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http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/03/the-world-needs-americas-high-speed-help-commentary.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20150930010446id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/03/the-world-needs-americas-high-speed-help-commentary.html
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The world needs America's high-speed help
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20150930010446
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In developing nations across Latin America, Africa and Asia, broadband access remains prohibitively expensive. Handset-based mobile broadband is the most affordable and therefore most commonly used service in developing countries. For consumers in these markets, the cost of a mobile device represents the biggest barrier to internet connectivity.
Income, of course, is a major factor in the lack of smartphone ownership in developing countries — but the cost of devices is also problematic. The familiar practice of wireless carriers subsidizing devices for customers who sign long contracts is largely unheard of outside the U.S., which means customers in these countries typically must pay full price for an Internet-connected phone.
Read More In rural China, shoppers go online - with a little help
The United States has always been a driver of innovation. Every day, American companies develop new cutting-edge technologies intended to further enhance our quality of life. The volume and scope of features available in our most high-end devices is mind-boggling. And as our high-end technology improves, the quality of our entry-level technology rises in direct proportion.
Today, we can build incredibly advanced devices, but we can also build basic devices at incredibly affordable prices. The United States can and should lead the way in expanding internet connectivity in developing countries by developing quality Internet-accessible devices at lower prices, and supporting efforts to expand broadband infrastructure across Latin America, Africa and Asia in order to drive down the cost of service.
Read More Cheaper phone market gets more crowded
Of course, access is not simply a matter of affordability. Awareness and understanding also come into play. As innovators, it is incumbent on America's tech industry to show consumers in developing nations what is possible and to educate them about these technologies and their applications. That means first educating ourselves about the specific challenges unique to these regions and brainstorming creative ways our technology can solve those problems.
This is not simply a matter of altruism. A rising tide lifts all boats. Expanded Internet connectivity in developing countries will be a catalyst for economic growth. These emerging markets will provide new opportunities for America's private sector, fueling an acceleration of innovation that will benefit us all.
Read MoreApple reportedly set to unveil new Apple TV
If the United States is a superpower, it is not only because of our military might. As much as anything, it is our ingenuity that makes us leaders. Let's put that ingenuity to good use beyond our own borders.
Commentary by Flavio Mansi, chief commercial officer at PCS Wireless, a New Jersey-based global distributor of new and pre-owned wireless devices; and chief executive officer of Posh Mobile, a developer and manufacturer of affordable Android smartphones and tablets. Mansi previously was president of Qualcomm Latin America, where he helped shepherd Latin America's migration to the 3G network.
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It's time for US companies to step up and provide affordable technology to developing nations, says Flavio Mansi.
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http://www.cnbc.com/2014/01/28/debunking-the-top-three-myths-about-income-inequality.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20150930163845id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2014/01/28/debunking-the-top-three-myths-about-income-inequality.html
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Debunking the top three myths about income inequality
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20150930163845
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In his State of the Union Address on Tuesday night, President Barack Obama is expected to take sharp aim at wealth inequality.
He'll propose a hike in the minimum wage, extended unemployment benefits, and more funding for education and skills improvement.
He is also likely to contribute to several persistent myths about the increasing gap between the rich and everyone else.
There is no question that income inequality in America is high compared with other countries as well as with the three decades in the U.S. after World War II. And a consensus is growing among business leaders, politicians and even conservatives that more must be done to help those at the bottom better adapt to a more global, technology-driven world.
(Read more: The overreaction of the 1 percent)
But as the country wrestles with one of the most fundamental issues of our time, three key myths beg to be corrected.
MYTH 1—Inequality is rising to the highest levels ever. The most common argument used is that the top 1 percent is taking more of the national income pie than ever before. In fact, the group's share of income (including their capital gains) is lower than it was in 2007, when it hit 23.5 percent. In 2012, the most recent period measured, it was 22.46 percent.
The share of income going to the top is also less than 1 percent above where it was in 2000 (21.52 percent). The years 2000 and 2007 were good economically, but few people were complaining about inequality then because overall employment was higher.
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The president will take aim at the wealth gap in his State of the Union address, but he is likely to reinforce several myths about it.
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http://www.people.com/article/joyce-mitchell-sentenced-maximum-7-years-prison
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Joyce Mitchell Cries, Sentenced to a Maximum of 7 Years in Prison : People.com
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20150930220930
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09/28/2015 AT 11:45 AM EDT
Joyce Mitchell, the prison worker who
to helping prison inmates Richard Matt and David Sweat escape New York's Clinton Correctional Facility in June, was sentenced to 2½ to seven years in prison on Monday as part of a plea deal.
in the courtroom, begging for forgiveness as the judge handed down the sentence. "If I could take it all back, I would," she said. "I never intended for any of this to happen."
Matt and Sweat escaped on June 6, thanks in part to the tools that Mitchell provided the two men. They spent three weeks on the run in upstate New York before Matt
in a confrontation with police and Sweat
Mitchell had previously pleaded not guilty to the charges against her, but ended up accepting a plea deal. According to the agreement, she will not face any additional charges for the alleged plot to murder her husband, an allegation she has denied despite Sweat's
In a jailhouse interview with the
she was sexually assaulted by Matt.
"Mr. Matt had grabbed me a couple times and kissed me and then there was one point where he had⦠he wanted me to perform [a sex act] on him and I said no. And when I said no, he grabbed my head and pushed me down," she recalled tearfully, denying any consensual sexual contact with the convicted murderer.
Mitchell did admit that she struck up a flirtation with the two men, "but that's all it ever was," she said.
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"If I could take it all back, I would," Mitchell, 51, said
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http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/10/reuters-america-back-to-the-future-nokia-prepares-for-mobile-comeback.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151001000107id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/10/reuters-america-back-to-the-future-nokia-prepares-for-mobile-comeback.html
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Back to the future: Nokia prepares for mobile comeback
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20151001000107
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FRANKFURT/HELSINKI, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Nokia is hiring software experts, testing new products and seeking sales partners as it plots its return to the mobile phone and consumer tech arena it abandoned with the sale of its handset business.
Once the world's biggest maker of mobile phones, the Finnish firm was wrongfooted by the rise of smartphones and eclipsed by Apple and Samsung. It sold its handset business to Microsoft in late 2013 and has since focused squarely on making telecoms network equipment.
Now Nokia boss Rajeev Suri is planning a comeback. He must wait until late 2016 before he can consider re-entering the handset business - after a non-compete deal with Microsoft expires - but preparations are underway.
The company has already dipped its toe into the consumer market; it has launched an Android tablet, the N1, which went on sale in January in China and days ago unveiled a "virtual-reality camera" - heralding it as the "rebirth of Nokia."
It has also launched an Android app called Z Launcher, which organizes content on smartphones.
Meanwhile its technologies division has advertised on LinkedIn dozens of jobs in California, many in product development, including Android engineers specializing in the operating software Nokia mobile devices will use.
Nokia had also planned to lay off about 70 people at the division, according to a May announcement, but a company source told Reuters that the figure had since been halved.
Nokia itself is not giving much away about its preparations, beyond saying some staff at the 600-strong technologies division are working on designs for new consumer products, including phones, as well as in digital video and health.
But it will not be easy to claw its way back to relevance in the fast-changing, competitive mobile business where Apple has been scooping up nearly 90 percent of industry profits, nor for it to carve out a place in electronics.
One ace Nokia that holds is ownership of one of the mobile industry's biggest troves of intellectual property, including patents it retained after selling its handset business. It does not want to waste such resources, built up with tens of billions of euros of investment over the past two decades.
It will also get an injection of talent when it completes the 15.6-billion-euro ($17 billion) acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent, announced in April, in the form of Bell Labs - a U.S. research center whose scientists have won eight Nobel prizes.
It says it will not repeat the mistakes of the past of missing technology trends, being saddled with high costs, and reacting too slowly to changing consumer tastes.
To blunt such risks, it is seeking partners for "brand-licensing" deals whereby Nokia will design new phones, bearing its brand, but - in exchange for royalties - will then allow other firms to mass-manufacture, market and sell the devices.
This is stark contrast to its previous handset business which in its heyday manufactured more phones than any other company in the world and employed tens of thousands.
Suri said last month that Nokia aimed to re-enter the mobile phone business, but only through such licensing agreements. It will not fall back on the "traditional" methods, said the CEO, who took the helm last May and has turned it into a slimmed down, more profitable company. He sold off its mapping business a week ago.
Such brand-licensing deals - as Nokia has struck for the N1 tablet - are less profitable than manufacturing and selling its own products, but also less risky. They can add a tidy sum of revenue for little investment for the company, which generates the bulk of income from selling telecoms network equipment to operators like Vodafone and T-Mobile.
"They want to be innovative and seen as a company with long-term vision in the (tech) industry and having a foot in devices plays into this impression, even if it's not bringing massive revenue at the outset," said Gartner analyst Sylvain Fabre.
Brand-licensing models are not new in the industry; European companies like Philips and Alcatel have made money from consumer electronics by licensing out their brand after capitulating to Asian competitors more than a decade ago.
But given the crop of newcomers like China's Xiaomi and India's Micromax, it may not be possible for Nokia to reproduce even the minor successes that Philips and Alcatel were able to achieve by renting out their brand.
With advances in contract manufacturing and standardization of software, components and features like touch-screens, it is also easier than ever for companies to outsource everything to produce lookalike phones.
"We only see this competitive pressure intensifying in coming years," said CCS Insight mobile analyst Ben Wood. "Barriers to entry in the handset market are lower than ever and almost anyone can enter the smartphone market.
The strength of the Nokia brand - crucial to the success of such licensing deals - is also open to debate.
The company says its brand is recognized by four billion people. But, after being consistently ranked as one of the world's top-five brands in the decade up to 2009 according to market researcher Interbrand, it has since nose-dived and now looks set to disappear from top 100 lists.
"A brand is quickly forgotten if it is absent from the consumer business," said former Nokia executive Anssi Vanjoki, a professor at Finland's Lappeenranta University of Technology.
"The brand will not help much if the product is similar to what is already being sold out there. But if there is something new and interesting to it, the old heritage may be helpful."
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FRANKFURT/ HELSINKI, Aug 10- Nokia is hiring software experts, testing new products and seeking sales partners as it plots its return to the mobile phone and consumer tech arena it abandoned with the sale of its handset business. It sold its handset business to Microsoft in late 2013 and has since focused squarely on making telecoms network equipment.
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http://www.theguardian.com/activate/speakers-for-activate-2010
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151001125224id_/http://www.theguardian.com/activate/speakers-for-activate-2010
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Confirmed speakers for Activate 2010
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20151001125224
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Eric Schmidt, CEO and chairman, Google
Beth Simone Noveck, deputy chief technology officer, United States and director, White House Open Government Initiative
Clay Shirky, professor, Interactive Telecommunications Program, NYU
Joe Cerrell, European director, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Jan Chipchase, executive creative director of global insights, Frog Design
Desiree Miloshevic, board trustee, Internet Society
Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief, The Guardian
Jamais Cascio, writer, scenario development, The Institute for the Future
Georgia Arnold, svp, social responsibility, MTV & executive director, Staying Alive Foundation
Dr. Aubrey de Grey, biomedical gerontologist & chief science officer, SENS Foundation
Charles Cotton, director, Cambridge Enterprise
Emily Bell, director of digital content, Guardian News & Media
Julie Meyer, founder & CEO, Ariadne
George Coelho, managing director, Good Energies UK
Anil Hansjee, head of corporate development, EMEA, Google
Chris Smart, general partner, Acacia Capital Partners
Esther Dyson, angel investor & chairman, EDventure Holdings
Nick Appleyard, head of digital, Technology Strategy Board
Danny O'Brien, internet advocacy co-ordinator, Committee to Protect Journalists
Sharon Biggar, COO & co-founder, Path Intelligence
Stefana Broadbent, digital ethnographer, Department of Anthropology, UCL
Robin Blandford, director, Decisions For Heroes
Caroline Diehl, chief executive, Media Trust
Robin Hough, producer, The Activate Summit
Steven Clift, founder and executive director, E-Democracy
Nigel Shadbolt, director, Web Science Trust & The Web Foundation
Martha Lane-Fox, UK digital champion
Aleks Krotoski, presenter, BBC's Virtual Revolution
Andrew Barron, COO, Virgin Media
Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino, CEO & founder, Tinker
Matt Stinchcomb, director, Europe, Etsy
Stephen King, senior director, investments, Omidyar Network
Katrin Verclas, co-founder & editor, MobileActive.org
Ethan Zuckerman, founder, Global Voices
Rose Shuman, founder, OpenMind & Question Box in rural India and Uganda
David Cavallo, vice president & chief learning architect, One Laptop Per Child
David Craig, EVP & chief strategy officer, Thomson Reuters
Juliana Rotich, co-founder & director of programmes, Ushahidi
Sameer Padania, former Hub manager, Witness.org
Rufus Pollock, founder, The Open Knowledge Foundation Turi Munthe, CEO, Demotix
Peter Sunde, founder, Flattr / co-founder, Pirate Bay
Nigel Shadbolt, director, Web Science Trust & The Web Foundation
Derek McAuley, director of Horizon, University of Nottingham
Paul Watson, director of SiDE, University of Newcastle
Peter Edwards, director, computer science, University of Aberdeen
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Confirmed speakers so far include:
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/apr/27/mughal-art-might-in-miniature/amp
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151001154604id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/apr/27/mughal-art-might-in-miniature/amp
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Mughal art: might in miniature
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20151001154604
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At the peak of their power in the mid-17th century, the great Mughals were the richest and most powerful Islamic dynasty. They ruled over 100 million subjects – five times the number commanded by their only rivals, the Ottomans. From the ramparts of the Delhi Red Fort, the seat of power, Shah Jahan – the emperor who commissioned the Taj Mahal – controlled almost all of India, the whole of what is now Pakistan and Bangladesh, as well as much of Afghanistan. The Mughals held the latter, then known as Khorasan, more successfully than any other invader, before or since.
For their impoverished contemporaries in the distant west, floundering in their codpieces and doublets, the Mughals became symbols of power, sophistication, luxury and might – in Paradise Lost, for example, the cities of Mughal India are revealed to Adam after the fall as future wonders of God's creation. These are attributes with which the word "mogul" is still loaded 400 years later: when someone writes today of a Hollywood or real estate mogul, they are unwittingly recalling the impression the Mughals made on our befuddled Elizabethan ancestors.
Sooner or later, all empires fall, and by the beginning of the 18th century, just as the British were beginning to make their presence felt on the coasts and seaports of India, the political power of the Mughals had begun to fall apart in the most spectacular fashion. As the provinces broke off one by one, the imperial capital of Delhi descended into violent chaos. Three emperors were murdered, while one of them, Farrukhsiyar, was imprisoned and starved, then later blinded with a hot needle and strangled; the mother of another ruler was throttled while the father of a third was forced off a precipice on his elephant.
It has long been believed that the art and architecture of the Mughals followed a similar trajectory to their political fortunes: that from the triumphs of the period of Shah Jahan, notably the great Padshahnama (subject of a spectacular exhibition at the Queen's Gallery in London, in 1997), Mughal art rapidly declined. Shah Jahan's puritanical son, the emperor Aurangzeb, is often said to have disbanded the imperial painting atelier, and later emperors were assumed to have failed to muster either the resources, or the energy, to restore it. Successive sackings of Delhi by Persian and Afghan invaders, the coming of the colonial British, followed finally by the arrival of photography, have traditionally been seen to have dealt the final death blows to the Mughal miniature tradition.
Today few specialists would hold with such a bald version of events, but it certainly remains true that the art of the later Mughals remains under-studied and under-appreciated. This is one reason why, over the past five years, the art historian Yuthika Sharma and I have been sourcing and putting together the first ever exhibition of late Mughal art, aiming to showcase the neglected masterpieces of this fascinating transitional period and to provide a taste of the strength, colour, and vivacity of the work produced in the Mughal capital at this time. The result, Princes and Painters in Mughal Delhi 1707-1857, opened recently at the Asia Society in New York.
The show is part of a much wider reassessment of the later Mughal period that has been going on for some time. It is now recognised that despite its political decline, Delhi remained a major artistic and cultural centre for 150 years after its military and economic power had ebbed, and despite diminished resources, the later emperors continued to patronise remarkable artists and poets with Medici-like discrimination.
One of the first exhibits shows the longest surviving sovereign of the age, the Emperor Muhammad Shah II, 1719-48 (called Rangila, the Merrymaker), playing during Holi, the Bacchanalian Hindu spring festival of colours. The painting, by Bhupali Singh, dates from about 1737, less than three decades after the death of Aurangzeb, yet already we have moved as far as can be imagined from the joyless world of the puritan Mughal. A Muslim emperor joins in a Hindu festival, throwing colour bombs at his favourite courtesan, Gulab Bai, as female musicians play tablas and sarangis and the court dissolves into a riot of bright yellows, purples, oranges and inferno reds.
Muhammad Shah, depicted by Bhupali Singh as an eye-shadow-wearing dandy, was the longest surviving sovereign of the age. He seems to have survived by the simple ruse of giving up any pretence of ruling: in the morning he watched partridge and elephant fights; in the evenings he was entertained by jugglers, ventriloquists and mime artists; he was often dressed in a lady's peshwaz and pearl-embroidered shoes. But while presiding over the decline of Mughal political power, Muhammad Shah also proved to be a discerning patron, employing such master artists as Nidha Mal (active 1735–75) and Chitarman (active 1715-1760), whose masterworks show bucolic scenes of court life, Diwali firework parties alive with sprinklers and rockets, hunting and hawking, and even the emperor making love.
Again and again the artists of the period return to the idyll of the Mughal pleasure garden, a hint of escapism, perhaps in reaction to violent reality. There is a direct parallel to the spirit of Restoration London: after the chill of Cromwell's Commonwealth, with the theatres closed and festivities banned, society reacted to the enforced puritanism by heading in the opposite direction. In Delhi this was, for example, the age of the great poet-courtesans: Ad Begum would turn up stark naked at parties, but so cleverly painted that no one would notice: "She decorates her legs with beautiful drawings in the style of pyjamas instead of actually wearing them."
In addition to re-establishing the imperial painting atelier, Muhammad Shah presided over a cultural and intellectual renaissance, as Delhi's scholars, mystics, musicians, poets and painters increased in fame as fast as its military fortunes diminished, and the city was enlivened by a culture of coffee houses and literary salons.
Rich and cultured as it was, Delhi, shorn of its provinces and most of its army, remained unprotected, a valuable jewel ready to be seized by the first adventurer bold enough to take it. That man proved to be Nadir Shah, the ruler of Persia. In 1739, Nadir Shah defeated the Mughal army and advanced on the city. After several of his soldiers were killed in a bazaar brawl, he ordered a massacre. At the end of a single day's slaughter, 150,000 of Delhi's citizens lay dead and the accumulated wealth gathered by the Mughal emperors was taken away to Teheran in a caravan of several thousand carts and camels. Among the treasures looted were the Peacock Throne of Shah Jahan and the Koh-i-Noor diamond. Two further sackings of the city followed, this time by Afghans, until in 1803 the British arrived to fill the power vacuum.
During the 18th century, the East India Company had transformed itself from a coastal trading organisation into an aggressive proto-colonial government. Yet in Delhi, initial contact between these two powers was surprisingly positive. The first company "Residents", or ambassadors to the Mughal court, immersed themselves in its culture, wore Mughal dress, took Mughal wives, and became important patrons of Mughal painting, reviving and transforming the art of the capital in the process.
The first British resident, the Boston-born Sir David Ochterlony (1758–1825) set the tone. A miniature in the exhibition shows him wearing turban and kurta pyjamas and smoking a hookah while watching a troupe of Delhi dancers perform. (Ochterlony's outraged Scottish ancestors peer down disapprovingly from above.) When in the Indian capital, Ochterlony liked to be addressed by his full Moghul title, Nasir-ud-Daula (Defender of the state) and he had a jade Persian seal made to commemorate its conferral, which sits gleaming in the exhibition beside the miniature of its owner.
Though Ochterlony is reputed to have had 13 wives, each of whom had her own elephant, one of these, Mubarak Begum, took precedence over the others. She offended the British by calling herself "Lady Ochterlony" – in one letter it is recorded that "Lady Ochterlony has applied for leave to make the Hadge to Mecca" – and also offended the Mughals by awarding herself the title "Qudsia Begum", previously the title of the emperor's mother. It was for her that Ochterlony built the last of the great Mughal garden tombs, whose design, seen in another miniature, pleasingly mixes a domed church tower topped with a cross, hedged around with a forest of minarets and Timurid semi-domes and cupulas.
Ochterlony was, however, by no means alone in his Indianised tastes. When the wife of the British commander-in-chief in India visited Delhi in 1810, she was horrified by what she saw. It was not just Ochterlony, who had "gone native", she reported; his two assistants "both wear immense whiskers, and neither will eat beef or pork, being as much Hindoos as Christians." One of these men, William Fraser (1784–1835) a Persian scholar from Inverness, lived in Delhi for three decades, making perhaps the most interesting journey of any British figure of the period, transforming himself into a white mughal with an Indian family and close relationships with the leading artistic, theological, and political figures of the day, notably the greatest of the city's poets, Ghalib (1797–1869), of whom he became a prominent patron.
Fraser became a crucial figure in Delhi's artistic development and the Fraser Album, which he commissioned, was the supreme masterpiece of the period. Indeed, the best works produced in Delhi under Company patronage show a sympathy with the Mughal world quite at odds with the usual post-colonial stereotypes of colonial philistinism and insensitivity. The Fraser Album with its detailed portraits of Delhi's soldiers, noblemen, holy men, dancing girls, and villagers, as well as Fraser's staff and his bodyguards, are unparalleled in Indian art, and in the New York show we have managed to gather the largest collection since the album was split and sold off at auction 30 years ago.
Traditionally, art historians have conceived of early colonial commissions of Indian artists as "Company School Painting", which they see as something quite separate from the art of the late Mughal court. It is argued in this exhibition that such distinctions are meaningless, for in Delhi at this period the same artists were working in similar styles for very different patrons. Just as Delhi saw a remarkable intellectual renaissance as new scientific and theological ideas from the west impacted on the Mughal scholars of the town, so the Delhi court artists were experimenting at will with western styles and western materials, taking what they liked from both worlds, exerting their own agency to define character and style and experimenting with the different traditions with both confidence and grace.
As British arrogance increased towards the middle of the 19th century, this brief dialogue of civilisations drew to a close; mutual interest was replaced by mutual suspicion. On a May morning in 1857, 300 of the company's Indian troops mutinied, rode to Delhi, massacred the British, and declared the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar to be their leader. During the four hottest months of the Indian summer, the capital was besieged and bombarded. Finally, on 14 September 1857, the British assaulted the city, massacring and looting as they went. Anyone who survived was driven into the countryside. Delhi was left an empty ruin and the last Mughal exiled to Burma, where he died. But as this show demonstrates, this is a period both of huge historical interest and great artistic value. The late Mughals left much that was astonishingly beautiful; and there is far more to admire and love about their art than has previously been understood.
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Eighteenth-century Delhi saw a cultural renaissance, as painters, poets and jewellers were entertained at the declining Mughal court. William Dalrymple on the glories of their under-appreciated art
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http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/07/reuters-america-china-shares-rise-on-hopes-big-sums-could-enter-the-market.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151002021402id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/07/reuters-america-china-shares-rise-on-hopes-big-sums-could-enter-the-market.html
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China shares rise on hopes big sums could enter the market
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20151002021402
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HONG KONG, Aug 7 (Reuters) - China stocks rose on Friday as state media tried to coax wary investors back into the market, indicating trillions of yuan funds were available to deploy to boost the market.
The CSI300 index rose nearly 2 percent for the day to 3,906.94, ending the week up 2.4 percent, its biggest weekly gain since July 10.
The Shanghai Composite Index gained 2.3 percent to 3,744.41, ending the week up 2.2 percent in its best week since July 24.
Close to 300 China funds that oversee more than 1 trillion yuan ($161 billion) are sitting on the sidelines with "ammunition" to enter the stock markets at any time, the Shanghai Securities News reported on Friday, citing its own calculations.
The Chinese government agency tasked with buying stocks to prop up the country's wobbling markets is seeking an additional 2 trillion yuan ($322 billion) in funds, according to a Bloomberg report.
In the weeks since mid-June, A shares have lost more than 26 percent of their value.
In recent weeks, Beijing has rolled out an unprecedented series of support measures, including cajoling Chinese brokerages and pension funds to buy stocks and cracking down on short-selling.
While the aggressive moves seem to have halted panic selling and tamed wild daily shares price swings, traders said shaken investors would be slow to return to the market, if they returned at all. Others noted that the government will have to withdraw from the market at some point, which could trigger a fresh slide.
Goldman Sachs analysts estimate that the "national team" has potentially spent 860-900 billion yuan to support the stock market in June-July and the potential aggregate size of market-support funds is probably around 2 trillion yuan.
Among the most active stocks in Shanghai was China Shipbuilding Industry, up nearly 3 percent at 14.29 yuan, and China National Nuclear Power, up 3.2 percent at 11.11 yuan.
Among the most traded in Shenzhen, Wanxiang Qianchao rose 5.7 percent to 21.70 yuan, and East Money Information was up 6.7 percent at 46.71 yuan. ($1 = 6.2087 Chinese yuan)
(Reporting by Donny Kwok; Editing by Richard Borsuk)
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HONG KONG, Aug 7- China stocks rose on Friday as state media tried to coax wary investors back into the market, indicating trillions of yuan funds were available to deploy to boost the market. The Chinese government agency tasked with buying stocks to prop up the country's wobbling markets is seeking an additional 2 trillion yuan in funds, according to a Bloomberg...
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Photos : People.com
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20151005105434
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Amber Rose at the Amber Rose SlutWalk in Los Angeles on Oct. 3, 2015
10/04/2015 AT 11:00 AM EDT
and hundreds of supporters gathered Saturday in Los Angeles for "SlutWalk" – a reminder to the world, as one sign put it, that "My Clothes Are Not My Consent,"
Rose and some of the participants wore revealing clothing for the event, the better to make their point: SlutWalks target what activists say are the double standards and victim-blaming that underline a pervasive culture of sexual violence.
The broader movement was touched off by a police officer's 2011 comment that if women didn't want to be raped, they shouldn't dress "like sluts."
On Saturday, Rose, 31, carrying a sign that read "Strippers Have Feelings Too," marched for a short time, and was joined by a range of women, according to the
"[Rose is] really comfortable in who she is," one participant told the paper. "She's not ashamed of her past."
Indeed, Rose posted a photo
of her mother, Dorothy, holding a sign that read "F--- Yo 30 Showers!"
The sign was reference to ex-boyfriend
's remark in a radio interview
that, "It's very hard for a woman to want to be with someone that was with Amber Rose ⦠I had to take 30 showers before I got with Kim [Kardashian]."
Rose has become increasingly vocal about sexism and double standards toward women in the media. She recently starred in
, entitled "Walk of No Shame." She also walked the red carpet at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards while
with slurs written all over it.
Rose's non-profit, the Amber Rose Foundation, has also
to "support our foundation and groups and organizations of women who have been subject to slut shaming, a lack of implication of double standards, sexual assault, and even rape."
As of this writing, it has raised more than $55,000 out of a goal of $65,000.
The SlutWalk in L.A., the page promises, "is just the first of many cities."
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Rose's mother also participated and carried a sign that apparently referenced Kanye West
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/dec/16/artist-james-turrell-retrospective-interview/amp
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151006173655id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/dec/16/artist-james-turrell-retrospective-interview/amp
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Artist James Turrell: I can make the sky any colour you choose
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20151006173655
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“It’s normal to get a little teary in there,” James Turrell reassures me as I sign a waiver before lying down on a bed that slides into a sphere that looks like a cross between an MRI scanner and a UFO. “You’re also agreeing to give me a good review when you sign that too,” jokes the American artist.
The waiver confirms that I don’t have epilepsy, a pacemaker or claustrophobia – his 2010 artwork Bindu Shards could potentially trigger any of these things. I’m in a tight, enclosed space and there are bright, pulsating lights making me lose not just my sense of depth, but any idea of whether my eyes are open or closed.
It would be easy to describe the cell as a light show, but it’s far more than that. The “real” show is happening inside my head. “It doesn’t actually change, it’s your perception that changes,” says Turrell. “This is behind-the-eye seeing. All those things you see there are not projected on that dome – there’s nothing there at all.”
Part of his Perceptual Cells series, Bindu Shards is one of the major works that make up the Turrell retrospective at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. While intense, the cell is designed to induce the state of mind that occurs in the early stages of meditation – the sort of drifting off sensation that happens when you gaze into a fireplace.
“One of things I’ve always been interested in is the theta state,” says Turrell. “That’s thinking, but not thinking in words.” The alpha state and theta state occur naturally on the path to rest and sleep, he explains, and the light and sound in the cell prompts the brainwave entrainment that makes that happen.
While all this might sound a bit bizarre, Turrell has a wealth of knowledge to back up his ideas, including a degree in perceptual psychology and another in mathematics. But though his art revolves around various scientific concepts, he does not have the same intent as a scientist. “I know that science is very interested in answers, and I’m just happy with a good question,” he says.
Turrell is also a trained pilot and the influence of flying can be felt in several of his works that induce a sensation of floating in space. It was while flying his plane over the Arizona desert that he spotted Roden Crater, an inactive volcano that has become the centre of his lifetime’s work. With the help of astronomers, he turned the crater into a naked-eye observatory, with tunnels connecting various other installation spaces. Still a work in progress, the crater is a much sought-after experience open only to friends and special guests of the artist.
Volcanoes aside, Turrell’s main inspiration is a lifelong fascination with light. He always wanted to deal in it, he says, but “didn’t know quite how that plugged into society or where you got a job doing that”. He was strongly informed by the way artists like JMW Turner, John Constable and Mark Rothko depict light in their paintings, and also cites dioramas and the camera obscura as influences for his experiential pieces.
Turrell’s first projection pieces in the late 1960s raised questions around the very definition of art and reactions to his work were mixed. “People said I was just shining light on the wall,” he says.
Both his obsession with light and the idea of art as an experience stem from Turrell’s Quaker upbringing. “The Quakers don’t believe in music or art, they think it’s a vanity,” he says. However, his Quaker spirituality evidently informs his work.
Turrell describes the paintings of Quaker preacher Edward Hicks as a major inspiration because of its message of peace. As a child, Turrell recalls sitting through long, meditative Quaker meetings. “I would just sit there and think about the meeting house, and I would think: wouldn’t it be terrific if it was a convertible?”
This childhood urge to peel the ceiling back birthed Turrell’s famous skyspaces – outdoor viewing chambers that alter viewers’ perceptions of the sky. Meeting was the title of his first public skyspace, which he began in 1978 at the Museum of Modern Art PS1 in New York. Since then, Turrell has made 89 around the world. Within/Without (2010), a permanent work at the National Gallery of Australia, is his 82nd. Currently, he is also working on one for the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) in Hobart.
Each skyspace is site-specific, and Turrell visits those sites multiple times before making them. “I respond to what the sky is: you have maritime skies, desert skies, and you have high desert skies. I’m doing some also in the Alps – and there you have the really crisp blue that can happen in the winter, which is almost like a blue you can cut into cubes.”
While Canberra cops a lot of flak for its weather, it certainly puts on an impressive blue sky – in this sense, says Turrell, it’s a lot like Arizona. How we interpret colour in a skyspace depends on the context of our vision, he adds. “We think we receive all that we perceive but in fact we actually give the sky its colour. And because we give the sky its colour, as in the skyspace here, I can make the sky any colour you choose.”
Space is intimately linked to the passing of time, says Turrell, whose gallery works can take a certain amount of time to adjust to. Orca (1984) for example, needs eight minutes before the eyes begin to register the changes of light in the space.
The light in Virtuality Squared (2014) from his Ganzfeld series, is programmed to change over time. What at first appears to be a flat projection is in fact a large room that viewers enter, engulfing them in what seems like a never-ending expanse of colour. As the colour shifts, our perception compensates, and static light is suddenly not static at all.
