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http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2016/01/21/brookline-pianist-reaches-out-through-music/MZMGBtrVjh0Bq816ENJtfK/story.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160125083813id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2016/01/21/brookline-pianist-reaches-out-through-music/MZMGBtrVjh0Bq816ENJtfK/story.html
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Brookline pianist reaches out through music
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20160125083813
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Think of: An innovative modern-day teenage Franz Liszt. “[Liszt is] considered one of the first celebrity superstars in music in Europe, and he just had a really special way of communicating with people through music, and I would aspire to be able to achieve that as well.”
What caught our eye: Siraj learned in middle school that 10 percent of Brookline families go hungry, and he has “always wanted to do something about that.” Siraj worked with NPR’s “From the Top” and nonprofit Music for Food to organize a Jan. 25 benefit concert at the New England Conservatory, with all proceeds to benefit Brookline Food Pantry.
Light bulb moment: “Last year, I performed in the Chapel of Mass. General Hospital, and my music was simultaneously broadcast to, I think, 1,500 patient rooms. I couldn’t see the patients’ faces, but I felt a visceral connection to each and every one of them through the music, and that experience was deeply moving for me.”
Biggest thrill: “Being selected as one of the 24 participants from around the world for the inaugural Cliburn International Junior Piano Competition and Festival,” Siraj said. The 2015 event was “part competition, part festival,” and featured a chamber-music performance by Siraj with members of the Fort Worth Symphony.
Inspired by: “As an arts leader with “From the Top’s” CDAL (Center for Development of Arts Leaders), as I’ve been a member all throughout high school, I found my experiences performing outside of the concert hall really rewarding. Being able to see and hear my audience’s reaction during the performance is really inspiring and fulfilling.”
Aspires to: “I think long-term, one thing’s for sure, and that’s that music will continue to play a central role in my life. But also, kind of generally, I’d love to explore even more ways in which music can flourish as a compelling tool for communication. Ways it can improve quality of life or bridge generational gaps or engender political diplomacy, because I think there is a lot of untapped power in music that’s waiting to be unleashed.”
For good luck: “I don’t believe in luck. I guess I just try to prepare well. However, I do usually eat a banana on the day of a performance.”
What people should know: “I try to apply the lessons I learn in music to other areas of my life. For example, I apply the creative aspect of music to the projects of the innovation club that I founded at my school. In fact, we’ve recently received the Excite Award from the Lemelson-MIT Foundation,” Amir said. “But I’ve also — I think — harnessed the discipline and the rigor that I’ve learned through piano practice, to drive my athletic training. I do 6-day-per-week training as the third-year member of the men’s varsity crew team at community rowing.”
Coming soon: The Jan. 25 concert will take place at New England Conservatory’s Brown Hall at 7 p.m. and will feature strings from the Omer Quartet, Music for Food’s 2016 Fellows. A suggested donation of $25 for adults and $10 for students and children is encouraged.
An earlier version of this story misstated the nature of Siraj’s performance with the Fort Worth Symphony.
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Amir Siraj, a 15-year-old pianist and budding entrepreneur, hopes to turn music to charitable and diplomatic ends.
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http://www.aljazeera.com/archive/2005/11/2008410151627996559.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160126050101id_/http://www.aljazeera.com:80/archive/2005/11/2008410151627996559.html
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Memo: Bush wanted Aljazeera bombed
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20160126050101
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The five-page transcript of a conversation between Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair reveals that Blair talked Bush out of launching a military strike on the station, unnamed sources told the daily. The transcript of the pair's talks during Blair's 16 April 2004 visit to Washington allegedly shows Bush wanted to attack the satellite channel's headquarters in Doha, Qatar. Blair allegedly feared such a strike, in the capital of Qatar, a key Western ally in the Gulf, would spark revenge attacks. Aljazeera has said in a news statement that it is investigating the report and urged the US and British governments to challenge it. A British civil servant has been charged under the Official Secrets Act for allegedly leaking the government memo.
The transcript of the pair's talks during Blair's 16 April 2004 visit to Washington allegedly shows Bush wanted to attack the satellite channel's headquarters in Doha, Qatar.
Blair allegedly feared such a strike, in the capital of Qatar, a key Western ally in the Gulf, would spark revenge attacks.
Aljazeera has said in a news statement that it is investigating the report and urged the US and British governments to challenge it.
A British civil servant has been charged under the Official Secrets Act for allegedly leaking the government memo.
Cabinet Office civil servant David Keogh is accused of passing the memo to Leo O'Connor, who formerly worked for former British lawmaker Tony Clarke.
Both Keogh and O'Connor are scheduled to appear at London's Bow Street Magistrates Court next week.
"This doesn't surprise me. Whenever there is truth - unpleasant truth - it seems this administration wants to bomb it." US
"You guys have reached a new low in shamelessness. The Daily Mirror? ...It is a rag, filled with lies and half truths." US
According to the Daily Mirror, Clarke returned the memo to Blair's office. Clarke could not immediately be contacted for comment on Tuesday.
The Mirror on Tuesday quoted an unnamed British government official as saying Bush's threat was "humorous, not serious".
Aljazeera's coverage of the war in Iraq had drawn criticism from Washington after the US-led March 2003 invasion.
A source told the Mirror: "The memo is explosive and hugely damaging to Bush. "He made clear he wanted to bomb Aljazeera in Qatar and elsewhere. Blair replied that would cause a big problem.
"He made clear he wanted to bomb Aljazeera in Qatar and elsewhere. Blair replied that would cause a big problem.
"There's no doubt what Bush wanted to do - and no doubt Blair didn't want him to do it."
Another source said: "Bush was deadly serious, as was Blair. That much is absolutely clear from the language used by both men."
A spokesman for Blair's Downing Street office said: "We have got nothing to say about this story. We don't comment on leaked documents."
The US has criticised Aljazeera's coverage of the Iraq war Â
Clarke, the former lawmaker, told Britain's domestic Press Association news agency that O'Connor had done "exactly the right thing" in bringing it to his attention.
The Mirror said such a strike would have been "the most spectacular foreign-policy disaster since the Iraq war itself".
The newspaper said that the memo "casts fresh doubt on claims that other attacks on Aljazeera were accidents". It cited the 2001 direct hit on the channel's Kabul office in Afghanistan.
In April 2003, an Aljazeera journalist died when its Baghdad office was struck during a US bombing campaign. Nabil Khoury, a US State Department spokesman in Doha, said the strike was a mistake.
In November 2002, Aljazeera's office in Kabul, Afghanistan, was destroyed by a US missile. None of the crew was at the office at the time. US officials said they believed the target was a terrorist site and did not know it was Aljazeera's office.
Blair's former defence minister Peter Kilfoyle challenged Downing Street to publish the transcript.
Blair is said to have talked Bush out of any attack on Aljazeera
"I believe that Downing Street ought to publish this memo in the interests of transparency, given that much of the detail appears to be in the public domain,"Â Kilfoyle told the Press Association.
"I think they ought to clarify what exactly happened on this occasion. If it was the case that President Bush wanted to bomb Aljazeera in what is after all a friendly country, it speaks volumes and it raises questions about subsequent attacks that took place on the press that wasn't embedded with coalition forces."
"On this occasion, the prime minister may have been successful in averting political disaster, but it shows how dangerous his relationship with President Bush has been."
Speaking to Aljazeera from London on Monday, Abd al-Bari Atwan, chief editor of the London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper, said: "The issue of Bush's plan to bomb Aljazeera's headquarters in Doha will be widely discussed in Washington and London. "Reporters in the US and Britain are enraged by reported US plans to use force against media organs.  Aljazeera offices in Kabul andBaghdad were hit by US missiles"Arab and international media organs are now under a terrorist campaign launched by the US as it does not want the truth to be revealed.  "This [US] administration has been disgraced as it has used immoral and illegal ways to occupy and tear out a country, kill more than 100,000 and wound more than 400,000 of its people. "The results of the war, being revealed now in Iraq, have forced reporters to ask why they have been misled.  "New York Times has apologised, saying it has misled public opinion when it did not accurately investigate the objectives of the US administration.  "I believe that considering use force against a media station is the worst kind of media terrorism practised by a country which pretends to lead the free world, democratic values and media freedom."
Aljazeera offices in Kabul andBaghdad were hit by US missiles
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US President George Bush planned to bomb Aljazeera, British newspaper the Daily Mirror has reported, citing a Downing Street memo marked top secret.
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http://www.people.com/article/donald-trump-schedules-veterans-fundraiser-same-night-as-gop-debate
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160129034706id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/donald-trump-schedules-veterans-fundraiser-same-night-as-gop-debate
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Donald Trump Hosting Veterans Event Scheduled to Run Same Night as GOP Debate : People.com
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20160129034706
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01/27/2016 AT 08:00 PM EST
is sticking to his word.
The presidential hopeful is scheduled to host a special event for veterans in Iowa on Thursday.
Trump announced on Tuesday that he
the upcoming GOP debate if he felt that he would be treated unfairly. Fox anchor,
– who Trump has accused in the past of being biased toward him – will moderate the event.
"It's not under negotiation," the billionaire businessman's campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said yesterday about Trump backing out of the debate. "We'll have an event here in Iowa with potentially another network, to raise money for wounded warriors. And Fox will go from probably having 24 million viewers to about 2 million."
Now, that fundraising event has come to fruition. On Wednesday, Trump's campaign sent out invitations to the free event, which will be held at Drake University in Des Moines.
While he's still moving forward with his own plans, Trump addressed his reasons, again, for not attending the debate, clarifying that it's not all because of Kelly.
It was the childishly written & taunting PR statement by Fox that made me not do the debate, more so than lightweight reporter, @megynkelly.
"It was the childishly written & taunting PR statement by Fox that made me not do the debate, more so that lightweight reporter, @megynkelly," Trump
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Trump is moving forward with his own plans to host a veterans fundraiser during the GOP debate.
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/theater-art/2016/01/27/barney-extravagant-video-opera-washes-into-mfa/gOzCUpx5M81x4wmGkvm2aN/story.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160130152403id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/theater-art/2016/01/27/barney-extravagant-video-opera-washes-into-mfa/gOzCUpx5M81x4wmGkvm2aN/story.html
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Barney’s extravagant video opera washes into MFA
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20160130152403
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Like loving the New England Patriots, championing the work of Matthew Barney over the past year or two has become, outside a circle of die-hard fans, a minority concern.
And yet Barney, I believe, is worth championing. Loathsome as his work can be, there remains no artist in America working with greater ambition; none capable of producing such mesmerizing, queasy-making imagery; and none who bores so deeply into the discordance between the extravagant evolution of our brains, bodies, myths, cultures, economies, and art — all the things that define us as human — and the stunning fact of our mortality.
Mortality is a form of failure. It’s also the source of our humor. And so it’s no accident that humor and the absurd are central to Barney’s achievement. People forget this, perhaps because, like the widely detested Bill Belichick, he wears a poker face and appears to take himself so very seriously.
Barney was just 32 in 1999, when New York Times art critic Michael Kimmelman hailed him as “the most important artist of his generation.” Barney-mania peaked three years later, when his five “Cremaster” films were released and exhibitions devoted to the “Cremaster” extravaganza — films, sculptures, photographs, and drawings, as well as music by his long-term collaborator Jonathan Bepler — opened in Paris, Cologne, and New York.
Now, more than a year on from the release of “River of Fundament,” a 5½-hour film that Barney and Bepler describe as a “non-traditional opera,” a sense of Barney-fatigue is palpable. It will be put to the test by nine screenings of “River of Fundament” at the Museum of Fine Arts, beginning on Wednesday.
Explanations for the Barney backlash abound. The artist’s breakup with Björk, much publicized at the time of the release of the singer’s bruised 2015 album, “Vulcinura,” created a popular perception that Barney’s masculine, square-jawed intensity was no match for her globe-girdling, cosmic emotionality. Cue the boos.
More to the point, there has been a shift in the zeitgeist. We are impatient right now with over-elaboration. Our nostrils quiver at any whiff of pretension. We wish to effect a return to simplicity.
I feel this wish myself. And then along comes “River of Fundament.” You cannot imagine a work of art so soggy with symbol, allusion, and arcane, malodorous reference.
And my God, it’s punishingly long. Upon returning from a full day watching it at the MFA, I was asked how I’d liked it and could only blurt out, “The first four hours were amazing!”
They were. Astonishing. But the final 90 minutes were nothing short of appalling. I’m baffled as to why. It was almost as if, somewhere around the four--hour mark, I had awoken from a shameful, sexually aberrant dream and needed to get up, shake it off, and splash my face with water, but found that I couldn’t, that I was stuck, covered in slime, and forced by some foul trick of the subconscious to replay the dream’s most shameful episodes for another hour and a half.
Is this what aesthetic failure on a grand scale feels like?
The problem wasn’t the subject matter, although it includes masturbation, anal sex, characters covered in sewage, urination, and a pregnant woman giving birth to something weirdly non-human.
All that I’m fine with — and in any case, there was no shortage of similar material in the first four hours. No. What I succumbed to instead was an onrushing sense of boredom, funk, and acedia.
“River of Fundament,” like the “Cremaster Cycle,” is an onion-peel epic. It draws on some of the same fascinations as the earlier project, although it was originally conceived by Bepler and Barney as a series of live performances in locations across America. The film was secondary.
Bepler’s music is riveting. Much of it was performed live, and extends from relatively conventional singing and instrumentation to wailing, yelping, beat-boxing, gurgling, drumming, and much more.
The visuals, too, are unforgettable: stools and penises wrapped in gold leaf, liquid mercury dripping off the genitals of a man being sodomized in a bathroom, close-ups of maggots, fleas, and scarabs, California car yards, abandoned buildings in Detroit, oil fields, highways, sewage plants, auto shops, a drawn-out nighttime ritual involving rivers of molten metal, men crawling out of disemboweled carcasses, dazzling Native American and Mexican costumes, songs, dances, chants, and so on.
It is all quite extraordinary, and for a long time the pacing, the mystery, the beauty, and the humor all seem perfectly balanced. You feel something — something unlike anything you have previously seen — slowly gathering to a greatness.
But in its final third, “River of Fundament” simply loses its life force. It is the aesthetic equivalent of a balloon farting out air as it careens around the room, all in interminable slow motion.
The film’s central focus is the Osiris myth at the heart of Egyptian mythology: The body of the primeval king Osiris, murdered by his brother Set, is restored by Osiris’s wife, Isis, who posthumously conceives a son by him.
All this, and the elaborate mythology it spawns, is filtered through Norman Mailer’s 1983 novel, “Ancient Evenings,” which was set in Ancient Egypt. (Barney was friends with Mailer before the writer died, and used his brilliant 1979 novel, “The Executioner’s Song,” as the basis for much of the “Cremaster Cycle,” in which Mailer himself also appeared.)
The critic Harold Bloom described “Ancient Evenings” as Mailer’s “weirdest text, a book that defies usual aesthetic standards, even as it is beyond any conventional idea of good and evil.” Barney and Bepler seem to have taken this commentary, as well as Bloom’s suggestion that “Ancient Evenings” was “a thinly disguised allegory for Mailer’s literary ambition,” as both inspiration and challenge.
Their own vision could hardly be weirder. It centers on a literary gathering in Mailer’s Brooklyn Heights apartment to memorialize the author after his death. The gathering, hosted by his widow, is attended by literary, sporting, and artistic luminaries, including Salman Rushdie, Jeffrey Eugenides, Larry Holmes, and Lawrence Weiner, and by various actors, including Paul Giamatti, playing Egyptian pharaohs and gods.
Characters playing Mailer himself emerge intermittently, covered in excrement, from a river of sewage running beneath the apartment as his soul passes through various incarnations, and is sung on its way in a series of recitatives performed by singers and musicians at the wake.
Meanwhile, a parallel narrative uses three American car models from different eras as stand-ins for Mailer’s soul. We watch as they are crushed, driven off bridges, salvaged, stripped, and cut into pieces in a series of bizarre rituals.
Glendinning/Matthew Barney/ Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels
Of course, all this doesn’t merely teeter on the cliff-edge of the preposterous; it gleefully throw itself off. A synopsis of “River of Fundament” on the film’s website triggers the sense that you are reading a grand parody.
But, just as Barney likes to describe the “Cremaster Cycle” as being about “the life cycle of an idea, from the point of conception to the point of decay,” his “River of Fundament” enacts this process, and seems almost to embrace the idea of a spectacular unraveling, an artistic crash-and-burn, a descent into woefulness.
But perhaps I am over-interpreting. In any case, it is instructive, I believe, to think of Barney as a recidivist. When I once asked a friend to explain that word, he said it described a person who is “like a dog that goes back to its own vomit.” A similar circularity, merging fascination with disgust, purity with poison, creation with failure, is at the heart everything Barney does.
At Museum of Fine Arts,
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“River of Fundament,” a film more than five hours long, sets up unforgettable images, only to follow them with suggestions of artistic impotence.
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/oct/21/paul-quail-obituary
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160131193202id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/oct/21/paul-quail-obituary
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Paul Quail | Art and design | The Guardian
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20160131193202
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In 1963 my husband, Paul Quail, who has died aged 82, was commissioned to design and make a four-light window in the chapel of the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester, Gloucestershire. He went on to design many stained-glass windows in Britain and abroad. Paul worked only with handmade glass, and his designs, both figurative and abstract, usually had a biblical or theological concept.
He was born in Langley, Buckinghamshire. His family later lived at Valley Farm in Flatford on the Suffolk/Essex border. Paul went boating and fishing on the river Stour with his brothers and also worked with local farmers. As a young man, he was inspired by the paintings of John Constable. At Blackfriars school in Laxton, Northamptonshire, he was know as "the dreamer".
Paul served in the Royal Tank Regiment during the second world war, then studied art and design at the Chelsea School of Art and received his art teacher's certificate from Brighton College of Art. He was then apprenticed to the stained-glass studios of Lowndes and Drury, Francis Spear and Eddie Nuttgens.
In 1973 Paul was elected a fellow of the British Society of Master Glass Painters. He was also a member of Christian Arts and the Society of Catholic Artists. He taught the art of stained glass at Flatford Mill and at West Dean college in Chichester. His assistant, Lilian Shaw, was a constant and reliable help, especially in his latter years, when Paul suffered from Parkinson's disease and had an amputation above one knee.
In 1990 Paul was commissioned by BP and African Petroleum to make three windows for a gothic-style church on an island in Rivers state, Nigeria. Paul and I spent a week there installing the windows. Once the installation was completed, the choir sang a hymn of thanksgiving in Kalabari and children led the departing team to the riverside.
We married in 1981 and set up our studio in the stable of a 15th-century farmhouse in Gunthorpe, Norfolk. I survive him, along with his children, Justin, Ben, Frances and Louis, from his first marriage, to Clarissa; his three grandchildren; and three brothers.
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Other lives: A master craftsman, he designed many stained-glass windows in Britain and abroad
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http://www.people.com/article/new-charges-filed-against-stephanie-seymour
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160203090636id_/http://www.people.com/article/new-charges-filed-against-stephanie-seymour
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Stephanie Seymour Facing New Criminal Charges In Connecticut : People.com
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20160203090636
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02/02/2016 AT 05:15 PM EST
Supermodel Stephanie Seymour is facing new charges in Connecticut related to her
for allegedly driving while intoxicated.
Seymour, 47, turned herself in to the Greenwich Police on Monday after a warrant was issued for her arrest.
On Jan. 15, Seymour was involved in a car accident in Greenwich. While stopped at an intersection, Seymour allegedly put her Land Rover in reverse, colliding with a Mercedes-Benz.
The accident caused Seymour's vehicle to roll onto its side, police say.
The new charges allege Seymour struck a telephone pole in Greenwich prior to her accident with the Mercedes.
Investigators had noticed some front-end damage to the vehicle last month and connected Seymour's vehicle to the mangled utility pole, police said.
In addition to driving while intoxicated, Seymour now faces additional charges for evading responsibility and failure to drive in a proper lane.
It was not clear Friday whether Seymour has an attorney. She is due to appear in court on Feb. 7 to answer to the charges against her.
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On Monday, Seymour turned herself in after a warrant was issued for her arrest on evading, improper driving counts
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/01/26/stock-rise-driven-turn-higher-crude-oil-prices/cgVyuPKeb6CQjA49saZ3oM/story.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160205213351id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2016/01/26/stock-rise-driven-turn-higher-crude-oil-prices/cgVyuPKeb6CQjA49saZ3oM/story.html
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Stock rise, driven by a turn higher in crude oil prices
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20160205213351
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US stocks jumped Tuesday as the price of oil made another abrupt reversal, rising 3.7 percent after falling 6 percent on Monday. Energy companies gained ground, too. Exxon Mobil picked up 3.7 percent; Chevron rose 4 percent. Despite the rebound, US crude is still down nearly 18 percent this month. The Dow had its best day since early December. Many of the companies making the biggest gains, including Exxon, Chevron and 3M, are Dow components. The Nasdaq made smaller gains because tech stocks didn’t rise as much as the broader market. But strong quarterly results from beleaguered Sprint gave telecoms a boost. Sprint, the fourth-largest US wireless provider, posted a smaller loss and said aggressive promotions lured more users. The stock rose 18.7 percent; it hit an all-time low last Wednesday and has been on a wild ride the last few days.While the market made broad gains and undid most of Monday’s losses, it’s still down substantially this year, and there are signs that investors have big worries about the global economy. Quarterly earnings also sent some stocks higher, including 3M, Procter & Gamble, and luxury handbag maker Coach.
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Oil made another abrupt reversal, rising almost 4 percent to $31.45 a barrel in New York after falling 6 percent on Monday.
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/02/07/bankrupt-tour-operator-gambled-clients-money-away-court-trustee-says/cXzrFmnere90pmyexWMdwJ/story.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160210232155id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2016/02/07/bankrupt-tour-operator-gambled-clients-money-away-court-trustee-says/cXzrFmnere90pmyexWMdwJ/story.html?s_campaign=email_BG_TodaysHeadline&s_campaign=
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Newton tour operator accused of gambling customers’ money
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20160210232155
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Mark Binderman of Stoneham and his wife flew to Edinburgh last May, excited about their upcoming weeklong cruise through Scotland’s sheltered rivers and lochs on board the MV Lord of the Glens luxury yacht.
But the day before the trip began, their tour guide called together the passengers — mostly retirees — to make an announcement on behalf of the tour operator, Tom Harper Cruises of Newton. The local guide said the trip was canceled, offering no reason.
“Emotions ranged from what I would call a quiet seething rage, where you think someone’s head is going to explode, to grim resignation,” said Binderman, a 68-year-old psychologist. “Our tour guide operator broke down in tears. He said he’s never seen anything like this happen before.”
The frustration has only grown for Binderman and the other couples on that trip, who each plunked down about $18,000 and are unlikely to ever see it again. Tom Harper Cruises has since disappeared from its Chapel Street offices and filed for bankruptcy protection to liquidate whatever assets it might still have; hundreds of customers and vendors are owed millions of dollars, according to court records.
What prompted Tom Harper Cruises to suddenly go out of business and abandon its customers is now the subject of an FBI investigation, which centers on the tour operator’s chief executive, Bret A. Gordon, according to a Sept. 18 letter sent by the US Department of Justice to a Tom Harper customer. The US attorney’s office would not confirm or deny an investigation; the FBI did not respond to requests for comment.
Gordon denied wrongdoing in an interview. He blamed the bankruptcy on the delayed delivery of two chartered cruise boats, which forced him to cancel tours and refund customers.
But Stewart F. Grossman, the trustee appointed by bankruptcy court to recover assets for creditors, said in court records that Tom Harper Cruises failed for a far different reason: Gordon gambled and lost millions of dollars. Gordon fraudulently transferred more than $3 million from the business to himself between 2013 and 2015, according to a lawsuit Grossman filed against Gordon in US District Court in Boston.
Hardly any of that money is left. Grossman’s investigation found that Gordon has just $25,000 in assets but owes $10 million. “There’s no excuse for what he did,” Grossman said.
Gordon did not respond to requests for comment on the gambling allegations. But this is not the first time Gordon has faced such claims. Unknown to most of his customers, Gordon blamed a gambling addiction in 1996 when he pleaded guilty in US District Court in Boston to three counts of interstate transportation of stolen property in connection with stealing $130,000 from an employer, according to court records.
Gordon, 43, moved from his Newton home after filing for bankruptcy last summer, former customers said. The Globe recently found him at an address in Waltham. He said most customers recouped their losses either through trip insurance or credit card refunds.
“I do feel bad for whoever lost money,” Gordon said. “I am hopeful the efforts of the bankruptcy trustee will help minimize the impact to individuals.”
Former customers said insurance they bought through Tom Harper Cruises and other companies did not cover an operator that went out of business. About 127 people have filed complaints against Tom Harper Cruises with the Massachusetts attorney general’s office, according to the office.
Some 400 customers and vendors filed claims with the bankruptcy court, but most are not considered priority claims by the court, meaning other debts will be paid first.
Israel Shaked, founder and principal of the Michel-Shaked Group, a Boston consulting firm, is not surprised by the collapse of Tom Harper Cruises. Shaked, also a Boston University finance professor for the past 37 years, said he, too, was duped by Gordon, a student in his finance class in the 1990s.
Shaked said he was so impressed with Gordon’s computer skills that he gave Gordon a full-time job registering participants for a $5,000 training program sponsored by the firm. Then Shaked began receiving complaints from people who said they had paid for a course but were not registered. Gordon eventually admitted in court to stealing 127 checks totaling $130,000.
Shaked said it was a devastating chapter for him. He had believed Gordon came from a poor family and told his own children that Gordon was a true American success story.
“I get so emotional,” Shaked said recently. “He came to my attention as an underdog. It turned out he stole from me. My kids laughed at me.”
Gordon said he stole to feed a gambling addiction that sometimes led him to spend more than $5,000 a night in Atlantic City or at Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut, according to court records. US District Court Judge Patti B. Saris sentenced him to a year and a day’s confinement in a halfway house in the Boston area as well as three years of probation.
Gordon said the incident occurred a long time ago and his critics simply want to make him look bad. Gordon, who opened the company in 2013, describes himself on his LinkedIn page as a “C-level” executive with management experience at several travel agencies.
“If you look at my career, my history, my reputation, it’s unassailable,” he said.
Gordon named the company as a reference to Tom Sawyer and his best friend Joe Harper in Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” marketing its trips as a chance to “relax and float downstream.”
Leslie E. Kossoff for The Boston Globe
Deb Luening, an accountant and auditor for Northrop Grumman Corp. in Washington, has researched Gordon ever since her mother, Jan, and aunt, Mary Cushman, lost $16,000 on a Tom Harper river cruise to Portugal. The trip’s cost was taken out of their accounts the very day Tom Harper shuttered: May 15, she said.
Jan Luening and Cushman, 84 and 87, respectively, booked a trip to Portugal using the company because it seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see Portugal on a gilded barge formerly used by Queen Elizabeth II on the Thames River.
Cushman, a retired educator from Connecticut, said she should have been more alarmed when the company asked her to pay $8,000 for her trip up front via a wire transfer. She did, enticed by the 5 percent discount offered.
Deb Luening said she learned that most customers were asked to pay upfront after sending queries to more than 50 Tom Harper customers, recording their responses in a spreadsheet.
“I want to see justice,” she said. “I think he took advantage of too many people, people like my mother.”
Frederick Tirrell, an 80-year-old retired educator in Barnstable, said he and his wife were left high and dry in Scotland.
He later received a letter from Gordon apologizing for the trip cancellation and assuring him that “Tom Harper is a solid business” that would offer a full refund or a credit toward future cruises. When he called Tom Harper offices upon his return, no one answered.
“They knew damn well they were going to be closing the office,” Tirrell said. “So what happened to the money?”
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Bret A. Gordon fraudulently transferred more than $3 million from his Newton business to himself between 2013 and 2015, according to a lawsuit.
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HBO’s ‘Vinyl’: A fever dream from Scorsese and Jagger
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“Vinyl,” the greatly anticipated HBO series about the record industry in 1970s New York, is ambitious, riveting, brilliant, addictive, kaleidoscopic, gonzo, cartoonish, kitschy, obvious, indulgent, awkward, and bloated. Created by the heavyweight team of Martin Scorsese, Mick Jagger, Rich Cohen, and Terence Winter, the drama is aurally striking, boldly acted, and smartly written, except when its aurally overdone, artificially acted, and written with too many easy period clichés.
Yes, that’s a lot of adjectival matter to unload on one series, especially all at once, right off the bat. But that’s fitting for “Vinyl,” a fever dream of a show that comes on fast and doesn’t let up, that keeps running at you with something, anything — a concert scene with one man completely still amid the rowdy chaos, a tracking shot out of Scorsese’s “Mean Streets” and a voice-over out of his “GoodFellas,” a classic R&B tune jammed up against a nascent punk song, a few scenes where Andrew Dice Clay, playing a repulsive radio station owner, goes for broke as an actor and wins big time. Sex, drugs, rock, and rolling cameras. There’s barely time to recover as every scene attempts a daring or inventive move of some sort.
There aren’t many shows you can say that about, which makes “Vinyl,” even with its flaws, a success. It’s not just that the series isn’t boring; “Vinyl, ” which has a two-hour premiere Sunday at 9, is always vigorously interesting. That filmmaking energy is particularly evident in the first episode, which is directed by Scorsese and, in a way, works as a self-standing Scorsese film. It’s an introduction to Bobby Cannavale’s Richie Finestra, owner of the record label American Century, who is as Scorsesean as they come — Italian-American, angry, guilt-stricken, magnetic, tormented by dreams of greatness, mentored by mob types, the kind of guy who sucks people into his orbit of moral decay. We meet Richie and immediately know who he is, thanks to the perfect casting of Cannavale. A tinder box of an actor who worked with Winter on “Boardwalk Empire,” the lurching and dark-eyed Cannavale is remarkably watchable as he veers between low desperation and sarcastic comedy.
Richie is at a crossroads, personally and professionally, and so is the music industry. That parallel is one of the best storytelling strengths of the series. Richie is thinking about selling American Century to Polygram at a time when the industry, possibly about to crumble (literally; you’ll see) into cultural irrelevance in the years before MTV, is filled with sellouts. At the same time, he is hungering for new talent to get him excited about music again, just as punk is emerging and hip-hop is beginning to evolve. Sunken into despair, off the wagon and snorting coke, he hears early beats in a housing project, and he is introduced by an assistant to a proto-punk band called Nasty Bits (whose lead is played by James Jagger, Mick’s son). He begins to feel hope.
That’s this particular HBO anti-hero’s redeeming quality — his abiding love and respect for vital music, and his commitment to bringing it to a new generation.
Series producer Terence Winter and star Bobby Cannavale, who worked together on “Boardwalk Empire,” aim for authenticity on “Vinyl.”
The show frequently flashes back to young Richie’s days in the business, in the early 1960s. Those scenes are less successful than the ’70s material, even cheesy, especially since Cannavale basically looks the same in them except for a different wig. During that Brill Building period, Richie gets involved with black performers, notably an R&B singer named Lester Grimes (Ato Essandoh) who finds his way back into Richie’s life later on. Throughout “Vinyl,” we see black artists performing in sequences that seem to be taking place in an alternative world. Scorsese and Co. seem to be both reminding us of the roots of rock ’n’ roll and showing us what first sparked Richie’s musical spirit. Like “Treme,” “Vinyl” weaves enough dynamic performance into its narrative — including a scene in which a producer forces the nihilistic Nasty Bits to redo an old Kinks song — to make music into a kind of character.
Richie’s marriage, to Olivia Wilde’s Devon, is shaky, now that he’s using drugs again. “Vinyl” tries to give Devon a history in the Factory days of Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground, and those flashbacks, too, are cheesy, with actors playing Warhol and Lou Reed and forced lines such as, “Andy asked for you just the other night. Lou was with us.” Devon could become interesting if her story line deepens, if she faces hurdles besides simply those presented by her husband. Finding an interesting place for women in male-dominated anti-hero projects such as “Vinyl” is a common struggle, with “The Sopranos” being the rare exception. Juno Temple’s Jamie, the assistant who discovers Nasty Bits, gets saddled with a by-the-numbers glass-ceiling plot, as the label men who surround her, Richie and his goons (including Ray Romano’s dispirited head of promotion), fail to respect her opinions.
If the whole season were as amped up as the premiere, “Vinyl” might become wearisome. It’s a story about excess told excessively, and after a while the story and characters need to breathe, and so do we. The next four episodes available for review are a little looser and more accommodating, as other directors take the reins, including “Sopranos” and “Boardwalk Empire” alum Alan Coulter. I’m hoping that the casting of the actors playing famous people — we also see Robert Plant, Alice Cooper, and Robert Goulet — will improve. I’m hoping that the telegraphing of big ideas about rock and pop culture will soften. And I’m hoping the secondary characters, not least of all Romano’s gentle second banana, will get more and better screen time. There’s tons of spirit and craft and potential in “Vinyl”; it just needs to become as subtle as it is loud and clear.
Starring Bobby Cannavale, Olivia Wilde, Juno Temple, Ray Romano, Max Casella, P.J. Byrne, Ato Essandoh, J.C. MacKenzie, James Jagger, Paul Ben-Victor, Jack Quaid. On HBO, Sunday, 9 p.m.
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Created by a heavyweight team that includes Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger, “Vinyl” is all about sex, drugs, rock, and rolling cameras.
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Hoverboard explosion destroyed child's bedroom, sent family running from Sydney home
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A child's bedroom has been destroyed in a hoverboard explosion that sent a young family running for their lives from a western Sydney home.
The Christmas gift blew up while charging in the Berala home earlier today, while a mother and her three children were home.
Mother Zeina Alameddine told 9NEWS her children were frightened by the explosion.
A hoverboard has exploded in a Berala home. (9NEWS)
"I was in my lounge room with my three children, we heard a massive bang in my son's room," she said.
"As I'm running to the room it just exploded again, so my three children started to cry and scream, I just grabbed them and ran out through the back door."
The toy was one of three owned by the family and had been charging for less than an hour, Ms Alameddine said.
The family was aware of safety warnings surrounding the toys, and had bought them from a Sydney shopping centre rather than online.
A hoverboard has exploded in a Berala home. (9NEWS)
By the time firefighters arrived at the scene, the bedroom had been gutted by fire.
"It appears that the batteries have failed and caught alight," firefighter Wayne Schweickle said.
The house fire is the third in NSW linked to hoverboards in the past month.
Last month, a Melbourne home burned down after a hoverboard blew up while charging.
Last month, a hoverboard caused a Melbourne house fire. (9NEWS)
Fire and Rescue NSW is now working with NSW Fair Trading to assess the risks and review regulations surrounding the boards.
The toy became the subject of numerous safety warnings after previous reports of fires and explosions around the world, and many airlines also refuse to carry them as cargo.
A ban issued by the NSW by the Roads Minister before Christmas also means that anyone who uses the boards on streets or footpaths could be fined.
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A child's bedroom has been destroyed in a hoverboard explosion that sent a young family running for their lives from a western Sydney home.
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Did Ashley I. and Jared Hook Up? : People.com
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20160216032145
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02/14/2016 AT 10:10 PM EST
has made no bones about wanting to rekindle the flame she lit in
be where Ashley and Jared would ignite their spark once and for all?
to those who haven't seen Sunday's
, details of Ashley and Jared's fate as friends (or more) will follow.
Safe to say that when Ashley started the night by reminding Jared he'd tried to hook up with the bride, it was all down from there.
