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How Much Trouble Could Larry Hogan Cause Trump In A 2020 GOP Primary? | In 1974, Rep. Lawrence Hogan Sr. became the first Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee to call for President Richard Nixons impeachment. Now theres speculation in Washington that his son, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, might challenge President Trump in the 2020 Republican presidential primary. So we decided to take a look at what might prompt Hogan to run and how he might fare against Trump. Hogan would not have an easy go of it, but we can see why he might run and why he might find some success. First, a look at his record. Larry Hogan became the governor of Maryland after pulling off an upset victory against Democratic Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown in 2014. In 2018, Hogan cruised to re-election, winning by 12 percentage points despite Marylands deep-blue hue and a Democratic-leaning national environment. Hogan was the first Republican governor to win re-election in the state since 1954. But that came as no surprise: Just before the election, Hogan had the second-highest approval rating of any governor in the country, at 67 percent, according to polling by Morning Consult. Hogan cant run for governor again because of term limits. According to OnTheIssues, which tries to measure a politicians positions based on votes and public statements, Hogans views are notably more moderate than those of either Trump or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell the most powerful Republican in Congress which might help explain Hogans continued success in Maryland. His candidacy also had a feel-good element: Hogan overcame cancer during his first term twice, actually. Hogan has been critical of Trump. In the aftermath of August 2017s violent white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Hogan called Trumps both sides response a terrible mistake. And in his second inauguration speech, Hogan said that Americans like his father, who bucked partisanship for the sake of the country, made people yearn for something better and more noble than the politics of today. Practical considerations might also push him to run. Although Marylanders have sent Hogan to the governors mansion twice, a Senate seat might still be out of reach (partisanship tends to matter more in congressional races than in gubernatorial contests). And at 62, Hogan might feel like this is his moment to try for the presidency not, say, in 2024, when he will have been out of office for two years. Well, it depends on what your definition of win is. (Bear with me for a second.) In the modern era of presidential primaries, no incumbent president has ever lost renomination. Heck, the last time a president didnt win renomination was in 1884, when Republican President Chester A. Arthur lost to James Blaine at the GOP convention. Moreover, among rank-and-file Republicans, Trumps approval rating remains high north of 80 percent. So actually defeating Trump in a Republican primary contest would be quite difficult, based on what we know now. But if Hogans goal is to win a substantial share of the vote while making the case for a different kind of Republicanism, that seems more attainable. National polls find Trump in reasonably good shape against potential primary foes, but surveys suggest that at least some Republicans in the early primary states of New Hampshire and Iowa might be open to alternatives. And the presidents national numbers could present an opening. According to the Pew Research Center, in 2018, Republican leaners independents who say they lean toward the Republican Party were less likely than self-identified Republicans to approve of Trump. And among all voters so, not just Republicans somewhere between one-third and half of those who approve of the presidents job performance say they only somewhat approve, as opposed to strongly approve, according to recent polls. Its possible, though far from certain, that special counsel Robert Muellers investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election could help Hogan attract some Republicans if serious negative revelations about the president come out. Although polls show that most Republicans believe the Mueller investigation is a witch hunt and that the president is handling the matter appropriately, Trumps numbers could worsen in the face of damning evidence and make an alternative choice like Hogan more attractive. Hogans centrism could also make him competitive in New Hampshire, long known for its relative moderation. Other recent Republicans running as middle-of-the-road candidates have garnered a substantial share of the primary vote there, albeit without an incumbent president in the field. In 2016, Ohio Gov. John Kasich finished second in the New Hampshire primary, with 16 percent; in 2012, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, now the U.S. ambassador to Russia, finished third, with 17 percent. Still, Hogan could have a tough time breaking through. If Trumps popularity among Republicans holds steady, hell go into the 2020 primary with one of the highest intra-party approval ratings of any recent president running for re-election. Also, Hogan has generally shied away from social issues such as abortion though hes personally against it which means he might have trouble attracting support among socially conservative Republicans. Although that might not be much of a problem for Hogan in less socially conservative states like New Hampshire, its difficult to see him building meaningful support in other early primary states such as Iowa or South Carolina (if they even participate in the GOP primary in 2020). One can imagine Hogan winning over some suburban voters in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and West Coast, but its not clear that he could win a state beyond his own, which probably wont vote until April 2020. All in all, it would be tough sledding for Hogan to defeat Trump in the 2020 GOP presidential primary. Nonetheless, hes a popular governor who would present a clear-cut alternative to the president. So perhaps Hogan could make a splash and win over a substantial chunk of the Republican electorate. That alone would be significant: The past three presidents to endure a notable primary challenge Gerald Ford in 1976, Jimmy Carter in 1980 and George H.W. Bush in 1992 all went on to lose in the general election. | https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/does-larry-hogan-have-a-shot-against-trump-in-a-2020-gop-primary/ |
Is ons beeld van de Tachtigjarige Oorlog te gekleurd en te Hollands? | De Limburger heeft een punt, vindt Marjolein 't Hart, onderzoeksleider bij het Huygens Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis. "Televisieseries als 80 Jaar Oorlog, tentoonstellingen in het Rijksmuseum en wat kinderen op scholen leren, leunen sterk op wat er in Holland gebeurde", vertelt ze in het NOS-programma Met het Oog op Morgen. Andere provincies hebben een "radicaal andere geschiedenis" meegemaakt, vervolgt 't Hart. "Geschiedenis moet het verhaal van alle Nederlanders vertellen, maar buiten Holland hebben ze veel minder geprofiteerd van die periode dan wordt voorgesteld." Verschroeide aarde Als voorbeeld neemt ze Brabant. Het Beleg van Den Bosch komt in de geschiedenisboekjes nog wel voor, maar wat er op het platteland gebeurde, wordt te weinig belicht, vindt de historica. "De Republiek werd gevormd met geweld en met de tactiek van verschroeide aarde." De militaire tactiek van prins Maurits en later Frederik Hendrik was gericht op het beschermen van de steden, legt ze uit. "Dijken werden gemakkelijk doorgestoken, waardoor boeren zes jaar lang geen oogst konden binnenhalen. Dat leverde een enorme verschuiving van rijkdom en kansen tussen stad en platteland op." | https://nos.nl/artikel/2268821-is-ons-beeld-van-de-tachtigjarige-oorlog-te-gekleurd-en-te-hollands.html |
Whats Wood Mackenzies forecast for the annual average oil price in 2019? | Global markets were volatile heading into the new year. Oil has been no exception, with Brent trading between $62 per barrel on 7 December 2018 before falling to $51/b on 21 December. Mixed macroeconomic data have driven much of the volatility, with political uncertainty compounding concerns of a sharper than expected economic slowdown. Our analysis indicates the oil market was overbought in October, when Brent reached $85/b, and oversold in December when it dropped back to $51/b. Despite Wood Mackenzie arguing there was ample supply through to the end of 2019, fears of a lack of OPEC spare capacity, concerns of an ensuing supply crunch, and focus on a $100/b end-point back in October led to inflated prices. In contrast, Decembers sharp fall was the result of over-selling on fears for global economic growth largely driven by the US-China trade war, and a perception that OPEC would not cut output enough. Wood Mackenzie has adjusted our annual average price forecast for Brent by just one dollar from $66/b for 2019 to $65/b per barrel. Our forecast of $68/b for 2020 remains unchanged. Since trading resumed in January, the oil market has rebounded as the impact of production cuts from producers such as Saudi Arabia started to be felt. However, the market remains focused on the demand outlook, and there are a number of risks to the global economy that could depress the modest growth we forecast in oil demand and dampen the oil price outlook. Global GDP growth is slowing off a strong 2018 base. The question is how quickly will the world economy decelerate. Sharp declines in survey measures of economic activity point to manufacturing slowdown in the US, Europe and China. This tallies with data pointing to weakening global trade. Some of the current slowdown is linked to the global economic cycle, but there is concern that political uncertainty will exacerbate the cyclical downswing and send key markets into recession. With US-China trade negotiations ongoing and Brexit hanging over Europe, the risk of worse-than-expected slowdown is mounting. And this time around, there is little in the way of firepower available to policy makers to help stimulate the economy if things do get ugly. The market is right to be concerned. Having said that, Wood Mackenzie expects a benign global economic slowdown, with global GDP growth decelerating from 3% in 2018 to 2.8% in 2019 and 2.6% in 2020. In our base case, we expect global oil demand to grow 1.1 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2019 and 1.3 million b/d in 2020. Despite the weakening sentiment about the global economy, oil demand growth remains robust, for now. On the other hand, supply growth is also slowing. After an estimated increase of 2.5 million b/d in 2018, global supply is forecast to grow 1.4 million b/d in 2019 and 1.8 million b/d in 2020. This assumes OPEC continues to restrain production through end-2020. With non-OPEC supply expected to increase, the OPEC+ cuts are critical to prevent significant oversupply. Source: Wood Mackenzie | https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/whats-wood-mackenzies-forecast-for-the-annual-average-oil-price-in-2019/ |
Will North Korea transfer ICBMs to China? | NATIONAL North Korea may not be ready to bring its intercontinental ballistic missiles and the idea of transferring its nuclear arsenal to China to the negotiating table as bargaining chips in talks with the US, analysts here said Thursday.Moving ICBMs out of North Korea is what the US has been demanding but theres no evidence that the North has accepted the proposal, Handong University professor Park Won-gon said. Washingtons simultaneous incentives and building of mutual trust must first take place to make Pyongyang relinquish ICBMs.What North Korea offers now is to freeze its current nuclear weapons via measures such as the closure of the Youngbyon nuclear facilities and the dismantlement of its Punggye-ri nuclear test site. But it does not intend to put past nuclear weapons and ICBMs on the negotiating table, Park said.He referred to Kims denuclearization pledges in his New Years address that North Korea had declared at home and abroad that we would neither make and test nuclear weapons any longer nor use and proliferate them.US-North Korea talks have been revived following letters exchanged between Trump and Kim and high- and working-level negotiations in recent weeks. Some experts have said North Korea could have suggested that it will transfer its ICBMs to China.I guess transferring some ICBMs to China could have been one of the cards that Kim Jong-un holds to have another round of summit with Donald Trump, Lee Sang-soo, a research fellow at the Institute for Security and Development in Sweden, said in an interview with Radio Free Asia.The US could say North Korea took a substantial step toward denuclearization if the ICBMs are withdrawn from the latters territory. Taking into account the distance, security and technical issues, China might be a desirable site for the weapons transfer, Lee added.However, Park of Handong University disagreed with Lees view, saying North Korea would choose the US over China if it has to hand over such core military weapons. North Koreas relationship with China is not as good as it seems. Their closeness is based on strategic needs.A more realistic scenario might be North Korea offering to dismantle its ICBMs in the presence of outside inspectors. The important thing is that the North talks about some, not all, of its missiles, and they will be long-range missiles. Short- and mid-range missiles that cannot reach the US will be excluded from their talks, said Hong Hyun-ik, chief researcher at the Sejong Institute.But if North Korea decided to transfer its long-range missiles to China, the move would be highly welcomed by the US and China for promoting security cooperation in the Northeast Asia region, he said.In that case, the communist nation would follow a similar path as Ukraine, which removed all nuclear weapons from its soil in exchange for assurances that Russia would respect its sovereignty.By 1996, Ukraine, which once held the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world, had transferred all Soviet-era strategic warheads to Russia. ICBMs were dismantled or moved to Russia, and heavy bombers were eliminated by 2001.It would be a meaningful step to be hailed by the international community as they did to Ukraine, if realized, Hong said.By Park Han-na ( [email protected] | http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20190124000742 |
How To Not Lose Yourself In A Relationship? | We often hear people talk about how love is such a beautiful feeling. And we don't mean the mere resentful feeling one has during a fight with their significant other. We mean pain. Pain when you start loving someone and forget to love yourself. It's not easy for everyone to pinpoint exactly where they started losing themselves in a relationship, but if you've begun to think you're losing your identity, it's time to do something, and now. It's all fun and games at the beginning of the relationship. We portray the best of us, and assume the worst side of us would probably never see the light of day. Delusion. We all have our demons we're trying to hide. But if and when unleashed, we end up blaming our significant other. The blame game does not end until one of you decides to pull up your socks and make a change. It's okay to fantasize. It's okay to spend some time at work staring at your computer daydreaming about the designer lehenga you would wear at your wedding, but don't let these stop you from dreaming about the things you did before you met your better half. Don't let these fantasies take over your personal goals. | https://www.boldsky.com/relationship/love-and-romance/2019/how-to-not-lose-yourself-in-a-relationship-127278.html |
How does Norwichs 10-year challenge look? | The changes near Carrow Road over a decade. Photo: Google Archant Over the last few weeks, people have been taking a trip down memory lane on social media. Share Email this article to a friend To send a link to this page you must be logged in. Facebooks 10-year challenge has gone viral, with millions of people, including celebrities and politicians, sharing flashback photographs of themselves from 2009. So, as the posts continue, weve decided to do our own 10-year challenge for Norwich, comparing certain parts of the city one decade apart. It was the year that Matt Smith was named the new Doctor Who, a pilot crash-landed an airliner in New Yorks Hudson river and terminally ill reality television star Jade Goody died of cervical cancer. Swine flu emerged from Mexico and spread to Britain, the MPs expenses scandal kicked off and popstar Michael Jackson was pronounced dead at his home aged 50. Here in Norwich, City were relegated back to league one after a disappointing season, and Ian Gibson quit as Norwich north MP after being caught up in the expenses scandal, with Chloe Smith winning the by-election. Businesses around the city were coping with the impact of the recession, though 2009 saw the opening of The Book Hive, today one of the citys most treasured independent businesses. | https://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/norwich-10-year-challenge-decade-apart-nostalgia-1-5864552 |
Does Johnson & Johnson's Grim Outlook Spell Trouble for Big Pharma Stocks? | Every January, Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) executives share their expectations for the year ahead, and this year investors didn't like what they heard. The company isn't expecting much growth from its pharmaceutical segment in 2019, or next year. Some of the competitive pricing pressures highlighted were pretty standard, but the old way of offsetting those losses by raising prices on other successful products isn't working anymore. Here's why we could hear similar concerns this earnings season from J&J's big pharma peers. A bald businessman looking out a window with binoculars. More Image source: Getty Images. Why big pharma investors are nervous In 2018, worldwide pharmaceutical segment sales grew 12.4% to $40.7 billion for J&J, but U.S. sales rose just 8.4% on year. That's not necessarily bad, but during the earnings call management startled investors by revealing that net prices in the U.S. dropped between 6% and 8% last year despite list prices that kept going up. The company didn't say net prices would fall again in 2019, but it didn't try to offer any assurances that they wouldn't. Once insurers have treatment options to choose from, they like to demand huge rebates from drugmakers. In return, insurers make it easier for patients to access heavily rebated drugs, and drugmakers that refuse to play the rebate game lose market share. This isn't the first time Johnson & Johnson has reported a net price decline. In 2017, net prices fell 4.6% despite an 8.5% list price increase. J&J isn't the only big pharma company to suffer. In 2010, the average discount applied to Merck & Co.'s (NYSE: MRK) product line was already at 27% of the list price. By 2017, that figure rose to 45%, and during the same year, Eli Lilly's (NYSE: LLY) average discount climbed to 51% of list prices. The practice has gotten so out of hand that the pharmaceutical industry actually supports a plan to lower drug prices by regulating rebate practices. The proposal doesn't seem to be going anywhere fast, which is why consensus estimates for J&J's pharmaceutical division suggest sales will rise just 2.9% in 2019, and another 4.8% in 2020. Colorful assortment of pills on a bed of hundred dollar bills. More Image source: Getty Images. Analytics provider IQVIA noticed protected brand net prices grew by just 1.9% in 2017, but consumers saw list prices rise 6.9% on average. Johnson & Johnson's fourth-quarter results suggest the trend continued into 2018 and it's still getting worse. | https://news.yahoo.com/does-johnson-johnson-apos-grim-121900011.html |
Where are Chester FC a year on from their near total collapse? | Get daily updates directly to your inbox Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email Tomorrow marks 12 months since the darkest day in the history of the reformed Chester FC. A packed Blues Bar at the Swansway Chester Stadium were left aghast as details were revealed of just how dire the financial situation was at the football club and how, if 50,000 wasn't raised in the short term, the fan-owned football club would be facing the end. There was anger and shock as the full extent of the crisis was presented to fans. But that shock and anger soon turned to determination and within a few weeks the Blues had raised over 100,000 to ensure they had a future. That immediate future lay in the National League North with the club's relegation from the National League seemingly inevitable since first knockings of 2018. Board members left, new ones arrived and the club's former chief executive, Mark Maguire, was made redundant. The 1million donation to the club's infrastructure from local businessman Stuart Murphy was an enormous boost for the Blues last summer, the plans yet to be revealed to fans but promising to help the club make itself sustainable via additional revenue streams. It truly was manna from heaven. A year on the club is in the black, has cash in the bank and is operating well within its means. Quite the contrast. "We're in a lot better place," said Chester chairman David Harrington-Wright. "On the field we are and off the field, definitely. If it's not right off the field then the on the field will ultimately suffer. "Financially we are stable, we're not perfect and we probably never will be but I'm not sure many clubs are as there are so many variables. The one thing that affects the club more than anything else is attendances. We budgeted for 1,700 this season and we are above that as an average but it would be great if we could see that grow for the remaining games. "I had hoped we might be at 2,000 by now as the team is doing well and we have been great at home, but we'll be taking it into consideration for next season as we are now in the process of starting to talk to the managers about next season and the playing budget and things like that. It is a difficult thing to assess. "The playing budget is spot on where it should be as per the budget. We can take out of that the support that Stuart Murphy has given us in the past few weeks and he has pledged a bit more because his stated aim is to help us get out of this league. "The managers are sensible in their scouting and their recruitment and they're not banging on our door every day saying 'we want this player and he wants XYZ'. But at this stage of the season most players of a good calibre are settled where they are. "We want that promotion push but we have to be sensible with what we can and can't do." One of the downfalls of Chester a year ago was that too much had gone under the radar behind the scenes and that there was not enough accountability or reporting which meant the club were hurtling towards an iceberg under the surface that some simply weren't aware of. "Richard Lynes (non-executive director) did a comprehensive review to figure out where things went wrong," explained Harrington-Wright. "As I said, it will never be perfect and a big factor for that is that we just don't have the full-time staff. If there was 12/15 staff running the club as a multi-million pound business then you have more accountability and reporting done. (Image: Terry Marland) "But for the way the club is run and the confines in which we operate as a fan-owned club then it is a damn sight better now than it was. "As a Board we get the information that we need but for me personally I'm not here everyday because of issues away from the club but I am here three or four times a week and the emails are pinging back and to constantly an everything is cross referenced. "We know where we are with the budget and the budget lines, the commercial side, the fundraising, fan engagement and we're able to pick up on things much earlier now. "We have cash in the bank and this time last year we didn't have. We know we can meet all of our commitments to the end of the season, last season we couldn't do that. "We were going bust in February last year, no two ways about it. Things are much, much healthier now. "The club has to be sustainable and that is where it fell down last season. There were contracts committed to that we didn't have a cat in hell's chance of honouring and we paid the price and nearly lost the club for that. That can never ever happen again." Harrington-Wright also revealed that the club were hopeful of filling the general manager role in the coming weeks, aiming to have someone in post early next month. | https://www.cheshire-live.co.uk/sport/football/chester-fc-year-near-total-15725540 |
Which Party Is to Blame for Social Security's Imminent Crisis? | Ready or not, Social Security is in trouble. Our nation's most important social program, which has been providing monthly payouts to seniors for nearly eight decades, stands on the precipice of a major change. Soon, Social Security will begin paying out more on a monthly basis than it's generating in revenue, creating its first net cash outflow since 1982, the year before the Reagan administration enacted the last major overhaul of the program. Spending more than it's collecting in revenue suggests that Social Security's existing payout schedule isn't sustainable over the long run. Projections from the Social Security Board of Trustees jibe with this assessment, with the Trustees forecasting the complete exhaustion of the program's $2.9 trillion in asset reserves by the year 2034. Dice and casino chips lying atop two Social Security cards. More Image source: Getty Images. To be clear, Social Security running out of its excess cash doesn't make the program insolvent or put it on a path to bankruptcy. Recurring revenue sources, such as its 12.4% payroll tax on earned income and the taxation of Social Security benefits, ensure that money will continue flowing into the program, which in turn can be divvied out to all of its eligible beneficiaries. But the complete depletion of Social Security's asset reserves would coerce lawmakers to cut benefits across the board by up to 21%. Doing that should ensure that payouts continue without any further need for cuts until 2092. While it's probably a relief to know that Social Security will be there for you when you retire, it's not such great news that a hefty benefit cut could await you and future generations of workers. Part of the blame goes to ongoing demographic changes, such as the retirement of baby boomers, increased longevity over many decades, growing income inequality, and a recent decline in fertility rates. However, additional blame can be placed on lawmakers who've yet to tackle Social Security's estimated $13.2 trillion cash shortfall between 2034 and 2092. The particular issue with kicking the can down the road on a fix is that the longer Congress waits, the more painful the fix will be on working Americans. A Democrat donkey and Republican elephant facing off atop an American flag. More Image source: Getty Images. | https://news.yahoo.com/party-blame-social-security-apos-120600823.html |
Who's going to replace college football's biggest stars? | The bittersweet part of being a college football fan is that the best players come and go so quickly. Just when we've had a chance to appreciate the brilliance of Dwayne Haskins, off he goes to the NFL. Christian Wilkins and Clelin Ferrell felt like Clemson mainstays, but really, it was just four years, and now they're gone, too. But the transient nature of the sport also means that everyone -- from the elite teams to the bottom-feeders -- needs to spend the offseason plugging some big holes, which helps add some intrigue, drama and fun to the long stretch between the championship game and season opener. With that in mind, let's whet our appetites for some big spring storylines by looking at 10 stars departing for the pros and who figures to step in and fill their shoes in 2019. Alabama defensive tackle Who's out: Quinnen Williams Who's in: Phidarian Mathis, Christian Barmore Concern level: Moderate Let's be honest: Alabama rarely needs to be concerned about replacing talent. This happens every year, as NFL-level talent departs for the pros and the next line of elite recruits fill the void. That is the case again in 2019, and Mathis and Barmore have the credentials and physical assets to become stars in their own right. But two things stand out as potential red flags. First, Williams was special. He wasn't just talented; he changed games. There was no more disruptive influence on defense in the country. That's not plug-and-play. Even at Alabama, those guys are rare. Secondly, this isn't the same Alabama defense as in years past. The 2018 Tide surrendered more points per drive, rushing TDs, total TDs and yards-per-play than in any season since Nick Saban's debut in 2007. All of that happened with Williams leading the defense to one of the best sack rates of the Saban era. Ohio State's immediate future at quarterback depends a lot on the NCAA's decision on Justin Fields' eligibility. AP Photo/John Bazemore Ohio State quarterback Who's out: Dwayne Haskins Who's in: Justin Fields, Matthew Baldwin Concern level: Minimal The biggest concern for Ohio State right now is less about the talent on the roster and more about the decision of the NCAA on whether to grant transfer Justin Fields immediate eligibility. With Tate Martell's decision to transfer, it sure seems like there's an expectation that Fields will be the starter for 2019, and if he is, it's less about replacing Haskins -- a more traditional pocket passer -- and more a return to the J.T. Barrett era of dual-threat QBs for the Buckeyes. That could be a boon for the Buckeyes' offense, which saw its tailbacks average just 1.85 yards before contact per rush last year -- down from 4 yards per rush with the mobile Barrett at QB. Forcing defenses to account for the QB run has a trickle-down effect, and Fields' arm is better than Barrett's to boot. He has superstar potential. Minshew's performance in 2018 changed the game for Washington State, putting the Cougars in the national spotlight and giving the program legitimate playoff hope for much of the season. But given Minshew's circuitous route to Washington State, he also offered a reminder that Mike Leach can do a lot with a QB, even if he isn't a hot commodity. That's the hope for Wazzu in 2019, too, as either Cooper or Cruz would appear to be in line to take over the job if Leach doesn't land another transfer. Eastern Washington's Gage Gubrud has narrowed his options to Washington State and Utah, so he could inject some excitement into the mix, too, but the optimism here comes as much from Leach's history as the guy actually taking snaps. Clemson defensive linemen Clelin Ferrell (99), Dexter Lawrence (90) and Austin Bryant (7) all rank as top draft prospects. Sean Rayford/AP Photo Clemson defensive line Who's out: Christian Wilkins, Austin Bryant, Dexter Lawrence and Clelin Ferrell Who's in: Jordan Williams, Xavier Thomas, Justin Foster, Nyles Pinckney Concern level: Minor anxiety For the Tigers, this might be less about replacing the talent and more about replacing the personalities. For as good as Wilkins, Ferrell, et al., were at Clemson, there are folks inside the program who think Thomas has a chance to be better than any of them. Besides, defensive coordinator Brent Venables has a history of replacing elite defensive linemen with more elite defensive linemen. What is different this time around is that the four departing stars were among the biggest personalities in the locker room, the guys who dictated the culture from the weight room to the practice field to game day, and a unit that never missed the playoff. That leadership doesn't have to come from the linemen's immediate replacements, but it is certainly a sizable void. Washington quarterback Who's out: Jake Browning Who's in: Jacob Eason Concern level: Minimal There's no replacing experience, as the coaching clich goes, so that's a knock on Browning's replacement. Browning has been synonymous with Washington football for four years, and that type of stability isn't something another QB can offer. But the reality is Browning occasionally left Washington fans scratching their heads, and the offense, far too often, appeared limited. In the past four years, Washington is 33-1 when scoring 28 or more points, but the Huskies managed that total just five times last season. Eason has had a year to run the scout team, learn the Huskies' offense and build trust within the locker room, and his talent is unquestioned. There's every reason to believe Eason can step in and succeed immediately. The bigger question is whether he can take Washington's offense to the next level. Oklahoma quarterback Who's out: Kyler Murray Who's in: Jalen Hurts Concern level: Cautious optimism In 2017, a transfer QB leads Oklahoma to the playoff and wins the Heisman. In 2018, a different transfer QB leads Oklahoma to the playoff and wins the Heisman. Well, there are a few differences between Hurts and his predecessors, Murray and Baker Mayfield. Both Murray and Mayfield had time in the system before assuming the starting job, and while both were hyped, neither came with the immediate spotlight that will be on Hurts. The upside is that Hurts is a proven winner and a great locker room guy, and while he's a less explosive passer than Murray, he offers the same dual-threat possibilities. Hurts should be just fine leading the Sooners' offense, but if Oklahoma can't find some answers on D, it might be a bit too much to ask Hurts to carry the burden Murray did last year. Notre Dame cornerback Who's out: Julian Love Who's in: Donte Vaughn, TaRiq Bracy Concern level: High The Irish got a taste of life without their star corner in the Cotton Bowl, in which Love departed with an injury and Clemson QB Trevor Lawrence utterly shredded Vaughn in Love's absence. For all the talk of a blowout in that game, it isn't hard to envision a much closer affair if Love had been on the field. Luckily for the Irish, they won't be facing Lawrence again anytime soon, but they led Power 5 programs, allowing just 5.35 yards per pass in the regular season last year, and that's going to be a tough number to match without Love on the field. Meanwhile, it's fair to ask how much damage was done to Vaughn's psyche during the Cotton Bowl, which could open the door for Bracy or someone such as Houston Griffith, who played nickel last season, to step up instead. Auburn quarterback Who's out: Jarrett Stidham Who's in: Bo Nix, Joey Gatewood, Malik Willis Concern level: Moderate This is arguably the most intriguing QB battle of the offseason. For one, Auburn might not be finished looking for candidates for the job. The Tigers were in on Kelly Bryant before he committed to Missouri, and as more battles shake out elsewhere, Jordan-Hare could be a nice landing spot for several others. But if left to pick from the guys already on the roster, Gus Malzahn seems optimistic that he'll find a good answer. Still, it'll be a fresh start. None of the QBs -- including incoming freshman Bo Nix -- has significant experience, and it figures to be a pretty wide-open competition. Malzahn has favorably compared Gatewood's physical attributes to Cam Newton (dial it down a bit, Gus! ), and Nix (son of former Auburn star Patrick Nix) is one of the nation's top dual-threat recruits. So there's no lack of talent, no lack of intrigue and no lack of stress on Malzahn to pick the right guy. Jacob Phillips will be counted on for veteran leadership for LSU's defense. LSU doesn't fret over defense. The Tigers are as close to plug-and-play as anyone outside of Tuscaloosa on that side of the ball, so no matter that Williams and White were dominant forces or that they'll both likely be top-15 draft picks. There's more talent waiting in the wings, with particular interest in Stingley, one of the nation's top recruits and a superstar corner in the making. Replacing White in the middle of the D is a slightly bigger job, one LSU got a taste for during the first half against Alabama last season. The Tigers managed just fine then, and they have a bit more time to prepare this time. Phillips is a veteran and can handle defensive playcalling, while Baskerville and Queen have huge upside, too. The big question is whether there's any wiggle room for the defense if LSU can't find more success on the other side of the ball. UCF quarterback Who's out: McKenzie Milton Who's in: Darriel Mack Jr., Brandon Wimbush Concern level: Breaking a sweat Mack filled in admirably after Milton's injury in the regular season finale, but he'll need to take a step forward as a sophomore to keep the job and keep UCF's offense humming. Getting Wimbush as a graduate transfer was a good Plan B. He is a winner, a legitimate dual-threat QB, and a good downfield passer. That all fits nicely with Josh Heupel's system, which should ensure there's not a steep drop-off in 2019. Still, Milton's a unique talent who has led UCF's rise to prominence, so even if Wimbush largely performs like his 2017 season rather the one that got him benched last year, it's not necessarily a smooth transition. The good thing for UCF is, while Mack or Wimbush will be tasked with replacing Milton's on-field production, Milton will still be around the team to offer the off-field leadership he's provided the previous two seasons. | http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/25834624/going-replace-college-football-biggest-stars |
Why is Fake News Accepted by so Many? | If there is a model of integrity in reporting the news and analyzing troubles ahead it is C.P. Scott, longtime editor (1872-1929) and later owner of the Manchester Guardian. His counsel in his May 1921 centenary essay was priceless: Comment is free, but facts are sacred It is well to be frank, it is even better to be fair. While pursuing a progressive liberal agenda, his emphasis was always accurate news reporting. It is sad that the mainstream U.S. media and many of those involved in intellectual endeavors do not abide by Scotts maxim. A recent event comprising a publication by BuzzFeed and responses to it indicates a continuing problem. BuzzFeed, citing two anonymous federal law enforcement officials reported on January 17, 2019 that Robert Mueller had evidence that President Trump told Michael Cohen to lie about discussions of a potential proposed Trump Tower to be built in Moscow. On the next day, January 18, 2019, a spokesperson for Mueller repudiated the story: BuzzFeeds description of specific statements to the Special Counsels Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohens Congressional testimony are not accurate. Several aspects are interesting. One is the refusal of BuzzFeed (and CNN and MSNBC) to accept Muellers denial. BuzzFeed editor Ben Smith stood by its reporting despite the fact that no texts or other documents corroborated the story. His refusal reflects the reality that in general the mainstream media are more to the left in presenting news or opinions than is the median opinion of U.S. voters. Criticism of the left media does not mean that one is adopting the argument frequently voiced by Trump about the assault on him by Fake News, or accepting his view of critics as Enemies of the People. The C.P. Scott formula should be espoused by news media of the left as well as the right because of concern about bias, the frequent use of misleading information, the fact that headlines of stories dont always reflect their content or import, and the willingness of journalists to publish and of readers to consume or not challenge Fake News. Furthermore, the eagerness to condemn Trump results in the presumption of guilt rather than innocence; in this case the focus is to blame Trump for obstruction of justice, and implicitly call for impeachment of the President. There are wider implications: the question of bias in reporting and the lack of diversity in teaching as well as reporting the news. A number of objective studies and surveys have illustrated the bias on the left. One, published in Politico in October 2016, showed that about 91% of news coverage of candidate Trump was hostile. Another factor is realization that technology has changed the nature of journalism. Patience is not one of the outstanding characteristics of the media. The initial, inaccurate, BuzzFeed story immediately caught fire and went viral. Its accuracy was not immediately challenged by much of the media. This is surprising because BuzzFeed, a site founded in 2006 which became a global media company, is regarded by many as an unreliable source. Indeed, its editorial stated we firmly believe that for a number of issues there are not two sides. A Pew Research Center report concludes that Buzzfeed is one of the most distrusted news sources in the U.S. On January 10, 2017 it published the Christopher Steele dossier alleging that the Russian government had been cultivating, supporting, and assisting Trump for years. Allegations of this kind are mixed with past activity by Trump, who bought the Miss Universe pageant in 1996, later sold it, but brought it to Moscow in 2013, and was involved in negotiations to build in Moscow a Trump Tower. Trump associates carried on conversations with Russian officials on the issue. Nevertheless, this does not lead to proof of Trumps guilt in the issue of collusion between Trump and Moscow. The rapid, unthinking acceptance of the BuzzFeed story evokes the memory of the impact of the 23-year-old Orson Welles narrative and production of the War of The Worlds, on October 30, 1938, the evening before Halloween. The program, a modernized version of the story by H. G. Wells, was a fictional report on the Martian invasion of the U.S at Grovers Mills, N.J., a few miles from Princeton. The fake news broadcast of the invasion, interrupted by piano solos of Debussy and Chopin and other orchestral music, was mistaken by many as a genuine news broadcast and caused panic among listeners. Welles never clearly explained whether his intention was to create panic in the audience, but he did acknowledge that his Fake News was mistaken for a genuine news broadcast. His success helped lead to a contract in Hollywood where in 1941 he cowrote and directed Citizen Kane. The troubling question is why Fake News is accepted by so many. It can be the sheer repetition of inaccurate information by the media, leading most people to be reluctant to challenge what they have heard or read. But an underlying problem, not often discussed, remains, the lack of diversity among reporters, and to take the matter further, the lack of diversity in the teaching of public affairs in universities. Lack of diversity, and consequent bias, in the media is clearly shown by a study of news coverage of the first 100 days of the Trump administration released by the Shorenstein Center at Harvard. Coverage was overwhelmingly negative: CNN, 93%, CBS and NBC 91%, the New York Times 87%, the Washington Post 83%, the Wall Street Journal 70%, and even Fox News 52%. Account should also be taken of the lack of diversity of political opinion in universities, since they have a responsibility to educate those who will become reporters. Education should emphasize the necessity to be free of bias in scholarship, and the dangers of curtailment of free speech on university campuses, ideological conformity, and outright discrimination. But studies show that political correctness pervades the campus, and that political leaning of faculty is overwhelmingly leftist and friendly to the Democratic party. An article by Mitchell Langbert titled Homogenous: The Political Affiliations of Elite Liberal Arts College Faculty in the June 2018 Academic Questions published by the National Association of Scholars analyzed a sample of 8,688 tenure track professors from liberal arts colleges and showed that the ratio of liberal to conservative faculty is 12.7-1 if military colleges are excluded, and 10.4-1 if they are included. Figures for some colleges such as Wellesley, Swarthmore, Williams, indicate the ratio of the faculty is 120-1 liberal. There are sharp differences in fields; engineering has 1.6-1 liberal and chemistry 5.2-1, and physics 6.2-.1; science is 6.3-1; social science 12.3-1 and humanities 31.9-1. Not a single Republican was found in gender studies, Africana, or peace studies, or in the faculty at Bryn Mawr. At the extreme were liberal bastions such as anthropology, 56-0, and communications, 18-0. Universities should be reminded that a monologue is just a form of continuous fiction. It is time to focus on the bias, oversimplification, the inaccurate tonality, of issues presented in the media and the items chosen or neglected on an inherently ideological basis in the media and on the campus. | https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/01/why_is_fake_news_accepted_by_so_many.html |
Are Democrats Fiscally Responsible Now? | President Trump has made it clear with his two recent addresses on the crisis on the border and subsequent government shutdown that the crisis is about stopping illegal drugs from entering the country. These drugs are something that all Americans are impacted by regardless of their proximity to the southern border. The death toll of drug overdoses in the past ten years is equal to the population of Boston, Massachusetts, and substance abuse costs United States taxpayers upwards of $600 billion a year. Much of that is spent on Democratic pet projects aimed at tackling this problem. Even if the president and his supporters also see another benefit of the wall, stemming the flow of illegal immigration, Democrats should still be supporting any proposal that provides an avenue to ending America's drug crisis. Democrats already support other means meant to deal with the growing opioid crisis by offering government-funded "free" needles and drug injection sites, "free" Narcan and overdose-related health care costs, and "free" rehabilitation and "free" methadone programs for recovering addicts. There are approximately 185 Needle Exchange Programs operating in the United States. The ACLU estimates that the average city spends $160,000 of taxpayer money a year on each NEP, which amounts to almost $30 million a year. San Francisco, speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's own district, has begun to open the country's first "safe injection site," where drug-users can mainline their drug of choice in a "safe, government-funded space" and where addicts won't have to face fears of arrest. According to the ONDCP , between 9.5 billion and 13.5 billion taxpayer dollars are spent on drug treatment and rehabs each year. Taxpayers are also paying for Narcan, a drug distributed by paramedics in the event of an opioid overdose, which costs approximately $70 per dose. That does not cover the ambulance ride itself. Middletown, Ohio city councilman Dan Picard estimates that each ambulance run for an overdose costs the city $1,140. One year of methadone costs $4,700 per patient , which brings the known costs of substance abuse to $600 billion annually and doesn't measure the price communities face in crime, disease, local prevention programs, and tragic loss of life. Our elected leaders are not in dispute about drug use and addiction being a national crisis. Democrats are fully willing to spend a lot of taxpayer revenue, whether federally or locally, on the crisis. These actions are not always ways to prevent drugs use just ways to minimize the damages of it. Yet when the president says he wants to cut the source of the drugs by use of a physical barrier, drug detection technology for our border agents, and increased personnel, Democrats defy him and use emotional arguments that his plan will not be effective. If they were really concerned with this issue that costs over 70,000 American lives each year, they should be willing to quickly agree to efforts aimed at curbing these disastrous effects. This week's cover of Bloomberg Businessweek features the serious profile of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, with large, irregular text reading "READ MY LIPS: Yes, New Taxes. Lots. Big ones, too. Plus, Medicare for ALL. And free tuition for..." This notion of "free, free, free" coming from a Democrat shouldn't be a shock. What is surprising is the sudden fiscal conservativeness top Democrats are displaying when it comes to President Trump's $5.7-billion request for a border wall. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi claims that a wall is too expensive while simultaneously cosponsoring a bill that would make middle-income families eligible for subsidized child care. To the actual fiscal conservatives, this may be hair-raising, but other Democratic spending proposals make it seem tame in comparison like the Medicare for All initiative that has made up a large part of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal. While on August 8, 2018, she made a claim that the socialized health care plan would be cheaper than our current system, publishers of that report she cited shot back, saying she did not understand the material she was reading. According to the authors, even the most conservative counts of the proposed bill would add $32.6 trillion yes, trillion to the deficit during its first ten years. The estimated cost of Bernie Sanders's (similarly adopted by Ocasio-Cortez) Free Tuition for All is approximately a $47-billion-per-year plan for free college. Although the Democratic Party is split in support for these outrageous social programs, it should be a sign that newer elected officials are moving toward an even more radical platform in an attempt to seduce voters. Funds and government spending can be directed by the trillions toward any programs liberals and Progressives support, but if President Trump has a proposal, and even if that proposal aligns with their own platform, they will shut it down in spite. This makes Americans, including the 800,000 federal employees held in limbo, aware that this shutdown is not about solutions; it is a personal vendetta against the president masquerading as tough politics. | https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/01/are_democrats_fiscally_responsible_now.html |
Can a daughter duck CGT if dad lives in her spare apartment? | I am an 84 year old self-funded retiree and in October 2018, relocated from small country Queensland town to a city unit belonging to my only unmarried daughter. I will live in this one bedroom unit till I die. My daughter will move into a two bedroom unit when renovations are completed next year. It will be her principal place of residence. She is not receiving any rent from me. G.Y. Transferring apartments between family members won't duck capital gains tax. Credit:Louie Douvis Your daughter will not be able to claim both properties as exempt from CGT over the long term although, while the new home unit is under renovation, she should be able to claim both homes for a maximum of six months. She can transfer the property to you without CGT if it has always been her main residence. Queensland stamp duty amounts to $1050 plus 3.5 per cent of the amount between $75,000 and $540,000, and then 4.5 per cent on the excess. For example, a $700,000 unit would require some $24,525 in duty. However, I suspect such a cure may be worse than the disease. If she ceases to claim her old unit as a main residence, she will need to obtain a market value, which is likely to be quite high. Written reports from a couple of local agents will suffice. If and when she sells it, she will be liable for CGT on the profit made once it ceased to be her main residence. | https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/money/tax/can-a-daughter-duck-cgt-if-dad-lives-in-her-spare-apartment-20190124-p50tdi.html?ref=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss_feed |
