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Will The Jewelry Trends Change From 2018's Golden Globes? | In just a few days, red carpet season kicks off again with the 76th Annual Golden Globes. What the A-listers are wearing at the Globes often provides a good indication of what we will see during the SAG's (Screen Actor's Guild) Awards and the Academy Awards to follow. Last year the highlights of the red carpet season from the Globes throughout The Cannes Film Festival proved to reveal earrings as the trend that took over the star-studded events. But there were also statement necklaces and armfuls of bracelets that took the spotlight. Diamonds dazzled, particularly when it came to antique and vintage pieces provided by red carpet favorites such as Fred Leighton and Neil Lane and the archives of Tiffany & Co., Bulgari and Cartier. Lorraine Schwartz provided the color and the bold singular statement as did some of the independent designers that we always love to see gain some traction at these luminary events. Tune in to to watch the show and to view our coverage of the trend-setting jewels. In the meantime, here are some of the highlights from last year's Golden Globes: Variety in styles and lengths of diamond earrings: Reese Witherspoon in vintage-inspired Bulgari diamond earrings. Jessica Chastain in delicate yet bold Piaget diamond wreath earrings Jessica Biel in big and beautiful Bulgari Official diamond earrings Pops of color in emeralds against the backdrop of black gowns: The large emerald pendant earrings and emerald ring on Zoe Kravitz by Lorraine Schwartz The emerald chandeliers Catherine Zeta-Jones by Lorraine Schwartz The emerald and diamond outstanding necklace on Issa Rae all by Lorraine Schwartz Bold and statement making yet feminine necklaces: Viola Davis in Harry Winston platinum and diamond necklace Allison Williams in an 18K gold in a Forevermark five-row diamond choker | https://www.forbes.com/sites/bethbernstein/2019/01/04/will-the-trends-change-from-2018s-golden-globes/ |
Did Ariana Grande Just Wear the Most Ariana Grade Outfit of All Time? | Ariana Grande, queen of lampshading, has reminded us time and time again that wearing sweatshirts as dresses is a viable sartorial choice. Shes been a strong proponent of the top-and-boots combo, and shes offered us near-countless ways to style our longest shirts as bona fide dresses. On Thursday, Grande took this commitment to lampshading to a new level, pairing a knee-length pink fur coat with matching pink stilettosand wearing what had to be the most Ariana Grande outfit of all time. First, theres the color: Ariana Grande wears pink clothes more than, like, any other celebrity on the planet. She wears baby pink bubble dresses to awards shows. And bubblegum pink feather tops in music videos. And millennial pink body paint in other music videos. Pink is, basically, Ariana Grandes colora fact thats only further confirmed by how downright incredible she looks in Thursdays ensemble. Then, theres the silhouette: As Ive emphasized ad nauseam, Ariana Grande loves lampshading. She might not have pioneered the semi-iconic sweatshirt-and-boots ensemble, but shes kept it going long past its prime. And she just reinvented the damn thing with this pink get-up. Whereas most lampshading looks are comprised of a longline top and super-tall boots, this one was comprised of a fucking fur coat and stilettos. Shes treating a jacket like a topand strappy sandals like pants. I dont know which is more daring, but I do know her white tights are doing a lot of work in the wardrobe-malfunction-prevention department. And if these two facets werent enough to cement this outfits place in Ariana Grandes sartorial history, consider the caption: thank u for seven weeks at number 1 what a beautiful start to this year #thankunext #ipickedupshitafterthis. Nothing encapsulates Grandes complicated-yet-triumphantly-historic year quite like the juxtaposition inherent to her picking up shit in a glam AF outfitwhile celebrating her singles seventh consecutive week topping the charts. The most Ariana Grande caption of all time, on the most Ariana Grande Instagram of all time, capturing the most Ariana Grande outfit of all time. I rest my case. | https://stylecaster.com/ariana-grande-pink-fur-coat/ |
Can Timothe Chalamets Heartbreaking Beautiful Boy Performance Get Him an Oscar Nod? | Two years after their big Oscar breakthrough with Manchester By the Sea, Amazon Studios isnt having the year they want when it comes to Oscar hopefuls. Luca Guadagninos Suspiria was way too arty and horrific and off-putting to repeat his Call Me By Your Name success. Dan Fogelmans Life Itself was carved up by critics. Cold War is poised for a Foreign Language Film nomination, at least, and the Joaquin Phoenix movie You Were Never Really Here, which was always going to be far too dark for Oscar anyway, is showing up on a ton of year-end top 10 lists. And then theres Beautiful Boy, which was shaping up to be Amazons big awards play. Based on twin memoirs by father and son David and Nic Sheff, the film follows the frustrating and heartbreaking drug addiction that Nic (Timothe Chalamet) goes through and that his father (Steve Carell) cant save him from. The film debuted at the fall festivals, and the response was just too muddled to give it any kind of strong momentum when stacked up against the likes of A Star Is Born, Roma, and the like. But one element of Beautiful Boy clung onto awards hopes, and that has been the performance of Timothe Chalamet. After last years breakthrough role and Best Actor nod for Call Me By Your Name (most people figure he placed second to winner Gary Oldman), Chalamet has been a rather excellent celebrity, all things considered. From red-carpet lewks to interactions with other celebs that made him look like a wide-eyed appreciative novice (thus making him seem like even more of a wunderkind in terms of his talent), its nearly impossible not to love the kid. And, though a few critics have quibbled, hes really quite excellent in Beautiful Boy, working through Nics addiction with a palpable sense of frustration. Along the way, the Chalamet campaign was shifted from a Best Actor hopeful to Best Supporting Actor, the idea being that its Carells movie all told. Which may be a bit of creative Hollywood bookeeping, but it gives Chalamet a better chance at a second nomination in as many years. Thus far, hes shown up on the ballots at the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild, and the Critics Choice. Stats-wise, that bodes incredibly well for his Oscar chances. His competition includes frontrunners Mahershala Ali (Green Book) and Richard E. Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me), as well as Adam Driver for BlacKkKlansman, Sam Elliott for A Star Is Born, and Globe nominee Sam Rockwell for Vice. Dark-horse contenders include popular faves like Michael B. Jordan for Black Panther and Steven Yeun for Burning. But at this point, it feels like Chalamets award to lose. The only snag towards a second nomination might be that Beautiful Boy isnt likely to show up anywhere else on the ballot. Thats not the case for his competition. Even Yeun has support for Burning in the Foreign Language Film category. Green Book, Vice, BlacKkKlansman, Black Panther, A Star Is Born these are all Best Picture contenders. Can You Ever Forgive Me is likely to snag nods for Melissa McCarthy and its screenplay. Chalamet is walking this particular red carpet alone. Still, theres a handful of actors and actresses who could get nominated on personality alone, and I feel like Chalamet is among them. Which means that even in a relatively down year, Amazon will have something to boast about from 2018. Stream Beautiful Boy on Prime Video | https://decider.com/2019/01/04/beautiful-boy-timothee-chalamet-oscar-chances/ |
How Much of Romy and Micheles High School Reunion Is Really a Dream Sequence? | Where to Stream: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion More Options There are certain movies that just define your high school experience. Theyre the movies you watched with friends, the ones with obscure dialogue that became inside jokes and shorthand with your nerdy little clique. For me (class of 02), one of those movies was unquestionably Romy and Micheles High School Reunion. The 1997 comedy wasnt a breakout at the box office, but it was a smash hit in another way: me and every single one of my friends quoted random lines (I cut my foot before and my shoe is filling up with blood), did elaborate interpretive dancing to Cyndi Laupers Time After Time, and constantly imitated Janeane Garofalos drink-dribbling eye roll moment (usually without a drink, which admittedly is pretty essential to the gags mood). We even said Watch out Tucson, here we come! every time one of us started a car. But every time Ive rewatched the movie as an adult, Ive been struck by two things: how LOL hilarious it still is and how much of the movie doesnt actually happen at all. Dream sequences and flashbacks arent the exclusive domain of Romy and Michele. Theyre a super common storytelling device that allows for all sorts of narrative shortcuts and wild feats of fancy. Make it a dream! They take up a significant chunk of the movie! Ive always wondered that and with Romy and Michele now streaming on Hulu, I have the opportunity to really solve this riddle. Romy and Micheles High School Reunion isnt a long movie to begin with. It has a running time of 91:55, and 5:08 of that is taken up by the opening and closing credits. So the movies actual running time is 86:47, from the first action (Romy and Michele heckling Pretty Woman on TV) to the last (Romy and Michele folding clothes at their boutique). There are two flashbacks that take place from minutes 12 to 25, which is totally understandable since this is a movie about a high school reunion. If youre doing a reunion movie and you dont take the opportunity to put your cast in 80s fishnets and pastels, youre committing a heinous movie crime. You have Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino, you crimp that hair and give them a righteous ponytail! The two flashbacks take up 11:41. And then theres the dream sequence. At around the 45 minute mark, Romy and Michele get into a knockdown drag-out over who is the Mary and who is the Rhoda in their friendship (lordy am I nostalgic for the 1990s nostalgia for the 1970s). When they pull up to the reunion at 47:43, were totally in dream sequence territory although first-time viewers wont realize it yet (sorry for the spoilers, randos reading this far into an article about a movie theyve never seen!). You can totally tell its a dream sequence, though, because the clues are right there from the beginning. Just look at that totally dreamy oner as the camera follows Michele from the car, into the hotel and all the way into the reunion, before zooming past her over to Romy. And then weird things start happening, as characters literally float, Michele loses her shirt, and our heroes get their individual comeuppance while still drifting dangerously apart. Cut to 70 years later and we see two 98-year-old women still feuding over which 70s sitcom star they are. And then BAMreset button! At 60:22, Michele is startled awake by the sound of horns honking. The last 12:39 have been a dream! Twelve and a half minutes of the movie is a dream! Heres how that breaks down: The movie isnt even that long to begin with, and almost 13 minutes of it is a dream sequence! Thats 14.57% of the whole movie! Another 13.46% of the movie is spent in flashback. That means that the actual length of linear and canonical story in Romy and Micheles High School Reunion adds up to 62:27which is about the length of most Netflix TV episodes. I dunno! I do know that two of the hands-down best jokes in the entire movie occur during the dream sequence. The first when Michele schools all the cool girls on how to make post-it glue: The other is when Michele gets hit by Sandy Franks stretch limo outta nowhere and goes flying. Look at the height on that! Tens across the board from the judges, and Michele gets the gold! So yeah, a lot of time in Romy and Michele is spent in a dream sequencea dream sequence so long that it makes you think, Holy cow that was a long dream sequence when it finally wraps up. But this isnt a Marvel movie where questions of canon really matter. Its a 90s comedy meant to deliver jokesand maybe the biggest, most meta joke of all is that the movie spends a huge chunk of time indulging in whats usually considered a fleeting narrative tool. Or you know, maybe the jokes on a weirdo like me that spent all this time calculating all this instead of just watching the movie again. Stream Romy and Michele's High School Reunion on Hulu | https://decider.com/2019/01/04/romy-and-micheles-high-school-reunion-dream-sequence/ |
Can Spider-Verse pull a historic upset at the Golden Globes? | Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore), center, joins forces with Peni (Kimiko Glen), Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld), Spider-Ham (John Mulaney), Peter Parker (Jake Johnson) and Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage) in Sony's "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse." If history is any predictor, then the Golden Globes trophy for 2018s best animated feature will be handed to Disney/Pixars Incredibles 2 during Sundays telecast winning in a field of five that includes Sonys late-year smash, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse." Thats because of the backstory: The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the Globess voting body, adores its Disney. A movie distributed by Disney has been crowned best animated feature 10 times during the dozen years of the categorys existence. (The only animated films that have beat the Mouse House are 2011s The Adventures of Tintin and 2014s How to Train Your Dragon 2.) By contrast, during that time, animated films distributed beneath the Sony umbrella including four involving Sony Pictures Animation have gone 0 for 5. But Spider-Verse is Sonys best shot yet to break the losing streak. First, factor in the critical response. Of Disneys two nominees this year, the Incredibles sequel has an average score of 80 on Metacritic.com, and Disney Animations Ralph Breaks the Internet has a 71. Spider-Verse tops both with 87. (Of the other two nominees, the Fox Searchlight-distributed Isle of Dogs scores an 82, and Studio Chizus Mirai gets an 81.) Spider-Verse is also tops on Rotten Tomatoes, where its certified as 97 percent fresh among professional critics and gets a 94 percent score among civilian filmgoers. Incredibles 2 was second with just 3,300 votes. Plus, The Incredibles is a beloved, Oscar-winning franchise that has grossed nearly $1.9 billion worldwide. (Spider-Verse, which introduces webslinger Miles Morales, has grossed $227 million worldwide since its mid-December release.) So although the Pixar film would seem to have the edge, the dazzling, dizzying effects of Spider-Verse do make it a strong contender. Spider-Verse is a richly layered, visually innovative tour de force, delivering waves of tucked-in nods to a half-century of Spider-Man comic books specifically and Marvel Comics more generally and popping off the screen with constant stylistic shifts and even splashes of Kirby Krackle. The look of Spider-Verse should render it a powerful contender at the Oscars and the animation industrys Annie Awards. But if Spider-Verse can buck history and even win over the Hollywood Foreign Press, then it will emerge as The One to Beat at the Academy Awards, presuming that its a lock for a nomination. And in one last twist, a win for Spider-Verse is also a win for production partner Marvel Entertainment which, as it happens, is a subsidiary of Disney. | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2019/01/04/can-spider-verse-pull-historic-upset-golden-globes/ |
How safe are ADHD drugs for children? | By ANI WASHINGTON DC: A new study now suggests that drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are unlikely to cause cardiac damage in children who take them. The study, conducted at the University at Buffalo, has been published in the journal Pediatric Research. The authors, however, caution that because the study was conducted on primates, the finding are not automatically applicable on humans. Nonetheless, they have previously published that this primate model reliably shows other side effects similar to what is found in children receiving these medications. The new findings conclude that chronic exposure to methylphenidate (MPH), a commonly prescribed ADHD drug, is unlikely to increase cardiovascular risks in healthy children. "The findings are very reassuring in that even high-dose chronic MPH stimulant therapy did not result in any evidence of abnormal structures or function in the hearts of the monkeys," said Steven E. Lipshultz, the study's principal investigator. Sudden cardiac death controversy The results contribute important evidence to an ongoing controversy about whether or not MPH is associated with sudden cardiac death. A number of studies have reported an increase in sudden cardiac death or other damage to the heart in some children taking the drug or other stimulant therapy for ADHD. Long-term testing Lipshultz and his colleagues spent several years developing infrastructure to test how the therapy affected the hearts of the monkeys over the long term. For five years, the monkeys were continuously treated with therapeutic, super-therapeutic (high doses) or a placebo, using a randomised design, starting when they were about 2 years old. The duration of the study corresponds to what would be a childhood to adulthood span, the researchers said. "For ethical reasons, this study could not have been done in children," Lipshultz added. After comprehensive cardiovascular assessment in all the monkeys, there were no statistical differences between the three groups on serum cardiovascular and inflammatory biomarkers, electrocardiograms, echocardiograms, cardiac pathology from endomyocardial biopsies and other clinical parameters. In addition to the large population of children being treated with this therapy for ADHD and related disorders, Lipshultz noted that the findings also are good news for child survivors of cancer. "On a personal level, I have cared for children and adolescents who have survived childhood cancer, who now are experiencing severe learning disabilities as a result of their cancer therapies," he said. "They become my patients because their hearts have been damaged, an unfortunate effect of the successful treatment of their childhood cancer. "Current recommendations state that children, such as these, with underlying heart disease should avoid chronic stimulant therapy because of the concern that it could further damage their hearts. However, these prescription stimulants often allow these children to do much better with their learning progress, and denying such a useful therapy for theoretical reasons is difficult. The findings that we are reporting demonstrate that these useful medications, in many cases, can be prescribed to these children as well." | http://www.newindianexpress.com/lifestyle/health/2019/jan/04/how-safe-are-adhd-drugs-for-children-1920573.html |
Who said Ellen DeGeneres could forgive Kevin Hart? | Ellen DeGeneres during a taping of her talk show in 2016. In December, comedian Kevin Harts appointment to host the 2019 Academy Awards drew renewed attention to his hateful and damaging comments about gay people. The academy asked Hart to apologize: he refused and bowed out just days after the initial announcement. Many LGBTQ people cheered the withdrawal as the right move. But now, in an interview that aired Friday on her daytime talk show, DeGeneres has absolved Hart of his ugly history. DeGeneres, who is gay, shared during the interview that shed even interceded to ask the Oscars organizers to reconsider Hart as host. Apparently, theyre amenable: The ultimatum perhaps wasnt so much of an ultimatum after all, and in the end, We want him to host, DeGeneres says she was told. As strange as this spectacle may seem, its actually in keeping with DeGeneress brand of nice. Its a value she has sought to spread through the world, long signing off her show by telling her audience, Be kind to one another. Kindness means giving second chances, and giving second chances apparently means allowing Hart, who in 2011 tweeted that if his son played with a dollhouse he would break it over his head & say n my voice stop thats gay, to host the most prestigious event in American cinema one thats also known as the Gay Super Bowl for its celebration of fashion and drama. On the set of DeGeneress show, anyone who thinks otherwise is simply a hater. Whatever is going on in the Internet, dont pay attention to them, DeGeneres said. Thats a small group of people being very, very loud. We are a huge group of people who love you and want to see you host the Oscars. But that loud Internet crowd, which appears much larger than DeGeneres has allowed for, has it right. Niceness doesnt require people to be pushovers. And kindness doesnt mean forgiving people whove done bad things without being sure they understand what happened and are committed to making things right. DeGeneress unilateral dispensation to Hart on behalf of the LGBTQ community (and her kneecapping of Harts critics) truncates that process. Thats bad for all the LGBT people she claims to represent. And its bad for Hart, who gets to skip over the part of the process where he becomes a better, more empathetic person. Hart made a halfhearted apology when he announced he was stepping down as host. But he hasnt made any clear amends to LGBTQ people, and he certainly doesnt seem to have atoned for his words. More important, even if Hart had more fully repented, his sins are not DeGeneress to forgive. She faced professional danger and personal scorn in her early and courageous trailblazing, but shes at a place in her life and career where shes largely protected from the kind of violence Hart described. Harts remarks were directed to queer people of color, who are generally much more vulnerable than their white counterparts. A 2017 poll from NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Harvard showed that LGBTQ people of color are twice as likely to have experienced discrimination in hiring and police interactions as white LGBTQ people, and that they are six times as likely to not call the police in a threatening situation so as to avoid reprisal. Really, no single person is qualified to offer the forgiveness of all of queer America. But a white cisgender woman who is widely beloved and obscenely wealthy to boot is particularly ill-suited to try to muster such papal authority. For DeGeneres to think herself licensed to dispense this pass to Hart suggests that the only real indulgence here is her own. Read more: Jonathan Capehart: The lesson Kevin Hart should learn from his Oscars fiasco Alyssa Rosenberg: Kevin Harts homophobia caught up with him. Drew Goins: Lets hope Trump doesnt recognize Pride | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/04/who-died-made-ellen-gay-pope/ |
Are We Fascist Yet? | Your Eyes are the Most Beautiful Shade of Fascist. (Image by alisdare1) Permission Details DMCA To characterize modern day America as a fascist state is at one and the same time both ahistorical and close to the present truth. In order to resolve this apparent contradiction we must understand that modern day fascism displays certain rough, jagged continuities as well as discontinuities with its interwar past. Operationally, fascism was, at least initially, an alliance between ancient regime conservatives, socially and economically insecure elements of the middle classes, and a significant fragment of alienated, radicalized workers. Ideologically what united these disparate groups was a utopian belief in the nation as a higher structural unit uniquely suited to the aims of both internal corporatist social organization and external expansive force as expressed in high stakes international conflict. Looked at from this historical perspective, modern day American fascism is a completely different beast. Firstly, its general, overall class organization is vastly different. Secondly, fascism in America is not primarily about specific categories of class support at all, as it was for historical fascism. Rather, the sources of American fascism are broadly structural, class cutting, organizational, and have their ideological basis in a faux or unserious, artificial belief in the nation. Today's American governing elites (Trump included) do not possess a messianic or utopian belief in the nation or white race. Here, as Marx once famously remarked, history first plays itself out as tragedy then once again as farce. Indeed, one would be hard pressed to imagine a more hyper-farcical character than the current president. For the elites, nationalism is long dead. It has no content. It is an emotively reflexive phantom that haunts the financial flows of present day capital. However, it must be, from time to time, managed and utilized for their (global elites) benefit much as an advertisement campaign is used to sell a particular brand. Thus, nationalism is, at best, a nostalgic brand name, not a fervent faith. Hence, the comic-surreal quality surrounding its reappearance. Also, unlike past Fascisms there is no current, specific group that is marked out for total chiliastic destruction, rather certain groups are administratively, if not always systematically, excluded from national borders. The flows of immigration become the main ideological target rather than the immigrants themselves. It is not that the immigrant is consistently held to be "intrinsically evil" (despite some famous Trumpian comments about Mexicans) but that his entrance to the national community must be regulated and controlled. This much is relatively uncontroversial. Modern day Fascism does not overtly offer up a national elite whose mission it is to violently eradicate a national, ethnic, or class "other" nor does it embody a rabid expansionist foreign policy (on the contrary it purports to look and turn inward) At most there are weak echoes of the past here; modern civil society is, after all, not as racist, xenophobic, or generally intolerant as it was during the inter-war years and there is the internationally tempering factor of atomic weapons to consider as well. Thus, if we are to look for current fascistic elements in society we must look elsewhere. Where modern day fascism does intersect with its past image and practice is in the strict maintenance of absolutized hierarchy and total surreptitious systems of domination. Next Page 1 | 2 | https://www.opednews.com/articles/Are-We-Fascist-Yet-by-Dan-Corjescu-Democracy_Dominance_Fascist_Fascist-Americans-190104-100.html |
Why Arent Democratic Governors Pardoning More Prisoners? | All three of those governors hail from the Republican Party, which traditionally favored tough-on-crime policies. But even Democratic governors can be stingy. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo made headlines last month when he pardoned 22 immigrants who faced deportation or couldnt apply for citizenship because of previous state convictions. The pardons gave Cuomo a chance to cast himself as a leading figure in the Democratic resistance to President Trump. But with almost 200,000 New Yorkers in prison, probation, or parole, issuing fewer than two dozen pardons is hardly a courageous act. Pardoning incarcerated people or commuting their sentences largely fell out of vogue during the tough-on-crime era at both the state and federal level. Harry Truman issued more than 1,900 pardons during his tenure, while Dwight D. Eisenhower handed out more than 1,100 throughout his eight years in office. That number fell even as prison populations exploded in the 1980s and 1990s: George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush collectively issued fewer than 700 pardons during their quarter-century in power. Though comparable figures for the nations governors arent readily available, theyve reportedly shown a similar aversion to clemency since the 1960s. Jerry Brown, Californias outgoing governor, carved out a model of sorts. The states longtime leader spent his fourth and final term in office setting a national benchmark for clemency: The Times of San Diego reported that Brown has pardoned at least 1,332 inmates since 2011, quadrupling the number issued by the preceding four governors combined. The burst of activity is particularly stark compared to his two immediate predecessors, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gray Davis, who respectively issued fifteen and zero pardons. Those whove received pardons from Brown cut a broad swath, ranging from a couple that lost their home in the devastating Camp Fire last month to five Cambodian-born immigrants who feared deportation by the Trump administration. In a slate of Christmas Eve pardons, the governor also ordered new DNA tests for Kevin Cooper, a death-row inmate who says that local police framed him for a quadruple homicide in the 1980s. For Brown, theres a self-redemptive element at play. He previously served as Californias governor from 1975 to 1983, right at the cusp of the nations turn towards harsher sentencing laws and mass incarceration. Solid-blue states arent the only ones where governors have made bold use of their clemency powers. Terry McAuliffe, a moderate Democrat who led Virginia from 2014 to 2018, initially tried to restore voting rights to almost 200,000 former felons with a single executive order in 2016. After the state supreme court struck down his sweeping order later that year, McAuliffe began to issue them on a person-by-person basis, restoring the franchise to more than 173,000 citizens by the time he left office. Ralph Northam, his successor, has continued the clemency program on a rolling basis as prisoners return to society. | https://newrepublic.com/article/152847/arent-democratic-governors-pardoning-prisoners |
Can We Talk? | Opening the lines of communication July 1, 1996 5 min read This story appears in the July 1996 issue of Entrepreneur. Consider these situations: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. If you answered yes to questions 1, 7 and 8 and no to the others, read no further. You have reached a communications pinnacle. Much like the four Shooster "kids," who oversee operations at Communications Service Centers, a call center specializing in distributing information and fulfilling product orders for a variety of clients, you probably learned the art of communication early on. "We don't go through a psychoanalytical process when we talk to each other," says Stephen Shooster, president of the Margate, Florida, company founded by his parents. "We learned how to get along from the time we were in the playpen. By now, we know which buttons to push and which to stay away from." But that's not true of all families. If your responses to the quiz above include some yeses that should have been noes (or the reverse), don't be discouraged. "Most people don't communicate well," observes Sam Lane, a Ft. Worth, Texas, family business consultant and co-author of Working With Family Businesses (Jossey-Bass). For families who haven't learned to communicate (or who mislearned the process), it can be relearned. "But it requires a commitment that includes unpacking emotional baggage by resolving issues that were never resolved in childhood and learning new communication skills," says Lane. You and the company can still benefit. A single good communicator can act as a role model for others. Says Lane: "He or she can direct communication traffic, making the process less tangled." Take The Lead Because a few simple changes in how you communicate can make a tremendous difference to the entire family, it's worth making the effort. 1. Paraphrase the speaker. Most people aren't skilled listeners, so they may hear what is said but not understand it. That can lead to conflict, especially among family members who, because of their familiarity, think they can read each other's minds. One way to enhance listening is to get in the habit of paraphrasing. After a family member finishes a thought, Lane suggests using one of the following phrases to check your understanding: "So what you are saying is . . ." "In other words . . ." or "Let me check my understanding of what you're saying . . . ." If you don't capture the essence of what the person said, he or she repeats it, and you paraphrase until you get it. 2. Talk face to face. Directly communicating your feelings isn't always easy. But when Mom talks to Dad about son John, or John talks to one sibling about another, information gets distorted (as in the childhood game of telephone). And because you are dealing indirectly with problems, they rarely get solved. Direct confrontation later ("I hear you have a complaint against me") is better than nothing at all, but by then it's usually too late; there are already hurt feelings. Confronting each other is hard, but it's the only way to meaningful communication, and straightforward doesn't have to mean brutal. As long as the basic rules of a healthy discussion are observed-respecting each other, maintaining self-control so you don't say things you don't mean, and avoiding personal attacks-confrontation can lead to constructive problem-solving, says Mary Whiteside, a psychologist and family business consultant affiliated with the Ann Arbor Center for the Family in Ann Arbor, Michigan. 3. Make statements, not accusations. When you face off with someone you're in conflict with, often the first word uttered is "You . . ." followed by accusations. Lane suggests using a three-step technique to bypass accusations: Start by describing what the other is doing ("The last three times you came into the shop, you started issuing orders to me in front of everyone"), how it makes you feel ("I feel demoralized in front of my department-as if I'm a little kid"), and what you would prefer instead ("One thing that might work is if you come into my office to speak to me privately, or call me on the phone and ask me to come to yours"). However useful these exercises are, family businesses plagued by divisive, unfruitful or sparse communication need more help than they can provide themselves. For these problems, professional help from family business advisors and communication consultants should be sought. Contact Source Patricia Schiff Estess publishes the newsletter Working Families and is the author of two new books, Managing Alternative Work Arrangements (Crisp Publications) and Money Advice for Your Successful Remarriage (Betterway Press). | https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/26538 |
Does the Steam Room at the Gym Actually Do Anything? | After a tough workout , you walk into your gyms locker room, start to towel off, and there it isthe steam room, just staring at you. Daring you to get even sweatier. We talked to top exercise physiologists and heat stress researchers to answer all your questions. A room with steam in itduh. But, really, a steam room is any room thats warmed to roughly 110 to 115 degrees Fahrenheit and has humidity levels at or near 100 percent, Jason Machowsky , R.D., C.S.S.D., C.S.C.S., an exercise physiologist at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City, tells SELF. Usually, an electrical generator along with special plumbing is to thank for the hot, sticky climate. Youll find water dripping down the walls, coating the seats (usually benches), and on the floor (dont slip!). Fortunately, because they are so darn humid, steam rooms are constructed of water-proof materials and designed so that water can run down a drain, rather than pooling everywhere. So, wait. Steam rooms and saunas differ in two main ways: degree of heat and humidity, Jari Laukkanen, M.D., Ph.D., University of Eastern Finland researcher, tells SELF. As warm as steam rooms sound, saunas are ridiculously hotteroften up to 160 to 200 degrees Fahrenheit. However, they are a lot less humid. Steam rooms give off a dry heat, with humidity levels around 5 to 20 percent. Wood-burning saunas are the most traditional version, but electrical and gas versions also exist. Saunas using infrared technology are another big trend. The low humidity levels are what allow saunas to get so much hotter than steam rooms. After all, if you heated water up to 200 degrees and threw it all over your body, it would cause some pretty intense burns, Mike T. Nelson , Ph.D., C.S.C.S., a Minnesota-based exercise physiologist, tells SELF. He also explains that the additional moisture and humidity of the steam room thwarts the bodys ability to effectively cool itself. While theres no data comparing steam room vs. sauna sweat rates, we know that in humid environments, sweat isnt able to evaporate as easily as in drier environments. Its this evaporation that allows the body to regulate body temperature. For that reason, cranking steam-room temps to sauna levels could result in not only burns, but also heat illness, Machowsky says. Steam room-lovers claim that getting hot and humid after a workout helps to jumpstart exercise recovery , cleanse the body of toxins, improve immunity, and basically check off a laundry list of awesomeness. The thing is, steam rooms havent really been studied enough to say if any of the benefits are true or false. Theres not even squat out there on direct data regarding steam rooms, Nelson says. For example, while a 2012 Medical Science Monitor study is often cited as showing steam room benefits for post-workout recovery, the study actually looked at combining steam rooms and whole-body vibration therapy to increase blood flow to the skin. If the study were to look at muscle blood flow, and without vibration therapy, maybe, Nelson says. Thats a stretch. Plus, the study was small (10 people) and only looked at a specific population (older adults). That said, a respectable number of studies exist on saunas, many of them from Finnish researchers and centered around cardiovascular effects. (In Finland, sauna bathing is a common activity.) For example, Laukkanen and his teams recent findings, published in the Journal of Human Hypertension , found that one 30-minute sauna session significantly lowered blood pressure in 102 people with at least one cardiovascular risk factor. Whats more, their carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity, an indicator of how well blood vessels expand and contract as needed, increased. Laukkanen hypothesizes that improved arterial flexibility and dilation reduces the amount of force that moving blood exerts on the blood vessel walls. He notes, however, that its possible that the lowered blood pressure findings could also be linked with heats axiality (science-speak for anxiety-reducing) outcomesthat is, just relaxing in a heated environment may be enough to affect your blood pressure levels. Hot environments are known to increase the bodys parasympathetic tone, Nelson says. People are comparatively more relaxed in hot environments than in cold ones and, across cultures and centuries, beaches, saunas, steam rooms, and hot springs have been used as places to get some R&R. Thats not a coincidence, he says. Some studies have looked at whether post-exercise heat therapy could impact exercise recovery, but, again, these studies have limitations like a small sample size and specific population. In one 2015 Springerplus study, for example, researchers found that both traditional and infrared saunas improved exercise recovery in 10 physically active men who used saunas regularly. However, as Laukkanen notes, any possible post-exercise benefit has only been studied in saunas, not steam rooms. And, so far, theres no definitive word on if steam rooms spur similar effects. Hypothetically, they couldbut likely only if they increase internal body temperature to the same degree as saunas. The temperature might be too low, he says. Even if the alleged steam room benefits havent been proven, theres not a ton of downsides. For most people who are generally healthy, the biggest risks are dehydration and dizziness. But the solution is pretty simple there: hydrate and, if the heat starts to go to your head, just get out, Nelson says. However, it is advised that you talk to your doctor before using a steam room if you have any health conditions such as asthma (the steam could make breathing a bit more complicated) or heart disease . Also, if you are pregnant or are planning to become pregnant, its best to lay off any whole-body heat therapy, steam rooms included. Its also worth mentioning that bacteria, mold, and other ickies thrive in hot, humid environments. Poor sanitation can create issues with mold or germ transfer, Machowsky says. But as long as your gym is on top of its steam-room cleaning routine, you should be good. (If youre concerned, you can always ask management or the cleaning staff how and how often the steam room gets a good wash-down.) Steams are best left for after workouts (rather than before), when you can benefit most from some relaxation, Nelson says. Before stepping in, proper steam-room etiquette is to shower off (it helps cut down on that germ issue), and then to wear your birthday suit but cover up with a towel. Make sure that you are sitting on the towel when youre in there (think about it!) and consider your own comfort and everyone elses in there before opening up the front of your towel for all of the steam room to see. During your first few sessions, start small. At your gym, you might not be able to adjust the thermostat, but you can adjust how much time you choose to spend in there, Nelson says, recommending that people start with 5 or 10 minutes and increase to 30 as it feels good to you. When youre in there, make the most of your time by meditating , practicing mindfulness, or performing breath work, he says. Or, if youre in there with friends, go ahead and talk it up; social time has plenty of mental and physical benefits, and it's completely acceptable to have a measured conversation while in a steam room. Just make sure to feel out the vibe first and be courteousif everyone else is sitting there with their eyes closed, they are probably going to be bothered by loud chatting. In the end, just do you, and stay off of your phone (unplugging is good, and the humidity could hurt your phone anyway). The goal is to leave the steam room feeling better than when you walked in. | https://www.self.com/story/the-steam-room-at-the-gym-does |
How Long Does It Take to Forgive a Company? | Text size Many years ago, a headhunter set me up with a job interview at the German insurer Allianz . The interview went well, and the headhunter told me the company was ready to offer me the position. I said no thanks. I told her I knew that Allianz was well respected, but the more I thought about it, the more I was bothered by its historical connection to the Holocaust. About 10 years later, I worked as a freelancer on a project with Allianz (ticker: ALV.Germany). I reasoned that the job was only temporary, but also that Allianz had redeemed itself, having paid Holocaust victims reparations, and that it also had proved to be an environmentally sustainable corporation. While many financial experts claim that investing should be apolitical, for professional investors with socially responsible or environmental, social, and governance, or ESG, mandates, the answer isnt simple. For them, there is an implicit problem with putting profits before people or the planet, and when a company, which may still be a good financial investment, does something terrible, it must redeem itself to justify owning it. Wells Fargo (WFC) is a case in point. The bank has experienced one scandal after another in recent years, the most shocking of which broke in September 2016, when regulators revealed that it had created some two million fake accounts for customers to generate additional banking fees. On popular investment message boards, such as Mutual Fund Observer and Bogleheads, the reaction to Wells behavior was swift and furious. And some investors werent just angry at Wells, but also at fund companies that invested in the big bank. A particular target: Parnassus Core Equity (PRBLX), an ESG-oriented fund that continued to hold the stock for over a year after the fake-account scandal broke. Wrote one poster with the handle Bob C: Parnassus should unwind their position in WF as quickly as they can. Not doing so attaches the WF stain to Parnassus. Some sold the fund as a result. Parnassus declined to comment on the story, but sent links on its official statements regarding Wells Fargo. (For more on Parnassus, see the lead story in this mutual fund quarterly.) But it does seem that, given enough time and positive shifts in corporate policy, ESG investors can forgive similar trespasses. For instance, many of the largest mutual funds with ESG/social mandates hold Bank of America (BAC). Among them: Vanguard FTSE Social I (VFTSX), Putnam Sustainable Leaders (PNOPX), TIAA-CREF Social Choice Equity (TICRX), Calvert US Large Cap Core Responsible Index (CSXAX), Domini Impact Equity (DSEFX) and Pax Large Cap(PAXLX). Thats despite the fact that in 2014 the bank paid some $17 billion in penalties for its shady subprime lendingthe largest settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice in history. But the settlement itself was a positive sign for ESG-oriented professionals. Settlements are important for us, not only because they decrease and provide certainty around financial risk, but also because, in many cases, settlements provide recommendations for management improvements, says Simon MacMahon, head of ESG research at Sustainalytics, an ESG ratings firm. Then we can track the degree to which those management improvements are being implemented. Whether youll find Bank of America in your ESG fund depends on the funds investment style. Many practice a relative ESG style that invests in every industry including banks, and even the oil sector. The metrics we use to decide to invest in a company are relative to its peer group, and large banks are a lousy peer group, says Julie Gorte of Pax World Funds. In a review of the entire peer group in late 2016, however, we determined that Bank of America had done enough to distinguish it from its peers, along with JPMorgan Chase [JPM], primarily in the area of financial product integrity and managing risk. So Pax Large Cap has a 2.3% weighting in Bank of America. On the other hand, a number of environmental, social, and corporate governance fund groups employ exclusionary screens for entire sectors. For example, Green Century Funds doesnt invest in fossil fuels. Even in the case of industries it does invest in, Green Century employs stricter standards, keeping its investor bases values in mind, as opposed to just looking at the relative ESG ratings. Our investors are very well read about controversies with companies on environmental and social issues, says Leslie Samuelrich, Green Centurys president. They dont forget. And they put companies in the penalty box for even longer than we might. Were here to help them invest with their values in mind and so we also take that into consideration. Yet the relativists see environmental, social, and corporate governance investing as a matter of risk control. From our perspective, its not about us forgiving a company to get back in our good graces, MacMahon says. Aside from cheating Jews out of their insurance policies, Allianzs Nazi-era director general, Kurt Schmitt, was the Third Reichs economics minister. Thus, still, there are people who want nothing to do with Allianz. Yet, since it is one of the worlds largest insurers, it wouldve been a profitable investment after World War II. There are more recent cases. Consider internet media company Mail.ru Group (MLRYY) and banking outfit Sherbank of Russia (SBER.Russia), which Calvert Emerging Markets Equity (CVMAX) holds. Both companies have close ties to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, so much so that Mail.ru has been accused of sharing data it acquired from Facebook with the Kremlin: We evaluate companies, says Jessica Milano, Calverts director of ESG research. We dont evaluate political heads of state or divest from whole countries. Perhaps, but when investing in authoritarian/totalitarian regimes, its safe to say that the government is involved with every companys management. At some point, investors must forgive if a company has truly moved on. If one goes back far enough, one can find terrible things in many companies history. There are sites online with lists of U.S. corporations that profited from slavery. Because of its 2008 Wachovia acquisition, Wells Fargo is on those lists, too. | https://www.barrons.com/articles/how-long-does-it-take-to-forgive-a-company-51546626425 |
