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Who plays Duncan's daughter Olivia on Coronation Street? | 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 Olivia Radfield returned to Coronation Street in Friday night's double bill, with fans asking where they had seen the actress playing her before. Olivia is played by Bolton actress, model, Instagram star and fashion designer Arianna Ajtar. Arianna, from Bolton, is the owner of the clothing brand Mars the Label. She has more than 300,000 followers on Instagram who she regularly updates with the many far-flung and exotic locations she visits. Last year she posted glamorous photos from her trips including Turkey, Ibiza, Cannes, and a desert safari in Abu Dhabi. From a trip to Palma, Spain, sharing a snap of herself in a bright pink lace-up detail bikini, she said: "Ready for some winter sun." Sharing another photo of herself after rising in the early hours of the morning to work on her fashion label, the businesswoman said: "Been up since 4am and designed about 6 new dresses, had 2 coffees, tidied my room and made my 2019 goals list lol why oh why do I get up so early." Her Corrie character Olivia, who is also a model, previously appeared in the soap when she was used as a drug mule by Rosie Webster's ex Antoine. In May 2018 Rosie discovered Antoine, the one who planted drugs on her when she flew back to Weatherfield, was involved in another scam. She clocked that the other model on the shoot was hanging around Antoine, warned her what he did to her and realised she had drugs planted in her bag just like Rosie said. She substituted the drugs for icing sugar and gave these to the drug dealers instead to mess up Antoines arrangement. Unfortunately Antoine caught Rosie and pal Gemma Winter, there ended up being a drugs bust at the factory and Rosie made headlines after being hailed a hero. Olivia turned out to be the daughter of conman Duncan Radfield, who has put Sally Metcalfe behind bars after framing her for money laundering, fraud and bribery. Her husband Tim and daughter Sophie are on a mission to prove her innocence by revealing that the wife he claimed had died is still alive. He befriended Sally and told her that he wanted to use a council grant to set up a charity in memory of May who had died from a stroke. This paved the way for Duncan to scam the council out of thousands and frame former Mayor of Weatherfield Sally for the crime. Join our Coronation Street Fan Chat group on Facebook where youll also get updates, spoilers and more. | https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/tv/who-plays-duncans-daughter-olivia-15667580 |
What happened on Philadelphia Eagles WR Golden Tates game-winning touchdown against the Chicago Bears? | PHILADELPHIA During and right after the moment, it all seemed fairly cut-and-dried. Doug Pederson made the right play call, Nick Foles made the right read and a good throw and Golden Tate ran a perfect route to catch the game-winning touchdown pass in the Philadelphia Eagles 16-15 win over the Chicago Bears last Sunday. That picture, though, became more muddled during the week. NFL Films released a clip this week of Carson Wentz and Tate discussing the play after it happened, and Tate had a surprising reaction. 4th and goal with the game on the line, and @NickFoles and @ShowtimeTate come in clutch! @Eagles | #NFLMicdUp pic.twitter.com/fQfKBLpUwO NFL Films (@NFLFilms) January 9, 2019 Heres their conversation: Wentz: That route was nasty! Pederson offered a little clarity Friday morning. I became aware, actually, after the game in the dressing room heading to the buses, Pederson said. And I said I can't remember who was telling me, but I said, it wasn't a kill. We actually went straight to the kill. That was the huddle call. We bypassed everything else and went right to that and because we had run the same play previously, it was loud and everything was going on, so he just didn't hear the whole thing. 'I think we're a completely different team': Philadelphia Eagles return to site of embarrassment to face New Orleans Saints On first and second down, the Eagles ran the ball with running back Darren Sproles with no success, but Foles had the option to kill the play and change it to a sprint-out to the right. On third down, he threw an incompletion in the direction of wide receiver Alshon Jeffery. On fourth down, the Eagles lined up in the same formation as first down, with three wide receivers to Foles right. This time, though, the initial call was the pass. Apparently, Tate missed that and thought it was the same call as first down: a run that could be checked to a pass. So at the snap, Tate doesnt fire off the ball with the same urgency as Jeffery or Nelson Agholor. He starts to square up cornerback Sherrick McManis. But he takes a peek in the backfield and realized Foles is rolling out, so he immediately bolts to the flat to catch the pass. As close to a disaster as that might have seemed, it might have helped Tate. When he looks back to the backfield, McManis also steals a glance, which allows Tate a little extra separation and the Eagles a victory. The finish to the game Treyvon Hesters deflection and the double doink showed how fickle football can be. And with a couple days worth of space between then and near, its clear the offense showed that, too, on the game-winner. It just shows to us and to everybody what type of athlete, what type of player he is, that he can still stay in the moment, not panic, see the quarterback coming to you and know that thats his route and then to execute the play, Pederson said. I mean, its just a great job on his part. Philadelphia Eagles on PennLive --@danieljtgallen | https://www.pennlive.com/philadelphiaeagles/2019/01/what-happened-on-philadelphia-eagles-wr-golden-tates-game-winning-touchdown-against-the-chicago-bears.html |
Is Neon Green the Must-Try Trend of the Season? | The Spring 2019 runways were awash with psychedelia, from Marine Serres acid-green sweaters to Guccis neon feathered gowns. Well admit that we were curious how this trend would translate IRL; the mix of electric colors and freaky textures felt a little bit Burning Mani.e., not exactly wearable for everyday. Well, it turns out we thought wrong: Just a few weeks into 2019, neonparticularly neon greenis shaping up to be the must-try trend of the season. Consider Kendall Jenner, who paired her flirty highlighter-green top with matching eyeshadow, or Bella Hadid, who offset a fluorescent vest with head-to-toe white. Try a similar look by mixing neons with neutrals, or take a tip from Ashley Graham and embrace color-blocking with primary shades. The combination is sure to get you noticedand it might even lift your spirits on these gray, frozen mornings. For a smaller dose of color, just reach for an accessory like Undercovers vivid green beanie or slip on Nikes Day-Glo sneakers for your morning run. Below, shop 25 supercharged pieces to brighten up your winter wardrobe now. | https://www.vogue.com/article/kendall-jenner-bella-hadid-neon-green-winter-fashion-trend |
Why financial companies should care about machine learning? | Machine learning in finance may work magic, even though there is no magic behind it (well, maybe just a little bit). Still, the success of machine learning project depends more on building efficient infrastructure, collecting suitable datasets, and applying the right algorithms. Machine learning is making significant inroads in the financial services industry. Lets see why financial companies should care, what solutions they can implement with AI and machine learning , and how exactly they can apply this technology. We've also highlighted the best accounting software Definitions We can define machine learning (ML) as a subset of data science that uses statistical models to draw insights and make predictions. The chart below explains how AI, data science, and machine learning are related. For the sake of simplicity, we focus on machine learning in this post. The magic about machine learning solutions is that they learn from experience without being explicitly programmed. To put it simply, you need to select the models and feed them with data. The model then automatically adjusts its parameters to improve outcomes. Data scientists train machine learning models with existing datasets and then apply well-trained models to real-life situations. The model runs as a background process and provides results automatically based on how it was trained. Data scientists can retrain models as frequently as required to keep them up-to-date and effective. For instance, our client Mercanto retrains machine learning models every day. In general, the more data you feed, the more accurate are the results. Coincidentally, enormous datasets are very common in the financial services industry. There are petabytes of data on transactions, customers, bills, money transfers, and so on. That is a perfect fit for machine learning. As the technology evolves and the best algorithms are open-sourced, its hard to imagine the future of the financial services without machine learning. That said, most financial services companies are still not ready to extract the real value from this technology for the following reasons: The R&D in AI and machine learning is costly. Businesses often have completely unrealistic expectations towards machine learning and its value for their organisations. The shortage of DS/ML engineers is another major concern. The figure below illustrates an explosive growth of demand for AI and machine learning skills. Financial incumbents are not agile enough when it comes to updating data infrastructure. We will talk about overcoming these issues later in this post. First, lets see why financial services companies cannot afford to ignore machine learning. Despite the challenges, many financial companies already take advantage of this technology. The figure below shows that financial services execs take machine learning very seriously, and they do it for a bunch of good reasons: Reduced operational costs thanks to process automation Increased revenues thanks to better productivity and enhanced user experiences Better compliance and reinforced security There is a wide range of open-source machine learning algorithms and tools that fit greatly with financial data. Additionally, established financial services companies have substantial funds that they can afford to spend on state-of-the-art computing hardware. Tanks to the quantitative nature of the financial domain and large volumes of historical data, machine learning is poised to enhance many aspects of the financial ecosystem. That is why so many financial companies are investing heavily in machine learning R&D. As for the laggards, it can prove to be costly to neglect AI and ML. Lets take a look at some promising machine learning applications in finance. Process automation Process automation is one of the most common applications of machine learning in finance. The technology allows to replace manual work, automate repetitive tasks, and increase productivity. As a result, machine learning enables companies to optimise costs, improve customer experiences, and scale up services. Here are automation use cases of machine learning in finance: Chatbots Call-centre automation Paperwork automation Gamification of employee training, and more Below are some examples of process automation in banking: JPMorgan Chase launched a Contract Intelligence (COiN) platform that leverages Natural Language Processing, one of the machine learning techniques. The solution processes legal documents and extracts essential data from them. Manual review of 12,000 annual commercial credit agreements would typically take up around 360,000 labour hours. Whereas, machine learning allows to review the same number of contracts in a just a few hours. BNY Mello integrated process automation into their banking ecosystem. This innovation is responsible for $300,000 in annual savings and has brought about a wide range of operational improvements . Wells Fargo uses an AI-driven chatbot through the Facebook Messenger platform to communicate with users and provide assistance with passwords and accounts. Privatbank is a Ukrainian bank that implemented chatbot assistants across its mobile and web platforms. Chatbots sped up the resolution of general customer queries and allowed to decrease the number of human assistants. Security Security threats in finance are increasing along with the growing number of transaction, users, and third-party integrations. And machine learning algorithms are excellent at detecting fraud. For instance, banks can use this technology to monitor thousands of transaction parameters for every account in real time. The algorithm examines each action a cardholder takes and assesses if an attempted activity is characteristic of that particular user. Such model spots fraudulent behaviour with high precision. If the system identifies suspicious account behaviour, it can request additional identification from the user to validate the transaction. Or even block the transaction altogether, if there is at least 95 per cent probability of it being a fraud. Machine learning algorithms need just a few seconds (or even split seconds) to assess a transaction. The speed helps to prevent frauds in real time, not just spot them after the crime has already been committed. Financial monitoring is another security use case for machine learning in finance. Data scientists can train the system to detect a large number of micropayments and flag such money laundering techniques as smurfing. Machine learning algorithms can significantly enhance network security, too. Data scientists train a system to spot and isolate cyber threats, as machine learning is second to none in analysing thousands of parameters and real-time. And chances are this technology will power the most advanced cybersecurity networks in the nearest future. Adyen, Payoneer, Paypal, Stripe, and Skrill are some notable fintech companies that invest heavily in security machine learning. Underwriting and credit scoring Machine learning algorithms fit perfectly with the underwriting tasks that are so common in finance and insurance. Data scientists train models on thousands of customer profiles with hundreds of data entries for each customer. A well-trained system can then perform the same underwriting and credit-scoring tasks in the real-life environments. Such scoring engines help human employees work much faster and more accurately. Banks and insurance companies have a large number of historical consumer data, so they can use these entries to train machine learning models. Alternatively, they can leverage datasets generated by large telecom or utility companies. For instance, BBVA Bancomer is collaborating with an alternative credit-scoring platform Destacame. The bank aims to increase credit access for customers with thin credit history in Latin America. Destacame accesses bill payment information from utility companies via open APIs. Using bill payment behaviour, Destacame produces a credit score for a customer and sends the result to the bank. Algorithmic trading In algorithmic trading, machine learning helps to make better trading decisions. A mathematical model monitors the news and trade results in real-time and detects patterns that can force stock prices to go up or down. It can then act proactively to sell, hold, or buy stocks according to its predictions. Machine learning algorithms can analyse thousands of data sources simultaneously, something that human traders cannot possibly achieve. Machine learning algorithms help human traders squeeze a slim advantage over the market average. And, given the vast volumes of trading operations, that small advantage often translates into significant profits. Robo-advisory Robo-advisors are now commonplace in the financial domain. Currently, there are two major applications of machine learning in the advisory domain. Portfolio management is an online wealth management service that uses algorithms and statistics to allocate, manage and optimise clients assets. Users enter their present financial assets and goals, say, saving a million dollars by the age of 50. A robo-advisor then allocates the current assets across investment opportunities based on the risk preferences and the desired goals. Recommendation of financial products. Many online insurance services use robo-advisors to recommend personalised insurance plans to a particular user. Customers choose robo-advisors over personal financial advisors due to lower fees, as well as personalised and calibrated recommendations. In the next post, I shall describe how financial services companies can actually adopt machine learning technology with strategies like extensive R&D and third-party AI solutions. | https://www.techradar.com/au/news/why-financial-companies-should-care-about-machine-learning |
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How can we stop overtourism from ruining the world's great cities and natural wonders? | As a growing, global middle class gains increasing access to low-cost travel, residents in tourism hotspots, particularly in Europe and Asia, say they are overrun. Housing costs are skyrocketing, driving out residents. Infrastructure is overburdened. The environment is suffering and sometimes, residents say, so is local culture. According to the United Nations, there were 1.3 billion international arrivals in 2017. Critics say that is already an unsustainable number. [La Rambla] is now really kind of a no-go area for residents for about nine months of the year, because it's just so full of tourists. - Stephen Burgen The Sunday Edition convened a panel on the subject of 'overtourism,' and while opinions varied, on one point there was unanimity: the way tourism is managed in much of the world needs to change, fast. Barcelona is one city that's grappling with the implications of huge tourist numbers. Stephen Burgen writes for The Guardian; he has lived in Barcelona for nearly two decades. He told Michael Enright, host of The Sunday Edition, that when he first arrived in the city, there were fewer than 10 million annual visitors. Now, there are about 30 million tourists every year. Burgen says certain areas, such as the famous La Rambla pedestrian boulevard, are clogged with tourists. "[La Rambla] is now really kind of a no-go area for residents for about nine months of the year, because it's just so full of tourists." In those neighbourhoods, Burgen says, businesses that formerly served local residents, such as dry-cleaners, are being driven out due to high rent and replaced by tourist-oriented services like bicycle-rental shops and tapas bars. He says short-term, apartment-rental agencies like Airbnb are driving up housing costs, meaning many locals can't afford to live in the city any longer. Cruise ships, like this one in Venice, are blamed for contributing to 'fly-by tourism,' in which visitors just pass through destinations without spending much money, but still using the infrastucture. (AP Photo/Luigi Costantini, File) (Luigi Costantini/Associated Press) Elizabeth Becker, author of Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism, says tourism is an immense, powerful industry that governments are struggling to regulate. Supporters of tourism often point to the huge sums of money it can bring to local economies. But Becker says the financial benefits aren't as large as people imagine. Often, visitor dollars don't stay in the locale, but instead flow back to tourism operators based elsewhere. When tourism creates jobs, they're often low-paying. Cases where local politicians have figured out how to control the industry are rare. "My favourite city example is Bordeaux, France, where a mayor reconfigured his city, thinking of tourism to benefit the people and to replace their old industry of shipping ... but did it in such a way that the money stayed in Bordeaux," Becker said. We always say 'there is not overtourism, there is bad management. - Sandra Carvao, UNWTO She says policy makers have to beware of too much "fly-by tourism," such as cruise ships, where visitors arrive at a destination, use the infrastructure but spend very little money locally, then leave. Sandra Carvao works with the United Nations World Tourism Organization, and oversaw the recent report, "Overtourism?' Understanding and Managing Urban Tourism Growth Beyond Perceptions." Carvao says much of the frustration associated with tourism in places like Barcelona has to do with how tourists congregate in specific areas. "We always say 'there is not overtourism, there is bad management.' And that comes to the issue of concentration, because you probably have businesses three streets away which are not benefiting while you have others which might be overcrowded." Carvao's report recommends that policy makers find ways to divert visitors from areas that are oversaturated, to places that have yet to significantly benefit from tourism dollars. Click "listen," above, to hear the discussion. | https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thesundayedition/the-sunday-edition-for-january-13-2019-1.4971523/how-can-we-stop-overtourism-from-ruining-the-world-s-great-cities-and-natural-wonders-1.4971776?cmp=rss |
How much do Hanover residents have to pay for the new stormwater fee? | CLOSE Colin Cameron and Jim Ling, of EXP Reality, Small Town Agents located at 112 Baltimore Street, celebrate what they are thankful for in Hanover. They can be reached at 888-397-7352 or at https://www.facebook.com/Smalltownagents/ Colin Cameron and Jim Ling With the creation of the Hanover Borough stormwater authority also comes the cost of stormwater management that will be passed to property owners. More: 5 things to know about Hanover's stormwater authority and upcoming fee At a public meeting Jan. 10, the stormwater authority set the fee for the stormwater utility, which is based on a three-tiered system and the square footage of a resident's property: Properties between 0 square feet and 4,208 square feet will owe $49.83 a year. Properties between 4,209 square feet and 7,814 square feet will owe $66.44 a year. Properties with more than 7,814 square feet will owe $83.05 a year. Support local journalism Help support the journalists of EveningSun.com who bring you important news and information by subscribing for full access. Click here for a current special offer for new subscribers. The fee assessed to owners of non-single-family residences, such as businesses or apartment complexes, is based on the amount of impervious area, or areas where stormwater cannot be absorbed, within the property, instead of the square footage. For every 2,250 square feet of impervious area on the property of a non-single-family residence, the owner of the property will owe $66.44 a year. The 2,250 is the average amount of impervious area from a sample of residences in the borough. Whether the property is a single-family residence or a non-single-family residence hinges on the tax classification of the property. The authority decided the cost of the fee after spending months assessing properties and their corresponding impervious areas and knowing that the authority needed a revenue of $1.22 million to make the budget work, said Sam Miller, the director of finance for Hanover Borough. More: Hanover 2019: Council elections, Second Saturdays and more on the horizon The bill will be assessed quarterly, and property owners should see the stormwater fee on their next bill. The borough was scheduled to mail a letter to every property owner on Jan. 11 explaining how the borough measured the property, the tier the property is categorized in and how much their bill will be. It is up to the property owner if they pass the cost onto the tenants or not, Miller said. Property owners who think their property has been mis-classified or assessed incorrectly can appeal the classification. FAQ by Sophie Kaplan on Scribd Read or Share this story: https://www.eveningsun.com/story/news/2019/01/11/hanover-borough-pa-stormwater-authority-sets-fee-residents/2536314002/ | https://www.eveningsun.com/story/news/2019/01/11/hanover-borough-pa-stormwater-authority-sets-fee-residents/2536314002/?from=new-cookie |
Could the Raiders trade for Steelers WR Antonio Brown? | From all accounts, All-Pro receiver Antonio Brown appears to be on his way out of Pittsburgh. Brown was inactive in the teams final game against the Cincinnati Bengals and owner Art Rooney believes its hard to envision that Brown will be back with the team next season after multiple incidents this year. While Browns off-the-field character has come in question, his place is just as dominant as ever. In 2018, Brown caught 104 passes for 1,297 yards and 15 touchdowns in 15 games for the Steelers. He was voted to the Pro Bowl and eclipsed 100 receptions and 1,200 yards for the sixth-straight season. Despite his excellent play, oddsmakers dont anticipate Brown being back in Pittsburgh next season. According to MyBookie, the Raiders (+600) have better odds of having Brown on their team next season than the Steelers (+700). Antonio Brown's team on Sept. 1, 2019: Atlanta Falcons +400 Detroit Lions +500 New York Jets +500 Oakland Raiders +600 Indianapolis Colts +600 Full list: https://t.co/5MDYRC8tbQ pic.twitter.com/cdqywvjzAS MyBookie Sportsbook (@betmybookie) January 11, 2019 The Raiders clearly have a need at receiver and arent afraid to take a chance on older players so it wouldnt be surprising to see the Raiders explore a trade for Brown. It also helps that the Raiders have cap space and multiple high-round picks. If and when the Steelers do decide to hear offers for Brown, expect the Raiders to be interested in at least some degree. He would fill a massive need for the Raiders and they have the assets to make a trade possible. A trade for Brown makes a lot of sense for the Raiders, given the state of their wide receiver corps. | https://raiderswire.usatoday.com/2019/01/11/could-the-raiders-trade-for-steelers-wr-antonio-brown/ |
How Do Americans Differ by Age? | Visualization Data Notes The last few years, I have created tools that imposes different demographic and socioeconomic traits on the population pyramid. Since then new data has been released so I wanted to update the tool. Along with the new data, there toggles that allow you to adjust the characteristic and how the data is displayed. The filters on the bottom adjust the pyramid to only show certain populations. If you want the visual to only show one characteristic or exclude a trait, simply click it in the legend and keep or remove it. The data for this tool uses the 2017 Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) published by the American Community Survey. Tableau is used as the data visualization platform. You can find information about the ACS PUMS at the Census Bureaus website. On the site there is information about the survey, summary level data, and how to use the PUMS data. I plan on continually updating this tool. If there are any traits that you are interested in seeing, let me know and I would be happy to set it up. Also, since this is an ongoing project, any suggestions you have on how to make the visualization better are welcome. Leave a comment below, or tweet at us @overflow_data. | http://overflow.solutions/special-projects/how-do-americans-differ-by-age-17/ |
Is Imitation The Sincerest Form Of Flattery In Rock & Roll? | One of the most discussed topics in music this year was the similarity between Greta Van Fleet and Led Zeppelin. Regardless of where you stand on their music, they have been able to generate conversation like few rock bands have over the past decade. In other genres, sounding similar to other artists can be seen as an honor or paying tribute to them. XRT Morning Show host Lin Brehmer joins Inside The Archives to provide a historical perspective and answer that question. Inside The Archives is available on iTunes. Subscribe to the podcast, leave a rating and a review, and listen to every episode. | https://wxrt.radio.com/greta-van-fleet-led-zeppelin-podcast |
Why do people hoard animals? | More than 20 dogs rescued from an alleged hoarding situation near Yulee are on their way to better lives. According to Paw Paws Pet Rescue, a total of 21 Dalmatians were seized from the property. Eleven of the dogs will be transported to a South Florida rescue Saturday and Paw Paws has placed the rest of the dogs in foster homes locally. A representative with the rescue organization said the dogs are not socialized at all. A Nassau County Animal Services representative told First Coast News the elderly man who had the dogs was trying to do a good thing, but it got out of hand. They added that one of the dogs had an injured paw and another was blind. Dr. Tracy Alloway, an associate professor of psychology at the University of North Florida, said many animal hoarding cases start with good intentions. Theyre very motivated by a need to save these animals, Dr. Alloway said. They almost view themselves as missionaries. Alloway said recent research, within the last year or two, showed differences in the roots of animal hoarding and traditional object hoarding. First, the brain patterns for the two types of hoarding are different. Additionally, Alloway said animal hoarding is often triggered by trauma, such as the loss of a person or a job. Finally, as previously mentioned, animal hoarding often arises from a desire to help the animals. Sign up for the GMJ On the Go Thanks for signing up! Something went wrong. This email will be delivered to your inbox once a day in the morning. Please check your email to confirm your subscription. Please try again later. Submit And a lot of the researchers involved in these kinds of animal hoarding behaviors and patterns notice that [the hoarders] have a need to protect, Alloway said. But unfortunately, they also dont realize that theyre not actually able to care for them adequately. While object hoarders often realize they have a problem, Alloway said animal hoarders may not. Overall, Alloway said memory loss could be an indicator of potentially serious problems in the future. If you notice that in a family member, they should see a licensed clinician to assess and figure out a plan of action. Its not just someone wanting to be neglectful, its not driven by malice or malintent, Alloway said. And so I think its important for us to adopt an understanding and empathetic perspective that these behaviors are often not even aware to the individual and again, not motivated by any ill intent. | https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/news/local/why-do-people-hoard-animals/77-e05d70f5-e03e-4f77-93f4-c145fc583ecb |
Why are Egyptian Girls Suddenly Obsessed with Ahmed El-Awady? | During the last couple of days, a video from actor and boxer Ahmed El-Awadys episode with ON Drama host Samar Yousry has gone viral. After asking him a couple of questions about love, romance, women and relationships; girls on social media made it their mission to fangirl over the guy everywhere. To put things into perspective, heres a brief about who he is: El-Awady is an Egyptian actor who first appeared on the scene back in 2009 in Ahmed Ezzs Badal Faqed. But the actor started getting actual attention when he appeared in the Egyptian hit series Naseeby W Esmetak. When he appeared in the 3rd season of the very popular series Hekayat Banat, it was a whole different story. His role as Mazen, Dija (Injy El-Mokkadem)s boyfriend, basically clicked with most of the girls who watched it. Posts were going viral on social media, talking about how hot and manly he is. Girls were all over his deep voice, beard, fashion sense and so on. But the thing is they were fangirling over his role as Mazen (the bad boy) in the series, not completely the actor himself. Thats until his interview with Samar. El-Awadys interview with Samar Yousry: In her show Hafla 11, Yousry usually hosts celebrities and asks them controversial questions about their personal lives. During the interview, the host definitely knew what would exactly appeal to the girls who are already a bit crazy over El-Awady on social media. So she bombarded him with questions about love and relationships. As expected, El-Awadys answers really made him appeal even more to girls. In the interview, he portrayed the image of the typical Egyptian oriental man, but more like the better version we see in the movies. Well, at least thats what everyone on social media thought. El-Awady replied very normally to questions like Would you hit a woman? to which he answered: Not a chance, how could a man ever do that?. Seems like girls still find this fascinating coming from him, for some reason. He went on Thats a strong being (men) and the other (women) is a fragile one, why would you wanna do that?. Again, its quite obvious and El-Awady didnt add much to what we already know. However, the strong balance between both is not really the justification here. Other questions were like Would you cry if a girl breaks up with you?. Sadly, girls really loved that part. Additionally, the actor said that if he did something wrong, he would apologize. Somehow, although this too is not a surprise to anyone, girls still couldnt contain themselves. Egyptian Girls Double Standards: Most of the questions Yousry asked were pretty ordinary, and him being a typical Egyptian man -or at least a normal one- replied in a very logical and quite impressive way to many. Also, his words suddenly turned him into every girls dream man on social media. Thats okay, but the thing is that the guy pretty much said what every other man would say on live TV. Never mind this, he also portrayed the very image of an Oriental man. For instance, girls always talk about how uncivilized, retroactive, closed minded and controlling Egyptian men are, and how they absolutely hate them for it. On the other hand, they were all starstruck when El-Awady said the words out loud, in a rather cool way. To prove this point, one of the topics Yousry and El-Awady talked about was whether its okay for a girl to dress the way she likes. They also discussed whether or not she can go out without taking the consent of her partner. Like every other Egyptian man, he, of course, said that its not okay. The only difference is that he said it in a nice and calm way. Adding that the whole thing would be mutual, she has rights just as he does. Well, again, obviously. The actor also posed a question that went viral on social media; Aint I her man? All of that sounds very nice to some. But the people who liked these statements coming out of El-Awady, are the same people who bash Egyptian men on a daily bases for thinking the same way. There is a lot of contradiction going on here because one second, girls want a sweet loving man, and the other they want the bad oriental boy. And at this point, we highly doubt that they would agree if that bad boy is not Ahmed El-Awady. And here lies the double standards! Ahmed El-Awadys Problematic Posts About Women : Ahmed El-Awady has written a couple of controversial posts on women and feminism on social media that gained some attention back then. In Samars interview, she brought them up and he still stood by them. However, instead of bashing him as they always do with closed-minded guys in Egypt, some girls still obsessed about the actor. Regardless of what he thinks about feminism and all the stuff they usually stand for. Double Standards, again! | https://identity-mag.com/why-are-egyptian-girls-suddenly-obsessed-with-actor-ahmed-el-awady/ |
Why shouldnt we open windows when a tornado threatens? | Dear Tom, Ive heard that one should not open windows when a tornado threatens. Bob Studholme, Winnetka Dear Bob, It was once believed that sudden air pressure reductions that occur when a tornado moves over a house would cause the structure to explode, but that this could be lessened or prevented by opening windows to allow air to escape from the structure. This notion perished with observations of the damage caused by a massive tornado that struck Xenia, Ohio, in 1974. Opening windows was further debunked in an engineering study, in 1977, that showed conclusively that buildings do not explode because of rapid decreases in air pressure around the structure. The actual cause of damage is intense wind and wind-driven debris striking the structure. The time spent opening windows is much better spent seeking shelter. | https://wgntv.com/2019/01/11/why-shouldnt-we-open-windows-when-a-tornado-threatens/ |
Where Do Music Festivals Go Now? | Over the next few years, were likely to bear witness to fond remembrances and supersized celebrations as some of the biggest North American music festivals achieve a point of longevity meriting acknowledgment. Coachella unofficially turns 20 this year, but the fest itself hasnt made a peep about the milestone likely because its first installment, in 1999, clocked around 37,000 concertgoers in attendance, falling far short of an attendance goal of 70,000; the fest rebooted successfully in 2001, which means its just two short years before a history-recontextualizing 20th anniversary can be ballyhooed. Bonnaroo will turn 20 in 2022, while Woodstock stands to celebrate a whopping three anniversaries this year, ringing in 50th (1969), 25th (1994), and 20th (1999) anniversaries for its respective installments. As expected, the latter fests commemorative festivities are already in the works; this week, Woodstock co-creator Michael Lang confirmed plans for a three-day excursion in August at upstate New York village Watkins Glen. The lineup wont be announced until next month, but in an interview with Rolling Stone, Lang gestured at what the resulting fest might end up resembling: a mix of new acts, old acts, and new acts paying tribute to old acts, along with glamping tents, a focus on social change and activism, and jugglers. Yes, you read that right jugglers. The notion of celebrating Woodstocks anniversary at a time when North American music festivals are coming of temporal age only serves to highlight the extreme differences (besides the jugglers, that is) between then and now. For starters, its nearly inarguable that, when it comes to the experience that most associate with the modern-day music festival, Woodstock possesses no real sphere of influence; todays multiday gatherings are more directly indebted to the decades-standing tradition of British and European music festivals, a blueprint that Coachellas original organizers readily admit to have copied. The original Woodstocks oft-romanticized reputation as an isolated happening a rare occurrence that would be ostensibly impossible to replicate clashes completely with the dime-a-dozen regularity of music festivals from the mid-late 2000s on. Even as the industry that keeps fests going seems to be in the midst of an economic slowdown, the proliferation of festivals big and small throughout this decade have made the act of attendance as remarkable as going to the grocery store. For younger folk, music festivals are a rite of passage on par with heading into a big city unsupervised for the first time; aging music fans, on the other hand, can pack several months worth of concertgoing into one or several days spent outdoors, a feat of food-truck-lined convenience. Suffice to say, almost all of these events stopped feeling like events years ago. When Beyonc took the stage at Coachella last year to deliver a mega-set of a headlining appearance that felt virtuosic even by her standards, a sizable amount of post-show internet chatter surmised that her instantly iconic performance rendered all future festival-headlining gigs irrelevant. Of course, such hyperbole is anything but foreign when talking about anything Beyonc does but, as it occasionally does, the internet had a point. The Coachella and Bonnaroo lineups were announced over the last week and a half, and aside from the typical pop-culture fantasy-league analysis of who got the biggest-font poster-placement, neither seems capable of delivering a Bey-esque sensation. The latter counts a whopping three headlining sets from Phish (less a sign of laziness and more an indication of Bonnaroo knowing their crunchy, jam-friendly brand) alongside the Lumineers and Childish Gambino who also sits pretty at the top of Coachellas poster, alongside Tame Impala and Ariana Grande. Perhaps the most interesting observation about Coachellas first two headliners is that their appearance indicates new music from them soon, which we basically already knew; as for Grande whos coming off what is undoubtedly her most creatively fertile year yet she counts as the youngest Coachella headliner in history, as well as a female-identifying main event within an ecosystem thats gradually (albeit not quickly enough) booking more female-identifying headliners. About that last point: As the music festival-industrial-complex has become another way of American life, its also been increasingly and reasonably subjected to litmus tests reflecting the increased social awareness that society has taken on over the past several years. Drawing attention to Coachella-operation-company Goldenvoice owner Philip Anschutzs history of donating to anti-LGBTQ causes and Republican candidates has become as much of an annual tradition as fireworks on the Fourth of July; last March, the Chicago-based advocacy campaign OurMusicMyBody reported that 90 percent of surveyed female concertgoers (at festivals and otherwise) had experienced some form of sexual harassment. Not only is the rampant, at-times violent culture of misogyny embedded within festival culture not new, its well-documented specifically with regard to Woodstock 99, a century-ending catastrophe that resulted in reports of horrifying instances of sexual assault, along with riots and property damage and an overdose-related death. (Spins award-winning report on the festival from that year is essential, and horrifying, reading.) Reflecting on the disaster that was Woodstock 99, its mind-boggling that festival culture managed to flourish in its wake to begin with and equally dismaying that, taking into account the brand-celebrating festivities in motion, the organizers seem to be taking away the wrong lessons. When asked about the problems that surrounded Woodstock 99, Lang attempted to downplay the carnage to Rolling Stone as just about 200 kids who went on a rampage Woodstock 99 was just a musical experience with no social significance. It was just a big party. His characterization is, among other things, blithely ignorant with regard to how the recent past is intertwined with festival cultures questionably safe present. In a just-published rare interview with the Los Angeles Times, Coachella co-founder Paul Tollett is slightly more pragmatic when addressing similar concerns, including a Teen Vogue report from last year in which its writer, Vera Papisova, claimed to be groped at the festival 22 times over the course of ten hours. Were challenging staff and attendees to be an integral part of this culture shift, he stated while discussing the Every One campaign that will be rolled out for this years Coachella as well as its country-focused Stagecoach offshoot and thats included being forced to address the issues within. In late 2017, Tolletts Goldenvoice company parted ways with FYF Festival organizer Sean Carlson after he faced allegations of sexual misconduct; after assuming full control of the L.A.-based festival, low ticket sales (a common malady facing many mid-to-small-scale festivals over the last several years) forced FYFs cancellation entirely. When asked about FYFs general future, Tollett uses the phrase scaled down in his response, a reasonable ideal that nonetheless ignores the fact that plenty of FYF-scale festivals both existent and discontinued face myriad financial issues indicating that the festival industrys bubble has long since burst. Even Bonnaroos struggled, dipping to a record-low 45,500 attendees in 2016 a practical dent in its too-big-to-fail status. As festival culture and the industry thats created it enters their unruly post-adolescent period, its worth thinking beyond the increasing sameness across lineups and experiences, instead considering whether, in 20 years more time, there will be enough festivals in existence to resemble each other at all. | https://www.vulture.com/2019/01/where-do-music-festivals-go-now.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+nymag%2Fvulture+%28Vulture+-+nymag.com%27s+Entertainment+and+Culture+Blog%29 |
Is anyone surprised Tituss Burgess cleans to a Pointer Sisters soundtrack? | Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt star Tituss Burgess has the whole work-life-balance thing down. Ever since the Athens, Ga., native came to New York more than a decade ago, hes worked steadily, onstage and off. Youll next see him as a psychic in the comedy I Hate Kids, out Jan. 18. But once Saturday hits, he turns it all off, he says. The 39-year-old Harlem resident tells LAUREN STEUSSY just how he spends his weekends. Saturday morning, I let the dogs, Hans and Micah, out in the backyard and we stare at each other for an hour. While theyre running around, Im having my coffee, maybe with Baileys, just to sorta kick it off. Then its time to make some breakfast. I love to order from Kitchenette up in Harlem. I get their pear-strawberry pancakes. You have never lived until youve had these things, honey. And my pancakes have to be drowning in syrup. Once Im done being angry at that, Ill probably run to the bodega to get more maple syrup. On the way is my favorite 99 cent store. I spend hours in 99 cent stores, because there are so many possibilities. Youve got your plastic cups you might need for parties, youve got your paper plates I have a lot of greedy-a[ss] friends who come over, so I have to be prepared to feed them. And I just can smell when theyre about to drop over. I can feel it in the air. The clouds get dark, lightning starts to happen. Then its nap time. My naps are my most prized me time. I could rival the dead with how unaware of Earth [I am] when I am asleep. Once I wake up, a good three hours later, Ill start to chip away at all my deadlines. I love to work at home. But I cant just sit down and work. That requires a glass of wine. Ill call my assistant, Jared, who is already doing 19 million things, and tell him to drop everything and get me my Sancerre. Of course, I cant work in a dirty house. So Ill put on the Pointer Sisters Im So Excited and get the house in order. But now Im hungry, so I invite my friends over for dinner. By the time I look at the clock again, its midnight, the house is in disarray, [and] I havent [done] any of the work I needed to do. So the rest of my weekend is spent finishing my workload. Sunday evenings, my boyfriend and I like to go to dinner down in the Village, at Rosemarys. I like to get the steak for two . . . maybe some orecchiette. It is way more food than two people need, but whatever, were celebrating. Its the weekend! | https://nypost.com/2019/01/11/is-anyone-surprised-tituss-burgess-cleans-to-a-pointer-sisters-soundtrack/ |
