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[ "I thought it would be funnier to answer my question than delete it - switching the HDMI port helps!" ]

[ "This is a common scam on Upwork. Well, not a real scam, but here is the thing:\n\nYou CANNOT rate him before he finished the work. So if he is not sure he can finish the work, he will work on it, but without accepting the offer. So if you are unhappy, or he is not in the mood to finish the contract, you CANNOT DO ANYTHING about it. And if you are happy, he will accept the contract because he knows that you will give him good rating. \n\nDO NOT work with such guys. You have no idea if this is not a real scammer who can ruin your server. \n\nDO contact support and report such behavior. There guys are inventing new things every day so let Upwork deal with them, and you do not work without a contract.", "Usually I work on a testing server that is not the final destination of the site. Once the client approve (by email is better but also verbally if it is a trusted client) the copy on the testing server, I move the site to the main domain publishing it. From this moment I consider the work finished. I also state that process in my contract.\n\nThis also saves you from giving the finished work to the client before full or partial payments are done.\n\nIf you can't work on a separated testing server you should close the site with an \"under construction\" or temporary home page, make ad admin account for yourself and a guest account for your client, then after the approval make the site public and consider the work done from this moment.\n\nIf the client asks you for bug fixes etc do that for free for a limited time, if he asks for improvement or new features provide a detailed quote for the work to be done and make the client approve it.", "There's a few questions here, so I'll break it down a little.\n\nGeneral advice:\n\nThe best way to determine what finishing regimen you should use is to make test boards with different steps until you can produce the finish you want. Take a scrap from the project and do whatever sanding, sealing, coloring, and top coats you think you want and see how it looks. If it's not right adjust it. Also, keep in mind there are really no hard and fast rules as to what you have to do with finishes (other than making sure preliminary layers are cured before covering them and watching out for incompatible products). Experiment and see what you like.\n\nIn the refinishing space your options are a bit more limited, but there's almost always a non-show surface. You mentioned door, so I'm assuming you mean an entry door, not a cabinet door. You can use the top, bottom, and hinge edge for testing. If you need more tests you can sand/scrape/plane them back and try again.\n\nShould I stain or just use poly?\n\nStain is intended to change the color of the wood. It is typically used when you have a less expensive lighter colored wood (i.e. pine) and you want to make it look like a more expensive darker wood (i.e. walnut or cherry). It is certainly not required, and many woodworkers avoid it entirely. If the wood is coming out of the finishing procedure the color you want then don't bother with any stain. If you do want to change the color I'd actually recommend an analine dye in alcohol over a stain...\n\nWhat color should I use?\n\nWhat color do you want it to be? This is totally subjective and depends on your vision for the piece.\n\n\"Natural\" stain\n\nNatural stain is just another color. Like any other stain it will change the wood to be closer to the color of the stain. It is not intended to \"leave the wood a natural color\". If you like the color of the wood don't use any stain.\n\nWhat kind of poly should I use?\n\nGenerally there are two broad categories of poly, oil-based and waterborne. Waterborne cleans up more easily and doesn't impart much color to the wood. Oil-based requires solvents to clean up (mineral spirits, turpentine, paint thinner) and tends to make the color a bit more amber.\n\nDo I have to recondition?\n\nYou don't have to use any kind of conditioner if you're not using a dye or stain. Conditioners are mainly to prevent \"blotchiness\" when staining by blocking the more absorbent parts of the surface so they don't suck up more colorant and appear darker.", "How to safely implement aaa Radius authentication to make sure users have login using LOCAL database incase the Radius fails.\n\n\nSounds like you're already on the right track; you want to have local as the fall-back mechanism in your authentication command. Set a low-ish timeout (I tend to go with 2 or 3 seconds) on the authentication server's config to make sure you're not waiting forever on the fall-back.\n\nFor an IOS router, that looks like this:\n\naaa authentication login default group radius local\n\n\nAnd for an ASA firewall:\n\naaa authentication http console radius-server-group-name LOCAL\naaa authentication ssh console radius-server-group-name LOCAL\n\n\nThis will cause authentication to occur locally in cases where the RADIUS server doesn't respond. An additional measure that you can consider if desired would be to unconditionally use local authentication at the serial console of the device:\n\nIOS:\n\naaa authentication login consoleport local\nline con 0\n login authentication consoleport\n\n\nASA: \n\naaa authentication enable console LOCAL\naaa authentication serial console LOCAL\n\n\nBut don't take my word for it. Get your configuration ironed out, then test the heck out of it on a device of each type. Disconnect it from the network, mess with the RADIUS server, cause every type of interesting failure that you can imagine and make sure that you can still get into the device.\n\n\n\n\n How to provide only read access for few users and full access to Adminstrators.\n\n\nHave the RADIUS server handle authorization.\n\nIOS:\n\naaa authorization exec default group radius if-authenticated\n\n\nASA:\n\naaa authorization exec authentication-server\n\n\nSet the read-only users to privilege level 1, while setting the admins to 15. See here for how to configure this in your RADIUS server. Alternately, if you were to use TACACS+ instead of RADIUS, you could assign what commands each user was capable of running in a fine-grained manner (for example, if they need access to a very limited set of admin-only commands).\n\n\n\n\n Incase if I save the config ..will it be possible to login to devices ( assuming both the radius and Local credentials both are not working).\n\n\nIf none of the credentials work, then you'll need to move on to resetting passwords..\n\n\n\n\n How to recover the password for devices especially firewalls.\n\n\nThe procedure for both device types is very similar, and involves booting the device without letting the system load the saved config. See here for the ASA and here for IOS routers.", "My experience is with the commercial brands (my wife uses and sells them). The two main advantages that I see are:\n\n\nthat they allow a very smooth finish with a brush. If you were to paint furniture with latex paint, you'd get a lot more brush strokes than with chalk paint.\nit's easy to do the shabby chic thing (distressing, ageing, etc) with chalk paint.\n\n\nDisadvantages:\n\n\nIt's damned expensive, compared to regular latex paint.\nYou can't color match like you can with regular paint (where the paint guy scans a color sample and the computer matches it)\nIt's not a durable surface at all. For furniture and such it has to be sealed or waxed, which is another step.", "Contract console out in nodeos log is debug level, but default logging level of nodeos is changed from debug to info. If you want to print console out, put next logging.json in your config directory.\n\n{\n \"includes\": [],\n \"appenders\": [{\n \"name\": \"stderr\",\n \"type\": \"console\",\n \"args\": {\n \"stream\": \"std_error\",\n \"level_colors\": [{\n \"level\": \"debug\",\n \"color\": \"green\"\n },{\n \"level\": \"warn\",\n \"color\": \"brown\"\n },{\n \"level\": \"error\",\n \"color\": \"red\"\n }\n ]\n },\n \"enabled\": true\n },{\n \"name\": \"stdout\",\n \"type\": \"console\",\n \"args\": {\n \"stream\": \"std_out\",\n \"level_colors\": [{\n \"level\": \"debug\",\n \"color\": \"green\"\n },{\n \"level\": \"warn\",\n \"color\": \"brown\"\n },{\n \"level\": \"error\",\n \"color\": \"red\"\n }\n ]\n },\n \"enabled\": true\n }\n ],\n \"loggers\": [{\n \"name\": \"default\",\n \"level\": \"debug\",\n \"enabled\": true,\n \"additivity\": false,\n \"appenders\": [\n \"stderr\"\n ]\n },{\n \"name\": \"net_plugin_impl\",\n \"level\": \"info\",\n \"enabled\": true,\n \"additivity\": false,\n \"appenders\": [\n \"stderr\"\n ]\n },{\n \"name\": \"http_plugin\",\n \"level\": \"info\",\n \"enabled\": true,\n \"additivity\": false,\n \"appenders\": [\n \"stderr\"\n ]\n },{\n \"name\": \"producer_plugin\",\n \"level\": \"info\",\n \"enabled\": true,\n \"additivity\": false,\n \"appenders\": [\n \"stderr\"\n ]\n },{\n \"name\": \"transaction_tracing\",\n \"level\": \"info\",\n \"enabled\": true,\n \"additivity\": false,\n \"appenders\": [\n \"stderr\"\n ]\n }\n ]\n}", "Converting/distilling some of my comments into an answer...\n\nYes, we should update our tag wikis to not unconditionally point people at webapps.SE when they have an AWS or EC2 related question. \n\nBut where do we send them instead? Actually, the answer to that question becomes more like a long switch statement (in a language such as C or Java), where the condition for each case is quite complex (and, indeed, overlapping; have fun with that!)\n\nAt the risk of oversimplifying, we have the following technology sites that are potentially relevant to users of EC2 / AWS in general:\n\n\nSuper User: A fairly decent \"catch-all\" for help using applications (they don't necessarily have to be GUI applications; we cover all sorts of console apps, bootloaders, etc.), as well as the de facto \"Windows.SE\" (for lack of an actual windows.stackexchange.com). So, if you run Windows in the cloud (on EC2, Azure or anywhere else), and you have a problem with, say, Windows Update, a registry setting, or your Active Directory domain, you can of course ask those questions on Super User. \nServer Fault: A lot of questions specifically pertaining to sysadmin tasks that are completely outside the domain of \"regular users\" are certainly on-topic on Server Fault, and in many cases the fact that your system is an EC2 instance on Amazon doesn't matter. Whether you're trying to add high availability to a Jenkins cluster or expose a block device over the network using iSCSI, many tasks that EC2 users might need to perform (or AWS users in general) could be covered by Server Fault. This is also the site where you'd probably want to ask most questions pertaining to the AWS services themselves, like Elastic Beanstalk, RDS, S3, Glacier, etc. although a fair number of questions along those lines would get answered on Super User as well.\nAsk Ubuntu: Obviously, if you run Ubuntu on an EC2 instance, any questions pertaining to software on Ubuntu (especially the main packages, but also any peculiarities about how Ubuntu works vs. other distros when trying to run third-party software) would be on-topic.\nUnix.SE: If you're using some flavor of Linux or another UNIX like SmartOS, Solaris or a BSD, and you just happen to be hosted on EC2, and run into some question about an application or configuration setting, it's perfectly fine to ask it on Unix.SE (even if it's about Ubuntu!)\nStack Overflow: If you're writing code to interface with Amazon's APIs to automate tasks involving AWS (for example, code to send email with the Simple Email Service (SES)), you'd want to get programming help from Stack Overflow, and this would be on-topic there significantly more than the other sites listed thus far. Super User might tolerate it too.\nWeb Apps.SE: Really the only scenario where you might pose a topical question about AWS on Web Apps.SE would be if you have a question about using the (admittedly somewhat complicated) AWS Management Console. This is very much an \"end-user\" application, in that, the workflow involves putting in your login/password, then clicking through a bunch of links and buttons, entering data, etc. The format of these questions would be no different than a question about gmail's interface.\n\n\n\n\nThe problem is that users are generally not clueful enough to really understand where their question belongs. The user is working on a problem that is related to something they're trying to do with a complicated stack of software, usually something crazy like Hazelcast with jHipster on Tomcat on Ubuntu on EC2.\n\nWhen they think about all the technologies involved, it's fairly likely that they will randomly pick one of the technologies in the stack and try to \"blame\" that, or just blame the thing they're most unfamiliar with (the \"gut feeling\" approach). From there, they'll attempt to discern which site on SE is topical for that \"thing\". If they then decide to blame EC2 for their Hazelcast configuration problem, they'll try and ask it on a site that seems like it might accept EC2 questions.\n\nWe can certainly update the tag wiki, but our tag wikis get so few views to begin with that I doubt very many people will benefit from it. The underlying problem is going to remain for a long time.\n\nSadly, I don't think you'll stop getting off-topic EC2/AWS questions on Web Apps (yes, even ones migrated there from Super User by 10k users who don't understand the question) any time soon, even with a comprehensive tag wiki update.\n\nThe problem of knowing what information is relevant to the question and what information is orthogonal is extremely hard, and only a small subset of users are good at slicing and dicing things that way. (Problems that cross-cut the entire stack are relatively rare, in my experience, but they do occasionally happen.) Unfortunately, AWS adds another technological layer of complexity to an already complicated field of software dependencies used by many applications, so this problem is only going to get worse over time as other services start to layer themselves on top of existing AWS services. \n\nIt's not going to get any easier to classify these things.", "The question of whether "nice guys finish last", also known as the nice guy stereotype, is often studied in an economic or resource-allocation context as a more general case. According to the Competitive Altruism Hypothesis (e.g., Hardy and Van Vugt, 2006) altruistic or prosocial behavior helps the actor to accumulate social status, which in turn confers material benefits such as increased access to resources. In their words,\n\nIndividuals may behave altruistically for reputation reasons because selective benefits (associated with status) accrue to the generous.\n\nProsocial behavior and attraction\nFor the general case of resource allocation, reputation and status are plausible mechanisms for deriving benefits from prosocial and altruistic behavior, and covering this literature at length is probably beyond the scope of the question. Luckily, the question has also been tested specifically with respect to attraction, which is related but not identical to sexual behavior. In a 1995 study, Jensen-Campbell, Graziano and West reported the following results:\n\nIn Study 1, prosocial men were rated as more physically and sexually attractive, socially desirable, and desirable as dates than were nonprosocial men. Dominant men were no more attractive than low-dominance men, and male dominance did not interact with male prosocial orientation in eliciting attraction from women. In Study 2, prosocial orientation was manipulated to avoid "personalism," but still affected attraction. Across all measures attraction was an interactive function of dominance and prosocial tendencies. Dominance alone did not increase any form of attraction measured. In Study 3, male prosocial tendencies and dominance interacted to affect women's attraction to men.\n\nTheir study has a number of limitations which are worth noting before accepting this at face value, notably that it used attraction rating rather than some form of measure of actual sexual behavior. It therefore remains conceivable that nice guys finish last in real settings because more dominant men can, well, dominate less dominant men out of the 'competition' (attraction vs. sexual behavior problem). The study was also relatively statistically underpowered, which increases the chance of false positives. It is also worth considering that human sexual behavior is almost certainly more complex than can be captured by a single continuum.\nA later study found that perceived niceness was a significant factor in women's expressed desire for long-term relationships, whereas physical attractiveness was a significant factor in expressed desire for more casual sex (Urbaniak and Kilmann, 2003). While these findings broadly concur with the Jensen-Campbell study and with the more general Competitive Altruism Hypothesis (nice guys finish first given enough time to accrue status), the study ultimately suffers from the same limitations.\nConcluding remarks\nIt does not seem reasonable to make the unqualified claim that "nice guys finish last," but nor does it seem sound to claim that "nice guys finish first." What we can say is that nice guys do not always finish last, and not-nice guys do not always finish first, but rather, male niceness has different effects over time and contexts. Perceived niceness and prosocial behavior does appear to make a man more attractive on average, but it remains an empirical question whether this increased attractiveness really translates into successfully attracting women.\nReferences\n\nHardy, C. L., & Van Vugt, M. (2006). Nice guys finish first: The competitive altruism hypothesis. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32(10), 1402-1413.\nJensen-Campbell, L. A., Graziano, W. G., & West, S. G. (1995). Dominance, prosocial orientation, and female preferences: Do nice guys really finish last?. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68(3), 427.\nUrbaniak, G. C., & Kilmann, P. R. (2003). Physical attractiveness and the “nice guy paradox”: Do nice guys really finish last?. Sex Roles, 49(9-10), 413-426.", "Setting nomodeset in the F6 menu on booting solved the problem.\nSafe Graphics Mode. A new option is added to the GRUB menu in 19.04 and later which will boot with nomodeset on. This may help you resolve issues on certain graphics cards and allow you to boot and install any proprietary drivers needed by your system.\nFrom the purple ubuntu screen press the F6 key. If you don't see this screen, shutdown, boot from the Ubuntu live USB again, and immediately after the BIOS/UEFI splash screen during boot, with BIOS, quickly press and hold the Shift key, which will bring up a GNU GRUB menu screen. With UEFI press (perhaps several times) the Esc key to get to the GNU GRUB menu screen. Sometimes the manufacturer's splash screen is a part of the Windows bootloader, so when you power up the machine it goes straight to the GNU GRUB menu screen, and then pressing Shift is unnecessary.\n\nIf the Ubuntu installer either does not start or starts and then freezes, press the F6 key and enable the nomodeset kernel boot option by following the instructions in the nomodeset tag wiki.\n\nRufus is a utility that helps format and create bootable USB flash drives, such as USB keys/pendrives, memory sticks, etc. Rufus can be especially useful in cases where bootable media created in Windows by other GUI Linux live USB creators such as Universal USB Installer and UNetbootin gets stuck and won't boot. Rufus is the recommended application at the official Ubuntu website for making a bootable live Ubuntu USB on Windows. Rufus can also make a bootable Windows 10 USB.\nSystem requirements\nWindows XP or later, 32-bit or 64-bit\nUsage\n\nYou will need a 2GB or larger USB flash drive and an Ubuntu iso file. For Ubuntu 18.04 and later the USB flash drive should be 4GB or larger. Download the Rufus executable file for Windows from here and run it. No installation is necessary.\n\nSelect your device volume label.\n\nClick the drive image to select the Ubuntu .iso file.\n\nIf it's an Ubuntu .iso, Rufus will automatically select the FAT32 file system.\n\nClick Start, and a message will appear saying that all of your USB data will be deleted and the USB drive will be formatted.\n\nClick OK.\n\nClick Close.\n\n\n\nRufus is not the strongest of all programs for creating an Ubuntu live USB that will boot without fail. The strongest method is to use a terminal program called dd to write the Ubuntu Minimal CD to a USB flash drive. Unfortunately dd is not a Windows program unless you have Windows Subsystem for Linux (version 2 or later recommended) or Cygwin installed in Windows.", "Cheating unfortunately does exist even in console versions of games. There are a couple possibilities I can think of:\n\n\nArtificial lag or \"lag switching\". A player can manipulate their connection to the servers to exploit the timing window needed to detect a disconnect. While their connection is disrupted but before the server detects it, the player can move to a different location or fire weapons. When they reconnect, the server will simply respond to their new position. Players in the same game will not be able to react to those actions.\nA modded console may allow a player to sign in with a hacked version of a game. These are caught and banned by Microsoft when such tampering is detected, but the ban is per-console, not per-gamertag, so the offender can simply mod another console and get back to cheating.", "I modified an existing autohotkey script AutoHotKey script \n\nb:=10 ; border in px . This is black border\nt=false ; variables are set by default to false, this line not needed but added for clarity\n\n;----------------\n; This Initializes the window\n;----------------\n\nGui,+Resize ; window resizable (drag)\nGui, Color, EEAA99 ; Initializes Color so not-everything transparent\nGui +LastFound ; Makes GUI the same background color as your regular window GUI apps\nWinSet, TransColor, EEAA99 ; Sets transparency\nGui,Show,w500 h500 ; This sets width and height\nreturn ; sends input\n\n;------------\n; Below is HotKey\n;------------\n\nF1:: \n\n t:=!t ; T is false default, changes to true upon first F1 push \n if t { ; makes the \"black border\" unmovable window\n\n Gui, -Caption +ToolWindow +LastFound -Resize +AlwaysOnTop ; \"ToolWindow: Provides a narrower title bar but the window will have no taskbar button\" -Caption \"removes border and title bar\", \n Gui, Color, Black ; This sets color of border, causes temporary \"black screen flash\"\n WinGetPos,,,w,h\n q:=w-b, z:=h-b ; precalculates border\n WinSet, Region, 0-0 %w%-0 %w%-%h% 0-%h% 0-0 %b%-%b% %q%-%b% %q%-%z% %b%-%z% %b%-%b% ; Creates \"black border\"\n }\n else { ; This secion resets to default \n\n Gui, +Caption -ToolWindow +LastFound +Resize -AlwaysOnTop \n\n Gui, Color, EEAA99 ; \n Gui +LastFound ; Make the GUI window the last found window for use by the line below.\n WinSet, TransColor, EEAA99 ;\n\n WinSet,Region\n }\nreturn\n\n\nWith it, I can press F1 to lock in a border that can't be moved unless F1 is pressed again (it also sits as the top most windows too). Press F1 again and you can move the border freely. I made the positional window transparent so you can see what you'll be looking at ahead of time. \n\nI added many annotations on my script. I did not make the original though here on reddit post\n\n\n\nYou can use this AutoHotKey function to make quick screencast gifs, pre-annotated borders on screenshots too", "Looks like this is going to be part of the newest updates; Desktop & Lite versions:\n\nhttps://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/another-update-raspbian/\n\n\n When flashing a new Raspbian image, the file system will automatically be expanded to use all the space on the card when it is first booted.\n\n\nOn Ubuntu you can edit the image to stop auto file system expansion.\n\nHere is an example using 2016-05-10-raspbian-jessie-lite.img. \n\nTry this:\n\nfdisk -lu ./2016-05-10-raspbian-jessie-lite.img\n\nYou'll get this information:\n\nDevice Boot Start End Blocks Id System\n\n2016-05-10-raspbian-jessie-lite.img1 8192 137215 64512 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)\n\n2016-05-10-raspbian-jessie-lite.img2 137216 2707455 1285120 83 Linux\n\n\n\n So for the boot section your offset is (Start*512) = 8192 * 512 = 4194304\n \n For the Raspbian filesystem your offset is (Start*512) = 137216 * 512 = 70254592\n\n\nmkdir boot\nsudo mount -t vfat -o loop,offset=4194304 2016-05-10-raspbian-jessie-lite.img boot\n\n\nIf you want to view/edit the Raspbian Filesystem. Not needed though.\n\nmkdir test\nsudo mount -t ext4 -o loop,offset=70254592 2016-05-10-raspbian-jessie-lite.img test\n\n\nThen you need to modify the ./boot/cmdline.txt file.\n\nsudo gedit ./boot/cmdline.txt\n\n\nFrom:\n\n\n dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=serial0,115200 console=tty1 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline fsck.repair=yes rootwait quiet init=/usr/lib/raspi-config/init_resize.sh\n\n\nTo:\n\n\n dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=serial0,115200 console=tty1 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline fsck.repair=yes rootwait quiet\n\n\nsudo umount ./boot\n\nIf you mounted the Raspbian filesystem:\n\nsudo umount ./test\n\nNow flash the new image to your SD card.\n\n\n2016-05-10-raspbian-jessie-lite.img\n\n\nIt won't automatically expand after booting up on your Pi.\n\n\n\nOr you can flash the original image onto your SD card.\n\nBefore you plug it into your Raspberry Pi.\n\nEdit the file: /boot/cmdline.txt\n\nRemove the following text: init=/usr/lib/raspi-config/init_resize.sh", "Encrypted keys are a set of access credentials used to establish a secure connection. The remote SSH daemon has not accepted the supplied key as valid for the account name you used and has refused your login. Make sure the authorized_keys file contains the matching public key. Check that your public key is added to the server.\nSSH client key pair fingerprint check required ssh -i ~/.ssh/test-key.pem ubuntu@server_IP\nAlso with the below steps, you can recheck the SSH Key\nRoot Cause:\nMany of the most common issues regarding key-based authentication are caused by incorrect file permissions or ownership. Here are some steps you can take to troubleshoot this issue:\n-Make sure the authorized_keys file and the private key itself have the correct permissions and ownership.\n-Check that key-based authentication is allowed by the server.\n-Make sure the private key is readable by the SSH client.\n-You may be using a private key that is no longer supported on the OpenSSH service. This commonly impacts when using a private SSH DSA key. So try to create a 2048-bit RSA key pair.\nSimple 3 Steps:\n-Generate the SSH Key Pair\n-Copy Public Key to the Ubuntu Server\n-Log in to the Remote Server\nNote: Remove the '#' and execute it\n1.Generate the SSH Key Pair [serverB] [Public key + Private key]\n#mkdir –p $HOME/.ssh #create a hidden directory to store your SSH keys\n#chmod 0700 $HOME/.ssh #modify the permissions for that directory as required\n#ssh –keygen –t rsa 4096 #create a 2048-bit RSA key pair #server will ask you to create a passphrase as an added layer of security, if require you canadd an input a memorable passphrase, and press Enter or you can skip it.\n2.Copy Public Key to the [serverA]\n#The system will copy the contents of the ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub from the client system into the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys directory of the server system.\n#ssh-copy-id ubuntu@<server_IP> #######Important########\nor Manually Copy the SSH Key to the [serverA]\n#cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh username@<server_IP> "mkdir -p ~/.ssh && touch ~/.ssh/authorized_keys && chmod -R go= ~/.ssh && cat >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys"\n#Replace server_IP with the actual IP address of your server.\n3.Log into the Remote Server\n#ssh ubuntu@server_IP\nOnce you are able to SSH retry the scp", "I'm not sure if I anderstand it right. But powershell is for scripting on the server. With powershell you can for example acces to to webparts and change their parameters from server console (shell, PowerShell ISE console).\n\nMay be you are asking about codebehind c# code, which you can use on on premis SharePoint (not in Sharepoint online). \n\nI'm afraid you can't use powershell in webpart, but you can use c#, if you are developing your webPart.", "The story I have always heard (I will try to find and add sources later) is that in the wake of the 1983 video game crash, which primarily affected the US, Nintendo decided to re-evaluate their North American branding, and what they decided on was to avoid as far as possible any association with the console being a toy. Thus the NES is an \"Entertainment System\", and the main unit is a \"Control Deck\". The boxy gray design with a front-loading slot lets it sit side-by-side with home entertainment hardware of the day, and the case is bigger than it needs to be, which makes it seem more substantial. The same is true of the cartridges — the Japanese cartridges are small, come in various bright colors, and have rounded edges, all of which screams \"toy\", while NES cartridges are oversized, use subdued colors (mostly a gray that matches the console), and are extremely angular.\n\nIt seems strange today to deliberately shy away from the appearance of fun in a video game console's marketing, but in 1985 it seems to have been the right move, contributing to a long dominance of the console market by Nintendo.", "Finally, I've finished with creating console application.\n\nI'm not great in C# so it is a bit bulky but this solution works.\n\nIf there is any mistakes, i will be glad to hear about it.\n\nvar reader = new StreamReader(File.OpenRead(@\"C:\\temp\\views.csv\"));\n List<string> listA = new List<string>();\n while (!reader.EndOfStream)\n {\n var line = reader.ReadLine();\n var values = line.Split(';');\n listA.Add(values[0]);\n }\n var data = listA.ToArray();\n SPSite oSiteCollection = new SPSite(\"http://server\");\n using (SPWeb oWebsite = oSiteCollection.RootWeb)\n {\n SPList oList = oWebsite.Lists[\"Requests\"];\n foreach (string i in data)\n {\n SPView oView = oWebsite.GetViewFromUrl(i.Substring(19));\n SPViewFieldCollection collViewFields = oView.ViewFields;\n System.Collections.Specialized.StringCollection collStrings = oView.ViewFields.ToStringCollection();\n var z = collStrings.IndexOf(\"fulladdress_onlylistdefined\");\n collViewFields.Add(\"RequestVoltageTotal\");\n oView.Update();\n Console.WriteLine(\"Field added: RequestVoltageTotal\");\n collViewFields.MoveFieldTo(\"RequestVoltageTotal\", z + 1);\n oView.Update();\n }", "Butcher blocks can be made from any wood although I would recommend a hardwood. Oak, walnut, or maple come to mind. Oak has a pronounced grain and the wood will express more visually. Maple or walnut are more closed grain and should give a more uniform appearance.\nI can't speak to the permanence and uniformity of ink, so I would recommend using a dye such as TransFast black powdered dye. There are other dye colors worthy of consideration as well. Dissolve it in denatured alcohol. Water can raise the grain requiring additional sanding which, of course, can re-expose natural wood color, where alcohol will not. Use a test board to determine how concentrated you want the mix and how many coats give you an even finish. The pigments in dyes are much smaller than in stains and allow the natural beauty of the wood grain to be expressed while achieving a deep rich color, where stains actually can hide the grain more.\nYour 220 grit sandpaper should be adequate, although you may want to go for a final of 320 and steel wool to finish it off. Use a sanding block or powered sander to insure a flat surface is maintained. If you have access to a paint sprayer you can achieve a better result than with a brush. Although a mix of 1/3 each of linseed oil,, varnish and mineral spirits can be applied with a rag (it may take 3-6 coats to achieve your final finished appearance).", "Actual measurements from a few minutes ago as of writing:\n\n\n1st run: 2.817 GFlops\n2nd run: 2.754 GFlops\n3rd run: 2.683 GFlops\n\n\nNo overclock, Raspbain Lite. I'll be re-compiling LINPACK and I'll update this answer in a few hours.\n\nBinary used below came from http://web.eece.maine.edu/~vweaver/junk/pi3_hpl.tar.gz\n\n\n\nMy Pi's output:\n\npi@raspberrypi:~ $ mv HPL.dat linpack/\npi@raspberrypi:~ $ mv xhpl linpack/\npi@raspberrypi:~ $ cd linpack/\npi@raspberrypi:~/linpack $ ls\nHPL.dat xhpl\npi@raspberrypi:~/linpack $ ./xhpl\n================================================================================\nHPLinpack 2.1 -- High-Performance Linpack benchmark -- October 26, 2012\nWritten by A. Petitet and R. Clint Whaley, Innovative Computing Laboratory, UTK\nModified by Piotr Luszczek, Innovative Computing Laboratory, UTK\nModified by Julien Langou, University of Colorado Denver\n================================================================================\n\nAn explanation of the input/output parameters follows:\nT/V : Wall time / encoded variant.\nN : The order of the coefficient matrix A.\nNB : The partitioning blocking factor.\nP : The number of process rows.\nQ : The number of process columns.\nTime : Time in seconds to solve the linear system.\nGflops : Rate of execution for solving the linear system.\n\nThe following parameter values will be used:\n\nN : 8000\nNB : 256\nPMAP : Row-major process mapping\nP : 1\nQ : 1\nPFACT : Left\nNBMIN : 2\nNDIV : 2\nRFACT : Right\nBCAST : 2ring\nDEPTH : 0\nSWAP : Mix (threshold = 64)\nL1 : transposed form\nU : transposed form\nEQUIL : yes\nALIGN : 8 double precision words\n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n- The matrix A is randomly generated for each test.\n- The following scaled residual check will be computed:\n ||Ax-b||_oo / ( eps * ( || x ||_oo * || A ||_oo + || b ||_oo ) * N )\n- The relative machine precision (eps) is taken to be 1.110223e-16\n- Computational tests pass if scaled residuals are less than 16.0\n\n================================================================================\nT/V N NB P Q Time Gflops\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\nWR02R2L2 8000 256 1 1 121.22 2.817e+00\nHPL_pdgesv() start time Sat Jul 9 01:26:12 2016\n\nHPL_pdgesv() end time Sat Jul 9 01:28:14 2016\n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n||Ax-b||_oo/(eps*(||A||_oo*||x||_oo+||b||_oo)*N)= 0.0025941 ...... PASSED\n================================================================================\n\nFinished 1 tests with the following results:\n 1 tests completed and passed residual checks,\n 0 tests completed and failed residual checks,\n 0 tests skipped because of illegal input values.\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nEnd of Tests.\n================================================================================\npi@raspberrypi:~/linpack $ ./xhpl\n================================================================================\nHPLinpack 2.1 -- High-Performance Linpack benchmark -- October 26, 2012\nWritten by A. Petitet and R. Clint Whaley, Innovative Computing Laboratory, UTK\nModified by Piotr Luszczek, Innovative Computing Laboratory, UTK\nModified by Julien Langou, University of Colorado Denver\n================================================================================\n\nAn explanation of the input/output parameters follows:\nT/V : Wall time / encoded variant.\nN : The order of the coefficient matrix A.\nNB : The partitioning blocking factor.\nP : The number of process rows.\nQ : The number of process columns.\nTime : Time in seconds to solve the linear system.\nGflops : Rate of execution for solving the linear system.\n\nThe following parameter values will be used:\n\nN : 8000\nNB : 256\nPMAP : Row-major process mapping\nP : 1\nQ : 1\nPFACT : Left\nNBMIN : 2\nNDIV : 2\nRFACT : Right\nBCAST : 2ring\nDEPTH : 0\nSWAP : Mix (threshold = 64)\nL1 : transposed form\nU : transposed form\nEQUIL : yes\nALIGN : 8 double precision words\n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n- The matrix A is randomly generated for each test.\n- The following scaled residual check will be computed:\n ||Ax-b||_oo / ( eps * ( || x ||_oo * || A ||_oo + || b ||_oo ) * N )\n- The relative machine precision (eps) is taken to be 1.110223e-16\n- Computational tests pass if scaled residuals are less than 16.0\n\n================================================================================\nT/V N NB P Q Time Gflops\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\nWR02R2L2 8000 256 1 1 123.97 2.754e+00\nHPL_pdgesv() start time Sat Jul 9 01:30:11 2016\n\nHPL_pdgesv() end time Sat Jul 9 01:32:15 2016\n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n||Ax-b||_oo/(eps*(||A||_oo*||x||_oo+||b||_oo)*N)= 0.0025941 ...... PASSED\n================================================================================\n\nFinished 1 tests with the following results:\n 1 tests completed and passed residual checks,\n 0 tests completed and failed residual checks,\n 0 tests skipped because of illegal input values.\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nEnd of Tests.\n================================================================================\npi@raspberrypi:~/linpack $ ./xhpl\n================================================================================\nHPLinpack 2.1 -- High-Performance Linpack benchmark -- October 26, 2012\nWritten by A. Petitet and R. Clint Whaley, Innovative Computing Laboratory, UTK\nModified by Piotr Luszczek, Innovative Computing Laboratory, UTK\nModified by Julien Langou, University of Colorado Denver\n================================================================================\n\nAn explanation of the input/output parameters follows:\nT/V : Wall time / encoded variant.\nN : The order of the coefficient matrix A.\nNB : The partitioning blocking factor.\nP : The number of process rows.\nQ : The number of process columns.\nTime : Time in seconds to solve the linear system.\nGflops : Rate of execution for solving the linear system.\n\nThe following parameter values will be used:\n\nN : 8000\nNB : 256\nPMAP : Row-major process mapping\nP : 1\nQ : 1\nPFACT : Left\nNBMIN : 2\nNDIV : 2\nRFACT : Right\nBCAST : 2ring\nDEPTH : 0\nSWAP : Mix (threshold = 64)\nL1 : transposed form\nU : transposed form\nEQUIL : yes\nALIGN : 8 double precision words\n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n- The matrix A is randomly generated for each test.\n- The following scaled residual check will be computed:\n ||Ax-b||_oo / ( eps * ( || x ||_oo * || A ||_oo + || b ||_oo ) * N )\n- The relative machine precision (eps) is taken to be 1.110223e-16\n- Computational tests pass if scaled residuals are less than 16.0\n\n================================================================================\nT/V N NB P Q Time Gflops\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\nWR02R2L2 8000 256 1 1 127.25 2.683e+00\nHPL_pdgesv() start time Sat Jul 9 01:33:39 2016\n\nHPL_pdgesv() end time Sat Jul 9 01:35:46 2016\n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n||Ax-b||_oo/(eps*(||A||_oo*||x||_oo+||b||_oo)*N)= 0.0025941 ...... PASSED\n================================================================================\n\nFinished 1 tests with the following results:\n 1 tests completed and passed residual checks,\n 0 tests completed and failed residual checks,\n 0 tests skipped because of illegal input values.\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nEnd of Tests.\n================================================================================\npi@raspberrypi:~/linpack $ cat /boot/config.txt\n# For more options and information see\n# http://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/config-txt.md\n# Some settings may impact device functionality. See link above for details\n\n# uncomment if you get no picture on HDMI for a default \"safe\" mode\n#hdmi_safe=1\n\n# uncomment this if your display has a black border of unused pixels visible\n# and your display can output without overscan\n#disable_overscan=1\n\n# uncomment the following to adjust overscan. Use positive numbers if console\n# goes off screen, and negative if there is too much border\n#overscan_left=16\n#overscan_right=16\n#overscan_top=16\n#overscan_bottom=16\n\n# uncomment to force a console size. By default it will be display's size minus\n# overscan.\n#framebuffer_width=1280\n#framebuffer_height=720\n\n# uncomment if hdmi display is not detected and composite is being output\n#hdmi_force_hotplug=1\n\n# uncomment to force a specific HDMI mode (this will force VGA)\n#hdmi_group=1\n#hdmi_mode=1\n\n# uncomment to force a HDMI mode rather than DVI. This can make audio work in\n# DMT (computer monitor) modes\n#hdmi_drive=2\n\n# uncomment to increase signal to HDMI, if you have interference, blanking, or\n# no display\n#config_hdmi_boost=4\n\n# uncomment for composite PAL\n#sdtv_mode=2\n\n#uncomment to overclock the arm. 700 MHz is the default.\n#arm_freq=800\n\n# Uncomment some or all of these to enable the optional hardware interfaces\n#dtparam=i2c_arm=on\n#dtparam=i2s=on\n#dtparam=spi=on\n\n# Uncomment this to enable the lirc-rpi module\n#dtoverlay=lirc-rpi\n\n# Additional overlays and parameters are documented /boot/overlays/README\n\n# Enable audio (loads snd_bcm2835)\ndtparam=audio=on\nstart_x=0\ngpu_mem=64\npi@raspberrypi:~/linpack $" ]

[ "Best Answer: as a general rule after bills and rent you should be aiming to have roughly 40-50% of your net pay (after tax and NI has been taken off) left for everything else. This is changing though as the cost of houses etc has changed and food etc is going up." ]

[ "1 An example of surplus goods are items you do not need and have no use for. An example of surplus cash is money left over after you have paid all of your bills.", "How to Prevent Blocked Cards. Pay with the same card, not with cash or a different card than the one you gave initially. That way the hold should come off within a short time after you pay. When you pay, remind the business to remove the hold from the card you provided, now that you have paid your bill.", "adjective. noun. The definition of surplus is something that is in excess of what you need. 1 An example of surplus goods are items you do not need and have no use for. 2 An example of surplus cash is money left over after you have paid all of your bills.", "The Council has issued an attachment of earnings order because you have not paid your council tax by the date shown on your bill and the Magistrates Court have granted a Liability Order against you.our employer will keep a record of how much is left to clear your bill and should stop making deductions once the amount is paid in full. Your wage slip should also tell you how much has been taken for the attachment of earnings order.", "Cash Bail. If you paid cash bail to the court, meaning you paid the full bail amount, you will have that money returned to you after the defendant makes all required court appearances. If the person does not show up in court, that money will be forfeited and you will not see it again.", "You owe the taxes from the date that you should have paid them. If the audit comes three years after you should have paid the taxes, you'll be billed for the taxes as well as three years' worth of penalties and interest. Furthermore, penalties and interest will keep accruing after the audit until you pay off your balance in full.", "1 Cash, Check, or Card: Jot down how it was paid with or how much cash was deposited. 2 Cash: If you took out from an ATM (Automated Teller Machine) or from the direct bank. Check: If you have used or deposited a check amount into the account.", "GI Bill payments, particularly monthly housing payments, can sometimes be a mystery. they think they should. Here is an overview of how they work. • GI Bill housing allowance is paid after the fact. earliest you could be paid under the best of circumstances is October 1.", "Cash Payments Journal (CPJ) The cash payments journal is the opposite of the cash receipts journal. It is the journal where you record all transactions where cash has been paid out. Once again the bank column is added up to show the total payments. The totals of the other three columns show how much was paid to what.", "The Importance of Operating Cash Flow. Operating cash flow is a financial metric that is often used to gauge the investment potential of a company. The operating cash flow of a company tells investors how much money is left over after a company pays its bills. Here are some of the basics of operating cash flow and why it is so important. Operating cash flow is a measure that is used to gauge how much money is flowing into and out of a particular company.", "Retirement calculators are based on the stock market. They make us guess when we will die to determine how much we should save. We run out of money if we live too long or save too much money if we die to soon. Some people invest in real estate for appreciation, but smart investors invest for cash flow. Cash flow is the money you make from rental properties every month after all expenses are paid. The great thing about cash flow is it increases over time without ever eating away at your principle investment.", "Use 'treasury bill (T-bill)' in a Sentence. The treasury bill was finally issued, after months and months of arguing and disagreeing with one another in the company. 18 people found this helpful. You should always keep any treasury bill you have in a safe place so that you are ready to cash it when the time comes.", "How much a beauty salon owner makes will depend on the amount of overhead the salon has, such as utilities, supply expenses and wages paid to employees.Also, the number of customers and how much the salon charges for services will influence how much a salon owner makes.Some salon owners opt to draw a salary, while others depend on the income that's left after the bills are paid.lso, the number of customers and how much the salon charges for services will influence how much a salon owner makes. Some salon owners opt to draw a salary, while others depend on the income that's left after the bills are paid.", "What is a cash bond? A cash bond is the full amount of the bond required, paid in cash, to release a defendant from jail. How much does a cash bond cost? A cash bond costs the full amount of the bond AND a nonrefundable $25 Sheriff's fee if the bond is posted after regular office hours with the jail.", "16. How much Time Do I Have to File A Claim after Termination? If you were not paid at least the minimum wage or you were not paid correctly for your overtime hours, you should try to file a wage claim within two years from the date the work was actually performed. However, you should file a claim as soon as you can.", "The amount of the security deposit may notbe more than the amount of one month’s rent.Get a signed receipt for any payment you make with cash or amoney order. The receipt should say what the payment was for,how much you paid, and the date the payment was made.", "Comparing budgeted cash flows to actual deposits and expenditures will help you predict cash flow later. Another strategy is adding up cash you already have with the cash you plan to receive and when you plan to receive the cash. After you have that number, add up how much you plan to spend of that money.", "Understand your result. The result of 40 indicates that the average accounts receivable collection period is 40 days. This means that the business owner can expect a credit sale to be paid by the customer within 40 days. This can help them plan for how much cash they need to have on hand for expenses and bills.", "If you think you have paid too much tax getting your money back should be a top priority. Here is how to find out if you have paid too much tax and what you need to do to get your money back as quickly as possible: Your employer or pension provider use the tax code you are allocated by HMRC to determine how much tax you should be paying.", "Spending money for tips. Now the real question is how much “cash” you need to bring on board the ship, since most things can be paid for with your on board account or keycard, and at the end of the trip you can settle your account with your credit card.But cash may still come in handy.xcept for the casino there really aren’t any places on board that require cash at all. But if you want to cruise on a budget you really don’t have to bring hardly any cash at all, and if you keep you expenses low, you won’t have to pay for much more than the cost of your cruise (on top of taxes and fees of course).", "Pay your DirecTV bill with cash. It takes less than 60 seconds to pay your bill with cash at a 7-Eleven in your neighborhood. Just have your account number handy. * Only $1.99 per bill paid.", "Your business can make a profit and still not have enough cash on hand. If customers owe you money, but haven’t paid you yet, you may not have enough cash flowing in at the right time to pay your bills or payroll. Managing your cash flow well ensures that you have enough cash coming in when you need to pay cash out. ...", "How Much Should I Charge For Babysitting? As in all cases, the charge will depend on the city, location and experience. Usually, the amount paid to a baby sitter for a single baby will range from $10.84 to $15.34; $12.26 to $17.68 for two and $15 to $18.74 for three. Many parents have the habit of paying babysitters only cash. But some experienced babysitters have their clients filing taxes on their behalf.", "Well, if you've got a huge sense of entitlement, here's a way to bypass the 9% fee. All you have to do is put in your money and select an iTunes gift card. Then, when it asks you how much you want in cash and how much in the card, put it all in the card.After that, unplug the machine from the phone line, and long story short, it will give you a voucher with all of your money intact (no 9% fee) which you can redeem.hen, when it asks you how much you want in cash and how much in the card, put it all in the card. After that, unplug the machine from the phone line, and long story short, it will give you a voucher with all of your money intact (no 9% fee) which you can redeem.", "At my bank a counter credit is all cash, the term credit refers to when cash and cheques are paid in and bill payment is when the cash comes in from either another one of your accounts or from someone elses.", "Pay your AT&T U-verse bill with cash. It takes less than 60 seconds to pay your bill with cash at a 7-Eleven in your neighborhood. Just have your account number handy. * Only $1.99 per bill paid.", "What is Free Cash Flow? Free cash flow is the amount of money a company has left over after it pays its bills. It's what's left over of the money the business has actually collected when it's paid out all of its expenses. To calculate free cash flow, add up everything that comes in. Subtract everything that goes out. Free cash is what's left over.", "This Site Might Help You. How much salary do medical school residents get paid? How much salary do medical school residents get paid for working in the hospitals after finish their M.D. , i think it is for a period like 4-5 years. Yes, you will be paid a minimum as a resident. Its not a full salary, but should pay your basic needs.", "Do not pay your provider for this service. If. you have paid your provider for this service, you should submit to this. office three things: (1) a copy of this notice, (2) your provider’s bill, and (3). a receipt or proof that you have paid the bill.", "Taking Inventory of Your Personal Finances: How Much of Your Paycheck Should You Budget for Bills Taxes Whether you get paid an hourly wage or a monthly salary, at the end of the pay cycle, chances are that your paycheck is less than your earnings.", "no matter how you re paid cash it here for an everyday low fee of $ 3 for checks or cards up to $ 2000 and for a limited time get a fee free money order when you scan your shopper card we understand you need your cash fast and there is no shortage of bills to pay", "Duplicate checks can be useful for bookkeeping. Checks are used like cash for many purposes, such as paying bills or buying goods. It's important to balance your checkbook after each transaction so that you know how much money is left in your checking account." ]

[ "People join police academies under various terms. Typically, people are hired at specific police departments and then sent to that department's police academy for training. In this case, it costs nothing for the recruits to attend the academy, and they also receive their salaried pay while training. You can also pay tuition to attend a police academy before being hired by a police department. These types of academies are typically affiliated with community colleges or state and county law enforcement training centers." ]

[ "Salary. The current yearly salary for a Police Officer Recruit in the Police Academy is $47,920 After graduating the academy as a Police Officer, you receive a pay increase to $51,245. There are scheduled increases in pay to the present maximum of $64,459 a year.Overtime is paid at the level of time and a half.he current yearly salary for a Police Officer Recruit in the Police Academy is $47,920 After graduating the academy as a Police Officer, you receive a pay increase to $51,245.", "Division of Criminal Justice Detective. In New Jersey there is no such thing is joining the police academy. You are required to first get hired by a law enforcement agency which will send you to the police or corrections academy.", "Here in the state of Arkansas, you cannot go to the academy unless you are hired by a department. And the department pays your salary while you complete the academy. Our's is 12 weeks long for the Police Academy.8am - 5pm.eport Abuse. I guess it must depend on where you live. Here in the state of Arkansas, you cannot go to the academy unless you are hired by a department. And the department pays your salary while you complete the academy. Our's is 12 weeks long for the Police Academy. 8am - 5pm.", "Answer Wiki. 1 Answer. , Retired cop and criminal justice professor, Reno Police Department, Reno Municipal Court, and Pyramid Lake ... Whether you pay for a police academy or not depends on your hiring status, who you work for or plan to work for, and where you are. The traditional model police academy is an in house academy, meaning that a law enforcement agency runs the aca...", "How to Get Into the Police Academy. PoliceLink's interactive Police Academy Directory will provide you with the information you need to start your law enforcement career. Learn your state's requirements for being accepted into the police academy and get contact information for a police academy near you.oliceLink's interactive Police Academy Directory will provide you with the information you need to start your law enforcement career.", "There’s much more to compensation than just a paycheck. These are the types of questions you should be prepared to ask: Does the agency pay for the academy or do you have to pay your own way? Do you get paid while you’re in the academy? Does the department pay for your uniforms and equipment or do you have to foot the bill yourself? Do you get a take-home car? How much do you have to pay for health benefits, life insurance, and other necessities?", "Do you get paid while you’re in the academy? Does the department pay for your uniforms and equipment or do you have to foot the bill yourself? Do you get a take-home car? How much do you have to pay for health benefits, life insurance, and other necessities?", "The traditional model police academy is an in house academy, meaning that a law enforcement agency runs the academy, only its new employees train there, and the agency does not hire people directly for a police officer position unless they have attended the in house academy. Very large agencies and state police/patrols use this model. No matter how much experience or education you have someplace else, you can't be an officer for the NYPD, LAPD, Chicago PD, or most any state patrol unless you complete their academy. With in house academies, the trainee is on the payroll from the first day.", "Step 4: Complete Police Academy. Individuals need to complete police academy in order to be a police officer. Each state has different police academy requirements, and police officers trained out-of-state may have to take additional courses to meet state requirements.", "New police officers fresh out of training academy start at the bottom of the pay ladder, with salaries varying by the hiring department. For example, as of 2013 the Houston Police Department pays probationary officers fresh from the academy annual salaries of $32,664.", "In New Jersey there is no such thing is joining the police academy. You are required to first get hired by a law enforcement agency which will send you to the police or corrections academy.However, in the 1990's the State created a program known as the Alternate Route Program.he agencies that don't utilize the NJ Department of Personnel have come to be known as Chief's Agencies. These departments administer the entry level testing themselves. A downside to this track is the fact that with most of the Chief's Agencies the testing is sporadic.", "Virginia Police Academies Virginia police academies are operated through a combination of regional or department sponsored police academies. The larger departments in the state, including the Virginia State Police, operate their own police academies while the smaller departments have partnered together to form regional police academies.", "Police Academy Requirements for Age Most police academies have an age minimum and maximum age limit however the police academy requirements for age vary from state to state. While the majority of states require that applicants be at least 21 years of age, few do allow applicants as young as 18 years old.", "1 Academy pay is $4558 per month. 2 Police Officer, starting step 1 salary $5242. 3 Police Officer, ending step 6 salary $ 6690. 4 Lateral police officer salary determined by experience, training and education. Academy pay is $4558 per month. 2 Police Officer, starting step 1 salary $5242. 3 Police Officer, ending step 6 salary $ 6690. 4 Lateral police officer salary determined by experience, training and education.", "Step 3: Attend Police Academy. Most police officers attend some form of police academy for training. Large police departments send recruits to their own police academies. Smaller precincts may send new hires to attend larger academies as well.", "1 Academy pay is $33.26 an hour, until sworn in as a police officer. 2 Police officer, starting step 1 salary $80,600. 3 Police officer, top step salary $107,931 (one step increase annually for seven years).4 Lateral police officer salary determined by experience, training and education. Academy pay is $33.26 an hour, until sworn in as a police officer. 2 Police officer, starting step 1 salary $80,600. 3 Police officer, top step salary $107,931 (one step increase annually for seven years).", "Houston Police Salary. Upon hiring, the Houston police salary for recruits is $31,965. The recruits attend the Houston Police Academy for six months and are trained in all aspects of policing. The do not live at the academy, but are required to attend each day, Monday through Friday.", "The Monterey Police Department invites you to join our next Community Academy to learn how your police department operates. During the eleven week course, you will be exposed to every aspect of how we keep Monterey safe.", "A person who is to become a police officer in Connecticut must first attend a Basic Training Program at either the Connecticut Police Academy or at a Council-approved Academy. A person wanting to do that must first be hired by a law enforcement unit (police department, etc.) within the State of Connecticut.he majority (90%) of police recruits go through POST s program at the Connecticut Police Academy in Meriden, Connecticut. The basic training program at the Connecticut Police Academy is approximately 22 weeks long.", "Find Police Academies in Virginia by searching our Police Academy Directory. Find important resources of police academy fitness and exams. Learn everything you need to know to become a cop in Virginia!", "Formal training for police and highway patrol officers is usually conducted at police academies. The average pay for police and highway patrol officers varies by geographical area and employment situation.", "The Nation's Law Enforcement Community. New Jersey Police Academies. Police academies in New Jersey are typically operated on a county basis through regional agreements with law enforcement agencies within the county. All academies must be certified by the New Jersey Police Training Commission to provide basic police training. Several state agencies, such as the New Jersey State Police and New Jersey Department of Corrections also operate their own academies. New Jersey police academies may offer alternate route certificates, allowing recruits to pay their own way through the academy and then be hired by a department.", "Police Officer. When you join the Fairfax County Police Department, you will have a career unlike any other. Officers use their training and experience to help prevent crime, conduct investigations and maintain order. Do you have what it takes to become a Fairfax County Police Officer?", "The regional police academies are the Western Massachusetts Regional Police Academy, Bolyston Regional Police Academy, Randolph Regional Police Academy, New Bedford Regional Police Academy, Plymouth Regional Academy, and Reading Regional Police Academy.", "What Do Police Instructors Do and Where Do They Work? Because learning never stops in law enforcement, police instructors work in a number of environments, from the police academy to the field. They are responsible for training brand new academy recruits as well as seasoned veterans.", "Officers receive their full starting salary while training at a police academy. Successfully complete the six months of academy training and you get a bump in salary.", "Candidates who make it through the hiring process typically must still graduate from their local police academy before they become full-fledged police officers. Academy training includes classes in firearms, first aid, criminal law, emergency vehicle operations, defensive tactics, physical fitness and report writing.", "All new police recruits in Massachusetts must graduate from one of the municipal police academies, six regional police academies or the Massachusetts State Police Academy.", "The traditional model police academy is an in house academy, meaning that a law enforcement agency runs the academy, only its new employees train there, and the agency does not hire people directly for a police officer position unless they have attended the in house academy.", "Dubai Police. Dubai Police and policemen do what police do in most countries. Try to keep the peace, arrest those suspected of criminal activities, help little old ladies across the road, and leave the cats stuck in trees for the Dubai Fire Department. Lt Gen Tamim was born in Dubai in 1951, received a diploma in Police Science in 1970 from the Royal Police Academy of Amman in Jordan, joined Dubai Police after that, was appointed as deputy commander in chief of Dubai Police in 1979 and promoted to commander-in-chief in 1980.", "Popular Police Training Academies. There are ten options for police academy training in Massachusetts. There are six regional police academies, four municipal academies, and one center for state troopers, the Massachusetts State Police Academy.", "Recruiting FAQ You can call the recruiters (see www.joinTPD.com for phone numbers) or apply on line. A recruiter will call you once your online application is processed. How long is the Tulsa Police Academy? What if I'm already a police officer? Do I still need to attend the Academy? Does prior experience in policing help my chances?" ]

[ "We can. But even though the computer can handle it, it still needs to feed back information in ways people can understand. Ultimately, you still have to project that model in some way back onto a 2-dimensional screen which typically means losing something in the projection." ]

[ "The 'we don't' answer is more or less correct, but we can think of higher dimensions as functions. For example, four dimensional space is the collection of all 4-tuples. And countably infinite dimensional space is the collection of all infinite sequences, or functions from the naturals to the reals.", "The human mind can only grasp three spatial dimensions, and we are not able to apprehend rightly more dimensions than those. We can apprehend time as 4th dimension, but we cannot conceive of a 4th spatial domension. But we understand space of fewer dimensions. We get how 2-dimensional space works. We get how 1-dimensional space works. And subsequently we can comceive even 0-dimensional space (i.e. a point). Comparing 0 to 1 to 2 to 3 dimensional spaces, we see patterns emerge. Following those patterns we can mathematically prove what objects in 4, 5 or N dimensions would be like. Our brains will never be able to actually imagine those n-dimensional objects though.", "A dimension is basically a direction. We live in three dimensions. X, which is length. Y, which is height. Z, which is depth. From that alone it's not terribly hard to imagine a fourth dimension in this abstract sense. It's just another direction, albeit one we can't currently see or travel. A core aspect of dimensions is that the number of dimensions is the number of coordinates required to specify a specific location within that dimensional space. So for example, in a 2D space (a flat plane) you need two coordinates to describe any point. (x,y). Similarly, any 3D area needs three coordinates (x,y,z). So for a four dimensional area you just need to add a fourth coordinate. (x,y,z,a). On time: Some people consider time to be the fourth used dimension. This is because you can specify a point at a specific x, y, and z as well as time. So your four dimensional area can have points specified by (x,y,z,t), where t=time.", "Take a line of length x. one dimension. square it: x^2 2dimensions, cube it x^3 3 dimensions. Now theoretically, we can take x^4 and it will be a four dimensional shape similar to a square or a cube, called a [tesseract](_URL_0_). Essentially it's just a fourth direction of space. its 'up' and 'down' are called 'ana' and 'kata'. Time is also a dimension, but it's not a dimension of space. Sorry I can't help you about the 4D star.", "First off, there is no \"the\" fourth dimension. A dimension is just some thing that can vary. Pressure, temperature, charge, voltage, time. Newtonian mechanics and special/general relativity tend to take place in four dimensions -- three spatial (`x`, `y`, `z`) and one temporal (`t`). There is no order to these, so we might as well make `y` the fourth one we list. Einstein showed that the behavior of massive, uncharged bodies can be described using four dimensions (three spatial and one temporal) and called this four-dimensional manifold spacetime. Some people nowadays think that our physical universe has more spatial dimensions than that, and although we can't really perceive the other ones because they're \"really small\", energy can propagate in them and so there are physical repercussions.", "The four dimensional equivalent is the [tetrahedron](_URL_0_) The line and triangle are examples of a 1 and 2 dimensional [simplex](_URL_1_). In two dimensions, a 1-simplex (line segment) defines a line (1 dimensional space). In 3 dimensions, a 2-simplex (triangle) defines a plane (2 dimensional space). Then in 4 dimensions, a 3-simplex ( tetrahedron ) defines a 3-space. ... and so on in higher dimensional spaces.", "A square is two dimensional, and is made up of one dimensional objects - lines - enclosing a two dimensional space. A cube is three dimensional, and is made up of two dimensional objects - squares - enclosing a three dimensional space It stands to reason that a four dimensional cube would be made up of three dimensional objects - cubes - enclosing a four dimensional space. While we can't necessarily imagine the four dimensional space it encloses, we know that a cube when rotated distorts its two dimensional components: squares look like parallelograms. Rotating a four dimensional cube, then, should distort cubes in a similar way.", "This is a 5-D black hole in a 5-D universe. What they did is adding another spatial dimension, so they have a 4+1 dimensional universe. However, that universe isn´t our universe. How can you visualize it? Simple. Take a X1 axis, mark it with all real numbers, now you have something 1 dimensional (the Vector Space R^1 ). Now add a X2 axis orthogonal to the X1 axis and mark it with all real number. you have a two dimensional space, the vector space R^2 . Now you add a X3 axis orthogonal to the X1 and the X2 axis. you have the three dimensional space R^3 . Now add a time axis called t. This is a four-dimensional spacetime. Now, add another spatial axis X4 orthogonal to X1 X2 X3 . What you got is a 4+1 dimensional space time.", "It isn't. It's a representation of what a four dimensional cube would look like moving in three dimensional space. By analogy, if you're living in a two dimensional flat world and a three dimensional sphere passed through it, you'd perceive it as a dot that becomes a growing circle, which then shrinks and finally vanishes. Similar idea here, except that you're seeing a tesseract rotating. If you could actually perceive and think in four dimensions, it would just be a rotating shape. We can't, so it's a weird thing that doesn't make sense to us. [tl;dr] It's not four dimensions.", "If you define a path from point A at time a to point B at time b in four dimensional Minkowski space, gravity modifies this path. Your picture didn't load.", "The idea basically is, as we develop better and better computers (and having the ability of creating better and better simulations), we could eventually simulate a universe so complex that it could evolve life in it. Of course, there's a limit on how complex it could be (basically, that limit would be if we convert our entire universe in a computer for that simulation). But, what if the creatures in the simulation are able to develop computers, and to simulate universes within? What if that simulation creates life that can simulate universes? And finally, who says we're in the top universe (the universe that is not simulated)?", "We only get a rough idea of a two dimensional sketch of a three dimensional object because we look at the world from a single, two-dimensional perspective. We must interact with something to understand it in three dimensions. (Looking at it from atleast two different viewpoints) To represent something with four dimensions in a three dimensional perspective, we would need to be able to comprehend multiple view points of something in real time. While we can create accurate representations of this, it isn't possible to actually understand it's shape, considering how our brains are wired.", "Because that's the definition of a tesseract: a four dimensional cube. The illustrations you see are the best approximation that we can get in a three-dimensional world to representing a four-dimension object. What you are used to seeing might best be described as a three-dimensional shadow of a tesseract, much as three-dimensional objects have 2D shadows.", "Yes. There is a VR application called 4D Toys that is, as far as I’ve seen, the closest representation of four-dimensional objects in a three-dimensional space. [Here](_URL_2_) is a video where someone demonstrates how it works.", "When someone says space expands, it means that two points are further apart *at a later point in time*. It doesn't make sense for time to expand, because what does it expand with respect to? The analog would be if durations of time changed in different places in the universe, but that is not observed to happen. [These](_URL_0_) are some possible diagrams for an expanding universe, where in the image time is the vertical axis and we imagine that space is two-dimensional. In reality space is three dimensional but showing that would require a four-dimensional plot, which we can't really draw.", "Because we don't live in a simple 3-dimensional space. We live in a 4-dimensional spacetime, where space and time aren't always separate entities. Every object in 4D spacetime has a four-velocity. It's just like your regular velocity, but it has four components instead of three. Now, here's the interesting thing: the magnitude of your four velocity (in other words, the speed at which you travel through spacetime) must ALWAYS equal the speed of light. So if the distance components of your four-velocity are all zero (which means you're not moving through space), you're \"moving\" through time at the speed of light. But if you start moving through space, you increase the space components of your four-velocity. But the magnitude must always equal the speed of light. So whatever you add to your DISTANCE components, you subtract from your TIME component. The faster you move through space, the slower you move through time.", "There's two different concepts here. One is that the universe has three spatial dimensions and one time dimension, so that \"The ground floor of 3rd street and 5th avenue at 7 PM\" is a four dimensional coordinate. The is other is four dimensional space, which is a mathematical construction.", "The problem is that in order to simulate the universe, you need to know exactly what it looks like. This includes the computer. So in order to simulate the future you need to be able to simulate the computer simulating the future, ...", "Yes, time is one of the dimensions, not just in string theory, but in physics as we already know it. Relativity already tells us that we have to treat the three dimensions of space and the one dimension of time as a single four-dimensional construct. The reason we have to group them into a four-dimensional *spacetime* is that different observers will separate spacetime into space and time in different ways. Time is different from space in that we seem only to be able to move forward in time, but can move in both directions in the spatial dimension directions (but even with this, you cannot uniquely specify what direction in spacetime corresponds to time). In string theory, the additional dimensions are all spacelike (can go forward and backward) rather than timelike.", "The Möbius strip and Klein bottles are both two-dimensional. They can be embedded in three and four dimensions respectively (and any space that includes those, such as higher dimensional Euclidean spaces), but the ambient space is *not* part of the actual manifold. The Klein bottle can also be immersed (not embedded) in three dimensions.", "You are right. A strictly two-dimensional space exists only as a mathematical abstraction. Any system in the physical world is really three-dimensional and represents a two-dimensional space only to approximation. With that said, if the system is very flat and very thin, it is very close to a two-dimensional space. For instance, your computer screen is very close to a two-dimensional space. The physical LED pixels (or whatever) in your computer screen have a non-zero thickness, but this thickness is so small compared to the height and length of the whole screen, that the screen effectively acts 2D. In other words, if there really were a perfectly 2D display, it would not look very different than your computer screen. For something to be perfectly spatially 2D in the physical world, it would have to have zero thickness, but still have a definite mass and location, which quantum uncertainty would not allow.", "I think I an explain the first part of you question :) One of the biggest uses of computes in science and engineering is simulation. For example creating a virtual model and stressing the model and analysing how the model has been damaged. As computers get more and more advanced we is is theorized that we will one day have enough computer power to simulate an entire universe. This could mean that we, right now, are living in a simulation. Running on a super computer computer...", "Imagine a cube, now flatten it. Flatten it so flat that the height of the cube is smaller than an atom. The cube still has height... but you can't see it! We can still see the width and the depth though, 2 full dimensions, 1 collapsed. Our universe is that cube, but with 8 collapsed dimensions, 3 whole ones. Technically, the only things that can really take advantage of these crushed dimensions must be super tiny (strings and the such). You can't actually picture a 4th+ spacial dimension because you evolved to perceive three!", "Combined, the spatial and temporal domains make up space-time, a four dimensional void where objects can be created in three dimensional space over a period of time. Einstein theorized that time is, in essence, a physical dimension and capable of being stretched and molded by gravity, leading to the idea of space-time being like a fabric, deformed by large planetary and stellar bodies.", "The mathematical equations that describe the way light bounces through raindrops and off of oddly-shaped objects, the way smoke disperses in the air, the way the wind blows through blades of grass and so on are all incredibly complex. The more precisely you want to model these interactions, the more time it'll take for a computer to finish the computations.", "Sure. It's been proven that you can make computers in Conway's Life (in the jargon, Life is \"Turing complete\"). So for example you could construct a computer in Life that runs a simulation of a human brain. (Though in practice a Life pattern that simulated a human brain would be inconceivably gigantic and run very slowly). In fact there are even simpler cellular automata that are Turing complete, for example the one-dimensional [Rule 110](_URL_0_).", "You're completely right that finding evidence for some kind of lattice structure in the Universe wouldn't imply or \"reveal\" that it's a computer simulation - that's bad journalism, which is distressingly common in science reporting and something you should always be on the lookout for when reading science articles! But since when we do computer simulations, we can't do them on infinitely fine spaces - we need to break space up into a finite grid or lattice in order to run a simulation - then if the Universe were a simulation similar to the ones we run on our computers, there would be such a structure. But of course it doesn't work the other way around - that wouldn't be the *only* explanation for such an observation. I'm not sure why you think black holes are relevant - could you elaborate?", "Like all surfaces, the event horizon of a black hole is two-dimensional. Like all regions of space, the region bounded by the event horizon (at a given time) is three-dimensional. The singularity is not a place or time or point in spacetime to begin with, so it doesn't make sense to talk about its dimension. Space is always three-dimensional and spacetime is always four-dimensional. There are no exceptions.", "Well, it _is_ pretty hard to have things like that. In principle, we could do that, as long as you're fine with not having characters, just pure physics (that currently works well enough). As soon as you introduce human (or humanoid) characters, things become much more complicated, because now you have to simulate all the joints, with the right amount of strength, and that can bend the right way. What makes it hard (i.e. computationally intensive as well as hard to design and program) is that you have all these moving parts that need to work properly with collision detection, are easily controlled by the player on a high level (one press of a key might mean you have to move dozens of joints, oh and it has to work correctly with other commands the player has given and the physics system), and look realisticly human (this one is really hard to get right in the design stage if you want any hint of physical or graphical realism, even without the joint thing).", "We're working on it. The tech just isn't quite there yet. _URL_0_", "Space-time is a 3-dimensional space combined with the 4th dimension of time. As beings that live in a 3-dimensional space, we have a hard time conceptualizing a 4th dimension. So for the sake of effective visualization, we represent space-time as a 2-dimensional sheet that bends into a 3rd dimension. We cannot visualize a 3-dimensional space bending into a 4th dimension.", "> For example, when you simulate 2d physics for a game, you don't need to consider the third dimension at all You do so, although it is hidden in formulas: In three dimensions, forces like gravity or the electrostatic interaction scale with 1/r^(2). In a two-dimensional universe, gravity would scale with 1/(r) and in four dimensions we would have a 1/r^(3) law. This can be derived e.g. with [Gauss's law](_URL_0_). The product of the force at a given radius and the area of a sphere at this radius are constant. In three dimensions the area of a sphere is proportional to r^(2), therefore the force has to be proportional to 1/r^(2) to make the product independent of the radius. Similar for other dimensions. Yes, we know our universe is three-dimensional, at least on macroscopic scales for all the interactions we know." ]

[ "Host Renee Montagne talks with Anne Simmons of the LA Times about the Nigerian President''s announcement that he will hand over power to a democratically-elected president next year." ]

[ "--Host Bob Edwards talks with Jim Rupert - a reporter for the Washington Post in Abidjan, Ivory Coast- on Nigeria's new military ruler, General Abdusalam Abubakar. Abubakar was sworn in on Tuesday as Nigeria's ninth military ruler following the death of General Sani Abacha from a heart attack on Monday. Many Western governments are hoping that Abubakar will carry through on promised elections scheduled for August 1st and establish democracy for the country's 104-million people.", "Nigeria's Senate kills a proposed constitutional amendment that would have allowed the country's president to run for a third term. Critics said the proposal would widen regional, ethnic and religious rifts. They hailed its failure as a victory for democracy.", "Nigeria's religious make-up is roughly half-Christian, half-Muslim, and there has been recent violence between the two groups. Steve Inskeep talks with Sue O'Brien, assistant professor of African history at the University of Florida, about how politics in Nigeria's fledgling democracy is inflaming religious tensions.", "--Host Bob Edwards talks with the BBC's Elizabeth Blunt about Nigeria's new president, General Abdusalam Abubakar and the challenges facing him and the prospect for democracy in Africa's most populous nation. The last president, General Sani Abacha died yesterday of a heart attack, after serving four years in power.", "It has been 10 years since Nigeria's return to democracy. But the West African nation remains saddled with unrest in the turbulent oil-producing Niger Delta. Security forces in the Delta have begun a major operation against militants who claim to seek a fairer share of the region's oil wealth, but whom the authorities dismiss as criminals.", "Nigerian opposition candidate Muhammadu Buhari&#8217;s campaign says President Goodluck Jonathan called to concede defeat, paving the way for a peaceful transfer of power in Africa&#8217;s richest and most populous nation. An aide in Jonathan&#8217;s offices says the president is preparing to make a speech. Buhari&#8217;s campaign office sent text messages to journalists saying Jonathan had called Buhari to say he will concede. It comes as Buhari, a former military dictator, holds a commanding lead in elections that have dealt a crushing defeat to Jonathan, Nigeria&#8217;s leader for the past five years. Celebrations have erupted all over Buhari&#8217;s strongholds in northern Nigeria but the streets of Abuja the capital are deserted amid fears of violence from Jonathan&#8217;s supporters in the south. Guest\n\nDarren Kew, executive director of the Center for Peace, Democracy, and Development at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He tweets @DarrenKew.", "Nigerians are witnessing a historic moment for their country: Muhammadu Buhari has become the first opposition candidate to win a presidential election there. President Goodluck Jonathan phoned Buhari to concede defeat &#8211; a gesture considered the norm in the U.S., but unique in Nigeria. With the apparent successful show of democracy and a peaceful handover of power, analysts wonder what effect this election could have on the continent as a whole. Here & Now&#8217;s Jeremy Hobson speaks with Nii Akuetteh of the African Immigrant Caucus for a look at the significance of Buhari&#8217;s win in Nigeria and across Africa. Guest\n\nNii Akuetteh, policy analyst with the African Immigrant Caucus and former executive director of Africa Action.", "RENEE MONTAGNE, Host: This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne. STEVE INSKEEP, Host: Several new stories today reflect the progress of democracy or the lack of it. Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin has died. He presided over that country's first steps toward democracy in the '90s. He also installed a successor, Vladimir Putin, who's been seen as sending democracy in retreat. Russia's uncertain democratic future gives it something in common with a nation that held an election over the weekend. MONTAGNE: NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton reports. OFEIBEA QUIST: We're outside Lagos now in the neighboring state, Ogun State. Yes, am I right, ma'am? QUIST: Yes. QUIST: We're you able to start your day on time? QUIST: Yes. We started on time. We started at roughly 10:00 o'clock. QUIST: Maurice Iwu, the commission chairman, defended the rush job, delivering the newly printed presidential ballots to more than a hundred thousand polling stations across this vast country with its crumbling infrastructure. MONTAGNE: We did respond to the emergency the best we can. And what we did - I don't know any other country in the world that would have done it better. QUIST: Critics accuse Nigeria's electoral commission of creating the crisis in the first place by excluding Atiku from the ballot. The vice president, who stood against President Olusegun Obansanjo's favored presidential candidate, Umaru Yar'Adua, has already condemned the vote. Atiku said the government must simply scrap a deeply flawed presidential poll. INSKEEP: They have no alternative than to cancel these elections altogether. In fact, I already rejected the election. If there is no way credible, legitimate elections can be conducted under the president (unintelligible) Obasanjo. QUIST: Now, many Nigerians say they have little confidence that the results, once they're announced, will be fair because of alleged vote fraud and abuses. Here's a sampling of what some Nigerian voters across the country thought of the polls. QUIST: I'm not happy at all. Because there is a lot of rigging and malpractices a lot. A lot of (unintelligible) no election, all over the country there is no election. QUIST: Well, I just pray that this election gets to a point where things would be done as they ought to be done. But that it should be done how is done in the developed nations. QUIST: But the National Election chairman, Maurice Iwu, said his commission deserves straight A's for organizing what he called good presidential and national assembly polls. MONTAGNE: We have had a successful election. It was free and fair. We shouldn't loose sight of the big picture, that we did succeed in a major undertaking, that this is the first time in our history that we have had a (unintelligible) elections. QUIST: Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright headed the Washington-based National Democratic Institute's Observer Mission here in Nigeria. She spoke on the eve of Saturday's key presidential vote. MONTAGNE: I think having Nigeria democratic is not only important for the people of Nigeria but for Africa generally and therefore the world. QUIST: Nigerians were eager to see one elected civilian president peacefully handing over to another duly elected leader after decades of military rule. But it looks as if Nigeria's latest disputed experiment with democracy may end up in court in a legal challenge. Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, NPR News, Lagos. Several candidates are speaking out in protest amid concerns that Nigeria's presidential election Saturday was flawed. Initial results, which came in Sunday night, gave an early lead to the governing party's candidate, Umaru Yar'Adua. Already the two main opposition candidates, outgoing Vice President Atiku Abubakar, and former military leader Muhammadu Buhari, have indicated that they want the vote scrapped. Balloting was held Saturday after a two-hour delay, but polling stations in some parts of the country took many hours longer to get up and running. There were reports of violence in some areas. Atiku and Buhari have deemed the poll deeply flawed and have called for a new election. Nigeria's leading election monitoring outfit, Transition Monitoring Group, has said the same. Innocent Chukwuma, chairman of the group that sent out 10,000 observers across the nation, said it was impossible to \"use the result from half the country to announce a new president,\" because voting was delayed for hours and did not happen at all in a number of areas. The U.S.-based monitoring group International Republican Institute (IRI) also said the election in Africa's most populous nation of 140 million people fell below acceptable standards and that the system had failed the Nigerian people. Buhari, considered the leading opposition presidential candidate, had run against President Olusegun Obasanjo in the 2003 election. He said he would not accept the results of Saturday's ballot and called on parliament to impeach the outgoing president. Buhari also ", "Nobel Prize winning playwright and activist WOLE SOYINKA (Wall - Shoy-enka) talks with Terry about his newest book \"The Open Sore of a Continent: A Personal Narrative of the Nigerian Crisis.\" It is published by Oxford University Press. It's been nearly a year since the Nigerian military government executed dissident writer Ken Saro-Wiwa. The killing sparked international protests that today has left Nigeria politically isolated. The events that led up to the execution in November 1995 mark Nigeria's decline from a thriving post-colonial state to its present military dictatorship. SOYINKA was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986. Born in Nigeria, an out-spoken proponent for democracies, lives in exile dividing his time between London and Cambridge, Ma.", "Nigeria's electoral commission will postpone Feb. 14 presidential and legislative elections for six weeks to give a new multinational force time to secure northeastern areas under the sway of Boko Haram, an official close to the commission told The Associated Press on Saturday. Millions could be disenfranchised if the voting went ahead while the Islamic extremists hold a large swath of the northeast and commit mayhem that has driven 1.5 million people from their homes. A major offensive with warplanes and ground troops from Chad and Nigeria already has forced the insurgents from a dozen towns and villages in the past 10 days. Even greater military strikes by more countries are planned. The official who is knowledgeable of the discussions said the Independent National Electoral Commission will announce the postponement at a news conference later Saturday. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. Officials in President Goodluck Jonathan's administration had been calling for a postponement, which is opposed by an opposition coalition fielding his chief rival, former military dictator Muhammadu Buhari. Supporters of both sides are threatening violence if their candidate does not win. Some 800 people were killed in riots in the mainly Muslim north after Buhari, a Muslim, lost 2011 elections to Jonathan, a Christian from the south. A postponement also will give electoral officials more time to deliver some 30 million voter cards. The commission had said the non-delivery of cards to nearly half of the 68.8 million registered voters was not a good reason to delay the vote.", "For the first time since Nigeria won its independence in 1960, the country has inaugurated an opposition figure as its next president. Muhammadu Buhari, a retired general who ruled the country back in the '80s after a military coup, was sworn in as president of Nigeria on Friday. The BBC reports: \"He has taken over from Goodluck Jonathan, who urged his successor to unite the country in the face of the threat from Boko Haram militants. Mr Buhari, a former military ruler, says he is a convert to democracy. \"He defeated Mr Jonathan - who had been in office since 2010 - by 15.4 million votes to 12.9 million. \"The BBC's Will Ross in the capital, Abuja, says heads of state and senior government officials have come from across the world to witness this truly historic moment for Nigeria. In a country with a [checkered] history when it comes to power changing hands, this is a chance to celebrate deepening democracy, he says.\" Reuters reports that during his inaugural address, Buhari said that Nigeria \"needs careful management to overcome the impact of low oil prices, slowing growth, high unemployment and the security threat from Islamist group Boko Haram.\" CNN reports that Buhari's military experience may have played a role in his election. The network explains: \"Before the election, African affairs analyst Ayo Johnson said Buhari's military background may be what voters need to feel safe from the deadly Boko Haram militant group. \"'Many Nigerians will not forget he was a military leader, during a dictatorship,' Johnson said. 'Or maybe they will feel that they need a military leader to address fundamental problems such as terrorism.' \"This year alone, the extremists have killed at least 1,000 civilians mostly in the nation's northeast, where they operated freely, Human Rights Watch says.\" Secretary of State John Kerry represented the United States at Buhari's inauguration. He tweeted: \"Congratulations to @MBuhari & the Nigerian people. A privilege to be here to celebrate #Nigeria's historic & peaceful democratic transition.\"", "German officials say they have reached an agreement with Nigeria to return a share of plundered artifacts known as Benin Bronzes. Thousands of plaques and sculptures were looted from the ancient Kingdom of Benin — now southern Nigeria, not the modern nation of Benin — by British soldiers in an 1897 raid, and were ultimately acquired by museums largely in Europe and the United States. For the last decade, a consortium known as the Benin Dialogue Group has been working to repatriate these works and establish a permanent display in Benin City, in partnership with museums in Germany and other European nations. German officials announced on Thursday that they will work with Nigeria on plans to return some of its Benin Bronzes in the year ahead. \"The participants are in agreement that addressing Germany's colonial past is an important issue for the whole of society and a core task for cultural policy,\" they wrote in a joint release. The German officials aim to return the first of their Benin Bronzes next year, and will release more specific plans and timetables by this summer. They said they \"reaffirm their willingness in principle to make substantial returns\" of the artifacts, but left the door open to keeping some of them. \"Discussions with the Nigerian partners are to cover not only returns to and cooperation projects in Nigeria, but also whether and how Benin Bronzes, as part of humanity's cultural heritage, can in future be shown in Germany as well,\" they said. Numerous German museums are in possession of Benin Bronzes, the officials said. They invited the ones who are not part of the Benin Dialogue Group to join in their efforts. There are far more of these historical objects scattered across the globe than in their native country, according to author Dan Hicks. He told Art News that 45 institutions in the United Kingdom and 38 in the U.S. hold Benin Bronzes, compared to just nine in Nigeria. Berlin's Ethnological Museum is home to one of the world's largest collections of artifacts from the ancient kingdom, as The Associated Press reports. Its inventory is estimated to include some 530 items, including 440 bronzes. And roughly 900 such artifacts are housed in the British Museum alone. Activists are increasingly calling for cultural institutions to repatriate their Benin Bronzes — widely seen as a symbol of colonial conquest — to Nigeria, though few have actually done so. The French state promised two years ago to repatriate 26 such artifacts by 2021, but, as Art News reported this month, none has permanently left the country yet. And while the British government has said institutions should \"retain and explain\" controversial artifacts, some regional U.K. museums appear to disagree, as the Guardian reports. Scotland's University of Aberdeen announced last month that it would imminently return a bust it had acquired in the 1950s, citing ethical concerns. \"Our panel concluded that this was acquired as loot and therefore, we didn't feel we had moral title,\" said Neil Curtis, head of museums and special collections at the University of Aberdeen. The next meeting of the Benin Dialogue Group is set for May 27.", "President Bush's visit to Africa takes him to Uganda Friday, where he'll meet with officials working on AIDS prevention and awareness programs in the country. Bush then visits Nigeria, a country seen a making progress toward democracy. NPR's Brenda Wilson reports.", "Ofeibea Quist-Arcton and Tony Cox discuss stories from the African continent, including the inauguration of Nigeria's new president, the Hague's inquiry into human rights crimes in the Central African Republic, and President Bush's announcement of new economic sanctions against Sudan.", "In the middle of the night, after a long day waiting for election results on Tuesday, supporters of former military leader Muhammadu Buhari took to the streets of Abuja to celebrate his historic victory in Nigeria's presidential election. Many were chanting, \"Change\" and carrying traditional brooms, the symbol of Buhari's party. Jubilant supporters, men and women, were sweeping the ground and the air, saying their leader would sweep out corruption and the extremist group Boko Haram in Nigeria and sweep in order and rule of law. At the crack of dawn, the president-elect addressed the giant nation he is poised to lead for the next four years as president. \"Your vote affirms that you believe Nigeria's future can be better than what it is today,\" Buhari said. \"It is you, Nigerians, that have won. The people have shown the love for our nation and their belief in democracy.\" Buhari's triumph marks the first time an opposition presidential challenger has defeated a sitting president at the ballot box. Thirty years after he seized power in a military coup, Buhari becomes the new leader of a complex, diverse and often divided nation — Africa's biggest democracy, which is battling an insurgency in the northeast. A peaceful transfer of power from one elected leader to another would be another first for Nigeria. This is the fourth time the 72-year-old Muslim northerner has run for president since the end of military rule in Nigeria in 1999. Buhari is a slim, fit, bespectacled, no-nonsense man, who always wears an upright traditional cap. He calls himself a converted, newborn democrat. The man he defeated, Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from the south, took the unprecedented step in Nigeria of calling Buhari before the final results were announced to concede defeat. \"Nobody's ambition is worth the blood of any Nigerian,\" Jonathan said in a statement. \"I promised the country free and fair elections, I have kept my word.\" \"What Jonathan did is commendable,\" says Shehu Sani, a writer, civil society activist and senator-elect from Buhari's opposition APC party. \"His acceptance has seriously helped prevent the outbreak of violence and given a sense of maturity to the transition process.\" The new nickname for Nigeria's new leader is \"the people's general.\" Buhari must be a president for all Nigerians, Sani says, and will have only a short grace period — a maximum of six months — to start delivering on his promises to sweep away corruption and defeat the extremists of Boko Haram. \"These are fundamental issues that Buhari has to tackle immediately, for people to believe that his government is different from the one in the past,\" Sani says. Not everyone remembers Buhari fondly as a military leader in the 1980s. He had the reputation of being tough on indiscipline, jailing those accused of corruption, muzzling the media and punishing people who threw litter on the streets. The Buhari period was also known for human rights abuses. But his supporters, and some of his critics, tend to agree that he did not use the treasury as his personal pocketbook, as many Nigerian leaders have been accused of. Buhari says he is here to serve and to govern — and not to rule. Aisha Birma was among hundreds of Buhari supporters who gathered to celebrate Tuesday evening. She comes from Borno, the state in northeastern Nigeria hardest hit by Boko Haram. Birma says she's prepared to give Nigeria's president-elect the benefit of the doubt regarding his pledges to tackle insecurity. Many voters, like Birma, accuse Jonathan of not taking the insurgency seriously enough, and not doing enough to find the missing more than 200 Chibok schoolgirls abducted nearly a year ago, and accepted Buhari's promise to be tough on Boko Haram. \"What we have gone through — Boko Haram insurgency for the past six years in Borno — and Jonathan was not able to handle it well,\" she says. \"Security is paramount, once you cannot provide security, you cannot talk about anything else.\" That's a warning for Muhammadu Buhari and his vice-president, who are scheduled to be sworn in on May 29. Nigerians are hoping for a smooth and peaceful transition. STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: We have a remarkable story now from Nigeria. For the first time in that country - the first time - an opposition presidential challenger has defeated a sitting president at the ballot box, and the president has conceded. NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton is in Nigeria's capital, Abuja. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) UNIDENTIFIED SUPPORTERS: (Cheering). OFEIBEA QUIST-ARCTON, BYLINE: Celebrations in Abuja, as supporters of Muhammadu Buhari took to the streets in the middle of the night after a long day waiting for election results. It was with these words that Nigeria's election commission chairman, Attahiru Jega, declared the former military leader president-elect of Nigeria. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) ATTAHIRU JEGA: Muhammadu Buhari, having scored the highest number of votes, is hereby declared the winner. (APPLAUS", "Nigeria announced a cease-fire with extremists almost two weeks ago, but the killings, kidnappings and bombings have continued. Nigerians still await the freedom of the schoolgirls abducted in April.", "Health officials in Nigeria are gearing up for a massive emergency polio immunization drive after two children were paralyzed by the disease. The two new polio cases in Nigeria are the first detected on the African continent in more than two years. Nigerian health officials plan to vaccinate nearly 5 million kids across the northeast of the country in an effort to contain this latest outbreak. The re-emergence of polio in Nigeria is a major setback for global efforts to eradicate the disease. Prior to this week, the polio virus appeared to be on the verge of defeat: Afghanistan and Pakistan were the only countries reporting ongoing transmission of the virus. Including these two children who've been paralyzed in Nigeria, there've been only 21 polio cases reported anywhere in the world this year. The two Nigerian cases were found in the volatile northeastern state of Borno along the border with Chad. The area is a stronghold of Boko Haram, which has made routine immunization drives difficult. The terror group has publicly denounced the vaccination campaigns as a Western plot, killed immunizers and made it difficult for government health officials to even enter some parts of the country. Nigeria's health minister, Isaac Adewole, issued a statement saying that the cases were only detected because of a military offensive against the militant Islamist group. \"The discovery and confirmation of the outbreak was as a result of strengthened surveillance due to improved accessibility which has been made possible by the recent military action in liberating more communities in the North-Eastern part of the country,\" according to the statement. Adewole added, \"Our overriding priority right now is to rapidly boost immunity in the affected areas to ensure that no more children are affected by this terrible disease.\" The World Health Organization has also vowed to pour resources into Nigeria to try to make sure the virus is contained in the Nigeria/Chad border region and doesn't regain a foothold in Africa. Nigeria has been the Achilles' heel of polio eradication in Africa in the past. A decade and a half ago, religious leaders in some parts of Nigeria actively denounced polio vaccination as part of a Western plot to sterilize Muslim children. Even as other nations on the continent wiped out polio, Nigeria served as reservoir where the virus survived, sparking outbreaks throughout West Africa as travelers moved throughout the region. Just four years ago, Nigeria accounted for more than half of all the polio cases reported worldwide — 122 of the 223 global cases in 2012. Up until this week it appeared that Nigeria had successfully eliminated polio and was on track to be declared polio-free by the WHO next summer. It takes three years without a case to be eligible for the designation. UNICEF, which has been one of the lead agencies fighting polio in Nigeria, vowed to redouble efforts in the region and \"not stop until we reach every child with polio vaccination.\" AUDIE CORNISH, HOST: In West Africa, a major setback in the global effort to eradicate polio. This week, Nigeria announced two new cases of children paralyzed by the disease, the first cases detected on the African continent in more than two years. Now health officials are gearing up for a massive emergency immunization drive. NPR's Jason Beaubien reports. JASON BEAUBIEN, BYLINE: Health officials plan to vaccinate nearly 5 million kids in the coming months in a series of expanding geographic rings around where the two new cases were discovered. The new polio cases are in Borno State, in the northeast of Nigeria, near the border with Chad. Michel Zaffran, the head of polio eradication at the World Health Organization in Geneva, says this is a blow to the entire global eradication effort. MICHEL ZAFFRAN: The outbreak, of course, is of great concern to Nigeria because there have been two years without a single case of polio. And they are mounting - the national authorities are mounting a very aggressive response to this outbreak that will start as early as next week. BEAUBIEN: Up until this announcement, it appeared that Nigeria had successfully crushed the virus and was on track to be declared polio-free by the WHO. Despite this week's setback, the world has made incredible progress against polio over the last three decades. In 1988, when the global eradication program began, roughly 150,000 cases were being recorded each year in 125 countries. So far this year, there have been only 21 cases, and those have been confined to Pakistan, Afghanistan and now Nigeria. The WHO says these new cases appear to be linked to a strain of the polio virus that was found in northeastern Nigeria in 2012. Zaffran says this is also troubling. ZAFFRAN: If this virus has been circulating undetected for almost four years, there is a risk that many more children have been paralyzed and affected by this virus. BEAUBIEN: The cases are in a volatile part of Nigeria that's been terrorized by Bok", "NPR's Charlayne Hunter-Gault reports on the return to Nigeria of Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka after four years in exile. Soyinka, who won the 1986 Nobel prize for literature, left Nigeria in 1994 during the dictatorship of the late General Sani Abacha. He had been charged in absentia with treason, but after Abacha died in June, his replacement, General Abdulsalam Abubakar, dropped the charges. Abubakar, who has promised a return to democracy next spring, recently met with Soyinka in New York and urged him to return.", "Eighty-four million Nigerians are registered to vote for president in Saturday's elections. But the week's delay of the vote could affect turnout for the next leader of Africa's largest economy.", "Participants in the Women's Learning Partnership for Rights, Development, and Peace, a coalition of non-governmental organizations headed by and for women, met recently in Washington, D.C. Delegates from developing countries -- many from Islamic nations -- compared notes on the struggle to advance women's rights. Founder and CEO Mahnaz Afkhami, a native of Iran, now lives in the United States. She sees women as being in the forefront of the fight for human rights and democracy, particularly in the Muslim world. \"Any sort of progress toward modernism, toward what we consider egalitarian societies, involves the basic structure of the family,\" she says. \"All the arguments for backwardness and fundamentalism really focuses on women.\" The activists face sometimes violent resistance from Islamic fundamentalists. One organization's office in Morocco was firebombed in August. Yet the delegates say women activists increasingly find themselves in a dilemma. As they promote the ideals of democracy, they have to distance themselves from the very word, since \"democracy\" is now associated with unpopular U.S. foreign policy and war in the Middle East. Asma Khader of Jordan says it's possible to work for issues associated with democracy, such as equal rights and full participation in the political process. \"But using the word 'democracy' when it's so close to the war and the military action is not helping the word to be accepted by the majority of the people,\" she says. \"Be nice to America,\" read a banner carried by one delegate... \"Or it will bring democracy to you.\" But the women's groups persevere. A main focus of the Washington conference was a new campaign across seven Arab countries to give equal citizenship rights to women. DEBBIE ELLIOTT, host: From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Debbie Elliott. Women are the vanguard of the battle for human rights around the world; at least that's what delegates to a conference in Washington said this past week. They came from 18 developing countries, mainly in the Muslim world. The activists say they face growing pressure because of Islamic fundamentalism, and because of popular distaste for America's democracy agenda in the Middle East. NPR's Jacki Lyden has our report. JACKI LYDEN: It's called the Women's Learning Partnership for Rights, Development and Peace. This coalition of non-governmental organizations, headed by and for women, meets annually to compare notes and to see how much ground has been won or lost. I'm from Nigeria. LYDEN: And your name? Ms. BUMI DIPO-SALAMI (Women's Learning Partnership for Rights, Development and Peace): My name is Bumi Dipo-Salami. LYDEN: Okay. And your name? Ms. KUKAH ODILIA (Women's Learning Partnership for Rights, Development and Peace): Kukah Odilia. LYDEN: From? Ms. ODILIA: From Cameroon. LYDEN: And. Ms. NILA KHOURA(ph) (Conference Attendee): Nila Khoura from Palestine. LYDEN: Olabunmi Dipo-Salami of Nigeria is the program director for BAOBAB for Women's Human Rights. She gave me a snapshot of progress made in the battle for equality in her native Nigeria. Ms. DIPO-SALAMI: We have more women, at least, now asking for their rights, women seeking redress. The Sharia - when the Sharia came up in Nigeria, we took up the cases of women who were sentenced unjustly. We made sure that justice was served. And yeah, we're taking it one at a time. LYDEN: The founder and CEO of the Women's Learning Partnership is Mahnaz Afkhami, a native of Iran now living in the United States. She served as the minister for Women's Affairs under the Shah. She sees women as being in the forefront of the fight for human rights and democracy, particularly in the Muslim world. Ms. MAHNAZ AFKHAMI (Founder and CEO, Women's Learning Partnership for Rights, Development, and Peace): Any sort of progress toward modernism, toward what we consider egalitarian societies, involves families, involves structures that are the basic units of society, and women are at the center of that. And all the arguments for going back to tradition, for fundamentalist concepts, really focuses itself on women. LYDEN: But Afkhami and the other delegates here say women activists increasingly find themselves in a dilemma. As they promote the ideals of democracy, they have to distance themselves from the very word. Lawyer Asma Khader of Jordan, a former culture minister, explains the predicament. Ms. ASMA KHADER (Lawyer): Of course in principle what we are doing is democratic campaign. It's all about democracy. The problem is the word democracy these days is not so popular in our communities. Using the word democracy these days - when it is so close to the war, and to the military actions, and to the human rights violations, in a way - is not helping the word to be accepted by the majority of people. LYDEN: Another delegate here got a big response to a banner she brought along. It read, Be nice to America or it will bring democracy to you. These women activ", "Ivan Watson in Lagos reports a team of US military advisers has completed the first phase of a program to train Nigerian troops for peacekeeping duty in Sierra Leone. The training is part of a 50-million dollar program announced by President Clinton during a visit to Nigeria last year.", "Unrest continues in Somalia, Zimbabwe has a controversial new U.N. chairperson, and Nigeria launches a high-tech satellite.", "Between 1979 and 1983, Nigeria experienced a handful of watershed moments: an oil boom, the return of democracy after years of military dictatorship, and a lot of money flooding into the country. Creative industries — music in particular — responded in kind, and suddenly Nigeria was the right place to be at the right time for musicians all over Africa. \"There was this notion that Nigeria was a place where you could actually make it,\" says Uchenna Ikonne. \"If you had the right degree, or you came up with the right hustle, you could be living in the fast lane just like all the other big cats.\" Ikonne is the producer of a new compilation called Brand New Wayo: Funk, Fast Times and Nigerian Boogie Badness 1979-1983. The album is a snapshot of the commercial sound that dominated that era in Nigerian music — a slick, modern dance groove, which synthesized elements of afrobeat, disco, jazz and funk. Ikkone tells Weekend All Things Considered host Guy Raz that the album's title is in part a reference to the economic climate in which the music was made. \"'Wayo' means trickery, hustle, swindles. There was this mad rush for wealth at the time,\" he says. \"The '70s in general are often considered an era of excess.\" Not everyone in the country was enjoying such decadence. Ikkone says the distribution of wealth remained unequal, and that oil profits were often grossly mismanaged. But while some artists, most notably Fela Kuti, did address social and political issues in their music, Ikkone says, most preferred to keep the focus on fun. \"On one hand you could say they were scared because they had seen the treatment that Fela had gotten: Fela's house was burned down, his mother was killed, he was beaten, shot at. So a lot of people didn't want to go through that same ordeal,\" says Ikonne. \"At the same time, as you go toward the end of the '70s and into the '80s, [Fela's] music almost became a sideline to his career as a professional eccentric and rabble-rouser. A lot of the musicians who came after just didn't want to get into that.\" In 1983, Nigeria underwent another military coup. Ikonne says that, among other sobering developments, spelled the end of Nigerian boogie's golden age. \"There was a bit of a belt-tightening after 1983, and a return to more conservative values. The flashiness, the flamboyance, the glitziness — all of those things were just swept under the rug by the mid-'80s. You saw religion becoming more of a force in society, taking the place pop music and film and art had held earlier in the decade,\" he says. \"Most of this music has been completely forgotten.\" GUY RAZ, host: Time now for our regular music feature. Today, the golden age of Nigerian boogie. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) (Singing) Hey, man. What is it? It's a brand new (unintelligible). RAZ: Who knew there was a golden age of Nigerian boogie? I certainly didn't until we received a CD in the mail a few weeks ago. And when we stuck it in the player, all the lights at NPR went out and disco balls suddenly dropped from the ceilings. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) RAZ: OK. Maybe that didn't happen. But between 1979 and 1983, that was the golden age in Nigeria. It coincided with an oil boom, the return of democracy and a lot of money flooding into the country. And all of those things made Nigeria the right place to be at the right time for musicians from all over Africa. And a new album compiles some of the best moments in Nigerian boogie and funk. It's called \"Brand New Wayo.\" Uchenna Ikonne is the record's producer, and he joins me from member station WBUR in Boston. Uchenna, welcome to the program. UCHENNA IKONNE: Hello. Thanks. It's a pleasure being here. RAZ: So I mentioned a few of the reasons why there was this explosion of creativity in Nigerian funk and boogie between '79 and '83. Tell me why you think this all happened. IKONNE: Well, what you mentioned, Nigeria was enjoying an oil boom. The '70s in general are often considered an era of excess. I'm not trying to suggest that, you know, every man, woman and child in Nigeria was swimming in pools of gold because the distribution of wealth was still quite unequal, and the oil prophets in general were grossly mismanaged across the board. But there still was this notion that Nigeria was a place where you could actually make it, that if you had the right degree or if you came up with the right business plan or you got into the right hustle that you could be living in the fast lane just like all the other big cats at the time. RAZ: You say the word hustle, by the way, and apparently this song that we're hearing, \"Brand New Wayo,\" the band is called - I love this - Mixed Grill, This song is actually...wayo, I guess, actually means a hustle or like, or a swindle? IKONNE: Yeah, wayo means trickery, hustle, swindle. So there was this mad rush of wealth at the time, and that's what that particular song is commenting on. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, \"BRAND NEW WAYO\") MIXED GRILL MUSIC GROUP: (Singing) (Unintelligible). Y", "Nigeria holds presidential elections Saturday, with a choice between the incumbent and no less than 19 opposition candidates. Violence persists in the fractious nation. Since gaining independence from Britain in 1960, Nigeria has never experienced a successful transition from one civilian administration to another. Jason Beaubien reports.", "Kenneth Walker reports that the Organization of African Unity (OAU) today condemned the Christmas Eve coup in the Ivory Coast and demanded a quick return to constitutional order. South Africa and Nigeria are taking the lead in condemning the military coup. Junta leader Gen. Robert Guei overthrew the elected government of President Henri Konan Bedie in a bloodless coup. Guei accused the former leader of twisting the rules of democracy.", "This morning, human rights activist Rinu Oduala could still hear gunfire outside her house in Lagos, Nigeria. \"I can't even describe it,\" she said, growing emotional. \"It seems like our whole hope is lost.\" Oduala has been on the streets of Nigeria with thousands of other young people for about two weeks now. They had been peacefully protesting for an end to police brutality. But on Monday night and into Tuesday, mobs set multiple police stations on fire. The government declared a curfew for 24 hours in Lagos, saying all protesters had to go home by 4 p.m. local time. (The Lagos government announced later that enforcement of the curfew should not begin until 9 p.m. local time.) Demonstrators were still on streets after 4 p.m. By the time the sun was setting, uniformed security forces opened fire on a huge gathering at Lagos' iconic Lekki bridge. Live streams on Instagram from musicians who had been supporting the protests showed scores injured, and demonstrators trying to tend to each other's wounds and crying for help. In a statement on Twitter, the governor of Lagos, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, said about two dozen people had been injured and at least one person was killed, not from a gunshot wound but from \"blunt for trauma to the head.\" Amnesty International said it had received credible reports that protesters had died during the siege. \"There are no excuses for the unfortunate incident that took place last night, and as the Governor, I apologize for every action & inaction,\" he wrote on Twitter. The attack on protesters was also condemned by human rights groups and the spokesman for the United Nations Secretary-General, who called for an \"end to reported police brutality and abuses.\" Nigeria's president, Muhammadu Buhari, did not address the nation. But Senator Ita Enang, one of his close advisors, went on national television to defend the actions of security forces. He said the government has been trying to accommodate the demands of protesters but that they were also intent on restoring public order. \"We are working hard that the situation doesn't deteriorate and this will be perhaps the last bloodshed,\" he said. Young protesters first took the streets almost two weeks ago after a video showing a brutal police shooting went viral. They demanded the abolition of a notorious and corrupt anti-robbery police squad known as SARS, and days into the protest, Buhari ordered the unit disbanded. But protesters, who had heard similar promises before, said they wanted prosecutions and an end to corruption. So, the protests instead grew into the largest Nigeria has seen since the 1980s, when people took the streets to denounce military rule. On some recent days, Lagos, a metropolis of 14 million people, came to standstill. \"Police brutality was just the trigger for these protests,\" said Cheta Nwanze, a political analyst and lead partner at the consultancy SBM Intelligence. He notes that in the past few years, Nigeria's unemployment rate has skyrocketed to 27 percent; the underemployment rate is just as high. The pandemic then delivered an already ailing oil economy another blow. A huge proportion of young people — many of whom are college educated — have been lingering at home without any prospects. Nwanze says now, it's all boiling over. \"So we have frustration that has built up and has basically come to a head,\" he said. Oduala, the human rights activist, says that as Nigerians from across the country joined the protests, they became about everyone's frustrations. \"It has become so many things for so many Nigerians,\" she said. \"It has become bad governance. It has become unemployment in the country. It has become the government refusing to operate in democracy.\" She said they had hoped these protests could bring about meaningful change in Nigeria. But, now, all of that is gone. The government of Nigeria has said it is ready to draft reforms. But as the sun rose Wednesday on Lagos, anger erupted on the streets. Hordes of young people set the Nigerian Ports Authority building on fire; others ransacked the palace of one of the traditional kings of Lagos. Across the city, cars and federal buildings were set on fire.", "Nigerian authorities say they've detained two men they think may be involved in one of several bombings on Christmas Day. At least 35 people died as they were completing mass at St. Theresa Catholic Church, in a suburb of Nigeria's capital, Abuja. There were more deadly bombings at churches in northern Nigeria and police officers who responded were attacked. The Daily Trust of Abuja reports Boku Haram, a Nigerian Islamist militant group, claimed responsibility in retaliation for attacks on Muslims; their other demands include a suspension of democracy and the country's constitution. The Telegraph says the group is nicknamed the Nigerian Taliban, and is thought to be behind the deaths of at least 500 people this year. That includes a suicide attack last August on a United Nations building in Abuja that killed 23 people and wounded 76. In the days before Christmas, the report says Boko Haram militants are accused of killing more than 60 people. Last year, Boko Haram claimed it carried out five church bombings on Christmas Eve: AP says 32 people died. There isn't much information about the two suspects. Nigerian authorities told Bloomberg only the pair were \"caught in action\" but didn't explain how. Muslim leaders in Nigeria are outraged over the violence, and several spoke to the Daily Trust, calling the Boko Haram attacks on churches \"dastardly\", \"reprehensible\" and even \"satanic\". Several Nigerian Muslim groups issued statements calling for the bombers' quick arrest and punishment. Some Nigerian Christians are worried about a brewing religious war between Muslims, who live mainly in northern Nigeria, and Christians, who live in the south. The northern chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria says if Boko Haram isn't controlled, Christians will take steps to protect themselves, according to Reuters.", "Afghanistan's Loya Jirga, or grand assembly, approves a new constitution for the nation, ending days of debate in Kabul. The accepted plan provides for a presidential system of government and includes guarantees of human and women's rights. NPR's Steve Inskeep talks to <EM>New York Times</EM> reporter Carlotta Gall.", "Iraq's interim government unveils its security and logistics plan for the Jan. 30 election. NPR's Emily Harris reports.", "It's Take 2 for Nigerian voters. Millions head to the polls this weekend to cast ballots for their next president. Election officials delayed the vote last week.", "Lawmakers in Nigeria are debating a change in the constitution that would allow President Olusegun Obasanjo to run for a third term. Renee Montagne talks with Clement Nwankwo, a Nigerian human rights lawyer, about the debate.", "President Bush sets off early next week on his first official trip to Africa. His itinerary calls for visits to some of the continent's biggest success stories: Senegal, South Africa, Botswana, Uganda and Nigeria. He will also encounter some of that continent's most pressing burdens, including AIDS, lawlessness and the struggle for democracy. Hear NPR's Jason Beaubien." ]