“Each day is a different length of time and that gives a different length to the cusp between light and darkness or darkness and light,” Turrell explains. “I’m making the piece for that cusp – to be most active then.”
The cusp, or threshold, between light and darkness, and between what we believe and what we perceive – that moment when we realise something isn’t flat when we thought it was, or that it is static when we thought it was moving – are the moments Turrell manages to suspend us in, sometimes for surreally extended periods of time.
Turrell’s art reveals the multifaceted dimensions of his own life. But by pairing things back to a single element – light – his work becomes a window into a state of being beyond words. “This wonderful elixir of light is the thing that actually connects the immaterial with the material,” says the artist. “That connects the cosmic to the plain everyday existence that we try to live in.”
• James Turrell: A Retrospective is at National Gallery of Australia, Canberra until 8 June 2015
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Using only light, the American artist has lifted the ceiling off the traditional gallery and taken experiential art to surreal – even volcanic – new heights, writes Anna Madeleine
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/aug/23/rca-black-chris-ofili-art
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151006201756id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/aug/23/rca-black-chris-ofili-art
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RCA Black and the table that thinks it's a woman
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20151006201756
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When Ekua McMorris received her letter of acceptance from the Royal College of Art in 2007, she was intimidated by the thought of attending such a pillar of the establishment. How, she wondered, was "someone like her" going to fit in? "I was brought up as a Rastafarian, which is anti-imperialism. And here I am, a single parent living in Hackney with no money, about to attend the Royal College of Art."
Fast forward to the present and McMorris, now a photographer, is the co-curator of RCA Black, an exhibition celebrating the work of African and African-Caribbean artists. "There have only been 85 black students at the RCA in the last five years," she says. "That's out of a body of over 800 per year. We wanted to showcase these hidden people." Each artist had to be either an RCA student or graduate, of African or African-Caribbean heritage, and producing work of a high standard. "It didn't have to be new work," says McMorris. "It just had to be good."
The term RCA Black refers to the artists rather than their subject matter: the work doesn't have to speak of race, skin colour or ethnicity. "It could just be work," says McMorris. "Not every black person is making work about blackness."
RCA Black is not just about celebrating hidden talent, though: it's also meant to send a message to any students who might think the RCA is a "whites only" place.
The exhibition, which includes work by 23 artists, features everything from fine art, photography and sculpture to product design, jewellery and metal work. Catherine Anyango, a Swedish-Kenyan artist and RCA tutor, is showing the original illustrations from her 2010 graphic novel version of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Written with David Zane Mairowitz, it was described as "extraordinarily beautiful" by Rachel Cooke in the Observer. "I don't have any other work to do with being black," says Anyango. "I grew up in Kenya, so I have a different perspective from people who grew up here."
On a lighter note, work by contemporary artist Harold Offeh is also included: Hairography, a photographic self-portrait, shows him in blond wig and red lipstick, whipping his hair about. And, as well as a painting by Chris Ofili, there will be two beautiful pieces of furniture by Simone Brewster: Negress Lounge and Mammy Table. Made from stained tulip wood, the pieces are a far cry from the sort of thing you would find in the average living room. "I wanted to ask: what if you have furniture inspired by the black female form?" says Brewster. "I looked at representations of the black female form in art, particularly Wilfredo Lam's The Murmur, which is a disturbing picture of a woman with lopsided breasts."
Brewster, the other co-curator, says of the show's concept: "We're not the same. But we are a group of individuals who have gone through similar experiences, gone through the same institute."
But is there such a thing as black art? Isn't it a rather reductive, limiting notion? "I tend to shy away from things that ask me to exhibit because I'm black and because I'm a woman," says Anyango. "I don't feel either is an achievement. But in the context of the RCA and the design world, they are both very white, so I understand the reasoning for this show."
The term "black art" is only reductive if you choose to see it as such, says McMorris. "Black art can be anything. It can be a landscape without any reference to colour or culture."
The curators agree the concept can be problematic, though. "We never refer to art as white art," says Brewster. "It is just art. Why would it need to be known as something else? I wouldn't imagine the processes I would go through would be any different if I were a white artist. Only my references would change."
Frank Bowling, whose painting The Abortion features in the show, is more direct. "There's no such thing as black art," says Bowling, who was the first black artist to be elected a member of the Royal Academy of Arts in 2005. "Black faces don't make black art."
Asked what advice he has for aspiring black artists, Bowling, now in his 70s, says: "Go to the museums and make art that can measure up to the museums. Make art better than anything you've ever seen before."
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The Royal College of Art is trying to reinvent itself as a beacon of diversity – with a show of work by its black students. Hannah Pool enters a world of wigs, furniture and whirlwinds
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2007/mar/25/design.features1
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151007111852id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2007/mar/25/design.features1
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Caroline Boucher on Camouflage, Imperial War Museum
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20151007111852
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CamouflageImperial War Museum, London SE1, until 18 November
Camouflage came into its own during the First World War when aerial reconnaissance and sophisticated long-range weapons made it essential to stay hidden. This fascinating exhibition kicks off at this point: the pioneering work of two French soldier artists - Eugene Corbin and Lucien-Victor Guirand de Scevola - who served in the same regiment on the Western front. Their sketchbooks are interestingly Cubist and their experiments in covering their guns with painted camouflage cloths were so successful that the method was adopted and a specialist unit set up, with the British following suit.
And how inventive they were! From the tentative beginnings of a hand-painted greatcoat grew lozenge-patterned aeroplane wings in surprisingly bright colours. Marine painter Norman Wilkinson took camouflage to sea in 1917 when his Dazzle zig-zag patterns were applied to British warships to confuse German U-boats as to their exact position and speed. This proved successful until submarines improved their radar and sonic positioning.
Meanwhile on dry land camouflage was widening out into deception - truly an area of toys for boys. My favourite is the armour-plated fake tree. These were made as exact copies of a particular shrapnel-wrecked tree trunk standing in no man's land which was then substituted at night and used as an observation post. Then there were fake sandbags for lookouts and carefully sculpted heads that could be held above the parapet to pinpoint enemy snipers. Agents landing behind the lines in the Second World War were provided with fantastic props including rubber bare feet to wear over shoes to disguise shoeprints. When the Pipeline under the ocean (Pluto) was laid in anticipation of the 1944 D-Day landings, the overground workings were camouflaged in bombed seafront buildings.
Also during the Second World War, the Surrealist artist Roland Penrose set up the Industrial Camouflage Research Unit. He persuaded his lover, the photographer Lee Miller, to pose naked and painted with a camouflage net for a photograph to illustrate his talks. This was probably the first fashion shot using camouflage. The pattern began to be widely adopted, initially ironically, as a symbol of pacifism, when Vietnam vets began wearing their army jackets to anti-war protests. Now of course, it's mainstream fashion.
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Caroline Boucher enjoys an exhibition on camouflage at the Imperial War Museum.
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http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/17/reuters-america-us-stocks-wall-st-lower-after-poor-manufacturing-data.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151009051921id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/17/reuters-america-us-stocks-wall-st-lower-after-poor-manufacturing-data.html
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US STOCKS-Wall St lower after poor manufacturing data
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20151009051921
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* NY Fed's Aug manufacturing activity hits lowest since 2009
* Oil prices head towards six-year lows
* Zulily soars on Liberty Interactive's $2.4 bln buyout offer
* Tesla jumps after Morgan Stanley upgrade
* Indexes down: Dow 0.65 pct, S&P 0.11 pct, Nasdaq 0.02 pct
Aug 17 (Reuters) - Wall Street began the week lower on Monday after data showed a surprise fall in manufacturing activity in the state of New York in August.
The market was also weighed down by oil prices, which fell toward six-year lows as data showed Japan's economy, the world's third-biggest oil consumer, contracted in the second quarter.
The New York Fed's Empire State general business conditions index tumbled from 3.86 in July to -14.92 in August due to steep drops in new orders and shipments. Economists polled by Reuters had expected the index to rise to 5 this month. A reading above zero indicates expansion.
With the U.S. earnings season at the fag end and no major economic data due, investors will turn to Wednesday's minutes of the most recent Federal Reserve meeting for indications on how the U.S. central bank will react to the recent yuan devaluation and the further decline in oil prices.
The dollar index was up 0.2 percent at $96.72 and has been mostly higher on hopes that the Fed is readying to raise rates at its mid-September meeting.
At 10:17 a.m. EDT the Dow Jones industrial average was down 114.38 points, or 0.65 percent, at 17,363.02, the S&P 500 was down 2.27 points, or 0.11 percent, at 2,089.27 and the Nasdaq Composite was down 0.97 points, or 0.02 percent, at 5,047.27.
Five of the 10 major S&P 500 sectors were lower with the financial index's 0.4 percent fall leading the decliners.
U.S. stocks ended a volatile week higher on Friday after upbeat U.S. economic data and as euro zone finance ministers agreed to launch a third bailout program for Greece.
U.S. stocks have been stuck in a tight trading range since the beginning of the year and is expected to trade sideways for much of the year.
Goldman Sachs has said it expects the S&P 500 to end the year flat due to high starting valuation, negligible earnings growth, outflow from domestic equity mutual funds and modest economic growth.
With 92 percent of the S&P 500 companies having reported so far, second-quarter earnings are expected to have edged up 1.2 percent, while revenue is expected to have fallen 3.5 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data.
Cisco shares fell 1.5 percent to $28.58 after Morgan Stanley downgraded the stock to "equal-weight" from "overweight".
Tesla Motors rose 4.2 percent to $253.20 after Morgan Stanley raised its price target on the stock to $465 from $280 and said Tesla was its top pick among U.S. automakers.
Zulily soared 47.3 percent to $18.52 after John Malone's Liberty Interactive said it would buy the online retailer for $2.4 billion. Liberty was down 1.9 percent at $29.83.
Estee Lauder fell 1.8 percent to $87.26 after the cosmetics maker reported lower-than-expected quarterly sales.
KKR fell 2.2 percent to $22.36 after its subsidiary Samson Resources said on Friday it expects to file for bankruptcy protection.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by 1,794 to 1,009. On the Nasdaq, 1,515 issues fell and 1,004 advanced.
The S&P 500 index showed six new 52-week highs and 12 new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 27 new highs and 48 new lows.
(Reporting by Tanya Agrawal in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza)
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*Zulily soars on Liberty Interactive's $2.4 bln buyout offer. *Tesla jumps after Morgan Stanley upgrade. Aug 17- Wall Street began the week lower on Monday after data showed a surprise fall in manufacturing activity in the state of New York in August.
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http://www.cnbc.com/2015/06/24/is-this-the-next-mcrib-mcdonalds-is-selling-a-new-pork-item.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151009074623id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2015/06/24/is-this-the-next-mcrib-mcdonalds-is-selling-a-new-pork-item.html
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Is this the next McRib? McDonald's is selling a new pork item
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20151009074623
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Rivals have already jumped on the pulled pork bandwagon recently. Wendy's went whole hog on the meat last year with a trio of of limited-time offerings: a BBQ pulled pork sandwich, a BBQ pulled pork cheeseburger and some BBQ pulled pork cheese fries. Meanwhile, Burger King currently sells a pulled pork sandwich with onions and pickles on a hoagie bun.
Food news site Brand Eating notes the sandwich sells for two for $5 or for $5 as part of a combo meal with fries and a drink.
To full more about the sandwich from Brand Eating, click here.
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McDonald's is turning to the other white meat for a new menu offering.
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http://www.cnbc.com/2014/03/26/king-digital-stumble-causes-concern-in-ipo-land.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151009123941id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2014/03/26/king-digital-stumble-causes-concern-in-ipo-land.html
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King Digital stumble causes concern in IPO land
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20151009123941
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King Digital prices at $22.50, trades as low as $18.90 and closes at $19.00 in its NYSE debut. It broke. Badly.
I told you in my Trader Talk yesterday that the IPO market was holding up well--until yesterday. First-day IPO pop for the 55 IPOs that have gone public this year was up a healthy 22 percent; the after-market pop (the percentage the average IPO has been up since its IPO) was also a solid 29 percent.
Until today. There are several recent IPOs that are showing signs of weakness. A10 Networks (ATEN), which optimizes data center performance, went public last week at $15 and is now trading below its IPO price, at $14.55.
Many other companies that went public last week: Paylocity (PCTY), MediWound (MDWD), Amber Road (AMBR) and Q2 Holdings (QTWO) are trading below their first-day pop. They're still above their initial price, but the IPO after-market premium is shrinking fast.
But the failure of KING (OK, it's not a failure, but it's a big disappointment) is sending a ripple through the IPO community. There's not fear yet, but there is concern.
What you want to look for are two things: Cancellations and repricings. Not seeing cancellations yet, but there is much higher risk of repricings.
There are three IPOs pricing tonight, representing a good cross-section of the IPO market:
If any of them postpone, or any prices below the price talk, that would cause greater concern.
There's an additional five more tomorrow night, including CBS Outdoors and Everyday Health.
By the way, in my opinion, it would be healthy for a small deflation in the IPO market. Not a full-on meltdown, that would only happen if the overall market collapsed. But a gentle de-escalation would be welcome.
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King Digital trades below offering price, causing concern in hot-hot-hot IPO market.
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http://www.cnbc.com/2014/10/17/short-sellers-are-moving-inand-cleaning-up.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151009214524id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2014/10/17/short-sellers-are-moving-inand-cleaning-up.html
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Short sellers are moving in...and cleaning up
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20151009214524
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The turmoil in global equity markets this week might have left traders moving to safe havens or even hiding under their desks, but some savvy investors have been loading up on the short side of the trade as stocks have been plummeting southwards.
Short selling is an investment tactic where a speculator borrows a financial instrument, such as a stock, and sells it in the hope of buying it back later at a lower price, thereby making a profit. Research firm Markit measures this short interest by calculating the amount of shares that are out on loan.
"Average short interest in S&P 500 companies now stands at an 18-month high after steadily increasing in the last few months," Simon Colvin, a research analyst at Markit, said in a new note released on Friday morning.
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The turmoil in global equity markets this week might have left traders moving to safe havens, but some savvy investors have been loading up on the short side of the trade.
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http://www.cnbc.com/2014/12/09/trump-and-tiger-team-up-in-dubai.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151009214805id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2014/12/09/trump-and-tiger-team-up-in-dubai.html
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Trump and Tiger team up in Dubai
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20151009214805
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Site preparation work by Middle Eastern developer DAMAC is already underway, with the course due to open by the end of 2017. DAMAC, which will build the development, has survived Dubai's property boom, and subsequent bust, in the latter period of the last decade.
"Dubai is fast becoming one of the most influential golfing destinations in the world, both for the professional game and for amateurs looking to enjoy the great weather, great courses and amazing lifestyle," Woods said in a press release from DAMAC Properties on Tuesday.
"I hope to bring elements of those great courses and others to the Trump World Golf Club Dubai with the end result being a course that golfers will want to play again and again."
Trump snaps up $20 million Irish golf course
Golf master Woods has won 14 major tournaments in the sport he had dominated since the late 1990s, but has suffered a decline in form since 2009.
Indeed, his poor performances and absence from tournaments has been cited as being a key reason behind a decline in golf viewership and equipment sales.
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Real estate mogul Donald Trump and golfing icon Tiger Woods are set to pool their efforts into a new championship golf course in Dubai.
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http://www.cnbc.com/2015/06/30/puerto-rico-more-important-than-greece-china-cramer.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151009223152id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2015/06/30/puerto-rico-more-important-than-greece-china-cramer.html
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Puerto Rico more important than Greece, China: Cramer
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20151009223152
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As default looms large over Puerto Rico, CNBC's Jim Cramer said Tuesday the situation there is more important to investors than the Greek saga or the situation in China.
"Everybody had it. Rich people had Puerto Rico. Mutual funds had Puerto Rico [bonds]. A lot of hedge funds had levered up Puerto Rico because it was such a great trade. It turned out to be not so great," Cramer said on "Squawk on the Street."
Cramer made his remarks a day after the U.S. territory's governor, Alejandro García Padilla, told The New York Times that, as the situation stands now, Puerto Rico cannot pay its $72 billion debt. "This is not politics, this is math," García Padilla said.
Read MorePuerto Rico poses a 'substantial threat': Strategist
This led the stocks of many bond insurers, including MBIA and Assured Guaranty, to fall Monday.
MBIA shares dropped 23 percent amid the news and Assured Guaranty shed 13 percent. Midmorning Tuesday, MBIA was down 18 percent and Assured Guaranty was off slightly.
Cramer added that, after the news was released, the federal government might intervene in some way. Nevertheless, those hopes were dashed after White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters a Puerto Rico bailout was not in the cards.
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CNBC's Jim Cramer explains why the Puerto Rico situation is more important than Greece or China.
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http://www.people.com/article/cindy-crawford-friendship-with-amal-clooney
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151009233718id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/cindy-crawford-friendship-with-amal-clooney
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Cindy Crawford Talks Amal Clooney Friendship : People.com
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20151009233718
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From left: Amal and George Clooney, Rande Gerber, and Cindy Crawford in Ibiza
10/07/2015 AT 03:45 PM EDT
has befriended some of the world's most fascinating people over the course of her 30-year career, but few have generated as much interest as her
Crawford, speaking to PEOPLE on Tuesday night at an event in Miami celebrating the launch of her book
, calls the human rights lawyer engaging.
"I think one of the things I love about Amal is that she's not only interesting – she's very interesting to talk to – but she's also interested in your world as well," Crawford says at the event, which was held at the 1 Hotel and Homes South Beach. "She can talk to my kids about their thing, or she'll talk to me
But do the two style icons trade fashion tips? Crawford says, "Amal is an incredibly fashionable person so she doesn't need my advice ... I guess we talk about fashion in a way, but it's not like we pore over magazines together. It's more like, she'll ask me, 'Who is your favorite photographer.' She's interested in my life, just like I'm interested in her life."
Crawford, who wore a formfitting blue-and-black dress over her enviable
frame, casually mingled with guests at the rooftop event, joined by supportive husband
and folks from his Casamigos tequila brand (a partnership with Clooney).
The fashionista's longtime friend and fellow supermodel Karolina Kurkova (who's
) also turned up for her gal pal.
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Supermodel Cindy Crawford dished on her friendship with Amal Clooney at a party for her new book, Becoming Cindy
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http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/01/major-puerto-rico-investor-warns-it-stands-ready-to-defend-bonds.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151010002710id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/01/major-puerto-rico-investor-warns-it-stands-ready-to-defend-bonds.html
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Major Puerto Rico investor warns it stands ready to defend bonds
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20151010002710
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People listen as Puerto Rico Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla addresses the island's residents in a televised broadcast regarding the governments $73 billion debt, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, June 29, 2015.
"We are disheartened that Governor Padilla, in a public forum, has called for negotiations with other creditors, representing and including the millions of individual Americans that hold Puerto Rico municipal bonds," a spokesman for Oppenheimer said in a statement.
Garcia Padilla said on Monday his goal was to come up with a negotiated moratorium with bondholders to postpone debt payments for a number of years.
Puerto Rico's bonds fell sharply for a second session on Tuesday, with general obligation 8 percent bonds maturing in 2035 as low as $64.50 versus a low of $68.75 on Monday, however they had a late rally to $68. Almost 10 percent of municipal bonds that traded Monday were Puerto Rico-related, according to Janney Capital Markets.
Read MorePuerto Rico poses a'substantial threat': Strategist
Garcia Padilla's remarks prompted credit agencies Standard & Poor's and Fitch to further cut ratings on the island's bonds.
The commonwealth still has yet to default. On Tuesday it made its final payment on a $900 million short-term loan, according to a source close to the banks. It will make a coupon payment of $645.2 million on its general obligation debt, due Wednesday, a person familiar with the matter said.
The island's utility PREPA, with around $9 billion of debt, and creditors are also close to a deal to avoid a potential default on $400 million payment due Wednesday, two source familiar with the talks said.
Puerto Rico's deepening financial crisis could speed up an exodus of money from U.S. municipal bond funds.
Read MoreHow the US is helping to sink Puerto Rico
U.S. open-ended municipal bond funds have $11 billion of Puerto Rico bonds and nearly 53 percent of such funds have exposure to the commonwealth, according to Morningstar.
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OppenheimerFunds, the largest holder of Puerto Rico debt, warned the island it stands ready to defend the terms of bonds it holds.
| 15.4 | 0.64 | 1.04 |
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http://www.cnbc.com/2014/12/16/fed-oil-and-russia-behind-tuesday-turmoil.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151010024531id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2014/12/16/fed-oil-and-russia-behind-tuesday-turmoil.html
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Fed, oil and Russia behind Tuesday turmoil
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20151010024531
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On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average made triple-digit moves in either direction for the first time in 1½ years. On Tuesday, it did nearly the same, clearing a 99-point deficit to rally as much as 246 points, all within the first two hours of trade.
"We had a good year, people are trying to square positions and people are concerned about what lower oil prices mean," Kelly said of the market's large up-and-down moves.
On Tuesday Russia's currency, down for the past six days, tumbled past 70 to a dollar for the first time.
While crude's drop is helping fuel "all the turmoil in Russia and problems for certain energy producers, what's happened in the last few weeks is good for the United States, Europe and Japan. So far this has been a recovery for the rich in America, and this is for everybody, and is helping spread cheer," Kelly said.
Said Frederick: "When all this stuff settles down, I think things will look OK. In the near term, it's a bit treacherous."
Market strategists are now rethinking expectations that the Federal Open Market Committee would drop its "considerable time" period pledge in regards keeping interest rates low at the end of a two-day meeting Wednesday.
"The question is not so much are they going to drop the wording, but whether what has happened over the last week and a half changed their plans," said Frederick.
"If the U.S. market stabilizes, it's more likely the Fed removes the promise to keep rates low tomorrow. Hopefully the penny has dropped here and people are starting to realize lower oil prices are a positive to the U.S. economy," said Kelly.
"I would hope they are not watching the markets and commodities; they are supposed to watch inflation and employment," said Frederick.
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The market's wild swings come as investors ponder oil's role in Fed rate decisions.
| 21.823529 | 0.529412 | 0.882353 |
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http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/03/euro-not-in-danger-from-greek-vote-but-europe-is.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151010032320id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/03/euro-not-in-danger-from-greek-vote-but-europe-is.html
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'Euro not in danger' from Greek vote, but Europe is
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20151010032320
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Chris Ratcliffe | Bloomberg | Getty Images
People read newspaper front pages as they hang outside a news kiosk in the Plaka district of Athens, Greece, on Thursday, July 2, 2015.
Gurria's comments come as all eyes focus on the Greek poll this weekend, when citizens will vote either "yes" to more austerity – and effectively a future in the euro zone -- or "no," and a potential exit from the single currency.
The latest opinion poll, conducted by the ALCO polling institute and published in the Ethnos newspaper on Friday, pointed to a close result. The "yes" vote supporting creditors' reform proposals came in at 44.8 percent, the "no" vote stood at 43.4 percent, and 1.8 percent were undecided.
However, it also showed that 74 percent wanted to remain in the euro, against 15 percent, who wanted a "national currency."
Gurria warned that it was in everybody's interest "to keep Europe together" although he said he recognized that there were political, legal and financial constraints on the bodies which oversee Greece's bailout -- the International Monetary Fund (IMF), European Central Bank (ECB) and European Commission.
"The solution will come from the understandings of those constraints, and at the same time -- and I think this is actually going to happen -- of moving above the shorter-term interest in the understanding that it's in everybody's interest to keep Europe together," he added.
Although talks between the radical left government in Greece and its lenders have been ongoing since February, Greece's crisis peaked last Friday night when Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced a referendum.
Poll: How should the Greeks vote?
That move prompted the ECB to cap its emergency funding for Greek banks and capital controls have been imposed, which are expected to remain in place until after the vote. Now banks' cash reserves are reportedly running out, with the daily allowance from ATMs reduced from 60 euros to 50 euros.
The ECB's policymakers are expected to next discuss further emergency funding assistance (ELA) for Greek banks on Monday, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters Thursday.
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Ahead of Greece's referendum on Sunday, the head of the OECD said that the future of the Europe is at stake.
| 17.583333 | 0.791667 | 0.958333 |
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http://fortune.com/2012/01/25/honeywell-ceo-how-id-fix-the-economy/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151010082708id_/http://fortune.com/2012/01/25/honeywell-ceo-how-id-fix-the-economy/
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Honeywell CEO: How I’d fix the economy
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20151010082708
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FORTUNE — It was nearly 10 years ago when Dave Cote took the helm at Honeywell International. The company isn’t readily known to most consumers, but products from the Morris Township, NJ-based technology and manufacturing conglomerate are found almost everywhere – from home thermostats to turnout gear donned by New York City fire fighters.
When Cote took the job as CEO, the company was struggling. He turned down media requests, thinking “right now the last thing we need is me out there saying anything when we’ve got so much to fix,” he says. At the time, a third of the top 200 positions were open after an employee exodus. Under Cote, Honeywell grew from $22 billion in sales to about $37 billion today, and the company’s stock surged about 63%.
And with the company transformed, Cote has jumped into the media spotlight. Today he is one of the most outspoken deficit hawks in corporate America. The New Hampshire native visited Fortune’s office in New York City last week to talk about a range of topics – from how to manage a diverse company to doing business in China and India to how the U.S. can turn its fragile economy around. Below is an edited transcript.
You have all these disparate industrial businesses. How do you manage it?
One of the ways that we’ve tried to construct the company is so that there’s no product that’s so big that it requires my approval. I’ve always thought it was a bad position to be in as a company if you really had to bet that big on a product.
The way we’ve tried to construct the company is to create diversity of opportunity – whether it’s diversity in the products you provide, the geographies that you’re in, the services that you provide, or the new products that you’re developing. There’s little that I have to weigh in on like that – maybe occasionally – but really not all that much. I am able to devolve all of this to business leaders who understand what we’re looking for.
As brilliant as we may think we are today, things change. I’ve always wanted to make sure we had the kind of flexibility and the kind of opportunity so that no matter how things shifted we would be prepared to move.
Is the way you’re doing business in India and China changing?
I would say India is progressing. I would also say the bureaucracy is unbelievable. As bureaucratic as I may feel the U.S. and other countries are, it’s like India took the complexity of the British system, doubled it and added 10 times the people. It’s mind boggling, and I am amazed how long it takes anything to get done. 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.
No, China is significantly less bureaucratic. They can make decisions extremely quickly – if they want to, but they don’t always want to. I’d say this is an advantage for them right now in their economic growth profile. It could be a disadvantage to them at some point.
What’s Honeywell’s HON plan these days on hiring?
I would say cautious, just because of what the markets are telling us. We started proceeding with an abundance of caution in August. The markets have predicted five of the last nine recessions. The problem is we don’t know – is this one of the five or is this one of the four? And when you don’t know you don’t say ‘screw it I’m going to be bold anyway.’ What you end up doing is say ‘let’s pull back and be smart.’
If Honeywell were a barometer for the U.S. economy where do things stand in terms of recovery?
I could tell you how we’re planning. We never bought into the idea of 3% growth in the U.S. economy. We thought 2% or less, but not a recession. In Europe, we’ve assumed a recession. The question is how big? In Asia, we see India and China continue to grow at what we consider a heavy pace, but not as big as in the past just because Europe may drag them down.
Now there are two alternate scenarios here because that’s all predicated on governments in Europe and the U.S. doing the minimal amount possible to avoid a disaster.
The unlikely scenario is if Europe aggressively addressed their debt. That’s if Germany puts money in and all the other countries actually agree to the kind of spending standards they should. Also, the scenario of the U.S. addressing its debt, which is creating more of an overhang.
However, the reverse of that could happen. You can get a much worse global recession if Europe doesn’t even dither. People start balking from the Euro or they just do absolutely nothing – not even the minimum. If the U.S. doesn’t even start talking about what we need to do when it comes to addressing our debt then we could end up with another global recession. But if both Europe and the U.S. aggressively address their debt problems there’s the potential for a robust global recovery.
You served on President Obama’s debt commission and have been one of the most vocal deficit hawks in corporate America today. Do you ever see yourself working in Washington?
No. I like what I’m doing. I’m very well suited for what I’m doing now. I would say there were a couple of things that I ended up learning.
One, I am not a political savant. For me, it was a revelation going through the data on Medicare and Medicaid during the first month. So I couldn’t wait to get in there and get started. Everybody said no, we’re not going to be talking about this now, it’s too sensitive right now. Sensitive or not this is the issue.
If this were Honeywell this might be sensitive but this is the first thing we’re going to talk about. You don’t nibble at the edges, you start going after the big item. Over there, it’s the opposite. They do all the little stuff first and try to get people getting along before you actually start tackling the big item. And even then we didn’t do that until the last couple of days and even by then there was just not enough time to address it.
The second thing that surprised me was that partial answers were terrific. I could remember looking at this and saying, ‘Oh my God this is an $8 or $9 trillion problem that we have to sort out.’ And the push back was that we would have to cut a lot of stuff. So the only thing I really pushed my vote on is that it had to be at least $4 trillion because I’m not going to put my name on something that doesn’t’ even start to take a first step.
As a CEO, what do you want the White House to do for American business?
If you go back 20 years ago there were 1 billion participants in the global economy. If you look at it today there are about 4 billion participants in the global economy. Yet we as a country act like it’s still only 1 billion and don’t recognize how much the world has changed and how competition has changed. We need an American competitiveness agenda. There are six items I point to.
First is the debt, which you’re not going to have a functioning economy if you have lots of debt. Second is energy policy, which comprises both energy efficiency and energy generation. We need to recognize the two go together.
The third one is math and science education, which I tried to develop in the Simpson-Bowles proposal. There is such a thing as good spending. Infrastructure and math and science education is a place for it. In 2007, the U.S. graduated 450,000 U.S. citizen engineers. China graduated 900,000 engineers. And that is with only with one-third of the same college-age eligible kids going on to school as they would in the U.S. We ought to be thinking about smarter immigration policies and how to develop a Sputnik moment that causes kids to want to be engineers again instead of saying I want to be a lawyer or I want to work on Wall Street.
Fourth one is infrastructure. You just have to go to China for example and just see what they’re building – ride some of their highways or go into some of their airports and you find yourself saying this is more likely going to be a successful economic model than how we drive up and down I-95.
Fifth one is free trade and a more nuanced relationship with China. The U.S. relationship to China could very well end up being how 150 years ago the UK had looked at the U.S. And we all know how that story ended up. But China has four times the people. If they just grow at 7% and we grow at 3% it takes them 30 years to get an economy the same size. Nevermind having the same standard of living, which could take another 20 to 30 years. You can see an extremely long time that they could grow extremely well. It’s not a question of whether China is good or China is bad. We should instead be thinking it is a force to be reckoned with.
The sixth area, always the businessman’s favorite, is tort reform. I understand the need for it to address some of the cavities or inequities in the system but it is possible to go too far. And you don’t want to just be fair to the potential claimants. You need to be fair to the people who have to pay also.
If they could do just the debt during the next four years that would be huge. I just don’t see us having a conversation out there about how we can compete better in a world that’s different than it was 20 years ago. Instead it seems like we’re arguing more about our entitlements, who pays, and I just don’t feel like we’re recognizing what’s going on outside.
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Honeywell CEO David Cote got an inside look into Capitol Hill's machinations when he served on President Obama's debt committee. Now he has some advice for the White House on how to fix the economy.
| 50.615385 | 0.769231 | 1.282051 |
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http://www.cnbc.com/2014/06/13/ten-exciting-video-games-to-look-out-for-.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151010110135id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2014/06/13/ten-exciting-video-games-to-look-out-for-.html
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10 exciting video games to look out for
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20151010110135
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The worst part about E3 is the waiting.
After ingesting a flood of information for hundreds of titles and watching their excitement levels rise to critical peaks, players now must sit back and be patient. Some of the games won't be out for months. Others could take years.