Can Cooperatives Save Us From the Next Economic Crisis? | In the summer of 2009, economists reported that one-third of the capital equipment in the United States stood idle while some 17 percent of the workforce were either unemployed, forced into part-time jobs, or discouraged from even seeking work. The Great Recession revealed just how much surplus capital and surplus labor was simply lying about, even in a time of urgent need. In this context, its no surprise that people started looking for ways to put labor and capital back together. Interest spiked especially in worker-owned enterprises and cities from New York to Madison, Oakland and Jackson, started investing in worker-owned businesses and business incubators. Nathan Schneider, a journalist and media professor, has reported on worker-owned cooperatives from Kenya to Kentucky. In his new book, Everything for Everybody, he looks back at the history of what he calls the radical tradition that just might put Americans back to work and into the economic driving seat. Many of them are taking a whack at the pillars of monopoly capitalism, from Uber to Amazon. But, as Schneider discovered, its not easy to shape a new economy in the belly of the old one. This September in New York, I had a chance to talk with Nathan, whos written for Harpers, The Nation, The Catholic Worker and others. Things like the Associated Press, a media cooperative that enables small newspapers and publishers of all sorts to exist in an economy thats stacked against them. Now people have no idea that the Associated Press or AP, whose byline they see in their local paper, has anything to do with a co-op. It has been since 1844-ish when it was founded and has used that model to empower businesses around the world and actually now reaches, claims to reach at least, half the population of the planet every day. Now one of the things that Ive appreciated you bringing to this story was an awareness and an education that you put in the book for people like me about the roots of this practice that even precede anything like the principals in fact, precede it by a long shot. It was interesting. In the course of working on this book, I found a few stories, a few examples of communities of young people who, in facing the challenges of the post-2008 economy, started turning to Medieval and earlier antecedents to monasteries, to Medieval Guilds. Not because they were drawn by a particular religious enticement, but because they were inspired by the fact that this is how previous generations had made their way through an economic transition and theyd done it through these modes of self-governance and a kind of early democracy. It was striking to me that they would turn to something so old as a signal of the kind of dire challenge that they found themselves facing, that they understood themselves as facing a world-historical shift. I mean it was an industrial capitalism, I guess, but a lot of people, as you frame it, who are advocates of co-operatives particularly in the United States, particularly in the 1930s when there was a lot of socialism about, cast their practice and their businesses as just American as capitalist apple pie. Its so striking. You can find these videos from the 30s, 40s, even early 50s, where the US government, for instance is promoting cooperative development as, This is the next step for democracy, were going to take democracy past the ballot box and into our businesses, into our everyday lives. Promoting it as a means of rural development. This was in economics textbooks, and it was really after World War Two when the kind of illusion of a kind of industrial capitalist plenitude ended up just wiping this away, and the Cold War really eviscerated any talk of this kind of model even though it was still happening. Or even my grandfathers business. Were proceeding ahead with the co-operative model using it to do stuff very different from what the big corporations were doing, supporting small producers especially, but they werent talking about it. They werent proud of that co-operative model because they kind of had to lay low and pretend were just good old fashioned American capitalism. We lost this recognition that this is a powerful way of doing business. This is a way of really shaping an economy that works, and that works better, and better for people than a top-down, investor-driven model. Its hard to believe what happened in the 1930s after the Rural Electrification Act, just enables electric utility cooperatives to access loans at the cost that banks are getting their money. Suddenly, within a decade or so, you had nearly all of rural America electrified. That is an astonishing accomplishment, demonstrating that models are financeable, scalable, and powerful if we allow ourselves to recognize that. You do present quite a few hiccups along the way, though, in this book. I mean one of the things I love about it is you present cooperative experimentation warts and all. Absolutely, and part of that is just a recognition of what happens when we dont have the infrastructure. And thats fine. Thats what you need to figure out what is going to work. The trouble is theres so much money and energy put toward those who are willing to sell their business to investors and there are a lot of good ideas among people who would rather share their businesses with their communities, make a nice return, but maybe not be Bill Gates style of outcomes. But those businesses, in many sectors, dont have the infrastructure, not like farmers have built for a century in this country where weve got a more than $125 billion farmer cooperative bank, CoBank, down the road. In the UK, I had a chance to talk with the leader of the labor party, Jeremy Corbyn, the second largest party in their country, a guy who could become Prime Minister, about the presence of cooperatives in that partys massively successful manifesto. Heres Corbyns answer: Co-ops are something thats intrinsic to the British labor movement, and of course the world. Theyre massive. Theres a billion people, 1 in 6 of the worlds populations, are either users or members of a co-op of some form, so what we are proposing is national investment, proper taxation for the very richest and empowerment of communities through local spending, local investment, and empowering people to determine their lives. Now, hes not trying to cast it as a tried-and-true type of capitalism, something quite else. That might, or might not, fly in the United States, who knows. Well, its striking. Just recently, tucked into the latest [National] Defense Authorization Act, unfortunately in my view, there was the Main Street Employee Ownership Act. A new law that was really led by Democrats, but actually ended up becoming a bipartisan bill. And it allows more access to financing for small, worker-owned businesses and conversions from other kinds of businesses. This is just one example demonstrating how this is a bipartisan idea. Kind of shocking in a moment where nothing seems to cross these lines, and just as Corbyn can talk about this as a kind of socialism, hes not wrong about that. Others who identify with the language of capitalism, can see cooperatives in that language as well. Its not quite another kind of capitalism. Its not investor driven, its not investor controlled but it resonates with values that cross theses usual lines and weve already seen that. I think we have a tremendous opportunity to allow those kinds of financing mechanisms that we saw in the 1930s to ensure that our governments are supporting, investing in co-operative businesses locally, rather than trying to lure extractive businesses into their community, spending all kinds of money to do that. Also, in tech regulation, ensuring that our new online platforms are really accountable to us, rather than simply trying to do a whack-a-mole, hodgepodge of regulations that are really just creating barriers for a new entrance. Theyre starting to even more than they have in the past. A lot of politicians have relationships with cooperatives quietly, but I think we have an opportunity to make this a real issue. And already weve seen during the early years of the Trump administration, Democrats, for instance, starting to craft legislation about supporting worker ownership, about supporting credit unions. They seem to be moving in this direction, and actually in some respects, theyre actually coming to things that Republicans have been talking about for a long time. Its an eerie thing, but the opportunity here is really unusual and, I think in a way, unexpected. You end the book by talking about ownership, which is a challenging question. There are a lot of socialists that see co-ops as a nasty concession to capitalism. Well, I think we need to become artists of ownership. Recognize that ownership is a fluid medium. It is something that is crafted through law and through contract and through practice. And I think theres been a tendency, in my generation, Ive seen an experience to want to relinquish it and enter a sharing economy where everything is shared, but really it turns out to be a situation where everything is rented and those bosses are not giving up their ownership. So my view is kind of like, until they give up ownership, nobody else should. We need to learn how to practice it more creatively and make sure that whatever economy were moving into, were coming into it from a place of more power and control over our lives. Were in a moment where inequality is being driven by inequalities of ownership. We have to start there before we can talk about what comes next. Well, what comes next may come sooner, rather than later. People predict that 10 years after the Lehman triggered collapse we could be seeing the next one sooner than wed like. I hope so. We were in a moment of such a lack of imagination ten years ago and in the years following. And I hope that now were in a moment where ten years of experiments, weve seen an incredible grassroots revival of this co-operative movement. I hope that when, if this happens again, when, we come forward with a whole bunch of proposals and a whole bunch of power behind them saying we need credit unions to be powerful enough to be a meaningful alternative to commercial banks. We need systems corporations that are accountable to local communities and actually want to support local businesses. We need an internet that is accountable to the people whose data is being stored on the servers. All of these things need to be, not only part of our imagination, but part of our process of building power behind it. Yes, Ill chip in We need you more than ever. As Hurricane Trump intensifies his campaign of chaos and destruction, leaving federal workers, food stamp recipients and migrants in its wake, we need to redouble our efforts to end the devastation. 2019 is going to be a pivotal year and things are only going to get worse unless we all chip in to make them better. Copyright Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission. | https://truthout.org/articles/can-cooperatives-save-us-from-the-next-economic-crisis/ |
Will arrival of Dan Enos and maybe Jalen Hurts shake up UM QBs? | University of Miami head coach Manny Diaz spoke to reporters Friday about Dan Enos, his new hire as the Hurricanes offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. And, naturally, the subject of UMs current quarterbacks arose as well as soon-to-be Alabama graduate transfer quarterback Jalen Hurts, who was coached by Bamas Enos this past season. Hurts on Friday was set to visit Maryland, where former Alabama offensive coordinator Mike Locksley just became head coach. Then, according to CaneSport.com, Hurts will visit UMs Coral Gables campus as early as Sunday. Diaz was asked if he were concerned that one of the current Miami quarterbacks rising redshirt sophomores NKosi Perry and Cade Weldon, and redshirt freshman Jarren Williams might transfer if Miami brings in another signal caller. Digital Access For Only $0.99 For the most comprehensive local coverage, subscribe today. No, Diaz said. Im excited about them coming and competing. I think they all know that they have a clean slate. I think they know that theyll be evaluated on really what they do going forward. I said all along we are looking for the solution. If the solution is in Coral Gables, then thats fantastic. If the solution is outside Coral Gables, then thats fantastic. If bringing someone from the outside spurs one of our guys to bring his level to where they can uphold the standard of being the quarterback at the University of Miami, outstanding. This is an equal-opportunity employer. We do not care who plays quarterback for us. But we do care that its played at the standard that the great ones that have come before have set. This season, Hurts, a backup to Heisman Trophy runner-up Tua Tagovailoa, completed 51 of 70 passes (72.9 percent) for 765 yards and eight touchdowns, with only two interceptions. He added 167 yards and two touchdowns on 36 carries. His career passing numbers numbers: 445 of 707 (62.9) for 5,626 yards and 48 touchdowns, with 12 interceptions. As a true freshman in 2016, he was SEC Player of the Year. In three years he gained 1,976 yards rushing and 23 touchdowns on 381 carries (5.2 yards a carry). Hurts was a big reason Alabama played in the College Football Playoff national title game the past three seasons. In 2018, he came off the bench to lead the Crimson Tide to a comeback victory in the SEC title game after Tagovailoa injured his ankle. The Canes quarterback situation in 2018 was chaotic and controversial. Perry started six games and finished 97 of 191 (50.8) for 1,091 yards and 13 touchdowns, with six interceptions. He added 169 yards and one touchdown on 61 carries. His season was marred by social media-fueled scandals one pertaining to a video of him flashing wads of money and the other related to a sexually explicit video. Weldon played sparingly in four games, completing two of three passes for 14 yards. He scored one touchdown rushing. Williams, a highly touted four-star recruit out of Central Gwinnett High in Georgia, only played in one game, completing one of three passes for 17 yards. He had two carries, one of them for a 1-yard touchdown. The other starter, Malik Rosier, has graduated and wont be back. Its safe to say that Enos had plenty of experience handling a sensitive quarterbacks competition at Alabama. Hurts was benched at halftime of last years national title game (2017 season) and never started again at Alabama, despite going 26-2 as a starter. On Friday, Diaz was asked about Hurts interest in Miami. Like I mentioned before, I cant comment on any one player specifically, Diaz said. But I told you in the press conference, were going to look from Miami to Maine, from Los Angeles to Seattle and anywhere beyond for the players that can help us play quarterback. As for UMs QBs, Diaz said, Weve got to get those guys to maximize their potential and find out how really good they are. Weve seen the glimpses of what they really can be. ...Everybody wants to talk about quarterback. We know we have to get that fixed. | https://www.sunherald.com/sports/college/article224204970.html |
Do Women Avoid Economics...Or Does Economics Avoid Women? | A recent New York Times piece highlighted the problems women continue to face in the economics profession. The article in question discusses the harassment experienced by female economists and touches on several related issues like the low number of women PhD economists (especially at senior ranks). This is hardly news to any of us in the dismal science. There have long been articles, both in the popular press and academia, about the underrepresentation of women and the challenges they face. Recently there was a particularly upsetting piece on the horrific language used by budding PhDs to describe their female colleagues. It makes for very depressing reading. A number of hypotheses have been forwarded, including... Women dont like math: Economics is relatively math-heavy and for many years thats been the excuse for the lack of female representation. But, while that might have been defensible twenty years ago, the relative success of the STEM fields suggest that this is no longer true. Today, for example, 56% of PhDs in STEM fields go to women, but it is still < 33% in economics. Women are scared away by low grades: It has been argued, too, that women in intro econ classes accustomed to earning As in high school are frightened off by the fact that a good grade might be a B or even a C. But, again, this is equally true in STEM fields. Lack of female role models: Again, STEM! They, too, had this problem, but were far more successful in overcoming it. There must be something else. Women are inherently less interested in economics: You probably think Im going to say STEM again, but Im not. I actually think this one is closer to hitting the mark. The problem, however, is not some quirk on the part of women (and minorities, by the way) in terms of their spheres of interest, but how irrelevant economics has become to them (or perhaps always was). Consider this. The core explanation of the determination of wages in the typical economics classroom centers on the idea that your salary equals some objective measure of your actual contribution (in econ talk, the wage rate is equal to the marginal product of labor). If you earn $5/hour, that's sad but it's what you deserve. And if women earn less than men even in the same profession, then that's simply the objective, scientifically-valid judgement of "the market." Nobel Prize winning economist Gary Becker explained it thusly. For whatever reason (the "reason" is deemed to be relatively uninteresting by economistsfiguring that out is what the soft sciences like sociology do), women tend to be more responsible for things like housework and child rearing. This is tiring work. Hence, women voluntarily choose less demandingand lower-payingjobs. Furthermore, even in the same job they will typically have less experience because they have been busy with housework. Both of those translate into justifiably lower wages. Its a result of voluntary, conscious choices and free market processes. To be fair, your econ instructor may then add some additional factors as perhaps being important. Maybe some people have a taste for discrimination, for example. Of course, over time this should go away, too, since the employers without such an irrational taste will hire better workers and outcompete the bigots. Yay for the market! Regardless of any addenda, however, the core theory one learns in most intro microeconomics classes is that your contribution determines your remuneration. Low contribution. Im sure I dont have to answer that. Of course, if economics explanation of the way the world works is accurate, then fair enough. But its not. Social and cultural factors are terribly important to economic outcomes and should not be outsourced to another discipline. Take as just one quick example recent work on the Mexican labor market, showing that wealth was highly correlated with skin color (three guesses who gets paid more!). This was after correcting for the fact that many of the indigenous (i.e., darker-skinned) people live in resource-poor regions. They found that race is the single most important determinant of a Mexican citizens economic and educational attainment. Not an important determinant, the single most important determinant. Now imagine instead an intro econ class with the insights of that paper as the inspiration for the core theory that is laid out (rather than as something tacked on to you earn what you deserve). I suspect that you would get a very different audience. Indeed, this is precisely the sort of thing the Diversifying Economics web site suggests. Talk about things that matter to them (things that should matter to all of us). First and foremost, it was (white) men who created modern economics. When they thought to themselves, What are the important economic issues to be explained? they quite naturally focused on those that affected them. Im sure there was some outright sexism involved, too (What men do is more important than what women do), but its not strictly necessary to get the same outcome. Lets see, completion percentage, touchdown passes, passing yards," etc., etc. Even the very concepts of modern economicscompetition, exploit, and survival of the fittesthave what some economists have called a masculinist bias to them (Hewiston, G.J. (1999), Feminist Economics: Interrogating the Masculinity of Rational Economic Man, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar). Of course not. Furthermore, some have even suggested that economists fascination with mathematics (their physics envy) is a macho thing. Look how clever I am, I can invert a matrix! And lest you think there is something inherently leftist about any alternative to mainstream economics, bear in mind that Marxs theories, too, have many of these same problems (see for example Hartmann, H. (1981), The unhappy marriage of Marxism and Feminism, in L. Sargent (ed. ), Women and Revolution: A Discussion of the Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism, Boston, MA: South End Press, pp. 141.). This is a very complex and deep-seated issue that deserves a far more nuanced and well-documented argument than I can possibly give in a blog post. But none of these are my ideas, anyway. MANY others have been writing on these issues for years. However, the economics discipline continues to be blind to the fact that its core theories, not some peculiarity of women (lack of math skills, fear of Bs, or scarcity of role models), is the primary problem. Until that changes, which would then generate a genuine wave of diversity into our classrooms (both at the front and in the seats), I really doubt if any of the issues raised in the New York Times article can possibly be addressed. | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johntharvey/2019/01/11/do-women-avoid-economics-or-does-economics-avoid-women/ |
Is Thomas Kohnstamms Lake City the Novel Seattle Needs Right Now? | Author Thomas Kohnstamm. Thomas Kohnstamms first novel, Lake City, arrived earlier this week, and while Kohnstamm set the story in December 2001, this question vibrates at its center. Kohnstamm lays down the dichotomy on the books first page: To be fair, this is not the Seattle of Microsoft, Starbucks and Amazon. Its nowhere, deep Seattle: Lake City. Moss. Lawns matted with decomposing pine needles. Mud-licked streets without sidewalks. The Seattle that fueled the melancholy of what came to be known as grunge. It is back into this Seattle that the books protagonist, Lane Bueche, tumbles. Hed been in New York, living with his rich wife, Mia, in her Gramercy Park apartment, and getting a PhD in social policy at Columbia (for which shes paying). Then she cheats on him with a management-consultant motherfucker, who, Lane is convinced, Mias father used to sabotage the marriage. So with a divorce brewing Lane heads home to Lake City and nurses his wounds, waiting for things to blow over. He plans to return to New York and the posh life into which hes ascended, hoping to eventually get one of those jobs advertised in between the articles in the Economist. But Lane's version of laying low involves him chugging his moms stash of Carlo Rossi and her boyfriends stash of Rainier. While at a bar one night Lane meets Nina, a well-off California transplant who wants to get sole custody of her and her partners foster child. The birth mother, Inezaccording to Nina a former meth-head who lives in a trailer parkwants her son back, and a judge has ruled for split custody. Nina offers Lane $3,000 to try to sabotage Inezs sobriety. Kohnstamm then spends much of the book skewering Lane as he tries to find the greater good in the situation even as he discovers ever-more complicating factors. Nina's racist. Inez is genuinely trying to be a good mother. But everything's tempered by the fact that Lane puts his own good first, generally. As an intelligent, darkly comic page turner, the book does the trick. Parts of it read like outtakes from Jonathan Franzens The Corrections or Jess Walters The Financial Lives of Poets. For a debut, Kohnstamm has a zippy sense of plot and a fine eye for detail: the color of hairs stuck to a stick of Old Spice, the yellowness of the foam cooler that holds those Rainier tallboys. He also has a flair for casually acerbic description. She appears to have copied her style from thumbing issues of Golf magazine and watching movies about Wall Street while, in reality, working as a teller at the two-bit stale-carpeted Lake City branch of Bank Whatever that still has sand-filled ashtrays in the waiting area. But Kohnstamm, a former travel writer, goes a little too far in translating the city to a broader audience. References to particularly Seattle things (politeness) abound. Dicks Drive-In plays a significant role. Hell, he name checks Amazon, Microsoft, Starbucks and grunge on the first two pages. This effect is exacerbated when Kohnstamm tries to wedge in chunks of Seattle history, which feel like digressions into Wikipedia articles more than narrative necessities. But, perhaps peculiarly for a dark comedy, the books greatest drawback is its lightness. Some of Kohnstamms attempts to find sympathy in the books characterswho are generally comically deplorable, Lane in particulardont quite work. The book opens with Lane trying to use September 11 as a conversation starter in a liquor store ("Needed a little time off from my PhD... after what happened in September and all. And even though Kohnstamm aims to cut again and again into the class disparity at the books heart, he never quite gets there. Was Lake City finally going to Nah, fuck this place, Lane thinks. | https://www.seattlemet.com/articles/2019/1/11/is-thomas-kohnstamm-s-i-lake-city-i-the-novel-seattle-needs-right-now |
Can Christian Pulisic Possibly Live Up To The Hype? | Christian Pulisic made U.S. soccer history last week when he reached an agreement to join Chelsea in the coming summer transfer window. Borussia Dortmund, where Pulisic has played since 2015, will pocket $73 million for the rights to him by far the largest fee ever for an American. The first question is how to adjust for a transfer from the Bundesliga, the top tier of German soccer. Given the players who have moved between the two leagues before, the answer is no. Since 2010-11, 103 midfielders or attackers have transferred between the Bundesliga and the Premier League. Normalized for minutes, these players created about 371 expected goals and assists in the Bundesliga and 364 in the Premier League, based on data from analytics firm Opta Sports. Thats a difference of about 2 percent. While there is variation, on average a player who creates attacking chances in the Bundesliga can be counted on to do the same in the Premier League. With more than 6,000 minutes played before his 21st birthday, Pulisic is in rarefied air already. Since the 2010-11 season, only 47 players have more than 6,000 minutes played among one of the top five European leagues and the Champions League. And even among that group, Pulisics production stands out. Here are players since 2010 with at least 2,500 minutes played before their age-21 season, sorted by expected goals and expected assists per 90 minutes, with strikers excluded. Pulisic is one of Europes elite youngsters European soccer leaders (excluding strikers) in expected goals plus expected assists per 90 minutes prior to turning 21 and nonpenalty goals plus assists for up to three seasons* afterwards Through age-20 ages 21-23 Player seasons exp. goals + assists/90 minutes Seasons nonpenalty goals + assists/90 min Ousmane Dembele 2015-17 0.60 2018 0.92 Mario Gotze 2010-12 0.57 2013-15 0.67 Dele Alli 2015-16 0.55 2017-18 0.61 Leroy Sane 2013-16 0.55 2017-18 0.90 Erik Lamela 2011-12 0.54 2013-15 0.43 Marco Asensio 2015-16 0.54 2017-18 0.41 Raheem Sterling 2011-15 0.54 2016-18 0.78 Keita Balde 2013-15 0.52 2016-18 0.76 Kingsley Coman 2012-16 0.49 2017-18 0.54 Yann Karamoh 2016-18 0.49 Philippe Coutinho 2010-12 0.47 2013-15 0.43 Richarlison 2017 0.46 2018 0.61 Goncalo Guedes 2015-17 0.46 2018 0.10 Xherdan Shaqiri 2010-12 0.45 2013-15 0.52 Julian Draxler 2010-13 0.44 2014-16 0.44 Christian Pulisic 2015-18 0.44 Eden Hazard 2010-11 0.43 2012-14 0.52 Malcom 2015-17 0.43 2018 0.70 Thomas Lemar 2014-16 0.42 2017-18 0.34 Roberto Firmino 2010-12 0.42 2013-15 0.69 Domenico Berardi 2013-14 0.42 2015-17 0.38 Lucas Ocampos 2013-14 0.42 2015-17 0.36 Florian Thauvin 2012-13 0.41 2014-16 0.43 Maxwell Cornet 2015-16 0.41 2017-18 0.74 Koke 2010-12 0.40 2013-15 0.48 Aaron Ramsey 2010-11 0.40 2012-14 0.52 Federico Chiesa 2016-18 0.40 Julian Brandt 2013-16 0.40 2017-18 0.41 Antoine Griezmann 2010-11 0.39 2012-14 0.57 * Season listed is the year in which the season started Minimum 2,500 minutes played in the big five European leagues Source: Opta Sports Not every young star hits: Lucas Ocampos remains a capable but unspectacular Ligue 1 attacker for Marseille, Erik Lamela has struggled at Tottenham and faced major injury problems, and Xherdan Shaqiri stagnated for years before becoming a key cog in Jurgen Klopps Liverpool squad this season. But on average, results are strong. In up to three seasons after their age-20 seasons, these players averaged 0.54 nonpenalty goals and assists per 90 minutes. Thats an improvement for their expected goals and assists numbers players who are this good at 20 tend to get even better in their early 20s. And as befitting that production, players like this tend to find their way to big clubs. Excluding the players currently in their age-20 seasons, 18 of 27 are regulars at teams in the Soccer Power Index top 20. Further, when players this young and this productive make their moves to big clubs, its expensive. Ousmane Dembele, Pulisics teammate at the time at Dortmund, cost Barcelona well over $100 million. Pulisics teammate-to-be Eden Hazard cost Chelsea only about $40 million in a less inflated market after his age-21 season. A few others came more cheaply Inter Milan selling Philippe Coutinho for less than $15 million after the numbers he put up as a 20-year-old looks like a historically poor decision, while the less impressive futures of Ocampos and Domenico Berardi suggest the roughly $10 million fees paid for their services were more in line with their values. On average, the players on this chart who transferred within two years of their age-20 season cost about $44 million. Pulisics future looks bright, and Chelseas fee is not out of line with what players of his pedigree tend to command. But one concern that arises here is that Pulisics best production came in his age-17 to -19 seasons. Now at 20, when he should be coming into his own, his production has declined from his usual 0.4 to 0.5 expected goals and assists per 90 minutes to less than 0.3. He has even lost starting minutes in the Bundesliga to Jadon Sancho. The decline represents fewer than 1,000 minutes, and Pulisics total production including these minutes remains strong. But the drop is still concerning. The problem appears to be Pulisics role in the system of new Dortmund manager Lucien Favre. Favre prefers a more defensive and counterattacking system than the high-pressing, high-possession style of Thomas Tuchel, under whom Pulisic broke in. This year, Pulisic is playing much deeper on the pitch than he ever used to. Only about 8 percent of his open-play pass receptions have been in the penalty area or on the flanks near the penalty area, compared with about 13 percent in previous seasons with Dortmund. Instead, Pulisic has done much more buildup work, with 13 percent of his passes received in the central area of the defensive half, compared with 6 percent previously. Pulisic is currently expected to contribute to a slower buildup style or help run counterattacks through the center, rather than making himself available as a passing outlet near the goal or near the endline. But its that latter skill where he has stood out. Pulisic has averaged just fewer than 1.5 open-play passes received into the penalty area in his career so far. The most comparable players at such a young age are strikers a few being among the best forwards in the world. Pulisic is great at finding space European soccer leaders in rate of receiving passes inside the penalty area per 90 minutes, among players prior to turning 21 Name From To Received passes inside penalty box per 90 minutes Kylian Mbappe 2015 2018 2.15 Mauro Icardi 2012 2013 1.51 Christian Pulisic 2015 2018 1.41 Marcus Rashford 2015 2018 1.31 Mattia Destro 2010 2011 1.29 Maxwell Cornet 2015 2016 1.28 Leroy Sane 2013 2016 1.28 Raheem Sterling 2011 2015 1.26 Julian Brandt 2013 2016 1.24 Manolo Gabbiadini 2011 2012 1.24 Paulo Dybala 2012 2014 1.18 Gabriel Jesus 2016 2017 1.16 Timo Werner 2013 2016 1.12 Romelu Lukaku 2011 2013 1.09 Erik Lamela 2011 2012 1.09 Season listed is the year in which the season started Minimum 2,500 minutes played in the big five European leagues Source: Opta Sports Pulisic does not look like a better prospect than Leroy Sane or Raheem Sterling in shot production. And he certainly falls behind strikers like Kylian Mbappe, Mauro Icardi, Gabriel Jesus, Timo Werner and Romelu Lukaku in goal-scoring prowess. But what you get in Pulisic is good shot production and an elite ability to make himself available for passes in dangerous areas. In Favres system, where deep possession sequences around the penalty area are less common, his best skills are wasted. Sarris high-possession Chelsea attack, however, might just be the perfect place for Pulisics game. At the same time, Pulisic may be just the attacker that Chelsea needs to get Sarris attack flowing. At Napoli, Sarris team completed elite numbers of open-play passes within or into the penalty area, 11.7 per match in his final season in 2017-18. But Chelsea this year has completed just 9.8 open-play passes in the penalty area per match despite a higher share of possession (61.9 percent) than Napoli had last year (60.3 percent). Favres Dortmund, with its less possession-heavy style, has only 9.1 of those passes per match. Pulisic may find the right fit for his skills at Chelsea, and the Blues appear to need a player with Pulisics ability to find space in the penalty area to execute their managers tactics. While other Americans have found steady work in the English Premier League Tim Howard, Clint Dempsey, Brian McBride none has commanded even close to the money that Pulisic has. All eyes will be him from day one. But Pulisics combination of production at a young age and skills that fit the needs of his new club make him a good bet to succeed even under international scrutiny. Check out our latest soccer predictions. | https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/can-christian-pulisic-possibly-live-up-to-the-hype/ |
Was Tom Brady Hosed In Ranking Of Most Trustworthy QBs Left In Playoffs? | The playoffs tend to be Tom Bradys time to shine, but he certainly has some skeptics this time around. The New England Patriots are set to take on the Los Angeles Chargers in the AFC Divisional Round on Sunday. It hasnt been the sharpest year for Brady or the rest of the Patriots, but by no means have they been a bad group. In a piece for NFL.com, writer Gregg Rosenthal ranked each remaining playoff quarterback by trustworthiness. Brady landed in fourth place, behind the Kansas City Chiefs Patrick Mahomes, Indianapolis Colts Andrew Luck and New Orleans Saints Drew Brees. Heres what Rosenthal wrote about Brady. Not since early in Bradys career has he felt so game-plan dependent. If Josh McDaniels and Brady are able to win the mental battle against Gus Bradleys defense before the snap, Brady still has the arm and the accuracy to pick apart the Chargers on Sunday. The larger question is what happens if the Chargers pass rush consistently wins, like it did during their 2017 matchup. In that game, Brady handled the pressure beautifully during a typically surgical performance on his way to an MVP. While those games have come far less often in 2018, it would be on brand for Brady to make some playoff magic just when the football cognoscenti begins to doubt him again. Like old times. While there certainly is reason to be skeptical about Brady (and its not a lifetime achievement ranking), at a certain point playoff experience probably should take over. Either way, you can make a pretty good argument for any of the quarterbacks in the top four, although were sure Patriots fans would take Brady over anyone else. Thumbnail photo via Winslow Townson/USA TODAY Sports Images | https://nesn.com/2019/01/was-tom-brady-hosed-in-ranking-of-most-trustworthy-qbs-left-in-playoffs/ |
Does Michael Cohen deserve our forgiveness? | Michael Cohen, erstwhile Trump lawyer and self-proclaimed "fixer," has agreed to testify before Congress. The announcement comes on the heels of weeks of Cohen's attempts to distance himself from his former boss. From telling the public he was merely following orders to encouraging voters to cast ballots for Democrats, Cohen has been trying to redeem himself in the public's eyes. PERSPECTIVES Cohen announced his intention to testify on Twitter, claiming he intends to "give a full and credible account of the events which have transpired," further distancing himself from the president. My statement regarding testifying publicly before Congress: pic.twitter.com/apNhAdfVds -- Michael Cohen (@MichaelCohen212) January 10, 2019 Not everyone has been impressed with Cohen's moral about-face. Stephen A. Crockett Jr. at The Root writes: Cohen is on a full redemption tour to try and paint himself as a true patriot of America, and of course, all of this comes after pleading guilty to multiple charges including "two campaign finance crimes tied to illicit payments made to silence women during the presidential campaign." Cohen has already said that he was just a puppet, that it was Trump who was calling all the shots and he was merely a grown damn man who could've have told Trump, "I'm not going to be able to do all this ..." Cohen's agreement to testify comes at the end of a several-months-long attempt to rehabilitate his image. Before the election, Cohen urged voters to cast their ballots for liberal candidates in order to better fight back against the president's agenda. "Get to the poll, because if not, you are going to have another two or another six years of this craziness." Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's former lawyer, tells Americans to vote against the President and the Republican Party. https://t.co/tuTCnxfQfP pic.twitter.com/VXfbAPIKAY -- CNN (@CNN) October 19, 2018 Even this Get Out the Vote PSA fell flat for many. Michael Cohen's turtleneck wants you to vote Democrat https://t.co/SiS6nqENBc pic.twitter.com/cqP1MQOGo8 -- Jezebel (@Jezebel) October 19, 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.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2019/01/does_michael_cohen_deserve_our.html |
How and where can I vote in the 2019 European elections? | The elections for the European Parliament will be held from May 23 until May 26, 2019. While the procedure to register to vote changes from EU country to EU country, some essential criteria is common across the whole of the European Union. If you are a citizen of an EU country, it is your right to vote and stand as a candidate in the elections. If you are an EU citizen and you live in your home country you can vote for candidates (or stand for election) only in your home country. If you are an EU citizen and you live in a country other than your home country, you can vote either in your home country or in your host country. You can not vote in both. You only have one vote. I'm a UK citizen. Great question. As things stand, the UK will leave the European Union on March 29, 2019. That is two months before the European elections. As a result, the UK will not take part in the 2019 European elections. The UK will not be represented in the next European parliament. Citizens of the UK will no longer be EU citizens, meaning they can not vote at all in the 2019 European elections. For example, even if you are a UK national living in Croatia or France or Germany or any other EU country, you do not have the right to vote in the European elections. Neither do you have the right to stand for election to the European Parliament. If you are an EU national living in the UK, you can still vote for candidates standing in your country of origin. I'm an EU citizen but not a UK citizen. As mentioned above, as an EU citizen, you can vote either for candidates in your home country or candidates in your country of residence. Either, or. You can't vote twice. If you live in your country of origin, the registration procedure to vote in the European elections is identical to the procedure for local, regional and general elections. To be able to vote, you just need to register with your local authorities. If you are an EU citizen living in a different EU country and want to vote in that host country, you will need to register with the national authorities of your host country. For example, say you're Irish and you live in France. If you want to vote for candidates standing in Ireland, you register with the Irish authorities. If you want to vote for candidates standing in your adopted constituency in France, you need to register with the French authorities. If you want to vote for candidates in your adopted French constituency, you play by French electoral rules, not Irish ones. Each country has its own rules on minimum age and minimum amount of time you've been resident there in order to be eligible to vote. In some EU countries, you automatically become registered to vote as soon as you have registered your residency there. In other EU countries, the registration process is not automatic. In most EU countries, registering to vote once is enough to stay on the electoral roll for future elections. However, in Ireland and Cyprus you need to register for each election you want to vote in. Similarly, the deadlines for registration change from EU country to EU country. You can find out the requirements for each specific EU country here. The minimum age for voting is, in the majority of cases, 18 years old on the day of the election. One exception is Greece, where the minimum age is 17. Most EU countries also require you to have been a permanent resident in that country for a period of time (which can change from country to country) and require you not to have been legally excluded from voting. If you are resident in Belgium, Cyprus, Greece or Luxembourg then be aware that voting in these countries is compulsory. If you are on the electoral roll in one of those countries (even if you're, say, Danish) then you are obliged to vote whether you want to or not. I'm an EU citizen but I live outside the EU. If you are Bulgarian, Cypriot, Danish, Greek or Italian and you live outside the European Union (that will include the UK) then you can not vote from outside your home country. If you are not a citizen of one of the above, then you may cast your vote from an embassy or consulate of your home country. | https://www.euronews.com/2019/01/11/how-and-where-can-i-vote-in-the-2019-european-elections |