[ "the officeholder is generally a civil servant commonly from the indian administrative service and occasionally from the indian foreign service the post is considered one of the most influential in the indian civil services and some principal secretaries are considered more powerful and influential than senior government ministers the prime minister s secretariat pms headed by an officer of the rank of joint secretary to the government of india was established after independence under the prime ministership of jawaharlal nehru as a successor to the office of the governor general of india s secretary lal bahadur shastri appointed lakshmi kant jha an indian civil service officer as his secretary making jha the first secretary to the government of india ranked officer in the pms during indira gandhi s tenure as prime minister the post of principal secretary to the prime minister was created retired indian foreign service officer p n haksar became the first ps to the pm the principal secretary to the prime minister of india acts as the administrative chief of the prime minister s office and as a result wields a significant amount of power over the daily affairs of the government of india the main functions", "in that role haksar was the chief strategist and policy adviser behind his inexperienced prime minister s rise to near absolute power in the mid 1970s after this he was appointed deputy chairman of the planning commission and then the first ever chancellor of new delhi s jawaharlal nehru university an advocate of centralisation and socialism he was a kashmiri pandit who became gandhi s closest confidante in her inner coterie of bureaucrats the so called kashmiri mafia prior to this haksar was a diplomat of the indian foreign service who served as india s ambassador to austria and nigeria haksar was born in 1913 gujranwala now in pakistan in a kashmiri pandit family he studied sanskrit at home and obtained an m sc from allahabad university uttar pradesh he went on to study in the london school of economics as a student of allahabad university he was a resident of mayo hall and made frequent visits to the anand bhawan the house of motilal nehru parmeshwar was a voracious reader of art history and also a connoisseur of paintings during his interlude in london as a student he was influenced by fabian socialism and later become associated with marxists", "his father was considered a staunch politician from the congress party and very close to indira gandhi though they fell out later brajesh mishra joined the indian foreign service in 1951 he served as charg d affaires in beijing after the 1962 sino indian war and was india s ambassador to indonesia he was also ambassador and india s permanent representative in geneva mishra s last posting was as india s permanent representative to the united nations from june 1979 to april 1981 as permanent representative he voiced india s position on the soviet invasion of afghanistan at the sixth emergency special session of the united nations general assembly but his disagreement with that position was part of the reason why he resigned from ifs and joined the united nations in 1981 serving as 6th united nations commissioner for namibia from 1 april 1982 to 1 july 1987 in april 1991 mishra joined the bharatiya janata party and became head of its foreign policy cell he resigned from the party in march 1998 on becoming the 9th principal secretary to the prime minister of india after brajesh mishra the post of principal secretary became such a powerful one that it", "and formerly served as executive director to the world bank and joint secretary at the prime minister s office from 2004 to 2009 he is a 1974 batch indian administrative service officer from uttar pradesh cadre his late father had been chairman of united commercial bank he is an alumnus of st stephen s college delhi by 1981 he was aged 32 and collector of sultanpur in up he moved to the pmo as deputy secretary when rajiv gandhi took over as pm in 1985 he worked at the rajiv gandhi foundation and as officer on special duty to sonia gandhi in 2004 when united progressive alliance came to power he returned to pmo serving as joint secretary to government of india before being promoted as secretary to government of india in 2012 he was awarded the c f andrews distinguished alumni award by the st stephen s college delhi file notings available with india today show that pulok chatterji a senior official in the pmo in 2007 08 was fully aware of a raja s dubious decision making in 2g spectrum case in this note chatterji basically agrees that spectrum can be allotted on payment of normal fees the", "he has also served as the chairperson of the telecom regulatory authority of india telecom secretary of india and fertilizers secretary of india misra has an mpa in public administration from john f kennedy school of government at harvard university and has a postgraduate degrees in chemistry and political science and public administration from the university of allahabad and primary education from deoria up misra served in various positions for both the government of india and the government of uttar pradesh as an ias officer he served in positions such as principal secretary home ii principal secretary to chief minister of uttar pradesh member of uttar pradesh board of revenue chairperson and chief executive officer of greater noida secretary in the now erstwhile department of institutional finance taxation and excise and as a special secretary in the department of finance in the uttar pradesh government and as union telecom secretary and chairperson of telecom commission union fertilizers secretary additional secretary looking after world trade organization affairs in the ministry of commerce and as a joint secretary in department of economic affairs of the ministry of finance in the indian government misra also served as minister economic in india s embassy", "satishchandran served in various key positions for both the government of india and the government of karnataka like as the chief secretary of karnataka secretary industries director industries and as deputy commissioner and district magistrate of districts in the karnataka government and as the union power secretary a secretary in the cabinet secretariat advisor energy in the planning commission director of the national institute of community development and as a director in the now erstwhile ministry of community development in the indian government satishchandran was appointed as the power secretary of india by the appointments committee of the cabinet acc during his tenure as secretary in the now erstwhile ministry of energy satishchandran was elected the president of world energy conference a first for an indian satishchandran was appointed as the chief secretary of karnataka by the chief minister of karnataka he assumed the office of chief secretary in december 1983 and demitted it whilst simultaneously retiring from service in after getting an extension of service from the government of india of six months following a request by the then karnataka chief minister ramakrishna hegde thus serving as the state s top bureaucrat for almost four years after his retirement" ]

[ "k misra born 1932 is a retired indian civil servant social worker writer and a former principal secretary to chandra sekhar the 8th prime minister of india he served as the principal secretary to three chief ministers of haryana and is a former secretary at the ministries of tourism civil aviation and agriculture he is one of the founders of motilal nehru school of sports rai and the founder chairman of indian trust for rural heritage and development the government of india awarded him the third highest civilian honour of the padma bhushan in 2009 for his contributions to indian civil service born in the indian state of uttar pradesh in 1932 misra secured a master s degree from allahabad university and started his career as a member of faculty at his alma mater before joining the indian administrative service in 1956 his civil service started with a posting at patiala and east punjab states union pepsu and later he moved to hisar as the deputy commissioner when bansi lal became the third chief minister of haryana in 1968 misra was appointed as his principal secretary and he held the post till 1975 when he moved to union government as", "the holder of this office is traditionally the head of the prime minister s office in the civil service the role is currently graded as a director general in fiction the character of bernard woolley in the television series yes prime minister occupied this post the current principal private secretary is peter hill who was appointed by theresa may on 10 may 2017 during tony blair s administration he modified the law under which the civil service operated to create the role of downing street chief of staff which though held by a political advisor outranked the principal private secretary when gordon brown ascended to office he reversed the change to the civil service law when david cameron became prime minister he promoted the then pps to a new post of permanent secretary downing street a position which took over heading the prime minister s office in 2012 the postholder jeremy heywood was appointed as cabinet secretary this post ceased to exist and the role of civil service head of the office reverted to the principal private secretary", "he currently serves as the chief information commissioner of uttar pradesh he was the chief secretary to the government of uttar pradesh from march 2012 to may 2014 usmani has an mba from the indian institute of management ahmedabad and an msc in social policy and planning from the london school of economics usmani is an officer of the 1978 batch of the indian administrative service ias belonging to the uttar pradesh cadre prior to appointment as chief secretary of uttar pradesh he worked in different capacities in the government of india including as joint secretary to the prime minister in the international arena usmani was senior advisor to the executive director at the world bank in washington d c and minister economic cooperation at the embassy of india in nepal usmani s key assignments in the state government included principal secretary to the chief minister special secretary to the chief minister managing director and ceo of up state cement corporation and district magistrate and collector of gorakhpur and bulandshahr districts after his removal from the post of chief secretary of uttar pradesh government usmani served as the chairman of uttar pradesh board of revenue usmani took voluntary retirement vrs", "he was the finance secretary of india for three months he was appointed as the member of fifteenth finance commission of india in place of shaktikanta das jha has ba honours and ma in history from st stephen s college at university of delhi a postgraduate degree in executive development from john f kennedy school of government at harvard university and has a certificate in french jha has served in various key positions for both the government of india and the government of manipur like as principal secretary finance principal secretary environment and forests chairman of manipur renewable energy development agency mreda principal secretary to the chief minister of manipur secretary to the governor of manipur and as the deputy commissioner and district magistrate of ukhrul and churachandpur districts in the manipur government and as union expenditure secretary union environment forests and climate change secretary special secretary in department of expenditure of the ministry of finance joint secretary and financial adviser in department of higher education of the ministry of human resources development and as joint secretary and financial adviser in ministry of law and justice jha also served as consultant to united nations economic and social commission for asia", "it is considered to be a right wing think tank closely aligned with the government of india the vivekananda international foundation describes itself as an independent non partisan institution that promotes quality research and in depth studies the foundation was established in december 2009 at a site in new delhi s chanakyapuri allotted by the p v narasimha rao government in 1993 ajit doval who retired as the director of the intelligence bureau in 2005 devoted his energies into building the organisation and became its founder director the foundation made news in 2011 2012 when it was said to be instrumental in bringing together anna hazare arvind kejriwal and kiran bedi along with baba ramdev to form the team anna in 2014 its director ajit doval was appointed by the prime minister narendra modi as india s national security advisor the prime minister s principal secretary nripendra misra and the additional principal secretary p k mishra were also recruited from the foundation s staff the prime minister modi is said to have been following the foundation for some time and is impressed with its work the foundation states that it has no formal organisational links with the rss or the", "achal kumar jyoti served as one of the election commissioners in the election commission of india before his appointment as the chief election commissioner of india he has also served in key positions for both gujarat and union governments like as the chief secretary of gujarat additional chief secretary general administration principal secretary finance managing director of sardar sarovar narmada nigam secretary industries secretary revenue secretary water supplies and as the district magistrate and collector of kheda panchmahals surendranagar districts in gujarat government and as the chairman of kandla port trust in the union government during the gujarat assembly elections that were held in december 2017 the election commission of india eci issued a notice to rahul gandhi for violating the model code of conduct by appearing for an interview with a gujarati news channel while the indian national congress claimed that eci ignored the sitting prime minister narendra modi along with amit shah bjp party chief and arun jaitley finance minister for violating code of conduct on several occasions", "he was considered as a candidate for the post of the president of india in 2002 during his time in maharashtra he had additional charge of goa from 1996 to 1998 he was also a member of the rajya sabha representing maharashtra as an independent candidate from 29 july 2002 to 2 april 2008 his career included extended stints with the united nations and india s ministry of commerce and his high profile appointment as the powerful principal secretary to the prime minister of india during indira gandhi he also served as the indian high commissioner to the court of st james s his autobiography is through the corridors of power his other works include my years with indira gandhi the perils of democracy and india in the new millennium p c alexander studied at bishop hodges higher secondary school took his post graduate degree in history and economics from the university of travancore now university of kerala during this period he also remained president travancore university students union later he received m litt and d litt degrees by research from the annamalai university before joining the indian administrative service he was a maternal grandson from the famed polachirackal family", "serving from 1951 to 1956 he was associated with prime ministers clement attlee winston churchill and anthony eden with his colleague jock colville he was one of churchill s last two principal private secretaries at 10 downing street david pitblado born in london in august 1912 attended strand school and then matriculated at emmanuel college cambridge he chose the civil service as a career and was named assistant private secretary to the secretary of state for dominion affairs in 1937 he joined the war cabinet office in 1942 and became an undersecretary for economic planning in the treasury in 1949 his career trajectory continued and he became the principal private secretary to the prime minister clement attlee in 1951 his service for attlee was brief as the labour prime minister did not retain his majority in the 1951 general election pitblado continued his service to attlee s replacement winston churchill during churchill s third government in 1951 1955 the prime minister enjoyed uncertain health the office of principal private secretary to 10 downing street was thus of greater importance than usual and the government made use of two principal private secretaries pitblado informally specialized in home and internal affairs and", "it was established by the former prime minister of india atal bihari vajpayee on 19 november 1998 with brajesh mishra as the first national security advisor prior to the formation of the nsc these activities were overseen by the principal secretary to the preceding prime minister besides the national security advisor nsa the deputy national security advisors dy nsa the ministers of defence external affairs home finance of the government of india and the vice chairman of the niti aayog are members of the national security council other members may be invited to attend its monthly meetings as and when it is required the nsc is the apex body of the three tiered structure of the national security management system in india the other two tiers are the strategic policy group and the national security advisory board the strategic policy group is the first level of the three tier structure of the national security council it forms the nucleus of the decision making apparatus of the nsc earlier cabinet secretary was its chairman but now national security advisor is the chairman of the group and it consists of the following members the strategic policy group undertakes the strategic defence review", "in june 2016 he was re appointed as principal secretary and his tenure co terminus with that of chief minister of west bengal he previously served as secretary to chief minister of west bengal from 2011 to 2015 he also previously served as joint secretary to government of india he is a 1978 batch central secretariat service officer sanyal joined the central secretariat service in 1976 after qualifying through the civil services examination he rose through ranks and was later empanelled as joint secretary to government of india in ministry of food processing industries on june 2009 by the appointments committee of the cabinet he was also the board member of the food safety and standards authority of india he later served as officer on special duty to union cabinet minister of railways from 2009 to 2011 he retired in 2011 after retirement from the central government he was appointed as secretary to the chief minister of west bengal his appointment and tenure to the post was made co terminous with that of the chief minister he is the first non indian administrative service officer in west bengal and the first retired civil servant to hold the position of secretary", "she joined congress at the initiative of rajiv gandhi the late prime minister of india whom she met at a social event in delhi as a parliamentarian her crowning achievement was reviving the nabinagar super thermal power project which her father in law and veteran bihar leader late satyendra narayan singh affectionately called as chhote saheb had conceived in 1989 as the then chief minister of bihar shyama singh was also the vice president of the bihar pradesh congress committee she is daughter of indian civil service officer sir t p singh who had also served as independent india s first finance secretary and her mother madhuri singh has been a two term member of parliament from purnea she completed her school education from patna thereafter she graduated in history from indraprastha college for women her elder brother is former bureaucrat and rajya sabha mp n k singh a 1964 batch ias officer of the bihar cadre who has served as india s revenue secretary and also principal secretary to the prime minister her younger brother uday singh also twice represented the purnea lok sabha constituency of bihar in lok sabha her father in law and former bihar chief minister", "27 july 1968 is a senior indian bureaucrat of additional secretary rank from the 1991 batch of indian administrative service she is currently posted as principal secretary cum managing director of the tamil nadu small tea growers industrial cooperative tea factories federation limited indcoserve in coonoor earlier sahu served as the director general of doordarshan between july 2016 to september 2017 her appointment as head of doordarshan was cleared by the appointments committee of the cabinet chaired by the prime minister narendra modi she was also the co vice president of asian broadcasting union and was elected to the post at the 55th general assembly of abu earlier she worked as a joint secretary ministry of information broadcasting government of india before central deputation she served as additional collector of vellore district and managing director tamil nadu state aids control society tansacs on 25 october 2016 she was elected as the new vice president of the asia pacific broadcasting union in february 2016 she was selected by prasar bharati india s public service broadcaster to be the director general of state broadcaster doordarshan after which the broadcaster had recommended her name to the information broadcasting i b ministry for approval", "the department of legal affairs is concerned with advising the various ministries of the central government while the legislative department is concerned with drafting of principal legislation for the central government the ministry is headed by a cabinet rank minister appointed by the president of india on the recommendation of the prime minister of india the first law and justice minister of independent india was b r ambedkar who served in prime minister jawaharlal nehru s cabinet during 1947 52 ravi shankar prasad is the current minister for law and justice in india ministry of law and justice is the oldest limb of the government of india dating back to 1833 when the charter act 1833 was enacted by the british parliament when india was under british control the said act vested for the first time legislative power in a single authority namely the governor general in council by virtue of this authority and the authority vested under him under section 22 of the indian councils act 1861 the governor general in council enacted laws for the country from 1834 to 1920 after the commencement of the government of india act 1919 the legislative power was exercised by the indian", "it is a central civil service as foreign policy is the subject matter and prerogative of union government the ambassador high commissioner consul general permanent representative of india to the united nations and foreign secretary are some of the offices held by the members of this service the administrative head of the service is the foreign secretary and the political head of the service is the external affairs minister the service is entrusted to conduct diplomacy and manage foreign relations of india it is the body of career diplomats serving in more than 162 indian diplomatic missions and international organisations around the world in addition they serve at the headquarters of the ministry of external affairs in delhi and the prime minister s office they also head the regional passport offices throughout the country and hold positions in the president s secretariat and several ministries on deputation foreign secretary of india is the administrative head of the indian foreign service ifs was created by the government of india in october 1946 through a cabinet note but its roots can be traced back to the british raj when the foreign department was created to conduct business with the foreign european powers", "in several countries the position has been re designated as assistant minister in the parliamentary systems of several commonwealth countries such as the united kingdom canada australia and india it is customary for the prime minister to appoint parliamentary secretaries from his or her political party in parliament to assist cabinet ministers with their work the role of parliamentary secretaries has varied under different prime ministers originally the post was used as a training ground for future ministers in the united kingdom parliamentary secretary in full usually parliamentary under secretary of state in those departments headed by a secretary of state is the third level of government minister below minister of state and secretary of state or another minister of secretary of state rank such as the chancellor of the exchequer not all departments have all three levels of minister a parliamentary private secretary pps on the other hand is a member of parliament who acts as an unpaid assistant to an individual minister but has no ministerial role although is expected to support the government at all times during jean chr tien s term as prime minister of canada parliamentary secretaries were set to two year terms and the", "cleverly was educated at rugby school and magdalen college oxford following the outbreak of the first world war he saw active service in india and mesopotamia between 1914 and 1919 after the war he entered the british civil service where he worked at the war office between 1919 and 1935 in 1935 he was appointed private secretary and then principal private secretary to the prime minister in this capacity he served the british prime ministers stanley baldwin and neville chamberlain between 1935 and 1939 he served as deputy secretary in the ministry of supply in the early years of the second world war between 1939 and 1941 from 1941 to 1952 he was commissioner of crown lands and was called out of retirement to fill the role between 1954 and 1955 after the crichel down affair cleverly married priscilla simpson daughter of prof frederick moore simpson in 1920 with whom he had two sons and a daughter he was awarded his knighthood in 1951 he died on 21 october 1966 with his funeral held at st james s church in shere surrey", "he served as defence secretary of india and prior to that as union road transport and highways secretary and the chief secretary of west bengal mitra also served on an acting basis as the chairperson of the defence research and development organisation for a period of three months mitra holds bachelor of science and master of science degrees in physics a postgraduate degree in economics and a master of public administration in public administration from the john f kennedy school of government at harvard university mitra has served in various positions for both the government of india and the government of west bengal such as the chief secretary of west bengal principal secretary health and family welfare chairman and managing director of the grid corporation of odisha chairperson and managing director of the orissa thermal power corporation on deputation to odisha cadre resident commissioner of west bengal and as the district magistrate and collector of the north 24 parganas district in the west bengal government and as the union road transport secretary joint secretary in the prime minister s office and as a deputy secretary in the ministry of rural development in the indian government mitra also served as a", "mathai 1909 1981 was the private secretary to india s first prime ministerjawaharlal nehru mathai worked with the united states army in india before becoming the secretary to nehru in 1946 he resigned in 1959 following communist allegations of misuse of power and spying despite the allegations nehru maintained contact with him he published his controversial memoirs in reminiscences of the nehru age 1978 and my days with nehru 1979 when indira gandhi went out of power in 1977 one of mathai s letters uo no d s13170 of 2 december 1954 dug out by the delhi based non profit trust mission netaji had become controversial in 2006 the letter indicated that the ashes of netaji subhas chandra bose were received in india in the 1950s this information is contradictory to the indian government s opinion that bose s ashes are kept in renkoji temple in japan mathai died in 1981 of a heart attack in madras at the age of 72 years m o mac mathai a native malayalam speaker was born in what is now called kerala his parents lived in travancore he was a madras university graduate working in assam when he wrote to nehru soon after", "modi yc modi is the current director general chief of the national investigation agency nia of india a 1984 batch officer of the assam meghalaya cadre y c modi has over 33 years of experience in the indian police service ips he was designated the director general of the nia on october 30 2017 and will hold the position till his superannuation on may 31 2021 the director general is highest ranking agency executive in the nia appointed by central federal government of india and y c modi is the 3rd person to hold this post after radha vinod raju and sharad kumar y c modi worked with the central bureau of investigation cbi for a period of around 10 years in two stints 2002 2010 and 2015 2017 where he handled special crime and economic offences besides anti corruption cases from 1991 2002 he worked with cabinet secretariat of india and did various postings including one outside india in the states of assam and meghalaya he was posted as sdpo distt s p dig range and additional director general of police law order prior to joining the nia on promotion he was working as additional director cbi and new", "he was the foreign secretary of india from 1999 2000 and indian ambassador to the united states from 2001 2004 prior to this he was indian high commissioner to the united kingdom from 1998 99 lalit mansingh is the son of odia poet and educationist mayadhar mansingh mansingh was born and brought up in odisha as the middle son of odia poet mayadhar mansingh he was born at nandala in puri district of odisha he graduated with a master s degree in political science receiving a gold medal for being top of the class he was a research scholar and faculty for short period in american studies programme at the school of international studies in jawaharlal nehru university new delhi he was married to odissi dancer sonal mansingh but the couple decided to divorce later lalit mansingh has remained a lecturer in the post graduate department of political science utkal university in bhubaneswar odisha he joined indian foreign service ifs officer in june 1963 and was the topper of his batch he became high commissioner to nigeria 1993 95 and ambassador to the united arab emirates 1980 83 and in nigeria with concurrent accreditation to benin chad and the cameroons", "n vohra is a retired 1959batch indian administrative service ias officer of punjab cadre who was the 12thgovernor of the indian state of jammu and kashmir he was the first civilian governor of jammu and kashmir in eighteenyears after jagmohan as an ias officer vohra has also served as principal secretary to the prime minister of india home secretary of india defence secretary of india and defence production secretary of india from february2003 until he became the governor of the state vohra had been the government of india s interlocutor in jammu and kashmir he was awarded india s second highest civilian honour the padma vibhushan for his contributors to the field civil service in 2007 vohra is a postgraduate ma and topper in english from panjab university vohra also was a visiting fellow at queen elizabeth house university of oxford before being appointed an ias officer vohra served as lecturer in the panjab university vohra served in key positions for both the government of india and the government of punjab such as secretary home commissioner and secretary industries finance commissioner commissioner urban development secretary urban development punjab s labour commissioner director information and as director panchayati raj in the", "depending on what level of politician the official works for they will be assisted by one or more assistants and or deputy secretaries or even head a whole office in which those may be section chiefs a junior minister may have a two person private office consisting of a private secretary and an assistant private secretary whereas a cabinet secretary may have a five person private office consisting of a private secretary two deputy private secretaries and two assistant private secretaries the same applies to the prime minister s private office but on a much larger scale where the private secretary is a member of the senior civil service he or she will be referred to as a principal private secretary making the order of precedence principal private secretary senior private secretary rarely now in existence private secretary and assistant private secretary aps a similar role to a principal private secretary in the united states administration would be a chief of staff the private secretary is the principal link between a government minister and officials in the department or ministry he or she has overall responsibility for coordinating the development of the minister s policy remit ensuring that the aims", "prior to this he served as foreign secretary of india from 1 august 2011 to 31 july 2013 ranjan mathai was born in thiruvalla kerala india he did his post graduate studies in political science at the university of pune his father thomas mathai was a senior faculty member at the national defence academy his mother sara was a teacher at khadakvasla pune ranjan mathai is a 1974 batch indian foreign service officer ranjan mathai former foreign secretary of india has taken over as india s next high commissioner to the uk on monday 9 december 2013 he succeeds jaimini bhagwati who retired recently he was the foreign secretary for india prior to this position on 31 july 2013 he demitted office and sujatha singh took over as the new foreign secretary he joined the ifs after completing post graduate studies in political science at the university of poona he has served in indian embassies in vienna colombo washington tehran and brussels as joint secretary bsm in the ministry of external affairs in new delhi january 1995 to february 1998 he headed the division dealing with india s relations with bangladesh sri lanka myanmar and maldives mathai has also served", "one of the senior most officers in the union cabinet the chief responsibility of the home minister is the maintenance of india s internal security the country s large police force comes under its jurisdiction occasionally he she is assisted by the minister of state of home affairs and the lower ranked deputy minister of home affairs ever since the time of independent india s first home minister sardar vallabhbhai patel the office has been seen as second in seniority only to the prime minister in the union cabinet like patel several home ministers have since held the additional portfolio of deputy prime minister as of february 2018 three home ministers have gone on to become the prime minister who are lal bahadur shastri charan singh and p v narasimha rao l k advani serving from 19 march 1998 to 22 may 2004 has held the office of the home minister for the longest continuous period as of 25 january 2019 from 26 may 2014 to 30 may 2019 the home minister of india was rajnath singh of the bharatiya janta party taking over the reins from sushilkumar shinde on 31 may 2019 following the swearing in of the second", "khan is a senior indian information service officer of government of india currently serving as director general press registrar and head of department registrar of newspapers for india prior to his current assignment he served as the director general of doordarshan news for over 3 years khan a 1982 batch iis officer had a long innings with cbi as its spokesperson and press secretary to then president of india a p j abdul kalam mr khan has recently been appointed as director of jamia hamdard residential coaching academy and will provide guidance to the aspirants preparing for civil service khan hails from town khurja in uttar pradesh he belongs to a family of lawyers he studied law for his graduation and pursued llm from aligarh university he was awarded the chancellors gold medal for topping the entire university he later went to university of wales for a degree in economics during his nearly 13 years service in central bureau of investigation india s premier investigation agency khan was the face of the agency appearing regularly on national and international media which at that time had been handling several high profile cases including harshad mehta finance scam rajiv gandhi assassination bofors", "he was principal private secretary to the prime minister from 2012 to 2015 martin was born on 15 may 1973 in west bromwich black country england he was educated at his local comprehensive school and at sixth form college he studied physics at the university of bristol before switching to a degree in politics and graduated in 1996 after graduating from university martin took the civil service fast stream entrance exam he came top and chose to join hm treasury for what would be the last months of kenneth clarke s tenure under brown martin took a number of roles including being seconded to the security service mi5 he eventually served as brown s press secretary remaining in post serving alistair darling when he replaced him as the chancellor of the exchequer he held board level jobs at the treasury and a cabinet office agency in january 2010 martin moved to the cabinet office and was appointed deputy to the cabinet secretary then sir gus o donnell in december 2011 he was appointed the principal private secretary to the prime minister and director general of the prime minister s office in the 2014 queen s birthday honours martin was appointed", "he was elevated to cabinet minister position on 3 september 2017 he is currently a member of parliament for rajya sabha from the state of maharashtra and and the deputy leader of rajya sabha he was earlier the national treasurer of the bharatiya janata party bjp he headed the bjp s information communication campaign committee and oversaw the publicity and advertising campaign of the party including the social media outreach for the indian general elections 2014 goyal is the 2018 carnot prize recipient for distinguished contributions to energy policy piyush goyal has been allocated the cabinet ministry for narendra modi led nda government in may 2019 he is currently taking charge as minister of railways and minister of commerce and industry goyal was born in bombay to chandrakanta goyal and ved prakash goyal his mother was a three time bharatiya janata party bjp member of legislative assembly mla from maharashtra and his father served as the union minister for shipping in the third vajpayee ministry from 2001 to 2003 his father also served as the national treasurer of the bjp for over two decades piyush goyal has had a strong academic record all india second rank holder chartered accountant and", "it is commonly referred to as or simply located at 2 3 1 nagata ch chiyoda ku tokyo 100 8968 it is diagonally adjacent to the national diet building the new residence went into service in april 2002 and replaced the former residence built in 1929 the former residence is now known as the the official prime minister s residential quarters the term kantei is used as a metonym for the office of the prime minister of japan and for the prime minister s advisors and administration in general in addition to the prime minister s official residence being the principal office of the prime minister the chief cabinet secretary and the deputy cabinet secretaries perform their daily duties it is also the place where important cabinet meetings take place where foreign leaders are welcomed and entertained and is also the location of a national crisis management center the prime minister s official residence is called also known as the the or simply the the residential quarters is called with the evolution of a national parliament after the meiji restoration and the establishment of the post of prime minister of japan in 1885 the need for an official prime ministerial", "split over three seven episode series it was first transmitted on bbc2 from 1980 to 1984 a sequel yes prime minister lasted 16 episodes and ran from 1986 to 1988 all but one of the episodes lasted half an hour and almost all ended with a variation of the title of the series spoken as the answer to a question posed by minister later prime minister jim hacker several episodes were adapted for bbc radio the series also spawned a 2010 stage play that led to a new television series on gold in 2013 set principally in the private office of a british cabinet minister in the fictional department of administrative affairs in whitehall yes minister follows the ministerial career of jim hacker played by paul eddington his various struggles to formulate and enact policy or effect departmental changes are opposed by the british civil service in particular his permanent secretary sir humphrey appleby played by sir nigel hawthorne his principal private secretary bernard woolley played by derek fowlds is usually caught between the two the sequel yes prime minister continued with the same cast and followed jim hacker after his unexpected elevation to number 10 upon the resignation of", "he is a former secretary general of rajya sabha he also served as the defence secretary of india chief secretary of uttar pradesh surface transport secretary of india he is the current chancellor of hemwati nandan bahuguna garhwal university hnbgu situated in pauri garhwal district of uttrakhand from 2007 to 2017 he was serving as director at reliance power and reliance infrastructure yogendra narain holds a diploma in development economics he is also a graduate bsc in physical chemistry and a postgraduate ma in political science he also holds mphil and phd degrees yogendra narain served in various key positions for both the government of india and the government of uttar pradesh like as the chief secretary of uttar pradesh first chairman of greater noida principal secretary information principal secretary to the chief minister of uttar pradesh principal secretary to the governor of uttar pradesh secretary power and irrigation and as the district magistrate and collector of lucknow and muzaffarnagar districts in the government of uttar pradesh and as the union defence secretary union surface transport secretary first chairman of national highways authority of india and as the joint secretary ports in the ministry of surface transport in the union", "each portfolio is led by one or more government ministers who are members of the parliament of australia appointed by the governor general of australia on the advice of the prime minister the agencies are principally grouped into 18 principal departments each led by a secretary director general or similarly titled executive officer and comprising a number of portfolios covering specific policy areas across the department and allocated statutory authorities trading enterprises boards councils and other public bodies agencies have varying levels of operational autonomy and deliver one or more of frontline public services administrative functions and law enforcement some are structured as for profit corporations where there are multiple portfolios within a department the secretary may be accountable to a number of ministers the current government is led by prime minister scott morrison the leader of the liberal party of australia in coalition with the national party of australia led by michael mccormack which was sworn in by the governor general on 18 september 2013 the government changed the structure and portfolios of a number of agencies on 18 september 2013 an administrative arrangements order was issued by the governor general on the recommendation of the prime minister tony", "parthasarathy in tamili born 13 may 1940 is an indian diplomat and author he was ambassador of india to myanmar 1992 95 high commissioner of india to australia 1995 98 high commissioner of india to pakistan 1998 2000 and high commissioner of india cyprus 1990 92 later he was the spokesperson of the ministry of external affairs and the prime minister s office he graduated with a b e degree in electrical engineering from the college of engineering guindy madras now chennai in 1962 he has two daughters he is not related to gopalaswami aiyangar who drafted article 370 on kashmir upon nehru s suggestion see the note about disambiguation above for further information he started his career as a commissioned officer in the indian army 1963 1968 subsequently he joined the indian foreign service on 29 july 1968 and his first diplomatic assignment was as third secretary in the embassy of india in moscow from august 1970 for years he was known in the corridors of south block secretariat building as chotta gp chotta is hindi for small to distinguish him from his namesake g parthasarathy one of india s tallest diplomats who served as india s high commissioner" ]

[ "The most likely reason is because tRNAs have something called a wobble base in their anticodon. Basically RNA codon base 1 & 2 pair according to Watson-crick base pairing but base 3 is the wobble base. The 16S RNA in the 30S ribosomal subunit doesn’t have a way to check if the 3rd codon base is paired according to Watson-crick base pairing. This means this position can have greater variation in its base pairing. Consequently a change in codon base 3 is more likely to produce the same amino acid sequence than a change in base 1 or 2. This is because the same tRNA will be able to bind as long as position 1 and 2 are the same. Whereas a change is base 1 or 2 means that the codon is more likely to pair a different tRNA and therefore change the amino acid sequence." ]

[ "The code in the DNA is transcribed into its complementary mRNA transcript, and is then translated into an amino acid chain with the help of tRNA. The mRNA transcript is read in 3 base-long blocks called codons that have complementary anticodons in tRNA. tRNA molecules carry specific amino acids and so by matching up the codons and anticodons in mRNA and tRNA you make a specific amino acid chain. Changes in the DNA results in changes in the mRNA which can result in changes in the amino acid sequence which can result in changes in the protein. Your 'normal' DNA codes for Threonine-Cysteine-Isoleucine and your 'mutated' DNA codes for Threonine-Leucine-Histidine.", "One strong piece of evidence is the conservation of the genetic code's 3-nucleotide codon - the 'code' by which DNA is translated into proteins. Three bases specify an amino acid. C, then A, then G, for example, is code for the amino acid Glutamine. There are 64 possible base combinations to code for the 20 amino acids used in protein synthesis. With few exceptions, *every single living thing* uses the exact same code to produce the exact same amino acids. You use the same code as an e. coli bacterium. The odds of two separate trees of life independently developing this precise mechanism are pretty thin.", "Base paring has nothing to do with the information encoded in DNA, base-pairing is only relevant in how DNA can form complementary strands and make a stable double helix. DNA's information is in the form of codons. 3 bases code for an amino acid. There are 21 potential amino acids. 4 x 4 x 4 = 64 possible combinations allow for the coding of all 21 amino acids. (Hence why codons are 3 bases long, 2 bases = 16 which is less than 21.) If DNA had only 2 base pairs, codons would have to be 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 32, 5 bases long. 5 bases per codon would thus be inefficient. You would need more DNA to get anything done. 4 bases, 3 bases per codon, just works better than binary.", "Interestingly, AUG is actually not the only start codon, though it is by far the most popular. [Alternative start codons](_URL_0_) include GUG and UUG. The most interesting thing is that these alternative codons are still translated as Met, regardless of what they typically code for, by using a special start codon tRNA. So, we come back to the same question: why Met? As far as I can tell, nobody really knows.", "> Alternate start codons (non ATG) are very rare in eukaryote's nuclear genome. Mitochondrial genomes and prokaryotes use alternate start codons more significantly (mainly GUG and UUG). For example E. coli uses 83% ATG (AUG), 14% GTG (GUG), 3% TTG (UUG) and one or two others (e.g., ATT and CTG). Bioinformatics programs usually allow for alternate start codons when searching for protein coding genes. > > Note that these alternate start codons are still translated as Met when they are at the start of a protein (even if the codon encodes a different amino acid otherwise). This is because a separate tRNA is used for initiation. > > Well-known coding regions that do not have ATG initiation codons are those of lacI (CTG) and lacA (TTG) in the E. coli lac operon. [from wiki](_URL_0_)", "There are transfer RNA molecules which have 3 base pairs which complement the codons in the DNA. Each transfer RNA of a particular codon is only able to carry one specific amino acid because of the arrangement of bonds and polarity, etc. The ribosome doesn't \"know\" anything, it's just that the chemistry of transfer RNA is highly specific.", "DNA codes for protiens (among other things). Certain combinations of DNA molecules in sequences (codons) specify certain amino acid sequences when protiens are being formed. I'm not sure what you're question is but it sounds like you are asking when did DNA start coding for protiens, which happened over a billion years ago in the first living things. You might ask the question \"what is the biochemical reason that certain codons correspond to certian amino acids?\". Someone with more knowledge in biochemistry could more appropriately answer this question, which I do not know the answer to.", "If you look at the [codon table](_URL_3_), you can see that single nucleotide changes can switch the amino acid quite dramatically - either encoding a new amino acid that is very structurally different (eg CAU - > CAA [histidine](_URL_0_) - > [glutamate](_URL_1_)), or even prematurely terminate a peptide via a stop codon. So the array of potential changes is vast. As an aside, note that there is some redundancy - for example, all codons starting with GG_ result in glycine. This sort of thing helps reduce the impact of point mutations *to some degree*. A classic example of a point mutation resulting in serious disease is [cystic fibrosis](_URL_5_) - the [ΔF508](_URL_4_) (deletion of the phenylalanine at position 508) is responsible for most cases of the disease. [List of other examples of point mutation disease here.](_URL_6_) [More visual/graphic representation here.](_URL_2_) Edit: doh, see comments below re: dF508 NOT being a point mutation. Major brainfart there, thanks to those that caught it.", "It's backwards. Codons evolved to represent the 20+ amino acids. Although there are 64 codons, many are duplicates, coding for the same amino acid. There's no such thing as \"foreign\" amino acids becoming integrated into our cells as it's impossible to code them by the existing coding scheme. Even if you somehow brought alien amino acids to earth, they would go unused as protein build blocks.", "It just kinda sits around. The transcription bubble is only 8-10 bases long and it moves really fast so the bases aren't unpaired for too long. Sometimes, and especially in organisms with really small genomes such as viruses, both strands code for genes. But the start codons, promoters, etc are in different places and the transcription bubble only moves in the 3' to 5' direction so under normal conditions you'll only transcribe the gene you actually want.", "Very very short: You are a computerscientist? So simply said, DNA encodes a certain protein using 4 bases. So a language using only 4 letters. Almost every 3 letter combination (called codon) encodes for a certain amino acid (building block of proteins). There's a certain process that copies the information encoded on the DNA to RNA (what biologists call transcription), its pretty much parsing the information to another data type so that it can be compiled to amino acids (called translation). Now the amino acid chain/sequence is a certain protein/peptide. These determine everything. I feel like going to really explain this well, some basic knowledge in cell biology is needed hmm.", "Maybe to explain it on this example... Ok so proteins are coded by genes, sequences of ATGC nucleic acids in DNA. Now every amino acid (that is building block of proteins) is coded by 3 nucleic acids in DNA. Different amino acids have different properties, and protein with just 1 amino acid different from another protein can have a totally different structure in space - it could be folded differently. By this it's function could be changed or diminished etc. So, theoretically, we have two versions of same gene with for example one tiny mutation. It happens that tiny mutation is in protein coding region, so different alleles make different proteins - different outcomes, phenotypes.", "You are on the right track with your questions - [the ribosome does stall if the correct tRNA is not bound](_URL_0_). Stalling for too long [causes the ribosome to terminate translation](_URL_1_). The one point I'd correct is that the 3 sites in the codon complement the anticodon on tRNA as a unit, so only one amino acid is brought in per codon.", "It's actually not that 'little' of code, if you want to look at it that way. The human genome consists of over 3 billion base pairs - and while we can consider only about 15% of those base pairs to directly code for proteins, the other 85% are slowly being determined to control other things (like protein interactions, stress interactions, cancer etc.) Broadly speaking, the human genome isn't even as 'compressed' as some other species - bacteria often have multiple proteins that can be coded for by one gene. Also, remember that most proteins do multiple functions. That is, they may have a basic function, but it may be useful in many of the situations you mentioned above. There actually really isn't any compression for the human genome (as far as I know, please correct me if I'm wrong, somebody), because all base-pairs code 3:1 (in other words, 3 base pairs for every 1 amino acid in a protein chain), so there can be no compression.", "Amino acids can be post-translationally be modified, so there is a large variety in that area. Also, the 21 (not 20) \"standard\" amino acids are commonly found in eukaryotes. Prokaryotes (bacteria and such) also have other amino acids like selocysteine and pyrrolysine.", "If there are only 26 letters in the alphabet why are there so many different books? There are four nucleotides used in the DNA code. Three in a row code for one of the amino acids, There are just over 20 amino acids. Chains of amino acids are assembled. They are folded into proteins. The proteins are what make us alive. The DNA code makes up genes. Almost all of our genes are the same. But some are different. If those with one gene have more children then evolution happens.", "Not only is it possible, it is necessary for life! Thymine is just uracil with a methyl group on it, and is usually called [5-methyl-uracil or ribothymidine](_URL_1_) when it is incorporated in RNA. 5-methyl-uracil is used in both rRNA (the RNA which helps join amino-acids together) and tRNA (the RNA which carries and labels amino-acids for use by ribosomes). Both of these forms of RNA have a number of unique nucleobases in addition to 5-methyl uracil. [Modified base in tRNA](_URL_0_) are important for creating the 'wobble' code that allows a single tRNA anti-codon to recognize a number of different mRNA codons. To be continued...", "If there's a whole soup of amino acids floating around, a chain of RNA will pick up extra amino acids to make pairs. Then if it separates, you have two strips with the same pattern and *those* can collect more free amino acids in the same pattern, and so on. Whatever pattern was better at making copies would have more copies around than other kinds of patterns", "Aminoacyl tRNA synthetase (aaRS) enzymes are responsible for grabbing a free tRNA and 'loading' or 'charging' it with the appropriate amino acid (or amino acid precurser). They actually bind the amino acid first using a bound ATP molecule and then transfer it to a free tRNA. I have to admit I don't have the stability of tRNA off the top of my head, but you should remember that everything in a cell works at, or towards, a certain level of equilibrium. All the tRNAs for each amino acid will exist in a state of balanced synthesis/degredation which will be modulated to the needs of the cell. As to your bonus question, it would be much easier for you to just look up an annotated structure of tRNA in any basic molecular biology textbook or even online. In basics the tRNA has an anticodon which hydrogen bonds to the 3 base codon of the mRNA, and on the other end of the tRNA the matching amino acid is bound.", "Codon degeneracy is certainly part of the answer. But you didn't specify what DNA sequence you were looking at. Comparing the cDNA sequence to a full gene might match quite well (not counting the gaps, of course) but comparing a full gene to a known full gene will have tons of variation from introns.", "Sounds like you're looking at 1 amino acid being added to the polypeptide. I believe this is called an insertion. If one base disappears (a deletion) from a coding strand of DNA then there will be a \"frame shift\" mutation and you will most likely end up with a non functioning protein. Anybody care to back me up? It's been a while since genetics.", "Basically, a segment of DNA gets translated to RNA, which is a similar molecule with a slightly different structure. Then, the RNA goes through an organelle called a ribosome where it is transcribed into a protein. Each set of three genetic letters adds an amino acid to a protein, and a protein is a chain of amino acids. So depending on the genetic sequence there will be a specific protein sequence, such that a gene codes for a specific protein. Biochemical interactions occur between proteins.", "On a more basic level, there are other base pair options - for example, in RNA, Thymine (T) is replaced my Uracil (U). As for WHY, there is an argument that A, T, C, & G are rooted in the primordial soup from which all life stems. Using these four base pairs reduces he probability of errors occurring during coding operations. You can read more about that here: [Why DNA is spelled ATCG](_URL_1_)", "Molecules that act as the code: cytosine, adenine, guanine, and thymine. So your DNA looks like a string of these like CCTGCAAATGGG and so on. The information is bundled into strings of 3 of these molecules, which is something called a \"codon\". Each codon is a code (get it?) that says to produce an amino acid. [Here's the wiki for codons which has a table demonstrating this](_URL_0_) A chain of amino acids is a protein. So what your DNA is doing is saying hook together this series of amino acids to make a protein. The combinations of these proteins are what makes up your cells, so it's a list of instructions for how to make all the things you need for a cell.", "> But how is the right amino known? Put simply, it doesn't 'know'. All the amino acids are attached to tRNAs and they all diffuse around until they meet a ribosome that requires that particular one, as determined by the codon of the mRNA. It can't \"call for it\" it just waits for it.", "The basics: DNA is like a set of instructions, or like a recipe book that tells the cell what proteins to make. When a cell wants to make a protein, it first makes a copy of the recipe (or, the gene) by transcribing it into mRNA (messenger RNA). RNA is structurally very similar to DNA, but is less stable and single-stranded instead of double-stranded. The mRNA \"recipe\" is then translated into protein, which then goes out and actually does stuff in the cell. Every three RNA letters codes for one amino acid (or, one letter in a protein). The tRNA (or, transfer RNA) is like a decoder ring that translates from RNA code into protein code. You can visualize tRNA as a sort of string folded into a clover-leaf shape; at the top of the clover are three letters (called the anti-codon) that recognize complementary letters in the mRNA (the codon), and at the bottom is where an amino acid sticks (the building blocks of proteins), and the amino acids are glued together one by one to make a protein.", "Very good question! DNA polymerase has a second site with 3' exonuclase activity which removes mispared bases. Additionally, since DNA replication is semi-conservative, the polymerase usually doesn't add bases that don't match the template, but if it does, that causes the polymerase to stall and flip the base up to the exonuclease site. [Here](_URL_1_) is a page on proofreading from McGraw-Hill. Edit: I may not have answered your question. The conformation of the polymerase extending active site changes depending on the nucleotide bound, and on the nucelotide in the template. Here: _URL_0_ is a cell paper about polymerase base binding structure.", "Translation is a very complex process.. anyway let me give you an outline Its like Lock and Key.. each set of 3 nucleotide corresponds to particular ammio acids..sometimes more that one type corresponds to particular ammio acid So ribosome starts to read your mRNA strand and accordinly you will get ammio acids attached one by one untill you reach an set of nucleotide which corresponds to no particlar ammio acid.. /// Okay sorry I cant explain like 5 any more..I dont know how much detail you want..better try [/r/askscience](/r/askscienc) or [/r/biology](/r/biology)", "Because a general molecule of DNA is stable itself and doesn't tend to bond with other DNA molecule: the 3' end ends with a -OH group, while the 5' end ends with a phosphate group. The DNA ligase then removes the OH^- and binds the two segments together. To do this it requires energy, given by ATP.", "Hmm. I took a gander at what other people were saying, I'm not sure they answered your question. I'll give it a walk, and hopefully simply. DNA is converted to mRNA, in what is called transcription. This is done by matching each DNA base to each mRNA base(except for T/U). The mRNA is then used as a template to select which amino acids are used in a chain, by ribosomes, in a stage called translation. A sequence of amino acids can simply be called a protein, which can have a variety of effects on the body. The problem that people have found when trying to use DNA as a coding language is that it's bloody *complicated*. Last I heard, were still trying to make a viable protein by hand, which needs appropriate DNA bases to code for it, and proper folding structure on top of that.", "It's usually related to the nature of the protein that the gene encodes for. For example, genes coding for structural proteins are often inherited in a dominant fashion because an error in just half of those proteins is sufficient to produce a change in phenotype. On the other hand, genes coding for an enzyme are more likely to be inherited in a recessive manner because often half the protein expression is sufficient. (This is a simplification since there are a ton of other factors that come into play, but that's the gist of it.)", "It's actually quite simple. Each gene that makes up your DNA has a specific letter combination that says exactly what to do when the RNA reads it by matching it with its matching letter. There are 3 that tell it to stop encoding. These are TAG, TAA and TGA, which when transcoded into RNA goto UAG, UAA, and UGA. These codons have no other purpose than to tell the encoding protein to stop and that there is no information after that relating to the specific purpose of that protein. & #x200B; Oh, and there's a codon that tells it that there's a new gene starting after the stop and a whole lot of garbage DNA we don't understand, usually AUG." ]

[ "Post Malone" ]

[ "26th Amendment", "26th largest", "Who?", "26th Street", "Classic Albums", "Who Made Who", "Release the Stars", "press release", "photographic album", "GVN Releasing", "Scorpion Releasing", "release liner", "Catch & Release", "surgically released", "release of methane", "Fingerprint Releasing", "relaxation or release", "The Who by Numbers", "Magnet Releasing", "The Album About Nothing", "release factor", "release form", "Betty Who", "August Weismann", "The Who's Tommy", "a release agent", "26th century BC", "August Diehl", "by releasing enzymes", "Release Therapy", "August Schellenberg", "26th parallel south" ]

[ "Al0.30Ga0.70N∕GaN heterostructures grown on sapphire substrates by rf-plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy are investigated. The heterostructures consist of a 20nm Al0.30Ga0.70N barrier layer deposited on a 2μm semi-insulating GaN epilayer. Room-temperature mobilities averaging 1350cm2∕Vs and a sheet charge density of 1.1×1013cm−2 are consistently achieved. Central to our approach is the iron-doped semi-insulating GaN epilayer and a pulsed N∕Ga atomic deposition technique which makes it possible to simultaneously reduce threading dislocations and achieve a smooth surface. The heterostructures were examined by x-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy. Structural characterizations reveal a smooth surface morphology, coherent and sharp interfaces, and a low density of the threading dislocations." ]

[ "GaN layers were grown on N-polar GaN substrates by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy under different III/V ratios. Ga-rich conditions assure step-flow growth with atomically flat surface covered by doubly-bunched steps, as for Ga-polar GaN. Growth under N-excess however leads to an unstable step-flow morphology. Particularly, for substrates slightly miscut towards ⟨101¯0⟩, interlacing fingers are covered by atomic steps pinned on both sides by small hexagonal pits. In contrast, a three-dimensional island morphology is observed on the Ga-polar equivalent sample. We attribute this result to lower diffusion barriers on N-polar compared to Ga-polar GaN under N-rich conditions.", "An AlGaN/GaN heterojunction field effect-transistor (HFET) was fabricated for large-current operation. GaN and related materials were grown by gas-source molecular beam epitaxy (GSMBE). Sapphire substrates were used for GaN growth. An undoped GaN/Al0.2Ga0.8N heterostructure was grown on the substrate. The sheet carrier density of the two-dimensional electron gas was 1×1013 cm2 and the mobility was 1200 cm2/Vs at room temperature. The breakdown field of the undoped high-resistive GaN layer was above 1.3 MV/cm. An Al0.2Ga0.8N/GaN HFET for a large-current operation was fabricated. The gate width was 20 cm and the gate length was 2 µm. The distance between the source and the drain was 13 µm. The maximum breakdown voltage of gate and source was 600 V. The on-state resistance of the HFET was about 10 mΩcm2 at the breakdown voltage of 300 V. The operation current of the HFET was over 10 A.", "Wurtzite GaN was grown by gas source molecular beam epitaxy on (0001) sapphire substrates. Taking advantage of the catalytic decomposition of ammonia on the growing surface, high growth rates (>1 μm/h) were achieved for substrate temperatures ranging between 800 and 850 °C. Surface morphology, structural, and optical properties of thick (2–4 μm) GaN films were investigated versus the growth temperature of the GaN buffer layer. It is shown that this parameter has a drastic influence on the GaN properties.", "Morphology and optical properties of GaN nanowhiskers grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) have been studied in correlation with growth parameters. It was shown that the growth parameters can be tuned such that uniform, well separated and high-quality nanowhiskers are obtained. Using an optimized ramp of Ga beam equivalent pressure (BEP) during the growth, the tapering or coalescence of nanowhiskers can be suppressed. By increasing the growth temperature the density of nanowhiskers is reduced, but the crystalline quality is improved as can be concluded from cathodoluminescence (CL) results.", "1-μm-thick zinc-blende GaAs (111) films were grown by molecular-beam epitaxy on wurtzite GaN∕sapphire (0001) templates. In spite of a ∼20% lattice mismatch, epitaxial growth was realized, so that the GaAs films showed good adhesion and their surface had a larger mirror-like area with an average surface roughness of 10 nm. Transmission electron microscopy revealed a flat and abrupt epitaxial GaAs∕GaN interface with some nanocavities and a large number of dislocations. Reasonably good crystalline quality of the GaAs films was confirmed by Raman characterization. Spectroscopic ellipsometry showed sharp interference fringes and characteristic parameters in the range of 0.75–5.3 eV. Photoluminescence study revealed extended band tails and dominance of non-radiative carrier recombination.", "We report the effect of Mg doping on the growth kinetics of semipolar GaN(11-22) synthesized by plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy. Mg tends to segregate on the surface, inhibiting the formation of the self-regulated Ga film which is used as a surfactant for the growth of undoped and Si-doped GaN(11-22). As a result, the growth widow is reduced for Mg doped layers, and we observe a certain deterioration of the surface morphology. In spite of this difficulties, homogenous Mg incorporation is achieved and layers display p -type conductivity for Mg atomic concentration higher than 7×1018 cm-3. Microscopy studies show no evidence of the pyramidal defects or polarity inversion domains found in Mg-doped GaN(0001). (© 2010 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)", "In this Letter, we report selective epitaxial growth of monolithically integrated GaN-based light emitting diodes (LEDs) with AlGaN/GaN high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) drivers. A comparison of two integration schemes, selective epitaxial removal (SER), and selective epitaxial growth (SEG) was made. We found the SER resulted in serious degradation of the underlying LEDs in a HEMT-on-LED structure due to damage of the p-GaN surface. The problem was circumvented using the SEG that avoided plasma etching and minimized device degradation. The integrated HEMT-LEDs by SEG exhibited comparable characteristics as unintegrated devices and emitted modulated blue light by gate biasing.", "The GaN epitaxial layer grown on SiC substrate by metal-organic chemical vapor dispersion was analyzed by the high resolution X-ray diffraction(HRXRD).The orientation of the GaN relative to the SiC,the lattice parameters,the stress and the dislocation density were detected.The analysis results indicate that the a-axis direction of GaN is parallel to that of SiC.The relaxation degrade of the GaN epitaxial layer exceeds 90% and the lattice parameters of GaN epitaxial layes are almost the same as those of bulk GaN material.The GaN layer is compressive stressed.The dislocation densities in SiC and GaN are 107and 108respectively.", "The growth conditions to achieve high‐quality InAsSb alloy and abrupt InAsSb/GaSb heterostructure by molecular‐beam epitaxy are described. The present results indicate that optical pyrometry is a reliable method to determine the growth temperature, and a stable substrate temperature is of critical importance in achieving homogeneous InAsSb composition throughout the growth period. The quality of these epilayers is evaluated by double x‐ray diffraction measurement, reflection high‐energy electron diffraction study, Nomarsky microscopy, and low‐temperature photoluminescence. The optical quality is further demonstrated by the optically pumped coherent emission at ∼3.9 μm observed from an InAsSb active layer.", "This paper reports an alternative method for the growth of GaN epitaxial layer on (0001) Al2O3 substrate by hot-wall vapor phase epitaxy technique. Tris (N,N-dimethyldithiocarbamato)-gallium (III), Ga(mDTC)3 was introduced as a precursor material for the seed layer formation in the growth of GaN. Optimal growth conditions with seed layers formed by the Ga(mDTC)3 concentration of 0.047 mol/L were identified: Growth temperature was found to be 850 °C, and optimal distance between the reactant outlet and substrate was determined to be 12.5 cm. Characterization results showed that this growth method produce high-crystallinity GaN epitaxial layers at a relatively lower growth temperature compared to the existing growth techniques and simplify the growth process.", "The influence of the Si dopant concentration and its distribution through the AlGaN barrier layer of the AlGaN/GaN heterostructures on their electrical properties was studied. Three types of the heterostructures were grown by MOVPE method on sapphire substrate. Electrical properties of the AlxGa1-xN/GaN heterostructures were determined by the impedance spectroscopy method. The carrier concentration in AlGaN/GaN heterostructure, the incremental sheet charge concentration and 2DEG sheet charge concentration were obtained and correlated with Si dopant distribution through the AlGaN barrier layer of the heterostructure.", "Previously, we found that N-polar (In,Ga)N/GaN quantum wells prepared on freestanding GaN substrates by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy at conventional growth temperatures of about 650 °C do not exhibit any detectable luminescence even at 10 K. In the present work, we investigate (In,Ga)N/GaN quantum wells grown on Ga- and N-polar GaN substrates at a constant temperature of 730 °C. This exceptionally high temperature results in a vanishing In incorporation for the Ga-polar sample. In contrast, quantum wells with an In content of 20% and abrupt interfaces are formed on N-polar GaN. Moreover, these quantum wells exhibit a spatially uniform green luminescence band up to room temperature, but the intensity of this band is observed to strongly quench with temperature. Temperature-dependent photoluminescence transients show that this thermal quenching is related to a high density of nonradiative Shockley-Read-Hall centers with large capture coefficients for electrons and holes.", "Ge/Si heterostructures were grown on Si (001) by Sn‐submonolayer‐mediated molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) and characterized by a variety of techniques, in order to study the behavior of Sn surfactant during Ge and Si growth and its influence on Ge/Si interface quality. It was found that Sn strongly segregates to the growing surface of both Ge and Si and that the presence of Sn surfactant can effectively suppress Ge segregation into a Si overlayer and enhance the surface mobility of adatoms. These results suggest that Sn‐mediated epitaxy can be used as a viable method to produce Ge/Si superlattices, with an interface quality superior to those grown either by conventional MBE or with other types of surfactants.", "Monocrystalline GaN and Al x Ga 1-x N films have been grown via the pendeo-epitaxy (PE) [1] technique with and without Si 3 N 4 masks on GaN/AlN/6H-SiC(0001) and GaN(0001)/AlN(0001)/3C-SiC(111)/Si(111) substrates using organometallic vapor phase deposition. Scanning and transmission electron microscopies were used to evaluate the external microstructures and the distribution of dislocations, respectively. The dislocation densities in the PE grown films were reduced at least five orders of magnitude relative to the initial GaN seed layers. Tilting to 0.2° in the portion of the coalesced GaN epilayers grown over the silicon nitride masks was observed via X-ray diffraction. Neither tilting nor low angle boundaries were observed within areas of coalescence in the material grown on substrates without the masks.", "GaN quantum dots were formed on an AlGaN/SiC substrate by gas-source molecular beam epitaxy using a self-assembling technique with Ga droplets. The photoluminescence properties of the quantum dots obtained at several crystallization temperatures were investigated. High photoluminescence intensity was observed from GaN quantum dots formed without a wetting layer at a crystallization temperature of 700 °C. Single-electron transistors formed using GaN quantum-dot islands exhibited Coulomb blockade phenomena with negative conductance at 2.7 K and a clear Coulomb staircase at 200 K.", "Aluminum nitride (AlN) and high aluminum (Al) content aluminum gallium nitride (AlGaN) thin films were successfully grown on gallium nitride (GaN) layer by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (PA-MBE) system. The films were deposited on Si 111 substrate. A systematic study and optimization of the growth conditions was performed in order to grow AlN and AlGaN layers on GaN films. Epitaxial growth of GaN has been demonstrated to be feasible for substrate temperature (800°C and 850°C) which depends on a Ga/nitrogen flux ratio. The absence of cubic phase GaN buffer layer for both samples has shown that this layer possessed hexagonal structure. The AlN sample has a good optical quality as measured by the photoluminescence (PL) system.", "We present a study of growth and properties of m-plane GaN/InGaN/AIInN structures on LiAlO 2 substrates grown by metal organic vapour phase epitaxy (MOVPE). A buffer structure, including an m-plane AIInN interlayer prior to GaN growth, has been developed. Quantum well structures on top of this buffer showed absence of polarization-induced electric fields verified by room temperature photoluminescence (RT PL) measurements with different excitation intensities. Different samples with peak emission wavelength between 433 nm and 495 nm exhibited stable peak position even for high excitation intensities of 500 kW/cm2.", "A study of strain relaxation in GaNxP1−x epilayers grown by chemical beam epitaxy, using a rf‐plasma nitrogen radical beam source, tertiarybutylphosphine, and triethylgallium, is reported. Microcracks are observed in GaNxP1−x epilayers grown on GaP when the nitrogen composition is greater than 1.6%. Transmission electron microscopy results show that the tensile‐strain relaxation in GaNxP1−x epilayers is initially relieved by microcrack formation without misfit dislocations. These microcracks penetrate through the interface, degrading the crystallinity of the GaP substrate. Microcracks formation can not be alleviated by adjusting the growth rate, growth temperature, V/III ratios, and forward plasma power, but they can be eliminated by reducing the growth area of the GaP substrate.", "AlGaN-based quantum structures were grown using gas-source molecular beam epitaxy with ammonia. Quantum structures are formed in the wells of Al0.4Ga0.6N/Al0.55Ga0.45N superlattices, as confirmed by transmission electron microscopy. Optical properties are investigated using cathodoluminescence and time-resolved photoluminescence. We obtain ~60 fold intensity enhancement over two-dimensional growth. For conditions corresponding to deposition of ~10 monolayers of well material, we obtain narrow emission at 280 nm and long ~320 ps photoluminescence decay time.", "We have investigated ZnSe epitaxial layers grown by molecular beam epitaxy on vicinal GaAs(110) substrates using reflection high-energy electron diffraction (RHEED), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and photoluminescence (PL). ZnSe films on vicinal GaAs(110) surfaces misoriented 6° toward (111)A show poor crystal quality and rough surface morphology with (111) facets. On the other hand, RHEED and AFM observations reveal that ZnSe growth proceeds in a layer-by-layer fashion on vicinal GaAs(110) surfaces misoriented 6° toward (111)B and that the surfaces consist of regular arrays of monoatomic steps. The PL spectra are dominated by the near-band-edge emission.", "Abstract Microstructural characterization of a two-step growth process used for the deposition of GaN layers on GaN and sapphire substrates with stripe patterns was performed by transmission electron microscopy. As the initial growth temperature at a low reactor pressure was lowered, TEM images show a triangular-shaped GaN film and the change of propagation direction of dislocations into the horizontal direction due to the enhancement of the vertical growth rate regardless of the underlying layers. This led to the reduction of threading dislocation density in the surface of both window and seed regions. After the initial growth at low temperature designed to bend dislocations, GaN films were grown at a high temperature to enhance the lateral growth for the coalescence of the wing region. For the growth of GaN on the sapphire substrate patterned with SiO2 thin film, the pattern direction of 〈 11 2 0 〉 is more effective for the bending and reduction of dislocations.", "Plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy was employed to create porous nanonetworks of ZnO directly on GaN epilayers without the use of catalysts or templates. Detailed analysis of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of both as-grown and etched samples reveals that the typical porous nanonetwork structure is multilayered, and suggests that dislocations originating at the GaN/sapphire heterointerface and/or defects characterizing an unusually rough GaN surface are responsible. The pore size distribution of the nanonetwork was measured using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) cryoporometry. A bimodal pore size distribution centred at 4 nm and 70 nm, respectively, was observed, consistent with the existence of small nanoscale pores in the bulk of the sample, and large open pores on the surface of the porous nanonetwork as observed by SEM.", "Frequency-dependent capacitance and conductance measurements are performed on AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) and NbAlO/AlGaN/GaN metal-insulator-semiconductor HEMTs (MISHEMTs) to extract density and time constants of the trap states at NbAlO/AlGaN interface and gate/AlGaN interface with the gate-voltage biased into the accumulation region and that at the AlGaN/GaN interface with the gate-voltage biased into the depletion region in different circuit models. The measurement results indicate that the trap density at NbAlO/AlGaN interface is about one order lower than that at gate/AlGaN interface while the trap density at AlGaN/GaN interface is in the same order, so the NbAlO film can passivate the AlGaN surface effectively, which is consistent with the current collapse results.", "GaN films were grown on a silica glass substrate by electron-cyclotron-resonance plasma-excited molecular beam epitaxy (ECR-MBE). It was found that GaN films grown on silica glass exhibited stronger photoluminescence (PL) intensity than that exhibited by GaN films grown on sapphire substrates and the PL peak position was the near-band-edge emission of hexagonal GaN. In addition, the full-width at half maximum of the PL spectrum for GaN grown on silica glass was smaller than that of GaN grown on sapphire. GaN films grown on silica glass were c-oriented polycrystalline films consisting of columnar domains. It is believed that c-axis orientation and columnar growth are strongly related to the optical properties.", "The molecular‐beam‐epitaxial growth of InxGa1−xAs on GaAs or AlyGa1−yAs leads to a variation of In content with depth, due to In segregation. However, by predepositing In at the beginning of InxGa1−xAs growth, and also thermally removing the excess In at the end, we can produce a layer with the ideal ‘‘square’’ In profile. We find that the performance of AlyGa1−yAs/InxGa1−xAs/GaAs high electron mobility transistors is most enhanced by the predeposition step alone.", "Semipolar (1122) oriented GaN has been grown on a prestructured r-plane sapphire substrate. By using silicon doped marker layers (MLs) we have been able to monitor the growth evolution of the stripes until coalescence. With that technique we correlated the growth type (direction) with the results of cathodoluminescence (CL) and transmission electron microscopy. Both characterization methods show only a few defects for the major part of the structure and a relatively high defect density for material grown in a-direction at one side of the stripes. It is shown that during coalescence these defects are mainly terminated resulting in a flat, planar (1122) GaN layer with strongly reduced defect density. Additionally, X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements show the high quality of these layers.", "Abstract We have grown group III nitride epitaxial films on various substrates by pulsed laser deposition and investigated structural properties of the surfaces and the hetero-interfaces using grazing incidence angle X-ray reflectivity (GIXR) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). It has been found that hetero-interfaces between PLD AlN and conventional substrates such as Al 2 O 3 and Si are quite abrupt (about 0.5 nm) probably due to a less reactive growth ambience. However, we observed a thin interfacial layer (less than 10 nm) at the hetero-interface between AlN and (Mn,Zn)Fe 2 O 4 . The surface roughness of AlN is mainly determined by the extent of the lattice mismatch. It has been also found that the roughness at the hetero-interface between GaN and AlN formed by PLD coincides with the surface roughness of the AlN layer.", "We study the growth of insulator/Si/insulator nanostructures on Si(111) using molecular beam epitaxy. Based on different investigations, we develop an approach for the fabrication of a nanostructure with a continuous ultrathin single-crystalline silicon buried in a single-crystalline insulator matrix with sharp interfaces. This approach is based on an epitaxial encapsulated solid-phase epitaxy, in which the solid-phase epitaxy of silicon is accompanied by a vapor-phase epitaxy of the second insulator layer. We call this approach as cooperative solid-vapor-phase epitaxy. As an example we demonstrate the growth of buried epitaxial silicon in epitaxial Gd2O3.", "GaN-based light emitting diodes (LEDs) were fabricated by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) on a GaN/Si substrate prepared by metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). Blue light emission was obtained at the peak wavelength of 410 nm. An integration of GaN LEDs and a cooling system is proposed. GaN membrane structure with Si microchannels was fabricated from the GaN/Si substrate. A preliminary experiment for the proposed device was carried out. Copyright © 2010 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.", "The authors report on the correlation between transient behaviour and 1/f noise in GaN/AlGaN heterostructure field effect transistors (HFETs) and novel GaN/AlGaN metal-oxide-semiconductor heterostructure field effect transistors (MOS-HFETs). When the HFETs were switched from the OFF to ON position, they exhibited non-exponential transient processes with characteristic times from 10/sup -7/ to 10/sup -2/ s. The transient behaviour correlated with the level of 1/f noise. MOS-HFETs fabricated on the same wafer as the HFETs did not exhibit such a transient (within the time resolution of the measurement setup, which was a few nanoseconds).", "We present transport properties of AlGaN/GaN heterostructures grown over high-pressure bulk GaN substrates. The experimental results include the conductivity tensor measurements in a magnetic field up to 23 T in a wide temperature range 2 K–300 K for Hall bar samples. The room temperature high field data allow us to clearly separate contributions of a parasitic parallel conduction from 2DEG conduction in all investigated heterostructures. The room temperature mobility limit for 2D electrons in GaN/AlGaN heterojunctions grown on defect free GaN bulk substrates is around 2400 cm2/Vs. The Quantum Hall Effect studies are performed in the magnetic fields up to 23 T and temperatures between 1.6 K and 15 K This high magnetic field in combination with very high mobility (over 60000 cm2/Vs) in the sample grown on the bulk GaN substrate allow us to determine the activation energy in cyclotron gap from longitudinal magnetoresistance. (© 2005 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)", "III-V nitride-based MISFETs have been fabricated on AlN/GaN heterostructures grown by MOVPE. C-V characterisation of these MIS structures revealed a minimum value of the interface state density Dit ≃ 1011 cm-2 eV-1. AlN/GaN MISFETs with 2 µm long gates demonstrated a high peak transconductance of gm ≃ 135 mS/mm, which exceeded previously reported results." ]

[ "He pitched great, but left the game with a no decision." ]

[ "Tennis great Boris Becker will be inducted into the Rogers Cup hall of fame on July 21, Tennis Canada announced Thursday.", "Swiss tennis great Roger Federer has hired Darren Cahill as his new coach.", "The Yankees beat the Phillies 7-3 behind great pitching.", "A 37-year-old Great Falls hunter with a broken leg has been rescued near Rogers Pass in Western Montana.", "Ice-cool Roger Federer showed nerves of steel to down Croatian giant Ivo Karlovic Friday as his great rival Rafael Nadal extended his hot streak at the Australian Open.", "Chapman Tripp - Feltex decision will provide some comfort to directors The District Court finding of not guilty in the Feltex director case will provide some welcome and timely comfort to directors who acquit their duties honestly and diligently, Chapman Tripp Partner Roger Wallis said today.", "Local real estate developers seeking to land the new headquarters for Phillips Lytle LP made their pitches to the firm's partners Wednesday evening, as the law firm moves toward a decision on where it will locate.", "Great effort Edinson Volquez, pictured, pitched shutout ball into the seventh inning and Alexi Amarista hit a two-run double as the San Diego Padres beat the Seattle Mariners, 2-0, on Sunday.", "The US dollar will be ``devalued'' as policy makers seek to weaken it, undermining the greenback's role as an international reserve currency, said Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings in Singapore.", "``After dealing with the stress of the past year, Catherine made the decision to check into a mental health facility, for a brief stay, to treat her Bipolar II Disorder. She's feeling great and looking forward to starting work this week on her two upcoming films.''", "Repton juniors Brett Beadon and Sam McNess gained sweet revenge at the Great Britain Tri-Nations Championships in Liverpool as the pair turned the tables on rivals who took disputed decisions at last month's junior ABA finals.", "Differences today surfaced in Congress over diesel price hike and restricting the supply of cooking gas with a senior leader demanding rollback of the decision, saying it is a ``great setback'' to the party.", "This is the moment soccer superstar David Beckham tackled a pitch invader.", "Rogers Wireless, a subsidiary of Rogers Communications, has launched three new handsets, the Samsung Propel, Samsung Gravity and LG Neon, for the Canadian market.", "Billy Dean will join Kenny Rogers on his thirtieth annual Christmas tour, marking the second year Dean has joined Rogers for the jaunt.", "Roger Wicker wins re-election to the US Senate.", "Film critic Roger Ebert died Thursday at age 70.", "Roger Federer will carry the Swiss flag at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.", "MTR has called a media pitch for a 3-year contract.", "'Riddick', the next installment in the 'Pitch Black' series, is now official.", "Andy Murray has withdrawn from the Rogers Cup due to an injury.", "A car chase from Fort Benton to Great Falls ends with the arrest of a Great Falls man.", "James Harrison apologizes for his comments about Roger Goodell and teammates", "Now more organizations are pitching in to help him and his family.", "Roger Ebert has been hospitalized with a hip fracture, but will not need surgery to correct it.", "Rogers Corporation announced today an update to its planned restructuring and streamlining initiatives.", "In a rare private appearance, the legendary Roger Daltrey will grace the Cannes stage.", "Today Prince, aka Prince Rogers Nelson, turns 52.", "Roger Federer is to become a father for the first time, the world No 2 has announced.", "``There's a tax break,'' said Roger Chappel, director of the Mason County Equalization Department.", "The Great Coates plant -- believed to be the Great Grimsby Business Park site -- will cease production on either Sunday or Monday.", "Roger Federer has reached his seventh straight Wimbledon final." ]

[ "The old man and young boy are on the ground playing." ]

[ "The people are at the game.", "A boy is playing with a train set.", "A young boy and girl play with a train set and tracks on a floor.", "A man wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a small boy are playing with a wooden train set", "The you person is playing with a train set.", "A man and a boy are playing outside.", "Older man playing with a young boy.", "The young boy is sitting on the ground.", "Two people sit on the ground.", "An elderly man and a young boy are outside a store.", "A young boy is playing with a train track.", "A little boy with an owl sweater plays with a train set.", "a boy looking at a train set", "A father plays with a wooden trainset on a city carpet along with his son.", "A boy is sitting on the ground.", "A man and child are sitting.", "An older man is playing with a child.", "A father and son are playing together.", "Toddler playing with a train set.", "A young male is sitting on the ground playing dominoes.", "There are two people near the train tracks.", "Three young women and an elderly man are sitting at a table playing dominoes.", "They are sitting on the ground.", "there is a little boy and man on the ground", "The boy is playing in the ground.", "A man and child are playing.", "the boy is thinking pf train set", "A boy sits on the train.", "A boy plays with trains.", "An older man and a young boy are outside together.", "A man plays with a boy.", "boys playing in the ground" ]

[ "The term chiaroscuro (from the Italian words chiaro, meaning light, and scuro, meaning dark) refers to the use of light and shade in a work of art to define three-dimensional objects. Masters of this technique were the Italians Leonardo da Vinci and Caravaggio and the Dutch painter Rembrandt." ]

[ "The term early broadened in meaning to cover all strong contrasts in illumination between light and dark areas in art, which is now the primary meaning. Chiaroscuro modelling La Fornarina by Raphael, shows delicate modelling chiaroscuro in the body of the model, for example in the shoulder, breast, and arm on the right.", "The term broadened in meaning early on to cover all strong contrasts in illumination between light and dark areas in art, which is now the primary meaning. Chiaroscuro modelling", "Tenebrism Versus Chiaroscuro. Caravaggism embraces both chiaroscuro and tenebrism. Because both techniques involve the pronounced use of light and shadow, they can be confused, even though there is a clear theoretical difference between the two terms.", "Chiaroscuro woodcuts began as imitations of this technique. When discussing Italian art, the term sometimes is used to mean painted images in monochrome or two colours, more generally known in English by the French equivalent, grisaille.", "Find out what the difference is between sfumato and chiaroscuro, the two classic styles of painting we associate with the Old Masters. Find out what the difference is between sfumato and chiaroscuro, the two classic styles of painting we associate with the Old Masters. Painting Styles: Sfumato and Chiaroscuro Search the site GO", "What Is the Difference Between Chiaroscuro and Tenebrism?. Both Chiaroscuro and Tenebrism are famous kinds of Italian art painting. Both of them are created using a huge variety of dark and light color mixtures. In addition to being very popularly used by Ita...", "Incoming search terms: biblical meaning of the name wyatt, Biblical Meaning of Wyatt, what does wyatt, wyat meaning in the bible, what does wyatt mean in indian.ncoming search terms: biblical meaning of the name wyatt, Biblical Meaning of Wyatt, what does wyatt, wyat meaning in the bible, what does wyatt mean in indian.", "What does supersaturated mean in scientific terms? already exists. already exists as an alternate of this question. exists and is an alternate of. Do you have a favorite reality show that you like to watch? What does distillation mean in scientific terms? What does control mean in scientific terms? What is mean by supersaturated flow? What does ...", "Example... Oxymoron | What Does Oxymoron Mean What Does Oxymoron Mean? An oxymoron is a figure of speech that occurs when two terms that appear to contradict... Onomatopoeia | What Does Onomatopoeia Mean What Does Onomatopoeia Mean? a term used to", "In biological terms, what does the suffix -blast mean? How does it change a meaning of a term?", "What Does Habibi Mean? An Arabic and Hebrew term that is widely used in texting and on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and elsewhere on the internet, but what does habibi mean in slang?hat Does Habibi Mean? An Arabic and Hebrew term that is widely used in texting and on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and elsewhere on the internet, but what does habibi mean in slang?", "What does unremarkable mean in medical terms? already exists. already exists as an alternate of this question. exists and is an alternate of. What do you think it is about Sirens that resonates with viewers? What does grossly unremarkable mean in medical terms? What does pulmonary vascular is unremarkable mean? What does unremarkable for age ...", "EMILY. Incoming search terms: biblical meaning of emily, meaning of emily in the bible, what does emily mean in the bible, what does the name emily mean in the bible, biblical meaning of name emily.MILY. Incoming search terms: biblical meaning of emily, meaning of emily in the bible, what does emily mean in the bible, what does the name emily mean in the bible, biblical meaning of name emily.", "What does IT stand for? What does IT mean? This page is about the various possible meanings of the acronym, abbreviation, shorthand or slang term: IT.", "Incoming search terms: what does rodney mean in hebrew, what does the name rodney mean in hebrew, biblical meaning of rodney, what does the name Rodney mean, rodney meaning.", "Where does the expression “fifth columnist” come from and What does fifth columnist mean? Where does the expression “fourth estate” come from and What does fourth estate mean? Where does the term “fifth wheel” come from and What does fifth wheel mean? What Do the Terms “Left-Wing” and “Right-Wing” Mean in Politics and How Did the Terms Originate?", "What does the term &quot;fully planked&quot; mean in relationship to scaffold platforms? Why is it important? What does the term fully planked mean in relationship to scaffold platforms? Why is it important?", "Incoming search terms: What Does L Mean On A Car, What Does L Mean In A Car, What Is The L Gear In A Car, What Does The L Mean On The Gear Shift, L Gear Shift, What Does The L On The Gear Shift Mean, L Gear In Car, What Does L On A Car Shifters, What Does The L Mean On A Gear Shift, L On Shifter.", "What does converse mean in math? The definition of converse in math, or more specifically logical reasoning, is the switching of the hypothesis and conclusion of a conditional statement. An example is if … it is raining then there are clouds in the sky. The converse is if there are clouds in the sky then it is raining. What does term to term mean in maths? it means more like meanings EX:what does mean mean in math meanings or what does mean mean in math terms . so its more like a different way to say it", "HPI, what does it mean in terms of cars? The car i am looking to buy says in its description HPI clear . What does HPI mean and what does it mean if the car is hpi CLEAR? thanks!!!!", "What does socio-economic background mean? I hear this term a lot but do not understand it. What does it mean?", "What does LIF stand for? What does LIF mean? This page is about the various possible meanings of the acronym, abbreviation, shorthand or slang term: LIF.", "What does CN stand for? What does CN mean? This page is about the various possible meanings of the acronym, abbreviation, shorthand or slang term: CN.", "What does AIG stand for? What does AIG mean? This page is about the various possible meanings of the acronym, abbreviation, shorthand or slang term: AIG.", "What does FGA stand for? What does FGA mean? This page is about the various possible meanings of the acronym, abbreviation, shorthand or slang term: FGA.", "What does CSG stand for? What does CSG mean? This page is about the various possible meanings of the acronym, abbreviation, shorthand or slang term: CSG.", "What does BEC stand for? What does BEC mean? This page is about the various possible meanings of the acronym, abbreviation, shorthand or slang term: BEC.", "What does term mean mean in math terms? Terms, in mathematics, are the quantities in a series, expression, or ratio. Mean, or Arithmetic Mean, means the average of a set of numbers.", "What do the letters tinstaafl stand for and what does the term mean to consumers? it means THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH. what the term means to consumers is that nothing is free you have you to buy it.", "What does BLT stand for? What does BLT mean? This page is about the various possible meanings of the acronym, abbreviation, shorthand or slang term: BLT.", "What Does Chain Migration Mean? We Get An Explanation As U.S. policymakers debate immigration, the term chain migration is being bandied about. Morning Edition dives into the meaning of the term. What Does Chain Migration Mean?", "What does CAR stand for? What does CAR mean? This page is about the various possible meanings of the acronym, abbreviation, shorthand or slang term: CAR." ]