So, despite some strong words ("If he's not making any moves tonight at a wedding – with an open bar – I'm going to murder him") and some promises ("I would go to third base with Jared tonight") from the famously virginal Ashley I., her pals' party was ultimately a bust.
Ashley hoped for "a little wedding makeout maybe," but during some post-nuptial one-on-one time she immediately noted that her conquest had "Paradise body language" (a.k.a.
Though he was considerately diplomatic with Ashley in person, Jared was pretty clear in an interview with producers: "She cares a lot about me, and I care a lot about her. Who knows what'll happen in the future, but for now, Ashley and I are just really good friends."
To her credit, Ashley got the message. In a tearful interview, she admitted that her hopes had been in vain: "I'm stupid, it's fine."
But she couldn't help but wonder, "When does it get to be my time?"
She continued, "This sucks! I don't want to cry on camera anymore."
As it were, all the hook-ups on Sunday's special were moments from the past, including a list of the series's three steamiest hot tub moments (
), such as those dalliances between Jason Mesnick and Jillian Harris, now-married Trista and Ryan Sutter, and Chris Soules with ... Jimmy Kimmel (don't ask, just search YouTube).
A rundown of the show's most dramatic moments also rehashed the time Bachelorette Kaitlyn Bristowe revealed to future fiancé Shawn Booth that she'd slept with his nemesis Nick Viall. And who can forget that time Ben Flajnik went skinnydipping with Courtney Robertson? Thanks to a top-three list of the show's most scandalous momeents, we won't any time soon.
airs Mondays (8 p.m. ET) on ABC.
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Did the Celebration of Love offer a fairy-tale ending for two Bachelor alums?
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Dana-Farber recruits Cornell medical dean as CEO
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After a worldwide search that culled a long list of executives, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute wanted Dr. Laurie H. Glimcher as its new chief executive so badly that it agreed to wait until next year for her to start the job.
Glimcher, a noted physician and researcher with deep ties to Boston, is dean of Cornell University’s Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. She plans to stay in that role until her five-year contract expires at the end of the year.
Dr. Edward J. Benz Jr., who has led Dana-Farber since 2000 and was planning to retire this summer, will remain CEO until Glimcher arrives in January.
Glimcher, 64, will come to Dana-Farber at a time when cancer care and research are rapidly evolving, giving new hope to many patients diagnosed with serious and complicated diseases.
“For the first time ever, we’re beginning to harness the awesome power of the immune system to fight cancer,” Glimcher said. “We’re also beginning to harness the awesome power of genetics to fight cancer.”
Under Benz, Dana-Farber cemented is reputation as one of the nation’s preeminent cancer care providers, and it has expanded affiliations with other hospitals in Massachusetts and beyond to boost the number of patients it serves. Last week, the institute said it would explore a partnership with Rhode Island’s largest health care provider, Lifespan Health System.
The institute has also sought to raise its profile with fund-raisers through its charity arm, the Jimmy Fund.
“Laurie is coming in at a time when we’re growing, and we would like to continue to grow,” said Joshua Bekenstein, chairman of Dana-Farber’s board. “We want to continue to be one of the leading, if not the leading, cancer research centers in the world.”
Dana-Farber hosted nearly 260,000 patient visits in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, up from about 253,000 the previous year. It collected $1.2 billion in revenue, up from less than $1.1 billion.
Bekenstein said Glimcher’s strong background in science and medicine and her role running a major medical school made her the best candidate from a list of dozens.
She grew up in Brookline, graduated from Harvard Medical School, and spent most of her career teaching at Harvard and working as a physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital before leaving Boston in 2012 to join Cornell.
“Boston is my home,” she said.
Glimcher is an expert on the immune system, which is proving to have a critical role in fighting cancer. Scientists at Dana-Farber and elsewhere are studying immunotherapy, in which drugs activate a patient’s immune system to kill cancer cells. Glimcher’s research has focused on this kind of therapy, and she plans to continue that work at Dana-Farber. As CEO, she will also have a professorship at Harvard.
Glimcher will be Dana-Farber’s first woman chief executive. Dr. Paul J. Anderson, who worked with her for many years in the Brigham’s division of rheumatology, called her a brilliant and productive researcher who has been a role model and advocate for women in science.
She has worked to break down the silos that often exist between academic departments, added Anderson, now chief academic officer at the Brigham. “She’s been very successful in getting both physicians and basic scientists to work together on problems.”
Glimcher serves on several boards, including at Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., Waters Corp., Cornell University, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
At Cornell, where she is also a professor and provost, she earned more than $1.3 million in 2013, according to tax filings.
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Dr. Laurie H. Glimcher will join the institite in January, after her contract as dean of Cornell’s medical school ends.
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Healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson ordered to pay $100m over cancer link to baby powder products
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Johnson & Johnson has been ordered to pay $100m in damages. (Supplied)
US healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson has been ordered to pay US$72 million (A$100.3 million) in damages over the death of a woman whose ovarian cancer was linked to use of the company’s products.
A jury in St. Louis, Missouri, found in the favour of the family of late Alabama woman Jacqueline Fox, who died last year aged 62 after a two-and-half-year battle with cancer, the St. Louis Post Dispatch reports.
The suit filed by Ms Fox claimed her use of Johnson & Johnson products containing talc, including the company’s Baby Powder and Shower to Shower body powder, had directly contributed to her cancer diagnosis.
After Ms Fox’s death, her son Marvin Salter became the plaintiff in the case, one of more than 1200 similar suits across the US.
The jury found the company conspired to hide the health risks of using the talc mineral in its products and failed to warn the public of the dangers.
Jacqueline Fox and her son Marvin Salter. (Supplied)
The $72 million payout included $10 million in actual damages and $62 million in punitive damages – $1 million for each year of Ms Fox’s life.
The company has insisted its products are safe and is expected to appeal.
Spokeswoman Carol Goodrich said that the New Jersey-based company was considering its next legal move.
In a written statement, she said the verdict “goes against decades of sound science proving the safety of talc as a cosmetic ingredient in multiple products,” citing supportive research by the US Food and Drug Administration and National Cancer Institute.
Studies on whether there is a link between talcum powder and ovarian cancer have produced mixed results with some finding an increased risk and others finding none at all.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies talc used on the genitals as "possibly carcinogenic" because of the mixed evidence.
The mineral talc contains asbestos in its natural form and up until the 1970s talcum power was often contaminated with the known carcinogen.
However, since then legal requirements have been put in place to ensure all talcum power is asbestos free.
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US healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson has been ordered to pay US$72 million (A$100.3 million) in damages over the death of a woman whose ovarian cancer was linked to use of the company’s products.
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Montenegro proclaims independence
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"I announce that the parliament of Montenegro voted for the proclamation of independence of Montenegro," Ranko Krivokapic, the speaker of the parliament, said after the assembly's unanimous vote on Saturday.
"The Republic of Montenegro is an independent state with full international and legal legitimacy within its existing borders," the statement of proclamation read out by Krivokapic, said.
The proclamation came after an EU-appointed Slovak diplomat Frantisek Lipka, the chairman of the referendum commission, reported that the majority of Montenegrin voters had supported separation from Serbia in the May 21 referendum.Final splitAccording to official results 55.5% of some 420,000 voters on May 21 supported independence, narrowly passing the 55% threshold set by the EU.
The mountainous republic of 650,000 people is the last of ex-Yugoslavia's constituent republics to formally secede from Belgrade. "The Republic of Montenegro is an independent state with full international and legal legitimacy within its existing borders"Montenegrin proclamation of independenceMontenegro is Serbia's closest ally and the split ends a long, fraternal partnership whose dissolution was opposed by ethnic Serbs who live in Montenegro.
"The Republic of Montenegro is an independent state with full international and legal legitimacy within its existing borders"Montenegrin proclamation of independence
Serbia and Montenegro were the last two republics to remain allied after the bloody break-up of federal Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.Messy divorce
Vojislav Kostunica, the Serbian prime minister, responded frostily to the Montenegrin decision and on Friday rebuffed European Union offers to assist the two countries in a "velvet divorce", indicating the parting will be correct but not amicable.
Saturday's declaration was a relatively low-profile event.
When the preliminary referendum results were released two weeks ago people celebrated in the streets of Podgorica with noisy car cavalcades, fireworks and Balkan-style celebratory gunfire.
Montenegro plans to have its an independence day celbration on July 13, which is currently its "statehood day".
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The republic of Montenegro has proclaimed independence and ended an association with Serbia dating back to 1918.
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Somalia speaker in 'peace deal'
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Senior Islamic Courts officials signed the deal with the group led by Sharif Hassan Sheik Aden, the parliament's speaker, in the capital, Mogadishu, on Friday.
The two sides said in a joint statement: "We have agreed to stop current hostilities and avoid any activities that would heighten tensions between the government and the Islamic Courts.  "We therefore agreed to continue the peace talks agreed by both sides to take place in the Sudanese capital Khartoum organised by the Arab League and the government of Sudan."
However, a spokesman for the interim government dismissed the deal.
Ali Ahmed Jama Jangali, the information minister, said, reading from a cabinet statement: "The cabinet sees the speaker's meeting with the Islamists as personal and one that is not representative of the government.
"The stated agreements are non-existent."
Aden is considered the government member most sympathetic to the Islamic Courts. His decision to hold talks without involving the prime minister and president was seen as a direct challenge to their authority.
"This is a first step, and we are headed for peace" Ibrahim Hassan Adow, the Islamic courts spokesman for foreign affairsOmar Hashi, who signed the agreement on behalf of the parliamentary speaker, said: "We hope this agreement will prevent a conflict in Somalia."
"This is a first step, and we are headed for peace" Ibrahim Hassan Adow, the Islamic courts spokesman for foreign affairs
The deal includes a pledge by both sides not to allow foreign interference in Somalia, and calls on other countries to maintain a UN arms embargo that prevents African peacekeepers from entering the country.
Ibrahim Hassan Adow, the Islamic Courts spokesman for foreign affairs, said: "This is a first step, and we are headed for peace."
Somali officials said Aden would present the proposal to the government in the town of Baidoa, but they have previously rejected his peace efforts as "futile".
Meanwhile, Abdullah Yusuf Ahmed, the Somali president, travelled to Sanaa to discuss the possibility of Yemen's involvement as a mediator.
After talking with Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Yemeni president, he said he would seize any opportunity to achieve peace with the Islamic Courts "provided they end their military operations".
There are fears Somalia could become a proxy battleground for neighbouring Ethiopia and Eritrea, who fought a border war between 1998 and 2000.
Eritrea supports the Islamic Courts, while Ethiopia backs the interim government.
A confidential UN report obtained recently by The Associated Press said that 6,000-8,000 Ethiopian troops were in Somalia or along the border. It also said 2,000 soldiers from Eritrea were in the country.
Eritrea denies having any troops in Somalia, while Ethiopia insists it has sent only a few hundred advisers.
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Somalia's Union of Islamic Courts has signed a tentative peace deal with a group of breakaway MPs, but the agreement was reached without the involvement of the country's interim government.
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A Day in the Life of Snoop Dogg
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20160227083237
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THE NIGHT OF THE LAUNCH of Snoop Dogg ’s latest album, the groovy, funk-inflected Bush, was a late one; thanks to a raucous release party he DJ’d at a club in West Hollywood, Snoop, 43, and his crew got little to no sleep. The following day—which required the rapper to perform on The Voice alongside Pharrell Williams before taking a red-eye to New York City for further promo—found him quiet and inscrutable behind dark sunglasses. Sticking only to the broad strokes of his schedule after arriving at the Universal City studios where The Voice is filmed, he managed to slip his handlers on a number of occasions, leaving them to chase him around the studio lots in golf carts. Only two things seemed able to rouse him from his fatigue-induced malaise: the cheers and screams of the audience at The Voice as he stepped onstage to sling verses, and smoking a blunt the size of a Brobdingnagian carrot.
The release of his 13th solo studio album has capped a remarkably long-lived and shape-shifting career. His current incarnation as the rap world’s fun-loving uncle, an epicurean master of ceremonies who just wants the world to get down, follows previous stints as a more spiritually minded Rastafarian “Snoop Lion,” a reality-TV star, a certified youth-football coach and, according to him, a working pimp. The same man who’s been arrested several times and been temporarily banned from Norway and the U.K. also met President Obama at the White House in 2013. But whether Snoop is making hard-boiled ’90s gangsta rap or a playful pop cameo in a candy-colored Katy Perry music video, his music has remained consistent (and for the most part critically acclaimed). He’s parlayed his popularity into numerous commercial ventures—including lending his voice to a GPS navigation system and promoting Hot Pockets—and an estimated personal fortune of $110 million.
In spite of all he’s seen and done in the public eye, Snoop seems oddly ageless, appearing to have changed little physically in the past two decades. And he’s hardly slowing his pace: As late as this day started, the next began early. The wheels of his Delta flight hit the tarmac at 5:55 a.m. in New York City the following morning. Within two and a half hours, he was filming the Today show, calm and smiling in front of the cameras even as his gaze was obscured by black sunglasses.
3,781 likes of a video selfie Snoop posted to Instagram, within seven minutes of sharing it.
4/20 Date of Snoop’s annual “Wellness Retreat” in Denver, a concert that exhorts attendees to “Inhale, Exhale, Recharge.”
3 children with his wife, childhood sweetheart Shante Taylor Broadus: Cordé, 20, Cordell, 18, and Cori, 16.
35 million records sold worldwide in the course of his career. His first album, 1993’s Doggystyle, sold more than 800,000 copies its first week.
1 dog Juelz, a French bulldog who is rarely leashed and has his own Instagram account with 19,000 followers.
19 years that his cousin Poppa has served as one of his bodyguards.
$1.8 million Sale price for Snoop’s Claremont, CA, property, an eight-bedroom, 6,500-square-foot house that was featured on MTV Cribs. (He now resides in Diamond Bar, outside L.A.)
41 minutes Length of his album Bush, which features cameos from Stevie Wonder, Charlie Wilson, Bootsy Collins and Gwen Stefani.
3 graduates of the Snoop Dogg Youth Football League signed to NFL teams in 2014. This year, 20 graduates will play on Division I college teams.
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From Death Row Records bad boy to reality-TV star and White House invitee, the rap icon has lived many lives over the course of his 20-year career.
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http://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/a-tale-of-three-coaches-tom-coughlin-bill-belichick-and-bill-parcells-1451956260
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160227164334id_/http://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/a-tale-of-three-coaches-tom-coughlin-bill-belichick-and-bill-parcells-1451956260
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A Tale of Three Coaches: Tom Coughlin, Bill Belichick and Bill Parcells
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Tom Coughlin’s decision to step down as head coach of the Giants on Monday was not an unexpected one. After winning two Super Bowls in his first eight years with the team, Coughlin was unable to get the Giants back to the playoffs, and posted losing records in each of his final three seasons in New York.
“Obviously, the past three years have not been what any of us expect,” he said Monday, “and as head coach, I accept responsibility for those seasons.”
Logically, if Coughlin takes responsibility for the losses, then he deserves some credit for the wins, too.
He was never named AP Coach of the Year like the Giants’ previous two coaches, Jim Fassell (1997-2003) and Dan Reeves (1993-96), but Coughlin won two of the franchise’s four Super Bowls, with the other two belonging to his erstwhile mentor, Bill Parcells.
Coughlin was the Giants’ receivers coach under Parcells in 1990, so he actually has three rings with the franchise. He also won 68 games with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
“Tom Coughlin is a great coach and an even better man,” said former Giants general manager Ernie Accorsi, who hired Coughlin back in 2004. “He has left his mark on this great franchise and his legacy of excellence is secure.”
The legacy—which may not be complete—compares favorably to that of Parcells, who coached 127 regular-season games for the Giants, 65 fewer than Coughlin’s 192. Coughlin had more wins (102 to Parcells’s 77), but an inferior winning percentage (.531 to .611). Both posted 8-3 postseason records with the franchise, though all of Coughlin’s wins came in just two seasons.
Of course, not even Parcells’s dramatic Super Bowl XXV win over the Buffalo Bills can compare with Coughlin’s historic Super Bowl XLII victory, in which the Giants shocked the undefeated Patriots, 17-14.
That win not only cemented Coughlin’s place in the annals of Giants history, but established him as the perfect contemporary and rival to Patriots coach Bill Belichick. Like Coughlin, Belichick worked under Parcells in New York (pictured above), serving in a variety of special-teams and defensive-assistant positions before becoming the Giants’ defensive coordinator in 1985.
Belichick, 63, has more wins than any active NFL coach (223), and he does have four championships with the Patriots. But his two Super Bowl losses came at the hands of Coughlin’s underdog teams, which may have had less talent. Belichick’s players have earned 86 Pro Bowl selections, compared to 57 for Coughlin. Perhaps more importantly, Coughlin holds the career head-to-head advantage over Belichick, 5-2.
Even if it was time for him to step down, Coughlin seems destined for the Hall of Fame, given that he’s won more league titles than such enshrined coaches as John Madden, George Allen and Sid Gillman.
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A Tale of Three Coaches: Tom Coughlin, Bill Belichick and Bill Parcells
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Australia warns off Papua refugees
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John Howard' statement was seen as an attempt to calm tensions between Australia and Indonesia after a family of six attempted to flee the troubled province by boat.
The family would have become the first asylum seekers from Papua, also known as West Papua, to arrive in Australia since 42 Papuans were granted asylum last month.
That incident caused a backlash from Indonesia, which accused the Australian government of intervening in its affairs. It denied allegations of genocide in the province and recalled its ambassador to Canberra.
With anti-Australia feeling on the rise in Indonesia, on Thursday an Indonesian trade group called for a boycott of Australian goods.
"I would say to people in West Papua and I would say to any people in Australia ... who may be encouraging them to come to Australia that that is not something that the Australian government or, I believe, the majority of the Australian public wants" John Howard,Australian prime ministerCommenting on the asylum case, Howard said he welcomed news that the Papuan family had, contrary to reports on Wednesday, not made it to Australian shores.
"I would say to people in West Papua and I would say to any people in Australia ... who may be encouraging them to come to Australia that that is not something that the Australian government or, I believe, the majority of the Australian public wants"
Later reports said the family's boat had run short of fuel and diverted to Papua New Guinea, a country that shares an island with the province.
"The original reports that they had come to an island off the Australian coast are now seen as wrong," Howard told ABC radio on Thursday.
"That is a good thing in the context of the relationship between Australia and Indonesia."
Howard said that relations between the two had come "under strain" because of this issue.
"I would say to people in West Papua and I would say to any people in Australia ... who may be encouraging them to come to Australia that that is not something that the Australian government or, I believe, the majority of the Australian public wants."
Amanda Vanstone, the Australian immigration minister, warned would-be refugees that Canberra's decision to grant asylum to the 42 who arrived in canoes from Papua in January did not mean that other Papuans would succeed.
Vanstone said refugee applications were decided by her department on a case-by-case basis and did not reflect a judgment on the Indonesian government.
"Each of these decisions are made individually ... that is, what was happening to them and their fear in a particular area," Vanstone told ABC radio.
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<P>The Australian prime minister has told asylum seekers from the Indonesian province of West Papua that they are not welcome in his country.</P>
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Blasts hit Iran's east
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A series of low-intensity blasts hit one of the poorest towns in the Sistan va Baluchestan province, near the Afghan-Pakistan border, early on Tuesday morning.
Three people were wounded in the explosions, the Islamic Republic News Agency said.
Provincial police commander Brigadier-General Nour Allah Younesi told journalists that the blast "broke the windows of three cars parked on the road and shattered glasses of houses in a 20-metre area".Â
The incident is under investigation by the police and security force in the area, he added.
On Sunday, up to eight people were killed in attacks in the Arab-dominated city of Ahvaz and the capital, Tehran, ahead of a fractious election campaign leading up to Friday's vote.
Judicial spokesman Jamal Karimi Rad said six suspects had been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the attacks, and one over the Tehran blast.
Officials have accused the Iraq-based People's Mujahidin, which is Iran's main armed opposition group, and Baathist supporters of deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein as well as "foreign agents".
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Three people have been lightly wounded in three bomb attacks in the eastern Iranian city of Zahedan, days ahead of a presidential election.
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http://www.people.com/article/kesha-thanks-lady-gaga-joe-biden-oscars-sexual-assault-oscars
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Kesha Thanks Lady Gaga 'for Bringing Attention' to Rape : People.com
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02/29/2016 AT 12:00 AM EST
The singer took to Twitter Sunday night to show her appreciation for the sexual assault dialogue instigated by Lady Gaga's Oscars performance.
"thank u @ladygaga and VP @JoeBiden for bringing attention to sexual assault at the oscars. it hit very close to my heart for obvious reasons," Kesha, 28,
after Gaga's performance of her Best Original Song-nominated track "Til It Happens to You."
thank u @ladygaga and VP @JoeBiden for bringing attention to sexual assault at the oscars. it hit very close to my heart for obvious reasons
An advocate against sexual assault and domestic violence, Vice President
took the stage before Gaga to introduce the song.
Kesha (full name: Kesha Rose Sebert) is currently embroiled in a
with her longtime producer Dr. Luke, whom she alleges drugged and raped her and verbally and emotionally abused her for years. Luke (born Lukasz Gottwald)
and is countersuing for breach of contract and defamation.
Monday, Luke's attorney, Christine Lepera, released a statement to PEOPLE following Kesha's tweet to Gaga and Biden.
stated that she had never been sexually abused or drugged by Dr. Luke, is neither a victim nor the appropriate person to be held up as an example for this important issue," Lepera said.
Kesha's lawyer, Mark Geragos, responded with a statement, saying: "Dr. Luke threatened her and her mother ... only
was Kesha strong enough to stand up to this monster."
that would allow her to record music outside of Luke's purview was shot down by a New York Supreme Court judge on Feb. 19, celebrities (including Gaga) have taken to social media to support Kesha.
.@kesharose I'll be thinking of u 2nite. This is not over we'll stand by u until you are free to live a HAPPY life. Everyone deserves that.
Hours before the ceremony, Gaga, 29, took to Twitter to reiterate her support for Kesha.
"@kesharose I'll be thinking of u 2nite. This is not over we'll stand by u until you are free to live a HAPPY life. Everyone deserves that," she tweeted.
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"It hit very close to my heart for obvious reasons," Tweeted the singer
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Pink Plate : People.com
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I was 39 years old. I wasn't supposed to get breast cancer. Only old ladies get breast cancer. Or at least that's what I thought.
But in 2007, I noticed a pea-sized lump in my right breast. I didn't have any family history of cancer, so I didn't give it a second thought. I went along with my busy life raising three boys. I'd taken time off from working to be a mom while my kids were young, but Colton was 10 and Jacob and Joshua were 8 and I'd returned to work with my own housecleaning business.
A few months passed and I noticed the lump getting bigger, but there was no pain or discomfort so I didn't worry about it. My grandmother has a history of fibroids, so I thought, "Eh, maybe it's a cyst or something."
By month four, the lump was too large and painful to ignore. I had never heard of cancer being painful, so I continued to believe it was something – anything – else and I asked my grandmother to take a look at it. She examined me and was immediately concerned. "You need to get to the doctor as soon as possible," she told me.
Over the next few weeks, she would call me frequently to ask if I'd made an appointment but I kept putting it off. Finally, when it became too painful to put a seat belt on, I decided to get checked out.
My husband, Dave, was there with me when they did the biopsy. "There's nothing to worry about. It's just a cyst," I told him before turning to the nurse. "Right?"
The nurse returned my question with a concerned look.
Tests would show I had a tumor the size of a golf ball. I went in for surgery to remove it but when the doctors opened me up, they discovered the disease had spread. My body was riddled with cancer.
The prognosis wasn't good. I had stage 4 cancer and I was told I had two years to live.
I was in complete shock. How could I go from being a vibrant, 39-year-old mother and wife to having just two years to live?
My husband's heart was broken at the thought of losing me, but the most devastating part was that I would have to tell my sons I was going to die.
I went to my room and cried. I wasn't crying because I was going to die. I was crying because I realized I wasn't going to see my kids grow up. I wasn't going to see them get married, have children. I was devastated.
But the next day, I picked myself up and said, "No more pity party." I have a strong faith and I believe everything happens for a reason. I knew that if I was meant to battle cancer, then I was going to fight every day of my life.
And now I'm not just fighting for myself.
A few years after my diagnosis, I met a woman named Heather McCullough at a Relay for Life event. She was really the first other woman I'd met who was going through what I was. We immediately bonded and decided we wanted to help other women connect like we had.
We started a Facebook group called
to give women a place to talk and encourage each other without having to make plans to meet in person.
Through that group, we discovered that 34 states have breast cancer awareness license plates, but our home state of California was not one of them. It was then that Heather and I teamed up with two of our other Suvivor Sisters – Deborah Bordeau and Heather Solari – to change that statistic.
In 2012, the four of us set out to Sacramento and approached then California State Assembly member Joan Buchanan about the idea of a pink ribbon license plate. Joan graciously agreed to carry our bill and introduced us to another cancer survivor, Carla Kimball, who joined our
We all worked really hard and eventually got our bill signed by Governor Jerry Brown. And now, as long as we get at least 7,500 pre-orders, our plates will be put into production!
From left: Deborah Bordeau, Heather McCullough, Carla Kimball, Chere Rush and Heather Solari
This has been a very personal campaign for me because the proceeds from the plates will benefit the
program, which helps undeserved women who don't have the money or capability to get mammograms and other early detection tests.
Early detection is huge. I put my own self at risk by not going to the doctor earlier. I honestly believe I would not be in the battle I am in now if I'd gotten checked out sooner.
And even though I am technically in remission, I will always have stage 4 cancer. I will take various medications and receive chemotherapy for the rest of my life – or as long as my body will let me. The disease is just lying dormant in my body until it chooses to rear it's ugly head again.
With that in mind, we recently moved out of my kids' childhood home and into a smaller house so my husband will not have to worry about paying for it after I am gone.
From left: Joshua, Dave, Colton, Chere and Jacob Rush in 2014.
Cancer has forever changed me and my family – especially my boys.
They worry about me every day and spent their childhood with me in hospitals and doctor's offices, but they have also become stronger because of what they've gone through.
One of my sons wants to become a nurse after years spent accompanying me to doctor appointments. Another one wants to become an oncologist and cure cancer entirely.
But they also live every day in fear that they will lose their mom. Colton is at college in Arizona, but the twins both want to attend school closer to home. I think that's because of me.
This spring I will get to see my twins graduate high school. It's a milestone I didn't think I was going to be around for.
I dream of seeing my sons through the next milestones in their lives, but I also dream of living to see our California roadways sprinkled – or even saturated – with pink license plates.
Early detection could have saved me from my cancer battle. And I refuse to give up on the fight to help others from being in my situation.
I'm going to paint the road pink!
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Chere Rush is now advocating for a breast cancer awareness license plate
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http://www.nytimes.com/1964/01/22/theatercabin-in-the-sky.html
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Theater‘Cabin in the Sky’
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IT'S understandable that the score of “Cabin in the Sky” would tempt producers into trying a revival. Where do you find musicals these days with songs like “Taking a Chance on Love,” “Cabin in the Sky,” “Love Turned the Light Out,” “Living It Up” and “Savanna ?”
But even off Broadway a musical remembered fondly for its cornucopia of songs and the earthy vitality of Ethel Waters must have some measure of style. The revival of “Cabin in the Sky,” which opened last night at the Greenwich Mews, has been pieced together with so heavy a hand that it has lost most of its verve and charm.
“Cabin in the Sky” would have problems today even if mounted with taste and style. For the climate has changed radically. A fantasy in which the Negro is treated like a simple child of nature, moving and talking and sinning and shouting in ways that have become annoying stereotypes, is not so palatable as it was in the seemingly more innocent year of 1940 when this musical was new.
If the production had a flair, one could make allowances for the clichés of attitude embedded in this book of weak, though not wicked Litthe Joe, for whom the Headman or Lucifer Jr. and the Lord's General are in contention. But this revival confuses roaring and pounding with high spirits. One's eardrums have rarely taken so pulverizing a beating.
There are moments when Rosetta Le Noire as Petunia, Miss Waters's role, makes one feet one is in a theater and not in a noise tunnel. In “Taking a Chance on Love,” she shapes Vernon Duke's buoyant tune and the bright lyrics by John Latouche and Ted Fetter with an appreciative sense of style. She distills feeling without blasting from the torch song, “Love Turned the Light Out.” But when she gets to “Savanna,” she falls prey to the company's compulsion for blowing the house down.
There are a few other moments when the vitality of a willing and hard‐working company disarms one even when
Ketty Lester as the fancy girl has a serpentine figure that would turn a strong man's head. and she has some idea of movement. But Bernard Johnson as a Lucifer Jr. who lisps and Sam Laws as a Lord's General who bellows make sticky and ponderous going of the two roles essential to fantasy.
One leaves the theater humming “Taking a Chance on Love.” Out there in the traffic one can hear oneself hum.
This article can be viewed in its original form. Please send questions and feedback to archive_feedback@nytimes.com
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Cabin in the Sky, by L Root, V Duke and J Latouche
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Kristin Chenoweth Shares Her Secret to Happiness : People.com
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20160304102557
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03/03/2016 AT 02:45 PM EST
has her hands in everything from the big screen to Broadway.
But there is one field in which she feels her best: "The happiest I am is every night on stage," Chenoweth, 47, told PEOPLE at the JC Penney "Get Your Pennyâs Worth" campaign launch in New York on Wednesday.
The actress and singer is currently performing "opera, music theater, country and all of the original stuff" around the United States, an experience she told PEOPLE has been a "blessing."
"I love it" she said with a smile.
"Getting to sing songs that I choose for a reason, not being a character, but [being] myself, gives me such a great opportunity to show people who I really am," she explained.
After performances, audience members will say, " 'I thought one thing of you – but itâs all together different,' " she said. "I always like to hear that."
The Emmy and Tony award-winning performer has transformed into characters ranging from
. But the real Chenoweth is simply a woman who, as her song "I Was Here" says, wants "to try to touch a few hearts in this life."
Chenoweth spends her time giving to the
"Itâs turning into my legacy," she said. "I want to just grow it and grow it so more kids can come and audition and have the fun week that I didnât have growing up. We didnât have that in Oklahoma."
Chenowethâs attitude is consistently positive and gracious, though she admitted, âItâs not like this every day!â
When life gets hard, she said, "I just have to get down on my knees and go, 'Lordâ¦' "
And while she's played a handful on stage, Chenoweth is far from a drama queen.
big of a deal" she said.
Her secret to staying positive: "I just try to live with joy. And sometimes, itâs a decision."
"Itâs not every day I wake up feeling great," she added. "I have decided to."
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Tony and Emmy Award winner Kristin Chenoweth opens up to PEOPLE about leaving her "legacy" on this world
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Bob Lobel agrees to dismiss portions of suit against Newton golf course
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Bob Lobel may have just lost a round in his legal battle with the Woodland Golf Club but his fight isn’t over yet.
The retired WBZ-TV sports anchor sued the Newton club in November, claiming that he was unfairly prevented from using a specialized cart to play on its greens. Lobel has spinal stenosis, walks with crutches, and uses a cart with a seat that swivels and allows him to hit a golf ball.
The original lawsuit sought more than $250,000 in damages, as well as legal costs and an order essentially allowing Lobel and others with similar needs full access to the greens.
But Lobel will no longer be able to win money beyond his legal expenses, because three of the four counts in his original suit were dismissed following a request by the club’s lawyers. Michael Longo, an attorney for Lobel, wrote to US District Court Judge F. Dennis Saylor on Feb. 23, saying Lobel wouldn’t oppose the club’s motion to dismiss those counts.
The one count that remains in the case accuses Woodland of violating the federal Americans with Disabilities Act by failing to provide a cart that would allow Lobel to play golf on the course. Longo said in an interview that means Lobel will still be eligible to win his legal costs and an order changing the golf club’s behavior.
Now disabled, the former sportscaster said the Woodland Golf Club won’t let him use adaptive golf carts.
Tim Doherty, president of the golf club, distributed a note on Thursday that referred to the dismissal of the three claims as an “important and positive development from the club’s perspective,” in part because Lobel will no longer be able to recover monetary damages other than attorneys’ fees.
The dispute arose after a Woodland member tried to bring Lobel to drive an adaptive golf cart to play golf there in 2014. Doherty noted that the club’s subsequent testing determined that the use of the cart would damage the greens. Lobel, he noted, was allowed to use the cart except to ride in the bunkers or on the greens.
Longo, too, referred to this dismissal as a positive development for his client. Lobel’s motivation, Longo said, was never about money. Instead, he said, it was about prompting a positive change to make the greens at the golf course more accessible.
“That was the whole point of this case from the beginning. . . to have access for anyone who is disabled to be able to play on the course, and that’s still what the case is about,” Longo said. “Dropping those other claims really focuses the case on that exact thing.”
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The sportscaster may have lost a round in his legal battle with the Woodland Golf Club but his fight isn’t over yet.
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Outgoing Lululemon CEO Christine Day names her next venture
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After about six years of selling high-priced yoga pants, outgoing Lululemon Athletica CEO Christine Day has her next project: revamping the frozen-foods section.
On Tuesday, she announced that she'll take the helm at Luvo, formerly Lyfe Kitchen Retail, a healthy foods start-up backed by Derek Jeter and Jennifer Garner.
"For me, it's about purpose-led companies ... so actually reinventing the frozen-food aisle with healthy food that's nutrient dense, that's good for people, that reintroduces people to food they should be eating and love—that's a mission I can get up for every morning," she told CNBC's "Closing Bell."
(Read more: Supersize this: McDonald's alums' big bet on healthy food
In June, Day said that she would leave the yoga apparel marker after a replacement was found. While shifting from yoga to food may seem like a leap, Day is no stranger to America's eating habits, having spent two decades at Starbucks.
(Read more: Without rebirth, malls face extinction: Developer
"I really feel like the time is right," she told CNBC. "This is an industry that's about to make a huge shift, and I think health and wellness are on everyone's mind right now."
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After six years of selling high-priced yoga pants, Christine Day is going to a healthy foods start-up backed by Derek Jeter and Jennifer Garner.
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Walking Dead Star Danai Gurira Discusses Her Work with The ONE Campaign : People.com
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20160309135846
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may slay zombies in her day job, but as a global activist she's taking on much fiercer foes – poverty, sexism and the spread of HIV/AIDS among African women.
's "Poverty Is Sexist" initiative, Gurira headed to Washington, D.C., for
on Tuesday to speak out and ensure the fight for gender equality is worldwide.
Gurira – who was also part of Monday's
outlining the ways in which extreme poverty disproportionately affects girls and women and urging lawmakers to take action to improve basic nutrition and halt the spread of HIV/AIDS – tells PEOPLE why she is passionate about "bringing voice and a full face to the women and girls who we often never see or hear about who have great potential to help this world."
The fact that I am an African woman. I was raised on the continent. So I've always had this bird's-eye view of two very disparate places. Being that's who I am – that culture and that specific way – the idea of coming to the West and seeing the disparity of opportunities and protections that are experienced by women on the continent and other parts of the developing world, it's something that has made me deeply concerned and passionate about it being something we need to rectify. Especially when I spend time with women and girls who look just like me, but who do not have the opportunity to get back on a plane and go back to this country that has more opportunities available and less of a gender gap (there's still one unfortunately, nonetheless).
That's the whole point. For me, that's what I do as a storyteller, because people relate to story. If they sit in a room and experience a story, they connect to people who are living and breathing in front of them and they see their full humanity and the full breadth of who they are. It becomes more and more tricky to consider them "other." That's always the goal of what I try to do, to really diminish or hopefully completely eradicate this concept of "the other." There is no "other." We are one.
