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What's the beef with McDonald's paper straws? | Video Getting rid of single-use straws is a simple way to reduce plastic waste...unless you're one of the thousands of disabled people who rely on them everyday to drink independently. After a petition emerged this week calling for McDonald's to reinstate its plastic straws because the paper versions go soggy, Esther Weber, The Times political reporter and daily straw-user, gives us the lowdown on her straw-strife. This is more than just how to drink a milkshake before the straw disintegrates. Presented by Beth Rose with Emma Tracey, Niamh Hughes and Damon Rose. A transcript will be available soon. Subscribe now to BBC Ouch in BBC Sounds or ask for us on your smart speaker by saying "play Ouch disability talk from the BBC". | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/disability-48063553/what-s-the-beef-with-mcdonald-s-paper-straws |
Why is Premier Doug Ford so obsessed with liquor? | In its April 8 budget, the Ford government proposed extending serving hours for bars and even golf courses to 9 a.m. It called for importing the U.S. practice of binge-drinking, tailgate parties outside sports venues. Ford would authorize municipalities to allow drinking in public parks. The budget would cut beer prices at legion halls. Premier Doug Ford and his governments additional expansion of alcohol availability is a bad idea. It was a mistake when the Wynne government embraced it in 2015. And its morphing into something worse as Ford doubles down on one of the Grits most ill-advised policies. ( Steve Russell / Toronto Star file photo ) Thats a partial list of Fords liquor liberalizations. The premier had already scrapped a scheduled, routine increase in the beer tax. That same budget calls for the sale of beer in more than 10,000 convenience stores (or C-stores), big-box outlets and supermarkets. That would more than quintuple the number of outlets selling beer and wine in Ontario, if all of the provinces 9,000 convenience stores begin stocking six-packs of Moosehead. Article Continued Below Ford himself is not a drinker. Opposition MPPs at Queens Park are puzzled by the Ford governments fixation with booze. Recall that Ford first arrived in office heralding buck-a-beer, having cut the minimum price at which beer can be sold by 25 cents. Talk of booze has pushed other concerns to the sidelines ever since. Well try to unravel that mystery further down. What matters is that additional expansion of alcohol availability is a bad idea. It was a mistake when the Wynne government embraced it in 2015. And its morphing into something worse as Ford doubles down on one of the Grits most ill-advised policies. Lets take the points against a further expansion of beer and wine retailing one by one: * Booze is already abundantly available. There are more liquor outlets in this province than Tim Hortons stores. The number of outlets has jumped 23 per cent over the past five years, to 2,332 stores, a growth rate far exceeding that of Ontarios population and average household income. Few retailers can match the ubiquity of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), which has saturated the province with more than twice as many outlets as McDonalds. Yet the LCBO accounts for just half of all stores selling beverage alcohol in Ontario. The Beer Store, with its additional 450 outlets, is within hailing distance of McDonalds total Ontario store count. The LCBO also makes more than 5,000 products available on its new mobile app, which is ubiquity squared. And it offers next-day delivery. Article Continued Below * A money-loser for Ontarians. Its well-known that Ontario taxpayers could be on the hook for as much as $1 billion in compensation to The Beer Store if the provincial government goes ahead and violates a 2015 contract with The Beer Store that limits the number of beer retailers in Ontario. A further penalty to Ontarians is a likely reduction in the LCBOs annual dividend to the Ontario treasury, which was $2.1 billion last year. Beer and wine are slow-growth industries. Which means that any market share captured by C-stores will come at the expense of the LCBO and other incumbents, including the on-site stores that help support Ontarios wineries and craft brewers. Assume that the LCBO loses just 5 per cent of its revenues to thousands of corner stores. That would reduce the LCBOs dividend to Ontario by about $100 million a year. * No real increase in consumer choice. Ontario Finance Minister Vic Fedelis rationale for expanded sales is consumer choice and convenience. But dont look to corner stores for choice. Convenience stores will not stock pricey wine and beer imports, premium-priced domestic products, or Ontario wines and craft brews. C-stores will carry plonk and the foreign-owned beer brands Blue, Export and Coors. Those are high-volume, low-priced goods with low inventory costs. Small-batch Ontario wines and craft beers target niche audiences and command higher-than-average prices. Such costly inventory is not a paying proposition for corner-store operators, who carry just one brand of milk, margarine and facial tissue. By contrast, the LCBO heavily promotes Ontario wine and beer. It does so as a matter of public policy, fostering small businesses in the province. And award-winning Ontario wine and craft beers are a growing profit centre for the LCBO. * Social harms. On making alcohol even more available for purchase and consumption, Fedeli has said its time for government to treat people like responsible adults. It is patronizing to say otherwise, of course. But an estimated 1.3 million Canadians are alcoholics. More than 600,000 Canadian children live with at least one alcoholic parent. The annual cost of alcohol abuse in Canada has been estimated at $14.6 billion, or $463 per Canadian. Thats far higher than the health care, law enforcement and lost productivity costs from drug abuse ($262 per Canadian). Countless international studies have shown that reducing the cost of booze and making it more available increases the incidence of social harms. A study published last month shows a startling increase in alcohol-related Ontario emergency-department visits in the two years after the Wynne governments liquor liberalizations. Weve lost sight of the fact that continued high rates of problematic alcohol consumption are leading to a wide range of harms, Dr. Theresa Tam, Canadas chief health officer, warned in her latest annual report. More needs to be done to de-normalize alcohol in Canada. The Ford agenda puts Sam Bronfmans legacy to shame in normalizing booze. * Hidden agenda. Cheap populism is most often given as the political rationale for Fords alcohol push. But its just as likely that the Tories are embarked on a gradual backdoor privatization of the LCBO, a gambit they scrapped in the Mike Harris era for lack of public support. Ford is taken with the experiment in liquor-sales privatization in Alberta, from which Ford recruited the booze czar now spearheading the Ontario effort to push more beverage alcohol sales into the private sector. But the Alberta model, yielding mixed results after many years of existence, has yet to be copied by a single province. Again, Ford is not a drinker. But he is an ardent businessman, with a Rotarians faith in the curative powers of the private sector. Ford is also attempting a partial privatization of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp., trying to make online gambling a lightly regulated private-sector preserve. Responsible adults that we are, Ontarians are unlikely to get snoggered on the first tee at Glen Abbey at the crack of dawn. We cant afford the greens fees. But with our conduct at the back end of a Ford F-150 pickup outside BMO Field, theres no telling, in a social experiment that is bound to prove costly. Twitter: @TheGrtRecession Read more about: | https://www.thestar.com/business/2019/04/26/why-is-premier-doug-ford-so-obsessed-with-liquor.html |
Is Trump trying to get impeached? | Sign up here. Maybe so, and maybe, strategically speaking, its not the worst idea in the world. At the very least, he certainly doesnt seem to mind stroking the already hot fires on the subject. Lets start first with the fact that impeachment is a political, not legal matter. The House of Representatives gets to decide what constitutes a presidents high crimes and misdemeanors, not a court or prosecutor. The Senate gets to sit in judgement on the charges, and may remove the president if 66 of 100 members agree. So beware those who talk about things like an impeachable offense or say that Congress must/must not act. The Constitution gives Congress the sole power over the process, so that only question is how members vote. So it wouldnt be right to say that the report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller ruled in or ruled out impeachment. It certainly seems to have made it less likely since the findings fell short of what would have forced enough congressional Republicans to join the call to remove the president. Certainly Democratic leaders dont want impeachment. Their argument is clear and convincing: With a presidential election next year, the partys focus should be on defeating Trump, not impeaching him. Rather than trapping themselves in a lengthy, almost certainly futile bid to convict and remove Trump, Democratic leaders argue that they should instead use their lesser constitutional power to investigate the president. Its a hard sell with some members from the bluest of blue districts. But Trump now seems determined to deny Congress that power. Trump has issued an edict that his administration will comply with none of Congress subpoenas rather than contesting matters individually. Trump says congressional demands are illegitimate because Democrats are trying to hurt him. While this is probably true of some, it also provides a powerful pretext for an administration that has already many times colored outside the lines to reject even appropriate, needful oversight. Thats not going to be sustainable. The idea of the executive branch engaging in a complete stonewall with Congress doesnt just fall outside the Constitution, it would also leave an army of bureaucrats and political patronage recipients accountable to no one but the president and his team. Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., who sits on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, warned Thursday of possible incarceration for administration officials who refuse to testify. But considering how long it would take to move through the system and how reluctant judges would be to mediate constant turf battles between the other two branches, it still sounds a little far-fetched. If the standoff had already reached that point, its hard to think that Congress by then wouldnt have impeached the president. And its equally hard to imagine that Trumps executive effrontery wouldnt by then also have put House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in impossible positions. So maybe its not that Trump is trying to become only the third president ever impeached, but rather that he sees plenty of political upside to keeping Democrats in knots over the question. And knowing the Senate GOP has his back, the president is free to take his chances. THE RULEBOOK: AND THATS A FACT(ION) The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to [the violence of faction]. James Madison, Federalist No. National Geographic: Fresh evidence suggests that the universe is expanding faster today than it did in its infancy If confirmed, the changing ratewhich is nine percent faster than had been projectedwould force us to reconsider a fundamental aspect of the cosmos. The result, announced in a new report publishing in the Astrophysical Journal, marks the latest in a long-running controversy over the Hubble constant, a key measure of the universe's age and expansion rate. In recent years, numerous studies have shown that measurements of the Hubble constant are at odds with estimates from far younger stars, such as those in our Milky Way, even after taking into account other mysterious cosmic forces such as dark energy, which is accelerating the universe's expansion. - Email us at [email protected] with your tips, comments or questions. SCOREBOARD Trump job performance Average approval: 42.8 percent Average disapproval: 52 percent Net Score: -9.2 points Change from one week ago: no change [Average includes: Fox News: 45% approve - 51% disapprove; Monmouth University: 40% approve - 54% disapprove; Gallup: 45% approve - 51% disapprove; GU Politics/Battleground: 43% approve - 52% disapprove; IBD: 41% approve - 52% disapprove.] NBC News: Theyre both white men in their mid-to-late 70s. And theyre both current/former creatures of the U.S. Senate. But Joe Biden versus Bernie Sanders the two 2020 candidates who lead in almost every Democratic poll represents one heck of an ideological contrast, if the race ultimately comes down to these two men. So in addition to the not-so-subtle shot that the Sanders campaign took at Bidens high-roller fundraiser last night, the two candidates disagree on: health care (Sanders is for a single-payer system; Biden likely will work to protect/strengthen Obamacare); trade (Sanders opposed the TPP trade agreement; Biden backed it as Barack Obamas VP); and their vision for 2020 (Sanders is once again calling for a political revolution; Biden is running on a political restoration project). Of course, a full-out Biden-versus-Bernie ideological fight if it comes to that could create an opening for the other 2020 Dems, whose messages are in between a revolution and a restoration. Amy Walter: Restoration versus revolution - Cook Political Report: What compelled Biden to run was President Trumps response to the white supremacy march in Charlottesville in 2017 an event that Biden called a defining moment for this nation in the last few years. In this way, Biden is a lot like the many Democratic candidates who flooded into congressional races in the 2018 cycle. They were much less politically seasoned than Biden, but were similarly propelled into action by the Trump presidency. And, like Biden, most of those Democratic congressional candidates emphasized not a radical change but a check; a check on Trumps presidency and his policies. But, most of those candidates were also running in suburban, swing districts where a message of moderation was a winning strategy. Biden is running to win in a much more diverse and ideologically fragmented primary contest. Former Bernie press secretary joins Team Biden - AP: Joe Biden has hired Symone Sanders, a prominent African American political strategist, as a senior adviser to his newly launched presidential campaign. The move adds a younger, diverse voice to Bidens cadre of top advisers, which has been dominated by older white men. It suggests Biden is seeking to broaden his appeal to a new generation of Democrats. Sanders, 29, rose to prominence during the 2016 campaign as press secretary for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. She then became a high-profile political analyst on CNN and is likely to be a forceful Biden defender on television. Democratic strategist and former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile called Sanders battle-tested and said the hire was one of the best moves the Biden campaign could make. Biden called mother of Charlottesville woman killed - WaPo: The mother of Heather Heyer, the Charlottesville woman killed during the 2017 protests there, said Friday that former vice president Joe Biden called hours after invoking her daughter in the video announcing his presidential campaign launch. Susan Bro, the mother of Heyer, who was killed when a self-proclaimed white supremacist drove his car into the crowd, said Biden called her later in the afternoon Thursday. Biden called around 4:30 p.m., Bro said during a Friday morning appearance on CNN, and told her he didnt reach out initially because he didnt know how that would make her feel. Bro said that for most of the call they spoke about bereavement, a subject Biden is intimately familiar with after losing his first wife and daughter in a car accident and more recently his son to cancer. Anita Hill says Bidens apology isnt enough - NYT: Joe Biden knew Anita Hill was going to be an issue for him. So a few weeks ago, as he prepared for his presidential announcement, he reached out to her through an intermediary and arranged a telephone call, hoping to assuage her. It did not go how he had hoped. On Thursday, the first day of his presidential campaign, the Biden camp disclosed the call, saying the former vice president had shared with Ms. Hill his regret for what she endured 28 years ago, when, as the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he presided over the confirmation hearings in which she accused Clarence Thomas, President George Bushs nominee to the Supreme Court, of sexual harassment. But Ms. Hill says the call from Mr. Biden left her feeling deeply unsatisfied. Report: Trump shows hes worried Biden can win - Politico: Hours after Joe Biden posted an online video announcing his 2020 White House bid, President Donald Trump responded on Twitter. Welcome to the race Sleepy Joe, Trump taunted the former vice president on Thursday. I only hope you have the intelligence, long in doubt, to wage a successful primary campaign. Trumps insults were actually masking respect and genuine concern about Bidens potential to win, Trump advisers say. As early as last fall, Trump was talking privately with aides about the threat Biden posed: How are we gonna beat Biden? he would ask. The conversations, relayed by a Republican strategist with direct knowledge of the interactions, reflect the presidents assessment that Biden poses the biggest threat to his re-election, uniquely capable of competing with him in the Rust Belt states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania that carried him to victory in 2016. DEM CANDIDATES LINE UP IN LAS VEGAS WaPo: A low point of Barack Obamas first presidential campaign came in the spring of 2007 during a forum sponsored by the Services Employees International Union and the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Obamas problem was that he didnt have a health care plan, so he spoke in bromides and generalities. SEIU and CAPs political arm are co-hosting a forum again in Las Vegas tomorrow to push the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates for specifics, but this time the focus is on income inequality instead of health care. Six presidential candidates will face 30 minutes of questioning from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Pacific: Sens. Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren, plus the former congressman Beto ORourke, governor John Hickenlooper and housing secretary Julin Castro. Coming into the event, Warren has been widely commended for offering a cornucopia of policy proposals Harris and ORourke have been criticized for tending to speak more in abstract terms. The bar is higher for them to clear tomorrow. Sanders gets heckled at event for women of color - Fox News: 2020 presidential contender Bernie Sanders faced an aggressive and, at times, outwardly combative audience at the She The People Forum devoted to women of color in Houston on Wednesday, as the self-described democratic socialist struggled to convince attendees of his commitment to minority and underprivileged communities. The tense moments underscored the challenges Sanders' campaign still faces despite its frontrunner status. The 77-year-old Vermont senator, long a champion for progressive causes, has sought to win over voters who turned out in massive numbers to support former President Barack Obama. Tulsi Gabbards freelance campaign - Daily Beast: Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbards Democratic presidential campaign had just one full-time employee in the first three months of the year. A review of Federal Election Commission records show Gabbards campaign made a single payment of less than $2,600 to field staffer Amaury Dujardin. Every other member of Gabbards campaign staff, including her campaign manager, was paid as a consultant, not a full-time employee. By contrast, the campaign spent $30,850 on billboard advertisements over the same period. Its not uncommon for campaigns to structure their payrolls that way. Classifying staff as contractors instead of full-time employees allows them to avoid payroll taxes and the costs of providing benefits to its employees, which can be substantial. BOOM: U.S. ECONOMY SHOWS STRONG FIRST QUARTER CNBC: The U.S. economy grew at a faster pace than expected in the first quarter and posted its best growth to start a year in four years. First-quarter gross domestic product expanded by 3.2%, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said Friday in its initial read of the economy for that period. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected growth of 2.5%. It was the first time since 2015 that first-quarter GDP topped 3%. The upside beat was helped by net trade (exports jumped while imports contracted sharply) and inventories which combined contributed almost 170 bps of the rise, wrote Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Advisory Group. Personal spending though, the biggest component was up just 1.2%, two tenths more than expected as an increase in spending on services and nondurable goods offset a decline in spending on durable goods. Exports rose 3.7% in the first quarter, while imports decreased by 3.7%. PLAY-BY-PLAY Andrew Ferguson: A republic too fractured to be funny - Atlantic Kushner says Trump to receive immigration plan favoring high skills over family ties - Fox News Federal judges threw away Michigans congressional maps on Thursday - Politico FBI to discuss potential Russian hackings in Florida with Scott, DeSantis - Politico AUDIBLE: THE YOUNGEST I am a young, vibrant man. President Trump said to reporters on the White House lawn Friday morning. ANY GIVEN SUNDAY This weekend Chris Wallace will sit down with Iranian Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif. Watch Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace. Check local listings for broadcast times in your area. #mediabuzz - Host Howard Kurtz has the latest take on the weeks media coverage. Watch #mediabuzz Sundays at 11 a.m. ET. Share your color commentary: Email us at [email protected] and please make sure to include your name and hometown. DONT MESS WITH A BRIDE TRIBE WZTV: Bachelorette parties are in for a real treat as they navigate the NFL draft. Closed roads, peddle taverns pushed off Broadway, and hundreds of thousands of people infiltrating Nashville forced many to change their plans. We come here to listen to country music, not hang out with football boys, bride Cara said. Ill tell you whos going to pay for this. My husband. No football next season. No Super Bowl. Because my friend only gets married once, draft happens every year, bridesmaid Cyndi said. Other bachelorette parties said they planned to fight their way through the crowds. Well use our elbows if we have to, one bridal party said. If we have to wait two hours to Uber, well do it. It is what it is, another bridal party said. Many had no idea theyd be traveling to the Mecca of NFL football when they planned their bachelorette parties, but they still plan to have a good time. AND NOW, A WORD FROM CHARLES But [Trump] represents a huge constituency of tremendous support and enthusiasm. That's his appeal, that is how he won the election. He's reminding the elites that that appeal is still there. Charles Krauthammer (1950-2018) speaking on Tucker Carlson Tonight on Aug, 4, 2017. Chris Stirewalt is the politics editor for Fox News. Brianna McClelland contributed to this report. Sign up here. | https://www.foxnews.com/politics/is-trump-trying-to-get-impeached |
Whats It Like to Be Young, Queer, and the Mayor? | The night before my interview with the mayor of Belfast, Maine, I had dinner with family friends: a middle-aged lesbian couple who live about 60 miles away in the tourist hub of Bar Harbor. I told them that in 2017 the town had elected a 26-year-old queer woman named Samantha Paradis, and they nodded knowingly. Ad Policy Bell the Cat Belfast, ME 1 x large herbal tea 1 x large black coffee Oh, Belfast, one of them sighed. It had always been progressive, she explained, and then she told me about a famous lesbian commune there in the 1970s. You know, every few months one of them would go down to New York or Provincetown and come back with a new woman, and thats how the community grew. It seemed apocryphal, but when I repeated it to Paradis the next morning, she was unsurprised. Oh yeah, she said. A lot of women are still here. They have a game night once a month. Later, she mentioned that there was a queer-owned bakery in town, Moonbat (the name, she explained, was an old moniker for Belfast, in honor of its historically leftie battypolitics). Theres a queer bakery and we didnt meet there? I asked. Paradis and I are both queer, and I had expressed hope in my emails to her that we might meet at a queer business for our interview. She laughed. Current Issue View our current issue Well, wed less be able to have a private conversation. There are like three tables. Instead of Moonbat, we were at Bell the Cat: a bright if generic-looking cafe with abundant seating, decent coffee, and a full breakfast and lunch menu. (The business is also black-owned; notable in 98 percent white Belfast.) Paradis and I were tucked into a booth, where she worked on a gargantuan mug of herbal tea (she drinks neither caffeine nor alcohol) while I consumed a similarly giant cup of black coffee. When Id first walked into the coffee shop, Id found Paradis deep in conversation with three middle-aged women: her colleagues on the night shift at Waldo County General Hospital, where she works as a staff nurse. Her annual salary as mayor is only $2,500not nearly enough to live on. Now, sitting down, we found ourselves visited by a steady stream of cafe-goers, mostly elderly, who wanted to wish the mayor a good morning. With a median age of 44, Maine is among the oldest states in the nation, and at Bell the Cat, it seemed like it. The entire scene was charmingso charming, in fact, that I mightve wondered if Paradis had orchestrated the whole thing. But Paradis, who grew up speaking French in an 1,000-person town in northern Maine, does not come across as a slick political figure. She is earnestly self-assured, warm, and direct. Those qualities, plus the fact that she knocked on 2,500 doors during her 2017 mayoral campaign, make it easy to understand how a then-26-year-old with no political experience unseated a four-term incumbent almost three times her age. (As we talked, I did the math in my head; given Belfasts population of 6,700, Paradis may well have visited the majority of homes in the town.) Organize or Die: Kooper Caraway Ushers in a New Labor Movement Rebecca Zweig Kshama Sawant Says Socialism Isnt Only in Seattle E. Tammy Kim Mariah Parker Invites You to Be Your Complete, Weird, Messy Self Aaron Ross Coleman Paradis has been busy since she was sworn into office in late 2017. Climate change is her priority, and she chairs the citys climate-change committee, where theyre studying the effects of sea-level rise on Belfast, which sits at the mouth of the Passagassawakeag River estuary. In January, the city turned on its third solar array. With that addition, Belfast is now generating almost 90 percent of its municipal energy through solar. Theyve also banned plastic bags and polystyrene foam (commonly known by its brand name, Styrofoam), and installed a free electric-vehicle charger downtown, with more on the way. Paradis is also working on addressing the citys affordable housing crisis. The average income is around $40,000, she said. The average cost of a home is around $230,000. So 70 percent of our residents cant afford to buy homes. And the rental market is really tight, so to find a place to live is really challenging. Thats a problemboth for long-time residents who are fighting to stay in their homes and for the young people who Maine is struggling to retain. Weve had a lot of positive movement in changing our zoning to allow for higher density development and accessory dwellings, she said. Theres a lot more work to do, and thats something Id want to focus on in a second term. And that second term seems like it should be a no-brainer, given the setup: A small town with a history of leftist politics and a charismatic young mayor in the middle of enacting ambitious set of progressive policy goals. But not all is warm and fuzzy in Belfast. When I asked Paradis about the rumored rift between her and the city council, she seemed to expect the question. Its ongoing, she told me. The conflict began, according to Paradis, with a June 2018 public hearing about a salmon farm coming to Belfast. Some residents had concerns about the $500 million project. At the hearing, one woman read a Wendell Berry poem that references the killing of children in exchange for development, and the conversation became heated. At one point, Paradis said, a council member became verbally aggressive toward a constituent, calling her out by name and accusing her of bringing a mob to a meeting. Paradis, as the new mayor, found the dynamic unacceptable. She asked the council to participate in a facilitated workshop on how to welcome constituents to their meetings, and the group came up with some guidelines. I was optimistic, Paradis said. But it went downhill from there. In November 2018, a speech at a Belfast Chamber of Commerce dinner included a roast of Paradis, with jokes made about the bathroom breaks and other changes she had instituted in City Council meetings. The following week, she penned an op-ed in the local press, describing the ways in which she had felt disrespected both in the speech and by the city council at large. The council was horrified at being called out, and assembled an emergency meeting to address the op-ed. At that meeting, they voted to bar Paradis from speaking on behalf of the council and to remove her from the Mayors Coalition on Jobs and Economic Development. They reportedly patched things up a week later at a meeting in which the council rescinded its previous votes. But when I asked Paradis about the reconciliation, she chose her words carefully. Well, she said, speaking slowly. What they did was a violation of the Maine Human Rights Act. They clearly retaliated [against] me sharing an experience of discrimination with our employersthe voters. So when they became aware of that, they rolled back their decisions. Did you make them aware of that? I asked. Yeah, I worked with legal counsel to make them aware of that. Paradis told me that recently the council voted again to restrict Paradis to only speaking at the end of every agenda item. And one council member is still apparently the owner of a Facebook group in which participants have suggested replacing Paradis with a goat. It was hard to square such animosity toward Paradis with my image of Belfast as a cozy hippie town. Paradis explained to me, Theres this general desire across the board to have young people engaged and staying in Maine. People are coming back, like myself, and settling into rural places and wanting to get engaged, and theres a tension with the folks who have held the court. This isnt just an issue in Belfast or Maine. Across the US, at every level of government, young progressive politicians are taking office. But when young leaders institute new practiceslike asking their fellow elected officials to exam their privilege, as Paradis didthe older, more established order may not feel entirely comfortable. Paradis is up for reelection in Novemberas are two city-council members, including the one who hosts the Facebook group. When I asked whether part of her strategy might be to replace the city-council members with new, more supportive faces, she was clear that she had to focus on her own campaign, as well as finishing her nurse-practitioner degree. But, she said, she would welcome other people running. At this point, she said, I want whats best for the city. I hope that the voters can see whats happening. A few days later, I checked out the Facebook group You Know You Love Belfast If.., administered by a Belfast city councilor. Can we? with many enthusiastic affirmations in the comments (one person wrote simply: Upgrade). The vitriol on the page was jarring, and I couldnt help but be reminded of the ire that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, another young leftist woman who unseated an older male incumbent, has inspired. But both womens detractors may be making some miscalculations. Neither AOC nor Paradis has shown themselves to be easily deterred. | https://www.thenation.com/article/samantha-paradis-mayor-belfast-maine/ |
Which Democrats are giving back campaign cash from indicted Dallas developer Ruel Hamilton? | WASHINGTON Some Democrats in Texas and beyond are distancing themselves from campaign contributions made by Ruel Hamilton, the North Texas developer indicted in February in connection with a corruption scandal at Dallas City Hall. Among them are presidential hopeful Julian Castro, who last month refunded a $2,700 donation, and Dallas Rep. Colin Allred, who is donating $5,400 in contributions to charity. Hamilton has denied any wrongdoing, pleading not guilty to two counts of bribery concerning a local government receiving federal benefits. His attorney, Abbe Lowell, reiterated this week that Hamilton pled not guilty because he is not guilty and looks forward to his days in court. But Lowell added that even though no charges involve political donations, any that are returned will be used for other charitable causes. | https://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas-politics/2019/04/26/democrats-giving-back-campaign-cash-indicted-dallas-developer-ruel-hamilton |
What Would It Take To Send A Probe All The Way To A Black Hole? | originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. Answer by Viktor T. Toth, IT pro, part-time physicist, on Quora: Imagine a group of early humans, say, somewhere in Europe, who just discovered the worlds first raft. They managed to get across a small river, without getting their feet wet! A tremendous accomplishment. Incidentally, sending a sailing ship to America is technologically far closer to that primitive raft than sending a probe into a black hole would be compared to our present level of technological development. Our most distant space probe to date, Voyager 1, is about 140 times as far from the Sun as the Earth is. It took more than 40 years for the probe to travel this far. The nearest black hole candidate is roughly 1.3 million times as far away as Voyager 1. The probe would have to travel more than 50 million years (a lot more, actually, as it is still slowing down due to the Suns gravity; it hasnt quite left our neighborhood yet) to get there. Suppose it is aiming for the black hole. As it approaches that black hole, tidal forces increase, up to the point where they would simply rip the probe into shreds. In the case of a small (stellar size) black hole this happens before the object reaches the event horizon. But suppose it does reach the event horizon. You have to keep in mind that the event horizon, from the perspective of us living outside of it, is forever in the future. So the moment when the probe actually reaches the horizon is in the infinite future for us (this is the extreme relativity of black holes.) For the probe to return, or to send a signal back to us, it would have to master time, as it would need to either travel backwards in time or send a signal backwards in time. To the best of our knowledge at present, neither of these will ever be possible. So you see our raft-building ancestors were closer, much closer to discovering America than we are to sending a probe, never mind into, simply to the vicinity of a black hole. The one thing they didnt have was science-fiction movies and television series that make space travel appear easy and space, well, small. Space is not small. Space is incredibly, incredibly vast, and the distances are simply not comparable to any human experience. This question originally appeared on Quora - the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. More questions: | https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2019/04/26/what-would-it-take-to-send-a-probe-all-the-way-to-a-black-hole/ |
What Are The Most Interesting Research Trends In Human Life Extension Right Now? | originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. Answer by Jamie Metzl, Atlantic Council Senior Fellow, Author of Hacking Darwin, on Quora: Theres a lot happening in this space that is really exciting. If our goal is to extend health and lifespan across the population, we should be investing far more time, energy, and money in improving our public health infrastructures and encouraging everyone to live like more the people my friend Dan Buettner encountered in the blue zonesaround the world. In the near-term, there are many different drugs that are extending healthspan in model organisms like mice. These include metformin, Rapamycin, and the NAD+ boosters. Some people are taking these with the goal of extending healthspan but I dont recommend doing so until after human trials have been carried out. There is also a lot of great work showing how pruning senescent cells and managing the recycling pathways of cell can slow the aging process in model organisms. Again, these approaches are moving toward human applications but they arent there yet. In the medium term, we might also benefit from the good thats being done with asynchronous parabiosis the crazy process of cutting open and stitching together a young and old animal, usually mice or rats. In many ways, the young mouse gets biologically older and the old mouse younger. You many have seen the spoof on the human applications of this with the blood boy in the HBO program Silicon Valley, but this technology is also not ready for human use. I do think some version of it will be in the future. Well also be able to select embryos for implantation during IVF that are genetically predisposed to a longer and healthier life. Its an exciting time to be alive, hopefully for as long as possible! This question originally appeared on Quora - the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. More questions: | https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2019/04/26/what-are-the-most-interesting-research-trends-in-human-life-extension-right-now/ |
How Is The Video Game Industry Different From The Tech Industry? | originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. Answer by Mitch Lasky, Partner at Benchmark, former video game exec, LAFC co-owner, on Quora: What makes the video game industry fascinating is the way it functions as a hybrid of the tech industry and creative industries. Its driven by technology innovation (3D, digital networking, etc.) and it has scale economics and distribution patterns similar to other software-based businesses. But the games industry is also driven by creative innovation. It is a popular art. Often the biggest leaps come when that creative innovation takes advantage of technology including new business models that are enabled by technology. One example is Riot Games League of Legends. Riot innovated on the play-pattern of third-person action/RPG from games like Warcraft 3 and its mods, refining the competitive, multiplayer aspects of the genre and going fully online with distribution, multiplayer play, and a virtual goods business model. The success of this approach enabled further innovations in community management and professional eSports. This question originally appeared on Quora - the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. More questions: | https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2019/04/26/how-is-the-video-game-industry-different-from-the-tech-industry/ |
How Common Will 'Designer Babies' Be In The Future? | originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. Answer by Jamie Metzl, Atlantic Council Senior Fellow, Author of Hacking Darwin, on Quora: There is no doubt in my mind that we will see what could be called designer babies in the very near future. This frightens many people for some very good reasons. I myself am the son of a Holocaust survivor and refugee and am well aware that the Nazis, in their twisted way, saw themselves as implementing the theories of Darwin. Its not that hard to imagine nightmare scenarios of how genetic technologies could be abused in ways that undermine our humanity. But it is also critical for us to recognize how these technologies can be used to eliminate terrible diseases that have cause unimaginable suffering to generations, help us live longer and healthier lives, save us from some type of deadly pathogen, or make it possible for us to survive a hotter earth or, some day, life in space. We will be designing our babies in the future and in many ways we should, but that shouldnt mean anything goes. We must make individual and collective decisions about what changes we might make to future generations based on a positive set of values articulated through inclusive conversations about how these technologies might be applied. All societies need robust regulatory agencies that can weigh the relative costs and benefits of various potential interventions. Well also need to develop international norms and standards to avoid regulatory black holes where people will go to get treatments and services not available in their home countries. Im on the World Health Organization international advisory committee of human genome editing that is working hard on these issues. This question originally appeared on Quora - the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. More questions: | https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2019/04/26/how-common-will-designer-babies-be-in-the-future/ |
Whos behind the God Friended Me account? | "The Road to Damascus" -- Arthur joins Miles on a road trip upstate after the God Account checks into a closed-down summer camp. Also, Cara makes a career-altering decision, Pria (Parminder Nagra) reveals unexpected news to Rakesh, and the hunt for answers to the God Account come to a head at the grand reveal of Simon Hayes' (Adam Goldberg) mystery project, on GOD FRIENDED ME, Sunday, March 31 (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Pictured L to R: Violett Beane as Cara Bloom, Brandon Micheal Hall as Miles Finer, Suraj Sharma as Rakesh Singh. Photo Credit: David Giesbrecht / 2019 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved Question: In the Season 1 finale of God Friended Me, the question of who created the God account was left unanswered. Ive convinced that the Machine from Person of Interest is behind it all and got tired of communicating to people from rapidly disappearing pay phones in NYC. Brian Matt Roush: I like how your mind works and seeing Amy Acker on Greys Anatomy last week brought back such fond memories of Person of Interest. But I do think youre headed for only more disappointment if youre watching God Friended Me for the answer to the origins of the God account. (And I kind of wish the characters would just drop their obsession as well.) In the overall scheme of things, spiritual quests are all about pursuing the big questions, which tend to lead to more questions. Easy answers arent the point, and in this case, the account is just one big metaphor anyway, so with this series more than most, I would stress that the journey truly is the destination. I love Survivor; but Alone is better. Kitzer Roush: History did renew Alone for a sixth season, with a new location at the edge of the Arctic Circle. A premiere date hasnt been confirmed, but expect it to return in early summer. To submit questions to TV Critic Matt Roush, go to tvinsider.com. | https://www.reviewjournal.com/entertainment/tv/whos-behind-the-god-friended-me-account-1650307/ |
How Does Gotham Stack Up Against Other Series Finales? | Batman has arrived, and that means Gotham has said goodbye. The Fox drama ended on Thursday, having completed all of the origin stories it was telling about the Batman universe. It jumped ahead 10 years after Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz) left Gotham. And while we never caught a glimpse of Bruce and only caught the briefest glimpse of Batman himself, now that the Penguin's got his monocle, Selina Kyle is all grown up, the Joker's all Jokered up, and Bruce is back in town, we all know what's about to happen next. After the episode, we asked you to tell us whether you loved the finale or hated it, and now the results are in: You mostly loved it! About 69% of you were totally into it, but at this point, that's not the question we're here to answer. | https://www.eonline.com/ap/news/1036029/how-does-gotham-stack-up-against-other-series-finales |
Should ISIS brides and children return to their home nations? | While the so-called Islamic State has been ousted from the territory once called its caliphate in northeast Syria, how firmly it remains dug into the minds of its former followers, especially those followers who crossed the world to join, remains a concern for many. Concentrated in camps of northeast Syria not far form the Turkish and Iraqi borders, the former citizens of the ISIS state include men, women, and children. Fenced off from from the rest by their Kurdish keepers are hundreds of foreign women and children who were once inhabitants of the aspirant state and are now left adrift. Many are weighing a return to their countries of origin in the West. But in doing so, they raise a host of issues for their native lands. Those include whether and how to reintegrate adults, who at least for a time were steeped in ISISs anti-Western dogma, and what to do with their children, most of whom are too young to even understand the political obstacles keeping them in a camp where resources are scarce and infant mortality high. Recommended: What the Mueller report is and isn't: The fog begins to lift Handling these people requires special security measures. This requires international agreement on judicial proceedings, says Farhad Youssef, a member of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), as he sits on a plastic chair outside a military base near Ain Issa, a camp holding ISIS foreigners displaced in earlier offensives. The children, the second generation of ISIS, need cultural centers and rehabilitation opportunities. This is an international problem, and their home countries have to step up to the plate. EVERYONE DESPISES THEM EQUALLY But for the most part, those home countries are in no rush to do so. At its peak, ISIS controlled a landmass roughly the size of the United Kingdom and ruled over 11 million people in Syria and Iraq. Tens of thousands of foreigners crossed the porous borders of Turkey to join: men bent on jihad, women seduced online, and even families drawn by the moral order presented in glossy online magazines and other forms of Islamic State propaganda. The International Center for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) at Kings College London estimates that 41,480 people including 4,761 women and 4,640 children from 80 countries were affiliated with ISIS. Some have died convinced of their ideas. Others changed their minds and made it home to face justice. The foreigners who have survived and stayed until the end, falling back with the group amid battlefield losses, are widely seen as the most ardent of ISIS supporters. Foreign minors, according to the researchers, possess the ideological commitment and practical skills to pose a potential threat upon return to their home countries. The Kurdish-led SDF have signaled for months that they do not have the capacity or the appetite to bring to justice or care for all the foreigners who have come under their custody. But there has been huge reticence from Western countries and other nations to take responsibility for their citizens and former residents. Earlier this year the British home secretary, Sajid Javid, revoked the citizenship of Shamima Begum, who joined the group at age 15 and lost three of her children in Syria. France, meanwhile, is hoping to route its citizens who joined ISIS to Iraq for prosecution, despite concerns from both counterterrorism experts and human rights groups. Fourteen French suspected ISIS members, some of them of Arabic origin, are now on trial in Baghdad after having been extradited from Syria. In the United States, Washington has refused to readmit Hoda Muthana, an American-born daughter of a Yemeni diplomat who traveled from Alabama to Syria to join ISIS. The government claims that neither she nor her son are Americans because her father was a diplomat for Yemen at the time of her birth and children of diplomats are not entitled to birthright citizenship. Her lawyers dispute that, arguing her father had lost his diplomatic status before she was born, and note that she had been granted a U.S. passport. Ms. Muthana made the decision to go to Syria in 2014, a time when ISIS was at the height of its propaganda offensive, releasing grisly videos of beheadings. Hassan Shibly, a lawyer for Ms. Muthanas family, says ISIS recruiters found her on a benign Muslim-only forum and then radicalized her through direct communications. The social media account under her name praised the killings of Westerners. | https://news.yahoo.com/isis-brides-children-return-home-nations-191435850.html |
Does the Bank of England have a woman problem? | Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Silvana Tenreyro is the only female member of the Monetary Policy Committee Take a glance at a photo of the Bank of England's influential Monetary Policy Committee and its problem is immediately clear. The nine-strong committee look pretty similar: eight white men and one woman. This is the body that guides the UK economy. Their monthly votes on interest rates ultimately determine how far our money goes. Yet they don't look anything like the people whose lives they have so much influence over. Women make up half of the UK population, yet just one ninth of the Monetary Policy Committee. There is also not a single black, Asian or minority ethnic group (BAME) member. In fact, current governor Mark Carney is the 120th in a continuous line of white men to have headed the Bank. It's obvious the Bank has a diversity problem. Last month, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said the Bank was some way off its diversity targets for next year "with little evidence the gap is closing quickly enough". But in January, the Bank appointed two women: former Virgin Money boss Dame Jayne-Anne Gadhia and Banking Standards Board chair Dame Colette Bowe to its Financial Policy Committee. The Bank's chief operating officer Joanna Place also said: "In terms of diversity and inclusion, we have done a lot more than just gender and ethnicity. "We have a number of staff networks. We have inclusive events. We have a wellbeing policy. We have done a cognitive diversity survey. We have started to look at social mobility," she added. Many are hoping that the Bank's search for a new governor - which kicked off earlier this week - could herald the start of a new era with a female governor at the helm for the first time in its history. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Rachel Reeves says the Bank needs to do more to train and promote talented women Labour MP Rachel Reeves, who chairs the business select committee and who was an economist at the Bank of England before becoming a politician, said now is the time for the Bank to act: "We've had two women prime ministers and yet have had no women chancellors or Bank governors. "The sad truth is that the Bank has not done enough to recruit, train and promote talented women. More needs to be done to bring forward a generation of women economists who can be considered for the top job." 'Self reproducing' But Wendy Carlin, a professor of economics at University College London, says the problem is not with the Bank of England, but the economics profession itself. "If you google economists you'll get a great number of pictures of economists in suits holding up a financial chart. Those impressions are self-reproducing. If people only see men in suits then they don't think it's for them," she says. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Just over a third of undergraduate economics students in the UK are women Statistics show that women are far less likely than men to study economics, let alone get a job in the sector.Just over a third of undergraduate economics students in the UK are women. The picture is similar in Australia and the US. Prof Carlin is leading an international project - the CORE project - to change the way economics is taught, with the aim of broadening its appeal. "We're being much clearer that economics is about addressing the problems we face. Yes, it's about financial stability but it's also about inequality, the environmental future and work. But, she cautions, work at this academic level will take time to filter through to the real world. "It's crucial to widen the pool [of job candidates] as far as possible, but you've got to get people into the pool in the first place and that's what we're working on," she says. Image copyright Margaret Heffernan Image caption Dr Heffernan says the onus is on the the profession itself to make sure it is attracting the widest possible pool of applicants Dr Margaret Heffernan, author and the former chief executive of five businesses, says the lack of a women in the sector has become self-fulfilling, that because the profession is dominated by males they tend to "promote and nurture male students". "Economics can be very excluding of women, sometimes unintentionally and sometimes intentionally. People with privilege don't happily give it up," she says. Unfair A recent survey by the American Economic Association of more than 9,200 economists suggests there are also deep-rooted problems. Some 30% of female economists said they felt discriminated against, compared with 12% of men. Women felt they were treated especially unfairly when it came to pay and promotion decisions. Dr Heffernan says the profession itself should try to make sure it is attracting the widest possible pool of applicants. One chief executive she spoke to ran a series of different recruitment adverts for a senior position. She found the more junior she made the role sound, the higher the number of female applicants. "How you word a job will define someone's right to apply. If you're not getting the right kind of applicants then describe the job differently and see what happens." Recruitment firm Sapphire Partners has been asked to carry out the search for the new governor. The fact it describes itself as "advocates for women in business", and is run by five female partners, suggests this time there could be room for optimism. But Dr Heffernan also points out that women in senior positions currently get a lot more scrutiny than men, something that can put them off applying. "The first woman in any post of visible power knows there's extra scrutiny that goes with it. "Everyone wants to know what they're wearing, what their family and social life is like. Some are ambivalent about that." Nonetheless, she says the more common females in power become the less this will happen because it will become a normal rather than extraordinary. "I'm cautiously optimistic," she says. | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48062920 |
Will Joe Bidens History Lift Him Up or Weigh Him Down? | Ive known a lot of people who have run for President, Joe Biden told me. Ive known the last eight Presidents, three intimately. That was in the spring of 2014, when Biden was the Vice-President, and I was interviewing him for a Profile in this magazine. We were in his office, in the West Wing, and he had come out from behind his desk, with his suit jacket off. It was nineteen months before the 2016 Iowa caucuses, and he was weighing whether to run, again, for the Presidency. I dont mean cause like over the ramparts, but do you really believe you have the capacity to change things that youre passionate about? Bidens capacity to changenot only things but also himselfis still at the heart of his Presidential prospects. On Thursday morning, he declared his candidacy in a video that defined his cause as a battle for the soul of this nation. If we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, Biden added, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation. Who we are. And I cannot stand by and watch that happen. (In a tweet, Trump responded in his customary fashion, questioning Bidens intelligence, calling him Sleepy Joe, and disparaging the Democratic field as having sick & demented ideas.) A few hours after Bidens announcement, as if to underscore a challenging array of questions that he faces about his record, he was confronted with fresh headlines regarding his handling, in 1991, of the Supreme Court nomination hearings for Justice Clarence Thomas. Biden, who, as the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, ran the hearings, disallowed the testimony of women who might have backed up Anita Hill, who accused Thomas of sexual harassment. Biden later publicly lamented that he hadnt given Hill the kind of hearing she deserved, but he only recently called her to express regret. The call left her unsatisfied. I will be satisfied when I know there is real change and real accountability and real purpose, she told the Times. The Thomas hearing is one of several political land mines in Bidens history. In recent months, he has been criticized for what the writer Michelle Goldberg, of the Times, called avuncular pawing, which had left some women uncomfortable. He released a video pledging to do better. (He then risked undermining the effect of that earnest response, by later joking, to a crowd of union members, that he had permission to hug their leader.) He is also contending with criticism for his role during the passage of the draconian 1994 crime bill and for his stance on bussing in the nineteen-seventiestwo issues that the progressive wing of the Democratic Party today looks at with contempt for how its leaders acted at the time. Samuel Popkin, a political scientist who has worked in and studied Presidential campaigns for nearly half a century, told me that Biden faces an awkward balance. He will be judged for his actions from 1972 to 1988from the time he won his first Senate campaign to his first Presidential bidby todays standard, by candidates without any experience. Its neither fair nor avoidable. So, can he acknowledge the past, and show he has learnedall without looking weak? Popkin went on, Experience means you have made mistakes on policy; it also means you have lived under different cultural norms. That is a growing problem everywhere, as the power of parties over individual members declines. None of these criticisms are news to Biden or those who have backed his entry to the race. His candidacy rests on a bet that, when the pendulum of history pulls back from Trump, it will swing toward experience and incrementalism, rather than toward youth and progressive zeal. Biden will seek to persuade Americans that, after the agonies of Trumpism, the benefits of his storyhis experience of working-class life and of personal loss and sufferingoutweigh the liabilities. He will try to emphasize his familiarity with government and diplomacy, which his rivals in both parties are hard pressed to match. Julianne Smith, Bidens former deputy national-security adviser, told me, Pretty much you can drop him into Kazakhstan or Bahrain, it doesnt matterhes gonna find some Joe Blow that he met thirty years ago whos now running the place. And it doesnt even matter what the political stripes are: he knows conservatives, he knows social democrats, because, over thirty-five-plus years, everybody came to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Eons of political time have passed since the spring of 2014. Trump was still the host on The Apprentice, but he was edging into politics. He spoke that March at the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC. During my conversations with Biden, he offered a premonition about growing political divisiveness. I think the middle class is getting clobbered, he said, one day, over lunch. I think there has to be a significant change in both, over time, fiscal policy and tax policy. He was trying to get that view further insinuated into the White House, he said. It seemed like boilerplate, and I didnt quote it. That was a mistake. He was describing an emerging divide in the Democratic Party over the degree to which it needed to address the frustrations of working-class voters, especially whites, some of whom eventually turned to Bernie Sandersand others to Trump. Biden continued, Ill be blunt with you: the only vote I can think of that Ive ever cast in my years in the Senate that I regretand I did it out of loyalty, and I wasnt aware that it was gonna be as bad as it waswas Glass-Steagall. The 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which once separated commercial and investment banking, partially facilitated the 2008 financial crisis. (Over the years, Biden has expressed regret about other votes, including his support for the invasion of Iraq and for tougher sentencing on the possession of crack cocaine.) He went on, I have a basic disagreement with the underlying rationale that began in the Clinton Administration about the concentration of economic wealth to generate economic growth. That spring, he had begun to stake out a populist economic appeal that could have put him to the left of Hillary Clinton. He told a union audience that Ken Langone, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot, had complained about Pope Franciss critique of income inequity. Biden said of Langone, As a practicing Catholic, bless me, Father, for he has sinned. He warned members of the United Auto Workers that conservatives were waging a concerted, full-throated, well-organized, well-financed, well-thought-out effort waging war on labors house. Sanders was still months away from entering the Presidential race, and Biden was developing a pitch that would serve him if he ran. When I finished reporting my piece, Biden was still undecided, but he was clearly leaning toward running, if his family was ready for another campaign. During our last interview, he stepped away to take a phone call and returned, smiling. Just got really good family news. O.K., where was I? His eyes were glistening, and I asked if he wanted to take a break. Ah, no, I justI just cant tell you how good I feel, he said. Afterward, an aide told me that the phone call was long-awaited good news about the ongoing recovery of Bidens son Beau, who had been given a diagnosis of brain cancer the previous year. That optimism was short-lived. After a recurrence of cancer, Beau Biden died on May 30, 2015. It was another cruel episode in a family story that is replete with them. The family withdrew into itself; talk of Presidential campaigns was set aside. By the time Biden was ready to consider the idea again, Clinton had opened a lead that would be difficult to challenge. In October of 2015, he announced that the window for his candidacy had closed. It seemed to everyone that he would never have another day as a Presidential candidate. But Bidens life has often turned in directions that were difficult to predict, and it has once more. | https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/will-joe-bidens-history-lift-him-up-or-weigh-him-down |
How can Steve Kerr get the Warriors on high alert for Game 6 vs. Clippers? | How can Steve Kerr get the Warriors on high alert... LOS ANGELES Steve Kerr is feeling some heat. Granted, thats a relative term, for a coach who has won three championships in four years. This isnt Jon Gruden-level heat or Jim Tomsula-esque heat. But as his team heads into Game 6 of its first-round series with the Clippers, some people are wondering why Kerr cant fix his struggling team. Because this is the NBA, folks. And Kerr can only do so much to motivate a group of success-weary superstars. But hes willing to take the blame. They had us on our heels from the beginning, Kerr said of the Clippers effort in Game 5. They played harder than we did, they were more edgy, more angry, more competitive. Thats my fault. Ive got to have the guys ready to play, up 3-1 coming off a couple of road games. I didnt have them on high alert and the result of that, at this level in the NBA, is every team is loaded with talent. The team playing a little faster, a little harder often tips the balance. I thought they were more prepared. Now Playing: Being an NBA coach is not about being a dictator or a tyrant. Its not really even very much about Xs and Os. Its about interpersonal relationships, humor, strategic anger, trying to find the right buttons to push at the right time. Its film, its challenging the group, reminding them of what theyve done the past few years, reminding them that weve been here before, Kerr said. Its human nature. You get threatened, you lose, you dont sleep that well, you cant wait for the next game. You win a couple on the road, you get a little happy, a little comfortable, you lose your edge. And thats all it takes. Well have our edge back tonight. Though the fans at Oracle are upset with how the team has played at home, theres a reason that a team might play better on the road. Youre naturally more on edge, Kerr said. You have a little more appropriate fear, respect. You feel more threatened. Ultimately, its up to the players to dig deep. They know that. They are experienced professionals with championship rings. This isnt CYO ball. Its on each player to get themselves ready, Kevin Durant said Friday morning at Staples Center. Were grown. Steve can only so much as a coach. Its on us to be ready to play. Ann Killion is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @annkillion | https://www.sfchronicle.com/sports/annkillion/article/How-can-Kerr-get-the-Warriors-on-high-alert-13799039.php |