Who Will Be the Big TV Winners at the 2019 Golden Globes? | Below, we've broken down the TV categories. We're telling you who we think should win and who we think will take home the Golden Globe at the end of the night. The 2019 ceremony airs Sunday, Jan. 6 with Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Andy Samberg and Killing Eve's Sandra Oh serving as hosts after the two stole the show at the 2018 Emmys while presenting an award. They'll oversee a show where anything canand doeshappen. Historically, the Golden Globes are nutty in who they nominate and ultimately hand out awards to. Nutty in a good way. They're unpredictable, which makes our job predicting who will be the night's big winners harderand fun. One of Hollywood's biggest parties is almost here. And at this party, awards are handed out. We're talking the Golden Globes. FX Best Television SeriesDrama This category could go in any number of directions. Last year's winner The Handmaid's Tale isn't in the running. International hit Bodyguard made a splashy debut, The Americans ended its run with much fanfare and Homecoming, Pose and Killing Eve all debuted with critical acclaim. Who should win: Pose The FX drama had not one bad single episode. The Golden Globes love honoring diversity and you don't get much more diverse than this 1980s-set series about LGBTQ characters. Who will win: Killing Eve And we won't be mad about this either. The BBC America drama was really, really, really good. Best ActressDrama Elisabeth Moss is back to defend the award she won last year for The Handmaid's Tale against Caitriona Balfe for Outlander, Sandra Oh for Killing Eve, Homecoming's Julia Roberts and The Americans star Keri Russell. Who should win: Sandra Oh, Killing Eve The Golden Globes host was absolutely stellar in Killing Eve. Who will win: Julia Roberts, Homecoming Roberts is great in Homecoming, not that anybody doubted she would be. Best ActorDrama Ozark's Jason Bateman is the only returning nominee from last year, 2018 winner This Is Us' Sterling K. Brown was snubbed, which means the race is wide open. Homecoming's Stephan James is up for the award, as is Bodyguard star Richard Madden, Pose's Billy Porter and The Americans star Matthew Rhys. Who should win: Billy Porter, Pose As Pray Tell on the FX series, Porter is doing heartbreakingand hilariouswork. Who will win: Matthew Rhys, The Americans He took home the Emmy for the final season and will likely get another award for the shelf. Article continues below NBC Best Television SeriesMusical or Comedy The single nominee from broadcast here is The Good Place, and that should tell you something about its quality. It remains one of the smartest and funniest shows on TV. Last year's winner The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is (rightfully) in the running again, and the Golden Globes loves star power, Kidding, The Kominsky Method and Barry round out the category Who should win: The Good Place NBC's afterlife comedy is just so forkin' delightful! Who will win: The Kominsky Method Never underestimate the power of the Golden Globes' love of veteran actors, in this case Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin. NBC Best ActressMusical or Comedy Last year's winner Rachel Brosnahan is back for her work in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, defending her title against The Good Place's Kristen Bell, Candice Bergen for her return to Murphy Brown, Will & Grace star Debra Messing and GLOW's Alison Brie. Who should and who will win: Kristen Bell, The Good Place For close to the last 10 years, this category has always changed it up and honored deserving performers like Brosnahan, Tracee Ellis Ross, Rachel Bloom and Gina Rodriguez. Bell is a first-time nominee and does excellent work in The Good Place. This should (and hopefully will) be her award. Mike Yarish/Netflix Best ActorMusical or Comedy Bill Hader won an Emmy for his work in Barry and is in this category with Kidding's Jim Carrey, Donald Glover for Atlanta, Michael Douglas for The Kominsky Method and Sacha Baron Cohen for Who Is America. Who should win: Jim Carrey, Kidding He's fantastic in the showtime series. Who will win: Michael Douglas, The Kominsky Method Again, HFPA loves veteran actors doing good work. Article continues below FX Best Television Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television This category is hard to predict. Nominees are all over the place, including The Alienist, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, Escape at Dannemora, Sharp Objects and A Very English Scandal. Who should and who will win: The Assassination of Gianni Versace FX's miniseries has everything The Hollywood Foreign Press Association loves: big stars, a glittering locale and actors playing against type. HBO Best Actress in a Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television This category is a who's who of famous faces. There's Patricia Arquette for Escape at Dannemora, Connie Britton for Dirty John, Laura Dern for The Tale, Regina King for Seven Seconds and Amy Adams for Sharp Objects. Who should win: Patricia Arquette, Escape at Dannemora Have you seen what she did week to week?! Who will win: Amy Adams, Sharp Objects It's this year's Big Little Liesbut it didn't create nearly as much buzz. FX Best Actor in a Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television It's almost new vs. old guard here with A Very English Scandal's Hugh Grant, Patrick Melrose star Benedict Cumberbatch, Antonio Banderas for Genius: Picasso, The Alienist star Daniel Bruhl and Darren Criss for The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. Who should win: Darren Criss, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story He got the Emmy and for a good reason. Who will win: Hugh Grant, A Very English Scandal Golden Globes love a good streaming series, especially one with an international flair. Article continues below HBO Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television This is a tough category because it's performers from comedies, dramas, TV movies, miniseriesit's everyone. You can't compare Alex Borstein's The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel performance with that of Yvonne Strahovski in The Handmaid's Tale. But somehow, the Golden Globes will. Other nominees include Patricia Clarkson for Sharp Objects, Westworld star Thandie Newton and The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story's Penlope Cruz. Who should win: Yvonne Strahovski, The Handmaid's Tale This was Serena Joy's year on Hulu's dystopian drama. Strahovski did amazing work infusing the character with humanity. Who will win: Patricia Clarkson, Sharp Objects Clarkson owned that screen in HBO's miniseries. | https://www.eonline.com/uk/news/1001636/who-will-be-the-big-tv-winners-at-the-2019-golden-globes?cmpid=rss-000000-rssfeed-365-topstories&utm_source=eonline&utm_medium=rssfeeds&utm_campaign=rss_topstories |
How is Yosemite affected by the government shutdown? | Welcome to Yosemite National Park, crown jewel of Americas national parks system. Were a little short-staffed these days, so we wont be collecting the usual entrance fee. Yup, its your lucky day. That $35 stays in your wallet. Until the politicians back in Washington, D.C., get their act together and no telling when thats going to be everybody gets in free. It is at least until you pull into a roadside turnout and see garbage cans overflowing with trash along with coffee cups and candy wrappers strewn all over the place. Sorry, that cant be helped. Even though our Starbucks has remained open during the government shutdown and tis always the season for venti mochas the parks maintenance crew is among the 800,000 federal employees stuck at home twiddling their thumbs. Digital Access for only $0.99 For the most comprehensive local coverage, subscribe today. Which means theres more trash than usual. Our volunteers, well-meaning and dedicated as they are, can only do so much. Thats a laugh. I advise keeping your eyes off the ground and trained on all those towering granite cliffs. The piles of trash may be tall, but theyre not as tall as El Capitan. Yet. Joanne Pederson and Debbie Furnari of Santa Clarita take a photograph of Yosemite Valley at Yosemite National Park on Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2019. Oh, boy. I mean, OK. That does present a little bit of a challenge, since our visitors centers and most of the latrines are closed, as well. A couple remain open look for the long line of people near Lower Yosemite or Bridalveil Falls but they havent been serviced in awhile, leaving them dirty and smelling pretty gross. Tell them to take a deep breath before going in. If they need to go Number One, its really not a big deal to walk a little ways into the forest and find a suitable tree. Even a dead one will do. But please dont use that strategy for Number Two. Not unless you brought a shovel and are prepared to dig a hole, at least 2 feet deep, to bury the poop and used TP. Well, sorry. Then tell him to hold it until you get back to Mariposa. Unfortunately, you cant get there during the shutdown. We had to close up the southern entrance from Highway 41, except to those with reservations to one of our lodges with the generic, trademark lawsuit-approved names. Gotta keep some of the money flowing in. Yeah, that sucks for people living in Fresno or those wishing to go to Badger Pass err, the Yosemite Ski & Snowboard Area. It cant be helped. Uncle Sam has our purses tied. SHARE COPY LINK With the first snow, Yosemite Valley presents a tranquil winter-like scene for visitors, such as Massachusetts native Jasmine Scalli, and foraging wildlife, like a coyote in its thick, full coat, hunting in a meadow. Dont bother visiting our sister parks to the south, Sequoia and Kings Canyon. The crowds and dirty conditions got so bad that rangers there barred the gated and are refusing to let anyone in. That is, unless youre headed to one of the Christian camps at Hume Lake. Then its OK to pass through, for some reason thats well beyond my pay grade. That depends on your political leanings. If you think President Trump is a swell guy and agree wholeheartedly that we need $5 billion to build a wall to keep out all the undocumented immigrants, even though most of them get here by plane, then blame the Democrats. By all means. Its your right. But if you recall Trump saying a couple weeks ago, during a tete-a-tete with Congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, that he is proud to shut down the government, will take the mantle, and Im not going to blame you for it then youll likely form a different conclusion. Yes, I realize Trump says the exact opposite on Twitter. Either way, Yosemite and all the national parks are just pieces in a political game of checkers. While trash and poop may be the most visible signs of the shutdown, there are other ramifications. School kids cant go on field trips and attend outdoors programs. Researchers cant study ecosystem changes and monitor wildlife. And without those entrance fees, the deferred maintenance tab continues to grow. In times such as this, Americas best idea is held hostage by our own worst tendencies both political and human. Once again, welcome to Yosemite. Hope you enjoy your free visit. | https://www.sanluisobispo.com/opinion/article223885415.html |
What's the best place to buy a Samsung Gear VR controller? | Best answer: The official Samsung website sells Gear VR controllers for the same price that Amazon charges for a 2-pack. That easily makes Amazon the best choice for buying a Gear VR controller. Not only are you getting the best prices, but also more product! A singular Samsung Gear VR controller sells for $30 at the Samsung store and $40 at Best Buy . All three of the options come with free shipping, but only Amazon is offering deals for buying in bundles. For the same price that the Samsung store charges for one you can instead get two Gear VR controllers at Amazon. One for now and a backup for later! You can also say goodbye to the general anxiety of buying products online. I'm talking about the risk of, "what if it doesn't work?" or "what if it's not as advertised?" No matter your plan, you can check out the user reviews at the bottom of the listing page. You can sort through the best and worst reviews to see what people went through who ordered it before you did! Only certified purchases have the ability to leave comments and reviews, only adding to their validity. You also get additional features when using Amazon. You can save money and get points back using a Prime Credit Card, for example, which earns 5% back at Amazon.com for each purchase you make with it. Samsung also has a rewards program that allows you to redeem points for products on its website, but the Gear VR controller will only earn 1% back. Then of course there's free 2-day shipping with Amazon Prime. Depending on your city, you can even qualify for same-day shipping. | https://www.androidcentral.com/whats-best-place-buy-samsung-gear-vr-controller?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+androidcentral+%28Android+Central%29 |
Why Were There Fewer Top Female Movie Directors in 2018 Than In 2017? | Ugh. File yet another story under "depressing news from last year": According to Variety, only eight percent of directors of the 250 most successful Hollywood movies were women in 2018, which is somehow down from the already tiny 11 percent in 2017. Also, this is one percent below the same stat in 1998. That means the number of top female directors has gone down slightly in the past 20 years. It hasn't been all bad news, with Ava DuVernay being the first woman of color to direct a film budgeted at more than $100 million (A Wrinkle in Time)but it's still far from where it needs to be. According to the research author, Dr. Martha Luazen, this runs counter to predictions that the industry was finally, finally starting to change for the better. This research provides no evidence that the mainstream film industry has experienced the profound positive shift predicted by so many industry observers over the last year. She added that the work of a single studio isn't going to provide the long-lasting change that's needed, which does make a sort of depressing sense. One other small piece of good news: In 2018, women comprised 20 percent of all directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors, and cinematographers working on the top 250 domestic grossing films. This represents an increase of 2 percentage points from 18 percent in 2017. So, there are more women represented in the industry as a whole, particularly the big money-making vehicles that represent a good chunk of overall revenue. But there's still fewer women in the top spots. There is most definitely a glass ceiling still in play in Hollywood. DuVernay is continuing to blaze a trail for others. She just signed a $100 million open-ended deal with Warner Brothers and is continuing to move forward with her indie film production company, ARRAY. She's committed to breaking more barriersbasically, she's just getting started, in other words. Also, DuVernay continues to be an outspoken champion of women, women of color, and representation in the industryhopefully bringing some much needed change. More sisters coming soon. Very soon. https://t.co/4WQzeoIxbd Ava DuVernay (@ava) December 27, 2018 For more celebrity news, beauty and fashion advice, savvy political commentary, and fascinating features, sign up for the Marie Claire newsletter. SUBSCRIBE HERE | https://www.marieclaire.com/celebrity/a25746193/female-directors-2018-statistics/ |
Is het plastic in het Waddengebied gevaarlijk voor de dieren? | Het Nederlandse Waddengebied is overspoeld met spullen uit de honderden containers die van een vrachtschip zijn gevallen. Veel van die goederen en de verpakkingsmaterialen zijn van plastic. In de nacht van dinsdag op woensdag vielen naar schatting 270 containers van het vrachtschip MSC Zoe, dat op dat moment in de buurt van het Duitse Waddeneiland Borkum voer. De wind en de stroming brachten een nog onbekend aantal containers naar de Nederlandse Waddeneilanden. Er zijn er inmiddels zo'n dertig containers aangetroffen, de rest is gezonken of drijft nog rond. Zo'n honderd militairen reisden vrijdagochtend naar Schiermonnikoog voor een tweedaagse schoonmaakactie. Mogelijk worden zij ook op andere locaties ingezet. Daarnaast zijn verschillende lokale overheden en organisaties schoonmaakacties met vrijwilligers gestart, waar volgens de Veiligheidsregio veel animo voor is. Staatsbosbeheer heeft een overzicht. Ramp in Waddengebied maakt wereldwijd probleem zichtbaarder "Gebeurtenissen zoals deze vinden niet vaak plaats", zegt Jip Louwe Kooijmans van de Vogelbescherming. Hij trekt een vergelijking met olierampen. "Die zijn inmiddels zo vaak voorgekomen, dat de ernst van een nieuwe ramp makkelijker in te schatten is." Volgens Kooijmans zorgt het overboord gevallen afval er vooral voor dat een heel groot wereldprobleem opeens zichtbaarder is voor Nederlanders. Plastic dat zich normaliter via de golfstromingen ophoopt in grote eilanden die in de oceanen drijven, ligt opeens op het strand in Schiermonnikoog. "Nu gebeurt het aan onze kust, maar van wat er op de Atlantische of de Stille Oceaan gebeurt hebben we geen weet. Je zou denken dat daar ook weleens containers overboord spoelen." Ook marien bioloog Jan van Franeker van de Wageningen Universiteit spreekt van een incident dat er niet echt uitsteekt als je het afzet tegen het bestaande, chronische probleem. "Wij hebben een monitor waarmee we de hoeveelheid plastic in de zeen inschatten door naar het plastic in de magen van vogels te kijken. Het is een beetje koffiedik kijken, maar ik vermoed dat ik dit incident daar op termijn niet in zal terugzien." Plastic wordt dodelijk deel van ecosysteem Het Waddengebied is een belangrijk natuurgebied, onder meer voor vogels. Op de korte termijn zijn de gevolgen van het zwerfplastic voor de meeste soorten beperkt. Kooijmans: "Trekvogels als strandlopers en wulpen halen voedsel uit de bodem, dus die hebben hier niet direct last van. Dat geldt ook voor schelpeneters." Zeevogels als meeuwen kunnen verpakkingsmateriaal wel voor voedsel aanzien. Vogels en zoogdieren, zoals zeehonden, kunnen er ook in verstrikt raken. Een beest dat grotere stukken plastic eet kan simpelweg verstopt raken, zegt Kooijmans. "Het dier raakt verzwakt, want de maag zit wel vol, maar niet met voedingsstoffen." Zelfs walvissen kunnen onverhoopt een hap plastic nemen, zegt bioloog Van Franeker. "Onlangs zijn er verschillende potvissen aangespoeld. In de maag van een van die dieren werd een complete autobumper gevonden, dus het is waarschijnlijk dat ook walvissen grote stukken plastic binnenkrijgen." De problemen op de langere termijn zijn ernstiger, maar ook lastiger te kwantificeren, zeggen de twee deskundigen. Plastic vergaat niet Kooijmans: "Veel van het plastic verdwijnt uit het zicht, maar het vergaat niet, dus het blijft decennialang in het ecosysteem. Het hoopt zich op in vegetatie en in de kwelders. Voor een deel fragmenteert het en komt het via kleine organismen als schelpen en garnalen terecht in vissen, vogels en uiteindelijk ook de mens." Welke gezondheidsgevolgen dat microplastic precies heeft, is bepaald geen simpel vraagstuk. Van Franeker legt uit dat laboratoriumexperimenten - waarin dieren specifieke soorten plastic gevoerd kregen - allerlei nare effecten lieten zien, van benvloeding van de hormoonhuishouding of het zenuwstelsel tot het ontwikkelen van kanker. "Maar in de natuur spelen er zo veel factoren in op de conditie en de gezondheid van een dier, dat je de effecten moeilijk kunt onderscheiden." Dat zwerfplastic in de natuur erg schadelijk is, staat dus wel vast, maar de precieze gevolgen zijn bijna niet te meten. Nog honderden vermiste zakken met giftig poeder Er is ook veel te doen om de 280 zakken met 7.000 kilo giftig organisch peroxide in poedervorm uit een van de gevallen containers. Twee van de vermiste zakken, 25 kilo per stuk, zijn inmiddels terecht. De bijtende stof kan bij contact met de huid chemische brandwonden veroorzaken en is ook zeer schadelijk als die wordt ingeademd of via de vingers in mond of ogen terechtkomt. Deskundigen raden mensen die een zak peroxide aantreffen aan er niet aan te zitten en 112 te bellen. Voor het milieu zijn de mogelijke gevolgen van de overboord gevallen peroxide beperkt, zei toxicoloog Martin van den Berg van de Universiteit Utrecht tegen RTL Nieuws. "Als de poederachtige stof langzaam in het water komt door de zakken die vergaan, wordt het heel snel verdund. Zelfs 7.000 kilo wordt dan snel afgebroken. Er is zo veel zeewater." | https://www.nu.nl/dvn/5664758/is-het-plastic-in-het-waddengebied-gevaarlijk-voor-de-dieren.html?redirect=1 |
Whose Side is Mitt Romney On? | If there is a more anti-Trump organ in the American establishment than The Washington Post, it does not readily come to mind. Hence, in choosing to send his op-ed attack on President Donald Trump to the Post, Mitt Romney was collaborating with an adversary of his party and his president. He knew it, and the Post rewarded his collusion. The president has not risen to the mantle of his office, said Romney. In qualities of character, Trumps shortfall has been most glaring. Our leaders must inspire and unite us, not promote tribalism, Romney wrote. We must defend the free press. All music to Post ears. As senator, Romney promised, I will speak out against significant statements or actions that are divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant. Sounds like a litany of media slanders against Trump, some of which, seven years ago, were lodged against a GOP presidential nominee whose name was Mitt Romney. Thursday, the Post paid Romney in its special currency, with a page one photo and headline about having discovered a new voice of resistance. But Romney had not exactly pledged his life, fortune, and sacred honor to dethrone the tyrant. Rather he declared, I look forward to working on these prioritieswith Mitch McConnell. A day later, The New York Times, perhaps miffed it had not been the beneficiary of Romneys dump on Trump, dumped all over him. Romney Cools Fiery Tone After Trump Allies Assail Him, ran the headline. A CNN interview, wrote the Times, found Romney repeatedly declining to escalate his attacks on the president and explaining that he would only speak out against Mr. Trump on issues of great significance. The Washington Times said Romney appeared to be auditioning for the role of Jeff Flake in the new Senate. Though the Romney screenplay seemed to fizzle after the early negative reviews, the episode is revelatory. Clearly Romney senses that Trump is in trouble, and may not survive, or may not run, and there may be an opening for him. He seems to want to be properly positioned with the anti-Trumpers and Never Trumpers, should that happen. Yet in seeing Trump as besieged, Romney is not wrong. With the loss of the House and the resignation of his defense secretary, the president had a rough years end. Now the expectations of his enemies and the hopes of this hostile city for his fall are greater than ever. Blood is in the water. If Trump seeks re-election, he will be challenged in the primaries. And as presidents from Truman to LBJ to Carter to Ford to Bush 41 discovered, these can prove problematic. Looking over to the other side of the aisle, however, that party, too, has problems. The more hotheaded of the House majority have already said they will introduce articles of impeachment against the president. And when the militant members are rewarded by major media with favorable coverage and commentary, this will induce others to join in, in anticipation of the same media rewards. An impeachment battle thus seems inevitable. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic leadership may see this rush to impeachment as a strategic blunder. But they will be unable to contain or control what will by spring resemble a mob. Today, unelected media, not elected politicians, decide what gets attention. And for our media, President Trump is the issue, as he was in 2016, 2017, and 2018. Removing him from the presidency the strategic goal. But beyond the issue of Trump, 2019 looks to be a rough year for America. The deficit will reach a trillion dollars. The national debt is near $22 trillion. The budget is out of balance. No consensus exists in Congress on how to deal with it. If sanctions are not first lifted on North Korea, there will be no nuclear deal, and the probability grows that Little Rocket Man will begin anew testing his missiles and nuclear warheads. With U.S. troops pulling out of Syria and Afghanistan, the day is coming, and soon, when we must face up to and act upon these facts: America lost both wars. Afghanistan will fall to the Taliban from whom we took it in 2003. And Bashar al-Assad, Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah are, for the near-term, dominant in Syria. As for our Kurdish allies, they will have to turn to Assad and offer to give him the Syrian lands they captured from ISIS in return for the Syrian regimes protection from the Turks. And as for Russia and China, our great adversaries, our foreign policy elite have succeeded in undoing the best work of Nixon and Reagan. Where those presidents split China from Russia and ensured that Beijing and Moscow would have better relations with us than with each other, our elite have reveled in alienating both China and Russiaand united them against us. Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Nixons White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever. To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com. | https://www.theamericanconservative.com/buchanan/whose-side-is-mitt-romney-on/ |
Is Angie Appleton leaving Coronation Street? | The seeds of Angie Appletons exit from Coronation Street were sown tonight when the character announced that shed been offered a new job in South Africa. Advertisement Scenes just shown saw Angie confide in Rita about her new opportunity, saying that she felt that it would be wrong to abandon Mary. But when Rita subsequently put Mary in the picture about Angies dilemma, she was given food for thought. Later on in the episode, Mary told Angie how shed recently tracked son Jude down to Blackpool but had finally decided to let him go. Over a drink in the Rovers, Mary then said to Angie that it was time she let her go too and that she must accept the job in South Africa. Events are now set to move rather quickly with actress Victoria Ekanoyes final scenes set to be shown this coming Monday (the 7th of January) when Mary bids a tearful farewell to both Angie and young George when they depart for a new life overseas. Hopefully the return of Norris later this year will take Marys mind off the sudden departure of her nearest and dearest Advertisement Visit our dedicated Coronation Street page for all the latest news, interviews and spoilers. | https://www.radiotimes.com/news/2019-01-04/is-angie-appleton-leaving-coronation-street/ |
What will MGMs recently announced cost-cutting plan mean for MGM Springfield? | SPRINGFIELD MGM Resorts International, parent of the new MGM Springfield resort casino, plans to cut $100 million in U.S. payroll over the next two years. Overall, MGM Resorts international plans to increase its cash flow by $200 million by the end of 2020 and an additional $100 million by the end of the year 2021. The impact is expected to be across the company. The moves will happen, according to a press release, as a result of MGMs efforts to consolidate business functions at its Las Vegas headquarters. The remaining savings will be made up from efficiencies in sourcing goods and services 25 percent and 25 percent by revenue optimization. Asked how the measures might affect MGM Springfield, local spokesman Saverio Mancini referred to MGMs corporate news release on the matter. But the release does not specifically mention Springfield, other than MGM Resorts International Chairman and CEO Jim Murren expressing confidence in it and other newly opened MGM properties. 2 Hurricane Maria evacuees find happy landings at MGM Springfield (photos, video) MGM Springfield had 2,865 employees as of October, including 506 part-time workers and 266 on-call workers. Job creation was a big part of the pitch for legalized gambling in Massachusetts. MGM also promised to pump money into the local economy by buying goods and services in the area. But that pledge appears to fly in the face of the message of centralization and streamlining outlined by the company in the news release. MGM plans to cut 3 percent of what it spends on its workforce, but that doesnt necessarily translate to a cut of 3 percent in headcount. MGM told the Las Vegas Review-Journal Thursday that its MGM 2020 cost savings plan could mean as many as 2,000 job cuts and that the cuts would include unionized workers. Today, we are taking the next step in our evolution as an organization," Murren said in the news release. "We are building on the strong foundation that we have solidified over the past few years, to deepen our efficiencies and achieve sustained growth and margin enhancement. MGM 2020 is intended to further transform the way we operate and leverage the most effective operational architecture for our company. MGM also said it plans to spend money on technology that can help it market its casinos to gamblers. Presumably some of the labor savings will come from using digital technology, and not people, to keep people coming back. MGM Resorts International had 68,000 U.S. employees as of April 2018. The vast majority of them 51,000 work in Las Vegas. MGM is also coming off a $6 billion wave of investments, the Review-Journal reported. That figure includes MGM Springfield and MGM National Harbor in Maryland. MGM has also missed its own quarterly earnings targets in recent quarters and its stock price has suffered, trading Friday at $25.79 a share, down from a 52-week high of $38.41 a share. But the stock market evidently liked MGMs cost cutting plan, as the stock MGM on the New York Stock Exchange was up about $1.09 in midday trading. MGM Springfield takes in $21.2 million in gaming revenues in November, down nearly $1 million In November, MGM Springfield generated $21.2 million in revenues from slot machines and table games, approximately $1 million less than the revenues recorded in October. Decembers statistics are not yet available. | https://www.masslive.com/business/2019/01/what-will-mgms-recently-announced-cost-cutting-plan-mean-for-mgm-springfield.html |
Will 2019 Be The Year of the Millennial Homebuyer? | Only 32 percent of millennials owned a home in 2015, according to a 2018 Millennial Homeownership Report from the Urban Institute. However, that might change in 2019. While interest rates are rising, housing prices are Only 32 percent of millennials owned a home in 2015, according to a 2018 Millennial Homeownership Report from the Urban Institute. However, that might change in 2019. While interest rates are rising, housing prices are expected to stabilize, offering additional affordable options to first-time homebuyers. Plus, mortgage lenders are experimenting with new ways to check creditworthiness and streamline the application process. When it comes to whether the climate is favorable to millennials entering the housing market, Leo Loomie, senior vice president of client development for mortgage solutions provider Digital Risk, suggests there are more tailwinds than headwinds going into 2019. However, millennials still like the flexibility of renting, so the reality of a wave of millennial homebuyers in the coming year is no sure thing. While millennials may be able to get mortgages in the coming year, the appeal of being able to move at will may win out over the prospect of homeownership. [See: 7 Things First-Time Homebuyers Wish Theyd Known.] Why millennials wait to buy homes. The entrance of millennials into the housing market has been delayed by a number of factors, including student loans, limited savings and mobile lifestyles. They often are paying off other loans, making it tougher to save the cash required for a down payment, says Steven Gottlieb of Warburg Realty in New York City. However, he adds that money isnt what seems to hold back many of the young adults he encounters in New York. Instead, they are hesitant to commit to a long-term living arrangement. Millennials change jobs more often than previous generations, and thus are less likely to want to be tied down to a neighborhood or even a particular city. Whats more, delayed homeownership may be a natural consequence of millennials holding off on other rites of passage. Homebuying is often linked to life events like getting married or having a baby, both of which are happening later in life, and many people are choosing not to take these steps at all, says Tendayi Kapfidze, chief economist at online loan marketplace LendingTree. In fact, the percentage of married millennials tracks closely to the number of young adults buying homes. The Urban Institute found 37 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds were homeowners in 2015, and the Pew Research Center found an identical percentage of millennials were married in 2017. Making millennial homeownership possible. Kathy Cummings, senior vice president of homeownership solutions and affordable housing programs at Bank of America, says millennials have misconceptions about homebuying that can keep them out of the market. For instance, nearly half of 2,000 adults surveyed by Bank of America in 2018 believed a 20 percent down payment is necessary to buy a house. Instead, many properties can be purchased with only 3 percent down, Cummings says. Credit scores are another factor that can discourage millennials from buying a home. Of the 685 millennials responding to the 2018 TD Bank Buy or Rent Survey, 17 percent said they didnt think they would be approved because of their credit. [Read: When Location Isnt Everything in Real Estate.] The average credit score for millennial homebuyers in the nations 50 largest metro areas is 656, according to a 2018 analysis by LendingTree. Cummings says most institutions use 680 as the cutoff for what they consider good credit, although applicants with credit scores as low as 580 may be eligible for mortgages. However, the launch of the UltraFICO Score later this year could be a game-changer for millennials with low scores because of a limited credit history, Loomie says. The credit scoring model will allow mortgage applicants who dont initially qualify for a loan to opt into having bank account data used to further gauge their creditworthiness. UltraFICO offers a revised score based on factors such as average account balance and automatic deposits from payroll or other sources. According to FICO, 70 percent of those with at least $400 in the bank and no negative balances in the past three months should see their score improve. Its a very interesting way to assess someones financial responsibility, Loomie says. Since the program is only in the pilot phase, it remains to be seen how much of an impact it will have on millennial homebuyers. However, Loomie says UltraFICO could potentially bump up credit scores by 20 points. Young buyers need affordable housing. Even if millennials are able to qualify for a mortgage, they may have trouble finding a property within their budget. The key challenge recently is affordability, Kapfidze says. Six years of rapid home price increases and higher interest rates over the past two years are making it more challenging for all types of homebuyers. As a result, access to housing may vary significantly throughout the country. Weve seen a lot of millennial homeownership in markets like Detroit, Minneapolis and Charlotte (North Carolina), Cummings says. However, young homebuyers are priced out of many properties in urban areas such as San Francisco and New York City. While interest rates are climbing, that may not be a significant obstacle when taken in context of historical rates. In the 80s, mortgage rates were 18 to 20 percent, Loomie explains. Millennials still want flexibility. Ultimately, the question of whether millennials will embrace homeownership in 2019 may boil down to whether young Americans are ready to settle down and pour their money into a single asset. Many millennials I work with in New York City would rather rent, thus keeping more capital freed up for other investments, Gottlieb says. Plus, they arent convinced they will want to live in one place for five years, let alone 30 years. The world is smaller for them, and moving to another city for a new job is not as daunting as (it was) for previous generations, Gottlieb explains. [See: 8 Potential Headaches to Be Aware of Before Becoming a Homeowner.] With low down payment options, more affordable housing and alternative credit scores, homeownership will likely be within the grasp of many millennials in 2019. But dont count on them relinquishing their freedom to grab hold of it. originally appeared on usnews.com | https://wtop.com/news/2019/01/will-2019-be-the-year-of-the-millennial-homebuyer/ |
Why is the Trump administration slow in releasing storm protection funds? | The Trump administration has delayed the release of $16 billion in storm protection funds, prompting complaints from officials in Puerto Rico and Texas, who say the money is vitally needed to protect coastal communities before the next hurricane season. Congress last February authorized the $16 billion in disaster mitigation funds, to be used for projects to better safeguard communities damaged by floods and hurricanes in 2017. Puerto Rico was slated to receive $8.3 billion of the money, followed by Texas ($4 billion), Louisiana ($1.2 billion), the U.S. Virgin Islands ($774 million) and Florida ($550 million). But according to state officials, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has yet to issue regulations on how states and U.S. territories can apply for the money. While the ongoing government shutdown is adding to the delays, the problems preceded the current stalemate, according to the office of Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, who this week sent the Trump administration a letter complaining about the situation. I am writing to ask you to please approve these rules for publication as soon as possible so we can get started on construction of vital infrastructure projects to protect Texans from the type of damage caused by Hurricane Harvey, said Bush, the son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, in a letter Wednesday to Trumps budget director and acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney. Digital Access For Only $0.99 For the most comprehensive local coverage, subscribe today. We cannot afford to wait any longer, added Bush, a Republican elected official. Neither HUD nor staff at the Office of Management and Budget responded to inquiries about Bushs letter, which was previously reported by Bloomberg. HUD says on its website that the entire department is closed, due to the lapse in Congressional Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2019. This is not the first time that HUD Secretary Ben Carson has heard complaints about delays in disbursing hurricane relief funds. In August, Puerto Ricos non-voting congressional representative, Jenniffer Gonzlez Coln, joined 15 senators and representatives from Florida, Louisiana and other states in pressing Carson to speed up release of money for disaster recovery and mitigation. Our communities remain vulnerable to the hurricane season without having been able to use the funds, the congressional members said in a letter to Carson. While President Donald Trump is on good terms with Republican leaders in Texas and Florida, hes lashed out at Puerto Rican leaders whove been critical of the federal response to Hurricane Maria, which killed 2,975 people there, an estimate Trump disputed. According to the Texas land office, the holdup stems from HUDs inability to agree on what kind of projects qualify as mitigation under the federal appropriation. In his letter, Bush said his office has provided information to HUD on what type of mitigation projects would best serve those impacted by Hurricane Harvey. This collaboration was done in part to help expedite publication of the rules government these funds in the Federal Register. Flood control experts have long advocated more investment in mitigation such as elevating or relocating vulnerable homes or improving drainage. Part of the aim is to reduce the kind of multi-billion-dollar damages that threaten the solvency of the National Flood Insurance Program. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2017 was the most expensive year on record for disaster damages, with approximately $306 billion in losses. Even before Hurricane Florence hit last September, the National Flood Insurance Program faced a debt of $20.5 billion. | https://www.sunherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article223926040.html |
Why Is Ellen DeGeneres Trying to Rehab Kevin Hart as Oscars Host? | Ellen DeGeneres has a massive platform and has apparently decided to use it to rehab Kevin Harts reputation after the actor stepped down from his 2019 Oscars hosting gig in December. DeGeneres has shared an interview with Hart on her talk show in which she says that she still believes he should have the host role. Lets back up: Hart removed himself from the 2019 Oscars after some of his old homophobic tweets resurfaced, tweets that said things like he would break his daughters dollhouse over his sons head if he tried to play with it because thats gay. Harts initial response was not to apologize but to ask that critics please take your negative energy and put it into something constructivethough it was still reported that Hart was deleting the old tweets. Less than a week after he was announced, he had apologized and stepped down. Since then, the Oscars host spot has remained unfilled; we speculated that the disconnect between the old guard who run the show and what audiences actually want (the younger online crowd, especially) is to blame and that it might even be better not to have a host at all. That disconnect seems to be the same one at work in the latest development in the Oscars host saga, in which DeGeneres had Hart on her show for a kind of rehabilitation interview, in which she gave him a platform to apologize again to the LGBTQ community and in which she personally absolves him. Not only that; in the interview, DeGeneres admits to actually calling the Academy to try and get Hart reinstated. I called them, I said, Kevins on. I have no idea if he wants to come back and host, but what are your thoughts? DeGeneres said. And they were like, Oh my god, we want him to host! We feel like that maybe he misunderstood or it was handled wrong, or maybe we said the wrong thing, but we want him to host. Whatever we can do, we would be thrilled. And he should host the Oscars. For his part, Hart follows the same penchant for self-inquiry that hes so far displayed since the Oscars hubbub began, which is close to none. He says his hesitation to considering hosting again is not because he still feels bad about his past views on gay people but because of the people who combed through his tweets, saying, Thats a malicious attack on my character. Thats an attack to end me. But the outrage about Harts old commentsand his lack of introspection and genuine interrogation of why his tweets were so upsettingisnt new; what is now stoking backlash is DeGeneres, a very high-profile lesbian woman in entertainment, cosigning Hart with what feels like very little cause. DeGeneres herself used the word trolls to describe the people who called for Harts resignation (not to mention the reporters and activists who wrote about the tweets). Whats more, she connected her own marginalized experience to Hart being pushed out of the gig: As a gay person, DeGeneres said, I am sensitive to all of that, and I talked to you about all of this, and youve already expressed that its not being educated on the subject, not realizing how dangerous those words are, not realizing how many kids are killed for being gay, or beaten up every day. You have grown, you have apologized, you are apologizing again right now. Youve done it. Dont let those people win. Host the Oscars. No one else seems to be seeing the growth DeGeneres claims Hart has displayed; perhaps when you are an uber-famous, uber-wealthy comedian, its hard for you not to try and vouch for your colleagues, no matter how tone deaf you and they appear. Tone deaf might even be too light of an indictment given the Trump administrations attacks on human rights and those of trans Americans in particular. DeGeneres could have shared her platform with dozens of other comedians in the queer community instead of allowing Hart to further a narrative in which he is the victim (rather than the people he referred to as fags over and over online). If the Oscars want to come out of the dark ages, the Academy will forward her next call. | https://www.vogue.com/article/ellen-degeneres-kevin-hart-interview-oscars-rehab |