The idea of adding storytelling is one of the most effective ways to bring true face and voice, to move step beyond statistics and step into our humanity when it comes to dealing with people. ... For me, it's a way of eliminating that concept of turning people into "the other," turning them into something far away and not something they should be concerned about. If another human being is undergoing certain injustices, we
be concerned. We're at that point in our development as a community where if one of us is suffering, we all are. These types of repressions that are still so palpable in the world today, they're completely illogical. So, sometimes it is about giving face and voice in another way, which I think is very effective through storytelling, which is what I plan to do.
I'm going to be learning as I go. I've certainly never undergone this particular form of activism before, and I'm very excited to learn from the experts about how you get to work with lawmakers. It's a whole other field from what I've done in the past. I've really been working trying to affect communities through storytelling and different forms of advocacy that way. So, this is going to be a whole new experience for me. I actually welcome the challenge.
, is all about that because it's about how women who were contracting HIV were largely contracting it from their husbands. To me, that was deeply, deeply disturbing, and I grew up in Zimbabwe in the '80s, and I saw this epidemic hit the southern part of the continent where it has been the most intense. I saw families broken apart, families lose their bread winner, families go into states of turmoil and poverty as a result of this illness.
There has been, due to the efforts of organizations like The ONE Campaign, progress in this area, but there were several people who I met that really inspired me and humbled me in terms in the work I was doing to create that play. Women from the Mothers to Mothers program in South Africa – HIV-positive mothers who support each other and support new mothers who have realize they are HIV-positive while they are pregnant. A woman I met there deeply touched me, one who saw my performance and told me that was her exact story and told how she had, just like my character in the play, [hidden her HIV status from her husband] for a very long time before she could actually share with him what was going on even though it was a joint problem that she did not create by herself. Now, she's such a massive advocate and travels the world. So, there's some really women who I met and deeply touched in that area and with that particular issue, and various others, but specifically with HIV. Because of my work with that particular play, I've met a number of women who are doing amazing work, creating their own organizations to help other women.
For more information about The ONE Campaign and its "Poverty Is Sexist" initiative,
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Gurira tells PEOPLE she's fighting for "women and girls who look just like me, but who do not have the opportunity to [move up in life]"
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Italian police get a brand new Lamborghini
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The sports car was presented to the head of the Italian police by the car maker's president and CEO, Stephan Winkelmann, at a ceremony in Rome last week.
"The new Lamborghini Huracán stands for Italian super sports car excellence and we are proud to provide it to the Italian State Police," Winklemann said in a statement.
The country's police forces have long used the Volkswagen-owned Italian automaker's sports cars.
"In the last 10 years, the Italian State Police used the car for prevention purposes and in order to enhance street security" said the Head of the Italian State Police, Prefect Alessandro Pansa in a statement.
The Huracán LP 610-4 Polizia will replace the Lamborghini Gallardo which had been donated to the Italian Police Force in 2008.
The Gallardo has clocked up 110,000 kilometers in the five years from 2009, on patrol duty across central and southern Italy's motorways, and on emergency medical transport detail.
Follow us on Twitter: @CNBCWorld
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Italy's State Police will soon be tearing through the country's highways in a brand new Lamborghini.
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Gawker happy to post underage celebrity sex videos: former editor
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Hulk Hogan in the Florida courtroom. (AAP)
The former boss of Gawker has revealed to a stunned courtroom the tabloid website would have no issues posting any celebrity sex video, as long as there were not children involved "younger than four".
Albert Daulerio, the former editor-in-chief of the website, made the revelation as Gawker attempts to defend a $134 million lawsuit launched by wrestler Hulk Hogan.
Hogan is suing the website for posting a sex video involving him and his former best friends' wife Heather Clen in 2012.
"Can you imagine a situation where a celebrity sex tape would not be newsworthy?" asked the lawyer, Douglas E. Mirell.
"If they were a child," Mr. Daulerio replied.
"Under what age?" the lawyer pressed.
There was "a palpable sense of shock rippled through the courtroom" upon Mr Daulerio's revalation, The New York Times reports.
Mr Daulerio said when it came to Gawker's ethical practices, "sex sells".
He said the Hogan sex tape was given to him anonymously to him in the mail and no money had changed hands.
"I found it very amusing," he said. "I thought it was newsworthy, and it was something that was worth publishing."
When asked if he tried to contact Hogan to see if it was him in the grainy, black and white footage, he said he "didn't really care".
Hogan testified yesterday he did not have a 25cm penis as he had previously claimed in a radio interview with his former best friend, shock jock 'Bubba the Love Sponge'.
Hulk Hogan refuted his own claim yesterday that he had a 25cm penis. (AAP)
It was the wife of Bubba the Love Sponge, which is his real name, that Hogan had sex with in the video.
He said the boast about his appendage was not related to his own personal privacy, as it was an invention of the Hulk Hogan character.
"I do not have a 10-inch (25cm) penis, I do not, seriously. Terry Bollea’s penis is not 10 inches," Hogan said, using his real name.
"I was in character. I embellished a little bit about the number of women (I also slept with). I was totally Hulk Hogan — I wasn't at home in my private house."
He said his issue is not the existence of the sex tape, but the fact it will now "live forever on the internet".
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The former boss of Gawker has revealed to a stunned courtroom the tabloid website would have no issues posting any celebrity sex video, as long as there were not children involved "younger than four".
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Private equity deals
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Ares Capital has offered to acquire discount retailer 99 Cents Only Stores (NYSE: NDN) for around $22 per share, according to the NY Post. This would top an existing offer from Leonard Green & Partners, which is believed to be nearly $20 per share, or $1.41 billion. http://www.99only.com
WestView Capital Partners has sponsored a recapitalization of LDiscovery LLC, a McLean, Va.-based provider of e-discovery management solutions. No financial terms were disclosed. http://www.ldiscovery.net
American Auto Auction Group, a portfolio company of Baird Private Equity, has acquired Your Auction Inc., an independent auto auction operator in Florida and Alabama. No financial terms were disclosed.www.americanautoauctiongroup.com
Catterton Partners has invested an undisclosed amount in ClearChoice Holdings, a Greenwood Village, Colo.-based provider of administrative and non-clinical services to 31 dental implant centers.www.clearchoice.com CyberCore Technologies, an Elkridge, Md.-based provider of IT services to the federal government and intelligence communities, has raised an undisclosed amount of equity funding from Paladin Capital Group. Cybercore was recently acquired by Moelis Capital Partners. www.cybercoretech.com Sentinel Capital Partners has sponsored a recapitalization of National Spine & Pain Centers, a Rockville, Md.-based provider of management services to physicians specializing in interventional pain management procedures for back and neck pain. No financial terms were disclosed. www.sentinelcap.com Warburg Pincus has agreed to invest up to $150 million in Explora Petroleum AS, a newly-formed oil and gas exploration company focused on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. www.warburgpincus.com
The Carlyle Group has acquired a control stake in WorldStrides, a Charlottesville, Va.-based provider of supplemental educational student travel programs. No financial terms were disclosed. Sellers Charlesbank Capital Partners and Silverhawk Capital Partners will each retain minority equity positions. www.carlyle.com
Providence Equity Partners has completed its $1.64 billion take-private buyout of Blackboard Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based provider of technology solutions for education. Steve Alesio, former Dun & Bradstreet CEO and a senior advisor to Providence Equity, will become Blackboard’s chairman.www.blackboard.com
Advent International and Bain Capital are among possible bidders for payments company Point International, according to Reuters. Point is currently owned by Nordic Capital, and could be worth around $930 million. Firms that have dropped out of the process include EQT Partners, TPG Capital and Charterhouse Capital Partners.
Avaya, a portfolio company of Silver Lake Partners and TPG Capital, has acquired Sipera, a Richardson, Texas-based provider of unified communications solutions that include session border control. No financial terms were disclosed. Sipera had raised over $40 million in VC funding from S3 Ventures, Austin Ventures, Duchossois Technology Partners, Sequoia Capital and STAR Ventures. www.avaya.com The Carlyle Group is nearing a deal to acquire a 48% stake in Turkey’s Bahcesehir K-12 Schools, according to Dow Jones. No financial terms were reported. www.carlyle.com The Carlyle Group has acquired a 9% stake in India Infoline, an Indian financial services company, for approximately $38 million. www.carlyle.com Svoboda Capital Partners has led a recapitalization of GPA, a McCook, Ill.-based provider of specialty printable substrate solutions. No pricing terms were disclosed. Ellipse Capital and Northstar Capital also participated on the equity tranche, while PNC Bank provided senior debt and Northstar provided sub debt.www.askgpa.com Wells Fargo & Co. has sold H.D. Vest Financial Services, an Irving, Texas-based broker/dealer for retail investors through tax professionals, to an investor group that includes Parthenon Capital Partners, Lovell Minnick Partners and Fisher Lynch. www.hdvest.com
Onex Partners has completed its previously announced acquisition of Jeld-Wen Holding Inc., a Klamath Falls, Ore.-based residential door and window manufacturer. The deal is valued at $871 million. www.jeld-wen.com
Abengoa, a listed Spanish developer of solar-thermal power plants, has raised EUR 300 million in private equity funding from First Reserve Corp.
CI Capital Partners has acquired Galls Inc. from Aramark Corp. for an undisclosed amount. Galls is a Lexington, Ky.-based marketer and distributor of public safety, first responder and private security products. It reports $163 million in annual revenue. www.galls.com
CLSA Capital Partners has acquired a minority stake in Indian test prep company Renosance Eduventures for $22 million. www.clsacapital.com
Frazier Healthcare and New Enterprise Associates have agreed to acquire 30 dialysis clinics from DaVita (NYSE: DVA) and DSI Renal (which DaVita acquired earlier this year). No financial terms were disclosed. The centers will be placed into a new platform called DSI, which will be led by former Odyssey Healthcare CEO Robert Lefton. www.nea.com
Teachers’ Private Capital has acquired a majority stake in Flexera Software, a Schaumburg, Ill.-based provider of application usage management solutions, from Thoma Bravo. No financial terms were disclosed. Thoma Bravo will retain a minority ownership position. www.flexerasoftware.com
Tech Valley Communications, an Albany, N.Y.-based portfolio company of Riverside Partners, has acquired SegTel, a Lebanon, N.H.-based provider of fiber optic telecom services to carrier, wholesale and large enterprise customers. www.valleytechcom.com
Tiburon Inc., a Pleasanton, Calif.-based provider of automated public safety and security solutions, has raised an undisclosed amount of new equity funding from owner The Gores Group. www.tiburoninc.com Vero Systems, a portfolio company of Battery Ventures, has acquired Planit from August Equity. Planit is a British developer of CAD/CAM software for the specialist manufacturing sector. No financial terms were disclosed. Harris Williams & Co. managed the sale process. www.planit.com
The Carlyle Group and Hellman & Friedman have agreed to acquire Pharmaceutical Product Development Inc. (Nasdaq: PPDI) for $3.9 billion, or $33.25 per share (29.6% premium to Friday’s closing price. PPDI is a Wilmington, N.C.-based global contract research organization for the life sciences market. www.carlyle.com
Actis has led a buyout of Tracker, a South African vehicle tracking company, from Remgro for approximately $485 million. Other participants included the Mineworkers Investment Co. and existing Tracker shareholder FirstRand. www.act.is
Clayton, Dubilier & Rice has completed its acquisition of a 60% stake in Hussmann from Ingersoll-Rand(NYSE:IR) for approximately $370 million. Ingersoll-Rand will retain a 40% equity interest in Hussmann, a Bridgeton, Mo.-based maker of refrigeration and food merchandising equipment. www.hussmann.com
Leonard Green & Partners and CVC Capital Partners have completed their $2.8 billion take-private acquisition of BJ’s Wholesale Club Inc. www.bjs.com
National Healing Corp., a Nashville, Tenn.-based provider of wound and disease management solutions for hospitals, has agreed to acquire Jacksonville, Fla.-based Diversified Clinical Services for an undisclosed amount. National Healing owner Metalmark Capital is providing financing for the deal, and will retain majority ownership in the combined company. The Jordan Company will sell its stake in Diversified Clinical Services. www.nationalhealing.com
Newton Energy Partners, a Texas-based portfolio company of Kayne Anderson Energy Funds, has acquired MEC Operating Company ULC, owner of five oil fields located near Edmonton, Alberta. No financial terms were disclosed. www.kaynecapital.com
Get last week’s PE deals
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Ares Capital has offered to acquire discount retailer 99 Cents Only Stores (NYSE: NDN) for around $22 per share, according to the NY Post. This would top an existing offer from Leonard Green & Partners, which is believed to be nearly $20 per share, or $1.41 billion. www.99only.com WestView Capital Partners has sponsored a recapitalization…
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How to protect yourself when filing taxes online
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Is that email really from the IRS?
A key strategy for fraudsters is to contact individuals via email, and to pretend to be the Internal Revenue Service, said Roel Schouwenberg, principal security researcher at Kaspersky Lab, which provides Internet security products and services. This is known as phishing. Unsuspecting users then click on links that allow malware to be downloaded on to computers.
Mustafa Rassiwala, a cybersecurity expert, said the suspicious emails can appear like legitimate requests for information.
" 'We have some problems with your account and I need to get access to your Social Security number, and your address' ... a lot of consumers unknowingly hand over this information," said Rassiwala, senior director of product management at cybersecurity company ThreatMetrix, which specializes is user authentication.
To clarify, the IRS will never send you any electronic communication, including emails and text messages, which ask for personal information. The IRS also advises if you get a suspicious email, you should not reply, click on links or open attachments. Instead, report suspicious emails to the IRS by forwarding them to phishing@irs.gov.
(Read more: Identity thieves gear up to steal your tax refund)
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As millions of Americans file their taxes online, cybercriminals are ready to pounce. Here's how to protect yourself online.
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MADONNA 'GRABS' LONDON SPOTLIGHT
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Madonna showed a touch of nerves in her London theater debut Monday night. But even though some found her performance "stiff" and "forced," no one could deny the old girl still has star power. Some audience members gave the actress a standing ovation as she stepped onstage in the first scene of "Up for Grabs" - before she had even uttered a line. Reviewers were barred from the performance, but wily London papers sent spies to join some 1,000 devotees who paid as much as $750 a seat. Hordes of Madonna fans camped in the rain for hours in hopes of nabbing a wayward ticket to the art-world satire. One writer sneered that her acting was "awful.
" The Times of London declared: "Great play, shame about Madonna.
" Others argued that she loosened up by the second act. The Evening Standard's writer admitted that "I ended up loving the dame.
" Madonna, 43, plays a conniving art dealer. She delivered her share of shock when her character made out with a female customer in front of her husband and propositioned a married male collector. Witnessing all this was Madonna's real-life hubby, Guy Ritchie, who came with children Lourdes and Rocco and sent her a bouquet to hold when she tearfully took four curtain calls. "Up for Grabs" officially opens May 23 and runs till July 13. Stuck on Tobey? Heather Graham and Tobey Maguire are becoming inseparable. The two, who were at Lotus recently, showed up at Noel Ashman's party at Centro Fly on Saturday. Though they were part of a group that included Mark Wahlberg, Matt Dillon, Chris Kattan, Jerry O'Connell and Christina Aguilera, a spy says they came and left together. Maguire's rep disputes that and insists that the "Spider-Man" webslinger and Graham are "just friends.
" House not divided Liza Minnelli and her 94-year-old stepmother have ended their landlord-tenant battle. Lee Anderson Minnelli, widow of Vincente Minnelli, told Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Gregory O'Brien on Monday that she was dropping the elder-abuse and breach-of-contract suit she filed last month. "I can't sue Liza," said the widow, who agreed to move out of the Beverly Hills home where she lived for 40 years. Liza, who has owned the $3.
5 million house since her father died in 1986, stopped paying upkeep to spur her stepmom to move, but says she offered a $450,000 tax-free condo and ongoing financial support. Anderson Minnelli's lawyer, Tamara Green, said after the hearing she "could weep," claiming the situation could have fatally traumatized her frail, 4-foot-10 client, who gets around in a wheelchair. Anderson Minnelli says Liza called on Monday to invite her to join the singer and husband David Gest for dinner at Spago on an upcoming visit and to tell her, "I'm so glad you're not suing me, Mummy.
" 'Mama's' girl The sexy Mexican movie "Y Tu Mama Tambien" makes a great date flick. Just ask Chelsea Clinton and her boyfriend, Ian Klaus. They checked out the film the other night in an Oxford theater. After the show was over, they were spotted in deep canoodle. But the 22-year-old Oxford student hasn't neglected her intellectual pursuits. Chelsea recently wrote the afterword to "The Other Parent: The Inside Story of the Media's Effect on Our Children," a book by one of her Stanford professors, James P. Steyer. Clinton's two-page afterword explains the research she compiled for Steyer and also reveals how involved her parents were in her childhood TV viewing. "I realized that it was not the constraints my parents had placed on my media consumption that enabled me to understand that what I was watching was not real and not reality," writes Clinton, "but the fact that they often watched with me and talked to me about it my parents had practiced parental media literacy with me.
" On the club scene Famous members of the National Arts Club have come to the rescue of its embattled president, Aldon James. Martin Scorsese, Uma Thurman, Ethan Hawke and Paulina Porizkova were among the almost 600 members who delivered James a victory in a bitter election over control of the 104-year-old Gramercy Park club. James came under attack most recently last year, when he and others filed a discrimination lawsuit accusing the chairwoman of the Gramercy Park Trust, Sharen Benenson, of ejecting minority schoolchildren James had invited to the private park. Benenson has denied the allegation. Her husband, James Benenson, alleges to us that the club election was "rigged" and that James won't allow his opponents to inspect mailed-in proxy votes. "Independent inspectors reviewed all the proxies," counters James. "It was free and fair. The only thing we did wrong was win.
" Stone visits the ER Sharon Stone had a scare last week when her head started throbbing in the middle of the night. In October, she suffered a brain hemorrhage. So, taking no chances, she called her doctor. "She had a terrible headache," her spokeswoman confirms to us. "He sent her to the emergency room [of the University of California San Francisco Medical Center] to check it out. They released her with a clean bill of health.
" Feeling much better now, she's at the Cannes Film Festival serving as a juror. Out of Times Conservative pundit Andrew Sullivan says he has been banished from The New York Times. Sullivan, who used to write a biweekly column for the Times Magazine, claims executive editor Howell Raines decreed that he be "barred indefinitely.
" Sullivan suspects he's being punished for using his andrewsullivan.
com Web site to accuse the Times of liberal bias. A Times spokesman had no comment at press time. But Sullivan seems to enjoy being a pariah. "I haven't had so many congratulations since I graduated college," he jokes on his site. Side dishes ROSIE O'DONNELL has publicly acknowledged that girlfriend Kelli Carpenter is expecting their child. "There's a pregnant woman in my house, and it's not me," she said yesterday on her show. Speaking of Rosie, we hear she's planning a Broadway extravaganza for her final show on May 22. Word is that Liza Minnelli and Nathan Lane have agreed to headline live performances in Times Square by cast members from assorted shows ... OZZY OSBOURNE may have a new family feud on his hands. His daughter Kelly has been telling friends she's close to signing a record deal. Now we hear that her brother, Jack, wants one of his own. Mommy Sharon Osbourne is said to be bringing the lad to tonight's Esquire magazine party at W Hotel in Union Square. Most of the major record-label bosses are expected, and word is, Sharon wants Jack to meet them ... MICHAEL JACKSON, Lance Bass and Steven Tyler have all said they want to become space tourists. But Russians aloft would probably prefer the company of Hilary Swank. The Oscar-winner says in May's issue of Gotham that she has wanted to be an astronaut since she was 8. When she got her chance to don a spacesuit for her role in "The Core," she sent her mom a picture of herself in costume with a note: "Looks like I became an astronaut after all!
" ... SOFIA COPPOLA is courting her "Virgin Suicides" star Kirsten Dunst for another movie. "It's a sad romance between two young Americans who live in contemporary Tokyo," Coppola told Webster Hall curator Baird Jones at the opening of her brother Roman Coppola's film "CQ.
" With Kasia Anderson and Lauren Rubin
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Madonna showed a touch of nerves in her London theater debut Monday night. But even though some found her performance "stiff" and "forced," no one could deny the old girl still has star power.
Some audience members gave the actress a standing ovation as she stepped onstage in the first scene of "Up for Grabs" - before she had even uttered a line.
Reviewers were barred from the
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Madonna Jokes About Sex During Australia Concert, Bemoans 'Private Life' : People.com
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03/13/2016 AT 11:10 AM EDT
got personal with fans once again in Melbourne, Australia.
Performing at the Rod Laver Arena, Madonna got candid in a profanity-laden speech as she sipped from a drink and asked the audience to "F--- me, please."
She continued, laughing, "Please someone, f--- me," before announcing, "I'm just kidding. I don't have to ask for that."
The 57-year-old then joked that one of her crew members was looking on in horror, thinking, "don't reveal your private life to everybody."
Madonna said she "messed up" when referring to Thursday's Tears of a Clown show, during which she dedicated her song "Intervention" to son Rocco, 15.
Photos of the teenager were projected on a screen during Madonna's free performance while she sang, "I know that love will keep us together."
Madonna was not present for
in her legal feud with Ritchie, which happened at London's High Court on Friday.
"Madonna wants to find a way in which this family can come together to heal the wounds that have been inflicted," David Williams QC said at a private hearing in the court's family division. "She very much hopes that the family can start the process of reaching a resolution for the problem."
to return to the U.S. in December, Ritchie has yet to return him to Madonna's care in New York. Per a March 2 hearing, for the time being, Rocco will remain in school in London until they settle the matter out of court; in the event there is no settlement, another hearing is tentatively scheduled for June 6 in NYC.
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Madonna is also in an ongoing custody battle with he ex-husband Guy Ritchie
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Donald Trump Denies Trying to 'Woo' Megyn Kelly
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Donald Trump and Megyn Kelly
01/06/2016 AT 10:00 PM EST
's claims that he tried to get on her good side prior to announcing his bid for the oval office.
On Tuesday, the presidential hopeful refuted Kelly, saying that he never tried to "woo" her.
"The last person in the world I would try to woo is Megyn Kelly," he told
But, the Fox News host
, revealing that the republican candidate sent her press clippings that she was featured in, signing them 'Donald Trump,' adding that he would also call her to compliment her segments.
host admitted that at the time she was unsure of why he was showering her with attention, but soon enough it was obvious.
"I didn't know why he was doing that. And then he announced that he was running for president, it became more clear," she said. "But I can't be wooed. I was never going to love him, and I was never going to hate him."
Still, the republican front-runner says those claims aren't true, acknowledging only that his campaign sends polling data to TV anchors, but still questioned Kelly's impartiality.
"I'm not sure she can be fair and balanced because she has a thing with Donald Trump," he told The Hill.
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Trump is refuting Kelly's allegations that he tried to win her over before announcing his run for presidency
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Trump warns of 'riots' if denied White House nomination
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Donald Trump says there will be riots if he loses the Republican nomination at a brokered convention. (AFP/Getty)
Donald Trump has warned of riots if he is denied the Republican presidential nomination, after adding to his growing pile of primary wins but losing in the key state of Ohio.
Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton emerged from the "Titanic Tuesday" contests in five states as their party's clear frontrunners, but the billionaire real estate mogul's failure to sweep the races means he may fall short of the delegates needed to win the Republican nomination outright.
After the most divisive US campaign in nearly half a century, one that has shattered all rules of decorum and aroused an angry electorate, it remains unclear whether Trump can unite his party in time for the Republican convention in Cleveland in July.
READ MORE: What is a brokered convention?
Top Republican powerbrokers are still maneuvering to derail Trump, seen as an outsider who hijacked the party primaries, and are looking to a so-called brokered convention - which can occur if no candidate wins a majority of delegates by June - as their likely last chance.
But that extraordinary scenario, in which the party would seek to override the outcome of the primaries and unite around an alternative candidate, is a long shot few in the party seem to have the stomach for.
"If Trump has hundreds more delegates than the runner-up... it will be exceedingly difficult to deny him the nomination. In fact, to do so would be to guarantee a meltdown of historic proportions in Cleveland," said Sabato's Crystal Ball, a newsletter by a group of US political scientists.
By far the more probable outcome is for the candidate with the most votes - in all likelihood Trump - to be voted in as the White House nominee following a round of deal-making in the run-up to the convention.
Tuesday's primaries leave Trump with 640 delegates, against 405 for his closest rival, Texas Senator Cruz and 138 for Ohio Governor John Kasich, according to a CNN count.
He needs 1237 to win the nomination - difficult but not impossible.
In an interview with CNN, Trump said he believed there would be "a natural healing process" but if he arrives at the convention 100 delegates short, "I don't think you can say we don't get it automatically."
"I think you would have riots," he said.
The billionaire's candidacy has drawn a following of millions, many of whom have never voted before because they don't believe in the system, he claims.
"If you disenfranchise those people and say, 'I'm sorry, you're 100 votes short,' even though the next one is 500 votes short, I think you would see problems like you've never seen before," he said.
"I think bad things would happen. I really do. I wouldn't lead it, but I think bad things would happen."
Marco Rubio with his wife and children yesterday as he announced his candidacy was over after losing his home state of Florida. (AFP/Getty)
Trump won at least three of Tuesday's primaries, including the biggest prize of the night, winner-take-all Florida and its 99 delegates.
Missouri remained too close to call Wednesday, but Kasich easily took his home state, another winner-take-all contest with 66 delegates.
"Donald Trump could have generated unstoppable momentum had he won both Ohio and Florida," said Sabato's Crystal Ball. "But now it's clear to everyone that this will go right through June 7, the end of the Republican primary season."
With the departure of Florida Senator Marco Rubio - blown out of the race after a humiliating defeat in his home state - Trump's competition has narrowed to Cruz and Kasich.
Of the two, only Cruz has a mathematical possibility of winning the nomination, but he would have to do extraordinarily well in all the remaining contests.
Whatever the future holds for him, Trump's sway remains undeniable.
Trump announced Wednesday he would not be taking part in next week's Republican presidential debate hosted by Fox News -- prompting the network to pull the plug on the event.
"I think we've had enough, how many times can the same people ask you the same questions?" Trump said.
"So I was very surprised when I heard that Fox called for a debate, nobody told me about it, and I won't be there, no."
Clinton, meanwhile, came out of the latest set of primaries with a much clearer path to the Democratic nomination, defeating rival Bernie Sanders in Florida, Ohio, Illinois and North Carolina. Clinton was narrowly ahead in Missouri but that race was also still too close to call.
Hillary Clinton now looks certain to win the Democratic nomination. (AFP/Getty)
Those victories, adding to previous wins, brings Clinton's total of delegates - including previously pledged "superdelegates" - to more than 1500, against less than 800 for Sanders. The 2,383 delegates needed for the Democratic nomination was in sight for her.
Clinton's head of communications Jennifer Palmieri said it was unlikely that Sanders could overcome their delegate lead.
"We think it would be very difficult, if not impossible for him to overtake her at this point," she told CNN.
Sanders congratulated Clinton, but added that with more than half the delegates "yet to be chosen and a calendar that favors us... we remain confident that our campaign is on a path to win the nomination."
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Donald Trump warned Wednesday of riots if he is denied the Republican presidential nomination, after adding to his growing pile of primary wins but losing in the key state of Ohio.
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This is the humblebrag that could sink you
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20160321093830
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Humblebragging. It’s an art in it’s own right. And when it comes to job interviews, let the humblebrags begin. When the dreaded “What’s your biggest weakness?” question pops up (and it will), do you retort, “I can be too much of a perfectionist,” or “I take on too much responsibility and don't delegate”?
Many of us have been taught to put a positive spin on replies, turning any potential shortcomings into strengths in a bid to get the upper hand.
But is that really what recruiters want to hear? We turned to question-and-answer site Quora to find out what recruiters had to say about whether you should turn a weakness into an opportunity to humblebrag your way into a job.
“Please... don't. Just stop,” wrote Chau Nguyen, who has screened 250,000 CVs, interviewed 50,000 candidates and hired 4,000 people.
“This is like saying ‘I wish for world peace’ during a beauty pageant interview. You think you're clever by turning the question into an opportunity to brag when in reality it just makes you look bad,” he wrote.
Nguyen has asked the question countless times and cringes when he hears the following answers: “ I'm a perfectionist; I work too hard; I care too much; or I don't have any.”
These responses come across as trite and fake, recruiters overwhelmingly responded.
“It's important to understand why the interviewer is asking this question,” Nguyen continued. “This is chance for you to show that you are humble, aware of your shortfalls, and are actively working to improve on them.”
What recruiter Jae Alexis Lee appreciates is honesty.
“Having someone squirm to make their chosen ‘weakness’ seem like an asset doesn't help me form an opinion of the person at all,” she wrote.
“You know what impresses me? When someone describes a genuine weakness, and then goes on to tell me how they work to acknowledge it and work with it. I've had a candidate (we hired him) tell me that it was hard for him to remember follow-up tasks because he got very focused on what was currently in front of him. Then he went on to describe how he'd used calendaring in Outlook to manage reminders, follow-ups, and adapt his workflow to that blind spot,” Lee wrote. “He owned that it was something he still struggled with, but that he was also very aware of and actively working on.
“If you can't talk to me about yours in an interview, I worry that you will hide mistakes and weaknesses once you’re working for me,” Lee added.
Honestly answering the question also shows that you are brave, can own your own weakness and are fallible. These aren’t negatives, according to Dushka Zapata, who notes that being flexible and good at adaptation indicates that you have the ability to grow within a company. Owning up also “shows you don’t assign blame to others and [that you] take responsibility,” Zapata wrote.
“It’s a dumb question I never ask,” wrote Peter D’Autry, an executive headhunter. “[The] answers do not give any insight [into whether] a candidate will be able to perform in the job he or she will be hired for. The question comes up often with recruiter or HR types who do not have an idea what the job is about, and therefore will seek shelter in psycho babble masquerading as assessment methodology.”
Maybe that’s why some people answer the question with their own witty retort to level the playing field.
According to hiring manager Gary Claassen, “The best response I've heard for the biggest weakness question was … ‘Chocolate’.”
“It breaks the ice, shows that you have a sense of humour, and usually causes a smile or laugh. After all, you want something that's going to make you memorable, and showing the hiring manager that you're at ease is a huge step toward being liked,” Classen wrote. “Then, talk about something real that you've been working on overcoming.”
Quora respondents are required to use their true names under the site’s Real Names policy. To help ensure legitimacy and quality, Quora asks some individuals, such as doctors and lawyers, to confirm their expertise.
To comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Capital, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter.
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We all do it. But there’s one situation where you shouldn’t even bother trying.
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Joe Giudice on His Outlook as He Heads into Prison: 'It's No Big Deal'
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20160324092353
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By Emily Strohm and Charlotte Triggs
03/21/2016 AT 09:15 AM EDT
As Joe Giudice prepares to
star has a characteristically unique perspective to his prison term.
"It's not a big deal," Giudice tells PEOPLE. "They tell me that the low security and the camp there are almost the same so it's no big deal."
In October 2014, the reality star
to serve 41 months at Federal Correction Institute, Fort Dix in New Jersey for fraud charges.
Although he's losing his freedom, Giudice says it won't be all that bad.
"It's a military camp is what it is," he says. "It's not a high security, and anybody that's in there is basically people that have already served a lot of time basically working their years to get out. So once you are there if you screw up there, then you go back to high security."
Now as Giudice prepares to begin his sentence he's staying positive about the outcome.
for me," he says. "I am not going to be able to drink for a while which is good because I don't even know when it's been since I haven't had a drink. It's been a long time. Definitely the whole year I definitely drank every day a couple bottles at night just to go to bed."
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The Real Housewives star will report to Federal Correction Institute, Fort Dix in New Jersey on March 23
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Zipcar rolls out instant registration option
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Signing up for a Zipcar membership usually means waiting as long as a week for a card to arrive by mail before you can hop in one of the company’s vehicles and hit the road.
But not anymore. Zipcar is rolling out a new registration system, one that can be done entirely on your smartphone. New members can now access a car within minutes after joining, instead of days. The instant registration software is being tested in the Boston area, with a goal of a national rollout in June.
This new service could play a key role in keeping membership on a steady upward trajectory as the Avis Budget Group-owned business slows its expansion into new territories and instead looks for more ways to add customers within the cities and towns that the car-sharing company already serves.
Boston-based Zipcar’s business model is well known by now: Members avoid the hassles of owning a car by using a Zipcar-owned vehicle that’s shared with other Zipcar customers and usually parked in a specific space. The application process requires approval of a valid driver’s license and the mailing of a “Zipcard” used to unlock the vehicles.
“Today, the model is, if you sign up for Zipcar, on your smartphone or your desktop, you get approved and we mail you a Zipcard, that takes you about seven days,” said Kaye Ceille, the company’s president. “That’s pretty archaic, right? So what we know and what we’ve validated is that oftentimes, when people start the sign up process for Zipcar, they have a need [for a car] right then.”
The new system still requires a few steps. A new member needs to submit a driver’s license, scanned via a smartphone, and take and submit a selfie. The company then uses facial recognition software to quickly match the photo to the one on the license. Once approved, the new member can use an app on the phone to unlock the car.
Ceille said Zipcar will use the service to launch partnerships with hotels and other hospitality companies to make cars available to travelers who want to take a day trip on a whim. That opens up a new market for Zipcar, which is already testing the concept with a hotel company.
The company has added roughly 150 cities and towns to its footprint in the two years since Ceille joined as the president, bringing the total to more than 500. But Ceille said that growth will slow down in the next two years. That rapid expansion, in part, has fueled membership growth, from 850,000-plus at the end of 2013 to more than 950,000 at the end of 2015.
Ceille previously worked for Avis in London before coming to Zipcar after Avis acquired the Boston company for nearly $500 million in 2013. Its local employment levels have remained relatively steady, she said, since the acquisition, at about 250 workers. Some back-office jobs were eliminated at the Zipcar headquarters in Fort Point, but those were offset by additional engineering and other high-tech positions.
Because Boston is Zipcar’s hometown, the city often serves as a place for the company to test its concepts. Another idea that Zipcar is rolling out nationwide and debuted here first is a “one way” service that allows users to drop off a car in a variety of available parking spots, instead of making a round trip with the car to one designated location. In September, the company said it would expand the tests of “one way” service to Denver, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. Earlier this month, Zipcar formally launched the service in Los Angeles with 150 one-way cars there. Ceille said other cities will be added soon.
“The success in Boston has given us the wherewithal to say, ‘How fast can we roll it out?,’ ” Ceille said.
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Signing up for a Zipcar membership usually meant waiting a week for a card to arrive in the mail before you could hop in one of the company’s vehicles and hit the road. But not anymore.
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Court appeal backfires for 'vampire' pimp who preyed on Australian women
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An infamous sex trafficker known as Dracula who beat, humiliated and pimped women in Australia, the Middle East and America has suffered a major loss in a US court.
A three-judge panel in the District Court in Florida not only tossed out Damion Baston's appeal and confirmed a 27-year jail sentence handed down in Miami in 2014, but awarded one of his Australian victims, Katie Lang, $US400,000 ($A521,615) in extra restitution.
Judge William Pryor slammed Baston, a powerfully-built pimp from Jamaica who forced his female sex slaves to inject him with steroids to help maintain his physique.
Judge Pryor also detailed how Baston had "Transylvanian tendencies" and physically transformed himself to look like a vampire "complete with yellow contact lenses and gold-plated fangs".