Are Industries, Governments and UN Agencies Ready For 5th Machine Age Blockchain Adoption? | Depositphotos Spotlight news garnering wide interest from this year include from JP Morgan, their announcement of a successful test of a digital coin representing a fiat (example USD) currency JPM Coin -- blockchain-based technology enabling the instantaneous transfer of payments between institutional accounts. This matters since its estimated that JP Morgan influences $6 Trillion US in daily transactions. Another example includes Master Card with an estimated 81 patents in blockchain and ranked amongst the top in blockchain. All major vendors such as Microsoft and IBM have blockchain platforms and/or tools together with consortia including: R3 (example use, financial services), Hyperledger (example use, supply chain), BiTA (example use, transportation logistics and freight), B3i (example use, insurance). Blockchain (and distributed ledger) is the underlying technologies behind cryptocurrencies but evolving way beyond. From the WEF Future of Jobs report, by 2022, adoption forecasts include across 12 industries at 45% however differing widely such as financial services at 73%, healthcare at 67%, infrastructure at 18%. This became a focused area of discussion at the World Food Program (WFP) hosted session in March at SXSW Around the (Global) Block Blockchain for Impact. What was intriguing were the discussions on the interplay of Blockchain with AI (artificial intelligence) since both involve data and driving value from working with data. Clearly, AI will be integrated with use cases of Blockchain. Post session, since the deep insights were not recorded at SXSW, I did video interviews with the experts, appearing with the non-profit computing science organization ACM, to drill deeper in how blockchain is being used including with AI. The biggest use cases are with United Nations Agencies The UN World Food Programs (WFP) Building Blocks pilot is using blockchain at refugee camps throughout Jordan where via blockchain, refugees receive food vouchers for grocery stores by simply looking at an iris scanner that reads refugees biometric data. The program already operates at a large scale. Post-SXSW session, Robert Opp added these comments, At WFP we see enormous potential to apply frontier technologies like blockchain and AI to our work. We are now using blockchain to support Syrian refugees living in Jordan to be able to purchase food at local stores. It started as a small pilot, but now reaches 107,000 people and has been expanded to include another UN agency, UN Women for their programmes. The programme is both increasing transparency and reducing costs. Added insights on the WFP Innovation Accelerator 821 million, or one out of every nine people, still do not have enough to eat. WFPs Innovation Accelerator was created in 2015 to identify new ideas and approaches for global solutions. Areas in active exploration and real-world implementation include: machine learning, articial intelligence and blockchain. In 2018, the WFP supported 28 sprint and scale projects in 42 countries. Building Blocks was the rst implementation of blockchain at WFP and comprise the largest blockchain-based cash-distribution system in the humanitarian sector. Over 380 farmer organizations digitalized their business operations and conducted US$ 3 million worth of transactions with the Farm to Market Alliance platform. Over 6,000 beneciaries were reached in seven countries with the WFP hydroponics technology. In 2018, Building Blocks: served over 107,000 refugees; transferred US$ 37 million in cash-based assistance; processed more than 1.6 million transactions; saved 98% in nancial transaction fees. The blockchain system improves WFPs services transparency, efficiency, security, and speed. In addition, the underlying architecture of Building Blocks can also be applied to other blockchain use cases, such as supply chain management and digital identity. In 2018, the Innovation Accelerator supported several projects such as RUDA, an Articial Intelligence and Aerial Imagery platform for rapid data analysis in emergencies. Added examples include the Child Growth Monitor - a mobile application for better malnutrition detection using 3D cameras and AI; and Cloud2Street providing high-resolution ood mapping and monitoring system. During the SXSW session, other notable examples included the successful launch of bond-I from the World Bank. The World Bank funds development through bond issuemore than $50B US for sustainable development. As noted by Denis Robitaille, World Bank Group Chief Information Officer: Helping countries transition to technology-led development is key to our goals of reducing poverty and promoting lasting development. This is at the heart of the World Banks Innovation Laband this pioneering bond is a milestone in our efforts to learn how we can advise our client countries on the opportunities and risk that disruptive technologies offer as we strive to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. SXSW panel insights Together with the post-session chat with the ACM, Nadia commented further, While emerging technologies have the disruptive potential to solve pain points in the social impact space, technology alone is not enough to unlock opportunities. Policy and governance elements the conditions that need to be in place to create an enabling environment for stakeholders to do the right thing and for the technology to be truly transformative - are critical. By taking a user-centric approach, both the public and private sectors play a role in policy initiatives for these rapidly evolving technologies. During the panel session and post-session chat, Tomicah elaborated on: - Work in the Rockefeller Foundation and jurisdictions around the world to develop modular, interoperable, open source blockchain platforms to power the public sector. Recent examples include their successful blockchain-based mobile voting project in the November elections in West Virginia and the blockchain land registry in the Republic of Georgia. - The Blueprint for Blockchain and Social Innovation that they published at Davos. - Their projects with the State Department, Harvard, Levi Strauss, Coca-Cola to use blockchain in worker rights and wellbeing applications. | https://www.forbes.com/sites/cognitiveworld/2019/04/08/are-industries-governments-and-un-agencies-ready-for-5th-machine-age-blockchain-adoption/ |
Can Some Home Cooking Snap The Cubs Out Of Their Early-Season Funk? | Getty A sellout crowd of 40,000-plus is sure to offer a loud and boisterous welcome when the Chicago Cubs step to the foul lines for the traditional home opener introductions Monday afternoon at Wrigley Field. How long that goodwill lasts, however, remains to be seen. Very little has gone right so far for the Cubs, who opened the season with a 12-4 romp of the Rangers then dropped six in a row -- often in excruciating fashion -- before snapping out of their funk with a 14-8 victory in the second of a three-game set with Brewers at Miller Park. Chicago's bats went silent in the series finale Sunday, a 4-2 loss to the reigning NL Central Division champs, leaving the Cubs 2-7 and 5 1/2 games back of Milwaukee when they report to Wrigley Field Monday morning. "It sucks," first baseman Anthony Rizzo said matter-of-factly before boarding the bus home Sunday evening. "You want to get off to a good start. You get to spring training, rah-rah, let's get off to a good start ... it's the mentality you want." It's certainly the mentality the Cubs had as they left Arizona for their season-opening, nine-game, three-city road trip. And even more so after opening the season in such impressive fashion. But the wheels came off quickly and painfully and the Cubs are still trying to recover. Pitching, especially out of the bullpen, has been a major issue. Entering play Sunday, Chicago's relievers had combined for a 9.5 ERA -- the second-highest in baseball, a number fueled by 53 walks. "There was such an emphasis on getting off to a fast start that it kind of has snowballed here and it has been magnified extremely this first week," reliever Brad Brach told reporters over the weekend. "That's just the way it is. If this happened in June, it probably wouldn't be that big of a deal. But because it's March and April and the season first started ... it's definitely magnified." The bullpen's struggles have negated an impressive showing by the Cubs' offense so far. Chicago's batters lead the league with a .307 average, have the second-best OPS (.918) and are third in runs scored. Those numbers might be even more impressive if Kris Bryant weren't also mired in a funk of his own. He started the season on a high note, hitting an opposite-field home run on Opening Day but hasn't hit one since and is 8-for-35 during that stretch with 11 strikeouts including six over the weekend in Milwaukee. He left the clubhouse without speaking to reporters. "I don't see [him pressing]," Rizzo said. I'm sure throughout the year, a couple guys will have a worse nine games than they've had in these first nine. And you just weather the storm until you get hot." Still, Monday marks an opportunity to wipe the slate clean, get back on track and win over the home fans -- many of whom have been voicing their displeasure on social media and talk radio. "They can do whatever they want," infielder Javy Baez said. "They don't control this. I don't control them, they don't control our game. We just have to keep everything out of the clubhouse and block everything negative coming to us right now, go out there and have fun. "We're the Chicago Cubs. Obviously, everybody is going to talk about us, talk about 2016 and all that bullcrap. When people talk about (us), it's either because they care or they hate you." | https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewwagner/2019/04/08/can-some-home-cooking-snap-the-cubs-out-of-their-early-season-funk/ |
Has the media turned on UK's Prince Harry and wife Meghan? | LONDON (Reuters) - Last May, millions across the world tuned in to watch Queen Elizabeths grandson Prince Harry tie the knot with his American actress girlfriend Meghan Markle, with the media feting the couple as the epitome of glamor and royal modernity. FILE PHOTO - Britain's Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex attend a Commonwealth Day youth event at Canada House in London, Britain, March 11, 2019. Chris Jackson/Pool via REUTERS But less than a year later, the couple have found themselves on the receiving end of much less flattering coverage as they prepare for the birth of their first child this spring. Frown Jewels: Meg is banned by Queen from using Di gems, the front page headline on Britains biggest-selling newspaper the Sun said on Thursday over a story which claimed the monarch had banning Meghan from wearing royal jewelry, a sign of growing tensions between Harrys wife and senior Windsors. Meghan Markle pretty difficult person to deal with Harry is Miserable, said a Daily Express headline last month, while the Daily Mail ran this story in January: How Meghans favourite avocado snack ... is fuelling human rights abuses, drought and murder. There is no doubting the enduring, global fascination with the British royals. On Tuesday, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, as Harry and Meghan are officially known, launched their first Instagram account. Two days later, it had 3.4 million followers. While much reporting by the British press on the royal family is respectful, verging on the sycophantic, at other times it can be harshly critical, even cruel. The press here in Britain is very aggressive, and they dont hold back, said veteran Sun photographer Arthur Edwards who has covered the royals for more than four decades. The first public acknowledgement that Harry and Meghan were dating in November 2016 came in a statement criticizing the media for intruding into his then girlfriends private life. It was indicative of how Harry views the media which he blames for the death of his mother Princess Diana. She died in Paris in 1997, when he was just 12, when her limousine crashed as it sped away from chasing paparazzi photographers. If there is a story and somethings been written about me, I want to know whats been said. But all it does is upset me and anger me, Harry said in a broadcast interview while on military service in Afghanistan in 2012. In his youth, Harry found himself in the headlines for under-age drinking, wearing a Nazi outfit to a costume party and scuffling with photographers outside London nightclubs. But his popularity grew both with Britons generally and the media who loved his antics when on official engagements, such as posing with the likes of Olympic gold medal sprinter Usain Bolt. FANTASTIC When you went on tour with Harry before he was married, it was a fantastic tour. Every day he would make great pictures, he would do something that was spectacular, Edwards said. We think hes the best thing in the royal family. But since Harry tied the knot, something changed, he said. Newspapers were given minimal access to the couples wedding in May and there has some discontent among senior figures in the industry about the level of access to the royals who continue to be a huge draw for readers. Suddenly hes turned completely the other way - hes Mr Cool, Edwards said. He thinks, possibly, why should I do anything for them? The reason is likely to be the recent coverage of his wife. There have been numerous reports of excessive demands the new duchess has made of staff and of rifts between Meghan and Harry and his elder brother William and his wife Kate. Also, Meghans family, particularly her father, have regularly made headlines with critical comments about her. Meghan herself said she avoided newspapers or Twitter. I dont read anything, its much safer that way, she told a panel discussion at Kings College London in March. But in January, U.S. magazine People said five of Meghans close friends had broken their silence to speak about the lies and untruths and global bullying the duchess had suffered and their fears about how this would affect her and her baby. The following month, her friend, Hollywood film star George Clooney told Australian magazine WHO the media were harassing Meghan as they had Diana. Shes a woman who is seven months pregnant and she has been pursued and vilified and chased in the same way that Diana was and its history repeating itself, he said. Royal commentators and even those on the receiving end say media negativity is a rite of passage for the royals. It was something that Prince Charles said years ago when he and Diana were receiving some negative coverage. People put you on a pedestal just to knock you off, Ingrid Seward, editor of Majesty magazine, told Reuters. Those who write about the royals say the problem is not so much the media itself, but vicious comments from online trolls and heated social media arguments involving Meghans fans. The rise in such abuse led Britains royals to unveil a new online protocol last month warning users of possible police action. [nL5N20R2OX] Theres been an awful lot of negativity online, social media, racism, all sorts of vile abuse but thats not coming from the mainstream media, said Robert Jobson, veteran royal correspondent for the London Evening Standard newspaper. The odd commentator may say something but actually on the whole its been very, very positive, he added, saying people were shooting the messenger for covering negative stories coming from Meghans own family. Readers, though, are not so sure. I think shes been treated a bit unfairly from what Ive seen, said student Savanah Edwards. I see that shes criticized for a lot and I dont think thats fair to her. American student Laura Youngblood, 21, said: I think that she gets a bit of bad rap. Marrying into the royal family is difficult coming from an American background which is a completely different culture. As Americans as a whole, we admire her so much - we think shes great. In a speech to 12,000 children and teachers at Wembley Arena in London last month, Harry made little secret of his ongoing dislike of the media. Slideshow (2 Images) Every day you are inundated with an over-exposure of advertising and mainstream media, social media and endless comparisons, distorting the truth and trying to manipulate the power of positive thinking, he told them. But you dont let them sway you. Whatever the Windsors might think of the media, royal watchers say there is a symbiotic relationship between the two. The bottom line is when theyre doing their job they want to be seen doing what theyre doing and theyre quite happy to give access to the media, Jobson said. | https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-royals-baby-media/has-the-media-turned-on-uks-prince-harry-and-wife-meghan-idUSKCN1RK0QH?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Reuters%2FworldNews+%28Reuters+World+News%29 |
What Do the Churchs Victims Deserve? | Some time before Brooklyn was incorporated into New York City, in 1898, it was dubbed the City of Churches. Houses of worship remain thick on the ground in the borough. In the part of Brooklyn where I live, churches outnumber grocery stores, pet shops, and nail salons together. Theres the Institutional Church of God in Christ (red brick, stained glass) and the Revelation Church of God in Christ (a converted movie theatre); the French-Speaking Baptist Church, founded by Haitian immigrants; the Zion Shiloh Baptist Church, whose members come from all over the metropolitan area, parking their cars in a long row; and the Ileri Oluwa Parish, where congregants of Nigerian descent worship shoeless and in long white robes. And there are the Catholic places. Queen of All Saints Church and Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School face each other across Lafayette Avenue. Up the hill is the walled-in motherhouse of the Sisters of Mercy; down the hill is the old church of St. Boniface, now the home of a community called the Brooklyn Oratory, where I go to Mass on Sundays. A few blocks away is St. LucySt. Patrick Church, on Willoughby Avenue. Over six years, beginning in 2003, Angelo Serrano, a religious educator at the church, sexually abused four boys. He raped or molested them in the churchs offices and at his apartment, in a brick schoolhouse converted to low-cost housing by Catholic Charities. Eventually, one of the boys told his mother, who told the police. In 2011, Serrano was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. The victims then sued the Diocese of Brooklyn; in a settlement reached last September, they were awarded $27.5 million. My wife and I have been raising three sons in this part of Brooklyn, and the morning that the news about the settlement broke I cycled up Willoughby Avenue toward the church. St. LucySt. Patricks is one of the oldest Catholic churches in the borough, dating from 1843, and it has a haunted, left-behind aspect. On the edge of a row of restored brownstones, it is notably unkempt: pink paint is peeling from the doors, and the iron fence along the sidewalk is broken in places. When I arrived, a correspondent from Noticias Univision 41, a Spanish-language news program, was standing nearby. A white car rolled up, the flag of Puerto Rico dangling from the rearview mirror, and a large middle-aged man stepped out, wearing a T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. If I had my way, the man hollered, he would get raped every night at that prison where he is, for what he done. I cycled on, unsure how to respond. The situation was straight out of a college course on justice. A legal settlement had expressed an idea of justice as financial restitution; my neighbor had expressed an idea of justice as physical retribution. Neither felt like a way forward. Back at home, scrolling through BishopAccountability.org, which aggregates material about priestly abuse, I counted more than a dozen churches within easy cycling distance of our Brooklyn apartment that had been served at some point by priests accused of sexual misconduct. In Bushwick, Father Augusto Cortez touched a twelve-year-old girls breasts at St. John the Baptist Parish School. Father George Zatarga, long the chaplain at Bishop Loughlin, the high school on Lafayette Avenue, later admitted to inappropriate behavior with boys on trips to a cabin north of Albany (behavior he recorded lyrically in a travel log: skinny-dipping and the like). Father Anthony J. Failla, who served at St. MichaelSt. Edward Church, near Fort Greene Park, was accused of sexually abusing a young orphan who slept in the rectory bedroom next to Faillas quarters. Father Francis X. Nelson, while serving at St. Mary Star of the Sea, in Carroll Gardens, visited the home of a teen-age altar girl on the pretext of paying a pastoral call to her sick grandmother, and molested the girl. Father Romano Ferraro was posted to St. Francis Xavier, in Park Slope, after committing acts at other churches that later led to allegations of abuse; during his time at Xavier, Ferraro, on yearly Christmas visits to a friend in Massachusetts, raped the friends son (a crime for which he is serving a term of life in prison). A more recent incident caught my eye: in 2011, when my sons were in elementary school, the Brooklyn diocese removed Father Christopher Lee Coleman from the ministry for alleged sexual misconduct with a minor, though the diocese waited seven years to disclose its reason. Coleman had once been in residence at Queen of All Saints, down Vanderbilt Avenue from our apartment. Like many Catholics, I wonder whether this story will ever be over and whether things will ever be set right. Often called a crisis, the problem is more enduring and more comprehensive than that. Social scientists report that the gravest period of priestly sexual abuse was the sixties and seventies, and the problem has been in public view for the past three and a half decades. For most American Catholics, then, the fact of sexual abuse by priests and its coverup by bishops has long been an everyday reality. Priestly sexual abuse has directly harmed thousands of Catholics, spoiling their sense of sexuality, of intimacy, of trust, of faith. Indirectly, the pattern of abuse and coverup has made Catholics leery of priests and disdainful of the idea that the bishops are our shepherds. It has muddled questions about Church doctrine concerning sexual orientation, the nature of the priesthood, and the role of women; it has hastened the decline of Catholic schooling and the shuttering of churches. Attorneys general in more than a dozen states are investigating the Church and its handling of sexual-abuse allegations. In February, New York State loosened its statute of limitations for sex crimes, long the Churchs bulwark against abuse claims. And that is just in the United States. Priestly sexual abuse has had grave effects around the world, including in Rome, where the three most recent Popes have been implicated in the institutional habits of concealment or inaction, and where Pope Francis has yet to find his voice on the problem. Its not that the bishops in this country havent responded. Theyve cycled through one crisis-resolution strategy after another. Theyve consulted experts, set up review boards and hotlines, issued charters and reports, trained parish staff in best practices for avoiding and reporting sexual abuse. They have met with survivors and led Masses of penitence and healing; they have apologized and begged for forgiveness. And theyve made payments, through settlements and court-ordered damages, amounting to three billion dollars. All that crisis response has worked, and it hasnt. As questions about restitution arise, the bishops responses feel inadequate, insincere, or off point. The Vatican, meanwhile, now regards American bishops as masters at handling abuse allegations. At a meeting in Rome in February, Pope Francis and his deputies, addressing a global crisis of the protection of minors, suggested that the rest of the world could learn from the American Church. Church moving from American problem to American solutions on clergy abuse, a recent headline from a Catholic news service declared. In all of this, a distinctly American solution to the problem has emergedthe commissioning of an independent, secular authority to arrange settlements between the Church and survivors of abuse. This strategy has been taken up by an unlikely advocate: Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, and a traditionalist who generally relishes defending the Church against its adversaries. Nearly three years ago, Cardinal Dolan decided to hire Kenneth Feinberg, an arbitration and mediation expert who has led programs to compensate victims and relatives of victims from the 9/11 attacks, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the Boston Marathon bombing, and other disasters. Under Feinberg, the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund distributed more than seven billion dollars to fifty-five hundred claimants. After the Deepwater Horizon spill, in the Gulf of Mexico, Feinberg and his longtime associate Camille Biros distributed more than six billion dollars to two hundred and twenty-five thousand claimants. After the shootings at the Pulse night club, in Orlando, Florida, they worked, pro bono, to help distribute charitable donations to those affected. An Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program, run by Feinberg and Biros, began hearing and processing claims of priestly sexual abuse for the Archdiocese of New York in the fall of 2016. Feinberg and Biros subsequently established compensation programs in the Dioceses of Brooklyn (which includes Queens) and Rockville Centre (Long Island), and upstate, in the Dioceses of Syracuse and Ogdensburg. Their portfolio is expanding dramatically: five dioceses in Pennsylvania and all five dioceses in New Jersey have signed on, and multiple dioceses in Colorado and California are expected to do so later this year. Other I.R.C.P.s, which are similar to Feinberg and Biross template but are not under their supervision, have been established elsewhere, including the Dioceses of Buffalo, in New York, and Harrisburg, in Pennsylvania. Soon there will be Feinberg-branded I.R.C.P.s in the dioceses of two-fifths of American Catholics. His and Biross model for reconciliation and compensation is becoming the standard approach to priestly sexual abuse just as bishops worldwide are looking here for standard approaches. Its so nice to be stressed about work outside for a change. The Church has paid survivors for decades. Part of the answer is that Feinberg and Biros do. Over many years, they have maintained a reputation for probity and independence while disbursing some twenty billion dollars in funds. And the Churchs use of external, worldly arbiters is meant to assuage suspicions of self-protection. Much rides on Feinberg and Biross independence, and yet this independence may define the limits of the I.R.C.P.s success. Critics of Catholicism from Martin Luther onward have faulted the Church for dealing with matters of sin and repentance through mechanical means: the system of indulgences, the confessional booth. Ken and Camille, as Feinberg calls the duo, have worked together since 1979, when Feinberg was serving as Senator Edward M. Kennedys chief of staff and hired Biros as an assistant. I met with them several times in recent months, at the Willard Office Building, in Washington, D.C., where their six-person law firm is based. Feinberg, who is seventy-three, grew up in Brockton, Massachusetts, and he speaks in a chowdery accent unsoftened by fifty years among the power brokers of New York and Washington. He is bald, wears tortoise-shell eyeglasses, and leaves his shirts open at the neck. Biros, three years younger, has long, dark hair and favors loose blouses, slacks, and weapons-grade heels. Both are opera enthusiasts, and they (with their spouses) have followed many long days at their desks with long nights at the opera. The walls of their offices display framed newspaper articles in which Feinberg is referred to as the Master of Disaster and the Compensation Czar. Mediation runs deep for Feinberg; to spend time with him is to see him mediate continually between different aspects of his characterbetween a wish for humility and a taste for publicity, a commitment to produce agreeable outcomes and an instinct to tell the whole truth. The Cardinal called, and he wanted to brainstorm, Feinberg told me. Pope Francis had spoken of a Year of Mercy, urging Catholics to undertake acts of reconciliation and forgiveness, and Cardinal Dolan saw this as an opportunity to address priestly sexual abuse, at a time when the Church was under great pressure concerning the issue. The 2015 film Spotlight, about a team of Boston Globe reporters who uncovered priestly sexual abuse in the Boston area, stirred public anger against the Church, and won the Academy Award for Best Picture. The watchdog group SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) characterized Cardinal Dolan as among the most secretive of the roughly three hundred U.S. bishops on matters of priestly abuse. New York state legislators nearly passed a bill loosening the strict statute of limitations on sex-abuse lawsuits. When he was the archbishop of Milwaukee, from 2002 to 2009, Dolan had instituted a settlement program of sorts, but it had gone awry. Engaging Kenneth Feinberg gave the Cardinal a chance at a dramatic, high-profile do-over. Feinberg and Biros met with Cardinal Dolan at the archbishops residence, joined by the chief counsel for the archdiocese. The Cardinal discussed with us his desire to create a program to promote reconciliation and healing between the victims and the Church, as well as his hopes that this will help bring back to the Church those who have been alienated due to the Churchs past conduct, Biros recalled, choosing her words carefully. Of course, not lost on us was the secular issue of the ongoing possibility of a change in the statute of limitations opening a window which would allow time-barred cases to move forward in the courts. The new program would offer compensation to survivors and would require them to sign releases forfeiting the right to sue the Church if the law changed later. It would take care of cases, Biros told me, that were in the drawer, as Ken likes to say, and were known to the archdiocesegoing back, in some cases, as far as thirty-plus years. The New York archdiocese, with 2.8 million Catholics, is the second largest in the United States, after the one in Los Angeles, and its fifteen hundred or so clergymen and the value of its real estate would make its Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program one of precedent-setting scale. To fund it, the archdiocese took out a short-term loan against the mortgage on some property it owns: the block of Madison Avenue between Fiftieth and Fifty-first Streets, occupied by the Lotte New York Palace hotel. Well have to do like any other family at a critical time, Cardinal Dolan said, when he announced the program. Well borrow the money. Feinbergs approach to mediation, outlined in a 2005 book about his 9/11 work, What Is Life Worth?, is rooted in the belief that a third-party magician can help us bridge our differences. That magic often involves math. As the special master of the 9/11 fund, Feinberg typically employed a formula that estimated the deceaseds lost future lifetime earnings, accounted for other sources of household income, and gave weight to the number of dependents. Then he would use his discretion in order to narrow the gap between high-end and low-end awardsbetween, say, awards made to the families of highly compensated investment bankers and those made to the families of restaurant workers who had been paid by the hour. In the end, the median award was a little under $1.7 million. The compensation programs for priestly sexual abuse are comparatively inexact: they involve weighing intangibles to determine, first, what happened, and then what sum of money represents appropriate compensation. When a diocese agrees to work with Feinberg and Biros, it sets aside a sum of money for compensation to survivors or indicates that it will pay claims as assessed. Biros evaluates each claim of abuse, taking into account the priests history and the quality of the claimants evidence that the abuse took place. A diocesan review board (usually made up of faithful Catholics in public life: judges, psychologists, law-enforcement officers) may also provide an assessment. If Biros approves the claim, she decides how much compensation to offer, weighing the nature of the abuse, how long it went on, how it affected the life of the claimant, and other factors. If the claimant accepts the offer, he or she relinquishes the right to sue the diocese but is not bound to confidentiality. The program is not adjudicatory, the archdioceses spokesman, Joseph Zwilling, told me. It doesnt make any recommendations about measures against accused priests still in active ministry; it passes those claims to the diocese, which then conducts its own assessment and decides whether or not the priests should be disciplined or removed. The Archdiocese of New Yorks program proceeded in two phases: one for people who had already accused priests of abuse, and another for people who were making accusations for the first time. The Cardinal was delighted with the program, Biros told meFeinberg nodded his assentand set out the numbers in support. Three hundred and ninety-four people applied. Biros accepted all but forty-eight claims. More than half the claimants were represented by counsel, such as Mitchell Garabedian, the lawyer who was featured in Spotlight, and a bitter foe of the Church. Only one declined the I.R.C.P.s offer of compensation. Individual payments ranged from twenty-five thousand to five hundred thousand dollars. In total, the program awarded more than sixty-three million dollars to claimants, with little controversy. One reason for the high level of participation that Feinberg and Biros saw was a lack of alternatives: most claimants could no longer sue, because the alleged acts of abuse lay outside the statute of limitations, which, at the time, required a person to make a claim of abuse by the age of twenty-three. Another reason was what Feinberg calls our lenient standards of evidence. In What Is Life Worth?, he described his ideal stance toward victims as compassionate and generous but not profligate. He maintains that compensation programs must pay on weak claims as well as strong ones, in order to lead to a collective sense of resolution. This strategy costs more, but it keeps dissension to a minimum. Its part compassion, part public relations. Drawing the line is tricky. In the 9/11 program, there was seldom any dispute that a claimants relative had been killed in a terrorist attack. In a claim of priestly sexual abuse, however, it is often hard to determine exactly what happened. Typically, the person who applies for compensation reports that he was sexually abused decades ago, without witnesses, by a priest who is dead, and offers corroborating material that wouldnt stand up in court. This is where lenient standards come in. What are we looking for? Biros said. Some form of documentation from before the program was announced: correspondence, a medical record. You told your therapist and the therapist made notes. You told your best friend: not as good, but well take it if the priest in question is a recidivist. She has reviewed claims for two decades, and she makes her assessments with confidence that a pretender or a scam artist wont slip through. When she and her staff meet claimants in person, she told me, we can tell in thirty seconds whether you are telling the truth. A claim is rejected, Biros said, mainly if there are no other claims against the priest and if there is no evidence for the claim other than the accusers recollections. In theory, by reviewing claims and setting compensation, I.R.C.P.s have freed the Church to take up reconciliation. In practice, Biros has done plenty of reconciling. Six decades after her own Catholic girlhood, in Brooklyn (We were not particularly devout, she says of her family), she has engaged personally with about two hundred claimants, either face to face, on the phone, or via Skype, doing the work of listening and reflecting that the bishops have struggled to perform credibly. We hear it said that all the cases are old cases, Feinberg said. But there are sixty-five-year-old men sobbing in Camilles office. These are people in damaged emotional states. Abuse at the hands of a priest was the defining experience of the Church in their lives, Biros said. Their families didnt believe them. They find themselves questioning their sexuality, their self-worth. We see P.T.S.D. We see people who have attempted suicide. In her view, this aspect of the I.R.C.P. model, in which claimants recount their experiences, is no small part of what it delivers. The program is limited but beneficial, she said. For the victims, the benefit is the ability to tell two individuals what happened and for us to believe that theyre telling the truth. It says to the victims, No more hiding. This happened. We believe you. Last year, a claimant told the New York I.R.C.P. that, in the early nineteen-seventies, he had been abused as an altar boy by Theodore McCarrick. The abuse took place in the sacristy of St. Patricks Cathedral on two successive Christmases. McCarrick, who was born and raised in upper Manhattan, served as secretary to Cardinal Terence Cooke, the archbishop of New York, and then rose in the hierarchy under four Popes: he was made a bishop by Paul VI; hosted John Paul IIs visit to Newark, in 1995; helped elect Benedict XVI, in 2005; and became a trusted emissary of Francis, representing the Church in informal negotiations with China and taking a hand in the selection of American archbishops. Since 2001, he had been a cardinal and the leader of the Washington, D.C., archdiocese. Throughout his episcopal career, he was trailed by talk that he routinely made seminarians under his supervision sleep in the same bed with him. That history was kept semi-suppressed until the former altar boy came forward to the New York I.R.C.P. Feinberg and Biros notified the archdioceses chief counsel, who went to Cardinal Dolan and notified the Manhattan district attorney. Dolan notified the Vatican and then initiated an internal investigation. The archdioceses review board for sexual abuse produced a report, which Dolan sent to Rome. It was the first claim we had involving a cardinal, Biros told me. And clearly the processes had to go beyond an internal, in-house investigation. It came to us, and it was a big deal, and it went up the chain, all the way to the Vatican. In June, when Cardinal Dolan announced the credible and substantiated claim against McCarrick, Cardinal Joseph Tobin, the archbishop of Newark, disclosed that the Archdiocese of Newark and the smaller Diocese of Metuchen had negotiated cash settlements in 2005 and 2007 with two former seminarians claiming abuse by McCarrick, and that the archdiocese was aware of a third. Meanwhile, a lawyer for the former altar boy in New York told the accusers story to the Times; soon afterward, a second accuser came forward and told the Times another appalling account. McCarrick, a family friend who had baptized him as an infant, began sexually abusing him in his teens. The abuse went on for many years, taking place in summer houses, a beach parking lot, hotels, cathedral rectories, and an apartment over Mount Sinai Hospital. A photograph accompanying the article showed McCarrick, who was about forty years old, and his teen-age victim in swimsuits, the mans arm around the boys waist. McCarrick was beaming. Once the story was out, Pope Francis and the Vaticans Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith responded decisively. Last summer, McCarrick was removed from the College of Cardinals and exiled to a friary in Kansas; earlier this year, he was laicizeddefrocked. A painful episode for the Church, it was a big win for the I.R.C.P. At a moment when it had become axiomatic that the Church was incapable of policing itself, a Church-sponsored program had pushed the archdiocese to acknowledge a truth that it might otherwise have continued to ignore. The result also had an unexpected benefit for the archdiocese, firming up Cardinal Dolans bona fides: he had established himself as a churchman willing to turn in a fellow-churchman for the greater good. Theodore McCarrick is now just another Catholic. His full history isnt out, however. We have a few more against McCarrick, Biros told me offhandedly. I asked how many. That I cant answer. But there are three more. I think we have a total of five. (Biros said later that the program had a total of seven claims against McCarrick. Barry Coburn, McCarricks lawyer, declined to comment.) The archdioceses files are subject to examination by the New York attorney general and by Barbara Jones, a retired judge and prosecutor whom Cardinal Dolan engaged, in September, to review the archdioceses practices on sexual abuse. No matter what their scrutiny turns up about McCarrick, it is clear that Feinberg and Biros compelled the Church to take action against a powerful prelate whom it had protected for decades. The Churchs response to abuse scandals has had false starts before, however. For thirty years, the Church has been doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that, James Marsh, an attorney who has represented many victims of clerical sexual abuse, told me. Skeptics wonder whether the I.R.C.P.s will prove to be just one more way for the Church to control information about abuse while admitting as little culpability as possible. Priestly sexual abuse first got widespread attention in 1985, when Jason Berry, a journalist and a Jesuit-educated Catholic from New Orleans, reported in depth on the issue in Louisiana. In AbbevilleCreole countryBerry sat in on the trial of Father Gilbert Gauthe, a priest of the Diocese of Lafayette who had sexually abused dozens of boys over a decade, while a bishop who knew of his behavior simply transferred him from parish to parish. In Washington, Father Thomas Doyle, an aide to the papal nuncio, followed the case against Gauthe, and concluded that priestly sexual abuse was more prevalent than the U.S. bishops realized. A few months later, with another priest and an attorney, Doyle produced a report called The Problem of Sexual Molestation by Roman Catholic Clergy. Doyle has since turned against the bishops and had a vibrant second career as an activist and an expert witness against the Church, but at the time he was a canon lawyer advising the bishops on how to deal with an imminent crisis. The report described priestly abuse as probably the single most serious and far reaching problem facing our Church today. Yet the real problem it identified was not that of priests sexually abusing children; it was the possible cost to the Catholic Church of many millions of dollars and the potential devastating injury to its image. The solution, then, was to devise a legal strategy to avoid discovery and testimony, and a public-relations strategy to cast the Church as a sensitive, caring and responsible entity which gives unquestioned attention and concern for the victims. Although the report was never officially sanctioned, the bishops adopted its approach, managing accusations of priestly abuse in secret. In the next decade and a half, the scope of the problem became impossible to minimize. Early in 2002, the Boston Globe published its Spotlight investigation, revealing patterns of abuse that implicated at least seventy priests, and establishing that Cardinal Bernard F. Law and his subordinates in the Boston archdiocese had disregarded warnings and repeatedly placed abusive priests in range of children. Cardinal Law sought to turn the controversy into a demonstration of his crisis-management prowess. He promised zero tolerance for such priests, visited parishes to apologize, and vowed that the archdiocese would commence reviewing the past in as systematic and comprehensive a way as possible. He said that he hoped his approach would become a model for how this issue should be handled. In April, 2002, Law and the other American cardinal archbishops went to Rome for an extraordinary summit on priestly sexual abuse, hosted by the Pope. ABCs Nightline devoted a program to the summit, featuring Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the archbishop of Washington, as the guest. Ted Koppel asked him if he was pleased with how things had gone. Mymy hope is that weve turned the corner, McCarrick said. The Holy Fathers talk yesterday, I think, made it very clear, as his language was, no one who is harming children or young people willwill ever be able to serve as a priest in the Church. And I think thats athats aa clear statement. What McCarrick offered was not a clear statement. It was a squirrelly evasion. He referred only to the example of a cleric who is harming young people in the present (not to one who did so in the past), and he referred only to priests (not to bishops or archbishops). That is, he phrased his answer to exclude the great majority of clerical abusers, himself first of all. Asked when an offender might be removed from the priesthood, McCarrick offered something like an inadvertent mea culpa for crimes not yet revealed: If thirty years ago, aa young priest fell in love with a seventeen-year-old andandand had improper conduct, and it was the last time this ever happened and everything worked out well after that, and the people get to know that he had done that and the people say, We love him. Give him another chance. Hes been fine for thirty years, then, I think, youd take a look at it. At a meeting in Dallas that June, the bishops adopted the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, affirming a commitment to transparency and openness and pledging that priests would be removed for even a single act of sexual abuse of a minorpast, present, or future. They also engaged John Jay College of Criminal Justice to conduct a study of priestly sexual abuse. Its report, released in February, 2004, presented a trove of data about abuse allegations across four decades. More than a third involved penetration or oral sex. Nearly a quarter involved abuse of children ten years old or younger. Bishops allowed most accused priests to continue in the ministry without treatment or discipline. The head of the bishops conference at the time, Wilton D. Gregory, the bishop of Belleville, Illinoisnamed the archbishop of Washington last weekpresented the report in reductive, Church-protecting terms. The terrible history recorded here is history, he said. Nationally, Catholics attention to priestly abuse flagged. Pope John Paul II, eighty-three and afflicted with Parkinsons disease, was failing physically, and the urgency of change within the Church in the United States was displaced by the imminence of change within the Church in Rome. When the Pope died, in 2005, traditionalist Catholics called for him to be canonized, and he was, within eight years. His indulgence of Father Marcial MacielLegion of Christ founder, serial child abuser, the subject of formal complaints submitted to and buried by the Vatican in 1998was seen as a peccadillo. Today, two Popes later, bishops ritually invoke both the Dallas Charter and the John Jay report as transformative moments in the Churchs handling of abuse. But the bishops havent reckoned with the question of restitution systematically or as a group; instead, they have operated in patchwork fashion, through their various compensation programs and other efforts. And they have declined to address the problem of priestly sexual abuse in frank human terms. Instead, they have fallen back on the very practice that enabled abusive priests to thrive: dealing with sexual conflict through a blend of prudery, euphemism, and evasion. The Dallas Charter did not name a single act of abuse, relegating the crime itself to a footnote about delicts (a Latin term used by canon law for any sort of violation). The John Jay report, full of tables and totals, addressed no specific incidents, stressing the need to preserve the anonymity of priests and their alleged victims. Again and again, the bishops vowed to solve a grave problem that they wouldnt describe. This habit of evasion has carried over into the bishops posture toward their own reconciliation-and-compensation programs. The programs are expressly designed to elicit claimants accounts of particular acts of abuse. They place no restriction on the freedom of claimants to speak about what priests did to them. Camille Biros pointed out to me that this means claimants can tell peopleincluding members of the mediathat their accounts of abuse have been validated by an independent entity and by the Church itself. Cardinal Tobin, the archbishop of Newark, told me that the programs are a means for the voices of victims to be heard by the whole Church. With the I.R.C.P.s, then, the Churchwhich, in the Dallas Charter, sixteen years ago, generally swore off gag clausesis taking credit for allowing survivors to exercise their right to speak and is touting that right as a benefit of the programs. Meanwhile, Feinberg, Biros, and the bishops categorically decline to address particular claims that come in through the programsexcept when the accusations are made against active priests. Last October, a claim of sexual abuse made through the New York I.R.C.P. led to the departure of John Jenik, a Bronx pastor who had been made an auxiliary bishop in 2014. Although the archdioceses review board judged the claim credible and substantiated, Cardinal Dolan, in a pastoral letter announcing the departure, essentially came to Jeniks defense. He noted that the alleged incidents occurred decades ago, and that this was the first time any such allegation had been made against Jenik, who insisted on his innocence and, Dolan suggested, was not being removed but was stepping down voluntarily, loyal priest that he is. Of the abuse itself, Dolan said nothing. That fell to the survivor, Michael Meenan, who, in a press conference outside St. Patricks Cathedral, described Jeniks taking him, as a teen-ager, to X-rated movies, getting him drunk, and sleeping in the same bed with him at the priests cottage upstate. The John Jay report found that many victims of priestly sexual abuse had come to know their future abuser outside of church, often because he was a friend of the family. This is a truth well known to American Catholics. For us, priestly sexual abuse and its concealment is not an episode from history or a sociological phenomenon. It is part of our personal story. My fathers father was a monument dealer, working with cemeteries in upstate New York, and my fathers maternal uncle, Robert F. Joyce, was the bishop of Burlington, Vermont. My father went to a Catholic seminary and then entered the civil service. In 1963, Bishop Joyce, fresh from Rome and the Second Vatican Council, officiated at my parents wedding, at St. Peters Church, in Saratoga Springs. The happiest day of your grandfathers life, that was, with the bishop up on the altar, my uncle Bill told me. My uncle Eddie, an altar boy that day, was less happy in the Church. Years later, he told his sister that Father Joseph DiMaggio, who taught in the parish school, had nuzzled his face. When Eddie went home and told his father about it, his father told him never to speak that way about a priest again. The church of my childhood, in a suburb of Albany, was oblong, carpeted, and brightly lit. Unknown to most of us in the parish, a priest who served there, Gary Mercure, was a sexual abuser: in 2011, he was convicted of raping two boys in the nineteen-eighties, during trips to rural Massachusetts. When I enrolled at Fordham University, in 1983, there were nearly a hundred Jesuits in residence, and I came to know a dozen of them, ranging in age from a septuagenarian English professor who was saving Finnegans Wake for Heaven to the baby Jebbies, in their twenties. As a sophomore, I volunteered at a Catholic community center run by Father Joseph Towle, S.J., in the South Bronx. Father Towle was a street priest, trim and no-nonsense in his clerical blacks. He was later accused of abusing a boy back in 1971. During my junior year, I had a more direct encounter with priestly abuse. I had fallen under the spell of Thomas Merton, the author of The Seven Storey Mountain and other books of Catholic spirituality, grounded in the discipline of silent self-emptying called contemplation. When I spotted a flyer for a Saturday retreat dedicated to Merton, led by Father Edward Zogby, S.J., I signed up. Shortly after the retreat, Zogby offered to guide me in spiritual directiona centuries-old Jesuit tradition. I accepted, and after that we met weekly, in the evenings. He was fifty, large, and bald, and he dressed in an oxford shirt and tie rather than a black suit and Roman collar. He would close the office door, hug me, and pour two Scotches while we talked. He spoke of his wish to combine contemplation with the body work of Werner Erhard. He said that many of us Catholics had trouble integrating spirit and body, and that it took years to work these things out. We closed our eyes and prayed side by side in the small office. Wasnt that good? he would ask before I left. It was clear to me where things were going, but Father Zogby liked to say that the first step in the contemplative life was letting go of preconceptions and expectationsso I pushed my suspicions aside. On a Monday in MarchSt. Patricks Day, 1986I met again with Father Zogby, and he invited me to a dinner party that evening at the West Side Jesuit Community, on Ninety-eighth Street. For once, other people would be around. I said I would go. A Scotch, a prayer, another Scotch. When I arrived at the party, a little drunk, I sat down in an easy chair away from the other guests and dozed. I woke up with Father Zogby bent over me, breath Scotchy and near, hands advancingneck, arms, chest, penis. I sprang up and speed-walked to the subway. I never met with him again. I was married at St. Patricks Old Cathedral, on Mott Street, in 1999. The celebrant, Keith Fennessy, was a friend of a friend; he had served at St. Gabriels parish in the North Bronx, where my fiance had grown up. Father Fennessy was smart, funny, distinctly Catholic, but not self-righteous or condescending toward women. It was a surprise when, sixteen years later, the archdiocese removed him from public ministry, saying that he had downloaded pornography onto a parish computer. In Rome, in 2005, reporting on the Vatican, I had a caff granita in Trastevere with Cardinal George Pell, the archbishop of Sydney (recently convicted of sexually abusing two minors at St. Patricks Cathedral in Melbourne); had lunch with a Jesuit priest accused of inappropriate conduct toward a teen-age student before joining the order; and had a long interview with Cardinal McCarrick at the Pontifical North American College, the finishing school for ambitious American clerics in the making. It was a holiday in Italy, and the seminarians had no classes. Lets sit here, by the window, so we can watch the boys play baseball while we talk, McCarrick said. Thats eight clerics accused of sexual misconduct in my personal experienceeight out of the couple of hundred priests that I have known. Eight out of two hundred is four per cent, which matches the percentage of priests who have been accused, according to the John Jay report. That my experience is typical doesnt make it any less disturbing. Three of those clerics are dead, two are in prison, one was defrocked, one has agreed to leave the priesthood, and one is still in active ministry, in Rome. I repeat the mantra that committed Catholics have repeated for a third of a century: Remember the good ones, the priests we know who strive to live holy lives. How to sort the good ones from the bad onesthe saved from the damnedis a question that religions exist to answer. And yet my personal history suggests that theres no clear way to know who the good ones are. My great-uncle, Bishop Joyce, of Burlington, was one of the good ones; he was a staunch advocate for workers rights, served as a trustee of the state university, sent handwritten notes to my siblings and me for two decades, and elicited our best behavior during Sunday dinners at our house, a bishops pectoral cross swagged across his chest and a twinkle in his eye. But, during the years that he took part in Vatican II, in Rome, the Catholic orphanage on North Avenue in Burlington was a house of horrors. Nuns allegedly disciplined children entrusted to them in a manner best described as torturebeating them with sticks and paddles, confining them in closets, pushing them out of high windows, making them eat their own vomitand sexually abused them. I learned about the orphanage last August, when BuzzFeed published a report. A photograph showed Bishop Joyce, in cassock and biretta, standing in front of a Christmas tree with children on each side. He was a lifelong Vermonter who knew every parish in the state. Either he was aware of the abuses at the orphanage and abided them or he ought to have been aware but remained in willful ignorance. The Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program of the Brooklyn diocese received two hundred and eighty new claims of abuse in about fifteen months, beginning in October, 2017. One of them, according to the diocese, involved Christopher Lee Coleman, the priest whose 2011 removal had caught my eye because he had been in residence at a church not far from where I live. Colemans ouster epitomized the Churchs classic mode of coverup: hed been removed from active ministry without any explanation to the parish, the diocese revealing the underlying accusation of abuse only years later. Then, last fall, the diocese issued a warning to the faithful, posted online and published in the diocesan newspaper, the Tablet, declaring that Coleman was still acting as a priest and wearing clerical attire. I found the outlines of the ex-priests career visible on social media. He had a Twitter account and a LinkedIn profile. On a Facebook page, Coleman had written, I live a vowed life. He listed a Ph.D. in sociology from CUNY and ten years of teaching sociology at St. Josephs College, in Clinton Hill. The Catholic Directory indicated that Coleman was assigned to six New York parishes after he was ordained, in 1994: St. Rose of Lima, in Far Rockaway; Blessed Virgin Mary Help of Christians, in Woodside; St. AnnSt. George, in Vinegar Hill; Our Lady of MonserrateSt. Ambrose and St. Martin de Porres, in Bedford-Stuyvesant; and Queen of All Saints, near St. Josephs College and the gated mansion that is the residence of the bishop of Brooklyn, Nicholas DiMarzio. I called Raymond DAngelo, the chair of the social-sciences department at St. Josephs. He told me that he had found out about Coleman the same way I hadfrom a news story, six years after Coleman left. At the time, Coleman told him he had to deal with a medical issue and was going for treatment for that. Then I paid a visit to Father Joseph Ceriello, the pastor of Queen of All Saints, where Coleman was in residence until 2010. Ceriello, a Navy man, is sixty-seven and tightly built, with broad shoulders and thick graying hair. Coleman was living here when I came, in 2009, he said. The two priests ate separately; Father Coleman left early, returned late, kept to his room, and had no clerical duties at the church, apart from a mens prayer group he was said to lead nearby. I hardly saw him, Ceriello told me. Ive had more words with you just now than I had with him the whole time he was here. One day, Ceriello said, Coleman left, carrying out his belongings with another man. Ceriello said he didnt know, but assumed Coleman was changing residences: Its not my business to ask why or what the reason was. In the Dallas Charter, bishops pledged to inform parishioners when a priest was removed owing to abuse allegations, in case any children were, or had been, in danger. But, if Father Ceriellos account was accurate, the diocese removed Father Coleman from the ministry owing to credible abuse allegations and never informed the people of the parish where he livednot even the pastor. I called Sister Sally Butler, who, during her seventy years as a member of the Dominican Order, provided social services and pastoral care in Fort Greenes housing projects. Oh, I knew Chris, she said. I liked him. He was very, very bright. Butler said that when he was serving at the now demolished St. AnnSt. George, near the Navy Yard, he was the only adult who engaged with the community. She didnt, but she recalled an episode in which he was in the rectory, and there were several boys there, playing, African-American children. She found the sight disturbing. The next time she saw him, she recalled, he said to me, Sally, theyre telling me that I have too many young boys around me at the house. When I spoke to the communications person at the diocesan headquarterscalled the chancery, as it is the office of the chancellor, or record keeperit was proposed that I sit down with the chancellor himself, Monsignor Anthony Hernandez. The chancery is housed in a plain brick building near Prospect Park. I met Hernandez there one morning last November. He is fifty, of Puerto Rican heritage, and stocky, with thinning hair. He told me that Coleman had been a classmate of his at a diocesan seminary in Huntington, Long Island, and that they had seen each other in passing during their first parish postings in Brooklyn. Frequent reassignment is often a sign that a priest has a problem, such as substance abuse or sexual misconduct. I asked why Coleman had been moved so often. Im not sure what specific issue caused him to change assignments, he said. I asked whether any of the issues had to do with sex, and he told me that pornography had been spotted on a computer Coleman used at St. Rose of Lima, in the nineties. It wasnt criminal, but it certainly wasnt appropriate, Hernandez said. He then told me that someone called a sex-abuse hotline in 2009 and said that, on multiple occasions, Coleman had given him money for physical contactColeman wanted his stomach rubbedand taken pictures of him and his friends without clothes, supposedly for artistic reasons. According to the caller, this started when he was a student of Colemans at LaGuardia High School and continued past Colemans ordination as a priest. I was surprisedI wouldnt have expected it, Hernandez said. He was the kind of guy who always projected himself as an intellectual, a very spiritual guy, a very prayerful guy. He told me that, after the hotline accusation, diocese officials called Coleman in for a meeting. They then examined Colemans personal computer and found pornographic images on it. They appeared to be of minors, Hernandez said. But, when we brought it to law enforcement, they said it would be very difficult to prove. After the dioceses review board recommended Colemans removal, the diocese decided to go further and ask the Vatican to defrock him. Because it was difficult to prove that he had committed a delict, we began to pressure him. He got a canon lawyer. We wanted him to go voluntarily, but we threatened him with a canonical trial. Coleman eventually gave in and left the priesthood. We did not have, at the time, a person who was accusing him as a cleric, Hernandez said. So we went back and forth about an announcement, because we had some concern that he might turn around and sue us. It was a liability concern, then. I said, Its reasonable for the Catholic people to expect after the Charter that, if a priest had been laicized for a problem having to do with sexuality and minors, the pastor of the church from which he is removed is notified. Yeah, its not unreasonable. So, correspondingly, if the diocese did not do that, then thats wrong? I can see why you would see it that way. I told Hernandez that Id been raising three sons in the neighborhood. The absence of a public announcementthe fact that Id found out only years later, in the newspapertroubled me. Its a very complicated case, Hernandez said. I had been following Coleman through Twitter and the Facebook page of the Hermitage of Peacea convent of sorts in Ashford, Connecticut, which, until recently, was maintained by two elderly nuns. (One died a few months ago.) According to the Hartford Courant, the two women were estranged from the Church; they have been accused of maintaining the pretense of a religious institution, which does not have to pay property taxes. I called a phone number on the Facebook page and reached Coleman. He told me that during the week he lives in New York City and acts as a spiritual guide to people in need. On weekends, he joins the remaining nun and an eighty-one-year-old monk at the Hermitage of Peace. I asked him about the dioceses claim of sexual misconduct that led to his laicization. He replied that the allegation was false, but that the bishop refused to give him due process; he checked into St. Lukes, a treatment center in Maryland, as the diocese requested, but when he was discharged the diocese would not take him back, and it withdrew his stipend and benefits. I asked again about the claim of sexual abuse. I never abused anybody, he said. The allegation is a false one. What I saw on the computer was not mine. They put it there. If it was child pornography, I would have been arrested. The allegation is based on a lie, and I cannot accept a lie. Later, I brought up the fresh claim against him that the Brooklyn diocese said had come in through the I.R.C.P. I dont know anything about it, he said. Theres nothing there. Feinberg and Biross work in New York State is well advanced: thirteen hundred and forty-seven claims made across five dioceses, eighty-seven deemed ineligible by the program, eleven hundred and twenty-nine paid, sixty-eight payments not yet accepted by the claimants, five payments rejected by the claimants. More than two hundred and fifteen million dollars has been distributed to victims. Meanwhile, the legal context in which such compensation programs operate is changing. The New York statute of limitations was as solid as the granite those old city churches were built withuntil it wasnt, Paul Mones, a California attorney who has worked on many suits involving priestly sexual abuse in New York, told me. In November, Democrats were elected to the New York State Legislature in a blue wave; in January, the legislature passed the Child Victims Act, a revision of the statute of limitations that the bishops, through their policy arm, the New York State Catholic Conference, had spent years lobbying against. Under the new law, people have until the age of fifty-five (rather than twenty-three) to make a claim, and people of any age will be allowed to make a claim during a one-year look-back window, set to begin in August. Anyone victimized by priests during the peak years of abuse will soon be able to sue the Churchunless the person has signed away the right to sue through an I.R.C.P. or some other settlement. Joseph Zwilling, the archdioceses spokesman, said, The I.R.C.P. was established to help victims of abuse, and for no other reason. But the attorneys who tangle with the Church on sex-abuse claims are skeptical. For the Church, this is business, Patrick Noaker, who represents two McCarrick accusers, told me. Reconciliation is just language. Marci Hamilton, a legal scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, who has worked to reform the statutes of limitations in various states, thinks that the programs are essentially premptive. Seeing the train down the track, they decided to try to pre-settle even out-of-statute casesa smart move, in my view, she told me. But the funds do not deliver the ultimate good to the public: the release of the truth through discovery and the release of records documenting the Churchs coverup and callous disregard for children. Mitchell Garabedian put it more bluntly: Look, Dolan is using the I.R.C.P. as a shield to avoid the release of documents and get publicity. Garabedian nonetheless supports the programs as an option for clients who wish to avoid the cost and stress of litigation. This approach to sex abuse in the Church treats the priests as the problem, Paul Mones told me, when really its the whole ecclesiastical structure that is the problem. On April 1st, New Jersey revised its own statute of limitations for sex crimes, enabling people claiming abuse in past decades to sue. The New Jersey I.R.C.P. will be launched in June. Now victims will have a choice, Biros told me. The Church could wind up offering to pay a claimant through the I.R.C.P., having its offer refused, and defending itself against the same allegation in court. Critics say that bishops have already found a simple way to resolve such tension between the determinations of independent compensation programs and those of the Church: by making sure that the programs are not truly independent. Claimants lawyers stress that Feinberg and Biros are paid by the Church and communicate with a dioceses review board, an arrangement that, the lawyers say, can enable the dioceses to shape outcomes. In 2017, Thomas Davis, a man in his fifties, asserted that he had been abused in the nineteen-seventies by Father Otto Garcia, who later served as vicar general and is now the pastor of St. Joan of Arc parish, in Jackson Heights. (Garcia has denied all of Daviss allegations.) The claim went to the Brooklyn dioceses review board, which interviewed Davis twice and found the accusation not credible. An attorney for the diocese wrote to Daviss counsel, J. Michael Reck, that, accordingly, Mr. Davis is not eligible to participate in the IRCP. Its a Texas two-step, Reck told me. The programs supposedly independent of the diocese, but the diocese determines whether you are eligible or ineligible for the program. The following year, Reck did in fact apply to the I.R.C.P., which reviewed the claim twice and rejected it both times. The Daily News then told Daviss story, implying that Garcia had been given a pass owing to his stature in the diocese. Biros told me that the program makes its own decisions, with the review boards findings as only one factor. The I.R.C.P. denied Daviss claim, she wrote to me in an e-mail, because 1) There was no supporting documentation to corroborate the abuse; 2) There are no other allegations of sexual abuse of a minor against this priest; and 3) There was a finding of Unsubstantiated and Not Credible by the outside investigators for the Diocese. Contested accounts like Daviss point to a quandary thats bound to arise in the case of events that took place years ago: when the truth of what happened cant be known for certain, it is hard for justice to be done. Even now, the Church takes shelter in this gray area. In recent months, several Catholic dioceses have responded to outside scrutiny by issuing lists of priests who have been credibly accused of sexually abusing minors. Its a gesture of seeming transparency, but the lists are actuarially spare: name of priest, dates of parish assignments, year of accusation, year of alleged incident, action taken. The lists dont say what the priests did or where or when, and theyre probably incomplete. The list for Illinois names a hundred and eighty-five priests; the former state attorney general Lisa Madigan counted six hundred and ninety accused priests. Either way, the numbers suggest a dismaying order of magnitude. The list for Texas named two hundred and eighty-six priests, the list for New Jersey a hundred and eighty-eight priests. The list for the Diocese of Brooklyn named a hundred and eight priests and deacons; a quick cross-check suggested that five had served at St. Boniface, now the Brooklyn Oratory, where I go to Mass these daysFathers Thomas F. Brady, Brian Callahan, Francis Gillen, Webster J. McCue, and George Wilders. (The Brooklyn diocese defines credible accusations as those its officials believe may be true.) The Jesuits U.S.A. Northeast Province released a list of fifty-five credibly accused priests in January. Among them was Father Joseph Towlethe priest who ran the community center where I volunteered in college, and who later co-founded a tuition-free middle school, St. Ignatius. I called the province and was put in touch with Father Philip Judge. Father Towle, he told me, had been impeded in 2002when the Church took action against a number of priests suspected of abuseand was removed as principal at St. Ignatius. After that, he said, Towle lived at the infirmary for elderly Jesuits on the Fordham campus and engaged in internal ministry. He died in 2016. I said that I had worked with Towle and wanted to know what he had done. Father Judge wouldnt say. Father Edward Zogby died in 2011. He appears on no such lists. I never made an allegation against him, and, as Biros explained to me, mine was not a claim that would have merited her attention. The moment you said you were twenty, you were out, she said. We probably wouldnt even have sent you a form. When Feinberg served as special master of the 9/11 fund, he was struck by how many relatives were determined to tell him their stories of the dead, and his book about the experience is vivid and persuasive in part because their voices are heard on nearly every page. The independent compensation programs set up for the Church are also rooted in the power of storiesin the human desire to know what happened and to tell others about it. Such programs allow survivors of priestly sex abuse to speak and to feel that they have been heard. Many tell their stories to Biros, directly and at length. Unfortunately, the process generally stops there. In order to regain its legitimacy in the short term, the Church is farming out the work of judgment and moral renewal on which its long-term legitimacy depends. The I.R.C.P. captures the survivors stories, prophylactically, rather than entering them into the public record. The act of reckoning ends where it ought to begin. I asked Feinberg and Biros if the Church hadnt, in effect, placed the burden of grappling with its history in the hands of lay experts. I think thats right, Biros said. Absolutely right, Feinberg said. Ill defer to you on that. That ones beyond my pay grade. Later, I asked Biros what would happen to the I.R.C.P. records. She told me that they would be retained for a period of time, set by standard operating practices, and then destroyed. What the Church calls a crisis consists of thousands of criminal acts, including rape, molestation, harassment, and violation. Its disturbing to think that the survivors accounts of those actswhich priests did what and where and whenbecome dead letters in the Willard Office Building, where a program framed as an instrument of reconciliation enables the Church to perform one last feat of evasion. Its like something out of a story by Pope Franciss Argentine acquaintance Jorge Luis Borges: the personal, generation-spanning accounts of priestly abuse in the United States all going to their final resting place in two claims examiners heads. In 2007, Timothy Dolan, then the archbishop of Milwaukee, moved nearly fifty-seven million dollars from the archdioceses books into a trust fund for the perpetual care of Catholic cemeteries in Milwaukee. Documents later released by the archdiocese show that he told the Vatican that the transfer would shield the money from any legal claim and liability. (A spokesperson for the archdiocese said that the money was always held in trust in a separate account designated for cemetery maintenance; Dolan simply formalized this relationship by establishing an official trust.) Twelve years later, Cardinal Dolan has paid out more than sixty-three million dollars in compensation to survivors of priestly sexual abuse through the I.R.C.P. of the New York archdiocese. I spoke to him at the archbishops residence, a Gothic Revival mansion toward the back of St. Patricks Cathedral. In the middle of the last century, when Cardinal Francis Spellman was archbishopand a confrre of J. Edgar Hoover, Joseph McCarthy, and Pope Pius XIIthe residence was known as the Powerhouse. Today, the power of the office is diminished, but the trappings remain: high ceilings, broad staircases, a grandfather clock that rings on the quarter-hour. Cardinal Dolan, a native Missourian, gave the benediction at President Trumps Inauguration, and once joined the Rockettes kick line at Radio City Music Hall. At sixty-nine, he is a large man, slimmed by black clothes; he wears eyeglasses with severe black frames. We sat in a salon featuring an oil portrait of Cardinal John OConnor, the late New York archbishop. Dolan told me of arriving in New York a decade ago, and wishing to enact a spirit of reconciliation around priestly sexual abuse akin to the spirit of unity he had seen in the city after 9/11. It was a festering wound here, he said. Thats not to criticize my predecessorI think he did a very effective job, but it was still a huge wound on the mystical body of Christ. He engaged Feinberg and Biros, known for independence, because, look, as much as it bothers me to admit it, a lot of people, and a lot of victims, dont trust the archdiocese. They say, Anything that youre running: forget it! I mentioned Cardinal McCarrick as an example of the programs success. Dolan replied, I dont like to brag about it, dont like to trumpet it, but, since you said it, I would say yes, bingo, youre right. A victim had the courage and the trust to say, Im gonna take Dolan at his word, Im gonna come forward with something thats been haunting me for, what, a half century almost, and they took it very seriously. You tend to overuse the exclamation point. I pointed to the portrait of Cardinal OConnor. The question is: What did he know? I asked, and cited a report that OConnor, on his deathbed, had sought to block the appointment of McCarrick to Washington. Can we expect Barbara Jones to look at that? I pressed, referring to the retired judge Dolan had retained to conduct an internal review. Is it part of her purview? I had not heard that, Dolan said, of the OConnor report, and explained that, after hiring Jones to review the archdioceses policies on sexual abuse, he added McCarrick to her mandate: I was, like, Oh, brother, now I gotta investigate this. I didnt undermine it, Dolan said. But, just as I have an obligation to the victim, I also have an obligation to listen to the priestwere dealing with a very good priest who did this. What did Bishop Jenik do that led to a credible and substantiated allegation against him? I know, but I dont feel free to talk about the details of it. Why not? Im not surewe can. What he did was a violation of the Dallas Charter. You removed a bishop for a violation that you cant discuss? Its hardly secretive. The victim will tell you. I said, Youve asked, Why dont my people believe me? Well, I think part of the reason is that youve outsourced the telling of the story to the victims and the attorneys. You cant say in plain English what he did? No. Well, I could, but Im not going to. | https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/15/what-do-the-churchs-victims-deserve |