Figuring out which will top sales charts is always a dangerous exercise. Publishers show carefully controlled demos of small segments of their games, specifically designed to pique interest. It might be fun in a five-to-10-minute microburst, but truly terrible after an hour of gameplay.
Read More10 best-selling video games (so far) of 2014
As we do each year, we've compiled a list of the games most likely to perform well when they hit stores. That doesn't mean they'll be critical smashes, but they're likely to connect with today's gaming audience.
Here's what turned our head at this year's E3.
—By Chris Morris, special to CNBC.com
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Some of the choices will be out this year. Others won't hit until 2015 or possibly later. Either way, here's what turned our head at this year's E3.
| 5.4 | 0.771429 | 4.942857 |
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http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/03/e-improvement-projects-outsource-or-diy.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151010111249id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/03/e-improvement-projects-outsource-or-diy.html
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Home improvement projects: Hire or DIY?
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20151010111249
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With summer home renovation projects like a composite deck addition and roofing replacement costing homeowners $15,912 and $19,528, respectively, according to Remodeling magazine's 2015 Cost vs. Value Report, it's no surprise some folks are tempted to do it themselves.
But they may be wise to think twice. Take into account costly permits and equipment rentals, the cost of transporting materials, insurance, and the amount of time—and degree of difficulty—involved, and it may be better to leave it to the experts.
Here's how to determine if you should DIY or hire a pro.
—By Lucy Maher, special to CNBC Posted 5 July 2015
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Some projects make more sense to do yourself while others are better left to the experts. Here's how you know.
| 5.478261 | 0.652174 | 1.521739 |
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http://www.cnbc.com/2015/01/06/stocks-could-get-drilled-again-by-oil.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151010171832id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2015/01/06/stocks-could-get-drilled-again-by-oil.html
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Stocks could get drilled again by oil
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20151010171832
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Another worry is the Jan. 25 Greek election, which could result in a party that has stated opposition to the country's bailout gaining more influence.
Analysts have said a soothing comment or two from the Fed in its minutes might help sentiment. But they are also looking at Friday's nonfarm payrolls, as an important catalyst. Besides ADP, a kind of warm-up act for the jobs report, there is also international trade data at 8:30 a.m.
"The best thing for the markets could be an employment number (Friday) that's far above consensus," said Emanuel. He said UBS is expecting 270,000 jobs in the government report Friday, down from the surprise 321,000 added in November.
Read MoreHere's where pros say oil will bottom (Ouch!)
Besides the ADP data, markets will be watching oil inventory data Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. ET. Oil has reacted strongly to reports of higher-than-expected supply. On Tuesday, oil plunged again, with West Texas Intermediate crude futures for February, down $2.11 per barrel at $47.93, its lowest settle since April 2009.
Treasury yields also fell again Tuesday, with the 10-year yielding 1.94 percent in late trading.
"Oil is destructive for now," said Crescenzi. "In the end, it's a giant positive for the global economy and the U.S. economy. The disruptive element is what's driving trading activity."
Crescenzi said the 10-year yield has moved away from fair value. "We think it has moved beyond its fundamental value at these levels, but we recognize the global forces in play," he said. The 10-year yield has been moving lower in part on buying by investors who find U.S. yields more attractive than those in places like Europe or Japan.
"It would be surprising if it stayed below 2 percent this year," he said.
Emanuel said he expects the markets to stay volatile as some key hurdles are overcome, like the Greek election and ECB meeting, as well as the Fed's meeting Jan. 28.
"The volatility is going to be with us for at least another two weeks, with the potential of going into February," said Emanuel. "From the positioning point of view, it's shocking to us how much January of '15, looks like January of '14. People came in bullish stocks and very bearish bonds. The interest rate thesis is getting thrown out the window this week with the combination of concerns, which of course are helping along the selloff in oil."
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Even if the Fed's minutes or ADP's private payroll data help stanch some of the selling in stocks, analysts say the market should remain volatile.
| 16.965517 | 0.724138 | 0.931034 |
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http://www.cnbc.com/2014/10/01/potential-for-500-point-drop-next-month-trader.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151010185632id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2014/10/01/potential-for-500-point-drop-next-month-trader.html
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Potential for 500-point drop next month: Trader
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20151010185632
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"And the reason to be nervous is that the market at that point should have gone higher," he said. "It did not go higher—a classic example of 'good news, bad action' on the confluence of positive indicators that week. We're in the process of correcting."
Read MoreEbola could affect these stocks: Traders
While Terranova remained bullish over the long term, the next quarter or two might not be so rosy, he said.
"Three to six months from now, what do I think? I think that when this correction ends, it was a tremendous buying opportunity," he said. "But I don't think this correction ends until we have a down-500 day. And I think the potential for that in the next month is there."
Steven Weiss of Short Hills Capital pointed to the divergence between the S&P 500 and the Russell 2000.
"I'm a little nervous," he said. "The bet is: Are small caps right? Or is the S&P right? So, when you take a look, you sort of get spoiled by how the S&P's performed this year because it's still having a fairly decent year on the back of last year.
Read More No, Alibaba IPO doesn't signal a market top: Pros
"But small caps, the Russell 2000, that's down over 4½ percent, was down 6 percent last month, second month out of three we saw that. Emerging markets are down on the year. Europe's down on the year."
While Weiss said that "it's all pretty ugly out there," he expected third-quarter earnings to reinvigorate the S&P and bolster confidence in the U.S. economy.
"In the interim, you've got to really come to grips with what your view is on rates," he said. "I think rates go up sooner rather than later."
Read More What to expect next from momentum stocks: Pros
OptionMonster's Jon Najarian noted that following negative economic news in Germany, Italy and the United States, as well as Freddy Mac and Fannie Mae and the first U.S. Ebola outbreak in Texas, stocks were down just 1 percent.
Five percent, he added, was more apropos.
"That's what I want in reaction to that much bad news. I mean, that's a heck of a lot of bad news to throw at the market," he said. "If you had that much good news thrown at the market, we'd be up a lot more than 1 percent."
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Sentiment on the stock market might have been too high for a couple of weeks, Joe Terranova of Virtus Investment Partners says.
| 21.083333 | 0.5 | 0.583333 |
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http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/27/reuters-america-update-3-oil-prices-rise-as-global-market-fears-ease-but-outlook-remains-weak.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151011050242id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/27/reuters-america-update-3-oil-prices-rise-as-global-market-fears-ease-but-outlook-remains-weak.html
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UPDATE 3-Oil prices rise as global market fears ease, but outlook remains weak
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20151011050242
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* U.S. crude inventory down 5.5 mln bbls last week -EIA
* Global markets take heart from Wall Street rally
* But overproduction, weakening China still weigh on oil
(Adds China car sales, updates prices)
SEOUL/SINGAPORE, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Oil prices climbed by around $1 a barrel on Thursday on an unexpected fall in U.S. crude inventories and a rally in global equity markets, although ongoing oversupply capped gains.
Asian stocks rose on Thursday as a sharp rebound on Wall Street and gains in battered Chinese shares eased fears of a deep and protracted global market rout, while the dollar also rallied as risk aversion eased.
Oil markets moved away from 2009 lows reached earlier this week, although high production around the world and a weakening Asian demand outlook still dragged on prices.
Front-month Brent, the global oil benchmark, was up $1.16, or 2.67 percent, at $44.30 a barrel by 0636 GMT. U.S. crude's front-month contract was up $1.11 at $39.71 a barrel.
U.S. crude inventories fell 5.5 million barrels in the week to Aug. 21, the biggest one-week decline since early June, data from the Energy Information Administration showed on Wednesday. That was in line with the industry group the American Petroleum Institute's late-Tuesday report.
Analysts had expected an increase of 1 million barrels.
Yet some said the inventory fall may not mark the start of a trend. "This sudden drop in inventories should be the result of drops in U.S. crude imports, suggesting that this week could be an anomaly," said Daniel Ang of Singapore-based brokerage Phillip Futures.
And despite a pick-up in markets across Asia on Thursday, the overall economic outlook in the region remained weak.
In a move to support auto sales in China, which have dropped for four straight months in their longest downturn on record, the Beijing government this week cut reserve requirements for auto and financial leasing companies.
But the measures may not be enough to boost car sales or oil demand, which has also been hit by the weakening auto sector.
Yale Zhang, head of Shanghai-based consultancy Automotive Foresight, said that while the reserve rate cut would make it easier to finance car sales, the move offered largely "psychological support" as most Chinese car-buyers still made their purchases in cash, without financing.
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*Global markets take heart from Wall Street rally. *But overproduction, weakening China still weigh on oil. SEOUL/ SINGAPORE, Aug 27- Oil prices climbed by around $1 a barrel on Thursday on an unexpected fall in U.S. crude inventories and a rally in global equity markets, although ongoing oversupply capped gains.
| 7.864407 | 0.966102 | 21.711864 |
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http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/30/reuters-america-forex-dollar-begins-week-under-pressure-but-above-last-weeks-lows.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151011200931id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/30/reuters-america-forex-dollar-begins-week-under-pressure-but-above-last-weeks-lows.html
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FOREX-Dollar begins week under pressure, but above last week's lows
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20151011200931
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* Dollar on track for monthly losses against major peers
* U.S. data this week awaited for clues to Fed rate-hike timing
TOKYO, Aug 31 (Reuters) - The dollar began the week under pressure on Monday, on track for monthly losses but off recent lows as investors kept alive hope that U.S. jobs data later this week would give the U.S. Federal Reserve reason to raise interest rates as early as next month.
The dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six rival currencies, was at 95.924, down 0.2 percent from Friday's U.S. levels and about 1.5 percent down for the month. But it logged its largest weekly gain in a month, and was well above a seven-month low of 92.621 plumbed a week ago as fears about China sent global equities markets plunging.
The dollar was down about 0.4 percent at 121.28 yen, down about 2 percent for August, but well above a seven-month low of 116.15 touched a week ago.
The euro was up 0.3 percent at $1.1215, below last week's high of $1.1715 but still up more than 2 percent for the month.
Investors awaited the key nonfarm payrolls data on Friday for clues as the whether the Fed would take its long-awaited step to raise interest rates. U.S. business surveys, factory orders and trade data will also be released this week.
"The release of U.S. ADP employment on Wednesday and non-farm payrolls on Friday will be key in analysing the quantum of a September rate hike," Angus Nicholson, market analyst at trading services provider IG in Melbourne, wrote in a note to clients.
Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer said in a speech at the annual central bankers' meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming on Saturday that U.S. inflation will likely rebound as pressure from the dollar fades, allowing the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates gradually.
Markets were pricing in a more than 1-in-2 chance the U.S. Fed would raise interest rates in October, after Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart suggested the Fed could consider such a move.
Lockhart said a 50-percent probability at its Sept. 16-17 meeting seems reasonable, though rates indicated expectations for a September hike at about 37 percent.
The latest data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission released on Friday showed speculators pared back bullish dollar bets in the latest week to their smallest in more than two months.
The dollar's net long position fell to $23.99 billion in the week ended Aug. 25, from $32.26 billion the previous week - the first time in four weeks that the net dollar-long figure came in below $30 billion.
(Reporting by Lisa Twaronite; Editing by Eric Meijer)
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TOKYO, Aug 31- The dollar began the week under pressure on Monday, on track for monthly losses but off recent lows as investors kept alive hope that U.S. jobs data later this week would give the U.S. But it logged its largest weekly gain in a month, and was well above a seven-month low of 92.621 plumbed a week ago as fears about China sent global equities markets plunging.
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5 ways to play oil's steep decline
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20151012191633
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Investors looking for an short amid oil's rout have a variety of options, trader Brian Kelly said. Canadian Pacific, which could "break down," and Greenbrier would make solid shorts, Kelly argued.
"Those are your trades if you want to short this play, if you think oil's going lower or staying at this levels for long periods of time," Kelly said.
Read MoreRoger Altman: Oil collapse like $200B stimulus
He advised against shorting CSX, which is not a "proxy" for oil.
CSX fell to just over $33 per share on Tuesday. The company, which reported revenue that beat expectations on Tuesday, is not as exposed to oil as many other energy stocks because much of its revenue comes from coal.
Read MoreOil's new normal is lower for longer: Goldman
"I think right now makes a good entry point, but if it fails yesterday's low, that's where you bail," trader Steve Grasso said.
Grasso noted that U.S. crude could potentially hit $38 a barrel, while trader Dan Nathan said oil would hit a bottom after a "massive, massive capitulation."
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Putting money into the commodity itself was among the moves CNBC "Fast Money" traders would make at current prices.
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http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/09/reuters-america-precious-gold-holds-near-4-week-low-as-fund-outflows-us-data-weigh.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151012200314id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/09/reuters-america-precious-gold-holds-near-4-week-low-as-fund-outflows-us-data-weigh.html
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PRECIOUS-Gold holds near 4-week low as fund outflows, US data weigh
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20151012200314
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* Gold retains 1.4 percent drop overnight
* SPDR sees 4-tonne outflow
* Softer Asian shares fail to lift gold
(Adds comments from traders) SINGAPORE, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Gold languished near a four-week low on Thursday, retaining sharp overnight losses, as strong U.S. economic data and outflows from bullion-backed exchange traded funds sapped investor interest. Spot gold was little changed at $1,106.65 an ounce by 0339 GMT, after losing 1.4 percent in the previous session - its biggest daily drop since July 20. The metal slid to $1,101.11 on Wednesday, its lowest since Aug. 11. U.S. gold was up 0.4 percent at $1,106.10, but largely holding on to a 1.7 percent drop overnight. Gold could see further weakness leading up to the Federal Reserve policy meeting on Sept. 16-17, traders said. Prices could head back towards July lows as bullion broke through some key technical levels in Wednesday trade, said analysts at ScotiaMocatta. The July low of $1,077 for spot gold was the weakest since February 2010. "The $1,100 level should prop up gold during Asian trade today as physical names look to snap up the metal at these levels," said MKS Group trader Sam Laughlin. The $1,115-$1,120 range should cap any moves higher, though the metal may again see further downward pressure in London and New York once Chinese demand is removed, he said. Many traders were awaiting the U.S. central bank's next policy statement on Sept. 17 for clues on the timing of a U.S. interest rate rise, before taking any big positions in gold. Bullion has benefited in recent years from ultra-low rates, which cut the opportunity cost of holding bullion while holding the dollar in check. But expectations that rates will rise soon have pushed the metal down more than 6 percent this year. Economic data on Wednesday showed U.S. job openings surged to a record high in July and employers appeared to have trouble filling openings, the latest signal of an increasingly tight labor market that could push the Federal Reserve closer to raising interest rates. Investor interest in gold has been tepid. SPDR Gold Trust, the world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, said its holdings fell 0.61 percent to 678.18 tonnes on Wednesday - the biggest drop since Aug. 12. A drop in Asian equities on Thursday failed to prop up gold, often seen as a safe haven. Asian stocks fell on Thursday after lackluster Chinese and Japanese economic data added to heightened worries about slackening global growth, denting investors' appetite for riskier assets.
Metal Last Change Pct chg Spot gold 1106.65 0.95 0.09 Spot silver 14.57 -0.04 -0.27 Spot platinum 982 1 0.1 Spot palladium 579.2 -0.1 -0.02 Comex gold 1106.1 4.1 0.37 Comex silver 14.59 0.014 0.1 Euro 1.1208 DXY 95.976
COMEX gold and silver contracts show the most active months
(Reporting by A. Ananthalakshmi; Editing by Himani Sarkar)
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*Gold retains 1.4 percent drop overnight. SINGAPORE, Sept 10- Gold languished near a four-week low on Thursday, retaining sharp overnight losses, as strong U.S. economic data and outflows from bullion-backed exchange traded funds sapped investor interest. Gold could see further weakness leading up to the Federal Reserve policy meeting on Sept. 16-17, traders...
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http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/11/ter-911-lower-manhattan-is-rising-as-wtc-work-nears-its-end.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151012225854id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/11/ter-911-lower-manhattan-is-rising-as-wtc-work-nears-its-end.html
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14 years after 9/11, lower Manhattan is rising as WTC work nears its end
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20151012225854
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But most advances have been less striking. They range from the installation of 1,000 pieces of bomb-resistant glass in the retractable skylight of the soaring "Oculus'' pavilion in the bird-like Transit Hub, to planting trees in Liberty Park at the south end of the site.
Moreover, as construction begins to wind down, people can go places that were inaccessible (like the intersection of Greenwich and Fulton streets, obliterated in the 1960s by the original Trade Center super block) and see the previously invisible (the vista from the WTC PATH subway station mezzanine of the gleaming white marble train platforms).
Pedestrians also can enjoy the first partial public views inside the main hall of the Transit Hub, a space that rivals Grand Central Terminal's in grandeur and exceeds it in size.
Read More Crowdfund investing: 3 World Trade Center
Some of the city's worst pedestrian choke points – products of a confluence of construction and office workers, tourists and subway commuters – finally are easing. (The crush at Vesey and Church streets was nicknamed "Vesey Squeezy.'')
For example, the opening of the sidewalk on the north side of Liberty Street, between Church and Greenwich streets, has cleared a pedestrian bottleneck produced by the opening of the memorial, museum and an office tower.
The fear of terrorism that once suffused the area has been assuaged by intense security and obscured by growing congestion.
On Sept. 11, 2001, about 20,000 people lived in lower Manhattan; in the months that followed, about 10,000 left. Today, the area's population is 70,000 and rising. On Wednesday, in a sign of the times, Peck Slip public elementary school opened to accommodate the growing number of children.
Some fears linger. As recently as November, Chris Rock said in his Saturday Night Live monologue that One WTC, originally known as the Freedom Tower, should be called the "'Never Going in There Tower,' because I'm never going in there.''
Read MoreThe World Trade Center reopens after 13 years
But now people wait in line to visit the tower's observation deck, despite the $32 tab. "They say this is the safest building in New York City,'' says Shelly Murphy, visiting with her children from Birmingham, Ala. And she believes it.
That sense of security is costly, in dollars and inconvenience.
The entire site is under intense surveillance by local and federal anti-terrorism squads. Every delivery vehicle and bus entering the network of underground service roads will pass through the $700 million Vehicle Security Center, which has yet to open. Greenwich Street, the newly opened north-south route through the site, will be limited to pedestrians because of a fear of car bombs.
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There's been unspectacular, incremental, sometimes almost imperceptible progress at the WTC, USA Today reports.
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http://www.cnbc.com/2015/01/20/main-street-reaches-for-a-comeback.html
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Main Street reaches for a comeback
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By a growing stack of indicators, 2015 may be the year Main Street finally reaches a comeback.
Small business trends are heading positive, including more job creation, higher wages and an improved overall sentiment among small business owners—which recently reached an eight-year high. While lending among start-ups remains relatively tight, recent joint data from the Federal Reserve Banks of New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Atlanta show pockets of businesses seeking capital with plans to grow.
Among smaller businesses seeking credit under $100,000, nearly 40 percent said the primary purpose was business expansion, according to the banks' small business credit survey released Thursday.
More business owners are feeling buoyant, too. The small business optimism index rose 2.3 points to 100.4 in December—the highest reading since October 2006. The latest sentiment reading was released last week by the National Federation of Independent Business.
The optimism index has 10 components, with eight showing gains—a sign Main Street could finally be shaking off the Great Recession. Smaller employers plan to hire more workers, invest in capital outlays and anticipate higher sales.
Read MoreAmericans shake off economic pessimism
Another Main Street positive is higher wages. NFIB Chief Economist William Dunkelberg told CNBC that compensation is trending upward among small business owners, rising by an average of 20 percent over the past several months. December showed a 25 percent increase in compensation, and November recorded a 21 percent uptick.
The wage gains may reflect additional health-care benefits. "The thing to remember is that compensation includes wages and benefits," Dunkelberg said. "That increase could be due to Obamacare."
Under the Affordable Care Act, employers with 100 or more full-time workers have to offer coverage or face a penalty of $2,000 per worker per year for failing to comply.
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By a growing stack of indicators, 2015 may be the year Main Street finally hits a comeback.
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US Treasury yields rise; Fed eyed
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20151013042232
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Treasurys tumbled on Tuesday as upbeat consumer spending data lowered demand for U.S. debt, pushing the two-year note yield to its highest level since 2011.
The two-year note yield hit a session high of 0.815 percent, its highest level since 2011, according to FactSet data. The three-year note yield rose to its highest in more than two years at 1.122 percent, according to Reuters. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield increased 8 basis points to 2.27 percent, a session high. When a bond yield falls, the price rises.
Strategists said the August retail sales report, along with the idea that the Fed may pass on an interest rate hike at Thursday's meeting helped to push investors away from safer assets such as Treasurys. U.S. stocks rose 1 percent, with the Dow adding more than 200 points.
"There is some unusual market action in the short end of the Treasury yield curve today," said Peter Boockvar, chief market analyst at the Lindsey Group. "I'm hearing that there is unwinding of steepening trades and there very well could be positioning shifts ahead of Thursday. These moves are sharp and we can only assume the violent moves we'll see if the Fed actually raises rates."
U.S. August retail sales data for August rose 0.2 percent, slightly below the expected 0.3 percent growth, while July's figures were revised upward. Separately, the Empire State manufacturing survey showed activity in the region declined more than expected.
Read MoreLast look at consumer before Fed meets
The data comes just a day before the Federal Reserve kicks off a highly anticipated policy meeting where it could decide to raise benchmark interest rates for the first time in more than nine years.
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Bonds tumbled as upbeat consumer spending data lowered demand for U.S. debt, pushing the two-year note yield to its highest level since 2011.
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ANALYSIS-Fed hesitation, UK politics and central bank independence
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LONDON, Sept 16 (Reuters) - The era of extraordinary monetary policy and central bank dominance of macroeconomic policy may be at a critical juncture - and not just at this week's Fed meeting in Washington.
The U.S. Federal Reserve decides on Thursday whether to end its seven-year experiment with zero interest rates, having halted its money-printing 'quantitative easing' programme last year.
It's a big moment for an approach to financial crisis management previously untried in modern western economies - one that overwhelmed financial markets but with no shortage of critics on all sides of the political spectrum.
For the central bank to say its economy is now strong enough to take higher borrowing rates marks a significant, if long-awaited, success for this unorthodox and controversial approach.
The U.S. recovery is real, if unspectacular. The economy is back near full employment. And fears that money printing would lead to rampant inflation have proved so wide of the mark that one of the few reasons the Fed might actually hesitate is due to lingering fear of headline deflation.
"We see a compelling case for commencing Fed action this week," said Deutsche Bank's research chief David Folkerts-Landau, citing the tight labour markets and likely rebound of temporarily depressed inflation as key reasons.
But a U.S. rate rise this week is far from assured, however, and far from the consensus view.
Powerful voices from both the World Bank to former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers say the Fed should hold off with headline inflation still near zero, the dollar rising and amid ructions on international markets.
Forecasters are narrowly split on the timing of a rate hike, and markets now only see a 1-in-4 chance of a move this week. Some doubt a move before 2016.
Any potential hesitation may well split the jury again on the legacy of QE and again raise political questions about central banks' power and mandates.
One of those queries was whether government bond buying and zero rates had compromised central bank independence by giving them a quasi-fiscal as well as monetary policy role that effectively underwrote mounting sovereign debts.
The concern has been that central banks, ultimately accountable to elected governments if not directed by them, may find it politically difficult to reverse course if that exit threatened the stability of government finances.
Who directs the decision then is key for both conservatives wary of any monetization of government spending and left-leaning politicians who fret that lifting interest rates could force more austerity to offset higher government interest bills.
And the decision-making process is less than clear cut. Central banking watchdog the Bank for International Settlements has for years warned about the increasingly "blurred lines" between various mandates of monetary policy, financial stability and government debt management.
Developments in British politics this week make for an interesting backdrop and show not everyone would bemoan the end of central bank independence - a relatively short-lived experience of less than 20 years for many countries, including the United Kingdom.
Designed to prevent ruling parties abusing monetary policy to help win elections, some critics reckon central bank independence itself is the historical experiment and stress that it has not prevented booms and busts or market crises nor has it been unambiguously positive for everyone.
Many liberal and left-wing economists, including Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, have blamed government bond buying and zero rates for exaggerating inequality by inflating asset prices held mostly by the wealthy.
On Monday, Jeremy Corbyn, the newly elected left-wing leader of Britain's main opposition Labour Party, appointed a finance spokesman who has in the past called for Bank of England independence to be reversed and interest rates to be set by government once again.
"In the first week of a Labour Government democratic control of the major economic decisions would be restored by ending the Bank of England's control over interest rates and bringing the nationalised and subsidised banks under direct control," shadow Chancellor John McDonnell wrote in 2012.
What's more, Corbyn also proposes a "People's QE" where any future BoE bond buying be directed to newly issued bonds of a national development bank, the proceeds of which would fund infrastructure spending that creates jobs and public goods.
Tax expert and Corbyn adviser Richard Murphy, who came up with the idea, insists this would not necessarily be a big departure from current practice. Treasury, he claims, already has to authorise any QE operation and its makeup and the idea of independence is often overstated, he said.
"It is obvious that the strategy and policy decisions on QE lie with the Treasury," Murphy wrote this week, adding: "The Bank has a legal duty to support government fiscal policy."
Even if a Labour Party, currently trailing the ruling Conservatives in opinion polls, struggles to get elected, its stance does bring questions about the role and control of the central bank back into popular discourse once again.
In arguing for more BoE QE in 2012, then Bank of England policymaker and U.S. academic Adam Posen addressed that point directly: "The source of central bank independence is public support from elected officials that the central bank is pursuing desirable social goals."
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LONDON, Sept 16- The era of extraordinary monetary policy and central bank dominance of macroeconomic policy may be at a critical juncture- and not just at this week's Fed meeting in Washington. "We see a compelling case for commencing Fed action this week," said Deutsche Bank's research chief David Folkerts-Landau, citing the tight labour markets and likely...
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Warrnambool's Middle Island Maremma Project crowdfunding for penguin guards
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20151013084559
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In 2005, the penguin colony, which remains on the island over breeding season, had been reduced by fox attacks to fewer than 10 identified birds, down from a peak of an estimated 800 penguins in 1999. A urgent conservation solution was clearly required.
Allan Marsh, a local chicken farmer, had an idea. He used maremmas to protect his free-range chickens from fox attacks, so volunteered his own chicken protector, a dog named Oddball, as the first trial dog to protect the penguins. Penguins, after all, were really just "chooks in dinner suits" to the foxes, he noted, referring to the Australian slang word for chickens.
The project, which launched in 2006, was a raging success.
"Previous methods involved poison baits, traps and shooting, but it only takes one fox to encroach the island to result in multiple penguin kills," said Peter Abbott, a maremma dog trainer and manager of tourism services in the Warrnambool City Council.
Since the introduction of the unique conservation program, not a single penguin has been lost to foxes, according to Abbott.
Read MoreKangaroos Can Fly!... with a doctor's note
The project even inspired 'Oddball', an Australian movie that premiered this week about the first canine penguin guardian.
Now the Middle Island Maremma Project needs new penguin-guards. The project hopes to raise about A$25,000 on the Pozible crowdfunding platform, which will be used to buy and train two maremma puppies, as the current eight-year old patrol dogs Eudy and Tula prepare for retirement.
"We like the crowdsourcing option as it gives us the opportunity for a wide audience to get involved, as well as showcase the project in an interesting and positive manner," said Abbott.
"[The puppies will] learn the smells and shapes of the penguin along with learning they are a normal part of island life…the dogs instinctively learn to protect the island from anything unusual such as foxes."
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On Middle Island in Warrnambool, Australia, there is a peculiar conservation solution involving little penguins, marauding foxes and maremma dogs.
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CNBC Excerpts: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie Speaks with CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Today
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20151013091239
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WHEN: Today, Friday, September 18th
Following are excerpts from the unofficial transcript of a CNBC interview with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on CNBC's "Squawk Box" (M-F, 6AM-9AM ET) today. Following are links to the interview on CNBC.com: http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000422271, http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000422274 and http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000422307.
All references must be sourced to CNBC.
They are playing out of fear. They don't want to eliminate the filibuster because they go oh, we are going to be in the minority at some point and we are going to want the filibuster. How about you've got the majority, let's do something about it while you have it. And that is what I don't get and that is why you know, someone asked me a year or two ago when Senator Lautenberg passed away, would I appoint myself to the United States Senate. And I said I would rather commit suicide than be in the United States Senate because I could not bear every day going to work and getting nothing done.
CHRISTIE ON THE TAX SYSTEM
My problem with Donald's plan and everyone else is twofold. One, it doesn't really fix anything. And two, the fact is that they are just going after symbolism. Let's fix the real problem. The real problem is this tax system is rigged. It's not good, it's not good for our economy, let's fix that. Let's stop looking to see who can be the toughest on the rich because that makes good headlines. That is what Hillary Clinton does. That is not what real people who understand the economy do.
Let's eliminate all the loop holes and deductions except for the home mortgage interest deduction, the charitable contribution deduction. Bring the top rate down to 28%, have three rates – have the bottom rate be 8%. Everybody gets to do their taxes in 15 minutes and everybody feels like the system is treating them fairly. The biggest problem is the middle class in this country feels like the tax system is rigged against them. And the reason they feel that way is because it is.
You know what the key is to attracting female voters? Is to speak to them or talk to them the same way you speak to male voters. And the fact is, you don't want to be treated any differently on this set because you are a woman. And Carly is not going to be treated any differently by me on a debate stage because she's a woman and she wouldn't want it that way. I said the same thing to Kasich. Remember Kasich was trying to – and I said John, I'm not done yet. Now nobody asks me about saying that to John Kasich, right? Well believe me, Carly Fiorina is up there competing hard to be the nominee. So am I. She interrupts me, I'm going to tell her don't interrupt me.
In politics you have to be patient. And it is the hardest thing. And it is the hardest thing for a guy like me. You know, I am used to pushing and pushing. I live in a state, as you know, where I am an outsider every day as a Republican. The fact is that you've got to be patient. And I'm just going to keep doing my work, working hard, and we will be fine ultimately. But you know, for people who don't like you, they think that is whistling past the graveyard. For people who support you like Ken supports me, we know that this will come around. But it is just going to take time.
CHRISTIE ON POLITICS BEING A VOLATILE BUSINESS
Let's remember, you know, right now, four years ago, Rick Perry was at 30%. Four years later, he is out of the race for a second time. So, you know, politics is a very volatile business. And the people who are rewarded are the people who are steady and strong, know what they believe in, know who they are and can speak to the concerns of the American people.
With CNBC in the U.S., CNBC in Asia Pacific, CNBC in Europe, Middle East and Africa, CNBC World and CNBC HD , CNBC is the recognized world leader in business news and provides real-time financial market coverage and business information to approximately 371 million homes worldwide, including more than 100 million households in the United States and Canada. CNBC also provides daily business updates to 400 million households across China. The network's 15 live hours a day of business programming in North America (weekdays from 4:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m. ET) is produced at CNBC's global headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., and includes reports from CNBC News bureaus worldwide. CNBC at night features a mix of new reality programming, CNBC's highly successful series produced exclusively for CNBC and a number of distinctive in-house documentaries.
CNBC also has a vast portfolio of digital products which deliver real-time financial market news and information across a variety of platforms. These include CNBC.com, the online destination for global business; CNBC PRO, the premium, integrated desktop/mobile service that provides real-time global market data and live access to CNBC global programming; and a suite of CNBC Mobile products including the CNBC Real-Time iPhone and iPad Apps.
Members of the media can receive more information about CNBC and its programming on the NBC Universal Media Village Web site at http://www.nbcumv.com/mediavillage/networks/cnbc/.
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CNBC Excerpts: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie Speaks with CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Today
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151015144908id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/10/13/biggest-beer-makers-join-forces-face-industry-challenges/18w7LKFnt8MFv8Z5DrYTaI/story.html
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Biggest beer makers to join forces to face industry challenges
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BRUSSELS — The world’s biggest beer maker clinched a deal Tuesday to take over its nearest rival, in a bid to stave off the megabrewers’ biggest problems: the surge in popularity of craft brews and weakening sales in the US and Europe.