"Baston forced numerous women to prostitute for him by beating them, humiliating them and threatening to kill them, and he pimped them around the world, from Florida to Australia to the United Arab Emirates," the judge wrote.
Katie Lang, who spoke out about her ordeal to 60 Minutes in February, was given the code name KL in court to protect her identity.
Ms Lang was awarded $US78,000 ($A101,715) in restitution at his US trial.
Baston asked in his appeal for that to be wiped.
The judges not only dismissed his request, but added $US400,000 to Ms Lang's restitution.
The figure is the amount of money Baston kept from what Ms Lang made from working as a prostitute in Australia.
"Baston argues that he does not owe restitution to KL for her prostitution in Australia because the jury did not convict him of that conduct, but that argument is baffling," Judge Pryor wrote.
Katie Lang with Damion Baston.
Baston learned how to be a pimp from the book Pimpology, written by Pimpin' Ken, which preached recruiting women who were sexually abused as children and for the victims to refer to the pimp as "Daddy".
"But Baston was not always faithful to the laws of Pimpology," the judge noted.
"Unlike Pimpin' Ken who rejected the use of violence, Baston punched, slapped, choked, and threatened to kill his victims whenever they got 'out of line'."
Baston met Ms Lang at a nightclub on Queensland's Gold Coast when she was 24 years old and he said he would help with her dream of opening her own restaurant.
The judge detailed how Baston, however, sent Ms Lang to have sex with clients throughout Australia at prices he determined, beat her regularly and threatened to hurt her family if she stopped.
Ms Lang also prostituted for Baston in the United Arab Emirates, Florida and Texas.
"One night, Baston suspected that KL was cheating on him," the judge wrote.
"He woke her up, punched her hard in the pelvis, threw her to the ground and strangled her.
"He heated up kitchen knives over an open flame and threatened to slit her throat."
Ms Lang eventually escaped Baston's control after her family contacted the American embassy in Australia, which refused to let her return to Baston in the US.
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A US judge has detailed how pimp Damion Baston had vampire tendencies and wore gold-plated fangs.
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160406042552id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/music/2016/03/31/berklee-grad-sierra-hull-bound-for-bluegrass-stardom/Ow0sy8cRExMXnM1Em0S5SM/story.html
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Berklee grad Sierra Hull bound for bluegrass stardom
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20160406042552
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Sierra Hull graduated Berklee College of Music in 2011.
Think of: Emmylou Harris’s voice and stage presence, Bill Monroe’s mandolin skills. The next Alison Krauss.
What caught our eye: When mandolin prodigy Sierra Hull was 8, she wowed veteran bluegrass musicians in rural Tennessee. At 10, Hull was asked to play at the Grand Ole Opry; at 11, she was invited back by Alison Krauss. Hull signed to Rounder Records at 13, and a few years later became the first bluegrass musician to receive a Presidential Scholarship to Berklee College of Music. Now 24, the kid wonder has come into her own as an artist. On her fourth album, the Béla Fleck-produced “Weighted Mind,” Hull proves as deft a songwriter as she is a mandolinist. The 2011 Berklee grad makes two stops in Massachusetts this month, including one at her alma mater.
Lightbulb moments: The first: “I grew up in a small little town — if you can imagine about 900 people in town — so at church, there wasn’t a choir per se; it was more like ‘Does anyone have a song they want to sing?’ . . . I remember when I was 3 or 4, singing ‘He’s Still Working on Me.’ ”
The second: “My great-aunt, uncle, and grandma went in together to get me a fiddle for Christmas. It was too big for me to play, so to save my disappointment, my dad said, ‘Let me show you a few things on mandolin.’ We’d go to bluegrass jam sessions, and I learned a lot from those local musicians. They’d say, ‘Hey why don’t you get up on stage and play with us?’ I was 8 when I first performed on stage. And I fell in love with it. I knew I wanted to do it as my career.”
Biggest thrills: “I did a State Department trip, and in two weeks we went to Micronesia, Jerusalem, and the West Bank area. It was amazing, especially in Micronesia, where they’d never seen these instruments before. Micronesia is fairly disconnected from the rest of the world, so for them to see a banjo, a fiddle, a mandolin for the first time, that was awesome to see their excitement. It wasn’t even for the music — their excitement was in just seeing the instruments.”
Another big thrill was performing for the PBS Special “The Artists of Country Music: In Performance at the White House” in 2011: “I got to meet the President. And James Taylor made tea for my mama. In the White House.”
Biggest surprise: “One day when I was 11, I’d gone to the grocery store with my mom and when we got home, my dad said: ‘Guess who called for you? Alison Krauss.’ I ended up playing the Grand Ole Opry with her. . . . I’ve heard when people meet their heroes, they’re not what they hoped, but she was what I hoped she’d be.”
Inspired by: Bonnie Raitt, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Krauss, Dolly Parton, Michael Jackson.
Aspires to: “Keep touring and make a new album.”
For good luck: “No crazy rituals, just a lot of praying and trying to keep my feet on the ground.”
What people should know: “I do original music, original lyrics, so I don’t see myself in any one genre — I’m bluegrass-influenced.”
Coming soon: At the Narrows Center for the Arts, Fall River, April 20 at 8 p.m., 508-324-1926, www.narrowscenter.org. At Berklee College of Music, April 22 at 8 p.m. 617-747-2261, www.berklee.edu
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At 10, bluegrass prodigy Sierra Hull played the Grand Ole Opry; a year later, Alison Krauss called to invite her back. And she hasn’t stopped since.
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It's 'Fun' To Play the 'Opposite of Me' : People.com
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20160407022728
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04/04/2016 AT 03:20 PM EDT
is nothing like her kooky, onscreen characters in movies like
– and that's partly why she enjoys playing them.
's Matt Lauer on Monday that her onscreen persona in
, Michelle Darnell, favors foul language much more than she does.
, so we don't say 'shut up,' " McCarthy explained. "We can't say anything at home, and I don't speak like that at all."
Instead, she finds channeling Darnell's potty mouth to be a work perk: "Part of the fun of acting is you get to play these characters that kick in doors, say insane things, swear like a sailor – it is the opposite of me." McCarthy added, "To play myself, I'd be totally bored. But to get to play somebody that has no barriers, no sensors, that's the fun of it."
Darnell's personality has been long established: McCarthy first conceptualized her 16 years ago while performing with The Groundlings, the famed Los Angeles improv comedy group.
"I could never shake her," she told Lauer of the character. "She fascinated me, and getting to play that kind of energy, I just, 10 years later I was still talking about her."
hits theaters on April 8.
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Melissa McCarthy told Matt Lauer that "part of the fun of acting" is playing characters unlike herself
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A post-apocalyptic campfire tale, featuring Bart and Homer
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20160410051443
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NEW YORK — Anne Washburn knows it may seem obvious or opportunistic, but she acknowledges that “Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play,” set in a world where civilization has collapsed and the electric grid has gone kaput, sprouted from the trauma of living in a nerve-wracked New York City in the days and weeks after 9/11.
While her play might depict the end-of-the-world as we know it, don’t expect flesh-eating zombies, aliens invading the Earth, or warring factions of humans. Instead, that fraught post-9/11 atmosphere sparked a debate for Washburn about the pointlessness — or perhaps the necessity — of storytelling and making theater in the wake of such seismic societal upheaval. Indeed, it was a question, Washburn says, that many in the theater community asked themselves immediately after the event.
“If civilization falls apart, is making theater of any value whatsoever? If I’m in the business of storytelling, is there any percentage of value in doing that in a time of crisis?” Washburn wonders, between sips of tea during a recent conversation at a midtown cafe.
That question goes to the heart of “Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric play,” which the Lyric Stage Company is mounting in its Boston premiere beginning Friday and running through May 7. The play, produced at Playwrights Horizons in New York in 2013, left some critics and audiences perplexed, but most have raved about its audacious and imaginative conceit. It landed on American Theatre magazine’s list of Top 10 most-produced plays across the country this season.
And if society-as-we-know-it does crumble, which of our cultural narratives survive? Would it be Shakespeare or Greek mythology? Or something more populist that everybody would know?
For Washburn, the landmark animated TV series “The Simpsons” seemed like an ideal artifact that would endure, because of its influence and longevity and the layers of pop culture references that it scrambles together.
“Stories that people have in common become very important. We need comfort. When you’re feeling secure, you want stories that astonish you and surprise you,” she says. “And when you are not feeling confident, you want stories that will charm you with their familiarity but also entertain you with their novelty and make you laugh.”
Washburn, whose new play “Antia Pneumatica” just opened at Playwrights Horizons, was also inspired by memories of sitting around the campfire as a youngster on school trips. “When you’ve removed TV from a group of kids, stories really do become a currency, because people thirst for narratives,” she says. “And if they’re not getting them from the TV or the movies, they want them from somewhere.”
As the play begins, a group of people are gathered around a campfire in the woods, drinking beer and desperately attempting to recall the various plot twists, turns, and jokes of the iconic “Cape Feare” episode of “The Simpsons,” in which Bart is stalked by a psychotic Sideshow Bob. Before long, it’s revealed that these “Simpsons” fans are among the survivors of a worldwide catastrophe in which nuclear power plants have melted down and civilization itself has collapsed.
“If we were out in the middle of the wilderness right now and someone started telling ‘Simpsons’ stories, that would be entertaining. We’d enjoy it. But if everything else is removed — the structures of society — it just has a different valence,” says Washburn.
The second act fast-forwards seven years. This group of survivors has become a theater troupe that travels the post-apocalyptic landscape and performs old episodes of “The Simpsons,” made-up television commercials, and a medley of top 40 hits, from Beyoncé to Britney Spears. There’s still no electricity, and the world remains a broken, dangerous place.
By the third act, the play has zoomed ahead 82 years, where we watch a haunting, musicalized version of “Cape Feare” by gaslight. The story has morphed from a gag-filled parody to a macabre, masked dramatic spectacle that suggests a Passion Play or Greek tragedy, with a chorus and foraged musical instruments. Bart, Marge, Homer are still central to the story, but Ren and Stimpy show up, and the villain of the story morphs from Sideshow Bob to the malevolent Mr. Burns.
Washburn collaborated with Obie-winning composer Michael Friedman (“Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson”) on the third act score. Friedman’s approach was to blend together fragments of music heard in the second act, inspired by the songs of current pop stars like Rihanna and Lady Gaga, with strands of the “Cape Fear” theme, and Gilbert and Sullivan’s “HMS Pinafore.”
“What I’m really proud of is in the way all those things come back in Act III and are transformed and transfigured into a score that is hopefully strange and severe and moving,” Friedman says. “How does ‘Single Ladies’ become epic? That’s maybe one way of putting it.”
A. Nora Long, who’s directing the Lyric Stage production, says that the play at its heart “feels like a really powerful defense for the intrinsic value of art to us as human beings.” It examines how civilizations use storytelling to give meaning and shape to our world and even, perhaps, to help reform a society from the ashes of the the past.
“How do we use those stories to understand ourselves?” Washburn asks. “And how much of it is fiction? And how much of it is fact? And how much of it is who-can-say? Our stories completely and utterly define us.”
Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play
Presented by the Lyric Stage Company of Boston, April 8-May 7. Tickets: From $25, 617-585-5678, www.lyricstage.com
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Anne Washburn’s “Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play” at Lyric Stage ponders which stories endure when the end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it arrives.
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New game from Flappy Bird creator just as addictive
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20160414080631
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Since then, a whole sub-genre of impossibly hard, incredibly frustrating games has sprung up, including "Don't Touch the Spikes," "Circle The Dot" and "Duet." But "Swing Copters" does have a couple things working to its advantage.
"The No. 1 problem with mobile games is discovery, so this gets over that hump, because it's from the 'Flappy Bird' guy," says Billy Pidgeon, an independent analyst who covers the videogame industry.
And by pulling his most popular game at the height of its popularity, Nguyen may have cemented superstar status for himself.
"People got really excited about 'Flappy Bird,'" Sanchez says. "While, at the time, we didn't think that pulling it was the smartest move, in a way it amplified the 'Flappy Bird' brand and ... created an anticipation for the next game in a way [Nguyen] may not have realized at the time—or he's a brilliant marketer and did realize it."
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The Vietnamese developer behind the viral hit has a new hit game in stores—and it might be even more addictive than his first.
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US drone strike kills two radicalised Australians
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Abu Salma al Australi (L) and Abu Suhaib al Australi (R) were killed in a US drone strike (Source: longwarjournal)
Two Australians have reportedly been killed by a US drone while fighting in Yemen.
Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) published images of the two men, Abu Salma al Australi, the alias of Townsville man Christopher Harvard and Abu Suhaib al Australi, the fighting name given to New Zealand citizen Darryl Jones.
The fighters were mentioned in a 20-minute video released this month by the militant group, The Guardian reports showing two other men who allegedly leaked information to the US leading to the fatal drone attack.
Do you know either of these two men? Contact us in confidence: newstips@ninemsn.com.au
Both men were killed in November 2013 in a Predator drone air strike.
It is believed the pair are the first Australian to be killed under the American done strike program in Yemen.
Since their arrival in the embattled region the pair are believed to have been embroiled in a number of nefarious affairs including the kidnapping of Europeans.
Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed both men were killed in the attack.
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Two Australians have reportedly been killed by a US drone while fighting in Yemen.
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160418090233id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/double-amputee-veteran-cedric-king-cigna-ceo-david-cordani-running-boston-marathon
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Cigna CEO and Amputee Veteran Preparing to Run Boston Marathon Together : People.com
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20160418090233
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A double-amputee Army Ranger and a corporate CEO have formed an improbable friendship after running four marathons together. And now, former Army Master Sergeant Cedric King and Cigna chief David Cordani are counting down for another grueling endeavor: running the Boston Marathon side-by-side on April 18.
"We're quite a team," King tells PEOPLE. "We're thick as thieves. We got this."
The unlikely partnership sprang from a devastating 2012 wartime incident. On July 25 of that year, while on his second tour in Afghanistan, King was hit with an IED. He lost both legs in the explosion, and eventually wound up at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C. There, he learned to live with the "new normal," which included using prosthetic legs.
It was slow going at first for the hard-charging soldier, who previously competed in the Army's arduous annual
"I was just learning to walk on prosthetics," King says. "After 10 minutes, I was exhausted."
He also encountered people from
, a nonprofit running club that pairs wounded warriors with guides who help them complete road races.
"I told them, 'I can't do a marathon,' " King recalls. "They said, 'Yes, you can.' "
Cedric King and David Cordani
King was soon paired with Cordani – who, in addition to running a major corporation, is also a longtime endurance athlete whose many athletic accomplishments include completing the notoriously difficult Ironman triathlon.
At first, King wondered whether Cordani would trust him as a co-athlete.
"You want to know if the guy in your foxhole is going to fight or fold," King says. "I showed him, I'm a sergeant in the U.S. Army."
He needn't have worried. Cordani only cared about helping his new pal make the best of the "new normal."
"My focus was to help him make his goal," Cordani says. "Goals have to be owned by the individual. But they need support. That's what I am there for."
Four marathons later, the partners-turned-buddies have developed a finely honed system of support and achievement.
During races, Cordani keeps a close eye on King, helping him maintain his pace, conserve energy, and avoid pitfalls – in particular, at water stations.
"Water stations are a headache," King says. "Runners drink the water, and throw the cups on the ground."
The cups are waxy, which is problematic: "If I step on a cup, it turns into an ice skating rink," King says.
In order to keep King from skidding atop waxy cups, Cordani diverts to the station to grab his pal's water while the wounded warrior keeps running.
"I'm not in the traffic of runners, and I still get my water," King says.
Elsewhere, Cordani substitutes for King when encountering fans along the route.
"People are great," King says. "They want to high-five me."
David Cordani and Cedric King
As much as he would like to, though, King cannot respond to every high-five: "If I do, my arm will fall off. I would be exhausted."
He also would feel more pain. Running on prosthetics is tortuous, King explains: "By miles 12-17, my body is in pure agony."
To counter that, King wears headphones with Army cadence calls that bring him to his "happy place."
"If I break concentration to high-five people, I can't go to my happy place," he explains.
Instead, Cordani does the high-fives on King's behalf.
Overall, the key to the duo's success is to resist intrusions that will throw them off goal.
"I never allow things that happened to me to happen inside," King says.
The partnership works both ways.
"Cedric helps me because my focus is on him and not on myself," Cordani says. "If I'm in pain, I can box it. I suppress it, and move on. It's all about him out there."
Why does he take on the increased challenge of helping another runner while completing his own difficult race?
"I'm grateful to veterans for what they do for us," says the CEO, who was not in the military but whose grandfather served in the Navy in World War II. "Any opportunity to give back to the vets is a privilege."
Now, the seasoned partners are taking their team a step further: They plan to mentor another wounded warrior through the upcoming Boston Marathon.
The third teammate is Stefan LeRoy, a former Army Cavalry Scout who lost his legs to an IED while carrying a wounded buddy to a helicopter in Afghanistan in June 2012.
The can-do team of King and Cordani already are lifting their new partner toward his goal of completing the Boston Marathon.
"They help me in a silent level of spirit," LeRoy tells PEOPLE.
The running duo insists that their accomplishments are merely an example of what anyone could achieve.
Says King: "I want anybody who reads this to know, it's not about what happens to you, it's what you do about it."
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Army veteran Cedric King and Cigna CEO David Cordani are slated to run the Boston Marathon on April 18
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http://fortune.com/2011/05/19/the-dismantling-of-harold-geneens-itt/
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The dismantling of Harold Geneen’s ITT
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Forty years ago, a famous CEO put this omnivorous conglomerate into the top 10 of the Fortune 500. Then shrinkage began — and it’s never stopped.
1971 A consent decree, initiated by antitrusters determined to stop International Telephone & Telegraph from buying big companies, forced Geneen to sell Canteen, Avis, Levitt, and part of Grinnell. But he got to keep Hartford Fire Insurance, a jewel in his eyes, and continued to rack up small acquisitions.
1977 Geneen, juggling 240 profit centers and pained by underwriting losses at Hartford, retreated to chairing ITT’s board. The next two CEOs preferred selling over buying.
1980s to early 1990s Divestitures reduced ITT’s telecommunications, technology, and life insurance operations and also lopped off two unrelated major divisions. Continental Baking vanished from ITT’s halls in 1984, and pulp producer Rayonier was spun off a decade later.
1995 In hopes of pleasing investors, ITT split in three: ITT Hartford, ITT (Sheraton hotels and casinos), and the very diversified ITT Industries.
2010 Having done it once, ITT — No. 217 on the Fortune 500 in this issue — announced it would again split into three companies. One will transport and treat water; the second will make defense products; the third — to be named ITT — will produce industrial goods. This ITT ITT remnant had 2010 revenues of about $1.4 billion, less than 4% of Geneen’s 1971 inflation-adjusted revenues.
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Forty years ago, a famous CEO put this omnivorous conglomerate into the top 10 of the Fortune 500. Then shrinkage began -- and it's never stopped. Timeline: 1971 A consent decree, initiated by antitrusters determined to stop International Telephone & Telegraph from buying big companies, forced Geneen to sell Canteen, Avis, Levitt, and part of…
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http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/04/19/04/00/us-to-send-more-troops-to-iraq
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US to send 200 more troops to Iraq
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The US has agreed to deploy more than 200 additional troops to Iraq and to send eight Apache helicopters for the first time into the fight against the Islamic State group in Iraq.
It is the first major increase in US forces in nearly a year, US defence officials said on Monday.
The uptick in American fighting forces - and the decision to put them closer to the front lines - is designed to help Iraqi forces as they move to retake the key northern city of Mosul.
Speaking to reporters in Baghdad, Defence Secretary Ash Carter says the decision to move US advisers to the Iraqi brigade and battalion level will put them "closer to the action".
But he says they will have security forces with them and the US will do what's needed to reduce the risks.
A senior US official said there will be eight Apache helicopters authorised to help the Iraqi forces when Iraq leaders determine they need them.
The official was not authorised to discuss the numbers publicly so spoke on condition of anonymity.
Last June, the Obama administration announced that hundreds of troops would be deployed to help the Iraqis retake Ramadi - a goal they accomplished at the end of the year.
President Barack Obama has emphasised the additional troops won't be doing the fighting, but the extra training and intelligence support they provide can "continually tighten the noose".
"As we see the Iraqis willing to fight and gaining ground, let's make sure we're providing them more support," Obama said in an interview with CBS that aired on Monday evening.
Obama also predicted success in Mosul.
"My expectation is that by the end of the year we will have created the conditions whereby Mosul will eventually fall," he said.
Most of the additional troops will be Army special forces, who have been used throughout the anti-Islamic State campaign to advise and assist the Iraqis.
The remainder will include some trainers, security forces for the advisers, and maintenance teams for the Apaches.
The decisions reflect weeks of discussions with commanders and Iraqi leaders, and a decision by Obama to increase the authorised troop level in Iraq by 217 forces to 4,087.
Carter called the addition of the Apache helicopters significant and discussed the Apaches with Iraq Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.
Speaking to US troops at the airport in Baghdad, Carter also said that the US will send an additional long-range, rocket-assisted artillery system to Iraq.
Carter on Tuesday will travel to Saudi Arabia to meet with defence ministers from Gulf nations.
Obama will also be in Riyadh to talk with Gulf leaders about the fight against the Islamic State and ask for their help in rebuilding Ramadi, which took heavy damage in the battle.
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An additional 200 American troops are to be deployed to Iraq as the US continues to help in the fight against Islamic State.
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Donald Trump's tragic flaw: His need for fame
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Is Donald Trump campaigning his way into business trouble?
NBC, apparently not content with having cut all ties to Trump in June after his comments about Mexican immigrants, fired him again on Thursday when NBC Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt said Trump would “absolutely not” return as host of Celebrity Apprentice. Friday morning’s WSJ features an unflattering front-page investigation of Trump’s involvement with a marketing firm—scrutiny he wouldn’t be getting if he weren’t running for president.
Those developments by themselves aren’t the problem; neither, alone, is particularly damaging to Trump. To see the real danger, remember that Trump made his fortune with an innovative business model based on personal fame. For 40 years, he has courted the media. A New York Times real estate reporter from the 1970s recalled recently that Trump “was one of those who always returned a phone call.” In 1976, an adoring Times profile observed that “He is tall, lean and blond, with dazzling white teeth, and he looks ever so much like Robert Redford. He rides around town in a chauffeured silver Cadillac with his initials, DJT, on the plates. He dates slinky fashion models, belongs to the most elegant clubs and, at only 30 years of age, estimates that he is worth ‘more than $200 million.’” All that’s changed is that his net worth has increased, and he isn’t quite so lean.
As a self-created celebrity, Trump started putting his name on buildings, launching a new concept: branded high-end real estate. It worked. Trump buildings mostly did well. He even began licensing his name to other developers for buildings he didn’t own. So long as he kept himself in the public eye, the machine kept spinning.
That’s why many people assumed Trump is running for president simply as another way to keep people hearing and saying his name. And maybe that’s correct. In my few chats with him over the years, I’ve found him to be thoroughly self-aware, knowing just what he’s doing, understanding that many people find him obnoxious. He’s fine with that. It all keeps the machine going.
What’s new is that, as a presidential candidate egged on by thousands of cheering supporters, he’s saying things that damage the brand. Slandering immigrants, demeaning John McCain, insulting women – such statements can’t be brushed aside, and they live forever on YouTube. NBC isn’t the only organization to have severed relationships with Trump; so have Macy’s, ESPN, and Nascar. Two high-profile chefs have backed out of deals to open restaurants in new Trump properties.
It’s easy to imagine that, after all these years, living in a Trump building could suddenly flip from being prestigious to being totally uncool. Trump is now at the apogee of his fame, but the process of getting there could damage his vaunted wealth. He may be doing something no leader should ever do: letting adulation wreck his judgment.
Sign up for Power Sheet, Fortune’s daily morning newsletter on leaders and leadership.
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Trump may be doing something no leader should ever do: letting adulation wreck his judgment.
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http://www.cnbc.com/2011/03/31/The-Biggest-Holidays-for-Spending.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160425210607id_/http://www.cnbc.com:80/2011/03/31/The-Biggest-Holidays-for-Spending.html
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The Biggest Holidays for Spending
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Who doesn’t love a party? Holidays are a great excuse to gather family and friends for dinner and other celebrations. And with those gatherings come other expenses—new clothing, gifts, flowers, cards and other items. All together, IBISWorld estimates that Americans spend $228.4 billion on holidays throughout the year. Gifts are the most common purchase that consumers make during the major holidays, and account for 47.2 percent of total holiday sales. Food and drink make up the second largest category of holiday spending, accounting for 36.2 percent of purchases. The third largest category, with 5.8 percent of purchases, is decorations and costumes. Click ahead to see how the holidays stack up. By Christina Cheddar-BerkPosted 31 Mar 2011
Photo: Jupiterimages | Comstock Images | Getty Images
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IBISWorld estimates that Americans spend $228.4 billion on holidays throughout the year. Click to see how the holidays stack up.
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Leaving buoyant with a bouffant
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You’re never too old to want to look beautiful. Ask hair salon director Bernice Cunningham; some of her most loyal patrons are centenarians who roll in with wheelchairs or walkers to get their weekly bouffant. The cosmetology services at The Town Centre Salon at Brooksby Village retirement community are not just about pampering but about wellness and optimism. “Having their hair done can be the highlight of the day for elderly adults living in facilities,” said Cunningham, who is employed through Braintree-based Healthcare Cosmetology Services Inc., which manages salons in senior care centers. Cunningham spoke with Globe correspondent Cindy Atoji Keene about why the onsite hairdressing shop is one of the busiest places in this Peabody assisted living community.
“Could a haircut ward off fatigue or boost the immune system? I absolutely believe that treating yourself to a cut and curl has health benefits, especially for the disabled or infirm. And of course, active and healthy seniors are redefining outdated concepts of beauty and have more time, energy, and resources for beauty services. All these are reasons why the chairs are always filled at our three full-service salons at Brooksby Village, where over 20 stylists and nail technicians do everything: perms, waxing, coloring, manicures, and pedicures. Two of the salons are in the independent living wings, and one is in the nursing home rehabilitation area. Monday is men’s day, for those who prefer to see a barber. I’m 65 years old myself, so I’ve been working for almost five decades as a hairdresser. I started at department stores — they all used to have hair salons — then an independent shop, and now this. These ladies usually want either roller sets or easy care under the blow dryer. We do lots of reds and blond dyes; one lady said, ‘I have to keep putting color in my hair because my grandson says I look younger.’
“Some like a lot of teasing and the old-style Final Net hairspray. A lot of ladies feel like they are going bald, but we have all kinds of tricks up on our sleeve, like a fiber product that fills in spots. The memory issues can be a challenge; we need to have a receptionist because often people forget their appointment or come back in after they were just here yesterday. Those with Alzheimer’s are afraid of the water, and we can’t lay their head back in the sink, so I use a no-rinse shampoo and then towel blot. I had one lady who came in slouched over in her wheelchair, but after we set her hair and combed it out, she said proudly, ‘I’m beautiful again.’ She went out with her head held high. It makes these woman feel like themselves again. When you look good, you feel better. And that’s what this is all about.”
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You’re never too old to want to look beautiful. Ask hair salon director Bernice Cunningham at Brooksby Village in Peabody.
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Marc Anthony Shares his Parenting Regrets : People.com
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04/29/2016 AT 11:00 PM EDT
has made quite the life for himself, but it doesn't come without one big regret.
Getting candid in an interview with CBS'
, the singer revealed that he wishes he could have spent more time with his children, five in total – 22-year-old Ariana, 15-year-old Cristian, and 12-year-old Ryan, as well as
"The one regret would be that what I chose to do took so much of my time," Anthony, 47, said. "What I would have done to have been a stay-at-home dad, and you know, witnessed every second of everything. I would have loved that. Didn't work out that way."
Despite his many accomplishments, including a clothing line at Kohl's, his own media company, and his partial ownership of the Miami Dolphins, Anthony still catches himself wondering if his career was worth the time he missed with his children.
"It's the one thing that just tugs at me going and – that's the biggest sacrifice. And you start to wonder was it all worth it. Was it worth it? You know, on that level."
Along with opening up about his kids, Anthony also talked about his own childhood, his marriage and divorce from Lopez and why he decided to speak out against Donald Trump during a performance at Madison Square Garden.
Anthony's interview airs on Sunday at 9 a.m. ET on CBS.
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Anthony still wonders what it would have been like to be a stay at home dad.
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Airline CEO: Why we're charging for overhead space
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Frontier Airlines, the ultra-low cost carrier, is not "nickel-and-diming" customers by charging them for carry-on bags, CEO David Siegel told CNBC on Monday.
Frontier announced the new fees last week. Travelers now must pay $20 to $50 to place bags in overhead bins, depending on whether they pay online or at the airport gates. Siegel said the airline wants to change the culture of air travel and have more customers check bags rather than scramble for overhead space.
"We're trying to create a more civilized experience on board and not have this crush of bags at the gate and not have this fight for bin space," Siegel said on "Squawk on the Street."
Read MoreTravelers love airlines—except for flying
Siegel said the increased fees come after the airline lowered ticket prices by 12 percent across the board, and that the measure gives travelers more options and ways to save money. Passengers pay for what they want to use, he said, adding that many misunderstand the low-cost airline model.
Frontier travelers can still carry on one personal item at no extra charge.
—By CNBC's Jeff Morganteen. Reuters contributed to this report.
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Frontier Airlines' CEO insists the airline isn't "nickel-and-diming" customers by charging them for carry-on bags.
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Marilyn Monroe's Harrowing Letter Detailing Her Sanitarium Stay : People.com
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By Liz McNeil and Kathy Ehrich Dowd
05/10/2016 AT 04:00 PM EDT
In a six-page letter to the psychiatrist who would find her dead a year later, a forlorn
wrote about her harrowing experience inside a New York psychiatric clinic, a stay which she said "had a very bad effect."
The March 1, 1961, letter to Dr. Ralph Greenson detailed her excruciating experience within Payne-Whitney Psychiatric Clinic, a New York City sanitarium her other psychiatrist, Dr. Marianne Kris, committed her to the previous month. A carbon copy of the letter (not the original) is one of many of Monroe's personal items to be
, which received the items via the estate of her acting teacher Lee Strasberg. (Monroe bequeathed Strasberg her personal items in her will.)
"There was no empathy at Payne-Whitney – it had a very bad effect – they asked me after putting me in a "cell" (I mean cement blocks and all) for very disturbed patients (except I felt I was in some kind of prison for a crime I hadn't committed," she wrote.
Later, she detailed a desperate plan she implemented to try and get some of the staff to take notice, getting inspiration from a film she had done nearly 10 years earlier.
"I sat on the bed trying to figure if I was given this situation in an acting improvisation what would I do. So I figured, it's a squeaky wheel that gets the grease," she wrote. "I admit it was a loud squeak but I got the idea from a movie I made once called 'Don't Bother to Knock'. I picked up a light-weight chair and slammed it, and it was hard to do because I had never broken anything in my life – against the glass intentionally.
"It took a lot of banging to get even a small piece of glass - so I went over with the glass concealed in my hand and sat quietly on the bed waiting for them to come in," she continued. "They did, and I said to them 'If you are going to treat me like a nut I'll act like a nut'. I admit the next thing is corny but I really did it in the movie except it was with a razor blade. I indicated if they didn't let me out I would harm myself – the furthest thing from my mind at that moment since you know Dr. Greenson I'm an actress and would never intentionally mark or mar myself. I'm just that vain."
She later explained that the incident prompted the staff to forcibly move her to a different floor of the clinic, where an administrator told her she was a "very, very sick girl."
"He told me I was a very, very sick girl and had been a very, very sick girl for many years," she wrote. "He asked me how I could possibly work when I was depressed. He wondered if that interfered with my work. He was being very firm and definite in the way he said it. He actually stated it more than he questioned me so I replied: 'Didn't he think that perhaps Greta Garbo and Charlie Chaplin perhaps and perhaps Ingrid Bergman they had been depressed when they worked sometimes but I said it's like saying a ball player like DiMaggio if he could hit ball when he was depressed. Pretty silly.' "
The letter also illuminated Monroe's gloomy state after her release from the clinic.
"Last night I was awake all night again. Sometimes I wonder what the night time is for. It almost doesn't exist for me – it all seems like one long, long horrible day," she wrote.
Monroe's second husband, Joe DiMaggio, ultimately released her from the clinic after a few days, and as the letter drew to a close Monroe wrote about how her ex-husband gave her flowers the previous Christmas, and hinted at their continued bond. (The pair were married in 1954, but divorced a year later.)
"It was Christmas night I called him up and asked him why he had sent me the flowers," she wrote. "He said first of all because I thought you would call me to thank me and then he said, besides who in the hell else do you have in the world."
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Marilyn Monroe's six-page letter to psychiatrist Ralph Greenson is going up for auction in November
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A Heyday for New Fashion
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There may never be a better time to be a fledgling fashion designer.
Retailers increasingly need a stream of discoveries to woo shoppers into stores—leading to all manner of ventures seeking business relationships with new labels.
It is no accident that several of the hottest fashion labels right now—Vetements, Jacquemus—are barely off the starting blocks. Consumers are hungry for new brands: The less familiar, the better. Shoppers in their 20s and early 30s in particular often prefer unusual or unknown brands over established labels, according to recent research by NPD Group.
There may be a certain amount of brand fatigue for consumers bombarded with advertising messages. In a farm-to-table era, small brands have cachet. As a result, the fashion industry is rallying support for newbie labels, and hoping to discover the next Alexander Wang while they’re at it.
The Council of Fashion Designers of America recently inaugurated the third class in its fashion-incubator competition, which offers new labels a two-year program including studio space and professional mentors. Italy’s fashion council, the Camera Moda, has begun encouraging new designers, connecting them with established mentors such as Giorgio Armani.
Luxury conglomerate LVMH employs scouts to search for new labels in which to invest. And last month, Saks Fifth Avenue held a showcase for emerging designers and selected two labels it plans to work with closely and carry in stores and online.
Barneys New York has long been a champion of new designers, says Daniella Vitale, chief operating officer at the retailer. “The difference today is we try very hard to mentor, cultivate and guide them on building a business,” she says. “The worst thing we can do as a company is launch someone who is supertalented and watch them flounder.”
A new venture to nurture new talent emerged last fall. The London-based retail site, called 151Luwolt, sells emerging design collections and serves as a talent incubator, nurturing brands with mentoring, networking connections and the potential for financial investment.
Launched by Roy Luwolt, a fashion-industry businessman, the website acts as a virtual butterfly net, catching and propagating emerging talent such as Azede Jean-Pierre, a New York-based former assistant to the couturier Ralph Rucci, and Edeline Lee, a London-based designer of colorful, graphic styles.
Mr. Luwolt recently included Charles Harbison, who launched his New York-based Harbison label in fall 2015, in a pop-up shop in Dubai. “I walked away with store contacts in Dubai and Doha,” says Mr. Harbison, noting such global reach would have been nearly impossible on his own.
New York fashion week attracts so many new brands vying for attention that the week now begins unofficially three days early, when unproven labels hold runway shows and presentations. New York’s fashion week for fall 2016 in March grew to 442 shows, up from 164 shows for fall 2006.
For shoppers, the risk of buying from a young apparel label is that quality and fit can vary from season to season. And it can be hard to find sizes in tiny production runs.
Yet many young designers are at their most creative in their early years, full of ideas and unafraid to challenge traditions. Jonathan Anderson’s first collections for his London-based J.W.Anderson label took gender-bending to extremes, with dresses and frilly blouses for men. They have influenced the likes of Gucci and sparked a widespread he-she clothing trend that would have been hard to predict five years ago.