Who Belongs in Prison? | Nothing has changed more in the past couple of decades than attitudes toward the crisis of incarceration in America. What was largely an invisible civilization of confinementmillions of men and women locked up for, cumulatively, millions of yearsis now a commonplace concern. Everyone running for the Democratic nomination pays lip service to the need to address mass incarceration, and what were once essential political instinctsto side with the police and the prosecutors in every instance, to get tough on crimehave become, at the very least, negotiable. We have gone from Lock em up! to Lock em up? to Set em loose!, all in a relatively short time. One reason for these changed attitudes is the great crime decline, a falling arc that meant that, for the first time in decades, ordinary citizens could care more about the consequences of imprisonment than they did about the threat of violent crime. Circles of compassion can grow in the absence of everyday fear: safer subways make for an expanded conscience. But there has been an ongoing argument about what, exactly, is responsible for the surge in incarceration. For a long time, the consensus blamed three-strike laws, mandatory minimum sentences, stop-and-frisk, and the rest of the oppressive apparatus of panicked anti-crime policy. Then, just two years ago, the law professor John Pfaff made the argument, persuasively, that the key factor was simply prosecutorial overreach. There were too many prosecutors who had the astounding freedom to indict anyone more or less as they chose, and who could so overcharge the indicted that plea bargains were forced upon good and bad alike, as confessions were once forced by the Inquisition. By handing enormous discretion to prosecutorssome of them, by the standards of the rest of the world, properly described as politicians, elected to their office and sensitive to voters needs, including a metric of success linked to putting people in jailwe had given them the freedom to imprison whomever they wished for as long as they liked. All but about five per cent of criminal cases are resolved by plea bargains, and never go to trial. In the vast majority of cases, Pfaff observed, in his book Locked In, inmates ended up behind bars by signing a piece of paper in a dingy conference room in a county office building. After 1990, as the crime rate began to fall, the number of line prosecutors soared, and so did the number of the incarcerated. Fewer offenses, more designated offenders. Now the legal journalist and Times Magazine staff writer Emily Bazelon, in her book Charged (Random House), puts flesh and faces to Pfaffs statistical and largely abstract proposition. Charged, though far-reaching in purpose, is above all a study of two cases in which prosecutorial misconduct or overreach put two people through hell. She tells these stories in microscopic detail, analyzing the background of each bizarre stop along the infernal circlewhy bail is so hard to get and why it exists at all; why public defenders are often so inadequatein a way that allows the specific case stories to become general truths. Her book achieves what in-depth first-person reporting should: it humanizes the statistics, makes us aware that every courtroom involves the bureaucratic regimentation of an individuals life. She has a good ear for talk, and a fine eye for detail; at one point she makes the slightly hallucinatory discovery that the recently elected Brooklyn D.A., Eric Gonzalez, chose his career path after reading Tom Wolfes The Bonfire of the Vanities as a teen-agernot an obvious book to point someone on a path toward public service. (He was fascinated not by the deep cynicism of Wolfes view but by the way that the D.A. in the novel is able, heroically, to even things up with a Master of the Universeproof, again, that we find in books what we want to find in books.) Yet, though Bazelons larger points about the madness of prosecutorial power are all impeccably well taken, the two central cases she uses to illustrate these points are somewhat surprising choices. It wouldnt be hard to find, among the tens of thousands of cases that are plea-bargained in New York City alone every year, one in which a poor kid is penalized by a law thats out of all proportion to the offensethere are kids who get locked up for drug offenses that in nearby states are no longer even misdemeanors. But Bazelon has written about a twenty-year-old black New Yorker, whom she calls Kevin, who has been arrested for the illegal possession of a loaded handgun and, given his particular charge, was subject to two years of imprisonment, the mandatory minimum stipulated by New Yorks strict anti-handgun laws. Kevin may well have been, as he insists and as Bazelon accepts, little more than an innocent third party to the gun offenseholding the gun for friends rather than using it, or intending to use it, in the commission of a crime. But his prospective sentence was not simply a result of prosecutorial overreach; it was an unintended outcome of well-intended efforts at gun control. Gun violence is an especially brutal plague in poor and minority neighborhoods, and Bazelon acknowledges that Bill de Blasio, the citys most progressive mayor in decades, has been even more rigorous than his predecessors in encouraging these mandatory-minimum gun-possession indictments. Its also true that, on the evidence, there was nothing to be gained by having Kevin in jail for two years, and that his life could well have been maimed as a result. Bazelon suggests that greater prosecutorial discretion is needed in enforcing a law that can unduly punish a kid like Kevinindeed, she points out that in some jurisdictions in the city theres a healthy unspoken understanding that kids like Kevin wont be charged under the law, using various wiggle-room maneuvers to get them out. A certain irony of this case is that our sense of justice here demands not less but more prosecutorial discretionmore power to charge or not to charge. Remedying the injustice that the law may produce means adding ever more layers of adjudication. In a book about how the punishment of mere misdemeanors can have life-altering consequences, Punishment Without Crime (Basic), Alexandra Natapoff calls this process net widening: it includes the attempts, which Bazelon tracks in Kevins case, to move his offense out of the normal criminal courts and into a special diversion program. This adds bureaucratic labyrinth to unjust arrest. Each of these reforms makes room for more people in the system, Natapoff, a law professor at U.C. Irvine, writes. Kevins case is less an example of reckless prosecution than it is an example of the unbreakable rule of unintended consequences. A well-meant law caught the wrong kid. The central case in Bazelons book was the subject of a Times Magazine article that she published in 2017, from which the book evidently grew. Its the case of Noura Jackson, in Memphis, who was convicted in 2009 of brutally murdering her mother, Jennifer Jackson, a thirty-nine-year-old investment banker, and given a sentence of some twenty years. Noura, as Bazelon calls her, served nine years in prison before the Tennessee Supreme Court found that prosecutorial misconduct had been significant enough to overturn the verdict, and ordered a new trial. (After another year, she was then effectively released on time served.) The Shelby County prosecutor, Amy Weirich, had kept a potentially helpful witness statement from the defense, and, in effect, berated Jackson in her summation for not testifyingan outrageous violation of Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination. The case was a strange one. Noura Jackson, then eighteen, claimed that, after a night of partying, she returned home and discovered her mothers bleeding body at around five oclock in the morning. Jennifer Jackson, it turned out, had been stabbed fifty timesinstantly marking her murder, to law enforcement, as a crime of rage, almost certainly committed by someone who knew the victim well, rather than as a crime of convenience or a burglary gone wrong. One can argue about whether these profiling generalizations are empirically sound, but they are prevalent. And so suspicion fell on Noura, particularly after a relative maintained that Noura had quarrelled with her mother about the dispensation of her estranged fathers estate. (In a stranger-than-cable-television detail, Nouras father, who ran a convenience store, had been murdered the year before, and surveillance video showed his killers ransacking the store in what appeared to be a desperate search for some unknown object.) All in all, the case was as atypical as any case can be. Most plea bargaining and imprisonment are, as Pfaff argued and as Bazelon agrees, destructive because invisible; this case, involving the murder of a white middle-class woman in strange circumstances, was anything but. Far from being resolved in one of those dingy rooms Pfaff writes about, this was a hugely publicized, Nancy Grace-style Court TV case, steadily sensationalized by the media. The most damning piece of evidence was a 4 a.m. visit that Noura made on the night of the murder to a Walgreens, where she bought hydrogen peroxide, bandages, and liquid skin, and asked a clerk for a paper towel to help stanch her bleeding hand. This seemed, to the prosecutors, all the more incriminating because Noura at first failed to mention the incident to the police, while her later explanations of how and where she had injured her hand changed often and in suspicious ways. At one point, she insisted that she had burned it while making macaroni and cheese, despite its having been freshly bleeding on the night of the murder. In a call taped by the police, her mothers sister asked Noura where she was that night, and she answered, I dont know. (Noura tells Bazelon that her aunts had always been prejudiced against her because her father was Lebanese.) Bazelon further notes that none of Nouras DNA was found at the scene, and that her manicured hands were otherwise immaculate. She also mentions a rumor that the murders of both of Nouras parents were linked by her fathers alleged participation in a prostitution ring. Especially difficult to explain is the evidencewhich Weirich referred to in a letter that she sent to the Times in response to Bazelons piece, and which the paper never printedof a phone call from inside the Jackson house to a close friend of Nouras at 12:59 a.m., presumably right around the time of the murder, followed, ten minutes later, by a call from Nouras cell phone to the same friend. It is hard to see why the mother would have phoned someone who was a stranger to her, and more plausible that it was Noura who first used the landline before switching to her cell. If so, Noura was at least inside the house, which she had denied, around the time of the murder. The matter of her innocence, then, may be less certain than Bazelon supposes. Certainly, no one else has ever been accused of the crime, nor, it seems, has there been even a plausible second suspect. Weirich might well have secured a conviction even if she hadnt broken the rules. But she did. Theres no doubt that Noura Jackson became, at trial, the victim of prosecutorial misconduct. Noura had been counselled by her lawyer not to testifyshe was on antidepressants, and, anyway, defense attorneys are generally reluctant to allow their clients, however innocent, to be grilled by a skilled prosecutorand Weirich shamefully took advantage of Nouras silence to poison the minds of the jurors. Just tell us where you were, she shouted. Thats all were asking, Noura! Weirich concealed from the defense a statement by a friend of Nouras in which he said that he had been high on Ecstasy on the evening in question and contradicted an earlier account, which had made it seem that Noura had been trying to contrive a coverup. The prosecutorial abuse here arose not from bureaucratic callousness but from a very different psychological process: passionate personal conviction. Because Weirich was absolutely convinced of Nouras guilt, she was prepared to go to almost any length to convince the jury of what she believed to be true. Theres a curious logic to the way the lurid and memorable Jackson case stands in for so many other instances of prosecutorial overreach. We tend to understand common experience through the symbolic form of uncommon experience. Indeed, American cultural history could probably be parcelled out as a sequence of sensational murder cases. There was nothing remotely typical about the Manson murders or, for that matter, about the O. J. Simpson case, but one came to stand for the disillusion and decline of sixties hippie innocence, the other for the enduring American racial divide. A history of America told through its murders is sensitive to the mood of each period. Its perhaps significant that, in the nineteen-sixties, questions of misconduct were usually tied to the behavior of the policethis magazine ran a three-part piece detailing police misconduct in the once famous Career Girl Murders of 1963while these days we focus on the prosecutors, implicating the systems managers, not simply its laborers. Charged is meant to, and does, provoke pity and terror in us at the sheer inhumanity of all imprisonment. Especially because Bazelon conveys a sense of Nouras innocence as a thing proven, her account of the long years of Nouras imprisonmenther desperate search for normalcy, decencywill make you weep to read. A small charm in her brutal years of confinement is that she was befriended by another inmate, Octavia Cartwright, who seems precisely the kind of person the system most casually brutalizes. After breaking into a womans home in search of drugs and beating the woman unconscious with the butt of a gun, Cartwright refused a plea bargain that would have given her a twenty-five-year sentence for the nonfatal attack. The prosecutor, in the standard way that prosecutors exact revenge on a suspect for refusing to plead guilty, obtained at trial a sentence of ninety-one years. Cartwright was put in prison for life for one desperate, drug-fuelled incident. Her struggle to make sense of an existence now permanently enclosed within a prisons walls is one of the more moving accounts in Bazelons book. Cartwrights story reminds us that the critical cases in arguing about incarceration are the cases not of the innocent but of the guilty. If we believe that Noura Jackson was innocent, it is easy to be indignant about her years in prison. The challenge is to justify her incarceration if we stipulate that she wasnt. Say, for the sake of argument, that she had murdered her mother. Presumably, we want a severe social sanction against matricide; parents will certainly think so. In this respect, again, Bazelons specific case seems an odd one to make her point. What we seek from a sense of indignation about Americas criminal-justice system is not to release the innocent but to humanize the treatment of the guilty. Even if all the prisoners had done what they were imprisoned for, the moral question remains whether anyone deserves to be put in a bathroom-size cell for the rest of his or her life. Making the case for the deincarceration of America means, typically, making the case that the people who get locked up are as much victims of society as they are wicked perpetrators of crime. Born into disadvantage, they arrived, in a sense, imprisoned already. Most of the current crop of books on crime and incarceration make this point in one way or another: Natapoffs book on misdemeanors makes us aware of how we lock up poor people for long periods for the tiniest of offenses; Erin Kellys The Limits of Blame gives us a philosophers take on the concept of criminal guilt, on how easily we miss the larger social context in which crime takes place, and how we need to broaden our blame in order to adjust our justice. In Prisoners of Politics, by Rachel Elise Barkow, the dream of ending mass incarceration is rooted in a list of small but effective-sounding reforms, including things as simple as putting ex-inmates on sentencing commissions. Danielle Sered, in Until We Reckon, offers a testament to an extralegal process called restorative justice. Essentially, it brings perpetrators of violent crimes face to face with their victims in an effort to make both sides see each other not merely as captives of categoriesbad person, good personbut as human beings caught in often painful and resistant circumstances. How far such reconciliations can go, and how violent an act the victim is prepared to forgive, or at least understand, is not always clearly defined, but the attempt to move past indictment and incarceration to some social process that holds out hope for transformation rather than just punishment is obviously possessed of moral energy. The heroic rhetoric of class warfare that sometimes inflects these books can mask the truth that the progress in the past decade concerning the crisis of incarceration has in large part been made on classically American reformist terms. As Bazelon ably reports, the reality of the anti-incarceration movement in this country is that rich philanthropists have been footing much of the bill, prompted simply by evident injustice. George Soross foundations have poured millions into supporting anti-incarceration initiatives, and so, astonishingly, have the Koch brotherssome libertarians really do like to see people at liberty, it seems. But what all of these efforts appear to have in common is an attempt to move us out of the crisis of incarceration by moving us past the question of guilt, making us see that the categories of guilty and innocent, whether applied to the wrongdoer or to the one done wrong, miss harder social truths, and replace empathy with bureaucratized vengeance. The crime is what you did, its not who you are is an aphorism of anti-incarceration activists, and this perspective enlivens almost all the reformist literature. And so the plethora of new books can sometimes seem to sit just outside the hardest issue. The hardest cases arent those of harmless victims of mandatory-minimum laws, like Kevin. The cases that test our convictions involve offenders whose crimes have had real social and human costs. Such people exist, of all kinds and colors, and wishing away the problem of impulsive evil by assimilating it to the easier problem of our universal responsibility for social inequities doesnt help solve it. Its often said that white-collar criminals should not be treated better than no-collar ones, and yet the taste for punishing the white-collar miscreant is no less vindictiveindeed, theres depressing social-science research showing that, once people are made aware of the inequities of the American criminal-justice system, they want even harsher penalties for white-collar offenders. We should all be in this misery together. William Aramony, the head of United Way of America, got seven years for, in effect, cheating on his expense account. The art dealer Mary Boone is a sixty-seven-year-old woman who is about to go to prison for two and a half years for fiddling her income tax, after having already made restitution of several million dollars to the I.R.S. The pressing issue is not whether white-collar criminals should be punished more or less than others; it is whether the practice of locking anyone up in a closed penitentiary for long periods is an effective way of punishing or preventing criminal behavior. Even if Noura Jackson was as guilty as Amy Weirich and the judge in her case believed she was, her exemplary behavior since her releaseBazelon reports that she was accepted to college, and plans to work in social-justice advocacymakes it plain that keeping her locked up for much of her life was not a social necessity. Octavia Cartwright committed a violent and life-threatening assault. | https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/15/who-belongs-in-prison |
What Does It Take to Be a Female Genius? | In the Criterion Collection edition of All That Jazz, Bob Fosse describes the origins of the movie, which he wrote and directed shortly after having a heart attack, in 1975. Initially, Fosse says, hed intended to adapt a novel about a woman whose husband was dying, and her problemswith the children, her problems about money, her sex problems, etc. The screenplay was a lovely piece of material, he explains, but it was just so down . . . this real, what we used to call kitchen drama. You know, it was very heavy. Fosse realized that, to make art about death, he needed to use the tools I can use best, which is song and dance. The result was one of the best portraits of workaholic creativity ever madea glitzy, funny, and unapologetically solipsistic fantasia, set deep within the mind of its self-destructive antihero, Joe Gideon, played by Roy Scheider. Its the sort of movie that would be harder to make now, during a period of reckoning with the kind of man that Fosse undeniably was: a sexually predatory bad boy, whose worst behavior was part of a system that exploited the female artists it relied upon, then discarded them. Fosse/Verdon, an eight-episode bio-pic on FX, is framed as a corrective. Its a #MeToo-era take, poking holes in the notion of the dysfunctional male geniusand, crucially, devoting equal time to Gwen Verdon, Fosses creative partner (long after the spouses separated). The shows delicious previews on FX made it look as if it might be a good time, tooa nostalgic kick, full of song and dance, written by Steven Levenson, of Dear Evan Hansen, and directed by Hamilton s Thomas Kail. Instead, Fosse/Verdon, at least in the five episodes sent to critics, fizzles, weighed down by good intentions. Its heavy, but mainly its heavy-handed. For the unenlightened, Fosse was the worlds most celebrated show choreographer, adored, in particular, for his distinctive movements: jazz hands, slouched shoulders, minutely pivoting pelvises, a style that was at once erotic and awkward, liberated and possessed. (Google Rich Mans Frug for a giddy example.) When he and Verdon married, however, it was she who was the superstar, a Tony-winning triple threat who swept into fame in Can-Can, with a cameo performance so scene-stealing that she was pulled onstage wearing only a towel to satisfy an audience howling her name. The two met during Damn Yankees, in which Verdon played the temptress Lola. Their affair ended his marriage; they had a daughter (Nicole Fosse, one of the Fosse/Verdon executive producers). As the series underlines, while Fosse became a legend, Verdon was his silent partner, responsible not merely for bucking him up but for editing and styling his greatest works, without credit. In the pilot, she flies to Munich, where Fosse is filming Cabaret, then dresses Liza Minnelli in her own wardrobe; she even takes a flight back to New York to procure a gorilla head, to make sure that the infamous Meeskite number works. While shes off running errands, Fosse stays behind, gloomily seducing his German translator. The message is not subtle: without Verdon, Fosse couldnt have finished his masterpiece. With her, he amassed a shelfful of awards, none of which brought him much joy. Meanwhile, Verdon was lied to, undermined, and burdened with every household responsibility. Of course, Verdon needed Fosse, too; he was her ideal directoras good as it gets, which was the whole problem. A few episodes in, the story begins to warp, as we see her, freed by their breakup, pressing Fosse to pay her backto give her the great role she needs, that of Roxie Hart, in Chicago. Verdon bonds with Ann Reinking, who was then Fosses girlfriend, and together they kept their exs flame lit, long after his death, in 1987. There are rich, chewy themes in this story: the muddy line between, say, collaboration and codependence, muse and doormat. But Fosse/Verdon, despite its shuffled chronology, its stylized countdown captions (267 Days Since Verdons 1st Tony Award), and some All That Jazz-esque surreal flashes meant to suggest inner conflicts, is a frustratingly linear project, flattening kinky situations into straight lines. To its credit, the series doesnt soften Fosses worst acts, including an attempted rape of one of the dancers in Pippin. (In real life, the dancer later appeared in All That Jazz; Fosses demands were regarded in that era less as abuse than as a normal, if ugly, workplace hazard.) But the series is so aggressive about deglamorizing Fosseplayed by Sam Rockwell, in an uncharacteristically muted performancethat its hard to understand how this leechy lox held any power at all. Michelle Williams is better as Verdon, capturing the stars blend of daffy charm and shrewdness, but both characters feel robbed of their juice, strangeness, and charisma; in the process, the series reduces nineteen-seventies Manhattan to a primer about sexist exploitation. And maybe, in certain ways, thats what it was. But thats not all it was. Fosse/Verdon has its pleasures. Its fun to see making of sequences for shows such as Pippin. In the best episode, written by Charlotte Stoudt, and set during a rainy weekend in the Hamptons, Fosse/Verdon has a gossipy appeal, giving us a fly-on-the-wall opportunity to watch miserable icons get smashed with their exes, as Paddy Chayefsky (a charming Norbert Leo Butz) makes dry remarks. (And lets face it: for Broadway maniacs, this show is a must-see, whatever its flaws. Id watch it, even after reading this review.) But, too often, its All That Jazz backward, in flats. Perhaps the biggest loss is the treatment of Verdon, who begins as a cheerful helpmeet derailed by her louse of a husband and then, as messier elements of her history emerge, is reduced to an object lesson. The worst example is in the ham-handed (and ham-titled) episode Me and My Baby, which revisits Verdons youth, including her teen-age marriage to a man who raped her, and her choice to leave her first child to be raised by her parents. Theres a potent story in there, about trauma and ambition. But, in Fosse/Verdon, its filmed as melodrama, all cheesy flashbacks and bathosclimaxing in a truly cheap shot. When we finally get to witness the moment when Verdon was pulled onstage in her towel, shes lit as if she were entering Hell. Her babys wails break into the roars of praise; then we cut to the seventies-era Verdon, in a kitchen, chain-smoking in tormented regret. Fosses best work explored the pain of show-biz corruption, but also its glory; Fosse/Verdon is so eager to keep its hands clean that it cant even allow its heroine her moment of triumph. The series does have one perfect scene, set on the day the couple met, during Verdons audition for Damn Yankees. We see each performer privately adopt a persona: in an elevator, Verdon slaps on a warm grin; Fosse poses a script on a table and then lounges in a chair, his feet up, feigning disinterest. At first, its a mutual test, as they each flex their Broadway status. Then, in a singularly erotic, funny, and bold sequence, they bond, through a series of negs (Whats taking you so long? she taunts, about coming up with Lolas choreography) and unsettling notes (Lola is a little long in the tooth for a temptress, he tells her). Fosse trains Verdon to shrug her shoulder down, as she fluidly mimics his movements. Let them come to you, he whispers. Its a rare bolt of electricity, a stripped-down portrait of two scrappy, damaged seducers who revel in moving their bodies, who share a love of razzle-dazzle, of discipline and control. For a moment, its enough to help you understand why shed tie her life to his, even as he threatened to pull her under. | https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/15/what-does-it-take-to-be-a-female-genius |
What's the story behind Apple's logo, and those of Amazon, Starbucks and other companies? | 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the current version of some of the most recognizable logos of the countrys largest companies including Audi. (Photo: Photo by David McNew / Getty Images) Humans have always communicated in visuals, from ancient cave drawings to marking a nation's coins with symbols of that country. As commerce began, signs were used by businesses and guilds to identify them. One of the earliest examples of corporate branding emerged as the result of the trade between the East and the West: The interlocking VOC logo of the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Companies, or Dutch East India Company. The company adorned its ships, flags, maps, and cannons with its logo, turning it into a potent symbol of colonial power and domination of East-West trading routes for nearly 190 years. Shells logo is one of the oldest corporate logos in the world. Corporate logos really began to take off in the 19th century, along with the rapid ascent of industrialism, consumerism, and global trade. Companies that still use logos created in the late 1800s include Twinings Tea, Prudential, Levi Strauss & Co., and Heinz. Other logos, like the ones for Shell Oil and Ford Motor Company date back to the early years of their respective industries. McDonald's menu changes: Fast-food chain will soon cut back on its late-night menu after midnight Home prices: In boon for many homeowners, the least expensive houses have risen sharply in price Today, company logos are everywhere, some with interesting features or colorful histories. The FedEx logo, for example, features an arrow that is cleverly hidden in plain sight, meant to symbolize the delivery companys logistics speed and accuracy. Other logos are, well, snooze-worthy. One can easily wonder the reasoning behind a company formed as a merger between automakers Fiat and Chrysler creating a mind-numbingly boring FCA logo, while at the same time retiring Chryslers iconic Pentastar logo. The following are 20 well-known corporate logos and their meanings and back stories. These are all well-known major corporate brands in the United States, although not all are American. Many the companies behind these brands are among the largest employers in the United States. NEWSLETTERS Get the Managing Your Money newsletter delivered to your inbox We're sorry, but something went wrong A collection of articles to help you manage your finances like a pro. Please try again soon, or contact Customer Service at 1-800-872-0001. Delivery: Fri Invalid email address Thank you! You're almost signed up for Managing Your Money Keep an eye out for an email to confirm your newsletter registration. More newsletters 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the current version of some of the most recognizable logos of the countrys largest companies. Researching logo histories -- how they were conceived and evolved over the years -- it became clear that many iconic American brand symbols bear an explanation that would surprise many consumers. These are some of the most interesting stories behind Americas corporate logos. Amazon.com's logo has changed three times in the company's 24-year history. (Photo: leminuit / Getty Images) 1. Amazon Amazon.com's logo went through three iterations in the company's 24-year history, starting with variations of a capital "A" icon featuring a curvy profile of a river, a nod to the company's namesake. Jeff Bezos had settled on the name because it included the letters "a" and "z" to represent the wide range of books offered on the platform. Eventually, the "A" icon was scrapped, and the company experimented briefly with different typesets of "Amazon.com." Later, the company hired creative agency Turner Duckworth to create Amazon's versatile logo, with its whimsical smile-shaped arrow that connects the "a" with the "z." 2. Apple Apple's logo looks significantly different than the hand-drawn original produced in the 1970s by company co-founder Ronald Wayne. Wayne was inspired by the (fictional) story of an apple falling on Isaac Newton's head that gave the 17th century scientist his "eureka!" moment regarding the theory of gravity. The logo was short-lived because co-founder Steve Jobs reportedly found it to be too old fashioned for a forward-thinking computer company. But Wayne's idea of using Newton's apple as a symbol of science and innovation was so fitting that the simple Apple icon has endured for more than 40 years. 3. AT&T For nearly a century, AT&T used a bell in its logo as a homage to its founder, Alexander Graham Bell. The Scottish-born telephone inventor founded in 1877 the Bell Telephone Company, which later became AT&T. After AT&T settled in 1982 with the U.S. Department of Justice to break up its local phone service monopoly, the company scrapped the bell icon to better reflect its pivot to global long distance services. Since 1983, AT&T has used different iterations of its banded globe logo to reflect its global reach, a logo that continues to work well in the era of broadband internet. AT&T changed its logo from a bell after regulators broke up its local phone service monopoly in 1982. (Photo: franckreporter / Getty Images) 4. Audi Audi's logo has been four interlocking circles since 1932, after the company that was founded in 1909 absorbed three other automakers -- Horch, DKW, and Wanderer. Each ring represents one of the companies. Horch was named after renowned German auto engineer August Horch, who founded Audi after leaving his namesake company. Audi has been part of Volkswagen Group since the 1960s. 5. Baskin-Robbins The U.S.-based global chain has been dishing out icy treats for more than 60 years. Since 1953, the company has used its "31 flavors" identity to signify its diverse selection of ice cream flavors -- one for every day of the month. The "31" trademark and candy-color palate has endured through the decades. In 2007, the company overhauled its brand, but preserved the "31" number by incorporating it into the "B" and "R" of the new logo. Baskin-Robbins and its much larger Dunkin' sibling company are both owned by Dunkin Brands, which has been working to bring the two stores together under one roof. 6. Bluetooth The Bluetooth symbol may not be a company logo, but it may be the only globally recognizable trademarked logo for a technology standard. Found on virtually every modern wireless device, the logo is a combination of two ancient Danish runes of the letters "H" and "B," the initials of Harald "Bluetooth" Gormsson, a 10th century Danish King who united Denmark and Norway. The nickname is believed to refer to descriptions of the king's dead tooth. Intel engineer Jim Kardach, who was reading a book about the Vikings while working on the wireless technology standard with several other companies, including Ericsson and Nokia, suggested the name. 7. BMW If you are one of those people who thinks BMW's iconic circular represents the spinning blades of an airplane propeller set against a blue sky background, you are forgiven. For years, the company fostered that misconception. The world's largest luxury car maker (Bayerische Motoren Werke, or Bavarian Motor Works) had built aircraft engines early in its history, and in 1929, and the company's ad campaign superimposed the logo over an airplane. As recently as 2010, a company spokesman admitted the logo, which was created in 1917, actually alludes to the colors of Bavaria, the state in Germany where BMW was founded. The interlocking "C" letters of the Chanel brand do coincide with the initials of founder, Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel. (Photo: Courtesy of Chanel) 8. Chanel The simplest explanation for the origin of one of the most recognizable logos in fashion is that the two interlocking "C" letters of the Chanel brand depicts the initials of its founder, Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel, an orphan who got her start selling hats in Paris in 1910. But since there is no known official origin story, others have speculated the logo refers to a symbol used by French Queen Claude in the 16th century, or the patterns in the stained glass windows of the monastery where Chanel spent her childhood, or even to Chanel's business partner and lover, Arthur "Boy" Capel. 9. Chevrolet Sometimes it's not easy to find the complete origin story of a company logo. General Motors knows who created its enduring Chevrolet bowtie logo and when -- company co-founder William C. Durant in 1913 -- but the inspiration for the design is lost to history. The prevailing theory is that Durant was inspired by a wallpaper pattern in a French hotel, but other theories include that Durant was inspired by a similar pattern he saw while on vacation in Virginia in 1912, or that Durant created a stylized version of the Swiss flag as a nod to Louis Chevrolet's Swiss birthplace. 10. Cisco Systems One of the world's largest designers and makers of networking equipment derives its name from the city where it was established, San Francisco, in 1984. For its first 12 years, Cisco Systems utilized a fairly accurate representation of the Golden Gate Bridge, including the structure's vertical support cables. Since then, the logo has changed three times, initially keeping the bridge's general shape but stylizing the vertical cables to look more like electronic signal bars. Since 2006, however, Cisco's logo has been more of an abstract representation of the bridge, so much so that it barely resembles the bridge at all. 11. HSBC This major British bank was established in 1991 as a holding company of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp., a bank with roots in China and Hong Kong dating back to 1865. HSBC's hexagon logo, designed by Austrian graphic artist Henry Steiner, was introduced in 1983 as a stylized version of the bank's corporate flag. The company's 19th century house flag was itself inspired by the Cross of St. Andrew as recognition of bank's original colonial British roots. The two-circle logo made its appearance six decades ago after Japanese financial services providers joined its operation. (Photo: TARIK KIZILKAYA / Getty Images) 12. Mastercard Mastercard's logo of interlocking circles that appears on store windows and card readers the world over originated in the 1960s, about 20 years after banking services emerged that would evolve into the modern global credit card payment systems. The two-circle logo first appeared in 1969, after Japanese financial services providers joined what was then called Master Charge. The circles symbolize this partnership between East and West. 13. Mercedes Benz The origin of the Mercedes Benz logo pre-dates the 1926 merger of Mercedes maker Daimler Motor Corporation and Benz & Cie. Both carmakers registered their circular logos in 1909. Benz's logo included the laurel wreath, while Daimler's included the three-point star, which encompassed Gottlieb's trilateral vision of water, air, and land motorization. The logos merged to include the wreath, the star, and the words "Mercedes" and "Benz." The logo was simplified over the decades to become the circle and three-point star it is today. 14. MGM It might look antiquated, but that's the point. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the media company more commonly known as MGM, has kept its roaring Leo the lion logo virtually unchanged since 1957. And even before the mid-century re-design, the MGM logo featuring a roaring lion surrounded by a wreath of unspooled celluloid film has been pretty much the same since the company was founded in 1924. The one major difference is that the original MGM logo features a lion named Slats who doesn't roar in the live footage. Several lions have been used in the MGM logo, but Leo remains the longest-serving MGM lion, the one you see today. 15. Mitsubishi This Japanese industrial conglomerate has been around since 1870. The name derives from the Japanese word "mitsu" (three) and "hishi" (water chestnut), which has long been used to denote a diamond shape that's similar to the leaves of the plant. The founder of the company, Yataro Iwasaki, chose to merge his family crest of three stacked rhombuses with the three-leaf crest of the Tosa Clan that first employed him. The company later added the "Mitsubishi" text below the triangle to clarify the symbol for modern times. The network's peacock logo has been retired, resurrected and made over since its firs appearance in 1956. (Photo: Photo by David McNew / Getty Images) 16. NBC One of the most recognizable logos in television history is a callback to the shift from black and white to color television broadcasting. The first peacock logo appeared in 1956 as a way to promote the network's colorcast programming. The colorful bird was retired in 1975 as part of a short-lived rebranding effort. It was brought back in 1980, and in 1986, the logo was redesigned and simplified; the number of feathers was dropped from 11 to 6, each representing one of NBC's six divisions at the time: the network itself, news, sports, entertainment, TV stations, and operations and technical services. 17. Shell The British-Dutch oil and gas company's logo is a throwback to the company's roots as a small London-based antiques and curios broker that rode a Victorian-era trend of using seashells as decorations on consumer items like trinket boxes. The demand for seashells helped grow the company's kerosene-based import-export business, and the first scallop shell logo, depicted as lying flat and colorless, was introduced in 1900. It has gone through nine revisions since. By 1930, the logo depicted the upright yellow shell, and in 1948 the word "Shell" appeared as part of the logo. In 1992, the word was removed. 18. Starbucks In 1971, Starbucks was a small Seattle coffee shop whose founders settled on a logo reflecting the seafaring tradition of early coffee merchants. "The Siren" logo was originally a brown image of a topless double-tailed mermaid based on a 16th century Norse woodcut. But as the company expanded, the image proved to be too racy. By 1987, the logo began to resemble the more family friendly version of what you see today. Since 2011, all text has been removed from the logo, and the Siren was modified to add almost imperceptible asymmetries to making the Siren appear more human. 19. Toblerone The popular chocolate bar has its origins in late 19th century Bern, Germany, produced by the Tobler family of chocolatiers. According to legend, the chocolate bar's distinct easy-to-break triangle shapes were inspired by the shape of Switzerland's Matterhorn mountain peak that adorns the candy's packaging. Whether that's true or not is up for debate, but what isn't are the characteristics of the logo that pay homage to Bern. One is the bear hidden in the mountain peak, a reference to the city's coat of arms. The popular chocolate bar's triangle shapes were inspired by the shape of Switzerland's Matterhorn mountain peak on the packaging. (Photo: Ben Gabbe / Getty Images) 20. Wells Fargo Today, Wells Fargo is a bank, but way back in the mid 1800s, Wells Fargo was a leading provider of bulk mail transportation across the Great Plains and Rockies, serving the growing population of Americans out in the West. The bank still uses the coach logo as homage to its past. 24/7 Wall Street is a USA TODAY content partner offering financial news and commentary. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY. Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/04/08/the-stories-behind-americas-corporate-logos/39306979/ | https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/04/08/the-stories-behind-americas-corporate-logos/39306979/ |
Whats the Matter with Matter? | The fact that things exist is very reassuring, so reassuring that we can hardly do without it. Unfortunately, this reassurance is false. We live in a world where things arent really things, whether we choose to or not. Matter, the physical side of matter and energy, is one half of a duo act. We are told matter is what the universe is made of, and energy is what puts matter in motion. The dance between them constitutes the reality we inhabit, a fact so obvious that modern science relies upon it as the unquestioned basis for doing science, not to mention for leading our everyday lives. If matter and energy are not what they seem, science could be rocked to its corebut great care is taken for this not to happen. Strangely, a nursery rhyme tells the tale. Like Humpty-Dumpty in the English nursery rhyme, physical mattersolid, tangible inert matter composed of atoms and molecules- took a great fall over a hundred year ago, when quantum mechanics demolished every one of those qualities. It is entirely inaccurate to envision the universe being built up from bits of solid matteror bits of anything. The ancient Greek notion that reality can be reduced to a minuscule speck of matter (the atom) was a delusion of logic, and therefore a mental construct only. In reality the elementary particles that comprise the atom have a mysterious existence. They have no measurable weight, position, or any other characteristic until they are observed. Before that, they exist as waves that extend infinitely in all directions. These waves have no properties you can assign to any solid object. They arise as ripples in the quantum field, and the entire structure of the universe is mathematically described as interference patterns among these ripples, like the pattern formed on the surface of a pond if you throw two rocks in at the same time. The dissolution of physical matter isnt controversialquantum mechanics is the bedrock of modern physics--but it turned out to be intolerable for working scientists. They rely upon the reassuring nature of thingness just as much as ordinary people. Theoretically, doing away with thingness should have been the end of the story. As every child knows, all the kings horses and all the kings men couldnt put Humpty-Dumpty together again. Physics, however, managed to do something more mysterious. It ignored that matter fell and broke in the first place. The billions of dollars spent on high-energy particle accelerators shows the lengths to which jobs, budgets, and complex projects rest on an ability to ignore what quantum physics actually means. There are now eighteen basic particles, with the hope that more will be discovered in the future, dependent on building even more mega-accelerators. It goes without saying that it doesnt come from another level of matterelementary means that these eighteen particles are the indivisible start of matter in the first place. The Greek notion is alive and well; it just got much, much smaller than the atom. What is harder to see is that where these particles come from, since it isnt material, cannot have the traits of matter. This place of origin has no weight, solidity, specific location, nor does it occupy a measurable dimension. Everything you can measure (or see or feel) is a mistaken guide to where rocks, tress, stars, and the bones in your body originate. So that daily life can go on normally, modern physics drew an arbitrary line, known as the Heisenberg cut, between the quantum domain and the everyday world. Above the line matter is as normal as ever (although Einsteins theory of relativity put a massive crimp into our comfort with time and space). Below the line the quantum activity continues to generate matter and energy from a source that is neither matter nor energy. This domain is now essentially considered a mathematical space subject to complex equations. Few except the die-hard materialists expect this space do correlate with reality. It correlates instead with models that are also mathematical. When the public got news of so-called dark matter and energy, the mystery of the physical universe got more difficult to solve, but the news didnt rock the world above the Heisenberg cut. Humpty-Dumpty might have taken another great fall, but it wont stop the planes taking off for summer vacation. Physicists are left to worry about whats the matter with matter, and most of them dont bother to, either. The wobbly status of matter is like a chair whose legs end an inch off the ground. The chair is still standing, but you have no idea how it is supported. Floating chairs are imaginary, but the world beneath the Heisenberg cut forms an invisible support system that no one can explain. Historians debate whether the Humpty-Dumpty nursery rhythm is referring to just an eggthe nursery rhyme doesnt say what he isor instead stands for the collapse of a monarch (perhaps Charles I, who was beheaded in 1649) who fell, and thereby caused a seismic change that could not be reversed. Likewise, matter cannot be returned to its original status. There is no physical basis for the physical universe. Relying on mathematical space and ripples in the quantum field doesnt get you anywhere in successfully describing why objects in the everyday world have color, dimension, solidity, specific locations, and interactions using energy. Without an explanation for how matter got here, everything matter is involved with becomes wobbly, too. Science, if we mean the kind of science that ignores the demolition of matter, has become so sophisticated that it knows what it doesnt know. The things material science doesnt know include the following: Why the universe evolves, how brain is related to mind, where life comes from, how complex systems like the human body manage to be self-regulating, how order emerged from the random interactions of elementary particles (and the big bang, which preceded the formation of any particle), and how to define and describe consciousness. Thats a very long list, and the reason it is long has to do with another arbitrary dividing line like the Heisenberg cut, except that this line divides the human world from the material world. You can spend a lifetime basing your notion of reality on materialism and thingness, which is what science basically does. Or you can inhabit the human world, which is totally dependent upon experiences that arise in consciousness. So far, its been a case of never the twain shall meet. Scientists know everything through experience, just like the rest of us. But by imposing an artificial line between subjectivity and objectivity, they can ignore not just the demolition of matter and the fact that the physical world has no visible support, they can also claim that true knowledge must be based on data, experiments, measurements, and repeatable conclusions. As models go, this one has given us every remarkable advance in modern technology, along with the deplorable products of technology like the atom bomb and bio-chemical weapons. But the human world, where love, compassion, insight, intuition, creativity, curiosity, intelligence, and self-awareness exist, remains inexplicable. There was never an atom that felt curious or loved, never an elementary particle that wondered where it came from. This inability to explain the human condition is whats the matter with matter. Until we accept the invitation to live in a world where things dont rule, being human will remain the ultimate mystery. Lets hope the future is a place where this mystery is considered worth solving. It may be the key to whether the planet survives or is despoiled beyond the point where it can be saved. Deepak Chopra MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation and co-founder of The Chopra Center for Wellbeing, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation, and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Endocrinology and Metabolism. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and a member of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists. Chopra is the author of more than 85 books translated into over 43 languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His latest books are The Healing Self co-authored with Rudy Tanzi, Ph.D. and Quantum Healing (Revised and Updated): Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body Medicine. Chopra hosts a new podcast Infinite Potential available on iTunes or Spotify www.deepakchopra.com | https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/chopra/article/What-s-the-Matter-with-Matter-13749342.php |
Who is Kevin McAleenan, Trump's acting Homeland Security chief after Kirstjen Nielsen leaves? | CLOSE Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan talks shift in arrivals at the Southern border and conditions at Texas facilities. USA TODAY Kevin McAleenan didnt take the traditional route as he rose the Homeland Security ranks. But now, with Sunday's resignation of Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, he's set to become acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Her departure, and his ascension, come as a surge of migrants has overwhelmed the U.S. immigration system in recent months. In response, Trump threatened to close the border and cut off aid to the Central American countries that migrants continue to flee. Trump visited the border in Calexico, California, on Friday along with Nielsen. Nielsen has voiced increasing frustration at the situation, which the administration considers a national security crisis, and last week she compared it to a Category 5 hurricane. More: Cutting aid and closing ports: Here's what's happening at the southern border McAleenan has been at the center of that storm. Carried out Trump's border efforts After graduating from the University of Chicago Law School in 1998, he worked for several years in California as an attorney practicing business and corporate law. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he decided to change course, first applying to the FBI, and eventually landing a job at what is now Customs and Border Protection. McAleenan headed that agencys antiterrorism office and served as the port director of Los Angeles International Airport. He steadily rose through the ranks before Trump nominated him as commissioner of Customs and Border Protection and its 45,000 law enforcement personnel. Ever since, McAleenan has carried out some of Trumps most controversial efforts to halt undocumented immigrants and asylum-seekers from crossing the southern border. U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan (center) receives a briefing at the San Ysidro Port of Entry in San Diego, Calif., on October 26, 2018. (Photo: Alan Gomez, USA Today) The Customs officers and Border Patrol agents he commands were the ones who separated more than 2,800 migrant children from their families during Trumps now-blocked zero tolerance policy. His officers were the ones who fired tear gas into a crowd of migrants attempting to approach the San Ysidro Port of Entry in November, leading to questions about the administrations response to a rush of asylum-seeking migrants. And starting in December, four migrants died in four months while in Border Patrol custody, highlighting the troubling conditions that migrants are housed in after entering the U.S. McAleenan made several tweaks to his agencys process, ordering faster public notification of migrants deaths in CBP custody and carrying out orders from Nielsen to medically screen all children held in custody. But his overall approach to the southern border has remained consistently in line with Trumps. During a visit to the San Ysidro Port of Entry last year, he was asked why the administration was adding National Guardsmen, active-duty military troops, and additional Border Patrol agents to the southern border, but not making a similar effort to add asylum officers to process and care for migrants seeking help. His answer: This is a law enforcement situation. In charge of full immigration script He also defended another controversial practice employed by the agency of metering would-be asylum-seekers, meaning only a limited number are allowed to enter U.S. ports of entry each day to request asylum. Critics of that process say its unfair of Trump to ask migrants to make their asylum claims at ports, then making them wait weeks or months on the Mexican side of the border to make that claim. Its not turning people away, its asking them to wait, he said. McAleenan will now be asked to implement the full range of Trumps anti-immigration script. That includes taking Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has been arresting more undocumented immigrants living in the interior of the country. He will be in charge of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which has faced accusations of slow-walking visa and green cards applications. And hell also be in charge of the Secret Service, the Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/04/08/kevin-mcaleenan-trump-border-chief-dhs-secretary-kirstjen-nielsen/3397977002/ | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/04/08/kevin-mcaleenan-trump-border-chief-dhs-secretary-kirstjen-nielsen/3397977002/ |
What does the battle for Tripoli mean for Libya and the region? | Libya is on the brink of an all-out civil war that will upend years of diplomatic efforts to reconcile two rival armed political factions. An advance led by Khalifa Haftar, the warlord from the east of the country, has diplomats scrambling and the UN appealing in vain for a truce. The French government, the European power closest to Haftar, insists it had no prior warning of his assault, which is now less than 20km from the capital, Tripoli. The outcome could shape not just the politics of Libya, but also the security of the Mediterranean, and the relevance of democracy across the Middle East and north Africa. Facebook Twitter Pinterest General Khalifa Haftar. Three months ago, the renegade general Khalifa Haftar, the 75-year-old leader of the self-styled Libyan National Army, started a series of military offensives from his stronghold in the east of Libya, including seizing a key oilfield in the south. His drive was seen as a precursor to an attack on Libyas rival power base: the fragile UN-recognised government of national accord based in the capital, Tripoli, in the west of the country. An assault on Tripoli is now under way. The outcome could decide whether the country remains on a lengthy, UN-led path to a form of democracy that reunites the countrys long-divided institutions, or instead falls under a form of military rule similar to that in Egypt. The UN had been due to hold a conference on 14-15 April to set the country on the path to reconciliation and elections, and Haftar may be trying to pre-empt that conferences conclusions. Following elections in June 2014, the country became divided as the house of representatives withdrew to Tobruk, and a combination of leaders set up a rival administration based in Tripoli. The split reflected the historical division between the Libyan regions of Cyrenaica, east of Benghazi, and Tripolitania, in the west. But power is divided amongst a myriad mainly coastal towns, tribes and armed groups, some with Islamist leanings and others not. In Tripoli alone, there are as many as four militias in existence. The only effective nationwide institution is the National Oil Corporation, which has slowly built oil production back up, and is the predominant source of wealth. Haftar first came to attention as a general loyal to Muammar Gaddafi, participating in the coup that brought him to power in 1969. He fell out with the dictator in 1987, and then spent about 20 years in exile in the US, returning to help in the Nato-backed toppling of Gaddafi in 2011. He is said to be animated by a desire to deliver security, rather than democracy. The coherence of his army is disputed, with critics claiming he has used brutal methods to suppress dissent in cities such as Derna and Benghazi, as well as protecting officers wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court. His allies in bordering Egypt hope he will bring stability and end the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood. The country has no democratic tradition, having shifted from Italian colonial rule, to a weak monarchy under King Idris, and then 20 years of Gaddafi dictatorship. Natos efforts to form a unified democracy in the wake of Gaddafis assassination in 2011 largely failed. Arms proliferated, despite an embargo, with Barack Obama calling the situation a shitshow, and accusing his European allies, including David Cameron, of failing to do enough to stabilise the country. Successive UN efforts to reconcile the countrys factions have failed, largely due to disputes over power sharing and the independence of the military. For years, civilians have experienced the consequences of high inflation, a plunging currency, power cuts, long bank queues and intermittent violence. Surveys show ordinary Libyans, especially the young, are desperate for an end to the fighting. A human trafficking economy has grown amid the instability, and though the flow of migrants to Italy has fallen dramatically, thousands of migrants are trapped in degrading detention camps where they are victims of torture and sexual violence. Like Syria and Yemen, Libya is not helped by regional power rivalries. Turkey and Qatar have broadly supported western forces while UAE, Saudi and Egypt have backed the east, with growing tacit support from the French. Italy, France and the UN have run often competing peace processes, sometimes reflecting commercial interests. Russia is playing a spoiler role, and for the moment the Wests aim is to support the planned UN conference and to warn Haftar he has badly miscalculated. But this will require his closest political allies to deliver this unpalatable message. The days ahead and the fighting will probably determine if Haftar feels the need to listen. | https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/08/what-does-the-battle-for-tripoli-mean-for-libya-and-the-region |
Will Tiger Woods win the Masters? | By Daniel Tran It has been 14 years since Tiger Woods has been fitted with a green jacket, but 2019 could be his year. Woods has looked good in recent major tournaments, finishing tied for sixth at the Open Championship and second at the PGA Championship. Many feel he will return with a vengeance at the Masters and take the tournament. Others feel his results so far in 2019 dont leave much room for optimism. Beware, golfers: Woods is winning again. After coming back from fused-back surgery, Woods looks healthier than ever. He ended the 2018 season with a win at the Tour Championship and finished in the top-6 his last two majors. Many doubted Woods ability to come back, but he is striking the ball with conviction and putting everyone else on notice. When Woods' game is running on all cylinders, there is a look in his eye that nothing is going to phase him. That look is back and his competitors are in danger. He will win the Masters. Golfers wont lay down and die just because Woods is in the field. Hes not even the favorite to win the tournament. Rory McIlroy holds the distinction of being the pre-tournament favorite, according to SportsLine, with Dustin Johnson and Justin Rose ahead of the Big Cat. Woods may have been the king before, but these other golfers arent going to give him an inch just because he is Tiger. Woods might be able to play golf, but it takes a lot more than a few decent tournaments to win the Masters. Hes not even coming into the Masters hot, failing to finish within the top-10 so far in 2019. Woods wont win this major tournament. 2019 Masters odds, picks: Tiger Woods projection from computer simulation that called four majors The Tylt is focused on debates and conversations around news, current events and pop culture. We provide our community with the opportunity to share their opinions and vote on topics that matter most to them. We actively engage the community and present meaningful data on the debates and conversations as they progress. The Tylt is a place where your opinion counts, literally. The Tylt is an Advance Local Media, LLC property. Join us on Twitter @TheTylt, on Instagram @TheTylt or on Facebook, wed love to hear what you have to say. | https://www.oregonlive.com/tylt/2019/04/will-tiger-woods-win-the-masters.html |
