archive
stringlengths 79
515
| text
stringlengths 1.31k
86.1k
| compression_bin
stringclasses 3
values | density
float64 0
2
| summary
stringlengths 77
3.04k
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
http://web.archive.org/web/20141104015553id_/http://fortune.com:80/2011/12/09/getting-hired-when-youre-over-50/
|
FORTUNE – Dear Annie: I read your recent column on bridging the generation gap in the workplace between young bosses and older employees. It struck a nerve with me, because, frankly, I’d be delighted to work for a young boss if I could just get one to hire me. I’m 53 and I was laid off last year from a senior marketing management position at a bank. Luckily, I have enough savings to live on for a while, since my job hunt seems to be taking forever. All goes well until I show up for an interview with a 30-something hiring manager or HR person, and then I hear, “Oops! Sorry, the position has been filled, but thanks for coming in.” I’d like to think this isn’t because, like most people in their fifties, I have a few gray hairs and laugh lines, but it’s hard to draw any other conclusion. Do you and your readers have any suggestions for me? — Not Dead Yet Dear N.D.Y.: Cold comfort though it may be, a long job hunt is perfectly normal these days, especially for anyone seeking a senior management job. “The higher your rank in your last position, the longer it takes to find a new one,” says Mark Anderson, president of ExecuNet, a national career network for $100,000-a-year-plus senior managers. ExecuNet’s research shows, for example, that a vice president over age 50 takes 20% longer to get hired than a 41-to-45-year-old job seeker at the same level. But age is only part of the story. The main reason it now takes the average management job candidate at least 10 months to get hired is that “companies are taking longer to fill positions,” Anderson notes. “Many companies who have management openings are not aggressively looking to fill them.” He points to a new ExecuNet survey that says that only 16% of employers plan to hire executives over the next six months, a big decrease from about 30% earlier this year. Job interviews can be especially difficult for executives over 50 who have spent their careers moving up through the ranks, or being recruited for better jobs, and thus have had little or no practice at selling themselves while unemployed, say executive coaches Tucker Mays and Bob Sloane. Sloane and Mays are the founders and principals of OptiMarket, a Darien, Conn., coaching firm that specializes in helping older executives find jobs quickly. They also wrote a book, Fired at 50: How to Overcome the Greatest Executive Job Search Challenge. They offer four tips on making sure your job hunt does not, in fact, last “forever” (even if it seems that way): 1. Preempt the age issue. “If you’re over 50, your age is the elephant in the room. Should you try to sweep it under the rug and hope it doesn’t come up, or wait until it does and address it then?” asks Sloane. The answer: Neither. “All effective salespeople know that the best way to counter an anticipated objection is to address it first.” Instead of being defensive about your age, make it an asset. In cover letters, on your resume, and especially in interviews, “describe the abilities you’ve gained from experience that will give you an advantage over younger, less experienced candidates,” he says. One example: Problem solving. “At age 50-plus, there are probably few business challenges you haven’t faced,” says Mays. 2. Describe your flexible management style. “There is a perception that over-fifty job seekers are set in their ways and reluctant to change. So talk about how you modified your approach to fit different situations and varied corporate cultures,” Sloane suggests. ”You can also mention how you responded to unanticipated problems like a product recall, the loss of a major client, or a new government regulation.” The point is to show that you can roll with the punches as well as, or better than, any 35-year-old. 3. Cite past success at working for a younger boss. Recruiters and hiring managers often worry that executives over 50 will have problems reporting to someone younger, and young managers may wonder if your experience means you’re after their jobs. “During interviews, give examples where you enabled a young boss to succeed, grow, and advance their careers,” Mays advises. “If you’re interviewing with a prospective boss who is younger than you, ask what his or her greatest challenges are, and tell how you believe your skills and experience can make their mission easier,” he adds. “You’ll be less likely to be perceived as a threat if you show that you respect their authority and are as committed to advancing their career as your own.” 4. Be flexible about pay. “You’ll have a significant advantage over younger candidates if you’re willing to accept a lower base salary up front, in exchange for greater performance-based bonus or equity,” says Sloane. “Companies prefer to hire executives who are willing to prove themselves first.” Decide what minimum salary you need and then, when asked about your pay requirements, “mention that once you learn more about the job requirements and the company’s full compensation structure — including salary, bonus, profit-sharing, perks, and equity — you’ll be in a better position to answer.” Among OptiMarket’s clients, Sloane says, “reducing initial salary requirements is often the key reason they get an offer. And in most cases, they end up making more money in the long run, because of deferred compensation they earn for great performance.” Here’s hoping it works out that way for you. Talkback: If you’re over 50 and job hunting, do you think your age is an obstacle, an advantage, or a bit of both? If you’ve recently found a new job, what do you think helped you clinch the offer? Leave a comment below.
|
high
| 1.225806 |
True, older job seekers face a few extra obstacles. But you may be able to overcome them by turning your age to your advantage. Here’s how.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20141107163925id_/http://www.people.com/article/kristy-mcnichol-love-boat-reunion
|
11/06/2014 AT 07:00 PM EST In the '70s and '80s, was one of the most popular actresses of her generation, starring in movies like Then in the '90s, she stepped away from the spotlight – for good. On Wednesday night, PEOPLE caught up with the actress at the in Fort Lauderdale, where the cast gathered to christen a new Regal Princess cruise ship and celebrate 50 years of Princess Cruises. McNichol, who appeared as a guest star on the show, said she left show business to "see what else was out there." "I was on the big stage between ages 8 and 30," McNichol, 52, tells PEOPLE. "I left show business for a variety of reasons, but a big one was my interest in learning what else there is in life." So what did she discover? A newfound love of yoga, for one, along with traveling, an increased awareness of spirituality and a quiet home life. "This phase of my life is so good," she says. "My home life is happy and serene. I love singing. I also enjoy traveling and seeing the world. One of my favorite stops is Hawaii. I like everything about it and may eventually move there part-time." The actress says she also spends a lot of time doing charity work for reunion, McNichol was thrilled to be able to catch up with some of her old Hollywood pals. Kristy McNichol, Rich Little and Lee Meriwether "I was most excited to see Rich Little, who always makes me laugh," she says. "He was talking about losing his hair and got me laughing hysterically. He looks fabulous, and so does . She is unreal, with all that energy!" McNichol adds that her favorite memory from guest-starring on the popular maritime series was becoming close friends with actor "We met during shooting, and for the next three years we hung out off set, too," McNichol says. "We became real friends, good buddies. We did things together like ride around in his red Cadillac. We had so much fun. I wished he could have come to this celebration, but he was busy." And how about a return to acting? "Never say never," she says. But, she added, an escape on the fancy cruise ship sounded more appealing to her: "I love this ship. I'd like to stow away, travel the globe and never come back!"
|
medium
| 1.227273 |
The former Empty Nest star opens up to PEOPLE about leaving the spotlight – and whether she'd ever return to acting
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20150214140900id_/http://www.9news.com.au:80/world/2015/02/13/00/39/al-jazeera-journalists-freed
|
Australian journalist Peter Greste is elated his two Al Jazeera colleagues have been freed from an Egyptian prison, but says he's waiting for the day all three of them are declared innocent. Mr Greste says it's too soon to celebrate, given the threat of a retrial for his colleagues, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed. "The trial is ongoing, and nobody has yet been acquitted. I'm looking forward to the day when the court declares all of us innocent of the charges. Then the party will really begin," the Australian said in a statement on Friday. But he said he was overjoyed that his colleagues had walked from jail on bail, and had been reunited with their families. "One of the hardest things I've ever had to do was to walk out of prison and leave them behind, so it is wonderful to know that they're at last able to join their families as I did just over a week ago." A Cairo court released Fahmy and Mohamed overnight, after more than 400 days behind bars, pending a retrial over claims they spread false news and supported the banned Islamist movement of deposed president Mohamed Morsi. Mr Greste had faced the same accusations and the trio was last year sentenced to serve between seven and 10 years. The charges have been condemned as politically motivated by the international community, and have been a major source of embarrassment for Morsi's successor Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as he seeks to shore up international support, following a widely condemned crackdown on the opposition. Mr Greste was released and deported unconditionally earlier this month under a new law permitting foreign prisoners to be sent back to their home countries. Mohamed Fahmy, a Canadian-Egyptian, renounced his Egyptian citizenship, hoping he could benefit from the law, but so far that hasn't happened. Mr Fahmy has paid 250,000 Egyptian pounds ($A42,600) bail, while Egyptian Baher Mohamed was freed without having to pay bail. The two must reappear in court on February 23. Canada has welcomed Mr Fahmy's release, but says any prospect of a retrial is unacceptable and he should be allowed to leave Egypt. Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he could not explain why Mr Greste and Mr Fahmy had been treated differently. "We will continue to press for his release, and we do remain optimistic this case will be resolved," he said. Since his release, Mr Greste has continued to campaign for his colleagues and at his first press conference after returning too Australia, vowed: "We'll see them out." Al Jazeera said the men's release on bail was "a small step in the right direction". "The focus though is still on the court reaching the correct verdict at the next hearing by dismissing this absurd case and releasing both these fine journalists unconditionally," a spokesman for the news network said in a statement. Do you have any news photos or videos?
|
medium
| 1.347826 |
Two Al-Jazeera colleagues of Australian Peter Greste have been freed pending retrial on charges of supporting the blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20150325111314id_/http://fortune.com/2015/03/25/the-risks-of-investing-in-a-college-education/
|
Over the next week or so, the last of the 3.5 million American high school students will know whether or not they’ve been accepted by the college of their choice. For some, especially those whose families can afford it, college can be a wonderful learning experience in and out of the classroom as well as an important opportunity to mature. And, of course, education is good for society: it strengthens our democracy and creates jobs. We should, however, make sure that the cost does not inappropriately or unduly fall on individuals or their families. For most parents, sending a child off to college is an enormous investment, typically the second largest one they will make after their home. With many well-paying jobs disappearing and middle class salaries flat-lined, families need to take a hard look at whether an expensive college education is worth it. The cost of a college education has grown dramatically, in many cases consistently above inflation. The approximate total cost per year for a student at the State University of New York is approximately $25,000, while the total annual cost of private college averages about $40,000 and that for the top schools is some $70,000. In private institutions, more than 80% of students are incurring some debt to finance their education; in public universities, that number is over 50%. According to the Institute for College Access and Success, the average amount of student loan debt for members of the Class of 2013 hit $28,400. The total amount of student debt has reached a staggering $1.2 trillion. Of course, any investment is valuable if the payback is acceptable. And the $40,000+ average starting salaries for college graduates are well known. However, the earnings potential for graduates of top schools with strong academic records is very different than the earnings potential for graduates of lower ranked schools with lesser records. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, for instance, has found that those who graduate from colleges ranked in the bottom 25% earn no more than the median-income of workers with a high school degree. Before deciding to send their kids to an expensive private college, a family would do well to calculate the “payback” for such a degree, which simply means the number of years it will take to recoup tuition, room and board. In general, companies expect approximately a five to seven year payback on most capital projects. This is a difficult standard to meet for a college education. My calculations show that a college graduate who earns $40,000 a year and gets raises equal to the inflation rate faces a 10-year payback for a state university degree and a 16- year payback for one from a private institution. The clear take-away is that a college education is a risky investment. While it is an investment with broader consequences and more subtle considerations than, say, an investment in machinery for a factory, the simple payback calculation above highlights how important it is to consider the financial implications of a college education. Despite this risk, many parents and students still see a college education as just another expected step and consider a state university inferior to private college. They will not even contemplate a community college, technical program or similar post high school option even though it might make more financial sense. This shortsighted perspective needs to change if the next generation hopes to avoid the crippling student debt that plagues many millennials today. One idea to improve the situation would be for the federal government to support college graduates by creating a voluntary jobs core. I envision an InfrAmeriTeam program that would allow college graduates to serve for anywhere from two to five years after completion of a college degree. Students would take on non-combat military duty as well as engineering and construction work on infrastructure projects. There would be a minimum grade point average required to participate. Pay, tied to the average starting salary for U.S. college graduates, would be increased 20% for a grade point average above a certain standard and decreased 20% for a grade point average below a benchmark. I suspect that the InfrAmeriTeam would more than pay for itself given the many long neglected public works projects in our country. The so-called American Dream has been traced to our country’s founding and the idea that every person has the freedom and opportunity to pursue and lead a better life. A college education is usually thought to be a critical step on the way to the American Dream. What is often left unsaid is that the pursuit of any significant good without a careful evaluation of its affordability and payback can result in damaging financial consequences. The purchase of a college education is no exception. Jonathan F. Foster, an investment banker, private equity investor and corporate director, is a managing director at Current Capital LLC, a New York City private equity investing and management services firm.
|
high
| 1.608696 |
A college education is part of the American dream, but in today’s economy it is important to rethink that idea.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20150823161948id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2015/01/27/liberation-of-kobani-a-turning-point-in-the-war-against-isis-commentary.html
|
Daesh occupied scores of Kurdish villages outside Kobani in September. It slaughtered civilians and drove hundreds of thousands of Kurds from their homes during its merciless advance on the city, which straddles the border between Turkey and Syria. Read MoreJapan's Abe calls ISIS killing of hostage 'outrageous' In October, Daesh raised its black flag over Kobani's outskirts. It seemed Kobani would fall. Daesh rained mortars and heavy weapons on Kobani's defenseless victims. Daesh threatened genocide against the Kurds, apostates for supporting the West. Kurdish prisoners, including women, were beheaded. The brutal battle unfolded before the eyes of the world. International media watched from the hills above Kobani on the Turkish side of the border. Islamic State fighters flocked from across Syria and Iraq to Kobani. The Islamic State's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, vowed to make an example of the Kurds and kill them all. Outgunned and outmanned, The Kurdish People's Protection Units fought heroically to defend Kobani. Kurds from Turkey, including fighters of the Kurdistan Workers Party, joined the battle. So did Iranian Kurds and peshmerga from Iraqi Kurdistan. About 40 percent of Kobani's defenders were women. Read MoreHow the US and Iran could become BFFs The Obama administration first turned a blind eye to Kobani's suffering, but finally intervened with air strikes and air-drops to resupply the Kurds. Today, Kurdish flags fly over recaptured territory. Daesh has finally been vanquished. Kurdish militia are undertaking mopping up operations, ridding Kobani of land mine booby traps. While nearly 1,000 Daesh combatants were killed, Kobani's liberation took a heavy toll on its defenders. More than 300 Kurds were killed. Many civilians also perished. Read MoreUS should stop Syria not ISIS: Saudi Prince The battle for Kobani is significant for several reasons: The Islamic State's defeat in Syria followed a victory for the Peshmerga in Sinjar, where they defeated Daesh and saved thousands of Yazidis. The Iraqi armed forces is also rolling up Daesh in Iraq's Diyala province. Despite these battlefield gains, challenges remain. Thousands of displaced persons need assistance resettling to their ruined homes in Kobani. Villages around Kobani are still under control of Daesh. Cooperation between Washington and the Democratic Union Party, which represents Syrian Kurds, is shallow and should expand. Today Kurds rejoice. The world applauds their heroism — and joins their celebration. When Daesh's obituary is written, Kobani will be enshrined as the turning point in the struggle to destroy the Islamic State.
|
medium
| 1.3 |
The liberation of this Syrian city marks a turning point in the war against ISIS, says David Phillips.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20151002023226id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/07/make-money-from-bulls-bears-but-dont-be-a-hog.html
|
Holding a stock with major gains is nothing short of being just plain greedy. Investors must take some off the table. And in Cramer's book of rules, greed is bad and discipline is good. Strict discipline leads to the ability to cash out when you're winning. Of course, Cramer understands wanting to stick with a winner, wanting to let it ride. Nobody likes to forfeit gains, and that's how selling a winner can sometimes feel. So, the next time you see a stock climbing ever higher, change your mindset to see your stock as getting more and more expensive. Eventually, it will become so expensive that it won't attract new buyers and will start to go back down. And you want to be out by that point. It's a simple case of buying low and selling high. Kind of. Yes, it would be ideal to sell at the very moment a stock tops out, but the odds of that happening are very unlikely. But it's all about instincts. ----------------------------------------------------- Read More from Mad Money with Jim Cramer Cramer Remix: Wanna invest in 2015? You need this Cramer's No. 1 most important lesson in investing Cramer: Buying gold is the way to go ----------------------------------------------------- Therefore, when you have a large gain on a position, find a level where you can feel satisfied with what you have. Then take at least a portion of your bet off the table. Otherwise, you put your gains at risk, and Cramer says that's piggish. "When things get crazy expensive and I know you have a lot of gains, you will hear me say that you are being a hog, and the bottom line is that I don't want your head to be in this guillotine when the party ends and big wins turn into losses," Cramer added.
|
low
| 0.958333 |
If you own stock, there’s nothing better than a big gain. But too many investors put those gains at risk.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20151212030930id_/http://www.9news.com.au/world/2015/12/04/05/14/farmers-urge-climate-action-in-paris
|
Josh Gilbert's family has farmed land on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales for 40,000 years. The young indigenous farmer wants that to continue for another 40,000 but believes climate change could derail his plans. He's in Paris representing Australia's young farmers at major climate talks and is urging the Australian government to implement policies to curb emissions. "Farmers will keep adapting as much as they can but there's going to come a time when that limit's up," he told AAP on Thursday. "We could head for something that we really don't want to." Crowd-funding got Mr Gilbert and fellow NSW farmer Anika Molesworth to Paris to tell their stories and learn from hundreds of other farmers from around the world. Ms Molesworth, whose family runs a sheep station in Broken Hill, breeds African livestock that are drought resilient to help cope with extended droughts and heat waves. "This spring we had weeks over 40 degrees and it's not even summer," she told AAP. "So you see that taking a toll on on the vegetation and your livestock." Mr Gilbert believes traditional indigenous practices can help adapt to climate change and spends time learning about the land from family and elders. "They understand the land really, really well so the adaptation is really quick," he said. "On our farm, we live on the motto that we've been farming for 40,000 years and we want to make decisions today so that we can farm for the next 40,000 years." Both farmers are urging global governments to come up with a strong agreement in Paris to curb emissions and limit global warming. They also want the Australian government to do more. "Farmers keep running the race but we need to make sure that the government is there to back us up and we do have strong policy," Mr Gilbert said. Ms Molesworth is bracing for hotter summers and lower rainfalls, something she'll have to find ways to cope with in the already naturally dry and hot region. But she says it could be worse. "We are so lucky that we are Australian farmers," she said. "I'm listening to people in the developing world who are literally going hungry, they can't feed their families."
|
medium
| 1.153846 |
Two NSW farmers are already feeling the impact of hotter summers and less rainfall and have flown to Paris to warn leaders to act urgently.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160227202124id_/http://www.aljazeera.com/archive/2006/10/20084916246118322.html
|
"This government is already eight years old. It's an old, bad, lying government, and it must go on December 3," Manuel Rosales told the demonstrators on Saturday. Rosales, governor of oil-rich Zulia state, described the march as an "opposition avalanche" as an estimated 10,000 of his supporters gathered in downtown Caracas. Rosales accused Chavez's government of mismanaging the country's oil wealth and ignoring crime. He also said that Chavez's close friendship with Fidel Castro, the Cuban leader, was leading Venezuela towards a similar international isolation. "They say the Venezuelan people rule - that's a lie," said Rosales. "[We have] a government that is a puppet of a communist, totalitarian system. ... We have a government that is governing from Cuba." Caracas' metropolitan police estimated the crowd at about 9,000, but reporters on the scene estimated the turnout was over 10,000. Rosales also slammed the government's record on crime, claiming that murders, kidnappings and other crimes in the South American country have sharply risen since Chavez took office in 1999 - an issue that recent polls show is a top concern among Venezuelans. He also accused Chavez of giving away millions of dollars in aid and donations to countries around the world, while many Venezuelans remain impoverished. "There is a paradox in this country: poor people and a very rich government. The people don't want any more crumbs," Rosales said. He promised that, if elected, his government that would distribute Venezuela's oil wealth at home and try to attract more foreign and internal investment. Rosales also appeared to rule out a boycott of the December 3 presidential election, urging people to vote despite worries about vote-rigging and new electronic voting machines.
|
low
| 0.666667 |
Thousands of people have taken part in the largest march yet in support of Manuel Rosales, <?xml:namespace prefix =
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160530072128id_/http://www.aol.com:80/article/2016/03/24/why-weight-loss-tea-is-the-biggest-scam-on-instagram/21333062/
|
Another day, another perfectly lit photo of Kylie Jenner gets dropped on Instagram. But wait, what's the famously curvaceous 18-year-old looking down at in the backyard of her California mansion? "Got my @SkinnyMintCom such a great natural detox tea program for this summer," Jenner's caption states. "I need to get healthy again! Who's joining me?" See? Looks like Jenner is finally revealing the secret behind her Pokémon-like evolution from normal person to alluring Instagram seductress. There is a reason she's famous! Unfortunately, Jenner isn't sharing any groundbreaking Hollywood diet hacks — she likely isn't even drinking the tea she's clearly promoting for a company. She's not alone, however: As it turns out, those spammy pictures and captions that dozens of celebs share on Instagram aren't effective for many who have actually tried them. "We want to pick a little bone here with the fitness industry," Super Sister Fitness health bloggers Liz and Sarah said in a YouTube video. "Our No. 1 problem with the fitness industry is that it's all about selling you products, pills, potions, powders, teas now, like what is all this stuff? ... You don't need any of that, it's so silly. "And it's just trying to make a profit off of you really just not knowing and not being educated on whether or not those things are really effective." Of course, paying celebrities lump sums to post about weight loss products is a successful marketing tactic, as headlines will inevitably read: "So THIS Is How Kylie Jenner Stays So Skinny (PHOTO)." But detox teas don't work because detoxing isn't real. At least, not the sort of detoxing advertising agencies want you to believe in. "Let's be clear," Edzard Ernst, emeritus professor of complementary medicine at Exeter University, told the Guardian, "there are two types of detox: one is respectable and the other isn't. The other is the word being hijacked by entrepreneurs, quacks and charlatans to sell a bogus treatment that allegedly detoxifies your body of toxins you're supposed to have accumulated." Toxins don't simply build up in your body — everything consumed by a typically healthy body is constantly removed from the system, and if it's not, that could mean serious life-threatening complications for a person. Detox teas like Lyfe tea, one that Jenner's oldest sister Kourtney Kardashian coincidentally promotes on her own Instagram, contain ingredients like senna leaves and pods, the superfood moringa and guarana. Unfortunately, none of these are proven to actually be healthy: Senna is alaxative that can cause stomach pain and diarrhea, moringa is considered a superfood — aka another marketing tactic used to trick people into consumption — and guarana is known to raise blood pressure, with zero known effects on weight loss. "The healthy body has kidneys, a liver, skin, even lungs that are detoxifying as we speak," Ernst told the Guardian. "There is no known way — certainly not through detox treatments — to make something that works perfectly well in a healthy body work better." Detox dietary supplements further promote a rejection-diet mentality, in which dieters are more likely to shy away from certain foods rather than focusing on implementing new, nutrient-rich foods into their daily meals. "Long-term fasts lead to muscle breakdown and a shortage of many needed nutrients," American Dietetic Association spokesperson Lona Sandon told NBC News. Furthermore, the dietician said removing necessary nutrients and minerals from food may "actually weaken the body's ability to fight infections and inflammation." Instead of detoxing, anyone trying to get in peak physical health should include things like greens, lean meats and other nutrient-rich foods into their diets. Harvard University School of Public Health's Healthy Eating Plate provides a realistic diet for just about anyone, and when paired with daily exercise and activity, can certainly help weight loss results and other health goals. Or, you can take your health advice from King Kylie — your choice. To get in shape the good old fashioned way, shop our favorite weight loss products below: Why weight loss tea is the biggest scam on Instagram YOGITOES 'Flight Navy' Skidless Yoga Mat Towel, $64 GoFit 'Power Tube' Resistance Tube (20 lb.), $15.99 David Kirsch Thermo Bubbles, $39.99 More from Mic: Which Diet Is Best? Here's Why CrossFit Experts Tout the Zone Diet and Paleo Diet Diet Soda, the Timeless Health Scam That People Will Seemingly Always Fall For Why Your Gluten-Free Diet Is (Probably) Bullshit
|
high
| 0.894737 |
Celebrities like Kylie Jenner and the Kardashian sisters are notorious for allegedly supporting detox companies on social media.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160701220555id_/http://www.forbes.com:80/2010/03/23/sustainable-organic-energy-technology-ecotech-eco-bars.html
|
These days, a number of bars are putting sustainability on tap with eco-friendly brews and green business mindsets. Though eco-bars are still a fairly new concept, the idea is brewing slowly from coast to coast, much to the pleasure of green bar flies nationwide. Many eco-bars are starting with the basics–food and drink–by decking out their menus with organically brewed beers, locally grown foods and even biodynamic wines. But don’t worry–just because a menu is eco doesn’t mean it’s lame-o. Take the Ukiah Brewing Company in Ukiah, Calif., the nation’s first all-organic brewpub, which offers a wide range of organic ales and lagers like stout and porter and even serves up the nation’s first organic beer in a can. Other bars stack their menus with atypical but always interesting local and/or organic foods, like wild salmon and handmade pasta. For those in the mood for a stiffer drink, bars like Raven’s Restaurant in Mendocino, Calif., are the place to be, with wide selections of organic cocktails made with local fruits and organic wines. The menu is often just the starting point for going green. Some places like Hopworks Urban Brewery in Portland, Ore., go the extra mile with eco-friendly features like running deliveries with biodiesel-fueled vehicles and re-using excess heat in the brewing process. Other places compost their waste, a huge boon to the environment considering that Americans throw away more than 25% of the food they prepare, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Some bars go truly full circle by using their compost to grow fresh fruits and vegetables in their gardens, which they then serve up to their patrons. Some of the best green ideas are the simplest ones. In Williamsburg, N.Y., Brooklyn Bowl’s no cans, no bottles policy keeps waste to a minimum while providing beer enthusiasts with an extensive draught beer list that would make any Brooklynite proud. Since drinking liquor, beer or wine all night inevitably results in a trip or two to the restroom, many eco-bars have made the smart and simple choice to install low-flow or dual-flush toilets in their restrooms, which save water. Others create useful items like planters out of their used beer kegs and recycle used fryer oil into diesel. Sure, going to a green bar isn’t going to save the planet, but supporting bars that take the extra effort to lesson their carbon footprint is a great way to encourage businesses to go green any way they can. That’s an outcome that any greenie can drink to. Cheers! Jessica A. Knoblauch is a contributor to the Mother Nature Network. See Also: Keeping Your Home Clean And ‘Green’ Surprising Home Energy Hogs Eco-Tech Comments are turned off for this post.
|
medium
| 1.071429 |
Want to raise a glass in a place that treads lightly on the environment? There is a new breed of eco-friendly bars around the U.S.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160709180521id_/http://fortune.com:80/2015/06/30/tesla-of-electric-buses/
|
Today’s diesel buses—including the estimated 500 “tech buses” that shuttle workers around the San Francisco Bay area—get around three to four miles to the gallon. Proterra makes an electric bus that is five times more efficient, and doesn’t clog up streets with diesel exhaust. There’s a catch: the upfront cost. The buses, which use a battery pack and drivetrain designed by Proterra, battery cells from Toshiba and LG Chem, and a carbon fiber composite fuselage, are more expensive to buy than their fossil fuel-powered peers. However, Proterra—and the investors who just dumped $55 million into the the Greenville, S.C.-based company—believe falling lithium-ion battery prices, lower repair costs, and long-term fuel savings will allow the buses to compete against diesel-powered models and begin to chip away at transit run on fossil fuels. “Buses are the least efficient vehicles on the roads, with exception of maybe tractors and mining equipment,” CEO Ryan Popple told Fortune. “And even with historically low diesel prices our business hasn’t slowed because battery prices are dropping.” Tesla’s massive gigafactory near Reno, Nevada will have the capacity to produce 50 gigawatt hours of battery packs a year once it’s complete, and is already having an effect on prices, Popple says. The first phase of Tesla’s gigafactory is expected to be ready next year. “All the major suppliers are positioning themselves for life after the Tesla factory and its bringing down prices for everyone,” he says. The company has raised $55 million, $25 million of which was debt financing with Hercules Technology Growth Capital, as well as $30 million in equity from new and existing investors. The series 4 equity round was led by several new investors—some unnamed—including a family office, a sovereign fund from the Middle East, and early Tesla Motors and Palantir Technologies investors Mike Dorsey and Miriam Rivera. Existing investors include Kleiner Perkins, Tao Capital Partners, GM Ventures, and Constellation Energy. Proterra previously raised about $135 million. The debt financing will be used to fund the company’s new factory in City of Industry, California. The factory, which will double Proterra’s production capacity, is expected to be operational by the end of 2015 and will employ 70 people. The factory is also funded by a $3 million grant awarded by the California Energy Commission in April 2014. Proterra has 110 orders for its buses, which can cost up to $800,000 for customers that buy the battery packs and have the maximum battery configuration. Customers can buy a bus and lease the batteries for about $550,000. The 60 first generation buses have already been delivered and are on the road in Los Angeles and San Joaquin counties in California, as well as San Antionio, Texas, and Nashville, Tennessee. Another 50 of its 40-foot second-generation buses will be produced and delivered this year. The company can produce about one bus a week at its Greenville factory, Popple says. Seattle will be the next city to receive the second-generation bus. Lousiville, Kentucky, and Stockton, California are also slated to receive electric buses this year. In all, Proterra has won awards for 400 units, although not all of those will turn into firm orders, Popple says. “We’re just getting past our early adopters and now we’re entering into our early majority adoption,” Popple says. If the company stays on track, it will capture 1% of total new shipments to the municipal market in 2016. The buses can be customized to suit each transit agency’s needs, including an extended range product line that can go up to 200 miles on a single charge. He believes orders will only accelerate as battery prices continue to fall and as the company expands into the corporate fleet market this year. Proterra will focus its corporate fleet efforts on the Bay area first, Popple says. The company is targeting Fortune 500 companies, universities, and theme parks as potential clients.
|
high
| 2 |
Investors pour $55 million into the electric bus maker as it scales up and readies a new factory.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160723190439id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/news/worldnews/the-pope/9931030/Pope-Francis-run-in-with-Benedict-XVI-over-the-Prophet-Mohammed.html
|
In 2005, then Pope Benedict quoted from an obscure medieval text which declared that the Prophet Mohammed, founder of the Islamic faith, was "evil and inhuman", enraging the Muslim population and causing attacks on churches throughout the world before an apology was issued. Reacting within days to the statements, speaking through a spokesman to Newsweek Argentina, then Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio declared his "unhappiness" with the statements, made at the University of Regensburg in Germany, and encouraged many of his subordinates with the Church to do the same. "Pope Benedict's statement don't reflect my own opinions", the then Archbishop of Buenos Aires declared. "These statements will serve to destroy in 20 seconds the careful construction of a relationship with Islam that Pope John Paul II built over the last twenty years". The Vatican reacted quickly, removing one subordinate, Joaquín Piña the Archbishop of Puerto Iguazú from his post within four days of his making similar statements to the Argentine national media, sending a clear statement to Cardinal Bergoglio that he would be next should he choose to persist. Reacting to the threats from Rome, Cardinal Bergoglio cancelled his plans to fly to Rome, choosing to boycott the second synod that Pope Benedict had called during his tenure as pontiff. "The only thing that didn't happen to Bergoglio was being removed from his post", wrote investigative journalist Horacio Verbitsky in his column in left-wing daily newspaper Página/24. "The Vatican was very quick to react." Cristina Kirchner, the Argentina president, stated at the time that such diatribes were "dangerous for everyone".
|
low
| 0.454545 |
Pope Francis came close to losing his position within the Catholic Church after he criticised his predecessor seven years ago.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160808103319id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/9108641/The-30-plants-that-can-help-protect-your-home-against-burglary.html
|
It adds: "One of the best ways to keep thieves out is to use nature's own defence mechanisms to stop intruders. "A barrier of prickly hedge may be all the protection you need around your property." It then lists all 30 plants, stating 'Here are some suggestions for plants to use', adding jokingly: "We have tried to identify the plants mentioned by their correct botanical name, but we cannot guarantee that the plant you buy will not grow into a small, fragrant flowering shrub with no more thorns than a daisy." The first 16 plants on the list give detailed description of the plants and is as follows; 1 - Creeping Juniper - Juniperis horizontalis 'Wiltonii' - Also known as 'Blue Rug' because it has long branches and its prostrate shape forms a flattened blue carpet. It has a thorny stem and foliage. 2 - Blue Spruce - Picea pungens 'Globosa' - Rigid branches, irregular dense blue, spiky needles. Height 1-1.25m x 75cm - 1 m. Slow growing. Moist rich soil. 3 - Common Holly - Ilex agulfolium - Large evergreen shrub, dark green spiked leaves. Large red berries on female plants only. Any well drained soil. Plant with garden compost and bone-meal. 4 - Giant Rhubarb - Gunnera manicata - Giant rhubarb-like leaves on erect stems, abrasive foliage. Can grow up to 2.5m high. Plant by water-side for effect. 5 - Golden Bamboo - Phyllostachys aurea- Very graceful, forming thick clumps of up to 3.5m high. Less invasive than other bamboos. Hardy. Young shoots in spring. 6 - Chinese Jujube - Zizyphus sativa - Medium sized tree with very spiny pendulous branches. Leaves glossy bright green. Bears clusters of small yellow flowers. 7 - Firethorn - Pyracantha 'Orange Glow' - Flowers white in June, with bright orange-red berries. Thorny stem. Height 10-15ft. Suitable for north or east-facing wall or as impenetrable hedging. 8 - Shrub Rose - Rosa 'Frau Dagmar Hastrup' - Excellent ground cover, pale pink flowers, very thorny stem. May to September. Plant with garden compost and bone-meal. 9 - Pencil Christmas Tree - Picea abias 'Cupressina' - Medium-sized tree of columnar habit, with ascending spiky branches. Attractive form with dense growth. Avoid dry chalky soils. 10 - Juniper - Juniperus x media 'Old Gold' - Evergreen. Golden-tipped foliage. Prickly foliage. Height 2ft. Spread 6ft. Low growing. Excellent ground cover. 11 - Purple Berberis - Berberis thunbergil 'Atropurpurea'- Rich purple foliage. Thorny stem. Medium-sized deciduous. Any soil sunny position. 12 - Mountain Pine - Pinus mugo 'Mughus'- A very hardy, large shrub or small tree, with long sharp needles, of dense, bushy habit. Leaves in pairs, 3 - 4cm long, rigid and curved, dark green, cone. 13 - Blue Pine - Picea pungens 'Hoopsii'- Small to medium-sized tree, spiky needled stem, densely conical habit, with vividly glaucous blue leaves. Likes moist, rich soil. 14 - Oleaster - Elaeagnus angustifolia - Small deciduous tree, about 4.5 to 6 m (15 to 20 feet) high. Smooth, dark brown branches that often bear spines and narrow, light green leaves that are silvery on the undersides. The flowers are small, greenish, fragrant, and silvery-scaled on the outside, as are the edible, olive-shaped, yellowish fruits, which are sweet but mealy. Hardy, wind resistant, tolerant of poor, dry sites, and thus useful in windbreak hedges. 15 - Blackthorn - Prunus spinosa - Also called Sloe; spiny shrub. Usually grows less than 3.6 metres (12 feet) tall and has numerous, small leaves. Its dense growth makes it suitable for hedges. White flowers. Bluish-black fruit is used to flavour sloe gin. 16 - Fuschia-flowered Gooseberry - Ribes speciosum - Fruit bush, spiny, produces greenish to greenish-pink flowers in clusters of two or three. Extremely hardy, thrive in moist, heavy clay soil in cool, humid climate. It then lists a further 14 plants, stating 'In addition, the following thorny plants can also be considered....Aralia, Chaenomeles, Colletia, Crataegus (including hawthorn/may), Hippophae (sea buckthorn), Maclura, Mahonia, Oplopanax, Osmanthus, Poncirus, Rhamnus, Rosa (climbing & shrub roses), Rubus (bramble), Smilax Prickly ash (Zanthoxylum). The advice continues, stating: "Although they will take some time to grow, the end result justifies the effort. They should deter even the most determined burglar. "Hedges and shrubs in the front garden should be kept to a height of no more than three feet in order to avoid giving a burglar a screen behind which he can conceal himself."
|
medium
| 0.758621 |
The Metropolitan Police has published a list of 30 plants that can help homeowners protect their gardens from thieves, including giant rhubarb and gooseberry bushes.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160910235244id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2013/11/08/penn-gaming-ceo-slams-foreign-corruption-rules-says-ac-is-o-v-e-r.html
|
Wyomissing, Pa.-based Penn Gaming runs casinos and raceways across the U.S. and Canada, many under the Hollywood Casino brand. The company was set to be sold to private equity firms Fortress Investment Group and Centerbridge Partners in a $6.1 billion leveraged buyout, but the deal collapsed in 2008 as the economy slid. Penn shares also crashed, but have rebounded since to near their peak since the crisis. Penn recently spun of a real estate investment trust with property assets called Gaming and Leisure Properties. On the U.S. market, Carlino said Atlantic City was "O-V-E-R" in terms of its ability to compete as a marquee gaming destination. "Atlantic City is a tragedy from a lot of points of view," said Carlino, who is not involved in the market. "They had a 100-year head start with a pile of cash. ... Atlantic City could have and should have been Cannes; and I'm not joking. It could have been the finest city, like the French Riviera." Instead, Carlino said: "They still have street people pushing carts down the street, and worse, in that town. They did nothing with what they had, nothing." Carlino says Penn's brand of lower-cost casinos will drive value for shareholders using properties in smaller markets. "We are totally and completely driven ... (by) how do we get the most excitement for the fewest dollars," Carlino said, referring to "ego" driven, expensive casinos that others focus on in Las Vegas and other large markets. "That is where we excel," he said. "I think we do this better than anyone in the U.S." (Read more: Despite record highs, stocks are cheap: Ron Baron) The Baron conference is in its 22nd year, run by founder Ron Baron to showcase his stable of portfolio managers and the companies his funds invest in to shareholders and other clients. The events are also known for their surprise musical guests; this year Barbra Streisand, Counting Crows and Melissa Etherage performed. —By CNBC's Lawrence Delevingne. Follow him on Twitter @ldelevingne.
|
medium
| 0.48 |
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is hampering U.S. business expansion abroad, especially in the gambling industry. Now bets are moving to Asia.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20161209042841id_/http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2014/10/japan-and-north-korea
|
THE bet was bound to be a risky one. In July Japan decided to restart talks with North Korea in the hope of securing the return of citizens kidnapped in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The stakes have since been raised. North Korea’s initial report into the abductees was expected by now, but it revealed last month that the probe would take a year. Japan now finds itself playing diplomatic cat-and-mouse with a regime that has a history of drawing out negotiations in return for concessions. Predictably, the delay has triggered criticism among conservatives that Japan is being taken for a ride. Fortunately for the government, the country’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has ironclad conservative credentials. Mr Abe made his political reputation partly by talking tough on North Korea and insists he knows just the right measure of carrot and stick to apply. He said only recently: "I am convinced I am the one who knows the most about how the North acts." Not everyone else is persuaded, though. So in a bid to press the North, Japan said this week that it would send a team of officials to Pyongyang on October 27th for an update on the probe. Japan’s government has identified 17 citizens snatched at the height of the cold war—yet the real number may be much higher (about 880, according to estimates by Japan’s National Police Agency). North Korea admits kidnapping 13 and has released five; it says the rest are dead. Securing the safe passage home of some would be a huge political coup for the prime minister. But the stakes for Mr Abe are high. The families of the abductees, a powerful lobby in Japan, are among the sceptics. Shigeo Iizuka, whose brother was abducted in 1978, says that the Pyongyang visit is "premature". Some American officials also worry that Japan will break ranks against the North in its desperation to solve the abduction issue. Mr Abe has appointed one of his most trusted aides, Junichi Ihara, a former head of the foreign ministry’s North American Bureau, to lead the Pyongyang delegation—and to smooth ruffled feathers in America’s State Department. That strategy appears be working. Marie Harf, its spokesperson, said this week that America backs Japan's bid to settle the issue, but in a way that "takes into account the interest" of its diplomatic partners—a reference to South Korea. Japan has already partially eased tough sanctions against the North. It has raised the ceiling on money transfers between the two countries from three million to 30 million yen, allowing Japan’s community of Koreans to help out their impoverished homeland. An outright ban on entry of North Korean passport holders has been lifted and some shipments of humanitarian goods, such as food and medicine, have been restarted. But many of the North’s demands, including that Japan rescind a court decision to sell its de-facto embassy in Tokyo, and that it allow permanent ferry services between the two countries, have been swatted away. Japanese officials are not ruling out an eventual visit to Pyongyang by Mr Abe himself. But they say absolute assurances would be needed that he returns with Japanese citizens. The Abe government believes the North already knows exactly where its citizens are, with or without the fresh probe. Yet after the latest setback, Japan’s top spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, tempered high hopes: "From the beginning we knew the negotiations would not be easy."
|
high
| 1.222222 |
Shinzo Abe pushes for a breakthrough in the search for kidnapped citizens by sending a delegation to Pyongyang
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20100807131830id_/http://abcnews.go.com/2020/david-smith-morbidly-obese-personal-trainer/story?id=11323803
|
For most of his life, David Smith was overweight, but by age 24 he tipped the scale at a whopping 630 pounds. He was morbidly obese and literally eating himself to death. David Smith shares the story of how he dropped 400 pounds. Smith's doctors told the Phoenix native to lose the weight or he would only have about four years to live. Smith felt so unworthy he had thought about ending his life even sooner than that. He believed he deserved to die, and in a very painful way. "I just decided maybe me dousing myself with gasoline, maybe people could hear my screams and hear all the despair that consumed me for all these years," Smith said. Watch the full story tonight on "20/20" at 10 p.m. ET In those moments of despair something clicked for Smith. Fed up with the fat, he decided to get fit. Smith e-mailed Chris Powell, a local health and fitness expert at "Good Morning Arizona" and would not take no for an answer. "To have someone say I really want to lose 400 pounds, I was like that's nice but are you really ready to make that commitment?" asked Powell, a personal trainer. Smith's answer was simple. "I knew that if I didn't, I was going to die," he said. When Powell met the overweight young man for the first time, he was taken aback by his massive girth. "It was definitely shocking because I didn't know what 600 pounds looked like," Powell said. "When he opened the door it was doorframe to doorframe." At first Powell wondered what he had gotten himself into, but he also saw something else in the painfully shy Smith. "He was just so broken," Powell said. "You could see how weak he was. And I don't mean weak as in physically weak, but just that he had no social skills. He really didn't know what to say or what to do. He couldn't even look me in the eye." The trainer knew he had to do something to help unlock the personality of this young man who had been imprisoned by shame and social anxiety. "I had a very bad social phobia," Smith said. "I didn't leave the house and I didn't even feel comfortable in my own backyard until it was dark out." CLICK HERE for tips from trainer Chris Powell to kick off your weight-loss journey.
|
low
| 1.210526 |
Once morbidly obese, David Smith dropped 400 pounds without diet pills or surgery, a feat that saved his life. Now, his incredible battle with the bulge story has inspired others to lose weight.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20140730161828id_/http://fortune.com/2014/07/29/airbnb-helps-cities-prep-for-disasters/
|
In case of a catastrophe, the cities of San Francisco and Portland now have an ally in Airbnb. The rapidly growing service for renting rooms, apartments and homes has signed agreements with the San Francisco’s and Portland’s disaster preparedness agencies to help those communities better aide residents during emergencies. The announcement was part of the White House’s Innovation for Disaster Response and Recovery Initiative, which was created after Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and is focused on finding ways that technology can help in catastrophes. As part of the agreement, Airbnb will identify hosts willing to help displaced locals during an emergency, use the company’s technology to alert hosts and guests about emergencies, and offer disaster response training its hosts. Airbnb, which is based in San Francisco, has a history of helping locals during times of need. The startup reported that 1,400-plus Airbnb hosts in New York offered up their homes to Hurricane Sandy victims in 2012 at a discount or free of charge. Last year, Airbnb created the Disaster Response Tool, a set of emergency response features — emails sent to hosts asking if they can help take in residents and offer free bookings in affected areas — that can be quickly turned on anywhere where Airbnb is available. It’s worth noting Airbnb isn’t the only member of the so-called “sharing economy” market that is offering up its services during natural disasters. Earlier this month, Uber announced a nation-wide partnership with the American Red Cross that sees the popular ride-sharing startup donating its commissions from select trips to the American Red Cross. Uber will also offer free transportation to American Red Cross volunteers during such emergencies. Airbnb and Uber’s efforts come at a time when both companies have hit rough patches in terms of regulation and could benefit from currying favor with government officials. A number of cities including New York City have tried cracking down on Airbnb rentals. Meanwhile, some cities have targeted hosts with lawsuit for turning their homes into unofficial hotels. Uber is no stranger to regulatory challenges, as well. It currently faces lawsuits in Maryland and Virginia from traditional taxi companies, the same businesses that it’s competing against.
|
medium
| 0.8 |
Targeted by regulators, the online room rental service is making nice with cities by offering help during disasters.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20150128002300id_/http://fortune.com/2015/01/27/burgers-grilled-chicken-sandwich/
|
Never mind McDonald’s MCD big U.S. sales declines, the American hamburger is enjoying a golden era. Last year, U.S. restaurants and cafeterias served 9 billion hamburgers, a jump of 3% that stood in contrast to the declining fortunes of the grilled chicken sandwich – the burger’s only real competition in the sandwich wars. Servings of chicken sandwiches fell 9% to 1.3 billion. The continued burger boom is partly the result of the fast growth of smaller chains like Shake Shack, which recently filed to go public in a $1 billion IPO, as well as In-N-Out Burger, Five Guys, and Whataburger. Those chains are also benefitting from the overall increased spending on eating out at restaurants by Americans now feeling better about their finances and job prospects after holding back for years. The National Restaurant Association on Tuesday forecast that industry sales would rise 3.8% this year to $709.2 billion, helped by lower gas prices and job gains. “The overall industry is definitely in a better place now than several years ago,” said Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of research for the restaurant association. Still, the restaurant industry will continue to face some challenges this year, the industry group said. For one thing, food costs are expected to rise again this year, following a 5% jump in wholesale food prices last year. Only lower prices for dairy and pork will provide some relief. For another, with unemployment easing, the restaurant industry will likely be under pressure to raise wages because of increasing competition for workers. Still, the restaurant association is hopeful after years in which people skimped on going out for a bite to eat. Now, with money in their pockets, there’s a lot of pent-up demand for restaurant meals.
|
low
| 1.576923 |
Spending at restaurants should rise 3.8% in 2015, according to the National Restaurant Association, while the burger boom is set to continue.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20150219220005id_/http://fortune.com/2015/02/19/wal-mart-pay-increase/
|
Wal-Mart is celebrating a surprisingly strong U.S. holiday season by spreading the wealth a bit. The world’s largest retailer and the nation’s largest private employer is spending $1 billion to increase hourly wages for its current U.S. store associates to more than $9 per hour, or higher, beginning in April. That increase is at least $1.75 above the federally mandated minimum wage. The decision will impact thousands of full and part-time U.S. employees. Here are some other key points from Wal-Mart’s latest earnings report. What you need to know: Wal-Mart WMT , often maligned by labor advocates that have long argued the retailer can pay its employees more, is seemingly heeding that call. Even Fortune’s Stephen Gandel has argued Wal-Mart could afford to pay its employees up to 50% more without disappointing Wall Street. Wal-Mart isn’t aiming as high as Gandel suggested, but it is certainly making a notable move with the increase. Wal-Mart said by February of next year, all current U.S. associates would make $10 an hour or more. The company is also piloting a training program to help employees move out of entry-level positions and potentially make $15 an hour and more with increased responsibilities. Wal-Mart employees about 500,000 full-time and part-time associates at its’ U.S. Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores. The pay hike comes as Wal-Mart reported a strong 1.7% increase in U.S. same-store sales, a key metric for retailers. That was better than the 0.7% jump that analysts had anticipated, according to a poll conducted by Consensus Metrix. “Our fourth quarter was the first positive traffic comp we’ve had since the third quarter of fiscal year 2013,” said Greg Foran, Wal-Mart U.S. president and CEO. Wal-Mart booted traffic during the critical six-week holiday season, resulting in strong sales of toys, home, seasonal and apparel goods. Wal-Mart completed almost 1 billion total transactions during the holiday season, including a particularly strong Cyber Monday. The big number: Wal-Mart’s overall total revenue climbed 1.4% to $131.57 billion for the fiscal quarter ended January 31. That wasn’t as strong as the $132.28 billion projected by analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Wal-Mart’s top line results have frequently missed Wall Street’s expectations the past few years. Per-share adjusted earnings, meanwhile, totaled $1.61 versus the $1.54 predicted by analysts. What you might have missed: While Wal-Mart ended the year on a high note, President and CEO Doug McMillion said “we’re not satisfied.” He and the leadership team says they want to continue to improve the customer experience, in part by better integrating physical stores with the company’s e-commerce and mobile commerce business. “We have work to do to grow the business,” McMillion said. “We know what customers want from a shopping experience, and we’re investing strategically to exceed their expectations.” Because of the higher wages and investments in training and e-commerce, Wal-Mart expects current-year operating profit to be pressured. Wal-Mart is spending about 20 cents per share for the full year on the higher wages and associate training and educational programs. As a result, Wal-Mart sees 2016 fiscal-year profit between $4.70 to $5.05 per share with sales expected to rise between 1% to 2%, hurt by some pressure from the stronger U.S. dollar.
|
medium
| 1.666667 |
The pay hike, which will cost $1 billion, comes as the world's largest retailer reports a strong holiday quarter.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20150301090103id_/http://fortune.com:80/2012/10/01/measuring-piracy-may-be-techs-holy-grail/
|
FORTUNE — Deciding how best to combat infringement of intellectual property — or even, perhaps, whether we should combat it at all — is made difficult by the fact that nobody really knows the extent of the harms it causes. The Rand Corporation believes it might have the beginnings of a reliable methodology in the works, but even its creators are highly uncertain about its prospects, mainly because success would depend on the willingness of companies to share proprietary sales data and forecasts. One side of the digital-piracy debate claims that the problem is existential. The other side claims it’s non-existent. The media industry issues “studies” that are often laughably skewed to back up claims that piracy is killing their businesses. The industry’s critics claim (based on not much real data) that piracy not only doesn’t do much if any harm, but that it even sometimes helps to sell legitimate copies of movies, music, and other digital products. MORE: The RIM video that will make you squirm Logic tells us that if a person decides to download an illicit copy of a movie when he or she would otherwise have paid for it, the movie business loses money. But how many people download illicit copies only because they’re free, and would never have paid for it? We have no way of knowing. Rand, at the behest of the European Union, has created a basic framework for estimating losses that would take such variables into account. Viewing the market from the supply side, it would compare sales projections to actual sales, controlling for all the various non-piracy-related variables — the economy, bad marketing, supply-chain disruptions and the like — that could cause a difference between the two. Theoretically, the result would indicate the actual amount of sales lost to piracy, which could then be extrapolated to determine, for example, how many jobs are lost. Theoretically. The best Rand can say is that the difference would be “due at least in part to [intellectual property rights] infringements.” In how big a part? Still unknown, and probably unknowable with certainty. Rand says “the statistical model then attempts to identify the portion of unexplained unfulfilled demand that is highly correlated with factors that drive … infringements of a particular product in a particular country. These factors may include: the rule of law, control of corruption, level of tourism, access to broadband Internet or government effectiveness.” MORE: New Internet lobbying group takes on Big Media All very difficult to quantify. The approach, however, is certainly much better than most existing examinations of the problem. Media-financed studies often take a ridiculously blunt approach, essentially counting up the number of illicit downloads, multiplying that by the prices of songs, movie tickets, or rentals, and saying “here’s how much we’ve lost.” A model like Rand’s almost couldn’t help but be better than that. But as Rand notes, large swaths of the industry would have to open its books to researchers, and it’s far from certain that they would. The model is also meant to measure counterfeit physical goods, so makers of fashion, luggage, etc., would also have to take part. The model was tested using data from a single “multinational technology firm producing consumer goods targeted by counterfeiters,” and Rand says the results were promising. But other firms are “extremely reluctant” to share data. Partly, that’s because they understandably don’t want their proprietary data to get into the hands of competitors. But another concern is that “firms may try to manipulate their forecasting error data before submitting them to be included in our model so as to influence estimates of the size of the market.” MORE: The baffling claim against Facebook In other words, we would still, to some degree, be relying on the media industry for estimates of how badly the media industry is hurt by privacy. And so far, that hasn’t worked out so well.
|
medium
| 1.62963 |
Accurate measurements of the effects of infringement of intellectual property rights are hard to come by. The Rand Corporation thinks it might have a method.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20150629230738id_/http://fortune.com/2012/06/28/india-slows-becomes-investment-hotspot/
|
FORTUNE – This week, Coca-Cola KO and Ikea bet billions of dollars on India’s consumers – curiously enough, at a time when growth across one of the world’s fastest-growing economies has markedly slowed. Over the next several years, Coca-Cola, the world’s biggest soft drink maker, and its local partners will spend $5 billion to expand distribution and add capacity to meet rising demand. This follows a move by Ikea, the world’s largest furniture maker, to enter India with a $1.9 billion investment. It expects to open 25 stores there over the next 15 to 20 years. Indeed, the commitments will probably take some pressures off of New Delhi policymakers, who’ve been trying to boost faltering foreign investor sentiment, as India’s economy hasn’t been growing as fast as it once did. For the fiscal year ended March 31, GDP grew 6.5%, the slowest pace in almost a decade. Sectors such as manufacturing, mining and agriculture did poorly, raising new concerns about the economy. MORE: Ratan Tata looks back The investments also come as India’s currency, the rupee, has fallen sharply against the U.S. dollar. Consequently, this has frustrated some foreign businesses with units in India, since the money they repatriate in dollars is worth less and that puts a dent on earnings. But Coke and Ikea aren’t nearly as dismayed. Looking long-term, India’s economy is too hard for the biggest companies to ignore. A few reasons: With 1.2 billion people, India is the world’s second-most populous country; a rapidly growing middle class; and even with slower growth at 6.5%, India’s economy looks far better than much of the developed world as parts of Europe struggles with an ongoing debt crisis and the U.S. economy has grown at an average of about 1.6% over the past 10 years. More broadly, the latest investments illustrate what’s perhaps a bigger draw: a response to open-market reforms. Ikea’s entrance into India was made possible by a policy change last year that allows some retailers to own 100% of their Indian businesses. Before, single-brand retailers were allowed to own only 51% of a partnership with an Indian company. The change is significant, since it could open India, one of the last big consumer markets of the world, to many of the biggest retailers that were previously shut out, said Urjit Patel, a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings Institution based in Mumbai. MORE: Muhtar Kent’s new Coke Coke is another example. The world’s largest soft drink maker has had a turbulent history in the country. It first began selling its products in India in 1955, but left in 1977 when government regulations changed and required company to have a local partner and hand over its secret ingredients. Coke returned in 1993 after India liberalized its economy, which included changing rules allowing for wholly owned subsidiaries. Since then, the company has been particularly bullish on India, having spent some $2 billion since it returned. Clearly what will drive India’s growth won’t just be its growing population and rising incomes. India’s bureaucratic government and unpredictable market regulations have been a gamble for many companies. At a visit to Fortune in January, Honeywell CEO Dave Cote said: “I have no math to support this, but I have always felt that just government bureaucracy cost India three GDP points a year. And I am a fan of the country.” While the number of foreign investments in 2011 rose by 20% to 932 projects over the previous year, the average deal was worth only $63 million – lower than the average $73 million in 2007, according to Ernst & Young. As more restrictions disappear, more deals will be made. Ironically enough, if history repeats itself, a flux of market reforms might emerge in the coming years – just as they did two decades ago when India underwent a severe economic slowdown that prompted government officials to push through changes that helped liberalize its economy.