“In the beginning, it’s just very raw and new,” says Kristen Cole, founder and creative director at retailer TenOverSix, whose stores in Dallas and Los Angeles feature emerging labels. She wants to snare these labels when they are at their most radical, before department stores discover them. “Once they start selling to department stores, they start getting more commercial,” she says. “I get it—that’s how you have to evolve.”
TenOverSix picked up Alexander Wang’s early collections—the label launched in 2007—and carried the line “until the bags were everywhere,” Ms. Cole says. For this spring, she has stocked Isa Arfen, a bold, colorful London label; Sandy Liang, a New York label that puts twists on classic looks, like floral embroidery on a leather moto jacket; and Catherine Quinn, a Los Angeles luxury label that creates timeless, minimalist looks.
Armarium, a new apparel-rental venture, aims to have 30% of its stock from emerging designers, says co-founder Trisha Gregory, who last fall participated in a pop-up shop with 151Luwolt. “It’s very important to us to have those finds,” she says.
At 151Luwolt, Mr. Luwolt gives labels a sales platform, helps shoot their marketing imagery and shows the labels’ apparel in Paris and London showrooms. A former banker and the co-founder of shoe line Malone Souliers (with creative director Mary Alice Malone), Mr. Luwolt spends about five hours a week working on business strategies with the designers who he says have proven they “are ready to go to the next level.” He plans to take investment stakes in some of the most promising brands, he says.
The 151Luwolt site gets its name from its unusual pricing structure, where most apparel is priced in one of three categories—100, 500 or 1,000 British pounds.
In a fourth pricing level, called “Luwolt,” designers set prices. “Until you earn the right to be expensive and cool, you’ve got to use 1-5-1,” Mr. Luwolt says.
“It’s not about [getting] a deal,” he says. “It’s about an entry level to a brand that you don’t know. People are in love with the unknowns.”
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Azede Jean-Pierre and Edeline Lee are among the new fashion labels getting attention and visibility from retailer Roy Luwolt, one of the fashion industry movers and shakers focusing on emerging designers.
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Kate Beckinsale Plays a Bad Girl in Love & Friendship : People.com
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05/11/2016 AT 10:20 PM EDT
We like to think of them as comedies of manners, but Jane Austen's novels boil down to one thing: money. It's what keeps Darcy and Elizabeth apart for much of
, what allows Emma and Mr. Knightley to be together in
, and it drives the entire narrative arc of
Now it's clear that Austen was preoccupied with the stuff from the very beginning of her career.
is based on her early short novel
, about Lady Susan Vernon (
) a world-class schemer with the greatest motivation of all: she's broke.
Kicked out of one fine house after flirting a tad too openly with the master of the manor, Susan and her guileless daughter, Frederica (Morfydd Clark), flee to the home of her in-laws, the Vernons. The plan is to hook her daughter up with a suitable match, but is Susan to be blamed for setting her own cap at the very rich, very respectable, very young Reginald DeCourcy (Xavier Samuel)? Actually, yes. Susan's quite the magnet for salacious gossip, nearly all of it true.
seems more cutting than Austen's usual fare, thank director Whit Stillman. He brings the knives into the storytelling and the editing room, treating Austen like other filmmakers treat Shakespeare: reverentially, certainly, but also as a canvas for creativity. He lets Beckinsale really sink into Susan's slither, gives
plenty of room to pout as Susan's dear American friend, Alicia Johnson, and in general allows everyone to look as bad as they truly are.
But while catching up the characters in their folly, Stillman makes a larger point that it's really society's fault. When women are judged for their marriageability, doomed to end up penniless spinsters unless they hook a rich bachelor, a conniver like Susan is an inevitable result. In other words, this one's for the golddiggers.
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The dishy Jane Austen adaptation you've been waiting for
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Original Beastie Boys Member John Berry Dead at 52 : People.com
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05/19/2016 AT 10:00 PM EDT
Beastie Boys original member John Berry has died, according to a report. He was 52.
Berry, who is credited with coming up with the bandâs name, died on Thursday in hospice care at a facility in Danvers, Massachusetts at 7:30 a.m.,
The musician's father, John Berry III, told the magazine that his son had battled frontal lobe dementia, which had gotten worse in the past few months.
When the band formed in 1981, Berry played as the guitarist, before leaving the group in 1982 after performing on the band's first EP
While Berry was also a member of other bands including Even Worse, Big Fat Love, Highway Stars and Bourbon Deluxe, his original band mates still acknowledged Berry's early work with them when the Beastie Boys were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012.
No information regarding a memorial service has been released.
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Berry died on Thursday while in hospice care.
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Steve Jobs' Ex Requested $25M For His "Dishonorable Behavior"
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Among the many love-hate relationships that Steve Jobs engendered during his remarkable 56 years on earth, none endured as long—nor was as fraught—as his connection with Chrisann Brennan, Jobs’ first girlfriend and the mother of his daughter Lisa.
The pair met at age 17 in 1972, as students at Homestead High School in Cupertino, Calif., and Brennan’s stormy dealings with Jobs—over his initial denials of paternity, his treatment of Lisa, and his limited financial support—continued until his death nearly four decades later. Brennan offered her unsparing take on Jobs—and becoming an “object of his cruelty”—in a 2013 memoir, entitled The Bite in the Apple.
But one till-now-unrevealed chapter of their tortured history unfolded after the period covered by Brennan’s book, during the time when her ex- was achieving his highest renown and wealth. It’s the story of how she asked Jobs, by then a billionaire, to repent for his “dishonorable behavior” with a $25 million payment to her—and another $5 million for their daughter, then 27.
Brennan, now 60, made her request in an undated, single-spaced, two-page letter, which she says she sent to Jobs in December 2005. She later provided a copy to Fortune (click here to read Brennan’s letter). A self-described “transmutational” painter and sculptor, Brennan was struggling financially then, as she had throughout her adult life. Jobs, then 50 and the CEO of both Apple AAPL and Pixar, was worth an estimated $3 billion.
“I have raised our daughter under circumstances that were all together too tough and tougher than they needed to be,” Brennan wrote Jobs. “Obviously it was all the more confusing and difficult because you had so much money….something is incomplete….I believe that decency and closure can be achieved through money. It is very simple.”
Jobs ignored her request, Brennan says. Months later, she began writing a memoir about their relationship.
More than three years after writing Jobs and asking for money, Brennan tried again. In 2009—sick, out of money, and living with friends—she contacted him again. This time Brennan offered to shelve the book (which she says Lisa didn’t want her to publish anyway) in exchange for a financial settlement.
“I am asking you for the last time to please set up a trust for me for my life,” Brennan wrote Jobs on Sept. 26, 2009, according to emails she provided to Fortune. “I do not want to cause conflict with you but I must do something. I have been ill for 3 years and I just do not have a choice anymore….No one is going to be impressed with either of us in this book and it will hurt Lisa who never deserved any of this. The choice is yours. Please consider providing me with $10,000 for a few months and working out a trust. You and I cannot talk because I am too ill and on a hair trigger…. Given my circumstance, I am moving as fast as I can to have the money I need to live, it is either you or the book.”
“I don’t react well to blackmail,” Jobs wrote back that day, copying Lisa, then 31. “I will have no part in any of this.”
(In an email, Lisa declined a request to comment for this story. A spokesperson for Laurene Powell Jobs, the Apple co-founder’s widow, said she would also have no comment.)
After falling in love in high school, Jobs and Brennan, kindred counterculture spirits, had an on-again, off-again romance over five years. They never married, but lived together for parts of that time. He got her pregnant at age 18—by their agreement, she had an abortion—then again, when she was 23.
Lisa was born in May 1978. Jobs, who had launched Apple and was already wealthy, would give his daughter’s name to one of Apple’s first personal computers. Yet he went to great lengths to deny paternity for more than two years, while Brennan cleaned houses, waited tables, and went on welfare. At one point, Jobs even swore in a signed court document that he couldn’t be Lisa’s father because he was “sterile and infertile,” and lacked “the physical capacity to procreate a child.” (He had three more children after marrying Powell in 1991.)
After a lawsuit forced Jobs to take a paternity test, leading to a court order to provide child support and reimburse the state for its welfare costs, Jobs began paying $500 a month. Apple went public a month later, giving Jobs a personal net worth of more than $225 million. While Jobs rarely visited his daughter for years, bought a mansion, and drove a Mercedes, Brennan struggled to make ends meet. In a published essay, Lisa, who became a writer, later recalled how her father “would stop by our house some days, a deity among us for a few tingling moments or hours.”
Brennan says later Jobs apologized for the way he’d treated her and Lisa. After developing a closer relationship with his daughter—who legally changed her name to Lisa Brennan-Jobs at age nine—he increased his support “in small increments,” eventually to $4,000 a month, says Brennan. “He was cheap as he could be. He under-provided for everything. It was always like pulling teeth to get him to step up.”
Over the years after their daughter’s birth, Jobs bought Brennan two cars and a $400,000 house, paid Lisa’s private school tuition, and at times offered other financial help. Despite this, Brennan filed for bankruptcy in 1996. During high school, Lisa lived with her father (and his family) for the first time. In a second essay, Lisa wrote: “Growing up I’d been very poor, very rich, and sometimes in the middle.”
Jobs’ money—and his favor—could be withdrawn at a moment’s notice. After a summertime conflict with Lisa, back home from Harvard, Jobs stopped supporting her and refused to pay her college tuition. Lisa moved in with a married couple down the street, who covered the tuition; Jobs didn’t repay them for years.
One e-book edition of Walter Isaacson’s authorized biography of Jobs quotes him saying that he didn’t attend his daughter’s 2000 Harvard graduation because Lisa “didn’t even invite me.” In fact, according to Brennan and two other sources, his daughter did invite him and he did attend. (According to a newspaper account at the time, Jobs used his daughter’s graduation to get excused from jury duty.)
After Brennan pointed out to Jobs that his official Apple biography described him as living in Silicon Valley “with his wife and three children”—“Lisa was so upset,” says Brennan—he changed it in July 2001 to “three of his four children.” In December 2004, it was changed back to “three children.”
In 2005, Brennan was again in financial distress. Although she and Jobs rarely spoke at that point, she wrote him, asking for an “acknowledgement gift” large enough to end her money troubles forever.
“By raising our daughter and raising her well, I have provided you with a means to having a relationship with her now,” wrote Brennan, explaining why she believed she deserved the payment. “I never turned her against you. I think you might have taken this for granted, but it should mean a great deal to you…
“I think you have made a lot of money for a lot of people over the years yet I wonder if anyone has done as much for you as I have with Lisa and done so without the full and sustained support that this work has realistically required.”
Brennan said she had arrived at the figure of “$25 million net” after years of consideration. She also requested $5 million for Lisa, and said she planned to give their daughter another $5 million out of her payment.
“It may make sense that when one goes through a traumatic experience over so many years that there is a need for truth and reconciliation for real closure to take place. This letter is the truth and money and appreciation represent reconciliation. I should have received the peaceful experiences that wealth provides so I could provide for Lisa as she was growing up….To me this balances what I have done for you.”
“I am requesting we close this chapter forever,” Brennan added. “Money is the only meaningful thing that can do it at this point. All the years that I have lost as a result of a sort of theft from dishonorable behavior can heal and be forgiven.”
Brennan says Jobs never responded to her letter.
Her 2009 payment request, however—offered as an alternative to publishing her memoir—brought his immediate, angry response.
“I am not trying to black mail you,” Brennan replied. “Please try to see that I would prefer to resolve things and that I have asked you, maybe poorly, to help before. I have been without a home for over a year and I [am] ill and I am fried. It would be convenient for me to die but even this does not happen. I am stuck with a body and a life, I need to do something.”
Lisa’s own relationship with Jobs remained volatile into adulthood, leading to long periods where they didn’t speak to one another. But Lisa was at her father’s bedside when Jobs died at home in Palo Alto, on October 5, 2011, at 56.
Brennan’s conflict continued with his widow. Days after Jobs’ death, from pancreatic cancer, Brennan published an essay in Rolling Stone, where she recalled their early, free-spirited romance—as well as the “all-too-often despotic jerk Steve turned into as he rose to meet the world.” This, Brennan says, got her “uninvited” from a private memorial service for Jobs on the Stanford campus.
In January 2014, she wrote Laurene Powell Jobs a certified letter, urging her to do what he wouldn’t, through a generous settlement from his estate.
“Your loyalty to Steve does not mean loyalty to his hatreds,” Brennan wrote. “….I simply never deserved the years of poverty and justifications he built up against me…
“You are in a position to help me without harm to your own life situation and children…..If you can find your way to helping so that I, as Lisa’s mother, can live in dignity and peace, we don’t need to tell anyone….this could be very quietly and legally done.”
In his estate, Jobs left their daughter a multi-million-dollar inheritance, which Lisa has used to help support her, according to Brennan. But Brennan says she never received a response to her letter from Powell Jobs. She ended her plea to Steve Jobs’ widow this way: “It is awkward between us for many reasons, but I do want you to know that I deeply appreciate what you must have gone through during all the years of Steve’s illness and then his death. I know you loved him very much. In truth, so did I.”
For more, watch what Pixar President Ed Catmull had to say about Steve Jobs:
Sign up for Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily morning newsletter about the business of technology.
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Chrisann Brennan, the mother of Jobs' daughter Lisa, wrote the late Apple CEO in 2005, asking him to "acknowledge" and compensate her. It's an undiscovered moment in a contentious history.
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Walmart Must Pay $188 Million to Settle Claims of Cut Rest Breaks
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Walmart has been ordered to pay $188 million over claims by employees that the company regularly cut their breaks for meals and rest. The payment would be a settlement for a class-action lawsuit that went all the way to the Pennsylvania Supereme Court. The ruling would hurt Walmart’s earnings, the company said, by reducing its profits from continuing operations by 6 cents per share. Wal-Mart said it may appeal the decision.
The lawsuit involved 187,000 Pennsylvania-based Walmart employees. They worked at the retailer between 1998 and 2006.
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The company said it may appeal the decision.
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Strangers to Reason: LIFE Inside a Psychiatric Hospital, 1938
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For all of the lighthearted and often downright frivolous material that appeared in LIFE through the years—and there was, thank goodness, a lot of lighthearted, frivolous reporting and photography in most every issue—the magazine was always at its best when addressing, head-on, the thorniest, most resonant issues of the day. That coverage included features on the era-defining people and events for which LIFE, all these decades later, is most clearly remembered (World War II, the Civil Rights Movement, the Space Race, Vietnam and, of course, pop culture legends like Marilyn, JFK, Sinatra and so many more), as well as other topics that the magazine tackled because, quite simply, those topics mattered.
The magazine’s archives are filled with countless stories and photo essays that, at the time they were reported, helped drive (if only for a while) the national conversation around explosive and frequently under-reported issues. LIFE covered the post-war rise of the Klan; the struggles of returning WWII veterans; the quiet heroics of a midwife in the rural South; and other stories that most publications, then and now, simply lack the resources to tackle.
In this vein, less than two years after its debut, LIFE confronted its readers with a devastating photo essay on an issue that has bedeviled humanity for, quite literally, millennia: namely, how to treat those among us who suffer from debilitating, and often frightening, mental disorders.
Even today, three-quarters of a century after they were shot, Alfred Eisenstaedt’s photographs from the grounds of Pilgrim State Hospital on Long Island are remarkable for the way they blend clear-eyed reporting with an almost palpable compassion. But what is perhaps most unsettling about the images is how terribly familiar they look.
The treatment of mental illness—in all its confounding varieties and degrees—has come a long, long way since the 1930s, and in most countries is now immeasurably more humane, comprehensive and discerning than the brutal approaches of even a few decades ago. Advancements in psychiatric medications alone have helped countless people lead fuller lives than they might have without drugs. And yet . . . the grim, desolate tone of the pictures in this gallery will feel eerily contemporary to anyone familiar with psych wards in countless large hospitals today.
The tone struck by LIFE, meanwhile, in its introduction to the Pilgrim State article—while employing language that might seem overly simplified to our ears—is at-once earnest and searching:
The day of birth for every human being is the start of a lifelong battle to adapt himself to an ever-changing environment. He is usually victorious and adjusts himself without pain. However, in one case out of 20 he does not adjust himself. In U.S. hospitals, behind walls like [those] shown here, are currently 500,000 men, women and children whose minds have broken in the conflict of life. About the same number, or more, who have lost their equilibrium, are at large. Their doctors say they have mental diseases. Their lawyers call them insane.
Mentally balanced people shun and fear the insane. The general public refuses to face the terrific problem of what should be done for them. Today, though their condition has been much improved, they are still the most neglected, unfortunate group in the world. [This photo essay features] pictures showing the dark world of the insane and what scientists are doing to lead them back to the light of reason.
The magazine, even in its infancy, clearly saw that its responsibilities included standing up for the afflicted, and shining light on inconvenient truths—roles to which, eight decades later, the best journalism still often aspires.
Ben Cosgrove is the Editor of LIFE.com
Liz Ronk, who edited this gallery, is the Photo Editor for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LizabethRonk.
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Alfred Eisenstaedt's photos from Pilgrim State Hospital in the late 1930s blended clear-eyed reporting with an almost palpable compassion.
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How to Automatically Post Instagram Photos to Twitter
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Once upon a time, it was easy to share your Instagram photos via Twitter. But these days, sharing your Instagram images directly to Twitter just tweets out a boring old link, not that fav-worthy snapshot you just took.
No worries — there’s an easy fix.
IFTTT, short for “If This Then That,” is a program that lets you create “triggers” for your various apps. IFTTT has lots of great applications, but one of them is sharing Instagram images natively on Twitter once again.
To do so, you can create a recipe—IFTTT’s name for its triggers—for posting an image to Twitter every time you take a photo with Instagram.
First, visit IFTTT’s website and create an account. Then, visit this link and activate the recipe. You’ll then be asked to activate your Twitter and Instagram accounts, which you should go ahead and do. Then, the service will essentially link those two accounts, sending out a tweet every time you post a new photo to Instagram.
A few caveats: This setup can be a little slow, so fret not if your photos don’t show up on Twitter immediately after you post them on Instagram. And if you want to temporarily turn off the auto-posting, download IFTTT’s mobile app, which lets you turn recipes on and off on a whim.
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Here's an easy fix to a frustrating problem
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Google's News Lab launches three new crowd-sourcing projects
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The News Lab at Google, run by former YouTube executive Olivia Ma, launched three interesting projects on Thursday, all of which are focused to some extent on crowd-sourced or networked journalism. The first, known as YouTube Newswire, is a joint venture between the video platform and Storyful, the News Corp.-owned service that specializes in verifying content that comes from social media.
The newswire will be a feed of verified YouTube videos that news outlets and websites can choose from and/or embed in their stories. Storyful launched a similar sort of newswire project last year with Facebook, called FB Newswire, which is composed of content that has been uploaded to the social network and verified by Storyful.
The YouTube project is an expansion of the relationship that Storyful—which was founded by Mark Little, a former foreign correspondent from Ireland—has had with Google’s video unit for some time. The two have worked on previous projects such as CitizenTube and the Human Rights Channel, with Storyful helping to provide fact-checking and verification for videos that are submitted by YouTube users around the world.
Since the company began in 2010, Storyful managing editor Aine Kerr says the service has verified more than 100,000 YouTube videos, using its teams of social-media analysts and journalists. And the challenge of doing so in real time has only increased, Little says: When Storyful started working with YouTube, about 48 hours of video was uploaded to the service every minute—now that number is closer to 300 hours.
As Little notes in a post on Medium, the explosion of user-generated content and citizen media—in which YouTube has played a key role—has changed the face of journalism forever, whether it’s live video from Tahrir Square during the Egyptian revolution, or clips of black men being gunned down by police officers in the United States.
The Google News Lab also announced the launch of another interesting project on Thursday called the First Draft Coalition. This is a working group of agencies focused on crowd-sourced journalism, including Storyful, the Eyewitness Media Hub, Bellingcat, the Reported.ly unit of First Look Media, Meedan, Emergent and Verification Junkie. All will be contributing to a new site for verification and ethics training, which will feature tools and research.
Many of the partners in the coalition have been doing something similar themselves already: Storyful, for example, has had a Google Plus group called the Open Newsroom for some time, in which journalists and non-journalists share resources. And Bellingcat, from the British blogger Eliot Higgins—formerly known as Brown Moses—regularly produces case studies in which it looks at how it used social media and crowd-sourcing to report on a story like Russia’s attacks on Ukraine.
Bellingcat also open-sources all of the data that it generates, including photos and video, using a database tool called Silk, which allows anyone to contribute their own content to the project or update information, and also allows other media outlets or sites to embed the content easily on their own sites.
The third project from Google is called The WITNESS Media Lab, and is a partnership with a non-profit group called WITNESS that trains non-journalists in how to report on injustice and human-rights violations around the world. Google says the lab will produce a series of in-depth projects focusing on human rights, and the first will use bystander video to explore the issue of police brutality in the United States.
Google gets a lot of criticism on a number of fronts, including its somewhat complicated relationship with traditional media outlets, but it’s good to see the company partnering with so many excellent crowd-sourcing and citizen journalism projects. As NYU professor Jay Rosen has said, journalism gets better when more people do it.
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Google's new projects include a joint venture with Storyful and a coalition aimed at helping citizen journalists learn new skills
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Luxury Closets For Less
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Before you fold that cashmere sweater and store it in a drawer, consider what your neighbor may be doing with hers.
If she’s like a growing number of consumers, she’s likely draping it over a silk padded hanger before placing it on any of a number of valet rods populating her closet.
These types of accessories are becoming the norm. Other popular items include lavender sweater folds, custom lighting and felt-lined jewelry trays. Once private nooks few eyes were privy to, some closets even house flat-screen TVs, chandeliers, wine bars, sofas and fireplaces.
“Closets today are no longer an afterthought,” says Melanie Charlton Fascitelli, owner of Clos-ette, a closet design company in New York City, and author of the book, Shop Your Closet. “They are rooms unto themselves and as important as any other in the house.”
Though closet and home organization system providers experienced a slowdown in sales in 2007, dropping 30% after two years of double-digit growth, according to a survey conducted by Closets magazine, closet and home organizational providers still saw average gross sales top $1 million.
It’s no wonder. Closets are now a status symbol. Look no further than the pages of magazines like InStyle and Domino to see the interiors of celebrity homes, many which feature plush, tricked out closets. This coupled with the real estate and spending boom and consumers’ desire to supersize everything, drove the trend in customized closets.
But many no longer have the means to turn their closets into private lairs. As a result, retailers are offering storage systems and accessories that mimic higher-end amenities.
Top Trimmings Quality hangers go far in keeping clothing in good shape. There are different hangers for each type of clothing that ensure they retain their shape and minimize creasing. Wide-shoulder hangers are best for heavy coats and suit jackets, padded hangers are better for delicate blouses or dresses, and notched hangers prevent shoulder straps from slipping.
There are also an array of closet accessories to help keep you organized. The most popular closet upgrades are drawers (61%), valet rods (58%), and tie and belt racks (54%), according to the Closets magazine survey.
Valet or pull-down closet rods provide easy access to items you want to store in higher regions of your closet. The rod pulls out and down and stays there while you select or hang your clothes.
A double-rod is essential for tight closets. The rod provides two layers of hanging space–the top for longer items like dresses and the bottom for shorter pieces like skirts and shirts.
When it comes to shoes, get them off the floor by purchasing chrome stackable racks, which can be mounted 7 to 8 feet high and used as wall storage.
Next, invest in Lucite sliding shelf dividers, which create a cubby-like space, Fascitelli says. This allows items like sweaters and T-shirts to be more visible and accessible then if they were shoved in drawers.
Old-school peg boards and hooks can be used on available wall space to hang robes, bags, belts and costume jewelry.
“You are inclined to wear more and get the most out of your wardrobe if you are able to see where everything is,” Fascitelli says.
Is a well-outfitted closet a necessity? Weigh in. Post your thoughts in the Reader Comment section below.
While a state-of-the-art closet can cost over $150,000, the average price being paid for a closet is about $4,300. But these accessories, which can be found at big box retailers like the Container Store or Target , can help you revamp your closet for even less.
Closets have increasingly become a crucial feature when looking to buy or sell a house.
“Builders know they have to include spacious, well-lit closets in their projects because consumers have come to expect them,” says Denise Butchko, design consultant at Butchko and Company, a closet design company in Chicago. While at one time spacious closets may have helped increase the value of the home, in many cases they have now become essential in order to get the property off the market.
“A lot of people spend more time in their closets than in their kitchen,” says Cynthia Olive, co-owner of Closet Factory in California. “They want to go in there and be able to find what they are looking for with minimal hassle.”
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Lavish amenities are helping fuel the closet and storage industry. Here are some wallet-friendly alternatives.
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AOL Exclusive: Julian Edelman remembers Junior Seau, speaks about new NFL concussion protocol
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The New England Patriots are about to kick off what should be the most interesting quest to defend a championship the league has ever seen. Amidst seemingly never-ending drama involving Tom Brady, Robert Kraft and Roger Goodell, it's easy to overlook the fact that New England figures to content for another title in Super Bowl 50 -- and wide receiver Julian Edelman is a big piece to the puzzle.
AOL spoke with Edelman recently to discuss his new role as the face of NFL Apparel's men's line. You can
. In addition to discussing his new role, the 29-year-old opened up his brief time as Hall of Famer Junior Seau's teammate in New England.
Edelman entered the NFL in 2009 -- which was Seau's last year in the league before retiring. The linebacker didn't accomplish much on the field -- just nine tackles in seven games as a 40-year-old. But his impact in the locker room an behind the scenes was immeasurable.
Edelman recalls one particular scene from the beginning of his rookie campaign with New England.
"I was taking my parents out for the very first time in Boston -- this nice restaurant -- and Junior is there," he said. "He takes time out of his dinner to come and talk to my folks and tell them how they've done a great job of raising me. It's stuff like that that makes Junior a great guy."
Growing up in California, Edelman says he grew up a fan of the longtime Chargers linebacker. Spending a year on the same roster, he says, was "unreal."
"The guy is playing forever, and he goes up to you the first day and he calls you Buddy Buddy and makes you feel comfortable," he said. "One of the best football players I've ever played with. It was a privilege and an honor for me to get to play with him."
Another frequent point of discussion entering this season is yet another tweak to the NFL's concussion protocol -- potentially stemming directly from an incident involving Edelman in the Super Bowl.
Edelman absorbed a head-to-head hit in the fourth quarter against the Seattle Seahawks, and remained in the game despite appearing dazed.
This season, concussion spotters will not of the authority to stop a game if they deem a player is showing concussion symptoms on the field -- a twist that's being referred to as the
. And while the rule lends itself to interruptions of game flow and tempo, the rule's namesake understands the end goal by the league.
"The NFL is gonna do what they always feel is best for the safety of the player. It makes it a safer game. there's always pros to it, so we'll see how it goes," he said. "It's still new. It's gonna be different, but we always adjust. I think it'll be alright."
Edelman hasn't practiced since Tuesday with an injury that the Patriots haven't disclosed, but Bill Belichick has labeled the receiver "
." New England opens its preseason slate on Aug. 13 against the Green Bay Packers at Gillette Stadium.
AOL Exclusive: Julian Edelman remembers Junior Seau, speaks about new NFL concussion protocol
KENT, OH - SEPTEMBER 30, 2006: Quarterback Julian Edelman #11 of the Kent State Golden Flashes throws a pass during a game against the Akron Zips on September 30, 2006 at Dix Stadium in Kent, Ohio. Kent State won 37-15. (Photo by: Tom Cammett/Diamond Images/Getty Images)
FOXBOROUGH, MA - 2009: Julian Edelman of the New England Patriots poses for his 2009 NFL headshot at photo day in Foxborough, Massachusetts. (Photo by NFL Photos)
FOXBOROUGH, MA - CIRCA 2010: In this handout image provided by the NFL, Julian Edelman of the New England Patriots poses for his 2010 NFL headshot circa 2010 in Foxborough, Massachusetts. (Photo by NFL via Getty Images)
FOXBOROUGH - MAY 2: Julian Edelman #11 participates in a drill during the New England Patriots Minicamp at Gillette Stadium May 2, 2009 in Foxborough, Massachusetts. (Photo by Jim Rogash/Getty Images)
FOXBORO, MA - JANUARY 10: Julian Edelman #11 of the New England Patriots looks on against the Baltimore Ravens during the 2010 AFC wild-card playoff game at Gillette Stadium on January 10, 2010 in Foxboro, Massachusetts. The Ravens won 33-14. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
ATLANTA - AUGUST 19: Julian Edelman #11 of the New England Patriots relaxes on the bench during a preseason game against the Atlanta Falcons at the Georgia Dome on August 19, 2010 in Atlanta, Georgia. The Patriots won 28-10. (Photo by Scott Cunningham/Getty Images)
FOXBOROUGH - NOVEMBER 21: After the Patriots Julian Edelman (#11) returned a third quarter punt return 72 yards for a touchdown that put New England ahead 24-3, he got congratulations from head coach Bill Belichick, with special teams coach Scott O'Brien waiting his turn at far left. The New England Patriots hosted the Kansas City Chiefs in a Monday Night Football NFL regular season game at Gillette Stadium. (Photo by Jim Davis/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
FOXBOROUGH, MA - DECEMBER 14: Julian Edelman runs during the New England Patriots practice at the practice field at Gillette Stadium. (Photo by Bill Greene/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
FOXBOROUGH, MA - OCTOBER 11: Julian Edelman at practice as the New England Patriots prepare for their upcoming game Sunday against Seattle. (Photo by John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
CINCINNATI, OH - OCTOBER 6: Julian Edelman #11 of the New England Patriots warms up before a game against the Cincinnati Bengals at Paul Brown Stadium on October 6, 2013 in Cincinnati, Ohio. (Photo by Jamie Sabau/Getty Images)
ATLANTA, GA - SEPTEMBER 29: Julian Edelman #11 of the New England Patriots watches the action against the Atlanta Falcons at the Georgia Dome on September 29, 2013 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Scott Cunningham/Getty Images)
FOXBORO, MA - DECEMBER 8: Tom Brady #12 of the New England Patriots celebrates the game-winning touchdown with Julian Edelman #11 in the 4th quarter at Gillette Stadium on December 8, 2013 in Foxboro, Massachusetts. (Photo by Jim Rogash/Getty Images)
MIAMI GARDENS, FL - DECEMBER 15: New England Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman (#11) takes a 24-yard catch and run, breaking several tackles en route to scoring a touchdown in the fourth quarter to bring the score to 20-17 with the extra point try. The New England Patriots take on the Miami Dolphins at SunLife Stadium. (Photo by Barry Chin/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
FOXBOROUGH, MA - NOVEMBER 1: New England Patriots Julian Edelman celebrates his punt return touchdown with teammate Tom Brady against the Denver Broncos during second quarter action at Gillette Stadium on Saturday, November 1, 2014. (Photo by Matthew J. Lee/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
ORCHARD PARK, NY - OCTOBER 12: Julian Edelman #11 of the New England Patriots and Tom Brady #12 look on from the bench during NFL game action against the Buffalo Bills at Ralph Wilson Stadium on October 12, 2014 in Orchard Park, New York. (Photo by Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images)
FOXBORO, MA - OCTOBER 05: Julian Edelman #11 of the New England Patriots attempts to catch a pass during the second quarter against the Cincinnati Bengals at Gillette Stadium on October 5, 2014 in Foxboro, Massachusetts. (Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images)
GLENDALE, AZ - FEBRUARY 01: Wide receiver Julian Edelman #11 of the New England Patriots warms up prior to Super Bowl XLIX against the Seattle Seahawks at University of Phoenix Stadium on February 1, 2015 in Glendale, Arizona. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)
PHOENIX, AZ - JANUARY 27: Julian Edelman #11 of the New England Patriots addresses the media at Super Bowl XLIX Media Day Fueled by Gatorade inside U.S. Airways Center on January 27, 2015 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
FOXBORO, MA - JANUARY 18: Julian Edelman #11 of the New England Patriots celebrates after defeating the Indianapolis Colts in the 2015 AFC Championship Game at Gillette Stadium on January 18, 2015 in Foxboro, Massachusetts. The Patriots defeated the Colts 45-7. (Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images)
GLENDALE, AZ - FEBRUARY 01: Julian Edelman #11 of the New England Patriots gets ready for Super Bowl XLIX between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots at University of Phoenix Stadium on February 1, 2015 in Glendale, Arizona. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)
FOXBOROUGH, MA - JULY 30: The New England Patriots held their first day of training camp at the practice filed next to Gillette Stadium. Julian Edelman walks on to the field. (Photo by John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
GLENDALE, AZ - FEBRUARY 01: Julian Edelman #11 of the New England Patriots looks on against the Seattle Seahawks during Super Bowl XLIX at University of Phoenix Stadium on February 1, 2015 in Glendale, Arizona. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
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By JOHN DORN The New England Patriots are about to kick off what should be the most interesting quest to defend a championship the league has ever seen. Amidst
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34,000 Telephone Workers On Strike Against U S West
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DENVER, Aug. 16— U S West and union representatives held no talks today on the first day of a strike that followed two days of negotiations with a Federal mediator.
The 34,000 members of the Communications Workers of America are on strike against U S West, a regional Bell based in Denver that provides telephone service to 25 million customers in 14 states. The workers, who represent more than half of the company's 51,000 employees, walked off the job at midnight. They include operators, customer service representatives and field technicians, whose three-year contract expired today.
Jim Mahon, a Federal mediator, has told both sides to ''reassess their positions'' until he recalls them to negotiations, U S West officials said.
The company said it had offered workers an 18 percent wage increase over five years and a 20 percent pension increase. The company's 7,100 technicians were also offered a performance-pay plan that includes a 20 percent bonus, leaving base salaries untouched, for meeting targets like completing a certain number of repair calls.
Sharon Cordova, president of the Communications Workers of America Local 7777, said that the union would not accept the offer. The major issues for the union are a company proposal of performance-based pay, a change in health benefits and mandated overtime, Ms. Cordova said at union headquarters today, where hours before dozens of workers had been making picket signs.
A spokesman for U S West said the company was ''dumbfounded'' by the union's position. ''We feel like we've offered up an incredibly generous proposal,'' said the spokesman, David Beigie. ''It's clear they don't understand what we're offering.''
U S West is one of the nation's five regional Bell telephone companies. Three of the others -- Ameritech, Bell South and SBC Communications -- have negotiated new union contracts since last spring. The fourth, Bell Atlantic, came to terms with the communications workers last week after a two-day strike.
This is the first strike against U S West, which provides service in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Montana, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. Only Montana will not be affected, because no workers there are members of the Communications Workers of America.
The company has sent in 15,000 managers to substitute for the striking workers. Mr. Beigie said local and long-distance services would not be affected because they were mostly automated, but there could be delays in repairs, installation and directory-assistance calls.
For the people picketing today outside one of U S West's offices in downtown Denver, the company's offer clearly was not acceptable.
Performance-based pay is ''quantity over quality,'' said Antonia Merino, a 52-year-old grandmother who has been with the company for 27 years as a technical consultant. ''They are more concerned with sales than service.''
U S West officials described their contract offer as ''the best in the telecommunications industry.'' Mr. Beigie said that the performance-based pay, which has been in effect for sales personnel for three years, was only mandatory for employees hired after Jan. 1, 1999, and was voluntary for current employees.