Is There Any Way to Clean Up Facebook and Twitter? | Subscribe to our free newsletters. Tyler Cowen proposes today that there is no form of internet speech moderation that will satisfy everyone: Id like to suggest a simple trilemma. When it comes to private platforms and speech regulation, you can choose two of three: scalability, effectiveness and consistency. You cannot have all three. Furthermore, this trilemma suggests that we whether as users, citizens or indeed managers of the platforms themselves wont ever be happy with how speech is regulated on the internet. Note that Cowen uses effective to mean doesnt require so much time that the platform company cant do its core job anymore. Back when blogs were new and comment moderation was the big issue we were all trying to resolve, I ran into the same trilemma: If the blog was small, I could easily moderate comments and do it consistently. If I was willing to spend lots of time on moderation, I could manage a large blog with consistent comment policies. If I decided not to worry about consistency, I could manage a large blog without putting a lot of time into comment moderation. I never came anywhere close to finding a solution to this, and I generally chose option #3. Id do a bit of moderation here and there, and it would necessarily be pretty inconsistent. However, that left me enough time to actually write a blog even as my audience grew. Theres just no way to spend hours moderating comments and still have hours left over to write a blog of decent quality. The same trilemma affects huge social media platforms: A system thats big and effective (i.e., lightly moderated by the platform company) will inherently be inconsistent. A system thats big and consistent will inherently require huge resources from the platform company and therefore wont be effective. A system that thats effective and consistent requires too much human intervention to ever become very big. Most people dont get this, and therefore expect too much from platform companies like Twitter and Facebook. These companies can use automation to do a lot of the job, but automation isnt even close to perfect yet. If the automation is too tight, it will eliminate innocent comments and everyone will scream. If the automation is too loose, it will let lots of hate speech through and everyone will scream. If you ditch the automation and use humans, youll go bankruptand anyway, human moderation is far from perfect too. I didnt have an answer to this back when I was a lone blogger (these days I get help from MoJo moderators), and I dont have one today. However, my own personal view is that we should think of internet moderation about the same as we think of real-life moderation. This leads me in the direction of (a) light moderation that lets people say whatever they want, even if its gruesome, and (b) giving users the tools to do their own moderation. Im far more in favor of the latter than I am with Twitter or Facebook making centralized decisions about what to allow and what to ban. This is not a perfect solution, but thats because there are no perfect solutions. And theres no question that different people benefit from different levels of moderation. Its one thing for a white man like me to prefer light moderation, but quite another for a black woman who gets far more abuse. Nonetheless, I dont really see a good solution other than giving us all more and more tools to set our own preferred moderation levels while we wait for automated systems to get better. Thats going to be a while. | https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/01/is-there-any-way-to-clean-up-facebook-and-twitter/ |
Who is the Hollywood Foreign Press? | WATCH ON TV The ceremony will be aired on NBC and the ceremony will begin Sunday, Jan. 6, at 8 p.m. EST/5 p.m. PST. HOW TO STREAM THE GOLDEN GLOBES Last year's Golden Globes marked the first year that the show was live streamed via NBC live. This year, not only can viewers live stream the ceremony on the NBC website and app, but also via the NBC Facebook page (the Golden Globe nominations were announced via Facebook live this year as well). If you have a cable or satellite subscription, you can tune into NBC Live anywhere you have a Wifi connection. Or, for the cord cutters out there, tune in via various streaming services, such as DirectTV Now, Hulu Live TV, YouTube TV, etc. GOLDEN GLOBES PRE-SHOW For many, the best part of the awards ceremony is seeing all the gorgeous and not so gorgeous outfits. And the best way to catch the carpet is via E! Live From the Red Carpet: The 2019 Golden Globe Awards, with hosts Ryan Seacrest and Giuliana Rancic. Red Carpet Live with E! will start at 6 p.m. EST/3 p.m. PST and NBC red carpet coverage will begin at 7 p.m. EST/4 p.m. PST. STREAM GOLDEN GLOBES RED CARPET You can catch all the Red Carpet coverage from any of the streaming and viewing options above starting at 6 p.m. EST/3 p.m. PST. | https://www.nbcnews.com/card/who-hollywood-foreign-press-n954266 |
Are These The Six Most Absurd Stories Of 2018? | Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com, Every week we send out an alert to our premium subscribers highlighting important news that often goes overlooked... We scour through recent court cases, laws moving through congress, whispers in the government and various, international news sites to find the latest things happening that could infringe upon your freedom or that just make us laugh and cringe due to the never-ending stupidity of governments around the world. If we had to pick one, dominant trend for 2018, it would be the rise of the snowflake. It seems last year, everyone was a victim and if you had an opinion on anything, you risked triggering huge amounts of people who would then retaliate your horrible offense with a social-media lambast. Weve compiled six of the most ridiculous stories we encountered in 2018. Ironically, while humor seems to be dead in greater society, these stories are damn hilarious, and some are outright absurd. Lets get started 1. A British vegan man expressed concerns that the company he worked for invested money from its pension funds in non-vegan companies. Then he was fired. He sued, and now, a British court will decide if vegans should have protection, just like religions, for their beliefs. If the court rules in his favor, British vegans will be protected by law against workplace discrimination based on their beliefs. The further we go on with this whiny, victim mentality trend, the more claims anyone could have to consider themselves discriminated against. Fired for being too short, old, fat, bald or sexy. The company said they didnt fire him because hes a vegan You know, theres always the chance hes just an incompetent dolt. 2. Climate Activists did only what was necessary to save us all If you broke into a home to save a child from a raging fire, you probably wouldnt face any criminal charges. But if you did, you could use the necessity defense. It was necessary to break the law to save the child. The emergency made the law unnecessary under the circumstances. Climate activists tried to use that same defense. They trespassed on private property and tampered with an oil pipeline. The emergency they say is global warming. Using the emergency shut off valve on the pipeline was necessary to stop climate change, they argued. An appeals court agreed and said the activists could use the necessity defense. But the tactic never got tested in court. In October, charges were suddenly dropped against the activists. This actually upset some activists who hoped that the case would set a precedent for future necessity defenses. Just cutting the carbon footprint. Its an emergency. So luckily they havent yet legalized destroying cars, raising cattle, cutting power lines, and murdering countless people in the name of stopping climate change. 3. Scotland Cracks Down on the Right to Peel Potatoes Things might be different if William Wallace had prevailed Scottish Police arrested a man for possession of a dangerous weapon in public. He was carrying a potato peeler. Being in possession of an object which had a blade or was sharply pointed, carries up to four years in prison as Great Britain cracks down on a rash of knife violence. But guys with potato peelers probably arent the main source of knife crimes in the UK. 4. Charleston Teen Arrested for Hard Work and Entrepreneurship He wasnt selling drugs on the corner. This Charleston teen was selling palmetto roses: handcrafted souvenir roses woven from palms. And Police actually arrested the teen for this unauthorized entrepreneurship. See, the city of Charleston runs the Palmetto Artisan Program. The program is meant to teach entrepreneurship skills to 9 to 16 year-olds. It is illegal for nonparticipating youth to sell palmetto roses within the city. Adults over the age of 18 in the city are free to craft and sell their own palmetto roses. Apparently there is no legal way for a 17-year-old to sell palmetto roses in Charleston. But this teen and many others consider the Palmetto Artisan Program too restrictive. It requires youth to waste a full week training for something they already know how to do. God forbid they make more money selling the roses on their own. So Charleston isnt really teaching a lesson in entrepreneurship. Its a lesson in cronyism and overregulation. Get the government to arrest your competition, and its easy street! Great job, Charleston. You really taught this teen a valuable lesson about the sorry state of American entrepreneurship. 5. The French parliament had enough, the great patrons of steak and barnaise sauce, and criminalized using meat terms to describe non-meat products. For instance, a company that describes their flattened bean and tofu patties as veggie-burgers will be fined $300,000 . The same goes for calling non-animal products milk. No. That is nut protein dissolved in water. The French government was concerned that shoppers were being misled by terms like vegan-bacon and meat-free-sausage. It might not surprise you that the law was crafted by a cattle-farmer. Just get rid of that pesky free speech and he can sell more meat! Since 2013, the European Union has required all products with traditional dairy names to come from normal mammary secretion. They grandfathered products like coconut milk and peanut butter. Meanwhile in the US, you can still call your pureed-veggie-tubes meat-free hot dogs. A similar class action lawsuit was dismissed in US courts. Judges said that no reasonable consumer would be misled by terms like almond milk. 6. Jail Time for Plastic Straws California was all set to slap the cuffs on that poor teen just trying to make a living waiting tables. In early 2018, California lawmaker Ian Calderon introduced state legislationthat would have made it illegal for a waiter to bring a customer a plastic straw unless specifically requested. Wait staff who dropped an unrequested straw on the table could have faced up to six months in jail, and a $1,000 fine. Calderon said that the excessive penalties automatically apply to any new misdemeanor. So no matter how trivial the rule, boom, maximum fine and maximum prison time. That exact bill never passed. But a different California law went into effect January 1, 2019 banning plastic straws in some restaurants. The new version only carries a fine to the restaurant of up to $25 per day, maxing out at $300 per year. * * * There you have it. Six of the most absurd stories we encountered in 2018. From a teenager getting arrested for working hard making palm roses to veganism being considered a religious belief. If youve ever wondered what youre government has been up to heres a brief snapshot. | https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-01-04/are-these-six-most-absurd-stories-2018?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zerohedge%2Ffeed+%28zero+hedge+-+on+a+long+enough+timeline%2C+the+survival+rate+for+everyone+drops+to+zero%29 |
When was The Big Fat Quiz of Everything filmed? | Get daily updates directly to your inbox Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email Channel 4 are the kings of quiz shows around this time of the year. The Big Fat Quiz of the Year has been going for over a decade but more recently they have added other, similar shows. On Friday, The Big Fat Quiz of Everything will air, following on from The Big Fat Quiz of the Year which was shown on Christmas Eve. This edition is more wide-ranging and covers aspects of everything - not just things which occurred during 2018. Topics include Polish film titles, Pierce Brosnan, Digger the Crab and just about anything else from the last 100,000 years of human history. Joining host Jimmy Carr are Sandi Toksvig, Joe Lycett, Katherine Ryan, David Baddiel, Frank Skinner and the always outrageous Big Narstie. Carr has hosted every episode of the show since it first started in 2016. The show is not live, it was recorded on Wednesday, 21 November 2018 from Elstree Studios in Boreham Wood. Strictly Come Dancing is also filmed here, as was the original Star Wars trilogy. The Big Fat Quiz of Everything airs at 9pm on Channel 4. | https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/tv/big-fat-quiz-everything-filmed-15632641 |
Does social media use cause depression? | A new study says teenage girls are more likely to be depressed due to internet than boys. The extent to which social media has embedded itself into the daily lives of people cannot be understated. A UK study has looked specifically at how teenagers are affected, and the differences between how they project themselves online and the unattainable images and fantasies they are bombarded with. Researchers at University College London studied almost 11,000 14-year-olds. They say teenage girls are twice as likely to show depressive symptoms as boys. But twice as many girls as boys use social media for more than three hours a day. The study found that can lead to mood swings, a drop in confidence, and poor sleeping habits. Presenter Sami Zeidan Guests Dennis Ougrin, clinical senior lecturer at King's College London Amy Orben, psychological researcher at the University of Oxford Stella Branthonne Foster, student Source: Al Jazeera | https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2019/01/social-media-depression-190104191521310.html |
Where will the 2019 Prefontaine Classic be held? | The Prefontaine Classic could be moving south. With its usual site, Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore., undergoing a massive reconstruction project, the USs only Diamond League meet is in need of a new venue for 2019. In track & field circles, one venues name has popped up more than any other: Stanford Universitys Cobb Track & Angell Field. Something certainly appears to be in the works between Stanford and Pre as the officials calendar for the USATF Pacific Association lists the Prefontaine Classic as one of its meetswith Stanford listed in the site column. The date of the meet is Sunday, June 30, which is what the Diamond League lists on its official calendar. We are currently discussing the possibility of hosting Prefontaine with meet organizers but cannot confirm until weve finalized a contract, says Jess Riden, who serves as the director of the Stanford and Payton Jordan Invitationals in her role as assistant athletic director and director of operations for Stanford cross country and track & field. There will be a joint announcement between Stanford and Prefontaine if and when that occurs. In an email to LetsRun.com, Pre Classic press chief Jeff Oliver wrote that, The Prefontaine Classic does not have a statement on the location of the 2019 meet at this time. We are hopeful to make an official announcement later this month. In addition to the annual Stanford and Payton Jordan Invitationals, Cobb Track & Angell Field hosted the USATF Outdoor Championships in 2002 and 2003. According to Stanfords website, it has a permanent capacity of 1,772, which would make it by far the smallest stadium to host a Diamond League (no other venue has fewer than 12,000 permanent seats; Stanford would presumably add temporary seating should it host the meet). IAAF | http://www.mediamaxnetwork.co.ke/495562/where-will-the-2019-prefontaine-classic-be-held/ |
Is uw dure iPhone reden van beurscrash Apple? | Het Amerikaanse bedrijf Apple deed de beurzen gisteren stevig in het rood duiken. De techreus maakte een stevige koersval na een omzetalarm. VTM NIEUWS-journalist Kenneth De legt uit in 1 minuut. Het aandeel van Apple gaat al een tijdje achteruit. Sinds oktober duikt het naar beneden en op 3 januari, exact drie maanden later, stond het veertig procent lager. Te duur Het heeft alles te maken met de iPhone. De nieuwe versies van het toestel kosten heel veel geld, misschien te veel, legt De uit. Ook de handelsoorlog tussen de VS en China speelt hen parten. De verkoop in China valt tegen voor Apple. Die kans is heel erg klein, verduidelijkt De. Apple zal wel op zoek gaan naar nieuwe inkomsten, zoals de Homepod of een alternatief voor Netflix. Die nieuwe producten of potentile producten zorgen nu nog voor te weinig inkomsten. Het valt dus af te wachten of ze wel zullen aanslaan. 2019 wordt een interessant jaar voor Apple", sluit De af. | https://nieuws.vtm.be/vtm-nieuws/cultuur-media/uw-dure-iphone-reden-van-beurscrash-apple?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+vtm%2FNMdG+%28VTM+NIEUWS%29 |
Will the Stock Market Determine Trump's Fate? | Yes it will, according to "socionomic" theory, which holds that societal mood regulates both stock prices and public perception of leaders. Those who want President Trump to stay in office should hope the stock market rises. Those who want him ousted should hope it crashes. History shows that the stock market is a useful indicator of peoples attitudes toward whomever is president. Socionomics theory proposes that societys overall mood regulates both stock prices and the publics perceptions of its leaders. Positive social mood makes society feel optimistic, bid up stock prices, and credit leaders for peoples good feelings. (It even may influence baseball statistics.) Negative social mood makes society feel pessimistic, sell stocks, and blame leaders for peoples bad feelings. These tendencies are evident in presidential re-election outcomes. Presidents Hoover and Carter, for example, lost bids for re-election during trends toward negative social mood as reflected by declining stock prices. In fact, the stock market is a better re-election indicator than inflation, unemployment, and GDP growth combined, as the Socionomics Institute demonstrated in a 2012 paper. Social moods influence is also evident in the results of U.S. presidential impeachments and near-impeachments. Twice in its history the U.S. House of Representatives has voted to impeach a president. In both cases, social mood was trending positively, as reflected by rising stock prices, and in both cases, the Senate voted for acquittal. The graph below illustrates the timing of the first presidential impeachment. On March 2, 1868, the House formally agreed to 11 articles of impeachment against President Andrew Johnson. The Senate took three separate votes, each falling one vote short of the two-thirds majority necessary to remove Johnson from office. The Senate acquitted Johnson on May 26, 1868, during a stock rally that added to the 250% increase since October 1857. The next graph, below, shows that a substantial trend toward positive social mood preceded President Bill Clintons impeachment in the House and subsequent acquittal in the Senate. Note that some of the most serious events in the Monica Lewinsky scandal coincided with the largest downturn in the Dow during Clintons presidency. Yet, as the Dow recovered, so did Clintons approval ratings. And despite a $70 million prosecution of Clintons related perjury and obstruction-of-justice charges, the Senate acquitted the president as positive social mood lifted the Dow to important peaks. President Richard Nixons near-impeachment and resignation from office serve as a textbook case of how social mood influences the fortunes of public figures. The graph below shows the Dow Jones Industrial Average surrounding Nixons time in office. The soon-to-be-infamous Watergate break-in occurred toward the end of a strong 67% rally in the Dow from May 1970 to January 1973. That trend toward positive mood helped Nixon win re-election in a landslide. But as mood trended toward the negative, the publics view of its leader darkened, its appetite for scandal increased, the investigation accelerated, and Nixons fortunes changed. With almost certain impeachment looming, Nixon became the first president to resign from office on Aug. 9, 1974. We considered this question in the June 2017 issue of The Socionomist. The graph below was presented there and is updated here to the present. It depicts the trend of social mood as reflected by the Dow. We left the gray arrows showing our 2017 analysis in place, and we added red arrows to indicate the possibilities going forward. In July 2017, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) formally introduced an article of impeachment against the president in the House. Yet as the market rose during 2017, President Trump despite low approval ratings, tremendous staff turnover, unrelenting criticism from the political left, and numerous indictments and charges against Trump associates in the ongoing Mueller investigation did not face an impeachment vote. After the stock market peaked on Jan. 26, 2018, however, the tone changed, and even some on the political right became more critical of the president. Since the more recent Oct. 3 stock market peak, disapproval of the president has grown steadily louder and more strident. At the same time, the Mueller investigation has implicated more and more of the presidents inner circle in illegal activities. The Democrats won control of the House in the 2018 midterms. A Nov. 26 Gallup poll revealed that Trumps disapproval rating had hit an all-time high. On Dec. 10, Fox News senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano said Trump could be charged with three separate crimes and could be indicted while serving as president. By Dec. 17, the Mueller investigation had issued more than 100 criminal counts and charged 34 people, 10 of whom have been found guilty. That same day, Wired published its list of All 17 (Known) Trump and Russia Investigations and said, its increasingly clear that, as 2018 winds down, Donald Trump faces a legal assault unlike anything previously seen by any president. In the weeks since, the Trump Foundation agreed to dissolve and Secretary of Defense James Mattis and diplomat Brett McGurk resigned. On Dec. 24, as the stock market plunged, a Time headline declared, National Christmas Tree to Stay Dark During Holiday Due to Government Shutdown, and several news organizations ran stories with versions of The Atlantics headline, President Trumps Nightmare Before Christmas. Of course, stalwart supporters of the president remain. Yet the number of oppositional voices is rising. A Dec. 19 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that 41% of Americans favored impeachment hearings. We dont know what the Mueller investigation will ultimately reveal, but for Trump, the facts may not matter as much as the social mood. Fasten your seatbelt and keep your eyes on stock market indexes, our best reflection of the social mood trend. Alan Hall is a senior analyst at the Socionomics Institute. | http://ww2.cfo.com/the-economy/2019/01/will-the-stock-market-reveal-trumps-fate/ |
How well has Raiders GM Mike Mayock evaluated the running back position? | One of the great things about the Raiders hiring former NFL Network star Mike Mayock is that we have access to all of his player rankings since the 2006 NFL Draft. With all of that information, we may be able to find trends and make educated guesses throughout the draft process as to who Mayock may like, but also, what positions he knows bests. While we have all offseason to run through the tape and his draft boards, this piece is going to be a little less comprehensive. Instead, this simply a list of Mayocks top 5 running backs for each draft class since 2008. In Part 1 of this series, we reviewed Mayocks top quarterbacks. Here is the full list of his top running backs since 2008, via the NFL.com archives: 2008 1. Rashard Mendenhall, Illinois 2. Darren McFadden. Arkansas 3. Jonathan Stewart, Oregon 4. Felix Jones, Arkansas 5. Jamaal Charles, Texas 2009 1. Knowshon Moreno, Georgia 2. Chris Beanie Wells, Ohio State 3. Donald Brown, Connecticut 4, LeSean McCoy, Pittsburgh 5. Shonn Greene, Iowa 2010 1. C.J. Spiller, Clemson 2. Ryan Mathews, Fresno State 3. Jahvid Best, California 4. Toby Gerhart, Stanford 5. Dexter McCluster, Mississippi 2011 1. Mark Ingram, Alabama 2. Daniel Thomas, Kansas State 3. Mikel LeShoure, Illinois 4. Ryan Williams, Virginia Tech 5. Kendall Hunter, Oklahoma State 2012 1. Trent Richardson, Alabama 2. Doug Martin, Boise State 3. David Wilson, Virginia Tech 4. LaMichael James, Oregon 5. Isaiah Pead, Cincinnati 2013 1. Eddie Lacy, Alabama 2. Montee Ball, Wisconsin 3. Giovani Bernard, North Carolina 4. Andre Ellington, Clemson T-5. LeVeon Bell, Michigan State T-5. Christine Michael, Texas A&M 2014 1. Bishop Sankey, Washington 2. Carlos Hyde, Ohio State 3. Jeremy Hill, LSU 4. Tre Mason, Auburn 5. Andre Williams, Boston College 2015 1. Melvin Gordon, Wisconsin 2. Todd Gurley, Georgia 3. Ameer Abdullah, Nebraska 4. Duke Johnson, Miami (Fla.) 5. Tevin Coleman, Indiana 2016 1. Ezekiel Elliott, Ohio State 2. Devontae Booker, Utah 3. Derrick Henry, Alabama 4. Kenneth Dixon, Louisiana Tech 5. Kenyan Drake, Alabama 2017 1. Leonard Fournette, LSU 2. Christian McCaffrey, Stanford 3. Alvin Kamara, Tennessee 4. Dalvin Cook, Florida State 5. Samaje Perine, Oklahoma 2018 1. Saquon Barkley, Penn State 2. Sony Michel, Georgia 3. Derrius Guice, LSU 4. Nick Chubb, Georgia T-5. Ronald Jones II, USC T-5. Feel free to comment below. | https://raiderswire.usatoday.com/2019/01/04/how-well-has-raiders-gm-mike-mayock-evaluated-the-running-back-position/ |
What about magnesium? | My recent column on nutrient supplements brought a few letters from readers. One pointed out I failed to mention magnesium. Magnesium is indeed a necessary mineral. According to the National Institutes of Health, this micronutrient (so designated because it is only needed in micro amounts) is involved in more than 300 chemical reactions in the body. It helps our bodies make protein, build bones and produce energy from the food we eat. Magnesium also contributes to normal nerve and muscle function and helps our hearts to beat normally. Whether or not we need to take a supplement of magnesium depends on 1) what we routinely eat and 2) the condition of our health. Since magnesium is naturally present in many foods, experts say we can meet our daily needs 400 to 420 milligrams for men; 310-320 milligrams for women with wise food choices. Seeds, beans, nuts and whole (unrefined) grains are especially rich sources. Magnesium is also present in vegetables, fruit, eggs, dairy foods, fish, and meat. However, current surveys report that most Americans still don't get the recommended amounts of magnesium in their diets. Pregnant and lactating women need additional amounts of this mineral, for example. And people with digestive problems, Type 2 diabetes or alcoholism are especially at risk for a deficiency of magnesium. Older women may need to consider adding additional magnesium to their diets. Some studies have shown that magnesium supplements may help decrease the rate of bone loss after menopause. | https://www.therecord.com/living-story/9110452-what-about-magnesium-/ |
Why does sleeping in a tent cost the same as an RV? | Summer is a time for camping. One great thing about Alberta is the large selection of campgrounds. There are many in the mountains, foothills, parklands, and boreal forest. The choices are endless. As an avid camper, there is one aspect that always ruffles my sleeping bag. In July, I went camping in William A. Switzer Provincial Park, near Hinton. The park has five campgrounds and each is popular. After going for a paddle in my new packraft (which I sat in backwards and used my paddle upside down. Imverygoodatwatersports! ), we found an empty campsite and set up my small, tired and fading, green tent. It was the only tent in the entire campground. We went to pay at the kiosk and a sign said we could only pay online. Luckily the campground had cell service. The Alberta Parks booking site prompted us to pay the $33 per-night fee and another $12 reservation fee. We couldnt find a way to get around the reservation fee (later I discovered we could have phoned Alberta Parks to not pay the extra fee, but at the time it wasnt clear). It didnt matter if you had a tent the size of a bread box or an RV with a master bedroom, chandeliers, and convection oven. The price was the same. No exceptions. For $5 more I could have gotten a motel in Edson, sure it wouldnt have been glamorous, but it still would have had solid walls, roof, and water that doesnt need to be boiled for five minutes to be safe for drinking. Im not against RVs. They are a great way to explore Canada in relative comfort. But, a shelter of tissue-thin-fabric held-up-with-metal-sticks isnt the same as a house on wheels. Thus, they should be charged differently. Tents have a far lower environmental impact, take up a fraction of space, and are usually used by poorer folk. In the U.S., some campgrounds not only have a separate cost between unserviced RV sites and tents, but have a different price if you hiked/biked to the campground and dont have a car. In Glacier National Park in Montana, hiker/biker sites are $8 per-night plus $5 for each additional person. Part of Park Canadas mandate is to protectas a first priority, the natural and cultural heritage of our special places and ensure that they remain healthy and whole. Since preservation is key in a national park, it makes sense to provide incentives to people who visit without a car and in a more environmentally friendly way. In the end, perhaps the best choice is to just camp on crown land. Then it doesnt matter how you got there or what you sleep in. Each night is the same price. Free. | https://www.edsonleader.com/news/local-news/why-does-sleeping-in-a-tent-cost-the-same-as-an-rv-2 |
Can mediation solve the LeBreton Flats legal dispute? | It is not exactly magic, but it could be a formula that works. With just two weeks until the Jan. 19 deadline set by the National Capital Commission to disintegrate the deal, and a very public legal dispute among partners Eugene Melnyk, John Ruddy and Graham Bird, news came Friday that the parties had agreed to early mediation. The project is too important to fail and is worth salvaging, said Bird in a statement. The last-ditch mediation effort, aimed at preventing the NCC from terminating its relationship with RendezVous LeBreton as it has said it would do if the partners dont reach an agreement, is to be led by Ontarios former chief justice Warren K. Winkler, considered one of the countrys leading mediators. The fact that the parties have volunteered to enter mediation is itself a good sign, says Ottawa lawyer Lawrence Greenspon, who practises civil litigation as well as criminal law. The agreement to enter mediation and Birds statements about the proposed project, including an arena for the Ottawa Senators, being too important to fail are positive signs that the parties want to find a solution, he said. Related The mediation process offers something that might lower the heat on the dispute among Senators owner Eugene Melnyk, Trinity Development founder John Ruddy and Bird of GBA Development and Project Management: privacy. The process takes place behind closed doors and what happens there remains private, said Greenspon. Typically, parties sign a confidentiality agreement as soon as the mediation begins, before lawyers for each party make their opening statements summarizing their positions to the other side. During the process, the mediator goes back and forth between parties trying to narrow the gaps between their positions. The mediator does not make a ruling, but acts as a negotiator and guide to bring the sides together. Greenspon said the fact that mediation is held behind closed doors will likely improve the chances of an agreement being reached, because there will be no need for public posturing or concern about public reaction. That is especially important in a case that is in such a harsh spotlight because of its location, the involvement of the Senators owner and the history of LeBreton Flats. By taking it out of the public spotlight, it turns the heat down, especially in the hands of an experienced mediator like Winkler, said Greenspon. There is no need for parties to fear what the public might think about their private position, he said. Mediation is increasingly used to settle civil litigation, said lawyer and mediator Peter Bishop. In Ottawa, fewer than five per cent of civil cases go to trial since mediation became mandatory in the late 1990s. The RendezVous LeBreton mediation is not mandated, but voluntary. Motivation by the participatns is the key to success, said Bishop. Greenspon said the fact that the parties have agreed and the mediation is voluntary, is a very good sign. It is a sign they recognize this is an issue that cant wait. [email protected] ALSO IN THE NEWS: Deachman: On being 19, our year of living dangerously Capital jobless rate climbs to 4.9 per cent in December City will get keys to Ottawas LRT system by end of March, builders say | https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/can-mediation-solve-the-lebreton-flats-legal-dispute |
Was it 'freak accident' or neglect of duties? | I do not quite agree with the report (SBS Transit bus hit by pipe in freak accident, Jan 3). The report stated that a loose PVC pipe, blown by the wind, crashed into and smashed the window of an SBS bus. Increasingly, I notice a tendency to explain away incidents such as this as "freak" accidents. Clearly the incident was caused by a loose PVC pipe which had been left about as a result of improper handling, transportation or stowage. I believe that dismissing it as a "freak accident" absolves the people responsible for it and leads to condoning improper work standards. No accident should be labelled conclusively or merely as a "freak" accident if it stemmed from neglect of responsibility. The media too should not report with an intent to placate readers that "freak" accidents happen. Such accidents are just not investigated thoroughly for want of the able or qualified. Joe Tay | https://www.straitstimes.com/forum/letters-in-print/was-it-freak-accident-or-neglect-of-duties |
When Are All of the Solar and Lunar Eclipses in 2019? | 2019 will have plenty in store for astronomy fans across the world, with a total solar eclipse, an annular solar eclipse, a total lunar eclipse and more. The most exciting such event for U.S.-based stargazers may be the so-called Super Blood Wolf Moon Eclipse on Jan. 21, says Christian Veillet, an astronomer at the Large Binocular Telescope Observatory in Arizona. The January lunar eclipse will be special, at least for the U.S. Its really seen by the whole of America and South America and nicely centered, so everyone will be able to see all the totality phase of it, so its a nice show, he says. Viellet says 2019 wont have any solar or lunar events that are especially rare, like 2017s total solar eclipse, which was the first of its kind to be visible exclusively from the United States since the countrys founding. Still, theres plenty to see in the night sky over the next 12 months. Of course, like all celestial happenings, your ability to view these events can depend on your location on Earth as well as the local weather. The Brief Newsletter Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know right now. View Sample Sign Up Now From the Super Blood Wolf Moon Eclipse in January to the total solar eclipse in July, here are five solar and lunar phenomena to watch in 2019: January 6: Partial Solar Eclipse On Jan. 6, stargazers in parts of East Asia and the Pacific will be able to witness a partial solar eclipse. A solar eclipse occurs when the sun is obscured by the moon. If the sun, moon and Earth are lined up, you get a total solar eclipse. But if that alignment is off, it can result in a partial solar eclipse, and only part of the sun will appear to be blocked by the moon. Januarys partial solar eclipse will the last until April 2022, when another will be visible in parts of South America and Antarctica. January 21: Super Blood Wolf Moon Eclipse On Jan. 21, people in North America, South America, Greenland, Iceland and more will be able to view a lunar eclipse that some are calling the Super Blood Wolf Moon Eclipse. The astronomical event, a simultaneous total lunar eclipse and a supermoon, will take place on the night of Jan. 20 into the morning of Jan. 21. During the event, the moon will fall completely into Earths shadow, and appear red-colored and slightly larger than usual for about an hour. The Super Blood Wolf Moon Eclipse will be the last total lunar eclipse until 2021. July 2: Total Solar Eclipse On July 2, people in parts of Chile and Argentina will be able to witness a total solar eclipse just before sunset. Those in some other places, including Ecuador; Brazil; Uruguay and Paraguay, will only be able to witness a partial solar eclipse, according to Space.com. A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon blocks the entire view of the sun, leaving just the corona visible to those viewing from Earth. (While the sun is 400 times bigger than the moon in diameter, the moon happens to be 400 times closer to Earth, giving it the relative size needed to block out the sun.) Julys total solar eclipse will be relatively long, lasting almost two minutes in some places. According to NASA, the longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century occurred in July 2009, lasting six minutes and 39 seconds; it was visible through most of Southeast Asia. Julys total solar eclipse is the last such event until December 2020, when another total solar eclipse will be visible over similar parts of South America. July 16: Partial Lunar Eclipse On July 16, people in much of Europe and Asia, as well as parts of south and east North America, South America and Antartica, will be able to view a partial lunar eclipse. A partial lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth moves between the sun and the moon, but the bodies are not perfectly aligned. During a partial lunar eclipse, the moon falls partially into Earths shadow (also called the umbra), leaving only a portion of it visible to those on Earth. Julys partial lunar eclipse will be the last until November 2021. December 26: Annular Solar Eclipse The day after Christmas 2019, people in eastern Europe, much of Asia, and northern and western Africa will be able to witness a ring of fire caused by an annular solar eclipse. During an annular solar eclipse, the moon is further away from the Earth. That means it appears to be smaller in the sky and does not completely cover the sun, leaving just the ring of fire, according to NASA. The next annular eclipse will be in June 2020. Write to Gina Martinez at [email protected]. | http://time.com/5493536/solar-lunar-eclipse-2019/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+time%2Ftopstories+%28TIME%3A+Top+Stories%29 |
Which Outfit Looks Sexier on Anna Paquin? | She plays a sweet-natured (well, most of the time) Southern girl on True Blood who wears sun dresses and jean shorts, but in real life Anna Paquin has been on a super chic fashion streak. Last week the 29-year-old star wore a cherry-hued Antonio Berardi mini and black Gucci open-toe heels while promoting her hit TV show at Comic-Con. See more pics of Anna Paquin from PopSugar! PHOTOS: Celebs in sexy red dresses And this week, she was spotted in two more hot looks: On Tuesday she arrived at a Q&A session for The Carrier, during the LA Short Film Festival, in a plain white Vince t-shirt and a form-fitting black Herv Lger by Max Azria textured pencil skirt. She accessorized with leopard print platform heels and an Alexis Bittar necklace. PHOTOS: Stars' crazy, sexy shoes For the HBO Summer 2011 TCA Tour, where she sat on the True Blood panel with husband Stephen Moyer, Paquin went with a white Stella McCartney dress and platform heels. PHOTOS: See Anna with her hot costars When the blonde beauty was asked how she maintains her amazing figure, she admitted that she works out "like a crazy person." Moyer added, "It is utterly insane. I have never seen anyone do what she does with so much gusto and happily." Get more Us! Follow us on Twitter, Friend us on Facebook, Subscribe to Us Weekly | https://www.wonderwall.com/entertainment/which-outfit-looks-sexier-on-anna-paquin-1632862.article |
What is the future of energy? | The future landscape of the energy industry is set to be transformed by technological innovations that drive towards a more convenient, efficient and ecological infrastructure. Energy systems of the future will be vastly different to what we know and use today. The scale of change over the next couple of decades will be considerable. Its common knowledge that burning fossil fuels as a way to harbour energy is both dirty and bad for the environment. Technological advancements in the energy sector will look to leave this approach in the past. Decentralised production As we stand, the burning of fossil fuels takes place in a small number of large-scale plants. These currently work at about 50 percent efficiency and waste a significant amount of heat. Future energy plants will be smaller in scale and far more commonplace. These producers of low-cost renewables will bring energy to a local level, allowing the everyday person to generate and trade energy. A significant benefit of bringing energy production to a local level is the reduction is waste. Surplus heat from localised producers will be passed on to nearby homes and businesses. By taking a local approach, we are also likely to see a reduction in waste as energy has less distance to cover. This shift towards a new greener way of producing and consuming energy will only be possible if major consumers are on board. For instance, the cold chain in the UK is believed to currently consume around 14 percent of all electricity, with food retailers operating large networks of machines distributed throughout the UK. Internet of energy The Internet of Things is an emerging tech industry which is already receiving a significant amount of press and attention. This type of technology is starting to be utilised to deliver a greener approach to energy use. The internet of energy will make use of connected digital systems to control how we use and store energy. Modern appliances are being designed with a level of interconnectivity. This means we can programme each item to use or not use energy when we choose. An example of this will be the flexibility to allow for power surges or lulls. For instance, at half time of major football matches, theres usually a surge of energy demand when people make drinks or food. To meet this demand, we can either utilise the power from a local power station or alternatively, power down other appliances for as little as ten minutes to satisfy the excess needs in an eco-friendly way. This goes a step further. If you have a surplus of energy (such as an electric vehicle), it will be notified of the demand and, if programmed to do so, sell some of its stored energy back to the grid to make you money. Energy as a service Its important for energy to become part of the circular economy. This is where resources are kept in use for as long as possible, recovered, regenerated and re-used wherever possible. For this to be a reality, there will need to be a shift away from buying energy in kWh and towards buying energy as a service. Buying energy as a service means that consumers wont purchase energy from a supplier. Theyll instead pay a company for energy at the best price, get the best value from the energy they generate and will actively improve the efficiency of their homes so they use less. Free energy Energy doesnt have to be a drain on the environment or peoples wallets. It has become easier than ever for us to generate green energy. The cost of renewable equipment is falling while the amount of energy on the grid is increasing. The UK is now home to so many renewables that on particularly sunny or windy days, theres actually a surplus of energy on the grid. This can have a negative effect on wholesale prices, meaning you could actually be paid to use or store the energy. Essentially allowing consumers to enjoy free green energy. Focus on consumers One of the largest changes that will take place is that consumers will find themselves at the very core of the energy industry. The control will be placed in their hands and its important for users to be educated on how to be as eco-friendly with this as possible. An active user of energy in the future will be able to play a vital role in ensuring our energy isnt having a detrimental impact on the Earth. If youd like to see more videos like this, you can subscribe to Innovate UKs YouTube channel here. Additionally, you can follow @InnovateUK on Twitter here. This Article This article is based on a press release from Innovate UK. | https://theecologist.org/2019/jan/04/what-future-energy |