SABMiller accepted in principle a takeover bid valued at 69 billion pounds ($106 billion) from Anheuser-Busch InBev. The combined company would control nearly one-third of the global beer market.
Belgium-based AB InBev, already the world’s largest brewer, makes Budweiser, Corona, Stella Artois and Beck’s. SABMiller, based in London, has Miller Genuine Draft, Peroni, and Milwaukee’s Best among its 200 or so brands.
AB InBev’s determination to close the deal after five attempts shows how established beer brands know they have to act to adapt to shifting global tastes.
“The global beer market overall is largely flat and in some regions is declining as other beverages such as wine continue to penetrate,’’ said John Colley, professor at Warwick Business School in England. ‘‘Microbrewers and their highly differentiated cask ales also continue to make progress.’’
In the United States, craft beer sales account for 10 percent of beer volumes, compared with virtually nothing a few years ago. The same could soon apply in Europe, said Giulio Lombardi, senior director at Fitch Ratings.
In coming years, beer sales are expected to grow most in emerging economies in regions such as Africa, where SABMiller has a strong presence.
The sheer size of the deal, however, is likely to invite resistance from regulators, amid concerns that the merger could stifle competition and reduce consumer choice. But most analysts believe the two companies are geographically diverse enough that regulators will not have to scrap the deal outright.
‘‘Approval will be a bit of a challenge but easier than it would be for most deals of this size,’’ said Erik Gordon of the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.
‘‘The problem jurisdictions will be the US and China,’’ Gordon said. ‘‘The Miller-Coors venture in the US probably will be unwound, and some assets will be divested in China.’’
How the companies’ dominance might ultimately affect prices for consumers is unclear, but experts say the merger would give the brewers more power to negotiate deals with suppliers, distributors, and retailers.
The deal’s success would also depend on the combined companies’ ability to make savings through job cuts.
‘‘AB InBev has both a reputation and demonstrable track record for being able to effectively extract these savings,’’ Colley said.
He said to ‘‘expect substantial redundancies’’ over the coming year, potentially in head offices and country management teams.
SABMiller employs 69,000 people in 83 countries. AB InBev has 155,000 workers in 25 countries.
Having dismissed previous proposals as undervaluing the company, the directors of SABMiller unanimously agreed to an offer that values each SABMiller share at 44 pounds. SABMiller’s two biggest shareholders, Marlboro owner Altria and Colombia’s BevCo, would get cash and shares for their combined 41 percent stake.
AB InBev has until Oct. 28 to come up with a formal offer. In that time, the two sides will work on the terms and conditions of the takeover as well as the financing of the deal.
The markets think the deal is now likely, and SABMiller’s shares rose to near the bid price. They closed up 8.4 percent at 39.26 pounds ($60.45) in London. AB InBev’s share price rose 1.7 percent to 100 euros ($114) in Brussels.
In statements, the two companies said the all-cash offer represents a premium of around 50 percent to SABMiller’s share price on Sept. 14, the last trading day before renewed speculation of an approach from AB InBev emerged.
The new company is expected to be based in Belgium, home to AB InBev’s current headquarters, where there is a beer tradition dating back to the Middle Ages.
AB InBev has agreed to pay $3 billion to SABMiller if the deal does not close because of failure to get the approval of regulators or AB InBev shareholders.
The global market share of AB InBev and SABMiller together would be about 31 percent, dwarfing the 9 percent of Heineken, the next closest competitor.
The Miller line of beers in the United States is parked in a joint venture with Molson Coors in which SABMiller owns a 58 percent stake. SABMiller’s joint venture in China, CR Snow, with China Resources Enterprise is also tipped to go.
Following Tuesday’s announcement, Fitch reiterated that it may downgrade its credit rating on AB InBev. Lombardi warned about the burden of the combined companies’ $125 billion in debt, given the tough market conditions.
The deal is ‘‘great’’ in terms of its scope for savings, he said, but he is ‘‘mindful of the challenges big brewers face.’’
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SABMiller accepted in principle a takeover bid valued at $106 billion from Anheuser-Busch InBev. The combined company would control nearly one-third of the global beer market.
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Chris Hemsworth Joins Instagram : People.com
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20151015202116
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10/12/2015 AT 09:30 PM EDT
has made his Instagram debut very unforgettable.
In his first photo – a selfie – the Australian actor is seen peering over a huge, slithering friend (or foe, depending on who you ask) in the background.
"Hangin with the locals in my backyard⦠the real Jurassic Park," the 32-year-old captioned the
of himself and a snake.
While the limbless reptile seems terrifying to us, action man Hemsworth doesn't seem to be the least bit afraid.
It is unclear if the
actor owns the snake, but he and wife
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Chris Hemsworth made his Instagram debut with the help of an unforgettable friend
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Kylie Jenner and Kourtney Kardashian Pray for Him on Twitter : People.com
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10/15/2015 AT 02:35 PM EDT
have broken their social media silence about
Jenner, 18, took to Instagram to post an old black-and-white photo of her and Odom dancing in a car together.
"Let's dance again together soon," she wrote as the caption on
. "Prayers up for Lamar please."
The post marks the first time Jenner has spoken out since she
on Tuesday after learning the news.
Jenner also shared a video of Odom dancing and doing the "stanky leg."
"Stanky leg soon.." she wrote.
A video posted by King Kylie (@kyliejenner) on Oct 15, 2015 at 11:15am PDT
Kardashian, 36, also took to Instagram to share her prayers, posting an old picture of the former basketball star and her son Mason, now 5.
"Believing in the power of prayer for this beautiful soul," she wrote.
at Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas, where he was rushed to after being
at a Nevada brothel Tuesday afternoon.
The former NBA player had
and opiates in his system, sources told PEOPLE.
Also on Thursday, Jenner's boyfriend
, 25, shared his own
post in support of Odom: "Stay strong bro. We all praying for you champ. God Got a plan for you."
for the former NBA star.
From left: Kylie Jenner, Kourtney Kardashian and Kim Kardashian West
The famous family, with the exception of Rob, has gathered in Las Vegas for Odom. Odom's estranged wife
since flying in Tuesday night, sources told PEOPLE.
despite having split two years ago.
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"Believing in the power of prayer for this beautiful soul," Kourtney Kardashian tweeted Thursday
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http://fortune.com/2012/10/09/fcx-performance-switching-sponsors/
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FCX Performance switching sponsors
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FORTUNE — Private equity firm Harvest Partners in in talks to acquire FCX Performance Inc., a Columbus, Ohio-based distributor of specialty flow control equipment, according to an FTC filing. The seller would be Sterling Investment Partners, which acquired FCX in October 2008 for an undisclosed amount.
The predecessor company to FTX was founded in 1984 as Simco Controls, by current FTX chief executive Charlie Simon. In 1999, Simco was acquired by a subsidiary of a UK company, and renamed FCX International.
Since then, it has had multiple private equity owners. British private equity firm Alchemy Partners acquired the parent company in 2002, and three years later Simon carved out FCX with the help of Stonehenge Partners. Then came Sterling in 2008, and now Harvest Partners.
Simon declined to comment on the new deal, while messages left for Harvest and Sterling have not yet been returned.
According to its website, FCX currently has over 400 employees and provides its valves and instrumentation products to markets that include food, pharmaceuticals, energy, paper and petroleum.
Sign up for Dan’s daily email newsletter on deals and deal-makers: GetTermSheet.com
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Ohio company getting yet another new private equity owner.
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/may/15/susan-collier-obituary
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Susan Collier obituary
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For 50 years the work of Susan Collier, who has died of cancer aged 72, patterned houses and garments, haute couture and high streets. The most famous patterns are in every textbook as exemplars of the art, and many readers would recognise their mother's curtains, their aunt's scarf and their wedding-present sheets, but be unaware of the partnership of Collier and her sister Sarah Campbell, who created them. Cloth was Collier's medium, and pattern was the way she told a story, conversed, manifested her philosophy, and entered people's visual memories. When her retrospective exhibition opens at the National theatre later this month, there will be as much of her work on the visitors as on the walls.
She attributed her gifts, including her sensitivity to colour, to her parents: her mother, the actor Patience Collier, who painted Susan's chair the peculiar red and yellow she requested, and gave her paper and brush; and her father, the pharmacologist Harry Collier, who took her on walks to stare hard at nature, spending hours peering at butterfly wings.
Susan was born in Manchester. Wherever they lived, Collier's parents planted flowers, and she was excited by their intense shades. Her formative encounter, aged around five, was with "my lifelong friend Matisse", through a book of reproductions with his name printed in a "fantastic, special blue ink" on its cover. She wanted to be a painter, but "knew I wasn't Matisse". What she could be, she realised when she shopped for fabrics in the department store Derry & Toms, and found them all morose, was a painter of textile designs.
Collier was self-taught, dogsbodying for the freelance designer Pat Albeck and selling her own initial sketches to the scarf brands Richard Allan and Jacq- mar. In 1961, she approached Liberty with a portfolio; if they bought two images, this would be her career. They bought six, and commissioned more.
As a born subversive, she challenged the rules of mechanical patterning, which from block to roller-cylinder print overorganised design, in what she described as a "plonkity-plonk" manner. Her motto was "cheat the repeat". "I was politically motivated to produce beautiful cloth for the mass market," she said. She enjoyed laundering and ironing too, all part of a textile's life-cycle. She wanted her prints to be painterly, the brushmarks left in – visibly hand-created though mass-produced, not an easy effect to achieve through machines. When you see her art work, gouache creamy as custard, thin brush squiggles all over, you hear the indrawn breath of a printer about to say: "Are you sure you want it done like that?"
Liberty retained her from 1968, her speciality being lively blossoms on Tana cotton lawn. She had married a noted pharmacologist, Andrew Herxheimer, in 1961, and they had small children, so she trained up her younger sister Sarah as an assistant. She helped in school holidays, went to art college, and joined her at Liberty in 1968. As the firm approached its centenary in 1975, its prints on natural fibres were perfect for a time when printed cloth was the fashion, summers of flowers and winters of paisleys. Liberty prints had been produced in limited runs, but when Collier took over as company design consultant in 1971, she determined to supply the wholesale quantities wanted for couturiers' new ready-to-wear collections, and do the same for furnishings.
The sisters also formed the independent Collier Campbell (C-C) studio, their eventual escape in 1977 from life within Liberty: Collier was the ebullient partner, seldom seen in less than seven yards of assorted patterns. They were a co-op and did not specify who did what, but a tranquil rendering of a difficult line was probably Campbell's, while a rose with heart and guts would be Collier's. "Pleasure sliding across the eye" was her intent, and you got an eyeful of C-C everywhere for almost two decades. Yves Saint Laurent had bespoken a range for his launch of off-the-peg collections ("we sang and danced painting the sketches"); Jean Muir and John Bates settled for special colourways; London independents (including Jaeger) mixed and did not match patterns; Bill Gibb used a print the wrong way up.
On a sunny day you could spot the bright graphics of the clothes C-C sold by post, through magazine adverts. When fashion tired of distinctive prints, there were furnishing commissions from Habitat, Marks & Spencer's first home collection (1985), and the US bedding giant Martex. The print Côte d'Azur (a window on the Mediterranean, Matisse for the masses) from a 1983 collection that won a Design Council award, was so ubiquitous worldwide that I used to send Collier postcards from far away recording sightings – as curtains above the Arctic circle, a cushion in Kyoto.
The cards went to her Queen Anne house in Clapham Old Town, which she had bought derelict in 1969 – grass was growing in its basement kitchen – and restored, planting a secret garden at the back. She stayed there until the late 90s, when the formerly dozy local pubs attracted young hordes. The last straw was a drunk girl passing out on her front path, wearing less than a metre of mangy cloth. She sold up and made ambitious gardens for two subsequent south London homes.
The world had changed. C-C were textile converters as well as designers, managing the supply of raw greige fabrics and printing processes, a business that toughened brutally with globalisation. Collier never wanted to be a big-name brand, which she felt meant fewer fresh ideas plastered over ever more objects; C-C did open a short-lived boutique in Mayfair, but it was just as the luxury trade was investing in anything but the small, chic shop. Although the business harshened further, there has seldom been a year without fresh C-C designs, and Collier was working fiercely almost until her death on a range to coincide with the half-century exhibition.
Her marriage to Herxheimer, and a later marriage to the broadcaster Frank Delany, ended in divorce. Sarah, her brother, Joe, daughters, Sophie and Charlotte, and grandchildren survive her.
• Susan Collier, artist and designer, born 12 October 1938; died 7 May 2011
• This article was amended on 18 May 2011. Mention of Susan Collier's brother, Joe, had been omitted. This has been corrected.
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Inspirational textile designer whose patterns are known all over the world
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/10/20/how-emojis-find-their-way-phones/55BDXgZGNMpvDXS33ZmW0M/story.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151021123341id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/10/20/how-emojis-find-their-way-phones/55BDXgZGNMpvDXS33ZmW0M/story.html
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How Emojis Find Their Way to Phones
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20151021123341
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An obscure organization that standardizes the way punctuation marks and other text are represented by computer systems has in recent years found itself at the forefront of mobile pop culture, with its power to create new emojis.
A new batch is under review, a process that takes months. But don’t call the pictorial system a language, unless you want an argument from Mark Davis, 63, a co-founder and the president of the Unicode Consortium, the group that serves as the midwife to new emojis.
Davis said there was no broadly shared way to interpret the symbols, despite their widespread use on phones and other devices.
“I can tell you, using language, I need to go get a haircut, but only if I can get there by 3 p.m., and otherwise I have to pick up the kids,” he said. “You try to express that in emoji and you get a series of symbols that people could interpret in a thousand different ways.”
In an interview last week, Davis discussed the latest group of 67 images, set for a vote at the consortium’s meeting next spring.
The pictures include a groom in a tuxedo (there is already a bride), a Mother Christmas figure (a counterpart to the existing Santa Claus), a pregnant woman, a drooling face, a clown, a shark, an avocado and two strips of bacon.
The Unicode Consortium is sometimes labeled “mysterious” (as in a recent post from New York magazine) but Davis said there was nothing shadowy about it. Its work is largely transparent, and information about its history, members and processes are included on its website.
The group includes executives from Apple, Google, Facebook and other technology giants. Davis is chief internationalization architect at Google. The group meets quarterly; at a meeting in May, they will vote on whether to formally induct the 67 new emojis.
Unicode was started in the late 1980s to develop a standardized code for text characters. It used to be that different computers could not easily talk to one another because they used different codes for the same letters.
To solve that problem, Unicode takes every letter, number, symbol and punctuation mark that it deems worthy and assigns each — including emojis — a specific number that a computer will recognize.
Some of these modern hieroglyphics have prompted debate. Sets of default emojis that included only white skin tones prompted Unicode to release more diverse characters last year. And one image in the latest group has prompted protest: The Infer Trust, a British gun control group, has spoken out against a proposal for a rifle emoji.
And, whatever Davis thinks, some experts are not quite as sure that emojis do not represent the beginnings of a new language.
Take Colin Rothfels, who works for a keyboard company. His job title? “Emoji grammarian.”
“We’ve had this vocabulary kind of dropped on us and different kinds of people are finding different ways to use it,” Rothfels said. “Obviously it’s a very limited language, if you want to call it a language.”
Davis concedes that emojis could one day evolve into something more.
“It’s not a language, but conceivably, it could develop into one, like Chinese did,” he said. “Pictures can acquire a particular meaning in a particular culture. I’ll mention the infamous eggplant emoji, which has gotten to have a particular meaning in American culture, one which is not shared in a lot of cultures.” (Some texters in the United States are using the fruit as a phallus emoji.)
Tyler Schnoebelen, who has a doctorate from Stanford in linguistics and is something of an emoji specialist, says that while the symbols are not technically a language, they do function as a sort of written equivalent of body language.
“In text, you’re less expressive if you don’t have emojis,” he said. “And that’s a very meaningful and emotional thing that they make you feel like you can express your personal style.”
Before the 67 new emojis can be the building blocks of language or personal style though, they will have to be made official.
Davis said that all but one of the last group of emojis to be subjected to a vote were inducted into the official hieroglyphic system.
In deciding which emojis to add, the Unicode Consortium considers factors including compatibility (if a pictorial symbol in broad use has not been translated into Unicode), and frequency of use (whether people will be interested in using a certain picture often enough to justify its existence).
Another factor is “completeness.” For instance, at one point, the group added a mosque, a synagogue and a generic place of worship to complement the Christian church symbol that was already included.
Living people, deities and logos or symbols that are “legally encumbered,” such as others’ intellectual property, are not included.
The group of potential new emojis includes a large number of sports icons. That was to accommodate people texting during the next Olympics.
“Some people are bothered by the inclusion of the rifle as a candidate,” Davis said. “But the reason that’s included is because shooting is an Olympic sport.”
After the vote in May, a final version including approved new emojis will come out in June.
But that does not mean people will immediately be able to send texts depicting sharks, bacon and Mother Christmas.
“These don’t magically appear once we approve them,” Davis said. “Manufacturers have to put them on their phones. But once they are approved in the May meeting, then vendors will typically go ahead and start working on them.”
His eagerness to use one symbol suggested that he was confident that at least that one is guaranteed to win approval from vendors.
“I’ll tell you what I think I’m going to use the most often once it’s available,” he said. “The rolling eyes emoji.”
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Unicode Consortium, a group that serves as the midwife to new emojis, is considering candidates such as drooling face, a clown, and two strips of bacon.
| 37.967742 | 0.935484 | 5.451613 |
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http://www.cnbc.com/2014/04/25/summer-camp-may-improve-college-admissions-odds.html
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Summer camp may improve college admissions odds
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20151025061845
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Parents shouldn't immediately race for the nearest camp sign-up sheet. While there are surely college admissions officers with fond memories of lake swims and archery, the camp experience that is more likely to stand out is a specialized one that speaks to a student's interests, experts say. Summers at soccer camp can help show a would-be college athlete's dedication, for example, while theater camp can be an edge for someone applying to the acting program—especially if the high school's drama program is so-so (or nonexistent).
Focused camps aren't that difficult to find. Half of day camps have some kind of academic activities or areas of study, and one-third offer a STEM (i.e., science, technology, engineering or math) program, according to the American Camp Association.
"By being stronger on the extracurricular activities, you can actually make up somewhat for weaknesses academically," Kantrowitz said. It's no slam dunk, though. "Not everyone is going to yield a benefit, but it's something that distinguishes you," he said. (Considering, however, that some camps can cost upwards of $1,000 per week, it's worth pointing out that extra experience in a student's areas of interest could just as easily come from a summer course at a local college, volunteer experiences or work, he said.)
Read MoreSix college courses that help grads land jobs
Steven Infanti, associate vice president for admissions at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, said a STEM camp experience is something that makes him take a closer look at a student's application. "When I look at an applicant who has a 2.5 [GPA], which would be kind of a borderline admit for us, but I see on his application, I participate in this camp…that shows a lot of initiative and someone who has a passion," he said.
For higher-achievers, relevant camp experience may put them in the running for the university's fellowship program, which pairs 15 incoming freshmen with faculty for research projects, among other advantages.
Colleges may also find longer camp relationships interesting, even if the camp isn't academically focused. "The regular camper who becomes a counselor is a good type of continuity," Greenberg said. That kind of camp experience can indicate positive qualities such as leadership, resilience and good social skills, he said.
That's the kind of story Oberlin College freshman Talia Rodwin expressed in her application essay. Rodwin, 19, has been attending Habon Dror Camp Moshava in Silver Spring, Md., since 2006 and plans to return this summer for her second year as a counselor. (The youth movement camp emphasizes sharing, leadership and communal responsibility.) "I wrote about my camp experiences and community," she said. "I explained how I think of myself as a community builder…and I think that had an impact."
Read MoreHigh school grads choosing work over college
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When it's time to apply for college, experts say, what you do over the summer matters. How about camp?
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http://www.cnbc.com/2013/11/05/-mega-bashes-for-super-bowl-2014.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151025114723id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2013/11/05/-mega-bashes-for-super-bowl-2014.html
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Brands Plan Mega Bashes for Super Bowl 2014
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20151025114723
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The countdown is on to corporate party time.
It's less than 100 days to Super Bowl XLVIII, and marketers are beginning to share their pre-game party playbooks. On tap: unique, swanky event venues, celebrity performances, top-shelf liquor and gourmet fare.
The events leading up to the Feb. 2 game at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., are expected to be so extravagant — and so numerous — that even the most avid party animal might have a tough time keeping up.
On Tuesday, Anheuser-Busch InBev will announce that it's transforming a docked Norwegian Cruise Line ship into a massive "Bud Light Hotel" lodging space and entertainment venue.
Since 2010, A-B has taken over a hotel in the Super Bowl host city, but this year, the beer behemoth "decided to go bigger than we've gone before," says Rob McCarthy, vice president of Bud Light.
The Bud Light Hotel — which will encompass the Norwegian Getaway cruise ship and the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum next door — will have space for about 4,000 people in 1,900 staterooms. There will be 22 bars and restaurants. Lodging will be available Thursday before the game through Monday morning.
A-B will plaster the Bud Light moniker on thousands of pillows, hand towels, shampoo bottles and other shipboard items, and will host concerts, business meetings and other gatherings in its event area. That space will include the Getaway, the deck of the retired military ship the Intrepid, its pier and the surrounding area.
"We're able to handle 10 times as many people as we have had in the past" by securing a cruise ship instead of taking over a traditional hotel, McCarthy says. Guests will be a mixture of consumers, retailers, business partners and others.
A-B joins a bevy of other firms that are planning over-the-top Super Bowl fetes.
American Media brands Shape Magazine and Men's Fitness magazine will co-host a Jan. 31 shindig with big-name performers including Mary J. Blige, John Legend and Marc Anthony.
DirecTV is planning two super-sized Super Bowl soirees: a beach-themed bash the afternoon of Feb. 1 and a more sophisticated event that evening.
Some party throwers, such as Shape and Men's Fitness, are organizing their first-ever Super Bowl bashes. Others, such as DirecTV and men's publication Maxim, are perennial partiers, annually having parties in Big Game host cities.
More from USA Today:Obama adds caveat to 'You can keep it' declaration Richie Incognito's bully reputation goes back to 2002 Post shutdown, Cruz remains popular as ever in Texas
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Companies such as Anheuser-Busch InBev, DirecTV, and Maxim Magazine are planning big parties for Super Bowl 2014, betting they will bring publicity.
| 18.678571 | 0.785714 | 1.5 |
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/10/26/auto-workers-union-reaches-tentative-contract/GKV90kv1awD8gUgwEGcAXK/story.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151027140317id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/10/26/auto-workers-union-reaches-tentative-contract/GKV90kv1awD8gUgwEGcAXK/story.html
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GM, auto workers union reaches tentative contract
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20151027140317
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DETROIT — Minutes before their contract was set to expire, the United Automobile Workers union and General Motors announced a tentative agreement Sunday night on a new national agreement covering about 52,000 employees.
In a statement, union president Dennis Williams praised the accord, saying, “We believe that this agreement will present stable long-term significant wage gains and job security commitments to UAW members now and in the future.”
No details were disclosed, but the union suggested that the tentative agreement maintained the wage progression formulation forged in the pattern-setting agreement reached last week with Fiat Chrysler.
Union leaders from GM plants nationwide will convene Wednesday in Detroit to discuss and vote on the tentative agreement, which would then be put to union members. The Fiat Chrysler agreement last week was reached only after the union membership rejected an earlier tentative accord and the union set a strike deadline.
While the union had not specifically threatened a strike against GM, it said Saturday that the current contract would be voided at 11:59 p.m. Sunday.
Cathy Clegg, the General Motors vice president for North American manufacturing and labor relations, said in a statement, “Working with our UAW partners, we developed constructive solutions that benefit employees and provide flexibility for the company to respond to the needs of the marketplace.”
Last Thursday, the union and Fiat Chrysler sealed a four-year deal that, over time, brings wages of entry-level workers into line with those of veteran employees. The two-tier wage system was not expected to be as big an issue at General Motors. More than 45 percent of Fiat Chrysler workers are entry-level, compared with about 20 percent at GM.
Traditionally, national labor agreements between the UAW and automakers follow the basic template set by the company that the union chooses for opening talks. GM and Ford had each agreed to extend their UAW contracts while Fiat Chrysler bargained with the union.
But because each automaker is somewhat different, the union usually tailors demands accordingly. GM, for example, is in a better financial position than Fiat Chrysler. GM reported last week that it had made a pretax profit of $8.3 billion in North America in the first nine months of the year. The union had said it would seek compensation for concessions it made that helped the automaker survive bankruptcy in a government-backed bailout.
For John Ryan Bishop, an entry-level employee at GM’s Flint Truck Assembly plant, only a single pay scale is acceptable. “I cannot endorse anything that still has tiers in it,” Bishop said, adding that it would take several years for his pay to match that of veteran workers. “I’m a third-generation autoworker, and my grandfather and dad aren’t jealous of what we’ve had to go through to provide for our families, especially when GM is as profitable as ever.”
Lower-level talks at Ford will continue until a contract is ratified with GM. All three manufacturers have been in negotiations with the union since July.
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The company reached the deal with the United Automobile Workers late Sunday, minutes before their contract expired.
| 30.736842 | 0.894737 | 2.052632 |
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http://www.cnbc.com/2014/02/20/forget-jobs-and-gateshere-are-the-tech-names-you-should-know.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151031021745id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2014/02/20/forget-jobs-and-gateshere-are-the-tech-names-you-should-know.html
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Forget Jobs and Gates-here are the tech names you should know
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20151031021745
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Inevitably, with a limit of 200 contenders across the board, some names didn't make the list. So who did CNBC leave out?
An overwhelming favorite is Tim Berners-Lee, who, with apologies to Al Gore, created the World Wide Web in 1989.
Brynjolfsson also likes Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the MIT Media Lab, which pioneered devices similar to Google Glass in the 1990s.
The list is pretty Western-heavy but Forrester's Frank Gillett said there's a lot of disruption going on abroad, too.
"It's interesting there aren't more Chinese innovators," Gillett said. He suggested Lenovo's founder Liu Chuanzhi and Sina's CEO Charles Chao, among others.
Based in the United Kingdom, analyst Devlin has a top pick that is probably a name you've never heard of: Olivier Piou, CEO and founding member of the Dutch company Gemalto. Established in 2006, the firm is a market leader in mobile phone SIM cards, mobile payments for banks, NFC (mobile communication by proximity) and digital transactions.
(Read more: Who mattered and who didn't in the past 25 years?)
Piou has worked in related digital fields since 1981 and is important because he has "a vision of where the market might go," Devlin said. "Gemalto positions itself in terms of digital security."
And, despite all the major technological advances of the past 25 years from personal computing to the Internet, Brynjolfsson said you haven't seen anything yet.
"This is the second machine age. I hope that people appreciate the fact that we are just in the early stages," he said. "The first disruption was in the last 25 years. That was just a warm-up stage, a tidal wave that's just getting under way."
Who do you think were the most influential leaders of the past 25 years? Click here to cast your votes.
—By Evelyn Cheng, Special to CNBC. Follow her on Twitter @chengevelyn.
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When it comes to the most influential in tech, you might jump to Jobs and Gates. But here the names you really need to know, these pros say.
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http://www.cnbc.com/2013/09/29/sonys-ps4-tops-xbox-one-as-gamers-holiday-choice-reutersipsos-poll.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151031035306id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2013/09/29/sonys-ps4-tops-xbox-one-as-gamers-holiday-choice-reutersipsos-poll.html
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Sony's PS4 tops Xbox One as gamers' holiday choice: Reuters/Ipsos poll
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20151031035306
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Microsoft came under fire from gamers after initially saying it would set restrictions on used games, and require an Internet connection to play. After a flurry of complaints, the company reversed its policies in June. In contrast, Sony has consistently touted support for used games and offline gameplay at industry events. And the PS4 comes $100 cheaper.
Sony said at video game industry trade show in Germany that it had received more than 1 million pre-orders for its upcoming console, while Microsoft has revealed only that preorders for the Xbox One exceeded those of its predecessor, the 360, eight years ago.
(Read more: Grand Theft Auto: Hookers, violence, and outrage)
Microsoft "couldn't make up their mind and Sony hadn't wavered from the beginning," said 26-year-old gamer Christopher Turner from Salem, Ala., who intends to spend his cash on the PS4. "The PlayStation 4 is for both hardcore and casual gamers."
But 56-year-old participant Jon Leigh, who plays six to 10 hours of video games a week and lives in Harlan, Ky., thinks the Microsoft controversy won't sway Xbox fans.
"People who use Microsoft products will continue to use them, he said. Leigh will go with the Xbox One because of its upgraded "Kinect" motion sensor, and because he's more familiar with the Xbox than the PlayStation.
The $399 PS4 and $499 Xbox One represent the first major upgrades of mainstream gaming hardware in years, setting game developers scrambling to put out new releases that take advantage of better graphics and faster processors.
They are scheduled to hit store shelves from mid-November, about a year after Nintendo's slow-selling Wii U. Of the 1,297 respondents, only 3 percent said they now played games on the Wii U, versus 20 percent on the Xbox 360, 20 percent on computers, and 18 percent on Sony's PlayStation 3.
More broadly, the shrinking videogames industry hopes the advent of the two new game consoles can breathe fresh life into a sector battered by the proliferation of free games on mobile devices and PCs, as well as on social networks like Facebook.
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More U.S. shoppers prefer Sony's upcoming PlayStation 4 than Microsoft's Xbox One, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.
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http://www.cnbc.com/2015/06/04/reuters-america-pimco-outflows-leadership-changes-critical-to-firms-future-morningstar.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151103064154id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2015/06/04/reuters-america-pimco-outflows-leadership-changes-critical-to-firms-future-morningstar.html
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Pimco outflows, leadership changes critical to firm's future -Morningstar
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NEW YORK, June 4 (Reuters) - Morningstar analysts said on Thursday that they have a "cautiously optimistic outlook" for Pimco's future but that money exiting the firm's flagship fund and its new leadership team remain huge concerns.
Outflows since Bill Gross's abrupt departure from Pacific Investment Management Co on September 26 "have been worse than many had expected," Morningstar analysts said in their new report.
The Pimco Total Return Fund alone shed more than an estimated $180 billion in net assets between mid-2013 and May 2015. Total firm assets under management fell approximately 15 percent from $1.88 trillion as of September 2014 to $1.59 trillion as of March 2015.
"We're encouraged at the progress the firm's leaders have made in stabilizing the investment team, fortifying the firm's culture, and continuing to invest in its research effort," the report said. "Yet, the situation is fluid amid continued outflows and an investment team still in the formative stages of jelling and reforging its identity."
Morningstar analysts said Pimco's high profit margins should provide a cushion, and Allianz SE has proven "a supportive parent," but continued outflows could spur cost-cutting and, with it, organizational instability.
David Schawel, vice president and portfolio manager of Square 1 Financial, said the Pimco Total Return Fund, which lost its crown as the biggest bond fund in the world in April, "has been very mediocre.
"For the last few years, Pimco Total Return has looked very much like the Barclays Aggregate, just a little worse," Schawel said. Morningstar said in a follow-up conference call that yield curve bets and shorting of the euro and yen have left the fund "vulnerable" to gyrations.
The $107.3 billion Pimco Total Return, whose negative correlation between the euro has been pronounced since January, is trailing 51 percent of its peers year-to-date.
Not all Pimco funds are under pressure.
In the multi-sector bond category, the $46.2 billion Pimco Income Fund, overseen by Pimco Group CIO Dan Ivascyn, had $1.2 billion of inflows last month and is outperforming 96 percent of its peer category so far this year.
"It's still early to judge how effective the firm's retooled Investment Committee is in Gross' absence, but it's clear that Ivascyn has succeeded in bringing a broader range of voices to the table," Morningstar said. "Ivascyn is placing an emphasis on increasing communication within and across investment teams and making sure that conflicting views are heard."
