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http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2016/06/macedonians-government-massive-protest-160622104305460.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160723132812id_/http://www.aljazeera.com:80/indepth/inpictures/2016/06/macedonians-government-massive-protest-160622104305460.html
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Macedonians take on government in massive protest
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20160723132812
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Skopje, Macedonia - For more than two months, thousands of demonstrators have flooded the streets of the Macedonian capital, Skopje, almost daily.
In what has been referred to as the "Colourful Revolution", Macedonians are protesting against the government, corruption and a major wiretapping scandal in which the opposition accuses the government of surveilling more than 20,000 people.
The protests were sparked in early April, when President Gjorge Ivanov issued pardons to 56 politicians and businessmen, most of them connected to the ruling party, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation - Democratic Party for Macedonian Unity (VMRO-DPMNE).Â
Under pressure as the Colourful Revolution gained steam and European Union and NATO - both of which Macedonia aspires to join - voiced objections, Ivanov revoked the pardons earlier this month.Â
On Monday, more than 20,000 Macedonians came out for the largest protest since the movement was launched more than two months ago.Â
Colourful Revolution supporters have called for the government to resign and politicians, among them former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, to be put on trial for the crimes they accuse them of committing.
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More than 20,000 Macedonians protested against the government in the largest demonstration of the Colourful Revolution.
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http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/06/abbas-retracts-rabbis-water-poisoning-comment-160625132534138.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160723132937id_/http://www.aljazeera.com:80/news/2016/06/abbas-retracts-rabbis-water-poisoning-comment-160625132534138.html
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Abbas retracts rabbis 'water poisoning' comment
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20160723132937
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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has retracted comments he made this week about an alleged plot by rabbis calling on Jewish settlers to poison the drinking water of Palestinians.
Abbas' office acknowledged on Saturday that his comments were "baseless", adding he "didn't intend to do harm to Judaism or to offend Jewish people around the world."
In a speech to the European Union in Brussels on Thursday, Abbas made claims of a plot to poison Palestinian wells, sparking accusations of anti-Semitism.
Shortage forces Palestinians to resort to water rationing
Abbas' speech, denouncing Israel for stalling the peace talks, received a standing ovation from European politicians, but his allegation about the water poisoning drew strong condemnation from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu said Abbas showed his "true face" by spreading such a "blood libel" and called on him to cease inciting against Israel.
For Jews, allegations of water poisoning strike a bitter chord.
In the 14th century, Jews were accused of deliberately poisoning wells that caused plague across Europe.
Another allegation from the Middle Ages -- that Jews murdered Christian children to use their blood for ritual purposes -- gave rise to the term "blood libel".
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Palestinian leader admits his claims at the EU were baseless but rejects "blood libel" claim of the Israeli PM.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/12129553/Shark-eats-another-shark-at-South-Korean-aquarium.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160723144319id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/12129553/Shark-eats-another-shark-at-South-Korean-aquarium.html
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Shark eats another shark at South Korean aquarium
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20160723144319
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"Sharks have their own territory. However, sometimes when they bump against each other, they bite out of astonishment," COEX aquarium PR manager Oh Tae-youp said.
"I think the shark swallowed the whole body, because they usually eat it all when they bite the head part."
Watch the video at the top of the page to see the dramatic moment one shark eats another.
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Dramatic video shows a sand tiger shark eating a banded hound shark at an aquarium in Seoul, South Korea
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3620242/Its-like-being-in-a-marriage-except-that-you-always-end-up-in-bed-together.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160723152144id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/comment/personal-view/3620242/Its-like-being-in-a-marriage-except-that-you-always-end-up-in-bed-together.html
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It's like being in a marriage - except that you always end up in bed together
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20160723152144
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All double acts suffer from being seen individually as less than the sum of their parts.Paul McCartney has spent the greater proportion of his adult life trying to escape from John Lennon. (Hopeless, Sir Paul. Stubbornly, the world thinks that the Beatles were fab and you are perfectly okay, but just not a transcending experience.) Could Rolls exist without Royce? Marks without Spencer? Will Gordon Brown really manage to forge a new existence as the leader when his comic partner steps down? If the record is anything to go by, I doubt it. And comic partnerships have a particularly strong hold on their audiences.
Double acts make good television and difficult theatre. The great stage stand-up comedians, from Ken Dodd to Eddie Izzard, utterly dominate their audience. They "kill" them, they "slay" them or "blow them away". Duos, on the other hand, have to work circumspectly. They have "to woo" an audience and be careful not to not "lose them". They have to break a wall and make the audience come to them. They have a relationship which they need to control minutely. It took Morecambe and Wise three days of rehearsals to introduce one new five-minute sketch into their long-existing stage act.
A stand-up can alter his material at will, on the spot, as the mood or the audience takes him. In a partnership, if you do that - off the cuff, or more specifically, off the book - you can lead your stage partner into a very dark alley indeed. It requires trust, even if, by compensation, you always have a human lifebelt to cling to and a shoulder to sob on afterwards.
But television (and, before that, film) has always loved double acts. A double act thrives on the intimate drama of a miniature relationship. There is something cold and disconnected about watching a great comedian, even one as polished as Jack Dee, playing to a big house on the box, but think of Laurel & Hardy, Hope & Crosby, of Morecambe & Wise, Pete & Dud, Vic & Bob, Dawn & Jennifer. Think of the Two Ronnies.
We relish the familiarity of the emotional bond and enjoy the meshing of the talents - double acts exude the warmth of a big double bed, which is where the protagonists inevitably end up, swapping incongruities. Some episodes of The Two Ronnies were watched by 18 million people. There were 98 shows over a period of 12 years.
Walter Matthau and George Burns gave a flesh-creeping portrayal of an ancient comedy partnership in the film of Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys: the talking through intermediaries, the jealousy of each others' individual success; the built up irritation over years with each other's very presence. "He's spitting on me again!" Burns yells feelingly during the performance.
Ronnie C made it quite clear that he loved working with Ronnie B. "Never a cross word," he averred. They clearly had a bond. But that doesn't mean that they didn't suffer from the itch that haunts performers trapped in a long term partnership.
Off stage, there are countless minor irritations. "Where's your mate?" asks the taxi driver, only making conversation, but reminding you that you are forever chained together.
"What's up with Mel then? He never seems to want to talk," said another over-garrulous cabbie. As if I knew. As if I cared. As if I was my comedy partner's keeper. I was too grumpy to do Grumpy Old Men. They asked me to do it with Mel; the two of us giving our opinions like twins. "What the hell would I want to do that for?" I gave them a good example of my grumpiest tone, but they never came back. I am my own person! I have my own life. "Yeah, but he's a film director living in Hollywood now, isn't he?"
But I remember Peter Cook at one of those charity marathons that happened over and over again in the 1980s. He was performing an E L Wisty sketch and had drafted in a famous actor-comedian as a volunteer stand in for Dudley Moore. Peter was funny. The actor-comedian was funny. But the sketch never really took off. Peter got cross afterwards. You could tell that if he felt any resentment for Dudley it was because he had marooned him. Like a recently divorced roué, he was happy to try it on with a row of willing young ingénues but none of them clicked.
Why not? These were good players. They had timing. Some were silly. But they didn't fit. The audience never went mad. And Peter got fed up. Some years later, at another fund-raiser, Dudley came back and they gave it one final go-around with the Tarzan sketch. It was remarkable to watch; partly because Dudley was so enormous. He gurned, he gibbered, he tottered back and forth, he mugged and he giggled continuously. (Actually, on the night, I was pointing this out to my wife when Dudley emerged from a cage lift ahead of us, having overheard my critique. He forebore from the head lock and restricted himself to the puzzled look.) Peter was ecstatic, relaxed and happy. It was just a one-off, but for that evening he had secured what he wanted: the partner who made him laugh.
Barker and Corbett were probably a marriage of convenience, arranged by the BBC. They swapped straight roles. They varied their characters. They took up stances with each other and dropped them equally quickly. Unlike Eric and Ernie they never fixed an emotional relationship that did for all occasions. Possibly as a result, both of them were fully able to pursue individual careers and have been admired as "artistes in their own right".
Ronnie B would have been equally lauded last week if he had been the "One Ronnie" and his career had consisted solely of Porridge and Open All Hours. We shouldn't worry about Ronnie C. He has been a consummate success as a stand up and in sitcom. Perhaps the pair will never really escape from that double act harness in our minds. But why should they worry? Double acts are like marriages. You're lucky to find a partner who lets you get into their bed at all.
The Ronnies made us laugh because they made each other laugh, and there is no more potent appeal to an audience than that.
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After the death of Ronnie Barker, Griff Rhys Jones explains what it's like to be half a double act.
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http://fortune.com/2015/12/29/transportation-tech-2016/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160723153616id_/http://fortune.com:80/2015/12/29/transportation-tech-2016/
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The (Other) Transportation Tech to Watch in 2016
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20160723153616
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As the Verge put it on Monday, 2015 was the year we learned that Silicon Valley is coming after the transportation industry. The momentum behind ride-hailing apps, driverless cars, and electric vehicles has become so powerful that their dominance can feel inevitable.
But who are the Teslas TSLA and Ubers of 2016—the unicorns still waiting for their horn, the ideas still inching their way towards reality? Here are just a few of our nominees.
Hyperloop – It’s still a longshot that we’ll ever see Elon Musk’s 2013 whitepaper become a functioning superfast transit system, but 2015 saw a huge uptick in investment and talent devoted to the project. 2016 is going to provide at least one more major step forward—the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition, which will gather university teams in Texas, and later California, to share ideas about pod design.
WATCH: Learn more about the Hyperloop.
Skytran – Arguably as cool as the Hyperloop, but with fewer technical hurdles, this system of elevated, magnetically-driven pods is scheduled to have a working demonstration system in Tel Aviv by the end of 2016. The technology emerged from NASA, so it’s got a good pedigree—though, as with Hyperloop, there are questions about whether it can move enough people to dent congestion.
Arx Pax Hover Tech – Speaking of the Hyperloop and NASA: In 2015, Arx Pax went from a loopy little mag-lev startup who funded a hoverboard on Kickstarter, to a NASA development partner with an ambitious mission to transform a half-dozen sectors with mag-lev technology. They also reportedly raised an additional $3.8 million, partly from Moonshots Capital, who have also held stakes in Ridescout, TrueCar, Pandora P , and LinkedIn LNKD . Arx Pax’s next big push is towards partnering with teams at the Hyperloop competition, where they’re hoping mag-lev can beat out the original whitepaper’s iffy air-hover proposal.
Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communication – Always-on wireless communications between cars, and between cars and infrastructure, will almost certainly spread more quickly than driverless cars, while providing a lot of similar benefits in safety and efficiency. The Department of Transportation is expected to release its rules for V2V in early 2016, which will hopefully push the auto industry closer to a true standard. It’s possible those rules will include a mandate to push for faster adoption. Another big question is how and when V2V data will be gathered, who owns it, and what they get to do with it.
SIGN UP: Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter about the business of technology.
PhunkeeDuck – That other “hoverboard,” a two-wheeled micro-Segway that became one of 2015’s hottest trends, was actually marketed under a variety of badges. PhunkeeDuck was just the company that got the most mileage out of it, with celebrities like Jamie Foxx, Chris Brown, and Wiz Khalifa name-checking them all over social media.
But as NPR’s Planet Money discovered, the scooter-whatever-it-is emerged semi-organically from China’s tech underground, and there are no discernible patents in place, making it easy to find cheap knockoffs. That means sustaining both interest and profits in 2016 is a big question for companies like PhunkeeDuck. It might not help that the non-Instagram use cases are somewhat limited.
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The projects, products, and ideas to watch next year.
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http://www.wsj.com/articles/cadillacs-dark-knight-rises-meet-the-ct6-1466097448
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160723173257id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/cadillacs-dark-knight-rises-meet-the-ct6-1466097448?tesla=y
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Cadillac’s Dark Knight Rises: Meet the CT6
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20160723173257
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The new Cadillac CT6 sedan is darkly handsome, swift and sophisticated, efficient and very cleverly built. But to fully appreciate it, we are going to have to go deep nerd.
Sit in the driver’s seat of any left-hand drive car and you will see the left roof support, known as the A pillar. Typically these are padded with molded urethane and cloth, though in the case of the CT6 3.0TT Platinum edition test car ($88,460) it was upholstered in a faux buckskin suede. Very nice.
Because A pillars are close to the driver’s eye point and raked toward the driver, they immoderately obstruct outward sightlines (measured in degrees of field of view). Outward visibility has a subtle but profound effect on owners’ sense of well being at the wheel.
Therefore, from a designer’s point of view, the thinner one can make the A pillar, even by a few millimeters, the massively better. Which would be no problem except for regulators’ insistence that vehicle roofs don’t collapse in rollover accidents. While other parts of the automobile are designed to deform on impact, to dissipate crash energies, the roof is part of the passenger safety cell and it should maximally resist deformation.
So now you’ve got this great big thing in the middle of the driver’s field of view, supporting the roof, providing a perfectly aligned frame for the door, maybe even hosting an air bag and an audio speaker. From a design-engineering perspective, no problemo, chief, we can make the A pillars thinner. We can just make them out of harder and more complicated stuff. What’s the budget?
That is where it lays on most car projects, from Audi to Volvo: a naked compromise between profit and outward sightlines, measured in these precious yet hard-to-see millimeters. It’s sort of a gut check. When car makers spend extra time and treasure to make the A pillars right, it’s real and it’s tangible. It’s not just marketing.
I have found the relationship between A-pillar thinness and overall vehicle awesomeness is quite linear. And the Cadillac CT6 has very thin pillars indeed.
This is the first decent-looking long black car made in America in a very long time. There’s power in the silhouette, Jungian urges and wicked thoughts. The low, louche hood flies into the deeply raked windshield almost seamlessly. The Cadillac escutcheon, now modernized and free of laurels, is centered in the full-frame grille, and it never looked better.
The long black car used to be a dignified presence on American roads, to say nothing of fiction and film, where it always signified the messages of fates. That was before the cloddish, obnoxious SUV took over limousine duties. The CT6, lean-eyed and full of chin, looks like it could come roaring out of a Raymond Chandler novel.
The CT6 is the first spawn of a new generation of big and bigger vehicles based on GM GM 0.41 % ’s mixed-material Omega platform. This architecture marries a lot of lightweight aluminum (front and rear crush structures and body panels) with a lot of ultrahigh-strength steel stampings around the passenger cell (cf., the A pillars). The CT6’s body-in-white comprises 11 materials, says GM, and they use every fastening technique in the modern inventory—from flow-drill screws and self-piercing rivets to lasers and adhesive.
The steel is deployed brilliantly. Example: To attenuate road and tire noise, the CT6 steel floor pan/drive shaft tunnel is double walled, kind of like a muffler, with what GM called “closeout panels.” I had the car at 80 mph, and the isolation from road and tire noise was nothing less than excellent, better than my memory of an Audi A8 L.
While the CT6 is a gracious hunk of car—at 204 inches, 8.5 inches longer than the CTS on a 7.8-inch longer wheelbase (122.4 inches)—it’s understood that bigger and pricier Caddys are coming. The company has announced a 10-vehicle product offensive before the end of the decade, the fruits of a $12 billion reinvestment. One need not be Nostradamus to see GM building a flagship prestige premium car, bigger and above the CT6, by 2020, a six-figure machine to take on the Germans and the ascendant Tesla.
But GM’s planners also know that the world is not quite ready for a six-figure car built in Hamtramck, Mich. The CT6 is the stairway to that heaven.
The standard trim starts at $53,459, with rear-wheel drive and a turbocharged, 265-hp in-line four and eight-speed transmission. The CT6 will also be built in China for the Chinese domestic market, and this engine package is likely where the global volume will be.
In the U.S., near term, buyers will have a choice of four engines, including the 2.0 liter four. The others: a 3.6-liter V6 turbo (335 hp); a 3.0-liter twin-turbo (404 hp); or, as yet unconfirmed, a V8 with hot spoolers. There will also be a plug-in hybrid version. Only the 2.0-liter cars have rear-wheel drive; the rest have all-wheel.
Our tester was the pride of the fleet, the CT6 3.0TT Platinum AWD, powered by the responsive, refined and potent 3.0-liter twin-turbo, direct-injection V6 (404 hp, 400 pound-feet of torque), pitted against a weight of 4,085 pounds.
With AWD grip the 3.0TT gets out of the hole nicely, with 0-60 mph acceleration of 5.3 seconds, and then it’s a swift, purling course up to and beyond passing speed. It’s got plenty of power. The exhaust note chuckles and warbles and the turbos sing as the throttle play increases, but the CT6 never really gets loud. Also, I gave the test car a good caning over 250 miles and I saw fuel economy around 30 mpg.
In road holding and driving dynamics, the CT6 is light on its feet, stiff and stable. The Platinium edition comes with marquee tech such as the rear-biased all-wheel-drive, a rear-wheel steering system and magnetic dampers, all managed by the multimode dynamics system.
The last big step up comes with cabin amenities, materials and design. These have been any Cadillac’s downfall. But the CT6 brings fresh eyes. The bill of materials includes fine-handed leathers, crisp high-res displays, much better switchgear and premium wood and metal plating, all molded into a taut sculpture. If this is Cadillac’s opening bid against the German incumbents in cabin design, it’s got my attention and respect.
And, as I say, A pillars for the win.
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With its deep attention to detail, this long, svelte, powerful car marks the beginning of Cadillac’s new assault on the German incumbents.
| 49.148148 | 0.777778 | 1 |
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http://www.wsj.com/articles/robots-on-track-to-bump-humans-from-call-center-jobs-1466501401
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160723174732id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/robots-on-track-to-bump-humans-from-call-center-jobs-1466501401
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Robots on Track to Bump Humans From Call-Center Jobs
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20160723174732
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MANILA—The Philippines’ economically important call-center industry has joined the growing list of businesses at risk of being gobbled up by automation.
In recent years, the Philippines, like India, has capitalized on its relatively large pool of English speakers to attract Western companies eager to cut costs by shifting customer service and other tasks to lower-wage countries.
But, as technology improves, an increasing...
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As technology improves, an increasing number of the 1.2 million call-center workers, whose pay is modest by U.S. standards, are likely to have their outsourcing jobs outsourced to robots.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/Jeremy_Corbyn/12013321/To-get-rid-of-Jeremy-Corbyn-Labour-must-learn-from-Margaret-Thatchers-downfall.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160723200005id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/news/politics/Jeremy_Corbyn/12013321/To-get-rid-of-Jeremy-Corbyn-Labour-must-learn-from-Margaret-Thatchers-downfall.html
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To get rid of Jeremy Corbyn, Labour must learn from Margaret Thatcher's downfall
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20160723200005
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Challenging lame-duck leadership has always come naturally to the Conservative Party which prizes power over ideology and whose green benches are full of MPs who believe they were born to be prime minister. The Labour Party on the other hand prefers splits to regicide while its MPs have historically shown themselves to be rather whimpish when it comes to ousting incumbent leaders. Harold Wilson, Michael Foot, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown all faced rebellions but it is a history of botched attempts rather than brutal overthrows.
That was in the past when it was easier to deselect the incumbent. Labour MPs today face a much greater struggle: to mount a challenge against a leader who has such an overwhelming mandate amongst its membership. Never has the divide between the parliamentary party and Labour activists been so great and no-where is this divide more apparent than on defence: an issue, which has always been one of the main fault lines between pragmatists and purists within Labour. Ironically, it was Blair’s war-mongering tendencies which created the wave of disaffection amongst activists towards the parliamentary party and it is now the pacifist Corbyn who is now pushing the divide the other way.
Thatcher famously dubbed her removal as "treachery with a smile on its face" but conditions were ripe for revolution. By 1990, Conservatives were 28 points behind in the polls, inflation was back to what it had been in 1979, rioters filled the streets over the Poll Tax as cabinet unity crumbled over Europe. Insurgencies take long to fester; the challenge to Thatcher was two years in the making. But the bitterness and frustration within Labour is now increasingly apparent. Whispers and plots are filtering out of the Smoking Room in Westminster and the vultures are beginning to circulate. It is only a matter of time before the lurking assassins seize their chance.
When Corbyn falls, he will only have himself to blame. Since his election he has done little to quash the doubts of moderates and instead has only antagonised them. His lacklustre performance at party conference and PMQs could be easily dismissed as teething problems common for any new leader. But it has been his misuse of patronage with the appointment of Seamus Milne as Head of Communications, Andrew Fisher, as Director of Policy and Ken Livingstone’s cack-handed and inappropriate appointment as co-chair to Labour’s defence review, which has been the most damaging to his credibility. Those who naively believed that Corbyn’s leadership would signal a grand coalition now look worryingly to the infiltration of Corbynistas to local parliamentary selection panels and see something akin to the Great Purge.
Labour MPs now regard Corbyn in the same way that Conservative MPs viewed Thatcher in 1990: an electoral liability who does not deserve loyalty. There are few who seriously consider Corbyn as the man to reconnect Labour with its disaffected core voters and halt the incursions of Ukip; a test, which will soon be realised in the by-election in Oldam West in ten days’ time. Liam Bryne’s optimistic claim that Corbyn is Labour’s "craft ale" i.e. full of authenticity, now looks laughable in respect to recent polls. Corbyn is, as many suspected, an acquired taste.
If some kind of coup were to take place, what would be the backlash? The Corbynistas will certainly speak of a great betrayal but would soon return to the protesting fringe where they feel more comfortable while those who have always advocated that the middle ground is where Labour must be to win power will once again feel rejuvinated. Done quickly and effectively, Corbyn’s removal is unlikely to leave a lasting scar on the left as Thatcher’s did on the Right.
Importantly though, any overthrow must not be seen as the Blairites once more achieving dominance over the party. One of chief reasons behind Corbyn’s victory was that the rival candidates looked like the washed up dregs from the Blair-Brown years. Labour needs to demonstrate that it has moved on.
The question then is not if, or even when, but from whom will the challenge come? Interventions from ex-leaders or party grandees are rarely effective. Criticisms from Harold Macmillan or Ted Heath always reinforced rather than undermined Margaret Thatcher’s authority just as interventions from Blair and Peter Mandelson this summer only helped galvanise activists behind Corbyn. Nor should it come from any potential candidates. Chuka Umunna appears to be setting himself up as a leader-in-waiting being careful not to directly attack Corbyn but quietly positioning himself as the alternative. He would however do well to learn from Michael Heseltine’s example: the young pretender rarely gets the crown.
We know how the drama played out in 1990. It was Margaret Thatcher’s loyal lieutenant who had been at her side throughout her premiership who finally brought her down. The most legitimate overthrows are always an insider job. Who, though, will be Labour’s Geoffrey Howe? It could be that shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn, who has a family tradition of insurgency against the party leadership, might just be the man to do it.
Jeremy Corbyn's rocky first 10 weeks
Labour leader's baptism of fire has seen rows about patriotism, appointments and party management question his credibility.
Jeremy Corbyn faces immediate questions about his patriotism after failing to sing the national anthem at a Battle of Britain remembrance service. A chaotic reshuffle sees aides begging Labour MPs to serve in his defence team. He reads out voters’ messages at Prime Minister’s Questions.
A leaked paper written by Lord Mandelson warns that electing Mr Corbyn was like “putting two fingers up” to the voters. The Telegraph reveals Mr Corbyn once claimed 9/11 was "manipulated" to allow the West to go to war in Afghanistan.
Half a dozen members of Mr Corbyn’s own shadow cabinet issue public criticism after saying he would not press the nuclear button if in Number 10. Maria Eagle, his shadow defence secretary, says they comments were unhelpful.
Mr Corbyn snubs the Queen by refusing to be sworn into the Privy Council. David Cameron launches his harshest attacks on the Labour leader, criticising his “security-threatening, terrorist-sympathising, Britain-hating ideology”.
John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, completes a U-turn by announcing Labour will now oppose George Osborne’s “fiscal charter” to balance the books. Mr McDonnell calls the reversal “embarrassing” five times in a row in the Commons. Moderate Labour MPs abstain – their first rebellion under Mr Corbyn.
Mr Corbyn appoints Seumas Milne, the Guardian columnist, as his new director of communications, triggering an angry response from some MPs. One former Labour parliamentary candidate brands the appointment "morally and ethically wrong” due to his controversial comments on foreign policy.
Simon Danczuk, one of Mr Corbyn’s most vocal internal critics, offers to run as a “stalking horse” against the Labour leader. However a damaging Tory defeat in the Lords over tax credits marks Mr Corbyn’s first big political victory since becoming leader.
Andrew Fisher, one of Mr Corbyn’s top aides, is suspended from the Labour Party pending an investigation after previously supporting non-Labour candidates at elections. Mr Corbyn is criticised for not bowing deeply enough at a Remembrance Sunday service.
Mr Corbyn is finally sworn into the Privy Council, with the life-long republican kissing the hand of the Queen. He welcomes news of the death of Jihadi John by saying it would have been “far better” if he had been tried in court.
Monday After the Paris attacks, Mr Corbyn says in a BBC interview he is “not happy” with a “shoot-to-kill” policy if terrorists were attacking Britain. He also questions the legality of killing Jihadi John and rules out giving Labour MPs a free vote over Syria. His colleagues openly criticise him in a stormy private meeting. Tuesday Mr Corbyn is forced to reverse his position on shoot-to-kill in just 24 hours by telling Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee he would take whatever action was "proportionate and strictly necessary”. A succession of senior Labour figures take public swipes at the leader in the House of Commons. Wednesday Fury erupts as Labour moderates wake to news Ken Livingstone, arch-opponent of Trident, has been made co-convener of the party’s defence review. Then the former London Mayor says a critical shadow defence minister with depression should seek “psychiatric help”, triggering a huge public row. After repeated refusals, Mr Livingstone eventually apologises “unreservedly”. Thursday Evidence emerges showing Mr McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, once called for MI5 to be scrapped. His aides deny the charge – only for a photograph of him holding the list of demands to surface. Mr Corbyn faces another growing rebellion over a Trident vote and Syrian air strikes. Friday Chuka Umunna, the former Labour leadership contender, defies Mr Corbyn by saying it is “absolutely fundamental” MPs have a free vote over Syrian air strikes. Lord Reid indicates he thinks Mr Corbyn is providing neither “competent”, “coherent” or “sensible” leadership.
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As Lady Thatcher's removal showed, really lethal plots are always inside jobs. Could Hilary Benn, the shadow foreign secretary, be the man to bring down Labour's leader?
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http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/oklahoma-doesnt-do-all-craziness-accident
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160724061246id_/http://www.msnbc.com:80/rachel-maddow-show/oklahoma-doesnt-do-all-craziness-accident
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Oklahoma doesn't 'do all this craziness by accident'
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20160724061246
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The pattern is a familiar one: voters in red states put conservative Republicans in complete control of state government; GOP lawmakers implement their agenda; and the results are discouraging for everyone. We saw it in Louisiana, where former Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) failed, and we’re seeing in Kansas, where Gov. Sam Brownback’s (R) radical experiment is a fiasco.
Some public schools are starting summer vacation several days early. Others are contemplating a four-day week to cut costs. And more than 200 teachers in Oklahoma City were handed pink slips in March.
But instead of addressing a burgeoning budget crisis that threatens public education and other critical state services, Oklahoma lawmakers have been busy debating proposals to criminalize abortion, police students’ access to public bathrooms and impeach President Obama.
In theory, Oklahoma’s GOP-led state government should be focused on the state’s $1.3 billion budget shortfall, the result of tax breaks and reduced oil revenue. But much of the focus has been on the culture war, not the state’s financial mess.
Wishful thinking about divine intervention hasn’t worked out in Oklahoma’s favor.
State Sen. David Holt (R) told the Post he’s “ashamed” of how much time his colleagues invested in a bill related to transgender restroom use. “[W]hile students in my district were quite literally marching in the streets to the Capitol to plead with the legislature to do something about how the budget shortfall will affect their schools,” he said, “we were addressing something that virtually no one had contacted me about and that was arguably not a pressing issue.”
Former Gov. David Walters (D), who served in the early 1990s, added, “You don’t do all this craziness by accident. I think they’re literally trying to create a smokescreen to cover what has to be one of the most irresponsible government periods in state history.”
That’s not quite what “literally” means, but Walters’ broader point is well taken. The more Oklahoma policymakers need to focus on real, pressing issues, the more state Republicans turn their attention to hot-button social issues that rile up the party’s base, neglecting actual state needs.
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A former governor says Oklahoma Republicans are "trying to create a smokescreen to cover .. one of the most irresponsible government periods in state history."
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http://www.wsj.com/articles/arms-race-to-the-top-started-with-integration-1468837394
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160724091629id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/arms-race-to-the-top-started-with-integration-1468837394?tesla=y
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ARM: The British Tech Giant That Probably Helped Design the Chip in Your Smartphone
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20160724091629
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LONDON—If you own a smartphone, you almost certainly own a product designed by ARM Holdings PLC.
ARM, which Japanese telecommunications giant SoftBank Group Corp. on Monday agreed to buy for more than $32 billion, is the world’s most important under-the-radar tech company. It has designed the chips for more than 95% of the world’s smartphones.
The Cambridge, England-based firm is strictly a designer and not a manufacturer. The...
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ARM Holding’s ‘shared purpose’ philosophy of partnerships put it in position to dominate the smartphone market.
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http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/sep/08/lib-dems-drug-policy-decriminalise-for-personal-use
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160724141807id_/http://www.theguardian.com:80/politics/2014/sep/08/lib-dems-drug-policy-decriminalise-for-personal-use
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Decriminalisation of drugs for personal use under review by Lib Dems
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20160724141807
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The Liberal Democrats are looking at the decriminalisation of all drugs for personal use and allowing cannabis to be sold on the open market.
Launching his party's draft election manifesto, Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, said the party would consider such options after they were advocated in a policy paper due to be discussed at the Lib Dem conference next month.
The paper said the Lib Dems "will adopt the model used in Portugal, where those who possess drugs for personal use will be diverted into other services". The southern European country decriminalised personal possession of all drugs in 2000.
The document also said the party "welcomes the establishment of a regulated cannabis market in Uruguay, Colorado and Washington state".
"These innovative approaches are still in their infancy and the data that would allow us to examine their impact are not yet available. We will establish a review to examine the impact of these schemes in relation to public health," it said.
At the moment, the party's official stance is that it will end the practice of sending people to prison if they are caught in possession of drugs for personal use, and move drugs and alcohol policy from the Home Office to the Department of Health. It is also considering how to divert drug users "into treatment or other civil penalties which do not attract a criminal record".
The broader policy paper will be debated at the Lib Dem autumn conference in Glasgow and is likely to be backed by members.
Speaking at the launch of the Lib Dem "pre-manifesto", Clegg said: "There are lots of experiments in US states, countries in south America, Portugal, which are doing a number of different things. What we are saying is we will look at it, we will look at what the evidence shows works … Drugs policy has been blighted in this country by kneejerk prejudice and the wish to appear tough rather than doing what actually works. If other countries develop strategies that show real results, let's look at that."
Clegg has been vocal over the past few years about his belief that current drugs policy is not working. However, his Conservative coalition partners are unwilling to do anything that looks like a move towards decriminalisation.
In 2012, the Lib Dem leader accused politicians of "a conspiracy of silence" about the problem of drug addiction and argued that the UK was losing the war "on an industrial scale".
Norman Baker, the Lib Dem minister in charge of drugs policy, has called on the coalition to legalise the widespread use of cannabis to relieve symptoms of certain medical conditions, including the side effects of chemotherapy.
Baker wrote to the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, in August to call for a review of the medicinal properties of cannabis.
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Policy paper due for discussion at next month's party conference also proposes an open market in cannabis
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http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/18/after-thankyourmp-share-your-tributes-to-your-local-mp
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160724141838id_/http://www.theguardian.com:80/politics/2016/jun/18/after-thankyourmp-share-your-tributes-to-your-local-mp
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After #ThankYourMP, share your tributes to your local MP
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#ThankYourMP trended on Twitter on Friday, following the killing of the Labour MP Jo Cox. Thousands of voters used the platform to express solidarity with their elected representatives.
#ThankYourMP is a genuinely humbling sentiment,reminding us how humanity has the ability to turn tragedy into a source of strength.Thankyou
Writing for the Guardian’s opinion section today, our columnist Jonathan Freedland paid warm tribute to Cox, and argued that many elected representatives are fine public servants, contrary to the toxic reputation of modern politicians.
The funny thing is, this is what most of them are actually like. It’s the dirty little secret of political life: that, yes, there are some politicians who are all about ego and vanity and hogging the camera; but there are countless more who get and seek little public attention, who toil away, knocking on doors, fielding complaints about broken drains and noisy neighbours, who work daytimes, evenings and weekends, and who are rewarded by little thanks – and often a downpour of abuse.
We’d like to hear your own tributes to your local MP. Perhaps he or she helped out with a particular issue in your constituency, or campaigned on an issue close to you. Perhaps you’ve engaged in an email or letter correspondence with them, or even met them at a local event, pub or garden fete.
If you have pictures of yourself with your MP, we’d love to see them.
You can get in touch with us via the form at the bottom of this article. We’ll put together a selection of your comments and pictures on Monday, to coincide with parliament’s own tribute.
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After the death of Labour MP Jo Cox, we’d like to hear your positive stories about your local elected representatives
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http://www.people.com/article/5-thing-to-know-about-elon-musk
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160724163159id_/http://www.people.com/article/5-thing-to-know-about-elon-musk
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Five Things to Know About Billionaire Elon Musk
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07/22/2016 AT 09:25 PM EDT
Amber Heard, 30, was recently
at the same Miami Hotel as billionaire Elon Musk, 45, and while speculation arose that the two might be a new couple,
PEOPLE they are "just friends and have been for a few years."
Besides sharing the same taste in hotels, the two are also each going through a divorce. Musk recently split from his wife, actress Talulah Riley, while Heard is famously in the midst of a
So just who is Heard's billionaire buddy? Read on to learn more about the tech guru who inspired a famous movie character.
, Musk is number 94 on the list of world billionaires and 37 in the U.S. as of July 22. His fortune is largely self-made through the companies he has founded and runs.
Musk married Riley for the first time in 2010 shortly after divorcing his first wife, Justine. The couple was married for two years before divorcing in 2012.
But the separation didn't last long and they married again in July of 2013. But this was short-lived as Musk
on New Year's Eve in 2014 before withdrawing the request. Finally,
in March of this year to end things.
In 2002, Musk started SpaceX in his desire to launch a project that sent an experimental greenhouse to Mars. In 2012, the company launched a rocket that would send the first commercial vehicle to the International Space Station. Musk is also the man behind Tesla Motors, the car company that designs, manufactures, and sells electric cars.
Musk's first son with Justine died tragically of SIDS at 10-weeks-old in 2002. According to
, "Nevada went down for a nap, placed on his back as always, and stopped breathing," she writes. "By the time the paramedics resuscitated him, he had been deprived of oxygen for so long that he was brain-dead. He spent three days on life support in a hospital in Orange County before we made the decision to take him off it."
The couple then went on to have five more sons through IVF treatment, a set of twins and a set of triplets. Justine reveals in the letter that she is now estranged from Musk and share custody of children.
, the film's director, Jon Favreau, talked about how Tony Stark borrows from Musk and his life. Downey himself suggested Favreau talk to Musk to help develop the Stark character.
"Downey was right," Favreau concedes in the dedication. "Elon is a paragon of enthusiasm, good humor and curiosity â a Renaissance man in an era that needs them."
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Amber Heard Was Spotted Spending Time With the Tesla Founder
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Four teenagers hurt after car hits tree in Glasgow
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Four teenagers were injured, two of them seriously, after a vehicle left the road and hit a tree in Glasgow.
The incident took place on Gartloch Road, between Easterhouse and Gartcosh, at about 16:45 on Saturday.
A 17-year-old male passenger was taken to Queen Elizabeth University Hospital with serious head injuries. His condition was described as critical.
The male driver, also 17, was in a stable condition in Monklands District General Hospital.
A 19-year-old back seat passenger, who suffered injuries to his foot, was being treated at Glasgow Royal Infirmary.
Another male passenger, aged 16, was taken to Wishaw General Hospital where he was treated for minor injuries. He has since been released.
Police said they were keen to hear from anyone who who may have seen the car before the crash.
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Four teenagers are injured, two of them seriously, after a vehicle leaves the road and hits a tree in Glasgow.
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http://fortune.com/2016/07/21/republican-convention-forescout-cybersecurity/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160725064259id_/http://fortune.com:80/2016/07/21/republican-convention-forescout-cybersecurity/
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Republican Convention: How ForeScout Secures Donald's Trump Event
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Katherine Gronberg is stationed at the heart of the Republican National Convention’s cyber command in Cleveland, mere blocks away from the stage where Donald Trump will accept his party’s presidential nomination this week. She sits at a desk surrounded by gray cubicle walls, folding tables, television screens, and, of course, computers.
The temporary cybershop is a bit drab, admits Gronberg, vice president for government affairs at cybersecurity firm ForeScout. The mission, however, is anything but: protecting the computer networks that the convention’s staffers depend on to keep the show up and running.
“This is a very different environment than what we’re used to seeing,” Gronberg tells Fortune. “But there are a lot of similarities to the work we do for major companies and banks.”
Locking down such a large-scale, high-profile, albeit ephemeral event where thousands of attendees brings their own devices presents a unique set of challenges for her small team of half a dozen people, including some who work remotely. For one thing, the group doesn’t have to worry much about protecting sensitive data—intellectual property, customer information, medical records. Breach prevention is not the main aim; instead, the goal is to block disruptive attacks.
Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s technology newsletter.
ForeScout has two hardware appliances, a product called “CounterACT,” on site. The technology monitors devices connected to the convention’s network (which is different, by the way, from the public Wi-Fi accessible on the arena floor). The team’s job is to make sure that devices on the network are behaving properly; and that ones that aren’t can be tracked, quarantined, or booted from the network.
For more on network operations centers, watch:
There’s reason to be on high alert: Earlier this year factions of the shadowy, amorphous, and activist-driven hacking group Anonymous declared war on Trump, the Republican Party’s candidate. While Gronberg was limited in what she could say about the attacks her team has seen so far, she did tell Fortune that they have included phishing scams, denial of service strikes, device spoofing tricks (where one device, like a printer, mimics another computer in attempt to access higher value parts of a network), and botnet probes (involving armies of machines looking for vulnerabilities) originating from outside the country.
ForeScout is working closely with Dark Cubed, a cybersecurity startup whose software tracks and displays incoming threats. Other companies providing technical and security assistance to the convention include Cisco csco , AT&T t , and Microsoft msft , Gronberg said.
Read more: “Inside AT&T’s Global Network Operations Center”
Max Everett, chief information security of the convention, has described the event thusly, according to Gronberg: If the 2012 convention was the iPhone convention, then this is the video-streaming convention. About two out of five devices on the network are non-traditional or within the “Internet of things” category, meaning printers, voice-over-IP telephones, video surveillance cameras, screen monitors, and other Internet-connected devices, according to ForeScout.
“There has been an explosion of devices, including TV screens, cameras, and even lights—these wouldn’t have been networked even four years ago,” Gronberg said. “You need a different kind of security approach.”
Gronberg’s team is gearing up for the big headliner night on Thursday featuring Trump. “We’re expecting more traffic,” she said, unfazed. “And we’ll be at the DNC [Democratic National Convention] next week.”
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Inside the command center.
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http://www.wsj.com/articles/picturing-a-sinners-remorse-1466194684
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160725090532id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/picturing-a-sinners-remorse-1466194684?mod=djemMER
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Picturing A Sinner’s Remorse
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20160725090532
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One of the most arresting aspects of Rembrandt van Rijn’s miraculous oil-on-panel “Judas Returning the Thirty Pieces of Silver” (1629)—besides its entrancing, burnished-bronze light—is the seated priest’s dismissive hand, which shuns the kneeling Judas Iscariot. The oil painting, in a British private collection, is on view at New York’s Morgan Library & Museum through Sept. 18. It is the single painting and the starring work in “Rembrandt’s First Masterpiece,” a show comprising 44 artworks, mostly works on paper by Rembrandt. A boutique exhibition, ...
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In Rembrandt’s ‘Judas Returning the Thirty Pieces of Silver,’ the emotional aftermath of a biblical betrayal.
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http://shop.telegraph.co.uk/buy/travel-and-outdoors/cabin-suitcase/80/no/95838
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160725165823id_/http://shop.telegraph.co.uk:80/buy/travel-and-outdoors/cabin-suitcase/80/no/95838?utm_source=tmg&utm_medium=sf_travel&utm_campaign=cabin-baggage&WT.ac=11757635
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Globallite Cabin Suitcase
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20160725165823
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THE BUY ONE GET ONE FREE OFFER APPLIES TO THIS RANGE OF CABIN SUITCASES AND ALSO TO OUR RANGE OF TWO-WHEEL HOLDALLS, AVAILABLE VIA THE LINK BELOW. MIX AND MATCH BETWEEN A TWO-WHEEL HOLDALL AND A CABIN SUITCASE OR GO FOR TWO OF THE SAME. Click here to view the Two-Wheel Holdall PLEASE ENSURE THAT YOU ADD THE TWO BAGS OF YOUR CHOICE TO YOUR BASKET TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE OFFER. YOU WILL ONLY BE CHARGED FOR ONE. Some airlines charge for checking your luggage into a hold, but thankfully these ingenious cabin suitcases allow you to keep your luggage with you – saving you money and precious time in baggage reclaim. Measuring 52 (H) x 32 (W) x 25 (D), they are compact enough to meet most airline baggage allowances, and are ideal for short trips, holidays and city breaks. Durable and lightweight, each case has two front zip compartments, a large zipped main compartment and four adjustable retaining straps. Each case comes complete with two wheels and an extending handle for easy maneuverability. Available in black, racing green, turquoise, royal blue, red, hot pink, aqua and charcoal. 45 litre capacity. Weighs 2.16KG D7328 - Black D7330 - Racing Green D7331 - Turquoise D7332 - Royal Blue D7333 - Red D7299 - Hot Pink D7301 - Aqua D9268 – Charcoal We advise that you check with your chosen airline for their carry-on baggage size and weight restrictions before flying.
Please note standard delivery on all items is only £3.95 (for orders of £20 or less) and £4.95 (for orders over £20), delivery charge applies per order regardless of number of items purchased. Delivery to Northern Ireland, Isle of Man, Scottish Highlands and Islands is £6.95. Delivery to the Channel Islands, Scilly Isles and Eire is £10.95.
We offer a comprehensive range of express delivery options for a small additional charge. Simply choose the Express Delivery option on the checkout to view the delivery services available for your area.
For your complete peace of mind, our Home and Garden products may be returned to us within 30 days if purchase for a refund of the purchase price. Items must be returned unused, at your cost and in mint condition. All items carry a manufacturer's 12 month defects warranty.
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Cabin Suitcases are compact enough to meet most airline baggage allowances, and are ideal for short trips, holidays and city breaks.
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http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/09/government-dashes-hopes-of-second-eu-referendum-in-e-petition-response
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160725202849id_/http://www.theguardian.com:80/politics/2016/jul/09/government-dashes-hopes-of-second-eu-referendum-in-e-petition-response
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Brexit: no second EU referendum despite e-petition, says government
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20160725202849
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The hopes of more than 4.1 million people who signed a petition calling for a second referendum on the EU have faded, after a response from the government saying it was a “once in a generation vote”.
Parliament must consider all petitions that reach a threshold of 100,000 votes for a debate and, although the decision has yet to consider the motion for a debate, the Foreign Office responded to the signatories by email on Friday evening, pointing out that over 33 million have had their say.
Referring to the wording of the petition, which asks for a second vote to be held because the vote to leave did not surpass 60% of the vote and the turnout was less than 75%, the government response states that the European Union Referendum Act did not include rules about minimum turnout.
The statement said: “The act was scrutinised and debated in parliament during its passage and agreed by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The act set out the terms under which the referendum would take place, including provisions for setting the date, franchise and the question that would appear on the ballot paper. The act did not set a threshold for the result or for minimum turnout.
“The prime minister and government have been clear that this was a once in a generation vote and, as the prime minister has said, the decision must be respected. We must now prepare for the process to exit the EU and the government is committed to ensuring the best possible outcome for the British people in the negotiations.”
The petition, which was started by leave activist William Oliver Healey in May, when polls suggested remain would win, has been the subject of controversy after it was discovered that thousands of signatures were fake.
The petitions committee’s own statement underneath reads that the decision on the petition was to be postponed until 12 July. It read: “The committee has decided to defer its decision on this petition until the government digital service has done all it can to verify the signatures on the petition. We have already had to remove 77,000 fraudulent signatures.
“The committee wishes to make clear that, although it may choose to schedule a debate on this petition in due course, it only has the power to schedule debates in Westminster Hall – the second debating chamber of the House of Commons.
“Debates in Westminster Hall do not have the power to change the law, and could not trigger a second referendum.”
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Statement in response to petition signed by more than 4.1m people says referendum was ‘once in a generation’ vote
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/star-wars-the-force-awakens/best-characters-ranked-rated/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160726195844id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/film/star-wars-the-force-awakens/best-characters-ranked-rated/
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20160726195844
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Nien Nunb is to Lando Calrissian what Chewbacca is to Han Solo: co-pilot, partner in crime, incomprehensible groaner. Fleetingly glimpsed when he and Calrissian take command of the Millennium Falcon at the end of Return of the Jedi, Nien Numb is one of the characters supposed to be making a return in The Force Awakens – but, according to pre-release gossip, without his more famous friend. Odd.
An entirely unremarkable background figure in a theatre scene in Revenge of the Sith, but for one thing: he's played by George Lucas himself. Lucas's children Amanda, Katie and Jett also get small parts. I can't work out what to make of Hasbro's subsequent issue of a "George Lucas Family" action figure set, yours for £40.
"De wanna wanga?" This snake-headed, pale-skinned vizier to Jabba may be horribly vulnerable to the Jedi mind trick, but his pale, mucus-covered skin, snaggly teeth, bulbous forehead and vacuous pink eyes are not something you want pursuing you through your dreams.