''In theory that plan sounds good,'' said Ron Livingston, a technical consultant who has worked with the company for 10 years. But it puts the base salary at risk, he said. ''Also, they will raise the bar for what goals need to be met so it's always harder to meet the goals,'' he added. Mr. Livingston said the plan could affect the safety of technicians if they felt compelled to work ''fast and furious'' while on poles or in poor weather.
The pay increase did not impress the union members. ''They are talking about how great the wage increase is,'' Ms. Cordova said, ''and there's nothing great about it. It's standard for the industry.'' She also said the health plan now covers 100 percent of premiums for selected insurance companies. Under the proposed contract, the company would pay 100 percent of premiums for only one insurer, or workers could choose to pay a portion of their premiums under other insurance plans.
Photo: Leslie Proctor of Council Bluffs, Iowa, was among the workers on the picket line yesterday outside a U S West building in Omaha. (Associated Press)
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U S West and union representatives held no talks today on the first day of a strike that followed two days of negotiations with a Federal mediator. The 34,000 members of the Communications Workers of America are on strike against U S West, a regional Bell based in Denver that provides telephone service to 25 million customers in 14 states. The workers, who represent more than half of the company's 51,000 employees, walked off the job at midnight. They include operators, customer service representatives and field technicians, whose three-year contract expired today.
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RICHARD LEVINSON, 52, WRITER OF TEVELSION MYSTERY SERIES
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Richard Levinson, one of television's most prolific and respected writers, died of a heart attack yesterday in Los Angeles. He was 52 years old.
He had collaborated with his partner, William Link, for nearly four decades, since they wrote plays in junior high school. Among the team's creations were such hit series as ''Murder, She Wrote'' and ''Columbo,'' and dozens of films and television movies, including ''That Certain Summer,'' ''The Execution of Private Slovik'' and ''My Sweet Charlie,'' for which they won an Emmy Award.
The team won a reputation for quality and originality in a field where critics use such words sparingly. Peter S. Fischer, who created ''Murder, She Wrote'' with Mr. Levinson and Mr. Link, said of Mr. Levinson, ''He felt if it was worth doing it was worth doing well.''
His 38-year collaboration with Mr. Link was a rarity in Hollywood, where partnerships do not last long. Asked in 1985 whether true art can be a collaboration, he said: ''To me the novel is the highest form of art. No two people can write a great novel. But in a medium of popular entertainment, when you're collaborating with actors, directors and everyone else anyway, I see nothing wrong with a writing team.
''Bill and I have no pretensions to be artists,'' he said. ''We are not Gunter Grass or Vladimir Nabokov. What we try to do is the highest quality popular entertainment we can do, with an occasional thought sticking through.'' Partners in Junior High School
The collaboration and the friendship of Mr. Levinson and Mr. Link began in 1946 in junior high school in suburban Philadelphia, where they created radio scripts. At the University of Pennsylvania, the team wrote film criticism for the college newspaper and had several short stories published in Playboy magazine.
Their first work in ''the big time,'' Mr. Link said, came in 1959 when their play ''Chain of Command,'' an Army drama, was performed by the Desilu Playhouse. Over the next few years they wrote for such programs as ''Alfred Hitchcock Presents,'' ''Dr. Kildare'' and ''The Fugitive.'' They created their first television series, ''Mannix,'' in 1968. In 1969, they created ''Columbo,'' for which the team won an Emmy, and in 1975 they created ''Ellery Queen.''
The penchant toward mystery writing earned them four Edgar Awards -a record number - from the Mystery Writers of America for contributions to the writing of mystery stories in television series. When not working on television series they were writing stage plays, including the Broadway show ''Merlin,'' a showcase for the magic tricks of Doug Henning, and television movies. ''That Certain Summer,'' which was broadcast in 1972, was one of the first television films about a homosexual relationship. ''My Sweet Charlie'' was the story of an interracial friendship, and ''The Execution of Private Slovik'' was based on a controversial military trial. Touched 'Emotional' Chord
''His real love was the TV movie,'' Mr. Link said of his partner. ''Each time out we tried to do something that hadn't been seen before, something that would touch an emotional or social chord.''
Their most recent collaboration, however, was another mystery series, ''Murder, She Wrote,'' which Mr. Levinson described more than a year ago as riding the wave of renewed interest in mysteries. ''It is definitely a time for mysteries again,'' he said. ''There is a theory that during a time of chaos, the orderly procedures of the classic mystery have renewed appeal. I'm not sure I subscribe to that theory. I just think the form has a lot of juice to it. People keep rediscovering it.
''Car chases are becoming too expensive to film,'' he said. ''On shows like ''Murder, She Wrote'' most of the scenes are just two or three people in a room talking.''
Mr. Levinson is survived by his father, William; his wife, Rosanna, an actress, and a daughter, Christine, both of Los Angeles.
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LEAD: Richard Levinson, one of television's most prolific and respected writers, died of a heart attack yesterday in Los Angeles. He was 52 years old.
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Here's Why People Believe In Conspiracy Theories
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UFO sightings. Hoaxed moon landings. Reptiles who rule the world.
What, in the name of our alleged lizard overlords, convinces a person to believe in conspiracy theories?
According to a pair of new studies published in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology, conspiracy theorists—and there are a lot more of them than you may think—tend to have one thing in common: they feel a lack of control over their lives.
Jan-Willem van Prooijen, associate professor in social and organizational psychology at VU University Amsterdam, has been studying conspiracy theories and those who believe them for six years. “When I started this research, one of the things that I really found astonishing was how many people believe in certain conspiracy theories,” he says.
MORE: Extraterrestrials on a Comet Are Faking Climate Change. Or Something
Conspiracy theories often crop up during times of uncertainty and fear: after terrorist strikes, financial crises, high-profile deaths and natural disasters. Past research suggests that if people feel they don’t have control over a situation, they’ll try to make sense of it and find out what happened. “The sense-making leads them to connect dots that aren’t necessarily connected in reality,” van Prooijen says.
He and his team showed that the opposite is also true: feeling a sense of control is protective against believing conspiracy theories. In one of the studies, they split 119 people into two groups and told one group to write down times when they were totally in control; the other group was told to jot down a time when they didn’t feel in control. (This gave one group a powerful feeling, while the other felt helpless.)
The researchers then surveyed their attitudes on a building project in Amsterdam that accidentally destroyed the foundations of many houses, and which many people believed was a conspiracy of the city council. But those who had been primed to feel in control were less likely to believe the government was up to something evil. “We found that if you give people a feeling of control, then they are less inclined to believe those conspiracy theories,” he says. “Giving people a sense of control can make them less suspicious over governmental operations.”
MORE: What The Jade Helm 15 Conspiracy Theory Reveals About Americans
The Dutch, of course, aren’t the only believers. The second experiment looked at survey data from a nationally representative sample of Americans conducted in the last months of 1999 leading up to Y2K. “The more that people feared the millennium bug in 1999, the more likely they were inclined to believe in other conspiracy theories, ranging from Kennedy to the government hiding evidence of the existence of UFOs,” van Prooijen says. The best predictor of believing in one conspiracy, he says, is believing in another.
This finding backs up data from another group last year, which found that 37% of surveyed Americans believe that the FDA is deliberately preventing the public from accessing natural cures for cancer because they’re beholden to drug companies.
These beliefs can be very hard to change, but giving people a feeling of control could help dispel some conspiratorial beliefs, the new research suggests—a finding that could prove useful worldwide. “There are no doubt cultural variables influencing it,” van Prooijen says. “But the essence of conspiracy theorizing is, I think, universal in human beings. People have a natural tendency to be suspicious of groups that are powerful and potentially hostile.”
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UFO sightings. Hoaxed moon landings. Reptiles who rule the world. What, in the name of our alleged lizard overlords, convinces a person to believe in…
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Richard Simmons -- DISAPPEARED From Sight ... Injury and Depression
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-- Richard just posted a message on his Facebook page:
Something is seriously wrong with
... he disappeared for almost the entire year ... and we're told there's a physical problem that has led to debilitating depression.
Simmons was last photographed in public January 11th at a charity event. TMZ got video of Richard later that evening, but that's the last time anyone has seen him in public.
Various people who are extremely close to Richard tell TMZ ... he has gone radio silent with them, he does not accept or return phone calls, and he has his housekeeper turn people away when they come to visit him.
Richard has not shown up at his famed studio, Slimmons in Beverly Hills, for months. Simmons was a fixture there, regularly teaching classes. The staff offers no explanation for his prolonged absence.
A source extremely close to Richard -- one of the few people with whom he is in contact -- tells TMZ the fitness guru is in a massive state of depression over a bum knee. He says doctors told Richard he needs a left knee replacement and if he doesn't get one he will never be able to exercise again.
The source says Richard is terrified of the surgery and has put it off all year. He had a right knee replacement 4 years ago and he put off that surgery for nearly a decade ... he was that frightened.
We're told Richard has tried stem cell and red blood platelet therapy -- like
We're told he's paralyzed with fear and depression, which has made him a shut in for 2014.
Other friends and business associates tell TMZ they don't believe this is just a knee problem ... they think it's more serious.
We left a message for Richard, but he did not return our calls.
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2:40 P.M. PST -- Richard just posted a message on his Facebook page:Something is seriously wrong with Richard Simmons ... he disappeared for almost the…
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One woman charged in Texas after children found tied up in yard
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SAN ANTONIO, April 29 (Reuters) - A woman has been arrested in the San Antonio area and charged with child abuse after deputies found a 2-year-old child chained to the ground and another on a leash tied to a door in the backyard of her residence, officials said on Friday.
SEE ALSO: ISIS-linked hackers post list of alleged targets in 1 state
Deputies arrived at the home late on Thursday after receiving complaints from neighbors about children crying in the yard, the Bexar County Sheriff's office said.
A total of eight children were at the residence but sheriff's office spokesman James Keith said there were no adults present when deputies arrived.
Porucha Phillips, 34, was charged with injury to a child by omission with serious bodily injury, the sheriff's office said.
Phillips is the mother of the six children found inside the residence and was taking care of the other two children found bound in the yard. She may have been running an unlicensed day care operation from her home, the office said.
SEE ALSO: Woman shares 'horrifying' prison letter from Fogle
"To say that this is horrific is an understatement," Keith said.
The father of the six children was also being questioned by the office.
When deputies arrived at the home they found a 2-year-old boy chained to the ground "like you would an animal," Keith said. "A few feet away we found a little girl who was tied to a door with a dog leash."
Keith said deputies sent the two children to a hospital, where they were being treated for a variety of injuries. He said there was evidence indicating they had been abused before.
"When deputies went inside the house, they found six more children. The youngest was 10 months old, the oldest was 13 years old. No parents, no adults," he said. "These kids had all been left to fend for themselves."
RELATED: Most dangerous cities in each state:
One woman charged in Texas after children found tied up in yard
43. Honolulu, Hawaii had 11.6 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
42. Boise, Idaho had 13.5 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
(Photo by Charles Knowles via Shutterstock)
41. Fargo, North Dakota had 14.6 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
(Photo by Richard Cummins via Getty Images)
40. Eugene, Oregon had 15.3 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
39. Lincoln, Nebraska had 17.4 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
(Photo by John Coletti via Getty Images)
38. Sioux Falls, South Dakota had 20.6 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
37. Billings, Montana had 21.1 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
(Photo by Richard Klotz via Getty Images)
36. Norfolk, Virginia had 24.5 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
35. Providence, Rhode Island had 26.6 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
(Photo by Yiming Chen via Getty Images)
34. Manchester, New Hampshire had 28.9 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
33. Louisville, Kentucky had 30.2 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
(Photo by Henryk Sadura via Getty Images)
32. South Bend, Indiana had 32.2 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
(Photo by Ilene MacDonald via Alamy)
31. Tucson, Arizona had 32.4 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
(Photo by Dennis Macdonald via Getty Images)
30. North Charleston, South Carolina had 34.8 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
29. Tacoma, Washington had 36.6 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
(Photo by Chris Boswell via Getty Images)
28. Salt Lake City, Utah had 38.2 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
27. Des Moines, Iowa had 38.7 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
26. Pueblo, Colorado had 41.6 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
25. Tulsa, Oklahoma had 41.5 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
24. New Orleans, Louisiana had 42.7 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
23. Durham, North Carolina had 42.8 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
22. Jackson, Mississippi had 43.2 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
(Photo by Denis Jr. Tangney via Getty Images)
21. North Las Vegas, Nevada had 43.4 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
(Photo by Allan Baxter via Getty Images)
20. Wichita, Kansas had 45.5 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
19. Albuquerque, New Mexico had 48.2 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
18. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania had 49.1 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
17. Buffalo, New York had 50.2 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
16. Newark, New Jersey had 50.2 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
15. Odessa, Texas had 51.8 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
14. Tallahassee, Florida had 52.8 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
13. Anchorage, Alaska had 53.6 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
12. Springfield, Massachusetts had 54.4 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
(Photo by Denis Jr. Tangney via Getty Images)
11. Atlanta, Georgia had 55.7 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
10. Hartford, Connecticut had 55.8 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
(Photo by Denis Jr. Tangney via Getty Images)
9. Cleveland, Ohio had 61.5 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
8. Milwaukee, Wisconsin had 65.3 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
7. Stockton, California had 67.4 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
6. Baltimore, Maryland had 67.7 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
5. Rockford, Illinois had 76.3 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
4. Birmingham, Alabama had 82.8 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
(Photo by Sean Pavone via Alamy)
3. Detroit, Michigan had 83.4 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
2. Memphis, Tennessee had 84.2 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
1. St. Louis, Missouri had 88.1 violent crimes per 10,000 residents.
More from AOL.com: Police: Toddler may have been killed after interrupting dad's computer gaming New Facebook Live movement connects parents and children Study finds thousands of children poisoned by laundry detergent pods every year
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A woman has been arrested and charged with child abuse after deputies found a child chained to the ground and another on a leash tied to a door.
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Facebook Instant Articles: A smart strategy or deal with the devil?
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Facebook rolled out an expansion of its Instant Articles project on Tuesday — that’s the mobile-focused offering it launched earlier this year, which offers faster-loading pages to media companies who agree to publish directly to the social network. At first, Facebook had only partnered with a few media outlets like the New York Times, The Guardian and the BBC, but now it has expanded the list to include other publishers such as Mashable and Vox (and Time Inc., which owns Fortune).
Under the terms of the deal, media outlets can sell their own ads and keep all of the proceeds, or they can have Facebook sell the ads and keep 70% of the revenue. The giant social network takes the content and makes it load faster and look better on mobile devices, something that has been an issue for many media outlets — and has in turn helped drive the adoption of ad-blocking software.
According to Facebook FB , publishers are free to send as few or as many of their stories to the network as they wish, and so far most have experimented with only a few per day. But one newspaper has decided to go all in: The Washington Post announced Tuesday that it will be sending all of its published content to Facebook — 100%. That amounts to more than a thousand news stories and other articles every day.
Whatever you may think of this news, the Post certainly can’t be accused of half measures. But is it making a wise decision for the long-term health of its business, or a Faustian bargain that it will ultimately regret? Here’s a breakdown of those two positions, so you can come to your own conclusions:
Strategic decision: The bullish case for partnering with Facebook can probably best be summed up by BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti, whose company is the epitome of the distributed model for news and content. In other words, it creates and publishes video and photos and text and news stories on a variety of platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and more — and none of that content is designed to push readers to the company’s website. It lives or dies on its own.
The argument for this strategy is simple: That’s how content works now. Young users in particular don’t go to websites any more — they find the news and other content on social networks, or are referred by their friends. So in order to reach them, publishers have to go where they are. Other publishers are also taking this approach, including Vox Media, Mashable and Business Insider.
“We want to reach current and future readers on all platforms, and we aren’t holding anything back,” Washington Post publisher Fred Ryan said in a statement. “The Post has seen explosive growth in readership over the past year [and] working with partners like Facebook allows us to further attract and engage those readers.” And if there’s anyone who knows the value of a platform, it is Washington Post owner and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
Faustian bargain: The counter-argument to the Washington Post‘s approach has a number of facets to it. For one thing, many open-Web advocates argue that these kinds of deals cement control of the internet with a few large platforms such as Facebook, which may not always have the best interests of news and journalism at heart. The giant social network has a habit of removing things for its own reasons — in some cases content that has an important social and journalistic purpose.
Handing over all your content to Facebook, the theory goes, may get you a larger readership and brand awareness, and it may even get you a bunch of advertising revenue. But it also increases the power of the social network, and it uses your own content to do so. Many younger users already don’t know where the content they read originally comes from — all they know is that they get it from Facebook. Instant Articles will increase that effect.
Then there’s the risk that Facebook will change its mind about what it sees as important, or whose content it wants to highlight using its all-powerful algorithm. We don’t even have to speculate about what this might look like, since the Washington Post was part of an earlier experiment called “Social Readers.” Under that deal, newspapers created social-reading apps that lived on Facebook and allowed users to consume the paper’s content without having to leave the network.
This worked great for awhile — publishers like the Post signed up millions of readers and their apps were promoted heavily by Facebook. And then, they weren’t. Facebook changed its algorithm, for reasons only it knows, and suddenly social-reading apps weren’t being promoted any more, and readership evaporated.
As I’ve argued before, it’s not as though Facebook is somehow evil (despite my Faustian bargain metaphor). I think it genuinely wants to help newspaper companies and news publishers. But what it also wants to do is increase engagement on Facebook and boost its bottom line and all the other things that profit-seeking corporations do. And if news doesn’t accomplish that, then it will turn its attention elsewhere.
The problem is that by then, news publishers like the Post will be so wedded to the social network that they may find it difficult to cope with the aftermath. And Facebook may wind up damaging the business model of media partners completely by accident. Is seeking out new readers a good idea? Yes. But there are some significant risks to that strategy, and the real cost won’t become obvious for awhile.
You can follow Mathew Ingram on Twitter at @mathewi, and read all of his posts here or via his RSS feed. And please subscribe to Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter on the business of technology.
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The Washington Post says it will send 100% of its content to Facebook for its Instant Articles project. But is that wise?
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How Brookline became a hot commodity for house hunters
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1) Entice a wealthy and powerful crowd
In Colonial days, the gently rolling hills and good soil of Brookline (incorporated 1705) attracted farmers as well as well-to-do families seeking land for country estates. The new homeowners knew how to work the levers of power to their advantage, says historian Ronald Dale Karr, setting high standards that would protect the way of life they were building — and continue to attract an affluent crowd.
In the 1840s, Brookline’s first wave of commuters arrived, fleeing an increasingly congested Boston. Lacking suburban models, pioneering developers went on to build fashionable multi-family apartments boasting enormous units as well as streets lined with mini-estates: large homes positioned close together around a network of landscaped parks. Longwood Mall, for example, showcases the oldest grove of European beech trees in the United States, courtesy of David Sears, who planted them in the 1850s.
3) Set your own agenda
These are the cities and towns with the highest price increases in Eastern Mass. — plus, some affordable alternatives with a similar vibe.
Brookline men trusted their local government because they were the local government. Until the 20th century, every law and regulation was voted on by any male resident who showed up at the semiannual Town Meetings. Their votes were informed by volunteer committees assigned to research issues between meetings. Professional administrators, rather than elected officials, managed daily operations. Today, Brookline’s population is up to 59,000, and residents (of any gender!) elect volunteer members to represent them at Town Meeting.
Large landowners constantly worried about how development might chip away at the area’s bucolic feel, but they didn’t have zoning regulations until the 20th century, says Brookline planning director Alison Steinfeld. So owners took matters into their own hands, says Karr, adding restrictive covenants to parcels that could do things such as prohibit commercial use and set the minimum a house could cost to build. Now, eight highly regulated local historic districts preserve the community’s character. “A lot of [the town] is the same as when my mother was a girl,” Steinfeld says. “It doesn’t change.”
5) Don’t skimp on schools, libraries, and parks . . . and tax accordingly
Just like today, the educated 19th-century denizens of Brookline demanded top-notch services from their government, says Karr, and accepted higher taxes to pay for them. By contrast, when West Roxbury was an independent town, a “spend little, demand little” approach by residents left it saddled with debt.
In the second half of the 19th century, American cities swallowed surrounding towns to grow their tax bases and consolidate services. As Boston annexed West Roxbury, Roxbury, Charlestown, Dorchester, and Brighton, Brookline fought to keep the status quo, voting down annexation four times. In fact, Brookline was the first town in the United States to reject annexation. Wealthy communities that followed suit included Oak Park in Illinois and towns on Philadelphia’s Main Line.
Coolidge Corner resident Henry Whitney had a vision for Beacon Street, quietly buying up property along it in the 1880s while exploring the logistics of creating an electrified trolley service similar to what he’d seen in Europe. He hired his neighbor, landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed a 160-foot-wide tree-lined boulevard, with separate lanes for a rail line, carriages, and pedestrians. Whitney bought up all competing rail lines, thereby creating the first consolidated public transportation system in America, which became the MBTA.
8) Rule with a velvet-gloved fist
When developers tried to build cheaper subdivisions in the 19th century, Brookline selectmen refused to provide basic services such as water, sewer, and gas. Needless to say, the message got through.
9) Spend even more on schools
“Brookline always had a history of being extremely supportive of schools and highly educated residents,” says Robert Sperber, school superintendent from 1964 to 1982. During his tenure, Brookline spearheaded the METCO initiative and built a program for special-needs students that would become the state model. After state voters approved the Proposition 2½ property tax cap, in 1980, Brookline residents repeatedly OK’d overrides by wide margins to finance improvements and innovation. “Property values depend on schools,” Sperber says. The recent flood of young academics and professionals with children who are willing to pay top dollar for Brookline would agree.
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Nine decisions that created the town with the state’s highest median home prices.
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http://nypost.com/2016/04/19/game-of-thrones-puts-this-spanish-city-on-the-map/
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‘Game of Thrones’ puts this Spanish city on the map
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Labyrinthine cobbled streets, medieval churches, ancient fortresses, all surrounded by fortified walls and towers — if you could think up a stage set for “Game of Thrones,” Girona would be it.
And in fact, this 2,000-year-old Catalonian city, a 40-minute train ride from Barcelona, will serve as a backdrop for the HBO fantasy’s sixth season, which kicks off April 24.
The show that put Croatia, Seville and Northern Ireland on travelers’ radars will likely do the same for Girona — making it an ideal time to visit this jewel of a town before all “GoT” fans catch on.
Here are eight spots not to miss.
Built between the 11th and 18th centuries, the city’s most recognizable building — and where much of “Game of Thrones” filming took place — is an unusual jumble of architectural styles. (This season, brown-robed Sparrows are shown stationed in front of the church’s fanciful Baroque façade and marching down its steep steps.) The interiors feature an enormous Gothic nave — the widest in the world — and a massive altar of intricate metalwork. On the cathedral’s rear, look for the gargoyle wearing a dress; she’s the legendary “witch,” who, after hurling rocks at the church to display her contempt for religion, was herself turned to stone.
On the Cathedral’s left entrance is this small museum housing a big treasure: the 11th-century Creation Tapestry. This remarkably well-preserved embroidery — which depicts the creation myth from Genesis surrounded by scenes from the natural world — once hung behind the main altar. It’s presumed to be the first Christian representation of Jews; at the bottom, two figures, stitched on a red background, are identified with the word iudei (Jews).
Mere steps from the Cathedral is this warren of winding stone streets and arched porticos dating back to the 1100s. It’s a perfectly preserved medieval jewel; however, nothing from its centuries as a Jewish community remains — their synagogues, hospital and schools were reclaimed after the Spanish expulsion of the Jews in 1492. But relics of Jewish life in Girona and other parts of Catalonia in the Middle Ages can be seen in the three-story Museum of Jewish History.
Encircling much of the city, these ramparts are an extension of the original Roman sandstone walls, from the 1st century B.C. A portion is from the Carolingian era (9th century) but most of the sections date from the 1300s, when new walls had to be built to protect the expanding city. Feeling brave? You can also climb up circular staircases into precipitous towers, which offer stellar views of the city and the mountains beyond.
Wonder how the spa experience was back in 1194? This ancient example doesn’t look too different from today’s European spas: there’s a dressing area, cold and warm rooms pools, massage rooms and a steam room. Restored to look much as it would have in the 12th century, the building is called the Arab baths (though they were built by a Spanish king) because of its Moorish architectural elements.
In the old city, leading up to the 17th-century convent of Sant Marti, is this picturesque flight of steps. The most coveted table in Girona (other than one at Celler de Can Roca, voted 2015’s World’s Best Restaurant) is an outdoor seat at Café Le Bistrot, at the foot of the famed staircase.
The city’s main thoroughfare hugs the Onyar River and is lined with bustling cafes, smart boutiques and art galleries. It began as a marketplace in the 13th century and today hosts a weekly Saturday flower market.
Want to return to the city again? Then, legend says, you must kiss the backside of this statue of a lioness climbing a column in the Plaza de Sant Felix.
The whimsical, Willie Wonka-inspired Rocambolesc Gelateria takes gelato to a whole new level.
There are just six flavors of all-natural ice cream but around 35 toppings to choose from including cotton candy and butter cookie.
And if you’re in town, the annual Girona Flower Festival takes over the city from May 7 to 15, with more than 100 innovative flower displays across the city.
The Cathedral staircase is carpeted in blooms and many private spaces are open and showcase unique floral designs.
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Labyrinthine cobbled streets, medieval churches, ancient fortresses, all surrounded by fortified walls and towers — if you could think up a stage set for “Game of Thrones,” Girona would be it. And …
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Donald Trump Dodged Stephen Colbert's Question About Obama Birthplace
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Republican frontrunner Donald Trump is making the rounds on late-night television, his latest stop being CBS’ CBS The Late Show Tuesday night.
Trump sat down to chat with host Stephen Colbert, who thanked the firebrand billionaire for joining the 2016 presidential race (implying that his campaign has created a surplus of material for comedians).
“You are setting the world on fire right now,” Colbert told Trump after the late-night host spent an earlier portion of the show cracking jokes about the size of the real estate mogul’s ego.
Despite some of Colbert’s jokes, Trump’s visit was fairly low key. He spent a chunk of his time repeating his arguments in favor of building a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border — a project he claims he could convince the Mexican government to finance. Trump’s stance on immigration and Mexican immigrants was called out later, when musical guest Raury wore a jersey for Mexico’s national soccer team with Trump’s name under a large red “X” on the back.
One contentious moment came when Colbert referenced Trump’s past assertions that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Colbert asked Trump if he thinks Obama was born in the U.S., calling it a “meatball question.” But the presidential hopeful tried to change the subject. “I don’t talk about it anymore,” Trump told Colbert. “I talk about jobs. I talk about our veterans being horribly treated.”
Colbert got in one last jab at Trump by joking about his own past as a faux-conservative pundit at Comedy Central. “For years, I played an over-the-top conservative character. Not as long as you,” Colbert quipped.
Trump is the latest presidential candidate to appear on Colbert’s show, after visits from Republicans Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz as well as Democrat Bernie Sanders. Vice President Joe Biden also appeared on The Late Show in its first week — with Colbert urging Biden to run for president. U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren will sit down with Colbert during Wednesday’s show.
Trump appeared on NBC’s CMCSA The Tonight Show two weeks ago in a visit that garnered roughly 4.5 million viewers and helped Jimmy Fallon win the ratings battle in Colbert’s first week on the air.
Fallon did take some heat for lobbing softball questions to Trump. It’s still fairly early in each show’s run, but the differences in style between Fallon and Colbert have been most apparent during visits from guests from the political or corporate spheres, with Colbert already seen as the more intellectual or highbrow host versus Fallon’s more easy-going vibe.
This week, Fallon questioned Republican candidate Carly Fiorina on whether she would support a Muslim president (she said she’d “be fine with that,” in a rebuke of previous comments by rival candidate Ben Carson). Fallon also gave Fiorina a chance to defend her record as CEO of Hewlett-Packard HPQ before watching her sing a song she wrote for her dog. Compare that to Cruz’s appearance on Colbert the same night, which featured a substantive debate over Ronald Reagan’s legacy, gay marriage, and the importance of compromise in governing.
Colbert certainly appears to be more likely to go to the well of non-Hollywood guests, already having welcomed corporate bigwigs such as Apple AAPL CEO Tim Cook and Tesla Motors TSLA CEO Elon Musk along with guests from various branches of government who aren’t running for office, like U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, who followed Trump on Tuesday.
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The Republican frontrunner was Colbert's guest Tuesday night
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http://www.nytimes.com/1995/11/14/arts/sir-robert-stephens-british-actor-dies-at-64.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160525145129id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/1995/11/14/arts/sir-robert-stephens-british-actor-dies-at-64.html
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Sir Robert Stephens, British Actor, Dies at 64
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LONDON, Nov. 13— Sir Robert Stephens, a leading actor in the formative years of Britain's National Theater who won fresh acclaim as a major Shakespearean performer late in his career, died on Sunday at a London hospital. He was 64.
Last year he had undergone a liver and kidney transplant, and recently had suffered rejection problems.
Sir Robert's career fell into two distinct parts. Indeed, he virtually had two separate careers. In the 1960's he was widely regarded as the natural heir of Sir Laurence Olivier, then the National Theater's director. But after his departure from the company in 1970, and the breakup of his marriage to the actress Maggie Smith three years later, he suffered a slump that was made worse by heavy and persistent drinking. Not until the 1990's, when the Royal Shakespeare Company invited the half-forgotten actor to play first Falstaff in "Henry IV," then the title role in "King Lear," did he re-establish himself at the forefront of his profession. His reward was a knighthood earlier this year.
His first major success came in 1958 when he was cast as a bitter would-be writer in a play John Osborne had written with Anthony Creighton, "Epitaph for George Dillon." The Broadway production of the play was a failure, but he himself was warmly received. He got his biggest break in 1963, when Olivier invited him to join the new National Theater Company, in Chichester and later in London. There, he established himself as one of the most accomplished actors of his generation.
Starting as Horatio in "Hamlet," he rapidly rose to take leading parts, including Atahualpa, the Inca god-king, in Peter Shaffer's "Royal Hunt of the Sun." His distinctive qualities were humanity, vulnerability, a quiet intelligence and, not least, a sense of fun. This was especially marked when he appeared as a flamboyant yet touching Benedick to Ms. Smith's Beatrice in Franco Zeffirelli's 1965 production of "Much Ado About Nothing." The couple were also memorable in Noel Coward's revival of his own "Hay Fever" and in Farquhar's "Beaux Stratagem."
He and Ms. Smith were married in 1967, after he divorced his second wife. The glittering young couple were sometimes called the new Lunts, but what Sir Robert was to remember as their "golden age" did not last. In 1970 he quarreled with Olivier, gave up his post as the National's associate director and then left the theater. And thanks partly to the adulteries he confessed in his recently published autobiography, "Knight Errant," he and Ms. Smith were divorced in 1976.
By this time, he had also tried and failed to become a film star. He played second fiddle with some success to Ms. Smith in "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie," but he was not so fortunate with the lead role in Billy Wilder's 1969 film "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes." What Sir Robert regarded as the director's perfectionism so undermined his confidence that he had a nervous breakdown and attempted suicide. Moreover, the finished movie neither pleased the public nor gave him the new career he wanted.
In the 1970's he brought his trademark humanity to roles that are usually considered unsympathetic, the writer Trigorin in Chekhov's "Seagull" and the priggish Pastor Manders in Ibsen's "Ghosts." But there was soon no doubt that his career was in decline, and by the 1980's in serious decay. Hard living had taken its toll. There were no memorable performances until 1991, when the Royal Shakespeare Company suddenly invited him to tackle the roles of Falstaff in both parts of "Henry IV" and, two years later, to star in "King Lear."
The years of absence and self-destructive behavior had clearly deepened him in ways peculiarly relevant to those roles. His melancholy Falstaff seemed to exude a sense of grief and self-disgust for times wasted. His Lear was less the ferocious, vindictive tyrant than a foolish, fond old man who learned to look beyond his own self-pity and see the injustice and suffering endured by others. His performance proved an immense public success.
Sir Robert was born in Bristol in 1931, son of a laborer, and had what he later called "a terrible childhood, with no money, no love and no prospects." In "Knight Errant," he recalled his mother's treating him with extreme violence and once telling him she had tried to abort him in early pregnancy. Though academically a total failure, he became involved in amateur theatricals and eventually won a scholarship to a drama school in Yorkshire, where he lost his working-class accent and made a disastrous and short-lived first marriage.
Repertory work in the provinces led in 1956 to an invitation to join a new troupe called the English Stage Company, which was about to bring new energy and relevance to the British theater by staging Osborne's "Look Back in Anger." Sir Robert did not appear in that, but he took a small part in Osborne's play "The Entertainer," and understudied Olivier in the title role. That began a long association with an actor he regarded as a hero and a model, "the great example and mentor of my career."
In spite of the mistakes he readily confessed in "Knight Errant" -- "I have drunk the sediment and heard the chimes at midnight" -- Sir Robert was a cheerful, lively man who loved nothing better than to exchange anecdotes with friends and admirers. In recent years, these included Prince Charles, who was reported to have acted out scenes involving Falstaff and Prince Hal in Sir Robert's hospital room only days before he died. And after seeing his Lear, the heir to the British throne told him, "There's one thing I've learned from this play: don't abdicate."
Sir Robert is survived by his fourth wife, Patricia Quinn, and four children by his other marriages.
Not least, he leaves behind a reputation for acting with emotional candor and pluck. Who will easily forget the great animal yowl his Lear emitted over the body of his daughter Cordelia, or the numbed desolation with which he mourned her death?
Photo: Sir Robert Stephens. (Camera Press, 1990)
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Sir Robert Stephens, a leading actor in the formative years of Britain's National Theater who won fresh acclaim as a major Shakespearean performer late in his career, died on Sunday at a London hospital. He was 64. Last year he had undergone a liver and kidney transplant, and recently had suffered rejection problems.
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http://time.com/15199/college-president-sat-is-part-hoax-and-part-fraud/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160525173607id_/http://time.com:80/15199/college-president-sat-is-part-hoax-and-part-fraud/
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We Need a New Entrance Exam
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The changes recently announced by the College Board to its SAT college entrance exam bring to mind the familiar phrase “too little, too late.” The alleged improvements are motivated not by any serious soul searching about the SAT but by the competition the College Board has experienced from its arch rival, the ACT, the other major purveyor of standardized college entrance exams. But the problems that plague the SAT also plague the ACT. The SAT needs to be abandoned and replaced. The SAT has a status as a reliable measure of college readiness it does not deserve. The College Board has successfully marketed its exams to parents, students, colleges and universities as arbiters of educational standards. The nation actually needs fewer such exam schemes; they damage the high school curriculum and terrify both students and parents.
The blunt fact is that the SAT has never been a good predictor of academic achievement in college. High school grades adjusted to account for the curriculum and academic programs in the high school from which a student graduates are. The essential mechanism of the SAT, the multiple choice test question, is a bizarre relic of long outdated twentieth century social scientific assumptions and strategies. As every adult recognizes, knowing something or how to do something in real life is never defined by being able to choose a “right” answer from a set of possible answers (some of them intentionally misleading) put forward by faceless test designers who are rarely eminent experts. No scientist, engineer, writer, psychologist, artist, or physician—and certainly no scholar, and therefore no serious university faculty member—pursues his or her vocation by getting right answers from a set of prescribed alternatives that trivialize complexity and ambiguity.
