 7 feet, 4 inches on his hind legs when he was unveiled in the Guinness World Record's 2012 edition as the world's tallest living dog and the tallest dog ever, a title he still holds, Doorlag said.
Doorlag is remembering Zeus as a "wonderful dog." He said he and his wife, Denise, will especially miss letting Zeus sit on their laps while the family would grill on their deck.
"We'll really miss him," Doorlag said.
In addition to his international fame, Zeus was well known throughout the Kalamazoo area due to frequent trips to area schools and hospitals, where he served as a therapy dog.
Doorlag said seeing the joy Zeus brought to others will be another one of the things he misses most about his late pet.
"Those are some of the things I'll never forget about him," Doorlag said. "He was definitely a great dog."
Alex Mitchell covers county government and taxes for the Kalamazoo Gazette. Email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter. | {
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Queens Borough President Melinda Katz claimed victory Thursday in the county’s hotly contested Democratic district attorney primary fight, after she managed to expand her razor-thin lead during a nearly two-week-long manual recount.
However, left-wing challenger Tiffany Cabán vowed to continue fighting despite Katz building a lead of roughly 60 votes — pointing to the 114 provisionally cast ballots that remain uncounted and are the subject of a coming court fight.
The primary victor will become the heavy favorite to win November’s general election in the increasingly left-leaning borough.
“Now that every valid vote has been counted and recounted, the results confirm once again that the people of Queens have chosen Melinda Katz as the Democratic nominee for District Attorney,” Katz spokesman Andrew Kirtzman said in a statement. “We wish to thank all of those who continued to believe in her message, and to the many who never gave up faith.”
Cabán struck a defiant tone during a press conference shortly before the Board of Election was expected to complete its unofficial tally of the results.
“This race is not over,” the public defender-turned-progressive insurgent said. “We are going to continue to fight to make sure that every single valid vote is counted.”
However, her attorney, election lawyer Jerry Goldfeder, acknowledged to reporters that Katz’s lead had grown to either 59 or 60 votes.
The back-and-forth came after Board of Election workers in Queens spent nine days recounting all 91,000 ballots cast in the June primary by hand, with the final ballot coming from the Corona neighborhood’s state Assembly district.
That last vote went for Katz — ending a process that helped the longtime pol stretch what was once a razor-thin 16-vote lead to roughly five dozen votes.
It marked nearly a complete reversal of fortune from primary night, when Cabán looked set to score a stunning 1,100-vote upset victory over Katz.
But the public defender’s lead vanished after election workers tallied the 3,400 absentee ballots that went heavily to the longtime Queens pol.
The race may still not be over with the conclusion of the recount.
The race may still not be over with the conclusion of the recount and certification of the election.
Goldfeder said Thursday the Cabán’s campaign plans to go ahead with a court hearing set for August 6 to litigate “hundreds” of votes he argues were improperly excluded from the count.
Previously, the Board of Elections previously said there were 114 votes — largely ballots cast provisionally by voters who failed to properly fill out the paperwork — but Goldfeder claimed the number was far higher, though he wouldn’t reveal a figure.
“I’ll release everything when I give it to the judge,” Goldfeder said. | {
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people
Updated: Mar 11, 2019 11:21 IST
Dushyant Chautala’s entry into electoral politics at 26 was by a quirk of fate. His father, Ajay Singh Chautala, was the first choice for the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) from the Hisar Lok Sabha seat in 2014. But Ajay’s 10-year sentencing in the junior basic training (JBT) teacher recruitment case by a CBI court in 2013 upset the party’s plans. The twist of fate thus facilitated the electoral debut of Dushyant from Hisar.
In his very first election, the soft-spoken youngster earned people’s sympathy and came out victorious by over 30,000 votes, defeating Haryana Janhit Congress candidate Kuldeep Bishnoi, the son of former chief minister Bhajan Lal and Congress candidate and former minister Sampat Singh. In fact, he became the youngest member of the Lok Sabha in 2014 and came out as a promising politician.