[ "With the increasing popularity of ocean-bottom and land multicomponent seismic surveys comes a need to more fully integrate multicomponent surface seismic volumes: P-wave, S-wave, and converted-wave (C-wave, if converted at the reflector Thomsen, 1999) together as vector wavefields, along with multicomponent borehole seismic profiles and well data." ]

[ "This paper has introduced identity method of gas hydrate based on high resolution seismic profile data through synthetic interpretation and seismic velocity data, and analyses possible misunderstanding of interpretation.", "Multicomponent analysis of optical spectra can be optimized by processing the spectral data in the Fourier domain. The transform makes it possible to take maximum advantage of the informational content of the spectra while reducing the data storage requirements and processing time. The transformed spectra are stored and processed as vectors. We have explored methods for selecting the \"best\" set of vector representations. During this investigation, we found that any number of chemical interferences can be accounted for in the vector representations without knowing the types of concentrations of these components. The methodology greatly expands the capabilities of multicomponent analyses as will be demonstrated on both infrared and uv-visible spectra.", "Since several years ago we have been working over the ocean acoustical research which ranges from the shallow to the very deep waters. In this report, a newly developed ocean‐acoustic data acquisition system is described first. Several sound propagation losses versus range plots with various source and receiver depths of interest are introduced and discussed with the theoretical models; normal mode, modified ray tracings, and the FFP [F. R. DiNapoli, NUSC Rep. No. 4103 (1971)]. It is exemplified that, in any cases, the validity of the loss prediction models are controlled by bottom loss information. We confirmed the information can be conveniently supported by Hamilton's sea floor geoacoustic modelling [E. L. Hamilton, Ocean Acoust. Modeling, Pt. 4—Sea Bottom, SACLANTCEN (1975)] and Morris' linear gradient bottom sediment model [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 48, 1198–1202 (1970)].", "In NVNIIGG there has been developed a technique of complex interpretation of the CDP and the near-field transient electromagnetic sounding (NFTES) data on common geophysical scale - the scale of a time seismic section t. .", "The Piceance multicomponent (MC) seismic project has been a multiyear effort evaluating how MC seismic data can be used to define the fault architecture and perform reservoir characterization in tight gas sands. Initial feasibility work looked at well log, borehole seismic, and surface seismic experiments to evaluate the potential of MC seismic data for fracture characterization (Lewallen et al., 2008). Results showed that Piceance tight gas sands are horizontally transverse isotropic (HTI) with anisotropy up to 20% where aligned vertical fractures are present. Additionally, surface seismic data quality is low due to rugged topography and a thick overburden with significant scattering as well as environmental noise.", "The coherency/variance cube technique has been developed in recent years as a new technique of seismic data interpretation.In this paper,C3 coherency and variance cube algorithms are emphatically discussed.The authors have designed a software for processing seismic data in the coherency/variance cube technique.Using time slice and leveled layer slice,we can explore small faults and analyze geological structures through investigating the similarity of seismic signals between adjacent traces on the seismic cube.An analysis and interpretation of practical data show that the coherency/variance cube technique is very effective in fault interpretation in that it can improve the interpretation precision and shorten the exploration period.", "This paper presents an approach to array element localization (AEL) for towed marine seismic arrays based on regularized inversion of direct and bottom-reflected acoustic ray travel times picked from recorded seismic sections. Depth-sensor measurements at a number of points along the array are included as a priori estimates (with uncertainties) in the inversion. The smoothest array shape consistent with the acoustic data and prior estimates is determined by minimizing the array curvature or roughness. A smooth array shape is physically reasonable; in addition, minimizing curvature provides a priori information about the correlation between hydrophone positions that allows the estimation of both the offset and depth of hydrophones that record only one (or even no) acoustic arrival due to the shadowing effects of water-column refraction or reflection from arbitrary bathymetry. The AEL inversion is applied to a 102-sensor, 1.2-km towed array to correct receiver positions in the seismic velocity analysis of a...", "Seismic data is generated by a sharp pulse, which transforms into to Earth and is reflected by the layer status in the Earth. The Data is 3D or 2D. Because of transforming through the Earth, Seismic data has wide main lobe and strong side lobe, which is different from that of the sharp pulse. In order to recover the character that is similar to that of sharp pulse, the 2D and 3D seismic data is usually processed by the deconvolution. The data includes down going data and up going data mainly. The deconvolution is done by down going data in the general procedure. In this paper, it is done by up going data statistical distinctively. The new methods can get stable deconvolution operator and deconvolution result. It can be used to process the data that is contaminated high-frequency noise. The new approach can get well data to be used in the following process flow and bring a better result to interpretation and application.", "In August 2014 a full Permanent Reservoir Monitoring (PRM) system was installed on the seafloor at the Grane field; since going live, five PRM surveys have been acquired. ::: Efficient seismic operations and fast delivery of 4D data to the interpreters are essential components of the PRM solution. ::: The currently achieved time span for the Grane PRM acquisition and processing cycle is about one month; the 4D products are available to the interpreters typically 8 to 10 days after the last shot is acquired. ::: We first describe how a robust sequence has been designed and optimized, thanks to the successful collaboration between processing and interpretation teams. ::: Through a case study, we demonstrate the value of continuous fast delivery of 4D PRM seismic data; we also discuss a 4D processing flow designed to address the different acquisition geometries between vintage Ocean Bottom Cable (OBC) surveys and PRM surveys.", "A hypothesis to categorize bottom substrate type is that information about the bottom sediments is encoded in the echo signal. Bottom typing means that to decode this information, however, for data verification, the user of automated typing programs should establish libraries where data acquisition of acoustic data is accompanied by physical core samples of the bottom. Separate verification should be done for different types of bottoms (e.g., %rocks, %sand, %silt, and %clay). Data from 126 observations of sediments in the vicinity of Commencement Bay near Tacoma, WA was used to establish libraries and to test the capability of the Visual Bottom Typer software to categorize correctly. Four different algorithms were used: division of the first bottom echo, ratio of the first and second bottom echo, cumulative intensity of the first bottom echo, and fractal dimension of the first bottom echo. The echo signal parameters depended not only on the type of bottom sampled but also on the equipment parameters. Two ...", "In the summer of 1997 Texaco conducted, over their Teal South field, the first time-lapse (4-D), multicomponent (4-C), ocean bottom cable (OBC) seismic survey in the Gulf of Mexico.", "A new and efficient marine acquisition methodology is introduced, designed to obtain multi, wide and rich azimuth data in the presence of high ocean currents. In addition to increasing the azimuth diversity, the system displays a number of operational cost saving characteristics. The system can be deployed in high current areas that would otherwise prove too economically and technically challenging for conventional narrow azimuth (NAZ) acquisition. The methodology results in a more equal distribution of seismic trace offsets and azimuths in both the in-line and cross-line directions, thereby improving the final 3D seismic image.", "The stratigraphic interpretation of seismic data is frequently used in oil exploration. This requires high‐resolution data which is currently the object of most seismic data acquisition and processing efforts.", "Summary Reliable seismic images of gas accumulations in the shallow subsurface underneath the production platforms in the Forties oilfield are mitigating drilling risks and reducing drilling costs. Ocean Bottom Nodes were selected to record the seismic data for the ability to operate safely and efficiently in obstructed and busy oilfields. The resulting seismic images allow extra care to be taken during drilling of wells where gas is likely to be encountered. The resulting operations are therefore optimized in terms of both safety and costs.", "This paper summarizes a study designed to determine if computer-aided pattern recognition techniques could be applied to the data of side scanning sonar. The technique presented is based on the hypothesis that variations in backscatter of sound energy from different ocean bottoms may be described in terms of changes in the texture and tone of side scanning sonar images. Measures of texture and tone are derived from first order statistics of the spatial variation of bottom returns. The pattern recognition classification algorithm known as \"adaptive sample set constrution\" is implemented for use with side scanning sonar data. The results are presented for application of the algorithm to the classification of two sand and one mud bottom type.", "Explorationists have always known that S waves were wntributing to the noise in reflection images. Nevertheless, acoustic techniques were (and are) used in the name of computational speed or inadequate data (i.e., only vertical component data). Here we describe an elastic inversion technique and demonstrate its use on a reef target. Offset VSP is an excellent demonstration of the need for elastic inversion techniques because of the large number of converted waves in the data. Elastic inversion also puts some urgency on the need for good S wave velocities. The results are worth the small additional effort. In the example presented, we begin to see some details in the reef, whereas the surface reflection data and conventionally processed VSPs show only the nature of the B Salt/AZ Carbonate interface. This interface is not the reservoir at all and is only crudely related to the reservoir.", "A full‐spectrum chirp sonar system [LeBlanc et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 91(1) (1992)] was used to invert three‐dimensional density and sound‐speed structure of the subbottom at the SWARM‐95 (shallow water acoustics in random media) experimental site on the New Jersey Shelf. Biot’s theory was used in a forward model to calculate normal‐incident reflection seismograms for layered marine sediments. Efficient inversion algorithms based on global optimization techniques were used to survey large areas for characterization of sediment properties and their spatial distributions. Chirp sonar inversion results were compared with ground‐truth core data at the AMCOR‐6010 site and good agreement was observed. Three‐dimensional images of sediment density and sound‐speed structure were constructed from several parallel runs along the SWARM acoustic track 1003 at the outer‐shelf sediment wedge area. Corresponding 3‐D wave‐number spectra of density and sound‐speed variability were also calculated.", "AbstractWe compute seismic velocity profiles by a combined inversion of surface-wave phase-velocity dispersion curves together with the full spectrum of the microtremor horizontal-to-vertical (H/V) spectral ratio at two sediment-covered sites in Germany. The sediment deposits are approximately 100 m thick at the first test site and approximately 400 m thick at the second test site. We have used an extended physical model based on the diffuse wavefield assumption for the interpretation of the observed microtremor H/V spectral ratio. The extension includes the interpretation of the microtremor H/V spectral ratio observed at depth (in boreholes). This full-wavefield approach accounts for the energy contribution from the body and surface waves, and thus it allows for inverting the properties of the shallow subsurface. We have obtained the multimode phase velocity dispersion curves from an independent study, and a description of the extracted branches and their interpretation was developed. The inversion resul...", "Coastal communities require reliable, accurate, and timely warning of approaching tsunamis. Presently, warnings of a potential tsunami rely on the detection of a seismic disturbance with a submarine epicenter. However, the ability to quantitatively predict the tsunamigenic potential from seismic signals has not been demonstrated. Mid-ocean, bottom mounted pressure sensors could provide advance warnings for the coastal areas far from the source (far-field tsunamis) if the signals were available in near real time (F. Gonzales, personal communication). While such sensors represent a vast improvement over current practices, since the generation of a tsunami is verified, the measured mid-ocean amplitude is quite small. The critical information is the eventual amplitude of the tsunami run up at points along the affected coastline; these values can be highly variable spatially. Validated transformation models, using the mid-ocean tsunami signal as input, may provide an effective warning for those situations.", "Because of the limitationsin the slope of the northern South China Sea and seismic exploration geometry,the image quality of complex strata in this region is not satisfactory.The main reason for this problem can be summarized as multiples covering primary waves,which affects imaging results.In this work,we considered the structural features of the slope of the northern South China Sea,according to the multiple generation mechanism,analyzed the distribution of multiples in the South China Sea,and found that single geophysics methods cannot eliminate the multiples in this region.In this case,comprehensive uses of various geophysical methods which include multi-zone and multi-scale concepts have been applied to multiplesuppression,yielding a new multiple suppression approach suitable for this region.The tests on the model and field data demonstrate that this new strategy is able to achieve a better multiple suppression,and to lay a solid foundation for oil and gas exploration in the northern South China Sea.", "Microseismic event mapping provides valuable information about stimulation of unconventional reservoirs. More advanced information can be extracted using an integrated approach where the microseismic data are correlated with surface seismic attributes. These attributes have long been used for the interpretation of data from unconventional plays such as tight gas and shale. Integrated studies using advance techniques help unveil the potential of unconventional resources and aid in further development. This article describes a methodology for integrated interpretation of microseismicity recorded during simulation of two horizontal wells and 3D surface seismic attributes, from a case study in central Alberta. Curvature and coherence are two attributes that show promising correlation with microseismicity.", "3D seismic data interpretation of Neocomian deposits shows some amplitude zones related to sediment transport directions of likely channel origin. More precise identification needs to be assessed during 3D seismic data and experience accumulation for exploration and field development. The data obtained show high necessity of new approach in interpretation of seismic anomalies related to real geological bodies. Channel-like anomalies distinguished in clinoform unit and in overlapping littoral terrigenous deposits can indicate net thickness increasing and local improvement of reservoir properties in the target interval. At the same time, linear anomalies are often complicating factors in field development. The aim of this work is to show the main peculiarities of interpretation and modeling of some specific but widespread channel-like anomalies (shoe-string, linear features) in terrigenous deposits of Western Siberia observed on 3D seismic profiles and well data.", "Flat‐bottom vertical storage tanks are vital components in nuclear power plant safety systems. Potential failure modes of such tanks due to earthquake ground motion and current methods available to evaluate the seismic capacities of tanks against these failure modes are identified. Substantial data on tank failure modes, seismic response, and seismic capacity are cited. These data are distinguished into three types: (1) Earthquake experience data from the performance of tanks in actual earthquakes; (2) test data from laboratory specimens or tanks in the field; and (3) analytical data from theoretical derivations or analyses. It is concluded that these data provide clear guidance on probable failure modes. Limited analyses have been performed to benchmark current seismic evaluation methods for tanks against test and earthquake experience data. In general, these studies demonstrate that current analytical evaluation methods provide sufficiently accurate means to predict the seismic capacities of flat‐bottom...", "A multioffset vertical seismic profile was acquired at a site near Red Deer, Alberta, using a compressional minvibe source. A five-level, three-component VSP tool with a 15 m receiver spacing was used for data acquisition over a vertical aperture from surface to 300 m depth. First arrivals of offset data revealed the presence of turning rays for both Pwaves and S-waves. Traveltimes and incident angles were inverted to yield a five-layer isotropic P-wave velocity model. P-wave velocity gradients of 10 s -1 and 5 s -1 were derived for the top two layers, respectively, and weak anisotropy (e = 0.02 and δ = 0.02) was deduced for the two shallowest layers. Direct S-waves were also recorded in the walk-away data. First-arrival traveltime and incident angle analysis yielded SV-wave velocity gradients up to18 s -1 .", "[1] Ocean waves incident on coasts generate seismic surface waves in three frequency bands via three pathways: direct pressure on the seafloor (primary microseisms, PM), standing waves from interaction of incident and reflected waves (double-frequency microseisms, DF), and swell-transformed infragravity wave interactions (the Earth's seismic hum). Beamforming of USArray seismic data shows that the source azimuths of the generation regions of hum, PM and DF microseisms vary seasonally, consistent with hemispheric storm patterns. The correlation of beam power with wave height over all azimuths is highest in near-coastal waters. Seismic signals generated by waves from Hurricane Irene and from a storm in the Southern Ocean have good spatial and temporal correlation with nearshore wave height and peak period for all three wave-induced seismic signals, suggesting that ocean waves in shallow water commonly excite hum (via infragravity waves), PM, and DF microseisms concurrently.", "The shear wave velocity determined by converted-wave velocity analysis is an important parameter for common conversion point(CCP) binning technique.The error of obtaining the velocity parameter in the non-hyperbolic time-distance relation obviously rises in the shallow-middle events or large offsets,and the resolution of velocity analysis is low between the adjacent shallow reflect layers.Based on the previous works,this paper studies the selective-correlation velocity analysis technique.Adopting the selected subsets of cross correlations rather than all possible ones in a gather in velocity analysis,we make out an applied software.The tests of synthetic model and processing of real data proved that our method is better than the former ones in the shallow-middle events or large offsets.The resolution of velocity analysis can also largely be improved,which increases the calculating accuracy of the velocity spectra.", "Various instrument systems providing measurements which can be analyzed to estimate the directional ocean wave spectral density are reviewed. These include (a) electromagnetic current meters with wave staff, and (b) a wave staff with satellite bottom pressure sensors. In addition, general mathematical procedures are presented for arbitrary space arrays of measuring devices. Eigenvector procedures are introduced to remove equation redundancy. Choices of directional spreading functions, including a new four-parameter formula, for modelling the output of the analysis of wave sensor data are outlined. Data was constructed to have about the same scatter as real measurements and used to illustrate the analysis, presentation, and problems in interpretation of directional spectra estimates. Such topics as directional resolution and estimate stability, as they relate to length of record, digitization increment, and other similar details of data collection are discussed.", "This paper describes a general method to localize multiple broadband sources in a range- and azimuth-dependent environment when properties of the environment are not well known. Both the source locations and the unknown environmental parameters are included as variables in a simulated annealing inversion that searches for the best match between the measured and modeled fields. The example used to illustrate the method involves localizing an unknown number of ice-ridge building events in an Arctic environment where the bathymetry is poorly known. A number of aspects of this problem are examined in a synthetic study, including the effect of errors in the bathymetry on localization, the importance of simultaneous localization, and determining the number of sources present. The inversion accurately localizes multiple synthetic sources, particularly in cases where the sources are spatially separated and the spectral shape is known. The inversion is also applied to a set of ambient noise measurements recorded i...", "Summary Variable-depth streamer acquisition is a solution for broadband marine seismic which utilizes a novel deghosting technique to remove the receiver ghost and extend the usable primary bandwidth up to six octaves. This technique benefits from towing streamers at depths of up to 50 meters, which, combined with the use of solid streamers, ensures the raw data has an exceptionally good signal-to-noise ratio, especially at low frequencies. We will demonstrate the benefits of technique to enhance seismic interpretation on images and on inversion results.", "A new formulation for ocean-depth measurement using the frequency-domain approach is proposed. This technique uses a high-resolution eigen subspace method to estimate the ocean-depth from backscattered noisy data. The problem has been addressed for real attenuation coefficients by utilizing a eigenstructure decomposition procedure on a Toeplitz matrix structure.", "This paper presents a joint estimation method of source range and depth using a bottom-deployed vertical line array (VLA). The method utilizes the information on the arrival angle of direct (D) path in space domain and the interference characteristic of D and surface-reflected (SR) paths in frequency domain. The former is related to a ray tracing technique to backpropagate the rays and produces an ambiguity surface of source range. The latter utilizes Lloyd’s mirror principle to obtain an ambiguity surface of source depth. The acoustic transmission duct is the well-known reliable acoustic path (RAP). The ambiguity surface of the combined estimation is a dimensionless ad hoc function. Numerical efficiency and experimental verification show that the proposed method is a good candidate for initial coarse estimation of source position.", "Acoustic interaction with the ocean bottom profoundly affects propagation in shallow waters. However, most forward ocean bottom interactions are modeled as if the bottom were a flat interface or use a simple model to quantify the additional loss. These assumptions either neglect or over-estimate the enhancement of ocean bottom loss due to scattering into the bottom. Scattering from and into elastic bottoms is particularly interesting since it can induce the production of an interface wave. In this study, finite element analysis is used to calculate acoustic scattering from elastic ocean bottoms with varying degrees of roughness. The forward scattering loss from these bottoms is calculated as a function of angle and then compared with the flat bottom reflection coefficient in order to gain insight on the conditions under which enhancement of bottom loss by rough interface scattering is significant." ]

[ "Ganoderma tsugae, the hemlock reishi mushroom is quite common in central Maine and elsewhere in the northeast. It grows on dead or dying eastern hemlock, a very common tree. It is very showy with it's bright red colors and it's varnished look that darkens as it matures." ]

[ "High cholesterol. Early research suggests that taking reishi mushroom extract daily for 12 weeks does not affect cholesterol levels in people with high blood pressure and/or high cholesterol. High blood pressure. There is inconsistent evidence about the effects of reishi mushroom on high blood pressure. Early research suggests that taking reishi mushroom extract daily for 12 weeks does not lower blood pressure in people with slightly high blood pressure.", "Use of powdered reishi mushroom has been associated with toxic effects on the liver. Reishi mushroom can also cause other side effects including dryness of the mouth, throat, and nasal area along with itchiness, stomach upset, nosebleed, and bloody stools. Drinking reishi wine can cause a rash. Early research suggests that taking reishi mushroom extract daily for 12 weeks does not lower blood pressure in people with slightly high blood pressure. 2 However, other research suggests that taking reishi mushroom lowers blood pressure in people with more severe high blood pressure. 3 Lung cancer.", "Reishi mushrooms that are grounded up and turned into supplements have 10x the potency as the raw mushroom. 100g of raw mushrooms is about the equivalent of 10g of reishi extract. Reishi Mushroom Supplement Reviews", "Plug Spawn: Grow Mushrooms on Logs & Stumps. Fungi Perfecti offers plug spawn of a number of hardy mushroom species: Reishi, Maitake, Lion's Mane, Shiitake, Pearl, Blue and Phoenix Oyster and Turkey Tail.", "If you do the math here, Reishi Spore Oil is probably 100 Xs more effective compared to all the other Reishi Supplements on the market today! What we have for you today are three very powerful Cracked-Shell Reishi Spore products, the third one being the most powerful Superfood in the world. Product 1. Reishi Spore Powder. Our Reishi Spore Powder is simply the highest quality and most potent Reishi Spores in the world.", "Reishi with HMG-CoA reductase inhibitor drugs (statins) may result in additive effects. Theoretically, the use of reishi and protease inhibitors may result in additive effects. The risk of liver damage may increase when reishi mushroom powder is taken with drugs that are known to damage the liver.You should read product labels, and discuss all therapies with a qualified healthcare provider.Natural Standard information does not constitute medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.eishi with HMG-CoA reductase inhibitor drugs (statins) may result in additive effects. Theoretically, the use of reishi and protease inhibitors may result in additive effects. The risk of liver damage may increase when reishi mushroom powder is taken with drugs that are known to damage the liver.", "Reishi mushroom is used for boosting the immune system; viral infections such as the flu (influenza), swine flu, and avian flu; lung conditions including asthma and bronchitis; heart disease and contributing conditions such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol; kidney disease; cancer; and liver disease. Early research suggests that taking reishi mushroom extract daily for 12 weeks does not lower blood pressure in people with slightly high blood pressure. 2 However, other research suggests that taking reishi mushroom lowers blood pressure in people with more severe high blood pressure. 3 Lung cancer.", "Studies show reishi mushrooms benefit people stricken with a variety of ailments, from high blood pressure to AIDS. Thursday, January 25, 2007 by: Dani Veracity. Tags: reishi mushrooms, reishi, medicinal mushrooms. Most Viewed Articles.", "Wild Reishi-A World-Class Formula for Detoxification From ancient times, legends were told of a mushroom so powerful that those who obtained it would undergo total rejuvenation of the body and mind.This mushroom was said to provide strength, agility, and an......t is called Reishi (in Japan) or Ling-zhi (in Chinese). Reishi is unrivaled in its long history as one of the most powerful herbs to help ensure a long, healthy life. In fact, in China and other Eastern societies, the Reishi mushroom is the most widely used symbol of longevity.", "Arteriosclerosis leads to a diseased liver. Also, reishi works in prevention of liver cirrhosis, which is caused by the destructive action alcohol can take on the body. In closing, reishi mushroom the most popular of the medicinal mushrooms in liver tonics for a number of reasons.", "Reishi mushroom is used for boosting the immune system; viral infections such as the flu (influenza), swine flu, and avian flu; lung conditions including asthma and bronchitis; heart disease and contributing conditions such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol; kidney disease; cancer; and liver disease.se of powdered reishi mushroom has been associated with toxic effects on the liver. Reishi mushroom can also cause other side effects including dryness of the mouth, throat, and nasal area along with itchiness, stomach upset, nosebleed, and bloody stools. Drinking reishi wine can cause a rash.", "1 Hepatitis B. Early research suggests that taking a specific reishi mushroom product (Ganopoly) for 12 weeks reduces how much of the hepatitis B virus is circulating in the body. 2 This product also seems to improve liver function in people with this condition. Early research suggests that taking reishi mushroom extract daily for 12 weeks does not lower blood pressure in people with slightly high blood pressure. 2 However, other research suggests that taking reishi mushroom lowers blood pressure in people with more severe high blood pressure. 3 Lung cancer.", "Use of powdered reishi mushroom has been associated with toxic effects on the liver. Reishi mushroom can also cause other side effects including dryness of the mouth, throat, and nasal area along with itchiness, stomach upset, nosebleed, and bloody stools. Drinking reishi wine can cause a rash.", "Last year's reishi mushrooms are no longer of any use medicinally, but they're still eye-catching. For medicine, it is most efficient and ethical to harvest relatively mature conks. The white growing tip should be very thin or gone, and the overall color gradient should fade to a deeper, but still vivid, red.", "Reishi mushroom has been used to help enhance the immune system, reduce stress, improve sleep, and lessen fatigue. People also take reishi mushroom for health conditions such as: High blood pressure", "Yes, the hair grows back. Tweezing only removes the hair, it does not remove the follicle from which the hair grows. and it does not grow back right away. 4 people found this useful. Edit. Share to: Shannon Horsey. 36,948 Contributions. Do not go where the path may lead.Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.weezing only removes the hair, it does not remove the follicle from which the hair grows. and it does not grow back right away. 4 people found this useful. Edit. Share to: Shannon Horsey. 36,948 Contributions. Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.", "Reishi Mushrooms- Benefits, Uses & Side Effects. Some of the most important health benefits of reishi mushrooms include their ability to slow the aging process, detoxify the body, reduce blood pressure, eliminate inflammation, prevent cancer, improve cognitive ability, and boost energy. Table of Contents.", "1 High blood pressure. 2 There is inconsistent evidence about the effects of reishi mushroom on high blood pressure. 3 Early research suggests that taking reishi mushroom extract daily for 12 weeks does not lower blood pressure in people with slightly high blood pressure.eishi mushroom is a fungus that some people describe as “tough” and “woody” with a bitter taste. The fruiting body (above-ground part) and mycelium (filaments connecting a group of mushrooms) are used as medicine.", "Product List. CordyChi is a 50/50 blend of the powerful medicinal mushrooms Reishi and Cordyceps. These mushrooms have the number one and number two widest range of therapeutic activity of any medicinal mushrooms. Reishi has been shown in research to have a medicinal effect on 90% of all body systems, which is why it is referred to alternately as The Mushroom of Immortality and The Panacea Mushroom..", "For over 2,000 years, reishi mushrooms have kept people spry and healthy well into their golden years. Or at least, that’s what people have been saying. According to some herbalists, red reishi mushrooms can cure many of the issues we associate with aging, such as high blood pressure, arthritis, and liver problems.or over 2,000 years, reishi mushrooms have kept people spry and healthy well into their golden years. Or at least, that’s what people have been saying. According to some herbalists, red reishi mushrooms can cure many of the issues we associate with aging, such as high blood pressure, arthritis, and liver problems.", "1 Hepatitis B. Early research suggests that taking a specific reishi mushroom product (Ganopoly) for 12 weeks reduces how much of the hepatitis B virus is circulating in the body.2 This product also seems to improve liver function in people with this condition.se of powdered reishi mushroom has been associated with toxic effects on the liver. Reishi mushroom can also cause other side effects including dryness of the mouth, throat, and nasal area along with itchiness, stomach upset, nosebleed, and bloody stools. Drinking reishi wine can cause a rash.", "I like to take a high dosage of new products that I sample so I can feel the effect it has. I took about a 1/2 - 1 teaspoon of the Reishi Spore Powder and then an entire dropper-full of the Reishi Spore Oil. When I got to the Triterpene Crystals, I probably took about a 1/2 to 1 full teaspoon of it.", "A growing world with growing demands. Our world is growing. As population growth continues to rise and wealth increases, so does the demand for food, feed and fuel. Traditional resources are depleting and the demand for sustainable ingredients is growing. That’s where we come in.", "Growing the Herb Rosemary. Rosemary prefers dry, well-drained soil and in the South and Pacific Coast States, where soil is dry and rocky, they are planted as hedges. There is also a low-growing or prostrate variety. Rosemary grows well with occasional watering, and does much better where the soil is alkaline.", "Benefits of reishi mushrooms include their ability to slow the aging process, detoxify the body, improve cognitive ability, boost energy, and eliminate inflammation. Benefits of reishi mushrooms include their ability to slow the aging process, detoxify the body, improve cognitive ability, boost energy, and eliminate inflammation.", "Temperature. Lettuce does best in cool weather, temperatures between 60° and 65°F. To grow lettuce where temperatures are higher (especially 80°F or greater), make sure your planting bed gets afternoon shade.Warm-weather growing. Plant heat-resistant lettuce cultivars where the weather is warm.emperature. Lettuce does best in cool weather, temperatures between 60° and 65°F. To grow lettuce where temperatures are higher (especially 80°F or greater), make sure your planting bed gets afternoon shade.", "That should be about 5 quarts of water. Then let the Reishi simmer in the crock pot for about 24 hours. That amount of time really helps extract the most amount of active constituents. Once you are done, then decant the reishi tea into a big pot for the stove and then reduce the liquid down to a little over a quart.", "Reiki (/ˈreɪkiː/) is a form of alternative medicine developed in 1922 by Japanese Buddhist Mikao Usui. Since originating in Japan, Reiki has been adapted into varying cultural traditions across the world.", "Does anybody know how tall the jackfruit tree will grow if it's not pruned. I live in Southern California, where it's not really difficult to grow by seed, and would like to know the height trees normally grow up to. Like Bookmark August 27, 2014 at 7:41PM.", "Dried reishi mushrooms. These can be purchased as a whole or in powder form. They are too tough to eat but will be effective as a soup or tea. To make reishi tea, either grind whole mushrooms or slice them into long strips. Measure the amount you want and boil in water for a few minutes. Then reduce the heat and simmer the tea for 1-3 hours. Filter the water using cheese cloth or a coffee filter. More detailed mushroom tea instructions are here. Be aware that the tea will be very bitter!", "Nor does one s ethnicity define one s character or ability. There are a growing number of interracial relationships in Bermuda, where many will see swirling as a good thing. Naturally we will see a growing number of multi-ethnic children.", "You can buy dried, ground mushrooms and use them to make tea if you don’t mind the bitterness. Otherwise, buy reishi tablets, liquid extracts or capsules, which are available online and in health food stores and follow the recommended dosage. Take reishi every day for at least two months to see what it can do for you." ]

[ "Kardzhali" ]

[ "Where It's At", "Where Do I Fit in the Picture", "How Do I Live", "Roy Turk", "DOS", "Do It to It", "Do", "Where's the beef?", "Where Do We Go From Here", "Where Is the Love?", "Where Do I Go from You", "Where's Waldo?", "do as the Romans do", "Where Are the Children", "Cold Turkey", "by their lives", "It's a Living", "Do Something", "Live", "Do It for the Others", "Live Life Living", "Do Not Track", "Do It Again", "The Lives", "Live Baby Live", "DoS attack", "Doing It to Death", "Live and let live", "How Do You Do It", "living will", "superuser do", "Where Do You Go When You Dream" ]

[ "Germany&#39;s mainstream political parties were sharply rebuffed yesterday when voters in two regional elections in formerly communist East Germany handed extremists their best results in years." ]

[ "POTSDAM, Germany - In Germany's summer of discontent over social welfare cuts, parties on the extremes of the political spectrum are finding voters easy prey for two state elections in the formerly communist east this weekend.", "BERLIN Sept. 19, 2004 - Voters in two east German states angry over high unemployment handed a rebuke Sunday to Germany&#39;s two biggest parties, giving big gains to far right and former Communist groups, television projections showed.", "Germans marked a subdued 15th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on Tuesday, with high unemployment in the formerly communist east and a sense in people&#39;s", "Flat-rate income tax gains ground among ex-communist countries in eastern Europe, with Romania the latest to adopt it.", "The German chancellor remains optimistic despite gains for the far right and ex-communists in the east.", "Where communist East German legislators once ruled, modern dance and club music are taking over.", "Voters in two states in what was East Germany are expressing their discontent with the dominant political parties in Germany by endorsing radical right-wing and former communist parties in state elections, exit ...", "The German government will stick to its disputed goal of raising living standards in the formerly communist east to western levels despite the spiraling costs, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said Tuesday.", "POTSDAM, Germany Queen Elizabeth II opened a conference on climate change Wednesday and praised the progress made by Germany&#39;s formerly communist East.", "Frontiers in east Europe once guarded by machineguns and barbed wire in the Cold War fell away on Friday as nine mostly former communist states joined the EU's border-free zone amid fireworks, cheers and music.", "The life expectancy of people in the states of former communist East Germany has risen since reunification and is now comparable to that of their counterparts in the west, a new study said.", "Two Africans were attacked by right-wing extremists last weekend in Mainz, in western Germany, local authorities said Saturday, the same night as a brutal mob assault on eight Indians in the country&#39;s former communist east.", "Eastern Germany s former communist party will gain support in two state elections Sunday, attracting voters angered by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder s welfare cuts 14 years after reunification, opinion polls ...", "Romanians returned to the polls Sunday for a presidential runoff between their leftist prime minister, formerly a member of the communist elite, and the capital&#39;s Western-leaning mayor.", "American commanders believe it is essential to hobble the extremists in order to sustain recent security gains and ultimately pacify Iraq.", "Some of America's staunchest allies &#151; the former communist countries of \"New Europe\" &#151; are gaining influence in the European Union, and experts say their growing voice could mean cozier trans-Atlantic ties.", "State elections in the former East Germany are expected to see a resurgence by far right parties.", "Embraces all communists Parallels - aka the artist formerly known as SWsoft - will continue its march through China in tandem with Linux maker Red Flag Software.…", "But the fight for the nation's future is being waged not just in capitals to its east and west but also within, by its entrenched domestic interests: its oligarchs, its secret services and its professional ...", "MOSCOW (CP) - Russia's once-mighty Communist party, battling internal strife and facing electoral extinction, has embraced a surprising late-life mission: to champion democracy against the encroachments of an increasingly authoritarian Kremlin.", "The public posting of formerly secret communist-era files on the Internet has sent Poles scrambling to check if anybody they know is among the 240,000 names listed.", "The Dalai Lama visited Mongolia's largest Buddhist monastery on Tuesday at the start of a weeklong trip aimed at shoring up Tibet's traditional links with the sparsely populated formerly communist nation.", "State elections in the former East Germany on Sunday are expected to see a resurgence of the far right.", "A drama about communist East Germany wins the top European Film Award and Penelope Cruz best actress.", "Nostalgia for symbols of the former communist East Germany remains a money-spinner in Berlin.", "Germany faced a surge of far-right parties in eastern state elections, worrying about their rise and the ensuing damage to the country&#39;s image.", "Talk of a united front against extremists rings a little hollow while key Middle East allies are engaging with those the U.S. wants to shun", "German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats suffered fresh losses in elections in two former communist states as parties from the extreme right and far left posted strong gains.", "The difficult game with prep-school roots is gaining a small bounce outside the East Coast.", "The last long-course world swimming record held by now discredited Communist East Germany was finally consigned to history by an American quartet at the Olympics on Wednesday.", "BERLIN - Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder&#39;s Social Democrats (SPD) face a fresh rout in polls in two ex-communist states, where ire over his economic reforms could drive German voters into the arms of extremists.", "Parties on the fringes of Germany's political spectrum have been given an eager reception in the depressed east ahead of state elections this weekend, luring voters with a mix of xenophobic standards and new complaints over plans to reduce much-needed benefits." ]

[ "Time is an advantage if there was criminal activity." ]

[ "Time makes no difference with foul play.", "There was a lot of evidence pointing to foul play.", "Some time is more important.", "I know of nobody that has been taken advantage of by the system.", "If they have enough time, they're able to.", "Yes it has been enjoyable to talk to you", "That's not really new and people have been taking advantage of that for a long time.", "One may wish to allow extra days for unforeseen circumstances.", "There is plenty of time.", "Yes, my automobile has been vandalized.", "A time lag is known.", "There will be suspicion with a lapse of time.", "James Donaldson has been playing for a really long time.", "Yes, It is a different time.", "Time lengthens.", "There is a set time you must take it.", "More time", "It depends on the time.", "The available time for something or someone.", "Yes, a lot of the time.", "A man is holding a foul.", "The time is enough to cover a lot of area.", "It has been a church the entire time.", "Critical periods of time may be impacted.", "Yes, Mr. Brown has always been like that!", "The answer has to be yes.", "There needs to be more time.", "This year has been wild and there hasn't been time to relx.", "Time is forgiving.", "The value of avoiding a death.", "Time gives a physical profile.", "Plenty of time left." ]

[ "The NFL reverses its stance on protests, saying it was wrong not to listen to its players' concerns about racism. And, various leagues begin to plan for a return amid the pandemic." ]

[ "Unveiling a new policy after months of controversy and debate over players taking a knee or otherwise making statements during the national anthem, the NFL says all of its athletes and staff \"shall stand and show respect for the flag and the Anthem\" if they're on the field. \"Personnel who choose not to stand for the Anthem may stay in the locker room or in a similar location off the field until after the Anthem has been performed,\" the league said in its new policy. The possibility that the NFL might issue a blanket restriction on protests during the anthem has been discussed for months, and the buzz gained new momentum this week. But the NFL Players Association says that \"The NFL chose to not consult the union in the development of this new 'policy.' \" The league's decision goes against what the NFL had told players \"about the principles, values and patriotism of our league,\" the union said, adding that it will review the policy with an eye toward mounting challenges if elements of it contradict the current contract. As news of the strict policy spread, Vice President Pence tweeted \"#Winning\" along with an American flag and a screenshot of a story about the NFL's anthem policy. Athletes' behavior during the anthem and flag presentation became a national conversation and a political talking point after NFL players used the traditional opening of their games as a moment to protest police brutality and racism in America. That effort was led by former San Francisco 49er Colin Kaepernick, who took a knee during the anthem — and who went from being a starting quarterback to being an unsigned free agent in the spring of 2017. Despite Kaepernick's absence from the game last season, NFL teams struggled to craft coherent responses to players' desires to highlight social issues — and they also faced intense public scrutiny, including from President Trump, who condemned players who refused to stand and urged fans to boycott the NFL until teams quashed the protests. Saying that the new policy was meant to put the focus back on the game, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said on Thursday, \"It was unfortunate that on-field protests created a false perception among many that thousands of NFL players were unpatriotic. This is not and was never the case.\" NFL team owners voted to adopt the policy — and while the league says the changes \"were unanimously approved by team owners who voted,\" it also notes that 49ers team owner Jed York abstained, at least in part because York wanted the players to be involved. The on-field protests have taken many forms, from players taking a knee to sitting on the bench as others stood on the sideline. In many cases, teams' players were split on the issue; in others, entire teams took a knee — as in September 2017, when Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones linked arms with his players and took a knee. But one month later, Jones threatened players, saying if they \"disrespect the flag,\" they would be benched. The NFL's 32 teams can develop their own rules about the process, as long as they follow the new policy. \"A club will be fined by the League if its personnel are on the field and do not stand and show respect for the flag and the Anthem,\" the NFL said. In addition, the commissioner \"will impose appropriate discipline on league personnel who do not stand and show respect,\" the league said. Responses to the protests during the 2017 season included dueling boycotts (from fans who don't like players protesting, and from others who don't like how teams treated Kaepernick); threats to strip the New Orleans Saints team of its tax breaks; and the decision by the founder of the Papa John's pizza chain, a longtime NFL advertiser, to step down as CEO after saying the NFL had hurt his business by not resolving what he called a \"debacle.\" In recent months, Kaepernick has been pursuing a collusion case against the NFL, accusing teams of banding together to keep him from being employed in the league. This week, a report emerged that his attorneys' investigation found documents that backed up his claim that, as he neared age 30 last year, he was good enough not only to play in the NFL but to start. Eric Reid, who was the first player to kneel alongside Kaepernick as his teammate in San Francisco, says he is also being punished for that practice, which he continued last season. At 26, he has gone unsigned despite starting at safety for five years; earlier this month, Reid filed a grievance against the NFL and its teams. \"We chose to kneel because it's a respectful gesture,\" Reid wrote in an editorial for The New York Times last fall. \"I remember thinking our posture was like a flag flown at half-mast to mark a tragedy. It baffles me that our protest is still being misconstrued as disrespectful to the country, flag and military personnel.\" The NFL Players Association says that its members \"have shown their patriotism through their social activism, their community service, in support of our military and law enforce", "President Trump is once again weighing in on a culture war topic he helped elevate: NFL players kneeling during the national anthem. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said last week that the league was \"wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier\" on issues of race and oppression. \"Could it be even remotely possible that in Roger Goodell's rather interesting statement of peace and reconciliation, he was intimating that it would now be O.K. for the players to KNEEL, or not to stand, for the National Anthem, thereby disrespecting our Country & our Flag?\" Trump tweeted late Sunday night. The NFL commissioner released a video message on Friday that offered condolences to the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery. All three are African American. Floyd and Taylor were killed this year by police, and in the case of Arbery, one of the three white men accused in his killing is a retired law enforcement officer. \"We at the National Football League condemn racism and the systematic oppression of black people,\" Goodell said. \"We, the National Football League, admit we were wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier and encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest. We, the National Football League, believe black lives matter.\" As NPR reported on Friday, Goodell released his statement after nearly 20 players called on the NFL to take a stronger stance amid the nationwide protest against police brutality against black people. Goodell's roughly 80-second video statement did not explicitly mention the national anthem protests, which were started by now-former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick and gained national attention nearly four years ago. Kaepernick and others say that kneeling during \"The Star-Spangled Banner\" is intended to shine a spotlight on injustices against people of color in the United States. The issue of players kneeling was thrust back into the spotlight following recent comments from Drew Brees, the New Orleans Saints' quarterback. In an interview published Wednesday in Yahoo Finance, the NFL's all-time passing yardage leader said he'll \"never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America.\" Brees apologized in an Instagram post following criticism and later used his social media platform to speak directly to the president. \"Through my ongoing conversations with friends, teammates, and leaders in the black community, I realize this is not an issue about the American flag. It has never been,\" Brees said. \"We can no longer use the flag to turn people away or distract them from the real issues that face our black communities.\" In the past, Goodell has agreed with Trump on this issue. In a 2017 memo to all 32 NFL teams, he said, \"we believe everyone should stand for the National Anthem. It is an important part of our game.\" Throughout his presidency, Trump has accused players who kneel during the anthem of disrespecting the flag and the nation.", "Week 2 of the NFL season is now complete, and what once would have been unimaginable is now becoming commonplace. I'm talking about protests — player protests — visible, controversial, much-talked-about displays during the playing of the national anthem, before NFL games, in stadiums, around the country. These protests began nearly a month ago when San Francisco 49ers backup quarterback Colin Kaepernick chose to sit rather than stand while The Star-Spangled Banner was being played during a preseason game. Since then, we've seen various athletes sit, kneel, lock arms and raise fists during the national anthem — all, they say, out of concern and anger over violence against African-Americans in our cities. The vast majority of these athletes have been NFL players, but not all. High school football players from New Jersey to Washington state, from Illinois to Texas, have joined in. So have a few college players. And then there's soccer star Megan Rapinoe — taking a knee even while playing for the U.S. national team, something that would have been unthinkable for any U.S. Olympian just last month in Rio. Once again, sports has taken us to an important national conversation. Whether it's the Ray Rice video and domestic violence or Lance Armstrong and cheating or Title IX and the advancement of women in our nation — we should see these as cherished conversations that reach people who otherwise might not take part, agree or disagree, defend the protest or despise it. We're seeing something we did not witness during the Michael Jordan-Tiger Woods era a decade or two ago: sports as a vehicle not just for making money, but for social change. Jordan and Woods were not much interested in speaking out about anything remotely controversial. In this way, they were significantly out of step with the athletes who came before them: Muhammad Ali, Billie Jean King, Arthur Ashe, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, to name a few. So it appears that highly publicized social activism in sports skipped a generation. It's back now, yet it's natural to ask if this isn't all talk — all kneeling — and no real action. Not for Kaepernick. He has vowed to donate $1 million this year to groups in the Bay Area that are fighting social inequality. His team, the 49ers, has vowed to match it. Many have wondered where this all leads, not necessarily next week, but in the next few months, even into next year. Do the protests eventually wither away? Does everyone just get bored by it all? Well, the new NBA season starts in little more than a month, and we certainly should expect to see protests there. College basketball, too, both men's and women's. And high school hoops as well. From one season to the next, sports will keep coming. It sounds like the conversation will, too. STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: Now let's talk about violence in this country and the response to it. Protests by athletes against police violence are spreading. And there's no reason to think the protests will die away after this week's shootings of black men by police in Oklahoma and North Carolina. Commentator Christine Brennan is watching what has happened on the field since San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the national anthem. CHRISTINE BRENNAN, BYLINE: Week two of the NFL season is over. And what once would have been unimaginable is now becoming commonplace. I'm talking about protests, player protests - visible, controversial, much talked about displays during the playing of the national anthem before NFL games in stadiums around the country. These protests began nearly a month ago when San Francisco 49ers backup quarterback Colin Kaepernick chose to sit rather than stand while \"The Star-Spangled Banner\" was being played during a preseason game. Since then, we've seen various athletes sit, kneel, lock arms and raise fists during the anthem, they say, out of concern and anger over violence against African-Americans in our cities. The vast majority of these athletes have been NFL players, but not all - high school football players from New Jersey to Washington state, from Illinois to Texas, have joined in; so have a few college players and soccer star Megan Rapinoe, taking a knee even while playing for the U.S. national team, something that would have been unthinkable for any U.S. Olympian just last month in Rio. Once again, sports have taken us to an important national conversation, whether it's the Ray Rice video and domestic violence, or Lance Armstrong and cheating, or Title IX and the advancement of women in our nation, we should see these as cherished conversations that reach people who otherwise might not take part. Defend the protest or despise it, it gets us talking. We're seeing something we did not witness during the Michael Jordan-Tiger Woods era a decade or two ago, sports as a vehicle not just for making money but for social change. Jordan and Woods were not much interested in speaking out about anything remotely controversial. In this way, the", "\"Everyone should stand\" during the national anthem, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wrote in a memo to all 32 teams, adding that the NFL will present a plan next week to help \"move past this controversy.\" In the memo sent Tuesday, Goodell said he is \"very proud of our players and owners who have done the hard work over the past year to listen, understand and attempt to address the underlying issues within their communities\" and expressed respect for players' \"opinions and concerns about critical social issues.\" And yet, Goodell writes, \"like many of our fans, we believe that everyone should stand for the National Anthem. ... We want to honor our flag and our country and our fans expect that of us.\" \"The controversy over the Anthem is a barrier to having honest conversations and making real progress on the underlying issues. We need to move past this controversy, and we want to do that together with our players.\" Team owners are scheduled to discuss the plan with Goodell at a meeting next week in New York. President Trump, who for weeks has been critical of players who kneel, responded to Goodell's memo early Wednesday: \"It is about time that Roger Goodell of the NFL is finally demanding that all players STAND for our great National Anthem-RESPECT OUR COUNTRY,\" Trump tweeted. The NFL then responded with a statement saying, \"Commentary this morning about the Commissioner's position on the anthem is not accurate.\" The statement, as reported by NFL Media analyst Ian Rapoport, went on to say \"there will be a discussion of these issues at the owners meeting next week\" and that the NFL is looking \"to move from protest to progress, working to bring people together.\" While Goodell's memo Tuesday was short on details, it represents an attempt to lay out a clear and consistent leaguewide policy for players. An NFL spokesman tells Sports Illustrated that the game operations manual already states, \"During the National Anthem, players on the field and bench area should stand at attention.\" Then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick began the practice of kneeling during the anthem last year, telling NFL Media he was \"not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.\" Late last month, Trump suggested the NFL fire players who kneel, and he even supported a boycott. Dozens of athletes and owners alike united in various forms of silent protest, with many taking a knee, around the national anthem. Goodell seemed to back players, saying Trump's comments were \"divisive\" and \"demonstrate an unfortunate lack of respect for the NFL.\" Some teams have attempted to lay out a cohesive position on such displays. Earlier this month, the Indianapolis Colts said players who kneel weren't doing it to disrespect the flag or those who serve but were using their platform to raise awareness about \"real equality, the injustices against black and brown people, police brutality, respect, unity, and equal opportunity.\" But the response among fans has been anything but cohesive. While some have lauded players for exercising their right to free speech, others have jeered loudly at the displays and even renounced their allegiance to teams. In recent days, more owners have come out against the protests, even threatening to bench players. However, the players union has backed the protests, saying athletes are exercising their constitutional rights. Goodell acknowledged the divide in his letter. \"The current dispute over the National Anthem is threatening to erode the unifying power of our game, and is now dividing us, and our players, from many fans across the country.\" He went on to say the issue has become \"a barrier to having honest conversations and making real progress on the underlying issues. We need to move past this controversy.\"", "Ben Carson, the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary and lone African American in President Trump's cabinet, suggested that he's spoken with the president about professional athletes kneeling during the national anthem. When asked whether Trump might ease up on his public hostilities towards athletes who take a knee, Carson responded, \"He'll get there.\" The subject of kneeling during the national anthem has gotten renewed attention recently, as protests continue over the death of George Floyd. The black man was killed last month when a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes, and the incident was captured on video. \"We don't have to guess about this case,\" Carson said. \"We saw the murder taking place in front of our eyes.\" The officer accused of the killing, Derek Chauvin, has been charged with second-degree murder. Former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick first started kneeling during the national anthem during the 2016 season to call attention to injustices suffered by communities of color in the United States, particularly police brutality. The former San Francisco 49ers quarterback has gone unsigned by any NFL team the last three seasons. Carson said in his interview with conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt on Monday that if players are going to take a knee, they need to \"make sure that people understand why they're kneeling.\" He added, according to a transcript, \"I think most of them are kneeling because you know, they want to protest some brutality in the police forces. They need to make that very clear.\" Kaepernick and others have long stated their protests during the anthem were about that very topic. Carson also said that now that there is more focus on policing, perhaps there may not be a need for the kneeling to continue. When asked whether \"we need more conversation and more explanation and fewer gestures,\" Carson responded that \"that would help so much.\" He said it would be \"amazing how good that would be.\" The HUD secretary was pressed on whether he could persuade the president to not get upset at players who do kneel, and he responded, \"I don't think he has manifested as much animosity in that region lately.\" He added: \"I think we just continue to work with him. He'll get there.\" The president has recently reignited the culture war he helped elevate, using his Twitter feed to bash athletes or their leagues for allowing players to take part in protests during the playing of \"The Star Spangled Banner.\" Over the weekend Trump tweeted that he \"won't be watching much anymore!\" It was in response to a report that a close ally, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., objected to U.S. Soccer repealing a ban on kneeling during the anthem. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, tweeted something similar over the weekend, but Trump took the opportunity to hit the NFL in his response. \"It looks like the NFL is heading in that direction also, but not with me watching!\" Trump tweeted. Roger Goodell, the NFL Commissioner, told ESPN on Monday that he'd support a team signing the Kaepernick, who led his team to their appearance in Super Bowl XLVII. \"Well, listen, if he wants to resume his career in the NFL, then obviously it's going to take a team to make that decision,\" Goodell said in the interview. \"But I welcome that, support a club making that decision and encourage them to do that.\"", "Weeks of nationwide protests over police abuse prompted the National Football League earlier this month to condemn racism and shift its stance against players protesting racial injustice. But Brendon Ayanbadejo, a former NFL linebacker and equal rights activist, is reserving praise for the announcement made by league commissioner Roger Goodell. \"For now, it's just a moral victory,\" Ayanbadejo told All Things Considered. \"[I] would've loved to have people listen sooner, before there was a lot more violence, before there was a lot more lives lost,\" Ayanbadejo says. Owners and coaches have largely remained silent on the issue, Ayanbadejo says, and many actions still need to be taken to align with the commissioner's statement. He says he'd like to hear Goodell's message echoed more clearly among the league's other executives. \"From a corporate responsibility standpoint, from a team ownership standpoint ... what types of statements are they going to make?\" says Ayanbadejo. \"You see some coaches speaking up and standing up but I'd like to see it from the top down.\" In his remarks earlier this month, Goodell said that, \"We, the National Football League, admit we were wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier and encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest. We, the National Football League, believe black lives matter.\" While Goodell's remarks were welcomed across much of the league, the commissioner also drew criticism for failing to mention former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Starting in 2016, Kaepernick began kneeling during the national anthem, inspiring a peaceful protest movement among players that drew the ire of President Trump and others. Like many players, Ayanbadejo is no stranger to receiving backlash for speaking out. As a member of the Baltimore Ravens until the 2012 season, the three-time Pro Bowler and Super Bowl champion has been criticized for his outspoken support for LGBTQ rights and inclusion. After Ayanbadejo voiced support for same-sex marriage in 2012, then-Maryland state delegate Emmett Burns sent a letter to Ravens team owner Steve Bisciotti, saying that Ayanbadejo should \"concentrate on football and steer clear of dividing the fan base,\" and urged Bisciotti to keep his players from speaking on the issue. Ayanbadejo refused then, and now, to stay silent. Still, at the time, he worried that airing his views threatened his employment with the league. \"I thought my job was in question, and then people would question my sexuality as well, they question your humanity,\" he says. Unlike Kaepernick, however, who has yet to be re-signed by an NFL team, Ayanbadejo says exercising his free speech did not ultimately harm his NFL career. \"There was some nerve-wracking time until the president of the Ravens reached out to me or until the LGBTQ community put their arms around me and pulled me in and held me up,\" he says. \"It's definitely challenging when you don't have all the support to help you stand up tall.\" Ayanbadejo himself doesn't identify as gay, but feels it's his duty to speak out about an issue that aligns with his \"moral compass.\" Despite the varying degrees of backlash that's followed athletes who protest against police abuse or stand up for LGBTQ rights, Ayanbadejo doesn't divorce the two issues from an overarching fight for equality. While he is heartened by people who are \"starting to listen\" and the conversations being sparked around racial inequality, Ayanbadejo says there's a lot more work to do. \"Systemic racism is so much more than just the police — it's access to education and food, health care. It's beyond more than just the violence that you see, it's all the passive racism that's in the system as well,\" he says. As a black man with a daughter and son, Ayanbadejo says his fame does not immunize him from the consequences of racism. \"Why would you listen to a guy that's in the NFL? You make a million dollars, you're living your dream life ... But you still have to walk around with your black square on.\" NPR's Robert Baldwin III and Natalie Winston produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Emma Bowman adapted it for the Web.", "The political debate surrounding national anthem protests at National Football League games intensified this week after players declined to stand during the playing of \"The Star-Spangled Banner\" after the mass shootings in Las Vegas. Before the Monday Night Football game between the NFL franchises in Kansas City and Washington D.C., two Kansas City players sat on the bench during the playing of the anthem, while all of the Washington players stood with their arms locked. The controversy started last season when former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick chose to kneel during the anthem to protest what he described as injustices faced by people of color, particularly at the hands of police officers. Last month, the issue resurfaced with greater urgency when President Trump condemned players who refused to stand for the anthem. He later called for fans to boycott NFL games unless team owners stopped the protests. Some players, coaches and team owners criticized the president, characterizing his rhetoric as divisive. Former NFL player and NASA astronaut Leland Melvin called Trump's comments \"boorish and disgusting\" in a letter posted on Facebook. Last week, he told Here & Now's Robin Young that Trump's remarks about NFL players \"incensed\" him. \"I really think that, when the announcer in the stadium says, 'Rise to honor our veterans,' by no means is [Colin] Kaepernick, or anyone taking a knee, in any way wanting to dishonor the service of police officers, or people who are fighting in our wars,\" Melvin says, \"but it's an injustice that's happening in our streets, it's an inequality, it's things that have been stemmed from slavery and the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, all of these foundational documents that define our democracy. That's what matters.\" But a sizable portion of those surveyed disagree, says Diane Hessan, founder of C-Space, a market research company. Among the 400 voters participating in a study she began last December, more than 40 percent supported the president on the NFL protests. Hessan tells Young that for many who disapprove of these protests, it comes down to \"plain patriotism.\" She says their views highlight the collision of politics with what many see as the escapism of sports and the cherished ritual of the national anthem. \"One is the ritual of sports and how that's for many people a sacred place where you root for your team; but people of all political persuasions root for their team,\" Hessan says. \"The other ritual, though, is the playing of the national anthem, everyone standing up, and the dignified, expected, comforting routine that that symbolizes.\" Hessan says people in her study used words like \"despicable\" and \"a disgrace\" to describe the Ravens-Jaguars game in London, where players sat down for the national anthem but stood for \"God Save The Queen.\" She says many decried those actions as making \"a mockery of our nation.\" Many respondents also cited the hypocrisy of NFL officials who haven't stopped these demonstrations but banned other displays of activism, such as when the Dallas Cowboys wanted to support the Dallas police officers killed in July 2016. \"So the question, really the hypocrisy, is why did [NFL Commissioner] Roger Goodell say it was OK for players to take a knee, but not OK for players to wear a fairly benign decal supporting Dallas police in the aftermath of a shooting last July?\" Hessan says. Lastly, Hessan says many who support Trump on this issue also said they feel liberals celebrate free speech but not when it is conservatives who are speaking. She argues Trump is using the NFL protests to turn the electorate against a group of people perceived as being part of the elite; in this case, football fans versus football players. \"My perspective on this is Trump is dumb like a fox when it comes to this particular issue,\" Hessan says. \"He knows that if he stokes this racist issue — if he stokes anything related to identity politics — that the Democrats will jump onto it, it's almost like a trap, and then all of a sudden, we've got a week of people screaming and yelling about civil rights.\"", "The NFL's players are 70 percent black; its fans are 83 percent white and 64 percent male, according to online sports site The Real GM. And when it comes to the controversy over the national anthem and players taking a knee, that statistic is playing a huge role. It leads to the idea, says Amira Rose Davis of Penn State University, \"that 'you are good as entertainment, but once you have a voice, I don't want to hear you. You need to shut up and play.' \" Some players, though, clearly are not satisfied to just play and be paid. And so the league is trying to figure out how to keep its owners happy while making sure players have some outlet for their social concerns. They began that discussion last weekend, but it won't be easily resolved Standing for the anthem: NFL policy, but not a rule This week, at the end of two days of meetings with owners and players, NFL Commissioner Rodger Goodell explained at a press conference that the league would be working with players on their interest in issues that affect their communities. Goodell said the league handbook would remain the same: It is policy that players stand for the anthem, but it's not a rule. \"We want our players to stand; we'll encourage our players to stand,\" Goodell said. He would not answer questions about what happens if individual owners choose to discipline their players if they take a knee. \"I'm not dealing in hypotheticals right now,\" he demurred. Owners anticipate more fan anger and more White House tweets. The controversy could be a watershed moment for the NFL and the sport. And the stakes are high. \"Sport has often been a site for not only the expression of tensions in society, but it's also been a laboratory of sorts,\" says Davis, an African-American assistant professor of history who studies gender, race and sports at Pennsylvania State University. \"This is an arena that is very visible,\" she adds. \"And if you can discipline a black body in this space, it sends a message to disciplining black bodies across the country.\" Taking a knee You know the history of this: Then-San Francisco 49er Colin Kaepernick took a knee last year while the national anthem was being played. Kaepernick's contract was not renewed, and no team has picked him up. (This week, he filed a grievance against owners, saying they had colluded to blackball him.) Despite what critics say was intended by owners to be a chilling cautionary tale, more and more NFL players (most of them black) have joined Kaepernick in taking a knee this year, and America is not happy. Well, a lot of white America is not happy. And that is an important distinction. Facebook videos show angry white men throwing their team jerseys, caps and posters in a pile and setting them on fire. Via tweets, President Trump is urging fans to boycott the NFL until it orders its players to stand during the anthem: \"total disrespect for our great country!\" Many owners, initially offended at Trump's directive, have changed their tune. The dispute comes as attendance and television viewership for the NFL have been sliding. And while it's unclear what effect the protests might be having on this, it's pretty clear the league is worried. Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who linked arms with his team two weeks ago and took a knee before the anthem, has now promised all his players that anyone protesting while the anthem is being played will be benched and fined. Maybe worse. All this doesn't surprise Colorado College historian Jamal Ratchford. He is African-American and studies the nexus of sports, race and protest. \"Self-determination of black athletes has always been a challenge and infringed upon,\" Ratchford says. Think Muhammad Ali, who protested the Vietnam War by refusing to be inducted into the military. He was stripped of his title, fined and banned from boxing. Or Tommie Smith and John Carlos, gold and bronze track medalists respectively, who stood with upraised fists as the anthem was played during the Olympics in Mexico City in 1968. They were stripped of their medals, and upon their return home, Carlos was under FBI surveillance for years afterward. There were death threats, public shunning. Davis believes a lot of spectators aren't interested in athletes' political opinions. She adds that the kneeling protests as the anthem is played are being conflated with disrespect for the flag and the military; she believes the conflation is erroneous — and purposeful. Especially when it's used by prominent critics, like the president. \"Not about the flag or the troops\" The bended knees aren't about the flag, Davis says. \"This is about police brutality. This is what we experience as black people in America. This is not about the flag or the troops.\" Davis notes that over and over, athletes have made that point. \"They've penned op-eds, done town hall debates and talked on news shows.\" What the anger is actually about, Davis believes, \"is what happens when black bodies don't conform to what white spectators and consume", "The U.S. Soccer Federation has repealed the league's three-year-old ban on kneeling during the national anthem, amid nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice sparked by the killing of George Floyd. \"It has become clear that this policy was wrong and detracted from the important message of Black Lives Matter,\" U.S. Soccer announced on Wednesday. The organization, which approved the move in a board of directors vote a day earlier, said it would let players decide how to use their platforms \"to fight all forms of racism, discrimination, and inequality.\" Under Policy 604-1 all national teams players were ordered to \"stand respectfully during the playing of national anthems at any event in which the Federation is represented.\" The board passed the rule in February 2017. That was about five months after soccer star Megan Rapinoe first took a knee during \"The Star Spangled Banner\" in solidarity with NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick. The former San Francisco 49er, who first sat then dropped to a knee during the song, began the controversial silent protest at the start of the 2016 NFL season in the wake of a spate of killings of black men and women at the hands of white law enforcement. With the death of Floyd at the hands of former Minneapolis police officers, sports leagues — including men's and women's soccer — are under pressure to reckon with how they have suppressed players' voices and largely ignored a cultural shift. Earlier this week the U.S. Women's National Team Players Association called for an apology from the federation and a plan \"on how it will now support the message and movement that it tried to silence years ago.\" \"Until USSF does so, the mere existence of the policy will continue to perpetuate the misconceptions and fear that clouded the true meaning and significance of Colin Kaepernick, Megan Rapinoe and other athletes taking a knee — that Black people in America have not been and continue to not be afforded the same liberties and freedoms as white people and that police brutality and systemic racism exist in this country,\" the players said in a statement. The U.S. Men's National Team also called for a mea culpa from the federation. \"Because the policy was never negotiated with our Players Association it did not apply to the US Men's National Team players so we were not concerned about it. However, the Federation now absolutely needs to acknowledge they were wrong to issue it, to apologize for it, and rescind it.,\" the team association said in a statement. On Wednesday, the federation offered the following apology: \"We apologize to our players – especially our Black players – staff, fans, and all who support eradicating racism. Sports are a powerful platform for good, and we have not used our platform as effectively as we should have.\"", "Freedom, respect and “taking a knee” in the NFL. The VP walks out. Trump threatens. What’s right here? It started very small, with Colin Kapernick.  Then the president called protesting NFL players taking a knee at games during the national anthem sons of bitches, and it went big.  Players – and coaches – all over, pushing back, linking arms, taking a knee.  This week, Mike Pence stoked it again.  Walking out of a Colts-49ers game.  The NFL, saying they should stand, but not demanding – yet.  The first owner demanding.  Trump, firing away.  This hour, On Point:  the NFL, “taking a knee,” and where this goes. &#8212;Tom Ashbrook Guests: Robert Klemko, NFL writer for Sports Illustrated. (@RobertKlemko ) Alejandro Danois, editor-in-chief, The Shadow League. (@alidanois) Catherine Ross, professor at George Washington University Law School. (@catherinejross_) Michael Caputo, radio host for WBEN news radio in Buffalo.  (@MichaelRCaputo) From Tom&#8217;s Reading List: The Players&#8217; Tribune, Russell Okung: An Open Letter To NFL Players: Let&#8217;s Get Organized — &#8220;Things have clearly gotten out of control. As a pragmatist, I will admit, I initially doubted the merits of Colin Kaepernick’s protest and questioned his strategy. I was wrong.&#8221; Sports Illustrated: Roger Goodell’s National Anthem Letter to NFL Owners—Annotated — &#8220;Roger Goodell’s Tuesday letter to the NFL’s 32 teams, laying out the league’s stance on social justice protests during the national anthem, and the plan to reach a resolution at next week’s league meeting, was the strongest message yet from the NFL offices on the issue dividing the viewing public. &#8230; After playing a behind-the-scenes intermediary role early on, NFL HQ is mobilizing, through its messaging, to resolve a conflict that it acknowledges is alienating fans. Here’s that letter (in bold), with my thoughts on its real message, to teams, players and fans (in italics).&#8221; The Shadow League:  Colin Kaepernick And The Power Of Sports To Transform America — &#8220;Trump is waging an all-out assault on the movement that Colin Kaepernick re-ignited, saying, &#8216;You cannot disrespect our country, our flag, our anthem, you cannot do that.&#8217; That&#8217;s a pretty peculiar statement from a man who once Tweeted in January, &#8216;Peaceful protests are a hallmark of our democracy. Even if I don&#8217;t always agree, I recognize the rights of people to express their views.'&#8221; New York Times: NFL Players May Have An Ally In Their Protests: Labor Law — &#8220;While the law might not bear on whether an individual player can kneel during the anthem, many experts say it could protect players from repercussions for making such a gesture together — or taking other action — to show solidarity on the job.&#8221; CNN: Why Taking The Knee Stomps On My Foot — &#8220;So to me, even as a lifelong football fan, it seems pretty normal to find something offensive about players continuing to take the knee during the anthem, especially after so many people have made clear how uncomfortable it makes them feel. After all, if you walk up to me and stomp on my foot, I&#8217;ll give you a pass if you say it was an accident. You don&#8217;t even have to apologize. But the second time you do it, I know that you know that you hurt my foot when you stomped on it. Yet you&#8217;ve chosen to hurt my foot again and again, so that speaks volumes about you.&#8221;", "Georgia Rep. Hank Johnson told TMZ Sports this week that free-agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick is a &#8220;victim&#8221; and suggested that Congress could take action against the NFL because he doesn&#8217;t have a job in the league. Kaepernick hasn&#8217;t played in the NFL since the 2016 season when he started kneeling during the National Anthem to protest police brutality against African Americans. Host Robin Young speaks with Here & Now sports analyst Mike Pesca (@pescami). He hosts the daily podcast The Gist. This article was originally published on WBUR.org.", "Updated, 8:40 p.m. ET At a rally in Alabama on Friday night, President Trump expressed his opinion that NFL players who kneel or otherwise take part in protests during the national anthem prior to games should be fired. The president doubled down on those comments over the weekend, tweeting that players \"should not be allowed to disrespect our Great American Flag (or Country).\" Last year, NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick began kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial inequality. Over the course of the season, other players joined his protest by kneeling, sitting or raising their fists during the anthem. Kaepernick is not currently employed by any NFL team and has not spoken publicly about his movement in several months. However, other players have continued to protest during the anthem, and Trump's statements led to widespread protests over the weekend. Most teams stood by their players' decision to protest. Here's how the league, individual teams and a few other sports have weighed in: NFL The National Football League and its Players' Association both issued statements supporting their players' rights after Trump's comments on Friday. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell called Trump's remarks \"divisive\" and said they fail to understand \"the overwhelming force for good our clubs and players represent in our communities.\" In his statement, NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith expressed support for the rights of the league's players and said \"no man or woman should ever have to choose a job that forces them to surrender their rights.\" NFLPA President Eric Winston called Trump's comments \"a slap in the face to the civil rights heroes of the past and present\" and said \"we will not stop challenging others on how we can all come together to continue to make America the greatest country on earth.\" Many of the league's players and teams also issued statements or participated in protests prior to this weekend's games: Arizona Cardinals Team President Michael Bidwill issued a statement supporting his players and describing football as \"something that has always united us as Americans.\" On whether the team would protest before its game Monday night, defensive tackle Frostee Rucker said \"if there is anything like that, it's going to be unified.\" ESPN sideline reporter Lisa Salters said that ahead of their Monday Night Football game, the Cardinals had sought to do something jointly with their opponent, the Dallas Cowboys, but were turned down by the team, which made its own gesture. Cardinals players and personnel lined up and locked arms along the front of one end zone. Trump tweeted on Sunday that he thought standing together and locking arms was fine. Atlanta Falcons Two players knelt Sunday, and the team linked arms during the national anthem. Team owner Arthur Blank joined the team on the sidelines and issued a statement on Saturday saying \"we are at our very best when we are working together\": Baltimore Ravens Playing in England, about 10 players knelt for \"The Star-Spangled Banner,\" according to the Baltimore Sun. Other players and coaches linked arms. Before the game, owner Steve Bisciotti issued this statement: Buffalo Bills Several Bills players knelt for the anthem, and running back LeSean McCoy continued pregame stretching instead of observing the anthem. Bills owners Terry and Kim Pegula released the following statement on Saturday night calling Trump's comments \"divisive\": Carolina Panthers Defensive end Julius Peppers remained in the locker room for the anthem, while the rest of the team stood. The team has yet to issue any statement regarding Trump's comments or protests around the league. Chicago Bears The Bears stood and linked arms during the national anthem on Sunday. Chairman George McCaskey issued the following statement on Sunday morning calling the political situation \"divisive\": Cincinnati Bengals All Bengals players stood and most locked arms for the anthem. The team later issued a statement, saying \"Football and politics don't mix easily. Fans come to NFL games to watch great competition on the playing field and that's where our focus should be.\" Tight end Tyler Eifert, who is injured and did not make the trip to Green Bay for their game, had previously spoken to the Cincinnati Enquirer and written a statement on Medium about why he makes a point of standing for the anthem. Cleveland Browns At least 20 players knelt, while others stood and linked arms during the anthem, and owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam called Trump's comments \"misguided, uninformed and divisive\" in a statement supporting their players. Before an earlier game this season, the team played a video in which players discussed racial inequality. Dallas Cowboys The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that Cowboys players planned to protest during the anthem before Monday night's game, but they instead chose to lock arms, taking a symbolic knee together just before the anthem. Fans at the game in Phoenix booed the visiting te", "Sports, politics and perceptions of patriotism collided once again when President Trump tweeted early Tuesday about ESPN's SportsCenter host Jemele Hill, suggesting she is the reason for the network's poor ratings. Hill was suspended a day earlier for comments about the ongoing national anthem protests. Trump also went after what the NFL pays in taxes, tweeting, \"Why is the NFL getting massive tax breaks while at the same time disrespecting our Anthem, Flag and Country? Change tax law!\" ESPN suspended Hill on Monday \"for a second violation of our social media guidelines,\" the network said in a statement. The first violation came last month, when Hill tweeted that Trump \"is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists.\" At the time, ESPN said it had addressed the comments with Hill and \"she recognizes her actions were inappropriate.\" Hill, a prolific tweeter, avoided an outright apology but said she regretted having \"painted ESPN in an unfair light.\" Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Hill should have been fired for the \"outrageous comments.\" In the second violation, Hill said Sunday night that fans who \"feel strongly\" should boycott advertisers of Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, after he seemed to come out against players protesting during the national anthem. Earlier Sunday Jones told The Dallas Morning News, \"if there is anything that is disrespectful to the flag then we will not play.\" Jones made the remarks after the Cowboys lost to the Green Bay Packers 35-31. \"You understand? If we are disrespecting the flag then we won't play. Period.\" The comments put Jones at odds with the players union as well as NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. It was an apparent turnaround for Jones, who just two weeks earlier had himself knelt and linked arms with players at a game against the Cardinals in Arizona before rising as singer Jordin Sparks began the national anthem. Jones said after the game that it was a statement about \"unity\" and \"equality.\" Just before her suspension was announced, Hill tried to clarify her statement about Jones, tweeting, \"I'm not advocating a NFL boycott. But an unfair burden has been put on players in Dallas & Miami w/ anthem directives.\" Dolphins owner Stephen Ross also spoke out against players who kneel, saying Sunday, \"I think it's incumbent upon the players today, because of how the public is looking at it, is to stand and salute the flag.\" But even as Hill denied advocating an NFL boycott, Trump himself has supported one, tweeting last month, \"If NFL fans refuse to go to games until players stop disrespecting our Flag & Country, you will see change take place fast. Fire or suspend!\" Days earlier, Trump delivered a fiery speech at an Alabama rally, when he used an expletive against players who kneel. His remarks prompted a rare display of unity among owners and dozens of players, who demonstrated in some way around the national anthem, including Jones. Vice President Pence made his own statement when he walked out of Sunday's game after several San Francisco 49ers took a knee. \"I left today's Colts game because President Trump and I will not dignify any event that disrespects our soldiers, our Flag, or our National Anthem,\" Pence, a former governor of Indiana, said in a statement about the seemingly orchestrated display. Then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick launched the form of silent protest last year. \"I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,\" he told NFL Media at the time. \"To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.\" The now-free agent remains unsigned by a team. Many players continue to kneel, sit, link arms or raise a fist as \"The Star-Spangled Banner\" plays. As some fans boo and others cheer the displays, which have come to encompass political statements in addition to symbolizing social injustice, the movement Kaepernick sparked shows no sign of letting up.", "Updated 5 p.m. ET NFL owners and players met at league headquarters in New York on Tuesday but put forward no policy changes regarding the controversial player protests during the national anthem. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell told reporters Wednesday that the participants did not discuss the idea of team owners disciplining players for protesting, saying that it \"wasn't necessary.\" \"Everyone should stand for the national anthem,\" Goodell said. \"We all feel very strongly about our country and our pride, and we're going to continue to do that.\" In terms of the protesting players, he said, \"what we've tried to do is deal with the underlying issue and understand what they're protesting and try to address that matter.\" Goodell stated that currently \"six or seven\" players are participating in the protests. He called the dialogue unprecedented, \"between our players, between our owners, between our club officials, between the league. And that is a really positive change for us, that we think is ultimately going to pay dividends.\" Eleven owners and 13 players attended the meeting that lasted for several hours and was variously described as \"positive\" and \"constructive,\" but didn't signal any changes on the protests that have seen players take a knee, sit or raise fists during pregame renditions of the national anthem to protest against racial inequality and police shootings of unarmed black men. \"We heard what they had to say and they heard us,\" Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross said. \"It's open talks and that's a good thing.\" Goodell had previously said the league \"did not ask\" for any change to the policy on the national anthem. That policy says players \"should\" stand for performance of \"The Star-Spangled Banner,\" but in the wake of the protests, some have suggested changing that language to \"must.\" The NFL Players Association union and the league issued a joint statement, saying the sides came together \"to promote positive social change and address inequality in our communities.\" \"NFL executives and owners joined NFLPA executives and player leaders to review and discuss plans to utilize our platform to promote equality and effectuate positive change. We agreed that these are common issues and pledged to meet again to continue this work together,\" the statement read. \"As we said last week, everyone who is part of our NFL community has a tremendous respect for our country, our flag, our anthem and our military. In the best American tradition, we are coming together to find common ground and commit to the hard work required for positive change,\" it continued. Last week, Commissioner Goodell said in a memo to the teams that the league prefers for players to stand during the anthem. Philadelphia Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins, who has been a leading spokesman for the players on this issue, said the discussion covered \"everything to do with the state of the NFL now, obviously anthem protests, activism that players have been doing, and how we can move this forward to really amplify players' voices and amplify these issues and make some long sustainable changes.\" \"I'm not sure we're close to a resolution, but conversations are ongoing,\" he added. Indianapolis Colts defensive back Darius Butler told Sports Illustrated that it was a good dialogue, adding, \"it's not going to be fixed overnight.\" The protests were touched off a year ago when then-San Francisco 49ers Quarterback Colin Kaepernick began taking a knee for the anthem. When President Trump weighed in last month saying owners should \"fire\" players for such protests, the issue snowballed into a national debate over those who see the matter as one of free speech and others who see it as a lack of respect for the flag and the national anthem. Kaepernick, who became a free agent this season has remained unsigned. Earlier this week his attorney said he was filing a grievance against the NFL and owners for allegedly conspiring to shut him out of the league over the protests.", "NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is on board with any of the NFL's 32 franchises signing former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. \"If he wants to resume his career in the NFL, then it's obviously going to take a team to make that decision,\" Goodell said during an interview with ESPN. \"But I welcome that, support the club making that decision and encourage them to do that.\" Goodell added during the Monday interview that if Kaepernick is not back on the field when the 2020 season gets underway, the league would also welcome his insights to \"help us and guide us and help us to make better decisions\" on complex issues. Troy Vincent, a former NFL player who now serves as the league's Executive Vice President of Football Operations, echoed Goodell's sentiments that he wants Kaepernick back in the league, but ultimately the decision falls to the teams. \"We don't hire,\" Vincent said, alluding to the league office's role in team personnel decisions. \"That'll be a decision that is made by a head coach, a general manager and an owner. That's a club decision. \"But this young man is talented enough to play in the National Football League,\" Vincent said during in podcast with ESPN's Adam Schefter. He added that Kaepernick \"just hasn't had the opportunity to display his talents once again.\" Goodell's apology Both the comments come nearly two weeks after Goodell admitted the league was \"wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier\" on racial injustice issues. Goodell did not mention Kaepernick during in his roughly 80-second video statement released June 5. The league released that video a day after several current NFL players used their social media platforms to criticize the league for not taking a stronger stance on matters of racial inequities. Kaepernick, a once-electrifying player who led his team to a Super Bowl appearance, has gone unsigned for the past three seasons. He became a lightening rod after he started keeling during the playing of \"The Star-Spangled Banner\" in 2016 to call attention to racial injustices, including brutality by police against communities of color. The subject of kneeling during the anthem has regained traction of late, following the nationwide protests sparked by recent high profile killings of African Americans by police including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, David McAtee, Ahmaud Arbery and Rayshard Brooks. In the case of McAtee, Kentucky officials said last week the fatal shot came from the Kentucky National Guard which had been called to assist police in Louisville to respond to a crowd gathered after the city's curfew. One of the three white men accused in Arbery's murder in February is a retired law enforcement officer. During his eulogy of Floyd last week in Houston, the Rev. Al Sharpton also hit Goodell for not doing enough for Kaepernick. \"Oh it's nice to see some people change their mind,\" Sharpton said of Goodell, before telling mourners that the commissioner offered up an \"empty apology.\" \"Don't come with some empty apology, take a man's livelihood, strip a man down of his talents and four years later, when the whole world is marching, all of a sudden, you go and do a FaceTime, talking about you [are] sorry,\" Sharpton said. President Trump Factor President Trump has also hit the NFL recently when he questioned whether Goodell was \"intimating that it would now be O.K. for the players to KNEEL, or not to stand, for the National Anthem, thereby disrespecting our Country & our Flag?\" Trump over the weekend also suggested he would not watch the NFL during the upcoming season if players were allowed to take a knee during the anthem. Goodell previously agreed with Trump's anthem stance. In a 2017 memo sent to all NFL franchises, Goodell said \"we believe everyone should stand for the National Anthem. It is an important part of our game.\" As The Associated Press points out, Goodell did set up a tryout for Kaepernick at the Atlanta Falcons facility in November 2019. The move was at the time met with widespread criticism, for reasons that included the tryout was setup for a Saturday, a difficult travel day for most teams during the season who largely play on games on Sundays. Ultimately the workout didn't materialize as planned and Kaepernick worked out for reportedly eight NFL scouts at a high school south of Atlanta.", "It seemed like the controversy involving NFL players kneeling during the national anthem had died down a bit — that is until President Trump stirred up a hornet's nest Friday night during a campaign trip to Alabama. Trump unleashed a tirade of strong comments against NFL players who don't stand during the playing of \"The Star Spangled Banner.\" Kneeling during the national anthem in protest over perceived social injustices against African-Americans began last year. A handful of white players didn't stand Sunday, but the vast majority of those actively protesting were black, The Associated Press reports. Trump's take: It's unpatriotic and NFL team owners should fire those refusing to stand. Trump's comments festered over the weekend and by the various game times on Sunday, roughly 200 players sat, knelt or raised their fists in defiance during the anthem. Most of the players locked arms with their teammates — some coaches and team owners also joined in. Other teams, such as the Pittsburgh Steelers, stayed off the field until the anthem was finished. One Steeler, Army veteran Alejandro Villanueva, ventured out of the tunnel and placed his hand over his heart during the singing of the anthem. A week ago, fewer than 10 players protested. The last NFL game of the day, Washington hosted Oakland, was played in Landover, Md. — not far from the White House. Most of Oakland's team sat on their bench during the anthem while most of Washington's team stood arm-in-arm along with owner Dan Snyder and president Bruce Allen. Trump tweeted earlier on Sunday: \"Standing with locked arms is good, kneeling is not acceptable. Bad ratings!\" The Associated Press reports that among the strongest criticisms of the president was from New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton: \"I'm disappointed in the comments that were made. I think we need a little bit more wisdom in that office,\" he said of the White House. \"I want that guy to be one of the smarter guys in the room and it seems like every time he's opening up his mouth it's something that is dividing our country and not pulling us together.' \" Kneeling during the national anthem began as a protest more than a year ago when former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand during the song as a protest of police treatment of minorities. This season, no team has signed him, and some supporters believe NFL owners are avoiding him because of the controversy. Trump's comments may have helped to publicize a cause that not all NFL fans were aware of.", "The Olympics reminded me again about the four guiding principles of sports organizations. No. 1: It's much easier to run a team sport than an individual sport. No. 2: It's much easier to run a domestic sport than an international sport. No. 3: Any sports organization that has the word \"federation\" in its title is probably a mess. And No. 4: Any sports organization in which volunteers have a lot of power over the professionals is really, really going to be screwed up. The subset to No. 4 is: Beware of any sports organization in which too many people in authority wear blue blazers. The classic best sports organization in all the world is the National Football League. See, it not only is a team sport but it is completely domestic, all-American. It is so American that the NFL game is even called \"American football.\" I think it's the only sport in the world that's identified by a country. Nobody says \"Indonesian badminton\" or \"Scottish golf.\" Even better for the NFL, hardly anybody else anywhere in the world even plays American football, so there's no federation with lots of volunteers to get in the way of what the NFL wants to do. The commissioner of the NFL, whose name doesn't matter since Pete Rozelle left, has the cushiest job in sport. It's sort of like running General Motors before the Japanese made cars. The most difficult decisions the commissioner of the NFL must make are along the lines of, \"Oh my, what in the world are we going to do about Brett Favre?\" And: \"How can I keep Jerry Jones happy?\" And: \"How long do I suspend players who shoot people in nightclubs?\" By contrast, look at sports like boxing and tennis. They're all individuals and different countries, so nobody can ever take charge. Tennis is so confusing that it runs about 64 weeks a year. Tennis and boxing also have so many competing agencies that they are all just identified by their initials, so nobody even knows who anybody is. We have the ITF and the WBC and the WTA and the WBA and the ATP and the WBF. American professional football has The Commissioner. Team sports in all countries are invariably placed under more scrutiny, because fans are so loyal to their teams, and thus they force management to try to keep things on the up and up. But the more spread out a sports organization, the more diffuse its charge — and the more individuals rather than teams are competing, the more inefficiency and, also, the more opportunity for chicanery. Do you really think the International Olympic Committee is capable of finding out how old those itty-bitty little Chinese gymnasts really are? Please. But whatever you think about America in the 21st century, the NFL probably works better than anything else in the United States, and maybe even better than Putin runs the Kremlin. Commentator Frank Deford joins us each Wednesday from member station WSHU in Fairfield, Conn. STEVE INSKEEP, host: Organizing the Olympics was a massive logistical challenge. All those athletes, all those countries, all those languages. For commentator Frank Deford, the show brought to mind a few basic truths about running sports events. FRANK DEFORD: The Olympics reminded me again about the four guiding principles of sports organizations. Number one: It's much easier to run a team sport than an individual sport. Number two: It's much easier to run a domestic sport than an international sport. Number three: Any sports organization that has the word federation in its title is probably a mess. And number four: Any sports organization in which volunteers have a lot of power over the professionals is really, really going to be screwed up. The subset to number four is: Beware of any sports organization where too many people in authority wear blue blazers. The classic best sports organization in all the world is the National Football League. See, it's not only a team sport, but it is completely domestic, all-American. It is so American that the NFL game is even called American football. I think it's the only sport in the world that's identified by a country. Nobody says Indonesian badminton or Scottish golf. Even better for the NFL, hardly anybody else anywhere in the world even plays American football, so there's no federation with lots of volunteers to get in the way of what the NFL wants to do. The commissioner of the NFL, whose name doesn't matter since Pete Rozelle left, has the cushiest job in sport. It's sort of like running General Motors before the Japanese made cars. The most difficult decisions the commissioner of the NFL must make are along the lines of, oh my, what in the world are we going to do about Brett Favre? And how can I keep Jerry Jones happy? And how long do I suspend players who shoot people in nightclubs? By contrast, look at sports like boxing or tennis. They're all individuals and different countries, so nobody can ever take charge. Tennis is so confusing that it runs about 64 weeks a year. Tennis and boxing also have so man", "Is the NFL newly woke? Many say for a league that's been criticized for lagging behind on issues of race, it seems that way. Friday, Commissioner Roger Goodell announced the NFL will observe June 19th as a recognized holiday. The day, referred to as Juneteenth, commemorates the effective end of slavery in the U.S. Goodell made the announcement in a memo to league offices in New York City, New Jersey and Los Angeles. Dear NFL Colleagues: Juneteenth, celebrated annually on June 19th, commemorates the effective end of slavery in the United States. Though the Emancipation Proclamation, made effective by President Lincoln on January 1, 1863 declared that all persons held as slaves be freed, slavery persisted throughout the course of the Civil War. It was not until two and a half years later, on June 19th 1865, when Union soldiers landed in Galveston, Texas and declared the war to be over, that all of those enslaved became free. The power of this historical feat in our country's blemished history is felt each year, but there is no question that the magnitude of this event weighs even more heavily today in the current climate. Juneteenth not only marks the end of slavery in the United States, but it also symbolizes freedom – a freedom that was delayed, and brutally resisted; and though decades of progress followed, a freedom for which we must continue to fight.&nbsp; This year, as we work together as a family and in our communities to combat the racial injustices that remain deeply rooted into the fabric of our society, the NFL will observe Juneteenth on Friday, June 19th as a recognized holiday and our league offices will be closed. It is a day to reflect on our past, but more importantly, consider how each one of us can continue to show up and band together to work toward a better future. Roger Goodell's memo follows an announcement from the day before, that the NFL is pledging to donate $250 million over 10 years to a fund to combat systemic racism and support the battle against injustices faced by African Americans. The pledge extends what the league already has contributed...a reported $44 million....as part of its work with the Players Coalition, a player-started advocacy group working on racial equality and social justice issues. And then a week ago, Goodell released a video in which he condemned racism, stated black lives matter and admitted the NFL was wrong for not listening earlier to players protesting against police brutality and racial inequality. Goodell's video was in direct response to another video put together by some of the NFL's biggest stars, all African-American, calling on the Commissioner to make the statements he ultimately made. The league and its commissioner appear highly responsive right now, to players and the protest movement sweeping this country, following the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. But one dramatic week of heightened awareness hasn't rid the NFL of its many critics. A video apology to protesters is nice, they say, but where is the public apology to Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback who started the protests in 2016, and who still doesn't have a job in the NFL? Where are people of color in some of the NFL's most prominent and prestigious positions? 28 of 32 head coaches are white; only two general managers are people of color; only two offensive coordinators and two quarterback coaches in the NFL are minorities. One dramatic week of heightened awareness is good. But in the NFL, even the league admits there's work left to do.", "Updated at 5 p.m. ET Sunday Editor's note: This story contains language that some might find offensive. In the span of less than 24 hours, President Trump catapulted himself into the center of two racially charged controversies involving professional sports, reigniting criticism that he is divisive and insensitive — a month after Trump struggled with criticism of his multiple remarks in response to violence in Charlottesville, Va. The president was stumping for Sen. Luther Strange, R-Ala., at a campaign rally Friday night, when he used a segue in his speech that was supposed to convince voters that continuing to have Strange in the Senate would make all Alabamans winners — an argument with emotional appeal in a state known for its fierce love of football. And while he was on the subject of football, Trump took the opportunity to expound on his thoughts regarding NFL players, like Colin Kaepernick, who last year began kneeling during the national anthem in protest over perceived social injustices against African-Americans. Trump's take: It's unpatriotic and NFL team owners should fire those refusing to stand. \"Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, 'Get that son of a bitch off the field right now'?\" he said to roaring applause. \"He's fired!\" Trump said, paraphrasing his popular reality TV catchphrase. On Saturday morning, Trump took on Stephen Curry of the NBA champion Golden State Warriors in a tweet. The president rescinded an offer for what has become a traditional celebratory visit to the White House for any championship team of a major professional sport. He wrote: \"Going to the White House is considered a great honor for a championship team. Stephen Curry is hesitating, therefore invitation is withdrawn!\" The president was reacting to Curry's statement Friday that the popular star player didn't want to visit the White House and meet with Trump because Curry believed that passing on the traditional event would send the message that \"we won't stand for\" some of Trump's past remarks. \"This is my opportunity to voice that,\" Curry also said, of the possibility of not going to the White House as expected. Saturday afternoon, Trump was back online attacking the NFL. \"If a player wants the privilege of making millions of dollars in the NFL, or other leagues, he or she should not be allowed to disrespect our Great American Flag (or Country) and should stand for the National Anthem. If not, YOU'RE FIRED. Find something else to do!\" Trump tweeted. While none of Trump's tweets or remarks were explicitly about race, they led to an escalating war of words between the president and black athletes, activists and celebrities on social media. And the president, who was almost immediately cast as being divisive, took a serious pummeling from NFL team owners and notable black public figures. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement Saturday morning, \"Divisive comments like these demonstrate an unfortunate lack of respect for the NFL, our great game and all of our players.\" Late Friday night, before Trump had sparked controversy involving Curry, Max Garcia of the Denver Broncos couldn't help comparing Trump's comments about kneeling in the NFL during the campaign rally with how he responded to events in Charlottesville, Va., last month that left one counterprotester dead. \"What an emphatic response, where was this passion in response to Charlottesville...\" Garcia wrote on Twitter with a video of Trump. Individual NFL teams, including the New York Giants, Miami Dolphins, Green Bay Packers and San Francisco 49ers all issued statements Saturday condemning Trump's remarks. Jed York, CEO of the San Francisco 49ers, for whom Kaepernick played last year when he began the kneeling protest, issued this statement: \"The callous and offensive comments made by the President are contradictory to what this great country stands for. Our players have exercised their rights as United States citizens in order to spark conversation and action to address social injustice.\" Dolphins owner Stephen Ross said, \"Our country needs unifying leadership right now, not more divisiveness. We need to seek to understand each other and have civil discourse instead of condemnation and sound bites.\" Meanwhile, current and former luminaries in the NBA weighed in online Saturday expressing support for Curry and criticizing Trump. Basketball megastar LeBron James, who has nearly as many followers on Twitter (38.4 million) as Trump does on his personal account (39 million), defended Curry, his sometimes rival on the court. James wrote, \"U bum @StephenCurry30 already said he ain't going! So therefore ain't no invite. Going to White House was a great honor until you showed up!\" As of Sunday afternoon, James' tweet has been liked more than a 1.1 million times and retweeted more than a half million times. According to Twitter, the message is James' most retweeted post to date. James later recorded and", "A cheerleader for the San Francisco 49ers knelt during the U.S. national anthem on Thursday evening, just before a game against the Oakland Raiders. The woman has not been identified, and her decision to kneel echoes player protests against racism and police brutality. Football player Colin Kaepernick started the protests when he kneeled during a pre-game anthem in 2016. He is a former player for the 49ers. Spectators photographed the cheerleader kneeling while the rest of her squad held up pom-poms in unison during the Star Spangled Banner. NBC reporter Damian Trujillo also tweeted a shot of the cheerleader kneeling on one knee, with her hands on her hips. This may be the first time an NFL cheerleader has kneeled during the anthem. Cheerleaders for college-level football teams have kneeled in protest before. Last year five members of Kennesaw State University's cheerleading squad in Georgia knelt during the national anthem. A local NBC affiliate reported that four of the five cheerleaders were not asked back on the team. Kaepernick left the 49ers in 2016, and still has not signed on with another team. He is suing the NFL for allegedly freezing him out of playing professional football because of his activism.", "Updated Monday 8:20 a.m. ET President Trump on Monday defended Vice President Mike Pence's decision to walk out of Sunday's NFL game between the Indianapolis Colts and the San Francisco 49ers in Indianapolis. Trump tweeted, \"The trip by @VP Pence was long planned. He is receiving great praise for leaving game after the players showed such disrespect for country!\" The president's response comes amid suggestions by some media outlets and on social media that Pence's protest was a publicity stunt engineered by Trump. The original story continues below Vice President Pence was so offended by kneeling professional football players that he left a game Sunday between the Indianapolis Colts and the San Francisco 49ers. \"I left today's Colts game because President Trump and I will not dignify any event that disrespects our soldiers, our Flag, or our National Anthem,\" Pence, a former governor of Indiana, said in a statement. \"While everyone is entitled to their own opinions, I don't think it's too much to ask NFL players to respect the Flag and our National Anthem,\" the statement opposing the protest continued. \"I stand with President Trump, I stand with our soldiers, and I will always stand for our Flag and our National Anthem.\" But first, the moment was commemorated with a photo of himself and second lady Karen Pence while they stood, hand over hearts, for the anthem. It appears the choice to leave did not belong to Pence or his wife alone. According to Trump, it was his idea. \"I asked @VP Pence to leave stadium if any players kneeled, disrespecting our country,\" Trump tweeted, adding that he was proud of the couple. Only members of the 49ers knelt for the rendition of \"The Star-Spangled Banner\" — a symbol of protest not against the flag or the song but against institutional social injustice and the violence perpetrated by police against black men. Colts players stood, linked arm in arm. The controversial practice of kneeling during the anthem was started by former San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who has yet to be signed to a new team after his contract with the 49ers expired last year. In an on-camera report on Sunday, CBS reporter Jason La Canfora said Kaepernick would stand for the anthem if he was signed to an NFL team. \"He's not planning on kneeling ... and he's planning on standing for the anthem,\" La Canfora said. But after the story began making headlines, La Canfora backtracked tweeting, \"Standing for Anthem wasn't something that I spoke to Colin about.\" He was merely relaying what had already been reported about Kaepernick in other outlets, La Canfora wrote, adding, \"what he would do during the Anthem I do not know.\" Kaepernick has not denied La Canfora's claim outright, but he has been retweeting others who have responded to the CBS sports reporter. Among them is the quarterback's own girlfriend, Nessa Diab, who wrote, \"The reports that Colin will stand for the anthem are completely false! He has never discussed this with anyone.\" Howard Bryant, an ESPN Magazine columnist, also weighed in on Twitter with what he said was confirmation from Kaepernick. \"Just got a message from @Kaepernick7 who says he has not discussed with anyone his plans in the event he is signed by an NFL team,\" Bryant wrote. The president has been railing against the NFL over the league's tolerance of the sustained demonstration. Trump has repeatedly called on team owners to fire all players who kneel during the national anthem. At a campaign rally in Alabama last month, Trump shouted, \"Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, 'Get that son of a b**** off the field right now'?\" he said to roaring applause. The statement by the president, and the subsequent Twitter storm he unleashed, renewed a national debate over players' First Amendment rights and also pitted NFL owners and players against the president, inspiring many of them to kneel or link arms in the game that followed. Pence's decision to leave the stadium not only stoked the flames of the controversy, it also kicked up a new dust storm: criticism over the cost of the vice president's protest of the protest. Hawaii Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz was the first to raise the issue. \"Wait,\" Schatz wrote on Twitter. \"This was orchestrated to make a point? That's not an inexpensive thing to do.\"", "Colin Kaepernick hasn&#8217;t played in the NFL since the end of the 2016 season after he started kneeling during the pregame National Anthem to protest police brutality and racial injustice. Earlier this year, the NFL settled a lawsuit over alleged collusion against protesting players and now the league has set up a private workout for Kaepernick on Saturday. Host Tonya Mosley talks with Here & Now sports analyst Mike Pesca (@pescami). He hosts the daily podcast The Gist. This article was originally published on WBUR.org.", "The NFL announced a new rule banning players from kneeling in protest during the playing of the national anthem before games. If they choose not to stand, they can stay in the locker room, but if they violate the new rule, their teams will be fined. The policy decision comes after months of controversy and divisive debates on players taking a knee or making other statements as the national anthem is played. During the preseason in August 2016, then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem. He was, at first, alone in his protest, but continued it into the regular season as countless others joined him. \"I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,\" Kaepernick told NFL Media in August 2016. \" \"To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.\" More than a year after Kaepernick's original protests, President Trump expressed his disapproval on Twitter and at rallies, which sparked larger and more united protests among players and at times, entire teams. Until the announcement on Wednesday of the new policy, the league and the players' union made no suggestions that such a change was coming. Since the announcement, Howard Bryant, sports journalist and author of The Heritage: Black Athletes, a Divided America, and the Politics of Patriotism, spoke with NPR's Weekend Edition about the reactions he's heard from players and what might happen before the official start of next season. \"Well I think they've taken the position that the NFL has decided to fully engage with this culture war initiated by the president,\" Bryant says. \"When [President Trump] first attacked the NFL players in September, one of the questions of the book that I was asking was 'Who gets to be the patriot?' \" When the president began commenting on the players' protests he called them \"unpatriotic,\" Bryant says. Trump then said players choosing to take a knee or sit during the national anthem shouldn't have jobs. Since then Trump has praised the new rule announcement, but questioned whether those who don't stand for the anthem should be allowed to stay in the U.S. \"Well, I think that's good,\" Trump said in an interview with Fox News. \"I don't think people should be staying in locker rooms, but still I think it's good. You have to stand, proudly, for the national anthem or you shouldn't be playing, you shouldn't be there, maybe you shouldn't be in the country.\" Bryant says the new rule makes it appear \"that the NFL is going along with it as well. I think that this has really reignited some really bad blood between the players and the owners.\" That \"bad blood\" comes after many players thought they had reached an agreement on the matter last season. \"They had agreed with the owners to a $90 million partnership to fight social [injustice], so I think that they had believed that they had reached an accommodation,\" Bryant says. \"Now we're seeing that that accommodation isn't such an accommodation and I think the players are trying to strategize with their union to figure out just what's going to happen.\" This latest move by the league, Bryant says, \"is seen as a hostile act by the players. There's no question about that.\" Even with the new rule, the debate on the issue is not over as many continue to debate what it is the players are protesting when they take a knee. Bryant says players have said they are protesting police brutality, but others see this as an issue of respect for veterans and those who have served the country. \"Nobody wants to see the flag or the national anthem weaponized,\" Bryant says. \"They don't want to see citizenship weaponized and the veterans that I've spoken with do not want to be used as commercial props and yet sports is doing both.\" The phrase \"weaponizing patriotism\" has been used frequently in this debate. Bryant says the players \"do not want their citizenship questioned,\" and that \"what they're doing in this protest is the ultimate example of citizenship.\" It is how those protests are framed, Bryant says, that begin to weaponize patriotism. \"What we've seen in sports over the last couple of years now is to paint the players as unpatriotic,\" he says. \"Instead of thinking about their reasoning — which is police misconduct and about supporting some of the people who don't have a lot of power in our country — it's been directed toward the flag as if the players don't care about their country when actually, they do.\" LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST: The NFL this past week announced a ban on players kneeling in protest during the playing of the national anthem. If they choose not to stand, players may stay in the locker room. But if they violate the new rule, the team will be fined. Let's bring in Howard Bryant, author of the book \"The Heritage: Black Athletes, A Divided America", "The NFL continues to wrangle with its issue of players taking a knee during the national anthem, but this isn't the first time The Star Spangled Banner has collided with politics, race and a major sporting event. In 1968, a rising Puerto Rican pop star, José Feliciano, was asked to sing the anthem before Game 5 of the World Series. The St. Louis Cardinals were playing the Detroit Tigers in Tiger Stadium. At that time, Feliciano had a hit single with his cover of The Doors' Light My Fire. The world seemed to be changing very quickly; there was a lot of focus on what media was calling the Youth Movement. It was a good time to showcase new talent. A Star-Mangled Banner? Vintage tape shows a young guy in sunglasses (Feliciano was born blind) seated on a stool, playing his acoustic guitar. Back then, the anthem was generally performed by popular musicians of stage and screen, or talented first-responders and members of the military, always in a very straightforward way. Feliciano's gentle, Latin jazz-infused version puzzled some people. And it outraged others. \"After I sang it, it was really strange to hear me being booed, as well as yay'd, and I didn't know what happened,\" he recalled when I reached him by telephone last week, while he was on tour in London. A Tigers official told him the club's phones were lighting up with angry calls from around the country: \"Some veterans were taking off their shoes and throwing them at their television screens,\" he was told. While some fans enjoyed this different version, many older ones and veterans thought it was disrespectful. At a time when the U.S. was torn apart apart over the country's involvement in Vietnam, perception counted. And some people perceived Feliciano's anthem as a protest. He insists it was the exact opposite: \"I did it to show my appreciation to America for what they had done for me. I love this country.\" \"They just stopped playing me .... \" Feliciano moved from Puerto Rico to New York City when he was a very little boy, and had grown up immersed in mainland American ritual — like Major League Baseball and the national anthem. \"I thought they were singing about me,\" he jokes, \"because they were singing 'Oh José, Can You See...'\" Soon he was singing back to America. His Light My Fire burned up the charts, and its success led to the invitation to sing at the World Series. The subsequent controversy, though, almost killed his burgeoning career. Commercial radio blackballed him. \"I was a little depressed, to tell you the truth,\" Feliciano admits. His career had just taken off — \"And then they stopped playing me. Like I had the plague, or something.\" But he still played concerts on college campuses, and gigged in jazz clubs and music festivals around the country. He continued to cut records (notably his holiday classic, Feliz Navidad.) And while he was doing that, something else happened: José Feliciano's improvisation on the anthem opened the door to a bunch of other people with their own versions: Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock in 1969. Marvin Gaye at the NBA All Star Game in 1983. Garth Brooks. Billy Joel. Beyonce. Lady Gaga. And Whitney Houston's now-iconic performance in 1991 at the height of the first Gulf War, complete with a flyover of four F-16 fighter jets. (And a Cher homage to it eight years later.) Fans and spectators took these later variations in stride. (Although at the time, the NBA commissioner was incensed at Gaye's R & B-infused anthem, even though it's now considered a beloved classic.) Feliciano is philosophical about the evolution. \"The only thing I can say about all these versions is they wouldn't have done it if I hadn't done it — and I'm glad that I did.\" A refreshed controversy And now, the national anthem is in the news again, as some NFL players protest police brutality against black Americans by remaining silent and kneeling during the anthem. Former San Francisco 49er Colin Kaepernick began the protest last season, but it has picked up this year, and spread beyond the NFL to college and even high school teams. Unlike some NFL fans, Feliciano says he's not offended. \"I don't think kneeling during the anthem is such a bad thing. They're doing what they feel.\" Which is exactly what he was doing when he sang the anthem the first time. He's been invited to sing it several times since his initial performance in 1968. And he still sings it his way.", "President Trump defended his high-profile campaign against NFL players who kneel during the national anthem and insisted it hasn't distracted him from hurricane relief efforts in Puerto Rico. \"To me, the NFL situation is a very important situation,\" Trump said Tuesday at a news conference. \"I have plenty of time on my hands. All I do is work.\" Trump complained about protesting football players at a campaign rally in Alabama on Friday. Since then, he has tweeted or retweeted on the subject more than 20 times. Meanwhile, nearly 3.5 million American citizens in Puerto Rico continue to struggle in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, which knocked out the island's electric grid. \"The governor of Puerto Rico is so thankful for the great job that we're doing,\" Trump said, pointing to efforts by FEMA and the military. The president argued that it has been more difficult to deliver food, water and other supplies to Puerto Rico than it was to reach victims in Texas or Florida after earlier storms. \"It's on an island in the middle of an ocean,\" Trump said. \"You can't just drive your trucks there from other states.\" Trump said he plans to visit Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands next Tuesday. \"The recovery process will be a very, very difficult one,\" Trump said. \"We will get through this, and we will get through it together. We will be stronger. We will be bigger. We will be better.\" Trump insisted that the government is \"totally focused\" on hurricane relief efforts, even as he devoted time and energy to halting the football protests — a campaign that drew widespread pushback from the NFL over the weekend. \"It doesn't take me long to put out a wrong and maybe we'll get it right,\" Trump said. \"I think it's a very important thing for the NFL to not allow people to kneel during the playing of our national anthem.\" The president spoke during a Rose Garden news conference following a meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. Asked about a controversial referendum Sunday on independence for the Spanish region of Catalonia, Trump said he hoped the country would remain united. \"I think it would be foolish not to,\" Trump said. \"You're talking about staying with a truly great, beautiful and very historic country.\"", "Football and the presidential campaign have intersected yet again. President Trump on Wednesday cheered the Big Ten Conference's decision to resume its college football season in late October. \"Great News: BIG TEN FOOTBALL IS BACK,\" Trump said on Twitter. \"All teams to participate. Thank you to the players, coaches, parents, and all school representatives. Have a FANTASTIC SEASON! It is my great honor to have helped!!!\" The conference — which actually includes 14 universities, including huge schools from the presidential swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — announced Wednesday morning that its leadership voted unanimously to resume the football season starting the weekend of Oct. 23. The president, along with many fans and players, have been calling on the conference to return to the field, and Trump reportedly spoke with the Big Ten's commissioner earlier this month. \"He made it very clear that he would help in any way that he possibly could to help us return to competition,\" Commissioner Kevin Warren told The New York Times. It's unclear if the president's advocacy or offers of assistance affected the conference's decision. The Big Ten announced in August it was sidelining football and other sports because of concerns about the coronavirus pandemic. Other leagues, like the ACC and the SEC, have begun or are on schedule to resume their football seasons. In voting Wednesday to resume the season, the Big Ten said it had \"adopted significant medical protocols including daily antigen testing, enhanced cardiac screening and an enhanced data-driven approach when making decisions about practice/competition.\" The Big Ten's announcement only applies to football; the conference said updates to other sports would be made public \"shortly.\" Its football decision comes a day after the coach of the powerhouse Louisiana State University said that \"most\" of his team has either currently or previously contracted the coronavirus. Elsewhere, games have been postponed because of case clusters. Many critics have wondered why there's such emphasis on getting football back in action, when school children across the country attend classes remotely, and other people and industries struggle to obtain mass testing. Links to the presidential campaign Trump's urging of college football to resume continues his broader efforts to return aspects of American life to normalcy, despite the still-raging pandemic. In late August, Trump's opponent, Democratic nominee Joe Biden, released ads highlighting the canceling of sporting events, blaming the Trump administration for its handling of the pandemic. The ads showed images of empty sports facilities, including \"The Big House\" — the massive football stadium at the University of Michigan. More recently, the Biden campaign aired a minute-long ad during the NFL's opener, and the campaign told NPR that it already has reservations to run at least one ad nationally during each NFL game between now and Election Day. The Trump campaign also aired an ad during the NFL opener. Of course, the president has long interjected himself into pro football, criticizing players including Colin Kaepernick who have kneeled during the playing of the national anthem to protest police brutality and systemic racism. Last month, Trump said he was working to get the NFL restarted \"as long as they stand for our national anthem, as long as they honor our flag and our country.\" The Republican National Convention, in late August, also had notable football connections, as three Black speakers were former NFL players. One of them, Herschel Walker, a two-time Pro Bowl running back, spoke about his long friendship with Trump and defended him against charges of racism. In the '80s, Walker briefly played for the Trump-owned New Jersey Generals in the short-lived USFL.", "Sports are part of the fabric of American society, and often they've provided a medium for athlete protest. In recent years, former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick was the face of the movement. In 2016, he began kneeling before games, during the playing of the national anthem, to protest police treatment of minorities and social inequality. Since last week's death of George Floyd, an African American man who died after a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck, there's been a surge of sports figures speaking out. Some have even joined demonstrations that have swept the nation. True to its status as the most politically progressive of this country's major sports, the NBA has had many players and officials lend their voices – from Commissioner Adam Silver to Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James to legendary Lakers center and longtime political activist Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who wrote about what he believes is the motivation behind the widespread protests. \"The black community is used to the institutional racism inherent in education, the justice system and jobs,\" Abdul-Jabbar said in a Los Angeles Times essay last weekend. \"And even though we do all the conventional things to raise public and political awareness ... the needle hardly budges.\" He added, \"Yes, protests often are used as an excuse for some to take advantage, just as when fans celebrating a hometown sports team championship burn cars and destroy storefronts. I don't want to see stores looted or even buildings burn. But African Americans have been living in a burning building for many years, choking on the smoke as the flames burn closer and closer. Racism in America is like dust in the air. It seems invisible — even if you're choking on it — until you let the sun in.\" Even Michael Jordan weighed in publicly, which to many was a surprise. The recent 10-part ESPN documentary, The Last Dance, lionized the legendary Chicago Bulls star, although it touched on a few perceived shortcomings, including what some see as Jordan's unwillingness to speak out on political issues. \"I do commend Muhammad Ali for standing up for what he believed in,\" Jordan said in the documentary, adding, \"but I never thought of myself as an activist. I thought of myself as a basketball player. \"I wasn't a politician when I was playing my sport. I was focused on my craft. Was that selfish? Probably. But that was my energy. That's where my energy was.\" But now Jordan is speaking out, an indication of how deeply Floyd's death has resonated. \"I am deeply saddened, truly pained and plain angry,\" Jordan said in a statement posted on Twitter. \"I see and feel everyone's pain, outrage and frustration. I stand with those who are calling out the ingrained racism and violence toward people of color in our country. We have had enough.\" There have been other heartfelt, and perhaps surprising, shows of solidarity. Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz also has been largely apolitical in his four years in the NFL. But last week, Wentz was one of the first prominent white athletes to speak out. \"Being from North Dakota, I've spent a large part of my life surrounded by people of similar color, so I'm never gonna act like I know what the black community goes through or even has gone through,\" Wentz said on Twitter. \"I'll never know the feeling of having to worry about my kids going outside because of their skin color. ... \"I don't understand the society we live in that doesn't value all human life. It's heartbreaking and disturbing. My prayers go out to every man, woman and child that has to endure the effects of the racism in our society.\" Former and current African American teammates praised Wentz. \"You didn't have to say a thing but you did,\" former Eagles receiver Torrey Smith tweeted, adding, \"Love you bro.\" Traditionally, Major League Baseball has, as a sport, avoided politics. Not now. A number of big leaguers have weighed in, including Washington Nationals relief pitcher Sean Doolittle. He's white, and he offered historical context in a tweet with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. \"Racism is America's Original Sin,\" Doolittle wrote. \"It was here before we even forged a nation, and has been passed down from generation to generation. And we still struggle to acknowledge that it even exists, much less atone for it. The generational trauma of racism and violence is killing black men and women before our eyes. ... \"We must not look away from the racism and violence. ... We must take action and call it out for what it is. We must recognize our shared humanity and atone for our Original Sin, or else we will continue to curse future generations with it. \"RIP George Floyd.\" Still silence Even though the current environment seems to encourage sports figures to speak out, there's also notable silence coming from the sports world. So says LeVelle Moton. Moton is the men's basketball head coach at North Carolina Central University. He said white basketball and football co", "The NFL had intended for its rule to achieve a resolution. For more than a year, controversy had eddied endlessly around players' decisions to kneel during the national anthem. And the league thought a policy requiring players to stand for the anthem if they were on the field — but also allowing them to stay off the field and out of sight — would end an uncomfortable conversation that had reached even the White House. But if it was resolution the league was seeking, the move failed. The NFL Players Association announced Tuesday that it has filed a grievance against the league \"on behalf of all players.\" \"The union's claim is that this new policy, imposed by the NFL's governing body without consultation with the NFLPA, is inconsistent with the collective bargaining agreement and infringes on player rights,\" the group explained in a statement. Virtually from the moment the new rule was rolled out in May, the NFLPA has made its displeasure clear, saying NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and team owners failed to consult players and contradicted assurances they had offered the union. \"NFL players have shown their patriotism through their social activism, their community service, in support of our military and law enforcement and yes, through their protests to raise awareness about the issues they care about,\" the NFLPA said at the time. Many players publicly criticized the rule as a backslide for a league leadership with whom they had recently found common ground. Just one day earlier the Players Coalition, a group of activist-minded current and former NFL athletes, had inked a partnership with the league putting tens of millions of dollars toward initiatives grappling with social issues. But in instituting the new rule, the NFL owners sought to \"thwart the players' constitutional rights to express themselves and use our platform to draw attention to social injustices like racial inequality in our country,\" said Malcolm Jenkins, co-founder of the Players Coalition and All-Pro safety for the Philadelphia Eagles. \"Everyone loses when voices are stifled.\" Less than two weeks later President Trump disinvited Jenkins' Super Bowl-winning Eagles from a victory celebration at the White House. The president was clear about why he was rescinding his invite to the champions, many of whom had already said they did not want to attend. And Trump made known on Twitter that he was not satisfied either with the NFL's solution to a controversy he and his vice president have followed closely — albeit for a different reason: \"Staying in the Locker Room for the playing of our National Anthem is as disrespectful to our country as kneeling,\" he tweeted in rescinding the invitation one day before the delegation was to arrive. \"Sorry!\" The NFLPA's move Tuesday is not the first grievance filed by players or on their behalf regarding the league's reaction to the anthem protests. Colin Kaepernick, the former 49ers quarterback who began the action, filed allegations that team owners have colluded to keep him out of the NFL, and the union filed a similar claim on behalf of his ex-teammate Eric Reid, who has also struggled to find a job since becoming closely associated with the protest. Now the union is following through on its promise in May to \"challenge any aspect of [the new rule] that is inconsistent with the collective bargaining agreement.\" Though the group did not clarify which particular aspects it was challenging. At any rate, NFLPA leaders have expressed optimism they will be able to work together with the league to achieve what Goodell and Co. said they had intended in the first place: that elusive resolution. And they will be enlisting an independent arbitrator to help. George Atallah, the union's assistant executive director of external affairs, said Tuesday he was glad that both players and management \"will sit down and work on a solution, together.\"", "President Trump has refused to back down from his criticism of NFL players who kneel during the national anthem. Since sparking the feud, he&#8217;s claimed that kneeling is disgraceful and framed the issue as one of patriotism &#8212; not, as some see it, as one of freedom of speech. Sports, politics and race have a long history together in America. Here & Now&#8216;s Jeremy Hobson takes a look back with historians Ed Ayers (@edward_l_ayers) and Brian Balogh (@historyfellow), co-hosts of the podcast BackStory, which is produced at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.", "A Louisiana state legislator wants to cut off tax breaks and other funding for the state's only NFL franchise, the New Orleans Saints. State Rep. Kenny Havard, a Republican, objects to player protests during the pregame national anthem. He plans to propose an amendment to strip any state funding that benefits the Saints, including free rental of the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, their home venue. \"We're paying the Saints a lot of money to entertain us — not to get off in the weeds of, you know, political discourse,\" Havard says. \"They can do that, but do it on their own time.\" The controversy started last season, when San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick chose to kneel instead of stand during the national anthem in response to racial injustice and police brutality. Over the course of the 2016 season, other players joined Kaepernick's protest by kneeling, sitting or raising a fist during the song. Kaepernick was not offered an NFL contract in 2017, but the #TakeAKnee movement he sparked has continued without him. In September, President Trump entered the debate, saying in a speech and repeating on Twitter that the NFL should fire all players who refuse to stand for the national anthem. The president's comments only spurred more protests throughout the league, including by members of the Saints franchise. At the game after the president's tweets, 10 Saints players remained on the bench for the national anthem. Since then, the team has knelt as a group before the anthem and then stood for the actual song. Havard says removing the team's tax breaks has had bipartisan support in the past, when the conversation focused on the league's handling of domestic violence, concussion risk for players or team owner enrichment. But since the anthem protests began, he says, the tax debate is being perceived as a racial issue. \"Look: Slavery was however long ago, and it was a horrible thing and no one should have to go through that,\" says Havard. \"But it's time that we move on as a nation.\" Havard says he believes institutional barriers to equal opportunity are gone, and he rejects the notion of an unjust society. For him, the debate over standing for the national anthem is not about how police treat African-Americans, but a question of doing what is right. \"When I see a lady coming, I open the door,\" he says. \"When I sit at the table, I take my hat off. When the national anthem plays, I stand.\" State Rep. Ted James, a Democrat, rejects Havard's argument. \"This is not a conversation about Saints players being political,\" James says. \"This is a conversation about race.\" James represents a district in the state capital, Baton Rouge. That city became a flashpoint for the discussion about racial injustice in policing after the death of Alton Sterling, a black man who was shot by officers outside a convenience store there in 2016. No federal charges were filed in the case, and the state attorney general has not filed charges either. Then, less then two weeks after Sterling's death, three local police officers were killed and three others wounded in an ambush. James says that Baton Rouge did some tough racial reconciliation work after those events and that the debate over the anthem protests is reopening painful wounds. He is preparing for a legislative fight over the Saints funding issue. \"As a black man and as a black player, you are telling these athletes 'go throw that ball, catch that ball, run that ball, tackle that quarterback, but you dare not say a word,' \" says James. \"That's a plantation mentality.\" The anthem protests have prompted NFL boycotts on both sides of the issue. Baton Rouge publisher and activist Gary Chambers joined the local protests after Sterling's killing. He says he has stopped watching the NFL in solidarity with Kaepernick's movement. \"This man took a knee and flipped America upside down,\" says Chambers. Sitting in a Baton Rouge cafe, Chambers and a friend, businessman Geno McLaughlin, say the football players are giving voice to what African-Americans have been fighting for in communities all across the country, including their own. McLaughlin says how you view the flag and what patriotism means to you depend on your experiences as an American. \"When I see the red stripes, I also see bloodstains,\" he says. \"For me and for many black people ... we don't feel the same way about the flag that [a white person] might.\" He says that doesn't mean he hates the country. \"My people, we built this country,\" he says. \"So do I love the country? Absolutely.\" Chambers says Trump's inflammatory public statements and tweets about firing the players send a clear message. \"Trump is basically telling all the other slave owners 'keep your Negroes in check' is what I hear,\" says Chambers. About 25 minutes outside Baton Rouge, the player protests have sparked a boycott from the opposite perspective. At Sarita's Mexican Grill & Cantina in Denham Springs, nearly 50 big-screen TVs line the walls. M", "After nearly three years away from the game, Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback who became a lightning rod for taking a knee to protest social injustice during the national anthem, is one step closer to being back in the NFL. Kapernick, a once-electrifying player who has a Super Bowl appearance on his resume, got notice from the NFL on Tuesday that a private workout has been arranged for him on Saturday in Atlanta. All 32 NFL teams — those same teams that have refused to sign him following the anthem controversy — will be invited to the Atlanta Falcons facility in Flowery Branch, Ga. The former Pro Bowl quarterback, who played with the San Francisco 49ers, last suited up for an NFL game during the 2016 season. Kaepernick appears to have been caught off guard by the league's sudden interest, tweeting Tuesday evening: \"I'm just getting word from my representatives that the NFL league office reached out to them about a workout in Atlanta on Saturday. I've been in shape and ready for this for 3 years, can't wait to see the head coaches and GMs on Saturday.\" The scheduled workout presents a long-awaited opportunity for Kaepernick to quiet doubters and show he can still play at an NFL level. It also offers a chance to move past allegations he's levied against the league that all 32 teams colluded to bar him from playing. Kaepernick and the league settled a grievance in February. A similar settlement was reached with Eric Reid, who knelt with Kaepernick during the Star Spangled Banner. Reid wasn't immediately picked up when his contract expired but now plays safety for the Carolina Panthers. Then and now, Kaepernick maintains that the demonstration that began during a preseason game in 2016 was meant to call attention to police shootings of unarmed black people and inequality in the criminal justice system. Critics, including then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, derided the displays of kneeling as disrespectful to U.S. troops and the American flag. Before the start of the 2016 NFL season, Trump blasted Kaepernick and the protests, suggesting \"maybe he should find a country that works better for him.\" In 2017, the first season Kaepernick went unsigned, now-President Trump suggested that the NFL \"fire or suspend\" any player who didn't stand for the national anthem. The news of Saturday's workout was first reported by ESPN, which adds that \"several clubs\" have put out feelers about Kaepernick's \"football readiness.\" The sports network also notes that Kaepernick's representatives initially \"began to question the legitimacy\" of the invitation. \"Because of the shroud of mystery around the workout and because none of the 32 NFL teams had been informed prior to Tuesday, Kaepernick's representatives began to question the legitimacy of the workout and process and whether it was just a PR stunt by the league,\" ESPN writes. ESPN's Adam Schefter who broke the story, tweeted that Kaepernick's representatives asked about changing the timing of the workout but that the league would not budge. \"Kaepernick's reps asked for workout to be on a Tuesday, the day of most workouts, but NFL said it had to be this Saturday. He asked for a later Saturday; NFL said no,\" Schefter said. Tyler Tynes, a staff writer at the sports and culture website The Ringer, points out that Saturdays are complicated for league staff because that's when NFL scouts fan out across the country to evaluate top college prospects and because it's too close to Sunday NFL games. \"Kap's representatives were told that the NFL needed an answer 'in two hours' if Kaepernick planned to go through with the workout,\" Tynes tweeted. \"A lot of people had to rearrange their schedules. They thought it conflicted with college football scouting schedules and NFL Sunday game day prep.\" NPR reached out to the NFL Players Association for comment on the timing of Kaepernick's workout, and was directed to a five-word tweet by Executive Director DeMaurice Smith. \"Long overdue; well deserved chance.\" On social media, some people wondered whether the whole exercise is a public relations stunt. Malik Spann of Blitz Magazine tweeted: \"NFL is literally treating Kaepernick like an ex-offender trying to make him do the most obscure things for re-entry...it's so disingenuous & fraudulent, it's an humiliating PR process or stunt that no capable play has ever had to deal with to get back on the field.\" And Jemele Hill, a staff writer at The Atlantic, said the move by the NFL feels \"disingenuous.\" \"I know Colin wants to play, but this feels so disingenuous on the NFL's part,\" she tweeted. \"I've said this since the first time Donald Trump called him out at a rally: Colin Kaepernick will never play in the NFL again. I hope I'm very wrong about this, but NFL owners are cowardly.\" Others lamented that it \"will be a distraction\" for any team that signs him. \"Why is it not OK for an NFL team to simply say \"we aren't interested in Colin Kaepernick because we feel like he will be", "Aaron Hernandez, who appears to be a monster, can no more be held up as representative of football than can Oscar Pistorius be fairly presented as an archetype of track and field. But still, Hernandez does become a culminating figure. The sport is simply more and more identified with violence, both in its inherent nature and in its savage personnel. For so long, of course, we were all complicit in ignoring how dangerous was America's favorite game. All of us — not just the coaches and players and fans, but no less the media and the team doctors, too. More recently, we've tended to excuse the virtual cavalcade of criminal actions committed by players away from the gridiron. Why, 29 NFL players have been arrested just since the Super Bowl. Institutions — especially popular cultural ones — periodically need overhauls. With football right now, it isn't just a matter of tidying up. We need to somehow clean the Aegean stables of the stink of violence. This will be difficult, for violence is the very essence of the sport's appeal, and notwithstanding all the talk about concussions and thugs, football is more popular than ever. It is not like baseball found itself after the Black Sox scandal of 1919, when America seemed ready to abandon such a corrupt competition. But there is a lesson there: Baseball, desperate, created the position of commissioner and brought in an outside magistrate, the federal judge, Kenesaw Mountain Landis. By contrast, the current NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell, like all his predecessors, is an insider. He's been superb as a businessman — stiff-arming the players union, ransacking the networks' exchequers — but in response to revelations of how barbarous modern football really is, Goodell, like so many men who have been inoculated by football, has only reacted ... hesitantly, incrementally. Now, yes, football extends well beyond the domain of the NFL –– from the cruel college system right on down to little boys scrimmaging –– but the NFL commissioner is, in effect, the spiritual head of the game. Where else do we turn for moral leadership? The NCAA? The presidents of the Southeastern Conference? The network pregame shows? Our other team sports –– baseball, basketball, ice hockey, not to mention soccer –– all have strong foreign elements. Football is the all-American game, but, ironically, already middle-class all-American parents ­­–– even fathers who played themselves –– are showing a reluctance to allow their sons to play. Whenever Roger Goodell steps away, his legacy will be determined not by how much his franchises grew in value but whether he saved our American sport from becoming a gladiator game. Or perhaps football can only be cleansed by someone like Judge Landis, with no previous commitment to the enterprise. Whether Goodell or an outsider, football now needs a guardian, not a CEO. RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST: Frank Deford wishes the NFL would learn some lessons from professional baseball. He says what's worse than football's violence problem is what's happening off the field. FRANK DEFORD: Aaron Hernandez, who appears to be a monster, can no more be held up as representative of football than can Oscar Pistorius be fairly presented as an archetype of track and field. But still, Hernandez does become a culminating figure. The sport is simply more and more identified with violence, both in its inherent nature and in its savage personnel. For so long, of course, we were all complicit in ignoring how dangerous was America's favorite game. All of us not, just the coaches and players and fans, but no less the media and the team doctors, too. More recently, we have tended to excuse the virtual cavalcade of criminal actions committed by players away from the gridiron. Why, 29 NFL players have been arrested, just since the Super Bowl. Institutions, especially popular cultural ones, periodically need overhauls. With football, right now, it isn't just a matter of tidying up. We need to somehow clean the Augean Stables of the stink of violence. This will be difficult, for violence is the very essence of the sport's appeal. And notwithstanding all the talk about concussions and thugs, football is more popular than ever. It is not like baseball found itself after the Black Sox scandal of 1919, when America seemed ready to abandon such a corrupt competition. But there is a lesson there. Baseball, desperate, created the position of commissioner and brought in an outside magistrate, the federal judge, Kennesaw Mountain Landis. By contrast, the current NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell, like all his predecessors, is an insider. He's been superb as a businessman - stiff-arming the players' union, ransacking the networks' exchequers. but in response to revelations of how barbarous modern football really is, Goodell, like so many men who have been inoculated by football, has only reacted - hesitantly, incrementally. Now, yes, football extends well beyond the domain of the NFL, from the cruel college system ri" ]