Pimco's Ivascyn declined to comment.
(Reporting By Jennifer Ablan; Editing by David Gregorio)
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Outflows since Bill Gross's abrupt departure from Pacific Investment Management Co on September 26 "have been worse than many had expected," Morningstar analysts said in their new report. The Pimco Total Return Fund alone shed more than an estimated $180 billion in net assets between mid-2013 and May 2015. David Schawel, vice president and portfolio manager of...
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2015/10/31/ian-anderson-brings-historic-jethro-tull-life-onstage/y0zVHsu9IOrxXlCGIo8phO/story.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151103195203id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/music/2015/10/31/ian-anderson-brings-historic-jethro-tull-life-onstage/y0zVHsu9IOrxXlCGIo8phO/story.html?
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Ian Anderson brings historic Jethro Tull to life onstage
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The show that arrives for a one-night stand at the Citi Wang Theatre on Thursday night has been a long time coming: either 48 years or around 300, depending on your view. “Jethro Tull — The Rock Opera” is the brainchild of Ian Anderson, the distinctive singer, flutist, and songwriter who led the band Jethro Tull from its formation in 1967 until it disbanded in 2014. But Anderson’s new project is also based in part on the original Jethro Tull: a pioneering English agriculturist active at the turn of the 18th century.
According to Anderson, his thoughts turned to his long-running group’s historic namesake during a trek through rural farming country in Northern Italy while on tour last year.
“I thought, wow, this is kind of interesting, the way they do things here as opposed to how we do it in the UK: different crops, different cropping methodologies, different ways of doing things,” Anderson related in a telephone interview. “And I just thought, I wonder what old Jethro Tull would have made of this, if he’d traveled to these parts and seen how they did things?”
A Google search revealed that the historic Tull had indeed toured Italy and France, taking stock of methods that he would later apply in his own agricultural innovations. “And then a whole bunch of other things, weirdly and coincidentally, seemed to come off the page — or off the screen of my computer — in the sense that they immediately conjured up elements of songs that I’d written,” Anderson said.
As an exercise, he mentally shuffled through the 48 years’ worth of songs he’d written. “I was astonished to find I quickly had 20 songs written down that seemed to be related in some way to elements of his life.”
He laid plans for a show built around those Tull-related tunes, incorporating theatrical elements, performers on video screens, a handful of new songs, and a narrative framework to bind it all together. Initially he resisted the term “rock opera,” a coinage tied at best to the Who’s “Tommy” — and worst, perhaps, to Spinal Tap’s great unfinished “Saucy Jack.”
“I knew that I didn’t want to put this into some narrative song collection to play onstage that was somehow set in the 18th century,” Anderson said. “I thought that would be too pastiche, a little bit too historical, and a little twee. Period dramas don’t interest me a great deal.”
Instead, his Tull is a 21st-century agricultural scientist: an occupation that Anderson, who for 20 years successfully operated English salmon farms, clearly has thought a great deal about. More than just a greatest-hits revue — though Anderson admits it’s that — “Jethro Tull — The Rock Opera” is also meant to provide food for thought.
“It is talking about the inevitability of the need for very innovative agricultural science and engineering to combat the threat to our traditional crop-growing areas through climate change,” Anderson declared. “The degree to which it is man-made is always going to be argued, but we can’t escape the facts: We’ve known for 30 years now that climate change is a reality, and within the lifetimes of my children and my grandchildren will have some fairly profound effects — not the least of which will be on the food-producing areas of the world.”
With the global population projected nearly to double by century’s end, Anderson explained, “the world is going to need another Jethro Tull, or two, or three — and hopefully they won’t just be employees of Monsanto.” Part of their mission, he asserted, will be to overcome fear of agricultural engineering. “Genetically modified foodstuffs and organisms, cloning — these are all part of the arsenal of things that we can do, and we are going to have to do them.”
Message notwithstanding, Anderson conceives of “Jethro Tull — The Rock Opera” as bigger-than-life entertainment made manageable and portable. Interacting with costars who appear on video screens, he said, allows him to tour with exactly who he wants — in particular, singers Ryan O’Donnell and Unnur Birna Björnsdóttir, who had conflicting engagements — and to do so economically.
“Some people think I’m too mean to pay them,” he said, laughing. “But I can assure you they do get paid: not only for their original recordings, but they get paid per show as virtual guests.” Meanwhile, the benefit to audiences in having a theatrical production that can be transported efficiently and mounted reliably, regardless of destination, is substantial.
“It’s a challenge,” Anderson said, “but in this day and age of technology, a challenge that can be met satisfyingly, and successfully brought into the world a theatrical show for people who want to enjoy something more than five guys in T-shirts and jeans, going on playing the fading glory years of time in the past.”
At: Citi Wang Theatre, Thursday at 8 p.m. Tickets $38.75-$85. 800-653-8000, www.ticketmaster.com
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In “Jethro Tull — The Rock Opera,” Ian Anderson updates the story of his longtime band’s namesake, delivering hits and a timely message.
| 34.758621 | 0.827586 | 2.551724 |
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http://www.cnbc.com/2013/10/01/as-ford-sales-surge-can-the-blue-oval-catch-gm.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151104144523id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2013/10/01/as-ford-sales-surge-can-the-blue-oval-catch-gm.html
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As Ford sales surge, can the blue oval catch GM?
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20151104144523
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One reason many in the auto industry do not think Ford can catch General Motors anytime soon is because GM has more capacity to expand production in North America. When the auto industry downsized during the recession and annual sales dropped down to 10 million vehicles, the big three automakers cut their capacity for building new vehicles.
Even at the bottom, GM held more capacity than Ford and Chrysler. Since then, each company has steadily increased production. By the end of this year, more than half of the U.S. auto plants will be running three shifts a day.
Right now, Ford has less wiggle room than General Motors to increase production. That means as Ford continues to boost sales, its growth will be slightly constrained. Meanwhile, General Motors has more room to increase production as sales in the U.S. continue to move higher.
Eventually, both GM and Ford will face a decision on how they can raise their supply of new vehicles in the U.S. But for now, neither automaker is ready to make the commitment to build a new plant or add another assembly line.
(Read more: Why select automaker brands are rising)
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September auto-sales figures raise interesting questions about the battle for market share. Can Ford catch GM and become the No. 1 automaker in America?
| 7.551724 | 0.551724 | 0.62069 |
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http://www.cnbc.com/2014/01/26/ukraine-clashes-as-compromise-deal-rejected.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151104144936id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2014/01/26/ukraine-clashes-as-compromise-deal-rejected.html
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Ukraine: Clashes as compromise deal rejected
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20151104144936
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The two-hour, pre-dawn confrontation came after Yanukovich made his biggest concession yet in a two-month-old standoff that has cast Ukraine into crisis, killed at least three people and deepened tension between Russia and the West.
Yanukovich abruptly abandoned plans to sign political association and free trade deals with the European Union in November, pledging instead to improve ties with former Soviet master Russia and angering millions who dream of being in Europe.
(Read more: Europe must not abandon Ukraine: Opposition leader)
Hoping to end protests that threaten to bring the country to a standstill, Yanukovich on Saturday offered former economy minister Arseny Yatsenyuk the post of prime minister. Klitschko, a former international boxing champion, was offered the post of deputy prime minister responsible for humanitarian issues, a statement on the presidential website said.
The presidency linked its offer to the opposition reining in violent protesters. Though the protest movement is largely peaceful, a hard core of radicals have been fighting pitched battles with police away from Independence Square.
Opposition leaders, whose power base is among protesters massing in the square whose name evokes the independence Ukraine gained in 1991, continued to press for concessions including early elections and the repeal of an anti-protest law.
"We are ready to take on this responsibility and take the country into the European Union," Yatsenyuk was quoted as telling crowds on Independence Square after emerging from talks with Yanukovich. But he added this would entail the freeing of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who was jailed in 2011.
Klitschko told German newspaper Bild am Sonntag: "This was a poisoned offer by Yanukovich to divide our protest movement. We will keep on negotiating and continue to demand early elections. The protest by Ukrainians against the corrupt president must not have been in vain."
Opposition leaders say Yanukovich has betrayed Ukraine and are calling for a presidential election long before the next one is due in spring 2015. Klitschko said it must be held this year.
(Read more: Bringing Serbia in from the cold? EU talks begin)
The United States has warned Yanukovich that failure to ease the standoff could have "consequences" for its relationship with Ukraine. Germany, France and other Western governments have also urged him to talk to the opposition.
Russia on Saturday stepped up its warnings against international interference in Ukraine, telling European Union officials to prevent outside meddling and cautioning the United States against inflammatory statements.
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Police clashed with protesters on Sunday after embattled President Viktor Yanukovich offered opposition leaders key posts.
| 27.705882 | 0.647059 | 0.764706 |
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http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/25/reuters-america-brazils-caixa-seguridade-files-for-ipo-in-wave-of-state-offerings.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151105154107id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/25/reuters-america-brazils-caixa-seguridade-files-for-ipo-in-wave-of-state-offerings.html
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Brazil's Caixa Seguridade files for IPO in wave of state offerings
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20151105154107
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SAO PAULO, Aug 25 (Reuters) - Brazilian state-controlled bank Caixa Econômica Federal's insurance unit filed on Tuesday for an initial public offering, the first in a wave of offerings anticipated by state firms this year.
Caixa will pursue a secondary offering of the Caixa Seguridade Participações SA unit, according to a prospectus filed with securities industry regulator CVM on Tuesday. In a secondary offering, proceeds from an IPO go only to the shareholder's, not the company's, coffers.
State-controlled Banco do Brasil SA's investment banking unit is the deal's top undewriter, along with UBS AG. Banco Bradesco BBI, Itaú BBA SA, Grupo BTG Pactual SA, Santander Investment Securities, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Banco Brasil Plural, Citigroup Inc and Bank of America Merrill Lynch are also working on the offering.
(Reporting by Guillermo Parra-Bernal; Editing by Alan Crosby)
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SAO PAULO, Aug 25- Brazilian state-controlled bank Caixa Econômica Federal's insurance unit filed on Tuesday for an initial public offering, the first in a wave of offerings anticipated by state firms this year. State-controlled Banco do Brasil SA's investment banking unit is the deal's top undewriter, along with UBS AG. Banco Bradesco BBI, Itaú BBA SA, Grupo...
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http://www.cnbc.com/2013/11/15/samsung-planning-three-sided-smartphone-screen.html
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Samsung 'planning three-sided smartphone screen'
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20151107014735
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It is unclear whether the design will feature on the S or Note series of premium handsets or feature in a new line of hardware.
Curved design is something that is being considered by other technology companies. Apple is reportedly developing new iPhone designs including bigger screens with curved glass.
The move by Samsung follows a strategy by the company to diversify its product portfolio. The company unveiled the Galaxy Gear smartwatch earlier this year and has registered a patent for glasses that can answer calls.
(Read more: Samsung keeps it simple to overtake Apple)
But some analyst feel that the new Samsung smartphone will not make a big impact in the market.
"I don't think it will really set the market on fire because I'm not sure what it adds beyond extending the screen on the phone. And whilst it is nice to have extra screen, it is not a revolutionary step," Sam Gee, technology analyst at Mintel, told CNBC.
An exact release date for the phone has not been reported, but questions over the use of the curved screen remain.
"The question is that does the curved screen give you better user experience? I would have to raise the question, 'just because they can do it technically does it mean it will fly as a solution?'," said Chris Lewis, a telecoms and ICT analyst at Lewis Insight.
Samsung were unable to provide a comment at the time of publication.
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Samsung is planning to launch a three-sided smartphone display next year with a screen that wraps around the handset's edges, a report says.
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http://www.people.com/article/hugh-jackman-selects-george-clooney-sexiest-man-alive
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151107080124id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/hugh-jackman-selects-george-clooney-sexiest-man-alive
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Who Does Hugh Jackman Think Should Be This Year's Sexiest Man Alive? : People.com
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20151107080124
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11/05/2015 AT 03:00 PM EST
has made his vote for the title of Sexiest Man Alive this year.
"George Clooney, of course!" Jackman, 47, tells PEOPLE in this week's issue.
The Australian actor was crowned in 2008 whereas Clooney was chosen not just once, but twice, in 1997 and 2006.
Having met "76 percent" of his fellow cover honorees, the
star reveals he has yet to learn or find the perks about being Sexiest Man Alive. But he insists the compliments he received were a bonus: "I'm an actor! Yes!"
And would he do things differently if he were chosen this year?
"That dream will never be realized!" Jackman joked.
Regardless of who gets selected, Jackman has some helpful advice to give: "Enjoy the ride."
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The Sexiest Man Alive alum tells PEOPLE his pick for who should snag the title next
| 10.3125 | 0.6875 | 1.3125 |
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http://www.cnbc.com/2013/10/15/6-tips-from-jack-bogle-on-teaching-your-kids-how-to-invest.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151108141847id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2013/10/15/6-tips-from-jack-bogle-on-teaching-your-kids-how-to-invest.html
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6 tips from Jack Bogle on teaching your kids how to invest
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20151108141847
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2. No more than you (and they) are comfortable with
Aside from his oldest son, now a hedge fund manager, Bogle's children did not display much interest in investing. Bogle never forced the conversation on them.
You have to find the right way to communicate with each child, depending on his or her level of interest, Bogle said, and find a way that feels comfortable for you.
For each of his 12 grandchildren, who range in age from their late teens to their late 20s, Bogle regularly buys shares in the Vanguard Balanced Index Fund (VBINX), comprising about 60 percent of U.S. stocks and 40 percent of U.S. taxable bonds.
"We have a little sit down briefly at year-end," he said, where he shares how the investments in their names are doing.
(Read more: Donate to charity, or dump Exxon Mobil shares?)
As for the sum of what is coming to them in the end, Bogle feels no compunction to share it with them. This is just how he likes to handle it, but he said he has no particular opinion about whether more information would be better.
"For me, the best approach is no information about how much money is there. My executor can explain it to them."
3. The magic of compounding returns made simple
Bogle didn't do this with his own children, but he does think it's a good idea to pull out a $10 bill—or "two fivers," as he said—to show how compound interest works over time. A $10 investment will double just about every 10 years.
Another, slightly more complicated way to think about compounding: that $10 investment will spin off a 70-cent return, if it is earning 7 percent a year. In the 11th year, the accumulated interest will be larger than $10. That also will be the first year that the pooled interest produces more interest than the principle. That's the essential lesson, Bogle said: Saving over time is productive. After 30 years, the initial $10 investment will be worth more than $75, even if you never add to it.
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Vanguard group founder Jack Bogle has some advice for you on instilling investing principles in your children.
| 23.833333 | 0.555556 | 0.666667 |
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http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/20/reuters-america-european-shares-drop-on-global-slowdown-fears.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151108152847id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/20/reuters-america-european-shares-drop-on-global-slowdown-fears.html
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European shares drop on global slowdown fears
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20151108152847
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* German DAX index hits lowest level since January
* Earnings expectations for Europe "too high"
* Ahold results impress, shares rise
* Europe bourses in 2015: http://link.reuters.com/pap87v
* Asset performance in 2015: http://link.reuters.com/gap87v
LONDON, Aug 20 (Reuters) - European stock markets extended their losing streak on Thursday, with benchmark indexes in Frankfurt and London hitting seven-month lows as fears of a global economic slowdown took hold.
Minutes from the U.S. Federal Reserve's July meeting dented expectations for a rate hike in mid-September, amid worries over lagging inflation and slowing growth in China that have hit riskier assets around the world.
While there was some good news from Europe's second-quarter earnings season, with shares of Dutch retailer Ahold up 3.5 percent after a solid rise in profits, some traders pointed to lofty valuations relative to history and a darkening outlook for corporate earnings.
"The current earnings expectations for Europe given the global growth outlook are probably too high and it may require additional action from the ECB (European Central Bank)," Deutsche Bank Managing Director Nick Lawson said in a note to clients.
Citi cut global economic growth forecasts for 2016 to 3.1 percent, from 3.3 percent, citing significant downgrades for the euro area and China among others.
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 equity index was down 1 percent at 1,490.45 points. The index's losses for August have already matched those for June, which itself was the worst month in two years for the FTSEurofirst.
The export-focused German DAX index also weakened by 0.9 percent.
The shares of automotive supplier Continental fell 1.7 percent after profits declined at family-owned Schaeffler AG, the biggest shareholder in Continental, while other auto stocks also lost ground.
With commodities markets in the grip of a sell-off that showed little sign of slowing, the shares of major oil companies also slid, with the STOXX Europe 600 Oil & Gas Index dropping 1.6 percent.
(Editing by Alison Williams and Keith Weir)
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*Earnings expectations for Europe "too high". LONDON, Aug 20- European stock markets extended their losing streak on Thursday, with benchmark indexes in Frankfurt and London hitting seven-month lows as fears of a global economic slowdown took hold. "The current earnings expectations for Europe given the global growth outlook are probably too high and it may...
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/theater-art/2015/11/06/nick-offerman-brings-charming-obnoxiousness-role/XNLvG7ghXwLuOU2gqMjJfK/story.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151108214908id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/theater-art/2015/11/06/nick-offerman-brings-charming-obnoxiousness-role/XNLvG7ghXwLuOU2gqMjJfK/story.html
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Nick Offerman brings charming obnoxiousness to role
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20151108214908
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“Please, let’s go on the record,” Nick Offerman says, in the mock-serious tone with which he seems to say everything. “I am eating a seaweed salad and salmon sashimi.”
It’s true. And what’s more, to receive the dish he merely had to tell a waitress he wanted his “norm,” after being seated at a restaurant near the Huntington Theatre Company rehearsal space where he’s been spending his days lately, working on “A Confederacy of Dunces.” The world premiere production starts previews on Wednesday.
To Ron Swanson, the steak-loving man’s man Offerman played with deadpan drollery for seven seasons on NBC’s “Parks and Recreation,” this meal would offend all sensibility. The salmon even violates the nutritional guidelines Offerman puts in his comic memoir, “Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man’s Fundamentals for Delicious Living,” in which fish is grouped with chicken and lobster under the dismissive heading of “Nope.”
Offerman, 45, spent years as a character actor, accruing scores of supporting roles in film, television, and theater. Now he finds himself popularly identified with just one role. He recounts with bemused disbelief a tweet in which a fan, hearing of Offerman’s support for a progressive political cause, wondered if Swanson’s politically conservative affectations were just an act. “In fact,” he says gruffly, “I’m an actor. It was an act.”
“Parks and Recreation” ended its run in February, and now Offerman stands at a point of transition. “A Confederacy of Dunces” is an adaptation of the famously chaotic, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by John Kennedy Toole. Following productions of Sharr White’s “Annapurna” in Los Angeles and New York, this will be only the second play Offerman has worked on since finding his breakthrough TV role.
A long line of larger-than-life comic actors have been suggested to portray the character.
But his “manhood was forged” in the theater, he explains. He cofounded Chicago’s Defiant Theatre in the theater department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, playing a variety of roles and sometimes chipping in with fight choreography or building sets and props. (He won an award for the puppets and masks he created for a production of Caryl Churchill’s “The Striker.”)
“He’s got a pretty amazing range. I’m glad he’s doing a comedy, but he’s also an excellent dramatic actor. In another age, he would have been a part of a repertory theater playing different roles every night,” says Bart DeLorenzo, founding artistic director of LA’s Evidence Room troupe, where Offerman and his wife, Megan Mullally (best known for NBC’s “Will & Grace”), are company members.
Back in the pre-Swanson days, Offerman was usually an ensemble player. Now his face is plastered on ads atop taxicabs around Boston — styled as Ignatius J. Reilly, the brainy, obnoxious, gassy, hefty center of gravity of “Dunces.”
Written in the early 1960s but not published until 1980 — 11 years after Toole committed suicide — the novel follows the misadventures of Ignatius, a legend in his own mind with terrible hygiene, poor people skills, and seemingly little chance of ever moving out of his mother’s New Orleans home. Toole’s vivid prose is full of humor, and his crackling dialogue features expertly rendered local dialects from an array of colorful characters. (The play features a cast of 15.)
Adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher and directed by David Esbjornson, “Dunces” is presented at the Huntington in cooperation with a development team including Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh, Robert Guza, and John Hardy. The producers are frank about their desire to use the Boston run as a warm-up for Broadway, but they know they need a strong showing to propel “Dunces” onward. “If we don’t blow people away here,” Guza says, “we’re not going anywhere.”
Meanwhile, a big challenge for Hatcher and Esbjornson was figuring out how much of the novel’s flavor they could preserve while maintaining dramatic momentum. They also knew the book is loved by fans but can seem a curious artifact to nonbelievers. “I’ve never met anybody who has a neutral attitude about the book. They either loved it or they threw it across the room,” says Hatcher.
In a rehearsal room, Offerman puts his deadpan skills to work. As a cluster of characters makes merry with song and dance, his Ignatius enters the scene with a silent gravity that grinds the party to a halt. He towers over his long-suffering mother, played by Anita Gillette. Both his physical presence — bolstered by a fat suit worn by the actor — and his silent disapproval seem to fill up the space.
“He’s such an obstacle,” Esbjornson says of Ignatius to his actors, “both to move around and to refer to.”
Ignatius poses a creative challenge. His unsympathetic qualities are a source of much levity, but could begin to grate on audiences. “Nothing would be worse than having an Ignatius who you sort of hated all the time. That’s the challenge of one of these kinds of characters,” Esbjornson says. “Quite easily it could just be this horrible, obnoxious person. And [Offerman is] obnoxious in a really charming way. It takes a certain personality and a certain set of skills to be able to pull that off.”
Offerman often sheaths his humor in a package of dry seriousness, both on and offstage. But he’s relishing this return to his creative roots. Polishing off his seaweed salad, he says he’s thrilled to dive back into the improvisational uncertainty of live theater.
“Just to be nostalgic about it — we know the smell of greasepaint, we’ve all had to put on a beautiful tuxedo in a [expletive] janitor’s closet and go out and perform a dance, and then do a quick-change into a clown’s outfit underneath the bleachers. It breeds a familiarity that I find very comforting. We all know that the scenery can come tumbling down and we’ll still press on. And I don’t feel that same comfort when working on a television show,” Offerman says.
“I feel like a kid that’s been away to college, and I’ve come back. And all the family around me is saying: OK, you went away to learn how to say your lines. Now show us what you can do.”
Presented by Huntington Theatre Company. At BU Theatre, Nov. 11-
Dec. 20. Tickets: $25-$155. 617-266-7900, www.huntingtontheatre.org
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Offerman tackles the colorful role at the heart of “A Confederacy of Dunces” at Huntington Theatre Company.
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Today in Tech: HP to lay off 500+ employees
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20151115080434
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Fortune’s curated selection of newsworthy tech stories from the last 24 hours. Sign up to get the newsletter delivered to you every day.
* Sources tell All Things D that HP HPQ is laying off as many as 525 employees whose work related to (now-defunct) webOS hardware. Indeed, in a statement, HP confirmed layoffs start this week but declined to specify the number. (All Things D)
* As reported yesterday, Google Wallet is now live, though its service remains limited to the Nexus S 4G on Sprint for now. Chris Ziegler over at This is my next has the review. (Business Insider and This is my next)
* Fortune contributor Mark Suster on why Netflix NFLX CEO Reed Hastings should be applauded for splitting up the company’s DVD and streaming businesses. (Fortune)
* TechCrunch reports that besides introducing social music services later this week at its f8 conference, Facebook will also unveil new buttons a la “Like,” including “Read,” Listened,” and “Watched.” (TechCrunch)
* Meet Ari Goldberg, the 29-year-old CEO of rising New York City-based fashion startup, StyleCaster. (Business Insider)
Don’t miss the latest tech news. Sign up now to get Today in Tech emailed to you each and every morning.
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Fortune's curated selection of newsworthy tech stories from the last 24 hours. Sign up to get the newsletter delivered to you every day. * Sources tell All Things D that HP is laying off as many as 525 employees whose work related to (now-defunct) webOS hardware. Indeed, in a statement, HP confirmed layoffs start this week but declined…
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Christina Aguilera Gives Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani Dating Advice : People.com
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20151116052130
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11/13/2015 AT 11:30 AM EST
has a little romantic advice for her fellow
"My ultimate advice is to be happy," she told PEOPLE Thursday while attending a private event for HopeLine for Verizon in West Hollywood. "Find happiness where you can and tune out the bulls---."
Aguilera, 34, reflected on her
"It's hard for anybody, no matter on what scale or which way you twist it. It's a hard time," she said. "And then to be under a microscope at the same time, I feel for both of them and their situation. More power to them."
Above all, the singer says, the pair "deserve happiness."
"[Gwen]'s a great mom to her boys. I just think everybody deserves happiness and sometimes the end of something means something great is going to happen," she shared.
Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani
Rumors began swirling about a possible romance between Stefani, 46, and Shelton, 39, over
, during which they were spotted together at various parties, and their romance was
at the beginning of November.
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The singer says her Voice costars "deserve happiness"
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http://www.people.com/article/minnesota-candidate-tweets-isis-not-evil-ben-carson
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Minnesota Candidate Tweets That ISIS Is Not Evil; Ben Carson Makes ISIS Flub : People.com
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20151117151905
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11/16/2015 AT 04:35 PM EST
A candidate for the Minnesota House has dropped out of the race after he tweeted that "ISIS isn't necessarily evil" following the
in Paris that killed at least 129 people Friday.
"ISIS isn't necessarily evil. It is made up of people doing what they think is best for their community. Violence is not the answer, though," Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party candidate Dan Kimmel tweeted Saturday night.
After facing backlash on social media, Kimmel attempted to clarify his comments with another tweet – "I deplore the evil acts of ISIS. I do not defend their acts." – before deleting his Twitter account and declaring he was "folding up [his] campaign tent."
"My tweet last evening was in response to a statement made during the candidate debates, not in response to the activities in Paris," Kimmel said Sunday in a
announcing his departure from the race. "It was poorly worded and did not convey my intent."
"I am very sorry for 'spreading ick' on other candidates and the DFL party," the statement continued. "I will do everything I can to help resolve the issue: most likely the best thing for me to do is shut up. The tweet was stupid. I'm sorry."
Kimmel isn't the only politician to suffer an ISIS-related gaffe in the wake of the Paris attacks.
interview when asked which U.S. military ally he'd call on first to form an international coalition against ISIS.
Skirting the question several times as host Chris Wallace pressed him for an answer, Carson finally replied, "I would call for all of the Arab states to be involved in this. I would call for all of our traditional allies to be involved in this. You know, I don't want to leave anybody out."
Carson previously told reporters after the Paris terrorist attacks that if elected president, he wouldn't try to "contain" extremists, "but to
"Boots on the ground would be important, because throughout the whole Middle Eastern region we have been calling for a coalition of people who have a vested interest," he said. "We have not really seen much of a coalition form. But that's because there's not much leadership."
Carson's foreign policy chops are increasingly being called into question by critics, including
last week that the former neurosurgeon "doesn't know much about" fighting ISIS.
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"Most likely the best thing for me to do is shut up," Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party candidate Dan Kimmel said after tweeting that "ISIS is not necessarily evil"
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Tuesday’s business agenda
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20151117154425
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The TJX Cos. Inc. of Framingham, whose chief executive, Carol Meyrowitz, said she is stepping down at the end of the fiscal year, is expected to release its quarterly earnings report on Tuesday morning.
TechSandBox, a business management firm, is organizing a round-table discussion on clean technology and energy products. Cameron Peterson, the manager of clean energy for the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission, will lead the conversation. Food will be served. Tuesday, 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., TechSandBox, 105B South St., Hopkinton. Free to $35.
The Massachusetts Division of Insurance is holding an informational hearing on the marketing and sale of Massachusetts homeowners’ insurance policies. Comments will be welcomed at the hearing, or individuals can send an e-mail to DOI.HOI.2015@state.ma.us. Tuesday, 6 p.m., offices of the Division of Insurance, hearing room 1-E, 1000 Washington St., Boston. Free.
The Boston Entrepreneurs’ Network is organizing a panel discussion to give insight into how angel and seed investors approach funding companies. Pizza and soft drinks will be served. Tuesday, 6 to 9 p.m., Microsoft Technology Center, One Cambridge Center, Cambridge. Free for ENET members, $10 for nonmembers.
The Massachusetts Bar Association is hosting a consumer advocacy symposium to focus on the legal issues triggered by food and seafood mislabeling. Wednesday, 4 to 7 p.m., Massachusetts Bar Association, 20 West St., Boston. Free.
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TJX, hearing on insurance, and more notable events and things to know.
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http://www.people.com/article/paris-terror-attacks-mastermind-killed-saint-denis-raid
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Mastermind Killed in Saint-Denis Raid : People.com
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20151120180634
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11/19/2015 AT 07:45 AM EST
The man believed to be the mastermind behind the
early Wednesday morning, French prosecutors have announced.
Abdelhamid Abaaoud, 27, was killed after more than 100 French police and army troops
on an apartment in the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis just before dawn. His body was riddled with bullets and he was identified by his fingerprints, officials said.
first reported the news on Wednesday.
At a news conference Wednesday, Paris prosecutor Fran̤ois Molins would not confirm that Abaaoud was among the dead, though he did say the suspected terrorist was not one of the eight people Рseven men and one woman Рwho were taken into custody alive following the raid.
Molins went on to say that the raid averted another possible terror attack. Investigators seized rifles and bullets from the apartment where Abaaoud was hiding.
A phone found in a garbage can outside the Bataclan concert hall, where 89 people were slaughtered on Friday night, led authorities to the apartment, Molins said.
As officials approached the home, a woman inside blew herself up with a suicide belt. French media has identified her as Hasna Aitboulahcen, a cousin of Abaaoud's, according to British newspaper
Five officers were "lightly wounded" and a police dog was killed in the raid, police confirmed Wednesday.
Another man wanted in the attacks, Salah Abdeslam, is still
Altogether, 129 people were killed and 352 more were injured in Friday's attacks.
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Abdelhamid Abaaoud, 27, was killed on early Wednesday morning
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Michael Bloomberg
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20151122064839
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Over the years, Bloomberg LP has added a news service, as well as media businesses encompassing TV, radio, magazine and digital outlets. But the terminals remain the center of the enterprise.
Two months after 9/11, Bloomberg was elected mayor of New York in a close race. A lifelong Democrat, he switched his party registration to run as a Republican in the overwhelmingly Democratic city. He won a second term in 2005. For his third term, secured after his aggressive campaign to raise the city's term limits to three from two, Bloomberg ran as an independent on the Republican ballot line.
Since leaving City Hall early this year, Bloomberg has returned to his company but devotes much of his time to his philanthropy and to promoting the issues he cares about—notably public health, education and gun control. An Anglophile, he is building an international hub for his company and foundation in London. The Norman Foster-designed complex, called Bloomberg Place, is due to open in 2016. "It's not a timid building," The New York Times reported Foster as saying.
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Met financial traders' need for fast, accurate data and analytics and in doing so swung the balance of power between Wall Street's buy and sell sides.
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Jill Duggar Dillard on Israel Growing Up on Central America Mission Trip : People.com
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20151124152149
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11/23/2015 AT 12:00 PM EST
's son Israel is reaching new milestones every day.
Jill, 24, took to the Dillard family
Monday to share an update on how the family is doing on their longterm mission trip to Central America.
The TLC star says their 7-month-old son is growing up and learning new things daily.
Derick Dillard, Jill (Duggar) Dillard and Israel David Dillard
"Israel has been busy this week showing us new tricks!" Jill wrote. "Every day for the last three days he has learned something new! First it was clapping, then crawling, pulling up into a standing position and waving! He is about to cut his first two teeth, so recently he has been a little fussier than normal. He is usually happy though and loves exploring new areas in the house now that he can move!"
Jill gushed about what a "joy" it is to be working with and visiting families in their area and learning to speak Spanish.
The family is also acclimating to life in a new place and dealing with everyday challenges: Jill said her husband Derick, 26, was "able to find a dentist who could fix an orthodontic piece that broke off."
to Central America with Israel in July.