Can the New Tabloid Media Ever Be Redeemed? | Journalism is the only profession mentioned in the Bill of Rights. The Founders assigned it a specific role to ensure that citizens would be able to carry out informed debates. Yet over the last two years, serious political journalism has all but been pushed aside in a rush towards tabloidization. The goal of this is to do away with Trump, not by honest persuasion but by any means necessary. The justification is that America is on the precipice of 1933, and so running Trump out of office is a moral duty. Trump is a Nazi; the red MAGA cap is the new Klan hood. Under such dire circumstances, the media can no longer risk letting both sides be heard (now known as giving them a platform) or chance unbiased reporting that might inadvertently make Trump look good. Some journalists seem to believe they were partially responsible for Hillary Clintons defeat. Others live in fear that some scrap of truth might accidentally abet more Charlottesvilles. The new standard is tabloid-level journalism, so every story can be a Fruity Pebbles sugar high serving the cause. Objectivity is #collusion. Classic tabloids like the National Enquirer run Elvis-is-alive articles, announce miracle cancer cures, and traffic in outrageous celebrity gossip. Sources are anonymous, conclusions spoon-fed, headlines bombastically out of line with the text. Its okay in its place, because absent a few blue-haired old ladies in what used to be called the beauty parlor, no one really believes the stories. Were spectators at a magic show where we know no one is actually sawed in half but its fun to be fooled anyway. The problem is when ostensibly real news becomes tabloidized. Advertisement The most recent example is Buzzfeeds claim that documentary proof exists that Trump ordered his attorney (whom the media by common agreement libelously calls a fixer) to lie to Congress about the Moscow Project. Tabloids use assumed narratives and prejudicesa miracle cure could save mom if only Big Pharma would get out of the way. In this case, the narrative chain is that Trump wanted to build a hotel in Moscow, so the Russkies helped him win the presidency so hes now their asset so it all has to be lied about so Trump has to be in on it. Lack of actual evidence has held back Russiagate in all its metastasizing forms for over two years. Enter Buzzfeed, which set the hook with something new: its mystery sources saw the evidence that Trump told Cohen to lie. One of the Buzzfeed authors, albeit one with a history of plagiarism and misreporting going back years, kinda sorta maybe said he personally saw it too. Same as with the miracle cure, to any objective person, Buzzfeeds story was too good to be true: a literal paper receipt for perjury! Trump cant lie his way out of that! Hell be out of office as fast as the paperwork can be processed! Impeach the MF! Legacy prestigious media outlets such as The Washington Post and The New York Times picked up the story, having learned how to hide behind the thong of appending As reported by Buzzfeed after which for all they care they can headline The Earth is Flat! at no reputational risk to themselves. In 2019, they are no longer responsible for what they (re)print. Congressman Jim Clyburn spoke for the media and his fellow pols when he said, I dont think that my Democratic friends are in any way rushing to judgment because they qualified right up front, If this is true. When you preface your statement with If this is true, that, to me, gives you all the cover you need. One imagines with horror those words chiseled on a journalism building Clyburn funds at his alma mater. The only problem is that Buzzfeeds story wasnt true. It was shut down by a statement from the special counsels office in less than 24 hours, the first such rebuke ever issued (though to be fair, James Comey also stated that some New York Times reporting on Russiagate was wrong). The media in both instances characterized being told it was wrong by the definitive source it otherwise deifies as just a dispute, pushing back, a controversy. Buzzfeeds reaction included a clumsy jujitsu of challenging Mueller to tell them exactly what he thought was inaccurate. They perhaps understood that in the tabloid world, truth has a viral-length expiration date, that truth is only what people are willing to believe anyway, including that magicians really can saw women in half. Falsehoods are just the work of bad sources. All that matters is saying Trump is evil, an end that justifies the journalistic means. Advocacy journalism, tabloid style, is not about pointing out real wrongs with an occasional correction issued. It is about teeing up tales to support a political goal. Let Buzzfeed open the door for The Washington Post to legitimize the story. Members of Congress then bypass the fuzzy source to cite the name-brand one (according to sources becomes according to the Washington Post) until Democrats are demanding hearings into what Muellers office already made clear isnt true. In the same week, a selective short clip of an encounter between some white Covington Catholic high school students wearing MAGA hats, a Native American (whom the media falsely lionized for days as a Vietnam vet), and some black protesters was fanned into a racial showdown, when all it took was for someone to watch the whole recording of the interaction to realize that it was not true. Or the mass proclamation that conservatives were furious over Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezs silly dance video when no one was. Or this long list of Russiagate game-changers that werent. Or two-years worth of false breaking news that somebody in the Trump administration was about to flip, quit, be indicted, get fired, or fire Mueller. Tabloid journalism for political ends has assumed priority over reporting facts. People are being conditioned to overreact. Name calling is commentary. Prejudice and stereotyping are offensive when aimed left, but allowed when fired by Pulitzer-winning columnists at Trump voters. Headlines can be less accurate than the text. Belief trumps truth. The ends justify the means when attacking political opponents. Too much free speech plays into the hands of the authoritarians. The term both sides journalism is a now a negative one. Journalists have convinced themselves that serving up the correct sort of bias is equivalent to serving the nation. Its sad that it took Whoopi Goldberg on The View to serve up some measure of truth. She wondered why the media rushed to judge the Covington teens. Because were desperate to get Trump out, co-host Joy Behar asserted. Political journalism adopting tabloid standards and practices is a true threat to democracy. As one writer put it, lets not underestimate the damage being donepeople of all political stripes will acknowledge the important role that free and unfettered discourse plays in the democratic process. By extension, when that discourse is poisoned, so too is the process. The Buzzfeed story, followed so quickly by the Covington story, should be a significant moment of reflection, one when the media remember they play a critical role in our system. Yet there have been few denunciations of the misuse of sources, the rushes to judgment, the purposeful dropping of objectivity, the failure to seek out other perspectives, the problem of wrong reporting, the blurring of editorial into news. No one asks why there arent mainstream sources: Trump is innocent stories that later need to be walked back. No one demands as much emphasis on corrections as on the original false story. Instead, the standard response to being caught seems to be either to dig in (as with Buzzfeed) or to delete a Tweet or two (as in the Covington mess). Its as though in the age of the Internet, that makes it so that something never actually happened. Its unlikely things will change, especially when this model of journalism is also good in a business where clicks equal dollars. The sad thing is that craven economic self-interest is the least worst explanation for tabloidization. Its in danger in plain sight. Peter Van Buren, a 24-year State Department veteran, is the author of We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People and Hoopers War: A Novel of WWII Japan. He is permanently banned from federal employment and Twitter. | https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/can-the-political-media-be-redeemed-from-tabloidization/ |
Who is Katy Keene and how is she connected to Riverdale? | Riverdale is getting itself another spin-off (Picture: Netflix) Riverdale is getting itself another spinoff series with the news that comic book character Katy Keene is coming to the small screen. The CW has ordered a pilot episode of a potential series for the character, which has been described as a musical dramedy following Katy and her friends as they try to make it on Broadway, on the runway and in the recording studio. The character has undergone several revivals over the decades Katy first appeared in print in 1945 in Wilbur Comics, appearing in subsequent issues as well as anthology comics featuring Archie, Betty, Jughead and Veronica before she got her own standalone comic in 1949. She was popular in the 1950s, appearing in such specials as Katy Keene Piin Up Parade and Katy Keene Fashion Book Magazine, but disappeared in the early 60s, with a fan magazine launched in 1979 until Archie Comics revived the character themselves in 1983. Advertisement Advertisement This time the main artist was John S Lucas, a lifelong Katy fan who was taken on board after contributing art to the fan magazine. Katy was also renowned for her fashion sense She was retired once again in 1994 with yet another revival by Archie in 2005 this time as a high school student and wannabe model. The comics also featured a string of other characters who will no doubt feature in the series including Katys little sister Sis, love interest K.O Kelly and his love rival Randy Van Ronsnson, and her career rival Gloria Grandbilt. (Picture: Netflix/The CW) While she inhabits the same universe as the other characters, Katys life in New York City is far removed from goings-on in Riverdale. There is however a link of sorts, with Veronica Lodge having heavily hinted that Katy was best friend when she lived in New York. Well just have to wait and see. Riverdale series three is currently streaming on Netflix UK, with new episodes on Thursdays. If you've got a story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk Entertainment team by emailing us [email protected], calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page - we'd love to hear from you. MORE: Riverdales Lili Reinhart and Cole Sprouse pictured together on-set after show drops next level death MORE: Riverdale fans may have solved mystery after season 3 teases game-changing death | https://metro.co.uk/2019/01/24/katy-keene-connected-riverdale-8384873/ |
Why is Suits ending after its ninth series? | Suits has lost viewers since Meghan Markles departure (Picture: Getty Images) Suits fans are set to be disappointed by the news that the long-running legal drama will end after series nine. The show has been commissioned for one final 10-part series after the remainder of season eight airs in 2019 but thatll be your lot. Katherine Heigl joined the cast following Meghans departure (Picture: Getty Images) No official reason has been given, but ratings for the series have fallen since Meghan who played Rachel Zane on the show left to marry Prince Harry. Reports last summer revealed that season eight the first without Meghan and her new onscreen husband Mike Ross (Patrick J Adams) had lost 1.2m viewers per show for the first three episodes. Advertisement Advertisement Viewing figures had peaked at around the two million mark after the couples relationship was confirmed in 2016, but the numbers dropped again in seasons six and seven. News of the shows end came as the second half of the eighth series kicked off on USA Network on Wednesday night. Series creator Aaron Korsh confirmed the end of the series in a statement, in which he thanked producers USA Network, as well as cast, crew and his family. I look forward to enraging and hopefully sometimes delighting you with the final episodes, he added. Suits has played an instrumental role in our networks DNA for nearly a decade, added Chris McCumber, President of USA Network and SYFY. Not quite, as Gina Torres character Jessica Pearson will be returning in her own spin-off series as the character moves to Chicago. The show, titled Pearson, will see the former lawyer pursuing a career in politics, and will also star Homelands Morgan Spector as Mayor Bobby Golec and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D star Simon Kassianides as the mayors driver. Season eight is now streaming on Netflix UK, with new episodes added every Thursday, the day after theyve been shown in the US. | https://metro.co.uk/2019/01/24/suits-ending-ninth-series-8385445/ |
What's left for Kentucky football in the 2019 recruiting class? | CLOSE UK coach Mark Stoops did not worry about J.J. Weaver's commitment even when it looked like he might wait to sign until February. Jon Hale, Louisville Courier Journal LEXINGTON, Ky. - With less than two weeks remaining before college footballs February signing day, its time to look at the lingering storylines as Kentucky football fills its final handful of spots in the 2019 class. Kentucky signed 21 players in the class in December, leaving four open spots if the staff chooses to sign a full 25-man class. Mark Stoops and company could elect to sign less than 25 though in order to leave wiggle room on the 85-man roster to add a transfer at a position of need. There are currently 84 scholarships accounted for the 2019 season, but there almost certainly will be several more departures from the current roster via transfer or dismissal before preseason camp. Only two of UKs verbal commitments did not sign with the program in December, and both wide receiver JaVonte Richardson and defensive tackle Elijah James hail from Iowa Western Community College. While neither player has announced plans to sign with a different school, their spots in the UK class no longer seem assured as they work to qualify. As of right now Elijah James and Javonte Richardson are working toward finishing their degree, Iowa Western coach Scott Strohmeier told the Courier Journal in an email. It is unclear if they will still have the opportunity at Kentucky. Its clear Kentucky coaches want to add at least one more defensive back to a roster that must replace its entire starting secondary in 2019. With just two offensive linemen in the December signing class, additional reinforcements might be needed there. The need to add playmakers at the offensive skill positions would be heightened if Richardson does not make it to campus. With few spots remaining in the 2019 class, Kentucky coaches have cast a relatively small net this month as they already begin to look ahead to 2020. Four-star Louisiana athlete Devonta Lee, who UK is recruiting to play as a wide receiver alongside his high school QB Amani Gilmore, told the Courier Journal in December he fell in love with Kentucky on an official visit but is still scheduled to visit home-state LSU the weekend before signing day. Former UK commitment Jay Ward, a four-star Georgia prep cornerback, is still considering UK along with LSU, Texas A&M and Florida State and is scheduled to visit campus on Feb. 1. Four-star Georgia prep defensive back Jammie Robinson took his official visit to UK in December and is also considering Auburn, Tennessee and South Carolina. UK offered scholarships to four-star Pennsylvania prep cornerback Marlin Devonshire and three-star Northwest Mississippi Community College wide receiver JaVonta Payton this month. UK appears to still be in the running for three-star Ohio prep offensive tackle Jonathan Allen. With just two weekends left for official visits before signing day, Saturdays Kentucky-Kansas basketball game represents a marquee opportunity for the football staff to get recruits a chance to experience the power of Big Blue Nation. Expect many top junior targets to be on hand for the game as well, but several of the remaining 2019 targets with official visits available, including Devonshire and Allen, have been reported to be planning to take in the game as well. The basketball team is on the road at Florida next weekend before signing day, so any prospect who visits then will be giving UK coaches the last word before signing day but will not see a game. Jon Hale: [email protected]; Twitter: @JonHale_CJ. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/jonh. | https://www.courier-journal.com/story/sports/college/kentucky/2019/01/24/kentucky-football-remaining-2019-recruiting-targets/2643570002/ |
Are we exploiting the full genetic potential of our calves? | As we await the arrival of an ever superior generation of calves over the coming months, it is now worthwhile to take a closer look at early calf nutrition when planning for the busy season ahead. Members of the Agritech team recently attended a Calf Performance Conference at the Blanca Research Facility in Spain, which featured presentations from many renowned researchers, including Professor Alex Bach. According to Agritechs Sales Director, John Kenny: From the conference, it became clear to me that we are significantly restricting the genetic potential of our calves in this country with the level of milk replacer we feed to them. With feed efficiency running at the rate of 60% in a young calf, compared to just 7% in a pre-calving two-year-old heifer, I believe that our national dairy herd has much more to gain by taking a closer look at how we can optimise performance of the calf in later life. Pre-Weaning Growth Farmers today are well informed when it comes to the area of managing and feeding adequate amounts of colostrum to the new born calf in a timely manner. However, the benefits of maximising feed intake and growth rates from day two to weaning are far less documented in Ireland. Taking an example of the calfs mammary gland. When a dairy heifer calf is born, its mammary gland constitutes just 1% of its total bodyweight. If the daily live-weight gain of this calf is inadequate up to weaning, this key organ will most likely remain at this percentage. However, if calf performance is raised up to as near as possible to 1kg/head/day, the cells in this key gland will continuously split and multiply to the extent where the mammary gland will increase to around 2% of the calfs bodyweight at nine to 10 weeks-of-age. While the above example highlights the mammary gland, the benefits of accelerated growth pre-weaning are applicable to all of the key organs in the young calfs body, including the heart, lungs, kidneys etc. The long-term benefits of achieving a better developed calf at weaning with bigger and stronger organs are proven to deliver significant increased lifetime benefits through increased daily yields, improved disease immunity and an overall longer life. Advertisement It is also now widely accepted that the effects of increased growth pre-weaning on first lactation alone is circa +300L milk yield. John states that that there is no such thing as compensatory growth with this approach to calf rearing. Farmers will only get one chance in a calfs lifetime to secure this advantage. Once the cells in each organ stop dividing in or around the nine or 10 week stage, they grow in line with the rest of the animals body thereafter. Vitalac Calf Milk Replacers Agritech works with leaders in calf nutrition to bring a calf milk replacer range which encourages accelerated growth and performance. Its Vitalac Calf Milk Replacer range from Nukamel offers a well-balanced level of highly digestible fat and protein via carefully selected, high-quality ingredients many of which are sourced directly from Irish farms. These quality ingredients are further enhanced through the use of advanced techniques such as spray cooling technology. John states: The spray cooling technology used in our manufacturing process has shown to improve fat digestibility, feed intakes and milk powder solubility. A trial by Nukamel which compared spray cooling techniques to typical spray drying techniques over a period of 56 days, identified a significant 7.5kg extra live-weight gain in calves fed on the spray cooled product versus spray dried. We are delighted to confirm that our unique spray cooling technology is driving herd profitability in a significant way, further enhancing the quality of ingredients in our Vitalac Calf Milk Replacers, concluded John. Further information For further calf rearing advice or to find out more about the Vitalac Calf Milk Replacer Range Click here | https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/are-we-exploiting-the-full-genetic-potential-of-our-calves/ |
What happened when Oslo decided to make its downtown basically car-free? | If you decide to drive in downtown Oslo, be forewarned: You wont be able to park on the street. By the beginning of this year, the city finished removing more than 700 parking spotsreplacing them with bike lanes, plants, tiny parks, and benchesas a major step toward a vision of a car-free city center. Without those parking spots, and with cars banned completely on some streets, few people are driving in the area. There are basically no cars, says Axel Bentsen, CEO of Urban Sharing, the company that runs Oslo City Bike, the local bike-share system. The citys changes are designed, in part, to help improve air quality and fight climate change, but the difference in the quality of life is more immediate. The city feels different faster than you can feel the difference in [cleaner air], he says. You can see that youre actually reclaiming the space and can use it for other purposes than parking cars. Oslo first pedestrianized some streets in the city center in the 1970s, and invested heavily in public transportation in the 1980s. In 2015, when a progressive political coalition came to power in the city council more recently, they started planning a more significant transformation. At first, they called for a full ban on cars because the majority of residents in the city center didnt drive. But when business owners objected, worried that theyd lose customers and have problems with deliveries, the government changed focus to remove parking spotsa slightly more gradual approach. For now, there are still parking garages on the periphery of the center. A few spots are left, converted into parking for disabled drivers or EV charging, and some streets are open for delivery trucks for a couple of hours in the morning. Emergency vehicles still have access. But other drivers have to park in garages, and traffic restrictions help nudge drivers who dont need to go through the city center to take a ring road around it instead. In a new zoning plan, the city is taking its intentions further, giving pedestrians, cyclists, and public transportation greater priority than private cars, and planning a network of pedestrian zones that are fully car-free. Cities, like Oslo, have been built for cars for several decades, and its about time we change it, Hanne Marcussen, Oslos vice mayor of urban development, said in an email. I think it is important that we all think about what kind of cities we want to live in. I am certain that when people imagine their ideal city, it would not be a dream of polluted air, cars jammed in endless traffic, or streets filled up with parked cars. To help support the shift, the city made massive improvements in public transport and making cycling safe and comfortable, says Rune Gjs, Oslos head of cycling. The city is adding new trams and metro lines and more frequent departures, and lowering the cost of tickets. For the last few years, the city has also been quickly building out a better-connected bike network, converting parking to bright-red bike lanes. It handed out grants to help citizens buy electric bikes. The city bike-share system has quickly grown, tripling to nearly 3 million trips a year between 2015 and 2018. The system usually closes in the winter, but it ran a pilot this winter using bikes with spiked tires. It also tested offering cargo bikes. As more people bike, that opens up room on overcrowded public transit. Usually when you have these discussions you say, Oh, we need bikes to replace cars, but theres a missing link there, and thats public transit, says Bentsen. What we see is that actually we take people out of the bus and onto the bike and walking, which leaves room for people to leave their car and take the bus. | https://www.fastcompany.com/90294948/what-happened-when-oslo-decided-to-make-its-downtown-basically-car-free?partner=feedburner&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+fastcompany%2Fheadlines+%28Fast+Company%29 |
How many new tractors were registered in NI last year? | Data relating to registrations of new tractors in Northern Ireland (and across the UK) has just been released by the UK-based AEA (Agricultural Engineers Association). The data shows that 491 new tractors were registered in Northern Ireland during 2018. That figure accounts for 4.1% of all new tractor registrations across the UK. The 2018 figure (for Northern Ireland) was up, compared with the 2017 tally (457 units). Northern Ireland was not the only UK region to see an increase in registrations in 2018. So too did Wales and northern regions of England. The best performing region of the UK was the East Midlands, where nearly 200 extra machines were registered. There were declines in the southern regions and East Anglia, as well as in Scotland. Total UK registrations In all, 12,102 new agricultural tractors were registered in the UK during 2018. This figure was approximately 1% higher than the total for 2017. In fact, it was the largest annual figure in four years. Advertisement The total power sold was just over two million horsepower (2,000,000hp) the first time this level was reached since 2012. However, as expected, registrations of agricultural tractors (over 50hp) during the month of December were well below the level of the same month a year earlier (2017). In December 2017, new tractor registrations were inflated by the inclusion of a large number of units being pre-registered in advance of the entry into force of new regulations. Therefore, the December 2018 total of 849 tractors was 38% down (year-on-year), but otherwise was the highest figure for December since 1994. | https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/how-many-new-tractors-were-registered-in-ni-last-year/ |
Can The U.S. Dollar Keep Its Momentum? | For most global investors, U.S. dollar hedging was the only currency risk management strategy to follow in 2018. By Andrew Capon At a Glance Dollar strength defined currency trading in 2018. For most global investors, U.S. dollar hedging was the only currency risk management strategy to follow in 2018. The dollar rose against all of its major developed market crosses - by 3.4 percent vs. the euro; 4.5 percent vs. Canadian dollar; 5.1 percent vs. pound sterling; 5.8 percent vs. Australian dollar; and a more modest 0.3 percent vs. the yen. Dollar strength against the supposed darlings of the emerging markets - the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China) - was even more marked. The Brazilian real declined 15.1 percent against the USD, the Russian rouble 11.8 percent, Indian rupee 10.4 percent and the yuan by 4.2 percent. Long dollar was more than a good hedge, against a backdrop of generally declining asset prices it was among the trades of the year. The USD also burnished its credentials as a safe haven. When the S&P 500 peaked on 21 September 21, the trade-weighted dollar index stood at 94.22. Following an 18 percent fall in equities, the DXY ended the year at 96.11. Rising volatility has, so far, been USD positive. In short, 2018 was an annus mirabilis for the dollar. Behind The Dollar Rise A variety of factors have powered the dollar rally, but the most significant of all has been strong U.S. growth. This has enabled the Federal Reserve to continue tightening, which in turn widened interest rate differentials with the rest of the world. Positive carry in the most liquid reserve currency has been irresistible for investors. The December Commitment of Traders report recorded an 85.2 percent (non-commercial) long position in U.S. equity index futures. Positive U.S. growth looks set to continue into 2019. However, the pace is already slowing. The second quarter was the high-water mark for growth momentum as U.S. tax cuts powered earnings and capital expenditure. Those tax reforms also encouraged companies to repatriate foreign earnings which gave a further boost to the dollar. The Twin Deficits Those tailwinds have all but blown out. In 2019, attention is likely to turn to the ballooning U.S. budget and current account deficits. The lessons from history are somewhat mixed, however. Supply side reforms and stimulus began a long period of economic expansion in 1982 which was accompanied by significant dollar strength. Actions from an inflation-fighting Federal Reserve were crucial. Throughout the 1982-1985 period, interest rates were in a range between 7.75 and 15 percent while inflation averaged just 3.8 percent. Real interest rates were at unprecedented levels. That was the focus of the market and it helped drive the dollar inexorably higher until the Plaza Accord was signed September 1985. In most other periods, a rising current account deficit has weakened the dollar. Foreign investors have demanded a greater risk premium for funding U.S. dollar liabilities. If U.S. growth slows or global growth converges with the U.S., the twin deficit will come back into focus. Fed Watch Intriguingly, ever since current Fed chairman Jay Powell commented on October 3 that U.S. interest rates are a "long way from neutral," two-year inflation break-evens have collapsed from 1.84 to 0.68 percent. On the one hand this is good news for real interest rates, but it also indicates investors are wary of a deflationary bust. Futures tell a similar story. In November they indicated a 90 percent probability interest rates would end 2019 higher. By mid-January they were pricing a 97 percent probability that the fed funds rate will remain unchanged or be below their current level. This also suggests investors believe the Fed's growth forecasts need to be revised downward. 2019 Dollar Headwinds Additional headwinds for the U.S. dollar in 2019 are valuations and positioning. On a real effective exchange rate basis, the dollar is 10 percent overvalued relative to its history. The Swiss franc is also overvalued, but the other traditional currency safe haven, the Japanese yen, is significantly undervalued. Rising trade tensions between the U.S. and China weighed on the yen in 2018, but regardless of how this impasse is concluded, selling USDJPY arguably makes sense based on fundamentals especially if the U.S. economy slows. Long dollar is also a crowded trade, which may make investors wary about extending long positions. We may have already seen a taste of that in early trading sessions in 2019. On January 3, negative forward guidance from Apple was the catalyst for a big move in Asian currencies. At one point the yen appreciated by 3.7 percent vs. the USD. The Australian dollar slumped to its lowest level against the dollar in a decade. In 2019, it seems investors are reassessing currency safe havens. Editors Note: The summary bullets for this article were chosen by Seeking Alpha editors. | https://seekingalpha.com/article/4235200-can-u-s-dollar-keep-momentum |
Why Is The Senegambia Bridge Opened Before Completion? | 0 SHARES Share Tweet QUESTION OF THE DAY Engineering works are complex. Foroyaa is concerned that only small vehicles are allowed to ply the bridge. Heavy duty trucks are not allowed. The media is informed that work is in progress and once completed the heavy duty vehicles will also be able to ply the bridge. Engineering work requires supervision and haste could lead to destabilization of the structures before they are properly consolidated to fit purpose. Foroyaa will interview the engineers to find out what is left to be done to make it possible for heavy duty trucks to cross and how it will affect the bridge if they are allowed to cross now and why the smaller vehicles will not have the same impact if a given number of them cross at the same time. | https://foroyaa.gm/why-is-the-senegambia-bridge-opened-before-completion/ |
How prevalent is iron anaemia deficiency? | SPONSORED: Chela-Fer iron supplements are gentle and easily absorbed by the body. References: 1. Anaemia in South Africa: the past, the present and the future. South African Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2013;26(4): 166-167. 2. Phatlhane, Dineo, et al. The iron status of a healthy South African adult population, Clinica Chimica Acta 460 (2016) 240245. 3. Johnson-Wimbley, Terri, et al. Diagnosis and management of iron deficiency anemia in the 21st century. Therapeutic Advances in Gastroenterology (2011) 4(3) 177184. 4. Kortman, Guys, et al. Nutritional iron turned inside out: intestinal stress from a gut microbial perspective. Federation of European Microbiological Societies, Microbiology Rev 38 (2014) 1202-1234. 5. Ashmead, DeWayne, Albion Laboratories, Inc. The absorption and metabolism 01 iron amino acid chelate. Archivos Latinoamericanos de Nutricin. 6. Thejpal, R, et al. Iron deficiency in children. South African Medical Journal 2015;105(7):607. 7. Waldvogel-Abramowski, Sophie, et al. Physiology of Iron Metabolism, Transfusion Medicine and Hemotherapy 2014;41:213221. 8. Ferrochel: The gentle iron. Albion Human Nutrition (2009). Thejpal, R, et al. Iron deficiency in children. South African Medical Journal 2015;105(7):607. 9. Pineda, Oscar, Ph.D., et al. Effectiveness of Iron Amino Acid Chelate on the Treatment of Iron Deficiency Anemia in Adolescents. Journal of Applied Nutrition, Volume 46, Numbers 1 & 2, 1994. 10. Chela- Fer package insert. 11. REF11_Toblli, J.E., et al. Optimizing iron delivery in the management of anemia: patient considerations and the role of ferric carboxymaltose. Drug Design, Development and Therapy (2014) ASCENDIS CONSUMER BRANDS (PTY) LTD. | Reg-Nr. 2013/195936/07 | VAT 4460264361 31 Georgian Crescent | Bryanston | Johannesburg | 2021 | South Africa | p 011 036- 9420 Email: [email protected] | Website: www.ascendis.co.za Director: Dr. Karsten Wellner CONSUMER BRANDS DIVISION A PROUD BRAND OF For full prescribing information, refer to the package insert/product information approved by the regulatory authority. This unregistered medicine has not been evaluated by the SAHPRA for its quality, safety or intended use. | https://www.health24.com/Medical/Anaemia/From-Our-Sponsors/how-prevalent-is-iron-anaemia-deficiency-20190124 |
What will BHP do with its vast hoard of franking credits? | Theres going to be pressure on those companies with excess franking credit reserves to distribute them before Labor, assuming it wins the federal election likely to be held in May, has an opportunity to introduce its planned changes to the dividend imputation regime. Labor plans to end the concession for individuals and super funds that allows cash refunds for excess franking credits, a concession many retirees have relied on for their retirement income. The policy, with Labor says will save $11.4 billion over four years and $55 billion over a decade, would impact mainly self-funded retirees with investment portfolios either held directly or through their self-managed funds. The size of the savings points to the scale of the loss of income for those investors. The special dividends announced by the fleet of investment vehicles spear-headed by Australian Foundation Investment Co, as well as by Brickworks BKI Investment, are designed to get franking credits into the hands of those investors while they can still cash them out. BHP, after quietening its stalker, US corporate activist Elliott Management, with the sale of its shale assets is keen to build its retail investor base, having experienced how fickle some institutional investors can be, and how short term their time-horizons, during Elliotts campaign. It would be odd if it hadnt given at least some thought as to how it might deploy its franking credits while they are most valuable to the key class of retail investors. BHPs buy-back and the special dividend were one-offs, funded by the $US10.4 billion of net proceeds from BHPs sale of its US onshore oil and gas assets to BP. Access to the massive residual store of credits will be dependent on BHPs operational profitability, within the context of its rigorous capital allocation framework. That framework starts with a couple of non-negotiables. BHP is determined to maintain a strong and conservative balance sheet through the nadirs of the sectors cycles, with net debt to range between $US10 billion and $US15 billion. The other priority is to be able to fund reasonable levels of maintenance and growth capital expenditures through the cycles. Once those imperatives have been satisfied, shareholders will get a minimum of 50 per cent of the groups underlying earnings. That was a policy introduced in 2016, when BHP abandoned its progressive dividend policy. The 50 per cent is a minimum. Since the policy was introduced BHP has distributed $US9 billion of dividends beyond that base level. At present net debt is down around the bottom of BHPs targeted range, just above $US10 billion. Its capital expenditure plans for this year and next envisages that it will invest less than $US8 billion each year. Despite some production glitches in the first half that saw it lose $US600 billion of expected productivity gains, and costs running a little ahead of plan, it is confident that it can make up for the lost ground in the second half. In the December half the prices of its key commodities iron ore and oil held up, with the oil price 15 per cent higher than the average realised price in 2017-18 and iron ore prices only about $US1 a tonne lower than last financial years. Spot prices for oil have fallen relative to the December half but are in line with the 2018 financial year average while iron ore prices have spiked nearly $US20 a tonne relative to the December half and are about $US18 a tonne higher than the 2018 financial year average. With a $US1 a tonne movement in the iron ore price having an impact of about $US227 million on BHPs earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation and a $US1 a barrel movement in the oil price $US43 million, they hold the key to how much cash and profit BHP can deliver and therefore how big the dividends or future capital management initiatives might be. Mackenzie and his board will no doubt be very aware that, whatever their store of franking credits is worth to their retail shareholders today, it will be worth a lot less to a significant percentage of them if Labor wins the election and implements its policy. If theres capacity within their capital allocation framework to do something more with their vast reserves of credits, this year would be the time to do it. | https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/what-will-bhp-do-with-its-vast-hoard-of-franking-credits-20190124-p50tci.html?ref=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss_business |
Who Will Kill The Night King in Game of Thrones Season 8? | Where to Stream: Game of Thrones More Options Game of Thrones is only a few short months from wrapping up its sprawling saga. Well finally know who will win, who will die, and perhaps most importantly, who will kill the Night King. The first scene in Game of Thrones has nothing to do with Lannisters, Starks, dragons, or petty squabbles between warring lords. It is simply a horror sequence wherein the dead rise and kill a couple of living, breathing members of the Nights Watch. So it is that the real conflict in Game of Thrones has nothing to do with an Iron Throne, but the existential battle between life and death. At the end of Season 7, the Night King and his undead White Walkers, legions of wights, and one terrifying zombie ice dragon bore a hole in the Wall and began their march on Westeros. Season 8 will see the final, bloody battle between our living heroes and villains and this indomitable force. Since early on in the series, weve been promised saviors with flaming swords and princes born to fulfill ancient prophecies. We already have a pretty good idea of who the odds-on favorites are to kill the Night King, and here are our predictions. | https://decider.com/2019/01/24/game-of-thrones-who-will-kill-night-king/ |
Whats next for Birminghams Dominion Partners? | Dominion Partners isnt done, even after the announced sale of its Somerby Senior Living Portfolio last week. Terms of the deal, which involved eight facilities, including ones in Birmingham, Mobile and Auburn, were not disclosed. But Orlandos Bridge Seniors Housing Fund Manager LLC, an affiliate of Salt Lake City-based Bridge Investment Group, acquired the facilities, the name. The company also gets first right of offer on any new developments Dominion has. And there will be more, Dominion Principal and CEO Al Worthington said. Were not going anywhere, Worthington said. Dominion Partners wants to continue to be a quality developer. We have to be more selective as we go forward. We have a very good model. We have a very good brand. We should be able to strategically develop on a reasonable basis. Dominion, which began after splitting from Daniel Corp. in 2006, has grown from 125 employees over 13 years to more than 1,400 associates operating 14 communities in six states. It grew using private equity and built the company to not only acquire and develop real estate for senior housing, but to operate the communities through the Somerby name. A little more than a year ago, Worthington said, it became clear that some of Dominions investment partners in the Somerby communities were ready to sell. So Dominion began planning around this by leasing up three remaining properties and selling investors on the idea of offering the entire Somerby portfolio. We saw it more as a recapitalization, he said. We wanted to keep everyone employed and keep the operating company together. In the end, it created much more value than we thought there might be." Enter Bridge Seniors Housing Fund Manager, which was anxious to acquire a slate of communities in the Southeast. Bridge Seniors is among the largest owners of senior housing units in the United States, with 90 communities as of the end of last year. We had a buyer who had raised a lot of capital, was very aggressive and wanted this portfolio, he said. It fits their model. But Dominion has more plans. Worthington said work is still on track at Fleming Farms, the companys senior housing community in Huntsville. Currently under construction along Whitesboro Road, the project should be finished by 2020. The company is also planning another community in Bradenton, Fla. on the Manatee River, as well as a mixed-use non-senior living apartment project in the same city. The senior living project, which would be all assisted living and enhanced care, would be on the river. Its a really cool site with some beautiful views, he said. | https://www.al.com/business/2019/01/whats-next-for-birminghams-dominion-partners.html |
What Is The State Of Crypto And Blockchain In Japan After Regulation? | Across the globe, there have been different stabs at regulation in the cryptocurrency industry. From incredibly welcoming and forward-thinking ideas in places like Malta and Switzerland, to all-out war with in China. Still, there is no global codified approach to cryptocurrency and blockchain, rather somewhat reactionary regulatory actions from different governments. Japan is an interesting case-study of cryptocurrency regulation as the country has suffered the two biggest exchange hacks in history - that of Mt. Gox and Coincheck. Thus, when the Japanese government intervened and started cracking down heavily on exchanges, it could not be called surprising. Business improvement orders were doled out across the countrys exchange ecosystem to force these companies into offering safe, secure and effective cryptocurrency services. Some could not get themselves up to a suitable level, and rather shut down, while others banded together to form a self-regulatory committee. The argument has always been that hardline regulation will stifle the cryptocurrency and blockchain ecosystem and cause the innovative technology, and fintech, to suffer. However, a look at the state of blockchain and cryptocurrency in Japan, as seen from the viewpoint of the Japan Blockchain Conference, paints a different story. One of the originals It would be fair to say that China was probably the first cryptocurrency superpower. The Peoples Republic, at a stage, had the largest Bitcoin transaction volume, a considerable amount of individuals invested in the cryptocurrency space, and was full of companies and organisations exploring blockchain and cryptocurrency industry. However, China is also the original country that pioneered outright banning within the cryptocurrency ecosystem. It began with ICOs, then access to Exchanges, and even extended to setting up the Great Firewall to block access to foreign exchanges for the Chinese population. However, with that ban, Japan quickly stepped in to pick up the slack and become a leading force in cryptocurrency and blockchain. David Otto, International Media Coordinator at Japan Blockchain Conference, explains why the Asian country has become this crypto hub. There are a few reasons, he mused. Japan has always been very forward thinking and looking for ways to innovate across all aspects of technology. Japan was the tech capital of the world for decades, and even if it may seem that a lot of the focus has shifted to its neighbours, a lot of technology still originates from Japan and innovation continues. Also, the country has a lot of investors looking for new opportunities to invest in a country that has a very low federal interest rate, even reaching negative interest rates at times. These two factors have sparked interest in cryptocurrencies and crypto-assets as a way for Japan to shape the future of crypto. With that innovative blueprint ingrained in Japan and its business sector, Otto goes on to explain how large corporations such as the e-commerce giant Rakuten, chat service Line, and internet giant DMM are all showing their latest offerings at this blockchain conference. These three companies are well respected in Japan, and they will all be presenting their latest developments at the conference. We believe that this will invigorate the Japanese crypto startup scene to bring blockchain and crypto further into the mainstream, added Otto. Firm but fair The real conclusion that needs to be sought in examining where Japans blockchain and cryptocurrency scene finds itself is to see where the government is positioned in regards to the industry. The decision to step in and put out firm business improvement orders to the exchanges may seem harsh, but really, it is an indication that the government wants this sector to work, but work properly. Setting standards that the cryptocurrency industry needs to live up to and adhere to is a step towards a legislative framework, and as Otto explains further about the Japan Blockchain Conference, there is interest and participation from the government in fostering this. We are proud to say that the conference has the support of the Ministry of Trade, Economy and Industry and will be attended by Mr Yohei Matsuda, Director-General of the Commerce and Information Policy Bureau and the Director of the Information Economy Division. We also have the support of the City of Yokohama, explained Otto. Furthermore, the holy grail of cryptocurrency regulations which is full and direct classification seems to be just on the horizon, and there is talk of cryptocurrencies being labelled and treated as crypto-assets. Showing face For Otto, the importance of meaningful conferences is vital to the expansion and acceptance of cryptocurrency, especially in an efficient and rule-following nation like Japan. The opportunity for major corporations to show what they are working on for the world to see, under the watchful eye of the government, seems to suggest that the industry will be growing in a prescribed manner, rather than in a speculative whirlwind of hype which brought it into the light to begin with. Conferences are an important place for the top minds to share information and for people to network, explained Otto. "Many fruitful business partnerships form at conferences and others around the world. The first Japan Blockchain Conference helped many leading crypto companies around the world get in touch with Japan. We have a range of great crypto companies participating for the first time and a lot of large Japanese and international corporations entering the sphere, and we anticipate that a lot of unique partnerships could arise from these groups. | https://www.forbes.com/sites/darrynpollock/2019/01/24/what-is-the-state-of-crypto-and-blockchain-in-japan-after-regulation/ |
What will the party debate at Spring Conference? | The party meets again at its Spring Conference in York on the 17th-19th March, and if you have not registered yet there is still time! Federal Conference Committee has also now met to decide the agenda so we can reveal what topics will be up for debate. Motion selection proceeded in the usual fashion that by now will be familiar to many readers in the first round, members of the committee debated the suitability of each motion for debate considering how well it was drafted, how recently the topic was last debated and so on. Once that has happened, timings are allocated to each motion, and the committee considers the relative priority of the remaining motions. Of the 19 motions submitted, 6 were eventually selected for debate. Constitutional amendments must be selected for debate if they are in order, which applied to one of two submitted amendments. A 105-minute slot has also been reserved for a later deadline on Europe, as given the current state of politics any motion submitted now would certainly be old news by March! Although the submitters are listed below, this information is not given to any member of Federal Conference Committee until after the motions selection meeting. All that is known is by which constitutional route the motion has been submitted i.e. By an SAO, a local party, 10 or more members etc. In the case of a motion submitted by 10 or more members, the committee is also no longer informed how many members signed up to the motion, ensuring that motions are selected strictly on their own merits. * Zoe O'Connell is a Councillor and deputy group leader on Cambridge City Council, sits on the executive of LGBT+ Liberal Democrats and is Vice Chair of Federal Conference Committee. | https://www.libdemvoice.org/what-will-the-party-debate-at-spring-conference-59768.html |
How Many Stateless Persons Will The Deprivation Of Id Cards Create In The Gambia? | 148 SHARES Share Tweet QUESTION OF THE DAY The issuing of ID cards should be scrutinised by independent and impartial observers. The UN, AU and ECOWAS should engage the Gambia Government on the issue of stateless residents in The Gambia. Human rights NGOs should seek cooperation with the Minister of the Interior so that they would have their officers posted where ID cards are issued to monitor the process and take note of every person rejected so that the country will put a phase and have a head count of all the stateless persons in The Gambia. Foroyaa has cautioned the nation to be aware that a citizenship time bomb is being fueled. Once the issuing of ID cards is done under a law which does not recognise being born in The Gambia as the basis of citizenship by birth many people would become stateless. A simple amendment of our citizenship would avert the explosion of the citizenship time bomb. To fail to do so is to create a problem not only for the Gambia but also for countries where these persons will take refuge. The government and the world should take interest before it is too late. The future will tell. | https://foroyaa.gm/how-many-stateless-persons-will-the-deprivation-of-id-cards-create-in-the-gambia/ |