Is R Kelly's music being shut down after new abuse claims? | Image copyright Getty Images John Legend has described him as a "serial" abuser, Lady Gaga has apologised for working with him and Neyo says there's "no excuse" not to "mute R Kelly". For 20 years, the Ignition (Remix) singer has faced numerous accusations of sexual misconduct - with many of the stories alleging he preyed on teenage girls. But the singer has never been convicted and denies any wrongdoing. R Kelly's big hits are still played by DJs across the world, he has a huge fan base and he's considered one of the biggest stars in RnB. However, several famous people have now spoken out against him following the release of a six-part documentary called Surviving R Kelly - which has been shown on US channel Lifetime. The programme outlined allegations from various women who say they were victims of abuse by R Kelly. As well as Lady Gaga, the claims have also prompted artists such as Chance the Rapper and French band Phoenix to apologise for working with him. While Omarion, whose group B2K had some of their biggest hits produced by R Kelly, said the band will no longer perform songs written by the singer. It's led to a renewed focus on the campaign to "Mute R Kelly" - which calls for a boycott of his music and concerts. It was launched in 2017 after other claims were made against the star and gained momentum last year when famous faces such as director Ava DuVernay and singer Janelle Monae came out to support the movement. R Kelly is a name that BBC 1Xtra's DJ Ace hasn't said on the radio in years. He instead refers to him as "the person whose name will not be spoken". As part of a discussion on whether an artist can be separated from their art, Ace said he doesn't play R Kelly on his radio show or in DJ sets. "I've never played an R Kelly record on [1Xtra show] Everything R&B. And I won't," he told listeners to the show on Monday. "I believe a lot of the stuff that I've seen and I've heard about R Kelly, so in my opinion I cant listen to those records in the same way. "I believe all of the women, and I will never play an R Kelly record on this show or in a set." Fellow 1Xtra presenter Yasmin Evans agreed. Yasmin and Ace told listeners that "a lot" of 1Xtra's DJs believe the allegations against R Kelly and "want nothing to do with" his music. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Lady Gaga duetted with R Kelly on the 2013 single Do What U Want which has now been pulled from several streaming sites But the official message from many radio stations on whether they are no longer playing R Kelly's songs is a little more complicated. Newsbeat asked some of the UK's biggest stations and streaming services whether R Kelly would continue to feature on their platforms. Radio 1 and 1Xtra said in a statement that there are "currently" no R Kelly songs on either playlist - which in radio industry terms is a list of songs chosen to be played regularly on the airwaves. But they did not say whether there was a full ban on ever having his songs played on specialist shows or if a listener requested one. Other radio stations refused to comment on whether they had blacklisted the star's music - including Global, home to Capital FM and Capital Xtra, and Baeur Media, which owns the likes of Kiss FM. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Demonstrators held a protest near to R Kelly's studio on Wednesday Spotify chose not to comment and Beats 1, Apple Music and Tidal didn't respond to repeated requests for comment. Deezer was the only streaming service we contacted who had something to say. In a statement, it said it has a "strict" process in place for monitoring content "while ensuring that we do not restrict freedom of speech, irrespective of our personal view on any given artist or issue". "We are following the conversation around R Kelly closely but at this stage we have not made any editorial changes to our playlists or content library," it added. Music journalist Natty Kasambala says it's "unrealistic" to expect stations and music services to hold people to account for charges that haven't necessarily been put through a court of law yet. But she says if a station plays R Kelly it should be seen as a "statement of support". "If you choose to support people in the midst of accusations such as this, we should all be able to take that as a statement of character," the Reprezent Radio and Foundation FM DJ told Radio 1 Newsbeat. Natty thinks there's a big enough number of people "refusing to accept his guilt or are making excuses for him" that R Kelly will not be muted. "I don't think we live in a world where the people who are against this have enough power to mute someone like R Kelly - but I think we have become an obstacle in his success, which is enough for now, and then we'll see what the courts do," she said. "It shouldn't be the case that we have to have a documentary in order for the police to do their jobs, that's so depressing to me, but the fact that that's done something for this case is promising I guess." Despite the renewed focus on abuse claims against R Kelly, it appears it's not hurting his career just yet. Nielsen Music, a data analytic company in the US, says streaming numbers for his music have doubled since the documentary aired - finishing its run on 6 January. It calculated that R Kelly averaged more than 955,600 streams in the last week of 2018. He averaged more than 1.5 million streams from 3 to 6 January. R Kelly is also due to play a concert at the MHP arena in Ludwigsburg, Germany in April. I need some help in understanding. pic.twitter.com/pysqVxLzyi Jada Pinkett Smith (@jadapsmith) January 6, 2019 Report On Thursday, the singer's duet with Lady Gaga, Do You Want Me, was in the top 15 of the US iTunes Stores' top songs list - which ranks the most-purchased songs of the moment. The song has since been removed from the likes of Apple Music and Spotify and is unavailable for purchase on Amazon Music. In 2008, the singer was found not guilty of 14 counts of child pornography following a trial in the US and has not faced any further criminal charges since. Skip Twitter post by @JonBabs1 I'm not in support of R.Kelly but the fact still remains that his songs were&still is an inspiration to many. I grew up listening to his songs&d message hasn't changed because he is bad person. Its my biz If I choose to buy/listen to his songs. Jon Babs (@JonBabs1) January 8, 2019 Report Chris Cooke, business editor of music industry news service Complete Music Update, says it's "hard to know" whether these latest allegations will have a lasting impact on R Kelly's career. "These stories have been following him for such a long time... it's not like these are new revelations to anyone really. "However it has gone so big across the news networks and the social feeds and we're starting to see people in the music community, who in the past have tended not to comment, coming out. "It does seem like there's a bigger reaction within the music community which could have an impact." Follow Newsbeat on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 every weekday on BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra - if you miss us you can listen back here. | https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-46829110 |
How do I undertake the Great Ocean Walk in Australia? | Q I am considering tackling the Great Ocean Walk in Australia, probably in November. I would only undertake the walk if I could stay in B&Bs on or near the route and have my case transported for me. There are three unbridged river crossings on the way and Im concerned about getting over these, so although I would prefer to walk on my own, I would be prepared to walk in a group, if this made these crossings safer. Helen Howe, via email A The 65-mile Great Ocean Walk on Victorias southwest coast is one of Australias most spectacular hikes, and if you want time to enjoy the wonderful scenery along the way it will take about a week. The local operator Walk 91 (walk91.com.au) offers | https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-do-i-undertake-the-great-ocean-walk-in-australia-dmrzxpgnr |
How can my family cut down on screen time? | Most of us live with the uneasy feeling that we and our children spend too much time staring at screens. For the first time, doctors have issued official guidelines that confirm we may need to limit our childrens access to technology. In their Screen Time Guidance published last week, doctors at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) advised that children shouldnt look at screens within an hour of going to bed, and recommended that parents set a good example. Parents should ask themselves whether family screen use is under control, whether children are getting enough sleep and exercise and are healthy and happy, says Dr Max Davie from the RCPCH, who | https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-can-my-family-cut-down-on-screen-time-mkdw30frz |
What was the last team to win back to back Super Bowls? | The Super Bowl is only a few weeks away, meaning one NFL team will soon stand under confetti as NFL champions. Only a handful of teams have ever won the title game two years in a row. The New England Patriots were the last team to do so in 2004 and 2005 with their victories in Super Bowl XXXVIII and XXXIX. Tom Brady and Bill Belichick won their first championship together in 2002 and added to their dynasty with a 3229 defeat over the Carolina Panthers in 2004 and an equally close game the following year. The Patriots beat the Philadelphia Eagles 2421 in 2005 after both teams traded touchdowns in the second and third quarters. The Eagles scored a touchdown with 1:48 left on the clock but couldn't score again to take down New England. Brady and the Patriots have recorded five additional Super Bowl appearances, winning two more titles in 2015 and 2017. Seven franchises, including the Patriots, have won back-to-back Super Bowl victories. The Green Bay Packers won Super Bowls I and II, then called the AFL-NFL Championship Game, under legendary coach Vince Lombardi in 1967 and 1968. Other franchises to do so include the Miami Dolphins (1973 and 1974) and the Pittsburgh Steelers, who did it twice in 1975 and 1976 before repeating again in 1979 and 1980. The San Francisco 49ers (1989 and 1990), the Dallas Cowboys (1993 and 1994) and the Denver Broncos (1998 and 1999) round out the list of teams to accomplish the rare feat. | https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/01/11/super-bowl-back-to-back-wins-champions-repeat-history-new-england-patriots |
What kind of presidential candidate would Amy Klobuchar make? | The Iowa caucuses are more than a year away, but the field of democratic candidates is already shaping up. MPR News host Stephanie Curtis spoke with four guests about that: a reporter, a political scientist, a Republican strategist and a Democratic strategist. Guests: Mark Zdechlik Reporter, MPR News Steven Smith Professor of political science, Washington University in St. Louis, and director of the university's Weidenbaum Center Jeff Blodgett Political consultant and founding director of Wellstone Action Alex Conant Partner at Firehouse Strategies To listen to the full conversation you can use the audio player above. | https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/01/11/what-kind-of-presidential-candidate-would-amy-klobuchar-make |
Who Exactly Is Coachella Headliner Tame Impala? | When the 2019 Coachella lineup was announced, people had FEELINGS when they saw that Tame Impala is headlining on the day between Ariana Grande and Childish Gambino's performances. These feelings ranged from "woohoo!" to "wait, what the heck is a Tame Impala?" If you happen to have felt the latter, here's a quick guide. It's okay! This one's particularly confusing! Tame Impala is an "epiphany pop" band from Perth, Australia. That's basically just another way of saying this shit is pretty psychedelic. But, I'll let you in on a lil' secret. It's actually a one-man-band! Kevin Parker, the dude behind Tame Impala, thought people might find him more interesting if he labeled himself as a band, instead of just a solo artist. Jay Watson, Dominic Simper, Cam Avery, Julien Barbagallo and "others" are listed as band members on Tame Impala's Facebook page, so don't freak if you get to Coachella and wonder why there are tons of people you weren't expecting to see on stage. Kevin has also contributed to Kanye West music and worked with Mark Ronson. It's very vibe-y music If you're planning to see Tame Impala at Coachella but aren't already a huge fan, don't worry. This *gRoOVy* music isn't like an Ariana Grande ballad that the audience screams at the top of their lungs. It's music you can dance to. Yay, dancing! The music videos are trippy as hell You kind of just have to watch this vid of Tame Impala's most popular song, The Less I Know the Better to understand how *extremely hipster voice* far out they are. Just don't open it up at work, because there's some ~sexual action~ in the beginning. They'll probably release new music this year When Kevin, AKA Tame Impala, took to Instagram to announce the band would be headlining Coachella, the caption said "New Year. New Shows. New Sounds." Rihanna is totally a Tame Impala fan On her Anti album, Rihanna covered a Tame Impala song, New Person, Same Ol' Mistakes. (Except, she shortened the name, and called it Same Ol' Mistakes, because Ri does whatever she wants. Duh.) It's worth a shot. | https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/music/a25860298/tame-impala-coachella-headliner/ |
Why was the U.S. Postal Service at CES? | As the U.S. government shutdown was about to become the longest on the record and many employees missed their paychecks Friday, U.S. Postal Service workers were roaming around a Las Vegas convention center hocking a smart mailbox. The post office has been exhibiting at CES, the largest annual tech conference, for nearly two decades, including at the 2019 show, where the national mail carrier showed off its Informed Delivery system, an online service and app that lets registered users view grayscale images of incoming letters before they are delivered to their mailboxes. The agency also showed off a connected home mailbox capable of providing capacity alerts and delivery notices. Emily Bary/MarketWatch USPS showed off a smart mailbox at this years CES. An announcer speaking on a microphone encouraged visitors to stop by the booth and check out the smart mailbox that turns the conventional home mailbox into a smart device and represents the future of mail delivery. She told business attendees that they could come by and learn more about ways to reach their customers. The post office exhibited in a vast booth featuring large digital displays as well as a joystick-enabled game that let users navigate a maze of virtual packages and try to accumulate the most before time expires. The USPS is not an arm of the federal government so it is not subject to the shutdown, though it is overseen by federal appointees and officials. It is also subject to Freedom of Information Act laws, and MarketWatch obtained more than 600 pages of documentation regarding the agencys 2018 visit to CES through the law. Dont miss: A new nightmare for furloughed workers preventing damage to their credit scores USPS sent more than 70 employees to CES in 2018, at a cost of nearly $200,000, according to MarketWatch calculations based on documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. These employees ranged from sales and marketing personnel to those focused on information-technology support and the Informed Delivery product. Not included in the FOIA records received by MarketWatch were figures pertaining to how much the agency spent on the construction and design of its booth nor how much it paid the Consumer Technology Association, which runs CES, for space on the show floor. Costs vary widely for booth space at CES, and the CTA didnt return a MarketWatch request for comment regarding the price USPS paid this year for its booth or the cost of a similarly sized space in South Hall. More from CES: IBM continues its big bet on data with new weather, health-tech applications The amount USPS pays to exhibit at the conference will be multiplied over several times by the end of the year as the agency heads to more events. A 2017 post on the USPS website says that the agency attends about 60 trade shows and estimates a return on investment of about 4,000 percent for its overall efforts with trade shows. An agency spokeswoman declined to comment on the estimated return on CES specifically nor the amount of money spent on the agencys presence at this years CES. We attend trade shows to promote our shipping capabilities in the rapidly growing e-commerce market and to promote our direct mail services in the highly competitive advertising market, she said, adding that the agency has a long and proud history of innovation. Opinion: AMDs Lisa Su takes center stage at CES, taking aim at Intel and Nvidia The post office saw its revenue rise 1.5% in the fiscal year ended last September, to $70.6 billion, though the agencys losses swelled by 43%: USPS reported a $3.9 billion net loss for the fiscal year. The controllable loss, which excludes pension- and compensation-related expenses, widened to $1.9 billion from $814 million a year earlier. The agency declined to comment on its annual marketing budget. Emily Bary/MarketWatch The post offices Informed Delivery service lets users view images of envelopes that will be delivered to their mailboxes. According to the documents, it appears that the USPS employed a Chicago-based marketing company called Czarnowski Display Service Inc. to assist with the exhibit in Las Vegas. The post office did not release the contract in the FOIA records for the 2018 show and MarketWatch was unable to locate a dollar figure in the documents. The records did not include the costs for the post offices booth, but did indicate that it was roughly 80 feet by 50 feet in size. Czarnowski Display lists its 2015 work for USPS at CES as a case study on its website, noting that the exhibit that year was named by FindTheBest.com in an article titled: The 20 Most Eye-Catching Booths at CES 2015. That booth included a package memory game, according to the case study. When contacted for comment, Czarnowski referred MarketWatch to the post offices communications team. | https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-was-the-us-postal-service-at-ces-2019-01-11?siteid=rss&rss=1 |
Would Lucy Hale Appear on PLL Spinoff The Perfectionists? | Its not easy saying goodbye but Lucy Hale has the chance to revisit her Pretty Little Liars family! A spinoff of the Freeform drama, which came to an end in June 2017, is set to premiere later this year. I dont know much about it. Im equally as curious as everyone else as to what theyre doing with it, Hale, who played Aria Montgomery in all seven seasons of the teen drama, told Us Weekly exclusively. I think the fans of the show will be happy because I think they segue it nicely and it will tonally be very similar. The spinoff, titled Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists, includes original stars Sasha Pieterse as Alison DiLaurentis and Janel Parrish back as Mona Vanderwaal, but the Unicorn star, 29, isnt sure shell appear. Maybe This season, no. But theres always the possibility of that, she told Us. For more from Hale, including where Aria would be today, watch our exclusive video above. Sign up now for the Us Weekly newsletter to get breaking celebrity news, hot pics and more delivered straight to your inbox! Download the Us Weekly iPhone app now! | https://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/would-lucy-hale-appear-on-pll-spinoff-the-perfectionists/ |
Why does Stanford pursue ties with Saudi Arabia? | Saudi Arabias new technological academy, Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz College of Cyber Security, signed a memorandum of understanding last year with Stanford, as part of a larger project to engage with educational institutions across the United States. The memorandum will aid the design of educational material for the Saudi institution. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his government desire to adopt our curriculum in order to technologically advance, enhance cybersecurity, and modernize their economy. Stanford, however, contradicts its values as a beacon of western intellectualism by supporting the totalitarian nation. Stanford sees a business deal. But Saudi Arabias implementation of Islamic law punishes the LGBTQ community, treats women as second class citizens, disciplines theft with corporal punishment, and stifles freedom of expression. Apostasy laws upheld by the Supreme Court of Saudi Arabia sentenced the Saudi blogger Raif Badawi to 10 years of prison and 1,000 lashes for running an online platform that fostered dialogue on politics and religion. The Winds of Freedom do not blow in Riyadh. The Islamist monarchy has no interest in what Western culture offers besides what advances its reign. The country wants to advance economically and technologically, but makes little effort to advance socially or intellectually. According to The World Press Review: the total number of books translated into Arabic during the 1,000 years since the age of Caliph Al-Mamoun [a ninth-century Arab ruler who was a patron of cultural interaction between Arab, Persian, and Greek scholars] to this day is less than those translated in Spain in one year. As a leading entity of Western intellectual culture, Stanford should make it clear to Saudi Arabia that our culture is not only techit is philosophy, science, history, and lettersand we have principles that transcend the financial and technological interests the Saudis wish to exploit. Globalists argue that if Saudi Arabia catches up with the United States in technological ability, the Kingdom will socially and intellectually westernize. However, technological and economic growth do not necessarily catalyze political liberalization. Consider China. Thanks in part to Western technological innovation and trade, China has made great economic strides in the past half century. And although millions of people have been lifted out of poverty, the Communist dictatorship continues to limit human rights and is more entrenched than at any point since Maoist times. The fact that Saudi Arabias sole interaction with Stanford is for the sake of technological advancement suggests a desire to remain intellectually closed-off, with only venal, utilitarian, and strategic exceptions. A purely technological contribution from Stanford would uphold the authority of the Saudi regime and might even contribute to illiberal ends. Saudi Arabia has long been part of an unholy alliance with the United States, and the nature of this relationship should be condemned in its own right. The recent, brutal assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the ensuing reticence of President Trump to speak soberly about the issue epitomize our governments moral confusion. As one of the institutions that represents the intellectual elite of our country, the University should be ahead of the inept government. Saudi Arabia does not operate with the same intellectual values as Stanford. Rather than designing a cybersecurity curriculum for a theocratic country, perhaps we could find a way to uplift the minorities, intellectuals and moderate Muslims who are oppressed under an extreme implementation of Islamic law. These are the individuals whose beliefs and interests are most in line with our values of liberal education and freedom of expression. If helping these dissidents is unrealistic, Stanford should at the very least avoid contributing to the sinister Saudi system. | https://stanfordreview.org/why-does-stanford-pursue-ties-with-saudi-arabia/ |
How is Dublin preparing for a possible no-deal Brexit? | Image copyright Getty Images Standing on top of the roof of the Dublin Port Company's headquarters, you can see lots of building work amidst all the docked ships at the River Liffey's mouth. And while that construction is not entirely Brexit-related, management at the port says it has to be prepared for the possibility of a no-deal and any potential economic fallout. The UK is scheduled to leave the EU on 29 March, whether or not there is a negotiated deal. British Prime Minister Theresa May is hoping that her draft Withdrawal Agreement will get through the House of Commons, but preparations are under way in case it does not. There is agreement across Irish society that Brexit will have an adverse effect on the country, but the worst scenario as far as the Irish government is concerned is that the UK leaves without a negotiated settlement. Politicians here refer to that option as a "hard" Brexit. The International Monetary Fund forecasts that Ireland's economic growth would take a 4% hit "in the long run" if there is a "cliff-edge" break with the EU, because of the highly integrated nature of the Irish and UK economies. And the independent Dublin-based think tank The Economic and Social Research Institute estimates that a "hard" Brexit could cost households up to 1,400 (1,260) a year, because of a potential increase in food prices and possible trade tariffs. Image copyright Government of Ireland Image caption The Irish government set out its approach to dealing with a no-deal Brexit in December Despite no-one in authority being in a position to predict how Brexit will unfold, the Irish government has already announced plans for an extra 1,000 customs and veterinary staff to work at Dublin and Rosslare ports and at airports, as well as new money to train people in sectors likely to be badly affected. It has organised a series of very well-attended roadshows around the country with the involvement of state agencies with the theme "Getting Ireland Brexit Ready" for every Brexit scenario. And there is evidence that more companies - worried about possible delays and resulting costs at Dover - are forsaking the UK land-bridge for new "Brexit-busting" super-ferries that would sail directly between Dublin and Zeebrugge and Rotterdam, bypassing uncertainty in Britain. It is too early to say what impact they are having, but the development is seen as significant. There is an Irish political and economic consensus on Brexit. For political reasons there is widespread agreement that there has to be a so-called "backstop" unless and until there is a wider trade agreement to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland. It is feared that such a border could risk a return to violence after a hard-won peace. Parts of the Conservative Party and the DUP as a whole strongly oppose the backstop, believing it risks weakening the union between Northern Ireland the rest of the UK. They also feel it may effectively trap the UK in a customs arrangement with the EU, preventing it from making its own trade deals with non-EU states. There is also a consensus in Dublin that for economic reasons, the Republic of Ireland wants as close a relationship with the UK as possible for the sake of jobs and mutual prosperity after Britain leaves the EU. Image copyright Getty Images And yet despite that consensus, the opposition parties in the Dil (parliament), Fianna Fil and Sinn Fein, have frequently criticised Prime Minister Leo Varadkar's Fine Gael government for not doing enough to prepare for the no-deal scenario. There has also been an often unspoken fear that the EU might at the last moment try to force Ireland to relent on the backstop to allow Mrs May to get her deal to pass in Westminster. That concern is largely based on what happened during the financial crisis, when Dublin came under enormous pressure to apply for a bailout to protect its banks. But Irish government ministers insist that the remaining EU27 countries are at one on the issue. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, the EU's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, and the president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, have been frequent visitors to Dublin, expressing solidarity with their Irish counterparts. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas reiterated that support at this week's Global Ireland conference in Dublin, appearing alongside Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney. Image copyright Inpho Image caption Simon Coveney (l) and Heiko Maas (r) both emphasised the importance of avoiding a hard border While a no-deal Brexit is most definitely seen by many as a threat to the Irish state, it also offers opportunities. The Industrial Development Authority, which is responsible for seeking Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into the country, notes that more than 55 companies have moved at least part of their operations from London to the Irish capital because of Brexit. Those companies include Bank of America, Barclays, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, helping to make 2018 a record year for FDI job creation. There is a fear, though, that domestic companies - which tend to have a closer economic relationship with the UK than the multinationals - could suffer with resulting job losses, especially if the pound fell as a result of a failure to agree a deal. That would make Irish exports less competitive and British imports cheaper, raising the prospect of some companies lobbying for possible state support. Amid all the confusion and uncertainty about Brexit, the Irish government has consistently said that it thinks it more likely than not that a no-deal Brexit will be avoided, but stresses it necessarily has to plan for all eventualities. Management at Dublin Port is taking the politicians at their word and getting ready for a no-deal Brexit scenario, preparing to house more customs officials and veterinary inspection staff. It seems certain that the cranes, trucks and construction staff at the mouth of the Liffey will be busy for some time to come. | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46798191 |
Will Altria Group Raise Its Dividend in 2019? | Few stocks have matched the dividend performance of tobacco giant Altria Group (NYSE: MO). For the past half-century, Altria has overcome huge obstacles to generate impressive returns for its investors, and although the shares have seen their price appreciate over that span, Altria's dividends have made the largest contribution to the stock's success over the long haul. Those returns haven't come without effort, though, and Altria has worked hard to navigate the changing climate in tobacco and related industries. The company has recently made some major moves that could dramatically change its business, including its decision to take substantial stakes in e-cigarette maker JUUL Labs and cannabis company Cronos Group (NASDAQ: CRON). With Altria having spent that much cash, some shareholders fear that the tobacco giant won't want to continue giving investors higher dividend payments. Below, we'll consider that question more closely. Dividend stats on Altria Group Quarterly Dividend Per Share $0.80 Dividend Yield 6.6% Number of Consecutive Years With Dividend Increases 49 years* Payout Ratio 57% Last Increase September 2018 Data source: Yahoo! Finance. Last increase refers to ex-dividend date. *Takes into account adjustments for spinoffs. 2018 was a great year for Altria's dividend Altria made an unusual move with its dividend in 2018, giving shareholders not one but two separate increases. In the first quarter of the year, Altria made a modest increase of about 6%, taking the payout from $0.66 to $0.70 per share. Yet later, Altria made its more typical third-quarter dividend boost, with a big bump higher of 14% to push the quarterly dividend to $0.80 per share. One key reason for the double-move was tax reform. The massive cut in corporate tax rates gave Altria an unexpected profit boost, and in line with its past practice, the tobacco company shared part of that windfall with its shareholders through dividends. As a result, the total dividend increase of 21% for the year was extraordinary -- and not something that investors should count on happening again. Nevertheless, even with more typical once-annual increases, Altria has been good to dividend investors. Over the past decade, it's been common for Altria to deliver high single-digit percentage boosts to its quarterly payout. MO Dividend Chart More MO Dividend data by YCharts. Yet Altria isn't typically treated the same as other companies with similar dividend histories. That's mostly because Altria has broken itself up into multiple pieces on a couple of occasions. Having once incorporated the Kraft brand of food products under its corporate umbrella, Altria chose to spin off that business. Similarly, the spinoff of its international tobacco business into Philip Morris International (NYSE: PM) left the surviving Altria holding only the company's U.S. operations. Because of those spinoffs, the amount of Altria's dividend has occasionally gone down. But when you account for the fact that the size of Altria's business also shrank -- and that investors who held onto the spun-off shares of other business still ended up ahead on a total dividend basis -- it's fairer to treat Altria with the respect it's earned as a dividend powerhouse. | https://news.yahoo.com/altria-group-raise-dividend-2019-011600590.html |
Could Tesla Be a Millionaire-Maker Stock? | Hey! Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) sold more than twice as many cars in 2018 as it did in 2017! Better yet, it managed to post a quarterly profit in Q3, and may be on track to do the same in Q4! In spite of all this, the stock's price has bounced around a lot, starting 2019 at almost the exact same level as a year earlier. Well, unfortunately, for all of its success to date, the math may be stacked against investors who buy in now. Here's why. A red Tesla Model 3 with a city skyline in the background More Buying a Tesla costs a pretty penny, and so does buying Tesla shares. Image source: Tesla. A lack of value Over the past year, Tesla's stock has been quite volatile, seesawing between about $250 a share all the way up to almost $375 a share. That's brought the company's market cap from highs of around $65 billion to lows of around $42 billion. For the sake of argument, let's say that an investor is able to buy into the stock at the low end of that range, about $250 per share. Let's also say that an investor can purchase 40 shares of the stock, for an initial investment of $10,000. Well, in order for that to happen, Tesla would have to grow by 10,000% (one hundredfold). That seems like a ludicrous number, but since going public in 2010, Tesla's share price has grown by an impressive 2,640%. However, as a company gets larger, rapid growth becomes more difficult. A company can only get so big, after all. To put that number in perspective, in order to grow a hundredfold, Tesla's market cap would need to balloon to $4.2 trillion, assuming no dividends or share repurchases. That would be more than five times larger than Apple or Amazon, which currently have market caps of just over $750 billion. For any company -- let alone a car company -- this is next to impossible. Even for investors who bought in during Tesla's first year, when its market cap was less than $2.5 billion, a 10,000% return would make it the largest car company in the world by far, surpassing Toyota's (NYSE: TM) current $169.2 billion market cap. Impossible growth Now, there's certainly the possibility that Tesla's investments in solar installation and energy storage technology could pay off and turn it into more of a broad-spectrum electrical tech company than a car company. In fact, there's some evidence that Tesla's energy storage segment has just as much growth potential as its electric vehicle business. But the solar business has been on the decline for years, and Tesla doesn't seem to be investing heavily into that side of the business. The vast majority of Tesla's sales right now are of electric vehicles. So let's see if we can determine what a reasonable growth projection is for Tesla's automotive arm. In 2018, Tesla delivered 245,240 vehicles. Interestingly, that's about the same number as Porsche delivered in 2017. But Porsche's market cap of $17.6 billion is only about one-third of Tesla's. By contrast, Toyota sold 8,964,394 vehicles around the world in its most recent fiscal year (April 2017-March 2018). In other words, Toyota sells 36.6 times the number of vehicles that Tesla sells in a year, but its market cap is only about three times as large. So even if Tesla managed to sell as many cars as Toyota -- which, just to be clear, would require an astronomical amount of growth -- it seems unlikely that investors would see a corresponding 3,600% gain in share price. | https://news.yahoo.com/could-tesla-millionaire-maker-stock-005100744.html |
Could supernova be a newborn black hole? | When a brilliant, bewildering celestial body flashed into being in a nearby galaxy last summer, it transfixed the entire astronomy community. No one had ever witnessed anything like it. Over the course of just a few days, the cosmic flare grew until it was almost 100 billion times brighter than the sun. Soon after the sighting was reported, scientists were observing it in every wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum. Images taken by the ATLAS telescopes before the explosion and after show the sudden brightening in the galaxy CGCG 137-068. ATLAS/Stephen Smartt Yet even after those hundreds of hours of effort, the signal defies easy explanation posing the tantalizing possibility that astronomers have detected something entirely new. In published studies and presentations Thursday at the winter meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle, scientists debated what astrophysical phenomenon could be behind this puzzling flare. Several research teams argue that it may come from the birth of a black hole or a collapsed star. Only an incredibly dense object shining through a cloud of stellar debris could power such a fast and brilliant signal, these scientists say. Still others argue the flare was emitted by a star in its death throes as it was devoured by a black hole. Events like this one are new frontiers for discovery, said Northwestern University astrophysicist Rafaella Margutti, who led research suggesting the flare comes from a newborn black hole. Whatever the origins of this signal, studying it and finding more could allow scientists to probe the universes most exotic locales where the laws of physics are pushed to their extremes. The June 16 detection came from Hawaiis ATLAS telescope, which surveys the night sky for supernovas and other powerful, short-lived phenomena. These events, known as transients, typically take a few weeks to reach full brightness. But this flare unfolded even faster. By day three, it was about 10 times as bright as a standard exploding star, and sent a shock wave zooming outward at 20,000 miles a second 10 percent of the speed of light. An urgent message was posted on the Astronomers Telegram, an online service for astronomers to report interesting observations. Share < Previous Next > | https://www.pressherald.com/2019/01/11/could-supernova-be-a-newborn-black-hole/ |
Will the GOPs Lone Black Senators Wokeness Play Well With the White South Carolina Voters He Relies Upon? | Photo: Aaron P. Bernstein (Getty Its becoming a pattern: Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina speaking up more forcefully and clearly about race and racism, even challenging his white counterparts to be better. Because were silent on things like this: When people with opinions similar to Kings open their mouths, they damage not only the Republican Party and the conservative brand but also our nation as a whole. They want to be treated with fairness for some perceived slights but refuse to return the favor to those on the other side. Advertisement Scott wrote the piece in reaction to comments from Iowa Republican Steve King, who essentially openly declared his allegiance to white supremacy during an interview with the New York Times. There have been plenty of Republicans outside of D.C. who have spoken out against King, including the National Review, and even Ben Shapiro, whose disgusting take about the Trayvon Martin killing will forever rankle. Its just that top Republican leaders and elected officials have yet to do the same, not even the great saint, newly minted U.S. senator from Utah, Mitt Romney, who wrote recently about the need to speak up on such things, at least when it comes to President Trump. Thats why Scott has to fly solo because his white Republican colleagues dont much care about rooting white supremacy out of their ranks, just as he had to when it came time to block a Trump nominee for a federal court whose record on voting rights was disgusting. Advertisement It is true that, as Ive noted before, Scott has spoken up on problematic racial issues in the past, including passionately speaking out against racial profiling on the Senate floor a few years ago, in speeches in and around Myrtle Beach and Charleston, S.C., (which I personally witnessed), and helped bring down the Confederate flag from that states capitol building after Dylann Roof massacred nine black people. He helped push through the recent criminal justice reform law and has been trying to force the federal government to finally mandate that police departments must report every time they kill someonesomething that is, bafflingly, not yet a requirement. And he and the upper chambers two other black senators helped ensure the Senate would pass an anti-lynching bill for the first time in U.S. history. Every time Scott (rightly) speaks up, the starker the contrast between him and his white Republican colleagues comes into focus. Thats something for which white Republicans should be ashamed of and shamed for. But its also true that Scott was so closely linked to former Sen. Jim DeMint in South Carolina that he became the first black man from the Deep South to win a U.S. Senate seat since Reconstruction while losing the black vote in his native state. He voted for Jeff Sessions for attorney general, a man who spent much of his tenure pulling back Obama-era reforms aimed at curbing police brutality and other kinds of abuses. Advertisement And, of course, Scott voted for and helped Trump get elected. Still, because of everything hes done since, hes building a track record that might make me reconsider my pledge to not vote for him or his party for the foreseeable futurebut also one that could turn off the white evangelical Christians who make up the bulk of his base. (Id love to see the day when both major political parties are vying for the black vote. But right now, the Republican Party has been far too cozy with racism and racists. Remember, they made the bigoted birther-in-chief president.) White people in South Carolina who love bragging that they backed a black, Christian man for the U.S. Senateeasier for them to prove that they cant possibly be racist or have untoward thoughts about black peoplewill turn on him in a heartbeat if he makes them too uncomfortable by speaking too forthrightly and consistently against racism. Im sure Scott knows this even if he wouldnt admit it publicly. Every black person in the state knows it because many of us have experienced just that. Advertisement Thats why what Scott is doing is admirable. Being a black senator from California or New Jersey, you are required to be woke. Being one from South Carolina means making it seem as though you arent, even if you really are. | https://www.theroot.com/will-the-gops-lone-black-senators-wokeness-play-well-wi-1831682624 |
Will Tebow wedding be televised by SEC Network with Finebaum reading vows? | Running off at the typewriter Congratulations to Tim Tebow for popping the question to his new fiance former Miss Universe Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters. (4) Before the nuptial vows are read, will Mr. Two Bits run into the church sanctuary and yell, Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar! All for this marriage, stand up and holler! ? And as long were on the topic of Tebows pending marriage, Ive got an idea for his wedding vows. : To the fans and everybody in Gator Nation, I promise you one thing, a lot of good will come out of this marriage. You will never see any husband in the entire country work as hard as I will work the rest of my life. You will never see a spouse push as hard as I will push to make this marriage a success. You will never see a couple work harder for matrimonial bliss than we will the rest of our lives. God Bless. SHORT STUFF: At 66 years old, new Tampa Bay Bucs coach Bruce Arians is the oldest coaching hire in the history of the NFL. No, this doesnt mean the Bucs are going to be running the Single-Wing and eating their team meals at The Piccadilly, but it is sort of interesting that they are going old when the trend is to go young. Personally, I love this hire. Arians had a franchise-best 50-32-1 record during his five years with the Arizona Cardinals. Thats right, the Arizona Freaking Cardinals! The man won 60 percent of his games in Arizona. By comparison, the two best coaches in Bucs history Tony Dungy and Jon Gruden respectively won just 51 and 56 percent of their games. Repeat after me: This wasnt an old hire; it was a bold hire! Knowing the no-nonsense Coughlin, Im willing to bet he did all the talking while Fournette did all the listening. Speaking of the Jaguars, they might want to start tanking immediately for Clemson freshman quarterback Trevor Lawrence. My sources tell me he wanted to spend more time with Urban Meyers family. Breaking news: Windermere says it will build a wall at the Ocoee border. I think its all well and good that new Orlando City GM Luiz Muzzi (will there ever be a news conference to introduce him to the public?) wants to make the team younger, but personally Id prefer to see him make the team better. Speaking of soccer, the Orlando Pride just hired a new head coach in Marc Skinner one of seven male coaches in the nine-team National Womens Soccer League. Lets hear it for the college coaches in the American Football Coaches Association who are pushing for the elimination of playing college football games on Friday nights. I couldnt agree more. Colleges should allow financially challenged high schools to have exclusivity on Fridays just as the NFL allows colleges to have exclusivity on Saturdays. Memo to college football: Pull the plug on your Friday night lights! My answer: All of the above! MIKEY LIKES: Chiefs over Colts by just 2, Rams over Cowboys by 8, Chargers over Patriots by 3 in Upset Special, Eagles over Saints by 1 more St. Nick (Foles) miracle in Upset Special II, Tebows engagement ring over his Heisman Trophy by 3 (pounds). LAST WORD: Something I wrote a couple of years ago when comparing Alabama coach Nick Saban with Clemson coach Dabo Swinney is as true now as it was then: Saban might be the most dominant coach in college history, but Dabo may be the most likable. Saban scowls; Dabo smiles. Saban intimidates; Dabo ingratiates. Saban prowls the sideline; Dabo dances in the locker room. Saban is responsible for building Alabamas extensive football infrastructure; Dabo is responsible for building a giant sliding board in the middle of Clemsons football complex. Saban coaches with an iron fist; Dabo coaches with a compassionate heart. ... | https://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/open-mike/os-sp-tebow-engaged-miss-universe-finebaum-sec-network-20190111-story.html |
Should Jared Goff Be Worried About the Dallas Cowboys Trying to Take His Soul? | (105.3 The Fan reporting from FRISCO, Texas) -- Dallas Cowboys defensive end DeMarcus "Tank" Lawrence is locked in and ready to go for Saturday's playoff game against the Los Angeles Rams. "Quiet before the storm,'' Lawrence said to reporters, including 105.3 The Fan's Mike Fisher, on the final day of media access in the Cowboys locker room Thursday. "Let everything play out. When its time to rock and roll, we are gonna hit. We are gonna f---ing hit.'' The player Lawrence hopes to hit is Rams quarterback Jared Goff, who leads an offense that's ranked No. 2 in the NFL in total yards per game. "He's a quarterback,'' Lawrence said. "I don't like quarterbacks. ... I go into every week wanting to take the quarterback's soul. "You get the look in a man's eyes and see fear in his heart. That's when you know you got him. That's how I play the game, and that's how we're going to dictate the game." In addition to Goff, the Rams employ a star-studded cast of players including running back Todd Gurley and wide receivers Brandin Cooks and Robert Woods. I mean, we got speed, too, bro," Lawrence said. "The main thing about slowing them down is playing to our tempo, and don't let them dictate the tempo of the game. ... We just have to be more disciplined than them. ... I think we can take it all the way (to a championship) with this defense." | https://931jackfm.radio.com/blogs/dallas-cowboys-plan-hit-los-angeles-rams-qb-jared-goff-and-take-his-soul |