Can Los Angeles Ever Love The Chargers? | Illustration: Elena Scotti, Photo: Dom Cosentino CARSON, Calif. I had been in Los Angeles for less than 12 hours, and the first indication I got that the Chargers even existed was when two dudes at a breakfast diner overheard me talking to a server about why I was in town, which was to write a story about the Chargers. Aw, nobody cares about them, one offered. Two days in Southern California would do little to disprove this assessment. The Chargers won 12 games this season, which tied for the best record in the AFC. They have a Hall of Fame quarterback in Philip Rivers, one of the leagues few remaining workhorse backs in Melvin Gordon, and a dynamic roster full of young defensive talents like ends Melvin Ingram and Joey Bosa, plus rookie safety Derwin James. Theyre in the playoffs for just the second time in the last nine years, with a wild-card game across the country at the Baltimore Ravens set for Sunday. The rest of the nation has noticed the Chargers are pretty damn good. After 56 seasons in San Diego, the Chargers returned last year to L.A., the franchises very first home. Only they have no roots here because they spent just one year in L.A., their inaugural AFL season of 1960. The Chargers are basically homeless in their own city. They moved here because owner Dean Spanos couldnt get San Diego to buck up for a new stadium. San Diego fans said their goodbyes, only to have the Chargers torture them by sticking around for another year. By the time the Chargers finally shoved off, they were second in line as L.A. transplants, following the Rams, who have a real history here that originally spanned from 1946-95. As a result, the Chargers will be the Rams tenants when a new stadium opens in nearby Inglewood in 2020. Until then, the Chargers are reduced to playing their home games in a 27,000-seat soccer stadium that was built for the L.A. Galaxy, in front of mostly visiting fans. I was curious to see what this was like. I was pleasantly surprised to discover the Chargers still have plenty of passionate fans. There just arent very many of them, and there arent a lot of reasons to think that will ever change. Until Jan. 1, the Chargers stadium was named for a ticket re-seller. Those naming rights now belong to a non-profit hospital consortium. Say this for the place: Its accessible (even if, for locals, its far enough from the city to seem like its in Tijuana). Situated in Carson, some 20 miles south of downtown L.A., the stadium is adjacent to three separate highways, in a largely residential neighborhood. L.A. is spread out and the traffic is as hellish as anyone whos been here will tell you it is, but on a Sunday morning the drive down from my hotel in Hollywood was a breeze. After reaching Carson and exiting Interstate 110, I was driven down a residential street of ranch houses, only to suddenly stumble upon the Chargers home. Unlike most NFL stadiums, which are behemoths, the Chargers isnt noticeable at all until you get right up to ita metaphor for their status in their new host city. I headed straight for Thunder Alley. Advertisement Photo: Dom Cosentino Thunder Alley is the tailgating hub for Chargers fans on home game days. It sits in a far corner of the parking lot, in Lot 11, and its where an actual throng of real, live Chargers diehards congregates to do tailgate-y things. On the day I was here in mid-November for a game against the Denver Broncos, there were a lot of people in orange Broncos jerseys dotting the parking lots. But Thunder Alley was a safe haven of mostly blue and yellow, the beating heart of whatever became of the Chargers diaspora after the franchise abandoned San Diego. Its where I met the Bolt Pride Brotha. Allow me to introduce you to him: Photo: Dom Cosentino Advertisement The Bolt Pride Brothas real name is Chester Williams. He grew up on the East Coast, but hes been a Chargers fan for 40 years, all because of a Baltimore Colts running back named Lydell Mitchell and an electric football tournament. He would vibrate his little ass up that board and score every time, Williams told me. He won me that tournament on a few occasions. He got traded to the Chargers in 78, and thats when I became a fan of the Chargers. Williams, who said he works for the federal government, said he gets to maybe four Chargers home games a year, plus the occasional away game or two. He used to fly out all the way from the East Coast, but he moved to Northern California a few years ago. Hes already got season tickets for when the new stadium opens. Hes also got no connection to San Diegoa theme I kept hearing from Chargers fans I talked to that day, even though I certainly didnt come close to polling every one. When they moved, I was bummed out because I built a lot of relationships there, Williams said. But they could have went to the moonIm still going to be a fan. Im not going to leave them because they left San Diego; my loyaltys to the Chargers, not to the city that hosts them. Some pre-game rallying in Thunder Alley is interrupted by the presence of a Raiders fan. (Video by Dom Cosentino) Williams said he cherished the relationships hes made through the fan organization Bolt Pride. Some, Williams allowed. Some are still a little bitter [about the Chargers leaving San Diego]. I cant fault them. Who am I to judge? Advertisement Not far away, Angel Rivera was grilling some meats beneath a canopy behind his pickup truck. From the front of the canopy hung a towel that read, San Diego Chargers Fan For Life. Angels son, also named Angel, said his fathers had season tickets since 1994, the season of the Chargers lone Super Bowl appearance. The Riveras are from Anaheim, so if anything, the teams move to L.A. made it easier for them to get to home games. They had no real ties to San Diego, though because Im a moron, I failed to ask why the elder Rivera was drawn to the Chargers in the first place. Were still Chargers fans, the younger Rivera said. Chargers all day. Photo: Dom Cosentino I entered the stadium maybe an hour before kickoff and was struck by how small it seemed, by NFL standards. It was as if someone had taken a giant hacksaw and carved off the upper reaches of the stadium, so as to allow for a view of the nearby palm trees and for that bright California sun to shine even brighter. There really wasnt a bad seat in the place, and there was also a real intimacy to it. The worst seat is in the top third at any other stadium, the longtime Los Angeles Times pro football writer Sam Farmer told me. He added that seeing an NFL game in a setting like this is like seeing Springsteen in a bar. Advertisement Photo: Dom Cosentino As kickoff neared and the stadium filled up, it became apparent that Chargers fans would be outnumbered, as they have been in the two years since the move. But it wasnt a total road-game feel; Id estimate the ratio was 60/40 Broncos fans. From what several people told me, more Chargers loyalists began showing up as this season progressedand the Chargers kept winningand there hasnt been a repeat of the cannon accidentally going off when the stadium gets loud because of the visiting teams fans, which happened during last years home opener. In December 2017, The Ringers Kevin Clark declared that there was no identity to the Chargers home game he attended. Clark also noticed a sizable number of spectators dressed in neutral team jerseys. Since Carson is south of Los Angeles, there was some South Bay vibethat is to say, a lot of sandals and Pennywise songs, Clark wrote. But overall, the dominant flavor seemed to be people who purchased tickets to an NFL game. By the time I got here 11 months later, that dynamic had changed a bit: The presence of actual fans of both the Broncos and Chargers was unmistakable, with Rivers, Antonio Gates, Junior Seau, LaDainian Tomlinson, and Bosa jerseys among the most popular among the Chargers faithful. Advertisement Sean Dempsey was there with his 9-year-old son, Colin, who was wearing a powder blue Philip Rivers jersey. The Dempseys were attending their first NFL game. Colins a fan because he likes Rivers, and when he was younger he liked the Chargers lightning bolt logo and that their nickname begins with the letter C, like his own first name. I asked Sean if the move from San Diego bothered him. Were from Los Altos, he said, which is in the Bay Area. Sean also said hes more of a Broncos fan who had spent a lot of time in the Denver area growing up. I think winning helps, Dempsey said. I think if they start to win, they will. Photo: Dom Cosentino Advertisement Photo: Dom Cosentino Thats debatable. The Chargers have a lot working against their ability to establish a foothold in L.A. The Chargers arrived uninvited into a market still skeptical about embracing one team, Farmer wrote in a column last year for the Times. For Los Angeles, it was like getting a second bread-making machine as a housewarming gift. You werent even sure youd use the first one. The Rams and Raiders both left L.A. in 1995. During my weekend in town, one of my car-service drivers told me the Raiders remain popular, and that L.A.s affinity for the Raiders actually seemed to grow after they moved back to Oakland. Also, as Farmer reminded me, much about the NFL fan experience has changed since 95, from the rise of fantasy football to the development of products like Sunday Ticket, NFL Network, and Red Zone, plus the damn internet itself. L.A. is huge, but its also a community of transplantsits a big American city that didnt need pro football. All these things made it increasingly easy to consume football from the couch, and to follow your team, no matter where you live, Farmer said. And the Rams didnt feel like a new franchise, but the Chargers do. And it feels like were taking something from San Diego, which we didnt want to do. Advertisement Another factor working against the Chargers is the cost of tickets, which is far and away the highest in the league, with a reported average price of $199. (The next-highest, the New England Patriots, charge an average of $127, which is a whopping 36 percent less.) Parking can cost as much as $100. These high prices are meant to offset the presence of fewer seats, but theyve also had the effect of keeping Chargers fans away. Demand from visiting fans, meanwhile, has driven up the cost of tickets on the secondary market, which has only encouraged Chargers fans to sell off the stock they do have. The stadium was just about full on the day I attended a game, but that hasnt always been the case in the Chargers two seasons in L.A. The long-term viability of the Chargers in L.A. was a topic of discussion at the NFL owners meetings in October, with ESPNs Seth Wickersham reporting that the league revised its revenue goal for the teams first season at the Inglewood stadium down from $400 million to $150 million. Pro Football Talk reported that the Chargers will have a 20-year lease with the Rams at the new stadium, but as Farmer told me, that lease likely has some kind of escape hatch in the event the situation doesnt work out. Also, part of that reduced-revenue projection stems from the fact that the Chargers intend to charge much less for a substantial number of tickets at the new place. Each decision throughout this process has been made with the fan in mind, and we think the pricing announced today reflects this fact, A.G. Spanos, the teams president of business operations, said in a statement. Translation: The lower prices are designed to entice people to show up. Which might prove to be an issue in a city as notoriously superficial as L.A. L.A. is a town where youre not going to buy a Hyundai if you can spend the same amount of money and lease a BMW, Farmer told me. Its a see-and-be-seen town. Its problematic. Advertisement Photo: Dom Cosentino One way to develop a fan base is to try pleading with the abandoned one. The Chargers have hired Tomlinson, a Hall of Famer, to develop fan engagement, and Tomlinson went on a podcast in October to essentially beg San Diegans for forgiveness. San Diego, after all, is two hours or so from L.A.close enough to maintain a possible connection. I know it takes time to forgive, Tomlinson said, per the Times of San Diego. But Im asking you, our fans, to forgive at this point and please come out and support the team. The enmity is real, however. Brandon Rivera is a lifelong Chargers fan who lives in San Diego; his wife is an old friend of mine. Rivera (no known relation to Angel Rivera) told me he still follows and roots for the Chargers, mostly because of Philip Rivers. Everybody is pretty much pissed off, including me, Brandon Rivera said. Once Rivers is gone, I dont think anyones really going to be watching them. Im not. Interestingly, of the fans I talked tocertainly not a comprehensive or even sizable sample, grantedthere werent any actual L.A. residents. So the current Chargers, until they can (if they can) build up their own local fan base, are relying on people who were already Chargers fans but who werent put off by the team leaving San Diego. That cant be that large a demographic. Advertisement The timing, in some ways, is fortuitous for the Chargers to win over a sizable portion of L.A. fans. The crown jewels of L.A. sports, according to Farmer, are the Dodgers, Lakers, and USC football. USC football had filled the void after the Rams and Raiders departed, in large part because Pete Carroll brought them back to national prominence after a long dry spell. And USC football is down again. But, at the same time, the Rams are one of the most exciting teams in the NFL, with a young quarterback in Jared Goff, a wunderkind head coach in Sean McVay, and recognizable stars like Todd Gurley and Aaron Donald. Theyve earned the NFCs No. 2 seed and will host a playoff game on Jan. 12. That, plus the Rams historical connection to L.A., would appear to give them more of that crown jewel credibility. The Chargers, meanwhile, have the worst local TV ratings in the NFL. This season their broadcasts almost always rated worse locally than games involving teams from other markets. And at least once this year, they prepared for a home game by pumping in crowd noise at practice, a tactic teams usually deploy in advance of away games in loud stadiums. Its a tricky experiment for the league, Farmer told me. I dont know that you could say that. The Angels have won the World Series and the Ducks have won a Stanley Cup, and people dont pay a whole lot of attention to either of those teams. Loud cheers went up for both the Broncos and Chargers during pre-game introductions. It was Bosas first game back from a foot injury, so the Chargers defense was announced. When Bosas name was called, a young boy sitting a few rows in front of me in a Tomlinson jersey pointed at the sky and shouted in unison with the PA persons call. The Bolt Pride club was being rowdy from its front-row perch behind the north end zone, though they were surrounded by orange-clad Broncos fans. These were fans with a real emotional investment, and there were more of them than I expected to see. Advertisement Photo: Dom Cosentino Photo: Dom Cosentino I was in Section 131, just behind the Broncos bench, maybe 20 rows up, right around the 40-yard line. With no upper deck to blot it out, the sun shined right in my eyes, though it rotated away soon enough. Besides, it still beat having to deal with whatever the weather was like back in New York City. In the first half, as the Broncos fell behind and their offense sputtered, I could practically hear Broncos wideout Emmanuel Sanders lose his shit as he slammed his helmet near the bench and shouted in frustration. I managed to get some video just before he calmed down: Video: Dom Cosentino At halftime, there was a tribute on the video board to Alex Spanos, who had died in October at the age of 95. Spanos, Deans father, became the majority owner of the Chargers in 1984, though he had turned the daily operations of the franchise over to Dean years ago. When the tribute ended, the crowd barely reacted. Advertisement The Chargers led 19-7 late in the third quarter, but the game turned when Von Miller picked off Rivers after the Chargers had driven to the Broncos 35. Within minutes, the Broncos were ahead, 20-19, and the crowd was amped up. Two Denver defensive linemen kept exhorting the fans from the teams sideline. The Chargers re-took the lead with a field goal, and they appeared to have things sewn up until Rivers brain-farted by throwing the ball away on third and 7 near midfield, stopping the clock just after the two-minute warning even though the Broncos were out of timeouts. A punt pinned the Broncos at their own 8 with 1:51 to go. I moved to a walkway behind the north end zone for a closer look at the final sequence: Photo: Dom Cosentino The Broncos marched up the field and won it at the other end of the stadium on a Brandon McManus field goal on the games final play. Their fans let out a loud roar. The young boy in the Tomlinson jersey who had been sitting in front of me was complaining about Riverss throwaway, which left Denver with enough time to drive the length of the field. I caught a handful of people making a beeline for the exits before McManuss kick, no doubt to beat the traffic. Advertisement But out in the lots, the vehicles were able to pull out rather quickly, without waiting in endlessly long lines. Within minutes, Thunder Alley was practically deserted, which made me wonder how many of those fans even had tickets to the game. The elder Angel Rivera was still there, silently loading his grill into his truck before driving off. It was dusk, and the air was getting cool. Ryan Solorzano, who told me hes been a season-ticket holder since 2007, was clutching a beer as he wandered from one straggling tailgate to another. Solorzano lives 25 miles down the coast in Huntington Beachanother fan for whom the move from San Diego posed no inconvenience. He was bummed about the loss, and he talked a bit about the perpetual doom of being a Chargers fan, even in good times. Hes somewhat encouraged that more Chargers fans keep showing up for games. I told him I thought the atmospherethe small stadium, the dueling fan baseswas great. From an entertainment standpoint, yeah, Solorzano said. From a season-ticket holder, I wish there would be more Chargers fans here. Advertisement Solorzano thinks the Chargers can build a fan base in L.A.provided they win. If they win, yes, he said. But Charger fans are fairly fickle. A small shopping center sits directly across the street from Lot 11, right on the corner, and theres a convenience store there. My phone died, but a store worker kindly let me charge it behind the register for a few minutes. A steady group of fans made their way in to purchase snacks, while others waited outside for car services to whisk them far and wide. It was dark now. A drunken Broncos fan shouted Mile High California! at the sight of another Broncos fan as he waited in line at the register. Near the door, the store had a display of hats for sale, a random assortment that reflected L.A.s transient sports culture: New York Yankees, Houston Astros, Philadelphia Eagles. There were two Chargers hats in the bunch. | https://deadspin.com/can-los-angeles-ever-love-the-chargers-1830571076 |
Who Is Lizzie Kommes Daughter on Love After Lockup? | On WEtvs Love After Lockup season 2, after Lizzie is released, she and Scott find a home and try to start a blended family together with their children. Within this storyline, Lizzies daughter, Jazmyne, is introduced to the show as she both seeks to reconnect with her mom and serves as a voice of reason regarding the pieces in play in Lizzie and Scotts relationship. The most insight the show has provided about Jazmyne happens during her interviews. In one clip, as she prepares for her moms release from prison, she says I havent seen my mom in 10 years. When I was 8 years old, my grandma and grandpa told her that she was too much into drugs. I would say she, like, left me for a different life. Sometimes I get upset that she has been in prison because I still feel like its my fault that shes there. I dont think she was ready for a child. And maybe if I wasnt born, then maybe she wouldnt be there right now. She added, but Im excited for when she gets out so we can actually be like a mom and a daughter. Soap Dirt points out that this is a very sad moment for the show, as she suggests that shes to blame for her moms record. In an ABC News story from 2008, it is revealed that before the arrest that landed her in jail, Kommes was convicted of drunken driving in Wisconsin in 2000, 2001, and 2006, and then again in Michigan in 2007. Her drivers license was revoked in 2006, according to the complaint. This means Jazmyne would have been about 2 years old at the time of Kommes first conviction. In her interactions with Lizzie and Scott and observations of their relationship, she seems to be the only one aware of the red flags, especially in the way money is being handled. Jazmyne asks Scott How much money have you already spent on my mom? When he reveals the number is, after 3 years, over $90,000, the camera cuts in on Jazmynes shocked face and she asks are you serious? Scott tries to defend that she might have saved some of it, but Jazmyne shuts that down and asks what she was spending it on (mostly drugs was the answer). Jazmyne, whose Facebook page reveals she is 20 years old, is the one pointing out the apparent falsity of their relationship throughout this season of the show, as well as the problematic nature of Scott knowingly giving Lizzie drug money. This relationship is fake. Its the fakest thing Ive ever seen. If theres a guy involved and he has lots of money, money is her weakness. When she finds out Scott is knowingly paying for her moms drug problem, she tells the camera Thats not what you do if you love someone. I will do whatever it takes to take Scott out of the picture. In a family photo on her Facebook page from this past Thanksgiving, Scott is noticeably absent. While Scott has not recently been featured on Lizzies Instagram page, she does regularly post photos and videos with Jazmyne. Assuming that the Facebook page, which features personal photos of Jazmyne and posts about the show, is actually Jazmynes, she currently lives in Michigan with her boyfriend, Kenny Spanos; in many of their photos together there is also a little girl, suggesting that they have a child together. The description for tonights new episode, Secrets and Cellmates, reads Michael juggles his wife and girlfriend; Lizzie gives Scott a makeover; Clint proposes. Tune in to Love After Lockup on WEtv, | https://heavy.com/entertainment/2019/01/lizzie-kommes-daughter-jazmyne-love-after-lockup/ |
When Does Ellens Full Interview With Kevin Hart Air? | During the controversial interview, Ellen tells the world that she wants Kevin Hart to host the Academy Awards in 2019. You can watch the full interview when it airs on The Ellen Show NBC affiliates across the country on Friday, January 4. The showtimes vary between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. across the country, you can check your local affiliate timeslot here. Heres what you need to know about the controversial interview: Ellen Says She Believes in Giving Hart a Second Chance In posting clips of the interview on social media on January 3, Ellen wrote on her Facebook page, I believe in forgiveness. I believe in second chances. And I believe in Kevin Hart. When Ellen introduced Hart, she referred to him as the host of the 2019 Oscars. Ellen Says She Called the Academy to Vouch for Hart Ellen told Hart during the interview that she had called the Academy to vouch for Hart returning as host. Ellen herself hosted the awards ceremony in 2007 and 2014. In December 2018, Hart resigned his role as host shortly after he was announced following the unearthing of homophobic tweets the comedian had written. You can read the tweets here. Ellen says, I called them, I said, Kevins on, I have no idea if he wants to come back and host, but what are your thoughts? And they were like, Oh my God, we want him to host. We feel like that maybe he misunderstood or it was handled wrong. Maybe we said the wrong thing but we want him to host. Whatever was can do we would be thrilled. And he should host the Oscars. Ellen also said, What were going to get to see onstage with you hosting the Oscars is sophistication, class, hilarity, and you growing as a person. Hart Said that Those Who Discovered the Tweets Had Acted Maliciously Ellen added that she believed Hart has apologized for his words and that he shouldnt, Dont let those people win- host the Oscars. Hart described those who discovered the tweeted as performing a malicious attack on [his] character. Thats an attack to end me. While Hart said of his tweets, I understand why people would be upset which is why I made the choice to not use them anymore, because that was wrong. That was a guy who was just looking for laughs and that was stupid. I dont do that anymore. Activist DeRay Mckesson said of the interview, I expected Ellen to actually ask Kevin Hart some sort of challenging question. Anything, really. But instead, it was just one long monologue from Kevin interspersed with Ellens approval. That interview made me miss the previous talk show hosts that asked tough questions. During a Press Junket for the Movie Get Hard, Hart Defended Vaguely Homophobic Jokes With the Words, Funny Is Funny Buzzfeeds Adam Vary took issue with Ellens characterization of those who found Harts tweets as haters. Vary tweeted, The host of the Oscars had made anti-gay jokes, and LGBT people who love the Oscars were legitimately startled to see just how harsh his words were. Vary added that a group of people who wanted to understand Harts thinking about those hurtful tweets & his stand-up jokes. Vary then tweeted a link to an interview that Hart did during a press interview for the movie, Get Hard. The video shows Hart answering a question about the vaguely homophobic jokes in the movie with the words, Funny is funny. Vary concluded his rant by saying, Finally, its depressing that Ellens enthusiasm for Hart hosting the Oscars and he wouldve been a good host! led her to contribute to a narrative that Hart is the victim of haters & trolls out to destroy him, & if he doesnt host the Oscars, theyll win. Well if @TheAcademy wants to hire Hart back after he made the simple act of apologizing for hurtful, harmful, anti-gay language into a vicious conspiracy to ruin his entire life, Im not sure who wins in that scenario, either. READ NEXT: Michigan School Teachers Admit to Being Porn Stars on the Side | https://heavy.com/entertainment/2019/01/kevin-hart-ellen/ |
Did Madonna boost her butt? | NEW YORK Fans are hoping to get to the bottom of things, but Madonna is not telling just yet. The superstar singer got netizens speculating about whether she had had buttock implants after she gave a surprise performance in a club in Greenwich Village, Manhattan on New Year's Eve. The crowd was treated to Like A Prayer (1989) and Elvis Presley's Can't Help Falling In Love (1961), with Madonna backed by her 13-year-old son David Banda on guitar. Photographs of her impromptu gig showed a more pronounced backside, suggesting that the 60-year-old could have had surgery, reported Fox News. While some netizens defended her right to do anything, one person wrote: "I think the saddest ending to 2018 is finding out that Madonna got butt implants." Following feedback, with some bringing up comparisons with singer Nicki Minaj, Madonna posted on Thursday, writing: "Desperately seeking no one's approval. And entitled to free agency over my body like everyone else. "It's going to be an amazing year. #2019 #freedom#respect #nofear #nodiscrimination." At the club, she had dared attendees to be brave. "In this new year, let's commit to disarming people with unexpected acts of kindness. Get outside your comfort zone. "Maybe we will find an opening to let the light come in. Let's close up the distance between one human being and another. "Are you ready to do that?" | https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/entertainment/did-madonna-boost-her-butt |
Do The Teachers Really Want To Deprive The Students Of Education? | 2 SHARES Share Tweet QUESTION OF THE DAY Foroyaa has been moving about to find out whether the teachers are adamant in not going to teach until all their demands are addressed. We have discovered some flexibility wherever the reporters went. Many teachers are simply concerned with their entitlements. They would want the state to address them with greater sensitivity. In our view, it is the Gambia Teachers Union that should put aside the fear that they are being dragged to pioneer a strike. They should consider every organised reaction of teachers to be the alarm bell for bargaining by their union. Hence they should open up all channels of communication so that they could facilitate the peaceful resolution of the dispute. | https://foroyaa.gm/do-the-teachers-really-want-to-deprive-the-students-of-education/ |
Did al Qaeda fugitives get inside help? | Investigators are looking into the possibility that intelligence officers helped 23 al Qaeda prisoners including a militant convicted in the 2000 USS Cole bombing escape from an underground prison located under a heavily guarded security headquarters, officials said Monday. The prisoners escaped last week, apparently by digging a tunnel, some 180 yards long, that emerged in the women's section of a mosque near the headquarters, the security officials said. It was not the first major prison escape for al Qaeda militants. At least four members of the group broke out of a prison at Bagram, the main U.S. base in Afghanistan in July. Among them was Omar al-Farouq, a top leader of al Qaeda in Southeast Asia. The capture, trial and imprisonment of those responsible for the attack on the USS Cole was a high point in Yemen's declared alliance with the United States in the war on terror, CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips reports. The escape of those behind the attack is a deep embarrassment and puts Yemen's determination into question. An investigation headed by the Yemeni interior minister has begun questioning intelligence officers on how Friday's escape in San'a happened, government and security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to divulge details on the probe. "It couldn't have happened without the coordination of high ranking officers in the intelligence," said one official. He pointed to possible infiltration of the intelligence agency by militants, saying hundreds of Yemenis who fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s against Russian occupation were given jobs with the security forces when they returned home. "It is no surprise that many of these former fighters are sympathetic to al Qaeda," he said. Yemen's interior ministry confirmed in a statement that the convicts escaped from the headquarters for the political security forces, a security branch affiliated with the intelligence. But it gave no further details on the escape or the search for the militants. The prison was underground in the headquarters, one of the most heavily guarded buildings in the capital. The compound is surrounded by a high wall and armed guards and all roads leading to it are blocked to vehicles. The 23 militants, all convicted members of Al Qaeda, were all kept in the same cell, the officials said. The international police agency Interpol said Sunday it was informed by Yemen that Jamal al-Badawi a man convicted of plotting, preparing and helping carry out the Cole bombing was among the fugitives. Al-Badawi was among those sentenced to death in September 2004 for plotting the attack, in which two 17 sailors were killed when suicide bombers blew up an explosives-laden boat next to the destroyer as it refueled in the Yemeni port of Aden on Oct. 12, 2000. His sentence was later reduced to 15 years in prison. For at least 10 of the escaped convicts, this is the second time they escaped prison. In 2003, they escaped briefly from a prison in the city of Aden before they were recaptured and convicted. The first time al-Badawi escaped, he headed for Yemen's remote tribal lands, and officials assume that is where he is headed this time, CBS News correspondent David Martin reports. The FBI has offered to help in the manhunt, but so far the Yemenis have not taken up the offer, Martin reports. Checkpoints throughout the city have been set up and the interior ministry has issued photographs of the convicts to security forces throughout the country to aid in their capture. Since Friday, at least a dozen members of Islamic groups in Yemen known to be affiliated with the convicts, have been detained for interrogation. Some relatives of the convicts have also been summoned for questioning. Authorities have also approached tribal leaders to watch for the fugitives, particularly in Maarib, a lawless region northeast of the capital. In Afghanistan, a search for the four al Qaeda members who escaped in July is still continuing, said U.S. military spokesman Lt. Mike Cody said. Military officials declined to say how they broke out of the high-security facility at Bagram. The four boasted about their breakout on a video believed filmed in Afghanistan and broadcast in October on Dubai-based TV station Al-Arabiya. They claimed they picked a lock and timed the escape for a Sunday when many of the Americans on the base were off duty. | https://www.cbsnews.com/news/did-qaeda-fugitives-get-inside-help/ |
What Does the Speaker of the House Do? | Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, was elected Thursday to serve as speaker of the House. Its her second time in the job, which she held from 2007 to 2011. Second in the line of presidential succession after the vice president, the speaker occupies a central role in our national government. Most people think the speakership is a party office. Its not. The speaker is selected by the full House membership, though the majority partys voting power ensures that the role is occupied by one of their own. From legislation to accounting The speaker fills three primary roles. First, they are the most visible and authoritative spokesperson for the majority party in the House. Speakers articulate an agenda and explain legislative action to other Washington officials as well as the public. They oversee House committee assignments and collaborate with the powerful House Rules Committee to structure floor debate. Second, the speaker manages business on the floor and navigates legislative rules, structuring House debate in a way that will advantage their legislative priorities. Adherence to strict rules and procedures is necessary to overcome the difficulty of managing a large legislative body like the House of Representatives. Third, the speaker oversees everything from accounting to procurement for the House. Power ebbed and flowed During the republics early years, the speakership gradually gained power. By 1910, Speaker Joe Cannon had centralized power to such an extent that many of his own party members rebelled. Power was redistributed to committees and lower-level party leaders. By the 1970s, committees had gained such control over legislative outcomes that widespread reforms were adopted, which shifted power back to the speaker. From 1977 to 1995, three successive Democratic speakers Thomas Tip ONeill, Jim Wright and Tom Foley reinvigorated the speakership. They enlarged the party leadership structure, creating wider networks of loyalty among members of the majority party while strengthening support for their priorities. Today, the role of the speaker is influenced especially by changes instituted by Speaker Newt Gingrich, who took the gavel after the 1994 elections. Gingrich, a Republican, was overtly partisan in the role. He announced that, compared to past speakers, he was essentially a political leader of a grassroots movement seeking to do nothing less than reshape the federal government along with the political culture of the nation. Since Gingrichs tenure, speakers are often criticized as too partisan and too powerful, trampling minority party interests. But this is the nature of the job in todays Washington. This story was updated to reflect the election of Nancy Pelosi on January 3, 2019. By Rachel Caufield, Associate Professor of Political Science, Drake University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. | https://heavy.com/news/2019/01/what-does-the-speaker-of-the-house-do/ |
Why do I sneeze after sex? | (Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk) Picture the scene. Youve just finished having sex, enjoying the afterglow, and then suddenly youre in the middle of a sneezing fit. Streaming eyes, runny nose, all the trappings of a cold but its not that youre allergic to dust or anything. Youre sneezing because youve had sex. Well, it might be because you have a condition nicknamed honeymoon rhinitis. Which is where you find yourself sneezing and runny nosed when you have sex. According to an article in the European Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology The condition appears to be genetically determined, and caused by the presence in the nose of erectile tissue which may become engorged during sexual arousal as a side effect of the signals from the autonomic nervous system that trigger changes in the genitals of both men and women. Symptoms of honeymoon rhinitis: Burning or pain when urinating A fever or chills Feeling tired Feeling shaky Pain during sex Pain or pressure in the back or lower abdomen Cloudy, dark, or strong-smelling urine Unfortunately theres no current cure for sex sneezing, other than not having sex, which isnt the most fun way of getting around it. MORE: Bride cut into wedding cake to find it was polystyrene covered in icing Advertisement Advertisement | https://metro.co.uk/2019/01/04/why-do-i-sneeze-after-sex-8310595/ |
Why are some people taking antidepressants that werent prescribed to them? | (Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk) Approximately one in four people in the UK suffer from mental health problems. Many, though by no means all, are also currently taking some form of antidepressant, with over 64 million prescriptions issued by GPs last year. But these pills might be ending up in different hands than they were originally meant for. In a recent survey by Chemist 4 U, it was revealed that 29% of participants were taking or had taken antidepressants that werent prescribed to them. Paula*, a mental health and human rights campaigner, took her ex boyfriends medication when they were together, because she was afraid her GP wouldnt believe her symptoms of borderline personality disorder. It was just over a year ago, she tells Metro.co.uk. I was really struggling with my mental health and hearing voices. I decided to take my exs antipsychotic medication called Quetiapine because I didnt think the doctor would believe me when I said I was struggling with voices. Advertisement Advertisement One of my diagnoses is borderline personality disorder and its very misunderstood. Paula might have a point; last year we reported how women took to Twitter to share tales of being disproportionately misdiagnosed and treated badly by doctors by using #MyDoctorSaid. Interestingly, the survey actually showed that out of those suffering from a mental illness, 25% refuse to seek help from medical professionals because they had done so in the past and found the treatment to be poor. Others, like Emma, are unhappy with the technical side of things. She tells Metro.co.uk that she likes to have a back-up because the NHS mobile ordering app isnt up to scratch. Ive taken my flatmates medication before, she said. Were both on the same pill, but for different illnesses, and unfortunately, the NHSs mobile ordering app is awful. For me, its good to know Ive got backup if I run out. (Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk) Meanwhile, Susan*, 28, who used antidepressants for a few years, had more personal reasons for not wanting to get her own prescription. I was in a bad place, but didnt want to admit how bad it was or that medication might help me, she said. I had the notion in my head that it was only for certain people and that I was strong enough to get over my depression and anxiety issues without taking any meds. But when my mum offered for me to try hers, I gave it a go. Advertisement Advertisement It didnt feel like I was really on antidepressants, because they werent really mine. About a year later, when I felt more ready, I went to the doctor and got my own. I admitted to taking my mums pills and she said that I shouldnt have. She didnt guilt trip me, but told me that what Id been taking wasnt right for my condition and not as effective. There are risks to taking medication that isnt chosen for you, including adverse effects that could occur if youre allergic to any of the ingredients or are taking other medication at the same time. But similarly, if you have started on a course of medicine, dont just instantly stop taking them but discuss it with a medical professional first, as it could be dangerous to do so. Also, bare in mind that it can take weeks for the antidepressants to fully kick in, so if youre inconsistently taking drugs that arent yours (or just taking one or two, now and then) you might be missing out on the benefits. A GP or pharmacist will make a full assessment of an individual and their condition before assigning medicine to them, so taking medicine that is not specifically prescribed to you can be absolutely detrimental to your health, Shamir Patel, a pharmacist at Chemist 4 U, tells Metro.co.uk. For instance, you could be unknowingly allergic to an ingredient in the drug, or it could be the wrong medicine to treat your symptoms. Though the reasons why individuals are taking antidepressants that havent been prescribed to them isnt transparent, our study has shown that people are staying away from talking to medical professionals about their mental health symptoms for one reason or another. Advertisement Taking prescription medicines not intended for you is never the answer to this, however, as you could be putting something incredibly damaging to you in your body no two people are the same. While the antidepressant study wasnt conclusive (it did only have 2,000 participants, after all), other revelations included the most common antidepressant drug Trimipramine. Also, 19% of those diagnosed by a doctor had opted out of taking any drugs at all, while only 31% of those who did take antidepressants said that they were effective. Whatever your personal stance on it, as always, we recommend that you talk to a medical professional before taking any medication. Contact the mental health charity, Mind, for more information on how to get help, instead. MORE: 13 mental health resolutions you should set yourself for 2019 MORE: How to look after your mental health when youre always on the internet MORE: What happened when I called Samaritans for my mental health Advertisement Advertisement | https://metro.co.uk/2019/01/04/people-taking-antidepressants-werent-prescribed-8302427/ |
When is Home And Away back in 2019? | Aussie soaps fans will know that Ashleigh Brewer, the actor playing Chelsea in Home and Away, was also in Neighbours. Since departing the soap, she made a move to LA and its not long before she leaves Summer Bay to return to the US. Its currently unclear how Chelseas exit from the Bay will happen, but its been rumoured that writers will be leaving things open for the possibility of her return in the future Brody (Jackson Heywood) and Ziggy (Sophie Dillman) wont be together for much longer (Picture: Channel 5) Brody cheats on Ziggy Brody and Ziggy havent been married for long, but the oldest Astoni sibling has been struggling with Brody making lots of plans for their future, and has felt smothered. It will therefore be a shock to viewers when they discover Brody almost gives into temptation and kisses a newcomer to the Bay, Simone UK fans not up to speed with the Australian schedule should expect to see Simone in scenes after she develops a crush on Brody following his vlogging success, attending a fundraiser and winning herself a private cooking class at Salt Ziggy (Sophie Dillman) and Dean (Patrick OConnor) became friends through work (Picture: Channel 5) Ziggy and Dean become an item After just a few months of marriage, it looks like Ziggy and Brody arent going to last, with rumours initially circulating that Ziggy was set to cheat with bad boy Dean Thompson. However, it now appears that after Brody cheats with Simone, Ziggy ends up turning to Dean. As the two became close while working at Summer Bay Auto, this pairing wont be a surprise to viewers who have seen them interacting together, as its clear theyve been friends for quite some time. But itll be a blow for those who had high hopes for Brody and Ziggys marriage Leah and Justin: The most unlikely Summer Bay couple ever (Picture: Channel 5) Justin and Leah get together In one of Summer Bays most unlikely pairings, it looks like Justin and Leah are about to try out being a couple, after both experiencing unfortunate love lives. What with Justin dealing with Phoebe moving to the US to pursue her music career, then things breaking down with Willow after a long on/off relationship, its safe to say he deserves some love in his life. And the same can be said for Leah, after her string of disastrous marriages, from Vinnie to Zac. After making a drunken advance on her, Justin is quick to apologise, but it looks like things dont end there | https://metro.co.uk/2019/01/04/home-away-back-2019-8308981/ |
How many vegans are there in the UK? | (Picture: Getty/Rex) If Piers Morgans attempt to start some kind of vegan-sausage-roll-gate has done anything, its gone to show that yes, there were indeed quite a few vegans who were eagerly waiting for a sausage roll they can enjoy. As the irate tweets from vegans keep pouring in, its clear that the, as Piers puts it, PC-ravaged clowns at Greggs have actually tapped into a big market with their new vegan product. Piers apparent, erm, beef with vegans notwithstanding, the statistics show that veganism is actually pretty popular. Vegans, similar to vegetarians, voluntarily restrict their diet. However, while vegetarians dont eat any animals, vegans go a step further and dont eat any animal products. That includes things like milk and eggs. Its hard to argue with a face like that. Advertisement Advertisement The Vegan Society lists 3 key reasons why people should go vegan: for animals, for your health and for the environment. Many people believe that the process of obtaining animal products is often unduly cruel, and going vegan is their way of taking a stand against it. Not only that, but from the trucks used to transport the animals to the deforestation associated with the need to grow feed for them, the production of meat and other animal products has a negative impact on the environment. In April 2018, a comparethemarket.com survey found that the number of vegans in the UK had risen to a whopping 3.5 million. That means that 7% of British people have the will to say no to traditional, dairy-full cheeses and meaty sausage rolls. This number includes a wide range of celebrities, from Ellie Goulding and Lewis Hamilton to Paul McCartney and Thom Yorke. However, the Vegan Society reports a much lower figure of 600,000, which is obviously much less significant, but still represents a four-fold rise in four years. Its no wonder then that Greggs wants to cater to this massive, and growing, market. and her life was made MORE: Keira Knightley learns not to f*** with Cinderella after those controversial Disney comments Advertisement Advertisement | https://metro.co.uk/2019/01/04/how-many-vegans-are-there-in-the-uk-8308581/ |