47: The Rancor and its keeper
In one evanescent moment, Return of the Jedi conjures a lifetime's love affair between this hideous beast and its keeper. The Rancor lives in Jabba's basement, gobbling up stray dancers, political prisoners, errant guards and gangland enemies of all stripes: it lacks much of the refinement associated with high society. But when Luke manages to drop a heavy steel door on its head, we see a brief reaction cut of its burly keeper bursting into tears and rushing to its aid. The sequence lasts about half a second, but, I dare say, contains more emotion than the two hours of Attack of the Clones.
46: Sy Snootles and the Max Rebo Band
The resident popular beat combo in Jabba's palace, who play a form of music known – in one of Lucas's rare nominative missteps – as "jizz-wailing". The frontwoman is a cross between a toad and a mosquito with lipstick, there's a blue humanoid elephant on keyboards and the clarinet player looks like kneaded dough. It's all fun and games until someone gets eaten by a rancor. The jizz-wailers' synth-heavy song, Lapti Nek, was released as a 12" single in 1983.
David Lynch, had he not turned down the job of directing Return of The Jedi, might have been proud to claim this vast toothed sphincter in a pit in the desert, festooned with tentacles, into which hapless extras plummet to the sound of the Wilhelm scream.
Jabba's court jester, a monkey-lizard hybrid with an infectiously insane screeching laugh whose name apparently pays tribute to the cartoonist Robert Crumb. The creature doesn't get much screen time, but once you've heard that terrible peal, it is hard to erase it from the brain.
Oh heavens. The stalk-eyed Gungan's status as perhaps the most hated character in all cinema has long obscured whatever value he may have had as an early example of a CGI main role. Lucas has always denied the allegations of racial stereotyping in Binks's esoteric Jafaican patois, but they won't go away: despite persistent rumours that Lucas intended to make him a bad guy in later instalments (and an amusing, if brief, suggestion that Jar Jar would return as a Sith Lord in JJ Abrams's new film) the character seems to have no dramatic function but to sell Jar Jar toys to kids. And not even the kids like him.
Fascinating-looking elephant-hummingbird creature who owns a scrap dealership on Tatooine in the first of Lucas's prequels; less pleasantly, he turns out to be keeping the child Anakin and his mother as slaves. A popular character in the Expanded Universe, but mostly notable on film for a mildly amusing scene in which Liam Neeson's character repeatedly fails to pull a Jedi mind trick on him.
There's a bizarre scene in Lucas's recut version of the first film where Luke, getting ready for the assault on the Death Star, jumps for joy to see his old mucker Biggs from Tatooine flying an X-Wing in the same squadron. Unfortunately we, the audience, have no idea who Biggs is, so it's hard to mourn his inevitable death in the battle about five minutes later. The answer lies with a clutch of deleted scenes released on Blu-ray a few years ago, in which the young Luke is discovered palling about at home with the dashing-looking Biggs (Garrick Hagon) and Camie, played by Prince Andrew's ex-girlfriend Koo Stark. They watch a space battle flickering overhead. Biggs runs off to join the Rebellion. It's all quite sweet in an American Graffiti sort of way. You didn't miss much.
Not a single character, although the name wouldn't sound out of place in the fleshpots of Mos Eisley, but a run of minor characters across the Star Wars portfolio who are united by the most distinctive sound effect in the business. It was Ben Burtt, the sound designer of Star Wars, who plucked the Wilhelm scream from a sound archive (where it was labelled "Man being eaten by alligator") and slapping it on footage of people falling to their deaths. It swiftly became an industry in-joke, and its distinctive panicked timbre can be heard in hundreds of films ranging from the Indiana Jones series to Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean. There's a Wilhelm scream in all the Star Wars films – Burtt seemed particularly fond of giving it to stormtroopers – and several of the animated series and games as well. All together now – aaaAAA!
The AT-AT walker captain who supervises the assault on the Hoth base at the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back: it's a small part for the veteran British actor Julian Glover, but one he carries off brilliantly. Veers hasn't got much to say, but his steely coolness under fire is one of the few moments in the films where you get an idea of how the Imperials made their conquests: everyone else in the ranks apart from Veers and Tarkin seems to spend most of their time bickering, being strangled, shooting in the wrong direction or panicking. Glover also gets a neat little scene where he catches Vader relaxing with his helmet off in his weird room-sized metal globe. The look on his face – anxiety fighting curiosity – is a miniature acting lesson.
Aka the pig-faced guy who gets up in Luke's grill the minute he gets served at the Mos Eisley bar. There's always one, isn't there? Happily Evazan – to whom fandom has gifted a complex backstory of unethical surgery and Frankensteinian delusions about cheating death – has a pair of lines almost as good as the "perfumed ponce" exchange from Withnail and I. "You just watch yourself," he tells Luke, sounding like a drunken Anthony Hopkins. "We're wanted men. I have the death sentence on 12 systems." Shaken, Luke promises: "I'll be careful." "YOU'LL BE DEAD!" replies his cheerful interlocutor.
These charming-looking fellows go by the name of Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes, and provide the soundtrack to our heroes' first bar fight in the 1977 film. They all have heads as smooth as a baby's bottom, with deep sad eyes and folds where the mouth and nose should be. They play instruments that look like what happens when a saxophone creeps into bed with an electric bassoon. And, surprisingly, they play a mean slice of classic jazz.
A rodent-like creature, halfway between guinea pig and vampire bat, that can be spied having a drink in the bar of the first film just before Obi-Wan cuts someone's hand off. I could probably fill this list with Top 50 Regulars at the Mos Eisley Cantina alone, but Kabe (as she is known) is interesting because Star Wars lore, for some arcane reason, specifically dictates that she's a female. Also because the actor playing her can be seen on camera drinking beer through the chin of the mask. You can't have everything.
More agile and lightly-armoured than their stormtrooper brothers, these panda-faced Imperial scouts are the assassins and snipers of the Empire's fighting corps. Not that it does them much good: like the hapless stormtroopers, these chaps are as expendable as they come. The anti-gravity bikes make for bigger and better explosions to die in, though.
George Lucas's decision to spend nearly seven hours of cinema elucidating the most famous spoiler in movie history doesn't look much less hubristic in retrospect, but handing the part of I-Am-Your-Father himself to actors like Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen was the nail in the coffin. Lloyd was young enough to know no better (and he's never worked as an actor since) but watching Christensen roaring and howling his way through Anakin's lines is enough to bring tears to the eyes, just not in the manner intended. Once again, the Clone Wars cartoon did what the film couldn't, presenting a more plausible vision of a talented teenager wrestling with the demands and responsibilities of power. But it can never make up for "I don't like sand."
These squeaking little creatures, with their glowing yellow eyes and fondness for hooded cassocks, are the scavenger technologists of the Star Wars universe: in a galaxy less far away they'd be unlocking your mobile phone and selling you a Macbook clone that fell off a lorry. Their diminutive stature was good news for Jack Purvis, the cabaret partner of the 3ft8in R2-D2 actor Kenny Baker. "I said, I can't just walk into a movie and leave my partner stranded," Baker recalled. "They said, 'Well, we have plenty of work for Jack,' and they made him head Jawa."
Inflluenced by Bedouin desert costumes, this hostile race of nomad warriors doesn't get much development in the films beyond simple villainy, and they seem to have it in particularly for the Skywalker family. Luke gets mugged by them. Anakin finds his mother being tortured in one of their camps and, taking his first steps into darkness and revenge, slaughters the entire tribe. The expanded universe, however, cooks up an entire social hierarchy to explain their costumes and customs – it's heretical to be caught without your masks and wrappings on – and, in the game Knights of the Old Republic, even tasks the player with infiltrating a Sand People camp for a history lesson.
The most ill-starred military force in the universe: graduates of the Galactic Academy of Not Shooting Straight. So many terrible incidents and arrant snafus befall the stormtroopers in Star Wars that it's a wonder the Empire managed to take over even a single system: force of numbers, perhaps. The hapless actor who clonked his head going through a door in the first film enjoys a particular, though sadly anonymous, kind of immortality.
We only get glimpses of these thrilling-looking fellows as they rocket through space in their flying-eyeball deathtraps, but those glimpses are enough: their all-black Stormtrooper costumes with breathing apparatus runs Darth Vader a close second in forbidding robot-chic. Ben Burtt, the presiding genius of Star Wars's sound design, created the distinctive howling whine of the TIE fighter by combining a slowed-down recording of an elephant trumpeting with the sound of a car driving through a puddle.
Cruelly wasted, this lot: their inhuman stature, scarlet burqas and shock prods give them one of the snazziest looks in the galaxy, and all they do is stand about. Star Wars lore dictates that only the best make it to the Emperor's bodyguard, though all that red drapery looks distinctly as though it'd interfere with any serious fighting. We never get to find out, alas.
Return of the Jedi was the series's monster movie par excellence, and these wonderful axe-wielding piggy lizards were just one of the demented creations dreamed up by Ralph McQuarrie and Joe Johnston for the film. It doesn't take any dialogue to establish that the Gamorreans are bastards: just a close-up of two grunting in helpless laughter as their friend gets bitten in half by a rancor.
There's a fantastic Star Wars: Tales comic that follows a group of stormtroopers as they prepare for a posting to the forest moon of Endor. As they banter and whisper, it becomes slowly apparent that we're seeing a kind of Star Wars update of Apocalypse Now: everyone is terrified of the little half-glimpsed things that live in the woods, set traps for the unwary soldiery, crush them with falling logs and impale them with spikes.
This vision of the Ewoks as Viet Cong-like guerrillas is surprisingly close to the script's original vision – not that you'd guess it from Return of the Jedi, where these little balls of fluff with their "Yub Nub" singalong are cutesy enough to give you lockjaw. Reading between the lines of JW Rinzler's book on Return of the Jedi, it seems clear that everyone except Lucas had serious misgivings about making the Ewoks into teddy bears, but, with one eye on merchandising opportunities, Lucas put his foot down.
That said, ambiguities remain. The RotJ script doesn't seem very interested in following up the most disturbing revelation about the Ewoks – that they like to eat people, and would have gobbled up our whole clutch of heroes were it not for Luke's cunning plan to get them worshipping a golden robot. Suddenly that Ewok bashing out a tune on a pile of hoarded Stormtrooper helmets and body armour doesn't look so cheerful after all.
This four-armed cyber-baddie from Revenge of the Sith is most interesting as another instance of the Star Wars series' complicated relationship with robots. Like Darth Vader after him, Grievous is a being who has replaced most of his wounded organic tissue with gleaming metal – a process that seems to fill most of the galaxy's occupants with horror and distaste. Is this because droids are subhumans and slaves? And if so, why is no one marching for Rights for Droids? Like most new characters in the prequels, Grievous appears to have been created by Lucas in the belief that all people wanted out of Star Wars was cool new tricks to do with lightsabers. In the Clone Wars series, however, this wheezing, malignant cyborg is often genuinely sinister.
Woefully unexplored in The Phantom Menace, where he exists predominantly to look forbidding, do impressive swizzles with a double-bladed lightsaber and skewer Liam Neeson in one of the films' most bathetic coups de grace. Even Peter Serafinowicz's silky voiceover is wasted here, because Maul has next to nothing to say. That make-up is impressive, though. Maul really comes into his own in the Clone Wars animation, where – dragged up in two parts from the pit where he falls in Episode 1 – he appears with his lower half replaced by a horrible robot spider.
The Star Wars films's most egregious instance of nominative determinism, a plus-sized X-Wing pilot who is one of the first to bite it during the trench run on the first Death Star. Once again, poor Porkins has about three lines but a devoted, though not altogether kindly, following in fandom. "I can hold it!" Alas, no.
The alien bounty-hunter with a head like a prickly pear, whose quickness (or otherwise) on the draw has been the foundation of Star Wars's most avidly fought fan battle. During his intermittent sessions of tinkering with the original film prints for DVD release, George Lucas re-edited the sequence in the Mos Eisley cantina in which Han Solo zaps his threatening rival under the table with a blaster, arguing that it made Solo out to be a "cold-blooded killer". Fan outrage (under the slogan "Han shot first") forced Lucas to edit the sequence twice more while protesting that Solo had never "just gunned him down" – but a 1976 shooting script provided this year by Peter Mayhew, who played Chewbacca, begs to differ. "Suddenly the slimy alien disappears in a blinding flash of light," reads the direction. "Han pulls his smoking gun from beneath the table." Case closed!
A splendid performance from Peter Cushing here as the Imperial governor, bossing Vader about on the bridge of the Death Star as he orders the destruction of Leia's home planet. Cushing's flinty gaze, freezing sarcasm ("You don't know how hard I've found it, signing the order to terminate your life") and air of passionless command may be straight out of the film-Nazi playbook, but his Tarkin remains absolutely the last man you'd want pointing an orbital battle weapon at you. One of the Star Wars Tales comics, by the way, features Vader accidentally zapping Tarkin's escape pod out of the sky as he heads home in his TIE fighter after the destruction of the Death Star.
How many Bothans died to bring us this information? MANY Bothans. It's hard to know why Caroline Blakiston's performance as the Rebel leader Mon Mothma should have been singled out for such special attention by the eager meme-generators of the internet, but perhaps it's the tragic, faraway look she brings to this line – that, and the fact that we never see a Bothan at all in the films. As with several characters on this list, Mon Mothma is on screen for barely half a minute (The Force Awakens had better do something about this series's lamentable record on gender equality) but has a vigorous afterlife in the Star Wars novels and comics, where she presides over the dismantling of the Empire and its replacement with a new Republic.
The late Sir Christopher Lee was unimprovably cast in the role of this aristocratic Jedi-gone-bad, which – combined with his role as Saruman in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films – brought the 83-year-old actor a passionate following of fans too young to remember him as Scaramanga and Dracula. With his sombre aspect, his air of weary indulgence and his glossily Shakespearean tones, Dooku held up a dark mirror to Alec Guinness's Obi-Wan in the main trilogy, and is one of the prequels' unqualified successes. Good lightsaber action, too.
"He's a card player, gambler, scoundrel. You'll like him," says Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back, who should have known better. Played by Billy Dee Williams, Lando is a richer, smoother version of Solo himself: losing the Falcon has clearly worked out well for him. After betraying Han and his entourage to Darth Vader amid the posh-spa surroundings of Cloud City, Carlrissian suffers the kind of agenbite of inwit that only joining the rebels and blowing up an entire Death Star can cure – and no wonder. The scene where the door hisses open on an immaculate white dining-room, with Vader sitting at the head of the table like a spider in a web, is a bone-chilling moment that anyone would hate to have on their conscience.
Perhaps the bravest man in Star Wars, if only for about five seconds, Admiral Motti is the Imperial officer who decides, in the middle of a briefing, that it'd be a splendid idea to query Darth Vader's "sorcerer's ways" and "sad devotion to that ancient religion", then suddenly finds himself a little short of breath. Vader's disappointed-headmaster comment "I find your lack of faith disturbing" is one of his best, too.
Ace Rebel pilot, played by Denis Lawson in the films, with the rare distinction of having survived the assaults on two separate Death Stars. Also responsible for the nifty manoeuvre with a magnetised cable that brings down the Imperial walker in The Empire Strikes Back. Like Boba Fett, Antilles makes only brief appearances in the central trilogy but has a vast and devoted following in Star Wars fandom: blink and you'll miss him among the other orange-clad cannon fodder on film, but he is huge in the expanded universe novels (there's a whole series about his flight group, Rogue Squadron) and in comics and games. Lawson, however, said recently that "it just would have bored me" to reprise the role, as he was asked to do, in The Force Awakens.
After her appearances as the Queen of Naboo in the prequel trilogy, Natalie Portman later complained, "everyone thought I was a horrible actress. I was in the biggest-grossing movie of the decade and no director wanted to work with me." You can see her point: shoehorned into a series of lunatic costumes, given lines that would have looked underwhelming on a cereal packet and playing opposite two of the most wooden young actors in Hollywood, she cut a distinctly desolate figure. Portman went on to better and brighter things, and better work is done on establishing the character's diplomatic credentials in the Clone Wars cartoons – but on the showing of the films, Leia's brisk competence and fiery intelligence didn't come from Mum.
George Lucas originally asked the rapper Tupac Shakur to read for this role, but eventually settled on Samuel L Jackson (who asked that his character be given a special purple lightsaber) for the three prequel films. Jackson plays it as cool as ever, but this is a supporting role, really, with Windu's involvement limited to some flashy swordfights. There's rather more meat on the character in the Expanded Universe.
The Empire Strikes Back did a great deal right, but one of its cleverest dramatic moments came with the revelation that Darth Vader, seemingly the most fearsome creature in the galaxy, was essentially an attack dog for someone even worse. Enter the Emperor, first played by a make-up artist called Elaine Baker with a pair of chimpanzee eyes superimposed on her face but later, in both his smoothie-senator and noxious-Sith incarnations, by the veteran Scottish thesp Ian McDiarmid.
As developed in the prequels, the Sith are a pretty daft bunch, with self-bestowed ceremonial titles (Tyranus, Plagueis, Sidious) that look more like screen names on a metal messageboard than the apotheosis of galactic evil. McDiarmid's performance as the bent old husk with lightning flowing from his fingertips is properly unsettling in Return of the Jedi but tends towards the camp in the later films: a really interesting vision of the Dark Side in politics would start by renaming the Death Star the Freedom Star, and go from there.
One of the few really memorable characters from Lucas's prequels, this long-haired maverick Jedi knight is the chap who hauls Anakin Skywalker out of his life of indentured slavery, depriving the galaxy of a promising podracer and, eventually, giving it Darth Vader in exchange. In acting terms Liam Neeson got perhaps the rawest deal in the whole saga, having to share most of his scenes either with the impassive child actor Jake Lloyd or with the honking CGI glovepuppet Jar Jar Binks. The air of sincerity and wisdom he brought to the character looks even more admirable in retrospect.
Once you know that Jabba the Hutt was originally written as a humanoid, a lot of the peculiar things about this gigantic sentient slug fall into place: not just Han Solo's comment that he's a "wonderful human being", but also his cross-species weakness for humanoid dancing girls. Or perhaps this kind of identity crisis is merely Jabba's response to looking like someone painted a face on a specimen from the Bristol Stool Form Chart. In any case, this intergalactic crime boss with his foul lolling tongue has become one of the films' most memorable creatures, helped by a puppet that cost half a million dollars to make, weighed a ton and had to have its own make-up artist. Huttese, meanwhile – the creation of the sound designer Ben Burtt – incorporates bits of the Andean language Quechua.
It's a trap! Resembling an unholy cross between a conger eel, a Peperami and the chestbursting xenomorph from Alien, this fish-faced military genius in an impossibly cool revolving chair is the Rebel Alliance's top battle tactician, and – perhaps thanks to the internet popularity of his most famous line – one of the characters set to return in this year's The Force Awakens. The decision to change Ackbar from the script's blue humanoid to the most outlandish puppet in the design book was the decision of Richard Marquand, director of Return of the Jedi. "I think it's good to tell kids that good people aren't necessarily good-looking people and that bad people aren't necessarily ugly people," he commented.
Han's faithful co-pilot and partner in crime, always ready with a hug and a comforting growl or to pull your arms out of their sockets. Lucas is said to have derived the idea for the Wookiee from a Malamute dog he owned (called Indiana), which had a habit of riding around in the passenger seat of his car and looked, to drivers behind, like a gigantic hairy humanoid. Ralph McQuarrie and makeup artist Stuart Freeborn worked out the character design – essentially, Cousin Itt with a bowcaster and a pilot's license – while sound designer Ben Burtt tackled the problem of devising a language for a creature that only communicated in roars. The eventual noise is said to have incorporated elements of bear, badger, lion and walrus calls. It's one of the greatest mysteries in the Star Wars canon that someone as canny as Lucas never thought to market a Chewbacca conditioner.
Puppeteered and performed by Frank Oz, the former voice of Miss Piggy and the Cookie Monster, the idea of this 900-year-old Zen master arose when Lucas and his crew decided to "sort of combine a leprechaun and a troll and a gnome". Yoda was originally mooted as a nine-foot-tall creature with a huge beard, but the decision to make him the tiniest being in the films – and, according to screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan, base him on the elderly ronin Kambei in Kurosawa's Seven Samurai – was one of the trilogy's inspired moments. Inconceivably ancient and ridiculous-looking and devoid of pride or shame, the little green ball of ego-death with his backwards utterances and squeak-growl inflections also received some of Kasdan's best lines, and Oz's delivery of "Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter" is one of the few lines in the Star Wars canon that can still make the spine prickle on the zillionth viewing. Poor Yoda wasn't well served by his CGI version in the prequels, but his pinballing lightsaber battles in Parts II and III are almost worth sitting through the films for.
This grim-visored bounty hunter with a rocket strapped to his back was by far the coolest Star Wars action figure in the playgrounds of the early 1980s, which partly accounts for his enduring popularity despite the character's minimal screen presence. But there's more to him than that. Lucas has said that Fett represents something close to his original conception of Darth Vader – "before I got more into knights and the codes of everything" – which may explain why he is given the only worthwhile episode in the otherwise best-forgotten Star Wars Holiday Special from 1978. Certainly a distinct air of menace and excitement hangs about the character on his first introduction in The Empire Strikes Back. Fett is the guy Darth Vader commissions to do his dirty work – think about that for a minute – and he's also one of about three people in the films to answer back to the Sith Lord and survive. And what does Vader mean when he tells Fett to capture Han Solo with "no disintegrations"? What does this guy normally get up to?
The Expanded Universe (ahem) expanded on the career of this tantalising creature, with episodes of The Clone Wars charting his upbringing and an entire series of novels devoted to his adventures. As part of Lucas's serial meddling with the original films, Fett's breathily sinister amplified voice was replaced by a Kiwi dub from the actor Temuera Morrison that brought him in line with his clone-daddy Jango from the prequels.
The tousle-headed country boy at the centre of Lucas's intergalactic monomyth, the whining teenager who ends up saving the galaxy, the poor sap whose family issues it would take a planetful of therapists to resolve: Luke is Star Wars's everyman, a regular dude plucked from his life of bullseyeing womp rats on the moisture farm who still can't believe, even as he carves his way through a sand barge full of gangsters and faces off against the most fearsome villain in the universe, that it's all happening to him.
Everyone complains about the bland vacuity of the lines Mark Hamill was given to deal with, but this year's conspiracy theory about Skywalker being a Sith Lord in the new JJ Abrams film didn't come out of nowhere: although Hamill plays the corn-fed, all-American boy to a T, there are flickers of chaos at the edges of his performance that suggest, even in the moments of his greatest triumph, that he may already have more than a foot in the dreaded Dark Side.
Add to that the amusing fan calculation that Luke is responsible for the deaths of 369,470 people in three films (counting the staff of the Death Star, of course), and you have a character who, while not quite as Chaotic Good as his pals in the Falcon, may certainly be less Lawful than he appears. The Expanded Universe novels and comics did a useful job of fleshing out the Skywalker character, eventually marrying him off to the Emperor's former chief assassin. Like I say: hidden depths.
The story goes that, late one night in the editing room for Lucas's film THX-1138, someone asked for reel 2, dialogue 2 – R2, D2 – and cogs began to turn in the director's brain. Whatever the case, this doughty little bucket on wheels, with his cryptic squeakings and wise little flickering lights, often comes perilously close to stealing the whole Starwarvian show. Lucas is said to have wooed Kenny Baker, the 3ft8in actor inside the robot suit, by telling him that the droid was the narrator of the films: the position gains weight when you see that Artoo is also the first character in the first interior shot of the first film.
The waddling golden protocol droid may be fluent in over six million forms of communication, but Star Wars lore never seems to have answered the question of whether he speaks them all in the querulous whimper that marks his English (sorry, his Galactic Basic). The droid's elegant, gleaming look was based by Ralph McQuarrie on the female robot from Fritz Lang's Metropolis, but Anthony Daniels's self-righteous performance could probably have brought hilarious life to a housebrick balanced on matchsticks. But isn't C-3PO right to complain? Droids are the peons of Star Wars's intergalactic feudalism, and poor old Threepio's suggestion that "we seem to be made to suffer" is grimly borne out by the casualty rate in the films. Only Star Wars: Droids, an animated series from the Eighties that is surely overdue for revival, gave the metal manservants their moment in the limelight.
The gruff smuggler with a heart of gold will be #1 on this list for many people, and for one simple reason: Harrison Ford's performance in the films that made him a superstar is irresistible. The Star Wars films are ostensibly about the journey of Luke Skywalker from feckless farmhand to Jedi Knight, but Han's progression from womanizing, selfish rambler-gambler to monogamous, freedom-fighting Alliance general is arguably the more fulfilling trajectory, and his fractious relationship with Carrie Fisher's Leia (once she gets over the fancying-her-brother thing) gives the films their emotional centre. A lot of this is down to Ford himself, who devised lines such as the famous "I love you / I know" exchange and once brilliantly complained to Lucas, on receipt of some particularly turgid pages, that "you can type this shit, but you can't say it".
Solo was supposed to die halfway through Return of the Jedi, but, as legend has it, Lucas reprieved the character so that the franchise could sell more toys. Han survived to inspire decades of fan worship and influence almost every smart-talking screen adventurer since. He'll return in The Force Awakens (despite a door on the treacherous Falcon crushing Harrison Ford's ankle during filming), and talk of a spin-off film about his early career has circulated ever since Disney took over the Star Wars franchise. Making it match up to Firefly, however, will be a hell of a challenge.
Saying that there's something dodgy about the gender balance in the Star Wars films doesn't quite cover it: only about three women in the original trilogy are not portrayed as slaves or dancers. Princess Leia has a lot to make up for, then, but she has a memorably good shot at it: fearless, competent and decisive, she triumphantly resists the damsel-in-distress clichés into which the scripts repeatedly try to funnel her. Carrie Fisher struck a neat balance between imperiousness and enthusiasm, and carried off her gobstopper lines with élan ("I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board") – and although the infamous golden bikini sequence is an admitted low point, even that ends with Slave Leia getting her own back on Jabba in a strangulation scene so grisly that it must have haunted more childhood nightmares than just mine.
The first-equal sage of the Star Wars universe, and also the man most indirectly responsible for its misfortunes, Obi-Wan must have spent all that time in the desert kicking himself harder than the people who turned Hitler down from art school. Alec Guinness's distaste for the role is well known, as are the millions he made off the back of his 2% royalty deal – "New rubbish dialogue reaches me every other day on wadges of pink paper," he wrote to a friend while filming, "and none of it makes my character clear or even bearable" – but the watchful, unruffled intelligence of his performance is the axis around which the first film revolves.
As Obi-Wan, his fathomless gaze and hypnotic tones lent an intense seriousness and conviction to Lucas's dribbly musings about the Force; without Guinness selling the movie's mystique to us, we might not still be talking about Star Wars today. The same case can't be made for Ewan McGregor's twitchy take on the role in the prequels (to say nothing of his Jedi Mullet), but better and worse actors than him were chewed up in the meat-grinder of those films. The animated adventures of Obi-Wan in the Clone Wars cartoons, meanwhile, are surprisingly decent.
Search your feelings, you know there's only one sensible pick for the top of this list. Darth Vader is the bad guy that bad guys have bad dreams about: a towering, sable-suited, bronchioconstricted creature whose gleaming SS armour, fly-eyed samurai mask and robotic voice convey the horror of the Galactic Empire's police state within minutes of the first film's opening shot. With his measured stalking tread, fondness for silky understatement, chivvying grasp of Death Star man-management and tendency to choke underlings mid-meeting, Vader is also, incidentally, the Boss from Hell – until, of course, you meet his boss. The only thing that could have made him scarier would be if David Lynch, the director George Lucas really wanted for Return of the Jedi, had taken the helm.
Things might just as easily have been different. A few scenes survive in which David Prowse, the Bristolian bodybuilder who wore the Vader suit, offers his own take on lines in the first film; he sounds uncannily like Stephen Merchant being smothered with a pillow, so it's not hard to see why Lucas chose to replace his voice with the resonant bass of James Earl Jones. In one of JW Rinzler's fantastic books about the making of the original trilogy, Lucas also vouchsafes the information that Vader's original name "was actually Dark Water. Then I added lots of last names, Vaders and Wilsons and Smiths, and I just came up with the combination of Darth and Vader." Just as well: Dark Wilson might not have had the same ring to it.
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Search your feelings: who would you choose as the best pre-Force Awakens character in the galaxy?
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Mitt Romney's Money Man: Who Is Frank L. VanderSloot?
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has already brought you portraits of two of the mega-wealthy benefactors standing behind GOP candidates for president:
, the Las Vegas casino magnate who bankrolls the Gingrich-supporting super PAC "Winning Our Future," and
, the multimillionaire investor whose "Red, White and Blue Fund" helps keep Rick Santorum's White House dreams alive.
Now we turn our attention to Frank L. VanderSloot, the billionaire businessman whose privately-held company, Idaho Falls-based Melaleuca, is one of the biggest donors to the super PAC backing Mitt Romney (
). He's also national finance co-chair of the former Massachusetts governor's campaign (somehow avoiding the legal barriers that are intended to keep super PACs separate from candidates' campaigns).
Writing about VanderSloot is a riskier endeavor than covering Adelson or Friess: As Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com
, VanderSloot is in the habit of threatening to sue just about anyone who puts his name in print, from local bloggers to
magazine. Like Greenwald, we at
In 1985, VanderSloot, at the time a regional vice president at Cox Communications, "took over what was then a small and poorly managed company" selling "a handful of products tied to the melaleuca" -- an Australian shrub known for the antiseptic and analgesic properties of its leaves, from which tea tree oil is extracted.
, VanderSloot's colleagues at Cox "were so skeptical of his move that as a parting gesture they set up a tree and strung tea bags from it."
Their skepticism was well founded: VanderSloot found the company in worse shape than he'd probably imagined. Instead of owning 80% of the tea trees in Australia, it owned closer to 5%. More troubling, the health value of the plants' oil -- the whole basis of the business -- was itself questionable. Inventory was accumulating in distributors' depots; something drastic had to be done.
So VanderSloot changed everything. He bought all the inventory, trademarks and product formulas; he gave the company its current name; and he hired a research and development department tasked with cooking up new recipes. They eventually garnered nine U.S. patents in the process of providing VanderSloot with products like an energy bar that is said to inhibit a fat-burning-prevention enzyme, and benzophenone-infused shampoo that is supposed to prevent sun damage to hair.
To sell these wares -- and "350 other household and 'health' products" -- VanderSloot relies on what
describes as "an army of part-time hucksters." For Melaleuca is essentially a pyramid scheme -- or, more politely, a "multilevel marketing firm," like Amway or Herbalife (
) -- in which so-called independent marketing executives make money by peddling the company's dietary supplements and cleaning products, as well as recruiting more salespeople (the newer recruits being on the lower levels of the pyramid).
This business model has been spectacularly successful for VanderSloot (who stands, of course, at the pyramid's apex). Melaleuca had $1 billion in revenue last year,
, which points out the glaring disparity between the earnings potential advertised for would-be salespeople and the real income those "marketing executives" derive.
On the its website, "Melaleuca pitches itself as a means to gain the economic freedom to live your dream life -- all while working flexible hours at home." A video shows several women who "claim to have made six-figure incomes through Melaleuca,"
reports. "One says she's earned more than $500,000."
The actual annual average earnings of a Melaleuca salesperson: a paltry $85 a year.
But VanderSloot himself was upfront when he spoke with
and making his 14 children sign contracts in which they agree to work during the school year and summer.
"Family values" rank high among VanderSloot's priorities, and seem to have fueled his involvement in politics, which began in 1999. That year, VanderSloot helped to underwrite an Iowa-wide billboard campaign protesting a documentary that was to be broadcast on public television, that tried "to show how teachers are dealing with homosexual issues that may come up in class or on the playground," in the words of the Spokane, Wash.,-based
. "Proponents hope greater awareness will promote greater tolerance and decrease hostile incidents against homosexuals,"
To VanderSloot, the program threatened to turn children gay.
"Why is public TV, paid for by our tax dollars, going to show this to our families, our children?" he asked at the time. "I'm really concerned that if this isn't stopped, a lot of little kids will watch this program and create questions they've never had, raise curiosities that they shouldn't have at those ages." The billboards he funded, along with undisclosed other donors, asked rhetorically, "Should public television promote the homosexual lifestyle to your children?" The letters were sky-blue, except the words "homosexual lifestyle," which were written in red. "Think about it" was scrawled below, as if in crayon. The billboard campaign did not succeed in getting the program canceled.
reports, VanderSloot "supported radio and TV spots knocking Morgan Stanley (
When Idaho's Republican Senator Larry Craig had to step down -- after being caught in a "wide stance" during an airport men's room sting -- VanderSloot rented his LearJet to Lt. Governor Jim Risch as the latter campaigned for the vacant seat. Risch won. And in 2008, VanderSloot's wife gave $100,000 to the cause of passing Proposition 8, California's ballot initiative banning same-sex marriage (which the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently found unconstitutional).
as "perhaps the single most influential campaign donor" in Idaho: "Over the years, he has helped fund an array of candidates, including governors and Idaho Supreme Court justices, and has taken on varied causes, challenging rules restricting the sale of raw milk and attacking public school teachers unions." Now, however, VanderSloot has become a financial figure of national significance -- because of
, and Willard Mitt Romney.
Not only is VanderSloot national finance co-chair of the Romney campaign, his company and its subsidiaries have donated $1 million to the super PAC backing the candidate. VanderSloot personally gave the Romney campaign $2,500 -- the nominal sum that remains the maximum direct donation to a candidate -- and hosted fundraisers during the current contest and the 2008 race.
So why is the former Massachusetts governor VanderSloot's candidate? There is biographical commonality between them -- both are Mormons and attended Brigham Young University in Utah -- but the choice seems somewhat paradoxical, given VanderSloot's passion for social conservatism, and Romney's inconsistent record on related issues. Remember Romney's claim, made in a letter to the Log Cabin Republicans during his 1994 Senate bid, "
" than his opponent in the race, Ted Kennedy? "We must make equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern," Romney wrote to the gay Republican group. He later reversed himself, opposing both gay marriage and civil unions in his run for governor.
According to VanderSloot -- who said in
responding to Greenwald's scrutiny, "I have never spoken out against gays or against gay rights" -- his support for Romney is all about business. "Gov. Romney's track record demonstrates his acumen in creating jobs and providing the leadership America needs," he has said. The admiration is mutual: On the occasion of Melaleuca's twenty-fifth anniversary, the governor made the following remarks:
Under the leadership of Frank VanderSloot, Melaleuca has delivered on its promise of enhancing the lives of people. Frank's vision and sense of social responsibility is second to none and he never ceases to amaze me. Congratulations on 25 years. I can't wait to see what Melaleuca accomplishes over the next 25 years.
Not everyone has been so admiring of Melaleuca's business practices: The "wellness company" has been targeted by Michigan regulators, the Idaho attorney general's office, and the Food and Drug Administration for various marketing violations.
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/02/09/138007/commentary-thanks-to-citizens.html#storylink=cpyRead more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/02/09/3714638/commentary-thanks-to-citizens.html#storylink=cp
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We%27ve%20profiled%20two%20mega-wealthy%20benefactors%20behind%20GOP%20candidates%20for%20president%3A%20Sheldon%20Adelson%2C%20who%20bankrolls%20Newt%20Gingrich%27s%20super%20PAC%2C%20and%20Foster%20Friess%2C%20whose%20millions%20support%20Rick%20Santorum.%20Now%20we%20turn%20our%20attention%20to%20Frank%20L.%20VanderSloot%2C%20the%20billionaire%20backing%20Mitt%20Romney.
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Vanguard's Unusual Gripe: ETFs Overhyped on Taxes
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20160727145549
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Vanguard Group has an unusual message for potential investors: Tax advantages of exchange-traded funds, including its own fast-growing line, aren't nearly as significant as many think.
Exchange-traded funds, typically index mutual funds that trade on an exchange like a stock, have won fans among investors and collected nearly $1 trillion in U.S. assets. One of the key selling points is a special legal structure that helps funds avoid...
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Fund Track: Vanguard Group's unexpected message: Tax advantages of exchange-traded funds, including its own fast-growing line, aren't nearly as significant as many think.
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160727213141id_/http://www.msnbc.com:80/transcripts/hardball/2016-06-22
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Hardball With Chris Matthews, Transcript, 6/22/2016
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20160727213141
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Show: HARDBALLDate: June 22, 2016Guest: James Clyburn; Jim Himes, Donna Edwards, Xavier Becerra, Anne Gearan, Patrick Murphy, Alex Conant, Jeanne Zaino, Azi Paybarah, Luciana Lopez
STEVE KORNACKI, GUEST HOST: Democrats demand action on guns.
REP. JOHN LEWIS (D), GEORGIA: We were elected to lead, Mr. Speaker. We must be headlights and not taillights! We cannot continue to stick our heads in the sand and ignore the reality of mass gun violence in our nation.
KORNACKI: Good evening. I`m Steve Kornacki, in for Chris Matthews.
What you just heard was the start of a remarkable scene that continues to unfold at this hour. Shortly after making those statements earlier today, Georgia congressman John Lewis, a veteran of the Civil Rights movement, led his fellow Democrats in a sit-in on the House floor, a sit-in that is still going on as we speak. Now, the goal, they say, is to force a vote on gun legislation.
But just as Democrats sat down, the cameras that feed C-SPAN, which provides gavel-to-gavel coverage, were shut off. They don`t televise proceedings when the House is not in session, Ashley Strong (ph), Paul Ryan`s press secretary, defending that move, tweeting, quote, “The House cannot operate without members following the rules of the institution, so the House has recessed to the call of the chair.”
Without live footage Members began to tweet and livestream the unprecedented scene. For a brief time, the House was gaveled back into session, but that was broken up by chants of “No bill, no break.” Take a listen.
HOUSE MEMBERS: No bill, no break! No bill, no break! No bill, no break! No bill, no break!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Under clause 2 of rule 1, the chair is charged with preserving order and decorum in the proceedings of the House.
KORNACKI: House Republicans are currently meeting to try to figure out how to respond to the sit-in. Here`s what House Speaker Paul Ryan said within the last hour.
REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: First, I would tell you this is nothing more than a publicity stunt. That`s point number one. Point number two is this bill was already defeated in the United States Senate. Number three, we`re not going to take away a citizen`s due process rights. We`re not going to take away a citizen`s constitutional rights without due process. That was already defeated in the Senate, this is not a way to try and bring up legislation.
KORNACKI: For more on this historical day, fresh off the House floor, I`m joined by Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina. He was there for that sit-in.
Congressman, thanks for taking a few minutes. Well, let`s start with what the House speaker just said. You heard him there. This is in the last hour. He said this is nothing more than a publicity stunt. What do you say?
REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D), SOUTH CAROLINA: I`ll say two things to that. First of all, thank you so much for having me.
I believe that the speaker is a bit mistaken. My legislation to close the Charleston loophole is still stuck in committee in the House. That was not voted on by the Senate. Now, we are pursuing “No fly, no buy.” That`s certainly something we are interested in in the House, and that was defeated in the Senate. We`re interested in expanding these background checks. That was defeated in the Senate.
But my bill is to close the Charleston loophole. Those nine souls that lost their lives at Emanuel AME church were all murdered by someone who was not qualified to have a gun. But he bought that gun because of a loophole that says if the background check is not completed in three days, the sale can be consummated.
We`re saying that the sale should not be consummated until the background check is completed. So I would say to the speaker, Please bring my legislation to the floor because no matter wide you may expand the background checks, if you`ve still got a three-day rule that will not allow a sale to – to not go forward until such time as the three days expire, then we don`t have my legislation being dealt with.
KORNACKI: Is that – let me – let me just be clear on this. Is that your demand, specifically Congressman Jim Clyburn`s demand, or is that – what you just articulated – is that the demand correctively that the Democrats who are sitting in right now are making, specifically to vote on the bill you just outlined and (ph) this sit-in ends, or is it any other legislation?
Because there`s a lot of gun control proposals that are floating around right now. I talked to one of your colleagues, Steve Israel, earlier today. He said his demand was this “No fly, no buy” provision. That`s different than what you`re talking about. So I want to be clear here. What is the specific demand of the Democrats staging this sit-in?
CLYBURN: There are four different bills. “No fly, no buy” is one of them. I`m one of the co-sponsors of that bill. That is a bipartisan bill. The Republican congressman from New York, Mr. King, is on that bill with the Democrat Mr. Thompson. I`m on that bill. That`s one of the bills we want to vote on.
We also want to vote on expanded background checks because we believe that if we had expanded background checks, the murderer in Orlando would have shown up on the list and may not have been able to purchase his gun. So that`s on the list.
But also, my bill to close that Charleston loophole. I`ve been talking about that since the week after those poor souls lost their lives. And so yes, I`m concerned about that because no matter how wide you may expand the background check, if you still allow a sale to go forward before the background check is completed, you have not had an effective background check.
And so that`s what we`re talking about. So it`s not just one, two or three bills, it`s all three of them collectively.
KORNACKI: OK, I got you. So it`s a package. You`re looking for a package of…
KORNACKI: Question then. Has there been any communication either between yourself and Paul Ryan, House Republican leadership, or Democratic leadership and Paul Ryan? Are you aware of any direction communication there?
CLYBURN: Well, you may – may have forgotten, a week ago Mr. Ryan shouted me down on the floor when I was trying to seek recognition to a parliamentary inquiry to find out when he will allow my bill to come to the floor. I was shouted down. That was pretty direct to me. And of course…
KORNACKI: But nothing specifically tonight. Since this sit-in began, nothing you`re aware of in terms of direct communication between Democratic leaders and Paul Ryan.
CLYBURN: Well, if so, I have not been a part of it. Now, I`m always aware of the fact that there may be meetings taking place that I`m not informed of. No, I have not been in direct communications, but I have been on the floor off and on all day, and I am prepared – just as I was with John Lewis back in 1960, I am prepared to stay on this floor all night and tomorrow, if necessary. I did it for three days one time before. I believe my body can take two days.
KORNACKI: All right. Congressman Jim Clyburn from South Carolina, thanks for the time.
CLYBURN: Thank you so much for having me.
KORNACKI: OK. And we`re joined now by Congressman Jim Himes from Connecticut. Congressman, let me just take that up. And again, just so we`re clear here, you`re on the same page, are you, as Congressman Clyburn? You are specifically here demanding with this sit-in votes on three pieces of legislation on background checks, on this so-called “No fly, no buy” provision and on what Congressman Clyburn calls the Charleston loophole? Is that where you are, as well? You want three votes?
REP. JIM HIMES (D), CONNECTICUT: That`s where all of us are, Steve. And you know, what those three things share in common is dramatic public support, in excess of 80 percent. So what you`re seeing happening here, led by John Lewis, icon of the Civil Rights movement, beaten almost to death on the Edmond Pettis Bridge, which – you know, is being called a publicity stunt by the speaker, what you`re seeing now is us standing up and saying the House of Representatives constitutionally exists for one purpose, and that is to work the will of the people.
And here you have a package of things that is supported by a majority of Republicans, a majority of Democrats and a majority of gun owners. So what we`re saying to the speaker, who has called this a publicity stunt, is, Let the House do what it was designed by Mr. Madison and Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Adams to do, which is to reflect the will of the American people. But he says no.
KORNACKI: Is this the way – he also – he mentioned this – we played Paul Ryan`s reaction there. He was basically saying this is no way to bring legislation up, to basically occupy the House floor and to say the House can`t do any other business. We won`t move unless you do X. You`re essentially trying to hold up the speaker here.
HIMES: Well, you know, in the ordinary course of business, I would agree with the speaker. Obviously, this is not a business model that works every single day.
But there`s some unique characteristics about what it is that we`re fighting for here. Number one is the dramatic public support that these measures that we`re asking for enjoy. At bottom, it`s 80 percent of the American public. That`s point one. This is not a 50/50. This is not an Affordable Care Act fight, where people don`t get it. This is the very clearly the will of the American people. That`s point one.
Point two, of course, is that this is not something that is really, you know, an abstraction – 50 dead people in Orlando, several more shootings, including in my constituency in Stanford, Connecticut, several more shootings since Orlando. Americans are being cut down and are bleeding in the street for every minute of inaction that the House of Representatives refuses to do something that the people want it to do!
So by and large, I would say, you know, obviously, we couldn`t operate if every time we wanted to move something that we wanted to move, we staged a sit-in. But people are dying, and these are measures that are supported by the majority of the American people.
KORNACKI: I just – I want to just press you on that, though, this idea – you`re citing polls saying this is the will of the people. Now, look, you can get into the details here. The Republicans in the Senate say they don`t want terrorists buying guns, either. They have a different way, they say, of bringing that about, doing legislation there.
But look, if you`re talking about the will of the people, the people are the ones who elected this House that the Republican Party leads right now, republicans who say they don`t want this legislation. And if the people didn`t want Republicans blocking this, why did they put them in charge of the House?
HIMES: Well, you know, elections happen every two years. And we don`t have the opportunity to speak about these issues, to examine arguments like the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, an absurdity. There was a good guy with a gun in Orlando.
And so we think it`s important that we have these conversations, that we air this for precisely the reason that you`re talking about here. You know, constituents of all 435 of us deserve to know when we`re acting in their interest and when we refuse to. And this is an example where any congressional district you look at, these measures will enjoy majority support. And it`s important that people know that the House majority has decided that even though that support is widespread, this conversation will not happen.
KORNACKI: All right. Congressman Jim Himes from Connecticut, part of that sit-in today…
KORNACKI: … thanks for joining us.
Minutes ago, Hillary Clinton tweeting in solidarity with the members, the Democratic members participating in this sit-in. She wrote, “House Republicans may have cut the cameras, but they can`t cut off our voices. We have to act on gun violence,” signed by Clinton with her initial H. That means she personally wrote the tweet. That`s what that signified.
Let`s bring in Congresswoman Donna Edwards from Maryland, another Democrat, also part of this today. Congresswomen, let`s – again, trying to go through what Paul Ryan said, there his objections of this. Let`s take another thing that Paul Ryan said in that clipped we played at the top of the show. He talked specifically about this “No fly, no buy” provision. That`s one of the things you guys are demanding a vote on here.