[ "I use it. It's very good- its cheap, easy to use, with a great variety of songs. So far it has been pretty safe, i've been using it for about 8 months. But is it legal...I really can't be certain" ]

[ "Sure. Go here and select the service you are most comfortable using. All listed here are legal.\\nhttp://www.mp3.com/tracks/1724969/dl_streams.html", "It was never wise to do. In addition to being illegal, it was also a mecca for hackers. P2P has become one of the leading \"release points\" for computer virus.\\n\\nIn addition, both RIAA and MPAA have joined forces to catch people that use these services. Early on, they concentrated on people who were shareing files. However, they are more and more doing \"reverse stings\", where they themselves put something out to share. They then sue anybody who tried to download it from them.\\n\\nStay safe and legal, use a \"fee\" based legal system like emusic, itunes, or something else.", "go to allofmp3.com and then under the side search bar click on the name of the song or artist tag and then just type in whatver meets the criteria it meets", "The U.S. govt sells Treasury Bonds to individuals, mutual funds, foreign governments -- anybody who wants to invest money in a very safe investment at a modest interest rate. The U.S. has to pay interest to those bond investors in exchange for getting to use their money in its budget.", "Well at myself opinion, i believe its not a safe program, but lot of people like it, above you will find the link where you can download it.\\nLimeWire is safer and easier to use, try it too.\\n\\nGreetings from Mexico :P", "i've used it. its ok, but some of the songs come complete with viruses, so be sure to scan your files before using them. ooo, and it causes aids.", "Not sites, but rather programs.\\n\\n1) Limewire and eMule. They're p2p programs, and once installed, will allow you to search for any song you want, and take just a few minutes to download. Safe (spyware free) and free. Dubiously legal and slightly risky, though. make sure to download them from their official sites.\\n\\n2) Google. Check out the source link for more info, but you can often find songs on the Internet where someone hosted them ;) Example : intitle:index.of + mp3 + \"grandaddy\" -html -htm -php -asp -txt -pls\\n\\n3) Stores like allofmp3.ru, and iTunes. Legal, but costs money :(\\n\\nEDIT : To the poster below, try Limewire, eMule, or ShareAza.", "1. www.allofmp3.com is the cheapest legal music downloads, and they have samples and a large variety. The average song is around 15 cents, and it is in mp3 format, so you can use it on any player.\\n\\n2. Something should pop up telling you what to do when you plug in the mp3 player to the computer.", "Why don't you try using hi5.com...thats a pretty good one!!!", "I buy a lot from vitacost,com. They always ship quickly and the prices are great!www.puritan.com,www.drugstore.com These are also sites I order from and are very safe and good products!!", ".com is the most common and it is also what most people associate with an Internet domain. Most of the good .com names are already taken, but there are plenty of other good extensions out there, like .net or .us.", "Anybody (straight or gay) who doesn't use protection has much more of a chance of getting AIDS.", "www. rape investogertors. com . and as well there is no limit on rape in a legal system ?", "Its pretty safe, at least its the safer i've tryed, there's no much trouble when you download music or videos but watch out whe downloading executables or programs, its easy to use and you can find tons of files, just keep you anti-virus updated and your firewall up and youll have no problem", "It's legitimate and I'm using it and find it very useful. The company's software is in the Beta stage and being made available as freeware now, but at some point they may charge for the service, probably for their commercial customers. You get current indications of green (good sites) and red (problem sites) that help you stay away from sites that are downloading junk onto your computer or phishing for your information to defraud you. However, siteadvisor tells you up front that information about the sites you visit is sometimes sent back to their computers to help build the data base they use to rate the sites. Their's a privacy statement you should read, and you can opt-out of some of the agreement options.\\nhttp://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/yahoo.com", "Depends on what you are D/loading or up loading.\\n\\nIts one of many and as far as i am aware its legal and as for safe nothing is safe governments watch corporates watch they watch. Have you got the time please i have no watch.\\n\\nLOL", "limewire. its legal and safe and has great results. also has awesome speeds no matter what connection you have", "ha, its called READING THE BOOK!!! if you havent purchased it yet you can get it for a deal at textbook411.com good luck!", "Lemme check it out. LOL\\n\\nIf you aren't sure about the sites safety. Don't visit it. Good Luck", "Mostly NOT.. beware of spams and illegal offers.. =) goodluck... make sure that it is from a trusted company..", "The best thing you can do is stay away from that site. It is dangerous, and gets alot of people in trouble.I would not put anything on there.", "http://en.beijing2008.com/ is the official website of the Beijing games. It has pictures of future venues with a really cool one of the aquatic center. The website has news and really good information.", "I have no personal experience with them but I found one mention of their website here:\\n\\nhttp://spamhuntress.com/2005/05/10/another-from-ipipe/\\n\\nand it doesn't sound too good. \\n\\nThe site has been around for 2 1/2 years, but if you buy prescription drugs and the doctor writing the prescription is either fake or hasn't personally seen you then the prescription is void.", "Some girls are SLUG's-- Selectively Lesbian Until Graduation. That way, they don't have to have a relationship that they know could get them pregnant and they can give up easy after graduating. \\n\\nAlso, if anybody bothers them they can scream discrimination and threaten a lawsuit. There are some very high power legal organizations out there that will rush to crush anybody that someone who claims to be gay says has offended them. There's a lot of political power in it. It's a 'good thing' to be gay in America these days. They get all kinds of preferential treatment, especially on college campuses.\\n\\nNow that people know they can use 'reverse discrimination', to get whatever they want, they are grabbing for it. Not because they really feel that way, but for the power.", "There are piles of advantages. It's compiled, it's got great namespaces / objects, you can use just about any COM or COM+ object out there, it's compiled, it has certain AJAX-like features.", "http://www.alliantpowder.com/\\n\\nEnjoy, and be careful.", "here is a pretty good site... works well for me", "Yes as far i know it is safe, I didn't think they were charging for it so its not a rip off...", "Most P2P applications are safe if you know how to use and maintain it. Try eMule, it's very easy to use and safe. Use a good Anti-Virus software and a good personal firewall such as ZoneAlarm.", "First of all you have to debunk the notion that you have to get fit for others. You have to have an attitude that you are doing this for yourself not for anybody else. Set your goals according to what will make you happy, not what will elevate you in others' eyes.\\n\\nAny safe exercise is good for you. Don't quit! You'll see the results soon", "Very dangerous. But does seem to work for some people. My brother met and married a girl from the web site hotornot. However, I have to stress to be very careful. Alot of freaks out there. Be sure to do your research.", "legally? do midi file searches or look for military band music.\\n\\nwant to steal? music thieves are successful with limewire when they are not caught or don't download viruses.\\n\\nwant cheap music legally? www.allofmp3.com--10-15 cents for the average song." ]

[ "This excellent book educates readers about the division of the Ottoman Empire after World War I by Great Britain and France and the creation of a system of mandates through which Britain and France ruled parts of the old Ottoman Empire until after World War II. Fromkin also writes about Russian actions in the Middle East, Zionist efforts to settle Jews in Palestine, and the ill-fated 1921-22 Greek invasion of Turkey. Unfortunately, he devotes only four pages (out of 567) to educating readers about the Turkish massacres of 1.5 million Armenian Christians from 1915 to 1923, as if to announce that these 1.5 million human victims were not particularly important. Despite this oversight, Fromkin's book includes an immense amount of valuable information that helps readers understand the political policies that shaped the Middle East in the first half of the 20th century and beyond. I highly recommend reading this book if you want to understand the modern Middle East." ]

[ "A very easy read, but full of valuable information about the most important psychological research ever conducted. A must for every psych student.", "Every chapter is full of valuable information that you can use right now; and, that is what i like the most about this book. It combines the theory with the practice and provides you with simple steps to put into practice what you have learned. I highly recommend it.", "This book is written by a Jesuit Preist.... it is full of Historical and pretty accurate information on the Biblical Antichrist. It is full of Damning info from front to back. Even though he condemns the \"Church of Christ\" in this book I don't think he realizes who the Biblical Antichrist is.", "Lot's of good stuff in here, a little difficult to read but still valuable info. Mostly written for men who are married or who have kids but single guys can still get value out of this book.", "Highly recommended for those who want to improbe their brain function and overall health. Easy to read and full of valuable information.", "Simply, excellent book. Must read for all women, since it contains valuable infos.", "This book is great for learning everything about apps. I like how the author covers all from building the iPhone app to the marketing process. Very valuable info here to get into this business.", "I bought it about 4 of year ago. Price is high but is worth it to store valuable information in a reliable and safer way.", "Wow. This is an extremely powerful book. I had read some about the genocide in Rwanda before, I knew the basic story and the most general aspects of what happened, but I had nowhere NEAR the amount of knowledge about it that is packed into this book. This is a fantastic book to read for people who enjoy history and/or politics, as well as world events in general. There is so much information in these pages that truthfully I feel like I should read it again because I know it didn't all sink in. I'm not going to lie to you guys, We Wish to Inform You... is not an easy read. Not even close. It took me quite a while to get through it, just because of the sheer depth of information presented here - I had to read much more slowly than I normally do to make sure everything sunk in. But I think it's an important read... this does happen. This did happen, and something similar is happening in Darfur as well.\n\nOne thing that makes this book different from many others in the same genre is that it specifically points out all the opportunities the world, the United States in particular, had to intervene in the genocide and stop it from happening, and every time nothing was done. It is difficult to fully grasp the fact that not only did the world know this was happening, the major world powers did everything they could to deny that it was an actual genocide and to point blame at everyone but their own governments for not helping. This information is not easy to read about, but at the same time, very important to know about. The book also goes into extensive detail regarding the aftermath of the genocide, when Hutu killers were living in \"refugee\" camps and receiving foreign aid, and when surviving Tutsis had to go back to their homes, and carry on their lives living next door to the murderers of their parents, spouses, and children. Can you imagine - having to look EVERY DAY at the face of the person who murdered every single person you love? It is absolutely unbelievable. Yet very few of the killers were put to justice, and the book covers a lot about the broken country of Rwanda after the genocide was \"over\" (I am putting \"over\" in quotation marks because there were plenty of killings for a long time after the genocide was thought to be over by the world).\n\nGourevitch is an amazing journalist - the way he brought this time to life for the reader is stunning. He did a great job mixing politics with stories of genocide survivors - although there is a LOT of politics in this book. His language is fantastic and kept me interested even when I wanted to put the book down because of how sad I was feeling. I am very interested to see what else he has done, or what else he is currently working on.\n\nHighly recommended. We Wish to Inform You is not a peaceful, easy read by any means, but one that is absolutely worth your time.", "This book is so packed with valuable information for the first time author who is trying to navigate the world of self publishing. Thanks Guy for helping all of us little guys out here!", "A great book with lot's of good info. Some of it is a little outdated but if you need basic to intermediate information on the lifestyle you can't beat it.", "While this book is far from perfect, it certainly is the most comprehensive examination of the issue of genocide that I have come across. It's also an extremely compelling condemnation of America's lack of will in responding to genocide when it occurs.\nPower begins with a look at the origins of the term \"genocide.\" One of the many things I learned from this book is that the term is relatively young; in fact, it did not come into existence until after World War II, when a genocide survivor by the name of Raphael Lemkin introduced it into the English language. The story of Lemkin's life and his struggle to bring cases of genocide to the attention of American policymakers is one of the many inspiring, though frustrating, narratives in this book.\nAfter a useful overview of what genocide actually means, Power methodically takes us through cases of genocide in the 20th century. She gives six examples: the Armenians in Turkey in the 1920s, the Holocaust, the reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the Iraqi oppression of the Kurds, the Tutsi in Rwanda, and the Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo. For each she makes a solid argument for why these atrocities should be considered genocide. She also gives a systematic analysis of how the U.S. responded, or in many cases didn't respond. She argues that it was not for lack of knowledge, nor for lack of ability, but rather for lack of political will that America delayed taking action or refused to take any action at all. In Cambodia, the wounds from Vietnam were too fresh to justify another South East Asian military intervention. In Iraq, our hopes of maintaining a strong opponent to Iran in the Middle East prevented us from taking a hard line against Saddam in the 1980s. In Rwanda, our failures in Somalia still haunted us. And of course the underlying theme in all of these cases was that policymakers in both the executive and legislative branches of government consistently fell back on their belief that preventing genocide in faraway places was not of interest to the American people, and therefore was not good politics.\nPower is highly critical of U.S. policy, but to her credit she is critical consistently across the board. The book is non-partisan; she attacks the Reagan and Bush Administrations as much as she does the Clinton Administration. She also casts blame fairly evenly between the policymakers at the White House and State Department and the legislators in Congress. It is also important to note that she goes to great efforts to recognize those elected officials and career civil and foreign servants who went to great lengths to make the prevention of genocide a top foreign policy priority.", "Well written and full of a lot of useful information. I only gave it 4 stars because there is very little information about painting. I wish the author had devoted a full chapter or 2 on painting and sanding between coats and the differences of the many types of paint compounds.", "Good primer for this diet plan but would\nHave liked a little more info. I read through the book and felt I needed more so I bought the big book too. Valuable if you want to scan this diet program without spending alot of money.", "Good overview with some helpful information. Worth the 1.99 just to demystify the process even a little. Most interesting is how valuable it is to categorize your books to receive optimum exposure.", "This book contains valuable information for parents with autistic kids. Detailed explanations of autistic causes and kinds, also good suggestions about nutrition as a base for healing.", "This book provided me with so much valuable information. I felt as informed as one with this disease could be.", "Very informative. I learned a lot about slavery in Haiti, the slave revolt and the future in New Orleans. But all of that info was enough for two books.", "I bought this book month before going to Switzerland. I read a little and decide to buy Swiss Pass Ticket and travel by train. It was great idea. The boks has a lot information about little towns which are on train route, historical facts and interesting stories. You can just travel by train and read info about almost every town or city you passing by. I think all Switzerland railway routes are desribed. Public and private railways.\nI spent beautiful holidays using this travel guide, planned everything and get a lot interesting information about Switzerland.\nI recommend it to everyone who wants to know everything about Switzerland and its Railways.", "It is simply that good! What everyone is saying about the beautiful photos is true. It also is very informative and gives good info about succulents and design. I will be purchasing Baldwin's other book Designing with Succulents. Right now.", "felt it could have contain more about his atrocities against the people but I am happy as I read dictatorship and how they think about the genocide ..", "Fun, engaging information! Even though the retro art and speech bubbles have a fiction feel, this book is full of interesting fly facts, too. I learned several new facts about flies, like that they have little bubbles of liquid on their feet that help them walk on walls and ceilings. Eeeuwww. Occasionally, the humor felt a little too forced to me, but usually it worked really well. After describing how a housefly spits digestive fluid on his food to soften it, we see a dinner scene:\n\nJonathan! Did you spit on your food?\nYeeeeessss, Mom.\nThere's a good boy.\n\nHa!\n\nMy only major gripe is that the ending feels very abrupt, like something was cut off. I looked a few times to make sure pages hadn't stuck together or something. But I really like this creative approach to animal info. Not nonfiction, but still informational. And a gross, good read!", "This book is delightful! As a lifelong creativity champion, the moment I saw it I knew I had to have it. Of all the books I've read on creativity, and there have been many, it's the most creatively written and formatted that I've found, providing not only valuable information on the creative process, but being itself a model and an inspiration as well. The author, Jill Badonsky, brilliantly presents creativity principles in a playful, engaging and interactive way, personified by fun and spirited muses. Being a former producer of training materials and a promoter of creative and interactive performance support strategies, I appreciate the concept of chunking bits of information into a sort of buffet of info nuggets that can be digested in either a linear or a non-linear fashion. This book offers such a buffet. It's chock full of metaphors, strategies, resources and exercises that provide a bountiful and delicious creativity experience. Whether you want to explore your creative potential, take your creating to a new level, or help others do the same, buy this book! You won't be disappointed.", "The author kept the info simple and informative! He is a real leader in success development and the info on the social media is killer", "Interesting and informative. Provides the reader with a valuable perspective of life and governance in Ancient Rome.", "This is a well-written and beautifully illustrated book about Kay Kyser. There are far too few sources of information about him and his band. The great value here is that the author interviewed may members of the band, making this book highly valuable.", "Very unusual book, love the photos and info. Really informative, and fun.", "This is written by one of my teachers and has valuable information for healing.", "used it in class but i found the information to be valuable. It's a good reference even after your done.", "This is a reprint or photocopy of an original document. The information is valuable and that part is good but the print is so fine that one must use a magnifying glass to read it. I have spoken to the producers of this book about this and hopefully they will fix this problem in future.", "Chey B. initially captured my attention through his Twitter page. A place where he often tweets inspirational, life, love and spiritual quotes. Chey B. is personable with his audience and is a marketing genius!\n\nAlthough there is a lot of repetitiveness (I assume it's to help readers retain info) in this book, it contains valuable information that I personally will be applying to my life. I felt as though I was sitting down with an older brother or male relative having a heart-to-heart discussion. I'll be passing along my copy to friends/family.", "Always a heavy topic to read about but the stories cannot go untold lest they be forgotten. Peter Balakian is a fantastic writer and I thoroughly enjoy his writing and novels. Thank you for providing an accurate, documented account of Armenian history." ]

[ "As COVID-19 spreads through Israeli and Palestinian communities, Israelis and Palestinians now have a common enemy to battle — and reason to lean on each other. The coronavirus has infected more than 2,000 Israelis and killed at least eight, including a man who survived the Holocaust. In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, it has infected more than 70 Palestinians and killed a Palestinian woman. At least nine Palestinians in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip are infected with the virus, too. Everyone is under increasingly stringent lockdowns. Israeli and Palestinian officials say they are coordinating their efforts against the coronavirus. Israel has ensured the passage of ambulances to Palestinian areas of the West Bank, offered medical workshops to Palestinian hospital staff on best quarantine practices, and provided virus testing kits to Palestinian medical staff with limited resources in both the West Bank and Gaza. Israeli hospitals, buckling under the pressure of hundreds of new virus cases a day, rely on Palestinian doctors who are citizens of Israel, as well as some Palestinian hospital staff from the West Bank, who must pass through Israeli military checkpoints to work in Israeli hospitals. Now, the tensions over President Trump's pro-Israel peace proposal and Israeli vows to annex West Bank lands just last month seem like a distant memory. So does last month's firebombing of a Palestinian restaurant that hosted an Israeli journalist delegation. Violence hasn't ended, but it's barely registering headlines. \"Maybe people will remember this as a time when they treated each other as humans,\" a Palestinian newspaper journalist told NPR. He insisted on anonymity because in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, public expressions of compassion remain controversial. With the bar for empathy set so low, the simple act of Israelis and Palestinians acknowledging the common threat they face is noteworthy. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin spoke with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas last week about coordinating efforts on fighting the virus, in a rare telephone call between the two. A public opinion poll on Tuesday found 68% of Palestinians support the Palestinian Authority's current cooperation with Israeli authorities to stem the spread of the virus. Some Israelis have voiced their gratitude on Twitter and television for the Palestinian Arab citizens who make up 17% of Israel's doctors, a quarter of its nurses and nearly half its pharmacists. Israel has sealed its borders to all foreign visitors, but not to the Palestinian laborers who help keep Israel's economy alive. Before the pandemic, about 150,000 Palestinians worked in Israel and Israeli settlements. Now, an estimated 30,000 to 45,000 day laborers, most of them construction workers, have made the difficult choice to work and sleep in Israel for months, without knowing when Israel's lockdown, which began over a week ago, will end and when they can go back to their families in the West Bank. Their alternative: remain in the poorer West Bank, where jobs are scarce. With no tourists in Israel now, some Israeli employers have put up Palestinian laborers in Israeli hotels. In other cases, workers have slept in the apartments they finished building before Israeli owners moved in, said Ziv Lazar of the Israeli Builders Association. As cases of the virus soar in Israel, Palestinian leaders have called on laborers to return home and quarantine themselves, alarming Israel's association of construction contractors. \"The damage that will cause will be enormous,\" said Shai Pauzner, spokesman of the association. For critics of Israel's tough policies toward the Palestinians, the coronavirus underscores the inequalities of a West Bank population under Israeli military occupation and dependent on Israel's medical aid and labor market. They warn that some 2 million residents of the blockaded and beleaguered Gaza Strip could face disaster, should the virus spread due to a perfect storm of deficient hospitals with few ventilators and most of the population poor and living in crowded conditions. \"COVID-19, or any other health crisis, is not an equalizer. To praise Israeli-Palestinian cooperation suggests that the parties are on an equal footing when they are not,\" Tareq Baconi of the International Crisis Group tweeted. Some Israelis also have voiced skepticism about cooperation. \"Optimism for coexistence born out of working with the [Palestinian Authority] to combat the coronavirus is a pipe dream,\" says Gerald Steinberg of the Israeli group NGO Monitor, which tracks critique of Israel by pro-Palestinian and international rights groups around the world. \"The ongoing demonization and political war against Israel, continuing unabated despite the global corona disaster, is an important reality check for all of us.\" For the few card-carrying peace activists whose optimism hasn't fallen victim to decades of violence and hate, though, the virus offers an opportunity. Nidal " ]