What Did the Jar of Pickles Mean on The Orville S02E03? | At the end of The Orville Season 2 Episode 3, called Home, Captain Ed Mercer is staring at a jar of pickles. Read on but note: this post will have major spoilers for Season 2 Episode 3 of The Orville. Spoilers below. At the end of the episode called Home, Alara unexpectedly left the Orville, deciding that she wanted to spend time with her family now that they have worked through their differences. When she went to Mercers office to say goodbye, she brought him a gift. As the episode was concluding, he opened the gift and found a jar of pickles inside. In case you dont remember, this jar of pickles actually had quite a bit of significance for Alara and Mercer. Alara is surprisingly strong considering her size because of the gravity of her homeworld. In the pilot episode (Season 1 Episode 1), Mercer cant open a vault door. So he jokingly asks Alara to open this jar of pickles for me. She just knocks over the entire wall instead of turning the vault wheel, which is even more impressive than what we expected. Mercer jokes that he loosened it for her and thats why she could open the door. This becomes a running gag and a dad joke of sorts for Mercer to Alara. He asks her to open a jar of pickles for him in later episodes over and over, as you can see in the video below. If you just want to see the part where she knocked over the wall, door and all, here it is: Fans loved the ending. Here are some Twitter reactions. I am giving a big jar of pickles as a going away present from now on. Just to confuse people. #TheOrville LoveEternal (@akgeoghagan) January 11, 2019 #TheOrville But, now the Captain will have to call on Alara to open that jar of pickles! ::Tears:: Jeff Allen (@Enderikari) January 11, 2019 Alara gone! Say it ain't so Seth. Next to you , my favorite character. The jar of pickles bit was perfect though. #TheOrville Ron Chaney (@0nlyron) January 11, 2019 Ill never look at a jar of pickles the same way. Let us know in the comments below. And if you want to know more about the decision for Alara to leave The Orville, read Heavys story here. | https://heavy.com/entertainment/2019/01/jar-of-pickles-orville-season-2-episode-3/ |
Is Alara (Halston Sage) Leaving The Orville? | Halston Sage plays Alara, who is the main focus of tonights episode of The Orville. But there have been rumors circulating that she might be leaving. This post has major spoilers for Season 2 Episode 3 of The Orville called Home. So only read on if youve already seen tonights episode. Spoilers below. At the end of tonights episode, we learned that Alara had decided to leave The Orville and go back to her homeworld to live with her family. She and her father reconciled after being at odds nearly her entire life because she was viewed as intellectually disabled and he disapproved of her decision to join the Orville. But now he finally sees her for her true worth, and she and her family are no longer at odds. It seems she wants to make up for lost time, so she is leaving the crew and returning to her homeworld. But it also looks a lot like Halston Sage is leaving The Orville entirely. Signs point to yes, but the producers may have some unexpected twists up their sleeve, according to a video at the end of this article. As of the time of publication, Sage hasnt said officially that shes leaving the show permanently, which leads me to believe that we might be seeing Alara again sometime this season. But for now, it looks like shes gone and theyve left the door open for her to come back one day if she wants. In fact, she may even be replaced by another character from her own homeworld, if the current rumors are true. Sure, shes listed on IMDB for the rest of the season, but those listings are notoriously wrong. Its been rumored for months that Sage/Alara might be leaving The Orville. Exactly why isnt known, but it appears there may have been scheduling conflicts for Sage that prevented her from continuing the show. Sage has gotten quite popular lately and will be starring in roles outside of The Orville. For one, she will be on The Last Summer, a movie where shell star alongside K.J. Apa, who plays Archie on Riverdale. The movie is currently in post-production. According to TrekMovie.com, the movie and The Orville TV series filmed in different cities concurrently, which might have required Sage to be in fewer episodes of The Orville. Shes also starring in an episode of Magnum P.I. this year as Willa Stone. During tonights episode, Sage posted a photo on Instagram showing her on a beach looking relaxed and happy. You may also not know that Sage and Seth MacFarlane were rumored to be dating for a while, according to Radar Online. MacFarlane, 44, and Sage, 25, were rumored to be an item for a few months in the winter and summer of 2018. They were photographed together in February going to Sushi Park in West Hollywood. Sages grandmother told Radar Online in June that she was happy for them, but also said that Sages dad had described Sage and MacFarlane as being just friends. If they were indeed ever together, the relationship didnt last long because Sage is now reportedly with Charlie Puth, according to E News in late September. Heres a photo that Sage shared in September: And now for rumors for future episodes. Dont read on if you dont want more spoilers. Providing more fuel to the idea that Alara is gone forever is the news that the character has likely been replaced by a character of the same species who is also rumored to be her security replacement. Jessica Szohr is listed on IMDB as playing the role of Talla. This is her first season on The Orville and shes already listed as being in 12 episodes. TrekMovie reported that she might be a Xelayan, the same species as Alara. So this very well could be the new Alara character, at least for however long Alara is gone. But there could be more to that story. David A. Goodman, Brannon Braga, and Jon Cassar were asked point blank in Comic Con 2018 if Halston Sage was still on the show and if Szohr was possibly taking her place. See their reaction below, starting at 8:39: Their answers werent conclusive. I think thats really a question for Seth I think youre going to be interested in seeing what we do for both of those characters. And I dont want to spoil it. Its unexpected. What happens with those two characters is unexpected and I dont want to ruin it. This is a very important piece of our storytelling If you tell too much, the audience experience can really be ruined. Theres a big surprise this season. (Side note: I can understand why they are talking about how important it is for the audience to be surprised. The Walking Dead and AMC have been telegraphing all the major character changes for the last year or more, and its definitely ruined the suspense. So Im going to enjoy waiting and wondering whats going to happen next.) So in conclusion, although we dont know that Alara/Sage is gone permanently, we do know that it looks like shes leaving The Orville for a while and we wont be seeing her on the show again in the very near future. Beyond that, the producers are playing their cards very close to their vest. Their comments in the interview above could have indicated theres more to come for Alara, or the big surprise they hinted at might have been the one we saw in tonights episode. Let us know in the comments below. | https://heavy.com/entertainment/2019/01/is-alara-halston-sage-leaving-the-orville/ |
Whats the Deal With Those Mysterious Fast Radio Bursts from Deep Space? | On 9 January 2019, a Canadian-led team of astronomers working with a radio telescope dubbed CHIME, published a study announcing the second recorded instance of a repeating Fast Radio Burst, or FRB. Though (non-repeating) FRBs have been known to science since 2007, the mechanisms that produce them largely remain a mystery. These millisecond-long bursts of electromagnetic radiation, necessarily produced by extremely high energy events, arrive at Earth from sources billions of light years away, where they are detected by large radio telescope arrays. Until recently, FRBs had exclusively been singular, transient events, which made them hard to study or understand with any depth or precision. In 2016, however, the first ever repeating FRB was confirmed by a group of researchers working with the Very Large Array telescope in New Mexico. In that case, FRB 121102 was detected first in 2012 and again from the area of sky in 2015. Because of its repeating nature, researchers were able to pinpoint the dwarf galaxy it came from, some 2.5 billion light years away. The more repeating FRBs scientists identify, the more likely it is that they will be able to understand their origins. The CHIME discoveries, which included 12 non-repeating FRBs in addition to the second ever repeating one, were made prior to that telescopes even being fully operational. The authors argued that these findings may open up the possibility that repeating FRBs are a common feature of our universe. In their study, published in the scientific journal Nature, the authors concluded that CHIME/FRB, with its wide field and high sensitivity, was predicted to find a large population of repeaters, if they exist. That one of our first 13 events repeats suggests there indeed exists a substantial population. If you heard about this discovery from an outlet other than Nature, however, you may have gotten the impression that a leading hypothesis for the source of these radio bursts was some sort of alien technology: Mysterious Fast Radio Bursts from Deep Space Could Be Aliens (The Guardian) Mysterious Repeating Radio Signals Have Reached Earth from a Galaxy 1.5 Billion Light Years Away (But Are They Evidence of Alien Civilisations?) ( Daily Mail ). ). More Bizarre Fast Radio Bursts Detected from Outer Space (USA Today) Of course, anything could be aliens, but for such an argument to be noteworthy it would need to have been made with relevant evidence. The CHIME paper did not attempt to present such an argument and therefore provided no specific evidence in favor of any alien technology scenario. Instead, this paper offered evidence that the same narrow region of space emitted massive amounts of radio energy more than once. Nearly all the outlets suggesting an alien mechanism connected to FRBs cited the same speculative statements of Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb. In 2017 (in a paper unrelated to the study currently being reported on), Loeb suggested a possible source of FRBs could be an alien civilization beaming radio waves for the purpose of propelling far away light sails, thin objects accelerated by solar radiation pressure. Loeb, it should be noted, was also the primary scientific voice fueling media reports that an object discovered passing through our solar system in late 2018, Oumuamua, was an alien light sail. Loeb has a strong interest in light sails. He the chair of an advisory committee for a project called Breakthrough Starshot, which aims to send a light sail to the star closest to our own sun. His analyses do not seek to demonstrate an alien mechanism for these varied FRB occurrences, merely to show that such scenarios are possible within our understanding of the physical laws of the universe, and could involve a light sail. Though fascinating, the subject is (from a science reporting standpoint) a distraction from the actual scientific progress made by the CHIME team. CHIME, which stands for Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment, was originally built to detect hydrogen radio emissions sourced from deep in our universes primordial past. The ability to discern extremely faint radio sources across a huge swatch of the sky, however, makes it a perfect tool to monitor for FRBs as well. Its not that FRBs are rare: some estimates suggest one FRB occurs somewhere in the sky every eight seconds. Its that the universe is quite large, and one needs to be constantly watching a massive area of sky to detect an FRB and, and an even larger amount to find an instance of a repeating one. With the large amount of sky captured by the highly sensitive CHIME radio telescope, experts predicted that it would lead to the discovery of a much larger number of FRBs, and even repeating FRBs. Based on the initial results in Nature, their assumption appears to have been borne out. In a three-week period in August 2018, the CHIME telescope detected 13 FRBs, and one of them was a repeater. Speaking to The Guardian, CHIME astrophysicist and University of British Columbia professor Ingrid Stairs said, Until now, there was only one known repeating FRB. Knowing that there is another suggests that there could be more out there. And with more repeaters and more sources available for study, we may be able to understand these cosmic puzzles where theyre from and what causes them. West Virginia University astrophysicist Sarah Burke-Spolaor was part of the team that pinpointed the location of the first repeating FRB known to science, a faint dwarf galaxy some 2.5 billion light years away. That knowledge allowed the team a sense of the energy behind the event that produced the radio waves, as she described in Science News in January 2017: For roughly five milliseconds, the burst outshined all the stars in its own galaxy and rivaled the luminosity of blazing disks of gas that swirl around supermassive black holes, said Burke-Spolaor, one of the researchers involved with the project. Speaking to us by phone, Burke-Spolaor, who was not a part of the CHIME study, told us that the two leading hypotheses [for what causes FRBs] right now, more or less, are some kind of black hole origin or some kind of neutron star origin. Neutron stars are the collapsed cores of once giant stars that can emit beams electromagnetic radiation. It would [have to] be a very extreme neutron star much more energetic than the ones that we see in our galaxy to have radio waves propagate for billions of light-years, Burke-Spolaor said. Some scientists, including members of the CHIME team, posit scenarios that involve a combination of neutron stars and supermassive black holes. This existence of a black hole is supported by the observation that the radio pulses making up most of the recently discovered FRBs are scattered in a way that betrays a high energy or special environment. Speaking to The Guardian, CHIME team member Cherry Ng explained That could mean in some sort of dense clump like a supernova remnant or near the central black hole in a galaxy. But it has to be in some special place to give us all the scattering that we see. Outside of being a scientific mystery that may one day be solved as more repeating FRBs are discovered by large area telescopes like CHIME, though, these FRBs could also be a tool to help us better understand the vast emptiness of our universe. In an 18 November 2018 comment in Nature Astronomy, Burke-Spolaor argued that FRBs provided science with a rich dataset with which to probe both the mechanisms that produce the bursts and the nature of the intergalactic medium that they travel through. Gravitational waves, neutrinos and the full electromagnetic spectrum are now open for business, she wrote. Until recently, there were more theories [about FRBs] than actual radio bursts, Burke-Spolaor joked to us. With these early results from CHIME, that balance may be shifting. | https://www.snopes.com/news/2019/01/11/radio-bursts-from-deep-space/ |
Does Monica Lewinsky Have Kids? | Monica Lewinsky is rarely in the news these days, which is a far cry from how things were for her two decades ago. Now 44, Lewinsky is in the news once more as the 20th anniversary of Bill Clintons impeachment was just a few weeks ago. These days, Lewinsky works as a social activist with a strong focus on bullying. She doesnt not have children nor did she ever get married. On Thursday, January 10, an ABC documentary about Lewinsky that highlights the scandal and offers a deeper look into the relationship between Lewinsky and Bill Clinton will air. Truth and Lies: Monica will air at 9 p.m. Eastern. With Lewinsky front and center for two hours tonight, many will find themselves wondering what she has been up to over the past several years. Heres what you need to know: She Chose to Dive Further into Her Education After the Clinton Scandal Lewinsky is not married, nor does she have any children. While she does date, she does so privately and tries her best to keep her personal life out of the spotlight. Its unclear if Lewinsky ever wanted to have children but after the Clinton scandal, she did her best to focus on herself, diving headfirst into her education. She moved to London in 2005, where she studied social psychology at the London School of Economics. She graduated from the school with a Master of Science. I moved to England to study, to challenge myself, to escape scrutiny, and to reimagine my identity, she told Vanity Fair in a 2014 interview. For the most part, Lewinsky keeps to herself. She has dedicated her life to being a voice for others, based on her own experiences with bullying, slut-shaming, and PTSD, which she suffers from as a result. In March 2015, she gave a TED Talk that was called The Price of Shame. The 22-minute video has been viewed more than 13 million times. You can watch it below. In March 2018, Lewinsky penned a guest post for Vanity Fair in the wake of the #MeToo movement. You can read that post here. | https://heavy.com/news/2019/01/monica-lewinsky-kids-children/ |
Is Monica Lewinsky Married Today? Does She Have a Husband? | Monica Lewinsky does not have a husband and has never been married. Although it has been decades since her name was on the cover of every single media publication in the country, Lewinsky has managed to live her life as privately as possible, keeping any romantic relationships that she may have out of the hands of the mainstream media. These days, she is a social activist. Last year, the #MeToo movement further inspired her to make a difference in the world. On Thursday, January 10, ABC will air Truth and Lies: Monica, a documentary about Lewinsky that highlights the scandal and offers a deeper look into the relationship between Lewinsky and Bill Clinton. The special marks the 20th anniversary of President Clintons impeachment. Heres what you need to know: Lewinsky Keeps Her Dating Life Private Lewinsky doesnt appear to have a boyfriend at this time and, if she does, shes not too interested in letting the world know about him. While she received national attention for years, she does her absolute best to keep her personal life out of the spotlight. She opened up about her reasoning for that in an interview with People Magazine that took place back in 2015. You can ask it, but I keep my personal life private. I think people have known enough about my romantic life for a lifetime, she told the outlet. She doesnt seem completely turned off from the idea of marriage, however, telling the mag, Ive promised Barbara Walters a dance at my wedding so I hope to make good on that promise someday! According to celebrity dating database Whos Dated Who, Lewinskys last-known boyfriend was Jeff Boggs, whom she dated in 2000. She Has Opened up About Her Past Involvement With Bill Clinton Lewinsky was 22 years old when her relationship with Bill Clinton began. Over the past two decades, she has dealt with the after-effects of the scandal. In 2018, Lewinsky penned a guest post for Vanity Fair in which she wrote about her experience and explained how shes still trying to unpack it all. There are many more women and men whose voices and stories need to be heard before mine. (There are even some people who feel my White House experiences dont have a place in this movement, as what transpired between Bill Clinton and myself was not sexual assault, although we now recognize that it constituted a gross abuse of power). And yet, everywhere I have gone for the past few months, Ive been asked about it. My response has been the same: I am in awe of the sheer courage of the women who have stood up and begun to confront entrenched beliefs and institutions. Im sorry to say I dont have a definitive answer yet on the meaning of all of the events that led to the 1998 investigation; I am unpacking and reprocessing what happened to me. Over and over and over again, she wrote. | https://heavy.com/news/2019/01/monica-lewinsky-husband-married-dating-boyfriend/ |
Who Is Tracy Tutor Dating? | As of now, it seems that Tracy is single. She did, however, share on the season premiere of MDLLA that she may be ready to get back out there in the dating world. She has yet to post any photos of a special someone on Instagram, suggesting for now, there isnt anyone serious in the picture. At least, not someone shes ready to divulge to the public. Just recently, Tracy divorced from her husband Jason Maltas. The split was very public and has been publicized on sites like Bravo and Page Six. Tutor must have expected that; after all, it was at the end of last seasons finale that the news was publicized. The update read, Tracys been expanding her business & landed her first new development in West Hollywood, the update read. She recently filed for divorce from her husband Jason. Theyre both committed to co-parenting and their primary focus remains their two daughters. Their daughters are Juliet, who is 11-years-old, and Scarlett, who is 8-years-old. In the season 11 premiere of MDLLA, Tracy opened up about her marriage, saying, Earlier this year, Jason and I decided to divorce after 17 years of being together Its been a difficult time, but the hardest part is that I dont see my girls every day because we share custody. During the episode, she continued, When I dont have my kids, I try to focus much more on work and friends. And when my kids are with me, Im laser-focused on them, she said. Maybe Im ready to see whats out there. Later, when she was sitting down with MDLLA agent David Parnes, she said that she was going to get through the divorce and that everything would be fine. Tracy has had about 20 years of experience in the field; she is a top agent at Douglas Elliman Beverly Hills. She has worked with architects like Frank Gehry, John Lautner, and Pierre Koenig, and has worked in consulting for a luxury five-star hotel and resort, Amangiri in Canyon Point. Recently, according to Bravo TV, she was chosen as The US Ambassador for the Royal Atlantis Resort and Residences in Dubai, which was designed by iconic architect Kohn Pederson Fox. Tracy graduated from the University of Southern California with a bachelors degree in theater arts, where she was also a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. After that, she worked for her father who was a successful civil and building contractor. After three years, she transitioned into residential real estate. Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles is a reality series on Bravo that debuted in 2006. The series chronicles the lives of four real estate agents who are based in Beverly Hills, Hollywood, and Malibu, California. The series has resulted in successful spinoffs like Million Dollar Listing New York, Miami, and San Francisco. | https://heavy.com/entertainment/2019/01/tracy-tutor-boyfriend-dating-divorce-husband/ |
Who Is Shemar Moore Dating? Does He Have a Girlfriend or Wife? | Many people may know Shemar Moore from his work on The Youn and the Restless or Criminal Minds. The former fashion model has appeared in a number of television shows, and in 2017, he became the lead in the television series S.W.A.T. In all, Moore has won eight NAACP Image Awards, and the 2000 Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. He has also been nominated for a Peoples Choice Awards. Read on. Its unclear if Moore is currently in a relationship. Earlier this year, he was dating Quantico actress Annabelle Acosta; he even took her to the Grammys as his date. Around that time, Moore told Steve Harvey, Its cool. She said to me, Whatever the attraction is, the interest is there, but lets work on being friends Lets get to know each other. Lets vibe it out. Lets not speed through it because you are cute, I am cute. Were taking our time. In March, Moore told ET that trust is important when dating another actor. To be with an actor or actress you have to know that thats what they do for a living, he said. It is weird when youre in relationships or have a sweetheart or your opposite actress has a fiance a man, so theres TV kissing. Moore continued, For me and a woman in my life theres got to be a lot of trust and she has to trust me and I have to make sure she knows that I got her back. But what I do for a living means, one of the perks, or job requirements is I get to play kissy face a little bit. Since then, no news has surfaced about the couple, and they havent been seen together at any awards shows, suggesting they may not be together. We do know that Shemar Moore wants to be a father and have a family, though. In a 2017 interview with Watch! magazine, he opened up about settling down. I want to be a family man, Moore shared. I want to be a father, I want to have a partner in crime, a woman to share [my life] with. I want to continue to evolve, I want to continue to take the next step in my life. In my personal life. For now, and based on the fact that he hasnt hinted at any relationships on his Instagram, it seems hes still looking for that special someone. That isnt to say hes putting his acting career behind him. Moore still wants to see what hes capable of in the world of acting. For now, Moores fans can continue to support him by watching him on his television show, S.W.A.T., which airs Thursdays on CBS at 10pm ET/PT. | https://heavy.com/entertainment/2019/01/shemar-moore-wife-girlfriend/ |
Who Is Sheriff Lamb at Pinal County Detention Center on 60 Days In? | Sheriff Mark Lamb is the 24th Sheriff of Pinal County, Arizona, a county the size of Connecticut. He manages more than 650 employees within the Pinal County Detention Center and sheriffs department, according to A&E. The Pinal County Detention Center will be featured in the new season of A&Es 60 Days In. For those who need a refresher, the docu-series 60 Days In follows a group of volunteers who willingly enter into the prison system for two months to help uncover illegal and controversial activities involving other inmates. The volunteers are given a fictional name and backstory to keep their cover, and help find illegal substances and other forbidden objects correctional officers may have missed while doing searches. Season 5 follows the same premise, with volunteers on the inside tracking what their fellow cellmates and prisoners are doing. However, the trailer for season 5 shows the volunteers encountering some issues, with some participants threatening to reveal their identities and others worrying about their safety if they continue to stay undercover in the prison. The seven undercover volunteers will be placed in Arizonas Pinal County Adult Detention Center, which has a long history of violent inmates. In 2016, two inmates were caught on camera attacking a jail guard. Six weeks later, two inmates stabbed another guard 21 times with a homemade shank, nearly killing him, according to Pinal Central. Pinal County Adult Detention Center houses many dangerous criminals, and this seasons volunteers are walking right into the heart of the prison to spend two months with them. The volunteers include a group of law-abiding citizens, including a real estate agent, a chaplain, a police officer, and an Army veteran. Unlike in past seasons, the participants this season were given specific missions by Sheriff Lamb based on each individuals skill sets and interests. Each of the participants will be trying to expose flaws within the detention center, and help to uncover any illegal activities among the inmates. According to Arizona Daily Independent, prior to going undercover and entering the prison, six of the participants met and trained with one another, leaving only one to enter on his own and operate as a lone wolf on the sheriffs behalf. Thank you to Sheriff Mark Lamb for sending this note and patch to me. Its an incredible honor to receive this personal note from, @sherifflamb1! pic.twitter.com/sp2ABkwbvE Wisconsin Public Safety (@WisconsinPS) January 4, 2019 Sheriff Lamb started his law enforcement career when he was 34-years-old, with most of that time spent as a gang and drug detective. According to A&E, he trained with the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office Deputy Academy and was named Valedictorian of his class. When he was hired by Salt River Pima-Maricopa, he was named Rookie of the Year, and went on to receive Officer of the Year shortly after. He was later promoted as a Detective to the Gang Enforcement Unit and in his first year was named Detective of the Year. During a Facebook Live interview on January 3, 2018, Live PD analyst Tom Morris Jr. spoke with Sheriff Lamb about his jails participation in the new season. During the interview, Lamb spoke about his biggest concerns when filming the show, including challenges within his facility and the advice he gave to the volunteer participants for this season. When asked what his biggest concern was regarding the show being filmed in his detention facility, he said: Like any sheriff, the jail is the biggest source of liability for us. So we were just concerned for [participant] safety and making sure that the rest of the inmates were safe. There were some tense situations and it gets a little dicey in the end, but once we got past that, in the end it worked out. Check out the interview below: Sheriff Lamb said that the three things he and his staff were most interested in tracking were drug activity, gangs and jail operations. He worked closely with the volunteers before they entered the prison, and says their safety is a top priority. His best advice to the participants was: Be safe and be yourself. They needed to remember their backstory, he continued. But the most important thing, and the easiest thing, was to remember was to be yourself. And most of them did that. Some of them got away from themselves a little bit, but in the end, they all brought back very valuable information. Sheriff Lamb told Morris that hes learned a lot about his jail after filming the show, including how inmates smuggle drugs into the facility and hide the drugs from guards and officers, as well as how to up better search inmate cells and determine which programs within the center were working and which programs werent. | https://heavy.com/entertainment/2019/01/sheriff-lamb-60-days-in/ |
Does Alabama basketball need a go-to scorer? | TUSCALOOSA, Ala. Avery Johnson admits there are two or three players on his team hed be comfortable giving the final shot to at the end of games. Although, as Alabama basketball prepares for Saturdays game against Texas A&M, the head coach isnt about to show his hand. Friday he scoffed at the idea of revealing those names to the public. Just give him (Texas A&M head coach) Billy Kennedys number, so when were in that situation we would have already discussed it, Johnson said with a grin. We have a couple of guys. I dont want to give out any scouting reports, but we have a couple of guys that we like to run some plays for at the end of games. The question Alabama faces isnt who its go-to guy is but rather if it has one at all. Johnson believes the answer to that question is yes. I have two or three guys that we feel that way about, Johnson said. Theyve proven that they have made shots for us, and maybe one or two guys havent shot as well, but they proved that maybe in the past they can make a shot for us. We need that diversity in our offense. Its understandable why Johnson would want to remain tight-lipped about his teams last-minute scheming. However, the fact that there isnt an obvious answer to the question is a stark contrast from last season where Collin Sexton ran the show late. Its fitting that this topic came up when it did. The last time Alabama and Texas A&M squared off, Sextons buzzer-beating floater gave the Crimson Tide a 71-70 victory in the SEC Tournament a win that proved crucial to Alabama reaching the NCAA Tournament. During that play, Sexton caught the inbound pass and drove the length of the court before releasing his game-winning shot as the final horn blared. He was never going to pass it. Everyone on the court knew that. It didnt matter. While no one is expecting Alabama to have an instant replacement for Sexton, a lottery pick in last years NBA Draft, its anyones guess who Johnson would entrust in that position if he faced the same situation Saturday. Freshman Kira Lewis Jr. leads the team with 14.4 points per game. However, Johnson seems reluctant to heap much praise on the 17-year-old. Alabama has made Lewis available to the media once a neutral-site game in Huntsville, Ala., that didnt feature a full flock of reporters. When asked about the freshman phenom, Johnson has reiterated Lewis' young age while deflecting questions with statements such as He loves the cafeteria, and Hes just concerned about his final exams." Not exactly the star treatment. Alabama also features key returnees such as sophomores John Petty Jr. and Herbert Jones. However, Petty is in the midst of a sophomore slump that has seen him average 10.6 points per game while shooting 38.8 percent from the floor. Jones, who was tabbed as a potential first-round pick in the preseason, has also had an underwhelming year, averaging 7.7 points and 4.8 rebounds. Theres a good chance Tevin Mack is one of the players in Johnsons trusted trio. The Texas transfer is the closest thing the Crimson Tide has to a veteran star at the moment. After beginning the season on the bench, the 6-foot-6 wing player has started Alabamas past seven games at the forward position and appears to be settling in nicely to his heightened role. Mack is averaging 9.6 points per game but has scored in double figures in five of his seven starts. Alabama is 7-0 in games when Mack plays 20 or more minutes and 3-4 when he doesnt. However, Johnson pointed out that there are still holes in the redshirt juniors game that need to be ironed out before he can reach his full potential. I think not only Tevin but as the rest of our guys improve defensively the minutes will be there, Johnson said. Its great if you can score 15 points, but if the guy youre guarding I know its team defense, but its still individual responsibility if hes getting 25 consistently then weve got to figure out a way to lower that. I think Tevin is a guy whos taken more pride at working on the defensive end. At the same time, if you are a shot-maker or a scorer, you know we want you to score the basketball. We like him on the floor. Hes getting better and better. His bodys getting stronger. Hes worked awfully hard in our redshirt program. He got off to a slow start this year when he wasnt starting, but now that hes starting we need his production. The Crimson Tide could certainly be in worse shape. Through 14 games, Alabama boasts a solid 10-4 record with wins over Arizona and No. 13 Kentucky. That's a resume Texas A&M (6-7) would swap for in an instant. I dont think its always stepping up and making shots, Johnson said. I think we need our leaders to lead because the best teams have some generals. Its not just coming from the coach. Whether its in the locker room or on the court because the games moving so fast, you need guys out there quarterbacking the offense, quarterbacking the defense. Thats where I think the toughness meets our talent and experience when we have great leadership. Whoever those leaders and shot-makers are, Alabama will need them to step up as it faces a crucial conference game against Texas A&M. Saturdays game is set to tip off at 2:30 p.m. CT inside of Coleman Coliseum. It will be the Crimson Tides final home game before a two-game road stand against Missouri and No. 3 Tennessee. | https://alabama.rivals.com/news/does-alabama-basketball-have-a-go-to-scorer-does-it-matter- |
How is the government shutdown affecting Rochester? | CLOSE According to Reuters, hundreds of furloughed federal employees gathered for a union-led march to the White House on Jan. 10. Wochit Government workers and their supporters hold signs during a protest in Boston, Friday, Jan.11, 2019. (Photo: Michael Dwyer, AP) As the federal government shutdown enters its fourth week, the impact is being felt in pockets of workplaces in the area and in the pockets of local workers on the federal payroll. In most realms, such as the postal service and the airport, services have not been affected. But Monroe County has 557 workers on the federal payroll, including staff for the Treasury, Social Security and Veterans Affairs. Genesee County has 304 working for the VA while 1,327 people (out of a countywide total of 1,423) work for the agency in Ontario County, home of the Canandaigua VA Medical Center. Paychecks are on hold for some 800,000 federal employees forced to go on unpaid leave or work without pay since Dec. 22 because of the government shutdown. Its the first time during the 21-day shutdown which on Saturday will become the longest in U.S. history that workers will have missed a paycheck. Though the standoff is nearing its fourth week, most federal employees were paid on Dec. 28 for the final two-week pay period of 2018. In New York state, 116,248 worked for the federal government in 2017, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Annual wages totaled $8.98 billion, and the average was $77,254. According to a spokeswoman for Sen. Charles Schumer, about 14,000 of the total federal workforce in New York state works for departments affected by the shutdown, such as the departments of Agriculture, Justice and Treasury. Here's a look at the local impact and how the shutdown may affect other services: Fed courts vs. civil division Federal courts will continue to be operational, though many employees in the court system will see their paychecks halted as they continue to work. The court system cant take a break, said Federal Public Defender Marianne Mariano, whose office represents indigent defendants. Their constitutional rights dont stop when the government shuts down, she said of the accused defendants. U.S. District Judge Frank Geraci Jr., the chief judge for western New York federal courts, said, We expect operations to be fairly normal. Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas Gregory, who oversees the agencys Rochester office, said of his office, Because the courts are open, and because criminal activity doesnt stop based upon a government shutdown, we are operating at a full staff of criminal attorneys. However, our civil division is completely shut down, he said. Paralegals and legal assistants have been furloughed, he said. Upstate farmers can't get assistance Buy Photo Gary Pritchard moves the soybeans from the grain buggy to a truck to be brought to a grain bin. (Photo: Tina MacIntyre-Yee/Rochester Democrat and Chronicle) With farmers already struggling from recent drops in commodity prices and the ongoing effects of ongoing trade disputes with Canada, Mexico and China, the shutdown is adding more pain to an industry already in distress. Steve Ammerman, spokesman for the New York Farm Bureau, said immediate concerns involve the closure of U.S. Department of Agricultures regional Farm Service Agency offices. Those are the people who do boots on the ground work with our farmers, he said. With those offices closed, there is no way for farmers to apply for federal loans or get technical assistance they rely on from the FSA. Additionally, he said, the closure may be affecting income streams for farmers who were counting on payments from the federal governments $12 billion aid package designed to offset losses from tariffs imposed by other nations. In some cases, those payments have been held up by the shutdown and in others, farmers have been unable to get program applications processed once they had their 2018 production harvest totals in hand. For a couple of weeks, probably, farmers can manage, said Ammerman. But as the shutdown continues and becomes more prolonged, its going to increase the difficulty. Mortgages and real estate closings Most mortgage holders require escrow (Photo: Getty Images/iStockphoto) Much of the impact of the shutdown is with USDA mortgages, said Mike Donoghue, president of Premium Mortgage in Rochester. The Department of Agriculture will not issue new loans or guarantees through its Rural Housing Financing program. Scheduled closings are being canceled. Lenders that proceed with scheduled closings of single-family guaranteed loans where the guarantee was not issued before the shutdown do so at their own risk, according to the American Banking Association. According to Donoghue, Premium Mortgage currently has about a dozen USDA loans that cannot close. The Department of Housing and Urban Development and Veterans Administration loans are self-funded whereas USDA loans are not, Donoghue said. That means they are funded directly from the fees they collect instead of the Treasury. According to the HUD Contingency Plan, the Federal Housing Authoritys Office of Single Family Housing will endorse new single-family loans, but not reverse mortgages or improvement loans, the ABA said. FHA is operating with reduced staffing, which may result in closing delays. Ginnie Mae has reduced staffing to essential personnel levels during the shutdown. Ginnie Mae will continue to perform other essential functions. The Department of Veterans Affairs is fully funded for fiscal year 2019 and all VA operations will continue as usual during the shutdown. The processing of VA loans is considered an essential function. Some local Realtors say they see no impact, while others have clients who are dealing with hiccups in closings. "Were finding our closings are getting delayed," said Mandy Friend Gigliotti of Keller Williams. "The loans that have government backed mortgages are stuck in final underwriting." Joe Cutaia, mortgage specialist at PrimeLending, noted the only impact of the shutdown on mortgages are with USDA loans. Beer packaging slowed Buy Photo Derek Armstrong, a brewer at Three Heads Brewing in Rochester, stacks a new beer, Lancers Kickin Lager, from the canning line. Three Heads has other new beers that can't be distributed until the government shut down is ended. (Photo: Max Schulte / Rochester Democrat and Chronicle) Three Heads Brewing in Rochesters Neighborhood of the Arts is one of the largest craft breweries in the area. A good percentage of the 30-barrel brewery's model relies on making enough beer to send out to distribution so consumers can purchase it at off-premise retailers such as Wegmans. More than 80 percent of 3HBs beer is sold in the Rochester area, but the brewery also sends beers to two other states. The partial government shutdown has slowed 3HBs ability to package beers, co-founder and co-owner Dan Nothnagle said Friday. Typically, it takes about three weeks to get federal approval through the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (commonly referred to as TBB) for recipes and labels. That allows 3HB to send beer to different markets. Nothnagle said the label backlog will significantly back up as the shutdown continues. With the shutdown, the brewery has been forced to slow down its seasonal production. It was gearing up to release a coconut brown ale about Feb. 1. But with the partial shutdown, that beer has been pushed back because the brewery doesnt have the approval to package and ship the beer. It might still keg some of the beer and sell it in-house. Breweries dont need federal approval to serve new beers out of their taprooms, Nothnagle said. While we can do stuff on draft, we have big tanks, and generally package moves the needle for us, Nothnagle said. Most breweries in this area are locally focused and only concerned with selling pints and growlers to-go from their respective taprooms. But the shutdown surely impacts some of the larger breweries in the region, especially those who didnt plan beers months (or even years) in advance. Im becoming less optimistic each day (that the shutdown will end), Nothnagle said. Politics aside, there are a lot of people doing business, and its starting to have an impact. While its relatively small for us and were still getting paychecks and producing and selling beer, I do think craft beer fans will see an impact in choices over the coming months because of this." Most services unaffected Buy Photo Outside the Veterans Crisis Line facility in Canandaigua. (Photo: CARLOS ORTIZ, @cfortiz_dandc/staff photographer) If you've noticed mail continuing to show up in your box, that's because the U.S. Postal Service has its own budget and is not affected. Active-duty military also are exempt. With the exception of the Coast Guard, a unit of the Department of Homeland Security, military pay to both soldiers and civilians in the other armed forces will continue uninterrupted because Congress had previously approved full funding. And the shutdown is unlikely to have a direct impact on travel out of the Greater Rochester International Airport one of 22 airports nationally to utilize a private screening company for security checkpoints. Virginia-based VMD Corp. contracts with TSA, and there are some TSA supervisors and regulatory/compliance employees here. The only other federal employees at the airport are in air traffic control, and airport director Andrew Moore said Wednesday that the airport had yet to experience any delays or impacts from the federal government shutdown. Health care services at the Canandaigua VA Medical Center are unaffected by the shutdown. The Veterans Crisis Line, a 24-hour-a-day suicide prevention hotline based at the Canandaigua VA will continue through the shutdown because of advanced appropriations, according to The American Legion. Reporting by Sean Lahman, Mary Chao, Will Cleveland, Gary Craig and Meaghan M. McDermott. Includes reporting by USA Today Network reporters Brian Sharp and Jeff Platsky. More: Government workers tighten belts, brace for first missing paychecks during shutdown More: Some national park Joshua trees have been cut down during the government shutdown More: Today should be payday for hundreds of thousands of government workers. But the shutdown means they're not getting paid More: Exclusive: Pentagon prepares options to build border wall as Trump weighs emergency declaration More: 'I live paycheck to paycheck': Federal workers rally for their jobs at White House Read or Share this story: https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2019/01/12/government-shutdown-2019-rochester-upstate-new-york-us-record-longest-farmers/2546886002/ | https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2019/01/12/government-shutdown-2019-rochester-upstate-new-york-us-record-longest-farmers/2546886002/ |