How much are we willing to pay for human interaction in restaurants? | In a recent article in the New York Times by San Francisco-based tech reporter Nellie Bowles, she writes, Human contact is becoming a luxury good. As more screens appear in the lives of the poor, screens are disappearing from the lives of the rich. The richer you are, the more you spend to be offscreen. I read the article on my phone as my husband and I drove up to Healdsburg to meet some friends, and we talked about how more food establishments have begun to replace cashiers and other front-of-house workers with tablets. Mirroring Bowles comparison of screens to fast food, the tablet-as-mediator is endemic in fast food, from Taco Bell to Shake Shack, but its also how many of us order delivery, use the bathroom in a cafe, get on waiting lists and reserve tables. Its so hard to escape tech, I thought as we rolled up to Single Thread for lunch. The tasting menu restaurant, which received three Michelin stars last year, inadvertently contributed a great deal to our ongoing conversation. Over the course of our two-and-a-half-hour meal, the staff came up to talk to us a lot about the food and the overarching narrative of the dishes, certainly, but also about silly things that didnt have anything to do with food or drinks. When I mentioned how cute the local dog park looked, the service director pulled up his pant leg to show us that he, along with the rest of the staff, was wearing cat-themed socks that day. Later, he came by and put two molded plastic dog figurines a Pembroke Welsh corgi and a Saint Bernard puppy on our table. (Lets be real: I was about ready to revive the star system just for that move.) The conversation was allowed to be non-transactional, personal and free-flowing ironically because I was paying a lot to have it. For your information, a meal for two at Single Thread costs $716.93, with a health surcharge and tax applied. The bill came hand-written and fastened to a bespoke pincushion. The humanness of the experience seemed an integral part of its perceived value. A quick announcement: I will be talking with Ruth Reichl about food criticism, her new book and many other things at the Osher Marin JCC TONIGHT at 7:30 p.m.! Come hang out and buy a copy of her book, Save Me the Plums. Best Song I Heard in a Restaurant It was a little jarring to hear the full call-in intro in a dining room, but Robi Rob's Boriqua Anthem by C + C Music Factory (best known for their eternal jam, Everybody Dance Now) ended up being an extremely appropriate choice for a frenetic and joyous dinner service at Franciscas in the Mission. The breakdown that starts at 4:42 is so intense. Me encanta! Photo of the week As stated in this weeks review, the griddle-cooked sliced potatoes at Albanys Wojia Hunan Cuisine is my favorite dish on the restaurants 100-plus-item menu. The plating is so unique that I specifically requested a photo of it for the article. Sign Up for the Newsletter Follow Soleil as she dines around the Bay Area. Subscribe to Bite Curious. Read More What Im reading I love stories about tamale vendors who make it big, and Janelle Bitkers piece on an upcoming Fruitvale restaurant, La Guerreras Kitchen, fits the bill. After 15 years in the business, the mother-daughter team will be selling tamales and specialities from the Mexican state of Guerrero from inside of the Aloha Club. Washington City Papers food editor, Laura Hayes asks disabled foodies and activists in D.C. how they navigate the local restaurant scene when so many establishments are so inhospitable for them. At the end, she has a wonderful list of actionable best practices for hospitality professionals that I highly recommend reading. For more on the cute dog front, check out Tara Duggans piece on truffle dogs in Placerville. The centuries-old Lagotto Romagnolo breed was made for truffle hunting and they even look like the mushrooms! Bite Curious is a weekly newsletter from The Chronicles restaurant critic, Soleil Ho, delivered to inboxes on Monday mornings. Follow along on Twitter: @Hooleil | https://www.sfchronicle.com/restaurants/article/How-much-are-we-willing-to-pay-for-human-13749108.php |
How will Jay Inslees presidential run stack up to Scoop Jacksons 1976 campaign? | In the month since launching his 2020 campaign for president, Gov. Jay Inslee has struggled to poke his head above a flock of Democratic candidates. Hes remained near-last in early polling, with a recent CNN survey finding 73 percent of voters have never even heard of him. That might seem unsurprising for the governor of a northwest corner state known more for producing tech billionaires than presidential contenders. And yet the last Washington state politician who aspired to the White House, Sen. Henry M. Scoop Jackson, did not suffer from obscurity. Jackson kicked off his ultimately unsuccessful 1976 presidential bid in a position more comparable to Joe Biden than to Inslee. A lot of people thought he was the front-runner, or at least had a plausible chance, said Robert Kaufman, a professor of public policy at Pepperdine University, who wrote a biography of Jackson published in 2000. Separated by more than four decades, the presidential campaigns of Inslee and Jackson are in some ways difficult to compare. But there are similarities in the political climate. Advertising In 1976, as now, a large field of Democratic presidential hopefuls launched campaigns, including several senators. Weary from the Vietnam War and corruption uncovered in the Watergate scandal, many voters were looking for change in Washington, D.C. Americas stance toward the then-Soviet Union was of public concern and there even later emerged a whiff of Soviet efforts to influence the election. Polls at the start of 1976 race showed more than 60 percent of Americans knew Jackson, who had served in Congress since 1941. The Gallup poll ranked him among the 10 most admired people in the world in 1973 and 1974. Ralph Naders Study Group had rated him the nations most effective senator. (Courtesy of University of Washington Libraries Special Collections Henry M. Jackson papers) As the states junior senator, Jackson served for decades alongside Sen. Warren G. Magnuson, forming a political power duo that wielded enormous influence for Washington state. Jackson used his clout, in part, to create large swaths of protected wilderness, including a 103,297-acre wilderness area northeast of Skykomish named after him. Jackson, a son of Norwegian immigrants whose Scoop nickname dated back to his boyhood days of delivering newspapers in Everett, had been considered as a vice-presidential candidate in 1960 by John F. Kennedy. He was passed over, and instead led the Democratic National Committee. He made his first presidential run in 1972, but his campaign languished and Democrats nominated Sen. George McGovern, who lost in a landslide to President Richard Nixon. Two years later, Nixon resigned amid the Watergate scandal. Advertising Jackson spent the years after his first run plotting his second, figuring Democrats had learned their lesson of nominating a liberal standard-bearer. He had remained in the news and even boosted his profile as a leading voice on issues including energy and foreign policy. Declaring his second presidential candidacy on Feb. 7 1975, Jackson emphasized experience, saying hed conduct a campaign not of rallies and slogans but of proposals and issues, The Seattle Times reported. Staunch Cold Warrior Even with his more than three decades in office, Jackson at 62 was six years younger at launch of his 1976 candidacy than Inslee, who turned 68 just before launching his campaign last month. A staunch Cold Warrior and military booster who advocated a tough stance toward the Soviet Union, Jacksons entry into the race was reported on by Tass, the official Soviet news agency, which called him the henchman of reactionary circles of the military industrial complex. Like Inslee, who is running as a climate hawk and clean-energy evangelist, Jackson was concerned with Americas energy supply. But in the 1970s his worries centered on the U.S. dependence on foreign oil. He backed creation of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline and proposed $20 billion in new U.S. energy production, including coal and shale oil, as well as solar and nuclear power, noted Kaufmans biography. Jackson banked on demonstrating his effectiveness to voters by continuing to do his Senate work. I intend to spend the majority of my time not on the road but on the job, he said. In the ensuing months he maintained a near-perfect Senate voting record even while campaigning. He benefited from a narrower media landscape, able to become nationally known as a regular on Meet the Press and other network news talk shows, as well as on the covers of Time and Newsweek magazines, before cable news and later the internet subdivided audiences. People knew he was substantive on the issues, said Peter Jackson, the late senators son and former editorial page editor of The (Everett) Herald. But on the campaign trail, the stodgy senator didnt quite connect. Scoop could not do what Inslee is very good at, which is distilling things into a 30-second sound bite, his son said. Peter Jackson said comparisons of his father and Biden are somewhat appropriate. The former vice president and longtime senator from Delaware is near the top of early 2020 polling even though he has not yet declared whether he will run. The parallel is both really put an emphasis on the working class, what used to be called labor liberals in the Midwest, said Jackson. For his father, that meant not marginalizing working-class Catholic voters, who had been 90 percent Democratic voters since the New Deal. But many Democrats in 1976 were looking for fresh faces, and Jacksons long record on U.S. military intervention in Vietnam was not forgiven by younger, dovish voters. Advertising Miscalculating the mood of the Democratic Party With a core of support from labor unions, Jackson scored victories in the Massachusetts and New York primaries, but his campaign stumbled and flamed out after losing a key contest in Pennsylvania to Jimmy Carter, the former Georgia governor who would go on to defeat President Gerald Ford and serve one term as president. In analyzing the Pennsylvania loss, Times political writer Richard W. Larsen cited media fascination with the more charismatic Carter. By contrast, he wrote, the rather plodding Jackson campaign style produced some negative attention, or, at other times, no attention at all After the Pennsylvania setback Jackson returned to Seattle and suspended his campaign on May 1, 1976. Simply stated, were out of money, he said. In an episode reminiscent of Russias attempted 2016 U.S. election interference, it later emerged that Soviet agents had spread rumors about Jackson, sending forged letters to prominent U.S. newspapers and journalists claiming that Jackson was a closeted homosexual, according to a 2017 Op-Ed by Mark Kramer, director of Cold War Studies at Harvard Universitys Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, who did not suggest the effort was the reason for Jacksons loss. In retrospect, said Kaufman, Jackson and his advisers badly miscalculated the mood of the Democratic Party and nation. Jackson had the misfortune of being the consummate insider in the year of the outsider, he wrote in his biography. That same year former, California Gov. Ronald Reagan nearly defeated sitting president Ford for the GOP nomination, running on an anti-Washington, D.C. message. Carter ultimately captured the Democratic nomination and the White House on a similar theme. Advertising Margaret OMara, a University of Washington history professor who has studied presidential campaigns, said Carter also was a more aggressive, elbow-throwing politician than some might recall in light of his post-presidency reputation as a kindly statesman. Carter is a great example of someone, an unlikely person, who won partially because of the mood, but he also played the inside game really well, she said. He worked harder than anyone else. After bowing out, Jackson ran for re-election to his Senate seat, winning easily and serving until his death after a massive heart attack in 1983. A high school in his hometown of Everett bears his name, as does the University of Washingtons Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. In teasing his own presidential aspirations over the past several months, Inslee has sought to compare himself more to Carters 1976 run than to Jacksons. Like Inslee, Carter was initially little-known; when he announced his candidacy, his home-state Atlanta Journal Constitution responded with a headline Jimmy Who Is Running For What! ? During a visit to Saint Anselm Colleges New Hampshire Institute of Politics in January, Inslee paused by a photo of Carter, and remarked to reporters and others trailing him: Funny, a small-state governor with no name ID became president of the United States. I wonder how that could happen. | https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/how-will-jay-inslees-presidential-run-stack-up-to-scoop-jacksons/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_seattle-news |
How Can Leaders Leverage Trends For Success In 2019? | Getty Disruptive technologies have been making their impact felt for years now, but in 2019, these changes are expected to be unprecedented. 1. Accelerating Technologies The underlying accelerant will be 5G, revolutionizing the way people use technology by multiplying computer processing speeds more than tenfold. Leaders who manage to master these technologies and their ability to enhance company performance stand to thrive over the next few years. Machine Learning And Artificial Intelligence (AI) Advances in machine learning and algorithms will lead to advanced AI. While the breakthroughs will be most evident in the operation of autonomous vehicles and in robotics in 2019, progress in AI will continue to enhanceand transformthe way companies interact with their customers. Every moment in a customers life is a potential money-making opportunity. Customers are used to receiving personalized recommendations from Amazon and Netflix, for example, digitally and instantly. As the relationships between businesses and customers shift toward greater granularity, so will the depth of insights a company can get into customer needs and preferences. Leveraging AI enables businesses to better understand the needs of their customers and offer them highly customized, personalized and on-demand experiences in real time. To accomplish this next level of personalization, leaders will need to combine AI, real-time analytics and sophisticated back-end systems so that they can capture and deliver on a customer need exactly when that need arises. Quantum Computing (Supercomputing) Quantum computing can solve extremely complex problems quickly and on a huge scale. For example, traditional forecasting of the weather is currently limited to what computers can compute within a certain time frame. Nearly 30% of the U.S. GDP is affected by weather in some way, so the ability to use quantum computing to better predict the weather would yield enormous economic benefits, including allowing more time to prepare for disasters. Blockchain Blockchains greatest power lies in its ability to balance privacy and immutability with transparency across the transactional chain. This will satisfy customers growing demand for transparency and their need to know their personal information is safe and secure at all times. I believe 2019 will be the year of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). NFTs differ from other tokens in that they represent one-of-a-kind items (like a home or artwork). They create digitally unique assets that don't require confirmation of authenticity from a centralized organization. Their significance is in enabling a decentralized way of maintaining the value of distinct, digitally scarce items. NFTs like CryptoKitties are themselves a kind of collectible (paywall) and are gaining in popularity. Looking forward, we could soon see gaming tokens and collectibles, digital tickets and online identification processes all issued as NFTs. Extended Reality (Virtual And Augmented Reality) Advances in augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) are living up to, and exceeding, expectations in terms of creating and reinventing user experiences. Creative brands can utilize AR and VR to deliver more engaging user experiences, let customers try new products and services and boost sales. Business leaders can also create personalized employee learning systems, which could potentially increase productivity and cut HR costs. The creative possibilities are endless when you start exploring new ways to have fun with AR and VR and engage with them in new and authentic ways. 2. Trust 2019 is the year in which trust will become the most important currency for doing business, ultimately making or breaking a companys success. Business leaders who are able to build trust will stand to benefit the most. Not only will they gain privileged access to customers unique digital identities, but they will be able to understand their customers in a whole new way. These deep customer insights will unlock unique new opportunities to offer rich, individualized and personalized products and services. 3. Employee Transformation Just as companies are undergoing a digital transformation, so are their employees. However, often employees are undergoing a faster digital transformation than their employers. While many companies are creating new jobs that gear them up for a technologically advanced future, many also still operate traditionally in the way they recruit, train and support new employees. This results in a growing mismatch between staff and the digital infrastructure they have access to at work. Employees are becoming frustrated as they wait for the infrastructures on which they rely to do their jobs to catch up and align with their own technical proficiency. In a global environment where a companys digital success will be predicated on its ability to attract and retain top technologically proficient talent, business leaders will need to bridge this digital divide. They will need to create the conditions for employees to learn, grow and have the autonomy to experiment and innovate. This will require a culture that supports innovation and introduces a whole new set of performance metrics. Additionally, today employees change their workplace on average every 4.2 years. Leaders will need to put in place best-practice systems that foster connectivity and networks as well as streamline their operations to cater to this new reality. 4. Cybersecurity Across Ecosystems Everyone in the cybersecurity industry knows that hackers never sleep. As long as you are connected to the internet, your business and personal information is vulnerable. As the world gets more connected, we are more connected, and our businesses are more connected. This makes everyone and everything vulnerable to cyberattacks. In fact, this year the prospect of a cyberattack is a primary concern for most business leaders. In 2019, as businesses become increasingly connected to partners in a commercial ecosystem, it is critical that all partners collaborate in their efforts to take cybersecurity to the next level. The Bottom Line In 2019, business leaders will be challenged to successfully manage both the hard and soft skills needed to harness the benefits of the technological transformation underway. They will need to build trust with their customers before being able to deliver the highly customized and personalized on-demand products and services that can be developed through access to deep, real-time customer insights. | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2019/04/08/how-can-leaders-leverage-trends-for-success-in-2019/ |
Are all the monuments to white supremacy in California gone yet? | Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, never set foot in California, but the names of mountain peak and a highway honor him here. Here are other racially charged places and monuments in the state. Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, never set foot in California, but the names of mountain peak and a highway honor him here. Here are other racially charged places and monuments in the state. 1 / 9 Back to Gallery Far removed from the battlefields of Virginia and Tennessee, California sat out the fighting during Civil War. Southern California was a secessionist hotbed before and during the war. In addition, when the war ended, thousands of Confederate veterans made their way west and settled in California, most of them ending up in the southern part of the state. Then there was the busy-bee United Daughters of the Confederacy, whose mission was to commemorate Confederate soldiers and push the "Lost Cause" ideology, even in the Far West. The Daughters argued that the war wasn't about slavery but rather states rights and Southern independence, and that oh, by the way, slavery wasn't that bad anyway. Many people, and not just those in Southern states, bought into the lie. The Charleston, S.C., church killings in 2015 and the violence in Charlottesville, Va., two years later helped fuel a national movement to remove Confederate names and other racially charged symbols from monuments and landmarks. We took a look. Jeff Davis Peak, Mokelumne Wilderness, Alpine County. Controversy: A small peak named for the slave-owning leader of the Confederacy. Supposedly the settlers of nearby Summit City, a mining boom town that has long since disappeared, were Rebel sympathizers who gave the volcanic plug its name. Status: Undecided. Alpine County supervisors recommended that Jeff Davis Peak be renamed "Da-ek Dow Go-et," a name proposed by the Hung-A-Lel-Ti Woodfords Washoe tribe. "Da-ek Dow Go-et" means "saddle between points." But in July, the California Names Committee initially rejected the new name, citing its reluctance to change a name that's been in use since 1889 and saying it "is difficult to pronounce," according to Jennifer Runyon, of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. Since then, however, the committee has retracted its recommendation and is now discussing an 1883 atlas that labeled the landmark Sentinel Rock, Runyon said in an email. Note: A proposed named change for another Jeff Davis Peak, in eastern Nevada, received state approval in 2018 and is awaiting a federal OK. It would rename the mountain Doso Doyabi, Shoshone for "white peak." Jefferson Davis Highway Controversy: Again, because it's named for the Confederate president. The Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway was sponsored by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1913 as a response to the transcontinental Lincoln Highway, dedicated the same year. The western terminus originally was in San Diego. But the highway later took a right turn north along what would become Route 99 in 1926, when the U.S. switched to numbered routes. The name Jefferson Davis Highway never caught on in California, and most people living along the route were not aware of it. It was more of an idea than a reality despite several plaques marking the highway. Status: The Jefferson Davis monument for the terminus on Horton Plaza, San Diego, was removed on Aug. 16, 2017, following the Charlottesville violence. At least four markers still remain, at Bakersfield, Fort Tejon, Hornbrook and Winterhaven, although not in their original locations. D.W. Griffith Middle School, East Los Angeles Controversy: D.W. Griffith's classic 1915 film, "The Birth of a Nation," sympathized with the South and glorified the Ku Klux Klan. Some black characters in the movie were portrayed by white actors in blackface. The climax comes when when Klansmen ride in to save the South from black rule during Reconstruction. Status: No change. A petition to change the name was mounted in 2015, but did not succeed. Hollywood Forever Cemetery monument, Los Angeles Controversy: The 6-foot stone marker in a section of the famous Los Angeles graveyard where 30 Confederate veterans and their families are buried. Status: Removed. It was put on a truck and hauled away in the middle of the night to a storage site after the cemetery was barraged with calls and emails demanding its removal. Johnston Street in Los Angeles Controversy: The street was believed to named to honor Confederate Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, who bled to death after being shot in the leg at the Battle of Shiloh. Johnston lived in the L.A. neighborhood before the war. Status: No change. While it's possible that the street honored the general, it is more likely that with was named after his son, Hancock Johnston, who reportedly helped subdivide the land and name the streets. Robert E. Lee Elementary schools (in Long Beach and San Diego) Controversy: Named after the commander of Confederate forces, Gen. Robert E. Lee, who some historians consider a military genius. Lee owned slaves and had two brutally whipped after they escaped and were recaptured. He thought slavery was divinely ordained. Status: The Long Beach school was renamed Olivia Herrera Elementary School in 2016. The San Diego school was renamed Pacific View Leadership Elementary School. Robert E. Lee trees Controversy: Two sequoias in Sequoia National Park, one in King's Canyon and one in Yosemite's Mariposa Grove are named after the general. The King's Canyon tree is the second-largest sequoia in the Grant Grove section of the park and the fifth-largest tree in the world. The General Lee tree in Sequoia was named in 1901 and formally dedicated by the Daughters of the Confederacy in 1937. Status: Unchanged. Dixie School District, Marin County Controversy: "Dixie" is a nickname for the South, especially the Deep South, dating back to issuance of ten-dollar notes ("Dixies") by the Citizens State Bank in the French Quarter of New Orleans. The well-known song "Dixie" became an anthem for Confederate troops during the Civil War. Advocates of changing the name of the district say Dixie is associated with segregation and white supremacy. Opponents argue the district was named after Mary Dixie, a Miwok Indian woman with ties to James Miller, who built the first schoolhouse in San Rafael in 1849. Status: The school board voted against changing the name in February, but a new petition was submitted requiring the board to hold a public hearing within 40 days. Monuments, Santa Ana Cemetery in Santa Ana and Mt. Hope Cemetery in San Diego Controversy: The state's newest Confederate monument was erected in Santa Ana in 2004 "to honor the sacred memory of the pioneers who built Orange County after their valiant effort to defend the Cause of Southern Independence." The names of 33 people with Confederate ties are chiseled into squares on the granite monument, including Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. Of the 350 Civil War veterans buried in the cemetery, 16 reportedly are Confederate soldiers. The Mt. Hope memorial, erected on a plot bought by the Daughters of the Confederacy, is not a grave, but has an engraving that says it's dedicated to the "Confederate Veterans and Their Wives Herein Buried." A petition to remove it closed after receiving 775 supporters. Status: Neither monument has been removed. Town of Confederate Corners Controversy: Once known as Springtown, the town outside Salinas was renamed after a group of Southerners settled there in the late 1860s. Status: Name changed back to Springtown in 2018. Pickett Peak, Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest Controversy: Honors Gen. George E. Pickett, the Confederate general who led the catastrophic attack known as Pickett's Charge against the Union center at Gettysburg. Like Jeff Davis Peak, it's in Alpine County and was probably named by Southern sympathizers. Pickett came from an elite, slave-owning Virginia family and condemned the freeing of slaves. He was accused of war crimes for hanging 22 deserters who had switched sides and joined the Federal Army. Two organizations in Bellingham, Wash., have advocated changing the name of a local bridge built by and named after Pickett, who was tasked by the U.S. Army with constructing Fort Bellingham in the 1850s. Status: While Pickett remains as controversial as practically any Civil War figure, there has been no movement to change the name of Pickett Peak. Note: California has a second Pickett Peak, in Trinity County. It has a fire lookout, and there's a Pickett Peak Campground, used mostly by hunters, at its base. We were not able to confirm if it also was named after Gen. George E. Pickett. Fort Bragg, Mendocino County Controversy: African-American groups have objected to the name Fort Bragg, the only California city named after a Confederate general, Braxton Bragg. One of the officers who served under him during the Mexican-American War, Lt. Horatio Gates, named the town in 1857. Bragg had several victories during that war and came out of retirement to serve the Confederacy in the Civil War. He should have stayed retired. Historians generally consider the South to have had the better generals during the war, but Bragg was the exception. He was the "architect of a remarkable record of defeat," says one scholar. Status: Unchanged. Some Fort Bragg residents are aware of the history of their city's name, but don't seem to care. Braxton Bragg, who owned 105 slaves, never set foot in the city, and there's no statue honoring him. They like the name and don't want anyone telling them to change it. RELATED: The ugly pasts of famous men whose names grace SF landmarks School mascots, San Lorenzo Controversy: San Lorenzo High School's nickname was the "Rebels" with the mascot The Rebel Guy (formerly Colonel Reb, a plantation owner who owned slaves). In the 1960s, some students participated in blackface "minstrel shows" with "slave day." Until the 1990s, the school's football team's helmets were decorated with Confederate flags. Status: The mascot was changed in 2017 after the San Lorenzo Unified School District board voted to remove all remaining traces of "The Rebels" name at the school. However, the school newspaper remains the Rebel Record, the Yearbook is called "The Rebellion" and the school motto is "Once a rebel, always a rebel," all ostensibly no longer associated with the Confederacy. --- Read Mike Moffitt's latest stories and send him news tips at [email protected]. Start receiving breaking news emails on wildfires, civil emergencies, riots, national breaking news, Amber Alerts, weather emergencies, and other critical events with the SFGATE breaking news email. Click here to make sure you get the news. | https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/White-supremacy-Confederate-monuments-Davis-Lee-13739523.php |
Why did Charlottes mayor kill a key environment committee? | Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles merged threes City Council committees, including the environmental committee, into one. [email protected] From June Blotnick, Clean Air Carolina; Rev. Amy Brooks, Green Faith Charlotte; Nancy Carter, Mecklenburg Soil and Water Conservation District; Steve Copulsky, Sierra Club; Nakisa Glover, SolNation; Brian Kasher, Quality First EHS Inc.; Don Keen, NC Climate Solutions Coalition; Betsy Keniley; Christy Kluesner, Citizens Climate Lobby; Dean Kluesner, Citizens Climate Lobby; Terry Lansdell, BikeWalkNC; Corine Mack, Charlotte-Mecklenburg NAACP; Patricia Moore; Jennifer Roberts, NC Climate Solutions Coalition; Joel Segal, NC Climate Solutions Coalition; Martin Zimmerman, City Wise Studio USA: The City of Charlotte has recently made positive progress on clean air, clean water, and sustainability for city operations. In its sustainable and resilient city resolution passed last summer, the Charlotte City Council committed the city to sourcing all its energy from carbon-free sources by 2030. They also set the ambitious goal of the entire city (government, business, academia, and non-profits) to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050. Progress toward these goals was initiated by former mayor Jennifer Roberts and has been championed by the Councils Environment Committee, until recently led by Dimple Ajmera, and supported by dozens of community stakeholders from organizations ranging from the Sierra Club to the NAACP. The citys progress and council engagement has been so strong that the city won a national Bloomberg grant last year of over $2 million to dig deeper into transportation planning and building efficiency. These community stakeholders continue to be engaged and look forward to having input on the positive progress the city will continue to make. During the many intense meetings of the Council Environment Committee over the past 18 months, council member Ajmera led her colleagues to examine the citys operations, measure its carbon footprint, analyze the cost of things like electric police cars and electric buses, and engage the community in working together to make changes that matter to our planets future. Recent reports from the UN and from U.S. federal agencies indicate that we have only 10-12 years to make adjustments in transforming our economy if we want to avoid even more devastating climate impacts. Unlimited Digital Access: Only $0.99 For Your First Month Get full access to The Charlotte Observer content across all your devices. SAVE NOW #ReadLocal However, all this progress took a big step backward when Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles eliminated the City Council Environment Committee last month. In a move yet to be explained to many citizens who have appreciated the engagement and leadership of Ajmera, the mayor eliminated three committees and merged them all into one new Neighborhood Development Committee. That meant that two council members lost their chairman positions, but it also meant that several fewer council members will serve on the new merged committee. When three issues are merged under one umbrella Public Safety, Environment, and Housing simple math tells constituents that each issue will now receive one third of the time, attention and focus of the City Council. In taking this action, Mayor Lyles fails to recognize the critical need for a dedicated City Council Environment Committee that can properly focus on the urgent issue of climate change. City of Charlotte staff will continue to do their important work, and staff members have been stellar in their efforts. But in a democracy, it is the elected officials who hold accountability to the voters. It is the elected officials who can vote to change regulations, to change zoning patterns, to set new standards for construction and purchasing of city vehicles. If they do not have the opportunity to be educated and involved in the implementation of the Strategic Energy Action Plan, then neither will the citizens. They will have only one third of the opportunity to educate and advocate for needed policy adjustment in sustainability, resilience, and climate action. The mayor should not eliminate leadership positions when her colleagues are making great strides in moving our city forward in critical areas like climate solutions. The undersigned stakeholders respectfully request that the mayor restore the Council Environment Committee, restore council member Ajmera to her position, and show the citizens of Charlotte that their council is willing to engage their input and that their voices matter after all. | https://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article228959224.html |
Why is Missouris Jay Ashcroft preoccupied with voter fraud? | The Stars Editorial Board talks new voter ID with Ashcroft Colleen McCain Nelson and Mary Sanchez of the Star's Editorial Board talk about Missouris new voter ID with Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft (video by Shane Keyser | The Kansas City Star). Up Next SHARE COPY LINK Colleen McCain Nelson and Mary Sanchez of the Star's Editorial Board talk about Missouris new voter ID with Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft (video by Shane Keyser | The Kansas City Star). We ask because you seem intent on repeating your neighbors mistakes, even after their folly has been fully documented. Jefferson City continues to envy the steep tax cuts that led Topeka to near ruin under former Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback. On Thursday, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson had lunch with Rex Sinquefield, the major donor whos still pushing to eliminate the states income tax, and (non) economist Arthur Laffer, the architect of Brownbacks tax debacle. Unlimited Digital Access: Only $0.99 For Your First Month Get full access to The Kansas City Star content across all your devices. SAVE NOW #ReadLocal And Parsons potential GOP rival, Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, meanwhile is signaling that hed like to repeat former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobachs wasteful and willfully off-point preoccupation with voter fraud. The Missouri House has given initial approval to a bill that would give Ashcroft the power to subpoena records related to voting violations. He would still have to refer cases to local prosecutors. Ashcroft has been investigating complaints of such violations already, but he has complained that the lack of subpoena power means he cant always do so thoroughly. Spoiler alert: Armed with that power, all he would find, like all whove gone before him, is that in-person voter fraud exists mostly in the minds of Republicans with political ambitions. In the 3 years that Kobach had the power to prosecute voter fraud cases himself, a spokesman for that office said, he oversaw somewhere between 10 and 15 such cases, not one involving an undocumented immigrant. Kobachs successor as Kansas secretary of state, Scott Schwab, has refocused the office on its traditional responsibilities, which are registering businesses and administering elections. Schwab also supports legislation that would divest his office of the power to prosecute voter fraud. County clerks in Missouri oppose the proposed legislation. The bill will be put to one more vote in the House, and if it passes, the proposal would be sent on to the Senate. The clerks say subpoena power is unnecessary since election records are already available from local prosecutors or through the Sunshine Law. The only reason to start down this road is to please conservative voters in some future contest against Gov. Mike Parson, maybe. And he seems to have responded in kind. | https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/editorials/article228894309.html |
Why Do Progressives Support Elite Universities? | Getty For several years, something has puzzled me: the most elite, selective, expensive American universities are hotbeds of liberal activism. Liberal faculty outnumber conservatives at least five to one in the policy-related social science and humanities fields. Also, as Joshua Distel helps me document in a forthcoming book, the more elite schools often bring in outside speakers mostly decidedly left of center --far more so than at less selective public universities. Whereas high income residential areas on average tend to be relatively conservative, that does not hold for high income academic communities. I have found that odd because liberals fancy themselves as champions of the poor and downtrodden, in contrast to conservatives who, wanting greater economic growth, are allegedly tolerant and even supportive of massive concentrations of income and wealth. Yet the top selective schools are effectively academic gated communities, training and nurturing an affluent American aristocracy not centered around land, as in the Middle Ages, but rather around the accumulation of human capital. Data from Harvard's Raj Chetty and his small army of associates demonstrate that the top colleges are dominated by rich kids. The median family income of students at most Ivy League schools is around a very hefty $200,000, but the average income is closer to $500,000 because of a sizable sprinkling of truly uber-rich kids. At some elite schools, more kids come from the top one percent of the income distribution than the bottom 60 percent. Poor kids are very considerably underrepresented. Yet progressives themselves disproportionately attend and work at these schools, try to get their own kids into them, and donate to them. I think that a significant part of the reason for the enthusiasm of liberals for elite universities despite their "finishing school for rich kids" orientation is that these institutions depend in large part on government provided money, directly or indirectly. Schools like Harvard often get over $500 million annually in federal research money, a significant hunk of it being in the form of so-called "overhead" compensation, funds that often in large part supports researchers generating grants or bureaucrats administrating them. The schools likewise have found their endowments swollen by favorable tax treatment. So-called "private" Harvard receives vastly more government money (federal and state combined) per student than, say, nearby Bridgewater State University or even the University of Massachusetts at Boston. Employees of the elite universities give their political contributions mostly to liberal Democrat politicians who in turn help them by expanding governmental spending for higher education, among other things . ), but it has received heightened attention because of its size. the tactics used, and the celebrity status of some of the parents. This is the latest of some early signs that progressives are finally becoming a bit disenchanted with colleges. Democratic members of Congress are talking of various attacks on such practices as legacy admissions, or are starting to favor requiring significant endowment payout rates to increase aid to lower income students. Research Justin Strehle and I report in my new book suggests that actually only modest amounts of endowment income actually go towards reducing costs for lower income students. I have been wondering when the drumbeat of protests over legacy admissions would get louder --that seems to be starting. The 2017 Republican-promoted excise tax on massive endowments is not being attacked by progressives as much now as shortly after it was enacted. The left is showing a bit less support for colleges in general and rich private schools in particular. The Trump executive order on colleges was signed last week, and the left's attack on it has been quite muted, because increasingly progressives recognize that attacking universities is becoming good politics. Americans don't like suppressing free speech, which has happened on some campuses. They don't like favoring students on the basis of personal biological or other characteristics, such as skin color, gender, or sexual preferences. They don't like favoring the rich, or using taxpayer dollars to subsidize the practice of giving alumni children preference over others. Richard Vedder's book Restoring the Promise: Higher Education in America is being published by the Independent Institute on May 1. | https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardvedder/2019/04/08/why-should-progressives-support-elite-universities/ |
Who is Kevin McAleenan, the acting DHS Secretary? | With Secretary Kirtsjen Nielsen leaving the Department of Homeland Security, President Trump said Sunday he would appoint Customs and Border Patrol Commissioner Kevin McAleenan to temporarily lead DHS amid renewed efforts to clamp down on migrants crossing the the U.S.-Mexico border. Here's s a closer look at McAleenan. Biography A CBP veteran since 2006, McAleenan has previously held several leadership roles in the law enforcement agency tasked with securing the U.S. border. McAleenan was sworn in as CBP commissioner in March 2018, and prior to his confirmation he served both as acting and deputy commissioner of the agency. McAleenan manages the agency's budget of over $13 billion and, according to his official biography, "oversees the largest law enforcement agency and the second-largest revenue collecting source in the federal government." Prior to entering the federal government, McAleenan practiced law in California. He attended the University of Chicago Law School and Amherst College. His views on immigration McAleenan is a staunch supporter of the president's long-promised border wall. During a visit to the southern border, McAleenan called the wall "formidable" and touted its impact on the security of the southern border. The CBP commissioner has vowed to "restore integrity to our immigration system" and has faulted the current legal system for the rise in migrant crossings. "The increase in family units is a direct response to the vulnerabilities in our legal framework where migrants and smugglers know that they will be released and allowed to stay in the U.S. indefinitely pending immigration proceedings that could be many years out," he said. "This is due to court orders that undermine the integrity of our immigration system." He insists that Congress must impose stricter immigration laws, telling CBP officials at a March event in El Paso, Texas that "legislative relief, changes in the law, and closing the vulnerabilities in our legal framework" are the "only way" that the flow of migrants across the border will be reduced. McAleenan previously told "CBS This Morning" that CPB needs help from Congress and "a different approach" to handling children in its custody after a child died while in his agency's custody last year. He argued that more resources are needed to care for children in detention centers. "We need help from Congress. We need to budget for medical care and mental health care for children in our facilities and I'm committed to improving our conditions, even as we work on the broader problems border security, and of course solving the issues in our legal framework that are inviting these families and children to make this dangerous journey," McAleenan said at the time. McAleenan has also urged Mexico to help stop the flow of criminals entering the U.S., saying at a roundtable event last week: "We need partnership from Mexico on these flows in attacking the criminals that are exploiting these individuals and, really, the ones that are profiting from this entire cycle." What Trump says Just days ago, during a visit to Calexico, California where the president toured a portion of border wall being rebuilt, Mr. Trump commended McAleenan for the work he's done as CBP commissioner. "We have spent a lot of time together. And, Kevin, you're doing a great job. And thank you very much for being here. Appreciate it." Mr. Trump said at a roundtable event. He later tweeted that "confidence that Kevin will do a great job!" when news broke that Nielsen would resign. What Democrats say Democrats have been roundly critical of the president's pick. Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chairman Joaquin Castro slammed McAleenan's appointment as "deeply disturbing," citing his failure to notify Congress about the death of a child in CBP custody. "He cannot be trusted as Acting DHS Secretary based on his record of prioritizing Trump's harmful policies that undermine national security and the economy, and hurt vulnerable families and children at the border," added Castro in a statement. Other Democrats have voiced similar concerns that Nielsen's replacement would be a stronger advocate for strict immigration policies. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin said in a statement that Nielsen's departure "would be encouraging were we not warned that President Trump is looking for a successor who will engage in even harsher tactics." Durbin added, "There appears to be no limit to the cruelty of this Administration when it comes to its failed immigration policies." Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton echoed that sentiment, tweeting Monday: "This administration's dehumanization and cruelty toward migrants will not stop after Kirstjen Nielsen leaves office. It is their principal policy." | https://www.cbsnews.com/news/who-is-kevin-mcaleenan-the-acting-department-of-homeland-security-secretary/ |
Would Seahawks trade Russell Wilson and draft a new QB? | On the Monday Morning NFL Podcast, Andy Benoit and Gary Gramling discussed the hypothetical scenario of a Russell Wilson trade GARY: Well lets get into the money a little bit because thats really what were coming down to here. Wilson will presumably get over $30 million annually. Hes probably going to go against that Matt Ryan number ($94.5 million) as far as fully guaranteed money goes. In short, he takes up a lot of cap space if youre going to have Russell Wilson as your quarterback. Back in 2015, they gave him a four-year $88 million deal. It was a lot of money at the time. Obviously the cap keeps growing and the market keeps growing for quarterbacks. ANDY: My perfect scenario if Im John Schneider, their GM, and Pete Carroll, is we play him this year on his affordable contract and trade him next year for a boatload. And thats where it gets harder, the rest of the NFL, they want to have this cheap quarterback advantage too. There arent a ton of quarterback-needy teams right now. Look at the trade market for Josh Rosen, who was a first-round pick last year. If Im Seattle, if I can get two first-rounders for Wilson, I think Im doing that. If I get three first-rounders for Russell Wilson, thats a no-brainer to me if Im the Seahawks. GARY: I dont know if anybodys giving up three first-rounders. ANDY: I dont either. GARY: Realistically, I think two first-rounders, if gets traded, thats a realistic market. ANDY: I think thats the floor for a quality starting quarterback. Without citing specifics, I can almost guarantee based on some of the stuff Ive heard around the league about trades that couldve happened but didnt, thats the floor for sure. I think its two 1s and some second- or third-round picks too. If you want the latest episode of The Monday Morning NFL Podcast in your feed when you wake up Monday morning, then subscribe to The MMQB Podcasts. For non-subscribers, there is typically a soul-crushing lag. ANDY: I would. Lets assume theres someone in the draft they like in Seattlewhich is a big assumption, but were just having a hypothetical conversation. Thats absolutely the route Id go because our offense, whats also true about a run-based/play-action offense is it is simple on the quarterback. You hand the ball off or you read half the field, which is what you do on almost every play-action pass. Youre not doing full-field reads. I would say, in theory, you could transition a rookie quarterback into that approach pretty well and not skip a beat. That brings us back to the money. Why would we pay Russell Wilson $30 million-plus when all were asking him to do is run a fairly simple scheme that other quarterbacks can run. Intellectually, they can run it. Theyre not as talented, but they can at least attempt what were asking them to do. GARY: I think thats what it comes down. Youre getting someone less talented in all likelihood. You have a known commodity with Russell Wilson. You have a guy youve won a Super Bowl with, youve been to the playoffs even after hes got this larger deal and youve re-tooled the roster around him. Lets say theres a quarterback they love and want more than Russell Wilson. Presumably you have to move to the top of the draft to get that guy. Is it a safe enough fallback option that youd be willing to take the gamble. The last thing youd want to do is trade Russell Wilson and not get your guy in the draft somehow and then you just flat out dont have a quarterback. If you would ever make a move as big as trading your franchise QB, I would imagine youd only do so under the condition youre 99.5% sure you get what you want down the road. GARY: You got to have that guy IDd at that point. ANDY: The money is still what complicates this. That difference in money is worth two superstar defenders potentially, and probably four or five starting-caliber players. GARY: And thats the problem with the rookie wage scale. ANDY: Thats not what were talking about. GARY: It kind of is, it always comes back to that. Email us at [email protected]. | https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/04/08/seattle-seahawks-russell-wilson-contract-negotiations-trade |
What Do Manchester City Do If Pep Guardiola Leaves After Completing the Quadruple? | Manchester City narrowly edged past Brighton in the FA Cup semi-final last weekend, dismissing their opponents courtesy of an early Gabriel Jesus header. As the Brazilian stooped to nod home, the chances of an unprecedented four-trophy haul rose again. The Citizens secured the first piece of the puzzle with a nerve-shredding victory against Chelsea in the League Cup final at the end of February, the Blues taking City all the way to a penalty shoot-out. Whilst Kepa Arrizabalaga and Maurizio Sarri both lost their heads in the Wembley cauldron, Raheem Sterling kept his to leather the winning spot-kick in off the underside of the bar. FA Cup semi final FA Cup final #mancity pic.twitter.com/O9OaaDQJuT Manchester City (@ManCity) April 7, 2019 The slender triumph over the Seagulls on Saturday ensured Pep Guardiola's men would compete in both domestic finals for the first time in their history, whilst a 10-2 decimation of Bundesliga strugglers Schalke saw City progress to the quarter-finals of the Champions League. There they will face fellow English outfit Tottenham, who they also play in the Premier League at the end of April. If City can see off Spurs in European competition and grab the points in the last of their hat-trick of upcoming meetings then the quadruple will be tantalisingly close. If they achieve such a remarkable feat, the club will have reached a veritable nirvana, the promised land, paradise. Pep Guardiola has now reached the final of every cup competition he has ever entered as a manager: Copa del Rey Champions League Club World Cup DFB-Pokal EFL Cup #FACup pic.twitter.com/nBGoVtZ6yA Coral (@Coral) April 6, 2019 If they reach the summit then they cannot climb any higher. Yes, they would qualify for next season's UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup, but many do not view these as equivalent in terms of prestige to the four tournaments the Citizens are currently battling in. The legendary bodybuilder-turned-actor Arnold Schwarzenegger faced a similar issue prior to claiming the Mr Olympia accolade for a sixth consecutive year. His friend teased him in the build up to 1975 edition of the competition, stating: "The king of the hill can only go down, Arnold." He nonchalantly rolled over and replied: "Or he can stay up." Such is the mindset of a born winner, one who understands the transience of life and wishes to leave a long-lasting impact on the world. Guardiola's mentality is akin to that of the Austrian Oak, with an insatiable thirst for glory and unwavering expectation of perfection. His sublime collection of 14 honours in four campaigns with Barcelona demonstrates the Spaniard's desire for success and ability to motivate players who have reached the peak of their sport. LLUIS GENE/GettyImages Under his tutelage performance levels should be maintained and one would expect to see City once again competing on multiple fronts. He signed a contract extension at the Etihad Stadium less than one year ago, supposedly keeping him in Manchester until the end of the 2020/21 season. However, Guardiola is not one for staying in one place for too long, especially when he feels he has maximised the team's potential. He departed his beloved Bara following two Champions League triumphs, whilst Bayern Munich could not tempt him to remain for more than three seasons. Should City complete the quadruple, another swift exit could be on the cards. Few coaches are so adept at managing the varying personalities in their squad, nor at coercing the best out of their recruits. If he goes, there would almost certainly be a drop-off in performance levels. The City hierarchy may do well to learn from their neighbour's mistakes, Manchester United having replaced Sir Alex Ferguson with a complete outsider in David Moyes. The latter had no experience of an environment like the one that greeted him at Old Trafford and found himself cutting an isolated figure mere months into his ill-fated reign. Jamie McDonald/GettyImages Guardiola may not have garnered quite the same level of status on the blue side of Manchester as Ferguson did on the red, but delivering the quadruple would see him written into club folklore. Therefore, the choice of his successor requires careful consideration. Once again, they may benefit from studying their rivals. After a nightmarish period under previous manager Jose Mourinho, the 20-time English champions turned to a handful of individuals well-versed in the culture of the club. Under the leadership of ex-players Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Michael Carrick, the side have rediscovered a long-forgotten part of their identity. However, the impact of Mike Phelan's return has gone somewhat under the radar and is arguably the crucial element in their revival. PAUL ELLIS/GettyImages The 56-year-old was Ferguson's protege, learning directly from the man himself about what creates sustained success. His homecoming has been influential in reestablishing Old Trafford as the Theatre of Dreams. The obvious answer is assistant-manager Mikel Arteta. Clive Brunskill/GettyImages He was in line to replace Arsene Wenger at Arsenal before the Gunners eventually handed the job to Unai Emery. Despite the snub, the club evidently felt Arteta had the credentials to lead an elite Premier League team facing a period of transition. That scenario certainly echoes the situation at the Etihad if Guardiola were to depart. | https://www.si.com/soccer/2019/04/08/what-do-manchester-city-do-if-pep-guardiola-leaves-after-completing-quadruple |
Where does LSU baseball stand in the polls after SEC series win? | The Mississippi State series last weekend was LSUs breakthrough. This week, it thinks its starting to truly take another step. LSU won both midweek games against Grambling and South Alabama, then won two-out-of-three games against previous SEC West leader Texas A&M to take a share of first in the West. LSU still has plenty of issues to work out. Its still trying to get its pitching staff healthy. It still is looking for more from its right-handed hitters other than Zach Watson, and it showed some uncharacteristic defensive concerns Saturday (April 6). Still, it was a key week for LSU baseball. Heres where it stands in the polls. LSU responds behind Cole Henry and Zach Watson to win series, take first in SEC West I think were watching greatness develop in front of our very eyes, Mainieri said. Cole Henry, hes going to be a superstar, as I keep saying, in this league. Baseball America: No. 12 (Previous: No. 15) D1Baseball: No. 9 (Previous: No. 13) Perfect Game: No. 8 (Previous: No. 16) | https://www.nola.com/lsu/2019/04/where-does-lsu-baseball-stand-in-the-polls-after-sec-series-win.html |
How many work emails is too many? | Many of us feel overburdened by emails at work. These frustrations were given voice by an assistant of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex last year who quit after her demanding employer would email her early as 5am in the morning. Now an employee of Carole Middleton, mother of the Duchess of Cambridge, has gone public about being bombarded with 71 emails a day by her boss. Some may be shocked, but many of us may feel the employee of the party catering firm had it easy. After all, the average office worker apparently receives 121 emails and sends about 40 each day. As the number of emails in our inbox rises, so too does evidence that email overload is bad for us. It can take upwards of 20 minutes to get back to a task after being interrupted by an email. Constant email distractions can also temporally lower our IQ by an average of 10 points, and make us perform much worse at a task. Email can also crowd out the main tasks people are hired to do, leaving them frustrated. Some think one email is too much. These inbox avoiders recommend we should simply set an out-of-office reply and let emails deal with themselves. In contrast, inbox embracers accept that email is part of their job and say we should just be professional and polite when dealing with them. However, most people fall into a third group: the inbox ambivalents. They accept too few emails equates with being out of touch and too many means being overloaded. Inbox ambivalents aim to get just the right number of emails. If they would like to spend 30 minutes a day on emails, say, and it takes about one minute to deal with each, that means 30 a day. To achieve their goal, inbox ambivalents use strategic ignorance by tending to emails that are important and overlooking others that arent. Strategic ignorance has a cost you may miss things and annoy some people. But theres a pay-off: you win back time which can be used to get your job done. | https://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2019/apr/08/how-many-work-emails-is-too-many |
Who is the Disco Bunny? | Image copyright Elle Leo The Disco Bunny made headlines over the weekend after a video of him involved in a heated confrontation with a man went viral online. The self-proclaimed "nomad" had been performing in the street in Nottingham when he says a man approached him aggressively, questioning his sexuality. Passers-by jumped to his defence and others filmed the encounter. The Disco Bunny's real name is Pablo Woodward. In 2016 the 32-year-old decided to "take control" of his life, by creating his "own job" - dancing in the street, purely to "unite all people" and put a smile on their faces. Pablo, who is father to two teenage children, is famous for his signature dance moves - among them the "gender-free shaky shaky" and says he hopes people can be "free" by living "vicariously" through him. He lives in a "Disco Bunny Bus", rides a "Disco Bunny Bike" and performs across the UK. However, Pablo objects to being described as called a busker, pointing out "usually buskers make money" and says he often ends up spending more than he makes to perform. Nevertheless, the dancer says although he isn't "financially successful", he is the happiest he has ever been. "Mentally, I have worked so hard on myself, on my learning. I have no financial success but you can see that I am successful, emotionally successful." Pablo is referring to the fact he remains calm throughout the contentious video - even when other people become visibly upset. He admits that at the time he was both rattled and furious, saying: "I was distraught and panicking but on the video I am smiling. Because I have been punched before, I have had abuse." Once an orphan Pablo hasn't always been this care-free and whimsical. He was once an orphan in Brazil and recalls a time he slept on the streets with little to his name. "I don't know where I came from, I don't know any of my family." Pablo was later adopted and at aged 10, he moved to England with his new family. Over the years he has travelled the world and eventually settled in Australia, with his former partner and two children. He's worked in various jobs in his time, from injuries claims consultant to quiz master. But one day The Street Bunny realised he was living a lie. "I've lived in countries I didn't want to, in a relationship I didn't want to be in and a job I didn't want to do. "I did that for one or two years too many - some people do it for a life-time, many people feel tied. "I love my children. But I left about six years ago because I realised I was living a life that brought me no joy at all." Pablo now hopes to raise the money required so he can re-unite with his children, who still live in Australia, to share the new life he has created with them. He lives his life with one mission: To unite all people, irrespective of race, religion, gender, orientation, mental or physical ability. Which is why he was "really sad", though not surprised, to see he had gone viral for all the wrong reasons. "I am used to it to be honest. When I was growing up I suffered from a lot of racism, I was once asleep at a bus stop and was punched in the face." "All over the world there are still people being vilified for their sexuality and for effectively listening to their heart and identifying who they are and who they love." Pablo says: "As the Disco Bunny, I see it as my job to be true to my identify, be myself and let others do the judging." | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47851237 |
Do celebrities deserve private time? | Image copyright Youku Image caption Hong Kong rapper Jackson Wang crying on talent show Chuang! Hong Kong rapper Jackson Wang has sparked a debate on social media after admitting that he does not have time to see his mum and dad. Speaking on the talent show Chuang!, Wang burst into tears as he explained that he had drifted apart from his ageing father. Wang, who has multiple commitments as both a TV presenter, solo artist and is also a member of K-Pop group Got7, said: "I don't think I have any time to spend with my father." Social media users in China are now discussing whether high-profile figures are entitled to a personal life or whether a lack of free time is simply the price of fame. Some people have little sympathy for the 25-year-old's situation, telling him not to be emotional. "You sometimes have to lose something to gain something, you can't have the best of both worlds," says one user on the Twitter-like platform Weibo, in a post which has been liked more than 1,000 times. "I don't have a celebrity's wage, and I don't have time to go home and see my family," adds someone else. 'Be merciful' The hashtag, which translates as #ShouldStarsHavePrivateTime, has so far been used 6,000 times on social media. But the posts are not all dismissive of Wang's sorrow. One more compassionate posts has been liked 1,000 times: "He's been chasing his dreams and hasn't had time to spend with his parents. He feels guilty. This is human nature, and everyone should be merciful," it reads. And another user adds: "The nature of this star's work is that he needs to travel around, and his high income has meant he has to pay a corresponding price. "But there is no denying that he has the feelings of an ordinary person, and cares for his parents; I hope that he can spend time with his family and that people can be understanding." Image copyright Youku Image caption Wang, who has fenced for Hong Kong, says his success has not made him happy Before becoming a rapper, Wang was a sabre fencer who represented Hong Kong at the 2010 Summer Youth Olympics. He won first prize at the 2011 Asian Junior and Cadet Fencing Championships in his category. An emotional Wang told Chuang! that his father taught him how to fence and bought him his first blade, a gift that has remained dear to him. He said: "I gradually became better and better, but as my dad and I slowly got older [he breaks down in tears] my dad and I slowly drifted apart. "I've reached the top in a number of things, but I've also discovered that it hasn't made me happy. "The most precious thing is not my Olympic uniform - it is that blade." Celebrities in China are under huge pressure and can face a great deal of scrutiny which could also account for Wang's lack of time. Last year Chinese actress Angelababy was criticised for only being soaked with water once in comparison to other contestants during a reality TV show. She started a conversation about menstruation after she told her followers "This was the first day of my period, and I was really uncomfortable. I never said that I couldn't go in the water, it really wasn't fun sitting in that chair." You might also like: | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-47854498 |