In the months since, the three returned to the United States
of a family friend in August, and
their cousin Amy (Duggar) King's
to Central America to continue their mission trip, announcing on their
that they won't be able to make a short visit back to the U.S. again until summer 2016.
Though they aren't stateside, Jill and Derick stay in touch with the rest of the Duggar family. Earlier this month, Israel met his cousin
Jill, Derick and their son will also star in the upcoming TLC special,
, which premieres in December.
The special will focus on Jessa and Ben getting ready for the birth of their firstborn, as well as Jill and Derick's preparation to return to Central America.
premieres Dec. 13 at 8 p.m. ET on TLC.
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"Israel has been busy this week showing us new tricks!" Jill (Duggar) Dillard wrote on the family website
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151128074009id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2015/11/25/holiday-deals-abound-but-can-confuse-shoppers/uEijY65sTBtfKAlAhIFALL/story.html
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Holiday deals abound but can confuse shoppers
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20151128074009
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Retailers hope this is the most wonderful time of the year, with holiday shoppers lured into stores and onto websites by a nearly constant drumbeat of deals.
But often, the endless stream of snap sales leaves customers confused, wondering exactly when is the best time to buy that giant-screen television or discounted cashmere sweater.
Walmart and Target hyped their first “doorbusters” before the jack-o-lanterns started to rot. Now that Black Friday Week is upon us, is it better to buy on Gray Thursday, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, or Giving Tuesday? Or to hold off altogether until just before the holidays?
Retailers are purposely drowning shoppers in a sea of deals, analysts say, a ploy to confuse consumers and then entice them to buy impulsively without knowing if the deal of the day would be even cheaper tomorrow, or next week. But you don’t need a crystal ball to confidently sort through the sales gimmicks to find the best bang for your buck, the experts say.
“It’s the great unknown: Is there a better deal tomorrow?” said Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst at NPD Group. “It does pay to do your homework.”
The relentless race for holiday dollars has blunted the day’s oomph, as stores offer deep discounts weeks before Thanksgiving.
Holiday sales are expected to increase 3.7 percent to $630.5 billion in November and December, compared to the same period in 2014, according to National Retail Federation estimates. Analysts expect toys related to the upcoming release of “Star Wars: Episode VII” to fly off the shelves, but they bemoan a lack of innovative new gadgets to drive sales.
The average shopper is expected to spend $805.65 over the holidays. Experts say you can figure out the smartest way to spend your money by understanding the nature of the sale and the items on your Christmas list.
As a general rule, sales that span an entire category of products will only get better with time, Cohen said. For example, if Macy’s announces a sale on all of its outerwear, it means the store has a surplus of coats and jackets and needs to clear out inventory before the season ends. And given the unseasonably warm fall, there’s likely to be a glut this year.
In this case, Cohen said, patience pays because prices will continue to decline as the holiday nears.
On the flip side, shoppers should scoop up deals on individual products while they can. Retailers often make special arrangements with suppliers for a particular model of television or computer. These deals are often in limited supply and won’t be available again, Cohen said.
Another piece of advice: Before you spend hours in line outside Walmart to snag a 70-inch Vizio Smart HDTV, you should call the store to ask about inventory. Some stores include the number of doorbuster items available in their advertising circulars.
There’s nothing worse than skipping Thanksgiving dinner to stand around in the cold if you end up missing out on the deal because the store offered only 25 televisions at the bargain price and you were the 26th shopper in line.
Walmart, for instance, guarantees that a small number of its best deals will be available for one hour after the store opens its doors, including an LG 55-inch Class Smart 4K UHD TV for $698 and the Xbox One 500GB “Gears of War” bundle for $299.
Websites dedicated to sorting through deals can also be helpful resources, said Edgar Dworsky, the founder of Consumerworld.org.
One site, blackfriday.gottadeal.com, aggregates prices for specific models of televisions, tablets, and other products to determine which retailer is offering the best bargains.
Another, shop.pricespider.com, offers historical prices for particular items, Dworsky said.
“You can’t assume that every item advertised on Black Friday is a great deal,” Dworksy said. “You have to develop this price consciousness.”
One major benefit of online shopping is that consumers can sometimes snag doorbusters from the comfort of their living rooms.
Many deals go live online at specific times, which retailers describe on their websites and in holiday advertisements. For example, Target launched some of its best deals in stores and online Wednesday. Walmart is offering doorbusters online beginning at 12:01 a.m. on Thanksgiving morning.
A survey of digital shopping habits and prices found that the days before Black Friday are often the best time to shop, because product availability is high and prices are relatively low, according to Adobe Digital Index, a marketing research firm. Prices were often cheapest on Thanksgiving or Black Friday, but shoppers risk losing out on deals because of limited inventory, said Tamara Gaffney, principal research analyst at Adobe.
Cyber Monday isn’t as important as it once was due to the rise in mobile phone shopping and early onset of digital deals.
Cohen of NPD said it also pays to be flexible. Retailers often offer the season’s best deals after the holidays to clear out winter inventory, which means that a gift card goes further. Of course a big downside to waiting until after the holidays — or shopping at the last minute before then — is that sizes and colors might be limited, Cohen added.
He advises shoppers not to get too stressed over holiday shopping. The legion of deals means you can typically find a good price.
“Don’t fret if you miss out on a deal,” Cohen said. “There’s going to be someone else, somewhere else, sometime else with the same deals.”
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Retailers hope this is the most wonderful time of the year, but the endless stream of snap sales often leaves customers confused.
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/11/28/draftkings-says-most-disputed-fees-didn-come-from-banned-states/Oiri7sKhgYjhOVcqQpusMO/story.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151201043326id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2015/11/28/draftkings-says-most-disputed-fees-didn-come-from-banned-states/Oiri7sKhgYjhOVcqQpusMO/story.html
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DraftKings says most disputed fees didn’t come from banned states
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20151201043326
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DraftKings Inc. is rebutting allegations that it collected nearly $500,000 in entry fees from players in five US states where daily fantasy sports games are considered banned.
The company filed documents in response to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who has questioned whether DraftKings is abiding by the anti-ambling laws of those five states. Schneiderman has sued to shut down DraftKings and its rival FanDuel Inc. in New York, saying daily fantasy sports are a form of gambling prohibited by state law.
A judge in Manhattan is expected to rule soon on Schneiderman’s request for an emergency order to stop the companies’ from accepting New York players. FanDuel has already voluntarily cut off those customers.
In its rebuttal, DraftKings said its team of data analysts tracked down more than 250 players whose accounts were in some way associated with the states of Washington, Montana, Louisiana, Iowa, and Arizona.
It found that most of the nearly $485,000 in disputed fees from 2014 proved to be from players who actually lived in other states where daily fantasy sports is permissible. DraftKings didn’t say why the players’ accounts were initially associated with banned states, but its court filings suggested that players may have moved, had residencies in multiple states, or even mistakenly filled out their online registration forms.
“Less than 8 percent appear to have come from the states where Draft-Kings declined to accept play, and DraftKings shut down those user accounts,” Gregory B. Karamitis, the company’s vice president of analytics, said in an affidavit filed in court.
It was not clear if DraftKings’ explanation would mollify regulators in those states who previously said they were probing the claims of improper payments. Those states have highly restrictive gambling laws, and Draft-Kings and other companies say they use software to block those residents from entering cash contests.
In its court filings, DraftKings said it also had relied on employee investigations to verify a player’s address after they registered from a potentially banned state. Their methods included checking their addresses in commercially available databases, and corresponding with the users, who sometimes supplied information from their personal ID cards.
The disputed fees are a fraction of the $300 million-plus that DraftKings said it collected from players in 2014.
Schneiderman’s allegation prompted the Washington State Gambling Commission to launch an investigation of the player fees, while Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich sent letters to the companies asking for more information about player accounts in his state.
Brnovich’s office said it could not immediately comment on the information provided by DraftKings. A spokesman for the Washington State Gambling Commission said the agency’s investigation is ongoing and declined to comment further. Schneiderman’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
The vast majority of fees in question — about $366,000 of the nearly $485,000 that Schneiderman identified — came from one player , Draft-Kings said.
The company said it used an identity-search service to verify the player had lived in an approved location since 2002. The apparent conflict came because the player also had listed a dual residence listed in Washington state beginning in late 2013.
The court filings also hinted at how some users may have slipped through the cracks in DraftKings’ system, and noted that a few accounts were shut down only in the past few weeks.
One player listed as spending about $2,000 last year apparently lived near Tacoma, Wash., without being flagged. “Systems never detected geographic location,” DraftKings’ files said. “Restricted now.”
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New York’s attorney general has accused Boston’s DraftKings of lax enforcement of its own list of banned states. The company has replied with a detailed investigation that it said shows 93 percent of the fees in question came from players in approved states.
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http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20151201-for-bmws-i8-the-m5s-v8
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BMW's i8 swallows the M6's V8
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20151202152631
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If you want to create a vehicle that has fuel efficiency as its primary concern, you’ll need to start with an aerodynamic design made of lightweight materials.
If, on the other hand, you’d like to create a vehicle that has speed and performance as its sole objectives, you’re going to want to start with an aerodynamic design made of lightweight materials.
We’re frankly surprised no one figured this out before now.
The team at Gabura Racing Technologies, a motorsports engineering company with expertise in race transmissions and custom builds, has taken BMW’s plug-in hybrid i8 sportscar and turned it into a supercar. The Munich-based company (handy, yes?) has removed all vestiges of futuristic hybrid technology from the i8, and rather than plug in a power cord has plugged in a supertuned BMW S63 twin-turbo V8 — mounted in the front, no less. That engine, the M-version of the occasionally maligned and once-recalled N63 4.4-litre, already boasts 560 horses, and the boosted Gabura version (apparently pre-tweaked by BMW tuner Alpina) is said to add at least 200 more.
Gabura put this work-in-progress on display at the 2015 Professional MotorSport World Expo in Cologne, where the company made great pains to point out that this isn’t just a tune-up. They have, they say, completely emptied that aluminum and carbon i8 shell, and placed an entirely new car inside it.
The V8i is an exercise in marketing, perhaps, but it will yield a street-legal racecar of exceptional speed. We don’t know yet what kind of performance to expect (the stock i8 can hit 60mph in just 4.4 seconds), but we know that the i8’s curb weight is half a ton less than the M6 that the S63 engine normally powers. Oh, and Gabura specializes in racing transmissions, so expect a six-speed sequential manual mounted ahead of the rear axle. Back-of-the-envelope calculations say the V8i should be really, really fast.
At this point, we’d like to go on record as saying that we disapprove. The i8 is sexy enough as it is, and it’s the green kind of sexy. We’re not happy to see BMW’s high-performance hybrid technology unceremoniously removed with an angle grinder.
Off the record, we’ll take two.
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.
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German tuner Gabura creates the V8i, and Munich's high-tech hybrid sports car devolves into an 800-horsepower beast.
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Ben Carson Mispronounces Hamas as Hummus, Internet Makes Fun of Him : People.com
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20151206151406
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12/04/2015 AT 03:20 PM EST
There is nothing to fear but ⦠feta itself?
is catching some flak from critics for apparently mispronouncing Hamas, the Palestinian militant organization, as "hummus" and Fatah, a rival Palestinian political party, as "feta" when he addressed a prominent group of Jewish Republicans in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.
Carson, along with the other 2016 Republican presidential candidates, delivered a speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition forum, but instead of seizing the opportunity to demonstrate a strength on foreign policy – an area in which
throughout his campaign – the former neurosurgeon ended up putting his foot in his mouth in a major way.
In the interest of fairness, if you listen closely to the clip above, he's not quite pronouncing Hamas as "hummus," the spread made from chickpeas – but the Internet seems to think it's close enough.
per ben carson, the "hummus" terrorist organization is already in our supermarkets, all across america. thanks obama.
i like the hamas with pine nuts in it
Ben Carson's biggest issue with Hamas is that it's too garlicky.
Ben Carson not just concerned about Hummus terror threat, but about dire situation in Baba Ghanoush and Tabouli.
Carson was also mocked in the above Vine by CNN reporter Brenna Williams, who joined his repeated faux pas with a clip from the 2009 mockumentary
, in which an "Austrian fashionista with a Nazi streak," played by
, confuses the words hamas and hummus. "Why are you so anti-Hamas?" Cohen's character asks in the film. "Isn't pita bread the real enemy?"
Republican Jewish Coalition board member and former Bush White House press secretary Lawrence Ari Fleischer also spoke out about Carson's mistake on
, writing: "Poor Ben Carson. Someone should have told him how to pronounce Hamas. He sounds like he's not familiar with the group."
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Ben Carson made the embarrassing errors at the Republican Jewish Coalition forum on Thursday
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http://www.people.com/article/chris-hemsworth-diet-weight-loss-in-the-heart-of-the-sea
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151207215811id_/http://www.people.com/article/chris-hemsworth-diet-weight-loss-in-the-heart-of-the-sea
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Chris Hemsworth Talks Losing Weight for In the Heart of the Sea Movie : People.com
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20151207215811
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12/07/2015 AT 01:20 PM EST
admits that having to lose so much weight for his new film
took a toll – not only on his body, but also his mind.
The actor, 32, who recently shared a photo of
on Monday the experience of dropping 33 lbs. in four weeks for the movie was infinitely more difficult than gaining the same amount of weight for
"The gaining is fine, you just eat a lot and you lift weights but that was underfed, which led to a pretty moody existence and inconsistent emotions," he said.
said his diet of about 500 calories a day included boiled eggs, salads and "nothing much."
"You play all sorts of games – if I eat this maybe I don't eat that," he said. "The insanity is nuts."
But Hemsworth also revealed the restricted diet led him to better capture his character, Owen Chase, one of the men who spends 90 days stranded at sea after a massive whale destroys their ship – a true story that inspired Herman Melville's novel
"In order to do it justice, the story, we had to suffer in some way and we did," he said. "In other words, not a whole lot of acting was required. We were desperate."
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"We were desperate," Hemsworth says of dieting for In the Heart of the Sea
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http://www.nytimes.com/1964/01/01/washington-bans-racial-barriers-in-most-housing.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151209021050id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/1964/01/01/washington-bans-racial-barriers-in-most-housing.html?
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WASHINGTON BANS RACIAL BARRIERS IN MOST HOUSING
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20151209021050
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WASHINGTON, Dec. 31—The city government adopted today a fair housing regulation described as among the most sweeping in the country. Its adoption had been bitterly opposed by Southern members of Congress.
The District of Columbia Commissioners, the three‐man, Presidentally appointed board that administers this voteless Federal enclave, unanimously approved the antidiscrimination measure after months of calculated deference to the Southern‐dominated House District Committee.
The regulation takes effect Jan. 20, a delay designed to give real estate men an opportunity to comply with provisions requiring a public display in their offices of a summary of its prohibitions.
In its main provisions, the order prohibits discrimination in the sale or rental of private housing. This would include the sale or rental of units in apartment buildings as well as the sale or rental of all single‐family homes.
However, the order exempts the rental of rooms or apartments in one‐ or two‐family in which the owner lives. In addition, it exempts certain rooming houses, property used by church groups for religious purposes, and property used by a fraternal organization “which is, or which is part of, a bona fide and nationally recognized fraternal organization.”
Negro leaders expect the regulation to have its greatest effect in opening up middle‐income apartments to rental by Negroes.
Expected for Nearly a Year
The adoption this morning was perfunctory. It had been expected for nearly a year. But it was viewed by many observers as an “act of municipal courage” by the nominal heads of a city of 765,000 persons—58 per cent of them Negroes—ultimate authority over whom rests in the Congressional committee.
The House District Committee is headed by Representative John L. McMillen, Democrat of North Carolina. The committee's ranking Republican is Representative Joel T. Broyhill of Virginia, and eight of the 22 other members are from Southern constituencies. Five of the committee's six subcommittees are headed by Democrats from the Deep South.
In a statement, Walter N. Tobriner, president of the Board of Commissioners, was careful to note that the city administration had kept its promise to wait until Congress adjourned —which it did yesterday — “in order that Congress might have
No one at the District Building had really expected Congress to act. In fact, when the Commissioners first obtained from their legal advisers an opinion supporting their authority under the police power to enact an antidiscrimination measure, they were summoned before the District Committee and openly excoriated.
Before Congress adjourned in 1962, the House District Committee adopted a resolution “requesting” the Commissioners to withhold action on such a measure until the committee could hold hearings. No hearings were held, and the committee's move was widely interpreted here as a warning to the Commissioners that they could act on their own only at the risk of injury to their “good relations” with Congress.
City officials said privately today that they expected the committee to retaliate by tightening its already closely held control over two essential areas of municipal government—legislation and appropriations. But they declared that “we would have been derelict in our duty” to have postponed action longer.
Under the division of authority in the District of Columbia, Congress retains the legislative and appropriation functions that normally would be the prerogative of a City Council. The Commissioners merely administer the Congressional mandate.
Within the bounds of limited rule‐making and police powers,
The antidiscrimination order had been almost a certainty since the advent of the Kennedy Administration. President Kennedy appointed the first Negro City Commissioner, John B. Duncan, in 1961.
The unanimous vote for adoption of the fair housing code was cast today by Commissioners Tobriner and Duncan and Brig. Gen. Charles M. Duke. An officer of the Army Corps of Engineers traditionally serves as Washington's “engineer commissioner.”
The regulation was received by Negro and other civil rights groups as “an extremely good beginning.” Real estate interests had largely spent their opposition to it a year ago and several of the largest property owners here were expected to cooperate fully—even gladly—in its implementation.
Among them was Morris Cafritz, a leading builder of office and apartment buildings. Following desegregation demonstrations against his properties last summer, Mr. Cafritz pledged himself to be the first to open his apartment buildings to all persons on passage of the hous‐ ing regulation.
Observers noted that several large downtown apartment buildings were far from full occupancy. They suggested that the necessity for compliance with the housing order would “take the owners off the hook” in overcoming objections by white tenants to nondiscriminatory rental procedures.
A requirement of the regulation was designed to make explaining their compliance less troublesome to the owners. It stipulates that all real estate
“It is a violation of Article 45 of the police regulations of the District of Columbia for any person to (1) deny any housing accommodations to any person because of race, color, religion, or national origin… [or] (2) discriminate against any person … in the terms, conditions, or privileges of housing accommodations.”
The State Department had pressed hard for such a regulation, and a spokesman there said the department was “gratified” that affronts to nonwhite foreign diplomats seeking housing in the capital—long a matter of acute embarrassment to the national Government—would be reduced or ended.
The effectiveness of housing barriers here has been well established. More than 45 per cent of the city's Negroes live in areas that have a white population of 10 per cent or less. Virtually no Negroes live in the comfortable northwest section, west of Rock Creek Park,
A recent survey of 200 northwest Washington apartment buildings revealed that only a few would accept as tenants Negro or other “non‐Caucasian” diplomats.
In a preamble, the Commissioners declared that housing discrimination in Washington endangered the “lives, limbs, health, comfort, quiet and property of the inhabitants.”
Accordingly, except for the specific exemptions, the regulation forbids anyone to refuse to sell or rent, to require different terms or conditions or provide different services, to falsely represent the unavailability of a housing unit, or to refuse to lend money or accept a mortgage on grounds of race, creed, color or national origin.
It also forbids the publication of advertising or other printed matter “directly or indirectly”
A provision borrowed from New York City's Fair Housing Law authorizes officials to temporarily “freeze” the sale of property by injunction if they have reason to believe it may be transferred to another while a buyer claiming discrimination is awaiting action on a complaint.
Under the new regulation, sworn complaints alleging discrimination will be investigated by the city's Council on Human Relations. If the council fails to reach a settlement by conciliation, it can refer complaints to the Corporation Counsel for prosecution. Conviction carries a maximum penalty of 10 days in jail and a $300 fine.
The regulation is regarded as “weaker than some” similar ordinances in other cities in the strength of its administration and enforcement. However, officials said its coverage was as broad as, or broader than, other housing codes. Twelve states and eight other cities have antidiscrimination housing laws.
The most effective enforcement feature was only implied in the regulation. In effect, it warns licensed real estate dealers that they may lose their licenses — without cumbersome court action or prosecution —if they are found “unworthy” through violation of the regulation. Such findings can be made administratively by the City Real Estate Board.
Negro leaders particularly praised this provision and predicted that it would cause “the greatest impact” in middle‐income apartment rentals.
This article can be viewed in its original form. Please send questions and feedback to archive_feedback@nytimes.com
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DC Comrs unanimously approve sweeping anti-bias order bitterly opposed by Southern Congressmen; exempts only owner-occupied 1- and 2-family housing, certain rooming houses and property used by ch and fraternal orgns
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http://time.com/25946/tesla-nj-sales-ban/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151209174409id_/http://time.com/25946/tesla-nj-sales-ban/
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk Blasts New Jersey 'Backroom Deal'
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20151209174409
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk blasted New Jersey officials on Friday for moving to prevent consumers from buying vehicles directly from the electric car maker, charging that auto dealer lobbyists “cut a backroom deal” with Gov. Chris Christie “to circumvent the legislative process.” In response, the head of the state Coalition of Automotive Retailers accused Musk of throwing a “hissy fit.”
Earlier this week, the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission, which is composed of political appointees selected by Gov. Christie, blocked Tesla’s ability to sell electric cars through its own retailers, as it does in New York and Pennsylvania. Tesla sells cars directly to customers through its own retail locations, whereas most car manufacturers rely on third-party dealerships for sales.
As a result of the new rule, New Jersey residents will soon have to go out-of-state if they want to purchase a Tesla vehicle — and that’s exactly what Musk is now suggesting. In a blog post, Musk urged would-be Tesla buyers to visit the company’s New York City store or its King of Prussia, Pa. location near Philadelphia.
For decades, the major U.S. automakers have sold vehicles under the now-familiar dealership franchise model. As a result, the U.S. auto market is composed of thousands of independently owned dealerships, which are granted the right to market and sell brands like Ford — much in the same way that fast-food restaurants like McDonald’s are independently owned franchises.
“When Tesla came along as a new company with no existing franchisees, the auto dealers, who possess vastly more resources and influence than Tesla, nonetheless sought to force us to sell through them,” Musk wrote. “The reason that we did not choose to do this is that the auto dealers have a fundamental conflict of interest between promoting gasoline cars, which constitute virtually all of their revenue, and electric cars, which constitute virtually none.”
This market structure has created a conflict of interest that stacks the deck against Tesla, according to Musk, because the auto dealers “make most of their profit from service, but electric cars require much less service than gasoline cars. There are no oil, spark plug or fuel filter changes, no tune-ups and no smog checks needed for an electric car.”
In the blog post, Musk wrote that he has “made it a principle within Tesla that we should never attempt to make servicing a profit center. It does not seem right to me that companies try to make a profit off customers when their product breaks. Overcharging people for unneeded servicing (often not even fixing the original problem) is rampant within the industry and happened to me personally on several occasions when I drove gasoline cars.”
Musk mocked the “consumer protection” rationale that was presented to justify the New Jersey rule change. “If you believe this, Gov. Christie has a bridge closure he wants to sell you!” Musk declared. “Unless they are referring to the mafia version of ‘protection,’ this is obviously untrue. As anyone who has been through the conventional auto dealer purchase process knows, consumer protection is pretty much the furthest thing from the typical car dealer’s mind.”
Kevin Roberts, a spokesperson for Gov. Christie, defended the policy. “This administration does not find it appropriate to unilaterally change the way cars are sold in New Jersey without legislation and Tesla has been aware of this position since the beginning,” Roberts told CNNMoney. Jim Appleton, head of the N.J. Coalition of Automotive Retailers, denied there was a backroom deal, and told NorthJersey.com that Musk was having a “hissy fit.”
As for Tesla, Musk said that the company’s New Jersey stores will “transition to being galleries, where you can see the car and ask questions of our staff, but we will not be able to discuss price or complete a sale in the store. However, that can still be done at our Manhattan store just over the river in Chelsea or our King of Prussia store near Philadelphia.” Musk added: “We are evaluating judicial remedies to correct the situation.”
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The state's motor vehicle commission blocked Tesla's ability to sell electric cars through its own retailers, so Tesla CEO Elon Musk is urging buyers to visit the company's locations in New York City and Philadelphia
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http://www.cnbc.com/2014/02/25/look-whos-paying-the-marriage-penalty-this-year.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151209184554id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2014/02/25/look-whos-paying-the-marriage-penalty-this-year.html
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Look who's paying the marriage penalty this year
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20151209184554
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Other quirks in the nation's tax law also mean that some low-income couples end up paying a marriage penalty. That's because major tax breaks that are designed to help low-income families phase out as incomes go up, meaning some couples lose valuable credits once they join households.
Some same-sex couples also may find that they are hit with a marriage penalty this year because the federal government will now recognize those marriages for tax purposes. In the past, same-sex spouses had to grapple with a complex system in which state laws recognized their marriages but federal laws did not.
In general, couples who have very different incomes—such as one working spouse and one stay-at-home spouse—are more likely to get a marriage bonus, Williams said. Those who have similar incomes, especially if they are relatively high, are more likely to pay a penalty.
(Read more: Hate doing your taxes? Blame Congress, not the IRS)
"The closer and closer your incomes get together, the more likely (you are) to get into a situation where as single you pay less and as couples you (pay) more," Williams said.
Ed McCaffery, a law professor at the University of Southern California, said the possibility of a tax penalty and other disincentives, such as benefits cuts that also phase out as incomes go up, can make marriage seem like a bad short-term bet for low-income Americans. He thinks that's one reason there is an increasing wealth gap in who gets married, and who doesn't.
Of course, there are plenty of longer term financial benefits to being married. For example, McCaffery noted that people who stay married for a long time can be eligible for Social Security survivor benefits, which can provide a huge financial lift in old age. Researchers also have found a many other ways in which marriage can help make couples wealthier than singles or cohabitating couples.
Curious if you and your spouse will be paying a marriage penalty or benefiting from a marriage bonus? Check out the Tax Policy Center's marriage bonus and penalty tax calculator.
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Several new tax provisions could result in some married couples paying more in taxes than if they were single—the so-called marriage penalty.
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http://time.com/3827503/titanic-deckchair-sells-auction/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151213184716id_/http://time.com/3827503/titanic-deckchair-sells-auction/
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Titanic Deckchair Sells for £100,000 at Auction
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20151213184716
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A deckchair that was pulled from the wreckage of the Titanic more than a century ago has found a new home.
The chair was sold at an auction in England on Saturday, fetching just over 100,000 pounds including taxes and fees, or nearly $150,000, a representative of the Wiltshire auction house told TIME.
The chair sat on the first-class deck of the luxury ship that sank after hitting an iceberg in 1912, killing 1,500 people.
It was discovered floating on the surface of the ocean by a crew dispatched to recover bodies from the wreckage in 1912, the Guardian reports. The chair originally belonged to a member of that crew, and then to an English Titanic collector who owned it for the last 15 years and used it as a display item in his home.
It was sold by auctioneer Henry Aldridge and Son to an unnamed collector in the U.K.
Correction: The original version of the photo caption accompanying this story misstated the location of the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. It is in Halifax, Canada.
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A crew dispatched to gather bodies found the chair in 1912
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http://www.people.com/article/kylie-jenner-posts-adorable-tbt
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151219233157id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/kylie-jenner-posts-adorable-tbt
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Kylie Jenner Posts Adorable TBT with Kendall Jenner and Kim Kardashian West : People.com
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20151219233157
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12/17/2015 AT 03:50 PM EST
The reality star took to
to share an adorable picture with sisters
from back in the day – we're talking way,
In the sweet oldie, Kim, now 35, wraps her arms around her younger sisters Kendall, now 20, and Kylie, now 18.
From left: Kendall Jenner, Kim Kardashian West, Kylie Jenner
The Kardashian/Jenner clan has been big on the throwback trend lately: this week, both
"If only you could see yourself through my eyes!" Khloé, 31,
, 28, who has been out of the public eye for over a year. "I'll forever be obsessed with you! My one and only! #MyAce."
Meanwhile Kim, now a mom of two, took to her
"[These old photos] are so good. Awww, I look like a baby LOL!" Kim wrote.
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Another day, another amazing #TBT from the Kardashian-Jenner clan
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http://www.people.com/article/manhunt-underway-florida-man-accused-killing-ex-girlfriend
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151220231538id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/manhunt-underway-florida-man-accused-killing-ex-girlfriend
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Manhunt Underway in Florida for Man Accused of Killing Ex-Girlfriend : People.com
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20151220231538
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Jasmine Samuel and David Payne
12/18/2015 AT 11:05 AM EST
A manhunt is underway in Florida for a 62-year-old man who's accused of kidnapping and killing his ex-girlfriend, PEOPLE confirms.
On early Thursday morning, Jasmine Samuel, 25, called 911 to report that she had been abducted and forced into the trunk of her own car by her ex-boyfriend and co-worker David Payne while on break at work.
The call set off a desperate search for Samuel, who remained on the phone with police for about 15 minutes before dispatchers lost contact with her.
According to Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings, there were times during the call where sirens could be heard in the background.
Authorities located Samuel's vehicle at just after 2 a.m. It had been abandoned at the end of a dirt road. They found her body inside the trunk of the car. She had been killed with a firearm, Demings said at a press conference Thursday, declining to elaborate further, according to the
Now, authorities are hunting for Payne, who is charged with first-degree murder and armed kidnapping. Demings warned any individual who sees Payne should stay away and call police immediately.
"I cannot emphasize the importance of knowing this individual is a dangerous individual believed to be armed," said Demings.
Payne has a criminal history – records show he was sentenced in 1973 for killing a non-family member in 1972. And, in 1992, he pleaded guilty to robbery and kidnapping and was sentenced to five years in prison, according to the
. He pleaded no contest to a 1997 misdemeanor battery charge as well.
Samuel leaves behind two daughters, ages 4 and 7, according to
Anyone with information is asked to contact Crimeline at 800-423-8477.
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David Payne is charged with first-degree murder and armed kidnapping
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http://www.people.com/article/bride-photoshops-late-daughter-into-wedding-photos
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151225104239id_/http://www.people.com/article/bride-photoshops-late-daughter-into-wedding-photos
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Bride Shares Her Wedding Day with Her Late Daughter in Emotional Photo
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20151225104239
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12/24/2015 AT 12:45 PM EST
When Amanda Crowe Freebird said her "I do's" earlier this year, the day was practically perfect.
As joyous as the event was, there was one thing missing – Freebird's daughter, Azalee, who died of cancer at just 6 years old, two years before her mother's wedding day.
The bride's friend and wedding photographer, Ashley Frantz, however, found a way to include Azalee in Freebird's memories of her wedding day. Frantz photoshopped a translucent image of Azalee on a photo of Freebird in her wedding dress, creating the illusion that mother and daughter were reunited for the day.
The image came after Freebird asked Frantz to find a way to include Azalee in her wedding photos.
"She wanted so badly for her precious Azalee to be there with us," Frantz wrote on
. "Azalee's battle with childhood cancer ended two years ago. She went to heaven before her mommy met the most wonderful man named Chip."
Frantz said the experience was "one of the most beautiful and difficult pictures I've ever been asked to do," but ultimately, she was pleased with the result.
"It was such an honor to be able to do this for her," Frantz added. "I'm so thankful God has given me a talent that I can use to make broken hearts just a tad less broken."
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The photo will break your heart
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/12/23/thursday-business-agenda/MnC7ROZAsk7ttuUc5rXlxJ/story.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20151227231955id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2015/12/23/thursday-business-agenda/MnC7ROZAsk7ttuUc5rXlxJ/story.html
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Thursday’s business agenda
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20151227231955
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New numbers for the average 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage will be released Thursday. Last week, Freddie Mac reported the average 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage rose to 3.97 percent from 3.95 percent the week before.
JVS CareerSolution is holding a workshop to focus on the age-related issues that can arise when looking for a job. Attendees will learn strategies to use age to their advantage. Tuesday, 1 to 2:30 p.m., JVS CareerSolution, 75 Federal St., Boston. Free.