He says, “denies due process,” the Democratic proposal on that denies due process. And what he`s basically saying there is, Hey, if the proposal is to take all the people who are on this “no fly” list right now, they ended up on that list without due process, a lot of them, American citizens who are being told under this proposal, You can`t buy a guy. You can`t exercise your 2nd Amendment rights. And they don`t have – that does not have to be proven in a court of law. Doesn`t he have a point there?
REP. DONNA EDWARDS (D), MARYLAND: Well, with all due respect to my friend and the speaker, that`s hogwash. The fact is, if this were just about due process, we could sit down and negotiate that and get a bill to the floor.
But the speaker knows that he has refused in regular order, as he likes to point to, to bring a bill to the floor that the overwhelming majority of American people, Republican, Democrats, independents support.
And by not doing that, he has forced us to take action on behalf of the American people, to say, Yes, we will hold up the business of the House until the speaker does the will of the people.
KORNACKI: There`s two bills – there were two bills this week on this subject of “No fly, no buy”in the Senate. I mean, what polls well is this idea of should terrorists, should those on the terror – the terror watch list (INAUDIBLE) terror watch list, be able the buy guns, and people generally say no to that.
But there were two ways of going about that. There was a Democratic bill, a Republican bill. The Republican bill from John Cornyn says nobody on that list can buy a gun if – if – the government can prove in a court of law that they belong on that list.
Would you be OK with that being voted on in the House?
EDWARDS: Look, we`re not even discussing that. And so what I want to be very clear about is that if this were a point of negotiation, we could sit down, leadership to leadership, and negotiate.
But the fact is that this is not about due process. This is about the process of National Rifle Association and the refusal of House Democrats, and Senate Republicans and House Republicans, their willingness to do the low-hanging fruit that the American people are calling for.
And so let`s not get distracted by the idea of due process. I`m a civil libertarian. I believe in due process. We can figure that out.
But surely, terrorists who are on the watch list should not be able to go in and buy a gun. Domestic abusers should not be able to evade the background check by going to a gun show, to buy a gun at a gun show that they couldn`t buy in Walmart.
This is absurd. It`s low-hanging fruit, and it`s time for Republicans to get to the business before we continue to lose American lives, 89 of them every single day.
KORNACKI: Let me just ask you about the precedent of this, again, Paul Ryan saying this is no way to force – to stage a sit-in to stall the House is no way to force your agenda. Let`s say Democrats ran the House. Let`s say it`s a year from now and Democrats run the House, and Republicans sit in on the House floor and say, We`re not going to let anything else happen in here until and unless “Obama care” is repealed. Would that be OK?
EDWARDS: You know what? Here`s the truth. We`re in a different place, where the American people are concerned about gun violence and about guns getting into the hands of terrorists and into hands of felons and domestic abusers. That`s what we`re talking about here today. And we have tried over and over again, through committee, through regular order, on the floor to have the speaker and Democrats and Republicans handle this, and they have not.
And so now we are going to handle it by occupying the floor until we can get a guarantee from Speaker Ryan that we can put these bills on the floor and vote for them. And you know what? Let them cast the vote against what the American people want so that they can be accountable to their constituents in their congressional districts.
And I`m telling you, across this country, people are telling us, Don`t give up this fight on behalf of the American people.
KORNACKI: All right. Donna Edwards, congresswoman from Maryland, thanks for the time. Appreciate it.
KORNACKI: All right. And coming up, Donald Trump throws the kitchen sink at Hillary Clinton. He calls her “corrupt” and a “word class liar” – his words there. Trump`s attacks, Clinton`s response. That`s coming up.
Plus, as Hillary Clinton rallies Democrats on Capitol Hill, a short list seems to be emerging of her possible vice presidential picks. Which veep pick could help Clinton over the top in her race for the White House?
And Marco Rubio going back on his decision not to run for reelection to the Senate. Rubio jumps into a reelection campaign with a lead in the polls. Tonight, we`re going to talk to one of his potential Democratic opponents, Congressman Patrick Murphy.
And finally, the HARDBALL roundtable is coming here to talk Trump, Clinton, and best of all, to tell me something about this campaign that I don`t know. That`s a very easy assignment.
This is HARDBALL, the place for politics.
KORNACKI: President Obama will finish out his second term in office a little less than seven months from now. With retirement on his mind, Obama sat down for a one-on-one interview at the White House with Yankees legend Derek Jeter, who himself recently hung up his cleats.
DEREK JETER, FORMER YANKEE: Me retiring and you retiring are two completely different things.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Yes, but Derek – Derek, you are somebody who now has some experience in hanging up the cleats here. And I`m about to retire. I`m not quite as young as you, but still relatively young.
JETER: Thank you. Can you repeat that? Because, you know, when you`re in sports, they say you`re old at 30. So thank you. I appreciate that.
OBAMA: (INAUDIBLE) for a baseball player, you were old.
OBAMA: Let`s face it. I mean, come on, man. (INAUDIBLE) cleats (INAUDIBLE) those bases.
KORNACKI: The president and Derek Jeter.
A day after Hillary Clinton unloaded on Donald Trump, calling him unfit to handle the economy, Trump returned the favor. In a speech delivered with the help of a teleprompter at the Trump Soho Hotel in Manhattan, the presumptive Republican nominee called out Clinton on her time at the State Department, her policy positions and her temperament.
Trump`s dominant theme? Hillary Clinton is corrupt.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: She`s a world-class liar.
Just look at her pathetic e-mail server statements. Hillary Clinton has perfected the politics of personal profit and even theft. She ran the State Department like her own personal hedge fund. Hillary Clinton gave China millions of jobs, our best jobs and effectively let China completely rebuild itself. In return, Hillary Clinton got rich.
She gets rich making you poor. Hillary Clinton`s tryout for the presidency has produced one deadly foreign policy disaster after another.
She`s virtually done nothing right. She`s virtually done nothing good.
Hillary Clinton may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency of the United States.
KORNACKI: And this afternoon, Clinton responded.
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He`s going after me personally because he has no answers on the substance.
CLINTON: That`s even why he`s attacking my faith. Sigh.
CLINTON: And, of course, attacking a philanthropic foundation that saves and improves lives around the world. It`s no surprise he doesn`t understand these things.
CLINTON: The Clinton Foundation helps poor people around the world get access to lifesaving AIDS medicine.
CLINTON: Donald Trump uses poor people around the world to produce his line of suits and ties.
KORNACKI: NBC`s Hallie Jackson covered Trump`s speech. Jeremy Peters is a politics reporter with “The New York Times” and an MSNBC contributor. They both join me now.
Well, Hallie, you were in the room. Let`s start with you.
The idea that this is a new Donald Trump, a little bit more scripted, a little bit more packaged, the teleprompter, a more formal speech today, obviously some – very intentional there. Did he effectively present himself as a new Trump today?
HALLIE JACKSON, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Just Trump 2.0, Steve.
I think, when you talk to Republican operatives and people in the field, they are looking at this kind of warily, acknowledging that he was able to come out and stay on script and stay on message.
But, listen, I hear you say things like, hey, the new Trump, the scripted Trump. This is deja vu. We have been here before. And yet again and again, Trump has then said something that`s gotten him into hot water with fellow members of his own party.
The question now, given that he has sort of a new campaign infrastructure in place, will he be able to sustain this through unscripted rallies. That is going to be the key. When he gets away from the prompter, when he gets away from the prepared remarks, that`s the big question mark as to whether this Trump 2.0 will stick.
There does seem to be an acknowledgement, though, given the events of this week, the firing of his campaign manager, the news of dismal fund-raising numbers, that Trump does understand it`s time to do some things different in his campaign, as he himself public acknowledges.
KORNACKI: Right. It`s Trump 2.0-6.0 at this point.
We have been down this road a few times.
JACKSON: Nine, 9.10, yes, yes.
Critics also pointing to a number of factual issues with Trump`s speech today. For example, here is Trump contrasting his views on Iraq with Clinton`s.
TRUMP: It all started with her bad judgment in supporting the war in Iraq in the first place.
Though I was not in government service, I was among the earliest to criticize the rush to war, and, yes, even before the war ever started.
KORNACKI: The problem with that is that there is no evidence Trump criticized the rush to war before the invasion.
According to PolitiFact – quote – “We didn`t find any examples of Trump unequivocally denouncing the war until a year after the war began.”
Trump also alleged that Clinton would let in refugees without any screening.
TRUMP: Under her plan, we would admit hundreds of thousands of refugees from the most dangerous countries on Earth, with no way to screen who they are, what they are, what they believe, where they come from.
KORNACKI: According to PolitiFact, that`s not true. There`s a screening process in place.
“It involves multiple federal intelligence and security agencies, as well as the United Nations, typically takes one to two years and includes numerous rounds of security checks.”
So, Jeremy, look, there`s that critique of the speech, the factual stuff.
The other thing that I noticed him doing here, we played a clip of it. And I noticed this a few times during the speech. It felt like he was very intentionally taking criticisms that have been leveled at him and basically just, when he says, she gets rich making you poor, that`s what she said about him yesterday.
JEREMY PETERS, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Yes. That`s exactly right.
There was a lot of projection going on here. I do think, though, that you can`t minimize those types of attacks, when Trumps makes them on Hillary Clinton, because what the Democrats fear most is Donald Trump`s ability to stand next to her on stage and say, this is how politics has always been done. This is business as usual. If you`re happy, if you`re satisfied with the direction of the country, vote for her. I will change things. I will shake things up.
And that was, I think, the core message of this speech. Now, getting to all the factual inaccuracies and misstatements, of course, that`s a whole other issue. And the Clinton campaign, along with the numerous, numerous news organizations that were fact-checking this in real time, I think that shows you what kind of problem Donald Trump is going to be facing in the coming months, the way that his statements are more and more being put under a microscope of scrutiny.
KORNACKI: The question, though, too, we`re sort of getting a preview here in a way of what a debate would look like this fall.
KORNACKI: You saw Hillary Clinton go yesterday. You saw Trump go today.
What we haven`t seen, won`t see until the fall, presumably, is the two of them on stage and how she reacts when he says the sorts of things that he says today, what her reaction is in that setting. I don`t think she or really any politician has really been in that situation before, a one-on-one debate with a candidate who does the things Donald Trump does.
PETERS: Yes, that`s exactly right.
And the split-screen comparison, I think, for her, if she is – if he stays on the prompter, if he stays on message, I think it`s going to be a lot harder for her to make the kinds of arguments that she`s been making about him being reckless and erratic and temperamentally ill-suited.
That was another one that he used against – he tried to turn around against her, saying that she`s temperamentally unsuited to be the president. But his problem – and this is more than just a problem of perception – his nomination is at stake, Steve.
There are Republican delegates, there are senior members of the RNC who are ready to throw him under the bus at the convention if he does not clean up his act. He knows that. You can see it in his – in the way that he delivered the speech today, his sticking to script. You can just tell by his demeanor he knows that if he doesn`t shape up, this all could come crashing down.
It does look – and I know the standard we`re measuring up against here in terms of being a conventional candidate. It isn`t much at this point, but it does seem he does have a message he`s received and is trying to modulate a bit. We will see if that sticks, if that lasts.
Hallie Jackson, Jeremy Peters, thanks for the time.
And coming up, as Hillary Clinton does battle with Donald Trump, a short list emerges, Clinton`s potential running mates. Who is on it? That`s next.
This is HARDBALL, the place for politics.
KORNACKI: Welcome back to HARDBALL.
Hillary Clinton was on Capitol Hill today, trying to rally members of the House Democratic Caucus. This was her first visit there since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee. It comes as Clinton begins her search for a vice presidential running mate.
“The Washington Post” today reports that the Clinton campaign is currently vetting at least three potential candidates, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, Senator Tim Kaine, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
Warren, by the way, will be campaigning with Clinton on Monday. A Bloomberg poll last week found Warren to be the overwhelming favorite among Clinton supporters for the number two spot. “The New York Times” today highlighted the reasons why she is an unlikely choice, citing their personal chemistry and the fact that Clinton needs to appeal to working-class white voters.
Clinton is also narrowing a larger list of a dozen other prospective candidates. Among the names being floated there, Senators Sherrod Brown and Cory Booker and Congressman Xavier Becerra of California. He actually chaired that meeting that Clinton held with House Democrats today.
And I`m joined now by Congressman Xavier Becerra, also Anne Gearan of “The Washington Post.”
Well, Congressman, let me start with you. Hillary Clinton made it to Capitol Hill today, met with Democrats. What was her message to House Democrats? What was their message to her?
REP. XAVIER BECERRA (D), CALIFORNIA: Steve, thanks for having me.
And I would say that – well, I`m not sure if she energized us or we energized her. But all I know, it was a spirited conversation. We walked out of there feeling really good about the work that she is going to do, that we`re all going to do to make sure that, come November, we not only elect her president, but also have a Congress that will work with her and actually try to get things done.
And so it was a good meeting. She talked about her agenda. She talked about how she was heading to North Carolina to talk to folks there. It`s a clear contrast between she and Donald Trump. And we`re looking forward to that.
KORNACKI: And, Anne Gearan, we talk about this, the issue of the veepstakes starting to come up. This is going to be a big story over the next few months.
You see those names we put out there. What`s your sense of what Hillary Clinton is looking for right here in this pick?
ANNE GEARAN, “THE WASHINGTON POST”: Well, I think she`s got several things that I think are her main priority.
Her main priority is somebody who be president in a heartbeat. She`s got several other things that are very top of mind, second only to that. One is personal chemistry and comfort with the person. Another is a proven ability to rally Democrats, work across the aisle, work with Congress, have some demonstrated legislative ability, and also to rally the base, raise money, do a lot of the kind of party building and energizing work that she wants a vice president to do in her stead.
KORNACKI: Your name, it comes up frequently when we have these conversations about veepstakes as a potential running mate for Hillary Clinton.
Anne just said the top criteria, not surprisingly, for Hillary Clinton somebody who could be president in a heartbeat. I saw last week Elizabeth Warren was asked this question. She said, yes, I could.
What about you? Could you be president in a heartbeat?
BECERRA: I would be honored to continue to serve my country in whatever way possible.
And I believe that someone like me, the son of immigrants, who is the first to get a college education, for me, it`s the sky`s the limit. And the glass is half-full. And we will see where things go. But I feel really good about what we`re doing here in Congress. And, as I said, I`m going to do as much as I can for my country, because my country has done so much for me.
KORNACKI: When you look at the map, when you look at the matchup, Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump, the sorts of voters he`s tapped into, the type of message he`s going to run on, what you heard him say today, politically speaking, what does Hillary Clinton need to be looking for in a running mate?
BECERRA: The great thing about Hillary Clinton is, she`s so accomplished. She has – she`s probably the best tested candidate I have seen in my lifetime running for president.
She`s been in the hot spots throughout the world. She`s taken on the toughest tests here in Congress. And so she`s as accomplished as you would need. So, it`s going to be easy to find someone who can complement someone who is so prepared like Hillary Clinton.
That means that we are going to have some great choices. And you named several. I think that, on the Democratic side, we feel really good about the team that we`re going to move forward with come November. And that`s why we have such optimism that, come November, it`s not just the White House that we`re going to put Hillary in, but we`re going to put a lot of people who want to get things done in Congress, in the Senate and in the House.
KORNACKI: All right. I think that`s what they call a diplomatic answer.
Congressman Xavier Becerra, Anne Gearan, thanks for the time. Appreciate that.
And up next: He`s back. After vowing not to run for his Senate seat again, Marco Rubio changes course. He`s getting in the race after all. We are going to hear what one of his potential Democratic opponents has to say about that after the break.
You`re watching HARDBALL, the place for politics.
KORNACKI: Hey. Welcome back to HARDBALL.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio said repeatedly that win or lose in his race for president in 2016, one thing he was sure of is he would not run for re-election to the U.S. Senate. Rubio tweeted just a few weeks ago, he said I`ve only said like 10,000 times I will be a private citizen in January.
But, today, Rubio changed his mind. He said in statement that quote, “In politics, admitting you`ve changed your mind is not something most people like to do.” He said that, quote, “control of the Senate may very welcome down to the race in Florida. With that, Marco Rubio went back on his promise not to run for re-election and said he is in the race for Senate from Florida in 2016 running for a second term.”
Let`s take you through numbers what Rubio is up against here. So, there`s a good news/bad situation for Marco Rubio as he tries to win another term in Florida.
First, here`s the good news. There are two Democrats who are duking it out for their party`s nomination for the chance to run against Rubio.
This is brand new poll out of Florida. Rubio is up eight points over Alan Grayson. He`s one of the Democrats running. Solid lead for Rubio there and seven points against Patrick Murphy. That`s the other Democrat running in that primary. So, against either of his likely Democrat opponents, Rubio starts out ahead.
Now, what is the bad news? It`s this. This is the race that`s going to be at the top of the ticket in Florida, obviously every other state in the country, the presidential race. Hillary Clinton in Florida, brand new poll up eight points in Florida over Donald Trump.
Now, remember, Barack Obama did win Florida in 2012 but it was razor thin. You`re talking less than one point. Hillary Clinton right now, a solid eight-point lead over Donald Trump. That raises the question, if Hillary Clinton wins Florida and wins it big, how realistic is it that those same voters voting for the Democrat for president will turn around in the Senate race and vote for the Republican, will vote for Rubio.
And here is what Rubio is up against. This is what`s happening. It`s the trend of what they call split ticket voting. That`s what Rubio will be relying on. People voting for one party for president, the other party`s candidate for U.S. Senate. That used to be common.
In 1988, a generation ago, more than half the states that had presidential and Senate elections that year different party won each of them. Split ticket voting.
Go to the year 2000, the number was down to 30 percent. Fast forward to the last presidential election. In 2012, split ticket results where one party won the Senate race in the state. The other party won the presidential race, just 18 percent in 2012.
This is one of trends in American politics. People are showing up and voting Democrat straight down the line or they`re voting Republican straight down the line. They are not splitting their tickets the way they used to.
That could be a problem for Marco Rubio if Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, is running far behind Hillary Clinton in Florida.
With that in mind, we`re joined now by one of Rubio`s potential Democratic opponents, Congressman Patrick Murphy from Florida.
Congressman, thanks for taking a few minutes.
REP. PATRICK MURPHY (D), FLORIDA: Thank you.
KORNACKI: Let me get your reaction, Marco Rubio said for months, he wasn`t running. Today, he said I`ve changed my mind. I`m in. What`s your reaction?
MURPHY: Well, this is exactly what voters hate about Washington, D.C. and politicians like Marco Rubio. I mean, this is a guy that`s clearly putting his own ambitions and his selfishness in front of serving the people of Florida. This is somebody that time after time after time said, they don`t like the job. They hate it and they`re not going to run – he`s not going to run again.
So, why in the world would Floridians want him again? He`s flip-flopped on key issues like immigration reform. He has missed a historic amount of votes. This is a guy that`s missed more votes than any senator in Florida in nearly 50 years.
And if that`s not bad enough, he uses this tragedy in Orlando to decide that he wants to be a senator again.
He should be more focused with trying to take care of the LGBT community and trying to close that terrorist gun loophole, you know, instead he`s putting his own career forward. He`s already got one foot out of the door. I mean, just yesterday and today, he was asked, Senator, are you going to commit to serving a six-year term if reelected? And he wouldn`t even answer that question. He`s already planning this 2020 presidential bid.
KORNACKI: So, what does that say to you, though, when – it`s been known that Marco Rubio has missed fair number of Senate votes. He missed them while he was out there running for president. Obviously well-known that he`s been saying he wasn`t going to run for re-election.
What does that say to you when they asked the question, hey, if he is running, more voters in Florida say they would vote for him than you – what does that say?
MURPHY: Well, look, there are two polls just in the last two weeks that actually showed us beating Marco Rubio. So, Florida, we already had a poll and it`s called an election. Marco Rubio lost by 20 points to Donald Trump. His own party rejected him much less the independents and the Democrats that are not going to support him.
So, you know, it`s pretty clear there`s a sharp contrast. I have to introduce myself to the state. I look forward to introducing myself making sure everyone knows, hey, I`m a small business guy. I`m a CPA. I want to solve problems. I care about getting things done.
I actually like showing up to work, showing up to committee, compared to Marco Rubio who hates the job and using this as a platform to run for a higher office. Floridians don`t want that, no American wants that. I mean, I look at it from a business standpoint. If some, you know, employee told me for a year and a half they hated their job, they didn`t like it, they wouldn`t get anything done, that they were going to look for a new job – they don`t get the new job and come back to me and say, hey, Patrick, I didn`t get that job. Can I really have it back?
Of course not. No one is going to give them that job back. Floridians are going to see right through the selfish move he`s making.
KORNACKI: All right. Patrick Murphy, congressman, candidate for the Senate – thanks for the time.
KORNACKI: Marco Rubio also said in statement today that, quote, “No matter who is elected president, there is reason for worry. Even the prospect of a Trump presidency is worrisome” to him, “to me,” Rubio is saying there.
So, how does he plan to run for re-election in a swing state where he has such little faith in his own party standard there?
Alex Conant is a former communications director for Marco Rubio`s presidential campaign.
Alex, thanks for taking the time.
Well, let me just ask you, bottom line, if the polls were seeing now are a precursor to November, if Hillary Clinton wins solidly, six, eight point, something like that, could Marco Rubio still win the Senate election?
ALEX CONANT, FORMER RUBIO COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Of course, he can. I mean, it`s Florida. It`s a competitive state. It`s always been a competitive state. This fall`s election will be a competitive race.
But as the interview we just saw, as every viewer just saw, Congressman Murphy is very afraid of Senator Rubio. Senator Rubio enters this race with a big advantage, as the polls show this morning. Floridians know him. They know he`s done great job fight for the issues they care about, the V.A. reform, fighting – funding Zika, fighting for human rights around the world.
Marco has led on these issues. He`s delivered for Florida. He enters the race in a strong very position. That`s why Congressman Murphy just went on that rant that we all had to listen to where he exaggerates his own record and ignores the fact he missed his own committee hearings, missed his own votes and spends his time attacking Marco because he can`t run on his on ineffective record as a congressman.
KORNACKI: What about, though? I mean, this is going to be the message and you heard a little bit of it there – the idea that, hey, he didn`t really want the job anymore. He was missing votes. He was missing more votes than some of the other senators running for president and talking about the job like it was not a place where you went to get things done. He said that about the Senate at one point.
What about that perception that`s going to be out there?
CONANT: Well, a couple of things. He missed votes because he was running for president. I mean, I don`t think Bernie Sanders has cast a vote in months in the Senate because he`s been running for president. Voters understand that when you run for president, you`re going to miss some votes.
Second of all, Marco said he was going to leave the Senate. He was going to pursue private sector options. He`s going to spend more time with his family, frankly make a lot more money. He`s foregoing all that because there`s so much at stake in this election. Either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump is going to be the next president of the United States, but if Hillary Clinton – I don`t think anybody wants to give her a blank slate, let her do whatever she wants by having the Senate as well.
And he will stand up to Hillary Clinton and he will stand up to Donald Trump when he disagrees with Donald Trump. Those disagreements are very well known, more so by Florida voters than anybody else. When he disagrees with Trump, he will stand up to him. He`s proven that time and time again.
KORNACKI: All right. Alex Conant, former communications director for the Rubio presidential campaign – thanks for the time.
KORNACKI: All right. HARDBALL is back after this.
KORNACKI: Welcome back to HARDBALL.
The Democrat sit-in still under way on this hour at Capitol Hill. Let`s return live to NBC`s Luke Russert. He`s just off the House floor.
Luke, how long is this going to go on for?
LUKE RUSSERT, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Well, I spoke to a high ranking Democratic official that said they plan to stay here all night. But what`s going to be interesting, Steve, is within the next few hours, the Republican leadership intends to move forward on the House floor. That means the lights are going to go up and the cameras go on and the Democrats insist they will continue to protest in the well of the House chamber.
So, in theory, we could see Republicans stepping over Democrats to cast their votes and expect a pretty chaotic situation, something we`ve never really seen here.
Republicans feel they that they believe the House should be going forward with the business of the people. They don`t want it to be delayed any longer. They`re going to try to enforce the Democrats` hands. The Democrats say we are not moving until we get our gun votes. The Republicans say if you want your gun votes you have go through the regular rules of the House.
So, expect the standoff to come to a head in the next few hours here, Steve.
KORNACKI: Wow, what a scene shaping up there on Capitol Hill.
NBC`s Luke Russert, covering it all. I`m sure we`ll be seeing a lot from you tonight and as long as this lasts.
And HARDBALL returns after this.
KORNACKI: Welcome back to HARDBALL.
Joining me for tonight`s roundtable, Jeanne Zaino, political campaign management professor for NYU, Azi Paybarah, senior political reporter for “Politico” New York, and Luciana Lopez, a correspondent for “Reuters”.
Let`s talk about the Trump speech today, fallout from the shake up this week. The Trump position, Jeanne, as a candidate looking ahead to the general election – is he in stronger position now than he was at the start of the week or does all this stuff just not really matter?
JEANNE ZAINO, NYU PROFESSOR: Well, he`s stronger but he was so far down that`s not saying much. He did need to make this speech. He needed to make it six weeks ago, he made it today. He managed to stay on script. He managed to use the teleprompter.
He got in lots of attacks on Hillary Clinton, and you know what? That`s what this campaign is about on both sides. Defining the other person. He let this be too much about him, he`s got to define her negatively. That`s what brings Republicans together and he did that today.
KORNACKI: What do you make of that? I mean, is this a natural fit, Trump from the teleprompter, the prepared speech? It fell awkward, huh?
AZI PAYBARAH, POLITICO: No, this is not how he became a reality TV star, but he did lay out arguments that you`re going to hear later on about immigration, about the trade agreements, Hillary Clinton benefitting herself and his phrase on “I`m with you compared to I`m with her” which is a strong contrast.
KORNACKI: You got to give him credit. Politically, that was a pretty savvy.
PAYBARAH: That was effective but the substance of the speech was very classic Trump. The way he delivered it was not and the question is going to, can he be that focused going forward?
KORNACKI: I say that was savvy because I have not seen that many moves from the campaign that are more conventionally crafty like that. But do you make of it?
LUCIANA LOPEZ, REUTERS: This was a way for him to say, hey, look, I can be presidential. I`m not going to just be that guy out there having people chant and beat up protesters so this was a chance for him to prove that, but I think the question is can he stick with it? Because he`s the kind of guy who when you goad him a little, he respond.
And as we saw with Hillary Clinton today she`s willing to goad him. Her line about Chapter 11, I mean, she said Chapter 11 today and yesterday. She has her hooks on that and she`s going to keep going for it.
KORNACKI: Right. One of the reasons he`s been on message so infrequently, it`s easy to get him off message. So, we`ll see as he`s baited.
That concludes the lightning round. I`m sorry. I wish we had more time because a big night here, a lot of news breaking from Capitol Hill.
Jeanne Zaino, Azi Paybarah, Luciana Lopez, thanks for joining us. Please come back.
And we`ll be back right after this.
KORNACKI: And you are looking at live video there on the left. This is from Periscope. That`s one of those online live streaming apps. Live video footage there from the House floor. That is where Democrats are continuing their sit-in, demanding action on gun control. They`re pushing House leadership to hold a series of votes on stricter gun control measures. House Speaker Paul Ryan calling it a publicity stunt.
We`re going to cover that sit-in throughout the night here on MSNBC. Thanks for being with us this hour.
“ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES” starts right now.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.END
Copyright 2016 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of CQ-Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.>
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Show: HARDBALLDate: June 22, 2016Guest: James Clyburn; Jim Himes, Donna Edwards, Xavier Becerra, Anne Gearan, Patrick Murphy, Alex Conant, Jeanne Zaino, Azi Paybarah, Luciana Lopez STEVE KORNACKI, GUEST HOST: Democrats demand action on guns. Let`s play HARDBALL. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REP. JOHN LEWIS (D), GEORGIA: We were elected to lead, Mr. Speaker. We must be headlights and not taillights! We cannot continue to stick our heads in the sand and ignore the reality of mass gun violence in our nation.
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How to Report a Tax Cheat
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It doesn’t take the Panama Papers to expose tax cheats — plenty of people report questionable tax behavior to the IRS every year. Here’s what you need to know if you want to report a possible tax crook and perhaps get a reward.
File the right form. The IRS received more than 87,000 reports of alleged misdeeds during the 2015 fiscal year, according to the Government Accountability Office.
You can file IRS Form 3949-A to report the alleged cheater and walk away. But if you want a reward, file Form 211 instead, says Bob Gardner, a consultant and former manager in the IRS whistleblower office.
Whistleblowers can get 15% to 30% of the amount collected if the case involves more than $2 million in taxes, penalties, interest and other amounts. (If the suspected cheater is an individual, he or she must also make more than $200,000 a year.) Below those thresholds, the award is discretionary. In 2015, the rewards totaled more than $103 million for 99 whistleblowers.
Read More: How to Build a Budget
Provide solid evidence. Proof is key, according to former IRS attorney Thomas Pliske, who is now a principal at the Tax Whistleblower Law Firm in St. Louis. Bank statements, invoices, emails or that second set of books can be hard to obtain without access, which is why most whistleblowers are people exposing their employers, he says.
You’ll need to mail your completed form and evidence to the IRS — whistleblowing can’t be done online or over the phone. And don’t wait too long: The statute of limitations on audits or assessments is generally three years after the shady return is filed, though there are lots of exceptions, Pliske says.
Work with a lawyer. Reports prepared by professionals may get more attention, experts say.
“The IRS examiners have a huge stack of cases that sits on their desk. When they get something new … if it’s put together by someone who doesn’t really speak the language very well, or who can’t communicate very effectively or can’t lay out a road map for how the IRS should investigate the fraud, it’s going to the bottom of the stack,” says whistleblower attorney Eric Havian, a partner at Constantine Cannon in San Francisco.
Read More: How to Build an Emergency Fund
Know that you may be outed. You can’t file a whistleblower claim (Form 211) anonymously, according to Susan Coler, a whistleblower attorney at Halunen Law in Minneapolis. Also, the IRS can reveal your identity publicly by calling you as a witness.
“If you’re really afraid about having your identity known, you really need to talk to an attorney about whether or not you should proceed,” she says.
Providing names of others who know about the cheating might encourage the IRS to call them to the stand instead of you, Pliske says.
Don’t expect constant updates. The IRS will likely tell you only that the case is open or closed, Coler says.
The IRS is equally tight-lipped with suspected cheaters. Unless the whistleblower’s identity is revealed, the suspected cheater likely won’t even know a case exists. The investigations look like regular audits, Gardner says.
Read More: How to Write a Retirement Plan
Be ready to lose your job — or worse. There are no federal protections regarding workplace retaliation against an IRS whistleblower, which makes getting fired a possibility if your employer discovers you made a report. State-level protections may exist but they vary, Havian says.
There’s another caveat: no guaranteed immunity. If you materially participated in the scheme, the IRS may reduce or eliminate the reward — or even come after you, Gardner warns.
However, it depends on the circumstances. “I have yet to see a case where the person has ever gone to jail, but again it depends on your participation: What did you do about it, how much were you involved in it, when did you come forward?” Gardner says.
You may not see a reward for five to seven years. “You really aren’t going to fund next spring break’s vacation with this activity,” Coler cautions. If and when there’s a judgment against an alleged cheater, the cheater still has the right to appeal, she says. Plus, the IRS pays out whistleblower awards only once it actually collects the money from the violator.
And if that reward ever does come, remember: It’s taxable.
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Whistleblowers can get 15% to 30% of the amount collected.
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The 10 cheapest new cars with no road tax
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There are plenty of new cars that emit less than 100g/km of CO2 and are in road tax band A as a result.
You pay nothing in vehicle excise duty (VED) for these cars, which helps to reduce running costs, but which are the cars that promise the lowest costs of all?
We've rounded up the ten cheapest new cars in tax band A - these are among the most affordable cars to buy and run on sale in the UK.
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We look at the 10 cheapest cars that are in road tax band A - motoring doesn't get much cheaper this
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Characters Ranked By Money Mutations Make
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Superhero blockbuster X-Men: Apocalypse arrived in theaters Friday, bringing back a legion of favorite characters for another installment in the battle between good and evil. The extraordinary powers these heroes use in their fight to save the world are certainly impressive. But in the real world of dollars and cents, I wondered if their larger-than-life abilities would prove nearly as useful.
In order to rank these superheroes, I compared the financial upside that each of their fictional powers could give them in our world—from the amount that Wolverine would save on medical bills due to his ability to heal himself to the stock market profits Psylocke could gain through her telepathic powers. Unfortunately for many of these powerful heroes, it turns out that some fictional abilities don’t transfer as well to modern capitalist society.
Here is MONEY’s ranking of X-Men superheroes by the monetary gain their powers would lend them:
Sadly, Cyclops’ unique ability to deliver “optic blasts” that shatter metals and rocks doesn’t have a ton of real-world value. If he could somehow harness that energy to cut down on utilities bills, this superhero might find himself in better financial straits.
While Storm’s ability to control the weather is undeniably cool, there isn’t a slew of financial upside that comes with her ability, unless you’re trying to salvage a beach vacation that got rained out.
Phoenix has budding telepathic and telekinetic abilities, which could prove helpful in manipulating the stock market or simply causing money to fly to her. But she’s unfamiliar with how to use her new powers, at times even fearing them. Perhaps with more experience, this young superhero might see the real-world value of her abilities amplified.
The ability to teleport helps Nightcrawler cut down on travel costs, from vacationing to public transportation. The catch? He can’t travel very far: His upper limit is about 50 miles away. Still, his power could help him escape undesirable social situations at will, a skill that could have infinite upside.
This superhero’s abilities to control magnetic fields would be more impressive if gold were susceptible to that particular physical property. As it stands, however, Magneto has to settle for the ability to send millions of nickels, dimes and quarters flying in his direction—which, if he’s extremely diligent about his coin collecting, could help him build a sizable nest egg.
Being a female with the ability to change her appearance at will is undeniably an enviable skill. With the ability to shift the formation of her cells, Mystique is able to make herself seem as young as she wants. Her talents likely eliminate visits to the plastic surgeon, potentially saving herself tens of thousands of dollars as she begins to age.
This formidable superhero has the ability to create and send out globs of energy called “fireworks,” and also reabsorb them back into her own body—which could mean big savings on her electricity bills. She’s also used tech devices that have given her skills like flight and invulnerability, which could help her slash transportation and medical expenses.
Beast possesses superhuman physical abilities like strength and endurance, meaning that his fit lifestyle will probably keep him away from the doctor longer than the average human. He’s also able to multi-task with ease, making him the ideal employee who’s better leveraged to ask for a raise. And his ability to secrete pheromones that attract the opposite gender likely has a positive effect on his mental health and well-being.
With her ability to read minds, Psylocke has the makings of a strong investor (If only she could time travel as well!). In the event that her telepathic abilities fail her, she also possesses telekinetic abilities, meaning that she could basically summon money whenever she pleases—an enviable skill.
While we mortals pinch pennies for the luxury of vacationing in far-flung destinations, Archangel’s fully-feathered, 16-foot wings allow him to jet set whenever he pleases. His flying abilities allow him to reach heights of 10,000 feet and speeds of 150 miles per hour. Think of all the airfare (and hours waiting in TSA security lines) he’s saving with that superpower. And with the ability to carry up to 200 pounds on his back while in flight, Archangel can also bring a plus-one along on his travels.
Who needs the Affordable Care Act if you have the ability to heal from almost any wound with practiced ease? Wolverine’s medical regeneration properties help him save thousands each year on health insurance, co-pays for doctor’s visits and unexpected hospital visits.
Quicksilver has the ability to think and move at superhuman speeds, allowing him to make and act on investing decisions faster than the rest of the players in the stock market. He also has a speedy metabolism and is able to heal faster than the average human, which could help prevent some diseases and eliminate medical bills in the event of injury.
It turns out that evil wins our fictional ranking. Apocalypse’s total control over the molecular form of his body make him a formidable opponent for traditional economics. It’s hard to imagine that the super villain spends any money on his health, as he’s able to regenerate himself from fatal injuries and adapt his body to combat any disease. He’s also saving on transportation costs, since he’s able to turn his limbs into wings or jets. On top of that, Apocalypse’s telepathic powers could allow him to build an impressive portfolio if he knew the right investors on which to employ his mind-reading abilities.
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We ranked how powerful these superheroes would be in the real world.
| 82.846154 | 0.923077 | 2.153846 |
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http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/07/27/11/30/malaysian-pm-gets-new-security-powers
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160728135744id_/http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/07/27/11/30/malaysian-pm-gets-new-security-powers
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Malaysian PM gets new security powers
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20160728135744
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Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak will get sweeping security powers on Monday amid planned protests calling for his resignation over allegations that millions of dollars from a state fund wound up in his personal bank account.
The new National Security Council (NSC) Act, which comes into force on August 1, allows Najib to designate any area as a "security area", where he can deploy forces to search any individual, vehicle or premise without a warrant.
It also allows investigators to dispense with formal inquests into killings by the police or armed forces in those areas.
Najib's ruling coalition promoted the law as a means to counter threats to security in predominantly Muslim Malaysia, which has long dealt with a fringe element of radical Islamists.
But critics say the law's expansive powers threaten human rights and democracy in the emerging nation, and could now be used to silence critics of the One Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) fund scandal.
"The concern among the civil society and others is because the NSC can be used against anything that the government is unhappy with," said Wan Saiful Wan Jan, chief executive of the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs.
"It does give the PM a huge amount of power to declare emergency zones...," he said.
The law was passed on the last day of the legislation session in December, surprising the opposition, as Najib came under mounting criticism over the multi-billion dollar scandal surrounding the 1MDB fund, which he founded and whose advisory council he chaired until recently.
The law was enacted without the customary royal assent from Malaysia's king, who had asked for some changes.
Pressure on Najib to step down mounted last week after the US Justice Department filed civil lawsuits alleging that over $US3.5 billion ($A4.66 billion) was misappropriated from 1MDB.
The lawsuits seek to seize more than $US1 billion ($A1.33 billion) of assets allegedly siphoned from the fund, saying they were part of "an international conspiracy to launder money".
The civil lawsuits do not name Najib, but refer to a high-ranking government official who received over $US700 million ($A932.77 million) of the misappropriated funds.
A source familiar with the investigations told Reuters the official, named as Malaysian Official 1 in the lawsuits, was Najib.
Najib, who has denied any wrongdoing, has said Malaysia will cooperate in international investigations of the 1MDB case.
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Malaysian PM Najib Razak will be able to declare any location a 'security area' and deploy forces to search any individual, vehicle or premises.
| 16.821429 | 0.821429 | 3.75 |
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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36894004
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160728152842id_/http://www.bbc.com:80/news/world-europe-36894004
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France church attack: Prayer, solidarity and Christian imagery on social media
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20160728152842
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The killing of a priest in an attack on a church has horrified France - and many people have been sharing Christian imagery in a show of solidarity and sympathy.
In what has become a sadly familiar response to terror attacks in Europe, people used social media to express their shock and outrage.
But this time the emotional memes and hashtags also reflected the fact that a church was the target of an attack and an 84-year-old priest, Fr Jacques Hamel, was the victim.
The "I am" hashtag has become the default way of showing solidarity after it first emerged when gunmen attacked the Paris offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in January 2015.
Shortly after the attacks in Rouen, it reappeared again with many priests themselves being the first to use #JeSuisPretre - I am a Priest.
Others have shown solidarity with #JeSuisChretien - I am Christian - and #JeSuisCatholique - I am Catholic.
Images of Christ have also been shared as social media reflects on the murder of a defenceless, elderly priest.
Meanwhile many, sharing their sadness and shock, have been paying tribute to the Fr Hamel. The Vatican called the incident barbarous, and the Archbishop of Canterbury was among those who tweeted a call to prayer.
By Rozina Sini, BBC's UGC and Social News Team
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I am - Why the default hashtag to show empathy after tragic events has resurfaced online again following the killing of a priest in France.
| 9.730769 | 0.730769 | 2.038462 |
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http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/trump-ill-win-the-black-vote-too
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160728211533id_/http://www.msnbc.com:80/msnbc/trump-ill-win-the-black-vote-too
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Trump: I’ll win the black vote, too!
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20160728211533
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Donald Trump’s got another bold electoral prediction.
“I think I’m going to win – this will surprise you – I’m going to win Hispanics, and I think I’m going to win the African-American vote,” the Republican presidential candidate said Tuesday on msnbc’s “Morning Joe” when asked about a poll showing that the vast majority Latino voters have a negative view of him. “Because I create jobs and they want jobs.”
The real estate mogul lead the charge to the get President Obama to release his long form birth certificate by embracing birtherism, a conspiracy theory about the president’s citizenship with obvious racial undertones, and was widely criticized for alienating black voters prior to the 2012 general election, the last time he flirted with a presidential run.
RELATED: With Donald Trump in the 2016 race, will birtherism make a comeback?
Trump is leading in the polls and dominating media coverage; while his bombastic rhetoric has impressed the GOP base, it’s also earned him ire from many, particularly after he claimed illegal immigrants are often “rapists” and criminals. He’s repeatedly vowed to win the Hispanic vote in the wake of the international outrage over that remark, but the polls show otherwise. A NBC News/WSJ poll released yesterday found that 75% of Latinos have a negative view of Trump.
Earning the black vote would be a Herculean effort for him, according to the Leah Wright Rigueur, a professor of public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and author of “The Loneliness of the Black Republican.”
“There’s no way that’s happening,” she told msnbc. “Talking about the jobs and the economy is going to be appealing, but the reality is that the rest of what he’s saying is deeply unappealing to black voters. His commentary on police brutality is absolutely appalling.”
She said black voters aren’t going to forget the “birther” movement, either.
“There’s a heightened sensitivity around Barack Obama with black audiences, when they see people attacking Obama on ludicrous grounds, they say, ‘they’re not just talking about Barack Obama they’re talking about me.’” she said. “This goes for [black] people who don’t like anything about Barack Obama.”
In 2014, Republicans got 10% percent of the black vote, which was actually a slight improvement on their performance with African-Americans in recent years. The party hasn’t earned more than 11% of the black vote since 1996, either.
But Trump believes he’s beloved by the African-American community (and everyone else, for that matter).
“I have a great relationship with the blacks. I’ve always had a great relationship with the blacks. But unfortunately, it seems that, you know, the numbers you cite are very, very frightening numbers,” he infamously said in 2011, while suggesting that African-Americans only voted for President Obama because he is black.
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Donald Trump offered up another bold, unlikely electoral prediction today, arguing that he’ll win the black vote in 2016.
| 25.26087 | 0.73913 | 1.173913 |
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http://www.nytimes.com/es/2016/07/22/tras-una-demanda-por-difamacion-carmen-aristegui-ve-una-amenaza-a-la-libertad-de-prensa/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160729072328id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/es/2016/07/22/tras-una-demanda-por-difamacion-carmen-aristegui-ve-una-amenaza-a-la-libertad-de-prensa/?
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Carmen Aristegui ve una amenaza a la libertad de prensa en nueva demanda en su contra
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20160729072328
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CIUDAD DE MÉXICO — El presidente mexicano Enrique Peña Nieto ha tratado de pasar la página de un escándalo que ha afectado seriamente a su mandato. Y lo ha hecho pidiendo disculpas porque su mujer comprara una casa a un empresario al que su gobierno había favorecido adjudicando obras públicas.
Pero, casi al mismo tiempo que el presidente pedía disculpas, Carmen Aristegui, la periodista que dirigía el equipo que desveló la existencia de la casa en noviembre de 2014, anunció que ha sido demandada. Muchos creen que esa denuncia es un toque de atención para los periodistas críticos con el gobierno de Enrique Peña Nieto.
Aristegui cree que “de lo que se trata es de intimidar, de fastidiar y de impedir que estos periodistas sigan haciendo su trabajo. Se pretende hacer uso del poder judicial para imponer la censura”.
Las noticias respecto a la casa, que fue construida por encargo en uno de los barrios más exclusivos de México, proyectan una sombra alargada sobre Peña Nieto, ya cuestionado por la respuesta del gobierno a la desaparición de 43 estudiantes en septiembre de 2014.
El lunes reconoció el daño hecho a su presidencia y repitió que no se había vulnerado la ley. “Este error ha afectado a mi familia, lastimó la investidura presidencial y dañó la confianza en el gobierno”, dijo tras firmar una ley contra la corrupción. “Entiendo perfectamente y por eso, con toda la humildad, les pido perdón”.
La presidencia anunció esta misma semana que su esposa, Angélica Rivera, había cancelado el acuerdo de compra de la casa en diciembre de 2014.
Cuatro meses después de que Aristegui publicara los detalles sobre la compra de la casa en su medio digital, fue despedida junto con su equipo de investigación por la empresa MVS, una emisora de radio para la que dirigió y presentó un programa durante seis años.
El máximo responsable de MVS, Joaquín Vargas, presentó la demanda contra Aristegui y Penguin Random House, que publicó en octubre un libro sobre la casa firmado por los cuatro reporteros del equipo de Aristegui. En el prólogo del libro, Aristegui escribió que la familia Vargas “sucumbió a la presión y compromisos con un poder al que antes se había enfrentado con dignidad y coraje”.
Ricardo Cayuela, director editorial de Penguin Random House, dijo que la demanda reclama daños morales causados por Aristegui, pide a la editorial que retire el prólogo del libro y pida disculpas. Los abogados de Aristegui dijeron que se les notificó la demanda el 29 de mayo.
“No se cuestiona la información publicada en el libro”, dijo Cayuela.
Felipe Chao, portavoz de MVS, dijo que Vargas presentó la demanda debido a la acusación de que había cedido a la presión política.
“Pide que se pruebe lo publicado o que haya una retractación pública”, dijo Chao. “No es por dinero”.