Who will take home the January FUT Champs Cup? | It's time for this month's FIFA 19 major as F2Tekkz and MSdossary travel to Bucharest in hopes of their second FUT Champions Cup this season It's time once again for the monthly FUT Champions Cup and this month sees the tournament return to Bucharest, Romania as the road to the eWorld Cup continues. The winner will take home $50,000 and 1,500 Global Series Points which could make a huge difference in the leaderboards. With a gap of over 500 points over the PlayStation leader, Donovan 'F2Tekkz' Hunt currently leads the Xbox and global leaderboards with 3585 points. Tekkz was on fire at the start of the season, winning the first FUT Champions Cup of the season before taking the PGL cup a week later - both tournaments were in Bucharest. Now the young Englishman is returning to his old stomping ground and will be looking to reignite that flame that has cooled off slightly in recent tournaments. The last two tournaments were both in the Gfinity Arena, the FUT Champions Cup December and Gfinity FIFA series, which saw Tekkz narrowly miss out in the Xbox championships both times. He'll be hoping to earn his revenge against reigning eWorld Cup champion Mossad 'MSdossary' Aldossary who defeated him in the Xbox final of the last FUT Champions Cup, but that's no easy task. MSdossary is the first, and currently only, player to have ever won a major title in three consecutive seasons. The Saudi Arabian is a master of both consoles, making him a nightmare for PlayStation competitors. Tekkz may be the number ranked player in the world but MSdossary will be the favourite here. Article continues below Speaking of the PlayStation side, the PS4 champion of the last two tournaments Nicolas 'Nicolas99' Villalba hasn't qualified for the tournament - giving the rest of the division a huge opportunity for silverware. In fact, only two of the top 10 from the PlayStation leaderboards have qualified: Nicolas' team-mate Tim 'TheStrxnger' Katnawatos and last year's eWorld Cup runner-up Stefano Pinna from PSV. Last week at the Gfinity FIFA Series, Nicolas became the first PlayStation player to win a cross-console final since the 2017 eClub World Cup. That win was a huge boost for the division and should make the PlayStation players even hungrier this weekend. The action kicks off on Friday, January 25 at 12pm CET and concludes on Sunday, January 27. As the first major FIFA tournament of 2019, it promises to be a must-watch competition. | https://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/could-we-see-a-two-time-winner-at-fut-champions-cup-january/72oy33l8r2sx1xfoveq0bg8sf |
Is it time for a unified African transfer window? | In 2017, world governing body Fifa says that African clubs spent a total of $16m on international transfers - a sum that represents around 6% of the amount Paris Saint-Germain spent on Neymar that year. The figure is dwarfed by other continents - with South America's spend totalling $180m, Asia's $452m while Europe outdid all the other continents put together with purchases of some $5.6 billion. While Africa earned nearly four times as much through its sales, which amounted to $58m two years ago, the paucity of its spending is not just linked to the financial challenges affecting its largely cash-strapped clubs. Instead, many have told Sport Africa that the continent's irregular transfer window system is a major hindrance - despite 74% of all African club's international sales taking place on the continent itself. OUT OF SYNCH Fifa allows two transfer windows per country per year - one in the break between seasons that can last up to 12 weeks and one in the middle of a season that can last four weeks. Of the 52 African countries whose transfer windows are listed with Fifa, some are similar but no two use exactly the same dates. "The issue for Africa is that our leagues run over different times," says South African sports journalist Nick Said. "So in some countries they run from March to November/December and in some countries like South Africa - a great many countries actually - they run along the European calendar of August to May." The best time of year for African clubs to do business is January when transfer windows are open in 39 countries, which represents 72% of the continent. The graph shows how many African countries have open transfer windows per month (Source: Fifa) Yet January is an outlier because the next best month is August when 27 are open - which, with 54 countries in Africa, means half the continent is closed for business. No other month can even match half, which leaves clubs facing very limited opportunities when they can engage in essential regeneration of their squads. THE ISSUES When to sell is the big dilemma clubs face because although they cannot buy players when their windows are shut, they can offload players all year round. Karim Abdulkarim, the CEO of 2014 Tanzanian champions Azam FC, outlined in December how Africa's uneven transfer windows affect his side. "We have an offer with one club in Egypt who want to sign one of our players but we can't sell now because we can't get a replacement because the transfer window here in Tanzania is already closed," Abdulkarim told Sport Africa. Another factor that is seen to limit the intercontinental movement of African players is the varying dates of the league schedules, which means a player's fitness can be rusty when he moves to another league. Former Real Madrid star Geremi cites the example of an out-of-season player from his country - whose last championship ended in July - trying to impress a club in North Africa, where many seasons are midway through. Because he's been over three months without playing," Geremi, who now heads up Cameroon's players union, told Sport Africa. "He won't be in competitive shape and even if he goes there to be evaluated, it won't be a realistic evaluation because he's not fully fit. Former Chelsea star Geremi is in favour of a unified African transfer window "So it's up to Caf to try to organise all the championships at the same date - so that the period of the transfer windows will be the same dates." Abu Azeez, a Nigeria-based league player, backs up the views of two-time African champion Geremi. "The transfer windows should be working together so that when a player is moving, he is fit and ready." "When you are not playing because your league hasn't started, it's very, very hard for you to adapt when you go there. So one way or another it affects movement of players to other countries." "This is exactly what we need in Africa," says Azeez. "100%," agrees Azam FC's Abdulkarim. "I would like it all to be the same." Yet achieving a unified window is far easier said than done. For if the leagues across the continent don't start at the same time, a transfer window that cuts across all league on the continent is very unlikely to be achievable. To get leagues running simultaneously would mean finding a way to overcome one of the main factors that affects a continent that straddles two hemispheres - namely, the weather. Caf vice-president Amaju Pinnick says African football's ruling body may look into the issue Southern Africa's summer months of June and July are when North Africa has its hottest temperatures, so prompting a near-impossibility that leagues - which tend to be played across winter - will synchronise. "I don't think you can have a uniform transfer window on the African continent because it's just such a big place," South African journalist Mark Gleeson told Sport Africa. "Let's celebrate its diversity, as it's a massive continent with so many disparate things about it. Any attempt to create any sort of uniformity in African has failed miserably in the past and I think it will do so in the future." "If a uniform transfer window will enhance this game, why not?" Amaju Pinnick, Caf's 1st vice president, told BBC Sport Africa. "If I have a very good case, I will bring it up in our executive committee meeting, present it to the president and let's see if it will enhance. Whatever we have to do to enhance the fortune of the game, we will." Additional reporting by Ian Williams. | https://www.bbc.com/sport/africa/46978691 |
Is The New Porsche 911 Cabriolet The Best-Looking Yet? | The Porsche 911 has such a great variety of flavors these days that Porsche cannot wait for one new model to get its feet grounded before releasing another one. That is the case with the new Porsche 911 Cabriolet which comes only a few weeks after the coupe was unveiled. So if you had set your mind on a new 992 Coupe, you may want to reconsider now. Apart from the fact that thats consumerism at its most blatant, we think you should indeed pick the new Porsche 911 Cabriolet over the hardtop counterpart. And the reason for that is we reckon this new 911 Cab is the best looking version of its breed, and quite possibly one of the finest open top 911s ever built. Thats curious, because as any objective observer will tell you, the changes over the previous generation are quite insignificant. But there is something about the looks of this car that just does it for us. It looks nice and round and chiseled from every angle. It is, simply put, fab! I guess the best thing about the new Porsche 911 Cabriolet is the stance. You just have to look at the side profile to concur this car is as well proportioned as Megan Foxs face, or Marilyn Monroes breasts, whichever works better for you. The wide rear arches, the unadorned doors and fenders, and the slim nose, put together they result in one sweet and sophisticated design that is both sexy and elegant, slutty and dignified. Add to that the new ultra-modern rear fascia with those unique lights and you end up with a design that is hard to fault, at least as far as 911 design goes. But Porsches are about a lot more than appearance, and I suppose it would be wrong to talk about a new 911 without delving a little into its technical brilliance. As with the new 992 Coupe, the 922 Cabriolet features a turbocharged flat-six with 450 PS and 530 Nm of torque. That is with the Carrera S model which is the launch version. With that oomph the car accelerates from zero to 100 km/h in 3.9 seconds (with optional Sport Chrono Package: 3.7 seconds) and can reach speeds up to 306 km/h. The Carrera 4S attains a top speed of 304 km/h and achieves 0-100 km/h in 3.8 seconds (with optional Sport Chrono Package: 3.6 seconds). As for the roof mechanism, you get a soft top with an integrated real glass rear window. It can be opened or closed at speeds up to 50 km/h, and takes only twelve seconds to complete its operation, which makes it one of the fastest roofs in the world. All things considered, the four-wheel-drive C4S version of the 922 Cab is a car for every opportunity. It does everything, and does everything brilliantly. Granted, its a bit costly at 134,405 euros for the CS and 142,259 euros for the C4S. But its worth it. VN:F [1.9.22_1171] Rating: 1.5/10 (2 votes cast) | https://www.motorward.com/2019/01/is-the-new-porsche-911-cabriolet-the-best-looking-yet/ |
Are Car Mechanics Getting More and More Incompetent? | Before we delve into that monumentally important question, lets get something right. I dont think it is actually correct to call the fixers of modern cars mechanics. Diagnostician, I reckon, is the more appropriate term, since these guys work more often with digital scan tools, wiring diagrams, and electronic and software solutions to fix a car, not wrenches and hammers. The term mechanic brings to mind a burly man with a big stomach, oily fingers and his butt crack showing. OK, now that weve got the terminology right, we can get back to our subject. It really doesnt take an official survey to find out the latter is the case. Talk to any car owner who has been to a shop for a problem, and nine out of ten tells you a tale that includes lots of frustration, many wasted hours, and a ton of money being removed from their bank account. They tell you how they went into a shop with what they thought was a minor electrical glitch, and ended up having a bunch of modules and units replaced. Or how a cold start problem turned out to be a fault with the cars computer, the wiring harness, and all of the sensors. Well, modern cars, mate. One thing goes wrong, you have to chuck the whole thing in the bin. To someone who knows nothing about cars and just wants to have his Ford Focus fixed so he can get to work, that might sound like a reasonable argument. But we car guys know that thats nothing but a load of bullocks. And that is what I mean by incompetence. You see, the automotive technology has moved on by leaps and bounds over the past two or three decades. For years and years you had very simple systems and wiring which any elementary school dropout could learn how to fix after a week of apprenticeship. That is not the case with newer cars. In these cars you have computer-controlled modules and units, state machine logic, data networks that run at different speeds, sophisticated sensors, and stuff like fiber optics and FlexRay. Being good with a wrench and a screwdriver count for nothing when you are working on a modern car. You have to have computer knowledge, advance understanding of electronics, and an analytical mind. Sadly, those qualities are just beyond the purview of your average mechanic. To properly diagnose a modern car, to realize that a no-crank issue could be traced to a bad connector, to know that a broken A/C unit could be narrowed down to a solenoid, or a misfire could be caused by a faulty mosfet inside the ECU, that mechanic has to undergo months of training, learn how to read electrical wiring diagrams, and work with complicated scanner tools, interpret signals and wave patterns. And the truth is, not many of them bother. Not many of them are capable of upgrading themselves to that level. They just take a course, get a certificate, buy a scan tool and start working on your Mercedes and BMW. Well, the consequence is that you go into a shop with a stalling issue and end up having your ECU replaced, your wiring harness mutilated, your sensors damaged, and a huge bill, not to mention the problems that arise a week later thanks to the botched repair. There is an inside joke between such mechanics that if you dont know what the issue is, start replacing parts until its gone away. It is absolutely vital, then, to have your car diagnosed and repaired by someone who has studied the modern systems, who is technologically savvy, and who has the right tools. And dont think you can trust your official dealer with that. Most of the guys who work in their service departments are as incompetent as your down the road mechanic. Those who have the knowledge and expertise usually go solo and set up their own shop because they get more business that way. The trick is to find those guys. Photo: AAA.com VN:F [1.9.22_1171] | https://www.motorward.com/2018/12/are-car-mechanics-getting-more-and-more-incompetent/ |
Will Pop Music's Bubble Burst With the Economy? | Some experts see a correlation between how much money people have in their pockets and the music on their CDs. Their theory is that folks groove to fluffy, Britney-style pop when the good times roll, but turn to melancholy, introspective tunes when the economy goes soft. "When you have happy, carefree times, it is reflected in popular music," said professor William Schurk, sounds recordings archivist for the Bowling Green State University music library in Ohio. "This is true not only for the euphoria, but the doldrums too." The history of music and money over the last two decades seems to support this theory. From 1983 until the end of that decade, the U.S. experienced sustained economic growth. At the same time, flashy pop artists such as Madonna, Michael Jackson and saccharine teen sensations New Kids On The Block dominated the music landscape. "When there's a lot of disposable income floating round, as there was in the '80s and also recently, you see that reflected in huge sales," said Greg Milner, associate editor at Spin magazine. But in the early '90s, the economy took a downturn, and pop fizzled with it. In came grunge, a darker, more cynical sound, led by such Seattle-bred bands Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. "With the recession in the early '90s, grunge became huge among teenagers," said Deb Goldstein, Editor at Alloy.com, a popular teen Web site. Even '80s pop icons Madonna and Michael Jackson changed their tones. Madonna in 1992 released the controversial album Erotica, along with her scandalous book Sex. And Jackson debuted his video for "Black & White," which had to be edited for violence. That trend lasted only as long as the sagging economy, according to Goldstein. "After (grunge) the economy got better, and teen pop music exploded." By the end of 1999 the longest peacetime economic expansion ever pop music experienced a parallel rise. The Spice Girls invaded America with their jaunty songs. And teeny-bopper pop has dominated the music scene ever since. Artists such as the Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and 'N Sync have not only sold millions of albums they've broken records along the way. In March 2000, 'N Sync sold 2.4 million copies of their sophomore album No Strings Attached in its first week of sales the first album ever to break the 2 million mark in that time period, according to SoundScan. "Everything in society has been exploding in the past four years, and the economy is feeding it all." Schurk said. "When the upturn in the economy comes, you have bright, shiny faces looking for something happy and fun, like pop music." But with the recent dot-com and tech shakeout, the economy is in question once again. "Right now, today's teen artists have reached their peak," Schurk said. "Not just in musical styles, but they are now assuming adult habits and growing up themselves." While 'N Sync sold 1.88 million copies of their latest album Celebrity in its first week of release, it failed to break the first-week sales record held by their previous album. And, sales dropped 67 percent in its second week in stores. The Backstreet Boys are facing more serious troubles. Last month, member A.J. McLean checked himself into rehab for alcoholism and anxiety, causing the band to postpone several weeks of their current tour. If this pop music/economy correlation holds true, teen pop may be fading away. But there may be hope for fans. "The best music comes out of times of desperation," Spin's Milner said. "A lot of great music plays off its opposition to the way things are at any given moment, and I do think an unstable economy is a good indicator of good music to come." | https://www.foxnews.com/story/will-pop-musics-bubble-burst-with-the-economy |
What is the Drought Contingency Plan and will it affect me? | CLOSE Arizonas top water managers continue to meet to create a drought contingency plan for Colorado River water supply. David Wallace, The Republic | azcentral.com Arizona's water leaders and lawmakers are running out of time to complete the state's Drought Contingency Plan, a blueprint for how Arizona water users would share a likely shortage on the Colorado River. The water managers and elected officials working on the plan have tried to convey a sense of urgency to get the work done on what could soon be the most important water-related legislation in recent times. But there are a lot of moving parts to understand and a lot of concepts that may seem overwhelming. The Drought Contingency Plan is an interstate agreement among Arizona and other states whose communities depend on Colorado River water. Arizona and those states that use the water have been developing the agreement for several months in an effort to divvy up expected cutbacks on the river needed to keep storage reservoir levels from dropping too low. Before finalizing the interstate agreement, states must hash out intrastate agreements, among local water users, and that's what Arizona is still working on. The Arizona deal would try to avoid deep cutbacks by spreading them around. A line along a cliff illustrates where the surface of Lake Mead once stood near South Cove in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area on Aug. 1, 2018. Lake levels are at or near historic lows. In short, the water we use from the river is outpacing the water being replenished naturally we're in a drought. The soon-to-be-finalized agreement addresses the anticipated shortfalls and tries to spread the pain among the states so that no one is hit too hard if the drought persists. Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the US, is now 39 percent full and approaching its first-ever shortage. Lake Powell, the other major reservoir on the river, is 40 percent full and could drop lower. Together, the two reservoirs help keep water flowing to the seven states even during dry years. Powell stores water that New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming depend on. Water from that reservoir is released downstream to Mead, which stores water for the states on the lower Colorado Arizona, Nevada and California. If water levels drop too low, water users across the region could face severe shortages. The drought plan is a balancing act to keep water flowing where it needs to and to preserve supplies for the future, keeping water levels for Mead and Powell where they should be. Arizona water leaders including U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Leslie Meyers (left); Arizona Department of Water Resources director Tom Buschatzke (center); and Central Arizona Project general manager Ted Cooke talks about the Colorado River drought plan, during a meeting at the Central Arizona Project Headquarters in Phoenix. (Photo: Nick Oza/The Republic) A group of 38 water leaders, state and city politicians, tribal leaders, farmers and business representatives are working through negotiations over who is assured what water and what money. In the end, some users will start relying more on groundwater and others will be paid for water they forfeit. This group is focusing on water delivered by the Central Arizona Project Canal, not on Colorado River water used by farmers in and near Yuma. CAP delivers about 1.5 million acre-feet a year to Maricopa, Pima and Pinal counties for cities, businesses and farmers to use. Most Phoenix area cities use a mix of water from the CAP and other sources. Right now, Pinal County farmers are among those who would take the brunt of those cuts. Those farmers were prepared for a more groundwater-reliant future but were not expecting it for another 11 years. They expected to lose assured access to CAP water in 2030 based on a 2004 water settlement, but those cutbacks would come quicker if and when this drought plan is approved, forcing them to adapt sooner. Under proposed terms of the drought plan, the farmers would receive an interim supply of water through tribal communities and other water users. Some would pump groundwater sooner or leave farmlands fallow. Money to buy water for the farmers would come from a $30 million appropriation proposed by Governor Doug Ducey in his budget and another $5 million to drill wells. But those farmers are asking for more CAP water and more money for those wells. Tiffany Shedd, a cotton farmer from Eloy, speaks at a press conference at the Capitol in Phoenix with other farmers and legislators from Pinal County to talk about their overall support for the drought contingency plan, Tuesday, January 15, 2019. Unless you are a Pinal County farmer or one of the city, county and tribal water managers moving supplies around in exchange for something in this deal, you likely will not notice anything. Ducey suggested last week, he will promote water conservation education to Arizonans, asking them to use less water and save money. So you can still expect to have water in your tap, as no direct cutbacks are likely, but you may soon be asked to voluntarily use less. If lawmakers continue these conservation conversations and turn those discussions into enforceable legislation, that is another issue for another day. Federal Reclamation Commissioner Brenda Burman speaks at the Colorado River Water Users Association conference in Las Vegas on Thursday, urging water managers to finish negotiations on drought-contingency plans. January 31. If a plan is not signed by Arizona Department of Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke by then, the Bureau of Reclamation, which oversees water projects in the West, is threatening to make the cuts for them. Brenda Burman, the agency's commissioner, made that clear at the Colorado River Water Users Association conference in Las Vegas in December, a meeting where Arizona was ideally supposed to bring a close-to-final plan. Burman stressed that if Western states, especially Arizona, do not file a plan by then, the Interior Department will ask the states what the government should do. "We will act, if needed, to protect this Basin," Burman said at the December conference. "This is absolutely not our preferred course of action. But if we do, we will give the states 30 days for those submissions. And the department will take those submissions and decide on a course of action." Those cuts would likely upend the compromises built so far in these months of delicate negotiations. But it could end up forcing the state into a corner, leaving it no choice but to get serious about conserving water. Apparently not. The Bureau of Reclamation is one of the many agencies affected by Washingtons longest ever political standoff, but it says the lawyers tasked to enforce that deadline have been deemed essential and will continue working. Regardless of whether that deadline is enforced, lawmakers and water leaders are working to pass something and not risk finding out what happens if they do nothing. CLOSE Pinal County farmers and state legislators talk about the Drought Contingency Plan as the federal deadline looms. We have not been putting this off for that long. There has been a drought plan in place since 2007 when states first foresaw the severity and urgency of eventual reservoir shortages. But as a shortage became more possible and it was clear more action would be needed, states got together to develop a Drought Contingency Plan to help share the pain of cutbacks. If they had not done that, Arizona would have had to cut back the most. It is also important to remember these things take time to figure out because the people in charge are negotiating over one of the West's most valuable resources. Nobody wants to give away too much for too long, which is why the pace is so sluggish. This process is now on two separate tracks. On one track, the state Legislature got drafts of an agreement last week, which essentially is a formalized version of what that group of 38 water leaders has agreed on. Along with those formalities, the bill provides the legal mechanisms needed to enact a deal that does not yet exist and one that is not yet fully understood by many lawmakers. Lawmakers are being briefed by staff to better understand it, and once they do, they will introduce an official version to a committee and begin the legislative process with that January 31 deadline in mind. On the other track, the group of water leaders must settle the sticking points, many of which are the same ones they were tasked to sort out in July and give the Legislature something to approve. You can learn more about what was in the draft legislation given to lawmakers last week, what they thought of it and what comes next. Reach reporter Andrew Nicla at [email protected]. Environmental coverage on azcentral.com and in The Arizona Republic is supported by a grant from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust. Follow The Republic environmental reporting team at environment.azcentral.com and at OurGrandAZ on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Read or Share this story: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-environment/2019/01/24/drought-contingency-plan-how-affects-arizona-lawmakers-colorado-river-doug-ducey-water-conservation/2659832002/ | https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-environment/2019/01/24/drought-contingency-plan-how-affects-arizona-lawmakers-colorado-river-doug-ducey-water-conservation/2659832002/ |
Will there be a public vote on Suns arena renovation deal? | The Phoenix City Council may have approved a $230 million deal with the Phoenix Suns to renovate Talking Stick Resort Arena, but a group of dissidents has its sights on a referendum -- and a public vote on the agreement. it looks that way. Seems theres a group of people upset by the $230 million agreement approved by the council late Wednesday afternoon that's seeking a referendum that would give the public an up or down vote on the matter. Drew Chavez of Petition Partners, a Phoenix outfit that runs a majority of initiative petitions in the state, said a committee calling itself Common Sense Phoenix is set to file paperwork Thursday. Voters having say 'would be a public service' The group and my firm are serious, Chavez said in an email. The group would have 30 days to gather roughly 10,500 signatures of registered Phoenix voters to qualify the referendum for an election. Chavez declined to identify committee members, only to say he has been approached in recent weeks by close to half a dozen people who believe the city is committing too much to upgrade the Suns home. He issued a statement from Common Sense Phoenix: This seems like a situation where the voters of Phoenix very well may want to weigh in. If we can give them a chance to do so, it would be a public service. Were talking about millions of dollars that could be spent on public safety or repairing our streets instead of fixing up the arena for the Suns and their billionaire owner. Measure may be 1 of 3 on Phoenix ballot As for his confidence of gathering sufficient signatures in a months time, Chavez says his outfit will secure 27,000 signatures. The direct democracy route on the arena would certainly add to a strange year in Phoenix. Two other initiatives seek to do what city council wouldnt. One would halt light expansion and redirect the city portion of funding toward street improvements; that measure has been certified by the city but faces a challenge in court. The other would reform how city pension obligations are calculated and funded. It awaits verification of the petition signatures. The trio of measures is remarkable especially given that citizen initiatives and referendums are often considered a tool of the left think minimum wage increase, recreational marijuana, clean energy mandates, etc. Here, all three are grounded on conservative principles with the Suns arena referendum, it is the opposition to whats viewed as corporate welfare or subsidies. There are those who wanted, all along, a public vote on the matter. but because Talking Stick Resort Arena is not a new structure, Phoenix needed only city council approval to reach a deal. The referendum would make a public vote real and final. Well know in about 30 days. Reach Kwok at [email protected]. Click here to subscribe to azcentral.com. Read or Share this story: https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/abekwok/2019/01/24/suns-arena-renovation-referendum/2665253002/ | https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/abekwok/2019/01/24/suns-arena-renovation-referendum/2665253002/ |
What will Gonzalo Higuain bring to Chelsea and can he convince Eden Hazard to stay? | Chelsea have had a problem up front for a while now, but after long and complicated talks involving three clubs and a transfer merry-go-round, they finally have their man. The club has backed Maurizio Sarri in signing 31-year-old Gonzalo Higuain on loan when the Argentine had been deemed too old and too expensive when previous manager Antonio Conte had suggested recruiting him. Given the decision to once again opt for a pricey, experienced solution rather than trust in one of the many talented players coming through the academy, this move requires immediate return. Those in power at the club will not be happy if Higuain does not hit the ground running. There will be even more consternation if he turns out to be a flop like so many more of those players to wear the Chelsea number nine shirt before him. This does, however, look a more thought-out signing than the likes of Mateja Kezman or Radamel Falcao. Higuain has been reunited with a manager he enjoyed great success under, and with an impressive goal-scoring record just about wherever he has gone. Since moving to Europe in the 2006/07 season, Higuain has 224 goals in 382 league games, spanning spells at Real Madrid, Napoli, Juventus and AC Milan. Only five players in the big five European leagues have scored more in that time. | https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2019/01/24/will-gonzalo-higuain-bring-chelsea-can-convince-eden-hazard/ |
Should Red Wings trade Andreas Athanasiou? | DETROIT - You know the NHL trade deadline is approaching (Feb. 25) when you start to hear all the rumors swirl even louder than before. For the Detroit Red Wings -- the team sitting near last place in the league -- the trade rumors have been swirling for months. Whether it's trading goalie Jimmy Howard for a top pick or sending Gustav Nyquist to a contender, the Red Wings have been considered sellers. But now it's starting to get a little more real with February right around the corner. One of the latest scenarios for Detroit is the idea of trading away forward Andreas Athanasiou. Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman discussed this on their "31 Thoughts" podcast released Thursday. Friedman and Marek pointed to the Edmonton Oilers, who just fired general manager Peter Chiarelli (while his team was losing to Detroit at home), as a possible destination for Athanasiou. Edmonton is gooing through a management change, but they're only three points out of a playoff spot. "He can play with (Connor) McDavid at that tempo, and that would be freightening to the rest of the NHL -- you want to talk about backing up the blue line, that's how you do it," said Marek. Athanasiou, 24, has 17 goals and 13 assists in 45 games played this season. He is second in goals on the team behind Dylan Larkin. He signed a two-year contract with Detroit this past offseason after he went through a contract holdout in 2017. He missed the start of the 2017-18 season while holding out and finally signed a one-year deal in October 2017, then signed the two-year deal in the summer. Friedman alludes to this in the podcast as a possible reason the Red Wings might think about letting him go in exchange for another young piece, but he's still not convinced Ken Holland would get rid of one of his young goal scorers. "I'm not not sure that Detroit wants to do that. He's still one of those guys that averages a lot of goals for the time he plays. The relationship between Athanasiou and the Red Wings has never really been easy, but Ken Holland strikes me as looking at that situation saying he's still a very valuable young player, and we're not really looking to do anything if we don't have to. But let's just say this for argument's sake, what's it going to cost you to get him ... it's going to cost you a lot." Correct. The Red Wings would need to make up for those goals. Say what you want about Athanasiou's 200-foot game, but he scores goals quite well. His speed is what makes him very attractive to other teams, such as the Oilers, who need players who can keep up with McDavid's pace. "You need guys who can play with (McDavid). The feeling is that team didn't play fast enough," said Friedman. Trade rumors will be loud this weekend as the NHL celebrates its All-Star Game weekend in San Jose. The Red Wings won't be back in action until Friday, Feb. 1 when they host the Toronto Maple Leafs. Copyright 2019 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit - All rights reserved. | https://www.clickondetroit.com/sports/should-red-wings-trade-andreas-athanasiou |
Which NFL Teams Are Ready to Make the Leap Next Year? | 1 of 5 David Richard/Associated Press The Cleveland Browns were so bad two years ago that they can actually leap twice in as many seasons. They certainly leaped in 2018 by bouncing back from the third zero-win campaign in NFL history with an exciting 7-8-1 performance. But the fashion in which the 2018 Browns season concluded could indicate that a playoff appearance awaits the team and its hungry fans in 2019. It was a tale of two seasonsone with Hue Jackson and Todd Haley stoking a dumpster fire, and the other with running backs coach Freddie Kitchens getting the most out of a promising young offense in an interim coordinator role. With Jackson and Haley out of the way, Kitchens and interim head coach Gregg Williams led the Browns to five wins in their final seven games. Rookie quarterback Baker Mayfield was a different player under Kitchens' tutelage, and there was a trickle-down from there. Under Kitchens, the Browns averaged an NFL-best 6.9 yards per play and a solid 23.8 points per game. Mayfield was the league's sixth-highest-rated passer thanks to a 68.4 completion percentage and a 19-to-8 touchdown-to-interception ratio. Second-round rookie running back Nick Chubb also exploded down the stretch, while second-year first-round defenders Myles Garrett and Jabrill Peppers turned a corner together. The Browns were likely to eventually turn a corner. It's almost hard not to become at least decent when you have a combined eight picks in the first two rounds of consecutive drafts. Now they'll be a little more mature, they should be well-coached from the get-go (Kitchens has surrounded himself with a promising staff), and their division looks vulnerable. The Pittsburgh Steelers are experiencing another tumultuous offseason, the aging Baltimore Ravens still have quarterback questions and the Cincinnati Bengals could be on the brink of a rebuild. Typing this might cause my computer to self-destruct, but I'll give it a shot: The Browns could win the AFC North in 2019. | https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2817008-which-nfl-teams-are-ready-to-make-the-leap-next-year |
Why Did Kathem Al Saher Leave 'The Voice'? | Al Saher denied what was said about his withdrawal from 'The Voice Kids' (Source: kadimalsahirofficial - Instagram) Iraqi star Kazem Al-Saher announced the reasons for his withdrawal from 'the Voice' program. The Iraqi sensation denied what was said about his withdrawal from 'The Voice Kids' confirming his continuation in the children and young talents version of the program. "The reason that led me out of 'the Voice' program is that it takes six months of the year," said Kazem al-Saher. "It was very difficult for me to keep moving and travelling, so I chose to be in 'the Voice Kids ' program only because it is easier and requires only one or two months a year," the Iraqi star continued. Al Saher added "my absence or my presence does not really affect the taste of the program because it is beautiful anyway, and the participants are the ones who make it fun. they are the stars, not us." With his recent announcement many considered Kathem showed a humble side to his character, as he insisted that the reason for the success of the two programs is the participants, considering them the heroes of the program and not the stars participating in the jury. | https://www.albawaba.com/entertainment/why-did-kathem-al-saher-leave-voice-1243406 |
Will Venezuelan Army Accept Self-proclaimed President? | Opposition demonstrators clash with security forces during a protest against the government of President Nicolas Maduro. (AFP/ File) Venezuelan army will not accept an imposed president of the republic, the nation's defense minister said Wednesday, after an opposition leader declared himself as interim president. "Despair and intolerance threaten the peace of the Nation. The soldiers of the homeland do not accept a president imposed in the shadow of obscure interests or self-proclaimed outside the law," Vladimir Padrino Lopez said in a statement on Twitter before demonstrations Wednesday. U.S. President Donald Trump also recognized the Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the interim president of the country, marking the most significant escalation in the ongoing feud between Washington and Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro. Guaido is the president of Venezuela's National Assembly, which Maduro stripped of its power and refuses to recognize amid continued international recognition. The Bolivarian National Armed Forces, or FANB, defends the Venezuela's Constitution "and is the guarantor of national sovereignty," Lopez wrote. Maduro has repeatedly lashed out at the U.S., saying Washington is waging an economic war against him and his government amid a sweeping sanctions campaign. Venezuela has been rocked by protests since Jan. 10 when Maduro was sworn in for a second term following a vote boycotted by the opposition. This article has been adapted from its original source. | https://www.albawaba.com/news/will-venezuelan-army-accept-self-proclaimed-president-1243292 |
What colors do the Polaroid Pop come in? | Yes, Polaroid The iconic company that was popular in the 20th century is back with new products to turn heads in the digital age. The 20MP Polaroid Pop Instant Print Digital Camera allows you to snap 3.5-inch by 4.25-inch pictures and print them in seconds with the familiar Polaroid border. Best of all, you don't need a printer, computer, or ink to do so. All you need is a supply of Zink paper to get started. As good as our smartphones are at taking pictures these days, you can't beat an old-school instant-print feature. The Pop also comes in six different colors, including black, blue, white, green, pink, and yellow. The camera also comes with a rechargeable battery, so there's no need to replace it. The camera can print up 50 photos before it needs to be recharged with the included charging cable. The secret sauce Zink paper is smudge-proof, and water/tear-resistant thanks to its polymer overcoat. Because it doesn't require extra cartridges or packing, it's Earth-friendly. Each sheet of Zink paper is embedded with color crystals that activate automatically every time you take a picture thanks to unique Zink Zero Ink Technology. Zink paper is available in multiple styles and quantities, just like the Pop itself, so you can coordinate depending on your style or preference. But there's more The Polaroid Pop 2.0 isn't just a camera that takes still pictures. It also offers 1080p/720p HD video with a built-in microphone and speaker. In doing so, you can record home movies and 15-second GIFs with a touch of a button. The device also works with the Polaroid Pop app for iOS and Android, which you can use to add borders, emojis, stickers, and more to your creations. You can share your creations digitally on Facebook and elsewhere. | https://www.imore.com/what-colors-polaroid-pop-come-in?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheIphoneBlog+%28iMore%29 |
Did Raman Singh vacate CM House following Bhupesh Baghel's jibe? | Ejaz Kaiser By Express News Service RAIPUR: More than a month after the declaration of the Assembly election results, former Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh finally vacated his official residence CM House in Civil Lines where he lived for 15 years. Singh under whose leadership the BJP fought the polls and who won the Rajnandgaon assembly seat has been officially allotted another residence close to the CM House. Singh, however, couldnt move as refurbishing work was underway. The new residence was chosen keeping in mind the high-security cover he will continue to have. The house was earlier with the former DGP. It is believed that Singhs decision to shift to his personal house was apparently in reaction to the CM Bhupesh Baghels snide remark a couple of days ago. He said, The BJP leaders, including Raman Singh, are asking me what the Congress government has done during the first 30 days in office. We have taken various decisions in the interest of the people. But Raman Singh should tell why he is not able to vacate the CM House even after 30 days. Singh, who has lived in the CM House since 2003 onwards, has shifted to his own house at Maulshri Vihar close to the VIP road in Raipur. At present, Baghel is carrying out his official work from the state guest house Pahuna, which remains his temporary address, after he took charge as the chief minister. | http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2019/jan/23/did-raman-singh-vacate-cm-house-following-bhupesh-baghels-jibe-1929097.html |
How many are suffering in silence? | January 23, 2019 0 Comments MARK PAVILONS Human beings are the chameleons at the top of the food chain. We are experts at putting on a face and hiding from one another and from ourselves. We are the consummate actors, players on the worlds stage as Shakespeare put it. We play many roles during our careers and don many masks. We come together to recognize and discuss mental health Jan. 30 for the annual Bell Lets Talk Day. Its meant as a reminder for us all to understand one anothers issues, and raise money for mental health programs. According to CMHA, by the time Canadians reach 40 years of age, 1 in 2 have, or have had, a mental illness. And 34% of Ontario high-school students indicate a moderate-to-serious level of psychological distress (symptoms of anxiety and depression). Surprisingly, 14% indicate a serious level of psychological distress. Im no expert in mental health, but I do believe that one of the most common ailments is depression. But this, too, comes in many forms and degrees. Depression is much more than simple unhappiness and clinical depression, sometimes called major depression, is a complex mood disorder caused by various factors. Depression is not something that people can get over on their own. Depression is more common in women, though the gender difference diminishes with age in Canada. Men with depression typically have a higher rate of feeling irritable, angry and discouraged. This can make it harder to recognize depression in men. Some people have the mistaken idea that it is normal for older adults to feel depressed. Older adults often dont want to talk about feeling hopeless, sad, losing interest in normally pleasurable activities, or experiencing prolonged grief after a loss. Apparently, depression among children and teens is on the rise and thats something we cant ignore. In this case, its more than just the typical teen angst and Ive seen this among my kids peers. It makes me sad that young people with such great potential, suffer needlessly. The main symptom of depression is a sad, despairing mood that is present most days and lasts for more than two weeks. For more severe cases, it impairs the persons performance at work, at school or in social relationships. It can lead to changes in weight, sleep problems, loss of interest and withdrawal from friends and family. I have mild depression and I take my happy pill daily. This may come as a surprise to many, given my outgoing nature and sense of humour. My depression started when I suddenly lost my job, after the newspaper I worked at closed its doors. There I was, in my late 40s, scurrying for a job. I leveraged every last one of my contacts and connections, but nothing of substance materialized. I worked part-time at odd jobs and contract positions for almost two years. To me, feeling depressed about my situation was a normal response to external circumstances. I still believe stress affects everyone and its okay to become a little sad now and then. Its funny though, my job loss was more devastating than losing my parents and sister. But I do carry some feelings of guilt and pain that I try to bury. My youngest often asks me why I dont talk much about my mom, who passed away in 2010. I think it relates to her debilitating stroke which left her paralyzed. I know it has a lot to do with putting her in a long-term care facility. Seeing her there in her condition, getting very little real care, literally broke my heart. I visited her almost every day and I cant fully explain the dread I felt. In the end she died of late-stage lung and pancreatic cancer, conditions that went undiagnosed during her nursing home stay. I thought these were reasons enough to feel depressed. My sisters death in 2001 was a bit tough as well. She was only in her mid-40s when she suffered massive organ failure, brought on by diabetes and kidney failure. She went blind just before her first kidney transplant, which she received from her ex-husband. Part of my weekly responsibility back then was driving her to the hospital for dialysis. My dads passing in 1998 was less traumatic. He was diagnosed with lymphoma and was only given months to live. He managed to live for three years with the disease and died somewhat peacefully at home. Im not looking for sympathy here. Many people have stories like mine. Humans suffer a lot during their lives, but we are quite resilient. I think what Im trying to impart is that we should try to be cognizant of others. We shoot the breeze with our bank tellers, co-workers and acquaintances. My guess is that most of us have experienced loss, death, financial and a job related stress. I believe we should treat others like human beings with similar hopes, desires, dreams and yes, problems. We are more alike than wed like to think. For that reason alone, we should support our fellow men, women and children, in whatever predicament they find themselves in. Theres strength in numbers. Mental health is everyones concern. Related Readers Comments (0) | http://kingsentinel.com/?p=10994 |
Has #MeToo really made a difference? | Expand Gillette Marketers for Gillette were clearly thinking about female consumers when they created the now-viral We Believe commercial. The #MeToo movement surged in the fall of 2017. But it hasnt exactly change everything. Judge it the way youd judge Gillettes recent ad criticizing toxic masculinity. Theres a bit of good in there, but look closer and things are still very bad. I realize that, like Nikes ad featuring protesting footballer Colin Kaepernick, Gillettes ostensibly progressive marketing strategy is designed to sell product. But the ad, suggesting men should intervene to stop the bullying and harassment of women, does indicate that someone up there in the boardroom has been paying attention to the power of #MeToo. Never mind the outrage from men thats erupted since the ad came out. Dont tell us what to do, they howl, as if beauty ads dont box in women all the time. This is anti-male extremism, they fulminate, as if saying we know men can do better is the same as suggesting that all men are dangerous and ought to be put out on a remote island forever. Remember that women shave, too. Gillette has to have been thinking of its female clientele when it dreamed up this campaign. But look at the products the company is marketing to women: rose-coloured razors, fuchsia razors, pink, pink, pink. All of which is to say that on the micro level, the Gillette ad indicates progress. But on the macro level, Gillette is happy to make sure the binary gender divide is as powerful as ever. As countless studies indicate, those strong gender differences boys are analytical, girls cant do math, women are nurturant, men are not, and in this case pink is girlie, blue is masculine are part of what perpetuates sexual abuse in the first place. Similarly, when it comes to sexual assault in general, the glass is both half full and half empty. The #MeToo movement has had a massive impact on sexual abuse reporting. According to Stats Canada, the number of sexual-assault complaints filed with police and classified as legitimate increased sharply since the #MeToo movement went viral in October 2017. In the United States, the Equal Opportunity Commission filed 66 harassment lawsuits last year, including 41 with allegations of sexual harassment, a more than 50 per cent increase in suits challenging that specific issue over the prior year. Human resources managers have been inundated, according to Johnny Taylor, CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management, who told NPR the #MeToo Movement created this HR level of activity like nothing weve ever seen. According to deb singh, a counsellor and activist at the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre/Multicultural Women Against Rape, staff there are experiencing that surge in reporting first-hand. In the 45 years that this organization has been operating, weve never had a 15-month waiting list for services ever, she says. Its unprecedented the numbers that were seeing right now on our crisis line, our waiting list for counselling, all of our frontline services. She notes that #MeToo has helped improve media coverage and thats made a difference. Because the media is talking more about sexualized violence, theres less stigma about coming forward. The need for support is higher than the fear of exposing yourself to someone who doesnt believe you. So, on a micro level, theres good news. Credit #MeToo with the fact that we now know more about the prevalence of violence against women and how women experience it than ever before. As singh points out, the increase in reporting does not mean there have been more sexual assaults but, and this is crucial, theres nothing to indicate that the incidence of sexual abuse has gone down. On a macro level, theres still a long way to go when it comes to working with perpetrators to change their behaviour. The federal Liberals promised $101 million over five years in their 2017 budget to develop and share research on everything from street harassment to getting boys and men involved in solving the problem. Theres no data yet as to whether its made a difference, and singh says the Rape Crisis Centre is still working with the same funding formula its been saddled with for the past three years. Dont look to Doug Ford to do much about any of this. One of the first items on the provincial governments agenda was to dissolve Ontarios Roundtable on Violence Against Women and to refuse to implement funding increases to sexual assault centres promised under the Wynne governments gender-based violence strategy. No surprise Ford is a pretty toxic male himself. @susangcole | https://nowtoronto.com/news/metoo-gillette-commercial/ |