|
medium
| 1.416667 |
Why Coca-Cola, Ikea and other big companies are choosing to go into India just as its growth begins to slow.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20150823232517id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2015/02/05/bank-of-england-leave-rates-as-inflation-weighs.html
|
The decision comes after official figures last month showed that inflation in the U.K. fell to its lowest level since May 2000 in December, and is likely to fall even further, according to BoE Governor Mark Carney. Read MoreUK inflation plummets to 14-year low in December The annual rate of consumer price inflation halved to 0.5 percent in December year-on-year, from 1.0 percent in November. Minutes of the rate-setting MPC's January meeting showed that Martin Weale and Ian McCafferty, the committee's two hawks, joined others in voting for no change in rates due to higher risk of prolonged low inflation. Prior to December's meeting, Weale and McCafferty had voted for an increase in rates every month from August. "While Governor Carney has recently warned that interest rates might go up sooner than are currently expected, there is absolutely no chance that this will come today, and probably not for the remainder of this year," said Robert Kuenzel, director of euro area economic research at Daiwa Capital Markets. Read MoreBoE's Carney slams euro zone austerity Meanwhile, data from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and Nielsen released Wednesday showed that the U.K. is now battling the deepest level of food deflation on record. "For twenty-one consecutive months, prices in Britain's shops have fallen, this month by -1.3 percent," BRC Director General, Helen Dickinson, said. "It's the second time in three months that we've seen food prices fall, accelerating to their lowest levels on record." "Our view is that rates will begin to rise in fourth quarter this year but any guidance from the central bank will help to shape our views. We stand by our view that despite the fall in the short-term inflation outlook and a number of surprises from a number of central banks, restarting the BoE QE programme is not on the cards," chief economist at Investec, Philip Shaw said.
|
low
| 0.75 |
The Bank of England left its benchmark interest rate unchanged Thursday, as the prolonged risk of stubbornly low inflation makes a hike in 2015 less likely.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20150824114005id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2015/02/27/gurley-heres-the-problem-with-start-ups-today.html
|
Start-ups nowadays present a greater risk to investors because they're getting too much money before maturing as companies, Bill Gurley said Friday. "The problem that's driving the risk is just the large amounts of money that are going into these nascent private companies," the general partner at Benchmark told CNBC's "Squawk Alley." "If you go back 10 to 15 years ago, it was very rare for any company to raise more than, say, $50 million prior to their IPO. Now we're cramming hundreds of millions of dollars into companies that are very early-staged." The Wall Street Journal reported on Feb. 18 that there are 73 start-ups valued at at least $1 billion around the world. Gurley added that receiving large amounts of money at such an early stage can ultimately cripple startups down the road. "The money that goes in piles up in terms of liquidation preference and eventually that turns into such a big weight that they can't get more financing. You saw that with Aereo," he said. Read MoreThe unicornification of Silicon Valley continues Aereo, a company that provided live television streaming on Internet-connected devices, filed for bankruptcy last November and raised about $2 million from its assets auction this week. Hopefully, if we get five to 10 of those, people will start acting a little more sane," he also said. Nevertheless, Gurley said he believed this trend would continue. "From my point of view, it's better if we don't accelerate the stupidity. If that happens, we're going to have a really big correction. I'd rather see something that's more pragmatic."
|
low
| 1.666667 |
Bill Gurley, general partner at Benchmark, said Friday what he believes is the biggest problem presented by start-ups today.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20151018021359id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/jun/14/francis-alys-story-of-deception
|
Francis Alÿs is running across a field, chasing a tornado that whirls and whips and plumes into the clear Mexican sky. It is a small tornado, it must be said, but big enough to engulf trees, and any passing Belgian that gets in its path: a storm of dust, stones, clods of earth, straw and animal droppings. The artist pants across the dry earth with his handheld camera and steps right into the the thunderous sizzle and roar, the no-visibility brown-out. Inside the vortex there is a sudden momentary stillness, as he stands in a column of dead air, before being pelted once again by the infernal dust. Time and again he races towards these high-altitude tornadoes before disappearing. Tornado is an almost hour-long video, as gripping as it is terrifying. Here comes another one; there he goes again. Eventually, we glimpse the artist, bruised and gulping for air, prone in the dust. Filmed over 10 years, it is the latest and most surprising work in a new show that focuses on the Antwerp-born artist's actions and performances. Alÿs never struck me as a brave guy. He is probably best known in the UK for the exhibition he mounted at the National Portrait Gallery last year, of over 200 amateur portraits of Saint Fabiola, collected from auctions and thrift stores, all based on a lost 19th-century original by Jean-Jacques Henner. The collection is still touring the world. On another occasion, Alÿs released a wild fox into the same gallery, to lope and wander through the rooms at night, followed by CCTV security cameras. Like a fox, Alÿs does a lot of walking and standing about and watching, making understated films and videos, as well as genial little paintings and jerky, hand-drawn animations. Tate Modern's exhibition is a delight: thought-provoking, funny and full of pathos, as well as danger. I have seen other survey shows of his work, but none as good as this. It begins with a film of a mirage quivering on a Patagonian road and ends on a similarly quiet note, with a short animation of a woman pouring liquid from one glass to another, and back again, to a quietly lilting song. In between, there are marching bands, the wail of police sirens, shouts and silences, like that stillness at the centre of the tornado. One room is entirely dedicated to silence, with rubber tiles deadening the sound of one's footfalls, each tile decorated with a picture of a finger raised to the lips, like a sign in some old-fashioned library. Alÿs has lived in Mexico City since the mid 1990s, and many of his works take place in the city's teeming streets and around the Plaza de la Constitución, a huge paved piazza with a very tall flagpole at its centre. He has shepherded sheep around this flagpole, to the sound of church bells; he has filmed the city's itinerant workers queuing in its shadow, as it sweeps like a sundial through the long day. He has even queued with the artisan plumbers, electricians and housepainters who stand there with their painted signs, offering their services for hire. Alÿs had his own sign: Tourist, it read. What can a tourist offer apart from an outsider's bewilderment, a guidebook's secondhand knowledge, ignorance and cultural misunderstanding? A tourist can always go home, but Alÿs decided to stay in Mexico City for decades. Once, he pushed a large block of ice through the streets, skidding and sliding till all that was left was a dirty pebble melting on the greasy tarmac. Sweating through the streets, you think he might evaporate, too, and that what we are watching is a man performing his own insignificance and futility. But I also imagine his persistence as a walking anecdote: "Did you see that stupid gringo, pushing that block of ice?" Alÿs is a perpetual gringo, whether walking through Mexico, running a stick across the railings in front of posh London houses, or trailing a line of green paint from a leaking can through divided Jerusalem, following the invisible Green Line. Another time, Alÿs walked into a Mexican gun shop and bought himself a pistol, cocked it and carried it in full view through the streets, walking fast, the gun aimed at the sidewalk. He looks like a man intent on some murderous purpose. In the end, the cops roar up and he is bundled into the patrol car. We watch this performance – if performance it is – twice, on two adjacent screens, the action on the righthand screen emblazoned with the word re-enactment. Alÿs, one decides, is foolhardy rather than brave. He walks a fine line between public nuisance and menace, holy fool and extremely annoying person. There is something about his height (he is well over 2m tall), his gangling lope and faux-naive innocence that not only allows him to get away with such acts, but also to persuade others to go along with his schemes. In 2002, he persuaded several hundred students and locals to arm themselves with shovels and attempt to move a huge sand dune on the outskirts of Lima, Peru; they shuffled in line over the dune, shovelling the sand in front of them as they went. Of course, it didn't work. There's more to When Faith Moves Mountains than mere absurdity. All that effort was an attempt at collectivity, and meant to highlight the possibility of co-ordinating some kind of urbanism among the dunes and the uncontrolled, ramshackle, ad-hoc housing developments around the Peruvian capital. People do daft things all the time, but it doesn't often make for meaningful art. In Alÿs's case, it does. He once crossed the border between Mexico and the US by going the long way round – an entire Phileas Fogg-style circumnavigation, in order to bypass the border crossing of a few heavily policed yards. He recently returned from Kabul, where he took part in a UN-sponsored NGO mission to decide what to do about the Bamiyan Buddhas, the pre-Islamic Buddhist monuments blown up by the Taliban in 2001. The world is full of painful absurdities, and in his art Alÿs celebrates hope and the power of the imagination, in the face of misery and iniquity. Here comes the mariachi band, with farting trombones, wailing trumpets and clashing cymbals, sweatily orchestrating Alÿs's repeated attempts to drive a VW beetle up a steep unmade road to the brow of a hill, somewhere in Tijuana. The band strikes up, gathers itself, sets off full of hope and bravura, and as the car runs out of steam so does the band. The music wilts, dies and then the car sets off again, full of purpose, going nowhere. Weirdly, hilariously, it is an inspiration.
|
medium
| 1.078947 |
Artist Francis Alÿs has poured paint through Israeli border controls, leapt into tornadoes and attempted to move mountains. Is he brave or stupid? Adrian Searle finds out in an inspiring new show of his work
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160115071818id_/http://www.9news.com.au:80/wild-weather/2016/01/14/10/28/sydneysiders-brace-for-temperatures-to-nudge-40-degrees
|
A man has died after a tree fell onto a moving car during a severe storm lashing Sydney this afternoon. The man was a passenger in the car when the tree fell on it as it travelled easterly on Nepean Street in Emu Plains just after 2pm. He died at the scene, while the female driver was taken to Westmead Hospital in a critical condition with pelvic and abdominal injuries. The man died at the scene. (9NEWS) Trees have been downed across Sydney in heavy winds. (9NEWS) For the latest on power outages, visit the Ausgrid alerts page. CCTV from a nearby storage facility showed the full force of the damaging winds, as a wall collapsed and a roof was lifted from a structure under the strain of heavy gusts. A home in Mount Druitt was badly damaged after a fell through the home's facade, narrowly missing an 84-year-old woman inside. East Hills Girls High School was damaged by fire. (Laura Ashleigh) Lightning is also believed to have sparked a fire which tore though a section of East Hills Girls High School in Panania. The Princes Highway in Rockdale was closed after a section of a building collapsed onto the street. Energy provider Ausgrid is working to restore power across the state, with at least 38,000 homes left without electricity at one point this afternoon. Motorists are advised to delay travel where possible and take care as the storm passes over. The collapsed building facade in Rockdale. (Gorana Coric) A fallen tree damaged a home in Mount Druitt. (9NEWS) • Rockdale: the Princes Highway remains closed in both directions due to a partial building collapse at Bestic Street. • Blakehurst: fallen wires are causing heavy northbound traffic near Blake Avenue. • Hammondville: Fallen trees are causing hazards for motorists at several locations on Heathcote Road. • Wetherill Park: The Horsley Drive is closed in both directions between the M7 and Ferrers Road due to fallen trees. • Clarendon: Hawkesbury Valley Way is closed in both directions between Moses Street and Percival Street due to a fallen tree. • Cranebrook: The Northern Road has reopened after being closed southbound due to a fallen tree earlier. A man has died after tree fell on a car in Emu Plains. (9NEWS) Earlier, the Bureau of Meteorology issued a severe thunderstorm warning for south west Sydney. Wind gusts of up to 96km/h were detected at Camden Airport and up to 122km/h at Sydney Airport. A severe thunderstorm warning is now in place for Sydney. Fairfield, Leppington and Liverpool are expected to bear the brunt of the wild weather. Thunderstorms are also set to hit the Central Tablelands, Hunter and Illawarra regions this evening. It follows a spate of wild weather at the beginning of 2016 that saw the heaviest rain in the city since April last year and flooding that devastated the state’s mid-north coast and Hunter region. The warning area as of 2pm AEDT. The Bureau of Meteorology said that despite today’s heat, a forecast of light north-westerly winds reaching speeds of about 20-35km/h meant any fire danger was likely to stay in the low-moderate range. The BOM advises beachgoers seeking respite from the heat to take extreme protective measures in the sun, with the UV Index expected to reach an extreme level. Full warning from the Bureau of Meteorology. (Visit the BoM site here for updated details) The State Emergency Service advises that people should: * Move your car under cover or away from trees. * Secure or put away loose items around your house, yard and balcony. * Keep clear of fallen power lines. * Keep clear of creeks and storm drains. * Don't walk, ride your bike or drive through flood water. * If you are trapped by flash flooding, seek refuge in the highest available place and ring 000 if you need rescue. * Unplug computers and appliances. * Avoid using the phone during the storm. * Stay indoors away from windows, and keep children and pets indoors as well. * For emergency help in floods and storms, ring the SES (NSW and ACT) on 132 500.
|
medium
| 0.967742 |
Sydneysiders are already sweltering with temperatures nudging 40 degrees today - but relief will be swift, with the city likely to receive a downpour and thunderstorm late this afternoon.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160526094359id_/http://www.aol.com:80/article/2016/01/19/stephen-hawking-humans-may-not-survive-another-100-years/21299325/
|
Before you go, we thought you'd like these... According to Stephen Hawking, the human race is in danger of being wiped out in the next 100 years, and it's all our own fault. According to the BBC, the physicist says he believes humanity will face dangerous scenarios of our own making during the next century, including nuclear war, global warming and genetically-engineered viruses. See more of Hawking through the years: Stephen Hawking: Humans may not survive another 100 years PRINCETON, NJ - OCTOBER 10: Cosmologist Stephen Hawking on October 10, 1979 in Princeton, New Jersey. (Photo by Santi Visalli/Getty Images) Stephen Hawking (born in 1942), British mathematician and scientist, 1989. (Photo by Jean-Regis Rouston/Roger Viollet/Getty Images) Professor Stephen Hawking poses for a photograph in his office at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, U.K, in April 1991. Hawking has written countless scientific papers as well as books, receiving 12 honorary degrees and becoming Cambridge's Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, a post held by Sir Isaac Newton over 300 years earlier. (Photo by Bryn Colton/Getty Images) SF.Hawking.1.bv.2Â5/PASADENA  Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking in his Cal Tech office. (Photo by Brian Vander Brug/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images) (GERMANY OUT) - COL*08.01.1942-Physiker, Mathematiker, Grossbritannien- Porträt (Photo by LS-PRESS/ullstein bild via Getty Images) LONDON - DECEMBER 16: (EMBARGOED FOR PUBLICATION IN UK TABLOID NEWSPAPERS UNTIL 48 HOURS AFTER CREATE DATE AND TIME) Scientist Stephen Hawking and wife Elaine Mason arrive at the European Premiere of 'Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events' at the Empire Leicester Square on December 16, 2004 in London. (Photo by Dave Benett/Getty Images) OVIEDO, SPAIN: British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking gives his conference to open the XXV Prince of Asturias Awards Anniversary event in Oviedo, Northern Spain, 12April 2005. Stephen Hawking won the Prince of Asturias Award for Concord in 1989. AFP PHOTO / Miguel RIOPA (Photo credit should read MIGUEL RIOPA/AFP/Getty Images) FRANKFURT, GERMANY - OCTOBER 19: Professor Stephen Hawking (L) and his wife Elaine Mason attend the international bookfair on October 19, 2005 in Frankfurt, Germany. South Korea is the guest of honour at the 57th annual Frankfurt Book Fair where 270.000 people are expected to visit the world's most important book fair, and 7000 exhibitors from 100 countries are present. (Photo by Ralph Orlowski/Getty Images) FRANKFURT/MAIN, Germany: British physicist Stephen Hawking visits his German publisher Rowohlt's stand at the Frankfurt Book Fair 19 October 2005. The Frankfurt book fair opened its doors for the 57th time with the focus on authors from the Korean peninsula, but the presence of some 60 writers from the South and none from the North spoke as much of politics as literature. AFP PHOTO DDP/THOMAS LOHNES GERMANY OUT (Photo credit should read THOMAS LOHNES/AFP/Getty Images) BEIJING, CHINA - JUNE 18: (CHINA OUT) Cosmologist Stephen Hawking visits the Temple of Heaven on June 18, 2006, in Beijing, China. Hawking has arrived in Beijing prior to his lecture at the Great Hall of the People today where he will discuss the origins of the universe at the Strings 2006 International Conference, hosted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Theoretical Physics. The conference runs from June 19 ?24 at the Beijing Friendship Hotel. (Photo by ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images) BEIJING - JUNE 19: (CHINA OUT) British scientist Stephen Hawking, delivers a lecture entitled 'The Origin of the Universe' at the Great Hall of the People June 19, 2006 in Beijing, China. British scientist Stephen Hawking is also visiting Beijing to attend the conference on the riddle of string theory which, if solved, could help unlock the mysteries of black holes and the creation of the universe, according to reports. (Photo by China Photos/Getty Images) BEIJING - JUNE 21: British scientist Stephen Hawking attends a conference during the 2006 International Conference on String Theory on June 21, 2006 in Beijing, China. Hawking is visiting Beijing to attend the conference on the riddle of string theory which, if solved, could help unlock the mysteries of black holes and the creation of the universe, according to reports. (Photo by Cancan Chu/Getty Images) JERUSALEM, -: British scientist Stephen Hawking is helped to turn his head as he arrives 10 December 2006 at the Israeli premier's offices to meet with Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem. Hawking is in Jerusalem for a lecture at the Bloomfield Museum of Science. AFP PHOTO/Yoav LEMMER (Photo credit should read YOAV LEMMER/AFP/Getty Images) LONDON - JANUARY 17: Professor Stephen Hawking delivers his speech at the release of the 'Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' on January 17, 2007 in London, Ebgland. A group of scientists assessing the dangers posed to civilisation have moved the Doomsday Clock forward two minutes closer to midnight as an indication and warning of the threats of nuclear war and climate change. (Photo by Bruno Vincent/Getty Images) KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, UNITED STATES: British cosmologist Stephen Hawking(L) has his communication device adjusted by an aide at a pre-flight press conference 26 April 2007 at Kennedy Space Center, FLorida. Hawking, who has spent his career pondering the nature of gravity from a wheelchair, is set to experience weightlessness during a 'vomit comet' flight in Florida Thursday. The idea is to give 'the world's expert on gravity the opportunity to experience zero gravity' said Peter Diamandis the chief executive of the Zero Gravity Corporation. Hawking, 65, the British author of the blockbuster 'A Brief History of Time,' will be surrounded by a medical team on the padded plane as it flies a roller-coaster trajectory to produce periods of weightlessness. AFP PHOTO / ROBERT SULLIVAN (Photo credit should read ROBERT SULLIVAN/AFP/Getty Images) KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, UNITED STATES: British cosmologist Stephen Hawking passes well wishers before boarding a plane 26 April 2007 at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Hawking, who has spent his career pondering the nature of gravity from a wheelchair, is set to experience weightlessness during a 'vomit comet' flight in Florida Thursday. The idea is to give 'the world's expert on gravity the opportunity to experience zero gravity' said Peter Diamandis the chief executive of the Zero Gravity Corporation. Hawking, 65, the British author of the blockbuster 'A Brief History of Time,' will be surrounded by a medical team on the padded plane as it flies a roller-coaster trajectory to produce periods of weightlessness. AFP PHOTO / ROBERT SULLIVAN (Photo credit should read ROBERT SULLIVAN/AFP/Getty Images) Professor Stephen Hawking gives a lecture entitled 'Why We Should Go Into Space' during the 50 Years of NASA lecture series at George Washington University in Washington, DC, April 21, 2008. AFP PHOTO/Jim WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images) South Africa former President Nelson Mandela (R) meets with British scientist Professor Stephen Hawking (L) in Johannesburg on May 15, 2008. Hawking, who has devoted his career to finding the origins of the universe, is in the country to begin a search for Africa?s answer to Einstein. Some of the world?s leading high-tech entrepreneurs and scientists have backed a ?75m plan to create Africa?s first postgraduate centres for advanced math and physics, after the British government declined to provide funding. AFP Photo/Denis Farrell / POOL (Photo credit should read DENIS FARRELL/AFP/Getty Images) (FILES) British scientist Stephen Hawking attends the 2008 Cambridge Honnorary Degrees 2008's procession on June 23, 2008 at Cambridge University in east England. Renowned British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has bet 100 dollars (70 euros) that a mega-experiment this week will not find an elusive particle seen as a holy grail of cosmic science, he said Tuesday September 9, 2008. In the most complex scientific experiment ever undertaken, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be switched on Wednesday, accelerating sub-atomic particles to nearly the speed of light before smashing them together. AFP PHOTO/SHAUN CURRY/FILES (Photo credit should read SHAUN CURRY/AFP/Getty Images) WASHINGTON - AUGUST 12: U.S. President Barack Obama (R) presents the Medal of Freedom to physicist Stephen Hawking during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House August 12, 2009 in Washington, DC. Obama presented the medal, the highest civilian honor in the United States, to 16 recipients during the ceremony. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) US President Barack Obama presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking during a ceremony in the East Room at the White House on August 12, 2009. Obama awarded 16 individuals the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor. AFP PHOTO/Jewel SAMAD (Photo credit should read JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images) PASADENA, CA - JANUARY 14: Scientist Stephen Hawking of 'Into The Universe With Stephen Hawking' speaks via satellite during the Science Channel portion of the 2010 Television Critics Association Press Tour at the Langham Hotel on January 14, 2010 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images) NEW YORK - JUNE 02: Physicist Stephen Hawking onstage during the 2010 World Science Festival Opening Night Gala at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center on June 2, 2010 in New York City. (Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images) Physicist Stephen Hawking attends the 2010 World Science Festival Opening Night Gala at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center on June 2, 2010 in New York City. LOS ANGELES - MARCH 9: 'The Hawking Excitation' -- When Wolowitz gets to work with Stephen Hawking (left), Sheldon (Jim Parsons, right) is willing to do anything to meet his hero, on THE BIG BANG THEORY, Thursday, April 5 (8:00-8:31 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. (Photo by Sonja Flemming/CBS via Getty Images) LONDON, ENGLAND - AUGUST 29: Professor Stephen Hawking speaks during the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Paralympics at the Olympic Stadium on August 29, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking poses for a picture ahead of a gala screening of the documentary 'Hawking', a film about the scientist's life, at the opening night of the Cambridge Film Festival in Cambridge, eastern England on September 19, 2013. Hawking tells the extraordinary tale of how he overcame severe disability to become the most famous living scientist in a new documentary film premiered in Britain. AFP PHOTO / ANDREW COWIE (Photo credit should read ANDREW COWIE/AFP/Getty Images) British actor Eddie Redmayne (R) pose with British scientist Stephen Hawking (L) at the UK premiere of the film 'The Theory of Everything' in London on December 9, 2014. The film is based on the memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, by Jane Hawking, and stars Eddie Redmayne protraying the renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking. AFP PHOTO / JUSTIN TALLIS (Photo credit should read JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images) LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - DECEMBER 09: (EMBARGOED FOR PUBLICATION IN UK NEWSPAPERS UNTIL 48 HOURS AFTER CREATE DATE AND TIME) Professor Stephen Hawking attends the UK Premiere of 'The Theory Of Everything' at Odeon Leicester Square on December 9, 2014 in London, England. (Photo by Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images) LONDON, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 08: Lucy Hawking and Stephen Hawking attend the EE British Academy Film Awards at The Royal Opera House on February 8, 2015 in London, England. (Photo by Samir Hussein/WireImage) LONDON, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 18: The world's best know scientist Professor Stephen Hawking takes VisitLondon.com's Official Guest of Honour Adaeze Uyanwah on a personal guided tour of his favourite places in the city's famous Science Museum on February 18, 2015 in London, England. On the tour Professor Hawking said he was pleased to lend his synthesised 'voice' to actor Eddie Redmayne for his Oscar-nominated performance in The Theory of Everything but added ' unfortunatley Eddie did not inherit my good looks.' (Photo by Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for London & Partners) LONDON, ENGLAND - MARCH 30: (SUN NEWSPAPER OUT. MANDATORY CREDIT PHOTO BY DAVE J. HOGAN GETTY IMAGES REQUIRED) Stephen Hawking attends 'Interstellar Live' at Royal Albert Hall on March 30, 2015 in London, England. (Photo by Dave J Hogan/Getty Images) And he told the Radio Times further progress in science and technology could increase that risk. "We are not going to stop making progress, or reverse it, so we must [recognize] the dangers and control them." Of course, Hawking has voiced his concerns on this topic before. Just last year, he warned that artificial intelligence could wipe out the human race. These latest comments come just days before Hawking is scheduled to give this year's BBC Reith Lectures, which will explore research into black holes. The first part of the lecture will air on BBC Radio 4 Jan. 26, and you can catch part two Feb. 2. RELATED: See incredible photos taken of Earth from space Stephen Hawking: Humans may not survive another 100 years A large lightning strike on Earth lights up solar panels on the International Space Station in this NASA picture taken by astronaut Kjell Lindgren released September 2, 2015. REUTERS/NASA/Kjell Lindgren/Handout via Reuters THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. IT IS DISTRIBUTED, EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS A photo taken by Expedition 46 flight engineer Tim Peake of the European Space Agency (ESA) aboard the International Space Station shows Italy, the Alps, and the Mediterranean on January, 25, 2016. REUTERS/NASA/Tim Peake/Handout ATTENTION EDITORS - FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. THIS PICTURE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. REUTERS IS UNABLE TO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE AUTHENTICITY, CONTENT, LOCATION OR DATE OF THIS IMAGE. THIS PICTURE IS DISTRIBUTED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS A photo taken by European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Tim Peake aboard the International Space Station shows an Aurora over northern Canada, taken from a point just north of Vancouver, January 20, 2016. The Canadian Rockies, Banff and Jasper national parks are visible in the foreground. The Bright lights of Edmonton, Red Deer and Calgary (left of center) are also visible. REUTERS/NASA/Tim Peake/Handout ATTENTION EDITORS - FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. THIS PICTURE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. REUTERS IS UNABLE TO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE AUTHENTICITY, CONTENT, LOCATION OR DATE OF THIS IMAGE. THIS PICTURE IS DISTRIBUTED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California, home to Super Bowl 50, as seen from the International Space Station, February 7, 2016. Expedition 46 Commander Scott Kelly, who took the photo, wrote, "Got to see the #SuperBowl in person after all! But at 17,500MPH, it didn't last long." REUTERS/NASA/Scott Kelly/Handout ATTENTION EDITORS - FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. THIS PICTURE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. REUTERS IS UNABLE TO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE AUTHENTICITY, CONTENT, LOCATION OR DATE OF THIS IMAGE. THIS PICTURE IS DISTRIBUTED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS The robotic arm in Japan's Kibo laboratory successfully deploys two combined satellites from Texas universities from the International Space Station, January 29, 2016. The pair of satellites -- AggieSat4 built by Texas A&M University students, and BEVO-2 built by University of Texas students -- together form the Low Earth Orbiting Navigation Experiment for Spacecraft Testing Autonomous Rendezvous and Docking (LONESTAR) investigation. REUTERS/NASA/Tim Peake/Handout ATTENTION EDITORS - FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. THIS PICTURE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. REUTERS IS UNABLE TO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE AUTHENTICITY, CONTENT, LOCATION OR DATE OF THIS IMAGE. THIS PICTURE IS DISTRIBUTED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly): "Day 256. #MilkyWay births 7 new stars a year, so 2 star births to go. #GoodNight from @space_station! #YearInSpace" Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly): "#EarthArt Get over your mountains with rock and grit. #YearInSpace" Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly): "Day 251. Greetings to my friends in #Macedonia. #GoodNight from @space_station! @kevinbleyer" Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly): "#Auckland #NewZealand, Sorry we don't see you much during your day but you look great down there. #YearInSpace" NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, who recently past the halfway mark of his one-year mission on the International Space Station, photographed the Nile River during a nighttime flyover. Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) wrote, "Day 179. The #Nile at night is a beautiful sight for these sore eyes. Good night from @space_station! #YearInSpace." (Photo via NASA) NASA astronaut Scott Kelly captured images and video from the International Space Station during an early morning flyover of the United States. Sharing with his social media followers, Kelly wrote, "Clear skies over much of the USA today. #GoodMorning from @Space_Station! #YearInSpace." (Photo via NASA) An astronaut aboard the International Space Station took this photograph of small island cays in the Bahamas and the prominent tidal channels cutting between them. For astronauts, this is one of the most recognizable points on the planet. The string of cays — stretching 14.24 kilometers (8.9 miles) in this image — extends west from Great Exuma Island (just outside the image to the right). Exuma is known for being remote from the bigger islands of The Bahamas, and it is rich with privately owned cays and with real pirate history (including Captain Kidd). (Photo via NASA, Caption via M. Justin Wilkinson, Texas State University, Jacobs Contract at NASA-JSC) Kjell Lindgren (@astro_kjell): "#London. Beautiful in the daylight, even prettier at night." Pico de Orizaba, Mexico (NASA, International Space Station, 02/10/11) Photo: NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center/Flickr Brasilia, Brazil at Night (NASA, International Space Station, 01/08/11) Photo: NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center/Flickr Ice Floes, Kamchatka Coast, Russia (NASA, International Space Station, 03/15/12) Photo: NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center/Flickr Nile river viewed from space Japan, Narita, View of earth. (Photo by: JTB/UIG via Getty Images) (Photo by: JTB Photo/UIG via Getty Images) The Yarlung Zangpo Grand Canyon (or Tsangpo Gorge) in Tibet is the deepest canyon in the world, and longer than the Grand Canyon. February 25, 2004. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images) The city of Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland, and lies along the Firth of Forth. April 29, 2006. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images) The place in the United States where four states come together: the four corners area in the western United States. The states of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico share a common point. June 11, 2001. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images) Salzkammergut, Austria. Large parts of the region were listed as a World Heritage Site in 1997. June 22, 2003. Satellite image. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images) UNITED STATES - JULY 18: A view of the Earth during a solar eclipse. The shadow of the Moon can be seen darkening part of Earth. This shadow moves across the Earth at nearly 2,000 kilometers per hour. Only observers near the center of the dark circle see a total solar eclipse - others see a partial eclipse where only part of the Sun appears blocked by the Moon. This spectacular picture of the Aug. 11, 1999 solar eclipse was one of the last ever taken from the Mir space station. Mir was decommissioned after more than ten years of use. *Image Credit*: Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (Photo by NASA/SSPL/Getty Images) IN SPACE - AUGUST 31: In this satellite image provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Tropical Storm Ernesto (R) is shown at 9:45 am EDT is shown east of northern Florida while Hurricane John heads towards Mexico's west coast August 31, 2006. (Photo by NOAA via Getty Images) AUGUST 11: This satellite handout from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows Tropical Storm Charley bearing down on Jamaica the morning of August 11, 2004. The storm is expected to cross through Jamaica and Cuba before making its way into the Gulf of Mexico later in the week. (Photo by NOAA via Getty Images) Rub Al Khali, a sand desert South East of Saudi Arabia ; sand dunes are sculptured and moved by the winds, in blue the argillakeeous subsoil, and in white the salt crusts left out by the oueds in the rainy season., Rub Al Khali Desert, Saudi Arabia, True Colour Satellite Image (Photo by Planet Observer/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) True colour satellite image of Oceania with cloud coverage. This image in Lambert Conformal Conic projection was compiled from data acquired by LANDSAT 5 & 7 satellites., Oceania With Cloud Coverage, True Colour Satellite Image (Photo by Planet Observer/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) True colour satellite image of Africa with major rivers. This image in Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area projection was compiled from data acquired by LANDSAT 5 & 7 satellites., Africa With Major Rivers, True Colour Satellite Image (Photo by Planet Observer/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) True colour satellite image of Europe. This image in Lambert Conformal Conic projection was compiled from data acquired by LANDSAT 5 & 7 satellites., Europe, True Colour Satellite Image (Photo by Planet Observer/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) True colour satellite image of Asia with major rivers. This image in Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area projection was compiled from data acquired by LANDSAT 5 & 7 satellites., Asia With Major Rivers, True Colour Satellite Image (Photo by Planet Observer/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) True colour satellite image of North America with major rivers. This image in Lambert Conformal Conic projection was compiled from data acquired by LANDSAT 5 & 7 satellites., North America With Major Rivers, True Colour Satellite Image (Photo by Planet Observer/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) True colour satellite image of South America. This image in Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area projection was compiled from data acquired by LANDSAT 5 & 7 satellites., South America, True Colour Satellite Image (Photo by Planet Observer/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) UNSPECIFIED : Clouds and sunglint as seen during the STS-96 mission from the Space Shuttle Discovery. (Photo by SSPL/Getty Images) KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, UNITED STATES: A view of the Puna de Atacama area of Argentina 24 Janaury from US space shuttle Endeavour at an altitude of 160 nautical miles as part of EarthKAM involving 51 middle schools from three nations. Endeavour is docked with the Russian space station Mir for five days of joint science operations and transfer of supplies to the Russian space station. AFP PHOTO/NASA (Photo credit should read AFP/AFP/Getty Images) More from AOL.com: Taxi drivers in Hungary demand Uber to be shut down Donald Trump jokes Hillary Clinton sounds like a barking dog Oscars 'heartbroken' over lack of diversity, Academy pledges 'big changes'
|
high
| 1.923077 |
Professor Stephen Hawking says humans are at risk of a lethal 'own goal', from a series of dangers of our own making.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160625123859id_/https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/06/24/brigham-will-keep-open-nurses-strike/2uwYsvKG4hsoKPnQjcMOpI/story.html
|
Negotiators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the union representing its 3,300 nurses again failed to reach a contract agreement Friday that would avert a planned strike, but said they would continue trying to work out a deal over the weekend. Unless the hospital and the Massachusetts Nurses Association reach a deal, the union has threatened a one-day strike, beginning 7 a.m. Monday. Brigham plans to lock out the union nurses for an additional four days while using temporary replacement workers. Both sides negotiated for 12 hours on Friday and said they would resume talks Saturday morning. “Nurses will not give up this fight,” the union said in a statement Friday night. “Today nurses moved significantly on wages and are seeking a fair settlement. Without a fair agreement that values patients over profits, Brigham nurses are prepared to strike for 24 hours starting Monday morning.” Hospital officials said they remain hopeful that a strike will be avoided, but said they are continuing their “comprehensive preparedness efforts” to ensure that patients receive care if the walkout occurs. Both sides have agreed to meet for another round of contract negotiations Friday. The planned strike is already disrupting care at Brigham, where surgeries are being canceled and patients are being transferred in preparation for a possible walkout by a significant portion of the hospital’s workforce. The union and Brigham, a teaching hospital owned by Partners HealthCare, disagree on wages, benefits, and staffing levels for nurses. Hospital and union officials continued their bitter exchange of public statements this week, even as negotiators made a last-ditch effort to reach a compromise. Union officials accuse hospital leaders of “corporate greed” and disrespect for nurses, which led them to stage a job action. Hospital officials say the union’s demands on wages and health benefits are unaffordable. “There is nothing we want more than to avert a strike and the disruption that would occur,” Brigham’s chief executive, Dr. Elizabeth G. Nabel, said at a press conference Friday. Nabel said she was disappointed hospital-union relations have deteriorated so badly, and she questioned whether the union truly wanted to avoid a strike, given that the job action was coordinated with two other nursing strikes in Minnesota and California. Brigham has been preparing for a strike for several days. It plans to scale operations down to 60 percent of normal and employ about 700 replacement nurses. Brigham’s chief operating officer, Dr. Ron M. Walls, said the 793-bed hospital had 570 patients on Friday. It plans to reduce that number to 450 patients by Monday. Many patients already have been transferred to other hospitals. Walls said Brigham would not transfer adult patients without their consent. But for babies in the newborn intensive care unit, state officials can authorize a transfer without parental consent if they believe the infants won’t be able to receive safe care at Brigham, he said. “We don’t anticipate getting to that,” he added. Patients in the newborn ICU include premature babies who need tubes and machines to feed and breathe. Thirteen infants already have been transferred from the unit. Brigham plans to reduce its surgeries from about 120 a day, to about 90 a day. Surgeons will use just 15 operating rooms, instead of the regular 42. Hospital officials said they will not turn away patients seeking emergency care during the planned strike. All patients coming to the emergency department would be treated, they said, but those needing to be admitted may be transferred to another hospital. Brigham leaders said they are working to ensure patients receive safe care during a strike, but the nurses union issued a statement saying its members are worried about patient safety. “That is why Brigham nurses voted overwhelmingly for a 24-hour strike starting Monday morning,” the union said. “It is solely the hospital’s decision to jeopardize safe patient care with a subsequent four-day lockout.” The hospital and the union have been negotiating a contract for about 10 months.
|
medium
| 1.057143 |
No deal had been announced as of 9 p.m. Friday, 12 hours after talks began, but both sides remained at the bargaining table and said they were continuing discussions into the night.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160713214948id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2005/04/10/dining/stores-say-wild-salmon-but-tests-say-farm-bred.html
|
"I know you are looking at the label, but believe me," the clerk at Fulton said. "Don't pay any attention to the label." When his remarks were repeated to Herbert Slavin, an owner of M. Slavin, he said: "How do you know he is an expert? We do not misrepresent." The Times tested two salmon fillets sold as wild by Grace's Marketplace, one labeled "Rainforest," indicating it came from Washington State, the other "Columbia River." Joe Doria Jr., an owner of Grace's, said that one of his suppliers, Alaskan Feast, had sold wild Alaskan troll king salmon to the store. But Daniel Kim, an owner of Alaskan Feast, said he had not sold the store Rainforest or Columbia River wild salmon, adding that it would have been almost impossible to buy any fresh wild salmon from either source in March. Mr. Doria offered another explanation: "Sometimes when these fish come off the boat they get separated, and I got sent the wrong salmon from my supplier." In addition, Mr. Kim called to say that a whole salmon one of his salesman at the Fulton Fish Market sold to this reporter as wild was actually farmed. He said his salesman had "made a mistake." The fish was not analyzed. Margaret Wittenberg, the vice president for marketing and public affairs at Whole Foods, said its wild salmon was properly labeled and came from the trolling of California's wild king salmon. The Times's findings were confirmed by two Norwegian researchers, Dr. Bjorn Bjerkeng, a leading researcher in the analysis of salmon carotenoids at the Institute Aquaculture Research in Sunndalsora, Norway, and Dr. Harald Lura, a fish biologist and expert in salmon reproduction, who said of the study, "The methodology and results are convincing." Wild salmon become pink by eating sea creatures like krill, which contain a carotenoid called astaxanthin. Farmed salmon are naturally grayish but turn pink when they are fed various sources of astaxanthin, including one that is chemically synthesized and others that originate from yeast or microalgae. During Craft's two-week testing, it determined that the controlled sample and the one from Eli's had more than 60 percent of the form of astaxanthin that occurs naturally, within the range of 50 to 80 percent typical for wild salmon. All the other samples except the one from Whole Foods had 30 percent or less of the form dominant in wild salmon. The sample from Whole Foods had 37.9 percent. The farmed samples tested high in either the synthetic or the yeast forms of astaxanthin. Laura Fleming, a spokeswoman for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, a state agency that promotes wild seafood, said, "The symptom is not confined to Manhattan." She added, "We've had calls from various places around the country over the last several years from indignant fans telling us that stores are promoting product as wild Alaskan salmon when in fact it is not wild salmon at all." "The extent of the problem is certainly surprising," Ms. Fleming said, "especially in a place like New York, where the most sophisticated consumers in the country live, people who really scrutinize a purchase." Federal regulations governing country-of-origin labeling took effect on Monday. They require fish to carry a paper trail back to the source, but they apply to full-service markets like grocery stores, not to fish markets. Joseph Catalano, a partner at Eli's and the Vinegar Factory who is responsible for the fish those markets sell, said he was not surprised by the test results. "The bottom line on all this is money," he said. Faced with fillets of wild and farmed salmon, even renowned chefs like Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin and Mr. Pasternack of Esca, who pay top dollar for the choicest seafood, could not visually distinguish one from the other. After the fillets were cooked, however, they could taste the difference. "The most obvious clue is flavor," said Ms. Fleming of the Alaskan agency, "but by that time it's too late." Correction: April 13, 2005, Wednesday A front-page picture caption on Sunday with an article about tests by The Times that showed New York City stores sell farm-raised fish as "fresh wild salmon" referred imprecisely to the salmon shown. Although it was for sale at Eli's of Manhattan on the Upper East Side, where a sample tested as wild salmon, it was not the sample.
|
low
| 1 |
Growing concerns about safety of farm-raised fish have given fresh wild salmon price as high as $29 per pound as opposed to $5 to $12, but tests show that fish sold as wild at six of eight New York City stores were farm raised; many in seafood business suspect wild salmon should not be so available from November to March; with West Coast catches restricted by quotas, farmed fish constitute 90 percent of American salmon sales; photos, graph (L)
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160721004559id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/culture/film/starsandstories/3663499/Sexing-up-Jane-Austen.html
|
This is the story - some Austen scholars say "theory" - at the heart of Becoming Jane, a new biopic of the author. Anne Hathaway, the American actress last seen in The Devil Wears Prada, plays Austen. Scottish actor James McAvoy, very much the British actor of the year after his performance in The Last King of Scotland, plays Lefroy - a lad we first encounter in the film bare-chested and fighting in a boozy brothel. Austen purists may wish to have a little sit-down before going to see Becoming Jane. "There's fire in it," says McAvoy enthusiastically of a film that offers a pacy, even "sexed-up" take on Austen. If there had been a Lefroy in Pride and Prejudice, Mr Darcy would have stayed in that lake. But, says McAvoy, we must understand Lefroy's laddish behaviour in the context of his obligations as a young man taken under the wing of his lawyer uncle in a time when to marry "correctly" was to marry for money. "Lefroy had a lot of responsibilities placed on his shoulders from the age of 12. His mother had married badly, he was the eldest son, and he knew that if he made his way in the world, he would save his family's ailing fortunes. And if you know that from a really early age, you're going to go off the rails." McAvoy attributes much of Becoming Jane's narrative brio to Hathaway. "I'm loath to use the word 'feisty' but," he continues with a grin, "she has made her feisty! Anne had very strong opinions about playing Jane, and I had very strong opinions just because I'm quite opinionated. So we clashed at first. But quite quickly we realised that we could be each other's best allies because we both cared about the same things: we wanted the production to have some integrity and not just be a British rom-com in tights." Historical accuracy was also important. Having done his research, McAvoy firmly believes Austen did have a meaningful and ultimately life-changing relationship with Lefroy. He is also insistent that Lefroy - who eventually became Lord Chief Justice of Ireland at the time of the potato famine - would not have had an Irish accent, contrary to the thoughts of Becoming Jane's producers. "It's completely disrespectful to an Irishman to suggest the English overlords all had Irish accents, just because you want a bit of the Irish blarney for the American audiences," he says. Such forthrightness and confidence go some way to explaining why, at 27, McAvoy has come very far very fast. His TV roles, in White Teeth, State of Play and Shameless (on which he met his wife, actress Anne-Marie Duff), quickly led to a clutch of great and eclectic big-screen roles, from Mr Tumnus in Narnia to the student quiz geek in last year's comedy Starter for Ten. It's largely due to McAvoy's jolting performance that Becoming Jane is more than just a handsomely mounted chick-flick or a Mother's Day treat. And this ability to transcend genre limitations bodes well for his upcoming action movie debut, in the comic book adaptation Wanted alongside Morgan Freeman; filming begins next month, but McAvoy is already looking rather buff, courtesy of some stints in the gym. More exciting still is his immersion in another great literary world. Later this year we'll see McAvoy playing the male lead in Atonement, the keenly anticipated film of Ian McEwan's novel by director Joe Wright (Pride and Prejudice). Even this most coolly assured of young actors is finding himself swept up in the decades-spanning majesty of McEwan's epic account of love and war. "I finished [shooting] that film last August," he says, "but I had to go in yesterday and record some additional dialogue. It immediately made me start crying again. I find it so easy to empathise with that story, because it's part of us, it's part of our history," McAvoy concludes with characteristic impassioned intensity. "It's part of Britain."
|
medium
| 1 |
Rising star James McAvoy talks to Craig McLean about his role as the 'real' Mr Darcy in the upcoming film about the author's life.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160801194228id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2013/07/31/opinion/friedman-revenge-of-the-mistresses.html?
|
Every so often you read a news article so revealing that it triggers this thought: I wonder if we’ll look back on that story in five years and say, “We should have seen this coming. That story was the warning sign.” For me that article was a July 25 piece in The Washington Post about how jilted mistresses of corrupt Chinese government officials have become the country’s most important whistle-blowers — turning to the Internet to expose the antics of senior bureaucrats. The Post detailed the case of a 26-year-old named Ji Yingnan, who had been engaged to wed Fan Yue — a deputy director at the State Administration of Archives — until she discovered that he had been married with a son the entire time they were together. To get her revenge, Ji “has released hundreds of photos online that offer a rare window into the life of a Chinese central government official who — despite his modest salary — was apparently able to lavish his mistress” with no end of luxury items, The Post reported. The first time “they went shopping, Ji said, the couple went to Prada and paid $10,000 for a skirt, a purse and a scarf. A month after they met, Fan rented an apartment for them that cost $1,500 a month and spent more than $16,000 on bedsheets, home appliances, an Apple desktop and a laptop, according to Ji. Then he bought her a silver Audi A5, priced in the United States at about $40,000, she said. ... ‘He put cash into my purse every day,’ said Ji in a letter to the Communist Party complaining about Fan’s behavior.” It gets better. The Post reported that “a well-known Chinese blogger who has posted Ji’s photos and videos on his Web site said he spoke with Fan last month. Fan told the blogger that he didn’t spend as much money as Ji claims, saying it was less than $1.7 million but more than $500,000. ‘This woman is not good. She is too greedy,’ the blogger, Zhu Ruifeng, said Fan told him.” Oh, I see. It was less than $1.7 million. That’s good to know! This guy is a senior bureaucrat in the state archives. What sort of illicit activity was he up to in the file rooms to earn that kind of cash? Every government has corruption, including ours. But China’s is industrial strength. My colleague David Barboza last year exposed how then Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s mother, son, daughter, younger brother, wife and brother-in-law had collectively amassed $2.7 billion in assets. But when you see how much money a deputy archives director was able to amass — and how brazenly he spent it — you start to wonder and worry. When I visited China in September, I wrote that I heard a new meme from Chinese businesspeople whom I met: “Make your money and get out.” More than ever, I heard a lack of confidence in the Chinese economic model. We should hope that China can make a stable transition from one-party Communism to a more consensual, multiparty system — and a stable diversification of its low-wage, high-export, state-led command economy — the way South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia and Singapore have done. Its huge savings will help. The world can ill afford a chaotic transition in China. With America stuck in slow growth, Europe mired in stagnation and the Arab world imploding, China has been a vital economic engine for the global economy. If China’s sagging growth and employment rates meet rising discontent with corruption by officials — trying to get their own while the getting is still good — we will not have a stable transition in China. And if one-sixth of humanity starts going through an unstable and uncertain political/economic transition, it will shake the world. It would be great if Chinese reporters, bloggers, citizens’ groups and, yes, Internet-empowered mistresses could expose corruption in ways that help make that transition both necessary and possible. But these virtuous civil society actors will only succeed if they find allies in the Communist Party, if they can empower those party cadres who understand the risk to stability, and to their party’s future, posed by runaway corruption. The Ji and Fan story is very entertaining. But if it is just the tip of an iceberg of corruption that destabilizes China, it won’t be a laughing matter. How Chinese officials behave or misbehave not only will affect us — from the value of our currency to the level of our interest rates to the quality of the air we breathe — it may be the biggest thing that affects us outside of our own government. There is reason for worry. “The boldness that Chinese leaders have shown in growing their economy from a backwater into the world’s second largest has not been matched, of course, in developing democratic institutions, but more importantly in developing good and honest governance,” said Jeffrey Bader, President Obama’s former senior adviser on China and the author of “Obama and China’s Rise.” But, if China’s leaders don’t take on this issue, he added, “then there will be more corruption, more alienation of ordinary people, and more questions about China’s stability. That would be bad news not only for China, but for the United States, whose future is intertwined with China’s.” An earlier version of this column misspelled the surname of a New York Times reporter. It is David Barboza, not David Barbosa. A version of this op-ed appears in print on July 31, 2013, on page A21 of the New York edition with the headline: Revenge Of the Mistresses. Today's Paper|Subscribe
|
high
| 1.24 |
Corruption in China has a ripple effect. Who knew the account of a government official’s extramarital affair would be a warning sign?