What Is The Future Of The Estate Agency Business Model? | Shutterstock Sales channels, regulations, political climate, customers, economic conditions, technologies, competition and more. Nothing in the estate agency industry stands still; change is part and parcel of the business. One of the most interesting transformations in the sector in recent memory has been one of business models. Even in the past 10 years, the structure of some estate agents has changed dramatically. Online agents have come onto the scene, and revenue streams are markedly different from what they were prior to the 2008 crash. Online vs bricks and mortar Online estate agents may be on the rise in the UK, but its unclear whether the model has much staying power. Many have concerns about the profitability of online-only offerings and are doubtful that such businesses will capture much more of the market. Despite a very apparent move towards online estate agencies in recent years among sellers, there have been some indications that the model although attractive is unsustainable, notes Sam Butler of the Cotswold property specialist, Butler Sherborn, pointing towards recent profit reports from Purplebricks. Although we may see a lower concentration of high street estate agents in the coming years, online certainly wont take over completely. Kevin Shaw, MD Residential Sales at Leaders, part of the Leaders Romans Group, echoes some of these thoughts. While theres clearly a small market for the DIY sales approach, the online-only estate agency business model is not something we expect to take off in a big way. Online agents have been around for a number of years now, and have captured just 6% of the market in that time. The vast majority of sellers turn to estate agents for a service that is personal, bespoke, and offers expertise and advice. Thats unlikely to change any time soon. Craig Vile, Director at The ValPal Network, sees a place for all business models. "The rise of online agents seems to have tailed off over the last years, he says. However, over the next decade, the very best online operators will continue to thrive. As we move forward, there will be a place for all three agency models high street, hybrid and online to meet the varying needs of consumers. The key to success will be smarter marketing and utilizing PropTech solutions effectively." David Jacobs expects more agents to move this hybrid state. At Yopa we expect to see significant convergence between the bricks and mortar and online market sectors, with traditional agents improving their technology, streamlining their processes and closing many of their branches. At the same time, online/hybrid agents will expand their local presence and expertise range of offerings. Sales vs lettings With estate agencies squeezed by market conditions and government policy, many in the industry point towards changes in revenue streams and the need for business models to be flexible. One interesting ongoing discussion in the industry is about the balance between lettings and sales, with the former becoming a priority for many agents in recent years. At Foxtons, for example, lettings now represent 60% of overall revenue. Lettings continues to be a market with good long-term fundamentals, particularly in London where more than one million households now rent, says Patrick Franco, Foxtons COO. As the market grows, landlords are faced with increased regulatory risk and seek an agent that can navigate this complexity, maximize the value of their property and secure high-quality tenants. We expect more estate agents to capitalize on this trend. For others in the industry, discussions about revenue shouldnt just be limited to sales vs lettings agents need to consider streams beyond this. Pressure on fees and challenging market conditions mean that agents increasingly need to look for alternative revenue streams and cross-selling opportunities such as recommending conveyancing partners and utility providers, explains ValPal Director Vile. Quality service will remain at the heart of estate agency For many industry players, its hard to imagine how business models will deviate too much from the personal and service-led approach that has historically been so successful. Whether youre a buyer, seller, landlord, or tenant, youre ultimately looking for an efficient, reliable experience, says Leaders MD Shaw. Estate agency is a phenomenally competitive industry. Its those agents which put service at the top of agenda and moreover, tailor those services to meet the individual requirements of customers that are most likely to succeed. Foxtons COO Franco agrees. Property and estate agency is fundamentally a people-based business, and high levels of service will always achieve the best results. When youre dealing with property, the stakes are high, and you need to know youre working with someone you can trust, who will work hard for you and deliver a great service. Final thoughts Estate agency is evolving, but the core pillars of the industry are still rigidly in place. Although business models have certainly changed over the last few years, a lurch to online-only, or away from service-led models, seems unlikely. The hybrid model, incorporating online and PropTech, but maintaining that human approach, seems to have the most long-term viability. Its a model that balances efficiency and convenience with personalization and much-needed expertise. Estate agencies that have this strategy, especially those that are flexible enough to allow for shifts in the profitability of sales and letting, will thrive. | https://www.forbes.com/sites/garybarker/2019/04/08/what-is-the-future-of-the-estate-agency-business-model/ |
Did The U.S. Just Publicly Back Down From Its Fight With Huawei In Europe? | Getty On Sunday, German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung reported that "America no longer requires Germany to ban China's Huawei Group when 5G is introduced." The newspaper claimed to have received this information from unnamed sources inside the German Government. Last month, the U.S. seemed to be making it clear that countries deploying Huawei would put at risk intelligence-sharing arrangements with Washington. Not, it seems, any longer, and despite China being seen as the main espionage risk in Germany, alongside Russia and Iran. All aboard the magic roundabout "There are two things I dont believe in," Chancellor Angela Merkel had said last month, addressing other European leaders through the media. "First, to discuss these very sensitive security questions publicly, and, second, to exclude a company simply because its from a certain country." And so began the back and forth discussions that concluded with a European Union decision to seek to mitigate the risks from Huawei and to avoid any outright bans. The crux of all this was very clear. The EU wanted to decide for themselves. This followed Washington's ambassador in Germany suggesting that because of the "security risk" with Huawei, the U.S. would limit sharing intelligence with Germany if the country continued to use the Chinese equipment. All change now though, apparently. According to these latest reports, the U.S. is "highly satisfied" with the security arrangements proposed by Germany's Federal Network Agency, setting out the standards for 5G "regardless of the provider". The Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung quotes its sources as reporting that senior American officials have recently called this approach "perfect." This seems to align with semi-private concessions from U.S. intelligence officials that they cannot prevent Huawei being deployed - too much cost, risk and delay. "We are going to have to figure out a way in a 5G world that were able to manage the risks in a diverse network that includes technology that we cant trust, Sue Gordon, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, told an industry conference. "You have to presume a dirty network. It had seemed as though the U.K. would go along with the rest of Europe and opt for managed risk mitigation. But that changed a week ago, when the U.K.'s spy agency published a scathing report on the Huawei's security through its dedicated Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre (HCSEC), reporting that it "continued to identify concerning issues in Huaweis approach to software development bringing significantly increased risk to U.K. operators." These issues were first raised last year, but the latest report claims that "no material progress has been made on the issues raised in the previous 2018 report... meaning limited assurances that all risks to U.K. national security from Huaweis involvement in the UKs critical networks can be sufficiently mitigated long-term." And now to the latest twist in the saga. On Monday, a senior official with the U.K.'s spy agency slammed equipment from Huawei as "like nothing else - it's engineering like it's back in the year 2000 - it's very, very shoddy," adding that "we've seen nothing to give us any confidence that the transformation programme is going to do what they say it's going to do." As reported by Forbes contributor Davey Winder, this brutal assessment is set to air in a BBC documentary on Monday evening. GCHQ's technical director Dr. Ian Levy will "imply that Huawei mobile network equipment might be banned from usage in Westminster." Making sense of all this The news from Germany seems at odds with the news coming out of Washington. Even as Huawei appeared to have maintained its leading role in global network equipment, six retired U.S. generals including the former Director of National Intelligence and the former NSA Director, issued a joint public statement last week, claiming that "Chinese-designed 5G networks will provide near-persistent data transfer back to China that the Chinese government could capture at will." U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has also said that he remains "hopeful" that Washington can convince the EU to take a harder line on Huawei. I think weve made progress," he said, "and I know that we are going to continue to push... When you have telecommunications that are deeply connected to state-owned enterprises connected to China, we dont see there is a technical mitigation risk that is possible. All of which is set to be echoed by Levy in the BBC documentary. First, there is not one single view in any one country. The U.K. networks have said they cannot afford to rip out or exclude Huawei, even as GCHQ has said that long-term risks cannot be mitigated. And German politics is just as fragmented - there are as many calls for exclusions as inclusions. As with the rest of Europe, the views of the networks with their timetables and budgets will carry serious weight. And whilst the networks approach Huawei with caution, they have no desire whatsoever to have their equipment selection decided for them by bureaucrats on either side of the Atlantic. Also, as I've written previously, keep one eye on unintended consequences. Don't assume that non-Chinese 5G equipment is any more secure than Huawei's. It may not carry alleged links to Beijing, but cybersecurity risks are just as relevant given the all-reaching plans for 5G networks. Huawei is still winning. But the fight has not been called quite yet. | https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/04/08/did-the-u-s-just-publicly-back-down-from-its-fight-with-huawei-in-europe/ |
Are Any Of The Worlds Billionaires Even Oprah Winfrey Entirely Self Made? | Last month, after Forbes named Kylie Jenner the worlds youngest self-made billionaire, we unintentionally set off a heated debate on social media about the meaning of the word self-made. The idea that a 21-year-old - who grew up on a reality TV show (Keeping Up With The Kardashians), whose sister is Kim Kardashian, and whose rich and famous parents are Kris and Caitlyn Jenner - could be considered self-made, sparked a very public backlash. The debate was renewed once again on March 31 after the New York Times published a story in which Kylie admitted to having some help building her business. ''I can't say I've done it by myself,'' the beauty mogul told the Times. ''If they're just talking finances, technically, yes, I don't have any inherited money. But I have had a lot of help and a huge platform.'' Forbes reignited a debate on social media when the magazine named Kylie Jenner the world's youngest self-made billionaire. jamel Toppin/The Forbes Collection Well, yes, thats exactly what we mean at Forbes when we say that Kylie and 1,449 other billionaires are self made. And thats perhaps the nub of the disagreement. At Forbes weve been using the term to describe the origin of someones fortune, rather than whether a billionaire got help to build a hugely successful company or not. Forbes has been tracking the fortunes of Americas richest for more than 35 years and weve used three classifications for how people made their fortunes: self-made, inherited or inherited and growing; the latter category was reserved for people like Donald Trump, who built on his fathers real estate empire. What many object to when Forbes calls Kylie self-made is that 1) She had lots of help (from people like her mom, Kris Jenner) building the company that turned her into a billionaire 2) she started out rich and famous. Both of those assertions are true. But Mark Zuckerberg, who Forbes also classifies as self-made, didnt build Facebook by himself and he started out well off, though not as rich and not nearly as famous as Kylie. (Zuckerbergs father is a dentist, his mother a psychologist). Plus there are seven other Facebook billionaires who, one could argue, rode alongside Zuckerberg in building the massive social network, including his former roommate and cofounder Dustin Moskovitz, former classmate and cofounder Eduardo Saverin, the social networks first president Sean Parker, its early investors Jim Breyer and Peter Thiel; and Sheryl Sandberg, Facebooks chief operating officer since 2008, four years after the company was founded. Forbes classifies all of these billionaires as self-made none of them inherited their fortunes. None of them built Facebook by themselves. That year for the first time, we gave each member of The Forbes 400 list of richest Americans a self-made score on a scale from 1 to 10 a 1 indicating the fortune was completely inherited, while a 10 was for a Horatio Alger-esque journey from the depths of poverty. At the most basic level, the scores denote who inherited some or all of their fortune (scores 1 through 5) and those who truly made it on their own (6 through 10). We have continued to apply this self-made score to all American billionaires (and also now to self-made women), and in Kylies case, gave her a 7 out of 10, acknowledging that she had plenty of advantages from the start. Donald Trump scores a 4 because he inherited a fortune from his father and then expanded it significantly, while the widow of Steve Jobs, Laurene Powell Jobs, gets a 2 because she inherited a fortune and has a role in managing it, having made investments in media (The Atlantic magazine and Ozy Media) and professional sports (she owns a 20% stake the group behind the NBAs Washington Wizards and NHLs Washington Capitals). While few billionaires have had the type of social media platform that Kylie Jenner had when she launched her business with 120 million Instagram followers (which we actually think further underscores her entrepreneurial savvy, not the help she got), every single self-made billionaire on Forbes list has had help building their fortune, be it from other employees at the company they founded, venture capitalists, mentors, friends or parents. Steve Ballmer, for instance, had the good fortune to be one of Bill Gates classmates at Harvard, which led to a job at Microsoft. He eventually replaced Gates as chief executive, a job he held for 15 years. He is now the 19th richest person in the world. Leon Black, whose father was the CEO of United Brands, got a $75,000 life insurance payout when his father died he was in business school. He later cofounded private equity giant Apollo Global Management, which made him a billionaire. Hedge fund tycoon Chase Coleman is a descendant of Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch governor of New York. Another hedge fund titan Ken Griffin started trading in his Harvard dorm room using $265,000, part of which came from his family. And the nations richest real estate developer, Donald Bren, is the son of a real estate investor and Hollywood film producer. Phil Knight, in his autobiography Shoe Dog, spells out how the early days of Nike were a team effort by a core group of incredibly dedicated early employees. Even Oprah Winfrey, who grew up dirt poor and earns a number 10 rank on our self-made score, got help from smart producers and other employees to turn her daytime talk show from an also-ran into a huge hit, as the podcast Making Oprah details. Several people with whom we spoke wondered if it was because she was a woman. No one will really ever know. But one thing is certain: Kylie Jenner figured out a simple, easy way to turn her family's fame, her huge Instagram following and her passion for makeup into big, big bucks. The New Forbes 400 Self-Made Score: From Silver Spooners To Bootstrappers Forbes Agustino Fontevecchia | https://www.forbes.com/sites/luisakroll/2019/04/08/are-any-of-the-worlds-billionaires--even-oprah-winfrey--entirely-self-made/ |
Was it wrong for the Senate to shorten debate time on a presidents nominees? | By Cait Bladt Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pushed through new rule changes that will limit the time allowed for senators to debate presidential nominees. Previously lawmakers were allowed to question and debate nominees for 30 hours. McConnells new rules allow for only two hours. The Kentucky Republican claims the rule change is to prevent the minority party from stonewalling presidential nominees. Democrats say two hours is not enough time for effective vetting and will allow the majority party unfettered power in nominations. McConnell has pushed hard for the rule change, writing an op-ed in Politico claiming the minority party was blocking presidential nominees out of spite and partisanship. Its been 354 days and counting in Senate purgatory for the presidents nominee to head the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Two-hundred eighty-seven days and counting for the under secretary of state for management. Noncontroversial lower court nominees have languished for weeks and weeks for no discernible reason before they, too, were confirmed unanimously. These are just a few examples of the historic obstruction Senate Democrats have visited upon President Trumps nominees for two years and counting. ... We arent talking about limited opposition to a few high-profile nominees or unusual circumstances. Its mindless, undiscriminating obstruction for the sake of obstruction. Even uncontroversial lower-level nominees whom literally no senators oppose are not spared. The New York Times writes President Donald Trump has been pushing McConnell to adopt the rule change for some time as he grew progressively more frustrated at the fact his nominees were not being accepted. Mr. Trump expressed his frustration over the logjam during his hourlong appearance at the Republicans weekly lunch in the Capitol last week. This is crazy, he said, according to two people in the room. We have all these people, ambassadors, who have put their whole lives on hold waiting to be confirmed. A day later, Mr. McConnell, speaking at a second strategy lunch with his conference, blasted Mr. Schumer and claimed he was avoiding a compromise out of fear that he would be publicly attacked by liberals in his party. McConnell claims by preventing nominees from being passed through the Senate, the minority party is preventing the American people from being represented as they see fit. Is this how American government is supposed to work from here on out? asked McConnell. Whichever party loses the White House basically prohibits the new president from standing up an administration? ...The American people deserve the government they elected. They deserve for important positions to be promptly filled with capable individuals not held open indefinitely out of political spite, McConnell said. It's worth noting McConnell lead the complete stonewalling of Barack Obama's Supreme Court Nominee Merrick Garland. AP: Senate GOP to change rules to speed debate on nominations The New York Times editorial board expressed extreme frustration at the new rule changes, claiming the Senate was in a "spiral." The Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, charged that the move risks turning this body into a colosseum of zero-sum infighting, a place where the brute power of the majority rules, with little or no regard to the concerns of the minority party, and where longstanding rules have little or no meaning. ...Someone needs to stop the spiral. There is much about Senate processes that should be reformed. But razing the bodys deliberative culture for partisan gain serves no one well, whichever side does it. Each line crossed makes the next one that much less daunting. This latest power grab has prompted concern about when the Senate will end the legislative filibuster. Such defanging of the minority would likely be a tough sell among lawmakers. But, as with confirmations, the 60-vote requirement on legislation would most likely end in stages, starting with baby steps like requiring only a simple majority to open debate. Many Democrats worried that despite McConnells claims that he was trying to prevent partisanship, he was, in fact, strengthening it. Per Talking Points Memo: Shortening the debate time, they maintain, would allow Republicans to run roughshod over them. The hurdles and hoops required to win confirmation should be difficult, they say, as a means to ensure nominees are ethical and qualified and responsive to requests by senators for information. The purpose of these rules is to reject partisanship so that we can get nominees who will put the good of the country before politics, said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. If we eliminate this crucial check on our democracy, allowing the majority to ram through these appointments, we will undermine our democracy and our government. Sen. Dianne Feinstein put out a statement saying there was no way the Senate could effectively vet nominees in such a short amount of time. Changing the rules is not only unnecessary, but also is dangerous, especially when we are talking about lifetime appointments. Further, given this administrations failure to properly vet its own nominees, the Senate should not restrict critical vetting and due diligence. There is simply no need to limit debate on President Trumps judicial nominees. In fact, President Trumps judicial nominees have been confirmed at a record pace. ...It is also important to stress why it is so dangerous to allow the Trump administration to stack the courts in this way, without adequate debate time. We have seen this administration fill lifetime positions with young, inexperienced nominees who are often outside the legal mainstream. And we have seen them try to do this without properly vetting those same nominees, as in the case of Brett Talley, who failed to disclose to the Judiciary Committee nearly 15,000 online comments, including one in which he defended the founder of the KKK. ...Two hours is simply not enough time to scrutinize these nominees records, especially when so many of this administrations judicial nominees fail to disclose materials to the Judiciary Committee. The Tylt is focused on debates and conversations around news, current events and pop culture. We provide our community with the opportunity to share their opinions and vote on topics that matter most to them. We actively engage the community and present meaningful data on the debates and conversations as they progress. The Tylt is a place where your opinion counts, literally. The Tylt is an Advance Local Media, LLC property. Join us on Twitter @TheTylt, on Instagram @TheTylt or on Facebook, wed love to hear what you have to say. | https://www.cleveland.com/tylt/2019/04/was-it-wrong-for-the-senate-to-shorten-debate-time-on-a-presidents-nominees.html |
What if slumping Chris Davis faced scuffling Trevor Rosenthal? | Baltimore Orioles first baseman Chris Davis (19) reacts after striking out in the seventh inning of a baseball game against the New York Yankees, Sunday, April 7, 2019, in Baltimore. AP Photo The Washington Nationals rolled the dice a bit when they signed right-hander Trevor Rosenthal to a one-year, $7 million deal shortly after the end of the 2018 season. While Rosenthal didnt appear in a game last year as he returned from Tommy John surgery, he was back throwing his fastball in the upper 90s. Some Royals fans were disappointed that Kansas City didnt try and sign Rosenthal, who grew up in Lees Summit. But as bad as the Royals bullpen has been in the early part of the season, Rosenthal has been worse. Hes appeared in four games and his ERA is INF. That stands for infinity, and its not the fun kind like in Toy Story. Ive been super encouraged because of how good I feel, but thats what makes it more frustrating because I know its there, Rosenthal told the Washington Post. I know my stuffs there. I feel better than ever, really, but the results arent happening. Unlimited Digital Access: Only $0.99 For Your First Month Get full access to The Kansas City Star content across all your devices. SAVE NOW #ReadLocal Rosenthal has faced nine batters and theyve all reached base. Hes given up four hits, walked four and hit a batter. Rosenthal has allowed seven runs and thrown a wild pitch, too. On Sunday, Rosenthal threw seven pitches to two batters and just one was a strike. He walked one and hit a batter. We have to come up with something. We have to figure something out for him, manager Dave Martinez told the Post. We tried to tweak something with his mechanics, but weve got to keep working on it. Its tough because up here youve only got so many guys in the bullpen. You need everybody. MLB Network contributor Brittany Ghiroli shared this note: Trevor Rosenthal is the first pitcher in the last 25 seasons that failed to record an out against any of the first nine batters he faced in a season. (Elias) Brittany Ghiroli (@Britt_Ghiroli) April 8, 2019 Thing is, Rosenthal may not be struggling as much as a hitter who plays just 56 miles away in Baltimore. Orioles first baseman Chris Davis is batting .000 this year (0 for 23), but he has walked four times. Still, dating to last year, his hitless streak is at 44 at-bats, which is nearing the Major League Record. Eugenio Velez was hitless in 46 at-bats with the Giants (2010) and Dodgers (2011). ESPN noted that Davis last hit came off White Sox pitcher James Shields, the former Royals starter, on Sept. 14, 2018. I understand the frustration, Davis told ESPN on Thursday after the Orioles home opener. Nobodys more frustrated than I am, especially a day like today, the kind of game that we were having. It was a frustrating day for me personally and the team collectively. But youve got to move on. Worse yet for the Orioles, Davis seven-year, $161 million contract doesnt expire until after the 2022 season. Unsurprisingly, some on Twitter wondered what would happen if Davis faced Rosenthal: Trevor Rosenthal in 2014 and 2015: 2.65 ERA, 2.71 FIP, 93 saves, 170 Ks, 139 IP Trevor Rosenthal now: Literally infinity ERA, hasn't retired any of nine batters faced Chris Davis averages from 2012 to 2016: 149 games, 39 HR, 99 RBIs, .858 OPS Chris Davis now: 0-for-his-last-44 Logan Barer (@LBarer32) April 8, 2019 trevor rosenthal is the chris davis of pitching it's too bad the nats and o's don't play until July, because this is the match up the world needs. Preston Cornish (@pcpontificates) April 7, 2019 Chris Davis leads off and strikes out (0-45) but reaches base when catcher drops third strike (still no official out recorded for Trever Rosenthal). Davis sprains ankle and pinch-runner enters. Next batter hits 2-run HR. So Davis still hitless, Rosenthal's ERA still at infinity Darth Eddie Messi (@DarthMessi) April 8, 2019 Well, if Davis drew a walk, both streaks would be intact. | https://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/for-petes-sake/article228968094.html |
Is The U.K. Heading For No-Deal Brexit Or No Brexit At All? | It is all down to Brexit and for a few days what will happen is anyones guess. It would appear that May is starting to reveal her hand as a Remainer. Some will think she has messed up the Brexit deal so it is impossible for the U.K. to exit. So now the U.K. has to stay forever-bound to the EU. Pretty much all Members of Parliament are Remainers so all they want is someone to blame for no-Brexit, rather than risk the chop from the voters in future elections. If they get their excuse, no-Brexit is assured. That position is close because a "no-deal-Brexit" equals "no-Brexit period" is close. A revoking of article 50 now seems in the cards for this Friday, when the EU refuse to extend the article 50 period. It is said that the EU cant stop a revocation of article 50, so this is the only outcome not dictated by the EU; many members of which would quite like to be shot of the U.K. U.K. legislators and their lackeys dont want to leave, even if some European countries would be happy to see the back of the English. This is especially the case for France, which wants to bind the EU into a closer super-state-style agglomeration. You cant really blame them for wanting the "U.S. of E," when "the United States of Europe" is such an obvious fate for its members. The British will drag the whole process down, as even the U.K. Remainers dont want to go along that path even though staying will make them impotent. So for the U.K. to stay in the EU, the EU needs only to not extend the deadline for Brexit, leaving the U.K. politicians with an excuse to revoke article 50. Obviously, U.K. politicians will point the blame anywhere but at themselves and they might even get away with it. If instead the EU delays the article 50 period, it will give the EU a chance to further crucify the U.K. polity, destroy remaining shreds of U.K. sovereignty and if the U.K. does decide to bomb out, have a chance to make the U.K. actually leave on the worst possible terms to act as a deterrent for other countries who may one day think about leaving. It is a win-win for the EU. The EU has got the outcome nailed on. But for us, this week will decide if Brexit is a mirage or not. I revert to thinking as I did from moment one, that it is just such a fabrication. The whole sorry process is just a choreographed farce where representatives--all of which bar a few are Remainers--are simply trying to damage their political opponents, by sticking them with the blame for not honoring the Brexit referendum. For Corbyn and his socialists they will give up their one chance in their lifetime of destroying the class enemy of the ruling "upper class" elite by gutting the cozy capitalist structures of the City of London. For the Tories no Brexit will mark the end of the United Kingdom as a country in any meaningful independent sense, consigning its status to that of a region of continental Europe ruled from Brussels rather than in the past history by Rome, Denmark, Normandy, Anjou, Scotland, Holland or Hanover. It still remains possible for the U.K. to fall out of the EU on Friday, but parliament would revoke article 50 rather than have the U.K. fall out of the EU if it gets the chance. It will likely get that chance. Cynics say that by the nature of politicians, the Brexit crisis will be extended by all means necessary as long as it possibly can. I see that point of view has merit. However, all parties want Brexit to be over and the U.K. political system and its elite want to stay in Europe and the possibility for revoking article 50 will come as a self-inflicted "fait accompli" that will end the saga. If the UK is not out of the EU this week, it will never leave, which means the market will continue to rally. It will be safe to be vested. If the U.K. is dumped out of Europe, as is still remotely possible, then after a few days of slump it will be time to buy into that dip. The market shouldnt fall much because if markets have any ability to preempt the future then much of the bad news should already be in the price. Unless something very strange happens, next week will give a high probability road ahead on how to invest in the U.K. stock market, be it a no-Brexit or hard-Brexit road. Once the dust settles either way, the market is going up. --- | https://www.forbes.com/sites/investor/2019/04/08/is-the-u-k-heading-for-no-deal-brexit-or-no-brexit-at-all/ |
Why Is Trump Helping Egypts Dictator Entrench His Power? | By embracing Middle Eastern autocrats, American presidents have been making the same mistake for decadeswith dangerous consequences. Michele Dunne is senior fellow and director of the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. As someone who has watched the Egyptian people struggle against dictators for years, it is hard to fathom the fact that President Donald Trump will welcome Egypts brutal military leader, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, for a White House visit this week. Eight years after Egyptians went to the streets to remove 30-year ruler Hosni Mubarak and only weeks after Algerians did the same to remove 20-year autocrat Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the White House is betting on Sisi. Its an endorsement Egypts president-for-life will use to entrench his grip on power: Showing he has Trumps enthusiastic support will help Sisi force any potential critics in the army or elsewhere to follow suit. Story Continued Below Sisis Oval Office photo-op will come just a week or two before Egypt holds a popular referendum on amendments to the constitution that would give Sisi an exception to term limits, allowing him to stay in office until 2034. The amendments will also give the military a constitutional right to intervene in politics and will tighten his grip over the judiciary. If the referendum is similar to Sisis second election in 2018, Egyptian votersdemoralized and cowed by years of brutal repression since the 2013 military coupwill largely stay home. To be clear, amending the constitution is not about the security or prosperity of Egypt. It is Sisis attempt to develop a highly personalized form of power for himself and loyal military officers, sidelining other institutions and ending all meaningful accountabilitya direct violation of his own promises. As a former policymaker, I know firsthand that U.S. officials often face difficult decisions when trying to balance national security interests with human rights. But our history in the Middle East has shown that we often get these decisions catastrophically wrong. *** Trump should support Sisi in his bid to stay in power indefinitely, the generals supporters argue, because he is a visionary uniquely qualified to combat dangerous Islamists, reform Islam, boost womens rights, fix his countrys ailing economy and promote regional peace with Israel. Plus, the U.S. needs to give Sisi unconditional backing lest Egypt fall into Russias grip. While a concerted military push into the troubled Sinai in 2018 did quiet down the terrorist insurgency (an indigenous group that affiliated to ISIS) a bit, Sisi has no magic formula. Violence continues, including a significant attack against government forces in February. If anything, the continued presidency of a strongman who oversaw mass killings and other brutal human rights violations fuels recruits to violent movements. Sisi is fond of positioning himself as such, but mostly he has resorted to public statements and gestures rather than significant changes to government policies, which continue to discriminate against non-Muslims. He has brutally crushed the Muslim Brotherhood as a political rival but failed to protect Christians from terrorist attacks. In fact, Sisis government has been more zealous than that of his predecessors in enforcing illiberal norms against atheists and LGBT citizens, among others. In the style of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, yes--which is to say that Sisi gives lip service to womens rights (winning praise from Ivanka Trump) while harshly repressing independent womens rights organizations and activists. There have been no significant advances in womens rights during his five years in power. International Monetary Fund officials say they are content with Sisis austerity measures, but there is a big fly in the ointment: the growing economic dominance of the rapacious military. Foreign direct investment was lower in 2018 versus 2017 because investors do not want to compete on a tilted playing field. GDP growth is driven by energy production and government construction projects; in any case it is eaten up by rapid population growth. Youth unemployment remains very high, and double-digit inflation has led to more downward than upward social mobility under Sisis broken economic model. In the 40 years since the peace treaty, Egypt has cooperated with Israel consistently on military and intelligence matterseven during the brief tenure of deposed Brotherhood president Mohammad Morsi. Egypt under Sisi continues to impose a heavy price on civilians (even members of parliament) who meet with Israelis or visit Israel. Regarding the Trump peace plan, count on Sisi to do only what is in Egypts national security interests and not one iota more. Sisis personal affinity with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his desire to grow that relationship have been on display since he came to office. He has purchased more Russian weapons than his predecessors did, including a recent $2 billion deal for fighter jets that might trigger U.S. sanctions. If the concern is pushing back against Russian influence, Sisi is more of a problem than an asset. *** So those are the supposed benefits of supporting Sisi. First, helping Sisi stay in power violates longstanding U.S. opposition to such moveswhich tend to increase corruption, diminish accountability and lead to change via violence instead of politicsaround the world. Even the Trump administration, not known as democracy enthusiasts, has criticized similar amendments in Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Rwanda and Bolivia. Making an exception for Sisicurrently head of the African Unionsets an injurious example. Second, supporting Sisi in this brazen power grab will diminish rather than increase U.S. leverage over him. Experience shows that the U.S. wins concessions from Egyptfor example, overturning verdicts against workers in American NGOs, making military aid more productive , promising to repeal a draconian NGO lawonly after applying strong and persistent pressure. There is no reason to give Sisi this undeserved benefit in the face of serious outstanding issues involving U.S. citizens, particularly those detained as political prisoners as well as April Corley (an American gravely wounded in a bizarre 2015 attack by the Egyptian military). Third, inordinate support for Sisi will only undermine U.S. influence in the countrya lesson American officials should have learned by now. In 2011 and 2013, the Obama administration was harshly criticized for being seen as too close to Mubarak and later to Morsi, damaging Americas standing among Egyptians. This much we know about dictators: They usually end up overstaying their welcome and brutalizing their own citizens. So supporting Sisis bid to stay in power for decades will certainly come back to haunt the U.S. Nor can the U.S. really prevent him from forcing through these constitutional amendments. Yet claiming neutrality is not a credible option while the United States continues to back Egypts military to the tune of $1.3 billion annually. The only sensible course is for the United States to make clear, privately and publicly, that it opposes the amendments and sees them as taking Egypt in the wrong directioneven if the U.S. cannot stop them from happening. Whether the Trump administration does do so or not, members of Congress should, via statements and conditions on military assistance. At a bare minimum, members of Congress should signal their understanding of the plight of citizens of Egypt, where, as actor and activist Khaled Abol Naga said at a recent briefing, Sisis narrative is, nobody cares about you anymore. Its time, at a minimum, to show hes wrong. | https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/04/08/donald-trump-abdel-fattah-al-sisi-egypt-226579 |
Do Violent Videos Radicalize People? | This was the subject of a fascinating talk delivered by Tamar Mitts, an assistant professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University, at a data science day hosted by the school on Wednesday. Mitts studied the efficacy of Twitter-disseminated propaganda supporting the self-identified Islamic State, or ISIS, in 2015 and 2016. To avoid the obvious ethical issues which attend to subjecting human analysts to ISIS propaganda, Mitts said she used machine learning algorithms to identify and sort messages and videos into various categories, such as whether they contained violence. Then she parsed her dataset to uncover trends. Mitts results were a revelation. Even though people tend to associate ISIS propaganda with heinous acts of brutalitybeheadings, murder, and the likeMitts found that such violence was, more often than not, counterproductive to the groups aims. The most interesting and unexpected result was that when these messages were being coupled with extreme, violent imagery, these videos became ineffective, Mitts said. In other words, the savagery for which ISIS became famous did not appeal to the majority of its followers; positive messaging found greater success. Theres a caveat though: Anyone who was already extremely supportive of ISIS became even more fanatical after encountering a piece of propaganda featuring violence. So, while violent acts turned off newcomers and casual sympathizers, they nudged ideologues further down the path of radicalization. Extremism begets polarity. In the wake of the Christchurch massacre, Mitts research gains even more relevance. Tech giants are continuing to fail to curb a scourge of violence and hate speech proliferating on their sites. World governments are, meanwhile, passing ham-fisted policies to stem the spread of such bile. Perhaps Mitts discoveries could help society to avoid repeating historys darkest moments. My appreciation for her work grew after I finished reading In the Garden of Beasts, a gripping journalistic endeavor by Erik Larson, which details the rise of Nazi Germany through the eyes of an American ambassador and his family living in Berlin. Afterward, I watched a YouTube videoan innocuous onerecommended by the author: Symphony of a Great City, a 1927 film that documented the daily life of ordinary Berliners at that time. It amazes me to think how, within a few years, these souls would come under the sway of Hitlers bloodthirsty regime. While the Internet makes zealotry easier than ever to incite, todays tools also make it easier to study. A version of this article first appeared in Cyber Saturday, the weekend edition of Fortunes tech newsletter Data Sheet. Sign up here. | http://fortune.com/2019/04/08/isis-twitter-violent-video-radicalize-study/ |
How far will Israel shift to the right? | Video Israelis go to the polls on Tuesday to choose a new government. It has come down to a race between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz, a former military chief of staff. Mr Netanyahu has faced accusations that he fostered racism in the campaign, after he oversaw the creation of an electoral alliance involving a party that calls for the expulsion of most Arabs from Israel. Our Middle East Correspondent Tom Bateman reports, starting in the divided city of Hebron, in the occupied West Bank. Within the city of about 200,000 Palestinians, a few hundred Jews live in settlements that are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this. Israel's election: Five things to know | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-middle-east-47850032/israel-election-how-far-will-voters-shift-to-the-right |
What Impacted GameStop's Q4 Results? | 2019 Bloomberg Finance LP GameStop Inc (NYSE:GME) recently posted its Q4 FY 2018 results, which were below our estimates, as the pre-owned video games sales plummeted. Below we outline some of the key takeaways from the companys earnings, and our estimates for 2019. GameStops Q4 revenue stood at $3 billion, down 13% year-over-year. Pre-owned video games sales were down 21% while new video game hardware and software sales declined by 10% and 8%, respectively. The company divested its Spring Mobile business last year, which also impacted the y-o-y growth. Adjusted net income stood at $164 million for the quarter, compared to $205 million in Q4 FY17 The company saw strong 19% growth in the video game accessories business, which has been trending well of late. The overall gross margins narrowed during the quarter, due to lower pre-owned video games sales, which offers higher margins. New consoles, such as Nintendo Switch, launched in 2017, spurred video games hardware sales for GameStop. The sales have cooled in subsequent years, thereby impacting the companys new video game hardware revenues. Lower hardware sales have impacted the new video game software sales. Fewer title releases in 2018 when compared to 2017 have also impacted the sales. Video game accessories sales growth was led by higher demand for audio-related and battle royale (gaming genre) related accessories. | https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2019/04/08/what-impacted-gamestops-q4-results/ |
Where Is My Credit Card Data Stored? | Three out of four Americans have shopped online, according to a 2018 study by SmallBusiness.com. That study also revealed over half of the online consumers do not have a lot of confidence in retailers to keep their personal data secure. To complete an online transaction with a retailer, you may be asked if you would like to store your credit card data with the company once you have completed the purchase. As you make this decision, it is important to know where this data on your credit card is stored. Getty Most companies use an online, or cloud, storage system with encryption to store your credit card data. Long gone are the days when a retailer or service provider would copy your card and keep the information in a folder. In fact, regulations dictate what information a company can store and how they must protect that information. Companies are required to store a customer's credit card data using a method that meets the Payment Card Industry's Data Security Standard or PCI DSS. These standards have a number of requirements, including: Only storing cardholder data if it is necessary for business purposes. If you are opting in to have your credit card stored, the "business purpose" is speedier transactions. Truncating cardholder information, which means shortening the full credentials. For example, when you request a credit report, only the last four digits of the card number are typically displayed. Not storing cardholder information on unprotected devices, such as PCs, laptops or mobile phones. Using cryptography and other layered security technologies to minimize the risk that the data could be read by an unauthorized party. For example, if credit card data is properly encrypted, it would be impossible for unauthorized parties to access the information since they do not have the encryption key. Only allowing third parties to access the data if they have clear security and password protection policies. In addition to these rules, there is certain information companies cannot store. While it is acceptable for a business to store the cardholder name, expiration date and primary account number, they cannot store the full magnetic stripe data, the CVV (three digit code) on the back of the card or the PIN. Unfortunately, the federal government has not passed legislation with specific laws and consequences for companies that fail to adequately protect consumer information. A number of states have passed laws in the wake of high profile security breaches, but the decision of whether to punish a company after a breach is left up to the state's judicial system. To win a case, cardholders must show they were affected by the breach and the company was grossly negligent. Monitor your credit card and bank statements each month to make sure you recognize each transaction. If you have a questionable transaction, notify the company right away so you can dispute the unauthorized charge. Generally, if you do so in a timely manner, the charge will be reversed. Additionally, you can request a new credit card number from your issuer if you believe your information has been compromised. Provided by LowCards.com | https://www.forbes.com/sites/billhardekopf/2019/04/08/where-is-my-credit-card-data-stored/ |
Where do the New Orleans Pelicans stand in the lottery race? | As the NBA season draws to a close, New Orleans Pelicans fans are only focused on one thing: the NBA Lottery. The lottery, which selects the teams who will select No. 1-4 in the NBA Draft on June 20, takes place on May 14. That date will go a long way in determining the future of the franchise. Will the Pelicans land the No. What about No. Will a team that lands No. Where the Pelicans land could be determined on Wednesday when the NBA regular season ends. But many fans are actually lamenting New Orleans 133-129 win over Sacramento on Sunday. The loss sent the Pelicans up to No. 9 in the bottom of the standings, worsening their odds for the top pick. During the game itself, New Orleans found itself in a four-way tie with Washington, Dallas and Memphis for the No. 6 spot. But when Washingtons loss to the Knicks went final, the Wizards held sole possession of the six spot. When the Pelicans defeated the Suns, New Orleans held on to the nine spot. With two games to go for the Mavericks and Grizzlies and one game left for the Pelicans and Wizards, heres a look at how things stand: - No. 6: Washington (32-49) vs. Boston (Tuesday) - T-No. 7: Dallas (32-48) vs. Phoenix (Tuesday), at San Antonio (Wednesday) - T-No. 7: Memphis (32-48) at Detroit (Tuesday), vs. Golden State (Wednesday) - No. 9: New Orleans (33-48) vs. Golden State (Tuesday) Amongst the opponents, Boston (No. 4 in the Eastern Conference) and Golden State (No. 1 in the Western Conference) have secured their spots in the playoffs and could rest players. Phoenix is battling with Cleveland to see who will be No. 2 at the bottom of the standings both are at 19-62 with one game to play while San Antonio is fighting for playoff seeding in the West and Detroit is fighting for its playoff life in the East. Also, theres a chance neither Dallas or Memphis makes their selection. Dallas pick heads to Atlanta if the Mavericks dont land in the top five and Memphis pick goes to Boston if the Grizzlies fall out of the top eight. That pick heading to Boston gives the Celtics more ammunition for a potential Anthony Davis trade. Here are the odds for each pick: - No. 6: 9.0 percent chance for No. 1 pick, 37.2 percent chance for top 4 pick - No. 7: 7.5 percent chance for No. 1 pick, 31.9 percent chance for top 4 pick - No. 8: 6.0 percent chance for No. 1 pick, 26.2 percent chance for top 4 pick - No. 9: 4.5 percent chance for No. 1 pick, 20.2 percent chance for top 4 pick For any tie in the standings lottery or otherwise the NBA will hold a tiebreaker drawing on Friday. Regardless, the Pelicans will be scoreboard watching on Wednesday to figure out where they will land. | https://www.nola.com/pelicans/2019/04/where-do-the-new-orleans-pelicans-stand-in-the-lottery-race.html |
Is it time to rethink how Canada manages its economy? | The federal government is now considering a financial rescue package for western grain farmers in what has become the norm as Canadians and their open economy are battered and bashed by global trade disruption. Ostensibly, the reason China has blocked the canola seed is contamination in Canadas product. Realistically, its an offshoot of the trade war between the United States and China, with China retaliating against Canada for detaining a Huawei executive at the behest of the United States. And so a compensation package is in the works to tide them over. The federal government and Canadians alike have now come to expect to pay the grim reality of being used as fodder in a fight between giants. China has essentially blocked Canadas canola seed , even though Canada is its biggest supplier. For sure, diplomats and technocrats are working on a solution, and producers are looking for new markets. But the short-term cost to Canadian farmers of losing their biggest customer hurts. Since Donald Trump came to power at the beginning of 2017, Ottawa has committed to shelling out repeatedly as the U.S. president lashed out in all directions. Dairy: In negotiations with the U.S. and Mexico to revamp NAFTA, Canada conceded some access to its supply-managed dairy and poultry markets. Ottawa has promised compensation to farmers. The amount is still up for discussion. Steel and aluminum: the federal government has provided a $2.1-billion package to help Canadian steel and aluminum producers deal with tariffs imposed by the United States as part of a bid to deter cheap products from around the world.But thats just a small taste of the economic impact. Direct trade action is only the most obvious disruption unleashed by Trumps insistence that the global order, as we have known it for decades, no longer serves the U.S.s purpose. The multilateralist network of rules and international organizations that nurtured Canadas economy has frayed to the point of unravelling. Trump has resurrected unilateralism, and I regret now that it has become more and more common, frets Lawrence Herman, a long-time Toronto-based trade lawyer. We are exposed. Because its not just Trump. Its also China, Trumps nemesis and Canadas second-largest trading partner, that does not hesitate to take on unilateral trade action to punish other countries for their perceived sins with the canola seed ban being Exhibit No. 1 for Canada. And news broke last week that Saudi Arabia, in the spirit of the times, was up to the same kind of thing. Last summer, when Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland provoked Saudi anger by tweeting about the countrys lack of respect for human rights, it wasnt just a diplomatic protest, a cancellation of funding for Saudi students in Canada and a divestment of Canadian holdings that ensued. Documents obtained by The Canadian Press showed that Saudi Arabia also halted all grain shipments, delayed payments and blocked trade shipments from Canada. Probably the biggest cost to Canadians, however, is something the government cant easily fix with a compensation package: the uncertainty that surrounds NAFTA and its potential successor. When Trump threatened to tear of up NAFTA and then strung Mexico and Canada along for two years, any business contemplating expansion or a new investment thought twice about Canada hampering our ability to invigorate foreign investment. Meanwhile, Canadas attempts to mitigate the damage from the steel tariffs appear to be foundering. Canada slapped a surtax on a range of global steel imports last fall, in part to show the U.S. it wasnt going to let cheap steel seep through Canada and into the United States. But last week, a trade tribunal told Ottawa it had no justification for most of that surtax, and it would have to be removed. The decline of global institutions and global dialogue represents a huge risk to the management of Canadas economy and the economic interests of Canadian citizens, warn two former mandarins Sean Speer, a Conservative, and Robert Asselin, a Liberal in a new analysis. They assume that dynamic is here to stay, and they call for nothing less than a thorough rethink of how to guide Canadas economy a necessity that rescue packages only paper over. Heather Scoffield is an economics columnist based in Ottawa. Follow her on Twitter: @hscoffield | https://www.thestar.com/politics/political-opinion/2019/04/08/is-it-time-to-rethink-how-canada-manages-its-economy.html |
Why is breast cancer screening important? | Breast cancer screening saves lives. Since the late 80s, the breast cancer death rate has been declining thanks to earlier detection from regular mammography screening and improvements in treatment, according to the Canadian Cancer Society. Mammography is a type of X-ray exam that takes an image of the inside of the breasts called a mammogram. Its the best way to detect breast cancer in its early, more treatable stage because it provides a detailed look at the internal structure of breast tissue in both men and women and can reveal changes that are too small to feel. A mammogram can be diagnostic or screening. Diagnostic mammography is performed if there are symptoms of a breast abnormality while screening mammography occurs when there is no obvious breast abnormality and no signs of breast cancer. Having regular screening mammograms makes it easier to compare images and see changes or areas of concern, which might indicate cancer. I think its very important that women have regular screening. I have a family history of cancer, and breast cancer, so for me personally it was really important to make sure after 40 I go every year to check and make sure that nothing is abnormal, says Amanda MacKay, a Mayfair mammography patient. However, there has been some debate recently about the importance of breast cancer screening in light of a 2018 update by the Canadian Task Force on Preventative Health Care which relaxed guidelines for regular mammography screening. At issue is the recommended frequency for screening. The Alberta Health Care Insurance plan covers one screening mammogram per year for women age 40 and above, but when to start screening and how frequently depends upon who you ask. Mayfair Diagnostics recommends a screening mammography every year from age 40 to 49, then every two years between age 50 and 75, if there are no risks factors that would necessitate a shorter interval. Risk factors that can increase the risk of developing breast cancer include women with a personal history of, or first-degree relative (parent, sibling, child) diagnosed with breast cancer, women who are carriers of gene mutations, such as BRCA1 or BRCA2, or have a first-degree relative with these gene mutations, and women who have had chest radiation therapy before age 30 or within the past eight years. Women with these risk factors are considered high risk and may be encouraged to start screening early and more frequently. Increasingly, breast density is being recognized as a significant risk factor. Dense breast tissue refers to how it appears on the mammogram based on the mix of fatty and fibrous tissue. Women with very dense breasts may require a more personalized screening approach than what is recommended for the general population, says Dr. Steve Garry, breast imaging radiologist at Mayfair Diagnostics. While the recommendations differ and can be confusing, the ultimate decision rests with women. Understanding the risks and benefits of regular mammography screening and speaking with their doctor about their medical history, is an important first step for women to decide whats right for them. Anxiety about discomfort during the exam is another factor that can influence how often women get screened. During a mammography exam, the patients breast is compressed to spread the tissue out and get a more complete picture, and many women are reluctant to go for regular mammograms because they find the experience unpleasant. But Mayfairs newest mammography system addresses that fear by helping to make the experience more comfortable. After the technologist properly positions the breast and initial compression is set, patients have the option to use a handheld wireless remote control to adjust the level of compression to whats comfortable for her, under the guidance of a technologist. Some patients find mammograms uncomfortable, due to the pressure, and are therefore less likely to screen with mammography. This new technology allows the patient to reduce the pressure of the exam, while still maintaining excellent diagnostic quality, says Dr. Sarah Donnelly, breast imaging radiologist at Mayfair Diagnostics. If youve never gone, nows the time to go, because its not what it used to be. Its pain-free, its easy and it saves your life, says Donna Grandan, a Mayfair mammography patient. Mayfair Diagnostics has 11 locations which offer mammography exams, including Mahogany Village, Market Mall, Mayfair Place and Southcentre locations which have the new system. For more information, visit radiology.ca. This story was provided by Mayfair Diagnostics for commercial purposes. | https://calgaryherald.com/sponsored/health-sponsored/why-is-breast-cancer-screening-important |
Who replaces Maite Cazorla in Oregons backcourt? | EUGENE Oregon has to find a new backcourt counterpart to Sabrina Ionescu. Maite Cazorla, Oregons all-time leader in career games played (146), completed her eligibility as the Ducks bowed out in the womens Final Four. The point guard averaged 9.7 points and 4.3 assists this season while shooting a career-high 49.6 percent from the field, including 41.2 percent from three-point range. Cazorla was a steady hand, great distributor and added to Oregons bevy of shooters. Oregon may not have one player who does everything Cazorla did, but itll ask Ionescu to make up some of the difference and several other players to make up for her minutes. In the short-term though, specifically next season, Oregon has a few options for how it can go about replacing Cazorlas presence on the floor. Strictly among guards, Taylor Chavez will almost definitely see her minutes increase. Her role was never going be enormous as a freshman behind Cazorla and Ionescu, but she could be a major contributor, if not a starter next season. The Ducks have already signed Australian point guard Jaz Shelly and shell certainly be asked to be the floor general of the future. In terms of skills, Shelly is probably the closest match to what Cazorla brought to the floor. I think shes really good, Cazorla said. Hopefully shell be great. Morgan Yaeger could see more minutes and the addition of Shelly and wing Holly Winterburn gives the Ducks several options. If the Ducks play a bigger lineup, with Nyara Saballa possibly starting or at least in a bigger rotation, then Ionescu would take on all the point guard duties and Satou Sabally and Erin Boley would be on the wings. Size was an area that hurt the Ducks at times this season, perhaps most glaringly in their loss to Baylor in the womens Final Four, so going in that direction cant be ruled out. I think theyre going to be amazing, Cazorla said. Obviously this (loss to Baylor) hurts. I think theyre going to remember that, will try to work harder and try to win it. | https://www.oregonlive.com/ducks/2019/04/who-replaces-maite-cazorla-in-oregons-backcourt.html |
Why is Libya so lawless? | Image copyright Reuters Libya has been beset by chaos since Nato-backed forces overthrew long-serving ruler Col Muammar Gaddafi in October 2011. The oil-rich country, a key departure point for some of the thousands of migrants travelling to Europe, once had one of the highest standards of living in Africa, with free healthcare and free education. But the stability that led to its prosperity has been shattered and the capital, Tripoli, is now the scene of serious fighting between rival forces as negotiations to build a post-Gaddafi Libya stall. Only Libya's myriad armed militias really hold sway - nominally backing two centres of political power in the east and west with parallel institutions. Tripoli administration, the internationally recognised government, known as the Government of National Accord (GNA) This is under the leadership of Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj, an engineer by profession. He arrived in Tripoli in March 2016, four months after a UN-brokered deal to form a unity government, to set up his administration. Over the last three years he has worked to gain the support of the various militias and politicians, but he has little real power over the whole country or of the forces ostensibly under his control. Tobruk administration, includes the parliament elected in 2014 after disputed elections When those who held power in Tripoli refused to give it up in 2014, the newly elected MPs moved to the port of Tobruk, 1,000km (620 miles) away, along with the old government. In 2015 some of these MPs backed the UN deal for a unity government, but the parliament has since refused to recognise it and has been blocking efforts to organise fresh elections because it wants military strongman Gen Khalifa Haftar, who leads a powerful force called the Libyan National Army (LNA), to be guaranteed a senior role in any new set-up. Some go as far as to suggest that Gen Haftar has ambitions to be "the Sisi of Libya", a reference to Gen Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, who seized power in neighbouring Egypt. And it is guns that matter. Some security analysts describe Libya as an arms bazaar. It is awash with weapons looted from Gaddafi's arsenal and from allies in the region supporting rival factions. Militia allegiances often shift out of convenience and with the need to survive. They were united in their hatred for Gaddafi - but nothing more. There was no single group in charge of the rebellion. Militias were based in different cities, fighting their own battles. Image copyright Reuters Image caption Col Gaddafi was in power for 42 years They are also ideologically divided - some of them are militant or moderate Islamists, others are secessionists or monarchists, and yet others are liberals. Furthermore, the militias are split along regional, ethnic and local lines, making it a combustible mix. And after more than four decades of authoritarian rule, they had little understanding of democracy. Image copyright AFP Image caption The euphoria following Col Gaddafi's demise has vanished Former US President Barack Obama, in an interview published in April 2016, said that the "worst mistake" of his presidency was the failure to prepare for the aftermath of Col Gaddafi's overthrow. He helped Col Gaddafi seize power in 1969 before falling out with him in the 1980s and going into exile. He returned amid the uprising against Gaddafi to fight against his former boss - and in the aftermath cast himself as the main opponent of the Islamist militias in eastern Libya. Image copyright AFP Image caption After taking control of Benghazi, Gen Haftar set his sights on the top job For three years he battled various Islamist militias, including groups aligned to al-Qaeda, in the eastern city of Benghazi. However, his critics accused of him of labelling anyone who challenged his authority as "terrorists". After taking control of Benghazi, he then set his sights on the top job, but the main bone of contention has been a clause in the UN-brokered agreement that prevents a military figure taking political office. Observers say Gen Haftar's appearance at a series of talks in France, Italy and United Arab Emirates (UAE) was more about establishing himself on the international stage than finding common ground. This January his forces launched an offensive to seize two southern oil fields. He is now believed to control most of Libya's oil reserves. Yes, he has long had the support of Egypt and the UAE - and made a visit to Saudi Arabia a week before he launched the offensive on Tripoli. Gen Haftar has made several trips to Russia, been welcomed on a Russian aircraft carrier off Libya, and on Sunday Russia vetoed a UN Security Council statement condemning his advance on Tripoli. Image copyright Reuters Image caption President Emmanuel Macron (C) has tried to mediate between Prime Minister Sarraj (L) and Gen Haftar (R) France, which has taken on a mediation role, has denied taking sides despite suspicions about its relationship with the general. French Emmanuel Macron was the first Western leader to invite him to Europe for peace talks, and France launched air strikes in support of Gen Haftar's forces in February. They targeted Chadian opposition forces fighting against the LNA in the south. Most Western nations back the unity government. Since the offensive on Tripoli, the UN, the US and the EU have all called for an immediate halt to the fighting and for talks. Analysts say Gen Haftar may have made his move because the UN announced a "national conference" in the Libyan city of Ghadames, to take place between 14-16 April, to discuss with local communities a road map for elections. With more territory under his control, Gen Haftar may feel he has a stronger hand at any negotiating table. Like everything in Libya, it is difficult to tell, but over the past year voices in western Libya have spoken out in support of him. Image copyright EPA Image caption Some brigades are rushing to defend Tripoli from Gen Haftar Some there are fed up with the insecurity, weak governance and the corruption amongst powerful militias who control the capital and feel a strong man may be able to bring some authority to the lawless nation. More recently, Gen Haftar has been able to lure some armed brigades and tribes, particularly in the south, to fight with him and has found some strategic armed allies in smaller towns in western Libya. The turmoil that followed Gaddafi's fall allowed IS to gain a foothold in the country, taking control of the former Libyan leader's home city of Sirte. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Sirte has been devastated by the years of fighting But armed groups from the city of Misrata and the central region, which are at times loyal to the unity government, managed to expel the fighters from the city in August 2016 - with Western backing and US air strikes. IS, which was made up of defectors from local jihadist groups and foreign fighters, does not now control any city or town but still has a presence in various desert hideouts. It is now a diminished force, though it has been behind some attacks in the capital, further undermining security. By BBC Monitoring Gen Haftar's self-styled Libya National Army (LNA), which has launched an offensive on Tripoli in April, is made up of former army units and militias loyal to them and has the backing of the Tobruk-based government. Its main base is in Benghazi in the east, where it defeated Islamist armed groups, but it has the support of tribal groups in the south and other conservative Salafist militias. Image copyright EPA Image caption Misrata's militias have enjoyed success on the battle field Tripoli's many militias tend to co-operate but there has been fierce infighting on occasion as their allegiances shift. The UN has tried to assist the government by mediating "security arrangements" to bring them into the fold. The biggest group in the capital is now the Tripoli Protection Force. It was formed in December 2018 and is made of four key militias: the Tripoli Revolutionaries, Abu Salim Central Security Forces, the Nawasi Battalion and the Special Deterrence Forces. Some groups in Tripoli, like the Salah al-Burki Brigade, have refused to accept the authority of the GNA. But they are likely to take up arms against Gen Haftar given their support for the old Islamist-dominated parliament that was in power in the capital between 2014 and 2016. A senior Syria-based al-Qaeda cleric has also called on jihadists to fight Gen Haftar's forces. Powerful militias from neighbouring Misrata, such as the 301st Brigade, which were instrumental in the fight against Col Gaddafi and then IS, have also dispatched forces to Tripoli in the wake of the LNA's advances. Towns around Tripoli also have their own militias - one powerful group is the Tarhuna 7th Brigade, based south-east of the capital. It has attacked Tripoli in the past but is officially affiliated to the GNA, which has now formed a joint operations room to co-ordinate the militias wishing to defend Tripoli against the LNA. The current fighting threatens to further disrupt oil supplies and fuel migration to Europe. Image copyright Reuters Image caption Inflation has improved, but food is still expensive The cost of living is expensive in Libya, though there has been a crackdown on the black market which had caused prices to skyrocket a few years ago. Inflation has improved, but hospitals are still in short supply of medicine. People do not feel safe and are constantly on the edge. Women especially feel more threatened when they go out - and kidnappings for ransom are still a threat. It is not easy to travel around the country as ID cards can identify which area people are from - and more than 170,000 Libyans are internally displaced, according to the UN. | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-24472322 |