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El dueño de la estación donde la periodista trabajaba, Joaquín Vargas, le exige que pruebe las presiones políticas que él recibió tras hacer pública la investigación sobre la propiedad de la esposa de Enrique Peña Nieto.
| 13.923077 | 0.717949 | 1.74359 |
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http://time.com/money/3975216/widow-penalty-auto-insurance/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160729095632id_/http://time.com:80/money/3975216/widow-penalty-auto-insurance/
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What To Make Of "Widow Penalties"
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20160729095632
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It’s hardly news that unmarried drivers tend to pay more for auto insurance than married ones. In today’s auto insurance industry, complex pricing algorithms take into account an ever-growing number of factors like driver credit score, gender, and age—factors that seemingly have very little to do with, well, actually turning the steering wheel.
But according to a new study by the Consumer Federation of America, a change in marital status from married to unmarried (through divorce or the death of a spouse) can cause a woman’s auto insurance premiums to rise as much as 226%—suggesting a “widow penalty” that CFA director of insurance Bob Hunter said in a press teleconference Monday with executive director Stephen Brobeck is “immoral and should be stopped at once.”
Using the stock profile of a 30-year-old female with a perfect driving record and holding all variables (from income to car model) constant except for marital status, the CFA study surveyed quotes from six auto insurance giants—State Farm, GEICO, Farmers, Progressive, Nationwide, and Liberty—across ten different U.S. cities. Of the six, State Farm was the only provider to never change its prices according to driver marital status; the remaining five routinely quoted higher prices to single—never married, divorced, or widowed—female drivers. Of those five, only Nationwide sometimes made exceptions for widows by not raising their rates. The “widow penalty” overall averaged to an approximately 14% increase.
The logic of the “widow penalty,” according to insurance companies, is simple: unmarried drivers are, allegedly, statistically riskier drivers. According to James Lynch, who serves as chief actuary and director of information services at the Insurance Information Institute, this is hardly immoral. Rather, it’s “very much the way that insurance works.”
“Rates aren’t supposed to be based upon what makes you feel good,” Lynch said of the CFA study. “Insurance companies are not in the business of creating favored classes of people.”
The CFA questions whether insurance companies’ risk information about unmarried drivers is even actuarially sound, claiming it comes primarily from a 2004 New Zealand-based study, which admits to including too few instances of accidents among divorced, separated, and widowed drivers to make any conclusive statements about them. Lynch counters that insurance providers are basing their rates on significant correlations in their claims data.
Yet it’s hard not to object to the notion of an insurance “widow penalty,” which seems to compound personal loss with financial loss, raising the question of how far insurance classification plans should be allowed to go. We wouldn’t, after all, accept a race-based insurance system; and under the Affordable Care Act, gender-based rating for health insurance is out.
The CFA argues that “widow penalties” are part of a trend in the auto insurance industry of charging higher premiums to those least likely to be able to afford them. Drawing a parallel to the practice of charging higher insurance premiums to customers with bad credit scores, Hunter and Brobeck noted during the teleconference that unmarried women tend to be less well-off than married women. “[Insurance companies] are just not that interested in selling liability coverage on an older car to a younger or lower income person, and they price it accordingly,” they said.
It’s an insurance landscape not unlike that which has provoked efforts to overhaul the American healthcare system—and that in December 2013 caused the Federal Insurance Office to issue a report entitled “How to Modernize and Improve the System of Insurance Regulation in the United States,” including the suggestion that states revisit the question of “whether or in what manner marital status is an appropriate underwriting or rating consideration.” The report pointed to same-sex couples in states where it was then illegal for them to get married as one key population discriminated against by marital status ratings.
But what to do for the single consumer here, now, and not looking to get hitched?
Shop around. Get as many quotes from as many providers as you can. And take into consideration all of the factors (and not just your single status) that might jack up your insurance rates. Most importantly, don’t feel tied to the same insurance provider you’ve been using for years. Should your marital status suddenly change, get back out there and shop some more.
Read next: 23 Tricks to Save Thousands on Your Car
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A change in marital status can raise auto insurance premiums as much as 226%.
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http://www.wsj.com/articles/lvmh-sells-donna-karan-to-g-iii-for-650-million-1469445202
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160729104228id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/lvmh-sells-donna-karan-to-g-iii-for-650-million-1469445202?
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LVMH Sells Donna Karan Brand to G-III for $650 Million
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20160729104228
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LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE agreed to sell Donna Karan International Inc. to apparel company G-III Apparel Group Ltd. for $650 million including debt, an unusual retreat for the French luxury giant.
The Donna Karan and DKNY lines delivered lackluster growth for years amid stiff competition and capped investment from LVMH, which focused more on its eponymous brand, Céline and other labels it saw as being higher potential.
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LVMH agreed to sell Donna Karan International to apparel company G-III Apparel Group for $650 million including debt, an unusual retreat for the French luxury giant.
| 2.516129 | 1 | 11.516129 |
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http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/07/29/03/34/more-figures-to-show-if-rate-cut-warranted
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160729160618id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/07/29/03/34/more-figures-to-show-if-rate-cut-warranted
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More figures to show if rate cut warranted
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20160729160618
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New figures may hint as to how long Australia will remain in an ultra-low inflation environment and whether an imminent interest rate cut is needed.
The June quarter producer price index is released on Friday, which gauges what price pressures businesses are facing, and comes after the consumer price index earlier this week showed inflation at a 17-year low.
In the March quarter, the PPI showed prices declined 0.2 per cent in the final phase of production, for a modest 1.2 per cent rise over the year - one reason why consumers have continued to see only limited price pressures.
The Reserve Bank will also release its monthly credit data, which provide a sign of demand within the economy.
The central bank will hold its monthly board meeting next Tuesday.
Financial markets see a 60 per cent chance the board will agree to cut the cash rate to 1.5 per cent from an already record low of 1.75 per cent.
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The latest producer price index will gauge what price pressures business is facing and indicate whether benign inflation in the economy will continue.
| 7.416667 | 0.75 | 1.333333 |
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/10935779/Popular-with-celebrities-but-could-that-manuka-honey-in-your-cupboard-be-fake.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160729175656id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/news/health/news/10935779/Popular-with-celebrities-but-could-that-manuka-honey-in-your-cupboard-be-fake.html
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Popular with celebrities but could that manuka honey in your cupboard be fake?
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20160729175656
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Manuka honey is known for its antiviral and antibacterial properties, and jars can cost in excess of £30. The ‘liquid gold’ nectar is popular with Scarlett Johansson, Katherine Jenkins and tennis star Novak Djokovic.
Dr Hoyland’s comments come after an investigation by Minerva Scientific for The Grocer magazine which looked at randomly selected manuka honeys.
They conducted two different tests on seven samples - one for Non-Peroxide Activity (NPA) and one for Total Activity (TA).
Non-Peroxide Activity is the measurement for the antibacterial qualities of manuka honey. All honeys can be ‘active’ but this differs from the manuka honey’s special NPA.
Some of the products tested referred to activity which could potentially be confusing as consumer do not know the difference between TA and NPA.
According to the Food Standards Agency, there is no legal definition of the ‘activity’ or ‘total activity’ of manuka honey.
But a spokesman said: “The FSA is aware that the use of such terms is potentially confusing for consumers. That is why we have been working closely with the New Zealand authorities and welcome their new guidelines, which we expect soon, to give us greater clarity over the definitions used to market Manuka honey.”
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said they were working with the FSA to tackle the issue.
Although none of the products tested violated any law, their NPA levels were not significantly high and only one jar had significant levels of the unique NPA which differentiates manuka honey and provides its celebrated healing properties.
It was the Medi-Bee Manuka Honey stocked by Amazon, Costco and Holland & Barrett which made label claims directly relating to the Unique Manuka Factor trademark, created by the New Zealand-based Unique Manuka Factor Honey Association (UMFHA) and the NPA.
The Grocer quoted a source it called ‘Manuka Man’ who explained in an email: “From high street shops to online retailers, manuka honey is on sale across the UK and the UK consumer is being misled. However a lot of the industry does not understand the complexity of manuka enough to understand that what they are buying is fake manuka.”
Following the tests, Dr Hoyland said: “It would appear there could be some misleading activities with the best interests of consumers not at heart. From my experience, anywhere there are premium products, there’s likely to be an element of malpractice. Personally I would say it is unethical.”
The commercial director called for clearer legislation on the issue and said he was glad awareness of the issue had been raised.
“The honey regulations are not entirely appropriate but we are working with groups in New Zealand [to address the issue].”
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A respected independent honey testing lab has cast doubt on whether manuka honey sold in the UK is real - or in fact, just diluted with cheaper kanuka honey
| 16.4375 | 0.46875 | 0.53125 |
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2016/06/16/lieutenant-commander-andrew-prideaux--obituary/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160729184105id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/obituaries/2016/06/16/lieutenant-commander-andrew-prideaux--obituary/
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Lieutenant Commander Andrew Prideaux - obituary
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20160729184105
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Lieutenant Commander Andrew Prideaux, who has died aged 98, fought in two submarines of the “Fighting Tenth” flotilla based in Malta before retiring from the Navy to become a solicitor.
From April 1942 to April 1943 he was first lieutenant of the submarine Unrivalled, one of 26 American and British submarines which were positioned as navigation beacons to guide Allied landing forces to the beaches of North Africa in November 1942, and to intercept attempts by the enemy to interfere with landing operations.
In the first phase of the operation Unrivalled’s station was off Algiers, until on November 9/10, when she was moved to the west of Sicily to reinforce the patrol line there. Then, over Christmas 1942, she joined the famous “Fighting Tenth” submarine flotilla based in Malta. In the New Year, Unrivalled patrolled the Gulf of Hammamet, where she engaged a tug with her gun and drove it ashore, but was forced to dive by fire from shore batteries. Later she harried enemy shipping by gunfire, torpedo and scuttling charges.
In February, south of Messina, Unrivalled sank several ships and was counter-attacked by the enemy using depth charges. Early in March she carried out the first of several surveys of the shores of Sicily by launching “folbots” – folding canoes with two-man crews from COPP (Combined Operations Pilotage Parties), but in operations between March 4 and 6 all the folbots were lost. The official history recorded that “miraculously the landing places did not seem to be compromised and in spite of these difficulties the surviving COPPs brought back enough information”, but Prideaux remained haunted by the loss of so many brave men.
The next patrol was against shipping off Palermo when Unrivalled was heavily counter-attacked by anti-submarine vessels but was able to withdraw undamaged. On April 1 she was en route to a new patrol against shipping in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Turner watched while four RAF Blenheims tried to sink an Italian cargo ship and then surfaced and sent Prideaux to board and sink it with scuttling charges.
In a subsequent attack on a tanker escorted by three ships, she fired four torpedoes, hitting with all four. The main target, the Italian Bivona disintegrated but Unrivalled suffered an accurate counter attack, and with only one torpedo left and not yet in her patrol area, she was recalled to Malta.
Prideaux then returned to Britain where he attended the “perisher”, the demanding course needed before he could qualify for submarine command.
He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for seven successful submarine patrols in the Mediterranean.
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Lieutenant Commander Andrew Prideaux, who has died aged 98, fought in two submarines of the “Fighting Tenth” flotilla based in Malta before retiring from the Navy to become a solicitor.
| 13.694444 | 0.972222 | 25.694444 |
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/science/what-is-alzheimers-disease.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160729200521id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2016/05/02/science/what-is-alzheimers-disease.html?action=click&contentCollection=Health&module=RelatedCoverage®ion=EndOfArticle&pgtype=article
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What Is Alzheimer’s Disease?
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20160729200521
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Alzheimer’s disease can seem frightening, mysterious and daunting. There are still a lot of unknowns about the disease, which afflicts more than five million Americans. Here are answers to some common questions:
Just because you forgot an item on your grocery list doesn’t mean you are developing dementia. Most people have occasional memory lapses, which increase with age. The memory problems that characterize warning signs of Alzheimer’s are usually more frequent, and they begin to interfere with safe or competent daily functioning: forgetting to turn off the stove, leaving home without being properly dressed or forgetting important appointments. Beyond that, the disease usually involves a decline in other cognitive abilities: planning a schedule, following multistep directions, carrying out familiar logistical tasks like balancing a checkbook or cooking a meal. It can also involve mood changes, agitation, social withdrawal and feelings of confusion, and can even affect or slow a person’s gait.
Diagnosing Alzheimer’s usually involves a series of assessments, including memory and cognitive tests. Clinicians will also do a thorough medical work-up to determine whether the thinking and memory problems can be explained by other diagnoses, such as another type of dementia, a physical illness or side effects from a medication. Brain scans and spinal taps may also be conducted to check for corroborating evidence like the accumulation of amyloid, the hallmark protein of Alzheimer’s, in the brain or spinal fluid.
The cause is unknown for most cases. Fewer than 5 percent of cases are linked to specific, rare gene mutations. Those are usually early-onset cases that develop in middle age. In the vast majority of cases, Alzheimer’s disease makes its presence known after age 65, and the older one gets, the greater the risk. Aside from age, which is the single biggest risk factor, there are health issues that can increase the chances of developing Alzheimer’s. Heart and vascular problems, including stroke, diabetes and high blood pressure, appear to increase the risk of Alzheimer’s and other dementias. Depression has also been associated with increased risk.
People with one copy of the ApoE4 gene variant have two to four times as much risk of developing Alzheimer’s as people without the variant, and people with two copies of ApoE4 have about 10 times the risk. That risk appears to be larger in women. Carriers of ApoE4 also have a greater chance of developing symptoms at a younger age. About 25 percent of people have one copy of ApoE4; about 3 percent have two copies.
Many researchers have been trying to figure this out. So far there is no clear answer. There are hints that behaviors that keep us healthy and engaged — exercise, healthy diet, social activities, educational activities — may keep dementia at bay for some time, probably because those behaviors promote overall brain and body health, as well as emotional well-being. Education may promote what is called cognitive reserve, essentially the idea that the more we learn and stimulate our brains, the more brain cells we have that can temporarily compensate for some memory and thinking problems. But no vitamin, supplement or brain game has been found to be a magic wand.
Before developing symptoms of Alzheimer’s, some people, but not all, experience a condition called mild cognitive impairment. One type of MCI affects memory. Another type affects perception or decision-making skills. Both types involve a slight decline in these abilities, but it does not prevent the person from functioning independently. People with MCI have a greater risk of developing Alzheimer’s, but it is not inevitable.
Recently, scientists have begun to recognize an even earlier state that can precede dementia, called subjective cognitive decline. This occurs when people notice lapses in their memory or thinking that worry them, even if those around them are not really aware of the lapses. Dementia experts have found that sometimes people recognize these issues before they reach the threshold of a clinical diagnosis, and that those people may be more likely to eventually develop Alzheimer’s.
Alzheimer’s itself typically involves mild, moderate and severe stages. Mild and especially moderate stages can last years, and there is often no way to predict a person’s pace and path of decline.
There are five drugs approved to treat Alzheimer’s, sold under the names Aricept, Exelon, Namenda, Namzaric and Razadyne. These drugs either slow the breakdown of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine or block the overproduction of glutamate in the brain, but none have been shown to work very well for very long.
The search for more effective medications has been met with years of failure. One theory behind that failure is that many drugs have been tested on patients too far along in the disease; their brains may have been too damaged for the drugs to have an effect on their symptoms. Many of the drugs developed so far target the amyloid protein that forms plaques in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, because many scientists believe that amyloid buildup is a cause of Alzheimer’s.
Recent research has found that amyloid begins accumulating 20 years or more before symptoms of dementia occur, and advancements in scans that can detect amyloid are making it possible to identify people in earlier stages, including some who have no symptoms of dementia yet. Several clinical trials are underway, including large trials testing anti-amyloid drugs at these early stages. It will be several years before solid results are known.
A version of this article appears in print on May 2, 2016, on page A3 of the New York edition with the headline: Frequently Asked Questions About the Disease. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
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Here are answers to some common questions about a disease that can seem frightening, mysterious and daunting.
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Indian parliament passes contentious child labour bill
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India's parliament has approved a controversial law that would allow children to work for family businesses, despite widespread concern by the UN and other rights advocates that it will push more minors into labour.
The measure, approved on Tuesday, brings several changes to a three-decade-old child labour prohibition law. The bill now goes for the president's assent before becoming law.The UN Children's Agency (UNICEF) as well as many others have raised alarm over two particular amendments - permitting children to work for their families and reducing the number of banned professions for adolescents.A 2015 report by the International Labour Organization put the number of child workers in India ages five to 17 at 5.7 million, out of 168 million globally.
UNICEF estimates that there are 28 million child labourers in India.More than half of India's child workers are employed in agriculture and more than a quarter in manufacturing - embroidering clothes, weaving carpets or making matchsticks.
Children also work in restaurants, shops and hotels and as domestic workers.The new legislation extends a ban on child labour under 14 to all sectors.
Previously, only 18 hazardous occupations and 65 processes such as mining, gem cutting and cement manufacturing were outlawed.It also stiffens penalties for those employing children, doubling jail terms to two years and increasing fines to 50,000 rupees ($740) from 20,000 rupees ($300).
READ MORE: The Lost Boys of Indiaâs Meghalaya State
While child rights groups have welcomed such changes, there has been concern over other amendments proposed by the government of Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister.
For example, children will be allowed to work in family businesses, outside school hours and during holidays, and in entertainment and sports if it does not affect their education.Also, children aged 15 to 18 will be permitted to work, except in mines and industries where they would be exposed to inflammable substances and hazardous processes.The government says the exemptions aim to strike a balance between education and India's economic reality, in which parents rely on children to help with farming or artisanal work to fight poverty or pass on a family trade."The purpose of this very act is that we should be able to practically implement it," Bandaru Dattatreya, India's labour and employment minister, told parliament. "That's why we are giving some exemptions."UNICEF had urged India to exclude family work from the proposed law and include an "exhaustive list" of hazardous occupations."To strengthen the bill and provide a protective legal framework for children, UNICEF India strongly recommends the removal of 'children helping in family enterprises'," it said in a statement on Monday."This will protect children from being exploited in invisible forms of work, from trafficking and from boys and girls dropping out of school due to long hours of work," it said.
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Measure to allow children to work in family businesses while shortening the list of banned jobs for children.
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How Europe's Terrorists Get Illegal Guns
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Twice this year, Parisians have witnessed attackers armed with high-powered assault weapons—the kind outlawed in France—run down Paris’s grand boulevards and unleash a bloodbath upon the City of Light. “How do these people arrive here?” asked Florent Vigneux, 26, a physiotherapist, standing stunned in the Place de la République, two days after the Nov. 13 attack. “What can our government do?”
The fear and confusion after January’s Charlie Hebdo attacks over how military-grade weapons made their way into the French capital has only worsened since the massacre on Nov. 13 carried out by ISIS supporters, which left 130 dead and injured some 350 more. In the wake of the latest attacks, fear only intensified—speaking to the French Parliament on Nov.19, Prime Minister Manuel Valls also warned that ISIS could use biological or chemical weapons to attack France. “We must not rule anything out.”
Yet it was not bombs or chemical or radioactive weapons that caused so much death and destruction, but comparatively simple rifles and assault weapons, tools of war that have already left their mark on France, and the rest of Europe.
Compared to the U.S., where 33,000 people are killed by firearms a year, more than 11,000 of them in homicides, Europe has long been seen as a safe haven from gun-related violence. Mass shootings on the continent—though not unknown—are extremely rare.
But that has been changing. Rather than the explosives used in major attacks in Madrid and London a decade ago, guns have increasingly become the weapon of choice for extremists. The first notable incident was in 2012, when Mohamed Merah shot and killed three soldiers and four Jewish civilians in the French city of Toulouse. In May 2014 Mehdi Nemmouche shot up the Brussels Jewish Center, killing four. In January this year, three gunmen shot dead 17 people in separate attacks at the offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket. The following month, a 22-year-old Danish man sprayed a Copenhagen café with bullets, killing one, and later shot dead a Jewish security guard.
There have also been several foiled attacks involving guns: in April, a gunman preparing to attack Parisian churches accidentally shot himself in the leg and was found near a car filled with loaded weapons. In August, a young Moroccan man boarded a train en route to Paris from Amsterdam, armed with a Kalashnikov and a pistol, but was subdued by passengers after the gun jammed.
The rise in so-called “lone wolf” terrorists operating with relative autonomy partly explains the shift in tactics: guns require less expertise to use than bombs. Making and transporting a bomb requires effort and communication, which in turn leads to a higher risk of being discovered by the authorities. “The fact is that we are seeing homegrown, localized threats within communities, who know where firearms are,” Brian Donald, chief of staff of Europol, the E.U.-wide policing organization, told TIME in an interview after the Copenhagen attack in February. “They don’t have to have a big terrorist network to support them, they can go out and buy one [weapon] on the street. That is what the police in Europe are facing.”
Lone wolf attacks, though terrifying in their randomness, usually result in comparatively few casualties. More worrying is the use of firearms in coordinated attacks involving multiple gunmen. The 2008 Mumbai attacks made it clear to terrorists around the world that guns could yield significant damage. That November, 10 Pakistani militants launched bombings and shootings on train stations, hotels, cinemas and a Jewish community center, killing 164 people. “Mumbai really kicked off this kind of crime,” says Paul James, former head of the U.K.’s National Ballistic Intelligence service who is now leading an E.U.-funded project to look at how weapons cross out of the Balkans into the rest of Europe.
The Paris attackers likely took their inspiration from Mumbai, both in terms of weapons and indiscriminate soft targets. As in Mumbai, the Paris attacks involved both explosives and firearms, but it was the guns that ultimately had the most devastating effects, especially at the Bataclan theater, where gunmen killed 90 people.
Once European terrorists realized the strategic advantages of guns, they quickly discovered they were surprisingly easy to find. Just beyond the countries of Western Europe, with their restrictive gun laws, lie the Balkan states, awash with illegal weapons left over from the conflicts that raged there in the 1990s. According to the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey, there are anywhere between three million and six million firearms in circulation in the Western Balkans—and possibly more.
Officials say the increase in foreign fighters returning from conflicts abroad—some 5,000 Europeans have joined ISIS and other jihadist groups in Iraq and Syria—is especially worrying considering the vast pool of weapons available in nearby Eastern Europe and North Africa, the detritus of past and current wars. “It’s a relatively new phenomenon, but there’s a growing number of people who have been trained to use automatic weapons, assault rifles and grenade launchers,” says Ivan Zverzhanovski, who heads the U.N. Development Program’s project in Belgrade to control small arms in southeastern and eastern Europe. “That will cross-fertilize in a way with the Balkans.”
For E.U. officials, the Paris and Copenhagen attacks this year have confirmed a suspicion that illegal weapons are flowing freely through Europe’s 26-country Schengen zone, which allows near frictionless travel across borders, and that European leaders are lagging behind in cracking down on the trade. “We have so many weapons in Paris,” Christophe Crépin, spokesman for France’s national police union, told TIME a few days after the Nov. 13 attacks. “There are links between organized crime and terrorists, and a route that goes from the Balkans.”
France became particularly worried about the trafficking of illegal guns in 2012, increasing fines and jail terms for those involved in the trafficking and possession of them. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said in September that police have seized nearly 6,000 weapons from criminal groups each year since 2013, 1,200 of which were military assault weapons. And in the three weeks following the Nov. 13 attacks, Cazeneuve said French police seized 334 weapons, 34 of them military-grade.
Several officials and experts tell TIME they’ve seen a noticeable climb in both the numbers and the types of illicit weapons crossing borders over the past few years. Rather than pistols and small guns, there has been a spike in demand for military-grade assault weapons. This reflects a very different kind of criminality: petty criminals and drug dealers tend to want small pistols that they can conceal; terrorists want AK-47s that can do maximum damage.
“For something like the Paris attacks, you don’t need hundreds of thousands of weapons. You just need enough to create havoc,” says Zverzhanovski. “The gun market operates on a very basic supply and demand system. Since about 2011, there has definitely been a significant increase of illicit weapons going from southeast Europe towards different parts of the E.U.” Crucially, it’s not truckloads or planeloads of weapons coming in. It’s much more a case of “micro-trafficking”—a few pieces being brought in by individuals—making it much more difficult to track.
Though not authorized to speak on the record, three officials and two gun experts with information on the Charlie Hebdo investigation confirmed to TIME that the weapons used in the attacks came from the Balkans and Eastern Europe. Some were deactivated weapons from Slovakia, converted to be live-firing. (Under pressure from the E.U., Slovakia recently tightened its regulations for the possession and sale of weapons). Other arms are believed to have come from Croatia and Serbia, while some ammunition has been traced to the Republika Srpska, an administrative entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Some of the weapons in the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris may have followed a similar path as the Charlie Hebdo weapons. According to a report by German tabloid Bild and confirmed by sources speaking to TIME, a German national called Sascha W. sold two of the Chinese Model 56 variant of the AK47 Kalashnikov assault rifle and two Zastava M70 machine guns to “an Arab in France” on Nov. 7. French officials believe the guns were among those used in Paris on Nov. 13. The M70 rifles, standard issue guns in the former Yugoslavia, were reportedly produced in the country’s state arsenal in the late 1980s. The director of the Zastava factory in central Serbia told Reuters that his company found guns from one batch were sent to military depots in Slovenia, Bosnia and Macedonia.
As for the Chinese model AK47s, experts speaking to TIME point out that such copies have in fact been produced in Albania from the 1960s until fairly recently, notably in the town of Gramsh in central Albania. And there appear to be many more signs of a Balkan weapons pipeline to Western Europe. Shortly before the Paris attacks, police in southern Germany arrested a Montenegrin man with eight Kalashnikovs sealed into the body of his car; his satellite navigation system showed a Paris address as its destination. Although German authorities have not confirmed any link to the Paris attacks, for some it underscored how big a problem the unchecked spread of Balkans weapons had become.
“European security forces have been slow to recognize that there is a widespread problem arising out of the huge amounts of assault rifles and ammunition left unaccounted for after the various Balkan upsets,”says Brian Johnson-Thomas, an arms trafficking expert who has worked for the UN Security Council and the European Commission on tracking guns from the Balkans into the rest of Europe.
How can investigators track the flow of illegal guns? When a weapon is fired, the bullet leaves a trace as unique as a fingerprint on its cartridge case. “If you recover the cartridge or the bullet, you would be able to say it definitely came from a particular gun,” says Paul James, the former British police investigator. But knowing which gun a bullet came from is very different from being able to work out exactly where that gun was manufactured—and where it might have traveled before it was used in an attack. “Many guns still in circulation now were manufactured in the 1970s and 1980s—especially the reliable and popular Kalashnikovs,” says Stefano Caneppele of Transcrime, a Milan-based research center.
In December 2014, Caneppele began a two-year project funded by the European Commission to gather data on illicit guns trafficking, bringing together E.U.-wide knowledge about firearms. He says because guns last for decades, the market for them is much more difficult to track than drugs or cigarettes, which are consumed in large and repeated quantities that require regular resupplying
The Kalashnikov’s long lifespan also means the line separating legal and illegal guns trade is often blurred. “Manufacturing of firearms is almost always done according to the law,” says Pensala, the Finnish police officer. “But if you think about the lifespan of a Kalashnikov, at some point it drops from the legal market to the illegal one. Especially in Eastern European countries, corruption is one of the main reasons for that. There’s a joke in certain gun factories that when you manufacture weapons, one is for the government and one is for you.”
The illegal reactivation of Kalashnikovs is often made possible by the sale of gun parts on the Internet and within Europe too. Pensala points out that the neighborhood of Molenbeek in Brussels—the Belgian suburb that became a hub for Islamist terror—has even earned the nickname “The Great Bazaar of Kalashs.” As demand for Kalashnikovs soars, so do prices. An AK-47 bought for four or five hundred euros in the Balkans could sell for thousands within the E.U., where gun laws are so much more restrictive.
During the raid of German national Sascha W.’s house, police officers reportedly found 16 weapons and a spokeswoman for the Stuttgart prosecutors office told Deutsche Welle that Sascha W. “was allegedly converting non-lethal weapons to firearms and then selling them online.” Analysts say Sascha W. appears to be part of a growing—and disturbing—trend of illegal gunsmiths preparing weapons by themselves with spare parts available on the Internet, and then selling assault rifles to terrorists. “His actions point strongly and typically to reactivation business,” says Pensala, the Finnish police officer.
If Sascha W. was indeed selling blank-firing guns and gas guns, which can then be converted into active guns with the right parts, his activities were similar to how some of the guns used in the Charlie Hebdo attack were procured and converted in Slovakia. And the fact that every E.U. member state has slightly different laws on firearms and the standards for deactivation means a deactivated gun that is legally sold in Germany or Slovakia could be converted to live-firing and used elsewhere.
What the Paris attacks made clear is that European authorities are struggling to catch up with a phenomenon that suddenly outpaced them. Those working on gun control say law enforcement agencies only really began paying attention to the phenomenon of illicit arms trafficking after 2011, when some European governments started to notice increasing numbers of illegal guns found in spot checks. Since then, the rise of terror-linked shootings has prompted closer collaboration between European countries: in 2013, the European Commission made tackling gun violence a priority. But intelligence on the size of the market and how organized crime and gunrunning networks function is still fairly patchy, particularly with regards to sharing information with the Balkan nations.
Europe’s free borders remain a barrier to stopping the flow of guns. “The problem generally is that as the E.U.’s frontiers have moved eastward, certain countries with weaker gun laws have moved inside the free-movement zone,” says arms trafficking expert Johnson-Thomas. “That doesn’t always help with law enforcement.”
That may finally change. Already on Nov. 18 the European Commission adopted a package of measures including stricter rules on the ban of certain semi-automatic weapons and the sale of firearms online, as well as more rigid regulations for the sale of deactivated guns. The Commission is also developing an action plan involving the Balkans on the illegal trafficking of weapons and explosives. “The recent terrorist attacks on Europe’s people and values were coordinated across borders, showing that we must work together to resist these threats,” the Commission’s president Jean-Claude Juncker told the E.U. body in Brussels, just five days after the Paris attacks, when it voted to tighten gun laws in Europe.
The recent Paris attacks seem to be a wakeup call for European authorities to share information and work more closely with the Balkan states to stem the flow of weapons. But with failed states at the edge of Europe’s borders and stockpiles of guns floating around in unstable regions like Libya and Ukraine, the continent’s struggle is likely to be a long one.
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Long seen as a haven from gun violence, Europe faces a new threat
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See Rare Photos of a Young Hillary Clinton
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Hillary Clinton: little girl smiling in a white dress with a bicycle behind her. Hillary: splashing the water with her feet while attending college. Clinton: meeting President Ronald Reagan with her husband, Bill.
Rarely seen photos of the Democratic presidential nominee reveal the human behind the First Lady, Senator, Secretary of State and all the other titles that attached to a woman who has been at the pinnacle of American politics for 25 years.
This gallery traces Clinton’s development growth from a young girl to a college student and then wife to Bill. The photos have a deeply personal nature.
Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea, will speak Thursday at the Democratic National Convention. Bill spoke on Tuesday night, calling his wife the “best darn change maker” he has ever known; as President Barack Obama cast Hillary as the only choice for the presidency during his speech Wednesday night to the DNC.
Read More: Hillary Clinton Is the Hardest One to Know
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In college and with Bill.
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Tesla and SolarCity Are Said to be Close to a Merger Deal
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Tesla Motors tsla and SolarCity scty have made progress in putting together a deal that will merge the electric car maker and the solar panel installer, people familiar with the matter said.
The two companies, which count billionaire Elon Musk as a major shareholder, are in the final stages of carrying out due diligence on each other, and could agree on the terms of a deal in the coming days, though it is still possible that their negotiations end unsuccessfully, the people said on Saturday.
It could not be learned whether SolarCity would be successful in including a go-shop provision in a merger agreement with Tesla that would allow it to continue to solicit bids from other potential buyers for a short period of time.
The sources asked not to be identified because the negotiations are confidential. Representatives for SolarCity and Tesla did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Tesla announced last month that it had made an all-stock offer for SolarCity worth $2.8 billion. It argued that by acquiring SolarCity, the two companies would form a one-stop clean energy shop, offering consumers solar panels, home battery storage and electric cars under a single trusted brand.
SolarCity has not publicly revealed its views on Tesla’s offer since it announced on June 27 that it had formed a special committee consisting of two board members to evaluate the offer. The committee said it had retained legal and financial advisers and would review the proposal against SolarCity’s standalone prospects and a broad range of strategic alternatives.
As chief executive of Tesla, chairman of SolarCity and the biggest shareholder in both companies, Musk has recused himself from voting on the deal at both companies. Several Tesla and SolarCity executives, including Musk’s cousins SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive and SolarCity board member Peter Rive, have also recused themselves from voting.
Elon Musk said on July 20 when he revealed his master plan “part deux” for Tesla that he is looking to create a “smoothly integrated and beautiful solar-roof-with-battery product.”
“We can’t do this well if Tesla and SolarCity are different companies, which is why we need to combine and break down the barriers inherent to being separate companies,” Musk said.
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Both companies count Elon Musk as a major shareholder.
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Social Security: The Hidden Risk of a Lump-Sum Payment
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As the horde of baby boomers reach retirement, more and more are eligible to claim a lump-sum benefit payment from Social Security. The rules are tricky, however. And I’m hearing sad tales from readers who claimed this payment inadvertently, which will end up reducing their lifetime benefits.
I’ll explain how to avoid this mistake, but first you may be wondering how lump-sum claiming works. You can claim a retroactive benefits payment if you file for retirement benefits after you reach full retirement age (FRA), which is 66 today and will eventually rise to 67. So if you file between age 66½ and 70, you can get up to six months of payments in a lump sum.
Sounds good, right? But this payment comes at a cost—you give up future benefit increases. Between your FRA and age 70, your unclaimed benefits rise in value at the rate of 8% a year, thanks to delayed retirement credits. If you file for your retirement benefit at age 70, for example, you will qualify for the highest possible benefit—payments that are 32% higher than your benefit at age 66 and 76% higher than at age 62.
By contrast, if you file at 70 after receiving a six months lump-sum payment, your benefits would be calculated as if you had filed six months earlier—at age of 69½. You will lose out on six months of delayed retirement credits, which reduces your monthly payments by 4% for the rest of your life.
Social Security representative are required under the rules to explain these choices and trade-offs clearly and make sure benefits begin exactly when you intend to start them. But the application forms can be confusing. And sometimes the reps may put down an incorrect benefits start date.
In one case brought to my attention, a claimant visited a Social Security office three months before his 70th birthday—he went in early to make sure he had plenty of time to “get it right.” The opposite happened. A Social Security representative provided him six months of retroactive benefits as of the day he visited the office, which set his filing date back six months to the age of 69 and three months. That mistake reduced his lifetime benefits by 6% a month.
Given the widespread confusion over Social Security benefits, these filing errors may occur more often than people realize. A retired Social Security claims representative, who spoke on the condition he would not be identified, said the staffers’ working assumption is that claimants will want any retroactive payments to which they are entitled.
“Based on my personal experience, when you explain to someone that they can either wait until age 70 and receive $3,000 per month, for example, or receive $2,885 per month and get a lump sum check of $17,310, the vast majority opt for the latter,” the representative said. (Statistics on the volume of retroactive benefits and how they have changed in recent years was “not readily available,” according to a Social Security spokeswoman.)
You may be wondering whether you should grab the lump sum or hold out for higher payments later. The right choice depends on your financial situation and your likely longevity. If you delay your benefit till age 70, and you live until your early to mid-80s, your higher monthly payments will more than make up for the forgone lump sum. That’s why postponing claiming offers the best longevity insurance for the growing numbers of people who live into their late 80s and 90s.
Read next: When It Pays Early to File for Social Security
If you get an unintended lump sum payment, or if your monthly benefit is less than you expected, you can get the problem fixed. Call 1-800-772-1213 (TTY 1-800-325-0778) or contact your local Social Security office. Explain the problem and have copies of your original claim at hand, including specifics on when you want payments to begin.
For those planning to file for benefits, make sure whoever you’re dealing with at Social Security knows exactly when you wish your benefits to start. Take the lump sum if you need to—just be clear about the cost to your future benefits.
Philip Moeller is an expert on retirement, aging, and health. He is co-author of The New York Times bestseller, “Get What’s Yours: The Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security,” and is working on a companion book about Medicare. Reach him at moeller.philip@gmail.com or @PhilMoeller on Twitter.
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Receiving a retroactive benefits payment carries a cost.
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Buy this, not that: 7 foods to always buy frozen vs. fresh to save money
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When you're trying to stay health-conscious, it can be difficult to rationalize skipping out on the freshest produce at the grocery store in order to save money.
It's hard to know when, and with which foods, you'll be compromising nutritional value (and taste) for when you decide to go with the prepackaged, frozen alternative to the natural options.
SEE ALSO: How to choose the most cost-effective grocery store
Luckily, we've rounded up seven specific grocery items that pass the test nutritionally when frozen, making them much more worth it to buy the cheaper way.
A few general rules of thumb?
Most of your favorite greens and veggies are so overloaded with nutrients that even if some are lost in the process of freezing and recooking, it won't make an overall difference in the nutritional value of the food.
Also, any vegetable or food that's rich in fat-soluble nutrients (like vitamin A and carotenoids) are best frozen as those nutrients are better able to withstand different food processing and storage methods.
Here are 7 grocery items that are always worth buying frozen over fresh:
7 foods you should buy frozen vs fresh
Shopping organic or locally is without a doubt great for the economy, the community and of course, your body.
But the caveat, of course, is the expense at which those benefits come.
While it's always good to switch up between frozen and fresh, these are the items you can head straight to the freezer for.
Now, check our out these tricks that grocery stores use to make you spend more:
5 tricks grocery stores use to make you spend more
Necessities such as milk and eggs are always packed in the rear, so consumers have to walk through the entirety of the store even if they just want to pick up a few things.
These fragrant and visually appealing products are deliberately placed in the front of the store to activate shoppers' salivary glands and makes them hungry, which leads them to buy more during their trip. These are also high margin departments, so grocers place them in the front when a shopper's cart is empty and they're more likely to add to it.
These bright and aesthetic items excite the eye, prompting consumers to spend more.
Expensive and leading brands are at eye-level, and kid-friendly products like sugary cereals are typically at kids' eye-level.
Shoppers are much more likely to buy a complementing item if it's right next to it, such as chips and salsa, or bread and spreads.
More on AOL.com: Grocery stores that have disappeared over the years 12 tricks to slash your grocery bill in half without using coupons Here's how 8 different people spent $100 at the grocery store
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When you’re trying to stay health-conscious, it can be difficult to skip out on the freshest produce at the grocery store in order to save money.
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Singapore: readers' tips
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Steer clear of Raffles’ Long Bar if you’re not too steady on your feet. It’s customary for patrons there to discard all their peanut shells on the floor. When I last went, not long after a knee replacement, I found it tricky to negotiate the considerable debris, especially when I’d drunk a Singapore Sling. Make a beeline though for the breathtaking Jurong Bird Park, which is home to a wealth of exotic and fascinating birds, including a strangely sinister and morose-looking African shoebill that so riveted me with its baleful stare that I found it hard to tear myself away.
The night safari is a must. You get to see nocturnal animals and those that are more active after dusk, which you won’t see in other zoos. Although there is a tram tour which many favour, I preferred to walk the trails – the experience of hearing a lion roar nearby and then spotting it in the dim light separated by barely perceptible barriers (such as moats and electric fences) was just amazing. It can get busy, but is well organised and doesn’t feel crowded. The four hours I was there from dusk to midnight flew by; when I went back to my hotel I just could not stop thinking of all the animals I had seen in a unique setting.
Yes of course Singapore is hot and humid and you’ll only be wearing the flimsiest of clothes, but Wellingtons and a brolly would be a good idea. The gutters, like deep gorges down the sides of every street, are a clue. Most afternoons, it doesn’t just rain, it cascades down in solid sheets. Watch the locals, who seem to know when it will happen. Elegant slender women in business suits hurry along in plastic boots.
Seeking shelter indoors, I’d recommend the little visited National Art Gallery (soon to be moved to a new home) with an interesting permanent collection and a modern extension for temporary exhibitions. The tea room’s good too.
The crazy installations in the painted cement garden eclipse the Venice Biennale any old day. Definitely worth braving the elements to see.
Singapore abounds with attractions – the tourist will be impressed by its clean streets, the neatly dressed people (many glued to their electronic gadgets), the hotels, gleaming shopping malls, casinos, modern food centres. But once you feel luxuriated out and yearn for something more authentic, the beautiful parks, reservoirs, numerous temples, churches, and mosques will take you into a different, much calmer, world. And if you feel the need to get away even further from this cosmopolitan environment – escape to Pulau Ubin. A public bus or taxi will take you from the city to Changi Village from where you can take a boat across to the small island of Ubin. The crossing takes just minutes. When you step off the boat you may be forgiven for thinking you are entering a parallel universe, hardly touched by modern life, with rickety original wooden Malay kampong houses, and small coffee shops.
First-time visitors to Singapore ought to try the food in the little cafés in the street behind the famous Harry’s Bar. The locals all eat there at lunchtime and if you join the longest queue you will be guaranteed a great lunch. You might not know exactly what you are eating but it will not only be tasty but very different. We went there two days running and the manager gave us a free drink as we were the only Europeans on either day.
Another must-see is a visit to the Singapore night zoo. A surprising and spectacular sight to see from your train as you turn a corner is a huge elephant, followed by giraffes and the amazing flying squirrels.
Take a break from the shops and skyscrapers and see some of the disappearing Peranakan architecture of Singapore. Tanjong Pagar conservation area in the central business district has some of the best-preserved shophouses painted lime green, apple green and russet and now quite upmarket for what was once a ghetto for dock workers and before that a fishing village. At least it is still there – Singapore’s last surviving Malay fishing village, Pulau Seking, which consisted of houses on stilts above the water, has disappeared under a vast landfill site. It’s a shame as that is how Singapore started which is easy to forget when you are surrounded by the buildings of one of the most futuristic cities on the planet.
The Sungei Road Thieves Flea Market at Jalan Besar, near Bugis Station, is open 1-7pm daily. The oldest flea market in Singapore bang in the middle of the modern city road. Not only for junk and collectors’ items, but a place where designers can display their new creations. Although loud and chaotic, it is very shopper-friendly, offering chairs for the weary and umbrellas to escape from the hot sun.
On the first day of my annual working month in Singapore, I always walk up to the extraordinary Botanic Gardens. I make straight for the Ginger Garden with more than 500 species of every shape and size; the bananas, bird-of-paradise plants and spiral gingers all even more spectacular than my memories from last year’s trip. Flowers of every colour clamour for attention. I sit for some minutes facing the beautiful lily pond, admiring the water lilies poking out of the water, the massive lily pads, the mini turtles, the fish and the dragonflies, always hoping for a glimpse of a well-camouflaged 2ft-long monitor lizard, sunning itself alongside a tree stump or laced woodpecker or orange-headed thrush dashing from one plant to the next. Although it’s only a short walk from the always hectic Orchard Road, I know I’m back in the paradise that is the Ginger Garden.
Singapore is an amazing hot pot of culinary delights. Singaporeans will travel far and wide in their hunt for the best food in any category. An off-the-beaten-track place for amazing and cheap food is Chomp Chomp Hawker centre, far less touristy than the infamous Newton Hawker Centre which is close to the city. Get some of the best satay-sauce vermicelli, hokkien prawn noodles, barbecue chilli sting ray, pan-fried carrot cake, Singapore satays, ice desserts to name just a few well-known ones. There are more than 30 stalls, which have stood the test of time, supported by the locals who live there and around. A recommended stop for foodies everywhere.
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Singapore city guide An essential guide to Singapore, including advice on the best hotels, restaurants, bars, shops and attractions
Miranda Hart in Singapore: modernity, glamour, and waffles The world's most expensive cities for less The Eastern and Oriental: Great Train Journeys Singapore: a supersized vision of the Asian dream Singapore’s tallest skyscraper revealed
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France summer holidays guide
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We are reliably schizophrenic about the French. This is understandable. They are both our next-door neighbours, and hereditary foes. Because we live so close, their supposed foibles - arrogance, slipperiness, dubious morality - are amplified. And yet, and yet, we can't keep out of their country.
Clearly, and like a classy courtesan, France is so damned seductive that she lures us away from fiercely-held principles. You can see how she might. The most diverse country in Europe runs from celebrated mountains to the continent's finest coast via everything else in-between. Great rivers run hither and yon, forest covers 28 per cent of the landscape and there's hardly anyone about.
For roughly the same population, France covers more than twice the area of the UK. The few there are have filled the place with the first-class food and wine, châteaux (not all built to fight the English) and variegated culture. In few other countries can you go, as I did two summers ago, from a bull-running festival to major Signac exhibition in under 25 minutes. Villages remain complete unto themselves, rather than urban out-reach communities. They will have proper bakeries. The chain store might still be the ironmonger's. The mayor will take him(her)self very seriously.
As importantly, and despite (or because of?) its Jacobin impulse to centralisation, France has retained marked regional identities. The country covers the West European spectrum, from Flemish and Germanic in the north to Latin in the south. You can holiday in a different France every time you go. But how do you choose where?
The Negresco Hotel in Nice harks back to the days of old-school glamour on the French Côte-d'Azur.
You might start on the Côte-d'Azur, if for no other reason than that well-bred Britons have been doing so for 200 years. We were the first to apply manners, fashion and decadence to the natural splendour (mountains dropping to the sea; unfiltered light; creeks; you've seen the photos). Glamour remains - the Negresco Hotel in Nice, the Caves-du-Roy night-club in St Tropez - even though, in places, the coast fills up pretty full these days. (What did you expect? You'd have it all to yourself?)
The contemporary Azurean talent is, in fact, to project itself as an arty jet-set destination while actually catering for Everyman. Prices need be no more punishing than in Calais. (My favourite restaurant in Nice, the Voyageur Nissart, has full-meal menus from £14.) And out-running the crowds is a cinch. Head for the Corniches des Maures or de l'Esterel, or the hills behind Menton and Nice. The twist of a hairpin spins you from glitz to an older, rockier region where mojitos are things you spray against.