The Nasdaq Stock Market and New York Stock Exchange will close at 1 p.m. Thursday and remained closed on Friday in observance of Christmas.
Lioness Magazine, a magazine for women entrepreneurs, is organizing “Unleash Your Vision 2016,” a women empowerment event sponsored by Northwestern Mutual. Attendees will create vision boards and can attend 10-minute life coaching sessions. Tuesday, 6 to 9 p.m., Samuel’s, 1000 Hall of Fame Ave., Springfield. $37.50 to $50.
General Assembly is holding a two-day workshop on HTML and CSS. Saturday will focus on designing a Web template and Sunday will highlight Web layout. Basic HTML experience is recommended and attendees should bring a laptop with Sublime Text installed. Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., General Assembly, 51 Melcher St., Boston. $250.
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Stock market closed, mortgage rates, and more notable events and things to know.
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http://www.sfgate.com/49ers/article/49ers-slow-approach-has-come-up-short-6731016.php
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160101055546id_/http://www.sfgate.com/49ers/article/49ers-slow-approach-has-come-up-short-6731016.php
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49ers’ slow approach has come up short
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20160101055546
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After his better-than-expected performance in his first start of the season, 49ers quarterback Blaine Gabbert was asked about a secret to his success.
“I think just knowing,” Gabbert said, “that checkdowns aren’t a bad thing.”
Six starts and endless failed third downs later, however, it appears Gabbert might have gotten just a tad carried away with this checkdown stuff.
Consider: Gabbert has 38 third-down completions, but only 12 have netted first downs. In addition, he also has had two fourth-down completions in key late-game situations that have fallen short of the sticks. On Sunday, in a 32-17 loss to the Lions, he completed a two-yard pass to running back Jarryd Hayne on 4th-and-3 midway through the fourth quarter.
Gabbert has a serviceable passer rating (86.1) and completion percentage (63.0), but his cautious play explains why the 49ers are likely only cautiously optimistic about him as their starter in 2016.
After all, though Gabbert has been largely mistake-free — he has thrown just six interceptions in 238 attempts — his buttoned-up play has come with a cost. The 49ers have converted 23.2 percent (20 of 86) of their third downs in his starts and their inability to sustain drives explains why other key numbers mirror their production under demoted Colin Kaepernick: The offense has averaged 14.9 points a game with Gabbert (13.6 with Kaepernick) and the 49ers are 2-5 (2-6 with Kaepernick).
Wide receiver Torrey Smith, a downfield threat who has only two third-down receptions in Gabbert’s seven starts, was asked about his quarterback’s penchant for risk-averse passes.
“I think there’s a time and place for everything,” Smith said. “I’m the guy when I play Madden, I always am very aggressive. But there’s no punishment for that, right? But when you’re a quarterback, it’s a lot different. He takes his shots when he can, but I think we can make more plays. That’s not just on him. That’s on all of us.”
Smith is correct: Gabbert isn’t solely to blame.
As Gabbert has noted this season, many of his third-down completions have come in near-hopeless, long-distance situations. The 49ers have needed an average of 10.2 yards on his 38 third-down completions and have needed at least 7 yards on 74 percent (28 of 38) of those passes.
“They know what we’re trying to do on 3rd-and-15,” Gabbert said. “We’re trying to get to the sticks. So that’s the coverage that they’re going to play. They’re going to drop everybody right there at the marker and like I said, make you throw underneath so then they can rally and make a tackle.
“So, my job on 3rd-and-long is to find some type of completion. Whether it be past the sticks or underneath the sticks, just get the ball in our guys’ hands and let them make a play.”
The 3rd-and-longs are partly a reflection of Gabbert’s supporting cast on the NFL’s 32nd-ranked offense. In his seven starts, the 49ers’ starting running backs have been Shaun Draughn and Hayne. Their starting tight ends have been Vance McDonald and Blake Bell. No member of that quartet has more than 861 total yards in the NFL.
However, Gabbert also has notable limitations. NFL Films analyst Greg Cosell said Gabbert isn’t comfortable hanging in the pocket and letting a downfield play develop.
“When it’s 3rd-and-long, sometimes you’ve got to sit in the pocket and you’ve got to make downfield throws,” Cosell said on KNBR. “And, obviously, with this receiving corps, you’re not getting clear openings. You’re not getting receivers who break wide open. So you’ve got to be willing to turn it loose. I’m not sure he’s that guy. I think it has to be clearly defined. And when it’s not, he checks it down, he throws it short, he gets the ball out of his hand.”
If, indeed, the 49ers trade or release Kaepernick in the offseason, they could enter 2016 with Gabbert and a highly drafted quarterback competing for the starting spot.
On Thursday, offensive coordinator Geep Chryst termed Gabbert, 26, a “young quarterback with a lot of upside.” If so, there’s one area in which the 49ers hope he will grow.
“I think he’s taken some shots, but, obviously, in any case, we can always be a little bit more aggressive,” Smith said. “He can do that. That’s the most important thing. It’s not a matter of, Can he do it?”
Eric Branch is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: ebranch@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @Eric_Branch
The 49ers have converted 23.2 percent of their third downs in Blaine Gabbert’s seven starts, which is partly a reflection of the QB’s cautious approach:
32: Percent of Gabbert’s third-down completions that have resulted in first downs (average yards needed: 10.2).
61: Percent of Colin Kaepernick’s third-down completions that resulted in first downs this season (average yards needed: 8.4).
80: Percent of Arizona quarterback Carson Palmer’s third-down completions that resulted in first downs this season (average yards needed: 6.9).
13.9: The 49ers’ third-down conversion percentage (5-of-36) in current three-game losing streak.
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After his better-than-expected performance in his first start of the season, 49ers quarterback Blaine Gabbert was asked about a secret to his success. [...] he also has had two fourth-down completions in key late-game situations that have fallen short of the sticks. On Sunday, in a 32-17 loss to the Lions, he completed a two-yard pass to running back Jarryd Hayne on 4th-and-3 midway through the fourth quarter. Gabbert has a serviceable passer rating (86.1) and completion percentage (63.0), but his cautious play explains why the 49ers are likely only cautiously optimistic about him as their starter in 2016. [...] though Gabbert has been largely mistake-free — he has thrown just six interceptions in 238 attempts — his buttoned-up play has come with a cost. Wide receiver Torrey Smith, a downfield threat who has only two third-down receptions in Gabbert’s seven starts, was asked about his quarterback’s penchant for risk-averse passes. The 49ers have needed an average of 10.2 yards on his 38 third-down completions and have needed at least 7 yards on 74 percent (28 of 38) of those passes. The 3rd-and-longs are partly a reflection of Gabbert’s supporting cast on the NFL’s 32nd-ranked offense. In his seven starts, the 49ers’ starting running backs have been Shaun Draughn and Hayne. NFL Films analyst Greg Cosell said Gabbert isn’t comfortable hanging in the pocket and letting a downfield play develop. If, indeed, the 49ers trade or release Kaepernick in the offseason, they could enter 2016 with Gabbert and a highly drafted quarterback competing for the starting spot. On Thursday, offensive coordinator Geep Chryst termed Gabbert, 26, a “young quarterback with a lot of upside.” The 49ers have converted 23.2 percent of their third downs in Blaine Gabbert’s seven starts, which is partly a reflection of the QB’s cautious approach: Percent of Arizona quarterback Carson Palmer’s third-down completions that resulted in first downs this season (average yards needed: 6.9). The 49ers’ third-down conversion percentage (5-of-36) in current three-game losing streak.
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http://www.people.com/article/donald-trump-bill-clinton-sexism-hillary-clinton
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Donald Trump Blasts Bill Clinton for Sexism in Attack on Hillary Clinton : People.com
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20160101112958
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12/28/2015 AT 02:00 PM EST
The GOP front-runner is taking aim at
's "penchant for sexism" and history of marital infidelity as the former president joins wife
"Hillary Clinton has announced that she is letting her husband out to campaign but HE'S DEMONSTRATED A PENCHANT FOR SEXISM, so inappropriate!" Trump
The billionaire businessman borrowed the line from Hillary herself, who accused him of having a "
" after he said the former secretary of state and Democratic presidential front-runner "
Trump criticized the Clintons again on Sunday in an interview with Fox News, accusing Hillary of "playing the woman's card" and saying Bill was "fair game because his presidency was really considered to be very troubled because of all the things that she's talking to me about."
The attack continued on Monday morning, with Trump
, "If Hillary thinks she can unleash her husband, with his terrible record of women abuse, while playing the women's card on me, she's wrong!"
Hillary condemned Trump last week for using the term "schlonged" – derived from a vulgar Yiddish word for penis – in reference to her 2008 loss to Obama.
"I really deplore the tone of his campaign, the inflammatory rhetoric that he is using to divide people, and his going after groups of people with hateful, incendiary rhetoric," she told the
"It's not the first time he's demonstrated a penchant for sexism," she added. "Again, I'm not sure anybody's surprised that he keeps pushing the envelope."
The real estate mogul warned Hillary of his forthcoming onslaught on Wednesday night, when he
, "Hillary, when you complain about 'a penchant for sexism,' who are you referring to. I have great respect for women. BE CAREFUL!"
Meanwhile, the two presidential rivals were named winners in another contest – a
of Americans' most admired men and women in the world in 2015. Hillary and Obama were named the most admired woman and man, while Trump tied for second place – with
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"Hillary Clinton has announced that she is letting her husband out to campaign but HE'S DEMONSTRATED A PENCHANT FOR SEXISM, so inappropriate!" Donald Trump tweeted Saturday
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http://www.sfgate.com/49ers/article/Whoa-Ward-49ers-CB-finishing-second-season-in-6731992.php
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49ers’ Jimmie Ward finishing second season in shut-down mode
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20160102050025
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Photo: Rick Osentoski, Associated Press
Lions wide receiver Golden Tate is tackled by cornerback Jimmie Ward during the first half of the 49ers’ 32-17 loss last Sunday.
Lions wide receiver Golden Tate is tackled by cornerback Jimmie Ward during the first half of the 49ers’ 32-17 loss last Sunday.
49ers’ Jimmie Ward finishing second season in shut-down mode
In late September, Jimmie Ward was a first-round pick with second-string status.
Instead of playing the nickel-cornerback role he held as a rookie in 2014, he was playing sparingly. He logged just 29 percent of the defensive snaps in the first three games and was surrounded by injury questions: He had returned to practice in mid-August after undergoing the second surgery on his right foot since he’d left Northern Illinois.
In other words, he looked far more like a botched pick than a budding star.
Four months later, however, defensive coordinator Eric Mangini was asked to highlight some young players about whom he was excited, given their performance this season.
“Well,” Mangini began, “one guy that stands out right away is Jimmie Ward.”
Yes, the player who looked like a bust could be a bona fide player after all.
After reclaiming his nickel-cornerback role in Week 4, Ward has steadily improved, to the point where he has been in shutdown mode down the stretch. In the past four weeks, Ward has allowed a 44.6 passer rating when targeted, which ranks seventh of 109 cornerbacks over that span, according to Pro Football Focus. He also has been targeted just once in every 9.7 coverage snaps, which ranks second of 80 cornerbacks.
His four-week stretch began with his first career interception, which he returned 29 yards for a touchdown, in a 26-20 overtime win at Chicago on Dec. 6.
On Thursday, Mangini said Ward’s on-field performance had plenty to do with off-the-field effort. Ward is a video-study junkie who is known to huddle with secondary coach Tim Lewis on plane flights to ensure he can ace his assignments.
“Over the course of his career, that approach is going to serve him really well and as he builds up experience and reps with that work ethic,” Mangini said. “He’s got a chance not just to make plays on ability; he’s going to make plays because the whole game slows down. So I’ve loved that about him.”
Ward is clearly getting quite comfortable in the slot, but he’ll probably move to foreign territory Sunday in the regular-season finale against the Rams at Levi’s Stadium. Ward is expected to shift to safety because rookie Jaquiski Tartt is doubtful with a knee injury.
Ward was a safety in high school and college, but hasn’t played the position in a regular-season NFL game. Given his inexperience, he figures to stay busy against St. Louis.
“I expect the quarterback to look at me the majority of the time to see if I’m going to give a look away,” Ward said. “Because, you know, it’s my first time playing safety. I’m pretty sure he’ll hear about it. ... And I’m pretty sure they’re going to try me — take a couple of shots. I’m a nickel. I’m sure they’re probably going to run toward my side, too. So I’m looking forward to it.”
Ward also is looking forward to downtime in the offseason, which will allow him to rest his right foot. Ward has had two surgeries on his foot in the past 21 months and has worn a plastic orthotic inside his cleat this season. Ward said he’d been told he can ditch the device next season, but he acknowledged he might never be pain-free during his career.
“It’s just like tearing a piece of paper and taping it back up,” Ward said. “You’ll never get the same piece of paper. In this offseason, I’ll try to get help and have all the pain massaged out. Hopefully, when next year comes rolling around, it will be close to 100 percent.”
The injury is part of the reason for Ward’s slow start this season. He played extensively on special teams, but logged just 54 of 185 defensive snaps in the first three games. The 49ers went back to Ward after the secondary was torched in back-to-back blowout losses at Pittsburgh and Arizona.
“I wasn’t really mad,” Ward said. “I was disappointed. I knew I was going to get my shot again. And I just really had to make the most of it.”
Eric Branch is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: ebranch@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Eric_Branch
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In late September, Jimmie Ward was a first-round pick with second-string status. Four months later, however, defensive coordinator Eric Mangini was asked to highlight some young players about whom he was excited, given their performance this season. In the past four weeks, Ward has allowed a 44.6 passer rating when targeted, which ranks seventh of 109 cornerbacks over that span, according to Pro Football Focus. Ward is a video-study junkie who is known to huddle with secondary coach Tim Lewis on plane flights to ensure he can ace his assignments. “Over the course of his career, that approach is going to serve him really well and as he builds up experience and reps with that work ethic,” Mangini said. Ward is clearly getting quite comfortable in the slot, but he’ll probably move to foreign territory Sunday in the regular-season finale against the Rams at Levi’s Stadium. Ward is expected to shift to safety because rookie Jaquiski Tartt is doubtful with a knee injury. Ward was a safety in high school and college, but hasn’t played the position in a regular-season NFL game. “I expect the quarterback to look at me the majority of the time to see if I’m going to give a look away,” Ward said. [...] you know, it’s my first time playing safety.
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http://fortune.com/2011/12/08/corzine-in-the-house/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160105060214id_/http://fortune.com/2011/12/08/corzine-in-the-house/
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Corzine in the House
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20160105060214
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Today Jon Corzine shows his face in public.
Jon Corzine just began testifying at today’s House Committee on Agriculture hearing on the downfall of MF Global , although we don’t yet know how many questions he’ll answer once completing his prepared statement.
Early expectations were that he’d simply invoke his 5th Amendment rights, but Corzine has said the following in written testimony:
“Considering the circumstances, many people in my situation would almost certainly invoke their constitutional right to remain silent – a fundamental right that exists for the purpose of protecting the innocent. Nonetheless, as a former United States Senator who recognizes the importance of congressional oversight, and recognizing my position as former chief executive officer in these terrible circumstances, I believe it is appropriate that I attempt to respond to your inquiries.”
At the same time, however, Corzine has said that he does not have access to many of the relevant documents, which means we may hear a lot of “I don’t know” and “I can’t recall” rather than “I invoke my constitutional rights.”
I’m going to try to live-blog this as best as possible:
* Corzine asked if why there is a shortfall: “There are many transactions that occurred in those last chaotic days… I am not aware of all those nor am I able to look at all those transactions.”
* Corzine asked if he approved moving funds from segregated accounts: “I never intended to break any rules whether it broke with segregation rules… ” When asked if he knew such movement was illegal, Corzine hedged.
* Rep. Lucas keeps calling Corzine’s company “FM Global.” Does he not have any aides who can whisper in his ear?
* “I did not threaten the board that I would leave… But I had a conversation with a board member that could have been interpreted that way.”
* Corzine thought European regulators would “would take far more forceful steps…to avoid insolvency.”
* It sounds like there is some sort of police scanner in the background. Wonder if Corzine’s lawyer should be worried.
* Corzine: “I don’t recall Gensler or anyone else recommending bankruptcy.”
* Corzine asked if MF Global’s books were “a mess.” He says that books and records for last few days when firm “under pressure” were distinct from books and records previously, which “weren’t a mess.”
* Corzine, to his credit, hasn’t yet invoked 5th. Corzine, to his discredit, does not seem to know what was going on within his own firm.
* Corzine: 30-1 leverage much higher than I would have wanted for a sustained period of time.
* Committee now going into recess for an hour so that members can vote on other stuff…
* … And we’re back.
* Corzine asked if he’d put up his own personal wealth to make MF Global customers whole. He defers.
* Gets asked about lessons learned. Corzine says first goal is to recover missing funds. Beyond that, he doesn’t say much. Rep. then asked to call on Corzine in the future for his advice. Seriously.
* Rep. King asks if Corzine expects a “proportional personal loss.” Corzine won’t answer, but I will: No.
* Corzine gets asked why MF Global didn’t trade in Greek sovereign bonds. He replies that Greece was less solvent than other countries in which MF did invest, in terms of debt-to-GDP and other metrics. He also says his other sovereign trades were not made based on expectation that Greece would be bailed out.
* Now Corzine is being asked by Rep. King about New Jersey pension shortfalls. Important, but totally off-topic.
* Corzine asked if he “always did the right thing when no one was looking.” Corzine says yes (d’uh).
* Did Corzine “run to the bathroom and throw up?” He doesn’t respond.
* Rep. Scott: “What did you do at this company? Was it run by the board?” Corzine responds that he and others in management made investment recommendations that were approved or denied by the board.
* Scott: Did you co-mingle? Corzine: “There was never any directed intent to co-mingle those funds.” Scott calls him out on the number of times Corzine has said “intent” and “intend.”
* Corzine: Sovereign positions were not financed via segregated client money (at least he doesn’t think so).
* Corzine keeps saying he doesn’t have access to appropriate documents. Wouldn’t he have sought all this out before resigning (i.e., as firm was collapsing)?
* Corzine: “We had done stress tests on what securities we’d be able to sell… and we had undrawn credit lines held in reserve.”
* Worth noting: Corzine has not invoked the 5th Amendment in response to any questions so far.
* If they ask Corzine for “advice” on preventing another meltdown, will it be called The Corzine Rule?
* Rep. Schmidt talking about an Eagle Scout’s comment. This follows earlier talk about another congressman’s grandmother’s favorite saying.
* Lehman Brothers raised a few times as example of good actor, in that it didn’t tap segregated client funds as the ship caught fire.
* Corzine: “I am absolutely hopeful that a full understanding of what happened in those last full days will reveal the source of where those monies are. I continue to believe that those resources are in the hands of either counter-parties or there has been some mistaken forwarding of those to some place I didn’t know.”
* Ok, this is funny:
* Rep. Schmidt (R-OH) rarely looks up when she reads her questions. Makes me wonder who wrote them.
* Asked if client funds were ever pledged as collateral for sovereign investments. Corzine says not to his knowledge.
* Corzine’s advice: “It is clear in moments of stress that organizations don’t always operate the same way they would in a normal operating environment. I’d look for triggers that would enhance the oversight of organizations in those conditions.”
* Alright. Some final questions still coming, but I’ve got to run… Don’t really think we learned anything, which basically means it’s been a Congressional hearing…
Sign up for my daily email newsletter on deals and deal-makers: GetTermSheet.com
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Today Jon Corzine shows his face in public. Jon Corzine just began testifying at today's House Committee on Agriculture hearing on the downfall of MF Global , although we don't yet know how many questions he'll answer once completing his prepared statement. Early expectations were that he'd simply invoke his 5th Amendment rights, but Corzine has said the…
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http://www.cbsnews.com/news/al-franken-most-of-what-congress-does-isnt-sexy/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160105132637id_/http://www.cbsnews.com/news/al-franken-most-of-what-congress-does-isnt-sexy/
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Al Franken: Most of what Congress does isn't sexy
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20160105132637
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It seems just about every politician is running for president -- but Rita Braver has some Questions and Answers for Al Franken, a Senator who says he couldn't be happier with the job he already has:
"Every once in a while, I say to myself, 'I can't believe I'm a Senator!'" said Al Franken. "But then every once in a while I say, 'I can't believe I'm a Senator!'"
Nor can a lot of people. After all, how many United States Senators have been regulars on "Saturday Night Live," pranced around as Mick Jagger, or held forth as self-help guru Stuart Smalley:
It CAN get a little old. "I'm introduced as 'He's good enough, he's smart enough ...' That thing," said Franken. "And also when I started running was, you know, 'Al Franken, running for Senate -- no joke.' 'Franken elected -- no joke.'"
"I'm going to have to watch that in writing this story," said Braver.
"Yes, that right, that's my warning to you."
So, okay, no joke: 64-year-old Al Franken has established himself as a straight-talking, hard-working lawmaker who actually shows up for committee hearings, and is willing to reach across the aisle to get things done.
"The first day I got here, Jim Demint, the Senator from South Carolina -- who's now head of the Heritage Foundation, very, very, very conservative -- said to me, 'How are things on the Extreme Left?' And I said, 'They're great! How are things on the Nutcase Right?' And he laughed. And we were friends ever since!"
He makes friends his own quirky way, creating a Senatorial Secret Santa gift swap, and he hosts an annual hot dish competition for the Minnesota Congressional delegation. "Tim Walz is going for a three-peat here," said Franken, "which is kind of obnoxious."
He was raised on a middle-class street in suburban St. Louis Park, Minn., a suburb of Minneapolis.
"We had no quality time in my house -- we didn't go skiing or anything like that," he said. "But we had a lot of quality time, and a lot of that was watching comedies. My dad loved to laughed."
Senator Al Franken (D-Minn.) with correspondent Rita Braver. CBS News
Senator Al Franken (D-Minn.) with correspondent Rita Braver.
His dad was a printing salesman, his mom was a homemaker and real estate agent.
"I became interested in politics when I was about 11, 12, 13 years old, during the civil rights movement," he said." We were watching them sic dogs or club demonstrators. My dad would go, 'No Jew can be for that, no Jew can be for that.' That was probably when it crystallized to me how important public affairs are."
And Franken's fascination with both politics and comedy is actually on view in an unexpected place in his current house in Minneapolis: His "Nixon bathroom," featuring Elvis' letter to the president.
"My favorite sentence is, 'I have an in-depth study of drug abuse and Communist brainwashing technique and I am right in the middle of the whole thing.'"
Franken zeroed in on comedy as profession during college at Harvard. In 1975 he joined "Saturday Night Live," where he loved performing. But writing was even better.
© 2015 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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The former "SNL" cast member and current U.S. Senator says comedy was the perfect route to Capitol Hill, where dysfunction fails to completely stop progress
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http://www.people.com/article/craig-strickland-dead-backroad-anthem-tribute
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160106095942id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/craig-strickland-dead-backroad-anthem-tribute
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Backroad Anthem Posts Tribute to Craig Strickland: 'Today We Lost Our Brother'
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20160106095942
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01/04/2016 AT 08:00 PM EST
Backroad Anthem has issued a statement on
after learning their band member, Craig Strickland, was
"Today we lost our brother, our best friend, our bandmate. Craig was the most amazing person whose passion for life couldn't be matched," the country band wrote under a group photo. "Thankful to know he fought his way from the water to a hill and was lying in the
on his back looking up to his Heavenly Father."
last week after he and his friend
braved winter storm Goliath for a duck-hunting trip. Morland's body and the pair's capsized boat was found on Dec. 28, a day after they went missing.
for the singer's safe return and believed things were looking up when his beloved black lab, Sam, who was also on the hunting trip, was found alive.
However, Monday brought the tragic news that Strickland didn't make it through the storm.
"Revelation 21:4 'He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away," the band's statement continued. "We pray today for God to wrap his arms around Randy, Joanne, Helen and the family, and to help us through this extremely difficult time."
"We want to thank every single friend, fan, and family member for your thoughts, prayers, and love. Today he is smiling down on us and we know he will always be with us. He will always be here to help guide us along the way. We love you Craig Strickland and we will forever miss you!"
Oklahoma Highway Patrol Marine Enforcement Division found Strickland's body in the original search area around Bear Creek Cove, in a thick tree and brush area approximately 75 feet off the shoreline, a spokesperson told PEOPLE. The family was notified and his wife, Helen Strickland, later took to Twitter, announcing the news to fans.
"#CraigStrickland was found today," she wrote. "He is safe with his Father in Heaven. Thank you Lord for leading us to him today. I will praise you, Amen."
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The band issued a statement through Facebook after learning that Strickland was found dead
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http://fortune.com/2012/07/03/today-in-tech-tablets-will-overtake-notebooks-by-2016/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160113033537id_/http://fortune.com:80/2012/07/03/today-in-tech-tablets-will-overtake-notebooks-by-2016/
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Today in Tech: Tablets will overtake notebooks by 2016
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20160113033537
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Why your next phone could be made in the U.S.A.; how hacker group Anonymous launches attacks.
Made in America: could your next phone be homegrown? [ENGADGET]
For the past score or so, the issue of manufacturing in America has been a prevalent one. Millions upon millions of manufacturing jobs in America have been lost in the realms of textiles and furniture. But recently, the political scope that typically dodges the world of consumer electronics has found its sights set squarely on a field that we as gadget journalists cover. Some might say that Apple’s recent dealings with Foxconn helped to bring the issue to light, but honestly, those jobs were being shipped elsewhere long before the iPod came to fruition.
Megaupload founder goes from arrest to cult hero [THE NEW YORK TIMES]
In an e-mail interview, Mr. Dotcom said he had been treated badly by the New Zealand police and the government, which he said he believed was simply kowtowing to U.S. requests. “Two helicopters and 76 heavily armed officers to arrest a man alleged of copyright crimes — think about that,” he wrote. “Hollywood is importing their movie scripts into the real world and sends armed forces to protect their outdated business model.”
Facebook mines its own network for acquisitions [THE WALL STREET JOURNAL]
Facebook’s interest in acquisitions may be an incentive for some entrepreneurs. But it also carries the risk of alienating the developers who have made Facebook a robust marketplace for apps. These choices are part of Facebook’s evolution to a profit-maximizing enterprise. Facebook is especially concerned with ramping up its efforts to make money from its mobile site, where it currently only has limited advertising opportunities.
EA is “going to be a 100% digital company, period” says Gibeau [GAMESINDUSTRY.BIZ]
The company recently had its first year of digital revenues over one billion dollars, and now EA is expecting that number to jump closer to $2 billion (guidance of $1.7 billion in digital revenues this year). For EA Labels boss Frank Gibeau, the business is clearly at a tipping point. He told GamesIndustry International recently that EA clearly will be 100 percent digital in the near future.
How Anonymous picks targets, launches attacks, and takes powerful organizations down [WIRED]
For the next eight months, Sabu continued to rage across the Internet as a core member of AntiSec, a blackhat hacking group within Anonymous. He helped to deface government and corporate websites and even helped bring down the private intelligence firm Stratfor—all, apparently, with the FBI’s blessing as it quietly gathered logs on Monsegur’s fellow “anons.” Law enforcement officials later told Fox News that Monsegur was working out of the FBI offices “almost daily” in the weeks after he pleaded guilty in August and then from his own home thereafter, with an agent watching his activity 24 hours a day.
NPD: Tablets to overtake notebooks by 2016 as the most popular mobile ‘PC’ [TECHCRUNCH]
Tablets, and specifically the iPad from Apple, have been one of the big drivers for growth in mobile in the last couple of years, but figures out today from NPD indicate that their popularity is going to get even bigger: the market for tablets, its researchers predict, is set to boom from 121 million shipped tablets today to 416 million devices by 2017, when they will overtake notebooks to become the most popular mobile PC device, driven by a drop in costs and a rise in features. Overall mobile PC shipments will reach 809 million units by 2017, from 347 million today.
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Why your next phone could be made in the U.S.A.; how hacker group Anonymous launches attacks. Made in America: could your next phone be homegrown? [ENGADGET] For the past score or so, the issue of manufacturing in America has been a prevalent one. Millions upon millions of manufacturing jobs in America have been lost in the realms…
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http://www.people.com/article/donald-trump-jimmy-fallon-woo-hillary-clinton
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160113065241id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/donald-trump-jimmy-fallon-woo-hillary-clinton
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Donald Trump Tells Fallon He 'Hasn't Even Started' on Hillary Clinton : People.com
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20160113065241
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By Tierney McAfee and Kristen Caires
updated 01/11/2016 AT 09:00 PM EST
•originally published 01/12/2016 AT 02:15 PM EST
put the GOP hopeful in the hot seat for a "mock job interview" and asked him about his greatest weakness.
"I'm too nice too long, and when ⦠somebody takes advantage of a situation, I become too bad for too long," Trump responded. "So I think I maybe have to have a little bit of a shorter memory. It wouldn't be so bad."
Trump, 69, illustrated his tendency to hold grudges earlier that day when he responded to Fox News host
's claim that the GOP front-runner had tried – and failed – to "woo" her with compliments on her work.
"@megynkelly recently said that she can't be wooed by Trump," he
Monday afternoon. "She is so average in every way, who the hell wants to woo her!"
in the magazine's December cover story that, despite The Donald's smooth talking, she "can't be wooed."
"He would send me press clippings about me that he would just sign 'Donald Trump.' And he called me from time to time to compliment a segment," Kelly said. "I didn't know why he was doing that. And then when he announced that he was running for president, it became more clear."
"But I can't be wooed. I was never going to love him, and I was never going to hate him."
ever since the Aug. 6 Republican debate, where
about derogatory comments he's made towards women.
Fallon, 40, also asked the billionaire businessman for his thoughts on the conspiracy theory that he was secretly hired by the Democratic Party to ensure that
"I'll set the record straight right now," Trump said. "The newest poll just came out today where I'm beating [Hillary] easily and substantially."
"I'm winning against Hillary one on one – and I haven't even started on her yet."
airs weeknights at 11:35pm on NBC.
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Donald Trump made his second appearance on The Tonight Show Monday
| 38.090909 | 0.636364 | 1 |
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http://www.nytimes.com/1964/06/12/beaverbrooks-title-is-renounced-by-son.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160115234826id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/1964/06/12/beaverbrooks-title-is-renounced-by-son.html
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Beaverbrook's Title Is Renounced by Son
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20160115234826
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LONDON, June 11 — Max Aitken, who assumed the title and inherited the newspaper empire of Lord Beaver‐brook, delcared tonight that he had renounced his title. His father died Tuesday.
“The title was earned and won by my father,” the 54year‐old Mr. Aitken said. “He brought on it a unique distinction which belongs to him alone.”
“Certainly in my lifetime there will only be one Lord Beaverbrook,” Mr. Aitken added.
As chairman of Beaver‐brook Newspapers, Ltd. Mr. Aitken controls The Daily Express, the Sunday Express and The Evening Standard.
The late Lord Beaverbrook himself had second thoughts about the title. After he became the first Baron Beaver‐brook in 1917 he expressed regret that by moving into the House of Lords he had been removed from the center of political power, the House of Commons.
This article can be viewed in its original form. Please send questions and feedback to archive_feedback@nytimes.com
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renounces title; por
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160116211557id_/http://fortune.com/2010/06/14/sara-lee-ceo-brenda-barnes-recovering-from-a-stroke/
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Sara Lee CEO Brenda Barnes recovering from a stroke
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Sara Lee CEO Brenda Barnes delivered the news herself this morning: “I suffered a stroke a few weeks ago, and I am now in the process of recuperating,” she said in a statement released by the company.
The news is shocking, not just because Barnes is only 56 years old. She has always looked and seemed younger than her years. And while she always has taken her job seriously, she has never taken her position too seriously for her own good.
Barnes, who ranks No. 10 on Fortune‘s Most Powerful Women list, has never gotten consumed by her career. Or at least when she did, she did something about it. This is the woman who famously, in 1997 after 22 years at PepsiCo , quit her job as CEO of Pepsi-Cola North America to be a better mom. Being the most powerful woman in the consumer-goods industry–which she was, based on revenues–didn’t matter as much as being there for her three kids.