Will an old flip phone give my clients with Apple iPhones the wrong impression? | Dear Moneyist, I have a job that requires me to meet with clients frequently. My current flip phone sends and receives text messages, but it is a flip phone. I dont need access to my email while Im en route to a meeting. I bring my laptop with me when away from the office. I can sit down in a coffee shop or a similar place (or at a clients office) to send and receive emails. I also like that once I am on my way to visit a client for a scheduled meeting, they dont have an easy way to cancel with me on short notice (because I dont check messages while Im on my way there). Mike in New York Dear Mike, Weirdly. flip phones havent gone the way of the VHS recorder or compact disk quite yet. Some people still prefer them. Verge and Esquire have predicted that they might be making a comeback. Last year, Samsung 005930, -0.40% unveiled the Galaxy Folder 2, the sequel to is 2013 flip phone. Its an attempt by the company to bring back the flip phone in the way that others have tried to bring back big hair and stone-washed denim. People are tired of being locked into two-year contracts, and sales of Apples AAPL, +4.27% iPhone have failed to meet analyst expectations, being pinged everywhere they go by companies and, as you say, being contactable 24/7. If you turned up for a meeting with the Moneyist and plonked a flip phone down on the table, I wouldnt be buying anything youre selling. In fact, people are rarely getting away from work, a recent survey of 1,000 full-time workers by jobs site CareerBuilder found. Some 63% of respondents said that working nine to five is outmoded in information technology, financial services, sales and professional and business services. Nearly one quarter of those surveyed said they check their work email when out with friends. The survey even suggests smartphones are part of the problem: Much like flip phones and fax machines, the traditional eight-hour work day may be on its way out, the researchers said. Also read: 5 phone calls you still need to make And some high-profile people have been photographed in recent times with an old-fashioned flip phone. Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue magazine, investor Warren Buffett and even pop star Rihanna were all photographed using their flips. Alas, no. Wintour has since been photographed with an iPhone after being photographed at the U.S. Open and fashion shows with her humble flip. And, lets be frank, Buffett is a billionaire, so he can pretty much do what he wants. You, on the other hand, have a reputation to protect and, I dont care what business youre in, if you turned up for a meeting with the Moneyist and plonked a flip phone down on the table, I wouldnt be buying anything youre selling and would clutch my wallet even tighter if you offered me a discount. Its cute to use old technology. Some people even hold onto their 1st generation iPhone from 2007 for nostalgic value and, perhaps, because they think it will be worth a lot of money one day. But its not so cute in business. Still, as people have begun leasing their iPhones for $30 a month or less, at least you can say that you actually own your flip. (This story was republished and updated.) Send them to MarketWatchs Moneyist and please include the state where you live (no full names will be used). If so, click on this link. Get a daily roundup of the top reads in personal finance delivered to your inbox. Subscribe to MarketWatch's free Personal Finance Daily newsletter. Sign up here. | https://www.marketwatch.com/story/will-a-flip-phone-give-other-people-the-wrong-impression-2015-09-18 |
Who cares if Ellen DeGeneres thinks Kevin Hart should host the Oscars? | Ellen DeGeneres has made it her business to campaign for Kevin Harts right to host the Oscars. The vanilla talk show host, who has also hosted the Oscars, has made a surprisingly vigorous defense of the actor/comedian and rightly received a Twitter lashing from members of the LGBTQ community. The revelation of Harts homophobic Tweets resulted in his turning down the offer to host the Feb. 24 ceremony, rather than apologize for his remarks as requested by the Motion Picture academy. DeGeneress insistence that it is Harts right to host the Oscars was so offensive that many detractors registered their disdain on social media. This is wrong, wrote Mark Harris, author of Pictures at a Revolution, on Twitter. Nuts. He can sure dish it out, but like most cowardly comics, he cant take it. As for DeGeneres, if this is another attempt on her part to recover the edge she had before she became televisions pre-eminent inoffensive daytime talk show host, it clearly backfired. Shes been lumped in with lowlifes such as Louis C.K. and Rob Schneider. Highly unlikely. Whats even more peculiar is how she managed to alienate her own tribe in order to defend the lowest-common-denominator likes of Hart. | https://nypost.com/2019/01/04/who-cares-if-ellen-degeneres-thinks-kevin-hart-should-host-the-oscars/ |
How Spanish was the Spanish flu? | Paths of infection 2019 marks the 100th anniversary of the height of the Spanish flu pandemic which is believed to have killed 3 per cent of the worlds population. Spanish flu: There is little evidence it originated in Spain, but news of the disease first appeared in the Spanish press, because the country was not subject to the wartime reporting restrictions of most European countries, so it was assumed it started there. French flu: Virologist John Oxford has suggested the disease crossed to humans at taples, a transit and hospital site in the Great War. Besides harbouring large numbers of men with weakened lungs, it also had a piggery and poultry farm animals known to play a role in the development of strains of the influenza virus. American flu: An outbreak of flu at Fort Riley in Kansas in March 1918 affected soldiers who had not yet travelled to European battlefields. Many died either in Kansas or on the journey to Europe. Chinese flu: China has been a frequent breeding ground for avian flu in recent times, and a virulent outbreak hit northern China in late 1917. Interest has focused on the 96,000 Chinese labourers who worked on the Western Front. Year of Indigenous Language: UN Year of the periodic table of chemical elements: UN Year of Green Action: UK government Year of Discovery: Business Wales Year of Culture: Horsham and District Year of Rembrandt: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Bets are off A reminder of what the soothsayers said would happen in 2018: Start of a world war which will last 27 years; a major eruption of Mount Vesuvius: Nostradamus, as interpreted by investment tip sheet lomardiletter.com Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will split up before the wedding and the Queen will announce her retirement, with Prince Charles taking on her duties: Lyndsay Edwards, clairvoyant A nasty new superbug: Old Moores Almanac A large US ship will sink within the year. It is potentially a warship of some kind and may have something to do with an accident or an attack of some kind. However, the exact cause is unclear. Some believe this could have something to do with the rising tensions between North Korea and the US: Psychics4Today.com | https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/01/how-spanish-was-the-spanish-flu/ |
Will 2019 be Jeremy Corbyns year? | Its hard to think of a time when an opposition leader has had such a promising start to the new year. Jeremy Corbyn finds himself up against a prime minister who barely survived a confidence motion, with more than a third of the Conservative parliamentary party voting against her. The Tories have no majority of their own and have fallen out with their partner, the DUP. That same government is facing a make-or-break Brexit vote in two weeks time. Its quite possible some cabinet members believe probable that it may soon collapse with a new general election called. All Labour needs is to be ready. In parliament, Corbyns closest allies are trying to do just that. A plan for government is being put together, identifying which piece of legislation would be needed to make various manifesto pledges happen quickly should Labour take power. The aim is to move fast, as Tony Blair did in 1997. In such turbulent times, even a Labour government might not last for long so the Corbynistas intend not to waste any time. Before they get there, however, there is work to do. The priority is to get through Brexit without fatally wounding the partys electoral chances in the process. Most Labour MPs are die-hard Remainers, and a recent poll showed that seven in ten party members favour a second referendum. Until now, Corbyn has managed to keep a coalition of voters broadly together by being incredibly vague and, at times, contradictory on Brexit. His official policy is to get to No. 10, then renegotiate the Brexit deal so that it aligns better with Labour party values on issues like workers rights. To do this, Labour plans to defeat the government in a confidence motion after the meaningful vote this month. If Theresa May does lose a confidence motion, the Commons would have 14 days to approve an alternative government. Should it fail, the country goes to the polls. One scenario being talked up is that May wins her vote (potentially after some Brexit concessions), thanks to a number of Labour abstentions and support from opposition MPs representing Leave seats. But this enrages the DUP, which then votes with Labour to bring May down. Within certain Labour circles this is seen as the tidier option. You avoid looking complicit in no deal. You can, in theory, then fight an election on domestic policy, explains a party insider. Ideally with the same leader: in May they trust. Past performance suggests that if the Tories begin an election with her as their leader they will do worse than expected. The second scenario would see the governments Brexit deal defeated (which, as things stand, is more likely). This would put Britain on course for a no-deal Brexit. At this point, the most enthusiastic Tory Remainers may conclude that they cannot vote this down unless they vote their government down. That might have once sounded unthinkable but in the topsy-turvy world of Brexit, theres reason to think some might. Conservative MP Nick Boles has already said he would vote in any way necessary to stop it from happening. Unless parliament can agree on a different course of action, the UK will leave the EU without a deal in 12 weeks time. This has been the default position since Article 50 was approved by MPs. If it cannot be extended in time, under this scenario a snap poll could occur amid a Brexit on WTO terms something many Labour supporters would find hard to swallow and might blame the leadership for. It would also leave the matter of Brexit open, which, as a general rule, tends to make life more difficult for Corbyn. Even without a general election, Corbyn will come under increasing pressure to back a second referendum. Party members tried to make this party policy at Labour conference. John McDonnell and Diane Abbott, both Corbyn allies who help to make the big Brexit decisions, are seen as open to the idea of a Peoples Vote if an election doesnt happen. But a number of Corbyns advisers believe this would badly hurt Labours electoral chances by alienating towns that voted heavily to leave, such as Mansfield, where the Tories had a surprise victory in the snap election. Winning support in Leave towns is seen as crucial for winning a Labour majority. Internal Labour polling also suggests that there is no huge appetite for a second referendum among the population at large. Instead, the overall feeling is one of apathy and ennui. Focus groups in the Midlands an area with numerous swing seats and several Labour marginals with two-figure majorities found even Remain voters sceptical of the idea of a Peoples Vote. Were Labour to endorse a second vote, theres concern that Labour Leave voters might accuse the party of Brexit betrayal and defect to Ukip, the Conservatives or not vote at all. This is viewed as a greater risk to Corbyn than annoying Remain voters, who are seen as less likely to vote for anyone else. Just look how the beleaguered Liberal Democrats fared in 2017 running on a pro-EU slate. Overall, Corbyns allies are confident that, Brexit aside, things are going their way. And that when the Brexit tide eventually does roll out, the Tories will be found to be swimming naked. Theyre going to have to find out what theyre actually for in a way that they havent since the referendum result, says one Labour staffer. Theresa Mays paralysis on Brexit means that the Conservative partys domestic agenda is threadbare. This is what Corbyns hope rests on: that record numbers now think that the country is moving in the wrong direction. And that there has been a reversal in public opinion in the past five years in people who thought tackling the deficit was more important than investment in services and communities. Election or not, this year should present an open goal for Labour. Internal critics, however, point to the fact that Corbyn is fairly well practised in missing open goals. Given all of last years Conservative problems, they say the Labour leader should be surging ahead in the polls rather than neck-and-neck. The final YouGov poll of last year even gave the Tories a two-point lead. But given that Corbyn went into the last election 20 points behind and came a close second, his allies are still optimistic. Put it this way: if its not, it might never be. On the Spectator Podcast, Katy Balls discusses Corbyns chances with Conor Pope, deputy editor of Progress, a centre left campaign group. | https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/01/will-2019-be-jeremy-corbyns-year/ |
Whats next for the Blackfoot pool facility? | Share This BLACKFOOT After the third bond failed for the Blackfoot city pool, the mayor has decided its time to move forward and repurpose the facility. The pool closed its doors two months ago following the election Nov. 6. City Councilman Chris Jensen says the mayor wants to find out what locals want to put in the pools place. We could reopen it as a pool, which I know the mayor wont entertain, or we have to turn it into something of equal recreational value, Councilman Chris Jensen tells EastIdahoNews.com. The status is called conversion status. Jensen says there may potentially be talks of a splash pad, a recreational court or a tennis court. RELATED: Blackfoot Pool closes for good Jensen says the pool cant receive financial funding from the federal government now that its been shut down. It was originally built as a federally funded recreational facility. He says in order to maintain the building, its imperative that whatever replaces the facility be of the same recreational caliber. Since its closed, they basically said, No more money for you,' Jensen says. He says the federal government will determine if the facility is of equal recreational value. He says the city cant duplicate something they already own and it must be new. Jensen says the city already has a greenbelt, a racquetball court and a park. Jensen says hes been an advocate for the pool and feels he stands alone on the council in his thinking. He says its been a benefit to the city for 40 years and it would have been beneficial to make the repairs in order to keep the pool going. Ive always said I think we need a pool, Jensen says. Ive always said that and thats how I still feel. Locals can attend the meeting to express their opinion at the Nuart Theatre at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 9. | https://www.eastidahonews.com/2019/01/whats-next-for-the-blackfoot-pool-facility/ |
How worried should we be about China's economy? | The cracks in China's economy appear to be widening, with signs of weakening growth amid a background of trade tensions. Adding to the worries, China's stock market was the world's worst performer last year, ending with a loss of 28%. This week Apple said slowing sales in China meant it would not meet sales expectations, triggering sharp falls on global stock markets. The tech giant isn't alone. A string of other companies have issued warnings recently over China's slowdown and the impact of the trade war with the US. Among those are carmakers such as General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler. Luxury vehicle maker Jaguar Land Rover has also warned of slowing Chinese sales. This week, Robin Li, chief executive of Chinese search engine Baidu, used an infamous phrase from Game of Thrones to warn employees that "winter is coming" as the local economy cools. However, not all Western brands are struggling in China. In September, Nike said sales in Greater China shot up 24%. Lululemon, another activewear maker, also reported strong sales growth in China last year. China's economic growth has been slowing in recent years and is now running at 6.5% annually, still a breakneck pace compared with anything in the developed world but about half the rate the country had been racking up for more than 20 years. And the latest batch of economic news suggest this slowdown is deepening, not helped by the trade war with the US. Data out this week showed manufacturing activity contracted for the first time in 19 months. New orders have fallen and retail sales eased. Firms have reported softer demand despite some discounting. Louis Kuijs, head of Asia economics at Oxford Economics, sees GDP growth "bottoming out" around the second quarter of this year, and expects an annual growth rate of 6.1%. But he does not see it deteriorating much further: "While China's economy is slowing down, it is not tanking and Apple's profit warning is not a good proxy for the health of the overall economy or even overall consumer spending." Long-term challenges The Chinese economy also has deeper problems that need addressing. George Magnus, research associate at Oxford University's China Centre, points to serious and growing worries over the lack of regulation that sets doing business in China apart from that of the rest of the world. These include China's complex and shady "shadow banking" problem of unregulated lenders, its cyber espionage activities and lax protection of intellectual property rights. The authorities are not standing idle. They are spending more on infrastructure to spur demand and have been cutting interest rates. Serious turbulence in China now would matter a great deal more than it would have 10 or 20 years ago. At the turn of the century, China accounted for about 7% of global economic activity. This year the figure is likely to be 19%. And Chinese industry is closely integrated into international supply chains. The rapid growth over the past 25 years has propelled China to second place in the league table of the world's biggest economies. Mr Magnus says that China's economy is now so large it pretty much determines the global price of a huge range of products. Half of all the world's steel, copper, coal and cement goes to China, as well as about half of the world's pork output and a third of its rice. So if it isn't buying, the price is likely to fall. DBS Bank strategists Taimur Baig and Nathan Chow say the key issue for the global economy is "the depth of China's economic malaise". "A steadily slowing China imparts a major drag to the world economy in any case. Add to this fears of the decline being disorderly, all other risks pale in comparison." However, Mr Magnus says fears shouldn't be overstated: "I don't think anyone is thinking at the moment that China's economy is about to fall off a precipice, it's just that everything has come off considerably from elevated levels it has been at for the last decade or more." | https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46755158 |
Will the Government Ever Reopen? | Trumps message, meanwhile, was dizzyingly dissonant. He tried to present a rosier picture of the situation even as he simultaneously threatened to keep the government shuttered indefinitely and suggested that he could declare a national emergency to have the wall built without congressional approval. At one point, he said he had a great meeting with Pelosi, Schumer, and other congressional leaders. He predicted the shutdown would be over sooner than people think. But in the next breath, he said he was girding for a lengthy fight. If we have to stay out for a very long period of time, were going to do that, Trump declared. Regarding an emergency declaration, he said, We can call a national emergency and build it very quickly, and its another way of doing it. The president also shrugged off concerns about the welfare of the hundreds of thousands of federal employees who will go without paychecks for the duration of the shutdown. Despite polls showing that a plurality of the public blames him for the closures, Trump claimed that most federal workers supported his demand for wall funding. I believe a lot of them want to see border security and theyre willing to give it up, the president claimed. He ignored questions asking him for evidence or details backing up his assertion. At another point, he said a former president had told him he regretted not building a wall during his time in office. Trump did not say which one. The only living Republican ex-president is George W. Bush, who signed legislation authorizing fencing at the southern border but who has never publicly voiced support for Trumps proposed wall. Fridays White House meeting came a day after Democrats reclaimed the House majority and installed Pelosi as speaker for the second time. Within hours of taking over, they passed two bills aimed at reopening the government, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said neither will get a vote in the Senate, because they lack Trumps support. Trumps challenge, however, may be wavering Republican support. Seven GOP lawmakers in the House sided with Democrats on one of the bills to reopen the government, and two Republican senators, Cory Gardner of Colorado and Susan Collins of Maine, have called for votes on legislation even if it lacks funding for a wall. McConnell was noticeably absent from Trumps Rose Garden press conference despite attending the meeting that preceded it. The majority leader has signaled that hell follow Trumps lead on the negotiations rather than pit his members against the president. So far, a president who likes setting records is leading his party fast toward another one, however dubious an achievement it might be. We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to [email protected]. | https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/01/trump-shutdown-could-last-months-or-even-years/579535/?utm_source=feed |
Can EE's new speedy 4G+ handset be a winner? | Its all about speed. That seems to be the message coming from EE with the launch of the Hawk this week. Its a snazzy looking all-glass phone but its not its looks thats the main selling point. What EE is using to pull in the punters is the speed of downloads, specifically the use of 4G+. The new phone is Cat 6-compliant, which means that its able to handle 4G+ speeds if it can find coverage that is. 4G+ is a bit of a strange beast as EE doesnt devote a single frequency band to it. The operator has four frequency bands in the UK with 1800MHz and 800MHz being used for the core 4G service. In addition, EE has a 2600MHz which provides some additional coverage in heavily built-up areas it is this last named that provides the basis for the 4G+ service, theres no single, dedicated band. Its not the only possible approach, O2s 4G+ service uses the 800MHz and 1800MHz bands. To ratify the products credentials, EE has showcased the product as being able to produce download speed of 238Mbps at Wembley stadium. Thats a significant place to hold a trial it may hold a prominent place in English sporting consciousness but as far as EE is concerned, its key selling point is that its slap-bang in the middle of EE 4G+s nascent network. It also helps that EE sponsors the stadium, its all makes it mightily convenient as a test-bed. It was only this year that the company demonstrated 75OMbps running on 4G under specialized test conditions of course. In theory, the phone should be able to reach speeds of 300Mbps, although in practice, were never going to hit anything like that. And its this uncertainty thats going to prove to be a big stumbling block. Weve certainly not reached peak 4G+ network yet and it must be questionable whether we ever will. EE has certainly made a good start rolling out the technology, its covered a big part of London. Its true that its not universal, the map of London coverage looks rather like a Rorschach ink-blot But EE is certainly not being London-centric about it: its also rolled out the service in Birmingham, Manchester and various other cities. Its pretty hard to find out where exactly even EEs own coverage checker tool on its website only offers a choice of 2G, 3G and 4G coverage. But, there is some coverage and its in the big cities. EE is not alone in doing this: Vodafone is also rolling out 4G+ services in London, Manchester and Birmingham. O2 and Three are also starting to introduce the service but are lagging behind the other two operators. And Virgin, while it uses the EE network does not offer any form of 4G+. Two questions So, there are two fundamental questions to be answered. Are phone users in such of a such for faster download speeds, that were happy to go for a halfway house service, particularly when a fully-formed, standardized 5G service is just a few years away. The second, more fundamental question, is whether download speed is really such a big promotional selling point. A GfK survey last month looked at what customers looked for in mobile phones and what came out top, by some way, was extended battery life. There are certainly going to be some people attracted by higher speeds no-one wants anything to be slower but there are certainly going to be questions about whether customers want a halfway standard. But theres a bigger question around the Hawk: do customers, even those who favor faster speeds, consider those speeds to be the single reason to buy a phone -that seems to be what EE is basing its Hawk launch on. There are cheaper phones to be had; there are phones with higher specs to be had; there are certainly phones with better cameras, EE seems to be betting that the punters will sacrifice all this for those extra few bits a second. And if people really did want to use 4G+, there are plenty of better phones on the market that will support the technology any phone that supports Cat 6 will. So, all iPhones above iPhone 6 or Samsungs above S6 will handle it. The betting is that businesses will be rushing to buy these models rather than one whose only USP is a 4G+ network, a technology whose time has not yet come ... and may never come. Whether it will be worth buying, we cant say, but EE's own-brand phones such as the EE Harrier and EE Kestrel have generally been fairly accomplished, though we were less impressed by the EE Rook. | https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/can-speed-make-hawk-a-winner |
Who Are The Gambians Who Died In An Accident In Itlay? | Mr Mbaye Ndiaye of Senegal brought the bodies of Alassana Darboe, Musa Touray and Alhaji Ceesay for burial as a sign of solidarity. Categories Categories Select Category Advertisement (1) Africa (136) Agriculture (81) Arts & Music (75) Business (93) Disability (11) Editorial (1,018) Education (107) Farmers Eye (125) Future Generation (41) General News (169) Governance and Democracy (67) Health (114) Human Rights (109) International (253) Latest News (8,207) Burning Issues (821) Legal Affairs (456) National (1,548) Sports (1,944) Letters (4) Marriage & Family (424) Opinion (12) Politics (176) Press Release (173) Public Institutions (83) Readers Word (35) Student (19) Those Who Need Help (56) Tribute (36) Woman & Development (37) Your Representative (340) Archives Archives Select Month January 2019 (33) December 2018 (206) November 2018 (258) October 2018 (279) September 2018 (215) August 2018 (176) July 2018 (283) June 2018 (263) May 2018 (234) April 2018 (197) March 2018 (230) February 2018 (190) January 2018 (218) December 2017 (203) November 2017 (247) October 2017 (200) September 2017 (256) August 2017 (262) July 2017 (219) June 2017 (149) May 2017 (162) April 2017 (182) March 2017 (167) February 2017 (203) January 2017 (231) December 2016 (200) November 2016 (208) October 2016 (179) September 2016 (158) August 2016 (198) July 2016 (153) June 2016 (125) May 2016 (180) April 2016 (203) March 2016 (140) February 2016 (158) January 2016 (172) December 2015 (157) November 2015 (214) October 2015 (173) September 2015 (189) August 2015 (223) July 2015 (172) June 2015 (216) May 2015 (180) April 2015 (210) March 2015 (217) February 2015 (177) January 2015 (213) December 2014 (183) November 2014 (170) October 2014 (217) September 2014 (162) August 2014 (184) July 2014 (153) June 2014 (68) | https://foroyaa.gm/who-are-the-gambians-who-died-in-an-accident-in-itlay/ |
Are Netflix and Etsy Stock Buys? | Shares of streaming-TV company Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) and online marketplace Etsy (NASDAQ: ETSY) are both soaring Friday following a bullish note from Goldman Sachs analysts (via Barron's). The analysts gave shout-outs to Netflix and Etsy as the firm noted that internet stocks are looking compelling after a sharp broader-market pullback in the fourth quarter of 2018. Shares of Netflix and Etsy were up 8.3% and 9.2%, respectively, as of 12:35 a.m. EST. Here's a look at why Goldman has an optimistic view for both of these stocks, as well as some additional analysis on each. Continue Reading Below Netflix "We believe Netflix represents one of the best risk/reward propositions in the Internet sector," said Goldman about the stock. Highlighting Goldman's bullishness on the stock, the firm added it to its America's Conviction List and maintained its buy rating. Shares of Netflix were slammed in the second half of 2018, falling 36% between highs achieved last July and the end of the year. With the streaming-TV company's earnings per share soaring as Netflix's stock price declined, the company's price-to-earnings ratio dropped sharply. Today, Netflix trades with a P/E of 105, compared to a P/E close to 300 last summer. Of course, Netflix's P/E still prices in significant earnings growth over the coming years. But its 185% year-over-year increase in earnings per share for the trailing-nine-month period ending Sept. 30, 2018, highlights the company's ability to deliver uncanny earnings-per-share growth. Etsy Advertisement The market may be underestimating the impact of Etsy's move last year to increase the fees it charges sellers on its platform, according to Goldman analysts. Goldman upgraded the stock from a neutral rating to a buy rating. Etsy impressed investors in November when it reported better-than-expected earnings per share for its third quarter. The outperformance was driven by Etsy's higher seller fees, which allowed the company to increase investments in marketing and growth opportunities. Shares surged about 26% after the report. Despite the market's optimistic response to Etsy's third quarter, shares still finished the fourth quarter of 2018 down 5% as a broader-market sell-off pressured Etsy's stock price. Of course, the jump in Etsy's stock price on Friday means shares are now up more than 1% since Oct. 1 of last year, crushing the S&P 500's 13% decline during this same time frame. Etsy's new pricing structure, which charges sellers 5% of sales instead of a previous fee of 3.5% of sales, could be a boon to Etsy's top- and bottom-line growth while enabling the company to reinvest in its business more aggressively. 10 stocks we like better than NetflixWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has quadrupled the market. * David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy right now... and Netflix wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys. Click here to learn about these picks! *Stock Advisor returns as of November 14, 2018 Daniel Sparks owns shares of Netflix. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Etsy and Netflix. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. | https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/are-netflix-and-etsy-stock-buys |
Will the Warriors youth movement eventually pay off? | * * * Subscribe to the Mercury News and East Bay Times for $40 a year and receive a free Warriors championship coffee table book* * * OAKLAND As the Warriors have navigated through a grind otherwise known as the regular season, they drove through various speed bumps. They have handled complacency. They have faced every opposing teams best effort and scouting report. They absorbed two overlapping injuries to their All-Stars in Stephen Curry and Draymond Green. They even had some in-fighting with that infamous Green and Kevin Durant argument. The Warriors (25-14) also have encountered another road hazard entering Saturdays game against the Sacramento Kings (19-19). They constructed their roster to feature more young players in bigger roles. But the Warriors have experienced mixed progress with that transition. Its been a learning curve, for sure, Curry said. We talked about going into this year that it was highlighted a lot and it was going to be a big part of our depth. Honestly, theres been some growing pains. That pain has affected the Warriors in various ways. The Warriors did not retain their veteran centers in Zaza Pachulia (Detroit Pistons), JaVale McGee (Los Angeles Lakers) and David West (retirement). That way, the Warriors could allocate more playing time for third-year center Damian Jones, fourth-year forward Kevon Looney and second-year forward Jordan Bell until DeMarcus Cousins returned from a left Achilles tendon injury. Before all three experienced varying learning curves, Jones suffered a season-ending injury last month to his left pectoral muscle. The Warriors have essentially swapped training camp invitee Alfonzo McKinnie for Patrick McCaw, who recently accepted Clevelands two-year $6 million offer sheet after holding out through all of training camp and the first three months of the regular season. Fourth-year guard Quinn Cook experienced sporadic playing time after thriving last year as a two-way player with the Warriors and their G-League team. Warriors rookie guard Jacob Evans has not played much at all after the Warriors selected him with the No. 28 pick out of University of Cincinnati. Sign up for Mark Medinas private text messaging service. * * * The youth movement that weve talked about has not unfolded given Damians injury and the Pat situation, Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. But its one of those things that can turn. You never know how its all going to play out. Thats the thing with the NBA and like life. You dont know whats going to happen tomorrow or today. You just have to adapt and move on. Therefore, Warriors general manager Bob Myers argued you have to be flexible in how youre evaluating all of this stuff. I always think as far as anything to do with the roster, its better to answer those questions in June, Myers said. Until you play the whole season and see exactly what guys can do in the playoffs, you dont really know. Many players can be great in the regular season and not perform in the playoffs. Realistically, thats what makes a great team. Its what you can do in the playoffs. So you build your roster and see there. If you do well, great. If you dont, you take another crack at it next season and address areas you felt you were deficient. Handling the big man rotation The Warriors immediately addressed a deficiency at their center position last summer by acquiring Cousins for their taxpayer mid-level exception ($5.3 million). Even if Cousins encountered a depressed market because of questions about his injury, plenty in the NBA cried foul for what the Warriors did. After all, they became the first team since the 1975-76 Celtics to have five starters that played on the NBA All-Star team the previous season. Therefore, the Warriors viewed Cousins arrival as a luxury instead of a necessity. Worst-case scenario, the Warriors could lean on their four All-Stars in Curry, Durant, Green and Thompson just as they did in two consecutive NBA championship runs. Therefore, the Warriors carved out bigger roles for Jones, Looney and Bell both to accelerate their development and inject energy into a veteran group. At first, the experiment worked. The Warriors started out with a 10-1 record. They leaned on Jones as their starting center. Though he faced inconsistency with foul trouble and decision making, Jones provided enough of a lob threat that the Warriors guaranteed his $2.1 million option for next season. But then the Warriors lost Curry (11 games) and Green (13 games), which both minimized Jones lob threat and exposed his defensive limitations without Greens guidance. Teams are going to expect his presence. He has more opportunities for me to be open, Jones said of Curry. I just tried to do whatever it took, and whatever the team needed me to do. Despite Jones persistent foul trouble, Kerr stayed patient with him. He also remained mindful that Currys return would help improve the spacing to maximize Jones lob threat. Incidentally, Jones suffered a season-ending injury against Detroit on Dec. 1, which also marked the first game that Curry returned. Without Jones, the Warriors has usually started Jones at center and occasionally started veteran Jonas Jerebko at power forward and shifting Green to center. Only occasionally did Bell log meaningful minutes because Kerr has believed he lacks consistency. The common denominator among all of those combinations: the Warriors still remained undersized when matching up against traditional centers. Looney became equipped for the role because of his defensive versatility that leans on switching and using his athleticism to make up for his 6-foot-9, 220-pound frame. But despite his modest progress in expanding his outside shooting, Looneys limited offensive game has not produced the kind of floor spacing the Warriors need. Its been different. With our bigs, we were already slim up front, Looney said. With [Damian], hes a lob threat. Its been an adjustment for me and the whole team [without him]. Were not as deep on the front, anymore. Even with that limited frontcourt depth, Kerr has remained reluctant to give Bell a bigger role. Perhaps more minutes await after Bell posted 10 points on 5-of-5 shooting and six rebounds in 16 minutes against Phoenix after Looney became plagued with foul trouble (four). Before that, though, Bell logged single-digit minutes appearances in five games and had a healthy scratch in another game. Its tough to always be confident in yourself when your minutes are down, Bell said. Whether I got in or not, I tried to stay as confident as possible. Jacob Evans has not played as much as anticipated Nearly a week before the Warriors acquired an All-Star center, they believed they already upgraded their roster through the NBA draft. Then, the Warriors used their No. 28 pick on Evans, who had impressed the Warriors in two workouts with his defensive hustle and outside shooting. The Warriors also liked Evans positional versatility after averaging 11.7 points while finishing fifth in school history in 3-point shooting (37.7 percent) through three seasons at the University of Cincinnati. I dont think Steve is going to have any problem putting him out there, Myers said following the draft. He seems like a hard worker and will get better. The Warriors may still like Evans work ethic and defensive potential. But Kerr has not shown much comfort in granting Evans time just to eat minutes and provide energy. He has averaged .6 points per game while shooting 22.7 percent from the field and 16.7 percent from 3-point range in 4.3 minutes per game in 20 appearances. Those were hardly the kind of numbers Evans posted with the Bearcats. He was one of their lead scorers and one of their lead guys. Now were asking him to be a role player. Thats a hard transition to make, Kerr said. You have to find your niche, no matter who you are. If you want to play in the NBA, you have to find who you are and what you want to be. I think thats the process Jacob is going through this year that were trying to help him. The Warriors have sent Evans down to Santa Cruz multiple times between games so he can at least play. Still, Evans has averaged only 9.3 points while shooting 38.5 percent from the field and 28.6 percent from the perimeter in six games with Santa Cruz. The Warriors have also had Evans change the arc in his shot. Nonetheless, the Warriors say they are not evaluating Evans on just his shooting numbers. Hes very encouraging. Hes being aggressive. Hes looking to shoot and looking to score, which is part of what we want him to do, Kerr said. Part of it is just playing. When you first come into the league, you just need to play. The more you can play, the better. You just got to feel comfortable. Its A different game from college. Besides their third NBA championship in four years, the Warriors other feel-good story last season involved Cook. After experiencing roster cuts in Cleveland (2015), New Orleans (2016, 2017), Dallas (2017) and Atlanta (2017), the Warriors signed Cook to a two-way contract. His value soon extended to the regular-season roster. He averaged 14.6 points on 49.3 percent shooting and 3.9 assists in 18 games as a starter during Currys absence because of overlapping ankle and knee injuries. The Warriors then signed Cook to the teams playoff roster and for this season. The Warriors showed that commitment from a contractual standpoint. But even when accounting for Currys 11-game absence this season, Cook has averaged fewer minutes (15.5) than last season (22.4). You can go a game without playing or you can get thrown into the rotation the next game. So its all about staying ready, Cook said. Were trying to figure some things out and see certain groups together, different combinations. Were still trying to figure it out. Cook experienced seven healthy scratches with the Warriors still starting Curry as usual and leaning more on veteran reserve Shaun Livingston. McKinnies early emergence on defense also came at Cooks expense. But Cook has logged double-digit minutes in two of the past three games. That has coincided with Kerr staggering Curry and Durant so that the second unit has stronger reinforcements. Kerr has often paired Cook with Durant because, as Cook observed, me and him have a great rapport with finding each other. Quinn is a crucial player for us, Kerr said. With his ability to shoot the ball and space the floor and his professionalism and energy, we need all of that. Alfonzo McKinnie helped minimize the loss to McCaw The Warriors have also needed everything from McKinnie. After all, the Warriors entered training camp believing they would finalize a deal with McCaw. But he declined both the Warriors $1.7 million qualifying offer and a two-year, $5.2 million deal that included a non-guarantee on his second season. The Warriors still had question marks on McCaws trajectory. He had missed the final six regular-season games and first 15 playoff games because of a spine contusion injury. Before that, McCaw averaged only 4.0 points while shooting 40.9 percent from the field and 23.8 percent from 3-point range, a decrease from his shooting numbers his rookie season both from the field (43.3 percent) and from the perimeter (33.3 percent). Still, the Warriors had paid Milwaukee $2.5 million for their No. 38 pick in 2016 to draft McCaw. The Warriors also had hoped to re-sign him on a cap friendly deal as part of the teams youth movement. As the Warriors discovered during Andre Iguodalas absence in parts of the Western Conference Finals (Games 3-7) and NBA Finals (Games 1-2), the Warriors needed wing depth. So with McCaws holdout extending into training camp, McKinnie became increasingly valuable. The Warriors signed the undrafted wing player after already playing for the G-League in Chicago and Toronto as well as on a non-guaranteed deal with the Raptors. They quickly fell in love with his defense, athleticism and shooting, three qualities the Warriors wanted McCaw to show with more consistency. Before nursing a sore left foot that sidelined him for nine games, McKnnie opened the season averaged 6.3 points while shooting 51.3 percent from the field and 48.4 percent from 3-point range along with 3.8 rebounds in 15.7 minutes through 16 appearances. We didnt plan for him, Myers said of McKinnie. He just plays that spot with Pat waiting. So credit to him. Hes been good for us. Since his injury, McKinnie had regressed in points (4.3), shooting percentage (39.7 percent) and 3-point shooting (21.7 percent). But he also became the product of Kerrs tightened rotation in an overtime loss to Portland (three minutes), something Kerr has since regretted. McKinnie also had five points on 2-of-2 shooting and two rebounds in only five minutes against Houston. During his highs and low, McKinnie maintained he hardly thought much about the implications on replacing McCaw or cementing a deal that wont become guaranteed until Jan. 10. I have no control over what management does or what decisions they make. I can only control and how hard I play, McKinnie said. Ive always been that way. I never stressed over things I had no control over. Likewise, the Warriors believe there is little point in evaluating the teams youth movement over halfway through season. Yes, they may not have received the early returns they were expecting. Yes, the Warriors have missed additional veteran voices from West and Pachulia as well as specialized roles with Wests playmaking, Pachulias screen setting and McGees lob threat. And yet Were happy with it. Its been a little hard to really evaluate it with the injuries, Myers said. But I think well have a better sense once DeMarcus comes back and what our role is going to play and how many minutes are they going to play. Even amid that uncertainty, various team accounts praised the young players for staying disciplined with their routine. They often arrive to practice early to complete drills and shooting workouts with Chris DeMarcos, Warriors assistant coach and director of player development. During the Warriors frequent optional days, those players still report to the practice facility for individual workouts and scrimmages. As Bell said, were always in the gym playing with each other and keeping our conditioning up and really pushing each other. We dont get caught up in how many minutes you play or how many points you scored this night or whatever. Were a part of this great franchise and legendary team, Cook said. We get to learn from champions every day. So if youre not playing or you are playing, every day being here and being on this team, were getting better. Related Articles Kurtenbach: The Warriors latest loss is a reminder of who their top rival is. Curry pledges the teams veterans will improve its play to relieve added pressure. Looney has worked on minimizing fouls and expanding his shooting. Bell has vowed to keep his awareness and intensity consistent. McKinnie has thrived on hustle plays regardless of minutes and shooting performances. Cook has maintained he will remain aggressive with his playmaking and comfortable with his shot, regardless of erratic playing time. While Jones has slowly worked on conditioning drills, he has also watched footage so he feels prepared better next season. Therefore in April, May and June, perhaps the Warriors will have a better return on investing in their young players. Watch all you want from the bench, but theres nothing like game experience, Looney said. Experience were getting now will make us better at the end of the year. That will make coach trust us more and have more confidence in us. Seeing us play earlier in the season will help us get better. WARRIORS HQ PODCAST: Be sure to visit our podcast page at mercurynews.com. You can also get notified of new episodes on iTunes, Google Play Music, Spotify, Stitcher and SoundCloud. * * * * * * Follow Bay Area News Group Warriors beat writer Mark Medina on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. | https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/01/04/will-the-warriors-youth-movement-eventually-pay-off/ |