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160802160749id_/http://www.theguardian.com:80/politics/2016/apr/17/brexit-messy-divorce-trade-negotiations
|
When I told a senior government official that I had put £20 on Brexit as an insurance policy – we believers in Europe will need something to cheer us up if the vote goes that way – his reply was: “Only twenty quid?” This reaction epitomises the extremely gloomy mood among most of my pro-European friends and acquaintances. And while they dismiss Alexander “Boris” Johnson’s antics as beneath contempt, many people are surprised at the way my old friend Lord Lawson is putting himself around as someone who boasts about living in France but is blithely relaxed about the prospect of Brexit, indeed actively propagating it. Lawson’s position is also interesting because he is a grandfather. The opinion polls have to be treated with a kilogram of salt after last year’s general election; however, even allowing for polling error, what seems incontrovertible is the finding that the young tend to be strongly in favour of our remaining in the European Union, whereas the so-called “grey vote” is predominantly in favour of Brexit. With due respect to the grandfather generation, they do not, according to the polls, seem to be paying much attention to the views and ambitions of the younger people who will have to cope with the consequences of Brexit rather longer than they will. Moreover, one of the paradoxes of the position in which David Cameron has landed us is that he has managed to shoot himself in the foot by altering the system by which the young come on to the register. Thus, instead of being automatically eligible to vote on reaching the age of 18, they have to go through a conscious act of registering. This may have suited Cameron when he was panicking about losing the last election – and let us not forget that it was concern about the electoral threat from Ukip that induced him to commit to a referendum in the first place. Unfortunately it does not suit him now. It is a safe bet that, as a result of that earlier cheap electoral trick, many of the youngsters on whom Cameron and Osborne should be relying on for the referendum will find that, unlike their grandparents, they have not got around to being eligible to vote on the biggest political issue of their young lives. Of course, another paradox in this bizarre affair – an affair that has now become big news around the world – is that the prime minister cannot possibly win this referendum without the support of the Labour party. As I have gone about my travels in recent weeks, a constant refrain has been: where is Labour? Yes, the stakes are so large that her majesty’s opposition, and commentators such as myself, have – to coin a phrase – no alternative but to support Cameron and Osborne on this issue, even if we regard their economic policies as misguided and their social policies as harmful and destructive. Well, the Labour party turned out on parade last Thursday, and Jeremy Corbyn pronounced that there was an “overwhelming” case for our remaining in the EU. This is statesmanlike behaviour and judgment. Whatever the deficiencies of the EU, we are not going to remedy them if we leave. And the Lawson/Johnson idea that we can renegotiate our way into the advantages of belonging to an organisation that we have just left is for the birds. Messy divorces do not work like that. From my own recent soundings in Europe, I can conclude with reasonable confidence that every one of the other 27 states of the EU desperately wants us to “Remain”. But I also conclude that, if we do indulge in Brexit, the attitude of the others, their patience having been sorely tried, will be seriously uncooperative. The process of renegotiating trade arrangements, and from a position of the weakness of the suppliant, could take decades, just as it took successive Conservative and Labour governments decades to be admitted to what is now the EU in the first place. All this stuff about “no problem in negotiating new arrangements” is redolent of the 1950s, when, having failed to sign the Treaty of Rome in the first place, we tried to join the others in a broad European Free Trade Association. That came to nothing and, as our negotiator at the time, Reginald Maudling, commented in his memoirs: “The French argument basically was that the British wanted to take everything and give nothing, that we were not communautaire.” In the end we set up, with other non-Common Market members, a rival that proved inadequate and led to our eventual applications to join the real thing. There are lots of things wrong with the real thing. But we really do have the best of both worlds by remaining in the union while being outside the eurozone and the Schengen passport-free area. Above all, Europe and the rest of the advanced economies are faced with so many problems that what is needed now is maximum cooperation, not splendid isolation. Oh, and by the way: much of the regulation so many people complain about was necessary to make the single market work. Britain, under Margaret Thatcher and her hard-working negotiator Arthur Cockfield, was the main force behind the formation of the single market. And those latter-day Thatcherites who evoke the lady’s name in favour of Brexit should heed the words of her biographer Charles Moore: “Mrs Thatcher was the most effective promoter of European integration Britain has ever known.”
|
medium
| 1.375 |
The Leave campaign’s idea that renegotiation of trade terms with the EU will be easy is absurd. We will be suppliant outsiders, just as we were in the 1950s
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160807182446id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/technology/news/11680655/Googles-Nest-launches-home-monitoring-camera.html
|
Eight infrared LEDs and new algorithms have been added to improve night vision and motion detection. Nest Cam is smart enough to tell the difference between a torch and sunlight, so it won’t get confused and switch to day mode if an intruder shines a light at it. The Nest Cam costs £159 and will be available to purchase from a range of retailers including Amazon, John Lewis, Currys, PC World and B&Q in July. For an additional monthly fee, users can subscribe to the Nest Aware cloud service, which allows them to scroll through 10 days of content for £8 per month or 30 days for £24 per month. All video is stored and processed in the cloud. This allows Nest Cam to provide more accurate alerts when it detects movement in the house, and identify areas where common false alarms occur, like shadows moving across ceilings. Users can make and share up to three hours of clips, including timelapses, and create custom 'activity zones' around areas of interest – such as a door – so they can be alerted to anyone coming in or going out. "The cloud is not just used for video recording, but when you stream back to your phone, it can also be used for image processing – whether it's algorithmic or to enhance resolution in certain areas or just get more depth, and you do that in real time," said Mr Paillet. The Nest Cam has a built-in microphone and speaker, so the user can talk to whoever is in their home via the smartphone app. Nest said that all data is encrypted in the cloud and while it is being transmitted between devices, to ensure it remains private and secure. Although the primary purpose of the camera is home security, Nest also sees the potential for it to be used as an entertainment device. Nest is piloting the ability for users to stream directly to YouTube Live from a Nest Cam. Unbox Therapy creator Lewis Hilsenteger, American videographer Devin Graham and YouTube personality Justine Ezarik have all been taking part in the pilot, giving viewers a behind-the-scenes look at their lives. Nest said that some of the most popular camera feeds will stream directly to Nest’s own YouTube channel, so people can see live video of everything from puppies to scenic landscapes. The launch of Nest Cam coincides with a refresh of the rest of Nest's product portfolio, with the launch of the second-generation Nest Protect smoke alarm, new features for the Nest Learning Thermostat, and a new app for Android and iOS. The new Nest Protect includes a sensor that can detect the small particles generated by fast-burning fires, as well as the large particles from slow-burning fires. It also carries out automatic safety checks and allows users to silence false alarms from their phones. The Nest Learning Thermostat is getting new features via a software update, including safety temperature alerts to warn users if their home gets too cold, and the ability see smoke and carbon monoxide alerts from their Nest Protect on their thermostat screen. Meanwhile the new app has a new look and added features that make it easier to control Nest products, as well as the ability for users to view live videos of their home via a Nest Cam and record clips. "We’ve built a portfolio of best-in-class products that each stand on their own while doing more together," said Nest chief executive Tony Fadell. "The result? Energy saved, lives spared, and countless memories recorded and shared.” The new Nest Protect costs £89 and is available for purchase at nest.com. The new Nest Learning Thermostat software will begin rolling out today and will take up to two weeks to reach Nest customers. The Nest app is available for free in the Google Play Store and iOS App Store. The news comes after French startup Netatmo launched a new smart home camera earlier this week, that will compete directly with Nest Cam. Netatmo's camera, which is called Welcome, costs £199, and features proprietary face recognition technology that is capable of recognising registered people's faces even if it only catches a glimpse of them as they walk past. It does not require a cloud subscription. Follow the Telegraph on LinkedIn. Share this article with your network.
|
medium
| 0.542857 |
Nest Labs, the home automation company bought by Google for $3.2 billion last year, has launched its first new product since the acquisition – a home security camera
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160808121546id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/news/uknews/4214042/Test-card-girl-bemused-by-her-return-to-British-television.html
|
Miss Hersee, better known as the "Test Card girl", said she was "bemused" that the BBC had reintroduced its most famous test card, which features her as an eight-year-old girl playing noughts and crosses on a blackboard with a toy clown. "I had absolutely no idea it was being brought back," she said. "The BBC didn't tell me anything about it. I thought it had all gone away for good, but I suppose I don't mind that it is being brought back." Miss Hersee, 50, who lives in the New Forest, Hants, with her mother and her two teenage children, said that she was surprised the BBC had not updated the image. "I am a bit bemused as I would have thought they would want to modernise it, but if they feel it is suitable to use after all these years, then fine," she said. "I suppose the feeling of nostalgia is all around at the moment." The BBC test card, known as Test Card F, which shows Miss Hersee wearing a red shirt and red hairband, and Bubbles, the clown, surrounded by colour scales and test graphics, was transmitted from 1967 to 1998. Designed by Miss Hersee's father, George Hersee, a BBC engineer, it is being broadcast again on the BBC's high definition (HD) channel to help viewers tune their HD sets, and is currently shown for 90 seconds every two hours when programmes are not on air. Technicians have rescanned the card in HD to allow viewers to set the colour, contrast and sharpness on modern televisions. "I haven't actually seen the image on television for about 10 years and we don't have an HD television so I would have to go into one of those electrical shops that sells televisions to see it, but I suspect if I did do that, I would just cringe and walk out," said Miss Hersee, a film and theatre costume maker, who has worked on films including The Last Emperor and Dangerous Liaisons and the west end production of The Phantom of the Opera. "My children think it is amusing that the test card is back and they are more excited about it than I am." Test Card F has been broadcast for an estimated 70,000 hours since it was first shown on BBC 2 in 1967, and Miss Hersee, who was paid around £100 by the BBC when the image first appeared, is thought to hold the record for the most TV appearances by a single person. "I think it [the record] is staggering, and now it has been brought back, there is no hope for anyone else to get anywhere near that record," she said. "When we did it, nobody thought it would last for more than a few years, because none of the other test cards had." Miss Hersee said that she believed her father, who died in 2001, would be "proud" to see the return of his test card. "I think my father would also be surprised that the BBC have decided to use it again," she said. "But I think he would be quite proud of the fact that something he'd done so long ago has been brought back. I'd think he'd be smiling at the achievement that yet another generation will see his work."
|
medium
| 0.9 |
She has clocked up more air time on television than anyone else. But for Carole Hersee, her return to our screens after an absence of more than 10 years has come as a complete surprise.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160818181929id_/http://www.aol.com:80/article/2016/08/17/turkey-to-release-38-000-prisoners-to-make-space-for-coup-plotte/21453325/
|
ISTANBUL — Turkey will release some 38,000 prisoners under a penal reform announced on Wednesday as the arrests of tens of thousands of people suspected of links to last month's attempted coup burden overstretched jails. The reform, extending an existing probation scheme, was one of a series of measures outlined on Wednesday in two new decrees under a state of emergency declared after the July 15 failed putsch. The government gave no reason for the reform. Related: Turkey's Purge to Coup-Proof Its Military May Backfire Turkey's Western allies worry President Tayyip Erdogan is using the crackdown to target dissent. Angrily dismissing Western concerns over stability in the NATO member, Turkish officials say they are rooting out a serious internal threat. The decrees, published in the country's Official Gazette, also ordered the dismissal of 2,360 more police officers, more than 100 military personnel and 196 staff at Turkey's information and communication technology authority, BTK. Those dismissed were described as having links to U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara accuses of orchestrating the bloody coup attempt. Gulen denies involvement in the failed putsch. Under the penal reform, convicts with up to two years left in sentences are eligible for release on probation, extending the period from one year. The "supervised release" excludes those convicted of terrorism, murder, violent or sexual crimes. To be eligible for the scheme, prisoners must have served half of their sentences. Previously they were required to have already served two thirds of their sentence. Possible military coup in Turkey People take cover near a bridge during an attempted coup in Istanbul, Turkey July 16, 2016. REUTERS/Yagiz Karahan Turkish solders stay with weapons at Taksim square as people protest agaist the military coup in Istanbul on July 16, 2016. Turkish military forces on July 16 opened fire on crowds gathered in Istanbul following a coup attempt, causing casualties, an AFP photographer said. The soldiers opened fire on grounds around the first bridge across the Bosphorus dividing Europe and Asia, said the photographer, who saw wounded people being taken to ambulances. / AFP / OZAN KOSE (Photo credit should read OZAN KOSE/AFP/Getty Images) Turkish solders stay with weapons at Taksim square as people protest agaist the military coup in Istanbul on July 16, 2016. Turkish military forces on July 16 opened fire on crowds gathered in Istanbul following a coup attempt, causing casualties, an AFP photographer said. The soldiers opened fire on grounds around the first bridge across the Bosphorus dividing Europe and Asia, said the photographer, who saw wounded people being taken to ambulances. / AFP / OZAN KOSE (Photo credit should read OZAN KOSE/AFP/Getty Images) People demonstrate outside Ataturk international airport during an attempted coup in Istanbul, Turkey, July 16, 2016. REUTERS/Huseyin Aldemir TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY ANKARA, TURKEY - JULY 16: People react against military coup attempt, at Kizilay square in Ankara, Turkey on July 16, 2016. (Photo by Abdulhamid Hosbas/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) A group of approximately 50 young citizens of Turkey hold their national flag and shout slogans in support for Turkish President Recep Tayip Erdogan and his government, in Sarajevo on early on July 16, 2016. Turkish citizens, mostly students who reside in Bosnian capital, responded to Erdogan's call for citizens to get out on the streets and show support for Turkey's government during the military coup. / AFP / ELVIS BARUKCIC (Photo credit should read ELVIS BARUKCIC/AFP/Getty Images) Turkish military block access to the Bosphorus bridge, which links the city's European and Asian sides, in Istanbul, Turkey, July 15, 2016. REUTERS/Stringer Turkish security officers detain Turkish police officers (in black) on July 15, 2016 in Istanbul, during a security shutdown of the Bosphorus Bridge. The Turkish military on July 15 said that it had assumed power over Turkey, in what the prime minister has termed an illegal act. 'The power in the country has been seized in its entirety,' said a military statement read on NTV television, without giving further details. The military's website was not immediately accessible. / AFP / Yasin AKGUL (Photo credit should read YASIN AKGUL/AFP/Getty Images) ANKARA, TURKEY - JULY 15 : 'There is an uprising attempt from within the army,' says Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim. 'Those who are doing this will be punished in the hardest way.' (Photo by Ahmet zgi/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) ISTANBUL, TURKEY - JULY 15: Turkish soldiers block Istanbul's Bosphorus Brigde on July 15, 2016 in Istanbul, Turkey. Istanbul's bridges across the Bosphorus, the strait separating the European and Asian sides of the city, have been closed to traffic. Reports have suggested that a group within Turkey's military have attempted to overthrow the government. Security forces have been called in as Turkey's Prime Minister Binali Yildirim denounced an 'illegal action' by a military 'group', with bridges closed in Istanbul and aircraft flying low over the capital of Ankara. (Photo by Gokhan Tan/Getty Images) Turkish soldiers block Istanbul's iconic Bosporus Bridge on Friday, July 15, 2016, lit in the colours of the French flag in solidarity with the victims of Thursday's attack in Nice, France. A group within Turkey's military has engaged in what appeared to be an attempted coup, the prime minister said, with military jets flying over the capital and reports of vehicles blocking two major bridges in Istanbul. Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told NTV television: "it is correct that there was an attempt," when asked if there was a coup. (AP Photo/Emrah Gurel) A Turkish soldier stands on guard on the side of the road on July 15, 2016 in Istanbul, during a security shutdown of the Bosphorus Bridge. The Turkish military on July 15 said that it had assumed power over Turkey, in what the prime minister has termed an illegal act. 'The power in the country has been seized in its entirety,' said a military statement read on NTV television, without giving further details. The military's website was not immediately accessible. / AFP / Yasin AKGUL (Photo credit should read YASIN AKGUL/AFP/Getty Images) Turkish security officers detain Turkish police officers (in black) on July 15, 2016 in Istanbul, during a security shutdown of the Bosphorus Bridge. The Turkish military on July 15 said that it had assumed power over Turkey, in what the prime minister has termed an illegal act. 'The power in the country has been seized in its entirety,' said a military statement read on NTV television, without giving further details. The military's website was not immediately accessible. / AFP / BULENT KILIC (Photo credit should read BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images) ANKARA, TURKEY - JULY 15 : 'There is an uprising attempt from within the army,' says Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim. 'Those who are doing this will be punished in the hardest way.' (Photo by Ahmet zgi/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) ANKARA, TURKEY - JULY 15 : 'There is an uprising attempt from within the army,' says Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim. 'Those who are doing this will be punished in the hardest way.' (Photo by Ahmet zgi/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) ANKARA, TURKEY - JULY 15 : 'There is an uprising attempt from within the army,' says Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim. 'Those who are doing this will be punished in the hardest way.' (Photo by Ahmet zgi/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) Police officers stand guard near the Turkish military headquarters in Ankara, Turkey, July 15, 2016. REUTERS/Tumay Berkin TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY Turkish military block access to the Bosphorus bridge, which links the city's European and Asian sides, in Istanbul, Turkey, July 15, 2016. REUTERS/Stringer Turkish soldiers are seen on the Asian side of Istanbul, Friday, July 15, 2016. A group within Turkey's military has engaged in what appeared to be an attempted coup, the prime minister said, with military jets flying over the capital and reports of vehicles blocking two major bridges in Istanbul. Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told NTV television: "it is correct that there was an attempt," when asked if there was a coup. (AP Photo/Emrah Gurel) An injured man is carried near a bridge during an attempted coup in Istanbul, Turkey July 16, 2016. REUTERS/Yagiz Karahan A group within Turkey's military has attempted to overthrow the government, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said as security forces closed bridges along the Bosphorus and descended on Ankara and Istanbul. A group within Turkey's military has attempted to overthrow the government, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said as security forces closed bridges along the Bosphorus and descended on Ankara and Istanbul. "This measure is not an amnesty," Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag wrote on Twitter of the penal reform. "Around 38,000 people will be released from... jail in the first stage as a result of this measure." He did not say why the reform was needed but Turkey's prison population has trebled over the last 15 years. There were 188,000 prisoners in Turkey as of March, some 8,000 more than the existing capacity. The 38,000 would represent just over 20 percent of the prison population. Another measure said the president could appoint as head of the armed forces any general or admiral, removing the requirement that the military chief be a top commander of the army, navy or air force. Under another move, the TIB telecoms authority will be closed. Alongside tens of thousands of civil servants suspended or dismissed, more than 35,000 people have been detained in the purge. More from NBC News: Man Who Planned New Year's Eve ISIS Attack Pleads Guilty Why Obama Likely Won't Be Able to Close Guantanamo Jerry Sandusky Takes the Stand to Deny Sex Abuse
|
high
| 2 |
The country announced Wednesday that they will release almost 40,000 prisoners under a penal reform ahead of coup suspects.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160909142656id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/09/08/icus-critical-lack-coordination/HD0JnFlsL0tDovpFfinyMK/story.html
|
The first thing you notice are the alarms. Walk into the intensive care unit in just about any American hospital, and you’ll be bombarded with beeping and blaring noises and flashing lights. It may look high tech. It’s not. It’s “no different than it was 50 years ago,” said Dr. Peter Pronovost, a critical care physician at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. “There are stacks and stacks of machines with wires sticking out of them. It’s chaos.” ICUs are one of the most crucial departments of any hospital — heroic places with devoted staff who pull the sickest of patients from death. But many ICU physicians say they’re also woefully — and often dangerously — out of date. Six million patients in the United States pass through ICUs each year, and studies show serious and sometimes fatal medical errors are routine. And a recent review published in the journal Critical Care found no major advances in ICU care since the field’s inception in the 1960s. Now, a handful of doctors and nurses in such places as Baltimore, Boston, and San Francisco are trying to yank the ICU into the 21st century. Pronovost, for instance, has called in submarine engineers and the physicists who built the spacecraft that whizzed past Pluto last year to help redesign intensive care. They’ve been shocked at how primitive even new ICU units can be: “They walk through the ICU and just flinch,” Pronovost said. One of the most pressing problems: None of the medical devices so critical to patient care — ventilators, pumps, drug infusers, pulse rate monitors — talk to each other, and, in what’s dubbed “the alarms race,” all try to outdo each other by beeping ever louder. Nurses answer a false alarm on average every 90 seconds, he said. “We have alarm fatigue. We’ve become numb to the noise and start to block them out,” said Rhonda Wyskiel, a former ICU nurse at Johns Hopkins Hospital who now works to develop patient safety measures for hospitals at the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality, which Pronovost directs. Pronovost, who made his name devising a checklist for doctors to consult before inserting a central venous catheter — a simple innovation that dramatically cut bloodstream infections — is now trying to create a “smart ICU.” “What I want to do for the ICU is what Steve Jobs did for the iPhone,” he said. To take one example: Many patients’ beds need to be partially raised to prevent pneumonia. Nurses are supposed to check angles each shift, sometimes using paper protractors. It’s a vital check that sometimes isn’t done or is not documented. Pronovost’s solution: a $2 sensor that could monitor the angle of the bed continuously. Another sensor could monitor the compression devices that are supposed to pump patient’s limbs to prevent deadly blood clots but are often left unplugged. He’d also like to connect ventilators to patient medical records to make sure vital information like the patient’s height — which affects the ventilator setting — is transferred. In his ideal world, all devices in the ICU would be networked and continually monitored, cutting the cacophony of alarms and the nursing workload. ICU nurses face an average of 200 duties per shift and spend a lot of time checking and double-checking orders and logging simple data from one device into another. Devices that actually communicate with each other and integrated information would leave them more time to spend with patients instead of machines, Wyskiel said. Such thinking is long overdue, said Dr. Marie Csete, an anesthesiologist and critical care specialist who now heads the Huntington Medical Research Institutes in Pasadena, Calif., and has coauthored a series of papers proposing ICU upgrades in the Journal of Critical Care. She said patient monitoring “needs to be designed from the ground up” because the current outmoded system is dangerous, inefficient, and impersonal. “Somewhere under the ventilator, rapid infuser, and stacks of drips, there is a patient, but where do you put your gaze?” said Csete. “We’re creating a generation of doctors who look at screens instead of patients.” Csete knows the dangers first hand: A few years ago, her mother, who was 87 at the time, nearly died in a Florida hospital after an aortic valve replacement. While in the ICU, she developed multiple organ failure and pneumonia. Orders were ignored, alarms were disregarded, and no one seemed to be paying attention. “If I hadn’t been there, she would have been dead the second day.” Csete said. “I was not impressed.” But reengineering an ICU is a huge undertaking, and one that involves a skill set not taught in medical school. “When physicians see the amount of math involved, they just scatter to the hills,” Csete said. The paralyzing weight of electronic data Take the problem of data overload. All those noisy devices in the ICU generate an immense amount of data. In a modern ICU, a single patient can generate 2,000 data points per day, said Dr. Brian Pickering, an anesthesiologist and critical care physician at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. In a 24-bed ICU like his, that’s 50,000 data points a day. Important information is easily lost, or forgotten. Pickering joined the Mayo Clinic nine years ago from Ireland, where patient data were still logged on a paper chart at the end of the bed. He was overwhelmed, he said, by electronic records in the United States that had too many tabs and screens and were difficult to navigate. “Point. Click. Point. Click. Point. Click. Back and forth,” he said. “That may work if you’ve only got one patient. But I’ve got 24 in the ICU, and any one of them could be in crisis at any minute.” With colleagues, Pickering created an “electronic intern,” called AWARE, that identifies the most important information a physician needs and highlights it, organizing it around organ systems. (The system is now being sold to hospitals through a Rochester startup called Ambient Clinical Analytics; Pickering and the Mayo Clinic benefit financially from the sales.) Another app now being tested, called EMERGE, extracts data from patient records to warn clinicians if an intervention they are planning might cause harm. “There’s so many things physicians can’t find, so things get missed,” said Hildy Schell-Chaple, an ICU nurse at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center who has been testing EMERGE, which was developed at Johns Hopkins. Yet another approach comes from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, which is testing a secure microblogging platform that allows everyone on an ICU care team to see all messages relating to a patient. It promotes better communication between staff and the patient, and ideally, leads to fewer errors. That is, if people use it, said Dr. Anuj Dalal, the hospitalist who designed the program. He said some staff members think of the system as too much work. They prefer e-mail, or even old-fashioned pagers. “From a technology standpoint, it’s usable,” Dalal said. “Getting people to use it is a completely different thing.” Learning to see the patient as a person Similar resistance has slowed the adoption of telemedicine, which can link specialists trained in critical care medicine to small hospitals lacking such expertise. The remote specialists can order treatments, check prescriptions, detect errors, and even talk directly to patients. Early on, some physicians and nurses in ICUs so disliked the feeling of being watched by distant experts that they threw lab coats or towels over cameras. Slowly, acceptance is growing; telemedicine systems are in place in about 16 percent of the country’s ICU units, said Dr. Craig M. Lilly, a critical care specialist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and expert on telemedicine. A 2014 study showed telemedicine can reduce ICU mortality — in large part by ensuring that nurses and physicians respond quickly when patients take a turn for the worse. “Sometimes the nurse doesn’t notice, sometimes the nurse is busy doing other things, sometimes the nurse is too chicken to wake up the doctor at 2 a.m., and sometimes the doctor just won’t listen to a nurse,” Lilly said. New technology may also help ICUs — once notorious for alienating families and keeping them at arm’s length — involve loved ones in a patient’s care. UCSF is now testing bedside tablets that patients or families can use to upload photos and descriptions of themselves. They can let doctors know what they like to be called, what their hobbies are, what they fear about their hospital stay, and what their healing goals are. The care team can then see them as individuals — and not, Schell-Chaple said, as just some 48-year-old man in Bed 8 who had a liver transplant. “The ICU environment,” she said, “is not set up to treat people with respect and dignity.” A push to have devices share their data The biggest hurdle to building a truly smart ICU has been medical manufacturers that don’t want to open up their devices and share the data they collect. “I used to be guilty of that too, and it’s unfortunately so shortsighted,” said Joe Kiani, founder of Masimo, a manufacturer of noninvasive patient monitoring devices based in Irvine, Calif. “We all think we have this amazing data and we want to hoard it, thinking we’ll monetize it some day.” But Kiani soon came to realize that free data flow and linked devices were key to improving patient safety. He founded the Patient Safety Movement Foundation in 2013 and is working to get medical device manufacturers to sign pledges that they’ll share data from their devices. Some 60 of about 100 key device manufacturers have signed on, said Kiani, who is an electrical engineer by training. He’s spent the past decade working on a device, called Root, that can collect and simplify multiple streams of patient data. “I now see a future where everything’s connected,” he said. “Hospitals are finally having a eureka moment.”
|
high
| 1.4 |
Doctors and engineers are fighting to yank one of a hospital’s most important units into the modern era.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160929144608id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/09/28/15/39/states-move-to-stop-shark-attacks
|
There have been 137 deaths from unprovoked shark attacks in Australia in the past century, including one in 2015 and two so far this year. In contrast, 280 people drowned in waterways in 2015/16. * Shark detection and mitigation strategies include tagging, acoustic receivers, installation and maintenance of barriers in areas including Albany and Busselton, and the government's SharkSmart website. * The state abandoned its controversial catch-and-kill policy after a 13-week trial in 2014. Individual sharks can be killed if they pose a serious threat to public safety under orders from WA's Fisheries Department. * Last unprovoked death: 60-year-old female diver at One Mile Reef, June 2016 * The state government announced a shark management strategy in 2015 including coastal aerial patrols, satellite listening stations, in-water surveillance trials, drones and drum lines. A trial of two eco-friendly shark barriers was called off this year after they failed to withstand rough conditions. * Great white sharks are a protected species, but the federal government has signalled it will consider a cull on NSWs north coast after 17-year-old surfer Cooper Allen was attacked at Ballina on Monday. * Last unprovoked death: 41-year-old male surfer at Shelly Beach, Feb 2015 * The shark control program, introduced in 1962, relies on mesh nets and drum lines (large, baited hooks) at areas including the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, central and far north Queensland. There is also a 24-hour emergency shark hotline to report sightings or damaged equipment. * Last unprovoked death: 48-year-old male swimmer at Palm Island, 2011 * The state's Primary Industries website advises the risk of a shark attack is "extremely low". * Great white sharks are a protected species. * Last unprovoked death: 23-year-old male diver at Glenelg, August 2005 * There are a number of shark refuge areas where fishing is prohibited to protect sharks. * Last unprovoked death: 35-year-old female diver at Tenth Island, June 1993 * Victoria restricts the intentional capture of great white sharks for commercial or game fishing, like all other states, in addition to greynurse, elephantfish, school and gummy sharks. * Last unprovoked death: Mornington Peninsula, 1987 * Tiger and bull sharks live in NT waters but are not considered as much of a threat as crocodiles. There is a personal possession fishing limit of three sharks. Sawfish, northern river and speartooth sharks are protected. * Last unprovoked death: 38-year-old female at Cobourg Peninsula, October 1934 (Sources: Australian Shark Attack File - Taronga; ABS Causes of Death, Australia, 2015; Royal Life Saving Drowning Report 2016)
|
medium
| 0.884615 |
Western Australia, NSW and Queensland - the states with the most recent fatal shark attacks - all have detection and prevention methods in place.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20161128134306id_/http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/11/28/02/03/hundreds-displaced-by-advance-in-aleppo
|
The Syrian army and its allies have driven out rebels from a strategically important area of eastern Aleppo in an accelerating attack that threatens to crush the opposition in Aleppo. One rebel official denied the report that al-Sakhour had fallen, an advance that would cut the rebel-held eastern districts of Aleppo in two, while another said the situation was not yet clear. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels had lost control of more than a third of eastern Aleppo in recent days. Citing a military source, Syrian state TV said the army and its allies had seized the entire Sakhour area and were working to clear it of mines. Backed by allied militiamen, the army has been advancing into eastern Aleppo from the northeast since last week, making steady gains over the weekend. A fighter on the government side in Aleppo said the army and its allies had now driven a wedge through eastern Aleppo, leaving a corridor for rebels to quit the northern part for the south. "In the coming hours, the rest of the northern sector will be taken," the fighter told Reuters, declining to be identified because he is not an official spokesman. Capturing rebel-held eastern Aleppo would be the biggest victory for President Bashar al-Assad since the start of the Syrian uprising in 2011. Aleppo is the most important urban stronghold of the uprising. Observatory Director Rami Abdulrahman said government forces were now in effective control of a swathe of eastern Aleppo stretching north from the al-Sakhour neighbourhood, having seized a third of eastern Aleppo in recent days. "It is the biggest defeat for the opposition in Aleppo since 2012," he told Reuters. Abdulrahman said the army and its allies were now in control of an entire swathe of eastern Aleppo stretching north from al-Sakhour. Part of the northern area was seized by the Kurdish YPG militia, which is hostile to the rebel groups in eastern Aleppo and advanced into the rebel-held territory from the Kurdish-controlled Sheikh Maqsoud district, Abdulrahman said. Backed by the Russian air force, the Syrian army and its allies have been gradually closing in on rebel-held eastern Aleppo this year, besieging it before launching a fierce assault in September.
|
medium
| 1.88 |
An advance by the Syrian army into part of rebel-held eastern Aleppo has prompted hundreds of residents to flee the shifting frontlines.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20131223191847id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/nov/11/kieron-williamson-boy-wonder-norfolk-landscapes
|
Maroon tie flying from his pale blue school shirt, Kieron Williamson hurtles along the lane outside his new home wearing a pair of hand-me-down inline skates. It is not how you might expect to find an artistic prodigy on the cusp of an exhibition that will earn in excess of £100,000. Two years ago, when I first met Kieron, he was a sweetly monosyllabic seven-year-old whose unusually proficient pastels and acrylics of the countryside around his Norfolk home had attracted praise and a waiting list of 680 buyers. Now there is a waiting list of 6,000, as Americans, Chinese and Germans clamour for a Kieron original. Paintings he sold for £2,000 have been resold for £10,000. His fifth exhibition opened yesterday at his local gallery in Holt and sold out in 10-and-a-half minutes, one painting fetching £15,595. Two years is a long time for any child, let alone a prodigy. I wondered how nine-year-old Kieron would have changed, and how this unhealthy concoction of money and media hype might affect him. "Oh, he's a little lord of the manor now," laughs his mother over the phone when I first call. Kieron, his sister Billie Jo, mum Michelle and dad Keith were squeezed into a two-bedroom flat next to a petrol station but, thanks to sales of his paintings, Kieron this year bought the family a detached house, an attractive former post office by a village church on the Norfolk Broads. Kieron wanted to move close to the home of his hero, the 20th-century landscape painter Edward Seago, so they did, and Kieron will take possession of the house when he is 18. This is a major life change for the family, so it is a relief to find Kieron skating outside with Billie Jo and friends after school, like any country village kid. He is polite but also nicely self-contained; he has grown in confidence but is not unnervingly eloquent. His "yeps" of two years ago have been replaced by agreeable "uh-hums" and it is still a surprise when he suddenly offers three or four carefully considered sentences about his work. The wellspring of prodigious gifts is endlessly fascinating. From Mozart to Picasso, we have debated whether genius is born or made, and how. Kieron's talent seems particularly miraculous. His parents worked as an electrician and a nutritionist, neither remotely artistic, and Kieron was an energetic five-year-old until they visited Cornwall on their first family holiday. As they admired the view of a bay, Kieron asked for pencils and produced a striking drawing. But perhaps Kieron's passion for landscapes had been quietly ignited by all the paintings collected by Keith and hung on their walls at home. "You can't see gifted children in isolation. It's all within the context of the family," says educational psychologist Susan Lee-Kelland. "Picasso always used to say it's very important not to teach a child how to draw, which is interesting, because his father was a renowned artist, so Picasso learned at home, perhaps without realising it. The same is true of musical prodigies – they often come from parents who may be choir masters, or musical in some way." Kieron used to paint on the kitchen table. Now, step inside his cosy, low-beamed home and the first room is his studio, cluttered with easels and paints precariously balanced on palettes. "I like painting stormy skies and I've painted lots of the marshes, and I like painting the windmills," says Kieron. His work looks freer and more sophisticated than two years ago. He points to a painting of a huddle of marshland cattle under a glowering sky. "This is my favourite picture. I like the sky. That's the favourite sky I've done. I did a watercolour out on location and that night I wanted to do an oil. It's just down the road. The cows were tucked behind the tree so I decided to move them over there. I don't like moving things around because I don't like to do made-up things. I like painting what I see." I assume the painting is a few months old. When did he finish it? "Yesterday," he nods. As well as filling books with intricate sketches, he is painting in oils, pastels and watercolours. "I couldn't stop painting with pastels, but then I had started a picture and I didn't feel like doing it, and that tells me to do something different," he says. He paints most days. "I have to do something every day," he says, although life gets in the way. "I have this school project to learn about the planets and I have to do 68 star constellations, and that is taking up a lot of my time." He wishes he could wake up earlier than he does (6am) so he could paint more. "Painting is like my best friend," he says. Kieron calls his media duties "fun" – he is being filmed by German, Danish and French TV crews this week – and if it wasn't, Michelle and Keith would stop it. In fact, they tried. Stressed and struggling to come to terms with the fact that Kieron had created a proper business – and needed his own specialist children's solicitor and accountant – Keith became ill. They asked Kieron if he would consider continuing painting but stop selling his work for a bit. "Kieron said, 'If dad is not well enough to support me, then can you support me mum?'" says Michelle. So she is now his full-time manager. They have resisted agents that could lock Kieron into contracts and are determined that he only paints when he wants to, and is not forced to paint on demand. Do they worry about protecting Kieron's gifts while ensuring a "normal" childhood? "As parents, you're running through those ethical debates every day. Other people have the luxury of dipping into this with judgments and opinions," says Michelle wryly, "which they freely share." Keiron is in Year 5 at the village primary school, and he fancies being home-schooled so he could devote more time to painting, but Michelle disagrees: "I don't think that would be fair to him, because he has to relate to people and school offers a huge amount in terms of social networking and things like that." If a talented child is determined to pursue their talent to the exclusion of all else, how much of their development should be decided by them? Should parents allow a gifted child to choose their own school? "The child's voice is really important. It's got to be part of the process but that's the key word – 'part'," says educational psychologist Dr Kairen Cullen. "The child is able to communicate what they need, but they've not had the life experience that others bring to the table." Parents may be concerned that early promise does not fizzle away, but Lee-Kelland cautions against accelerating the intellectually gifted through their education, a popular view reinforced by the desperately sad experiences of various prepubescent Oxbridge geniuses from recent decades. Peter Congdon, an educational psychologist who has been assessing gifted children for more than 30 years, says research shows acceleration or "premature promotion" is overwhelmingly positive for children. Many young people with high IQs "relate better to adults and older children", he argues. However, Congdon agrees that "accelerating mental development is sometimes bought at the expense of social and emotional growth". "Try to keep things as normal as possible," is Lee-Kelland's advice. "Not to keep the talents under wraps, but don't make it the be-all and end-all. It doesn't do the person any good at all to be deprived of their childhood." She cautions against gifted children becoming too specialised – a talented musician or footballer who suffers an accident may never be able to play again. "It's about creating a rounded person and giving them lots of opportunities. An artist is fostered by the whole of their lives and experiences. When you look at a great painting – or a piece of music – it contains emotions and feelings," she says. Kieron, it is clear, has an acute sensitivity towards the countryside around him, and is profoundly aware of the shape and the order of things. His current enthusiasms are Romantic: wild landscapes and ruins. His parents took him to How Hill, a beautifully preserved historic house nearby, and Kieron "was mortified, it was so well maintained," says Michelle. He prefers St Benets Abbey, a desolate relic on the Norfolk Broads. Kieron meticulously notes the changes in the sky, air and autumn colours when walking – and taking photographs – in their neighbourhood. "Everyone keeps saying there's no wildlife on the Broads but there's marsh harriers and kestrels and deer," says Keith. "Chinese water deer," adds Kieron. He loves the changing of seasons. What's his favourite? "Winter," he says decisively. He can't wait to see the marshes flood and the snow fall. At nine, this artistic intensity is still combined with complete normality. Kieron loves football and watches Formula 1 with his dad. What would Kieron like for Christmas? "The new Leeds away kit," he says. "I want '4' and 'Kieron' on the back as well." (His dad is a huge Leeds and Billy Bremner fan.) "We don't want art to be his only passion," says Michelle, turning to Kieron. "I think you will have a varied life, because you'll want that." Is he excited about his exhibition? "Yep," he says. "I don't mind what will happen as long as people like my work and they give some comments." And with that, Kieron hits the button on the remote control and settles down to watch The Simpsons. Kieron Williamson is the kind of child prodigy who makes us marvel at the miracle that is human creativity. In the week that an exhibition of Leonardo da Vinci's works opened in Britain, here's a homegrown example of the kind of gift that made Leonardo's 16th-century biographer Vasari call him a "truly celestial". Williamson's paintings are triumphs of observation, skill and imagination. For a child of nine to paint such sensitive and accomplished landscapes is an awe-inspiring achievement. He displays not just a stunning mastery of drawing and painting but an emotional maturity, which is still more staggering. Prodigies are rare in the arts because to write a poem or compose a symphony requires emotional maturity. Children who excel at the highest level are, for this reason, often musicians, because the technical mastery of an instrument does not in itself demand a diverse experience of life. Yet even Mozart, the most famous of all musical prodigies, evolved audibly from his youthful compositions to his truly great and profound adult works: his art gained power as it gained sadness, darkness, dread; all the adult things. What makes Williamson so impressive is, therefore, the passion as well as technique of his art. He responds intensely to the landmarks and light of his native Norfolk, just as great East Anglian predecessors such as Gainsborough and Constable did. St Benets Sunset is a wonderful painting, with its brooding tower against a reddening sky. At nine, he's a Romantic. He seems fully aware of such comparisons, intimate with the masters of landscape painting: he has looked hard at Turner. To respond to such art at his age is in itself amazing – to emulate it, sublime. But he is not painting pastiches. His interpretations of the masters are creative, his vision genuine. What happens to child prodigies when they grow up? In medieval Italy, according to Vasari in his 1550 book The Lives of the Artists, the famous painter Cimabue met a shepherd boy drawing with a stick in the dirt. He was so impressed with the boy's dirt drawings that he took him to Florence to train. The child was Giotto. He grew up to become one of the greatest painters of all time. Giotto, and Leonardo for that matter, could rely on the unique training system for artists offered by an apprenticeship to a Florentine master. Let's hope our education system serves Williamson as well, for he is a very special talent. • This article was amended on 14 November 2011. The original caption referred to Ludham, Suffolk. This has been corrected.
|
high
| 1.186047 |
Kieron Williamson's extraordinary gift as a painter has been likened by our own art critic to that of the Old Masters. But he's still only nine. What does the future hold for such a prodigy, asks Patrick Barkham
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20140907134256id_/http://fortune.com:80/2012/03/06/what-will-fix-young-america/
|
FORTUNE — Words tumble from Scott Gerber’s mouth so passionately that he gasps every few sentences for air. The topic: American entrepreneurship. Launched less than two years ago, the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is the brainchild of the baby-faced 28 year-old and is now the driving force behind the #FixYoungAmerica campaign, which launched Monday on fundraising website IndieGoGo. “We live in a very partisan society, where unfortunately not much gets above the fray if it’s not headline news,” says Gerber. “The real issues oftentimes fall by the wayside.” Gerber and his crew think that the importance of entrepreneurship often slips through the cracks. In response, the YEC has launched a campaign with over 40 partner organizations to promote entrepreneurial education, increase access to capital for startups, and encourage entrepreneurship within the Fortune 500 — all in hopes of addressing youth unemployment. (The campaign tagline: “A solutions-based book and movement that aims to end youth unemployment and put young Americans back to work — for good.”) Indeed, youth unemployment has remained stubbornly high. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 23% of 16-19 year olds, 13% of 20-24 year olds, and 9% of 25-34 year olds are jobless, as of January 2012. Since 2010, unemployment has decreased across the board. But the jobless rate for younger Americans is still higher than it is for those above the age of 34. The foundation of YEC’s campaign is an ambitiously entitled book called #FixYoungAmerica, the first release under the nonprofit’s new publishing imprint YEC (thanks to a partnership with Advantage Media Group). With 33 contributors, the book — which will be released in May — covers entrepreneurship from several angles: Babson College President Len Schlesinger provides a blueprint for public and private colleges to build entrepreneurship programs; The Education of Millionaires author Michael Ellsberg discusses entrepreneurship as an alternative to college; Jack Kosakowski explains how his nonprofit Junior Achievement has worked to produce more entrepreneurs and entrepreneurially-minded students. Gerber hopes that the IndieGoGo campaign will raise enough funds to put a copy of #FixYoungAmerica in the hands of every U.S. politician, college president, and major education leader. “[The contributors] have all proven that something works. And now we just need to copy and paste.” Gerber, who published Never Get a Real Job last year, believes youth unemployment conversations don’t have to be negative. “We’ve done a fundamental disservice to young people throughout their lives, because we’ve taught them about the traditional ‘work hard, go to school, get good grades, get a good job’ mindset,” he says. “Frankly, it’s on its way out or no longer applies in the new economy.” What does apply, he says, is this new entrepreneurial model the YEC’s proposing. Is this an education problem? Educating America’s younger generations about entrepreneurship certainly sounds nice, but it’s not the only thing (or even the primary issue) keeping young Americans from going out on their own. Scarce access to startup capital causes a chicken and egg dilemma. One response to this problem: Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC), a contributor to #FixYoungAmerica, has been pushing for legislation that would allow crowd-funding for companies hoping to raise $1-2 million. In November, McHenry’s Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act passed in the House, loosening the Securities Act of 1933 that strictly defines investor eligibility. (As an individual, your salary must be $200,000 or your net worth over $1 million to be eligible. “The chairman of the Federal Reserve,” says McHenry, “doesn’t make enough money to be an accredited investor.”) To address the potential risks of such a move, the bill limits potential crowd-funder investments to $10,000 or 10% of an investor’s annual income. McHenry’s bill has been reshaped to fit into new House legislation, packaged as the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act. Sponsored by House majority leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), the legislation includes four stand-alone bills like McHenry’s that have already been passed, as well as additional bipartisan ideas. “We need to update significant portions of our federal regulation. But legislation is slow…. Online activists can raise their voices and get broader support,” says McHenry. Ingredients of an able entrepreneur YEC partner Babson College is consistently ranked as a top entrepreneurship school, yet its president has no experience in starting his own business. Since taking the reins at the school amid a down economy in 2008, Schlesinger says he has learned the importance of understanding the mindset of entrepreneurs — they think and behave differently, he says — and hopes to spread this idea to other colleges. “The vast majority of peer institutions have a very narrow view of entrepreneurship; entrepreneurship is a life skill,” he claims. “We need to teach the power of adapting and reshaping to current times.” Working with the YEC, Schlesinger wants to raise awareness that entrepreneurs are made, not born. Stories about uber-successes like Facebook and Google GOOG create hero worship, intimidating those without the nerve to “hang on a mountain by a fingernail,” as Schlesinger puts it. An NYU film major turned serial entrepreneur, Gerber is no wilting flower. He has little issue cold calling a potential new business contact multiple times before he gets what he wants. This unwavering persistence is partly how he’s been able to get so many entrepreneurs to join the YEC (from Living Social CEO Tim O’Shaughnessy to Mint founder Aaron Patzer), but Gerber shrugs it off. “Everybody’s like, ‘My God, how did you pull this momentum so quickly?’” he laughs, before growing serious “Well, because I have incredible members that take the ball and run with it. They believe YEC is like a badge of honor.” Plenty of ideas to go around… #FixYoungAmerica includes countless opinions and goals on what can help young Americans find their economic way, with one man holding them all together. Gerber recently locked down legal document services firm LegalZoom as the first sponsor of the campaign — with a $20,000 check; he hopes to sign on several other companies. His energy is obviously contagious, but is it enough to keep this web of different partners intact? Those uninvolved with the campaign, like Next Street Financial founder Tim Ferguson, certainly support the idea of raising awareness about entrepreneurship. Ferguson notes, “America is already pretty entrepreneurial. But not everyone is an entrepreneur. So I don’t see this campaign fundamentally changing that.” Ferguson does believe that the conversation should be skewed more toward improving financial literacy and expanding the types of available capital that Rep. McHenry’s legislation addresses. After Gerber brings up yet another venture of his (startup accelerator GenY Capital Partners, which is currently funded by YEC members), seconds after talking about Dell dell entrepreneur-in-residence Ingrid Vanderveldt’s involvement in #FixYoungAmerica, he responds to my where-is-this-campaign-going look of bewilderment. In simple terms: “My priorities are to first change the national discussion surrounding youth unemployment. Second, we’re going after the decision makers — the educators, the policy makers.” Armed with a somewhat vague but ambitious strategy, Gerber is determined to make his project more than just an awareness campaign. (Though a 10-city promotional tour is already in the works.) With a catchy name like #FixYoungAmerica, it’s sure to gain some attention. But for the campaign to offer tangible solutions to this complicated problem, Gerber faces quite the organizational challenge. “I’m in this for the long slog. We can keep people engaged, because there’s a lot on the line,” Gerber says. “What I am doing personally is my calling; it’s what I live for. I will not let this campaign fail.”
|
high
| 1.666667 |
Scott Gerber is leading a movement to promote entrepreneurship as a solution to youth unemployment. But is one man's enthusiasm enough to keep such a campaign together?
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20140909184624id_/http://fortune.com/2014/09/09/tech-jobs-google/
|
When it comes to U.S. tech employers, there’s Google, and then there’s everybody else. Perched atop our list of the best places to work for the fifth straight year, the company attracts more than 2 million job applicants a year and hires only about 4,000 of them. “It’s easier to get into MIT than it is to get hired by Google,” notes Tom Leung, who spent three years there as a product manager. “Google is very, very picky, because they can afford to be.” Leung is founder and CEO of Poachable, a job site launched just two months ago that aims, as the name suggests, to match companies that have IT job openings with “passive” candidates who are already working elsewhere but might be open to better offers. When Leung’s team surveyed thousands of techies to ask who they’d most want to be poached by, 55% picked Google—five times as many as would entertain an offer from second-place Apple (11%), and seven times the 8% who want to work for Amazon. Says Leung, “I expected Google to come out on top, but I was surprised by how huge the gap is.” A big part of Google’s appeal is that it’s “an engineer’s dream,” says Leung. “Engineers really want to work on hard technical challenges, like self-driving cars, drones, and wearable technology.” Obviously, most companies aren’t making those things. Even so, any company can match Google, or at least come close, in other respects. Leung says almost all the 2,000 techies who have signed on to Poachable so far are looking for three things: work-life balance, generous pay, and a clear career path. “When we ask IT people, ‘What are your must-have criteria for a new job?’ almost all of them mention time for a life outside of work,” says Leung. “Certain tech companies are known for expecting everyone to work 70 hours a week and sucking all the energy right out of people so they have nothing left over.” To attract tech talent, don’t get that reputation, Leung suggests. “Keep an eye on the number of hours people are working.” Below-market pay is another reason techies sign up to be poached, as is the lack of “interesting career prospects,” he says. Google gets high marks for both—but so can other employers, many of whom aren’t even tech companies. The biggest reason not to worry about competing with Google, Leung says, is simply that you probably don’t need the same people. “Google is like the Olympics, but not every team does better with an Olympic athlete on it,” he points out. “You may be better off with a strong, seasoned player who has the particular skills you happen to need.” Employers will also have to get used to the idea that “talent is temporary these days. IT people get so many job offers that any company has to be prepared to lose some of them,” he says. “The employers on Poachable have told me they feel a little guilty about ‘stealing’ talent from other companies. But then, they’re well aware that some of their own employees have signed up, too.”
|
medium
| 1.36 |
But that's okay, says a former Google executive, because companies that need tech talent aren't competing for the same people.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20150820011514id_/http://www.bbc.com:80/autos/story/20150818-youxia-ranger-x-is-totally-not-a-tesla
|
In late July, Huang Xiuyuan, the 28-year-old CEO of Chinese startup carmaker Youxia Motors, unveiled the design for a high-performance electric sedan. Called Ranger X, the car is attractive, nicely proportioned, sporty looking. It will be instantly familiar to anyone who has seen a Tesla Model S â but weâre no longer surprised by Chinese carmakers paying legally questionable homage to successful Western models. The car is weird, but its story is weirder. First, its most useless innovation: The Ranger X has a holographic display in place of a front grille. Yes, a holographic display. It can show Youxia’s name and ‘Y’ emblem (which looks suspiciously like Tesla’s ‘T’ emblem), or a snippet of driver-inputted text, or emoji, or that red Pong display from the front of Knight Rider’s KITT. Second, the car’s Google Android-based systems and infotainment operating system is actually called “KITT,” after the Pontiac Trans Am co-star of the awful ‘80s television series (which we watched every episode of, even the ones with Michael Knight’s evil twin Garth). The driver interacts with that system through a vertically oriented 17in touchscreen display, much like the driver of a Model S would interact with that car’s vertically oriented 17in display. Small world. From here, the Ranger X driver can choose which throaty sports car growl (from a list that includes mostly Jaguars and Ferraris) should be artificially piped into the cabin. Third, the very name “Youxia” roughly translates as “traveling knight,” furthering the Hasselhoffian connections. Huang Xiuyuan openly admits to being a Knight Rider fan, and claims the idea for the car came to him in a dream. And fourth… well, according to CarNewsChina.com, there might not even be a Youxia Ranger X. The Shanghai-based company had promised to unveil an electric sports car called the Youxia One at the July event, which was to be built on a Hyundai Genesis chassis, but the One (and the investor money behind it) didn’t show. That investor money instead went to buy a Tesla Model S, which was then reverse-engineered (with no little help from Tesla’s open patents) to create the Ranger X. Or maybe it wasn’t. CarNewsChina did a little comparison and came away convinced that everything more than fender-deep on the X is actually an S, based on the wheelbase, the door pillars, and the interior that no one was actually allowed to see. The previously mentioned investors are reportedly unhappy. They might be buoyed by the specs of the Ranger X, however, if Youxia Motors can make it happen. The car promises a 285-mile range on a charge, zero-to-60mph in under six seconds with 348 horsepower, half-hour charging, and – most shockingly – a price tag that starts at about 200,000 yuan – just over $30,000. That last bit, actually, may be the hardest thing to believe about the Ranger X. If you would like to comment on this or anything else you have seen on BBC Autos, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter.
|
medium
| 1 |
Equal parts Model S and KITT from Knight Rider, this sleek sedan is China's electric car of the future. Maybe.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20150824204945id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/06/oung-financiers-change-the-world.html
|
Read MoreThe young & the restless: Activism's rising stars People in and around the investment world figure prominently in the class of 187 hotshots under the age of 40. From private equity, there's Sean Klimczak, a senior managing director at Blackstone Group who focuses on power projects. Klimczak helped lead the firm's investment in the Bujagali hydroelectric dam in Uganda, for example, a project that boosted economic growth by nearly doubling the country's electricity capacity. Also from the PE industry is Hua Fung Teh, a former F16D fighter aviator in the Singaporean Air Force who's now a vice president at PE giant TPG Capital who helps find investments in Southeast Asia. There's also Genevieve Sangudi, a Tanzanian who grew up in Boston and is now head of West Africa for the Carlyle Group. Sangudi is based in Lagos, Nigeria for Carlyle, one of the large private equity firms starting to invest on the continent. From banking, there's Max Neukirchen, a finance PhD who became the head of corporate strategy at JPMorgan Chase in 2013 after more than a decade as a banking expert at consulting giant McKinsey & Co. There's also Karen Fang, a managing director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch who helps clients hedge their risk across asset classes. Fang, born in China, is a former ballerina who went to college in Japan and then started at Merrill Lynch in 1998 working to structure derivatives. And there's Kathryn Koch, the head of global portfolio solutions at Goldman Sachs. Koch worked under former asset management head Jim O'Neill and helped him promote the idea of the "BRICs"—Brazil, Russia, India and China—as important growth markets starting in the early 2000s, according to a profile in The National. From hedge funds, there's Ashish Goyal, a portfolio manager at London-based BlueCrest Capital Management. Goyal, who is blind, used to manage risk for JPMorgan. He calls himself a "thinker by obsession, and lover of good things in life as a passion" on his Twitter account, @insaneodyssey. And for venture capital, there's Connie Chan, the head of Asia and consumer-related technology investments for prominent Menlo Park, California-based investor Andreessen Horowitz. A Stanford educated partner at the firm, her LinkedIn profile says she seeks "industry experts, great entrepreneurs and very cool ideas!" Read MoreHow much? $43 hot dogs at Davos
|
medium
| 0.444444 |
The World Economic Forum has named its "Young Global Leaders"--including many financial types--and expect them to be forces for global good.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20150923172347id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2013/10/10/business-groups-see-loss-of-sway-over-house-gop.html
|
Such an effort would thrust Washington's traditionally cautious and pragmatic business lobby into open warfare with the Tea Party faction, which has grown in influence since the 2010 election and won a series of skirmishes with the Republican establishment in the last two years. "We are looking at ways to counter the rise of an ideological brand of conservatism that, for lack of a better word, is more anti-establishment than it has been in the past," said David French, the top lobbyist at the National Retail Federation. "We have come to the conclusion that sitting on the sidelines is not good enough." (Read more: Obama seeks opening with GOP leader) Some warned that a default could spur a shift in the relationship between the corporate world and the Republican Pary. Long intertwined by mutual self-interest on deregulation and lower taxes, the business lobby and Republicans are diverging not only over the fiscal crisis, but on other major issues like immigration reform, which was favored by business groups and party leaders but stymied in the House by many of the same lawmakers now leading the debt fight. Joe Echevarria, the chief executive of Deloitte, the accounting and consulting firm, said, "I'm a Republican by definition and by registration, but the party seems to have split into two factions." While both parties have extreme elements, he suggested, only in the G.O.P. did the extreme element exercise real power. "The extreme right has 90 seats in the House," Mr. Echevarria said. "Occupy Wall Street has no seats." (Read more: Stocks seem to be signaling a debt deal) Moreover, business leaders and trade groups said, the tools that have served them in the past — campaign contributions, large memberships across the country, a multibillion-dollar lobbying apparatus — do not seem to be working. "There clearly are people in the Republican Party at the moment for whom the business community and the interests of the business community — the jobs and members they represent — don't seem to be their top priority," said Dan Danner, the head of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, which spearheaded opposition to President Obama's health care law among small businesses."They don't really care what the N.F.I.B. thinks, and don't care what the Chamber thinks, and probably don't care what the Business Roundtable thinks." The lawmakers seem to agree. Representative Randy Neugebauer, Republican of Texas and a Tea Party caucus member, said in an interview on Wednesday that if American corporations wanted to send their money elsewhere, that was their choice. "We have got to quit worrying about the next election, and start worrying about the country," said Mr. Neugebauer, who sits on the House Financial Services Committee and is a recipient of significant donations from Wall Street. Few of the most conservative House lawmakers draw substantial support from business political action committees, and business lobbyists acknowledged that the mere suggestion they were considering backing primary challenges next year could enhance grass-roots support for the very lawmakers they want to defeat. But the dysfunction in Washington has now turned so extreme, they said, that they had few other options. (Watch: Does Obama want to break the GOP?) "What we want is a conservative business person, but someone who in many respects will be more realistic, in our opinion," said Bruce Josten, the top lobbyist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the single biggest lobbying organization in Washington. In the two previous battles over the debt limit many chief executives were reluctant to take sides, banding together in groups like Fix the Debt, which spent millions of dollars on a campaign urging Democrats and Republicans to work toward a "grand bargain" on the budget. But with shutdown a reality, and the clock ticking toward default,some of those same executives now place the blame squarely on conservative Republicans in the House. "It's clearly this faction within the Republican Party that's causing the issue right now," said David M. Cote, the chief executive of Honeywell and a steering board member of Fix the Debt. The rift, these industry executives acknowledge, reflects longstanding tensions that sometimes emerge between the agendas of corporate executives and those embraced by the conservative wing of the Republican Party. "We ask them to carry our water all the time," said one corporate sector lobbyist, who demanded anonymity in order to speak frankly about the relationship with Republicans. "But we don't necessarily support them 100 percent of the time.And what has happened is the rise of an ideological wing that is now willing to stand up to business interests." Despite their diminished leverage, business leaders said they would step up their appeals for an agreement. (Read more: Europe stocks higher on US budget progress) Most of the officials said they agree in principle with conservative lawmakers about the need to cut federal spending or roll back parts of Obamacare, but said using the threat of shutdown — or worse, of a debt default — to extract those concessions was both ineffective and dangerous. Mr.Josten said he had been on Capitol Hill every day this week counseling compromise. "The name calling, blame gaming — using slurs like jihadist, terrorist, cowards, that kind of language — it does not get you to a deal," Mr. Josten said of the advice he is giving to Democrats and Republicans. "The problem is everybody is in the same corner here and everybody has to try to save some face." To some extent, the Chamber itself, along with other lobbying groups, helped create the conditions for Washington's impasse. (Read more:Boehner to ask House for short-term debt deal)
|
high
| 1.555556 |
With the federal government pushing toward a budget default, big business groups are worried they have lost sway over the GOP majority in the House.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160308103313id_/http://www.aljazeera.com/archive/2006/03/200841014342656873.html
|
Turkey is under pressure from the European Union, which it hopes to join, to improve the cultural rights of its ethnic minorities, especially the 12 million Kurds who until the 1990s were banned from using their language in public. Private television channels will begin Kurdish language broadcasts on Thursday, but they will be limited to 45 minutes a day, or four hours a week, and must carry Turkish subtitles. They are also prevented from airing educational programmes teaching the Kurdish language or broadcasting programmes directed at children, such as cartoons. Cemal Dogan, director of Gun TV, one of three broadcasters now allowed to show Kurdish language programmes, said: "After many bureaucratic setbacks, we have finally won the right to broadcast in Kurdish. "It is a small step, we still face many restrictions. But it is very important for Turkey and we are happy." Gun TV hopes to attract 1.5 million viewers in Diyarbakir, the biggest city of Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast region, with programmes about history, culture and health. Soz TV and a radio station will also be broadcasting in Kurdish. Turkish state television and radio already provide limited broadcasting in Kurdish and several other minority languages including Arabic, but Dogan says nobody watches them as they consist almost entirely of news items from the previous week. Ankara has been slow to allow Kurdish language broadcasts due to fears this could fan political separatism. Turkish security forces have battled Kurdish rebels since 1984 in a conflict which has cost at least 30,000 lives. Dogan said the broadcasts would be a positive thing. "With time, people will see there is nothing to be afraid of, that allowing these broadcasts can help to resolve the Kurdish problem." Others are less optimistic. They say Ankara's slow, grudging broadcasting reforms are symbolic of its wider approach to the Kurds, and say Turkey only acts because of heavy EU pressure. Sezgin Tanrikulu, the head of the Diyarbakir bar association and a lawyer, said: "If I were [Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip] Erdogan, I would allow free, unlimited broadcasting in Kurdish, except for politically sensitive material." But rising Turkish nationalism, along with looming elections due by 2007, make it harder for Erdogan to act, he said.