[ "How has tiny Israel beat out bigger countries on COVID-19 vaccinations, securing a steady stream of vials and inoculating a larger share of its citizenry than any other nation? Israel paid a premium, locked in an early supply of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines and struck a unique deal: vaccines for data. The nation of some 9 million promised Pfizer a swift vaccine rollout, along with data from Israel's centralized trove of medical statistics to study \"whether herd immunity is achieved after reaching a certain percentage of vaccination coverage in Israel,\" according to their agreement. \"We said to Pfizer ... that the moment they give us the vaccine, we'll be able to vaccinate at the speed they've never heard of,\" Israel's health minister Yuli Edelstein tells NPR. Israel's small size and technologically advanced public health system offer an attractive model for Pfizer to demonstrate the impact of the vaccine on an entire population. Pfizer has not signed a similar agreement with any other country, company spokesperson Jerica Pitts says. The vaccines-for-data trade-off has sparked impassioned debate in Israel among data privacy experts, biotech researchers and the country's own medical ethics board, weighing the potential benefits of mining the population for vaccine insights against the potential abuse of millions of personal medical records. \"We need to understand that [Israel's agreement with Pfizer] is going to be one of the, I would say, widest medical experiments on humans at the 21st century,\" says the Israel Democracy Institute's Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler, a data privacy advocate and a leading voice questioning the Pfizer data deal. Some Israeli commentators have accused Shwartz Altshuler of seeking to spoil a successful national campaign that the government has branded with the hashtag \"VacciNation.\" She and many other Israeli experts tend to concur that quick access to the vaccine is Israel's most important priority. Israel is already reporting promising initial results of the vaccination campaign. The Health Ministry said Thursday that out of a group of 715,425 Israelis fully vaccinated, only 317 — 0.04% — got infected with the virus at least one week after their second shot, and 16 were hospitalized with serious symptoms. Israeli HMOs have reported a decrease in infection rates among those vaccinated with one shot of the Pfizer vaccine, and a drop in the country's serious COVID-19 infections for older age categories a couple of weeks after Israel started its national vaccination drive. \"I think that it's really very special that Israel's been recognized by Pfizer as a country that the whole world can learn from,\" says Diane Levin-Zamir, director of health education at Israel's largest HMO, Clalit Health Services. \"There's good research coming out and we're being very transparent about the data.\" Vaccines and politics Most Israelis are celebrating their record-setting vaccination drive. \"To be the first place in the world, it's a good feeling,\" says Yoni Boigenman, an Israeli getting a first shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at Jerusalem's main sports stadium, which has been converted into a hive of needles and nurses 14 hours every day. Close to a third of the population has received at least one shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine and about 17% received both shots, far beyond any other country. Israel aims to be the first to vaccinate most of its citizenry against COVID-19 before elections are held March 23. The vaccine drive is central to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's reelection campaign. The first Israeli to receive a shot, Netanyahu mounted his syringe in a glass box, the needle angled upward like a rocket ship, with a plaque riffing off the words of U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong: \"One small shot for a man, a giant step for everyone's health.\" Israel has waved away human rights groups' assertions that the country is obliged to provide vaccines to Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip; Israel says the Palestinian Authority holds that responsibility. Still, Israel has decided to send 5,000 COVID-19 vaccines to Palestinian medical workers in the West Bank, with an initial shipment this week, Defense Minister Benny Gantz's office tells NPR. Palestinian officials signed late deals with vaccine manufacturers and still await shipments to begin vaccinating the public. Some Israeli medical experts warn that widespread immunity cannot be achieved so long as millions of Palestinians are not vaccinated. Palestinian officials say they do not expect to vaccinate the majority of their population until at least the end of the year. \"It's a gold mine\" Nearly every Israeli citizen and resident belongs to one of four public HMOs, a health care system rooted in the national trade union of Israel's early years. Every Israeli's full medical history – from physician visits to hospitalizations – is accessible to any health provider at the click of a mouse, a repository of digita", "Israel has vaccinated a larger share of its population against COVID-19 than any other country, and is aiming to achieve \"herd immunity\" from the virus by the end of spring or midsummer, the Israeli Health Ministry told NPR. More than 800,000 of Israel's population of about 9 million have received COVID-19 vaccination shots. The country aims to vaccinate 25% of Israelis by the end of January. The vaccination drive began Dec. 19 with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu receiving the first shot on live TV. Israel so far is using the vaccine made by Pfizer and BioNTech and is awaiting a shipment of Moderna's vaccine. Figures compiled by Our World in Data, a website published by Oxford University, put Israel in the lead in vaccination doses administered per 100 people. But the country is behind China, the United States and the United Kingdom in the total administered as of Thursday. But Israel is not providing vaccines to Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank or in the Gaza Strip, which is blockaded by Israel and Egypt. Palestinian officials are scrambling to secure deals with vaccine manufacturers. In February, 3% of Palestinians in both territories are expected to be vaccinated through COVAX, an initiative co-led by the World Health Organization and a vaccines alliance to distribute COVID-19 vaccines more equally around the world, said Ali Abed Rabbo, director general of the Palestinian Health Ministry. That program pledges to eventually vaccinate 20% of the Palestinian territories, which have a combined population of about 5 million. On Wednesday, drugmaker AstraZeneca offered to sell the Palestinian Authority enough vaccines to cover an additional 20% of the territories' population in February, he said. Israel says the Palestinians are responsible for their own health care under the 1990s Oslo peace accords. Some aid groups say Israel and the Palestinian Authority both share responsibility. Abed Rabbo said the Palestinian Authority only began approaching drugmakers in the last few weeks, long after other countries inked their own vaccine deals. The Palestinian Health Ministry official said a recently resolved Palestinian financial crisis, brought on by a months-long Palestinian Authority boycott of Israel, had left few funds for vaccines. Officials had expected to receive vaccines from Russia, but Russian officials Wednesday notified the Palestinian Authority they did not yet have enough supplies to offer. Israel's vaccination bonanza — with inoculation stations open every day, including on the Sabbath, from a sports arena in Jerusalem to tents in Tel Aviv's central square — is at the core of Prime Minister Netanyahu's campaign for reelection in March. \"Israel is the world champion in vaccines,\" Netanyahu said Tuesday. \"Maybe we will be the first country in the world to emerge from this coronavirus.\" The prime minister has said his new friendship with Pfizer's CEO got Israel toward the front of the line. Israeli officials have indicated the country paid a higher price than other countries. One Health Ministry official told local media Israel paid $62 a dose, compared to the $19.50 price tag in the U.S. In a statement to NPR, the Israeli Health Ministry did not confirm how much it paid, citing the \"sensitivity of the subject,\" but Israeli Finance Minister Israel Katz said the higher price was necessary considering Israel was vying for vaccines among much larger countries. Israeli officials believe the country's fast vaccination campaign could provide an early model for countries. \"One of the reasons why Israel was given some of the vaccines [may be] so we can study in advance to see how such a big effort takes place,\" said Dr. Boaz Lev, who heads the Health Ministry's advisory committee for prioritizing how COVID-19 vaccines are distributed. Officially, Israel's four national health insurance companies are only vaccinating citizens over 60 years of age, health care workers and residents of psychiatric and geriatric institutions. But many younger Israelis, who are at lower risk of COVID-19 complications, have also found ways to get vaccinated. Some clinics vaccinate younger Israelis in the evening so Pfizer vials removed from refrigeration do not go to waste, Lev said. Some Israeli Jews have also found it easy to get vaccinated at clinics in Arab communities in Israel. Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel, who comprise about a fifth of the country, have been more skeptical of the vaccine. Nicole Schwartz, 27, accompanied her grandmother to get the vaccine Thursday, in the town of Sderot, and unexpectedly received one herself when she asked. She feels relieved after taking a year off work as a special education teacher out of concern she would catch the virus, but also guilty at how easily she as a young person got the vaccine. \"I am unhappy with how political it is to bring the vaccines and do it so fast,\" Schwartz said. \"It's important to [Netanyahu] that everyone will know that he brought the vaccine", "What makes people change their minds? About the really hard stuff. Covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the past three years, I've often wondered if people here ever do. This conflict is frequently described as \"intractable,\" with neither side willing to give up their historical perspective or their entrenched positions to end it. And it does not take many interviews to hear repetitions of the same sweeping narrative repeated on each side. Palestinians from different places cite the same historical events to back their views. Israelis who have never met each other use similar turns of phrase. \"People have a lot of [psychological] resources invested in what they believe about the conflict,\" says Thomas Zeitzoff, a political scientist at American University in Washington, D.C., who has researched Israeli and Palestinian attitudes. He says the high political stakes and emotional involvement make it hard for Israelis and Palestinians to change their minds. But there have been certain shifts – in public opinion and in individual beliefs - during the 68 years of Israel's existence and almost half-century of the Israeli military control over Palestinian territories. Why? Experts list a range of influences that – to varying degrees – can move or even flip deeply held views. \"You can point to major events, either in the world or people's lives, changes in their social context, as well as changes in the kind of messages they get from politicians and other elite sources,\" says Brendan Nyhan, an assistant professor at Dartmouth College who researches politics and misperceptions. Other factors include repeated exposure to a new idea, whatever the source, scientific research, and direct personal experience. Four people – two Israeli and two Palestinian – told me their stories of personal, radical belief change related to the conflict. They not only changed their minds, but, a higher hurdle, their behavior. Here are some triggers that led these people to see the world differently than they had before, even in the midst of a larger impasse. Time With The Enemy Many groups supporting co-existence advocate for exposure to the other side. Knowledge develops empathy, they say, which can broaden an individual's perspective as well as pique curiosity. Maayan Poleg is a Middle East program director for the group Seeds of Peace, which brings Palestinian and Israeli teens together for summer camp in Maine. She says the group does not advocate a particular political position and is not directly aiming to change minds. But time together, deliberately discussing the conflict, humanizes the enemy, she says, and helps participants question their assumptions, as well as navigate the onslaught of opinions from politicians, family and media to clarify their individual beliefs. \"They become open to accepting the fact that what they know as truth is a narrative. That's a huge step,\" Poleg said. \"People spend a lot of time defending a specific fact. And it takes them a long time to understand that their fact is actually a narrative. It doesn't mean that it's wrong. It just means that there's another way to view it.\" Palestinians and Israelis used to interact with some regularity, often in the workplace or the marketplace. But over the past 15 years, they have been increasingly separated physically. They now spend very little time together. But one Palestinian who went from throwing stones at Israeli soldiers to teaching non-violence says he began to change his mind about violence while in an Israeli prison. While behind bars, he learned Hebrew, saw his first movie about the Holocaust, and got to know Israeli prison guards. \"It's a process,\" says Bassam Aramin, who became one of the co-founders of Combatants for Peace, a group of former Israeli soldiers and Palestinian ex-militants. \"You never wake up in the morning and say, 'Oh my God, we are wrong. The Israelis are right. I give up fighting.'\" He remembers the first time he and other ex-combatants – Israeli and Palestinian - sat down together. He was scared. \"We don't trust them. I think they're from the Israeli intelligence. Maybe they are coming to arrest us,\" Aramin recalls. He saw fear in the eyes of the Israeli men who sat down with him. \"It's the first time they're coming to meet a Palestinian terrorist. And they have this fear of maybe one of us will kidnap them and kill them.\" Trust did build trust over time and many conversations. They built an organization that teaches empathy and understanding. But empathy is also vulnerable to a change of heart. Repeat Experiences Many Israelis and Palestinians reached out to each other eagerly after leaders signed their first-ever peace plan back in 1993. People were hopeful, and more open than ever to the idea they could live together peacefully, says Palestinian sociologist Nader Said. \"It was highly euphoric and highly exciting times,\" he remembers. But that peace deal, the Oslo Accords, did not deliver on its promise. Violence retu", "It took four years in a prison cell for Palestinian Abdel Hamid el-Rajoub to decide to work as an Israeli informant. Not that he ever planned it that way. Rajoub is in his 60s now. He grew up in a Palestinian village near Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. He says he was 19, an emotional young man, when he got involved in fighting Israel. \"It was my right,\" he says, \"to fight Israel and the occupation.\" Rajoub looked up to an older brother, who he says was part of the military branch of the Palestinian political group Fatah and was killed by Israeli soldiers. Rajoub joined Fatah's fighting wing too; he says he took part in an attack on Israelis in the mid-1970s that landed him in Israeli prison. Life inside was oppressive, Rajoub says, but the worst part of it came from fellow Palestinians. Fatah members, he says, wrongly accused him of passing information to Israeli intelligence. It is a charge that is difficult to disprove, particularly inside a prison community where suspicions run deep and risks are high. Being accused of working as an informant was potentially so dangerous that Israel moved Rajoub from the general prison population into a solitary cell. \"I was in the Israeli cell alone for four years, waiting for Fatah to realize I was not an informant,\" Rajoub says. \"But an apology never came. I thought a lot during those four years. I realized that my problem was with Fatah, not with Israel.\" A Key Role That's Often Invisible In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, informants have long played a key role. Palestinians pass information to Israeli security agents for a variety of reasons, including personal gain or needing something from Israel, such as a work permit. In Rajoub's case, the motive was revenge. He wanted to hit back at Fatah, feeling it had betrayed him. Still, it hurt. \"It was a painful decision,\" Rajoub says, choking up. \"Whenever I remember that moment, I cry.\" Rajoub stayed in prison, but in special cells full of other informants like him. Their job was to put on a show of being real prisoners, to fool other Palestinians into revealing information Israeli intelligence couldn't get. Former Israeli intelligence officer Chaim Nativ calls it theater — and a useful part of interrogation. Nativ worked in the Arab section of Israel's Shin Bet internal security service for 30 years. \"Sometimes when you are stuck in the interrogation,\" he said, \"the case is on the border. You don't know if he's white or black. So you send him to the asafeer.\" Using 'Sparrows' To Trick Prisoners Asafeer means sparrows in Arabic. It's what Palestinians have come to call the cells of collaborators, which are still used today. Lawyers and former prisoners say the \"sparrows\" can fool people because they mimic the methods Palestinian prisoners developed to organize themselves. \"Each Palestinian faction has elections. The leadership is the central committee,\" says a longtime Fatah leader who spent more than a decade in Israeli custody. Some committees were in charge of education; others, with relationships between prison groups. There was always a security committee, which asked people to write reports detailing their arrest and interrogation. The leadership usually asks people to write reports of their arrest and interrogation, he says. \"But the real organization,\" he says, \"told prisoners, don't write anything that you didn't confess about in the intelligence rooms. In the collaborators room, they ask him to write all he confessed about and what he did not confess about.\" The sparrows work best on inexperienced prisoners, say security sources. Former Shin Bet Director Carmi Gillon says the technique takes advantage of a prisoner's emotional needs. \"You are quite lonely when you are in custody,\" Gillon said. \"You need to talk to somebody. There are fundamentalist Muslims from Hamas or Hezbollah who have their prayers. But if you are somebody different, I say normal, you need to talk to somebody.\" Abdel Sattar Kassem, a Palestinian professor and former prisoner, says he met Rajoub, the former collaborator, in a cell full of sparrows in 1981. Kassem had spent nine days in solitary confinement, several without food, he says, and Israeli interrogation sessions. The sparrows welcomed him warmly. \"I ate and had very full stomach,\" Kassem said in his hilltop home near Nablus, looking satisfied even with the memory. \"Then somebody said doctor, I want to talk to you. He told me he was the head of that room. And he was very pleased to see me.\" Kassem says he confessed nothing because he had heard about this trick. In fact, he'd heard that Rajoub helped start the sparrow interrogations, a claim Rajoub also makes. Bringing Shame To The Family Israeli security sources won't confirm that, or anything about Rajoub. But a Palestinian politician and relative of Abdel Hamid el-Rajoub will. \"It's shameful for me,\" says Nayef Rajoub, a member of the nonoperational Palestinian Legislative Council. \"It's shameful for all the Palesti", "Former foreign editor John Felton conducts quarterly, independent, reviews of NPR's Israeli-Palestinian coverage. His 2012 fourth quarter report is now available online. Felton reviewed the 104 radio stories, interviews and other reports that aired on NPR's daily radio shows from October through December, as well as 61 blogs, news stories and other reports carried exclusively on NPR's website. Roughly one-half of the radio and online stories reported on the conflict in mid-November between Israel and the various Palestinian factions in the Gaza strip. This conflict resulted in the deaths of some 160 Palestinians and 6 Israelis. In his assessment, Felton found that NPR gave its listeners and readers generally accurate, fair and balanced coverage of most of the daily events in the Gaza conflict. NPR reporters provided compelling coverage of the impact of the fighting on civilians on both sides. However, much of NPR's coverage failed to provide the context listeners and readers needed for a complete understanding of the fighting, Felton found. Such questions as, \"Why is this happening now?\" and \"What does this mean for the future of the Middle East?\" should have been asked more frequently — even if satisfactory answers were not always available. The website did provide several background pieces. It was a shame that they did not reach the radio audience, too. Felton also found that NPR was commendably cautious in reporting the key facts about the Gaza conflict, including casualties, but the caution sometimes went to extremes. In too many cases, NPR's reporting simply skirted the topic of casualties altogether. In other cases, NPR gave rough totals of how many people were killed but did not attempt to distinguish between combatant and civilian deaths — admittedly a difficult thing to do when both sides used casualty figures for propaganda purposes. NPR was reasonably consistent and accurate in reporting the number of rockets fired from Gaza into Israel. However, NPR gave virtually no information about how many bombs and missiles Israel fired into Gaza, or how much physical damage those airstrikes caused. The fourth quarter report also summarized some key trends of NPR's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the 10-year period of 2003 through 2012. The summary showed a relative balance, over time, in NPR's coverage of the two sides. Listeners heard somewhat more often from Arabs than Israelis during the decade. Even so, they heard much more often from the Israeli prime minister and other top Israeli government figures than from officials and spokesmen on the Palestinian side. I encourage you to read the complete review. Quarterly reviews going back to 2008 are also available online. John Felton prepares the quarterly evaluations. He has covered international affairs and U.S. foreign policy for more than 30 years. His book, The Contemporary Middle East: A Documentary History, was published by CQ Press in 2007. A former foreign affairs reporter for Congressional Quarterly and foreign editor at NPR, he has been a freelance writer and editor since 1995.", "JERUSALEM - Israeli health officials have urged their country's leaders to help vaccinate the entire Palestinian population against COVID-19, citing a public health imperative, an outgoing senior health official told NPR Monday. \"This is really important, to vaccinate the entire Palestinian Authority population, and I believe it will go this way,\" said Itamar Grotto, who helped lead Israel's pandemic response and stepped down Monday as deputy director general of Israel's Health Ministry. \"This is the recommendation of all the experts, and I believe that the politicians will follow our recommendations.\" On Sunday, Israel said it would vaccinate about 110,000 Palestinian day laborers who work in Israel. In recent days, Israel has also vaccinated special categories of Palestinians, such as relatives of people who live in Jerusalem. Israel also vaccinated Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. \"We are starting to give them more and more vaccines,\" Grotto said. \"It is an important objective, from a public health point of view, and of course also from a humanitarian point of view.\" He said Israel is giving Palestinians unused supplies of the Moderna vaccine, more of which is expected to arrive in Israel. Israelis are being immunized with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Israel has faced calls from international and Israeli aid groups and rights advocates to help facilitate vaccines for Palestinians in occupied territory, arguing Israel is obligated to do so by the Fourth Geneva Convention. Israeli political leaders say the Oslo Peace Accords make the semi-autonomous Palestinian Authority responsible for its own population. Israel has already vaccinated half of its population, including Palestinian citizens and residents (of Israel). But in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the vast majority of Palestinians have not yet been vaccinated. Palestinians have received small donations of vaccines from the United Arab Emirates, Russia and Israel. Palestinian officials ordered larger quantities of vaccines but they say manufacturers are delaying shipments. The Biden administration has urged Israel to help. \"We believe it's important for Palestinians to achieve increased access to COVID vaccine in the weeks ahead,\" State Department spokesman Ned Price said. \"We believe it's important for their own – for their own needs. It's important for Israel, Israel's health and security as well.\" Palestinian officials have also faced accusations of improperly distributing donated vaccines intended for health workers, to politicians and their friends. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas reportedly was secretly vaccinated. In a press conference Monday, the Palestinian anti-corruption civil society organization AMAN called on the Palestinian Authority to form a committee to investigate \"corrupt\" vaccine distribution.", "As the conflict in Gaza drags into Day 18, foreign policy advisers to President-elect Obama must be asking themselves whether the fighting will still be going on when he takes the oath of office. No one, including the combatants themselves, is clear at this point whether the war is nearing an end or beginning a new, drawn-out and deadly phase. \"We are at a basic tipping point, where the Israelis could go either way,\" says Martin Indyk, a former ambassador to Israel, \"either to launch a major offensive against Hamas strongholds in Gaza City or to accept a cease-fire and pull out.\" Since the offensive began Dec. 27, the conflict has taken the lives of more than 900 Palestinians, more than half of them civilians. Israel has lost 10 soldiers, and Hamas rockets and mortars have killed three Israeli civilians. Israel says it was driven to take military action to stop Hamas rocket attacks on towns in southern Israel. Palestinians say they are striking out against an Israeli blockade of Gaza. Indyk says he fears the balance will tip toward an all-out invasion, especially since diplomatic efforts to resolve the situation seem to have lost momentum after the U.N. passed a resolution calling for a cease-fire. Steven Cook, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Affairs, says the senior command of the Israeli Defense Forces wants a full-scale invasion of Gaza. \"And it seems that with the call-up of reservists and going ever farther into Gaza City, there's a big chance the senior command will get its way,\" he says. The problem, Cook says, is that each side apparently believes it has a strong chance of doing significant damage to its enemy if the Israelis penetrate deep into Gaza. Hamas may believe it can ratchet up Israel casualties if it can lure the Israelis into house-to-house fighting, he says. And Israeli commanders may believe they can finally kill off the senior Hamas leadership. Indyk, who heads the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, notes that the Israeli media are widely quoting unnamed Israeli Army sources as saying that Hamas is about to crack. \"They may be right, but if they're wrong — and they're quite good at getting it wrong in these situations — then Hamas gains,\" Indyk says. That's because \"the more misery Israel inflicts on Palestinian civilians, the more support Hamas gets in the Arab street,\" and the more Arab governments feel the pressure of public opinion to take a hard line against Israel, he says. \"There is a downside to this [for Hamas]. It lies in the danger that they may lose control of Gaza altogether. They have to think twice about this.\" But Cook points out there's a downside for Israelis, as well. \"Everybody in Israeli society is deeply afraid of having to reoccupy the Gaza Strip,\" he says. \"What do they do with Gaza after they've done this?\" There's also a political dimension for Israelis. Israel holds elections on Feb. 10, and Cook says the fortunes of the war could have a major effect on the frontrunners, including Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Both are enjoying strong popularity in the polls, but they could see a reverse in favor if the Israeli military starts to experience high casualties in a drawn-out fight. Cook also says that neither Livni nor Barak will want to bear the costs of a prolonged occupation of the refugee camps and cities that constitute Hamas' strongholds. Indyk calls this \"a very dangerous moment\" and says it demands an active American diplomacy though the outgoing administration seems exhausted and the incoming administration is trying to find its feet. \"My own experience,\" Indyk says, \"is that if there's no political intervention from the outside, left to their own devices, the parties will engage in a deepening conflict.\"", "Israel and the Palestinians have been shooting at each other in and around the Gaza Strip almost daily for more than eight years. It is the main battleground in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and on Dec. 27, Israel launched its largest — and deadliest — offensive in all those years of fighting. Here are some of the issues surrounding the current battle: Why has Israel undertaken such a major offensive now? In the last half of 2008, a six-month truce kept the shooting to its lowest level in years, although both sides violated it. When the truce ended Dec. 19, Hamas stepped up its rocket fire. Israel then unleashed a major air campaign directed at Hamas targets, followed by the ground incursion on Jan. 3. Political factors also appeared to play a role in the timing of the Israeli campaign. President Bush's administration has been strongly supportive of Israel and has generally backed the latest Israeli action. The incoming Obama administration has refrained from taking any clear position before assuming office on Jan. 20. Also, Israel has elections planned for Feb. 10. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is stepping down, but his Kadima party and its coalition partners want to show they are taking strong action against security threats to Israel. Israel has carried out repeated military operations in Gaza since 2000 and has never been able to stop the Palestinian rocket fire. Is this time likely to be different? The scope of the Israeli operation is much larger than any previous military action. In the past, Israel often relied on helicopters and unmanned drones to fire relatively small missiles. This time, Israel has called in F-16 fighter planes that have dropped large bombs, flattening government buildings. Previously, Israel feared heavy casualties if it sent ground forces into the congested cities and towns of Gaza. This time, Israel has poured thousands of troops into the coastal territory. While Israel has already dealt Hamas a heavy blow, it is not yet clear how Israel would prevent Palestinian militants from rebuilding their rocket arsenals once the Israeli troops are gone. What is the focus of the Israeli ground campaign? The Israeli troops have taken up positions in the farming fields in the northern and the eastern fringes of Gaza, where the Palestinians fire rockets. The rocket fire has been reduced, but it has not stopped. The troops have also advanced to the edges of Gaza City, taking up positions atop high-rise buildings. Gaza City, with a population of roughly half a million, is the largest Palestinian city and the home of many Hamas leaders and supporters. The Israelis are expected to maintain their focus on northern Gaza, but they also want to shut down the smuggling tunnels that run beneath Gaza's southern border with Egypt. What are conditions like for Palestinians in Gaza? In Gaza City, many Palestinians say they have rarely left their homes since the Israeli offensive began. Electricity and water are not available in many areas, and food is getting harder to come by. Gaza is extremely poor, and families are large. It's not uncommon for an extended family of 10 or more to share a small apartment. Hospitals have been overwhelmed by the casualties, with civilians accounting for about a quarter of the Palestinian dead. The Israeli military has called Palestinian homes and dropped leaflets urging families to leave areas that are likely to become battlegrounds. However, many Palestinians say they have no place to go, and taking to the streets at a time when they are controlled by Israeli troops is also considered extremely risky. Israel has allowed some humanitarian supplies into the area, but many Gazans complain that food, medicine and other essentials are difficult if not impossible to get for those in the battle zone. How does Hamas get its rockets? Hamas has fired thousands of rockets into southern Israel in recent years. Most were made in small metal workshops and garages that repair cars. The rockets are inaccurate, but they sow panic in southern Israel. More recently, Hamas has obtained longer-range rockets that were brought in from abroad through smuggling tunnels on the Egyptian border. Most Palestinian-made rockets travel only a few miles, and most are directed at the town of Sderot, just a couple of miles beyond Gaza's perimeter fence. But the imported rockets have struck as far away as Beersheba, a town 25 miles beyond Gaza's borders. Is Hamas likely to remain in control of Gaza when the fighting ends? Israeli officials say toppling Hamas is not an explicit aim. However, Israel has been squeezing Hamas ever since the radical Islamist group won the Palestinian elections three years ago, and Israel has made clear it would welcome the demise of Hamas in Gaza. However, the rival Fatah movement, which controls the West Bank, is weak and disorganized in Gaza and does not appear well-positioned to take over. Israel fell far short of its goals when it waged a similar mili", "One byproduct of the recurring battles between Israel and its Arab neighbors is that Israel has developed a homegrown weapons industry that addresses its very specific needs. Over the decades, this has included a number of cutting-edge technologies, from drones to night-vision equipment, which have been widely exported. A more recent example is the Iron Dome, which was used throughout the latest conflict with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The mobile missile defense system is capable of stopping short-range rockets from places like Gaza, the West Bank and southern Lebanon. Isaac Ben-Israel, a former director of the Defense Ministry's research and development program, says there was no technology in the world capable of doing that, so Israel had to develop its own system. The U.S. has subsequently provided funding to Israel to build additional anti-missile batteries. \"We did it because of our unique threat and our unique problem, and ... this is what we do since 1948,\" he says, referring to the year that Israel was founded. As with previous battles, the Gaza conflict has damaged Israel's overall economy. The tally this time has been estimated at several billion dollars for Israel, and is far greater for the Palestinians in Gaza. But the fighting can also provide a boost to Israel's arms manufacturers, says Barbara Opall-Rome, the Israel bureau chief for the U.S. magazine Defense News. Over the past five years, Israel has had military sales of around $7 billion annually, she says. \"And it puts them in the top five of the world's arms-exporting nations,\" she adds. In the latest operation against Hamas, new types of ammunition, bombs that can penetrate reinforced concrete buildings, and other equipment have been introduced on the battlefield. Opall-Rome says a new anti-guided missile defense system for tanks, called Trophy, performed well during ground operations in Gaza. \"It means a lot on the international arms market, and Israel certainly makes very good use of their added value, in that these systems are combat proven,\" she says. Critics would object to that, saying the Israeli weapons are not so precise and caused heavy Palestinian civilian casualties during the recent conflict. More than 2,000 Palestinians were killed, and various estimates put the civilian deaths at 50 percent to more than 80 percent of that total. In addition, the Israel-Palestinian feud imposes a major limitation on Israeli weapons sales: the Arab boycott of anything made in Israel. \"The whole Arabian Gulf market, which is the No. 1 market for purchasing of foreign-made weaponry, that's cut off to them,\" says Opall-Rome. She says China is also cut off to Israel arms manufacturers because of U.S. security concerns. And Israel faces similar U.S. pressure when it comes to possible sales to Russia. India is one Israel's biggest customers, buying everything from ship and air defense systems to anti-tank missiles and drones. Israel also sells to other countries in Asia, as well as Europe and Latin America. She says Israel is a tiny domestic market, so its arms industry needs to export nearly 80 percent of its goods in order to break even. Some of the weapons are so unique that no one else wants or needs them. Case in point is the Iron Dome. It has proved generally effective against Hamas rockets, which are made in Gaza workshops and are relatively unsophisticated. But no other country faces this persistent threat from short-range rockets. The same holds true for the Arrow, an anti-ballistic missile system. Uzi Ruben, the former head of Israel's missile defense program, says the Arrow was designed to destroy long-range missiles coming from Iraq or Iran. It went into development in 1991 and took nine years to bring it to operation. \"It was never used; it was just deployed,\" he says. One of the new technologies likely to emerge from this conflict will focus on detecting and destroying tunnels, like those used by Hamas to move fighters and weapons underground. Ben-Israel, the former defense researcher, says it's not likely to be a big seller on the international market. \"No one in the world is digging tunnels in order to penetrate into, let's say, the United States of America for terrorist attacks,\" he says. Still, Ben-Israel says there will always be a global demand for sophisticated weapons — something Israel has become better at producing with each war. ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: Before the current cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, more than 2,100 Palestinians were killed and about and about 70 Israelis died - most of them soldiers in Gaza. A few people inside Israel were killed. Israelis say, that's largely the result of unique Israeli-made technology - a missile-defense. Over the decades, a byproduct of the threats and wars fought by Israel is a homegrown weapons industry that has made it one of the world's biggest arms traders. NPR's Jackie Northam filed this report. (SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO) UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Israel's Ministry of Defense selected Rafa", "Every American president since Harry Truman has wrestled with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to no avail. Yet they keep trying based on the notion that the Middle East will never be calm until there's peace between these protagonists. But as President Obama heads to Israel and the West Bank, expectations could hardly be lower. What's more, this long-standing feud, often seen as the holy grail of American diplomacy, no longer seems to hold the same urgency, according to many analysts. The U.S. goal remains a two-state solution that provides security for Israel and a state for the Palestinians. And a new round of fighting could reverberate throughout the Middle East. Yet for several years, the Israelis and Palestinians, long accustomed to center stage, have been a relatively quiet sideshow in a region going through dramatic upheavals. Egypt, Tunisia and Libya have all unshackled themselves from dictators but are still struggling to agree on a future. Syria's uprising, now in its third year, grinds on. No one can explain what's happening in Yemen. And perhaps the biggest challenge of all is Iran's nuclear program. A Lesser Priority \"When I interviewed President Obama last year, I sat with him 45 minutes, and we didn't talk about Palestine,\" Jeffrey Goldberg, a longtime Middle East watcher at The Atlantic, said in an interview with NPR's Scott Simon. \"The subject was Iran. That is the overwhelming issue for the Israelis at the moment. And it really is the No. 1 foreign policy challenge for the president. And what happens is that the Palestinian initiative sort of fades away,\" Goldberg said. \"It fades in part because the Palestinian leadership is very ineffective. It fades in part because Palestinians are actually undergoing a bit of a civil war themselves.\" This year marks the 20th anniversary of the 1993 Oslo accord, signed on the White House lawn by President Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. The goal was to permanently resolve the conflict within five years. But the talks failed, and violence erupted in 2000. The two sides have effectively retreated to their corners, with minimal contact aside from sporadic clashes in recent years. \"Quietly, with nobody announcing it, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has shifted from a necessity to a hobby for American diplomats,\" wrote New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, who has been dissecting the Middle East for three decades. \"Like any hobby — building model airplanes or knitting sweaters — some days you work on it, some days you don't. It depends on your mood, but it doesn't usually matter when that sweater gets finished.\" A New Reality So is this lower international profile a temporary lull or a more permanent condition? It's the Middle East, so no one knows. But there are several reasons to think this trend could continue on its current trajectory. -- Many Israelis look at the region's turmoil and say now is not the time to make major moves. Much better, they say, to let the new Middle East take shape before Israel commits to any big changes. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's new government, which was sworn in Monday, was born out of an election that focused on Israeli social issues rather than negotiations with the Palestinians. -- The Palestinians remain divided between separate West Bank and Gaza Strip leaderships. This split, now six years old, appears to be more entrenched than ever. And neither Palestinian leadership has been able to marshal the broad and sustained international support that the Palestinians need to put pressure on Israel. -- After two major U.S. wars in the Middle East, most Americans are showing no desire to plunge into another seemingly intractable Middle East problem. All of the current momentum is for the U.S. to be less not more engaged in the Middle East. -- The U.S. is steadily becoming less dependent on Middle East oil, and therefore the region is likely to play a smaller role in America's strategic thinking. Obama sent a clear signal last year when he announced that the U.S. would be directing more military, diplomatic and economic resources toward Asia. A decade ago, when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was raging, you couldn't open a newspaper or turn on the television without hearing about the latest carnage. At the end of one long, exhausting and bloody day, Saeb Erekat, the longtime Palestinian negotiator, said, \"Frankly, I think the world is sick and tired of the Israeli-Palestinian issue. I think they just want to see it go away.\" It seemed a bit odd at the time, when the region was awash with peace envoys and the story was a fixture in the headlines. Today Erekat's remark seems prescient. Greg Myre, the international editor at NPR.org, reported from the Middle East for more than a decade and is the co-author of This Burning Land: Lessons from the Frontlines of the Transformed Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.", "What Palestinians on the West Bank say about the Israeli ground offensive and what needs to be done to reach a cease-fire. Are Palestinians blaming Hamas for the conflict? Host Liane Hansen speaks with Hanan Ashwari, a member of the Palestinian Third Way Party and a longtime Palestinian negotiator, about the Israeli ground offensive in Gaza and the political reaction from the West Bank. Israeli troops backed by tanks and warplanes took control of significant areas of the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday, but they encountered stiff resistance from Hamas guerrilla fighters. Israeli troops pushed to the outskirts of densely populated Gaza City after entering Gaza on Saturday night. The land incursion followed eight days of aerial attacks on Gaza. According to witnesses inside Gaza, the Israeli military is seeking to surround the city, and further south, to split the territory in half. Fighting has been reported throughout the day, with many reports of casualties. Dozens of Palestinians have been killed or wounded, many by tank fire, putting the Palestinian death toll over the past nine days at more than 500. Medical sources in Gaza told the Associated Press that about 20 civilians had died in the most recent fighting. Israel says 30 of its soldiers have been injured, two seriously. Hamas says it has captured two Israeli soldiers, but the Israeli military denied that claim. Palestinian rockets continue to strike Israel, in most cases harmlessly. The areas in northern Gaza now seized by Israeli troops are the sites where most of the rockets have been launched, the Israeli military believes. Calls For Israel To Desist Anger at the Israeli government intensified in the region, but so did frustration at what many Arabs and others see as ineffectual diplomatic efforts to restore a cease-fire. As Israeli forces retook some of the territory Israel withdrew from in 2005, Egypt called on Israel to \"end its aggression immediately and without preconditions.\" Jordanian Cabinet minister Nasser Judeh urged the international community to \"shoulder its legal and moral responsibilities\" to end the violence. In Iran, which has been accused of being a Hamas financier as well as supporter, parliament speaker Ali Larijani was quoted as saying \"the Zionists should know that Gaza will become their graveyard.\" The United Nations Security Council met Saturday but failed to approve a statement calling for an immediate halt to violence on both sides. Delegates said it was the United States that blocked the resolution. EU Sends More Aid To Gaza Meanwhile, the European Union is sending emergency aid of more than $4 million to help Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. Already the largest donor of aid to the Palestinian territories, the EU says the additional offer of $4.2 million in aid is needed immediately to help with a situation it says is getting more desperate every day. Louis Michel, the EU's aid commissioner, says the money will go primarily to food, emergency shelter and medical support, as requested in a U.N. flash appeal. While Michel criticizes attacks from both sides that target civilians, he cites specifically the effects of Israeli airstrikes and travel restrictions on the Gaza population, warning the Israeli government that blocking aid is a breach of humanitarian law. Michel calls upon Israel to ensure the ability of aid workers to deliver the relief. An EU delegation begins a peace mission to the region Sunday, with meetings in Cairo, then on to Jerusalem and Ramallah. From NPR reports with Mike Shuster in Jerusalem, Peter Kenyon in Cairo and Teri Schultz in Brussels.", "(This post was last updated at 3:04 p.m. ET.) As many as 19 people were killed when a shell struck a United Nations-run school this morning in Gaza. In a message on Twitter, the commissioner-general of UNRWA, which is responsible for the welfare of Palestinian refugees, blamed the attack on the Israeli military. \"Children, women and men killed & injured as they slept in place where they should have been safe and protected,\" Pierre Krähenbühl said, referring to the fact that the school was being used as a shelter. \"They were not. Intolerable.\" According to Krähenbühl, this is the sixth time shells have hit a UNRWA school. He called the latest incident \"a breaking point.\" NPR's Emily Harris reports that this is the second time a U.N. school has been hit and people have been killed. With that, here's what you need to know as the conflict enters its 23rd day. -- Israeli Response: A spokesman for the Israeli Army tells The Washington Post that Israeli forces \"came under mortar fire earlier Wednesday from a point near the school in the Jebaliya refugee camp and responded toward the source of the fire.\" The military will review the incident. -- The Death Toll: NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson reports the Israel Defense Forces says three more of its soldiers were killed today. \"An IDF statement says the soldiers killed today were uncovering a tunnel shaft in a residence in the southern Gaza Strip,\" Soraya reports. \"The home and tunnel were booby-trapped.\" Those deaths bring the number of Israeli soldiers killed to 56. Three Israeli civilians have been killed. Emily reports from Gaza that the death toll there has exceeded 1,200. Here's the United Nations' breakdown of those numbers, but note that the graphic has not caught up with the current tolls: -- The Peace Process: The conflict does not seem to be ending anytime soon. As Emily explained on Morning Edition, it's hard to tell what both sides are thinking, but what's clear is that \"neither side seems to be in a position to get what they want to end this fighting.\" Remember: Israel is seeking a complete demilitarization of Gaza, which Hamas is unlikely to accept, and Hamas is seeking an end to the blockade of Gaza by Israel and Egypt, which Israel is unlikely to accept. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports Israel is considering submitting a resolution to the U.N. Security Council that would end the fighting. A resolution of that kind ended the 2006 Lebanon war. Emily reports that one Israeli official said Israel would pursue this route only if the U.S. agreed. -- A Temporary Cease-Fire: The Associated Press reports that: \"The Israeli military says it's declared a four-hour cease-fire in some areas of the Gaza Strip for humanitarian reasons.\" The cease-fire was broken by both sides shortly after it was announced. -- A Busy Market Is Attacked: \"At least 17 Palestinians have been killed and 200 wounded in the bombardment of a market near Gaza City\" on Wednesday afternoon, Al-Jazeera reports. The BBC reports that hundreds of people were shopping in the market at the time of the attack.", "The guns had just gone silent in the Arab-Israeli war of 1967 when U.S. President Lyndon Johnson jumped in to play the role of peacemaker. Just 11 days after the Six-Day War, Johnson went to the State Department and laid out a plan. \"Our country is committed to a peace that is based on five principles,\" Johnson told a hall packed with American diplomats. His principles were broad. They included \"justice for the refugees,\" \"limits on the wasteful and destructive arms race\" and \"political independence and territorial integrity for all.\" Johnson's proposals didn't go very far, but he established the tradition of U.S. presidents attempting to broker a lasting peace to a seismic war that has shaped the Middle East to this day. With Arab armies massed on its frontiers, Israel unleashed a lightning strike on June 5, 1967, defeating the combined forces of Egypt, Jordan and Syria, and tripling the amount of land under Israeli control. Israel drove Egyptian forces out of the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip, where Egypt had authority over Gaza's Palestinian population. The Jordanians were pushed out of east Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, areas where the population was also Palestinian. And the Syrians were forced from the Golan Heights. In less than a week, the Mideast suddenly looked very different. Israel, which had feared for its existence, instantly became the region's leading military power. The grandiose promises by Arab leaders, who pledged to destroy Israel, rang hollow. And the region was locked in a state of confrontation that remains unresolved. Over the past half-century, Israel has made peace with Egypt and Jordan. But the Israeli feud with the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank grinds on, and Israel still holds the Golan Heights it took from Syria. Shortly before he visited the Mideast last month, President Trump said he thought he could make peace between Israelis and Palestinians — \"something that I think is, frankly, maybe not as difficult as people have thought over the years,\" Trump said. His predecessors might disagree. The Arabs and the Israelis fought another war in 1973, though it ended with no significant changes to the battle lines. The following year, Richard Nixon became the first sitting president to visit Israel. \"The road ahead is difficult,\" Nixon said as he touched down at Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv. He was talking about Mideast peace. But his remarks also applied to his troubled presidency: Just two months later, he resigned due to the Watergate scandal. The first big breakthrough in U.S. peace efforts came in 1978, when President Jimmy Carter brokered a peace deal between Israel and Egypt at the presidential retreat in Camp David, Md. \"When we first arrived at Camp David, the first thing upon which we agreed was to ask the people of the world to pray that our negotiations would be successful. Those prayers have been answered,\" Carter said in announcing the deal. Peace between Israel and Egypt still holds, though it's often described as a \"cold peace.\" Israel and Jordan came to terms in 1994. Since then, hopes for peace on other fronts have been repeatedly dashed. Some presidents, like Ronald Reagan, openly opposed a Palestinian state as a way to settle the conflict. \"It is clear to me that peace cannot be achieved by the formation of an independent Palestinian state,\" Reagan said in 1982. He called for Palestinian autonomy, but not full statehood, in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Another decade would pass — and many lives would be lost — before there was a major advance. President Bill Clinton hosted Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn for the signing of an interim peace agreement in 1993. They gave themselves five years to work out a deal. But the rocky, start-and-stop negotiations spanned Clinton's entire presidency. The Israelis and the Palestinians came close in the summer of 2000, when Clinton convened the parties for two weeks of talks at Camp David. But they couldn't bridge the gaps, and a Palestinian uprising, or intifada, erupted in September 2000. Clinton was still trying to reach a deal in his final days in office, in January 2001. But Arafat, notorious for his vague, maybe-yes, maybe-no answers, ultimately rejected Clinton's final proposal. \"In one of our last conversations, Arafat thanked me for my efforts and told me what a great man I was. 'Mr. Chairman,' I replied, 'I am not a great man. I am a failure. And you have made me one,'\" Clinton wrote in his autobiography, My Life. But Clinton did entrench the U.S. as the main broker. A future Palestinian state became a given. And Arafat became a scapegoat. President George W. Bush encapsulated all this in 2002, a time of ferocious Israeli-Palestinian fighting. \"My vision is two states, living side by side, in peace and security,\" Bush said. But his vision did not include Arafat. \"I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders.", "A one-day conference in Cairo has brought pledges of some $5.4 billion to help rebuild Gaza, the Palestinian territory whose infrastructure was crippled in 50 days of fighting between Hamas and Israel. The figure far surpasses an estimate from Palestinians who said the rebuilding project would cost $4 billion. U.S. officials had expressed doubt the meeting would yield that figure. Envoys from dozens of donor nations gathered in Egypt Sunday to discuss Gaza's future. But the group did not include Israel — as the newspaper Haaretz reports, \"Egyptian officials had feared that many Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, would cancel if they knew an Israeli would attend.\" Update at 2:30 p.m. ET: Conference Raises $5.4 Billion We've updated the top of this post to reflect the results of the meeting, after Norwegian Foreign Minister Borge Brende said in his closing statement that the session had brought promises of $5.4 billion for Gaza's reconstruction effort. Qatar was the biggest contributor, pledging $1 billion; both Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates promised $200 million, as did Turkey. Other large donors included the European Union, with $568 million. The U.S. promised $212 million, bringing its total aid to Palestinians this year to $400 million. Speaking about Israel's absence from the conference, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman tells the Ynet news agency that his country will be involved in the reconstruction. \"You can't reconstruct Gaza without Israeli participation and without Israeli cooperation,\" he said. \"The equipment goes through our border passes, so it's clear to everyone that you cannot move forward without Israeli cooperation.\" Our original post continues: From Cairo, NPR's Michele Kelemen reports: \"UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says Gaza remains a tinderbox, and many donors are wary about giving aid if this cycle of conflict and rebuilding continues. Secretary of State John Kerry was among those calling on Israelis and Palestinians to break that cycle and get back to peace talks. He says the U.S. is committed to helping the parties find a way forward. In the meantime, he pledged to help meet the urgent needs in Gaza. \" 'The people of Gaza do need our help, desperately,' Kerry said. 'Not tomorrow, not next week, but they need it now.' \"Kerry says the U.S. will give another $212 million in aid.\" Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi opened the meeting by calling for a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza, urging the adoption of a peace plan that was put forth by Saudi Arabia at the Arab League 12 years ago. \"It calls for full recognition of Israel,\" NPR's Leila Fadel reports, \"if the Jewish state gives up all land seized in the 1967 war and agrees to a 'just solution' for Palestinian refugees. It's a plan Israel has already rejected.\"", "Syria has chosen to attend this week's Middle East summit in Annapolis, Md., sending a deputy foreign minister after Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt — among others — urged it to participate, and after Iran pressured the country to boycott the gathering. Edward Djerejian, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria and Israel and assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, talks with Robert Siegel about Syria's role in the peace talks. Israeli and Palestinian representatives at a Mideast peace conference reached an agreement Tuesday to begin new negotiations toward the creation of an independent Palestinian state. President Bush presented the joint statement from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to top officials from more than 40 countries, including Arab nations, attending the meeting in Annapolis, Md. \"In furtherance of the goal of two states — Israel and Palestine — living side by side in peace and security, we agree to immediately launch good-faith bilateral negotiations in order to conclude a peace treaty, resolving all outstanding issues, including all core issues, without exception, as specified in previous agreements,\" said the statement read by Bush. Meeting Next Month The document laid out a specific timetable for the negotiations, with the first meeting scheduled for Dec. 12. The statement said the negotiations will be \"vigorous, ongoing and continuous,\" with a goal of reaching a deal by the end of 2008. Permanent steering committees from each side will be set up to meet throughout the process. Olmert and Abbas also agreed to meet in person biweekly. \"We express our determination to bring an end to bloodshed, suffering and decades of conflict between our peoples; to usher in a new era of peace, based on freedom, security, justice, dignity, respect and mutual recognition; to propagate a culture of peace and nonviolence; to confront terrorism and incitement, whether committed by Palestinians or Israelis,\" the statement said. \"Today, Palestinians and Israelis each understand that helping the other to realize their aspirations is the key to realizing their own, and both require an independent, democratic, viable Palestinian state,\" Bush said. He said both sides need to do their part to make the process work. The Palestinians \"must show the world they understand that while the borders of a Palestinian state are important, the nature of a Palestinian state is just as important,\" Bush said. The Israelis \"must show the world that they are ready to ... bring an end to the occupation that began in 1967 through a negotiated settlement,\" he added. International Support According to the agreement, a steering committee would develop a joint work plan and establish and oversee the work of negotiation teams, to be headed by one lead representative from each party. The first session of the steering committee was scheduled for Dec. 12. \"We will not avoid any subject,\" Olmert said in his speech. \"While this will be an extremely difficult process for many of us, it is nevertheless inevitable. I know it. Many of my people know it. We are ready for it.\" He cautioned that the \"memory of failures in the near and distant past weighs heavily on us.\" \"I am not overlooking any of these obstacles we are likely to encounter. I see them,\" he said. Abbas noted in his speech that neither Israel nor the Palestinian Authority \"must beg for peace from the other.\" \"Peace and freedom is a right for us, just as peace and security is a right for you and us,\" he said. \"It is time for the circle of blood, violence and occupation to end. It is time for us to look at the future together with confidence and hope. It is time for this tortured land that has been called the land of love and peace to live up to its name,\" Abbas said. The administration wanted the Saudis and other key Arab states at the conference to help the Palestinians and to show the Israelis that there is a prospect for a wider peace with the Arab world. The idea of the meeting in Annapolis is to get enough international support for this latest effort and to help the Palestinians lay the groundwork for eventual statehood. The European Union's Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner spoke in an interview Monday about the need for follow-up. \"After Annapolis, there will be an important pledging conference in Paris, where we Europeans, of course, will maintain our high levels of support to the Palestinians, but where we also want to see burden-sharing by our Arab friends,\" Ferrero-Waldner said. She said the European Union and its member states together have given about $1.5 billion in aid to the Palestinians this year and are promising now to intensify efforts to build up Palestinian institutions, jumpstart the economy and keep encouraging Israelis to ease restrictions on the Palestinians. \"If there is no change on the ground, then the political process might get stuck,\" she said. Just who will monitor all of", "Officials from more than 40 nations gather in Annapolis, Md., for the start of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. The summit is the Bush administration's first initiative in seven years. Analysts urge President Bush to use his full influence to help bring about peace.Israeli and Palestinian representatives at a Mideast peace conference reached an agreement Tuesday to begin new negotiations toward the creation of an independent Palestinian state. President Bush presented the joint statement from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to top officials from more than 40 countries, including Arab nations, attending the meeting in Annapolis, Md. \"In furtherance of the goal of two states — Israel and Palestine — living side by side in peace and security, we agree to immediately launch good-faith bilateral negotiations in order to conclude a peace treaty, resolving all outstanding issues, including all core issues, without exception, as specified in previous agreements,\" said the statement read by Bush. Meeting Next Month The document laid out a specific timetable for the negotiations, with the first meeting scheduled for Dec. 12. The statement said the negotiations will be \"vigorous, ongoing and continuous,\" with a goal of reaching a deal by the end of 2008. Permanent steering committees from each side will be set up to meet throughout the process. Olmert and Abbas also agreed to meet in person biweekly. \"We express our determination to bring an end to bloodshed, suffering and decades of conflict between our peoples; to usher in a new era of peace, based on freedom, security, justice, dignity, respect and mutual recognition; to propagate a culture of peace and nonviolence; to confront terrorism and incitement, whether committed by Palestinians or Israelis,\" the statement said. \"Today, Palestinians and Israelis each understand that helping the other to realize their aspirations is the key to realizing their own, and both require an independent, democratic, viable Palestinian state,\" Bush said. He said both sides need to do their part to make the process work. The Palestinians \"must show the world they understand that while the borders of a Palestinian state are important, the nature of a Palestinian state is just as important,\" Bush said. The Israelis \"must show the world that they are ready to ... bring an end to the occupation that began in 1967 through a negotiated settlement,\" he added. International Support According to the agreement, a steering committee would develop a joint work plan and establish and oversee the work of negotiation teams, to be headed by one lead representative from each party. The first session of the steering committee was scheduled for Dec. 12. \"We will not avoid any subject,\" Olmert said in his speech. \"While this will be an extremely difficult process for many of us, it is nevertheless inevitable. I know it. Many of my people know it. We are ready for it.\" He cautioned that the \"memory of failures in the near and distant past weighs heavily on us.\" \"I am not overlooking any of these obstacles we are likely to encounter. I see them,\" he said. Abbas noted in his speech that neither Israel nor the Palestinian Authority \"must beg for peace from the other.\" \"Peace and freedom is a right for us, just as peace and security is a right for you and us,\" he said. \"It is time for the circle of blood, violence and occupation to end. It is time for us to look at the future together with confidence and hope. It is time for this tortured land that has been called the land of love and peace to live up to its name,\" Abbas said. The administration wanted the Saudis and other key Arab states at the conference to help the Palestinians and to show the Israelis that there is a prospect for a wider peace with the Arab world. The idea of the meeting in Annapolis is to get enough international support for this latest effort and to help the Palestinians lay the groundwork for eventual statehood. The European Union's Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner spoke in an interview Monday about the need for follow-up. \"After Annapolis, there will be an important pledging conference in Paris, where we Europeans, of course, will maintain our high levels of support to the Palestinians, but where we also want to see burden-sharing by our Arab friends,\" Ferrero-Waldner said. She said the European Union and its member states together have given about $1.5 billion in aid to the Palestinians this year and are promising now to intensify efforts to build up Palestinian institutions, jumpstart the economy and keep encouraging Israelis to ease restrictions on the Palestinians. \"If there is no change on the ground, then the political process might get stuck,\" she said. Just who will monitor all of this? Ferrero-Waldner said the best option is the so-called quartet — the U.S., European Union, United Nations and Russia — a group that met Monday and will be part of the ", "United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said his visit \"reflects the sense of global alarm\" and also urged calm during a stop in Israel on Tuesday. He met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an effort to quell the increase in violence there over the past month. During a joint press conference Tuesday with Netanyahu, Ban said the only way to bring an end to the new round of Israeli-Palestinian violence is through negotiations that produce \"visible, meaningful results.\" Ban added: \"I am here in the hope that we can work together to end the violence, ease the tensions and begin to restore a long-term political horizon of peace. ... \"Israelis and Palestinians are standing on the brink of another catastrophic period of violence. We need to keep the situation from escalating into religious conflict. ... We must create the conditions for meaningful negotiations that will end the occupation and realize the aspirations of both peoples.\" Ban is also expected to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday, according to The Guardian. The secretary-general's visit comes as recent clashes between Israelis and Palestinians have left dozens dead. Sunday saw a particular rise in violence following an attack on a bus station that killed a member of the Israeli security force and wounding 10 others. The surge of bloodshed is attributed to the tensions surrounding a site in Jerusalem that is sacred to both Jews and Muslims. The site is known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Palestinians as the third holiest place in Islam, the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Speaking at the news conference in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said denied claims that Israel was encroaching on the Al-Aqsa Mosque. He also said: \"In recent weeks, Israelis have been deliberately run over, shot, stabbed, even hacked to death. And in large part this is because [Palestinian Authority] President Abbas joined ISIS and Hamas in claiming that Israel threatens the Al-Aqsa Mosque. This, Mr. Secretary, is a total lie. Israel vigorously protects the holy sites of all faiths. We keep the status quo. The Palestinians by contrast are the ones who violate the status quo.\" Reporting from Jerusalem ahead of Ban's visit, NPR's Emily Harris told our Newscast Unit: \"The UN says the secretary general has been 'anguished' over the recent weeks of increased Israeli-Palestinian violence. His wants to defuse tensions by meeting with leaders and victims of the violence on both sides. \"The recent escalation has been fed by conflicts over a Jerusalem site holy to both Jews and Muslims. A French proposal for the U.N. to bring international observers to the site was shot down by Israel and the U.S. But Palestinians say anger is also boiling over due to decades of restrictions under Israeli rule. Many Israelis see the upsurge in attacks as a religious fight, stoked by extremists in the region.\" As the Two-Way has reported, Secretary of State John Kerry speaking from Madrid on Monday, called for Israel to uphold the status quo. NPR's Harris has confirmed that Netanyahu will meet with Kerry on Thursday, but the exact time is still in the works. The secretary of state will meet with Abbas later in the week. Speaking from Washington, Kerry said he wanted to urge both sides to \"go back to some basics\" when it comes to easing tensions over Jerusalem's holy site. He also sought to hedge any notions of a breakthrough ahead of his high profile meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Kerry added: \"I think we have to have very careful expectations. I think we have to be very aware of the sensitivities that have built up now everywhere, and so we have to move carefully. And I think the United States has a special role to play. \"We accept that responsibility, I accept it, and I look forward to these meetings as an opportunity to try to pull people back from a precipice and try to move down a road, because everybody understands that in the end, it requires a political solution, it requires two states living side-by-side in peace with two peoples appropriately honored with their countries, and with security. \"And it takes leadership to get there, so we're going to do everything in our power to try to see if we can calm things down and find a way forward.\"", "Former President Jimmy Carter urges the United States to not veto the Security Council vote for Palestinian statehood anticipated to take place next week. \"If I were president, I'd be very glad to see the Palestinians have a nation recognized by the United Nations,\" Carter tells Guy Raz, host of weekends on All Things Considered. \"There's no downside to it.\" Carter admits that for President Obama, failure to veto \"would have some adverse effects perhaps on his political future.\" But he thinks it's a price worth paying. His predecessor Harry Truman backed the creation of Israel for moral reasons, against the advice of his inner circle. Carter says that today, Palestinian statehood is \"a basic moral commitment\" for the U.S. In 1977, Carter became the first American president to call for the creation of a Palestinian \"homeland.\" He signed the Camp David Accords, which established diplomatic relations between Egypt and Israel, and called for self-governance of the Palestinian people. After his term, he authored several books on the conflict, including the controversially titled Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Carter asserts that, in light of the breakdown of U.S.-mediated peace negotiations, \"the United States' influence among the Palestinians and inside Israel is at the lowest point it's been in the last 60 years.\" The statehood vote is largely symbolic, making Palestine akin to the Vatican. Its greatest value, according to Carter, is to break the impasse in negotiations for a two-state solution. Without a vote, Carter says, \"the only alternative is a maintenance of the status quo.\" Israel adamantly opposes the U.N. vote and fears it could spawn another round of violence aimed at civilians. \"My position has always been, along with many other people, that any differences be resolved in a nonviolent way,\" Carter says. In 1948, President Truman endorsed the creation of an Israeli state. Nearly three decades later, before finalizing the Camp David accords, Jimmy Carter became the first U.S. president to call for the creation of a Palestinian \"homeland.\" Presidents have put their own spins on that effort ever since. Here's a sampling: March 16, 1977 — Carter, at a town hall meeting in Massachusetts, said that after Palestinians recognize Israel's right to exist, \"There has to be a homeland provided for the Palestinian refugees who have suffered for many, many years.\" Sept. 1, 1982 — Ronald Reagan: \"The United States will not support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, and we will not support annexation or permanent control by Israel. ... Self-government by the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza in association with Jordan offers the best chance for a durable, just, and lasting peace.\" Oct. 30, 1991 — George H.W. Bush: \"Throughout the Middle East, we seek a stable and enduring settlement. We've not defined what this means; indeed, I make these points with no map showing where the final borders are to be drawn. Nevertheless, we believe territorial compromise is essential for peace.\" Jan. 7, 2001 — Bill Clinton: \"There can be no genuine resolution to the conflict without a sovereign, viable Palestinian state that accommodates Israelis' security requirements and the demographic realities.\" June 24, 2002 — George W. Bush, outlining a new Middle East peace plan: \"It is untenable for Israeli citizens to live in terror. It is untenable for Palestinians to live in squalor and occupation. ... My vision is two states, living side by side in peace and security.\" June 4, 2009 — Barack Obama, in Cairo: \"The only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security. ... Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's. The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.\" May 19, 2011 — Obama: \"The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states. The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state.\"", "Israeli jets pounded three Hamas sites in Gaza on Monday after a rocket was launched at Israel, disrupting a relative lull in the war-torn territory at the start of a major Muslim holiday. The strikes followed an almost 12-hour pause in fighting and came as international efforts intensified to end the three-week conflict between Israel and Hamas. The U.N. called for an \"immediate\" cease-fire. Israel's military said it struck two rocket launchers and a rocket manufacturing facility in central and northern Gaza after a rocket hit southern Israel early Monday. The rocket caused no damage or injuries. Earlier, the Israeli military said it had not carried out any attacks in Gaza since 9:30 p.m. on Sunday but that troops on the ground were pressing on with efforts to destroy the cross-border tunnels constructed by Hamas for attacks inside Israel. The military said it opened artillery fire on Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza in response to the rocket fired at Ashkelon, said the office of Israel's military spokesman. \"Quiet will be met with quiet,\" the office statement said. Muslims began celebrating the Eid al-Fitr holiday on Monday, marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, but there was fear and mourning instead of holiday cheer in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian families huddled inside their homes, fearing more airstrikes, while those who came to a cemetery in Gaza City's Sheik Radwan neighborhood to pay traditional respects at their ancestors' graves gathered around a large crater from an airstrike a week ago that had broken up several graves. In New York, an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council called for \"an immediate and unconditional humanitarian cease-fire.\" And while it was the council's strongest statement yet on the conflict that has already killed 1,030 Palestinians, 43 Israeli soldiers and three civilians on the Israeli side, it was not a resolution and therefore not binding. Palestinian U.N. Ambassador Riyad Mansour did not hide his disappointment. He said the council should have adopted a strong and legally binding resolution a long time ago demanding an immediate halt to Israel's \"aggression,\" providing the Palestinian people with protection and lifting the siege in the Gaza Strip so goods and people can move freely. \"You cannot keep 1.8 million Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip in this huge prison,\" Mansour told reporters. \"That is a recipe for disaster. It is inhumane, and it has to be stopped and it has to be lifted.\" Israeli U.N. ambassador Ron Prosor also criticized the statement — though from a very different perspective — saying it lacked balance because it didn't mention Hamas, the firing of rockets into Israel or Israel's right to defend itself. Israel says it started its Gaza operation on July 8 to stop the rocket fire from the coastal territory and intensified it on July 17 to neutralize Hamas cross-border tunnels built to carry out attacks on Israeli territory. The pressure for a cease-fire followed new attacks launched by Israel and Hamas on Sunday despite the back-and-forth over proposals for another temporary halt to the fighting. The Security Council urged Israel and Hamas \"to accept and fully implement the humanitarian cease-fire into the Eid period and beyond.\" It said this would allow for the delivery of urgently needed assistance. The council's presidential statement also called on the parties \"to engage in efforts to achieve a durable and fully respected cease-fire, based on the Egyptian initiative.\" On Sunday, President Obama telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to express his concern over the mounting Palestinian casualties. The White House said Obama reiterated that Israel has a right to defend itself and condemned Hamas' rocket attacks. Obama said a lasting peace will ultimately require a demilitarized Gaza and dismantling of terror groups. The U.S. president also pushed for an immediate, unconditional cease-fire that would allow Israeli and Palestinian civilians to return to normalcy. International diplomats have hoped that a temporary lull in the fighting could be expanded into a more sustainable truce to end the bloodshed.", "Writer and historian Kai Bird has been accused of being \"naive\" when it comes to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict -- and he says he's OK with that -- perhaps because he has experienced it from both sides. Bird grew up with an Arab view of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict: His father was an American diplomat, a scholar of the Arab world whose work took the family to Jerusalem, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Now, Bird is married to a Jewish woman -- the daughter of Holocaust survivors -- and they have raised their son in the Jewish tradition. Bird's latest book describes his experience \"coming of age between the Arabs and Israelis.\" Part history, part memoir, Crossing Mandelbaum Gate is named for the checkpoint that separated Israeli West Jerusalem and Jordanian East Jerusalem when Bird was a child there. In Crossing Mandelbaum Gate, Bird tries to make sense of the juncture of the Shoah, the Holocaust of the Jews, and Nakba, the catastrophe, as Palestinians view the creation of the state of Israel. As he learned more about the Holocaust from his in-laws, Bird says he realized that it is impossible to understand the Nakba for the Palestinians without understanding the Shoah for the Jews. \"These are two people who are filled with victimhood, and they don't understand each others' victimhood,\" Bird tells NPR's Robert Siegel. Bird gradually came to appreciate this profound sense of victimization through his wife's family; his mother-in-law was orphaned during the Holocaust at 16, and went on to become a spy against the Germans in Italy -- putting herself in great danger. Decades later, living in New York City in the 1960s, she kept a fully packed suitcase in the closet -- just in case she needed to flee suddenly. Arabs often dismiss citations of the Holocaust as something they had nothing to do with, while Israelis dismiss the Nakba as an injury that was slight compared to what Jews have endured. Bird cites one Palestinian friend living in Ramallah who argues that \"Palestinians should not be blamed for the Holocaust committed by Europeans.\" And yet, Bird says his friend \"understands the fact that her neighbors are filled with a dreaded victimhood.\" In the long term, Bird foresees a two-state solution for Israel. \"I don't think it's rocket science to understand what should happen and what eventually will happen between the Palestinians and the Israelis,\" he says. \"It's a very small place ... Eventually these two people are going to have to live with each other.\" But he is not optimistic that a solution to this \"emotional hot button\" will get sorted out anytime soon. \"There are very few reasonable people who are willing to cross the borders -- to cross Mandelbaum Gate,\" he explains. \"It's just a terribly intractable problem.\" In the long term, Bird has hope for the Nusseibeh-Ayalon Plan -- laid out by Sari Nusseibeh, president of Jerusalem's Al-Quds University, and Ami Ayalon, former head of the Israeli security agency. Both were Bird's childhood friends. Bird explains: \"They said, 'Let's share the land. Let's create a Palestinian state along the '67 green line borders and share Jerusalem.' It makes ultimate sense, and I think that's the way to go.\" The current state of affairs is not encouraging, and Bird acknowledges that the country is many decades away from a two-state solution. Yet he says that looking at Sheikh Jarrah, his old East Jerusalem neighborhood, gives him hope: Every Friday in Sheikh Jarrah, hundreds of Palestinians and Israelis join together in nonviolent protest against the building of settlements in East Jerusalem. \"I know I've been accused of being naive, and I own up to it,\" Bird says. \"But I think that at a time when the realists have all failed, we should be naive. We should go for a naive solution.\" 1Jerusalem On the eve of the Suez War in 1956, soon after we arrived, my father observed in a letter to his parents: \"Once more we can cross freely through Mandelbaum Gate and once again every day we remark about the contrast between an energetically determined Israel and a stubborn, colorful and slowly progressing Jordan. ... One side is willing and capable of doing the job. The other is still almost feudal, clannish and with a 'baksheesh' (personal charity approaching graft) mentality.\" My parents came to Jerusalem as blank slates. My father and mother spent their formative years in Eugene, Oregon, a town of fewer than 20,000 people. Oddly enough, my father was named Eugene, although everyone called him \"Bud.\" The Great Depression hit his parents hard. My paternal grandparents had met in Montana, where they had laid claim to separate, neighboring tracts of land under the Homestead Act. For seven years they scratched out a living growing wheat, until its sinking market price forced them to sell the land and move to Oregon. During the Depression my grandfather worked for the local dairy in Eugene -- owned by the family of the novelist Ken Kesey. My father graduated from high school in 1943 and was ", "Israeli and Palestinian representatives at a Mideast peace conference reached an agreement Tuesday to begin new negotiations toward the creation of an independent Palestinian state. President Bush presented the joint statement from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to top officials from more than 40 countries, including Arab nations, attending the meeting in Annapolis, Md. \"In furtherance of the goal of two states — Israel and Palestine — living side by side in peace and security, we agree to immediately launch good-faith bilateral negotiations in order to conclude a peace treaty, resolving all outstanding issues, including all core issues, without exception, as specified in previous agreements,\" said the statement read by Bush. Meeting Next Month The document laid out a specific timetable for the negotiations, with the first meeting scheduled for Dec. 12. The statement said the negotiations will be \"vigorous, ongoing and continuous,\" with a goal of reaching a deal by the end of 2008. Permanent steering committees from each side will be set up to meet throughout the process. Olmert and Abbas also agreed to meet in person biweekly. \"We express our determination to bring an end to bloodshed, suffering and decades of conflict between our peoples; to usher in a new era of peace, based on freedom, security, justice, dignity, respect and mutual recognition; to propagate a culture of peace and nonviolence; to confront terrorism and incitement, whether committed by Palestinians or Israelis,\" the statement said. \"Today, Palestinians and Israelis each understand that helping the other to realize their aspirations is the key to realizing their own, and both require an independent, democratic, viable Palestinian state,\" Bush said. He said both sides need to do their part to make the process work. The Palestinians \"must show the world they understand that while the borders of a Palestinian state are important, the nature of a Palestinian state is just as important,\" Bush said. The Israelis \"must show the world that they are ready to ... bring an end to the occupation that began in 1967 through a negotiated settlement,\" he added. International Support According to the agreement, a steering committee would develop a joint work plan and establish and oversee the work of negotiation teams, to be headed by one lead representative from each party. The first session of the steering committee was scheduled for Dec. 12. \"We will not avoid any subject,\" Olmert said in his speech. \"While this will be an extremely difficult process for many of us, it is nevertheless inevitable. I know it. Many of my people know it. We are ready for it.\" He cautioned that the \"memory of failures in the near and distant past weighs heavily on us.\" \"I am not overlooking any of these obstacles we are likely to encounter. I see them,\" he said. Abbas noted in his speech that neither Israel nor the Palestinian Authority \"must beg for peace from the other.\" \"Peace and freedom is a right for us, just as peace and security is a right for you and us,\" he said. \"It is time for the circle of blood, violence and occupation to end. It is time for us to look at the future together with confidence and hope. It is time for this tortured land that has been called the land of love and peace to live up to its name,\" Abbas said. The administration wanted the Saudis and other key Arab states at the conference to help the Palestinians and to show the Israelis that there is a prospect for a wider peace with the Arab world. The idea of the meeting in Annapolis is to get enough international support for this latest effort and to help the Palestinians lay the groundwork for eventual statehood. The European Union's Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner spoke in an interview Monday about the need for follow-up. \"After Annapolis, there will be an important pledging conference in Paris, where we Europeans, of course, will maintain our high levels of support to the Palestinians, but where we also want to see burden-sharing by our Arab friends,\" Ferrero-Waldner said. She said the European Union and its member states together have given about $1.5 billion in aid to the Palestinians this year and are promising now to intensify efforts to build up Palestinian institutions, jumpstart the economy and keep encouraging Israelis to ease restrictions on the Palestinians. \"If there is no change on the ground, then the political process might get stuck,\" she said. Just who will monitor all of this? Ferrero-Waldner said the best option is the so-called quartet — the U.S., European Union, United Nations and Russia — a group that met Monday and will be part of the conference in Annapolis. With reporting from NPR's Michele Kelemen and The Associated Press", "The White House on Saturday published one-half of its long-awaited Israeli-Palestinian peace plan — a multibillion-dollar proposal to upgrade the Palestinian economy. The Palestinian leadership has already rejected it, and so far, it has been widely panned by former U.S. envoys and Mideast policy experts. The proposal, presented on the White House website ahead of a conference this week in Bahrain to promote the Trump administration's peace plan, features slick promotional language, billing it as a kind of Marshall Plan and \"the most ambitious and comprehensive international effort for the Palestinian people to date.\" According to the proposal, drafted by White House senior advisor Jared Kushner and his peace team, if a comprehensive peace agreement is reached, a $50 billion international fund would be set up. More than half the money would be allocated for the West Bank and Gaza's infrastructure and economy, with the goal of creating 1 million Palestinian jobs and doubling the Palestinian GDP within a decade. The rest of the money would go to increasing trade, exports and foreign direct investment in neighboring Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. It is unclear who would contribute the funding. On Tuesday, Kushner is scheduled to convene a workshop in Bahrain to ask primarily Gulf Arab countries and investors to pitch in and underwrite this vision. The White House hasn't said whether it will contribute, and for the past year, the U.S. has been cutting aid to the Palestinians. Kushner has called his proposal the \"opportunity of the century\" and he and Israeli officials have chided Palestinians for rejecting it. Critics say the proposal is doomed to fail because it does not address central political sticking points of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, such as whether Israel will relinquish most of the West Bank to the Palestinians and the Palestinians can create an independent state. Palestinians argue that their economic progress is held back because of the Israeli occupation and their lack of an independent state, and they argue these issues need to be dealt with first. The White House says it will present its political plan perhaps later this year. Here is a roundup of reaction to the White House proposal. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas Abbas laid out his concerns on Sunday in a news conference with international media at his West Bank office. We need the money and really, we need assistance. But before everything, there is a political solution. When there is a political solution, when there is a vision of a Palestinian state ... then we can say, dear world, come to assist us, we are ready to receive assistance. We will not be slaves of [Jared] Kushner and [U.S. peace envoy Jason] Greenblatt and the other one, [U.S. Ambassador to Israel David] Friedman. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Netanyahu spoke while touring the Israeli-occupied West Bank's strip of land bordering Jordan with John Bolton, President Trump's national security adviser. Under any peace agreement, our position will be that Israel's presence should continue here for Israel's security and for the security of all. In general, I would say that we'll hear the American proposition, hear it fairly and with openness. I cannot understand how the Palestinians, before they even heard the plan, rejected it outright. That's not the way to proceed. We believe that peace is coupled and dependent on security. Our presence here guarantees security, and therefore guarantees peace. Daniel Kurtzer, former U.S. ambassador to Israel Kurtzer served as ambassador under President George W. Bush and tweeted this reaction. I would give this so-called plan a C- from an undergraduate student. The authors of the plan clearly understand nothing. Michael Koplow, policy director, Israel Policy Forum Koplow is affiliated with a centrist U.S. advocacy group promoting a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. From Twitter: It is the Monty Python sketch of Israeli-Palestinian peace initiatives. Even consider[ing] that this plan treats the West Bank and Gaza as a single entity, which is great so far as the Palestinians are concerned but runs contrary to current Israeli policy and is also belied by the facts on the ground. This really is the dead parrot sketch as [Israeli-Palestinian] peace[.] Dan Shapiro, former U.S. ambassador to Israel Shapiro, who served under President Barack Obama, shared his reaction with NPR. There are plenty of good ideas in the economic plan. None of them are new. They have been proposed in previous economic plans. But there are two big problems. First, the U.S. had aid programs to support all these goals, but the Trump administration canceled them. That kills our credibility in asking others for money. Second, you can't get others to invest in this effort without knowing the political backdrop. And since the administration has not presented its political plan, I expect most countries in Bahrain to say, \"We are theor", "Newly appointed Middle East envoy George Mitchell arrived in Israel on Wednesday. His assignment from President Obama is to listen to both Israelis and Palestinians, while Gaza teeters on the edge of renewed fighting. The assignment is daunting because the fractures between and within the two societies are deeper than ever. Mitchell is no stranger to the region. The former senator headed a fact-finding committee on Mideast violence in 2001. His report called on Israel to freeze settlements and the Palestinians to stop terrorist attacks. Eight years later, each side accuses the other of failing to fulfill their pledges. Yaron Ezrahi, a political scientist at Hebrew University, welcomes an invigorated U.S. diplomatic effort. Ezrahi says a lack of attention has allowed extremists on both sides to flourish at the expense of moderates. \"What we have here is the Hamas movement on the one hand, totally uncompromising; on the other hand, we have the settlers ... led by a Messianic religious movement,\" he says. \"They are really trying to impose on the region a completely different concept of order and statehood of the kind that cannot actually allow this place to be stabilized.\" Approval In West Bank Ezrahi thinks Mitchell is the right man to deal with the problem. His appointment also gets the approval of many Palestinians in the West Bank. Ghassan Khatib, an independent Palestinian analyst at Birzeit University in Ramallah, says things deteriorated in the region mainly because of the absence of American and international diplomacy. Mitchell will find the moderate-led Palestinian government in the West Bank much weakened — Khatib blames Israel for undercutting the Palestinian Authority by not responding to its efforts to improve security. Instead, he says, Israel has continued to humiliate Palestinians on the West Bank by expanding settlements and checkpoints, making life more and more difficult. \"The PA was weakened intentionally as a result of the failure of the peace process, which the PA has gambled on,\" Khatib says. Israeli Right Wing Takes Different View But Mitchell's appointment has not been welcomed by one key group: Israel's right wing. And with elections in a couple of weeks, it looks like hardliner Benjamin Netanyahu soon could be the country's new prime minister. Gerald Steinberg, chairman of the political science department at Bar-Ilan University, says Mitchell got it all wrong in 2001. He says most Palestinians don't accept Israel's right to exist, whatever they say on paper. He refuses to accept the argument that by continuing the settlements or the blockade on Gaza, Israel bears responsibility for the growth of Hamas and the weakening of Palestinian moderates. \"There is no Israeli presence and there has not been an Israeli presence in Gaza since August of 2005. That certainly didn't decrease the level of violence, hatred, incitement. On the contrary, it became much worse,\" Steinberg says. \"So those types of connections — like settlements lead to conflict and end of settlements will lead to peace — that was one of Mitchell's fundamental principles, and there is no evidence for that.\" Hardliners like Steinberg no longer talk about peace, but conflict management. He warns Mitchell against putting too much pressure on Israel. No Ignoring Gaza Mitchell's first visit is more a gesture of intent than the beginning of a far-reaching peace initiative. His first task will be cementing the fragile truce in Gaza. Israelis want to know what concrete steps Egypt will take to stop Hamas from smuggling weapons. Palestinians, in turn, want an end to Israel's blockade of Gaza. \"The approach of ... the Bush administration was to focus on the West Bank and just ignore Gaza,\" says Michael Oren, an Israeli historian who is a visiting scholar at Georgetown University. If anything, \"the recent crisis has proven to all sides ... that they can no longer ignore Gaza. It won't go away.\" Oren says even if there were progress between Israel and Palestinians in the West Bank, another explosion in Gaza could stop any peace process in its tracks.", "Each year since the death of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Israel has marked his assassination with a public gathering in the Tel Aviv square where he was killed in 1995. In the crowd this year, Ora Zvern-Anafi, 63, wiped tears away. Rabin's murder \"still, still, still it kills me,\" she said. \"Then, there was hope things would get better. But instead, things just got worse.\" The murder shocked Israel — and the world — particularly because the man who killed the Israeli leader was an Israeli Jew. Rabin had signed an agreement with the Palestinians two years earlier that set the two sides on a controversial path toward peace. The plan deeply divided Israel, and that divide lingers today. Nearby at the Tel Aviv gathering, Avi Shai stayed dry-eyed. He said he never agreed with Rabin's policy, but he walked the two blocks from his apartment to the rally instead of watching on TV. \"Because I did not agree with Rabin back then, I think it's very important that the people here will see me,\" he said. He points to his knitted yarmulke, or skullcap. This is a clue, he says, showing other Israelis that he is politically right-wing, religious and supports Jewish settlers in the West Bank, which the Palestinians claim for a future state. Busloads of religious youth came to this year's memorial. Many arrived from settlements in the West Bank. Danny Hirshberg, general secretary of Israel's biggest religious youth group movement, Bnei Akiva, drove in from his home in Talmon, a settlement of some 300 families surrounded by Palestinian villages in the northern West Bank, with views on a clear day to the Mediterranean. Rabin didn't think Israelis should settle the West Bank. \"It was an ideological war between settlers and him,\" Hirshberg said. \"He wanted to reach an agreement with the Palestinians, and we did not.\" Yet Hirshberg helped organize Rabin's memorial rally — with agreed-on ground rules: \"We wanted the rally to stay away from controversial issues like peace or territory. We would go for what connects us — our commitment to democracy.\" Also organizing this year's rally was Barak Sella, a youth movement leader from a group called Hano'ar Ha'oved Ve'Halomed, at the other end of the political spectrum. Sella was 10 when Rabin was murdered. He's attended a memorial rally every year since. \"For many, many years, it was basically a rally that belonged to one side of the political map,\" Sella said. \"Mainly the left side. \" That's his side. In part, this happened because much of Israel's left blamed the right wing for encouraging and supporting Yigal Amir, Rabin's unapologetic murderer. Eventually, Sella and groups that organized recent Rabin commemorations decided that inviting the \"other\" side could boost attendance and reset an expectation. \"We wanted everyone to come,\" Sella said. \"Everyone that is willing to agree that no matter what will be the conflicts between us, democracy will be the only way we'll solve our conflicts. Not violence. Not assassinations.\" One of the most passionately debated divides that has grown since Rabin's murder is whether Israel can remain both majority-Jewish and democratic. Sella says that would mean Israel cannot keep control over Palestinians, as it does in the West Bank now. But that suggests ending the occupation of the West Bank. And that circles right back to the issue that tore Israel apart under Yitzhak Rabin.", "Israeli and Palestinian leaders are back at the table negotiating for peace, and a key factor in getting them there was improved security in the West Bank. The Palestinians have taken a larger role, forming police and security forces that have helped restore order in the disputed territory. It’s considered a success, but a new report says it’s hard to sustain. The Israeli Defense Forces have ultimate authority over the entire West Bank -- and still control day-to-day security in 60 percent of the area. But coordination with the Palestinian police is necessary for success. The Palestinians have largely delivered -- convincing the Israeli security establishment that they can get the job done. \"It's a huge success story. I think there's almost a revolution, I would say. It's amazing,\" says Avi Issacharoff, who reports on Palestinian issues for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “The West Bank that the Israelis knew till 2005 is not the same like it is right now. It's a very quiet place; it's a very secured place, safe. I would say it's even safer than the streets of Tel Aviv.” But in Beit Sahour, a Palestinian Christian town south of Jerusalem, the chief of police says coordination, while improved, is still lacking. \"This coordination is not immediate. It can take hours for the Israelis to respond to our requests,\" says Capt. Abir Abu Farah. With about 32,000 people, Beit Shahour has four churches, one mosque and a thriving business -- making olive-wood souvenirs for the tourists in nearby Bethlehem. Palestinian women have been making it to top government posts, but Farah is the first female chief of police. She’s been on the job for more than a year -- part of the state-building measures of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. In this male-dominated Arab society, Farah, 32 and trim in her blue uniform, demands respect from all of her subordinates. \"They have to salute -- I have instilled in my workers the facts that we deal with each other in a military fashion rather than a societal stereotype fashion,\" she says. The problem for her police force, Farah says, comes in the areas adjacent to Beit Sahour, where Israelis are in direct control. A criminal can commit a crime in Beit Sahour, she says, and then flee to the Israeli-controlled areas known as Area C. \"Not only do the criminals know that we can't go into Area C -- everybody does. Area C is a safe haven for criminals,\" she says. And Israeli patrols make unannounced sweeps in her town. “The Israelis come in as they wish -- at night, in the daytime. And whenever they appear, we have to disappear, and this puts us in an embarrassing situation with our citizens,\" she says. The Palestinian security forces have proven themselves in the past few weeks amid rising tensions over the renewed peace talks, journalist Issacharoff says. When Palestinian militants killed Israeli settlers on the West Bank and wounded two others, it was Palestinian security forces that made the first arrests. \"A few days after that, they had the cars, they had the fingerprints, they had the names, and they arrested the people who were actually involved in this attack,” Issacharoff says. “So I think at the end of the day, even with some kind of limitation from the Israeli side, yes, they perform and manage to show that they have real control on the ground.\" But that control is difficult to sustain, according to a new report by the International Crisis Group. The report recommends expanding the area of Palestinian jurisdiction -- and curbing Israeli patrols in Palestinian areas unless there is the threat of imminent attack. That wouldn't happen in a snap, though, Issacharoff says: \"It's not like a process that can happen [just] like that. Sometimes it needs time.\" For the Palestinians, control on the ground is limited under occupation, as the report points out. But for now, the success of the police and the security forces is welcomed by the Palestinians and recognized as a positive step by the Israelis.", "Amid another day of fighting, Secretary of State John Kerry landed in Tel Aviv on Wednesday and began a whirlwind session of shuttle diplomacy. As NPR's Michele Kelemen, who is traveling with Kerry, tells our Newscast unit, the secretary of state is \"trying to talk to everybody\" to see if he can broker a cease-fire and perhaps lay the groundwork for longer-term negotiations over the future of Gaza. The Israeli offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip is now entering its 16th day. Here's what you need to know: -- Kerry has already met with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is also in Jerusalem on a parallel mission for peace. \"Kerry spoke briefly and mentioned that 30,000 people came to Max Steinberg's funeral,\" Michele reports, referring to an Israeli-American who died fighting for the Israel Defense Forces. Kerry is expected to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. -- The Associated Press reports that U.S. officials have already begun to downplay expectations for the diplomatic mission, saying that at the least, Kerry's mission can \"define the limits of what each side would accept in a potential cease-fire.\" -- The U.N.'s high commissioner for human rights said Israel's targeting of civilian installations could amount to war crimes. \"The disregard for international humanitarian law and for the right to life was shockingly evident for all to see in the apparent targeting on 16 July of seven children playing on a Gaza beach,\" Navi Pillay said. \"Credible reports gathered by my office in Gaza indicate that the children were hit first by an Israeli airstrike, and then by naval shelling. All seven were hit. Four of them — aged between 9 and 11, from the same Bakr family — were killed. These children were clearly civilians taking no part in hostilities.\" NPR's Emily Harris, who is reporting from Gaza, tells our Newscast unit that Israel has said schools, mosques and private homes can be legitimate targets if militants use them to stash weapons. She sent this report: \"Yesterday for the second time in this conflict, U.N. staff found a stash of rockets in a school. \"Earlier this week a different U.N. school providing shelter to 300 Gazans was hit with explosives the U.N. believes were fired by Israeli forces. The next day the school was hit again when U.N. staff were there inspecting damage. The main U.N. agency in Gaza did not accuse Israel of deliberately targeting the school, but made it clear in a statement that the Israeli military OK'd the U.N. staff to visit at the time the school was hit. The girls school is in a densely built-up area in Gaza's east, where fighting has been fierce.\" -- As the fighting continues, the death toll keeps rising. Ashraf al-Kidra, a spokesperson for the Health Ministry in Gaza, says 649 Palestinians have been killed and 4,120 have been injured. The New York Times puts the Israeli death toll at 29. -- In an interview with NPR's Steve Inskeep, White House Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken said a cease-fire deal should curb the rockets that are coming out of Gaza. As Steve interpreted Blinken's answer, the adviser seemed to be endorsing the \"demilitarization\" of Gaza. \"There has to be some way forward that does not involve Hamas raining down rockets on Israeli civilians,\" Blinken said. \"One of the results of a cease-fire, one would hope, would be some form of demilitarization ... that needs to be the end result.\"", "When it came down to a final issue for Israeli voters to ponder before Tuesday's elections, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made an extraordinary campaign pledge: If re-elected, he said on Saturday, he would annex Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. Such a move would represent a dramatic, far-right policy change for Israel, staking a permanent claim over lands Palestinians demand for their own state. Even if it is an election tactic to energize his nationalist base, Netanyahu's annexation pledge is a fitting final chord to a decade of his administration, which began with a reluctant embrace of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and ended with the chances of such an outcome dwindling to a new low point. Since Netanyahu returned to office in 2009, the Jewish settler movement has grown in size and influence. That evolution was apparent last month in the West Bank city of Hebron. In one of the West Bank's tensest cities — where several hundred Israeli settlers live in guarded enclaves among some 200,000 Palestinians — Israelis dressed up in costume and paraded down the main street. It was the Jewish carnival holiday of Purim, but the settlers were celebrating more than just the religious festivities. In January, they had successfully lobbied Netanyahu to expel an international observer group tasked with patrolling Hebron and making Palestinians in the city feel safe after an Israeli settler killed 29 Palestinian worshippers there on Purim in 1994. \"We will not allow the continuation of an international force that acts against us,\" Netanyahu said in a statement about the Temporary International Presence in Hebron. Settlers had accused the organization of causing friction and undermining Israeli rule in the city. But member countries of the group criticized the closure of the mission, saying the observers promoted \"conflict resolution between Israelis and Palestinians\" and helped prevent violence. It was Netanyahu, during his first term in office in 1996, who had allowed for the founding of the unarmed civilian group. \"Apparently they were very temporary, and we are the permanent Israeli presence in Hevron,\" said Yisrael Zeev, an Israeli settler in the city, calling the city by its Hebrew name. Dressed as an American farmer, Zeev drove a float in the parade, with a swath of an observer's uniform flapping from a pole like the flag of a vanquished enemy. Some settlers, including a candidate in the national elections, dressed in costume as the expelled international observers. \"Everything's going in the right direction,\" Zeev said. Israel captured the West Bank in 1967 and has occupied it ever since. Both Israelis and Palestinians have historical ties there. In 2009, a few months after entering office, Netanyahu gave a speech that has become famous: For the first time, he publicly called for the creation of a Palestinian state. He was facing pressure from then-President Obama, who advocated for a Palestinian state alongside Israel: a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But it didn't stop Netanyahu from enlarging Jewish settlements in the occupied land. Apart from a 10-month settlement construction freeze at Obama's request, Netanyahu's government has continued to build homes for Israelis in the West Bank, leaving the map of what could be left for a Palestinian state looking like Swiss cheese. About three-quarters of the construction has taken place in settlements deep in the West Bank \"that Israel will probably need to evict in the framework of a two-state agreement,\" said Hagit Ofran of Peace Now, a settlement watchdog group that examines aerial photos to count each settlement unit built. The homes range from spacious U.S. suburban-style homes to multifamily structures to trailers set up on a hill. \"Every year they build at least 2,000 units, which means thousands of new settlers every year in the West Bank,\" Ofran said. \"If we want to have peace, specifically where Netanyahu is building is in places that will be harder to compromise.\" The phenomenon of completely new settlements, which Israel previously stopped, was renewed during Netanyahu's tenure. Settlers built a few dozen small outposts without government permission but with Israel largely turning a blind eye, Ofran said. By the time Netanyahu ran for re-election in 2015, he vocally opposed a Palestinian state. Recently, according to Peace Now figures, Israel has advanced more plans for settlement construction, with little opposition from President Trump. \"The evolution isn't just that [Netanyahu has] gone more to the right. It's that the entire country has gone more to the right, because the Palestinians have killed a lot of their support in Israel,\" said Israeli political analyst Reuven Hazan. Most of the Israeli public doesn't believe a peace deal is possible now, he said, with instability in the Middle East and a fractured Palestinian leadership divided between the militant Hamas in Gaza and a weakened", "Israel's health minister announced Thursday the country would vaccinate Palestinian prisoners against COVID-19, after Israel's president said withholding vaccines was against Israel's Jewish and democratic values. Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said the prisoners would be vaccinated early next week, on Monday or Tuesday. The minister informed NPR of the decision before making a public announcement. The decision comes amid a larger debate about whether Israel, which is leading the world in vaccinations per capita, should ensure vaccines for the Palestinian public in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, which is blockaded by Israel and Egypt. About 4,700 Palestinian detainees and prisoners are held in Israeli facilities, accused or convicted of crimes ranging from entering Israel illegally to attacking and killing Israelis. Palestinian prisoners have contracted the coronavirus, including 30 in a single prison who tested positive Thursday, Israel Prison Services spokeswoman Hana Herbst tells NPR. \"In this case, you're talking about terrorists, but also other criminals,\" Edelstein says. \"There are lots of people together 24/7, and as we all know, this kind of situation sometimes leads to infection.\" The International Committee of the Red Cross and rights groups have repeatedly called on Israel to vaccinate Palestinian inmates. But in late December, Public Security Minister Amir Ohana, who is in charge of prisons, instructed prison officials not to do so. Ohana reportedly objected to vaccinating Palestinian prisoners convicted of attacks on Israelis. He instructed only prison staff to be vaccinated for the time being, excluding all Israeli and Palestinian prisoners, Herbst says. Human rights groups petitioned Israel's Supreme Court to reverse the ban on Palestinian prisoners. On Monday, Israel's defense minister also called for vaccination of prisoners. On Thursday, President Reuven Rivlin urged the health minister to vaccinate all prisoners. \"Preventing life-saving medical treatment from people in prison — whether due to a sentence imposed on them by the court or due to detention before reaching a verdict — is inconsistent with our values, the values of the Jewish and democratic state,\" Rivlin wrote in a letter to Edelstein. Israel has vaccinated a larger share of its population than than any other country. About 20% of the population — including Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel and Palestinian residents of Jerusalem — has been vaccinated. Edelstein says Israel has also provided vaccines for about 100 Palestinian medical workers in the West Bank. The Palestinian Health Ministry says it requested vaccines for its medical workers but denies Israel supplied any. Israel is not providing vaccines to the Palestinian public in the West Bank and Gaza. \"The normal policy of every country is to vaccinate its own citizens. That's what they pay taxes for,\" Edelstein said. In recent weeks, the Palestinian Authority signed its own deals to receive vaccines for the West Bank and Gaza from a World Health Organization program, as well as from Russia, AstraZeneca and other drugmakers. Vaccines are expected to arrive in the Palestinian territories in the coming months.", "A dozen internationally acclaimed photographers were set loose in Israel and the West Bank. Most had never been in either place before. The aim was to try to see anew a part of the world that's been thoroughly photographed, long mythologized and often fought over. The project's creator is Frederic Brenner, a French photographer perhaps best known for his documentation of the global Jewish diaspora. And the result is This Place, a photo exhibit now showing in Tel Aviv and coming to the U.S. later this year. As the project started, Brenner found himself in a scene he'd shot before — a Hasidic Jewish family sitting down to a Sabbath meal. \"And I see this, what I would call this dream already dreamt,\" Brenner said, with the sense of sweeping metaphor that laces both his speech and his art. The richness of the room, the longest dining room table he'd ever seen and the fact that the family would change soon with their daughter's marriage all caught him. \"There were so many layers. And I thought during the meal, 'Whoa, I need to make a photograph of that,' \" he said. The family's portrait is in the exhibit. But Brenner's real focus was to find images that deviated from the familiar Israeli and Palestinian narratives. He calls This Place an attempt to look beyond the binary. \"For Israel, against Israel. Victim, perpetrator. An attempt to look beyond the political narrative,\" Brenner said in an interview in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, where the show runs until early September. \"To invite artists to question those constructs in which we are trapped and in which we force people to be trapped,\" he added. He recruited 11 other photographers, paired them with local assistants, introduced them to diverse people then let them run free. During a panel discussion around the Tel Aviv show opening, an audience member questioned Slovak photographer Martin Kollar about his images of an Israel she had never imagined. \"Where have you been?\" she asked. \"These photos I cannot recognize at all.\" Kollar's photos are bizarre, and he provides no captions either in the exhibit or in the book of his work in Israel and the West Bank. An image of a sheep with a hole in its stomach and another of a woman with tubes and rods attached to her face caught the attention of the audience member questioning him. \"It looked like Israel is like a freak, kind of freak industrial place,\" she said. Kollar said he spent a lot of time at Israeli scientific research institutes and some military installations. Another photographer, American Wendy Ewald, gave cameras to people from a dozen distinct communities. She began with Arab Israeli middle-school kids from Nazareth, and says that through them she saw things she, too, had never seen before. \"The kitsch of the culture, for one thing. And also the sense of playfulness,\" she said. \"I think the images I had seen had been really focused on the idea of what the conflict was.\" When Ewald showed some of those Arab Israeli students around the exhibit, she asked them to choose a photo that they found especially compelling to discuss. An image by French photographer Gilles Peress, who has worked extensively in conflict zones, including Bosnia, Northern Ireland and Rwanda, stood out to Adi Bahdra. It shows two young Palestinian men, their faces hidden, gesturing in front of a graffiti-covered wall. Bahdra says they are confronting Israeli soldiers, and it makes him feel proud. \"And they have nothing, and the Jewish soldiers have guns and everything. It is brave to be in front of them,\" he said. Ewald also gave cameras to Israeli military recruits, high-tech workers and Palestinian women. Editing them for the exhibition, she kept images from each community intact rather than mix them with another. \"To acknowledge that all of us have distinct cultures and distinct ways of seeing the world is important,\" Ewald said. Other work includes Nick Waplington's collection cataloging the diversity of Israelis living in settlements in the West Bank, which most of the world considers illegal; Rosalind Fox Solomon's portraits of people in Israel's underclass; and Josef Koudelka's view of the world around the separation barrier, part tall concrete wall, part electronic fence, that Israel built in and around the West Bank in response to suicide attacks. American photographer Fazal Sheikh used 1948, the year Israel was created, as his anchor. In a trilogy of projects, he interviewed old combatants from both sides of the 1948 conflict, paired photographs of one Israeli and one Palestinian born each year since then, and got in a plane to document how Israel's desert landscape has changed. What he saw were painful divides, a collective wound, he says, that has been rendered on both communities. \"You kind of feel that wherever you go,\" Sheikh said. \"If you're at all sensitive you feel that there's some forbidding. Something unresolved, and something sort of still festering.\" That may not be new insight to this well-documented place. But ", "Israel's airstrikes on Gaza continued Sunday as Hamas militants fired more rockets into Israel, marking the seventh day of the fire exchange. Three buildings in Gaza collapsed and at least 42 people were killed in what is now the deadliest single attack since fighting began a week ago, according to the Associated Press. More than 180 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since last Monday, including dozens of children. Eight people have been killed in Israel. Thousands more in Gaza are now homeless as a result of the Israeli airstrikes. The Israeli military said Sunday that it destroyed the home of Yahiyeh Sinwar, one of Hamas' top officials, NPR's Ruth Sherlock reports. Israel has targeted the homes of other Hamas officials, many who have gone into hiding. The airstrikes on Sunday also led to a large crater in a main road that leads to Gaza's largest hospital. Hady Amr, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Israel and Palestinian affairs, is one of the international mediators working on an end to the fighting. The United Nations Security Council met on Sunday to discuss the ongoing conflict in an open meeting. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said what is happening is \"utterly appalling\" and called for an immediate end to the fighting. \"This latest round of violence only perpetuates the cycles of death, destruction and despair, and pushes farther to the horizon any hopes of coexistence and peace,\" Guterres said. \"Fighting must stop. It must stop immediately.\" Guterres reiterated U.N. calls for a ceasefire, saying there has already been \"unconscionable death, immense suffering and damage to vital infrastructure.\" Pope Francis also called for an end to the fighting on Sunday, saying the deaths of innocent people, including children, are \"unacceptable.\" On Saturday, thousands across the world took part in pro-Palestinian protests to commemorate Nakba Day, which marks in period 1948 when displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians began as Israel declared independence. The Palestinian Youth Movement organized events in at least 22 cities across North America. In Washington, D.C., activists marched from the Washington Monument to the Capitol building chanting \"Free, Free Palestine!\" and demanding more action from the Biden administration. President Biden said last week that Israel \"has a right to defend itself\" and that he hoped the violence would end \"sooner rather than later.\" Prior to the protests, an Israeli airstrike leveled a high-rise building on Saturday that housed the offices of The Associated Press, Al-Jazeera and several other media outlets. The building, which was evacuated before the attack, also included residential apartments. Israel Defense Forces released a statement saying the building was targeted because Hamas had intelligence offices there. But AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt is calling on the Israeli government to provide proof of that claim. In a statement, Pruitt said that all the journalists and freelancers in the building made it out before the attack, but noted that the world will now \"know less about what is happening in Gaza because of what happened today.\"", "Ben & Jerry's said it will stop selling its ice cream in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, calling it \"inconsistent with our values.\" The company did not say when it would halt sales, but its sole local Israeli manufacturer vowed to continue selling as usual until its license expires at the end of 2022. The Vermont-based ice cream maker said it would continue sales inside Israel but would not renew its license with the Israeli manufacturer that has produced the company's legendary flavors locally for more than three decades. Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid called the decision \"antisemitic,\" and called on U.S. states with laws against Israel boycotts to sanction Ben & Jerry's. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called the move \"morally wrong\" and vowed to fight it. \"Ben & Jerry's has decided to brand itself as the anti-Israel ice cream,\" Bennett said in a statement. The decision, announced Monday, follows a campaign by pro-Palestinian activists in the U.S. to boycott the confectioner for allowing ice cream sales in Israeli settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Palestinians seek that territory for a future independent state. The BDS movement, which calls for boycotts of Israel and which Israeli leaders label discriminatory, said Ben & Jerry's \"is finally bringing its policy on Israel's regime of oppression against Palestinians in line with its progressive positions on Black Lives Matter and other justice struggles.\" In a similar move in 2018, the Airbnb property rental company announced it would forbid listings in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Five months later, it reversed that decision and said it would continue to list settlement properties but donate profits from all West Bank listings to organizations supplying humanitarian aid around the world. It's unclear if Ben & Jerry's, owned by Unilever, is just targeting Israeli settlement sales, or if it also intends to end sales of its ice cream in Palestinian-owned stores in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. A Ben & Jerry's spokesperson declined to elaborate. Two stores that sell Ben & Jerry's ice cream in the Palestinian city of Ramallah declined comment. The company said it would \"stay in Israel through a different arrangement\" and would provide details on a later date. It is unclear how the company intends to continue sales in Israel while preventing sales in Israeli settlements. Israel outlaws boycotts of its settlements in the West Bank. Unilever, which acquired Ben & Jerry's in 2000, said \"the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a very complex and sensitive situation\" and that \"we have always recognized the right of the brand and its independent Board to take decisions about its social mission. We also welcome the fact that Ben & Jerry's will stay in Israel.\" Avi Zinger, owner of Ben & Jerry's local Israeli manufacturer in southern Israel, told Ynet News that the company refused to renew his license after it expires in late 2022 because he declined to stop sales in the West Bank. \"I answered, 'I am Israeli and I cannot limit my sales there and also the law requires me to sell in all of Israel,' Zinger told YNet News. \"I cannot go against my country.\" In an Instagram video, Zinger called on Israelis to stand by the local Ben & Jerry's manufacturer and \"help us fight, because our war is everyone's war.\"", "Democracy movements sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa have sparked dramatic changes in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. The West Bank has yet to see a movement on this level. If and when that does occur, it could be a \"game changer\" for Israel and the United States, says Robert Malley, an expert in conflict resolution and the program director for the Middle East and North Africa at the International Crisis Group. \"It would present a huge dilemma for Israel,\" he says. \"How would it react? And it would present a huge dilemma for the United States — how would it react to Israel's reaction? Because at a time when people are celebrating popular peaceful protest movements, on what basis would one criticize it when the Palestinians are doing it?\" On Thursday's Fresh Air, Malley joins Terry Gross for a wide-ranging conversation about the Middle East's future. He discusses his thoughts on the Palestinian push toward a U.N. resolution recognizing statehood, the attempts between Fatah and Hamas to form a unity government, and how the Arab Spring has affected — and will continue to affect — the Israeli-Palestinian relationship. Can Protests Be Peaceful? Last Sunday, pro-Palestinian protesters tried to storm the Syrian border, their second such attempt in three weeks. Malley says he thought the protest, which resulted in several casualities, was inspired by the events that have transpired during the Arab Spring. \"But there's also a sense that this is a different kind of conflict,\" he says. \"You're not talking about overthrowing a leader. You're talking about resolving a half-century conflict. It's ultimately going to take negotiations to resolve that. But it's interesting that Palestinians — particularly young Palestinians — are trying to discover new forms of actions.\" Malley says, however, that some Palestinian leaders have expressed to him their doubts that the protests will maintain their critical mass and remain peaceful. \"They also are afraid that it could turn out to be a protest against their own rules,\" he says. \"That is why Palestinian leaders — whether they're from Fatah or Hamas — are fearful of these protests. Both of them have actually taken action to prevent the protests from growing because they fear, at some point, that it could get out of control and the target would no longer be Israel's occupation, but also the rule under which [Palestinians] are subjected to — both in the West Bank and Gaza.\" The U.N. Resolution Leaders in the Palestinian Authority are currently debating whether to introduce a measure to the United Nations in September that would ask the international body to include it as a member state. It's largely a symbolic gesture — one that wouldn't change the situation in the West Bank, or change current borders, Malley says. \"In order to get membership in the U.N., you need to get a vote at the Security Council, and the United States is determined to veto such a resolution,\" Malley says. \"So membership in the U.N. ... is not going to happen. I think their second best solution would be to get a resolution in which a number of countries would express their recognition of the Palestinian state and its borders of 1967.\" Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made it clear that he rejects those borders and has said Israel's security requires different borders. If the resolution passed, Israel would be occupying land — some of which it plans to keep in any negotiated solution to the conflict — belonging to another member of the United Nations. \"One has to look at it not as what the vote will do, because it won't do much, but rather as a symptom of despair on the Palestinian side that this conflict will ever end and [they'll have] sovereignty and independence,\" he says. \"This despair is shared by the Israelis. If you're an Israeli and you've lived through the past several decades, you have a right to question whether peace will ever come, and look at it and wonder if the Palestinians will ever seize the opportunity. There are two narratives here about who's responsible for the deadlock — but the reality is that both sides today believe that the other side is not prepared to make peace, and that leads to actions such as the resort to the United Nations, which goes against everything that the current Palestinian leadership stands for.\" Interview Highlights On what Palestinians think of other uprisings \"For the first time in many decades, the Palestinians are viewing other countries and other people rising up, and they [have] remained relatively quiescent for some time. There's a sense that they, too, want to join this movement, and they, too — and I think this is critical — are learning the advantages of nonviolent popular protests. When Palestinians have risen up in the past, it's taken the form of acts of violence [and acts of terrorism] against other civilians. I think they're learning ... that there are other ways of acting that don't involve violence.\" On the youth movement" ]

[ "See, myths are the widely believed anecdotes and stories of the past which were generally used to explain any phenomenon (mostly natural ones). On the other hand, facts are info which are proved or are known to be true." ]

[ "(5) What is the difference between information and facts? These nouns (information and fact are both nouns) belong to different categories. Fact is what is called a count noun; while information is what is called a mass or non-count noun. ... So one can talk about one fact, two facts, three facts and so on.", "7. What is the main difference between a fact and a statistical generalization? A. A fact is based on a reality assumption and a statistical generalization is based on values.", "The Difference between Perception and Fact. Share: A common misunderstanding in the world of workplace respect (held by leaders and team members alike) is that our perception of what happened is, in fact, what happened. Our view of “the event” is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.", "MALE VS. Much myth surrounds the taste differences between the sexes, but, truth be told, other than the fact that the ladies are lighter than the gents, experts say there's no distinction in flavor.", "What is the main difference between the Blackfeet and Apache myths? In the Blackfeet myth, the earth is created by a god; in the Apache myth, the earth is created by animals. In the Blackfeet myth, people are created by the Sun; in the Apache myth, people are created by animals.", "What are the most common myths about communication? Explain the differences between the three models of communication: linear, interactive, and transactional. Interactive- basically the same as linear, except the interactive model of communication includes feedback.", "What is the difference between data and information? A) Data represents a fact. Information is data that has been organized.", "What is the difference between data and intelligence as discussed in class? A datum is a fact; intelligence is a full appraisal of information. ... People frequently are unaware or unable to say what their true motivation is.", "1. What is the difference between brainwashing and an argument? In essence, brainwashing is “I will make you believe what I believe and that is the only way you can believe.” An argument, on the other hand, “should” be based in facts (though perceptions of facts are often different) and listening and reasoning.", "What Is the Difference Between Hydraulics and Pneumatics? Most differences between these two systems stem from the fact that hydraulic systems use liquids, which do not compress, and pneumatic systems use gasses, which do.", "What is the difference between an empirical question and a normative question? Empirical questions are testable with facts, normative questions are more opinionated, less testable.", "Samurai Myth No. In fact, cutting any material has the potential to dull a blade. Every blade is affected differently by cutting paper, and some dull more easily than others.", "What is the difference between data and information? Data is raw facts that describe an attribute, information is data that has a meaning within a specific context.", "“What” is a circumstance or event. “Why” is either the reason the circumstance or event happened, or an esoteric question if a fact-based reason cannot be provided. What is the difference between “supposed to” and “should”?", "What is the difference between a piece of expository writing and a narrative? ... Expository writing communicates fact-based information, while a narrative tells a story.", "MYTH: DEET is the same as DDT. FACT: Nope! DEET is not DDT. DEET is not DDT.", "It's a popular myth that hairy moles are often cancerous, but that's all it is: a myth. In fact, the presence of a hair growing out of a mole may indicate that the spot is actually healthy and noncancerous.", "To put it simply: the law is all written down rules. Rights are not necessarily rules. They are sometimes written into the law, but not always. ... But in fact, there is often a difference between what is legal and what is right.", "[' What is ETL? ... ', ' Explain what are the ETL testing operations includes? ... ', ' Mention what are the types of data warehouse applications and what is the difference between data mining and data warehousing? ... ', ' What are the various tools used in ETL? ... ', ' What is fact? ... ', ' Explain what are Cubes and OLAP Cubes?']", "Myths & Facts: MYTH: Maraschino cherries are preserved with formaldehyde. FACT: Absolutely no formaldehyde is used i make maraschino cherries. ... FACT: Maraschino manufacturers use FD&C Red Dye #40, the same dye used in Doritos, chewing gum, food coloring, and egg dye, say Payne.", "Facts and theories are two different things. In the scientific method, there is a clear distinction between facts, which can be observed and/or measured, and theories, which are scientists' explanations and interpretations of the facts.", "What's the difference between information and intelligence? Information is knowledge communicated about a particular fact or circumstance. Intelligence is all about finding out information, determining what it means – and then using it to take action!", "What are the differences, and what is it that differentiates physiotherapy from physical therapy? The answer, you may be shocked to learn, is that physical therapy and physiotherapy are exactly the same! There is, in fact, no difference between the two terms and each term can be used interchangeably. They are synonyms.", "Originally Answered: What is the difference between faith and knowledge? Faith and Knowledge are two different concepts and have two different purposes for their existence. Faith is the act of trust in something or someone. ... Knowledge is another word for information, data, facts.", "Brown eggs aren't somehow more wholesome, and there are no significant nutritional differences between brown and white eggs. One large egg has about 70 calories, 6 grams of protein, and lots of vitamins and minerals. Myth #2: Egg whites are healthier than yolks. Facts: Egg whites are full of protein.", "What the difference between Value Engineering And Value Analysis ? Value Analysis (VA) is used to describe the application of the techniques to an existing product or services (after the fact). Value Engineering (VE) has been used to refer to the design stage (before the fact).", "The difference between males and females is predominantly size. A female usually weighs 50 to 60 pounds, while males are 65 to 80 pounds. Of course, genetics presents many variables in this figure. Myth versus Reality: What age Golden Retriever do you really want?", "What is the difference, according to this quotation, between freedom and equality? ... Freedom meant being able to act any way you pleased. Equality meant that all people should have the same of everything, despite the fact that they might differ in ability levels.", "What is the difference between the tentative outline and the final outline? The tentative outline shows the major topics to be researched, while the final outline shows the researched facts that support the main points.", "So what's the difference between apple cider and apple cider vinegar? The main difference is the fact that apple cider vinegar has been fermented into alcohol and then converted into acetic acid, whereas cider is more akin to apple juice.", "What is the difference between a contract term and a representation? ... Representation: \"A representation is a statement of fact which does not amount to a term of the contract but it is one that the maker of the statement does not guarantee its truth.", "The difference between the Expressivist and the Error Theorist is that the Error Theorist thinks that we are mistaken in thinking moral facts exist at all, whereas the Expressivist argues that, while it looks as though our moral judgements suppose the existence of moral facts, what is actually happening is that we are ..." ]

[ "Shark week is when everyone who is producing the Discovery Channel gets bored or lazy or wants to go on vacation. They play shark stuff 'til you're sick to death of it and you don't need or want to know anything more about sharks." ]

[ "As someone who has watched shark week for 10 years it has been a part of growing up. I think a lot of it initially had to do with the movie Jaws. Shark Week back in the day was amazing and so was discovery channel. It was nothing about documentaries about sharks and the channel itself was so educational. Unfortunately the channel has taken a turn and it's all about higher ratings. Now shark week is nothing but sharks biting people and finding the most terrifying shark. It's really disappointing and I don't watch it as much anymore.", "When mythbusters did the shark week, they talked about predators who eat other animals whole. Their stomachs are all lined with a thick muscle that squeezes and constricts their prey. The lining is as thick as steer hide or thicker and the sharks they tested had between 2000 and 4000 pounds of crushing force.", "\"Damn, gonna miss shark week.\" - Actual excerpt from Dorner's manifesto. He's not a totally unreasonable man.", "It's summer, and this happens every summer. Sharks kill only 10 people a year, but shark attacks are sexy news. Coconuts kill far more... but that isn't news. So really you're just hearing more about an normal annual event.", "They are being scavengers. They are following alongside the shark and stealing shreds of food from a shark's meal. The shark will occasionally snack on one of the fish, but enough survive leeching off it's leftovers to successfully live and breed. There are a few species of cleaner fish that go over a fishes' body and pick parasites and other irritants on them. The larger fish get cleaned and massaged, the cleaner fish get fed.", "It is about 2100 km from Sydney to Christchurch. 6 days = 144 hours, so the shark would have to travel 14.6 km/h to make the trek...a reasonable clip with a steady wind. Also, the manufacturer claims the balloon can hold its helium for 2 weeks, so leakage is not an issue. So it is *possible*, but pretty unlikely this was your shark. BTW, I got one of these for my niece, excellent gift.", "Sharks are part of a group of animals with cartilage supporting their bodies rather than bones. They are known scientifically as \"cartilaginous fish\", a characteristic they share with skates and rays. Fish like tuna have the more typical bone skeleton that we're used to thinking of in animals and are sometimes called \"bony fish\".", "The sharks are kept well fed. That's really all it takes.", "Why would you think that a shark have a concept of a human in any way? They attack often because it look like a seal and release it when it do not taste like a seal. They do not need to know what a human is just what a seal look like and the taste no knowledge of humans is needed.", "Hi there, you're quite welcome to ask questions here more than once to get responses. Also, the theme week is just an emphasis per week, not an \"only _____ questions allowed.\" Good luck!", "FYI there's a section on this in the FAQ* [Weeks, weekdays, and weekends](_URL_0_) *see the \"popular questions\" link on the sidebar, or the \"wiki\" tab above", "Here's a quote from some site called mental floss: \"The dancer who came to be known as “Left Shark” has become an instant meme, not only because of the frankly weird but cute shark costume, but his seemingly confused and clumsy fin movements in those few seconds. These poor guys danced in multiple costumes that night, with little rehearsal because the original dancers from Mesa Community College were replaced by Katy Perry a few days before the show. Also, their choreographer said they were supposed to be goofy. Not that any critique of Left Shark’s performance mattered; the internet immediately fell in love with him.\" In short the internet loves him because he looks funny, and overlooks right shark the same way no one remembers the second guy on the moon, Leonardo DiCaprio I think it was", "That's asked on a weekly basis. Use the search", "Sharks lay eggs just like other fish, they just carry them with them rather than deposit them in a nest somewhere. The eggs hatch and the baby sharks swim away .", "On thing to realize is that while sharks existed at the same time as the dinosaurs, modern species of sharks did not. All those sharks are extinct today. \"Shark\" is a large group (specifically superorder *Selachimorpha*) of cartilaginous fish. Saying that sharks existed at the same time as dinosaurs isn't terribly different than saying mammals existed at the same time.", "This is a state government thing not all of Australia. The short version is in Western Australian Government is doing the shark cull as ''to reduce numbers of sharks along beaches therefore making them safer.'' To some people it will seem like they are solving the problem and make the beaches more attractive to tourists. The Liberal party which is the group in charge of Western Australian Government are known for not following advice from the science community and following what different business groups wants instead which maybe why this is occurring. I’m sure someone will do a better version for you but this is the gist of it.", "When they are really young, they don't know how. They start picking it up from parents at around six weeks. My parent friend referred to this time of his child's life as \"the shark eyes.\" It's something we train them to do by staring at them all the time. Don't take my word for it: _URL_0_.", "A week is one quarter of a moon cycle (new/first quarter/full/last quarter). In ancient times everyone could look up at the night sky and see the moon. If you wanted to meet someone you could say things like “meet at the waterfall the day after the first quarter moon.”", "I'm sorry but this question gets asked once a week.", "Those fish you see are in a mutualistic relationship with the shark. Most commonly they are Remora fish. A mutualistic relationship basically means they benefit each other. These fish clean the shark by eating small build up on the body as well as small scraps in and around the mouth/jaws, so the shark provides nurishment. The shark benefits because the fish clean the body and mouth from bacteria and infections which keep the shark healthy. Similar situations happen with Hippos as well.", "A point is 1% of the principal amount. On a $5000 loan, 2 \"points\" would be $100. The total cost of borrowing would be $5100. The payment schedule would be what is agreed upon with the loan shark prior to borrowing so it will vary. Lets say the deal was $5000 at 2 points for 2 weeks. The borrower would have two weeks to pay the loan plus the points ($100) by the end of the two weeks. If the date came and gone the points would be added to the principal and the loan essentially refinanced for the agreed term. So the principal would now be $5100 with 2 points ($102) for a total cost of $5202. This would continue until you paid off the total amount or you have your kneecaps broken with a hammer.", "It is based on beach attendance. [The university of Florida has some statistics that get you to a 1 in 11.5 million chance of being attacked by a shark](_URL_0_). Estimated attendance at US beaches is ~264 million. The number of shark attacks is 23. 264 million divided by 23 give you 11.5 million. That is, for every 11.5 million beach visitors, one was attacked by a shark in the year 2000.", "Basically, you look for / bait a shark in the area the attack(s) occurred, and if it fits the description of the attacker, you assume that it's the one and kill it. You may be correct or you may not, the important part is that you have something to placate the panicking public.", "It's a submissive show of affection. You are the dominant member of the pack. Also, people are delicious (because of the salty skin).", "Smelling is a shark's primary sense. Their nostrils are on the outside of their body, and they only use them for smelling not breathing. Water continuously flows through a sharks nostrils interacting with highly sensitive membranes that feed information to the shark's brain. This information allows a shark to pinpoint the source of blood.", "This gets asked every damn week, use the search bar!", "The frilled shark has been caught 1500m down, 2m long, 'living fossil', speculated to have a giant relative responsible for old, misunderstood, sea serpent sightings. The six gill shark is very closely related to species found only in fossils and some of the sixgill shark's relatives date back over 200 million years. Is 5m long, live 1800m down, have the widest distribution of all sharks. The sleeper shark is 4 - 7m long, lives 2000m down. Greenland shark is 7m long, can eat polar bears and seals and lives 2700m under in frigid arctic waters. Basically, these mysterious, huge, primitive sharks are widespread in the deep, and with 95% of this habitat yet to be seen by human eyes, I like to think that it is completely possible there are ancient giants down there.", "Sea turtles ARE prey to sharks, tiger sharks to be precise. The reason why most sharks don't eat them is because the shell is really hard and it damages their teeth. Why risk damaging your most important weapon when you can go for softer prey? Tiger sharks however have specially designed teeth for cutting through the shell. So yeah, sea turtles are prey to sharks, just certain species of shark", "Despite the size of its mouth, a whale shark's esophagus measures [mere inches across,](_URL_1_) so a whale shark would not be able to swallow you. Additionally, whale sharks [only feed on small organisms](_URL_0_) and have no interest in consuming humans.", "This needs to be FAQd cause its asked every week", "The big problem with this is: where would we get the sequence from? If we had that, and we could find a suitable host organism to incubate the shark (opportunity compels me to suggest a nurse shark), it would be not impossible, but difficult. I'm not sure what sort of epigenetic modifiers exist in shark genomes, but reconstructing that information would also be a big challenge. This lack of information seems to me a bigger problem than any technical hurdle we might have to overcome.", "Hi! There's lots of room for a more full exploration of this topic, but fyi, there are a few old posts on this topic in the FAQ that can get you started * FAQ section [Weeks, weekdays, and weekends](_URL_0_)" ]

[ "Mainly banned for it being able to recycle and reuse Spell/Trap Cards with effects that can only be used a limited amount of times while they are on the field. It's notable that effects that consistently bounce your own Spell/Traps are very rare due to this." ]

[ "It is less role playing, and doesn't feel like you are the protagonist, whereas pokemon makes you feel like a trainer and is more immersive. Yugioh has less cards per pack and less chance of good cards per pack. Pokemon is more social, yugioh is more thoughtful and competitive. Each one appeals to a different group.", "Very few yugioh cards are worth collecting beside maybe prize cards and some turbo pack stuff. ... Most Ultimate and Ghost Rares will retain their value since they aren't printed in main sets anymore and they're the prettiest rarity of cards in the eyes of almost everyone.", "Cards on the commander ban list are banned for two big reasons. ... For this reason I think that Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is on the ban list because at some point the RC determined that the card wasn't very fun to play against, was too ubiquitous in decks, and wasn't helping commander to be a format that was casual and fun.", "If you've played other TCGs, Yugioh structure decks are very bizarre in the sense that they're actually pretty damn good, and VERY cheap. ... Buying 3 copies gives you 1 fairly decent deck and several support cards for other decks, with about 60 cards left over as standard fodder, but at least they don't take up much room.", "Fits in Top Loaders. Fits Yugioh size and other smaller sized gaming cards. Size of sleeve is 60.5mm x 87.5mm.", "Yugioh size card in three different formats: As millimeters, 59 x 86, as inches 3.25 x 2.25, as centimeters 8.6 x 5.9.", "Yugioh Season 6. Yu-Gi-Oh season 6, often known as Yugioh season 6, is a spin-off season of Yu-Gi-Oh!. It has 40 episodes, and a few of them have the theme song as Heavy Metal Yugioh, some have Just let it out, and some have other theme songs.", "Cards - Board Game Yugioh Playmat Games Table Mat Size 60X35 cm Mousepad MTG Play Mat for Yu-Gi-Oh!", "In this game, two players Duel each other using a variety of Monster, Spell, and Trap Cards to defeat their opponent's monsters and be the first to drop the other's Life Points to 0. ... yugioh-card.com for answers to frequently asked questions and an interactive game demonstration.", "5 in) Standard (66x91 mm / 2.6x3. 58 in) <-- the most common ones. Yugioh (62x89 mm / 2.44x3.", "BTS - ARMY home MAMA WILL BANNED FANDOM LIGHTSTICK ON THEIR SHOW. THE REASON WHY THEY BANNED LIGHTSTICK IT'S BECAUSE 99% OF PEOPLE ON THEIR SHOW ARE ARMY'S.", "Q6. Is MDF banned in other countries and, if so, why not in the UK? HSE is not aware of any countries in the world where MDF is banned.", "Why did the military ban it? The military banned DMHA because it is a new dietary ingredient lacking evidence for safe use, therefore it is banned for use in supplements from the FDA. Common Supplements containing DMHA: Lean Pills.", "The Royal Navy has a pub on their aircraft carrier. ... It's not why does the RN allow drinking aboard ship, so much as why did the USN ban it, and persist in it.", "Why Does Fortnite Ban Users? Publisher Epic Games has been known to ban players for alleged cheating or even something so innocent as using a VPN to protect their connection while playing Fortnite. Epic Games doesn't go into detail in their Terms of Service as to why a user might be banned for using a VPN.", "Why has the government banned them? The health ministry took this decision after the Drugs Technical Advisory Board recommended that \"there is no therapeutic justification\" for the ingredients contained in the banned FDC drugs and that these medicines \"may involve risk to human beings\".", "Thanks! The exact dimensions of a yugioh card are 59mm x 86mm. A lot of image editing software will allow you to bring up rules marked with various types of measurement, so then you can just size it so it's 59 x 86mm. Printers have varying pixel resolutions though so it's possible the printer will get it wrong.", "For example, a sending off due to a second yellow card will result in a one-match ban, as will a red card received for a professional foul. Dissent leading to a red card will generally earn a two-match ban, while violent conduct can be punished with a suspension for three games.", "Individual card changes: Emry, Lurker of the Loch is now banned as a commander only. Edric, Spymaster of Trest is now banned as a commander only. Erayo, Soratami Ascendant is now legal.", "Originally Answered: Why magic the gathering cards are so expensive? The average magic card is worthless. The cards that are worth huge amounts of money are that way for 2 reasons. 1) They are rare, so collectors that want every magic card will pay more to get them.", "Modern is a constructed format that allows cards from all sets from Eighth Edition and forward to be played, so long as that card is not banned. ... Modern derives its name from the modern Card Frame, first introduced in Eighth Edition.", "Why are sink-mounted garbage disposal units usually banned in Europe but allowed in the US? Garbage disposal units are extremely common in the US but virtually unknown in Europe, mostly because of local regulations which ban them.", "Why is it illegal to own an AK-47 in North Carolina? - Quora. Because the State passed an unconstitutional law banning them.", "Unfortunately, the Egyptian God Cards have never been allowed in Yu-Gi-Oh! tournaments. But, if you duel with your friends, you can use any cards you want, even the Egyptian God Cards, and completely ignore the Forbidden/Limited Card lists.", "Selective androgen receptor modulators (SARM) are synthetic drugs that have a similar effect to testosterone. They are being marketed to bodybuilders. Why did the military ban it? It is banned by the military because it is unapproved for human use by the FDA and does not meet the dietary supplement regulations.", "Limited formats require players to open a specified number of Magic products, they then must work exclusively with the cards that came from that product. Due to the nature of Limited formats, players cannot build their decks in advance of the tournament and must build their deck within the tournament itself.", "Most counterfeit cards in the context of Yu-Gi-Oh! are made to mimic those of OCG or TCG cards. Counterfeit cards are usually made with the sole purpose of selling them as authentic cards to make a profit, which distinguishes them from fanmade cards, which are sold as art, but not as genuine cards.", "Why it's (kind of) banned: Ackee is the national fruit of Jamaica, where it's traditionally boiled and cooked with salted cod. ... As a result, the FDA banned all ackee until 2000, at which point several manufacturers were permitted to sell frozen and canned ackee in the United States.", "It's the reason why the US banned companies from using Huawei networking equipment in 2012 and why the company was added to the US Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security Entity List in May 2019, following an executive order from President Donald Trump effectively banning Huawei from US communications ...", "The deck includes two jokers, which are the highest cards. ... The three cards played face down during a war are not looked at and cannot be used to steal an opponent's pile, but the following card can be used to steal instead of competing to win the war if it matches an opponent's pile.", "Why Snus and Other Oral Tobacco Was Originally Banned The snus sales ban has been in place since 1992. This prohibition was a response to aggressive attempts to introduce US-style smokeless tobacco 'Skoal Bandits' into Europe.", "Rampaging Ferocidon was banned during Ixalan-year Standard in order to weaken aggressive red decks and provide more counterplay by blocking with creatures and gaining life. Since that time, aggressive red decks have become weaker in the metagame as stronger and more varied strategies have emerged." ]