Where does Crawley Town midfielder rate among the Premier League's oldest ever stars? | In a 22-year career, the former AFC Wimbledon, Oxford and Stevenage man, has made 893 career appearances - 375 for Reds coming in four spells at the League Two club. Crystal Palace goalkeeper Julian Speroni became the oldest player to make a Premier League appearance this season at 39 years and 246 days. Former Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United and West Ham striker Teddy Sheringham - played at 40 years and 272 days Getty Buy a Photo Manchester United and Wales wizard Ryan Giggs - played at 40 years and 158 days Getty Buy a Photo Sunderland, Crystal Palace and Leicester man Kevin Phillips - played at 40 years and 88 days Getty Buy a Photo Leeds United, Manchester United and Coventry City man Gordon Strachan - played at 40 years and 83 days Getty Buy a Photo View more | https://www.wscountytimes.co.uk/sport/football/where-does-crawley-town-midfielder-rate-among-the-premier-league-s-oldest-ever-stars-1-8782699 |
What can Seattle learn from cities where homelessness has dropped? | We look at four cities that saw steep reductions in homelessness, and asked what they did to get there. Its no secret that homelessness has engulfed the West Coast: Rises in cities like Seattle, LA and San Francisco are the reason homelessness in the U.S. has gone up in the last few years while it continues to go down on the East Coast. Project Homeless has gone to many of those cities looking at what their governments are trying: How San Diego is giving people safe places to live in their cars, how Vancouver, B.C., is betting on small prefabricated homes to end homelessness, and how San Francisco is cracking down on public camping. But reporters went to each of those cities because of their work with a certain population, not the breadth of homelessness. A readerrecently asked us, What cities similar in size to Seattle have significantly reduced homelessness and how did they do it? Using federally mandated point-in-time counts, we looked at major U.S. cities where homelessness has gone down the most in the last five years: New Orleans, Atlanta, Milwaukee and Virginia Beach, Virginia. All have seen a 40 percent or more drop in homelessness. There are some caveats. Point-in-time counts, conducted on one night in January, are really just an estimate, and methods of counting vary across the country. Tucson, Arizona, saw a huge decrease over the last five years, but part of that is because they changed the way they count, according to Claudia Powell, board chair of the Tucson Pima Collaboration to End Homelessness. Point-in-time counts may also be measuring cities economies as much as their effectiveness at addressing homelessness. Many of these cities are less expensive places to live than Seattle and other West Coast cities. A lot of these systems in (more expensive cities) are housing people faster and faster because the number coming in, which the homeless system cant do anything about, is getting bigger and bigger, said Nan Roman, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Still, point-in-time counts are the most common and standardized measure America has for homelessness. Here is what we learned from cities with the biggest decreases over the past five years. New Orleans: Experience dealing with a housing disaster In 2015, first lady Michelle Obama traveled to New Orleans to congratulate the city for being the first in the country to house all of its homeless veterans. We want cities across this country to follow your lead, she said. But the Obama administration had poured hundreds of millions into federal housing vouchers for homeless veterans; there was lots of money to house them. After 2015, New Orleans leaders decided they were going to focus on a tougher population: chronically homeless people, who have been homeless many times or for years, and often have overlapping mental-health issues and sometimes drug dependencies. New Orleans had dealt with this issue before after Hurricane Katrina, when thousands of people with disabilities were put out of a home and had to live on the streets, said Casey Guidry, executive director of the Start Corporation, which runs New Orleans city-funded shelter. After Hurricane Katrina, the state built more than 3,000 units of permanent supportive-housing projects for poor people with disabilities. Today, its one of the few states in the country to use Medicaid to pay for the supportive services in those facilities (which Washington is also working toward). It paid off. From 2013 to 2018, New Orleans had the biggest drop in homelessness in the nation, reducing its homeless population by almost half. And the drop was even steeper with chronically homeless people: the city counted 677 in 2013 and fewer than 200 in 2018. All of that combined with the fact that the New Orleans area has rents about as high, compared to median income, as King County, according to a recent study from Zillow. I think we had a big problem, and then Hurricane Katrina made it a catastrophic problem, so it forces you to address it , said Guidry. Atlanta: Jobs programs and landlords willing to rent to homeless people Atlanta has seen some of the most impressive reductions in homelessness in the country (a 44 percent drop since 2013), and not just in the city. Some of the counties in Atlanta metro have seen a bigger decrease. The most impressive part: Atlantas chronically homeless population dropped from over 1,400 in 2013 down to just 335 in 2018. But before we start bragging about how clever we are, said Jack Hardin, co-chair of the United Way regional commission on homelessness, we have to realize we are in a favorable economic situation. Atlanta bounced back really well from the recession, with a job market thats friendly to entry-level workers and cheaper rents than Seattle. Atlantas philanthropic community also has put millions into getting homeless people jobs. One of the countrys largest nonprofit staffing agencies, First Step Staffing, started in Atlanta. In 2018, First Step hired over 3,500 homeless people in Atlanta, and the company says it paid $19 million in wages. Yet even when they can afford rent, homeless people many of whom have bad credit histories or criminal backgrounds have trouble finding a place to live, Hardin said. Atlantas most innovative program may be Open Doors, an organization employing people with real-estate backgrounds to leverage their relationships in the market and persuade landlords to rent to homeless people. That program opened up thousands of apartments to homeless people, and its a program Seattle and King County are already replicating, as The Seattle Times wrote in December. Milwaukee: Handing out rent vouchers in homeless camps There are two important differences between Wisconsins Milwaukee County and King County: First, Milwaukee is one of the cheapest major cities to live in rent has barely risen since 2015 in America; and second, the county government not a federal housing authority, like in King County controls Section 8 and other federal vouchers. Those and other factors have added up to a 40 percent plunge in homelessness in the past five years, among the highest in the nation. Milwaukee County (population of nearly 1 million people) focused on ending chronic homelessness with a plan that moved people off the streets and immediately into permanent housing, even before entering mental-health and drug treatment. And because the county controls the federal vouchers, it has social workers walking into homeless camps and handing people rent vouchers. What we found is that once peoples basic needs are met, their housing needs are met, theyre able to focus on treatment, on employment and the other things, said James Mathey, the countys housing director. Three years later, Milwaukee is on track to the be the nations largest county to effectively end chronic homelessness. The Housing First strategy is credited with savings millions of dollars by reducing demand for mental-health and emergency-room care. Mathey acknowledges Milwaukee had advantages not available in King County, including low rent. But the strategy works, he said. We really think weve found the blueprint not just to ending chronic homelessness but dramatically reducing overall homelessness in our state, he said. Virginia Beach: Getting rid of most transitional housing Transitional housing is the middle step between emergency shelter and an apartment, with staff and services, and stays of a few months to a few years. But often, people staying in transitional housing stay there for the allotted time and dont have a plan to leave, according to Roman, of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. I dont mean to be pejorative about it, but it can undercut peoples decision-making ability, Roman said. It doesnt teach you how to live in an apartment, it teaches you how to live in a facility. In Virginia Beach, Virginia, the average stay for each of the citys 107 transitional-housing beds was well over 100 days, according to Pam Shine, coordinator of the citys housing homeless programs. The limit was two years. The whole time theyre in transitional housing, all of those people count as homeless. So what Virginia Beach did was part accounting and part restructure: It took most of the money from transitional housing and put it toward rapid rehousing vouchers so people could go straight from the streets to an apartment. Seattle and King County have done this as well, reducing transitional housing by about a thousand beds since 2015, according to numbers from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, while also dramatically increasing spending on rental vouchers (although that approach has been criticized by some nonprofits). We have really taken away the connotation that transitional housing is about sitting for two years and then working on your plan six months before you have to leave, said Shine. Seattle Times Project Homeless editor Jonathan Martin contributed to this report. | https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/what-can-seattle-learn-from-cities-that-decreased-their-homelessness/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_seattle-news |
Is Star Bulk Carriers Corp. a Buy? | Through the first nine months of 2018, Star Bulk Carriers Corp. (NASDAQ: SBLK) saw revenue roughly double over the same period in the previous year. Adjusted EBITDA rose from around $72.4 million to $178.5 million in the span. And during the third-quarter conference call, management explained that it has a pretty strong outlook for the bulk carrier industry right now. So far, Star Bulk Carriers Corp. sound like a solid buy, but read this before you jump aboard. Taking a lay of the land (or sea in this case) Star Bulk owns 112 dry-bulk ships (a couple are still being built, with expected delivery dates in early 2019) spread across the various industry standard sizes. These are the vessels that carry bulk commodities like coal and iron ore from where they are mined/grown to where they get used. Bulk carriers are vital assets in the fabric of world trade, and Star Bulk is one of the largest U.S. listed names in the space. At the end of the third quarter, long-term debt made up around 45% of the companys capital structure. Thats a figure to keep in mind, though its not an outlandish number for a company that has to invest in expensive, long-lived assets like massive boats. And at this point, Star Bulk doesnt expect material new-build costs in the future, because it has already paid for the small number of bulk carriers it has on order. The only major expense it has over the next year or so is installing scrubbers on its fleet , which will allow its ships to use lower-cost fuels (helping keep operating costs down) while still complying with increasingly stringent environmental regulations. At an average cost of around $2 million per boat, though, that cost could, erring on the side of caution, add about $200 million in debt to the companys balance sheet . That would leave long-term debt at a still reasonable 50% or so of the capital structure. Meanwhile, Star Bulk management has a pretty positive outlook for the next couple of years. According to CEO Petros Pappas , a combination of slower boat speeds, industrywide scrapping of older vessels, and a relatively modest pace of new construction should reduce bulk capacity by an annual rate of about 2% over the near term. Demand, meanwhile, is expected to increase by as much as 2.9% a year. No wonder the prices Star Bulk has been able to charge customers have been strong lately, increasing 50% year over year in the third quarter. This positive outlook also helps explain why the companys fleet utilization could remain high, with utilization through the first nine months of 2018 at roughly 99%. The fly in the ointment Star Bulk may still sound like a great investment opportunity, especially since the stock is up more than 400% over the past three years. And it might be, but its also a fairly risky one thats only appropriate for aggressive investorsand investors with strong feelings about the prices Star Bulk can charge its customers. Demand for bulk carriers is highly dependent on global economic activity, making it a highly cyclical industry. If there were to be a global economic recession, or even just a material slowdown in a large demand source like China, global demand for iron ore, coal, and other bulk materials would likely drop off fairly quickly. That, in turn, would lead to lower demand for the ships Star Bulk owns. Lower demand would be a double-whammy. Not only would fewer ships get used, lowering utilization, but the rates Star Bulk could charge for the use of its ships would likely fall as well. Now add in the companys leverage. Although not outlandish for the industry, it still comes with notable interest expenses and can help to make Star Bulks earnings a little volatile. In fact, 2018 is likely to be the first year in five years that the company has positive earnings. Yes, the outlook today looks very good. But the year-over-year rate increase of 50% in the third quarter, and the positive impact that had on earnings, are both an exciting development and a warning. If rates fell by that much, which isnt out of the realm of possibility, there would be a great deal of pain to endure. On that front, its worth pulling back the performance graph above just a few more years, revealing that the stock is down 85% over the trailing-five-year period. Only for aggressive types Star Bulk isnt a good option for most investors. Yes, it may appear that the stars have aligned for solid results over the next year or two, but thats only true if global economic growth remains strong. And if the positive outlook the company is currently projecting doesnt materialize, there is notable downside risk to financial results and, likely, stock performance. This is a stock that only an aggressive investor with deep knowledge of the bulk carrier space should be looking at today. Source: Motley Fool | https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/is-star-bulk-carriers-corp-a-buy/ |
Can Africas mines sector shake off investors negative perceptions? | As Nigeria gears up for elections next month, policies on mining and mineral exploration will be of special interest to investors. While the country is known for its high-quality crude, with global oil prices significantly below their past highs, Nigeria is looking to attract mining investment in a bid to diversify revenues. Currently, the oil and gas sector represents 70% of Nigerias GDP and 90% of its revenues. By 2025 we want metals and mining sectors to account for 3-7% of our GDP, the minister of state for Mines and Steel, Abubakar Bawa Bwarii told S&P Global Platts. At the moment this sector accounts for only 0.5% of Nigerias GDP. For their part, investors have been eyeing opportunities in Africas unexplored mineral reserves, but issues around security, infrastructure, and overall ease of doing business remain key perception challenges for the continent as a whole. At the Mines and Money conference in London in December, Hajiya Fatima Shinkafi, Executive Secretary of Nigerias Solid Minerals Development Fund, said: There are perception challenges, definitely. Everyone knows Africa is the last frontier, in terms of resources, and not fully explored. For example, theres a billion tons of coal in terms of estimated reserves and only about a million of that has been explored. In Nigeria we have some of the friendliest mining acts in Africa, but there is still some inertia. As part of the strategy to reform the sector, the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development has identified seven key categories for priority development: coal, bitumen, and carbonated rocks, iron ore, barites and gold. Lead and zinc, whose ore deposits are often found together, are the final priority area. Botswana provides something of a model that Nigeria and others may try to emulate, having become a minerals investment magnet due to its reduced tax rates, and political stability. According to the 2017 Policy Perception Index from Canadian think-tank, the Fraser Institute, Botswana is the highest-ranked jurisdiction in Africa in terms of the attractiveness of its mining policies. In a bid to attract investment and challenge negative perceptions about the ease of doing business in the country, Nigeria has put in place a digitalized licencing process and is pushing to create more mining infrastructure, such as ports and roads, to transport materials. The government is offering to mining companies a two- to three-year tax holiday. On top of that, investors will have duty-free imports of equipment, full ownership of their businesses and the ability to take profits out of the country. Government-investor trust gap Africa accounts for as much as 30% of world mineral resources, according to the African Development Bank, but they remain underexplored because of the trust gap between governments and investors. In July 2017 Tanzanian President John Magufuli signed into law new mining bills which require the government to own at least a 16% stake in mining projects. The laws also saw royalty rates for metallic minerals such as copper, gold, silver, and PGM increase from 4% to 6%. These policies were accompanied by a series of other actions associated with Tanzanian mining that sent shockwaves through the sector. According to media reports, Magufulis actions were prompted by the need to ensure that the Tanzanian people benefited from mining projects in the country. Similarly, the Democratic Republic of Congo in November classified cobalta key raw material in batteries for electric vehiclesas a strategic mineral, hiking royalties from 3.5% to 10% and aggravating the tug of war with mine investors in the country. As some African governments have taken action to curb exploitation of their resources, investors pointed to regulatory uncertainty as a primary concern. David Street, principal at Tembo Capital Management said: I think one of the key issues is the mining code of particular countries. Some countries have more attractive investor legislation than others. Investors are also seeking stability in these codes if a government is changing rules regularly it is difficult for investors to invest in that country with any degree of certainty. He noted that most West African countries have done well in terms of gold mining investments, following changes to their mining frameworks. Ghana, Senegal, Ivory Coast and Mali, for example, have expanded gold production significantly. Although South Africa and Zimbabwe have a long history of mining, those West African countries have grown their industries more successfully in recent years. Gold is usually one of the first mining sectors to grow, because the mines dont need a lot of infrastructure to produce gold, with production relatively easy to export for sale. Coal, iron ore and base metals, for example, need a lot more infrastructure, such as good roads, railway lines and ports. And traditionally, parts of Africa havent had the best infrastructure compared to other parts of the world, unfortunately, he said. Business ethics remains a hard nut to crack in a continent that is tremendously culturally diverse. Issues still persist in community engagement and community development agreements, and often investors take a one-size-fits-all approach while working in various communities, Peter Breese, CEO of Ghana-based Asanko Gold, said during the Mines and Money conference. There is a misconception that bribery is the rule of law in Africa. The issue is you cant do business in Africa until you understand what its like to do business in Africa; you have to understand the culture, the values and the jurisdiction that you live in. When you get your head around corporate social responsibility issues is when you start to understand how to do business in Africa, he said. Street noted the importance of having the social licence to operate in a local community. Its important for example that the local people are given a fair chance of employment and benefit from skills transfer. A mine might run for 10-20 yearsis there any legacy left for those people afterwards? Some mining companies have stepped up social responsibility by, for example, using local produce for catering at the mines, and moving towards solar power so local people could benefit from solar energy after the mines tenure. How Nigeria and other neighbours in West Africa hold to recent regulatory changes in the next few years will be crucial for mining investment. The political will to drive the sector forward is not in doubt. But governments will have to achieve a balancing act between proving to investors they can offer a stable policy environment, and making sure mining development also brings long-term benefits to their own population and economy. Source: Platts | https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/can-africas-mines-sector-shake-off-investors-negative-perceptions/ |
What impact will Stephen Rochford have on Donegal's fortunes in 2019? | Former Mayo boss Stephen Rochford is now involved with the Ulster champions. Former Mayo boss Stephen Rochford is now involved with the Ulster champions. EOGHAN BN GALLAGHER is hopeful the addition of Stephen Rochford to Donegals backroom team will give them a different way of looking at football in 2019. Rochford stepped down as Mayo manager after two years in charge and comes on board under Declan Bonner as coach, with Donegal looking to build on their Ulster title-winning campaign. Declan is a Donegal man and all he wants is for Donegal to do well, said Gallagher. Hes not in it for his personal gain, like the rest of the people there, nobody is in it for their personal gain, everyone is there for the cause of Donegal. Declan is no different. He thought Stephen was a good person to bring in to improve Donegal football, he decided to go with that decision, and Stephen took a step back by becoming a number two or coach of Donegal so its a positive for us that Stephen wanted to be involved with Donegal as well. Looking ahead to the summer, Gallagher believes the only way to take down All-Ireland champions Dublin is with an offensive game-plan and Rochford teams are known for playing attacking football. Ive been very impressed (with Rochford), says Gallagher. Coming from Connacht and Mayo and managing Corofin, they play a wee bit more of a so-called attacking style than Donegal. He brings a different aspect because in Donegal we normally only have coaches from Donegal and Ulster and that. So with him coming from Connacht, Mayo, and Corofin he brings a different style and a different way of looking at football which can only benefit Donegal. Hes coming with new ideas and Im sure him and Declan and the rest of the backroom team are in harmony discussing the best way to go about playing. Gallagher goes past Niall Sludden of Tyrone. Source: Laszlo Geczo/INPHO Its only positive for us because its fresh ideas and Stephen Rochford was close to beating Dublin three times. So, yeah, its positive for us. Every team knows they have to attack a lot more to beat Dublin. I think a few people have come out and said you need at least 20 points to beat Dublin and thats probably not far off the mark. Theyre going to put up 18 or 19 points regardless so youve to score more than them to beat them. Karl Lacey has been retained as a defence coach by Bonner after initially opting out of the set-up due to work commitments. Gallaghers white boots and piercing runs from the back have drawn comparisons between himself and the former Footballer of the Year, who was part of the last team to beat Dublin in championship football. Gallagher, unlucky not to win an All-Star last year, insists its a pleasure to work with Lacey. Karl was a fantastic player, probably up there as one of Donegals greatest ever players. One of the best players of his generation. You can see the drive he had personally now whenever hes coaching us. Again, hes just there to make Donegal better. Hes given up his time, he doesnt have to be there. Listen, were very thankful that a player of Karls quality is in with us because hes a fantastic coach as well and its really positive for us to have someone of his quality in with us. Donegal begin their bid for promotion from Division 2 with a trip to Ennis to take on Clare this Sunday. Theyll be without the Gweedore contingent for the opening three league games at least, while a number of veterans, including Michael Murphy and Paddy McBrearty, are out through injury. Its believed the trio Mark McHugh, Stephen McBrearty and Darach OConnor are no longer part of the panel. Subscribe to our new podcast, The42 Rugby Weekly, here: | https://www.the42.ie:443/eoghan-ban-gallagher-rochford-donegal-4456945-Jan2019/ |
Is Alfred Mutua Trying to Grab Bruce Odhiambos State-of-Art Studio? | Veteran artist and music producer Bruce Odhiambo was laid to rest at a ceremony in Koru just by River Nyando and also near the home of the late foreign affairs Minister Robert Ouko and Got Alila where his burnt remains were found. Known to be a friendly and open-hearted individual, Bruce was mourned by the mighty and lowly alike. In attendance was President Uhuru Kenyatta, former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, popular Kenyan artists and creatives from the marketing and advertising sector in the country. One constant reminder remained in the minds of everyone. Someone was really trying to use the demise of Bruce to take away his possessions. There was the loud murmurs that Machakos Governor Dr. Alfred Mutua through his associate Victor Muniafu was seriously pushing to have Bruce Odhiambos studio equipment transferred to Machakos where the governor would apparently manage it under the county. READ: Airtel, Telkom Merger To Be Completed By March 2019 Many who knew Dr. Alfred Mutua and the late Bruce Odhiambo clearly opposed the idea but when the governor started claiming that Bruce owed him money, mourners became worried and demanded that the President intervene. Dr Mutua was seen as a heartless opportunist trying to cart away the last belongings of Bruce after his death. Bruces studio equipment are some of the best in the region. He bought top-notch equipment including mixers, microphones and computers some of which cost millions. Artists produced by Bruce would tell you that it was only inside his studio where they had a chance to interact with microphones worth over Ksh 1.2 million ($12,000) each. READ: Ezekiel Mutua Lashes Out After Court Lifts Ban On Rafiki Movie The mourners also questioned if Alfred Mutua was sure that his successor was going to maintain the studio idea after his exit from the county leadership position or taking the equipment to Machakos was a way of locking out Bruces children and grand-children. Family and friends of Bruce are still waiting for the intervention of President Uhuru to save the livelihood of those who Bruce cared for. Some of the famous artists produced by Bruce Odhiambo included Awilo Longomba, Koffi Olomide, Amos and Josh duo, Talia Oyando, Sautisol, Nyambane, Les Wanyika, Mercy Myra, Jah Key Malle, Kanji Mbugua, K-South Flava, Redsan, Kayamba Africa among others. Email your news TIPS to [email protected] Also WhatsApp 0708677607 with your news tips Advertisements Like this: Like Loading... | https://www.kahawatungu.com/2019/01/24/alfred-mutua-grab-bruce-odhiambo-studio/ |
Do truth and reconciliation commissions heal divided nations? | This article was originally published on The Conversation, an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts. Disclosure information is available on the original site. Author: Bonny Ibhawoh, Professor of History and Global Human Rights, McMaster University As long as unresolved historic injustices continue to fester in the world, there will be a demand for truth commissions. Unfortunately, there is no end to the need. The goal of a truth commission in some forms also called a truth and reconciliation commission, as it is in Canada is to hold public hearings to establish the scale and impact of a past injustice, typically involving wide-scale human rights abuses, and make it part of the permanent, unassailable public record. Truth commissions also officially recognize victims and perpetrators in an effort to move beyond the painful past. Over the past three decades, more than 40 countries have, like Canada, established truth commissions, including Chile, Ecuador, Ghana, Guatemala, Kenya, Liberia, Morocco, Philippines, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa and South Korea. The hope has been that restorative justice would provide greater healing than the retributive justice modelled most memorably by the Nuremberg Trials after the Second World War. There has been a range in the effectiveness of commissions designed to resolve injustices in African and Latin American countries, typically held as those countries made transitions from civil war, colonialism or authoritarian rule. Most recently, Canadas Truth and Reconciliation Commission addressed historic injustices perpetrated against Canadas Indigenous peoples through forced assimilation and other abuses. Its effectiveness is still being measured, with a list of 94 calls to action waiting to be fully implemented. But Canadas experience appears to have been at least productive enough to inspire Australia and New Zealand to come to terms with their own treatment of Indigenous peoples by exploring similar processes. Although both countries have a long history to trying to reconcile with native peoples, recent discussions have leaned toward a Canadian-style TRC model. South Africa set the standard There had been other truth commissions in the 1980s and early 1990s, including Chiles post-Pinochet reckoning. But the most recognizable standard became South Africas, when President Nelson Mandela mandated a painful and necessary Truth and Reconciliation Commission to resolve the scornful legacy of apartheid, the racist and repressive policy that had driven the African National Congress, including Mandela, to fight for reform. Their efforts resulted in widespread violence and Mandelas own 27-year imprisonment. Through South Africas publicly televised TRC proceedings, white perpetrators were required to come face-to-face with the Black families they had victimized physically, socially and economically. There were critics, to be sure, on both sides. Some called it the Kleenex Commission for the emotional hearings they saw as going easy on some perpetrators who were granted amnesty after demonstrating public contrition. Others felt it fell short of its promise benefiting the new government by legitimizing Mandelas ANC and letting perpetrators off the hook by allowing so many go without punishment, and failing victims who never saw adequate compensation or true justice. These criticisms were valid, yet the process did succeed in its most fundamental responsibility it pulled the country safely into a modern, democratic era. Saving humanity from hell Dag Hammarskjold, the secretary general of the United Nations through most of the 1950s who faced criticism about the limitations of the UN, once said the UN was not created to take mankind to heaven, but to save humanity from hell. Similarly, South Africas Truth and Reconciliation Commission was not designed to take South Africa to some idyllic utopia. After a century of colonialism and apartheid, that would not have been realistic. It was designed to save South Africa, then a nuclear power, from an implosion one that many feared would trigger a wider international war. To the extent that the commission saved South Africa from hell, I think it was successful. Perhaps, but it did its work. Since then, other truth commissions, whether they have included reconciliation or reparation mandates, have generated varying results. Some have been used cynically as tools for governments to legitimize themselves by pretending they have dealt with painful history when they have only kicked the can down the road. In Liberia, where I worked with a team of researchers last summer, the records of that countrys truth and reconciliation commission are not even readily available to the public. That secrecy robs Liberia of what should be the most essential benefit of confronting past injustices: permanent, public memorialization that inoculates the future against the mistakes of the past. U.S. needs truth commission On balance, the truth commission stands as an important tool that can and should be used around the world. Its painfully apparent that the United States needs a national truth commission of some kind to address hundreds of years of injustice suffered by Black Americans. There, centuries of enslavement, state-sponsored racism, denial of civil rights and ongoing economic and social disparity have yet to be addressed. Like many, I dont hold out hope that a U.S. commission will be established any time soon especially not under the current administration. But I do think one is inevitable at some point, better sooner than later. Wherever there is an ugly, unresolved injustice pulling at the fabric of a society, there is an opportunity to haul it out in public and deal with it through a truth commission. Still, there is not yet any central body or facility that researchers, political leaders or other advocates can turn to for guidance, information and evidence. Such an entity would help them understand and compare how past commissions have worked or failed to work and create better outcomes for future commissions. As the movement to expose, understand and resolve historical injustices grows, it would seem that Canada, a stable democracy with its own sorrowed history and its interest in global human rights, would make an excellent place to establish such a centre. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Disclosure information is available on the original site. Read the original article: https://theconversation.com/do-truth-and-reconciliation-commissions- https://theconversation.com | https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/do-truth-and-reconciliation-commissions-heal-divided-nations |
Is Apple's self-driving car dream over? | The race to dominate the first driving business without human drivers is stiffer than ever and Apple's dream of has been pushed back as it sent out over 200 employees from its codenamed "Titan" to different parts of the company on Thursday. The move comes as the Cupertino-based giant moved this team to focus on its (ML) initiatives. "We have an incredibly talented team working on and associated technologies at As the team focuses their work on several key areas for 2019, some groups are being moved to projects in other parts of the company where they will support and other initiatives, across all of Apple," CNBC quoted an as saying. In August 2018, Tesla's former engineering was appointed by to lead team "Titan". It was initially expected that Apple might actually make the cars themselves, but recent reports suggest that the company is more interested in the tech behind it than building the actual cars. According to analysts KC Rajkumar and Jahanara Nissar of the Toronto-based Strategies, due to slowdown in sales, Apple might have less money to spend on projects like its self-driving cars, reported. In 2016, the tech giant laid-off employees from the same group, shifting its strategy while fully self-driving cars remain experimental for other major players in the field such as Waymo, Cruise and headed Tesla, the report said. "We continue to believe there is a huge opportunity with autonomous systems, that Apple has unique capabilities to contribute and that this is the most ambitious project ever," the added. The fleet of Apple's self-driving programmes is made up of SUVs, each of which is fitted with huge racks of the Lidar radar-guided direction system as well as cameras, the media report said. In May 2018, with 55 self-driving cars and 83 drivers, Apple touched the second highest number of such vehicles in after Motor's Cruise, which had 104 vehicles. --IANS ksc/rs/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) | https://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ians/is-apple-s-self-driving-car-dream-over-119012401133_1.html |
Can Frida Kahlo Be Separated From Her Commercialized Image? | Starting in the 1980s, Frida Kahlo has gradually grown into the art world equivalent of a Che Guevara stencil t-shirt. Following relative obscurity after her death in 1954, the last three decades have seen Kahlo morph into a sort of cult figure, her iconic unibrow and folkloric dress-clad image emblazoned on every kind of museum gift shop merchandise in existence. People love her. Kahlo, after all, represents an image of Mexico that is digestible. She is exotic, but not too much so. Born to a German father and indigenous and Spanish mother, Frida Kahlo has just the right amount of European heritage to fit neatly beside European Surrealists on the fifth floor of the MoMAthe radicality that made her such an important artist in the first place largely obscured by her emergence as a cultural, fashion-conscious icon. In February, the Brooklyn Museum will be showing the largest United States retrospective in 10 years of Kahlos work. Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving presents an opportunity to give Kahlo back the agency she is too often stripped of in art history surveys, and posibly the chance to reconsider the immense influence she has had and continues to have over feminist artists todayfrom Ana Mendieta and Kiki Smith to Judy Chicago and Carrie Mae Weems. In her 2010 book with art historian Frances Borzello, Judy Chicago wrote: Imagine a biography that examined the career of Jackson Pollock in relation to the ups and downs of his marriage with fellow artist Lee Krasnerinconceivable, yet usually unquestioned with Kahlo. Unlike Pollock, though, the physical and emotional turmoil Kahlo suffered throughout her lifesome of which was a result of her marriage to the famed muralist, most of which was notwas inextricable from her art. To understand Kahlos magical realism it is to understand the repeated traumas her body endured, from the polio she contracted at age six that permanently damaged one of her legs to the sexual abuse she suffered at the German College in Mexico City and the near-fatal bus crash that left her bound to a plaster corset for the rest of her life. To understand Self-Portrait with Necklace (which will form part of the Brooklyn Museum exhibition) is to know Kahlo was recovering from a miscarriage and only slowly beginning to regain confidence in herself and her art. Appearances Can Be Deceiving will also, for the first time in the U.S., display a collection of Kahlos personal items from her lifelong home in Mexico City, la Casa Azul. The selection of Pre-Columbian jewelry and Tehuana clothing, orthopedic corsets and prosthetics, shed new light on how Kahlo carefully toyed with gender fluidity and consciously chose local forms to highlight the indigenous part of her identity through her sartorial choices. The prevailing narrative that women are too often defined by their clothes, their appearance, and their beauty was powerfully co-opted by Kahlo through the empowering and intentional choices she made to craft her own identity, Catherine Morris, the Sackler Senior Curator of the Museum, said in a statement. This exhibition focuses particularly on Kahlos experiences in New York in the 1930s, a time when her communist beliefs radicalized and she was inspired to frame her clothing as an explicitly political, nationalistic statement (Kahlo even changed her birthday to coincide with the start of the Mexican Revolution). The signature floor-length skirts and billowing blouses the artist became known for are adopted from the Tehuana region in Oaxaca, Mexico, a matriarchal society Kahlo admired for its empowerment of women. Although the exhibition is solely dedicated to Kahlo, it will be interesting to view her work and beloved possessions in relation the Museums extensive holdings of feminist art, including the permanent display of Judy Chicagos The Dinner Party and over 100 works currently on view from the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Arts collection. The exhibition likely wont change Kahlos exorbitantly over-commercialized legacy, but it hopefully will go beyond it, contextualizing her not as an artist who is representative of Mexican art as a whole, but as one who relentlessly asserted her autonomy in art and in life to make a point about femininity, nationalism and cultural identity. | https://observer.com/2019/01/can-frida-kahlo-be-separated-from-her-commercialized-image-brooklyn-museum-exhibition/ |
Is First Trust Dow Jones Global Select Dividend Index Fund (FGD) a Strong ETF Right Now? | A smart beta exchange traded fund, the First Trust Dow Jones Global Select Dividend Index Fund (FGD) debuted on 11/21/2007, and offers broad exposure to the Broad Developed World ETFs category of the market. The ETF industry has long been dominated by products based on market cap weighted indexes, a strategy created to reflect the market or a particular market segment. Because market cap weighted indexes provide a low-cost, convenient, and transparent way of replicating market returns, they work well for investors who believe in market efficiency. There are some investors, though, who think it's possible to beat the market with great stock selection; this group likely invests in another class of funds known as smart beta, which track non-cap weighted strategies. Based on specific fundamental characteristics, or a combination of such, these indexes attempt to pick stocks that have a better chance of risk-return performance. The smart beta space gives investors many different choices, from equal-weighting, one of the simplest strategies, to more complicated ones like fundamental and volatility/momentum based weighting. However, not all of these methodologies have been able to deliver remarkable returns. Fund Sponsor & Index The fund is managed by First Trust Advisors. FGD has been able to amass assets over $464 M, making it one of the average sized ETFs in the Broad Developed World ETFs. This particular fund seeks to match the performance of the Dow Jones Global Select Dividend Index before fees and expenses. This Index is an indicated annual dividend yield weighted index of 100 stocks selected from the developed-market portion of the Dow Jones World Index. Cost & Other Expenses Cost is an important factor in selecting the right ETF, and cheaper funds can significantly outperform their more expensive cousins if all other fundamentals are the same. Annual operating expenses for this ETF are 0.58%, making it one of the more expensive products in the space. FGD's 12-month trailing dividend yield is 5.54%. Sector Exposure and Top Holdings Even though ETFs offer diversified exposure that minimizes single stock risk, investors should also look at the actual holdings inside the fund. Luckily, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis. Looking at individual holdings, Centurylink, Inc. (CTL) accounts for about 2.23% of total assets, followed by Gamestop Corp. (class A) (GME) and Element Fleet Management Corp. (EFN.CT). The top 10 holdings account for about 16.83% of total assets under management. Performance and Risk The ETF has gained about 6.13% so far this year and is down about -11.67% in the last one year (as of 01/24/2019). In the past 52-week period, it has traded between $21.06 and $28.07. The ETF has a beta of 0.81 and standard deviation of 13.70% for the trailing three-year period, making it a low risk choice in the space. With about 102 holdings, it effectively diversifies company-specific risk. Alternatives First Trust Dow Jones Global Select Dividend Index Fund is a reasonable option for investors seeking to outperform the Broad Developed World ETFs segment of the market. However, there are other ETFs in the space which investors could consider. IShares MSCI ACWI ETF (ACWI) tracks MSCI All Country World Index and the Vanguard Total World Stock ETF (VT) tracks FTSE Global All Cap Index. IShares MSCI ACWI ETF has $10.79 B in assets, Vanguard Total World Stock ETF has $12.46 B. ACWI has an expense ratio of 0.31% and VT charges 0.10%. Investors looking for cheaper and lower-risk options should consider traditional market cap weighted ETFs that aim to match the returns of the Broad Developed World ETFs. Bottom Line To learn more about this product and other ETFs, screen for products that match your investment objectives and read articles on latest developments in the ETF investing universe, please visit Zacks ETF Center. Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report iShares MSCI ACWI ETF (ACWI): ETF Research Reports GameStop Corp. (GME) : Free Stock Analysis Report Vanguard Total World Stock ETF (VT): ETF Research Reports To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research | https://news.yahoo.com/first-trust-dow-jones-global-133301137.html |
How Long Will Sarri Last At Chelsea? | Brian Glanville asks how long the Italian manager will stay at Chelsea after their dismal loss to Arsenal. Maurizio Sarri, Chelseas voluble new Italian manager, might be reminded of an old English saying, a bad workman blames his tools. After his Chelsea team had gone down unequivocally against Arsenal he slated his players in his own Italian. Wanting he said to send a very clear message to his beaten players, he fulminated, I have to say that I am extremely angry, very angry agreed. This defeat was due to our mentality more than anything else. (More than wasting the splendid Hazard in central attack rather than on the left wing?) This defeat was due to our mentality more than anything else. We played against a team which mentally was far more determined than we were. This is something I cannot accept. We had a similar issue in the League game at Tottenham Hotspur. We spoke a great deal about that loss and our approach at the time, and I thought we had overcome this issue but it appears we still seem to lack sufficient motivation. Yes I know that the chief accused, the hapless 74-year-old ex-chief superintendent David Duckenfield retired ill years ago, yet the lapse in time seems quite extraordinary. Though Duckenfield in the vernacular is plainly bang to rights, having ordered a gate to be opened which allowed hundreds of Liverpool fans to pour through, he as the present prosecuting counsel admits, was not solely to blame for the disaster. It has so long been clear that he should never have been put in charge, being inexperienced in such matters, his predecessor at the equivalent match a year earlier having reportedly been taken off the command as a result of so called horse play among his subordinates. Yet in all fairness and logic surely the Football Association itself should be in the dock, for choosing Hillsborough in the first place. There had been troubles of overcrowding on those terraces in the past. I have spoken to fans who attended those games and quit that section as a precaution. Yet year after year, the Sheffield Wednesday ground was blindly chosen until the disaster happened. Clearly there is to be no attempt to indict the FA officials, long gone from their posts, for their literally fatal decisions, but they surely bear the ultimate blame for what almost predicatably happened. Thus it is possible almost to see Duckenfield as the fall guy, taking all the blame so much of which should arguably have been laid upon others. He is an old man and will I suppose being found guilty inevitably be sent to gaol. But the ultimate blame arguably and ultimately lies elsewhere. | https://www.worldsoccer.com/features/long-will-sarri-last-chelsea-brian-glanville-408010 |