|
low
| 2 |
<P>Private television channels will begin airing Kurdish language programmes in Turkey on Thursday, but must steer clear of showing children's cartoons and can only broadcast for 45 minutes a day.</P>
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160529225052id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2004/08/08/nyregion/after-decades-bongiorno-s-says-goodbye.html?
|
SOME customers said they were originally from Cuba, others from Italy, Spain and Puerto Rico, and some said they have been driving from as far away as Trumbull and Bridgeport to do their regular shopping at Bongiorno Supermarket in Stamford for years. One after another on Tuesday, shoppers drove through what was, until last weekend, the parking lot of Bongiorno's, leaving in disbelief when told the store was closed and would be reopened soon as a Stop & Shop supermarket. ''Where will I get my Terra Nova bread now?'' asked Maria Joyce of Trumbull, who said she had been shopping there since her family immigrated from Italy. ''I guess I'll have to go to Arthur Avenue,'' she said, referring to the street in the Bronx. After more than 50 years in the city, and with hardly any notice, the family-owned and operated Bongiorno's was bought by Stop & Shop of Quincy, Mass., for an undisclosed amount late last month, and then shut down at the close of business on July 31. After a frenzied four days of renovations, the store reopened as a Stop & Shop on Thursday morning. Faith Weiner, a spokeswoman for Stop & Shop, said the company is also seeking approval to build a new store at West Main Street and Alvord Lane in Stamford, across from a Shop Rite store now under construction. She said the current location would remain open until a new Stop & Shop store is completed. She also said that the store's 160 employees were invited to work at Stop & Shop. When asked if Stop & Shop was trying to gain a foothold in the neighborhood before Shop Rite, Ms. Weiner said: ''An opportunity to serve the market was presented to us and we decided to pursue it. Our focus is on how to bring our version of one-stop shopping to customers served by our market.'' Maurice Nizzardo, the director of operations for Bongiorno Industries and the son-in-law of George Bongiorno, the store's founders, said the company is leasing the land on which the store sits to Stop & Shop. He said Bongiorno Industries owns 1 million square feet in the city and will continue to own and operate a liquor store, gas station and car wash near the store. Mr. Nizzardo said Bongiorno Supermarket was special because of the Eastern European, Hispanic, Italian, Asian and other ethnic foods it carried. He said the store paid particular attention to its fish, meats and produce. ''We would send our own trucks to the Fulton Fish Market and Hunts Point produce and meat terminals in New York on a daily basis Mondays through Fridays,'' he said. Berbely Zayas, 15, of Stamford, said her family had been going to the store for its meats since they came from Puerto Rico eight years ago. ''They had the best prices, too,'' she said. ''We really don't know where we're going to shop now.'' Mr. Nizzardo said he hoped that Stop & Shop would retain some of Bongiorno's inventory. Ms. Weiner said Stop & Shop stores carries some items specific to its market. A quick look inside the store on Thursday morning after it had opened did indeed find Terra Nova bread, but the meat selection had changed and the special on jumbo eggs that Bongiorno's continually ran was gone. Mr. Nizzardo said Bongiorno Supermarket was doing about $500,000 in sales each week. In the last 10 years, there were many people who were interested in the business,'' he said. ''Stop & Shop was the only company, pretty much, that was willing to take on the employees, which was a major concern for us. We wanted to give our employees stability and benefit packages, so that they wouldn't be left in the lurch.'' In a statement, George Bongiorno said the sale would benefit everyone. ''We thought this might be an opportunity to enable our employees and our customers to be well-served today and in the future and also allow the family to pursue other interests,'' he said. Dannel Malloy, the mayor of Stamford, said it meant the city was losing a ''great store.'' ''It's been very community-minded,'' he said. ''It's a great family and we look forward to having them in the community, just not in the supermarket business.'' But for many, like Clyde Nicholson of Bridgeport, who said he regularly pulled off Interstate 95 to get lunch at Bongiorno's, finding the store closed was disheartening. ''I passed by many other stores to come here,'' he said. ''This was my store. This is one of the saddest days of my life.'' To others, it was a sign of the times. ''It's kind of sad because its was a real community establishment,'' said Klaus Schmidt, a Stamford restaurant owner who said he knows the Bongiorno family and was a regular customer. ''But I guess the big boys are taking over.'' Mr. Nizzardo said the family did have an emotional attachment to the store and its customers, but he said closing quickly was best. ''We feel we made a good decision,'' he said. ''Once the final agreement was made, we didn't see any advantage in letting the store linger.''
|
medium
| 1 |
Bongiorno Supermarket in Stamford, Conn, closes; customers fear they will not be able to find favorite items when store reopens as Stop and Shop; photo (M)
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160603123942id_/http://www.people.com/article/florida-law-professor-dan-markel-murder-tied-to-ex-wife-family
|
The 2014 murder of Florida State University law professor likely stemmed from his ex-wife's family's desire to pave the way for her to move away and take the couple's two young children after a "bitter divorce" with still-unresolved custody issues, investigators allege in a newly released court document obtained by PEOPLE. The probable cause affidavit lays out the allegations that led to the May 25 of Sigfredo Garcia, 34, of Miami Beach, which suggested an answer to the long mystery of who shot the popular and nationally respected professor execution-style as he sat in his Honda Accord in the garage of his suburban Tallahassee home on July 18, 2014. Markel's wife, Wendi Adelson, had been a member of the Florida State University law school faculty along with her ex-husband. She filed for divorce in September 2012, the divorce was granted in July 2013, and she formally resigned from her post in January 2015. She currently lives in South Florida. Markel was killed ahead of an unscheduled court hearing where he planned to ask the court to limit their children's contact with Adelson's mother, Donna, whom he claimed had "made disparaging remarks about him to his sons," the affidavit states. "Investigators believe motive for this murder stemmed from the desperate desire of the Adelson family to relocate Wendi and the children to South Florida, along with the pending court hearing that might have impacted their access to the grandchildren," according to the document. Although only Garcia has been charged – he pleaded not guilty Thursday – the document alleges that he and another man, Luis Rivera, murdered Markel. Rivera, 33, is currently in a federal prison in Florida on unrelated charges, said Tallahassee Police Chief Michael DeLeo in a news conference Thursday. Charges against Rivera in the Markel case are forthcoming, he said. He added that it's "more probable than not" there will be additional arrests. He did not address whether any of the Adelsons are suspects, nor whether he knows their current whereabouts. "We aren't on speaking terms," he said. Garcia and Rivera match descriptions of suspects seen in the area at the time of the murder, their movements place them in Tallahassee on that day, and they had rented a silver Pine Mica Toyota Prius for their travel from South Florida, which further matched descriptions of a vehicle seen leaving the area after the shooting. The document further states that around the time of the murder, Wendi Adelson's brother Charlie "was involved in a personal relationship" with the mother of Garcia's children, Katherine Magbanua, who was also listed as a business associate of Garcia's. Prosecutors would not comment on whether Charlie or Wendi Adelson are being considered as suspects, Authorities tied Garcia and Rivera to the case using cell phone data, ATM transaction records and a Tallahassee eyewitness, who met with Garcia and Rivera a month or more before the murder, according to the affidavit. The eyewitness was asked, and agreed, to rent a motel room in the witness's name for Garcia and Rivera on the night preceding the murder. The witness also recalled Rivera having in his possession "a silver finish, short-barrel revolver handgun" at the time they met. "Recovered evidence from the crime scene indicates the caliber of firearm used in this murder is consistent with revolver ammunition and no spent casing was found at the scene," according to the affidavit. "This investigation did not reveal any other legitimate purpose for either suspect to be in Tallahassee at the time of the murder." The document describes a contentious relationship between Markel and his ex-wife's family. Wendi filed for divorce on Monday, Sept. 10, 2012, it states. "Markel reportedly returned home from a business trip to find his family gone, a majority of the contents of the house missing and the paperwork for dissolution of marriage displayed on his bed," it says. After learning she and the children had relocated to her parents' home in South Florida, he "protested" and she returned to Tallahassee with the childen "until legal arguments could be heard." In June 2013 a judge denied Wendi's motion to relocate with the children. "Email evidence indicates Wendi's parents, especially her mother, wanted Wendi to coerce Markel into allowing the relocation to South Florida. Additionally, Wendi's brother Charles reportedly did not like Markel and did not get along with him," the document reads. In March 2014, Markel filed a motion regarding provisions of the divorce settlement agreement. "One of the points of contention in this motion was Wendi's mother, Donna Adelson, and her reported negative interaction with the children," according to the document. "Markel claimed Donna made disparaging remarks about him to his sons." "Markel sought relief in this motion by asking the court to prohibit Donna from having unsupervised time with her grandchildren and to impose limitations to prevent the children from being subjected to disparaging comments about their father," it states. The motion was scheduled to be heard in court, but the hearing was delayed and had not yet been rescheduled at the time Markel was killed.
|
high
| 1.277778 |
Dan Markel was shot in his driveway in 2014 ahead of a hearing tied to child custody issues
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160617145316id_/http://fortune.com:80/2016/06/16/google-research-ai-zurich/
|
Google has announced a research group in Switzerland that will be dedicated to the field of machine learning. As its name suggests, machine learning involves systems that can learn things and come up with predictions from sets of data, without being specifically programmed to do so. It’s essential to what we currently think of as “artificial intelligence.” Google uses machine learning to power its translation engine, its image-recognition systems, and its Inbox “smart reply” feature. Machine learning improves spam recognition in Gmail and helps Google’s driverless cars figure out what’s going on around them. Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s technology newsletter. Google goog already has its largest engineering office outside the U.S. in Zurich. Emmanuel Mogenet, the head of Google Research in Europe, said in a Thursday blog post that the location was ideal due to Europe being “home to some of the world’s premier technical universities.” “We look forward to collaborating with all the excellent computer science research that is coming from the region, and hope to contribute towards the wider academic community through our publications and academic support,” he wrote. The new research group will focus on machine intelligence (covering everything from speech recognition to ranking), natural language processing and understanding (not only useful for things like translation, but also search), and machine perception (tasks like searching for things in photos and recognizing handwriting). For more on machine learning, watch: “Researchers in the Zurich office will be uniquely able work closely with team linguists, advancing natural language understanding in collaboration with Google Research groups across the world, all while enjoying Mountain Views of a different kind,” Mogenet wrote.
|
low
| 1.583333 |
The new "Google Research, Europe" group in Zurich, Switzerland, will focus on various aspects of machine learning research.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160621210415id_/http://fortune.com:80/2015/08/22/france-palace-versailles-hotel/
|
The Palace of Versailles, one of France’s most noted landmarks, has fallen upon hard times. So, the French government has announced it is building a five-star property with the Palace, once the seat of the French monarchy. Three neglected mansion buildings that date back to the 1680s and sit 200 yards outside of the palace gates will be turned into luxury lodging, according to a report by Reuters. Though the nearly 400-year-old palace 12 miles southwest of Paris is a wildly popular tourist destination—attracting 7 million many visitors a year—the French government has slashed its funding from about $54 million in 2013 to about $46 million this year. The maintenance-intensive complex needs to make up the shortfall somehow. The renovation of the buildings and the construction of a hotel within Versailles’s walls would cost roughly $4.44 million to $7.77 million, according to French newspaper Journal du Dimanche. A percentage of the profits would go towards the maintenance of the palace as a whole. The management of the Château de Versailles, as the palace and grounds are known locally, is looking for a private firm that can create and fund the construction and run the hotel. The transaction is being negotiated by the Entreprise du Patrimoine Vivant (Living Heritage Company, or EPV), which is a state-run agency that promotes traditional French businesses. Attempts to build hotels at Versailles have been tried, unsuccessfully, before. According to HotelChatter.com, a travel-industry insiders’ site, one deal was nearly sealed in 2012. This latest iteration, to be called Hotel de l’Orangerie, will boast 23 rooms with views of the former palace. Guests will likely be able to gaze out at the palace’s famous Orangerie, home to Louis XIV’s famous citrus trees, designed by baroque-architecture master Jules Hardouin-Mansart between 1684 and 1686.“There will be no other hotel in the world like this one,” a palace spokesperson told The Daily Telegraph. “This is an emblem of French history and a cultural landmark. It will be an authentically royal experience.” According to the Daily Telegraph, the successful bidder will be given a 60-year license to operate the hotel. The move comes as the French government recently began a major initiative to boost tourism. Tourism accounts for 7% of the European nation’s economy, and revenue has been falling, trailing China, Spain, and the United States. Laurent Fabius, France’s foreign minister, has set a goal of attracting at least 100 million international visitors by 2020—a boost from 84 million in 2014—through improving customer service. Already a popular tourist attraction, this hotel would seem to be a good bet. Originally a stone hunting lodge, Versailles saw an elaborate renovation beginning in 1682, when the notoriously over-the-top King Louis XIV got ahold of it. The buildings—including the epic Hall of Mirrors—and park-like grounds of Versailles remained the seat of France’s royal power that ended abruptly in 1789. The French Revolution began in Paris in October of that year, and France’s monarchy toppled shortly thereafter. Slated to open in 2016, new hotel will provide a taste of the royal life to the very first overnight guests inVersailles since the days of Marie Antoinette. Laura J. Vogel is a freelance writer and editor based in New York’s Hudson Valley. She has written for the New York Times, Travel + Leisure, and The New York Post. Here’s a look at the Palace of Versailles: An earlier version of the story contained an incorrect lead photo.
|
medium
| 1.272727 |
Faced with budget cuts, France's iconic Palace of Versailles is seeking to build a luxury hotel within its walls.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160630193601id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2006/05/06/sports/othersports/07derby_AP.html?
|
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) -- A hero and his horse won the Kentucky Derby on Saturday. Undefeated Barbaro stormed into the lead at the top of the stretch and won convincingly -- by 6 1-2 lengths -- to give trainer Michael Matz his first Derby victory and jockey Edgar Prado his first winning ride. Matz' joyous day came nearly 17 years after he led three children to safety following the crash of United flight 232 from Denver to Chicago into an Iowa cornfield. The two brothers and their sister are now grown and joined Matz in the grandstand at Churchill Downs, where they cheered the strapping bay colt onto his sixth consecutive win. Given a masterful ride by Prado, Barbaro beat a full field of 20 3-year-olds -- considered one of the toughest in years. With Sinister Minister and Keyed Entry setting the pace, Barbaro settled in right behind and made his move around the far turn, just as he had in winning his first five races. The Florida Derby winner, making his first start in five weeks, had plenty left in the tank to hold off Bluegrass Cat. Steppenwolfer was third, and there was a dead heat for fourth between Brother Derek and Jazil. Barbaro becomes the sixth undefeated winner, following Smarty Jones in 2004. Sent off as the 6-1 second choice by the crowd of 157,536 -- the second largest in Derby history -- Barbaro covered the 1.25 miles in 2:01.36, well off Secretariat's record of 1:59 2/5 in 1973. The son of Dynaformer, owned by Gretchen and Roy Jackson's Lael Farm, in West Grove, Pa., returned $14.20, $8 and $6. Bluegrass Cat, trained by Todd Pletcher, returned $28.40 and $15.40. Steppenwolfer paid $7.80 to show. Sweetnorthernsaint, the surprise 5-1 favorite, finished seventh. Lawyer Ron finished 12th. Barbaro overcame a scary start, when he stumbled briefly but quickly righted himself. By the first turn, he was racing among the leaders, and in perfect position to make his winning move. "This is a very excellent horse," Prado said. "All the time he showed me the quality horse he is. ... Dreams come true." The margin of victory was the largest since Assault won by eight lengths in 1946. The 55-year-old Matz left the equestrian world to train thoroughbreds eight years ago and took an unconventional route to his first Derby. Barbaro won the Holy Bull Stakes at Gulfstream Park on Feb. 4 in his first start on the dirt. It wasn't until eight weeks later that the colt raced again, winning the Florida Derby. With the win, Barbaro became the first horse since Needles in 1956 to win without a prep race four or more weeks before the Derby. Matz also became the fourth straight first-time Derby trainer to win the race, following John Shirreffs with Giacomo, John Servis with Smarty Jones and Barclay Tagg with Funny Cide. "It's a great, great, great feeling," Matz said. As he watched his colt coming down the stretch, the trainer said he had one thought: "Don't fall down."' Showing Up was sixth, followed by Sweetnorthernsaint, Deputy Glitters, Point Determined, Seaside Retreat, Storm Treasure, Lawyer Ron, Cause to Believe, Flashy Bull, Private Vow, Sinister Minister, Bob and John, A.P. Warrior, Sharp Humor and Keyed Entry. If Barbaro goes on to win the Preakness in two weeks, the stage would be set for a fourth Triple Crown try in the past five years at the Belmont Stakes on June 10. War Emblem in 2002, Funny Cide in '03 and Smarty Jones in '04 each won the Derby and Preakness, but came up short in the last race. All week, Matz patiently answered questions about the crash of the DC-10 that killed 111 of the 296 passengers and crew members. His fiancee, D.D. Alexander, now his wife, also survived the crash. "I think Michael is one of those rare people who does amazing things and doesn't showboat or take a lot of credit," Melissa Radcliffe, now 29 and one of the children Matz saved, said earlier this week. "In the plane crash, we knew him but we had no idea he was an Olympic equestrian rider. He said he was just a guy who likes horses."' Barbaro earned $1,453,200 to boost his career earnings to $2,302,200. "I thought it was the best race I've ever seen," Gretchen Jackson said. Earlier in the day, George Washington, a 3-year-old bred by the Jacksons won the 2,000 Guineas race in England. Barbaro began his career on the turf, winning an allowance race at Delaware Park and then taking the Laurel Futurity before being shipped to Florida. He won the Tropical Park Derby on Jan. 1 before his wins in the Holy Bull and Florida Derby.
|
high
| 1.238095 |
Barbaro won the 132nd Kentucky Derby, capturing the 1 1/4-mile first leg of American horse racing's Triple Crown.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160702023711id_/http://www.economist.com:80/blogs/banyan/2014/06/studying-tajikistan-turns-dangerous
|
IT WAS always dangerous to be a journalist or government critic in Tajikistan. But, until recently, the predatory and paranoid regime of Emomali Rakhmon, the president, left graduate students alone. That changed June 16th when Alexander Sodiqov, a Tajik political science student in Canada who is employed by Britain’s University of Exeter, was detained by the secret police (still known colloquially as the KGB). He is being held incommunicado, but was reportedly charged with treason for interviewing an opposition leader shortly after meeting the British ambassador at a party. He faces 20 years in jail. Colleagues and rights activists have called the allegations farcical. Mr Sodiqov, 31, was detained in the restive eastern mountainous region of Gorno-Badakhshan while researching conflict resolution and civil society. The sparsely populated region is home to minority Pamiri ethnic groups marginalised by the nationalistic Mr Rakhmon in the far-off capital, Dushanbe. It is also awash with Afghan narcotics from across the long, porous border. In 2012 government troops tried to unseat local warlords, leaving dozens dead in what looked more like a turf battle than the anti-narcotics operation authorities claimed it to be. Last month violence flared again after a midday shootout between police and alleged drug dealers. In response rampaging locals torched government buildings, demanding a stop to the violence. Known formally as the GKNB, the security service is the state’s principal tool for political repression and has tried to thwart inquiries, preventing, for example, the British ambassador from meeting local activists this month. YouTube has been blocked for weeks, supposedly for hosting inflammatory videos. Mr Sodiqov’s "arrest looks like another effort by the government to blame outside forces for Tajikistan's internal problems," says Susan Corke of Freedom House. There is compelling evidence to suggest the GKNB controls much of the country’s lucrative narcotics trade. Yet the unaccountable body has been financed by the United States, which annually spends millions of dollars training and equipping the secret police to fight drugs and potential spillover from Afghanistan. The United States has spent over $200m on Tajikistan’s security forces since 2001, according to the Center for International Policy, an American NGO that tracks such things through a project called Security Assistance Monitor. That is supposed to buy an ally in a tricky neighbourhood, not more instability. “Our authorities find it easier to concoct mysterious foreign plots than address the numerous social problems in the region,” says Ravshan Abdullaev, the director of the Eurasia Foundation’s Dushanbe office, of Mr Sodiqov’s arrest. “The allegations are absurd and show how out-of-touch our authorities are.” The treason charge, which will be difficult for authorities to walk back without losing face, is a stark warning. One local journalist compared the atmosphere to Stalin’s terror: “It’s horrifying. Any of us could find ourselves in this situation.” Self-censorship may be the goal. The Rakhmon regime looks to Russia for inspiration and appears emboldened by the Kremlin’s effective persecution of free thinkers. Immediately after Mr Sodiqov’s arrest, the security chief said foreign governments are collaborating with NGOs and “organised crime” to destabilise Tajikistan. Parliament has proposed tightening already strict laws on public protest. For bosses in the security service, Mr Sodiqov’s brief meeting at a reception with the British ambassador—arguably the most open and affable diplomat in town—was apparently enough to claim a British conspiracy. That is implausible. Western governments are terrified of another failed state in Central Asia and worry poorly governed Tajikistan could easily head down that road. But the Tajik government's refusal to allow questions in Gorno-Badakhshan, so vividly highlighted by Mr Sodiqov’s detention, is breeding domestic resentment. The problems Tajikistan faces come from within, not from a phantom external plot.
|
medium
| 1.96 |
The case of a scholar detained in Tajikistan and reportedly charged with treason highlights the predatory and paranoid nature of President Emomali Rakhmon's regime
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160702151209id_/http://fortune.com:80/2015/10/17/puerto-rico-debt-u-s-treasury/
|
While Europe agonizes over the Greek debt crisis, the United States is saddled with one of its own. Individual investment portfolios are replete with $72 billion in bonds issued by Puerto Rico’s government and its agencies, and since August this US Commonwealth has been in default. While federal law allows municipalities to restructure their debts under Chapter 9 that option is unavailable to states or US territories. The latest proposal designed to remedy the Puerto Rico debt calamity is a so-called “superbond” plan. The details are still sketching, but one scenario entails swapping existing bonds for new ones managed by the federal Treasury. While the Treasury would not guarantee the debt it would be responsible for managing some of Puerto Rico’s tax revenues, thus decreasing the likelihood of a default on the replacement bonds. It is unclear, however, whether the old bonds would be exchanged for new ones of equal value. Assuming this scheme can leap over the numerous political and legal hurdles necessary for implementation there remains the question of how much of a dent this could make in $72 billion in unpayable debt. Although a noble effort this strategy amounts to affixing a very small bandage over a rather deep financial wound. To begin with, how did Puerto Rico get into this mess? Investors bought Puerto Rico’s bonds at a time when its finances, by all appearances, were strong enough to repay its debts. Government budgets ultimately rest atop the employment base sustaining them. While tourism and agriculture employ thousands those sectors are too small to absorb all able-bodied workers. One remedy for the island’s unemployment woes has been fostering other economic sectors, such as manufacturing. Due to the federal minimum wage Puerto Rico’s payroll costs are high compared to its Caribbean neighbors. Federal health and safety regulations also add to the cost of doing business. And under the 1920 Jones Act, goods exchanged between Puerto Rico and the US mainland must be shipped via U.S.-flag carriers – among the most expensive in the world. Thus, it has not been easy to attract manufacturing plants to Puerto Rico. In a bid to stabilize, if not bolster, Puerto Rico’s economy the federal government provided enterprises operating in Puerto Rico with industrial tax incentives. These enticements, under Section 936 of the Internal Revenue Code, the cornerstone of the island’s manufacturing base, were dismantled with devastating economic consequences. Deemed “corporate welfare” by many, the federal government instated a ten-year phase out for these 936 incentives beginning in 1996. The numbers speak for themselves. The Bureau of Labor statistics reported that in 1995, the year before Section 936 was put on the chopping block, there were 159,000 manufacturing jobs in Puerto Rico. Twenty years later there are fewer than 75,000 employees in this sector — a decrease of more than fifty percent. Fewer manufacturing jobs translates into declining tax revenue for a debt-ridden Puerto Rican government. The decimation of Puerto Rico’s manufacturing base has yielded other economic consequences. Unable to find work hundreds of thousands of islanders, particularly the young and college educated, have migrated to the US mainland in the past decade. As US citizens there is no legal impediment to their relocation. Whereas New York City was the prime destination for the great migration of the 1940s and 50s today’s preferred terminus is Orlando, Florida. A critical section of the next generation, the very people needed to lead the island out of its economy morass, are departing. The consequences of their departure will be felt for decades to come. Despite the gravity of this situation there’s been, so far, an eerie silence from Capitol Hill. For the time being Republican lawmakers, consumed by internecine warfare, have shown little interest in touching Puerto Rico’s debt disaster. Individual investors are paying the price as are the tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans who are packing their bags to head stateside. This migration, a rather quiet exodus when compared to its counterpart in Europe, further erodes Puerto Rico’s capacity to put its financial house in order. The “superbond” idea, a laudable effort, is simply too meagre a remedy to fully tackle this crisis. A more realistic short-term solution is amending federal law to allow the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico to file for Chapter 9. In the long haul the island’s economy cannot recover to the point where it can repay its debts without a restoration of tax incentives that attracted industries there in the first place. Both remedies, sadly, are unlikely in Washington’s current climate. Given the current state of affairs the most likely scenario is a continued decline in Puerto Rico’s economy and Puerto Ricans displacing Cubans as the largest Latino community in the State of Florida. Amílcar Antonio Barreto is an associate professor of political science, international affairs and public policy at Northeastern University. He is also the director of its MA Program in International Affairs.
|
medium
| 1.8 |
As U.S. officials talk about ways to save the debt-trouble territory, it should consider changing laws to allow states and territories to file for Chapter 9.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160715010517id_/http://www.forbes.com:80/2007/04/02/allergies-health-pollen-forbeslife-cx_avd_0403allergy.html
|
When it comes to spring allergies, the amount of Kleenex one goes through varies year to year, often depending on Mother Nature, personal triggers and where you live. Worst place for sufferers? Tulsa, Okla. That’s according to a report out today from the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. A not-for-profit organization that provides information, community-based services and a support network, it has culled 2006 data and ranked the worst cities for spring allergies based on three factors: pollen counts, medication usage by allergy patients and the number of board-certified allergists per patient. Tulsa-based Dr. Rollie Rhodes, allergy director for the Eastern Oklahoma Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic, isn’t surprised his area tops the list. He estimates that he and his colleagues saw several hundred more patients than usual last year because of the mild 2005-06 winter, which allowed the ragweed season to last longer than normal and the spring tree season to start up in February. “The milder the winter,” he says, “the more problems.” Dallas-Forth Worth, Texas, which had a couple of mild winters in recent years that helped plants thrive, came in second. Last year, based on data from 2005, Hartford, Conn., had the worst spring allergies, according to the list. That could have been due to temperature changes or too few allergy doctors to handle a particularly heavy patient load. But normally, Southeastern cities rule. Trees that produce lots of pollen, such as oak, maple and elm, are popular in the Southeast, and the open environment makes it easy for lightweight spores to travel once they’re airborne, says Angel Waldron, spokeswoman for the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. And then there’s the weather–short, mild winters and long springs don’t help. Time to Move? One of the reasons the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America first began tracking in 2003 the intensity of seasonal allergies was because the group was getting so many calls from people asking where they should move to avoid them. The goal was to put research behind its answers. “They’d say, ‘I moved to Atlanta, and I never had troubles before. Now I’m miserable,’ ” Waldron says. But while it’s helpful, for instance, for people with tree pollen allergies to know that the Southeast might not be a great place for them to live, relocating won’t solve most sufferers’ problems. Most people tend to have more than one trigger, something they may not realize until they move to another city and are exposed to different allergens. People with tree pollen allergies could move to Seattle, for example, where the tree pollen count is much lower, only to find out they’re also allergic to mold, a significant problem in the Northwest. Some seek solace in Arizona. But Dr. Michael Daines, an immunologist and assistant professor in pediatrics at the University of Arizona in Tucson, says the people who initially moved to the desert to escape their allergies basically brought allergens with them, planting Bermuda grass and other non-native plants. Tucson, the fifth worst city for spring allergies, is having another bad spring so far this year, he says. Allergy Busters If allergies are making you miserable, experts recommend avoiding unnecessary exposure to allergens; consistently taking medication, such as an antihistamine or decongestant; or seeing a doctor–if you can get an appointment this time of year. The wait time to get into Daines’ allergy clinic, for instance, is currently months long. “It’s nice to be in demand, but our main goal is to get rid of the suffering,” he says. “Patients are really suffering.” Comments are turned off for this post.
|
medium
| 1.32 |
Sneezing up a storm? Find out why where you live has a lot to do with the amount of tissues you go through.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160723164319id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/expat/expatlife/10172178/A-Pom-versus-the-pests.html
|
There’s not much point in trying to get rid of a gecko. They're lightening fast and even if you manage to grab one by the tail, the amazing gecko has evolved to self-amputate for a quick getaway, and grow another tail to be pulled off another day. Verdict: Let the curious little creatures stay to keep the mozzies at bay. When it comes to crawly things, it doesn’t get much creepier than a cockroach. The first time one of these huge armour clad bugs scuttled out of my kitchen bin, I shot over to my neighbour fearing thousands were lurking in the cavities of my newly rented home, about to swarm me at any moment. My neighbour assured me that I didn't necessarily have an infestation and that cockroaches are common insects in Australia, getting into houses through any crack or vent. As it turned out, she was right. Still, the fact that even one creature can live for a week after it’s been beheaded, and give birth to offspring without copulation, is one freak too many for me. With no mouth to drink with, a cockroach will die from a lack of water before it dies from lack of a head. They thrive in all conditions from the desert to the Arctic and have done so for 300 million years, scientists say. Clearly, cockroaches are aliens that belong in science fiction movies and not in my home. Verdict: Spray it with insecticide and dispose of the carcase once a CSI investigator has confirmed its death in triplicate. Paper wasps live in small colonies of around 20 and are non-aggressive unless their nests, which have a papery appearance, are threatened. So it's best to leave well alone unless someone in your household is allergic to the sting of wasps. When wasps moved into my porch, my neighbour came to the rescue, once again, with a can of insecticide, a big broom and a pair of stilettos. First she sprayed the nest until the wasps dropped out. "It’s best to deal with the wasps after sunset when they're docile," she advised before swiping the nest down with her broom and making dust of it under her sharp shoes. Verdict: Destroy the nest if it’s in a high traffic area or if you, or any member of your family, are prone to anaphylactic shock. But get someone else to do it, like a neighbour with a mean pair of shoes. Huntsmans are frighteningly large hand-sized arachnophobia-inducing creatures that hang out in houses. According to the National Museum of Australia, hairy huntsmans are more likely to run away and are not considered dangerous. However, as with many spiders, their bite is venomous and may cause some nasty effects. I prefer to coax these large insect-eaters outside where they can stand guard against alien cockroach invasions. Verdict: Carefully release them back into the wild with rubber gloves, several brooms and a Tupperware box. Possums are too shy to come into the house, but after dark these nocturnal fat-bottomed cuties waddle along my balcony rail with a clumsy trepidation before dropping onto my deck with a "hello there" doof. If only Australian houses didn't have tin roofs. That's where possums like to play their middle-of-the-night games of tag, or whatever it is they do. Skipperty ...bumperty ...doof doof doof . . . back and forth they go across the roof. Be careful not to mix up your antipodean rules. Possums are pests in New Zealand but they are protected in Australia. Verdict: Too cute to mute. Get earplugs. It started soon after I arrived in Queensland. I felt a nip. I swatted, swiped or flicked, then inspected the skin to find nothing. No black and red splat, no mark, no swelling, no pinprick, no trace of any micro insect whatsoever, except a persistent nip, nip, nip. The ghost bug attacked me randomly for around a year. I thought I'd lost more than my electrolytes in the heat until I noticed visitors and other newbie expats displaying the same behaviour. They confirmed they could feel the ghost bug too. Phew. It's a phantom nipping phenomena that disappeared once I acclimatised to the humidity. I've never managed to unravel or resolve the mystery. Verdict: Open to any suggestions in the comments box below. Tracey Croke is a Manchester-born, Australia-based freelance journalist. Her website is at www.traceycroke.com and you can also follow her on Twitter.
|
medium
| 0.783784 |
Our reader was ready to live in Australia - but she was not ready to share her home with some uninvited guests. Here's her lighthearted guide to handling an onslaught of pests.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160811151924id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/08/10/13/47/vietnam-veterans-should-be-recognised
|
Long Tan commander Harry Smith has claimed a partial victory in his fight to have the heroism and sacrifice of his men honoured 50 years after one of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War. Retired Lieutenant Colonel Harry Smith, 83, has campaigned for decades to rectify deficiencies in what he believed was a shambolic system for military awards. He was commander of Delta company during the Battle of Long Tan and was not satisfied with the level of recognition awarded to soldiers at the time. The Defence Honours and Awards Appeals Tribunal was tasked with considering the cases of 13 of his soldiers. Veterans Affairs Minister Dan Tehan announced on Wednesday he would write to the prime minister and governor-general seeking approval to accept the tribunal's recommendations in full. The tribunal has recommended military honours or upgrades for 10 soldiers but Mr Smith's bid for the late Jack Kirby to receive a Victoria Cross was rejected. The tribunal decided that the distinguished conduct medal awarded to him in 1966 was appropriate to recognise his leadership in the battle. Mr Smith said he had done his best to put a strong case to the tribunal. "Justice has been done," he told reporters in Canberra. "I believe that the outcome has been excellent, compared with what has been done before." The tribunal recommended medals of gallantry for Lieutenant Adrian Roberts, Sergeant Frank Alcorta and Lance Corporal Barry Magnussen (deceased) and commendations for gallantry for Second Lieutenant Gordon Sharp (deceased), and Privates Neil Bextrum, Ron Brett (deceased), Ian Campbell, William Roche, Geoffrey Peters and Noel Grimes. The tribunal also backed a previous decision not to award an honour to the late Corporal William Moore and Private Allen May. Mr Smith expressed some disappointment over the Kirby decision. He said Kirby had run around under fire distributing ammunition to troops and joking with soldiers as they fought for their lives. "Jack was a man who had no regard for his own safety," he said, describing him as an inspiration. "Great big man he was, how he never got hit surprises me to this day." Kirby died in February 1967 when a shell from a New Zealand gun accidentally landed on the Australian position. Next Wednesday and Thursday there will be commemorations of the battle at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
|
medium
| 1.190476 |
Labor leader Bill Shorten believes there should be more recognition for Vietnam veterans involved in the Battle of Long Tan.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160819195235id_/http://www.theguardian.com:80/politics/2016/aug/17/isis-should-get-round-the-table-with-uk-middle-east-says-owen-smith-labour
|
Owen Smith, the Labour leadership challenger, sparked controversy on Wednesday by suggesting a British government would have to negotiate with Isis to end the conflict in the Middle East. Asked in a televised debate whether the terrorist group, which controls large areas of Iraq and Syria and has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks in the west, should be allowed to join talks about resolving the conflicts in the Middle East, Smith said “all actors” should be involved. Related: Owen Smith suggests Islamic State needs to 'get round the table' – live By contrast, the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who has sometimes been accused of being too willing to associate himself with extremist groups, said Isis should not be allowed to take part in talks. “No, they are not going to be round the table, no.” Later a spokesman for Corbyn criticised Smith’s remarks as “hasty and ill-considered”. Smith, who was a special adviser to Paul Murphy, Northern Ireland secretary in Tony Blair’s government, said: “I worked on the Northern Ireland peace process for three years; I was part of the UK’s negotiating team that helped bring together the loyalist paramilitaries. “My view is that, ultimately, all solutions to these international crises do come about through dialogue, so eventually if we are to try to solve this all of the actors do need to be involved. But at the moment Isil [Isis] are clearly not interested in negotiating. At some point for us to resolve this, we will need to get people round the table.” He later clarified the remarks in a Facebook Q&A, saying Isis would have to “renounce violence, cease all acts of terror and commit themselves to a peaceful settlement”, before any talks could take place. But his comments were seized on by the Conservatives, with Johnny Mercer, the MP and member of the defence select committee, saying: “His desperate attempts to out-Corbyn Jeremy Corbyn have led him to the view that barbaric murderers who behead journalists and lynch homosexuals are now the sort of people that we should negotiate with. “It shows that whoever wins this increasingly bizarre leadership election, I’m afraid Labour just cannot be trusted with keeping us safe.” Corbyn has previously suggested a back-channel to Isis should be maintained as part of efforts to resolve the Syria crisis. “The British government maintained a channel to the IRA all through the Troubles,” he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show in January. “I don’t condemn them for that. I don’t condemn them for keeping a back-channel to the Taliban. But a spokesman for Corbyn’s campaign said : “Jeremy has always argued that there must be a negotiated political solution to the war in Syria and the wider Middle East, and that maintaining lines of communication during conflicts is essential. But Isis cannot be part of those negotiations. Instead, its sources of funding and supplies must be cut off.” Smith, the MP for Pontypridd and former shadow work and pensions secretary, announced that he would challenge Corbyn after the Labour leader was hit by a series of resignations from his shadow cabinet, and lost the confidence of 172 of his MPs. The battle for the future of Labour has become increasingly ill-tempered, with the deputy leader, Tom Watson, claiming last week that Corbyn’s leadership has encouraged hard left “Trotsky entryists” to seek to infiltrate the party. Smith and Corbyn locked horns repeatedly in Wednesday’s two-hour-long debate, clashing over Smith’s claims that the Labour leader has failed to do enough to crack down on bullying and antisemitism. One young party member in the audience, Francesca, said she had witnessed intimidating behaviour at a recent Labour youth meeting, and suggested she would feel safer as a Labour supporter at a Tory conference than a non-Corbyn supporter at a Labour conference. Victoria Derbyshire, who hosted the debate on the BBC News channel, suggested the atmosphere in the Labour party had become “toxic”; but Corbyn shot back: “Well how do you know?” He added: “I attend large amounts of events all over the country where there are people of all shades of opinion having a respectful and intelligent debate; that’s how we should do things at all time.” Europe marked another dividing line, with Smith repeating his promise to offer the electorate a choice about whether to accept whatever Brexit deal Britain managed to negotiate, with a second referendum or a general election. He described the decision to leave the EU as “a desperate mistake for our country”. Student fees were another area of contention, with Corbyn saying he would scrap them, while Smith would fund university education through a graduate tax. Britain’s nuclear deterrent was another issue over which the pair set out differing positions, with Corbyn saying he would arm the Trident submarines with conventional weapons instead of nuclear warheads, while Smith said he believed in multilateral disarmament. Smith said he had been a unilateralist in the past, saying: “I used to hold that view, I don’t any longer. I think we should negotiate our way to get rid of nuclear weapons. The country wants the Labour party to be serious about the security of our country.” Corbyn, by contrast, described nuclear weapons as, “unconscionable”.
|
high
| 2 |
Smith’s comment that ‘all actors’ need to join talks on Middle East conflicts is criticised by Corbyn camp as hasty and ill-considered
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160820171015id_/http://www.thepostgame.com/millennial-viewers-arent-watching-olympic-games
|
The Olympic Games are must-see TV, but don't tell that to millennials. While the competition in Rio continues to draw strong ratings, even for its tape-delayed primetime events, the millennial generation isn't helping out that trend. In fact, when you pick apart the numbers, a glaring problem reveals itself. For a competition whose top stars fall into the millennial crowd, their generational peers aren't paying too much attention. Even on a superficial level, Olympic broadcasts are suffering from declining viewership. As The Wall Street Journal reports, NBC averaged nearly 28 million viewers for each of the first nine nights of Olympic broadcasts. That's a staggering number on its own, but it's still 15.5 percent down from viewership in 2012, and even farther behind the average from the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. If you're going to blame anyone, blame millennials: The 18-to-34 audience has declined by 30 percent for these Olympics in Rio, and NBC is rightfully worried about the trend. While cable subscriptions in general have declined in recent years, millennial embrace of the Olympics has plummeted. The Olympics increasingly seem to cater best to the interests of older generations. During the past few Games, the average viewer age has ranged from the high-40s to the low-50s. Declining millennial interest is inching that number higher. Millennials are quicker to cut the cord on cable than other generations, but that doesn't entirely explain their lagging interest. After all, even when you add in the 2 million viewers who watch the Olympics online every night, the viewership still isn't reaching London's levels from four years ago. The Olympic Games have made several attempts to get hip to the young crowd. Bringing in Ryan Seacrest for late-night coverage was seen as a move to appeal to a younger demographic, and even additions like skateboarding to the Olympics were geared more toward millennials than older fans. And still, millennials aren't tuning in. So what gives, and what does it mean for the Olympics? For one thing, lagging interest is a product of increased competition. With millennials occupied by more streams of media than any other demographic, they simply have less time to spend on any particular channel. Social media offers a variety of distractions: Imagine the Olympics battling for millennial attentions with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat, among other platforms. It's easy to see how millennials are too busy to pull up Olympics on the boob tube. NBC tried to counter this by diving deep into social media influence: Seacrest's nightly broadcasts feature social media coverage from the day, and NBC also invested heavily into social media influencers who could help promote the Olympic Games to a younger audience. Consider even comedian Leslie Jones' surprise trip to Rio, earned through her engaging social media live-tweeting. Jones is a hit with younger audiences; bringing her to Rio was an easy way to increase engagement among millennials back home. According to Variety, NBC has dropped roughly $100 million on marketing its Olympic Games broadcasts. Despite that spending, its losing millennial audiences faster than ever before. The question, of course, is how to fix it. For starters, NBC and the Olympics might consider dispensing with its archaic primetime broadcasts -- or, at least, opening up new media consumption options that are more flexible for millennials and meet younger audiences where they're at. NBC's livestreams online have been popular, but the network may want to consider emerging forms of video streaming, such as partnerships with Twitter and Snapchat, to make Olympics broadcasts more accessible while also supporting a better multi-screen experience. In fairness, such partnerships are still in their infancy, and by the 2018 Winter Olympic Games, experimental partnerships with other professional sports leagues will give Olympic officials a better sense of how social media can be used to deliver broadcasts. Then there's the issue of its packaged primetime broadcasts, which frustrate many younger viewers who find out the results beforehand, or simply don't care to hold their suspense until the wee hours of the night. This is a strategy that simply can't survive with the times. As the American public and the world population consume media through an ever-increasing number of channels, the suspense of a tape-delayed primetime broadcast will dissolve to near-nothing. Instead, NBC should do a better job of promoting live events as they're happening, while also providing an alternative tape-delayed package where fans can watch broadcasts in the evening. Of course, all of these changes may overlook a more fundamental truth that the Olympic Games might not be able to fix. The media landscape is packed, and competitive for consumer attention is fierce. The Olympics is a revenue-generating titan that relies on a massive, plugged-in audience to generate its mammoth earnings. But as the American culture becomes more and more fractured by competing interests, even something as large as the Olympic Games might have to rethink its strategy. Millennials aren't making some brave stand against cable or blazing a promising new path for the future of media: They're just reacting to what's been made available to them. And as the options proliferate, missing out on the Olympic Games just doesn't seem like that big of a deal. More Olympics: -- Kenyan Runners: How They Became So Good -- Michael Phelps Teaches Katie Ledecky Proper Medal-Wearing Technique -- Olympians In The NFL Millennials, NBC, Olympic Games, Olympics, Rio Olympics, TV ratings
|
high
| 1.384615 |
The Olympic Games has struggled to draw in a large millennial TV crowd, suggesting it may have no change its strategy in the future.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20161021131011id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/10/20/12/16/iranian-sentenced-over-vic-opium-plot
|
An Iranian asylum seeker who smuggled 1.8 kilograms of opium into Melbourne through the mail claimed the package was for personal use. Behrus Miri Kalaniki had a one gram-a-day addiction, which meant the almost $1 million package would have taken him up to five years to get through. He pleaded guilty to attempting to posses the drug, and had his bridging visa cancelled when he was charged in October last year. County Court Judge Carolyn Douglas described Kalaniki's plan to smuggle the drug into Australia in rubber rolls hidden inside car parts as "sophisticated". But Judge Douglas found it difficult to believe Kalanaki's claims that he planned to use the entire package for personal use. "Opium loses its form over time, so that amount wouldn't last 900 days - even if you were to share it. And as a regular user you would know that," the judge said on Thursday. She did accept his one gram-a-day addiction led to his poor decisions. The judge said the Werribee resident, supported by his wife in court, began smoking opium in Iran before he illegally arrived in Australia by boat from Indonesia. Kalaniki sought refuge in Australia because he feared persecution in Iran for his family's links to the Kurdish Democratic Party. He started using the drug again because he was "feeling bored and frustrated" at being unable to work - a condition of his bridging visa. Kalaniki was sentenced to 10 months in jail with no parole period - less than the 373 days he has already spent in pre-sentence custody. Despite already serving his sentence, Kalaniki won't walk free, with both the judge and his lawyer conceding he will be released into the custody of immigration officials. His defence counsel Colin Ham said his client would go "straight to (detention centres in) Maribyrnong or Nauru".
|
low
| 1.384615 |
An Iranian man who pleaded guilty in a Melbourne court to attempting to possess almost 2 kilograms of opium has been given a jail term.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20161218200626id_/http://www.foxsports.com/boxing/story/luis-ortiz-can-regain-momentum-with-matchroom-boxing-100816
|
As Tyson Fury upset Wladimir Klitschko and Anthony Joshua was skillfully guided to a world title trinket, Luis Ortiz — who many view as the most dangerous heavyweight in boxing — was forced to sit idle, which frustratingly wasted the momentum garnered from a sensational TKO of top contender Bryant Jennings on HBO in December of 2015. Still, a title shot for the feared Ortiz appeared elusive, especially with Fury and former champion Wladimir Klitschko locked into a mandatory rematch, which has obviously since gone awry. But by signing with Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing, Luis Ortiz (25-0, 22 KOs), who will fight Carlos Takam on November 12, finally has the inside track on some major fights. Here are some details about Ortiz’s signing, courtesy of ESPN.com’s Dan Rafael: Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the signing comes six weeks after Ortiz’s camp paid $1 million to Golden Boy Promotions to buy out his promotional contract because they were unhappy with the agreement. The signing comes as a bit of a surprise because Ortiz was close to signing a deal with Roc Nation Sports that would have commenced with an appearance on the HBO PPV undercard of the Sergey Kovalev-Andre Ward light heavyweight title fight on Nov. 19 in Las Vegas. Now Ortiz is with Eddie Hearn’s company, which could pave the way to an eventual fight with world titleholder Anthony Joshua (17-0, 17 KOs). It’s hard to imagine that Hearn will be overly eager to match Anthony Joshua and Luis Ortiz, especially with the fracturing of heavyweight titles following Tyson Fury’s positive drug test. Ortiz should be able to dust off some ring rust against fringe contender Carlos Takam, which could provide an intriguing springboard to a fight against someone like Dillian Whyte, who Ortiz should handle. David Haye also lingers as an intriguing target on the UK heavyweight scene, and Europe in general is littered with capable, if unspectacular, big men. In any case, the point is that Luis Ortiz is probably better served with a UK promoter at this stage when it comes to fighting with any consistency. A Joshua-Ortiz fight is mouthwatering from a fan’s perspective, and one figures that Joshua will take a major step up in 2017, whether it comes against David Haye, Waldimir Klitschko or Luis Ortiz. And with Joseph Parker zeroing in on the WBO title, Ortiz has another path to a major fight with Hearn at the helm of negotiations. It should also be said that Luis Ortiz dodged a massive bullet by not signing with Roc Nation Sports, a promotional outfit that has a paltry track record of keeping its fighters active since it burst onto the scene with signings of Andre Ward and Miguel Cotto. At 37, Ortiz doesn’t have time to waste, and it’s likely that he will finally get the opportunity he deserves in 2017. This article originally appeared on
|
low
| 1.132075 |
Luis Ortiz, the supremely talented heavyweight who came up through Cuba's vaunted amateur system, has signed a promotional deal with Eddie Hearn's Matchroom Boxing after severing ties with Golden Boy Promotions. This is a move that could help Ortiz regain lost momentum.As Tyson Fury upse...