‘Driving’ home the point
Dushyant hit headlines in 2017 when he drove a tractor to the Parliament House to highlight the concerns of farmers following an amendment in the Motor Vehicles Act that affected the existing status of the tractor as an agricultural vehicle. The MP was of the view that since the government has declared the tractor as a motor vehicle like any other automobile, he being a farmer, would be entitled to use it as a means of transportation to reach the Lok Sabha.
During his debut, Dushyant emerged as one of the most prolific enquirers in terms of the number of questions he asked. Of the 10 Lok Sabha MPs from Haryana, Dushyant has to his credit 675 questions posed to the government. A majority of the questions were un-starred questions. Un-starred questions are the ones to which written answers are given by ministers and laid on the table of the House. No oral answers are given for un-starred questions.
His rival, Sampat Singh, however, says written replies by the government on un-starred questions do not mean much. “Issues need to be discussed in the House to arrive at a conclusion,’’ he says.
The sheer range of topics and issues touched by Dushyant in Parliament since 2014 is impressive. His questions ranged from tariff regulation for cable television, child abuse in shelter homes, fast track courts for trial of crime against women, railway projects and national highway projects in Haryana, radiation levels around nuclear power plants, unmanned level crossings, quality of generic drugs, impact of radiation emanating from mobile phone towers, misleading advertisements, construction of toilets by corporate houses, crimes against senior citizens, regulation for groundwater usage, child labour and drug trafficking.
The young MP was proactive when it came to participating in debates in the Lok Sabha. In fact, his involvement in more than 200 Lok Sabha debates is way above the participation of his colleagues from Haryana. Dushyant also moved 20 private member Bills in the House that are pending and will lapse.
Eye on state politics
Like many politicians from regional parties, Dushyant also realised that his political future lay in state politics. The turn of events since October 2018 when he and his younger brother were expelled from the party by their grandfather and INLD chief Om Prakash Chautala for anti-party activities, paved the way for the creation of a new political outfit, the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP).
The rivalry within the Chautala clan had become apparent during the birth anniversary celebrations of former deputy prime minister and INLD patriarch Chaudhary Devi Lal at Gohana in October 2018 when supporters of the Hisar MP shouted out his political ambitions. The ‘Aaya, aaya CM aaya… ‘(Here comes the chief minister) cries from Dushyant supporters were not only aimed at challenging the authority of the man in-charge of the INLD, his uncle Abhay Singh Chautala, but it also provoked the INLD supremo, Om Prakash Chautala.
“Dushyant and his supporters were clear. They believe that the INLD needs a leadership shift to stay relevant. And Dushyant’s clean image and pleasant personality made him an obvious choice,’’ says a JJP supporter from Jind.
However, Om Prakash Chautala has a different take on the ambitions of his grandsons. “Maturity is important in politics. Both Dushyant and Digvijay lack it. Dushyant won the Hisar Lok Sabha seat due to the INLD’s support. But he misconstrued the affection he got from the public. They mistakenly believed that the future belonged to them,’’ Chautala said.
Dushyant’s estranged uncle Abhay says. “He remained busy in self promotion. His focus was on photo-ops, hogging the limelight and attempts to take control of the INLD.”
The first-time MP, however, has his own share of fan following. Sandeep Dahiya, a hotel employee in Hisar town is full of admiration for Dushyant. “He has a personal connect with the masses. I remember his visit to Jat College when a student made a request to him on FB to join his birthday celebrations,’’ he says. | {
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The Bears have counted on long drives to get to the end zone all season. Now, the team is rallying behind a new drive.
The team announced on Tuesday the launch of its 30th annual Chicago Bears Jewel-Osco coat drive to benefit The Salvation Army.
Bears head equipment manager Tony Medlin is once again heading up the effort to help provide jackets to those in need during Chicago's cold winter.