Did part-time pilot breach his licence with doomed flight? | Advertisement Investigators are to probe the licence of the missing part-time pilot who flew 15million footballer Emiliano Sala on a doomed journey across the Channel, MailOnline can reveal today. The Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) has confirmed it will look into whether the flight chartered by the son of mega-agent Willie McKay was legal. Dave Ibbotson holds a British private pilot's licence that allows him to fly passengers between airports as long as he doesn't profit from any journey. But if he was paid a fee amounting to more than his fuel costs and expenses to take Sala between France and Britain in the six-seater Piper Malibu it would be classed a commercial flight. It came as the missing Premier League star's heartbroken sister Romina met with Cardiff City officials, including manager Neil Warnock, having flown in from Argentina overnight as hope fades for her brother. This afternoon a pilot involved in the search for the missing plane said there is 'no chance' of finding survivors. Mike Tidd, from Channel Islands Air Search, told ITV: 'The area has been very well covered, there is absolutely no chance of finding anybody alive now, the only thing that we might be able to do would be to pinpoint where the aircraft went in, but I think the radar trace is going to be the best opportunity of doing that.' Mr Ibbotson passed his pilot's test in America in 2014. The Federal Aviation Authority register in the US says he holds a British private pilot's licence not a commercial licence needed for scheduled or 'paid for' flights. An AAIB spokesman said today that as part of its investigation they will 'establish the details of the booking and its operational arrangements'. David Ibbotson, 60, (pictured left in the cockpit) has been named as the pilot at the controls of the privately-owned Piper Malibu aircraft carrying star footballer Emiliano Sala as it emerged the investigation into the missing plane will involve checking it was legal Mr Sala (pictured last year) warned friends and family he was 'scared' on board a 'plane that seems like it is falling to pieces' minutes before it vanished over the Channel Mr Ibbotson, from Scunthorpe, gained his private pilot's licence in the US but does not have a commercial licence for paid for or scheduled flights In Facebook posts in the hours before the doomed flight Mr Ibbotson told a friend he was 'a bit rusty with the ILS (Instrument Landing System)' As part of the probe the Civil Aviation Authority, which regulates pilots' licences, will also be asked to confirm Mr Ibbotson had the instrument qualifications to fly 'blind' at night or bad weather and was properly insured. The CAA today said it could not discuss the case or the missing pilot's licence for data protection reasons. Mark McKay, who was acting on behalf of Sala's club FC Nantes, chartered the flight and Salas French agent Meissa NDiaye also helped with the arrangements. Missing Cardiff City star's distraught ex-girlfriend calls for the 'soccer mafia to be investigated' Model Berenice Schkair, 27, made the extraordinary claim on social media after the new Cardiff City star's plane went missing over the English Channel after taking off in Nantes, France Emiliano Sala's heartbroken underwear model ex-girlfriend today blamed the 'football mafia' after his plane vanished over the Channel and said: 'I can't believe this is an accident'. Victoria's Secret star Berenice Schkair, 27, made the extraordinary claim on social media after the new Cardiff City star's plane went missing over the English Channel after taking off in Nantes, France. Sala and his pilot last made contact from their Piper FA-46 Malibu just off Alderney at 8.30pm on Monday and the pair are missing presumed dead after wreckage was spotted in the sea. On Twitter last night Berenice tweeted: 'Investigate the football mafia because I don't believe this was an accident' before deleting it. Lifeboats, helicopters and even locals in fishing boats have been scouring the sea for him - but have had to stop between dusk and dawn. Posting photographs of them together, she wrote on Instagram: 'Emi, my heart is broken. I still cannot understand it. I'm destroyed, I feel pain, fear and anger for not being able to do anything. I know you're strong. We are waiting for you. 'I want to wake up and all of this to be a lie. Please investigate because I cannot believe this is an accident. Don't suspend the search for bad weather when you only just found objects floating. 'They're losing time and aren't investigating. The thing I regret most is not having told you that you made me feel like I haven't felt in a while and I love you. Why does this misfortune happen to such a fascinating man full of projects, hard working, a good person dedicated to his job'. Mr Ibbotson, a gas engineer from Scunthorpe, was one of the roster of three or four pilots regularly used to fly footballers to France and may also have carried jockeys between race meetings. Mr McKay said in a statement last night: I can confirm that when Emiliano made myself and his agent Meissa NDiaye aware that he wished to travel back to Nantes following his medical and signing on Friday, I began to look into arranging a private flight to take him to Nantes on Saturday morning. 'That evening it was confirmed a plane was available to fly Emiliano on Saturday which could remain in Nantes until he was due to return to Cardiff on Monday and train on Tuesday. If investigators believe the doomed flight breached the Air Navigation Order act the Civil Aviation Authority has the power prosecute any individual involved in a booking. Past cases have seen pilots or aviation companies who organised the flights in the dock - so is unlikely to lead to Mr McKay or Mr N'Dyiaye facing prosecution. Previous cases have led to large fines and prison sentences of up to a year. Mr Ibbotson, understood to be a part-time pilot who has also worked as a gas engineer and wedding DJ, is said to have flown Sala to Wales when the footballer agreed to sign last Friday. The 60-year-old, whose nickname is 'Dibbo', has three children and lives with wife Nora near Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, and according to his Facebook account he checked into a hotel next to Nantes Airport on Saturday night and stayed until Monday. He is said to be a highly-experienced pilot who specialises in private flights and parachute expeditions but it is unclear how many hours he has flown. The law does allow private licence pilots to fly strangers who agree to help cover the cost of the trip - but crucially the pilot must prove they were planning to fly to the destination already and cannot make any profit on top. The loophole has led to the rise of Uber-inspired websites connecting passengers with pilots to reduce the price of private flights between the UK and Europe from around 10,000 to 1,000 or less. The most popular website offering this service is Wingly, who confirmed to MailOnline today that Sala's flight was not booked through them. Cardiff City today reiterated that it offered to get Sala to the UK from Paris - but the player told them he already had a flight booked. Club CEO Ken Choo said: 'We made offers for Emiliano to fly on commercial [flights] from Paris but the player said dont worry about that, I have alternative arrangements, I will see you at the [training] ground on Tuesday. 'He requested our club officials pick him up from the airport in Cardiff on Monday night after touchdown at 8.45pm. 'On hindsight, we should have pushed but we had communicated with the player and we had to respect the wishes of the player. I think that is very important, we did not want to make the player uncomfortable on any arrangements'. Model Berenice Schkair, 27, made the extraordinary claim on social media after the new Cardiff City star's plane went missing over the English Channel after taking off in Nantes, France The family of top football agent Willie McKay are believed to have chartered the plane taking Emiliano Sala to the UK when it vanished. His son Mark has also been involved in a number of high-profile transfers including Dimitri Payet's 10.7million move to West Ham (together right) The missing plane carrying football star Emiliano Sala may have stalled in mid air and crashed into the sea due to a deadly build-up of ice on the wings, aviation experts have said. Timeline: How the Sala plane tragedy unfolded 'The Last Goodbye': Emiliano Sala posted this photograph on Instagram on Monday, bidding farewell to his old teammates at Nantes Football Club, after he signed a record 15 million contract with Cardiff City. It is believed to be the last photo of him Friday, January 18: Sala travels to Cardiff to have a medical and discuss personal terms Saturday, January 19: Cardiff agrees 15m deal with Nantes to sign the player who then flies back to France Sunday, January 20: Argentinian star goes to say a final goodbye to his former teammates and poses for a poignant final photo (pictured). His pilot checks in at the city's airport as he waits for him as he collects his belongings. Monday, January 21: Sala boards flight from Nantes to Cardiff at 7.15pm but it disappears at 8.30pm Wednesday, January 23: Search and rescue teams say there is 'no hope' and reveal operation around Alderney is now a recovery one, not a rescue mission On Monday night the six-seater Piper Malibu carrying new Cardiff City signing Sala back from a last hurrah with his former teammates in Nantes fell off the radar over Alderney. Sala and British pilot David Ibbotson, 60, are both feared dead after coastguards said yesterday that search efforts were now focused on recovery, with no hope of finding survivors. The Sun reported that one aviation expert said: 'There are reports that the footballer was texting saying the aircraft is shaking and breaking up are classic signs of icing on the wings'. 'The pilot is most likely wrestling with a stall at 2,300ft. 'It is likely, though, that the aircraft hit the water in one piece otherwise debris would have quickly been found.' The single-prop plane had been flying at 5,000 feet before requesting a descent to 2,300ft from Jersey's air traffic controllers. It reached that lower altitude before dropping off radar without any further radio contact. Former pilot Alastair Rosenschein also said the plane may have become iced-up in the Arctic blast currently sweeping across northern Europe including the UK and France. He said: 'It's already a fairly risky crossing to do in a single engine aircraft, especially in winter and definitely at night. There are icing problems too. 'It's a strange thing to do though to go and fly over water with one engine at night in winter because if your engine goes you're going in the water'. It came after it emerged the pilot of the plane, which was chartered by the son of a former football mega-agent, said he was 'a bit rusty' with its landing system hours before the doomed flight. British pilot David Ibbotson, 60, checked into Nantes Atlantique Airport shortly before take-off after admitting to a friend on Facebook he had approached the runway 'on the high side' - but joked, tragically: 'Better than on the low side'. The American FAA (Federal Aviation Authority) records Ibbotson as having a British private pilot's licence, issued in 2014, which entitled him to fly the single-engine aircraft. It is not a commercial licence, which would be required for scheduled flights. The plane itself, built in 1984, is registered in the United States via a Norfolk company, Southern Aircraft Consultancy, which charges 450 per year to register their aircraft with the FAA. Three years ago the Piper aircraft was delivered to the UK from Spain by David Henderson, a British pilot. He told the BBC at the time: 'One of the problems [of flying over water] is that ice can build up on the aircraft and if it gets too great then it would stop flying, and the only way to get rid of ice is to descend to warmer air.' Hours later at around 8.30pm on Monday night the plane carrying him and his 15million passenger crashed into the Channel off Alderney and both men are missing, presumed dead. It is thought he first flew the star back to France to say a 'final goodbye' to his former Nantes team-mates on Saturday, and was at the controls during the ill-fated final journey back to Britain 48 hours ago. John Fitzgerald, chief officer of Channel Islands Air Search, said there is 'no hope' of finding the men because 'even the most fit person' would only survive for a few hours in the Channel in January. Revealing the operation is now recovery, not a search for survivors, he said: 'Sadly, I really don't think, personally, there is any hope. At this time of year the conditions out there are pretty horrendous if you are actually in the water.' The missing 1984 Piper Malibu aircraft is believed to be owned by an unnamed American who registered it with the UK's Civil Aviation Authority using Suffolk-based company Southern Aircraft Consultancy. A member of staff at the firm today refused to identify the individual or company owning the aircraft. She told MailOnline: 'They have asked us not to speak to the press. We don't have any comment. We don't have anything to do with the aircraft other than the fact that we registered it for them'. The former sister-in-law of missing pilot David Ibbotson said she was shocked by the 'awful news'. Accounts adviser Linda Goodwin said she and her sister Georgina Gymer - the pilot and gas engineer's first wife - had 'no idea' that he was onboard the doomed flight. She said: 'This is terrible, it's shocking, we had no idea. He is my ex brother-in-law, I was at the wedding. He and my sister are divorced now but they have two children together. She lives in New Zealand and the kids, who are grown up, are in England. He got re-married.' Ms Goodwin from Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, added: 'My sister will be devastated, this is awful news for both families, for all of us. I heard about the missing footballer but had no idea that Dave was the pilot. No one told us, I'm quite numb. He's a nice guy and I knew him well. It's so sad.' Cardiff City's chairman Mehmet Dalman revealed that their new star, just signed for 15million from FC Nantes, turned down a commercial flight from Paris and chose to take a private plane instead. The pilot missing with footballer Emiliano Sala was named as a British father-of-three and gas engineer from Scunthorpe. David Ibbotson was at the controls of the privately-owned Piper Malibu aircraft believed to have crashed into the sea near Alderney on Monday night. The pilot, whose nickname is 'Dibbo', is married with three children and lives with his wife Nora near Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, and according to his Facebook account he checked into a hotel next to Nantes Airport on Saturday night. He is an experienced pilot specialising in private flights and parachute expeditions - but also is a qualified gas engineer running his own boiler repair company in North Lincolnshire. In Facebook posts before the doomed flight, Mr Ibbotson told a friend he was 'a bit rusty with the ILS (Instrument Landing System)'. He tagged himself at Nantes Airport on Saturday before telling a friend ahead of his flight on Sunday: 'Was not to (sic) bad when I got there but I'm a bit rusty with the ils, in France now.' Today at the family home in Crowle, 10-miles from Scunthorpe, a sobbing woman told the Grimsby Telegraph: 'We do not wish to give a comment.' It came as aviation experts claimed that the Piper Malibu plane that Sala was travelling in had a 'questionable' safety record with 55 fatal crashes including 24 since 2000. Former pilot Alastair Rosenschein said the plane may have become iced-up in the Arctic blast currently sweeping across northern Europe including the UK and France. He said: 'It's already a fairly risky crossing to do in a single engine aircraft, especially in winter and definitely at night. There are icing problems too. It's a strange thing to do though to go and fly over water with one engine at night in winter because if your engine goes you're going in the water'. Mr Sala's heartbroken underwear model ex-girlfriend today blamed the 'football mafia' after his plane vanished over the Channel and said: 'I can't believe this is an accident'. Victoria's Secret star Berenice Schkair, 27, made the extraordinary claim on social media after the new Cardiff City star's plane went missing over the English Channel after taking off in Nantes, France. On Twitter last night Berenice tweeted: 'Investigate the football mafia because I don't believe this was an accident' before deleting it. Lifeboats, helicopters and even locals in fishing boats have been scouring the sea for him - but have had to stop between dusk and dawn. Posting photographs of them together, she wrote on Instagram: 'Emi, my heart is broken. I still cannot understand it. I'm destroyed, I feel pain, fear and anger for not being able to do anything. I know you're strong. We are waiting for you. 'I want to wake up and all of this to be a lie. Please investigate because I cannot believe this is an accident. Don't suspend the search for bad weather when you only just found objects floating. 'The thing I regret most is not having told you that you made me feel like I haven't felt in a while and I love you. Why does this misfortune happen to such a fascinating man full of projects, hard working, a good person dedicated to his job'. The UK's Air Accidents Investigation Branch said today the missing plane is a Piper PA-46-310P Malibu aircraft with the registration N264DB. This is the plane that Sala and the pilot were in when in vanished over the sea - it appears to be registered to a company in Norfolk The couple were together for some time - and may have become engaged - before they split last year, sources have said Berenice tweeted that the 'football mafia' should be investigated in a clear claim the crash was deliberate - but later deleted it The model posted a series of message on Instagram where she said she had not given up hope that her ex would be found alive When asked by Argentine media outlet Infobae for a comment, she said: 'The only thing I want is for him to show up. Out of respect for the family I'd prefer to wait, I'm going to say what I need to say in a few days.' 'Questionable' safety record of missing plane that has suffered 55 fatal crashes, expert claims Aviation expert and former pilot Alastair Rosenschein said Sala shouldn't have been making the journey and claimed the plane had an unsatisfactory safety record. The Piper Malibu PA-46 has had 55 fatal crashes, including 24 since 2000. He said: 'It's very surprising that they should ask to descend at night over water in a single engine aircraft. It's already a fairly risky crossing to do in a single engine aircraft, especially in winter and definitely at night. There are icing problems too. 'Why he would have asked to descend one can only speculate, but one of the reasons to descend could have been to get out of an icing layer where ice forms on the wings or on the propeller so the aircraft descends to slightly warmer air. 'The other reason could have been to remain clear of cloud but at night you're not going to see anything anyway, so it really is unexplained at the moment. 'It's a strange thing to do though to go and fly over water with one engine at night in winter because if your engine goes you're going in the water.' Mr Rosenschein said the Piper Malibu plane that Sala was travelling in had a questionable safety record. He said: 'When I looked it up it has had over 160 serious crashes that's a fairly large number - 55 of them were fatal accidents that's a large number for an aircraft that does not have such a large production number. 'Since the year 2000 there have been 24 fatal crashes. 'One can't compare what we call general aviation or light aircraft flying with commercial flying which is extremely safe and accidents are very rare. 'General aviation is flown primarily by amateurs these will be people wealthy enough to buy an aircraft who generally don't have a great deal experience or recency - although one doesn't know the experience of the pilot involved.' Mr Rosenshein said there was little chance the plane would have been fitted with a black box or similar device to aid rescuers in the search for it. He said: 'There are some private aircraft where they have this but it is an unlikely scenario. The important thing now is to continue with the search and rescue. 'If they survived the ditching as we call it and got into a life raft then the chances of them being rescued remain reasonable but if they got into the water then at this time of the year the water is very cold and it's not a survival situation.' The model was born in the Tres de Febrero area of the Argentine capital Buenos Aires and is believed to have been going out with the footballer for a few months last year. Reports in their home country suggest they may even have been engaged before they split up. Guernsey Police said today they are 'prioritising' the theory that the new 15million Cardiff City player and the pilot made it out of the wreckage found floating in the Channel last night. They are also working on three other possibilities - that the plane was grounded on dry land either in the Channel Islands or France, the pilot and Sala were picked up by a passing ship or they are dead in the water. French media had reported pilot David Henderson, 60, was flying the missing Piper Malibu PA-46, which disappeared near the Channel Islands on Monday night. Mr Henderson later took to Facebook to confirm he was alive and well and it is unknown who was flying the missing PA-46. But in 2015, Mr Henderson appeared in a BBC video about his life as a transatlantic pilot and described the dangers of flying a Piper Malibu. In fact, Mr Henderson told how he would always wear a neoprene wetsuit and packed a life raft in the back to give him '6 or 7 or 8 hours survivability' in case he ditched into the Atlantic. He is filmed sitting in the cockpit of a plane - serial number N264DB - the same as that of the missing flight, according to reports on the Aviation Safety Network Wiki page. According to South Wales Aviation Group that same plane - a 1984 Piper serial number N264DB - took off from Rhoose, near Cardiff, on Saturday destined for Guernsey, presumed to be en route to France. Speaking to the BBC in 2015, Mr Henderson described the potential problems with the plane. 'One of the problems we can encounter is that ice can build up on the surfaces of the aircraft,' Mr Henderson explains. 'On the propeller and the wings and if it gets too great the aeroplane would ultimately stop flying. 'And the only way in most of the aeroplanes we fly to get rid of ice is to descend into warmer air and the ice will dissipate'. Emiliano's father broke down 'in despair' today after hearing his son's final message where he warned he was 'scared' on board a 'plane that seems like it is falling to pieces' minutes before it vanished over the Channel. In the chilling recording on Monday night the Argentine footballer, 28, sounds exhausted and can't stop yawning as he tells loved ones in Spanish they may need to 'send someone to find me'. Before the 'bumpy' flight began the pilot needed up to four attempts to take-off from Nantes in Brittany at 7.15pm as he prepared to start his new life in Cardiff after a 15million transfer. In a final WhatsApp audio message sent to his friends, where the sound of the plane's engine is heard in the background, Sala said: 'I was over in Nantes sorting things out. 'I am now aboard a plan that seems like it is falling to pieces. I'm going to Cardiff now, crazy, and tomorrow we get going. I will train with my new team'. He added: 'If you do not have any more news from in an hour and a half, I don't know if they need to send someone to find me. I am getting scared!' How football mega-agent has brokered some of the biggest transfers in history (and his twin sons are on the books at Cardiff) Left, football agent Mark McKay and right, his son Mark - who also works as an agent - with his girlfriend Rachel Morse His twin sons Paul and Jack, both 22, are both Cardiff players, having previously played together at northern giant Leeds United Former football agent Willie McKay, who for years was based in Monaco, was one of the most successful agents in the game, brokering huge contracts over the years and pulling the strings to secure some of the biggest transfers in history. In his career he was involved in 485 deals, including acting for Queens Park Rangers during negotiations to sign Joey Barton on a free transfer. He has represented Joey Barton, Charles N'Zogbia, Ross McCormack, Pascal Chimbonda and Amdy Faye, among others. His twin sons Paul and Jack have gone on to become footballers while his other son Mark followed his career path to become a football agent. McKay, who was born in Scotland, was one of five men arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and false accounting in November 2007 as part of the City of London Police football corruption probe before he was cleared of any wrongdoing 18 months later. In December 2008, he was given a suspended ban by the FA for breaching regulations by acting for two different clubs in two consecutive transfers of Portsmouth and Manchester City striker Benjani. His footballing twins Jack and Paul McKay, 22, have been on the books of Doncaster Rovers, Leeds United and Cardiff City. Mark McKay posted this photo of himself with friends and family on social media in 2015 Mark McKay - who helped West Ham sign Dimitri Payet from Marseille in 2015 - often posts photos from his lavish holidays Left, Willie McKay with wife Janis. His son Mark, right, was the director of the Glasgow-based company Excelfoot Ltd, which went into liquidation in 2017 The brothers began their football education in France and had offers to go to other academies but settled at hometown club Doncaster when they were 16 years old. Jack is a striker who has spent time out on loan with the Scottish League One outfit, while Paul plays at centre-back. In 2016, Leeds United signed the twins, then aged 19, for undisclosed fees on two-and-a-half-year deals from Doncaster Rovers. In mid-January last year they joined Cardiff City after a short trial with the Bluebirds' Under-23s. Earlier this month it was announced Paul McKay was joining Morecambe on loan. McKay's other son Mark followed in his father's footsteps and also works as a football agent, helping West Ham sign Dimitri Payet from Marseille in a 10.7million move in 2015. Mark was the director of the Glasgow-based company Excelfoot Ltd, which went into liquidation in 2017. McKay's son Mark (pictured left and right) followed in his father's footsteps and also works as a football agent, helping West Ham sign Dimitri Payet from Marseille in a 10.7million move in 2015. McKay's son Mark (pictured with his partner), who followed his father into a career as a football agent posts photos from around the world Emiliano Sala (pictured on board a plane late last year) sent a WhatsApp recording to his loved-ones on board the small plane just before it vanished over the Channel His father Horacio and his partner Liliana (left) cling to one another as they wait for news from the Channel - but it is expected to be bad news about Sala (right with his brother Dario, sister Romina and mother Mercedes) Horacio Sala, the tearful father of Argentine soccer player Emiliano Sala, outside his home in Progreso, Argentina The flowers and tributes outside the Cardiff City ground has been growing all day as rescue efforts become a recovery search Scarves, shirts, flowers and messages have been left by fans of the club who broke their own record for a signing for Sala just days ago Sala played in France for FC Nantes near the Brittany coast for the past four years and the city is united in grief holding a vigil Flowers and candles are left with the front page of French sports daily newspaper 'L'Equipe' reading 'The disappearance of a warrior' next to a portrait of Emiliano Sala in front of the entrance of the FC Nantes football club training center La Joneliere in La Chapelle-sur-Erdre Flowers, scraves and shirts flowers were also left around the Fred Keenor statue, where the Sala had just signed a deal to play in the Premier League Cardiff City announced the signing of the Argentinian striker (pictured with Ken Choo) in a club record fee of 15 million Cardiff City: Sala booked his own flight - not us Missing soccer star Emiliano Sala booked his own 'risky' private flight across the English Channel after turning down a commercial flight from Cardiff City, it was revealed today. The 15million player was offered a flight from bosses at new club Cardiff City but wanted to make his own travel arrangements from his former club in Nantes. City chairman Mehmet Dalman (pictured) said they were 'still praying' for positive news but are devastated after Sala's plane disappeared on Monday night. Sala, 28, was due to join his teammates in South Wales yesterday morning for training but never arrived after his 460-mile journey from Nantes to Cardiff Airport. The plane disappeared over the Channel Islands and search teams have found no sign of a wreckage or survivors. But Mr Dalman said Sala the flight on the Piper Malibu plane - which experts described as 'risky' - was not booked by the club. Mr Dalman said: 'We spoke to the player and asked him if he wanted us to make arrangements for his flight which, quite frankly, would have been commercial. He declined and made his own arrangements. 'I can't tell you who arranged the flight because I don't know at this stage - but it certainly wasn't Cardiff City.' He revealed that Cardiff's hard man manager Neil Warnock was 'in a state of shock' after hearing the news. At home in Argentina his family, including father Horacio and mother Mercedes, are clinging to the hope he will be found alive, but more than 36 hours after his disappearance it appears unlikely. Earlier it emerged he told his former Nantes teammate he 'feared for his safety' before he took off on his doomed flight across the English Channel. The Argentinian striker completed a 15 million move to Cardiff City on Saturday. He returned to bid farewell to his old squad at Ligue 1 side Nantes, posting a poignant photo in which his former teammates sport their club's blue strip, and Sala is wearing a hoodie with the logo: 'Be good, be nice.' His Instagram post of the photo bore the caption: 'The last goodbye'. Sala was making a round trip in the same plane and when he arrived in France, he reportedly told ex-teammate Nicolas Pallois - who drove him back to Nantes-Atlantiqe airport - that the trip out 'had been bumpy and he feared his safety for the journey back.' A French source close to the player said the six-seater plane only got airborne for the return trip after at least three failed attempts to take off from Nantes. The 28-year-old was due to return to Wales in time for training this morning but the Piper Malibu aircraft he was in lost contact near the Casquets lighthouse off Alderney at 8.30pm on Monday. Cardiff City chief executive Ken Choo said everyone at the club was 'very distressed' and 'praying for positive news.' On Tuesday at 5pm Channel Islands rescue teams called off the search for the day. It is expected to resume today at first light. In a statement Guernsey Police said: 'During the course of the 15-hour search, which used multiple air and sea assets from the Channel Islands, UK and France, a number of floating objects have been seen in the water. 'We have been unable to confirm whether any of these are from the missing aircraft. 'We have found no signs of those on board. If they did land on the water, the chances of survival are at this stage, unfortunately, slim.' John Fitzgerald, chief officer of the Channel Islands Air Search, said he was not optimistic about finding Sala and the pilot. He said: 'I don't think the coastguard are either. We just don't know how it disappeared. It just completely vanished. There was no radio conversation'. Mr Fitzgerald said there could be a 'five per cent' chance of finding Sala and the pilot, adding: 'I think with the sea temperatures and the sea conditions the chances of finding anybody alive are reducing all the time. 'The sea temperatures are very, very cold and just sap the core temperature of anybody in the water very, very quickly.' The footballer's mother, Mercedes Taffarel, said her son was 'enjoying the best moment of his career so far.' Sala posted this image of himself with his mother alongside the caption, 'Thank you mum' Emiliano Sala and Ken Choo CEO on January 18 in Cardiff as the striker got set to sign his three-and-a-half-year contact John Fitzgerald, chief officer of the Channel Islands Air Search, said he was not optimistic about finding Sala and the pilot. Pictured left, an RNLI lifeboat searches off Alderney. Right: 1,150 square miles were searched on Tuesday before nightfall The aircraft left Nantes at 19.15 on Monday headed for Cardiff and was flying at 5,000 feet before it fell off the radar at 2,300ft during a descent cleared with Jersey air traffic controllers This graphic shows the lifeboat's path as it circled Alderney during a nearly-24-hour-long search for the aircraft French police, the French civil aviation authority and Nantes Football Club confirmed that Sala was one of the two people on board the single-prop plane. The Piper Malibu was flying at 2,300ft and requested descent as it passed Guernsey but was lost off radar as Jersey air traffic control attempted to make contact. It went missing as severe weather warnings about snow and ice were issued across France. A search which scrambled within minutes of the plane disappearing was called off at 2am on Tuesday morning 'due to strengthening winds, worsening sea conditions and reducing visibility' but resumed at 8am, before being halted overnight again at sunset on Tuesday. Thousands of people have joined vigils in France and in Wales, and have laid wreaths outside Sala's former club in Nantes, and outside the ground of Cardiff City where he was due to start training on Tuesday morning. Flowers were laid at the base of the statue of Cardiff City footballer Frederick Charles Keenor outside the stadium Flowers, scarves, signs and candles have been left outside the Cardiff City ground for missing footballer Emiliano Sala Welsh daffodils have been laid outside the Cardiff City ground in Wales as the team suspended training today In Nantes where Sala has played since 2015, the flag of his native Argentina sat side by side with yellow tulips and candles Nantes fans came to the ground to hold a vigil for their missing former player Emiliano Sala, in the hopes an air and sea rescue mission might still report good news A fan poses with an edition of France Football with the former Nantes star on the cover, in a vigil for the player Outside the stadium in Nantes many fans held up Sala's number 9 shirt. He had returned to bid farewell to his former team mates before starting a new chapter of his career in the UK Supporters proudly held flags and shirts, and laid yellow tulips as they paid tribute to Argentine footballer Emiliano Sala Tearful fans held scarves and candles tonight in Nantes as the Channel Islands called off their S&R mission overnight when darkness fell. It is due to start again on Wednesday morning but officials said hopes of survival in the cold water were 'slim' Sala, pictured with Bluebirds CEO Ken Choo, became the club's record signing last week after joining for a fee of 15m. Cardiff released this image of Sala posing with Choo on Saturday as he was given a private tour of their facilities This morning the official Nantes FC Twitter account posted a statement and a message to their followers about the missing striker, reading: 'The management and the whole Club are hopeful and it is the whole family of FC Nantes who prays that @EmilianoSala1 and the other passengers of the plane are finally found safe and sound.' 'FC Nantes joins the call of supporters for the rally tonight from 6.30 pm at the Royal Place in Nantes to drop a yellow tulip at the foot of the fountain,' they added in a second tweet. The club later changed its profile picture to a photo of Sala. Sala's former teammate, French Guingamp midfielder Lucas Deaux, tweeted: 'I hope from the bottom of my heart that this is not true.' Sala was 'fulfilling the dream of a lifetime' by moving to the UK, and 'could not wait to start playing in Cardiff', according to a friend in France. When he left the grounds yesterday to head to Cardiff, Nantes FC tweeted: 'Merci Emi, forever yellow and green.' After joining Cardiff on Saturday, Sala's sister Romina proudly shared the news story about his signing, saying: 'Big brother :D'. His father Horacio told Argentine channel C5N he was made aware of the news by a friend. He said: 'A friend called me and told me what had happened. I'm in Rosario now, I'm working because I'm a truck driver. I didn't know anything. I just can't believe it. I'm desperate. I don't know what could have happened.' He said striker Emiliano, from the small town of Progreso in Argentina's northeastern Santa Fe province, had been excited to be moving to Cardiff and playing in the Premier League. He added: 'To get the chance to play at a big European club was an amazing step for him and for his town back home. He is a humble small town boy. Everybody is watching the TV and waiting. Hopefully some good news arrives.' His mother, Mercedes Taffarel, told the same TV station: 'We don't have any more news. The only thing I know is that the plane took off and they are searching for it, we don't know anything yet, they haven't found anything. 'We are just here waiting, minute after minute. I spoke to him a few hours before he took off. I don't know what else to say, I'm so worried. 'They called me from France to tell me that his plane had gone missing and they were looking for him. 'We are in constant communication and desperate for good news. He was very happy and content with the transfer. He was enjoying the best moment of his career so far. 'He would come over often to visit us, and we would go to visit him there. He was alone, he didn't have any family members with him in France.' 70 years of tragic football crashes The disappearance of Emiliano Sala's plane on Monday night is the latest air accident involving football teams and club owners. In May 1949, 18 Torino players and five club officials died when their plane crashed as it made its approach to Turin airport. Eight Manchester United players and three club officials died when an aircraft carrying the 'Busby Babes' crashed in icy conditions at Munich airport on February 6, 1958. Eight Danish Olympic football trialists were killed in a plane crash in Copenhagen in July 1960, and in October 1996, Chelsea vice-chairman Matthew Harding, 42, died in a helicopter crash in Cheshire. In November 2016, 19 players from Brazilian team Chapecoense died when their plane crashed in Colombia on the way to the Copa Sudamericana finals. Three players survived. In October last year, Leicester City owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, the pilot and three other passengers were killed when their helicopter crashed shortly after taking off from the pitch at King Power Stadium in Leicester. The Premier League club had signed Sala on a three-and-a-half-year contact on Saturday. Nantes announced their French Cup match due to be staged on Tuesday night against L'Entente Sannois Saint-Gratien had been postponed in agreement with the French Football Federation. Amine Harit, a Moroccan footballer who played with Sala at Nantes before joining German side FC Schalke in 2017, tweeted 'Emi..' followed by a string of praying hands and crying emojis. Nantes forward Randal Kolo-Muani retweeted Harit's message on his personal account. Sala is understood to be very close to his family in Argentina, and spoke to his mother who still lives there 'most days', but still believed his destiny was in Britain. 'He's in touch with his family all the time, mainly on WhatsApp,' a Brittany-based source said. 'His mum often visits, along with his brother and sister. He's very loyal to them all, as he is to everybody. 'The English Premiership was his dream, though. Emiliano is also very religious. He prays a lot. His Catholic faith is very important to him.' Speaking on TV channel CNEWS, Nantes President Waldemar Kita said today: 'I think that he came back because he wanted to say goodbye to his friends. 'He was a polite, kind and adorable boy, loved by everyone. He was very respectful, very courteous. 'I am thinking about his family and all his friends. For the rest, we don't know yet. 'I am still hoping that it is not finished, that he is somewhere, that he will be there. I have just found about this. 'I was not even aware that he was at Nantes. He is no longer owned by Nantes, he does what he wants. 'And I say that because I am still hopeful that we will find him.' The official Nantes FC Twitter account posted a statement and a message to their followers about the missing striker before changing its profile picture to a photo of him Sala regularly entertained fans with social media posts from his training sessions, and enjoying time off with his teammates Emiliano Sala with his sister Romina Sala, brother Dario Sala, and mother Mercedes Taffarel Sala with his brother and sister. His family remain in Argentina, desperately awaiting updates Sala posted this picture on Instagram two days ago - one day after he signed his new deal - alongside the caption, 'There is a new Sala in town @premierleague. Very happy to sign here @cardiffcityfc !! I know the challenge is big but together we will make it. Impatient to discover the league & the team #BlueBirds' Sala had celebrated his 28th birthday in October last year, and posted this photo on Twitter alongside his mother, thanking people for their messages Sala was grew up in Progeso, an Argentine town with only 3000 inhabitants in Santa Fe province, in the centre east of the country. 'As a kid, I watched a lot of the English championship on TV,' he said in a recent interview in France. Referring to two retired French players, Sala said: 'I liked Arsenal, with Thierry Henry and Robert Pires.' Sala has a younger brother, an electrician, and a sister, who is a care worker, both in Argentina. He left home when he was 15 to become a professional footballer, but is immensely loyal to his roots. Sala could have been set to make his debut at the Emirates against Arsenal on January 29. Speaking on Saturday after signing for the Bluebirds, Sala said: 'I can't wait to start training, meet my new team-mates and get down to work.' Also, speaking at the time of the unveiling, CEO & Executive Director, Ken Choo, added: 'It's obviously been a long process to secure the services of Emiliano, but I'm very pleased that we're now in a position whereby we can confirm his signature and officially announce him as a Cardiff City player. 'We see Emiliano as a significant acquisition and welcome him wholeheartedly to the Capital city of Wales. I'm sure all Cardiff City fans will join me in that and we can look forward to seeing our record signing in a Bluebirds shirt.' Before switching to Cardiff, Sala was the third highest scorer in Ligue 1 this season with 12 goals, behind only Kylian Mbappe and Nicolas Pepe. A Piper FA-46 Malibu light aircraft similar to the plane Sala described as sounding like it was 'falling to pieces' last night Sala left Nantes to travel to Cardiff last night. The 28-year-old (pictured left and right in 2014), could have been set to make his debut at the Emirates against Arsenal on January 29 Emiliano Sala and Paris Saint-Germain forward, Kylian M'bappe are pictured during a game in the French Ligue 1 Troubling safety record of the Piper PA-46 Malibu There is no information on what may have caused this plane to disappear off radar last night. But the aircraft a single-prop Piper PA-46 Malibu with room for a pilot and up to five passengers was once made the subject of a special advisory notice, an 'airworthiness directive' issued by US air authorities after a spate of fatal accidents. The AD, which imposed operational limitations, was later lifted. In 1992 the USA's National Transportation Safety Board published a Special Investigation report after Piper PA-46 series Mallibu and Mirage airplanes were involved in seven fatal accidents in the United States, Mexico, and Japan in less than two years from May 1989 to March 1991. Between its launch in 1983, and 2008, the Malibu and its derivatives were involved in 12 crashes in which the airplane came apart in midair, killing everyone aboard. (Around 1,000 of the airplanes were built in this period.) The structural failures are accompanied by a long list of other crashes involving PA-46s. According to the National Transportation Safety Board, there have been a total of 165 serious PA-46 crashes, a rate of more than 16 per cent. These other crashes have been attributed to everything from engine failure to pilot error. In 1990, the National Transportation Safety Board investigated the crashes to determine whether the Malibu was airworthy. Despite the high number of similar crashes, the NTSB concluded that there was nothing wrong with the Malibu's design or construction. Instead, they pinned the accidents on a combination of pilot error and omissions in the airplane's operating manual. He said at the time: 'For me it feels special [to be the Club's record signing]. I have come here wanting to work and to help my teammates and the Club. I can't wait to get to work straight away and do everything I can.' Speaking earlier today, Mr Fitzgerald said the plane could have glided for around five or six miles without a working engine. 'I am sure something will be found eventually. The plane was flying at 2,000ft when it dropped off the radar so it could have flown for about five or six miles before touching down. 'But whether it was a controlled ditching or if it dived in, we just do not know. 'If it was a controlled ditching, you would expect to find a life-raft but if it was uncontrolled I expect an oil slick and wreckage may be found.' No decision on which country will investigate the disappearance of the aircraft carrying footballer Emiliano Sala has been announced. Under global aviation guidelines, initial responsibility for an accident lies with the state where it occurred. If a crash happens in international waters then the country where an aircraft is registered takes the primary role. However, states often delegate responsibility if an accident happens far from their territory. That means the UK's Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) is likely to have some role in the inquiry into what happened to the aircraft which went missing over the Channel. An AAIB spokesman said: 'We are liaising with the relevant authorities.' Cardiff signed the forward in a deal reportedly worth in the region of 15million, breaking the previous record of 11million paid for Gary Medel in 2013. Sala is pictured here signing his contract on Saturday The lighthouse on the Casquets rocks, off the coast of Alderney in the Channel Islands Sala regularly posts photographs of his family on social media, including this one with his mother (left), which he captioned 'Thank you, mum'. He is pictured with his mother, right, and his electrician brother and sister, who works in a care home The plane lost contact near the Casquets lighthouse off the coast of Alderney The striker often posted photos and videos with his beloved pet dog on his social media accounts Not just talented on the pitch, Sala also showed off his musical ability as he posed with his guitar Sala (far right) poses on the beach with his friends as he soaks up the rays in September 2018 Last year, Leicester City's billionaire owner and four others were killed in a helicopter crash outside the club's grounds. Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha's aircraft was seen spiralling through the sky and into the ground shortly after taking off from the King Power Stadium last October. Pilot Eric Swaffer and his co-pilot Izabela Lechowicz, who was also his girlfriend, prevented greater loss of life by steering the doomed craft away from crowds of fans. They died alongside Kaveporn Punpare, an assistant to Mr Srivaddhanaprabha and his colleague Nusara Suknamai, a former beauty queen who worked for the billionaire. 'Not the day for this tweet. It really isn't': Gary Lineker slams Cristiano Ronaldo for posting grinning private jet selfie hours after Cardiff City plane tragedy A smiling selfie taken on a private jet by Cristiano Ronaldo has been criticised by Gary Lineker who called it insensitive because Emiliano Sala's plane had vanished hours earlier. Sala is missing and presumed dead after the plane taking him to Cardiff from Nantes in France went down over the Channel Islands on Monday night. Yesterday Ronaldo tweeted a triumphant thumbs up photo as he left Madrid for Turin after accepting a huge fine and suspended jail sentence for tax fraud, having struck a deal with Spanish prosecutors. But former England captain and BBC pundit Gary Lineker replied 'Not the day for this tweet. It really isn't' - in a clear reference to the Sala tragedy. Mr Lineker's tweet has split opinion with some backing his insensitivity claim with others saying Ronaldo would have had no idea about the tragedy in Channel. Juventus footballer Cristiano Ronaldo posted a selfie - in fact, a photograph of himself taking a selfie - from his jet after leaving court in Madrid Gary Lineker's rebuke to the Portuguese international garnered nearly 30,000 likes in just a few hours, on the day football fans in France and Wales laid flowers and held candlelit vigils for missing Cardiff City player Emiliano Sala, whose single-prop light aircraft went missing on Monday evening Sala and his pilot last made contact from their Piper FA-46 Malibu just off Alderney at 8.30pm on Monday. Today coastguard helicopters and lifeboats scoured 1,100 square miles of sea before halting the search at nightfall. They found nothing but debris and Guernsey Police said the pair's chances of survival if they ditched in the icy waters were 'slim'. They warned they are not expecting to find survivors. In a Whatsapp audio note recorded on the doomed flight, Sala told friends he was 'aboard a plan that seems like it is falling to pieces' before going on to say 'I am getting scared.' Ronaldo, 33, who plays for Portugal and Juventus, will pay a total of 18.8million euros (16.5million) after pleading guilty at a hearing in Madrid this morning. As he left the court he told the crowds 'Everything's perfect!' Ronaldo, who went to court with his girlfriend Georgina Rodriguez, also received a 23-month prison sentence which was immediately reduced to a further fine, and he will not spend a day in jail. His former Real Madrid team-mate Xabi Alonso is also in court on a separate tax evasion charge, which could lead to a five-year sentence that - unlike Ronaldo - may see him behind bars if he is found guilty. Smiling all the way: Cristiano Ronaldo arrives at court in Madrid with his girlfriend Georgina Rodriguez today. He accepted a hefty fine for tax fraud during his time as a Real Madrid player Day in court: Cristiano Ronaldo arrives at the Madrid court this morning where he accepted the deal with Spanish prosecutors over the tax fraud charges against him Xabi Alonso, who played with Ronaldo at Real Madrid and also had spells at Liverpool and Bayern Munich, arrives for his tax evasion trial in the Spanish capital today Ronaldo, who left Madrid last summer to join Juventus, wore a black jacket with buttons, white trainers and dark sunglasses as he arrived at court with his girlfriend. Ronaldo's lawyers had asked that he be allowed to enter the building by car to avoid the media spotlight. But the court president refused the request, saying that despite his 'great fame', he would not 'compromise security' at the building. The former Manchester United forward's request to appear via video conference was also denied, so he walked up the court steps today and even signed autographs. The court appearance lasted around 40 minutes as the deal was officially presented to the judge, who confirmed the final sentence later on Tuesday. | https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6627779/Did-time-pilot-breach-licence-doomed-flight.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490 |