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20131215154345id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/dec/15/deborah-turbeville-obituary-franca-sozzani-vogue
|
Deborah Turbeville pictured on a trip to Budapest in 1982. Photograph: Bertrand Cardon/Marek and Associates I first met Deborah about 30 years ago when I was working at Lei magazine. It was a very successful youth-oriented title. I was trying to do a different take on fashion and style using younger photographers such as Paolo Roversi, Peter Lindbergh, Steven Meisel and Mario Testino, all of whom I later brought to Vogue with me. I saw these pictures she did of girls in an old school house and in a dancing school. Just so atmospheric and beautiful. I loved Deborah's work because it was original yet recognisable. She had a style, a signature. I wanted her in the mix because she was so individual and her style was timeless, even though it was black and white. She was all about atmosphere. Even when the backdrops were not beautiful, which was often the case, she transformed them and made the decay of old buildings seem dream-like. Sometimes an art director would say that her shots were out of focus, but that was her way of making the world seem otherworldly. Deborah never really had the recognition or the success she deserved. She knew Richard Avedon and Helmut Newton, but she did not get their recognition. People in the fashion world like more commercial photographers and she never cared to become commercial. Plus, she had to like what she was doing for the passion to be there. If she ended up on a shoot she didn't like, I have to say, you heard about it. It was, "I don't like this place. I don't like this model." She would complain for hours. Deborah was utterly individual, both in her work and her life. She was stylish, not fashionable: tall, slim, elegant. She wore simple things – dark pants, a T-shirt. There was a little bit of the hippy about her, too. She had a beautiful house on New York's Upper West Side and another in Mexico, and they were shabby-beautiful. She lived in her own world a little bit and you had to meet her there. She never said too much about what she was going to do when you commissioned her, but it was always her. People assumed from her name that she was French, but she wasn't. (She was born in Massachusetts.) I didn't know much about her personal life. I know she had relationships and that she never married, but she was very private. Very few people knew about her life, and that is how she wanted it. She was friendly, but in a very selective way. Everyone who worked with her loved her because she was so sweet and so passionate. Deborah was quite independent and liked to be a little mysterious. She loved Russia, the old Russia, and spent a lot of time in St Petersburg. I think, though I may be wrong, that she was a former model, but she was not of the trendy world of fashion. In fact, she was the opposite. She did not follow; she did her own thing. She never called herself an artist and when others did, she would say: "I'm a photographer." For me, though, she was an artist. She led a kind of revolution in fashion photography with her early work, with the atmosphere and locations, but she was not a fashion photographer. The term is too confining for what she did. She made these beautiful books about places and buildings, like her Versailles book (Unseen Versailles), but I do think her fashion photographs worked against her in the art world. She was always somehow in the middle – between the worlds of art and fashion. She never really fitted into either. It was great that Valentino used her in his campaigns until about two years ago. I was so glad about that. And a few days before she died, we agreed to do a book together around her pictures of the great aristocratic Italian families. It is a beautiful and sad thing to be doing now that she is not here, but I am very happy and proud to be doing it. For me, she is among the greatest photographers. She could have done so much more, but she was not prepared to compromise. That is the way of the true artist.
|
high
| 1.190476 |
Vogue Italia's Franca Sozzani, who worked with Deborah Turbeville for more than 30 years, recalls an uncompromising photographer
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20140628014351id_/http://www.msnbc.com/all/eugenic-sterilization-victims-belated-justice
|
CHARLOTTE, North Carolina – A child as young as nine years old. A 21-year-old mother of six who, a social worker complained, “made no effort to curb her sexual desires.” A woman who, the state’s official Eugenics Board worried, “wears men’s clothing all [the] time.” People considered “feeble-minded” on the basis of dubious testing. “These people were dehumanized.” Latoya Adams The targets of that board’s 45-year reign, from 1929 to 1974, were disproportionately black and female, and almost universally poor. They included victims of rape and incest, women who were already mothers – and then their daughters, too. The state’s remedy for all of them: Forced or coerced sterilization. “These people were dehumanized,” said Latoya Adams, whose aunt, Deborah Blackmon, was sterilized under the state’s eugenics law. “They treated them like animals.” Blackmon was among the last to be sterilized, in 1972. The court documents Adams has since obtained read, “Final diagnoses: Mental retardation, severe. North Carolina sterilized 7,600 people through its sweeping eugenic sterilization program, but it wasn’t alone. Thirty states had, and enforced, eugenic sterilization laws on the books, initially on the now-discredited theory that preventing the “defective” from reproducing would benefit humanity. But North Carolina is different in some important ways. The state’s surviving victims will be the first to get compensation, provided they can meet the deadline on Monday, June 30. So far 630 people have applied for a share of the $10 million budgeted by the legislature, but the state first has to verify their claims based on documents not all survivors may be able to produce. “I always say we were the worst, and now we’re going to be the best,” said John Railey, the editorial page editor at the Winston-Salem Journal who has spent over a decade reporting on and advocating for the victims. “The worst,” because it empowered social workers to petition for the sterilization of just about anybody. Other states with sterilization programs conducted them largely through institutions like prisons and asylums. As Rutgers University historian Johanna Schoen, who has extensively documented the state’s eugenics policy, put it, “The North Carolina program reached into people’s homes like no other.” “The best,” because it’s the first to do anything about the state-sponsored encroachment on reproductive freedom. All In with Chris Hayes, 6/27/14, 9:24 PM ET Survivors of forced and coerced sterilizations in North Carolina are eligible for compensation 40 years after the program ended. Deborah Blackmon’s sister, Margaret Rankin, says she remembers the social workers coming around the house just over 40 years ago. Her parents, a truck driver and a housecleaner in a rural area outside Charlotte, were reluctantly persuaded that sterilization was the best thing for Deborah. “You don’t hardly find too many men that cry, but my daddy pulled out some tears the time my sister spent in the hospital,” Rankin said. Having since learned about the extent of the program, Rankin said, she became furious. “They labeled us as poor people, uneducated, black, being mentally retarded,” she said. North Carolina, like other states with eugenics programs, took its cues from the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 1927 upheld a forced sterilization law for the supposed good of society. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote for the majority, “It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.” Within two years, North Carolina had amended its eugenic sterilization law to comply with courts’ desire for some nominal due process. By 1933, the Eugenics Board was formed to rule on petitions recommending sterilization, evaluating their “eugenic history,” including their IQs. “In 95% of the cases they approved it,” Schoen said. That left the people targeted by the state with few options. There was a formal appeals process, but it took “a fairly confident level of resistance,” Schoen said, adding, “Most people were so intimidated by the process that once the petition was authorized, they submitted to it.” Schoen did find cases of people moving away or taking other steps to avoid a social worker’s reach. “People who had been told by social workers that they had too many children or they would be sterilized, they would hide the children in the closet,” she said. Though men were also targeted, the vast majority of the sterilization victims were female. A 1945 fact sheet for the Human Betterment League of North Carolina counseled that “feebleminded girls are particularly in need of the protection of sterilization since they cannot be expected to assume adequate moral or social responsibility for their actions.” Castella Jefferson, now 62, said she remembers waking up at age 15, confused, and being told she had undergone surgery. It was 1969, she said, and her parents had sent her to a state institution called the Caswell Training Center after she had started running away from home and “started looking at boys,” as she put it. “I said, ‘What kind of surgery?’ ‘Well, we tied your tubes,’” Jefferson told msnbc. “I didn’t know to talk about it because I didn’t know what was going on.” Only several years later, when she was trying to get pregnant and sought medical advice, did she learn what had happened to her. “In her paperwork, she was labeled as being feebleminded,” said Jefferson’s stepdaughter, Pauline Watson. “By no means is she feebleminded.” Jefferson was also told her mother had signed a consent form, but later, “I found out after that that my mother never signed that paper,” she said. In 1935, a report by the state’s Eugenics Board contended that “none of the inmates of Caswell Training School should be released before being sterilized, except in the few instances where normal children have been committed through error.” According to Schoen, there were 572 petitions to the Eugenics Board from Caswell between 1937 and 1966. Eugenics – at least, as a practice of alleged genetic purification – officially fell out of favor after the Nazis became its best-known proponents. (Hitler’s physician and the head of his eugenics program, Karl Brandt, cited U.S. eugenics laws in his defense at trial.) But the sterilization programs remained, with new justification. “I’m so sorry it happened, but throwing money don’t change it, don’t make it go away. It still happened.” Republican state Senator Don East in 2012 Under Jim Crow, African-Americans were excluded from both state institutions like Caswell and from the welfare benefits that drew the attention of social workers. Integration brought a sickening form of inclusion: African-American women became the primary targets. In the late 1960s, despite being a minority of the population, they became the majority of sterilization victims. “The eugenic sterilization really was an attempt to control the reproduction of women on welfare more than anything else,” Schoen said. Defenders stopped talking about the gene pool and started talking about saving the state money – and even claimed it was for the women’s own good. “It turns into this notion that this is something that will save people money. It will pull them out of poverty,” Schoen said. Railey put it more bluntly: “It became a form of American genocide.” The Eugenics Board was never a secret. The state attorney general sat on the board, as did the director of public health. The program drew the attention of feminist activists in part because Nial Ruth Cox, a victim of the program, unsuccessfully sued the state in the early 1970s. (One of her attorneys was current Supreme Court Justice and then-ACLU attorney Ruth Bader Ginsburg.) It has been more than a decade since Schoen’s research and Railey and his paper’s reporting put the program in glaring modern light. Still, the compensation efforts, led by Democratic state Rep. Larry Womble, hit a wall. Gov. Bev Perdue, a Democrat, spoke passionately about the plight of the victims. There was a task force. And then nothing. Once Republicans took over all of the branches of state government in 2011, Railey found another angle to push for reparations. “I would editorialize, I’d say, ‘Look, y’all care about the sanctity of life, y’all hate big government. This program ran over the sanctity of life, this program was big government run amok. Reconcile for it,’” Railey recalled. “And eventually, they came to see that.” All In with Chris Hayes, 6/27/14, 9:23 PM ET North Carolina sterilized an estimated 7,600 people from 1929 to 1974. Now some of the victims are getting some measure of justice. The issue was indeed championed by another Republican, the state House Speaker and current Senate candidate Thom Tillis. “Every once in a while,” he said on the House floor, “I feel like you have the chance to make history. This is one of those chances.” “You just can’t rewrite history,” said the late Republican state Sen. Don East, in a 2012 interview with the AP. “I’m so sorry it happened, but throwing money don’t change it, don’t make it go away. It still happened.” East was among those who openly feared that giving compensation to the sterilization victims would open the door to other reparations claims. One advocate for reparations, Daren Bakst, conceded that “there is probably no greater concern among compensation opponents than the argument that such a move could provide justification for providing reparations for slavery.” Bakst proposed a solution in his report for the conservative John Locke Foundation, which has been highly influential in North Carolina’s recent turn to the right: Limiting the funds to only living victims, and not the families of dead ones. In the end, those were the terms under the compensation funds included in the budget signed into law by Republican Governor Pat McCrory in 2013. It applies to all victims who were alive at the time of the signing. The Office of Justice for Sterilization Victims is officially in charge of outreach to victims and to help them file their claims, including direct mail; the state’s NAACP has been trying to find more victims, and University of North Carolina Center for Civil Rights has been holding legal clinics for them. The process isn’t simple, and there are no extensions, though applicants can submit more paperwork if they get their first claim in by the deadline. The payments are scheduled to go out a year from now. “The state is just dragging it out,” said Frances Midgett, 46, whose mother, Dale Hymes, was sterilized after her birth. “I’m thinking, these are elder people. Are they just waiting for these people to die?” There is a budget proposal in the House to start payments as early as October. “I’m glad that she’s going to be compensated in some way, but that’s not enough. That can’t replace life,” said Midgett of her mother. “Nobody should be deprived of having children. That’s a decision they have to make themselves.”
|
high
| 1.75 |
North Carolina had among the worst forced sterilization programs in the country. Now it's the first to try to make amends.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20140926000947id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2006/oct/14/art
|
When Michael Craig-Martin enrolled at Yale to study fine art in 1961, he was lucky, he says, to hit on "probably the best moment in the art school's history. There were good teachers, but more importantly there were amazing students." Craig-Martin studied alongside Richard Serra, Chuck Close and Brice Marden among others and says he learned then that "becoming an artist is a peer activity". It was a lesson he carried into his subsequent teaching career, and 25 years later, as a tutor at Goldsmiths College in London, he saw it vindicated in the most spectacular manner. "Any art school teacher will say that rarely a year goes by without coming across someone who is interesting," he says. "But at Goldsmiths in the mid-80s there were five, then 10, then 20 amazingly interesting students who overlapped each other. I didn't make it happen. If there was a formula we'd all be doing it. But I did recognise it and tried to generate an engagement between these remarkable young artists." As the YBA generation of Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, Sarah Lucas, Anya Gallacio, Mat Collishaw - to name just some of Craig-Martin's students - spilled out of Goldsmiths to remake the British art scene, so Craig-Martin became increasingly influential, and was routinely described as the "Godfather of Britart". "Everyone," as one commentator put it, "listens to Michael." He also became better known as an artist in both galleries and large public commissions. His most recognised work today is his re-sized and vibrantly coloured graphic outlines of everyday objects such as chairs, cutlery or phones, but his career began, in the 60s, with a series of minimalist boxes. By the 70s he was a leading conceptualist, with his most famous work, An Oak Tree (1973), comprising a glass of water on a shelf accompanied by a text in which he asks himself questions to assert that the glass is in fact an oak tree. His entire career is brought together this month in a retrospective at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, accompanied by a lavish new monograph by Richard Cork (Thames & Hudson). The earliest work on show is his 1963 dissertation film - his only film work, and believed lost for 30 years - which is a series of static shots of the Connemara countryside. "I tried to include ripples on the wheat field, or a chicken next to an abandoned thatched cottage to show that they weren't stills," he explains. "But what that also shows is the presence of people within what might seem a barren landscape. That's always been somewhere in my work, and although I know there have been big changes to my work over the years, looking at it now I can see a continuum." The Dublin show is something of a homecoming for Craig-Martin, although he has never lived there. His Irish parents were in London during the war, but returned to Dublin for his birth in 1941. His father, Paul, was an agricultural economist at the British ministry of food who went to Washington DC after the war to work for the UN and then the newly founded World Bank. There was little interest in art at home - though, "surprisingly, we had a reproduction of a Picasso blue period painting. But it was still a bit odd when I became very interested in art." With no art taught at his Benedictine school he went, aged 13, to evening and weekend classes in painting. "The minute I learned there was such a thing as the avant-garde, I loved it. The more outrageous the better." At high school he remembers seeing a magazine designed by Duchamp and being "mesmerised that somebody had done something that was so unfamiliar and that I couldn't place". His time at Yale granted access to a New York art scene that was like "an amazing secret. The abstract expressionists were still alive and working, and then there was this extraordinary outpouring of op art, then pop art, then minimalism. There was new work from Warhol and Jasper Johns, and almost everything would knock your socks off." From his own generation he identifies Bruce Nauman as "the great artist. He has never been uninteresting. He anticipated everything and he understood everything. In the 60s there was a sense of liberation. But with that liberation came profound difficulties. Nauman, and also people like Richter and Polke, understood the new psychological response, which was a very different idea of where an artwork came from. These people found a way of sustaining an engagement. Art isn't about representing things, it is about acting things out. They acted out the problem of being an artist in the world." On leaving Yale, Craig-Martin anticipated a career as an artist, but had little expectation of making a living. To make ends meet he taught briefly in New York, before moving to the UK in 1966 to teach at the Bath Academy of Art. Three years later he staged his first one-man show in London and declared himself "speechless and delighted" when the Tate bought Four Identical Boxes with Lids Reversed. His profile raised, he took up posts at Canterbury College of Art and then as artist-in-residence at King's College, Cambridge. Yet he was also subject to the British resistance to modern art and was mocked by Scottish television reporter Fyffe Robertson in 1972, following the definitive Hayward exhibition of British conceptualism, The New Art. He was, and is, sanguine about such attacks. "The history of art is taking things that previously weren't considered worthy of concern - or maybe even beneath contempt - and pulling them into focus. Naturally people say it is terrible because that had been, until then, a normal and rational response. It takes time for people to accept that these things might be worthy of a closer look." His own foregrounding of everyday objects falls into this category and, as critics have pointed out, just considering the shape of, say, a TV set can lead to considering some of the most fundamental aspects of how a society operates. "My objects are very simple and well-known images. It's a knife. You don't have to spend any time figuring out whether it's a dagger or maybe a fork. So you can spend all your time on the other parts of it, which in one situation might be something threatening, in another comforting, or any number of meanings. People carry vast amounts of feelings and knowledge about these objects, so I get hugely differing responses from people who might love or hate something for reasons not even they are entirely sure about." He says that, while there was no British art world to speak of when he arrived in the UK, the art schools were "staggeringly important" both as educational institutions and patrons of artists by employing them. He points out how artist-teachers were defined by their art school - "I would never have been offered a job at Camberwell, whereas I was thrilled to be offered one at Goldsmiths" - and praises the freedom and comparatively generous funding of the time. "Some extraordinarily interesting work was done. But such was the indifference to art in the wider world that it was work carried out largely without an audience. Only the toughest and the best, people like Tony Bevan, survived. And it wasn't until Julian Opie became very successful very quickly in the 80s that other students saw there was a possibility of making not only a career, but also money. Then came Damien and his friends." Despite his apparently secure position within the arts establishment, Craig-Martin says he is pleased that, in part, he still feels like an outsider. "Although a Tate trustee, I will always be someone who was brought up in America." He married in 1963 and had a daughter, but has lived as a gay man since the 70s. He says he is part of - and not part of - the gay world. "I consider myself particularly fortunate to have had the experience of being a father and now a grandfather. But all artists must think of themselves as outsiders and also they must participate in the world. You can't take someone else's feelings and turn them into art. They have to be your feelings and your experiences. You can't make art out of feelings in general. They have to be specific." Looking back at his career, he says that the Britain in which he arrived in 1966 has "utterly disappeared". Part of that change has been the art boom of the past few decades, but he declares himself "complacent" about such apparently dramatic developments. "I think that everything you gain you lose somewhere else. Our lives are spent trying to improve things, but I think we just make things different. All we do is push things around. You could look at the art world of 20 years ago and say the loss of seriousness has been catastrophic, but the explosion of access has been wonderful. It's just different, not better or worse." As for the fundamental nature of artistic expression, he believes that is also largely unchanged. If you look at a 15th- or 16th-century painting, he says, you are "not being transported back to the 16th century. You are pulling the painting into now. If you have an art experience, it is a now experience, not a then experience. There is much less difference between the art of the past and present than is popularly thought." He gives the example of walking through room after room in the National Gallery without noticing much, "and then something will just zap you. It is not a history experience or a sociology experience. It is an art experience, and it is the same if the art was made yesterday or 800 years ago. Ultimately, while art has many functions, one of the major ones is to deliver that art experience. It is rare and it is hard. You can't make it happen, and it completely evades some people. But if you want to understand art, you have to look at a lot of art. And the more you look at, the better your chance of experiencing that zap." Andy Warhol Jasper Johns Bruce Nauman Gerhard Richter Sigmar Polke
|
high
| 1.595745 |
A life in art: Michael Craig-Martin, who taught most of the YBAs, is known as the 'Godfather of Britart', and his own work is celebrated in a new retrospective. So why does he feel like an outsider?
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20140926135216id_/http://www.9news.com.au/technology/2014/09/04/23/08/dreadnoughtus-unearthed-in-argentina
|
A dinosaur seven times the size of T-rex and with a weaponised tail would fear nothing. That's why a new titanosaur unearthed in Argentina by Kenneth Lacovara, from Drexel University in the US, and colleagues has been named Dreadnoughtus schrani. "That evokes to me a class of turn-of-the-last century battleships called the dreadnoughts, which were huge, thickly clad and virtually impervious," Associate Professor Lacovara says in a statement about the study, which is published in the journal Scientific Reports. "I think it's time the herbivores get their due for being the toughest creatures in an environment," he said. It belongs to a group of big-bodied herbivores, called titanosaurs, that lived about 66-100 million years ago. Their sizes were estimated with incomplete fossils. But now, after field seasons from 2005 through 2009, these scientists have 45.3 per cent of a skeleton and can say this dinosaur was about 59.3 metric tonnes and 26 metres long. "It weighed as much as a dozen African elephants or more than seven T. rex," Lacarova says. "Shockingly, skeletal evidence shows that when this 65-ton specimen died, it was not yet full grown. It is by far the best example we have of any of the most giant creatures to ever walk the planet." Lacovara said it probably was obsessed with eating in its temperate forest at the southern tip of South America some 77 million years ago, and wouldn't have had to move much. "You have this 37-foot-long neck balanced by a 30-foot-long tail in the back. Without moving your legs, you have access to a giant feeding envelope of trees and fern leaves. You spend an hour or so clearing out this patch that has thousands of calories in it, and then you take three steps over to the right and spend the next hour clearing out that patch." Efforts to understand this dinosaur's body structure, growth rate, and biomechanics are ongoing areas of research within Lacovara's lab. Prior to the description of this Dreadnoughtus schrani specimen, another Patagonian giant, Elaltitan, held the title of dinosaur with the greatest calculable weight at 47 tons. Do you have any news photos or videos?
|
medium
| 1.62963 |
A colossal herbivore, 13 times the size of an elephant, has been unearthed in Argentina, one of the most complete such skeletons ever found
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20141017022950id_/http://fortune.com/2012/10/22/who-needs-a-blind-trust/
|
FORTUNE — Tonight’s presidential debate is meant to focus the candidates’ attention on foreign policy, but don’t be surprised if the subject of Gov. Mitt Romney’s investments in Chinese companies comes up, as it did during a particularly heated moment during the Oct. 16 debate between the Republican candidate and President Barack Obama. When the president questioned his rival’s investments abroad, Gov. Romney responded essentially by invoking a concept that frequently comes up when wealthy men and women run for office—the blind trust. In theory, blind trusts are a sweet deal. The perfect blend of legislative aloofness and financial savvy, the construct has been routing potential conflicts of interest for America’s wealthy political elite since Lyndon B. Johnson. Almost every serious presidential candidate from Barack Obama to George Bush to Bill Clinton has had at least one blind trust at one point. When he became governor of Massachusetts in 2003, Romney set up two of them, for himself and his wife. The advantages are clear: by giving up the right to personally manage their money, public officials can deflect any allegations of insider trading or crooked investments. It also allows a trustee to invest aggressively without facing lengthy disclosure procedures or risking political blowback. But despite the perks and the recent press, only a few federal lawmakers actually have a blind trust. According to the Senate ethics committee, just 7 out of 100 U.S. Senators have gone through the approval process to set one up. In the House of Representatives, the percentage is even smaller. As of 2010, only 12 of the 435 members of the House had an official blind trust, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And those numbers haven’t changed much in the past decade. Why so few takers? Blind trusts seem simple, but they’re actually a complex and cumbersome financial instrument. Startup costs can easily run into the tens of thousands of dollars, says Kenneth A. Gross, an ethics lawyer at Skadden Arps who has helped candidates navigate the process, and they’re generally a pain to create and maintain. Often, Gross says, with a blind trust, “You’re just making your life much more complicated for no reason.” For starters, not every blind trust is actually blind. Often, a wealthy person’s blind trust might be described as at best slightly myopic. That can bring political repercussions. Just ask Romney circa 1994. A much-circulated video of the candidate during his bid for Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat shows Romney calling blind trusts an “age old ruse.” A politician can “give a blind trust rules” about where and how to invest, Romney said at the time, undermining its blindness. Just as troublesome, once a blind trust is created, it’s impossible for a legislator to forget what went into it. That caused problems in 2005, after Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist asked his trustee to sell some $10 million in shares of HCA — the hospital company his family founded — in a deal that closed days before the stock lost a tenth of its value. Somewhat ironically, Frist said that the reason he wanted to sell the shares was to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. The Securities and Exchange Commission investigated the incident and opted not to press charges. Still, the political fallout was big, and it didn’t matter that Frist’s trusts were technically blind. It was clear that he knew management hadn’t sold his entire stake in the company he helped build. In Romney’s case, much of his finances are tied up with private equity, mostly managed by his old colleagues at Bain Capital. Through no fault of his own, Romney likely has a pretty good idea of what’s in those funds – given that Bain’s strategies are widely reported in the financial press. The bottom line: “the public should not expect too much for the blind trust mechanism,” says Robert L. Walker a lawyer at Wiley Rein LLP, who has been staff director of both the Senate and House ethics committees. Even when a politician follows the rules perfectly, some trusts are less blind than others. While the statutes are essentially the same for the Senate, the House and the Executive Branch, they’re enforced differently. On the state level, there’s even greater disparity. Romney’s money is managed by a Boston attorney, and he would likely need to create a new, stricter blind trust in order to comply with federal regulations if elected. MORE: Romney betrays his business background But besides the legal and political morass, perhaps the biggest deterrent is financial. Blind trusts are only really useful to a few politicians. And to be one of them, you must be really, really rich. “Unless you’ve got just a bajillion dollars in the kinds of investment funds that require constant management,” says Cleta Mitchell of law firm Foley & Lardner in D.C., and former campaign council to Rick Santorum. “Then really the cost of managing that is a lot.” Skadden Arps’s Gross says that he typically advises businessmen and other wealthy candidates to consider plain vanilla investments like mutual funds or index funds. Notably, Obama went this route after his own early brushes with controversy. In 2007, the then-senator came under fire after his trust invested tens of thousands in donors’ companies. His office said at the time that advisers had made the investments under the terms of a blind trust that had yet to be finalized, but the story still ran on the front page of The New York Times. Some of the country’s wealthiest politicians have eschewed blind trusts altogether. Bill and Hillary Clinton liquidated theirs and left the holdings in cash to avoid perceptions of conflict of interest when Hilary ran for office in 2008. California Representative Darrell Issa, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi are other examples of extremely well-endowed legislators without blind trusts, though none of the three have portfolios bland enough to avoid occasionally pointed question from the press. Candidates with vanilla holdings, says Gross, often “do just as well, and probably better,” than those with closely managed trusts. Today’s diversified index funds have more aggressive, riskier options, Gross says. That allows politicians to pursue serious investment growth without signing up for the hassle (and giant fees) that come with a blind trust. Blind trusts do serve a purpose, though. For some candidates with assets that can’t be easily liquidated, there are few other options. “It may be the only response that someone who has extremely complicated holdings can take,” Wiley Rein’s Walker says. That might be true in Mitt Romney’s case, where a complex bundle of private equity holdings and his stake in Bain Capital would make it extremely difficult for him to simply put everything in Treasury bonds — to say nothing of the tax implications of prematurely bailing on his investments. That’s not to say only a sophisticated investor can set up a blind trust. The option is open to anyone, and it’s likely to become increasingly popular. With the passage of the Stock Act, which beefs up financial disclosure laws and explicitly bans insider trading, blind trusts may gain appeal for being both ethicist-approved and confidential. There’s even a book about it: Blind Trust, a thriller written by California Senator Barbara Boxer, follows a protagonist unjustly blamed for untoward financial dealings in a trust she didn’t control. Boxer, who has one of her own, is also the chair of the Senate ethics committee, which regulates them. The moral of the story is one both Romney and Obama are familiar with by now: Handle blind trusts with care. Not only can politicians often discern their contents, so can the public.
|
high
| 1.4 |
Despite all the press, only a handful of legislators actually have one. The story behind a much-discussed, but little used, financial planning tool.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20150201022103id_/http://www.people.com/article/jk-simmons-movies-whiplash-first-wives-club-juno-cider-house-rules
|
01/31/2015 AT 06:20 PM EST J.K. Simmons has been taking star not only scored an Academy Award nomination to add to his accolades, but he's even hosting But Simmons, 60, didn't become a star overnight. In fact, his résumé includes over 140 projects since 1986, some which sent us running to Netflix to refresh our memories. Without further ado, we proudly present our Nine Movies You Forgot J.K. Simmons Was In (some of which he probably wants to forget, too). The revenge comedy featured plenty of stars like , but if you look closely you can find a uniformed Simmons as a Federal marshal in the film. Kevin Costner starred as a washed-up baseball pitcher trying to pitch a perfect game. Simmons played Frank Perry, Costner's team manager, who finally gives him the shot. For Love of the Game scene from Todd Hunter on Vimeo. Any true Denis Leary fan remembers this one. In his first film role, Simmons played a military-school commander who is blackmailed by a cat burglar (Leary) holding a family hostage. You can also find a relatively unknown Kevin Spacey playing the dad in the comedy. You may remember Simmons as handyman Ray Kendall, father of 's character Candy in the John Irving classic. Simmons eventually reunited with Theron when he did the narration for her 2011 film We'll understand if you don't remember Simmons in the film, let alone the movie itself. The actor played Ted Slocum in this vehicle, which didn't exactly thrill audiences. He may be hiding under a huge cowboy hat, but that's definitely Simmons as Buffalo Bill Cody in the Viggo Mortensen film about a cowboy and his horse competing in a desert race. This is also a rare opportunity to see Simmons with a full head of hair! Simmons would probably prefer that this one remain forgotten, since it was trashed by critics. In the film, Simmons plays Tom Grady, a doctor who helps 's character cope with her terminal heart condition. People really started to pay attention to his acting chops when Simmons took on the role of Mac MacGuff, father to Juno (Ellen Page). In fast, many consider his scenes with screen wife Allison Janney as the film's biggest scene-stealers. costar Paul Rudd, playing the actor's macho father who connects more with his other son, played by Andy Samberg. Their "blow it up" fist bump is legendary. Okay, so this one isn't a film, but if you were a child of the '90s, you'll likely remember the popular Nickelodeon series. Blink and you'll probably miss Simmons , who played Barber Dan to the redheaded brothers.
|
medium
| 0.555556 |
The Oscar front-runner is set to host Saturday Night Live this weekend – did you know he also starred in The First Wives Club?
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20150628161338id_/http://www.9news.com.au/world/2014/12/05/02/24/protests-erupt-after-us-chokehold-decision
|
Protestors shout at Times Square in New York over the chokehold death of Eric Garner. (AAP) Protests have erupted in New York and other US cities after a white police officer was cleared in the chokehold death of an unarmed black man, a case that has drawn comparisons to the deadly police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri. Eric Garner died as officers were attempting to arrest him for selling untaxed cigarettes on the street. The controversy has once again cast a spotlight on police tensions with African Americans, even as the nation's president and top law enforcement official are both black. Unlike the Missouri case, where the circumstances surrounding Michael Brown's death remain in dispute, Garner's July 17 arrest was captured on videotape and the case could have even wider repercussions, particularly because it happened in the nation's most prominent city and one with a liberal tradition. New York City police said on Thursday that 83 people were arrested, most for disorderly conduct. The decision on Wednesday by the grand jury in the city's Staten Island area not to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo heightened tensions that have simmered in the city since Garner's death. In the neighbourhood where Garner died, people reacted with angry disbelief and chanted, "I can't breathe!" and "Hands up - don't choke!" In Manhattan, demonstrators laid down in Grand Central Terminal, walked through traffic on the West Side Highway and blocked the Brooklyn Bridge. But the demonstrations were largely peaceful, in contrast to the widespread arson and looting that accompanied the decision nine days earlier not to indict the white officer who shot and killed Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old. While legal experts note it's impossible to know how the grand jurors reached their conclusion, they say the Garner case, like Brown's death, once again raises concerns about the influence local prosecutors have over the process of charging the police officers they work with on a daily basis. US Attorney General Eric Holder says federal prosecutors will conduct their own investigation of Garner's death, while the New York Police Department also is undertaking an internal probe which could lead to administrative charges against Pantaleo, who remains on desk duty. Do you have any news photos or videos?
|
medium
| 1.961538 |
Demonstrations have erupted in the US after a grand jury declined to charge a white police officer in the choking death of a black man.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20151007073855id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/jul/20/east-international-biennial-norwich
|
I am about to enter Laure Prouvost's film installation, at East International in Norwich, when a powerful spotlight blasts me full in the face. I blunder, blinded, into the dark. There is a sudden, recorded crash. The light and noise have been triggered by my presence. I can't see a thing and almost sit on someone's head by mistake. Sorry, sorry, sorry. The film begins, with a warning that questions will be asked at the end. An American is talking, too fast, and his words are mis-transcribed in the subtitles, which flash by even faster. The guy is talking about Walter Benjamin and the language of cinema, but I am reading about someone's husband who likes hard rock, or is that hard cock – and did he just say something about enemas? A sign flashes up: CAN YOU BE QUIET PLEASE. Everyone else seems to have left, so that must mean me. The film is over before I've found my notebook. Outside, the light blasts on again and the next hapless visitor stumbles into the blackness, to the same crash. Prouvost is one of the two prize winners of this show, a biennial exhibition that forms part of the city-wide Contemporary Art Norwich. The other is British artist Stuart Whipps, whose photographs of the closed down Longbridge car plant in Birmingham show abandoned canteens with sad, drooping bunting, assembly lines with rusting car bodies and endless gantries, the whole mothballed plant left to decay. Whipps's photographs are supplemented by archival material and analysis of Margaret Thatcher's speeches, early indicators of the grim state of current British industry. East has been running since 1991, and has had financial crises of its own. But under the directorship of Lynda Morris, this biennial has always attempted to make Norwich aware of its historical, political and artistic links to Europe and beyond. It is always interesting. Chosen from an open submission, this year's exhibition has been selected by the veteran British conceptual artists Art&Language, and by Raster Gallery, from Warsaw. In a shadowy room, an elliptical conversation takes place between the surrealist Meret Oppenheim, the photographer and Picasso muse Dora Maar, and the singer Josephine Baker. Picasso's Weeping Woman – a portrait of Maar – hangs on the wall; other bits of modernist and surrealist art litter the room. Oppenheim's fur-lined teacup must be there somewhere. The conversation is stilted and unbelievably pretentious, even by pre-war Paris standards. "Do we only perceive what is past?" one character asks. "You can trace everything back to memories," says another, in clipped 1930s English. Sometimes they break into French, or swap one another's lines. This film, Lunch in Fur by Ursula Mayer, is peculiar and arresting; watching it, I am uncertain if this is old footage or new, if the lines are quotes from a movie or a novel, if the whole thing is a joke or utterly serious. These sorts of doubts continue throughout the exhibition. By the time I watch British artist David Jacques's very instructive film about the north-west of England, anarcho-syndicalism and time travel, things have slipped a few gears. I'm even less sure of what I'm being told. Jacques's film is a spoof documentary that describes numerous encounters across time and space, all occurring in Manchester, Liverpool and north Wales between 1910 and 1918, at a series of annual conferences begun in honour of the Catalan educationalist and anarchist Francisco Ferrer y Guàrdia. Ferrer was real; the rest is a fiction. There is very little sculpture or painting here. A sooty, solid cloud of resin marks the spot of a spontaneous combustion in one of the basements of the art school, where Polish artist Olaf Brzeski also shows a grainy, black-and-white film of soldiers in the snow. The men are visited by a spooky bogeyman carrying a dead rabbit. The film looks old, again as if this were archive footage. Something terrible stirs in the woods, but we don't know what. In Andrew Cranston's painted jokes about lonely painters going mad or suicidal in their grim, freezing studios, there are lots of knowing art gags about Courbet and the socially excluded painter, whose only company is a bucket of paint-hardened brushes and a giant, mouldering canvas. It reminds me why I gave up painting. Polish artist Agnieszka Kurant's work in Norwich is almost invisible. Her piece, Future Anterior, is just a couple of bleached newspaper pages presented under glass on an outside wall. Passers-by might easily miss the bad news: the Amazon rainforest has shrunk to almost nothing, Central America braces itself for an attack of ravaging moths, Los Angeles has been hit by an earthquake. On a positive note, scientists announce that the dark matter anti-gravity question has now been nailed. I stand outside in the Norwich drizzle, gasping. These are headlines on the New York Times, dated 29 September 2020. Even the words are on the verge of disappearance. But there is more to Future Anterior than make-believe journalism: to make the work, Kurant asked a clairvoyant to provide forecasts of the future, an alarming number of which have come true. She then approached a number of New York Times journalists to write the stories up, and had the pages printed using a heat-sensitive ink that only appears at a certain range of temperatures. "The print is as fragile as information distorted by rumour," she has explained, as if art and the world weren't already complicated enough. In the end, all of these scenarios are entirely plausible, and all the best art here is grounded in reality. Grace Schwindt's films are largely based on her family's recollections of Berlin during the second world war. The accounts are touching, miserable and horrifying. There is an undeniable seriousness and sensitivity to Schwindt's work. Licking Dogs, meanwhile, is a film of the British artist Angela Bartram snogging four dogs. "No dog was harmed in the making of Licking Dogs," Bartram's website informs us, "and none were forced to take part." The German shepherd is very keen, and the St Bernard slobbers away dutifully in some very wet face-on-face contact. Another mutt just won't play; the dog looks at Bartram and Bartram looks at the dog. This is the best moment in the whole farrago. None of this ever looked like it was going to go anywhere, except into the realms of the over-intellectual. There is a difference between the real and the really annoying. East International is at the Norwich University College of the Arts until 22 August.
|
high
| 1.111111 |
A woman kissing a dog, a deserted car plant, a blow-out in a basement – this show is not quite what it seems
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20151104005801id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2013/10/01/143-year-old-law-puts-fear-in-officials-during-shutdown.html
|
CNBC has learned that in several executive branch departments, high-level staff members review individual decisions about what government activities to allow for fear of running afoul of the Antideficiency Act. One White House official said he has advised his employees not to check their email or cellphones. Under the act, even volunteering for government service is expressly prohibited. In a memo to his department employees today, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew cited the law as the reason for reduced staffing. "For the duration of this impasse, as required by the Antideficiency Act and directed by OMB, the Department will be required to operate with only the minimal staffing level necessary to execute only certain legally exempted activities," Lew wrote. The only exemptions to the shutdown concern "emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property," according to government documents. That has meant airports and the Postal Service are open, Social Security checks get paid and federal prisons and courts will operate as normal as do most national security functions including the military and the Central Intelligence Agency. But national parks and museums are closed along with big parts of the departments of Education and Commerce Congress passed the law as part of a struggle—dating back to the nation's founding—for control over the power of the purse. Some presidents, such as Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, would incur obligations for which Congress had to appropriate funds after the fact. What is ironic is that Congress in shutting down the government has to at least to some extent given up the power of the purse to the executive branch. Under the broad guidelines of what constitutes an emergency or threat to life or property, OMB now more or less decides what gets funded and what doesn't. But that latitude is limited by the fear of officials that, sometime after the event, a given decision is found to have been in violation of the Antideficiency Act. —By CNBC's Steve Liesman. Follow him on Twitter: @steveliesman
|
low
| 0.607143 |
A 19th-century law could get administration officials fired, or even imprisoned if they make the wrong the choices while the government is shut down.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160203092313id_/http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/02/03/06/25/clinton-beats-back-sanders-to-take-iowa
|
US Senator Marco Rubio, emerging from the first presidential nominating contest in Iowa as the leading Republican mainstream contender, is portraying himself in New Hampshire as the party's best hope to recapture the White House. But Rubio, 44, a US senator from Florida, faces a strong field of establishment rivals in next week's New Hampshire primary after his stronger-than-expected third-place finish in Iowa behind front-runners Ted Cruz, 45, and Donald Trump, 69. "If I am the nominee, we are going to beat Hillary Clinton and it won't be by the flip of a coin," Rubio told supporters in Exeter, New Hampshire, taking a jab at the close Democratic race in Iowa between Clinton and challenger Bernie Sanders, where some precincts were decided on a coin flip. Other more mainstream Republicans including former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Ohio Governor John Kasich and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, are expected to do better in New Hampshire than in Iowa and vie with Rubio to become the establishment favourite. Cruz and Trump also headed to New Hampshire as the presidential race shifted to the second nominating contest in the state-by-state battle to pick nominees for the November 8 election to replace Democratic President Barack Obama. Trump told a news conference before a rally in Milford, New Hampshire, that he felt "a tinge" of disappointment at losing to Cruz in Iowa.. The billionaire businessman also picked up an endorsement from former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown. Cruz told New Hampshire supporters he was like former Republican President Ronald Reagan, urging the state to help ensure his nomination by giving him a win in the February 9 primary. "Every day from now until Election Day here in New Hampshire, I'm going to continue asking for the men and women of New Hampshire to make that same fateful decision yet again so that we can reignite the promise of America," Cruz said. Cruz, a conservative US senator from Texas, beat Trump in Iowa's Republican caucuses with the help of the state's large bloc of evangelical Christians, but he might struggle to finish on top in New Hampshire, where Republican voters have a more secular and libertarian streak. Cruz apologised to rival Ben Carson over an email his campaign sent on Monday night implying Carson was dropping out of the race and his Iowa backers should switch to Cruz. "This was a mistake from our end, and for that I apologise to Dr Carson," Cruz wrote. The campaign for Carson, who finished fourth in Iowa, said the retired neurosurgeon had accepted Cruz's apology but that the incident was the sort of "dirty trick" politics that Carson was trying to fight. The Democratic presidential contenders, Clinton and Sanders, also headed to New Hampshire after their close duel in Iowa, where the former secretary of state narrowly edged out the insurgent US senator from Vermont. Vermont borders New Hampshire, and that proximity may give Sanders an advantage in next Tuesday's primary. Clinton's razor-thin margin was the smallest in Iowa Democratic caucus history. Hillary Clinton with her husband Bill and daughter Chelsea. (AAP)
|
medium
| 1.416667 |
Hillary Clinton claimed the first victory in the Democratic presidential race with the narrowest of victories over Bernie Sanders in the Iowa caucus.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160323162327id_/http://www.cnbc.com:80/2013/09/26/why-big-american-businesses-fail-in-china.html
|
A yankee in China: There's money in Beijing's filthy air A Rust Belt victim transforms himself into a successful China hand Seeking a fortune in China? Here's how to parse triumph from debacle More fundamentally, Mattel seems to have misread the market. Instead of focusing on children's dolls, Mattel assumed that Chinese consumers would want a whole range of pricey Barbie-themed clothing, foods, and goods. But, as author and business consultant Helen Wang points out, "Since Barbie is not a cultural icon in China as she is in America, Chinese consumers couldn't care less about Barbie-branded products." By the time Mattel realized its mistake, the store was bleeding money. In 2011, the House of Barbie closed. (Read more: China home prices rise for eighth straight month) If there's a lesson, it's this: Before you go in big in China, do your homework. Companies need to be flexible, adaptable, and responsive to Chinese tastes. That means experimenting before dropping $30 million on a mega-store. Spend any time in China, and you quickly learn the power of "guanxi," or social connections. Guanxi drives business deals and government contracts. It's the invisible glue that ties people together. It's the sense of connection and mutual obligation that Chinese society prizes in personal relationships. This may seem like a trivial detail for a powerful corporation. It's not. Take the case of eBay. In 2004, the San Jose online auctioning giant decided to enter the Chinese market. EBay bought a local company, Eachnet, switched it to the eBay platform, and expected to sweep China in short order. After all, they had dominated other countries' markets. Why not China's? Two years later, they shut down their portal, abandoning the Chinese auction market. A local competitor, Taobao, went on to take over 95 percent of the local market share. The problem was that eBay had no mechanism for simulating guanxi. According to a study conducted by researchers in the United States and Hong Kong, this was a crucial error. While Taobao allowed buyers and sellers to chat over instant-messaging, giving them a chance to establish a personal connection, eBay did not. (Read more: China HSBC PMI shows economic recovery intact) "Those buyers really want to get to know the sellers," Paul A. Pavlou, a professor at Temple University's Fox School of Business, told Pacific Standard. In China, business is not just business. It's social. Today, eBay says it has learned from its experience. The company has refocused away from the domestic market, toward helping Chinese sellers market directly to consumers abroad. "It's frustrating that people say we failed in China," says Daniel Feiler, a spokesman for eBay. "From our perspective, we now have a very successful, large, and continuing-to-grow export business." Google: Running afoul of the government Google's Chinese defeat is one of the most dramatic, and the most complex. The context is well known. In 2010 Google announced that it had been hacked, and would no longer be censoring at the government's behest. It moved its servers to Hong Kong. Its market share dipped from 30 percent to 3 percent in 2013. What happened? While poor decisions in Mountain View certainly played a part, politics was what killed Google. From the very beginning of its China venture, Google was hamstrung. Launched in 2006, Google.cn was a bare-bones search engine, with no Gmail, blog software, or YouTube; the company refused to keep its servers in China, for fear of having to turn over user data. (Read more: China is right to tame credit growth: Moody's) In 2008, Beijing demanded that Google more thoroughly censor its auto-fill search suggestions. In 2009, Google detected a breach of its servers that the company traced to China. The attackers not only stole corporate secrets, but also rifled through the personal accounts of dissidents and activists related to China and Tibet. By 2010, Google's chiefs had had enough. They decided that they would no longer comply with Beijing's demands. The lesson from Google's China fiasco is hard, but important. In the end, foreign companies who want to thrive in China have to abide by the rules of a repressive, autocratic government. That means either compromising with policies you may find unsavory — as Google did, at first — or getting out. "China is a tough, large market with fierce competitors," Kaifu Lee, Google's former China head, recently wrote. "To have a chance in China, the American company must empower the local team to be responsive, autonomous, localized, and ready for combat."
|
medium
| 0.677419 |
Since China opened up to foreign investment, some of America's most powerful corporations have gone in confidently, only to stagger out defeated. The Global Post reports.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160526095323id_/http://www.aol.com:80/article/2016/01/10/2016-golden-globe-awards-red-carpet-arrivals/21294980/
|
Before you go, we thought you'd like these... 2016 Golden Globe Awards red carpet arrivals Jennifer Lawrence was an absolute knockout in a red Dior dress with sleek cutouts along the waist. She topped off her classic and glamorous look with a diamond choker, red lips and swept back locks. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images) They might be the hottest red carpet couple ever! Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan Tatum looked incredible in their fancy ensembles -- with Channing in a classic tux and Jenna in a midnight blue dress with starry detailing. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP) Sexy mama! Kate Hudson snapped up the opportunity to show off her flawless physique in a nude, sparkling two-piece ensemble. She added a touch of extra sexiness with a nude choker and tousled locks. (Photo by John Shearer/Getty Images) Olivia Wilde and Jason Sudeikis were near picture-perfect on the red carpet, but we could have done without Sudeikis' eyesore sneakers. Wilde absolutely stunned in an oxblood sequin gown with a plunging neckline and eye-catching necklace. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images) First-time Golden Globe nominee Lady Gaga didn't mess around for her first turn on the Globe red carpet and looked stunning in a black, velvet gown from Versace. Her look screamed old Hollywood glamour. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images) "The Martian" actor Matt Damon kept it simple in a black tuxedo, which really left the spotlight wide open for his stunning wife, Lucy. She dazzled in a lavender, one-shoulder frock with diamond accents. Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images) Talk about a jaw-dropper! Rosie Huntington-Whiteley nearly stole the entire fashion show when she hit the red carpet in this stunning gold dress with a cinched waist and sparkling details. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images) Taraji P. Henson didn't disappoint in a strapless white dress with a dramatic cape. Alicia Vikander is easily one of the stars of this year's award season and she cemented her status as someone to watch ont in the fashion department in a classic white, Louis Vuitton dress. She continued her ethereal look with a braided updo and light lips. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) Jaimie Alexander stunned in a plunging, emerald and black gown with geometric details. An edgy updo and emerald earrings completed her flawless look. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) Leonardo DiCaprio continued to show he's a man of timeless taste in this elegant suit. (Photo by John Shearer/Getty Images) Jennifer Lopez was on-trend this award season with a bright yellow gown with draping that showcased her killer curves and featured a thigh-high slit and cape. She finished off her old Hollywood glamour look with a deep burgundy lip color and a blingy necklace. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP) Queen of the sparkles! Kate Bosworth looked sexy and sparkling in a rose-colored dress with full sequins and a silver design. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images) Katy Perry went the 1960s mod route with sky-high locks and a bubblegum pink dress that fit her like a glove. (Photo by John Shearer/Getty Images) Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith were right on-trend with the jewel toned theme of the evening, with Jada looking absolutely gorgeous in a bright green gown and Will in a classic tux. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) Kate Winslet was spot-on in her classic blue dress with a tie neckline. The Ralph Lauren dress was simple, understated and pretty. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images) "Trainwreck" star Amy Schumer was anything but a trainwreck in a black and white dress with a billowing train. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage) "The Danish Girl" star Eddie Redmayne revealed he almost missed the red carpet after his flight ran behind -- but he got their just in time to wow us with his Gucci suit. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images) Hunky! Orlando Bloom rocked a classic tux and the no muss, no fuss look was a hit. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images) "Empire" star Terrence Howard reminded us how cool he is with his shades and tuxedo, while his lady Mira Pak looked soft and sweet in a nude gown with floral appliques. (Photo credit should read VALERIE MACON/AFP/Getty Images) Sweethearts! Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart made their rare red carpet debut at the Golden Globes and -- no surprise -- looked amazing. The "Star Wars" hunk looked slick in a tuxedo while his ladylove stunned in a turquoise silk dress. (Photo by John Shearer/Getty Images) "Orange Is the New Black" star Taylor Schilling gave us a sexy surprise with her black, sparkling tuxedo jacket and pants. It was a sexy and sophisticated look for her, indeed! (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images) Amy Adams showed off her colorful side in a tangerine gown with sparkling detail on the mid-section. The fruity-colored frock was gorgeously complemented her pretty locks. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) Everything came up roses for Rachel McAdams, who stunned in floral dress with a strapless sweetheart neckline. She finished off the phenomenal gown with red lips. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage) Amber Heard went for a whimsical and sweet look with a cotton-candy colored gown from Gucci. The sienna and nude silk tulle multi-layered gown featuring silk flowers featured an open back and dramatic train. (Photo by John Shearer/Getty Images) Malin Akerman showed off her flair for the fun side in a periwinkle lace Vivienne Westwood gown with peplum detailing. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage) "Grinder" str Rob Low and his lovely wife and Sheryl Berkoff were looking good at the Globes. How do you like their gray and black ensembles? (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP) Kirsten Dunst and her main squeeze Garrett Hedlund were the essence of cool in classic black ensembles. Dunst went for the plunge with her Valentino gown and Hedlund kept it slick in his tux (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP) Emilia Clark went for an offbeat look in a black gown with sheer draping, cape-like shoulders and buttons down the bodice. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP) Awards season darling Brie Larson shimmered in a gold sequined halter dress with ab-exposing cutouts. (Photo credit should read VALERIE MACON/AFP/Getty Images) If looks could kill ... Kirsten Dunst was a showstopper in a flawless black gown with a plunging neckline and sexy, strappy accents. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images) Heidi Klum had a bit of fun in a shimmery, beaded fringe gown with a waist-accentuating black belt. (Photo by Alberto Rodriguez/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) Actor Damian Lewis looked fapper and chic in a form-fitting tux. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) Sophia Bush was near-perfect in a simple black gown with a plunging neckline. A fun box clutch, garnet cocktail ring and diamond necklace added a touch of glam to her sleek look. Actress Rachel Bloom rocked one of the night's hottest colors in a fab off-the-shoulder gown. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) Natalie Dormer looked straight off the set of "Game of Thrones" in a red gown with draped shoulders and a black choker detail. (Photo credit should read VALERIE MACON/AFP/Getty Images) Maggie Gyllenhaal went the avant garde look with a golde and black dress with a flower pattern. She punched up the classic colors with a red lip color. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP) Julia Louis-Dreyfus kept it simple this year in a black, lace, strapless dress. (Photo credit:Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP) Patrick Stewart and his wife, Sunny Ozell, went the classic route with all black ensembles. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage) Felicity Huffman threw us for a loop with her new dark 'do, but she was a knockout with the vampy new style. The "American Crime" star showed off her incredible physique in a burgundy Sarbu gown with fire-like details along the top. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) America Ferrera had us chirping with praise with this canary-colored Jenny Packham gown complete with jewel-details along the bodice. She polished off the bright dress with bright red lips and a slicked back hairdo.(Photo by Kevork Djansezian/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) Former Golden Globe nominee David Oyelowo packed a serious punch of color with his plum-colored tuxedo with a tight checkered pattern. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images) Golden Globe nominee Christian Bale escorted his gorgeous wife, Sibi Blazic, to the award show. Sibi nearly outshined her man in a black dress with gold details. (Photo by John Shearer/Getty Images) We adore the two-toned Elizabeth Kennedy dress that Maura Tierney donned. She polished off the aquamarine and black dress with a simple choker, minimalist makeup and gold bangles. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images) Greek goddess! "Brooklyn" star and Saoirse Ronan looked lovely and whimsical in a white Grecian-inspired dress with delicate draping and a long, column train. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP) Viola Davis was sparkling in a midnight blue Marchesa dress with starry-like detailing. The "How to Get Away With Murder" actress was absolutely beaming on the red carpet and completed her look with bright lips and a matching clutch. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images) Soon-to-be newlyweds Lady Gaga and Taylor Kinney totally gave us the Bogie and Bacall vibes with their classic old Hollywood looks. Gaga donned Versace and her man went for a classic tuxedo. (Photo credit should read VALERIE MACON/AFP/Getty Images) Cate Blanchett went for a surprising look in a Givenchy dress that combined tassels, sparkles and an ombre pink fade. WHat do you think of the look? (Photo by John Shearer/Getty Images) Bryce Dallas Howard donned a navy lace gown with a three-quarter sleeve and plunging neckline. A simple sleek 'do completed her look. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) Golden Globe-nominated singer Sam Smith went for a classic tuxedo and bow tie -- the perfect look for his Golden Globe debut. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage) Actress Jane Wu turned heads in a silver metallic gown with geometric detailing. A sleek, middle-parted updo completed her futuristic ensemble. (Photo by John Shearer/Getty Images) Gussied up! "Stiches" singer Charlie Puth looked handsome in a navy tuxedo and black bowtie. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage) "Cinderella" star Lily James showed off her soft and sultry side in a white gown with draping along the back. She added a little oomph with tousled locks and smoky eyes. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage) 'Empire" hottie Bryshere Y. Gray was all kinds of cute in a classic black tux and super cool shoes. The actor was all smiles at the award show. (Photo credit should read VALERIE MACON/AFP/Getty Images) "Outlander" producer Maril Davis rocked an LBD with sheer inserts, black peep-toe pumps and tousled locks. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images) "Penny Dreadful" star Eva Green looked absolutely stunning in a gold dress with sparkling details from Elie Saab. The dress, which had a vintage vibe, worked perfectly with her light skin tone and bright red lips. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images) Navy hottie! Gerard Butler looked sleek in a blue tuxedo. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP) Alan Cumming looked dapper in a navy jacket with black lapels, chic glasses and fun black and gold sneakers. Ricky Gervais set the tone for the night by rocking mirrored sunnies on the red carpet. Nancy O'Dell looked fabulous in a coral, one-shouldered gown with a sexy, hip-high slit and a sleek 'do. Natalie Morales opted for a breezy, purple spaghetti-strap gown. Simple, pinned-bac curls, drop earrings and a metallic clutch completed her look. "Today" hosts Al Roker and Matt Lauer donned their best suits for the big night. What a handsome duo! (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) White hot! Laverne Cox was absolutely stunning a white dress with a long train and Lorraine Schwartz jewels. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) "Transparent" star Jeffrey Tambor looked slick in a black suit next to his striking wife, Kasia Ostlun who rocked a red dress with modern cutouts. (Photo by John Shearer/Getty Images) Judith Light wowed in a chic white organza tux, crisp shirt and layered locks. Silver pumps and glam makeup completed her sophisticated look. Sparkles are everything! "American Crime" actress Regina King shimmered on the red carpet with a Krikor Jabotian gown with silver and gold sparkles and a white train. She polished off the look with a set of chandelier earrings and a light pink lip color. Photo credit should read VALERIE MACON/AFP/Getty Images) Paul Feig switched it up in a groovy, blue-and-purple jacket. "Mr. Robot" actress Carly Chaikin opted for an edgy, sequined halter dress with a green and black organic print. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) "Jane the Virgin" actress and nominee Gina Rodriguez wowed in a navy satin ballroom gown with a gorgeous off-the-shoulder neckline. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) Bernadette Peters rocked a scarlet strapless dress with floral embroidery and a matching bracelet. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) Actor Ken Jeong and Tran Jeong looked perfectly coordinated in their black and white best. The "Dr. Ken" star rocked a crisp tux, and his wife wowed in a black and white gown and floral appliques. Actress Jamie Lee Curtis donned a simple navy gown with bell sleeves and dramatic train. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) Maria Menounos opted for a simple, form-fitting white gown and a unique, braided haristyle. A box clutch and drop earrings added a touch of sparkle to the easy look. She's shamelessly gorgeous! "Shameless" actress Emmy Rossum went for a classic red Armani Prive dress paired with a deep, red lip color. The touch of razzle dazzle around her neck completed the glam look. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images) Actor Richard Cabral rocked a double-breasted jacket with smoking loafers ... Classy! (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) "Downton Abbey" actress Joanne Froggatt was pretty as a picture in a flowing blue gown with a plunging neckline. (Photo by John Shearer/Getty Images) Actress Saffron Burrows kept it simple in a black tan fress. Actress Sarah Hay donned a sheer gray gown that complemented her red locks perfectly. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) Chris Tucker and Cynne Simpson were on-point with their classic black-tie ensembles. (Photo credit should read VALERIE MACON/AFP/Getty Images) "Supergirl" Melissa Benoist her husband, actor Blake Jenner were very adorable in one of their first major red carpets since tying the knot. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) Michael Shannon kept his look contemporary and cool in a navy suit and skinny tie. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage) Miss Golden Globes 2016 Corinne Foxx stunned in an ethereal off-white gown with sheer bell sleeves. (Photo credit should read VALERIE MACON/AFP/Getty Images) Actress Amy Landecker kept it casual in a simple striped tank dress and platform sandals. (Photo by John Shearer/Getty Images) Keltie Knight was ultra-glam in a striking emerald gown with a sweetheart neckline and flattering ruching. Screenwriter Phyllis Nagy donned a classic black and white ensemble, complete with a dressy black topcoat. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) Actor Tobias Menzies donned a chic satin suit in all black. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) Patrick Wilson and his wife, Dagmara Dominczyk, looked sparkly and glam in midnight blue and black ensembles. (Photo credit should read VALERIE MACON/AFP/Getty Images) Tiziana Rocca rocked a black dress with ruffled and sparkling details. Wow! Jane Fonda showed off her fun and funky side with a white gown with a ruffled top. The cloud-like top showed off her incredibly slim physique underneath. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images) Actress Uzo Aduba was one of many stars to try out the cape trend. The "Orange is the New Black" star opted for a black sequin iteration of the look. John Krasinski smoldered in a slim-fit tux and fresh facial hair. Aziz Ansari went for a classic black tux with a little twist .... we spy that cool striped pattern. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage) Michelle Schumacher, left, and J. K. Simmons looked classic in a black and red combination. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP) Giuliana Rancic rocked an orange gown with sexy cutouts and dramatic floor-length sleeves with a swipe of pink lipstick. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) Can these two do any wrong? Steve Carell and his wife, actress Nancy Carell, had us in awe with their elegant ensembles. Nancy's black ballgown screamed sexy yet sleek while Steve was all kinds of handsome. (Photo by Alberto Rodriguez/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) Welcome to award season, 2016! The Golden Globes kicked off on Sunday, Jan. 10, 2016 and the fashion was absolutely stunning with leading ladies pulling out their most glamorous looks for the occasion. Jewel tones dominated the red carpet this year with gals rocking bright red, orange, emerald green, and deep azure blue gowns. "Shameless" star Emmy Rossum dazzled in a red dress with a column-like silhouette while "Blindspot" star Jaimie Alexander packed a gorgeous punch in an emerald green and black ball gown. "Jurassic Park" star Bryce Dallas Howard also went for a bold color in a midnight blue, sequined gown with peacock-like detailing. "Jane the Virgin" star Gina Rodriguez was a stunner in a navy classic ballgown from Zac Posen. For the gents, it was all about the tuxes! The two actors behind Netflix's hit "Narcos" Pedro Pascal and Boyd Holbrook got all gussied up for their big evening in classic black and navy tuxes and bow-ties. "Stitches" singer Charlie Puth was perhaps one of the most handsome men on the red carpet with a tuxedo and an oversized bowtie. And of course, there were a couple ringers like Alan Cumming who opted for offbeat ensembles like his bright blue dinner jacket. Check out all the red carpet fashions above!