What did Ozzie Newsome learn from Bear Bryant? | Friday was not like any other day in the history of the Baltimore Ravens because Ozzie Newsome was not the NFL teams general manager. On Friday, Newsomes longtime assistant, Eric DeCosta, took over the position in a personnel move announced a year ago while Newsome stepped into what the Ravens' described as a significant but so far undefined role. When the Cleveland Browns moved to Baltimore in 1996, Newsome came with them as the team's vice president of player personnel and de facto general manager. He didn't officially take the general-manager title until 2002, becoming the first African American to hold that position with an NFL team. In anticipation of Newsomes stepping away from the general-manager role, the Ravens produced a series of videos on his life and legacy, including one on Newsomes Alabama Roots. Newsome was an All-SEC tight end in 1976 and 1977 and a consensus All-American receiver in 1977 for Alabama. During his career, the Crimson Tide posted a 26-2 SEC record, won three conference championships and went 42-6 overall under coach Paul Bear Bryant. "He always talked about: Can you every day go out to work and get 10 percent better?" Newsome said of Bryant. "That's not a lofty goal -- to try to get 10 percent better. But it keeps you from getting complacent. And he taught us to treat people the way you want to be treated. "It's things like that -- little things -- that helped mold me as a person. But not only me, all the other players that were playing there because when we were around former players who played under him, we all sing from the same songbook." Current Alabama coach Nick Saban said it wasnt surprising that Bryant had a profound impact on Newsomes life. "When you have someone like coach Bryant, who has such a strong structure and culture that he creates in an organization, it impacts you personally in everything that you do," Saban said. "Understanding football to the level and being interested in football to the level that he has been and the success that he has probably all goes back to some of those lessons that he learned as a player here under coach Bryant." Newsome left Alabama as a first-round draft pick of the Browns. He spent 13 seasons playing for Cleveland, and he remains the Browns' all-time leading receiver. When Newsome retired, he had caught more passes than any tight end in NFL history, and only three wide receivers had more receptions. Newsome famously selected two future Pro Football Hall of Fame members -- Jonathan Ogden and Ray Lewis -- with his first two draft picks running the Ravens, and he's built two Super Bowl-winning teams in his time with Baltimore's front office. Ravens honor Ozzie Newsome, C.J. Mosley in locker room after playoff-clinching victory Already a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame because of his career as a tight end of the Browns, Newsome had had a career in the front office that has led to speculation that he might earn Hall of Fame recognition as an executive, too. If so, it'll be another Hall of Fame entry on Newsome's list of accolades. In addition to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, which he joined in 1999, Newsome also has been a member of the College Football Hall of Fame since 1994, and he also holds membership in the National High School Hall of Fame, the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame and the Little League Hall of Excellence, too. FOR MORE OF AL.COMS COMPREHENSIVE COVERAGE OF THE NFL, GO TO OUR NFL PAGE Before joining the Crimson Tide, Newsome had been a three-sport star at Colbert County High School in Leighton. Newsome helped Colbert County win the AHSAA Class 3A football championship in 1972, when the Indians outscored their opponents 520-109 on their way to a 13-0 record. Newsome caught 80 passes for Colbert County that season, at the time, the most in one season in state history. His 20 touchdown receptions in 1972 also set a state record, which he broke with 23 TD receptions in 1973. Newsome also was part of Colbert County's 3A basketball championship team of the 1971-72 season. He was the catcher for the 1973 baseball team that reached the state finals before falling to Chilton County. Newsome earned All-State honors in football and basketball. Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1. | https://www.al.com/sports/2019/01/what-did-ozzie-newsome-learn-from-bear-bryant.html |
Is Craft Beer Still Worth Investing In? | Off-premise sales of craft beer inched higher in 2018, with the overall volume of craft beer sold rising 1.2% through Dec. 2, according to data from market research firm IRI. The year-over-year increase really isn't surprising since there are more than 7,000 breweries operating in the U.S. today, more than at any time in history and 10% greater than the number in business in 2017. Yet despite more breweries churning out more beer, the gains are fairly anemic and call into question whether investors should even bother looking at the sector anymore. The industry looks poised to head into decline even though another 1,000 breweries are expected to open this year. Brewer looking at a snifter of dark beer, with brew tanks in the background More Investing in craft beer requires looking more closely at which beer is winning. Image source: Getty Images. On the precipice of decline Craft beer's slowdown has been well-documented as drinkers have turned to whiskey, wine, and other alcoholic beverages. There may even come a time when Boston Beer (NYSE: SAM) brews more hard cider, tea, and seltzer than it does its flagship Samuel Adams brand, as beer drinkers continue favoring local microbreweries over more mass-produced beer. That helps explain the explosive growth in the number of breweries that continue to open each year, but the saturation is also causing fewer brewers to become breakout successes. While the dollar amount of craft beer sold off-premise rose in 2018 by 1.7%, it was higher prices driving this growth as volume was down 0.4%. Off-premise sales are those made at packaged goods store and other convenience outlets like supermarkets, mass merchandisers, warehouse clubs, and drugstores. Craft beer overall saw better pricing from switching over to 15-pack packaging, which helped overall dollar sales rise 2.5% for the period, but it couldn't help the industry's biggest brands sell more of their brew. Volume sales for 17 of the 30 best-selling craft brands were down through the beginning of December, with Samuel Adams' Boston lager tumbling 14%, Leinenkugel's seasonal beer falling 13%, and Blue Moon from Molson Coors' (NYSE: TAP) MillerCoors division off 4.7%. Even worse was New Belgium Brewing, which saw a 19.5% plunge in its flagship Fat Tire brand. Well-heeled winners Yet not every craft beer saw falling sales. In fact, some brands are soaring, among them Cigar City Brewing's Jai Alai IPA, which saw volumes surge 71% in the year through Dec. 2; a near-32% increase for Big Wave from Craft Brew Alliance's (NASDAQ: BREW) Kona Brewing; and a 21% gain by Firestone Walker Brewing's American-style blonde ale 805. Even Anheuser-Busch InBev (NYSE: BUD) had a big hit, as its Elysian Brewing saw volumes soar 68%, an indication the macro brewer's strategy of buying up a dozen craft brewers wasn't a complete swing and a miss. This all suggests there is still opportunity in craft beer, though investors need to carefully choose their spots. Shares of Craft Brew Alliance, for example, lost 25% of their value last year, but Kona Brewing has been a huge success for it and could be what saves the brewer. Its stock is up almost 8% so far in 2019. It also means it's good to have deep-pocketed backers. A-B InBev not only invested in distribution for its Elysian Brewing brewery, but it owns a third of Craft Brew Alliance and has helped Kona through its national distribution network. Similarly, Cigar City Brewing is owned by CANarchy Craft Brewer Collective, which is backed by private equity firm Fireman Capital, and Firestone Walker is owned by Duvel Moortgat, the second-largest brewer in Belgium behind InBev. | https://news.yahoo.com/craft-beer-still-worth-investing-021800496.html |
Is China even one country for her "Citizens"? | Greetings And Over 9000 Years of Xi Rule!I was having a conversation with our resident Densha-Otaku (not to be confused with Densha-Otoko!) @Adam WANG SHANGHAI MEGA about how a guy with Bachelors Degree can get "Permanent Residence" of a certain Province.He tutored me about China's great Hook-You system and how it keeps their cities clean for Foreigners and Party leadership alike. Never mind the pesky little poor labourers who have to live in rural areas. You can't see them from your high rise. And thats a good thing (TM)So it makes me think, how come Chinese consider their "political entity" called People's Republic of China as a single Country of which they are citizens while in reality they only have a Chinese passport and they are actually "hooked-you" a particular province?I mean the way our resident Train-Enthusiast portrayed was such that it is considered a news that some CHINESE dude can now MOVE and LIVE and GET SOCIAL BENEFITS of living in a province WITHIN CHINA!The closest this comes to something that I know is Quebec, but then Quebec has threatened us enough times about separating from "Canadian Mainland". I mean are you guy Chinese or Hooked-You Yunnanese.Oh and I didn't utter the T-word. Or H-Word. | https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/is-china-even-one-country-for-her-citizens.596418/ |
Are consumers in China changing their spending habits? | Customers look at iPhones on display at an Apple Store on this month in Beijing. - Kevin Frayer/Getty Images Listen To The Story Marketplace Embed Code <iframe src="https://www.marketplace.org/2019/01/11/world/china-consumers-changing-spending-habits/popout" frameborder="0" width="100%" height="240px"></iframe> Global investors are intensely interested in what Chinas consumers are buying and what theyre not, because a lot of American and foreign firms rely on the Chinese market for growth. When Apple recently reduced revenue expectations, it blamed poor sales in China. However, Apple has its own issues with its high price point and increasing competition from Chinese brands that have good price-to-quality ratios. You cannot really use Apple profit warnings as a proxy for the overall economy of China, Oxford Economics Louis Kuijs said. When it comes to consumption, he said the picture is mixed. There is a pronounced slowdown in the manufacturing of physical goods, while the services sector is performing better. Chinas economy is still growing, just not as fast as it used to. We hit the streets of Shanghai to find out what is and isnt weighing on consumers. Xiao Zhenfang Xiao, 32, is a factory worker at a firm that makes metal parts in the manufacturing hub of Dongguan in southern China. Xiao Zhenfang works for a factory that has fallen on hard times. Yes. My company is not doing well. It manufactures metal parts, but now it is running out of cash. I havent received my salary for a few months, [but] the owner of the company is from my hometown, so I havent forced him to pay me. I understand that times are tough. Xiao has cut back on drinking and gambling on mahjong. With the economic downturn, I am trying to spend as little as possible. I will not go on my annual trip to my home village (in central Jiangxi province) during the Spring Festival. That would save him an average of 10,000 yuan to 20,000 yuan ($1,400 to $3,000). Normally a trip home during the Spring Festival, or Lunar New Year holiday, means he has to buy new clothes for the family, hand out lucky red envelopes (cash gifts), pay for dinners and gamble with friends. Nanjing pedestrian street in Shanghai is a popular shopping destination. - Charles Zhang/Marketplace Zhou Zhihui Zhou, 32, is an event planner based in Shanghai. I dont feel it at all. Zhou said his company is small and he has stable clients. Nope. Apart from rent, Zhou spends 20,000 yuan ($3,000) a month on things like restaurants, clothes from Timberland and trips. He said he has nothing left at the end of the month. Lu Yongxian Lu, 72, is a retiree living in central Chinas Wuhan city. No. Lu said he has seen robust consumption in Wuhan. Not as much as younger members in his family. He receives a pension every month of 3,500 yuan ($500), and aside from spending on food, he saves as much as he can. If I dont save, then I might not be able to pay medical bills when I get sick, he said. Lu said his daughter, Fanny, is far less frugal with her children. My grandsons milk powder is from Denmark and each can costs about $60, Lu said. That amount is equivalent to his monthly salary a few decades ago. David Martin Martin, of FMW Restaurants, is operator of Red Lobster in Shanghai, which opened at the end of December. Its the U.S. brands first branch in Greater China. FWM Restaurants' David Martin, who helped bring Red Lobster to Shanghai. - Charles Zhang/Marketplace Yes, overall diners arent spending as much, but the outlook isnt dire. [There is] an ever-growing demand for seafood in China, and there are no real major players in the Western seafood market yet, Martin said. He said people in China are aware of the Red Lobster brand. When we were in the U.S. around cities like New York, L.A., when you look at the Red Lobster restaurants that are there, there is a large number of Chinese people inside those restaurants. There's already a lot of brand awareness in the marketplace, Martin said. When Red Lobster Shanghai opened, he said the restaurant sold more than 40 live lobsters on the first day, which is more than he expected. We're not seeing that people don't want to ever go out. We're seeing that when there is a celebration, they want to make sure they're making the right choice. They're choosing to go with brands because they're looking for security and they want to know that something is good. At the same time, Red Lobster offers a lunch for 78 yuan ($12), which is a competitive price for office workers in Shanghai. I think the best compliment I can give is not to say how much your programs have taught me (a ton), but how much Marketplace has motivated me to go out and teach myself. Michael in Arlington, VA As a nonprofit news organization, what matters to us is the same thing that matters to you: being a source for trustworthy, independent news that makes people smarter about business and the economy. So if Marketplace has helped you understand the economy better, make more informed financial decisions or just encouraged you to think differently, were asking you to give a little something back. Become a Marketplace Investor today in whatever amount is right for you and keep public service journalism strong. Were grateful for your support. BEFORE YOU GO | https://www.marketplace.org/2019/01/11/world/china-consumers-changing-spending-habits |
What exactly is 'old-school modding'? | It seems almost an inevitability that with any passion-fuelled hobby or interest comes the possibility of a clash of generations, so to speak. The hipster movement is quite the embodiment of this, the idea of liking something before it became mainstream. Perhaps it's seeing your favourite band switch their style over time to suit their current growing fan base, or nowadays maybe a YouTuber whose releases are now more to do with filling their weekly content quotas so that their channel can stay afloat. Of course, modding is not immune to this. In fact all you need to do is take a look at the Mod of the Year posts here on bit-tech for an inspiring view into this clash. The yearly complaint thread about one style triumphing over another is always an exciting proposition. The thing is, modding is quite a varied topic, and as such it throws up a lot of interesting dichotomies. Classics may include sponsored/professional vs amateur, automated processes vs hand crafting, expensive vs budget... you get the picture. These are all fairly succinct and I guess easy to explain, but there's one interesting label that's rather vague: 'old-school' vs 'new-school'. Now, I'm not immune to using the phrase 'old school modding'; I'm pretty sure I've chucked it in the odd Mod of the Month article here and there without really thinking about it. Recently I've seen the phrase being thrown around in different fashions. Sometimes it's in praise of modders who are just starting out or those using classic modding tools like Dremels to craft their builds, but at other times it's used in a derogatory fashion to rag on modders using CNC machinery like routers, lasers and 3D printers. It's that latter point that really does wear me thin. It's not just techniques and tools; the same phrase is thrown about when you see sponsored mods, professional builds, and so on. There's a certain, 'Ooh-err, back in my day...' to it all that doesn't really sit well, if anything because I find it hard to understand exactly what people are alluding to. On the face of it, things sound simple. Perhaps it's all about using fairly basic tools to build a functional PC, maybe with some aesthetics thrown in, all off your own back. It's a similar argument you find in some car enthusiast communities, where everybody debates what a 'classic' car is. Thanks to the passage of time, surely many of the standard cars from what we feel are modern times will eventually fall into the category of 'classics'. Two of my favourite projects of all time are Orac (parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 linked since the in-article links no longer function) and WMD (parts 1, 2 and 3) by the venerable Peter Dickison. These are two of the projects that first inspired me to have an interest in the field, mostly because they were so mind bogglingly good. In fact, they're oddly timeless in a way; WMD could have been made yesterday bar for the fact that there's a slot for inserting weird pieces of spinning polycarbonate. The build log itself is pretty familiar too: We have sponsors, CAD, laser-cutting, CNC-machining, hand shaping - you name it. Sometimes it goes even further; I can definitely recall more than a few times where I've seen the phrase used in relation to one's modding work space, too. For instance, what if somebody had a large workshop in their garage at home because they're into woodwork. You could argue yes, but then you could also say that it's not really representative of that underground modding scene that folks like to refer to with the term. There's a point to be made that perhaps it's closer related to what the scene was like in the mid-90s, when many of the more experienced modders picked up their tools and turned their gazes upon their towers. Even here, there's not really sanctuary; back then simply adding some clear fans with lights to a vent plus a couple UV cold cathodes was considered modding. Likewise, that would mean hand-crafted pieces of art like Cygnus X-1 don't really get a look in since they're so detached from that era. Nowadays, apparently making custom cables, adding blanking plates, and a spotless water-cooling setup that in years past could have placed in Mod of the Year here isn't even classed as a mod. It's all so very confusing, is what I guess I'm trying to say. | https://www.bit-tech.net/blogs/modding/what-exactly-is-oldschool-modding/1/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+bit-tech%2Fall+%28bit-tech.net+feed%29 |
Could the Titans make Nick Foles their backup quarterback in 2019? | After the painful regular season finale loss to the Indianapolis Colts, its safe to say the team has seen enough of backup quarterback Blaine Gabbert. While Gabbert has failed to answer the call for Tennessee, other backups have fit the bill for their respective teams when the starting signal-caller goes down. One of the names that falls under this category is none other than the Eagles Nick Foles. Not only did Foles man the Eagles to a Super Bowl victory over the Patriots last season, but hes put Philadelphia in a position to make another run for the title this year after a Week 14 overtime loss to Dallas gave them just an 11 percent chance of making it into the postseason. With a track record like this, the Titans should be foaming at the mouth for an opportunity to add a guy like Foles to the roster. The only factor that may cause the Titans to shy away from the quarterback is the cost it would take to bring him on. Related Titans OLB Harold Landry has big opportunity to step up next season Foles has a difficult contract to work with that includes a double-option for 2019. Unless the Eagles decline his 2019 contract option, any team that wants to bring him on will likely have to cough up at least $20M, and perhaps a draft pick or two. NFL Networks Ian Rapoport believes Eagles will be looking to trade him soon. I do think theyll be able to trade him, Rapoport said. My guess is they end up working with Foles and coming up with some solution where he lands at a great place, and he probably ends up getting a contract extension with that. On the 2018 season, Foles has completed 141-of-195 passes for 1,413 yards with seven touchdowns and four interceptions as solid option for Philadelphia behind Carson Wentz. With a frequently injured starter and unreliable backup, the Titans situation at quarterback is dire without question. Related Titans face difficult decision on safety Kenny Vaccaro in 2019 For 2019, the question will remain as to just how much the team is willing to give up to remedy the problem. | https://titanswire.usatoday.com/2019/01/11/could-the-titans-make-nick-foles-their-backup-quarterback-in-2019/ |
When will snow start falling this weekend? | The National Weather Service is clear: Snow is coming on Saturday. However, it looks like the morning will be clear. Two to three inches of snow are expected to fall in southern parts of the state, with areas like Harrisburg, Lancaster, Chambersburg, Somerset and Altoona all expected to see up to three inches, according to the National Weather Service. North of that, in places like Ridgeway, Williamsport and Lock Haven, only up to an inch is expected. For the Harrisburg region, the National Weather Service predicts that there is slight chance of snow between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m., with an chance of snow possible after 4 p.m. The temperature high is predicted to be 31 degrees during the day, with little wind. New snow accumulation is expected to be less than half an inch during the day. The NWS says more intense snow will fall between 4 p.m. and 4 a.m. Sunday, which is when the accumulation of up to 3 inches is expected. The snow will turn to a light snow after 4 a.m., and is expected to cease around 7 a.m. As the snow falls, the NWS warns roads could be slippery and visibility will be reduced, which will make driving hazardous. The agency says use caution while driving Saturday night and Sunday morning. On Sunday, the NWS says after 7 a.m., theres only a slight chance of snow until 1 p.m., and then the storm will have passed. The high Sunday will be around 34 degrees, with a wind of 5 mph. Sunday night, the skies will clear as the temperature drops to 19 degrees, the NWS says. As of Friday evening, no additional snow is expected throughout the week, and temperatures will rise to the low 40s during the day. | https://www.pennlive.com/news/2019/01/when-will-snow-begin-falling-this-weekend.html |
Which region saw the strongest growth in house prices in 2018? | With average prices rising by over 12K in 2018, this region is far outpacing London The West Midlands was last years regional house price winner, according to Halifax, recording a robust rise in house prices of 6.5%, compared to 5% in 2017. The region also boasted the largest cash terms price increase during 2018 at 12,891. East Anglia (+4.4%) and the East Midlands (+3.5%) also recorded price increases above the UK average of 2.8%. All but one region rise Almost all regions saw a rise in prices last year with only one of 12 regions the North of England recording a fall (-0.3%). However, some gains were minimal. London recorded only a marginal increase in prices (0.9%), which was the weakest gain the capital has seen in seven years of continuous inflation. Similarly, inflation in the South West fell to just 1%, and the 2% rise in the South East was the weakest in the region for six years. Most expensive Despite only nudging up over the year, actual price levels remain comfortably the highest in London, where the average property price is 452,356, nearly double the UK average of 228,512. Compared to 2009 when the financial crisis reached its peak, prices in the capital are 82.7% higher, comfortably the strongest inflation in the UK. Paul Smith, economics director at IHS Markit, which produces the Halifax index, said: Despite a positive backdrop of rising employment and increasing pay levels, 2018 proved to be a subdued year for the UK housing market. With conditions amongst their toughest in recent years, especially in the closely watched regions of southern England, annual price inflation in 2018 subsequently weakened to its lowest since early 2013. The slowdown, especially in the second half of the year, seems to have mainly emanated from increasing uncertainty amongst buyers about the economic outlook, with enquiries down and consumer sentiment weakening. With the terms of Britains departure from the European Union remaining unknown, 2019 price developments (and wider macroeconomic performance) remain unusually uncertain and seem inevitably dependent on Brexit developments in the coming months. | https://www.yourmortgage.co.uk/news/which-region-saw-the-strongest-growth-in-house-prices-in-2018/ |
Can the internet revive the interrobang? | Its no secret that the internet has revolutionised how we communicate. We can have face-to-face chats with people across the globe for free, condense our speech into quick acronyms and emojis, and expose our genitalia to strangers without so much as a polite hello first. But even in an age where were using text to communicate more than ever, theres one punctuation mark that has failed to survive the test of time: the interrobang. The interrobang was first conceptualised in 1962 a combination of the exclamation and question marks, mashed together into one explosive symbol: The combined symbol was first coined by Martin Speckter, a journalist-turned-advertising-executive who found it visually displeasing to use multiple punctuation marks in one go, according to The Economist. Both the word and the symbol are a fusion interro referring to the question mark (as in, to interrogate) and the bang referring to the exclamation point (hooray for onomatopoeia). According to the creator, it was a rhetorical symbol used to convey incredulity. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the loud punctuation mark enjoyed a respectable degree of prominence. It was included on special typewriters, featured by news outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Herald Tribune, and TIME magazine, and appeared in numerous dictionaries. But today while its still included in many modern typefaces, including Apple and Microsofts operating systems the symbol largely goes unused. Our own newsrooms Content Management System cant publish it without crashing, even though a number of other useless symbols ^, `, < > and { }, to name a few are all a-okay. ! symbols. ! Yet other punctuation marks like the semicolon, which dictionary.com deemed maddening and just plain silly, or that spiky, useless apostrophe below the Escape button on your keyboard have managed to sustain their livelihoods on the modern keyboard. Years ago, there was a rumour that the symbol failed to survive because the creator wanted a royalty. But his wife, Penny Speckter, said this wasnt true. Thats absolutely untrue. The whole idea was to make it ubiquitous, she told online literary magazine The Millions. Penny herself called for its return noting its relevance in the shouty, lets-all-use-rhetorical-questions-to-make-a-point world of American politics over the past decade. ! she said. The Economist suggests the failure of the interrobang to really take off may just come down to the natural evolutionary nature of language. Language develops naturally over time, and most attempts to shape it fail. Other examples of failed punctuation inventions include the irony mark and the trademarked SarcMark. But there is still hope for the interrobangs return to ubiquity. The internet and social media have seen the return of a number of previously infrequently-used symbols most notably the hashtag. Its also seen the return of the tilde this ~squiggly~ dash which traditionally means approximately but is now widely used to question or cast doubt on a word or idea. And lets not forget the once-rarely-seen @ and _ symbols, which are now featured in billions of email addresses and social media handles. In 2013, Peter Robinson, a poet and professor in the department of English literature at Reading University, wrote an opinion piece calling for the return of the interrobang. The interrobang, Mr Robinson argued in The Guardian, could make a grand comeback in this day and age. In many ways, with its balance of excitement and outrage, it is perfect for the fast-moving, shockaholic nature of social media, he wrote. And how perfect the interrobang would look in a comment at the bottom of an article extolling the virtues of a bizarre punctuation mark while lives are lost overseas. For what its worth, you can conveniently recreate the symbol by making it a shortcut on your phone. ! as the shortcut, like so: If no one else, were pretty sure Donald Trump would be all over it. @gavindfernando | [email protected] | https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/evolution/can-the-internet-revive-the-interrobang/news-story/6fdffe0762b9c8b5007d2d34f281554c |
What City Are More Americans Moving to Than Any Other? | If youre looking to put get out of town and put roots down in a new place, theres one town down South you may want to consider. New data from moving company Penske Truck Rental shows Atlanta was the city where most Americans moved in 2012. Its the third year in a row the Georgia capital has claimed the honor. The US Census Bureau reports 36 million people across the country moved last year, up from the record of 35.1 million people in 2011. Penske created its list by analyzing reservations , which means it could be totally different if data from Allied and U-Haul was included. Who knows, maybe Atlanta wouldnt even be in the top 10. That aside, Atlanta led a flurry of movement towards the South. Dallas-Fort Worth took second, while Orlando, Charlotte, Houston and Sarasota, Florida all made the list, as well. Heres a look at the 10 cities where Americans moved most last year. 1. Atlanta 2. Dallas-Fort Worth 3. Phoenix 4. Orlando 5. Chicago 6. Houston 7. Denver 8. Seattle 9. Charlotte 10. Sarasota, Florida [ CBS ] | http://ksoo.com/city-americans-moving/ |
Is Daily Vitamin D a Lifesaver for COPD Patients? | FRIDAY, Jan. 11, 2019 (HealthDay News) -- Deadly lung attacks may be averted in some COPD patients with a daily dose of vitamin D, new research suggests. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, includes a number of lung conditions, including emphysema and chronic bronchitis. Nearly all COPD deaths are due to a sudden worsening of symptoms (lung attacks), often triggered by viral upper respiratory infections, the researchers explained. "New treatments are urgently needed to prevent COPD attacks. Our study shows that giving supplements to vitamin D-deficient COPD patients nearly halves their rate of potentially fatal attacks," said lead researcher Adrian Martineau, a professor at Queen Mary University of London. In the study, Martineau and his colleagues analyzed data from 469 COPD patients from three clinical trials, which took place in the United Kingdom, Belgium and the Netherlands. Taking vitamin D supplements was associated with a 45 percent reduction in lung attacks among patients who were deficient in vitamin D, but there was no reduction among patients with higher vitamin D levels, the investigators found. The study was published Jan. 10 in the journal Thorax. Vitamin D supplementation is safe and inexpensive, Martineau noted. "So this is a potentially highly cost-effective treatment that could be targeted at those who have low vitamin D levels following routine testing," he said in a university news release. "Around a fifth of COPD patients in the U.K. -- about 240,000 people -- have low levels of vitamin D," Martineau added. Worldwide, more than 170 million people have COPD, and the disease caused an estimated 3.2 million deaths in 2015. The researchers pointed out that since the data in their study came from just three trials, the findings should be interpreted with a degree of caution. Previous research from Queen Mary University found that vitamin D helps protect against colds, flu and asthma attacks. | https://www.webmd.com/lung/copd/news/20190111/is-daily-vitamin-d-a-lifesaver-for-copd-patients?src=RSS_PUBLIC |
Are Indian businesses equipped to manage a flexible workforce? | Chaitanya Peddi A 2018 study by PayPal revealed that one in four freelancers are from India and according to other industry reports, the gig economy in India has the potential to grow up to $20-30 billion by 2025. With rapid transformations in technology, there is now an increased focus on skills and delivery as opposed simple employment contracts. The trend of project-based or freelance employee arrangements was initially limited to start-ups and SMEs but is now gaining momentum even among larger enterprises and consulting companies both in India and across the globe. While a lot being said about how millennials are redefining the traditional norms of job stability and financial security, organizations are yet to equip themselves with the structures and policies required to make the most out of this trend. Like with most transformations, technology will pay a key role in enabling organizations to adapt and become future ready. Below are a few initiatives all organizations can implement to initiate this change and help them attract and retain the best talent in this rapidly evolving landscape: A system of continuous feedback: Since 61% of Indias freelancers work on a project for 1 to 3 months, they do not qualify for the half-yearly or annual appraisals. Hence, it is critical to give them feedback via continuous feedback mechanisms. This ensures that feedback is shared in a timely manner which helps the employee feel engaged and efficient on the job. Make performance reviews the new resumes: Imagine a scenario where a team of independent consultants have been set up to formulate a regional expansion plan. Capturing their performance and having their strengths and weakness will not only save the effort and cost of going through re-identification when the need arises again but also will ensure learnings from the previous assignment are passed on. Another scenario where this is beneficial would be when a freelancer is being re-engaged by the same organization for a different project, the team leader can access the employees performance history to understand their strengths and channel them to deliver the best results. The team lead can also formulate a development plan through the assignment to help the employee improve, thus making value addition a two-way journey. Having a robust HRMS system also helps capture the performance data and build a reliable candidate repository. Read Also| Legal implications of Rafale judgment: You cross the Rubicon at your own risk Data Security & Authentication: The 2018 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends survey highlights that 29% of respondents believe their organizations track the freelance ecosystem workers compliance. It is imperative to ensure that HR teams work with legal and IT to set-up secure communication channels and safeguard company data. There is also a need for regulatory checks to ensure all employees are complying with company policies. Having a new-age HRMS which can accommodate the non-traditional workforce can address most of these issues. Need for a change in mindset: When freelancers with a specific skill set come on board, it is important to ensure the rest of the team is cognizant of their experience and makes them feel involved in the project. Leadership also needs to help find a middle ground if there are different workstyles to prevent conflict from arising. Processes and policies for the flexible workforce: Despite the anticipated growth in the gig economy, only 16% organizations worldwide have an established set of policies and practices to effectively manage different types of workers according to the 2018 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends report. This enormous gap in capabilities right from hiring to employee management needs to be addressed and aligned to the companys overall strategy. It is critical to have all processes enabled digitally for remote or virtual employees. Having a structured payroll process, health insurance benefits, rewards, and recognitions might also help position your organization as an employer of choice. (Author is Co-founder of Darwinbox) | https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/are-indian-businesses-equipped-to-manage-a-flexible-workforce/1441280/ |
What's it mean to be MAEAP-verified? | Corey Lake Orchard in Three Rivers, MI has their sign posted in front of the farm market. Numerous operations have earned theirs with Michigan State University among them. (Photo: Julia Baratta) Farming has changed over the years with the additions of more and heavier equipment, various chemicals and the need to take advantage of as much of the land as possible. In the process of producing for a growing population, a few negative products have made their way onto the many acres of crops and pasture. In 1997, the collaborative efforts of farmers, commodity representatives, state and federal agencies, and conservation and environmental groups created the Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program (MAEAP) to provide opportunities for those who were interested in managing the pollution concerns and its impact on the environment. Over 20 years later, the program has been appreciated by over 2300 farms of varying sizes that are producing a myriad of agricultural goods. There are three steps to the process of being MAEAP verified: Education, Risk Assessment and Management Changes, and Third-Party Verification. Within the Education aspect, the participant attends sessions through the program that are offered both online and in the classroom. They will gain knowledge about the program and regulations that affect their operations. There are numerous sessions available on the MAEAP website that can be taken advantage of. The next step is the Risk Assessment and Management Changes where the farmer will work with a certified MAEAP technician developing a plan for the implementation of improvements needed. The technician has a network of resources and ideas to help design the necessary modifications for the day-to-day running of the operation. They can also suggest ways to care for the environment while continuing to farm the land. The final phase is the Third-Party Verification which is done by a representative from the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD). They will come to the operation by invitation from the farmer and evaluate whether the qualifications have been met for the first two phases and that the farm is following the Generally Accepted Agricultural and Management Practices (GAAMPs). These (GAAMPs) are updated on a yearly basis to reflect the most current technology and practices for promoting positive care for the land and environment. Producers who are interested in pursuing the verification are offered four different areas of focus; They are cropping, livestock and farmstead with a new topic of forestry, wetland and habitat. The participants are encouraged to work toward any or all of the areas as they tend to be interconnected. A long-term plan will be developed to assist the farmer in the continuation of quality environmental practices. Once verification is given, the farm receives a sign proclaiming their accomplishments and intentions. If you are interested in upgrading your farms environmental management practices, your county extension office or soil conservation office will be willing to point you in the right direction. Additional information can be found at www.maeap.org. Read or Share this story: https://www.farmersadvance.com/story/news/2019/01/07/whats-mean-maeap-verified/38856349/ | https://www.farmersadvance.com/story/news/2019/01/07/whats-mean-maeap-verified/38856349/?from=new-cookie |
Is skiing the new face of winter sports? | Loading ... Loading ... By MARIANA WINZER Staff Writer Time to move over, hockey! For years, whenever winter is the topic of the conversation, hockey always weaves its way into conversation. I know its winter when I spend more time at the (St. Catharines) arena, chugging down as many beers as I can, than at my own home, jokes Kelly Servos, an Office Administration student at the Niagara-on-the-Lake campus. A former international student at Niagara College thinks otherwise. When I think about winter I think about skiing, says Paula Caugiat. The first time I went skiing was when Niagara College was still holding the Blue Mountain skiing trips. It was also one of the first few times I played in snow, says Caugiat, recalling fond memories while at NC. Skiing can really only be done in the winter, whereas hockey can be played all year around. That means taking part in summer leagues, and playing road hockey. You can now play hockey inside during the summer street hockey even, says Servos. | https://www.niagara-news.com/is-skiing-the-new-face-of-winter-sports/ |
Will an SP-BSP alliance dash BJPs 2019 hopes? | The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) increased its Lok Sabha tally from 116 seats in 2009 to 282 in 2014. More than a third of this increase came from the state of Uttar Pradesh, which has 80 seats. The BJP went from 10 seats in Uttar Pradesh in 2009 to 71 in 2014. Its ally Apna Dal won another two seats. In the 2017 assembly elections, the BJP maintained its stellar performance in the state. It won a massive 312 (326 along with allies) out of 403 seats compared to just 47 in the 2012 polls. The back-to-back decimation of the opposition in Uttar Pradesh has led to what was once considered impossible: a pre-poll alliance between the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP). This will likely be announced on Saturday. Also Read | BJPs Phulpur, Gorakhpur loss paved way for Akhilesh-Mayawati coalition To be sure, this will not be the first time the BSP and SP will contest in Uttar Pradesh in an alliance. The two parties had a pre-poll pact in the 1993 assembly elections, which were held after the dismissal of the Kalyan Singh led BJP government after the demolition of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya. The BJP suffered heavily due to the alliance. Despite increasing its vote share by 1.8 percentage points between the 1991 and 1993 assembly elections, it suffered a 10.9 percentage point decline in its seat share in the state. To be sure, the 2019 elections will not be the same as 1993. The BJPs vote share in both 2014 and 2017 elections was much larger than its 1991 or 1993 vote shares. In fact, the BJP is the only party to have breached the 40% vote share barrier in Uttar Pradesh in Lok Sabha or assembly elections since 1989. An exceptionally high vote share, with a fragmented opposition, gave windfall gains to the BJP in terms of seats. The BJP posted the highest seat share to vote share ratios in Uttar Pradesh since 1989 in both 2014 and 2017. In a first-past-the-post system this ratio is a useful way of capturing a partys ability to convert popular support into seats. HT has compared the combined vote share of the BSP and SP with that of the BJP to run a simple test. The combined vote share of the BSP and SP was more than that of the BJP in 41 out of 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh. These 41 seats exclude Amethi and Raebareli, won by the Congress, where the SP did not put up candidates. A 2017 comparison might give misleading results, as the SP and Congress had a pre-poll alliance. In politics, it is hazardous to rely on arithmetic from previous elections to predict future outcomes. For example, the combined vote share of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the Congress in the 2014 assembly elections of Telangana was six percentage points more than that of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS). However, in the 2018 elections, the Congress-TDP alliance ended up with a vote share which was eight percentage point lower than its 2014 figure. The TRS, on the other hand, increased its vote share by 12 percentage points. This brings us to the question of anti-incumbency vis--vis the BJP in Uttar Pradesh. It is after almost three decades that Uttar Pradesh will vote in a general election with the same party running the central and state governments. This will further increase the level of anti-incumbency for the BJP. This could alienate a section of floating voters, which sided with the BJP in 2014 and 2017 to bring a change in the state. The results of the 2018 bypolls in Gorakhpur, Phulpur and Kairana prove this point. The BJPs vote share was more than 50% in all these seats in the 2014 polls. However, it lost all of them in the bypolls held in 2018. While the BJPs vote share went down compared to 2014, the combined oppositions vote share went up compared to 2014 levels. Things could change between now and when elections are held. As of now, it looks like the BJPs biggest 2019 challenge will be Uttar Pradesh. You May Also Like | Why the SP-BSP alliance is key to 2019 First Published: Jan 12, 2019 09:21 IST | https://www.hindustantimes.com/lok-sabha-elections/will-an-sp-bsp-alliance-dash-bjp-s-2019-hopes/story-PILMWmXDsNHD790xOzYNCO.html |