Do all planets orbit in a flat plane around their suns? | EarthSky lunar calendars are cool! They make great gifts. Order now. Going fast! The earliest stargazers noticed that the bright planets in our sky travel along the same path, more or less, as the sun and moon. We call that sky pathway the zodiac. Today, we know this sky path this zodiac results from the fact that the planets in our solar system orbit our sun more or less in a single plane. But today we also know thousands of other planets called exoplanets orbiting distant stars. The answer is yes and no. Keep reading. Heres the yes part of the answer, beginning with another astronomy definition; the Earth-sun plane is called the ecliptic. Most major planets in our solar system stay within 3 degrees of the ecliptic. Mercury is the exception; its orbit is inclined to the ecliptic by 7 degrees. The dwarf planet Pluto is a widely known exception to this rule. Its orbit is inclined to the ecliptic by more than 17 degrees. It makes sense that most large planets in our solar system stay near the ecliptic plane. Our solar system is believed to be about 4 1/2 billion years old. Its thought to have arisen from an amorphous cloud of gas and dust in space. The original cloud was spinning, and this spin caused it to flatten out into a disk shape. The sun and planets are believed to have formed out of this disk, which is why, today, the planets still orbit in a single plane around our sun. According to astronomers, distant stars and planets also form from spinning clouds of gas and dust in space. In recent years, astronomers have captured images of some protoplanetary disks new solar systems in the process of formation plus they see distant, already-formed solar systems, whose planets do orbit, as ours does, more or less in a single plane. On these worlds, yes, you would see planets crossing the sky along a pathway similar to our zodiac, the same pathway traveled by the local star. On the other hand, it seems, astronomers recently learned that not all planet-forming disks lie in the plane of their stars equators, as our solar systems must have. In early 2019, astronomers announced a newly discovered double star system where the planetary disk has somehow been kicked up over the expected equatorial plane, and now appears oriented over the plane of the stars poles. In that system, both the sky view and the seasons would be very different. Read more: Double star flips planet-forming disk into pole position So, as always, Nature proves herself to be various and variable. By the way, its one of the wonders of nature that our universe is populated with many sorts of disk-like structures. Our solar system is one of them. Distant protoplanetary disks and stars already known to have their own distant solar systems are another example. So is our Milky Way galaxy. And you find disks in many other places in space for example, the rings of Saturn and other planets. Writing at Ask An Astronomer, Dave Kornreich offers the physics behind the presence of so many disks in space: Rings and disks are common in astronomy. When a cloud collapses, the conservation of angular momentum amplifies any initial tiny spin of the cloud. As the cloud spins faster and faster, it collapses into a disk, which is the maximal balance between gravitational collapse and centrifugal force created by rapid spin. The result is the coplanar planets, the thin disks of spiral galaxies, and the accretion disks around black holes. Bottom line: Because of the way stars and planets form, most planetary systems likely start out in flat disks around their stars, orbiting in more or less the same plane as their stars equators. But we dont know yet what becomes of these disks, and we know at least one example where a planetary disk has flipped upward, to become oriented over its stars poles. | https://earthsky.org/space/planets-single-plane |
Whats Next for Venezuela? | Venezuela has taken a sharp turn after years of economic and political instability under the leadership of President Nicols Maduro. Last week, the countrys National Assembly declared Maduro illegitimate and this week the head of that body, Juan Guaid, took an informal oath of office and declared himself interim president. The United States and dozens of other countries rushed to recognize the new leader but it remains unclear whether Venezuelas military will support the move. At the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, Foreign Policys editor in chief, Jonathan Tepperman, led a panel discussion on Venezuelas future. Watch the video below. | https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/01/24/whats-next-for-venezuela-maduro-guaido-davos/ |
Was macht ihn so erfolgreich? | Als TV-"Bergdoktor" ist Hans Sigl der diensthabende Quotengott in Wei. Dabei ist der bei weitem nicht nur der gute Knabe, der schaut, dass die Spiegeleier warm sind. Er ist mitunter ein sehr egoistischer Mensch, er ist scheinbar bindungsunfhig, das darf man nicht unterschtzen. Nur ist das alles nicht so gespielt, dass es mit der Tr ins Haus fllt, wir haben uns da schon ein bisserl was berlegt. Zugegeben, die Wahrscheinlichkeit, an Krebs zu erkranken, ist grer als jene, dass einem ein Flugzeug auf den Kopf fllt. Aber meine Angst ist einer gewissen Klarheit darber gewichen, was im Falle eines Falles geschieht. Ich habe schon vor Jahren gelernt: Wenn es ums nackte berleben geht, braucht man einen pragmatischen Zugang, sonst ist man verloren - zumindest empfand ich das whrend meiner Arbeit im Krankenhaus so. Das komplette Interview lesen Sie in der aktuellen Ausgabe von News (Nr. 4/2019)! | https://www.news.at/a/bergdoktor-news-sigl-10613150 |
Are negative experiences on social media making us feel lonelier? | New research has found that having a negative experience on social media could lead to increased feelings of loneliness. AFP pic NEW YORK, Jan 24 New US research has found that not only are positive interactions on social media failing to make us feel more connected, but negative interactions can lead to even greater feelings of loneliness. Carried out by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Centre for Research on Media Technology and Health (MTH), the new study included 1,178 students ages 18 to 30 who were asked to report on what percentage of their social media experiences involved positive and negative experiences. Participants levels of perceived loneliness were also measured using an established scale. The findings, published in the American Journal of Health Promotion, showed that after controlling for sociodemographic factors such as educational status, relationship status, and living situation, for every 10 per cent increase in positive experiences on social media, there was no statistically significant change in feelings of loneliness. Moreover, for every 10 per cent increase in negative experiences on social media, the participants reported a 13 per cent increase in feelings of loneliness. The results build on previous research from the same centre, which suggested that an increased use of social media was associated with increased feelings of loneliness. Social media is, seemingly, about connecting people. So it is surprising and interesting that our investigations reveal social media being linked to loneliness, said lead author Brian Primack, MD, PhD. Perceived social isolation, which is a synonym for loneliness, is associated with poor health outcomes, such as high blood pressure, heart disease and depression. Because social media is so pervasive, it is critically important that we better understand why this is happening and how we can help people navigate social media without as many negative consequences. Author Jaime Sidani, PhD, also added that it is still not clear whether those who are feeling lonely seek out or attract negative experiences on social media, or if it is having negative experiences that leads to more feelings of loneliness. There is a tendency for people to give greater weight to negative experiences and traits compared with positive ones, and this may be particularly relevant when it comes to social media, explains Sidani. So, positive experiences on social media may be associated with fleeting positive reinforcement, while negative experiences such as public social media arguments may rapidly escalate and leave a lasting, potentially traumatic impression. It also may be that socially isolated people lean toward social media use that involves negative interactions. It is probably a mix of both. The researchers add that more studies are now needed to replicate the findings, however results are strong enough for health care practitioners to encourage awareness of the potential problems when using social media use. AFP-Relaxnews | https://www.malaymail.com/news/life/2019/01/24/are-negative-experiences-on-social-media-making-us-feel-lonelier/1715885 |
What are the lyrics to J Coles Middle Child and when is the new album out? | Thats my next mission, thats why I cant quit Just like LeBron, get my n****s more chips Just put the Rollie right back on my wrist This watch came from Drizzy, he gave me a gift Back when the rap game was prayin Id diss They act like two legends cannot coexist But Id never beef with a n***a for nothin If I smoke a rapper, its gon be legit It wont be for clout, it wont be for fame It wont be cause my shit aint sellin the same It wont be to sell you my latest lil sneakers It wont be cause some n***a slid in my lane Everything grows, its destined to change I love you lil n****s, Im glad that you came I hope that you scrape every dollar you can I hope you know money wont erase the pain To the OGs, Im thankin you now Was watchin you when you was pavin the ground I copied your cadence, I mirrored your style I studied the greats, Im the greatest right now Fuck if you feel me, you aint got a choice Now I aint do no promo, still made all that noise This shit gon be different, I set my intentions I promise to slap all that hate out your voice [Refrain] N****s been countin me out Im countin my bullets, Im loadin my clips Im writin down names, Im makin a list Im checkin it twice and Im gettin em hit The real ones been dyin, the fake ones is lit The game is off balance, Im back on my shit The Bentley is dirty, my sneakers is dirty But thats how I like it, you all on my dick [Chorus] I just poured somethin in my cup Ive been wantin somethin I can feel Promise I am never lettin up Money in your palm dont make you real Foot is on they neck, I got em stuck Ima give em somethin they can feel If it aint bout the squad, dont give a fuck Pistol in your hand dont make you real [Verse] Im dead in the middle of two generations Im little bro and big bro all at once Just left the lab with young 21 Savage Im bout to go and meet Jigga for lunch Had a long talk with the young n***a Kodak Reminded me of young n****s from Ville Straight out the projects, no fakin, just honest I wish that he had more guidance, for real Too many n****s in cycle of jail Spending they birthdays inside of a cell We coming from a long bloodline of trauma We raised by our mamas, Lord we gotta heal We hurting our sisters, the babies as well We killing our brothers, they poisoned the well Distorted self image, we set up to fail Ima make sure that the real gon prevail, n***a [Chorus] I just poured somethin in my cup Ive been wantin somethin I can feel Promise I am never lettin up Money in your palm dont make you real Foot is on they neck, I got em stuck Ima give em somethin they can feel If it aint bout the squad, dont give a fuck Pistol in your hand dont make you real [Outro] Money in your palm dont make you real Pistol in your hand dont make you real Money in your palm dont make you real | https://metro.co.uk/2019/01/24/what-are-the-lyrics-to-j-coles-middle-child-and-when-is-the-new-album-out-8384861/ |
Why dont Samsung and LG make streaming boxes? | Not long ago, I thought of smart TV softwareespecially from the likes of Samsung and LGas something to ignore. Dedicated streaming devices such as Rokus Streaming Stick and Amazons Fire TV Stick offered slicker interfaces and better app selections, which made me wonder why TV makers even bothered making subpar software. A funny things happened in recent years, though: Smart TV software from LG and Samsung has actually gotten pretty good. Now, Im wondering why those companies dont take a page from Roku and Amazon, and put their software on external streaming players. To be clear, I dont own any Samsung or LG TVs, so I havent lived with their software like I have with all the major streaming devices. I did, however, check out both companies smart TVs during CES earlier this month, and I came away impressed with what they offer. Jared Newman / TechHive Samsungs app list lets you quickly preview whats in each one. On Samsung TVs, scrolling through your app list shows a preview whats available in each app. You can see whats new in Netflix, for example, resume watching shows in Amazon Prime, or check out new releases in iTunes or Google Play Movies. It reminds me of the previews that appear in the top row of the Apple TV app launcher, but it works with any app instead of just your five favorites. Its also somewhat similar in spirit to the Channel Rows concept on Amazon Fire TV devices, but without the clutter of banner ads, Amazon video recommendations, and other unwanted content. Last year, Samsung also launched a new feature called Universal Guide, which recommends videos from across different apps and lets you quickly resume shows youve been watching. Again, the concept is similar to what Apples tried to accomplish through its TV app, but Samsung is now adding personalized recommendations based on the services youre already paying for. Apple TVs recommendations are more generic and will often send you crashing a paywall. Jared Newman / TechHive The Universal Guide on Samsung TVs offers personalized recommendations across different apps. Samsung is even including far-field microphones for voice control in its 2019 TVs. That means youll be able to control the volume or ask Samsungs Bixby assistant for recommendations when the remotes out of reach on the coffee table. The only standalone streaming devices that have far-field voice built into their hardware are Amazons Fire TV Cube and Nvidias Shield TV (through its optional game controller). Speaking of voice control, LGs latest TVs have a clever way of supporting multiple voice assistants: If you press the remotes microphone button and ask for movie or TV recommendations, LGs ThinQ AI will provide the answers, with icons showing where you can watch each result. For more general queries or smart home controls, Google Assistant will respond to your voice commands instead. LG TVs also support Alexa, which you can access by holding down the remotes Amazon Prime button. That could be useful for listening to Amazon Music or controlling Alexa-enabled smart home devices. By comparison, there isnt a single streaming player that supports multiple voice assistants through its remote control. Jared Newman / TechHive LGs universal search results are pretty slick. Unlike most streaming devices, LG and Samsung TVs will even support certain Apple services. Samsung TVs are getting a built-in iTunes app and AirPlay 2 support for launching media from iOS or Mac devices. LG TVs will support AirPlay 2 as well, and theyre getting HomeKit support for controlling basic TV functions with Siri voice commands. The only streaming player that supports these services is Apple TV. The case for streaming devices Unfortunately, Ive never seen an explanation for why Samsung and LG dont offer their own streaming boxes or sticks. My best guess is that both companies view smart TV software as a unique selling point for their hardware, and they dont want to give that up by separating the two sides. Still, I can think of several reasons why standalone streaming devices would make sense, both for TV makers and their users. For one thing, theyd give Samsung and LG a bigger user base, which in turn might improve the app support on their respective platforms. Newer streaming services like DirecTV Now and Hulu with Live TV have generally reached smart TVs only after theyve launched on Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV, and Chromecast, and some apps that are table-stakes on other platforms arent available at all. (Samsung and LG, for instance, both lack PlayStation Vue and CW, and LG doesnt support HBO Now.) More importantly, standalone streaming devices would provide an upgrade path for folks who want newer streaming hardware, but dont want to buy a whole new TV with it. On average, people only replace their TVs every seven years or so, yet TV makers have a terrible track record for providing long-term software support. Case in point: Samsungs iTunes and AirPlay 2 support will only extend back to 2018 TVs, and LG is limiting Apples features to its 2019 sets. (Vizio deserves credit for committing to add those features to its SmartCast TV line going back to its inception in 2016.) If Samsung or LG TV owners want to upgrade their streaming experience more frequently, the only option is to switch to a completely new platform with a different interface. Given that Roku and Amazon now build their streaming software directly into smart TVsand that Roku still updates all its TVs, from 2014 onwardthose customers might never come back to Samsung and LG when the time does come for a new television. (Several years ago, Samsung tried to solve this problem with hardware upgrade kits, but the program was an expensive disaster. Now, the company is peddling full-blown TV upgrade plans, which seem equally ridiculous.) Without a way to stick with Samsungs or LGs platforms that doesnt involve buying a new television, its hard to recommend their hardware solely on the strength of their software. In light of what both companies were showing off at CES, that seems like a shame. Sign up for Jareds Cord Cutter Weekly newsletter to get this column and other cord-cutting news, insights, and deals delivered to your inbox. | https://www.techhive.com/article/3336196/smart-tv/why-don-t-samsung-and-lg-make-streaming-boxes.html |
Where Are The Black Teachers In NC? | Researchers say the connection that minority students have with minority teachers can help them academically as well as socially. WRAL will discuss the topic tonight at 5:30. source: WRAL.com Researchers say that kind of connection is crucial, especially between students and teachers of color, and can help minority students perform better in reading and math, score higher on standardized tests and be more likely to attend college. Known as the role-model effect, researchers say students of color benefit both academically and emotionally from seeing teachers who look like them. Yet in North Carolina, where minority students make up 52 percent of the traditional public school body, 80 percent of teachers are white. For students of color, especially black and Hispanic boys, that means they may seldom or never have a teacher who looks like them during their kindergarten through 12th grade years. WRAL News analyzed data showing the race and gender of nearly 100,000 teachers and 1.4 million students in North Carolinas 115 public school systems. Eleven school districts in the state had no Hispanic teachers last school year, and eight school systems had no black teachers. One district had no teachers of color at all. Also On The Light 103.9 FM: | https://thelightnc.com/9725182/where-are-the-black-teachers-in-nc/ |
What about Marijuana? | By Brianne Fitzgerald, Nurse Practitioner and the founder of Recoverymattersma.org. There is a vast gap between the federal laws, policies and enforcement of cannabis and the current issues of legalization including medical marijuana, the buzz of marijuana as a gateway drug and the science related to it. This series is directed toward parents, teens and adults of all ages as a way to open dialogue (sorely missing in our country today) in order to make thoughtful decisions. The first article will discuss marijuana history, the next one what science says about marijuana, and the third piece will address issues of medical marijuana and after that. send me your thoughts, ideas and opinions. Marijuana has been used as an agent for achieving euphoria since ancient times. The first date that I saw was 2737 BC! The Spanish brought marijuana to the new world in 1545. The English brought it to Jamestown in 1611. Originally it was grown as a crop like tobacco prized for its hemp. In the 1920s marijuana caught one perhaps in part due to prohibition. It became popular among jazz musicians and people in the arts (read Blacks). The use of it was accepted, it was not illegal and those who used it showed no evidence of making a nuisance in the community. It was socially acceptable. This was time when we had few medications (no penicillin) and so herbal meds including the use of marijuana was common. During the 1930s a campaign opened by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics sought to portray marijuana as powerful addicting substance that would lead to opioid addiction. In the 1950s into the 60s and the summer of love or the Vietnam War (depending on how you experienced it) it was used by the beats, hippies, college students and GIs. By 1970 The Controlled Substances Act classified marijuana along with heroin and LSD as a schedule 1 drug (high potential for abuse and no medical use). Labeling marijuana a schedule 1 drug makes it nearly impossible for those wishing to study the medical properties of this substances In 1975 Mexico (where most of US marijuana had come from (think Acapulco gold) agreed to eradicate the crop using the poison paraquat. Columbia then became our main supplier and then came the drug wars, zero tolerance, mandatory sentencing for possession. In 1982 the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) which was established in 1973 turned its attention toward eradicating local marijuana farms and marijuana then went underground. After a period of decreasing use marijuana smoking began an upward trend in the early 1990s especially among teenagers. There were always undertones of race and stigma. The locoweed from Mexico and the racial tensions always simmering beneath the surface in this country contributed to the increasing federal regulation. California became the first state to legalize medical marijuana followed by DC, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Maine. Today we have 32 states that have legalized medical marijuana. Washington and Vermont were the first states to legalize recreational marijuana in 2012. As of today, there are 30 states plus DC that have legalized Marijuana in some form. Marijuana is legal throughout Canada. The North American marijuana market made an astounding 9.7 billion in 2017 up 33% from the previous year. People you would have never thought would have gotten in on the feeding frenzy and are running marijuana companies (Think Andrea Cabral, Dan Linskey @ Ascend), and the projections for the future of marijuana in the global economy are limitless. Reports are that one in four young adults use marijuana. 64 % of Americans support marijuana legalization. Coca- Cola is looking at production of a marijuana infused drink. These days the talk is of putting your sagging 401 K earning into cannabis stock like Tilray (TLRY). | https://southbostononline.com/what-about-marijuana/ |
When will the next super moon be visible over Norfolk? | When to see the super snow moon over Norfolk Another super moon will rise in February. Photo: Sonya Duncan Archant Norfolk Photographic 2015 Februarys super moon will be the biggest and brightest of 2019. Share Email this article to a friend To send a link to this page you must be logged in. The first full moon of 2019 rose in the early hours of January 21. It was of particular interest to sky-gazers as not only was it a super moon, appearing larger and brighter than the average moon, but it also took on a red hue due to the coinciding total lunar eclipse. It is the next super moon on February 19, however, that will be the brightest well see all year. Super moons occur when the moon makes its closest elliptical orbit of earth and can make the moon appear up to 14pc bigger and 30pc brighter in the sky. For hundreds of years people across the world have named moons after the aspects of life they associate with them - Februarys moon is often dubbed the snow moon as it rises during Americas snowy season. It is also said to have been dubbed the hunger moon by some Native American tribes as it coincides with a difficult time for hunting and scarce food sources. There are three super moons in 2019, with the final one rising in March. | https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/environment/super-snow-moon-february-2019-1-5865067 |
Does gum disease play key role in Alzheimer's? | Scientists believe this may be the case after their study found more evidence of a link between bacteria found in a common type of gum disease and people with dementia. Researchers say their findings offer hope for a new way of tackling the illness, for which there is no cure and no effective treatments. Scientists analysed brain tissue, spinal fluid, and saliva from dead and living patients with diagnosed and suspected Alzheimer's. Their study, published in the journal Science Advances, found bacteria associated with chronic gum disease, Porphyromonas gingivalis, in the brains of people with Alzheimer's. Tests on mice confirmed the bacteria could travel from the mouth to the brain and showed the toxic protein they secrete, called gingipain, destroyed brain neurons. The bacteria also increased production of amyloid beta, a component of the amyloid plaques commonly associated with Alzheimer's. Following this, scientists tested drugs in mice aimed at blocking the toxic proteins and found they were able to halt degeneration in the brain. The authors of the study concluded: "The findings of this study offer evidence that Porphyromonas gingivalis and gingipains in the brain play a central role in the pathogenesis [development] of AD [Alzheimer's disease], providing a new conceptual framework for disease treatment." The team has now developed a new drug they hope could form the basis of a human treatment and plan to test it in people with mild to moderate Alzheimer's, in a clinical trial, later this year. Scientists not involved in the research said it added to the evidence of the link between gum disease and dementia, the umbrella term for brain conditions that include Alzheimer's. But they say it is still not clear whether gum disease bacteria is driving the development of Alzheimer's. People with Alzheimer's are more susceptible to getting infections in their brains, so it may be that the gum disease bacteria and the toxic proteins they secrete are a by-product of Alzheimer's rather than a cause. There was also caution about the fact the drug tests had been in mice. Prof Tara Spires-Jones, from the UK Dementia Research Institute, at the University of Edinburgh, said it was "great news" that the study provided evidence these drugs may affect Alzheimer's-related proteins. "However, we will have to await the larger clinical trial to see if it will be beneficial to people living with Alzheimer's disease," she said. Studies have previously linked gum disease and dementia. Last year, a Taiwanese study found that people with a 10-year or longer history of chronic periodontitis (CP) were 70% more likely than people without the condition to develop Alzheimer's. Another study found people with mild to moderate Alzheimer's who had gum disease experienced a quicker rate of cognitive decline compared with those without. The researchers of this new study say one explanation for the link is that bacteria from gum disease may access the brain by infecting immune system cells or spreading through cranial nerves passing through the head and jaw. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption One expert says oral health should be more of a priority - particularly for older people But, alternatively, it may be that people with Alzheimer's have poorer oral hygiene, perhaps because the condition makes them less able to look after their teeth and gums. The charity Alzheimer's Society, responding to this study, said the research it had been involved in had not found gum disease to be a key risk factor for Alzheimer's. And Alzheimer's Research UK said the presence of a single type of bacteria was "extremely unlikely to be the only cause of the condition". But given that the condition of teeth and gums is important for overall health anyway, Prof Clive Ballard, from the University of Exeter, said, the study suggested oral health should be a "much higher public health priority, especially in older people". | https://www.bbc.com/news/health-46986709 |
Why can't Victor Oladipo and the Pacers get any respect? | Spacing the Floor | Pt. I: How Buddy Hield has the Kings shooting for respectability NEW YORK Victor Oladipo knew it was coming, the query about why his Indiana Pacers dont garner more attention in the top-heavy Eastern Conference. Scroll to continue with content Ad He seemed to playfully roll his eyes before giving a stock answer, one he appears to have remembered chapter and verse every time the small-town Pacers visit the big city. After a win against the rebuilding New York Knicks earlier this month, the Pacers stood third in the East, looking down on the Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers. It doesnt matter, he said. We know were not a major market and we know that its not the greatest thing to talk about us, I guess you can say. Its fine with us. Well just continue to earn peoples respect. Eventually theyll wake up. Everyone seemed to notice last spring when they gave LeBron James Cleveland Cavaliers a real run in the first round, a contentious seven-game series that bordered on the same level of competitiveness as the Cavaliers East final with the Boston Celtics. The Celtics, rightfully so, were lauded and anointed as the team ready to take the next step. The Pacers were essentially given the good job, good effort pat on the back and largely forgotten when talk of conference contenders came up. It made sense on a level, and many still have a hard time embracing a team whose point differential (5.9) is better than the 76ers (3.8) and Raptors (5.8), while being a shade behind the Celtics (6.2). Story continues Oladipo has come back down to earth a bit after his Most Improved Player campaign a year ago, but he still should be an All-Star next month, averaging 19.2 points, 5.7 rebounds and 5.3 assists this season. And the Pacers made no big acquisitions over the summer, save for swapping out Lance Stephenson for Tyreke Evans as a spark-plug big guard off the bench. Victor Oladipo is averaging 19.2 points, 5.7 rebounds and 5.3 assists this season. (Getty) But thats where the beauty of this team starts to form, because the chemistry issues that have dogged the 76ers and Celtics to this point havent been a problem at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. The Pacers continuity has carried them to consistent performances nightly, and while their elevator may not reach the penthouse the way the 76ers and Celtics does, the nights in which theyre at the floor are few and far between. We looked at developing a group and developing them into what they could become, Pacers coach Nate McMillan told Yahoo Sports. Even though weve had a lot of the same players, this team is starting to establish itself. Thats what you look at, not what you did last year. While center Myles Turner hasnt made the offensive jump his talent suggests was coming, hes so valuable on the defensive end that you cant be disappointed as he leads the league in blocks. And hes shooting a career-high 39.8 percent from 3-point range. Domantas Sabonis has made incremental strides off the bench in Year 3, averaging 15 points and 9.6 rebounds in just 25.3 minutes per night with a staggering offensive rating of 123 points per 100 possessions. Its going to be hard to keep him off the floor come playoff time if McMillan unleashes him fully. Thaddeus Young has been consistently solid, and Bojan Bogdanovic has continued to be a quality signing from GM Kevin Pritchard. With all that, the Pacers have been able to withstand any absences from Oladipo this season. After going 0-7 without Oladipo last year, critical games that essentially cost them home-court advantage, theyve gone 7-2 this season in his absence, thrashing the likes of Utah (by 33 and 27) and Orlando (by 22). This year we were able to win some games, McMillan said. It shows we added some players and our guys have showed some growth, playing better basketball. When a guy goes down, its an opportunity for someone else. We knew we hadnt won a game without him [last season] and our guys wanted to prove and play together. Then theres McMillan, the purposely understated coach who chooses his words very carefully but always strives for clarity. He garnered some NBA Coach of the Year votes last season (including a first-place nod from this voter) and has this bunch playing with confidence again. Not known as a master tactician, its easy to forget he coached the Seattle SuperSonics from 2001-05 that wouldve fit in this run-and-gun era. He had Ray Allen and a young Rashard Lewis as his main cogs and let them do what they did best: shoot and shoot often. He has the same philosophy with the Pacers, adjusting to his personnel and maximizing their skills. And as simple as it sounds, its not always easy to employ or embrace. Coach [Gregg] Popovich has been a guy a lot of people have looked to. [The Spurs] used to play up and down, shoot a lot of threes, McMillan said. Then they go and get two of the biggest midrange guys in the game [DeMar DeRozan and LaMarcus Aldridge] and hes adapted. Thats what I do. I look at my roster, my team and try to put those guys in position to play their best basketball. Of course, if you can run and get up and down the floor with speed, you do that. But if not, you try to take advantage of your guys. And even though Oladipo tires a bit of the small-market narrative, hes not afraid of anybody in a seven-game set. Were definitely confident. Were confident. Were confident for sure, he told Yahoo Sports recently. I think were definitely better [than last season], were deeper. Our best basketball is ahead of us. We have to embrace it. Talking the talk Hes put so much time and effort into this game that he should be able to hoop and still have fun playing the game of basketball. James Harden, clearly in Carmelo Anthonys corner after Anthony was sent to Chicago (where he wont play a game and will likely be released). Its clear Anthony still loves the game. But sometimes the game doesnt always love you back. More from Yahoo Sports: Paylor: Chiefs Reid facing biggest decision of his career Harassed NFL refs moved from hotel after bad call Wetzel: For St. Louis, this is a nightmare Super Bowl NFL prospect chooses Senior Bowl over childs birth | https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/cant-victor-oladipo-pacers-get-respect-191900102.html?src=rss |
How Should The US Spend Carbon Tax Revenue? | The debate over a carbon tax is about two big things: The most obvious is whether a tax at politically acceptable levels could significantly slow climate change. But a second is at least as important: what to do with the hundreds of billions of dollars a carbon tax would likely generate each year. The tax will never be feasible unless the public supports the way the government uses the revenue. Question #2 has been all over the news in recent days, both explicitly and implicitly. And the answer is far from obvious, either politically or economically. Indeed, in many respects it seems more muddled than ever. In just the past week: A growing group of high-powered economists has endorsed the idea of a carbon dividend: Rebating carbon tax revenues to all households. A new public opinion survey by the Associated Press and the University of Chicago finds that while public support for a carbon tax is relatively high, respondents want government to use the revenue to reduce the use of fossil fuels rather than fund the tax rebate economists prefer. The many Democrats who are running for president began fleshing out their policy agendas, and they include costly new federal initiatives ranging from big middle-class tax credits to government-funded health care and college education to a green New Dealwith no way to fully pay for any of them. The Congressional Budget Office announced it will release updated fiscal projections next week. They are likely to show the US is facing annual federal deficits exceeding $1 trillion. Regrettably, a dollar of tax revenue can be used only once. By earmarking a dollar for one purpose, Congress will foreclose its use for the others. Real money It might be politically satisfying for Congress to divide the revenue pie into a half-dozen slicesa piece for deficit reduction, another chunk for Medicare for all, and a bit to offset some tax cut. But while money is fungible, spreading dollars around that way would ultimately fall short of significantly financing any one of these priorities. And there is real money at stake. My Tax Policy Center colleagues Donald Marron and Elaine Maag estimate that a $43 per metric ton carbon tax that increases by inflation plus 5 percent annually would raise about $180 billion in new revenue in 2021 and nearly $300 billion in 2031. Congress could return the revenue to US households through the carbon dividend, an idea being promoted by a group called the Climate Leadership Council. Last week, nearly four dozen eminent economists, ranging from conservatives such as Martin Feldstein to progressives such as Larry Summers, endorsed both a carbon tax and a rebate. Intense pushback Donald and Elaine estimate that in 2021 a rebate on the $43 per ton tax would be about $600 per adult, or about $1,700 for a family with two adults and two children. Canada already has adopted a similar carbon tax plus dividend , but as the taxs effective date nears, it is facing intense pushback from both federal lawmakers and four provincial governments. But the AP survey may confound conventional wisdom about what do with carbon tax revenue. While many policy experts believe a rebate would soften voter criticism of a big new tax, the polls respondents said theyd rather see government spend the money on reducing carbon emissions or repairing environmental damage rather than rebate it back. Overall, about 44 percent said theyd support a carbon tax. Two-thirds of them said they wanted the revenue used to restore forests, wetlands, and other natural features. Fifty-nine percent theyd want government to spend the money on renewable energy research. By contrast, only 49 percent said the revenue should be used to provide a tax rebate and 45 percent favored deficit reduction. Ambitious goals Democratic presidential hopefuls may have quite different ideas. Some likely would support using the revenue for climate initiatives, Others might like the rebate, which is a modest version of universal basic incomeanother idea getting traction among progressives. But that would preclude using the tax as a revenue source for their other ambitious ideas. And without a carbon tax, it is hard to imagine where else the money would come from. For example, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) has proposed a big new tax credit for households making $100,000 or less (very different from a plan to rebate taxes to all households regardless of income). But it would cost nearly $3 trillion over the next decade. While she has suggested rolling back elements of the TCJA to finance such a plan, the entire 2017 law cuts taxes by only about $1.5 trillion. Thus, shed need to find extra revenue elsewhere. Similarly, carbon tax revenue could significantly reduce the growing budget deficit. But that idea has relatively little public support, either in the US or elsewhere. See France. And if carbon tax revenue is earmarked for other prioritieswhether a rebate, environmental policy, or other initiatives, it would no longer be available for deficit reduction. If new revenue wont come from the income tax, and if carbon tax revenue is spoken for, that leaves only a broad-based consumption tax such as a Value Added Tax. But it is hard to imagine Congress enacting both a carbon tax and a VAT anytime in the near future. All this means policymakers must make not one but two difficult choices as they consider a carbon tax: Whether to enact it at all and what to do with the money. | https://www.forbes.com/sites/howardgleckman/2019/01/24/how-should-the-us-spend-carbon-tax-revenue/ |
Who Are The Mayoral Candidates For The Kanifing Municipality? | 12 SHARES Share Tweet QUESTION OF THE DAY NEWSPAPER REPORTS frequently flag the names and pictures of many aspirants for mayor of the Kanifing Municipality. Some of the aspirants have even erected posters. Campaign is on before the nomination of candidates. The actual fact however remains that a person is not a candidate until his or her nomination papers are accepted by the Independent Electoral commission. Hence the posters should read mayoral aspirant and not candidate. There are no mayoral candidates at the moment. They are only aspirants. Next week nomination will take place and the candidates will feature prominently on the front pages of newspapers and other media outlets. Foroyaa will answer this question after nomination takes place. | https://foroyaa.gm/who-are-the-mayoral-candidates-for-the-kanifing-municipality/ |
Why Is Apple Going To Sleep? | Apple recently made headlines by rolling out its Beddit sleep tracker -- a product that allows anyone to track the quality of their sleep without needing to wear it to bed or worry about turning it on every night. Because it isnt actually mundane: Sleep is the future of health. You see, wellness has three pillars: nutrition, exercise and sleep. Nutrition and exercise are already well-known, studied and attended to by all types of products and services. But the third pillar, sleep, is equally important and often overlooked. The average American is getting just 6.8 hours per night, down more than an hour from over six decades ago. This deficit recently led the New York Times to call sleep improvement "the simplest way to drastically improve your life. We are finally starting to see this message enter the public dialogue. Look no further than the press frenzy over Elon Musks sleep health. But Apple knows that better sleep is more than just a trend, more than a market opportunity. A few years ago, I was like many other entrepreneurs -- plagued by sleepless nights that left me completely drained and defeated. By consciously working to improve my sleep, I drastically improved the quality of my life. I felt fitter, more refreshed and filled with renewed energy. The change made me realize that sleep deserves to be viewed through the same lens as fitness: It is an activity you can train for and master. These insights inspired me to found Eight Sleep, a company devoted to supporting sleep fitness. Before my breakthrough, Id thought of sufficient sleep as desirable but not crucial -- a nice-to-have rather than a requirement. In reality, quality sleep is not only essential for overall well-being, but it grants the power to control your own health outcomes while reducing the costs of your own health care -- and not a moment too soon. In 2017, the average American spent $10,739 on health care. For all these reasons, sleep is already a huge business, and with a company like Apple getting involved, it's certain to continue to grow. Sleep trackers alone are a $1.3 billion market and are projected to expand at a CAGR of 7.6% by 2028. We've seen multiple other companies enter the arena in recent years, including Whoop and Fitbit. The wellness and health care fields seem to be expanding every year; supporting healthy sleep lies at the intersection of both industries. Whats more, prevention is the gold standard of all health care, and better sleep has been scientifically shown, time and time again, to enhance cognitive function, sharpen memory, improve physical and mental health, and boost athletic performance. Between Beddit and the Apple Watch Series 4, with its built-in ECG and fitness coaching, Apple is clearly bullish on personal health care. Its also clear that Apple understands what other companies like mine, Withings and more have already realized: The future of sleep lies beyond our wrists. With both wearable and nonwearable tools becoming more commonplace, the transformative benefits of sleep fitness will continue to receive more attention and become more attainable for even the busiest among us. | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2019/01/24/why-is-apple-going-to-sleep/ |
Did bird feeders attract rats to the backyard? | DEAR JOAN: I put up two seed feeders and a bird bath last January, and have found much pleasure in watching the birds gather and feed. Of course the squirrels also found pleasure in the spoils, but at the end of last year I noticed several other visitors to my yard rats. It seems a family of rats has moved in, and taken up residence under my house while enjoying the spoils from the feeders. I see them out in my yard, chasing each other at all hours, often retreating under the house. I hate the idea of kill traps and I wont poison them (too many raptors and other predators around here for that). Rats need to live and eat too, but I worry about them living under my house. So far, knock on wood, they havent gotten into my living area, but I worry about the potential damage they are doing, and if they might find their way indoors. I reluctantly have stopped feeding the birds, hoping the rats will find more hospitable homes elsewhere. Its been over a month, but they are still living under the house. V.M, Oakland DEAR V.: The answers to your first two questions are yes and hoo boy, yes. The fear of attracting rats is the primary reason people say they dont feed the birds, but while the rats are happy to get some free food, that is not the only reason rats come into our yards and houses. As youve discovered, getting rid of the bird seed has not gotten rid of the rats. Youll find rats in every neighborhood, but some backyards offer more to them than others. The place beneath your house was probably more enticing than the bird seed, and Id wager a bet that they moved in long before discovering the feeders. Rats breed quickly, so you likely have quite a few under your house. Rats can do a lot of damage to pipes and wires under your house, and will eventually find ways into your home, so its important to get rid of them. Thank you for not using poisons, which are dangerous to other animals and offer a cruel, painful death. As you dont want to harm the rats, you can try humane traps that will capture, but not kill. The tricky part with live traps, however, is that you cant take the rats somewhere else to release them. Youll need to keep the rats in a cage until you are certain youve got them all, then seal up the entry points into your house before releasing them in your yard. That sounds pretty creepy, so you can look at sealing up the entry with a one-way door that will allow the rats to leave, but not get back in. Couple doesnt know what to do with aggressive dog How to convince your dog to go out in the rain You also need to make sure you arent offering any other nesting spots or food. Dont leave pet food out, and clear away ground cover and other hiding places. As for the bird seed, look for seed that has been treated with hot sauce. Rats and squirrels dont like it but the birds arent bothered by it. You also can use feeders that physically prevent the rodents from getting to the seed. Keep spilled seed swept up. A premium bird seed will reduce the amount that gets tossed out by the birds. For more pets and animals coverage follow us on Flipboard. | https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/01/24/did-bird-feeders-attract-rats-to-the-backyard/ |
Could New York City-style rent control be coming to Upstate NY? | Albany, N.Y. Upstate New York tenants could soon enjoy New York City-style rent control regulations. State lawmakers plan to consider extending the citys rent regulations to Upstate New York this year, according to the Times Union in Albany. Housing advocates have been pushing the rent reforms for decades. The plan would expand a 1974 law that allowed qualifying municipalities in Westchester, Rockland and Nassau counties to opt in to New York City's rent stabilization laws. The act allowed cities and towns with low rental vacancy rates to enact rent guidelines for buildings with more than six units, the Times Union said. Lawmakers also plan to consider a bill to prevent tenants from being evicted without good cause, such as nonpayment of rent or destruction of property, according to the Times Union. Such rules on evictions are currently in place only in areas with regulated rent like the city, the paper said. Past efforts to extend rent rules to Upstate have failed, the Times Union said. But the city's rent laws are set to expire in June, so advocates are hopeful lawmakers will consider broader changes. "The entire Legislature is going to be talking about tenant rights in a way that is just very difficult to happen," said Cea Weaver, policy director of New York Communities for Change, according to the Times Union. "So we see this year as our moment of leverage." The group is one of over a dozen tenant and homeless advocacy groups that form the Upstate Downstate Housing Alliance. A number of bills on rent regulations stalled in the Republican-led Senate in recent years, according to the Times Union. Many of the chambers newly elected Democrats are perceived as more open to reforms. Contact Kevin Tampone anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-282-8598 | https://www.syracuse.com/state/2019/01/could-new-york-city-style-rent-control-be-coming-to-upstate-ny.html |
Can a boss fire an employee on the spot? | In December 2018, a Wired magazine article on Tesla reported that CEO Elon Musk often has outbursts called "rage firings." According to that report, Musk gets angry about something and subsequently fires the next employee who crosses his path. That approach might seem familiar: On TV and in movies, fictional bosses are known to point their finger at an underperforming employee and get rid of that person immediately. In reality, many managers do in fact have the power to fire someone on the spot. But experts told us this behavior is rarely advisable. A boss' ability to fire someone instantly depends on their particular organization. According to Lynn Taylor, a national workplace expert and the author of "Tame Your Terrible Office Tyrant: How to Manage Childish Boss Behavior and Thrive in Your Job," employment in the US is typically at will, meaning the company can get rid of an employee at any time and an employee can leave at any time. Still, Jeffrey Adelson, a partner at Adelson, Testan, Brundo, Novell & Jimenez who specializes in employment law, said that "when an employee is terminated without any thought behind it, that's when lawsuits happen." When you destroy the person's self-esteem, Adelson added, it's "the perfect environment for retaliatory action," like a lawsuit. If an employee is underperforming, Taylor said it's best to keep a paper trail, in which the manager informs the employee of where they're falling short and tries to work with them. That way, it makes it harder for the employee to sue the company or retaliate once they've been fired. Read more: 19 signs you're about to lose your job Even when an employee does something "egregious," Adelson said like threatening another employee or sharing proprietary company information and it's tempting to fire them, a boss' best response is, "Please have a seat in my office" or "Go home for the day." The boss should go somewhere quiet, speak with human resources and document the event, get information from any witnesses, and only then take the appropriate action. That said, Adelson added, even if you follow your company's human-resources policy to a tee, the fired employee may still initiate a lawsuit. The idea is to know that you behaved in accordance with human-resources convention, and to keep anger and frustration out of the situation. "Emotion is really the enemy," Adelson said. | https://www.businessinsider.com/can-boss-fire-employee-on-spot-2019-1 |