Why Is Gender Diversity Important In The Field Of Computing? | originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. Answer by Lucy Sanders, CEO and Co-founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), on Quora: Gender-balanced and gender-diverse technology organizations and departments: perform better financially, particularly when women occupy a significant proportion of top management positions, demonstrate superior team dynamics and productivity, produce work teams that stay on schedule and under budget, and demonstrate improved employee performance. Research Summary for a comprehensive review of current research on gender-diverse teams, including strategies to maximize the potential benefits of gender diversity on technical teams [www.ncwit.org/businesscase].) Gender diversity expands the qualified employee pool. The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that by 2026 there will be nearly 3.5 million computing-related jobs openings available in U.S. We can only fill 17 percent of those jobs with U.S. computing bachelors degree recipients by 2026 [www.ncwit.org/bythenumbers]. We are not taking advantage of our diverse population. The industry is failing to attract this talent. Gender diversity also promotes equity. With technology playing an increasingly crucial role in all of our lives, having more people from different backgrounds participate in its creation can help break down gender and racial economic inequalities. Increasingly, non-IT jobs require deep knowledge of computing as well. A computing major or minor provides a versatile skill set that crosses disciplines and is essential in todays information economy. Additionally, gender diversity reflects the customer base. Most companies serve a variety of people, so it makes sense then to have a variety of intelligent, skilled people working on services and products. This question originally appeared on Quora - the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. More questions: | https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2019/04/08/why-is-gender-diversity-important-in-the-field-of-computing/ |
What Does An Architect At A Tech Startup Do? | originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. Answer by Prakash Janakiraman, Co-Founder & Chief Architect, Nextdoor, on Quora: While Im sure theres some variance in the definition heres my experience: a software architects job is to model out the requirements of the business as a series of software components and processes that interact together to meet those requirements. This includes, but isnt limited to: selection of programming languages, modeling of the data domains, defining software abstractions, and building tools to support developer productivity. Its the analog of a real-world architect of a building or home; before you start building, you have to know about how the building is going to be designed, how the plumbing will work, the electrical systems, how the fire alarms work, the elevators, etc. Similarly, the architects role is to stay out ahead of business requirements and make sure that the technical artifacts being built can support them. With software, its harder because requirements change over time, so you have to be able to stay flexible and responsive to new needs as they arise! At Nextdoor, I have operational responsibility for several different areas: Infrastructure - building reusable components for our developers to compose applications from. Things like data stores and caches, service scaffolding, publish/subscribe pipelines, search infrastructure. - building reusable components for our developers to compose applications from. Things like data stores and caches, service scaffolding, publish/subscribe pipelines, search infrastructure. Developer Tools - build pipelines, continuous integration, continuous deployment, developer environments, testing environments, etc. - build pipelines, continuous integration, continuous deployment, developer environments, testing environments, etc. Systems Infrastructure - automation of our AWS resources, provisioning of new regions, cost management, monitoring and alerting, and more. - automation of our AWS resources, provisioning of new regions, cost management, monitoring and alerting, and more. Data Platform - data warehousing, analytics, data pipelines, events and logging, support for data science and machine learning. - data warehousing, analytics, data pipelines, events and logging, support for data science and machine learning. Core Client - helping mobile and web client engineers build great user experiences as quickly as possible and creating reusable pattern libraries for all developers to use. This question originally appeared on Quora - the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. More questions: | https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2019/04/08/what-does-an-architect-at-a-tech-startup-do/ |
What's The Game Plan To Fix The Gender Pay Gap? | Peek Photography April kicked off with Equal Pay Day and we were constantly reminded through a barrage of news coverage that we are making little to no progress bridging the pay gap. According to the American Association of University Women, women made $500 billion less than men last year and these numbers are slow to change. Im passionate about this topic and confident that the only way we will make real progress is if men and women work together. There isnt one turnkey solution to fix this problem. I'm action oriented and want to offer some ways to support women on their individual paths to paycheck equality. Build the Muscle to Ask and the Language for Results Throughout the year we are heads down getting our work done, and doing our jobs. We have all faced the inevitable yet challenging performance reviews with supervisors at the end of the year. We are so busy proving what we accomplished that we barely spend any time talking about development, compensation and promotions. There is an uncomfortable and awkward dance that accompanies asking for more, but if you dont ask, you dont get. It is still a very uncomfortable thing for most women to talk about money or to even ask about it. Were taught not to ask about the money until you get the job offer. We also don't have the language of how to ask. Even if we know we need to ask, we don't know how to ask. After almost 20 years in the finance industry, I can relate. I had no problem working with clients and talking with them the cost of services but also the value we were providing, but it took me a while to ask my company for what I knew I was worth. We must get use to speaking up for our money, focused on the appropriate outcome and finding the language to do so. Know What You Are Asking for and What It's Worth Traditionally, people entered the job market and changed jobs without knowing the market value of their roles or seats. Today people talk and there is a significant amount of information out there about market compensation. You must do your research and talk to peers and headhunters or explore recruiting sites. Understand what your ask is before you get in the door and stand firm. Companies are going to try to pay less because they are focused on the bottom line. If you do your homework and know what you should be getting, you can hold your number and not back-peddle. You dont have to take that job, or that number and you can negotiate because they are negotiating too. It took me a long time to ask for what I wanted financially. I was always prepared and ready to defend my accomplishments and performance when I went into mid-year or year-end discussions, but I was hardly prepared to have the compensation discussion. We want our managers and companies to really see our value but if we dont get our fair market value, we will always be at a disadvantage. Even as I accelerated my career in banking, I was always defending myself. I knew my male peers were making more and sometimes doing less (no offense), but I couldnt figure out the best way to ask for more pay. Often once you were ready to start that discussion, there was a stonewalling that occurred or a topic switch. But its not always someone elses fault. I remember walking into my managers office one day to have a discussion about a raise. I immediately started delivering my accomplishments speech when he stopped me mid-sentence and asked, What is your number? I was completely caught off guard because in all my preparation around why I deserved a raise, I never thought of a number even though I knew the market value of my role and seat. To his credit he told me to come back the next day with a number and I did. I got the raise I wanted because I was confident in my ask, I knew I was valuable to the team and firm and my performance spoke for itself. I got that number when the time came for raises and my boss response summed it all up, You deliver for us, we deliver for you. Its not always going to turn out that way and I know I had a fantastic manager, but you must make the ask, know what you are asking for and get comfortable asking over and over throughout your career. Promotions and Pay Equity Won't Be Achieved in One Ask No one cares about your career as much as you do and it's your responsibility to get the compensation you deserve. It's a push and pull balance. You need to push as much as your company should pull. Vicky Garcia That means we have to flex our muscle and ask for more and often. That means we have to flex our muscle and ask for more and often. The worst thing that can happen is they say no, and you walk out of that negotiation making exactly what you walked in with. You also need to evaluate why youre there if they wont pay you. Women must dismiss the fear of putting your cards on the table - wanting more should be viewed as a good thing. It shows that you understand your worth and the value of your contribution. Make sure your company knows that you not only care about the role, you care about being compensated fairly. It matters to you, so make it matter to them. Women have to keep asking for their deserved promotions and raises. Once you get it, know that you will have to ask again and again. Looking at the pay equity crisis from a macro level can be overwhelming but it's important to personalize it to find the ways that you can stand up for your compensation and your worth. As women, we each have skin in the game. Thinking about it this way is one step in the direction of change. You dont have to do it alone. Find a sponsor, not a mentor, who will fight for you when youre not in the room and make sure they know your story. As your advocate they can help level the playing field and promote you. Dont wait to be tapped. You need to display that you are assertive and care about your career. Ensure that sponsor gives you feedback whether or not you get the promotion or raise. This feedback helps to guide you in your role, your development, as well as those next conversations. If youre not getting feedback, they arent the right sponsor. It all boils down to getting comfortable with the uncomfortable. You have to constantly prepare your ask(s) and think strategically about whats next and the value of that seat. Sometimes you have to be a tough negotiator and be prepared to hear "no." Dont shrink but hold your ground and be ready with a rebuttal or a counter to demonstrate that you know your worth. Too often we worry that this kind of power play move will cost us the seat were in, but I argue that you are in the wrong seat if they dont want to pay you fairly. | https://www.forbes.com/sites/cateluzio/2019/04/08/whats-the-game-plan-to-fix-the-gender-pay-gap/ |
Who can replace Fleetwood Mac at Jazz Fest? Beyonce, The Boss, Beatle Paul? | The 50th anniversary New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival is snake bit. On March 30, the marquee act, the legendary Rolling Stones, were forced to cancel because 75-year-old frontman Mick Jagger needed heart valve replacement surgery, which, thankfully, seems to have been a success. Rolling Stones canceled for Jazz Fest Band scrubs entire No Filter tour because Mick Jagger is ailing The Jazz Fest management then scrambled to find a suitable replacement, settling on the 1970s fountainhead of radio megahits Fleetwood Mac. But on April 8, Fleetwood Mac canceled too, reportedly because 70-year-old vocalist extraordinaire Stevie Nicks needed time off to fully recover from the flu. Fleetwood Mac cancels May 2 Jazz Fest show The band had replaced the Rolling Stones, which canceled its May 2 appearance on March 30. This is a Boomer bummer. Seeing Mick and Stevie out on the road again gave those of us of a certain age a sense of vicarious triumph. It lent us the illusion of invulnerability that we havent had in quite some time. Needless to say, the news of cancellations made necessary by medical emergencies had the opposite effect. You wouldnt think there was an upside, but there is. Once again, we get to ponded a replacement. Which, even under the circumstances, is fun. Doug MacCash has the best job in the world, covering art, music and culture in New Orleans. Contact him via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Instagram at dougmaccash, on Twitter at Doug MacCash and on Facebook at Douglas James MacCash. As always, please add your point of view to the comment stream. | https://www.nola.com/entertainment/2019/04/who-can-replace-fleetwood-mac-at-jazz-fest-beyonce-the-boss-beatle-paul.html |
Are the Real Housewives of Miami coming back to Bravo? | From left: Alexia Echevarria, Marysol Patton, Larsa Pippen, Cristy Rice, Lea Black, Adriana de Moura from season 1 of Real Housewives of Miami Raise your hand if you want Real Housewives of Miami to return. We see you. Its likely, at least partially, up to the Bravo executive producer whether the cable network wants to resurrect the series that ran on TV screens for just three seasons. It premiered Feb. 22, 2011, and ended Nov. 14, 2013. Theres definitely still interest in the cast members, who included Marysol Patton, Joanna Krupa, Lea Black, Adriana de Moura, Larsa Pippen, Ana Quincoces, Karent Sierra, Alexia Echevarria, Cristy Rice and Lisa Hochstein. Unlimited Digital Access: Only $0.99 For Your First Month Get full access to Miami Herald content across all your devices. SAVE NOW #ReadLocal The breakout star of the drama-filled series was likely Pattons mother, the outspoken Elsa Patton. Drag queen Elaine Lancaster also made a few appearances. On April 2, the cable network ran an eight-hour marathon of old shows from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. When Patton informed her followers on Instagram, they were quick to tell her how much they missed RHOM. Im keeping my fingers crossed. We need Miami back, wrote one fan. You ladies were the best! It was heartbreaking last time it abruptly ended! complained another. I just binged watched all of the seasons this past weekend! I wish they would bring you girls back! Loved, loved you and your style! summed up another poster. Bring Miami back! Quincoces, who has moved on to build a marinade empire, Skinny Latina, received similar reactions when she posted about the marathon. Most of her followers were curious about a reboot and wanted to know if it was really happening. Come back #rhom, come back, begged one of Quincoces 106,000 followers. In his 2017 memoir, Superficial: More Adventures from the Andy Cohen Diaries, the TV personality touched on the topic. As far as a reboot of the reality series, Never say never, he wrote of the Miami franchise. We reached out to Bravo for comment and did not hear back. Heres a look back from our archives, covering the premiere, published Feb. 4, 2011: The rumors were true, and now its official: Bravos The Real Housewives of Miami hits the airwaves Feb. 22, the network announced Thursday. And no, contrary to what youve heard, drag-queen extraordinaire Elaine Lancaster didnt make the cut. She/he will make some drama-filled cameos, though. Check out the new cast: Lea Black: Philanthropy and charity functions are her bag, so expect lots of dressing up. She and her husband, famed criminal defense attorney Roy Black, have a 9-year-old son. Alexia Echevarria: The executive editor of Venue magazine lives on Miami Beach with her husband Herman. The Cuban Barbie has two sons from a previous marriage. Marysol Patton: The PR diva owns the Patton Group, throwing hot parties, mostly revolving around fashion. Word is she gets romantically entangled (say no more) while cameras roll. Cristy Rice: A basketball wife, the mom of five recently divorced NBA star Glen Rice (they had some nasty scuffles). The show will follow the Miami natives home and work life at her online childrens clothing store, Bri Bri Boutique. Adriana Sidi: The gallery owner of Adriana de Moura in Coral Gables also hits the social circuit hard. The Brazilian bombshell is coming off a traumatic divorce, says the release, but the mother of one son is engaged to someone new. Larsa Pippen: The former model is married to retired NBA star Scottie Pippen, and they live in Fort Lauderdale. Bravo has this to say about the Lebanese beauty: When shes not busy turning her three little boys into star athletes, shopping for her one-year-old princess, or firing nannies, Larsa is happy to spend a little time on herself. Let the fur fly, ladies! | https://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/celebrities/article228962264.html |
Has Texas Tech ever won a NCAA tournament national championship? | Texas Tech faces Virginia on Monday night in the NCAA men's tournament national championship. If Texas Tech wins the game, it will be the first time the men's basketball program captures the national championship. Entering this season, the Red Raiders' best finish in the NCAA tournament came in 2018 when they lost in the Elite Eight to eventual national champion Villanova. This season, Texas Tech knocked off Gonzaga in the regional final and then defeated Michigan State in the Final Four to reach the championship game. However, in 1993, the school's women's program won the title over Ohio State behind big performances from Sheryl Swoopes and Marsha Sharp. Monday's game is also the first meeting between Virginia and Texas Tech ever. Tip-off is scheduled for 9:20 p.m. ET/ | https://www.si.com/college-basketball/2019/04/08/texas-tech-ncaa-mens-tournament-national-chamionships-history |
Has Virginia ever won the National Championship? | Virginia has a chance to make history Monday in its NCAA Championship game when the Hoos meet Texas Tech. The Cavaliers are playing in their third Final Four and have never won a national championship in mens basketball. Virginia made the Final Four in both 1981 and 1984, but lost in the national semifinal round both times under head coach Terry Holland. In 1981, the Cavaliers fell to a Dean Smith-led North Carolina team by 13. In 1984, they lost to Hakeem Olajuwon and Houston by two points. This season, Virginia has gotten to the national final as the No. 1 seed out of the south region. After back-to-back double-digit wins over Gardner-Webb and Oklahoma during the tournaments first weekend, the Cavaliers escaped close contests against Oregon and Purdue to advance to the Final Four in Minneapolis. In its Final Four matchup with Auburn, Virginia scored six points in the games final 10 seconds to earn a spot in Mondays championship game. Monday's game will also be the first meeting between Virginia and Texas Tech. | https://www.si.com/college-basketball/2019/04/08/virginia-basketball-national-championship-history-record-tony-bennett |
What laws could investigators use to pursue a case against Boeing? | Aircraft manufacturers like Boeing rarely face a criminal investigation resulting from plane crashes. But last fall a grand jury in Washington, D.C., issued a subpoena for records after the crash of a Lion Air 737 Max plane. In the wake of the recent Ethiopian Airlines crash involving similar circumstances, the FBI has joined that investigation. Both the Justice Department and Boeing have declined to comment on the criminal inquiry. One statute they may consider is the federal false statements law. The broad statute is used when a company provides information to a federal agency like the Federal Aviation Administration to certify the safety of a plane, and it makes it a crime to provide an agency with any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation about a matter that comes within its jurisdiction. Investigators will examine whether Boeing made any false statements regarding a new software system added to avoid stalls in Boeings 737 Max series. Investigators suspect that faulty data from sensors on both planes may have caused the system, known as MCAS, to malfunction. Boeings chief executive has said that the automated flight system played a role in the two crashes. Boeing also charged extra for two safety features on its 737 Max jets that might have helped the pilots detect erroneous sensor readings to avoid problems with the software. Investigators likely will examine whether Boeing made any misstatements about the upgrades or if the company failed to disclose possible safety problems to the FAA without those upgrades. The false statement law covers not only outright lies, but also submissions in which a person falsifies, conceals, or covers up information submitted to a federal agency. There have been a number of prosecutions involving false statements to the FAA under the statute. Most of those cases, though, involve pilots who fail to disclose information that might result in the agency revoking or refusing to renew a license. The challenge to bringing a false statement charge is that the government must show they were made knowingly and willfully. That means negligence by Boeing would not be enough to prove a violation. The criminal investigation also could examine whether Boeing violated a law adopted in 2000. The statute makes it a crime to knowingly and with intent to defraud to falsify or conceal a material fact about an aircraft part or to make any materially fraudulent representation about a part. It can be applied to conduct outside the United States so long as the company is organized under the laws of this country, which, as a Delaware corporation, Boeing is. The aircraft fraud parts law carries stiff penalties, including a fine of $10 million for each violation by a company and a sentence of up to life in prison for individuals charged if the part involved was the proximate cause of a malfunction that resulted in death. A conviction also could result in a criminal forfeiture of any property constituting, or derived from, any proceeds that the person obtained, directly or indirectly, as a result of the offense. If there is evidence of fraud and not just false statements, the Justice Department could also pursue a wire fraud case. Prosecutors used that law against General Motors for the failure of ignition switches in certain models that caused a number of deaths, along with a charge under the false statement law. In addition, the auto parts maker Takata pleaded guilty to a wire fraud charge for installing faulty air bag inflaters. Federal prosecutors have a number of options if there is evidence that Boeing intentionally provided false or misleading information to the FAA. For the company, there is danger in any criminal investigation because even the hint of possible misconduct could have significant consequences as it tries to deal with the fallout from crashes of its best-selling aircraft. Peter J. Henning is a New York Times writer. | https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/What-laws-could-investigators-use-to-pursue-a-13751380.php |
Did WrestleMania 35 live up to the hype? | by Daniel Tran WWE WrestleMania 35 came and went, but many fans are still buzzing after the historical headliners and results. Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair and Ronda Rousey closed out the show and some marks loved every second of the WWEs flagship event. Wrestlemania 35 also saw the first black WWE Champion and the dethroning of Brock Lesnar as WWE Universal Champion. But other fans didnt think the matches lived up to the high expectations. A company with the history of the WWE rarely has firsts, but the entertainment property found a way to make history and do it well. The first ever all-women headliner ended WrestleMania 35 with Becky Lynch holding both the SmackDown and Raw women's titles. Kofi Kingston defeated Daniel Bryan to become the first black WWE Champion ever. Seth Rollins dethroned Brock Lesnar, and the longest title reign ever, to the delight of many marks. These historic victories carried the show and made it one of the best WrestleManias in recent years. A kid who looks like us saw Kofi Kingston win the WWE Championship at WrestleMania and it likely inspired him to chase the same dream... and know its possible. What a night. CM (@StokelyHathaway) April 8, 2019 It's all well and good that women headlined WrestleMania and the first black WWE Champion was crowned, but that doesn't mean the matches weren't trash. Becky Lynch's victory was awkward and really ruined what could've been an epic match. Triple H and Bautista's match ran way too long and almost seven hours total of wrestling is way too much. Its about quality, not quantity. WrestleMania 35 was trash. This #Wrestlemania has sucked. Everyone that has won.... Shouldnt have. This is crap.... The #WWE definitely dropped the ball ... Stright garbage McJade (@Methousmcjade) April 8, 2019 The Tylt is focused on debates and conversations around news, current events and pop culture. We provide our community with the opportunity to share their opinions and vote on topics that matter most to them. We actively engage the community and present meaningful data on the debates and conversations as they progress. The Tylt is a place where your opinion counts, literally. The Tylt is an Advance Local Media, LLC property. Join us on Twitter @TheTylt, on Instagram @TheTylt or on Facebook, wed love to hear what you have to say. | https://www.cleveland.com/tylt/2019/04/did-wrestlemania-35-live-up-to-the-hype.html |
Who will run the 2020 RNC in Charlotte, NC? | Why Charlotte was picked for the Republican National Convention in 2020 Rona McDaniel and Vi Lyles explain why Charlotte was chosen for the RNC. Up Next SHARE COPY LINK Rona McDaniel and Vi Lyles explain why Charlotte was chosen for the RNC. Marcia Lee Kelly, who worked on the last three Republican national conventions, will run the 2020 convention in Charlotte. National GOP Chair Ronna McDaniel formally named Kelly president and CEO of the convention Monday. Marcias extensive background in organizing events of this scale will ensure Charlotte is our most successful convention yet, McDaniel said in a statement. Im thrilled to have Marcia leading our team as we continue to celebrate President Trumps America First momentum in the Queen City. Until last fall, Kelly was the White House director of management and administration. In 2016 she was the national conventions director of operations in Cleveland, managing overall convention logistics. She also worked on two previous conventions. Unlimited Digital Access: Only $0.99 For Your First Month Get full access to The Charlotte Observer content across all your devices. SAVE NOW #ReadLocal I am thrilled to serve as President and CEO of the Republican National Convention especially in Charlotte, which has so much to offer as our host city, Kelly said in a statement. | https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/rnc-2020/article228987849.html |
Should cyber-security be more chameleon, less rhino? | Billions are being lost to cyber-crime each year, and the problem seems to be getting worse. Israeli researchers are coming up with some interesting solutions. The key to stopping the hackers, explains Neatsun Ziv, vice president of cyber-security products at Tel Aviv-based Check Point Security Technologies, is to make hacking unprofitable. "We're currently tracking 150 hacking groups a week, and they're making $100,000 a week each," he tells the BBC. "If we raise the bar, they lose money. They don't want to lose money." This means making it difficult enough for hackers to break in that they choose easier targets. And this has been the main principle governing the cyber-security industry ever since it was invented - surrounding businesses with enough armour plating to make it too time-consuming for hackers to drill through. The rhinoceros approach, you might call it. But some think the industry needs to be less rhinoceros and more chameleon, camouflaging itself against attack. The six generations of cyber-attacks Image copyright Getty Images 1991: Floppy discs are infected with malicious software that attacks any PC they are inserted into 1994: Attackers access company intranets to steal data 1997: Hackers fool web servers into giving them access, exploiting server vulnerabilities 2006: Attackers start finding "zero-day" - previously unknown - bugs in all types of commonly-used software and use them to sneak into networks or send malware disguised as legitimate file attachments 2016: Hackers use multi-pronged attacks, combining worms and ransomware, powerful enough to attack entire networks at once 2019: Hackers start attacking internet of things connected devices. Source: Check Point Software Technologies "We need to bring prevention back into the game," says Yuval Danieli, vice president of customer services at Israeli cyber-security firm Morphisec. "Most of the world is busy with detection and remediation - threat hunting - instead of preventing the cyber-attack before it occurs." Morphisec - born out of research done at Ben-Gurion University - has developed what it calls "moving target security". It's a way of scrambling the names, locations and references of each file and software application in a computer's memory to make it harder for malware to get its teeth stuck in to your system. The mutation occurs each time the computer is turned on so the system is never configured the same way twice. The firm's tech is used to protect the London Stock Exchange and Japanese industrial robotics firm Yaskawa, as well as bank and hotel chains. But the most effective way to secure a computer is to isolate it from local networks and the internet completely - so-called air gapping. You would need to gain physical access to the computer to steal data. Image copyright Ben-Gurion University Image caption Yuval Elovici believes that no way of protecting a computer is 100% reliable Yuval Elovici, head of the cyber-security research centre at Ben-Gurion University, warns that even this method isn't 100% reliable. "The obvious way to attack an air-gapped machine is to compromise it during the supply chain when it is being built," he says. "So you then have a compromised air-gapped computer in a nuclear power station that came with the malware - the attacker never has to enter the premises." Indeed, in October last year, Bloomberg Businessweek alleged that Chinese spies had managed to insert chips on servers made in China that could be activated once the machines were plugged in overseas. The servers were manufactured for US firm Super Micro Computer Inc. The story suggested that Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Apple were among 30 companies, as well as government agencies and departments, that had used the suspect servers. Apple and Amazon strenuously denied the claims. More Technology of Business While air gapping is impractical for many businesses, so-called "co-operative cyber-security" is being seen as another way to thwart the hackers. Imagine there are four firms working together: Barclays, Microsoft, Google and a cyber-security company, say. Each of the four firms gives a piece of data to each other. They don't know what the data is that they are protecting, but they hold it in their networks. In order to access sensitive information from any of the firms, attackers would need to hack all four networks and work out which piece of data is missing, to be able to make any sense of the files stolen. "If the likelihood of breaking into a single network is 1%, then to penetrate four different networks, the likelihood would become 0.00000001%," explains Alon Cohen, founder of cyber-security firm nsKnox and former chief technology officer for the Israeli military. Image copyright Check Point Image caption Check Point's Neatsun Ziv believes "there's no such thing as an unhackable computer" He calls the concept "crypto-splitting", and it involves encoding each sequence of data as thousands of numbers then dividing these cryptographic puzzles between the four companies. "You would need to solve thousands of puzzles in order to put the data back together," says Mr Cohen. Check Point also collaborates with large multinational technology firms in a data-sharing alliance in the belief that co-operation is key to staying one step ahead of the hackers. But while such approaches show promise, Check Point's Neatsun Ziv concludes that: "There is no such thing as an unhackable computer, the only thing that exists is the gap between what you build and what people know how to hack today." There is always a trade-off between usability and security. The more secure and hack-proof a computer is, the less practical it is in a networked world. "Yes, we can build an unhackable computer but it would be like a tank with so many shields that it wouldn't move anywhere," says Morphisec's Mr Danieli. The concern for the cyber-security industry is that as the nascent "internet of things" develops, powered by 5G mobile connectivity, the risk of cyber-attack will only increase. And as artificial intelligence becomes more widespread, it will become just another tool hackers can exploit. The arms race continues. Follow Technology of Business editor Matthew Wall on Twitter and Facebook | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47724438 |
Who is Kevin McAleenan, Trump's acting homeland security chief after Kirstjen Nielsen leaves? | President Donald Trump's pick to head the Department of Homeland Security didn't take the traditional route to his position, but Kevin McAleenan has carried out every aspect of the president's hard-line immigration strategy in an attempt to seal the southern border. After Sunday's resignation of Kirstjen Nielsen, the former business and corporate lawyer steps into a perilous position where he'll have to please an increasingly exasperated president as illegal migration along the border explodes. A surge of migrants has overwhelmed the U.S. immigration system in recent months. In response, Trump threatened to close the border and cut off aid to the Central American countries that migrants flee. Trump visited the border in Calexico, California, on Friday with Nielsen. Nielsen voiced increasing frustration at the situation, which the administration considers a national security crisis. Last week, she compared it to a Category 5 hurricane. More: Cutting aid and closing ports: Here's what's happening at the southern border All along, McAleenan has been at the center of that storm. Carried out Trump's border efforts After graduating from Amherst College and the University of Chicago Law School, he worked for several years in California as an attorney practicing business and corporate law. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, he decided to change course, first applying to the FBI and eventually landing a job at what is now Customs and Border Protection. McAleenan headed that agencys anti-terrorism office and served as the port director of Los Angeles International Airport. He steadily rose through the ranks before Trump nominated him as commissioner of CBP and its 45,000 law enforcement personnel. Ever since, McAleenan has carried out some of Trumps most controversial efforts to halt undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers from crossing the southern border. The customs officers and Border Patrol agents he commands separated more than 2,800 migrant children from their families during Trumps now-blocked zero tolerance policy. His officers fired tear gas into a crowd of migrants attempting to approach the San Ysidro Port of Entry in November, leading to questions about the administrations response to a rush of asylum-seeking migrants. Starting in December, four migrants died in four months while in Border Patrol custody, highlighting the conditions migrants are housed in after entering the USA. McAleenan made several tweaks to his agencys process, ordering faster public notification of migrants' deaths in CBP custody and carrying out orders from Nielsen to medically screen all children in custody. His overall approach to the southern border has remained consistently in line with Trumps. During a visit to the San Ysidro Port of Entry last year, he was asked why the administration was adding National Guardsmen, active-duty military troops and Border Patrol agents to the southern border but not making a similar effort to add asylum officers to process and care for migrants seeking help. His answer: This is a law enforcement situation. In charge of full immigration script He defended another controversial practice employed by the agency of metering would-be asylum seekers, meaning only a limited number are allowed to enter U.S. ports of entry each day to request asylum. Critics of that process say its unfair of Trump to ask migrants to make their asylum claims at ports, then make them wait weeks or months on the Mexican side of the border. Its not turning people away, its asking them to wait, McAleenan said. U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan (center) receives a briefing at the San Ysidro Port of Entry in San Diego, Calif., on October 26, 2018. More The one area where he's been at odds with Trump is on the question of aid to Central America. | https://news.yahoo.com/kevin-mcaleenan-trump-apos-acting-110647008.html |
Who is Eric Swalwell, the latest Democrat to jump in the 2020 race? | Rep. Eric Swalwell, a four-term lawmaker from the San Francisco area, is the latest Democrat to announce he's launching a bid to secure the party's presidential nomination and challenge President Trump in 2020. At age 38, the California Democrat is one of the youngest candidates and one of several members of Congress in the race. Here's everything you need to know about the latest candidate to enter the crowded and diverse Democratic primary race. Biography Although he was born in Iowa in 1980, Swalwell moved with his family to attend middle school and high school in California. He was recruited to play soccer for North Carolina's Campbell University. After suffering an injury, however, he transferred to the University of Maryland. After completing his undergraduate studies, Swalwell earned his J.D. from the University of Maryland and was a congressional intern for former California Rep. Ellen Tauscher. In 2011, while a council member in Dublin City, in California's Alameda County, Swalwell mounted a primary challenge against fellow Democrat and 20-term incumbent Pete Stark in the state's 15th Congressional District, located in the outer suburbs of San Francisco. Although Stark bested him in the primary election, Swalwell beat the incumbent in the general election, which he qualified for because of California's "top two" primary system. Since he was sworn-in in 2012, Swalwell has won reelection three times. Although he has been a rank-and-file member of the House Democratic caucus during his congressional tenure, he has raised his profile during the Trump administration as a member of the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, frequently rebuking the president in cable news appearances. On the Intelligence Committee, Swalwell has also strongly defended special counsel Robert Mueller's now-concluded investigation and voiced his concerns about the Trump campaign's contacts with people affiliated with the Russian government, including the infamous "Trump Tower" meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and other campaign officials and a Russian lawyer who claimed to have "dirt" on Hillary Clinton during the summer of 2016. Issues Swalwell will look to make gun safety reform an integral part of his presidential campaign. He has been strongly critical of the National Rifle Association's (NRA) sway in Congress and has repeatedly lambasted Republicans for not supporting gun control measures. He is hosting a town hall on gun control in Florida Tuesday alongside survivors of the Stoneman Douglas High School massacre, in which 17 students and staff members were killed by a gunman. Last week, the California Democrat shared a voicemail his office received in which an individual is heard making a death threat against him because of his stance on gun rights. "We're going to war. And you're going to be the first motherf***ing casualty," the person in the voicemail posted by Swalwell on Twitter is heard saying. In his post, Swalwell wrote, "I'm not afraid of this guy. I'm not afraid of the NRA. I'm not afraid. No fear. #EndGunViolence." Controversy While Swalwell has not been embroiled in any major scandal or controversy during his tenure in Congress, the California Democrat will surely face criticism from Mr. Trump and Republicans on the campaign trail, especially if he secures the party's nomination, because of his staunch defense of the Mueller probe. What Trump says The president has yet to tweet about Swalwell, but his 2020 campaign has strongly criticized the congressman since the release of the Justice Department's summary of the Mueller report. In a "memorandum," Tim Murtaugh, the director of communications of the president's campaign, urged television news outlets to "challenge" Swalwell and other prominent Democrats who said there was evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow. | https://www.cbsnews.com/news/who-is-eric-swalwell-the-latest-democrat-to-say-hes-running-for-president-in-2020/ |
What Was the Lowest Scoring NCAA Tournament Championship Game? | No. 1 seed Virginia and No. 3 Texas Tech will meet on Monday night in the 2019 NCAA tournament title game in Minneapolis, as two of the country's best defenses will clash for the championship. Both are known for stifling opponents' offenses and playing games with wildly low scores (the Red Raiders just held Michigan State to 51 points in the Final Four while posting 61 of their own; Virginia and Auburn both scored in the 60s). The first NCAA men's basketball tournament was played in 1939, and two years later, the lowest scoring title game was played. The 1941 championship clash between Wisconsin and Washington State ended at 3934 for a combined 73 points as the Badgers took the title. The lowest scoring championship game in the shot-clock era (since 1986) was UConn vs. Bulter in 2011 when Kemba Walker led the Huskies to a 5341 win to capture the title. Butler shot just 18.8% from the floor in the loss to the Huskies, who went 34.5% from the field but sunk just 1-of-11 from three-point range. The 2011 title game also marks the only championship in the shot-clock era where the teams failed to score 100 points. The fewest points scored in any NCAA tournament game is 46, a record set in 1941 when Pittsburgh beat North Carolina 2620. The fewest scored in March Madness in the shot-clock era (since 1986) is 75, set when Missouri State beat Wisconsin 4332 in 1999. | https://www.si.com/college-basketball/2019/04/08/lowest-scoring-ncaa-tournament-championship-game-march-madness-history |
Is Airbus' sofa-style seat the future of business class travel? | Hamburg, Germany (CNN) On a long-haul flight, passengers spend the time working, eating, sleeping, relaxing -- and all in the same seat. Even in the swankiest business class situation cabin fever can set in. That's where Airbus' new "Settee Corner" chair comes in, offering couch-style airplane seating, alongside all the usual business class features. On these new seats, fliers can recline, lounge-style, just like on a couch at home. They can be joined by a traveling partner for an aperitif and to enjoy the in-flight entertainment. And when it's time to sleep, they just lie down on the seat, no mechanisms needed. It's part of a wider trend visible at AIX -- aircraft and seat manufacturers looking to make radical changes to the airplane seat. Transforming the traditional The idea is you relax as you would on your couch at home. Courtesy Airbus The "Settee Corner" concept was designed by Airbus in collaboration with seat manufacturer Geven. The team based the concept on an economy class three-seater configuration -- transforming this recognizable, budget option into a lightweight and luxurious business class concept. "Airbus is promoting the 321 long range -- now, the 321 is going to fly seven--to-eight hours, so we need to have the comfort in business class, a lie-flat surface, but with very competitive weight," Amalia Martinez Martin, business line leader for tailored equipment, tells CNN Travel at AIX. The concept was designed by Airbus in collaboration with Geven. Courtesy Francesca Street/CNN Martinez Martin says the seat is 30-50% lighter than a traditional business class seat. Plus, because it uses a configuration that's already familiar to airlines, it could go from concept to reality pretty speedily. "We've got all features that you would find in a business class seat," she adds. There's the TV screen, a spot to stow belongings, a roomy overhead locker and tray table for dining -- and, of course, the additional couch-like experience. On one end of the "settee" there's a seat equipped with a safety belt to use during take-off and landing. Another safety belt will be installed further down the couch for use in the sleep position. Related content Airplane interiors of the future revealed in 2019 Crystal Cabin Awards Testing out the seat CNN Travel tests out the seat at AIX 2019 in Hamburg, Germany. Courtesy Francesca Street/CNN CNN Travel tested out the seat at AIX. It uses the economy-style structure, so there's not a lot of leg-room in the take-off position. But the roomy sofa-style space is very inviting. It's easy to imagine reclining with a book or tucking yourself under a blanket to watch a movie. It'd also be super sociable if you were traveling with someone else. As for sleeping, the mock-ups at AIX are the same overall length -- 185 centimeters -- as Airbus's traditional business class seat. Martinez Martin says there's the potential to make it a bit longer, up to 195 centimeters. They're going to test drive both lengths. Related content The most exciting new airports opening in 2019 Because the seat curves, it feels relatively private -- but there's also the option for airlines to add a curtain or screen. There are other advantages. "Each passenger has direct access to the aisle, each cabin crew has direct access to the passenger, easily, not like in some of the staggered configurations," explains Martinez Martin. Airbus also thinks it'll be appealing to airlines who fly the same aircraft on both long-haul and short-haul flights: "It could also be a possibility to certify the two positions for taxi, take-off and landing," explains Martinez Martin. That means they could use the seat for two people, as well as one person. Passenger feedback Airlines and passengers alike have apparently shown interest. "Some of the airlines are crazy about it because, as I said, they are always looking for how to make a better business of their aircraft," says Martinez Martin. "If you tell them you are going to carry on less weight, they [work out the] fuel consumption that they can save." Meanwhile prospective passengers like the variety the seat offers. "You feel like being at home in your own lounge," says Martinez Martin. Airbus thinks the concept could really take flight. Big trend Safran's Essential Business Class seat uses innovative cushion structures. Courtesy Safran Airbus aren't the only company exploring mechanism-free, lounge-style business class seating. French company Safran has also designed a seat that doesn't use mechanisms. Instead, Safran Essential Business Class uses cushioning in innovative ways. It's not quite a sofa, but it's a similar vibe. Speaking at AIX, Quentin Munier, strategy and innovation director at Safran, tells CNN Travel that this couch-style trend is the natural next step, after business class seats progressed to full flat designs. "The sofa principle is something that is interesting to explore," says Munier. Munier echoes Martinez Martin's comments about this kind of seat being more sociable. He also explains that having the ability to move around is important to passengers' well-being on the flight. Also on display at AIX is French company Style and Design Group's innovative approach to business class. Style and Design's vice president of design, Romain Chareyre, shows CNN Travel the company's "Moments" model. First off, it looks like a swanky armchair, not something you'd expect to see on an airline. Provocative velvet Kitted out in on-trend green velvet, with monochrome floral cushioning for the headrest, it's eye-catching. Style and Design Group's on-trend Moments model. Courtesy Style and Design Group Related content Airplane interiors of the future revealed in 2019 Crystal Cabin Awards It also doesn't use any complicated mechanisms -- it's got a back rest that folds down and foot rest that folds up, turning into a full bed. Sitting on the lightweight seat, it's easy to maneuver into different positions. Chareyre claims the use of velvet was deliberately provocative. "We want to ask questions," he says. It's worked. "We have good feedback from airlines, from seat vendors," says Chareyre. "They like the geometry, the philosophy behind it, the simplicity." Passengers, meanwhile, like the idea of space. "You're not stuck between units, or constrained," says Chareyre. "The idea is to be very versatile and open a lot of opportunities for the passenger." The Moments chair will also have the so-called "Honeymoon" configuration, where two seats could be positioned next to one another. Both Safran and Style and Design's concepts were shortlisted for the Crystal Cabin Awards 2019 , so the aviation industry's clearly taking notice. | https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/airbus-sofa-airplane-seat/index.html |
Can Artificial Intelligence Make The Hiring Process More Fair? | One of Sweden's biggest recruiters plans to use Artificial Intelligence-powered robots to conduct job interviews as a way to curb bias in the hiring process. We look at that question in All Tech Considered. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) SHAPIRO: Lots of Fortune 500 companies use some sort of AI to screen job candidates. In Sweden, recruiters are testing an AI-powered recruitment robot. Reporter Maddy Savage went to check it out. MADDY SAVAGE, BYLINE: I'm outside the offices of TNG, one of Sweden's largest recruiting companies, which has a glass-fronted office in downtown Stockholm. And I'm waiting for Avni Dervishi, a job-seeker who's here to take part in trials of the firm's new robots. AVNI DERVISHI: I have a master's degree in European politics, European affairs. I applied for quite many, many, many jobs. Some interviews I did manage to get, and I know that I did comply with the requirements. SAVAGE: But Dervishi thinks he's missed out on being hired because of discrimination or unconscious bias. He's in his 40s and is originally from Kosovo. DERVISHI: What I do think it's missing is more open-mindedness. Swedish people are cautious. They are careful. SAVAGE: OK. Well, I'm going to leave you... DERVISHI: OK. SAVAGE: ...To try out this robot interview. DERVISHI: All right. SAVAGE: Best of luck. DERVISHI: Thank you. (SOUNDBITE OF DOOR CLOSING) SAVAGE: Sweden has experienced record immigration in recent years. And the unemployment rate amongst people born abroad is around 19 percent, compared to just 4 percent of Swedes. To get some more context, I went for coffee with Matt Kriteman, an American living in Stockholm who works at a nonprofit that campaigns for inclusion in the labor market. MATT KRITEMAN: Sweden is relatively new, comparatively speaking, with other countries that have been multicultural, for example, like, the U.S., from the beginning. We see more - growing pains is what we call it. KRITEMAN: We're in Stockholm, the tech startup capital of Europe. So we're really, really interested in this. At the same time, AI is only as good and as diverse as the people who create the algorithm. SAVAGE: That's the programming instructions that determine how the robot will respond. The robot being used by TNG, called Tengai, has been given a female voice and interacts with candidates by means of a talking head. Her face glows, and she can even mimic human facial expressions like blinking and smiling. COMPUTER-GENERATED VOICE: (Speaking Swedish). SAVAGE: At the moment, she can only carry out job interviews in Swedish, but she is learning to speak English. CHARLOTTE ULVROS: My name is Charlotte Ulvros, and I'm the chief marketing and experience officer. Tengai is an unbiased social robot to make sure that we find out who is the best candidate for the job, not anything that's connected to bias, for example, your looks or anything like that. SAVAGE: She says TNG has sought to avoid any potential algorithm bias by ensuring a diverse group of recruiters and test candidates have been involved in training the robot. But most of the developers working on the project are men. ULVROS: There could be, for example, sexist algorithms, but that's when we will use external experts, who will continuously check the code because we're so aware of this issue, and we're trying to do an unbiased product. And we need to keep on top of things. SAVAGE: That's not the only concern. Dr. Malin Lindelow, a psychologist who specializes in recruitment, says there's much more to a job interview than just answering a list of questions. MALIN LINDELOW: We have a lot of areas where there is lack of employees, so actually attracting candidates is a big issue. I'm concerned that it will be an impersonal and not-very-selling experience for the candidate. They need to meet the people they're going to work with in the future. SAVAGE: Back at TNG, Avni Dervishi's just finished his job interview, and he's got mixed feelings. And at the end, it felt that I would like to see those robots start to be applicable in some working places which lack diversity but not take the jobs of the humans in charge of recruiting people. SAVAGE: TNG plans to start using the robot in real job interviews for May, although it will still use human recruiters for second-round interviews. But her developers say they can see a future where robots like Tengai could eventually make the final call. For NPR News, I'm Maddy Savage in Stockholm. Copyright 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. | https://www.npr.org/2019/04/08/711169794/can-artificial-intelligence-make-the-hiring-process-more-fair?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=technology |
What picks do the Broncos have in NFL Draft 2019? | CLEVELAND, Ohio The Denver Broncos, who went 6-10 last season, have the 10th pick in the first round of the 2019 NFL Draft, which is April 25-27 in Nashville. Here are all the picks the Broncos have in the draft: First round: 10th pick. Second round: 9th pick, 41st overall. Third round: 7th pick, 71st overall. Fourth round: 23rd pick, 125th overall (via trade with Texans). Fifth round: 10th pick, 148th overall. Fifth round: 18th pick, 156th overall (via trade with Vikings). Sixth round: 9th pick, 182nd overall. Seventh round: 23rd pick, 237th overall (via trade with Texans). See the picks the Browns have in the 2019 NFL Draft. For team hats, shirts or other gear: Visit Fanatics, Lids, Champs Sports or Dicks Sporting Goods. For game tickets: Visit StubHub, PrimeSport, SeatGeek or TicketMaster. To stream this teams games: CBS All Access: With CBS All Access you can watch live TV and more than 7,500 on-demand episodes across many devices. The first week of CBS All Access is free. Fubo.TV: Get a free trial and watch sports from across the globe. Hulu: The best in sports and drama shows. | https://www.cleveland.com/browns/2019/04/denver-broncos-2019-nfl-draft-what-draft-picks-do-they-have.html |
What picks do the Raiders have in NFL Draft 2019? | CLEVELAND, Ohio The Oakland Raiders, who went 4-12 last season, have the fourth pick in the first round of the 2019 NFL Draft, which is April 25-27 in Nashville. Here are all the picks the Raiders have in the draft: First round: 4th pick. First round: 24th pick (via trade with Bears). First round: 27th pick (via trade with Cowboys). Second round: 3rd pick, 35th overall. Third round: None (traded to Steelers). Fourth round: 4th pick, 106th overall). Fifth round: 2nd pick, 140th overall (via trade with Jets). Sixth round: None (traded to Steelers). Seventh round: 4th pick, 218th overall. Seventh round: 21st pick, 235th overall (via trade with Seahawks). See the picks the Browns have in the 2019 NFL Draft. For team hats, shirts or other gear: Visit Fanatics, Lids, Champs Sports or Dicks Sporting Goods. For game tickets: Visit StubHub, PrimeSport, SeatGeek or TicketMaster. To stream this teams games: CBS All Access: With CBS All Access you can watch live TV and more than 7,500 on-demand episodes across many devices. The first week of CBS All Access is free. Fubo.TV: Get a free trial and watch sports from across the globe. Hulu: The best in sports and drama shows. | https://www.cleveland.com/browns/2019/04/oakland-raiders-2019-nfl-draft-what-draft-picks-do-they-have.html |
What is malaria and why is it such a big problem? | It's a disease caused by a parasite spread by a particular kind of mosquito - the Anopheles - which bites people at night-time. It's a huge problem in countries across Asia, Africa and South America. Most cases occur in Africa and the disease is particularly harmful to young children. Malaria is one of the most deadly diseases on Earth. The World Health Organisation estimates that more than 600,000 people die from it every year. Despite this, most people survive malaria after a 10-20 day illness, but it is important to spot the symptoms early. Fever, headache and sickness are all symptoms of a possible infection. Getty Images Special nets can help keep mosquitoes away Fighting against the disease Malaria is preventable and curable. The best way to stop people getting the disease is to stop them being bitten by the mosquitoes. Special nets to cover beds, insect repellents and destroying mosquito breeding grounds all help to stop people getting infected. But a vaccine would be a more effective weapon against malaria. Researchers are trying to develop a cheap vaccine, but so far none is available and approved for general use. | https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/27540589 |
Will Trump rip kids from parents at the border, again? | Opinion: It was a disaster the first time. Cruel. Inhumane. And ineffective. It didn't solve a problem, but only created more. Central American migrant children outside the San Ysidro port of entry in April, 2018. (Photo: Nick Oza/The Republic) The idea that President Donald Trump would even think about reinstating a policy of separating children from their parents at the border should make you sick. It was cruel. It was a disaster. It was a black mark on everything we stand for. And it appears, again, to be on the table. Several news operations are now reporting that the White House is considering a move to go back to ripping children from their parents, a policy that didnt hold up in court and most likely would not hold up again. If senior officials are talking about it, as news reports indicate, its possible the administration is floating the possibility on purpose to see what the public reaction might be. Nausea. Hopefully. And anger. Pause to remember the horrors Before the president and his people again target the most vulnerable of those who seek asylum at our border should they, even for an instant, consider the harm caused by their zero tolerance policy when it was in effect. Not only were children perhaps thousands -- separated from their parents, but the administration had no idea where many of them wound up. Could not locate them. NEWSLETTERS Get the Opinions Newsletter newsletter delivered to your inbox We're sorry, but something went wrong Our best and latest in commentary in daily digest form. Please try again soon, or contact Customer Service at 1-800-332-6733. Delivery: Mon-Fri Invalid email address Thank you! You're almost signed up for Opinions Newsletter Keep an eye out for an email to confirm your newsletter registration. More newsletters There was mistreatment, including sexual abuse. There were instances in which some of the older children, in their teens, harmed themselves and developed suicidal tendencies. It's not getting tougher, it's... It didnt solve our problem. It only created more. And with the president dumping those who may have disagreed with separating families and did not want to reinstitute the practice there isnt much chance the situation would improve under a resumption of the policy. Just the opposite. Thats not, as Trump said, going in a tougher direction. Thats going to hell. Reach Montini at [email protected] Read or Share this story: https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/ej-montini/2019/04/09/donald-trump-family-seperation-parents-border/3408534002/ | https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/ej-montini/2019/04/09/donald-trump-family-seperation-parents-border/3408534002/ |