[ "The new film The Homesman is set in the pioneer days of the American West. It was directed by Tommy Lee Jones, who called on his regular composers, Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders, for the music. But instead of writing a traditional score for symphony orchestra, they became inventors and instrument builders to capture the story's desperate mood. Jones has a simple way of describing his approach to scoring a film: \"The process is to derive music from what the lens is looking at,\" he says. Jones met with the composers more than a year ago to start thinking about a score that would help tell the story of three pioneer women who lose their minds in the bleak and unforgiving Nebraska territory. \"We certainly didn't want 'crazy' music, the kind of music you hear when the giant ants appear after the flying saucer crashes,\" Jones says. \"We didn't want effects music. We wanted to do something original, and that was reflective of the country and the way the country sounds. We both knew what the movie sounded like. We just had to find it.\" Jones usually gives direction in broad strokes, saying something like, \"I want it to be folksy, but surrounded by madness.\" \"You know, when you get a comment like that, you can really run with it,\" Buck Sanders says. \"And he'll let you know very quickly if it's not what he's thinking. And so it was really a dream gig — just to be able to work with a director like that, who would give you artistic freedom.\" Sanders and Marco Beltrami first took inspiration from the music of the nature so prevalent in the film's setting. \"You know, wind was a factor for a lot of these women, and just everybody in general there,\" Beltrami says. \"The wind would even make people go crazy, besides the disease and all the hardships. And so we were thinking, 'How can we channel that?' And one of Buck's first instincts was to begin examining Aeolian harps, which — you know, they're basically just strings attached to some surface, wooden surface often, and they resonate with the wind, and you can tune them. And Tommy came up here — actually on a very windy day — and was blown away by how... I think he said basically we just suck the music right out of the air. [Laughs.] Which is sort of true.\" Beltrami's Malibu studio sits up high in the Santa Monica Mountains overlooking the Pacific Ocean. There, he and Sanders have dreamed up the music for World War Z, 3:10 To Yuma and two other films directed by Jones. Sanders was largely responsible for building the wind harp, which looks like power lines growing out of the back of a weathered old piano. \"So this is the Aeolian wind piano,\" Sanders says. \"It's an old upright that our piano tuner found, like in a basement, that he was willing to donate. We put it on top of a 10-foot-tall metal storage unit. He just put it, like, in a tractor scoop and dumped it up here. And then they strapped it down, and then we have eight piano wires coming perpendicularly out of the piano soundboard, and running 175 feet up the hill to two large metal water-storage tanks to catch the winds.\" When they tethered the wires to those tanks, they stumbled onto one of the score's signature sounds. \"You could put your ear up to the water tank, and you can hear stuff's going on in there, and certain frequencies resonate really strongly,\" Sanders says. \"I wasn't too sure what it would get. You know, it was just an experiment, and a fun day on the job. [Laughs.] But it ended up being a beautiful, crystalline-type sound.\" It's a sound meant to evoke the characters' unsteady grasp on sanity. The two composers did use more traditional instruments to capture the film's environment. They recorded a small string ensemble, but they recorded it outdoors. \"It's a very austere environment, this environment of the settlers coming to the plains in the mid-19th century,\" Beltrami says. \"And we're so used to recording scores in warm rooms that have a lot of reverberation, and that are built beautifully and make everything sound great. But it wasn't really the environment of the setting.\" In one scene, the woman who volunteers to transport the women back east, played by Hilary Swank, gets lost and ends up nearly losing her own mind. \"She's going around in circles,\" Beltrami says. \"And we thought, this shouldn't have any of the warmth that you would normally have in a room recording the sound. If there's any way it can just dissipate into the air, it would be great.\" This may seem like a lot of trouble to go through in an era when the click of a key can do so much to imitate or manipulate music. \"The wonderful thing about this score was just the amount of tactile experience we had, you know, building stuff and working outside,\" Sanders says. \"Because film scoring has become very sort of computer-centric, and a lot of shows have to use samples to get the mockups done. But I think really having that, what really is a physical experience, of building instruments and recording outside — it creates a strong connection" ]

[ "It sounded like the future: rock and classical crossed and combined in a May 20, 2011 concert at the New York Society for Ethical Culture. The evening of premieres and rarely heard works by Jonny Greenwood, Philip Glass and Gyorgy Ligeti was presented by New York's new-music service Q2 . Conductor Brad Lubman led the Wordless Music Orchestra, whose 55 members included the JACK Quartet and players from Alarm Will Sound, the Signal Ensemble and quite a few other regulars in New York's new-music community. Surprisingly enough, this concert was the New York premiere of Glass' \"Heroes\" Symphony, a 1996 piece inspired by David Bowie and Brian Eno's 1977 album Heroes. (On YouTube, you can even get an inside-the-orchestra experience of the premiere.) There's the expected punch of Glass' churning rhythms juxtaposed to some liquid brass and wind lines, but Lubman and his players brought out some real surprises, including some very beautifully and gracefully shaped ostinati figures — so central to Glass' hallmark style, but here much more persuasive than they often are in other performances. Tucked in the middle of the piece is the sinuous \"Abdulmajid,\" which takes a Bowie song (honoring his wife, Iman, whose last name provides the title of this movement) into frankly and unapologetically Orientalized terrain. The centerpiece of the evening was the U.S. premiere of Greenwood's Doghouse for orchestra and string trio (with violinist Courtney Orlando, violist John Richards and cellist Lauren Radnofsky). While Greenwood is undoubtedly best known as the guitarist (as well as keyboards player and sampler master) for Radiohead and one of the band's songwriters, he was also a violist all the way through high school, and is an unabashed fan of contemporary classical music. One of Greenwood's favorite composers is Ligeti, and so Ligeti's moody and insanely challenging Chamber Concerto for 13 Instruments, played by the Signal Ensemble, provided the perfect lead-in to Doghouse. (As Q2 host Nadia Sirota noted in her live commentary, the third movement of the Ligeti has been known to make string players quite literally bleed.) Greenwood has already adapted Doghouse for Anh Hung Tran's 2010 film Norwegian Wood (which is in turn based on Haruki Murakami's best-selling novel of the same name), just as his 2005 Popcorn Superhet Receiver -- also premiered by Wordless Music — was transformed into the score for the Oscar-winning film There Will Be Blood. As with so much of Glass' output, there's something innately cinematic about Greenwood's work, as well as a regal self-containment that evokes his hero Ligeti and is matched with a thrillingly dark tension. The Society for Ethical Culture is only an occasional concert venue, but I can't help but be struck by the words suspended over the stage: \"The place where people seek to meet the highest is holy ground.\" Perhaps that sentiment's a little too earnest for jaded downtown musicians, but what a perfect idea to serve as the backdrop for a concert so rich with ideas and emotions.", "Once based in Omaha, Tilly and the Wall's members have since scattered to the four winds: They live in different cities, and their busy lives led to a lengthy hiatus following the 2008 release of O. Still, even after a long absence, the band's music embodies unity, togetherness and empowerment. Known for employing a tap dancer in lieu of a drummer, the group crafts sunnily clattering dance parties with a bawdy edge and a flair for affirmation. The first single from the band's forthcoming, inaccurately titled Heavy Mood, \"Defenders\" revolves around a characteristically raging chorus — \"We're not afraid to live / No, we're not afraid to die\" — and persistent reminders to rail against bullies and naysayers. (\"No matter what they take, remember who you are.\") The \"Defenders\" video does nothing to dampen that enthusiasm toward youthful independence, as Tilly and the Wall takes to the desert — as so many bands are wont to do nowadays — to dance and play alongside children, while also nodding to band member Kianna Alarid's Native American heritage. Here's Alarid on \"Defenders\": \"The message of this song is one of absolute empowerment, especially for the youths who aren't yet fully conditioned to the oppressive boundaries of our culture. I grew up in 29 Palms, so I really wanted to set the scene of this story in the place where my first real childhood memories began. The story involves a lot of my family's essence, including Native American kachina lore, true magick and the desert.\" And here's director Ben Fee: \"Kianna wrote to me about collaborating on an idea involving kachina dolls in a music video. Pretty much everything Kianna (and Tilly and the Wall) makes, I thoroughly enjoy. We've been friends for years, and this was the first time we've been able to collaborate, and it was such a blast. \"We took the base notion of kachina dolls, quickly roped in Kianna's longtime friend and stylist Peggy Noland (whose work I've loved for years) and started building our ideas from there. The song 'Defenders,' to me, sounds like a rebel yell of eternal youth. It's like a splash of the future, and so that's what we wanted to do for the video: make a mashup of some crazy existence of desert-life kids and these living, breathing and singing insane kachina dolls, which are the band — including transportation into a place of immortality and timelessness with a bundle of little inanimate creatures. Peggy is a master of her craft, and seeing what she brought was so inspiring in itself. I could have just pointed the camera at her outfits and had a captivating video.\" \"Defenders\" is from Tilly and the Wall's new album, Heavy Mood, which comes out Oct. 2.", "The story of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition, which would eventually be known as the Greely Expedition, is important in terms of the areas it helped map, the wealth of scientific observations made, and the fact that the group reached the Farthest North — a record that had belonged to the British for three centuries. However, the reason most people know about the expedition is because it became one of the most dangerous adventures in polar discovery and, by the time it was over, it had become an amazing narrative of strength, fear, danger, and survival that rivaled any other before it. In Labyrinth of Ice: The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition, author Buddy Levy offers an engaging, superbly written, and meticulously researched chronicle of the Greely expedition that proves it is one of the most engaging adventure narratives ever. In July 1881, Lt. A.W. Greely put together a crew of 24 scientists and explorers and set out to reach areas of the north that had not been traversed before. The expedition carried equipment to conduct scientific research on the weather and planned to catalog the flora and fauna of the place. However, Greely's main goal was to achieve Farthest North and claim that record for the United States. While they achieved almost everything they set out to accomplish, Greely and his men also confronted every possible challenge. The atrocious weather battered them and they had to cope with months of total darkness, isolation, bears, constant sub-zero temperatures, and even wolf attacks. In May 1882, the expedition broke the 300-year-old record of Farthest North and the men returned to camp. There, they continued to research as they waited for the resupply ship. It never came. Facing a second harsh winter without the supplies they needed, morale began to wane. When no ship came after that second winter, everything changed. What happened next, from desperation to the group leaving their camp and trying to make their way south amid hunger, insanity — and even threats of violence and cannibalism — is the stuff of legend. Labyrinth of Ice is an outstanding true story of heroism, discovery, bravery, and survival. The Greely Expedition faced \"attacks by wolves; hurricane-force winds; temperatures approaching 100º below zero; and near insanity brought on by the months of total darkness.\" However, they persevered. They pushed forward, driven by an unquenchable thirst for fame and, later, by an unstoppable desire to live. Levy masterfully retells their story using letters, journals, other books, and telegrams. With cinematic prose, great economy of language, and vivid descriptions, Levy places readers in the middle of the action and makes them see the snow, feel the hunger and the tension, and hear the cracking of the ice, which the men called \"the Devil's symphony.\" More than a nonfiction book about an expedition, Labyrinth of Ice reads like an outstanding script for an action movie. Levy's voice, knack for pacing, and the way he integrates the writing done by the men who were there add up to a narrative that is as gripping and full of danger as it is exciting and poetic: \"But in the waning light of early October, during which time Greely noted that 'the sun shines but little, and feebly,' they had their first encounters with wolves. A large band of nearly twenty — it was hard to count them in the low light against the dusky hillsides — appeared one evening very near the house. Their gaunt forms slunk nearby, moving like ghosts through the Arctic fog. Some of them, according to Greely, 'appeared to be as large as calves.' The pack came silently, then disappeared as one into the mist, the echoes of their distant howls the only trace left of them.\" There are many adventure narratives in which place and the elements become important characters. In this book, they are two invincible villains that torture the men and constantly dangle them at the edge of sanity or death: \"The long night. The continuous darkness had driven some Arctic explorers to madness. Greely knew he must guard against that at all costs. He must keep the men busy to stave off boredom and depression and perhaps even insanity. Having never experienced an Arctic winter, Greely wrote: 'It is the unknown which awes and terrifies.'\" While Levy's prose is great and readers will easily envision animal attacks, arguments, and the sound of cracking ice, the photographs, taken by Sergeant George Rice, add a visual element that backs up every part of the narrative and show readers \"the building of Fort Conger; the Proteus at anchor in Discovery Bay; the Eskimo with their dogs and sledges, as well as skinning seals and musk-oxen; the Eskimo relics Brainard had discovered,\" and much more. Labyrinth of Ice is a riveting, engaging read packed with superhuman feats, incredible journeys, amazing discoveries, tension, heartbreak, and constant danger. It is also a true tale — and that makes it a book that demands to be read. Gabino Iglesias ", "On its first album, Nine Times That Same Song, the Swedish band Love Is All demonstrates a remarkable flair for raw, crazed, X-Ray Spex-inspired dance-punk. Josephine Olausson's vocals tear a jagged swath through each track: Her youthful cries bring to mind a punk-rock pep rally, as her insanely energetic supporting players funnel their sound through murky production that adds to the record's mystery and underground feel. Though it seems heavily influenced by past British post-punk, Love Is All's sound feels fresh and essential. The title of \"Make Out Fall Out Make Up\" goes a long way toward describing the band: It's fun yet mysterious, youthful and angry yet hopeful. A straight-up call to arms, the song lets Olausson's screams build with intensity until the whole affair practically shrapnelizes, and she's reduced to yelling the song's chorus over and over again atop a driving drum beat. Comparisons are inevitable — The Go-Go's covering The Slits with help from X-Ray Spex? — but ultimately irrelevant, as Love Is All lets its own sheer boisterousness leave the most lasting impression. Listen to yesterday's 'Song of the Day.'", "Jazz singer Magos Herrera's voice is filled with the contrasts of her native Mexico: It can be honey smooth or smoky rough. On her latest album, Dawn, Herrera collaborates with Javier Limón, a flamenco guitarist from Spain. The result is a gorgeous collection of American and Latin jazz standards, alongside a selection of classic Mexican folk songs. Herrera joined NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro to discuss the album, and the range of influences it includes. Hear the conversation at the audio link on this page. LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST: Jazz singer Magos Herrera's voice is filled with the contrasts of her native Mexico. It can be honey-smooth or smoky-rough. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, \"SKYLARK\") MAGOS HERRERA: (Singing) Skylark, have you anything to say to me? Won't you tell me where my love can be? Is there a meadow in the mist? GARCIA-NAVARRO: On her latest album, Dawn, Magos Herrera collaborates with Javier Limon, a flamenco guitarist from Spain. The result of that pairing is a gorgeous musical tapas of American and Latin jazz standards, mixed in with classic Mexican folk songs. Magos Herrera joins me from our studios in New York City. Welcome to the program. HERRERA: Thank you so much for having me. GARCIA-NAVARRO: What jazz and flamenco have in common is this kind of undercurrent, I think, of longing and pain. Is that why you decided to put them together? HERRERA: That's an interesting way to put it. But the way I see this combination of flamenco spirit and jazz standards - it just sounds good. It's very organic, you know, this longing and this bluesy spirit of trying to reach something that is unreachable or painful in a way. And so I think all these things together are very obvious. GARCIA-NAVARRO: You can really tell when you have this mixture together. How did you and your musical partner on this - guitarist Javier Limon - choose what music you were going to put on this album? It's a very eclectic mix. HERRERA: We both wanted to honor the jazz standard repertoire and it was kind of a challenge to pick or to find standards that I thought could work very organically with the flamenco spirit. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, \"AFRO BLUE\") HERRERA: (Singing) Dream of the land my soul is from. I hear a hand struck on a drum. Elegant boy - beautiful girl dancing for joy... HERRERA: I think the whole idea of putting together the repertoire was to honor the jazz standards, but in a very organic and minimalistic way. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, \"AFRO BLUE\") HERRERA: (Singing) ...Shades of the light cocojil (ph). Rich as the night - afro blue. HERRERA: So I had to look, you know, in the infinity and vast jazz repertoire to find these tunes that I think - that they have this longing spirit that I thought that could work with some flamenco palos - palos flamencos. GARCIA-NAVARRO: Palos flamencos being? HERRERA: You know, like different rhythms within the flamenco repertoire. So I was trying to find these standards that could work with these ideas and also that the spirit of the songs could work with the same spirit of longing and flamenco (laughing) - flamenco passion. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, \"WILD IS THE WIND\") GARCIA-NAVARRO: You did a version of a song by Johnny Mathis. It's called \"Wild is the Wind.\" What does guitarist Javier Limon's playing bring to a standard like this. I mean, his playing actually sounds like it is the wind. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, \"WILD IS THE WIND\") HERRERA: He's an incredible producer, first of all. So he has a very clear vision of where he wants to take the music. And when we were in the studio in Casa Limon in Madrid, he came up with this idea of making it sound as an actual wind story - like you can hear the guitar blowing and carrying us through the song. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, \"WILD IS THE WIND\") HERRERA: (Singing) Satisfy this hungriness. Let the wind blow through your heart, for wild is the wind. You touch me. I hear the sounds of mandolins. You kiss me. And with the kiss the world begins. GARCIA-NAVARRO: It sounds like it was, you know, an intimate collaboration in this sense because you, in the past, have always worked with sort of jazz bands. And this is a much more one-on-one, you and he together in a studio creating music. How was that? HERRERA: It's been great. I mean, it's been a process of getting to know each other as musicians and also, you know, in a personal level as well. And I think that ends up reflecting into the music. And, you know, there's a very strong connection between Spain and Mexico for obvious reasons. By working with Javier I - funny enough - I'm connecting back with my roots in Mexico. So it's an interesting journey. GARCIA-NAVARRO: Speaking of those roots in Mexico, there's a song on the album called \"La Llorona.\" This is a song based on the classic Mexican folk story. It translates to the weeping woman. Let's listen to some of \"La Llorona.\" HERRERA: Let's. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, \"LA LLORONA\") HERRERA: (Singing in Spanish). HERRERA: The melody - it's so well-known. And so in this song you ", "With 2014's Don't Disconnect, Sarah Jaffe took an artistic left turn, shifting her sound from melancholy singer-songwriter fare to fizzier, more mysterious electro-pop. With its catchy, fascinating songs about the parallels between humanity and machinery, Don't Disconnect captures the sound of a performer sliding cleanly into her best artistic identity. On July 7, the Texan will return with Bad Baby, whose title track suggests that Don't Disconnect was no mere detour: The song chugs and pulsates to maximally infectious effect, enhanced by a swirl of synths and smooth guitar lines. In recent years, Jaffe has dabbled in hip-hop and film scoring, and her sonic palette has never seemed broader. \"'Bad Baby' was one of the first songs I wrote/demoed in the months prior to recording the record,\" Jaffe writes via email. \"Although the song's subject matter mirrored some personal dilemma, it was also written at the beginnings of a political joke that went too far. I cannot wait for people to hear the entirety of Bad Baby. ... It was a proud moment finishing it with my bandmates, and then in turn thinking about the physical art that would go behind it. I was lucky enough to work with Lindsey Byrnes — a superb photographer out of L.A. that I was introduced to through a mutual friend — and John Lisle, a longtime friend of mine out of Brooklyn who is an insanely talented illustrator.\" Bad Baby is due out July 7 via Kirtland.", "Iraq UpdateUnited States military leaders are debating how many troops will stay in Iraq when the war winds down by year's end. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says some troops may stay for years past the deadline. Radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr warns that if any U.S. forces remain past 2011, his militias will return to violence. Just last week, tens of thousands of his followers marched in Baghdad to drive that point home. On this Memorial Day, we remember the war in Iraq as it winds down. We'll get an update from New York Times reporter Tim Arango about the debate on how large of a troop presence will remain. The New Republic's Lawrence Kaplan will also be on with host Neal Conan. Kaplan will explain his piece \"Where is the Ticker-Tape Parade?\" Opinion PageDefense Secretary Robert Gates is expected to step down next month. In what may be his final policy speech last week, he leveled a warning to Congress and the White House — deep cuts in the Pentagon's budget will mean both a smaller military, and a diminished U.S. role around the world. In a column at ForeignPolicy.com, Stephen Walt argued, that's not necessarily a bad thing: \"We should be focusing a lot more attention on long-term capacity building than fighting costly wars in places that don't matter very much (like Afghanistan).\" Walt joins host Neal Conan on today's Opinion Page to talk about Gates' speech and the future of the U.S. military. President Obama Honors Fallen Service MembersOn Memorial Day, President Obama honored America's fallen service members and laid a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetary. He then spoke to the crowds gathered there and told the story of one of America's guardians, Travis Manian, and his friend and fellow Naval Academy graduate, Brendan Looney. Memorial Day RemembranceFor most Americans, the last Monday in May marks the conclusion of a long weekend, maybe a family barbecue and the unofficial start of summer. For many, Memorial Day is more significant — it commemorates the men and women who lost their lives in battle. There are many ways in which the fallen soldiers are remembered. In the Southern Appalachian region, families follow the rituals of Decoration Day, the precursor to Memorial Day. Others visit memorials across the nation to lay flowers and pay their respects. Neal Conan talks with folklorist Alan Jabbour, sculptor Rolf Kriken, and Bob Daughtery of Honor Flight Historic Triangle Virginia about how we remember the fallen on Memorial Day. Popular VerbOne three-letter word does much of the heavy lifting in the English language. The little word \"run\" — in its verb form alone — has 645 distinct meanings. Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary, explains the rise of \"run\" and the decline of a formerly rich word, \"set.\"", "Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Genre: Country / Pop Why We're Excited: Remember the summer of 2017, when it seemed like the only songs on pop radio were Bruno Mars' \"That's What I Like\" and Ed Sheeran's \"Shape of You\"? Nick Wayne's \"I've Got You Now\" sounds like one of those songs — not exactly like them, mind you, but like the kind of song that keeps accumulating popularity until it seems to be imprinted on the wind. Call it soul, or pop, or country, or folk — it's a little of all four, really — but its true genre sounds like \"hit.\" SXSW Schedule: March 14: 18th Over Austin (500 N. Interstate 35 Frontage Rd)", "Telepathique is one heck of a sexy band. For 20 minutes, the Sao Paulo-based group turned the intimate space of KEXP's live room into a late-night dance club, and it was all I could do to keep from getting up from my stool during the set and joining the dance party. On Telepathique's terrific new album, Last Time on Earth, the band's particular combination of electronic beats and rhythms with thrashing drums and live guitar sounds both unique and familiar. Live, this seamless blend of styles — house, rock, bossa nova, funk, hip-hop — translates even more energetically. As they perform, vocalist Mylene Pires and DJ/producer Erico Theobaldo (aka DJ Periferico) are insanely fun to watch. Pires shifts between mics like she's swapping dance partners, while Theobaldo jumps back and forth between his DJ setup and the drum kit. He seems to be everywhere at once, scratching vinyl at one moment, turning knobs at another and then banging away on the drums the next. I couldn't take my eyes off of either of them the entire time. By the end of the set, I was ready to join the band and head off to Brazil or Los Angeles, or wherever they were headed next. Originally recorded July 30, 2008. Listen to the previous Favorite Session, or see our full archive.", "In a way that proves surprisingly joyous and endearing, Nick Zammuto knows how to make his fans feel lazy, stunted, uninspired — certainly a lot less quick, by comparison, to jump on a surplus of exciting ideas and actually make them real. For the video of his new song \"IO,\" for example, he built a catapult in his yard at his house in Vermont. Not just a catapult, but a massive catapult that features different component parts made from wood and flings munitions as big as computers and guitars great distances. Musically, Zammuto has taken a similarly crafty, hands-on, spirit-forged approach to sound since his early years as part of the beloved art-music duo The Books. But where that band favored the dictates of electronic experimentation and cerebral collage, Zammuto's new project tacks toward a more conventional premise, with musicians moving strings and banging and pressing on things in a band-like arrangement. Still, in Zammuto's world, convention exists mostly to be upended — or at least tweaked. Anchor, the second album for Zammuto (actually a group with its namesake as leader), opens in a pensive mood; it lays a foreboding bassline and suspicious electronic rhythms beneath ethereal vocals by Daniela Gesundheit of Snowblink. The song is slow and considered (\"Got to get inside my good graces,\" she sings), but the pace takes a more madcap turn in \"Great Equator,\" which spins out figures on electric guitar and weird riffs played on what sounds like a Speak & Spell. \"Hegemony\" evokes the cracked art-rock/R&B band Dirty Projectors with its smart harmonies and its air of complication. (See: the drummer's insane sense of time signature and a chorus that's basically just the word \"hegemony\" sung over and over.) Anchor flits around a great deal, sounding different with more or less every song. Elements of chilly, elegiac electronic music turn to wild-eyed prog-rock, with a yen for propulsion underlying the most assured-sounding highlights (\"Need Some Sun,\" \"IO\"). The range could be a signal of a songwriter still trying to find his way, or it could be the mark of a boundless mind — or, even more intriguing, some engagingly strange mix of both.", "The judge in charge of the case against the alleged Colorado theater shooter said he would warn James Holmes that if he pleads not guilty by reason of insanity he could be drugged for interviews with the state. Denver's ABC affiliate reports: \"Judge William Blair Sylvester issued an order Monday with a list of questions and information he will give Holmes if Holmes enters that plea. ... \"The defense asked Judge Sylvester to tell Holmes in court the consequences of an insanity plea and the judge agreed last week. \"That list includes that Holmes could face a narcoanalytic interview using drugs that are medically appropriate.\" According to the local CBS station, a \"narcoanalytic interview\" is conducted using a \"truth serum,\" usually sodium amytal and pentothol that lowers inhibitions and is thought to lead to a more truthful exchange. The point of using it in Holmes' case is to determine whether or not he was insane when he allegedly opened fire in a crowded movie theater last July, killing 12 people and injuring 70. Judge Sylvester may issue his warnings to Holmes in a hearing tomorrow, where he is expected to enter a plea. Denver's Westword reports that back in January, Holmes' attorneys asked Judge Sylvester some questions about Colorado's insanity defense laws. \"They asked the judge to clarify the meaning of the word 'cooperate' — as in, the law says defendants must cooperate with court-ordered mental examinations — as well as the term 'mental condition.' They also asked the judge to rule that 'state doctors should not be allowed to interrogate Mr. Holmes about the facts of the case' or cause him to incriminate himself, in addition to asking the judge to rule the laws unconstitutional,\" the paper writes. The judge found the laws were constitutional and the ABC affiliate reports that he expanded a bit on what \"cooperation\" means in his decision today. Holmes, the judge will say in case he pleads not guilty, will be observed by \"one or more psychiatrists;\" he will give up \"any claim of confidentiality or privelege with physicians or psychologists;\" and he may face a polygraph exam.", "When Miles Davis returned to performing in the early 1980s, he asked his former bandmate and master composer, Wayne Shorter, to write something for him. What came out was a large ensemble work too unwieldy for Davis, and Shorter put it back on his shelf. \"I asked him for a tune, and he gives me a [expletive deleted] symphony,\" Davis reportedly said at the time. Decades later, Shorter found the piece \"Twin Dragon\" and some other orchestral works he'd originally written for Davis. He gave them to Wallace Roney, a trumpeter who had served as Davis' protege. After researching and rearranging the works, Roney is now touring the repertoire, complete with his jazz group and a wind ensemble. This performance of \"Twin Dragon\" was recorded at the Detroit Jazz Festival, and presented as part of the new public radio project Jazz Night In America. Full of intriguing intervallic leaps with a strong funk undertow, it surely sounds like a Wayne Shorter piece. But then Roney steps up to take his solo, powered by the aggressive swing of drummer Lenny White, and cuts through the din to place his own stamp on this music. Set List \"Twin Dragon\" (Wayne Shorter) Personnel Wallace Roney, trumpet; Bob Belden, conductor; Victor Gould, electric piano; Buster Williams, bass; Lenny White, drums. With William Lucas, trumpet; Rob Smith, trumpet; Mike Spengler, trumpet; Walter White, trumpet; Aaron J. Johnson, trombone; John Rutherford, trombone; Steve Turre, trombone; Mark Abbott, French horn; Bryan Kennedy, French horn; Kurt Bacher, winds; Andrew Bishop, winds; Mike Lee, winds; Donell Snyder, winds; Andrea Brachfeld, flute; David Buck, flute; Jeannette Bittar, oboe; Marcus Schoon, bassoon" ]

[ "Once you take it over, you have to run the blasted thing. Leave running the kingdom to those who enjoy that work, whilst the mages play with magic and create special effects that would make George Lucas call his lawyers." ]

[ "To me it seems you are asking two different questions but I will try to answer them both\n1. How can the substances be addictive:\nI would suggest for the same reason as most drugs work in the real world. They make you feel good, not all in the same way and they do not have the same effect on everyone - at least not immedietly. Perhaps you decide that elemental magic fills the user with feeling of power, then people who crave power and feeling powerfull become even more easily addicted to magic. For the downright chemical reason of why they become addicted I would suggest the same reason as in our world. Magic usage feels good and effect dopamine, seretonin and other hormones production and release into the brain. Addiction is one hell of a thing even without magic.\n2. What effect does magic usage have apart from being addictive:\nBeing addicted to something in the real world can be a real horror by itself if supply is somehow suddenly cut(withdrawal is really unplesant even if your drug of choice is something as mild as coffe). But drug usage often have prolonged side effects besides addictiveness and here is where your idea gets really interesting. I think a good angle is looking at the element or 'type' of magic together with how the user feels. Is the caster conjuring lightning as power feels like it is surging through the body? With prolonged use the veins with litterally burn onto skin much like when lightning strike people in real life (Some images here). But more than just cosmetic it might damage nerves causing twitchiness, loss of control and perhaps even paralysis in the long run. If its healing magic perhaps a low glowing light appear out of the users eyes that damage retinas over time causing reduced vision and blindness.", "Well, I think you basically have the answer from the previous question as well, that the other kingdoms would be wary, but I'll expand on this idea a bit.\n\nBasically, think of it as air superiority. This is even crazier than IRL, because a late medieval kingdom/army has no SAMs or AA batteries to deal with such airborne threats. Their only hope would really be in their mages, or their own dragon/griffin/eagle-terror-monster-hawk riders. I doubt even a legion of archers would realistically stand much of chance at stopping a dragonrider - it'd be like an army of guys trying to shoot down a luftwaffe fighter plane with M1 garands.\n\nAny neighboring kingdom would be faced with quite a predicament - pay fealty and play by their rules, or find a good anti-air weapon, probably in the form of their own flying attackers. Maybe a kingdom who was allied with the sparrows from your other question? Those sparrows wouldn't pose much of a threat against the dragons, but they might knock the riders off their steeds via hilarious amounts of annoyance.\n\nEdit: whoops I forgot to answer about the sovereign dragons.\n\nOkay, well, the answer doesn't really change, though people would be more willing to take action, due to it being less an 'act of war', and more a 'hunt'. Remember, back not even 100 years ago, people were more or less at peace with treating even others who looked just like us but with a different skin tone as though they were subhuman - it wouldn't be much of stretch at all for them to just hunt these 'wild' dragons down because they were 'starting to become a bother'.", "Simple things require very little focus/time\n\n\nSo magic can be used to improve technology. To make and use a research laboratory on any science topic is really easier than in your world than in our. \n\n\n Some are better at it than others\n\n\nI think this is a key point. The weakest men and women would feel useless if they cannot try something else than magic.\nSo I think they would be the best engineers/scientists, eager to prove their values. They would use their little power to increase their potential and making experiences to make technology progress.\n\n\n Spells require energy and mental focus\n\n\n... Where technology doesn't. Take one of the technology improvement that ended the middle age: navigation. If I understand your world, magic can be used to cross large water bodies. But to travel - and transport commodities - through oceans is not at all a \"simple things\", so if it is possible, it would be only by the magic masters of your world.\n\nOn the opposite, a caravel made by engineers (who, once again, could have used magic to make it) would be able to travel as many times as it want with less energy. And on board, sailors can use their own power to make the ship travel faster, or the travel itself more comfortable by making food appear, etc.\n\n\n\nSo finally, I think magic and technology can help each other to progress. They are complementary, as technology is longer to prepare for usage but magic is an energy eater.\n\nSo yes, technology and science shall evolve to modern standards, and probably further.", "In short, Economics.\n\nA world with both magic and science will utilize the most efficient (fastest and/or cheapest) methods of mining, production, etc. So if a forklift (fuel costs, materials to build, training) are more expensive then someone with a \"high school\" level of telekinesis; why would any company use forklifts?\n\nThis may not be 100% true across all industries but it would certainly be the normal procedure; many sword smiths now use modern steel and techniques but some traditional sword smiths still craft things the old fashioned way to preserve traditions and techniques.\n\nIn such a way some difficult things to achieve with magic will still be practiced for the challenge or achievement; but not on global or industrial scale.\n\nFurther since economics is easy to calculate for modern industry/science (material cost + fuel or energy + maintenance) magic would need to be similarly comparable in a \"dollars and cents\" kind of way.\n\nOperate a forklift for 8 hours = 20 dollars of fuel, reduces the \"expected life\" by 1% at the cost of the machine of 1000 dollars = 10 dollars, and a maintenance cost of 1 dollars is a total of 31 dollars.\n\nDoes the magic have material components that add up to equivalent costs? Castings times? A forklift can just \"work\" for 8 hours if the spell takes 1 hour to cast and then lasts for 7 hours you're doing slightly less work.", "This institution trains people in skills which are potentially valuable, or dangerous to the host country. \n\nIf a kingdom/country has a very volatile relationship with a neighbor, yet you train recruits of that nationality who later become their greatest generals you will shoulder the blame for those defeats. \n\nSimilarly, if a hero trained by you ends up becoming a villain your school will face a lot of political and popular opposition. \n\nThis institution will have to survive by one of several means (and they are not mutually exclusive):\n\n1. Political Ties\n\nTheir leader could embrace politics and be sure to become the desired destination of every major noble in the surrounding kingdoms. Since no one would want their sons/daughters to be rejected your institution could become a bit like Switzerland: neutral ground where students of enemy nations study side by side. \n\nThis is not to mean that the political landscape might not become incredibly hostile, and your school might not suffer, but nothing in life is certain. \n\n2. Military Power\n\nYour students are going to be instructed by some of the greatest heroes who have ever lived (former students, of course). These heroes might posses such a reputation, and such powers that local leaders would be afraid to challenge them in the field. \n\nTheir reputation alone might be enough to ensure that no one short of a suicidal nobleman would challenge their independence. \n\nSoldiers might refuse the orders to attack based on their respect, or fear for the heroes in question.\n\n3. Powerful Wards\n\nYour school was established on a magical node, which allowed the mages who built it to weave incredibly powerful protective spells around it. Those you do not wish to find their way to your gates will find themselves turned around and lost in the woods. \n\nOnly the most powerful scrying magic may even locate your general location! An attacking army would find itself seeing various illusions and hallucinations which would drive them mad, or simply confuse them. \n\nConclusion\n\nDepending on the parameters of your universe the school stands a good chance of being able to maintain its independence. Of course, a certain suspension of disbelief is also required. That, or some very convenient circumstances.", "If you could make matter out of dark matter, you would be very useful. For one thing, you would never be hungry, because you could just make food. You would never be unarmed, because you could just create a weapon in your hand.\n\nMaking energy would be even more powerful. There are obviously many military applications for making lightning fire or light. But science and technology could be helped by such abilities as well (imagine a steam engine powered by a fire that will never go out, for example). \n\nI'm not sure if your magic users are powerful enough to make large buildings, but even if they can only make small ones, this would completely change the way cities are built. \n\nCombat would change as well. Imagine creating a wall in front of your enemies: there's a cool trick! Military regiments would have to include magic users, at the least to undo the tricks of other magic users working for the enemy.", "Ultimately, Touma doesn't want everyone to know about the truth of Academy City, where corruption prevails and everyone is just a test subject. If everyone knows the truth, all chaos would break loose.\n\nAnd once people learn about magic, the domino effect happens. \n\nPeople learn about magic -> People learn about the struggle of power (Science vs Magic) -> People learn that Academy City is corrupted beyond belief in every aspect possible -> A big war ensues where everyone chooses a side\n\nJust think about the magic side as a gang that is trying to take control of the government. The government (Academy City) has been sweeping their own dirty deeds under the rug, as well as concealing their opponents. Learning about magic opens the door to everything.", "It is possible that when the troubles came to lyrian the wizards changed their nature so they must obey them since five kingdoms takes place after beyonders it is possible that their form in five kingdoms is their original form and their Syrian form is designed to portray fear", "Best Option I Can Think Of?\nOK - I think I have it. It will take 2 spells, and two metamagic feats.\n\nTrap The Soul\nStilled Silenced Magic Jar\n\nFirst she procures the gems for Magic Jar, and a separate gem for the Trap the Soul spell. She puts the gems into the throne, making sure the Trap the Soul gem is touching the Magic Jar gems, so she will know exactly where her Magic Jar gems are when it comes time to cast that spell. Then she casts Trap the Soul on trapping herself in the Trap the Soul gem.\n\nBy casting magic jar, you place your soul in a gem or large crystal (known as the magic jar), leaving your body lifeless. \nTo cast the spell, the magic jar must be within spell range and you must know where it is, though you do not need line of sight or line of effect to it.\n\nHer plan would be to ride out the cataclysm in the Gem using Trap the Soul. Then take over someone else's body with Magic Jar, and have them smash the Trap the Soul gem, bringing her back in corporeal form. She would only have so many Magic Jar spells memorized though, which would make her very desperate. You can assume she did the experimentation beforehand to make sure her plan would work.\nThere is no word about if you can cast silent stilled spells while soul trapped, but why not? And I think it is reasonable to further assume if the Trap the Soul gem is touching the Magic Jar gem then she would be able to use her material focus for Magic Jar. Depending on how loose you want to play it, the Trap the Soul gem could be anywhere really, but somewhere within walking distance of the duration of the Magic Jar spell makes the most sense. She would still want to keep the Magic Jar gems in a place where they will be found, as possessing someone is part of her plan.\nThis would make for a motivated NPC encounter. Tell the possessed PC they get an in game benefit if they get the gem smashed - say a special feat or extra xp, then let them play the NPC. Her soul sole goal when possessing an NPC would be to smash that damn Trap The Soul gem. Maybe the possessed PC just silently leaves the party to go smash the gem in another room. It also makes sense in game. With the removal of permanent mind switching aspect of Magic Jar, there is not much point to her possessing anyone, unless she wants them to do something - like smash the gem she is trapped in.\nPathfinder Option\nHave a Spirit Jar built into the throne\nMaking the Throne a Creature Option\nIntelligent magic items can be considered creatures. So if the throne were an intelligent magic item, True Mind Switch and other psionic shenanigans would work.\n\nIntelligent items can actually be considered creatures because they have Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores. Treat them as constructs. Intelligent items often have the ability to illuminate their surroundings at will (as magic weapons do); many cannot see otherwise.\n\nOr consider this non psionic option:\nIt would take 5 spells, one from the Spell Compendium, and two Metamagic Feats.\n\nShe gets a Permanent Magic Fang cast on herself. Note: Any method of getting a permanent magical effect will work.\n\nShe casts Body of War on herself. She now has the construct type and is an intelligent magic item. Note: Any method of getting the construct type will work (prestige classes, race, grafts, or templates for example)\n\nSomeone (or her if not using Body of War) casts Polymorph Any Object on her to turn her into an intelligent magical throne (that has sensors can read her spellbook to relearn Magic Jar as needed, see into the throne room, and get line of effect to the Magic Jar gems), incorporating the Magic Jar gems into her new form. Since she is of the same kingdom, type, size, and intelligence this is permanent.\n\nTo gain a new body, she can now cast a Stilled Silenced Magic Jar on people who enter the Throne Room.\n\nBy casting magic jar, you place your soul in a gem or large crystal (known as the magic jar), leaving your body lifeless. Then you can attempt to take control of a nearby body, forcing its soul into the magic jar. You may move back to the jar (thereby returning the trapped soul to its body) and attempt to possess another body.", "Terry Brooks's Magic Kingdom for Sale -- Sold.\n\n \n\n\n The novel begins with Ben Holiday, a trial lawyer from Chicago, lamenting the loss of his wife and unborn child in a car accident. He finds an advertisement in an upscale Christmas catalog claiming to offer a magical kingdom for one million dollars by a man named Mr. Meeks. Although skeptical, Ben pursues the offer out of a desperate need to start a new life.\n \n Ben receives a magical medallion and is transported through a swirling mist to the kingdom of Landover. He learns that Landover is a world that connects many other worlds such as Earth. It is surrounded by the Fairy Mist wherein reside creatures of Fairy that created Landover and guard the passages to these worlds. Unfortunately, he finds it not exactly as described. He soon finds that Landover has not had a true king in twenty years. The son of the last king did not wish to take up the throne and escaped with the court wizard, Meeks, to Earth. They have been selling the throne to dozens of people in the past two decades, but no one has been able to face the challenge and successfully complete so much as a few months as king. Further, kings of Landover used to be protected by a magical knight called the Paladin, but he has not been seen since the last king's death.\n\n\nIt is a series. NeoDarwin was kind enough to provide a quote for the sleeping potion:\n\n\n \"How could I have slept for a week?\" he asked finally. Questor steepled his hands before his face. \"Do you re-member the wine that you drank—the wine I provided?\" Ben nodded. \"Well, I added a dash of sleeping tonic to its content so that you would be assured of a good night's rest.\"He gestured with his hands. \"It was in the magic I used, just an inflection of the voice and a twist.\" He demonstrated. \"The trouble was, I overdid it. The dash became a thimbleful. So you have been asleep for a week.\" \"Just a little mistake of the magic, is that it?\" Ben was flushed with anger.", "Might this be Sorcerer's Legacy by Janny Wurts, published in 1989?\n\nIt is a standalone book. It was published around the time you suggested. And both the cover and this plot summary from bookswithoutanypictures.com seem to match your description very well:\n\nThe basic premise is this: a woman named Elienne has sex with her husband. She’s pregnant, but doesn’t know it yet. The next morning, an invading army kills her husband, and Elienne is captured and thrown into a cell. She’s then visited by a wizard with an unusual story. He is traveling from across time and space because in his kingdom, a prince has to have an heir by a certain age in order to take the throne, otherwise he is killed and the next in line takes over. An evil wizard sacrificed a virgin to curse Prince Darion with infertility. Because Elienne is so early in her pregnancy, it shouldn’t be detectable by magic, and so if she finds Darion and sleeps with him quickly, she should be able to pass of her husband’s child as his. And since Elienne’s current situation is hopeless, she decides to go along with the wizard’s plan, messed up though it may be.\nAnd so Elienne is carried away from her home through the icy plains of magic. The wizard who transported her through time is killed in the process, and so Elienne is left on her own to navigate court politics in a foreign kingdom, and to try to keep herself, prince Darion, and her child from getting killed in a plot to seize the throne. Can Elienne, a total transplant to this life, manage to battle an evil wizard to ensure Darion’s succession? And can she do it while maintaining her resolve not to develop feelings for him?", "Consequences.\n\nThat something is possible within a system doesn't mean it's a good idea. You can drive your car 180MPH on public roads (if the speedometer labeling is accurate), but if you do you'll soon be getting used to a bicycle. You can subsist on nothing but Big Macs and Coke for a year, but you may face medical problems. You can make a deal with the devil for great reward in this world, but you'll probably find yourself on the receiving end of an exploit and you'll be handing your soul over much sooner than you planned.\n\nIn the case of your magic system, then, the following could be used to prevent use of the loophole (or make for interesting stories when people do it anyway):\n\n\nan authority that will do something bad to you if you try it\na great personal cost (health, sanity, related magical powers, a curse, whatever)\na correction factor in the magic system itself; magical forces will compensate for the loophole exploit in a way that will make the exploiter unhappy", "Probably because Snape was, like Dumbledore and Voldemort, incredibly smart and willing to tread off the beaten path. It's not that uncommon to invent new spells/magic things: Fred and George do it all the time for their magic shop. No offense to Fred and George, but if they can do it, Snape definitely can. Hermione doesn't do it because inventing new things/using untested spells is not approved by the ministry of magic (quote from HBP):\n\n&quot;So you just decided to try out an unknown, handwritten incantation and see what would happen?&quot;\n&quot;Why does it matter if it's handwritten?&quot; said Harry, preferring not to answer the rest of the question.\n&quot;Because it's probably not Ministry of Magic approved,&quot; said Hermione. &quot;And also,&quot; she added, as Harry and Ron rolled their eyes, &quot;because I'm starting to think this Prince character was a bit dodgy.&quot;\n\nInventing spells is also dangerous: Luna's mother died inventing a spell (from Order of the Phoenix: &quot;'Yes,' said Luna simply, 'my mother. She was a quite extraordinary witch, you know, but she did like to experiment and one of her spells went rather badly wrong one day.&quot;). So you have to be willing to take risks and bend the rules, which isn't something that Hermione does often.\nAs for the specific process that is used to invent new spells/magic thingies: we never actually got a description of this process. This makes sense because the Harry Potter books focus on Harry Potter's perspective, and Harry never shows that much interest in the theory of magic. I'm sure if the books focused on Fred and George, we would get much more information about this.", "Like every other person from Edolas, Mystogan does not have innate magic. If he did, he would have been expelled from Edolas like the Exceed were. Instead, he gets his magic power from magic items, primarily the large number of staves he carries on his back. It is possible that he obtains these items from Earthland magic shops, however three things point to this not being the case:\n\n\nThe magic shop we see in the first episode only carries novelties, such as something to change the color of clothing. There are powerful lacrimas later in the series, so we can't draw a definite conclusion on whether the shops would have the powerful sort of things Mystogan uses.\nEdolas's magic items are more advanced than Earthland's. When Natsu's group went to Edolas, they marveled at some of the things they saw and mentioned this. Edolas even has a mechanized dragon. \nMystogan's magic pills. These unusual pills allow Earthlanders to use their magic in Edolas. There wouldn't seem to be a reason for these to even exist in Earthland, so it would be strange if shops were selling them.\n\n\nThese three reasons lend support to the idea that Mystogan at least partially creates his magic items himself using his Edolas knowledge. And if this is the case, it might explain why his magic power is so great even though he has no innate magic.\n\nOn the other hand, Jellal was able to imitate Mystogan's magic at the Grand Magic Games, so maybe one can obtain those magic items in Earth Land. Though if so, it begs the question why there aren't more S-class wizards. Jellal's imitation could possibly be explained by Earthland's magic advancing in the seven years, or by Jellal somehow obtaining the staves used by Mystogan.", "I would suggest that your wife and yourself schedule a vacation and plan out the itinerary, make it something that you guys absolutely want to do and then invite the grandparents after all the plans are made. \n\nSend them a message that says something like, \"We are planning on going to Orlando, FL from 01-Aug to 06-Aug and we will be staying at the Holiday Inn. We are going to spend 2 days in the Magic Kingdom, 1 day in Epcot, 1 day at Animal Kingdom, and then fly home. \n\nDon't give them room to plan outside of what you want to do. Tell them that if they would like to join you and your family that it will cost $1500 per person based on the plan and they can either choose to join you or not.", "Back into it.\n\nFortunately you are making the whole thing up for a story! So:\n\n1: What sort of government does your world have?\n\n2: What sort of employees would that type of government treasure in real life? What kind of work does the government use people for? Spying, making things, diplomacy, figuring things out etc.\n\n3: Make up commons whose skills lend themselves to those types of employment.\n\n4: There will be other commons (like maybe glass molding person) who is not of particular value to the government but who might be valued by industry. Have them too, because of course they would be around.\n\n5: Some commons will have a power which is of no practical use. In his Xanth series where everyone has a power, Piers Anthony called this \"spot on the wall\" type of magic - the power to make a spot appear on the wall.", "because you see multiple people run out of magic power throughout the show and she won't want to overdo it and be so exhausted not to move like Erza in the edolas arc and she might have finished the tartaros people off fast or with help", "There's no reason to believe that Bhishma would try to stop Kamsa. You can ask the same question about a million different people: why didn't Bhishma kill Kamsa, Shishupala, Jarasandha, Narakasura, etc. And why didn't Drupada kill any of them, and why didn't the Pandavas kill any of them (other than Bhima killing Jarasandha)? It's not the dharma of a Kshatriya to go around the world killing all the evildoers. The dharma of a Kshatriyas involves enforcing Dharma within your own kingdom, and possibly going outside your kingdom to enforce Dharma if war is justified by Vedic law in a particular circumstance. \n\nJarasandha was a bad guy for a long time, and he even drove Krishna and the Yadavas out of Mathura, but the Pandavas never tried to fight him during any of that. It was only at the time of Yudishtra's Rajasuya Yagna that it was justified for Bhima to go to Magadha and challenge Jarasandha to a battle.", "One obvious solution is that there's a different way to use magical talent. Rather than doing it in a wizardly style, sufficient dedication in physical training, or craft training, lets you start to focus the world's ambient magic on other activities. \n\nFictional examples include the Physical Adepts of the Shadowrun TTRPG and the gifted smiths of Michael Scott Rohan's Winter of the World novels.", "I would set aside the 'celebrity' aspect of it. They're just people having conversations in a public place. It doesn't make them special, just popular.\n\nNow, presuming it's an open venue and you're not blatantly eavesdropping I find it usually acceptable to politely chime in if I can offer commentary or perspective based on a specific topic in the conversation. Things like the weather or food, not so much...\n\nFor instance, recently I was in line for Pirates of the Caribbean at Magic Kingdom and the group ahead of me was debating the which Big Thunder Mountain was better, Disneyland or Magic Kingdom. Me: \"Big Thunders? The version at Hong Kong beats them both because it has a reverse element.\" Very important, it's Big Grizzly Mountain, but the same theme. This lead to an enthusiastic conversation about the parks for the rest of the line.\n\nYou'll find the same situation, polite interjections, at all sorts of places, cruises, fan-cons, tech conferences, airplanes. I can't imagine book signings would be much different.\n\nIf they don't want you in the conversation, it will be immediately obvious.", "\"Daughter of Regals\" by Stephen R Donaldson. It's in the short story collection of the same name.\n\n\n\nThe plot is pretty much as you described.\n\n\n It tells of a young woman called Chrysalis, the nominal ruler of three kingdoms who is about to come of age. To claim her throne, Chrysalis must exhibit the magical abilities of her ancestors the Regals - who combined the attributes of human men and mythical creatures - or else her dominions will collapse into civil war. While the kings of the individual kingdoms plot against her, Chrysalis struggles to release the magic inherent within her and claim her inheritance.", "If the ability to do magic is very rare, then having it could provide great income potential and could make someone highly sought-after as a mate. Avenues for wealth include wall-street mogul, superstar athlete, dominating your way to the top of a Fortune-500 company, etc.\n\nA few years ago, a professional basketball player claimed to have had sex with about 10,000 different women, based on his estimate of 3 women/day over a 10-year career. Some people are skeptical of this claim, but it is at least within the realm of posssibilty.\n\nAssuming a fertility of about 10% (magic could help with this), and an income somewhere over $\\$$100 million/year, a mage could potentially sire and support a thousand children in a decade. As for desirability, \"Hey baby, have sex with me and if you get pregnant I'll give you $\\$$100 thousand per year in child support\" may not be the best pick-up line, but it would work often enough.\n\nIf magic ability is inherited via a dominant mutated gene, then about 1/2 of those children would have magical ability. That's 500 new mages this one guy could sire, per decade.\n\nSo, while magic ability might spread slowly at first, eventually that one guy would come along. And, of his thousands of sons, many would try to do the same. Magic ability could easily go from \"very rare\" to millions or billions in a few generations.\n\nOnce magical ability were very common, we would then enter the long phase known as \"the decline of the muggles\". People without magical ability would be seen as inferior and would make less desirable mates. They would have much lower earning potential and would often end up in poverty. Even if no one actively tried to kill them off, society might change so that magical ability became essential to survival. Eventually, the muggle gene would disappear.\n\nBut this would take a long time. If a population has a fraction 1/X of its people who possess a single copy of a recessive-lethal allele (like untreated hemophilia), then the number will naturally decrease to 1/(X+1) in the next generation. It would literally take billions of generations for a specific allele to completely disappear. The only way it would go away faster would be if genetic testing could identify it and people actively selected against it.\n\nThings get interesting and weird if the magic ability gene were dominant, but two copies of it were lethal. The number of mages would increase to about 2/3 of the population and it would stabilize there. Even if muggle babies had low survivability, they would still continue to make up 1/3 of births.\n\nOr if carrying a double-magic-gene baby tended to be lethal to the mother as well as the baby, then no woman with magic ability would dare to mate with another mage. Marriages would always be mage-muggle, and the population would stabilize at 50% mages, 50% muggles. This strikes me as a fascinating scenario.", "I think that it's an interesting addition to a world, but could use some refinement. I'd focus on three things: adding flavor and color to the drug beyond the pure mechanical effects of it, refining the addiction mechanism, defining what the drug does to an existing magic user, and defining how the drug influences the world.\n\nFlavor: how to roleplay a drug user\n\nI think it may be worth defining some additional psychological effects of the drug. Does it feel like the user has a deeper connection to the mysteries of the universe, or is it a power rush that makes the user feel invincible? Describing to the player how their character feels when they use this may help with immersion into the game, and could better reflect exactly why this drug is addictive.\n\nThis applies both to using the drug and to withdrawal from the drug. If a player feels weak and powerless, that's a good hook to using more of the drug, if they're willing to roleplay it. \n\nThere could also be an associated mechanism to reflect these changes. Perhaps the player receives a boost to their charisma and a penalty to their wisdom to reflect the massive boost of reckless energy they gain. Perhaps they receive a boost to their wisdom and penalties to intelligence and charisma to represent the zen-like trance they enter.\n\nThe mechanics of addiction\n\nRarely are real-life drugs as simple as \"do this drug and get addicted.** If they were, people wouldn't do them. If you drug has an effect of \"you probably won't get addicted the first time,\" or \"you might want to use more, but the strong-willed can easily quit,\" addiction isn't as much of a barrier to the first-time user.\n\nMechanically, this could be represented by a low constitution or will save to resist addiction when using the drug that increases as the player uses more of it. Differing levels of addiction could be represented by how much the player fails a save by. If the effects of using the drug are really nice for an adventuring party, this sort of mechanism could make it far easier for a player to justify \"just this once\" or \"only a little bit\" behavior. This is far closer to the pattern of use exhibited by many real world addicts, and also makes it easier for your player to slip into bad habits. What starts as \"just this once\" can easily become a regular pattern when the players use the drug seemingly without consequence and start to rely on its effects.\n\nHow it affects magic users\n\nThe drug could also be interesting if it not only grants the ability to use magic, but also boosts the magical prowess of magic users. Additional power could be a hugely tempting reason for mages to use the drug, and could also represent a cultural difference between groups of mages. Perhaps the \"good\" law-and-order mages find it reprehensible and shun its users (though secretly the grand abbot is hooked on the stuff), while the evil mages venerate its use. Perhaps the law-and-order kingdom publicly bans and reviles it, but recognizes that it can give its mages an edge in battle and supplies the army with the drug.\n\nHow it affects the world\n\nA lot of these sorts of flavor effects will affect the world and how different groups see the drug and drug users. In an area with few magic users, drug use could offer the only means of resisting powerful foes. In poor communities, drug use could offer enough magical power to break the cycle of poverty. Perhaps using the drug just feels really good and there's a black market for that purpose, just like in the real world.\n\nEspecially if this drug isn't a new thing, there's likely to be built-up attitudes of permissiveness and revulsion associated with drug use that differ in different communities. The more you can weave a compelling narrative integrating this drug into the world, the more your players will buy into the story that surrounds it.", "I think the concept you are looking for is Tacit Knowledge (aslo known as implicit knowledge).\n\nThe main reason that users cannot articulate what they want, is that they do not have any conscious access to the knowledge they have acquired over the many years of practice. That’s why an iterative process is needed to bring the tacit knowledge on users awareness, so that they can articulate it.\n\nDefinition from wikipedia :\n\n\n Tacit knowledge (as opposed to formal, codified or explicit knowledge)\n is the kind of knowledge that is difficult to transfer to another\n person by means of writing it down or verbalizing it. For example,\n stating to someone that London is in the United Kingdom is a piece of\n explicit knowledge that can be written down, transmitted, and\n understood by a recipient. However, the ability to speak a language,\n knead dough, use algebra, or design and use complex equipment\n requires all sorts of knowledge that is not always known explicitly,\n even by expert practitioners, and which is difficult or impossible to\n explicitly transfer to other users.", "This limiter is in place because high-end mages' powers become so powerful that they can present a danger simply by being unrestrained.\n\nWhen a group of mages are in close proximity, or are working together, they must be limited. Because of their high amount of power, this much energy (mana) in one area would endanger the fabric of time-space (the series's equivalent of space–time).[Nanoha Wiki] So consider, if mages were to be allowed to remove these limiters without consent of the TSAB, they may do it unscrupulously, which could lead to unpredictable damage.\n\nThis is compared to a parallel in real life, where incredibly powerful weapons are sealed away for emergency; not every soldier on the battlefield has a rocket launcher because that would just lead to destruction (and high costs!).\n\n\n This is similar to how a normal organization is restricted from carrying excessive weaponry during normal missions, only using such equipment in times of emergency.[DVD Booklet translation]\n\n\nTV Tropes calls this Awesomeness Is Volatile, stating that \"they'd run the risk of having their sheer combined power potentially warping the fabric of reality\" and \"[Hayate, Nanoha, and Fate] alone pretty much constitute an army\".", "I think I found what you are looking for:\n\nAccording to the wiki:\n\n\n \"At the start of his journey to Volantis Tyrion Lannister takes the opportunity to have a closer look at the Valyrian road that he and Illyrio are traveling on. It runs as straight as a spear to the horizon. It is a ribbon of fused stone raised half a foot above the ground to allow rainfall and snowmelt to run off its shoulders. Tyrion muses that unlike the muddy tracks that pass for roads in the Seven Kingdoms, the Valyrian roads are wide enough for three wagons to pass abreast, and neither time nor traffic mar them. They still endure, unchanging, four centuries after Valyria itself had met its Doom.\"\n\n\nThe roads are made from fused stone that is built in a way that allows rain and snow to quickly run off the sides.\n\nWe can reason that this is a huge factor in its preservation and its condition.\n\nAs for if there is magic involved, the wiki isn't clear, but according to another page of the wiki Valyrian steel is magical. So there is a possibility some magic was used to create the roads.", "Throughout the story, it's very clear that one \"power\" is responsible for the events occurring to Manawydon and his friends:\n\n\n 'God knows,' said the other 'your counsel to go into the caer is not good. We did not see this caer here ever before. If you would follow my counsel, you would not go in. Whoever put enchantment on this land, has also made the caer appear here.'\n\n\n(All quotes are from the source cited in the question)\n\nPart of the enchantment is that the character's land becomes deserted, and when the bishop (and the priest and the scholar) visit, \"It had been all of seven years since he had seen man or beast - other than the four people who had been together (until two had been lost).\" Since the visitors are concerned with saving one of the creatures responsible for the devastation of Manawydon's land, it doesn't take a genius to guess that they had something to do with the other enchantments.\n\nDon't forget that there's intuition going on here: these characters are in a magical setting and are familiar with magic.", "\"Magic\" or \"Super-natural\" is just another name for \"Things we do not know how they work, yet\". Imagine we bring a polio vaccine 1000 years back in time. Behold!! I place two drops of this clear liquid on your child's tongue... and now it cannot become afflicted by polio. To them, it is absolute magic, because they do not know how this thing works. For us, it is mundane, because we have a clear understanding of how it works. And the reason we know this, is science.\n\nScience is actually kind of easy. It is a process designed to find out how things work. Note this specific wording: how it works. Not \"why it works\" or \"what is it\". \n\nTo take a salient example: gravity. How does gravity work? Well it is easy: it makes stuff fall to the ground, that we have known for a long time. Why does gravity work that way? We have no clue. What is gravity exactly? Still no clue. But gravity is not magic to us, because we know how it works.\n\nScience works in the following steps: \n\n\nObserve. What is happening? Can you find any patterns or recurring themes? Try to write down what the pattern is.\nHypothesize. Form an idea of how this thing works. You want to arrive at a situation where you say \"If we have these conditions, and we do that particular thing, we should get this specific result\". \nExperiment. Set up the conditions, do that particular thing, and record the result. \nVerify. Compare the expected result with what you actually got. Do they match?! \n\n4 a. If \"Yes\", success!!! Publish your hypothesis, what you did in the experiment, and your results. Ask others to repeat the experiment. If they get the same result, go to point 5. \n\n4 b. If \"No\"... try to figure out what went wrong. Was your experiment wrong? Or is your hypothesis bad? Start over from point 1. \nEnjoy fame and recognition for making something that was Magic &amp; Mysterious™ into something understandable and mundane. \n\n\nMagic and supernatural things suddenly appearing in our world would not be exempt from this process... it is how we would go about trying to figure out how they work. And unless these things are completely chaotic and random, we would eventually figure out what the patterns are.\n\nEDIT: What would the implication be for \"modern science\"? Well, in short where would be lots and lots of work to do. These suddenly appearing things means a so far unknown and unexplored area of reality has suddenly opened up. Scientists everywhere would be overjoyed and thrilled because this is something entirely new. And with a bit of luck, it may even explain some of the old stuff better. \n\nWhat does it mean for the knowledge that we already have, and that we have gained through \"modern science\"? What if — for instance — there are gravity-manipulating creatures/things/entities/things-that-defy-description? Does that mean our old knowledge of gravity is suddenly null and void? \n\nNot at all. The only thing it means is that all our current knowledge gets a footnote. What used to be \"This is how gravity works\" becomes \"This is how gravity works (unless some magical thing comes along and messes with it, because then all bets are off until we figure them out)\".", "From what i remember of the Translation of the game Kiritsugu introduced himself as a Sorcerer. to be a Sorcerer recognized by the Magic Association one need to have wielded one of the True Magics.\n\nIn Tsukihime, Aoko introduces herself as a Sorceress which she is because she wielded the 5th, however at the time of the original Fate/Stay Night release the Nasuverse wasn't as defined as it was today. While the game explains Thaumaturgy, Magecraft and True Magic (including the difference between Medea's and Rin's Magic) a lot of the information and inner workings of the Nasuverse (along with terminology) comes from the Fate/Complete Works Books, so at the time a Sorcerer/Sorceress was probably just a term to make a Magus seem more important before a majority of the True Magics were defined.\n\nAlso, in the wiki on Magecraft it says:\n\n\n However, modern Magecraft remains far inferior from that of the past, so much that someone like Medea, who comes from the Age of Gods when Magecraft was much more powerful, would seem like a sorcerer to the eyes of a modern magus, even though what she can do is not really Magic. \n\n\nTaking that into example, Shirou, a child who knew nothing of Magecraft would see Kiritsugu, who does use it, in the same way a modem Magus would see a Magus from the the Age of Gods.\n\nAlso, rather than having to explain the difference between Magic and Magecraft later on Kiritsugu probably figured it be easier if he had just said he was a wizard, since both a sorcerer and a wizard are \"users of magic\" this probably in japanese would be mahoutsukai either way. This is another reason why Rin disliked how Kiritsugu trained Shirou (even though Kiritsugu didn't actually do anything), because Shirou doesn't know the difference.\n\nAnother reason for all of this however as stated by Krazer in the comments is that we see the scene of Shirou though Shirou remembering the events of when he met Kiritsugu (we can tell this though the use of descriptive text of how Shiro feels). Shiro's idealized concept of Kiritsugu may have influence the scene, this would ring true of Shiki in Tsukihime aswell when he first met Aoko and he \"remembers\" Aoko refer to herself as a Sorceress when they first met when he was a child (and in hospital much like Shirou) while in the Eclipse Ending Shiki makes no mention of Aoko being a Sorceress.", "Nope. At least there doesn't appear to be any evidence of any such protections. Why would there be?\n\nThe protections we know of include many of the ones that you mention in the question.\n\n\nMuggles cannot physically see Hogwarts. If they come near it they just see a ruin and a 'keep out' sign.\nHogwarts is unplottable. It won't appear on Google Maps or any form of atlas or street map.\nElectronic devices don't function properly in the vicinity of Hogwarts due to all the magic.\nHogwarts is pretty much in the middle of nowhere (as is implied by the amount of time it takes to travel there from London and the fact that it has an exclusively magical village just down the road. The Ministry would make sure that there were no Muggle dwellings nearby).\nThere were some additional protective charms placed on it during Half-Blood Prince but these were basically only there to prevent an invasion of Death Eaters.\n\n\nA number of questions present themselves in relation to your theoretical Muggle friend.\n\nHow did he get his hands on nuclear weapons? I mean, really. He'd surely be on the radar of the Muggle authorities (perhaps in more ways than one...).\n\nHow does he know about Hogwarts? Even if he lived nearby (and, as I say, I think it's unlikely that the Ministry allowed Muggles to live in the vicinity of Hogwarts), how would he come to know of Hogwarts? He can't see it. Any revelation of magic - by a stray student on a Hogsmeade outing, for instance - would be dealt with by the Ministry anyway. He'd be Obliviated immediately in line with standard procedure. If he were related to a wizard then he may know of Hogwarts, depending on how closely related he were. The Dursleys clearly know of Hogwarts but their knowledge doesn't stretch much further than 'there's a magical school somewhere that our relative goes to'. I'm sure the Ministry deems the risk that a relative of a Hogwarts student is a wannabe mass murderer is (very, very) low.\n\nWhy would those people who realistically do have nuclear weapons attack Hogwarts? The Ministry of Magic maintains good relations with their Muggle counterparts. There would be no reason for the Muggle government to launch an unprovoked attack on a school in any case.\n\nWhy would the Ministry take any steps to prevent this circumstance from happening? As I say, the Ministry wouldn't be expecting any sort of attack from any Muggle. They certainly wouldn't expect an attack from a lone Muggle, nuclear or otherwise. Add in the natural sense of wizarding superiority (aka arrogance) and you'll quickly see why the wizarding community wouldn't believe that Muggles are capable of causing them any real harm.\n\n\n There is another reason for most wizards' avoidance of Muggle devices, and that is cultural. The magical community prides itself on the fact that it does not need the many (admittedly ingenious) devices that Muggles have created to enable them to do what can be so easily done by magic. To fill one's house with tumble dryers and telephones would be seen as an admission of magical inadequacy.\n Technology (Pottermore)\n\n\nSo, yes, assuming this one-in-a-gazillion circumstance presented itself, there's no reason why the Muggle wouldn't be able to drop the payload.", "TL;DR: To be honest, I don't see anything too suspicious about it. Remember that voting is highly subjective. Reasons why it's probably normal and why you shouldn't worry:\n\n\nThe votes occurred on different dates, sometimes days apart from each other.\nYou asked a lot of questions (over 170). You will probably have to live with the fact that you might receive the occasional downvote.\nThe reputation loss is marginal. It takes three downvotes (-6) for every upvote (+5) for you to actually lose reputation.\nYou haven't given an answer yet &ndash; if you have something useful you want to share or anything you can help with, a good answer will get you 10 points per upvote :)\nFinally: If there really was one user being hostile against your account, you would have received much more sequential downvotes\n\n\n\n\nTo help you understand though, let's take a closer look at those questions. Please don't take it personally, I am just trying to explain why it's probably not as suspicious as you might think.\n\n\nXML, XHTML, SGML and HTML, \n“Processor register” and “IO register”,\nWhat determines endianness\n\n\nWhy have you received downvotes on those? Well, ever since voting on questions became \"free\" for the user casting the vote (i.e. by not losing any reputation), it became easy to downvote a question.\n\nOne of the reasons for doing so (it says so in the downvote button's caption):\n\n\n \"This question does not show research effort\".\n\n\n... which can be argued is the case in some of these questions. Note that I did not downvote any of your questions, but other users might think they fall under that category. Also, take a look at the How to Ask guide:\n\n\n If you ask a vague question, you’ll get a vague answer.\n\n\n... and of course (emphasis mine)\n\n\n Have you thoroughly searched for an answer before asking your question? Sharing your research helps everyone. Tell us what you found and why it didn’t meet your needs. This demonstrates that you’ve taken the time to try to help yourself, it saves us from reiterating obvious answers\n\n\n... and, last but not least, from the FAQ:\n\n\n You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face\n\n\nTo summarize, if a user reading one of these questions thought they might not meet the quality standards or guidelines of the FAQ, you'll get a downvote. It happens.\n\n\n\nNow let's see the other two you've mentioned:\n\n\nkill all processes of a user except a few in linux\nText processing: convert text of table of content into djvu bookmark format?\n\n\nFor those, it's not that obvious anymore why somebody would downvote those. In fact, I upvoted your second question because it's a valid and practical one, based on an actual problem, and it might also be useful to others. The other one, well, you will have to live with that.\n\nI believe it has happened to all of us. For example, on this question I got downvotes on both the question and my own answer &ndash; I still haven't figured out why. But it's nothing to worry about.\n\nHope that helps!", "Similar to ltmauve's answer, what if the tears only allowed energy to pass through. Any physical/solid object traveling through the tear will disrupt it, causing the magician to have to re-stabilize it or allow it to dissipate. I think this could add some interesting combat techniques as magicians try to make the tears as small or hidden as possible so they can't be disrupted, while non-magicians will try to search for and hit the tear with something (rocks, arrows, swords, etc...).\n\nYou could even make the amount of disruption proportional to the size/number of items disrupting the tear, so a single small rock or arrow is trivial to re-stabilize, but a boulder or stream of arrows will make it nearly impossible to stabilize the tear before it dissipates.\n\nEdit from comments:\nThis is also a good explanation of why non-magicians would be on a battlefield at all, since it would otherwise just turn into who has more/better magicians. Non-magicians are present on the battlefield to protect their magicians' tear(s) and to disrupt the tears of enemy magicians." ]

[ "When water and dish soap aren’t enough to clean your burnt copper cookware or anything else made of copper, boiling water mixed with a cleaning agent will help loosen the crud before scrubbing." ]

[ "There's no way around it - copper will tarnish without the proper attention. Therefore, if you use or display copper kettles or coffee pots, you'll need to clean them from time to time.", "Copper jewelry, even pieces that have been lacquered, can tarnish over time because of exposure to sulfides in the air, as well as humidity. Luckily, copper jewelry is easy to clean with household products.", " Cleaning copper can be done in a number of ways, mostly using what you have at home already. Here are some of the most preferred methods. ", "There are five types of pots, pans, and skillets that can be reused after cleaning up old baked-on grime. Copper, stainless steel, enameled, glass, and iron are the five that are reusable and safe to clean.", "If you want to add a rustic or antique look to copper jewelry or household items, add a patina to copper by oxidizing the copper yourself without buying an expensive kit from the crafts store.", "When copper reacts with the oxygen in the air, copper oxide (CuO) is formed, giving the copper a greenish color which some people desire for its classical look.", "For routine maintenance and cleaning, always hand-wash your copper mugs. If you need to remove tarnish from your mugs, there are a variety of ways to do this.", "After using them often, copper bottom pots become discolored, and lose their shine. They should be cleaned often, to protect them, and keep them looking brand new.", "Have some tarnished metal that needs to be cleaned and polished? Nevr-Dull by Eagle One is fairly inexpensive and cleans and polishes many metals including aluminium, copper, pewter, silver, chromium, nickel, zinc, brass, and gold.", "Exposure to air can cause your copper to oxidize and tarnish with a blue-green patina. Many common cleaners leave this patina untouched. Prep to remove oxidation by verifying the metal item is really copper and checking for the presence of lacquer.", "Selling copper tends to be more lucrative than selling other kinds of scrap metal. If you have access to scrap copper at construction or renovation sites or at electronics or appliance repair shops, consider selling the copper for a profit.", "If you have ever seen a bluish color on a penny, it is likely copper acetate. This substance forms fine blue crystals from copper. You can create copper acetate in a lab setting or at home.", "Copper is a valuable metal with many uses. Because of its high demand and versatility, many things that used to be made of solid copper are now being made of other materials and simply plated (or covered) with copper on the outside.", "Copper is a transition metal that readily conducts heat and electricity, making it a valuable substance in the construction of numerous items. Copper is melted either as ingots for storage or sale, or for casting another object, such as jewelry.", "Copper plates, decorations, and jewelry can be a beautiful addition to any home. However, copper can become dull with time and requires regular polishing.", "Copper is a brightly colored metal often used for decorative purposes, including furniture, artwork, and jewelry. Over time, the surface of copper will react with oxygen, heat, or other aspects of the environment to create a coating of color, or patina.", "Copper and its alloys are widely used in construction, especially in the electrical and plumbing trades. Copper is an excellent conductor of electricity and has a high resistance to corrosion and wear.", "If your local water has a high copper content, it can leave blue-green stains on the shower and/or bath areas. Another cause of this staining may be that your water has a low pH and is eroding your copper plumbing.", "Copper is a single metal, so every copper object has roughly the same properties. Brass, on the other hand, is an alloy of copper, zinc, and often other metals as well.", "Copper leaf is a thin metal foil used for accenting home décor items and finishing surfaces. When applied it has the color of a shiny new penny. Copper leaf is easy to work with, relatively inexpensive and can drastically change the appearance of frames, vases, furniture and a lot more.", "Air conditioning units contain a large amount of valuable copper that well-trained thieves can strip from your system within minutes to sell as scrap metal.", "Copper pipes are used for plumbing in some homes and can provide a rustic accent to your interior decor. Unfortunately, copper pipes can become dirty and unappealing due to dirt, calcium, lime, and rust buildup.", "Copper sulfate is an inorganic compound commonly found in pesticide products used to kill bacteria, algae, plants, snails, and fungi. [1] It is a combination of copper oxide and sulfuric acid.", "Brighten old, dark pennies in seconds! No scrubbing necessary at all. The effect is achieved only where the mixture has been in contact with the coin, so ensure you cover the entire coin!", "Most people would not think of copper inside of air conditioners to be valuable property. However, criminals can sell that metal for between $50 and $100, and replacing it will cost you thousands of dollars.", "When you have a car, it requires various forms of maintenance over the duration of ownership, ranging from cleaning it, to changing the oil, to burnt out lights, to replacing parts.", "Follow the steps below for a practical and affordable way to repair cigarette burns without having to replace the damaged carpet. It’s as simple as replacing the burnt fibers, and in some cases, removing scorch marks surrounding the burned area.", "A copper sink adds a gorgeous focal point to any kitchen or bathroom. Whether you want to preserve a polished look or love a natural patina, a little routine maintenance will keep your sink in the best condition.", "Many people suffer from hair that is damaged or burnt by various harsh chemical treatments like coloring and straightening. After years of damage, it can sometimes seem like there is no hope for chemically burnt hair.", "Ouch! You just burnt your tongue. Burning your tongue is painful and can quickly take away enjoyment of a hot beverage or meal. This wikiHow will offer lots of remedies for soothing a burnt tongue.", "When it’s time to break out silver for a special occasion, you may be disappointed to find its once gleaming surface darkened with oxidation. With three simple household products, distilled water, aluminum foil, and baking soda, you can restore your silver to its pre-oxidized condition.", "A roof made of copper is a strong design statement for any house. Not only do they add a sense of class to any piece of architecture, they are also durable and corrosion-resistant." ]

[ "Titles are just that, nothing more than a set of words, and the relevancy of their meaning are dependent on how you define that meaning within the context of your domain. In this case that domain is your company, so you guys should define the DBA role to fit the needs of the business (realistically under the umbrella of what a DBA can do).\nDBA is one of those kinds of roles that I've found to evolve as a many hats or crossover type of position. The reasoning being is it's a career heavily populated by a mix of people who either were Software Developers, System Administrators, or neither, in a past life.\nAs someone who went from Software Developer to resident DBA to actual DBA at another company and back to a quasi-Software Developer / DBA now, I got to experience most of the database development and performance tuning side of being a DBA as opposed to server and database management - though I have and still do manage some of those aspects as well. This was because of my prior experience as a developer and because the companies I worked for needed someone who could write code but also help optimize performance in the database layer both from an architectural standpoint and a query tuning one.\nSo in summary, there is a rainbow of DBA roles out there between ones who essentially just administrate database systems and get their hands dirty under the hood of the servers themselves, others who purely do database design and performance tuning, and others who have a mix of actual software development (even outside the database layer) responsibilities and do performance tuning and database management." ]