How To Predict Disruption Potential Of A Business Idea? | April 27, 2017 9 min read Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media. Start-up disruption is a situation in which an industry is completely shaken up and an established enterprise wobbles. Usually, an established venture focuses more on improving its profitability and customer retention. While doing so, they overlook innovation. Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities. Aristotle Disruptive ideas are generally outcomes of such ignorance. A small company favourably targets one of the neglected segments and starts building a niche by delivering a more suited product, typically at lower price. Start-ups get more time on rethinking where they dont have to reinvent the wheel. Established companies tend to ignore the start-up companys innovation and dont respond vigorously. With time the start-up delivers the performance that both the un-served customers as well as the mainstream customers require while improving on the overlooked aspects of the established company. When the loyal customers of the established venture adopt the new entrants offerings, we can state disruption has occurred. For this, lets consider the example of Uber, the taxi hailing company. Uber has single-handedly changed the entire taxi business and thrown it into disarray. Looking at the financial success and outreach of Uber one would consider the idea was a disruptive. However its not. An idea is considered to be disruptive if and only if it falls under one of the following categories. An idea is said to be disruptive enough only if it either creates a market which initially didnt exist or if it pays heed on providing a better product to the ignored less-demanding consumers. Uber did increase the total demand by providing a cheaper and better service to its customers. However, a disruptive idea starts by targeting un-served customers and then it spreads to the mainstream market. Uber followed a completely different trajectory, it initially appealed and built a reputation in the mainstream market and then it got popular among the masses. On the other hand, lets consider iPod. When iPods were introduced, the market was dominated by CDs. iPods feature was to store digitized music in the form of MP3 music files, making access and playback intuitive and trivial. The intended users were non-technical consumers who wanted portable music i.e. the mass market. The unmet need that iPod served was for the customers to be able to carry a sizable portion of their music collection with them everywhere without requiring physical media such as tapes or CDs. Steve Jobs put it at the introductionand how consumers might say itI carry my entire music collection in my pocket. If we analyze the idea behind iPod, we can clearly see that the idea served an unmet need making music portable. The sound quality by MP3 wasnt as good as that by CDs, hence the market incumbents then considered iPod as inferior and neglected its development. However, by providing customers with something innovative and fulfilling a basic need iPod, changed the course of music industry. The idea was indeed a disruptive one. The key concepts of disruptive innovation is to learn how to predict the disruption potential of a product, service, or a business model and how to identify the key factors that increase or decrease the probability of disruption. Firstly, the economic benefits of predicting the probability of disruption occurring is immense. Secondly, the present market conditions show that disruptive ideas have a higher potential of growth and dominating the market. The followings outline the general methods we use to make disruptive predictions. Spot An Existing Market Scarcity Or Unmet customer Needs Disruption is caused by the cardinal distortion of the supply and demand curve that occurs when abundance replaces scarcity. If the market doesnt have any sort of unmet needs, simply enough disruption cant occur. To verify whether the existing market has any sort of scarcity, one has to thoroughly study the behaviour of the market. If your answer is NO, then there is no need for you to move ahead with that idea as chances of disruption is nil. Assess The Job To Be Done After youve successfully identified an addressable scarcity, your next job is come up with a solution for the scarcity. For this, you need to assess the entire situation and ask yourself some basic questions like: How will my solution uniquely solve an unmet need?, Who will my target customer be? By asking yourself these questions you will be able to come up with an idea that actually might shape up to be a disruptive one. Just as in case of iPod, the job to be done was to enable consumers with portable music. In retrospect, it may seem trivially simple to describe what jobs a product like the iPod is designed to accomplish; however, capturing the right core jobs and knowing whether they have disruptive potential is far from obvious at the time the product is being specified and designed. Before iPod there was no way one could carry some part of their music collection in their pocket. iPod might not have been an insanely great idea, however, it successfully met with the unmet needs of the customer. The existing marketplace leaders make assumptions about customers needs. They have many embedded assumptions about quality and what consumers value. When a new product emerges which is relatively out of the bubble they form, the established market leaders look down upon the product. They ignore the product and deem it as not-required. When this happens they put down their guards and hence do not feel the need for themselves to innovate. Slowly the new entrant with its disruptive idea captures the market. Pricing Generally, your idea will be disruptive if and only if the price it offers is lesser than the current market price. The probability of disruption could be said to be directly proportional to the price advantage. Provided your product is good enough and the price is less than the market price, it virtually guarantees that your idea will disrupt the market. Lets go back to iPod. If you just think about the cost of purchase, iPod didnt have any price advantage. In fact, its cost was quite more than the CDs at the time of introduction. However, the excellence of iPod was the price advantage it had per song. Thus, consumers could treat iPod as an initial investment which also aided them to carry music in their pocket. A substantial and sustainable cost-of-production advantage, which enables lower pricing versus incumbents, almost always results in market disruption. Outsider To The Industry The probability of your idea being a disruptive one increases if you are an outsider to the industry. This is because when you step into a new industry you use different technology as compared to the ones already being used. Your outlook towards that industry is radically different as compared to the existing established companies. Coming back to iPod again, Apple was an outsider to music and electronics industry. Its main focus was music portability. Although, CDs sounded much better at that time compared to the 1st iPod. Apple understood that for youth their comfort of being able to listen to songs hassle free was much more important than the quality of the songs. They traded usability over quality in the first version. Use or Not Use Existing Channels If your idea uses the existing channels, the probability for disruption decreases. This is because not only will the existing distribution channels resist you if you are perceived as a threat, but incumbents will be protecting them and will not look for reasons to provide easier routes to products in your category. If you can develop a method by which you can successfully reach a customer without using the existing channels then the disruptive potential of your idea is much enhanced. Has One Or More Usability Advantages Usability advantages are focused on the ability of the intended user to derive the promised benefits. Your product should offer multiple advantages over the existing product in terms of ease of use, flexibility, convenience and so on so forth. iPod had several advantages its user interface was much more simple as compared to the mp3s available prior to iPod, also it offered portability which the CDs couldnt offer. To predict whether your idea is disruptive or not you can simply create a grading scheme in which you can create a report card which will have the above factors and you can grade your idea on that basis. The average of all those grades will help you analyse whether your idea can be predicted to be disruptive or not. The important point to note here is that the technology that is being used is irrelevant to disruption. What matters is how efficiently you apply the technology to solve a problem and what innovation and creativity you bring to the marketing front. But remember: Disruptive innovation is not a technology phenomenon, but a market pattern, and that is a crucial distinction - Paul Paetz | https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/293460 |
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Could smart phones be making us more stupid? | Australian polymath and future MP Barry Jones (left) during his record run on quiz show Pick-a-Box in the 1960s. Credit:John Dabinett A nation of genuises For the last century, weve been getting smarter - fast. The average IQ of the population has been increasing by about three points per decade. Even Mensa has noticed. Our membership is growing at about 10 per cent a year, says Teresa Wong, the organisations recruitment officer. And about a third of them are under 18. Were we to test people today using IQ tests from the 50s, 75 per cent of the population would be classified as gifted (to cope with this, IQ tests are regularly made progressively harder). That has had significant benefits. We know were less violent by a long shot. We seem to be living longer and being healthier. We have more complex lives, more complex skills. We can drive cars, we can do all sorts of things. Were accelerating and becoming smarter, says Dr Tony Florio, a clinical psychologist and senior lecturer at the University of NSW. The same increase in IQs over the last century has happened in nearly every other developed nation. Its known as the Flynn effect after James Flynn, the New Zealand researcher who discovered it. There are several theories for why this has happened: were better educated, modern education systems mould our brain in ways IQ tests tend to like, and many of us will do cognitively-taxing things like play video games during our leisure hours. Playing video games has been shown in some studies to improve intelligence Credit:Not-for-Syndication But as a society, we also got healthier. We eat better. Modern medicine means childhood diseases are less likely to stunt brain development. Some even suspect the phasing out of lead in fuels played a role. For the same reasons that successive generations are taller, they are probably smarter, too. Going backwards But something strange and troubling appears to be happening. In several countries Norway, Denmark, Finland, Britain and France IQ scores that rose for so long now seem to be dropping, at a rate of about 2.4 points per decade in recent decades. Given those countries all mirrored our IQ rise, its plausible Australian IQs are heading downward too. Scientists first suspected that, because people with higher IQs tend to have fewer children, average intelligence would slowly fall over time. But a recent paper, published in PNAS in June, appears to rule this out by showing that IQs are declining even within families. After 1975, on average, older brothers tended to be more intelligent than younger brothers a reversal of the trend up to that point. So its not genes, or natural selection. The rise of the smartphone. We can look up any fact in an instant. We never need to remember facts or directions or friends phone numbers. The picture is complicated, and there is not enough evidence yet to really say one way or another. But several interesting studies point to smartphones having at least some effect on cognition. Studies have linked smartphone use with a decreased ability to exert high levels of focus and poorer attention control although video games seem linked to better multitasking abilities. In one influential study, volunteers were asked to type newly-learned trivia facts into a computer. Those who were told the computer would remember the facts for them performed much worse on a later memory-recall test. The researchers dubbed it the Google Effect. In another study, volunteers were given a series of questions that pushed the limits of their brain. Those who said they were heavy smartphone users tended to perform worse and be less analytical. Poor academic performance has also been linked to heavy smartphone use. Heavy users of mobile phones are performing badly on some tests. Credit:Andrew Quilty More dramatic was a 2013 experiment in which volunteers were given a camera and asked to take pictures of various objects in a museum, while just looking at other objects. A day later, they were able to better-recall seeing the objects they hadnt photographed. Loading Flynn himself argues that his namesake effect does not necessarily show were getting smarter its just that our brains have become more modern. We used to have a lot more common sense, and understood things more from our own common experience, says Dr Florio. | https://www.smh.com.au/national/could-smart-phones-be-making-us-more-stupid-20190111-p50qvz.html |
What happens after the Alaskan Way Viaduct closes? | Please enable Javascript to watch this video SEATTLE -- Q13 News is looking ahead to what will happen after the three-week closure period for the Alaskan Way Viaduct. WSDOT officials say after the closure, the new State Route 99 Tunnel will open to drivers for the first time. When work crews are done re-aligning the highway and opening new ramps, the new 99 Tunnel will open to thousands of commuters and bring some much-needed traffic relief. This weekend during the viaduct closure, WSDOT says itll begin working to connect the new South Dearborn Street to the tunnels portal near Pioneer Square and the stadiums. South Dearborn Street will be connected to First Avenue South and paved so that drivers can begin using the tunnel. Officials say when the tunnel opens in about three weeks, they plan to closely monitor its operation. Once the tunnel is open, we dont just stop and ignore everything. We continue to work with fire and police, continue to develop plans and change plans, said Morgan Balogh with WSDOT Regional Traffic Operations. Viaduct administrators say drivers can expect delays for a few weeks even after the new two-mile tunnel opens. The exits and entrances for the tunnel will move north near Seattle Center and south near the stadiums but not all of the tunnels exits will be open to traffic right away. Our transportation center is going to be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Thats where we monitor traffic situations through our cameras and other data collection devices, said Heather Marx, SDOT's Director of Downtown Mobility. After the tunnel opens, drivers will use it for free. Toll fees have not been announced yet but theyre expected to begin sometime in May. WSDOT also says itll have a 17-person crew monitoring the tunnel at least four days a week to ensure its systems are operating properly. | https://q13fox.com/2019/01/11/what-happens-after-the-alaskan-way-viaduct-closes/ |
What matters when looking at social media metrics? | Knowing the effectiveness of your social media marketing efforts involves more than just counting your Facebook business page likes and Twitter followers. Superficial vanity metrics rarely provide an accurate window into how well your strategy is working. What really matters is how well your content is: Attracting and keeping the interest of readers, viewers, or listeners Getting shared Generating leads Making sales And that requires paying attention to metrics that shed light on whether your social media marketing tactics are helping you reach your business goals. First things first: set some goals Metrics are only meaningful when they relate to clear goals. In his book, "500 Social Media Marketing Tips, social media consultant Andrew Macarthy recommends setting SMART goals. Be realistic when setting your goals. A little stretch can motivate you and your team, but if you set the bar too high, you could end up feeling defeated and uninspired. Your social media marketing goals will serve your business best when they align with your companys overall goals and vision. For example, increase Facebook page reach by 10 percent in three months; get 20 new email subscribers each month until the end of the year; or increase online sales by 12 percent in six months. Marketing metrics that might matter to you As you tap into the various tools that can give you insights into your performance on social media platforms, some of the many metrics that might help you assess the success of your efforts include: Mentions and tags of your brand online (How to discover this will vary from one platform to the next.) Click-throughs on your links Engagement with your content (Comments, shares, etc.) Conversions on paid ads Clicks on call to action buttons (such as learn more, buy now, etc.) What tools to use Besides Google Analytics and the insights tools within the individual social media platforms, there are resources that provide metrics for multiple platforms in one place. A few you might want to explore are: Hootsuite Buffer Buzzsumo Klout Get more help with marketing For guidance as you craft and execute your social media marketing, visit the kitsapscore.org website to find a mentor near you. Fill out a mentoring request and meet with someone in Kitsap County who would like to help you. If you need experience or skill levels that we dont have, we will help you find the right volunteers willing and able to mentor by email, telephone or live online connections. Ken Sethney is a volunteer business mentor and branch manager for SCORE Kitsap. He started his first business in 1976, and several more after that. Contact him by email at [email protected]. Read or Share this story: https://www.kitsapsun.com/story/money/columnists/business-journal/2019/01/11/ken-sethney-what-social-media-metrics-matter/2381504002/ | https://www.kitsapsun.com/story/money/columnists/business-journal/2019/01/11/ken-sethney-what-social-media-metrics-matter/2381504002/ |
Was kommt statt dem Obstsackerl aus Plastik? | Mit Jahresende werden Einweg-Sackerl aus Plastik verboten. Mehrwegnetz, Biosackerl oder Papier: Was stattdessen kommt, liegt auch an den Kunden. Angekndigt wurde es Anfang dieser Woche mit groem Getse: Schon ab kommendem Jahr sollen Einweg-Plastiksackerl in sterreich verboten werden. Ausnahmen soll es keine geben. Zwar hat der Handel auf freiwilliger Basis Vorarbeit geleistet: An der Kasse sind Gratis-Plastiksackerl den Mehrwegtaschen und Papierscken gewichen. Weil die Geld kosten, bringen viele Kunden mittlerweile ihre eigene Tasche mit. Mehr als die Hlfte der nach wie vor 750 Millionen Plastiksackerl im Jahr aber sind die immer noch kostenlos abgegebenen Knotenbeutel. Und diese Obstsackerl sind beliebt, nicht nur zum Obstkaufen, auch zum Einwickeln von Jause, Sammeln von Plastikmll und das Frischhalten von Brot. Ersatz dafr gibt es. "Bisher ist aber nur eine sehr kleine Konsumentengruppe bereit, das anzunehmen", sagt Marion Huber-Humer, Leiterin der Abfallwirtschaft an der Universitt fr Bodenkultur. | https://www.sn.at/wirtschaft/oesterreich/was-kommt-statt-dem-obstsackerl-aus-plastik-63920803 |
Are Poland and Italy Teaming up to Go After Brussels? | On Wednesday, after the talks with leader of Polands ruling Law and Justice party Jarosaw Kaczyski, Italys Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior, leader of the Lega Party Matteo Salvini told reporters that Poland and Italy will be the heroes of this new European spring. "I don't know whether we have a common future, but we are working on it. The Italian-Polish (model) will probably replace the French-German one," the Deputy Prime Minister added. As for Polish political scientist Adam Wielomski, he is skeptical about the possible Polish-Italian Union. He believes Salvini can be considered a Eurosceptic, while Polish Euroscepticism is intended exclusively for the internal electorate. READ MORE: Poland And Italy Agree to Boost EU's External Border Adam Wielomski: I have no doubt that it's not a random visit, since there are elections to the European Parliament in May. Salvini, along with Marine Le Pen, is making up a large international euro-skeptic coalition. It's reasonable to assume that they consider Law and Justice a euroskeptic party and therefore are attempting to incorporate it into their coalition. It seems to them that this would be easy, since the party's current coalition partners in the European Parliament, including the conservatives, are lose their weight, and after the May elections, it will simply cease to exist During the negotiations in Warsaw, they discussed a common program for the transformation of Europe, which will be presented to other European political movements. Judging by the comments of Polish experts, the Italian Deputy Prime Minister has failed to convince Jarosaw Kaczyski to team up. AFP 2018 / NATALIA DOBRYSZYCKA Political Analyst: Fort Trump Idea in Poland Will Fade Away I think that in this case, this desire for cooperation can be considered one-sided, since there's a fundamental difference in the approach to the European Union between Salvini and the political associations in Italy, France and Belgium, as well as the Law and Justice Party. The fact is that the Law and Justice is euro-skeptic only verbally. In fact, judging by their actions, we can assume that they're moving in quite the opposite direction. For instance, you can't be a euro-skeptic and at the same time promote the idea of forming a common European gas and energy security policy, which implies strengthening the EU structures. Therefore, I think that Western European politicians are misjudging Jarosaw Kaczyski's party. Their euro-skeptic declarations are mainly intended for the Polish electorate, and not at all manifested in their political actions on the international stage. I suppose that, as far as a union or any programmatic coincidences are concerned, there is no chance for that. READ MORE: Political Analyst: Fort Trump Idea in Poland Will Fade Away In addition, there are discrepancies associated with who exactly the European countries consider to be the EU's enemies. France and Italy are emphasizing the German threat, while Law and Justice consider Russia the main enemy of the European Union. As for the United States, they believe it to be the main partner and, in some way, the patron of the EU, particularly the recently-admitted states. Essentially, I don't see any possibility of joint action. However, if such an alliance could be concluded at all, it would be for reasons not related to the EU. Only the American lobby can promote the Law and Justice's entry into a coalition to which it shouldn't really belong, since it is not a euro-skeptic party and doesn't proclaim any need to change the EU model. Law and Justice are aware of Poland's dependence on EU money. Italians don't really feel this, as Italy is a country that contributes more than it gets from the EU budget. Thus, it makes it hard for Law and Justice to take any euro-skeptic action. Adam Wielomski: I think that everything will end with a formal statement about the desire for further cooperation, which actually means nothing. The issue will be completely solved only after the elections to the European Parliament. Law and Justice's capacity to join coalitions in the European Parliament will largely depend on that. I believe that the European People's Party is the most suitable cgenybr:partner for Law and Justice in the European Parliament; but the latter doesn't really want this, since the European People's Party includes members of the Civic Platform and the Polish Peasant Party. And if it turns out that the Law and Justice representatives end up without factions due to the lack of various privileges and the impossibility of functioning in the European Parliament, they may come up with various solutions. However, the creation of a single parliamentary Eurogroup seems unlikely to me. The views and opinions expressed by the speaker do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik. | https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201901121071400828-poland-italy-brussels/ |
What impact could poor-quality silage have on my suckler herd? | Silage is the number one feed on the majority of farms over the winter period. Farmers feeding silage need to ensure it is of good quality as this can negatively impact the health and the performance of a herd whether it be fed to dairy or beef animals. Over or underestimating feeding value due to a lack of test results can cost you a significant amount of money. If a forage is not analysed, then farmers will either underestimate or overestimate the amount of meal and/or silage required by stock in order to secure optimal animal performance. While conditions for silage harvesting were good during the summer of 2018, feeding poor-quality silage will not only lead to reduced performance, but in some cases lead to more problems. According to Teagasc, the bacteria in the rumen need sufficient protein so that they have enough nitrogen (N) to properly function and digest the silage being fed. Work from Scotland, Teagasc says, showed that where low-protein silage was fed to suckler cows, there was rumen impaction due to poor fermentation and this led to some cows actually dying. Advertisement Protein is very important in animal diets. If insufficient protein is available, the cow is forced to mobilise lean tissue rather than fat, and if the deficiency is prolonged, it can result in poor calves born from thin, weaker cows, Teagasc highlighted. In addition according to Teagasc colostrum quality may also suffer and it may cause long-term effects on fertility; this is something to be mindful of as we enter the calving period. Therefore, when it comes to protein levels, how much extra protein that needs to be fed will depend on how low the protein is and the type of animals it is being fed to. Generally speaking, weanlings require a higher level of protein in their overall diet compared to older suckler cows. The choice of protein supplement will be influenced by the different prices that are available. Small levels of soyabean meal Teagasc says can very quickly bring up the protein in a diet, whereas higher feeding levels are required with feeds such as beans, distillers, rape or maize gluten. Teagasc also highlighted that most commercial rations on their own will not be high enough to bring up the protein where very low-protein silage is being fed. | https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/what-impact-could-poor-quality-silage-have-on-my-suckler-herd/ |
Can the Mavericks turn their season around like the Jazz did in 2017-18? | The Dallas Mavericks currently sit near the bottom of the Western Conference with a 20-22 record. According to Tankathon.com they have the second-hardest remaining schedule in the NBA with games against the Raptors, Bucks, Warriors and Nuggets still on their schedule. MORE: How Luka Doncic compares with Michael Jordan and LeBron James as a rookie in voting Luka Doncic has been tremendous so far this season and looks like the clear-cut choice to win Rookie of the Year. Schedule When the Jazz made their run last season, they had already played more than half their season and were 19-28 five games out of the eight seed in the Western Conference. While the Mavs havent had the season theyve wanted so far, theyre in a better position in the tough West than the Jazz were a season ago, sitting 3.5 games out of eighth with 41 games to go. Of those 41 remaining games, 24 of them come against Western Conference foes with10 of those 24 against teams .500 or worse. When you look at their schedule which is the second-toughest remaining schedule in the league going by opponents current record most of their tough games will be played at home where Dallas has been nearly unbeatable. At 16-4, the Mavericks are amongst the best home teams in the league with a near seven-point average margin of victory which is amongst the top ten in the NBA. Toronto, Indiana, Milwaukee and Philadelphia all visit American Airlines Arena in the second of the season the upper echelon of the Eastern Conference. Dallas is 6-1 against teams from the East at home this year. Where things need to change is on the road where the Mavericks are an abominable 3-18, worst in the NBA. Of their 20 remaining road games, 11 of them come against teams that have a record of .500 or below. Their longest string of games on the road is three, which they do three separate times. Working in their favour however is that only two of those nine games are against teams with winning records. Dallas has a pretty favourable road schedule the rest of the way and has the opportunity to turn their road woes into something more respectable by the end of the season. Luka Doncic Any playoff team in the NBA usually has a star on it who can carry the team when times are rough. A year ago the Jazz relied on rookie Donovan Mitchell, a recipe that Dallas will certainly look to duplicate with a rookie sensation of its own. Doncic is putting up numbers that very few have done in their first NBA season. Through 41 games, Doncic is averaging 19.8 points, 6.7 rebounds and 4.9 assists. Hes played well enough that Dirk Nowitzki told NBA.com that he should be in the conversation for making the All-Star Game. The Mavericks' record to this point may be the only thing holding Doncic back from getting an All-Star nod, and head coach Rick Carlisle can employ a single fix to help Lukas case and the Mavs record all at once make Luka the full-time starting point guard. Dallas had a taste of what life would be like with Doncic at the lead guard position on Wednesday night in a win against the Phoenix Suns. With Dennis Smith Jr. out, Luka finished with a game-high 30 points, six rebounds and five assists. While Wednesday night could be seen as an aberration especially against the NBAs worst team, the numbers this season point to the offence being better when Luka has control of it. When both Smith Jr. and Doncic are on the floor together, the Mavericks offensive rating is 100.9. With Luka on the floor without Smith Jr., that rating shoots up to 110.1. When Smith Jr. runs the show without Luka on the floor the Mavs offence just isnt the same as that rating drops to 97.5, a figure that would rank by far the worst in the NBA. Coming into the league, Doncics defence had long been debated upon, and the argument to play Smith Jr. alongside him to guard the explosive point guards in the league was valid. However, although it may not yet be a strength, Doncic has proven that he isnt a turnstile defensively halfway through his rookie year and the drop off defensively when Smith Jr. isnt on the floor with him is negligible. Smith Jr. hasnt had a bad year and given his new role on the team playing alongside his new rookie teammate, hes adjusted fairly well at times. But its clear that the ball should be in Doncics hands as much as possible and that Smith Jr. should be looking to develop more off the ball. That simple adjustment has the potential to change the entire Mavericks' season around and make them more potent on offence. The toughest thing in sports to do is manage an ageing legend. Dirk Nowitzki to his credit has been a positive presence on the Mavs roster as his skills continue to decline. While the team struggles through a rough patch, even though he hasnt been playing much hes been a voice and messenger in the locker room allowing the younger players like Luka to ease into life in the NBA. On the court, however, he may be doing more harm than good. The Mavericks defence especially has taken a hit with him in games. When Nowitzki is on the floor with the rest of the bench unit, the Mavs defensive rating is at an alarming 124.9. When that same unit is on the floor with Maxi Kleber in instead of Nowitzki, their defensive rating is 98.7. Coach Carlisle has gone to the zone most time when playing Nowitzki to keep him out of trouble on that end of the floor, but those numbers say that it isnt helping and may be costing the team valuable wins. Im not saying dont play Dirk I like much of the NBA community will miss him when he eventually does retire but if the Mavs plan on making the postseason this year, they may have to keep Dirks minutes to a minimum even more so than they are doing now. Most of DeAndre Jordans defensive numbers say that hes still a force on that end of the floor. His defensive rating of 104 is not far off his career number of 102. Hes tops in the league in defensive real plus-minus which tracks a players average impact on his teams defensive performance by points allowed per 100 possessions. Dallas team defensive rating is just outside the top ten at 107.6, but when you watch the Mavs play it feels like Jordan could be doing more. Jordan was at one time an intimidating force at the rim. He contested shots without the fear of being dunked on. The last two season, thats dropped off. This year hes averaging just 1.3 blocks per game and while its not all about blocking shots, hes rarely contesting them. Jordan is averaging just 4.5 shots contested within six feet of the rim thats in the same realm as Mike Muscala, Marvin Williams and Jeff Green. The top of the league which features the likes of Joel Embiid, Clint Capela and Myles Turner are averaging at least 8.0 contest within six feet per game. Thats the company Jordan should be keeping, especially when the Mavericks acquired him to help in that department. It may feel nitpicky here, but if Jordan got back to being a bonafide rim protector one that he was during his time with the Clippers, it may spark and encourage the team around him to pick up the slack even more on that end of the floor and ultimately help turn their season around. Last season, Utah rode strong defensive play, Donavan Mitchell and great coaching from Quin Snyder to a playoff berth. The Mavericks have all the ingredients on their roster right now to do the same. The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBA or its clubs. | https://www.sportingnews.com/au/nba/news/can-dallas-mavericks-turn-season-around-and-make-the-playoffs-in-2018-19-luka-doncic-dirk-nowitzki-deandre-jordan/18yxmdngf2oxa1dxf4ld7c9071 |
Why is Jamie's Italian in Exeter's Princesshay still empty? | Get Daily updates directly to your inbox Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email It's been almost two years since Jamie's Italian closed in Princesshay amid a massive restructure for the chain fronted by chef Jamie Oliver. Opened in 2015 by Jamie's mentor Gennarro Contaldo, the chain promised an authentic taste of Italy. But two years later, customers had fallen out of love with the brand. The Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group recorded losses of nearly 10million - leading to the closure in Exeter and later Bath and Bristol. It's been tough for the mid-market restaurants. Last year, the likes of Frankie and Benny's, Byron Burger, which is a fellow Princesshay stable mate and Prezzo, which closed in Exeter's High Street also showed financial strain. Nick Turk, retail director for the South West and Wales at Colliers International, said: "The general feeling is that life is not too good for the mid-market restaurants at the moment. There have been a lot of them and the mediocre ones have not been able to cut it." Nick Farrant, Partner & Head of Food & Drink PKF Francis Clark agreed: "Such closures are the result, ultimately, of empty restaurants or at least those which are not sufficiently full to weather the following financial headwinds that are facing restaurants." DevonLive Business takes a look at five reasons Jamie's Italian remains empty 1. Too expensive for independents Last year's dining crunch had a chilling effect on restaurant openings and we saw a reduction in the number of outlets for the biggest brands. We don't know for sure what kind of rent Jamie's Italian was paying on this restaurant but it has been reported that it was in the region of 185,000 a year. In his first interview after the Exeter closure, Jamie Oliver told Mail Online: ""We had parts of the business that were inefficient, we were in places we shouldnt have been, there were rents we shouldnt have agreed to." Overheads are high for restaurants even before they've opened the doors, for things like business rates, an increase in the minimum wage and ingredients. It means that a site as large as this is unlikely to be taken up by an independent restaurant or small chain. Mr Farrant, said: "Not only are there overall revenue pressures, but substantial rises in operational costs have had a negative impact on many restaurants. The weakness of the Pound during 2018 for example, having led to increased ingredients costs." Mr Turk added: "Some landlords of big retail centres recognise the value of having independents in the mix and will offer a rent based on the turnover of the business for a number of years and a percentage if it exceeds that. "It means you get the interesting mix that people want." 2. Too much competition Jamie's Italian was in the heart of Princesshay's dining quarter which means there are plenty of alternatives for the customer to choose. There's Carluccio's, Byron Burger, Cafe Rouge, Coal, Yo Sushi and Wagamama's. "Over-capacity in the market is undoubtedly a factor the previous decade having been a period of significant expansion in the number of eateries, particularly roll-outs of new restaurant chains," said Mr Farrant. Then, a whole new raft of options opened up when the Guildhall Dining Quarter opened up In Queen Street with the likes of Turtle Bay, Comptoir Libanais and Gourmet Burger, which has also hit trouble. Mr Turk said: "There are too many mid market restaurants in Exeter for the current spending patterns of customers." 3. Debenhams towers over Bedford Street and is a keystone of the Princesshay Shopping Centre. Prospective tenants for the old Jamie's Italian site would naturally be concerned for what the future holds for the department store. The past year has been tough, with plans to close 50 stores, though there has been no indication that Exeter is among them. The gloom has been compounded by a fall in sales during the crucial Christmas trading period. Debenhams reported a 5.7% fall in like-for-like sales in the 18 weeks to 5 January and in the shorter trading period, the six weeks to 5 January, like-for-like sales - which strip out changes to stores - were down 3.4%. Sergio Bucher, chief executive of Debenhams, said the number of customers across the UK "had been weak". Mr Turk said that any interest in the site would weigh up what's happening around it. He said: "People want to eat out in a place that's bustling and in the heart of things. No-one is going to say: 'Let's go and eat at that place next to where the Debenhams has closed." Bedford Street is also set to lose its Post Office, which is a footfall driver. It's set to downsize and relocate to the WH Smith on Queen Street. 4. Habits have changed People are feeling a bit cautious, they don't do out so much and when they do, are looking for more of an experience than the generic brands can offer. Mr Turk said: "After the recession, there was a rise in millennials eating out once or twice a week but habits and fashions have changed. Most recently because of Brexit uncertainty, people are eating out less." He said that diners are looking for 'pizazz'. When Bristol's Jamie's Italian closed, it was replaced by an independent piano bar with a late licence serving cocktails. Mr Turk said: "People are more discerning now, they want something extra from a night out." 5. High Streets are changing Last year's retail reports by Grimsey and Timpson concluded that there are too many shops on the High Street and that probably goes for restaurants too. People are increasingly shopping online and want to come into the city for an experience. Expect to see more leisure activities in the city centre, like gyms, escape rooms and entertainment venues. | https://www.devonlive.com/news/business/jamies-italian-exeters-princesshay-still-2413913 |
Will Toni Preckwinkles woes boost Susana Mendoza in mayoral race? | It looks like Ald. Ed Burkes legal troubles will translate into some substantive reforms for Chicago. Under pressure from Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Burke resigned as chair of the Citys Councils finance committee, and the mayor is removing the citys $100 million workers compensation program from the committees control. These moves were unavoidable, though they come too late in Emanuels tenure to win him credit as a reformer. The Burke scandal belongs in part to the mayor who accommodated him and relied on his help to control the City Council. Meanwhile, nearly three-fourths of sitting aldermen have received donations from Burke. Suddenly, now, political reform is the big issue in the mayoral race. Of the candidates, Lori Lightfoot, who helped prosecute aldermen in the Silver Shovel scandal and later helped clean up corruption in the citys minority contracting program, has taken the broadest approach, bringing together 15 aldermanic challengers behind a good government pledge. Paul Vallas posed with a broom Monday calling for a clean sweep and Willie Wilson argued that electing self-funded millionaire candidates like him will eliminate potential conflicts of interest. On Tuesday, Amara Enyia contrasted her background from candidates with ties to the establishment and ties to corruption. Four mayoral candidates, including three who have ranked at the top of polls and fundraising, could be hurt by links to Burke. Of them, Gerry Chico was Burkes candidate and may now be entirely out of the running, though he wasnt a strong contender to begin with. The family of Bill Daley, who leads in fundraising, has a long, sometimes competitive and often supportive relationship with Burke. Bill Daley helped negotiate the deal that got Burke his finance committee chairmanship. Hes been offering a random series of proposals seemingly aimed less at setting an agenda than grabbing headlines. But its hard to imagine an electorate focused on reform installing yet another Daley on the fifth floor of City Hall. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle has been hurt most, since a fundraiser Burke held on her behalf figures into the criminal charges he faces. She has stumbled in her response to the scandal, taking weeks to agree to return the money Burke raised on her behalf. Her statement that she is appalled by Ald. Ed Burkes apparent abuse of his position for personal gain sounds like the Claude Rains character in Casablanca being shocked, shocked that theres gambling in Ricks Cafe. Her frontrunner status is threatened. Preckwinkle has attracted support from leading progressive unions and elected officials, and has taken strong positions on issues ranging from rent control to closing loopholes in the citys sanctuary ordinance. But particularly since her embrace of former Cook County Assessor Joe Berrios, whom she succeeded as chair of the countys Democratic Party, her image as a good-government reformer who is independent of the machine has been tarnished. At Patch, Mark Konkol looks at Preckwinkles donors and concludes that shes a lapsed independent connected by cold hard cash to the good old boys club she publicly denounces. This duality isnt new. As 4th Ward alderman, she founded the City Councils first Progressive Caucus and helped win a living wage ordinance (over Burkes opposition) and affordable housing set-asides. She led a court intervention demanding the public release of police misconduct records. She was one of a handful who opposed the parking meter deal. But back in her ward she relied heavily on campaign donations from developers. Search the archives of the Hyde Park Herald and youll find repeated references to Preckwinkle com[ing] under fire for accepting donations from representatives of the development community currently at work in her ward. The notorious Tony Rezko, later convicted on corruption charges, was a major donor for many years. Preckwinkle isnt particularly well positioned to lead the charge for reform. In her IVI-IPO questionnaire, she declined to support a ban on political contributions from city contractors, parties seeking permits or zoning changes, or lobbyists. She said she supports public financing of political campaigns the best option currently out there for cleaning up pay-to-play politics in theory but not as a priority. On these issues, she could stand to evolve. And as a former member of the Progressive Caucus, she might consider speaking in favor of its set of proposals. Preckwinkles problems could give a boost to State Comptroller Susana Mendoza, her closest competition in polls. So far Mendoza has avoided much blowback from the scandal, emphasizing Burkes endorsement of Chico. Asked about the fact that her wedding ceremony was performed in Burkes home, she (like Preckwinkle regarding her fundraiser in the same home) now says it reflects her relationship with the aldermans wife, Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke. Mendoza sang a much different tune in 2011, when it was Ed Burke who introduced her as she declared her candidacy for city clerk. She told the alderman, You are a true champion of mine, adding, He is really primarily the reason why I even stand before you as a state representative. The announcement was held at UNO Charter Schools Marquez campus, and Mendoza said that winning state funding for the school was one of my absolute proudest accomplishments in Springfield. That puts her in the company of Emanuel, Burke, and House Speaker Michael Madigan in backing UNO, which was later mired in contracting and securities scandals before being rebranded as Acero. Today, Mendoza has a swell-sounding proposal bringing resources to under-enrolled schools. This reflects the new political reality after Emanuels school policy failures: a new Chicago Teachers Union poll shows 93 percent of voters support a focus on neighborhood schools. But back when unwarranted charter expansion was draining resources from those schools, Mendoza was with Burke on the wrong side. Now she is promising only a two-year moratorium on school closings. It would be the height of historical irony if a scandal for Ed Burke resulted in a mayoralty for Susana Mendoza. | https://www.chicagoreporter.com/will-toni-preckwinkles-woes-boost-susana-mendoza-in-mayoral-race/ |