And why do we remain addicted to the College Board’s near monopoly on tests? Why do they have an undue influence on college placement? These tests actually violate the basic justification for tests. First, despite the changes, these tests remain divorced from what is taught in high school and what ought to be taught in high school. Second, the test taker never really finds out whether he or she got any answer right or wrong and why. No baseball coach would train a team by accumulating an aggregate comparative numerical score of errors and well executed plays by each player, rating them, and then send them the results weeks later. When an error is committed it is immediately noted; the reasons are explained and the coach, at a moment in time close to the event, seeks to train the player how not to do it again.
What purpose is served by putting young people through an ordeal from which they learn nothing? Is the SAT a reasonable representation of the ideals and benefits of learning? No, it makes a mockery of them. Given the possibilities explicit in modern technology, a college entrance examination could be developed in which the test takers in real time could be told immediately if they got the right or wrong answer and guided to a program that might help them understand why they got a question right or wrong. Such a test would be like a chess match, where the clock stops after a move is made. And although the pressure of time—the need to excel under pressure—applies legitimately to pilots, generals and surgeons, is it really so important? Why not give students the time to think, research, and learn as they answer serious questions whose answers demand careful thought and knowledge? Those are the skills that are rewarded in college, and in life.
What is needed is not minor so called improvements to the SAT, but an entirely new generation of testing instruments that utilize modern technology not only to measure the performance of our students but also teach them.
That being said, the new changes to the SAT are harmless. No one will be asked arcane ugly words that have no use. No one will be penalized for guessing, which is a relief since intelligent guessing is a vital life skill that needs encouragement. (It is also nice to see that the College Board has chosen to emulate Bard’s new alternative essay entrance exam that has students read important historic texts and write on them.) The changes to the math section are welcome since they turn that part of the SAT more to fundamental areas of quantitative reasoning.
These modest reforms will do little to stem the rising tide against the College Board and its SAT. There is more and more resistance to pressuring students and parents into paying money to take a senseless exam that claims to be objective when in fact the only persistent statistical result from the SAT is the correlation between high income and high test scores. The richer one is, the better one does on the SAT. Nothing that is now proposed by the College Board breaks the fundamental role the SAT plays in perpetuating economic and therefore educational inequality.
The justification behind the SAT has been that it is an objective instrument of ability to succeed in college, when it is not. But the truth is less principled. The SAT is used by selective institutions to help them sort applicants and justify dismissing many from consideration. SAT scores also have become an integral part of another money-making racket—college rankings. The victim in this unholy alliance between the College Board (a profit-making business masquerading as a not-for-profit educational institution serving the public good) and our elite institutions of higher education are students and our nation’s educational standards.
The commonsensical truth is that the only legitimate test is one where a question is put forward and an answer required with no options or hints. The one major reform in the new SAT seems to be the dropping of a required essay. This is ironic because the one thing colleges need to know in their admissions process is how well a student can think, construct an argument, and persuade. Asking a student to sit down and write essays in an examination setting might be an excellent way to discover an applicant’s command of language and thought. This one potentially useful piece of evidence has been made optional.
The SAT will continue in its revised form to face challenges. It is part hoax and part fraud, albeit a profitable one. The College Board, however, is not entirely to blame. David Coleman is to be admired for trying to rescue an outdated, sinking ship. The real responsibility for our sorry state of affairs regarding college entrance examinations rests with our colleges and universities themselves. The elite institutions have willingly supported an alliance with the College Board to make their own lives easier, and we Americans seem to have accepted this owing to our misplaced love affair with standardized testing and rankings as the proper means to ensure educational excellence.
The time has come for colleges and universities to join together with the most innovative software designers to fundamentally reinvent a college entrance examination system. We need to come up with one that puts applicants through a rigorous but enlightening process showing what they can and cannot do, and what they know and do not know, all in an effort to reverse the unacceptable low standard of learning among high school graduates we now tolerate and to inspire prospective college students about the joy of serious learning.
Leon Botstein is the president of Bard College and the music director of the American Symphony Orchestra.
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The president of Bard College says recent changes to the SAT are motivated by the competition that College Board has experienced with its arch rival, the ACT, rather than any serious soul searching
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http://fortune.com/2016/04/21/convicted-hackers-prison-sentences/
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These 2 Convicted Hackers Just Got Huge U.S. Prison Sentences
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Two computer hackers were sentenced to a combined total of 24 years and six months in prison for their roles in developing and distributing malware called “SpyEye” blamed for hundreds of millions of dollars in losses to financial institutions worldwide, the U.S. Justice Department said on Wednesday.
A U.S. District Court judge in Atlanta handed down prison sentences of nine and a half years to Aleksandr Panin, 27, of Russia and 15 years to Hamza Bendelladj, 27, of Algeria, the department said in a statement.
“Until dismantled by the FBI, SpyEye was the preeminent malware banking Trojan from 2010-2012, used by a global syndicate of cybercriminals to infect over 50 million computers, causing close to $1 billion in financial harm to individuals and financial institutions around the globe,” the statement said.
Following indictments of the pair by a Georgia grand jury in 2011, Panin, SpyEye’s primary developer, was arrested at an Atlanta airport in 2013 and pleaded guilty in January 2014 to the 23 charges in the indictment, including wire fraud and bank fraud, the Justice Department said.
Bendelladj was arrested in Thailand in January 2013 and extradited later that year to the United States, where in June 2015 he also pleaded guilty to all 23 counts in the indictment, it said.
“Bendelladj transmitted over one million spam emails containing strains of SpyEye and related malware to computers in the United States, yielding hundreds of thousands of infected computers,” the statement said.
FBI agents investigating the case were helped by private industry, including Microsoft and Trend Micro, and 26 international law enforcement agencies, it said.
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They got a combined total of 24 years and 6 months for their roles with the malware called "SpyEye."
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http://www.nytimes.com/1998/01/12/us/college-freshmen-aiming-for-high-marks-in-income.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160526011500id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/1998/01/12/us/college-freshmen-aiming-for-high-marks-in-income.html
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College Freshmen Aiming For High Marks in Income
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20160526011500
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A survey of college freshmen confirms what professors and administrators said they have been sensing, that students are increasingly disengaged and view higher education less as an opportunity to expand their minds and more as a means to increase their incomes.
The annual nationwide poll by researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles shows that two suggested goals of education -- ''to be very well off financially'' and ''to develop a meaningful philosophy of life'' -- have switched places in the past three decades.
In the survey taken at the start of the fall semester, 74.9 percent of freshmen chose being well off as an essential goal and 40.8 percent chose developing a philosophy. In 1968, the numbers were reversed, with 40.8 percent selecting financial security and 82.5 percent citing the importance of developing a philosophy.
It is using education more as a means to an end, rather than valuing what is being learned, said Linda J. Sax, director of the survey, first taken 32 years ago, at the Higher Education Research Institute at U.C.L.A.
The trend has long been in the making, with students' strong interest in high incomes rising to a plateau in the mid-1980's. But the desire edged down a bit through the 1990's, rising again slightly with this latest survey.
Professor Sax said the trend took on more significance when added to the fact that incoming students showed unprecedented levels of academic and political disengagement.
The percentage of students who said that during their last year in high school they had been frequently ''bored in class'' hit a record high of 36 percent, compared with 26.4 percent in 1985, the second year the question was asked.
At the same time, a record 34.5 percent said they had ''overslept and missed class,'' compared with a low of 18.8 percent in 1968.
Despite that, a record high of 39.4 percent said they aspired to obtain a master's degree and 49.7 percent said they expected to earn a B average.
Some professors expressed little surprise when told of the seemingly contradictory mix of boredom and ambition.
''Schooling has become more about training and less about transformation,'' said Mark W. Edmundson, a professor of English at the University of Virginia who wrote of the growing consumerist view of education by students in the September issue of Harper's magazine.
''You go there to prepare yourself for the future,'' Professor Edmundson said, ''to learn a skill, a capacity that you can convert into dollars later on. And being trained is boring. Being educated is not, but that is going on less and less.''
The disengagement was also reflected in attitudes toward politics.
A record low 26.7 percent of freshmen thought that ''keeping up to date with political affairs'' was a very important or essential life goal, compared with 29.4 percent in 1996 and a high of 57.8 percent in 1966.
Similarly, an all-time low 13.7 percent said they frequently discussed politics, compared with 16.2 percent last year and a high of 29.9 percent in 1968.
Advocating social activism, which declined in the 1980's and then rose again in the early 1990's, again appears to be on the wane.
The percentage of students who said that ''becoming involved in programs to clean up the environment'' was an important life goal declined to 19.4 percent from 33.6 percent in 1992.
Commitment to ''helping to promote racial understanding'' fell to its lowest point in a decade, 31.8 percent, compared with 34.7 percent in 1996 and a high of 42 percent in 1992.
The survey, sponsored by the American Council on Education, included 348,465 students at 665 two- and four-year colleges and universities in the United States. The data were statistically adjusted to be representative of the 1.6 million students entering as first-time full-time freshmen last fall.
The enormous size of the sample means that even shifts of half a percentage point have statistical significance, its authors said.
Alexander W. Astin, director of the Higher Education Research Institute and founder of the survey, said he thought the growth in materialism, boredom and disengagement stemmed, at least in part, from television watching.
''Kids who started college in the late 60's had much less television,'' Mr. Astin said. ''Today's kids never didn't have it. We tracked freshmen of 1985 for four years to see how much TV they watched during college. The more TV they watched, the more their materialistic tendencies were strengthened.''
Daniel S. Cheever, president of Simmons College in Boston, said the apparent increase in materialism may also have to do with the rise in the cost of college education.
''What my education is going to do for me in getting me a job becomes more important,'' he said.
Lee Bollinger, president of the University of Michigan, took exception to the prevailing view of freshmen.
''I have come to the conclusion that this is a quieter and softer but no less dedicated generation of students toward their education and public affairs,'' he said.
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A survey of college freshmen confirms what professors and administrators said they have been sensing, that students are increasingly disengaged and view higher education less as an opportunity to expand their minds and more as a means to increase their incomes. The annual nationwide poll by researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles shows that two suggested goals of education -- ''to be very well off financially'' and ''to develop a meaningful philosophy of life'' -- have switched places in the past three decades.
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http://www.tmz.com/2011/10/10/denzel-washington-tiger-woods-picture-photo-nike-logo-tracksuit-reign-nightclub-atlanta/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160526063343id_/http://www.tmz.com:80/2011/10/10/denzel-washington-tiger-woods-picture-photo-nike-logo-tracksuit-reign-nightclub-atlanta/
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Denzel Washington Goes Clubbin' -- What Dress Code?!?
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20160526063343
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Sporting his finest Nike tracksuit and New Balance sneakers,
hit up an Atlanta nightclub this weekend -- proving once and for all, dress codes are for poor people.
Denzel didn't drink a drop -- but sources at Reign nightclub tell TMZ, the actor picked up a $5,000 tab for his pals -- who put down 5 bottles of Ciroc vodka, 5 bottles of Don Julio, and 5 bottles of Moët Rosé.
Denzel's in town filming for a movie called "Flight" -- and based on the perma-smile on his face, he's having an alright time.
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Sporting his finest Nike tracksuit and New Balance sneakers, Denzel Washington hit up an Atlanta nightclub this weekend -- proving once and for all, dress…
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http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/salma-hayek-poses-topless-allure-magazine-article-1.2292124
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160526063632id_/http://www.nydailynews.com:80/entertainment/salma-hayek-poses-topless-allure-magazine-article-1.2292124
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Salma Hayek poses topless for Allure magazine
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20160526063632
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Striking starlet Salma Hayek is one of the most beautiful women in the world, but even she was worried she'd never find love.
The 48-year-old bombshell, who covers Allure's August issue and goes topless in a photo inside, told the magazine that she feared she wouldn't find the one before meeting now husband Francois-Henri Pinault.
"I wish I knew [when I was younger] that I was going to fall crazy in love with the perfect man," she told the magazine. "I was so worried, and I dated some people I shouldn't have dated. You get desperate, and you start seeing wonderful things in, like, the wrong guys."
"I also found some pretty good guys," she continued. "But I wish I could say to myself, 'Hey, chill out. You're going to get a great husband that's going to adore you.' I would have saved myself a lot of personal drama."
Now, the "Everly" actress is happier than ever with Pinault, with whom she has a seven-year-old daughter, Valentina. Hayek said she considered taking a break from acting after giving birth, but her husband urged her not to.
"(He said), 'I don't want to be deprived of your work," Hayek recalled. "'I want to watch it, too. And the world has not seen the best of you yet. So you cannot stop until some of that is put out.' So he sort of really pushed me, like, 'Get up on your feet and get out there.' And he was right."
Hayek also revealed that she's never gone under the knife to upkeep her appearance, nor has she ever done Botox - even though it was recommended to her.
"When I was young, they tried to sell me on the idea: 'If you do it now, then you won't get the wrinkles,'" she said. "And thank God I didn't do that."
So how does Hayek maintain her incredibly good looks?
She told People magazine in June that she doesn't have time to work out - so she practices "restorative yoga" all day long.
"I work with a woman in London who taught me how to hold my body in a way where the muscles are activated all day long," she told People. "So even when you brush your teeth, you're working the muscles."
Whatever she's doing, it's working.
ON A MOBILE DEVICE? WATCH THE VIDEO HERE.
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Striking starlet Salma Hayek is one of the most beautiful women in the world, but even she was worried she'd never find love.
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http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/marion-cotillard-boyfriend-guillaume-canet-baby-boy-marcel-article-1.145020
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160526091638id_/http://www.nydailynews.com:80/entertainment/gossip/marion-cotillard-boyfriend-guillaume-canet-baby-boy-marcel-article-1.145020
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Marion Cotillard welcomes a bebe
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20160526091638
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Marion Cotillard has welcomed a little bebe.The "Inception" actress and her French actor-director beau of three years, Guillaume Canet, are first-time parents to a baby boy, according to People.com.The couple reportedly welcomed son Marcel on Thursday night in Paris."Mother and baby are fine," said the mag's source, adding that the French actress is "very happy."Cotillard, 35, and Canet, 38, first met while working on the 2003 French film "Love Me If You Dare." They began dating four years later, and most recently collaborated on the 2010 film "Little White Lies," in which Cotillard starred and Canet wrote and directed.In December, the actress was spotted wearing a diamond on her ring finger, prompting engagement rumors that the couple has yet to address.
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Marion Cotillard has welcomed a little bebe. The "Inception" actress and her French actor-director beau of three years, Guillaume Canet, are first-time parents to a baby boy.
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http://time.com/4004889/soviet-union-margaret-bourke-white/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160526140715id_/http://time.com:80/4004889/soviet-union-margaret-bourke-white/
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How a Photographer Captured the Soviet Union's Dramatic Rise
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20160526140715
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Celebrating a country’s birthday or independence typically follows a well-known set of rituals, including fireworks, public festivals and passionate political speeches. Marking the occasion of a country’s collapse, however, is a trickier task, and one that Russians and citizens of the former Soviet Union confront each year on August 29. On that day in 1991, the Soviet Parliament suspended the activities of the country’s Communist Party, effectively pulling the plug on the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) altogether.
Many of those who heard the news that day could not identify a time in their own lives when their country could compete with, let alone surpass, its capitalist rivals. Years of economic stagnation, political corruption and popular unrest had discredited Soviet-style socialism as both an idea and a reality, leaving the country with few options but to enter and adjust to a world of free markets. Leaving behind a past of dashed hopes was not so much a choice as a necessary and final capitulation, the terms of which demanded that Russians not look back for the sake of moving forward.
Soviet defeat, however, was not preordained. Indeed, never did the promises of Soviet socialism and the failures of American capitalism present themselves as tangibly and vividly as they did when American photographer Margaret Bourke-White traveled to Russia in 1930 on assignment for Fortune Magazine, LIFE’s older sibling. Only a few months had passed since the New York stock market came crashing down on October 29, 1929, taking many Americans’ savings and jobs with it. The event left many Americans without basic resources such as food, shelter and medical care, and exposed in stark terms the weakness of the American welfare state.
At the same time as breadlines, migrant workers and “Hooverville” tent cities were becoming common fixtures throughout the United States, the Soviet Union was consolidating the gains of its own transformation, one that began in 1928 when Joseph Stalin formally assumed the mantle of the Soviet leadership. Between 1928 and 1932, the Soviet government implemented two large-scale economic projects. First came the Five-Year Plan, an expansive and ambitious industrialization drive designed to shock the country into modernity. Factories, steel mills, hydroelectric dams and bridges popped up on fields, taigas, river beds and lonely mountains, creating more than 25 million industrial jobs for Soviet women and men in the process. Between 1928 and 1940, Soviet annual GNP growth clocked in at an astounding 15%, a rate that dwarfed the 5% annual growth that the United States experienced at the height of its own industrial revolution in the late nineteenth century.
“I saw the five-year plan as a great scenic drama being unrolled before the eyes of the world,” Bourke-White recalled in her book Eyes on Russia, published a year after her initial trip to the USSR. “Things are happening in Russia, and happening with staggering speed. I could not afford to miss any of it.” The black-and-white photographs she took during her 5,000-mile journey throughout the country reflect both the sense of awe she felt as she confronted the colossal building projects and the human toll the changes were taking.
Bourke-White played with perspective to communicate the scope of new construction. A partially built bridge was shot from ground level to enhance its already towering size. A tractor’s gleaming wheels (the “new God of Russia,” as she called it) acquired an exaggerated sense of scale, its human drivers pushed to the image’s far-right corner. Half-built pillars destined to become the main arteries of Central Ukraine’s Dnieperstroi Dam stand side by side, as if they were coming off an assembly line from behind the clouds. “All day long we climbed ladders, planks, and cross beams,” Bourke-White reminisced. “Hanging on to scaffolding, with one arm curved around a beam to steady myself, I photographed the shifting scene.” The entire Soviet Union had become a giant construction site, a sprawling playground for Bourke-White’s lens.
When it came to documenting collectivization, the other half of Stalin’s two-pronged economic policy, Bourke-White placed her human subject front and center. Collectivization, which took place between 1929 and 1931, called for the forced nationalization of the country’s agriculturally productive land and their subsequent division into state and collective farms. Stalin reasoned that nationalizing agriculture would make it easier to collect harvested crops and feed the country’s exponentially multiplying industrial workforce. The gamble intentionally privileged the wellbeing of his prized industrial workers at the expense of the peasants whose land and output would ultimately be seized. Famine, violence, and mass dislocation wreaked havoc throughout Ukraine, the North Caucuses and Russia’s Central Volga Region, resulting in the deaths of more than 5 million people by the end of 1932. By the time Bourke-White arrived in Russia, nearly 15 million households had been collectivized and 77 million tons of grain brought in during the 1930 harvest alone.
But if Bourke-White saw any of the suffering that attended collectivization, she did not reveal so in words. Only the photographs that she took during her stay at the newly formed state farms provide viewers with clues to her experience as a witness to perhaps the most revolutionary of Stalin’s experiments. An image of a Russian woman standing in front of a warmly dressed crowd, a single slab of meat wrapped tightly in her arms, signals to the viewer that the winter of 1930 was not a kind one. A portrait of a bearded Russian priest posing for Bourke-White’s camera with downcast eyes hints to the hardship he may have been experiencing in the wake of the government’s ban on formal religious practice.
A photograph of a man and woman standing in a state farm field, looking out into the cloudy abyss as a tractor rests nearby, speaks to the overwhelming exhaustion that Bourke-White’s subjects most likely felt when they contemplated the enormous task they were being asked to undertake. Those who see this image today may find it familiar. Indeed, its composition echoes those of the photographs that Bourke-White and other American photographers like Dorothea Lange would later take of Depression-era sharecroppers, displaced farm families and migrant workers while working for the New Deal’s Farm Securities Administration.
Unlike the elaborate parades staged in Red Square this past May to commemorate the 70th anniversary of German surrender on the Eastern Front, the collapse of the Soviet Union is celebrated individually and quietly. Some Russians may take a moment to reflect on their family’s history during the Soviet years, while others may feel relief that the socialist chapter of Russia’s history has ultimately closed. Many will go about their day without realizing what August 29 represents. In many ways, Russians, and especially Muscovites, confront the history of the Soviet project on a daily basis: as they ride the Moscow metro, walk past the Lenin Mausoleum as they cut through Red Square and spot one or more of the seven Stalinist skyscrapers somewhere in the middle distance, all built as a result of Soviet largess.
When asked why she decided to document the USSR’s industrial revolution back in the 1930s, Bourke-White responded with the following: “I wanted to take the pictures of this astonishing development, because, whatever the outcome, whether success or failure, the effort of 150 million people is so gigantic, so unprecedented in all history, that I felt that these photographic records might have some historical value.” If asked today how they feel about the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, many Russians would likely express a similar feeling: they may not know exactly what to make of it, but they know that it was something big.
Liz Ronk, who edited this gallery, is the Photo Editor for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk.
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On August 29, 1991, the Soviet Parliament suspended the activities of the Communist Party. But when LIFE photographer Margaret Bourke-White visited the country in 1930, she found an empire on the rise.
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http://www.cnbc.com/2014/08/05/target-problems-are-bigger-than-a-data-breach.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160526163027id_/http://www.cnbc.com:80/2014/08/05/target-problems-are-bigger-than-a-data-breach.html
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Target problems are bigger than a data breach
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20160526163027
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With Target (TGT) down almost three percent on its lowered outlook, it's interesting none of its competitors are suffering any collateral damage. Seems like everyone believes this is a Target-specific problem, with the issue being the damage from the data breach.
But, as I pointed out this morning, there is a lot more going on here.
Consumers are still shopping, they're just finding other ways to shop. And a lot of it is online. And companies like Target are not the company people think of when they think, "online shopping."
A lot of analysts believe that is the core of the problem. David Schick, retail analyst at Stifel, believes that HALF of all retail spending growth is now occurring online. In other words, spending is happening, it's just that a lot of it is not happening in stores.
So what do retailers do? For years, they were used to three to four percent comparable-store sales growth; a lot of them aren't seeing that any more, they're seeing one percent growth.
So they have conference calls and they complain about the consumer.
But that's not completely the case...statistics indicate consumer spending growth is close to three percent...they're still spending, they're just spending elsewhere.
That's not to say that there aren't consumers hurting, or that there isn't structural employment. We know many are hurting. That's definitely a factor.
But look at Target. Look what it sells. Everything from paper towels to cleaners to sundries and fans. A lot of this falls into categories consumers can easily buy online. You can have paper towels delivered every eight weeks regularly, if you want.
Then there's the change in the way consumers buy things. Ten years ago, the consumer said, "I want to feel the sheets before I buy them." A lot of consumers (myself included) still want to feel the sheets, but a lot of consumers who grew up on the internet (millennials) want to read 10 REVIEWS that say these are the best sheets. That's a big change.
This dovetails nicely with David Berman's (of Berman Capital) argument that much of the growth in consumer spending is going to Amazon, Apple and Samsung. That may be a bit narrow, but it's directionally correct.
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Target lowers its outlook as the data breach hurt sales; however, there are other factors at play as well.
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http://fortune.com/2015/08/25/houzz-buys-gardenweb/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160526165849id_/http://fortune.com:80/2015/08/25/houzz-buys-gardenweb/
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Houzz buys GardenWeb from NBCUniversal
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20160526165849
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Houzz, a web-based internet community for home design, architecture and remodeling, is making its first acquisition today. The company, which was last valued at $2.3 billion in 2014, is buying gardening and home advice site GardenWeb from NBCUniversal. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Houzz quickly gained popularity in the past five years amongst consumers as the go-to destination to find ideas for anything related to home design. Users could not only access ideas for their home and decorating inspiration, but can also connect to the builders, manufacturers and designers behind each photo.
Last year, the company started to bring additional revenue by launching a marketplace where users could buy the furniture they were looking at on the site. Houzz says it now has over 35 million monthly unique users (up from 25 million in the Fall of 2014), 90 percent of whom are homeowners.
Houzz says that the addition of GardenWeb gives Houzz users access to over 2.8 million discussion threads, over 14 million discussion posts, and nearly 400 discussion topics for home and gardening enthusiasts.
GardenWeb was initially acquired by NBCUniversal in 2006 as part of the media company’s purchase of iVillage for $600 million.
For Houzz, the acquisition builds on the site’s existing community, including forums around advice on furniture and design recommendations, and allows Houzz to deepen its foothold in another area around home design–gardening.
Houzz, which has raised over $200 million in funding from the likes of Sequoia Capital, DST Capital, and Kleiner Perkins, is putting some of its capital to use with an aggressive marketing push. The company’s first TV ads appeared this month.
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The online community for home design and remodeling has made its first acquisition.
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http://fortune.com/2016/04/22/apple-woz-tax/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160526202737id_/http://fortune.com:80/2016/04/22/apple-woz-tax/
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Apple Should Pay Much More Tax, Says Co-Founder Wozniak
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20160526202737
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Apple aapl co-founder Steve Wozniak thinks the company — and all other companies — should be paying a 50% tax rate.
Woz told the BBC that he doesn’t like the idea that Apple is not paying taxes the way he does as an individual, saying he was worried its tax practices may be “unfair.”
“I do a lot of work, I do a lot of travel and I pay over 50% of everything I make in taxes, and I believe that’s part of life and you should do it,” Wozniak said. Asked if Apple should be paying such a rate, he replied: “Every company in the world should.”
Not that Woz, who left Apple over three decades ago, can do anything about it.
“I would not have any power and I don’t think it would be right for me, Steve Wozniak, to try to influence how Apple handles it, and I would have no effect anyway,” he said. “They’re going to take the thing that saves the last little penny. Apple’s so huge they don’t have to give in to anything.”
Apple recently paid $348 million to settle a dispute with the Italian tax authorities, over the way it funnelled Italian profits through an Irish subsidiary in order to minimize its taxes.
It could also face a bill for billions in back-taxes if the European Commission concludes that Ireland gave it preferential treatment with its tax deal there, in a way that amounted to illegal state aid.
The company (like others) has made use of complex arrangements involving Ireland and Bermuda to cut its tax bill.
However, Apple CEO Tim Cook recently said the accusation that it was avoiding taxes was “total political crap” and the idea of bringing profits back to the U.S. was not “reasonable” because it would “cost me 40% to bring it home.” He also claimed Apple is already the biggest corporate tax payer in the U.S.
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Woz thinks all companies should be paying a 50% rate, Apple included.
| 25.866667 | 0.933333 | 3.066667 |
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http://fortune.com/2016/03/20/apple-event-underwhelming/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160526203227id_/http://fortune.com:80/2016/03/20/apple-event-underwhelming/?
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Apple: Prepare To Be Underwhelmed on Monday
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20160526203227
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“We worry investors will find the next several Apple media events underwhelming,” wrote Oppenheimer analyst Andrew Uerkwitz in a note to clients Friday.
“While we expect to see several ‘under the hood’ improvements across devices, we are not expecting the same exuberance as last year when Apple shared final details of the Apple Watch.”
He’s got a point. Tuesday’s San Bernardino court hearing holds more excitement for me than the rumored line-up for Monday’s “in the loop” event: 4-inch iPhone, 9.7-inch iPad Pro, new Watch bands, OS updates.
So Uerkwitz, as if to justify his “outperform” rating on Apple aapl , cast his mind beyond Monday’s event and put out a report titled “Looking into Our Crystal Ball.”
Subscribe to Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily tech newsletter.
Here’s what he sees coming from Cupertino over the next two years (I quote):
Note that when Uerkwitz looked into his crystal ball, he saw neither a car nor a streaming TV service.
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Oppenheimer's Uerkwitz urges investors to look ahead to the next two years.
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http://www.foxsports.com/arizona/story/coyotes-take-aim-at-4th-straight-win-over-flames-031116
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160527034530id_/http://www.foxsports.com/arizona/story/coyotes-take-aim-at-4th-straight-win-over-flames-031116
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Coyotes take aim at 4th straight win over Flames
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20160527034530
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If the Arizona Coyotes are to improve to 4-0 against the Calgary Flames this season, they'll need to end the longest road losing streak in franchise history.
The Coyotes look to avoid an 11th consecutive road defeat Friday night against the Flames, who are trying to win back-to-back home games for the first time in more than two months.
The game can be seen on FOX Sports Arizona, starting at 6:30 p.m.
It appeared Arizona would prevent its road slide from reaching a club-record 10 games Wednesday, but the Coyotes failed to hold a 2-0 lead en route to a 3-2 overtime loss to Vancouver.
"It's certainly frustrating," forward Alex Tanguay said. "When you are up 2-0 on the road you have to make sure you play solid, you don't get lost, you play the position."
Losers of nine of 10 overall, the Coyotes (28-32-7) have totaled 18 non-shootout goals in the last 12 road games.
Tanguay has been one of the few offensive bright spots with two goals and three assists in three games since coming over from Colorado on Feb. 29. Tanguay, who spent five seasons over two stints with Calgary, assisted on Arizona's third power-play goal in 11 road contests Wednesday.
"He makes good plays," coach Dave Tippett said. "There (are) plays that are there that some players make and some don't, and he has a knack of making good plays ... He's contributed since he's got here. That's good to see."
Defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson had a goal in each of the Coyotes' first three meetings with Calgary (28-34-5), but the team points leader could miss a second straight contest with an upper-body injury. He did not practice Thursday, and Tippett described him as day-to-day.
Louis Domingue has posted a 3.75 goals-against average during his 0-8-1 road losing streak but stopped 51 of 53 shots in the last two against the Flames.
Two points behind Arizona, Calgary ended an 0-1-2 home skid with Wednesday's 3-2 overtime victory over Nashville. Johnny Gaudreau scored twice in a 10-second span of the first period and assisted on Mikael Backlund's winner.
"We have to play our hardest every single game," Gaudreau told the NHL's official website. "There are a lot of expectations in this locker room to finish the season out strong, get a good summer in and be ready for next year."
With 66 points in 66 games, Gaudreau has surpassed his 64 from last season's stellar rookie season. A league-high 48 of those points have come at home.
"I just love playing in front of our fans," said Gaudreau, whose 26 goals are two more than last season. "Whether we lose or win, they're proud of us. So for me, the best gift to give back to them in a losing season is work my hardest each night and show them some creativity and excitement."
Though Gaudreau was shut out in a 4-1 loss at Arizona on Feb. 12, he has two goals and two assists in the last three at home against the Coyotes.
The Coyotes won 51 face-offs (72 percent) in Wednesday's game vs. Vancouver, the most face-offs won by any team in any game this season. ... The Coyotes now lead the NHL in face-offs won (54.1 percent). ...
Tippett said at Friday's morning skate that goaltender Mike Smith is nearing a return. "We're getting closer," Tippett said. "He's got to be the one to walk off the ice and say I'm in. If he walks off right now and tells me he wants to play tomorrow, I'm not going to say no."
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The Coyotes look to avoid an 11th consecutive road defeat Friday night in Calgary.
| 51.666667 | 1 | 9.8 |
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http://time.com/2979889/orange-is-the-new-black-cancelled-hoax/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160527140623id_/http://time.com:80/2979889/orange-is-the-new-black-cancelled-hoax/
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'Orange Is the New Black' Canceled? No, It's a Hoax, Netflix Says
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20160527140623
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Don’t worry, Piper is coming back to TV.
Fans of the Netflix hit Orange Is the New Black were briefly taken in by a hoax this week when the satirical website Empire News posted a story blaring that Netflix had pulled the plug on the show about life in a women’s prison.
“We regret to inform Netflix members that Orange Is the New Black has been permanently cancelled,” the quoted Netflix’s CEO as saying in a statement. “Also, starting September 1st, 2014, past episodes will no longer be available for streaming on Netflix.”
Not so fast. Netflix posted a picture Sunday of the characters Crazy Eyes and Taystee on set filming Season 3 and assured fans the show is coming back:
The show’s official Twitter page also chimed in:
The clarification was surely welcomed by fans who had reacted to the initial “story” with shock and outrage.
I don't want orange is the new black to be canceled 😔
— chels (@chelspickard_) July 13, 2014
Those Orange is the new black canceled show rumors had me crying 😭😭😩😩
— Erica D (@LookIts_Erica) July 13, 2014
"Orange is the New Black "Canceled" " I WILL DESTROY EVERYTHING YOU LOVE
— $ (@crauings) July 13, 2014
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Don't worry, it's just a hoax
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Far Out, Man. But Is It Quantum Physics?
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Can physics save your soul?
Two years ago, a movie with the unpronounceable title "What the #$!%* Do We Know!?" became an underground new-age phenomenon, raking in $11 million out of midnight screenings and word of mouth, spawning an industry of books, tote bags, clothing, DVD's and "biofield" jewelry.
It purported to argue, based on the insights of modern quantum physics, that reality is just a mental construct that we can rearrange and improve, if we are enlightened or determined enough. Science and spirituality have tied the knot, and the world is your infinitely deformable apple.
This winter an expanded version, "What the Bleep, Down the Rabbit Hole," began to play to audiences who say that the movie confirms what they already thought about the cosmos, some vibe they had that it is a slippery, woo-woo-woo kind of place. The movie just finished a two-month run in New York and is to be shown in May at the Quest for Global Healing Conference, in Ubud, Bali, with luminaries like Walter Cronkite and Desmond Tutu attending.
Like its predecessor, this film features a coterie of talking heads: physicists with real Ph.D.'s, biologists, philosophers and a woman who claims to be channeling a 35,000-year-old spirit warrior from Atlantis. It tells the story of a sourpuss photographer played by Marlee Matlin who learns to love herself and take a chance on life.
Like its predecessor, the film touts the alleged power of meditation to affect the crystalline structure of water, as revealed in photographs by Masaru Emoto, a doctor of alternative medicine in Japan. Love and gratitude make for symmetrical and intricate crystals, according to the film, while hatred produces an ugly mess.
If thoughts can do this to water, imagine what they can do to humans, who are, after all, mostly water at least so runs the mantra repeated several times in the film.
When I first heard that Marlee Matlin had made a movie about quantum theory, I was excited. (Total disclosure: Ms. Matlin once bought an option on the film rights to an essay of mine about Albert Einstein and his wife.) What could be more deserving of wide-screen cinematic treatment than the weirdness and mystery of the laws that sculpture our space-time adventures?
But hours and hours spent watching the two films and navigating their splashy Web site have tempered my enthusiasm. These films and the quantum mysticism industry behind them raise a disturbing question about the muddled intersection between science and culture. Do we have to indulge in bad physics to feel good?
The "rabbit hole" in the title refers to the philosophical muddle that the contemplation of quantum mechanics, the paradoxical laws that govern subatomic life, can lead to. And it is a legitimate and maddening one. Quantum physics proclaims, for example, that an electron (or any object, elementary particle or not) is both a particle and a wave before we look at it, a conundrum neatly illustrated by a cartoon featuring "Dr. Quantum" in the new film.
Physicists have been at war for the last century trying to explain how it is that the fog of quantum possibilities prescribed by mathematical theory can condense into one concrete actuality, what physicists call "collapsing the wavefunction." Half a century ago the physicist and Nobel Prize winner Eugene Wigner ventured that consciousness was the key to this mysterious process.
Wigner thereby, and inadvertently, launched a thousand New Age dreams. Books like "The Tao of Physics" and "The Dancing Wu Li Masters" have sought to connect quantum physics to Eastern mysticism. Deepak Chopra, the physician and author, has founded a career on the idea of "quantum healing," and a school of parapsychology has arisen based on the idea that things like telekinesis and telepathy were a result of probing minds' manipulation of the formless quantum potential. And now the movie.
All of them promote the idea that, at some level, our minds are in control of reality. We are in charge of the holodeck, as one of the characters in "Down the Rabbit Hole" says. And if it doesn't work for you, it's probably because you don't believe.