|
high
| 1.857143 |
Jewel tone dresses and classic tuxes dominated the red carpet at the gateway to the 2016 award season on Sunday.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160531052004id_/http://fortune.com:80/2015/07/08/apple-patent-smartflash/
|
A shell company that does nothing but file patent lawsuits will have to summon its lawyers once again after Apple persuaded a federal judge on Tuesday to toss an eye-popping $533 million jury verdict over online media storage. The case involves Smartflash LLC, whose owner briefly sold a failed digital media player in the 1990s, but is now pursuing major tech companies for patent infringement. It claims that iTunes infringes on the storage system described in its patents, and that Apple should also pay based on the millions of iPhones, iPads and iPods the company has sold. After the jury issued the $533 million verdict in February, Apple AAPL slammed Smartflash in a sharply worded statement: “Smartflash makes no products, has no employees, creates no jobs, has no US presence, and is exploiting our patent system to seek royalties for technology Apple invented. We refused to pay off this company for the ideas our employees spent years innovating and unfortunately we have been left with no choice but to take this fight up through the court system,” the company told Fortune at the time. The decision on Tuesday is a victory for Apple, but only a partial one. In a technical ruling, U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap explains that the instructions given to the jury were flawed because they did not clearly explain whether damages should be awarded based on the total value of an Apple product or just part of it. Gilstrap thus vacated the $533 million award, and sent the matter back down for a new damages trial. This means that Apple is not off the hook for the infringement finding, but could end up paying substantially less, or possibly nothing at all. The ruling is also problematic for the rest of the tech industry because, as Ars Technica noted, the lawyer leading the Smartflash case also has his sights set on Samsung, Google and Amazon too. The lawyer in question is Brad Caldwell, who made his name as a litigator in the District of East Texas, which has developed a cottage industry as a go-to destination for “patent trolls.” Trolls are shell companies that acquire old patents in order to demand payments from productive businesses. The Apple-Smartflash fight is occurring as Congress is in the midst of trying for the third time in five years to pass a patent reform bill. The bill seeks to undercut the patent trolls’ business model, and will also determine the future of several programs that let companies challenge questionable patents at the U.S. Patent Office (Apple is presently objecting to the Smartflash patents under one of the programs, saying the “method” it describes shouldn’t have been patentable in the first place). Here is a copy of Tuesday’s ruling:
|
medium
| 1.344828 |
A Texas jury said Apple should pay a shell company $533 million because its media systems infringe old patents. Not so fast, said a judge.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160615040025id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/1979/01/21/archives/downtown-finds-a-new-role-as-retail-hub-downtown-finds-new-role-as.html?
|
In general, rents downtown remain below those in midtown, though this is not true in prime locations, according to David. Baldwin, president of the Charles F. Noyes Company. “Rents in top locations on Broadway are as high as $100 a square foot,” Mr. Noyes says, a figure that is surpassed perhaps by only a few locations on Fifth Avenue in the 50's. The Nassau mall, in the view of Robin Burns, a planner/architect in the Mayor's Office of Development, represents recognition by the city that Nassau Street is “a significant retail center.” As described by Mr. Burns, the mall concept grew out of Nassau Street's having been closed to traffic during mid‐day hours because of pedestrian crowds since the late ‘60s. The mall, he says, makes “a virtue out of a necessity.” The plan, first proposed in 1979, languished during the city's fiscal crisis. Now, with the aid of the Federal Government, which is contributing close to two‐thirds of the mall's $2.2 million estimated cost, and after major construction delays caused primarily by the cave‐in of 19th century cold storage vaults under the pavement, completion of the mall is scheduled for this coming fall. The entire area will be covered in dark brown brick similar to that used in City Hall Plaza. New lighting will be installed, and the city hopes that street furniture and plantings will be ar ranged by a fledgling property owners association. All such property owner: will be assessed to pay for necessary mall maintenance, which will be carried out through the owners’ group. Retailers along Nassau Street gener ally seem to be taking a wait-and-see attitude on how much the mall will benefit them. Right now they are un. happy about the delays and the impact of the construction, which has left some stores temporarily accessible only by crossing makeshift wooden bridges. “We just don't know what will happen,” says Sion Shaby, who manages Bee Gee's Boutique, owned by his father, at 99 Nassau. “If it does any good we'll be happy. Over the summer business was very good but during‐the week, while construction was going on in front of our store, business was off 90 percent.” Richard Ginensky, who runs Richards, one of several stamp stores at the far north end of Nassau, is even less enthusiastic. “This is absolutely a mess,” complains Mr. Ginensky, who has been doing business downtown at various locations, for 25 years. “Besides, we don't need palm trees for people to be sitting under eating coconuts in the middle of the street. It will bring in the drug elements from City Hall Park and it certainly feeds the appetites of the landlords.” At the other end of the mall from Mr. Ginensky is a full‐block parcel of empty land that is to be the site of new retail complex. The Federal Reserve Bank, which assembled the land but then changed its mind about building on it, is expected to name a developer within a few weeks. The bank will play no role in operations, but will retain title to the land for possible future use. Among those in the running are the Charles F. Noyes Company, which has proposed a three‐story, $5 million structure with a sloping glass roof, and Harry Macklowe, of the Wolf and Macklowe Company. Mr. Macklowe is already involved in the area in the form of plans to build a multi‐level combined restaurant and retail operation at 38‐44 Broad Street, which is between Exchange Place and Beaver Streets. According to Martin Tener, an associate of Mr. Macklowe, demolition of buildings on the Broad Street site is expected to begin in March, with completion scheduled for 1980. “It took the experience of the World Trade Center to convince national chains that they could do well down here,” Mr. Tener says. “We expect to have about one‐half national chains, and restaurants the equal of those at Citicorp Center.” Mr. Tener declines to name specific prospective tenants but says inquiries have been numerous. Certainly, the experience of the shops in’ the Trade Center has had an effect on local retailers, as shown by eopxagder's decision to locate a store there. “Our analysis shows a large underserved market downtown,” says Robin Farkas, Alexander's senior vice president in charge areal estate and chairman of the executive committee. “The area could be a six‐day market even as it is, and if Battery Park City goes ahead it could be a six- or seven‐day market.” About half the Trade Center stores already have Saturday hours. Mr. Farkas estimates that store construction — there will be selling floors on both the concourse and plaza levels, plus a smaller selling balcony and administrative space — will take about nine months from the final signing date, which he expects within the next few weeks. The commitment for approximately 100,000 square feet .of retail space represents a financial commitment for Alexander's over the length of the lease in the tens of millions of dollars. For the Trade Center, which rented out its first retail space four years ago, Alexander's represents a prize catch, the “anchor” store needed to turn the concourse into the urban shopping center envisioned by its planners. “We think Alexander's is just right for the Trade Center,” says Stanley J. Markowitz, manager of Trade Center store rentals. “Unlike Sears and J. C. Penney's, Alexander's strength is in fashion merchandise at promotional values. Shoppers down here are no likely to be looking for items like lawn mowers which they'd have to carry home on the subway.” With the completion of the Alexan der's deal, according to Mr. Marko witz, the 250,000 square feet of retai space in the concourse will be full} rented. Banks account for about 30,00( square feet, and food operations 01 various sorts for another 30,000. The rest is occupied by shops ranging from F.A.O. Schwarz to Lamston's. “We wanted a number of nationall3 recognized stores like Lerner's but we also wanted to keep the flavor of down. town, so .we went after independents as well,” Mr. Markowitz says. He adds, “But don't get me wrong. We didn't turn anyone away. I can't tell you how many people we pleaded with and pursued. Now I wish I had more space.” Prices have gone up as the Trade Center's reputation has spread. “Five years ago we were quoting average rents of $12 to $15 a square foot,” Mr. Markowitz says. “Today we can command $25.” In addition, the Trade Center takes a percentage of stores’ gross, as is done in shopping centers. Accord. ing to Mr. Markowitz, in the case of one small bookstore the total rent plus percentage is already equal to $45 a square foot, a substantial figure since off-thestreet, underground concourse space is usually much cheaper than street space. So far, the Trade Center shopping complex has met with none of the hostility aroused by its office space, which went on the market as the bottom was falling out of real estate. from them,” says Mr. Heller, the Nassau Street property owner. “For a while people who worked in the Trade Center were coming to us but now they have a shopping mall of their own.” Trade Center as a giant that originally hurt, but now is helping, the neighborhood. Rather than drawing off retail business, he says, the Trade Center is stimulating business in its immediate vicinity. “The giant is finally satisfied and now he's giving a little something back,” Mr. Reilly says. We are continually improving the quality of our text archives. Please send feedback, error reports, and suggestions to [email protected]. A version of this archives appears in print on January 21, 1979, on page R1 of the New York edition with the headline: Downtown Finds a New Role As Retail Hub. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
|
high
| 0.658537 |
Retailing in NYC's downtown financial dist appears to have shaken off effects of slump and entered period of development and expansion, with higher-grade shops joining existing base of mainly discount store operations; illus (L)
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160617043938id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/lifestyle/food-dining/2016/06/13/how-did-italian-food-love-come-our-plates-look-cookbook-history/MquLe3MwNNV333NwzvqYXL/story.html
|
We take Italian food for granted. Surrounded as we are by cookbooks, cooking shows, and restaurants, both fancy and humble, featuring the cuisine of everyone’s favorite footwear-shaped country, we often fail to wonder how this wonderful food was passed down to us. So much of French, English, and American food was preserved in cookbooks from an early date — France and England both have unbroken runs of recipe books starting in the 17th century, but Italy was a little different. Italy got off to a fast start, publishing the very first printed cookbook, “De Honesta Voluptate Valetudine” (“On Right Pleasure and Good Health,” Rome, 1474), itself cribbed from a slightly earlier cookbook by Martino da Como, a chef from the Milan area who traveled to Rome and became the most celebrated chef of the 15th century. Europe’s greatest Renaissance recipe book is also Italian, Bartolomeo Scappi’s “Opera” (“Works,” Rome and Venice, 1570), which introduced countless still-recognizable recipes for fine Mediterranean cuisine and featured the first image of a new invention that transformed eating forever: the fork. From this high point, Italian cuisine seems like it should have swept across Europe, but it didn’t. For more than two centuries, Italy fell under the spell of French cuisine, only starting to awaken with Vincenzo Corrado’s “Il Cuoco Galante” (“The Gallant Cook,” Naples, 1773), which detailed the great Mediterranean cuisine around that area. Most of the Italian food that we can’t imagine the world without had to survive in handwritten recipe books and passed down by instruction and tradition from generation to generation. When Italian cooks say that they are cooking the food of their grandparents, they often fail to mention that it is also the food of their grandparents’ grandparents, and their grandparents, and so on. All of which is to say that when I heard sisters Carla and Christine Pallotta of Nebo Cucina & Enoteca had acquired a rare complete set of the famously offbeat regional Italian cookbooks “In Bocca,” and were planning on cooking out of them, I was very excited. Each month, the restaurant is featuring a recipe from a different region. Published by Il Vespro from 1976 to 1979 in 20 volumes corresponding roughly to the 20 regions of Italy (“Toscana in Bocca,” “Roma in Bocca,” etc.), they are bound up in thick cardboard with vivid painted covers and printed on thick, unbleached paper called carta paglia that might be more at home wrapping sausages than housing sausage recipes. Most of the books feature each recipe written in the local dialect, translated into Italian and then translated, sometimes clumsily (and often charmingly literally, e.g. “Troublesome Omelette”), into English. The covers and interior art (also in vivid color and featuring gnocchi clowns, streetscapes, and cherubs firing arrows into steaming bowls of macaroni) borrow much from street and outsider art and the do-it-yourself aesthetic of the 1970s, but are intermixed with 19th-century engravings and documents. The seeming haphazard arrangement of materials — recipes mixed up with caricature, poetry, astrology, old broadside posters, weird anecdotes, obscure aphorisms, and regional micro history — speaks both to the DIY aesthetic at their core, and to a tradition of Italian cookbooks that mix food with the other stuff of life. The suggestion, in “Veneto in Bocca,” that you can dry cuttlefish in the sun and keep them for a year and that “this method was followed by the Americans in order to dry and hydrate astronauts food (with some variants)” exemplifies this unique mashup of old and new. “With some variants”! Italian restaurant Nebo serves a dish inspired by a set of vintage cookbooks. The first real pan-Italian cookbook, Pellegrino Artusi’s “La Scienza in Cucina e l’Arte di Mangiar Bene” (“Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well,” Florence, 1891), was also brimming with anecdotes and asides, most famously a story about eating minestrone in Livorno in 1855 during the beginnings of a cholera epidemic and spending a sick and fitful night at a lodging house run by a Mr. Domenici while shaking his fist at the minestrone. “Damned Minestrone! You will never fool me again!” The next morning, feeling drained and weak, Artusi caught a train to Florence and awakened the following morning much revived. A few days later, news came of a cholera outbreak in Livorno that had claimed no other than Mr. Domenici. He then unapologetically gives a recipe for minestrone: Buon appetito! The exuberant variety in presenting these regional recipes makes sense when we remember that Italy is a modern creation — the country was “unified” from a group of city states and kingdoms in 1861 — and that many individual regions have only rarely been allowed to shine on the world culinary stage. So we see a recipe for bagna cauda — a typical and robust Piedmontese dip — but also an ode to bagna cauda in Piedmontese, songs about parsley in Logudorese Sardinian, and recipes that can only be made with the unusually large carp from Trasimeno lake in Perugia. In Boccaccio’s “Decameron” (circa 1351), it tells of a land called Cockaigne where the vines are tied up with sausages and people live by a mountain of Parmesan cheese making ravioli and macaroni all day long — such are dreams in Italy. In contrast to Artusi, whose project, after all, was trying to bring science into the kitchen, and to most current recipes, the “In Bocca” recipes are informal, more like 18th- and early-19th-century recipes (or directions from your grandmother), and feature very few measurements. Directions are a pinch of this, a handful of that, moisten with stock, cook until done or until brown in a medium-hot oven — they assume a comfort with the recipes and ingredients and tacitly acknowledge that learning to cook Italian food is a process, and a space where cook and cooked can meet and talk it out. A recipe with precise measurements might have the advantage of coming out the same every time, but it’s never really ours, and when we pass it along, there’s no part of us that goes with it. When Carla and Christine Pallotta began cooking out of the “In Bocca” books — a gift from their brother, investor Jim Pallotta — they turned first, naturally, to recipes from their mother’s region of Puglia. (The current menu features braciole from “Puglia in Bocca,” along with other dishes of the region, such as a preparation of grilled octopus.) Puglia is, even for Italy, linguistically and historically complicated, with regions speaking four dialects of Italian, one of Sicilian (in the Southern portion, the heel of Italy’s boot), and even scattered towns that speak dialects of Greek, Franco-Provençal, and Albanian. As the sisters well know, the recipes aren’t so much recipes as memories passed down to be cooked but also interpreted, so that the old is made, at least a little bit, new.
|
high
| 1.958333 |
The owners of Nebo restaurant are cooking from “In Bocca,” a set of rare, regional, and highly quirky cookbooks
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160722103347id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/es/2016/07/18/turquia-un-candidato-improbable-a-un-golpe-de-estado-improbable/
|
Si el intento de golpe de Estado en Turquía fue una sorpresa, hay una buena razón para ello: lo que ocurrió contradice décadas de investigación acerca de cómo, cuándo y por qué suceden los golpes de Estado. El levantamiento de la noche del viernes parecía discrepar enormemente de los patrones usuales. Los politólogos que estudian los golpes de Estado dicen que Turquía tenía un riesgo mínimo de sufrir uno. El secretario de Estado estadounidense, John Kerry, reiteró su apoyo al gobierno de Turquía y, como otros observadores, expresó su desconcierto. “Nos sorprendió a todos, incluyendo a la población de Turquía”, manifestó Kerry, y agregó: “Tengo que decir que no parece que sea un evento muy bien planeado o ejecutado”. La diferencia entre la insurrección en Turquía y otros golpes de Estado ayuda a explicar por qué fracasó este intento, pero también subraya la cantidad de preguntas que quedan sin respuesta. Los golpes de Estado no solo suceden porque existen conspiradores, sino también por determinados factores estructurales. Los politólogos han identificado ciertas pautas de predicción a partir de tendencias económicas, de libertades políticas y de salud pública. Jay Ulfelder, quien se dedica a hacer proyecciones políticas, ha desarrollado un modelo matemático que sintetiza esta información para predecir el nivel de riesgo de golpe de Estado de un país. Según la investigación de Ulfelder, realizada en conjunto con el Early Warning Project, Turquía era un candidato “muy poco probable” a un golpe de Estado, de acuerdo con lo que escribió vía correo electrónico. Tenía solo un 2,5 por ciento de probabilidades de un intento de golpe de Estado en base a información de 2016. Turquía ocupaba el lugar 56.º de 160 países, entre Laos e Irán, y estaba en un rango en el que podía considerarse un país estable. Los países en riesgo por lo general tienen elevadas tasas de mortalidad infantil —una medida de pobreza— y economías con un mal desempeño. La economía turca ha estado creciendo y la tasa de mortalidad infantil ha disminuido rápidamente. Ulfelder también encontró que un país tiene menos probabilidades de enfrentar un golpe de Estado cuando hay un conflicto armado en Estados vecinos, quizá debido a un efecto de unidad interna. Aunque Turquía tenga un historial de golpes de Estado, el país ha cambiado mucho desde el último, en 1997, y Ulfelder destacó que lo más importante es que había pasado casi 20 años sin un evento de estas características. Otro factor crucial es lo que los expertos llaman fragmentación de la élite: si hay división entre los grupos poderosos —funcionarios electos, líderes empresariales, generales, jueces, etcétera—, la competencia por los recursos y el control terminarán en un golpe. Hasta ahora, no hay señales de que hubiera una división tal en Turquía. La economía en crecimiento hace que las élites busquen mantener el statu quo. Y a pesar de que las instituciones del Estado son imperfectas y los índices de corrupción podrían ser menores, ambos factores pueden hacer que las élites compitan por los recursos, pero no al grado de causar una crisis. Tampoco hay una polarización social como las que suelen aprovechar las élites para llevar a cabo un golpe de Estado. Aunque el presidente turco, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, puede ser una figura política que cause tensión, no vemos ese tipo de divisiones profundas —con grupos de la sociedad civil que hagan campaña en contra del Estado— que esperaríamos antes de un golpe de Estado. Según las investigaciones, lograr que un golpe de Estado sea exitoso es como hornear un pastel: hay una receta y si te saltas pasos o dejas de usar ciertos ingredientes, casi con certeza fracasas. Los conspiradores turcos no siguieron la receta. Los golpes de Estado exitosos parecen realizarse como “coreografías” escribió Naunihal Singh, un profesor en el Air War College, en su libro Seizing Power, que analiza por qué los golpes de Estado tienen éxito o fracasan. Según con esta teoría, los golpes de Estado funcionan cuando los líderes pueden convencer a otros oficiales y soldados de que su éxito está asegurado, y convierten la unión en un acto de interés propio. Los conspiradores por lo general logran esto en una serie de pasos predecibles. El peso de los militares detrás del golpe se deja ver con una gran demostración de fuerza. Un anuncio público por uno o más oficiales de alto rango prueba que hay apoyo de la élite. Asimismo, los conspiradores tienden a controlar los medios de comunicación y el flujo de información que llega a la población, y sofocan cualquier transmisión que pudiera socavar la sensación de un éxito inevitable e incontrovertible. Los golpes de Estado que tuvieron éxito en Turquía, en los que las instituciones políticas y militares eran muy sólidas, siguieron un modelo “institucional de golpe”, según Brian Klaas, de la London School of Economics. En un golpe de Estado institucional el ejército está unificado y usa todo su poder para forzar el control total del gobierno, como lo hicieron los militares turcos en 1980. Con un escenario así, la coreografía es muy sencilla: toda la coordinación de la élite militar se da incluso antes de que empiece el golpe de Estado y así las otras élites no tienen más opción que cooperar. Cuando el levantamiento solo involucra a una facción militar, menciona Klaas, el juego de confianza puede requerir que se detenga a los líderes más importantes o que se fuerce a un militar con mayor experiencia a que declare públicamente que el golpe ha triunfado para que se cree una percepción de éxito incluso antes de que cualquiera descifre qué está pasando. En esta ocasión, los militares disidentes turcos intentaron realizar solo algunos de estos pasos, y no tuvieron éxito en ninguno de ellos. Los rebeldes, para mostrar su fuerza, desplegaron tanques y jets en Estambul y Ankara, pero no fue suficiente para intimidar al resto del Ejército, que al final se impuso. Más importante aún es que no hubo una cara pública del golpe de Estado que demostrara el apoyo de la élite o que estableciera un plan claro. Los insurgentes también intentaron controlar los medios de comunicación, pero fallaron. El presidente Erdogan usó la aplicación FaceTime para llamar a un canal de televisión, un movimiento extraño en el que el mandatario se arriesgó a parecer débil, pero que minó el momentum de los conspiradores y le permitió convocar a la población para que saliera a las calles y mostrara su oposición al golpe. Tanto el servicio telefónico como el de internet mantuvieron sus operaciones, así el gobierno pudo comunicarse a través de redes sociales y ayudó a que las protestas a su favor se expandieran; de esta manera, el sentido de inevitabilidad del golpe de Estado fue socavado. Las protestas de los simpatizantes del gobierno —y la ausencia de grupos de gente a favor del golpe— también pudieron ser determinantes para el fracaso del levantamiento. Con frecuencia los golpes estallan e incluso se coordinan con movimientos ya existentes para mostrar que hay un apoyo amplio a las élites opositoras. Los líderes turcos del golpe de 1997, por ejemplo, trabajaron con grupos de la sociedad civil y otros que se oponían al gobierno. El golpe militar en Egipto en 2013 sucedió en medio de protestas masivas en contra del gobierno. Los líderes del intento de golpe de este fin de semana parecían carecer de aliados. No hubo un grupo de la sociedad civil ni partidos políticos que emitieran posturas a favor de la insurrección ni tampoco había élites que los apoyaran. En retrospectiva, el golpe parecía tan condenado al fracaso que solo surgen más preguntas. Aún no está claro qué provocó el intento, quién lo lideró y por qué pensaron que tenían suficientes posibilidades de éxito como para arriesgar sus vidas. Si tomamos a la historia como guía, la explicación más simple para el fracaso es la falta de planeamiento y su propia incapacidad.
|
medium
| 1.595238 |
Según algunos analistas, el país no reunía condiciones para sufrir un golpe de Estado, y los conspiradores no reunían las condiciones para triunfar con su levantamiento. El intento fallido de derrocar a Erdogan deja más preguntas que respuestas.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160728145436id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/07/28/07/40/plans-to-improve-gateway-to-melbourne-cbd
|
Victoria's peak motoring body wants a plan to ban cars from part of a CBD street in Melbourne to go even further. Lord Mayor Robert Doyle on Thursday unveiled plans to reduce car access to the busy south end of Elizabeth Street, adding more greenery and walking paths and providing better access to public transport. A 100m southbound section of the street, from Flinders Lane to Flinders St would be blocked to cars. But that is not nearly enough for the RACV public policy manager Brian Negus, who wants the centre of Melbourne turned into a "proper, interconnected, European-style mall". Negus says the car ban should go all the way from Flinders St to the Bourke St Mall shopping precinct. "That would allow a beautification that otherwise wouldn't be possible," he told AAP on Thursday. "This is a good start to at least say it's on the agenda but we would say it doesn't go far enough." Currently, cars are banned in the CBD from Bourke St Mall and Swanston St. The council has spoken numerous times over the past few years about rejuvenating the southern end of Elizabeth St area but no significant works have begun. Analysis of the area shows four in five users during the morning peak are pedestrians. That number is expected to increase when the Melbourne Metro project pushes trams off the congested Swanston St and onto Elizabeth St. "The first step is to talk to businesses, residents and key agencies in the area about what is going to be possible," Mr Doyle said. A council vote on whether to approve the car ban and street revamp will be held on Tuesday.
|
low
| 0.73913 |
The City of Melbourne will investigate ways to reinvigorate one of the CBD's gateways by removing cars and increasing pedestrian access.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160729184154id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/opinion/2016/06/20/vote-leave-to-benefit-from-a-world-of-opportunity/
|
Everything changed in 1992, however, with the Maastricht Treaty. Now, the political nature of the project took over. The Common Market became the European Union and its people citizens of the EU; timetables were set for economic and monetary union and the introduction of a single currency; areas of policy-making that had previously been agreed among member states were brought within the competence of the European Commission, which became a supercharged administration-cum-government. We did not like this development but were not given the opportunity to stop it. John Major, then prime minister, obtained an opt-out from the single currency. But it went ahead with all the safeguards to prevent economic disparities abandoned, with disastrous consequences. Subsequent treaties signed at Nice, Amsterdam and Lisbon, together with a string of political protocols, have further aggrandised the EU into a supra-national body within which the interests of individual states are secondary to the greater good of the overall Union. It now has the trappings of the nation state that we were always assured it would not become: a single currency; a central bank; no frontiers (even if these have been going up again recently in response to the migration crisis); a supreme court; a police force and judicial system (Europol and Eurojust); an embryonic gendarmerie; its own foreign policy; and, if some in the Commission get their way, it will have a European army. Nor will it stop there. The report of the EU’s Five Presidents published last year in response to the eurozone’s deep problems charts the way forward to a fully integrated EU, a superstate in all but name. The fact that Britain does not participate in some of its component parts, notably the euro or the borderless Schengen area, makes no difference since they have an impact upon us. It is suggested by those wanting to stay in the EU that this somehow gives us “the best of both worlds”. In truth it gives us the worst of a bad job: half in and half out of something we do not really wish to be part of but feel we cannot leave for fear of wrecking it. Indeed, so fragile is this political construct that the departure of one of its members, and especially one as big as the UK, threatens to trigger terminal instability. And why is that? If this were a robust democratic institution, underpinned by a thriving economy and a content and happy citizenry then Britain’s withdrawal should have no impact at all. Of course, if it were such a utopia then we wouldn’t be having a discussion about leaving in the first place; but it isn’t. Across Europe, disenchantment with Brussels is growing. A recent poll in Italy showed 48 per cent would vote to leave, an astonishing figure in the spiritual home of the EU. The MORI poll also suggested that 58 per cent of the French want their own referendum, and 41 per cent say they would vote to leave. Those who dismiss the referendum here as some British eccentricity whipped up by Little Englander Europhobes need to ask why the EU is so unpopular elsewhere. The principal reason is its anti-democratic nature - the dislocation between those who govern and the governed. While people can vote for their national leaders, who then have an input into collective decision-making, they are no longer able to influence events that affect them directly through the ballot box. In any case, by the time many directives that begin life in Brussels have got to the Council of Ministers for a decision it is too late to stop them. So we are not alone in Britain in feeling irritation with the EU. Most pernicious has been the way in which it has imposed its will on democratically elected governments in indebted eurozone countries in order to bail them out of the economic difficulties brought about by their membership of the single currency. The fact that the EU is a collection of democracies does not detract from the reality that this is a profoundly undemocratic institution. This has nothing to do with being anti-European. It is about the type of institution the EU has become. The question that arises, therefore, is whether we wish to stay in a club whose rules and membership have changed so markedly since we joined 43 years ago and which no longer delivers the benefits we were promised at the outset.
|
medium
| 0.933333 |
On the day the United Kingdom joined the Common Market on Jan 1, 1973, the editorial in this newspaper captured the views of much of the country.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160809041349id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/news/worldnews/sarah-palin/9094048/Sarah-Palin-believed-Queen-was-in-charge-of-British-forces-in-Iraq.html
|
Mrs Palin was plucked out of relative obscurity by John McCain in the hope that her down-at-home populist style would solidify the Republican party’s conservative around his candidacy. The incident was revealed during research for Game Change, an HBO 'docu-drama' based on a book about the 2008 campaign by two leading American journalists. While the film is a dramatisation - with the Oscar-nominated actress Julianne Moore playing Mrs Palin - its producers conducted dozens of research interviews and Mr Schmidt confirmed its accuracy in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. A Palin spokesman said the film - with which Mrs Palin refused to co-operate - "distorted, twisted and invented facts to create a false narrative". The incident can be added to a long list of policy gaffes made by Mrs Palin during her three months as the Republican vice-presidential candidate. In an infamous series of interviews with Katie Couric, the CBS News anchor, Mrs Palin was asked about her claim that Alaska's proximity to Russia gave her an insight into foreign affairs. Her stumbling answer - describing how "[Vladimir] Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America" - helped reinforce the impression that she was not ready for high office. Game Change describes panicked cramming sessions during the campaign, with aides beginning their history tutorial with the Spanish Civil War and carrying through to post-9/11 era. Mrs Palin was initially enthusiastic, making notes on hundreds of coloured flash cards, but became increasingly sullen and was described by tutors as going into a "catatonic stupor". Although the 2008 campaign ended in defeat, Mrs Palin’s political fortunes were briefly revived in 2010 with the rise of the grassroots Tea Party movement, but is now most often seen as a pundit on the conservative Fox News cable news channel.
|
low
| 0.487179 |
Sarah Palin believed that the Queen rather than the prime minister was responsible for the decision to keep British forces in Iraq, according to research done for a new film chronicling her brief political rise.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20161209171634id_/http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/12/09/00/01/uk-pm-slaps-down-johnson-over-saudi-view
|
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was not setting out government policy when he said Saudi Arabia and Iran were stoking proxy wars across the Middle East, a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Theresa May says. Johnson, known for his colourful use of language and tendency to go off-script, told an audience in Rome last week that the absence of real leadership in the Middle East had allowed people to twist religion and stoke proxy wars. It is the latest in a series of gaffes to plague the foreign minister, who even May has jokingly said is hard to keep "on message for a full four days". He has been criticised by some EU officials for using less-than-diplomatic language in talks on Britain's decision to leave the bloc. May's quick response underlines the importance of Britain's alliance with Saudi Arabia, which is a major customer for British defence companies. "You've got the Saudis, Iran, everybody, moving in, and puppeteering and playing proxy wars. And it is a tragedy to watch it," Johnson was shown saying in footage posted on the Guardian website. "There are politicians who are twisting and abusing religion and different strains of the same religion in order to further their own political objectives. That's one of the biggest political problems in the whole region," Johnson said. It is unclear from the footage whether he specifically accused Saudi and Iran of twisting religion, though the Guardian reported that Johnson had accused Saudi Arabia of abusing Islam. The spokeswoman for May said: "Those are the foreign secretary's views, they are not the government's position on for example Saudi and its role in the region." May, who visited the Middle East this week, met Saudi King Salman and "set out very clearly the government's view on our relationship with Saudi Arabia, that it is a vital partner for the UK particularly on counter-terrorism", she said. "We want to strengthen that relationship." Her spokeswoman said May still supported her foreign secretary, adding that Johnson would have the "opportunity to set out the way that the UK sees its relationship with Saudi Arabia" during a visit to the region.
|
medium
| 1.538462 |
The British Prime Minister Theresa May has been quick to pour cold water on her foreign minister Boris Johnson's inflammatory comments about Saudi Arabia.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20120217042335id_/http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/story/2012-02-15/sara-benincasa-agorafabulous/53110316/widget.AdBanner
|
In debut memoir Agorafabulous! Dispatches From My Bedroom (William Morrow, $24.99), author and stand-up comedian Sara Benincasa describes in hilarious and sometimes horrifying detail her struggle with panic attacks and the dark days when she was too terrified to leave her room. Why the book is notable: Benincasa has a growing reputation in comedy. She hosts the popular podcast Sex and Other Human Activities. Memorable line: "In simplest terms and most convenient definitions, my psychiatric diagnosis is that I'm afraid of the mall. Which, I can assure you, is untrue." Quick bio: Benincasa, 31, grew up in New Jersey and went on medication for depression and anxiety at 16, finding the right ones at 21. Today, she writes, performs and visits colleges, where she explores issues such as suicide prevention in her routines. The appeal of living in New York City: "I've always felt like such a weirdo and New York is full of weirdos." Why she loves performing: "Performing is an affirmation of life for me. I am doing something that would have been impossible 10 years ago." Up next: A young-adult novel based on F.Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Gatsby is a girl, and the story is set among modern teens in the Hamptons. , visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor . For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to . Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to USA TODAY is now using Facebook Comments on our stories and blog posts to provide an enhanced user experience. To post a comment, log into Facebook and then "Add" your comment. To report spam or abuse, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box. To find out more, read the
|
medium
| 1.1 |
The comedian and writer delves into her anxiety, panic attacks and depression in a memoir out this week.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20130630014348id_/http://www.bbc.com:80/autos/story/20130627-a-diesel-vw-tiptoes-to-a-record
|
A Volkswagen Passat TDI Clean Diesel achieved fuel economy of 77.9mpg on an 8,122-mile, 17-day tour of the 48 adjacent United States, which concluded this week at Volkswagenâs US headquarters in Virginia. Your mileage, of course, may vary â and likely by a considerable margin. The Passat's miserly metering of diesel fuel resulted in a new Guinness fuel-economy mark for the category defined as "lowest fuel consumption – 48 US states for a non-hybrid car". While the category is narrow, the Passat's numbers are gaudy, battering the previous mark of 67.9mpg and topping the hybrid record for a similar journey by more than 13mpg. Volkswagen spokesman Mark Gillies said the record-setting Passat's only modification was the replacement of standard-equipment tires with low-rolling-resistance models. The Passat TDI was equipped with a 140-horsepower, 2-litre turbocharged direct-injection diesel and manual transmission. The EPA rates the car at 43mpg on the highway, and while its horsepower rating is modest compared to gasoline engines – the Passat's standard 2.5-litre engine generates 170hp without turbocharging – the diesel produces an abundance of torque at low speed, a characteristic of diesels and one that makes them enjoyable to drive. At the wheel for the record attempt were Wayne Gerdes, a journalist who has set many fuel-economy marks, including the current 48-state hybrid vehicle record, and Bob Winger, an electronics engineer. Gerdes is a self-described hypermiler, a driver who employs specialised strategies to achieve better fuel economy than would be possible in normal driving. Some hypermiler techniques are obvious: coasting as much as possible, accelerating gradually and carrying minimal extra weight. Is one pair of socks sufficient for a 17-day journey? But hypermilers take their pursuit well beyond the obvious. Speaking with BBC Autos, Gerdes said he used a scanning gauge to determine engine load at any given time of his trip. Engines tend to be most efficient at 70% to 80% load, so the scanner helped him remain within the optimal rev range by dictating how much or how little throttle pressure to apply. "In steady-state driving, run at the lowest rpm possible for the conditions," Gerdes counselled. The manual transmission on Gerdes’ test car helped significantly there, as he could easily keep the car in the selected forward gear. Among other seemingly counterintuitive chestnuts, Gerdes said to drive “as if you don’t have brakes”, which encourages a driver to coast toward a stop as much as possible. His advice was not limited to deceleration. “Think about how traffic ebbs and flows,” he said. “Allow the car in front of you to accelerate ahead. I call that ‘expanding the bumpers’.” And he said drivers should not be afraid to adopt a trucker tactic on uphill sections: get in the right lane. “When you're climbing mountains, you're going to get hurt. Most people think they can do it on cruise control. Don't. Do what the trucks do. Get in the right lane and go up at 25 to 30mph. You can get 20mpg going up, and then going back down is free. It's just a few minutes. It doesn't hurt your time. Get in the truck lane with your emergency flashers on.” Steady as she goes, in other words.
|
medium
| 0.869565 |
By keeping a close eye on the tachometer, Wayne Gerdes achieved a 78mpg average on an 8,100-mile swing through the US.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20140712161826id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/07/10/app-claims-new-tool-eternal-quest-for-city-parking-space/MewE8pfiwq4XzW6uhxBQCP/story.html
|
Thursday afternoon found Danielle Guigli performing a familiar routine: squeezing her Jeep Cherokee into a tight space on Newbury Street, forced by the city’s parking restrictions to hop from one metered space to another all day long. So the 24-year-old real estate broker was delighted at the prospect of a new mobile app, called Haystack, that will alert her to nearby parking spaces when they become available. “That would be awesome,” said Guigli, who was not put off by the $3 fee to lock in a space freed up by another Haystack user. “I’d do it.” But the real owner of those parking spaces, the City of Boston, is not so excited. Haystack debuts in Boston on Tuesday. Users receive an electronic notification when someone else in the Haystack network is about to leave a nearby public metered or free parking space. The driver giving up the spot gets $2.25, and Haystack gets 75 cents for brokering the exchange. But the Walsh administration contends Haystack essentially will be selling property it doesn’t own — city parking spaces — and profiting from a public asset. “That has implications that at first blush are alarming to us,” said Walsh’s chief of staff, Daniel Koh. “When a space is available, it should be available to anyone, regardless of whether they have extra money to pay for it.” Parking has long been a sore point for Boston residents and visitors alike. Mayor Martin J. Walsh has given his blessing to the longstanding tradition by residents of congested neighborhoods of using orange cones and folding chairs to save the spaces they shovel out after snow emergencies. But Koh said the administration is worried Haystack could escalate parking tensions by giving unfair advantages to drivers who can afford smartphones and the service’s fees. Haystack’s 24-year-old founder, who says his app is an innovative solution to one of urban living’s great frustrations, contends the company is not selling public property at all. Rather, it is selling information about public parking — specifically, when spaces are about to open up. “There’s no sale of physical property,” Eric Meyer said. “This is neighbors exchanging information for a fee, and they have every right to do that. What you’re really paying for is convenience.” Launched in Baltimore in May, Haystack works like this: An occupant of a parking space alerts other app users the spot is opening up. The first driver to respond gets to claim the space, then receives precise directions and a description of the departing vehicle. The holder of the parking space declares how long he will wait around for his successor, who pays only when the two exchange spots. Other companies with similar apps are running into trouble in another American city with a tech-savvy reputation and nightmare parking: San Francisco. City attorney Dennis Herrera has threatened to fine three services — MonkeyParking, Sweetch, and ParkModo — if they do not cease operations, accusing them of “hold[ing] hostage on-street public parking spots for their own private profit.” “It creates a predatory private market for public parking spaces that San Franciscans will not tolerate,” Herrera said in June. “Worst of all, it encourages drivers to use their mobile devices unsafely — to engage in online bidding wars while driving.” MonkeyParking and ParkModo recently disabled their services, but Sweetch founder Aboud Jardaneh said Thursday that his company had not received a formal cease-and-desist order and has no plans to halt operations. Like Haystack, Sweetch helps drivers find parking spaces for a flat fee, $5. MonkeyParking auctions off spaces to the highest bidders. ParkModo, meanwhile, has taken to hiring drivers — at $13 per hour — to occupy street spaces at peak hours in busy neighborhoods as a way of increasing app usage. Boston is itself using technology to make parking a little less stressful. In December, it rolled out an app called Parker that uses sensors to show which of 330 spaces in the Innovation District are available. The city is also soliciting bids from contractors for a system that will allow drivers to pay for parking meters electronically via a smartphone app, instead of having to fish for quarters in-between seats. The MBTA has allowed commuter rail passengers to pay for parking by phone since 2008. Unlike San Francisco, Boston is taking a conciliatory tone with Haystack Mobile Technologies, based in Baltimore. Rather than try to prevent it from operating, Koh said, the administration would like to work with Meyer to see if Haystack’s technology could help alleviate Boston’s parking problems — without profiting from the sale of parking or giving some drivers an unfair advantage. In theory, Haystack drivers could profit by finding parking spaces on their own and then selling them. At a minimum, Meyer said, motorists can recoup some of what they paid Haystack to get the spot in the first place by simply reselling it when they leave. After circling Boston Common twice before finding a metered space on Park Street Thursday, 24-year-old John Spencer of Quincy was excited by the prospect of an app like Haystack. “Oh, that’d be cool,” he said. But he seemed deterred by the $3 fee. On Newbury Street, Jim Hodgson, who gave his age at “just under 70,” was more decisive: In from South Dartmouth to shop, Hodgson bragged he had a special touch for finding parking and saw no need to pay for a tip about an open space. “I have the Force,” Hodgson cracked, referring to the fictional power from the “Star Wars” films. “Three bucks per use? No. I’ll take my chances with the Force.”
|
medium
| 1 |
A fledgling app maker is adding a high-tech weapon to the tense battle for curbside real estate: a new digital service called Haystack that allows drivers to claim spots via smartphone.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20140814110659id_/http://fortune.com/2014/08/14/pemex-oil-black-gold/
|
Mother Nature long coddled Mexico’s national oil company, blessing it with fountains of homegrown black gold. But in recent years she has gotten ornery, frustrating Petróleos Mexicanos with juicy but recalcitrant fields of oil. One day this spring she played a nasty joke. She unleashed a 6.4-magnitude earthquake on Mexico that caused the 50-story headquarters of the company known as Pemex to sway woozily, like an aging prizefighter struggling not to fall. Inside the iconic but timeworn building, the second-tallest in Mexico City, doors rocked on their hinges, metal blinds banged against windows, and frightened workers braced themselves inside door frames, hoping to ride out a threat they all knew was beyond their control. Scant hours later, Pemex’s 39-year-old chief executive, Emilio Lozoya, sits at at the head of the massive conference table in his cloud-level office. The Pemex tower has stopped shaking, but the Pemex corporation faces a foundational challenge. In a move that has both shocked and thrilled the global oil industry, Mexico’s government is performing an about-face. For the first time in three-quarters of a century, it intends to invite international oil firms into the country to sink their drills into its petroleum-rich earth. That decision has infuriated many Mexicans, and it fundamentally threatens Pemex, which has always been a monopoly. As the oil giants prepare to pounce, Lozoya, a Harvard-educated investment executive and an oil industry newcomer, has the task of whipping the bloated behemoth into competitive shape. “It is, by all means, the most important transformation Pemex has suffered in our entire 76 years,” says the fresh-faced CEO, who speaks excellent English and chooses his words—including his verbs—deliberately. As he talks, he jots talking points onto a small white notepad that has been placed in front of his high-backed chair. By his right hand sits a red phone, a direct line to the office of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, the oil reform’s architect and Lozoya’s friend and boss. Everything about Mexico’s energy opening is being carefully choreographed. But in Mexico’s rough-and-tumble energy business, even the most meticulous plans have a way of getting blown up. Ever since 1938, when Mexico expropriated its gushing oilfields from foreign companies in a burst of revolutionary nationalism, that bounty has been off-limits to outside producers. The oil has been the exclusive purview of Pemex. Favored by geology as well as by law, the company has had the luxury of getting most of its oil from a couple of huge, easy-to-tap underground formations—known in the industry as “elephants.” Indeed, Pemex has become legendary in the oil world for its factory-like approach to pulling oil from a particularly Mexican type of elephant: fields in shallow water, just off the country’s Gulf coast. But along the way, Pemex has become notoriously inefficient. The company ranked No. 36 among the Fortune Global 500 last year, with revenue of $126 billion. But Pemex also posted a $13 billion net loss. The company is laden with bureaucracy, teeming with superfluous workers, and, by its own executives’ admission, thwarted by corruption. The result is both stunning and not very surprising: In a country that ranks ninth or 10th in global oil production, depending on who’s counting, and that some geologists say contains the largest unexplored petroleum area beyond the Arctic Circle, Pemex has presided over a steep decline in Mexico’s oil output. That decline—Mexico’s oil production has tanked 25% over the past decade, to 2 million barrels per day—threatens the country’s ability to pay its bills. Pemex’s oil revenue is the single biggest contributor to the Mexican treasury, supplying roughly one third of the national budget. It’s doubly embarrassing for this proud country because it comes as an oil boom is exploding next door in the U.S. That’s why Mexico now is rolling out the red carpet for the international oil firms it once threw out. If it works, foreign players ranging from super-majors to wildcatters will pour into Mexico and pull up the crude and natural gas that Pemex has failed to tap from Mexico’s increasingly technically challenging fields. Pemex will be guaranteed favored-son status, granted an initial slate of fields in a much-anticipated government decision known as Round Zero that was to be unveiled as this issue went to press. But unless Pemex can prove itself competitive, it will be largely relegated to the relatively simple fields it has learned to exploit well, while foreign companies will dominate the vaster troves of Mexico’s harder-to-get hydrocarbons, from the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico to shale plays near the U.S. border. The government hopes this race will boost the amount of Mexican oil that flows onto the market—raising the take for the state, which will get a cut of every barrel. Equally important, it hopes the surge in Mexican oil and gas production will have a raft of spillover benefits for the country, slashing electricity prices, attracting industry, and bankrolling services for the people. But whether Mexico rocks the energy world will depend on whether it can execute its pledge to reform Pemex, a sprawling bureaucracy that for generations has had its hands in every aspect of the country’s oil sector. A few months in, the attempt is hitting major roadblocks. The difficulty is partly that Pemex is a poster child for corporate dysfunction. It’s also that Pemex, however dysfunctional, is seen by much of the Mexican public as the guardian of the nation’s patrimony. Everywhere it sits, oil is big business. In Mexico it’s a cultural keystone. Haydee Figueroa, a dentist working one afternoon on her iPad at a café in Polanco, a tony district of the capital, serves up a pithy summation: In Mexico, she says, “oil represents something similar to corn.” March 18, the day Mexico’s revolutionary government grabbed the country’s oilfields from the gringos in 1938, is a national holiday. The event is a key element in Mexican schoolbooks and part of the country’s stick-it-to-the-man folklore. Pemex is the most recognizable brand in the country; its gas stations, painted in the national colors, green, white, and red, are the only mainstream places in Mexico to fill up a tank, and the government-subsidized prices don’t vary from pump to pump. The Pemex empire is by far the country’s biggest employer, providing paychecks to more than 150,000 Mexicans; it operates a network of hospitals, recreation centers, and libraries; and it has made not a few influential Mexicans very rich. Source: PEMEX; EIA; Mexico National Hydrocarbons Commision Adrian Lajous was Pemex’s CEO in the late 1990s and remains deeply involved in the country’s energy debate. One recent afternoon, dressed in a tweed jacket and jeans in the living room of his book-lined, modernist Mexico City house, he delivered a lecture on Mexico’s oil history. “We copied the U.S.,” he says, “but here, it was the wild, wild West.” Petroleum was discovered in Mexico in the late 1800s, and production ramped up between 1900 and 1910. Almost immediately, Lajous explains, “you just had these fields spurting oil.” Oil companies, notably from the U.S. and England, set up shop. In 1910 the Mexican Revolution broke out, yet oil production kept rising. “The oil companies simply paid off all the factions in the civil war,” Lajous says, “and they were protected.” After the Mexican Revolution ended in 1920, the trade union movement in Mexico gathered steam. In 1937 oil workers walked off the fields on strike, protesting their pay. In March 1938, Mexico’s supreme court sided with the workers; days later Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas declared the country’s oil the property and business of the state. With Cárdenas’s declaration—a moment known ever since in Mexico simply as la expropiación, or the expropriation—Pemex was born. In the lobby of the Pemex tower today, 44 stories under Emilio Lozoya’s chair, stands a larger-than-life bronze statue of a triumphant Cárdenas, the populist who launched the firm. One good way to understand the intensity of feeling about oil in Mexico is to wander around the National Museum of Anthropology, an architecturally stark building each of whose rooms displays artifacts from a different Mesoamerican culture. A common narrative unites many of the displays: A resource-rich Mexico is invaded and exploited by greedy foreigners, and then its heroes rise up against the outsiders, sometimes forcing them out and sometimes being martyred in the attempt. In the Aztec room an exhibit explains that Hernán Cortés, the Spanish explorer who arrived in Mexico in 1519, killed Moctezuma II, the Aztec leader, which ultimately led to the ascension of Cuauhtémoc as the Aztecs’ head. On a rainy Saturday morning, standing in the Aztec room and speaking to a crowd of mostly European visitors, tour guide Julieta López distills the story to what she sees as its essence: The Spanish invaders “used knowledge to manipulate the people, just as, today, we are manipulated.” Later, asked about her view of the energy reforms, she offers a similar critique. “I am completely against the reforms,” she says. “It took us a long time to get rid of the foreigners. Now this President wants to open the doors to have them come again.” MEXICO – CIRCA 1956: Pemex filling station. Mexico, January 1956.Roger Viollet/Getty Images It’s a consensus view on the Mexican left. Ursus Sartoris is a Mexico City poet, editor of a literary magazine, and self-described leftist activist. He has wild brown hair, sees the world through thick, black-rimmed glasses, and wears suspenders over a belly that betrays his fondness for good food. One evening in Mexico City, sipping red wine and munching a corned-beef sandwich in a French café, he spins a parable. It likens Pemex not to an elephant but to another four-legged creature. “You have a cow,” says the poet. “For a long time this cow produced a lot of milk. And then some guy comes and says, ‘You have a very nice cow. I want that. Sell it to me.’ And you say, ‘No, this is for my small farm, because from this cow all my family eats.’ And he says, ‘No, please sell me the cow.’ The cow is Pemex.” The cow may be past its prime, but it still belongs to the family. “The relationship between Pemex and the Mexican people is very complex,” says Fluvio Ruiz, an energy economist who had invited his friend Sartoris to dinner that evening. “People say it’s dirty and corrupt. But it’s our dirty and corrupt.” Ruiz’s own relationship to Pemex is a study in those contradictions. He is, he notes, a niño Pemex, or child of Pemex. He grew up in the Pemex petrochemical town of Coatzacoalcos, the son of a lawyer and a teacher, both of whom worked for Pemex. He spent his college days in the late 1980s in student protests, agitating for Mexican political reform. Today, as a result of an earlier attempt to reform Pemex that effectively set aside four board seats for people picked by Mexico’s leading political parties, the bushy-haired agitator has an unlikely job as a full-time, salaried Pemex director. Posters of Che Guevara, Lenin, and Marx cover the walls of his office—a capacious suite on the Pemex tower’s 14th floor. The intellectual, who wears colorful rope bracelets on his wrist, is ferried around Mexico City in a gray Nissan Pathfinder supplied by Pemex and driven by a chauffeur. He sees reforming Pemex as necessary to saving it—and his mission as helping shape the reforms so that they strengthen the company rather than snuff it out. “The main problem, the base of it all,” he says, “is that Pemex is not a company. Pemex is a public organism.” Sergio Guaso’s daily life is a testament to the frustrations of Pemex’s position as an ossified arm of the state. Guaso, a no-nonsense, ruddy-faced man, wears monogrammed white shirts and works at a desk with nothing on it but his laptop. He is vice president of business development for Pemex’s exploration and production division, a job for which he travels a lot. When he files his expenses he often isn’t paid for three months. Why? “No other reason than bureaucracy,” he says in his barren office. “Many desks, many people, the same paper.” Mexican law imposes many restrictions on how, when, and in what quantity Pemex can spend money. The rationale is that Pemex is just another government agency, competing with others for its annual slice of the federal fiscal pie. But Pemex doesn’t just consume government money; it also supplies a good chunk of it. If there’s one common refrain within Pemex’s C-suite, it’s that this short-term outlook by government bean counters all but ensures that Pemex will stumble in the long-term business of producing oil. Guaso ticks off example after example of those inefficiencies. Mexican law, for instance, limits the amount of debt Pemex can incur. But it eases that limit for debt that Pemex certifies it can repay within a year. So Pemex focuses on incremental improvements to its existing fields rather than less immediate—but necessary—bets on new fields. In short, it keeps riding its elephants until they drop. Pemex can’t pin all its shortcomings on a federal fiscal straitjacket. Exhibit A of the company’s own failures is a fiasco at one of Mexico’s juiciest oil formations, an elephant called Chicontepec. It’s enormous, and it contains one-third of all the certified oil and gas reserves, or hydrocarbons in the ground, that Mexico currently claims. Chicontepec was discovered nearly a century ago but has remained largely undeveloped. At the most basic level, that’s because its oil, mostly heavy and lurking in countless tiny pockets, is hard to reach. Pemex began prioritizing Chicontepec in the early 2000s, roughly when Mexico’s most prolific field, a legendary elephant called Cantarell, was heading into decline. By 2005, Pemex had bored a few hundred wells. Those results were encouraging, and over the next several years Pemex announced inc00reasingly bullish plans to develop the formation. But it soon ran into a buzz saw: Mexico’s oil regulator, the National Hydrocarbons Commission, which the government created in 2008 largely out of frustration with Pemex’s declining output. The commission’s mandate was to get Pemex’s production up again. The new commission disputed the amount of oil reserves Pemex was claiming from Chicontepec. Reserves are a crucial metric the market uses to judge an oil company’s health, and strict international rules govern their tabulation. One rule is that, to be counted as reserves, an oil deposit must be “economic.” That means the company asking to book the oil must show that developing it would bring sufficient financial returns to justify the effort. At Chicontepec “we had doubts about this production being economic,” explains Edgar Rangel, a commission member. Like most employees of the commission—indeed, like many of the top players in today’s fast-moving Mexican oil scene—he’s young, well educated, convinced he’s helping his country at a formative moment, and therefore brash. One reason the commission “started to be suspicious,” he says one afternoon, sipping lemonade at a Mexico City café, is that although Pemex had hired third parties to certify its reserves claims, Pemex “would keep the reports of the certifying companies in a drawer, locked up.” When the commission got hold of the reports, it found “huge discrepancies” between the numbers the certifiers gave and the numbers Pemex claimed, Rangel says. “But Pemex would hold to its numbers. They says, ‘We’re correct.’” Mexico’s state-run oil monopoly Pemex’s platform “Ku Maloob Zaap” is seen in the Northeast Marine Region of Pemex Exploration and Production in the Bay of Campeche April 19, 2013. © Victor Ruiz / Reuters REUTERS In 2010 the commission issued a public report that put an asterisk by Pemex’s reserves numbers. It counted only some Chicontepec oil as economic, labeling the rest as technically but not necessarily economically possible. “Pemex was, as you can imagine, extremely unhappy,” says Rangel, who once worked at the oil giant. “I believe that I lost eight to 10 friends” as a result of the dispute. Reserves are only a theoretical measure of an oil company’s prospects. What’s incontrovertible is oil production. In early 2013, Pemex expected to pull 94,000 barrels of oil a day out of Chicontepec by the end of that year. Today it’s producing far less. Part of the blame lies with the geologists Pemex relied on. Committing an error of extrapolation, they figured the entire formation looked similar to the area plumbed by the initial wells. Instead, Pemex later discovered, the formation varies hugely from spot to spot, so it will require a variety of sophisticated and costly techniques to get out the oil. “From the limited information we had at the time,” says Gustavo Hernández, Pemex’s head of exploration and development, “we were expecting more production.” It wasn’t just Pemex scientists who fumbled Chicontepec. Pemex managers did too. In the past few years Pemex has hired outside companies to try different methods to get at Chicontepec’s oil. Pemex has spent about $3.5 billion on those attempts, and thus far it has little to show for it. The root of the problem, Hernández says, is that Pemex’s Chicontepec managers flouted Pemex policy and paid the companies merely for drilling wells, rather than predicating payment for the drilling on finding oil. “They didn’t drill smart holes,” he says, “because the incentive was just well completion, not additional production.” As a result of the Chicontepec experience, heads at Pemex have rolled. Lozoya, the CEO, describes his response upon learning of the financial blowout this way: “Firing some people, moving some people. But you know what? Very honestly, I cannot look to the past. I need to look to the future.” For Mexico that future rests on bringing in foreign oil companies with technical expertise. Executives of several of those companies—some of the biggest oil producers in the world—declined to comment, fearful of offending the government and imperiling their hopes of landing permission to pull up and sell off some of Mexico’s oil. Like a thick steak, that prize is so big they can taste it. One outside oilman who did agree to talk is Harry Bockmeulen, at the time Mexico director for Petrofac, a London-based firm that has operated for several years as a Pemex contractor. It has been paid a fee by the Mexican giant to help it squeeze more oil from its aging fields. What Petrofac and the world’s biggest oil companies anticipate under Mexico’s reforms is something more profitable: the freedom to bid on Mexican fields and sell the oil they produce. Bockmeulen has watched this movie before. He has spent much of his career stationed in oil-rich Latin American countries, positioning his employer to snag a piece of the local action at whatever moment it opens up. All the big international oil firms “will have a cut in the new regime” in Mexico, he predicts, chatting on a Sunday morning hours after flying back to Mexico City from Europe. “The resource is here,” he says, his cheeks flecked with a day’s gray stubble. “And we always go to where the resource is, don’t we?” Lozoya, the young CEO, is moving to gird Pemex for battle. He is flattening the company’s four main operating units into two, because traditionally, he says, the heads of each unit “don’t care” if another unit is losing money, “as long as their [own] numbers are fine.” From there, he wants to rationalize Pemex’s refinery business, which is bleeding billions. Pemex CEO Emilio LozoyaALFREDO ESTRELLA—AFP/Getty Images More grandly, he wants to lay new oil and gas pipelines across his country and beyond it—pipes he asserts could modernize all of Central America. He gets up from his conference table, walks over to his desk, and grabs a not yet public map of his pipeline plans. One priority, he says, is to use a north-south pipeline at the narrowest point in the country between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean to send increasing amounts of Mexico’s oil west to China, other parts of Asia, and California. Another is to build a pipeline ferrying Mexican oil and gas down to Guatemala and beyond. “Think about the impact this will have on immigration,” he says. “It will create a much more competitive region.” But for Lozoya to construct Pemex 2.0, he’ll have to get his hands on a lot more oil. That has set up a power play between Pemex and its owner, the Mexican government. The government’s priority is to boost Mexico’s oil and gas production, maximizing the national rent. Pemex’s goal is to raise its corporate take. That means Pemex is gunning for authority to drill as many of Mexico’s fields as it can. The fight is over whether Pemex will be the most efficient producer. The government was to announce in August which fields it would give Pemex and which fields it would, over the next several years, open for bidding to outside companies. Both sides have long agreed that Pemex should get most of Mexico’s shallow-water fields and conventional onshore fields—Pemex’s traditional bread and butter. But Pemex also asked for sizeable chunks of the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, which it has begun drilling, and of Mexico’s extensive though undeveloped shale plays. “My concern is they’re asking for too much in areas where they don’t have the technical expertise,” says María de Lourdes Melgar Palacios, undersecretary for hydrocarbons in Mexico’s energy ministry. All this talk of clipping Pemex’s wings is contemptible to the son of the man who engineered la expropiación in 1938. At age 80, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, son of the late Lázaro Cárdenas and namesake of the Aztec chief, is trying to engineer his own revolution: a plebiscite to roll back what he sees as the auctioning of the nation’s wealth. One evening Cárdenas chats on a white couch in his office, in the walled compound that once was his parents’ house. His shelves hold books about Simón Bolívar and other Latin American fighters, and a huge oil painting of his father hangs on a wall. Outside, under the porte-cochère, sits his father’s 1966 brown Oldsmobile, as if parked in time. The son pronounces the current reforms both “a big mistake” and “a violation of the law.” Cárdenas and his colleagues are working to collect signatures to force a public vote to negate the oil reforms at the country’s next election, to be held next year. He says that as of last spring his movement had collected 1.7 million signatures, and that it was trying for 1.5 million more. That sets up a race against the clock. While Cárdenas and the left try to roll back the reforms, which the Mexican legislature approved in August, Peña Nieto’s government is scrambling to implement them. “We are in a hurry. We cannot delay,” says Javier Treviño, a Mexican congressman who’s helping lead that push on behalf of the president. Treviño, speaking in the bar of Mexico City’s Four Seasons hotel, brushes off the left’s opposition as naive and outdated. “They still want to have Mexico as the vision of oil nationalism. They are very parochial,” he says, fingering his BlackBerry. In particular, the Mexican left doesn’t fully grasp that oil companies have many spots around the world where they can go to hunt for crude, Treviño asserts. “We are not the only dish at the table.” Hanging over the push to reform Mexico’s oil and gas sector like a storm cloud is fear about the energy boom already exploding north of the border. The U.S. long has been the biggest buyer of Mexican oil exports, but lately its purchases have fallen sharply, in part because private oil companies have succeeded stupendously in squeezing more oil from U.S. shale. And U.S. imports probably will fall a good deal further if Washington approves the Keystone XL Pipeline, a controversial tube that would move Canadian crude to many of the same U.S. Gulf Coast refineries that now process tankersful of Mexican oil. The world has shrunk, and the easy elephants have been shot, in the nearly 80 years since an ascendant, post-revolutionary Mexico had the bravado to tell the foreign oilmen to go home. Today, though it pains many in Mexico to admit it, the country needs cutting-edge technical help to convert its prolific fossil-fuel resources into cash. The real question is whether Mexico has the muscle to carry out its reforms so that this time the oil and gas produced by the international drillers ends up, for the long haul, enriching the country. This story is from the September 1, 2014 issue of Fortune.
|
high
| 1.228571 |
Seventy-six years after nationalizing its oil business, Mexico invites foreign companies back to drill. What will it mean for mighty PEMEX—and for the nation's self-image?