The same is true in Provence. It may be standing-room-only in the cultured A-team towns - Aix, Arles and Avignon - but you stand alone on the Lure mountain, or the Vaucluse Plateau. Naturally, the region slides easily into soft-focus - sensual markets, apéritifs by the pool, Sisteron lamb on a village terrace - but, at base, it's a hard-stone rugged world which has survived worse than tourism.
It's tougher yet, and the coast very much flatter, across the Rhône in Languedoc-Roussillon. No-one came here until the 1960s, when France decided it needed its own Costa, to stop French people going to Spain. Fishing ports were adapted uncertainly. New-build holiday resorts went up - notably, La Grande Motte, whose ziggurats and pyramids describe exactly what 1960s planners thought the future would look like.
Few would argue that all this is uniformly charming, but the sandy beaches are endless, the sea-food terrific, and few spots on earth have more happy families-per-square-metre than Le Grau-du-Roi or Argelès. The hinterland is quite different, vinelands ceding to sun-roasted hills overlain with garrigue and memories of religious massacre.
The sea on the Aquitaine Coast at Cap Ferret is more boisterous than on France's south coast, but the beaches are sweeping and honey-coloured.
Meanwhile, the Aquitaine Coast - Soulac down to Hendaye via Cap Ferret, Arcachon and Biarritz - is also flat with infinite beaches, but pounded by the Atlantic. The power renders the Med idle by comparison, tossing surfers about gratifyingly. In the deep south, the Basques may, on occasion, be uppity - but they're brilliant when singing, cooking axoa veal stew or sharing their red and white villages, and green Pyrenean hills.
Brittany, too, can get out of hand. It did so in autumn 2013, when almost everyone took to the streets to protest about pretty much everything. The Bretons' is a strong identity, fashioned by rocks, onions , the sea and the swirl of Celtic culture - itself wonderful when playing the harp and dancing (the Interceltic Festival was at Lorient, August 1-10 2014), but frankly bonkers at its mystical extremes. Both north and south, but especially north - from the Pays-des-Abers to the Pink Granite coast and on to St Malo - the Breton coast stirs like few others. A word of advice, though: Breton crêpes are overrated. Go for the Cancale oysters.
It is a serious Breton regret that the Mont-Saint-Michel - the sublime rock-island abbey apparently landed from a more majestic dimension - should be just over the border in Normandy. But the Normans deserve some luck, after the clattering they took in summer 1944. Seventy years on, the D-Day beaches both retain an emotional impact and ring with the laughter of children, which is as it should be.
Pre-war, the Normandy coast was best known for the cliffs at Etretat - sculpted by gods with time on their hands - the Parisian chic of Granville and Deauville, and the presence of almost every Impressionist you care to name. Le Havre and Honfleur overflowed with Monet and similar. But my very favourite Norman slice is the inland Pays-d'Auge, where half-timbered villages punctuate the rich green, double-cream countryside, where there are cows in bountiful pastures, and calvados in my glass.
I relax similarly into the greys, greens and gentle slopes of Burgundy - "a landscape of slow civilisation," as someone once said, correctly. The region long ago retired from medieval eminence, both religious and temporal, to play to its real strengths: making great wines, raising Charolais cattle and growing a little portly. Being plump became a duty imposed by history.
Life goes at a slower pace on the Nivernais canal, in Burgundy.
Especially in the Côtes-de-Nuit and Côtes-de-Beaune, villages ripened by the wine trade seem in permanent readiness for a pageant. Some of the loveliest also line the Nivernais canal - as if painted into place - which makes Burgundy cruising an unexpected pleasure. Canal speeds are about right for the region, too.
And so, south-west to the Dordogne, which is not, as often supposed, a summer-house extension of the Home Counties. Granted, it gets many British visitors, re-taking, gîte by gîte, what we lost in the Hundred Years War. Try getting to Sarlat's Saturday market after 10am and, such is the pressure of visitor cars, you might as well park in Paris. Throngs of canoeists may also turn the Dordogne river into a watery M25.But, as in Provence, a turn of the wheel distances the throngs for a mainly mellow landscape of old-fashioned farming, meaty meals, woodland and arcaded village squares. The place was by-passed for centuries by mainstream France - which is why it now looks so untouched. That said, pre-historic men were jolly content here - notably along the Vézère valley, where they gathered in abundance, and not just to paint on cave walls. A few millennia on, so are we. But (another word of advice): please sort out your attitude to foie gras before arriving. In the Dordogne, it crops up everywhere.
Award-winning Brittany Ferries provides an efficient UK-France ferry crossing service.
For cheapest fares, research and book on operators' websites, and for peak season travel book ahead, especially on longer crossings.
Read our full guide to cross-channel ferries to France Eurotunnel (0844 335 3535; eurotunnel.com) The Folkestone-Calais car shuttle train service is the fastest way to cross the Channel, and services are unaffected by the weather. However, fares are generally higher than those offered by the ferry operators on short crossings. P&O Ferries (0871 664 2121; poferries.com) Dover-Calais. MyFerryLink (0844 248 2100; myferrylink.com) Dover-Calais. DFDS Seaways (0871 574 7235 (for Dover-Calais enquiries); dfdsseaways.co.uk) Dover-Dunkirk, Dover-Calais, Newhaven-Dieppe. The Portsmouth-Le Havre service is set to stop, but check. Brittany Ferries (0871 244 1400; brittany-ferries.co.uk) Portsmouth to Le Havre, Caen, Cherbourg, St Malo; Poole-Cherbourg; Plymouth to Roscoff and, winter only, to St Malo. Seasonal fastcraft services Portsmouth-Le Havre, Portsmouth-Cherbourg; conventional ferries on other routes. Condor Ferries (0845 609 1024; www.condorferries.com) Fastcraft services from Poole to St Malo via the Channel Islands. Also a weekly conventional ferry service Portsmouth-Cherbourg, May to August, popular with caravanners. By train
Eurostar (eurostar.com) operates year-round services from London and Kent to Paris, Calais, Lille and Disneyland Paris. A new year-round service also operates to Lyon, Avignon and Marseille. Through fares are possible from regional UK stations, and to many other French cities.
Voyages-sncf.com (0844 848 5848; voyages-sncf.com), formerly Rail Europe, can book trips combining Eurostar with TGV and local services, any rail journey within France, and French rail passes.
For all train journeys, book well ahead for cheapest fares - Eurostar's booking horizon is up to six months on major services (up to nine months for Disneyland Paris). Before booking, refer to seat61.com for invaluable advice on French train travel. By air
Use skyscanner.net for who flies where and fare comparisons. Before booking, also calculate extra charges for checking in bags and so forth.By coachFor often cheap fares to Paris, Lille and sometimes other French destinations, contact Eurolines (eurolines.co.uk), Megabus (uk.megabus.com) and iDBUS (uk.idbus.com).
Getting there advice by Fred Mawer
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Read our insider’s guide to summer in France, as recommended by Telegraph Travel. Find expert advice and great pictures of top hotels, restaurants, bars and things to do.
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The science behind that fresh seaside smell
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Two years ago Andy Johnston, a professor of biology at the University of East Anglia, identified that the smell of the sea came from a molecule called dimethyl sulfide (DMS). Now, he has managed to crack the entire biochemical pathway by which the scent is produced. DMS turns out to be an important chemical found in many natural processes, such as cloud formation. Birds love the smell and will flock towards tiny concentrations. It's even added to processed foods to give a savoury note: small amounts can impart the flavour of cabbages, tomatoes, butter and cream – even lemons or roast chicken, according to Prof Johnston.
Prof Johnston's latest finding is that bacteria use three different mechanisms to make this gas. He likens it to taking Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles by Cadillac or by train: "You're making the same trip, but the methods used are poles apart." His research will be published shortly in the journal Environmental Microbiology.
In addition, Prof Johnston has found that other organisms can produce DMS, too. "Unlike animals which only have sex with members of their own species, bacteria are less restrained. They can have sex with almost anything that moves – they don't give a damn who they transfer genes to," he says. "We found that genes to break down DMSP had been transferred from bacteria to fungi. That's passing genes across animal kingdoms – it's the equivalent of a mouse having sex with a sycamore tree."
Prof Johnston is now working in collaboration with the J Craig Venter Institute in America, whose scientists are sampling millions of genes from marine bacteria. The Venter Global Ocean Sampling project shows where genes are found in the ocean and in what quantities. "I can see that genes for one mechanism of creating DMS are abundant in the Galapagos Islands but not in other areas, but the genes for a different mechanism are widespread in the Sargasso and the Pacific, all from the comfort of my own lab," explains Prof Johnston.
It is not known why some bacteria species are prevalent in particular areas, nor why there appear to be hotspots around coral reefs. Equally mysterious is the fact that we still do not know why DMSP, from which the seaside gas is produced, even exists: it could be a way of protecting seaweed against the sun's ultraviolet light, or the saltiness of the sea.
DMS gas has important commercial applications. The fungus to which it has transferred is a type of Aspergillus, used in soy sauce, sake and tofu production, and one of the major components that gives truffles their earthy odour. Meanwhile, the US-based Gaylord Chemical Corporation, the largest manufacturer of DMS, produces it for use in petroleum refining and in the hydrocarbon industry to synthesise ethylene, a chemical that has a wide variety of uses from creating plastic bags to hastening the ripening of fruit.
"This is just the start," says Prof Johnston, "We need to know more. But one thing I have learnt along the way is that it is microbes that drive this planet – everything else on earth is mere decoration."
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A tiny molecule lurks behind the evocative smell of the seaside.
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Can you recommend a cruise from Singapore?
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Chris and Judith Rice, Swaffham Bulbeck, Cambridgeshire, write Our son lives in Singapore and we try to fly over to see him once a year. We usually add on a short break that doesn’t involve too much extra flying time. As a change, we wondered about a cruise next time. Is there one leaving Singapore (any time of the year) and going to ports in Australia or, possibly, Asia? We could fly back to Britain from the destination port. As cruise novices, I think we would prefer a more informal set-up and a shortish trip (less than two weeks).
Jane Archer, cruise expert, replies Several cruise lines have itineraries that start in Singapore, but given your preference for shorter cruises, you will have to settle for Asia rather than Australia. Voyages to Antiquity (0845 437 9737; voyagestoantiquity.com), Swan Hellenic (0844 488 0719; swanhellenic.com) and Silversea (0844 251 0837; silversea.com) all have great itineraries this winter. The first two are destination-focused cruise lines, so excursions are included in the price and there are erudite lecturers on board to talk about the history and culture of the places you’ll be visiting. The average age is 60-plus; on Swan Hellenic other passengers will be mostly British, on Voyages to Antiquity expect a mixture of English speakers from Britain, North America and Australia.
Silversea is more upmarket and has a newer ship. Drinks and tips are included in the price, but excursions cost extra. Passengers are a mixture of nationalities, including a lot of Americans. Swan and Silversea have formal nights, but just a couple per cruise. Otherwise, smart casual clothes are fine, although I would advise men to pack a jacket and tie for the occasional cocktail party – as they should, too, on any Voyages to Antiquity trip.
As a guide, Voyages to Antiquity has a 16-day cruise that visits Burma from £2,845; Swan has a 14-night cruise from Singapore to Sri Lanka from £2,380; and Silversea has a nine-day cruise to Hong Kong via Vietnam from £3,699. All prices include return flight from Britain, but you can also request cruise-only prices.
Our Q&A service allows you can pick the brains of our experts at home and abroad. Email your query to asktheexperts@telegraph.co.uk or click on the image above to find out more. We won’t be able to answer them all, but we will do our best.
Jane spends much of the year at sea, uncovering the best and worst about cruise ships.
Click here to find out about our other experts
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Ask the experts: Jane Archer, cruise expert, offers a reader advice on cruising from the Far East.
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Police union attacks Hillary Clinton for inviting Black Lives Matter speakers to convention
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He said: "We will not soon forget that the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton are excluding the widows and other family members of police officers killed in the line of duty who were victims of explicit and not implied racism. Mrs Clinton, you should be ashamed of yourself, if that is possible.”
Mr McNesby accused Mrs Clinton of "pandering to the interests of people who do not know all the facts to win an election".
The Clinton campaign responded that two police officers including Charles Ramsey, the former Philadelphia Police Commissioner, were also speaking at the convention.
A spokeswoman said: "As Hillary Clinton has said we need to support heroic police officers who put their lives on the line every day as well as listen to the voices of mothers who have lost their children.
“We look forward to highlighting the courageous efforts of law enforcement with speakers at our convention and praising their work to keep our communities safe."
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A police union has attacked Hillary Clinton for giving Democratic Convention speaking slots to members of the Black Lives Matter movement and accused her of "
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It’s been a week of ups and downs for Brett Barna, a former hedge funder who reportedly threw a wild party at a rented house in the Hamptons over the July 4th weekend. The annual bash, called “#Sprayathon” for its copious champagne showers, was hosted this year at a $5,000-a-night Airbnb rental mansion in Sag Harbor, an upscale enclave best-known as a summertime getaway for wealthy New Yorkers. Multiple news reports indicate that more than 1,000 people attended the party, and now the owners of the property are reportedly planning to sue Barna for $1 million for damages.
Barna, 31, has also been let go from his job at Moore Capital Management. “Mr. Barna’s personal judgment was inconsistent with the firm’s values,” the company told CNBC in a statement. “He is no longer employed [here].”
Social media posts suggest the party was something like a Gatsby fête on steroids. “They drowned themselves in Champagne…they broke into the house, trashed the furniture, art was stolen, we found used condoms,” the Airbnb owners told Page Six. “So many people were there that the concrete around the pool crumbled and fell into the water. It was like ‘Jersey Shore’ meets a frat party.”
Airbnb has now also banned Barna from using its service. A spokesperson for the company said, “We have zero tolerance for this kind of behavior and have removed this guest from our platform,” according to Gothamist.
The party reportedly raised $100,000 for Last Chance Animal Rescue.
Check out some snaps of the bacchanal, below.
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The former hedge funder held a massive, debaucherous party, called #Sprayathon
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5 Data-Backed Tips to Boost Your Online Dating Game
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Whether it’s hitting the gym or brushing up on 19th century French poetry, almost everyone is doing something to make themselves more attractive to that special someone — especially with Valentine’s Day right around the corner. But as countless relationship experts say, in the end you’ve just got to be yourself.
Besides, the era of big dating data has plenty of other ways to put your best face forward. “We have a vast number of data points that our engine is constantly analyzing automatically to do behavioral matchmaking,” says Allison Braley, vice president of marketing and communications at Zoosk, an online matchmaking service with more than 30 million users.
“We’re able to look at that data in aggregate — always anonymized with our users’ safety always top of mind — and make some predictions as well as some analysis in terms of what’s going to work to attract a partner for you.”
Here are some statistic-backed hacks Zoosk has learned by studying its users’ interactions:
Outdoor photos: great or bait?
Zoosk predicts “Lumbersexual” with be among 2015’s buzz words, replacing “basic.” But if you’re a guy, you’re going to want to walk the talk, because men with outdoor photos on their profiles received 19% more messages than those who didn’t.
“We do see a lot of men’s profiles that have been quickly put together,” says Braley. “Women really reward the guys who take the time to get outside, get a friend to take a picture of them, and put in a little bit of extra effort.” Women, on the other hand, are advised to keep it inside, because outdoor photos decreased their messages received by 40%.
Whether or not you think selfies are embarrassing, they do impact online dating profiles, for better or worse. Female profiles with selfies get 4% more messages, while guys took an 8% hit.
“People who want to date women, whether that’s men or women, seem to be more concerned about authenticity and is this person heavily filtering this picture,” says Braley. But for men, she wonders if they are lacking skills in the art of the selfie. But get this — full-body photos net users (either men or women) 203% more pick-ups on the site. So, invest in a selfie stick, and start working on your technique!
Including your besties in your profile pics is also a big no-no. First off, would they approve of being outed as your sidekick? And secondly, isn’t there some sort of waiver they should sign? But the hard fact is that people who use group shots including themselves see 42% fewer messages than those who fly solo.
“So many dating products today, including our Carousel product, are heavily reliant on first impressions,” says Braley. “Certainly as your main profile photo you really want to avoid it.” And if you’re a cat person, or you happen to roll with man’s best friend, it’s even worse. Posing with your four-legged friend will result in 53% fewer messages.
There are no secret passwords in dating (online or off), but according to some late 2013 research by Zoosk, there are some terms that can give you a bump. For instance, honesty increases guys’ odds in online dating, with the terms “divorce,” “separate,” and “my ex” netting 52% more messages, while “son,” “daughter,” and “children,” up their response rate by 7%. For women, it’s a different (and very unfair) story — if they use those words, they get 4% fewer messages. But they can take control of the dates by saying “dinner,” “drinks,” or “lunch” and see 73% more replies to their profiles.
Regardless of your gender, spelling counts, with “teh,” “ur,” “cuz,” “im” and “u” dinging daters with 13% fewer replies. Be sure to “lmfao” (up 193%) and not “rofl” (down 13%), and if you’re going to put a smiley face in your message, go with “:-)” instead of “:)”. Nosey smilers get 13% more responses, while those sans-sinuses receive 66% fewer replies.
Remember Vince Vaughn’s three-no-five-day advice in Swingers? Great—now forget it. With online dating it’s all about getting their attention when they’re online. According to 2014 data, Zoosk says women are most active between 10 and 11 p.m., while men hit their inbox between 9 and 10 a.m. And no one is on it around between 2 and 3 p.m.—so get back to work.
But if your online dating profile is currently inactive, you’re actually in luck. “Valentine’s Day itself is not a big day for people to do a lot of outreach on online dating sites, or even sign up,” says Braley. Instead, things heat up before Feb. 9, she says. “People are happy to set that profile but they don’t necessarily want to make their first date with someone Valentine’s Day—it has a lot of pressure attached to it for a first date.”
When do things heat back up again? Typically, it’s the Sunday after Valentine’s Day — so that gives you some time run a spellcheck and snap some new photos.
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Changing just one character can increase your response rate 79%
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Ideas for Renewing American Prosperity
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Editor's note: With the Journal's 125th anniversary coming at a time of slow U.S. growth and reduced expectations, we asked some Journal contributors to answer this question: If you could propose one change in American policy, society or culture to revive prosperity and self-confidence, what would it be and why? Their replies are below.
Let's get back to governing in the...
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With the The Wall Street Journal's 125th anniversary coming at a time of slow U.S. growth and reduced expectations, we asked some Journal contributors to answer this question: If you could propose one change in American policy, society or culture to revive prosperity and self-confidence, what would it be and why?
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/28/sports/baseball/ny-mets-st-louis-cardinals-jeurys-familia.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160801152645id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2016/07/28/sports/baseball/ny-mets-st-louis-cardinals-jeurys-familia.html?ref=baseball
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Mets’ Rally Goes for Naught as Cardinals Storm Past Jeurys Familia
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20160801152645
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Jeurys Familia walked off the mound with an unfamiliar feeling on Wednesday night. Although he blew three saves during the World Series, the Mets’ All-Star closer had not done so in the regular season since July 30, 2015. Entering the ninth inning with a one-run lead against the St. Louis Cardinals, Familia had converted 52 consecutive save chances — the third-longest streak in history.
Familia walked a tightrope and survived many times this season, but he finally stumbled, allowing two runs in a 5-4 loss at Citi Field that negated Yoenis Cespedes’s dramatic, go-ahead two-run homer in the seventh, which had felt like the game’s turning point.
“This is a really tough one to take,” Manager Terry Collins said.
The inning unfolded like others this season for Familia. He got Matt Adams to line out but walked Jedd Gyorko on four pitches. Familia had escaped these situations before and used his trademark sinker hoping to get Yadier Molina to ground into a double play. Instead, Molina doubled in a run.
“I leave it a little bit in the middle, he made a good swing, and that’s it,” said Familia, who later allowed the decisive, go-ahead double to Kolten Wong.
So often this season, the Mets have been betrayed by their offense and boosted by their bullpen, but the reverse happened on Wednesday. Still, Cespedes’s home run against Adam Wainwright, the Cardinals starter, could be a sign that he is poised to carry the offense, as he did last season.
Still stuck in third place in the National League East, the Mets remain a game and a half out of the second wild-card spot — despite their woefully underperforming offense.
But as he said earlier this week, General Manager Sandy Alderson said he believed that a big move would be unlikely before the nonwaiver trading deadline on Aug. 1, and he said the Mets’ most realistic upgrade would be acquiring a strong reliever.
Although the Mets have one of the worst offenses in baseball, Collins felt the roster had the players with past track records to improve, and he told the team that before Monday’s series opener.
“So quit looking at the outside and look at the inside and look at what we’ve got to do with guys in this room to get it done,” Collins said he told players. “They’re here. We’ve just got to go out and execute.”
The Mets did not lose Wednesday because of starter Logan Verrett. Since Matt Harvey’s season-ending injury, Verrett has been the fifth starter, and for his third consecutive start he did not allow more than three runs. He ate up seven innings and left the game with the Mets trailing, 3-1.
Until the seventh inning Wednesday night, the Mets’ offense showed few signs of breaking out. They had put nine runners on base against Wainwright, one of the best starters in baseball this month, and had scored only one run.
The Mets rallied with singles by Travis d’Arnaud and pinch-hitter Alejandro De Aza. D’Arnaud scored on a wild pitch, but the top-of-the-order hitters, Curtis Granderson and Asdrubal Cabrera, struck out, and it felt like a replay of much of the season.
But Cespedes battled Wainwright for nine pitches, fouling off three straight. Forcing Wainwright to work, Cespedes’s patience paid off.
The last pitch of the at-bat was a curveball that Wainwright threw over the middle of the plate. Cespedes had not hit a home run since July 5. Wainwright had not allowed one since May 28. But Cespedes’s powerful swing sent the ball 439 feet to left-center field for a 4-3 lead, and the game felt secure with the dominant bullpen duo of Addison Reed and Familia.
“I can’t say 100 percent because it’s baseball and until the 27th out you don’t know, but with the confidence we have in Familia, I thought so,” Cespedes said.
Reed tossed a perfect eighth, but Familia struggled. After the game, Familia was optimistic about one blip in an otherwise strong season.
“What I’ve done so far, I never in my life think I’m going to do in the big leagues,” he said.
As Familia continued talking to reporters, Alderson appeared in the clubhouse to shake his hand and congratulate him on the historic streak. Familia thanked him and returned to his thought.
“I know sometimes things aren’t always going to go the way I want them,” Familia said. “Things happen. Tomorrow is a new day.”
The Mets were without third baseman Jose Reyes because of a left intercostal muscle strain he sustained in the first game of Tuesday’s doubleheader. Wilmer Flores, who has recently started only against left-handers, was in Wednesday’s lineup instead. “I hope it’s going to be a few days,” Reyes said. He received treatment on Wednesday, and Terry Collins indicated he would be cautious about using him on Thursday.
A version of this article appears in print on July 28, 2016, on page B12 of the New York edition with the headline: Mets’ Rally Goes for Naught as Cards Storm Past Familia in Ninth. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
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Familia survived many tightrope walks this season, but he finally stumbled in a loss that negated Yoenis Cespedes’s dramatic two-run homer.
| 40.076923 | 0.961538 | 4.346154 |
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http://www.9news.com.au/World/2016/07/31/09/33/Skydiver-attemps-to-jump-7500m-without-a-parachute-into-a-net
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160801155045id_/http://www.9news.com.au/World/2016/07/31/09/33/Skydiver-attemps-to-jump-7500m-without-a-parachute-into-a-net
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Skydiver successfully lands in net after jumping 7600m without a parachute
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20160801155045
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A US skydiver has successfully landed in a safety net after jumping about 7600m (25,000ft) without a parachute in a world-first stunt.
Luke Aikins made the two-minute jump from the plane into the Southern California desert just before 11am AEST today.
The Fox network broadcast the jump with a slight delay as part of an hour-long TV special called "Heaven Sent".
Aikins celebrates after the jump. (FOX)
The landing net was about one-third the size of a football field and 20 storeys high, and was designed to provide enough space to cushion his fall without allowing him to bounce out of it, Aikins said earlier.
It has been described as similar to a fishing trawler net and was repeatedly tested using dummies.
Aikins lands in the net. (FOX)
Aikins celebrates after the jump. (FOX)
Aikins is an accomplished skydiver who has made 18,000 parachute jumps and performed some of the stunts for Ironman 3.
Earlier, he said he knew today's stunt was crazy, and had said as much to his wife after a couple of producers looking to create the all-time-greatest reality TV stunt floated the idea by him a couple years ago.
"If I wasn't nervous I would be stupid," he said.
"We're talking about jumping without a parachute, and I take that very seriously. It's not a joke."
Luke Aikins performs a practice jump. (AAP)
He said the drop zone, which was surrounded by rolling hills, presents some challenges and noted would constantly be fighting shifting winds as he falls at 193km/h.
"I've got 18,000 jumps with a parachute, so why not wear one this time?" he said.
Luke Aikins performs a practice jump. (AAP)
"But I'm trying to show that it can be done."
Fox has had little to say about the stunt other than it will be broadcast on a tape delay, as is the case with all its live broadcasts.
It contains a warning not to try this at home.
© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2016
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A daredevil skydiver is about to jump from 7500m without a parachute and attempt to land in a net on the ground, in what would be a world-first.
| 12.878788 | 0.757576 | 1.30303 |
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/24/realestate/a-park-avenue-duplex-for-more-than-17-6-million.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160802012631id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2016/07/24/realestate/a-park-avenue-duplex-for-more-than-17-6-million.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2FBig+Ticket
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A Park Avenue Duplex for More Than $17.6 Million
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20160802012631
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A sprawling duplex at 1110 Park Avenue, a nine-unit limestone condominium in Carnegie Hill developed by Toll Brothers City Living, sold for $17,615,815.62 and was the most expensive closed sale of the week, according to property records.
The 5,702-square-foot sponsor apartment, Unit F, on the eighth and ninth floors of the building, near East 90th Street, has five bedrooms and five and a half baths. The monthly carrying charges are $14,855.
The duplex floors are connected by stairs as well as a passenger and a service elevator. The lower level contains the bedrooms, including a corner master suite with its own gallery and an enormous dressing room. The en-suite bath of marble and onyx features a free-standing tub.
On the upper level is the entertaining space. There is a library, which can be converted into a sixth bedroom, along with a 21-by-33-foot living room that flows into a formal dining room and an eat-in kitchen with a breakfast room and a pantry.
Patricia Shiah of Stribling & Associates represented the buyer, identified as 1110 Park Avenue LLC, while Julie Rosenfield of Toll Brothers handled the sale for the developer.
The Park Avenue building, which was constructed by Toll Brothers last year in a style designed to fit in with the area’s prewar buildings, offers amenities including a gym, a wine cellar with a lounge with a fireplace, storage units and bike storage.
The week’s runner-up sale was another Carnegie Hill duplex. A penthouse at the stately Philip House, a condo conversion of a Renaissance Revival rental building, sold for $15,250,000, according to city records.
The sponsor unit, PHG, is on the 11th and 12th floors of the late 1920s, brick-and-limestone apartment house at 141 East 88th Street, near Lexington Avenue. Its monthly carrying costs total $10,216.
There are four bedrooms and six baths over 4,710 square feet. The enormous master suite features two bathrooms and two walk-in closets. On the second level, off the apartment’s great room, is a 1,211-square-foot landscaped terrace that provides expansive cityscape views.
Russell Miller and Mary Beth Flynn of Brown Harris Stevens represented the buyer, whose identity was also shielded by a limited liability company, Ghost Property Holdings. Jaclyn Boulan of Stribling & Associates was the listing agent.
The Philip House was developed by the Cheshire Group.
Big Ticket includes closed sales from the previous week, ending Wednesday.
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A sprawling home in a limestone condominium developed by Toll Brothers City Living was the sale of the week.
| 24 | 0.95 | 3.45 |
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http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/07/israel-destroys-palestinian-village-100th-time-160703091747401.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160802062025id_/http://www.aljazeera.com:80/news/2016/07/israel-destroys-palestinian-village-100th-time-160703091747401.html
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Israel destroys Palestinian village for 100th time
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20160802062025
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Araqib village, Israel - Hunched over a white cooler box, Aziz al-Turi sifted through his most important possessions and pulled out an antique brass coffee pot.
"You know how old this is? Fifty years old," he declared. "It came from Syria, via Jordan, here to Araqib."
Along with pillows and carpets from Araqib's hospitality tent, the centre of social life in the village, these were the items that Turi rushed to save on the morning of June 29, when Israeli police arrived to demolish the village. By the villagers' count, it was the hundredth time that Araqib had been destroyed since July 2010 - and the second demolition during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
READ MORE: The man reconstructing Palestine's lost villages
Having loaded up the improvised trunk, Turi dragged it 50 metres to the village cemetery, where he dropped it close to two graves. Knowing the possessions were safe from bulldozers there, he stood and watched another demolition unfold.
"We finished eating the suhoor meal around 4am and then went to sleep," he said. "About an hour later, I woke up, as there was a police van speeding around the outside of the village."
Hours later, police vehicles returned to the village - along with a demolition team - as a helicopter circled overhead, residents told Al Jazeera.
"We started to take our clothes out of our houses. I put some things in the cemetery; others I put in this valley; some I put in the trees. I can't put them in one place because one time I put them all in one place and they came with a bulldozer and destroyed everything," Turi said. "I didn't have time to take everything, but it was important for me to take the old coffee pot - it's my life. I took the cushions. Then they destroyed everything - my father's house, my friend Salim's house, all the houses."
Araqib is one of about 40 "unrecognised" Bedouin villages in the Negev, or Naqab, a desert region in southern Israel. While the residents of these villages are full citizens of Israel, the state does not provide water, electricity, infrastructure or sewage systems. The vast majority of these villages also lack basic state services such as schools and health clinics, while their residents are not able to participate in local government or municipal elections.
The dispute between the villagers of Araqib and the state of Israel dates back three generations, and relates to the ownership of the land. Initially established during the Ottoman era, the village's lands were expropriated by Israel under the Land Appropriation Law in 1953, and the villagers were forced to leave.
However, many residents of Araqib returned to the village in the 1990s, in an attempt to re-establish a pastoral way of life on the land. The village was home to about 300 residents living a traditional Bedouin lifestyle when it was first demolished on July 27, 2010.
Even if they destroy it 200 times, I am not moving. This is the most precious place in the world for me.
Haqmeh Abu Madigem, resident of Araqib
"Our life was beautiful. We used the land. We grew barley or wheat in the winter and melon in the summer. Everyone had a tractor and worked. We had 500 olive trees. We made oil and we sold it," Turi said. "We grew vegetables: tomatoes, eggplants, zucchini and fruits as well. We also had sheep. My wife and I had more than 500 chickens. We used to sell everything at markets in Beersheba, Rahat and everywhere ⦠until that black day, July 27, 2010."
Since 2010, demolition teams have returned to the village once or twice a month on average to destroy the shacks that the residents built. Meanwhile, the villagers have also been sued for the costs of the first eight demolitions of the village. In an ongoing lawsuit, the state is seeking 1.8 million shekels ($467,000.)
Today, only a few families remain in Araqib, living in makeshift wooden shacks near the village's cemetery. Many former residents visit on weekends but have moved their lives to nearby Rahat, a state-developed town established in 1972. While a handful of Bedouin villages were recognised by the state in 2003, most Bedouins living in unrecognised villages face little choice but to move to one of seven of these state-planned towns across the region.
READ MORE: Palestinian Bedouins 'live the Nakba every day'
Haia Noach, chief executive of the Israeli human rights NGO Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality, told Al Jazeera that these planned urban spaces were dense, crowded and offered an alien way of life to the rural Bedouin population.
"It is a great concern that the state is only offering the Bedouin one way of living in suburbs or urban spaces, but not in rural spaces," she said. "The state wants to concentrate the Bedouin population in small and dense urban spaces and give privileges to the Jewish community, which can live in whatever kind of village or urban place they want to live."
Despite the tough conditions in the village and the likelihood of more demolitions, the remaining Araqib residents say they have no intention of leaving their homes and lifestyles.
Haqmeh Abu Madigem said that even though two of her sons and one daughter had moved to Rahat, she would not be joining them.
"I'm tired of the demolitions, but I will stay here," she said. "Even if they destroy it 200 times, I am not moving. This is the most precious place in the world for me."
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The dispute between the state of Israel and the Bedouin village of Araqib dates back three generations.
| 62 | 1 | 2.888889 |
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http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/06/supreme-court-texas-abortion-law-160627143148937.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160802065750id_/http://www.aljazeera.com:80/news/2016/06/supreme-court-texas-abortion-law-160627143148937.html
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US Supreme Court strikes down Texas abortion law
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20160802065750
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The US Supreme Court has struck down a contentious abortion law in the state of Texas that imposed strict regulations on the procedure that made it harder for women to get an abortion.
Access Restricted: Abortion in Texas
In the court's biggest abortion case in nearly a quarter of a century, justices voted 5-3 on Monday in favour of Texas clinics that protested against the regulations.
Justice Stephen Breyer's majority opinion for the court held that the regulations are medically unnecessary and violated a woman's constitutional right to obtain an abortion.
Breyer wrote that "the surgical-centre requirement, like the admitting privileges requirement, provides few, if any, health benefits for women, poses a substantial obstacle to women seeking abortions and constitutes an 'undue burden' on their constitutional right to do so".
READ MORE: Texas abortion clinics - How far is too far to drive?
The rules required doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals and that abortion clinics must be fitted with hospital-like surgical centres.
The law effectively forced dozens of abortion clinics in the state to close, with the number of providers shrinking from 41 to seven, most of them located in major cities.
Many clinics are now expected to reopen.
Texas had argued that its 2013 law and subsequent regulations were needed to protect women's health.
Al Jazeera's Patty Culhane, reporting from Washington DC, said the Supreme Court ruling was a "massive victory" for people campaigning for abortion rights.
"As the Supreme Court finally waded into this issue after nearly 10 years of silence ⦠there were a lot of people who thought that this would come down to a split decision, with four Conservatives and four Liberals on the court. But the swing vote by Conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy, and his decision to side with the Liberals, effectively ended this issue."
President Barack Obama welcomed the ruling.
Every woman has a constitutional right to make her own reproductive choices. I'm pleased to see the Supreme Court reaffirm that fact today.
Some US states have pursued a variety of restrictions on abortion, including banning certain types of procedures, prohibiting it after a certain number of weeks of gestation, requiring parental permission for girls until a certain age, imposing waiting periods or mandatory counselling, and others.
Americans remain closely divided over whether abortion should be legal. In a Reuters/Ipso online poll involving 6,769 US adults conducted from June 3 to June 22, 47 percent of respondents said abortion generally should be legal and 42 percent said it generally should be illegal.
Source:Â Al Jazeera and agencies
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Supreme Court hands a major victory to abortion-rights campaigners, striking down Texas' contentious 2013 abortion law.
| 24.285714 | 0.809524 | 1 |
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http://www.aol.com/article/2011/03/17/japans-nikkei-pares-losses-as-factories-re-open/19882451/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160802193007id_/http://www.aol.com:80/article/2011/03/17/japans-nikkei-pares-losses-as-factories-re-open/19882451/
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Japan's Nikkei Pares Losses as Factories Reopen
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20160802193007
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In Asia Thursday Japan's Nikkei 225 Index slid 1.4% to close at 8,963. In Hong Kong the Hang Seng Index slumped 1.8% and in China the Shanghai Composite Index slipped 1.1% to end the day at 2,897.
Japan's markets got a slight reprieve today as the yen slipped a bit after hitting a record high yesterday. While the lower value helped exporters recover from severe losses earlier in the trading session, the country has a long way to go before confidence in its economy's resilience is restored.
As foreigners flee the country in fear of a worsening nuclear disaster, Japanese manufacturers are reopening factories. Today
, reports AFP, and workers were already back at work at Mitsubishi Motors and Bridgestone. Electronics company Kyocera has been back in business since Tuesday.
Among Japanese car makers Toyota closed down 2.2%, far better than the 5.7% loss recorded earlier in the day. Car enthusiasts across the web are chatting about availability of the new Prius and owners are worrying that repairs might be a nightmare, since all Priuses are made in Japan rather than at U.S. factories. The AP
in the quake. Mazda tumbled 5.3% and both Honda and Nissan lost 1.1%.
Japanese electronics makers slid lower, but not nearly as far as they had plunged earlier in the week. Sharp slid 2.4%, Pioneer lost 2.3% and Sony slipped 0.5%. Kyocera, a maker of electronics components and products ranging from liquid crystal displays and integrated circuits to scanners and printers advanced 2.3%, Panasonic gained 1.2% and Sanyo was up 0.9%.
Tokyo Electric, the operator of the disaster-struck Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant plunged another 13.5% in today's trading. Its value has fallen by more than 50% since Friday. For other nuclear-related shares losses are slowing. Japan Steel Works, which manufactures components for plants, lost a more modest 5.5%, plant builder Hitachi slid 4.3% and Toshiba only dipped 0.8%.
In Hong Kong investors remained jittery over a possible slowdown in the global economic recovery. Foxconn, a maker of mobile phones and popular gizmos like the iPhone and iPad, slumped 4.2%.
Hong Kong real estate shares that tend to fluctuate along with investor sentiment headed south. Cheung Kong dived 2.4%, Sun Hung Kai tumbled 1.7%, Henderson Land lost 1.4% and China Resources Land slid 1%.
Internet powerhouse Tencent suffered hefty losses today, even after reporting a
. Analysts are concerned that growth is slowing, according to the
. Meanwhile, China Unicom advanced 2.6%.
Power companies were among those that gained in Hong Kong with China Resource Power rallying 3.4% and Hong Kong & China Gas adding 0.3%. Coal based China Shenhua rose 0.2% and China Coal advanced 0.7%.
In China nuclear-related shares plunged. Nanfang Ventilator, which supplies nuclear plants with ventilation facilities, nosedived the daily maximum of 10% and Dongfang Electric slumped 7.6%. Meanwhile China Yangtze Power, which distributes power generated by the Yangtze hydropower project located at the Three Gorges Dam, rose 3.8%.
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Japan%27s%20markets%20got%20a%20slight%20reprieve%20today%20as%20the%20yen%20slipped%20a%20bit%20after%20hitting%20a%20record%20high%20yesterday.%20While%20the%20lower%20value%20helped%20exporters%20recover%20from%20severe%20losses%20earlier%20in%20the%20trading%20session%2C%20the%20country%20has%20a%20long%20way%20to%20go%20before%20confidence%20in%20its%20economy%27s%20resilience%20is%20restored.%0A
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http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1045175310631152423
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160802202920id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/SB1045175310631152423
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History-Making Meryl Streep Talks About Movies, Money
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20160802202920
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Last year was a good one at the movies for Meryl Streep. In "The Hours," she offers one day in the life of Clarissa Vaughan, a woman she dubs "a Donna Reed of the West Village" who has a dying friend and a big dinner party to throw. Then, in "Adaptation," Ms. Streep takes a comic left turn, playing a magazine writer with an orchid-sniffing addiction chasing twin screenwriters through the swamps of Florida. With a rifle.
This week, she garnered an Academy Award nomination for the latter role....
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We sat down with Meryl Streep after she garnered an Academy Award nomination for her supporting role in "Adaptation" for a discussion about her 2002 movie roles, plus everything else from the Pleistocene era to the Toyota Prius she drives on the streets of New York.
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http://www.nytimes.com/topic/company/parker-drilling-company
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160802214307id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/topic/company/parker-drilling-company
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Parker Drilling Company
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20160802214307
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The Parker Drilling Company agreed yesterday to acquire the oil-field services company Superior Energy Services Inc. for $145 million in stock, plus assumed debt of about $25 million. Parker, based in Tulsa, Okla., is a drilling contractor to the offshore and onshore energy industry. Superior, based in Harvey, La., provides tool rentals, well-plugging and other products and services to oil companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico. Under the agreement, Parker will exchange nine-tenths of a share for each Superior share and plans to issue about 26 million new shares to Superior shareholders. Shares of Parker fell 62.5 cents, to $4.875. Shares of Superior fell 31.25 cents, to $3.9375.
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Parker Drilling Company financial and business news, updates, and information from The New York Times and other leading providers.
| 6.181818 | 0.545455 | 0.909091 |
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/olympics/2016/07/31/rio-olympics-2016-plunged-into-chaos-as-ioc-ruling-on-russia-ban/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160803061105id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/olympics/2016/07/31/rio-olympics-2016-plunged-into-chaos-as-ioc-ruling-on-russia-ban/
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Rio Olympics 2016 plunged into chaos as IOC ruling on Russia ban delayed until 11th hour
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20160803061105
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Thomas Bach snapped at suggestions the IOC’s response to the crisis had been a huge failure, claiming it was “very obvious” where responsibility lay as a result of the “timing” of the Wada-commissioned report which found Russia guilty of state-sponsored doping and a corresponding cover-up on a staggering scale.
The shockwaves from that report continued to reverberate over the weekend when the IOC announced a three-strong panel of executive board members would have the final say on the participation of individual athletes and would make a decision by Friday at the latest.
With competition starting in earnest on Saturday, that may not leave enough time for replacements from other nations – and potentially whole teams in certain sports – to be drafted in.
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The start of the Olympics was in danger of being plunged into chaos by the Russian doping crisis on Sunday night after the International Olympic Committee admitted a final ruling on the expulsion of the country’
| 3.972222 | 0.5 | 0.666667 |
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http://fortune.com/2016/08/01/verizon-fleetmatics-gps/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160803073034id_/http://fortune.com:80/2016/08/01/verizon-fleetmatics-gps/
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Why Verizon Is Buying GPS Systems Maker Fleetmatics for $2.4 Billion
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20160803073034
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Verizon Communications said it will buy GPS vehicle tracking company Fleetmatics Group for about $2.4 billion in cash to expand into the connected vehicle and fleet management market.
Verizon, the No. 1 U.S wireless company, vz will pay $60 per Fleetmatics share, a premium of about 40% to Friday’s close. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2016.
Fleetmatics, which has its North American headquarters in Waltham, Massachusetts, develops software that shows fleet operators vehicle location, fuel usage, speed, and mileage, and other data on their mobile workforce, Verizon said.
As the market for smartphones and mobile devices gets saturated, Verizon and its biggest rival AT&T t are hoping that connecting more objects and appliances to their networks will provide new revenue.
Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s technology newsletter.
Fleetmatics shares soared 39% to $59.66 in premarket trading.
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Verizon will pay $60 per Fleetmatics share, a premium of about 40%.
| 10.875 | 1 | 12.375 |
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http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/07/deal-open-libya-ras-lanuf-es-sider-oil-ports-160730064443747.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160803143801id_/http://www.aljazeera.com:80/news/2016/07/deal-open-libya-ras-lanuf-es-sider-oil-ports-160730064443747.html
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Deal to open Libya's Ras Lanuf and Es Sider oil ports
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20160803143801
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Libya's UN-backed government has signed a deal with an armed brigade controlling the major oil ports to end a blockade and restart exports.
The two major Ras Lanuf and Es Sider oil ports had shut down since December 2014.
Mousa Alkouni, Libyan Presidential Council deputy, signed the agreement late on Thursday with Ibrahim al-Jathran, commander of the Petroleum Facilities Guards, one of Libya's many armed brigades that has controlled the terminals.
"I think the resumption depends now on technical part and I think also it will happen from within a week to two weeks, but not more," Alkouni told Reuters news agency by telephone.
Benghazi residents blame France for air strikes
He said the agreement included paying an unspecified amount in salaries to Jathran's forces. He said they had not been paid wages for 26 months.
Opening the two oil ports would add a potential 600,000 barrels per day of capacity to the North African country's crude exports, though experts estimate damage from fighting and the long stoppage must be repaired before shipments are at full capacity again.Â
Since the 2011 fall of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya has slipped into chaos that has cut its oil output to less than a quarter of pre-2011 levels of 1.6 mn barrels per day.
Jathran's brigades led blockades of the ports starting in 2013, saying he was trying to prevent corruption in oil sales, though others disputed his motives.
In a separate development, Libyan forces made a fresh push on Friday to capture ground from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group's fighters in Sirte.Â
Nearly three months into a campaign to recapture the city, brigades mainly composed of fighters from nearby Misrata are waging sporadic street battles in residential areas where armed groups use snipers, mines and concealed explosives to defend their positions.
At least five brigade members were killed and 28 wounded in the fighting, medical officials at a nearby field hospital said.
The brigades advanced rapidly on Sirte after launching a counterattack against ISIL in early May, but their progress has slowed as they close in on the city centre.
Losing Sirte would be a major blow for ISIL, which established total control over the coastal city last year and expanded its presence along about 250km of sparsely populated land on either side.
Nearly all Sirte's residents have left the city, and shots and artillery fire ring out amid emptied buildings now used by both sides for cover.
More than 300 of the fighters have died and more than 1,500 have been wounded since the campaign began.
In the country's east, meanwhile, forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar, a former Libyan general who formed the self-declared Libyan National Army (LNA), have taken back control of a Benghazi neighbourhood from fighters, following months of fighting to drive them from the country's second city.
Benghazi, 1,000km east of Tripoli, has for the past two years been the scene of clashes between fighters and forces loyal to a government based in the far eastern city of Tobruk.
"We dealt them a firm blow, it's a major victory," Khalifa al-Obeidi, head of press for LNA, told AFP news agency Thursday.
READ MORE: World leaders perpetuate failed anti-terror policies
"We are presently pursuing terrorists who are entrenched one kilometre east." Â
Six of Haftar's troops died in clashes this week in al-Gwarcha district, including four special forces killed by a landmine explosion.
As the self-appointed defence minister backed by the Tobruk administration, Haftar refuses to recognise the joint military command set up by the UN-backed Government of National Unity (GNA) in Tripoli.
France, Britain and the US recognise the GNA as the legitimate government of Libya.
Rescued at sea, refugees detail abuse in Libya
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Ras Lanuf and Es Sider, shut since 2014, to resume exports after officials sign deal with armed group controlling them.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/comedy/10432898/Bo-Burnham-interview-People-my-age-want-something-real.html
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Bo Burnham interview: 'People my age want something real'
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Then again, What.'s brilliance came as little surprise. Three years ago, Burnham – already a YouTube sensation at only 19 – made his Edinburgh debut with Words, Words, Words. A supremely smart broadside on time–worn comedy tropes, it took the Fringe by storm, winning rave reviews across the board, along with the Edinburgh Comedy Awards panel prize.