The Bears collected nearly 22,000 coats last year and have helped donate hundreds of thousands since the collaboration began.
Fans can donate new and gently used coats by bringing them to any Chicagoland-area Jewel-Osco from now through Feb. 1, 2019. | {
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HISTORY MADE! First Same-Sex Spouse Granted Green Card
A family of five in Colorado just got a big Fourth of July gift from Uncle Sam: Cathy Davis became the first same-sex spouse to become a lawful permanent resident of the United States through a marriage-based green card. Davis and her wife, Catronia, have three children. Their immigration interview took place in January and, according to DOMAProject.org, "could have been denied on the spot because of DOMA, the USCIS officer agreed that their case would have been approved that day if they were an opposite-sex couple and she put the case on hold at the request of their attorney, DOMA Project cofounder, Lavi Soloway."
Then exactly one week after the Supreme Court ruling striking down section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, Davis and her wife were told the green card had been approved. A gay couple in Florida had their green card petition approved Friday, which allows them to remain together.
As with the Florida couple, DOMAProject organizers say that the Davis victory "confirms that DHS is prepared to recognize the legally valid marriages of lesbian and gay couples even when they live in states that do not. Cathy and Catronia were forced to travel from their home in Boulder to marry in Iowa last year because Colorado does not allow same-sex couples to marry. (Yet!)" | {
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Two days before becoming president, Donald Trump tweeted that GM, Ford, Lockheed Martin and others announced investments and job creation in the U.S. “because of me!” But industry experts and company officials say the recent moves were largely market-driven and were in the works before Trump was elected.
To be sure, CEOs at the companies Trump listed — all of whom have met personally with Trump since his election — have said they are encouraged by Trump’s promises to cut regulations and lower corporate taxes, moves they said that will allow them to grow.
But are the flurry of recent corporate announcements about investments and job creation in the U.S. symptomatic of the Trump effect? The answer is more complex than Trump’s tweets suggest. Many of the company announcements tweeted by Trump — especially those from GM and Ford — fit a years-long trend.
All that has changed, experts said, is the way the plans are being publicized.
Trump’s comment came in response to a report on NBC’s “Today Show” in which correspondent Ari Melber concluded that Trump’s impact on new investments and job creation in the U.S. announced recently by several companies has been “very small or nonexistent.”
That drew the ire of Trump, who called the network “totally biased” and failing.
Totally biased @NBCNews went out of its way to say that the big announcement from Ford, G.M., Lockheed & others that jobs are coming back… — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 18, 2017
to the U.S., but had nothing to do with TRUMP, is more FAKE NEWS. Ask top CEO's of those companies for real facts. Came back because of me! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 18, 2017
Several auto industry experts we spoke to said the announcements by GM and Ford were in the works before Trump was elected, and were largely market-driven decisions that fit a yearslong trend in the industry. Indeed, car companies have been announcing such deals — many of them bigger — for years. As for Lockheed Martin, the jobs aren’t “coming back,” they are being added as part of a larger contract for more F-35 planes.
Ford
Ford Motor Co. has been in Trump’s crosshairs since the early days of his presidential campaign when he criticized the automaker for its April 2015 announcement of a $2.5 billion plan to build two new plants in Mexico and expand a third. Trump repeatedly criticized that plan on the campaign trail, vowing that he would threaten to put a 35 percent import tax on Ford unless it moved the plants to the United States. Trump later took credit for pressuring Ford to change its plans and build a new “massive plant” in Ohio. (It turned out Ford had not changed its plans at all.)
On Jan. 3, Ford announced that it was cancelling its plan to build a different $1.6 billion plant in Mexico, and that it planned to invest $4.5 billion over the next five years to ramp up production of electric cars, including an investment of $700 million at its plant in Flat Rock in Michigan to manufacture two of them.