Who hasnt received money from Ald. Ed Burke? | The fallout from last weeks bombshell federal extortion charges against Ald. Edward M. Burke has already forced mayoral candidates to denounce him and pledge to return campaign contributions. On Sunday, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle denounced Burke, the citys longest-serving alderman, and said she would return more than $116,000 he raised for her at a fundraiser he held at his home last January. That followed promises last month by Preckwinkle and fellow mayoral candidate Susana Mendoza to donate the thousands of dollars each had received from Burke directly. But for Burkes aldermanic colleagues, the spotlight has been less harsh, despite the fact that the longtime city power broker has showered his fellow aldermen with thousands of dollars in campaign cash over the past two decades, according to a Reporter analysis of state campaign finance records. On Monday, Aldermen Joe Moore (49th), Susan Sadlowski Garza (10th), and John Arena (45th) jockeyed for a spot in front of the television cameras at City Hall to suggest good government reforms in light of the corruption allegations against Burke. But each of them has accepted campaign contributions from the powerful alderman. In fact, it is easier to make a list of sitting aldermen who have not received donations from Burkes campaign funds than to list all those who have. Thirty-six of the citys 50 alderman have received some money from Burkes three political committees, which together have meted out more than $102,000 to current aldermen. (That doesnt count another $122,000 to ward democratic organizations, which are run by ward committeemen who are often the same as the alderman.) By far the biggest beneficiary of Burkes largesse is Ald. Patrick OConnor, the councils second longest-serving alderman and vice chair of the finance committee, which he took over when Burke resigned from the post last week. OConnor, who has been in office since 1983, has received at least $19,000 from Burkes committees since 2002, according to state campaign finance records. OConnor did not respond to requests for comment Monday. Aldermen Emma Mitts (37th), Howard Brookins (21st) and Willie Cochran (20th), all members of the councils Black Caucus, have each received $6,500 or more from Burkes committees. Cochran, who is facing his own federal indictment for allegedly shaking down businessmen and misusing campaign funds, is not running for re-election. All but one member of the Black Caucus, Derrick Curtis, has received some money from Burke. Not all donations went to Burke allies Spreading campaign cash to his fellow aldermen is one way that Burke has maintained his political clout and his powerful committee chairmanship, said Dick Simpson, former alderman and professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. If you looked at other alderman, while you would see they have contributed to a few fellow aldermen, maybe their close friends, they havent contributed in a significant way, Simpson said. Burke is a major outlier. Not all of Burkes campaign money has gone to aldermen who are politically allied with him. Nearly every member of the councils Progressive Caucus, which has typically painted itself as against the old-school style of Chicago machine politics that Burke embodies, have also accepted Burke campaign funds. Ald. Ricardo Muoz, 22nd Ward, a Progressive Caucus member who made his own appearance in court last week on domestic violence charges, received more than $5,000 from Burkes committees from 2002 to 2011. He hasnt received any money since. Muoz, who was appointed to the council in 1993, had often appeared at odds with Burke and even took a shot at him when he announced in July that hed be retiring at the end of this term. I dont suffer from founder-itis or incumbent-itis like Burke, he told the Tribune. I dont have to be here when Im 72 years old. Even 32nd Ward Ald. Scott Waguespack, one of the most outspoken aldermen in the Progressive Caucus, who co-sponsored a bill last month that would have removed the $100 million workers compensation fund from under Burkes control, has received $1,450 from Burkes committees, most recently in January 2017. Waguespack said he thinks the money came from various fundraisers that Burke has attended over the years. When I go to an aldermans event, Ill pay for whatever you go to, he said. Im assuming its the same thing. He said he was actually kind of surprised when Burke showed up to a fundraiser of his a few years ago and said he was sure there was no quid pro quo. Ed Burke and I have always butted heads, and Ive never really gotten along with a lot of what hes done, Waguespack said. But he demurred when asked if he would return the donations. I could take a look at it, he said. But in my situation, Ive just never looked at it as you need to do something with a donation. Of the 44 aldermen running for re-election, 18 have received campaign cash from Burkes committees since the last election (not including Burke himself). Asked whether aldermen should consider returning Burkes contributions now that hes been charged by the feds, Simpson was quick to respond: I think if it was in this election cycle, they probably would be wise to do so, he said. Campaign Contributions from Ald. Ed Burke to sitting aldermen Alderman Ward Amount Patrick O'Connor 40 $19,000 Emma Mitts 37 $7,650 Howard Brookins 21 $7,300 Willie Cochran 20 $6,500 Raymond Lopez 15 $5,250 Ricardo Muoz 22 $5,050 Carrie Austin 34 $4,350 James Cappleman 46 $4,000 Anthony Beale 9 $3,850 Leslie Hairston 5 $3,850 Joe Moore 49 $2,750 Michelle Harris 8 $2,750 Walter Burnett 27 $2,750 Tom Tunney 44 $2,700 Margaret Laurino 39 $2,500 Anthony Napolitano 41 $2,000 Patrick Daley Thompson 11 $2,000 Roderick Sawyer 6 $1,750 Danny Solis 25 $1,500 George Cardenas 12 $1,500 Michael Scott Jr. 24 $1,500 Scott Waguespack 32 $1,450 David Moore 17 $1,250 Pat Dowell 3 $1,250 Roberto Maldonado 26 $1,250 Toni Foulkes 16 $1,200 Ameya Pawar 47 $1,000 Sophia King 4 $1,000 Brendan Reilly 42 $750 Chris Taliaferro 29 $500 Matthew O'Shea 19 $500 Proco Joe Moreno 1 $500 Susan Sadlowski Garza 10 $500 Ariel Reboyras 30 $250 Jason Ervin 28 $250 John Arena 45 $250 Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Ald. Deb Mell received $3,000 from Ald. Ed Burkes committees. $1,500 of that money was given to the committee of Mells father, retired Ald. Dick Mell. The remaining $1,500 was reported as a donation after Dick Mell retired, but does not appear in either Deb Mells or Dick Mells campaign committee and is therefore unaccounted for. The total amount given to current candidates and the total number of candidates who received money from Burke have also been updated. A previous version of this story misstated the year Ald. Patrick OConnor was first elected alderman. It is 1983, not 1998. | https://www.chicagoreporter.com/who-hasnt-received-money-from-ed-burke/ |
Why is Naseeruddin Shah under attack? | It is strange how I never thought of Naseeruddin Shah as a Muslim until now when his religious identity is being used against him to prove he is anti-national. But hang on. Because he expressed trepidation about the future of this country and, more specifically, his children. Here is what Naseer said: "The poison has already spread. It will be very difficult to capture this djinn back in the bottle. There is complete impunity for those who take law into their own hands. In many areas we are witnessing that the death of a cow has more significance than that of a police officer. I feel anxious thinking about my children. Because they don't have a religion. Tomorrow if a mob surrounds them and asks 'Are you a Hindu or a Muslim', they will have no answer. It worries me because I don't see the situation improving anytime soon." I am a little lost after repeatedly reading this. Except maybe Anupam Kher, who thinks everything is hunky-dory in India today. But I am happy to inform you that Naseer is not going anywhere. He is not wrong in feeling anxious about the future. As the outspoken Swara Bhaskar said to me: "Quite simply, the attack on Naseeruddin Shah proves his point more than anything else. Intolerance is a government-approved malaise in this new Hindustan of ours." My dear Shabana Azmi is right in saying there should be some amount of distinction between the government and the national identity. If one criticises the government, one is not being anti-national. If one doesn't watch Anupam Kher play Manmohan Singh, one is not pro-Congress. And if one disagrees with Mrs Kirron Kher that "The Accidental Prime Minister" (which coincidentally stars her husband) should be sent to the Oscars, one is not anti-national either. The country is in the grip of an unprecedented culture of conformity. Everybody must love certain politicians to qualify as a true Indian. And if you have any reservations about any of the government's policies (including reservations) you will be booked an air ticket to Pakistan. Or worse, forced to watch Vivek Oberoi play our Prime Minister on the day the film releases. I threw away my Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Mehndi Hassan CDs the day Mrs Kher declared her husband's film Oscar-worthy without seeing it. (Subhash K. Jha writes on cinema. Views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at [email protected]) --IANS skj/vm | https://in.news.yahoo.com/why-naseeruddin-shah-under-attack-063010994.html |
Can SP-BSP alliance be a game changer? | When a Narendra Modi wave was sweeping the country ahead of the 2014 general election, the two prominent parties of Uttar Pradesh were struggling to protect their support base. One of them -- the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) -- could not win a single seat out of the 80 Lok Sabha seats the state has, as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept to national power. The other -- Samajwadi Party (SP) -- managed to win five seats; all winners belonged to the Yadav family. The 2017 assembly elections produced another landslide in favour of the BJP. Yet, the SP and BSP won a combined vote share of 41.80% and 44%, respectively, in the 2014 general election and 2017 UP assembly polls.The BJP polled 42.30% and 39.6%, respectively. Not that there is a mathematical answer to every election, but ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, all political parties are putting their caste calculations in order. When SP national president Akhilesh Yadav says he has picked up the BJPs formula to win elections, he is referring to the caste alliances that the BJP put in place in 2014 and 2017. Read more| We finally got our math right, Akhilesh Yadav on SP-BSP alliance Despite the Modi wave, the BJP entered caste alliances in 2014 and tied up with Apna Dal (representing the Kurmis) and Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (Rajbhars) in Uttar Pradesh. Both Kurmis and Rajbhars are concentrated in eastern UP. Political analyst Badri Narain says the SP-BSP alliance may prove to be a game changer, damaging the BJPs prospects in Uttar Pradesh, from where it won 73 Lok Sabha seats in 2014. He says the coming together of two social bases sections of the other backward classes (OBCs) and the Dalits may actually turn the tables on the BJP. The SP-BSP alliance may also prevent a split in the Muslims vote. Together, the Yadavs, Jatavs and Muslims ,along with a section of the OBCs, will make for a winning combination although they may or may not have any role in the formation of the government at the Centre. Experts believe that if the Congress manages to win 100-plus seats in the Lok Sabha polls, the SP-BSP combine may extend its support to the national party and demand a share in power. As of now, their main intent is to survive in state politics, activate their cadre and weaken the BJP in 2019 so that their state assembly battle in 2022 becomes easier. If they lose 2019, there will be an exodus from their parties, said an analyst. Read more| We will leave 2 seats for Congress, says Akhilesh Yadav on Lok Sabha poll plan In private, BJP leaders also concede that it is going to be a fiercely fought election. The alliance did not exist when we claimed victory on 100% seats. Now the rules of the game have changed, a BJP leader said on condition of anonymity. The 10 % quota in government jobs and college seats carved out this week for the upper caste poor is partly a result of the BJPs desire to consolidate its vote base. Some upper castes were upset with the BJP-led central governments decision to restore provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act that were struck down by the Supreme Court. Satish Prakash, a Dalit activist from western UP, asked, When the BJP is bringing constitutional amendments to appease 2-3% voters, why shouldnt other parties also form caste alliances? The inclusion of the Congress in the alliance would have made it more formidable, he said. Why is Congress so overconfident and ignoring the advantage it can derive by striking a national alliance with the BSP?, he asked. First Published: Jan 12, 2019 11:35 IST | https://www.hindustantimes.com/lok-sabha-elections/can-sp-bsp-alliance-be-a-game-changer/story-5RbHwDmSifmUJWwzoHokBP.html |
How will the new 10% quota affect admissions to colleges? | On Wednesday, Parliament passed the Constitution (124th Amendment) Bill, which paves the way for the new quota, but the actual implementation details are still to be worked out. Here is a quick look at some of the questions that have come up. The economically backward among general category students, or those not included in the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes the social groups currently covered by reservations. But economic backwardness is yet to be defined: a benchmark of family income less than Rs 8 lakh per year and ownership of land less than five acres has been widely reported in the media but this does not have official seal yet. According to the bill, states will have to define backwardness and frame a mechanism for the quotas implementation. While the bill allows the government to introduce 10% reservation in both public and private educational institutions, it is unlikely this will be extended to private institutions. A similar legal provision enabling reservations for Other Backward Classes has existed since 2006 but has not been implemented in private schools and colleges. If the government extends the 10% quota to private colleges, it is likely to face pressure from Other Backward Classes groups to implement quotas for them as well. It is also likely to face resistance from private universities. A quota for poor students makes no sense without a fee waiver, said a faculty member from a private university in Gujarat. He wondered if the government would offer financial support to private institutions to enable them to extend such fee waivers. All central universities currently follow the same reservation policy 15% seats for Scheduled Castes, 7.5% for Scheduled Tribes and 27% for those among the Other Backward Classes with annual family income under Rs 8 lakh or what is described as the non-creamy layer. If the new 10% quota is implemented at all, admission into public institutions will likely be through the same mechanism used for the Other Backward Classes. For Other Backward Classes admissions, colleges require caste and income certificates and a separate merit list is drawn up with lower minimum scores for admission than for general category students. The changes might not be dramatic since the 50% of general category seats in public universities are mostly occupied by upper caste students who come from economically diverse backgrounds. Majority are from the upper castes but they include many from families with low income because the general cost of education in public institutions is low, said Sony Kunjappan, president, Central University of Gujarat Teachers Association. Satish Deshpande, professor of sociology at Delhi School of Economics, said the affluent upper-castes continue to dominate the general category but increasingly students eligible for the reserved categories are picking up the more competitive general category seats. The changing composition of the general category so that it resembles society is a good sign, he said. The 10% quota could come at the cost of such students. Depending on the state laws under which they were established, some private colleges are already required to implement some form of reservation. In Haryana, for example, private universities are required to reserve 10% of their seats for students domiciled in the state and offer varying degrees of fee-concessions. The vice-chancellor of a private university in Sonipat said that income is a factor while determining the extent of scholarship. Karnatakas private colleges offering professional education such as medicine are required to fill 55% of their seats through a central admission system managed by the government. As opposed to the 45% seats for which college managements typically charge Rs 1.6 lakh per year, these government quota seats come at a lower fee: Rs 10,000 for 5% seats and Rs 55,000 for the remaining 50%. We just about break even, said the owner of a number of private institutions offering professional education. On the possibility of 10% reservation for low-income students, he said the government must compensate us for it otherwise it wont be possible. Both public and private institutions support students from low income families through fee waivers and scholarships. While Maharashtra colleges do not have income-based reservation, economically backward class students can get tuition concessions and waivers through a state scholarship scheme. These students would take admission through open competition and then apply for scholarship, said Madhu Paranjape from the Maharashtra Federation of University and College Teachers Organisation. I taught at Kirti [M Dongursee College of Arts, Commerce and Sciences] all my life and we used to have a very large number of EBC [economically backward class] students. But such enabling financial support has shrunk in several universities. A faculty-member from the Central University of Kerala said that a merit-cum-means scholarship offered by the university had gone a long way to help students. The central universities are in rural areas so all categories of students are from economically weak backgrounds, said the faculty member. But the scholarship was discontinued due to shortage of funds about two years ago. Where a system akin to quotas for poor students has helped is in professional education in private institutions. Another Mumbai University teacher pointed to the All India Council for Technical Educations scheme, launched in 2007, offering fee-waivers to students from families with an annual income under Rs 6 lakh (originally Rs 2.5 lakh). The total number of such students is fixed to 5% of the sanctioned seats and the institution is permitted to admit an equal number of full-fee paying students. The implication of the proposed quota, said Satish Deshpande, is that it takes forward the process of disowning and denying caste discrimination. Reservation was unique in being practically the only policy designed to address the historical inequality between caste groups, he said. Madhu Paranjape said that the quota essentially represents a failure to expand access to higher education. | https://scroll.in/article/908941/how-will-the-new-10-quota-affect-admissions-to-colleges |
Where Next for Joel Obi? | When Nigerian international Joel Obi moved from Torino to Chievo at the beginning of the season, he felt he had at last found a new haven. However, with 11 appearances and just a goal to show for his effort, the management of Torino is already thinking of shipping out the Nigerian. After the signing for Torino from Chievo Verona, Joel Obi said A new adventure is about to begin, but it was not to be as the management of the Donkeys is getting impatient with the former Inter Milan midfielder and would be ready to cash-in in the winter transfer season. The 27-year-old Super Eagles midfielder has been linked with a loan move to Turkish top flight side Alanyaspor. According to a report on Turkish media outlet Fanatik.com.tr Obi is currently in talks with Alanyaspor with a deal expected to be agreed before the end of the winter transfer window. Obi moved from Torino to Chievo Verona at the beginning of the Serie A season after the 27-year-old put pen to paper on a three-year deal for an undisclosed transfer fee in what would be his fourth club for an Italian side. After winning the Allievi Nazionali Under-17 championship in 2008, Obi was moved to the Primavera formation, where he had over 40 appearances and six goals in just under three years. In 2009, the then Inter Milan Manager, Jose Mourinho noticed his immense talent and played him occasionally in the first-team. In 2010, even if without playing, he was registered to the clubs A list of players, who won the UEFA Champions League against Bayern Munich. With the arrival of Rafael Benitez in summer 2010, he moved Obi with the first-team and he made his debut for Inter in a Champions League group stage game against Werder Bremen where he played the final 10 minutes of the match after coming on as a substitute in the 80th minute. After some cameo appearances in the Italian Serie A and Supercoppa Italiana injury came knocking and it was not until the 2012-13 season that Obi made another few appearances in the colours of the Nerrazzurri before he was sent on loan to Parma. His return to Inter two seasons later was not too impressive spending just a season before being shipped to Torino. Since then his football career has been bleated by injuries. However, since the beginning of the season, Obi had shown blinks of his old self which is probably was what convinced the German-born Nigerian Coach Gernot Rohr to invite him for the two-headed friendly matches against Poland and Serbia, perhaps for a first-hand assessment. His invitation will come four years after his last call up to the national team, as his last game for the Super Eagles came in a friendly game in 2014 against Scotland. He earned his first call to the Super Eagles in a friendly game against Sierra Leone in Lagos in 2011 and was full of promise, playing 11 games in a row for the senior national team before an injury put paid to his Eagles ambition. His next stint at the national team was during the preliminary of the 2014 World Cup but he never made Nigerias squad to the Mundial. Surprisingly, Rohr recalled the midfielder for the friendly games against Poland and Serbia prior to the World Cup, though he was part of the Super Eagles team to Russia he never featured in any of the teams group matches before being eliminated. In an interview with THISDAY when he made the move from Torino, former Nigerian international Friday Ekpo said his move to Chievo is good for him as long as he would enjoy his football there and an opportunity to still be relevant in the national team as he would always bring his experience to bare. Hes a vastly experienced player and for injuries that have really punctured his career, he is supposed to be one of the leading top midfielders in Europe if not the world by now. For now, he seems to be injury free and enjoying his game. One thing I know for sure is that on his good day and if hes injury free he would add value to the team and his vast experience would be a plus, Ekpo said. The former Inter man, now 27, is presumably at the peak of his physical powers. He made nine appearances (eight of those starts) in all competitions for Torino last season, scoring three times and assisting twice. Then again, there has never been any uncertainty over his productivity and ability. What is rather less apparent is how consistently his skills can be harnessed. Last season, Obi missed five weeks due to injury. In 2016/17, that number was 13. In 2015/16, it was 20. This is the tragedy at the very core of a wondrous talent, the thorn in his flesh as it were: to be eternally buffeted by muscular injuries. Yet, so great is his talent and range that, when fit, he is impossible to ignore, and this is true both for club and country. Following that initial stumble, the reboot of the national team did eventually happen under the late Stephen Keshi, and when he had secured a ticket to the 2014 World Cup, it was to Obi he turned to improve the then African champions. His slaloming brilliance and deft left foot would not have looked out of place in Brazil. Predictably though, just on the eve of the final squad announcement, he suffered yet another injury, drawing a long, plaintive sigh from all and sundry. For former Super Eagles defensive midfielder, Waidi Akani, Obis talent has never been in doubt. He is one player I admire so much and sympathise with. The question has always been on his fitness, he noted. The 27-year-old has played in the Italian Serie A for Inter Milan, Parma and Torino, he has made a total of 15 appearances for the Super Eagles and is yet to register a goal. Obi has made 117 league appearances in seven years since he jogged on to the San Siro pitch to replace Philippe Coutinho.. | https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2019/01/12/where-next-for-joel-obi/ |
Was hilft bei Erfrierungen? | Trotz guter Winterbekleidung kommt es immer wieder mal vor, dass man sich eine Erfrierung oder Unterkhlung zuzieht. Welche Alarmsignale es gibt, wie man sich schtzt und was im Ernstfall zu tun ist, erklrt Hautexperte Dr. Christian Seer. Jeder kennt die Geschichten von Bergsteigern, die sich auf den hchsten Bergen der Welt Erfrierungen zugezogen haben. Doch Finger, Fuzehen und Nasenspitze erfrieren nicht erst bei Temperaturen von minus 30 Grad Celsius. Klteschden knnen sogar bei Temperaturen um den Gefrierpunkt auftreten. Gerade wenn die Haut feucht ist, man schwitzt oder Regen und Wind hinzukommen, kann die Haut bereits gefhrlich abkhlen, erklrt Dr. Christian Seer, Hautarzt in Altenmarkt. mehr lesen Sie in der aktuellen Ausgabe am Mittwoch, dem 9. Jnner 2019! | http://www.ennsseiten.at/was-hilft-bei-erfrierungen/ |
What is a certificate? | Certificates, it turns out, are important. Expired certificates can cause you huge problems - that's what the stories in the news are telling us. To answer these questions, let's step back a bit and look at why you need certificates in the first place. Let's assume that two people, Alice and Bob, want to exchange secret information. Let's go further, and say that Bob is really Bobcorp, Alice's bank, and she wants to be able to send and receive her bank statements in encrypted form. There are well-established ways to do this, and the easiest way is for them to agree on a shared key they will use to both encrypt and decrypt each other's messages. Luckily, there are some clever ways in which they can manage a "handshake" between the two of them, even if they've not communicated before, which ends in both having a copy of the key without the chance of anybody else getting hold of it. The problem is that Alice can't be sure that she's actually talking to Bobcorp (or vice versa). Bobcorp probably doesn't mind at this point, because he can ask Alice to provide her login credentials, which will allow him to authenticate her. But Alice really does care: she certainly shouldn't be handing her login details to somebodylet's call her "Eve"who's just pretending to be Bob. The solution to this problem comes in two parts: certificates and certificate authorities (CAs). A CA is a well-known and trusted party with whom Bobcorp has already established a relationship, typically by providing company details, website details, and the like. Bobcorp also creates and sends the CA a special key and specific information about itself (maybe including the business name, address, and website information). The CA, having established Bobcorp's bona fides, creates a certificate for Bobcorp, incorporating the information that was requested; in fact, some of the information Bobcorp sends the CA is usually in the form of a "self-signed certificate," so pretty much all the CA needs to do is provide its own signature. Alice still needs to trust the CA, right?" The answer is that she does. But there will typically be a small number of CAs in comparison to Bobcorp-type companies, so all Alice needs to do is ensure that she can trust a few CAs, and she's now good to go. In a web-browsing scenario, Alice will usually have downloaded a browser that already has appropriate, built-in trust relationships with the main CAs. She can now perform safe handshakes with lots of companies, and as long as she (or her browser) checks that they provide certificates signed by a CA that she trusts, she's relatively safe. But there's a twist. The certificates that the CA issues to Bobcorp (and others) typically have an expiration date on them. This isn't just to provide the CA with a recurring revenue streamthough I'm sure that's a nice benefitbut it's also in case Bobcorp's situation changes: what if it has gone bankrupt, for instance, or changed its country of business?1 So after a period of time (typically a year or two, but maybe less or more), Bobcorp must reapply to get a new certificate. Well, when Alice visits Bobcorp's site and the browser notices an expired certificate, it should want her not to proceed, and she shouldn't give them any information until it's renewed. This sounds like a pain, and it is: Bobcorp and its customers are going to be severely inconvenienced. Somebody within Bobcorp whose job it was to renew the certificate is going to be in trouble. Life is even worse in the case where no actual people are involved. If, instead of Alice, we have an automated system A, and instead of Bob, we have an automated system, B. A still needs to trust that it's talking to the real Bin case an evil system, E, is pretending to be Bso certificates are still required. In this case, if B's certificate expires, A should quite rightly refuse to connect to it. There is no easy way to fix such a problem or to tell the many, many A-type systems that might have been trying to communicate with the B system(s) to carry on regardless. And so, for want of a nail, the kingdom was lost. Avoid single points of failure, think about fallback modes, and be ready to move to remedy unexpected errors. Quickly. 1. There are also various mechanisms to revoke, or cancel, certificates but they typically are complex, ill-implemented in many casesand consequently little-used. This article was originally published on Alice, Eve, and Bob and is reprinted with the author's permission. | https://opensource.com/article/19/1/what-certificate |
Do The Wall And Government Shutdown Justify A National Emergency? | There's the rich, the poor, and the tax payers...also known as the middle class. Robert Kiyosaki The Tax you pay is The Bill for Staying Stupid Stefan Molyneux Taxation is legalized Theft UNKNOWN "The Objective of the Bank is not the control of a conflict , it's the control of the debt that a conflict produces . The real value of a conflict , the true value is in the debt that it creates . You control the debt , you control everything . this is THE VERY ESSENCE OF THE BANKING INDUSTRY , to make us all , whether we be nations or individuals , SLAVES TO DEBT " An UNKNOWN Banker Patriotism is the last refuge... to which the scoundrel clings .... Steal a little and they throw you in jail ..steal a lot and they make you king .... Bob Dylan "Corporations are stealing billions in tax breaks, while the confused, screwed citizenry turn on each other. International corporations have no national allegiance, they care only for profit." Robert Reich Steve Quayle Your Greatest Teacher is Your Last Mistake DAVID ICKE The one who Controls the Education System , Controls Perception UNKNOWN | https://financearmageddon.blogspot.com/2019/01/do-wall-and-government-shutdown-justify.html |
What Would A World With Decentralized Transport Look Like? | This article is Part 1 of 2. In Part 1, I discuss the concept of decentralization and how it pertains to decision-making and authority. In Part 2, Ill build on the concepts in this article specifically through the lens of transportation and mobility. These days, decentralization is a quasi-buzzword. Its only quasi because most people dont really understand what it means, and even amongst the technorati there has been some disagreement on the definition. There are also various types of decentralization. So for the sake of this article, lets settle on no single entity controls everything. Another way of thinking of a decentralized network is to consider the slicing scenario. If you were to slice the networkincluding its usersin half (or thirds, or whatever), and the two halves were to continue to operate independently, its decentralized. Its a buzzword because its a (and perhaps the) central promise of blockchain, and goes arm-in-arm with other words like disruptive, transformative and world-changing. Its used in marketing for a wide variety of blockchain projects, many of which are appropriate for the decentralization model. Of course, many are not, as we have come to learn. Centralization is the Status Quo Our world has largely operated in a centralized fashion since time immemorial. Banks are our trusted gatekeepers to and custodians of our money, for saving, lending, borrowing, and investing. Government provides excellent examples of centralized order: look at the feudal system, which held sway in Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Power and land were the province of the King (or less often, the Queen), and in exchange for taxes, service and loyalty, dukes and earls held, worked and profited from those lands granted them. The dukes and earls couldnt manage those lands by themselves, so lesser lords swore fealty to them for smaller portions of land, again in exchange for taxes and loyalty. This continued down to the serf, who was bound to the land he worked, his labour offered to his lord in exchange for protection. Of particular relevance to this discussion is the way authority was transmitted in a feudal network. All rules, all policies and all protocols came from the King, who informed his direct underlings (the dukes and earls) of his wishes. These great lords notified their own underlings of the royal decrees and so forth. Notably, at each tier of authority the lord would usually call upon his most important underlings to attend a council for advice on meaningful matters, but just as notably the final decision was always the lords. There was no question that authority and decision-making power was held by those above you in station. Your participation in all such matters wouldve been solely at their pleasure. At the beginning I stated that decentralization is often nebulous in its definition, and this is reflected in all of its applications. Consider the business management definition of a decentralized organization: a systematic delegation of authority at all levels of management and in all of the organization. Within the details of that definition though, we see that while more authority is given to lower-rank members of a team than is customary, ultimate authority and strategic decisions remain at the top. Id argue that this model is better titled somewhat re-distributed authority, where the old rules still apply. Actual decentralized authority, as you might find on a blockchain, is where no single entity controls everything. Theres no chief executive, or board of directors, or suite of vice presidents making decisions for the whole or larger part. Instead, each participant in the system is a member of the entire body, and each participant has as much authority as the next participant. No one is special, no one has a tie-breaking vote, no one has veto power. Decisions that impact the entire body are made as a whole, with each participant having a voice. Decisions that have to do with just the participant are decided upon by that participant. Decisions that involve two (or three or four, etc) participants are decided upon by the involved parties, again with each having a voice. To a large degree, the Internet is an example of decentralization. It is a body that has no central governance. There are multiple stakeholders who have varied, complex and competing interests who ultimately cooperate to bring about consensus on policies and standards created for the public good. Participation in governance by these interconnected and autonomous networks is voluntary. They represent the public and private sectors, academia, and national organizations among others. The decentralization however ceases at the stakeholder group level, where each group has its own board, executives and staff, all of whom have roles to play within their own hierarchies. Keep an eye out for Part 2 next week, where I put the ideas discussed in this article to use in a meaningful scenario for the average consumer in the transport space. | https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnfrazer1/2019/01/12/what-would-a-world-with-decentralized-transport-look-like/ |
Which Premier League sides are likely to be busy in rest of January transfer window? | The video will start in 8 Cancel Get football 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 Tottenham Hotspur have signed fewer players in January than any other Premier League club. The January window is notoriously bad for clubs looking for value for money in their signings. Small wonder then that famously shrewd Spurs chairman, Daniel Levy, has signed just two players in the last five windows. Thats fewer than any other current top flight club. WIN 25,000 for FREE with Footie5 - click here to play Lucas Moura was the most recent signing when he joined Tottenham last January, while the other is Dele Alli who joined in January 2015 before immediately going back out on loan to the club hed joined from - MK Dons. (Image: Getty Images) That works out as just 7% of the signings - including loans - that Tottenham made between summer 2013 and January 2018. Thats also the lowest percentage of signings made in the winter window of any current Premier League club. Liverpool and Manchester United have made just four January signings each over the last five windows, while Arsenal and Southampton have made six each. (Image: Liverpool FC via Getty Images) Cardiff , on the other hand, cant seem to get enough of the January window. The Bluebirds have made 34 January signings over the last five seasons, the same number as they have made in the summer. A large chunk of those winter signings (12) were loans. Eight of the signings were made last January, four of which were loans. Other clubs to have been busy in January include Watford (33 signings), Wolves (29), Brighton (also 29) and Fulham (25). All transfer records have been taken from transfermarkt.co.uk . (Image: 2019 AFC Bournemouth) Number of January signings in last five windows | https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/premier-league-sides-likely-busy-13837473 |
Does cloud gaming mean game over for the home console? | At the very heart of the 110bn gaming market, the console wars have raged for decades. From the febrile 90s face-off of Sega v Nintendo -- with Sonic and Super Mario the unlikely generals of an often down-and-dirty scrap-- to the more recent three-way battle between Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, the battle for supremacy under the television has driven video games to become the most valuable entertainment industry in the world. There have been casualties along the way, but alongside the ubiquity of blockbuster PC gaming, consoles have been the industrys great survivor. Many predicted their downfall before this generation of hardware began in 2013, Sonys PlayStation 4 and Microsofts Xbox One set to suffer in the face of the burgeoning mobile games market. How quaint that seems now. While mobile gaming is a vast industry, making up 51% of the global gaming market, console gaming has continued to flourish. Sony has sold over 91 million PS4s so far, surpassing the 84 million lifetime sales of its predecessor. And while Microsoft has lagged behind with an estimated 39 million Xbox One sales, the software giants gaming head Phil Spencer recently said that Microsoft had its highest revenue year last year, with over $10 billion in revenue in the gaming category. | https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gaming/features/does-cloud-gaming-mean-game-home-console/ |
Should pregnant women be allowed to use parent and child parking bays? | 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 Parking up at stores and supermarkets can be tricky business and it's even harder when a woman is pregnant. Maneuvering yourself in and out of the car door can prove almost impossible with a bump in the way and that's without having young children to help too. We've been finding out. We've been asking Manchester mums for their views on the issue and it proved quite a contentious subject. Most support the idea of women using the bays. Like Amy Hodson-Ridgway, from Denton, who struggled finding spaces when she was pregnant with her twins Olivia and Ethan, now 10 months old. She said: "I definitely think pregnant women should be able to use them. I parked in a normal parking space at the hospital when I was 33 weeks pregnant with twins as the space next to me was empty so I could get out. "When I came back someone had parked in the spot next to me, really close to me, and I could not get in the car at all. "I had to go back in to the hospital and speak to security and after waiting for over half an hour to see if anyone came to the car I ended up giving the security guard my keys to reverse my car out for me as I couldnt even fit between the two cars." Mum Jamie Guarino, from Gee Cross, Hyde, is 37 weeks pregnant with twins and says she can no longer use the normal bays. She told the M.E.N's Manchester Family: "I cannot park in normal spaces as I cannot get out of the car due to the size of my bump. I do attempt where possible to park on an end space, where I can open my door fully, but its not always possible. "I have no objection to using the parent and child furthest from the door, but if I dont use those spaces I physically cannot get out of my car." And pregnant Claire Clayton was so stuck recently, she had to climb in her car through her boot. She said: "I use them even when I'm not with my two-year-old. I'm six months pregnant, like a whale and struggle in normal bays. "I actually went to M&S a month back and parked in a normal bay to come back to some idiot who'd parked that close to me they may as well have been parked on top of me. "I had to go through my boot get to driver's seat. People wrongly use these spaces all the time." But not all mums agree. Others told us they think the bays should only be used by people getting babies and young children in and out of the car. Kirstie Cash, mum to one-year-old Jessica, told us: "Personally I dont think they should be allowed to use them. Even heavily pregnant with swollen feet, anaemia and breathlessness, I wouldnt have used one. "I think that they should be child and parent only. If youre that big or unwell - get shopping delivered. "Theyre for parents to get their children out safely, not just convenience. I was large when pregnant and just parked on ends so I could get out without a parked car next to me. And I arrived early to appointments so I could take my time and not rush from one end of the car park." Claire Glover feels the same, saying: "I dont think being pregnant is reason enough to use a parent and child space." "Ive never struggled to find a decent parking space to suit my needs in any supermarket. If the parent spaces are taken I park towards the back of the car park where its quiet, or on an end space." Other parents told us what they objected to most was people using the spaces without any children at all, or abusing them in other ways. Lindsey Gregory shared two photos of a mobility scooter taking up a space at Aldi and a driver parking across parent and child spaces at Tesco, both in Stalybridge. She told us: "These are just some of the ridiculous abuse of the spaces Ive seen." David Connor, a director at WHN Solicitors, which has seven offices across Greater Manchester and Lancashire, said it's not clearcut. He said: Its a very woolly area of law as pregnant women are with child, but not in the technical sense. Heavily pregnant women need extra space in the same way a parent with a small child would need extra room to load shopping and children into the car. Youll see designated priority spaces close to entrances on trains and buses - so public transport recognises this need - but theres no law extending this to private car parks, meaning its at the land owners discretion. Some areas of law such as personal injury cover en ventre sa mere meaning a child in a mothers womb but this currently doesnt extend to contract law which governs car parking. By entering a private car park, youre effectively entering into a contract with the parking company, with the sign disclaimers creating the agreement. Closely monitor this signage as some do state the child must be with you to warrant parking in the parent and child spaces, while some dont. Ikea is a step ahead of many retailers by offering specific 'expectant mum' spaces. Sadly, this in only in America and there are no current plans to introduce them over here. A spokesman said it would be down to individual stores as to whether a pregnant woman could park in one of their parent and child bays. He said: "Our main aim is to make the shopping experience as smooth as possible for each customer and many stores offer extra assistance for those who need it." We found one retailer with a small number of expectant mum bays - Parrs Wood Entertainment Centre in Didsbury. Parent and child bays were introduced last year, which included two for expectant mothers. General manager Mark Welsby said: "We introduced parents and child bays as parents needed additional space to assist with placing babies and toddlers into prams or push chairs in a safe area. "With expectant mums they need the space as, especially near to term, it can be difficult getting in and out the car, add to that the size of their bump and it can sometimes be impossible given the size of a normal car parking bay." At Sainsbury's pregnant women can use the parent and child bays, but need to clear it with the individual store first. A spokeswoman said: "Use of the bays must be arranged with the store. They have to be aware so they can give the registration to the parking attendants monitoring the bays, in case it's not immediately clear that the customer is pregnant." Asda's policy is similar and pregnant customers would need to mention the fact they are using one of the bays to staff. Neither Tesco or Morrisons responded to our request for a comment. Let us know in the comments or on our Manchester Family Facebook page. | https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/pregnant-parent-child-parking-bay-15665753 |
What has Bidaai actress Sara Khan done to her face? | television Yesterday, Sara Khan found herself being trolled for going under the knife. Some felt she was aping American TV personality, Kylie Jenner. Fans ridiculed her for her makeup and botched-up surgery Sara Khan Sapna Babul Ka actor Sara Khan is looking different these days. The TV actor's lips look plumper and her face tauter. She shared a selfie on Instagram and fans were quick to notice the vast difference. Yesterday, she found herself being trolled for going under the knife. Some felt she was aping American TV personality Kylie Jenner. Fans ridiculed her for her makeup and botched-up surgery. The actress also shared a picture on her social media handle. She captioned: "Something exciting for the (Sapna Babul ka) bidaai lovers as its my turn to return the love I got. Recreating bidaais Track for u all , dedicated to all the bride to be ,as this season I see a lot of marriages taking place. Super fun Track is on its way for u all with @altaafsayyedofficial #bidaai #sarakhan #sadhna #sapnababulka #starplus #recreation #nothingwentwrong #lol [sic]" The actress also shared one more picture which evidently shows a change in her look. View this post on Instagram #nomakeupdiaries #oilyhairdontcare A post shared by sara Khan (@ssarakhan) onJan 8, 2019 at 6:05am PST Catch up on all the latest entertainment news and gossip here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates | https://www.mid-day.com/articles/what-has-bidaai-actress-sara-khan-done-to-her-face/20235161 |