So what's wrong with that? Like everyone else, I am inspired by stories of personal change. The ideas that consciousness creates reality and that anything is possible make for terrific psychology.
We all know that self-confidence breeds its own success. I wish I were a member of that club. But physics has moved on. It has been decades since anybody took Wigner's idea seriously, said David Albert, a professor of philosophy and physics at Columbia, who has the dubious honor of being one of the talking heads in both "What the Bleep" films and is not pleased with the results.
Many physicists today say the waves that symbolize quantum possibilities are so fragile they collapse with the slightest encounter with their environment. Conscious observers are not needed. As Dr. Albert pointed out, Wigner framed the process in strict mathematical and probabilistic terms. "The desires and intentions of the observer had nothing to do with it," he said.
In other words, reality is out of our control. It's all atoms and the void, as Democritus said so long ago. Indeed, some physicists say the most essential and independent characteristic of reality, whatever that is, is randomness. It's a casino universe.
Not that there is anything wrong with that. There's a great story to be told about atoms and the void: how atoms evolved out of fire and bent space and grew into Homer, Chartres cathedral and "Blonde on Blonde." How those same atoms came to learn that the earth, sun, life, intelligence and the whole universe will eventually die.
I can hardly blame the quantum mystics for avoiding this story, and sticking to the 1960's.
When it comes to physics, people seem to need to kid themselves. There is a presumption, Dr. Albert said, that if you look deeply enough you will find "some reaffirmation of your own centrality to the world, a reaffirmation of your ability to take control of your own destiny." We want to know that God loves us, that we are the pinnacle of evolution.
But one of the most valuable aspects of science, he said, is precisely the way it resists that temptation to find the answer we want. That is the test that quantum mysticism flunks, and on some level we all flunk.
I'd like to believe that like Galileo, I would have the courage to see the world clearly, in all its cruelty and beauty, "without hope or fear," as the Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis put it. Take free will. Everything I know about physics and neuroscience tells me it's a myth. But I need that illusion to get out of bed in the morning. Of all the durable and necessary creations of atoms, the evolution of the illusion of the self and of free will are perhaps the most miraculous. That belief is necessary to my survival.
But I wouldn't call it good physics.
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The quantum mysticism industry raises a disturbing question: Do we have to indulge in bad physics to feel good?
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http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music/prince-show-enchanted-fans-feel-honored-article-1.2610107
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Prince's last show enchanted fans who 'feel honored'
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Prince’s final show brought down the house.
The music legend, who died Thursday at age 57, last performed a week before at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta.
The genre-defying icon walked onstage with a cane but showed no signs of failing health April 14 as he indulged the capacity crowd with two 80-minute performances for his “Piano & A Microphone” tour.
The fans grieved Thursday even as they expressed their thanks they were able to see him one last time.
“I feel honored," said Charlotte Washington, 27. "I'm not a very religious person but I feel like it was destiny or fate for me to see his last show.”
PRINCE FOUND DEAD AT HIS MINNESOTA STUDIO AT AGE 57: MUSIC ICON WHOSE WORK SPANNED DECADES RECENTLY HOSPITALIZED WITH FLU
Washington, an Apple employee who lives in nearby Austell, asked for a refund when Prince bowed out from the first scheduled date because of a flu, she said. Yet she wound up buying an orchestra seat ticket for $245 when she found out the show was back on, she said.
The legend could be seen outlined by purple lights while singing and playing a baby grand piano in pictures on social media from the shows. Present-day music star CeeLo Green tweeted a photo from one of the performances last week.
"I want to be delicate to not disturb Our Prince's peace and eternal rest," Green said in a statement released through his manager Thursday. "He is now and forever immortalized as a noun, as I have often referred to him. Undoubtedly a person, a very special place, and absolutely EVERYTHING."
A. RaeNee Jemison, an Atlanta residential realtor, went to her fourth Prince concert that night with a group of six family members. She recalled how he apologized for canceling the earlier date and told the crowd they would get their money’s worth at the theater normally used for plays, she said.
“It’s super intimate, it’s an old fashioned kind of setup, so you felt you were connecting with him,” Jemison, 50, said. “He came back out maybe two or three times because we wouldn’t stop clapping.”
Jemison said Prince’s death left her “clinically depressed.” She and Washington, who said last week’s show was her first Prince concert, have been listening to his music for decades.
"It was something special for sure," Washington said. "I've been a Prince fan since I was a child. My father actually gave me 'Purple Rain' when I was 4 years old."
Audience members calling out for him to play the anthem song from that album left the first session without hearing it, so they sang it together while exiting the venue, said Atlanta cancer researcher Christina Mathews, 45. Prince played the song in closing out the second performance, though.
No one there could sense anything wrong with him, said psychotherapist Erica Hudson, who sat in the orchestra section for the later concert.
"He was amazing," Hudson said. "You would not know he was sick. He wasn't coughing or anything. There were no signs of illness at all."
Prince put on 12 shows at the Fox Theatre since his first concert there in 1982, CEO Allan Vella noted.
"Prince was a music pioneer, innovator and cultural icon," Vella said in a statement. "His music moved and inspired many, including the fans that were able to join him as he took the stage for his final performances last week at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre. We, along with the world, mourn the loss of a music legend."
SEE IT: RARE FOOTAGE OF THE 1982 PRINCE CONCERT WHERE THE ARTIST COMPLETELY ROCKED NEW JERSEY
Melissa Ruggieri, who reviewed the shows for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, questioned whether the show lived up to the $1,000 price tag for the best seats because the concerts didn't last a full 90 minutes. Yet she praised Prince's enduring ability to play songs of all eras.
"He zigzagged throughout his prolific catalog, pulling out the finger-snapper 'Muse 2 The Pharaoh' from 2001’s 'The Rainbow Children' album, rousing the crowd with a deeply funky 'U Got the Look' and peeling the underappreciated 'Pop Life' to its root," Ruggieri wrote.
The critic noticed evidence of the flu that postponed the April 7 dates but wrote that his singing voice was "sublime." Prince's plane made an emergency landing in rural Illinois early the following morning so he could be rushed to the hospital. Doctors released him hours later.
Prince's final public appearance came Saturday, when he hosted a party at his Paisley Park complex in Chanhassen, Minn., according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. He greeted visitors for five minutes around midnight, saying he planned to release a live album from the Atlanta performance and playing a half-hour recording from one of the concerts over the speakers.
“Wait a few days before you waste any prayers,” Prince said Saturday.
PRINCE DEAD AT 57: FIVE HIT SONGS YOU MAY NOT KNOW WERE WRITTEN BY THE PURPLE ONE
Below are the setlists from the final two shows, from setlist.fm:
1. When Will We Be Paid
5. All Day, All Night
6. I Would Die 4 U
7. Baby I'm a Star
8. The Ballad of Dorothy Parker
9. Eye Love U But I Don't Trust You Anymore
10. Little Red Corvette / Dirty Mind
12. Nothing Compares 2 U
15. How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore
(Bob Marley & The Wailers cover)
17. If I Was Your Girlfriend
18. Sometimes it Snows in April
19. Purple Rain / The Beautiful Ones / Diamonds and Pearls
The other show (unclear which order)
1. Little Red Corvette / Dirty Mind
3. not The Beautiful Ones - it was something else
4. Nothing Compares 2 U
5. Bio and chat - chopsticks / instrumental funky jam
7. Muse 2 the Pharaoh
8. U Got the Look
11. I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man
12. A Case of You
13. I Feel for You
15. The Most Beautiful Girl in the World
16. I Would Die 4 U
17. Baby I'm a Star
22. How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore
24. I Wanna Be Your Lover
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Prince’s final show brought down the house.
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Clinton and Sanders locked in virtual tie in California, poll shows
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Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are in a virtual dead heat in California, raising the possibility that she will clinch the Democratic presidential nomination next month while losing the most populous state in the nation.
A poll released Thursday by the Public Policy Institute of California showed Clinton ahead of Sanders 46 percent to 44 percent, a statistical toss-up.
Clinton brushed off the results and said that regardless of the outcome in the Golden State’s primary on June 7, she would seal the nomination.
“We are already insurmountably ahead not only in the popular vote, leading by 3 million, but also in the pledged delegates,” she told CNN before a campaign stop in San Jose. “This will be wrapped up on June 7.”
Sanders has been barnstorming California and intends to reach 200,000 people through rallies by the time voters head to the polls.
He has launched a $1.5 million ad campaign in Los Angeles, Fresno and Sacramento, telling Californians they have the power to choose “a new direction for the Democratic Party.”
Clinton beefed up her California schedule and on Friday will launch her first TV ad campaign in the state with the assistance of actor Morgan Freeman and farm-worker advocate Dolores Huerta.
Sanders is banking on his strong support among young voters and independents to build his momentum before July’s Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
“Let us see the largest voter turnout in Democratic primary history, and let this great state — one of the most progressive states in America — go on record saying yes to the political revolution,” he said at a rally at Ventura College.
He claimed he was the only candidate who could make Donald Trump “toast.”
In a hypothetical matchup, Sanders beats the presumptive GOP nominee 53 percent to 36 percent among likely voters in California, the Public Policy Institute’s poll found.
Clinton defeats The Donald by a narrower margin — 49 percent to 39 percent — in the state.
Appearing on CNN, Clinton said her campaign would not be harmed by a State Department report’s findings that she violated the agency’s regulations by using a private e-mail server as secretary of state.
She argued that her former agency’s rules were unclear, contradicting the report’s findings that she simply ignored them.
“Well, I thought it was allowed . . . Secretary Kerry, for a period of time, [did the same] until the rules were clarified,” she told CNN.
“They were not a model of clarity, and it seems like there’s still more work to do.” Clinton said she didn’t cooperate with the inspector general’s review because she had already explained herself.
“When they reached out to me, I had already said everything I could on this matter. I testified for 11 hours before the Benghazi committee. I have done, as you know, numerous press interviews,” Clinton said.
Clinton has a commanding delegate lead over Sanders, with 2,309 to his 1,539.
She is just 74 delegates short of becoming the first female presidential nominee of a major party.
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Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are in a virtual dead heat in California, raising the possibility that she will clinch the Democratic presidential nomination next month while losing the most pop…
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Data Sheet-Tuesday, March 22, 2016
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Andy Grove wasn’t one to mince words. In 2005 I interviewed him for a profile of Intel’s newly appointed CEO, Paul Otellini. The rap on Otellini was that he wasn’t a technologist, like the first three, larger-than-life chief executives of Intel: Bob Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Grove. Grove’s one-word response: “Bullshit.”
This was typical Grove. He was an American original, in a way only an immigrant can be—a thick-accented, scientist-turned-businessman who spoke forcefully and wrote gracefully in English on topics as varied as his management philosophy, his battle with prostate cancer, and his story of coming to the U.S. Grove was famously profane, harsh, driven, and driving. And as his onetime research assistant Robert Siegel remembered him Tuesday, when Grove died at home in Los Altos, Calif., at the age of 79, the titan of Silicon Valley also wasn’t above being challenged.
Grove is one of the small handful of people who created Silicon Valley as it is today. Intel’s accomplishments run deeper than having developed a powerful monopoly position in the microprocessors that drove the growth of personal computers. Grove’s Intel also showed how to use marketing—“Intel Inside”—to convince consumers they wanted a product whose technical specifications they’d never understand. His Intel gave cubicles a good name, a place where the lowly and the godly worked near one another. Grove also showed businesses of all stripes the importance of change when he took Intel out of the memory-chip market as it was being clobbered by Japan.
Grove was a mentor to a generation of Intel executives and also other entrepreneurs who shared his values, dreams, and tactics. Chief among these was Steve Jobs.
He also was a fierce defender of Silicon Valley. When I mentioned to him in 2005 that I’d recently read the seminal Tom Wolfe profile of Bob Noyce in Esquire from 1983, one of the finest pieces of journalism I’ve ever read about Silicon Valley, Grove reacted violently. “I hated that article,” he said. “That man didn’t understand this place at all.”
Grove certainly understood this place. After all, he helped make it what it is.
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Remembering Andy Grove
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The dirtiest spot on an airplane is actually not the toilet
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Before you go, we thought you'd like these...
Planes are not the cleanest place on earth. Hundreds of passengers spend their time in a very confined space, eating, sleeping, sneezing, using the bathroom and spreading their bacteria all over the inside of the aircrafts, which are not always sanitized between flights. Surprisingly enough, while the airplane's bathroom, or more specifically the lavatory flush button, is one of the dirtiest spots on board, it does not take the throne of the dirtiest place par excellence.
sent a microbiologist to explore both airports and airplanes, testing a variety of items that we normally use to come up with a list of the dirtiest ones of all, based on "colony-forming units." Here are the findings:
Stay away from it as much as you can! This thing is a hive of bacteria ready to jump on you. Some people even change their babies' diapers on them, so you might want to wipe it very well before your next in-flight meal.
The toilet is not even at number two. That little vent that everybody pokes around with to get some breeze on their faces is even dirtier.
Finally, the bathroom. The flush button in particular is what you want to be really careful before touching. Use tissue paper, or whatever else is in your reach to avoid direct contact.
You touch it during the flight, but most disgustingly after the flight is over and you spent hours touching other bacteria infected areas of the plane, your food, your face and who knows what else. As a final goodbye you leave all that on your seatbelt buckle and pick up whatever the person before you left there.
The dirtiest spot on an airplane is actually not the toilet
(Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
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Here are the 4 dirtiest things on an airplane
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CEO Daily: Thursday, May 26
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Disney’s Bob Iger has become the latest CEO to fight back against Bernie Sanders’ attacks on his company.
“Anybody making a living wage at Disney?” Sanders said Tuesday in a speech to 1500 people in the Anaheim convention center. “It’s an example of what we are talking about when we talk about a rigged economy. Disney pays its workers wages that are so low that many of them are forced to live in motels because they cannot afford a decent place to live. People are asking, is it right that at Disney you have a CEO making $46 million while they are paying workers starvation wages?”
In a private Facebook post, Iger shot back: “To Bernie Sanders: We created 11,000 new jobs at Disneyland in the past decade and our company has created 18,000 in the last five years. How many jobs have you created? What have you contributed to the US economy?” The Facebook post was obtained by TheWrap. Iger is a supporter of Hillary Clinton.
Meanwhile, Bill Clinton, who clearly relishes campaigning much more than his wife, spent a full thirty minutes in New Mexico defending his economic record to a Sanders supporter who was born around the time Clinton took office. You can read the full account here.
More news below, including the shut-down of McDonald’s headquarters because of a minimum wage protest.
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Disney vs Sanders
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San Francisco Office Rents Pass Manhattan As Nation's Most Expensive
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Manhattan is no longer the king of ridiculously high office rent. That crown now belongs to San Francisco.
According to a recent report from CBRE Group, the price per square foot for office space in San Francisco reached $72.26 in the fourth quarter of 2015—a 14% increase from last year. In Manhattan—which includes Midtown, Midtown South, and Downtown—office space costs $71.85 per square foot, up 7% from the year prior.
In the previous quarter, Manhattan office rents had just barely outpaced San Francisco’s—$70.54 versus $70.29.
Prices in San Francisco have surged due to demand from the tech sector and limited space, the CBRE report says. Vacancies in the city dropped 100 basis points year over year to reach 5.6%.
San Francisco is also challenging New York City for the nation’s most expensive apartments. In October, a report from Trulia found that less than 10% of one-bedroom rentals in the Golden Gate City cost under $2,000 per month while more than half cost $3,000 or more. The median price for a one-bedroom? A cool $3,200.
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Blame the current tech boom.
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Are Compression Socks and Gear In Workout Clothes Worth It?
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From shorts and socks to sleeves and tops, athletes everywhere—amateur and professional alike—are squeezing into super-tight “compression” garments in an effort to boost performance and recovery.
While pinpointing the start of a trend is tricky, the compression craze seemed to spark back in 2001, when NBA star Allen Iverson scored 51 points the first night he wore a long compression sleeve on his right arm. Iverson’s doctor had improvised the sleeve to treat Iverson’s swollen, bursitis-stricken elbow. But after seeing “AI” light it up, other players quickly adopted the accessory.
Many of today’s popular basketball players, including LeBron James, still wear compression sleeves or leggings. And the trend has spread to other sports. Along with Nike and Under Armour, upstarts like 2XU and Tommie Copper have blossomed as compression gear manufacturers.
By squeezing and compacting the flesh of your arms, legs, or torso, these garments supposedly increase blood circulation, which helps deliver more oxygen to your muscles while speeding the removal of acids and the other byproducts of physical activity. There are other purported mechanisms of action, all of which supercharge performance while speeding recovery. That’s the theory, at least. The only thing missing is the proof.
“So far there is little evidence to suggest that wearing compression garments during an event can improve performance,” says Dr. Mike Hamlin, an associate professor of exercise and sports science at New Zealand’s Lincoln University.
MORE: Fat Water Is Now A Thing
Hamlin has studied the effect of compression garments on short-term recovery. And while his research observed recovery improvements among rugby players who wore compression leggings, those improvements only came from donning the leggings for 24 hours straight following exercise. Other researchers have found similar benefits among weightlifters who slipped into compression body suits, but only when those suits were worn continuously for more than a day following exercise.
Hamlin mentions one 1996 study that found trained volleyball players were able to increase their average—but not maximum—leaping height when wearing compression shorts. But he says there’s “little evidence” that endurance athletes perform better while wearing compression tights and tops. A recent study from Indiana University looked into lower-leg compression among distance runners and failed to find meaningful gains.
Which takes us back to Allen Iverson and his sleeve. Iverson’s doctor improvised the arm compression as an aid for the player’s inflamed elbow—not to boost Iverson’s performance. And when it comes to medical conditions that involve swelling or poor blood flow, compression is still a “mainstay” of treatment and recovery, says Dr. Thomas Wakefield, a professor of vascular surgery with the University of Michigan Health System.
Particularly for lower body blood clotting and venous circulatory issues, Wakefield says compression garments are helpful either in place of or in addition to blood thinning drugs and other forms of treatment. There’s some evidence compression may help control muscle cramps and restless leg syndrome, though Wakefield says its unclear whether compression might be helpful.
MORE: How Exercise Helps Curb Alzheimer’s Symptoms
While mixed, there’s also some evidence that compression can provide a small performance benefit when it comes to explosive movements: a basketball player leaping repeatedly for a rebound, say, or a soccer player suddenly sprinting a few feet for a loose ball. But a 2013 review of the existing research on compression doesn’t rule out the possibility that the placebo effect may explain these performance gains. (You can’t really trick an athlete into thinking she’s wearing compression garments if she’s not, the authors of that review write.)
So here’s the compression gear story, compressed: there are certainly medical conditions for which compression clothing can be beneficial. And when worn for lengthy periods—a day or more following exercise—compression appears to help with muscle recovery.
But for now, the question of whether compression gear can amp up your athletic performance is still up in the air.
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It’s the latest craze in active wear. But so far the known benefits are iffy.
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Kat Von D -- Flips Out on Reporters After Tattoo Shop Fire
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went off on local news reporters outside her burned out tattoo shop -- making it clear she doesn't want ANYONE covering the story.
As we previously reported ... Kat's famous
early this morning. It took firefighters several hours to knock down the blaze completely -- and local news has been outside the whole time.
But Kat showed up within the last hour, and went off on the media ... knocking the hat off a female photographer's head, and telling everyone -- including us -- to "have some respect."
Kat was asked if she knew what started the fire. Watch ... her only response is anger.
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Kat Von D went off on local news reporters outside her burned out tattoo shop -- making it clear she doesn't want ANYONE covering the story.As we…
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Britney Spears Debuts New Wardrobe in Las Vegas
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20160529130458
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Britney Spears' body is now on even fuller display on the Vegas strip.
Brit debuted some new outfits this weekend at her Planet Hollywood show, and the biggest difference ... there's much less coverage. For instance, no skirt required for what looks like her new schoolgirl outfit.
The mother of 2 has been showing off her body on beaches and social media a lot lately -- so, can't say we didn't see this coming.
The show ain't called "Piece of Me" for nothin'.
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Britney Spears' body is now it's on even fuller display on the Vegas strip.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/17/us/2-archaeologists-robert-braidwood-95-and-his-wife-linda-braidwood-93-die.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160529181434id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2003/01/17/us/2-archaeologists-robert-braidwood-95-and-his-wife-linda-braidwood-93-die.html
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2 Archaeologists, Robert Braidwood, 95, And His Wife, Linda Braidwood, 93, Die
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20160529181434
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Robert J. Braidwood, a University of Chicago archaeologist who uncovered evidence of the beginnings of agriculture and the subsequent rise of civilization in the Middle East, died on Wednesday in Chicago. He was 95.
From close to the beginning of his career, Dr. Braidwood worked in partnership with his wife, Linda S. Braidwood, also an archaeologist. She died several hours later on Wednesday in the same hospital. She was 93. The couple lived in LaPorte, Ind.
In decades of work investigating humans' transition from nomadic hunting and gathering to farming and living in villages, the Braidwoods discovered some of the earliest known buildings and copper tools as well as the oldest known piece of cloth.
They also helped transform archaeology from a field primarily devoted to providing museums with recognizable and intact artifacts to a discipline that studies the processes of change.
They helped develop the modern approach to field work, with its painstaking recovery of fragmentary and ''nonartifactual'' remains, and were among the first to create research teams that included scientists from other disciplines.
Dr. Braidwood began his career in 1933 when he traveled to Syria as part of a team assembled by James Henry Breasted, the archaeologist who popularized the term ''fertile crescent'' to describe the region of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers where the first cities rose around 3100 B.C.
In 1947, the Braidwoods, who had married 10 years before, turned their attention to an earlier epoch to test the theory that an agricultural revolution had preceded the development of civilization. Establishing the Prehistoric Project at the Oriental Institute at University of Chicago, they traveled to northeast Iraq to look for evidence that they estimated would be 12,000 years old. In fact, they found artifacts more than 9,000 years old.
To help with this hunt, the Braidwoods built a team that included botanists, zoologists and geologists who could examine bone fragments, plant remains, carbonized grain and other artifacts that had rarely been studied by archaeologists.
After a year of searching, the team uncovered what they described as the earliest known village at the time, a settlement at Jarmo, on the border of Iraq and Iran, that dated to 6800 B.C. They also discovered evidence of animal domestication and crop cultivation.
The Braidwoods' most famous discoveries were made in a project that began in 1963 and lasted until the 1990's. Working with researchers from Istanbul University, they explored a 400-mile-long swath of southeastern Turkey, making a remarkable find at Cayonu in 1964.
They found an even older village, a farming community, dating from 7250 to 6750 B.C.. The village also contained what they described as the earliest known building -- a stone structure with a smoothed flagstone floor that apparently served a community function.
Six years later, the team uncovered a second building, this one with a terrazzo floor made using a technique thought to have been invented by the Romans 7,000 years later. In 1984, they found a third structure filled with burned fragments of human skulls that might have been the product of a mysterious rite.
The researchers also uncovered cold-hammered copper tools, including small pins and hooks.
In 1993 at Cayonu, the team discovered a semi-fossilized fragment of cloth that was woven about 7000 B.C. The find, not only pushed back the known date of the introduction of textiles, but also provided evidence that flax had been domesticated by that time. Flax seeds found at the site were much larger than those of the wild plant, adding more support to the theory.
For the Braidwoods, these discoveries confirmed the link between agriculture and civilization and pointed to the vitality of the relationship between the two.
''Once people began controlling their food supply through agriculture,'' Dr. Braidwood wrote, ''social change accelerated at a rate much faster than archaeologists had previously envisioned.''
Robert John Braidwood was born in Detroit on July 29, 1907, and received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Michigan and his Ph.D. in archaeology from the department of oriental languages at the University of Chicago.
Most recently, he was a professor emeritus at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.
Linda Schreiber Braidwood was born on Oct. 9, 1909, in Grand Rapids, Mich., and received a bachelor's from the University of Michigan and a master's in archaeology from the University of Chicago.
They are survived by a daughter, Gretel Braidwood, of Chicago; a son, Douglas, of Virginia Beach; and three grandchildren.
Among Dr. Braidwood's books was ''Prehistoric Men,'' published in 1948 with a number of later editions. Mrs. Braidwood wrote ''Digging Beyond the Tigris,'' published in 1953. They collaborated on several books, including ''Excavations in the Plain of Antioch'' (1960).
Dr. Braidwood, a dynamic figure who some say was an inspiration for the famous screen archaeologist Indiana Jones, brought a literary sensibility to his exacting work.
As he set out on his expedition to Turkey in 1963, he said in a statement: ''Somewhere in one of perhaps a dozen places in the Middle East about 12,000 years ago, some man made a remarkable observation: he observed that a common weed which he had doubtless collected for eating was growing where he had previously spilled seeds.
''Once man was able to remain in one spot, he was able to start thinking about matters other than gathering food. He was able to begin thinking about his new relationship to other men, new relationships to his immediate surroundings and to those forces in nature which played such a large part in his existence.''
Photo: The archaeologists Linda and Robert Braidwood in 1985. They unearthed early signs of agriculture and changed field work methods. (University of Chicago News Office)
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Robert J. Braidwood, a University of Chicago archaeologist who uncovered evidence of the beginnings of agriculture and the subsequent rise of civilization in the Middle East, died on Wednesday in Chicago. He was 95. From close to the beginning of his career, Dr. Braidwood worked in partnership with his wife, Linda S. Braidwood, also an archaeologist. She died several hours later on Wednesday in the same hospital. She was 93. The couple lived in LaPorte, Ind.
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http://fortune.com/2016/03/24/time-warner-georgia-religious-liberty/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160529233502id_/http://fortune.com:80/2016/03/24/time-warner-georgia-religious-liberty/
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Time Warner Joins Opposition to Georgia's Free Exercise Protection Act
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20160529233502
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UPDATE: Lionsgate Entertainment, the Weinstein Company, and 21st Century Fox all issued their own statements urging Georgia Governor Nathan Deal to veto the religious liberty bill that was recently passed by the state’s legislature, according to Variety.
Another major entertainment industry entity has voiced its opposition to a controversial religious liberty bill that could soon be signed into law in Georgia.
Time Warner TWX issued a statement on Thursday to “strongly oppose the discriminatory language” of the bill, which passed Georgia’s state legislature last week after facing significant opposition from various state lawmakers. Governor Nathan Deal has until May 3 to decide whether or not to sign the bill, called the Free Exercise Protection Act, into law.
Time Warner said in a statement that the bill—which would allow faith-based organizations to refuse certain services to people based on their sexuality—”clearly violates the values and principles of inclusion and the ability of all people to live and work free from discrimination.”
The company is the latest from the entertainment industry to oppose the bill, after Walt Disney DIS , along with subsidiary Marvel Studios, promised this week to boycott filming in Georgia should Gov. Deal sign the controversial bill into law. Also opposing the bill is AMC Networks AMCX , which films the massively popular zombie-thriller TV show The Walking Dead in Georgia. The network issued its own statement, on Wednesday, urging Gov. Deal to reject the bill.
Time Warner noted that each of its divisions—HBO, cable networks operator Turner Broadcasting, and film studio Warner Bros.—conduct business in Georgia, where Turner’s headquarters are located in the CNN Center, in Atlanta. “We urge Governor Deal to exercise his veto,” the company said in its statement.
Georgia has become a hotbed of Hollywood activity due to particularly generous tax credits the state extends to film studios. Last year, HBO chose Atlanta as the shooting location for the film Confirmation, a TV movie about Anita Hill and the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearings that airs next month.
Other major corporations to oppose the religious liberty bill include Georgia-based Coca Cola KO and Home Depot HD , while the National Football League suggested last week that such a bill could hurt Atlanta’s bid to host an upcoming Super Bowl.
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Turner Broadcasting is headquartered in Atlanta.
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http://time.com/2950961/obamacare-health-care-obama/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160530005102id_/http://time.com:80/2950961/obamacare-health-care-obama/
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20 Million Americans Gained Coverage Under the Affordable Care Act
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20160530005102
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About 20 million Americans have gained health insurance or enrolled in new insurance under the health care reform law, according to a new report.
The report from the Commonwealth Fund, published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, credits President Barack Obama’s health reform law with an estimated 20 million enrollments as of May 1. The report looks at both people who gained coverage through insurance marketplaces, and people who gained coverage due to provisions in the Affordable Care Act (such as those qualifying for Medicaid and those now covered through the Children’s Health Insurance Program).
The authors estimate that 7.8 million people under 26—who are now allowed to be covered as dependents on their parents’ plans—have enrolled. They also report that 8 million people were enrolled in coverage via new health insurance marketplaces and five million purchased coverage directly from insurers.
The authors write that for ACA’s continued expansion to be sustainable, it will rely largely on the ability of the U.S. to control health care costs.
“Developing and spreading innovative approaches to health care delivery that provide greater quality at lower cost is the next great challenge facing the nation,” the report concludes.
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A new report estimates millions of Americans have enrolled in health insurance
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http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music/gwen-stefani-compares-divorce-dying-article-1.2575760
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160531014013id_/http://www.nydailynews.com:80/entertainment/music/gwen-stefani-compares-divorce-dying-article-1.2575760
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Gwen Stefani compares divorce to ‘dying’
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20160531014013
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All the riches in the world didn’t mean much to Gwen Stefani when she landed in Splitsville.
The pop star continues to open about her divorce from rocker Gavin Rossdale as she plugs her new album and revealed she felt she was “dying” after the collapse of her marriage.
GWEN STEFANI OPENS UP ABOUT HER DIVORCE: 'IT'S A REALLY GOOD, JUICY STORY'
“I wasn’t thinking. I was feeling and I was dying. And then I was like, ‘You can’t go down like this! You have to turn this into music. You have to try, at least,'” the “Used to Love You” singer told GQ magazine in an interview published on Wednesday.
“I was so embarrassed by just everything. I just didn't want to be that person that just went down after all of that,” she continued.
At the time, music was the last thing on her mind, she recalled.
"I didn't want to make a record: I just wanted to not die. That's it. The fact that now I have a record and people are hearing it, it just blows my mind,” she explained.
But, the crooner — who is no stranger to breakups, having documented her pain in the past with No Doubt — forced herself to lyricize her heartbreak, especially since she felt she needed an outlet to tell her side of the story.
Fittingly, her latest album is titled "This is What the Truth Feels Like."
"Everything happens so fast. It's all happening in real time in the sense that, ‘Used to Love You' came out only a couple weeks after I wrote it," she explained to the magazine.
“The only reason I did that was just being honest. There's been a lot of dishonesty around me, and I just don't understand that because it's just not how I live,” the mom-of-three added.
BLAKE SHELTON BONDS WITH GWEN STEFANI'S SON IN OKLAHOMA
When not channeling her sorrow, the songstress was healing with her blossoming relationship with country star Blake Shelton, who she’s been linked to since November after ending things with Rossdale in August.
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The pop star continues to open about her divorce from rocker Gavin Rossdale.
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http://www.aol.com/article/2015/07/07/whoopi-goldberg-backs-bill-cosby-save-your-texts-save-your-na/21206184/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160531025827id_/http://www.aol.com:80/article/2015/07/07/whoopi-goldberg-backs-bill-cosby-save-your-texts-save-your-na/21206184/?
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Whoopi Goldberg backs Bill Cosby: 'Save your texts, save your nasty comments - I don't care'
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20160531025827
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Before you go, we thought you'd like these...
Whoopi Goldberg continued to suggest Bill Cosby is innocent until proven guilty Tuesday even after revelations he got prescription Quaaludes to give to women to have sex with him.
"We'll see what happens as more information comes out, people will make judgments,"Goldberg said. "I don't like snap judgments because I've had snap judgments made on me, so I'm very very careful...save your texts, save your nasty comments–I don't care."
Goldberg continued that in America, someone is innocent until proven guilty.
Whoopi Goldberg backs Bill Cosby: 'Save your texts, save your nasty comments - I don't care'
Date of alleged assault: Early 1970's Date of accusation: August 12, 2015
(Photo by MARK RALSTON via AFP/Getty Images)
Date of alleged assault: Early 1970's Date of accusation: August 12, 2015
(Photo by MARK RALSTON via AFP/Getty Images)
Date of alleged assault: Early 1970's Date of accusation: August 12, 2015
(Photo by MARK RALSTON via AFP/Getty Images)
Date of alleged assault: 1989 Date of accusation: February 12, 2015
(Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)
Date of alleged assault: 1969 Date of accusation: February 12, 2015 i. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)
Date of alleged incident: 1970s Date of accusation: Dec. 22, 2014
Date of alleged incident: 1988 Date of accusation: Dec. 19, 2014
Date of alleged incident: mid-’80s Date of accusation: Dec. 11, 2014
Date of Alleged Assault – 1973 Date of Accusation – Dec. 3, 2014
Date of Alleged Assault – 1984 Date of Accusation – June 23, 2005
Date of Alleged Assault – 1985 Date of Accusation – Dec. 3, 2014
Date of Alleged Assault – 1974 Date of Accusation – Dec. 2, 2014
Date of Alleged Assault – late 1980s Date of Accusation – Nov. 24, 2014
(Photo by Debbie Egan-Chin/NY Daily News via Getty Images)
Date of Alleged Assault – 1970s Date of Accusation – Nov. 22, 2014
Date of Alleged Assault – 1992 Date of Accusation– Nov. 21, 2014
Date of Alleged Assault – 1970 Date of Accusation – Nov. 21, 2014
(Photo by Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Date of Alleged Assault – 1971 Date of Accusation – Nov. 20, 2014
(Photo by ABC Photo Archives/ABC via Getty Images)
Date of Alleged Assault – mid 1990s Date of Accusation – Nov. 20, 2014
Date of Alleged Assault – 1976 Date of Accusation – Nov. 20, 2014 (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)
Date of Alleged Assault – 1982 Date of Accusation – Nov. 18, 2014
Date of Alleged Assault – 1986 Date of Accusation – Nov. 13, 2014
Date of Alleged Assault – 1975 Date of Accusation – 2015
(Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
Date of Alleged Assault – 1969 Date of Accusation – 2014
(Matt Moyer For The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Date of Alleged Assault – Early 1970's Date of Accusation – 2015
(Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
Date of Alleged Assault – 1980's Date of Accusation – 2015
(Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
Date of Alleged Assault – Mid 1980's Date of Accusation – 2015
(Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images)
Date of Alleged Assault – 1981 Date of Accusation – 2015
(Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
Date of Alleged Assault – 1982 Date of Accusation – 2015
(Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
Date of Alleged Assault – Early 1990's Date of Accusation – 2015
(Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
Date of Alleged Assault – 1970's Date of Accusation – 2005
Date of Alleged Assault – 2008 Date of Accusation – 2015
Date of Alleged Assault – 1970 Date of Accusation – 2015
(Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
"This is my opinion and in America, still–I know it's a shock–but you actually were innocent until proven guilty; he has not been proven a rapist."
Fellow panelist Raven-Symone, who played Cosby's step-granddaughter on his legendary sitcom, acknowledged she doesn't like addressing the subject since Cosby gave her her start, adding she needs the proof before giving her judgment.
Also Read: 'The View's' Whoopi Goldberg Questions Beverly Johnson Over Bill Cosby Allegedly Attacking Her (Video)
Guest co-host Michelle Collins' joked that if anyone needs a Benadryl–just ask Cosby for one. The joke fell flat, making her co-hosts cringe.
Read original story Whoopi Goldberg Backs Bill Cosby: 'Save Your Texts, Save Your Nasty Comments–I Don't Care' (Video) At TheWrap
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Whoopi Goldberg continued to suggest Bill Cosby is innocent until proven guilty Tuesday even after revelations he got prescription Quaaludes to give to women to have
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