Part of the fun with Burnham is that it is seldom immediately obvious when he is being himself or adopting a stance, which means, I suggest, that What. can also be read as a particularly crafty strain of character comedy. Is that an impression he tries to give? "Yeah, that's a really interesting way of putting it," he says. "And I would think it's the fact that the characters – if they're characters – are appearing and disappearing only for the purposes of the comedy, so they're not coming up in the recognisable ways that we expect of characters: they're not woven into a plot or anything. It's all about trying to be as funny as possible, and also about looking at how I can surprise people."
Robert Burnham was born in Massachusetts in 1990, the youngest of three, his mother a nurse at his school, his father the owner of a construction company. Endearingly confessing to still getting "very, very nervous" before shows (though you'd never know it), he says that the first impulse to create comedy stemmed from his seeing it as "a way to be liked, get girls, or deflect my self–consciousness. Then, at a certain point, I found that it was a way of showing off how smart I thought I was, which was mostly my driving force during my adolescence.
"In high school," he adds, slightly embarrassed, "I worked eight hours a day just so I could get into the college of my dreams and say that I got in – and I never went." (That spurned institution – as I only just get him to admit – was Harvard.) As for the piano, Burnham "picked that up" during his freshman year at high–school. "I was 14, I guess. I didn't play an instrument, and that made me feel like an idiot. I just started teaching myself, so I can just vaguely get by. I have a pretty good math mind," he explains, "so I can see patterns, but I don't have a great ear. It's like a tragedy – I can see so much more natural musical ability in so many other people."
In fact, Burnham swiftly showed considerable pianistic flair. It wasn't long before he was penning songs of his own – and, crucially, uploading them. By the time of his Edinburgh debut, his pithily satirical ditties (such as My Whole Family Thinks I'm Gay) already had a global audience, with more than 70 million hits on YouTube. He also snaffled a four–album deal with the record arm of US TV channel Comedy Central.
Burnham is, then, the quintessential 21st–century comedian, the youngster who, rather than burgeon amid the beer and sweat of the clubs, first conquered the world from his bedroom. He almost indisputably owes the swiftness of his rise to the internet and all its attendant technology, but he also, as he talks, hints at considerable ambivalence towards it. Is that fair? "Yeah," he says. "I think the love-hate is fundamental. Everyone hates reality television, and everyone's watching it. Everyone hates Facebook, and everyone is on it. The unlimited amount of information that I have access to has also given me an unlimited threshold for how I need to be stimulated."
Wary as Burnham is of overdefining What., it does, at the same time as mirroring the modern, hyper–connected experience, appear to be offering some sort of antidote to it, and perhaps also to his own deeply ingrained, post–teen scepticism.
"Only last night," he says, "I was just thinking that kids don't get to experience any of the moments that they live honestly and originally, because they see them a thousand times before they get there. The first kiss becomes like a collage of teen movies and television specials, and I guess, for me, I'm longing for at least some sort of sincerity, some sort of genuine, un–commodified thing.
"I know I'm probably digging for fresh fruit in the garbage," he continues, "and as much as anyone, my attitude is: if stuff's sincere, it's gooey and boring and uninteresting. But it's no way to live. I think people of my age want – at least, I want – something real. All this is almost me desperately trying to prove that there's something there."
Bo Burnham's 'What.' is at Vicar Street, Dublin, tonight, and at the Leicester Square Theatre, London W1 tomorrow, then touring until November 18. For tickets click here. A collection of his poems. 'Egghead – or, You Can't Survive on Ideas Alone' is out now (Orion)
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At just 23, he is already one of the world's best stand-ups. But, as he embarks on a tour of England and Ireland, Bo Burnham has something serious to say about comedy - and our ridiculous lives
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/05/23/33-reasons-why-louis-van-gaal-had-to-leave-manchester-united/
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33 reasons why Louis van Gaal had to leave Manchester United
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Van Gaal repeatedly insisted on playing Anthony Martial on the left-hand side of midfield, when he appears to be his most dangerous striker. Marcus Rashford was deployed as a quasi right-back at Anfield. The nadir was away to Spurs: Ashley Young as centre forward, Jesse Lingard behind him with Juan Mata shunted out on the wing. It's team selection as if drawn out of a hat. Drunk.
12. United are dull. So dull. So very, very dull
There's a way to win ugly in a way that rouses fans, there's a way to defend in an exciting way, there's a way to keep possession and not be exhausting to watch. LVG managed nothing. Tactics are slow and from another era.
13. Van Gaal just will not attack
Despite how often the crowd calls for it.
Chastened by 5-3 at Leicester last season, he ordered his team back into their shell. They have never re-emerged.
The obsession with reaching half time level and goalless before coming out to attack after the break was downright tiresome. A team with the wealth of riches Manchester United have should attack from the off.
How can you spend as much as he did on players and have your centre-back - Daley Blind - taking corners?
16. Recruitment has been poor
We all love hindsight. It's hard not to, because it's such a wonderful thing. But the acquisition of players like Marcos Rojo (£16m), Bastian Schweinsteiger (£7m) and Victor Valdes (you'd forgotten about him, hadn't you?) have added little positive to a squad desperately in need of quality reinforcements. Those three in particular also feel like signings from another era, a time when recognisable names were prized above well-scouted hidden gems. Admittedly, this might not be entirely Van Gaal's fault:
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With Manchester United finally having done away with Louis van Gaal, the time for arguing has finished.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/22/opinion/who-was-behind-the-coup-attempt-in-turkey.html
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Who Was Behind the Coup Attempt in Turkey?
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SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina — The bloody coup attempt in Turkey last week, which cost more than 200 lives, brought the world’s attention to the group that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared responsible: the Islamic community led by Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since the late 1990s.
Mr. Gulen strongly denies the charges. Some in the West seem to think that this is yet another of the many bizarre conspiracy theories peddled by Mr. Erdogan. But this is not merely propaganda. There are good reasons to believe the accusation is correct.
The Gulen community is built around one man: Fethullah Gulen. His followers see him not merely as a learned cleric, as they publicly claim, but the “awaited one,” as I have been told in private. He is the Mahdi, the Islamic version of the Messiah, who will save the Muslim world, and ultimately the world itself. Many of his followers also believe that Mr. Gulen sees the Prophet Muhammad in his dreams and receives orders from him.
Besides Mr. Gulen’s unquestionable authority, another key feature of the movement is its cultish hierarchy. The Gulen movement is structured like a pyramid: Top-level imams give orders to second-level imams, who give orders to third-level imams, and it goes on like that to the grass roots.
What does the group do? Its most visible activities include opening schools, running charities that provide social services to the poor and maintaining “dialogue centers” that preach love, tolerance and peace. There is nothing wrong with that, of course. I personally have spoken many times at Gulen institutions as a guest, and met modest, kind, lovable people.
But, as one disillusioned Gulenist told me last year, “there is a darker side of the movement, and few of its members know it as it is.” For decades, the movement has been infiltrating Turkey’s state institutions, like the police, judiciary and military. Many believe that some Gulenists, taking orders from their imams, hide their identities and try to rise through these institutions in order to capture state power.
When Mr. Erdogan and his Islamist Justice and Development Party, or A.K.P., came to power in 2002, they felt threatened by the hard-core secularists who have dominated Turkey’s military since the days of Ataturk, the father of the Turkish republic. Mr. Erdogan viewed the Gulenist cadres in the state as an asset, and an alliance was born. The Erdogan government supported Gulenist police officers, prosecutors and judges as they went after secularists. Starting in 2007, hundreds of secularist officers and their civilian allies were jailed.
This witch hunt was driven by Mr. Erdogan’s political agenda, but the Gulenists were even more aggressive than the A.K.P. More worrying: Some of the evidence turned out to be overblown. Two secular journalists and a police chief who exposed the fake evidence, and blamed the “The Imam’s Army,” were soon themselves imprisoned on bogus charges.
“How can they justify using fake evidence to blame innocent people?” I once asked my disillusioned Gulenist friend. “Since their end goal is so great,” he said, referring to the movement’s global, apocalyptic ambition, “they think all means are justified.”
It eventually became clear why the Gulenists had been so fervent in their persecution of the secularists: They wanted to replace them. Many of the officers who reportedly took part in last week’s coup attempt had been promoted thanks to a major purge of the military in 2009 that supposedly saved Mr. Erdogan from a coup.
By 2012, the old secularist guard had been quelled and the Gulenists and the A.K.P. were left more or less alone to run Turkey. It took less than two years before the two Islamist groups developed distrust and, ultimately, enmity. This tension came to a head in December 2013, when Gulenist police officers and prosecutors arrested dozens of government officials in a corruption investigation, most likely in the hope of toppling Mr. Erdogan, who condemned the inquiry as a “coup attempt.” At the time, this sounded like a self-serving exaggeration.
But the bloody plot of July 15 is far more destructive than anything Turkey has seen in recent years. Notably, the plot came as Mr. Erdogan was supposed to be planning a major purge of suspected Gulenists from the military. The military’s chief of staff, who opposed the coup, identified the rebellious officers as Gulenists. One plotter even reportedly confessed to acting under orders from the Gulen movement.
Given the Gulen community’s hierarchical structure, all of this makes Mr. Gulen a prime suspect. Of course, the truth can come out only in a fair trial. Unfortunately, Turkey is not good at those — especially given Mr. Erdogan’s control over the judiciary and the ferocious polarization in the country today. But the United States government can try to negotiate with its Turkish counterparts to extradite Mr. Gulen, as Turkey’s government is now requesting, on the condition of a fair trial.
That would ensure justice, improve Turkish-American relations and help calm the dangerous zeal in Turkey. It may even be necessary to help many of the innocent people in the Gulen community to know what they are really involved in — and to begin new lives as free individuals.
Mustafa Akyol is the author of “Islam Without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty” and an Istanbul-based contributing opinion writer.
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTOpinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.
A version of this op-ed appears in print on July 22, 2016, on page A27 of the New York edition with the headline: Who Plotted Turkey’s Coup Attempt?. Today's Paper|Subscribe
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It seems likely that a Pennsylvania-based Muslim cleric initiated the putsch. The United States must help Turkey find justice.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/9550525/Fun-The-stag-party-has-become-a-humiliating-horror-show.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160803155334id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/lifestyle/9550525/Fun-The-stag-party-has-become-a-humiliating-horror-show.html
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Fun? The stag party has become a humiliating horror show
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Ah, my stag night. I remember it well. May, 1978. Present: my five closest muckers. Venue: a pub in Wandsworth, south London. We talked, had a few beers, moved on to another pub, had a few more beers, talked some more, and that was that. There was no stripper, and nobody bothered to hire a Nazi uniform or Marilyn Monroe wig. Tame stuff.
The latest best man to pull a stag stunt straight out of a Hollywood gangster movie is Ben Goldsmith, son of the late billionaire financier Sir James Goldsmith. In an elaborate hoax, executed with military precision, Goldsmith had the groom, Alex Tulloch, arrested by uniformed police officers in a Los Angeles hotel, taken to a police station, held in a cell alongside hardened criminals and subjected to hours of questioning.
In these days of testosterone-fuelled mayhem, the groom who is force-fed a laxative, stripped naked and handcuffed to a lamp-post in Trafalgar Square has got off lightly. Forget wedding rings and risqué speeches: many best men now regard their prime role as inflicting the maximum possible humiliation on their friend.
In June this year, a Monarch plane en route from Manchester to Majorca had to be diverted to Gatwick after a member of a stag party allegedly set his friend’s hair on fire. In the same month, police had to be called after a reported kidnapping in Somerset. It turned out to be a stag-night prank in which the groom’s friends, wearing stockings over their heads, had bundled him into the back of the van and driven him off down the M5.
Given the copious amounts of alcohol without which no stag party would be complete, the scope for things to go seriously wrong is endless. In July 2011, brothers Craig and Bradley Barnett dreamt up what must have seemed like a hilarious prank. Wouldn’t it be wicked if the groom returned to his room at the end of a drunken evening and found six live chickens there? It was indeed wicked – so wicked that two of the birds died and the brothers ended up in court on a RSPCA charge.
With drunken ladettes on hen nights determined to behave as badly as their male counterparts, trashing hotels from Dublin to Reykjavik, the whole pre-wedding period has become fraught with menace. Shaving foam is purchased, fire extinguishers primed, water bombs prepared. It is as if the organisers of stag parties are in competition with each other to see who can push hardest at the boundaries of good taste. They have lost sight of the one prerequisite of any good party – that the guests should have fun, and the guest of honour the most fun of all.
It doesn’t have to be like this. In August, when bridegroom-to-be Bob Gray was pounced on by friends in balaclavas, bundled into the back of a van and driven up a Scottish mountain, he naturally feared the worst. In fact, his best man, Colin Baird, had arranged nothing more sinister than a lavish sit-down dinner on the top of the mountain. The guests were formally dressed, in kilts, waistcoats and bow ties, and tucked into a sumptuous meal washed down with wine and port. The whole occasion was so splendidly retro, like something out of an Evelyn Waugh novel, that when photos of it were uploaded on to a social networking site, they were viewed by 23 million people in six days.
Mr Gray’s farewell to bachelorhood had an elegance of which most other grooms – who are lucky if they get to the altar with their hair and eyebrows intact – can only dream.
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Whatever happened to bidding bachelorhood farewell with nothing but a few tame pints of beer?
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http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-step-forward-in-tumultuous-political-season-1456048803
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Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton Step Forward in Tumultuous Political Season
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20160803160140
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Regular order began returning for Democrats Saturday. Republicans still aren’t sure whether their version of regular order even exists any longer.
The one thing that was settled as voters spoke in two states—Democrats in Nevada and Republicans in South Carolina—is that there now is no doubt about the identity of the front-runners in the 2016 presidential campaign. Hillary Clinton has re-established herself, as she was always supposed...
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In Saturday’s voting for presidential hopefuls, the regular order began returning for Democrats, but Republicans still aren’t sure whether their version of regular order even exists any longer, according to Gerald Seib in his Capital Journal column.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/belgium/7876749/Belgian-undertakers-plan-to-dissolve-dead-and-flush-them-into-sewage-system.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160803160518id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/news/worldnews/europe/belgium/7876749/Belgian-undertakers-plan-to-dissolve-dead-and-flush-them-into-sewage-system.html
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Belgian undertakers plan to dissolve dead and flush them into sewage system
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20160803160518
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The controversial new method is said to be less expensive and more environmentally friendly than running highly polluting crematoria or using up valuable land for graves.
The departed would go into the sewage systems of towns and cities and then be recycled in water processing plants.
The proposals are being studied by the EU and if approved, it would mean the procedure could be used across Europe.
However, opponents of the plans say it smacks of a Frankenstein callousness towards the dead and one survey in Belgium found many people found the idea "disturbing."
"The idea is for the deceased to be placed in a container with water and salts and then pressurised and after a little time, about two hours, mineral ash and liquid is left over," said a spokesman for the Flemish Association of Undertakers.
The European Commission is investigation whether the resulting liquid could safely be flushed into the sewage system. Authorities in the northern Belgian region have yet to decide whether to approve the process.
Six states in America – Maine, Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Oregon, and Maryland have recently passed legislation that allow the process to be used.
Although experts insist that the ashes can be recycled in waste systems, the residue from the process can also be put in urns and handed over to relatives of the dead.
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Belgian undertakers have drawn up plans to dissolve the corpses of the dead in caustic solutions and flush them into the sewage system.
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Qld Hospital maintenance staff walk out
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Maintenance staff at Brisbane's Princess Alexandra Hospital have taken industrial action, citing ongoing concerns over job security.
A group of 25 building and engineering maintenance staff walked off the job at 8am on Tuesday, saying management must address the ongoing use of external labour hire companies.
Electrical Trades Union organiser Brenton Muller says ward closures could result from the industrial action, but says managers are to blame for failing to respond to staff concerns.
Mr Muller said they'd shown a lack of commitment to resolve the issues, and workers had no choice but to walk away.
"It's been going on since last year, and it's just been a talkfest with management, but obviously we are still hopeful we can sort something out," he said.
Workers are expected to return on Wednesday.
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Maintenance staff have taken industrial action at Brisbane's Princess Alexandra Hospital, citing job security concerns.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/29/opinion/hillary-clinton-victim-of-her-own-success.html
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Hillary Clinton: Victim of Her Own Success
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Durham, N.H. — One of the most powerful ironies in a political season full of perversities is a paradox that now defines Hillary Clinton’s campaign: The first female presidential candidate to overcome the obstacles that sank every single woman before her now confronts criticism for overcoming those very same difficulties.
Let’s start with money. Women have long been pushed aside for not having enough to run a presidential campaign. In 1987, Representative Patricia Schroeder of Colorado concluded her brief presidential campaign by admitting, “The bottom line is, the money’s not there.” Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine tried to take the high road in 1964 by eschewing campaign donations, a decision that crippled her ability to compete effectively in the Republican primaries. She lost handily. Senator Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, despite a sterling résumé, bowed out of a 2000 Republican presidential race shaped by “money in the bank and ads on the airwaves,” as she put it, that could not be combated with “inadequate funding.”
Mrs. Clinton, by contrast, has twice built a sizable war chest through prodigious fund-raising from Wall Street donors and “super PACs,” just as her male counterparts and opponents have always done. But her success in doing so has fueled charges that she is a captive of financial interests and all too willing to exploit a corrupt system of campaign financing.
Part of what made fund-raising so difficult for women were the prevailing doubts that they could secure the nomination of their party, let alone win a national campaign. There were good reasons for such skepticism. When Senator Smith ran for president, over 40 percent of Americans said they would not vote for a woman for president even if she was “well qualified” and nominated by their own political party.
Mrs. Clinton decisively changed that assumption with her strong showing in 2008. Yet the confidence invested in her by party leaders and elites now stokes criticism that she is “too establishment,” too cozy with Washington insiders and too comfortable with those who have sought to leash insurgent forces within the Democratic Party. Her determined effort to overcome the impediments that waylaid other women who have sought the presidency now offers fresh evidence to critics that she is driven by a craven thirst for power.
Arguments, provocations and observations from Times Opinion writers.
Then there is Mrs. Clinton’s career in public service, unrivaled by any female presidential candidate — and almost any male president. Even Mrs. Smith, who served in the Senate longer than any woman in the 20th century, never acquired such clout or standing within her party.
Yet Mrs. Clinton’s pathway through public life has also tied her to what some consider the mistaken domestic policies of her husband’s administration — a forestalled health care reform initiative, a crime bill that contributed to mass incarceration, and an overhaul of welfare that further impoverished some of the poorest Americans. The first woman to be truly competitive as a presidential candidate is thus tagged as an old school insider more often than as a path breaker.
One of the most insidious obstacles confronting female candidates, historically, has been the belief that they lack by nature or experience the capacity to oversee foreign policy. Mrs. Clinton broke through in 2008, when primary voters, according to polling, said she would be a better commander in chief than her opponents in the Democratic race. As secretary of state, she played a central role on the Obama foreign policy team.
In the current campaign, however, her critics blame her for what they portray as failures in the foreign policy of the Obama administration. Their dismay over her handling of her email supposedly demonstrates that she cannot be trusted with national security. One doesn’t have to defend her decisions to suggest that men who have made similar choices in similar situations — former Secretary of State Colin Powell comes to mind — have been spared this sweeping judgment.
Time and again, Americans have deemed men worthy of the White House if they could succeed on the national political stage, raise sufficient money, rally the support of party leaders, appeal to voters and point to domestic and foreign policy experience. That these assets are suddenly negatives, at the very moment that a woman finally achieved them, is curious, to say the least.
In 1872, Victoria Woodhull became the first woman to seek the presidency. Her campaign was greeted with curiosity, enthusiasm and a firestorm of complaints from her critics. Among them was Harriet Beecher Stowe, who asked if a woman who survived the rigor of a campaign — “an ordeal that kills a man” — was the “kind of a woman that we would want to see at the head of our government?” A century and a half later, we may have a woman running for president, but she continues to face that same question in 2016.
Ellen Fitzpatrick is a professor of history at the University of New Hampshire and the author, most recently, of “The Highest Glass Ceiling: Women’s Quest for the American Presidency.”
A version of this op-ed appears in print on July 29, 2016, on page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: A Victim of Her Own Success. Today's Paper|Subscribe
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She’s a great fund-raiser and a decisive leader. Why are these suddenly negatives?
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/theatre/what-to-see/cheap-theatre-tickets-and-deals-from-telegraph-tickets/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160804173840id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/theatre/what-to-see/cheap-theatre-tickets-and-deals-from-telegraph-tickets/
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Cheap Theatre Tickets and Deals from Telegraph Tickets
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20160804173840
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Carole King, the chart-topping music legend, was an ordinary girl with an extraordinary talent.She fought her way into the record industry as a teenager and sold her first hit, Will You Love Me Tomorrow, when she was just seventeen. By the time she was twenty she was writing number ones for the biggest acts in rock ‘n’ roll, including the Drifters, the Shirelles, Aretha Franklin and the Monkees.
But her greatest challenge was to find her own voice and finally step into the spotlight.
Beautiful is the untold story of Carole King’s journey from schoolgirl to superstar; from her relationship with husband and song-writing partner Gerry Goffin, their close friendship and playful rivalry with fellow song-writing duo Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, to her remarkable rise to stardom.
When: Valid on Monday - Thursday evening and Tuesday matinee performances between 2 July and 29 September. Book by 2 September 2016.
Where: The Aldwych Theatre, London
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Our weekly roundup of Cheap Theatre Tickets and the Best Theatre Deals, including London's West End, available at Telegraph Tickets.
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Angela Rippon: What I've learned about the science of staying young
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You can also choose to sharpen the brain, an area I am particularly interested in. My own mother Edna died in her mid-eighties, in 2008, after five years suffering from Alzheimer’s. I’m an Ambassador for Alzheimer’s UK and follow new research initiatives closely. So I was relieved when another MRI scan showed that although a typical 70-year-old could expect their brain to have shrunk by 20 per cent as nerve cells die off naturally, mine has only reduced by about five per cent. Is this due to my still working full time, juggling scripts and research on a wide range of topics? Very possibly.
All the experts we met confirmed that holding back neurodegeneration is possible as long as you keep making brain cells and enabling neural connections. So this means trying new things, and setting challenges.
Of course, learning a language or doing a daily Sudoku have long been touted as ways to keep the brain sharp - but we discovered that we clever humans adapt so quickly to new skills that our brains aren’t exercised by a nightly puzzle unless we mix it up – take up crosswords or jigsaws instead.
Languages are terrific, but learning something totally different, such as Mandarin may exercise the grey matter more than just brushing up rusty French. Life-drawing, I was pleased to learn, is another stimulating alternative requiring thought, concentration and hand-eye coordination.
One of the most interesting experiments explored in the documentary set new groups of solitary walkers versus table tennis players to see who would benefit most over 10 weeks. While the pedestrians improved most in actual cardiovascular fitness and creating new brain cells, the players saw a remarkable growth of cortical thickness; the section of the brain associated with complex thinking.
They scored higher in mood improvement too. The exercise component was effective, but the real benefit came in terms of pure happiness, thanks to the sociable nature of joining a fitness group.
Likewise, when I visited a group in Germany to assess the relative merits of gym work versus dancing, I was delighted (and as a lifelong dancer, not at all surprised) to see that doing the twist was far more beneficial overall than merely lifting weights. Again, the real difference seemed to be the added value of the endorphin boost dancing invoked, plus the novelty of learning new routines, and what you could call the ‘sociability quotient’.
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If pressed, I would have to concede that for 71, I’m in pretty good shape.
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SiriusXM suspends Glenn Beck over guest 'advocating harm' to Donald Trump
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SiriusXM has suspended Glenn Beck's syndicated show after a guest suggested citizens would have to take means that may not be legal in order to get Donald Trump out of office.
Last week, fiction author Brad Thor asked, "What patriot will step up and do that?" when explaining that Congress would not be able to remove Trump from office by "legal means" through impeachment.
The satellite radio network feels this could be viewed as "advocating harm against an individual currently running for office."
Also Read: Stephen Hawking Rips Donald Trump Supporters as 'Lowest Common Denominator' (Video)
"SiriusXM encourages a diversity of discourse and opinion on our talk programs. However, comments recently made by a guest on the independently produced Glenn Beck Program, in the company's judgment, may be reasonably construed by some to have been advocating harm against an individual currently running for office, which SiriusXM cannot and will not condone. For that reason, The Glenn Beck Program is suspended from our Patriot channel for the coming week. SiriusXM is committed to a spirited, robust, yet responsible political conversation and believes this action reflects those values," SiriusXM said in a statement.
Thor knew his comments were going to be controversial, starting with, "This is serious and this could ring down incredible heat on me because I'm about to suggest something very bad. It is a hypothetical I am going to ask as a thriller writer."
See more of Beck through the years:
SiriusXM suspends Glenn Beck over guest 'advocating harm' to Donald Trump
Glenn Beck speaks at a rally for Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in Tulsa, Okla., Sunday, Feb. 28, 2016. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
Radio and television personality Glenn Beck speaks to a gathering at FreePAC Kentucky, Saturday, April 5, 2014, at the Kentucky International Convention Center in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)
PROVO, UT - MARCH 19: Conservative radio talk show host Glenn Beck speaks at a rally for Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) at Provo High School on March 19, 2016 in Provo, Utah. Utah voters go to the polls Tuesday, March 22 for the state's caucus. (Photo by George Frey/Getty Images)
Glenn Beck announces his endorsement of US Senator and Republican Presidential Candidate Ted Cruz during a campaign event in Waterloo, Iowa, January 23, 2016, ahead of the Iowa Caucus. / AFP / JIM WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, USA - SEPTEMBER 9: TV and Right Wing personality Glenn Beck waits to go on stage to speak at a rally held by the Tea Party at the United States Capitol to speak out against President Obama's nuclear agreement with Iran in Washington, USA on September 9, 2015. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
UNITED STATES - JUNE 19: Conservative talk show host Glenn Beck attends a Tea Party Patriots rally on the west front of the Capitol to protest the IRS's targeting of conservative political groups. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 13: Glenn Beck speaks during the Dish Network War Of The Words at Hammerstein Ballroom on September 13, 2012 in New York City. (Photo by Kris Connor/Getty Images for Dish Network)
NEW YORK, NY - APRIL 26: Glenn Beck attends Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards on April 26, 2013 in New York City. (Photo by Rob Kim/Getty Images)
JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - AUGUST 24: (ISRAEL OUT) U.S. conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck hosts a rally near the Western Wall, on August 24, 2011 in Jerusalem's Old City, Israel. The event, under the slogan 'Restoring Courage', was attended by hundreds of his evangelical Christian supporters, whilst many who oppose his right-wing views protested outside. (Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)
FILE - In this July 11, 2011 file photo, radio talk show host Glenn Beck speaks in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem. For a second straight day, Beck on Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2012 used his show to complain that an American Airlines flight attendant treated him rudely. Beck claims it was punishment for his conservative views. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner, File)
Glenn Beck, center, holds hands with faith leaders at the "Restoring Honor" rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington Saturday, Aug. 28, 2010.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Glenn Beck arrives at the 45th Annual CMA Awards in Nashville on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2011. (AP Photo/Evan Agostini)
He continued: "If Congress won't remove him from office, what patriot will step up and do that if, if, he oversteps his mandate as president, his constitutional-granted authority, I should say, as president. If he oversteps that, how do we get him out of office? And I don't think there is a legal means available. I think it will be a terrible, terrible position the American people will be in to get Trump out of office because you won't be able to do it through Congress."
Also Read: Donald Trump Ad Blasts Bill Clinton Over Sexual Assault Allegations (Video)
Beck didn't immediatly shoot down Thor's comments. When critics accused the rant of sounding like encouraging an assassination, Beck responded by discussing the topic at length on his show. He claimed the image in his head when Thor made the comments was not an assassination attempt.
"Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" — Jimmy Stewart standing there all alone on the Senate floor, saying, 'I'll just keep talkin'. Somebody's gotta hear me!' That's what I heard," Beck explained.
Read original story SiriusXM Suspends Glenn Beck Over Guest 'Advocating Harm' to Donald Trump At TheWrap
More from The Wrap: Donald Trump Braces for Pitchforks at First Hollywood Fundraiser Could Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders Bypass Hillary Clinton and Debate Themselves? Stephen Hawking Rips Donald Trump Supporters as ‘Lowest Common Denominator’ (Video)
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The satellite radio network feels the comments could be viewed as 'advocating harm against an individual currently running for office.'
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Taji troops remember battle 100 years ago
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As Australian troops fought and died in the bloody battle of Pozieres in France, another Anzac force was confronting their old foe the Turks in the sand dunes of the Sinai Desert - and winning.
This was the Battle of Romani, the first of a succession of victories by the Anzac Mounted Division which took them from the Suez Canal to the suburbs of Damascus.
For the Australian and New Zealand soldiers training members of the Iraqi military in Taji, Iraq, the centenary of the Battle of Romani is a big deal.
Task Group Taji Commander Colonel Andrew Lowe said they shared their task force emblem - a boomerang and silver fern - with the Australian and New Zealand Mounted Division which fought and won the Battle of Romani, the British Empire's first major victory of World War I.
As well, Task Force Taji has adopted the Mounted Division motto "Kia Tupato"- Maori for "Be Cautious."
The Mounted Division which fought in the Sinai comprised three Australian Light Horse Brigades and one New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade.
In Iraq, the task force comprises one New Zealand and three Australian training teams.
"They served in Egypt, Palestine and Syria and we are next door in Iraq. We are experiencing the same conditions, the same climate and the same cultures as they did 100 years ago," Colonel Lowe said.
He said the task force was conscious of the traditions and reputations of the Australian and New Zealand armies, earned over the last century.
"We may not be in combat, but we are training proud soldiers who are fighting to regain the sovereignty of their nation and defeat a terrorist scourge which threatens the rest of the globe," he said.
Light horse units sailed with the Australian Imperial Force when it departed Australia in 1914, fighting as infantry on Gallipoli.
When the Anzacs withdrew from Gallipoli in December 1915, they returned to Egypt. The light horsemen were reunited with their steeds and in March 1916, the Australian 1st, 2nd and 3rd Light Horse Brigades and the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade formed the Anzac Mounted Division.
For the allies in Egypt, the enemy, Turkish forces of the Ottoman Empire weren't that far away and posed a real threat to the empire's supply lifeline, the Suez Canal.
After a Turkish raid on the canal in early 1915, British forces pushed their defences out into the Sinai and in 1916 were joined by the Anzacs who in April 1916 occupied the town of Romani, 35 kilometres east of the canal.
In a hard day's fighting on the Western Front, a good advance could be a few hundreds metres but in the desert, mounted troops could move tens of kilometres. But, with a few exceptions, they fought dismounted.
Anzac units were well suited to this free-wheeling form of warfare which was of necessity centred on towns and oases where there was water for men and horses.
In early August 1916, Turkish forces approached Romani and around midnight on August 3, about 8000 Turks bumped into about 500 soldiers in the outer defences. The Australians steadily gave ground. The fight continued through the day, with British and New Zealand units joining the line.
Early on August 4, the Australian 1st and 2nd Brigades attacked the Turkish flank, crushing resistance and prompting a general pursuit of fleeing Turkish forces.
Subsequently, the British command was criticised for failing to more energetically follow through to turn the Turkish retreat into a rout.
Historian Chris Coulthard-Clark said that obscured what was actually a decisive victory which eliminated the threat to Romani and to the canal, marking the beginning of the drive across the Sinai into Palestine.
The brunt of fighting fell on the Anzacs who suffered more than 900 of the 1130 allied casualties, including 202 dead. Turkish losses were estimated at 9000 with nearly 4000 taken prisoner.
"Romani was the first decisive victory attained by British Land Forces and changed the whole face of the campaign in that theatre, wresting as it did from the enemy the initiative which he never again obtained," commander of the Anzac Mounted Brigade General Harry Chauvel wrote after the war.
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A century ago this week, Australian and New Zealand horsemen fought the Battle of Romani, a decisive allied land victory of World War I.
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MODERNISM OF MIES - FRESH SIGNS OF VIGOR - NYTimes.com
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JUST when post-modern buildings and interiors embellished with columns, cornices, pastel colors and Palladian motifs have become accepted in the mainstream of popular taste, some architects are re-evaluating elements of the architectural style that preceded it - the modern movement - and the designs of one of it's masters, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
True, during the last 20 years, some architects have continued to design austere buildings and spare interiors, Others considered modernism dated. But now, that spare design approach looks new again: Buildings with clean, geometric interiors are beginning to replace the more ornamental rooms that post-modernists endorse.
In a move toward achieving this spare style, architects are looking with fresh eyes at the German-born Mies, whose lean steel and glass skyscrapers and spare interiors symbolized the modernist esthetic.
''While some architects have never stopped looking at Mies, others are beginning to see modernism in a new way,'' said Arthur Drexler, director of the department of architecture and design for the Museum of Modern Art, where a major retrospective of Mies's designs will be on view beginning Feb. 10 to commemorate the centennial of his birth.
''Post-modernism has been around for 20 years,'' he continued. ''It's now as vulnerable to criticism as modernism has been.''
And indeed, there is a generation of younger architects who were taught that ''less is a bore'' by such post-modernists as Robert Venturi, Charles Moore and Michael Graves (who were themselves brought up on Mies's famous adage ''Less is more''), and many of these younger architects are now reacting against their masters. ''There are always design cycles: Each generation rebels against their teachers,'' said Franklin D. Israel, a Los Angeles architect who studied with Venturi at the University of Pennsylvania 18 years ago.
''Architects today are once again interested in simpler designs,'' he said.
Mr. Israel points out that some of the most famous post-modern buildings may appear, with their ornamented facades, to represent a totally different design philosophy, but in reality a common thread exits. ''Take the A.T.&T. building,'' he said. ''The whole post-modernist esthetic of using granite as a veneer is not so different from the way the modernists clad steel structures with a skin of glass.''
Besides glass, what seems to appeal these days is Mies's careful attention to detail and the ways he used bronze, stone, chrome and steel. Also being imitated are the geometric Miesian interiors: large open areas interrupted only by free-standing walls and ''floating'' cabinets raised above the floors and ending below the ceilings.
According to Don Powell, a partner in the Chicago firm of Powell/ Kleinschmidt Architects, there is new interest in the ways the modernists handled structural materials. ''Since Mies was the major technocrat of the 20th century, it makes sense that architects have begun to examine his work again,'' Mr. Powell explained.
''He was an artist when it came to crafting materials.''
Mies's fame began in Germany in the early 1920's with such radical designs as steel and glass skyscrapers and his use of horizontal ribbon windows. In 1930 he became director of the Bauhaus School of Architecture and Design in Dessau, Germany.
Seven years later the architect immigrated to the United States to head the School of Architecture at the Armour, now Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, where he designed many major buildings, including the celebrated 1950 Farnsworth house.
Living in Chicago, Mr. Powell feels a close affinity to Mies's work. He also lives in one of the Mies apartment buildings on Lake Shore Drive, a steel and glass structure originally intended as a skyscraper of open-plan apartments. In 1952, however, when it was being finished, the builder was afraid this modernist notion was too avant-garde for prospective tenants.
So instead, the apartments were laid out in conventional rooms. Working with his partner, Robert Kleinschmidt, Mr. Powell renovated his two-bedroom apartment. ''I followed the open plan that I thought Mies had originally intended,'' Mr. Powell said. The only conventional wall left standing is one closing off the bedroom. The main portion of the apartment, based on a modular grid, incorporates many Miesian trademarks: A teak storage unit 60 inches high divides the apartment into a T shape. ''The space divider, which also doubles as a storage unit, is used in place of a traditional interior wall,''
Mr. Powell said. The Miesian notion of free-flowing space was achieved by Mr Powell not only with cabinetry but also by the arrangement of the furniture. True to modernist principles, pieces are never placed against a wall but are used as centerpieces in each area. By raising all the dividers several inches above the travertine floor and having them not reach the ceiling, another Mies idea, the notion of floating space is carried from floor to ceiling.
All the furniture in Mr. Powell's apartment, if not original Mies pieces, was designed in the same spirit. The sofa was made in Germany in 1938, and the leather stools in the living area were designed by Mies for the 1929 Barcelona Pavilion.
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JUST when post-modern buildings and interiors embellished with columns, cornices, pastel colors and Palladian motifs have become accepted in the mainstream of popular taste, some architects are re-evaluating elements of the architectural style that preceded it - the modern movement - and the designs of one of it's masters, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. True, during the last 20 years, some architects have continued to design austere buildings and spare interiors, Others considered modernism dated. But now, that spare design approach looks new again: Buildings with clean, geometric interiors are beginning to replace the more ornamental rooms that post-modernists endorse. In a move toward achieving this spare style, architects are looking with fresh eyes at the German-born Mies, whose lean steel and glass skyscrapers and spare interiors symbolized the modernist esthetic. ''While some architects have never stopped looking at Mies, others are beginning to see modernism in a new way,'' said Arthur Drexler, director of the department of architecture and design for the Museum of Modern Art, where a major retrospective of Mies's designs will be on view beginning Feb. 10 to commemorate the centennial of his birth.
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160805115332id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/11775526/Bryony-Gordon-Cecil-the-lions-killing-tells-us-a-lot-about-the-wrongs-of-animal-rights-activists.html?
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Cecil the lion's killing tells us a lot about the wrongs of animal rights activists
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Walter Palmer, pictured with a leopard and a rhino, shot dead Cecil the lion (Photo: AP)
“Hunting is a coward’s pastime,” said the organisation’s president Ingrid Newkirk. “If, as has been reported, the dentist and his guides lured Cecil out of the park with food so as to shoot him on private property, because shooting him in the park would have been illegal, he needs to be extradited, charged and, preferably, hanged.”
Peta has long used deliberately incendiary tactics to hammer home their point – in 2011, after a spear fisher was bitten by a shark, they released a poster of someone being eaten by one with the slogan “Payback is hell. Go vegan” – but this seemed particularly crass. In a country where human rights abuses are part of everyday life and are rarely punished (or tweeted about, for that matter), Peta’s statement showed an unbelievable lack of the compassion self-proclaimed animal lovers always profess to have.
Meanwhile, back in Minnesota, outside Palmer’s dentistry practice, a poster that read “Be Kind to Animals” sat side by side with one that suggested the hunter should “Rot In Hell”.
Humans, I thought: showing animals how to behave like animals since the dawn of time.
I am not for a moment excusing what Palmer did. I find trophy hunting grotesque, and I hope that Cecil’s death will at the very least bring the practice to an end. But I also think that this whole sorry episode shows us how mixed up we are about animals, what hypocrites us humans are (and, as a meat eater, I happily include myself in that sweeping generalisation). Why are Americans outraged at the shooting of a lion, but not the routine gunning down of their own people? Why are we all horrified by Cecil, but not the dozens of other lions hunted around Africa each year?
• Prince William honours Kenyan ranger with rhino conservation
Is it because Cecil was given a name and thus anthropomorphised? A post this week on thinkprogress.org tried to make sense of it all. They spoke to Ernest Small, a doctor with the Canadian government who specialises in biodiversity. He explained that lions are known as “charismatic megafauna… [these animals] are usually at least the size of a large dog, and generally larger than a man. Here we are, as humans, getting very excited about charismatic animals. We never think about all the pain we cause to billions of sentient creatures.”
So just over 20 million of us go to Seaworld each year to watch killer whales perform, despite it being well known that many of the orcas are traumatised by being in captivity.
We abhor the presence of horse meat in our supermarkets, but thousands upon thousands of us will happily plough money in to an industry that sees the creatures routinely flogged for the sake of our enjoyment and wallets.
We eat meat, but we are horrified by the slaughter of an innocent lion, and we justify this by telling ourselves there is a world of difference between breeding an animal for food and killing one for pleasure. I’m not entirely sure that distinction cuts much ice with the animals, who end up dead either way.
We find halal disgusting, seemingly unaware that 94 per cent of the chicken we eat in this country has been intensively farmed. We think foxes should be saved, unless of course we live in a city, in which case they should be destroyed to stop them rummaging through our bins or keeping us awake all night with that awful screeching sound they make as they have sex. One week we are calling for seagulls to be culled, the next for dentists who shoot lions.
We bang on and on about animal rights but are responsible for untold animal wrongs.
So maybe we don’t all love animals. Or maybe we do, just as long as it suits us as humans.
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We claim to love animals like Cecil the lion, while ignoring the plights of thousands of other species - not least our own
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Photos : People.com
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08/04/2016 AT 10:20 AM EDT
were spotted furniture shopping in Beverly Hills, California, on Wednesday – just one day after revealing to PEOPLE that as far as decorating their new house goes, the biggest debate has been the central living room piece.
"I've tried buying stuff, like a couch – he won't let me buy a couch until he sits on it," Fletcher said.
A couch might look really good in photos, Rodgers explained, "but then you're like: 'Wait, I cannot do five hours of Netflix on this.' The sit test is huge!"
For the excursion to Crate & Barrel, Fletcher, 25, wore a grey dress and white slip-on sneakers, while Rodgers, 27, opted for jeans, a T-shirt, Converse sneakers and a baseball cap.
JoJo Fletcher and Jordan Rodgers
The two also took to Snapchat to document their day, filming each other cuddling on a couch.
And of course, it wouldn't be a day of furniture shopping without a little refueling – at Chipotle!
star and her new fiancé went public with their
JoJo Fletcher and Jordan Rodgers on the cover of PEOPLE
Now, the happy couple plans to move to Fletcher's hometown of Dallas, where they've bought a house together.
As for whether Rodgers will get a man cave?
"We have a spare bedroom!" Fletcher told PEOPLE. "He can do whatever he wants with it – as long as I get the closet!"
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Fletcher and her fiancé are moving in together in her hometown of Dallas
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GOP officials think Donald Trump might drop out of election
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Senior Republican Party officials have reportedly been looking into how they would replace Donald Trump on the ballot this November if the nominee decides to exit the presidential race.
According to ABC News, GOP leaders have been considering the possibility that the real estate mogul might drop out of the election in the wake of his erratic behavior and a series of controversies in the weeks since accepting the nomination.
For his part, Trump has given no indication that he intends to take himself out of the running, and there is no way for the party to forcibly remove him. But the candidate has recently voiced skepticism concerning the fairness of the upcoming election.
See Trump at the RNC:
Donald Trump delivers speech at GOP convention RNC
U.S. Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump arrives onstage at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. July 21, 2016. REUTERS/Rick Wilking
U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is greeted by Ivanka Trump after his introduction at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. July 21, 2016. REUTERS/Jim Young
Ivanka Trump, daughter of Republican Presidential Nominee Donald J. Trump, waves as she walks off stage after introduction her father during the final day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Thursday, July 21, 2016. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 21: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gives two thumbs up to the crowd during the evening session on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump received the number of votes needed to secure the party's nomination. An estimated 50,000 people are expected in Cleveland, including hundreds of protesters and members of the media. The four-day Republican National Convention kicked off on July 18. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 21: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump acknowledges the crowd during the evening session on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump received the number of votes needed to secure the party's nomination. An estimated 50,000 people are expected in Cleveland, including hundreds of protesters and members of the media. The four-day Republican National Convention kicked off on July 18. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 21: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump delivers a speech during the evening session on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump received the number of votes needed to secure the party's nomination. An estimated 50,000 people are expected in Cleveland, including hundreds of protesters and members of the media. The four-day Republican National Convention kicked off on July 18. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Donald Trump, 2016 Republican presidential nominee, speaks during the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S., on Thursday, July 21, 2016. This evening marks the last night of a four-day Republican National Convention that has been defined by disorderly floor activity, divisions within the party, a plagiarized speech delivered by the nominee's wife and scattered protests in the streets of Cleveland. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 21: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump preapres to deliver his speech during the evening session on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump received the number of votes needed to secure the party's nomination. An estimated 50,000 people are expected in Cleveland, including hundreds of protesters and members of the media. The four-day Republican National Convention kicked off on July 18. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks on the last day of the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016, in Cleveland, Ohio. / AFP / Jim WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks on the last day of the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016, in Cleveland, Ohio. / AFP / Robyn BECK (Photo credit should read ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images)
U.S. Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump speaks at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. July 21, 2016. REUTERS/Rick Wilking
The mouth of US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is seen on a big screen as he speaks on the last day of the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016, in Cleveland, Ohio. / AFP / Jim WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)
CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 21: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump delivers a speech during the evening session on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump received the number of votes needed to secure the party's nomination. An estimated 50,000 people are expected in Cleveland, including hundreds of protesters and members of the media. The four-day Republican National Convention kicked off on July 18. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks on the last day of the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016, in Cleveland, Ohio. / AFP / JIM WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)
A CODEPINK protester is removed while US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks on the last day of the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016, in Cleveland, Ohio. / AFP / JIM WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)
CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 21: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump delivers a speech during the evening session on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump received the number of votes needed to secure the party's nomination. An estimated 50,000 people are expected in Cleveland, including hundreds of protesters and members of the media. The four-day Republican National Convention kicked off on July 18. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Delegates listen as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump addresses the final night of the Republican National Convention at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, July 21, 2016. / AFP / Robyn BECK (Photo credit should read ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images)
Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump formally accepts the nomination at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. July 21, 2016. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri
Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump formally accepts the nomination at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. July 21, 2016. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri
CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 21: Attendees listen to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump deliver his speech on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump received the number of votes needed to secure the party's nomination. An estimated 50,000 people are expected in Cleveland, including hundreds of protesters and members of the media. The four-day Republican National Convention kicked off on July 18. (Photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 21: Deligates stand and cheer as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump delivers his speech on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump received the number of votes needed to secure the party's nomination. An estimated 50,000 people are expected in Cleveland, including hundreds of protesters and members of the media. The four-day Republican National Convention kicked off on July 18. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 21: An attendee stands and cheers as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump delivers his speech on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump received the number of votes needed to secure the party's nomination. An estimated 50,000 people are expected in Cleveland, including hundreds of protesters and members of the media. The four-day Republican National Convention kicked off on July 18. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Rudy Giuliani, right, former mayor of New York City, applauds as Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump addressed the audience during the final day of the 2016 Republican National Convention at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, July 21, 2016. (Photo by Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 21: (L-R) Tiffany Trump, Barron Trump and Melania Trump listen to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump deliver his speech on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump received the number of votes needed to secure the party's nomination. An estimated 50,000 people are expected in Cleveland, including hundreds of protesters and members of the media. The four-day Republican National Convention kicked off on July 18. (Photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 21: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his family acknowledge the crowd on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump received the number of votes needed to secure the party's nomination. An estimated 50,000 people are expected in Cleveland, including hundreds of protesters and members of the media. The four-day Republican National Convention kicked off on July 18. (Photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (C L) and vice presidential candidate Mike Pence (C R) are joined by their families at the end of the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016, in Cleveland, Ohio. / AFP / JIM WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump embraces his wife Melania on the final night of the Republican National Convention at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio on July 21, 2016. / AFP / Jim WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)
CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 21: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence stand with their families on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump received the number of votes needed to secure the party's nomination. An estimated 50,000 people are expected in Cleveland, including hundreds of protesters and members of the media. The four-day Republican National Convention kicked off on July 18. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Balloons descend on the delegates as the families of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his nominee for vice-president Mike Pence appear on stage at the end of the last day of the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016, in Cleveland, Ohio. / AFP / DOMINICK REUTER (Photo credit should read DOMINICK REUTER/AFP/Getty Images)
CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 21: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump embraces Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence after his speech on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump received the number of votes needed to secure the party's nomination. An estimated 50,000 people are expected in Cleveland, including hundreds of protesters and members of the media. The four-day Republican National Convention kicked off on July 18. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
Also Read: Bill O'Reilly Confronts Donald Trump Over Khan Family Feud (Video)
"I'm afraid the election's going to be rigged. I have to be honest," Trump said at a rally in Columbus, Ohio on Monday.