[ "In my experience, you should have as few people in the highest level of access as you can. These are the people that can do anything and everything to the community servers. Passing this type of access out to untrained people is asking for trouble. Everyone makes mistakes and one of these untrained users will type the wrong command at some point. If they don't know how to fix it, then you may have larger problems. In the worst case scenario someone will rage quit and take down your server because they are mad at you and you gave them access to the server.\n\nWith that said, though, there is the possibility of the administrators granting access to specific things to the lower level of moderators. Perhaps a game server needs an occasional reboot due to lag. I've granted my moderators permission to restart a game server with the understanding that I log all such restarts and if I see it being abused I will not only remove their ability to restart the server, but also their moderation position. I've also granted my moderators that ability to update the game servers when an update is released. If this process fails, they need to contact one of the administrators. If it doesn't fail (which is much more common), then the servers will be updated quickly and accessible to players. The benefits of this arrangement are great for my administrators (they don't have to be around constantly) and great for users (quick response to lag and new updates). \n\nIn your case, I agree that the situation is confusing. To me, it seems like the administration team was attempting to reward the moderation team with a \"promotion\". Everyone likes a promotion! They probably didn't like that they were being contacted directly so frequently. The down side is exactly as you describe, though: the new administrators have the same level of access and users are confused as to who can solve a problem. \n\nI think there are two possible solutions to this problem:\n\n\nSet up permissions on the server in such a way that allows the \"lower\" administrators the ability to perform common - non-destructive - administrator tasks. Allow them to use these abilities to solve most issues. If they encounter a situation they can't solve, then escalate it to the \"higher\" administrators. With this option, all of the administrators can perform the common tasks and solve a majority of the problems. The users should see an improvement as well. Hopefully the more difficult situations are rare issues. I'd expect those to be things like \"database is down\", \"game update failed\", \"server is turned off\". \nSwitch back to the tiered levels of moderator/administrator and make it clear what each level can do. Users shouldn't jump the moderator level if it is a situation that the moderators could have resolved. This will require training the users (good luck) to jump through the correct hoops in order. \n\n\nPersonally, I went with that first bullet point. It was work when setting up the permissions initially, but once that was done it removed me (as an administrator) almost completely. Now I can focus on the moderation side and interact with the community instead of worrying about when the next update will come out and whether or not one of the administrators will be around to issue the update command. The moderators feel more empowered too, because they can solve most of the issues themselves. Users are also happier because issues can be solved immediately rather than \"waiting for an admin to come online\".", "Reverse profile dives are not taboo as they were once thought:\n\nDeepest Dive First? Not Anymore\n\nPlan your dives and dive your plans. Going shallow and then deep should be fine as long as you don't push the limits.\n\nThat said, there are times when deep first can be better logistically. For example I can do a deep dive on double 80s and use half my gas with half my gas for emergency. Then on a second shallow dive I can dive for as long as my gas will allow. I wouldn't have nearly as much reserve gas for my deep dive if I did it second.", "EOSLIB_SERIAlIZE is a DataStream Seralizater , if you want to deep dive into what it does you should go to contracts/eosiolib/serialize.hpp in your EOS directory. It basically gives the struct extra operators for the serialization and deserialization of data to and from the multi_index database.\n\nif you go deep inside this you will found that it was using BOOST_PP_SEQ_FOR_EACH macro. If you want to know more on Boost preprocessor + enums that is what exactly happening here you should go here and personally I would suggest you to go explore more about enums in c++.", "There are a few different reasons.\n1. Separation of Concerns\nFundamentally, your logical code (i.e. your plugin or your theme) should not need to know anything about the database. At all. Really.\nThe $wpdb object is the global database access layer, and you should be using it for all of your database access. If you need to run a custom query (let's say you have a custom table somewhere) then you should use $wpdb-&gt;prepare() and $wpdb-&gt;query() to prepare your queries and fetch data from the database.\n2. Security\nIt's very easy to forget to sanitize a query and open your site to some kind of SQL injection attack. Using WordPress' built-in sanitation methods is one way of protecting against this. It's not perfect (you could still write a really bad query) but it definitely helps.\n3. Performance\nThe queries built in to the WordPress API have been poured over by several developers and tweaked to run with the smallest memory footprint and return as quickly as possible. In addition, some of these API calls are self-caching, so you can &quot;query&quot; for data that hasn't changed and is already in memory. This is a huge performance benefit over making a direct SQL call.\nAnd with every new version of WordPress, we make changes to make things faster and more nimble.\n4. Flexibility and Stability\nThe database is not a fixed construct. The table schema can and will change. Hard-coding queries to WordPress objects in your own code is an inflexible maintenance nightmare. When a new version of WP drops, you'll have to rewrite your queries again ... opening yourself up to potential vulnerabilities (#2) again or negatively impacting your site's performance (#3).\nThe Bottom Line\nAll of PHP is still available to you. You can make direct connections to whatever database you need and run whatever queries you want. But WordPress has already (in the majority of cases) done the heavy lifting and abstracted these calls for you.\nThe benefit of using $wpdb is that it's already there, is maintained by several developers, and is well-documented. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. And you know, if WordPress changes, it will change along with it for you.", "Given that you say this is not a real application, I'll only comment on a couple of points here. The first is an implementation detail that you might have already considered, the second is more of a theoretical \"is this worth while?\" question.\n\n1. Password changes.\n\nIt is generally considered good practice to require users to change their password every so often. If this password has been directly used to derive the key used to protect their data, then you're going to have a world of hurt ahead of you: you'll have to decrypt their stored data with the old key and then encrypt it with the new key. Yuck. Wasted machine cycles and a potential honey-pot for an attacker, since you have to go back to the plaintext to do this.\n\nA better scheme would be to allocate the user a random key (their Data Encrypting Key or DEK) when they sign up, and encrypt that key with a key derived from their password (their Key Encrypting Key, or KEK). The DEK is used to encrypt the actual data, the KEK is used to protect the DEK, and is never stored. Then, when they change their password, they are just changing the KEK: the DEK does not change, and so the stored data does not need to be updated, other than the encrypted value of the DEK, which is now encrypted with the new KEK.\n\n2. Is this a good idea?\n\nYes. Absolutely. Encrypting the actual data in a database protects the data against some threat vectors that less granular approaches don't cover. For example, neither an encrypted file system for storing the database tables nor database table encryption protects against a rogue database administrator with the ability to issue a select * from customers; query. If the data itself is protected and the keys are secure (an important consideration), all an attacker can get is the encrypted data.\n\nThat said, there are some issues to consider. For example, if you encrypt customers' SSNs in your database, will that impact your call center employees who routinely ask customers for their SSN in order to authenticate them? Plus, what happens when data from your system has to be exported in order to be sent to a business partner, who doesn't have access to your keys?\n\nNone of these issues are reasons not to implement security in your applications, but you should be aware that this is not a trivial undertaking.", "I did have some similar issue before with a Tridion installation, and some site (can't remember where) suggested this was an issue with sql server indexes. As a result, I got this error whenever I tried to upload a MM component, no matter how big it was.\n\nTo get this fixed, you should run this query against the CM database:\n\nSELECT 1 FROM BINARIES WHERE ID = -1 AND CONTENT IS NULL\n\n\nAs it only performs a select statement, it does not modify your DB, so it should not have an impact on your support contract.\n\nIn my case, running this script (it took some time before it finished) solved this problem.\n\nNot sure if this problem is the same as yours, but it's worth a try", "The answers are found in the SCUBA diving world. Diving is interesting in this sense in that 10m is roughly an increase in pressure of 1atm.\n\nIn general, you wont see humans doing well above 30atm. 300m is a \"holy grail\" of sorts for deep diving. Only a handful of people have ever gone that far down. And by a handful, I mean it's been done seven times, total.\n\nNCBI provides a short paper with a theoretical limit of 1000m for humans, based on data we have collected from saturation divers to date. That would be 100atm of pressure.\n\nSomewhere in between is the claimed record for deep diving which is roughly 600m.\n\nSlightly higher than that, we find synthetic testing of Hydreliox. This was done in a chamber compressed to a simulated 700m (70atm). It was found that there were issues with hydrogen narcosis at depths below 500m, no matter how they tweaked the mix.\n\nI cannot find the link, but I came across a fascinating link months ago which described the different gases you can breathe and how deep you can go. At somewhere in the 40m range, you start suffering from nitrogen narcosis, so its beneficial to use a mix without nitrogen to go lower, such as heliox. However, at extreme depths, you start running into helium toxicity issues, and adding a little nitrogen in helps with that. Yes, I said helium toxicity. At high enough pressures, the noble gasses start to kill us, and of the noble gasses, we use helium at those depths because it kills us the least!", "Since you've tagged this question as \"culture\", I'm assuming you're not interested in a specific application, but in the broader questions of workflow and management.\n\nI'd probably start with \"The DevOps Handbook\"; it's a good overview of different things to consider, without diving too deep.\n\n\"Continuous Delivery\" by Jez Humble is also often referenced; I haven't read much of it yet, but it covers the concepts of source control &amp; automation of builds.\n\nIf you're starting to get into applications at scale (this may be too much of an assumption), another good book is \"The Practice of Cloud System Administration\" by Limoncelli et al.", "If you are willing to self-host the server part, Wallabag might be your choice. It's free &amp; open source (find it at Github), and would meet your requirements:\n\n\nSave web article source in a format that doesn't require the app to read: Not sure how exactly it's saved, but it's in your own database to export from\nIt must run on macOS, but if there's an iOS version as well, that would be nice: As it's running as web service, you can access it from any device or OS simply using your web browser. If you wish, there's also a Firefox Addon and one for Chrome, an Android-App (available at F-Droid and Google Play) and one for iPhone.\nBe able to render the article (i.e., render the HTML): Sure – see below :)\nHave the ability to tag articles by topic: Yes, quote: Organise content: tags, favorite, filters, …\nHave the ability to perform full-text searches on the article contents: It has a search function, but I don't know how deep that goes. If not, it's in your database, so you can add it.\n\n\n \nWallabag start page and filters (source: Wallabag; click images for larger variants)", "Likely Suspects\n\nMost likely, the things you want to pay attention to are:\n\n\nyour caching tier,\nyour database tier,\nyour general architecture's design (if it's not designed to scale, it just won't).\n\n\nFurther Reading\n\nWords of caution about the resources below:\n\n\nSome are generic resources, others are specific to one stack or language but still provide insight on the types of issues to deal with and how to (try to) address or mitigate them.\nSome provide general information of scalability.\nSome give only hints on basic pipeline and programming optimizations.\nSome are sponsored or hosted by industry-actors, in which case conclusions and comparisons may or may not be accurate and/or impartial.\n\n\nResearch papers\n\nSome papers' links may be unaccessible for you if you don't have a subscription to some publication networks.\n\n\nDynamic Load-Balancing on Web-Server Systems [PDF]\nWeb-Search for a Planet: the Google Architecture [PDF]\nHigh-Performance Site Design Techniques [PDF]\nScalability Issues for High-Performance Digital Libraries on the Web [PDF]\nImproving Performance on the Internet [PDF]\nWeb Server Farm in the Cloud [PDF]\nObservations on Tuning a Java Application for Performance and Scalability\nThe Akamai Network: A Platform for High-Performance Web-Applications [PDF]\n\n\nBooks\n\n\nBuilding Scalable WebSites (Henderson, 2006)\nBuilding Scalable and High-Performance Java Web-Applications (Barish, 2002)\nHandbook of Cloud Computing (Furht, Escalante, 2010)\nHigh-Performance WebSites: Essential Knowledge for Front-End Engineers (Souders, 2007)\nArchitecture of Reliable Web-Applications Software (Radaideh, Al-Ameed, 2007)\n\n\nArticles, Blogs and Web Resources\n\n\nPerformance Tuning and Optimization of High-Traffic WebSites\nThe Ultimate Guide to Web Optimization (Tips and Best Practices)\nA herd of resources on Google's Make The Web Faster effort\n\nlike these tutorials\n\nScaling Python for High-Load WebSites\nHandling Web-Servers of High-Traffic WebSites\nHow to Scale PHP Applications\nTYPO3 Scalability for High-Traffic WebSites\nScaling Twitter: Making Twitter 10,000 Percent Faster\nScaling a High-Traffic Application: Our Journey From Java to PHP\nNotes on the Google Talk Architecture\n\n\n\n\nFamous Last Words\n\nWhile I can understand your original intuition that you should bury some projects out of fear that they won't adapt well and survive, I think that's the wrong approach. While the \"build it and they will come\" approach can be wrong, the \"build it only once it's perfect\" counter-part can be just as wrong.\n\nYou don't know if your projects will reach the critical mass where they actually need to care about these issues, so why not build them anyways?\n\nMaybe you'll fail at first, but then you'll have learned and your next product will fare better. It's better to try it this way than to one day really have to dive in the deep end of the pool without a net, for a real product. So go ahead and give these ideas a chance.\n\nWhile it's true that it's hard to make an application scalable when it hasn't been originalyl designed to be, at least you'll have an application that needs to be modified for scalability. In my book it's better than no application at all.", "In addition to @RubberDuck's excellent input (which I completely agree with), I have the following concerns:\nGlobal Connection\n\nTake note that the Database connection object cn is only valid for a single query\n\nNope, that's not how ADODB.Connection works. The reality here is that you have a function that consumes a connection that it doesn't own, encapsulated by an object that is global. Why isn't dbConn a function that returns the initialized connection? And if it initializes a connection, then why isn't it called InitializeConnection or GetConnection? And if cn is &quot;only valid for a signle query&quot;, then why would it ever need to be visible to anything other than the procedure that needs an opened connection?\nYou're closing the recordset, but not the connection: if dbConn starts by closing the previous connection before opening a new one, this means you're leaving a database connection opened for much, much longer than you actually need to, and that's dirty. If dbConn doesn't do that, then your connection object simply falls in limbo, and that's outright wrong.\n\nCall\n\nCall dbConn\n'Initiate Database connection object cn\n\n\nThat's an obsolete statement. This instruction is completely equivalent:\ndbConn\n'Initiate Database connection object cn\n\nIt doesn't look like a procedure call, only because of the poor naming of the dbconn procedure: if the name started with a verb...\nInitializeConnection\n'Initiate Database connection object cn\n\nWhy is that comment not on top of the instruction it's commenting?\n'Initiate Database connection object cn\nInitializeConnection\n\nNow, if cn was local as it should be, that comment wouldn't even be needed, as the code would speak for itself:\nDim cn As ADODB.Connection\nSet cn = InitializeConnection\n\n\nAs New\nThis is bad:\n\nDim rs As New ADODB.Recordset\n\n\nWhy? You might think that this:\nDim foo As New Collection\n\nIs exactly the same as that:\nDim foo As Collection\nSet foo = New Collection\n\nBut it will bite you. What does this code do?\nPublic Sub TestMe()\n Dim foo As New Collection\n foo.Add &quot;bar&quot;\n Set foo = Nothing\n foo.Add &quot;surprise!&quot;\nEnd Sub\n\nIf you were expecting a Runtime error 91 - Object reference not set, you've been bitten. This blows up as expected:\nPublic Sub TestMe()\n Dim foo As Collection\n Set foo = New Collection\n foo.Add &quot;bar&quot;\n Set foo = Nothing\n foo.Add &quot;surprise!&quot; 'error 91\nEnd Sub\n\nInstead of running the query off the rs object with rs.Open, get a recordset instance from the connection with cn.Execute instead:\nSet rs = cn.Execute(SQL)\n\n\nMagic Return Values\nYour function has several ways of &quot;failing&quot;. A number of them involve an actual runtime error that the client code must handle. And if my German is correct, 3 of them involve returning a valid string that the client code must check (or treat as valid, and propagate to the UI?). Don't use your return value for that, raise proper errors: the client code should already be handling runtime errors, all you need to do is come up with a way of telling it exactly what went wrong.\nAn enum works great for that:\nPublic Enum DLookupError\n ErrNoRecordsReturned = vbObjectError + 42\n ErrMultipleRecordsReturned\nEnd Enum\n\nNow you can call Err.Raise DLookupError.ErrNoRecordsReturned, &quot;DLookup&quot;, &quot;Es ist ein Fehler in der Abfrage aufgetreten.&quot; to raise a runtime error that can be handled as such, effectively only ever returning an actual string result to your client code when there's such a result to return.\nI left out the general &quot;failure&quot; error, since that's simply an error that you should bubble up to the caller.\n\nResponsibilities\nCode that's sprinkled with rs.Open calls all over the place, is code with poorly separated concerns. If your application needs to access a database, then you need an object whose responsibility is do to exactly that, so that the rest of the code can work at a higher abstraction level and not be bothered with connections and recordsets.\nI've done exactly that in a previous life, and put everything up right here on Code Review, so you can see if you want something similar:\n\nMaterializing any ADODB Query\nCreating ADODB Parameters on the fly\n\nThe entire function could be pretty much replaced with this (error-handling omitted):\nDim sql As String\nsql = &quot;SELECT &quot; &amp; fieldName &amp; &quot; FROM &quot; &amp; tableName &amp; &quot; WHERE &quot; &amp; predicate\n\nDim result As String\nresult = SqlCommand.QuickSelectSingleValue(sql)\n\n\nSome other considerations\n\nParameters are implicitly passed ByRef; they can/should be passed ByVal instead.\nPrefer camelCase for locals (I know VB6 isn't case-sensitive and that's a royal PITA at times); I'd go with fieldName, tableName and predicate.\nYou're not validating any of the parameters; an empty string is a valid condition resulting in invalid SQL. Granted that's handled by the error-handling there, but you could fail early and avoid sending malformed SQL to the database altogether.", "This is for Sharepoint 2013. When a CAML query is issued against a list:\n\n\nif the security context is a user who is not an administrator\nand the query contains a filter that uses the \"IN\" clause.\nMore than 60 values are passed for a particular indexed field that\nincludes the \"In\" clause.\n\n\nThe query is throttled, and the following error message is shown to the user and logged in the ULS logs:\n\n\n The attempted operation is prohibited because it exceeds the list view threshold enforced by the administrator\n\n\nCause\n\nIn SharePoint 2013, a design change was made in the query builder component to limit the maximum number of values for the \"In\" clause to 60. This is because with more than 60 values that are passed in the \"In\" clause, the corresponding SQL query becomes complex and may result in a table scan that results in overall decrease in performance of the site. When more than 60 values are passed with the \"In\" clause, the field for which the values are passed is considered a nonindexed field, and the operation may be throttled.\n\nResolution\n\nWhen issuing a filtered CAML query against a list, do not pass more than 60 values with the \"In\" clause. Divide the operation into batches of 60 or less so that each query contains less than 60 values with the \"In\" clause for any given indexed field. The limit of 60 values with the \"In\" clause is currently not configurable.\n\nMore Information\n\nCAML queries may be issued by using CSOM, REST or the SharePoint Server object model. The behavior explained in this article applies to all interfaces available to issue a CAML query. Here is an example of a filtered CAML query that passes three values with the \"In\" clause for the Document Id field.\n\n&lt;View Scope=\"RecursiveAll\"&gt;\n &lt;Query&gt;\n &lt;Where&gt;\n &lt;In&gt;\n &lt;FieldRef Name=’_dlc_DocId’ /&gt;\n &lt;Values&gt;\n &lt;Value Type=’Text’&gt;CSODD-14-42468&lt;/Value&gt;\n &lt;Value Type=\"Text\"&gt;CSODD-14-40667&lt;/Value&gt;\n &lt;Value Type=\"Text\"&gt;CSODD-14-39168&lt;/Value&gt;\n &lt;/Values&gt;\n &lt;/In&gt;\n &lt;/Where&gt;\n &lt;/Query&gt;\n &lt;QueryOptions&gt;\n &lt;IncludeMandatoryColumns&gt;True&lt;/IncludeMandatoryColumns&gt;\n &lt;/QueryOptions&gt;\n&lt;/View&gt;\n\n\nReferenced from MSDN blog post here", "If the Setup Screen tells you that the database settings are correct, it means you can login into the database with the username and password that you entered. However, it does not guarantee that the MySQL database user has enough privileges to perform all necessary database actions.\nCiviCRM needs trigger support and in the System Administrator Guide at https://docs.civicrm.org/sysadmin/en/latest/requirements/#mysql-permissions is described what this entails.\n\nIf you are not able to grant the correct privileges in the control panel of your internet service provider, you have to contact their service desk.", "I doubt this is something Expresso supports as it's so project specific.\n\nOne option is to use jQuery Cookie to track this:\nhttp://plugins.jquery.com/cookie/\n\nSet a cookie on the success page and have it expire after 24 hrs or whatever time limit you want... Then on the purchase page, write a conditional against the cookie to determine if you should let them purchase the article or not.\n\n\n\nOr if you specifically want IP address, store the buyers IP in a hidden field on the product page and submit it to the database when an order is complete. Then write a conditional that checks the database before allowing the buyers to make a purchase.\n\nOr if you specifically want IP, it is stored in the exp_store_orders table in the ip_address column. There is also an order_completed_date column. You can use the Query Module to build your query... then conditionally show the ability to purchase as needed.", "This really depends on many factors. For now, I'm going to assume the following layered architecture:\n\nConsuming application (e.g. web) &gt; Business &gt; Datalayer &gt; The actual database\n\n\n\n\nFor one, it depends where your DTO lives. Is this DTO create on the business level, or the datalayer level?\n\n\nIf on the business level, then your datalayer doesn't know the DTO. That means that communication between business and datalayer happens via either domain models, or a custom set of primitive parameters (e.g. Guid personId and string newName).\nIf on the datalayer level, then your datalayer can use the DTO, which means that this operates exactly like the \"custom set of primitive parameters\" situation, with the only difference that instead of custom primitive parameters, you're passing a custom object which acts as the collection of custom primitive parameters.\n\n\nNote: it's of course possible to have DTOs on both layers, but the outcome is the same as if you only had a datalayer DTO.\n\n\n\nSecondly, it depends on what technology you're using to interact with your database.\n\nIf you're using Dapper or any other method where you are crafting the actual SQL query, this gives you the option of writing an explicit update query which only touches the fields you want it to.\nHowever, this becomes more cumbersome when you start dealing with multiple update queries which strongly resemble each other or reuse nontrivial logic. Little by little, it starts violating DRY.\n\nIf you're using Entity Framework or any other similar library that means you have the SQL generated for you, you'll generally be better off sticking to the recommended approach for the library you're using. I would assume that any decent library would be able to do targeted updates of only the fields you want to have updated. But since you're dealing with a query generator (the library), you need to use it the way it expects you to use it.\n\n\n\nInteracting with relational databases via network calls leads to tradeoffs. You're going to either have to sacrifice performance or code cleanliness (to some degree).\n\nAs a basic example, consider that repositories were initially intended to operate for one specific entity each. If you want to fetch Person and Car objects, you'll need to talk to the PersonRepository and CarRepository respectively.\nFrom a development perspective, this is a really neat and clean way of separating different steps. And when you're dealing with an in-memory list of data, there is no real performance loss.\n\nHowever, when dealing with a networked relational database, you want to minimize the amount of calls you make because the network calls always cost overhead. If you're trying to fetch a list of people and the cars they own, you're better off launching a single query that fetches both at the same time, and let the database handle the collation of those two entities.\n\nBut does that \"get both\" call belong to PersonRepository or to CarRepository? That's no longer clear. This means you've compromised your idealistic definition of a repository, because you are now trying to run queries that use multiple entity types at the same time.\n\nThis is why it's a tradeoff. Because the performance hit would otherwise be too significant, we trade away the \"perfect\" repositories in favor of better performance. So when you ask:\n\n\n How should the repository handle the update process?\n\n\nThe real answer is in whatever way that maximizes what is the most important to you. \n\n\n \n Accept the UpdatePersonDto object, fetch the current Person object from the DB, map the fields and then update\n \n\n\nThis leads to the cleanest code and ease of development, but it effectively doubles your network calls (fetch + update) which can become a bottleneck. \n\nThen again, if you've got bandwidth to spare and performance is not the #1 priority, but have a limited developer availability, it may be better to favor clean code so you can minimize development and maintenance time as best as you can.\n\n\n \n Accept the UpdatePersonDto object and perform an update on the DB just using the DTO. The Person domain model is not needed in this case\n \n\n\nThis is the more performant option. It requires handcrafting a update that only targets specific fields, which may lead to more development effort, but it will pay back dividends in performance.\n\n\n \n Require the Person model and leave the mapping to a higher layer\n \n\n\nI'm not quite sure how this is different from option 1. I think the only difference here is that you split the \"update person\" responsibility over two classes.\nThat could be better codewise, but I don't think it's needed (based on my current understanding of your situation) and thus would advise against it. \n\nPerformancewise, I'm expecting this to be equal to option 1.\n\n\n \n Some thing else?\n \n\n\nOption 1/2 tackle the most common tradeoff: ease of development versus runtime performance. But it's possible that you have other things to consider too (e.g. using a particular approach because your company ubiquitously uses this approach). In such a case, you need to find the approach that works best for your list of priorities.", "TL;DR\nSystem administration has, as a subset of its larger potential skills, an overlapping portion of datacenter design's skillset. Datacenter design can be a speciality, and at a scale above a couple thousand square feet probably is a speciality, but does have a set of topics that a system administrator can be reasonably expected to know.\nThe Larger Story\nA system administrator is a generalist knowledge domain. Some sysadmins tend to focus on one thing versus another thing, and no sysadmin really looks like another. However it is self evident that a sysadmin will be working on switches, routers, databases, server OSs, firmware, hardware replacement, wiring, VOIP, firewalls, storage, HPC clusters, threat mitigation, PCI compliance, wireless signals, mobile phones, etc. and etc.\nEach of the above topic domains can be specialized in to such a degree that a person that does so might not be considered a sysadmin. Someone who is a VOIP engineer is... just that. A VOIP engineer. Not a sysadmin. Someone that is a storage administrator can have a depth of knowledge and a tightly scoped domain of responsibility that makes them... just that. A storage administrator. Not a sysadmin.\nI like to use database administrators as an example. A sysadmin, in the course of performing his duties, will have a high probability of working with databases. Maybe it's as simple as spinning up a MySQL database for a Cacti instance. Maybe it's as complex as working with replication, sharding, split tables, indexing, and query execution plans for a large application. However, there are also database administrators (DBAs) as a separate professional arena. DBAs are specialists in their field (or at least should be) and due to their constant exposure to databases and the theories and practices behind information storage and retrieval in a relational database, will have a honed domain of knowledge and speciality that is beyond a sysadmin's (typically... or perhaps ideally if not typically). They are no longer sysadmins, but DBAs.\nNow some sysadmins might have never, ever touched a database server. Never ran an SQL query. Never worked with anything more complex than a spreadsheet. Does that make them less of a sysadmin? No. However, just because they have never used a RDBMS does not mean that someone who has done so is a specialist and that the general skillset of database administration is outside the realm of a sysadmin.\nIn a similar manner, datacenter design and management has the potential to be within the scope of a sysadmin. Topics like rack design, rack placement, hot and cold aisles, concrete floors, raised floors, cable plant management, ceiling types, AC sizing, AC duct placement, circuit sizing, electric voltage selection, fire retardants, physical security, generators, etc. and etc. can be part of a sysadmin's duties. It could be for a 100 square foot closet. It could be for a 1,000 square foot room or perhaps larger. If it gets much larger than 1,000 square feet, then it seems that a specialist company and set of engineers should be consulted to do the main design phase, with input from sysadmins (thus, sysadmins would still be at least a part of the design process, thus datacenter design and management would still be within scope of a sysadmin).\nOnce you get past a certain arbitrary level of knowledge, job description, and daily duties, then somewhere along the line you become a DC manager or DC designer, in much the same way that at some point along the line you would become a DBA and not a SysAdmin, or a storage admin, or a security specialist, or a VOIP engineer, etc.\nI've made a mockup Venn diagram that shows my thoughts (yes, this is my opinion and not based on any empirical research; this is purely my experience in the field):\n\nConclusion\nAspects of datacenter design are on topic for ServerFault and sysadmins in general. We should not consider a speciality community just yet. Yes, I know we quibble about the fracturing of StackExchange into Security, DBAs, U&amp;L, etc. However, that's another topic. For now, while we don't have a specialist community for Datacenter designers and managers, it's still on topic here just like database administration and UNIX/Linux questions are, within a certain scope, on topic as well.\nAddendum 1\nIain brings up a good point: &quot;Datacenter design is an architecture task&quot;\nI can both agree and disagree with that. Selecting load bearing beams, rebar sizes and placement, lashings for ducts, what mix of concrete to pour, and etc. would be for the architectural engineers. Placement of racks, choice of voltages, runs of cable, sizing cooling systems, types of battery switchovers could be something a sysadmin does, but could also be part of an architectural engineer / datacenter designer's job. A sysadmin doesn't have to be bonded, licensed, or otherwise take a state-official engineering exam to make most of those decisions (depending on locality of course). So while it's not necessarily a part of a sysadmin's job, it could be within the scope and by experience is within the scope.\nI think part of the controversy is the scale of what we think of as a &quot;datacenter.&quot; It can mean anything from a few hundred square foot place for a handful of racks, to a million square foot, billion dollar city-state of a complex. A sysadmin is unlikely to have much to say about the larger datacenters, or speciality structures for high density, HPC uses. However for the approximately 1,000 to 2,000 square foot server rooms / small datacenters, sysadmins are, in my experience, normally the ones who have a large part in the actual design of those rooms, even to the point of CADing out placement of racks and thinking about air flow, etc.\nConverting a few hundred to few thousand foot segment of office space, warehouse, basement, or what-have-you into a &quot;datacenter&quot; complete with raised floor, tons of cooling, backup power, generators, fuel contracts, wiring, voltage selection, etc. has, once again only in my experience, been largely up to the sysadmins of an organization and is not technically or (sometimes) legally an architectural/engineering issue other than &quot;call the structural engineer to see if the floor can hold us!&quot;\nAddendum 2\nI made another Venn diagram! This is rough, not to scale, and hastily tossed together while past midnight, but I hope this at least conveys the thought:\n\nSo there are definitely portions of work in DC design that shouldn't be touched by sysadmins, most notably the ones where law is involved, and structural engineering is needed. But datacenter design is only partly about those things. Yes, stay away from decisions regarding laws about doors, precise placement of anti-fire systems, locks, etc.\nBut the pink stuff, and the blue stuff in the diagram above are things that can, by and large, be touched by a sysadmin or the final decisions can be made by sysadmins (thus making sysadmins in-part designers). Not the physical installation of a CRAC or the circuit panels, but the decision on how much cooling, how much power, and even specific vendors to go with. Not necessarily cable pulling (although, how many sysadmins have pulled cable in their life? Can I see a count of hands? Uh-huh. A lot of us wire fishers, huh) but choosing cable types, amounts, and even plant paths to account for growth in IDFs outwards from the MDF. Certainly I'm not thinking about monster DCs, but rather a few hundred to thousand square feet of server room / datacenter space. Apple-sized DCs -- no way.", "From the experience I have with Sitecore, we have rolled out 70+ sites on sitecore. Below are the following points/practice we usually follow when implementing our sites.\n\nContent Sharing\n\nYou may have a main content repository which stores all the common content for the different sites. Contents that are specific to a site are created under the site node.\n\nContent Size\n\nIt is preferable to make use of Sitecore buckets to store contents because it is the number of contents which will keep on growing.\n\nIndexing\n\nMake use of Sitecore indexes so that you index the contents and when loaded on the site, instead of performing a call to the database, perform a call to the indexes to retrieve the contents.\n\nEnvironment Cluster\n\nBreaking the different sites on different cluster may helps in terms of performance. For example, if you have sites found in the Europe, Middle East, Americas, you may have different server clusters such as EU which will hold all Europe Sites, NALA which will hold the different sites in the North ou South of America.\n\nQuery\n\nPerform query which does not have to loop through the whole content tree. Example, when using the Axes.GetDescendents(). I saw many times that the item is the root site and when the mention method is used, it loops through all items in the sites. So, you need to try as much as possible to perform a call ti the database which targets the item precisely and also make use of query instead of fast query because fast query is not cache.\n\nAssets\n\nMake use of CDN to load the different assets such as images, JavaScript and CSS.\n\nServer Configuration\n\nAs for server configuration, please follow the scalability guide of Sitecore found at the Sitecore knowledge base.", "Redirects are inexpensive in terms of server resources. They usually require at most a single database query and a few bytes of response. Compare to a a full page render which may require 10s of database queries, transfer significant content, and then need additional server resources for images, CSS, and JavaScript files. You could usually serve hundreds of redirect requests for the same cost as a full page view.\n\nRedirects are also only needed when they are hit. Just because your server knows to respond to a specific URL with a redirect, it doesn't mean that it will get any such requests. When you implement redirects you should update your site to not have the links or to point the links directly to the new location. You will get some requests for old URLs from external links and from search engine spiders checking on old URLs, but the majority of users will never use the redirect functionality.\n\nIf you find that some redirects are expensive and often used, that performance problem is easy to solve with caching. \n\nThere is no reason to be afraid of implementing lots of redirects for performance reasons.", "I run Craft on IIS/Win 10 on my main development box and don't have issues with it. Don't recall having to jump through hoops to get it working, either.\n\nI suspect it's more of the \"shared server\" that's the issue, but you can start by enabling devMode in Craft and check the timestamped profiling output (code and database) in the browser's console and craft/storage/runtime/logs to try and narrow down where the time is going.", "The biggest advantage of having a single backlog is that it makes priorities clear.\n\nIf there are multiple backlogs then priority can be obscured. For example, is the second item on the Team X backlog more or less important than the second item on the Team Y backlog?\n\nThis is important when:\n\n\nThere are shared resources between the teams - such as a shared database administrator or just one performance test environment. When contention for the shared resource happens then a priority call needs to be made.\nThere are dependencies between the teams - if story A needs to be done by Team X to unblock Team Y, does it have priority over other stories in the Team X backlog?\n\n\nIf you have none of these issues and multiple backlogs work for you then that is fine.\n\n\n I will have all bugs for all the teams in a single place, and will have to additionally put special tags on them to understand which team is responsible.\n\n\nWhy must one team be responsible for a bug? All teams should be able to work on any backlog item.", "WARNING : Be very careful with your numbers and what you view as a Query !!!\nWhy am I giving such a warning ???\nBack in August 2011, I wrote post in ServerFault explaining how it is possible for 1 Billion Queries to be executed in 24 days.\nHere is that entire post :\nMySQL will call for queries internally. In fact, just about anything you do in MySQL is a query.\nIf you turn on the general log or the slow query log, everything mysqld does gets recorded.\nIf you have --log-queries-not-using-indexes enabled, everything not involving indexes lands in the slow log.\nLet's say you run this query:\nmysql&gt; show databases;\n+--------------------+\n| Database |\n+--------------------+\n| information_schema |\n| annarbor |\n| dude |\n| example |\n| garbage |\n| lovesh |\n| mysql |\n| performance_schema |\n| replagdb |\n| stuff |\n| test |\n| tostinni |\n| wordpress |\n| zipcodes |\n+--------------------+\n14 rows in set (0.06 sec)\n\nYes, SHOW DATABASES; is a query. In fact, what the information_schema equivalent ???\nmysql&gt; select schema_name &quot;Database&quot; from information_schema.schemata;\n+--------------------+\n| Database |\n+--------------------+\n| information_schema |\n| annarbor |\n| dude |\n| example |\n| garbage |\n| lovesh |\n| mysql |\n| performance_schema |\n| replagdb |\n| stuff |\n| test |\n| tostinni |\n| wordpress |\n| zipcodes |\n+--------------------+\n14 rows in set (0.08 sec)\n\nDoes the table information_schema.schemata have an index ???\nmysql&gt; show create table information_schema.schemata\\G\n*************************** 1. row ***************************\n Table: SCHEMATA\nCreate Table: CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE `SCHEMATA` (\n `CATALOG_NAME` varchar(512) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',\n `SCHEMA_NAME` varchar(64) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',\n `DEFAULT_CHARACTER_SET_NAME` varchar(32) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',\n `DEFAULT_COLLATION_NAME` varchar(32) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',\n `SQL_PATH` varchar(512) DEFAULT NULL\n) ENGINE=MEMORY DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8\n1 row in set (0.00 sec)\n\nNo, it does not. So, SHOW DATABASES; would land in a general log and the slow log (with --log-queries-not-using-indexes enabled)\nTherefore, many operations we do not think would constitute a query may just be a query, but internal to mysqld.\nIf you are using any monitoring tools that are connected to mysqld, this would also run up the counts on queries.\nExample:\nmysql&gt; show global status like 'uptime'; select * from information_schema.global_status where variable_name='uptime';\n\n+---------------+-------+\n| Variable_name | Value |\n+---------------+-------+\n| Uptime | 613 |\n+---------------+-------+\n1 row in set (0.00 sec)\n\n+---------------+----------------+\n| VARIABLE_NAME | VARIABLE_VALUE |\n+---------------+----------------+\n| UPTIME | 613 |\n+---------------+----------------+\n1 row in set (0.00 sec)\n\nJust retrieving the uptime of mysqld is a query. Internally, how does MySQL count the queries being executed ? Here are two status variables that may shed some light:\n\nQueries : The number of statements executed by the server. This variable includes statements executed within stored programs, unlike the Questions variable. It does not count COM_PING or COM_STATISTICS commands.\n\nQuestions : The number of statements executed by the server. This includes only statements sent to the server by clients and not statements executed within stored programs, unlike the Queries variable. This variable does not count COM_PING, COM_STATISTICS, COM_STMT_PREPARE, COM_STMT_CLOSE, or COM_STMT_RESET commands.\n\n\nPlease don't be that concerned if your MySQL Server is being monitored because the monitoring that calls for status variables are running queries internally to retrieve requested data.\n1 billion in 24 days is\n\n41.7 million queries per day\n1.736 million queries per hour\n28,935 queries per minute\n482 queries per second\n\nFor a MySQL instance that is being monitored, these numbers are not farfetched at all.\nIf you are using MySQL Workbench, MySQL Administrator, or phpMyAdmin, any page these products generate or update will summon these little status queries and run numbers up quickly.\nSUMMARY\nIf your site does indeed make 8M queries, then an I/O Rate $0.10 per 1 million requests, should be $0.80 (80 cents) a month. If you execute 1 Billion queries in a Month, that $100.00. Please make absolutely sure these numbers jive and GET IT IN WRITING WITH YOUR CFO SITTING NEXT TO YOU !!!\nUPDATE 2012-05-02 16:26 EDT\nSince it is 800M queries/month, that's $80.00/month", "Many posts around say that you shouldn't manually update Joomla 3.5+. And there are various reasons that this is good advice.\n\nHowever, you can manually update Joomla 3.5+ to the latest version (currently 3.8.8).\n\n1. Backup first\n\nFirst, you need to have a good, working backup of your current site. Things may go wrong.\n\n2. Login to administrator\n\nIt's important to have an active session in the site's administrator, while it is still working, or step 4 may not work.\n\n3. Extract the files\n\nYou can download the latest Joomla upgrade package, either from your Joomla Update component (Components &gt; Joomla Update), or from downloads.joomla.org.\n\nRename your libraries directory to libraries-old.\n\nPlace the package you downloaded in the root directory of your site. Extract.\n\nIf you open your front-end, and get an error, or a blank page, you can try to rename the libraries directory again, to libraries-broken and copy a libraries directory directly from the latest version full package.\n\n4. Fix Database\n\nIf you have done well so far, your administrator should be broken. If not, hurray! Go to Extensions &gt; Manage &gt; Database and click the Fix button.\n\nIf your administrator is broken, copy the following link after your site's administrator URL:\n\n[your site]/administrator/index.php?option=com_installer&amp;view=database&amp;task=database.fix\n\nIf you click that link, the database should be automatically fixed, and your administrator will be usable again. Click Fix one more time.\n\nYour site should now have the latest Joomla version.\nIf you still have problems with it, you may need to update third-party extensions, or similar.", "Oh, loads of reasons:\n\n\nthe number of times we need to query data for multiple sites at the same time is ridiculously low - like, a fraction of a percent\nthe per-site data is a natural partition, allowing us to split a whole range of maintenance tasks like backup, indexing, etc\nwe don't need to include an extra join / filter in every single query\nit allows the database server to have appropriate per-site statistics with the minimum overhead\nit allows us to spread and balance the load arbitrarily between physical servers\nwhich means we can scale out rather than up\nand at a lower level, between disks etc\nit allows us to spin up a new site easily, and have the identifiers (user-ids/etc) make sense without extra work\nand to remove an entire failing site in one go, without having to do expensive work\n\n\nBut perhaps the most obvious answer: stackoverflow was built first, and had no concept of multiple sites. When it came to adding meta, superuser and serverfault etc (the next 3), the choices were:\n\n\nuse parallel databases\nrevisit, validate and/or rewrite every single line of code to handle logical databases\n\n\nBut even without that: it works great... So why wouldn't we go for multi-database?\n\nYou say:\n\n\n I ask this because it seems to be preferable that some tables like Post be centralized in one DB, So generating some stuff like Hot network questions, Top questions of each user in his network profiles, etc would be simpler and less resource consuming.\n\n\nI say: it isn't a problem to us. We solve actual, real problems - with zeal and gusto. This isn't something that causes us pain, so why would be focus all our energy on that one feature? Why bend the system out of shape to fix a non-problem?\n\nYou also say:\n\n\n As I mentioned in the comments, splitting databases into multiple ones for performance tuning is not acceptable and the standard alternatives here are replication and sharding.\n\n\nHere I have to look sideways at you. We do all sorts of bizarre things for performance. Now, as it happens there are lots of other good reasons besides performance to do this, but frankly: performance by itself would absolutely, without question, be a valid reason to do this.\n\nPerformance is a feature. For us, it is a major feature. We worry about performance a lot.\n\nYes, sharding is a thing, but then you need to have all associated data on the same shard for useful queries to work. The site is a natural logical shard-point. So why not use the site as the shard?", "I would suggest you stick to proper Joomla coding standards for your database query. You can always refer to the Joomla documentation to double check if you've done something properly or not.\n\nHave a try of the following:\n\n$db = JFactory::getDbo(); // Initiate database connection\n$user = JFactory::getUser(); // Get user object\n\n$query = $db-&gt;getQuery(true); \n$query-&gt;select($db-&gt;quoteName('topic_id'))\n -&gt;from($db-&gt;quoteName('#__kunena_user_topics'))\n -&gt;where($db-&gt;quoteName('user_id') . ' = '. $db-&gt;quote($user-&gt;id));\n$db-&gt;setQuery($query);\n\n$results = $db-&gt;loadObjectList();\n\n\nNow that you have an object of results, you can perform a loop and echo the results, like so:\n\nforeach ($results as $result)\n{\n echo $result-&gt;topic_id . '&lt;br&gt;';\n}\n\n\nThis will output something like the following:\n\n26\n12\n5\n89\n\n\nHope this helps", "Your trigger is likely running into an error because it is recursing. You have an after trigger, which then updates the same contact, which then fires the trigger off again. That's 30K plus query rows in the first part of the transaction and then another 30K when it recurses. \n\nAlso, another issue in your code worth calling out is that you have update and insert DML statements inside of a for loop and this could create issues when contacts are created or updated in bulk. You should move your contacts for update to a list of contacts, and perform one update DML at the end of your trigger and outside of the for loop. Do the same for the inserts, in a separate list.\n\nSince you are updating the same contact that is in the trigger, you are better off using a before trigger, rather than firing off a separate update DML. Alternatively, you can put a static variable flag in place, set it before the first contact update and check for that flag in your trigger to prevent a second query. One of these two solutions should eliminate the query rows issues, but you are correct that you are likely going to be better off in the long run performing this operation in a scheduled batch.", "I think there are two major issues you should address right in the beginning when you start with PHP.\n\nSeparation of Layout and Logic\n\nThis means in general that you shouldn't mix HTML and PHP code. Later this will lead you to the MVC-Pattern.\n\nindex.php\n\n&lt;?php\n// connect to database\ninclude(\"inc/dbconnect.php\");\n\nif ($_SERVER[\"REQUEST_METHOD\"] == \"POST\") {\n //...\n}\n\n$result = mysqli_query($database,\"SELECT * FROM contacts\");\n\n$records=array();\nwhile($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result)) {\n $record[]=$row;\n}\n\nmysqli_close($database);\n\ninclude 'template.php';\n\n\ntemplate.php\n\n&lt;!DOCTYPE html&gt;\n&lt;html&gt;\n...\n &lt;tbody&gt;\n &lt;?php foreach ($records as $record):?&gt;\n &lt;tr&gt;\n &lt;td&gt;&lt;?= $record['firstName']?&gt; &lt;?= $record['lastName']?&gt;&lt;/td&gt;\n &lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=\"mailto:&lt;?= $record['email']?&gt;\"&gt;&lt;?= $record['email']?&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;\n &lt;td&gt;&lt;?= $record['phone']?&gt;&lt;/td&gt;\n &lt;td&gt;&lt;?= $record['email']?&gt;&lt;/td&gt;\n &lt;/tr&gt;\n &lt;?php endforeach;?&gt;\n &lt;/tbody&gt;\n...\n&lt;/html&gt;\n\n\nPrevent SQL Injection\n\nYou are passing user input directly to the query you send to the database. Wikipedia will elaborate some examples in detail and shows how queries can be manipulated.\n\nThe easies way for you to prevent this, is using PHP Data Objects and Prepared Statements. I think there is no need for going in detail here if you don't have a specific question, there are many good tutorials out there. The important part is, that the user is no longer able to change the query you send to the database.\n\nMinor issues\n\n\nIf you only have one database connection PHP will use this connection automatically with the mysqli_ methods so you don't have to pass the $database around.\nIt is best practice to leave away the final '?>' in plain php files. This will prevent that you send any whitespace after ?&gt; to the browser accidentally. (Important if you change the header later.)\necho \"Everything blew up!\" . mysqli_error($database); . May you should use die.", "It is not possible to edit a shapefile with a query. Following this ticket: http://hub.qgis.org/issues/2951, it is a matter of the underlaying OGR shapefile driver.\n\nTo solve the problem, store your data in a spatialite database, which can be queried and edited with no problems. That's what databases are designed for; a shapefile only comes with limited database-like functions.", "The \"common solution\" you mentioned has one glaring and obvious flaw: it can't use salt. If your hash has a salt (it should), then you need to fetch the salt before performing the hash operation. And if you're fetching the salt, you should just fetch the hash result at the same time. In fact, the two are typically stored in the same string.\n\nIdeally, you should fetch the hash from the database and perform the computation on it in your application. Your bit about not wanting to worry about your applications supporting your hash functions is odd. Applications typically lead, not lag, databases in technology adoption.\n\nYour solution of putting the password checking routine in a stored procedure is a bit crazy from a scalability point of view; password hashing if done right is extremely processor and memory intensive. Dumping that kind of load onto your database is ludicrous.\n\nStored procedures push computation from the web server to the database server, as do complex SQL queries. While that's OK in theory, in practice your database tends to be the least scalable part of your whole operation. Web servers tend to be (should be if you do things right) completely stateless, so running ten webservers takes no more work than running two. Databases are not so simple, and scaling up your database is one of the most difficult and expensive propositions most small websites face. This is immensely more difficult if you use any sort of database-side business logic. If you want the thing to be scalable, your application server should contain logic and no state, and your database should contain state and no logic.", "mRNA specific queries\n\nAdd this to your NCBI query: AND mrna[filter]\n\nIf it's not available in major databases it may not be known.\n\nHowever mRNA data can be obscure to find even in those major databases but it should be there. I would be surprised if that is the case, however since you're not working with model organisms there may well be nothing available.\n\nWhen looking for a transcript gene, NCBI have some tips that you can see here for searching their database. #8 might be relevant to you as it's a way of filtering exclusively mRNA records.\n\n\n If there is no UniGene cluster for this gene and organism, perform a\n search in the Nucleotide database with the gene name, product name, or\n symbol. Include the organism in the search to find the most relevant\n results and filter for transcript sequences, for example: Cytochrome c\n AND bullfrog[orgn] AND mrna[filter].\n\n\nPredicting mRNA\n\nBasic: ExPasy DNA translation tool\n\nAdvanced: regrna 2\n\nAssuming that advanced querying doesn't reveal what you need you might be able to make some useful predictions before taking it to the lab. There are a handful of other predictive tools that can maybe help you out if that's the only option available. I can't get my head around exactly what information you have as an input. Assuming you have the DNA sequence, I would start with the obvious choice: the ExPasy DNA translation tool.\n\nI would then say that regrna 2 might be able to steer you in the right direction regarding more subtle translational elements.", "Not really sure what you mean with \"it only fails in the publication that save information in DataBase, in the rest of publications works\", but the fact that you get a timeout during rendering of aprox. 500 Structure Groups sounds like you might have a database maintenance issue to start with.\n\nFurthermore a Publish Transaction taking 1 hour really sounds like you are having a huge issue, that totally should not be happening. Even when you are publishing the entire Publication I would not expect it to take that long.\n\nSo to try and tackle the first issue I think that needs addressing, the database performance: The documentation has several topics on maintenance like http://docs.sdl.com/LiveContent/content/en-US/SDL%20Tridion%20full%20documentation-v1/GUID-94283420-8A51-4F2C-913E-B18455E58D74 and http://docs.sdl.com/LiveContent/content/en-US/SDL%20Tridion%20full%20documentation-v1/GUID-5863DEDC-1511-4333-A0C6-644B67403634\n\nThere is also an article on SDLs community website about database maintenance: https://community.sdl.com/products-solutions/solutions/customer_experience_cloud/digital-experience/tridion/tridion-developer/b/weblog/archive/2009/04/03/maintaining-sdl-tridion-databases\n\nBasically it comes down to a correctly configured database server (please check the documentation of the database vendor for that) and making sure that you regularly update the statistics of the database and ensure the transaction log is properly truncated to keep it small.\n\nFor MS SQL Server, you can start with executing the following commands on the CM database:\n\nexec sp_updatestats\n\n\nAnd making sure the translation log is less than 1GB in size (because if it reaches that, your MS SQL Server database will become very slow).\n\nI expect that after proper database maintenance you should see a lot better performance on Previewing and Publishing, and then we might be able to work on the problem which is reported at publish time (since the size issue will most likely still be there, but we will need more information to see how it can be solved). Please update your question and provide more details so we can continue on solving this.", "Note there are many factors you would need to be aware of with mixed gas diving and isobaric counter-diffusion (IBCD) is just one of them.\n\nBasically, the speed at which gasses dissolve into body tissues is a function of the gas' solubility and the difference of partial pressure between the inspired (i.e. breathed-in) gas and the dissolved gas already in the tissue according to Henry's law. Say you switching to air during the ascent from a deep dive breathing heliox (which contains helium and oxygen only). Before the switch, you dissolved plenty of helium but no nitrogen into your tissues during the dive. After the switch to air, the inspired air contains no helium but plenty of nitrogen, so the dissolved helium will start leaving your tissues (off-gassing) just as the nitrogen starts dissolving into your tissues (on-gassing), this is ICBD.\n\nNow, here's the issue with IBCD: the tendency of bubbles to form in the tissues is a function of the sum of partial pressures in your tissues, so if you are on-gassing nitrogen from the air faster than you are off-gassing helium then although the individual gas partial pressures may not ordinarily be enough for bubble formation, the sum of the two pressures in your tissues may rise to a point where bubbles start to form that can produce symptoms of decompression illness. This is known as \"deep water bends\" or \"vestibular bends\" since the first symptoms of this typically occur in the vestibular canal, and can lead to life-threatening nausea, vomiting and loss of coordination underwater. Even if you survive this, in severe cases it can leave debilitating and irreversible injuries.\n\nIBCD is reduced by choosing gas mixes and switching depth carefully so as to minimise the difference in partial pressures when switching from trimix to air. Also, helium is much more soluble than nitrogen, so one should never switch from a high nitrogen mix like air to a high helium mix like trimix on ascent as the helium will rapidly on-gas much faster than the nitrogen will concurrently off-gas which greatly increases IBCD and its attendant risks.\n\nBut in the examples you stated I personally would do the dive on air and would not bother with the added complication and expense of trimix, although 45m is quite deep by recreational standards so I would build up to it gradually in consultation with an instructor and probably do a decompression course to make it worthwhile otherwise you will have very little bottom time.", "Always surface dive/snorkel first.\n\nI have cliff dived in two locations - one is normally deceptive: poor visibility, shadows etc but on visual checks turned out to have 100 ft straight down to a sandy floor; the other looked clear and deep but had rocky ledges at about 20 feet!\n\nConsidering we dived from 80 - 100 feet, that second location was scary!\n\nRemember that while you may try to go 10-15 feet, as per ShemSeger's post, sometimes you will end up much deeper." ]

[ "this sequence may be regulated through descent or by statute hereditary government form differs from elected government an established order of succession is the normal way of passing on hereditary positions and also provides immediate continuity after an unexpected vacancy in cases where office holders are chosen by election the office does not have to remain vacant until a successor is elected in some cases the successor takes up the full role of the previous office holder as in the case of the presidency of many countries in other non hereditary cases there is not a full succession but a caretaker chosen by succession criteria assumes some or all of the responsibilities but not the formal office of the position for example when the position of president of india becomes vacant the vice president of india carries out the essential functions of the presidency until a successor is elected in contrast when the position of president of the philippines is vacant the vice president of the philippines outright assumes the presidency itself for the rest of the term organizations without hereditary or statutory order of succession require succession planning if power struggles prompted by power vacuums are to be avoided", "as with many figures in the sagas doubts have been cast on his existence but he is mentioned in a roughly contemporary skaldic poem about the battle according to legend his original name was bj rn and styr which was added when he had grown up was an epithet meaning that he was restless controversially forceful and violent it is believed that there once was a full saga about styrbj rn but most of what is extant is found in the short styrbjarnar ttr sv akappa parts of his story are also retold in eyrbyggja saga saxo grammaticus gesta danorum book 10 kn tlinga saga and hervarar saga he is also mentioned in the heimskringla several times and in yngvars saga v f rla where ingvar the far travelled is compared to his kinsman styrbj rn oddr snorrason also mentions him in l fs saga tryggvasonar around 1190 writing that styrbj rn was defeated through magic in modern days he is also the hero of a novel called styrbiorn the strong by english author eric r cker eddison 1926 and he is featured in the long ships by frans g bengtsson the extant poetry on styrbj rn is found in", "it confirmed that salic law was to operate in favor of all the agnatic lines of the family specifically the two senior surviving lines which had originated in the middle ages the walramian and the ottonian the pact chiefly provided that in case of one of these lines becoming extinct the other would succeed in its hereditary nassau lands the main concept of the pact was that if either the ottonian or walramian male line would become extinct the other line would succeed there was a clause to provide for a so called semi salic continuation to the dynasty in an undefined way if both the lines were to die out in the male line also arranged for that in the absence of all male successors females could succeed in case of the extinction of all male lines the closest heir to the last male will succeed and in turn will be succeeded by the heirs of that closest one if the closest heir happens to be a woman the pact was silent about whether her husband receives rights or not there was no precise stipulation as to what precisely was to happen after that closest heir would the succession", "the rivals are typically supported by factions within the royal court foreign powers sometimes intervene allying themselves with a faction this may widen the war into one between those powers in historiography and literature a war of succession may also be referred to as a succession dispute dynastic struggle internecine conflict fratricidal war or any combination of these terms not all of these are necessarily describing armed conflict however and the dispute may be resolved without escalating into open warfare wars of succession are also often referred to as a civil war when in fact it was a conflict within the royalty or broader aristocracy that civilians were dragged into and may therefore be a misnomer or at least a misleading characterisation a war of succession is a type of intrastate war concerning struggle for the throne a conflict about supreme power in a monarchy it may become an interstate war if foreign powers intervene a succession war may arise after or sometimes even before a universally recognised ruler over a certain territory passes away sometimes without leaving behind any legal offspring or is declared insane or otherwise incapable to govern and is deposed next several pretenders step forward who", "as of 2019 there are three people in the line of succession to the current emperor naruhito prince akishino prince hisahito and prince hitachi prior to the birth of prince hisahito in 2006 the government of japan considered changes to the imperial household law to allow additional potential successors to the throne traditionally the imperial throne was passed on under custom which resembled the rule of agnatic seniority theoretically any male or female with patrilineal lineage to early japanese monarchs who descended in direct male line from the first emperor jimmu could come to hold the throne in practice preference was given to first born male offspring of a preceding male monarch followed by his brothers sons other males of the immediate male line family and ultimately male members of the shinn ke houses cadet branches distantly related to the reigning monarch because there existed no restrictions on remarriage or polygyny in historical japan there existed usually many male relatives who could take over the throne however there have been several instances of a woman served as a reigning empress of japan all reigning empresses were descendants of the imperial dynasty in the male line such successions have happened for", "france intervened in support of portugal as they were rivals with aragon for territory in italy and roussillon despite a few initial successes by the supporters of joanna a lack of military aggressiveness by afonso v and the stalemate in the battle of toro 1476 led to the disintegration of joanna s alliance and the recognition of isabella in the courts of madrigal segovia april october 1476 in 1476 immediately after the indecisive battle of peleagonzalo near toro ferdinand and isabella hailed the result as a great victory and called courts at madrigal the newly gained prestige was used to win municipal support from their allies marvin lunenfeld the war between castile and portugal alone continued this included naval warfare in the atlantic which became more important a struggle for maritime access to the wealth of guinea gold and slaves in 1478 the portuguese navy defeated the castilians in the decisive battle of guinea the war concluded in 1479 with the treaty of alc ovas which recognized isabella and ferdinand as sovereigns of castile and granted portugal hegemony in the atlantic with the exception of the canary islands joanna lost her right to the throne of castile and remained in", "succession matters prior to the end of absolute monarchy in 1932 could be contentious especially during the ayutthaya period from the 14th to 18th centuries in 1924 king vajiravudh rama vi attempted to clarify the succession process by laying down the palace law of succession it was promulgated and came into effect in november 1924 as in part an attempt to eliminate the vagueness relating to succession within the thai monarchical regime and to systematically resolve previous controversies in 1932 after siam became a constitutional monarchy various amendments relating to succession were introduced the 1997 constitution of thailand relied on the law with regards to succession but the 2006 interim constitution made no mention of succession leaving it to constitutional practice the 2007 constitution again relied on the palace law the preamble of the 2014 interim constitution of thailand abrogated the 2007 constitution with the exception of chapter 2 concerning the monarchy and the succession the original palace law of a d 1360 relating to succession since ayutthaya kingdom period 1351 1767 did not lay out a clear system for determining a successor upon the death of a king rather it provided a frame of reference from which the next", "the war followed huayna capac s death in 1527 although it did not begin until 1529 and lasted until 1532 hu scar initiated the war because he saw himself as the rightful heir to the kingdom of all the incas regardless of legitimacy atahualpa proved himself to be tactically superior to his brother in warcraft and to the mighty armies of cuzco which their father had stationed in the north part of the empire during the military campaign accounts from sources all vary in the exact details in 1524 1526 the spaniards under the command of francisco pizarro explored south america there were 62 horsemen and 106 foot soldiers smallpox was taken to the continent causing disaster for the incas sapa inca huayna capac travelled north to investigate the strangers although he never met any spaniards he contracted smallpox and died in 1527 his eldest son and heir ninan cuyochi died soon after him thus it became uncertain as to who should be the next inca king there were no clear rules of succession the choice stood between two sons of huayna capac hu scar and atahualpa born of different mothers wayna qhapaq was king before the dynastic war began", "peace and prosperity reigned in pahang under his rule which lasted in 1857 after his death the eldest son tun mutahir succeeded the crown but did not follow his father s will of granting tax income of kuantan and endau to his younger brother wan ahmad wan ahmad resented and along with his soldiers moved to tekong island planning his attack in 1857 tun mutahir received the backing of temenggong tun daeng ibrahim and his son abu bakar who because of close ties with singapore s business community convinced many of them that british commercial interests lay with tun mutahir wan ahmad enlisted the support of sultan ali in muar who saw an opportunity for revenge against the johor temenggong the siamese rattanakosin kingdom weighed in on the side of wan ahmad viewing the disorder as an opportunity to exercise greater control over their east coast tributary states and extend their influence farther south into pahang sultan baginda omar of terengganu also supported wan ahmad seeing him as a tool to counter the rise of the temenggong the district of kemaman in terengganu was the primary base for much of the campaigns carried out by wan ahmad during the war" ]

[ "he left behind two princes named sultan alauddin riayat shah ii and sultan muzaffar syah the former went on to establish the sultanate of johor muzaffar syah was invited to rule perak he became the first sultan of perak in contrast to the other malay sultanates the ruling dynasty of perak utilises a somewhat complex order of succession the reigning sultan appoints princes in the male line of descent from a sultan to certain high princely titles they are arranged in a strict order of precedence indicating the order of succession to the throne as per ruling of 25 february 1953 the present hierarchy of titles and the corresponding order of succession is as follows while titleholders are usually appointed for life titles may be revoked in cases of proven incompetence or disability on the death or promotion of an existing titleholder the holder of the next most senior title succeeds him the raja muda is the heir apparent and succeeds the ruling sultan on his demise whereupon the prince holding the title of raja di hilir becomes the new raja muda the raja kechil besar then becomes the raja di hilir the new sultan may then appoint his own", "in other words the loser in legal proceedings must pay the legal costs of the successful party where a defendant has a reasonable apprehension that its legal costs will not be paid for by the plaintiff if the defendant is successful the defendant can apply to the court for an order that the plaintiff provide security for costs furthermore the amount that is ordered by the judge is in direct correlation to the strength or weakness of the plaintiff s case brought herewith the weaker the probability of the plaintiff prevailing the higher the security order typically a claimant will be outside the jurisdiction of the court the law of security for costs recognises that orders of the court relating to payment of a party s legal costs can be very difficult to enforce in non common law jurisdictions and so will order security to be provided security can also be ordered where a plaintiff is insolvent or prone to vexatious litigation security is usually provided in the form of a bank cheque paid into the court or held in a trust account operated jointly by both the plaintiff s and defendant s lawyers if the defendant is successful the", "president donald trump signed on february 9 2017 the order changes the line of succession for the department of justice doj this order specifically reverses changes made to the doj line of succession that former president barack obama made in executive order 13762 on january 13 2017 during the presidential transition of donald trump then president obama issued executive order 13762 this order changed the department of justice line of succession to the following following the resignation of attorney general loretta lynch at the end of the presidential transition deputy attorney general sally yates ascended to the position of acting attorney general a position she would presumably retain until the confirmation of jeff sessions who was donald trump s nomination for the position on january 27 2017 trump signed executive order 13769 which placed limits on travel to the u s from certain countries and by all refugees this provoked several lawsuits including washington v trump that sought to challenge the constitutionality of the order on january 30 yates publicly refused to defend the order and also barred all other doj personnel from defending the order as well later that day yates was fired for insubordination and the united states", "she was launched on 21 march 1901 on 27 december 1914 she was wrecked off fife ness during heavy gales hms success was ordered on 30 march 1899 from william doxford sons as part of the british admiralty s 1899 1900 shipbuilding programme one of twelve thirty knotter destroyers ordered from various shipyards under this programme success closely resembled doxford s ordered under the 1897 1898 programme with the major difference being that the ship had three funnels rather than four success was long overall and between perpendiculars with a beam of and a draught of displacement was light and full load four thornycroft boilers fed two triple expansion engines rated at which drove two propeller shafts giving a speed of armament was as standard for the thirty knotters with a qf 12 pounder 12 cwt calibre gun on a platform on the ship s conning tower also used as the ship s bridge with a secondary armament of five 6 pounder guns and two 18 inch 450 mm torpedo tubes success was laid down at doxford s sunderland shipyard as yard number 282 on 18 september 1899 launched on 21 march 1901 and completed in may 1902 success was", "the order was founded in london in 1874 by frederick george lee thomas mossman and john thomas seccombe it is an anglo papalist society founded to continue the work of the association for the promotion of the unity of christendom apuc and to restore an apostolic succession recognised by the roman catholic church through reordinations as a means for reunion the order affirms and supports what is catholic in anglicanism and in other christian churches it encourages work and prayer for christian unity especially the week of prayer for christian unity celebrated from january 18 to 25 the three founders each claimed to have been consecrated a bishop by an existing bishop standing in a recognised apostolic succession from the original apostles of the first century of the christian era however they did not state in public the names of the bishops who had consecrated them now nearly 150 years afterwards there are claims on the internet as to who the original consecrating bishops were however the veracity of these claims are disputed the order of corporate reunion regards valid apostolic succession as an essential aspect of the church catholic it preserves and protects its own apostolic succession following the", "the house orders however are awarded at the discretion of the dutch monarch alone over the centuries hundreds of medals decorations for merit or valour and orders of knighthood have been instituted by the successive governments of the netherlands the oldest were founded by the counts of holland their successors the house of burgundy founded the famous order of the golden fleece this order still exists in spain and in the austrian imperial house the republic of the seven united netherlands did not possess an order of knighthood instead so called beloningspenningen golden medals on golden chains were given as gifts to ambassadors and successful admirals in 1781 a medal called the doggersbank medaille was awarded to the officers who took part in the battle of the dogger bank against the british fleet it was the first modern dutch decoration the batavian republic founded after the french invasion of 1795 did not institute any orders or medals the kingdom of holland was founded in 1805 to provide a throne for napoleon s younger brother lodewijk napoleon bonaparte the king of holland founded an orde van de unie english order of the union later dubbed order of holland then royal order", "it is the labour counterpart of the military order of the red banner a few institutions and factories being the pride of soviet union also received the order the order of the red banner of labour began solely as an award of the russian sfsr on december 28 1920 the all union equivalent was established by decree of the presidium of the supreme soviet on september 7 1928 and approved by another decree on september 15 1928 the order s statute and regulations were modified by multiple successive decrees of the presidium of the supreme soviet of the ussr on may 7 1936 on june 19 1943 on march 28 1980 and on july 18 1980 the order of the red banner of labour can be awarded to citizens of the ussr to businesses associations institutions organizations and allied autonomous republics territories autonomous regions districts cities and other localities it may also be awarded to persons who are not citizens of the ussr as well as to enterprises institutions and organizations located in foreign countries the order of the red banner of labour could be awarded multiple times to the same recipient for successive deeds and long time merit the", "the entries of the matrix are either 1 or 1 and its rows as well as columns are orthogonal i e dot product is zero the walsh matrix was proposed by joseph l walsh in 1923 each row of a walsh matrix corresponds to a walsh function the naturally ordered hadamard matrix is defined by the recursive formula below and the sequency ordered hadamard matrix is formed by rearranging the rows so that the number of sign changes in a row is in increasing order confusingly different sources refer to either matrix as the walsh matrix the walsh matrix and walsh functions are used in computing the walsh transform and have applications in the efficient implementation of certain signal processing operations the hadamard matrices of dimension 2 for k n are given by the recursive formula the lowest order of hadamard matrix is 2 and in general for 2 k n where denotes the kronecker product rearrange the rows of the matrix according to the number of sign change of each row for example in the successive rows have 0 3 1 and 2 sign changes if we rearrange the rows in sequency ordering then the successive rows have 0", "as it is required that the funds be prepaid for the amount shown on it it is a more trusted method of payment than a check the money order system was established by a private firm in great britain in 1792 and was expensive and not very successful around 1836 it was sold to another private firm which lowered the fees significantly increasing the popularity and usage of the system the post office noted the success and profitability and it took over the system in 1838 fees were further reduced and usage increased further making the money order system reasonably profitable the only draw back was the need to send an advance to the paying post office before payment could be tendered to the recipient of the order this drawback was likely the primary incentive for establishment of the postal order system on 1 january 1881 a money order is purchased for the amount desired in this way it is similar to a certified cheque the main difference is that money orders are usually limited in maximum face value to some specified figure for example the united states postal service limits domestic postal money orders to us 1 000 00", "in legal aid cases a similar assessment will determine the costs which the solicitors will be paid from the legal aid fund in most courts and tribunals generally after a final judgment has been given and possibly after any interim application the judge has the power to order any party and in exceptional cases even a third party or any of the lawyers personally to pay some or all of other parties costs the law of costs defines how such allocation is to take place even when a successful party obtains an order for costs against an opponent it is usual that he may nevertheless still have to pay his solicitors a balance between the costs recoverable from the opponent and the total chargeable by his solicitor and if the loser is unable to pay then the order for costs may be worthless and the successful party will remain fully liable to his own solicitors the law of costs in england and wales is typical of common law jurisdictions save that of the united states in the small fraction of cases that do not settle and instead proceed to a judgment generally costs follow the event so that the successful", "the inaugural ceremony of the order took place on 6 january 1352 at saint ouen from which it is sometimes called the order of knights of the noble house of saint ouen the order was inspired by geoffroy de charny theoretician of chivalry and elite knight who ultimately earned the apex privilege of oriflamme bearer in part it was intended to prevent the disaster of cr cy and to this end only success on the battlefield counted towards a member s merit not success in tournaments by its statutes members also received a small payment and the order provided housing in retirement they were sworn not to retreat or move more than four arpents about six acre s breadths from a battle this last provision cost the lives of ninety members of the order at the battle of mauron in 1352 and at the battle of poitiers in 1356 cost the king his freedom when many if not most of his fellow knights of the star lost their lives the order fell rapidly into disuse during john s captivity in london but afterwards the nominal ranks swelled so enormously that by the time of charles v its bestowal was meaningless", "a similar award the order of bohdan khmelnytsky was begun on may 3 1995 by ukrainian president leonid kuchma to commemorate the 50th anniversary of victory in the german soviet war the general nikita khrushchev the soviet filmmaker alexander dovzhenko and poet mykola bazhan initiated the idea to create this award the order was created during world war ii and was awarded to soviet armed forces personnel and often the members of the ukrainian front coincidentally three of them were reinstated on october 20 1943 for their exceptional duty in combat operations that led to the liberation of soviet territory the order of bohdan khmelnitsky was broken down into three different classes 1st class 2nd class and 3rd class general alexei danilov became the first recipient of the 1st class order of bogdan khmelnitsky the 1st class medal is awarded to army commanders especially at the front for successful direction of combat operations that led to the liberation of a region or town where they were successful in inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy altogether 323 people were awarded order of bogdan khmelnitsky 1st class distinguished people who received this order were several future marshals of the soviet union including", "270 issued on 16 august 1941 by joseph stalin during the axis invasion of the soviet union ordered red army personnel to fight to the last virtually banned commanders from surrendering and set out severe penalties for senior officers and deserters regarded as derelicting their duties order 270 is widely regarded as the basis of subsequent often controversial soviet policies regarding prisoners of war during the pre war period the efficiency and morale of red army command staff was low as a result of stalin s purges by august 1941 axis forces had achieved overwhelming successes in their advancement deep into soviet territory their successful blitzkrieg strategy disorganized the soviet defense system led to the encirclement of numerous soviet units including whole field armies stalin issued the order in his capacity as people s commissar of defence the order was aimed primarily at rapidly raising the effectiveness and morale of officers in the preamble the order gives examples of troops fighting in encirclement as well as cases of surrender by military command the first article directed that any commanders or commissars tearing away their insignia and deserting or surrendering should be considered malicious deserters the order required superiors to shoot", "they were also known as the children of thanos the black order is a group of ruthless aliens that serve thanos they help thanos raze worlds from which they demand tribute when corvus glaive sent one of their outriders to find a new world to raze the outrider targeted earth the black order arrive on earth in search of the infinity gems which are under the control of the illuminati each member of the order targets a member of the illuminati with varying degrees of success during their search for the gems ebony maw finds thanos son thane whom thanos wishes to kill during a battle with the avengers black dwarf and supergiant are killed ebony maw betrays thanos and frees thane thane traps thanos corvus glaive and proxima midnight in an amber construct which leaves them in a state of living death while imprisoned in the triskelion thanos was approached by a mysterious cloaked figure who offered him support in obtaining the mjolnir of earth 1610 thanos accepted the deal in order to make sure it was a success thanos formed a second incarnation of the black order with proxima midnight and black swan of earth 1365 he dispatched", "by the late 1970s the east germans who were already successful in luge began getting success in bobsleigh this included a total of six winter olympic medals in bobsleigh in 1976 and 1980 along with five world bobsleigh championship medals between 1977 and 1979 in order to increase east germany s effort to win more bobsleigh and luge medals both at the winter olympics and their respective sport s world championships a track was constructed the track at altenberg was constructed under the order of then stasi ministry for state security in east germany minister erich mielke construction began in 1981 under restrictive access with a wire fence and armed patrols from the landstreitkr fte east german national people s army on orders from mielke by 1983 construction was completed though trials were less than successful this would result in turns 11 and 12 being destroyed and rebuilt it was not until late 1986 when the track was officially completed with homologation received from both the international bobsleigh and tobogganing federation fibt and the international luge federation fil the following year the track was part of the training used by sg dynamo zinnwald sv dynamo until the 1990 german reunification", "after dom luiz in the succession order comes the next brother prince bertrand born 1941 who as heir presumptive to the throne would be the prince imperial if his eldest brother were actually reigning and who is often accorded that style in royalist circles although he is the sixth brother ant nio follows bertrand in the succession order because three older brothers renounced their claims to the throne in order to marry commoners some brazilian royalists consider the marriage of prince ant nio with princess christine de ligne as a m salliance or morganatic since the princes de ligne were never a sovereign family nor a mediatised family ant nio is an artist usually painting water color landscapes depicting buildings ranches and farms typical of colonial brazil in may 1999 he held an exhibition a heran a portuguesa no brasil colonial the portuguese heritage in colonial brazil at ipanema park in portugal in 2001 he held exhibitions at curitiba and at joinville his work has also been displayed in the crystal palace in petropolis the museu nacional de belas artes in rio de janeiro and the galeria quadrante and the in s o paulo in 1981 he married princess christine", "conditional power is the probability of observing statistical significance given the observed data assuming the treatment effect parameter equals a specific value conditional power is often criticized for this assumption if we know the exact value of the treatment effect there is no need to do the experiment to address this issue we can consider conditional power in a bayesian setting by considering the treatment effect parameter to be a random variable taking the expected value of the conditional power with respect to the posterior distribution of the parameter gives the predictive power predictive power can also be calculated in a frequentist setting no matter how it is calculated predictive power is a random variable since it is a conditional probability conditioned on randomly observed data both conditional power and predictive power use statistical significance as the success criterion however statistical significance is often not sufficient to define success for example a health authority often requires the magnitude of the treatment effect to be bigger than an effect which is merely statistically significant in order to support successful registration in order to address this issue we can extend conditional power and predictive power to the concept of probability of success", "the parties may rank the pr list candidates they nominate in a regional block in any order they decide however they are allowed to but don t have to place some or all of the pr candidates concurrently running in a single member district on the same position on their pr list in that case the sekihairitsu is used to determine the order of candidates it is calculated by dividing the number of votes a candidate received in his electoral district by the district winner s votes after all district winners are struck from the list they already have won a seat and thus cannot be elected by pr all remaining candidates put on the same list rank are then arranged according to their sekihairitsu in descending order while the sekihairitsu system allows depending on a party s nomination strategy and electoral success more successful candidates those narrowly losing their districts prioritized election by pr it does not change the fact that the japanese voting system is a parallel i e non compensatory voting system the number of pr seats for a party is independent from the results in the single member districts and is exclusively determined by the number", "this order was chivalric in nature but was intended strictly for women whose service to prussia was worthy of such high national recognition its dame companion members were limited to 100 in number and were intended to be drawn from all classes though the prussian king was technically the sovereign of the orders of the realm the chief of the order of louise was the reigning queen daughters in the royal family were invested with this order in lieu of the order of the black eagle order of the red eagle grand cross prussian crown order first class and royal house order of hohenzollern that were reserved for the sons the order of louise was renewed with each successive monarch it was issued from its founding in 1814 during the reign of friedrich wilhelm iii and renewed in 1850 during the reign of friedrich wilhelm iv in 1865 during the reign of wilhelm i and in 1890 during the reign of wilhelm ii the text of the original royal proclamation that created the order roughly translates as follows when the men of our brave armies bled for the homeland you found relief in the maintaining care of the women faith", "in 1889 he joined the college of arms as bluemantle pursuivant he was appointed york herald on 29 november 1905 in succession to george william marshall and then norroy king of arms in 1922 before being appointed clarenceux king of arms the principal herald of south east and west england on 5 october 1926 in succession to william lindsay he was secretary to the earl marshal from 1911 to 1917 and the deputy earl marshal from 1917 until his death he was also an expert in japanese art and heraldry and a stage designer he was appointed companion of the order of the bath cb in the 1920 new year war honours and commander of the royal victorian order cvo in the 1926 new year honours", "in the event that vacancies exist at the same time in both the post of governor and that of secretary of state the law establishes a line of succession upon the secretaries this line of succession is established by law no 7 of 2005 in the event that the governor elect does not qualify or a permanent vacancy occurs in the office of governor before the governor elect shall have appointed a secretary of state or before said secretary having been appointed shall have qualified the legislative assembly just elected elects a governor who shall hold office until his successor is elected in the next general election and qualifies the constitution establishes that the governor of puerto rico has to be at least 35 years old to serve the table below shows the current governmental line of succession as established by article iv of the constitution of puerto rico and further defined by law no 7 of 2005 however those in the line of succession must still satisfy the constitutional requirements for the office of governor in order to serve in the table the absence of a number in the first column indicates that the incumbent is ineligible", "it was founded in 1909 in clintonville wisconsin as the badger four wheel drive auto company by otto zachow and william besserdich the first production facility was built in 1911 and was designed by architect wallace w delong of appleton wisconsin zachow and besserdich developed and built the first successful four wheel drive 4x4 car the battleship in 1908 its success led to the founding of the company badger was dropped from the name in 1910 besserdich and zachow s patented full time four wheel drive system combined a lockable center differential with double y constant velocity universal joints for steering in modern terms the battleship would be considered all wheel drive as all fwd products featured full time four wheel drive with a lockable center differential the success of the four wheel drive in early military tests prompted the company to switch from cars to trucks in 1916 the u s army ordered 147 model b three ton trucks for the pancho villa expedition the u s army ordered 15 000 fwd model b three ton trucks as the truck 3 ton model 1917 during the world war i with over 14 000 actually delivered additional orders came from", "it was decided to conduct three amphibious landings in the rear of the japanese kwantung army from 11 to 13 august the first two landings by the pacific fleet were executed in which they occupied seaports yuki today sonbong and racine today rason on the korean coast which encountered only some small resistance in racine encouraged by the success the fleet commander admiral ivan yumashev ordered the launch of the next amphibious assault at the port of seishin now chongjin unlike the previous ports seishin was well fortified and had a strong japanese garrison it had some 4 000 soldiers and was enforced by retreating units of the 3rd japanese army commanded by lieutenant general keisaku murakami of the kwantung army in view of the successful development of the offensive of the 1st far eastern front the front commander marshal of the soviet union kirill meretskov on august 12 ordered to cancel the previously scheduled landing in seishin however the fleet command continued preparations for the landing hoping for an easy success yumashev managed to get permission to conduct the operation from the commander in chief of the soviet troops in the far east marshal of the soviet union a", "zadok was head of the academy of sura from 874 to 882 in succession to mar amram ben sheshna he wrote explanations to difficult words in the talmud not in alphabetical order as did his contemporary gaon ema ben paltoi of pumbedita but in the order of the tractates the re umah on ritual slaughtering constantinople 1566 is ascribed to him but his authorship is doubtful he devoted much attention to the study of the jewish calendar he found that the order of the week days on which any particular festival occurs in successive years repeats itself after a cycle of 247 years and that the years with regard to their characteristic dates can be arranged in 14 tables this discovery is known as and is contained in the iggul cycle di r nahshon which work was printed with the she erit yosef of joseph b shem ob b joshua 1521 nahshon and his son hai gaon did not approve of saying the kol nidre on the eve of yom kippur most of his responsa contained in the collection sha are ede are written in aramaic in a curt difficult style but the responsa ascribed to him in teshubot ge", "the events occur on the date that new apprentices are introduced to the company of marblers and stonecutters of purbeck the freemen gather in the fox inn west street where they wait till corfe church chimes at twelve noon where they make their way into the town hall which is reputedly the smallest town hall in the country any apprentices wishing to be admitted into the order wait in the fox inn in the town hall names of attendance are taken apologies are made on behalf of the absent the minutes of the last annual general meeting are read and any new apprentices wishing to become freemen of the order that fit the necessary criteria are nominated and seconded after which a vote is taken to decide if each of the applicants are accepted from the fox inn the successful apprentices are called to the town hall with a quart of beer and a penny loaf to pay their dues then successful applicants are welcomed as freemen of the order after which a closed ceremony is held for the company a photo taken in 1935 shows 22 members of the company with their chaplain the rector of corfe castle on", "duke konrad granted the knights the town of dobrzy dobrin and the surrounding dobrzy land territory located south of and adjacent to prussia the order of dobrzy was the only military order created in the territory of poland at first the order was composed of 15 german knights from lower saxony and mecklenburg led by master brunon the order of dobrzy provided assistance to the cistercian missionaries in prussia and protection from the raids of the pagan prussian tribes their ideology was represented by their clothing over their armor they had white cloaks with symbols of a red sword raised up and a red star representing the revelations of jesus to non christians the rules of their orders were based on those of the livonian order and the knights templar in the face of the order s lack of success in battle against the prussians as well as their small number at its highest 35 knights in around 1235 the majority of the knights joined the teutonic order as allowed by a papal document the golden bull of rieti in 1237 the rest of the brothers were moved by konrad to drohiczyn to increase the military strength of that outpost", "this type of bluff may be employed as an attempt at using reverse psychology to steal the pot it holds comparatively little risk for the player making the bet the term was popularized by doyle brunson in his 1979 book super system a player executing the post oak bluff bets a small amount relative to the size of the pot typically of the order of 1 10 the pot in order to create the impression that he is trying to lure the other player into the pot in this way he mimics the play he might make if he had a strong hand where it is known as a here kitty kitty or come hither bet when successful the other player s fold rather than fall into the perceived trap this bluff will not often win the pot as the pot odds presented by the bet 11 to 1 are usually too good for the opposing players to reject unless they are absolutely convinced they re beaten however in order to be successful in the long term a 1 10 pot size bluff need only succeed one time in ten dan harrington has enumerated three preconditions he says are requisite", "the order received its rule from pope urban iv who expressly states the purpose of the organisation and the rights and obligations of its members the members of the order are to be allowed to bear arms for the defence of the catholic faith and ecclesiastical freedom when specifically required to do so by the roman church for subduing civil discords they may carry only defensive weapons provided they have the permission of the diocesan the rule of the order was based on that of the augustinians but by a precedent set by the order of santiago and the militia of jesus christ members could marry and did not live in communal poverty their chief task appears to have been the pacification of the lombard cities racked by factional strife in this they were largely unsuccessful due in no small part to their political allegiance to the church the unique position of the order and the nature of its rule has led to its being denied full status by historians who have sometimes labelled it a mere confraternity the order would admit a woman as a militissa female knight the order did have some success at building bridges between the", "they were introduced in 1957 and since then only the numbering changed in order to make them easier to memorize the rules were based upon the success of the united states armed forces general orders for sentries a set of guidelines designed for safety and efficiency for military personnel standing sentry duty the ten standard orders were later supplemented by 18 situations that shout watch out or the 18 watchout situations while the original orders were designed to be implemented in an order of importance the order was changed in the 1980s to remove this priority of orders and create an easy to remember list with each order beginning with an initial of fire orders then returned to the original order in 2002 a primary consideration for firefighters addressed by these orders is to be able to gain timely warning of a danger allowing the firefighter to safely escape the orders were developed from lessons learned in a number of major wildland fires that led to the deaths of trapped firefighters including the shoshone national forest blackwater fire of 1937 and the helena national forest mann gulch fire in 1949 the order can be a basis for evaluating the aftermath", "it evolved as a separation of the literal crown and property of the nation state from the person and personal property of the monarch in this context it should not be confused with any physical crown a bill is a proposed law under consideration by a legislature a bill is not law until passed by the legislature and in most cases approved by the executive privy council and monarch by royal assent once a bill is enacted into law it is called an act or statute numerous bills and acts of succession were used to determine heirs and potential heirs to the throne during the reign of the incumbent monarch and especially before during and after the changeovers between the tudors stuarts hanoverians and saxe coburg and gotha to the present windsors all of which necessitated changes and amendments to prior succession legislation to accommodate circumstances of the day historically and presently legislation to amend laws of succession generally argue for amendments to several historic acts adjudged relevant to succession issues of the day the bill of rights 1688 and the coronation oath act 1688 the act of settlement 1700 the union with scotland act 1706 the sophia naturalization act", "designed in 1858 the starr was primarily used by cavalry soldiers in the american civil war in january 1858 ebenzer starr submitted his design for a single shot breech loading rifle to the washington armory for evaluation during testing the rifle was noted to have no misfires and its accuracy was considered better than average testers commented that if the gas seal could be improved the weapon would be better than its rival the sharps carbine the rifle was adopted as the model 1858 carbine between 1861 and 1864 over 20 000 were produced by the starr arms company of yonkers new york the model 1858 was designed to fire paper or linen cartridges in 1865 the government ordered 3 000 starr carbines chambered to use metal cartridge these proved to be successful and an additional 2 000 were ordered although the starr carbine had proven to be effective during the civil war it was not successful during the trials of 1865 by the u s army trials board and no further rifles were ordered during the war the starr arms company had been the fifth largest supplier of carbines and the third largest supplier of 44 caliber single action", "it was recognised by king fulk of jerusalem in 1142 and canonically recognised as a hospitaller and military order of chivalry under the rule of saint augustine in the papal bull cum a nobis petitur of pope alexander iv in 1255 although they were centered on their charism of caring for those afflicted with leprosy the knights of the order of saint lazarus notably fought in the battle of la forbie in 1244 and in the defense of acre in 1291 the titular seat was successively situated at jerusalem saint jean d acre and after the fall of the kingdom of jerusalem split in two main branches in italy and in ch teau royal de boigny sur bionne in france in 1489 pope innocent viii attempted to merge the order and its land holdings with the sovereign military order of malta this was resisted by the larger part of the jurisdictions of the order of saint lazarus including those in france southern italy hungary switzerland and england the order of malta only managed to appropriate the lazarus holdings in germany in 1572 the order of saint lazarus in italy was merged with the order of saint maurice under the royal" ]

[ "Despite the “aqua” in its name, Aquarius is actually the last air sign of the zodiac. Aquarius is represented by the water bearer, the mystical healer who bestows water, or life, upon the land. Accordingly, Aquarius is the most humanitarian astrological sign." ]

[ "Well, I'm about to give you the CliffsNotes version on the three least loyal zodiac signs: Sagittarius, Aquarius, and Gemini. Even though Aquarius, Pisces, and Aries are statistically the most unfaithful zodiac signs in their relationships, that doesn't mean the rest of the zodiac signs are in the clear.", "Under the tropical zodiac, the Sun is in the Aquarius sign between about January 21 and about February 20, while under the sidereal Zodiac, the sun is in Aquarius from approximately February 15 to March 14, depending on the leap year.", "What's a star sign and how do I find mine? There are 12 astrological signs, also known as signs of the zodiac. In order, they are - Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces.", ": the 10th sign of the zodiac : the sign of the zodiac that comes between Sagittarius and Aquarius and that has a goat as its symbol. : a person born under the sign of Capricorn : a person born between December 22 and January 19. See the full definition for Capricorn in the English Language Learners Dictionary.", "In a friendship between a Cancer and an Aquarius, two star signs from the opposite ends of the Zodiac are drawn together. ... Both signs should learn to merge their respective qualities in a productive manner, and they could have a successful friendship. Cancer and Aquarius are both resolute and ambitious.", "There can only be a cusp if both signs overlap during the day that they were born. For example, if a Sun is moving out of the zodiac sign Aquarius and into the 12th House where Pisces is located that person is 'born on a cusp' — the Aquarius/Pisces cusp.", "Simply put, Cetus is not part of the zodiac because it's not part of the Zodiac family of constellations. The Zodiac family of constellations is the originating source of the signs of the Zodiac: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces.", "No zodiac pairing has the teamwork as incredible as these two signs. Aquarius and Libra are absolutely compatible as friends and make exceptional friends in life.", "February 19 Zodiac Birthday Signs - Being born on the cusp of Aquarius and Pisces, you have the advantage of being mentally inventive, sensitive, and idealistic.", "Virgo and Aquarius Compatability It may seem hard to believe, but two of the most independent, satisfied-with-the-single-life zodiac signs—Aquarius and Virgo—can make for a kismet match. ... The Virgo-Aquarius pairing works well if the two can accept and come to appreciate the ways in which they are different.", "Aquarius Man and Libra Woman Compatibility: Love, Sex, and Chemistry. An Aquarius man and a Libra woman are both Air Signs. ... This makes them an excellent match by zodiac sign. Both an Aquarius man and a Libra woman are very social and need intellectual stimulation in order to feel attraction for someone.", "The Air Signs of the zodiac are Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius and they are the possessors of the virtue of knowledge. They are curious, have initiative, are original, generally are well disciplined and are quick thinkers. The Air signs have a mental nature and are keen witted.", "It may seem hard to believe, but two of the most independent, satisfied-with-the-single-life zodiac signs—Aquarius and Virgo—can make for a kismet match. You have the rebellious, off-beat, and authentic Aquarius paired with the hard-working, perfectionistic, and diligent Virgo. It's a water bearer meeting a virgin.", "An Aquarius man and a Libra woman are both Air Signs. Signs of the same element have a connection between each other known as a trine. ... This makes them an excellent match by zodiac sign. Both an Aquarius man and a Libra woman are very social and need intellectual stimulation in order to feel attraction for someone.", "The triplicities are water signs (Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces), fire signs (Aries, Leo, Sagittarius), air signs (Libra, Aquarius, Gemini) and earth signs (Capricorn, Taurus, Virgo). Each has the three Zodiac signs associated with that element.", "An Aries-Aquarius friendship creates a highly dynamic and creative pair, as a result of the vivacity of the Aries and the vision of the Aquarius. Their friendship could be competitive, but always exciting. Since these signs are two apart in the Zodiac, they communicate well with each other.", "The four mutable signs are Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces. (The fixed signs are Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius, and the cardinal signs are Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn.) The mutable signs are the thinkers and philosophers of the zodiac.", "Air sign. Libra is one of the three zodiac air signs, the others being Gemini and Aquarius. In astrology, a broad description of those who are born under these signs are calm, rational, and detached when dealing with situations.", "JANUARY 20 birthday horoscope predicts that you are an excellent communicator, but you have a quick temper. Your sometimes self-absorbed nature is a little intimidating. The January 20th zodiac sign is Aquarius. Your astrological symbol is the Water Bearer.", "An Aquarius man and Gemini woman are an excellent zodiac match. They both enjoy intellectual pursuits and communicate very well. These two will understand each other in a way that other zodiac signs would not. ... Because of the nature of these two signs, it is possible that they may not decide to enter into a marriage.", "What is your zodiac sign if you are born on October 2? If you are born on the 2nd of October, your zodiac sign in Libra.", "Aries. Those born under this first sign of the zodiac are adventurous and fiery. Being a fire sign, Aries get along very well with other fire signs Leo and Sagittarius. They also tend to be friendly with air signs Gemini and Aquarius.", "So everyone has a corresponding zodiacal sign according to the period his / her birthday lies in. The 12 signs are Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces. People believe that different sun signs of the zodiac present different characteristics and talents.", "Virgo and Aquarius Compatability An air sign and an earth sign. The Virgo-Aquarius pairing works well if the two can accept and come to appreciate the ways in which they are different. They are not mirrors of each other, and that's what makes the combination so beautiful.", "Aquarius, you're one of the zodiac signs that are better at hiding signs of guilt. ... So, if your guilt is really on your mind, it can lead to messy behavior. While you're known for policing your emotions more than anyone else, it doesn't mean that you don't feel as much as the other zodiac signs.", "The 12 signs are Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces. People believe that different sun signs of the zodiac present different characteristics and talents.", "Even though both signs have different interests, they are a very compatible pair. Leo and Aquarius are both fixed signs. ... Aquarius could amaze Leo with their creativity and vision. Leo and Aquarius remain loyal to each other, and work well as a team.", "16 Reasons The Virgo + Aquarius Duo Is The Best Zodiac Couple There Is. ... Virgo, on the other hand, can be very emotionally driven, making the signs prone to colliding. The good news is, these signs are both very intellectual. Both of the signs value friendship and connection, making it easy to open up to one another.", "What Type Of Animal You Are, According To Your Zodiac Sign. You aren't always your zodiac animal, after all. Our zodiac signs are associated with animals, bugs, fish, mythical creatures, and... a virgin.", "Soul Twins or Twin Flames will, in most cases, be of the same Astrological Sign Family. For example, they will both be Fire signs, etc. Below, you'll find a color-coded chart that explains the Astrological Dynamic. ... For example: Aquarius and Gemini are of the same Astrological Zodiac Sign Family.", "A Leo man and an Aquarius woman make an amazing couple shortly after they meet because they charm each other for good and are capable of moving past their differences. Situated on opposite positions on the zodiac wheel, Leo and Aquarius are the signs for which the law of the “opposites attract” works.", "The order of the astrological signs is Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces. ... The concept of the zodiac originated in Babylonian astrology, and was later influenced by Hellenistic culture." ]

[ "A man is reading the newspaper." ]

[ "A man is operating a forklift.", "Employees are working in the warehouse.", "The young man was reading the newspaper.", "The people are working in warehouse.", "A man reads a newspaper on a bench.", "A man and woman read newspapers.", "Old man reading a newspaper.", "A man is reading the newspaper on the train.", "The old man is reading the newspaper.", "A man is reading a newspaper on a boat.", "Man reads a newspaper at the beach.", "The man in glasses is reading the newspaper.", "the man read the newspaper alone", "The man is sitting reading a newspaper.", "A man is reading a newspaper outside.", "A man reading the newspaper as he walks.", "The man is reading a newspaper on the plane.", "A man in a suit is reading the newspaper on the street.", "A man waiting for a bus reads a newspaper.", "A shoeshine man is reading the newspaper.", "A man is reading newspaper and drinking soda.", "The man is reading the newspaper in the taxi cab.", "A woman is reading a newspaper.", "An Asian man is reading a newspaper.", "The man on the stool read the newspaper.", "People are reading newspapers.", "A man sits by the window reading a newspaper.", "The newspaper is able to be read.", "The woman and man are reading a newspaper together.", "The people are reading a newspaper", "An old man reading a newspaper outdoors.", "An old man happily reads the newspaper." ]

[ "If you have a legal name change due to marriage, divorce or another legal process, make the switch on your driver's license and Social Security card first. Then, submit copies of the new identification along with the legal name change document to your mortgage company." ]

[ "Get a deed poll A deed poll is a legal document that proves a change of name. You can change any part of your name, add or remove names and hyphens, or change spelling. There are 2 ways to get a deed poll.", "Changing your name by deed poll In the U.K. you can change your name (or your child's name) at any time. Changing your name is a legal matter, which means there isn't an “official” place where you go to register a change of name. ... It costs £ 14 to apply for a deed poll online.", "If you want to change any of your adopted child's forenames, this is treated in the same way as a name change for any child — you will need a deed poll, and the consent of all parents named on the adoption certificate. For more details, see the section on how to change your child's name.", "Changing your name by deed poll or statutory declaration It is recommended that if you want to later provide evidence that you have changed your name you can enrol your deed poll in the Supreme Court in London. You can also officially change your name in Scotland using a statutory declaration.", "Changing your name by deed poll Changing your name is a legal matter, which means there isn't an “official” place where you go to register a change of name. ... Anyone can use a deed poll to change their name, but you might be able to use another document that you already have — e.g. your marriage certificate.", "Changing your name by deed poll or statutory declaration If you are not able to officially record a change of name in Scotland because you were not born or adopted in Scotland you can use a service to change your name by deed poll.", "MIDDLE NAME CHANGES. ... There are no formal restrictions on adding, dropping, or changing a middle name; simply apply for a Deed Poll with us and add a middle name of your choice! Once you receive your Deed Poll, all you need to do is change your official documents to show your middle name as a part of your legal name.", "To change your name in Singapore, you will need a deed poll. This is a legal document drafted by a lawyer that declares that you will renounce your current name, and take a new name, from the date of execution of the deed poll. The deed poll is executed in the lawyer's presence.", "Advice for a woman on separation If you changed your name when you got married, you can go back to your maiden name at any time, but you will need to do this by deed poll. Changing your name by deed poll will not affect any divorce proceedings that may follow your separation.", "In order to change your name on the HCPC Register, you will need to provide a certified photocopy of a change of name document such as a marriage certificate of change of deed poll.", "You can apply for a passport online if your name was changed within New Zealand. You can change the name in your new passport if your name was changed by: marriage or civil union. deed poll or statutory declaration.", "Do you need a deed poll? In some cases you won't need a deed poll to change your name. When you change your name you must formally document the change of name in some way, but you may be able to use a document or certificate that you already have.", "Legally speaking, it doesn't make any difference whether you use a modified birth certificate or a deed poll as proof of your change of name. ... The document (whether a birth certificate or a deed poll) doesn't change your name in itself — it's simply used as documentary proof of the change of name.", "Therefore, if you are separated and do not wish to be known by your husband's surname, you can revert to your maiden name (or to a new name entirely) by Deed Poll. ... Changing your name by Deed Poll does not affect any divorce proceedings that may follow your separation.", "The most commonly used and effective process for legally changing a name in the UK is by deed poll. A deed poll is a legal document that proves the change of name, and it can be used as evidence of your new title for the purposes of amending your passport, driving licence and other official documents.", "Yes, you can have any reason you like to change your name (so long as it is not fraudulent). However, a deed poll should be used for changing your name for all purposes.", "Changing your name by deed poll or statutory declaration You can also officially change your name in Scotland using a statutory declaration. If you are allowed to change your name using the process of recording a change of name with the Registrar General it is easier to use that process.", "To change your name on your licence or learner permit, you will need to provide evidence of your name change, for example, a civil marriage certificate/deed poll in addition to the documentation required to confirm your ID.", "If you have changed your legal name by deed poll or by statutory declaration, you will need to update your passport for your new name. ... In other situations, a deed poll is not required because another type of certificate is sufficient evidence.", "How long does it take to effect a change of name? It takes approximately three weeks to complete the process. The Applicant will then take the registered Notarial Deed of change of name or Deed Poll, the proof of advertisements, their Birth Certificate and the prescribed fee to the Registrar General for registration.", "No — a deed poll is proof that you have changed your name, but it is not a proof of identity. However, if you have changed your name, it is used as evidence of your identity in conjunction with other identity documents, such as your birth certificate or your passport.", "The official site, which advises on deed poll changes and which allows users to download forms from the Ministry of Justice for free, is gov.uk/change-name-deed-poll. ... But these have no legal status and are not a necessary part of the legal process to change your name – a fact that Nationwide later conceded.", "You can also use your marriage certificate and absolute decree to change your name, but the most common and easiest way is by a Change of Name Deed, and it's accepted by all authorities.", "If no queries are raised, the notarial deed of change of name will then be registered. The person will then apply to the Registrar-General for change of surname and submit the deed of change of name and advertisements. If the Registrar-General is satisfied, the change of name is effected.", "Once you're 16 years old, it's legally your own decision to change your name — you're treated in the same way as an adult. That means that you can change your own name (e.g. by deed poll) without your parents' consent (and your parents cannot change your name for you without your own consent).", "Deed poll documents do have various uses, but they have always been the generally accepted way of orchestrating a name change. Usually, the legal name given to a deed that has been drawn up to change someone's name is a “Deed of Change of Name”. It is more common, though, to use the term “deed poll”.", "For us to change the name on your Equifax Credit Report you'll need to provide us with proof that your name has changed. This means we'll need to see a copy of your marriage certificate or deed poll document.", "If you want to change your surname to your partner's surname, you don't need a deed poll. Provided your marriage certificate records both your maiden name and your partner's surname, the marriage certificate is sufficient evidence of your change of name.", "['certified proof of ID.', 'evidence explaining the reason if your current name is different to the name on your birth certificate, such as a. marriage certificate. family deed poll document. birth certificate. change of name document.']", "Changing your name after divorce All you need to revert your ID and bank accounts back to your maiden name after you divorce is your decree absolute and your marriage certificate. Alternatively, you can change your name by deed poll and present this document instead.", "If there is a mortgage then the deeds will be kept by the mortgage lender. ... If no mortgage is held on a property then the title deeds will be kept by the owner. They can either be kept in the home or they can be held by a solicitor.", "Changing Your Name After a Divorce In fact, you don't need to wait for a divorce to do it. ... You can also use your marriage certificate and absolute decree to change your name, but the most common and easiest way is by a Change of Name Deed, and it's accepted by all authorities." ]

[ "I should have gone along with the other reviews and NOT buy these boots. I walked thru a tiny amount of oil and I could feel my feet slipping.\nI wore them 1 day only and by the end of the day, I could feel a blister start to form on my heel. Will not wear them to work again. Spending the kind of money on them I did and for being a Cat product, I was very disappointed in the shoes and what the shoes FAILED to deliver and live up to." ]

[ "I always buy New Balance (walking and tennis shoes) bec my feet are wide. Also, New Balance and Amazon never fail me. This walking shoe is extremely comfortable. Shipping was fast. If you buy these shoes, you will not be disappointed. Since I've purchased these before, I knew the correct size (length & width) to order so when they arrived, they fit perfectly.", "Great shoe, except the loop on the back to pull on the shoe failed pretty quickly. It needs to be made with a stronger material.", "It was time for a new pair of boat shoes and I had narrowed my search down to the Sebago Clovehitch II or Sperry Top-Sider's Billfish. You know, it seems everyone has Sperry's and I've never seen a pair of Sebago's on anyone, and truth be told I really didn't know that much about the Sebago's until I started researching just before this purchase.\n\nI have lower back pain on occasion and I'm very particular about the shoes I purchase, and let me tell you it seems these Sebago's will not disappoint. I just received this shoe yesterday, and wore them all day today with no problems what-so-ever. No blisters, shoes fit as they should, made very well, leather looks very nice, and very 'cushiony' for a boat shoe.\n\nWhile I can't comment on the durability of this shoe quite yet, it definitely seems like a great purchase at this point. Try the Sebago, I don't think you'll be disappointed.", "The shoes are very comfortable, and I did have to go up a shoe size. I am so sad that the black is actually peeling off in just two weeks! Bought them from a reputable store. I usually pay the $$$ for nice shoes so they will last. The last pair of Sanitas I had lasted 8 months. Very disappointed.", "Bandolino women's shoes are truly made very well without any sacrifice of comfort. Even after 8 hours they were very comfortable. They are very stylish and easily compare to shoes priced much higher in a retail setting. I know you will not be disappointed with this purchase.", "A quality shoe with the urban style that I was looking for. A little pricey, but if the shoe lasts as long as I think it will, it will be worth the cost. Was a little disappointed that the shoe was made in China whereas my other JV shoes were from Italy.", "The shoe is perfect fit- true to size- fresh foam technology is great. However, took a chance ordering what Amazon says is a \"new/used\" item, meaning that they were purchased & returned due to customer dissatisfaction. These shoes were clearly worn more than once. Arrived with very dirty soles- including small pebbles & this worn area on the top of shoe. I've had plenary of New Balance shoes & know that this type of wear IS NOT typical of a one or even two time wear. I am very disappointed with the price I was charged for this item - considering the shape they were advertised vs. the actual shape they arrived in! SHAME ON YOU AMAZON & VENDOR-Warehouse Deals Inc!!", "I know what size to order in Clarks because I have many pairs but my heel would slide back and off the shoe. It's like they made the front longer and the back shorter. I really liked the shoes and was disappointed that I had to send them back.", "These shoes are great. They are what I use to run in and they are very comfortable. They have nice flexibility and my feet don't down in sweat. They are exactly what I need in running shoes.", "Doesn't make sense that these are a bit big since they are the same size as all the others...love the shoe puzzled by the fit of this pair. Once again fail on my part of buying shoes/clothing online", "I ordered a size 9.. when it came both shoes said size 9, but the right shoe was a good half inch larger than the left shoe. Loved the shoes but was disappointed I had to return them. Hoping this doesn't happen to anyone else.", "I ordered a men's size 7 shoe, and they shipped me an infant's size 7! My order said \"men's\", my invoice showed \"men's\", but no...infants. I wanted to simply exchange it for a men's shoe and they didn't have it. VERY disappointed!", "I love these shoes and have the same style in gold, silver, brown, black, red, and a color I call ecru but I do not have the box to give you a correct name of the color. I ordered these new shoes because they were described as \"white\". They are not white!!! They are what I would call ECRU!!! ....the same I already have in my closest!!!! I am very disappointed but have decided to keep them as a spare.", "Very good shoe for crosstraining/crossfit. The sole holds up very well for rope climbs. Not the best for running, but what crosstraining shoe is.", "Stitching around the shoe creates an uncomfortable ridge on inside that rubs and irritates. Cute but uncomfortable! Very disappointed.", "These shoes have a great look, they are built well and will last forever. They're nice little casual shoes to walk around with but I take issue with the fact that they are labeled as \"soccer shoe.\" They are not designed for indoor or outdoor, grass, artificial, hard-floor or any other kind of soccer. If you want to walk around in them and look like the cool dude, then great. But if you are buying them to play soccer, you will be very disappointed.\n\nThere are tons of better indoor soccer shoes out there that are DESIGNED for playing. This is not one of them and I think that adidas should remove the soccer shoe label and simply market them as regular casual shoes.", "The leather is stiff and very uncomfortable. I've never worn them because of that. Disappointing, I usually like Sketchers shoes.", "Very pretty shoe. The sole is flexible and has enough padding for comfort. I am never disappointed with stride rites.", "Very nice basketball shoe. We would definitely order these again for sports or just school shoes. What a perfect white color!", "I love Anyi Lu and have other shoes by her. I ordered the same size as the other shoes, but due to the style (??) this fit a little smaller. I was so disappointed. Fortunately I have a neighbor who is also a shoe maven for well constructed shoes and she bought them from me. I would order Anyi Lu again.", "I returned this item. Love the look of the shoe. Very disappointed that it is only available in medium width. I need double wide.", "Exactly what I wanted . Very comfortable shoe.", "I just got these in the mail and first off they look terrific. Very cool, simplistic shoe. I was disappointed though that the sole wasn't orange/red like in the pic because that's what made them even more unique to me. They're also not as cushy as I hoped. I have a high arch and will have to buy separate insoles for these. On a scale from 1 to 10 I give them an 8 on style and a 5 on comfort. Here again what do you expect out of an under $50 pair of shoes?", "The things I like about this shoe I really like. The color and heel size is exactly what I wanted. The peep toe is very but kills my pinky toe. The shoes are too big even with the heel grip thing. I think they would be more comfortable if they fit better but I've worn them and prayed not to slip and fall with the shoe sliding up and down my heel. I received plenty of compliments on the shoe which is nice but I really wish they fit better. I say as long as you order a half size smaller than what you normally wear you should be fine. Like I usually wear a 7-1/2 to 8 but bought the 7-1/2...really should have gone with a 7. Oh well, live and learn. I purchased too late to return them and get a smaller size in time for the function I was going to. Can give this shoe 2-1/2 stars? ...because the things I like I really like but was very disappointed they didn't fit and pinched by pinky toe.", "I have 3 pairs of the Wilson Tour Vision shoes, and have loved them! I ordered the Wilson Tour Vision II because it is \"new and improved\". The old ones had very little to no break-in required. However, the Tour Vision II was the most uncomfortable shoe I have EVER worn when first wearing it. I had to leave a team practice to go home and get out of those shoes! They are now in my closet with tennis balls in them in an attempt to stretch them out! These shoes were not just uncomfortable, they were painful to wear! I am very disappointed. Wonder if others have had this problem with this shoe. Mine were so tight across the top of the toes I could barely move! I do not recommend this model of the shoe!", "NOTE: This is my personal experience with these shoes.\n\nWhen I received the product the shoe box was in dismal condition and had a huge gash across the top as if someone slashed it with a knife. When trying on the shoes it was a rather tight fit. I can fit a 9.5 but having a size 10 would be preferable.\n\nWalked around the house to try them out and somehow the right shoe was very uncomfortable and pinched at the ankles. After about 20 minutes of just walking around my feet was sore and felt very raw. After careful inspection the right shoe had some stitching that come undone.\n\nNot sure if I received a shoe that was returned previously or a manufacturing dud, but sorely disappointed that Amazon would ship a defunct product that would potentially be going to our service members.", "They are very hot. At first I was disappointed cos some of the chains on the shoes were rusted and could not send them back cos it cost lost of money to order items out of Europe. the seller was so sorry and had to give some money back.\nthe first time I wore the shoes in a party, it was all wow, when my friends saw me with the shoes on fb, everyone was I need them too.", "Most comfortable shoes ever! All the Skechers shoes are great so when I needed a pair for work (non-slip) I got these and was not disappointed!!!", "I have just received these shoes and I am so pleased! They are very comfortable,great looking and very light, the size is what it's said. Shipping was supper fast. I will buy the shoes again. Thank you very much!!!", "My confidence and expectations are always high with this particular shoe manufacturer. And as usual they never disappoint!!! Rockport is quite simply the best shoe for me.\n\nThank you.", "I purchased these as a replacement for my worn out running shoes. It is hard to beat the price on Amazon. I have worn this shoe model previously, so I know exactly what to order and expect for size. These are very light and offer great arch support, which I need in a running shoe.", "These shoes look great and I have worn Ryka Shoes for Jazzercise for years, but this style feels very thin at the front on impact. I have since noticed that another lady in class has them and she says the same thing. There is barely any cushioning in the front. I am very disappointed and decided to keep but will not recommend this style for aerobic exercise activity." ]