What are the current odds of a second referendum? | (Photo Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images) Theresa May is set to face more hurdles as she tries to get a Brexit deal approved by parliament before we leave the EU on 29 March. A no deal Brexit is becoming more likely as the days go by and many people around the country are asking for a second referendum, which is also being referred to as the peoples vote. Earlier this week Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn included a second referendum as one of the options for leaving the EU as part of his amendment to Theresa Mays Brexit motion. Theresa Mays initial Brexit deal proposal was shot down by her fellow MPs with a majority of 230 voting against the deal. Advertisement Advertisement The odds of the UK holding a second referendum this year is currently 7/4 according to Coral, while the current odds of leaving with a no deal Brexit on 29 March is 3/1. This means that the odds suggest there is a higher chance of us returning to the polls than leaving the EU without a deal. Betfair is currently offering 13/8 odds of a second referendum, while William Hill has it set at 6/4. Other Brexit odds If youre wondering whether a general election will be held this year, Coral is offering 11/8 odds of it taking place in 2019. This changes to 5/1 for it to happen in 2020, 7/1 for 2021 or 7/4 for the next general election to happen in 2022 or later. If I general election was held, it seems that the Conservatives are slight favourites to retain power, as they are 10/11 to get more seats than labour. When it comes to who will succeed Theresa May as the next Prime Minister, Jeremy Corbyn is currently the favourite with Coral offering odds of 4/1, while Conservatives Michael Gove and Boris Johnson arent too far behind at 6/1 each. Sajid Javid is also in the running at 10/1, while Dominic Raab and Jeremy Hunt are both currently 12/1 to become the next PM. | https://metro.co.uk/2019/01/24/current-odds-second-referendum-8385852/ |
Who will get Ben's Golden Ticket? | IPSWICH is about to try the ultimate in Aussie flavours with local MasterChef Ben Ungermann releasing his brand-new Lamington ice cream for one day only, plus someone is going to win free ice cream for three months. Ben and his ice cream apprentice Lauren have worked hard on the recipe, and as a result the Lamington choc top is only going to be available on Australia day with just 350 available. Plus, if you're wondering if Ben's recipe has jam in it...you'll have to try one. Best of all, one lucky choc top muncher will find in their cone a Golden Ticket, which will get them free ice cream for three months. Since finishing second in MasterChef in 2017, Ben launched his Ungermann Brothers ice cream parlour before travelling the world as his profile continued to grow. With the program screening all over the planet, Ben now has more followers in India and Indonesia than he does in Australia, and it's something he is loving as it means the Ipswich-based family business will continue to grow. Danny and Ben Ungermann are excited to launch the limited edition lamington ice cream at the store on Australia Day. Rob Williams "I'm living in Indonesia now, as an ambassador for Oxone which is a kitchen appliance company," Ben said. "I'm getting three giant billboards in Jakarta and that's a twelve-month contract. I just left India two days ago and we are in talks to open an Ungermann Brothers there. "Australia is a saturated market, I always wanted to continue working in entertainment, there are so many ex MasterChef contestants around, so I thought I'd try my hand elsewhere, and I have a great profile in Asia. "I fly back and forwards to see my children and the family, and I've just come back from working with Marco Pierre White which was incredible. Marco, as intense as he appears on TV, is one of the most genuine mild people you could ever meet. "For me, the best thing about our first year of business has been what we've learnt about the food industry. It's really tough, and everyone has an opinion." Danny and Ben Ungermann are excited to launch the limited edition lamington ice cream at the store on Australia Day. Rob Williams With Ben in demand around the world, his brother Danny has quit his corporate job to work in the family business full time, and he's loved the response to the new business. "For us it wasn't about making money in year one, it was about getting Ungermann's established and getting ourselves out there," Danny said. "We're looking at doing more desserts, plus some new flavours. Ben is working on a Japanese-inspired flavour, another with rosewater and he's also got a tea-inspired ice cream, plus a rum and raisin which is delicious. "On Australia day we just want to say thanks to Ipswich, for all their support, their feedback and loving our ice cream. The next part of our journey is getting everything right. "Lots of people come just to try our ice cream then go on from there to see the rest of Ipswich, and it's great for the city. We need to spread the word more that we are here, and we've been busy at food festivals, plus now have two mobile vans that we use. The response has been huge, and we've regularly sold out, yet people are surprised when they find out we're from Ipswich. All our friends and family are here, this is our home base, and Ipswich will always be our home base." The lamington ice creams go on sale from noon on Saturday on a special 1st Birthday event at the shop at 88 Limestone Street. "We always wanted to do a lamington ice cream for Australia Day and on the day we'll have the VW car club, Princess Elsa from Frozen, an Escape Room activity, the Paramedic Barber will be doing haircuts for charity and lots more, so I encourage everyone to come and try our new ice cream and someone is going to get very lucky!" Danny added. | https://www.qt.com.au/news/who-will-get-bens-golden-ticket/3630358/ |
How cold does it have to be to get a cold weather payment? | Plunging temperatures could mean you are in line for a pay out from the Government. Cold weather payments are a little-known benefit designed to help you heat your home during the winter chill. Metro.co.uk has learnt that 4,000 people are already eligible for help as the payment kicks in when temperatures fall below zero. If the mercury hits zero or below, you could be in line for some money to help with heating bills (Picture: MEGA) That number is set to rocket after the recent cold snap brought snow and ice to the entire UK. Last year, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) paid out more than 118,000,000 to people across the country. It offers 25 to certain households if they have seven days or more of very cold weather between the months of November and March. There are four areas in Scotland that are currently able to claim, housing 4,000 eligible people. Advertisement Advertisement However, the calculations have only been done up until January 18. Plunging temperatures since then mean many more of us could soon be up for a windfall. Cold weather payments are paid if the average temperature in your area is recorded as, or forecast to be, zero degrees celsius or below for seven consecutive days. Claimants will get 25 for each seven-day period of very cold weather between November 1 and March 31. The DWP uses 94 Met Office weather stations across the UK testing average temperatures. It is a different benefit to Winter Fuel Payment, whereby someone born before November 5 1953 could receive up to 300 to help pay for heating bills. The DWP estimates that 3,800,000 people are eligible across the UK for cold weather payments . You might be in with a claim if you receive pension credit, income support, income-based jobseekers allowance, income-related employment and support allowance, universal credit and support for mortgage interest. You will usually get the benefit if you get income support, income-based jobseekers allowance and have either a disability or pensioner premium, a child who is disabled, child tax credit that includes a disability, or a child under 5 living with you. The good news is, you dont have to do anything. After each period of poor weather, the payment will be made directly into your bank or building society within 14 working days. Advertisement Advertisement It is automatically triggered and the money will be paid in addition to your benefits. If you think you qualify but havent received it, tell your pension centre or Jobcentre Plus office. Those on Universal Credit can contact the helpline on 0800 328 9344. The DWP said there are currently four areas in Scotland where temperatures have been cold enough. They are: Aviemore, Braemar, Loch Glascarnoch and Tulloch Bridge. To check if your area is eligible visit the website. If you have a story for our news team, email us at [email protected]. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. | https://metro.co.uk/2019/01/24/cold-get-cold-weather-payment-8385847/ |
Could Apples new iPod Touch be a gaming powerhouse? | After recent rumours that a new iPod Touch is on the way, it turns out that Apple has recently filed for an extension to the iPod Touch trademark, positioning it as a handheld gaming device. While you can play iOS games on the current sixth-gen iPod Touch through the extensive selection of games available on Apples mobile Presuming the updated trademark is granted, the iPod Touch trademark will cover everything related to hand-held units for playing electronic games and Handheld game consoles. positioning the iPod Touch brand as Apples gaming brand in the future. Related: Best iPhone The iPod lane has been in the wilderness a bit since the iPhone launched back in 2007, so positioning it more as a gaming device than before could make sense in auditioning to boosting its music credentials, but as a long-term iPhone user ill definitely need some convincing about exactly how Apple is planning to get around the fact that an iPhone can currently do just about anything an iPod can do without breaking a sweat. It could also be a change in focus that sees the product viewed more through the lens of its gaming abilities and less for its musical abilities. Whether this will capture the imagination of possible consumers remains to be seen. It remains to be seen, but with a rumoured release of this year for a new iPod, hopefully we wont be waiting long. Give us your iPod thoughts at @TrustedReviews why dont you. | https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/apples-new-ipod-gaming-powerhouse-3650061 |
Could a bond with UW signee Noa Ngalu help lure prized linebacker prospect Daniel Heimuli to Washington? | Daniel Heimuli who earned defensive MVP honors at the Polynesian Bowl last weekend won a championship with Washington defensive tackle signee Noa Ngalu in December. Family. Thats what Daniel Heimuli found at Menlo-Atherton High School in Menlo Park, Calif., where the 2019 linebacker prospect secured a California state title last December. Thats what the consensus four-star recruit brought with him to Hawaii, where he was named the defensive MVP of the Polynesian Bowl All-Star Game last Saturday. And thats what hes hoping to discover during an official visit at the University of Washington this weekend. (Im looking for) family, really, because thats what Im going to miss the most, Heimuli said in a phone interview with The Times on Tuesday. Hopefully I can find my second family and second home. He wouldnt have to look far. Heimuli attended Menlo-Atherton with Noa Ngalu, a 280-pound defensive tackle who signed with UW in December. In between the lines, Heimuli literally watched Ngalus back. Outside of it, they were inseparable. Their houses sit two blocks apart. They won together, lost together, traced the path back and forth from school together. Heimuli and Ngalu are close, literally and figuratively. If I did something, he would be there too. If he did something, I would be there too, Heimuli said. Whenever we went to go eat, itd be us two. Whenever we went to go work out, itd be us two. Whenever coach needed something, itd be like, Ask Daniel, or, Ask Noa. We were a combo. Wherever hes at, Im at. Wherever Im at, hes at. Ngalu will be in Seattle this summer. I would be absolutely stunned if he didnt end up there, said 247Sports national recruiting editor Brandon Huffman. I would just be stunned if Washington didnt get him. The only wild card in there is Oregon to an extent, because he visited (previously). But they had so much ground to make up, and Washington is essentially going to get the last real visit. Granted, Heimuli who is ranked by 247Sports as the No. 155 overall player in the 2019 class, and the No. 9 inside linebacker also plans to visited Alabama between now and national signing day on Feb. 6. But the California linebackers primary recruiter in Tuscaloosa, Tosh Lupoi, just left to become the defensive line coach for the Cleveland Browns. Huffman speculated that with Alabama losing Tosh, I think the Alabama visit is just that. Its just a visit. Chris Petersen and Co. are hoping Heimulis third stop in Seattle precedes a more permanent stay. And, considering the Huskies are tasked with replacing their top two tacklers from 2018 linebackers Ben Burr-Kirven and Tevis Bartlett, who produced a combined 249 tackles, 10.5 tackles for loss, seven forced fumbles and three sacks last season they could certainly use the help. Hes got the versatility, Huffman said. He can be a true inside linebacker. He can blitz. He can get to the quarterback, get past his blockers. But if you want to drop him outside you can, because he can drop into coverage. Hes really athletic. He moves well in space. Hes sideline to sideline. Hes a running back too for his (high school) team, so hes a two-way player, a lot like (UW early signee) Josh Calvert. Hes just an all-around football player. Heimuli showed that last weekend, when the 6-foot-2, 225-pound linebacker who also plays third base on his high schools baseball team piled up six tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss and a sack en route to earning defensive MVP honors at the Polynesian Bowl in Honolulu. He was joined, as always, by Ngalu and eight other Washington signees. And, as expected, the sales pitches came early and often. Every night, he said with a laugh, when asked how frequently UW signees attempted to recruit him. Every chance they got. Every chance they got. Of course, Washington already has three linebacker signees in the 2019 class four-star Josh Calvert (6-1, 227) and three-star recruits Miki Ah You (6-0, 207) and Alphonzo Tuputala (6-2, 249). But, should he sign with UW, Heimuli might be the most prized prospect of the group. He carried his team to a state championship, not taking any plays off, Huffman said. They dont have a lot of depth on that team so he was playing literally every snap. Hes tough. Hes got really good durability, but I think his athleticism really is remarkable. Technically, Heimuli carried Menlo-Atherton to a state championship with the help of Ngalu with his family. To use Heimulis word, they were a combo. Teammates. Brothers. Hes my brother for life, Heimuli said. Ive been rocking with (Ngalu) since freshman year. I hang out with him every day. So thats my guy. It would be unbelievable (to continue to play together). Being able to play with my brother, its amazing. To already have family at the college Id be going to, itd be amazing, because Id have a piece of home with me. | https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/uw-husky-football/could-a-bond-with-uw-signee-noa-ngalu-help-lure-prized-linebacker-prospect-daniel-heimuli-to-washington/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_all |
Who's running to be mayor of Winooski? | CLOSE Heather Carrington, community and economic development officer for the City of Winooski, discusses the city's marketing and branding efforts on Friday, June 30, 2017. GLENN RUSSELL/FREE PRESS Winooski voters will have the unexpected opportunity to pick a new mayor this Town Meeting Day. Seth Leonard, who was one year into his three-year mayoral term, announced his plans to resign at the end of January. Deputy Mayor Nicole Mace was tapped to lead the city until the March 5 election. The winner will hold the seat for the remainder of Leonard's term. Buy Photo Winooski Mayor Seth Leonard, pictured as a candidate on February 5, 2015, has requested a change to Vermont property tax law for municipal parking garages that offer private leases. (Photo: FREE PRESS FILE) There is no party affiliation at the city level for Winooski. Candidate Eric Covey said, "I personally think that's a really good thing. I don't think partisan politics have a place when it comes to local politics and making decisions." Here's a look at the candidates who are seeking the mayoral seat. Eric Covey Age 31 Occupation Current member of the Winooski City Council, chief of staff for Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos, founded a local chapter of national non-profit: New Leaders Council Vermont. "I think Winooski is a really exciting place right now, we've made some significant steps forward. But, it's really important we continue to develop with the proper guardrails in place so we don't price our neighbors out. "I think I have a proven track record of bringing people together. I'm a community organizer at heart. In my first campaign, I knocked on over 1,500 doors in just over a month to hear what they had to say. I think my history in government and legislative settings would be a tremendous benefit for the city." "I've been on the City Council for a year. Before that, I was on our housing commission. There's a lot of large initiatives that need to be implemented now and I want to make sure that we need to stay focused on getting it right, but being aware of the tax impact. We have a larger tax rate, but below average income." "The knowledge from my involvement. The skills I have from my profession. I think it's what's needed now. I'm a very in-the-weeds person who pays close attention to the work our staff needs to carry out." This story may updated. These interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity. Read or Share this story: https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/local/2019/01/24/town-meeting-day-who-running-mayor-winooski-vermont/2361313002/ | https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/local/2019/01/24/town-meeting-day-who-running-mayor-winooski-vermont/2361313002/ |
When is Trump going to realize he isnt convincing anybody on the wall? | President Trump speaks during a roundtable with conservative leaders Wednesday at the White House. ( MANDEL NGAN / AFP) (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images) There is a very good reason that most presidents reach across the aisle to build relationships and decide against constantly lying about things both big and small. Enacting an agenda as the head of the executive branch usually means cajoling the opposition into action, which itself often means having to demonstrate that the oppositions base wont revolt against the presidents idea. This is not the path President Trump chose. He chose to continue the pattern he demonstrated during the campaign: Lying or misleading about things big and small and focusing his attention and energy almost exclusively on his core base of support. His thinking seems to be: Hey, it worked for me in 2016. But its worth wondering what his presidency would have looked like had he approached the job with a more traditional, inclusive approach. There would still have been many skeptical Democrats, certainly, but its more than possible that much more of the Democratic base and many more independents would be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Well, many more voters might have thought, we can trust him to both be honest about that crisis and to be putting the countrys needs first. So we end up with poll numbers like this one, from Fox News. (Philip Bump/The Washington Post) Only about 20 percent of Americans think that theres an emergency on the border including only 4-in-10 Republicans. Trump has insisted that its an emergency, even toying with the idea of declaring a national emergency to get a wall built. But Americans arent convinced. Its not clear, in fact, that Trumps convinced Americans of much. A poll from the Associated Press and NORC asked respondents what effect they thought the construction of a wall might have, specifically focusing on issues that Trump has touted as problems that the wall would solve. Most Americans often including Republicans dont seem to be buying Trumps rhetoric. For example, the pollsters asked if a wall would make the country more safe, a central tenet of Trumps pitch. Only about a third of the country said it would, including about 3-in-10 independents. (Philip Bump/The Washington Post) Note that three-quarters of Republicans agreed with Trumps position. Thats a bit more than the two-thirds who accept Trumps argument that the wall would sharply affect the number of immigrants entering the country. Only about 3-in-10 Americans overall believe the wall will have that effect a remarkably low percentage given how central this claim has been to Trumps rhetoric. In his speech last Saturday, Trump focused on the risk posed to migrants, including sexual assaults, implying that the wall would address that issue. Fewer than half of Republicans think thats the case, and less than a quarter of all respondents. (Philip Bump/The Washington Post) Perhaps most remarkable is the response when the AP-NORC asked about the flow of drugs across the border. Trump has argued that a wall could halve the drug problem and crime rate nationally but even most Republicans dont buy it. (Philip Bump/The Washington Post) For good reason, of course. Most of the drugs seized at the border are seized at existing ports of entry, with smugglers hiding them in vehicles or on smugglers' bodies. Trumps argument is incorrect, and Americans arent accepting it. Hes twice given national addresses, one from the Oval Office, meant to convince Americans of the need for a wall. After each, his approval rating has gotten worse. (Philip Bump/The Washington Post) Trumps response has been brute force, trying to win the fight by getting his opponents to buckle. That hasnt worked. Bringing us back to our original point. Trumps push for a wall appears to be seen as a response not to a crisis on the border but as an attempt to yet again deliver on a campaign promise for his base. Had this fight not been spurred by complaints on conservative media, had Trump approached his entire presidency differently, had he demonstrated a reliability on his rhetoric and a willingness to reach across the aisle, who knows what the current fight might look like. Almost certainly not like this. | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/01/24/when-is-trump-going-realize-he-isnt-convincing-anybody-wall/ |
Which Current Patriots Crack Teams All-Belichick Era Super Bowl Roster? | You have to be pretty unlucky to play on the New England Patriots in the Bill Belichick era and miss making a Super Bowl appearance. In a brief brainstorm, the best players who played on the Patriots from 2000 to 2018 to have not made a Super Bowl were cornerback Aqib Talib (2012-2013) and defensive tackle Akiem Hicks (2015). Wide receiver Terry Glenn, left tackle Bruce Armstrong and linebacker Chris Slade also played on the 2000 Patriots but all were gone before Super Bowl XXXVI. So, it was pretty easy to put together an All-Belichick Era Super Bowl roster, compiling the best players from 2000 to 2018. The list includes 10 current Patriots (in italics) Heres what it looks like: QB Tom Brady (XXXVI, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XLII, XLVI, XLIX, LI, LII) RB Corey Dillon (XXXIX) Third-down back James White (LI, LII) WR Randy Moss (XLII) WR Julian Edelman (XLVI, XLIX, LI, LII) WR Wes Welker (XLII, XLVI) TE Rob Gronkowski (XLVI, XLIX, LI, LII) LT Matt Light (XXXVI, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XLII, XLVI) LG Logan Mankins (XLII, XLVI) C Dan Koppen (XXXVIII, XXXIX, XLII, XLVI) RG Shaq Mason (LI, LII) RT Sebastian Vollmer (XLVI, XLIX) DE Trey Flowers (LI, LII) DE Willie McGinest (XXXVI, XXXVIII, XXXIX) DT Richard Seymour (XXXVI, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XLII) DT Vince Wilfork (XXXIX, XLII, XLVI, XLIX) LB Mike Vrabel (XXXVI, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XLII) LB Tedy Bruschi (XXXVI, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XLII) LB Donta Hightower (XLIX, LI, LII) CB Ty Law (XXXVI, XXXVIII, XXXIX) CB Stephon Gilmore (LII) FS Devin McCourty (XLVI, XLIX, LI, LII) SS Rodney Harrison (XXXVIII, XXXIX, XLII) Nickel Asante Samuel (XXXVIII, XXXIX, XLII) K Adam Vinatieri (XXXVI, XXXVIII, XXXIX) P Ryan Allen (XLIX, LI, LII) LS Lonie Paxton (XXXVI, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XLII) If we were to take out players who never actually won a Super Bowl, then Deion Branch and Troy Brown would replace Moss and Welker, Joe Thuney would replace Mankins and Darrelle Revis would replace Gilmore. It was difficult to leave out Kevin Faulk, Nate Solder, David Andrews, Stephen Neal, Marcus Cannon, Chandler Jones, Rob Ninkovich, Jerod Mayo, Patrick Chung and Lawyer Milloy, but we opted to go with White, Light, Koppen, Mason, Vollmer, Flowers, Hightower and Harrison instead. We used a 4-3 to put together the defense, but it works in a 3-4 instead. Just move Seymour to defensive end and McGinest to outside linebacker. Voila. Its amazing that Allen has over 10,000 more punting yards than the next most prolific Belichick-era punter, Ken Walter. Allen also leads all Patriots punters with 45.3 yards per punt. Notice I said punter because someone else leads the Patriots in all-time yards per punt, and youll never guess who it is*. For someone who loves punters and punting, Belichick sure went through a lot of them until settling on Allen. *OK, fine. Its Matt Cassel 57 yards per punt. Look it up. Thumbnail photo via Mark J. Rebilas/USA TODAY Sports Images | https://nesn.com/2019/01/which-current-patriots-crack-teams-all-belichick-era-super-bowl-roster/ |
What is it like to work in the recruitment sales division at Haymarket Media Group? | The recruitment division is at the heart of the Haymarket Business Media (HBM) commercial team as we work across most HBM titles - 10 in total - including Campaign Jobs, PRWeek Jobs and Third Sector Jobs. We have a great team culture - we both work hard and play hard. We recently won two HBM awards rewarding us for our work ethic and innovative thinking. No day is the same! We have such a diverse portfolio of brands, products and clients that your work will never be monotonous. We have such a great team culture. Whilst we work across so many different brands we all work closely together with the same goal in mind. Everybody wants to see everyone else succeed and are so supportive of one another. Our vibrant atmosphere makes coming into work everyday fun. We reward all our hard work with a great uncapped commission structure! The amazing team, great commission structure and the variety of the role. I think it was winning our two awards at the HBM awards - Audience Excellence and Commercial Excellence - both recognition of our sales and marketing teams working closely together to achieve our ambitious shared goals and thereby setting a great example to the rest of the business. If you can come into work everyday and believe you and the team can succeed then the rest will fall into place. I am looking for someone with one to two years sales experience, ideally in the recruitment market although that isnt essential. Most importantly, I am looking for someone with a great attitude! If you can come into work everyday and believe you and the team can succeed then the rest will fall into place. This role involves looking after our agency spend across all of our recruitment brands so has a lot of responsibility. It is easy for someone to do well in this role and work towards promotion. This could be account manager, assistant advertising manager or to other brands within the division. Great attitude, excellent work ethic and a self-starter. | https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/work-recruitment-sales-division-haymarket-media-group/1523743 |
Is It Really That Hard to Find Good Employees? | How to make sure your next hire is a great one. May 12, 2017 6 min read Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Your business is growing and its time for you to hire an employee or two. You blanket the internet with job listings, ask your friends and family for referrals and maybe even use a recruiter. Probably not as many as you hoped. So, you interview the qualifying applicants and choose the best candidate . . . who promptly turns you down, at which point youre likely left confused and frustrated. You thought you were almost done with the hiring process, but now you have to start over. If youve ever tried hiring new employees, then you probably know how hard it is to find high-quality candidates. The hiring process is just that: a process. Unfortunately, there can be breakdowns at any stage of the process. Even a single breakdown can be enough to prevent you from hiring the candidate you want to hire. If your hiring process has multiple breakdowns, then the chances of finding good employees is greatly diminished. Below are four of the most important stages of the process. Attracting the right candidates for your open position (i.e., qualified candidates) Keeping those candidates engaged throughout the process Assessing and selecting the appropriate candidates Sealing the deal with your top choice If you falter at any of these steps, you're in trouble, but if you fail to find or attract the right candidates to start, you're screwed. So, let's go over some tips to finding good employees. One of my companies, Top Echelon, recently surveyed its customer base of over 5,000 recruiters to discover what their clients complained about the most. Nearly half of respondents (45.8 percent) indicated that their clients biggest complaint was not having enough candidates from which to choose. Of course, what theyre really complaining about is not having enough quality candidates from which to choose. This is a matter of quality, not quantity. You have a few options. You might have a person or two (or a whole team) within your organization dedicated to attracting and finding quality candidates. You might also advertise your job openings on the internet, and there are plenty of ways to do that. Or, you could enlist an experienced recruiting firm that specializes in your industry. Or all of the above. Whatever you do, you must ensure get plenty of quality candidates. Make sure you can be happy with your second or third option. That doesn't mean you should settle for your third option, though. Here are four tips to making sure you don't scare away your favorite candidate. Related: How to Start a Business With (Almost) No Money 1. Write clear job postings Unclear job requirements lead to unqualified candidates -- or at the very least, not enough qualified ones. In the Top Echelon survey, recruiters identified inaccurate job requirements as a stressor in their professional lives. Thats because inaccurate or unclear requirements make it more difficult to find quality candidates. Spell out the job requirements. Dont be vague by saying things like Must be able to work with others. Be specific. Dont leave your requirements and expectations up to interpretation. 2. Be Decisive Throughout the hiring process steps, you have to act quickly because high-quality candidates are in demand. In Top Echelons report, we discovered that almost a quarter of candidates who rejected a job offer did so because the employer took too long. So, even if you do have promising candidates, they will potentially leave your hiring process if youre too slow. The tortoise doesnt beat the hare when it comes to hiring. Cut out unnecessary time wasters in your process. Dont take long breaks between communication with candidates. Move from one part of your process to the next as quickly as possible. Related: Habits of the World's Wealthiest People (Infographic) 3. Have reasonable expectations You might be overlooking great candidates because you keep thinking that the perfect candidate is out there. Forget about perfect. You want great candidates who will turn into great employees. Lacking that, you want good candidates who will grow into the position and become great employees. Ive hired good candidates who didnt even have experience within my companys industry, and they evolved to the point where theyre now successfully running critical departments. They werent perfect, but they had plenty of potential. If you hire intelligently, you can also mine diamonds in the rough for your organization. Break your expectations down into must-haves and like-to-haves. Once you decide where youre willing to be flexible, your candidate-sourcing strategies will deliver more qualified candidates. 4. Offer solid pay In the Top Echelon survey, 29.7 percent candidates who rejected a job offer said they did so because the salary was too low. In contrast, 17.9 percent of employers said candidates have unrealistic salary expectations. We are currently in a candidates market. This means candidates have more pull during the hiring process when determining compensation and benefits. To get the most qualified candidates, you must offer a competitive salary and compensation package. You need to offer candidates what they want, or at least attempt to meet them in the middle. Thats how you seal the deal. If you dont, then you might lose a good candidate to a higher-paying competitor. There are plenty of challenges and obstacles when it comes to hiring in todays competitive marketplace. The last thing you want to do as an employer is add to those obstacles. Hiring great employees is not as difficult as it seems. You just have to be prepared to do everything thats necessary in order to hire them. | https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/290947 |
Should prisons be abolished? | There are few things more corrosive to the moral life than what might be called 'false necessities': the idea that things just have to be a certain way, that there are no real alternatives. Such assumptions often represent an impoverishment of historical memory, not to mention of moral imagination. And they can permit forms of injustice to become entrenched as mere givens in our common life. Modern life, we fear, is littered with false necessities. And so each month, throughout this our fifth year of The Minefield we plan to devote one show to scrutinising some of these 'necessities', to ask whether they may not be necessary at all, and if it's time to consider alternatives. | https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/theminefield/should-prisons-be-abolished/10739838 |
Can Netflix Maintain Big Growth Even With Big Price Hikes? | Analysts bemoaned the streamer "leaving money on the table" while spending billions on pricey content, but new surveys find that there's a limit to how much consumers will pay. On Jan. 15, Netflix unveiled a 13 percent to 18 percent price hike across its various plans to $9, $13 and $16 the largest increase in its two-decade history. As Disney and WarnerMedia launch their streaming competitors in 2019 and NBCUniversal preps its own for 2020, even a slight change in price could cause consumers to reconsider where they're spending entertainment dollars. Netflix competitors already are making moves. Hulu, which surpassed 25 million U.S. subscribers this year, announced its own new prices Jan. 23. The service reduced its cheapest, ad-supported option to $6 but kept its ad-free offering at $12, a dollar cheaper than Netflix's comparable plan. It also raised the price of its 60-channel live TV bundle by $5 to $45 a month. So far, Wall Street has been encouraged by Netflix's price hike. The company said it added 8.8 million new subscribers in the final quarter of 2018 and closed the year with 139.3 million customers worldwide, 58.5 million of them in the U.S. It forecast adding another 8.9 million in the first quarter of 2019. Analyst Matthew Harrigan of The Buckingham Research Group figures Netflix can raise its price 4.4 percent annually through 2025 and still attract 273 million users by then and 389 million by 2033. Other observers say the price increase was a long time coming, as the service was "leaving money on the table," as analyst Todd Juenger of Bernstein puts it. Juenger notes that Netflix's bullish guidance even after it raised fees has caused him to ratchet up his expectations, so that now he predicts the streamer to hit his "milestone" number of 300 million worldwide subs about 15 months earlier in the first quarter of 2024 instead of the fourth quarter of 2025. Moody's added that, after the price hike, it expects Netflix to reach 200 million worldwide subscribers by 2021 and that it should break even on a cash-flow basis by 2023, even considering hefty expenditures for original and licensed content (an estimated $13 billion in 2018 alone). But the effects of the price hike have yet to be felt. A TDG Research poll of Netflix users suggests that the streamer is running low on pricing power after its latest fee increase, which saw the cost of its highest tier rise $2 to $16 a month while its middle tier rose $2 to $13 and its cheapest plan went up a buck to $9. The higher fees, which are effective immediately for new subscribers, mean more consumers may explore other options before committing to Netflix. If they're just as happy with, say, The Man in the High Castle and The Grand Tour at Amazon Prime as they are with Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and Stranger Things at Netflix, they could save some cash because the former's annual plan (which breaks down to around $10 per month) includes free shipping for items purchased at Amazon.com and other perks. CBS All Access, with Star Trek: Discovery and the debut of Jordan Peele's Twilight Zone reboot in 2019, costs just $6 a month with commercials or $10 without them. HBO Now is at $15, while Sling TV offers on-demand programming and a skinny bundle of live channels, including some NFL games, for $25 monthly. TDG's poll, conducted a month before Netflix raised its prices, indicates that a $1 increase would cause 8 percent of subscribers to cancel, while 16 percent said they'd cancel if the price went up $3 and 22 percent would if it climbed $5. Meanwhile, Hub Entertainment Research predicts that Netflix can expect about a 9 percent churn rate over the next three months as the Jan. 15 price increase is phased in for current U.S. customers. Hence Netflix is focused more than ever on growing internationally rather than domestically. "Netflix is undoubtedly reaching a level of price resistance across all tiers," says TDG president Michael Greeson. But even while Netflix grows in the U.S., growth in over-the-top usage in general is slowing significantly, which makes it tough for Disney, WarnerMedia and NBCU as latecomers to the Netflix party. In 2019, OTT viewership will grow just 2.5 percent to 205 million people, says eMarketer, and each viewer will watch about an hour and 32 minutes per day, up just 7 percent. Analyst Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities, a longtime bear on Netflix, opines: "One would think that they grow more slowly at higher prices, but their guidance says growth will accelerate sequentially in the U.S. Maybe they know something I don't." This story also appears in the Jan. 24 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe. | https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/can-netflix-maintain-big-growth-big-price-hikes-1178632 |
Can artificial intelligence help doctors and patients have better conversations? | Researchers from the US and UK look at how AI could be used to provide information about patients' physical and mental health, detect high-risk situations when providers are under stress, and prevent unnecessary testing The practice of medicine involves complex--often stressful--communication between healthcare providers and patients and their families. People with chronic conditions are often advised to follow detailed treatment plans; end-of-life care often requires many complex (and emotionally draining) decisions; options for treating certain diseases are increasing dramatically. In a recent article in the BMJ, researchers from The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, Trinity College Dublin, and the University of Edinburgh explore the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to improve patient/provider communication. "Many clinicians' communications skills aren't formerly assessed--either during school or in early practice. At the same time, there is a lot of evidence that clinicians often struggle when communicating with their patients. It's hard to improve on something when you're not being given any feedback and don't know how you're doing," says senior author and Dartmouth Institute Professor Glyn Elwyn, MD, PhD, MSc. Elwyn and his co-authors say that AI has the potential to revolutionize communication in medicine by providing clinicians with personalized, highly detailed assessments of their communication skills at lower costs than the manual methods being sporadically employed at present. They point to three key areas of analysis in which AI, used in conjunction with the digital recordings of medical visits, has the potential to significantly improve medical communications: Analysis of words and phrases - Automated analysis of words and phrases could offer feedback about whether patients and providers understood each other, how aligned they were in their manner of expression and assess whether providers are taking appropriate histories, offering evidence-based treatments or using jargon-free language. Eventually, AI also could be used to analyze conversations in real time and prompt providers to consider diagnoses that might not be obvious or to offer a wider range of treatment options. Turn-taking analysis - This type of analysis looks at factors like what proportions of time patients and providers spend speaking and if the provider pauses to allow the patient to voice concerns or ask questions. Allowing the patient space to talk is correlated with patients' adherence to medicines and recall of information. The researchers say analysis of turn taking could provide important insights into dialogue patterns and eventually "intervene to prevent knee-jerk decisions to order invasive investigations." For example, cases where more detailed questioning might have led to a diagnosis of heartburn rather than a presumption of cardiac pain. Tone and style in interactions - In the aviation sector, pilots' key communication skills have been assessed by using algorithms to analyze their vocal pitch and energy. Adaptation of such methods to the health sector might help detect high-risk situations when clinicians are under stress or subjected to workloads that might affect how well they communicate. Analysis of voice patterns also could provide information about patients' physical and mental health. For instance, depressive episodes can be marked by systematic changes in vocal pitch, and early identification of heart failure may be possible by measuring vocal changes arising from oedema in the vocal folds and lungs. While the researchers predict rapid advancements in the use of AI in medical communication, particularly in analysis of turn taking and provider intonation, they also note that healthcare poses particular challenges in applying speech recognition. The dialogue of medical encounters is complex. While a skilled provider will adjust their communication style to meet the needs of their patients, even the most advanced AI systems are incapable of parsing and assessing the complexities of these interactions--at least for now. "Five years ago, the idea of using AI to analyze medical communication wouldn't have been on anyone's radar," Elwyn says. "As the technology advances, it will be interesting to see whether healthcare systems can employ it effectively and whether providers will be open to using it as a tool for improving their communication skills." ### | https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-01/tdif-cai012319.php |
What is the New Layaway and Why Should Small Businesses Consider It? | Large retailers such as department stores, big box stores and home improvement stores have long offered in-house financing programs for consumers. These programs allow customers to make large purchases, such as major appliances and furniture, and spread payments over time with no interest (as long as they pay in full within a set time period). Now, a new breed of installment payment plan companies is springing up to offer retail financing solutions to even the smallest businesses. These plans promise to help you attract shoppers, compete with larger businesses and reduce financial risk. Heres a closer look at the trend. Why installment payments are striking a chord As with so much else in our society, millennials are the major force behind the installment payment trend. While theyre not the only demographic thats leery of using credit cards to finance purchases, they are most likely to shun credit cards. According to a survey by Bankrate, only one-third of adults aged 18 to 29 have a major credit card. Many millennials are determined to avoid excessive credit card debt after seeing parents or other family members struggle with it during the Great Recession. Others have already gone through the struggle of getting out from under credit card debt and dont want to go there again. Millennials are also more comfortable than older generations with using new financial technology such as digital wallets or budgeting and banking apps. This has enabled the rise of installment payment apps. How it works The exact specifics of installment payment plans may vary a bit from provider to provider. In general, however, they all promise: Fast credit approval for consumers, unlike traditional financing options or credit cards Ease of adoption for retailers Transparency into potential fees and penalties so consumers know what theyre doing at the time of purchase Some plans offer installment options only for purchases over a certain dollar amount (usually a few hundred dollars); others enable purchasing low-cost items, like clothing, on installment. The first installment is paid at the time of purchase and the others are spread out (frequently on a biweekly schedule). Some plans are tailored for e-commerce retailers and integrate with popular e-commerce platforms for small business, such as BigCommerce and Shopify. Others work for brick-and-mortar retailers as well. How installment payment plans can benefit your retail business Installment payment plans can help retailers capture customers who might not otherwise make a purchase. (When Square launched Square Installments last year, it reported 68% of consumers were more likely to shop with a small or local business that offered financing options.) Customers debating an expensive product are more likely to bite if they can spread the payments over time without incurring any interest. In a BigCommerce study, 36% of respondents say financing has enabled them to buy a more expensive option than they were previously considering; another 31% say they wouldnt have made the purchase at all if not for financing. The plans can also help get shoppers back into stores or onto websites for purchases they had decided against. For instance, e-commerce companies can email shoppers with abandoned carts offering the installment plan as an option to lure them to buy. Small business owners stand to benefit in other ways, too. For example, installment financing plans pay merchants upfront, so theres no waiting for your money. In addition, most plans assume all risk of fraud or nonpayment, which can be a big plus for e-commerce entrepreneurs. Here are some popular providers to investigate. Before signing up with any plan, be sure you fully understand the terms and conditions, as well as any merchant fees or other associated costs. | https://smallbiztrends.com/2019/01/installment-payment-trends.html |
Can I get my ex's Social Security disability benefits? | Q. My husband died in September 2018 he was 53. We got married in 1991 and divorced in 2003. I am 62. I receive Social Security disability and he also used to get disability. -- Wondering A. Nope. You're not entitled to your ex-husband's disability benefits, but you can continue to receive your own. Because you were married for more than 10 years, if you haven't remarried, you will be eligible to receive survivor benefits on your ex-husband's history based on his full retirement benefit, said Jody D'Agostini, a certified financial planner with AXA Advisors/The Falcon Financial Group in Morristown. You will have to wait until he would have been age 62, she said. You can, however, file to receive your own Social Security benefit at age 62. "To qualify, you would have had to work for 40 quarters or 10 years and have met the minimum earnings requirement," D'Agostini said. "You could potentially start with this, then switch over to your survivor benefit when eligible if that benefit is higher." But be careful, D'Agostini said. There's a penalty for claiming your benefits early. "Each year that you hold off claiming increases your benefit up to 7 to 8 percent per year," she said. "Also, if you are still working, there is a reduction of your Social Security by $1 for every $2 of earnings above the earnings limit, which is $17,640 for 2019." Email your questions to [email protected]. Karin Price Mueller writes the Bamboozled column for NJ Advance Media and is the founder of NJMoneyHelp.com. Follow NJMoneyHelp on Twitter @NJMoneyHelp. Find NJMoneyHelp on Facebook. Sign up for NJMoneyHelp.com's weekly e-newsletter. | https://www.nj.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2019/01/can_i_get_my_exs_social_security_disability_benefi.html |
Can a revival in Karachi spark change in Pakistan? | Karachi is home to 10% of our population. If 10% of the country are feeling economic prosperity, of course that will be a signal of wider prosperity. Karachi is also home to business in Pakistan and our biggest port city, so naturally it's economic fortunes are aligned with the nations. There is so much talk about ethnicity and language - all that is BS. London is a city of 8 million people, the majority of whom are not white english, a city where over 300 different languages are spoken. It is one of the economic centres of the entire world. Diversity is never a hinderance to peace or to business. Click to expand... | https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/can-a-revival-in-karachi-spark-change-in-pakistan.598541/ |