Despite some criticism of the comments, Trump doubled down during an interview on Fox News' "Hannity" that night, calling the 2012 presidential election "unfair."
Also Read: NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton: Donald Trump 'Scares the Hell of Me'
"I'm telling you, November 8, we'd better be careful, because that election is going to be rigged," he said. "And I hope the Republicans are watching closely or it's going to be taken away from us."
Look back at when Trump announced his White House run:
Donald Trump announces campaign for presidency
U.S. Republican presidential candidate, real estate mogul and TV personality Donald Trump makes a point as he formally announces his campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination during an event at Trump Tower in New York June 16, 2015. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
U.S. Republican presidential candidate, real estate mogul and TV personality Donald Trump acknowledges supporters next to his wife, Melania, before formally announcing his campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination during an event at Trump Tower in New York June 16, 2015. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
U.S. Republican presidential candidate, real estate mogul and TV personality Donald Trump arrives by escalator inside at Trump Tower to announce his campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination in New York June 16, 2015. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
NEW YORK, NY - JUNE 16: Business mogul Donald Trump gives a speech as he announces his candidacy for the U.S. presidency at Trump Tower on June 16, 2015 in New York City. Trump is the 12th Republican who has announced running for the White House. (Photo by Christopher Gregory/Getty Images)
U.S. Republican presidential candidate, real estate mogul and TV personality Donald Trump formally announces his campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination during an event at Trump Tower in New York June 16, 2015. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Ivanka Trump, daughter of real estate mogul and TV personality Donald Trump, introduces her father prior to his formally announcing his campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination during an event at Trump Tower in New York June 16, 2015. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Trump supporters wait for U.S. Republican presidential candidate, real estate mogul and TV personality Donald Trump to formally announce his campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination during an event at Trump Tower in New York June 16, 2015. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Ivanka Trump, daughter of developer Donald Trump, arrives to hear her father announce that he will run for president of the United States, in the lobby of Trump Tower, New York, Tuesday, June 16, 2015. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Developer Donald Trump with daughters Ivanka Trump, left, and Tiffany Trump, after his announcement that he will seek the Republican nominaiton for president, Tuesday, June 16, 2015, in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
U.S. Republican presidential candidate, real estate mogul and TV personality Donald Trump formally announces his campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination during an event at Trump Tower in New York June 16, 2015. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Trump supporters wait for U.S. Republican presidential candidate, real estate mogul and TV personality Donald Trump to formally announce his campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination during an event at Trump Tower in New York June 16, 2015. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
U.S. Republican presidential candidate, real estate mogul and TV personality Donald Trump gestures as he formally announces his campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination during an event at Trump Tower in New York June 16, 2015. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
U.S. Republican presidential candidate, real estate mogul and TV personality Donald Trump gives a thumbs up while he poses with his family after formally announcing his campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination during an event at Trump Tower in New York June 16, 2015. The Trump family from L; Eric Trump and his wife Lara, Donald Trump, son Barron, Melania Trump, Vanessa Haydon and her husband Donald Trump Jr., children Kia Trump and Donald Trump III, Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner and Tiffany Trump. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
U.S. Republican presidential candidate, real estate mogul and TV personality Donald Trump formally announces his campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination during an event at Trump Tower in New York June 16, 2015. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Supporters chant as they wait for developer Donald Trump to announce that he will seek the Republican nominaiton for president, Tuesday, June 16, 2015, in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Developer Donald Trump, fourth left, poses with his family after his announcement that he will run for president of the United States, in the lobby of Trump Tower, New York, Tuesday, June 16, 2015. From lef are: son Eric Trump, with his wife Lara Yunaska; Donald Trump's son Barron Trump, wife Melania Trump; Vanessa Haydon and her husband Donald Trump Jr.; daughter Ivanka Trump with her husband Jared Kushner; daughter Tiffany Trump. In the front row are Kai Trump and Donald Trump III, children of Donald Trump Jr. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Read original story GOP Officials Think Donald Trump Might Drop Out of Election At TheWrap
RELATED: This former president denounced Trump's campaign message
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Senior Republican Party officials have reportedly been looking into how they would replace the nominee on the ballot if he exits the race.
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This Well-Respected Tech Exec Is Leaving Salesforce for Amazon
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Adam Bosworth, a respected tech executive who has spent nearly 30 years building big software businesses at Microsoft msft , BEA Systems (now part of Oracle orcl ), Google goog , and Salesforce, is moving on again.
Bosworth is taking a senior position at Amazon Web Services, Fortune has learned.
His new title is unclear, but it will probably be lofty. Bosworth most recently served as executive vice president at Salesforce crm , chartered with running much of the cloud company’s software development agenda, including its Internet of Things effort: a homemade data-processing engine named Thunder.
Sources close to the companies confirmed the move but neither Salesforce nor Amazon could be reached for comment on the matter. Update: On Wednesday afternoon, a Salesforce spokesman confirmed that Bosworth was leaving “to pursue opportunities outside the company” and thanked him for his contributions to the company.
While Salesforce has led the charge in business software delivered online, Amazon amzn Web Services has dominated the “public cloud” infrastructure market, where it pools massive numbers of servers, storage, and networking gear then rented out to customers.
Many corporations use AWS, Microsoft msft Azure, or Google goog Cloud Platform as a supplement to or even as a replacement for their own data center facilities.
Before joining Salesforce three years ago, Bosworth was a vice president of engineering at Google, where he helped build the various components of Google Apps, later running the Google Health project, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s technology newsletter
It’s a notable move coming as it does approximately a month after Salesforce, which used to run all of its software services on its own data centers, inked a major deal to host new services (and international sites) on AWS infrastructure.
For more on Amazon’s cloud, watch:
Perhaps Bosworth can help the two tech giants get to know each other better.
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He previously led huge software efforts at Microsoft and Google as well.
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One-Day Cup: Tom Abell century gives Somerset home tie in last eight
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Somerset secured a home One-Day Cup quarter-final after a 10-run win over bottom side Sussex at Taunton.
Tom Abell's 106 off 117 balls, his first-ever one-day century, rescued the hosts' innings which ended on 237, while Sussex's Jofra Archer took 5-42.
But Sussex, who have won just once in the competition, failed to recover from a poor start and regularly lost wickets as two batsmen top-scored with 39.
Tim Groenewald took 3-30 for Somerset, while Max Waller had figures of 2-36.
Sussex had Somerset on the ropes as early as the second over as 21-year-old Archer took the wickets of Mahela Jayawardene (3) and Peter Trego (0) to leave the hosts on 17-2.
But 22-year-old Abell, making just his second appearance on the One-Day Cup this season, played an innings beyond his years as he hit nine fours and a six.
Apart from a fourth-wicket stand of 70 with James Hildreth (26), none of his team-mates could forge a decent partnership with the youngster as former West Indies Under-19 bowler Archer showed his potential.
However Sussex's miserable season continued, losing opener Philip Salt for a duck with just one run on the board before Abell ran out Harry Finch.
With Sussex 95-7, Archer and Ajmal Shazhad put on 61 for the eight wicket - a record partnership for Sussex in matches against Somerset - to add some respectability to the score before Archer was bowled by Waller.
Abell capped off his great day with an excellent diving catch to dismiss Shazhad as Somerset secured a home tie in the knockout stages.
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Tom Abell hits his first one-day century as Somerset beat Sussex to secure a home quarter-final in the One-Day Cup.
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Behavior: TV Time Linked to Depression in Future
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Lengthy television viewing in adolescence may raise the risk for depression in young adulthood, according to a new report.
The study, published in the February issue of The Archives of General Psychiatry, found a rising risk of depressive symptoms with increasing hours spent watching television.
There was no association of depression with exposure to computer games, videocassettes or radio.
Researchers used data from a larger analysis of 4,142 adolescents who were not depressed at the start of the study. After seven years of follow-up, more than 7 percent had symptoms of depression.
But while about 6 percent of those who watched less than three hours a day were depressed, more than 17 percent of those who watched more than nine hours a day had depressive symptoms.
The association was stronger in boys than in girls, and it held after adjusting for age, race, socioeconomic status and educational level.
“We really don’t know what it was specifically about TV exposure that was associated with depression, whether it was a particular kind of programming or some contextual factor such as watching alone or with other people,” said Dr. Brian Primack, the lead author and an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh.
“Therefore, I would be uneasy to make any blanket recommendations based on this one study.”
A version of this article appears in print on , on page D7 of the New York edition with the headline: Behavior: TV Time Linked to Depression in Future. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
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Lengthy television viewing in adolescence may raise the risk for depression in young adulthood, according to a new report.
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The Wizard of Oz
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At 5.30am on Thursday, August 17 1939, lines began to form in the milky darkness outside Loew’s Capitol Theatre in New York. By 8.30am, when the sun had risen and the box office had finally opened, there were 15,000 people crammed onto the sidewalk on 8th Avenue. As the day went on, 60 policemen were drafted in from around the city to keep order among the tumultuous crowd and by the time Loew’s closed that evening, some 37,000 customers had passed through its doors.
The opening day’s business of The Wizard of Oz was a triumph of marketing. In the weeks leading up to that manic New York premiere, Judy Garland was batted between East coast and West coast on promotional tours. At Loew’s she appeared in person with Mickey Rooney – an even bigger child star than Garland at the time. For three weeks the pair introduced screenings of the film with frenetic song and dance routines. Once during the run she collapsed from exhaustion.
The publicity people sent out vast numbers of ‘exploitation’ books advising cinemas how best to bring in audiences. Stores around the country made displays of tie-in products, some obvious (Dorothy-style gingham dresses), some tenuous (Oz soaps, Oz coat hangers, Ozdartboards). There were Oz clubs and Oz contests, and magazines filled with advertisements that were paid for and puff pieces that might as well have been.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) needed to push the film as far as it would go. They’d gone almost $1million over their initial, generous $2million budget, so they shoved another million dollars into marketing, hoping that two wrongs might make a right, which they did – eventually. The film broke even a decade later.
On first release, the film was a success but not a phenomenon. What changed everything was television.
Thanks to television, Oz is now the most watched film in the world: 100 million people are supposed to have seen the film in Britain alone. Television explains why there are Oz conventions – the biggest being Ozfest, held each year in Kansas – and fan clubs even today. When CBS first screened it, in 1956, most of the 45 million people watching would have missed the magical transformation from sepia to Technicolor for want of colour televisions. Yet today, everyone knows what happens if you knock your heels together three times.
The men who made The Wizard of Oz came from an age before television. Think of Nicholas Schenck, the owner of MGM parent company Loew’s (who liked his underlings to address him as ‘the General’) and MGM head Louis B Mayer, who gave Oz the go ahead.
However, if producer Mervyn LeRoy were telling the story of Oz, forget Mayer: his would be the name in lights. Mayer brought him into MGM as a successor to the legendary producer Irving Thalberg. LeRoy was considered one of the nicest guys in Hollywood, but in his memoirs he never missed an opportunity to take credit for the film’s success. He said that it was his idea to cast Garland as Dorothy, his idea to use Technicolor for the Oz scenes, his idea, dammit, to make the film in the first place.
While LeRoy was blowing his own horn, Arthur Freed, his musically brilliant associate producer, didn’t even get a credit on Oz. But it was almost certainly Freed who suggested to Mayer that they adapt L Frank Baum’s book for the movies. And Freed was sending Mayer casting suggestions before LeRoy was hired.
LeRoy and Schenck wanted to buy box office insurance for the film and as such they pushed for Shirley Temple to take the role of Dorothy Gale. Freed had other ideas. In 1935, a young woman auditioned for him and his songwriting partner Roger Edens. As soon as the girl opened her mouth, Freed rushed to fetch Mayer, who burst into tears on hearing her sing. ‘What did I tell you, boss?’ Freed said. ‘She’s going to be a big star!’ That girl, of course, was Garland.
Victor Fleming, the film’s main director, liked to say obstacles made for a better picture. He’d come to the right place when he pitched up in Oz. LeRoy remembered the making of the film as ‘one gigantic headache’. The directors’ revolving door was a tiny feature at the foot of the extraordinary edifice conceived by dozens of writers and producers, built by hundreds of carpenters and electricians, and peopled by a cast of thousands. It was unprecedented in size and ambition.
‘The biggest set will be Munchkinland,’ wrote Cedric Gibbons, the head of the art department, in a pre-production memo. ‘On it will be 122 structures, one-fourth normal size. It will take a month to build.’ Such sang-froid: Munchkinland was only one of the 65 sets constructed for the film over six soundstages in Culver City, the home of MGM Studios.
The extravagant spirit of the film translated into a score of meticulous and highly specialised jobs. Twenty men spent a week sticking 40,000 wire-stemmed poppies into the ground for the scenes in the enchanted poppy field. To create the eerie cries in the Haunted Forest, Douglas Shearer, the film’s sound designer, took a team to Santa Catalina, a Pacific island 20-odd miles south of Los Angeles. There they recorded birdcalls on 15,000ft of tape, which they later spun together into unearthly shrieks.
Adrian, the costume designer, loved Baum’s Oz books when growing up. When he began to think about the costumes he got his sister to send him his boyhood sketchbooks, filled with pictures he’d drawn of the inhabitants of Oz. He then made 3,210 individual sketches for costumes.
In September 1938, the seamstresses began their work. Everything, from the felt vests, jackets, bonnets and dresses of the Munchkins to the heavy fur-covered uniforms of the Winkies (the Wicked Witch’s soldiers), was custom-made. Letters were sent to zookeepers around the United States asking for the feathers of condors, eagles and vultures, which were stitched together to make wings for the witch’s terrifying flying monkeys. Thousands of pairs of shoes and stockings were dyed green for the inhabitants of the Emerald City.
Baum had written about Dorothy’s magical silver slippers in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and so they remained in the first three drafts of the script. By the time Adrian came to design them, Technicolor-conscious writers had made them ruby. He sent them over to the beading department, where they sewed hundreds of dark red sequins on to pink chiffon, which was then sewn to the shoes.
Colour is vital in the film: not just the ruby slippers, but the Yellow Brick Road, the Emerald City and the green-skinned Wicked Witch. It was only the second film MGM had made in three-strip Technicolor, then a new technology. The lighting had to be super-bright because film passed through the bulky, lumbering cameras so slowly.
Temperatures on set rose to 38C as the lights burned up enough energy to light 550 five-room houses. Even so, colours were mangled by the Technicolor process. It took the art department a week to find the right shade of brick to make the Yellow Brick Road: their first attempts came out a muddy green.
Victor Fleming strode on to set in November 1938. He arrived to rescue the production after LeRoy dismissed the first director, Richard Thorpe, less than a month into filming. Thorpe, he explained, ‘just didn’t understand the story… to make a fairy story you have to think like a kid’.
How LeRoy figured that Fleming was the wide-eyed boy to handle Oz is a mystery. Fleming was known as a man’s man and he didn’t have time for foolishness. Garland had picked up a reputation for ruining takes with her giggling on the set of Listen, Darling. In a scene with the Cowardly Lion, Bert Lahr, she found his clowning so irresistible that she fell about laughing. Fleming slapped her face. ‘All right now,’ he growled, ‘go back to your dressing room.’
For a week in between Thorpe’s firing and Fleming’s hiring, George Cukor took up residence in the director’s chair. Cukor wasn’t all sweetness and light – he once slapped Katherine Hepburn when she spilt ice cream down an expensive costume during the filming of Little Women. But the plump, gay Cukor was a world apart from Fleming. In the short time he worked on Oz he made over Garland’s Dorothy, removing her blonde wig and stripping off her heavy make-up. And he urged her to play Dorothy straight: ‘don’t act fancy-schmancy’, he said.
Towards the end of production – which finally wrapped on March 16 1939 – a fourth director entered the mix: King Vidor. Fleming had shot about 80 per cent of the film when he was pulled to take over direction on Gone With The Wind. So it was down to Vidor to shoot all the Kansas sequences, including the iconic scene in which Garland walks around the barnyard singing Over the Rainbow.
When Fleming returned to edit the movie, that scene caused him a great deal of grief. It had been written by Harold Arlen as a ballad to segue from Kansas to Oz, but Fleming thought it made the movie drag and cut it. Arlen and the lyricist, Yip Harburg, were frantic. ‘We knew that this was the ballad of the show,’ Harburg said. ‘This is the number we were depending on. We decided to take action. We went to the front office; we went to the back office; we pleaded; we cried; we tore our hair.’
In the end, it was Mayer who got Fleming to rethink his decision. ‘The song went back in the picture’, Harburg said, ‘and of course you know what happened next.’
Lahr, Ray Bolger (the Scarecrow) and Jack Haley (the Tin Man) griped ceaselessly about working conditions on Oz. Haley was lucky to be part of the movie at all. He was an 11th-hour replacement for Buddy Ebsen, who had been poisoned by the aluminium dust in his make-up. Ebsen had rehearsed as the Tin Man for 12 weeks and recorded all his songs, but ended up sick in an iron lung, a footnote in Oz history.
But was Haley grateful to be in the film? Not especially. ‘It was awful’, he said. ‘You couldn’t have fun… I had to drag myself to work.’ Part of the problem was his metal-sheeting costume, which was so stiff that he couldn’t sit down in it. Rests, such as they were, were taken propped up against a specially constructed ‘leaning board’.
Lahr had it even worse. Moulded sponge rubber was an innovation discovered by the make-up people on Oz. Sponge rubber was what gave the Lion his snout, the Scarecrow his head; what put the hook in the Wicked Witch’s nose. Unfortunately, Lahr’s face moulds were so restrictive that he had to eat all his meals through a straw.
Lahr, Bolger and Haley fooled around and told each other dirty stories to keep themselves sane. ‘Vic Fleming had never experienced guys like us’, Lahr said. ‘We’d kid around up to the last minute and go on. You could see he got mad and red-faced.’
Others suffered for their art. Terry, the Cairns terrier who played Toto, was prone to staging canine ‘nervous breakdowns’. But her problems paled into comparison with those of Margaret Hamilton. A former schoolteacher and character actress, Hamilton was the Wicked Witch of the West. She was housed in a tent rather than being given a dressing room and felt excluded by the male leads.
She was also badly burned in a burst of flame when a trapdoor failed to work. ‘When I looked down at my right hand,’ she said, ‘I thought I was going to faint… the fire had singed my eyebrows off and burned my cheeks and chin.’ The pain was intensified by the copper in her make-up. Still, in later years she took pleasure in using her catchphrase – ‘I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too!’ – for comic effect.
Leo Singer was an agent who forged a reputation as the leading figure in a niche area of showbusiness: midget entertainment. ‘For 40 years,’ wrote the San Francisco Chronicle in 1939, ‘Singer has made the little things count.’ Singer was a German Jew who was born a baron and died a pauper, a peripatetic soul whose travels took him across Europe from Vienna and eventually across the Atlantic to the US. En route he picked up a troupe of 50 midgets (or ‘little people’ as they preferred to be called).
The producers of Oz got in touch with Singer in the summer of 1938, on the hunt for Munchkins. He told them that he could assemble the 124 little people – proportionately correct midgets rather than dwarves, and all white – they required.
As it turned out, he didn’t fulfil his contract. Some of his little people were rejected because they were taller than 4ft 4in. The ‘midget grapevine’ made up the deficit, but for his failure, Singer’s payment was cut. Which is how ‘Papa Singer’ ended up stiffing the little people, taking half of each one’s $100 weekly wage for himself.
The Munchkins are the last survivors of Oz. Today, there is only one left (Jerry Maren), as well as a few more child actors who were brought in to make up the numbers. Margaret Williams – née Pellegrini – was a bona fide little person and Munchkin. She heard about the film from some little people she’d met at the Memphis State Fair when she was 13. They’d wanted her to join their troupe, but she refused.
‘I didn’t consider myself a small person at that time,’ she told me on the phone from her home in Arizona in 2009 (she died in August 2013). They took her address and two years later a letter arrived from an agent asking if she’d like a part in a big motion picture. She got on a train in Sheffield, Alabama, and arrived in Hollywood in November 1938.
Stories of Munchkin excess have become the stuff of legend. Garland used to tell interviewers that they got smashed every night and had to be plucked off the floor and carried to their beds in butterfly nets.
LeRoy wondered whether the little people ‘had little inhibitions to go with their little stature’. He wrote in his memoirs that ‘there were fights and orgies and all kinds of carryings on. Almost every night the Culver City police had to rush over to the hotel to keep them from killing each other.’
Williams remembers things differently: ‘You know, they’d have a few drinks and party at night at the hotel there, but they didn’t get that rowdy, like they said.’ She admits that among the little people there were a few notorious ‘lush hounds’. The manager of the Culver City Hotel, where the little people were put up, is known to have called the police once when his customers got too rowdy. And there was one day when a little person named Charles Kelley turned up on set packing two loaded pistols. Kelley was a jealous man, and he felt certain that Charley Becker – the mayor of Munchkinland – was making eyes at his wife, Jessie. He was right – the two later married.
But most of the time the Munchkins were treated like babies rather than hell-raisers. A studio teacher once tried to round up a group of little people for class, mistaking them for children. Wardrobe mistresses were startled to find that the ‘shy boys’ they were helping to undress were actually mature men. Memos referred to ‘28 midgets and two adults’. After a little person fell into a lavatory bowl, big people were assigned to help the Munchkins go to the lavatory.
People liked to say the Munchkins were berserk boozers and nymphos because there was the tiniest grain of truth in it, but mostly because it was funny. As Williams says: ‘People always like to – how would I put it – blow a story out of proportion.’
In the late Forties MGM owner Schenck was approached by the Commissioner of Narcotics, who was concerned about Garland’s increasingly public drug addiction. Schenck, cool as a cucumber, replied that MGM had $14million riding on her at the box office. No way was she taking any time off.
The last film Garland made was I Could Go on Singing, the tale of a tortured, alcoholic American singer trying to revive her career with a season at the London Palladium. Perhaps the story cut too close to the bone. She was deeply unhappy during filming and almost impossible to work with. She had a catchphrase she liked to repeat when she stalked through the set en route to chewing out some unfortunate. ‘Watch out!’ she would say ominously. ‘Here comes Dorothy Adorable!’
The Wizard of Oz was the film that rocketed the 17-year-old Garland into the MGM firmament. In 1939 she won ‘Best Juvenile Performer’ – ‘the Munchkin Award’ as she called it – at the Oscars. In the same year she got her star outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. But when she appeared on chat shows later in her life, tense and unhappy, she blamed the film’s makers for the problems that plagued her for the rest of her life.
MGM prodded and poked and primped Garland into a dream package. Mayer ordered the studio commissary to feed her only chicken soup. Before the film began, ‘she had a gap between her front teeth’, remembered LeRoy. ‘I sent her to a dentist who gave her that winning gapless smile.’ Ethel Gumm, Garland’s mother, supposedly put her girl on pep pills to keep her going during filming – with the connivance of MGM. Her breasts were bound to make her look younger and the costumiers put her in a tight corset. Her male co-stars apparently tried to push her to the rear when they skipped arm-in-arm down the Yellow Brick Road.
It’s said that the Queen Mother told Garland years later that Over The Rainbow brought a tear to her eye whenever she heard it. ‘Ma’am,’ Garland replied, ‘that song has plagued me all my life.’
Through the alcohol-clouded fug that descended upon Garland in her later years, the Yellow Brick Road looked like a jaundiced mess. ‘I played that part so many times,’ she said in 1969, the year of her death, ‘acting so darn happy!’
As far as Garland’s co-stars were concerned, she was so darn happy. ‘The one who kept us all going was Judy Garland,’ said Margaret Hamilton. ‘Her freshness and vitality are things I will never forget.’ Haley felt the same way: ‘She was full of laughter. And pep. She didn’t need pills, but the poor sucker got hooked on them. Not while she was on Oz. The pills started when she turned out pictures faster than Metro could make money on them.’
On the day that Garland died – June 22 1969, at the age of 47 – it was said that a twister killed six people in Kansas. What’s certainly true is that when her body was flown back from London to the US, the make-up artist who prepared her body for the funeral was Charles Schram, the same man who’d done her make-up on Oz all those years before.
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Munchkins behaving badly, a revolving door of directors and a cast of unhappy stars: the difficult birth of a Christmas classic
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Tesco, Sainsbury's and the like should be afraid - Aldi and Lidl can only get bigger
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This year the discounter has opted for what it calls the ‘Lidl School of Christmas’ in which so-called teachers teach pupils how to untangle fairy lights or feign delight when receiving a questionable gift.
But just as the actors in its advert are teaching others how to survive the festive season, so Lidl and its fellow discounter Aldi are teaching their larger British rivals a thing or two when it comes to food retailing.
The latest market share data, out yesterday , shows that between them Aldi and Lidl now account for 10pc of the UK grocery market, a landmark.
What is more, the pair have doubled that share in just three years, according to research provider Kantar Worldpanel.
In private, senior executives at the Big Four supermarkets – Tesco, Asda, J Sainsbury and Wm Morrison – often dismiss the threat of the discounters, acknowledging that although they have a place in the grocery firmament, a 15pc share is about their limit.
This data proves that they cannot be ignored. In the last quarter alone, Aldi and Lidl have attracted an extra 1m customers compared to the same period last year, and the average spend is now more than that spent on average.
The traditional retailers would argue that their spend is artificially reduced because of the preponderance of convenience stores – where spend tends to be lower – in their estate, but that would be to miss the point.
The two discounters can no longer be dismissed as places where curious shoppers go to buy some continental biscuits that they have never previously heard of, picking up some cured meats on the way to the checkout.
In October, Lidl became the first supermarket to offer lobsters that have been certified by fishing authorities as "sustainably sourced" Photo: PA
Part of their success is down to value, a trend which played well during the recession but has continued since it ended. Consumers are now more acutely aware of the money that they spend on groceries, and as such are more willing to spread that spend.
While the argument that shoppers use Aldi and Lidl to pick up some staples and more novelty items may stand for some, for others they have become a focal point for the weekly shop.
Research in The Grocer magazine earlier this year found that 31pc of Aldi and Lidl shoppers are from the so-called “AB” demographic, made up of upper middle class and middle class managers and professionals.
Another part of their success is down to the fact that they are continuing to open sites, suggesting that their growth trajectory will continue.
While their larger rivals close shops and sell off unwanted parcels of land and stores – such as Morrison’s £25m sale of its disastrous MyLocal convenience store venture to Greybull – the discounters are unrelenting in proving that physical expansion is key.
As our retail correspondent Ashley Armstrong revealed in The Telegraph at the weekend, Aldi and Lidl are working to open five times as many new stores as the so-called Big Four incumbents.
Between them the duo have lodged planning applications for 171 new stores, against 29 for all the major supermarkets. While it is true both maybe playing catch-up in terms of physical presence against the likes of Tesco and Sainsbury’s, put simply their intention is enough to suggest that they will continue to expand their estates.
Lidl is working to upgrade its traditional store format Photo: Alamy
And it is not just expansion that is on the cards. A week ago Lidl unveiled its ‘store of the future’, featuring wider aisles, longer tills to allowing packing at the check-out, customer toilers and self-service check-outs.
The retailer will spend £1.5bn over the next three years on store expansion and refurbishment, allowing it to steal a march on its rivals.
One area in which the discounters have been slow to move on is in their online offerings. Although both have high-end websites detailing products and store locations, neither has yet to venture into online ordering.
Aldi has said it will start home delivery and third party collections next year for wine and non-food staples, but stopped short of saying it will sell food in this way. Lidl however has no apparent plans to even do that.
But while some may question this, and see it as a negative, it is in fact a positive.
The larger supermarkets have spent the best part of the past decade working out an online strategy which in many cases involves expensive home delivery businesses which simply eat the lunch of their physical stores.
Add in to that the coming threat that is Amazon – which is already selling 4,000 grocery items in London and the south-east through its Pantry offering and is expected to launch Amazon Fresh next year – and the discounters’ policy of sticking to their knitting seems to have been a sensible one.
This is not to say that everything that Aldi and Lidl touch turns to gold - far from it - but what is clear from the latest market share data, as well as Asda’s latest results, is that the two discounters have a significant amount of momentum behind them, one which their more traditional rivals will almost certainly struggle to slow.
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The rise of the discount supermarkets continues unabated and competition will only intensify
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Budget 2015: How much do you earn and spend? The single mother - 'My one luxury is getting my nails done'
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‘I’ve always had to budget, being a single parent,’ she says. ‘Seeing it all written down looks a bit sad to me. My first thought was, “My God, I don’t do anything.” But if I don’t budget I can’t survive, so I’ve always been fairly aware of what I’ve spent.’
One of her money-saving habits is to do grocery shopping online. ‘It stops me impulse-buying,’ she says. ‘We do plan our meals through the week but Sainsbury’s will often forget or swap an item, so I will go into a supermarket thinking I need one thing and come out having spent £15.’ Over the fortnight she spent a total of £383.05, including £200.12 on food and £120.05 on petrol.
Five years ago she moved south, to Hatfield in Hertfordshire, for a job. ‘I was earning a decent amount of money but my rent doubled,’ she says. ‘The problem with child care is most providers need you to commit to a certain amount of time, while my need was sporadic. I didn’t feel I could justify it because I could work from home a lot and also wanted to bring up my own child.’
She moved back north, where her monthly outgoings include £600 on rent, utility bills of about £90 and £52.99 for car insurance. Now that she lives locally, her mother and stepfather help with child care.
Lloyd Greame says she is neither a spender nor a saver. ‘I don’t earn enough money to save,’ she says. ‘If I did I would be a spender, but I like to buy presents for people. It will only be a little thing like a favourite bar of chocolate but I don’t tend to wait for birthdays or Christmas.’ This month she also paid off a personal loan of £346.
‘My one luxury is getting my nails done,’ she says. ‘I don’t smoke or go out very often. I may have a glass of wine at the weekend; it’s usually because my mum has brought the bottle round. But I’ve always had nice nails. It costs me £20 a time and lasts three or four weeks.’ Although she can’t afford holidays, her father lives in Australia and every other year he will pay for her to go out there.
Lloyd Greame has recently started receiving £100 a month from Elliyah’s father (he works part-time). Her ambition is to save for Elliyah’s future. ‘I’m thinking about university,’ she says. ‘I want her to have that chance.’
LLOYD GREAME'S TWO-WEEK SPENDING DIARY
Wednesday February 11 £1 Red Nose £14.95 groceries, Co-Op
Thursday February 12 £40.05 petrol
Saturday February 14 £40 petrol £53.94
Monday February 16 £5.80 coffee shop £3 car parking £30 petrol £53.94 groceries, Sainsbury's
Tuesday February 17 £23 horse-riding
Wednesday February 18 £10 petrol £1 chocolate
Saturday February 21 £20.03 toiletries for Elliyah £5.50 hair clips for Elliyah
Monday February 23 £7.50 toothbrushes £2.85 Kindle book £67.64 Tesco
Tuesday February 24 £2.85 coffee
Wednesday February 25 £14.35 groceries
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A cross-section of British households reveal their salaries, and their candid two-week spending diaries. Here, a single mother of one reveals how she spent £383.05 in two weeks.
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Cristiano Ronaldo -- It Was a Beard All Along!
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has a lot more free time on his hands now that he's single -- 'cause the soccer star decided to go under cover as a fat guy to screw with some fans.
Ronaldo threw on a beard, mustache, sunglasses and some fat guy padding ... and went out on the streets of Madrid Thursday to juggle a soccer ball ... just to see how people would react.
Eventually, Ronaldo ripped off the disguise ... and the people went crazy ... especially one young kid who got a hug from Ronaldo and an autographed soccer ball.
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Seems Cristiano Ronaldo has a lot more free time on his hands now that he's single -- 'cause the soccer star decided to go under cover as a fat guy to…
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Mitsubishi Admits to Manipulating Fuel Testing for Decades
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Japanese carmaker Mitsubishi Motors said on Tuesday that it did not comply with the country’s standards for fuel-economy testing on cars sold in Japan for 25 years.
The company said an external committee has been tasked with investigating what led employees to use improper testing methods and to overstate the fuel economy of Mitsubishi vehicles in data dating back to 1991, the Guardian reported.
The carmaker admitted last week that it had manipulated test results for four mini-vehicle models sold in Japan and said the cheating might also have extended to other models.
The company said there is no evidence of it has cheated fuel standards for vehicles sold overseas, including in the United States, the Guardian reported.
At a news conference on Tuesday, Mitsubishi President and COO Tetsuro Aikawa apologized to customers and said he had been “totally unaware” of the problem.
“I’m truly sorry that customers were led to buy vehicles based on incorrect fuel-efficiency ratings,” he said, according to the New York Times. “All I can do is apologize.”
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The company said the cheating dates back to 1991
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Michael Gove: the next Tory leader?
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These are some of the things we know about the rising star of the Tory party. David Cameron's glittering understudy outshone the future PM at Oxford, where he was elected president of the union. During a distinguished career as a political journalist, he became the unlikely star of a satirical TV show, and continued to write a newspaper column after becoming an MP. Affectionately indulged across the Westminster spectrum, on account of his charm, his personal appeal transcends party loyalty. Contrary to popular opinion, however, his name is not Boris Johnson.
"People keep talking about Boris becoming prime minster," reflects an Oxford contemporary. "But I think it's going to be Michael Gove."
If you have never met the secretary of state for education, and do not vote Tory, you may well be of the view that Gove is a nasty little rightwinger with a reactionary vision to return Britain to the 1950s. If so, the description I hear from practically everyone who has ever crossed his path will sound unrecognisable.
"I have only nice things to say about him," is the preface I hear time and again. Gove is, Chris Huhne says, "The politest man in the House of Commons. Incredibly well-mannered. Much more so than people who come from grander backgrounds." A senior Labour figure tells me, "The truth is, he doesn't act like a Tory. He is far too decent. He's in politics for all the right reasons." The political columnist Matthew d'Ancona agrees: "He is just an incredibly nice guy. A lot of people are very nice guys, 'but' – and with politicians that can have a very big capital B. But he is an absolutely nice guy. He's not a fair-weather friend at all, he's fundamentally loyal, he is a very empathetic character and very solicitous of people's feelings. I'm yet to come away from a gathering where he hasn't charmed everybody in the room. Michael is a very ironic and incredibly good at taking the piss out of himself; he's one of those people you hope will be at dinner."
From those who knew Gove as a young child, right through to colleagues today, the unanimity of opinion is almost freakish. George Allan was Gove's headmaster throughout secondary school, "And when I see Michael on the television now, I can still see the 11-year-old boy. He didn't change his persona throughout his school career. Consistency – that's the word, consistency. We couldn't claim to be the authors of his remarkable civility. He created his own image."
If Cameron fails to deliver a second term – and a clear Tory majority in 2015 is looking like a tall order – there will almost certainly be a new party leader. With the question of succession becoming a very real issue, the education secretary is a very real contender.
In August 1967, a baby called Graham was born in Edinburgh to a young unmarried mother, and became Michael Gove four months later, the adopted son of a couple in Aberdeen. A younger sister was adopted five years later, and the Labour-voting family lived in a small ground-floor flat in a tidy if austere grey terrace, until his father's fish-processing business became successful enough for them to move into a three-bedroom semi.
Gove attended his local state primary until the age of 11, when he passed the entrance exam to Aberdeen's most prestigious private school for boys. Robert Gordon's College dominates the city centre, a relatively short distance from Gove's childhood home but a significant cultural leap. Every day the teenage Gove would set off from his little semi with its neat vertical white blinds and symmetrical hanging baskets, to an imposing granite colossus resembling a Soviet-style Eton. But he made the journey with remarkable ease. He rode an ancient bicycle, carried an umbrella, was fond of wearing suits, and quickly established himself as one of the school's most precocious characters.
Mike Duncan taught Gove English and debating, and remembers a star debater and "endlessly enquiring" boy who enjoyed testing his teacher by reciting the opening line of a novel and challenging Duncan to name the book. Well read and self-consciously clever, Gove and his friends were big fans of sci-fi role-play games such as Wargame, and another called Nuclear War, which involved building up stocks of weapons and occasionally firing them off. A poem penned in his final year, An Essay On Teaching (With Apologies To Alexander Pope), may or may not make teachers smile today, and satirical entries about the senior boys in 1985 suggest he and his friends were already enthusiastic subscribers to Private Eye.
"Michael Gove: His eventual entrance to Oxfam University has finally confirmed his place among mere immortals. He now earns his money tutoring Mr Duncan in English. Naked without his tweeds, it is Colonel Fogey's ambition to be a listed building when he grows up." When Gove was invited back a few years later to take part in a debate, posters depicting a caricature of the Ghostbusters' ghost went up all over the school with the strap line: "Take Govey down at the debate!"
"Michael was very much a wit," one former classmate remembers, "and a joy to have around. We were never intimates, but he was friendly, intelligent, a nice bloke. He wasn't cool or fashionable, but he was very popular because he would always have a funny rejoinder, and could outwit the teachers. My childhood memories are peppered with laughter because of Michael. One of the things I valued him for was that he prevented me from being bullied. I had glasses and red hair, and I vividly remember being bullied in the changing room, and Michael tried to stop it."
Gove arrived at Lady Margaret Hall to study English in 1985. The novelist Philip Hensher can still recall watching the freshers arrive, and noticing one dressed in a three-piece green tweed suit. "It was really a young fogey thing. He seemed a little bit older than he was, but not in a ridiculous way. If there was an element of absurdity to him, he always seemed to be in on it, which is a very attractive characteristic."
Anthony Goodman was president of the Oxford union when Gove arrived. "He was one of the most gifted speakers I saw in the union. But he didn't generate any antagonism; he was confident, but not in a pushy, aggressive way. He just seemed like an old head on young shoulders." Goodman doesn't think Gove was contriving a performance to get in with the elite social set. "That's pretty much why I did debating," he jokes, "but not Gove. He came across as classless."
The broadcaster and journalist Samira Ahmed edited the union magazine under Gove's presidency, and sums up the consensus: "I just didn't see why anyone could loathe him, personally. He was a 40-year-old trapped in a 20-year-old's body – but it was totally sincere. There's nothing fake about him at all. He exuded intelligence, and was very grown up for his age. And thinking big political thoughts, on a scale very few of us at that age were thinking. His vision was fully formed at 20." Another contemporary, Toby Young, agrees. "He wasn't a work in progress like the rest of us. He seemed to arrive fully formed."
Gove encountered his first ever setback after graduation, when a job application to the Conservative Research Department was rejected on the grounds that he was "insufficiently Conservative". So he returned to Aberdeen and joined the Press And Journal as a trainee reporter. Within months, the paper went on strike.
The father of chapel, Iain Campbell, recalls the staff's initial unease about Gove. "We knew he was a Tory, and our concern was to have a united front. So we spoke to Michael, and he was happy to come on board. He wasn't a typical striker by any means, but he was very articulate, so we asked Michael to come to the European parliament in Strasbourg to lobby MEPs. He was a very good colleague. Being on strike can be very mentally straining, so we used to have parties to keep morale up, and he was someone who would always be there, and always very popular."
Gove has subsequently said he thought the strike achieved little, and for how long he would have stuck it out we'll never know, for within three months he was offered a job in television, and soon moved south to work for the political programme On The Record, and then the Today programme. In 1992 he was hired by Channel 4 to present a late-night political comedy show, A Stab In The Dark, somewhat to the surprise of his co-presenter, David Baddiel.
"I thought, I've never seen anyone on late-night alternative TV like this. He was rightwing and looked 53. I think he was wearing a three-piece suit. He wasn't cut from the obvious Tory cloth; he is a very bright bloke and a thinking rightwing person, and I'm always interested in intelligent people who think differently from me. I've had many rows with people I've worked with, but not Michael Gove. He was quite humble. He was always very unaggressive. Not trying all the time to intellectually defeat you in that way that politicians can."
Around the same time Gove appeared as a chaplain in a feature film set in a boarding school. It was a tiny role, but he'd clearly made a big impression on someone along the way, because the lead schoolboy character was given the name M Gove. Neither the film nor A Stab In the Dark were huge hits, though, and in 1996 Gove joined the Times as a columnist and leader writer.
Newspaper offices are notoriously fractious places, but staff remember an extravagantly congenial, donnish colleague who would soothe reporters late filing copy with, "But how are you? Yes, of course, should you so wish to file that would be marvellous, that would be very much appreciated. But it's first important that I know how you are." Very much the in-house intellectual, the "most striking thing about him," recalls his former editor, Peter Stothard, "was that he could make people on the other side of the argument not only recognise his argument, but also genuinely like him."
Gove became friends with the rising young Tory stars Cameron, George Osborne and Steve Hilton, and co-founded the centre-right think tank Policy Exchange. His influence over the party's modernisation project would be difficult to overstate. The exact nature of his contribution, however, is confusing. Everyone tells me his politics owe everything to his humble origins, and are "all about creating ladders of opportunity; it's all about things you might call progressive, in terms of goals, but using Conservative means". He is "ideologically amphibious", interested in ideas from the left, "on a moral mission, to do with helping the poorest", and responsible for helping to coax his party into the 21st century. Even his political opponents concur. According to a senior Labour party official, "On sexuality and class and social mobility, on race and gender, he is a genuine liberal." He is not, Huhne agrees, "a traditional rightwinger."
Then I read every word published under his Times byline up to his election in 2005, and found that Gove the progressive arch-moderniser simply does not fit with the facts. If you want to understand what Tory modernisation really adds up to, it's a highly instructive read.
Gove's neo-con hawkishness in foreign policy has always been well known. He called for the invasion of Iraq just two days after 9/11, and before the planes hit the towers he'd already published a column that morning calling for action against Saddam Hussein. A committed Zionist and slavish admirer of George W Bush, a passionate Eurosceptic and staunch defender of British Gibraltar, he regards the Northern Ireland peace process as a shameful capitulation to terrorists, and once wrote a column calling for "a revival of jingoism". But where is the evidence in his writing of domestic social liberalism? It doesn't exist.
Passionately pro marriage, he opposes statutory paternity pay, stem cell research, euthanasia and contraception for school children, but supports privatisation of both the BBC and the NHS, and proposes the marketisation of immigration policy, whereby a British passport could, he suggests, be sold for £10,000. He is far ruder about the Lib Dems than New Labour, despairs of the "absurd belief" that the armed forces ought to reflect the country they serve by recruiting more women and gay men, and takes a robustly bang-em-up approach to law and order. As for supporting public services, Gove can see only one acceptable line: "The Conservatives could defend public servants from the unjust, unproven and demoralising charge of 'institutional racism'," the Macpherson report being, in his view, an outrage.
Why, then, do so many colleagues and political opponents see Gove in this rosier, more moderate light? It has to be because of his debater's gift for according courteous respect to opposing views, creating the impression that he's taken them on board, when he hasn't actually revised his position at all. Everyone tells me how carefully Gove listens, but when asked to recall a single occasion when he has been persuaded to change his mind, to their surprise no one can come up with one. It is a case of manners maketh the impression of a moderniser, for Gove's Tories don't need to be "inclusive", or "tolerant". The important thing is to look as if they are.
He warns the party against "Social Tone Deafness", which "manifests itself in an inability to detect the country's changing mood music", and calls for candidates who "look like human beings who understand the daily struggles of modern existence". But a 2003 column tellingly reveals where Gove ranks the importance of actual policy reform: "The Tories have not yet adopted a tone, style, culture or even [my italics] a set of policy priorities appropriate for the 21st century." A Tory minister and friend of Gove's probably comes closest to the truth when he characterises him as a "true Conservative, the rightwing conscience of the cabinet. He is a full spectrum, real world Tory; it's all about living in the real world. He would regard the Tory rightwing as completely unrealistic" – which is not the same as wrong. Labour MPs like to say Cameron's Conservatives have modernised on only one solitary issue – homophobia – and I used to think that had to be too cynical. But in all of Gove's writing it's the only example of an authentically abandoned prejudice.
What of Gove's famous passion for social mobility through education? "His view on social mobility is for people to do what he did – study classical subjects and go to Oxford," argues a Labour critic. "It's all slightly 'Some working-class people are terribly good at Latin – give them a chance and you never know!'" The former Labour schools minister Jim Knight agrees. "If he thinks social mobility is getting more poor kids into Oxbridge, then I think that's a massively flawed definition. If you are serious about social mobility, it has to be communities and families, not just individuals."