Will the government shutdown halt research at Northeast Ohio universities? | CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Research at universities wont likely stop during the government shutdown, but that doesnt mean that faculty and administration wont feel the effects. A partial government shutdown began Dec. 22, 2018, and President Donald Trump said on Friday that it could go on for months, even years, if Democrats dont approve funding for a border wall Trump promised during his campaign in 2016. The shutdown left thousands of federal workers at home or unpaid. Graduate students who conduct research projects funded with federal money wont be told to stay out of the lab, though. Universities typically pay student salaries and then apply for reimbursements from the federal government. Chemicals, machines and other necessities for research are also purchased through this method. When the government shuts down, it preventing universities from getting the money back -- potentially for months. Researchers have to be careful about how they spend. In a sense the university is kind of acting like a bank, Suzanne Rivera, vice president for research at the Case Western Reserve University Office of Research and Technology Management, said. The University of Akron handles the shutdown the same way, George Chase, director of research for science, engineering, math and technology, said, so researchers wont feel the effects. It depends on the agencies on how often reimbursement occurs. Some only pay a few times a year, others reimburse monthly. An area where faculty could see the delay is in applying for funding. Part of a professors job is applying for funding to pay for research. When the government agency that takes those applications isnt operational, there can be no new submissions and those already submitted will be delayed for approval. CWRU faculty who spent their Winter Break finishing up extremely detailed grant proposals now have to wait to submit them, pushing back the timelines of projects, Rivera said. Not all government agencies are closed, including the National Institute of Health, one of the major sources of funding for CWRU. Those offices received approval for funding before the shutdown. But other agencies, including the National Science Foundation, NASA and the National Endowment for the Humanities, are closed. Even if the shutdown were to end next week, there would be months-worth of effects, Rivera said. Read more about how the shutdown is affecting workers or how it might affect your taxes. | https://www.cleveland.com/news/2019/01/will-the-government-shutdown-halt-research-at-northeast-ohio-universities.html |
Who will get Ontarios first legal pot shops? | The other communities in the region include Dufferin-Wellington, Niagara, Haldimand-Norfolk, Brant, Waterloo, Perth, Oxford, Elgin, Chatham-Kent, Essex, Lambton, Middlesex, Huron, Bruce, Grey and Manitoulin. Brown says she's not happy that the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario is overseeing the process and would rather see a third party oversee the selection. She's worried the stores will go to the "big businesses" and not the mom-and-pop shops. But she says she'll follow any rule for the chance to get a legal store. The lottery winners will be posted Jan. 11. The fee to apply is $75, but the AGCO is looking for people and businesses ready to go for April 1. Within five days of publishing the lottery winners, the 25 selected will need to submit a $6,000 non-refundable retail operator licence application and have a $50,000 letter of credit. There will be stiff penalties for those not ready to go. Those prohibited from applying include AGCO and Ontario Cannabis Store employees and those affiliated with licensed growers. Experts know 25 stores will not be near enough to meet the demand for legal cannabis. The government said the initial offering is just a "temporary cap" until next December while the industry stabilizes. For Brown the dream of owning a legal cannabis store has been a long time coming. Her first advocacy work came more than 20 years ago when she was in Grade 9 at Burlington Central High School. She had been voted onto student council and her first order of business was to try to organize a pro-legal pot rally in front of Burlington City Hall, she says. When the administration got wind, she was "very swiftly ejected" from student council. Years later, she tried to get authorization from her doctor for medical marijuana for anxiety, but her doctor, who knew nothing about cannabis, declined. She eventually got a licence. She recalls people started turning to her for medical cannabis advice she didn't feel equipped to answer. So Brown says she started taking courses and training, including online through the Medical Cannabis Institute in the United States. That grew into her consulting business, which involves everything from home visits to client advocacy. Brown also helps organize cannabis events. The latest is Buds n' Brews, where participants can bring their own cannabis and pair it with beer. Food will also be available. The event is at MERK Snack Bar, 189 Ottawa St. N. Tickets are $60 and available at professionalcannabisconsulting.ca. The City of Hamilton is looking for more feedback from the public, police and bylaw officials. An online survey has already received more than 14,500 responses. It can be filled out at Hamilton.ca until Jan. 9. [email protected] 905-526-3199 | @NicoleatTheSpec [email protected] 905-526-3199 | @NicoleatTheSpec | https://www.thespec.com/news-story/9110553-who-will-get-ontario-s-first-legal-pot-shops-/ |
Could Kansas Become a Swing State in 2020? | Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) announced Friday he will not seek reelection in 2020. I will serve the remainder of this term as your senator, fighting for Kansas in these troubled times, the 82-year-old Republican said in remarks delivered from the Kansas Department of Agriculture. The senator boasted hed end his political career having never lost a race, a record he was damned proud of. Left unsaid was the fact that Roberts, now two-thirds of the way through his fourth term in the Senate, faced his toughest challenge yet during his most recent campaign in 2014, squeaking through the primary with just 48 percent of the vote and winning the general election by a slimmer-than-usual margin of nine points. Kansas Democrats said Friday the party was well-positioned to take the open seat. Well-positioned might be a stretch they havent won a Senate seat since 1932 but Democrats certainly have more reason now to be more optimistic about their chances than at any point in recent history. In 2018, Democrat Laura Kelly defeated arch-conservative Kris Kobach to become Kansas new governor-elect. Kelly was helped by a coalition of Republicans who rejected Kobach, calling him too extreme for Kansas. And hers wasnt the only high profile Democratic win last year: Sharice Davids, an openly-gay Native American, defeated Trumpist Republican Kevin Yoder to flip a GOP-controlled Congressional seat. And in December, three GOP state legislators switched parties, becoming Democrats and calling the Republican party too extreme. Improving Democrats odds in Kansas is the fact that the race will be held in a presidential election year when there is usually higher voter participation. Increased turnout typically favors Democrats and, if President Trumps approval rating continues to fall, that turnout could be even bigger than usual in 2020. And finally, theres the fact that Republicans will be on the defensive in the Senate, with more than 22 seats to try and hold on to compared to Democrats 12. Roberts retirement guarantees a crowded Republican field. Among the names already being floated to succeed him are Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, outgoing governor Jeff Colyer, as well as Kobach and Yoder. The race could represent a rematch of sorts for Colyer and Kobach, who faced off in the Republican primary for governor in 2018. | https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/kansas-2020-774625/ |
Which newly fired NFL head coach deserves a second chance? | Black Monday came calling for the jobs of six NFL head coaches. The 2018 regular season claimed two more heads. And, like clockwork, those fired coaches waded right back into the candidate pool as those eight teams begin the search for their next sideline leader. Hue Jackson got his interview with the Bengals. Adam Gase got the chance to talk to the Cardinals about their open position. Mike McCarthys talked with executives all over the league after his late-season dismissal. Some of these guys will get a second opportunity to be a head coach and thrive. Some will get a shot to change their legacy and fail miserably. And a few others will be relegated to coordinator roles for the rest of their coaching careers (good afternoon, Steve Wilks). Set the stage for a rebuild be acquiring back-to-back No. There are plenty of ways to go with this years crop of recently fired head coaches. Heres who wed roll with. The case for: former Buccaneers coach Dirk Koetter Any team hiring Koetter will have to deal with a huge caveat; he needs to be cantilevered by an extremely strong defensive coordinator. His undoing in Tampa Bay was a deficient defense with an aging core and few playmakers. Under Koetter, the Buccaneers ranked 23rd, 32nd, and 27th in the NFL when it came to yards allowed. But Koetters offenses improved from 18th to ninth to third when it came to yards gained, a tremendous feat accomplished with Ryan Fitzpatrick and Jameis Winston at quarterback and a running game led by Peyton Barber (3.7 yards per carry) and Jacquizz Rodgers. The former offensive coordinator found a way to build around his flawed quarterbacks, using Winstons season-opening three-game suspension to turn Fitzpatrick into one of the leagues most prolific passers and transforming Winston from a player who threw 10 interceptions in his first four starts to a steady hand who recorded a 100.1 passer rating over his final seven games. In a league where quarterback play has never been more important, Koetter has proven he can do more with less. While having a lead wideout as talent as Mike Evans has been a bit of a cheat code, hes also turned players like Chris Godwin and Adam Humphries into 800+ yard receivers thanks to his dynamic, pass heavy offense. You could hire him in Denver, give him a talented running back in Phillip Lindsay, and see if Case Keenum can reclaim his 2017 glory. You could hire him in Green Bay and see just how crazy Aaron Rodgers can be. Or you could throw him in with Baker Mayfield, Josh Rosen, or Sam Darnold and see if they can reach their potential in an offense built around their passing prowess. Koetter didnt get a fair shake in Tampa, sunk by an awful defense and doomed to back-to-back five-win seasons. But opponents knew the Bucs were going to throw the ball nearly 40 times per game with a pair of flawed QBs, and they still struggled to stop it the teams 8.2 yards per pass was the second-most efficient mark in the league in 2018. Thats enough to convince me Koetter deserves a second chance just get him a running game and a defense first. Christian DAndrea The case for: former Broncos coach Vance Joseph Find a coach that would be successful with Trevor Siemian, Paxton Lynch, Brock Osweiler, and Case Keenum at quarterback in a two-year span. This isnt to excuse the results (11-21 in those two seasons), but having extremely poor quarterback play is hard to overcome. According to Football Outsiders DVOA metric, Denver had the 31st-ranked passing offense in 2017 and the 24th-ranked passing offense this season. Joseph was the defensive coordinator for the Miami Dolphins before getting hired by the Broncos and the defense was effective under Joseph. In 2017, the Broncos defense was ranked 10th in DVOA and they were fifth this past season. Joseph has proven that he can coach defense the offensive side of the ball just needs some work. Outside of the offensive struggles, Joseph did have some issues with in-game management. Joseph could be conservative in his approach, often opting for difficult field goals that didnt greatly increase win probabilities. Most notably, settling for a 51-yard, last-second field goal against the Houston Texans that was missed, causing them to drop to 3-6. Perhaps Joseph wouldve shown more confidence in his offense if the offense had a reason to trust them. Josephs biggest issue was picking his offensive coordinators. He hired Mike McCoy as his offensive coordinator during the season in 2017, fired him toward the end of the season, and then brought Bill Musgrave on as the offensive coordinator through the end of the 2018 season. Its been a while since those names have had real success at the NFL level McCoy was fired again as the Cardinals offensive coordinator in 2018. If Joseph can nail an offensive coordinator hire, he has a shot to do well in his second stop. Charles McDonald The case for: former Jets coach Todd Bowles The Jets juuuuust missed the playoffs in Bowles first season. They came up short against Rex Ryan and the Bills (talk about rubbing salt in the wound) in their season finale and were left on the outside of the playoff picture at 10-6. The Bowles era still looked like it was off to a promising start. But then, the Jets went just 14-34 the following three seasons and to no surprise, Bowles was ousted on Black Monday. It wasnt unfair of the Jets to fire him. He made questionable decisions and didnt seem to know how to manage games. He didnt always have a lot to work with, though. Id still like to see what he could do with a team that had real offensive weapons and was a little less dysfunctional. Bowles might not have been able to do much with a young, rebuilding roster, but Sam Darnold showed some growth over the season and the players seemed to respect Bowles. With Bowles strong background as a secondary coach and then as a defensive coordinator, he should get him another job in the NFL, even if its not as a head coach. Thats probably for the best. Let him regain his reputation as one of the leagues best defensive minds, like he had when he was the Cardinals defensive coordinator. Then someday after that, maybe hell get his second chance. | https://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2019/1/4/18167423/nfl-head-coach-firings-2019-second-chance-vance-joseph-dirk-koetter |
Will Chinas leadership succession after Xi Jinping skip a generation? | China watchers searching for clues in identifying the next generation of top Chinese leaders have been focusing on the recent promotion of about a dozen vice-governors and vice-ministers born in the 1970s. Many of these relatively young political stars, analysts believe, are being groomed for future leadership roles. And what is notable about them is that they had been destined to be Chinas seventh generation of leaders, yet look increasingly likely to overtake their immediate seniors once expected to be the sixth generation to take over when President Xi Jinping eventually steps down as Communist Party boss. President Jiang Zemin, who served as the partys general secretary from 1989 to 2002, is described as the core of the third generation of top Chinese leaders, following Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. Jiangs successor Hu Jintao represented the fourth generation, and Xi the fifth. Jiang and Hu had stepped down after two five-year terms each as general secretary, but at the five-yearly national congress in 2017, the absence of the supposed sixth generation among new members of the Politburo Standing Committee led many China watchers to guess Xi might stay on after 2022, when his second term ends. When the National Peoples Congress, the rubber-stamp legislature, passed the amendment to the constitution last March to lift the presidencys term limit, it fuelled expectation that Xi would continue as the core of the party, potentially blocking the path of those born in the 1960s. Normally, membership of the Politburo Standing Committee is considered a prerequisite for candidates for the top leadership. Both Xi and Hu were made members at least five years before they became the party boss, paving the way for their ascendancy to the apex of power. Given that amendment of the constitution has removed the term limit, I dont think people are expecting succession to happen in the next party congress, said Yun Sun, director of the China programme at Washington think tank the Stimson Centre. Most people speculate or expect Xi will stay on. There is no heir apparent. Since Xi does not appear to be considering retirement, questions about succession [in 2022] appear to be void. Chen Daoyin, a Shanghai-based political scientist, said: It is highly possible that those born in the 1970s or even early 1980s will rocket to the top as long as they can show their strong support for the [political] system and loyalty to the current leader [Xi], and if they are not closely linked to any political factions. Moreover, at least three of that expected sixth generation have been ousted over corruption charges in the past year: former top energy official Nur Bekri, former Politburo member and Chongqing party boss Sun Zhengcai, and Su Shulin, the former Fujian party chief aged 57, 55 and 56 respectively. This has raised the likelihood of Xi being succeeded by one of a younger group, most of whom are serving in frontline government or party positions in Shanghai, Jiangsu, Shandong, Guizhou, Guangxi, Fujian and Sichuan (see table). Yang Jinbo, 45, is the youngest of them. Analysts said Yang, who in November was named a vice-chairman of the Guangxi regional government, is one of the cadres hand-picked by Xi for testing in the provinces before rising further in the hierarchy. An engineer by profession, Yang worked in the electricity sector and was deputy chairman of the State Grid Corporation before his promotion in November. Also noteworthy are Liu Jie and Shi Guanghui, both 48 years old and Guizhou Communist Party Standing Committee members. Shi was a vice-mayor of Shanghai before he was transferred to the southwestern province in November. Another up-and-coming official is 47-year-old Zhuge Yujie, the secretary general of the partys Shanghai municipal committee. Criteria for selection of cadres for promotion were laid down by Xi at a party meeting last July. He said: The criteria for leading officials are that they must be responsible, clean, loyal to the party and honest in implementing the thoughts on socialism with Chinese characteristics. Xi again emphasised loyalty to the party in late December when he chaired a two-day meeting of the Politburo in Beijing. The president stressed that leading party officials required a fighting spirit and should be put on the front lines to hone their abilities as he had when working in provinces for more than two decades before being promoted to the Politburo Standing Committee in 2007. Chen said loyalty was the most important qualification for promotion. Just like the slogan red and professional coined by Chairman Mao Zedong in the 1950s and 1960s, red basically means loyalty to the Communist Party and the party line, said Chen. Loyalty to the party also means loyalty to the supreme leader. Being red is still the top criterion for career advancement even if the party no longer uses the same rhetoric. Also repeatedly emphasised by Xi has been his belief that leading officials should come from five lakes and four seas a Chinese proverb referring to a diverse background. It was seen as a push to break from the old practice of promoting officials who shared a common background such as membership of the Communist Youth League, traditionally a cradle of party leaders. This, too, could favour the leading forty-somethings. There used to be a system for generational transition or power succession within the party before 2012, said Chen, acknowledging that the Youth League had lost its status as a power base for top leaders since Xi took over as party chief that year. Ding Xueliang, a professor of sociology with the University of Science and Technology of Hong Kong, believed younger officials with provincial governing experience such as that being gained by the likes of Yang, Liu, Shi and Zhuge would have an edge over ministry technocrats in being chosen for promotion. Xi worked in four provinces or municipalities Hebei, Fujian, Zhejiang and Shanghai before rising to the top decision-making Politburo Standing Committee in 2007. A minister is like an expert in a specialised field, Ding said, but an administrator who has the experience of governing millions of people is considered more rounded and tested. Yun, however, said continuing Xis policies would be paramount for a future general secretary and president, regardless of background. Since we dont have an estimate for when Xi will leave the post, speculation about the 1970s generation is not very meaningful, she said. But we would assume that Xi wants someone who can carry out his vision: a strong China, the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, the partys dominance in domestic politics. I do not expect him to select a liberal. | https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/2180788/will-chinas-leadership-succession-after-xi-jinping-skip |
Are the Raptors content to live with slippage and wait on return of injured? | MILWAUKEE Forget the embarrassment of the Raptors having it handed to them every which way possible in San Antonio. It was one game. It was poor from the beginning and its now in the past. But what the Raptors cant forget are the slips and leakage the team has been experiencing for the better part of the past three weeks. With perhaps the exception of the win over Utah on New Years Day, this has not been the Raptors anywhere near theri best. Those heady days of back-to-back wins over the Los Angeles Clippers and Golden State Warriors on the road are really the last time this team has felt really good about itself. Injuries, no question, have played a role. Kyle Lowry and Jonas Valanciunas are integral to what this team requires to operate at full capacity, but the fallback both in quality of play and results should not be as drastic as it has been. At least one coach suggested after Thursdays blowout, courtesy of DeMar DeRozan and the Spurs, that a contributing factor is the injuries that the players still playing are dealing with on top of those who cant dress. The coach didnt mention any names but both Danny Green and Fred VanVleet have not quite looked themselves these past few weeks. Playing hurt is part of the NBA existence. And with the mid-point of the season just around the corner, the number of NBA players playing through things is at its height. But rather than make excuses players such as Green and VanVleet would rather seek solutions. There are things that we probably need to nip in the bud soon, Green said after a tough return home that saw him go scoreless for the first time in a Raptors uniform. Id like to get it done but I think it also happens with time and patience but also with health. (But) I think were being too patient at times and waiting. I think we need to jump on it right away and fix these problems ASAP, regardless of whos healthy and whos not. VanVleet has seen the slippage too, and like Green feels, things need to be addressed pronto. Just speaking honestly, I just want us to have more discipline, VanVleet said. Whether thats following the game plan discipline offensively, running plays, shot discipline, defensive discipline, theres a lot of things where were making a lot of errors that we cant afford to make. Theres no question the Raptors are taking a much different approach to the season this year. There is a definite shift from prioritizing staying sharp and practising to prioritizing rest. There was another opportunity to practise again Friday even after the team stayed over in San Antonio before jetting up to Milwaukee that the team took a pass on. Now the science of rest is ever-changing, particularly in the field of professional sports, but it just seems elementary when things are beginning to slip that practice time would become more, not less, important. In fairness the Raptors penchant for passing up practice time is on the decline recently but there just doesnt seem to be any sense of real concern about taking a hard look at fixing these issues. Head coach Nick Nurse took issue with how his team played at both ends of the court following Thursdays loss. My biggest takeaway was I think we didnt consistently execute, especially offensively, Nurse said. When youre chasing the game like that, it kind of looks sometimes like selfish play but its just guys trying to like make a play a little too soon. We had two or three of those. There was a sequence there, we were somewhat near in the game and I think Pascal (Siakam) took a tough one, might have got hit, didnt make it; then Norm (Powell) took a tough one, didnt make it, then Fred (VanVleet) took a pull-up three. We got some stops there in a row, we couldnt cash in on any of them. It was just a little bit impatient offence I thought. But, in saying that, I cant sit here and say we executed well on defence, either, because they were lighting us up. They were scoring and driving and kicking and shooting and shooting open so we didnt execute very well on either end. Maybe the returns from injury are the only fix that is needed. Maybe it does all get better with Lowry back in the lineup, which could happen as soon as tonight in Milwaukee or Valanciunas who is still three weeks or so away. But just waiting on those returns does not seem like a good idea from the outside and theres at least the suggestion from those inside that its not sitting well there either. [email protected] | https://torontosun.com/sports/basketball/nba/toronto-raptors/are-the-raptors-content-to-live-with-slippage-and-wait-on-return-of-injured |
Why did two Nobel laureates say PM Modi has better approach to science and tech? | India oi-Chennabasaveshwar P New Delhi, Jan 4: Two Nobel laureates who held a brief informal meeting with PM Narendra Modi after the inauguration of 106th Indian Science Congress in Phagwara, hailed Indian Prime Minister's understanding the importance of science for a country's development and vision for its promotion. In an exclusive interview to Indian Express, Nobel laureate Israeli biochemist Avram Hershko, said, "Unlike US president Donald Trump, who thinks science and research is waste of money, Modi does not think that way. That is what I gauged after meeting him today." German-American Thomas C Sudhof, who was given the Nobel Prize in 2013 in physiology and medicine, said that the Trump-led government in the US is not spending enough to promote science and research, whereas Modi's approach in this regard looks promising. The Nobel laureates observation make sense with the Budget allocation to development of science and technology and new initiatives by the Ministry. It may be recalled that in the 2018 Budget Modi government proposed to hike the allocation for science ministries and departments between 5 and 17 per cent, with the Department of Atomic Energy and the Department of Space placed on the opposite extremes of the allocation chain. The Union Budget earmarked Rs 13,971.41 crore for the Department of Atomic Energy, which is mandated to generate nuclear power in India. The allocation is 5.76 per cent more than what was allocated to the DAE in the previous Budget. The budget for the Ministry of Science and Technology was proposed to be hiked by 6.11 per cent - from Rs 11,612.11 crore in the previous Budget to Rs 12,322.28 crore in the Budget 2018-19. Mission Innovation Smart Grids Workshop - Mission Innovation challenge on Smart Grids is collectively working to enable future smart grids powered by renewables. 20 participating countries with India, Italy and China as Co-lead are working together to realise this aspiration. An international workshop was organised during 16-19th November 2017 at New Delhi to define research priorities and develop action plan for time-bound action for the realisation of these objectives. Interdisciplinary Centre for Cyber Security and Cyber Defence of Critical Infrastructures: An Interdisciplinary Centre for Cyber Security and Cyber Defence of Critical Infrastructures at IIT Kanpur has been funded with a total cost of around Rs.15 crores to create India's first such research centre under a dynamic young professor. The mission of this Centre is to promote research, education, training, and spawn start-ups to create tech Quantum Information Science & Technology (QIST): This new program initiated by DST aims at developing next generation and futuristic computation, communication and cryptography systems. Materials on Energy Storage (MES): A new programme on the Materials on Energy Storage (MES) to support R&D activities aimed at innovative materials for energy storage, and to build energy storage device with enhanced output for multifunctional applications was launched during the year. Aiming the efficient use and further increase of renewable energy, and demonstrating its value in terms of flexibility in the energy systems are the prime objective of the initiative. 130 proposals were received and 18 were approved for funding. Complete Online Processing of INSPIRE: Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) program which has 5 components and enrols nearly 1.5 lakhs students every year. It is a completely ONLINE process right from submission of an application to release of scholarships/ fellowships etc. to every student under the scheme through web-based system. For the last 3-4 years, it is functioning in a complete paperless mode. Students from across the country use this web-based ONLINE system and get the benefits of this scheme. Greater Access of High-end Equipment/Facilities: A common web portal is being developed which will be populated with the name of high-end equipment and facilities available with the institutions/ universities and their online booking and use in a transparent way. This will facilitate researchers/ students access to these facilities. The portal will be launched with full functionality by the end of 2017. India S&T Portal: Development of an ambitious India S&T Portal has been initiated with the objective to provide one-stop information centre to school students, scientists and the society at large on various schemes and programmes/activities and major achievements in S&T. This would be a 360-degree view and connect to all the stakeholders and activities of S&T in India. An internet-TV channel on S&T is also in the advanced stages of planning and execution. Currently, systems are being set up for production of contents. (With PTI inputs) | https://www.oneindia.com/india/why-did-two-nobel-laureates-say-pm-modi-has-better-approach-to-science-and-tech-2832057.html?utm_source=/rss/news-india-fb.xml&utm_medium=23.50.225.215&utm_campaign=client-rss |
Whatd ya get for Christmas? | I don't like getting presents. It makes me uncomfortable and I don't really know how to react. It's a sweet and loving gesture and I sure do appreciate the thought, but I don't really need anything. My daughter knows how impossible I am to shop for, like most men, I guess. So when she saw one of her patients showing someone what he does for a hobby or a living down there in Texas, she just couldn't resist. I was thrilled with it! It's unique, one of a kind and funky as all hell. It's even useful! Watch! More from New Jersey 101.5 : | http://nj1015.com/whatd-ya-get-for-christmas/ |
Is the U.S. Government Financially Benefitting from Added Tariffs? | Trade negotiations between the U.S. and China are ongoing, with the trade truce now facing a deadline of less than two months away. U-S Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has a busy schedule next week, as he and others are preparing for trade talks with China in Beijing. President Donald Trump took to twitter ahead of those talks, touting the benefits of tariffs. The United States Treasury has taken in MANY billions of dollars from the Tariffs we are charging China and other countries that have not treated us fairly. In the meantime we are doing well in various Trade Negotiations currently going on. At some point this had to be done! Purdue University Economist Wally Tyner said the President's tweet is accurate in saying the treasury does take in revenue from tariffs. However, Tyner said it's currently unknown how much the department is actually getting from the added tariffs. In the end, he said tariffs aren't good for the government or the economy. The way it works is an import comes into the border, a tariff is imposed, the treasury collects that tariff, said Tyner. The problem is that if an import comes in and is collected , that means the price of that good is higher to all American consumer - whether it's companies or individuals. Let's say a good comes to the border and costs $1, with a 25 percent tariff, that means when it gets to the consumer, the cost embedded in that good is now a $1.25. So, the consumer is paying the cost of that tariff, it's not that it's great for revenue for the government; it's that it harms consumers - whether they're businesses importing steel or whether it's consumers importing electronics. That's the problem with tariffs. Tyner also said tariffs harm the U.S. long-term, as it means goods and services in the U.S. cost more. Those importing countries are paying more and theyre finding other countries to get their products from, said Tyner. So, tariffs are bad for the economy in the long-run. Tyner said were already seeing the negative impact tariffs are having on the economy in the short-run. He said any economist will tell you free trade is better for the economy, as it makes the economy more efficient. | https://www.agprofessional.com/article/us-government-financially-benefitting-added-tariffs |
Can 'Spider-Verse' pull a historic upset at the Golden Globes? | If history is any predictor, then the Golden Globes trophy for 2018's best animated feature will be handed to Disney/Pixar's "Incredibles 2" during Sunday's telecast - winning in a field of five that includes Sony's late-year smash, "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse." That's because of the backstory: The Hollywood Foreign Press Association , the Globes's voting body, adores its Disney. A movie distributed by Disney has been crowned best animated feature 10 times during the dozen years of the category's existence. (The only animated films that have beat the Mouse House are 2011's "The Adventures of Tintin" and 2014's "How to Train Your Dragon 2.") By contrast, during that time, animated films distributed beneath the Sony umbrella - including four involving Sony Pictures Animation - have gone 0-for-5. But "Spider-Verse" is Sony's best shot yet to break the losing streak. First, factor in the critical response. Of Disney's two nominees this year, the "Incredibles" sequel has an average score of 80 on Metacritic.com, and Disney Animation's "Ralph Breaks the Internet" has a 71. "Spider-Verse" tops both with 87. (Of the other two nominees, the Fox Searchlight-distributed "Isle of Dogs" scores an 82, and Studio Chizu's "Mirai" gets an 81.) "Spider-Verse" is also tops on Rotten Tomatoes, where it's certified as 97 percent "fresh" among professional critics and gets a 94 percent score among civilian filmgoers. "Incredibles 2" was second with just 3,300 votes. Plus, "The Incredibles" is a beloved, Oscar-winning franchise that has grossed nearly $1.9 billion worldwide. ("Spider-Verse," which introduces webslinger Miles Morales, has grossed $227 million worldwide since its mid-December release.) So although the Pixar film would seem to have the edge, the dazzling, dizzying effects of "Spider-Verse" do make it a strong contender. "Spider-Verse" is a richly layered, visually innovative tour de force, delivering waves of tucked-in nods to a half-century of Spider-Man comic books specifically and Marvel Comics more generally - and popping off the screen with constant stylistic shifts and even splashes of "Kirby Krackle." The look of "Spider-Verse" should render it a powerful contender at the Oscars and the animation industry's Annie Awards. But if "Spider-Verse" can buck history and even win over the Hollywood Foreign Press, then it will emerge as The One to Beat at the Academy Awards, presuming that it's a lock for a nomination. And in one last twist, a win for "Spider-Verse" is also a win for production partner Marvel Entertainment - which, as it happens, is a subsidiary of Disney. RELATED STORIES: 'Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse' review: No tangled webs here Golden Globes preview: 5 things to watch for, from Bradley Cooper to the Dude Golden Globes nominations shut out female film directors again | https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/movies/ct-ent-spider-man-spider-verse-golden-globes-20190104-story.html |
What would a Philadelphia Eagles playoff run look like? | (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) By Daniel Gallen | [email protected] PHILADELPHIA Its been nearly a year since the Philadelphia Eagles pulled off what seemed so unthinkable at the time, with backup quarterback Nick Foles stepping in for the injured Carson Wentz and leading a team that wasnt favored in each of its three playoff games to a win in Super Bowl LII. The script at the dawn of 2019 appears to be rather similar. Foles stepped in for an injured Wentz and has the team in the playoffs. Of course, the circumstances are rather different. Foles took over arguably the NFLs top team in December 2017. The version he took over last month was on life support, and he piloted them to three wins in their final three games and got them into the playoffs with some help. Now, as coach Doug Pederson said, theyre in the tournament. Thats all the Eagles wanted down the stretch. They have a chance, and theyre going to try to take advantage of it. Heres an idea of what an Eagles playoff run might look like over the next couple weeks. | https://www.pennlive.com/philadelphiaeagles/index.ssf/2019/01/what_would_a_philadelphia_eagl.html |
How Was Impact Wrestling Viewership For The Final Pop TV Episode With The Final Homecoming Hype? | Thursday's Impact Wrestling episode, the first episode of 2019 featuring the final hype for Sunday's Homecoming pay-per-view, drew 151,000 viewers. This is up from last week's 135,000 viewers. This was the best viewership since Impact went to the 10pm timeslot on October 25, behind the 140,000 viewers they drew three weeks ago. This week's show was the final Impact episode on Pop TV. The show will premiere on the Pursuit Channel next Thursday night at 10pm ET. This week's Impact ranked #137 on the Cable Top 150. Last week's show ranked #118. The Rachel Maddow Show topped the night on cable in viewership with 3.542 million viewers. The NBA game between the Rockets and the Warriors ranked #1 in the 18-49 demographic on the Cable Top 150, drawing 2.392 million viewers. Below is our 2019 Impact Viewership Tracker: January 3 Episode: 151,000 viewers January 10 Episode: 2018 Total: 13.008 million viewers 2018 Average: 250,154 viewers per episode 2017 Total: 16.147 million viewers 2017 Average: 311,000 viewers per episode Source: ShowBuzz Daily | https://www.wrestlinginc.com/news/2019/01/how-was-impact-wrestling-viewership-for-the-final-pop-tv-649485/ |
What Is the Dark Side of the Moon? | Our in-house Know-It-Alls answer questions about your interactions with technology. It's a misnomer. A cool-sounding misnomer! But a misnomer. Assuming they aren't talking about the Pink Floyd album or the French mockumentary, people who say "the dark side of the moon" are almost always referring to the moon's far sidewhich, despite pointing permanently away from those of us planetside, actually sees as much sunlight as the side facing Earth. Maybe you already knew that. But! To understand why, you first need to understand why one side of the moon is forever pointed away from Earth. To those of us here on the ground, our planet's natural satellite appears to never turn. But it's actually turning all the timeit just spins on its axis and loops around our planet at the same rate: once every 27 days or so. When a cosmic body revolves around its parent and its axis at the same rate, astronomers say that it is "tidally locked." Our moon wasn't born this way. Astronomers think that, like many natural satellites, it began its life spinning at a very different rate. (In the case of our moon, astronomers think it once whirled faster about its axis.) But over time, gravity from our planet exerted torque on bulges in the lunar surface, forcing its rotation into synchronization with its orbital period. This phenomenon is actually quite common: Many of Saturn and Jupiter's moons are tidally locked with their parent planet. Tidal locking is why we had no idea what the moon's far side looked like until 1959, when the Soviet space probe Luna 3 snapped the first photos of that crater-laden landscape. We've gotten several good looks at it since: In 1968, astronauts aboard NASA's Apollo 8 mission became the first people to gaze upon the moon's far side with their own eyes. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been mapping the entire lunar surface in high resolution since 2009. And in the first few days of 2019, China became the first country to perform a soft landing of a spacecraft and deploy a rover on the moon's eternally hidden face. China's Chang'e 4 lander and Jade Rabbit 2 rover will give humanity its first close look at that remote lunar landscape. But the truth is: You don't need a spacecraft to glimpse the far side of the moon. While you can only see a maximum of 50 percent of the lunar disk at any given time, bonus smidges of its surface are constantly revealing themselves to careful observers. In fact, throughout a lunar cycle, up to 59 percent of the moon's surface becomes visible to skygazers on Earthassuming they know what to look for. NASA Check out this footage from NASA's Science Visualization Studio. It was made using satellite imagery captured by the agency's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The phase changes you're no doubt familiar with: As the moon's position shifts relative to the sun and the Earth, darkness envelopes and recedes from the face that's tidally locked with our planet (while retreating from and enshrouding the face that points away). But this animationwhich condenses two and a half lunar cycles into a single 13-second gifillustrates something about the moon you may not have noticed before: The moon kind of wobbles. Astronomers call those wobbles librations, and they're caused by the orientation of the moon's axis and the elliptical shape of its orbit. The tilt of its axis relative to Earth makes the moon appear as though it is delivering the planet a slow and gentle nod, affording observers fleeting glimpses of its northern and southern poles. Likewise, the eccentricity of the moon's orbit lends its face a slight wag, enabling those of us on Earth to peer over its eastern and western edges as it swishes back and forth, not unlike the :party parrot: in Slack. (Its irregular orbit also explains the moon's apparent changes in size, due to its varying distance from Earth.) And the tilt of the moon's axis produces yet another interesting phenomenon: patches of the lunar surface that are really, truly, perpetually dark: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University The image above is an illumination map of the moon's south pole. It's a composite image built up from more than 1,700 photographs captured by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter over a six month period. Regions of the pole that saw no light in that time appear black; those that saw constant light appear white; the gray regions saw something in between. As a point of reference, the black circle near the center of the image is Shackleton Crater, an impact crater 13 miles across with a rim that casts a long, perpetual shadow on its interior. All of which is to say: "The dark side of the moon" might not technically exist, but "craters of eternal darkness"which sounds even coolerdefinitely do. Robbie Gonzalez is a senior writer for WIRED's Science desk. His fascination with the moon dates back to his childhood, when, at the age of 4, he first glimpsed it through a telescope. (He still owns that telescope.) Post your question in the comments or email the Know-It-Alls. More Great WIRED Stories | https://www.wired.com/story/the-know-it-alls-what-is-the-dark-side-of-the-moon/ |