Will national carrier have another blue-eyed chief? | Share: LAHORE - PIA, an ailing public sector organistaion which has been feeding on the national exchequer for too long, is looking for a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) who need not have any commercial aviation experience. An advertisement published in media shows masters degree and War Course, and experience in shipping, naval, aviation or military operations as the required qualifications. It looks like the ad has been framed with some specific person, or at least certain group, in mind. Commercial aviation is a highly regulated specialised field subject to regulatory control of not only the aviation authority (CAA in our case) of the home country but also of every state where the aircraft lands or overflies. Commanding an airline, like any other commercial organisation, has got nothing to do with defence related operations. Even the army aviation or the air force management and operations are way different from commercial aviation. The advertisement, which has become viral on social media, has therefore raised eyebrows in the aviation circles. There is hardly any commercial airline or national civil aviation regulatory body of repute in world which is run by serving or retired military aviation professionals because of vast difference in their sphere of operations, said an aviation expert while seeking anonymity. To make his point clear, he explained that ICAO [the UN specialised agency which provides guidelines on almost everything regarding airlines operations] requires CAA to ensure that aircrafts registered by them have insurance coverage for aircraft, passengers and cargo carried by them in case of any eventuality. However, insurance of civil commercial transport aircraft restrict their operation only for commercial transportation and not for military operations, nor operation into declared war zones. Shedding more light on difference between military and civil aviation operations, he said, ICAO also determines minimum vertical and horizontal separation of aircraft operating in specified air corridors to meet safety standards as specified by national aviation authority where aircraft lands or overflies. When contacted, PIA spokesman furnished a highly unsatisfactory reply. Beating about the bush, he said that the advertisement was given in a broad prospective and the airline has invited peoples from all walks of life to apply for the post. War courses and military operations experience are not the only qualifications required to apply for the post rather these are part of qualifications, he added, dodging the question that why these qualifications were included in the first place. The PIA has been on a ventilator for many years, primarily because of stuffing it with appointment of blue-eyed people over the years by different governments both civil and military. Billions of rupees have already been pumped into the national flag carrier over time and it has mercilessly been used to serve vested interests at the cost of general public. With an operation fleet reduced from over 42 aircrafts to an average operational fleet of fewer than 22 aircrafts and shrinking schedules, and surplus employees of every cadre, most of them under qualified and mediocre capability, the once prestigious airline of Asia has been reduced to heap of mismanagement and disability. With total accumulated losses of over Rs440 billion and liabilities far exceeding its total assets, technically the PIA is already insolvent. Trimming down its top heavy management is a must for a turnaround. Primarily under the pressure from the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the present management has made some efforts to put the house in order. It has screened and sacked employees who had submitted fake qualifications and testimonials at time of initial recruitment, which under PIA Administration Rules has a penalty of dismissal with no benefits. However, there are still scores of parasites whose degrees are genuine but those have no relation to the work they are required to do. Many of them also have no relevant experience. Some of those who were either dismissed or whose licenses have been suspended by the CAA over the degrees issue were recruited during the tenure of late General Ziaul Haq such as the son of a former Lt-Gen, Jehanzeb Arbab, whom Hamoodur Rehman Report recommended for dismissal and court martial, or the nephew of former Defence Secretary Ijlal Haider Zaidi. Almost all the rest of the screened out people were recruited during the PPP governments. Past in Perspective PIA rose to its zenith from debris of disaster after 1971 debacle when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto requested Rafique Saigol to take over and steer it out of the crisis. Saigol restored the airline and handed it over to Air Marshal Nur Khan. It goes to the credit of Bhutto that he gave both Saigol and Nur Khan complete authority to the job and refrained from any political interference. Saigol and Nur both choose best team of commercial aviation professionals and recruited best qualified people strictly on merit. Nur Khan did not bring anybody from his parent organisation or from bureaucracy, with one exception a bureaucrat from police service whom he appointed as Director Administration. While Nur Khan raised morale of employees and was instrumental in aiding employees to form professional representative bodies, he strictly enforced administrative and financial discipline. In contrast, all other PIA heads that came from the PAF brought their teams from the air force and failed to deliver at par with Nur Khan. CAA: part of problem The CAA too is a big part of the problem as it has failed to perform its regulatory function and is primarily responsible for poor performance of airlines operating under its jurisdiction. It is also giving undue preference to airlines based in Gulf granting traffic rights, especially for carrying passengers from Pakistan to their bases in Gulf for onward flights to Europe and across the Atlantic. Today there is a surplus capacity of passenger revenue seats available in comparison to actual annual demand which is almost 13.5 million passenger seats, resulting in gross irregularities by Gulf based airlines that are heavily subsidized by oil revenues to the disadvantage of local aviation industry. | https://nation.com.pk/12-Jan-2019/will-national-carrier-have-another-blue-eyed-chief |
How far is Celine Domingo from peak physical form? | A little more than a month before the UAAP Season 81 Womens Volleyball tournament raises its curtain, FEUs Celine Domingo admits she is still far from her lethal form. Siguro nasa 60% pa lang ako right now. Nahihirapan pa rin ako. May plays pa rin ako na hindi kayang gawin, Domingo told Volleyverse. Back in September, the middle blocker suffered a knee injury while slugging it out in Game 2 of the PVL Collegiate Conference Finals against eventual champion UP Lady Maroons. After tests and consultations, Domingo was told about her degenerative meniscus which, according to an article by the World Journal of Orthopedics, results from repetitive normal forces acting upon a worn down meniscus. Describing what it was like to sit out games for FEU and her semi-pro team Smart Giga Hitters, Domingo says: Ang sakit nung nasa gilid ka lang kasi volleyball is life. Ang hirap na yung nakasanayan mo mababagong bigla. Having spent two and a half months in therapy, she is slowly but surely easing her way back into FEUs training program which, at the moment, is at a crucial juncture with the UAAP looming on the horizon. But more than the physical aspect of her recovery, Domingo is more wary of the voice of fear inside her headone that reminds her of that unfortunate day she sustained the injury. Natatakot pa rin ako na baka pag landing ko maulit yung nangyari, she shared. Nagdo-double time ako sa strengthening and conditioning. Pero yung takot kasi hindi yun basta nawawala eh. A key asset for the Lady Tamaraws net defense Already suffering a major blow in floor defense with the departure of Bernadeth Pons and Kyla Llana Atienza, FEU could use Domingos blocking prowess along with fellow middle blockers Czarina Grace Carandang and Jeanette Villareal to lighten the load of their floor defenders. There is nothing Domingo would rather do than to help the Lady Tamaraws match or even surpass their Season 80 feat. Excited na medyo mixed emotions kasi Ate (Bernadeth) Pons and Ate Kyla (Atienza) big loss yan eh. Tapos ang dami naming bago. Actually nga, hanggang ngayon medyo kapaan pa rin kami kasi kakabalik lang namin together from different tournaments, she said. Reiterating her desire to conquer her fears, she adds: I want to help the team pero I have to help myself muna para matulungan ko sila. Banking on the unparalleled vibe of the UAAP that brings out the best in student-athletes like her, Domingo closed by saying that somehow, some way, the loud drums, the high-octane action, and the thousands of volleyball fans cheering in unison will take away whatever fear she has left. Pag nag start naman UAAP mawawala na yan lahat. Based on experience kasi before pag nasa loob ka na ng court wala ka nang ibang iniisip pa. Pag UAAP iba talaga yung spirit na sumasapi sa players, said Domingo. The FEU Lady Tamaraws just completed a four-day training camp in Baguio, making them one step closer to naming the 14 players who will make it to their Season 81 line-up. | https://volleyverse.com/phi/uaap-volleyball-w/season-81-celine-domingo-injury-update/ |
Can a Live-Action Barbie Movie Be Feminist? | Barbie is (finally) coming to the big screen. The brains behind the blond icon have been trying to make a live-action Barbie movie happen for quite some time. Amy Schumer was initially attached to the project in December 2016, for a story about a Barbie who gets kicked out of Barbieland for not being perfect enough, setting her on a path to embracing inner beauty and individuality rather than unrealistic standards of perfection. A few months after the announcement, Schumer dropped out, citing scheduling conflicts, and was replaced by Anne Hathawaywho Vanity Fair declared to be the perfect choice because of her comedy chopsbut the Princess Diaries star also later stepped away from the role. So here we are in 2019, and it seems that the third times the charm because Mattel Films has just announced that it has partnered with Warner Brothers to make the live-action Barbie, produced by and starring Margot Robbie. And lets be real, with her slim figure, big blue eyes and blonde hair, she deffo looks like the classic doll. I mean, OG Barbie wasnt exactly the poster child for feminism. Playing with Barbie promotes confidence, curiosity and communication throughout a childs journey to self-discovery. Over the brands almost 60 years, Barbie has empowered kids to imagine themselves in aspirational roles from a princess to president, Robbie said in a statement quoted by Varietysentiments which are reiterated nearly verbatim on Barbies media website. Personally, I never saw myself reflected in my stash of Barbies. As a kid, I was once gifted an Indian Barbie which was just a white Barbie in a red sari. Later, I got another sari-clad Indian Barbie, this one with exactly the same facial features as the classic doll, just painted brown. Mattel is doing a much better job these days, having made a conscious effort to produce more inclusive Barbies with different body shapes, sizes, heights and skin tones. Its also leaning into empowerment; for International Womens Day 2018, the company released 17 dolls honouring modern-day role models including Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins and badass artist Frida Khalo. My first reaction was that making a live-action Barbie movie that is also feminist is impossible. With Robbie stepping into the role of Barbie, it seems to reaffirm that while there are a lot of other dolls with darker skin tones or different body types in the Barbie family, they are just that. Other. The real Barbie remains unchanged. (Her casting announcement already has some publications speculating who will play Ken, selecting only white men as potential options.) Casting Margot Robbie as Barbie is kind of a predictable move, says Stephanie Patrick, a PhD candidate at the University of Ottawas Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies, who researches female celebrities. Shes very [conventionally] beautiful, blonde hair, blue eyes, everything you would expect Barbie to look like. So in itself, that casting choice sort of suggests that its not going to be radically feminist. Gillian Goerz, who co-founded Torontos Drunk Feminist Films, agrees and adds that by casting Robbie in the starring role, it cements the idea that while we may have seen different iterations of this character, the real Barbie adheres to white, heteronormative beauty standards. As soon as you cast it, you sort of lock Barbie in stone, she says. It all feels like new film, same ol problems. Were in this culture of rebooting and reviving old ideas, but maybe Barbie is one that we needed to leave in the past. Yes, in theory, weve progressed to focussing on Barbies brains instead of her (unrealistic) beauty, but the key character traits remain the same. Perhaps rather than trying to fit feminism into a Barbie-shaped mould, we just need new characters altogether. I dont know if [a live-action Barbie movie is] inherently bad, but they have so many hurdles to jump over with this. Its a really tall order, says Goerz. However, while Robbie playing Barbie raises some concerns, her role behind the camera gives both Goerz and Patrick hope. Robbies LuckyChap Entertainment, the company behind I, Tonya and an all-female Shakespeare TV series, will be producing the film, and the actor readily calls herself a feminist and has been outspoken about her journey to understanding what the word actually means. She also has a history of bringing complicated and nuanced female characters, such as Tonya Harding, to screen. Patrick suggests that Robbies involvement could lead to a Legally Blonde-like film. That is, a tongue-in-cheek parody on the ideas we have about Barbie and her history, with a message that is relevant to all girls and women today. Im interested to see if this can develop into something better than maybe most people would expect it to be, she says. Goerz agrees. I am curious to see it without totally writing it off because Ive seen cool stuff come from interesting and diverse creators, she says. She highlights the reboot of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, created by Noelle Stevenson, as an example of a reboot done right. She-Ra has some of the same initial problems as Barbie where shes uber white and very skinny and not a super developed character, sort of a peripheral to He-Man, but the new reboot is amazing, says Goerz, highlighting the shows queer representation and complex storylines. With that in mind, perhaps the live-action Barbie could help address some of this dolls problematic history and represent something entirely new for children now. If the kids today, who are the adults of tomorrow, only know this Barbie and its good, this could be an opportunity to make that changejust like kids now are going to know a better She-Ra than we grew up with. Related: Margot Robbie Is Producing an All-Female Spin on Shakespeare Classics and We. Are. Stoked. Whats Coming (and Going) to Netflix Canada in January 2019 | https://www.flare.com/tv-movies/live-action-barbie-movie-margot-robbie/ |
Why Are the Media So Eager to Declare Trumps Syria Withdrawal Dead? | Corporate media have converged around a narrative that the president has been forced to walk back his decision. But while a withdrawal will undoubtedly prove more challenging than the president originally anticipated, this verdict simply does not reflect the facts on the ground. When John Bolton spoke in Jerusalem earlier this month, leading news outlets reported that Trumps national security adviser had declared that withdrawal would not be completed unless and until specific conditions had been met or objectives achieved. The New York Times announced that Bolton Puts Conditions on Syria Withdrawal, Suggesting a Delay of Months or Years, claiming that he told reporters that American forces would remain in Syria until the last remnants of the Islamic State were defeated and Turkey provided guarantees that it would not strike Kurdish forces allied with the United States. The Associated Press story, which was picked up by The Washington Post, proved similarly categorical. U.S. troops will not leave northeastern Syria until Islamic State militants are defeated and American-allied Kurdish fighters are protected, a top White House aide is quoted as saying. The article also notes that Bolton was signaling a pause to a withdrawal abruptly announced last month and initially expected to be completed within weeks. Those stories were written on the assumption that Bolton was enunciating yet another policy on Syria withdrawal. There is now good reason to believe that no such new policy decision has been made. The Wall Street Journal has quoted a defense official as saying, Nothing has changed. We dont take orders from Bolton. The Times and AP failed to provide the actual text of Boltons statement, much less any analysis of it in context of his statements. Boltons statement was extraordinarily indirect and didnt necessarily mean what it appeared to mean at first glance. As quoted in The Wall Street Journal, one of the few places where the text could be found, Bolton said, Timetables or the timing of the withdrawal occurs as a result of the fulfillment of the conditions and the establishment of the circumstances that we want to see. Its not the establishment of an arbitrary point for the withdrawal to take place as President Obama did in the Afghan situation the timetable flows from the policy decisions that we need to implement. On closer examination, it seems more likely that Bolton was attempting to differentiate Trumps withdrawal policy from that of President Obama in Iraq. Such an interpretation is reinforced by a statement from an unidentified senior official traveling with Bolton, who has indicated that the administration believes that the remaining pockets of ISIS control can be neutralized within a matter of weeks. This, in turn, suggests that the Trump administration is planning to define the defeat of ISIS in conventional military termsnot as the elimination either of its presence in Syria or the possibility of its future revival in the region, both of which Secretary of Defense James Mattis had sought unsuccessfully. The Pompeo Interview the Media Ignored That leaves the question of how Trumps plan will deal with other policy objectives, including the protection of our Kurdish allies and the United States demands for the withdrawal of Iranian and Iran-backed forces from Syria. But there is evidence the administration plans to pursue these objectives both during and after the withdrawal. Our troops are coming out, Secretary of State Pompeo told Newsmax more than a week ago. The President also made it clear that we need to continue the counter-ISIS campaign, and we needed to continue to create stability throughout the Middle East. The counter-Iran campaign continues. Well do all these things. Pompeo also indicated the presidents recommendation on Syria includes not only the withdrawal but all the other elements that the President laid out: the importance of ensuring the Turks dont slaughter the Kurds; the protection of religious minorities in Syria. All those things are still part of the American mission set. Pompeo thus gave away the premise that Bolton managed to obscure: We will simply do it at a time when the American forces have departed Syria. Had the secretary of state intended to describe a conditions-based withdrawal policya term used consistently by the U.S. military and employed by Obama in both Iraq and Afghanistan, he could very easily have made that clear. Instead, he said the actions required to advance the administrations policy objectives would be taken when the American forces have departed Syria. In other words, they have would to continue well beyond the withdrawal. The Danger of a Bolton-Israeli Scheme Even though there is reason to believe that Trump still plans to remove all troops from Syria in a matter of months rather than years, there are certainly potential pitfalls ahead. One of them is Boltons greater involvement in the withdrawal process. After all, it was Bolton who declared last September that the Trump administration policy was to keep troops in Syria until all Iranian troops had gone home. What authority Bolton had obtained to make such a pronouncement remains unclear, but Trump rejected that position decisively in December. Because the president has a well-known aversion to detailed policy papers, and because Bolton has successfully limited Trumps exposure to them, the national security adviser has gained unusual latitude in representing administration policy. And Bolton is well known to be a master at bureaucratic maneuvering to advance an agenda that doesnt necessarily reflect that of the president hes serving. To date, however, there is no indication that Bolton aims to undercut Trumps plan to withdraw the 2,000 or more U.S. troops working in conjunction with Kurdish forces in northeast Syria. But the base at Al-Tanf in the south near the Syrian border with both Jordan and Iraq is another story.. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would like the U.S. to keep its few hundred Special Forces at Al-Tanf, and Bolton may be hoping to exempt it from the withdrawal. That base, which sits astride the main highway between Baghdad and Damascus, has long been touted by those seeking to justify U.S. and Israeli military intervention in the region as a key to blocking successful transport from Iran through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon. Israel has argued that it needs to prevent Hezbollah from obtaining modern, highly accurate weaponry via that route, but Hezbollah had already secured such weapons long before the U.S. established its base in 2016. The Israelis ultimately recognize that those several hundred U.S. troops serve no real tactical purpose. Instead, they believe their presence could be used to justify further intervention in the future. So during Boltons visit to Jerusalem, a senior administration official in his party told reporters that Bolton planned to discuss with Israeli officials possible continued stationing of some U.S. forces at Al-Tanf for an indeterminate period. The same official said the U.S. would decide how important the base is and whether it would have to stay in its current location after talks with the Israelis and Jordanians. The official in question, who was almost certainly Bolton himself, may have been merely stating a theoretical possibility for the sake of completing the necessary consultations with Israel and Turkey in connection with the withdrawal. But Bolton is also capable of scheming with the Israelis to create a new excuse for keeping U.S. troops at that location. The Trump administration is still committed to the aim of getting all Iranian personnel out of Syria, and it should not be forgotten that during the George W. Bush administration Bolton worked closely with the Israelis on creating the political preconditions for the U.S. use of force against Iran. By comparison, a scheme hatched jointly with the Israelis for reducing Trumps freedom of action on that issue would be relatively easy for Bolton. | https://www.truthdig.com/articles/why-are-the-media-so-eager-to-declare-trumps-syria-withdrawal-dead/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Truthdig+Truthdig%3A+Drilling+Beneath+the+Headlines |
Are Premium Bonds the easiest way to become a millionaire? | At first glance, its easy to see why Premium Bonds are so popular. Once bonds have been held for a month, they are entered into a monthly prize draw where bondholders can win between 25 and 1m tax-free. Every month two lucky people win prizes of 1m. Premium Bonds are a popular investment in the UK. In fact, theyre one of the UKs biggest savings products , with around 22m people which equates to around one-out-of-three people across the country using them as a savings vehicle. Today, more than 70bn is held in Premium Bonds. I would like to receive emails from you about product information and offers from The Fool and its business partners. Each of these emails will provide a link to unsubscribe from future emails. More information about how The Fool collects, stores, and handles personal data is available in its Privacy Statement. Register by giving us your email below to continue reading all of the content on the site. Soon you will also begin to receive our FREE email newsletter, The Motley Fool Collective. It features straightforward advice on whats really happening with the stock market, direct to your inbox. Its designed to help you protect and grow your portfolio. (You may unsubscribe any time.) Premium Bonds are a popular investment in the UK. In fact, theyre one of the UKs biggest savings products, with around 22m people which equates to around one-out-of-three people across the country using them as a savings vehicle. Today, more than 70bn is held in Premium Bonds. Instant millionaires At first glance, its easy to see why Premium Bonds are so popular. Once bonds have been held for a month, they are entered into a monthly prize draw where bondholders can win between 25 and 1m tax-free. Every month two lucky people win prizes of 1m. This means that people literally become millionaires overnight. The more Premium Bonds you own (you can invest up to 50,000 with each bond costing 1), the greater the chances of winning. Im not convinced they are. Heres why. Odds of winning When you dig a little deeper into the odds of winning a prize, the appeal of Premium Bonds declines. For example, the overall odds of winning a prize are around 24,500 to 1 for each bond number, according to the Premium Bonds website, while the odds of winning the 1m prize per 1 bond in one month are around 36bn to 1, according to money-saving expert Martin Lewis. To put these numbers into perspective, Lewis reckons that if you lined up everyone with 1,000 of Premium Bonds in order of their years winnings, youd have to walk past almost two-thirds of the line until you hit the first 25 winner. In other words, the majority of Premium Bonds investors are regularly seeing no return on their investment. So, while we often hear about those who have just won a million pounds through Premium Bonds in the media, its important to remember that, in reality, the odds of winning are very low. Forget a million many people are winning nothing at all. An easier way to get rich An easier way to make a million, in my view, is through investing in shares. Shares wont transform you into a millionaire overnight, yet with the stock market generally returning around 7-10% per year on average over the long run, its certainly possible to generate life-changing wealth over the long term. For example, at a 10% return per year, 50,000 grows to over 1m in around 32 years. Of course, the stock market can be volatile in the short term. Theres a risk of losing money. Yet if youre willing to invest for a long-term investment horizon of 10 years or more, the odds of losing money decline dramatically and theres a good chance youll generate a solid return. Invest regularly and minimise risk and theres every chance you could eventually make a million. | https://www.fool.co.uk/investing/2019/01/12/are-premium-bonds-the-easiest-way-to-become-a-millionaire/ |
What is The CatholicTV Network? | We are Americas Catholic Television Network. From Fresno to New England, in San Antonio and Detroit, our nations capitol and in so many dioceses, cities and on every device. We make the life of the local church across this great land visible and more deeply appreciated. Our studios and our technical infrastructure is available to serve you. Our programming and content reflect the vibrancy and diversity of the Church in the United States, Canada, in Rome and beyond. For children, young people and familiesto the devout and to those seeking God, our 24 hour schedule is punctuated by prayer: the Holy Mass, the Rosary, other devotions, a live morning show, news and Scripture, music, a game showwith Pope Francis, the joy and good works of people everywhere. We are free of charge for you and technically quite easy. A simple grassroots campaign in the parishes across your diocese could help convince cable TV providers that the CatholicTV Network is right for them, because we know its great for you. We can insert programming produced locally or bring excellent content from your diocese to our viewers across the nation. We are the CatholicTV Network, and Im Bishop Robert Reed. Please let me know if we can help. Were at your service with no strings attached. We are Americas Catholic Television Network andits all for you. | http://www.catholictv.org/shows/the-catholictv-network/what-is-the-catholictv-network |
Are millions of Britons really set to move to a digital-only bank? | Millions of Britons could potentially open a digital-only bank account in the next five years, but one in five admitted they don't know what one is, according to a new survey. With nine per cent of British adults already in possession of an account with a digital-only bank, by 2024 almost 13million people could have one, data from comparison site Finder suggests. A third of those surveyed who intend to go digital in the next five years said they felt banking online was more convenient, while 28 per cent said they would switch because it would be easier to transfer money. According to a survey by comparison site Finder, almost 13 million people could have an account with a digital-only bank like Monzo by 2024. But most don't deposit their salaries in it Unsurprisingly, people born after 1996 were the likeliest group to open an account with a digital-only bank. Figures suggest 15 per cent of 'Generation Z' had done so according to the survey, compared to just six per cent of adults aged between 54 and 73. But while a further 21 per cent of those surveyed said they would consider a digital-only bank if they had more information, the research delivered mixed news for the challenger banks. Just over half said they had no plans to open an account with a digital-only bank within five years, while one in five said they didn't know what one was. Even among the generation most likely to have one now, half of those born after 1996 said they didn't intend to open one. This comes after figures in October found that while nearly a quarter of a million Britons switched current accounts between April and June 2018, the most well-known challenger banks Monzo and Starling gained just under 4,500 new account holders in that time. What's more, even if someone were to open a new account with one of these banks it wouldn't necessarily mean that they would use it, or use it as their main current account. Monzo's latest accounts in July showed that as well as making as 33.1million loss in its first full year with a banking licence, four in five of its current account customers did not deposit their salaries with it. The average deposit was less than 150 per account, although chief executive Tom Blomfield said that 40 per cent of new customers were depositing at least 500 a month. Nonetheless, it appears that existing high street banks are still doing enough for now to retain their customers. Three in five of those surveyed by Finder said the reason why they didn't intend to open a digital-only bank account was because their current bank had treated them well. Yes 0 votes No 2 votes Now share your opinion The switch to digital was too much of a big step for 49 per cent, who said they liked to have the option of speaking to someone in person. Jon Ostler, the chief executive of Finder, said: 'The speed that digital challenger banks have established themselves has been very impressive. 'When done right, digital banking can offer customers the speed, convenience and transparency that is becoming increasingly important for consumers in most sectors. 'However, our research also showed that a lot of Britons still aren't interested in taking all of their finances online. 'The problems that large banks have had with "digitalising" their services also doesn't help the image of online banking. 'It will be fascinating to see how the sector evolves over the next few years, and if it can cope with the increasing consumer demand that we expect to see.' | https://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/saving/article-6578457/Are-millions-Britons-really-set-digital-bank.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ito=1490&ns_campaign=1490 |
Did Leeds United boss first break the rules in win over Stoke City? | Get Weekday Stoke City FC updates directly to your inbox Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email Leeds United manager Marcelo Bielsa refused to rule out continuing to employ the same 'spy' tactics that overshadowed his side's 2-0 win over fellow promotion hopefuls Derby at Elland Road. And that should be cause for concern for Stoke City with league leaders Leeds at the bet365 Stadium next Saturday. The build-up to last night's Sky Bet Championship match was dominated by claims from Derby that a man was caught outside their training ground on Thursday. Derbyshire Police were forced to intervene and it transpired the individual was an employee of Leeds who was watching a training session. Bielsa spoke to Derby boss Frank Lampard over the phone to accept full responsibility and was open about the incident after goals from Kemar Roofe and Jack Harrison secured Leeds a welcome win. The former Argentina and Chile coach insisted it was not his intention to gain an advantage in a lengthy explanation that saw him admit it is something he has done for a number of years. "I'm not trying to justify anything," he said. "I've just explained why I feel I'm not a person who cheats and why I accept any reaction this behaviour creates. "Things are as English football says. I have to respect the habits and traditions of this country. "I would accept any sanction the club takes against me and any sanction the federation takes against me, and also the judgment of Derby County. "This episode affects me. Of course the win is important. The only thing I'm going to apologise for is to have contaminated a football game with this subject. "If I was a child, I would say I won't do it again, but I wouldn't feel right responding like this and would lose credibility. "I won't say that I won't do it again. It's a childish position to answer like that." Although the Potters were soundly beaten at Elland Road on the opening day, it later transpired that the Leeds boss had some unusual ways of getting his message across to his players. Our original story on "coachgate"... Most people would say Leeds United thoroughly deserve their win over Stoke City on the first day of the 2018/19 season. Even Potters fans. Marcelo Bielsa's hard pressing was too much to handle in a crackling atmosphere at Elland Road and Stoke were left licking their wounds after a 3-1 defeat. The Sun highlighted one way around the language barrier - and around the rules. Fans spotted men in official club clothing bellowing out instructions from the front row of stands during the game. "Coaches are instructed to remain in their teams designated technical area," they write, "but if the personnel in question has a ticket then presumably they are allowed to sit in the allocated seat?" Leeds fans responded on social media to the sightings. Darren W wrote: "They were everywhere... saw one next to microphone next to pitch where our subs were warming up. Writing stuff down. I think they need to be more undercover and claim to work for lutv..." Sam Snaddon wrote: "Was sat in the East I spotted him. He had a mic on, was getting instructions in his ear. Presume one in West as well. Quality this." Yorkshire77 added: "He moved further up in the second half but let's keep it quiet as I think it's against the rules. He had an ear piece in and actually walked across the back of the goals during half-time. He's a coach, he was instructing Douglas at one point." Dave Cory said: "This is the attention to detail we have lacked. Bielsa doing a proper job!" Kevin Wilson said: "I saw him, just in front of the East Stand. Very entertaining he was too. We speculated who he was before it dawned he was coaching. Wonder how long before the corrupt FA/FL ban this sort of thing!" (Image: Mark Scott) Gary Rowett's post-match verdict Leeds played well, but we helped at times with some of our defending as a team. It was far too easy for someone to play a pass and get round us. But we did have some moments in the game. I thought Tom Ince looked bright and James McClean looked bright and it was pleasing Benik (Afobe) getting his first goal for the club. But after that you could maybe see the hangover of confidence from last season. If that performance makes people realise what they have got to do, then hopefully it will be a positive. We have got good players, but we need to show that in this division. We have to earn the right. We have to show we can fight. | https://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/stoke-city-leeds-united-spying-1872677 |
Was ist eigentlich Contact-Healing? | tip-Magazin | Contact-Healing | 11. Januar 2019 Heilung geschieht immer durch Kontakt. Entweder Kontakt zu einem Heiler, zu einem Medikament oder auch durch einen tieferen Kontakt zu uns selbst. Im Contact-Healing hilft der Heiler dabei, diesen verloren gegangenen Kontakt wieder herzustellen. Das kann auf verschiedenen Wegen geschehen. Die Methoden des Contact-Healing sind z.B. Kontaktbehandlungen, Meditationen, Essenzheilungen oder auch Symptomaufstellungen. Ein Beispiel aus der Praxis: Eine Klientin litt seit vielen Monaten unter einem sogenannten Tennisarm am linken Ellenbogen. Nachdem die normale schulmedizinische Behandlung zu keinem Erfolg gefhrt hatte, versuchten wir gemeinsam herauszufinden, was die Ursache war und wie das Problem zu lsen sei. Wir testeten die verschiedenen Kontakte durch und stellten fest, dass es um einen tieferen Kontakt mit ihr selbst ging. Also machten wir eine Symptomaufstellung, bei der sich herausstellte, dass sie seit vielen Jahren ihren Mann und ihre Familie in den Mittelpunkt ihres Lebens gestellt hatte, ohne auf sich selbst zu achten. Direkt nach der Aufstellung trat eine leichte Besserung ein. Nach vier Wochen, in denen sie den Arm zustzlich mit einer Contact-Healing-Essenz behandelt hatte, waren die Schmerzen komplett verschwunden. Auch die Familie war wieder glcklicher, denn weder der Mann noch die Kinder hatten bemerkt, dass ihre Frau und Mutter nicht genug auf sich selbst achtete und untersttzten sie nun strker. Hier gibts weitere Infos: http://gluecks-reiki.de/contact-healing/ Gefllt mir: Gefllt mir Wird geladen... hnliche Beitrge | https://tipmagazin.info/was-ist-eigentlich-contact-healing/ |
Can Serena Williams bounce back to seal her place in history? | Since winning her seventh Australian Open title two years ago while eight weeks pregnant, the American has remained one shy of Margaret Court's all-time Grand Slam record of 24 major singles titles. Petra Kvitova Professional tennis Serena Williams Sports and recreation Sports figures Tennis Some of her closest rivals think she still has what it takes, but with the strength and depth of women's tennis vastly improved in recent years, it won't be easy. "She's still Serena Williams, and she still has won 23 slams," former French Open quarterfinalist Carolina Garcia told CNN Sport. "A lot of girls on Tour will be happy to make two finals in a year," said the 19th-ranked Frenchwoman, who has lost all three matches she played against Williams. Visit cnn.com/sport for more news and videos 'Everyone is hungry for slams' The Australian Open, the season's first tennis major, starts on January 14 in Melbourne. Roger Federer of Switzerland and Denmark's Caroline Wozniacki are the defending champions. "She will probably be disappointed, but I think she can still do it," Garcia said about Williams, the 4-1 favorite for the women's title with UK bookmaker William Hill. "But she has to work hard, like everyone, because everyone is hungry for slams. But I don't think she has lost anything." Back-to-back major defeats Williams, 37, returned to the women's WTA Tour last March after a 14-month maternity leave, during which she underwent surgery because of complications following the birth of her daughter, Olympia. Although Williams was the only player, with the top-ranked Simona Halep, to reach two Grand Slam finals in 2018, she lost them both. After reaching her tenth Wimbledon final, dropping just one set, Williams was stunned by Germany's Angelique Kerber 6-3 6-3. Two months later, at the US Open, Williams looked very much like her old self again until the final, where she lost 6-2 6-4 to Naomi Osaka, a Japanese player 16 years her junior, armed with a big serve that matches Williams' own. After that defeat, which will forever be remembered for Williams' row with the chair umpire and accusations of sexism afterwards, the former world No. 1 ended her season early. She began 2019 at the Hopman Cup mixed team exhibition event in Perth, winning all three of her singles matches. "I can see it a little from my perspective, that she came back, and she wanted to win a Grand Slam, and she was pretty close twice," two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova told CNN Sport. "Maybe she put a lot of pressure on herself as well, as we saw at the US Open, with all the emotions," said the 8th-ranked Czech, who staged a successful comeback herself in 2017 after sustaining a potentially career-ending injury on her hand in a knife attack. "I think it's everything in the mind," said Kvitova, who was out for six months following the attack in her house by an intruder. "It's tough to come back and play like before, like you didn't have time off." READ: Roger Federer beats Serena Williams in historic Hopman Cup clash 'A lot of experience in finals' Playing Serena Williams in a major tennis final was once considered an almost impossible task. From the 2001 US Open to the 2015 Wimbledon championships, Williams lost only four Grand Slam title matches. But since Italian Roberta Vinci ended her historic quest for the calendar Grand Slam at the 2015 US Open semifinals, the American has gone 2-4 in Grand Slam finals. For Kerber, who has now defeated Williams in two of three major finals, the key to beating the most successful player of the Open era on the sport's biggest stages is to focus on yourself. "I have now played her in three Grand Slam finals, and it is always of course tough to play against her because she has such a lot of experience in the finals," the German, who also beat Williams at the 2016 Australian Open finals before losing to her at Wimbledon that same year, told CNN Sport. "For me, what I have learned in the last years, is just to look on my side of the court, trying to play my tennis, play like I practice, and take all the experience that I had from my tournaments, my matches on to the big stage," she said. READ: Rafael Nadal on why the next generation is ready 'I don't fear her' Although Williams has a 5-3 lead over Kvitova, the 28-year-old Czech has beaten the American the last three times they played, including a three-set clash in the second round of Cincinnati in August. "To be honest, I don't fear her," said Kvitova. "I played her in Cincinnati, she played great tennis, it was an amazing match. But, on the other hand, of course, it's still Serena. She's a great champion and when you face her, you always need to be prepared for a really tough one. I think if she is still there, she is going to win more Grand Slams." | https://www.kq2.com/content/national/504258371.html?ref=371 |
Is Girls On Heels Actress Luviena Lodh The New Face Of Ram Gopal Varmas Next? | Luviena Lodh, who was earlier seen in Tollywood has done 2 movies in south as a lead, both will release next year after exploring herself in Tollywood and working with Richa Chadha in Nirdoshi 2. She also had done a short film recently named as Girls on heels along with a music video, which is yet to release she is a theatre artist who love to dance, travel, eat and stay fit also. She is a big time movie buff has grown up watching movies and also she has done numbers of ads including loreal and Daniel wellington, shein, jabong and few more. Recently, Actress Luviena Lodh was spotted with Director Ram Gopal Varma. In this picture we can see so much of happiness. We have scrolled her social media account to find some more pictures. It seems like there is a great bonding between both of them or maybe theres much more in the box. It is heard that Ram Gopal Varma is looking for a new face for his famous movie sequel that has not been disclosed at the moment. Android & IOS users, download our mobile app for faster than ever Bollywood & Box Office updates! | https://www.koimoi.com/bollywood-news/is-girls-on-heels-actress-luviena-lodh-the-new-face-of-ram-gopal-varmas-next/ |
Is Kratom Natures Answer to Opioids? | The hype: Kratom, an ancient medicinal leaf from Southeast Asia, is the most recent cure-all to rise from the wellness fringes, particularly among those who frequent head shops for the latest medical breakthroughs. Its kind of like herbal Valium. Or maybe herbal Tylenol. Elevator pitch: Kratom leaf, which is related to the coffee family, is touted as a plant-based alternative to Big Pharma. Popped in capsule form or prepared as tea, kratom can produce a mild psychotropic effect, though its more of a gentle sense of well-being than a so-called trip. Some use kratom as a mood booster, while others say it alleviates chronic pain, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression. It has also been used to treat opioid addiction, though some government authorities say that kratom can be as dangerous as the opioids themselves. Adopters: Despite its smoke-shop association, kratom is not limited to denizens of the Burning Man playa. As the recent Netflix documentary A Leaf of Faith makes clear, kratom has struck a chord with many, including war veterans, pain-addled athletes and professional wrestlers, as an alternative to opioid painkillers. | https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/style/kratom-what-is-it.html?partner=rss&emc=rss |
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