A year later in 1998, Fortune put Barnes, then 44, on its inaugural MPWomen list, at No. 44. Even though she lacked a 9-to-5 executive gig, she turned herself into one of America’s most desired corporate directors. She joined the boards of Avon , the New York Times , Sears , George Lucas’ Lucasfilm, Staples and Starwood Hotels , where in a management pinch, she stepped up to interim president, reluctantly.
All the while, Barnes was scanning the corporate universe to determine where she might eventually return in a full-time position. Living in Illinois, where she grew up, she also taught for a while at Kellogg Graduate School of Management. I recall going to speak to her class, and Barnes telling her students that the time to consider changing a career is when you don’t desire a move up to the next-highest position.
She ended up joining Sara Lee in 2004 as president and COO and moving up to CEO a year later. She knew she faced a huge challenge, remaking a consumer conglomeration that sold everything from Hanes hosiery to hot dogs. But amidst the recession and spikes in commodity costs, it’s surely been more difficult than she had envisioned. After selling billions of dollars worth of assets and cutting the workforce, Sara Lee stock is down 35% from February 2005, when she took over.
Even with friends, Barnes is intensely private. So it’s not so surprising that neither she nor Sara Lee is disclosing how serious her stroke was or whether she’s likely to return to the company. The company announced this morning that it will give an update on or before its August 12 end-of-year earnings call.
“She’s recuperating and on the mend,” Sara Lee communications boss John Harris told me today. “Recovering from a stroke can be a very long process,” he added. When he spoke with Barnes last week, he said, she was in “good spirits.”
That’s encouraging. Barnes’ three children, two sons and a daughter, have been helping her through her ordeal. We wish her a fast and full recovery.
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Sara Lee CEO Brenda Barnes delivered the news herself this morning: "I suffered a stroke a few weeks ago, and I am now in the process of recuperating," she said in a statement released by the company. The news is shocking, not just because Barnes is only 56 years old. She has always looked and…
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Caitlyn Jenner Talks Dating : People.com
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20160117184113
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01/14/2016 AT 07:25 PM EST
's E! docuseries unveiled a trailer for its second season – and Jenner tackles plenty of topics in the clip, including her dating life.
"I don't see dating women in the future. I've been there. Done that. I've got three ex-wives," Jenner, 66, tells her friends.
The trailer also shows Jenner receive her new drivers license photo – her first as Caitlyn.
"Sometimes I feel like I'm throwing old Bruce out the door," a tearful Jenner says, holding the ID. "Maybe he didn't deserve to be gone."
Later, Jenner's friend Jenny Boylan questions her about her stance on gay marriage, likely referencing the star's appearance last year on
show in which she said she had initially against it.
"I was a little hurt about your lukewarm support for same-sex marriage," Boylan says, to which Jenner responds she "didn't explain it as well as I should have, but I had like 30 seconds to think about it."
return for its second season March 6 at 9 p.m. ET.
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The series returns March 6
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National Zoo's Panda Tian Tian Rolls Around in Washington, D.C., Snow : People.com
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Tian Tian at the National Zoo
01/23/2016 AT 02:15 PM EST
Pandas don't like snow. They love it!
While a massive winter storm
, the National Zoo's panda
woke up in Washington, D.C., to a white weekend – "and he was pretty excited about it," according to an adorable video the zoo tweeted Saturday.
The 15-second clip is almost unspeakably cute, as Tian Tian wriggles and rolls in the fluffy white snow.
Tian Tian woke up this morning to a lot of snow, and he was pretty excited about it. #blizzard2016 pic.twitter.com/GrhI9t1u7j
He hardly even seemed to notice the chill.
As the zoo tweeted out Friday, "Giant pandas have thick woolly fur coats, perfect for keeping them warm even when rolling in snow, like Tian Tian."
Giant pandas have thick woolly fur coats, perfect for keeping them warm even when rolling in snow, like Tian Tian. pic.twitter.com/nD8oHhYses
Tian Tian wasn't the only one unfazed by the weather: The red pandas at the zoo
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The 15-second clip, which the zoo tweeted Saturday, is almost unspeakably cute
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160126085426id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/01/24/life-sciences-big-focus-for-planned-innovation-center/Glbzh4h8Is7RdX6IdwbBeK/story.html
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Life sciences to be a big focus for planned $5M GE ‘innovation center’
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Life sciences will be a major focus of the $5 million “innovation center” that state officials have promised GE as part of its headquarters relocation, with money being funneled through the state’s major grant-making program meant to boost the biotech industry.
Plenty of details still need to be worked out. But government documents and interviews with people who have worked on the project show that the innovation center — GE called it a “Digital Foundry” — will have a strong emphasis on life sciences.
That’s partly because the $5 million earmarked for the research and development center will come from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, which offers grants, loans, and tax breaks to biotech and medical technology companies and nonprofit organizations.
“It could be broader, depending on what the company’s exact needs are. We know that life sciences and health care delivery is a big focus area, but we also know that they are into the Internet of Things, robotics, and industrial Internet,” said Paul McMorrow, a spokesman for the state’s Housing and Economic Development secretary, Jay Ash.
The center might work like a conventional startup accelerator, where emerging companies are given access to cheap office space, expert advisers, and other perks. But its exact structure still isn’t settled, McMorrow said.
The company is several years into an effort to become one of the world’s biggest software suppliers.
Some kind of nonprofit will be involved in running the center, though, because the grant providing the funds cannot be used for for-profit companies.
LabCentral, a shared workspace for biotech startups in Kendall Square, is one comparable project. The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center provided LabCentral $5 million in early 2013, and the facility opened later that year with additional support from corporate donors.
Another possible model is the Berkshire Innovation Center in Pittsfield, which won a $9.7 million life sciences center grant in 2014 to help develop smaller manufacturing companies working in life sciences, including the industry’s supply chain.
That’s a good example of how life sciences grant money can be used to support companies that work outside of pure biotech research, McMorrow said.
In their brochure pitching Boston as a new headquarters location, government officials suggested using the MassChallenge accelerator program, a nonprofit supported by state and corporate dollars, as the administrator of GE’s innovation center.
The director of MassChallenge’s flagship Boston program, Scott Bailey, has been closely involved in the innovation center project, said MassChallenge spokesman Robby Bitting, who described the discussions as “ongoing and very positive.”
But the company and state officials might also decide that another nonprofit, possibly one affiliated with GE, should take control of the innovation center, McMorrow said.
State and city leaders pitched the former Boston Public Schools building as a possible home for the innovation center, but the project’s location hasn’t been decided, McMorrow said.
One thing is clear: GE will have a big hand in deciding what the innovation center winds up looking like.
In their formal offer of incentives to the company, Governor Charlie Baker and Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh wrote that the project’s specifications “will be identified in consultation with the company.”
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GE’s relocation includes a $5 million “digital foundry” that could help the company connect with researchers and smaller companies. The money will be supplied by the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center.
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Artist Sarah Lucas to represent UK at 2015 Venice Biennale
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Sarah Lucas, the woman once described as "the most unabashedly all-balls-out, rock'n'roll of the Young British Artists", has been chosen to represent the UK at next year's Venice Biennale.
Still best known for early works that featured fried eggs and a kebab to represent the female body, or poked a pair of oranges and an upright cucumber into a stained saggy mattress, Lucas, at 52, is no longer the artworld enfant terrible who shot to fame in a generation that included Damien Hirst, Mat Collishaw and Rachel Whiteread.
But her work remains "impolite", said Andrea Rose, chair of the selection committee for the prestigious international art show and director of visual arts at the British Council. Describing the artist as a "formidably inventive sculptor", she said: "To prick convention could be a term coined for Lucas' work … Like zest in the artworld mix, her work will bring wit and savour to the biennale."
Lucas was part of the first wave of what came to be known as the YBAs, exhibiting alongside other students of Goldsmiths art college in the now legendary Freeze exhibition in 1988. She quickly established a signature bawdy style – her first two solo shows were titled The Whole Joke and Penis Nailed to a Board, while a 1999 self-portrait pictured her wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with fried eggs over her breasts (left). "The embarrassment factor can be quite important," she has said, "because then you know you've touched a nerve, even with yourself."
The executive director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Gregor Muir, who was on the selection panel, said Lucas had "affirmed her status as a leading international artist" with exhibitions around the world in recent years. "Having consistently pushed the limits of her practice, there's a sense that Lucas – seemingly more active than ever – is coming into her own."
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Lucas, one of original Young British Artists, well known for early work featuring fried eggs and kebab to represent female body
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One Direction Releases Music Video for 'History' : People.com
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01/26/2016 AT 01:55 PM EST
is taking a trip down memory lane.
The band released the official video for their song "History" on Tuesday, and the video pays tribute to the band's five-year journey – including their days as a quintet.
The emotional video is comprised mostly of footage spanning back to One Direction's start on
U.K. to their December performance on
– a farewell bid to their fans before beginning
alongside producers, is the third single from the band's fifth studio album
sing and play around with one another amid the flashback footage, which includes former member,
that "History" is a modern version of Randy Newman's "You've Got a Friend in Me."
"More than anything, the song is about the way the fans and everyone have created this massive thing – One Direction – over the past five years," he said.
"Out of '[History]' comes a little bit of closure for this chapter of One Direction."
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One Direction is taking it way back in their latest music video
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Fast food CEO: McDonald's has problems. We don't
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20160131134330
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Not everyone in the fast-food landscape is delivering good numbers. Burger behemoth McDonald's recently reported its worst U.S. monthly sales in more than a decade. As part of its domestic turnaround strategy, it plans to pare down its menu, increase customization and give local operators more autonomy.
Read MoreMcDonald's to ax some menu items
Overall though, the fast-food category is growing, albeit tepidly in part due to McDonald's woes. For the year ending October 2014, fast food visits were flat while spending rose 3 percent, according to market research firm NPD Group.
Despite trouble at the Golden Arches, Puzder says other competitors aren't in the same boat.
"The tendency is to look at McDonald's," Puzder said. "I speak to some of the other CEOs in the industry, and most of the rest of us aren't seeing the problems that McDonald's is seeing."
During the third quarter, Burger King's comparable sales rose 3.6 percent in the U.S. and Canada while Wendy's saw its North America company-operated same-restaurant sales increase 2 percent and franchise sales rise 0.5 percent.
Drive-in restaurant Sonic reported system same-store sales jumped 4.6 percent during its fiscal fourth quarter.
Read MoreFast food really isgetting slower
Rather, Puzder sees most of McDonald's problems as endemic to the chain.
"In fact, I think most people are experiencing the benefits of lower gas prices, which is putting more cash in people's pockets," he said.
Part of Carl's Jr. and Hardee's strategy in staying relevant to consumers, particularly to millennials, is delivering new items, like the "natural" burger that Carl's Jr. will debut Wednesday. The burger represents the first all-natural grass-fed, free-range beef patty without added hormones, antibiotics or steroids from a major fast food company.
Read MoreCramer Remix: McDonald's reminds me of Kesha
In testing, the burger ranked tops in overall opinion of the burgers Puzder has tested in his tenure at the helm. With a $4.69 price tag, it's roughly comparable to the price of Carl's Jr.'s premium Black Angus Third Pounder.
The company balances its menu with more indulgent items like its half-pound mile high cheeseburgers to cater to its core audience—what Puzder describes as "young, hungry guys."
"We do make products that meet consumer desire to eat more healthily as well as products that are just plain good," he said.
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One fast food CEO says 'sales have been very good since about the middle of June' as lower gas prices boost orders.
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160203064216id_/https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/sep/28/anselm-kiefer-royal-academy-review-rembembrance-amid-the-ruins/amp
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Anselm Kiefer review - remembrance amid the ruins
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Anyone who knows even the smallest thing about Anselm Kiefer will have gathered that his ambitions are not ordinary. An old-school history painter, didactic and inescapably moral, he works on a grand scale in lead, sand, gold leaf, copper wire, broken ceramics, straw, wood and even diamonds, his ideas informed by, among many other subjects, the Holocaust, Egyptian mythology, the architecture of Albert Speer, German Romanticism and the poems of Paul Celan. He is the kind of artist whose physical presence – in his black T-shirts and rimless spectacles, he puts one in mind just lately of an executive from Apple – always comes as a surprise. How, you wonder, can a man who deals with so much weighty stuff have such regular-looking shoulders, such ordinary biceps? And why is he smiling? Doesn’t the darkness ever threaten to engulf him? Doesn’t his project – now more than 40 years old – sometimes pinch at his sanity?
Yet only with the help of a blindfold would you be able to wander the Royal Academy’s stupendous retrospective of his work and leave feeling anything less than drunk with amazement. However much you know about Kiefer, it’s impossible to be prepared for this show: for its scale, its pleasures, its provocations and – this must be said – its bafflements. This is a total experience. The work first speaks to the eyes, which instinctively scour every last corner of every painting, every sculpture. Then it calls to the heart, pulling from you all sorts of things Kiefer certainly didn’t intend (in my case: modern-day Syria; the 80s nuclear TV drama Threads; John Wyndham’s novel The Day of the Triffids). Last of all, it engages the head, as you attempt to unravel his complex, multilayered narratives. It’s certainly useful to know your history before you enter these spaces – and if you’re fluent in the language of Richard Wagner and Caspar David Friedrich, so much the better. But it isn’t necessary. In any case, mystification is half the point. No artist puts this much effort into the construction of their work without wanting their audience to linger over it, to try and fathom it out.
Kiefer was born in the Black Forest in 1945, a kind of year zero in terms of German history. And it’s this – the attempt to wipe out collective memory after the war – that has long been his creative wellspring (at school his teachers hardly mentioned the Third Reich). Taught by Joseph Beuys, the artist who helped Kiefer’s generation to reclaim much of the historical and mythological imagery rendered so toxic by the Nazis, his early work depicts himself, dressed in his father’s army uniform, taking the Nazi salute outside the Colosseum in Rome and elsewhere. The Royal Academy show, which works chronologically, begins with this zesty, youthful reappropriation. I was queasily hypnotised by the watercolour Ice and Blood (1971), in which an expanse of snow is scarred with pools of crimson and, far worse, a tiny, naive figure in a military overcoat, its right arm ominously raised. Before you get there, though, the Royal Academy reveals its breathtaking commitment to Kiefer with a little reappropriation of its own. The garish shop at the top of the gallery’s stairs has disappeared. In its stead is Language of the Birds (2013), a monumental sculpture comprising a pile of charred-looking books with a huge set of wings attached. Do these belong to a German eagle? Naturally, that’s what comes to mind. But I kept thinking, too, of the phoenix, a creature that speaks to Anselm’s preoccupation with myth, rebirth and the cycles of time every bit as loudly as the Reichsadler.
The phoenix rises from the ashes, and this, after all, is a show that is covered in clinker. Ash Flower (1983-97), made of oil, acrylic, paint, clay, earth, ash and – a recurring symbol in Kiefer’s work – a dried sunflower, is a seven metre-wide depiction of a ruin, the ruthless lines of a grand public building emerging through its murky surface like the prow of a ship through fog. Sulamith (1983), inspired by a Paul Celan poem, Death Fugue, which was written in a concentration camp (“your ashen hair Shulamite”), is a gloomy crypt rendered in oil, acrylic, woodcut, emulsion and straw, at one end of which a fire endlessly flickers. Untitled (2006-08) consists of a triptych of huge vitrines in which there resides a wintry graveyard of brambles, dead roses, more ash, and toppling concrete houses. Gradually, the work starts to talk to the future as well as the past. In the Royal Academy’s octagonal gallery is a new piece, Ages of the World (2014): a pile of abandoned canvases and rubble bedecked with an unhappy coronet of yet more dead sunflowers. It has a dystopian, post-apocalyptic feel: no culture, no hope.
All this is pitch-dark. But there is radiance elsewhere – and colour too. For Ingeborg Bachmann: the Sand from the Urns (1998-2009) is a depiction of a ziggurat in a sandstorm so astonishingly dynamic you’re almost tempted to squint, the better to protect your eyes, while the satirical Operation Sea Lion (1975) has toy battleships floating in one of the zinc baths that were given to every German home by the health-obsessed Third Reich, its water a horribly chipper shade of blue. Best of all there are Kiefer’s Morgenthau paintings from 2013, named for the US Treasury secretary Henry Morgenthau Jnr – whose plan it was in 1944 to transform Germany into a pre-industrial nation as a means of limiting her ability to fight future wars – and crammed with impasto stalks of corn that sometimes blow and bend, and sometimes reach for the blazing sky. A note on the wall urges the visitor to note the crows circling above, a symbol of death and resurrection. But it isn’t these flapping shadows that keep you in the room; it’s the whispering grass, the beatific sunshine, the splashes of cornflower blue. Kiefer is that most resolute of artists. He has never turned away from the difficult and the sombre; his career is a magnificent reproach to those who think art can’t deal with the big subjects, with history, memory and genocide. In the end, though, what stays with you is the feeling – overwhelming at times – that he is always making his way carefully towards the light.
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Anselm Kiefer’s monumental work in ash, straw, diamonds and sunflowers dazzles in a superb retrospective, writes Rachel Cooke
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http://www.people.com/article/donald-trump-iowa-caucus-concession-speech-second-place
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Donald Trump Gives Concession Speech After Taking Second Place in Iowa Caucus : People.com
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20160203072129
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02/01/2016 AT 11:50 PM EST
Shortly after the results came out, the Republican presidential candidate, whose normally hyper-active Twitter account went uncharacteristically silent as the votes rolled in, addressed his supporters at his Iowa campaign headquarters.
"I was told by everybody, 'Do not go to Iowa. You could never finish even in the top 10,' " Trump recalled, adding that he told the doubters, "I think they'll really like me. Let's give it a shot."
He continued, "We finished second and I want to tell you something: I'm just honored, I'm really honored. And I want to congratulate
and congratulate all of the incredible candidates. We're just so happy with the way everything worked out."
The real estate mogul then turned his sights to New Hampshire, where the first primary of the campaign season will take place on Feb. 9, and where he is currently leading in statewide polls, according to
"We're going on now. We're at 20 points ahead, okay? We love New Hampshire ... and we're leaving tonight. I think we're going to be proclaiming victory [in New Hampshire], I hope," Trump said. "We will go on to get the Republican nomination and we will go on to easily beat
or whoever the hell they throw up there."
He ended his speech on a gracious note, saying, "Iowa, we love you, we thank you. You're special. We will be back many, many times. In fact, I think I might come here and buy a farm. I love it."
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Real estate mogul Donald Trump took second place in Monday night's GOP Iowa caucus
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Mob Wives Costars Rally in Support During Treatment : People.com
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20160205094832
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02/04/2016 AT 11:55 AM EST
fights for her life, she can count on family, friends and her
costars to be in her corner.
On Tuesday, Raiola's sister Janine Detore created a
since treatments for the VH1 star, who was hospitalized after stage-4 lung and brain
, have not been working.
In the days since, her costars on the reality show have taken to Twitter and Instagram in a show of support for the woman they call their "momma bear."
"BIG LOVE for BIG ANG," Alicia DiMichele wrote on
. "Let's all come together and help our @biggangvh1 beat cancer!! #F---CANCER I Love you Ang! #4BigAng."
In response to Raiola's Wednesday
that she was home resting and wouldn't be live-tweeting the show, costar Karen Gravano said: "[Love] you Ang stay positive see you soon."
you Ang stay positive see you soon https://t.co/rG8ShcprBY
"Feel better @biggangVH1," Marissa Jade tweeted. "Your [sic] a fighter."
Feel better @biggangVH1 Your a fighter https://t.co/CuJ9OmBvZO
"Friends like sisters," Renee Graziano captioned a picture of herself with Raiola on
. "All my prayers sit this close..to the ones I love Send our super star #bigang some love ... All is well."
In a recent video for Wetpaint, the VH1 stars gave an update on Raiola and expressed their support.
"Ang can teach us all something on this show," Gravano said in the clip. "We all claim to be fighters and are at war with each other, but Ang is in a war for her life. She gets up every day, she stays strong, she's a caretaker for her family and people that love her."
"She's like the momma bear," Carla Facciolo chimed in.
," Gravano continued. "We're all going to band together. When push comes to shove, the main fight is with Ang."
airs Wednesdays (8 p.m. ET) on VH1.
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"Friends like sisters, all my prayers sit close," Mob Wives star Renee Graziano wrote on Instagram
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160206080446id_/http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/02/06/08/57/taiwan-buildings-collapse-after-quake
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At least 5 dead in Taiwan earthquake
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A powerful earthquake has toppled a 17-storey apartment building in southern Taiwan, killing at least five people, including a 10-day-old girl.
The collapse on Saturday has triggered frantic efforts to rescue about 35 people feared trapped inside.
The baby and three of the other dead were from an apartment complex where the floors of a tower block pancaked down onto to each other when the 6.4 magnitude tremor hit at around 4am, at the start of a Lunar New Year holiday.
Rescuers mounted hydraulic ladders and a crane to scour the wreckage, plucking 221 survivors to safety so far, with dozens taken to hospital, a fire brigade official said.
Elsewhere in the city of two million people, several buildings tilted at alarming angles but a fire department official said rescue efforts were now focused entirely on the apartment block, where a child's clothes fluttered from a first-floor laundry line and the smell of leaking gas hung in the air.
"I was watching TV and after a sudden burst of shaking, I heard a boom. I opened my metal door and saw the building opposite fall down," said a 71-year-old neighbour who gave his name as Chang.
A collapsed office building in Tainan, Taiwan. (AAP)
A plumber, he said he fetched some tools and a ladder and prised some window bars open to rescue a woman crying for help.
"She asked me to go back and rescue her husband, child, but I was afraid of a gas explosion so I didn't go in. At the time there were more people calling for help, but my ladder wasn't long enough so there was no way to save them."
The quake was centred 43km southeast of Tainan, at a depth of 23km, the US Geological Survey said.
Several aftershocks shook Tainan, Taiwan's weather bureau said.
Authorities said there were 92 households and 256 people living in the collapsed apartment building, but they did not know how many were actually there when the quake struck.
The fire department said 115 people had been taken to hospital from around Tainan.
Tainan mayor William Lai said it was too early to say if shoddy construction was responsible for the devastation at the apartment complex with the 17-storey tower which collapsed.
"We will chase the legal responsibility later," he told reporters.
President Ma Ying-jeou visited an emergency centre and hospital in Tainan while President-elect Tsai Ing-wen cancelled appointments to help coordinate rescue efforts.
China's Taiwan Affairs Office, which in is charge of Beijing's relations with the self-ruled island, said China was willing to provide help if needed, Chinese state news agency Xinhua said. Beijing regards Taiwan as a wayward province.
The quake initially cut power to 168,000 households in Tainan, many of whose residents lived through a massive 1999 tremor that killed about 2400 people. Later, utility Taipower said power had been restored to all but about 900 households.
Taiwan lies in the seismically active "Pacific Ring of Fire". Television quoted Tainan residents as saying the quake felt worse than the 1999 tremor, centred in central Taiwan.
Taiwan's defence ministry said 810 soldiers had been mobilised for rescue efforts.
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A shallow magnitude 6.4 earthquake has struck southern Taiwan.
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http://fortune.com/2010/03/20/ipad-week-1-190000-pre-orders/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160206190855id_/http://fortune.com/2010/03/20/ipad-week-1-190000-pre-orders/
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iPad week 1: 190,000 pre-orders
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20160206190855
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The rate slows to 5,000 per day as Apple offers school discounts and begins accepting apps
It’s been a busy week for the iPad.
It started off with a bang, as Apple AAPL racked up pre-orders at the rate of more than 25,000 units per hour early Friday March 12, according to the team tracking order numbers at Investor Village’s AAPL Sanity board.
By Sunday, the initial frenzy had cooled. The pre-order rate slowed to 30,000 units per day on Monday, 10,000 on Wednesday and 5,000 on Thursday.
Total pre-orders for the week: 190,000 units according to Daniel Tello, who’s been manning the spreadsheet for AAPL Sanity. (See his chart below.) That doesn’t include bulk orders by institutions or reservations for store pickup, which the Boy Genius reports were pouring in that first weekend at the same rate as pre-orders.
“Based on this,” writes Deagol, “and using my intuition and experience, and voodoo or however you want to call it, I’m sticking to my prediction of 1 million sold by mid-April.
That’s considerably less than the estimate of 1 to 2 million units by April 3, which an anonymous analyst had offered TheStreet (perhaps set the stock up for a fall?)
But it’s not bad for a product few customers have set eyes on, never mind held in their hands.
Meanwhile, in other iPad news:
Below: Tello’s chart of cumulative iPad pre-orders for the first seven days.
Note: Unit numbers are calculated by subtracting average daily non-iPad orders and multiplying the difference by the average number of iPads per order. For more on Tello’s methodology, see his blog, Deagol’s AAPL Model.
Tello and his colleagues continue to track iPad pre-orders. If you want to contribute to their spreadsheet, send the data to ipadsales10@gmail.com. Include your order number with the last three digits Xed out, the number of iPads you ordered, the order time, time zone, memory capacity and whether your iPad is Wi-Fi only or Wi-Fi + 3G.
[Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped]
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The rate slows to 5,000 per day as Apple offers school discounts and begins accepting apps It's been a busy week for the iPad. It started off with a bang, as Apple racked up pre-orders at the rate of more than 25,000 units per hour early Friday March 12, according to the team tracking order…
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/02/09/hospital-physician-prices-driving-health-costs-business-groups-say/qWRuwZVQasNTemdSCXKiiO/story.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160210093032id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/02/09/hospital-physician-prices-driving-health-costs-business-groups-say/qWRuwZVQasNTemdSCXKiiO/story.html
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Hospital, physician prices driving health costs, business groups say
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20160210093032
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Four business and trade groups are calling on the state to do more to rein in the prices charged by hospitals and doctors, saying rising health care costs are hurting consumers and the economy.
The groups — representing retailers, insurers, and small and large businesses — did not offer specific ways to attack rising health care costs, but in a report to be released Tuesday identified the main culprit as medical prices. Echoing studies by the attorney general’s office and state Health Policy Commission, the business groups noted providers charging the highest prices don’t necessarily give the highest-quality care.
“This problem has been building for years and years, so we’re not going to fix it overnight,” said Rick Lord, chief executive of Associated Industries of Massachusetts, one of the state’s largest employers groups. “I’m hoping we can really start to identify some new solutions.”
AIM joined the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans, the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, and the National Federation of Independent Business in funding the study. The analysis did not crunch any raw health care data. Instead, it combed through more than two dozen reports issued by the Massachusetts attorney general’s office and various state agencies over the past several years and identified trends contributing to increasing costs.
Among them: health care provider prices that vary widely from one hospital to another and often reflect market clout more than quality of care. These disparities contribute to higher health care costs because the providers that treat the most patients — such as Partners HealthCare of Boston — also charge some of the highest prices.
Health care costs in Massachusetts are among the highest in the nation, and they’re continuing to rise.
Business leaders said they hoped the report would serve as a launching pad for a discussion about new strategies to tackle health care costs.
“We’ve studied the hell out of all this stuff; we know it’s a problem,” said Jon Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts. “We need to take some action.”
Massachusetts passed a landmark law mandating universal health insurance coverage in 2006 and six years later approved another law meant to address what many in the industry see as part two of health reform: reining in costs.
The 2012 law established new agencies, including the Health Policy Commission, to study health care spending and market consolidation. It also set a target for the state’s annual health spending growth, at 3.6 percent. Massachusetts exceeded that goal in 2014, when spending increased 4.8 percent, largely because of higher spending in the government program of Medicaid.
The law also called on another state agency, the Center for Health Information and Analysis, to create a new website to help consumers understand health care pricing, but that site has yet to be designed.
Lora Pellegrini, chief executive of the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans, said cost control efforts, such as setting budgets under which to provide patient care, have not done enough to control provider prices. “They basically embed high rates of payment into the payment structure,” she said. “Taking on the provider community is not easy.”
But Lynn Nicholas, chief executive of the Massachusetts Hospital Association, said health care providers should not bear the blame alone.
“Variation in pricing has always existed,” she said. “The health plans should be the least surprised of all by this because they negotiated the rates with the providers in the first place. Perhaps health plans should be more transparent and explain why they pay two community hospitals . . . very different rates.”
A recent report from the Health Policy Commission found that for one common type of medical service, maternity care, spending varied widely from less than $10,000 to as much as $18,500. The highest-paid hospitals for baby deliveries were Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s, which are both owned by Partners.
Partners has said its hospitals’ higher costs reflect a commitment to providing high-quality and complex care, training future doctors, and conducting cutting-edge research.
David Seltz, executive director of the Health Policy Commission, said in a statement that commissioners are discussing ways the state can address unwarranted price variation and improve transparency around health care prices.
“While the Commonwealth has made some progress in important areas, further action is needed to improve the overall performance of the health care system in Massachusetts,” he said.
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The groups called on the state to do more to rein in prices, but did not offer specific recommendations.
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http://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/a-day-in-the-life-of-lighting-designer-lindsey-adelman-1448902861
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160219194335id_/http://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/a-day-in-the-life-of-lighting-designer-lindsey-adelman-1448902861
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A Day in the Life of Lighting Designer Lindsey Adelman
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20160219194335
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AS A CREATOR of sculptural lighting for prestigious clients such as Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen and film director Nancy Meyers (who included her Bubble chandelier in this fall’s The Intern), New York–based designer Lindsey Adelman, 47, has set a standard for success that many American designers dream of reaching. There’s a page-long waitlist for her twice-yearly limited-edition collections; and even the more rarefied projects she does for Nilufar Gallery in Milan—which has promoted her work globally since 2012, including at this month’s Design Miami—are in high demand. So it’s a little tough to take Adelman seriously when she says, “We’re not very grown-up in the studio.” By this, she means that her team isn’t laser-focused on lighting alone. Other things intervene, such as a line of jewelry, or mirrors, or a music video (composed, choreographed and art-directed by friends and family “just because,” she says). Which is how she likes it. Redefining “what a design company could be,” she says, has been a major motivation in her working life.
Adelman (nee Adams) grew up in Westchester County, New York, the daughter of a banker and an interior designer–turned–aerobics instructor. She was on the editorial staff at Smithsonian magazine when an encounter with a giant Styrofoam french fry in a museum’s fabrication shop enticed her to switch to a career in design. While in the master’s program at the Rhode Island School of Design, she was drawn to the emotive potential of lighting and soon met David Weeks, a fellow student who became an early mentor and business partner. Since she went solo in 2006, the size of her staff has climbed from one to 33.
In the course of a typical day, Adelman transits between home—a Brooklyn condo she shares with her husband, Ian, digital design director for the New York Times, and their son, Finn, 11—her studio and a range of job sites where she maps out custom projects like a wall patterned with sapphire-glass orbs. She’s back in the studio by noon for Transcendental Meditation with her team. “Music, meditation, dancing, karaoke—these are my recreations, so I bring them in,” she says. Travel is another preoccupation, and, with January’s launch of a second studio, in downtown L.A., Adelman will do more of it. “L.A. is very open to cross-pollination of disciplines,” she says. “It doesn’t want any more New Yorkers, but here we come.” In her case, L.A. might make an exception.
696 juices ordered for a four-day cleanse for Adelman’s staff.
20 minutes of Transcendental Meditation a day. Many of Adelman’s employees learned the technique through the David Lynch Foundation.
5,000 vinyl records in Lindsey and Ian’s collection at home. The albums weigh 2,000 pounds.
3 team members relocating to L.A. for the new studio and showroom.
500 globes blown every month for her Bubble lights.
25 chocolate bars delivered from Mast Brothers to the studio each month.
8,000 square feet in the new L.A. space.
60 pounds Weight of one of Adelman’s 15-globe chandeliers.
9,000 designers and architects in the company Rolodex.
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The pioneering—and unconventional—lighting designer expands her empire out West.
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