Can Justin Trudeau Make It Two in a Row? | Mr. Scheer, along with the leaders of five Canadian provinces, is already campaigning against Mr. Trudeaus plan to impose carbon taxes on provinces that wont do it by themselves. His alternative program for reducing carbon emissions has still to be unveiled. Mr. Graves said that his polling found that core Conservative supporters want to see tighter immigration limits and are particularly upset by asylum seekers crossing the border on foot from the United States. Mr. Berniers platform is clearly playing to that concern, while the Conservative appeal to anti-immigration voters has been less explicit. As in the United States, one thing has become clear to Mr. Graves in his polling: On many major issues, there is very little common ground. If that trend continues, you can count on similarly polarized campaigns in Canada this year. Trans Canada In British Columbia, a growing industry caters to pregnant women, mainly from China, who come to Canada to give birth so that their children will become Canadian citizens. While in Vancouver, my colleague Dan Bilefsky found a rising backlash against birth tourism. The critic William Logan found that a newly released collection of Leonard Cohens poems, notebooks, lyrics and drawings has a little of everything for Cohen fans and nothing for anyone else. A middle-aged woman in Toronto suddenly developed blurry vision. Some doctors thought it was age-related. Others suggested that it was tied to stress. A neurologist finally linked it to a rare condition that has puzzled physicians for centuries. Around The Times After traveling to 52 places, including Saskatoon, in just a year, Jada Yuan is finally unpacking her bags. Toronto is not the only place where people are leery about smart cities technology. Bob Einstein, the comedian who recorded his adventures in the role of the hapless daredevil Super Dave Osborne in Canada, died this week. After almost a year, and unexpectedly, the victory tour continues for the curling team that defeated Canada and Sweden to become the first American squad with an Olympic gold medal. | https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/04/world/canada/can-justin-trudeau-elections.html |
What are Kingstons chances to win the cannabis lottery? | On Jan. 3, the Ontario government released rules for its cannabis retail licence lottery, giving the province an idea of how Ontarios first legal pot shop locations will be chosen. The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) is running the lottery along with consulting firm KPMG. The commission has delineated five regions across Ontario, with each slated to receive a certain number of licences from the lottery. Kingston falls into the East region, which will receive five licences. READ MORE: Ontario lays out the rules for cannabis retail lottery system According to regulations set out by the AGCO, the licences will only be granted in cities with populations greater than 50,000. That means in the East region, only six cities qualify to be approved in the first lottery: Ottawa, with a population of 934,243 Barrie, with a population of 141,434 Kingston, with a population of 123,798 Peterborough, with a population of 81,032 Kawartha Lakes, with a population of 75,423 Belleville, with a population of 50,716 The AGCO says a lottery system was chosen in order to provide a fair and transparent method to choose potential operators. Since the lottery system uses the same software that puts slot machines through rigorous testing before they hit the casino floor, theres no way of guaranteeing that Kingston, the second largest city in the East region, will receive one of the five licences. Owner of head shop 420 Kingston Jennawae McLean is hopeful her application will be chosen, since shes been renovating a large cannabis retail space for several months shes named Calex and Trichomes. For Ontario, plans for recreational pot sales have been interrupted with several changes in policies, a provincial election and supply issues. WATCH: Doug Ford gives hazy details for Ontario PC Party plan on marijuana It was only in mid-December that the Ontario government announced a cap on the number of cannabis stores allowed to open on April 1, limiting the number to 25, less than the previous Liberal government. READ MORE: Ontario government changes rules for pot shops, only 25 stores to open April 1 Now with this temporary cap, it puts a bump on the road, but its a temporary bump, McLean said. Another bump in the road for McLean is that Kingston city council has yet to decide whether it will allow cannabis retailers within city limits. The lottery will open Jan. 7, one day before council will vote on a staff recommendation released on Jan. 3 to allow pot shops in the city. WATCH: Kingston goes on-line for cannabis retail store survey The city of Kingston conducted an online survey to gauge whether Kingstonians wanted pot shops in the city. The results of the survey were overwhelmingly in favour of allowing cannabis retailers in Kingston. Our survey showed that the majority of people consuming cannabis would prefer to buy it in stores rather than online, said Lanie Hurdle, commissioner of community services. McLean said shes spoken to a number of councillors who say theyll vote in favour of allowing the cannabis retailers. Weve heard back from five of the councillors that say they for sure are going to be opting in enthusiastically, said McLean. There are 12 councillors and the mayors vote to count on, so its possible McLean may be disappointed come the vote at the Jan. 8 council meeting. Hurdle says the biggest worry is if the city does not opt in that could create a reliance on the black market. WATCH: Some Tyendinaga pot shops unfazed by changes to pot regulations If the in-store is not available in this city, were also concerned those people may reach out to the underground market. Hurdle also mentioned the potential benefits of opting in, such as the funding Kingston will receive if council decides to host cannabis retail locations. That funding will go to the health unit and police force for local cannabis education and enforcement. Interested business owners have from Jan. 7 to Jan. 9 to enter the lottery and they should find out if their bid was successful by the end of the week. | https://globalnews.ca/news/4816640/what-are-kingstons-chances-to-win-the-cannabis-lottery/ |
Should the US Hand Over Minnesota's Northwest Angle to Canada? | It's a geographic curiosity - a bit of US land at the top edge of Minnesota, disconnected from the rest of the state. The Northwest Angle is known to local residents, people who love to fish - the region is famous for its walleye - and geography buffs. It is accessible by land only through the Canadian province. Now, someone has anonymously launched a petition urging the US to hand the land over to its northern neighbours. "Make America great by correcting this critical survey error," states the petition posted on 30 December on the White House "We the People" site, which allows citizens to petition Congress on issues that matter to them. The petition is titled "Give Canada back the Northwest Angle located in Manitoba". The nub of Minnesota state is roughly 123 square miles (318 square km) and is farther north than any other part of the contiguous United States. Living above the 49th parallel, Angleites - as local residents are known - are the northernmost American citizens, barring Alaskans. It can be reached by driving through Canada or by boat across the Lake of the Woods. | https://soylentnews.org/politics/article.pl?sid=19/01/04/1926217&from=rss |
Is there a shingles vaccine shortage in SLO County CA? | A nationwide shortage of a shingles vaccine is putting San Luis Obispo County residents at risk of contracting the painful virus, which can bring severe complications. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that adults over 50 get the vaccine Shingrix, which is about 97 percent effective after two doses at preventing shingles in people 50 to 69 years old and 91 percent for people over 70. But the vaccine is in short supply at pharmacies and health clinics. Local Rite Aid stores and the county Public Health Department report months-long wait lists. The drug is relatively new and fairly immediately after licensure in October 2017 demand for the vaccine outstripped the supply, said Dr. Penny Borenstein, county director of Public Health. Digital Access for only $0.99 For the most comprehensive local coverage, subscribe today. Orders for the vaccine have been delayed or only partially filled by its manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline, for some time now. Borenstein said she doesnt dont know when the office will receive enough Shingrix to start offering the shot again. GlaxoSmithKline said recently that the supply problem will continue into 2019, but the company will boost shipments to the United States in the next two to three years. In the meantime, Borenstein said people can still get some protection with the single-dose shingles vaccine Zostavax, which is 51 percent effective at preventing the disease. Those who have received the first dose of Shingrix should still get the second dose as soon as possible, Borenstin said. Shingles is caused by the same virus that causes chicken pox and the risk of getting shingles increases as you get older, even if you had chicken pox as a child, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Shingles results in a painful rash on the side of the face or body, and in some cases, fever, headache, chills and upset stomach. About 10 to 13 percent of people who get shingles will develop a condition in which they suffer from severe pain even after the rash has cleared, according to the CDC. | https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/article223934580.html |
What will 2019 disasters bring? | In this file photo, water pours into the lobby of the Comfort Inn and Suites in Panama City . Part of the roof was removed by Hurricane Michael. (Photo: Craig Bailey/FLORIDA TODAY) The spotlight on areas of the Southeast where Hurricane Michael viciously roared ashore on October 10, 2018, has begun to fade nationally, but not locally. The year-end wrap-ups delivered by myriad news distributors included the devastation caused by the first hurricane to take a direct hit on the Florida Panhandle and Southwest Georgia in so many years that few locals seem to remember the last one. One who lives full- or part-time in these parts, as I do, worries much about the long-range future of the communities obliterated in some cases by Michael and simply "hard hit" in others. Make no mistake, Mexico Beach, Florida, where the storm's eye came ashore from the sultry Gulf of Mexico, was obliterated, like some areas of the Mississippi Coast were demolished by the storms Camille and Katrina, almost 50 years apart. Mexico Beach was no Nassau, no Turks and Caicos, no Fiji or Acapulco. Not even a Destin, also located along U.S. 90 but a world away in panache. Mexico Beach was a mecca for the mostly middle-class vacationer with its one high-rise and few other amenities. I have encountered a few people who called Mexico Beach home. They swear they won't move, despite currently having no place to rest at night. They love beach life so much, they might be sleeping on it nowadays. Some others, possibly more honest about the future, wonder how the place can be revived. Panama City Beach is big and rich enough to recover, although that won't happen overnight. The remainder of the region's small cities are splintered literally and figuratively. I once reported estimates of 1 million trees down. Now, the experts are saying 2.5 million trees down. This situation not only affects residential homeowners and business owners, like the plethora of area paper mills constantly needing fresh timber, but aesthetics as well. Early County, Georgia, and its county seat of Blakely, which is near our residence, have made great strides in cleaning the streets of hurricane debris. However, in many off-street green spaces are fallen trees by the dozens -- and no plan to go in and retrieve them, leaving gaping holes of deleterious ravage. Our woods are crisscrossed with thousands of downed trees of all sizes, causing headaches for loggers, pulpwooders and hunters. A dozen or so homes in the town were split in their middle by mighty oaks and pines. Many remain in that state today, collecting rainfall and grit by the buckets. Most will likely be leveled because of the lack of requisite insurance or sky-high rebuilding costs. Southwest Georgia is a major producer of row crops such as cotton, peanuts, soybeans, wheat and corn. Crop losses are staggering as a result of the hellaceous storm, ranging to upwards of $2 billion. Word is that Michael's wrath will finish off some farmers financially, adding to the disaster at hand. Natural disasters are terrible wherever they occur. Seems to me the one storm fading the quickest in news coverage and sheer remembrance was Hurricane Harvey which smashed the Texas coast in August 2017. Recent tsunamis in Indonesia killed hundreds and delivered pictures of despair and horror to our warm great rooms. More: A letter to those affected by Hurricane Michael More: Other view: Global warming, Hurricane Michael and what you can do The Federal Emergency Management Agency never seems to have enough resources to help disaster areas recover in a rapid fashion. After some storms, politicians make quick-hit visits, talking big and sounding earnest as they step over the wreckage. Then, they forget the nightmarish scene upon departure. Mac Gordon (Photo: Special to Clarion Ledger) While the hope is that America and the world will be spared such ruin in the new year, the history of natural-disaster inevitability is always upon us. May God be with us when they return. Read or Share this story: https://www.clarionledger.com/story/opinion/columnists/2019/01/04/what-2019-disasters-bring/2465701002/ Mac Gordon is a part-time resident of McComb and a retired newspaperman. He can be reached at [email protected] | https://www.clarionledger.com/story/opinion/columnists/2019/01/04/what-2019-disasters-bring/2465701002/ |
Will Pelosi Be the First to Out-Bully Trump? | Unstoppable force, meet immovable object. That was the drama that played out on Friday when U.S. President Donald Trump hosted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the White House over the two-week-long government shutdown. But perhaps to Trumps surprise, this was not the accommodating, ready-to-compromise Pelosi the president had once welcomedthe Pelosi he once pledged to get as many votes as she wants to become speaker. Pelosi made that clear Thursday nightonly hours after becoming the first person to regain the speakership since the legendary Sam Rayburn in 1955when she combined a savvy legislative gambit with a bold declaration of American values intended to expose Trumps proposed wall with Mexico as the overhyped pretense that even some in his own party believe it is. Were not doing a wall. Does anyone have any doubt that were not doing a wall? Pelosi said. A wall is an immorality between countries. Its not who we are as a nation. Her comment was a rhetorical arrow aimed at the heart of Trumps populist appeal to his (largely) white base and at a presidency that from the earliest days of Trumps campaign was built on stoking fears of brown-skinned immigrants. It also showed that Pelosi wants to signal clearly to the president that she wont be bullied like nearly every other politician Trump has encountered, including his Republican rivals. In addition, her statement indicated that the shutdownwhich began over Democratic refusals to give Trump the funds he wants for a wallwill drag on indefinitely unless the legislative part of Pelosis ploy works. That is intended to wean reasonable Republicans away from an unwinnable fight over a wall that almost certainly will never exist, at least in the form Trump promoted it during the 2016 campaign. At the time, Trump won many of his loudest cheers at rallies when he pledged to build a beautiful wall that Mexico would pay for 100 percent. Since then the Mexican government has said it would not pay for any of it, and Trump has shifted to suggesting that the revised United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement would pay for it, although Congress has yet to approve the trade pact and the prospective deal has nothing to do with funding for a wall. The president repeated that erroneous claim at his own news conference in the Rose Garden after the Friday meeting. We will be taking in billions and billions dollars more money for the United States, he said. I view that as absolutely Mexico paying for the wall. Trump also said he told Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer that the shutdown could continue for months, or even years, if he doesnt get his way. The president has been cavalier about the hundreds of thousands of federal workers on furlough, suggesting that most of them are Democrats anyway. According to one Democratic House staffer privy to discussions in the caucus, Pelosis strategy was carefully planned and certainly represents the general thinking of the majority of the caucus. In framing Trumps demand for a wall as immoral/un-American in nature, shes able to place Trump and his agenda in the camp of immoral/un-American, the staffer said. You should see this theme echoed and amplified by members of the caucus going forward. Neera Tanden, the president of the Center for American Progress, called Pelosis tough if politically risky stand an important moment for Democrats. What has really built up over the last two years of Republican acquiescence to Trump has been a primal desire for someone to attach reality to the president, she told Foreign Policy. Along with other Democrats, Tanden believes the momentum is on Pelosis side. The threat for him is that his political capital is eroding. No Democrats are shifting to him. There are only Republicans shifting away. According to a Quinnipiac University National Poll from December, 54 percent of American voters overall oppose a border wall, but some 86 percent of Republicans support it. On Thursday, under Pelosis direction, the House passed two government funding bills to temporarily open some closed federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security (which is responsible for border patrols) while negotiations over the wall continue. Five House Republicans voted with the Democrats, and on the Senate side two Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine and Cory Gardner of Colorado, indicated that they supported such measures. But Trump and his administration stuck to the immovable stand the president has adopted since right-wing commentators such as Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter warned him late last month that he risks his political base with any departure from the $5.6 billion hes asked for the wall. We wont be opening until [the wall] is solved, Trump told reporters Friday. Or as Vice President Mike Pence told Fox News late Thursday, Bottom line, if theres no wall, theres no deal. Trump appeared desperate to win back the public, hosting border officials at a no-questions White House briefing Thursday and sending a letter to members of Congress that said: Walls work. Thats why rich, powerful, and successful people build them around their homes. After the Friday meeting, which Pelosi called contentious, Trump held his own briefing in the Rose Garden in which he again said the wallwhich he now described as steel whereas previously he emphasized concretewas absolutely necessary to Americas security. He said the two sides would meet again over the weekend. Perhaps the presidents biggest problem is that even his just departed chief of staff, John Kelly, has said that the wall is not what he has promoted to his base. To be honest, its not a wall, Kelly told the Los Angeles Times in late December. The president still says wall oftentimes frankly hell say barrier or fencing, now hes tended toward steel slats. But we left a solid concrete wall early on in the administration, when we asked people what they needed and where they needed it. And Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a sometime Trump supporter, said, The wall has become a metaphor for border security. Even so, Graham later said, If he gives in now, thats the end of 2019, in terms of him being an effective president. Graham added: Thats probably the end of his presidency, suggesting that Trump risks losing his base. In truth, just about one-third of the 2,000-mile border between the United States and Mexico is now covered by various types of fencing, and despite Trumps claims that weve already started building a wall, the omnibus spending bill for fiscal 2018 provided funding only for additions such as secondary fending and primary pedestrian levee fencing. Angered by such temporizing, Trump recently tweeted: An all concrete Wall was NEVER ABANDONED, as has been reported by the media. Some areas will be all concrete but the experts at Border Patrol prefer a Wall that is see through (thereby making it possible to see what is happening on both sides). Makes sense to me! By staking out such uncompromising positions, both Pelosi and the president are now taking serious political risks in being blamed for an unpopular and costly shutdown. Trump has shown that he will do nothing to alienate his anti-immigrant, majority-white supporters, but Pelosi can hardly back off either in the first major act of her speakership. | https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/01/04/will-pelosi-be-the-first-to-out-bully-trump/ |
Which Michigan college has the most ex-players on NFL playoff teams? | The regular season is over and the NFL playoffs begin Saturday. Only 12 teams remain in the hunt to win the Super Bowl and 10 of them feature players who went to college in Michigan. From Michigan and Michigan State to Grand Valley State and Ferris State, there are a total of 26 players on teams that made the playoffs. Among in-state schools, Michigan has the most players in the NFL with 31 and the most on playoff teams with 11. The Spartans are second in the state with 19 in the NFL but only four are on playoff teams. Meanwhile, half of Central Michigan's 10 NFL players are on playoff teams, giving the Chippewas the second-most from the state. The Cowboys lead playoff teams with six players who went to college in Michigan while the Ravens are second with five. Here's a breakdown of all the players who went to Michigan schools and are on teams that made the playoffs: | https://www.mlive.com/expo/sports/g66l-2019/01/fce15262309246/which-michigan-college-has-the.html |
What is a Polar Vortex and could it soon bring cold conditions to the UK? | With temperatures plummeting in the UK this week and winter conditions becoming more prominent, many are speculating that this could be a result of a polar vortex. With temperatures plummeting in the UK this week and winter conditions becoming more prominent, many are speculating that this could be a result of a polar vortex According to the Met Office, The polar vortex is a circulation of winds high up in the stratosphere, up to 30 miles (50 km) above the earth. The winds regularly exceed 155 miles per hour (250 km per hour) the strength of the winds in the strongest hurricanes (known as Category 5). During the winter it can strengthen and weaken. These changes exert an influence lower down in the atmosphere and ultimately on our weather. However, the polar vortex is present in winter, and is not a new phenomenon, scientists have known about it for many years, add the Met Office. A strong polar vortex favours a strong jet stream. The jet stream is a fast moving ribbon of air around 5 to 7 miles (8 to 11km) above the earth that drives weather systems from the Atlantic across the UK, explained the Met Office. In a typical UK winter, the jet stream brings winds from the west giving us our mild, damp climate. With a stronger jet stream, stormy and very wet weather tends to occur. A weaker jet stream allows more frequent spells of northerly or easterly winds to affect the UK and in winter these bring very cold air from the Arctic and continental Europe. Sometimes the polar vortex can even break down entirely, in an event called a Sudden Stratospheric Warming. This has been linked to many spells of cold winter weather in recent years. Deputy Chief Meteorologist Jason Kelly explains, it is true that a sudden stratospheric warming has happened. The warming started around 22 December 2018 and the winds at 30km above the North Pole have now reversed from westerly to easterly. At ground level we know that sudden stratospheric warmings tend to weaken the UKs prevailing mild westerly winds, increasing the chances of us seeing colder weather a couple of weeks after a sudden stratospheric warming. This months weather forecast However, for the first 10 days of January there is no strong signal for a cold easterly flow that was associated with the Beast from the East last winter, and its too early to provide detailed forecasts for what the weather will be like for the remainder of January, adds Mr Kelly. Towards the end of January, however, there is an increased likelihood of a change to much colder weather generally, bringing an enhanced risk of frost, fog and snow. | https://www.lep.co.uk/news/what-is-a-polar-vortex-and-could-it-soon-bring-cold-conditions-to-the-uk-1-9521226 |
Is Maryland ready for the sports betting game? | West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Delaware have voted sports gaming into law. Maryland, the District of Columbia and Virginia have not. Those last three facts will be under discussion when the next legislative session starts at noon on Jan 9, in Annapolis. Session 2019 will come after the House passed a bill to allow sports gaming in Maryland, but the Senate did not; and on the heels of a recent Washington Post-University of Maryland poll that revealed that, while voters likely will have to wait at two years to decide whether to legalize sports gambling, 53 percent of registered voters favor doing so (with 37 percent opposed and 10 percent having no opinion). D.C. and Virginia are also making noise about legalizing gambling, period; but even if sports gaming is approved in both states and the District, it wont result in a huge windfall, as was the case with the approval of slots. Where we are today, said Frank Turner, recently retired delegate from District 13, who sponsored the sports gaming bill last session, is in limbo. I havent seen a bill put in for the upcoming session, but its likely one will be. Then the question becomes, Will there be an agreement between the House and the Senate as to what the bill will look like? Last year, the House wanted sports gaming at the only wanted it at casinos. Thats the hang up, Turner said, and I dont think either side is rushing to take a position, since it cant come into play until 2020, when it has to go to referendum As for what legalization would mean for Maryland, Turner said in Las Vegas sports gaming only accounts for 5 percent to 6 percent of gambling revenues, so I dont think it would be the kind of windfall people might assume it would be. The state gets about $1.4 billion from casinos and $1 billion from the lottery, he said. Sports betting wont stop that. The deal today, he said, is that people who really want this are very vocal, and they dont want to drive [out of state] or go to Vegas to get it. While Maryland has come to the gaming party later than other states, Turner isnt sure thats a bad thing. People complained about how late we got into gaming here, but Maryland is far ahead of other states in [gambling] revenues, he said. Much of that is to do with D.C. and Virginia not having it. We even get people from North Carolina who come here and sightsee, too. Three Points Jeffrey Hooke is managing director of Hooke Associates, of McLean, Va., and a senior lecturer with The Johns Hopkins University, and he thinks enabling legislation will occur by mid-2019. Maryland almost got there last time, he said, offering three issues to contemplate until then. First the legislature must address whether they will give away licenses for free, as most states do and as happens with casino licenses, or sell them to large corporations. They have a market and are worth millions. The state must address that point from a taxpayer point of view. Next, the state will need a regulatory system to police illegal conduct, such as inside information, bribes, and so on. How are bettors being screened?, he said. Other states havent put much effort into monitoring the integrity function. Lastly, the 75-year-old Wire Act, a federal law that prohibits information sharing on national level for horse racing, needs to be updated, since it restricts the sharing of betting patterns across states. The immediate goal here, said Hooke, is to legalize sports gaming in every state, give away the licenses for free and try to have a low betting tax rate then establish the integrity system on the state level. Nationally, 10 states have authorized sports betting and approximately 20 others are pursuing authorizing legislation, which is not lost on Joe Weinberg, CEO of Cordish Global Gaming, which runs Live! Casino, in Hanover. Maryland, with one of the smallest populations in the U.S., has the fourth highest gaming tax collections in the country, with more than $3.5 billion to date, he said. It is important that Maryland casinos continue to have the ability to offer a full suite of products to remain competitive with surrounding states which already offer, or will shortly, allow sports betting. Volatile Market That could well happen in 2020, said Jennifer Roberts, associate director at the International Gaming Institute at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Whats going on in the mid-Atlantic is like the Mississippi-Louisiana relationship, where residents of Louisiana gamble on sports in Mississippi, she said. The politicians of Louisiana would rather have their people gamble on sports in state. Roberts also said the revenues would not amount to as much as people think, however. For instance, before the last Super Bowl (LII), customers at the 198 sports books in Nevada wagered $158 million combined, they made $1.17 million. That was it, she said, though noting that other Super Bowls made much more money. Its a volatile market. So, dont expect the earnings in Maryland or anywhere else to pay for new schools, roads or bridges. But it will add to employment and keep some money in the state, she said. Revenue Plus While Turner would like to see agreement between the Senate and House, there wont be any pressure this year to get it done. In addition, he said, the state has a $1 billion surplus in revenue, so theres no pressure to raise more money. There will be in a couple of years, because educational bills need financing and prescription drugs for retired state employees need funding, he said, plus the economy could [weaken]. With Turner retired, the point man for a bill will be Del. Eric Ebersole (District12, Howard and Baltimore counties), subcommittee chair for finance resources in the Ways and Means Committee, the umbrella group for all gaming interests. He agrees that its hard to ignore any extra money that sports gaming would generate, as well as a new synergy it would provide for the overall gaming market. Many people will be looking forward to the additional financial resources, said Ebersole, noting it could be directed to making community colleges debt free, 3-4 year old pre-kindergarten, school construction, etc. There would be, he said, plenty of places to spend it. | https://www.bizmonthly.com/is-maryland-ready-for-the-sports-betting-game/ |
Where Does the Flu Go When Its Not Flu Season? | Here's what the experts say. As it turns out, they migratenot unlike birds. Here are 9 ways to prepare for the worst month of flu season. The flu season can begin as early as October in the United States and ends in March, with a peak in February, explains Dr. Kola Dushaj, MD, FACP of CareMount Medical in Cortlandt Manor, New York. However, cases can still occur a month or two after. But the flu season also depends on where you happen to be. In the southern hemisphere, where their winter coincides with our summer months, the flu season can run from June to September, says Dr. Dushaj. So in the same way birds fly south for winter, the flu virus migratesthough in the opposite direction. Studies have been done to analyze the migration of seasonal influenza A viruses, says Dr. Dushaj. After studying genomes from both southern and northern hemispheres, research reveals that cross-hemisphere migration frequently occurs and it can occur in both directions. Plus, thanks to our modern modes of international travel and delivery of goods, says Dr. Dushaj, the flu virus can easily hitch rides around the world. The only way for viruses to survive and spread is to infect people (and animals). Outside of a host, the virus lifespan is shortened. The influenza virus can live on some surfaces for up to 48 hours, explains Dr. Dushaj. Because research suggests that colder weather favors a viruss ability to survive, it travels in hosts to hospitable climateswinterwhere it can more easily spread, he says. Find out 20 more things the flu virus doesnt want you to know. A study from 2007 showed the flus migration (and season) is based on humidity and temperature. The flu virus tends to infect more people during cold and dry weather, says Dr. Dushaj. Other conditions that encourage the spread of a virus may be staying indoors with sealed windows and recirculated airas we do in winter. This increases the risk of inhaling the same air as someone who may have the flu, he says. There are other theories on why the flu is worse in winter, says Dr. Dushaj: Less sunlight exposure in the winter months leads to lower levels of vitamin D and melatonin. Being low in these substances may undermine your immune system and your ability to fight off infection, he explains. Stay safe by getting a flu shot, he recommends. Next, make sure you dont ignore these clear symptoms you have the flu. | https://www.rd.com/health/conditions/flu-goes-when-not-flu-season/ |
Will Jair Bolsonaro rip up environmental protections and endanger the Amazon? | President Trump has arguably been most effective in ripping up important environmental protections. The world had better hope not. Brazil is home to the largest uninterrupted forest in the world, a unique ecological treasure on which every other nation depends. Functioning as the Earths lungs, the Amazon takes in carbon dioxide more than 2 billion tons of the greenhouse gas per year and breathes out fresh oxygen. Massive amounts of planet-warming carbon dioxide is stored in the regions trees and other flora. Deforestation, meanwhile, releases ever more of that trapped carbon dioxide into the air, even as it cuts the amount of mature forest eating up greenhouse gases. Worldwide, deforestation is responsible for 15 percent of annual planet-warming emissions. As the Amazon forest shrinks, fighting climate change is far harder. With wholesale deforestation, the job would be near-impossible. Brazil in recent years appeared to recognize its special responsibility to preserve this irreplaceable planetary resource. Though some 3,000 square miles of rain forest disappeared last year, the countrys deforestation rate has nevertheless dropped sharply over the past decade or so. The country adopted a forest code forbidding Amazon landowners from clearing more than 20 percent of their land. Preserves set aside for indigenous peoples served as crucial havens from development. Recognizing the climate crisis, Brazil committed to cutting greenhouse emissions by 43 percent by 2030 in its submission to the Paris climate agreement. Enter Mr. Bolsonaro, sometimes called Brazils Donald Trump. The new president has proposed running a highway through the forest, expressed hostility to international environmental organizations, said that indigenous communities must adapt or simply vanish, called their preserves chickenpox on the landscape and promised to merge the Environment Ministry, which houses the authorities that oversee Amazon protections, with the pro-farming Agriculture Ministry. Immediately after assuming the presidency, he moved authority over indigenous preserves to the Agriculture Ministry and ordered new monitoring of international nongovernmental organizations. From here, already overstretched environmental watchdogs could see their resources and support only shrink. Mr. Bolsonaro does not have a free hand. He cannot amend the forest code, eliminate indigenous protections or pull out of the Paris agreement without the cooperation of the legislature, in which his party does not have a majority. Meanwhile, the rest of the world can have some impact, too. Western consumers, companies and governments should eschew products coming from deforested tracts, and they should press Brazilian business partners to do the same. | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/will-jair-bolsonaro-rip-up-environmental-protections-and-endanger-the-amazon/2019/01/04/bee763fc-1062-11e9-8938-5898adc28fa2_story.html |
Why is printer ink so expensive? | Youre not alone. A recent Consumer Reports survey shows the price of ink is the number one complaint for printer owners. Experts at Consumer Reports say one reason is theres a lot of science and engineering behind printing and it all has to work together seamlessly. Consumers expect a push-button experience and thats what they try to deliver. Consumer Reports says to think of what you paid for your printer as more of a down payment. The manufacturer hopes you come back to them and buy their original brand ink or toner. Thats the profit motive. So now they sell the printer cheaply but can charge more for the ink and toner. When it comes to that ink, most consumers arent even getting what they paid for. CR says tests have shown with many inkjet printers, more than half of the ink you buy never winds up on the page. Inkjets, which are a very popular type of printer, tend to use up more ink than other types of printers because they have to do a maintenance cycle. That maintenance cycle helps keep the printheads from clogging, which can ruin your prints. CR says consumers who print the average 25 to 35 pages a month should leave their printers on. Thats because turning a printer off and on can trigger more maintenance cycles. Dont worry about your electricity bill. CR says inkjets nowadays use very little power in sleep mode. Consider an affordable black and white laser printer, especially if youre mostly just printing text. You can also check out reservoir inkjet printers. They use ink reservoirs you fill yourself instead of cartridges. And those refills can last up to two years. All Consumer Reports material Copyright 2019 Consumer Reports, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Consumer Reports is a not-for-profit organization which accepts no advertising. It has no commercial relationship with any advertiser or sponsor on this site. For more information visit consumer.org. | https://fox6now.com/2019/01/04/why-is-printer-ink-so-expensive/ |
Did Dr. Dre just confirm that Apple has bought Beats? | Updated: A Facebook video uploaded by actor Tyrese Gibson hints that Apple be snapping up Beats Electronics. In the video, Dr. Dre says "The first billionaire in hip-hop, right here," seemingly confirming the aquisition. We're holding out for something more official - watch this space. Interestingly, the video has now been taken down, but a ripped version has appeared here (warning: lots of swearies). Original story below... Apple may soon drop a few billion to pick-up Beats Electronics. According to sources of the Financial Times (paywall), Apple is in talks with the Dr. Dre-co-founded firm for a deal that would turn the headphone purveyor over to Cupertino for $3.2 billion (about 1.8b, AU$3.4b). The purchase could be announced as soon as next week, though nothing is final and, depending on how discussions between Apple and Beats play out, may still fall through. Beats made a name for itself with headphones slung on by celebrities from every ilk, but recently the company helmed by Jimmy Iovine broke into the streaming game with Beats Music. TechRadar asked Apple and Beats for comment on the reported sale, and Beats responded that it "has no comment at this time." We've yet to hear from Apple. Apple re-pressed play Despite the cool factor afforded by high-profile peeps sporting Beats by Dre headsets, Apple's true interest in Beats may lie in its streaming music offering. To be sure, Dre's headphones are a staple of Apple's online and retail stores, but the iPhone maker may consider Beats Music the real catch. iTunes Radio launched in October 2013, but iTunes itself has been rumored for a "radical overhaul" for several months now. Where it once ruled the one-and-done download space, subscription services services are increasingly taking consumers into their streams. A Beats Music/iTunes Radio mash-up could be what Apple needs to reinvigorate its musically inclined revenue stream. If the deal goes through, it would potentially be Apple's biggest purchase to date. It'd certainly rank for name-recognition; the Mac maker typically sticks to lesser-known loot. What's more, two sources of The New York Post revealed CEO Iovine may join Apple as a "special adviser" to Tim Cook, chiming in on creative matters. Stay tuned to TechRadar for more on Apple's Beats buy. We're sure to hear more in the coming days if the report proves true. Via CNET | https://www.techradar.com/au/news/audio/apple-may-make-a-3-2-billion-play-for-beats-electronics-1247751 |