Trump promptly tweeted his praise for the move:
Thank you to Ford for scrapping a new plant in Mexico and creating 700 new jobs in the U.S. This is just the beginning – much more to follow — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2017
Was Trump responsible for it? In his Jan. 18 tweet, Trump says he was. “Ask the CEOs,” Trump wrote.
Ford CEO Mark Fields lauded Trump’s promise to cut business taxes and reduce regulations as good for Ford’s long-term success, but he said the recently announced changes were market-based.
The decision not to build the plant in Mexico, where Ford had planned to build the next generation Ford Focus, was scrapped because “we’ve seen decreasing demand here in North America for small cars, and we simply don’t need the capacity anymore,” Fields said on Fox Business News. Instead, he said, Ford will build it in an existing facility in Mexico.
As for the investment in electric vehicles, Fields said in announcing the plan that it was a reaction to the reality that “the era of electric vehicles is dawning,” adding that he expected to see production of electric cars exceed traditional gas-powered ones in the next 15 years.
Host Neil Cavuto asked if any of the decisions were based on Trump’s criticisms during the campaign.
“Well, we’re doing this based on what’s right for our business,” Fields said. Fields added that Ford is anticipating “more positive U.S. manufacturing business environment under Trump,” and he said the company welcomes some of the “pro-growth policies” such as regulation and business tax reform that Trump talked about during the campaign. Fields said Ford’s announcement was a “vote of confidence” that he’ll deliver on these things.
Fields noted that the 700 new jobs were in addition to the 28,000 the company has added over the last five years. The company has also invested $12 billion in U.S. plants over the same period.
“Would you have done this [the moves announced] if Donald Trump were not elected president?” Cavuto asked.
“Yes, absolutely,” Fields said.
GM
On Jan. 3, Trump took aim at General Motors, calling out the company for moving production of its Chevy Cruze model to Mexico:
General Motors is sending Mexican made model of Chevy Cruze to U.S. car dealers-tax free across border. Make in U.S.A.or pay big border tax! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2017
GM responded that Chevrolet Cruze sedans sold in the U.S. are made in Ohio. The company builds the Cruze hatchbacks in Mexico, but the company said only a small number of them are sold in the U.S. In November, CNN reported, GM sold about 16,400 Cruzes in the U.S., and that about 1,600 of them were Mexican-made hatchbacks.
On Jan. 17, GM announced that it was investing $1 billion in U.S. manufacturing operations, resulting in 1,500 “new and retained” jobs.
GM also announced that it would be moving work on axle production for pickup trucks from Mexico to Michigan, creating 450 jobs. And the company said it would be insourcing more than 6,000 IT jobs that were formerly outside the U.S., according to GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra. Together with “streamlining our engineering operations from seven to three, with the core engineering center being in Warren, Michigan, and building on our momentum at GM Financial and in advanced technologies,” she said, “these moves, and others, are expected to result in more than 5,000 new jobs in the U.S. over the next few years.”
Trump again added some Twitter praise.
Thank you to General Motors and Walmart for starting the big jobs push back into the U.S.! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 17, 2017
But GM leaders stressed that the investments in the U.S. were part of a longtime trend. The company noted that it has announced investments of $2.9 billion in the U.S. in 2016 — and more than $21 billion since 2009.
The insourcing of IT jobs, in particular, has been part of an ongoing strategy. The company’s press release states:
GM press release, Jan. 17: GM’s announcement is part of the company’s increased focus on overall efficiency over the last four years. With a strategy to streamline and simplify its operations and grow its business, GM has created 25,000 jobs in the U.S. − approximately 19,000 engineering, IT and professional jobs and 6,000 hourly manufacturing jobs – and added nearly $3 billion in annual wages and benefits to the U.S. economy over that period. At the same time, GM reduced more than 15,000 positions outside the U.S., bringing most of those jobs to America. During that period, the company moved from 90 percent of its IT work being outsourced to an insourced U.S.-based model.