Which complaints led to payouts from financial companies last year? | Financial services and pensions ombudsman Ger Deering received almost 6,000 complaints from members of the public last year and on Thursday published 228 decisions. These ranged across most financial sectors. Credit card debt - 10,000 compensation paid A man accidentally underpaid the amount owed on his credit card by 19. After calling his lender to advise he would make a payment, he paid the amount owing and a late fee charge of 15. However, his bank deemed he had fallen into arrears and placed a restriction on the the use of the card. The customer said subsequently he was charged a high interest rate. The ombudsman substantially upheld the complaint and order the bank to pay 10,000 to the individual. Life insurance policy - 50,000 paid The family of a man who died was told by his insurance company that he had cashed in this life insurance policy before his death. However, they learned that after paying into the policy for 31 years, the man had been told his premium was to increase by over 100 per cent. Outraged at this and unable to afford the extra cost, he had looked to reduce it. After consulting with the insurer the man felt his only option was to apply for a new insurance plan and cancel his existing product. He was subsequently refused the new one. The ombudsman substantially upheld the complaint and ordered the insurer to pay the dead mans family 50,000. Car insurance - 3,000 paid After an uninsured driver drove into a mans car, he was told his no-claims bonus would not be affected. However, when he subsequently when to renew his policy he found the bonus had been reduced, leading to a sharp rise in the cost of his policies. The insurer was ordered to pay 3,000 in compensation. Mortgage - 90,000 paid A couple were awarded 90,000 in compensation after their lender was deemed to have acted in an obstructive manner when they ran into difficulties meeting payments on their mortgage. Following what the ombudsman described as a series of misunderstandings and miscommunications between the couple and lender, the couple were classified by the bank as being non-co-operative. They subsequently sought to sell the property to clear the arrears and agreed a deal that would have left a small sum outstanding. The bank instead said it had appointed a receiver to the property. The ombudsman concluded the couple had been left in an impossible situation and that the bank had acted in an obstructive manner. Mortgage protection - 10,000 paid A man who took out a mortgage protection policy was awarded 10,000 in compensation after his insurer claimed there was no evidence of him having a disability when he went to make a claim, despite his having a certificate from his GP. | https://www.irishtimes.com/business/financial-services/which-complaints-led-to-payouts-from-financial-companies-last-year-1.3769456?localLinksEnabled=false |
Is Google serious about pulling Google News out of Europe? | The European Union continues to debate proposals for toughening up copyright laws, including a rule that would require digital aggregators such as Google News to pay for publishing short excerpts from articles, even if they link to them. That has led to some saber-rattling from Google: on Tuesday, Jennifer Bernal, Googles public policy manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, told Bloomberg that if the new EU rules go ahead, the company might have to remove Google News from the continent completely. Theres evidence to support both scenarios. For those who argue that the tech giant would never deprive an entire region of access to its news service, there is a compelling case to the contrary: when Spain implemented a similar link tax or snippet tax (as some like to call it) in 2014, Google blocked access to Google News for the entire country, and it remains blocked. Other countries, including Belgium and France, proposed similar taxes for excerpts several years ago, but Google ultimately settled these disputes by setting up innovation funds designed to help publishers improve their use of the internet. These funds were the beginning of what became the Google News Initiative, a $300-million commitment the company says is aimed at making media companies more digitally successful (and getting them to use more Google products). Tuesdays comments from Jennifer Bernal are not the first time the idea of Google News leaving Europe has been mooted, though: Richard Gingras, who is vice president of news for Google, raised the possibility of leaving Europe last fall, when the first proposals for the EUs new regulations started to circulate. While he didnt rule out removing Google News from Europe if the laws went ahead without modifications, he said the company wanted to work with European legislators and publishers to reach a solution. That made the threat of leaving sound a lot more like a negotiating tactic than a hard-and-fast decision. At the moment, the proposed link tax law (formally known as Article 11) is tied up in debates within the EU, perhaps in part because of Googles threat, but also because various member countries cant seem to agree on how to implement it. Regardless of the wording, it seems clear that the proposed legislation would make life difficult for Google. That would be a significant gesture of defiance towards the EU, and Google is already on thin ice as it is. For example, the company has been criticized for its lackluster approach to the new General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR (it was just fined $57 million by French regulators for breaching the rules). Admittedly, thats a paltry amount for Google, whose parent company Alphabet has more than $100 billion in annual revenue, but taking its Google News toys and going home isnt likely to mend any fences with European regulators. When German publisher Axel Springer removed all of its content from Google News in 2014 to protest what it saw as the companys theft of its content, the newspaper chain said its traffic dropped by more than 40 percent, and it quickly rejoined. Most estimates of the loss to Spanish publishers are somewhere in the 20-percent range, depending on the size of the outlet. But some argue the damage to news media from a Google News departure might not be that severe: for example, a Danish publisher noted on Twitter that the news service has never been available in Denmark and that media outlets in that country are better off as a result (although other media industry insiders questioned drawing too many conclusions from that example). Heres more on Google and the EUs copyright initiatives: High stakes : Josh Benton of Harvards Nieman Lab has a good overview of what is at stake for publishers who are pushing the EU link tax, and what the likely outcome would be if Google does pull out of the continent. The stakes are even higher now, Benton argues, because search is so important to traffic on mobile devices. : Josh Benton of Harvards Nieman Lab has a good overview of what is at stake for publishers who are pushing the EU link tax, and what the likely outcome would be if Google does pull out of the continent. The stakes are even higher now, Benton argues, because search is so important to traffic on mobile devices. The aftermath : A study published last year by researchers at Stanford and the University of Michigan looked at what happened to news consumption in Spain after Google News shut down there, and found that the loss of the service mostly affected traffic to smaller news publishers, while larger ones remained unaffected. : A study published last year by researchers at Stanford and the University of Michigan looked at what happened to news consumption in Spain after Google News shut down there, and found that the loss of the service mostly affected traffic to smaller news publishers, while larger ones remained unaffected. Screenshots : In response to the proposed Article 11, Google said it has been doing tests of what a version of Google News that complied with the law would look like, and it gave a news site screenshots of the result: A page that looks as though it has failed to load, with just hyperlinks and large white spaces where the content should be. : In response to the proposed Article 11, Google said it has been doing tests of what a version of Google News that complied with the law would look like, and it gave a news site screenshots of the result: A page that looks as though it has failed to load, with just hyperlinks and large white spaces where the content should be. A friend in need : Some have said that Google takes its opposition to the EUs copyright plans too far, by encouraging publishers who are partners in its Google News Initiative, including some who get funding from the company, to lobby the European Union to vote against the new rules. : Some have said that Google takes its opposition to the EUs copyright plans too far, by encouraging publishers who are partners in its Google News Initiative, including some who get funding from the company, to lobby the European Union to vote against the new rules. Of course, even if Google decides to withdraw from Europe, that doesnt mean it wont come back at some point if theres a compelling business case. The company pulled its search product out of China to protest hacking and surveillance, but it is said to be looking for a way to get back in. Sign up for CJR 's daily email Other notable stories: BuzzFeed is looking to lay off 15 percent of its staff, according to a report from CNN. Founder Jonah Peretti said the cuts are designed to put us on a firm foundation and allow us to invest and grow sustainably for years to come. Meanwhile, Gannet also announced cuts in newsrooms across the chain, and Verizon has said it will shrink its media unitwhich includes Yahoo and HuffPostby 7 percent. Two of the writers recently hired by Bryan Goldbergs Bustle Media Group for the relaunch of Gawker, former Vanity Fair writer Maya Kosoff and former Cosmopolitan writer Anna Breslaw, have quit. They said in a statement to The Daily Beast they could no longer work with editorial director Carson Griffith because of what they described as her inappropriate behavior in the workplace, including sexual remarks. writer Maya Kosoff and former writer Anna Breslaw, have quit. They said in a statement to The Daily Beast they could no longer work with editorial director Carson Griffith because of what they described as her inappropriate behavior in the workplace, including sexual remarks. The writers behind an explosive feature in The Atlantic, in which multiple men say Hollywood director Bryan Singer had sex with them while they were underage, originally wrote the story to be published in Esquire magazine, but say senior Hearst executives killed it (Singer has denied the accusations contained in the story). in which multiple men say Hollywood director Bryan Singer had sex with them while they were underage, originally wrote the story to be published in magazine, but say senior Hearst executives killed it (Singer has denied the accusations contained in the story). Cond Nast says all of its magazines will be behind paywalls by the end of the year. Company CEO Bob Sauerberg said that the performance of paywalls at Vanity Fair , Wired , and The New Yorker has exceeded our expectations. , , and has exceeded our expectations. Facebook has complained that coverage of the company in The New York Times is too negative, and data compiled by Recode seems to provide more ammunition for that argument: a data analysis found that the sentiment of Times stories about Facebook has been almost uniformly negative since the 2016 election. is too negative, and data compiled by Recode seems to provide more ammunition for that argument: a data analysis found that the sentiment of stories about Facebook has been almost uniformly negative since the 2016 election. Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan argues in her latest column that while White House press briefings are problematic in a number of ways, they still serve a purpose in holding an administration to account. Donald Trump recently said he told press secretary Sarah Sanders not to bother having press briefings because the fake news media treat her so badly. She hasnt had one since December 18. media columnist Margaret Sullivan argues in her latest column that while White House press briefings are problematic in a number of ways, they still serve a purpose in holding an administration to account. Donald Trump recently said he told press secretary Sarah Sanders not to bother having press briefings because the fake news media treat her so badly. She hasnt had one since December 18. A study by two researchers at the School of Journalism at the University of Texas says one reason newspaper circulation has been declining is that many papers have jacked the price up by large amounts. The New York Times doubled the cost between 2008 and 2016, and some papers raised prices as much as 600 percent. doubled the cost between 2008 and 2016, and some papers raised prices as much as 600 percent. Several senior editors at FiveThirtyEight, including founder Nate Silver, recently debated whether stories like the BuzzFeed report about Michael Cohen (which Robert Muellers office said was inaccurate) could damage the Mueller investigation and cause people to lose trust in the media. Help us by joining CJR today Mathew Ingram is CJR's chief digital writer. Previously, he was a senior writer with Fortune magazine. He has written about the intersection between media and technology since the earliest days of the commercial internet. His writing has been published in The Washington Post and the Financial Times as well as Reuters and Bloomberg. | https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/google-news-europe-eu.php |
Is Resident Evil 2 Metroidvania an Accurate Comparison? | This is only slightly a joke; hear me out. Metroidvania as a genre or game-defining terms is in contention to this day, but theres no denying the specificity of what that word describes. And you can bet your collective asses Im about to attempt applying that specificity to Resident Evil 2. A lot of it boils down to not only the games impressively thoughtful level design, but also the variety of helpful tolls contained within its map. Metroidvanias are everywhere these days. Just in the past year or so, weve seen several new takes on the concept from the indie gaming scene, many of them so good theyve breached the mainstream consciousness. Im talking games like Dead Cells, Timespinner, Hollow Knight, and Iconoclasts. But it isnt just high profile indie games using this bucket of arcane gaming concepts. You can look in the AAA space for Metroidvania DNA as well. God of War, for example, uses a massive hub world and staggered access to it as a way to move the player around a single space over the course of the game. Of course, the O.G. showed up with Castlevania Requiem, and with all the other Castlevania madness happening, its no wonder I have this stuff swimming to the top of my brainspace. It isnt really a scholarly thing. Part of the reason you have folks arguing for and against it as a label is how nebulous it can be. Exploring a big map doesnt exactly do an argument any favors in 2019, after all. For me its sort of a case of verbs, and how those verbs physically manifest within a game. Its how that combination forms a set of rules informing the way a game plays, and all that gamefeel stuff you hear about sometimes. If we use Castlevania: Symphony of the Night as an example, we can break it down into a few pieces. A Miserable Pile of Secrets (and Map Icons) First, yes, half of the game is filling out the map. Theres a visceral sense of reward to that, as helping your map take form is your greatest barometer of progress. Then theres the barriers you inevitably run into, which are tied to your discoveries as you fill in that map. Perhaps its tied to your character, such as when you run into a ledge too high for a single jump to reach. Or maybe the barrier needs a specific item to get through, such as the typical Igavania item that lets you breathe in water. Finally, from those first two points, a trickery on the part of the developers that let the player believe the world is more open than it actually is. If the devs pull this off, you end up naturally making your way through what is in reality a linear path, but one that feels like organic discovery in a wide open space. All of these describe my experience with Resident Evil 2 perfectly. Much more so than the original PlayStation classic, the famous Raccoon City Police Station feels like a Place with a capital P. While it retains that lovably goofy premise of a building converted from an art museum to a cop shop (giving a diegetic excuse for all the wacky puzzles), it feels so much more designed in that video game sense. It feels like a building one can actually come to know and inhabit, with a sense of flow to it that makes that main lobby a true hub, one that leads to various loops and paths which facilitate not only clever ways to outsmart Mr. X, but also that hidden linearity I mentioned earlier. While its a large space full of mystery, hidden secrets, and flash grenades youll never use, its also built so that your instincts and the breadcrumbs of collectibles guide you through the story. At the same time, you feel like youre figuring it out all on your own. A huge part of that is the map. This is the most detailed and helpful map in Resident Evil history, one that does take bits and pieces from previous games, adds its own stuff, and of course liberally borrows from the past (as all video games should). One of the biggest pieces of it, is that Resident Evil 2s map tells you when youve completed a room, meaning not only found all the items inside it, but also cleared any puzzles, unlocked doors, so on and so forth. If you cant clear that room, chances are its because of a puzzle you havent solved yet, or an item that you missed, or even an item you dont want. To that end, the map also updates itself with details that are invaluable if you have to leave before you can clear it. Sword, Whip, or Samurai Edge Coming close to an item puts that item on the map, and if you interact with a door, it will shift to not only that doors lock/unlock status, but it will also tell you what kind of lock it is. That way, when you find a key sometime later, you can actually scan your map for the proper door instead of needing to commit details to memory. A nice cherry on top of this sundae is that key items will tell you when they are no longer useful, allowing you to safely discard them on the spot. Frankly, its possible to make the argument that these are all common sense quality of life updates, and since Leon isnt jumping on platforms and cracking a whip at skeletons, theres no vania to be found here. But when I played through Resident Evil 2, when I was able to glide through the police station (and later areas) with that natural, instinct-driven ease I usually only feel when Im playing more literal Metroidvanias, thats directly where my mind went. It wasnt just, oh hey, this map is dope, it was, wow, I feel like Im playing Capcoms take on Harmony of Dissonance here. Theres so much DNA here you can trace back to those classic games. It isnt just that same monolithic quality to them that Resident Evil 4 had, where the inspiration leaks down to every other game by osmosis. It feels deliberate here, like the people on the development team took the original Resident Evil 2, noticed how sprawling and clumsy the map could be, and also had a Castlevania Netflix party fresh on their minds. Or maybe Im just describing myself at the end of that sentence, and am looking for Belmonts subconsciously everywhere I am. Essential Reading: | https://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2019/01/24/resident-evil-2-metroidvania/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=resident-evil-2-metroidvania |
Can goalie Joey Daccord carry ASU hockey over the finish line into NCAA Tournament? | CLOSE ASU hockey coach Greg Powers talks surging Sun Devils, captain Brinson Pasichnuk and NCAA Tournament hopes Jeff Metcalfe, azcentral sports Joey Daccord returns to his native Massachusetts this week as perhaps the best goalie in college hockey. At minimum, the junior is in strong contention for the Mike Richter Award despite not being among 20 on the watch list for the nation's top goalie when the season began. Last week, Daccord and ASU forward Johnny Walker made the ballot for the Hobey Baker Award, presented to the premier overall college hockey player. Fan voting is part of determining the top 10 candidates, to be announced March 20. Sun Devils are up for the coveted @HobeyBakerAward! Fans can vote EVERY DAY through March 10: https://t.co/QKerE1XcRQpic.twitter.com/Uj4a2Ntcy5 Sun Devil Hockey (@SunDevilHockey) January 16, 2019 "I'm truly honored to be included in that group and even be in the mix for such a prestigious and coveted award," Daccord said. "There's only a handful of teams that had two guys nominated so that speaks to what we're doing here as a program. This is going to be one of the top teams in the country for a long time." Even coming off consecutive losses, No. 17-ranked ASU is having unprecedented success in its fourth NCAA season in no small part thanks to Daccord, the national leader in shutouts (6), saves (767) and wins (16). ASU junior goalie Joey Daccord is nominated for the Hobey Baker Award (nation's best player) and among the contenders for the Mike Richter Award (nation's top goalie). (Photo: Darryl Webb/Special for the Republic) The Sun Devils have played more games to this point than most teams, inflating Daccord's save total, but he also is No. 7 nationally in saves percentage (.930, up from .909 last season). Until Jan. 11, Daccord had played every minute between the pipes. But after ASU fell behind 5-1 in the third period at Cornell, coach Greg Powers gave freshman Evan DeBrouwer his first college playing time. "That was genuinely just to save Joey's legs more than anything," Powers said. "It wasn't his fault we were down 5-1. He wasn't yanked because of performance. He was pulled to preserve him for Saturday, and it almost worked (ASU lost 3-2 in game 2). "That's the difference in Joey this year. He's always had the technique and talent and fundamentals. It's just his brain and maturity catching up to his talent. Now he has all three." ASU (16-9-1) has not lost more than two straight and to keep that alive must win Friday at Boston University (9-9-3). It's an important weekend on multiple levels for Daccord, whose hometown is North Andover, Mass. He played at Cushing Academy outside Boston and in the USHL before starting at ASU in 2016-17. On Jan. 4-5, Daccord registered two wins including a shutout over Boston College. Now he gets a shot at beating another Boston school on its ice. "I'm really looking forward to it," he said. "I don't think there's many people that would have had us in this position before the season," with a chance to make the 16-team NCAA Tournament. "We should be grateful but at the same time we've got to kick it into high gear and take advantage of the opportunity." ASU probably needs to win six of its final eight games to have a realistic chance of making the NCAA field as an independent, last accomplished by Alaska Anchorage in 1992. Only two of the eight are at home and the next four are in the East. Arizona State University goalie Joey Daccord (35) saves the puck against Clarkson's Nico Sturm (17) during the first period of their game in the 2018 Desert Hockey Classic in Glendale, Friday, Dec. 28, 2018. (Photo: Darryl Webb/Special for the Republic) Daccord stresses that team improvement has made his life a lot easier. "It's guys getting block outs, keeping shots to the outside and giving me a chance to make easy saves," he said. "And we've been scoring a lot too. Past year we had to win low-scoring games or have a great night offensively, and those didn't come as much." ASU averages 3.12 goals (No. 17 nationally) while giving up 2.38 (No. 16). Plus, in no small part thanks to Daccord, the Sun Devils are No. 11 in penalty kill. Daccord, 22, is solidly focused on the present and not the near future, when he must decide whether to sign with the Ottawa Senators. He was a 2015 NHL seventh-round draft pick and becomes a free agent if he doesn't sign this year and instead returns for his senior season at ASU. Also because of his tri-citizenship U.S., Swiss, Canadian through his parents, Daccord's options include playing professionally in Switzerland. "As soon as you start looking ahead, that's when your mind gets running and you lose focus," Daccord said. "I honestly don't even know how it's going to go. I don't know what the process is like. Right now I'm a Sun Devil and that's what I'm focused on." READ MORE: | https://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/college/asu/2019/01/24/asu-hockey-joey-daccord-returns-home-one-nations-top-goalies/2593840002/ |
Who is Venezuelan would-be president Juan Guaido? | The rise of Juan Guaido from back-bench obscurity to the US-backed, self-declared interim president of Venezuela in just three weeks has been meteoric and by his own recognition risky. Few Venezuelans had even heard of the fresh-faced, 35-year-old politician when he was plucked from anonymity and named as president of the opposition-controlled National Assembly in early January. The move set up a high-stakes standoff with President Nicolas Maduro, who is increasingly seen as a dictator both at home and abroad. Instead of backing down, Mr Guaido stunned Venezuelans on Wednesday by declaring himself interim president before cheering supporters in Venezuelas capital Caracas, buoyed by massive anti-government protests. Juan Guaido declares himself interim president in Caracas (Fernando Llano/AP) And support from US President Donald Trump, Canada and numerous Latin American countries, along with the Organisation of American States, immediately rolled in. But even as he was symbolically sworn in, he foretold of dangers, telling supporters: We know that this will have consequences. Moments later, he slipped away to an unknown location amid speculation he would soon be arrested. Last week, Venezuelas feared SEBIN intelligence police pulled Mr Guaido from his vehicle as he headed to a town hall meeting and briefly detained him. And the rival constitutional assembly controlled by Mr Maduros allies threatened Mr Guaido and others with an investigation for treason. Key to Mr Guaidos rise to prominence has been timing and behind-the-scenes backing. As Venezuelas economic crisis deepens, with masses fleeing the country to escape runaway inflation on pace to surpass 23 million per cent, many are desperate for a new leader to rescue the once-wealthy oil nation. Into that void stepped Mr Guaido. An industrial engineer who cut his political teeth in a student protest movement a decade ago, he was elected to the National Assembly in 2015, and in its first session this year was named its leader. Anti-government protesters show a sign that reads in Spanish `Guaido President of Venezuela (Fernando Llano/AP) At the time, Mr Maduro made light of his newcomer status, feigning confusion over whether his name was Guaido or Guaire, a notoriously polluted river that runs through Caracas. But following Wednesdays presidential self-declaration, and a US-led chorus of Western hemisphere nations backing his challenge, Mr Maduro responded with fury, swiftly cutting off diplomatic relations with the United States and giving American diplomats 72 hours to leave the country. The architect of Mr Guaidos meteoric rise is Leopoldo Lopez, Venezuelas most popular opposition leader, who is muzzled under house arrest and considered by government opponents to be a political prisoner. At a time when many had written off the National Assembly, which was stripped of its last bit of power after the government set up the rival constitutional assembly in 2017, Mr Lopez manoeuvred behind the scenes for his Popular Will party to assume the presidency of the gutted legislature. He then tapped Mr Guaido, serving his first full term as a lawmaker, who rose to the helm of their party in Venezuela after eight more senior politicians sitting on Popular Wills national board were exiled since 2014. Mr Guaido has been a loyal acolyte of Mr Lopez for years, standing beside him at a 2014 news conference when the activist announced a strategy of anti-Maduro unrest. What was called The Exit bitterly divided the opposition because it came less than a year into Mr Maduros presidency, when support for his rule was still strong. The two talk half a dozen times each day, and not a single speech or move is not co-ordinated with Mr Lopez first, said one ally. Critics say Mr Guaido lacks a political vision, pointing to his rambling debut speech as the legislatures president, which was full of rhetorical barbs aimed at the usurper Mr Maduro but short on specifics on how to get out of the malaise. Still, others see his youth and relative inexperience as breathing life into the beaten-down opposition, making Mr Maduros frequent diatribes that it is dominated by elitist relics from Venezuelas pre-revolutionary past harder to stick. Anti-government protesters hold their hands up during the symbolic swearing-in of Juan Guaido (Fernando Llano/AP) Mr Guaido told the Associated Press in a recent interview he does not fear running into the same fate as his political allies. He pointed to scars on his neck caused by rubber bullets fired during 2017 street demonstrations against Mr Maduro. I still have projectiles lodged here, he said. Mr Guaido has endured hardships for much of his life. At the age of 15, shortly after Mr Maduros mentor, the late Hugo Chavez, assumed the presidency and ushered in a socialist overhaul, Mr Guaido and his family survived a torrential mudslide that killed thousands and left many more homeless in the port city of La Guaira, a short distance from Caracas and home to the capitals airport. We are survivors, he said. If they take Juan Guaido prisoner, someone else will emerge, because our generation wont give up. Like Mr Lopez, the wiry Mr Guaido prides himself as an athlete and is a devotee of his home towns Sharks a perennial loser in the Venezuelan baseball league. He and his wife, a fellow activist, have a daughter named after Francisco de Miranda, a precursor to Venezuelan independence hero Simon Bolivar. Juan Guaido takes a selfie with his wife Fabiana Rosales and his daughter Miranda (Fernando Llano/AP) In congress, Mr Guaido earned a reputation as a hard worker and consensus-builder while serving as the head of the comptroller commission that investigates allegations of government corruption. Now he is drawing attention on the international stage. Mr Trump promised to use the full weight of US economic and diplomatic power to push for the restoration of Venezuelas democracy. But for the frontal assault on Mr Maduros authority to succeed, Venezuelans fearful of taking to the streets again after past uprisings ended in violent crackdowns and bitter divisions must be prepared to risk it all again. On Wednesday, they responded to Mr Guaidos call by gathering in the tens of thousands in Caracas waving flags and chanting Get out Maduro! in what was the largest demonstration since a wave of unrest that left more than 120 dead in 2017. While the protests were mostly peaceful, there were no signs that security forces heeded Mr Guaidos call to join the anti-Maduro movement and go light on demonstrators. His supporters say the constitution gives him the authority to declare himself interim president as head of the National Assembly. The constitution gives me the legitimacy to carry out the charge of the presidency over the country to call elections, Mr Guaido said last week. But I need backing from the citizens to make it a reality. | https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-6628369/Who-Venezuelan-president-Juan-Guaido.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490 |
Where Will bluebird bio Be in 5 Years? | bluebird bio (NASDAQ: BLUE) had a rough 2018, but it's still sporting a market cap north of $6.5 billion despite not having any drugs on the market. To justify that valuation, investors have to look to the future -- through its impending first approval and on to a second or third. One of Bluebird's slides presented at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference earlier this month lays out the path forward. Chart listing expected activities for bluebird during 2019-2023. More Image source: bluebird biotech. TDT = transfusion-dependent beta-thalassemia, CALD = cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy, MM = multiple myeloma, SCD = sickle cell disease, INDs = investigational new drugs Near term: TDT and CALD Bluebird's quickest path to sales comes from its gene therapy LentiGlobin to treat transfusion-dependent beta-thalassemia (TDT), a blood disorder in which patients require transfusions of red blood cells because they have defective production of beta globin. The LentiGlobin treatment pulls cells out of the patient and adds DNA that causes the cells to express beta globin, which are then put back into the patient. Late last year, Bluebird submitted a marketing application to EU regulators, setting up a potential approval and launch this year. The U.S. is further behind, but the drug should be launched stateside next year. The data has looked good enough for approval in both regions, especially given the unmet need, although investors should keep in mind that regulators will also look at the complicated manufacturing process during the approval process to ensure repeatability, which is a bit of a black box for investors. Also in 2020, look for an approval of another gene therapy called Lenti-D for cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy (CALD), a rare genetic brain condition that results in degradation of the myelin sheath that protects nerve cells. Neither TDT nor CALD is a large market; the incidence of TDT is about one in 100,000, while CALD is about one in 20,000. Bluebird can make up for the small numbers with a large price tag, but it faces an uphill battle with U.S. insurers that may be unwilling to pay even if the treatments end up being cures. In countries with one-payer systems, the return on the cost will be more apparent because the healthcare system can reap benefits from not paying for a lifetime of treatment, but in the U.S., where people switch insurance carriers regularly, Bluebird will likely face challenges similar to those for other high-cost, one-time treatments. Midterm: Multiple myeloma and sickle cell disease Multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer, is a fairly large market, but the initial approval for bb2121 will be limited to late-stage patients because that's the population that Bluebird and partner Celgene (NASDAQ: CELG) tested the CAR-T therapy on. An approval could come in 2020, but results from studies in patients who haven't progressed as far will really drive sales in the 2023 range and beyond. In addition to TDT, Bluebird is also developing LentiGlobin for sickle cell disease, which causes red blood cells to sickle due to abnormal hemoglobin, which can be counteracted with the expression of beta globin. The company had some issues getting the expression right, but it appears to be back on track for applying for approval in 2022, putting a global launch in the 2023 range. | https://news.yahoo.com/where-bluebird-bio-5-years-151200578.html |
Will DeAndre Hopkins Make the NFL's All-Decade Team? | As "highest honors" go, the NFL's All-Decade team is, in a strange way, simultaneously significant and flawed. It's significant in that, if you're one of the 53 players to receive the honor, it's undoubtedly a feather in your cap when it comes time for conversations about the Hall of Fame. It's flawed in that partitioning things off by decade is somewhat arbitrary. Yes, it's a convenient way for all of us to process the honor, but it penalizes a player who happens to enter the league toward the middle of a decade, giving him fewer seasons to accumulate the requisite body of work to be considered "All-Decade." Continue Reading In case you're wondering, per Wikipedia, here is the process for selecting the All-Decade team: "The team is chosen by members of the Hall of Fame Selection Committee. This committee consists of one media member from each NFL market (two for New York/ New Jersey owing to the market's two teams), a representative from the Pro Football Writers of America and 11 "at-large" delegates (primarily national sportswriters) for a total of 44 voters. These voters are asked to select two coaches and a total of 53 players, broken out as follows: two quarterbacks, four running backs, a fullback, four wide receivers, two tight ends, four offensive tackles, four guards, two centers, four defensive ends, four defensive tackles, six linebackers, four cornerbacks, four safeties, two placekickers, two punters, two kick returners, two punt returners." All in all, I still love stuff like this, if for no other reason than it makes for fun debates. The Houston Texans have only existed in two of the league's several decades so far, and not surprisingly, they had nobody on the All-Decade team for the 2000s (2000 through 2009). Business should pick up for the Texans in the current decade when the All-Decade team for 2010 through 2019 is selected after the 2019 season. J.J. Watt, with his five first team All-Pro selections and three Defensive Player of the Year awards, is a lock to get one of the defensive end spots. The bigger question will center around DeAndre Hopkins, whose surge over the last couple seasons has vaulted him to "best current receiver in the game" status late in the decade. So let's take a look, and see what Hopkins' chances are of being named one of the four best wide receivers from 2010 through 2019. Let's start with the premise that to be named one of the best in the decade, you have to have spent at least a couple seasons as one of the best in the game, i.e. you should have been named to the A.P. All-Pro first and/or second team multiple times. Here are all of the first-team and second-team All Pro selections at wide receiver for 2010 through 2019: 2010 ALL-PRO WR's 1st TEAM: Roddy White, ATL; Reggie Wayne, IND 2nd TEAM: Brandon Lloyd, DEN; Calvin Johnson, DET; Dwayne Bowe, KC 2011 ALL-PRO WR's 1st TEAM: Calvin Johnson, DET; Wes Welker, NE 2nd TEAM: Larry Fitzgerald, ARZ; Victor Cruz, NYG 2012 ALL-PRO WR's 1st TEAM: Calvin Johnson, DET; Brandon Marshall, CHI 2nd TEAM: A.J. Green, CIN; Andre Johnson, HOU 2013 ALL-PRO WR's 1st TEAM: Calvin Johnson, DET; Josh Gordon, CLV 2nd TEAM: A.J. Green, CIN; Demaryius Thomas, DEN; Antonio Brown, PIT 2014 ALL-PRO WR's 1st TEAM: Antonio Brown, PIT; Dez Bryant, DAL 2nd TEAM: Jordy Nelson, GB; Demaryius Thomas, DEN 2015 ALL-PRO WR's 1st TEAM: Antonio Brown, PIT; Julio Jones, ATL 2nd TEAM: Brandon Marshall, NYJ; DeAndre Hopkins, HOU; Odell Beckham, Jr., NYG 2016 ALL-PRO WR's 1st TEAM: Antonio Brown, PIT; Julio Jones, ATL 2nd TEAM: Odell Beckham, Jr., NYG; Mike Evans, TB 2017 ALL-PRO WR's 1st TEAM: Antonio Brown, PIT; DeAndre Hopkins, HOU 2nd TEAM: Julio Jones, ATL; Adam Thielen, MIN 2018 ALL-PRO WR's 1st TEAM: DeAndre Hopkins, HOU; Michael Thomas, NOLA 2nd TEAM: Julio Jones, ATL; Tyreek Hill, KC Summarizing, here are all the wide receivers who were named multiple times to either first-team or second-team All-Pro during the period of 2010 through 2019 (NOTE: TheAll-Decade judging is on performance ONLY in those seasons, so any accomplishments before 2010 do not count for this exercise): ANTONIO BROWN: 4x 1st team (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017); 1x 2nd team (2013) CALVIN JOHNSON: 3x 1st team (2011, 2012, 2013); 1x 2nd team (2010) JULIO JONES: 2x 1st team (2015, 2016); 2x 2nd team (2017, 2018) DeANDRE HOPKINS: 2x 1st team (2017, 2018); 1x 2nd team (2015) BRANDON MARSHALL: 1x 1st team (2012); 1x 2nd team (2015) DEMARYIUS THOMAS: 2x 2nd team (2013, 2014) ODELL BECKHAM, JR.: 2x 2nd team (2015, 2016) A.J. GREEN (2): 2x 2nd team (2012, 2013) So, I would say so far, so good for Hopkins, who is one of four players to be named to multiple FIRST team All Pro berths, and still with one more season in his prime to make it again. He is in good shape there. So let's narrow this down a little bit further. Below are the top ten players in receiving yards per game for the period of 2010 through 2019. I'm sure there are more advanced statistics we could use to get super granular, but I'm not sure that's what the voters do. I'm guessing this is as deep statistically as many of them will go: YARDS PER GAME 1. Julio Jones, ATL, 96.7 2. Calvin Johnson, DET, 95.0 3. Odell Beckham, Jr., NYG, 92.8 4. Antonio Brown, PIT, 86.2 5. Michael Thomas, NOLA, 80.6 6. A.J. Green, CIN, 80.2 7. Mike Evans, TB, 79.3 8. DeAndre Hopkins, HOU, 78.3 9. T.Y. Hilton, IND, 75.0 10. Keenan Allen, LAC, 74.4 So six of the eight multiple All-Pro players are in the top ten here, so let's eliminate Brandon Marshall and Demaryius Thomas from consideration. So we are down to Julio Jones, Calvin Johnson, Odell Beckham, Antonio Brown, A.J. Green, and DeAndre Hopkins. Now, if you're looking for the closing argument on Hopkins' candidacy, here it is. Below I've listed the quarterbacks who have started all of the games these six wide receivers have played in. Brace yourself: 1. JULIO JONES, 111 games Matt Ryan 111 starts 2. CALVIN JOHNSON, 90 games Matthew Stafford 89 starts Shaun Hill 1 start 3. ODELL BECKHAM, JR., 59 games Eli Manning 59 starts 4. ANTONIO BROWN, 130 games Ben Roethlisberger 119 starts Charlie Batch 4 starts Landry Jones 3 starts Michael Vick 3 starts Dennis Dixon 1 start 5. A.J. GREEN, 111 games Andy Dalton 107 starts A.J. McCarron 3 starts Jeff Driskel 1 start 6. DeANDRE HOPKINS, 95 games Deshaun Watson 22 starts Brock Osweiler 14 starts Ryan Fitzpatrick 12 starts Case Keenum 10 starts Brian Hoyer 9 starts Tom Savage 9 starts Matt Schaub 8 starts Ryan Mallett 6 starts T.J. Yates 4 starts Brandon Weeden 1 start That is flabbergasting. I mean, it's something we were aware of, that harrowing list of quarterbacks-not-named-Watson that have been forced on Hopkins, but to see it depicted alongside the ultra-stability the other top wideouts have experienced really encapsulates the greatness of DeAndre Hopkins. All five of the other wide receivers played anywhere from 92 to 100 percent of their games with the same quarterback, and with quarterbacks MUCH better than anybody not named Watson on Hopkins' list. Hopkins has played 23 percent of his games with Deshaun Watson, and the rest with quarterbacks who have spent time with at least three different NFL teams in their careers, some way more than that (what up, Fitzy?). Hopkins is a remarkable freak of a pass catcher, and to that end, here is my prediction... PREDICTED FOUR ALL-DECADE WR'S: Julio Jones, Calvin Johnson, Antonio Brown, DeAndre Hopkins Listen to Sean Pendergast on SportsRadio 610 from 2 to 6 p.m. weekdays. Also, follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/SeanTPendergast and like him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/SeanTPendergast. | https://www.houstonpress.com/news/comparing-deandre-hopkins-to-other-top-wrs-of-last-ten-years-11195801 |
Will Brown & Brown (BRO) Beat Estimates Again in Its Next Earnings Report? | Brown & Brown (BRO), which belongs to the Zacks Insurance - Brokerage industry, could be a great candidate to consider. This insurance company has an established record of topping earnings estimates, especially when looking at the previous two reports. The company boasts an average surprise for the past two quarters of 4.03%. For the most recent quarter, Brown & Brown was expected to post earnings of $0.34 per share, but it reported $0.38 per share instead, representing a surprise of 11.76%. For the previous quarter, the consensus estimate was $0.27 per share, while it actually produced $0.26 per share, a surprise of 3.70%. Price and EPS Surprise Thanks in part to this history, there has been a favorable change in earnings estimates for Brown & Brown lately. In fact, the Zacks Earnings ESP (Expected Surprise Prediction) for the stock is positive, which is a great indicator of an earnings beat, particularly when combined with its solid Zacks Rank. Our research shows that stocks with the combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) or better produce a positive surprise nearly 70% of the time. In other words, if you have 10 stocks with this combination, the number of stocks that beat the consensus estimate could be as high as seven. The Zacks Earnings ESP compares the Most Accurate Estimate to the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the quarter; the Most Accurate Estimate is a version of the Zacks Consensus whose definition is related to change. The idea here is that analysts revising their estimates right before an earnings release have the latest information, which could potentially be more accurate than what they and others contributing to the consensus had predicted earlier. Brown & Brown currently has an Earnings ESP of +5.38%, which suggests that analysts have recently become bullish on the company's earnings prospects. This positive Earnings ESP when combined with the stock's Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) indicates that another beat is possibly around the corner. We expect the company's next earnings report to be released on January 28, 2019. With the Earnings ESP metric, it's important to note that a negative value reduces its predictive power; however, a negative Earnings ESP does not indicate an earnings miss. Many companies end up beating the consensus EPS estimate, but that may not be the sole basis for their stocks moving higher. On the other hand, some stocks may hold their ground even if they end up missing the consensus estimate. Because of this, it's really important to check a company's Earnings ESP ahead of its quarterly release to increase the odds of success. Make sure to utilize our Earnings ESP Filter to uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they've reported. Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Brown & Brown, Inc. (BRO) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. | https://news.yahoo.com/brown-brown-bro-beat-estimates-151003017.html |
Will SkyWest (SKYW) Beat Estimates Again in Its Next Earnings Report? | SkyWest (SKYW), which belongs to the Zacks Transportation - Airline industry, could be a great candidate to consider. This regional airline has an established record of topping earnings estimates, especially when looking at the previous two reports. The company boasts an average surprise for the past two quarters of 13.80%. For the most recent quarter, SkyWest was expected to post earnings of $1.41 per share, but it reported $1.57 per share instead, representing a surprise of 11.35%. For the previous quarter, the consensus estimate was $1.23 per share, while it actually produced $1.43 per share, a surprise of 16.26%. Price and EPS Surprise Thanks in part to this history, there has been a favorable change in earnings estimates for SkyWest lately. In fact, the Zacks Earnings ESP (Expected Surprise Prediction) for the stock is positive, which is a great indicator of an earnings beat, particularly when combined with its solid Zacks Rank. Our research shows that stocks with the combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) or better produce a positive surprise nearly 70% of the time. In other words, if you have 10 stocks with this combination, the number of stocks that beat the consensus estimate could be as high as seven. The Zacks Earnings ESP compares the Most Accurate Estimate to the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the quarter; the Most Accurate Estimate is a version of the Zacks Consensus whose definition is related to change. The idea here is that analysts revising their estimates right before an earnings release have the latest information, which could potentially be more accurate than what they and others contributing to the consensus had predicted earlier. SkyWest currently has an Earnings ESP of +2.77%, which suggests that analysts have recently become bullish on the company's earnings prospects. This positive Earnings ESP when combined with the stock's Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) indicates that another beat is possibly around the corner. We expect the company's next earnings report to be released on January 31, 2019. With the Earnings ESP metric, it's important to note that a negative value reduces its predictive power; however, a negative Earnings ESP does not indicate an earnings miss. Many companies end up beating the consensus EPS estimate, but that may not be the sole basis for their stocks moving higher. On the other hand, some stocks may hold their ground even if they end up missing the consensus estimate. Because of this, it's really important to check a company's Earnings ESP ahead of its quarterly release to increase the odds of success. Make sure to utilize our Earnings ESP Filter to uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they've reported. Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report SkyWest, Inc. (SKYW) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research | https://news.yahoo.com/skywest-skyw-beat-estimates-again-151003762.html |
Can Solid Order Flows Aid Lockheed Martin's (LMT) Q4 Earnings? | Lockheed Martin Corporation LMT is expected to release fourth-quarter and full-year 2018 results on Jan 29, before the opening bell. In the last reported quarter, the company delivered a positive earnings surprise of 18.98%. Also, it outperformed the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three of the trailing four quarters, the average beat being 13.92%. Let's see how things are shaping up prior to this announcement. Our proven model shows that Lockheed Martin is likely to beat estimates in the fourth quarter because it has the right combination of the two key ingredients. A stock needs to have both a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) for this to happen. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before theyre reported with our Earnings ESP Filter. Earnings ESP: Lockheed Martin has an Earnings ESP of +4.20% as the Most Accurate Estimate is pegged at $4.57, higher than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $4.34. Zacks Rank: Lockheed Martin carries a Zacks Rank #3. We caution against Sell-rated stocks (#4 or 5) going into the earnings announcement, especially when the company is witnessing negative estimate revisions. Lockheed Martin Corporation Price and EPS Surprise Lockheed Martin Corporation Price and EPS Surprise | Lockheed Martin Corporation Quote Factors at Play Being a prominent defense contractor, Lockheed Martin continues to win significant contracts from the U.S. Defense Department and its allies. This, in turn, is likely to provide a boost to the companys earnings in fourth-quarter 2018. Moreover, management at the company predicted higher segment operating profit to drive the soon-to-be-reported quarters earnings. In line with this, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for fourth-quarter earnings is pegged at $4.36, mirroring a 1.4% improvement year over year. On the revenue front, the Zacks Consensus Estimate does not reflect any improvement during the fourth quarter. The consensus mark of $13.8 billion reflects a year-over-year decline of 8.7%. This downside can be attributed to apprehensions that ample order growth might not have been realized into substantial revenue recognition. Key Picks In addition to Lockheed Martin, investors can consider the following players from the same industry that also have the right combination of elements to post an earnings beat this quarter. L3 Technologies, Inc. LLL is expected to report fourth-quarter 2018 results on Jan 29. The company has an Earnings ESP of +1.19% and a Zacks Rank #3. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. HII is expected to report fourth-quarter 2018 results on Feb 14. The company has an Earnings ESP of +11.85% and a Zacks Rank #3. Recent Defense Releases Teledyne Technologies TDY reported adjusted fourth-quarter 2018 earnings of $2.33 per share, which surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.19 by 6.4%. The bottom line also improved 27.3% from the year-ago quarters figure of $1.83. More Stock News: This Is Bigger than the iPhone! It could become the mother of all technological revolutions. Apple sold a mere 1 billion iPhones in 10 years but a new breakthrough is expected to generate more than 27 billion devices in just 3 years, creating a $1.7 trillion market. Zacks has just released a Special Report that spotlights this fast-emerging phenomenon and 6 tickers for taking advantage of it. If you don't buy now, you may kick yourself in 2020. Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (HII) : Free Stock Analysis Report Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMT) : Free Stock Analysis Report Teledyne Technologies Incorporated (TDY) : Free Stock Analysis Report L3 Technologies Inc. (LLL) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research | https://news.yahoo.com/solid-order-flows-aid-lockheed-150903688.html |
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