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20141114185816id_/http://fortune.com:80/2013/04/11/fracking-comes-to-china/
|
As the white Toyota SUV bounces over the rutted dirt roads of Sichuan province in western China, Shell’s Bill Quanbai Li points to a drilling site with a derrick rising on the horizon. Nearby, a farmer tills a canola field with a wooden plow pulled by an ox. Li is a community liaison officer for Shell, and his job is to smooth over relations between the energy giant and the villagers as the company explores for shale gas in this rural area about two hours northeast of Chengdu, a city of some 14 million. He says he spends a lot of time explaining to the locals — many of whom make only $150 a year — how hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” will affect their land and their lives. “You can’t believe what comes up,” he says with a smile. One time, he recalls, a man who raises cobras in his living room worried that the vibrations from the drilling process used to extract gas from underground rock formations would disorient his snakes — including a prized albino cobra. In another instance, a farmer complained that his chickens stopped laying eggs once the fracking started. (Li explained to both that the process lasts only one to two hours a day over a couple of weeks and is unlikely to create tremors strong enough to upset the animals.) Then there was the old woman who sat in a chair in the middle of the road, blocking a convoy of trucks headed to a drilling site. It turned out that she wanted Shell to hire her son. To win hearts and minds, Shell has helped build new roads in the area, funded an addition to the local elementary school, and created an old-age home for widows. Why would an oil major go to such lengths to curry favor in this rural farming community? Simple: If China contains as much shale gas as Shell thinks, the company could be in the early stages of developing one of the biggest energy discoveries in history. Shell says it is investing $1 billion a year to tap into China’s vast basins of shale gas, including here in Sichuan province. And the company doesn’t want that investment endangered by any public-relations blunders. Granted exclusive access to Shell’s fracking sites in Sichuan earlier this year, Fortune got to see firsthand the challenge and opportunity the company is tackling. How much shale gas does China have? The short answer is that no one exactly knows yet. Exploratory drilling is still in the very early stages; Shell first broke ground in Sichuan in 2010. But most in the industry agree that China’s shale potential is vast. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that the country has total reserves of 1,275 trillion cubic feet of shale gas — more than Canada and the U.S. combined. (The U.S. alone is now estimated to have a 100-year supply.) Shell is not the only Western energy company hoping to capitalize on China’s shale potential. Chevron recently formed a joint venture with the China National Petroleum Corp. and has begun drilling exploratory wells in Sichuan. And Conoco Phillips — in a joint venture with Sinopec — announced in December that it plans to drill wells in Sichuan later this year. The gold rush has begun. If shale gas lives up to its promise, it could be a game changer for China. The nation’s thirst for energy continues to surge. Over the next 20 years the country is expected to double its demand for power. For perspective, Daniel Yergin, in his book The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World, writes that in some recent years China has added the power equivalent of a France or a Great Britain. To meet its voracious demand, the country is currently building 29 nuclear plants and adding vast amounts of wind, solar, and hydro power. But coal remains king for now. China generates 80% of its electricity from coal and consumes almost as much of the fossil fuel as the rest of the world combined. What’s more, the country is opening new coal-powered plants at a rate of about one a week. Given that coal plants are the largest generators of greenhouse gas, China’s love affair with anthracite has serious implications for climate change. The sooner China can begin producing a significant portion of its electricity from shale gas — which emits only half the CO2 of coal — the better off the world will be. But perhaps more compelling to China’s party leaders is that cleaner-burning shale gas could also help address the country’s increasingly dire air-pollution problem. In Beijing in late January the pollution darkened the air so badly at times that some flights had to be canceled. The atmosphere was heavy with what’s called PM 2.5 — for particulate matter that’s 2.5 micrometers in diameter. These small particles of black carbon — the same substance that gives coal miners black lung — are fouling the air. The EPA considers PM 2.5 concentrations of over 35 parts per million to be hazardous. In Beijing the level in January at times approached 1,000 parts per million. A recent report in the British medical journal The Lancet concluded that 1.2 million Chinese died prematurely in 2010 because of air pollution. Environmental protests are on the rise across the country. And even state-owned newspapers have begun running lengthy articles on air pollution. The government says it is working hard to crack down on industrial polluters and limit the number of cars on the road. It has some of the strictest environmental laws of any nation, yet enforcement often proves elusive. Long term, one of the most effective ways to reduce pollution will be to switch to cleaner fuels. That’s why, two years ago in its 12th five-year plan, Beijing set highly ambitious targets for shale gas production. The National Energy Administration announced the goals of producing 230 billion cubic feet of shale gas annually by 2015 and at least 2.2 trillion cubic feet per year by 2020 — the equivalent of about a quarter of America’s current production. For all the excitement over shale gas in China, however, the country stands at an important crossroads. Much could go wrong. The shale gas boom in the U.S. happened after years of development of new drilling techniques. China, by contrast, is playing catch-up on fracking technology and trying to do it virtually overnight. Fracking — if done improperly — has the potential to pollute water tables and release methane, a potent greenhouse gas. (More on safety issues later.) Unlike in the U.S., where “frack” is practically a four-letter word to environmentalists, in China the risks of shale gas development are not yet widely known. But even here, where the will of the state is not usually swayed by the wants of the public, an environmental disaster could derail the fracking revolution before it really gets started. Not everyone in the oil and gas industry believes that China will hit its 2015 target. The numbers for 2020 are even more ambitious. In a recent report, BP said it thinks it will be at least 2030 before China reaches those levels of production. But Martin Stauble, Shell’s VP of Gas China, is optimistic: “The 2020 number is a huge number. It all hinges on the geology being conducive and the regulators providing the right framework. There are still huge hurdles, and I don’t want to be naive about it, but Beijing is very clear about what it wants, and it wants to make it happen.” One big challenge is that no one knows for certain where the shale gas sweet spots are or how much of it can be extracted economically. Geologists have concluded that China’s most promising shale gas deposits lie in three giant basins: the Tarim Basin in the northwest, the Ordos Basin in north-central China (including Inner Mongolia), and the Sichuan Basin in the southwest. Millions of years ago these areas were the bottoms of oceans and lakes. Plant and animal matter buried there was covered by sediment, and the heat and pressure from the rock turned the organic sludge into oil and gas. This band of hydrocarbons — now two miles beneath the surface of the earth — is often referred to as “nature’s kitchen.” Over millions of years some of the oil and gas seeped upward through pores in the rock and sand and was trapped in reservoirs. Those reservoirs have provided most of the hydrocarbon production over the past century. But in the Sichuan Basin — as in large shale formations in the U.S., such as the Barnett and the Marcellus — much of the gas became trapped in sedimentary rock. Oil and gas present in such formations are called unconventional because they do not flow into wells by themselves — the rocks first need to be split open to release the hydrocarbons. In the U.S. drillers have perfected this process by fracking wells, or injecting a mixture of water and chemicals at high pressure to create pores in the shale rock. This technique, combined with advances in horizontal drilling, is what has unlocked unconventional gas. Of the three basins in China, Shell picked the Sichuan and Ordos basins to develop first. Both have promising geology. (The Tarim Basin in the northwest is in a desert, and fracking requires vast amounts of water — as much as 4 million gallons per well.) The company is currently developing one block in the Ordos and three in Sichuan. Shell is working on these shale assets as part of a joint venture with PetroChina, the massive state-owned oil company, which has 1.7 million employees. So far the partners have drilled 40 exploratory wells in China, or two-thirds of the 60 total fracking wells drilled in the nation so far. That compares with the roughly 35,000 wells that are fracked each year in the U.S. At Shell’s Jinqiu block, in the rural area outside Chengdu, Shell has drilled 19 wells, all in different stages of development. The company won’t say yet that this area will be a winner, but one completed well was producing significant amounts of gas during a visit in late January. Says Tony Cortis, the general manager at Jinqiu and a 25-year veteran of Shell with extensive fracking experience in Canada: “All I can say is that we’re pleased with the results so far.” Visiting these drill sites, one comes away with the realization that fracking isn’t easy. For starters, not all unconventional gas deposits are created equal. In some the gas is trapped in sandstone, which is trickier than shale to drill through. Reaching gas trapped in shale isn’t much easier, because every shale is different and the types of formations in China are largely new to drillers. So far Shell has found that the shale is harder and therefore more difficult to drill and frack than the deposits in the U.S. In its joint venture with PetroChina, Shell provides the advance technology for finding and analyzing the shale deposits, and the management skills for setting up these wells to be operated profitably. PetroChina, which has been drilling conventional oil and gas wells for decades, provides the equipment, manpower, and local operational know-how. “The geology is complicated,” says Xiong Jianjia, the vice president in charge of PetroChina’s unconventional gas projects in southwestern China. “The most important thing for us is to learn and get up to speed on the technology and management surrounding shale gas production. Shell is helping us here.” When asked why PetroChina is diving headlong into fracking, he replies: “Our new government is calling for a beautiful China. We need clean energy, and shale gas will be one of the sources.” The drilling teams do not want for resources. At one of the Jinqiu plots, a dozen fire-engine-red Mercedes trucks, with pumps that provide a total of 26,000 horsepower, stand ready to force millions of gallons of water down the well to a depth of more than two miles. “The beauty of partnering with the Chinese,” says Cortis, “is that they built these trucks in China, they built them fast, and the equipment works.” The ability of the government to mobilize rapidly is what makes supporters of Chinese fracking believe that the country will be able to ramp up production faster than skeptics think. One common criticism of fracking in China is that the country doesn’t have a pipeline system in place to bring the gas to market. Xiong of PetroChina counters that plenty of pipeline capacity already exists to carry the shale gas from the Sichuan Basin to southwest cities such as Chengdu and Chongqing. And the government is moving aggressively to add new kilometers of pipeline in other regions. “Gas pipelines are getting built out rapidly,” says Xizhou Zhou, head of China energy at the consultancy IHS. “In China the companies don’t have to worry about grandmothers gathering 200 signatures and filing a lawsuit.” The shale gas boom in the U.S. has generated a wave of resistance from the environmental community. Fracking opponents are understandably concerned about the risks of shale development — from gas leaking into the water table to wastewater being dumped into rivers to the disruption that the drilling causes to natural habitats and nearby communities. Unfortunately, those concerns have been validated at times by slipshod drilling practices, often traceable to operators that don’t have the operating experience of the oil and gas majors. Shell wants to make sure that fracking doesn’t acquire a bad rep in China. At its Jinqiu site, the energy giant — which has drilled thousands of fracking wells in the U.S. and Canada — is trying to create a model for proper unconventional drilling in the country. The fracking water is recycled, the well casings are tested multiple times to make sure gas doesn’t leak into the water table on its way to the surface, and the company says it uses state-of-the-art equipment to avoid surface leaks of methane. The danger is that, as in the U.S., a flood of non-oil major operators eager to participate in the boom will create problems. Beijing announced in January that 16 companies had won a second round of bidding to explore 19 shale gas blocks in central China. None of the contracts went to large oil and gas companies. Instead, the winning bids were made by domestic Chinese utility, coal, and trading companies with little or no experience in fracking. “If there are any shortcuts, Chinese companies will take them, and our grandkids will pay for it,” says Ming Sung, an environmentalist based in Beijing for the nonprofit Clean Air Task Force. Shell’s Stauble agrees that the environmental track record of China’s industrial companies is not all that great and that the flood of new operators poses a risk. But he says Shell is doing what it can to be a positive influence. “We are telling newcomers what we believe the operating procedures for shale gas should be,” he says. “And we hope they take up these world standards.” On one level, at least, that’s already starting to happen. The Chinese are reaching out to the West to learn as much as they can, as fast as they can, about shale gas. In February the Sinopec Group announced a $1 billion deal to buy half of Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake Energy’s oil and gas assets in the Mississippi Lime deposit. PetroChina is buying a stake in a big Canadian shale gas field for $2.2 billion. And a third Chinese oil giant, CNOOC, recently spent $15 billion to acquire the Canadian energy company Nexen, which has huge shale reserves. Will Chinese shale live up to its promise? It’s in the early days, but back at the Jinqiu site, one of the wells has been giving off a soft hiss for months — a sign that there could be bountiful amounts of gas trapped in the rock beneath the rich Sichuan soil. As Shell’s Cortis walks away from the wellhead, he stops and looks back and says, “This is why I do this — to create energy, to leave something behind after I’m gone.” If his hunch is right and Sichuan holds one of the richest basins in the world, both Shell and China will be reaping the rewards for years to come. This story is from the April 29, 2013 issue of Fortune. This month in Laguna Niguel, Calif., Fortune hosts the fifth annual Brainstorm Green conference as part of our continuing coverage of corporate sustainability. These stories explore some of the cutting-edge ideas driving green technology. After you’ve read them, we think you’ll come to the conclusion that today business and environmentalism are vitally intertwined.
|
high
| 1.315789 |
With help from Shell and other western energy giants, Beijing hopes to turn vast shale gas assets into a new source of clean(er) energy through fracking. The trick is to avoid an environmental disaster.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20141202024028id_/http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20141201-meet-canadas-gravity-warriors
|
It is all downhill from here. The cloud hangs low, snagged on crooked evergreens, wreathing the head of Mount Seymour in a cold, grey blanket. This slice of coastal British Columbia is wet â wetter than any place on earth this side of the Amazon Basin. A bitter chill seeps into the bone, and in the muffled, foggy silence, there is the zip and snap of armour being strapped on, the metallic clink of machinery being adjusted. Helmets, spine protectors, shin guards, elbow pads, neck braces – the trappings of battle are donned, already holed and muddied from previous skirmishes. A pair of Toyota pickup trucks stand silent as bicycles are lifted from their beds. The trucks are part chairlift, part toolbox, part duffel bag and part beast of burden. If you walk into the aftermarket section of any major motor show in North America, you would spot gleaming, full-size pickups with cartoonishly large wheels and improbable lift kits. The trucks in these damp woods, however – smaller and significantly dirtier – are the antithesis of those glossy, preening leviathans. Having unloaded the bikes and set off down a short section of road, knobby tires buzzing like angry hornets on the tarmac, the riders duck between the trees down a double-black-diamond trail. The course is a whip-crack of granite, mud and cedar, with the wooden sections made ice-slick by the unshakeable damp. It is a dangerous business, this downhill riding, with cyclists risking broken collar bones, compressed vertebrae, concussions and contusions. The armour is not just for show. In earlier times on these slopes, it might have been a hunting party diving into the lair of the cave-bear, to prove both bravery and athleticism. Here the threat of a heavy, murderous paw is replaced by the spectacularly unyielding nature of an 80ft Douglas fir, but the game is the same: the brotherhood of the ride, the skill, the danger. Off the pack goes into the woods, hooting at the cold, wheels skittering over the slick cedar planking. Mountain biking is a British Columbia pastime, worth tens of millions in tourism dollars to local economies. As winter edges closer, tourists seek snowier climes, heading to state-of-the-art ski resorts such as Whistler, site of the 2010 Winter Olympics. But the temperate coastal rainforest is relentlessly damp. The riding season consequently can extend deep into winter – provided the rider has the right equipment. Judging by the impromptu parking lots at trailheads, one of the most valuable pieces of that gear wears a Toyota badge. Tacomas and 4Runners of all generations are almost an official vehicle for thrill-seekers throughout the coastal ranges, down into the US. It is quite common to see $15,000 or even $20,000 worth of mountain bikes hanging off the tailgate of a battered Toyota worth a quarter of that amount. In the parking lot at the base of Mount Seymour, there are other vehicles to be found, too. Several Subaru Outbacks arrive, cross-country mountain bikes spilling out of them. A Ford F-150 with eight downhill bikes and two extra riders crouched in the bed motors off for the climb up the mountain. There is even a Suzuki Sidekick, looking like a proto-cute-ute with its suspension lift and outsize all-terrain tires. A woman walks along the line of vehicles, leaving fliers for a local pub. “Hose and Beer”, it reads, advertising a place to wash down a mount post-ride, as well as to slake thirst with a shared pitcher of lager. Toyotas, however, dominate the landscape. At one point, no fewer than four identical white crew-cab Toyota Racing Development (TRD) pickups are parked in a line. “I guess this is the white Tacoma parking section,” one owner jokes as he rides out to the trailhead. The mid-size Toyota pickup truck, known as the Hilux in overseas markets and the Tacoma in North America since 1995, is something of a cultural icon for outdoor enthusiasts. A black, pre-Tacoma-nameplate example appeared in the 1985 blockbuster film Back to the Future, stirring palpable desire in Michael J Fox’s Marty McFly – and in countless viewers. This was a vehicle built for fun; it could work, too, but the Toyota was a born sport truck, ideal for surfers, skiers, snowmobilers and cyclists. Its toughness is chronicled worldwide. The Chadian-Libyan conflict of 1987 is colloquially referred to as “The Toyota War” owing to the overloaded Hiluxes that Chadian guerillas piloted across deserts, en route to routing their adversaries, despite the Libyans’ infinitely superior firepower. While nobody on this deeply gladed hillside has mounted Browning .50cal machine guns on their Tacomas, all the trucks show signs of exceptional use. Bumpers are dented, fenders are chipped. “Real trucks should be dirty,” says rider Mark Godard. “Inside and out.” These particular downhillers are also members of the local Toyota off-roading club. Mitch Garvey drives a black 2007 Tacoma, one of the two trucks pulling shuttle duties on this particular day. “Upgrades are just wheels and tires,” he says. “I've got plans, lots of plans, but I'm saving for school, trying to be responsible.” The rest of the crew drives Toyota 4x4s in various incarnations. Bryan Sloan has driven down from Squamish in his 1997 4Runner. “A cold trip down with that back window open,” he laughs. Sean Anderson has a diesel-powered, Japanese-market Hilux Surf with an exhaust system that makes it sound like a steroidal John Deere. Wyatt Heesterman's green '92 pickup is possibly even louder. Kyle Robinson is in a 2009 crew-cab, one of the four white Tacomas in a line: he also is fixing up two older 4Runners. The knot of riders emerges at the base of the mountain sweaty, elated and mud-spattered. Another 1,000 vertical feet or so descended, another day, another lap downhill. There are 50-odd miles of official North Shore trails to shred, and who knows how many more wildcat routes scraped together in the woods and kept secret. On this day, there are fist-bumps and handshakes, a post-mortem of the ride, an examination of new bruises and parts shaken loose by the pounding. Propulsion here comes from muscle, bone and sinew, but when a group gets together, the same banter emerges as that you’d encounter at any hot-rodder convention. Get within earshot, and it's difficult to discern whether a slice of that future paycheque is going to bike or truck. Absent a new Tacoma to discuss (a full redesign, the truck’s first in nearly a decade, is in the works), the riders turn to the new Chevrolet Colorado pickup, ostensibly General Motors’ response to the Toyota’s long, lucrative run. Opinions are mixed. “The lower valence is too low, it's just going to get ripped off the first time you go off-road,” Mark Burill opines. His dark grey '09 Tacoma is freshly lifted and wears with pride a bend in the rear bumper. Anderson, owner of the Hilux Surf, has a calf tattoo of a bike-riding Buddha, the normally serene deity pumping his first in the air. The message is clear: nirvana is to be found on two wheels, on the downhill rush. For those who seek this enlightenment, however – this freedom of spirit – a mountain climb is in order. Among the winter mists and moss-coasted trees, dignified, battered chairlifts stand eager to lead their charges back into battle. If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Autos, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter.
|
high
| 1.259259 |
Deep in the coastal ranges of British Columbia, the mania for downhill mountain biking extends to the trucks that return riders to their favourite runs.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20150714182727id_/http://fortune.com/2011/11/01/how-to-spot-exceptional-talent/
|
FORTUNE — In retrospect, the biggest blunders often seem inexplicable. Four different book publishers, for instance, passed on J.K. Rowling’s first Harry Potter novel. A weird story about the adventures of a juvenile wizard and his friends just didn’t seem worth a $5,000 advance. Oops. According to author George Anders, a Pulitzer Prize-winning editor at The Wall Street Journal, most big companies make comparable mistakes all the time. For a new book, The Rare Find: Spotting Exceptional Talent Before Everyone Else, Anders set out to analyze how some of the most successful enterprises choose extraordinary new hires. What he found will come as no surprise to anyone who has worked with someone who looked good on paper but turned out to be less than stellar in action. Instead of insisting on a rigid set of credentials, Anders says, hiring managers ought to focus on what the job really requires and give a fair shot to candidates whose resumes may be what Anders calls “jagged,” or full of ups and downs. Someone whose background “appears to teeter on the edge between success and failure,” he writes, can do “spectacular work in the right settings, where their strengths dramatically outweigh their flaws.” Consider, for example, legendary Facebook engineer Evan Priestley. He had changed his college major three times before dropping out altogether, and was working as a low-level web designer at a small firm in Portland, Me., when, in 2007, he happened to come across a programming puzzle that Facebook had put out over the Internet. Priestley’s solution was so elegant that Facebook flew him to Palo Alto for an interview, where he impressed everyone with his skills. Facebook hired him, and the rest is legend: Priestley led a team of programmers that sped up Facebook’s infrastructure and made it easier to add games, maps, and other applications. At one point, Facebook’s site stopped working for a small group of users who, it turned out, were hampered by an obscure, out-of-date security program. The only publicly available manual was written in Danish. No problem! Priestley and a coworker stayed up all night learning enough Danish — mastering terms like foutmelding and beveilaging — to untangle the trouble. The point: If hiring managers had considered only Priestley’s lackluster resume, he’d never have gotten a foot in the door. Drawing on other case studies from organizations as diverse as the FBI, the National Basketball Association, General Electric GE , and (a cautionary tale) Enron, this is thought-provoking stuff for anybody who’s frustrated with trying to find exceptional talent using the same, tired old methods. The Rare Find is also a rare find in itself: A business book that is actually fun to read.
|
medium
| 0.806452 |
Most companies say they have trouble finding the right people these days. A new book argues that identifying brilliant hires depends on a willingness to abandon the usual criteria.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20150825064103id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2015/03/26/qa-leaving-wall-street-for-conscious-marketing-commentary.html
|
Question: On a scale of 1-10 how hard was it to leave Wall Street? Answer: 8.It was 2007 when I left and everyone thought I was leaving money on the table. Q: Why did you leave? A: I didn't care about the business or money as much as everyone else did; I didn't want it. I believe you have to be passionate about what you do. For me, money doesn't buy happiness, but it took me three years to realize that. I needed to put my efforts behind something that I cared about. Read MoreMy biggest mistake on Wall Street: Turney Duff Q: How's it been since you left the business? A: I've been able to blend my life's passion and what I do every day. Things don't move as fast. I've learned, over time, how to be more patient as the gratification of your work isn't as instantaneous. Q: What do you miss about Wall Street? A: The constant, but exhausting, action. It wasn't for me, but I like to constantly be learning and Wall Street taught me how to think like an opportunist. I apply that thought process to my work current work. Read MoreThe 12 types of people on Wall Street Q: Is Wall Street dead? A: The culture might continue to shift and move with the times — i.e. more transparency — but no, it's not dead. Q: Would you ever go back? A: Never say never. Purpose is the new buzz word. Funds are popping up focusing exclusively on making change. Corporations are realizing that doing good might actually increase profits. So, yes … Never say never.
|
low
| 0.571429 |
Turney Duff checks in with former Wall Street friend Max Katbat, who left his job as a trader for a career in "conscious" marketing.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20150905211008id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/19/fmr-subway-spokesman-jared-fogle-to-plead-guilty-to-child-porn-sex-with-minors-charges.html
|
The first charge to which Fogle will plead guilty is "distributing and receiving visual depictions of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct, and conspiring with others to do so," according to the filing. The second count charges Fogle with traveling "in interstate commerce in order to engage in unlawful sexual acts with minors, and attempted to do so." Fogle became the face of Subway for more than 15 years after shedding more than 200 pounds as a college student, in part by eating the chain's sandwiches. Subway says it has ended its relationship with Fogle. Subway still featured at least one mention of Fogle on its site until midday Wednesday—"Jared's Pants Dance game" said it could "Bring Your Kids Meal to Life!" As part of his plea agreement, Fogle will pay $1.4 million in restitution—$100,000 to each of 14 underage victims. Speaking to the media Wednesday, Jeremy Margolis, one of Fogel's attorneys, said his client "will fully and completely acknowledge the responsibility for his wrongdoing." Margolis added that Fogle "knows the restitution can't undo the damage that he's done, but he will do all in his power to try and make it right." In the filing, Fogle stipulates that the government would be able to prove that he received visual depictions of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct on multiple occasions, that he knew they were under 18 years of age, and that the former Subway pitchman even "met the minors during social events in Indiana." None of the minors in the content created by Fogle's primary pornography supplier knew they were being filmed—and were instead captured in images and videos by hidden cameras. Additionally, Fogle was provided with content from other sources with victims who were "as young as approximately six years of age." Fogle also stipulated to the government's evidence that on at least two occasions he traveled to New York City "in order to engage in commercial sexual activity with minors." This included sex-for-money encounters with a 17-year-old woman in the city's Plaza Hotel and Ritz Carlton Hotel. Read MoreSubway and Jared suspend relationship Fogle agreed to participate in sexual disorder treatment and to register as a sex offender in any state he will live or work in. Margolis said his client "knows he has a medical problem," and has sought evaluation from a psychiatrist. After it came to light in July that Fogle was the subject of a child porn investigation, Subway provided CNBC with the following statement: Subway and Jared Fogle have mutually agreed to suspend their relationship due to the current investigation. Jared continues to cooperate with authorities and he expects no actions to be forthcoming. Both Jared and Subway agree that this was the appropriate step to take. Katie Fogle, the former pitchman's wife, said in a statement that she was shocked and disappointed by the recent developments, and that she is filing for divorce, Indianapolis NBC affiliate WTHR-TV reported. —The Associated Press contributed to this report.
|
medium
| 1.363636 |
Former Subway spokesman Jared Fogle will plead guilty to charges related to child pornography, according to documents seen by CNBC.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20150908010424id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/01/euro-strength-puts-pressure-on-draghi-as-ecb-meets.html?trknav=articlecarousel:inline:1:102965239
|
The ECB's chief economist Peter Praet, who is also a member of the ECB's executive board, said last week that falling commodity prices and a slowdown in China were hindering the central bank's goal of getting inflation back up to around 2 percent and pledged the bank would do more if necessary. In the face of continued weakness and the heightened risk of deflationary shocks, there are three main options for additional policy support according to analysts. The ECB could cut interest rates again, increase the size of its monthly asset purchases, or extend the program beyond the current scheduled end date of September 2016, they said. But further cuts to the deposit rate, which is already at -0.2 percent, would risk having negative consequences, including the prospective damage to banks' profitability, which could cause them to cut their own deposit rates or increase lending rates, moves that would likely hurt the growth of businesses in the euro zone. Read MoreEuro zone unemployment hits 3-year low - but don't get out the flags yet "Governing Council members have already indicated quite strongly that short-term policy rates have reached a floor. Accordingly, we expect hints of potential future policy support to centre on the Asset Purchase Programme," said McKeown at Capital Economics. She expects the ECB to extend its QE program beyond next year and probably increase the pace of purchases in the meantime. Barclay's Gudin agreed. "We now expect further easing to be announced before year-end as we believe inflation is unlikely to return to levels consistent with the ECB's objective of price stability over the next two years," he added.
|
low
| 0.76 |
The euro could be in focus at Thursday's European Central Bank meeting, as currency strength threatens to undermine efforts to lift inflation.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20150924133017id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/04/world-banks-pension-investments-clash-with-principles.html
|
Some of the pension's holdings are invested in the Russell 3000 index, which tracks 3,000 companies including coal producers Peabody Coal and Arch Coal and tobacco giant Philip Morris, according to the employees' research note. Others are invested in funds tied to Morgan Stanley's MSCI index, which includes major fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil, according to that note. MSCI and other indexes offer portfolios that screen out companies in industries with perceived ethical problems. Some of these funds have performed as well or better than the bank's current investments. The MSCI's two Fossil Fuels Exclusion Indexes have outperformed the main MSCI index for the past three years, according to annual performance fact sheets. Read MoreWorld Bank money funds 'trail of misery,' In its statement to Reuters, the bank said were it to consider such funds it "would have to be convinced of their superior return and risk properties in order to make the investment consistent with fiduciary responsibilities." In a blog post on the bank's in-house Web site last October some employees argued that the bank's target of 3.5 percent annual real returns could be met through socially responsible investments, and raised concerns that the bank's pension investments contradict its public mission. Bank employees have investment choices within their plans, but none offer ethical alternatives, they said. In response, Madelyn Antoncic, treasurer of the World Bank, posted that "things aren't always black and white." She cited the case of a bio-medical subsidiary of tobacco company Reynolds American Inc. which is working to develop a vaccine for the Ebola virus from modified tobacco leaves. Antoncic, who oversees more than $140 billion in World Bank assets as well as the pension fund, said that 60 percent of the plan's equity holdings are in separately managed accounts. Read MoreChina's new 'World Bank' gains support despite warnings Several other large pension funds have shifted toward more ethical investments. Norway's $850 billion Government Pension Global Fund, the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, announced in February that it had moved out of companies connected to Alberta's oil sands and gold miners. And the $53 billion staff pension fund of the United Nations invested in two low-carbon funds by BlackRock and State Street last December. "Just two years ago, investments that met ESG principles were the domain of smaller funds; now interest has spread to the largest pension schemes in the world," said Kevin Bourne, a managing director of ESG at the FTSE Group.
|
medium
| 1.222222 |
World Bank invests part of its $18.8 bn staff pension fund in companies in industries, holdings that clash with the institution's own calls.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20150925013449id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/jun/13/ls-lowry-industrial-world/amp
|
In 1916, LS Lowry had missed his train from Pendlebury, the Salford suburb where he lived, into Manchester. "It would be about four o'clock and perhaps there was some peculiar condition of the atmosphere or something. But as I got to the top of the steps I saw the Acme Mill; a great square red block with the cottages running in rows right up to it – and suddenly I knew what I had to paint." Dickens and Mrs Gaskell had written about Manchester. DH Lawrence found a language for the rough beauty of the Derbyshire mines. George Bernard Shaw, JB Priestley and George Orwell were fascinated by the culture of the industrial working class: its see-saw alcoholism and tee-totalism; its unrepentant godlessness versus its low-church evangelical fervour; its brawling brutality and sudden gentleness. But no one was painting it. "My ambition was to put the industrial scene on the map, because nobody had done it – nobody had done it seriously." That was his brief; it became his obsession. Lowry, the sensible night-school-trained amateur artist in search of a subject, was overtaken – possessed would be a better word – by an unconscious force far bigger than either the man or his mission-statement. For the rest of his life, he spoke of that moment seeing the Acme Mill in 1916 as his vision. He was as much a mystic as William Blake was with his "dark satanic mills", or WB Yeats's "foul rag and bone shop of the heart". Where? In Lancashire. It is pointless to try to understand Lowry the painter as Lowry the Tory, the rent-collector, the virgin who lived with his mother, the timid voyeur in the buttoned-up mac (the man can't really be an artist, he worked for a living and he never had sex). And it is beside the point to talk about his pictures as belonging, fleetingly, to a vanished world. All of us belong, fleetingly, to a vanishing world. It is fashionable to look back at Warhol and talk about how his repetitions provoked us out of familiarity when he piled up the soup cans and screen printed the Monroes – multiplying two iconic brands; the one glamorous, the other mundane – his genius to recognise that they vibrated on the same cultural wavelength. Lowry is popular but unfashionable – a deadly combination in the art world, so his critics use his repetitions against him. It is true that one Lowry looks a lot like another, though that seems to me to be a view closer to prophecy than to criticism in our post-Lowry global village of chains and brands. This Lowry sameness interests me. At the loom, on the assembly line, on the track, the human being must perform the same task in the same way every working hour. The machine does not tire of this repetition, a repetition reinforced by the uniform lines of the mill windows, the identical terraced houses leading down to the factory. Lowry paints his figures as repeats because that is what they are – clones for the industrial machine. Units. The means of production. The machine is the antithesis of the human. If Lowry had been painting Mao's great leap forward or Stalin's five-year plans, his faceless figures, over-sized factories, underfed bodies and drab housing would have been celebrated as critical commentary on the de-humanising evils of Communism (whose 1848 Manifesto, don't forget, was written by Marx after he had spent time with his friend Engels in Manchester). As it is, Lowry's pictures unsettle the myth of our land of hope and glory, blowing the cover story of capitalism: freedom and choice. Look at a Lowry and you are looking at a rebuke to that class whose wealth depends upon the ceaseless labour of others. These are also the people rich enough to buy art. Lowry would have laughed at this analysis. He voted Tory all his life and worked all his life as a rent collector, bagging the pounds, shillings and pence from families who would never own their own home. Lowry's world was a week away from destitution. The weekly wage went on the weekly rent, on the weekly food, on medicine, on booze. Yet Lowry's workers, like Lowry, often voted Tory too. Margaret Thatcher tapped into the British working-class distrust of socialism, a distrust that persuades those whose labour creates our wealth to believe it is safer in the hands of those who manipulate it. Lowry did not intend to be a political painter, but he is one. He painted what was real – the industrial life of the north of England – but he painted it past documentary and into a dialogue of the soul – what happens to a human being when they are forced to couple with the machine? The demon world of industrialisation forces meaningless repetition. The Industrial Revolution is a story we tell about progress, about the coming of the modern. It is also the story of a collective nervous breakdown – "I have seen hell and it's white," Mrs Gaskell on Cottonopolis – the nickname for Manchester. "The piston of a steam engine worked monotonously up and down like the head of an elephant in melancholy madness," – Dickens on Manchester. Agricultural societies and cottage industries work long hours every day, but no matter how poor and backbreaking, it is not repetitive in the way that factory work is repetitive. The seasons, the weather, the cycle of crops and gestation, all make for variety – not ease of labour, but variety. The imperative behind the Factory Acts and the trade unions' focus on cutting factory hours, happened out of a late understanding that you cannot use the work practices of agriculture as a template for industry. Look at the famous Lowry figures. There is something static about them even in movement. This has been used to criticise his technique. But have those art critics ever looked at what happens to the human body when its only purpose is to serve the machine? Repetition produces rigidity. The body seizes up in certain positions – it's why professional musicians and athletes spend a fortune on physiotherapy. Lowry's figures suffer even in their gaiety. The park pictures are the saddest. The bent-over bodies, the thin legs, the bewilderment of those who stand and stare. How did we get here? How did this happen to us? Mental distress is somatised as posture. Freud recognised that humans go on repeating a trauma as a means of revealing it, with the hidden hope of healing it. Lowry kept painting the trauma. The trauma of industrialisation, the shock to the system that is the machine – until clock-out time, until the whistle blows, until death. My father worked in a factory from the age of 14 until he was 65, with time off to kill six men with a bayonet at the D-Day landings because the ammunition was only given out to the ranks of sergeant and above. His body held all of that. He was scarred, fit, misshapen, proud. He was a working man. Who was going to paint the likes of him in his machine-stamped life? (A jaunty hat for Saturday sport). Lowry. The closer I look at the pictures, the more variety I see. Take any of Lowry's industrial scenes and look closely: the urban drab is relieved by a bunch of flowers in an upstairs window, by a figure in a doorway, by a hand stuffed in a pocket in a whistling sort of a way, by somebody waving, by a slash of colour, by a break across the rigidly divided canvas. Lowry's use of the flat surface of the canvas is both rigid and anarchic. Put a ruler on the picture, see what happens in what section, and where it breaks its own rules of ordered composition. Check out the horse's ears in Coming Home From the Mill (1928). Look again. The monotonous palette? The colour is there. Manchester is made of red brick, blackened by soot. Red and black are the colours of the inferno. Lowry takes the red and turns it into defiance and blood. Pride is as important as pain. Lowry's figures are fighting back; the houses show tiny flares of human resistance against the baleful factory chimneys that stand like arrogant, blasphemous, broken crosses – the hanging beam gone; the hope of redemption gone. His critics say there is no interiority, no inner world, in Lowry. They say this because his scenes literally happen on the streets, and they say it as a description of what he lacks. As a rent collector, he was a man who stood on doorsteps, not invited in. And his own private world, without passion as he called it, had no glass for self-reflection. Yet it seems to me that the again and again repetition of these scenes of working-class life is more than a surface show. Where is the inner life when you work a 12-hour day six days a week? It is not found in the cold, cramped back room of your damp terrace, it's in the talk over the fence or fishing with the dog on the canal, or listening to the street preacher and wondering if you believe a word of it. It's saving up for a mouth organ because you want to play a tune. It's the boy – any boy – watching the girl – any girl – and he's Romeo and she's Juliet, and she'll be pushing the pram like the girl behind and he'll be drunk like the man in front, but the machine hasn't broken all the dreams – not yet. Look at them – art's not for them is it? Art is for the galleries, for the money, champagne, good taste, fancy language, the posh boys at the Courtauld, Christie's, the Tate. No wonder they keep the Lowrys in the basement.
|
high
| 1.393939 |
Lowry's critics have used the fact of his paintings' repetitiveness against him, but he brilliantly reveals what happens when human beings couple with the industrial world, says Jeanette Winterson
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20150925023900id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/06/imf-asia-will-remain-the-global-growth-leader.html
|
Nonetheless, the pace of growth in countries across the region will vary, IMF said Among the major economies, China's economy expected to slow to a more sustainable pace of 6.8 percent in 2015 and 6.3 percent in 2016, while growth in Japan poised to pick up to 1.0 percent this year and 1.2 percent next year. Elsewhere, there is a divergence between net commodity exporters and importers. Read MoreFree trade with Asia will juice the economy "Exporters of non-oil commodities whose prices have fallen sharply (Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and New Zealand) will be adversely affected by the terms-of-trade swing; elsewhere, however, growth is expected to stabilize or increase," it said. India, a major beneficiary of lower commodity prices, will be a bright spot in the region. Asia's third-largest economy is projected to expand 7.5 percent this year and next, making it one of the fastest growing economies in the world. There are reasons to be cautious, however, with the balance of risks tilted to the downside, the IMF warned. Read MoreWealth effect? Why Asia's missing the boat Risks include significantly slower-than-expected growth in China or Japan and persistent U.S. dollar strength, which could ramp up debt servicing costs for firms with sizable dollar-denominated debt and curtail demand. "Debt levels — including foreign currency-denominated debt—have increased rapidly in recent years, and Asia is now more vulnerable to financial market shocks," the IMF said. On the flip side, lower energy prices present an upside risk for Asia's growth if more of the savings on oil import bills is spent. "The decline in oil and food prices provides a window of opportunity to further reform or phase out subsidies, thereby improving spending efficiency and shielding public spending from future commodity price fluctuations," it said.
|
low
| 0.642857 |
Asia will continue to outperform the global economy thanks to robust domestic consumption spurred by healthy labor markets, low rates and the fall in oil prices.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20151108143435id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2014/12/09/mysterious-glitch-trade-foretold-apples-fall.html
|
So what happened on Dec. 1, according to traders, is that a big hedge fund with a nice track record for 2014 wanted to sell its most successful investment (Apple at that point was up 50 percent year to date) in order to lock in that nice year-end performance. So the hedge fund sent a big sell order down to the trading desk. The order was meant to be a limit order, one only to be executed at a certain specified price over a certain time, but instead was mistakenly entered in as a market order, causing the big slide in the stock. It was no coincidence this occurred on Dec 1, when investors start to close up their books for the year. The list of top Apple holders are also some of the best hedge fund performers for the year. The tech giant makes up 16 percent of Carl Icahn's portfolio, according to Symmetric.io, and his Icahn Associates is up 15 percent in 2014. Greenlight Capital, which David Einhorn has guided to a 9 percent 2014 return, has 13 percent of its money in Apple, according to Symmetric. Other top-performing hedge funds with more than 10 percent of their money in Apple include Valiant Capital, Andor Capital and Coatue Management, according to Symmetric.io data. We'll find out just who exactly was anxious to pull the sell trigger on Apple when 13-F filings come out next year. Read MoreApple products won't have a happy holiday: Survey For more evidence of profit-taking in Apple, look at what stocks were up most of the day Tuesday as Apple was taking a hit: energy. The Energy Select Sector SPDR, down more than 20 percent since July on oil's rout, was higher in Tuesday morning trading. "Guys are flipping over their portfolio," said Grasso. "They're locking in profits in the momentum names like Apple and buying some value energy stocks."
|
low
| 1.192308 |
Apple shares fell below the low they traded on Dec. 1, when a mistaken trade sent the shares down 6 percent in one day.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160111042025id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/bonnie-eklund-searching-father-classified-ad
|
01/08/2016 AT 11:05 AM EST In 1969, 21-year-old Vernette Eklund spent her summer at a disco club in Regina, Canada, dancing with a man named Gary. Nine months later, she gave birth to their daughter Bonnie in 1970. But Gary, who was no longer in the picture, never found out he fathered the baby girl. Now, 45 years later, Bonnie Eklund, a nurse practitioner who lives in Southern California, is hoping that a classified ad her half-sister Toni published in a newspaper, might get her one step closer to finding him. Bonnie Eklund and her mother Vernette "I'd just want five minutes with him in a room," Eklund tells PEOPLE. "I had the best family and upbringing but Iâm just curious. There is this missing piece. I just want to complete the puzzle." What Vernette, who was a nurse at the time, remembers about Gary today is vague. He would travel back and forth from Calgary to Regina for business, his last name ends with "ski"and he might have worked as a pharmacy representative. After she was born, her mother's parents officially adopted her, so she still always had a father figure in her life. Bonnie Eklund and Vernon, her grandfather who raised her But even then, she often thought about who her biological father was and what he became in life. "What does he look like, his family history, medical history, these kinds of things," she says. "Because he was never told I was born, I think it would be nice for him to know. Who knows, maybe he didnât have children and wants to know he fathered one." At the end of the day, Eklund says finding her dad is "not to complete myself," but to "understand more about myself." "I donât want to disrupt someones life," she says. "I just want some information."