Are Georgetown Students About to Make History on Racial Reparations? | Jesus Rodriguez is an editorial intern at POLITICO and a senior at Georgetown University. In September 2014, a Georgetown junior published a column in The Hoya, the student newspaper, with the headline: Georgetown, Financed by Slave Trading. It unearthed a known but largely forgotten history: that the esteemed Jesuit university had saved itself from financial ruin in 1838 by selling 272 enslaved people. The sale had been orchestrated by one of the schools presidents, Thomas Mulledy, himself a Jesuit priest, and the namesake of a residence hall that was at the time of the article undergoing renovations. The author, Matthew Quallen, urged the administration to strip Mulledys name from the building. Quallens demand was effectively the first shot in what has become a four-and-a-half-year debate over how the school should atone for its slave-holding past. In September 2015, Georgetowns president, John J. DeGioia, impaneled a working group of academics, administrators, and students to study the issue. Two months later, black students staged a sit-in in his office successfully demanding the removal of names like Mulledys, which still graced several prominent buildings on campus. In 2016, the university agreed to give admissions preference to descendants of the 272 slaves; and the first two descendants arrived in the fall of 2016. College officials and the Jesuits held a mass of contrition in the spring of 2017 as a formal mea culpa for the sale. Story Continued Below But the perception has grown among some of the approximately 7,000 undergraduates that the university has moved too slowly. There is still no public marker of that dark chapter of Georgetowns history. Most importantly, the university still has not addressed what many saw as the most crucial element in the working groups report: financial compensation for the estimated 4,000 living descendants. In a word, reparations. This week, Georgetown students are attempting to change that. On April 11, undergraduates will vote on a referendum to create a $27.20 per semester student fee to create a fund that would benefit the descendants through education and health care initiatives in the Louisiana and Maryland locales where many of them still live. If the measure passes, and the universitys board of directors approves, it will mark the first time a major American institution has gone beyond the platitudes of dialogue and actually compensated the victims of slavery. And it comes at a moment, not entirely coincidentally, when the conversation about Americas racial reckoning has suddenly emerged as a subject many progressives are using to winnow the sprawling field of Democrats in the 2020 presidential campaign. Top: Graduate student Elizabeth Thomas, her brother, Shepard Thomas, a junior, and Mlisande Short-Colomb, a junior, all descendants of the slaves in the 1838 sale, stand outside Anne Marie Becraft Hall. Bottom: Dr. Marcia Chatelain, an associate professor of history and African American studies and Dr. Adam Rothman, an associate professor of history, were both members of the working group impaneled by university administrators to study slavery and its legacy. | Andr Chung for Politico Magazine What is happening right now on Georgetowns campus is a reflection of a larger political climate, in which, I think, people are taking seriously what anti-racist action looks like, said Marcia Chatelain, a professor of history and African American studies and a member of the presidents working group. So its not just being nice to each other or saying racism is a bad thing. Its about actually taking account and responsibility for the ways that these decisions and processes in the past shape contemporary life. And while the Georgetown student fee, which would raise about $400,000 in the first year, does not come close match the multi-billion-dollar price tags of the national reparations projects being discussed by presidential hopefuls, its mere existence indicates the degree to which an idea once thought to be impractically extreme has now moved into the mainstream. (On Monday, Senator Cory Booker introduced a bill to study racial reparations for African Americans, a companion proposal to one offered in the House by Texas Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee.) William Darity, Jr., a professor of public policy at Duke University and one of the leading scholars on the economics of reparations, said he was admiring of the student efforts, while also pushing them to lay the groundwork for a nationwide effort that avoids piecemeal solutions. We do need to move away from viewing this as a matter of individual guilt or individual responsibility that can be offset by individual payments, towards the recognition that this is a national responsibility and a national obligation that must be met by the federal government, he said. Mlisande Short-Colomb, of New Orleans, is a descendant of the GU272 and a sophomore at the University. One side of her family, the Queens, were part of an 1810 Supreme Court case where Francis Scott Key represented them in their bid for freedom. | Andr Chung for Politico Magazine Indeed, the debate on campus mirrors some of the wider discussion about the nature of collective responsibility and whether there is such a thing as a statute of limitations on a crime of such magnitude. Like the American public at large, Georgetown students are far from unanimous in their support for the reparations fee. For one, it puts the burden of paying on students instead of the university. It raises the cost of attendance for families, many already on shoestring budgets. Some black students wonder why, if they too are descended from slaves, they should pay reparations they feel entitled to themselves. Thats the problem, people dont want to be uncomfortable, said Mlisande Short-Colomb, a sophomore and descendant who came to Georgetown at 63. Everything happens for students here on campus. Are you capable of washing feet? *** Like many other top-tier American colleges, including Harvard, Yale, Brown, and the University of Virginia, Georgetowns ties to slavery pre-date the Union. And in Georgetowns case, they persisted even after the sale splintered 40 families and shipped them to plantations in Maryland and Louisiana. Slaves continued to wash the clothes of white, wealthy students from landowning families until Emancipation. After the end of the Civil War, black people continued to work on campus as servants, and integration of the student body wouldnt happen until the first black undergraduate was admitted in 1950. To this day, the colors worn by Georgetowns basketball team, Blue and Gray, are an homage to Union and Confederate military uniforms. The story of Georgetown, the Jesuits, and slavery is such a vivid microcosm of the entire history of American slavery, going back to the early origins, colonial settlement, all the way through Emancipation and beyond, said Adam Rothman, a professor of history, and the curator of the Georgetown Slavery Archive. You can tell the whole history of American slavery through this particular story. Georgetown students vote whether or not to add reparations fee for slave descendants poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201904/1719/1155968404_6024059900001_6024060390001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true Rothman takes no public stance on the referendum so as not to intrude in an initiative that he sees as belonging to the students. But he does encourage them to know their history. A partial truth is not the truth, he told me on a recent morning in his office. And that history continues to emerge in shocking ways. Kuma Okoro, a junior studying international political economy, said he was moved to action when he learned that during construction of a residence hall in December 2014, workers had unearthed a human thigh bone in the site of a segregated cemetery that is known to have had remains of slaves and free blacks. The discovery was kept under wraps until August of last year. For me, that was, like, crazy. The university's goal is to keep the conversation controlled and keep everybody moving along. He reached out to Short-Colomb, and within a month they were having meetings with other advocates of color in what would become the group Students for the GU272. Students were already frustrated by the administrations refusal to erect a memorial honoring the 272 slaves. A student proposal in September 2018 to construct a five-foot-tall, illuminated, marble and granite block, completely free of cost, to be placed near the residence hall built on the segregated cemetery, was politely rebuffed. The presidents office, a representative wrote in an email reviewed by POLITICO, was focused on developing a framework for dialogue. It was committed to engaging these important topics. Patience and understanding were appreciated. Despite its inaction on the memorial proposal, the university has not totally ignored the recommendations that emerged from the working groups 104-page report. Senior administrators are in the middle of tightly guarded talks with descendants, mediated by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, to figure out the right steps for atonement. A grant from the Andrew Mellon Foundation has funded faculty positions and fellowships to study slavery. Some professors have dedicated entire classes to discussing the conflict between the schools founding principles, rooted in Catholic beliefs, and the moral stain that sustained it. Nevertheless, the pace of atonement has led to impatience. What they were doing was more like kiss and hug babies ... to handle the media attention that was present at the time, Shepard Thomas, a junior studying psychology and one of the first descendants to be admitted under the new admissions policy, told me. Yeah, its important to rename buildings. You know, what are you promising at the end of the day? Shepard and Elizabeth Thomas were the first descendants admitted to Georgetown under the new admissions policy, adopted in 2015, which treats those with proven connections to the 272 as legacy students. | Andr Chung for Politico Magazine Last summer, Thomas, who comes from New Orleans, visited Maringouin, a small town outside of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, whose 1,000 residents are overwhelmingly descended from the 1838 sale. What he saw therea town with a dearth of jobs, an absence of quality secondary schools, and a median income ($36,518) far below the national median ($57,617)spurred him to action. (Not all of the descendants think Georgetown has the wherewithal to solve the real problems that beset places like Maringouin, Chatham, and Terrebonne Parish. Jessica Tilson, a descendant from Baton Rouge, recently told me: What Maringouin needs is something Georgetown students cant provide and thats jobs.) Last fall, instead of dwelling on what the university hadnt done, a group of students gathered repeatedly in Short-Colombs dorm to brainstorm how they could empower the student body to do what the administration had declined to do. They studied the legal intricacies of nonprofits. They drafted a resolution to permit a vote on the fee and saw it through four sessions of debate in the student senate. Finally, on February 3, the resolution passed, setting up the vote for April 11. The precedent-setting measure, which they have termed a reconciliation fee, would create a nonprofit governed by a board of five descendants and five students who would allocate the funds collected from the $27.20 fee assessed each semester and funnel them into projects that help cover descendant needs. For instance, theres talk of providing eye exams free of cost and laying the groundwork for a scholarship foundation for descendants to attend college, not just Georgetown. But ultimately, students say, it is up to descendants to decide how best the money should be used. The biggest and most popular argument in opposition to the referendum is not against reparations, but rather who should pay. Many students think that the university needs to make a full commitment to the report of the working group, which reads in part, While we acknowledge that the moral debt of slaveholding and the sale of the enslaved people can never be repaid, we are convinced that reparative justice requires a meaningful financial commitment from the University. From left: student activists, Samantha Moreland and Hannah Michael, both sophomores, inside Isaac Hawkins Hall. | Andr Chung for Politico Magazine When you target undergraduates, to be quite frank, youre literally targeting the least financially successful subset of people who benefit from Georgetown, said sophomore and student senator Sam Dubke, an international economics major. Many return to the question of who bears the true responsibility for righting the wrong. While we agree that the Georgetown of today would not exist if not for the sale of 272 slaves in 1838, current students are not to blame for the past sins of the institution, and a financial contribution cannot reconcile this past debt on behalf of the university, Dubke and another student, Hayley Grande, wrote in an op-ed earlier this semester. The problem, supporters of the fee say, is that the university doesnt seem to want to have anything to do with financial restitutionnot even if its paid for by students. Two days before the senate resolution was passed, administrators filed into a room with students and launched a last-ditch effort to oppose their efforts. The fee, they said, was just not appropriate and outside the bounds of what the student government could do. Even federal research grants to the school could be threatened by this fee, officials said, according to an audio recording made by students in the room. An email statement from Todd Olson, vice president for student affairs, to POLITICO reaffirmed the administrations position that the vote is primarily symbolic: Student referendums help to express important student perspectives but do not create university policy and are not binding on the university. This fight has turned personal for many, including Thomas. At the end of the day, this is my history, he said. *** Each year since 1989, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the longest-serving member of Congress, has introduced a bill to form a commission that would study slavery in the colonies and early Union and recommend appropriate measuresbut it has never been brought up for a vote. The explanation for its perennial failure might be as simple as the negligible amount of support for the idea of reparations in any form; at most 26 percent of Americans favor the idea and that level drops to 6 percent when polling white adults. It was in the face of that disinterest, that in mid-2014, Ta-Nehisi Coates published a piece in The Atlantic called The Case for Reparations. In unsparing detail, Coates traced the crushing financial toll that slavery, and the pernicious segregation that followed, has wreaked on black citizens. What Im talking about is more than recompense for past injusticesmore than a handout, a payoff, hush money, or a reluctant bribe, Coates wrote. Reparations would mean a revolution of the American consciousness, a reconciling of our self-image as the great democratizer with the facts of our history. For all the attention Coates 15,000-word piece garnered, it did not entirely bring a reparations policy to the forefront. (Though its influence endures: The conservative columnist David Brooks last month changed his stance on the issue, citing Coates essay.) Indeed, the 2016 presidential contest, driven by Donald Trumps obsession with illegal immigration, scarcely touched on how to move forward on racial injustice. That has changed dramatically this cycle. And this might be a function of a significant generational split: While reparations have net negative support of 39 percent among voters 45 and older, according to a 2018 poll, voters 45 and younger have a net positive of 2 percent, according to the left-leaning group Data for Progress. In town halls and living rooms across the country, reparations has emerged alongside Medicare for all and climate change as a litmus test on the Democratic side. Almost every candidate has been asked if they support reparations. Top: Students on campus just days before a university referendum that would create a fund for the descendants of the GU272. Bottom: Student activists make buttons supporting the university referendum that will create a fund for descendants of the GU272. | | Andr Chung for Politico Magazine The answer is overwhelmingly yes, though not everyone agrees on exactly how. Julin Castro, and Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris generally support the idea that any reckoning with slavery must include some form of restitution. Booker has embraced a baby bonds proposal, very similar to one put forth by Darity, the economist at Duke, and Darrick Hamilton, an economist at the New School, which creates a public trust fund that allows children to access monies determined on a graduated scale based on their parents wealth position at 18. (The measure, though not specifically targeted toward descendants of slaves, would effectively be aimed at closing the racial wealth gap.) Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont socialist, has been much slower to establish a position. After opposing it at first in 2016 and again this year, he announced April 5 he was throwing his support behind the Conyers bill. The Conyers commission may be the first step. The reparations checks and formal apologies doled out in 1988 by Ronald Reagan to victims of Japanese-American internment camps during World War II were preceded by such a panel. (And it may not be that checks are the ideal solution Darity and other scholars have argued that it could end up benefiting white business owners and doing little to ameliorate the racial wealth gap.) But the one candidate who is furthest ahead on this issue is one youll rarely see on television. Democrat Marianne Williamson, a spiritual adviser and best-selling author whose campaign seeks to heal the soul of America, came out swinging with a $100 billion reparations plan that would create a board of esteemed African American leaders to disburse the money. After Darity called the dollar amount paltry in a New York Times article, she upped the ante to $200 to $500 billion. I don't believe the average American is a racist, Williamson told me over the phone. I do believe the average American is vastly undereducated about the history. When I actually draw the timeline speak about it for five to 10 minutes by the time I reach the end and say, Therefore, reparations are only reasonable, I get a lot of affirmation. At Georgetown, plenty of question marks hang over the upcoming referendum. Campus sentiment seems to be leaning in favor of the fee. A poll conducted by The Hoya in early February, soon after the referendum was passed in the student senate, showed that only 16.3 percent of the 615 students surveyed were against the measure. Nevertheless, roughly as many students as were in favor of the fee were also undecided. Members of the advocacy team are confident in their campaigning since then, and students are banking on the message that a positive vote would send to the universitys board of directors, which has the final say. If the board strikes the proposal down, Okoro said, it will be a horrible mistake Also, I think it would be a statement of Georgetown's values. Without us there is no Georgetown, he said. Change in society always comes from activism from college students. | https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/04/09/georgetown-unviesrity-reparations-slave-trade-226581 |
Is the Fed in retreat? | Last month, four of the five current governors of the Federal Reserve Board voted to weaken the stress tests that the nations largest banks are put through to increase their capacity to survive a financial crisis without collapsing. This was a serious misstep. Out of respect for the organization where I worked as a bank supervisor for 23 years, and where I oversaw the stress test process for seven years, Ill call it an unforced error. A less generous interpretation might be that after years of pushback from the banks, the Fed acquiesced and will abandon a key part of a powerful post-crisis tool that has improved large bank supervision and strengthened the financial system. This was unnecessary and will make it harder for the Feds bank supervisors to effectively oversee the nations largest banks. The stress test process, formally known as the Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review, was put in place by the Fed after the financial crisis. The cornerstone of the Feds post-crisis oversight of systemically important banks, it has unambiguously made these bankssometimes called the too big to fail banksfinancially more resilient. It has also made these banks safer by requiring them to implement better risk management and corporate governance practices after the crisis clearly exposed many of them as dangerously inadequate. To be fair, there were problems on the Feds side, too: The crisis exposed severe inadequacies in the central banks regulatory capital requirements and the ineffectiveness of its pre-crisis banking supervision; the stress test process was also designed to address those shortcomings, and has been successful at that, too. The regulation that established the stress testing processthe 2011 Capital Plan Rulegave the Fed the authority to measure banks capital adequacy based on those tests and to restrict capital distributions to shareholders if the stress test estimates that a bank would not have sufficient capital to withstand a severe downturn like we had in 2007-09. This is the so-called quantitative assessment. Just as important was that it gave the Fed authority to restrict a banks capital outflows to shareholders if a bank exhibited weaknesses in fundamental risk management and governance practices, weaknesses that called into question its capacity to credibly plan for its capital needs under stress. This is the so-called qualitative assessment, and its the part that Fed governors recently voted to weaken. The qualitative assessment focuses on practices that support banks ability to run their businesses safely, to identify and assess risks, and to make informed decisions about the capital needed to survive another economic meltdown. Importantly, it also supports the Feds quantitative assessment. Weaknesses in bank practices that are reviewed during the qualitative assessment, particularly those supporting risk measurement and data integrity, can undermine the Feds supervisory stress test because the Fed uses information it receives from the banks as inputs. It may come as a surprise to some that it was long considered acceptable for a large banks board of directors to pay out capital to shareholders while being uninformed about and giving virtually no consideration to the severe downside risks the bank faced (and exposed taxpayers to)especially if it was making money, but often even if it wasnt. These distributions made bank investors happy and eased the pain of having to pay the bankers big salaries, while reducing the capital the banks had available to protect against future losses. Indeed, a number of banks that ended up receiving taxpayer support in the last crisis had continued to pay out capital to shareholders even after it had become clear we were entering a severe downturn. For example, both Bank of America and Citigroup paid out billions to shareholders in 2007-08, as the crisis deepened and losses mounted. By January 2009, each had received $45 billion in taxpayer-funded support. THE STRESS TESTING process attempted to address this kind of uninformed and reckless behavior by the banks in a couple of ways. First, by requiring the largest banks to meet tough standards for managing their risks and assessing their capital needs in the context of a possible downturn. Second, by putting in place a strong and appropriate incentive for banks to meet these standards: The Fed could object to the banks planned capital payouts under the qualitative assessment. This was known as the qualitative objection, which was publicly disclosed in an annual announcement that outlined the reasons for the objection and could lead to temporary restrictions on a banks ability to make capital distributions to investors, restrictions that could remain in place until the bank fixed its weak practices. In announcing the decision to scuttle the qualitative objection, the Fed assured us a similar, but not publicly disclosed, qualitative assessment will remain a key part of its supervision of the largest banks. Nonetheless, this decision all but guarantees the banks wont put as much effort into maintaining or strengthening their practices as they have over the past nine years. It also indicates the Fed Board shares the banks desire to return to more traditional pre-crisis supervision, which was less transparent to the public, less restrictive on the banks and, not coincidentally, far less effective. The qualitative objection has been used sparingly. The process never required the Fed to object to a banks planned capital distributions on qualitative grounds; it allowed for an objection when Fed bank supervisors found it warranted and the Board of Governors agreed. The Fed has now given away this valuable option seemingly in exchange for nothing more than bankers appreciation. This raises concerns about what might be given away next. The Fed still faces important decisions regarding the future of its quantitative assessment. The odds it might continue to make changes that could reduce the stress tests effectiveness and weaken still insufficiently stringent capital requirements for the largest banks now seem alarmingly high. Already, changes ostensibly meant to improve public understanding of the stress test by further increasing the transparency of the Feds modeling techniques risk making it easier for banks to game the test. These changes may also have the effect of pushing banks toward all using the same stress testing models, which would increase risks to the financial system while weakening innovation and dynamism. After nine years of pitched battle with the banks over stress tests, the Fed has decided to retreat and, in the process, weakened its capacity to hold them accountable for dangerously bad practices. We should all hope so but, given the Fed Boards propensity to make unforced errors that weaken effective post-crisis reforms, we should not be optimistic. Having relinquished the qualitative objection, one small step the Fed could take back in the right direction would be to publicly affirm a commitment to use the tools it has not given away to hold the largest banks to the very highest standards, and to take strong and public action when those standards are not met. Because these banking behemoths can pose substantial risks to the U.S. economy, especially when run irresponsibly, they need to be subject to strong regulation and particularly demanding oversight. I hope Im wrong, but current indications are that the Federal Reserve Board is heading in the opposite direction. Tim P. Clark is former deputy director of the Federal Reserve Boards Division of Supervision and Regulation. | https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2019/04/09/federal-reserve-stress-tests-banks-000889 |
What makes the Impossible Burger look and taste like real beef? | (The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) Mark R. O'Brian, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York (THE CONVERSATION) People eat animals that eat plants. If we just eliminate that middle step and eat plants directly, we would diminish our carbon footprint, decrease agricultural land usage, eliminate health risks associated with red meat and alleviate ethical concerns over animal welfare. For many of us, the major hurdle to executing this plan is that meat tastes good. Really good. By contrast, a veggie burger tastes like, well, a veggie burger. It does not satisfy the craving because it does not look, smell or taste like beef. It does not bleed like beef. Impossible Foods, a California-based company, seeks to change this by adding a plant product to their veggie burger with properties people normally associate with animals and give it the desired qualities of beef. The Impossible Burger has been sold in local restaurants since 2016 and is now expanding its market nationwide by teaming up with Burger King to create the Impossible Whopper. The Impossible Whopper is currently being test marketed in St. Louis, with plans to expand nationally if things go well there. I am a molecular biologist and biochemist interested in understanding how plants and bacteria interact with each other and with the environment, and how that relates to human health. This knowledge has been applied in a way that I did not anticipate to develop the Impossible Burger. The Impossible Burger includes an ingredient from soybeans called leghemoglobin, which is a protein that is chemically bound to a non-protein molecule called heme that gives leghemoglobin its blood red color. In fact, a heme an iron-containing molecule is what gives blood and red meat their color. Leghemoglobin is evolutionarily related to animal myoglobin found in muscle and hemoglobin in blood, and serves to regulate oxygen supply to cells. Heme gives the Impossible Burger the appearance, cooking aroma and taste of beef. I recruited a scientific colleague in St. Louis to try out the Impossible Whopper, and he could not distinguish it from its meaty counterpart. Although he was quick to qualify this by noting all of the other stuff on the Whopper may mask any differences. Leghemoglobin is found in many legumes, hence its name, and is highly abundant within specialized structures on the roots called nodules. If you cut open a nodule with your thumbnail, you will see that it is very red due to leghemoglobin. The soybean nodule forms as a response to its interaction with the symbiotic bacterium Bradyrhizobium japonicum. I suspect that Impossible Foods depicts a soybean without nodules on their website because people tend to be creeped out by bacteria even though Bradyrhizobium is beneficial. My research groups interest in the symbiotic relationship between the soybean and its bacterial sidekick Bradyrhizobium japonicum is motivated by the goal of reducing humanitys carbon footprint, but not by creating palatable veggie burgers. The bacteria within root nodules take nitrogen from the air and convert it to a nutrient form that the plant can use for growth and sustenance a process called nitrogen fixation. The symbiosis lessens the reliance on chemical nitrogen fertilizers, which consume a lot of fossil fuel energy to manufacture, and which also pollute the water supply. Some research groups are interested in extending the symbiosis by genetically engineering crops such as corn and wheat so that they can reap the benefits of nitrogen fixation, which only some plants, including legumes, can do now. I am pleasantly surprised and a little amused that esoteric terms of my vocation such as heme and leghemoglobin have found their way into the public lexicon and on the wrapper of a fast-food sandwich. Leghemoglobin is the ingredient that defines the Impossible Burger, but it is also the additive most closely scrutinized by those seeking assurances of it being organic, non-GMO or vegan. The leghemoglobin used in the burgers comes from a genetically engineered yeast that harbors the DNA instructions from the soybean plant to manufacture the protein. Adding the soybean gene into the yeast then makes it a GMO. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration agrees with the generally recognized as safe (GRAS) designation of soybean leghemoglobin. Nevertheless, the U.S. Department of Agriculture prohibits the organic label for foods derived from genetically modified organisms. It is ironic that an innovation that may be eco-friendly and sustainable must be readily dismissed by groups that claim to share those goals. Not all vegans are delighted by this new burger. Some insist that a GMO product cannot be vegan for various reasons, including animal testing of products such as leghemoglobin. In my view, the moral certitude of that position can be challenged because it does not take into account the cattle that are spared. Other vegans view GMOs as a solution to problems that are important to them. Judging from its website, Impossible Foods is keenly aware of the constituencies that weigh in on their product. It includes a link describing how GMOs are saving civilization. But they also make the misleading claim that Here at Impossible Foods, heme is made directly from plants. In reality, it comes directly from yeast. The commercialization of leghemoglobin represents an unanticipated consequence of inquiry into an interesting biological phenomenon. The benefits of scientific research are often unforeseen at the time of their discovery. Whether or not the Impossible Burger venture succeeds on a large scale remains to be seen, but surely food technology will continue to evolve to accommodate human needs as it has since the advent of agriculture 10,000 years ago. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: http://theconversation.com/what-makes-the-impossible-burger-look-and-taste-like-real-beef-115027. | https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/What-makes-the-Impossible-Burger-look-and-taste-13752411.php |
Will John Roberts Let Trump Hide His Tax Returns Forever? | President Donald Trump really doesnt want you to know whats in his tax returns. During the 2016 campaign, he broke with 40 years of tradition by refusing to make them public. (He insisted they were undergoing a routine audit, which doesnt mean they cant be released.) All we know for sure comes from a handful of pages from his 1995 and 2005 tax returns, which raised more questions than they answered. A blockbuster New York Times investigation last fall into Trumps tax dodges suggested his returns could show hundreds of millions of dollars in misclassified income. But the more Trump hides his returns, the greater the publics curiosityand the greater his political opponents driveto see them. Richard Neal, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, formally requested Trumps tax returns from 2013 to 2018 from the IRS last week. Its unclear whether the Treasury or the IRS will comply. Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, described the committees request as a political hit job and said that the president would never turn over his tax returns. Instead, the White House appears to be gearing up for a long legal fight. In a four-page letter sent last week, Trump lawyer William S. Consovoy told the Treasury Departments top lawyer that Congress cannot legally requestand the IRS cannot legally divulgethis information. Here, Trump and his legal team are returning to a familiar legal strategy, one they developed during the 18-month clash over his Muslim travel ban: invoke executive powers in unprecedented or extraordinary ways, use the inevitable defeats in the lower courts to rally his base, and hope that the Supreme Court ultimately sides with him on the merits. Its worked well for him so far. The only question is whether Chief Justice John Roberts and his colleagues are willing to stomach Trumps insulting assumption that they will always have his back. Consovoys letter makes a constitutional case for protecting Trumps returns, drawing from Supreme Court decisions that limited Congresss power to conduct investigations. In the 1880 case Kilbourn v. Thompson, the Supreme Court blocked the Houses demand for documents related to a private real-estate transaction in D.C. because the dispute was a judicial matter, not a legislative one. And in the 1957 case Watkins v. United States, the justices ruled against the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee when it tried to force a labor organizer to name former Communist Party members without sufficient justification. | https://newrepublic.com/article/153522/will-john-roberts-let-trump-hide-tax-returns-forever |
Is Belarus Putins Next Land Grab? | Lukashenko has angrily pushed back against the threat, and at a meeting with Putin in February he made a point of stressing the holy sanctity of his nations independence. The question is how determined Russia is to see through its plans for a union, and how far it will go to achieve it. Belarus is no Ukraine, with whom Minsk stood in solidarity in 2014 over Crimeaa signal defiance against similar incursions into their own territory. Whereas Ukraine suffered for its attempts to escape Moscows grasp, Belarus will suffer from the fact that it has, throughout its post-Soviet history, clung too tightly to the Muscovite breast. Unlike other nations in the region, whose post-Soviet pathways have varied from western-style liberalism to steroidal capitalism, Belarus differs little from its former communist self and continues to view the old mothership as protector and patron. In a country routinely, even somewhat blithely, labelled a Soviet theme park, a state-run economy is still very much alive, but is largely reliant on the largesse of the Russian state, which remains one of its very few foreign investors and trade partners. From the Kremlins perspective, integration is a logical step. Belarus is also a keystone in Russias defensive strategy, buffering against NATOs increasing presence in eastern Europe. Since the interference in Ukraine, Lukashenko has resisted Russian attempts to build military bases in his country, much to Putins chagrin. Union would do away with that problem. The most salacious theory, and the one favoured by Western critics, is that absorbing Belarus is all part of Putins retirementor non-retirementplan: While the Russian constitution bars Putin from serving two consecutive terms, a new union constitution could enable him to serve beyond 2024. We remain a long way from anything of a similar kind to the use of force exhibited in 2014, or in 2008 when Russian troops shelled and occupied various towns in Georgia. Despite his swashbuckling public image, Putin is, for the most part, fairly risk averse, and any military interference in Belarus would be highly risky, requiring an enormous operation. Even if the west fails to respond in kindhard to predict with a mercurial U.S. president at the helma long and costly war might well ensue: Unlike in Crimea, while many Belarusians feel a fraternal affection for Russia, they do not want to become part of it. Independence is relatively new to Belarus, which, apart from a few months in 1918, has always existed as the territory of a bigger state. And however qualified that independence might presently be, it is one that ordinary citizens will not give up without a fight. Belarusians are perhaps unusually sensitive to the possibility of invasion, having served throughout its modern history as the corridor for Polish, French and German armies. All over Belarus, old bits of military hardware can be found scattered among the fields. In a land which hosted some of the fiercest fighting of the Second World War, the surplus of tanks, planes and rockets from those years now serve as memorials to the deada reminder of the devastation Belarus suffered in the crossfire of two advancing armies, killing over a quarter of the populace, a proportion more than double that of any other nation in World War II. | https://newrepublic.com/article/153520/belarus-putins-next-land-grab |
Why Can't Amazon Convert Prime Shoppers Into Whole Foods Shoppers? | If one were to place Amazon Prime and Whole Foods shoppers into a Venn Diagram, the two circles would best be represented by an apple and an orange. And the overlap slice is not nearly as big as Amazon would like. 2017 Bloomberg Finance LP Since acquiring Whole Foods in 2017, Amazon has pursued its plan to expand into grocery, and an important element of that plan is converting Prime Members into Whole Foods shoppers. Among its efforts: Amazon has added Amazon Prime pickup within Whole Foods stores, offered two-hour Whole Foods grocery delivery to Prime members (free on orders of more than $35), and it has reduced prices at Whole Food, while giving Prime members an additional 10% off on sale items. Yet 70% of Prime members say they rarely or never shop at Whole Foods, according to a recent survey by Wolfe Research, and just 18% shop at Whole Foods at least once per month. In contrast, 65% of Prime members shop Amazons website at least several times a month. Amazons latest effort to improve those numbers: On April 3, Whole Foods began cutting prices on hundreds of items, offering special discounts to Amazon Prime members. With each of these moves, Amazon is nudging the apple and orange to overlap more, but the common elements indicate it has challenges beyond price. It turns out price reductions wont be enough to convince Amazon Prime shoppers to venture into a Whole Foods. Heres why. What once set Whole Foods apart is now commonplace, and cheaper. Organic foods are now mainstream, meaning Whole Foods is no longer the go-to for natural bites. According to the Organic Trade Association, 2017 sales of organic food and non-food products rose 6.4%, to $49.4 billion. And the top rivals are surprising: In 2015, Costco surpassed Whole Foods as the No. 1 seller of organics. Today, its a tight race for leader: Krogers Simple Truth private label is now a $2.3 billion brand. And Aldi plans to expand its fresh food selection by 40%. The bananas could brown on the drive home. Whole Foods operates 477 stores in the U.S. Kroger operates more than 2,764. This means that in many markets Prime members would have to travel a decent distance (passing a lot of other options) before reaching a Whole Foods store. Even if they want to try Whole Foods 365 Everyday Value house brand, a lot of shoppers might not have the time to drive to the nearest location. Shoppers can order online and have the goods delivered, but lack of proximity still eliminates unplanned and quick trips. Amazons selection is devouring some of its opportunities. Online, Amazons wide range of offerings may compromise Whole Foods ability to compete. Amazon controlled 18% of U.S. online grocery sales from 2017 to 2018, according to a 2018 report by One Click Retail. Thats the largest share by any single retailer. However, while the addition of Whole Foods likely contributed to the growth, a lot of those sales were generated by other brands. The One Click report states that growth occurred across nearly all grocery categories, led by cold beverages. True, they arent all organic, but these products still consume a limited grocery dollar. Original Donut Shop coffee not a Whole Foods product. Quality counts as much as price, and more merchants are delivering it. With the mainstreaming of organics comes quality. Some retailers, including Costco, have been pinged for selling factory-farmed organics. Specific product sourcing may not matter to casual organics buyers, but dedicated shoppers pay attention, and this has aided competitors that focus on food origin and quality. Thrive Market, for example, has been described as Costco meets Whole Foods,with private label products comparable in quality to those of Whole Foods. Thrive is mail order, but ships in two days like Prime, and its annual fee ($60) is often offset by credits it gives shopper on their first few orders. More retailers are appealing to our charitable sides. Research has shown that giving to others makes people feel healthier. Those who buy organics and natural foods usually are health-conscious, so there may be a correlation. Most retailers, Whole Foods and Amazon included, operate charitable divisions or offer easy ways to donate. Still, giving back is a way to stand apart and the more it is entwined into the business model, the more likely it will hook the altruistic shopper. Each Thrive membership, for example, helps sponsor a membership and shopping credit for low-income families, students, teachers, veterans and first responders. Finding the similarities between Amazon and Whole Foods shoppers makes sense, but if Amazon were comparing apples and oranges, there may not be enough similarities to outsell the competition. Amazon may need to turn to its rich wealth of shopper data, or directly survey its best Prime shoppers, to learn what would persuade them to shop with Whole Food over others, beyond price. For that, Amazon will need a carrot. | https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanpearson/2019/04/09/why-cant-amazon-convert-prime-shoppers-into-whole-foods-shoppers/ |
Will the Rock Hall Ceremony move to a bigger venue in Cleveland? | CLEVELAND, Ohio Every other year, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony draws roughly 18,000 people to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. When the ceremony takes place at Clevelands Public Auditorium, it draws just a third of that. In terms of economics, its only natural fans wonder if the annual ceremony, set to take place in Cleveland next year, would move to a bigger space. That talk has only heated up with the recent renovations made to 20,000-plus capacity Quicken Loans Arena, which is soon to be renamed Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. This speculation and chatter has existed since 2009, admits Rock & Roll Hall of Fame CEO and president Greg Harris. It comes up every single year, given that its in an arena in New York now. Its also natural given the investments that the region, the city, the county and the Cavs are making in their arena. A move to a larger arena wouldnt just mean more fans can attend the ceremony. It also means more dollars for both the museum and the Rock Hall Foundation, which runs the Inductions out of New York. The floor at a venue like The Q would make way for more premium tables. VIP packages for seats at those tables have traditionally started around $3,000 and gone all the way up to $100,000 for a spot in the front row. However, Harris says that sort of thinking is a bit short sighted. [Thats] looking at as pure economics, Harris says. We really like having the ceremony at Public Auditorium. We look at it as the place where the Beatles played. Where David Bowie first stepped on stage in the U.S. The sense of history at that place is amazing. Quicken Loans Arena will officially announce its name change during a press conference Tuesday. Its the first step in unveiling the arenas new look, which includes new glass facade and 42,000 square feet of public space. But Harris is quick to point out the Rock Hall already has a hold on dates at Public Auditorium for next years Induction Ceremony. We appreciate the interest, says Harris. As we always do, we are looking at what is best for the region and what is best for the city, and for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. | https://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/2019/04/will-the-rock-hall-ceremony-move-to-a-bigger-venue-in-cleveland.html |
How much would it cost to visit every Disney park on Earth? | If you want to visit every single Disney park around the world, itll take more than just a deep love of all things Disney. Itll take at least 13 days to visit all 12 Disney parks and two Disney water parks spread out over four different countries and spanning three continents and two islands. To help you plan or at least wish upon a star for such a dream trip, GOBankingRates looked into how much it would cost to visit one park per day during peak admission season for one person age 10 and up. The study also included hotel costs but omitted the cost of flights, transportation, and food in most instances. Disney Park ticket breakdown: Disney World vacation packages, Disney resorts and more Disney park tickets come in various forms, such as Park Hopper tickets and single park tickets and their total cost varies depending on the season. A Park Hopper ticket lets you do exactly as it describes: hop from park to park. In some destinations, like Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, there are multiple parks: the original Disneyland and Disneys California Adventure. With a Park Hopper ticket, you can hop back and forth from park to park as much as youd like without paying extra admission for re-entry. For the purposes of this study, GOBankingRates didnt factor in the cost of these tickets in the grand total, instead primarily using the single park tickets to factor in the cost, except where noted. But if you do choose to pay for a Park Hopper over a single park ticket, you can generally save yourself some money with typical use. Disney World tickets, or ticket prices for any Disney park for that matter, also vary depending on when you go whether its a weekday or weekend or peak season or off-season. Some Disney resorts overseas will refer to peak seasons as Super Magic times, whereas other Disney locations call it peak time. Either way, these are times when demand for the parks is highest as are prices. On the other hand, during off times, the cost of a ticket can be much lower. GOBankingRates only factored in the cost of tickets during peak or Super Magic times. Different Disneyland locations and different Disney resorts also have their own Disney hotels where you can stay. The park in Orlando, Florida, also offers Disney World vacation packages for your Disney World vacation. Follow this Mouscapade from Florida to California, through parts of Asia and then on to Europe to find out how much a tour of the entire magical world of Disney would cost. Walt Disney World Resort: Magic Kingdom The classic Disney park experience can be found here in the Magic Kingdom in Florida from the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Space Mountain to the Haunted Mansion and Its a Small World. Little ones will especially love the interactions they can have with Disney characters like Belle from "Beauty and the Beast," who even has her own Enchanted Tales with Belle attraction. If you want to just visit this park alone, the cost for a one-day park ticket starts at $109. The prices vary by day, so keep an eye on what days better suit your budget. If you decide to purchase a one-day park ticket with a Park Hopper option, its about an additional $60 per ticket, and you can visit the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios and the Animal Kingdom all in one day. The best value for a five-day Disney trip to Walt Disney World is to purchase a vacation package through Disney that includes a five-day ticket with admission to one park per day, basic-tier accommodations and a Disney dining plan that includes meals and snacks at more than 100 select Walt Disney World restaurants. The package also includes complimentary airport transfers to and from your hotel. The total cost of this package is $2,299.75, however, it is customizable. More: These are the 'Star Wars'-themed beers, wines you may see at Disneyland, Disney World Walt Disney World Resort: Epcot Travel the world without ever having to get your passport stamped and effortlessly canvas both past and present without the use of a time machine when you visit Disneys Epcot park. Favorite attractions here include the high-speed Test Track, the breathtaking Soarin ride and Relaunched! Mission: Space, an authentic NASA-style training simulation ride. If you want to just visit this park alone, the cost for a one-day peak ticket starts at $109, just like the Magic Kingdom prices vary by day and season, also keep in mind that this park is included in the Park Hopper option from $169 and up. The $2,016 total cost for the Disney World vacation package covers the cost of visiting this park. Epcot in particular is a great park to visit primarily for the array of food options available. In fact, the park hosts an annual Epcot International Food & Wine Festival from late August to November every year. Walt Disney World Resort: Disneys Hollywood Studios Fans of "Star Wars," "Toy Story," the Muppets and Aerosmith will especially love a visit to this park, which has a number of high-octane, interactive and entertaining attractions. Favorites include Star Tours The Adventures Continue, the Rock n Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith and Toy Story Midway Mania. One of the best parts about visiting this park is the entertainment. Character experiences include stars from films that include the "Star Wars" series, "Toy Story," "The Little Mermaid," "Indiana Jones," "Beauty and the Beast" and "Frozen." The cost for a one-day ticket follows the same pricing structure of sister parks Epcot and Animal Kingdom. This park also is included in the price of the all-encompassing Disney World vacation package. So is Disney, and here is what it's doing about it Walt Disney World Resort: Animal Kingdom Although the Animal Kingdom is traditionally known for its animal encounters and experiences, it recently added a brand-new land, Pandora The World of Avatar, inspired by the box-office hit film Avatar. Disney worked closely with the films director, James Cameron, to develop the park, which depicts a part of Pandora that wasnt shown in the film. The price structure for entry to this wild park mirrors that of Epcot and Hollywood Studios, gaining you entry starting at $109 for a single-park ticket or $169 and up for a Park Hopper pass. Walt Disney World Resort: Disneys Blizzard Beach and Disneys Typhoon Lagoon For the ultimate fun in the sun, a stop to both of Walt Disney Worlds water parks is definitely in order. Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon offer rushing rapids, sandy beaches for sunbathing, lazy rivers and even whitewater rafting. The cost to visit just the two water parks in a single day is $69 per ticket and $64 on blockout dates. The water park ticket cost is factored into the all-inclusive Disney World package, however many other Disney amenities such as mini golf, for example, and attractions at Disney Springs are not included, so remember to budget accordingly. Disneyland Resort: Disneyland Park The one that started it all, Disneyland Park in California is a must-visit for any true Disnoid (that means Disney fan). Opened in 1955 by Walt Disney himself, Disneyland is made up of eight iconic lands: Main Street, U.S.A., Tomorrowland, Fantasyland, Mickeys Toontown, Critter Country, New Orleans Square and Adventureland. A one-day Park Hopper ticket, which includes admission to Disneyland Park and to Disney California Adventure, is $199 per person during peak times. If you want to visit just Disneyland Park by itself in one day, the cost for a ticket during peak times is $149 per person. The best value for a two-day Disney vacation to Disneyland Resort in California is to purchase a vacation package through Disney that includes a two-day ticket with admission to one park per day, basic-tier accommodations the Motel 6 Anaheim Maingate, for example and an Anaheim Resort Transit pass that covers transportation to and from your hotel. The total cost of this package for two adults is $1,181.55 and does not include food. Disneyland Resort: Disney California Adventure Located right next to Disneyland Park, Disney California Adventure has a total of seven lands that bring Disney and Pixar films to life, including Cars Land. Not to be missed is the parks signature nighttime World of Color light and water show. The park also features unique attractions such as Soarin Over California and the new Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout ride, the first in the parks planned expansion to create a Marvel Land, announced in 2017. If you want to visit just Disney California Adventure in one day during peak times, the ticket cost is $149 per person; otherwise, you can opt for the $199 Park Hopper ticket same as the Disneyland Park prices. Shanghai Disney Resort: Shanghai Disneyland When Shanghai Disneyland opened in June 2016, it was one of the most anticipated Disney park openings in recent history and Disneys very first park to open on the Chinese mainland. This park features some familiar favorites you can find at the original Disneyland Park in California or at Walt Disney World in Florida, but it also has some other attractions that many U.S. Disney parks guests have not have experienced yet, like the TRON Lightcycle Power Run or Marvel Universe. The cost for a one-day ticket to Shanghai Disneyland is 499 Chinese yuan, or about $85.59 in U.S. dollars, on a weekend. If you visit the park on a weekday, the cost of a ticket is 399 Chinese yuan, or $56.55. The cost of a one-night stay at Shanghai Disneyland Hotel on a weekend is approximately 2,650 Chinese yuan or $394.46 per night. To calculate a total cost to visit this park, GOBankingRates included the price of a one-day weekend ticket but did not include the cost of food or other incidentals. Tokyo Disney Resort: Tokyo Disneyland Tokyo Disneyland, the first Disney park outside of the U.S., opened in April 1983. The park mirrors the original Disneyland in California with a few twists. For example, instead of Main Street, U.S.A., you have a World Bazaar, and the park area brings a slice of Americana to Japan with a Disney flair. The cost of a one-day ticket to the park is 7,400 Japanese yen, or approximately $67.93. You could also choose to purchase a two-day Passport package that includes admission to both Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea for 13,200 Japanese yen, or about $121.14. For the purposes of calculating the grand total in this study, GOBankingRates did not include this two-day package ticket. A two-night stay at the Tokyo Disney Celebration Hotel for a standard room starts at 35,200 Japanese yen, or approximately $320.22, not including the cost of food or other incidentals. Tokyo Disney Resort: Tokyo DisneySea Opened in 2001, Tokyo DisneySea was inspired by the ocean, and the park is unique in terms of its attractions and lands. For example, you can ride in a Venetian gondola, hop aboard the DisneySea Transit Steamer Line and even take a ride on the Nemo and Friends SeaRider. Other lands include Arabian Coast, Mermaid Lagoon and Mysterious Island. To visit Tokyo DisneySea alone will cost 7,400 Japanese yen, or approximately $67.93. A two-day Passport package that includes admission to both of Disneys Tokyo theme parks is 13,200 Japanese yen, or about $121.14. This two-day package was not included in the grand total for this study. A two-night stay at the Tokyo Disney Celebration Hotel for a standard room starts at 35,200 Japanese yen, or approximately $320.22. For the grand total in the study, the cost of food or other incidentals was not included. Hong Kong Disneyland Resort: Hong Kong Disneyland Park Located on Lantau Island in Hong Kong, this park opened in September 2005 and is only a 30-minute subway ride away from central Hong Kong. Attractions include a Fairy Tale Forest, an Iron Man Experience and the Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars. For 619 Hong Kong dollars, or $78.88, you can visit Hong Kong Disneyland Park. The nightly rate to stay at the Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel starts at 4,400 Hong Kong dollars, or $560.66 in U.S. dollars, not including the cost of food or other incidentals. Disneyland Resort Paris: Disneyland Park Disneyland Paris, which opened in April 1992, is home to five different lands and a variety of attractions, many of which have just recently opened. They include Star Tours: The Adventures Continue, Star Wars Hyperspace Mountain and Welcome to Starport: A Star Wars Encounter. The cost of a one-day ticket to this park starts at $63 per person. If you also want to visit the other Paris park, Walt Disney Studios Park, you can purchase a Park Hopper ticket to visit both parks in a single day for $88 per person. The Park Hopper ticket, for the purposes of this study, was not included in the grand total cost. A two-night stay at the Disneys Hotel Santa Fe, a Route 66 oasis-themed hotel within walking distance of Disneyland Paris, is approximately $1,320.17. This price comes with a three-day pass to both Disney parks at this location. Its just one of seven different Disney hotels you can stay in when you visit Disneyland Paris. Of the seven, its considered more of a budget pick. Other hotels like the Disneyland Hotel and Disneys Hotel New York are more expensive and offer more amenities. These costs do not include food or other incidentals. Disneyland Resort Paris: Walt Disney Studios Park Opened in 2002 and dedicated to the art of film, Walt Disney Studios Park in Paris features attractions inspired by movies such as Armageddon, Spider-Man and Ratatouille. To visit just the park during a high-demand time costs $82 per person. To visit this park and Disneyland Paris in one day, you can purchase a Park Hopper ticket that costs $108 per person. The Park Hopper ticket, for the purposes of this study, was not included in the grand total cost. It will cost about $1,271.17 for a two-night stay package at one of the Disneyland Paris hotels that are in a more basic tier. The cost of food or other incidentals is not included. Grand total cost to tour all Disney parks around the world Heres the breakdown of this global Disney trip for one person, during peak times, and including the cost of admission to a park and lodging. In most instances, food and ground transportation costs, as well as flights, were not included. You can get admission to all Disney parks around the world for the following prices: Walt Disney World Resort in Florida: $2,157.87 (package includes meals and airport transfers) Disneyland Resort in California: $1,181.55 (includes transportation to/from the park from your hotel) Shanghai Disney Resort: $565.64 Tokyo Disney Resort: $441.36 Hong Kong Disneyland Resort: $639.54 Disneyland Resort Paris: $1,320.17 Grand total: $6,936.13. At just a little under $7,000 to visit all the parks, this global Disney trip could go from being once upon a dream to reality for you with the right planning and budgeting. In most cases, it pays to look for package deals that can help you save on costs and give you access to park admission and lodging. If you really want to save money, it also pays to visit the parks during nonpeak times. Also, if you want to maximize your time visiting the parks, Park Hopper tickets might be well worth the investment if youre visiting a Disney resort with multiple parks, such as in California or Japan. And the more you save, the more youll enjoy seeing that it really is a small world after all. Amen Oyiboke contributed to this report. Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/experience/america/theme-parks/2019/04/09/disney-world-disneyland-resort-park-ticket-prices/3401171002/ | https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/experience/america/theme-parks/2019/04/09/disney-world-disneyland-resort-park-ticket-prices/3401171002/ |
Why Hasn't Sustainable Investing Gone Viral Yet? | Lets first look at what sustainability looks like in financial terms. In sustainable investing, the ideal scenario is when you find opportunities that produce the highest returns and have the highest positive impact. However, more often than not, there is a tradeoff to be made. On one end of the spectrum, sustainable funds can be philanthropic, or impact-driven, meaning the fund will be maximizing for impact subject to profits. Conversely, hedge funds that integrate non-financial sustainability metrics into their investment framework will be seeking to maximize profits and fulfill their fiduciary duty subject to impact. Here, the byproduct is better risk-adjusted returns by incorporating more relevant information. Going back to the question of why sustainability hasnt made greater strides in financial markets, its helpful to look at how a movement becomes successful. To begin and persevere a movement that effects real change, it needs not only leaders, but even more importantly, those first followers who can draw momentum to the movement to achieve critical mass. At that juncture, the comfort of being among the skeptics has shifted to being among the believers. Those who do not want to stand out will conform to the change, and the body of followers grows exponentially. Derek Sivers points to the famous Sasquatch Music Festival 2009 video for a visual representation of that movement. As simple as that methodology for change looks on paper, the truth is that social movements take considerable time and the removal or leapfrogging of many obstacles. Financial markets have been around for hundreds of years, so prior notions and dispositions need to be challenged. This initial work has been performed by funds such as Generation, Impax and Parnassus. They broke the status quo and proved to the markets that sustainable investing can be a significant part of investings future, in the 21st century and beyond. Further, early adopters have joined those leaders to establish the movement as a reckoning force. However, to truly enact a sustainable and permanent change, the most significant obstacle still must be removed the concentration of assets under management. At the end of 2017, sustainable investing accounted for around $12 trillion in U.S. assets, a drop in the bucket compared to the total $263 trillion invested in the global public markets, according to World Bank and IMF data, and accounting for a penetration of approximately 4.5%. Much like the move toward electric vehicles, financial market incumbents must maintain their current offerings while slowly pivoting resources toward the future. On the other hand, incipient funds do not need to migrate resources, as their investment process and research and development are entirely focused on this new frontier. However, these smaller funds currently lack the reputation or scalability to make a larger dent in the financial markets, so there is an opportunity for the larger, incumbent funds to empower smaller firms giving rise to this group of early adopters that will drive change in a larger scale. As those incumbent firms grow larger, their capacity to provide higher returns diminishes, their asset allocation shifts to higher liquidity assets and their impact is smaller than when they first started. By partnering with new firms, they could generate a win-win-win situation: By allocating money to new smaller sustainable managers, they can increase their overall returns, provide the emerging managers with the reputation and name recognition to raise additional assets, and increase societal impact not just through investments, but also by creating an ecosystem of sustainable investment firms. Early adopters are vital to effect real change, and innovators should embrace early adopters by empowering them, be it through incubators, separately managed accounts, direct investments or some other way. If we can achieve that, we might have a chance at making sustainable investing mainstream. | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesfinancecouncil/2019/04/09/why-hasnt-sustainable-investing-gone-viral-yet/ |
Can The Golden State Warriors Still Count On "Strength In Numbers" In The Playoffs? | Getty The Golden State Warriors have long prided themselves on their Strength in Numbers approach to roster construction. Sure, the powerhouse of their success has been the unprecedented collection of historic talent theyve amassed in Steph Curry, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, Andre Iguodala and latterly Kevin Durant and DeMarcus Cousins. But Coach Steve Kerr, himself a career reserve who played an important role on two of the greatest modern NBA dynasties in Michael Jordans Chicago Bulls and Tim Duncans San Antonio Spurs, has always espoused that Strength in Numbers ideal. Despite the collection of talent at their disposal, their dynastic path over the last five years shows why depth is so vital. It is a long haul to the top of the mountain, and every year it gets progressively harder as other teams make moves to catch up and the wear and tear builds on the stars. One injury, or an ill-timed suspension, or a combination of both, to a core player can derail a whole championship run, as the Warriors found out to their cost in 2016. Last year they were almost undone when Iguodala went down injured in the Western Conference Finals. Fortunately, they were able to get just enough from their long-tenured veteran Shaun Livingston, and the ever-mercurial Nick Young, to stay afloat before Curry, Durant, and a trademark Game Six explosion from Thompson took them home. Building the bench is an annual pursuit Thats why every summer one of Warriors GM Bob Myers trickier tasks is to augment that core with the right complementary role players who can provide the stars with a breather in the regular season, and step in when needed in the playoffs. As a team possessing such top-level talent, the constraints of the salary cap bite hard, leaving just the odd late-first round draft pick, the taxpayer Mid Level Exception (MLE), and veteran minimums to dangle in front of potential contributors. This year, as the Warriors somehow managed to secure Cousins with the taxpayer MLE, they had even fewer tools at their disposal. This was worsened by a miss (for now) in the draft with Jacob Evans, who was billed as being a high-floor, low ceiling, NBA-ready product. Instead, hes seen a grand total of 142 minutes across 28 appearances. Then another misfortune struck as restricted free agent Patrick McCaw decided he wanted to force his way off the team. Despite an underwhelming sophomore season for McCaw, the combination of his departure and the Evans miss left the Warriors exposed at the very position that is most at a premium in todays NBA. The Warriors struck some gold But somehow, the Warriors have seemingly still spun some gold. It began late last year, with the smart maneuver to convert Quinn Cooks two-way deal to a guaranteed minimum contract with a second year. Cook has given them 14 minutes per game in 72 contests so far, averaging 6.7 points and shooting a shade under 40% from three. Then Jonas Jerebko was deemed surplus to requirements in Utah and his $4m contract was waived, allowing the Warriors to pick up a player likely worth more than the minimum they ended up paying for him. Jerebkos playing time has waxed and waned of late but throughout the season hes appeared in 71 games, averaging 16.7 minutes. His energy on the boards (4 rebounds per game) and three-point shooting (6.3 points on 37.2% three-point shooting) have undoubtedly been a useful regular season asset. Despite these hits, the misses on McCaw and Evans still left a potential gap at the reserve wing position. But the Warriors discovery out of nowhere of a camp invite named Alfonzo McKinnie has softened the blow. McKinnie may not project as quite the defender McCaw has the potential to be, but hes a significantly better shooter and more active player on the floor. In 70 games hes averaged 4.6 points and 3.4 rebounds while shooting a very respectable 36% from three-point range. Crucially he shows no fear, whether crashing the offensive glass or firing up from beyond the arc. In truth, hes been a big improvement to date on McCaws last season. Thanks again to some clever salary cap mechanics the Warriors have the option to guarantee his minimum contract for next year. The Warriors still have Iguodala and Livingston to lead the way off the bench. Iguodala, in particular, has had a fantastic year in his age-35 season. While his minutes have dropped slightly to 23 per game, his per-36 minute averages are as good as ever. Iguodala's 5.8 rebounds, 4.9 assists, and 1.2 blocks per-36 are all highs for his Warriors career. Hes also averaged 8.9 points and 1.4 steals per-36, an increase on last years numbers. Then there are his shooting percentages. His 51% from the field is the second highest of his Warriors tenure, and his three-point shooting has rebounded from a poor year last year to 34.1% on 3.2 attempts per-36, which is in line with the rest of his career in Golden State. As proven by several high-flying dunks over the course of the year, while Father Time will eventually come for us all, hes not come for Iguodala just yet. Livingston has not been quite as stellar across a long season, which may well be his last per an interview with The Athletics Anthony Slater. But in recent weeks his turnaround jumper has started falling again, and despite a drop in his scoring to 4.1 points per game, his shooting percentage is back up at 52.2% and his rebounding and assist numbers are comparable to recent years. Indeed if Iguodala and Livingston can remain healthy throughout a testing playoff run the Warriors wing depth will be just fine. But between Cook, McKinnie, and Jerebko they do have some pieces they can put into different matchups if required. The three-point shooting is much improved One common thread uniting many of these bench players is the collective improvement in three-point shooting from a year ago. Last year the Warriors basically had Young as the only player willing to shoot regularly, and capable of hitting threes at a respectable rate. With Iguodala shooting a career-low 28.2% in just 1.8 attempts per game, and Cook only really playing consistent minutes in the last 20 games of the season, the Warriors bench was wretched from three. Omri Casspi refused to shoot, taking just 22 all year, while McCaw hit just 23.8% of his long-range shots. The Warriors placed a premium on avoiding a repeat of that this year. That has been one unqualified success from last summer. Alongside an improved Iguodala, the Warriors can now call on a fully integrated Cook, as well as Jerebko and McKinnie if they need some more shooting. Size still matters The wing position may be the most important in the modern NBA, but size still matters. Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid are leading a big man renaissance in the NBA, while Rudy Gobert, Clint Capela, and Steven Adams are all potentially gigantic (in the literal sense) physical obstacles in the Warriors path this year. The Warriors could also potentially face wily veterans Marc Gasol or Al Horford in the NBA Finals. The big man position is traditionally where the Warriors Strength in Numbers approach has been most typified. In the early days of their dynasty, the Warriors relied on variations of David Lee, Festus Ezeli, Marresse Speights, and less successfully Anderson Varejao, to back up starting center Andrew Bogut. The last couple of years have seen a combination of Zaza Pachulia, David West, and JaVale McGee share the center spot. The Warriors might have their best center lineup yet This year the Warriors look to have their most robust center lineup ever. Securing DeMarcus Cousins for the taxpayer MLE is a large part of the reason why. Cousins may still be working his way back from his devastating Achilles injury, but his strength, power, and finesse are all still there. Hes shown better defense than advertised, a willingness to run the floor, and an ability to provide a consistent physicality that hasnt quite been there in recent years. The Houston Rockets recently found out to their cost that while PJ Tucker may be an immovable ball of muscle when switched on to Durant, Cousins is a different beast altogether. Hes the starting center the Warriors havent had since Bogut left, which greatly reduces the need to have a rotation of backups behind him. That's not stopped the Warriors from amassing an impressive back-up rotation though. Of course, the aforementioned Andrew Bogut is back. While its been a pleasantly nostalgic experience so far for the Warriors faithful, hes provided a lot more than that. Bogut looks as lean and fresh as he has done since leaving the Warriors, and is producing around four points, five rebounds, one assist and half a block in just under 12 minutes per game. His screens are as bone-crushing as ever, and his return has seemingly refreshed the locker room. All in all, its proven a very smart use of a spare roster spot held open for much of the year to create flexibility and save a little on the tax bills, just at a time when a weak buyout market looked like it was going to thwart the Warriors plans to add some depth. But the Warriors also got a little lucky in the summer when their previous error in not picking up Kevon Looneys fourth-year option went unpunished. Due to a depressed market for big men, they were able to re-sign him to a minimum deal, and actually save some money in the process. Looney has had a tremendous year, playing 18.6 minutes in 78 games to date and averaging career highs across the board in points (6.3), rebounds (5.3), assists (1.5) and field goal percentage (63.1%), as well as using his intelligence, positioning and length to play very solid defense. His skillset perfectly complements the Warriors roster as he can do all the things defensively Cousins struggles to while fitting perfectly around the stars on offense with his superb off-ball movement and ability to crash the offensive glass. Then theres the curious case of Jordan Bell. Hes failed to secure consistent playing time, frustrated the coaches, and generally not lived up to the excitement generated from his play in the latter stages of last years playoffs. But hes still a quick, athletic, switchable big who can provide some energy off the bench where a more leaden-footed option wont get it done. Between Bogut, Looney, and Bell theres a complementary trio of players who can fill in behind Cousins depending on what the matchup requires. And when the going gets tough, the Warriors will still press the accelerator and run out the lineups with Green at the center spot. The Warriors will need all the help they can get Ultimately, talent is a prerequisite for success in the NBA. Between the Warriors new monstrous starting five, and the flexibility to go smaller with Iguodala in the deadly-as-ever Hamptons 5 theres a core rotation with as many All-NBA, All-Star, and Olympic appearances as has ever been put on an NBA floor. With trusted veterans such as Livingston and Bogut, and the reliable and tested Looney, they have nine players they know they can count on. But to win a title requires many things to go right. For the Warriors, attempting to reach their fifth consecutive NBA finals and win their fourth in five years, the margins of success and failure are magnified that much more. Theyll need every bit of help they can get from the entirety of their roster. Thanks to some solid foundations laid over last summer by GM Bob Myers, it looks like theyve got what they need. | https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmurray/2019/04/09/can-the-golden-state-warriors-still-count-on-strength-in-numbers-in-the-playoffs/ |