At an auto industry conference on Jan. 10, Barra — who will serve on an economic advisory team for the Trump administration — said auto industry decisions have a “long lead. Decisions of products that we are launching right now were made two, three, four years ago.” She boasted that “over the last two years we’ve invested $11 billion in the United States” and brought 11,000 IT jobs to the U.S.
While not giving credit to Trump for the company’s decisions, she said she did expected some “tailwind” from Trump’s proposed regulatory and tax changes, which she said would allow General Motors “to grow and even increase jobs.”
Lockheed Martin
On Dec. 22, 2016, Trump dropped the Twitter hammer on Lockheed Martin, maker of the controversial F-35 military planes that have long been beset by delays and cost overruns.
Based on the tremendous cost and cost overruns of the Lockheed Martin F-35, I have asked Boeing to price-out a comparable F-18 Super Hornet! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 22, 2016
After meeting with Trump on Jan. 13, company CEO Marillyn Hewson said she told Trump “we are close to a deal on a new contract that reduces the price for the next 90 aircraft significantly.” She also announced that the deal would add 1,800 new jobs at the company’s Fort Worth, Texas, facility.
But it’s unclear how Trump can claim that the additional jobs “came back because of me.” As the New York Times reported, the “government’s next contract in the F-35 project would cover 90 planes, compared with 57 in the previous batch. The increase was in the works before Mr. Trump was elected, and other Lockheed officials said the added positions would come as production increases.”
In other words, Trump can claim credit for helping to drive down the cost of the program — though the Times noted the cost had been dropping even before Trump weighed in — but the additional jobs announced by Lockheed are tied to increased production of F-35s called for in the new government contract.
What the Experts Say
Michelle Krebs, a Detroit-based senior analyst for Autotrader who has been writing about the automotive industry for 35 years, told us few of the automakers’ announcements were a surprise to her or anyone else who covers the industry.
“The overall big picture, most of these things were in the works,” Krebs said, adding that perhaps some things have been added on the “fringe” because of Trump.
Ford’s decision not to build the new plant in Mexico appears to be a cost-saving measure due to slow sales of small cars, she said. As for the investments announced by Ford, GM and other car manufacturers, most of those have been in the works for months, if not years — many of them the result of negotiations with the autoworkers’ union in 2015.
GM, for example, announced in 2015 that it planned to invest $8.3 billion in the U.S. over a four-year period while adding 3,300 jobs as part of its negotiations with the United Auto Workers, the Detroit Free Press reported.
“Today’s announcement continues GM investments that have emerged as a result of the 2015 national bargaining agreement,” UAW Vice President Cindy Estrada said in a statement on Jan. 17.
Said Krebs: “It takes roughly four years to develop a new product. These decisions were not made in the last couple months. These companies don’t make billion-dollar decisions a month out.”
What has changed, she said, is the messaging. There appears to be an effort by carmakers to stay on the good side of Trump’s tweet storms, she said.
Bruce Belzowski, managing director of Automotive Futures group at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, told us Trump and the automakers appear to be using each other for public relations purposes.
“They [jobs] didn’t come back because of him [Trump],” Belzowski said.
Most of the auto manufacturing investments have been in the works before Trump was elected, he said, but there is an incentive to announcing them now that extends beyond staying on the good side of the incoming president.
“He’s a pretty good PR machine for them,” Belzowski said. And for Trump, he said, it gives the inflated impression that he is affecting significant change.
Belzowski thinks car companies are “taking advantage of” Trump’s platform and “playing up to him. … And he seems to want to be played up to.”
The new investments by car companies in the U.S. have been happening for years, since early in the Obama administration, he said. They just didn’t get the same kind of media attention.
Indeed, the Center for Automotive Research found that automakers have announced investments of $116.5 billion since January 2009, said Kristin Dziczek, an analyst at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan. And 73 percent of that investment has come to the U.S., while Mexico has gotten 21 percent and Canada, 6 percent.