|
medium
| 0.956522 |
"I've been asking questions about him for years but we only know so much about him," says Bonnie Eklund
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160529002808id_/http://www.tmz.com:80/person/chyna-doll
|
Chyna has been called "The First Lady of Sports Entertainment". Her accomplishments have gone far beyond the wrestling ring and far beyond anyone's expectations. Before exchanging body slams, modeling for top magazines and guest-starring on hundreds of shows, Chyna was a shy girl who was born in Rochester, New York. She spent most of her childhood in a home filled with alcoholism and domestic problems. She found her escape through working out, and began doing aerobics and lifting weights at a gym near her home. This is where she found her true niche: in the world of fitness.As the only female in the gym, Chyna always stood out but developed bonds and friendships with the gym members that gave her the encouragement to keep going in the world of fitness. She broke all gender barriers everywhere she went and continued her love of fitness throughout her college days. Chyna graduated from the University of Tampa with a 3.9 GPA and a double major in Spanish Literature in under two years. She also studied foreign languages and can speak English, Spanish, German and French. Chyna is a true humanitarian and has served in the US Army ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) and the Peace Corps, helping to teach illiterate third-world children to read. She is a strong supporter of the National Animal Rescue charity, which helps domesticated animals find good, loving homes.Throughout her life Chyna always dreamed of being an entertainer. She began that career in the early 1990s as a belly dancer and soon moved on to fitness competitions, but at 6'0" the star found her real calling in the entertainment world: professional wrestling. She began training to be a professional wrestler under the guidance of the wrestling legend Walter 'Killer' Kowalski, in a professional wrestling school in which all the other students were men. She soon took the world of women's wrestling by storm and began competing in the PGWA, where she was named the 1996 Rookie of the Year award for the Women's Championship.After dominating the world of women's wrestling Chyna was discovered by Paul Levesque (aka "Triple H") and Shawn Michaels (HBK), two WWF (World Wrestling Federation) superstars who helped Chyna break into the big time. She made her worldwide television debut in February 1997 as a bodyguard for Triple H but soon went on to break all gender stereotypes by competing with some of the toughest men in the WWF, under the name "Chyna". Years later she became the only woman to qualify for the Royal Rumble and King of the Ring tournaments and became the only female Intercontinental Champion and the only undefeated Women's Champion in WWF history.Five years after she debuted as a professional wrestler in the WWF, Chyna parted ways with the company. She then toured Japan, taking the country by storm and battling in the ring with the likes of such champions as Keiji Mutô, The Great Kabuki, and most notably, Masahiro Chôno. Her 2002 Tokyo Dome match against Chono earned her the title of Nikkian Sport's 2002 Women's Wrestler of the Year.Meanwhile, back in the US, Chyna appeared in several films, hosted a variety of shows and showed that women can combine strength and beauty in two top-selling issues of "Playboy" magazine, which proved to the world that women can be beautiful without having the anorexic "Twiggy" look. She also appeared in the first-ever Playboy documentary, which did in-depth interviews with Chyna, her former manager Rich Minzer, her friend Joe Gold and Hugh M. Hefner himself.Her strong will to the best and "survival of the fittest" attitude made her one of the top wrestlers in history. She has served as a role model to millions of men and women by proving anything is possible through hard work and determination. In her best-selling autobiography "If They Only Knew" she discussed what it took to make it to the top and showed the world what she had to overcome to make her one of the most well-known pop culture icons in the world. Shortly after her first appearance in "Playboy" she released her own fitness video, Chyna Fitness: More Than Meets the Eye, which won awards from fitness and lifestyle magazines. The video is still popular with both Chyna's fans and fitness fans alike.Unlike most former pro wrestlers, Chyna has had success on her own two feet. She has been on nearly every talk show and has been featured on hundreds of magazine covers from "Playboy" and "Newsweek" to "TV Guide" and "People". She has been featured on Reggie Benjamin's CD "2X-Centrix", performing drums and back up vocals. She was on the top of the "dance music" billboard charts for five weeks with the CD single "Ride". She also sang with her own rock band, "The Chynna Dolls", for a short time, playing venues like The Roxy, Elrey Theater, Hollywood Athletic Center and two performances on Howard Stern. She has starred in two comedies, Cougar Club and Illegal Aliens. She has also hosted a variety of shows, from Robot Wars: Extreme Warriors to FYE and AMC's "Tough Guys series. She had many guest-starring roles on TV series, such as Whose Line Is It Anyway?, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Pacific Blue, The Nick Cannon Show, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, MADtv, MTV's "Diary" and many others. She was also featured on season four of The Surreal Life and VH1's spin off, The Surreal Life: Fame Games as well as films including Alien Tracker, Alien Fury: Countdown to Invasion, Frank McKlusky, C.I., Hunter: Back in Force. In 2008 she was featured on VH1's Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew TV series to conquer personal demons and depression caused from an abusive relationship and childhood trauma.In 2009, she released a fashion book, "Paper Doll", which became a best-seller. In May 2011 she returned to the world of wrestling with TNA, debuting on the May 12 edition of TNA Impact! Wrestling, and followed it up with one last match at the TNA Sacrifice Pay Per View, where she and Kurt Angle took on Jeff Jarrett and Karen Angle. That episode was one of the highest-rated for the company in many years. Although her match with TNA was a one-time-only deal, Chyna showed the world she had turned her life around--she overcame depression, emotional trauma and was finally where she wanted to be in life.In June 2011, Chyna released her first adult video with Vivid Entertainment called, Backdoor to Chyna, which sold over a million copies. She said the movie allowed her to regain control of her life, gave her a newfound confidence and got her back on her feet. She embarked on a huge media tour, appearing all over the US. She began feature dancing at high-end nightclubs, appeared on dozens of radio shows including Howard Stern on Demand and ABC radio and in November 2011 won a Fleshbot Award for her "Backdoor to Chyna" video. In 2012, she appeared in A Night at the Silent Movie Theater and appeared in the music video "Gonna Make You Love Me" for the band Lovechild. She also appeared in a tell-all interview with KayFabe Commentaries in which she discussed everything from her childhood to drugs, porn and everything in between. Chyna's future looks bright these days; with her past behind her she is ready for her next project. See full bio on IMDb »
|
high
| 0.424242 |
Chyna on TMZ, your go-to source for celebrity news, photos, & videos. Latest Story: Chyna -- Death Certificate ... Family Requests Ashes Spread At Sea
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160602211939id_/http://www.aol.com:80/article/2016/03/28/derek-jeter-wont-be-joining-donald-trumps-ticket/21334489/
|
For a guy known for his hard work, former New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter seems to think being Donald Trump's running mate would require too much effort. Jeter and New York Times reporter Maureen Down recently crossed paths in Cuba. SEE ALSO: 25 interesting facts about LeBron James you may not have known She asked Jeter about being Trump's vice president. "The Captain's" response? "That sounds like too much work." PHOTOS: Derek Jeter through the years Derek Jeter won't be joining Donald Trump's ticket New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter smiles at a news conference Monday Nov. 4, 1996 at Yankee Stadium. Jeter was the unanimous choice as the American League winner of the Jackie Robinson Rookie of the Year Award for 1996 in balloting by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. (Ron Frehm, AP) Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees poses for this photograph prior to a Major League Baseball game circa 1992. Jeter has played for the New York Yankees from 1995-2014. (Focus on Sport/Getty Images) Rookie Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees warms up Monday, May 29, 1995 in Seattle prior to a game against the Mariners. Jeter joined the Yankees in the day after being promoted from their Class AAA team in Columbus. Jeter was the Yankees’ first pick in the June 1992 free-agent draft. (Gary Stewart, AP) New York Yankees' Derek Jeter. (Linda Cataffo, NY Daily News Archive via Getty) New York Yankees vs Minnesota Twins. Twins #4 Paul Molitor is forced out at 2nd base on #40 Mart Cordova' single as Yanks # 2 Derek Jeter covers. Baseball. (Gerald Herbert, NY Daily News via Getty) New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter (R) tags out Baltimore Orioles Mike Devereaux (L) between third and home after Devereaux left third early on a grounder by the Orioles Billy Ripken in the second inning in Baltimore, 13 July. New York went on to win, 3-2. (Ted Mathias, AFP/Getty) New York Yankees Chuck Knoblauch (left) and Derek Jeter at spring training camp in Florida. (Linda Cataffo, NY Daily News Archive via Getty) New York Yankees' Derek Jeter at spring training. (Linda Cataffo, NY Daily News Archive via Getty) New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter takes time to sign autographs before a game against the Oakland Athletics 05 August in Oakland, CA. The Athletics defeated the Yankees, 3-1. (John G. Mabanglo, AFP/Getty) American League All-Star Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees looks on during the 1998 All-Star Game at Coors Field on July 6, 1998 in Denver, Colorado. (Rich Pilling, MLB Photos via Getty) New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter (R) forces Detroit Tigers player Trey Beamon (L) out at second, then throws to first in the seventh inning of the Yankees' 13-2 win over the Tigers 22 July. Bobby Higginson, who grounded to Yankees second baseman Chuck Knoblauch to start the play, was safe at first. (Henry Ray Abrams, AFP/Getty) Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees celebrates following Game Four of the World Series against the San Diego Padres on October 21, 1998 at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, California. (Sporting News via Getty) Yankees' Derek Jeter in the dugout during game against the Detroit Tigers at Yankee Stadium. (Linda Cataffo, NY Daily News Archive via Getty) Yankees player Derek Jeter, the second batter of the game, watches the flight of his home run, which followed a leadoff homer for Chuck Knoblauch. It was the first time since 1955 that the Yankees had led off a game with consecutive home runs. The Boston Red Sox hosted the New York Yankees in a game at Fenway Park. (John Bohn, The Boston Globe via Getty) New York Yankees' Derek Jeter at the All Star Cafe to host a fundraiser for his charity. (Ken Murray, NY Daily News Archive via Getty) Scott Brosius (left), Tino Martinez (center) and Derek Jeter celebrate after the New York Yankees beat the Oakland Athletics, 4-0, in Game 2 of the American League Division Series at Network Associates Coliseum. (Linda Cataffo, NY Daily News Archive via Getty) Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees poses on April 1, 2000 at The Ballpark in Arlington, Texas. (Ronald C. Modra, Sports Imagery/Getty) New York Yankees' Derek Jeter brandishes his bat outside the batting cage before a spring training game against the Pittsburgh Pirates at McKechnie Field in Bradenton, Fla. (Linda Cataffo, NY Daily News Archive via Getty) Nomar Garciaparra #5 of the Boston Red Sox, Alex Rodriguez #3 of the Seattle Mariners and Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees pose for a photo before the 71st MLB All-Star Game at Turner Field on Tuesday, July 11, 2000 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Rich Pilling, MLB Photos via Getty) New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter runs off the field as play is stopped due to a thunderstorm with two outs in the top of the eighth inning against the Minnesota Twins Saturday, Sept. 2, 2000 at Yankee Stadium in New York. After a delay, the game was officially called giving the Yankees a 13-4 win over the Twins. (John Dunn, AP) New York Yankees Manager Joe Torre(R) has champagne pour over his head by Derek Jeter(L) after the Yankees defeated the Oakland Athletics 7-5 in Game 5 of the American League 2000 Division Series in Oakland, CA 08 October, 2000. The Yankees now advance to the American League Championship series against the Seattle Mariners. (John Mabanglo, AFP/Getty) New York Yankees' Derek Jeter, wearing an ice pack on his shoulder, is congratulated in the locker room by principal owner George Steinbrenner after the Yanks' 5-3 win over the Oakland Athletics in Game 5 of the American League Division Series at Yankee Stadium. The Bombers took the series, 3-2, becoming the first team ever to win a best-of-five playoff series after losing the first two games at home. (Corey Sipkin, NY Daily News Archive via Getty) New York Yankees' infielder Derek Jeter, wearing an FDNY cap, practices before game against the Baltimore Orioles at Yankee Stadium. The Orioles defeated the Yanks, 7-2. (Howard Earl Simmons, NY Daily News Archive via Getty) New York Yankees Derek Jeter celebrates after game five of the American League Championship Series against the Seattle Mariners 22 October, 2001 at Yankee Stadium in New York. The Yankees won the game 12-3 to win the best-of-seven game series 4-1. The Yankees will take on the Arizona Diamondbacks in the World Series staring 27 October. (Jeff Haynes, AFP/Getty) Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees bats during Game One of the American League Championship Series against the Seattle Mariners at Safeco Field on October 17, 2001 in Seattle, Washington. (Sporting News via Getty) SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE -- Episode 7 -- Air Date 12/01/2001 -- Pictured: (l-r) Derek Jeter, Seth Meyers during 'Weekend Update' on December 1, 2001 (Dana Edelson, NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty) New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter dives to make a stop on an infield single against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays 05 April, 2002 at Yankee Stadium Opening Day in the Bronx, NY. The Yankees beat the Devil Rays 4-0. (Matt Campbell, AFP/Getty) Rickey Henderson #35 of the Boston Red Sox steals second base beating the throw down to Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees during an Major League Baseball game circa 2002 at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts. Jeter has played for the New York Yankees from 1995-2014. (Focus on Sport, Getty) New York Yankees' Derek Jeter, currently on the disabled list with a leg injury, leans against dugout roof as he watches action on field during game against the Toronto Blue Jays at Yankee Stadium. The Blue Jays pummeled the Yanks, 8-3. (Howard Earl Simmons, NY Daily News Archive via Getty) Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees watches the Anaheim Angels celebrate after the Yankees were defeated in Anaheim, CA 05 October 2002. The Angels defeated the Yankees 9-5 to win the best-of-five series 3-1 to advance to the American League Championship. (Lucy Nicholson, AFP/Getty) Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees bobbles a groundball hit by Gabe Kapler of the Boston Red Sox in the first inning during game 2 of the American League Championship Series on October 9, 2003 at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, New York. (Doug Pensinger, Getty) Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees during spring training in Tampa, FL. (Sporting News/Sporting News via Getty) Infielder Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees waits for the Texas Rangers pitch during their game at Ameriquest Field in Arlington on May 23, 2004 in Arlington, Texas. The Yankees won 8-3. (Ronald Martinez, Getty) New York Yankees Derek Jeter dives to catch a fly ball in the twelfth inning against the Boston Red Sox at New York's Yankee Stadium Thursday, July 1, 2004. Jeter left the game and was injured on the play. The Yankees won the game 5-4 (Frank Franklin II, AP) New York Yankees' shortstop Derek Jeter smiles as he warms up at Shea Stadium, where the Yanks are taking on the New York Mets. Jeter has scrapes and bruises on his face from diving into the stands to make a game-saving catch during last night's game against Boston. (Ron Antonelli, NY Daily News Archive via Getty) New York Yankees' Derek Jeter singles in the seventh inning against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays at Yankee Stadium. The Yanks clinched their 10th consecutive playoff berth with a 7-3 victory over the Rays. (Ron Antonelli, NY Daily News Archive via Getty) Jubilant New York Yankees, including Derek Jeter (2nd left) and Alex Rodriguez (center), greet Bernie Williams at home plate after he hit a game-winning, two-run homer in the ninth inning against the Minnesota Twins at Yankee Stadium. The Yanks beat the Twins, 6-4, in their 100th victory of the season, and clinched their seventh straight AL East title. (Keith Torrie, NY Daily News Archive via Getty) Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees receives high-fives from his teammates after hitting a solo home run in the third inning against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim at Angel Stadium on July 23, 2005 in Anaheim, California. (Jeff Gross, Getty) The New York Yankees' Derek Jeter smiles in the dugout shortly before the start of the game against the Detroit Tigers at Yankee Stadium in New York Thursday, May 26, 2005. The Yankees won, 4-3. (Gregory Bull, AP) Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees waits for the throw as Chone Figgins #9 of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim slides into the base during the MLB game on July 22, 2005 at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California. The Angels won 6-3. (Stephen Dunn, Getty) Derek Jeter #2 of Team USA laughs with coach Ken Griffey Sr. during the Round 1 Pool B Game of the World Baseball Classic against against Team Canada on March 8, 2006 at Chase Field in Phoenix, Arizona. (Jed Jacobsohn, Getty Images) New York Yankees' Derek Jeter throws the ball after making the catch on a fly out by Boston Red Sox's Kevin Youkilis in the third inning Wednesday, May 10, 2006, at Yankee Stadium in New York. (Kathy Willens, AP) Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees slides ot third base against the Boston Red Sox during their game on September 16, 2006 at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, New York. (Al Bello, Getty) Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees in the dugout in a game against the Detroit Tigers during Game Four of the 2006 American League Division Series on October 7, 2006 at Comerica Park in Detroit, Michigan. The Tigers won the game 8 to 3 and won the series 3 games to 1. (Rob Tringali, Sportschrome/Getty) New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, left, jokes around with Yankees special advisor Reggie Jackson in the dugout during the Yankees spring training baseball game against the Cleveland Indians in Tampa, Fla., Sunday, March 11, 2007. (Kathy Willens, AP) Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees looks on against the Boston Red Sox on May 21, 2007 at Yankee Stadium in The Bronx, New York. The Yankees won 6-2. (Rob Tringali, Sportschrome/Getty Images) New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, right, jokingly pops his head into the frame behind Andy Pettitte who was posing for a photograph on photo day before spring training baseball workouts Thursday, Feb. 21, 2008 in Tampa, Fla. (Julie Jacobson, AP) Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees looks on during batting practice before the 79th Major League Baseball (MLB) All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx borough of New York, U.S., on Tuesday, July 15, 2008. This will be the final All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium before the team moves to a new USD 1.3 billion home across the street. (Craig Ruttle, Bloomberg via Getty) In this April 26, 2008, file photo, New York Yankees' Derek Jeter reaches for a ball hit by Cleveland Indians' Jhonny Peralta in the second inning of a baseball game in Cleveland. A five-time World Series champion and sixth on the career hits list, Jeter, now 40, is set to retire after this season after spending two decades as the shortstop for the Yankees. (Ron Schwane, AP) Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees throws to first against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim during their game at Yankee Stadium on August 2, 2008 in the Bronx borough of New York City. The Yankees won 8-2. (Rob Tringali, Sportschrome/Getty) Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees runs during the game against the Minnesota Twins at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, New York on May 16, 2009. The Yankees defeated the Twins 6-4. (Rich Pilling, MLB Photos via Getty) New York Yankees' Derek Jeter tips his cap after hitting a single during the seventh inning of a baseball game against the Tampa Bay Rays Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2009 at Yankee Stadium in New York. The hit tied hit with Lou Gehrig for most hits by a Yankee. (Bill Kostroun, AP) Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees holds up the trophy as he celebrates with A.J. Burnett (L), Jorge Posada (2nd L), Mariano Rivera (2nd R) and Robinson Cano after their 7-3 win against the Philadelphia Phillies in Game Six of the 2009 MLB World Series at Yankee Stadium on November 4, 2009 in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Jed Jacobsohn, Getty) Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees attempts to throw out Vernon Wells (not pictured) of the Toronto Blue Jays in the ninth inning on July 6, 2009 at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx borough of New York City. The Jays defeated the yankees 7-6. (Jim McIsaac, Getty) Derek Jeter # 2 of the New York Yankees slides into third base against the Minnesota Twins at Yankee Stadium on May 15, 2010 in the Bronx borough of Manhattan. The Yankees defeated the wins 7 to 1. (Rob Tringali, SportsChrome/Getty) New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter signs autographs as he warms up before a minor league rehab start for the Trenton Thunder at Waterfront Park in Trenton, N.J., Saturday, July 2, 2011. (Mel Evans, AP) New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter dives for a ball hit by Cleveland Indians' Austin Kearns in the fourth inning in a baseball game, Wednesday, July 6, 2011, in Cleveland. Matt LaPorta was out at second base, and Kearns was safe at first base. (Tony Dejak, AP) New York Yankees' Derek Jeter waves to the cheers of the crowd after he hit a solo home run, his 3000th career hit off of Tampa Bay Rays starting pitcher David Price in the third inning of a baseball game on Saturday, July 9, 2011 at Yankee Stadium in New York. (Kathy Kmonicek, AP) Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees tips his hat to the crowd prior to the game against the Tampa Bay Rays at Yankee Stadium on August 13, 2011 in the Bronx borough of New York City. The Yankees won 9-2. (Rob Tringali, SportsChrome/Getty) Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees walks off the field in between innings during the game against the Baltimore Orioles at Oriole Park at Camden Yards on May 14, 2012 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Rob Tringali, SportsChrome/Getty) Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees looks on during the game against the Texas Rangers at Yankee Stadium on August 16, 2012 in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Rob Tringali, SportsChrome/Getty) Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees in action against the Chicago White Sox at Yankee Stadium on June 29, 2012 in the Bronx borough of New York City. The White Sox defeated the Yankees 14-7. (Jim McIsaac, Getty) Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees in action against the Kansas City Royals at Yankee Stadium on July 11, 2013 in the Bronx borough of New York City. The Yankees defeated the Royals 8-4. (Jim McIsaac, Getty) Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees tags out Jemile Weeks #19 of the Oakland Athletics as he tries to steal second during the game at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum on May 27, 2012 in Oakland, California. The Yankees defeated the Athletics 2-0. (Michael Zagaris, Oakland Athletics/Getty) New York Yankees' Derek Jeter, right, is congratulated by Eric Chavez after he scored on a single by Nick Swisher off Minnesota Twins pitcher Brian Duensing in the third inning of a baseball game Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2012 in Minneapolis. (Jim Mone, AP) Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees leads his team onto the field to start the game against the Boston Red Sox during their game at Yankee Stadium on April 10, 2014 in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Al Bello, Getty) New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter fields a ball hit by Tampa Bay Rays' Evan Longoria during the first inning of a baseball game Friday, May 2, 2014, at Yankee Stadium in New York. (Bill Kostroun, AP) Derek Jeter #2 and Alfonso Soriano #12 of the New York Yankees walk on the field for batting practice before their game against the New York Mets at Yankee Stadium on May 13, 2014 in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Al Bello, Getty) Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees looks on from the dugout prior to the game against the New York Mets on May 15, 2014 at Citi Field in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. Yankees defeated the Mets 1-0. (Mike Stobe, Getty) Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees in action against the New York Mets at Citi Field on May 14, 2014 in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. The Yankees defeated the Mets 4-0. (Jim McIsaac, Getty) Tony Sanchez #26 of the Pittsburgh Pirates dives back to second base as Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees waits for the throw during the game at Yankee Stadium on Saturday, May 17, 2014 in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Rob Tringali, MLB Photos via Getty) Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees bats against the Chicago White Sox at U.S. Cellular Field on May 24, 2014 in Chicago, Illinois. The Yankees defeated the White Sox 4-3 in 10 innings. (Jonathan Daniel, Getty) Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees in action against the Tampa Bay Rays at Yankee Stadium on July 2, 2014 in the Bronx borough of New York City. The Rays defeated the Yankees 6-3. (Jim McIsaac, Getty) American League shortstop Derek Jeter, of the New York Yankees, singles during the third inning of the MLB All-Star baseball game, Tuesday, July 15, 2014, in Minneapolis. (Jeff Roberson, AP) MINNEAPOLIS, MN - JULY 15: American League All-Star Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees acknowledges the crowd before his first at bat during the 85th MLB All-Star Game at Target Field on July 15, 2014 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Elsa, Getty) Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees stands on deck before batting against the Boston Red Sox in the first inning on August 1, 2014 at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts. (Michael Ivins, Boston Red Sox/Getty) Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees smiles during Derek Jeter Day on September 7, 2014 before the game between the New York Yankees and the Kansas City Royals at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Elsa, Getty) Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees in action against the Tampa Bay Rays at Yankee Stadium on September 10, 2014 in the Bronx borough of New York City. The Yankees defeated the Rays 8-5. (Jim McIsaac, Getty) Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees looks on before batting in the first inning against the Baltimore Orioles during game two of a doubleheader at Oriole Park at Camden Yards on September 12, 2014 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Patrick Smith, Getty) New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter (2) throws on the field warming up before a baseball game against the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium in New York, Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2014. (Kathy Willens, AP) New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter walks out of the clubhouse before a baseball game against the Baltimore Orioles, Saturday, Sept. 13, 2014, in Baltimore. (Patrick Semansky, AP) Derek Jeter #2 of the New York Yankees smiles prior to a game against the Baltimore Orioles at Yankee Stadium on September 22, 2014 in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Mike Stobe, Getty) So, there you have it. The dream of a Trump-Jeter ticket is dead -- but it leaves us fantasizing about what could've been. Jeter would've almost definitely had Trump's backing if he wanted the job. "I like Derek for a lot of reasons- one of them is he happens to live in one of my buildings and he's a prime, prime guy. Great." Trump said in a video posted in 2011. Jeter also definitely has the leadership qualities. He was captain of the New York Yankees for 11 years, the longest in team history. He led the Yankees to five World Series championships. Jeter was also ranked the world's 11th greatest leader by Fortune back in 2014 -- ranking just behind Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Trump could also use help from Jeter in New York. In a recent Emerson poll, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton beat Trump by 19 percent in the sate. Trump, who has yet to secure the Republican nomination, hasn't said who his running mate will be. Sadly though, it looks like we'll have to cross Jeter's name off the list. RELATED: The many faces of Donald Trump Derek Jeter won't be joining Donald Trump's ticket FORT WORTH, TX - FEBRUARY 26: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a rally at the Fort Worth Convention Center on February 26, 2016 in Fort Worth, Texas. Trump is campaigning in Texas, days ahead of the Super Tuesday primary. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images) Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures as he speaks at a campaign rally Friday, Feb. 5, 2016, in Florence, S.C. (AP Photo/John Bazemore) Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign stop Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2016, in Little Rock, Ark. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez) Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump holds up a child he pulled from the crowd as he arrives to speak at a campaign rally in New Orleans, Friday, March 4, 2016. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) TOPSHOT - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures during a campaign rally in North Charleston, South Carolina, February 19, 2016. / AFP / JIM WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images) Republican presidential candidate businessman Donald Trump gestures during the Republican Presidential Debate, hosted by CNN, at The Venetian Las Vegas on December 15, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada. AFP PHOTO/ ROBYN BECK / AFP / ROBYN BECK (Photo credit should read ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images) Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event at Plymouth State University Sunday, Feb. 7, 2016, in Plymouth, N.H. (AP Photo/David Goldman) Pastor Joshua Nink, right, prays for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, as wife, Melania, left, watches after a Sunday service at First Christian Church Sunday, Jan. 31, 2016, in Council Bluffs, Iowa. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in North Charleston, South Carolina, February 19, 2016. / AFP / JIM WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images) Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump blows a kiss after speaking at his caucus night rally, Monday, Feb. 1, 2016, in West Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Pensacola Bay Center in Pensacola, Fla., Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Michael Snyder) Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign stop before next months earliest in the nation presidential primary, Monday, Jan. 11, 2016, in Windham,NH (AP Photo/Jim Cole) RENO, NV - JANUARY 10: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump holds a campaign rally at the Reno Event Center on January 10, 2016 in Reno, Nevada. Donald Trump continued to raise doubts Sunday about rival Ted Cruzs eligibility for the presidency, saying Republicans will risk losing a lawsuitand potentially the nations highest officeif they nominate Cruz as their candidate. (Photos by Charles Ommanney/The Washington Post via Getty Images) Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump pops through a doorway as he arrives to address a gathering during a campaign stop at a Rotary Club luncheon in Manchester, N.H., Monday, Feb. 8, 2016. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa) Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump speaks during a rally at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in Columbus, Ohio, Monday, Nov. 23, 2015. (AP Photo/Paul Vernon) MESA, AZ - DECEMBER 16: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to guest gathered during a campaign event at the International Air Response facility on December 16, 2015 in Mesa, Arizona. Trump is in Arizona the day after the Republican Presidential Debate hosted by CNN in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ralph Freso/Getty Images) Republican Candidate Donald Trump arrives to speaks to the press with Rev. Darrell Scott(R), senior pastor of the New Spirit Revival Center in Cleveland Heights after meetings with prominent African American clerics at Trump Tower in New York November 30 ,2015. AFP PHOTO / TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP / TIMOTHY A. CLARY (Photo credit should read TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images) COLUMBUS, OH - NOVEMBER 23: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump addresses supporters during a campaign rally at the Greater Columbus Convention Center on November 23, 2015 in Columbus, Ohio. Trump spoke about immigration and Obamacare, among other topics, to around 14,000 supporters at the event. (Photo by Ty Wright/Getty Images) DORAL, FL - OCTOBER 23: Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump attends a campaigns rally In Florida at the Trump National Doral on October 23, 2015 in Doral, Florida. Trump leads most polls in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. (Photo by Johnny Louis/FilmMagic) COLUMBIA, SC - SEPTEMBER 23: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump leaves a campaign event September 23, 2015 in Columbia, South Carolina. Earlier today, Trump tweeted 'FoxNews has been treating me very unfairly & I have therefore decided that I won't be doing any more Fox shows for the foreseeable future.' (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images) Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump reacts during the CNN Republican presidential debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2015, in Simi Valley, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill) NEW YORK, NY - JULY 22: Donald Trump greets supporters, tourists and the curious after taping an interview with Anderson Cooper at a Trump owned building in mid-town Manhattan on July 22, 2015 in New York City. Trump, who is running for president on a Republican ticket, has come under intensifying criticism for his behavior on the campaign trail. The billionaire's most recent comments on Senator John McCain's war record in Vietnam have resulted in almost universal criticism from fellow candidates. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump leaves for lunch after being summoned for jury duty in New York, Monday, Aug. 17, 2015. Trump was due to report for jury duty Monday in Manhattan. The front-runner said last week before a rally in New Hampshire that he would willingly take a break from the campaign trail to answer the summons. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) Donald Trump, president and chief executive of Trump Organization Inc. and 2016 Republican presidential candidate, left, looks on as Sam Clovis, newly appointed national co-chairman of Trumps campaign, speaks during a news conference ahead of a rally at Grand River Center in Dubuque, Iowa, U.S., on Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2015. President Barack Obama's top business ambassador dismissed Trump's call for a wall along the Mexico border, saying the U.S. is focused instead on expanding business with one of its biggest trade partners. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images BILOXI, MS - JANUARY 02: Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump pauses with supporters after speaking at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum on January 2, 2016 in Biloxi, Mississippi. Trump, who has strong support from Southern voters, spoke to thousands in the small Mississippi city on the Gulf of Mexico. Trump continues to split the GOP establishment with his populist and controversial views on immigration, muslims and some of his recent comments on women. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump pulls his hair back to show that it is not a toupee while speaking during a rally at the TD Convention Center, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2015, in Greenville, S.C. Trump says his trademark hairdo is for real. He told 1,800 people in South Carolina Thursday: "It's my hair ... I swear." (AP Photo/Richard Shiro) Supporters reach to great Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump as he leaves a brief stop to speak to supporters and the media in Laredo, Texas, Thursday, July 23, 2015. Trump predicted Hispanics would love him, because as president he said he'd grab jobs back from overseas and give more opportunity to those who live in the U.S. legally. (AP Photo/LM Otero) Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures during the first Republican presidential debate at the Quicken Loans Arena Thursday, Aug. 6, 2015, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/John Minchillo) Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump remarks about Texas Gov. Rick Perry's glasses at his South Carolina campaign rally in Bluffton, S.C., Tuesday, July 21, 2015. (AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton) LAREDO, TEXAS - JULY 23: Republican Presidential candidate and business mogul Donald Trump talks to the media at a press conference during his trip to the border on July 23, 2015 in Laredo, Texas. Trump's recent comments, calling some immigrants from Mexico as drug traffickers and rapists, have stirred up reactions on both sides of the aisle. Although fellow Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry has denounced Trump's comments and his campaign in general, U.S. Senator from Texas Ted-Cruz has so far refused to bash his fellow Republican nominee. (Photo by Matthew Busch/Getty Images) Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump responds to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's closing remarks during the first Republican presidential debate at the Quicken Loans Arena Thursday, Aug. 6, 2015, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) DES MOINES, IA - AUGUST 15: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump eats a pork chop on a stick and gives a thumbs up sign to fairgoers at the Iowa State Fair on August 15, 2015 in Des Moines, Iowa. Presidential candidates are addressing attendees at the Iowa State Fair on the Des Moines Register Presidential Soapbox stage and touring the fairgrounds. The State Fair runs through August 23. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images) CLEVELAND, OH - AUGUST 06: Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump (R) and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker participate in the first prime-time presidential debate hosted by FOX News and Facebook at the Quicken Loans Arena August 6, 2015 in Cleveland, Ohio. The top-ten GOP candidates were selected to participate in the debate based on their rank in an average of the five most recent national political polls. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) OSKALOOSA, IA - JULY 25: Republican presidential hopeful businessman Donald Trump speaks to guests gathered for a rally on July 25, 2015 in Oskaloosa, Iowa. During his last visit to the state Trump sparked controversy when he said Senator John McCain (R-AZ), a former POW, was not a war hero. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump, speaks during the Values Voter Summit, held by the Family Research Council Action, Friday, Sept. 25, 2015, in Washington. ( AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana) Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump addresses supporters at a campaign rally, Monday, Dec. 21, 2015, in Grand Rapids, Mich. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio) TURNBURRY, SCOTLAND - JUNE 08: Donald Trump Visits Turnberry Golf Club, after its $10 Million refurbishment, on June 8, 2015 in Turnberry, Scotland. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images) DERRY, NH - AUGUST 19: U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump hugs an American flag as he takes the stage for a town hall meeting in Derry, New Hampshire, August 19, 2015. (Keith Bedford/The Boston Globe via Getty Images) DES MOINES, IOWA - AUGUST 15: Donald Trump at the Iowa State Fair on August 14, 2015 in Des Moines, Iowa. The Iowa State Fair is one of the oldest and largest agricultural and industrial expositions in the United States. The annual fair, the largest event in Iowa, attracts over a million visitors each year. The fair runs through August 23. After a brief walk around its time for Mr Trump to board his club cart again and leave the fair. (Photos by Charles Ommanney/The Washington Post via Getty Images) AYR, SCOTLAND - JULY 30: Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump visits his Scottish golf course Turnberry on July 30, 2015 in Ayr, Scotland. Donald Trump answered questions from the media at a press conference. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images) TURNBURRY, SCOTLAND - JUNE 08: Donald Trump visits Turnberry Golf Club, after its $10 Million refurbishment on June 8, 2015 in Turnberry, Scotland. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images) Donald Trump, president and chief executive of Trump Organization Inc. and 2016 U.S. presidential candidate, gestures while speaking during The Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, U.S., on Saturday, July 18, 2015. The sponsor, The FAMiLY LEADER, is a 'pro-family, pro-marriage, pro-life organization which champions the principle that God is the ultimate leader of the family.' Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images PASADENA, CA - JANUARY 16: Donald Trump arrives at NBCUniversal's 2015 Winter TCA Tour - Day 2 at The Langham Huntington Hotel and Spa on January 16, 2015 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Angela Weiss/Getty Images) Donald Trump, president and chief executive officer of Trump Organization Inc. and 2016 Republican presidential candidate, pauses while speaking during a news conference at Trump Towers in New York, U.S., on Thursday, Sept. 3, 2015. 'I have signed the pledge,' he said, referring to a document stating that he would not run as an independent candidate in the event that he does not win the Republican nomination. Photographer: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images US tycoon Donald Trump arrives to speak at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at National Harbor, Maryland, outside Washington, on February 27, 2015. AFP PHOTO/NICHOLAS KAMM (Photo credit should read NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images) EDISON, NJ - AUGUST 30: A golf fan takes a 'selfie' with presidential candidate Donald Trump during the final round of The Barclays at Plainfield Country Club on August 30, 2015 in Edison, New Jersey. (Photo by Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images) ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND - JULY 10: Donald Trump plays a round of golf after the opening of The Trump International Golf Links Course on July 10, 2012 in Balmedie, Scotland. The controversial £100m course opens to the public on Sunday July 15. Further plans to build hotels and homes on the site have been put on hold until a decision has been made on the building of an offshore windfarm nearby. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images) BIRCH RUN, MI - AUGUST 11: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a press conference before delivering the keynote address at the Genesee and Saginaw Republican Party Lincoln Day Event August 11, 2015 in Birch Run, Michigan. This is Trump's first campaign event since his Republican debate last week. (Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images) BOCA RATON, FL - APRIL 16: Billionaire Donald Trump speaks to a crowd at the 2011 Palm Beach County Tax Day Tea Party April 16, 2011 at Sanborn Square in Boca Raton, Florida. Trump is considering a bid for the 2012 precidency and is expected to announce his running in the coming weeks. (Photo by John W. Adkisson/Getty Images) Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally Saturday, Dec. 5, 2015, in Davenport, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) More from AOL.com: Ted Cruz: Trump is a 'sniveling coward' Trump, Carson change words to 'Stand By Me' to 'Stand By Trump' at sing-along Donald Trump won another key primary state
|
high
| 1.956522 |
When asked about being Donald Trump's vice president, the MLB icon said it sounded like 'too much work.'
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160604050245id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2004/08/15/arts/how-much-is-that-dancer-in-the-program.html
|
Ms. Courts plans to invite Mr. Welker over for dinner at her house, so her four sons can get to know him. ''It really makes people human you admire from afar,'' she said. In turn, Mr. Welker plans to give Ms. Courts backstage tours, cook her dinner and send her birthday gifts. He said he would never refuse an invitation from her. ''She is really a cornerstone of this community,'' he said. ''I would definitely rotate my schedule to accommodate anything.'' He added, ''To be quite frank, they are paying your salary.'' The sponsorship, he said, does bring pressure -- but only to become a better artist. ''In a way, she's investing in a product,'' he said. ''And you're that product.'' IT'S just that kind of unabashedly pecuniary logic that has caused three of the country's large ballet companies -- New York City Ballet, Houston Ballet and San Francisco Ballet -- to decide against the sponsorship of individual dancers. The purists argue that dancers should spend their time dancing, not worrying about where their salary is coming from or kowtowing to their sponsor. Ballet companies impose strict artistic rankings on their dancers, and some fear that allowing donors to single out individuals will undermine that system, either by creating an alternative measure of a dancer's worth or by allowing donations to influence casting. ''It starts to get into areas that should be at the sole discretion of the artistic management,'' said Christopher Ramsey, the director of external affairs at City Ballet. ''People might have an honest difference of opinion. It's best if you can avoid those, especially with people who are trying to help you.'' He added: ''You're opening a door where funding is contingent on individuals performing certain roles.'' City Ballet sees itself as an ensemble company, to such an extent that it refuses to reveal casting decisions before a show. ''The idea has always been that we are presenting art, and you come on a given night to see art,'' Mr. Ramsey said. As such, he continued, ''we attempt to gain support for our more general endeavor.'' On a more practical level, some worry that donors might bolt when their chosen dancer moves to another company or retires. ''Dancers come and go,'' said Thomas W. Flynn, the director of development at San Francisco Ballet. ''We want people to support the ballet as an institution, rather than supporting an individual artist.'' At Atlanta Ballet, one couple was interested in sponsoring Stacey Slichter, a gregarious and popular dancer. But next year Ms. Slichter will be teaching, not dancing, and so far the company hasn't been able to align the donors with another dancer. To counteract an excessive emphasis on individual dancers, some companies, including Atlanta Ballet and Ballet Theater, route all sponsorship donations to their general funds. ''The money doesn't go to pay that dancer's salary,'' said Rachel S. Moore, Ballet Theater's executive director. ''That's not what this is about. It's about supporting the company.'' Houston Ballet took an even more conservative tack. It offers donors the opportunity to endow a dancer position, in the manner of an endowed chair at a symphony or university, rather than to sponsor an individual artist. It costs $500,000 to endow a principal dancer position; income from that capital is used to pay half the dancer's salary. When the dancer leaves, the endowment stays. Pacific Northwest Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theater and Pennsylvania Ballet, among others, have similar programs. Another concern is that individual sponsorship -- along with the extracurricular attentions of a wealthy, powerful patron -- could stoke the already intense competition among dancers. At Houston Ballet, endowed positions are typically filled by seniority. ''That way it doesn't become some kind of popularity contest with an individual donor,'' said Cecil C. Conner Jr., the company's managing director. At Ballet Theater, the dancers participated, but requested that management find sponsors for all principals within a year. Luckily, donors cooperated, and every dancer found a match. ''You don't want any dissension, or people feeling unwanted,'' Mr. Stiefel said. ''Dancers are artists. We are sensitive people.'' At Ballet Theater, which is better known for its individual stars than for its ensemble work, sponsorships have pulled in about $1.2 million so far this year, just over 6 percent of estimated nonendowment fund-raising. Not everyone has been so successful. No dancers at Pacific Northwest Ballet have sponsors yet; prices range from $25,000 for a corps dancer to $100,000 for a principal. At Pennsylvania Ballet, 2 out of 22 eligible corps dancers have sponsors, and at the Joffrey, 3 of 8 apprentices have been picked up. Since Atlanta Ballet's program was founded last February, only 2 of the company's 23 dancers have been chosen. John Clark, the director of development, said the unsponsored dancers joke about the disparity, as in: ''Well, you're sponsored, so you must be special.'' But he said that the teasing was light: ''They're joking that they are hurt, but they aren't. It's a big family.'' Indeed, the ballet world's most pressing fears about dancer sponsorship have so far failed to come to fruition. Even a recent case in which a patron was allowed to actually hire a company's dancers turned out just fine. Three years ago, Dennis Law, a retired surgeon who is a board member of Colorado Ballet, went to China, his birthplace, and scouted for dancers. He found two he liked and offered to pay their living expenses and salaries for a year. Martin Fredmann, the artistic director of Colorado Ballet, promptly hired them, without ever having met them. ''I did something I rarely do,'' Mr. Fredmann said. ''I accepted them from videotape.'' Mr. Fredmann does not feel his artistic vision was compromised. ''The situation was: these dancers come, if they don't work out, they don't work out,'' he said. ''There was nothing that said that I had to do anything. I was in complete control of the situation.'' It turned out that Kang Hua, the young woman Mr. Law had selected, was too tall for the company. She languished in the corps, and after one year returned to China. But Mr. Law's other pick, Zhuang Hua, went on to principal roles and stayed with the company for three years, until he was hired away by Ballet West, based in Salt Lake City. ''Of course, people were wondering what kind of dancers they were and how they look and whether they would be favored for casting,'' said Sharon Wehner, a principal with Colorado Ballet. ''But what happened is the dancers just basically had the same kind of opportunity that everybody else had -- which is the opportunity to succeed or fail.'' Mr. Zhuang's story has the ring of a happy capitalist fable. He had never been to America before Mr. Law arranged his passage. He now speaks English, owns a car and most important to him, he says, his dancing has improved. ''When I'm ready,'' he said, ''I can go back to my Chinese company and teach them what I got here.''
|
low
| 1.087379 |
American ballet companies have recently begun allowing donors to sponsor individual dancers, for amounts range from $2,500 to $100,000 a year; some ballet companies even compile and distribute rosters, which look eerily like shopping lists, specifying their dancers' ranks and prices; new initiative has generated good deal of controversy; in process, it has raised awkward questions about how far companies will go to generate revenue; about relative popularity of various dancers, and about what exactly patrons are buying; some sponsors and dancers they sponsor comment; photos (M)
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160609231833id_/http://time.com:80/3647456/tech-resolutions/
|
Going back to the lever and the wheel, technology has always been meant to make our day-to-day tasks easier. And while it’s obvious that smartphones, computers, and social networks have greatly enhanced our lives, you can’t ignore the physical effects and and anti-social behavior that have accompanied these modern trappings. Of course, you can change your tech tune at any time, but the New Year is an excellent opportunity to reset your ways. So should bad tech habits be forgot, and never brought to mind? Here’s some tech resolutions to consider…and auld lang syne. If you have a teenager, this one’s a no-brainer, but even if you’re childless, it’s a good rule to live by. Firstly, no one wants to see photos of every meal you eat on Instagram. But more importantly, in a time where we all feel stretched thin and barely have a moment to ourselves, setting the phone down at mealtimes assures that you have at least a few minutes to collect your thoughts. If it feels forced, try taking baby steps — instead of mindlessly devouring Twitter with your lunch, read a book (but not an e-book). At this stage of Android’s and iOS’s development, it’s hard to imagine mobile operating systems without the ability to throw alerts at us every three minutes, but that was the norm back in the day. Heck, the original iPhone didn’t even have third-party apps. Retake control of your apps and your attention span by turning off all your push notifications — every badge, alert, and banner. Then, once you realize if you’ve actually been missing particular apps’ updates, turn them back on one at a time. Turn on Find My iPhone This resolution is easy — all it takes is a swipe, some taps, and inserting your password. And even better, there’s no reason for you not to have this smartphone-saving tool operating in the background. Okay, well there are suspicions that Apple’s iCloud service was at the center of the massive celebrity photo hack this past year, but 1.) those were highly targeted attacks, 2.) you are (probably) not a celebrity, and 3.) Apple has since beefed up its login security, making it even safer to use iCloud. So when you do indeed lose your iPhone, whether it’s under a couch cushion or at a crowded bar, you’ll be able to track it down. There are as many reasons to go paperless as there are trees in the forest, but here’s one that may hit home with you: Collecting various scraps is just plain overwhelming. This step-by-step walks through exactly what you need to de-ink your life. But if you want to tackle going paperless with your smartphone, Scanbot is an excellent Android and iOS app that turns paper into PDFs, ready to store in the cloud or on your device. If you’re worried about receipts for your taxes, check out Wave Receipts, a free iPhone-only solution that scans and categorizes your sales slips. In 2015, 44 states will ticket you for sending texts while driving and 14 will bust you for just holding your phone in your hand. Even if you’re not in one of those states, you’re still playing it fast and loose with safety. In 2012 (the last year they were tabulated), 421,000 people were injured in distracted driving accidents, and you may not care if you’re one of them, but you have an obligation towards everyone you share the road with. Put the phone down, and keep your eyes up. And if you need to be connected, pick up a Bluetooth headset. The Jawbone Era works great, won’t make you look like a cyborg, and will only set you back $99 — which is about $300 less than a ticket. Take Your TV Out of the Bedroom Did you catch last night’s episode of Homeland? I know, right? Mind. Blowing. But watching it at 10 p.m. on Sunday night might be the worst thing you can do — not just for your 8 a.m. conference call, but for your health. According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, late night shows contribute to chronic sleep debt. Getting fewer than seven hours of sleep is associated with increased obesity, morbidity and mortality, and for as many as 40% of Americans, this is their reality. And don’t even think of putting a TV in the kid’s room. Research has shown that placing a television in there will cause your children to gain weight even beyond screen time. Disrupted sleep patterns are the culprit here, too — so keep it in the family room. Sure, using one password for everything makes your login info much easier to remember, but it also makes it amazingly simple to hack all of your accounts. Easier still — not remembering any passwords. Password managing apps like 1Password and LastPass make this possible by helping you to replace your standard “Kittens123!” password with strong strings of random characters, numbers, and symbols. Then, when you need to log in to a service, just pull up their mobile or computer-based apps (or easier still, use their browser plugins) to insert the login information. It’s all protected behind one passcode to log into the app, but if you really want to go password-free, set up your mobile apps with Touch ID on your iPhone or iPad, and you’re freed up to forget everything. Back Up Three Different Ways Of course you backup your computer regularly, but do you do it right? Three-way backups are the best way to ensure your data doesn’t get lost. The first, and easiest, way to backup your files is locally onto an external drive. On Windows 8, daily backups can be done easily by enabling File History, and on Macs it’s a feature called Time Machine. But cloud backups are all the rage lately, and rightfully so, because if there’s a fire and your external drive gets torched, you’d be out of luck. So put your critical files online (and encrypting them is probably smart, too). But the third way to backup is called off-site backups. Because if there’s something worse than a fire — like an earthquake — and your external drive is toast and everyone’s Internet connection is down, you’ll still need your files. So, once a month, make a copy of your external drive, and bring it over to your mother’s house to store it safely. Yes, this resolution requires more frequent visits to your mother — but consider that a bonus resolution. Mind Your Ps and Qs (posts and quotes) In 1864, the Great Emancipator Abraham Lincoln famously said, “The problem with Internet quotes is that you cant always depend on their accuracy.” Okay, you got me — he didn’t say that. But chances are you’ve posted equally bogus information on Facebook, like that Facebook Copyright post (not real), and some of the Ebola “news” stories that were floating around. This year, resolve to stop spreading misinformation online — with more than half of Facebook and Twitter users getting news from the sites, it’s just an irresponsible thing to do. Lifehacker has an excellent step-by-step on how to determine if what you’re sharing is true. So, research before you repost. While we’re on the subject of social media, there’s a time and place for everything — except on Facebook, where it’s everything all at once. Younger, more tech-savvy users are already hip to using Friends Lists to block groups of people from posts en masse, and you should do it, too. (That’s why you think little Kevin is working so hard at college, Aunt Carol. His friends actually know him as the keg-stand champ of Sigma Nu.) First, going through your Facebook friends and categorize people into various groups, like co-workers, high-school friends, baseball fans, whatever. You can then make pertinent posts only to the people who would be most interested in reading them. For instance, if there’s a fundraiser at your local church, post that to friends in your town, not to everyone on your list. And there’s another good reason for doing this — your second cousin who lives three states away has probably already blocked you because of all those fundraiser reminders you posted last year.
|
high
| 1.538462 |
Are you anti-social, getting poor sleep, and have a terrible attention span? It’s time to clean up your act.
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160613004506id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2004/05/02/realestate/your-home-when-owner-rents-out-part-of-house.html
|
Owners of buildings with six residential units or more -- which are often rent regulated -- can demand only one month's rent as security and must put security deposits in interest-bearing accounts. Owners of smaller buildings can set their own security-deposit requirements and are not required to put the funds in interest-bearing accounts. However, Ms. Russo said, if an owner does deposit the funds in such an account, any interest earned must be paid to or credited to the tenant each year, less an administration fee of 1 percent of the amount on deposit. One way property owners can run into trouble is by renting out an ''illegal'' apartment. Lucas A. Ferrara, a Manhattan real estate lawyer, said that if a building is classified on city records as a two-family property, and the owner adds another apartment without getting the required approval, that extra apartment would be considered illegal. ''Everything may be fine and dandy while the tenant is paying the rent,'' Mr. Ferrara said. ''But if the tenant stops paying, the owner may be precluded from collecting the rent in court.'' He explained that under the state's Multiple Dwelling Law, a landlord could lose his right to collect rent if he leases an apartment in a multiple dwelling in violation of the building's certificate of occupancy. Gregory Diebold, director of litigation for the Hudson County office of the Northeast New Jersey Legal Services in Jersey City, said that while New Jersey has some ''very protective legislation for tenants,'' those laws generally do not apply to two- or three-family homes occupied by their owners. Mr. Diebold noted that unless a tenant in such a building makes a specific written demand to be covered by the law regulating security deposits, for example, the law will not apply. If the tenant makes such a demand, however, the security deposit law will apply and the landlord may require a deposit of no more than one and a half months' rent and must put the money in an interest bearing account. While the state requires registration of buildings with tenants that are not occupied by their owners -- including one-family homes that are rented out -- the requirement does not apply to owner-occupied one-, two- and three-family buildings. Mr. Selsberg, the lawyer, said that in Connecticut property owners cannot require more than two months' rent as a security deposit (one month if the tenant is 62 or older), and must put the money into interest-bearing accounts. Finally, he said, every home and apartment in Connecticut must have a valid certificate of occupancy, including apartments in two- and three-family homes occupied by their owners. Failure to have a certificate for a rental apartment could make it difficult for an owner to use the courts to collect rent arrears from a tenant. Joel E. Miller, a Queens tax lawyer, said that tax issues were one of the most significant aspects of being a homeowner-landlord. When an apartment in a multifamily home is rented out, he explained, ''the building is in effect treated as if it were two separate buildings -- one held for business purposes and one for personal use.'' Using a simple example, if one apartment in a two-family house is being rented out, and both apartments are roughly the same size, then half the house would be treated as owner-occupied and the other half would be treated as a business. Since buildings used to produce income are depreciable for tax purposes, the owner is entitled to take a depreciation deduction on his tax returns. (Land is not depreciable.) For residential property, Mr. Miller said, the business part of the building is depreciable over 27.5 years. So, if a taxpayer buys a two-family home for, say, $400,000, and the land the building is on is worth $100,000, one-half of the $300,000 value of the building is subject to depreciation at the rate of $5,454 a year. And that, Mr. Miller said, can have an impact if the house is sold. Under federal tax law, he said, a taxpayer who owns and uses a house as his principal residence for two of the five years preceding its sale is entitled to a capital gains tax exclusion of up to $250,000. Married couples filing jointly can get an exclusion of up to $500,000. However, any gain on the sale of a two-family house attributable to the rental part -- in our example, half the property -- does not qualify for the tax exclusion. (The gain is the difference between the sale price less expenses of the sale and the tax basis. The tax basis is the original cost plus or minus adjustments like improvements or depreciation). Since the rental part is subject to depreciation, the tax basis would be reduced by that amount, thereby increasing the taxable gain. In fact, Mr. Miller said, this would occur even if the homeowner never claimed a depreciation deduction for the business part of the home. ''The tax code refers to depreciation that is 'allowed or allowable,' '' Mr. Miller said. ''That means that even if the taxpayer didn't get a benefit by claiming the depreciation as a deduction over the years, the amount he could have taken reduces his tax basis and increases his gain.''
|
high
| 1.64 |
Advice on issues faced by owners of two- and three-family New York City homes who rent to tenants; drawing (M)
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160718212423id_/http://fortune.com:80/2015/08/27/sulzberger-family-sell-nyt/
|
New York magazine had a long, in-depth piece recently about the race for the publisher’s seat at the New York Times, a race that consists solely of people whose last name is Sulzberger, or who are otherwise related to the current publisher. It’s a great look at the closest thing that the media world has to a royal family (next to the Murdochs, perhaps), with all of the in-fighting over whose nephew or cousin will advance, and a glimpse of the noblesse oblige the Sulzbergers feel as stewards of the Times. There’s one glaring error in the story, however: At one point, it says “the selection of the next publisher is perhaps the most critical challenge facing the Times.” This is not even close to being true. Choosing a publisher may be the most critical challenge facing the various branches of the Sulzberger family, but it’s nowhere near the most important challenge for the newspaper company itself. The challenge facing the New York Times is the same one that virtually every traditional media entity is facing, whether it’s the Washington Post, or Time Inc. (which owns Fortune) or even TV giants like CBS. The time when a handful of news outlets controlled the only platforms for distribution — and hence, the advertising revenue attached to those platforms — is gone. And it’s not clear what the NYT’s role is going to be in the new world. Will it be primarily a supplier of news to other platforms like Facebook FB ? Given that kind of monumental challenge to the very foundations of the Times and its journalism, is this really the moment when the fifth generation of a founding family should be holding the reins? I would argue that it is not. In some ways, in fact, it is the worst possible time to do that (and many of these same arguments also apply to the Murdoch family and News Corp., incidentally). From most accounts, all three of the men in the running for the NYT publisher job are smart and driven. Arthur Gregg Sulzberger, son of the current publisher, helped put together the internal Innovation Report, which outlined the challenges facing the paper. David Perpich, the current publisher’s nephew, is a Harvard MBA and helped build the paywall for the paper. Sam Dolnick, the son of Sulzberger’s cousin, has worked on mobile apps, among other things. Despite all that, however, their most compelling qualification for the job, and the one that has set them above every other potential candidate anywhere in the media world, is that they are related to someone named Sulzberger. In effect, their ability to understand the way newspapers work or the way the Internet works is secondary. If that was truly the most important decision criteria, someone else would have the job. Having a feudal structure in which various branches of a single family control the fate of such a massive media entity might have made sense when the newspaper business was a boring, dependable money-spinner, but those days are gone. And so are the days when a founding family could take $24 million or so out of the newspaper’s coffers every year in the form of dividends without anyone noticing. Could the Sulzbergers achieve what they need to without selling the paper? Perhaps. They could search for a publisher with the right skills and then give them carte blanche to do whatever they needed to in order to succeed. But in some ways that might be even more difficult for the family to stomach than selling. And the publisher would feel the weight of all that combined family pressure, just as the current editor does now. Donald Graham, whose family had a similarly iron grip on the Washington Post — thanks to the magic of multiple-voting shares — decided in 2013 that he simply couldn’t continue as the owner, and sold to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. Did Graham do this because he no longer believed in or cared about the Post? Not at all. Just the opposite, in fact: He decided to sell because he couldn’t bring himself to make the kinds of cuts and changes that he felt would be necessary. Was this cowardice? I don’t think so. Based on what I know about Don Graham, and conversations with those who know him, I think he believed Bezos was the best possible owner for the Post at a time like this. Not just because he is wealthy, and therefore not as likely to be driven by short-term thinking, but because he understands the Internet and how digital media is changing the way that content functions. In other words, he had the tools and the skills to help the Post adapt for the future. Do any of the Sulzbergers have those tools and skills? Perhaps. But if they do, then they should be able to win an open competition for the job, not be awarded it in the same way the king hands out jobs on Game of Thrones. Would Michael Bloomberg be any better a steward for the Times? Maybe not, but at least he would be looking for the best person to run it, not the best person named Sulzberger. The Times may have a tremendously successful paywall, with over a million paying subscribers, but even that is still barely making up for the loss of print advertising, for the simple reason that print readers are worth at least 20 times more than digital readers. New apps like NYT Now have been well received, but as yet aren’t making much in the way of revenue, and the paper has so far only tip-toed into areas like native advertising. Meanwhile, the newsroom is as large as it has ever been, at 1,300 or so. Like every other traditional media entity going through these challenges, the Times needs more than just a tweak to its business model here or there — it needs radical surgery. There have been hints that the current publisher might be willing to make the sacrifice required to sell the paper if large cuts necessary. For the sake of the Times, I hope those rumors are true.
|
high
| 1.571429 |
Given the challenges confronting the Times as it tries to adapt to an online world, is being controlled by a single family really the best approach?
|
http://web.archive.org/web/20160722021909id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2014/01/27/sports/tennis/wawrinka-defeats-an-ailing-nadal-to-win-australian-open.html
|
Not only was Wawrinka in his first Australian Open final, but in 12 previous matches against Nadal, he had lost each of their 26 sets. Yet Nadal was being bullied, something that happens rarely and almost never in Grand Slam tournaments and about as often in a major final as a unicorn discovery. Wawrinka served-and-volleyed. He laced one-handed-backhand winners down the line. He took Nadal out of position and went the other way. He won with shotmaking and creativity and force. He out-Nadaled Nadal. “I was more surprised about how well I was playing,” Wawrinka said. One game proved particularly instructive. Wawrinka served for the first set, ahead by 5-3 but behind by 0-40. Nadal faced three second serves on those break points and failed to convert on each of them. Wawrinka boomed an ace wide to hold for a 34th consecutive service game. Wawrinka cruised early in the second set. He ripped forehand winners. He smacked one return on the backhand side at such an extreme angle that Nadal could only watch as it bounced and kicked sideways. Birds circled above, and it seemed fair to wonder if a buzzard or two were not up there among them. Throughout the tournament, Nadal had toughed out victories despite a blister about the size of a quarter on his left palm — the most analyzed, discussed and shown-on-television blister, it seemed, in the history of tennis. He took a medical timeout not because of the blister, however, but because of his back, and the pain, which appeared severe, seemed to worsen as the second set wore on. Nadal, who had clutched his back a few times before the timeout, retreated to the locker room, and Wawrinka talked to an official about what seemed like perhaps more of a stall tactic than an emergency. When Nadal returned from the locker room, he did so shirtless, and the crowd booed him when he stepped back onto the court. That seemed harsh as the set continued and Nadal basically flicked serves over the net because he could hardly turn on them. Nadal spent one second-set changeover with his head buried in his hands. He spent the time between the second and third sets being rubbed down. He grimaced and moved gingerly and generally played like an old man, or least a far older one. Afterward, Nadal tried to keep the attention off his injury. He did allow that his back hurt during warm-ups. He did acknowledge how often he seemed to miss this tournament with an injury or sustain one while playing here. He seemed reflective and tired, but mostly sad. “I talk enough about that, I think,” he said to another question about his back. As Nadal fought through the pain, Wawrinka looked to be weighing how he should play, how aggressive he should be, whether to step on the throat of a clearly diminished opponent. Then again, with the stakes involved, what was he supposed to do? Ease up? Wawrinka’s level slowed some, and Nadal’s picked up. It was clear that Nadal’s injury had affected both players, even if inadvertently. Nadal held serve to start the third set and broke Wawrinka after that. There was some daylight, and although he still could not serve or move all that well, he mounted an odd comeback. “Sorry to finish this way,” Nadal said in his runner-up speech. “I tried very, very hard.” For Nadal, there would be no 14th Grand Slam singles championship. He would not tie Pete Sampras for second place, would not creep closer to Federer’s total of 17, would not become the first player in the Open era to secure every major tournament title at least twice. For Wawrinka, there was elation, even if the back injury slightly overshadowed, perhaps unfairly, what he had managed to pull off. Not only did he upend the top two seeds, including a longtime foil in Djokovic, but his victory will push him to No. 3 in the next ATP World Tour rankings, ahead of a certain Swiss tennis superstar who has overshadowed him for his whole career. That man, Federer, called with congratulations. Hours after the match ended, Wawrinka finished up his news conference. Someone asked how he planned to celebrate. “There’s a big chance I get drunk tonight,” he said. A version of this article appears in print on January 27, 2014, on page D4 of the New York edition with the headline: A Bizarrely Fitting Finale Yields a Most Unexpected Champion. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
|
high
| 0.782609 |
Stanislas Wawrinka defeated Rafael Nadal, bringing the strangest match of an odd tournament to a conclusion one couldn’t have expected.
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.