Are Plastic Bag Bans Garbage? | Enlarge this image Fiona Goodall/Getty Images Fiona Goodall/Getty Images NOTE: This is an excerpt of Planet Money's newsletter. You can sign up here. It was only about 40 years ago that plastic bags became standard at U.S. grocery stores. This also made them standard in sewers, landfills, rivers, and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. They clog drains and cause floods, litter landscapes, and kill wildlife. The national movement to get rid of them is gaining steam with over 240 cities and counties passing laws that ban or tax them since 2007. Last week, New York became the second U.S. state to ban them. But, these bans may be hurting the environment more than helping it. University of Sydney economist Rebecca Taylor started studying bag regulations because it seemed like every time she moved for a new job from Washington, D.C., to California, to Australia bag restrictions were implemented shortly after. "Yeah, these policies might be following me," she jokes. Taylor recently published a study of bag regulations in California. It's a classic tale of unintended consequences. Before California banned plastic shopping bags statewide in late 2016, a wave of 139 Californian cities and counties implemented the policy themselves. Taylor and colleagues compared bag usage in cities with bans to those without them. For six months, they spent weekends in grocery stores tallying the types of bags people carried out (she admits these weren't her wildest weekends). She also analyzed these stores' sales data. Taylor found these bag bans did what they were supposed to do. People in the cities with the bans used fewer plastic bags, which led to about 40 million fewer pounds of plastic trash per year. But, people who used to reuse their shopping bags for other purposes, like picking up dog poop or lining trash bins, still needed bags. "What I found was that sales of garbage bags actually skyrocketed after plastic grocery bags were banned," she says. This was particularly the case for small, four-gallon bags, which saw a 120% increase in sales after bans went into effect. Click here. Trash bags are thick and use more plastic than typical shopping bags. "So about 30% of the plastic that was eliminated by the ban comes back in the form of thicker garbage bags," Taylor says. On top of that, cities that banned plastic bags saw a surge in the use of paper bags, which she estimates resulted in about 80 million pounds of extra paper trash per year. Plastic haters, it's time to brace yourselves. A bunch of studies find that paper bags are actually worse for the environment. They require cutting down and processing trees, which involves lots of water, toxic chemicals, fuel, and heavy machinery. While paper is biodegradable and avoids some of the problems of plastic, Taylor says, the huge increase of paper, together with the uptick in plastic trash bags, means banning plastic shopping bags increases greenhouse gas emissions. That said, these bans do reduce non-biodegradable litter. We know diehard public radio fans love them! Nope. They can be even worse. A 2011 study by the U.K. government found a person would have to reuse their cotton tote bag 131 times before it was better for climate change than using a plastic grocery bag once. The Danish government recently did a study that took into account environmental impacts beyond simply greenhouse gas emissions, including water use, damage to ecosystems, and air pollution. These factors make cloth bags even worse. They estimate you would have to use an organic cotton bag 20,000 times more than a plastic grocery bag to make using it better for the environment. That said, the Danish government's estimate doesn't take into account the effects of bags littering land and sea, where plastic is clearly the worst offender. Stop Depressing Me. The most environment-friendly way to carry groceries is to use the same bag over and over again. According to the Danish study, the best reusable ones are made from polyester or plastics like polypropylene. Those still have to be used dozens and dozens of times to be greener than plastic grocery bags, which have the smallest carbon footprint for a single use. As for bag policies, Taylor says a fee is smarter than a ban. She has a second paper showing a small fee for bags is just as effective as a ban when it comes to encouraging use of reusable bags. But a fee offers flexibility for people who reuse plastic bags for garbage disposal or dog walking. Taylor believes the recent legislation passed in New York is a bad version of the policy. It bans only plastic bags and gives free rein to using paper ones (counties have the option to impose a five-cent fee on them). Taylor is concerned this will drive up paper use. The best policy, Taylor says, imposes a fee on both paper and plastic bags and encourages reuse. It might be weird though if we started giving out plastic grocery bags. Well, it looks even better in your inbox! You can sign up here. | https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/09/711181385/are-plastic-bag-bans-garbage?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=storiesfromnpr |
What's the best day to buy gasoline? | When it comes to buying gas, not that much. A study by Gasbuddy.com found that prices vary predictably day to day, but over the course of a year an average driver will only save $20 to $30 by gaming the system. That said, theres no reason to pass up the equivalent of a free fill-up, and according to USA Today, the best time to fill up on average is Monday morning. Fridays. Gasbuddy.com says its all about good old fashioned supply and demand. "Very early in the week, when gas stations are generally a little bit quieter traffic-wise, is a great time to fill up," Patrick DeHaan, GasBuddy head of petroleum analysis told the newspaper. "We generally see more volatility and higher prices later in the week." The ideal day does vary state to state, with Monday being the best in 29 and the District of Columbia and Tuesday in 19, while Wednesday is bargain day in Hawaii and Sunday in Utah. Heres the full list for best days hit the pump: Monday: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wyoming Tuesday: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin Wednesday: Hawaii Sunday: Utah (CLICK HERE FOR THE WORST) | https://www.foxnews.com/auto/whats-the-best-day-to-buy-gasoline |
What if Turkey squeezed the London lira market to death? | LONDON (Reuters) - Turkeys authorities have shown over the past month they are capable of squeezing the life out of the $35 billion (26.75 billion pounds)-a-day London lira market - but the cost of killing it off completely would be high for country itself. A merchant counts Turkish lira banknotes at the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, Turkey, March 29, 2019. REUTERS/Murad Sezer The liras 2018 plunge triggered a deep recession, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogans government may see the attraction of suffocating an offshore market it believes to be a hotbed of destabilising speculation. Ankara knows that market greases the wheels of the $14 billion a year of foreign direct investment Turkey sucks in on average nearly 60,000 companies had foreign capital there last year not to mention helping to cover its $160 billion external funding gap. Nevertheless, Erdogan frequently blames foreign speculators for sending the lira sprawling. That in turn squeezes payments and the refinancing of Turkish companies hard currency debts, sends household savings scurrying to dollars, ramps up inflation and interest rates and slams the brakes on the economy. So pressuring local banks late last month to stop lending lira to overseas counterparts looked like a deliberate ploy and one that had a striking resemblance to a capital control. The cost of offshore borrowing in the Turkish currency surged by more than 1,000 percent overnight, leading to pain for short sellers but a frozen market. Some life returned last week, but Societe Generales head of emerging market strategy, Jason Daw, thinks the episode shows Ankara would like to nail it shut if only it could without completely choking investment. That seems to be the message, considering they squeezed the international positions so much, he said, adding it was relentless volatility that irked Ankara. However, the offshore market has existed comfortably for years. Investors like it because it can be easier to get credit lines with a JP Morgan, Barclays or Citi than a smaller Turkish bank in Istanbul or Ankara. Bank of England analysis shows $35.8 billion worth of daily offshore lira trading was going on late last year. It was even bigger, at $56 billion a day, in April before the lira crashed 40 percent. Offshore currency and swap markets are typically freer of heavy central bank influence than domestic markets, but they are still vulnerable to the ebb and flow of local currency liquidity. And this as illustrated last month is where authorities do retain an element of control. Simply by shutting off its funding auctions for a while and maybe a bit of behind-the-scenes leaning on the local lenders, the central bank could spike the swap rates and briefly seize the market. The lira only stabilised once offshore interest rates rose significantly above onshore rates, analysts at Goldman Sachs observed a few days afterwards as the recovery began. SHORT MEMORIES The squeeze may have relented for now, but many countries, both emerging and developed, have periodically tried switching off speculation in offshore currency markets when battling currency runs in decades past. Thailand, Malaysia Argentina and Iceland are just a few examples. The all tend to boil down to where households and companies are losing confidence in their countrys currency, but authorities dont have the foreign-exchange reserves to fight the run. Not only does Turkey need foreign investors to buy its debt and provide FDI, but FX reserves are looking thin, especially as Turks are now stashing away record amounts of dollars. Aberdeen Standard Investments Kieran Curtis says that this hoarding means Turkeys banks effectively have a surplus of dollars on their books but a shortage of lira. He thinks for that reason Ankara wont want to mess too much with the offshore market it is crucial for balancing the mismatch. By spooking the market, bank transaction costs could easily rise. It is not a sustainable business model, he said. Having a London lira market was also a symbol of great importance for Turkeys free market credentials, said brahim Turhan, a former deputy governor of the Turkish central bank. The fight against speculative attacks will be made with rational policies and good governance, not bans, he said. Ankara would also need to make major improvements to bring more lira trading onshore. Authorities there have opened a local currency swap market under Borsa Istanbul which Turkish banks have started to use. But without foreign investors, traders say, the volumes wont achieve the necessary scale. It has backed away from offering non-deliverable forwards and there is no domestic interest rate swap market as there is not only in major markets but also in other emerging markets, such as Russia, Poland and Hungary. So for now at least it looks like the international market will continue to recover, albeit with nagging worries about what happens next time the lira really lurches. Its too early to say if people that got burnt will come back, said one senior FX trader in London. But people tend to have very short memories. I am always surprised at how quickly people come back into the market. | https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-turkey-markets-lira-analysis/what-if-turkey-squeezed-the-london-lira-market-to-death-idUSKCN1RL1AR |
What will an expanded Providence Park mean for parking, traffic near the stadium? | The Portland Timbers have spent the past two years working with neighborhood representatives and the city to ensure that traffic congestion and parking demands around Providence Park wont be amplified on game days following the completion of their $85 million expansion project this summer. But some neighbors around the stadium remain concerned that the 4,000 additional seats, which will bring capacity up to 25,000, will lead to increased traffic and a lack of parking after the stadium reopens in June. Ahead of the reopening, a city oversight committee was tasked with making updates to the Good Neighbor Agreement and Comprehensive Transportation Management Plan, which lay out measures to ensure that game days arent causing undue strain on the surrounding neighborhoods. The oversight committee, which includes representatives from the Timbers, the City of Portland, the Goose Hollow Foothills League and the Northwest District Association, recently voted to send its updated transportation plan and neighbor agreement to the Portland City Council for review. The council will decide whether to approve the updated plans on April 17. We all want the experience of coming and going from the stadium to be smooth for us, for our fans, for the neighbors, Timbers President of Business Mike Golub said. Our interests are aligned with the interests of the neighborhoods. We think the plan that were ready to enact really does an excellent job at improving on what was already a really good situation here. The updated transportation plan estimates that 55 percent of fans will take cars to the stadium this year to look for either off-street or on-street parking. Based on that assumption, the plan estimates that there will be an additional 1,120 cars heading to Providence Park on game days, as compared to previous years. In addition, it estimates that fans will utilize an additional 110 ride-hailing vehicles to attend games, which could affect traffic congestion. Whereas the previous transportation plan included 12 measures to help alleviate congestion and parking demands on game days, the new plan has 21 measures. Among the key measures are: providing a third additional MAX train in each direction after games, promoting the use of and providing discounts to underutilized SmartPark garages downtown, enhancing game-day enforcement of on-street parking, designating new ride-hailing zones and creating a one-stop shop of travel information on the Timbers website. But the Northwest District Association, which covers the neighborhood east of Providence Park, continues to have significant concerns about the updated transportation plan. Ron Walters, the associations representative on the committee, did not vote to send the plans through to the city. He said that the current plan lacks sufficient implementation details, clearly defined metrics and accountability measures. A committee of stakeholders appointed by Portlands transportation commissioner voiced similar complaints in a letter to the oversight committee. Parking in the neighborhood is tough on non-game days, Walters said. Game days, its much, much worse, to the point where neighbors have to completely modify their behavior. They have to go get parking four hours before the match. This notion that theres now going to be 1,200 additional cars is really problematic. They dont have any strong argument for where those people are going to park. Unlike other downtown stadiums, Providence Park doesnt have its own dedicated parking lot, meaning that fans must park elsewhere. The stated goal of the transportation plan is to accommodate the transportation needs of additional fans without increasing demand for on-street parking or increasing traffic congestion in neighborhoods near the stadium. While the Timbers can be fined for violating specific agreements in the transportation plan or neighbor agreement, Walters said the transportation plan is lacking clear metrics to evaluate the proposed measures and doesnt have enough built-in accountability to ensure that the proposals will be implemented in a timely fashion and re-evaluated if they are unsuccessful. For example, the success of the ride-hailing portion of the plan will be measured by looking at the percentage of fans who use ride-hailing. Instead, Walters said that the metric should be looking at how ride-hailing is affecting traffic congestion and that there should be a clear process in place if specific goals arent met. The oversight committee is required to meet just once a year following the reopening of the stadium, but Walters would like to see those meetings occur more frequently as well. Jerry Powell, the oversight committee representative from Goose Hollow, agreed that more accountability could be built into the transportation plan, but still voted to send the agreement on for city approval. I certainly appreciate the concerns that NWDA has, Powell said. I disagree in terms of pushing it forward, simply because my neighborhood doesnt want to see the work thats gone into this go to waste. I think we got as much as were going to get, and I dont want to see the season start without these plans in place. It goes back to accountability. We lose the ability to demand accountability if theres nothing to be accountable to. Ken Puckett, Timbers senior vice president of operations, said fans have consistently pointed to the ease of going to and from games in surveys and that the club hasnt received much blowback from the neighborhoods in the past. Puckett also said that the current transportation plan, like the previous one, will be a living document that can be updated as needed in the coming years. We want our fans to have a good experience coming to our games and leaving our games, so well do whatever it takes to make that happen, Puckett said. Some of these 21 measures that are in this new plan might not work and they might need to be tweaked and they might need to be changed, and were open to doing that. -- Jamie Goldberg | [email protected] 503-853-3761 | @jamiebgoldberg Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. | https://www.oregonlive.com/timbers/2019/04/what-will-an-expanded-providence-park-mean-for-parking-traffic-near-the-stadium.html |
Why has Cornwall gone to war with the BBCs weather presenters? | Forecasters are standing in front of the region and blocking it, according to a tourist head. Name: The Great Cornish Cover-up. Age: Far too old. Appearance: Its a cover-up, so its more about what it doesnt look like. Cornwall. The BBC. Specifically, the BBCs weather presenting team, in league with the Met Office. Of regularly obscuring Cornwall. By getting in the way of it when they present the weather. They stand directly in front of western Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, said Malcolm Bell, the head of Visit Cornwall, who convened a meeting with senior BBC staff, including the weather presenter Carol Kirkwood, to complain. He did not. He did. They listened to what we had to say in the meeting, and said they would work harder to avoid blocking the region, said Bell. Bell says he saw a slight improvement. They did seem to shuffle back a bit, he said. You need to take this seriously. It will be better after Brexit, when we stop getting all our weather from Europe, and presenters can move to the other side of the TV. This isnt just about people standing in front of a map. Bell also complained about generalised throwaway lines used by presenters when talking about Cornwall, which failed to take into account its unique climate and reliance on tourism. I would have thought the less tourists knew about Cornwalls weather the better. Thats precisely the attitude were trying to change. Often, Cornwall is bathed in sunshine when its raining everywhere else. Not when Im there it isnt. Careless weather words cost money, said Bell. So be careful. Yes. Locals complained that Hull came and went from the BBC weather map some days it was there, some days it wasnt. They dont need to bother now the BBC relented in 2016, giving Hull a permanent spot. Do say: Ill be presenting the weather from the top of your screens today, if youre wondering what the ropes are for. Dont say: Trust me, holidaymakers, you do not want to see what is going on behind me right now. | https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/shortcuts/2019/apr/09/why-has-cornwall-gone-to-war-with-the-bbcs-weather-presenters |
Did scientists succeed in getting the first pictures of a black hole? | The Event Horizon Telescope is a "virtual" telescope made by linking eight radio telescopes into one. The goal was to take the first photograph of a black hole. The Submillimeter Telescope at Mount Graham in southeastern Arizona was one of the eight telescopes used for the observation in April 2017. (Photo: Bob Demers/University of Arizona) A mysterious black hole, four times as massive as the sun, sits in the heart of the Milky Way. Scientists have long wanted to take a picture of it. But no light escapes from black holes. And it's so far away that capturing an image is like standing in New York City and trying to count the dimples on a golf ball in Los Angeles. They needed a really powerful telescope to take a picture one that didn't exist. So instead of a single telescope, an international team of scientists used a network of eight telescopes, including two that involved the University of Arizona, and combined them into a single "virtual" telescope known as the Event Horizon Telescope. Their observations were made over five days in April 2017, and scientists have spent the last two years analyzing and studying the data. On Wednesday, around 6 a.m. Arizona time, the world will learn whether they succeeded. Subscribe to azcentral.com. Researchers aren't commenting on their findings in advance. However, news conference organizers with the National Science Foundation are promising a "groundbreaking result." The news release will be available in multiple languages, along with "extensive supporting audiovisual material." As the U.S. news conference is happening, other news conferences will occur in Brussels, Santiago, Shanghai, Taipei and Tokyo. University of Arizona Professor Dimitrios Psaltis is the Event Horizon Telescope's project scientist. He coordinates the science activities of the more than 200 people involved. (Photo: Bob Demers/University of Arizona) "I've even bought a suit for this occasion," said UA Associate Professor Dan Marrone, one of four panelists who will present during the U.S. news conference with researchers from Harvard University, University of Waterloo and University of Amsterdam. Marrone was responsible for building, installing and maintaining the receiving system for the Event Telescope Horizon at the South Pole Telescope, a project that required annual trips to Antarctica for up to eight weeks at a time. He also tested and operated the observing system for the telescope on Mount Graham in southeastern Arizona. A strong Arizona connection NEWSLETTERS Get the AZ Memo newsletter delivered to your inbox We're sorry, but something went wrong Get the pulse of Arizona -- Local news, in-depth state coverage and what it all means for you Please try again soon, or contact Customer Service at 1-800-332-6733. Delivery: Mon-Fri Invalid email address Thank you! You're almost signed up for AZ Memo Keep an eye out for an email to confirm your newsletter registration. More newsletters Black holes are objects with gravity so strong that light cannot escape. Astronomers believe they exist at the center of almost all galaxies. Dimitrios Psaltis, a UA professor of astronomy and physics and the Event Horizon Telescope's project scientist, began writing scientific papers 20 years ago about what it would take to photograph a black hole. The technology didn't exist at the time. The Event Horizon Telescope was envisioned as a way to change that, using the combined power of a network of radio telescopes. Even then, it's not easy. The eight telescopes must be precisely synced to collect radio waves from the black hole over several nights. The observations produced an enormous amount of data that had to be analyzed, which was possible through a $6 million grant from the National Science Foundation. "It's really a confluence of everything just lining up in 2017 to be able to run this project," Psaltis said. On Wednesday, the world will learn the first results of their work. Read or Share this story: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-science/2019/04/09/did-scientists-dimitrios-psaltis-dan-marrone-others-succeed-getting-first-pictures-black-hole/3337124002/ | https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-science/2019/04/09/did-scientists-dimitrios-psaltis-dan-marrone-others-succeed-getting-first-pictures-black-hole/3337124002/ |
Can China Finally Make Emerging Market Bonds Interesting? | 2018 Bloomberg Finance LP If you're an emerging market bond manager, you're constantly confounded by investors. Retail investors don't really want to take their money abroad. Warren Buffet taught them, through a sort of osmosis, that you invest in what you know. Most people don't know about other countries. Funds managing Harvard University endowments, and California teacher pension funds are sophisticated global investors. Allocations by institutional investors to emerging market fixed income remain very low. There might be a pick up in the weeks and months ahead, thanks wholly to China. The Bloomberg Barclays Global Aggregate Bond Index now has China's renminbi priced bonds in their family of indexes, accounting for 6% of the Global Aggregate Bond Index. It's significant, because this is one of the biggest index families weighted to foreign currency bonds, so any bond fund manager trying to beat that index, or tracking it in a passive fund, pretty much has to buy Chinese bonds. Active fund managers can underweight, but then they would be making a call against China's bond market -- now the third largest bond market in the world. Stephen Yeats, head of fixed income for State Street Global Advisors in London says last week's inclusion of China's local currency government bonds in the Bloomberg Barclays Global Aggregate Index was a bigger deal than inclusion of some mainland Chinese corporate stocks in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index. "This is telling the world 'look, this is the third largest bond market and you need to have Chinese Treasury bonds' if you are a global bond investor," Yeats says. The inclusion is only for Chinese government bonds and a few of the big state-owned banks. The 10-year China government bond yield is currently 3.25% in renminbi. China: The Dollar Bond Alternative China's dollar-denominated debt is already in the major bond indexes. Last week marks the first time its local currency bonds were included. The weighting is expected to increase over time and eventually include investment grade corporate bonds. The risk is like any other A-rated credit, but unlike other investment-grade credit in the emerging markets that pays even more than China, the Chinese renminbi is much more reliable than the Russian ruble and the Brazilian real, two favorite markets for global bond lords. The next leg up for China would be inclusion in the JP Morgans Government Bond Index-Emerging Markets Global Diversified. It holds 19 local currency sovereigns, mostly investment grade rated. Outside of China, where yield is low compared to other emerging markets, namely Brazil and Russia, local currency bonds have delivered an annualized return since the JP Morgan index inception of 7% in dollars. The yield is currently 6.1%. Duration is just over five years for the bonds in that index, meaning it pays a lot more than a five year Treasury bond. "One of the most obvious reasons why investors have sustained under-allocations to emerging market bonds is home bias," says Jan Dehn, head of research at the Ashmore Group in London. As of 2018, 22 countries with the world's largest pension funds had 71% of their bond investments in the local market only. A lot of the demand for emerging market bonds, therefore, comes from the pension funds and insurance companies in those countries. In China, around 90% of the local bond market is in Chinese hands. Many large institutional investors have still not allocated to emerging market bonds, despite this being a positive year for non-U.S. markets overall. Some two-thirds of U.S. state pension funds have no emerging market bonds in their largest portfolios and only 12 of the largest 30 public pension funds here have dedicated, mandated commitments to emerging market bonds, based on Ashmore's research. Maybe China will change that. 2018 Bloomberg Finance LP "Sitting here in Europe, I can tell you that 3% yield in China is like 3% yield in the U.S. and much better than anything we are getting over here," says Yeats from State Street. "If you're a global bond investor and you look across the global bond universe, investing in the big bond markets, you have the U.S. and Japan are 50% of that market from a market cap perspecctive. There aren't many big government bond markets for you to choose from. It's not like corporate credit where you have hundreds and thousands of issuers. So here comes China." For fund managers that are mandated to hold emerging market bonds, China's local currency bonds are a hedge against currency risk in the higher yielding B-rated credits like Brazil, or the cowboy trades way down market in places like Turkey, South Africa, and Argentina. China is not without its detractors. China's debt woes are legendary. The hard landing call, some 10 years old at this point, remains mythical, with its true believers still waiting for the day China crash lands because of its debt. Prior to the Great Recession of 2008-09, China's debt-to-GDP ratio was relatively low and stable. But once the U.S. had its hard landing, China pumped hundreds of billions of dollars worth of stimulus into its economy, leading to some of the oversupply issues it faces today. Now China's debt ratio is dramatically higher and hit 253% of GDP in September 2018. "It's high, but in context, China's debt appears less frightening," says Andy Rothman, a strategist with Matthews Asia, a China mutual fund company based in San Francisco. China's debt is lower than the debt-to-GDP ratio of five of the G-7 advanced economies, and no one is giving up on U.S. Treasurys because of debt. No one has given up on Italian bonds yet. China stands alone in emerging markets. It's a quasi-developed one. And by comparison, Chinese household debt-to-GDP is low, at about 50% versus 77% in the U.S., 86% in the U.K. and 58% in the eurozone. China's foreign debt exposure is around 14% of GDP, meaning it is not dependent on foreign capital to fund itself. "Your average investor will be wary on China because of geopolitics," says Yeats. "You have to think that this is the second largest economy in the world and it has a very large bond market. You should at least be asking the question: is there something there for me?" | https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2019/04/09/can-china-finally-make-emerging-market-bonds-interesting/ |
How to make the worlds best brownie its from Edouardo Jordans Lucinda, and its whole wheat!? | SEATTLE STAR CHEF Edouardo Jordan is a very busy man. When he returned a text from me recently, it was from Nigeria hed traveled there to wrap up this years Black History Month, in order to explore, learn and return with more history, he said, in hopes of better sharing his story. But the two-time James Beard Award winner is never too busy to help; we messaged about what he loves about whole grains (#foodnerds) with regards to his newest restaurant, sweet little Lucinda Grain Bar. As the name indicates, Lucinda emphasizes what Jordan calls the local, wholesome and meaningful use of whole grains in breads, crackers, bowls and more, including in your cocktail (lots of alcohol is distilled from grain) and even in your dessert. And your dessert at Lucinda should always be its worlds best brownie. Despite being made from healthful-sounding whole wheat and other whole-grain flour, the Lucinda brownie is just more deeply chocolaty, meltier inside, more luxuriously rich and overall more (please make MMMMM sound here while rolling your eyes back in your head) than any other. (And I say this as someone whos not always interested in dessert.) ! you think, and then its gone but a lot of thought and a lot of care went into its creation. Jordan very quickly directed all praise to pastry chef Margaryta Karagodina. Originally from Crimea, she baked at Macrina and in France before scoring a role at Jordans first restaurant, Salare; shes now in charge of all things baking for JuneBaby and Lucinda, too. Karagodina, in turn, told me immediately that this miracle brownie was a team effort. Starting with her own basic fudge brownie recipe which shed been tweaking, she said, over the past few years (as one does!?) she and her pastry crew experimented with integrating different amounts of whole-wheat flour. They found that not only could they ditch the white flour entirely, but any other leftover whole grains in the Salare/JuneBaby/Lucinda pastry kitchen could be ground up and added right in, too. Advertising Both Jordan and Karagodina were happy to share the recipe more generosity of spirit enabling us all to make the worlds best brownie (and also feel virtuous about it because its whole wheat). ! Heres the breakdown and the recipe. Youre welcome! 8 tips to make your Lucinda Whole-Wheat Fudge Brownies that great The whole-wheat flour is one of the key ingredients here, according to Karagodina one of the components that make for the extra-great end result. Karagodina says Oregon-based Bobs Red Mill brand is a great choice for home bakers! is one of the key ingredients here, according to Karagodina one of the components that make for the extra-great end result. Karagodina says Oregon-based Bobs Red Mill brand is a great choice for home bakers! The right amount of kosher salt , Karagodina notes, can take any dessert from being great to being awesome. And different brands of salt have different levels of saltiness; at Salare/JuneBaby/Lucinda, they use Diamond Crystal. , Karagodina notes, can take any dessert from being great to being awesome. And different brands of salt have different levels of saltiness; at Salare/JuneBaby/Lucinda, they use Diamond Crystal. Spring for the good stuff when it comes to your cocoa powder , too, Karagodina says. They use Valrhona; local outlet ChefShop.com also sells primo quality both in-store and online. , too, Karagodina says. They use Valrhona; local outlet ChefShop.com also sells primo quality both in-store and online. Same with your dark chocolate Karagodinas currently using Valrhona 70 percent. Karagodinas currently using Valrhona 70 percent. Its not crucial, Karagodina says, but if you want to try to exactly emulate the Lucinda brownie, get your hands on some Crmerie Classique European-style unsalted butter (or a similar brand with higher milk-fat and lower water content). (or a similar brand with higher milk-fat and lower water content). Deploying coconut oil as some of the fat makes the brownie much fudgier, Karagodina says (and they use organic). as some of the fat makes the brownie much fudgier, Karagodina says (and they use organic). Cold ones cool down your melted chocolate mixture, making it stiff and subsequently difficult to incorporate the dry ingredients. Karagodinas trick for speeding up egg-warming: Put them in a bowl of warm water for one minute. Cold ones cool down your melted chocolate mixture, making it stiff and subsequently difficult to incorporate the dry ingredients. Karagodinas trick for speeding up egg-warming: Put them in a bowl of warm water for one minute. One more pro tip (this ones from me): At Lucinda, the brownie is served with einkorn-infused ice cream and toasted-oat toffee brittle bits, and you can buy the former for $10 a pint to go at JuneBaby. (Youre on your own for the brittle.) Lucinda Whole-Wheat Fudge Brownies 1 cups whole-wheat flour cup cocoa powder 1 teaspoon kosher salt 1 cups dark chocolate, coarsely chopped 1 sticks butter (6 oz.) cup coconut oil 1 cups sugar cup brown sugar 5 eggs, room temperature 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1. Preheat oven to 325F. Spray the bottom of a 9-by-13-inch baking pan with nonstick spray and line with parchment paper. 2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder and salt. Set aside. 3. Melt the chocolate, butter and coconut oil in a large bowl over a saucepan of simmering water (bain marie or double boiler), stirring occasionally, until mixture is smooth. 4. While keeping your bowl on the bain marie setup, add sugars into the chocolate mixture, and whisk until combined. Advertising 5. Take your bowl off the heat, then whisk in the eggs and vanilla. Do not overmix. 6. Fold dry ingredients into the chocolate using a rubber spatula. 7. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake for about 30 minutes, until a toothpick comes out with a few moist crumbs on it. Rotate halfway through baking. 8. Let the brownies cool completely before cutting and serving. | https://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/how-to-make-the-worlds-best-brownie-its-from-edouardo-jordans-lucinda-and-its-whole-wheat/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_all |
How did Norwich City become so dominant in the Championship? | Norwich are seven points clear at the top of the Championship after eight straight wins. It was a weekend packed with late drama in the ever-unpredictable Championship but, if there is one thing you can count on this season, it is that Norwich will outclass their opponents. The Canaries won their eighth game in a row on Saturday to extend their lead at the top of the table to seven points. Managerless QPR did not provide the toughest of challenges but Daniel Farkes side have looked a cut above the opposition for some time now. Farke has turned his squad into the dominant force in the division in hugely impressive fashion, which is all the more admirable given that his job came under some scrutiny after an underwhelming first season at Carrow Road. Norwich only finished 14th last season when they scored fewer goals (49) than bottom club Sunderland but they stood by their coach and his long-term vision. When the club cashed in on their prized assets last summer, selling James Maddison to Leicester for 22m and Josh Murphy to Cardiff for 11m, fans could have been forgiven for expecting the worst. With the club only spending 5m of that money on new recruits, the Canaries looked as likely to be relegated as promoted. Maddison had been their jewel, scoring 14 times and providing a further eight assists, giving him a direct hand in 45% of their league goals in the season before he left. Replacing a player of his quality in the Championship was supposed to be impossible, but Norwichs recruitment and faith in their coach has paid off handsomely. Champions League quiz: English clubs in the quarter-finals Read more Wolves won the league at something of a canter last season, but the quality of football Norwich have produced since the turn of the year has been just as entertaining, if not more so. They scored their 82nd goal of the season in the 4-0 win over QPR at the weekend, equalling Wolves total from last season with six games to spare. Both clubs have disproved the theory that managers need experience of the Championship to succeed in this notoriously demanding and difficult division. Instead, their coaches knowledge of their native leagues and markets has been pivotal to their success as was the case with Huddersfield before them. Nevertheless, the way Norwich have set about ruling the league is more impressive than what their predecessors achieved. Thats not to discredit Wolves efforts last year but, in terms of financial muscle, there is no comparison between the two clubs. Norwich have made a considerable profit in each of the last three seasons, opting to promote youth while picking up more than the odd bargain along the way. They do not have the help of a Jorge Mendes figure to bring in players who never truly belonged in the league. Norwich have had to look for value instead and boy have they found it. Teemu Pukki has been the face of their remarkable turnaround, particularly in front of goal. The Championships top scorer took his tally to 26 at the weekend with two goals against QPR. He was fairly prolific in his four seasons at Brondby but few could have foreseen the impact he would have at Carrow Road after his free transfer last summer. The former Celtic striker has been ruthless in front of goal and has been brilliant at bringing those behind him into play, picking up nine assists in the process. Mario Vrancic, Marco Stiepermann and Onel Hernndez have also come to the fore, having been signed last season proving that acclimatisation and familiarity within the camp has also played its part. However, signing Emiliano Buenda has been a real masterstroke. The Argentinian has been the Maddison replacement that Norwich fans never thought they would find. He is not a like-for-like replacement, but Buenda has also made his mark in the final third, with eight goals and 11 assists so far. Buenda operates from the right wing rather than down the middle, but the intelligence of his movement and understanding with those around him has flourished. He arguably possesses more creativity from open play than Maddison and, whereas a large proportion of the teams threat came through the centre last season, that has now changed. Last season only Derby focused a higher percentage of their attacks down the middle of the pitch, while Norwich now rank 18th in that regard. Theres an impressive balance to their play now too, with full-backs Max Aarons and Jamal Lewis playing crucial roles in supporting attacks from wide. Both have excelled this season and attracted interest from top-flight clubs as has fellow academy graduate Ben Godfrey. The trio, who are all 21 or under, are joined in the back four by 26-year old Christoph Zimmermann. This defence offers huge promise for the future if they stay together. With seven weeks to play, half of the clubs in Ligue 1 are aiming for Europe Read more If Norwich are not promoted which seems a near impossibility now the battle for their top young talent will be intense. As it is, the Canaries are soaring back into the Premier League with a fantastic platform for success built on astute overseas recruitment and promotion from the academy. Their philosophy was highlighted perfectly at the weekends EFL awards, where Finnish free transfer Pukki was voted player of the season and teenager Aarons was given the young player award. Farke has been the biggest success story of all. He should serve as a reminder to other clubs such as their latest victims, QPR, who are expected to appoint Tim Sherwood as their new manager that the answer is not always close to home. Premier League team of the week La Liga team of the week Serie A team of the week Bundesliga team of the week Ligue 1 team of the week Visit WhoScored for more statistics and ratings Follow WhoScored on Twitter and Facebook Follow Martin Laurence on Twitter | https://www.theguardian.com/football/who-scored-blog/2019/apr/09/norwich-city-championship-table |
Are older siblings more ambitious? | To enjoy the CBBC Newsround website at its best you will need to have JavaScript turned on. A study of 1,500 families across the UK suggests firstborn children are more ambitious when it comes to studying, and going on to college or university. The study also found firstborn girls were 13% more ambitious than firstborn boys. Newsround sent Leah to a school to find out what kids there thought of their siblings. Your Comments Thank you for your comments. This chat page has now closed. I have one older brother and even though I don't like to admit it he definitely is the most ambitious of the two of us.. Merel, Amsterdam, The Netherlands I think older siblings are not ambitious because my older sister has nothing she wants to aim for. She is not determined like me. Keith, Leicester, England I'm more ambitious than my brother and he is two years older than me. He is thirteen and I'm ten, yet I go for more things than he does. Rebecca, Burtonwood, England I don't think that it's true because I have a younger sister who is fourth born and she is much smarter than her older three siblings when they were her age. Sarah, England, London Yes, I do have older siblings but I think I'm the most ambitious in my family. Lucy, Taunton, England I have a big sister aged 16 and a little sister aged 7. I think that me and my bigger sister are the most ambitious siblings in our family. Liam, Glasgow, Scotland I'm a middle child and I'd definitely say I'm the most ambitious and studious from my siblings! So I'm afraid I don't agree with the study. Zaira, Midlands, England The study was carried out by Feifei Bu at the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex. Sibling Configurations, Educational Aspiration and Attainment followed 3,532 individuals (1,503 sibling groups) through the British Household Panel Study and Understanding Society. | https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/27221138 |
Do Donald Trumps tax returns still matter? | by Cait Bladt Donald Trumps lack of transparency with regards to his tax returns has long been a point of contention. The president claims he cannot release his returns because he is under audit, despite the fact that legally, he is still allowed to release them. Democrats are now taking two new steps in an attempt to see Trumps tax returns, both on a national and state level. Trump and his surrogates though argue the public does not care about the returns and Democrats are merely playing politics. As the president has refused to allow lawmakers or the public to see his tax returns, many lawmakers are becoming more creative in their methods. New York State is considering legislation which would allow the state to release tax returns for specific and legitimate legislative purpose based on requests from the heads of three congressional committees. On a national level, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Richard Neal formally requested six years of Trump's tax returns based on a provision of the tax code which allows the chairman of the committee to request such information from the IRS. While Neal has claimed the request is completely straightforward, many say the code has never been used to request tax information from anyone as high profile as the president. As the LA Times reports, the president and his surrogates immediately took to the defensive, saying Democrats were overreaching. [Mick] Mulvaney took a far more aggressive stance, accusing the Democrats of taking part in a political hit job with no legal or legislative basis. Speaking on Fox News Sunday, the chief of staff said of a handover of the returns: That is not going to happen, and they know it. ...Mulvaney also argued, as other Trump aides have done on this issue and others, that the tax-return question was already litigated in the 2016 campaign and settled by Trump winning. Mulvaney was joined by several other members of the Trump administration to voice concerns about the legitimacy of the requests. Per Politico: Late last week, a Virginia-based lawyer working for Trump urged Treasurys general counsel to deny Neals request on the basis that there was neither a legislative purpose nor a legitimate committee purpose for seeking the presidents returns. It would be a gross abuse of power for the majority party to use tax returns as a weapon to attack, harass, and intimidate their political opponent, attorney William Consovoy said. And on Sunday, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and Trump attorney Jay Sekulow also pushed back on the demand. ...Sekulow, meanwhile, asserted that Democrats stood the chance of setting a dangerous precedent of weaponizing the IRS for political purposes. Others, including Dean Obeidallah at CNN claimed the American public had a right to know what was in the tax returns. Not only that, but the administrations insistence on dodging requests raised more red flags. You don't have to be a detective on "CSI" to get a sense that there's a reason Trump doesn't want America to see his tax returns. I don't want to engage in rank speculation as to the why, but the fact is that Trump was the first major party presidential candidate since Watergate to fail to release his tax returns. ...Trump has now taken his opposition to the release of his tax returns to desperate heights, in light of Rep. Neal's formal request for six years of his personal and corporate returns. As CNN recently reported, Trump and his legal team are so opposed to releasing the returns that they "are willing to fight the House Democratic request all the way to the Supreme Court." As one Trump official added, "This is a hill and people would be willing to die on it." People are willing to "die" to keep Trump's tax returns from going public?! Wow, so much for Trump being happy to release his returns after the audit was completed. In a January 2017 New York Times op-ed, Democratic Senator Ron Wyden argued without the information included in the presidents tax returns, there is no way for the American public to fully trust the president. Without these returns, Americans cannot know whether he is using the presidency to enrich himself and his family. Americans wont know whether a policy he proposes primarily benefits steelworkers in Pennsylvania or lines his own pocket. They will also be unable to tell whether Mr. Trump is telling the truth when he claims to have no connections to Russia, contradicting public evidence and statements by his own son. His stated excuse about being under audit doesnt pass the smell test. Previous presidents and nominees have released their returns under the same circumstances. That sentiment has not waned in the intervening months. According to a Washington Post/ABC poll in January 2019, 60% of Americans still wanted to see the presidents tax returns. The Tylt is focused on debates and conversations around news, current events and pop culture. We provide our community with the opportunity to share their opinions and vote on topics that matter most to them. We actively engage the community and present meaningful data on the debates and conversations as they progress. The Tylt is a place where your opinion counts, literally. The Tylt is an Advance Local Media, LLC property. Join us on Twitter @TheTylt, on Instagram @TheTylt or on Facebook, wed love to hear what you have to say. | https://www.oregonlive.com/tylt/2019/04/do-donald-trumps-tax-returns-still-matter.html |
Who replaces Oti Gildon as Oregons top big off the bench? | EUGENE Though Oregons backcourt is losing a key presence, its frontcourt is also going to be retooled this offseason. Oti Gildons career coming to an end leaves the Ducks needing to identify a new big off the bench who can backup Ruthy Hebard and also play the four if need be. Gildon averaged a career-best 4.6 points and 3.4 rebounds this season and 4.1 points and 2.9 rebounds over 143 career games. Itll be more than sheer numbers that Oregon has to replace though, as it was never in question as to who was the teams top backup in the post this season. The Ducks have a few different ways they can go about replacing Gildons contributions, the most obvious being Nyara Sabally. The younger sister of Satou, Nyara will be a big contributor for Oregon next season after redshirting this year. The only real question is how Kelly Graves plans to construct his primary lineups. With a four-guard starting lineup, either Jaz Shelly or Taylor Chavez would be the most likely new starter and Nyara Sabally would be the first player off the bench to spell Hebard. Lydia Giomis role would be mostly unchanged and Oregon would have more depth and options in the post. If Oregon goes big, Nyara Sabally could be a starter along with Hebard and Satou Sabally, Erin Boley and Sabrina Ionescu complete the rest of the starting lineup. In this case, Giomi would be the top big off the bench but it would leave the Ducks having to go to a four-guard lineup anytime two bigs got in foul trouble. | https://www.oregonlive.com/ducks/2019/04/who-replaces-oti-gildon-as-oregons-top-big-off-the-bench.html |
How can theatre companies get Indigenous land acknowledgments right? | We acknowledge that we are gathered on the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples, now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Mtis peoples. That statement, adapted from the official land acknowledgement from the City of Toronto (updated as of February), should sound familiar if youve attended virtually any kind of public arts event in the last few years. But now, dissenting voices have started picking them apart. They can sound detached, shallow, and give a false sense of progressive accomplishment when delivered by settler, often white, organizations and artists. Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory. ( Jeremy Mimnagh / Jeremy Mimnagh photo ) Anishinaabe writer, educator, and Indigenous policy adviser Hayden King is one of the most vocal critics of land acknowledgments as theyre currently being practiced. In his talk Welcome to My Territory, Please Leave: Politics of a Land Acknowledgement given recently at Ryerson University, he said that our mainstream style of land acknowledgments actually cause harm to the people theyre supposed to celebrate. All major cities in Canada today have a land acknowledgement. Yet, in each of these jurisdictions with each of these land acknowledgments, there is active and ongoing disposition of Indigenous people, he said. In fact, King argues that land acknowledgments play a larger part in the plan of white settlers to erase Indigenous people from society, a process that continues to respond to pivotal moments in Indigenous activism such as the Idle No More movement and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Article Continued Below For me, that was the moment at which Canadians really understood that genocide is not working, assimilation is not working, we have to undertake a new strategy, reconciliation. Coinciding with that was the land acknowledgement, he said. Its more of a legitimization of settler colonialism rather than any tangible benefit for Indigenous people. Inuit performer and theatre director Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory argues land acknowledgments have a vital function when done correctly. She argues they are meant to show that all of Canada is built on Indigenous homelands, a fact that most Canadians have never learned. For me it is also about actually looking at the ground that we stand, sit, work, spectate on. Who have been the custodians of this land? Cynthia Lickers-Sage, a Mohawk visual artist from the Six Nations reserve and executive director of the Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance, believes that resources like Native-Land.ca, an interactive map that geographically lays out Indigenous territories, languages and treaties, and the information provided by Torontos Generator website can help performers and companies craft a land acknowledgement, but they shouldnt be the end of the process. She recalls a conversation with the director of a well-known theatre company in Toronto, proud of how the organization had its youth performers work with local elders on land acknowledgments for each stop while on tour, and was now providing them to other companies travelling to the same areas. I felt a little bad because I didnt respond as excitedly as she expected. I said, This is fantastic, the only thing is that when youre telling people, youre robbing them of the experience. I would be more interested in hearing from those students about their relationship to the land. I would be more interested in a how-to document, she said. With varying definitions and perspectives within Indigenous communities themselves, even those within the same area, Lickers-Sage says standardizing land acknowledgments is futile. Including more personal information about the speakers own research and relationship to the land goes farther than listing the areas nations. Then again, she remembers one example where a performance company expanded upon their own family histories immigrating to Canada. Article Continued Below I thought, well this is interesting, you just did a five-minute land acknowledgement and then spent the last ten seconds about the Indigenous people we have to go one step a little deeper and speak to people from the community about their experience and connection to the land, she said. Part of what keeps land acknowledgments stuck in this regimented rut is the fear of getting it wrong and earning criticism like this from Indigenous artists like Lickers-Sage. But this has a simple antidote, she said: If an organization has done the work, they have a solid foundation to speak with anyone who challenges them and theres nothing to fear. Another solution is to include Indigenous artists in the creation and delivery of a land acknowledgement, either providing a physical presence or, as Cole Alvis, a Mtis artist with Chippewa, Irish and English heritage, used while working on Nina Lee Aquinos production of The Drawer Boy at Theatre Passe Muraille last year, a pre-recorded message. It was important that we recognize Craig Lauzon as an Ojibway person playing the role of Angus in (Aquinos) identity-conscious casting of the well-known play by Michael Healy. (The recording) provided an opportunity for the audience to hear from him and myself, the two Indigenous artists on the production, without requiring him to transition immediately from a preshow Indigenous protocol into the opening moments of the play, he wrote to the Star. Williamson Bathorys land acknowledgement during her production of Kiviuq Returns this January at Tarragon Theatre explored the plays themes as well as its wider cultural context that only that particular cast and crew could have performed. We had a small baby in our group, the daughter of one of the stage managers, and she came on stage every day for the land acknowledgement. We introduced her to the audience, who all inevitably waved at her and cooed and awed. We then brought forth the tremendous amount of conflict, abuse, neglect, trauma and hurt we could name just briefly that has taken place on Indigenous lands against Indigenous people in recent history and named the colonized trauma that Inuit have also experienced and still experience today, she told the Star, adding that the conflict at the Unistoten camp in British Columbia and the apology to the Ahiarmiut people in Nunavut were both referenced on stage. For non-Indigenous artists looking to create meaningful land acknowledgments, even King has suggestions: Learn, reflect, ditch the script, and get beyond the symbols. Lickers-Sage would add one more step to explain to audiences why land acknowledgments are important: Theres this large population out there that has no idea whats going on, and just knows that theyve lost five minutes at the top of the show. Nevertheless, she says this is a learning process for all involved, and she is impressed by the good intentions behind the popularization of land acknowledgments. But a change in mindset is necessary to move forward. Its not about making space, its about giving back space. And then, its about moving towards a reciprocal relationship, which is uncharted territory. Carly Maga is a Toronto-based theatre critic and a freelance contributor for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @RadioMaga | https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/stage/opinion/2019/04/09/how-can-theatre-companies-get-indigenous-land-acknowledgments-right.html |
Do Students Have A Right Not To Be Seen Naked By Someone Of (Anatomically Speaking) The Other Sex? | This is an important question and the courts are giving different answers. The issue comes up when transgender students seek access to the bathrooms and locker rooms designated for their identified genders rather than for their anatomical/genetic gender. The latest case comes from an Illinois school district that allows students to use the bathrooms and locker rooms of their identified genders. In that district, a genetic boy who identifies as a girl can use the girls bathroom and locker room and vice versa. It is true that transgender students have good reasons for wanting to use the locker rooms of their identified gender. "Transgender individuals experience extremely high rates of harassment and violence when forced to use restrooms that accord with the sex assigned to them at birth," according to an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union. However, as the Illinois case shows, allowing anatomically male students to use girls locker rooms and bathrooms can cause significant problems as well. According to a decision issued last week by Federal Judge Jorge Alonso, the plaintiffs allege that A female student (who is not a plaintiff but who had been sexually assaulted previously) was exposed to Student As penis. The plaintiffs also allege that another female student wears soiled, sweaty gym clothes under her school clothes for the rest of the school day in order to avoid having to change her clothes in the locker room. Other students allege that they avoid using the bathrooms altogether. One way to look at this is that these girls are simply being transphobic and their concerns must yield to the rights of transgendered students. Others are more sympathetic to the girls concerns. The public is almost evenly split on this issue: Currently, Americans are split on what public restroom access policies should be -- they are about as likely to say transgender individuals should be required to use a bathroom that corresponds to their birth gender (48%) as to say a transgender person should be allowed to use a bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity (45%). Seven percent have no opinion on the issue. From a legal point of view, a crucial question is whether the students who do not want to be seen fully or partially naked by students of the anatomically opposite sex or who do not want to be inadvertently exposed to a students penis have a constitutional right to privacy. The courts have long a recognized a physical right to privacy. For example, an arrestee who is physically strip searched by a guard of the opposite sex may have a valid claim that his or her right to privacy was violated. The courts disagree on this point. Judge Alonso held that there is no right to visual bodily privacy. That is too bad, because students, especially adolescents, need to have their privacy respected. Surely it violates the rights of students if, say, a teacher of the opposite gender walks into a locker room without knocking when students are undressed. And in cases where a student is a sexual assault survivor, her interest in not suddenly coming across the exposed penis of another student seems obvious. Another court, a federal appellate court in Pennsylvania, issued a far better decision last year. It held If there were any doubt . . . that the constitution recognizes a right to privacy in a person's unclothed or partially clothed body, we hold today that such a right exists. Similarly, a federal appellate court in New York held that We cannot conceive of a more basic subject of privacy than the naked body. The desire to shield one's unclothed figure from the view of strangers, and particularly strangers of the opposite sex, is impelled by elementary self-respect and personal dignity. Of course, recognizing such a right does not mean that schools should ban transgendered persons from the locker rooms of the gender that they identify with. In fact, the Pennsylvania court sided with the transgendered student holding that the interest in non-discrimination against transgendered students out-weighed the privacy interest in that case. So acknowledging the students right to privacy doesnt give an automatic answer to the complex question of transgender access to school locker rooms and bathrooms. But acknowledging that students, especially sexual assault survivors, have real interests as well means that schools will need to do their best to balance everyones well-being. It is no wonder that the public is so deeply divided on this issuethere are compelling concerns on both sides. Advocates for the transgendered are right to challenge bogus claims such as the argument that allowing Trans students their choice of bathrooms represents a physical danger to other students. But students with privacy concerns cannot simply be dismissed as transphobic. Also, while advocates for Trans students may sincerely believe that a Trans girl is indeed a girl whatever her anatomy may be, it is clear that there is no societal consensus on this and many girls feel otherwise. Society must treat all of these students with respect and do its best to accommodate everyones needs. | https://www.forbes.com/sites/evangerstmann/2019/04/09/do-students-have-a-right-not-to-be-seen-naked-by-someone-of-anatomically-speaking-the-other-sex/ |
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