Interestingly, in 2000 Gove wrote, "Too many people go to university", but his columns reveal surprisingly little about the future secretary of state's thoughts on education. For their origins, we need to go back further still, to his old school days. "He benefited in a life-changing way from a classical liberal education," as a close ally puts it, "and would like that privilege to be extended to people from less privileged backgrounds."
For all its architectural grandeur, Robert Gordon's College during Gove's era was actually Scotland's second cheapest private day school – "more of a glorified grammar, really," as a former pupil puts it. About half the boys joined from state primaries, and a quarter received a bursary or scholarship. George Allan and Mike Duncan both assumed Gove had been a scholarship boy, but in fact it was only when his father's business failed in his final year that the family applied for assistance. But every boy had to pass the entrance exam, and the school could operate on the assumption that all pupils would be not merely able, but disposed to work hard.
"When you enter Gordon's and start wearing the blazer and tie, you sort of absorb the traditions of the college," a former teacher tells me. "Those kids from poorer economic backgrounds tried to climb upwards, not pull the others down." When I ask Allan what sort of disciplinary problems he used to deal with, he looks surprised. "Well, if I had one a term, that was enough for me." The current acting head says the worst he's encountered was a boy kicking about a plastic bottle who ignored his request to put it in the bin.
Gove has always spoken highly of his old school, and when I visit I can see why. But while I'm admiring its orderly classrooms and general air of cheerful application, a teacher puts into words what I find myself thinking. "The trouble with anyone's own experience of school," the teacher points out, "is that it's so formative that it informs all your ideas about education. That's very natural, but not necessarily a good thing."
From the age of 11, Gove never shared a desk with anyone who struggled to read and write, or who experienced school as an intimidating trauma instead of a golden ticket. "His prime concern is to make sure that there are safe schools in cities for people like him," says a columnist who has followed his career closely. "All this nonsense that free schools are free – they are not, they are Michael Gove schools. He is trying to create a system in which middle-class parents like him can make uses of the state system without having to mix with the rough boys."
Following his election in 2005, Gove wrote, "The reason why I'm in Parliament is not really to see my colleagues win power, it is to see us at last in a position where we can give it up."
But since taking office, he has awarded himself more than 50 new powers, including rules allowing him to acquire land from local authorities and private companies to help him increase the number of academies and free schools. This autumn 55 new free schools will open, taking the total to 80, and the number of academies has risen tenfold to more than 2,300, each one accountable not to local authorities, but to the secretary of state himself. "He is a High Tory control freak who wants to run every school in the country," counters the critic of Gove's "free" school rhetoric. "He hasn't got a localist bone in his body."
There are other curious paradoxes. A friend for more than 20 years has never once heard him mention money, and says he regards it with unworldly indifference. But in 2002 Gove wrote about living perennially beyond his means – "Ever since going up to university, I have accumulated new debt, and new means of becoming indebted". And when the expenses scandal broke, it emerged that he'd spent £7,000 of taxpayers' money on designer furniture, much of it from Cameron's mother-in-law's interior design company.
Another puzzle was his use of private email addresses to communicate with his team. Everyone says Gove has a practically courtly deference to protocol, but he was plainly breaking the rules. Gove pleaded an innocent failure to master his own departmental technology, and his physical ineptitude is legendary; being driven by Gove is, apparently, a "terrifying" experience. Whether techno-klutziness explains an arrangement that conveniently kept secrets from hostile civil servants, however, is unclear.
For a man known to be meticulously conscientious, Gove's ministerial career got off to an oddly bumpy start. In the early months, he drew criticism for awarding a grant to a Jewish schools security trust on whose advisory body he had sat [see footnote], and then there was the botched cancellation of the Building Schools For The Future programme, and confusion over the number of schools wishing to become academies. Gove blamed sabotage by his own department – in a colleague's words, a "ministerial blooding". But last year he hired a special adviser who'd been previously blackballed by Andy Coulson, called Dominic Cummings. "And you could almost feel," says a senior aide, "that the moment Dom came to join him, things started getting back on track."
Earlier this year, Gove leaked to the Daily Mail his plan to restore O-Levels, sidestepping departmental and Lib Dem opposition to court the rightwing press, whose praise was predictably rapturous. Issuing every school in the country with a leather-bound King James bible inscribed with the words, "Presented by the secretary of state for education" surely did more for Gove's profile than for the nation's spiritual improvement. At £370,000, it was a pricey gesture, but private donors comprised almost exclusively of rightwing Christian financiers were happy to foot the whole bill. Gove's other big idea this year was pricier still – a new £60m royal yacht for the Queen as a diamond jubilee present. It was clearly never going to happen, but sent another signal to the right, as did his audacious hymn at the Leveson enquiry to the virtues of "one of the most impressive and significant figures of the last 50 years", Rupert Murdoch. "Cummings is a really amazingly effective political street fighter," the aide says, "the wily operator he needed. Since then, Michael has felt a new sense of confidence."
Gove's confidence extends well beyond his existing role. Most cabinet ministers haven't the energy or political courage to discuss their colleagues' policies in any detail; Gove isn't one of them. "Michael does have an opinion on everything," says Tim Montgomerie, editor of Conservative Home, "and he talks in cabinet a lot." One cabinet minister describes him as "being slightly inclined to go off on a bit of a rant off his own brief", and an aide describes his role as the "energetic challenger – especially of the system, and of conventional wisdom". And yet, says another minister firmly, "I can't think of anyone who sees him as a political rival."
How could Gove possibly not be seen as a political rival? He may be Osborne's closest ally, but in the opinion of one Lib Dem minister is "substantially cleverer". He is Cameron's "closest friend in politics", helping him prepare for PMQs, feeding jokes into his speeches, and he "can be quite dazzlingly funny, brilliant at doing impressions", a friend reports. "I've heard him do what must be a set piece, in which he does a great impression of Huhne condescending to Clegg in cabinet, that had the whole table in stitches. Genuinely funny satire."
"The thing you have to appreciate about this group," an insider explains, "more than any group in postwar politics, is they are a clan. They are in and out of each other's houses, kids and nannies everywhere, they are each others' kids' godparents, their kids go to the same schools. The question of succession doesn't cross their minds."
The question is whether it crosses Gove's.
Just how far does Gove's ambition go? "At Oxford it was obvious that some people were warming up for the Commons," Samira Ahmed recalls. "With Boris Johnson, his plan was obvious. But I never heard that said about Michael." Former colleagues at the Times assumed for a while that he would become their editor, "But he wasn't seen as someone angling for his own personal promotion at all." Gove has always insisted he has no interest in leading his party, saying, "I don't have it in me. I don't have what it takes." And yet, as Matthew d'Ancona observes, "You can never assume that a politician who has devoted his life to the game will walk away from the chance to be leader or PM. It's ridiculous for us to think that any politician might."
A lot of very wealthy Tories presumably agree, for Gove's constituency office last year received five times the party's national average sum of donations. Individual and corporate donors gave Gove, who occupies one of the safest seats in the country, more than £60,000 – almost twice the sum received by Osborne's office and three times more than Cameron's. What exactly are they funding?
Nobody believes Gove would ever challenge Cameron for the leadership. And Gove had always assumed that, when the succession did come, the heir would be Osborne. But now that the chancellor is becoming unelectably damaged goods, and talk of a Johnson leadership bid gathers momentum, few think Gove would simply stand by and watch London's mayor move into Downing Street. If the party needs a Stop Boris candidate, it will be Gove.
Does he have what it takes? Former colleagues are unsure. "He is an intellectual, not a man of the people, and whether he could operate in an environment in which not very many people knew who Spiro Agnew was I don't know." I ask his old boss, and Stothard chuckles. "I think by common consent the job of home news editor wasn't his natural home. News editors, unless they're hated half the time, are not really on top of their job. Was Michael able to do the throwing the typewriter thing? No. He didn't have the temperament for that role. I don't really believe in pop psychology, so I'm reluctant to go into this very far, but he is quite thin-skinned. Perhaps too sensitive to be home news editor – or prime minister."
Someone else who knows Gove well agrees that at first he tended to flap when things didn't go smoothly. "This 'I haven't got what it takes' line, I think what he was referring to was this thing of coping with the ups and downs and the crap you get. The relentless roller-coaster and inevitable failures. He previously might have been a bit insecure about his ability to cope with adversity, but I think that has gone now. I think that has changed. If you'd asked me 18 months ago, do you think he could and should aim to be PM one day, I would have said no. But now I think Michael could." There's some speculation that the decision will ultimately fall to his wife, the Times columnist Sarah Vine, but no agreement on which way she'll go.
"I think she adores being a Tory wife," says one friend. "The more pictures she can be in with Sam Cam, the better her life becomes." But another disagrees. "I've heard people say that, but I don't think she's a scheming Machiavellian political wife, pushing her husband's career." She has a funny way of going about it if she is, featuring marital anecdotes in her column that render him a faintly absurd eccentric.
The couple met at the Times, married in 2001, and live with their daughter and son, nine and seven, in a modest terraced house at the Wormwood Scrubs end of North Kensington, where dinner is "a standard middle-class set up; completely informal, non matching furniture, child-centred, you can't move for books, the kids are usually up. Sarah does most of the cooking – meat and two veg or pasta, no bought in food or waitresses or any of that nonsense – and Michael's pouring the wine. It's jolly and cosy and warm and about having fun."
And if Vine's wider family wind up as Downing Street in-laws, then by all accounts they should provide fabulous entertainment. "A totally mad, bonkers, crazy family," a friend laughs. "They're around in Michael's life in a soap opera sort of way, fodder for amazing stories and anecdotes and hassle and problems."
Gove's relationship with his parents has always been "very tender and loving", another friend says. "That said, I don't want to sound crude or pompous, but he has a metropolitan London life. There is a gap there."
But Gove has never looked for his birth mother, and says he never will, out of loyalty to the parents who raised him. "He is just not a very conflicted person," another friend offers simply. "I don't think there's a great deal of inner turmoil there. He regards life as having smiled on him."
Gove has always been good-humoured about his place in the party's popularity stakes. In fact, he's so accustomed to coming second as the party faithful's choice of after-dinner speaker, he likes to joke that on his gravestone will be carved the words: "They Couldn't Get Boris." But though Johnson's sense of humour has got him a long way so far, few would bet on him having the last laugh. "If you had told me Boris Johnson was going to be mayor of London," reflects Anthony Goodman, their fellow ex-Oxford union president, "I definitely would have laughed at you. If you had told me Michael Gove was going to be in government, I would have thought that was pretty obvious."
• This footnote was added on 15 October 2012. The Community Security Trust received and administered the grant, but made no financial benefit from it.
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All politicians agree: Michael Gove is a nice guy. But beneath the surface he's a 'High Tory control freak'. Can go all the way, asks Decca Aitkenhead
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Adnan Syed Retrial Slammed by Victim's Family
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The family of the woman whose murder was at the center of the Serial podcast condemned the decision to grant the man convicted of the killing a new trial, according to reports. Family members of Hae Min Lee maintained that they continue to believe her ex-boyfriend Adnan Syed was responsible.
“We do not speak as often or as loudly as those who support Adnan Syed, but we care just as much about this case. We continue to grieve,” the Lee family said in a statement made through the Maryland Attorney General’s office. “We continue to believe justice was done when Mr. Syed was convicted of killing Hae.”
Syed’s conviction for the 1999 killing of the 18-year-old was cast into doubt by the first season of the Serial podcast that aired in 2014. Syed was granted a new trial this week after 16 years in prison.
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"Justice was done," the family of 18-year-old Hae Min Lee said
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Executive Offers $8 Billion Remedy for Midwest Rail Logjam
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A software industry veteran is taking on one of the toughest problems facing the U.S. railroad industry: the chronic traffic bottleneck surrounding Chicago that can take more than a day for freight trains to move through.
Frank Patton, 73 years old and chairman of fledgling Great Lakes Basin Transportation Inc., wants to build a privately-financed rail route through Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana that would allow trains to loop...
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A veteran software executive is proposing an $8 billion, a 280-mile rail line around Chicago to solve a traffic logjam, an idea that is stirring opposition even before it has secured financing.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/game-of-thrones/11926345/George-RR-Martins-new-werewolf-TV-series.html
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George RR Martin's new werewolf TV series
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Few details about the series, which is still at script stage and has not yet been officially "greenlit", are currently known. But in a recent blog post Martin spoke about how he always felt that the novella's lead characters, private detective Randi Wade and her friend, werewolf Willie Flambeaux, who becomes a target of the killer, would work well in a TV show.
"I have always thought there was a TV series (or maybe a feature film) in Willie Flambeaux and Randi Wade," he wrote.
• George RR Martin 'tired' of Marvel villains
Later on, he explained how he was actively involved in picking a writer to adapt his "werewolf noir".
• Is sexual violence in George RR Martin's novels worse than in the Game of Thrones TV series?
"To handle the adaptation, script the pilot, and produce the show (should we get a greenlight), we've tapped a terrific talented young scriptwriter named Kalinda Vazquex, whose previous credits include work on Prison Break and Once Upon A Time," he wrote.
That was not an easy choice. Cinemax and my agents set me up for meetings with close to a dozen different TV writers, many of them very impressive, but Kalinda's take on the story and the characters blew me away. She loves the story and the world, and really seems to get Willie and Randi, and her pitch to Cinemax was one of the most polished and professional I've ever heard. I love her enthusiasm, and look forward to working with her."
Readers anxiously awaiting book six of A Song of Ice and Fire needn't panic, however: while the famously tardy author, whose novels take years to write, is on board to produce the show, he'll be keeping his writing energies focused elsewhere.
"And no, while I would have loved to write the script and run the show myself, that was never really in the cards. I have this book to finish. You know the one," he added in parentheses at the end of his post.
Picking up the less well-known works of big-name writers could prove a winning strategy for Cinemax: Outcast, a new supernatural series from The Walking Dead's creator Robert Kirkman (based on Kirkman's comic books of the same name), is due to premiere on the network in 2016.
The trailer for the show, which explores exorcism and possession, recently premiered at Comic Con in New York.
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The Game of Thrones author's short story The Skin Trade is being adapted by the HBO-owned network Cinemax
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British humour: The North-South divide
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A northerner can always tell when he has crossed the border into the south because southerners keep fruit on the sideboard when nobody is sick.
Alice dies, aged 78, having attended church in Bolton every Sunday of her life. Her husband, Joe, asks the stonemason for a headstone with the words: 'Lord, she was thine'. The stonemason writes: 'Lord she was thin'. Joe says: '"You've missed off the e, you'll have to do it again." Weeks later Joe goes to see the stone on the grave, and it now reads: 'Ee Lord she was thin'.
A bloke comes through to his wife and says " Put your coat on dear". The wife says brightly "Why, are we going out?" " No!" he says, "I'm going out. So I'm switching off the central heating."
I parked my car in Liverpool when it was European Capital of Culture. All the wheels were stolen and I found my car propped up on four piles of books.
The North and South have a love/hate relationship. Southerners love themselves and northerners hate them for it.
Cockney says to Geordie: 'Sex, don't talk to me about sex, we were at it all night'. Geordie replies: 'What's the matter, could you not get it right the first time?'.
Barry Lawson, Newcastle upon Tyne
A general inspecting troops in Hampshire ordered the parade to don gas masks. He paused opposite a northern soldier. Pointing to the eyepiece of his respirator, he inquired: "Soldier, where is your anti-mist?". "Don't know, Sir" came the reply " Think she's oop with Uncle Albert in Oldham".
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The North-South divide extends to humour, according to a study highlighted in last week's Sunday Telegraph. To test the theory, we asked readers to share their favourite north-south joke. Read the selection below and judge for yourself...
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/africa/mauritius/articles/Should-I-visit-Mauritius-in-summer/
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Should I visit Mauritius in summer?
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Mark McCarry writes We would really like to go to Mauritius, and since my girlfriend works in a school, we would like to go at the end of July/beginning of August. Do you recommend this time of year? We don’t want to be disappointed and waste a lot of money.
Nicki Grihault, Mauritius expert, replies July and August fall in the island’s winter which means relatively cooler temperatures, around 24C at midday, with little rainfall and fewer mosquitoes. It’s the best time for outdoor activities. South-easterly trade winds are strongest in July and August, so opt to stay on the warmer, more sheltered west and north coasts. July and August are considered low season and the time to pick up great offers. The boutique four-star 20 Degrees South (20degressud.com), near Grand Baie, with exceptional food and service and no children under 12, costs from £1,399 per person for seven nights half-board – a 30 per cent saving on the standard room rate – including return flights with Emirates from London Gatwick: Luxury Holidays Direct (020 3199 4985; luxuryholidaysdirect.com).
A larger resort, on the mile-long Flic en Flac beach, La Pirogue (lapirogue.com) has thatched rondavels among its coconut palms, plentiful watersports and nightly entertainment. Seven nights half-board in a standard room costs from £1,715 per person at the end of July, including return flight with Air Mauritius from Heathrow: Kuoni (01306 747008; kuoni.co.uk).
Our Q&A service allows you can pick the brains of our experts at home and abroad. Email your query to asktheexperts@telegraph.co.uk. We won’t be able to answer them all, but we will do our best.
Nicki Grihault first visited Mauritius as a teenager on holiday from boarding school. Making Mauritius a specialist country when she became a travel writer 15 years ago, she has a guidebook under her belt, but is best known on the island as the daughter of the dodo expert and island celebrity, after her father Alan became a presenter on Mauritius TV. She'll be visiting, and dodging the cameras, for some years to come.
Click here to find out about our other experts
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Ask the experts: Nicki Grihault, Telegraph Travel's Mauritius expert, advises a reader about visiting the island during the summer months
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More Investors Use a Barbell Strategy to Structure Their Portfolios
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20160808110944
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"Barbelling" isn't what it used to be.
The traditional financial definition of a barbell investing strategy calls for investors to hold supersafe debt investments in one-half of a portfolio and high-risk ones in the other, while staying away from those in the mushy middle.
But these days, the so-called barbells that investors hold over their financial shoulders can be a mix of different assets entirely: index funds...
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Safety on one end and risk on the other is the goal of this investing strategy, which is now being used with a variety of assets.
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160808123554id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/culture/tvandradio/8388472/Doctor-Whos-Matt-Smith-on-kissing-boys-and-not-being-handsome-enough-to-play-Bond.html
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Doctor Who's Matt Smith on kissing boys and not being handsome enough to play Bond
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He decides to take it off. ‘Fire away, sir,’ he says.
So what attracted him to playing Isherwood? ‘The story,’ he says. ‘It’s one of the best scripts that I’ve read in a long time…’ It was adapted by playwright Kevin Elyot. ‘Plus the fact that it was very different to what I’m doing as the Doctor. Isherwood was quite particular physically, and he had a quite particular voice.’
He certainly did, as a visit to youtube can confirm. It was clipped and measured, thermostatically controlled in a way that makes perfect sense of his most famous line, from the novella Goodbye to Berlin. ‘I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking.’
Did he do the voice? ‘Well, it’s not the sort of Tony Blair, Michael Sheen performance, which I admire greatly, because he has a great ability to capture people very acutely. It’s not that, there’s no sense of mimicking there.’ He slips into the voice he uses for the part. ‘He talks like that, it’s very high and he sits like that, very straight.’
As he acts it out it becomes clear how hard it is going to be to capture the 27-year-old Smith in words. He’s very physically expressive, always playing, adopting different voices, sending himself up. Some of his answers later come out on tape like this: ‘Of course, the Doctor would never… he’d be like doof, doof, doof,’ which don’t make quite as much sense without the accompanying movements. At one point, when I mention watching him transform from Smith into Isherwood in Belfast, he cuts in, ‘Oh, I was giving my limp, wasn’t I? My Richard III,’ then he gets up and hobbles around the room for a bit. Isherwood’s rigid control must have been quite a stretch.
Smith had originally planned to be a professional footballer: he played for the youth teams of Northampton Town (where he grew up), Leicester City and Nottingham Forest as a teenager, before a serious back injury ended his career, and a drama teacher got him interested in acting. It’s a vastly different background to that of Isherwood, who was gay, public-school educated, and left for the hedonistic atmosphere of Weimar era Berlin in his twenties to escape the repressiveness of English society between the wars, and a suffocating relationship with his mother (played in the drama by Lindsay Duncan).
‘I’ve got a different background to the Doctor,’ Smith notes when I mention it. ‘I’m not an alien.’
Smith kept a diary throughout the production. A short story writer himself, he says he disciplined himself to write every day for the part, ‘just the process of writing and thinking like a writer. Because I spent so much time with the book, I found myself phrasing things like Isherwood, the way he cuts his words, he’s such a lover of language. But it was more the act of writing that I was interested in, I wasn’t trying to govern it at all.’
So what was it like playing a gay man? ‘I thoroughly enjoyed it. I had to kiss a lot of boys. I finally understand why my good lady won’t kiss me with a stubbly beard… I get it now. Hairy men, it hurts.
He hastily corrects this statement half way through – ‘well, it’s the girlfriends I’ve had in the past that have whinged about stubble…’ He’s not going to talk about his relationship with the model Daisy Lowe, which has come under such intense tabloid scrutiny. ‘I’d rather not unravel that bit of my private life, if it’s all the same to you,’ he says, politely, almost Isherwood-like.
Is the drama going to be scandalous? Are we going to see his bottom in the tabloids? ‘Probably, I think you might see my bum, yeah. The fact that it went to places like that was one of the lures for me. Hopefully, it’s a brave choice, I think creatively, that’s always interesting.’
‘Matt’s very exciting to work with because he’s fearless,’ says the drama’s director Geoffrey Sax when I catch up with him by phone a few weeks later. ‘It makes things like the sex scenes easier to do, if your leading man is saying, “Come on, let’s just go for it,” it breeds a confidence on the set.’
Sax also made the TV adaptation of Sarah Waters’ Tipping the Velvet, which caused something of a stir back in 2002 for its depiction of a lesbian love affair, but he says there was no conscious attempt to create risqué images for Christopher and His Kind.
‘My rule was always, nothing was ever gratuitous in it,’ he says. ‘You do see the two men clearly having penetrative sex, you see them going at each other, there’s no question about that, but I didn’t want it to be salacious.
‘Isherwood went to Berlin primarily because he wanted to have a freer life and because homosexuality was illegal here at that time. Over there, until the Nazis took over, it was a much more liberal city. He went there, among other things, to get laid, so we wanted to celebrate that.’
The glamour of Weimar Berlin, particularly its cabaret scene, which Isherwood recorded, has had an incalculable influence on pop culture: it’s in everything from glam to goth to disco, from film to fashion. Is there a parallel between it and the modern celebrity lifestyle? I ask Smith back in London. ‘Hell, no,’ he laughs. ‘Weimar Berlin was way cooler. Anyway, I’m the wrong man to ask about the glitz and glamour of the celebrity lifestyle, I just work, I just go to film sets, I’m the most boring person, never been to a premiere, probably never will.’
‘Thirties Berlin was so extreme, and, of course, you’ve got this looming presence of Nazism, suddenly they’re marching down streets and ransacking shops and you’re thinking, this can’t be happening, but it did.’
Perhaps the most famous depiction of the era, the 1972 film Cabaret, which is based on the stage adaptation of Isherwood’s Berlin novels, was also responsible for making Sally Bowles – as played by Liza Minelli – one of the 20th century’s iconic characters.
Bowles was based on Isherwood’s friend Jean Ross, who moved to Berlin from Scotland to try to make it in showbusiness, and lived for a while in the same apartment. In Christopher and His Kind, Ross is played by 21-year-old Imogen Poots, who starred as ‘daddy’s girl’ Prue in the remake of A Bouquet of Barbed Wire.
In Belfast, she arrives on set in a floaty trouser suit and mermaid-pink blouse, blonde curls spilling from beneath a hat decorated with a pheasant feather. She’s also wearing the trademark element of Weimar Berlin fashion – dark eyeshadow.
I ask Sax if he had attempted to create images for her like the famous one of Minelli in stockings, suspenders and bowler-hat. ‘Research proved that Jean Ross wasn’t anything like that,’ he says. ‘There are a very few pictures of her on the internet and she’s actually more pale and wan. She did use a lot of make up, as all the cabaret artists did in those days, but we steered away from any reference to Liza Minelli, because we didn’t want people to compare us to Cabaret, I think we would have been on a hiding to nothing.’
Poots says she was aware of the Sally Bowles character from watching Cabaret as a girl, but wanted Jean to be more androgynous than sexy. 'She’s very flirtatious around some people, but she was a young girl, 18 or 19 years old and still very childlike which is important to capture.
‘She had this fantasy she was going to succeed… she assumed she would get out of Berlin by going with some producer from Hollywood, by sleeping around. I think she could perform but I don’t think there was anything there that could carry her to this yearned-for stardom that she wanted so very badly.’
As Minelli did in Cabaret, Poots performs the songs in Christopher and His Kind. Had she ever wanted to be a singer herself? She laughs. ‘I think if I ever became a singer, it would be the worst thing that ever happened to the world.
‘I looked back at Cabaret and I thought, “Oh god, Liza Minelli is really good.” I didn’t want my Jean to be that good because it would have been too easy for her then, she wouldn’t have had these insecurities and wouldn’t have been hanging around, to be honest, with Isherwood. She’d have been completely on her way.
‘We found these beautiful songs, one called “I Don’t Know to Whom I Belong”, that was very relevant to her, because there was no mention of her parents and there was no mention of a consistent or concrete lover in her life or friend even. I felt emotionally very attached to some of the songs. They really exposed her feelings.’
What does she see as the secret of Isherwood and Jean Ross’s friendship? ‘I think they were just drawn to each other. I can’t really explain it but even during the filming I felt very fond of Matt as a person, because I was constantly seeing him as Isherwood through Jean’s eyes. I just felt very safe around him… he has some sort of presence that’s very endearing, very gentle… and I believe she probably felt something similar; she wasn’t threatened by Isherwood, and that was probably quite new for her.’
The production has something of an all-star ensemble cast. Isherwood’s street-sweeper lover, Heinz, is played by 17-year-old Douglas Booth – ‘so beautiful it’s ridiculous,’ according to Poots – who starred as Boy George in the BBC biopic of the singer, while the role of the slightly shady Gerald Hamilton, the inspiration for the character of Mr Norris in the first of the Berlin novels, Mr Norris Changes Trains, is played by the brilliant comic actor Toby Jones (Swifty Lazar in Frost/Nixon). The pairing of Lindsay Duncan with Smith, meanwhile, is a reprise of the relationship they enjoyed in the critically acclaimed play, That Face, in 2008. ‘We have the weirdest mother/son relationship,’ says Smith. ‘She calls us “that tired old double act”. I’ve learnt so much from her. I think she should be Damed.’
His relationship with his real mother, he says, is nothing like Christopher’s with Kathleen Isherwood. ‘I’m very close to my mum. I love my mum, you know, she’s the best. I wouldn’t be the man I am if I didn’t have her.’
He says he’s now recognised ‘every day, everywhere I go, which is an odd transition in your life.’ How does he cope with the constant intrusion? ‘It’s part of the deal. If you’re ten and you bump into Doctor Who, and he doesn’t give you a couple of minutes just to say hello and engage with you, that’s rubbish, man. I just try and get on with it as gracefully as I can, and try not to make a pillock of myself.’
Between series, he says, he can do whatever he likes, although he doubts that he would have the time to take on a play. Could he see himself trying to bag any other iconic British roles in the future, James Bond perhaps? ‘Oh God, I don’t think I’m handsome enough, I think I’m more of a Bond villain. It’d be nice to be the actor that played them both though, wouldn’t it?
‘The Doctor’s cooler, though,’ he adds. 'He can time travel, he’s cleverer… Bond’s all right, but he’s not the Doc.’
So how long does he intend to play the Doctor for? ‘Well, I’m going back this year. I guess get another one out the way, see what everyone thinks of that. I love doing it, I don’t want to give it up anytime soon, put it that way.’
I ask him if he's nervous about the reception his performance in Christopher and His Kind will get. ‘No,’ he gives a big sigh, ‘I’m excited about this. I was more nervous about Doctor Who.
‘Before that came out, I didn’t know if people were going to hurl tomatoes at me, I had no idea, but then I suppose every actor goes through that period of “like me, like me” (he puts on a pleading voice). That’s part of being an artist, I think.’
Christopher and His Kind is on BBC Two on Saturday 19 March at 9.30pm
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Matt Smith talks about his role as the writer Christopher Isherwood in BBC Two's Christopher and His Kind.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1578053/Le-Pen-found-guilty-of-Holocaust-denial.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160808132918id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/news/worldnews/1578053/Le-Pen-found-guilty-of-Holocaust-denial.html
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Le Pen found guilty of Holocaust denial
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20160808132918
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The charges relate to comments Mr Le Pen made in an interview with far-Right Rivarol magazine in 2005.
The court said Mr Le Pen had sought to "instill doubt" about Nazi persecution of Resistance members and Jews and their deportation.
It also ruled that he had "re-written history" to present the Gestapo in a favourable light, while making no mention of its crimes when referring to a 1944 massacre in the town of Villeneuve d'Ascq.
"The court reproaches my client for not talking about certain episodes. That is impossible to defend," Mr Le Pen's lawyer, Walleyrand de Saint Juste, told The Daily Telegraph.
The veteran leader has been convicted of several other controversial outbursts, but anti-racism organisation MRAP praised the "very heavy" sentence, saying it was very rare to convict someone via the press.
A journalist at Rivarol and the newspaper's head received fines. All three were ordered to pay a symbolic euro to the Sons and Daughters of French Jews association.
The verdict comes as the National Front, which Mr Le Pen will lead for another three years, is facing political and final meltdown.
After coming close to winning the presidency in 2002, when he came a surprise second to Jacques Chirac, Mr Le Pen suffered a drubbing last year, when a large chunk of National Front voters jumped ship to support Nicolas Sarkozy.
They were swayed by the current president's tough stance on law and order, immigration and the need to defend French "national identity".
With a massive drop in state subsidies, the National Front has been forced to sell its long-standing headquarters, known as Le Paquebot (the steamship) on the southwestern outskirts of Paris.
A spokesman said that it would likely finalise a sale next month for the property valued at around 20 million euros, but that the party had "balanced its books".
The National Front is facing a new drubbing in next month's municipal elections, with only Mr Le Pen's daughter and likely political heir, Marine, in with a chance of becoming mayor in the depressed northern town of Hénin-Beaumont.
However, a recent poll last month showed that National Front voters are turning away from Mr Sarkozy in droves.
Last May, 88 per cent supported him for his "anti-establishment" popularism.
That figure has fallen to 43 per cent, with many appalled at his glitzy style and support of "the powerful against the poor", according to one pollster.
Miss Le Pen warned that waning support for Mr Sarkozy would not automatically help her party, but that she hoped that municipal elections would be a "first step" in rebuilding the decimated party.
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Disgraced French far-Right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen was given a three-month suspended sentence on Thursday for calling the Nazi occupation of France "not particularly inhuman".
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/What-happens-when-you-forget-to-disarm-the-plane-doors/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160808140147id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/travel/news/What-happens-when-you-forget-to-disarm-the-plane-doors/
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What happens when you forget to disarm the plane doors
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20160808140147
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She said: "It doesn't happen too often. The flight attendant didn't disarm the door before opening, and the second flight attendant didn't crosscheck her so both are to blame.
"If the door had been opened from the outside, the slide would not have blown. Since the attendant opened the door from the inside, the slide was activated."
• How to survive a plane crash
She said the plane was a British Airways Boeing 787 (British Airways has not responded to a request for comment) and was probably full of passengers having just landed.
"It would have been a super loud pop. Mechanics would have had to put a new slide in place of the old slide. There would have been no alarms, though, as alarms are set off by pilots or flight attendants in an emergency."
It is not the first time, such an incident has happened, though airlines probably wish it was, with the cost of replacing the slide estimated at as much as £13,000. Pprune.org, a messageboard for professional pilots, estimates that accidental deployments happen three to four times a year.
INCIDENT Emergency slide deploys on the ground on Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-400 (N778AS) pic.twitter.com/oYEq3QBlua via @AviationSafety
Flight #OR576 by @Arke 787 delayed 17 hours due to an accidental emergency slide deployment. http://t.co/oLwAOe6tXA pic.twitter.com/aU8kZbwnMZ
29-6-14 ????????????????? B737 UA1463 Emergency slide inflated inside the plane pic.twitter.com/0LlX1rcr4i pic.twitter.com/bKimD8jnma
Another concern is the force with which emergency slides inflate - experts say getting hit by a raft inflating could cause serious injury or death as thousands of pounds of pressure are released. The slides, made with a tough, rigid material, are designed to be inflated to the point of solidity in less than 10 seconds.
Telegraph Travel's Lizzie Porter went on a British Airways staff training course where she learnt that the slide is designed to take 150 people a minute in an emergency evacuation.
She said: "If members of the cabin crew haven't made sure the door is in manual on landing, the slide will inflate in less than 10 seconds, and ground staff on the other side of the 'won't be there much longer'."
Pilot and author of Cockpit Confidential, a book about air travel, said a plane door would not be able to open inadvertently during the flight because of the pressurised cabin, however, it is possible on the ground.
"While the plane is taxiing, you will get the door to open. You will also activate the door’s emergency escape slide," he said. "As an aircraft approaches the gate, you will sometimes hear the cabin crew calling out ‘doors to manual’. This has to do with overriding the automatic deployment function of the slides. Those slides can unfurl with enough force to kill a person, and you don’t want them billowing onto the jet bridge or into a catering truck."
Articles from our Travel Truths series
What can you get away with stealing from hotels? Why is plane food so bad? How to get an airline upgrade Which is the safest seat on an aircraft? What causes turbulence, and is it dangerous? Does the brace position save lives? Airline pilot secrets
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Pictures posted on Twitter reveal the costly, and faintly comical, results
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http://time.com/4438246/the-worlds-olympians-have-little-love-for-donald-trump/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160808145247id_/http://time.com:80/4438246/the-worlds-olympians-have-little-love-for-donald-trump/
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Olympians Criticize Donald Trump
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20160808145247
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The Olympics are billed as a respite from war, politics and strife, a chance for the world to come together in the spirit of peaceful competition. But that doesn’t mean the athletes who flooded into Rio de Janeiro this week don’t have strong opinions about the news of the day–especially when it concerns Donald Trump and the U.S. presidential election.
“I just think he’s been an idiot,” says Bahamian sprinter Steven Gardiner of the Republican nominee. He’s far from alone. In interviews with TIME at the athlete’s village, Olympians from around the world were unsparing in their criticism of Trump.
“I don’t think he should be president,” says Sisilia Seavula, a 100-m sprinter from Fiji who attends Southwestern Community College in Iowa. Seavula fears that Trump’s election could disrupt her studies in the U.S. “The way he’s been speaking, it looks like he’s going to make everyone go back to their own nations,” she says. Her Fijian teammate, swimmer Matelita Buadromo, follows Trump news online from the Pacific island nation. “I heard about him trying to build a wall,” Seavula says. “That’s a bit extreme. Pretty scary, too.”
(Read More: 60 Athletes to Watch in Rio)
After initially misunderstanding the question, Melanie Pfeifer, a canoe slalom athlete from Germany, returned on her scooter to make her feelings clear: “I hope he doesn’t win the election,” Pfeifer says. Ahmed El-Nemr, an archer from Egypt and a Muslim, called Trump “an extremist” whose election would have dangerous repercussions. “I don’t think he will be good for the U.S. or for the rest of the world,” El-Nemr says.
Not every athlete was as down on Trump. “I don’t love him, I don’t hate him,” says South Korean cyclist Joonyong Seo, in between bites of a McDonald’s burger (the fast-food chain has one of the longest lines in the village). “He’s always noisy.”
Others held out some hope. “You can never be sure what people are thinking,” says Sonja Petrovic, a member of the Serbian basketball team who plays for Phoenix in the WNBA. “He might just be trying to win votes. Maybe he’ll change if he gets elected. Most politicians change.”
(Read More: Meet Team USA’s Ibtihaj Muhammad)
At least one member of the German delegation was skeptical. Swimmer Paul Biedermann, the 200-m and 400-m freestyle world record holder, says Germany has done well with a woman in charge and the U.S. would be smart to follow-suit. “I personally would like to see Hillary Clinton win,” he says. “Things have been very good in Germany under Angela Merkel these last few years.”
A Team Germany teammate chimes in. “That’s an amazing statement, I totally agree,” says fencer Britta Heidemann. “Trump’s a showman though. Have to give him that.”
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“I just think he’s been an idiot,” one tells TIME
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http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/08/07/14/38/indigenousdads-response-to-bill-leaks-racist-cartoon-gains-support
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160808164305id_/http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/08/07/14/38/indigenousdads-response-to-bill-leaks-racist-cartoon-gains-support
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#IndigenousDads response to Bill Leak’s ‘racist’ cartoon gains support
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20160808164305
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An image posted by NAIDOC committee member John Paul Janke with his sons. (Twitter/John Paul Janke)
A Twitter hashtag created in response to an “offensive” cartoon by Bill Leak in The Australian last Thursday has prompted a growing number of responses.
The cartoon, which depicted an intoxicated Aboriginal man not remembering his son’s name in front of a police officer, became a source of contention among politicians and Indigenous activists.
Tweets tagged with #IndigenousDads were posted in response, and told positive stories about Indigenous fathers.
The newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Paul Whittaker, defended its decision to publish the cartoon and praised Leak for bringing confronting issues to light.
The cartoon appeared last Thursday. (The Australian)
“Too often, too many people skirt around the root causes and tough issues,” Mr Whittaker said in a statement.
Mr Leak himself called his critics “sanctimonious Tweety Birds having a tantrum”.
READ MORE: Senator Derryn Hinch backs 'racist' Bill Leak cartoon
READ MORE: Newspaper defends ‘racist’ cartoon depicting Indigenous father and son
In the wake of the backlash, politicians, singers and Indigenous activists posted images and stories of their own Indigenous fathers in the days following the cartoon’s publication in an attempt to quell the depiction purportedly shown in the cartoon.
© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2016
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A Twitter hashtag created in response to an “offensive” cartoon by Bill Leak in The Australian last Thursday has prompted a growing number of responses.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/04/opinion/turkeys-new-anti-americanism.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160808180743id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2016/08/04/opinion/turkeys-new-anti-americanism.html?_r=0
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Turkey’s New Anti-Americanism
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20160808180743
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Shaken by a failed coup attempt, Turkey’s government and many of its citizens are desperate for someone to blame. Instead of undertaking a thorough investigation of the facts, though, they have accused the United States of complicity in the insurrection. This has ignited a new wave of anti-Americanism that, combined with a sweeping government crackdown against enemies real and imagined, poses a serious risk to NATO, relations with the United States and Turkey’s long-term stability.
The main culprit behind the July 15 coup, according to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other Turkish leaders, is Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999 and has denied any involvement in the attempted overthrow. But the pro-government press, political leaders and ordinary citizens across all segments of society are also pointing fingers at Washington, which has denied any involvement.
When Gen. Joseph Votel, the top American commander in the Middle East, told a security conference last week of his concerns about the effect of the purge on Turkish officers, including some who worked with the Americans and are now jailed, Mr. Erdogan faulted him for taking “the side of the coup plotters.” On Tuesday, Mr. Erdogan kept at it, giving a speech in which he said that in standing by the putschists, the West supported “terrorism.”
Meanwhile, the pro-government newspaper Yeni Safak accused the C.I.A.; Gen. John Campbell of the Army, formerly a NATO commander in Afghanistan; and Henri Barkey, who runs the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson Center, of being behind the insurrection. The evidence against Mr. Barkey? When the coup erupted, he was on an island near Istanbul holding a workshop for academics. The paper called it a “secret meeting” and said he made several telephone calls, hardly a suspicious activity. It also ran a headline claiming the United States had tried to assassinate Mr. Erdogan that night.
It makes no sense that the United States would seek to destabilize a NATO ally whose cooperation is crucial to alliance security as well as to the fight against the Islamic State, especially when much of the region is in chaos.
While it is understandable that the Turks are rattled by the coup attempt, in which Mr. Erdogan said 237 people died, they are playing a duplicitous and cynical game. Mr. Erdogan has faulted Western nations for not condemning the coup firmly enough, but his real beef seems to be that they have expressed alarm over his use of the crisis to purge some 66,000 people from the military, government ministries, schools and universities. That is far more than could possibly be justified, and so sweeping as to radically upend the character and competency of those institutions.
American officials assume, with good reason, that Mr. Erdogan is ratcheting up his criticism to press Washington to comply with his demand that Mr. Gulen, a former ally who broke with him a few years ago, be extradited to Turkey. Turkey has given the administration documents but no formal legal request for extradition, and so far the Americans see no evidence that Mr. Gulen was culpable.
The Turks need to be reminded that Mr. Gulen has a legal right to be in the United States, and that the Justice Department would have to go through a rigorous process before deciding whether he could be handed over, especially to a country where due process is increasingly unlikely and torture is reportedly used against detainees.
Turkey’s real job is to get to the bottom of who orchestrated the coup and why. But that requires setting aside conspiracy theories in favor of unbiased fact-gathering.
The expectation in Washington is that tensions over Mr. Gulen will worsen, and could draw Turkey closer to Russia. Still, American officials say the Turks have given private assurances, including to Gen. Joseph Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when he visited Ankara on Monday, that they will continue to cooperate in the fight against ISIS. So far the assurances are holding.
Over the long term, the United States and NATO have a more profound problem on their hands: What to do with a vital ally that is veering far from democratic norms? American officials say they have begun to study options, including whether NATO might one day have to decide on some kind of consequences, so far unspecified, for antidemocratic behavior.
Even the mention of possible action by NATO would be likely to infuriate Mr. Erdogan. But it is hard to see how Turkey can be a trusted ally if it embraces principles and practices so at odds with the West, or how the country can ensure its own continued development and security without NATO as an anchor.
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In accusing the United States of aiding a coup attempt, the Turkish president has made tensions between the NATO allies worse.
| 39.086957 | 0.782609 | 1.565217 |
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http://www.wsj.com/articles/labor-takings-game-1464909496
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160809032345id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/labor-takings-game-1464909496?mod=djemMER
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Labor Takings Game
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20160809032345
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Unions have been losing members and political clout as more states (26 so far) pass right-to-work laws, and now Big Labor is fighting back with a legal strategy to use the Fifth Amendment to take money from workers whether the workers agree or not.
In federal lawsuits filed in Idaho and Wisconsin, unions are claiming that letting workers opt out of union membership and thus not pay dues or fees violates the Constitution’s Takings Clause. The Fifth Amendment says “private property [shall not] be taken for public use,...
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Unions say they have a constitutional right to workers’ money, the Wall Street Journal writes in an editorial.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/doctor-who/9573928/Arthur-Darvill-interview-Im-done-with-Doctor-Who.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160809042857id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/culture/tvandradio/doctor-who/9573928/Arthur-Darvill-interview-Im-done-with-Doctor-Who.html
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Arthur Darvill interview: 'I'm done with Doctor Who'
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20160809042857
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Every time he opened a script, he found a new surprise, and now he’s finding it strange adapting to new projects: “It’s really odd going into something else, everyday was so different [on Doctor Who].” But he also sounds a little relieved to leave the craziness on set behind. “I’m filming a TV series called Broadchurch for ITV today and it’s brilliant that there are no monsters.” He plays a town priest in Broadchurch, alongside another Doctor Who veteran, David Tennant.
Darvill is not going to disappear from our sights for long. As well as Broadchurch, he’s just opened in military drama Our Boys on the West End, and he’s soon to appear in cinemas as part of the Globe on Screen season. This is a series of plays performed and filmed last year at the Globe Theatre in London which will be broadcast throughout the UK over the next two months. Darvill played Mephistopheles in Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus.
The theatre is why Darvill got into acting in the first place: “I didn’t really have any aspirations to do TV when I first decided to be an actor”. But despite theatre being his first love, Darvill is now keen for variety in his career. He’s planning a move to America next year, but, he is quick to downplay any ambition to become a celebrity. He confesses he’s “the opposite to the kind of person who can kind of deal with going to LA”, preferring the more independent film scene to the bright glamorous lights of Hollywood.
Darvill certainly sounds like a man who’s ready to move on. “I’m really proud of [Doctor Who] but I’m also very keen to be able to do different things. I love my job and I’m in the fortunate position at the moment to get to do things that stretch me,” he says. As well as his acting work he also writes music and next year the Globe Theatre is putting on a version of Euripidean tragedy The Bacchai with songs, that he co-wrote with playwright Che Walker.
Although Darvill is looking to the future, he says he will definitely miss Doctor Who. In Gillan and Smith he found “friends for life”. But, when asked who out of the two is the best kisser, there is an obvious favourite: “I’d have to say Matt. He’s expert”.
Globe on Screen Season 2012 continues on October 10 with Much Ado About Nothing, followed by Dr. Faustus, featuring Arthur Darvill, in cinemas October 24. For more information about the cinema season and how to book tickets please visit the official website.
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With Rory and Amy's final Doctor Who appearance approaching, Arthur Darvill tells Daisy Bowie-Sell his plans for the future.
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http://www.wsj.com/articles/build-taps-into-new-yorks-entrepreneurial-giving-base-1460935150
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http://web.archive.org/web/20160809075103id_/http://www.wsj.com:80/articles/build-taps-into-new-yorks-entrepreneurial-giving-base-1460935150
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Build Taps Into New York’s Entrepreneurial Giving Base
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20160809075103
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To launch the New York chapter of Build, a nonprofit that helps underprivileged high-school students develop entrepreneurial skills and stay in school, Build:NYC Chairman Andy Russell didn’t want to throw an over-the-top event that would cost a lot of money.
“I didn’t need to throw a fancy party with rubber chicken,” Mr. Russell, the chief...
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The nonprofit, which helps underprivileged high-school students develop entrepreneurial skills and stay in school, launched its New York chapter with a cocktail fundraiser.
| 2.642857 | 0.821429 | 7.535714 |
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