Where Does a Sharks Skin Get Its Pattern? | In 1952, well before developmental biologists spoke in terms of Hoxgenes and transcription factors, or even understood DNAs structure, Alan Turing had an idea. The famed mathematician who hastened the end of World War II by cracking the Enigma code turned his mind to the natural world and devised an elegant mathematical model of pattern formation. His theory outlined how endless varieties of stripes, spots, and scales could emerge from the interaction of two simple, hypothetical chemical agents, or morphogens. Decades passed before biologists seriously considered that this mathematical theory could in fact explain myriad biological patterns. The development of mammalian hair, the feathers of birds, and even those ridges on the roof of your mouth all stem from Turing-like mechanisms. Nature tends to invent something once, and then plays variations on that theme. Now, denticles, the toothlike protrusions that cover the skin of sharks, can be added to the list. Researchers from the University of Florida recently discovered that shark denticles are laid down by a Turing-like mechanism directed by the same genes responsible for feather pattern formation. According to Gareth Fraser, the researcher who led the study, the work suggests that the developing embryos of diverse backboned species set down patterns of features in their outer layers of tissue in the same waya patterning mechanism that likely evolved with the first vertebrates and has changed very little since. The beauty of this work is that it shows that there might be a very strong conservation of this mechanism for forming anything from shark denticles to bird feathers, said Alexander Schier, a Harvard developmental biologist who was not involved in the study. This study bolsters a growing theme in developmental biology, that nature tends to invent something once, and then plays variations on that theme, Schier said. Turings model, called a reaction-diffusion mechanism, is beautifully simple. It requires only two interacting agents, an activator and an inhibitor, that diffuse through tissue like ink dropped in water. The activator initiates some process, like the formation of a spot, and promotes the production of itself. The inhibitor halts both actions. Critically, the inhibitor spreads through tissue more quickly than the activator does. This faster diffusion of the inhibitor prevents pockets of activation from spilling over. Depending on exactly when and where the activator and inhibitor are released, the pockets of activation will arrange themselves as regularly spaced dots, stripes, or other patterns. Rory Cooper (left); rendered by Rory Cooper, scanned by Kyle Martin and Amin Garbout at The Imaging and Analysis Centre, Natural History Museum, London Catherine Boisvert, a developmental biologist at Curtin University in Australia, explains that this activation-inhibition system is a powerful developmental motif. If youre trying to build a fully formed structure like a feather or denticle, you cant have overcrowding, she said. Without spacing in between, youre never going to get a distinct entity. According to Schier, Turings model excites developmental biologists because despite its simplicity, it can explain a lot of diverse patterns. Yet in practice, very few instances of patterning in nature have been definitively pinned to a Turing-like mechanism. Two such instances are in the patterns that set out the positions of hair follicles in mice and feathers in chicks. In a developing chick, proto-feathers pop up sequentially, forming a single straight line down the chicks back. That initial row stimulates the production of parallel rows that cascade down the sides of the embryo until its covered. Critically, researchers know the molecules that perform activator and inhibitor roles, confirming the process is Turing-like. Also in Evolution We Built These Bodies By Dusica Sue Malesevic Since Darwin, we have considered our bodies to be an outcome of natural selection. But recent anthropological theories suggest that our own technology, even the most primitive, may have affected our own evolution, right down to our shape.1. Stones and rough toolsStone tools...READ MORE Rory Cooper, a graduate student in the Fraser lab, thought shark denticles seemed to develop similarly. Yet sharks, and their cousins the skates and rays, split off from the rest of the vertebrates 450 million years ago. They sit in a very interesting place on the tree of life, said Cooper, as he explained that sharks offer a view of early vertebrate development. Hundreds of millions of years before mammals grew hair and birds sprouted feathers, sharks had denticle scales that covered their skin like armor. (They are the oldest living vertebrate lineage with any kind of skin appendage.) The patterns, forms, and functions of denticles are diverse: Thickly overlapping denticles provide some sharks with extra protection, while more sparse and sleek patterns reduce drag for nimbler sharks. In some shark species, denticles even house bioluminescent bacteria that aid communication. Yet, notwithstanding some minor differences, the developmental patterning similarities between denticles, hair, and feathers are undeniable. To demonstrate that shark denticle patterning could in principle arise from a Turing-like mechanism, Frasers colleagues built a mathematical model of activator and inhibitor interactions. They tinkered with the diffusion, production, and degradation rates of the two morphogens until the model produced patterns that matched those of developing shark skin. The model told us that, theoretically, a Turing-like mechanism could explain pattern formation in sharks, Cooper said. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aau5484 The molecular underpinnings of denticle development were not known, as they were for feathers. Given the similarity in development, however, the chick genes were a good place to start. When Cooper used in situ hybridization, a technique that can illuminate gene expression in developing tissue, he saw that the same genes light up during pattern formation in both chicks and sharks. Not only are those genes expressed when the [denticles] are popping up, theyre actually expressed in the same tissue layers, which is quite strong conservation, Cooper said. Demonstrating similar gene expression for similar processes is a good first step, but the gold standard of proof in developmental biology is a knock-down experiment: If you reduce or eliminate the expression of a gene and the pattern then disappears, that gene must play an important role in pattern production. To do this, Cooper loaded tiny beads with a chemical that inhibits the chick feather activator. He then implanted the beads alongside proto-denticles in the shark embryo and watched as the shark grew. The results were clear. The beads, designed to inhibit the expression of activator genes in a bird, could reach across hundreds of millions of years of evolution and exert an identical effect in a shark. Cooper found that activator gene expression plummeted next to the beads, forming a flat dead zone devoid of denticles. The results of these manipulations make really quite a strong case that this mechanism is deeply conserved, Schier said. Turing mechanisms are theoretically not the only ways to build patterns, but nature seems to favor them. To test whether a Turing-like mechanism could create the wide range of denticle patterns seen in other sharks and their kin, the researchers tweaked the production, degradation, and diffusion rates of the activator and inhibitor in their model. They found that relatively simple changes could produce patterns that matched much of the diversity seen in this lineage. The skates, for example, tend to have more sparsely patterned denticles; by either increasing the diffusion rate or decreasing the degradation rate of the inhibitor, the researchers could make more sparse patterns emerge. Once the initial pattern is set, other, non-Turing mechanisms complete the transformation of these rows into fully formed denticles, feathers, or other epithelial appendages. You have these deeply conserved master regulator mechanisms that act early on in the development of these appendages, Boisvert explained, but downstream, species-specific mechanisms kick in to refine that structure. Still, Boisvert stressed how remarkable it is that the mechanism underlying so many different biological patterns was theorized by a mathematician with no biological training, at a time when little about molecular biology was understood. Turing mechanisms are theoretically not the only ways to build patterns, but nature seems to favor them. According to Fraser, the reliance on this mechanism by so many far-flung groups of organisms suggests that some kind of constraint may be at work. There simply may not be many ways in which you can pattern something, he said. Once a system emerges, especially one as simple and powerful as a Turing mechanism, nature runs with it and doesnt look back. Biological diversity, across the board, is based on a fairly restricted set of principles that seem to work and are reused over and over again in evolution, said Fraser. Nature, in all its exuberant inventiveness, may be more conservative than we thought. Johnathan Lambert is an evolutionary biologist turned science writer, currently working as Quanta Magazines writing intern. Before that, he was a AAAS Mass Media fellow at the Dallas Morning News, and was also an assistant producer on the science podcast for kids from American Public Media, Brains On!. He is currently a Ph.D student at Cornell University. Reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazines Abstractions blog. Lead image: Alexandre Thiery | http://nautil.us/issue/68/context/how-alan-turing-deciphered-shark-skin?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=RSS_Syndication |
Will Eagles' championship O-line pedigree outshine Bears? | It's playoff time, which means we're taking a bit of a different approach for Behind The O Line. Twenty of the league's teams are now headed for vacation, with just 12 left to play for something. Eight of those squads are getting down and dirty this weekend, leaving us with a small group to choose from. Let's take a look at the last game of Wild Card Weekend, between two eerily similar teams that pit newfound hope against a championship pedigree: Bears vs. Eagles. We find two squads that are almost mirror images of each other offensively, and for good reason: Each of these teams' head coaches used to serve as offensive coordinator under Andy Reid. Unsurprisingly, each is in the top five of the NFL in shotgun percentage, running 79 percent or more (Philadelphia: 79.3 percent; Chicago: 80.5 percent) of their plays out of some variation of shotgun, per Next Gen Stats. This should bode well for the big fellas up front, who get a slight benefit of not having to block long enough for their quarterback to complete an elongated (five- or seven-step) dropback. It's also no surprise that each of these units find themselves in the lower half of the league in sacks surrendered (Chicago is tied for eighth with 33; Philadelphia is tied for 15th with 40). But offensive line play isn't just about sacks, which can also double as a quarterback stat, depending on the set of circumstances. It's also about pressures. Philadelphia has allowed 177 pressures between Carson Wentz and Nick Foles, while Chicago has allowed 117 pressures between Mitchell Trubisky and Chase Daniel. That 60-pressure difference is a pretty considerable gap, and speaks to the continuity Chicago has enjoyed up front while in-season changes have made Philadelphia's offensive line less consistent. The Eagles have seen injuries to both Lane Johnson and Jason Peters require the insertion of backup swing tackle Halapoulivaati Vaitai at both right and left tackle. Vaitai has also traded series with Peters when healthy intermittently throughout the season. The Eagles also replaced veteran Stefen Wisniewski with younger guard Isaac Seumalo, who has started nine games but missed the last three with a pectoral injury. With these changes came the consistent availability of guard Brandon Brooks, a back-to-back Pro Bowl selection, and center Jason Kelce, who is Pro Bowl caliber but missed out thanks to an NFC roster that includes two excellent centers in Atlanta's Alex Mack and New Orleans' Max Unger. Though Kelce didn't earn a Pro Bowl nod, he's Philadelphia's highest-graded lineman, owning a mark of 84.9, per Pro Football Focus. Seumalo's status is worth monitoring, though Wisniewski was the better option prior to this season. One could have seen Seumalo's insertion as a bit of a knee-jerk decision based on youth more than production, but it hasn't produced drastic results in one direction or the other, making the eventual starter's value less notable. What's more important is the play of Peters, who ranks 79th in pass protection this season, per PFF. He has shown signs of his age (especially in his agility and ability to maintain edge blocks) and will face all-world edge rusher Khalil Mack. Expect Philadelphia to employ a running back to help with Mack, or else face the worst possible outcome. The odds aren't in Philadelphia's favor in this area, with the Eagles' best pass protecting running back, Corey Clement, on injured reserve with a knee injury. They're left with Wendell Smallwood and Darren Sproles, with each falling below a grade threshold of 50 in pass protection, per PFF. The responsibility will shift to including tight ends in such situations and likely involve using two tight ends (Dallas Goedert being the second) to maximize Zach Ertz's availability on passing downs, something the Eagles have only done on 35.4 percent of passes, per Next Gen Stats. The Eagles rank third in the NFL in run blocking with a cumulative grade of 70.6, and 11th in pass blocking at a mark of 78.9. Oddly enough, they're in the bottom third in rushing yards per game, 28th with an average of 98.1 yards per game. This is more due to personnel instability, the Eagles being forced to turn to a committee backfield after losing Jay Ajayi to a season-ending injury. Conversely, the Bears have largely enjoyed a healthy season from their front five, save for guard Kyle Long, who missed eight games due to a foot injury. Luckily, Chicago saw the return of Long in Week 17, who will break the huddle with his brother Chris on the other side of the line of scrimmage as part of a three-man rotation for Philadelphia. This game won't come down to a blitzing defense, as the Bears and Eagles have found their greatest success with base rushes. Philadelphia has been especially effective with its front four in the last month, causing plenty of pressure against a variety of opponents thanks to the stellar play of defensive tackle Fletcher Cox and defensive end Brandon Graham, as well as veteran end Michael Bennett. In terms of PFF grades, Cox owns a premier mark of 92.6, while Graham isn't far behind at 88.7. Philadelphia has generated pressure on 28.1 percent of snaps in which it didn't blitz, the second-highest rate in the NFL, per Next Gen Stats. They'll present quite a challenge for Chicago's line, which doesn't individually grade out all that well, but plays best as a united, consistent front. The numbers bear that out: Trubisky has only been pressured on 15.4 percent of his dropbacks versus four or fewer pass rushers, the lowest rate among 33 qualifying quarterbacks, and has completed 71.7 percent of attempts versus non-blitzes, third highest in the NFL, per Next Gen Stats. Blitz rates also don't play into the hands of Philadelphia, which is excellent with Nick Foles taking snaps against the blitz. Foles ranks first in completion percentage, yards per attempt, TD-INT ratio and passer rating against the blitz, per Next Gen Stats. And it's not just Foles, as Pederson has schemed similarly productive situations for Wentz before he went down with a back injury. It doesn't bode well, though, because Chicago has only blitzed on 21.1 percent of opposing dropbacks this season, the sixth-lowest rate in the NFL, per Next Gen Stats. And even when it does blitz, it's rarely caught off guard, ranking second in TD-INT ratio when blitzing (4-5), third in sack rate (14.3 percent) and opposing passer rating (70.5), fourth in yards per attempt (6.1) and fifth in pressure rate (38.6 percent), per Next Gen Stats. The weakness simply isn't there for Philadelphia to exploit, at least not in the numbers. Where the game likely will find its turning point is in short targets, as both defenses are effective without blitzing, limiting downfield opportunities. Of course, Mack is a key player to watch, as is fellow Pro Bowl selection Akiem Hicks, who will battle the strength of Philadelphia's line in Brooks and Johnson. It has the feel of two similarly stubborn defenses (with Chicago owning a better secondary) facing offenses that project to be limited, making individual plays that much more important. The aforementioned Mack versus two pass protectors figures to be a key matchup. Chicago's top defense (per PFF) might be the separating group in this game, making it a must-see contest to close Wild Card Weekend. | http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000001007665/article/will-eagles-championship-oline-pedigree-outshine-bears |
Why Do We Sometimes See The Moon During The Day? | Answers to your moon questions with John O'Meara, chief scientist at the W.M. Keck Observatory. Loading... "Why is the moon out in the daytime?" - Elliot, 3, Illinois We can see the moon during the day for the same reason we see the moon at night. The surface of the moon is reflecting the sun's light into our eyes. "The stars are nowhere near as bright as the blue sky during the day, but the moon is approximately as bright in reflected sunlight as the sky during the day, and that's why we can see the moon during the day, but not the stars during the day," O'Meara said. But we don't see the moon all the time during the day, and that's because of where the moon might be in the sky. "Sometimes to see the moon you'd have to look through the Earth and we can't do that," O'Meara said. "When we see the moon during the day it's because the moon is in the right spot in the sky and it's reflecting enough light to be as bright, or brighter, than the sky." "Why does it look like the moon is following you when you drive?" -Anisa, 6, Georgia It's an optical illusion. The moon is very far away, compared to anything else you see when you're driving like the telephone poles that you see that appear to fly past your car as you're going down a highway. "The moon is so far away that its size and shape on the sky doesn't change much at all because it's really far away. You driving one mile is insignificant in terms of how it makes the moon look on the sky," O'Meara said. "And because the Earth is rotating around once every 24 hours, that means you don't see the moon moving too much in the sky, expect when it's really close to the horizon and you can see the moonset and the sunset happen." So the moon is just so far away, its shape on the sky isn't changing as you drive along, and so it can feel like the moon is following you. Click listen to hear the full episode. | http://digital.vpr.net/post/why-do-we-sometimes-see-moon-during-day |
Can model Bri Barnes dodgy Aussie accent snag US Bachelor Colton Underwood? | Bri Barnes, a contestant on the upcoming US season of the Bachelor, tries to seduce the series first virgin leading man Colton Underwood with her Australian accent. In a promo for the series, which starts on Tuesday, the 24-year-old model greets Underwood with a slightly impressive but mostly dodgy Aussie twang. Youve got a nice accent. Where are you from, he asks. Um, the accent, its Australian, she lies. I was hoping that youre kind of a sucker for accents. Underwood says he loves her accent before she walks towards the mansion. Barnes later admits: Im not really Australian but you have to do what you can to stand out. | https://www.perthnow.com.au/entertainment/tv/can-model-bri-barnes-dodgy-aussie-accent-snag-us-bachelor-colton-underwood-ng-b881065722z |
Why Isnt Trump Talking About the American Jailed in Russia? | President Donald Trump has made a point of trying to get Americans detained abroad returned home to the United States. But with the detention of the former Marine Paul Whelan in Moscow on suspicion of espionage, Trumps goal of bringing Americans home risks running headfirst into the perception that he will do almost anything to improve relations with Russia. And strikingly, in the week since Whelans detention, neither Trump nor the White House has issued a statement about his arrest and subsequent indictment on espionage charges in Russia. Former intelligence officials are skeptical that Whelan was in fact spying on behalf of the United States. His lack of diplomatic protection and checkered service record do not line up with American spycraft in Russia, where U.S. intelligence officers are accustomed to taking significant security precautions against that countrys vaunted intelligence apparatus. But that hasnt stopped Russian officials from arresting Whelan to use as a likely bargaining chip for a Russian national, Maria Butina, recently prosecuted in the United States for her role in infiltrating U.S. political organizations. A Russian lawyer for Whelan has publicly raised the possibility of a prisoner swap, likely for Butina. So for now, Whelan remains detained in Moscows infamous Lefortovo Prison, where spies and dissidents were often imprisoned in Soviet days. If the Kremlin is playing to Trumps instincts as a deal-maker and hoping to engineer a swap, it has been slow to develop. Daniel Fried, who served as the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs under George W. Bush, said the silence from the White House was not necessarily indicative of a lack of concern and that there may be dialogue ongoing behind the scenes. During his first two years in office, Trump has gone to great lengths to secure the release of Americans detained abroad and claims to have had 17 people released under his administration. The president has frequently tied the release of Americans to his diplomatic initiatives. When North Korea released Otto Warmbier in 2017 and three other detained Americans the following year, it served as the beginning of a diplomatic process that would culminate in a meeting between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. After Turkish authorities detained the pastor Andrew Brunson, the Trump administration levied harsh sanctions on that countrys steel industry, though the White House insisted it was for unrelated national security reasons. Indeed, in his approach toward detained individuals, Trump has taken a highly transactional approach toward both Americans detained abroad and foreign nationals swept up in criminal investigations. They deserve credit for the people theyve gotten released, said James OBrien, who served as the Obama administrations special envoy to secure the release of Americans held hostage abroad. The question I have is whether theyre developing strategies for each of these cases. While many presidents would be loath to intervene in judicial processes, Trump has even waded into investigations launched by his own Justice Department. Late last year, Trump told Reuters that he would be willing to intervene in the prosecution of the chief financial officer of Huawei, whom American prosecutors are attempting to extradite from Canada on charges that she defrauded U.S. banks as part of a scheme to sell banned telecom equipment to Iran. But the Whelan case raises unique challenges for the Trump administration. His arrest came two weeks after Butina, a Russian gun enthusiast, pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as a foreign agent, prompting speculation that the Russians may seek to trade Whelan for Butina. Butina became a cause clbre in Russia following her arrest, which may have also compelled the Russian authorities to retaliate against the United States. Butinas arrest and guilty plea came against the backdrop of special counsel Robert Muellers investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to boost Trumps candidacy. The growing body of evidence that Russia interfered in American politics now poses a major hurdle for Trump, whose desires to improve relations with Moscow have been undermined by persistent questions about whether that desire is part of a quid pro quo for the assistance he received from Moscow. A swap for a man thought to be falsely accused of espionage in exchange for a woman who has pleaded guilty to her role in a political conspiracy would inevitably invite charges that Trump has yet again acquiesced to the Kremlin. U.S. diplomats are now scrambling for information about Whelans case. Jon Huntsman, the U.S. ambassador to Moscow, visited the American prisoner this week. Such visits are usually conducted by other consular staff, and a visit by the ambassador has been interpreted as a strong statement by the State Department. Whelan was a frequent visitor to Russia and was in Moscow to attend the wedding of a friend. He maintained an active presence on the Russian social media site VKontakte and had forged friendships with Russian service members on the platform. Whelan was discharged from the Marine Corps after he was convicted of attempting to steal more than $10,000 in currency and writing bad checks, the Washington Post reported Friday. Whelan holds passports from three other countriesIreland, Canada, and the United Kingdomextending the international fallout from his arrest. He is reported to have requested diplomatic assistance from all four countries. Both Britain and Ireland have sought consular access to Whelan, and British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said individuals should not be used as pawns of diplomatic leverage and added that the United States was leading on the case. Steven Hall, a former chief of the CIAs Russia operations, said it was highly unlikely that Whelan was acting on behalf of U.S. intelligence services and that his detention is better characterized as a hostage taking. Hall noted that diplomacy regarding the detention of Americans abroad is usually dealt with behind closed doors, but he was not convinced that this explained the presidents silence. In my opinion, subtlety is not Donald Trumps forte. And that hes not saying much because hes concerned about whatever relationship he has with Vladimir Putin and with Russia, he said. What Trump says or doesnt say about this will greater inform us about his relation with Vladimir Putin. In a statement issued on Friday on behalf of the Whelan family, Whelans brother, David, said, We are relieved and very pleased to know that staff of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow have been given consular access to Paul and confirmed that he is safe. We urge the U.S. Congress and the State Department to help on Pauls behalf to secure his release and return him home soon. | https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/01/04/why-isnt-trump-talking-about-the-american-jailed-in-russia/ |
Will new reality show 'Lindsay Lohan's Beach Club' be a flop? | Lindsay Lohan's new show "Lindsay Lohan's Beach Club" is finally here, and the reviews are mixed. Lohan, formally known as "LiLo" is now the proud owner of a beach club in Mykonos, Greece. The new show follows the club owner, and the staff as drama and hookups inevitably occur. Many are comparing Lohan to Lisa Vanderpump due to the venture. Some also say the show is a "Vanderpump Rules" knockoff and Lohan is a joke. Preview the series here. Critics are not speaking highly of Lohan's "comeback." Lindsay Lohan thinks she's a brand & these other people have "worked their way up from the bottom" to become...hosts & hostesses. [?] Bro, please. I wish her success, but I'm just a little skeptical. #LindsayLohansBeachClub -- Nola Salazar Barnes (@salazar_barnes) January 1, 2019 But Lohan's fans are ready to go all in and support the series. If I could go to any club, it would def be - hands down #LindsayLohansBeachClub @lindsaylohan yassss love a good come back and so rooting for you. [?][?][?][?][?][?]. Watch out Lisa vanderpump. Lindsay is coming for your crown! -- hopesaprincess (@hopesaprincess) December 16, 2018 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, we'd love to hear what you have to say. | https://www.pennlive.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2019/01/will_new_reality_show_lindsay.html |
Is the Cost of Propane a Better Option For Business Owners? | No matter what type of business you run, switching to propane can benefit your business across the board. Propane is safe to transport, store and use, and its an all-around eco-friendly fuel source because of its clean and efficient burning. Not only was propane named a clean air alternative by the Clean Air Act of 1990, but the cost of propane can save your business money on a monthly basis. Keep reading to learn exactly how you can save by switching your fuel source to propane. The remaining supply is imported from our neighbors in Canada and Mexico. Needless to say, having a domestic supply of propane makes the pricing much more stable and reasonable than foreign oil. Having a stable propane price point also allows you to create a budget plan that you can actually follow. Propane is Versatile Not only can propane be used to heat your office building, but you can also use it for fireplaces, pool heaters, grills, and dryers. It can also provide power to a backup generator during severe weather conditions. Also, using propane to fuel your water heater is cheaper than up to 33 percent of other fuel sources. Propane is Reliable When you use electricity to heat your business, you are putting your business at stake of the grid. Luckily, propane can be used in many remote areas where power tends to be impractical or dangerously expensive. It can also be used in place of electricity because if a storm blows through and knocks out a power line, you could be out of heat for days before a maintenance crew has the chance to come to fix it. But by switching to propane fuel, you become independent of the grid, and you never have to worry about harsh weather conditions again. Not to mention that you can put your propane on an auto-refill schedule and create energy payment plans so you will never run out of it- even in the harshest of storms. Propane is Hotter The U.S. Department of Energy suggests using propane to heat your property (or business) as opposed to electricity because its relatively cheaper. So just by switching to propane to heat your company building, you will immediately start to save money on your utility bill. Propane also burns higher than natural gas. This means that you only need a portion of the amount of natural gas that you would use to get your building up to the same temperature. Propane Requires Low Maintenance Fortunately, the equipment that propane uses to burn properly stays relatively clean and requires very low maintenance. The equipment also retains its efficiency levels for a longer period of time. And at the end of the day, low maintenance and high-efficiency levels save businesses money because the money and time you wouldve spent cleaning your fuel equipment can now be distributed elsewhere. Cost Of Propane Can Save Your Business Money When you calculate reliability, versatility, maintenance levels and distribution sites together, the cost of propane is significantly cheaper than other fuel sources. And switching to propane will allow you to see savings every single month. For more tips and tricks on how to save money for your business, take a look at our small business articles. | http://www.smallbusinessbrief.com/energy/is-the-cost-of-propane-a-better-option-for-business-owners/ |
How can there be fog when the temperatures are so cold? | Dear Tom, I was driving near Champaign, IL, in early December, in dense fog with a temperature of 7 degrees (on my car thermometer). Maggie Robinson, Zion Dear Maggie, Fog consists of tiny droplets of water in the air at or near the Earths surface. Fog droplets persist in liquid form even at air temperatures well below freezing because, generally, the liquid droplets need a surface to freeze upon. Liquid fog can occur even at temperatures well below zero degrees, but below -40 degrees the fog particles do indeed freeze (and this is called ice fog). Your experience with fog at a temperature of 7 degrees is not unusual. As air is cooled, it can contain progressively less and less water vapor and its relative humidity increases until, when its humidity reaches 100 percent, the water vapor begins to condense into fog. | https://wgntv.com/2019/01/04/how-can-there-be-fog-when-the-temperatures-are-so-cold/ |
Does giving up alcohol for January actually make a difference? | CTVNews.ca Staff, with a report from CTV Atlantic A new survey of people who participated in Dry January abstaining from alcohol for the month of January suggests that even temporarily staying away from booze could have yearlong benefits that include sleeping better, saving money and drinking less overall. Led by a psychologist at the University of Sussex, the survey first questioned more than 2,000 adults in the U.K. who registered for Dry January in 2018. It followed up with them in February and then six months later, in August. The third survey included 816 participants. Participants reported drinking fewer days on average, from 4.3 days per week to 3.3 days per week. They also consumed less alcohol per day on average and reported being drunk less frequently. More than 80 per cent of those surveyed said they saved money and felt more in control of their drinking. The participants also reported a variety of other health benefits, ranging from better skin and more energy to weight loss and better sleep. Interestingly, these changes in alcohol consumption have also been seen in the participants who didnt manage to stay alcohol-free for the whole month although they are a bit smaller, said Richard De Visser, the researcher who led the study, in a statement. This shows that there are real benefits to just trying to complete Dry January. Canadas Low-Risk Alcohol Drinking Guidelines suggest that men limit their alcohol consumption to 15 drinks per week and women to 10 drinks per week, with a maximum of three drinks per day for men and two drinks per day for women. The Canadian Cancer Society supports challenges such as Dry January and hosts its own Dry February event. We have to start to recognize that (drinking) is very harmful to our health, Todd Leader, the vice president of support programs for the Canadian Cancer Society in Atlantic Canada, told CTV Atlantic. He added that many people dont realize that alcohol like tobacco is a carcinogen, known to cause at least five types of cancer. Nicki Kiepek, a professor in Dalhousie Universitys school of occupational therapy, told CTV Atlantic that while making changes such as abstaining from alcohol is very difficult, it helps to focus on something besides staying away from drinking, such as exercising, instead. Jenna Conter is among those Canadians who have resolved to participate in Dry January, choosing instead to stick to drinking coffee. I basically realized that now, the age I am, the repercussions of the holiday spirit arent exactly the easiest thing to get over, she told CTV Atlantic. Last year, Conter managed to abstain from drinking alcohol for six months. She doesnt think this years challenge will be any more difficult. Its certainly a lot safer for my loved ones than the time I gave up coffee for a month, she said. | https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/does-giving-up-alcohol-for-january-actually-make-a-difference-1.4241133 |
What caused the murder rate in one Brooklyn neighborhood to drop 65 percent? | When the New York Police Department released crime statistics for 2018 in the first week of January 2019, one community stood out.The area policed by the 67th Precinct, East Flatbush, Brooklyn; had experienced a significant drop in homicides despite leading the city for murders just the year before. "It's unbelievable what has happened here," said Mayor Bill de Blasio during a press conference congratulating the police and the community for their hard work.In 2017, murders in the 67th Precinct rose more than 20% from 14 homicides in 2016 to 17 homicides in 2017 even as the homicide rate citywide fell.Police focused their efforts. "Every day cops are out here interacting with people, building bonds that continue to take illegal guns off the street," said NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill.Community advocates also played a vital role in reducing violence and improving relationships.Eyewitness News tagged along one afternoon as the team at G-MACC Inc. canvassed the East Flatbush neighborhood.The organization is committed to making a positive change in the lives of those impacted by or vulnerable to violence. "We're talking about stopping shootings," said G-MACC Founder Shanduke McPhatter. "You change the dynamics. "McPhatter and his team are focused on connecting young people and their families to alternatives to violence including job training, education resources, and mentorship.McPhatter describes himself as a former gang member who realized it was time to change after being incarcerated. "Being part of the violence, I realized what I went through was a way to make a change," McPhatter said. "We tell them to be more than a color, to break the cycle and to stop the violence. "McPhatter said he's noticed the efforts of police who he credits with approaching the community in a more team-oriented fashion in the last year. "I've seen some change in command. There has definitely been some change in how they respond to the community," McPhatter said indicating the change has reduced a "them vs. us" impression. "Yes, they've done a good part. "McPhatter and his team have also invested countless hours making the streets safer.Residents are noticing.In 2018, only 6 people were killed in the 67th precinct, a 65% reduction from the year before.Mahnefah Gray grew up in the neighborhood and lost her teen brother to violence. She says she's seen the change. "It's the best feeling. You don't have to wake up to a text or something in the news that someone died in your neighborhood," Gray said.Both McPhatter and police agreed the change is proof that investing in the community one person at a time can truly make a difference.---------- | https://abc7ny.com/what-caused-the-murder-rate-in-one-neighborhood-to-drop-65-percent/5016567/ |
What The Heck Are These Dang Bits? | Welcome to The Riddler. Every week, I offer up problems related to the things we hold dear around here: math, logic and probability. There are two types: Riddler Express for those of you who want something bite-size and Riddler Classic for those of you in the slow-puzzle movement. Submit a correct answer for either, and you may get a shoutout in next weeks column. If you need a hint or have a favorite puzzle collecting dust in your attic, find me on Twitter. Riddler Express From James Anderson, in which you unwrap your presents and they are promptly eaten: For Christmas, you received a 20-volume encyclopedia (thanks, Mom) that now sits on your shelf in numerical order. Each volume is 2 centimeters thick and bound with a 2-millimeter thick hardcover. Jordan shared this puzzle previously with some folks, and has this preliminary report for Riddler Nation: To my amazement, three people figured it out all mathematicians, but that partially reflects whos on my feed, and the solution is actually in some sense elementary. Ive got a hunch Riddler Nation will add significantly to that total. Submit your answer Solution to the previous Riddler Express Congratulations to Tracy Hall of Provo, Utah, winner of the previous Riddler Express! Two weeks ago, we learned that Santa Claus memory was faltering. It was faltering so much, in fact, that hed forgotten the order in which his eight reindeer were meant to be harnessed to his sleigh. The reindeers themselves remembered where they were supposed to go, but, being animals, could only give out a grunt of approval if they were harnessed in the right position. Santa decided on the following strategy to get everybody hooked up correctly: He created a list of all eight reindeer in random order. He then went to the first location, harnessing the reindeer one by one off his list until one grunted, then moving on to the next location and starting over at the top of his list. Each harnessing took one minute. It would take 22 minutes on average. Because the initial list of reindeer is random, it is equally likely that any of Santas attempts to harness the reindeer in the first location is correct. Therefore, to harness the first animal would take an average of (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8) / 8 = 4.5 minutes. Similarly, to harness the second would take an average of (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7) / 7 = 4 minutes, and so on. Thats a total of 4.5 + 4 + 3.5 + 3 + 2.5 + 2 + 1.5 + 1 = 22 minutes. Santa could, of course, get really lucky with his random list, and get each one right on the first try for a total of eight minutes of harnessing. Or he could get really unlucky, taking the maximum amount of time with each reindeer for a total of 36 minutes of harnessing. More likely, it would be somewhere in between. This puzzles submitter, Taylor Firman, provided the following chart of the distribution of possible reindeer-harnessing times that Santa could face: Good luck with your draw from that probability distribution, big jolly guy. Were counting on you. Solution to the previous Riddler Classic Congratulations to David Mattingly of Old Forge, Pennsylvania, winner of the previous Riddler Classic! Two weeks ago, we also traveled to Santas workshop in which elves worked shifts building toys. During these shifts, Christmas music played on an overhead speaker, with songs chosen by a program at random from a large playlist. Every time he heard a song twice, a cranky elf named Cranky started throwing snowballs at everyone. This happened during about half of all shifts. During a shift, the elves hear 100 total songs. It contains 7,175 songs. This puzzle is quite similar to the birthday problem which is concerned with the chances that some two people in a group share a birthday with an unknown number of days in a year, or songs on the playlist, in our case. So instead of 365 days and a 50 percent chance of a birthday match in a group of 23 people, we have an unknown number of songs and a 50 percent chance of a match in a group of 100 songs. Lets say there are X songs on the playlist. The chance of there not being a repeated song during a 100-song shift, a familiar equation from the birthday problem, is:\(\) \begin{equation*}\frac{X!}{X^{100}(X-100)! }\end{equation*} So the chance of there being a match is 1 minus that. That expression equals 0.5 right around when X = 7,175. Solver Hernando Cortina created the chart below using many elf shift simulations, and it shows how the probability of hearing a repeat song decreases as the playlist becomes larger. The probability hits our 50 percent mark very near 7,175 songs. One of the founders of the music service Pandora, Joe Kennedy, wrote in to say the situation the problem highlights is actually very real. [Editors note: Ah yes, The Riddler, that staunch bastion of realism!] For the many people whose favorite Christmas song is All I Want for Christmas Is You, there just arent 7,174 other Christmas songs like it. Theres a whole book full of the best puzzles from this column and some never-before-seen head-scratchers. Its called The Riddler, and its in stores now! Email me at [email protected]. | https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-the-heck-are-these-dang-bits/ |
Is Manny Machado still an option for Yankees after Troy Tulowitzki signing? | Troy Tulowitzki is owed $20 million for next year, $14 million for 2020 and a $4 million buyout of the 2021 team option. (Photo: Butch Dill, USA TODAY Sports) NEW YORK As the waiting game for Manny Machado continues, the Yankees have gone all-in for Troy Tulowitzki. At least for now. Were going into this with a commitment level to try Troy Tulowitzki at shortstop, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said on Friday, as the Yankees officially announced signing the veteran to a one-year deal. Cashman wouldnt say if the Tulowitzki agreement takes the Yankees out of play for a big-ticket item, and Machado and fellow 26-year-old free agent Bryce Harper are the most prominent names on the free agent market. Cashman would not characterize his negotiations for Machado, but acknowledged having spoken with agent Dan Lozano since their initial in-person meeting. Cashman provided a heads up to Lozano of the Tulowitzki agreement before its announcement. Cashman further offered that he currently sees a 2019 Yankees club with Luke Voit at first base (unless Greg Bird can win back the job in spring training), Gleyber Torres at second, Tulowitzki at shortstop, Miguel Andujar at third base, Brett Gardner in left field, Aaron Hicks in center, Aaron Judge in right, Giancarlo Stanton at designated hitter and Gary Sanchez behind the plate. The Yankees, along with the Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago White Sox, met with Machado before the holidays, but the White Sox according to USA Todays Bob Nightengale are the only club known to have made a specific offer. After Tulowitzkis initial workout at Long Beach State for about a dozen interested clubs, the Yankees arranged a follow-up workout and liked what they saw. Based on the scouting reports and video, he really looked athletic, hes got that bounce back in his step, Cashman said. With shortstop Didi Gregorius (Tommy John surgery) sidelined until at least June, we obviously had a need, Cashman said, adding that Tulowitzki is a risk, having missed all last season due to bone spurs on both heels. Cashman perceived that Tulowitzki has a chip on his shoulder in wanting to prove hes past his injuries and can be a productive major leaguer. But having been a premier hitter with power, and a premier defender in his prime, Tulowitzki offers a lot of upside here in terms of what were able to evaluate. Projected Yankees lineup As the team currently stands, here is what the lineup could look like with the addition of Tulowitzki: | https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2019/01/04/manny-machado-option-troy-tulowitzki-yankees/2486874002/ |
Will Bank Stocks Rally in 2019? | Text size Banks were supposed to rally in 2018, boosted by lower taxes. Volatility roared back, however, and walloped large- and small-cap names alike. Analyst, Barclays We are bullish on the U.S. large-cap bank stocks for 2019. Despite an expected slowdown in GDP growth after a sharp selloff into year-end 2018, we believe the U.S. large-cap bank stocks have the ability to rise and outperform the S&P 500. JPMorgan Chase remains our top pick as it provides both offensive and defensive characteristics. Susan Roth Katzke Analyst, Credit Suisse Looking at a weighted average of our blue-sky, base-case, and gray-sky scenarios translates to 25%-plus total return in our recommended names: Bank of America , JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley , Goldman Sachs Group , and Citigroup . John Pancari Analyst, Evercore ISI 2019 is likely to bring a slowing in banks bottom-line growth, given a more dovish Fed, stubborn loan growth, and abating credit tailwinds. But the pullback in valuations appears to price in a more draconian scenario than what we view as likely. Were selective buyers and favor names positioned for return-on-equity expansion but with a relatively low risk profile, including Comerica , KeyCorp , PNC Financial Services Group , Wells Fargo , and M&T Bank . Welcome to 2019 The markets opened the new year on Wednesday after a brutal ending to 2018 that President Donald Trump called a little glitch. The declines, accompanied by jaw-breaking volatility, came in an economy that, while slowing, appears weirdly healthy. Despite fears that growth, fueled by corporate tax cuts, might have peaked, and uncertainty from the White House, particularly on trade, job growth surged in December, as nonfarm payrolls increased by 312,0000. New Year, Old Volatility The Dow finished up on 2018s last trading day, lifted by news that the U.S. was talking to China on trade, then sank like a stone on Wednesday, shaken by evidence of a China growth slowdown, only to rebound as oil prices rose. Apples scaled-down expectations drove losses on Thursday, and Jerome Powells dovish sentiments and jobs gains lit things up on Friday. For the week, the Dow industrials somehow rose 1.6%, to 23,433.16; the S&P climbed 1.86%, to 2531.94; and the Nasdaq Composite bounced 2.34%, to 6738.86. Shutdown Blues After weeks that saw tweets about border walls but nothing in the way of talks on the government shutdown, President Trump met with legislative leadersand no one budged. On Thursday, Democrats took control of the House, elected Nancy Pelosi as speaker, and voted for a spending bill that did not include Trumps wall money. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he wouldnt allow a Senate vote on a bill Trump wouldnt sign. Talks continue. Back to Beijing U.S. trade negotiators planning for upcoming talks in Beijing pressed for details on Chinese proposals to resolve trade disputes. Trump talked to Chinese President Xi Jinping before the new year and tweeted of big progress.Deal is moving along very well. The two countries have until March 2 to come to an agreement, before the U.S. again raises tariffs on Chinese imports. Slower Exit From Syria Trump agreed to extend the time for U.S. troops to exit Syria to four months. He had said that they would be withdrawn in a month, stirring up criticism, which included the resignation of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and an attack by former Afghanistan commander, General Stanley McChrystal. Greetings From Pyongyang North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said his country had suspended building new nuclear weapons, but would not agree to do so permanently until the U.S. lifts sanctions. The statement was viewed as an attempt to restart U.S. talks. Kim followed up with a letter to Trump. U.S. intelligence has reported that North Korea continues to expand its nuclear and missile capabilities. China Eyes Taiwan Chinese President Xi Jinping offered a mix of threats and promises to Taiwan, arguing that annexation by China, peacefully or militarily, was inevitable. Xi held out that Taiwan could retain some rights, much like Hong Kong. But he warned that China would not tolerate foreign interference. Bristol Targets Celgene Bristol-Myers Squibb announced plans to buy Celgene for $74 billion in stock and cash, sending the cancer-specialist biotech up 21% on Thursday. Bristol shares fell 14%. By Robert Teitelman and Dan Lam Email: [email protected] | https://www.barrons.com/articles/three-analysts-discuss-the-prospects-for-bank-stocks-51546650640 |
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