In other words, these recent investment announcements are the latest in a yearslong trend.
Dziczek warned not to assign too much influence to Trump.
“Investments in the automotive industry do not move in the space of a few weeks,” Dziczek said. “Often, it is months, if not years, in the making.”
Forecasting firm LMC Automotive released a study on Jan. 18 that forecasts car companies will continue to increase their share of production in Mexico. The recent announcements about jobs in the U.S. may appear to be due to Trump, but are largely market-driven and were planned before Trump won the election, the report states.
LMC Automotive, Jan. 18: There have been several recent announcements of investment in U.S. operations or the cancelations [sic] of investment in Mexico by OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers). This appears to be the direct result of pressure from Trump holding to his campaign promise of penalizing companies for manufacturing outside the U.S. However, many of these decisions were already planned or were altered due to other factors, such as lower demand for small vehicles or shifting higher margin or complex vehicles to the US, and not solely the result of the pressure.
Nonetheless, the authors expect such announcements to continue. “We expect manufacturers to continue to publicly announce investment plans in the US even if they are not directly linked to the election,” the report states.
Maryann Keller, an independent auto industry consultant at Maryann Keller & Associates, chalked up the moves by automakers as “the normal course of business.”
“All they’re doing is announcing investments that they would have made anyway,” she told Bloomberg.
Again, corporate officials at all of the companies Trump listed praised Trump’s plans as business-friendly — specifically his promises to reduce regulations and cut corporate taxes. Those may well allow companies to grow in the future — time will tell. But as for the recent spate of announcements made by these companies, experts and officials from the companies themselves warn not to assign too much credit to Trump. | {
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Foto: Hina, FB
NAJAVA znanstvenika Ivana Đikića kako će uskoro napustiti Hrvatsku izazvala je brojne reakcije na političkoj sceni, ali i u javnosti.
Iz stranke Pametno priopćili su kako je Hrvatska na sigurnom putu u srednji vijek.
"Hrvatski znanstvenik svjetskoga glasa prof. dr. sc. Ivan Đikić je, razočaran odnosom premijera RH i najodgovornijih osoba u sustavu znanosti (rektora Sveučilišta u Splitu i predsjednika Rektorskog zbora - prof. dr. sc. Šimuna Anđelinovića) danas objavio svoj odlazak iz hrvatske znanosti. Doista, umjesto da su sankcionirali eklatantan nemoral i akademsko nepoštenje ministra Barišića, iza kojega se već više desetljeća vuku afere, premijer i prof. Šimunović su "pilom naopako" svoga pajdaša pokušali zaštiti ne osporavajući argumente o njegovoj očitoj krivici, nego prizemnim napadima na one koji ukazuju na pogubnost prešućivanja plagiranja i krađe za znanost te za ugled i društvene vrijednosti u Hrvatskoj.
Pametno u potpunosti podržava i dijeli stavove i postupke prof. dr. sc. Đikića i nada se da će država Hrvatska i hrvatska znanost i dalje imati čast računati na njegovu pomoć. Istovremeno, Pametno poziva još jednom premijera da žurno razriješi g. Barišića prije nego što to bude prisiljen učiniti kada Sveučilište u Augsburgu preispita meritornost Barišićeve doktorske disertacije", stoji u priopćenju stranke Pametno.
O tome se oglasio i Ivica Puljak, jedno od viđenijih lica spomenute stranke.
"Danas je jedan od najtužnijih dana u novijoj povijesti Hrvatske. Plenković je upravo protjerao prof. Đikića, jednog od najboljih hrvatskih znanstvenika. Predlažem Plenkoviću da se vrati u Brisel, ali da ovaj put povede i predsjednicu i Božu Petrova, i svu pripadajuću ekipu. Sve ih mijenjam za prof. Đikića", napisao je Puljak na Facebooku. | {
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