[ "Media playback is not supported on this device\nRhys Marshall opened the scoring for Glenavon before Jude Winchester and Chris Curran turned it around.\nGreg Moorhouse headed the away side level only for Jay Donnelly to head Tommy Breslin's team 3-2 up.\nJames Singleton, James Gray and Andy McGrory scored after the break to secure a thrilling victory for Gary Hamilton's side.\nA frantic tone was set early on when Marshall headed Glenavon into the lead after three minutes when he rose highest to meet Joel Cooper's corner.\nThe Reds responded strongly, however, first through Winchester's long-range strike, which levelled the score before Curran's excellent solo effort turned the game on its head.\nCliftonville conceded again when Moorhouse headed in from close-range to make it 2-2.\nTwo minutes later, Donnelly produced a fine header of his own to give the Reds a slender advantage going into the break.\nGlenavon's game-plan was to bombard Cliftonville with crosses and it proved effective as Singleton made it 3-3 with a header, once again from a Cooper corner.\nFrom then, the away side dominated and were duly rewarded, Gray scoring a close-range header to put the Mourneview Park outfit in the driving seat.\nMcGrory wrapped up a thrilling win from the penalty spot after a foul on Mark Sykes." ]

[ "The Blues visit Cliftonville with a two-point lead over the champions, who take on Glenavon at Seaview.\nLinfield are chasing a first league crown since 2012 while the Crues are going for a third straight title.\n\"We're not counting our chickens yet but we're relishing the challenge,\" said Linfield manager David Healy.\nAll the other major Premiership issues have been settled so all eyes will be on Seaview and Solitude.\nHealy's team were nine points behind the Crues in February but they whittled down the gap before moving top with a 5-1 win at Coleraine last weekend.\nLinfield have won their last eight league games and their plus 19 goal difference over Crusaders means a draw should also ensure Gibson Cup success.\nHowever, Cliftonville are boosted by the midweek return of Tommy Breslin as temporary boss and this will be his first game in charge.\n\"When a new manager comes in you always expect a response - it's going to be a tough game but I can't wait for it,\" added Healy.\n\"We're on a great winning run and we're not going to Solitude to sit behind the ball and go for the draw.\n\"We've showed some character this season. A lot of people had written us off.\n\"A lot of people said we weren't good enough and that we didn't have the right attitude.\n\"But we've went toe-to-toe with Crusaders for the last five or six months and now we're top with one game remaining.\"\nLast Saturday's 3-0 defeat at Ballymena was a devastating blow for Crusaders as they aim for three-in-row Premiership triumphs.\nThey must hope north Belfast derby Cliftonville beat the Blues while ensuring three points are secured against the Lurgan Blues.\n\"We'll fight to the to the death - we'll give everything we have against Glenavon and see what happens,\" said Crues boss Stephen Baxter.\nMedia playback is not supported on this device\n\"Linfield have been reyling on teams to help them so now we're relying on a team to do us a favour.\n\"I'm sure Cliftonville will be up for the fight and will not want Linfield to win the title at their place.\n\"There's twists and turns in football and nothing will be settled until the whistle blows after 90 minutes on Saturday.\"", "Gray, who succeeds Gerard Lyttle in the Solitude hotseat, took Warrenpoint from junior football to the Premiership during a decade in charge.\nHe said: \"Cliftonville fans like good, attractive and entertaining football and I can certainly promise them that's what we'll be working on from day one.\"\nGray joins the north Belfast side on a rolling contract.\nHis backroom team will include Harry Fay and Stephen Small.\nCliftonville's search for a new manager began when Lyttle left last month to become Sligo Rovers boss.\nTommy Breslin, who stepped down as Reds manager in 2015, returned to the club in a temporary role for the last league game and the Europa League play-offs.\nCliftonville finished fifth in the Premiership and their season ended with a 5-3 home defeat by Glenavon in Tuesday's play-off semi-final.\nGray operated in the dual role of manager and Director of Football at Warrenpoint until Matthew Tipton took over as boss last November.\nThe Co Down club was relegated in 2016 but has made an immediate return to the Premiership by winning the Championship title last month.\n\"I didn't really expect to be back in management quite so quickly because I'd always have been quite pernickety and fussy about what club was right for me and ticked all the boxes,\" added Gray.\nCliftonville does that, no question about it. There would have been very few other jobs that I'd have been interested in so, when the opportunity arose, it's not something I had to think about.\n\"I like my teams to play attractive football at a high tempo and that's what I'll be setting us up to do.\"", "A power cut earlier on Tuesday put the fixture at the Bangor Fuels Arena in doubt.\nIt is a vital match in the title race with Crues boss Stephen Baxter calling on his team to bounce back from the Linfield defeat by beating Ards.\nLinfield won 2-1 at Seaview on Saturday to close the gap to four points.\n\"The important thing is for us to get about our business on Tuesday night and respond,\" said Baxter.\n\"We don't want a flat performance after this defeat - the big test is how we respond to it.\"\nHe added: \"There's a long way to go this season and it's a big challenge, but we are looking forward to it.\"\nLinfield midfielder Jamie Mulgrew was sent-off in the win over Crusaders and he is suspended for the Windsor Park encounter against Coleraine.\nCliftonville go into their Solitude game with Carrick Rangers on the back of a defeat and a draw in their festive outings.\nHowever, the Reds remain third and just eight points off the pace.\nTiarnan McNicholl will be in the Cliftonville squad for Tuesday's game after ending a successful loan at Carrick which included helping the East Antrim club reach the League Cup final.\n\"We want to get back on track - we had a great first half of the season but the last week has been a bit ropey,\" said Cliftonville manager Gerard Lyttle, who will have Jay Donnelly and Jude Winchester available again following respective suspensions and injuries.\n\"The boys know what they have to do. Get back to working harder and get back to winning games.\"\nMeanwhile, Carrick have signed defender Kyle McVey on loan from Ballymena United until the end of the season.\nBasement boys Portadown have brought in three players as they prepare for the Shamrock Park game against Glentoran.\nJordan Lyttle and Marcio Soares return to the Ports after brief spells with Crusaders while Shea McGerrigan joins from Armagh City.\nFourth-placed Ballymena United slipped up with a defeat by Ards on Saturday and the Braidmen take on Glenavon at the Showgrounds.\nBallinamallard United will be without the suspended Ross Taheny for their trip to Dungannon Swifts.\nThere's live coverage of Tuesday night's games on BBC Radio Ulster MW and the BBC Sport website", "Neeson, who has also played gaelic football for Antrim, has signed a pre-contract agreement with the Reds.\nThe 27-year-old will move to the Solitude club in the summer when his contract with Carrick Rangers expires.\nStriker Joe Gormley signed a pre-contract deal with the club in January after agreeing a three-year contract.\nGormley was unable to play for the club this season as he had already turned out for Peterborough and St Johnstone, on loan, during the present campaign.\nEx-Warrenpoint boss Gray was appointed as successor to Gerard Lyttle, who left to manage League of Ireland club Sligo Rovers last month.\nCliftonville finished fifth in the Premiership and lost out to Glenavon in the semi-finals of the Europa League play-offs.\nMeanwhile Glentoran manager Gary Haveron has signed Corey McMullan from Ballyclare Comrades and John McGuigan from Warrenpoint Town.\nPremiership new boys Warrenpoint have acquired the services of goalkeeper Alan Blayney, Darren Murray, Sean Mackle and Matthew Parker in preparation for their return to the top flight.", "Media playback is not supported on this device\nA win over derby rivals Cliftonville at Solitude on Tuesday night would ensure that the Crues retain the Gibson Cup for the first time in their history.\n\"We have only won the league five times in our history so if we can do it back-to-back it will be an incredible achievement,\" said Baxter.\n\"You can see what it means to people.\"\nA 1-0 victory over the Reds effectively clinched the title for Crusaders last season and a repeat performance would see the league trophy reside in north Belfast for a fourth consecutive year, Cliftonville having collected the trophy in 2013 and 2014.\n\"I am so caught up in getting us over the line that I haven't had a lot of time to dwell on the historic side of things,\" added Baxter.\n\"We are just trying to play the next game in front of us and Cliftonville are our nearest neighbours, so they won't be lying down for us.\n\"I asked the players to look after themselves over the weekend. We are closing in on the title and it's important that we close it off.\"\nCrusaders have won 1-0 on each of their last three league visits to Solitude and are unbeaten in their last six meetings with the Reds, winning five of those encounters and drawing one.\nLinfield's 3-0 success over Coleraine on Saturday guaranteed them a second-place finish in the table but manager David Healy is dangling the carrot of Irish Cup final places in front of his players ahead of their clash with Glentoran at the Oval.\n\"The boys are being given an opportunity to showcase what they can do and prove they are worthy of a place in the squad for the final,\" explained Healy.\nThe Blues boss rested Jamie Mulgrew for the victory over the Bannsiders, while Ross Gaynor was out with a slight injury and Reece Glendinning, Andrew Waterworth and Mark Stafford sat out the game as they were one booking away from missing the showpiece decider against Glenavon.\nGlentoran go into the match unbeaten in their last five fixtures, having secured 13 points from a possible 15.\nMedia playback is not supported on this device\nBottom club Warrenpoint Town prepare for their home game against in-form Ballymena United with manager Barry Gray admitting that \"confidence is a wee bit low\" among his players, but hoping that a triumph could \"give us the spark that we need\".\nBallymena secured their top-flight status by defeating Carrick Rangers but will now be targeting the seventh-place finish which would assure them of a Europa League play-off berth.\nBallinamallard will be without the suspended Ivan Sproule for their trip to Stangmore Park to face Dungannon Swifts, who are also assured of playing Premiership football next season.\nThe Mallards took a step towards easing their relegation worries by seeing off Warrenpoint on Saturday but finish their campaign with three away matches against the Swifts, Ballymena and Carrick Rangers.\nIn the evening's other matches, Glenavon continue their bid to finish third as they entertain Coleraine, while Gary Haveron's Carrick outfit play Portadown at Taylor's Avenue.", "Warrenpoint Town made a immediate return to the top flight and they will take on Glenavon at Milltown.\nPremiership runners-up Crusaders visit Ballymena United while third-placed Coleraine are away against Dungannon.\nGlentoran make the long trip to face Ballinamallard United and Cliftonville will take on Ards at Solitude.\nLinfield pipped Crusaders to the the title last season and the Belfast teams are expected to challenge again for Premiership glory.\nThe first league showdown between the Blues and Crues will take place at Seaview on 2 September.\nGlentoran will have home advantage for the traditional Boxing Day clash clash against old rivals Linfield.\nClick here for a full list of 2017/18 Premiership fixtures", "Aaron Burns and Stephen Lowry scored for the Blues in a comeback Ferney Park win while Eoin Bradley's penalty sunk the Crues at the Showgrounds.\nJay Donnelly's double gave Cliftonville a 2-1 win over Ballymena and Michael Ruddy netted as Ards beat Glenavon 1-0.\nDungannon beat basement boys Portadown 1-0 with Peter McMahon on target.\nRelive Saturday's Premiership action\nRyan Curran gave the Mallards a deserved first-half lead with a clinical strike into the bottom corner.\nLinfield improved after the break and substitute Burns fired home from Andrew Waterworth's cross to level.\nIn a decisive final 10 minutes Mallards forward Jason McCartney hit the bar before Lowry smashed in the winner.\nJohnny Lafferty was dismissed after the final whistle following a confrontation with a Linfield player.\n\"There were a few words said at half-time and we eventually got over the line,\" said Lowry.\n\"We believe we can go on and win the league title. As soon as I struck the ball, I knew it was going in.\"\nIt could be a massive result in the title race as David Healy's men capitalised on the narrow defeat for Crusaders.\nBradley slotted home the spot-kick on 15 minutes after a handball from former Bannsiders defender Howard Beverland.\nCrusaders pressed in vain for an equaliser with David Cushley slicing wide from close range in the dying minutes.\nThe results set up a mouth-watering showdown between the top two at Windsor Park in a fortnight.\nColeraine are now unbeaten in 14 games and remain in third and two points clear of Cliftonville.\nDonnelly's glancing header put the Reds in front against Ballymena at Solitude but the visitors hit back with a Johnny McMurray goal.\nA dangerous tackle on Stephen Garrett saw United midfielder Tony Kane red-carded on 54 minutes and Donnelly won it on 88 minutes with an instinctive finish.\nGlenavon boss Gary Hamilton rung the changes for the visit to Ards as he plans for next weekend's Irish Cup semi-final against Coleraine.\nMark Patton hit the Ards woodwork before Ruddy netted on the rebound with a minute left after his penalty was saved by James Taylor.\nIt's looking increasingly bleak for Portadown, who are 14 points adrift at the bottom with just five games left.\nA former Ports player condemned them to defeat at Shamrock Park, with Peter McMahon finishing at the second attempt in the first half to secure the points for Dungannon.", "The Crues lead the table by two points after two sets of fixtures and Linfield go into the game after Wednesday's fortunate 1-1 draw against Coleraine.\n\"If we turn up with the same sort of mental attitude on Saturday, we'll get beaten,\" said the Blues boss.\n\"If we can't get up for this game, it's pointless being at this club.\"\nMedia playback is not supported on this device\nAsked about what went wrong during Linfield's performance on Wednesday when they needed a controversial late corner award to help them snatch a point, Healy made no attempt to underplay his side's shortcomings.\n\"Our desire, our passion. Our lack of invention going forward and the amount of chances we created.\n\"The disappointing thing was that Coleraine worked harder than us.\n\"This weekend, Seaview is a tough place to go. They are a good side. They are champions and are in form and they have got good players.\n\"I'll have to make the players are lifted and that we are ready and that I can pick an 11 to go there and hopefully get a result.\"\nPaul Heatley, who has bagged three goals in Crusaders' opening 6-0 and 4-1 wins over Ballymena United and Carrick Rangers, says Saturday's game will be a \"battle\" but is still confident that the champions will earn all three points.\n\"We have a good record against them but we know it's going to be feisty. There will be a good atmosphere with the two sets of supporters,\" adds Heatley.\n\"They had a tough game on Wednesday and I'm sure their manager will have something to say to them.\n\"But as long as we focus and we turn up and put in the performance that we know we can, I think we'll go and win the game.\"\nMedia playback is not supported on this device\nSaturday's games also include Glenavon's meeting with Cliftonville at Mourneview Park as two teams with title ambitions lock horns.\nBoth sides have four points from their opening two games with the Lurgan Blues fighting back from 3-0 to draw at Ballymena on Wednesday and Cliftonville beating Glentoran 2-0 on the same night.\nGlentoran will be hoping to regroup from their Solitude defeat as they face a Carrick Rangers side who have conceded eight goals in their opening two games against Glenavon and Crusaders.\nCarrick boss Kieran Harding felt the midweek 4-1 scoreline against the champions was \"very harsh\" with youngster Seanna Foster sent off when when the game was still in the balance at 2-1.\n\"It's been a tough start for us but we're gradually building and we're getting somewhere,\" said Harding.\nMedia playback is not supported on this device\nArds will aim to maintain their unbeaten start to the campaign against Portadown while Ballinamallard United will be looking to get off the mark against Ballymena United at Ferney Park.\nBallinamallard suffered a second straight 2-1 defeat at Portadown in midweek while Ballymena United surrendered their three-goal advantage as they were held by Glenavon.\nAfter the postponement of their opening fixture against Portadown, Coleraine's young side impressed on Wednesday night at Windsor Park and Oran Kearney will hope they can fashion a win against pointless Dungannon Swifts at Stangmore Park.\nThere will be live coverage of Saturday's full programme of games on BBC Radio Ulster's Sportsound and the BBC Sport website from 14:00 BST.", "The Milltown team remain bottom but have closed the gap on 11th-placed Carrick Rangers to just three points.\n\"We feel we can stay up but it's a matter of small steps,\" said Town manager Barry Gray.\n\"It's another tough game. Glentoran have been hot and cold - you do not know what to expect from them.\"\nWarrenpoint secured just their second league win of the season by beating Coleraine last Saturday and followed it up with a 2-0 victory over Portadown on Tuesday night.\nGray added: \"We have to recover from the two games close together. There are no injuries of note so we want to be able to field a consistent team.\n\"It is good to see the bounce in the players after the recent results. They have waited a long time to get some wins and it has pulled us close to the teams above us.\n\"It is nice but we cannot get carried away.\"\nCarrick's defeat by Ballymena United in midweek left them with just one win in their last 14 league outings.\nHowever, Gary Haveron's side have played three fewer games than Warrenpoint as they prepare to host Coleraine.\nBallinamallard United are only a point ahead of Carrick and the Fermanagh side face Cliftonville at Solitude.\nThere will added spice to the clash between Portadown and leaders Crusaders at Shamrock Park.\nPorts midfielder Michael Gault has agreed a summer move to the champions and he is expected to play against his future club.\nStephen Fallon could make his Linfield debut against Ballymena after his loan signing from Swansea City.\nBlues pair Paul Smyth and Jamie Mulgrew have signed new deals with the Windsor Park club and they are likely to feature at the Showgrounds.\nGlenavon fought back from two goal down to draw 3-3 with Cliftonville last Saturday and the Lurgan Blues make the trip to Dungannon Swifts.", "The Crues enjoy a seven-point advantage over Linfield but the Blues are not in action until Monday night when they host Cliftonville at Windsor Park.\nPaul Heatley bagged a hat-trick against his former club as Crusaders won 3-1 when the sides last met in October.\nCarrick will be without suspended defender Paddy McNally for the game.\nColeraine will aim to continue their impressive run of form which has yielded nine wins and a draw from 10 matches in all competitions when they entertain Glentoran at Ballycastle Road.\nThe Bannsiders have beaten the East Belfast side in both meetings this season, with an emphatic 4-1 victory at the Showgrounds being followed by a 1-0 triumph at the Oval.\nGlentoran's disappointing recent sequence of results has seen them win just twice in 15 games.\nGlenavon can cement their place in the top six ahead of the league split later this month if they defeat Dungannon Swifts at Mourneview Park.\nThe Lurgan Blues have not won two league games in a row all season but are unbeaten in five in all competitions.\nThe Swifts have taken just one point from their last three top-flight outings but Andy Mitchell scored an 89th-minute winner in the most recent encounter between the clubs.\n\"For Dungannon Swifts to be where we are, fighting to get a good league finish and possibly be part of the Europa League play-offs, while also in the semi-finals of the Irish Cup represents a big change for us from previous years,\" said Dungannon manager Rodney McAree.\n\"Usually we are always looking over our shoulder but our season is still well and truly alive in both the league and the cup.\"\nBallymena United and Portadown will hope to quickly overcome their Irish Cup quarter-final thumpings at the hands of derby rivals Coleraine and Glenavon respectively last week when they lock horns at the Showgrounds.\nThe Ports have secured morale-boosting draws from their last two Premiership fixtures against title chasing duo Linfield and Crusaders but are still 11 points adrift of Carrick Rangers at the foot of the table.", "The 26-year-old midfielder's contract was terminated by mutual consent three days before Ballymena take on holders Cliftonville in the League Cup final.\nIn a generous farewell Davidson donated his final month's wages to a charity of Ballymena's choice.\nMark McCullagh has also quit United, with the versatile player departing because of work commitments.\nDavidson played for Newry City and Glenavon before moving to the Showgrounds in February 2012.\nHowever, he was soon caught up in a registration row which denied Ballymena a spot in the Irish Cup semi-finals.\nIt was a dramatic first year at United for Davidson as he scored the winning penalty in a shoot-out success over Linfield in the Co Antrim Shield final.\nDavidson helped the Sky Blues to last year's Irish Cup decider by scoring twice in the semi-final win over Queen's University.", "Media playback is not supported on this device\nOn a night when holders Ballymena United were beaten 2-1 at home by Ards, Matthew Clarke, Ross Gaynor and Andrew Waterworth notched Linfield's goals.\nJoe McKinney hit both Ards goals while PSNI beat Albert Foundry 3-0.\nExtra-time goals from David Cushley and Brandon Doyle helped Crusaders see off Glentoran 2-1 at the Oval.\nAt Windsor Park, Cliftonville defender Caoimhin Bonner blocked early efforts by Mark Haughey and Waterworth but it was a contest of few openings before hesitation by Tomas Cosgrove allowed Clarke to strike the Blues ahead on 41 minutes.\nA misdirected ball across his own penalty area by Aaron Donnelly gifted Gaynor Linfield's second goal on 61 and Waterworth headed the third with 10 minutes left as Cliftonville posed little threat.\nA bad night for the Reds was topped off by Bonner's sending off as he picked up a second yellow card for a late challenge on Waterworth.\nAfter their 5-0 Premiership hammering by Glenavon on Saturday, holders Ballymena suffered another disappointment as McKinney's two goals sealed a deserved success for Ards at the Showgrounds.\nMcKinney had already tested home keeper Ross Glendinning early on before firing the north Down club ahead in the 28th minute.\nAs Ballymena rarely threatened, a mix-up between keeper Glendinning and Caolan Loughran allowed McKinney to double the lead after the break and Ards held on despite Allan Jenkins' 89th-minute reply.\nGlentoran had the bulk of the chances in normal time against a largely second-string Crues with Alex Leu missing their best opportunity in the first half as he failed to beat Michael Dougherty from close range after being set up by Nacho Novo.\nEx-Ballymena man Cushley half-volleyed Crusaders ahead in the fourth minute of extra-time and after Glentoran's Ciaran Caldwell hit the underside of the crossbar, Brandon Doyle struck the visitors' second goal after being set up by Cushley.\nGlentoran's near misses continued as Jonathan Smith struck the woodwork before Steven Gordon did reply in the final minute of extra-time.\nIn the game at Seaview, Darius Roohi put the PSNI 1-0 against the Amateur League side and after a Joe West own goal doubled their lead, Lukasz Adamczyk completed the scoring.", "Crues duo Jordan Owens and Paul Heatley (2) netted in a 3-2 comeback victory over Coleraine while Linfield eased to a 3-0 home win against Glenavon.\nPortadown needed a win to maintain hopes of staying up but they lost 3-2.\nBallymena thumped Cliftonville 4-1, Dungannon beat the Mallards by the same score and Glentoran edged Carrick 2-1.\nTuesday night's Premiership action as it happened\nCrusaders fought back to beat Cliftonville on Saturday and the champions repeated the feat in a pulsating game at Seaview.\nA superb 30-yard strike from James McLaughlin put the Bannsiders in front but the hosts were soon level as Owens netted from Paul Heatley's cross.\nHeatley made it 2-1 it five minutes before the break, firing a volley into the bottom corner after his initial attempt was saved by Chris Johns, and the winger added another in the second half.\nJamie McGonigle fizzed a shot into the bottom corner to set up a tense finale but the Crues held on for a vital win while bringing Coleraine's unbeaten run of 17 games to an end.\nMedia playback is not supported on this device\nCrusaders will win the Gibson Cup for a third straight season if they pick up maximum points from their final two games.\n\"I thought we dominated from start to finish, but they changed their shape a bit and began to pass the ball better, as they tend to do because Coleraine are a top side,\" said Crues boss Stephen Baxter.\n\"But sometimes you have to get a job done and that's what we did - I told the players a couple of weeks ago we had to step it up and we've had a real crack at it over the last two games. I have to be happy with that.\"\nLinfield brushed aside Glenavon with three first-half goals as they maintained the pressure on the champions.\nAaron Burns slotted home a penalty, after Andrew Waterworth was fouled by keeper Jonathan Tuffey, and Mark Haughey headed in before a fine finish from Paul Smyth.\nThe other match in Section A saw Johnny McMurray's double helping Ballymena to an impressive Showgrounds win over the Reds.\nThe forward made it 2-0 after a Kyle Owens opener and Stephen Garrett pulled one back before Cathal Friel and McMurray goals sealed the three points.\nIt was a bleak night for Portadown, who needed to beat Ards and for Carrick to lose to continue their battle against the drop.\nDavy McAllister gave Ards an early lead and Garry Breen headed in an equaliser before Matthew Shevlin and Guillaume Keke scored for the hosts.\nArds defender Stuart McMullan was sent-off for a foul that resulted in a penalty, which Callum Ferris converted, and Ports midfielder Sean Mackle was dismissed for dissent.\n\"I honestly believed we had a chance but I think tonight tells its own story because we had that many kids helping us out in a relegation dogfight,\" said Portadown manager Niall Currie.\n\"It's been a very unhappy time at the club for a long time, if I'm honest, but I'm lucky to have these supporters with me. A total rebuild is needed at the club.\"\nCarrick are confirmed in the relegation play-off spot - TJ Murray gave the hosts a second-half lead at the Belfast Loughshore Hotel Arena before Jonathan Smith and Curtis Allen struck for the Glens.\nDungannon remained three points clear in seventh, which secures a Europa League play-off place, thanks to a comfortable win over Ballinamallard at Ferney Park.\nRyan Harpur put the Swifts in front and Warner Mullen's equaliser was followed by an Andy Mitchell double and Douglas Wilson header.", "Gareth Tommons scored their 89th-minute clincher at the Showgrounds to move last season's Championship winners ahead of Crusaders and Linfield.\nThe Crues drew 1-1 at Coleraine while Linfield were 4-0 winners over Glenavon who had Rhys Marshall sent-off.\nCarrick drew 3-3 with Ballinamallard, Glentoran beat Portadown 1-0 and Dunganon won 2-1 away to Cliftonville.\nRelive the Irish Premiership action\nArds have made a dream start on their return to the top division, with three wins and a draw in their first four matches.\nStuart McMullan gave them an early lead but Allan Jenkins and Cathair Friel replied to put United in front.\nGoals by Emmett Friars and Joe McKinney edged Ards 3-2 up before Caolan Loughran levelled.\nTommons pounced late on to clinch victory for the County Down side.\n\"We know hard times are ahead but we'll enjoy what is going on at the minute,\" said Ards manager Niall Currie.\n\"The guys dug in and we looked a lot more secure in the second half. Then we got that wee break with Gareth scoring the winner. Everyone is over the moon.\"\nBallymena manager David Jeffrey was unhappy with is side's defending.\n\"To concede the goals that we did, to say it was schoolboyish and basic would be an understatement.\n\"We have got to learn to do our jobs. They were elementary mistakes and there is no point in me hiding behind that.\"\nChampions Crusaders and last season's runners-up Linfield sit two points behind Ards.\nThe Crues were held to a draw for the second week running as David Ogilby's free-kick gave Coleraine a 1-1 draw after Gavin Whyte had given the title holders an early lead at the Showgrounds.\nAaron Burns scored twice for Linfield and Josh Carson and Sean Ward netted the others in the 4-0 win over Glenavon who had Rhys Marshall sent-off for a challenge on Chris Casement.\nDungannon made it back-to-back wins by stunning Cliftonville 2-1 at Solitude.\nAndy Mitchell got both for the Swifts who had thumped Coleraine 4-0 a week earlier.\nKym Nelson's 52nd-minute strike earned Glentoran a 1-0 win over Portadown who had former Glenman Niall Henderson sent-off late on for two yellow cards.", "A Kyle Owens header which went in off Crues skipper Colin Coates for an own goal gave Ballymena the win which puts them just five points off the top.\nCrusaders had led through a Jim Ervin own goal with Tony Kane levelling from the penalty spot.\nElsewhere, there were wins for Linfield, Cliftonville and Glentoran.\nThe match between Carrick Rangers and Glenavon ended in a 0-0 draw.\nLinfield, now the only unbeaten team in the top flight now, are just two points behind Crusaders and will take over at the top if they win at Cliftonville on Tuesday night.\nBallymena's win was the eye-catching result of the day as it came against the team which hammered them 6-0 on the opening day of the season.\nFormer Ballymena winger David Cushley set up the opener as his low ball was eventually diverted in by defender Ervin for an own goal.\nBallymena, on a high after beating Linfield 4-1 in the League Cup on Tuesday night, hit back and equalised before half-time with a Kane penalty after Michael Gault's foul on Cathair Friel.\nThe hosts were reduced to 10 men when keeper Ross Glendinning was shown a straight red card for handling outside his area.\nInstead of trying to hang on for a draw, David Jeffrey's United grabbed all three points as defender Coates could not keep out a 90th-minute header by Owens.\nLinfield striker Andrew Waterworth scored his first league goal of the season to set the Blues on their way to a 4-0 home win over Ballinamallard United.\nA free-kick by former Northern Ireland midfielder Sammy Clingan made it two with Mark Haughey and Paul Smyth adding further goals in the second half.\nGary Haveron celebrated his first win as Glentoran boss as a late Jonathan Smith penalty secured a 1-0 win away to Dungannon Swifts.\nCarrick Rangers, under new manager Aaron Callaghan, ended a run of seven defeats in a row by drawing 0-0 at home to Glenavon who had defender Andrew Doyle red-carded for an off-the-ball incident 15 minutes from time.\nCliftonville made it four Premiership wins in five matches as goals by Daniel Hughes and skipper Jason McGuinness sealed a 2-0 home win over Ards.\nIn the late kick-off, Portadown lost for the seventh league game in a row as Brad Lyons of Coleraine scored the only goal at Shamrock Park.", "The Crues were comfortable 5-1 winners over Ballinamallard United, while Linfield triumphed 4-0 over Ards.\nThird-placed Ballymena came from a goal down to beat Glentoran 4-1.\nCliftonville were 3-0 victors away to Portadown, Coleraine scored twice late on to draw 2-2 with Glenavon and Dungannon saw off Carrick Rangers 3-0.\nRe-live all Saturday's Irish Premiership action as it happened here\nPaul Heatley tucked the ball past Stefan McCusker after Declan Caddell supplied the assist to give Crusaders a 16th-minute lead at Seaview.\nRyan Mayse beat the offside trap and home goalkeeper Sean O'Neill to level 10 minutes later but Jordan Owens restored his side's advantage with a 33rd-minute looping header.\nStephen Baxter's team added second half goals through Craig McClean's header from a Caddell corner on 55 and then two strikes from Gavin Whyte.\nLinfield were always in control at Windsor Park as they cantered to a comfortable victory, which saw Ards drop two places to sixth in the Premiership standings.\nAaron Burns got the goalscoring underway with a neat left-foot finish and Stephen Lowry made it 2-0 to the hosts four minutes later.\nKirk Millar fired in the third before the break and an Emmett Friars own goal on the hour completed the scoring.\nBallymena trailed the Glens 1-0 at half-time at the Showgrounds thanks to Curtis Allen's well executed left-foot finish but Allan Jenkins brought the sides level after poor defending by the visitors six minutes after the interval.\nWillie Faulkner's header from a right-wing cross on the hour edged the Sky Blues ahead and two late Tony Kane penalties ensured that David Jeffrey's outfit took maximum points.\nGlenavon looked set to leave Ballycastle Road with three points after Eoin Bradley headed in Andy Hall's cross in the 32nd minute and Kevin Braniff slid home a second on 67.\nJamie McGonigle pulled one back with five minutes remaining and Jordan Allen steered home the equaliser from McGonigle's teasing cross in the 88th minute.\nStefan Lavery gave Dungannon the lead against Carrick with his first touch, a glancing header, after 68 minutes, with Andy Mitchell then grabbing two goals to give the final scoreline a more convincing look.\nLike the Swifts, Cliftonville scored three times in the second half as they saw off Portadown 3-0 at Shamrock Park to move up to fourth spot in the league.\nJason McGuinness broke the deadlock on 55, substitute David McDaid tapped home the second on 75 and Stephen Garrett grabbed the third in added time.", "Northern Ireland's record scorer took over from Warren Feeney in midweek and watched the Blues suffer a League Cup defeat by Ballinamallard United.\nGoals difference separates Linfield and pacesetters Crusaders, who were also beaten in the League Cup on Wednesday.\nThe champions visit the Mallards while Cliftonville host Portadown with Gerard Lyttle appointed manager on Thursday.\nGrant Cameron presents Irish Premiership coverage on Saturday Sportsound from 14:00 BST on Radio Ulster.\nThere is commentary from Warrenpoint as David Healy starts life as Linfield manager while we will also follow the action between Cliftonville and Portadown.\nThe show will have updates from the other four league games and the League cup quarter-final draw at 17:30.\nLyttle was handed the Solitude job after impressing in the caretaker role following the departure of Tommy Breslin last month.\nThe Reds are just three points behind the top two while Portadown are down in sixth.\nCrusaders had their 12-game unbeaten run ended by Championship side Institute at Seaview on Wednesday night.\nCrues boss Stephen Baxter gave fringe players an opportunity to shine but the big guns will be back for the trip to Ferney Park on Saturday.\n\"We'll have players back for this game and after that performance against Institute we'll need them,\" said Baxter.\n\"It's always a challenge down in Fermanagh but it's important we get back to winning ways.\n\"They have now beaten Glentoran and Linfield recently - we'll need to be at our best.\"\nBallinamallard lie four points off the bottom and manager Whitey Anderson hopes to build on the League Cup success at Windsor Park.\n\"It was a big win and now we have to carry it forward for Saturday's game and beyond,\" he said.\n\"Hopefully it will make the players believe in themselves and we can push on.\n\"We're at home but Crusaders are a fantastic side and a threat all over the park.\"\nColeraine have moved to within four points of the top and the Bannsiders take on Dungannon Swifts at the Showgrounds.\nGlenavon face Ballymena United at Mourneview Park while the Oval is the venue as Glentoran prepare to meet Carrick Rangers.\nDanske Bank Premiership\nSaturday 16 October - 15:00 BST\nBallinamallard Utd v Crusaders\nCliftonville v Portadown\nColeraine v Dungannon Swifts\nGlenavon v Ballymena Utd\nGlentoran v Carrick Rangers\nWarrenpoint Town v Linfield", "Jonathan Smith headed home a Ross Redman cross in the closing minutes.\nPremiership side Carrick Rangers crashed out 4-1 to Championship side PSNI at Taylor's Avenue however.\nHolders Ballymena United, Ards, Linfield, Crusaders, Cliftonville and Albert Foundry also progressed to the quarter-finals of the competition.\nMedia playback is not supported on this device\nLukas Adamczyk gave PSNI the lead against their top-flight opponents with a 20th-minute penalty but Scott McCrory's own goal saw the sides go in level at half-time.\nPaul McDowell, Johnny Courtney and Stuart Hutchinson were on target after the break to ensure their side's passage.\nTony Kane's first-half penalty sent holders Ballymena United on their way to a 3-0 success against H&W Welders at the Showgrounds, with in-form strike pair Johnny McMurray and Cathair Friel both finding the net in the second half to give the final scoreline a more convincing look.\nLinfield met with stubborn resistance from the visiting Donegal Celtic defence in the first half of their tie at Windsor Park but second-half strikes from Reece Glendinning, Mark Haughey, Stephen Lowry and Paul Smyth saw the Blues safely through 4-0.\nCliftonville were the night's highest scorers as they outclassed Premier Intermediate League outfit Bangor 7-1 at Solitude.\nThe Reds went in three up at the interval thanks to goals from Jay Donnelly and Gary Donnelly (2) and soon after the break Gary Donnelly scored from the spot to complete his hat-trick.\nDavid McDaid and Ross Lavery got their names on the scoresheet, while Bangor scored an own goal and gained scant consolation with a Gerard McMullan penalty in the final minute.\nAndy Mitchell fired home and added a penalty in the first half to give Crusaders a 2-0 victory over Larne at Inver Park, while Albert Foundry were 1-0 winners over Newington in the only game not involving a Premiership team.\nArds eased through to the draw for the next round by seeing off Knockbreda 3-1, Tommy Wray's own goal put Ards ahead with Carl McComb scoring the other two. David Johnson was Knockbreda's goalscorer.", "\"This is a great advert for Irish League football.\"\nWe've all heard it, but not always believed it. It sits high in the list of Northern Ireland sporting cliches.\nAn attempt to promote a product which has been squeezed by a multitude of alternative attractions. Hoping to transform listeners into customers.\nI was a customer on Saturday, driving up the A26 from Antrim to watch Ballymena United take on Crusaders at the Showgrounds.\nThe attraction? I wanted to see if the Crues could clinch up a third straight title, with a win over the Braidmen and defeat for challengers Linfield at Coleraine keeping the Gibson Cup at Seaview.\nThe title race has been bubbling along nicely in recent months and it had now reached boiling point with two games left - a thrilling climax in the battle of the Crues and Blues.\nI asked my 13-year-old son, a Liverpool and Real Madrid fan, if he fancied going to his first Irish League game. No Coutinho or Ronaldo on show, just a bunch of part-timers trying to play football on a terrible Showgrounds surface.\nTo my surprise he answered in the affirmative, although only if his friend could come along with us.\nIt was just £15 all-in at the turnstiles, not bad for an adult and two children, and we made our way to the new stand housing the Sky Blues faithful.\nOut came the teams and United boss David Jeffrey, resplendent in a suit straight out of Savile Row, turned to raise a rallying fist to the fans.\nThey roared in response and I sensed before a ball was kicked that Ballymena were up for this, determined to be party-poopers on what promised to be a historic day for the north Belfast visitors.\nAnd so it transpired, although the fine line between success and failure was highlighted as the champions pressed for an early opener.\nA free-kick found Crues striker Jordan Owens four yards out and with just Ross Glendinning to beat.\nA player whose reputation is built on aerial prowess, but on this occasion he headed straight at the United keeper.\nA couple of inches either side and it goes in, Crusaders have the momentum and the outcome may have been so different.\nBoth sides squandered chances on the bobbliest of bobbly pitches, with United hitting the woodwork, but it ended scoreless at the break.\nBurger and chips time for the boys, a quick flick through the matchday programme and then on the mobile for an update from Coleraine on our (excuse the plug) live text commentary page.\nWe sat directly opposite the Crusaders 18-yard box in the second half, providing the perfect viewpoint as Ballymena rattled in three goals to win 3-0.\nA glaring vulnerability in the Crues defence, so badly missing the power and presence of injured captain Colin Coates, was brutally exposed as Conor McCloskey's opener was followed by a Cathal Friel double.\nMy little companions politely clapped the first goal, cheered the second and were in full-on celebration mode for the third.\nBallymena gained two new young supporters on Saturday and I'm now being pestered about taking them to Sky Blues games next season.\nLinfield thumped the Bannsiders 5-1 and suddenly they are two points clear going into this weekend's finale.\nI will be back on live text commentary duty as the Crues host Glenavon while the Blues visit a Cliftonville side buoyed by the return of Tommy Breslin as temporary manager.\nI'm looking forward to it, but it's no substitute for being at Seaview or Solitude.\nMy visit to the Showgrounds was a reminder of what going to a game can be - dramatic, atmospheric, engrossing, exciting and although just a fan, a feeling that you are part of it.\nAs we dandered away from Warden Street I had an inner chuckle, for even this cynical old hack knew what he had witnessed.\nA great advert for Irish League football.", "Media playback is not supported on this device\nNiall Quinn drilled in the opener and then crossed for Kirk Millar to head the second before half-time.\nJoe Gormley marked his return to Cliftonville by scoring twice as Barry Gray celebrated his first match as boss with a 6-3 victory over Ards.\nColeraine had Steven Douglas sent-off but still won 3-1 at Dungannon while Glentoran beat Ballinamallard 2-1.\nOn Friday night, last season's runners-up Crusaders beat Ballymena United 4-1.\nLinfield's victory was never in doubt once Quinn drilled a low left-foot shot beyond Carrick keeper Harry Doherty in the 16th minute at Windsor Park.\nDavid Healy's double winners, unbeaten in domestic competition since early January, went 2-0 up though Millar and could have made it three after the break but Jordan Stewart's tame penalty was saved by Doherty.\nCliftonville, boosted by the return to the club of record scorer Gormley after a spell at Peterborough, had an early scare at home to Ards when Jonny Frazer gave the visitors an early lead.\nBut Gormley's double, two more from Jay Donnelly, a Chris Curran strike and a Scott Davidson own goal saw new boss Gray get off to a winning start at Solitude.\nFormer Warrenpoint manager Gray was appointed in May after Gerard Lyttle left to take charge of Sligo Rovers.\nColeraine, third last season, were drawing 0-0 at Dungannon when their defender Douglas was sent-off for a second yellow card offence.\nBut Oran Kearney's team went 2-0 up through Ciaron Harkin and Stephen O'Donnell before Ryan Mayse pulled a goal back for the Swifts.\nDungannon keeper Andy Coleman was sent-off for bringing down Brad Lyons late on and stand-in Jarlath O'Rourke had no chance as Ian Parkhill fired in a spectacular third for the Bannsiders.\nTwo goals by top striker Curtis Allen gave Glentoran their 2-1 win away to Ballinamallard United.\nBut Ballinamallard furiously protested that Allen had netted the 87th-minute winner with his hand.\nThe hosts had taken the lead through a Ryan Curran penalty but Allen levelled before the break.\nMarc Griffin scored twice on his debut to help Glenavon edge Warrenpoint Town 3-2 at Milltown.\nGriffin fired twice early on to give the Lurgan Blues a two-goal lead before Point rallied back through Darren Murray.\nThe former Cliftonville striker headed past Jonathan Tuffey before firing a second from the penalty spot, having been fouled by Simon Kelly.\nBobby Burns smashed a great strike in from the edge of the box to give Gary Hamilton's side the points.", "Holding the title-challenging Blues left the Ports 11 points adrift at the Premiership basement.\n\"We have set out own bar with that performance against Linfield and we need that to be a springboard,\" said Currie.\n\"We've have highs and lows and but now need that consistency.\"\nHe added: \"When we are right, when we are pulling in the same direction we can be competitive.\n\"If we can get that honesty regularly throughout the rest of the season then we can be a match for any team.\"\nThe result at Windsor Park may have been a boost for the Ports but it was a hammer blow to Linfield's hopes of catching Crusaders, who are now nine points clear.\nLinfield face traditional foes Glentoran at the Oval on Saturday with the Blues winning two of this season's meetings while the other game was drawn.\nGary Haveron's first game in charge of the Glens was a 2-1 defeat by Linfield back in October.\nInform Coleraine are just four points behind third-place Cliftonville as they prepare for a Solitude showdown.\nBallymena are back in action after their League Cup triumph last weekend and the Sky Blues visit Ballinamallard.\nGlenavon have signed former Northern Ireland U21 midfielder Chris Turner after the 30-year-old left Scottish club Cowdenbeath by mutual consent last month.\nThe Lurgan Blues travel to relegation threatened Carrick Rangers, who lost out to Ballymena in the Seaview decider.\nDungannon Swifts are still in contention for a top-six spot in the league split as they welcome Ards to Stangmore Park.", "Media playback is not supported on this device\nRyan Mayse netted the only goal at Ferney Park to leave Cliftonville a distant 16 points off the top.\nCrusaders edged Ballymena United 2-1 to stay seven points clear of Linfield, who defeated Carrick Rangers 2-0.\nColeraine beat Dungannon 2-1, Ards won 3-0 at Portadown while it was scoreless between Glentoran and Glentoran.\nMayse struck for the Mallards on 56 minutes and Reds striker Daniel Hughes missed a penalty before Cliftonville substitute Chris Ramsey was dismissed in the dying minutes.\nIt was a damaging defeat for Gerard Lyttle's team, particularly as they lost ground on the top two.\nGavin Whyte hit the bottom corner before a deflected David Cushley strike gave the Crues a 2-0 lead at half-time.\nSky Blues midfielder Tony Kane set up a thrilling finale with the latest in a long line of superb free-kicks on 77 minutes.\nCarrick were holding Linfield when keeper Brian Neeson was forced off injured in the first half and outfield substitute Kyle McVey donned the gloves.\nStephen Lowry's penalty broke the deadlock on the stroke of half-time with Paul Smyth poking home late on to seal the three points.\nColeraine stretched their impressive winning run to eight games with a comeback win over the Swifts.\nIt was a game of two penalties with Ryan Harpur converting the first for Dungannon before Darren McCauley's leveller from the spot.\nDungannon's Seanan Clucus was red-carded on the hour mark and James McLaughlin won it with a 71st-minute header.\nIt was a miserable afternoon for basement boys Portadown as they conceded three goals, had a man sent-off and also missed a penalty.\nKyle Cherry volleyed in the opener before Ken Oman was dismissed for a poor challenge and then Niall Henderson found the post with his spot-kick.\nSecond-half goals from Ross Arthurs and Matthew Shevlin ensured a Shamrock Park victory for the visitors.\nBoth sides hit the woodwork at the Oval but Glentoran and Glenavon had to settle for a point apiece in a mid-table stalemate.\nGreg Moorhouse cracked a shot against the Glens bar before the post kept out Curtis Allen's header.", "Media playback is not supported on this device\nLinfield are the only side yet to concede a goal after beating Ards 2-0.\nCrusaders thumped Warrenpoint Town 5-0 at Seaview, while Adam Foley scored a quick-fire hat-trick as Glenavon eased to a 6-2 victory over Ballinamallard.\nGlentoran defeated Dungannon 2-0, Coleraine saw off Cliftonville 2-0 and Ballymena drew 1-1 at Carrick Rangers.\nRe-live all the action from a busy Tuesday night programme in the Irish Premiership.\nLinfield secured their second two-goal triumph within three days as goals from Mark Haughey and Kirk Millar within the first half hour made the points safe.\nCrusaders were always in complete control against promoted Warrenpoint, with Jordan Owens giving them a fourth-minute lead and Paul Heatley grabbing his third goal of the season with a header eight minutes later.\nMedia playback is not supported on this device\nA Jordan Forsythe strike and a Gavin Whyte penalty had Stephen Baxter's side in easy street by the interval, Michael Carvill adding the fifth midway through the second half.\nNine goals scored and only one conceded so far leave the Crues at the top of the table at this early stage.\nFoley found the net three times in the space of 12 second-half minutes as Glenavon dominated their game against Ballinamallard at Mourneview Park.\nA Ryan Curran penalty gave the Mallards the lead against the run of play, but Rhys Marshall had the Lurgan Blues level by half-time.\nMedia playback is not supported on this device\nFoley's treble and a double by another new recruit, Andy Mitchell, the league's leading scorer last season, ensured that Glenavon have maximum points from their two fixtures.\nJosh Carson broke down Cliftonville's resistance to sweep home the opener five minutes after the berak at Ballycastle Road and Jamie McGonigle doubled the Bannsiders' advantage.\nJohn McGuigan nudged Glentoran ahead six minutes into the second period at the Oval, with Curtis Allen shooting home left-footed for his third of the campaign to seal the success for Gary Haveron's men.\nAfter a goal-less first half at Taylor's Avenue, an own goal by former Ballymena defender Denver Gage saw Ballymena go 1-0 up, but Andrew Mooney beat the offside trap and slotted in to ensure that both clubs picked up their first point of the season.\nBen Roy squandered a great opportunity to clinch all three points for Carrick when he fired his penalty wide of the post.", "Kearney received the recognition after his side picked up 10 points from four difficult league fixtures and continued their progress to the Irish Cup final.\nColeraine are now unbeaten in 16 games in all competitions, winning 14 of them, having not lost since Boxing Day.\nThey lie third in the table and will face Linfield in the Irish Cup final.\nThe Ballycastle Road outfit are also in a good position to secure a potentially lucrative place in the Europa League qualifying rounds.\n\"It's nice to have that record (of being unbeaten in 2017) but it doesn't give you a God-given right to win a football match,\" said Kearney, who also won the January managers' award.\n\"We need to continue to hit the same levels and with the top six teams playing each other now, anything can happen in any given match.\"\nColeraine beat Glentoran, Glenavon and Crusaders in Premiership games during the month of March, and also drew a rearranged match with derby rivals Ballymena United.\nThey comfortably accounted for United 4-0 at the quarter-finals stage of the cup and subsequently defeated Glenavon 2-1 to clinch a place in the showpiece occasion of the season on 6 May for the first time since 2008.", "After the game Alan Kernaghan resigned as manager of the Glens.\nJamie Gardiner gave the hosts the lead in the first half, with Jordan Campbell adding a second in the 62nd minute.\nCiaran Caldwell pulled a goal back, Stephen Park restored the two-goal cushion and Nacho Novo netted what proved to be a consolation late on.\nAnnagh lie bottom of their league, having shipped 12 goals in three games.\nGlentoran manager Kernaghan had gone into the game under a degree of pressure after a section of Glens supporters had voiced their discontent following a 4-1 league reverse at Coleraine on Saturday.\nGardiner completed a fine breakaway by chipping Elliott Morris for the opener in the 19th minute and the County Armagh side had their illustrious visitors in real trouble when Campbell added the second.\nCaldwell's deflected 25-yard effort three minutes later gave the Glens hope, but that optimism proved short-lived when Park made it 3-1, Novo, Glentoran skipper for the evening, pulling one back from six yards out on 85 minutes.\n\"The first goal was important for us, it gave us a real lift, and hopefully this result will kick-start our season. We fear nobody,\" Annagh manager Paul Matchet told BBC Radio Ulster's Sportsound programme after the game.\nGlens manager Kernaghan argued: \"If we had taken the chances we created, we could have won the game by seven or eight. I am frustrated and I feel the fans' frustration.\"\nElsewhere, holders Cliftonville began their bid for a fifth straight success in the competition with a thumping 11-1 victory over 2011 winners Lisburn Distillery at Solitude.\nDavid McDaid and Stephen Garrett both scored hat-tricks, with Chris Ramsey, Jaimie McGovern, Chris Curran, Jude Winchester and Gary Donnelly also getting their names on the scoresheet.\nMedia playback is not supported on this device\nThe Reds' north Belfast rivals Crusaders were comfortable 3-1 winners over Loughgall, while Portadown hammered Donegal Celtic 6-1 at Shamrock Park.\nBallymena United survived an early scare when Chris McFall gave Newington the lead midway through the first half, but Cathair Friel, Allan Jenkins, a Tony Kane penalty and Johnny McMurray replied for David Jeffrey's Braidmen.\nJames McLaughlin scored twice as Coleraine saw off Limavady United 3-0 in the north-west derby, while Carrick Rangers got the better of Ballyclare Comrades 2-0 in the East Antrim derby.\nDeclan O'Brien plundered four goals in Glenavon's 5-0 triumph over Tobermore United, while Andrew Waterworth grabbed his first two strikes of the season in Linfield's 5-0 win against Larne.\nDavid Healy's outfit are chasing a first League Cup success since 2008.\nBallinamallard United were 3-0 victors over Dundela, Ards defeated Newry City 3-1 and Dungannon Swifts romped hime 6-2 over Sport and Leisure Swifts.\nAnnagh United 3 (Gardiner 19, Campbell 62, Park 72)\nGlentoran 2 (Caldwell 65, Novo 85)\nArds 3 (McComb pen 64, 90; McAllister 83)\nNewry City 1 (Walker pen 70)\nBallyclare Comrades 0\nCarrick Rangers 2 (Kelly 57, Sally 90+3)\nCrusaders 3 (Caddell 6, Heatley 23, Carvill 84)\nLoughgall 1 (Uprichard 65, Copeland s/o 43)\nBallinamallard Utd 3 (Mayse 22, McCartney 61, Laverty 79)\nDundela 0\nDungannon Swifts 6 (Lavery 20, Fitzpatrick 33, McElroy pen 37, Burke 48, Teggart 57, Hazley 90)\nS&L Swifts 2 (Johnson pen 78, McKissock 80)\nGlenavon 5 (O'Brien 13, 42, 52, 54; Hall 33)\nTobermore Utd 0\nLinfield 5 (Waterworth 14, 34; Burns 20, Clarke 44, Fallon 84)\nLarne 0\nInstitute 0 (Scoltock s/o 92)\nH&W Welders 2 (AET) (McKee pen 92, 119; Rainey s/o 84)\nBallymena Utd (Friel 30, Jenkins 46, Kane pen 50, McMurray 84)\nNewington 1 (McFall 22; Burns s/o 77)\nPortadown 6 (Henderson 17, Shannon 26, Kirwin 28, Withers pen 52, Ferris 85, Rooney 88)\nDonegal Celtic 1 (Conlon 65)\nCliftonville 11 (Ramsey 29, McDaid 39, 40, pen 46; McGovern 60, Garrett 68, 82, 87; Curran 75, Winchester 77, Donnelly 79)\nLisburn Distillery 1 (McSorley 71)\nColeraine 3 (McCauley 10; McLaughlin 64, 82)\nLimavady Utd 0", "Carrick fell to the bottom of the table on Tuesday when they lost at home to Portadown, and Warrenpoint Town beat Ballymena United.\nHaveron's men are one point behind Town and trail second-from-bottom Ballinamallard United by two points.\nCarrick play Dungannon away on Saturday and finish at home to Ballinamallard.\nRangers, promoted as Championship One winners last season, were hampered this term by a string of postponements because of playing surface problems at their home ground.\n\"We are not going to give up - it is not in our nature to throw the towel in,\" said Haveron.\n\"We have not been doing enough, but now we need to win our last two games to put it back in our hands.\n\"The amount of points we have thrown away from winning positions has been hard to take.\"\nThe club which finishes bottom of the Premiership will be automatically relegated while the team one from bottom will have a two-legged play-off against the Championship One runners-up.\nWarrenpoint, who seemed doomed for the drop after losing 13 games in a row earlier in the season, have recovered to give themselves a fighting chance of survival.\nBarry Gray's men have taken seven points from their last five matches, in contrast to Carrick's one.\n\"We need to continue to show the hunger we have to stay in this league,\" said Town boss Gray.\nAt Seaview, Crusaders will be presented with the Premiership trophy before their final home match having retained the Gibson Cup for the first time.\nStephen Baxter's men sealed another league crown by winning 3-1 away to Cliftonville who had themselves won back-to-back titles in 2013 and 2014.\nColeraine, with just one point to show from the last six fixtures, will provide the opposition for the Crues who will again be without suspended defender Josh Robinson.\nRunners-up Linfield complete their home programme against Cliftonville while Glenavon, on course to finish third for the second successive year, are away to Glentoran.", "David Cushley won it in injury-time as the champions stay five points clear.\nLinfield's Jimmy Callacher struck late in a 2-1 win over Glentoran while Ballymena squandered a two-goal lead in a 2-2 draw with Coleraine.\nGlenavon beat Portadown 1-0, Ards secured a 3-1 victory over Carrick and Ballinamallard defeated Dungannon 2-0.\nRelive a thrilling day of Premiership action\nIt was going so well for Cliftonville - an impressive exhibition of passing, movement and finishing put them firmly in control.\nDaniel Hughes poked home the opener and Jay Donnelly rifled into the top corner before Ruairi Harkin volleyed in his first goal for the Reds.\nMedia playback is not supported on this device\nCrusaders were on course for a first league defeat of the season but they showed the stuff of champions with a remarkable fightback.\nTwo Jordan Owens headers set up a tense finale and Michael Carvill equalised in the final minute before Cushley fired home deep in added time.\nThere was also derby drama at the Oval as Gary Haveron started his reign as Glentoran manager against old rivals Linfield.\nMarcus Kane's own goal gave the Blues an early lead but a close-range Curtis Allen finish made it 1-1 after 55 minutes.\nLinfield clinched victory thanks to Jimmy Callacher's bullet header with four minutes remaining and there was still time for Birney to be shown a straight red card after a bad challenge on Niall Quinn.\nThird-placed Ballymena slipped up after Cathair Friel's double left them 2-0 ahead going into the 89th minute at Coleraine.\nJordan Allen bagged two goals in two minutes in late derby drama to earn the Bannsiders a point.\nUnited remain third but Glenavon are just a point behind with Kevin Braniff's second-half goal ensuring a Mid-Ulster derby win over the Ports at Moureview Park.\nPortadown played the second half with 10 men following the dismissal of defender Brendan Shannon for a tackle on Joel Cooper just before the break.\nMartin Murray's penalty gave Carrick an early lead against Ards but the hosts levelled with Michael Ruddy's spot-kick before goals from Emmett Friars and Carl McComb.\nArds, who are up to fifth, claimed the points despite having Gareth Tommons sent off after 53 minutes.\nBallinamallard are moving towards mid-table territory after James McKenna's strike and Adam Lecky penalty saw off the Swifts challenge at Ferney Park.", "The former Reds player was appointed boss in 2011 and became the club's most successful manager.\nBreslin guided the Solitude team to eight trophies during his reign, including two Premiership titles.\nCliftonville have asked first-team coach Gerard Lyttle to take over as temporary manager.\nThe Reds started the season in fine form by winning their opening four league games before a draw with Warrenpoint Town.\nDefeat to champions Crusaders in the north Belfast derby was followed by the weekend humbling at the Showgrounds, although Cliftonville played most of the game with 10 men after Peter Burke's dismissal.\nDespite their two recent defeat, the Reds still lie third in the Premiership standings just five points behind pacesetters Linfield.\nAfter Saturday's thumping at Ballymena, Breslin did not make himself available to talk to the media and that immediately led to suggestions that he was considering his position.\nCliftonville officials are understood to have made strenuous efforts since then to convince Breslin to stay on but these ultimately proved fruitless.\nBreslin is believed to have met the players on Monday night to inform them of his decision.\nA brief Cliftonville statement said that the club was looking at ways to ensure that Breslin would maintain a role at Solitude and it is understood that he will be offered a place on the club's board.\n\"We thank him for his magnificent contribution in taking Cliftonville FC to new heights,\" added the Cliftonville statement.\nCliftonville are chasing a fourth straight League Cup success while back-to-back Premiership triumphs came in 2013 and 2014.", "Media playback is not supported on this device\nAaron Burns shot in the crucial goal in the 19th minute and soon after that Andrew Waterworth hit the post.\nLinfield, already through to the Irish Cup final, are unbeaten in 10 league matches, winning nine of them.\nSeven weeks ago the Crues were nine points ahead but now they lead by a single point with four matches left.\nIn an understandably cagey affair, Burns's quality footwork and composed finish proved decisive. With Crusaders failing to clear their lines, Burns dragged the ball back into his path to poke beyond Sean O'Neill.\nRelive Saturday's Premiership action\nStephen Baxter lost Jordan Owens to a calf injury before the game and the striker's absence was evident throughout as a series of Crusaders crosses failed to find a target in the box.\nThe champions did have a great chance to equalise in the second half when Paul Heatley went through one-on-one with Roy Carroll, but the former Northern Ireland keeper made a crucial save.\nThe league leaders travel to Solitude next Saturday while Linfield are away to Ballymena United.\nIn the battle for third place, Coleraine saw off Cliftonville 2-0 to move five points ahead of their opponents.\nDarren McCauley netted both goals in the second-half to extend the Bannsiders' unbeaten streak to 16 games.\nThe Reds have won just once in their last seven games and manager Gerard Lyttle has demanded an immediate improvement in the remaining four games.\n\"We just looked lethargic and I can't put my finger on it,\" Lyttle said.\n\"We didn't show up and the boys let themselves down. It was just not good enough.\"\n\"I thought they looked sharper in the first half but we came out and were a completely different side in.\"\nAt the bottom of the table, seemingly-doomed Portadown delayed automatic relegation by scoring two late goals to beat one-from-bottom Carrick Rangers.\nNiall Currie's Ports came from behind after Martin Murray fired Rangers into the lead from the penalty spot, Niall Henderson and Luke Wilson both scoring late to edge the contest in dramatic fashion.\nTeenager Jordan Jenkins scored two goals and Greg Moorhouse got the other as Glenavon beat Ballymena United.\nThe 17-year-old capitalised on poor defending for his first on 43 minutes before adding another on 52 with a close-range volley.\nBallinamallard look safe after goals by Ryan Mayse, Colm McLaughlin and Shane McGinty gave them a 3-0 home win over Glentoran.\nMayse opened the scoring when he got on the end of Ryan Curran's shot before McLaughlin reacted quickly to rebound home after Niall Owens's free-kick struck the crossbar.\nMcGinty, outstanding throughout, wrapped up the win with a clinical finish on the break, prompting Glens boss Gary Haveron to offer a withering assessment of his team's display.\n\"We didn't deserve anything from the game,\" he said.\n\"The way we conceded the goals was pathetic. We started off much the better team but it was a day when anything that could go wrong did go wrong.\"\nArds are up to eighth after their 4-1 victory over Dungannon Swifts. On-loan striker Matthew Shevlin got two after a Michael Ruddy penalty opened the scoring.\nGuillaume Keke struck the fourth with Dungannon's goal coming from Chris Hegarty.", "The Crues will retain the Gibson Cup if they beat the Lurgan Blues on Saturday and Linfield fail to defeat Coleraine.\n\"We must stay focused, it's definitely not over yet and we still have a job to do,\" said Crues manager Stephen Baxter.\n\"It's important that we come away from this game with something to push us a little closer to the title.\"\n\"We had a fantastic game against Glenavon in the Irish Cup a couple of weeks ago, which could have gone either way.\n\"We just have to concentrate on playing the games in front of us and focus on what we are trying to do.\"\n\"We will go there with confidence after our big win over Linfield last week but we now face two testing away games and Mourneview Park is a difficult place to go,\" added Baxter.\nSecond-placed Linfield now trail the champions by eight points and Blues manager David Healy has all but conceded defeat in his club's pursuit to overhaul the pacesetters with just four rounds of fixtures remaining.\n\"We now have to make sure we finish second and seal a European place,\" commented Healy.\n\"Credit to Crusaders as it's often said that it's more difficult to retain a title than to win it so well done to them if they do go on and win it.\n\"We have a cup final to look forward to and I've told the squad that they are playing for starting places in the team for that.\"\nGlenavon will hope to bounce back from last week's reverse at the hands of Cliftonville, a result which saw Gary Hamilton's side drop below the Reds in the contest to clinch third position.\nThe Solitude outfit entertain Glentoran, who will be without injured pair Calum Birney (ankle) and Chris Lavery (knee).\nThe battle for valuable points to help avoid the drop continues at the foot of the table as bottom side Warrenpoint Town host Ballinamallard United, who are one point ahead of Barry Gray's charges in 11th.\nTenth-placed Carrick Rangers are one point better off than the Mallards but are at home to a Ballymena United side, who are now unbeaten in five matches under new boss David Jeffrey.\nStruggling Portadown play Dungannon Swifts in the day's other Section B fixture.", "Neeson was forced off after suffering the injury in the first half of Saturday's league defeat by Linfield.\nCarrick rate Neeson as a major doubt and he will have a late fitness test for the Seaview decider.\nBallymena also have an injury concern with set-piece specialist Tony Kane struggling with a hamstring problem.\nThe midfielder is doubtful with a hamstring injury sustained five minutes from the end of Saturday's Premiership defeat by Crusaders at Seaview.\nThe 29-year-old is the club's second top scorer this season, having notched 18 goals, 12 of those from penalties and four from free-kicks.\nBoth Ballymena and Carrick are looking to win the League Cup for the first time in their history and the clubs are meeting in a domestic decider for the first time since the 1984 Irish Cup final, which Ballymena won 4-1.\nUnited have picked up the County Antrim Shield twice in recent years, but were losing finalists in the 2014 Irish Cup final and the 2015 League Cup decider.\nCarrick last picked up senior silverware in the 1992-93 season, when they collected the County Antrim Shield.\nBallymena manager David Jeffrey won the League Cup six times during his time as manager of Linfield.\nBallymena reached the final by beating Newington YC, Linfield, Warrenpoint Town and Coleraine while Carrick accounted for Ballyclare Comrades, Armagh City, Dungannon Swifts and Glenavon.", "Eoin Bradley and Stephen O'Donnell's goals in the first half proved enough for the Bannsiders despite the dismissal of defender David Ogilby.\nColeraine are tied on the maximum nine points with Glenavon, who are top on goal difference, and holders Linfield.\nLinfield ran out easy 4-0 winners at Dungannon while Glenavon hammered Ballymena 6-1 at the Showgrounds.\nNewly-promoted Warrenpoint edged a 1-0 home win over Ards while Ballinamallard United drew 1-1 with Cliftonville.\nColeraine, third last season, will be delighted with their start having been faced with a tough-looking opening schedule against Dungannon, Cliftonville and Crusaders.\nBradley nodded Oran Kearney's side into a 22nd-minute lead and O'Donnell scored just before half-time with another close-range header.\nColeraine had to play the last 28 minutes without central defender David Ogilby as he was sent off when a hand ball offence meant a second yellow card.\nThey saw out the valuable win despite Crues substitute Jordan Forsythe pulling one back in stoppage-time.\nLinfield rarely looked threatened in a routine win over Dungannon at Stangmore.\nPaul Smyth, Niall Quinn and an own goal by former Blueman Seanan Clucas made it 3-0 at the break and Andy Mitchell netted the fourth with a late penalty.\nLinfield have not lost a domestic fixture since 3 January and this was their third clean sheet in a row.\nGlenavon were the top scorers of the day with a remarkable 6-1 success at Ballymena.\nIncredibly, all the goals came in the second half and were scored by different players.\nAdam Foley, James Singleton, Sammy Clingan (penalty), Andy Hall, Bobby Burns and Andrew Mitchell netted for Glenavon while United's solitary response was an 80th-minute penalty by Tony Kane.\nGlentoran boss Gary Haveron will be disappointed with is side's draw at home to his former club Carrick.\nThe Glens looked on course to maintain their 100% start when Ross Redman shot them into the lead in the first half , but Lee Chapman headed Carrick's equaliser 40 seconds after the restart.\nFormer Portadown striker Darren Murray scored in Warrenpoint's 1-0 win over Ards.\nBallinamallard took the lead through a Ryan Curran penalty but Garry Breen equalised for Cliftonville who may feel they should have taken the chances they had to win the game." ]

[ "The Federal Government on Wednesday arraigned five men for allegedly importing 661 pump-action rifles into the country without lawful authority.\nThe accused were arraigned before Justice Ayokunle Faji at the Federal High Court in Lagos.\nThey are Mahmud Hassan, Oscar Okafor, Donatus Achinulo, Matthew Okoye, said be at large, and Salihu Danjuma.\nIn the charge, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice said the accused brought the rifles into the country from Turkey through the Apapa Port in Lagos, using a 40-feet container, which they falsely claimed contained steel doors.\nTo facilitate the illegal importation, the accused allegedly forged a number of documents including a bill of lading, a Form M and a Pre-Arrival Assessment Report.\nAccording to the prosecution, in order to evade payment of Customs duty, the accused allegedly forged a bill of lading issued at Istanbul on January 9, 2017, falsely claiming that it was issued at Shanghai, China.\nIn the forged bill of lading, they allegedly filled “steel door” as the content of the container instead of rifles.\nThey were also said to have allegedly offered a bribe of N400,000 to an official of the Nigeria Customs Service attached to the Federal Operative Unit to influence the said officer not to conduct a “hundred per cent search on the 40-feet container with number PONU 825914/3.”\nThe prosecution also alleged that the first accused, Hassan, corruptly gave N1m to government officials at the Apapa Port in order to prevent the search of the container by Customs officials.\nIn the last count, the Federal Government alleged that the defendants had between 2012 and 2016 illegally imported several double-barreled shotguns, pump-action rifles and single-barreled shotguns into the country through Lagos.\nThe eight counts pressed against them border on conspiracy, importation of prohibited firearms, forgery, uttering of forged documents, and bribery.\nThe offences were said to be contrary to sections 1(2)(c), 1(14) (a)(i) and 3(6) of the Miscellaneous Offences Act Cap M17, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2014.\nThe accused, however, pleaded not guilty when the charges were read to them.\nConsequently, the prosecuting counsel, K.A. Fagbemi, applied for a date to commence trial but urged the court to order that the accused should be remanded in the prison custody pending trial.\nJustice Faji adjourned till September 12, 2017 for definite hearing and ordered that the accused should be remanded in the prison custody." ]

[ "Alleged N400m Fraud: Court Orders Arraignment of Metuh’s Lawyer, 3 Journalists\n(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – Justice Okon Abang of the Federal High Court Abuja, has ordered the Federal Government FG to arraign a legal practitioner, Mr. Ben-Chuks Nwosu and three Channels Television staff – Messrs Chamberlain Usoh, Gimba Umar and Nneota Egbe over alleged contempt.\nJustice Abang Tuesday made the order while his delivering a ruling after listening to the unedited video of the programme in open court.\nSpecifically, the parties are to be arraigned for participating and anchoring an AM programme on the station, “Sunrise Daily ” where it was alleged that contemptuous and prejudicial questions were asked and comments were made by Nwosu, Counsel to a former National Publicity Secretary of the opposition PDP, Mr. Olisa Metuh who is standing trial on alleged N400m money laundering.\nThe judge held that the accused should be arraigned in any court of coordinate jurisdiction within the jurisdiction of the court under Section 134(4) of the Criminal Code.\nHe restated that they should be arraigned for the court to determine whether questions asked by the three anchor men and the comments by Mr. Nwosu were not contemptuous and misleading to the public.\nJustice Abang held that upon arraignment, the court shall determine whether Channels TV had not made prejudicial statement thereby misleading the public as well as distorting the facts of the case for selfish reason.\nThe judge who gave the FG 30 days timeline to comply with the order however held ‘’I cannot order arraignment of Ojogbane because I did not see his face, and his picture was not used. I only heard a voice, and it is risky to speculate.”\nConsequently, Justice Abang ordered the Senior Manager News and Programmes, Channels TV, Oluyemisi Ipaye, to within 7 days from July 3, file 10 copies of the transcript of questions asked by the anchors of the programme.\nSimilarly, he ordered Ipaye to file 10 copies of the DVD showing questions asked by the anchors and comments made by Nwosu and Ojogbane.\nAlso, Justice Abang asked the prosecution to within 10 days, refer the matter to the Disciplinary Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association, (NBA).\nHe held that this was for the body to determine whether the comments made by Nwosu on the programme were in violation of Rules 33 of Rules of Professional Conduct of Legal Practitioners 2007.\nThe court equally further directed that the defence and prosecuting counsel should meet with the management of Channels TV to agree that the transcript represents questions asked and answers gotten.\nAway from this, Justice Abang reopened Metuh’s suits in order to enable him testify personally, as well as call two additional witnesses.\nHowever, Justice Abang vacated the order earlier made on May 25 – closing Metuh’s case, noting that the order was made in default, because his (Metuh) counsel was not heard.\nJustice Abang subsequently warned Metuh not to cause any unpleasant scene or fall in the courtroom again adding that the proceedings shall be on a daily basis.\nThe suit has been adjourned till Wednesday, July 4, 2018 for the defence to call its remaining witnesses.\nPlease follow and like us:", "CRAIG — Rapscallions and scalawags didn't stand a chance against cowboy action shooters at the Northwest Colorado Rangers \"Where the Old West Stayed Young\" 2018 Annual Match.\nCowboy Action Shooting is a sport that pays homage to America's Wild West heritage. Participants use firearms typical of those used to tame the Old West — single action revolvers, pistol-caliber lever-action rifles and old time shotguns.\nRules require participants to adopt aliases and wear costumes appropriate to a character or profession of the late 19th century, a Hollywood western star or from western fiction.\nAbout 40 cowboys, miners, sodbusters, townies, gamblers, saloon girls, soldiers and characters representing all strata of old west society attended the weekend match. Held May 25 through May 27, the competition offered two full days of shooting — 12 main matches and a full slate of side matches.\nMain matches consisted of 12 stages, and each tasked competitors with completing a series of shots based on a scenario. For example, in stage seven, shooters were told, \"A band of pernicious pickpockets has you cornered against the wall. You have to rely upon dauntless daring-do to get out of this one.\"\nThey were then instructed to start \"standing with your back against the wall, hands at low surrender, both pistols loaded with five and holstered, rifle loaded with 10 and open-empty shotgun staged on either bale. On signal: move to rifle and double tap targets R1 through R5, any order. Make rifle safe, retrieve a shotgun and engage shotgun targets in front of you. Move to other bale, and engage remaining shotgun targets. Make shotgun safe, and with pistols, double tap targets P1 through P5 in any order.\"\nRecommended Stories For You\nThe overall winner of the main matches was Beefcake, who completed all stages with a time of 386.91, followed by Sam Balin, who took second with a time of 410.87, and I.B. One Eye, who placed third place with a time of 447.20.\nSide matches offered shooters the opportunity to test their skills using derringers and pocket pistols in addition to sidearms, shotguns and rifles.\nNorthwest Colorado Rangers hold monthly four-stage matches on the fourth Saturday of April through September at the Bears Ears Sportsman Club's Cedar Mountain Range. The public is welcome to watch.\n\"We have a good time while being mindful of safety, one of the most important aspects of cowboy action shooting,\" said Black Mountain Cat.\nMain match final results\nTo view the results by categories visit: bearsears.org/rangers.html.\nSide match results\n(Event — shooter, hits and/or score)\nShotgun double — Sam Balin, 13.49\nShotgun pump — Soda Creek Jack, 4.50\nShotgun lever — Colorado Hank, 10.33\nDerringer — Beefcake, 7.86\nPocket pistol — J.B., 1.14\nBig bore lever rifle — J.B., 5-hits\nQuigley — Doc Murdock, 2 hits\nPistol caliber rifle — Beefcake, 10 hits, 21.09\nLR pistol — Trigger Mortise, 5 hits, 11.25\nRimfire — Beefcake, 15 hits, 16.01\nGunfighter — I.B.Oneeye, 10 hits, 5.29\nSingle shot rifle — Colorado Hank won shoot off\nFor more information about joining the cowboy shooting action, call Captain Sagebrush Burns at 970-824-8407; Sergeant That Away Gal at 970-272-3238; Maybell Maverick at 970-272-3238; or the Territorial Governor Powderwash Kid at 970-826-0150.\nContact Sasha Nelson at 970-875-1794 or [email protected].", "The video will start in 8 Cancel\nGet daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email\nThis was the terrifying moment firearms officers surrounded a road in broad daylight after reports a care worker spotted a shotgun.\nThe drama unfolded in Wordsworth Road, Willenhall , shortly after lunchtime on Tuesday, May 29.\nEyewitness Martin Wulfran recorded armed officers surrounding a property, with concerned local residents watching on in disbelief.\nMartin, a former freelance photographer, told BirminghamLive : \"People living on the estate were surprised to see armed police surround a residential property and were not sure what was going on.\n\"The scene was quiet and dealt with very calmly by police. There was no shouting.\"\nDressed in black carrying guns and shields, armed police were soon stood down after police identified that the firearm was found to be an air rifle.\nA spokesman for West Midlands Police said: \"Police were alerted at 12.10pm on May 29 after a social care worker reported seeing a shotgun and cartridges in a bag while carrying out a welfare check at an address in Wordsworth Road, Willenhall, Walsall .\n\"Officers attended, contained the area and closed nearby streets as a precaution before armed officers moved in.\n\"The firearm, however, was found to be an air rifle.\n\"Two men aged 30 and 18 were spoken to but no arrests were made.\"\n(Image: @thewulfran via Twitter)\nAir Weapons\nAn air weapon is defined, under section 1(3)(b) and 57(4) of the Firearms Act 1968 as:\nan air rifle, air gun or air pistol which does not fall within section 5 (1) (a) and which is not of a type declared by rules made by the Secretary of State under section 53 of the Firearms Act to be specially dangerous\".\nAn air rifle is \"specially dangerous\" if it is capable of discharging a missile so that the missile has, on being discharged from the muzzle of the weapon, kinetic energy in excess in the case of a pistol of 6 ft lbs or, in the case of an air weapon other than an air pistol, 12 ft lbs: Firearms (Dangerous Air Weapons) Rules 1969 rr. 2, 3 (Archbold 24-8a.)\n(Image: @thewulfran via Twitter)\nPaintball guns are a type of air weapon. The Home Office regard self-loading or pump action rifled airguns (including paintball guns) as outside the scope of the Firearms Act, unless they are sufficiently powerful to fall within the category of a \" specially dangerous \" air weapon (Archbold 24.8a). Paintball guns could be considered imitation firearms.\nUnless an air weapon falls within one of the above exceptions, it is not subject to section 1 Firearms Act 1968.", "Jimoh Moshood, Abuja: ACP Jimoh Moshood in a press conference present to the press 2 suspects who are used as political thugs by politicians and kidnapping at the force headquarters.\nSUSPECTS\n1. KABIRU SAIDU a.k.a OSAMA “31 YRS” From Dekina LGA but based in Anyagba (Leader of the gang)\n2. NUHU SALISU a.k.a SMALL “25 YRS” (a member of the gang )\nEXHIBITS\nI. Two (2) AK47 Rifles\nII. Five (5) Pump Action Guns\nIII. Two (2) Locally made Pistol with one using AK47 Ammunition\nIV. Hip of charms\nThe Crime prevention and control strategies adopted by the Nigeria police Force throughout the country in the recent time to reduce violent crimes and other criminality are yielding positive results\nWorking on actionable intelligence, the Kogi State Police Command personnel and Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad trailed and arrested the two suspects listed above after a gun battle with the Police team that lasted for some hours on the 19th January, 2018 atOgojueje in Dekina Local Government Area of Kogi State. During investigation, they confessed to the various criminal roles they played in the commission of several kidnappings and Armed Robbery in different towns across Kogi State and its environs for which they have been on the wanted list of the Police for more than two years now.\nDuring interrogation, they further confessed they were Political Thugs recruited by some mischievous Politicians in Kogi State to cause mayhem, and disruption of peace, and destruction of lives and property in the State. They also confessed to belonged to the gang of a dreaded and vicious kidnap for ransom gang under a gang leader (name withheld) whose where about is being investigated by the Force. The two suspects were identified by some of their victims.\nAccording to the gang leader KABIRU SAIDU a.k.a OSAMA “31 YRS” he has been working as a Political Thug for one Alh. Mohammed Audu a Politician in the State. They said Alh. Mohammed Audu invited him to Abuja and introduced him to Senator Dino Melaye and they met on Airport road, Abuja inside the Senator Dino Melaye’s Car in the month of December, 2017. The suspect further confessed that, Sen. Dino Melaye told him that they should start working for the Senator as his Political Thugs and they should recruit and train more other thugs to work for him in preparation toward 2019 General election to enable him ( Sen. Dino Melaye ) challenge his political opponents and disorganized Kogi State.\nThe gang leader KABIRU SAIDU a.k.a OSAMA “31 YRS” further confessed to the Police investigative team that Senator Dino Melaye handed over a bag containing the following firearms one (1) AK47 rifle, two (2) Pump Action guns and the sum of four hundred and thirty thousand naira N430,000.00 to share with his boys.\nConsequent on the indictments and criminal confessions against Senator Dino Melaye by the principal suspect KABIRU SAIDU a.k.a OSAMA “31 YRS” Nigeria Police Force, wrote a letter dated 2nd of March, 2018 addressed to the Senate President, Federal Republic of Nigeria informing and requesting him to release Senator Dino Melaye to report to Commissioner of Police, Kogi State Command on the 7th March, 2018 to answer to criminal offences levelled against him, to enable the Police carry out a discreet investigation into the confessions of the principal suspect against Senator Dino Melaye. But Senator Dino Melaye have refused to honour the Police invitation till date.\nA case of Criminal Conspiracy and unlawful possession of prohibited firearms have therefore been filed by the Nigeria Police Force at Federal High Court Lokoja on 16thMarch, 2018 against the two suspects mentioned above, Senator Dino Melaye and Alh. Mohammed Audu who is also a suspect in the matter and is now on the run.\nThe renewed commitment of the Nigeria Police Force to sustain the tempo of the fight against kidnapping and other violent crimes in the country and guarantee protection of Lives and Property remains unequivocal and unwavering.", "The Memphis Grizzlies fell to the Brooklyn Nets 118-115 on Monday night at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. It was the 15th straight loss away from home for the Grizzlies, who remained winless on the road in 2018.\nThe Grizzlies carried a seven-point lead (94-87) going into the fourth quarter before being outscored 22-7 over the first 7:53 of the fourth period, giving the Nets their largest lead of the contest (109-101) with 4:07 to play.\nAndrew Harrison led the Grizzlies with 19 points (7-16 FG, 4-8 FT) and a game-high eight assists. Wayne Seldenprovided a spark off the bench, adding 17 points (7-15 FG, 3-7 3P). Briante Weber scored a career-high 15 points (7-11 FG). Dillon Brooks also had 15 points (5-15 FG). JaMychal Green led the Grizzlies on the boards with 16 rebounds. He also had 14 points for his career-high 14th double-double this season.\nThe Grizzlies bench totaled 60 points, with four reserves in double-digits compared to the Nets’ 42 bench points.\nBrooklyn reserve Caris LaVert led the Nets with 22 points (7-9 FG, 4-4 3P, 4-6 FT) off the bench. Allen Crabbe also had 22 points (7-10 FG, 4-7 3P, 4-4 FT). DeMarre Carroll added 18 points (5-8 FG, 4-7 3P, 4-5 FT). Rondae Hollis-Jefferson posted 16 points (4-9 FG) and 12 boards.\nTrailing only three (118-115) in the final 00.4 seconds a three-point attempt to tie the game by Harrison was no good, as Brooklyn escaped with a win to sweep the season series for first time since 2013-14.\nNext game\nThe Grizzlies look ahead to Philadelphia where they will face the 76ers on Wednesday night at 6 p.m. CT. in Philly. Tune in to FOX Sports Southeast presented by Pinnacle Financial Partners or listen on 92.9 FM ESPN for all the action.\nKey Run of the Night\nThe Grizzlies carried a seven-point lead (94-87) going into the fourth quarter before being outscored 22-7 over the first 7:53 of the fourth period, giving the Nets their largest lead of the contest (109-101) with 4:07 to play.\nClose related photo gallery overlay. 1 / Share Links:\nSee more photos.\nTeam Quotes\nOn how the game got away from them\nI think there was a stretch in that fourth quarter when we just turned the ball over too much. We were penetrating, we were getting where we wanted to go, but then the play that we made when we got there wasn’t the right play. And when you’re in the paint, on that baseline, and you make turnovers going towards Brooklyn’s bucket, with their speed and athleticism it’s hard to catch up. Just us understanding the importance of those moments in crunch time and valuing the basketball and valuing every possession. If you get a shot then you at least get a chance to offensive rebound it and you get a chance to get back and set your defense. -- Coach Bickerstaff\nOn how critical these moments are for their young players\nIt’s learning how to win. Consistency and learning how to win are the two hardest things to develop in this league. The only way you learn is through experience in these situations. You can watch all the film you want to. You can watch all of the NBA basketball you want to but until you’re in that moment and the pressure is on you and you feel your heartbeat a little bit faster. The game is moving a little bit faster. Until you learn to play in those moments and slow those moments down in your mind you won’t learn. It’s invaluable the education our guys are getting. -- Coach Bickerstaff\nOn playing for the first time since a nine game absence\nIt felt good to compete, get out there with my teammates and try hard to get a win. -- Andrew Harrison", "Capela contributed 28 points (13-14 FG, 2-4 FT), eight rebounds, and five blocks in 24 minutes during Monday's 130-123 win over the Pelicans.\nCapela finished with a career high in scoring and matched his career best in blocks while playing only half the game. Moreover, he locked DeMarcus Cousins down in the pivotal fourth quarter, holding him to just one point in the final eight minutes of action.", "Another horrific mass shooting has occurred in the United States. On the night of October 1 in Las Vegas, a 64-year-old white man named Stephen Paddock opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino on more than 20,000 people attending a country music festival below. The death count at the time of this writing stands at 59, with 527 injured. The immediate response must be: How do we prevent another massacre? But that is exactly the debate the Trump administration wants to avoid.\nWhite House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded to the shooting from the podium of the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room -- named in memory of President Ronald Reagan's press secretary, who was shot and paralyzed during a 1981 assassination attempt on Reagan.\nHuckabee Sanders said, \"There's a time and place for a political debate.\"\nYes, that time is now.\nAs renowned public intellectual and author Naomi Klein tweeted: \"Don't talk about guns after a massacre. Or climate change after storms. Or austerity after firetrap buildings burn. Talk when no one listens.\" While it is too late for the murder victims in Las Vegas, looking at a country where mass shootings were effectively ended over 20 years ago is instructive -- the historically gun-loving country of Australia.\nOn April 28, 1996, Martin Bryant took his AR-15 assault rifle into the southern Tasmanian tourist village of Port Arthur and proceeded to kill 35 men, women and children, injuring 23 more.\n\"It's important to remember that before Port Arthur, we [in Australia] had had a series of mass shootings, about one a year,\" Rebecca Peters told us on the Democracy Now! news hour. \"Each time, there was a lot of discussion, noise, grief, prayers, anger, thoughts about what to do. But our politicians were sort of frozen, afraid to take action to reform the gun laws, even though there was plenty of expert advice.\"\nRebecca Peters led the movement in Australia to change the gun laws. She now works as an arms-control advocate with the International Action Network on Small Arms. \"When Port Arthur occurred, the number of victims was so large, and also the fact that it was in a tourist location -- actually, not dissimilar from what's happened in Las Vegas -- so people from all over the country were directly affected. And we had this new conservative government. The prime minister just said: \"This is it. We're done. We've been talking about this for years. It's time to take action.\"\nWithin two weeks, the 1996 National Firearms Agreement was announced, completely banning semi-automatic weapons, pump-action rifles and shotguns. It included a compulsory buy-back program that removed 650,000 guns from private hands. Since that time, there has not been a mass shooting in Australia.\nMany are quick to point out that the Australian solution couldn't work in the U.S., not only because there are already over 300 million guns in circulation, but because the U.S. Constitution, as currently interpreted, protects the right to own guns.\nBut let's have the debate. Let's open the airwaves and the halls of Congress, the classrooms and the town squares, to a vigorous debate about gun violence and how to stop it. Disgraced former Fox News host and accused serial sexual harasser Bill O'Reilly wrote in a blog just hours after the Las Vegas massacre, \"This is the price of freedom.\"\nStephen Paddock, the gun-rights advocates would argue, had the right to amass his lethal arsenal of, at last count, 42 firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition -- all purchased, it seems, legally and with full background checks. But the 58 peaceful concertgoers he murdered in a blaze of automatic gunfire had every right to live, to enjoy their constitutionally protected rights. For these victims, the gun protectors offer \"thoughts and prayers.\"\nBut there are those who do change their minds. Caleb Keeter, a guitarist in the Josh Abbott Band that played at the Las Vegas concert shortly before the massacre, wrote the following day: \"I've been a proponent of the 2nd amendment my entire life. Until the events of last night. I cannot express how wrong I was...A small group (or one man) laid waste to a city with dedicated, fearless police officers desperately trying to help, because of access to an insane amount of fire power.\"\nColumbine, the Aurora theater, Sandy Hook Elementary, Orlando's Pulse nightclub and now Las Vegas: the list of massacre sites will continue to grow, without end, until we have the debate and enact sensible gun control. And when we have that debate, let's remember the Port Arthur massacre as well.\nThis column was first published on Democracy Now!\nImage: Flickr/Cory Doctorow\nChip in to keep stories like these coming.", "Kaminsky finished with just eight points (3-8 FG, 1-3 3Pt, 1-2 FT), but added five rebounds, three assists, two steals and one block in 17 minutes during Monday's 116-103 victory over Oklahoma City.\nKaminsky returned to action and saw just 17 minutes of court time. While he didn't contribute a lot in the scoring column, he was able to chip in elsewhere. He should be seeing additional court time with Cody Zeller (knee) on the sidelines, and is worth an add if you are in need of a big man who can hit the three ball.", "George finished with 20 points (7-14 FG, 2-4 3Pt, 4-4 FT), five rebounds, one assist and one steal in 33 minutes during Monday's 116-103 loss to Charlotte.\nGeorge returned to action after missing the last two games with a calf injury and looked healthy in 33 minutes of action. Unfortunately, the Thunder suffered another tough loss, still appearing to struggle with their rhythm. The fact that he played 33 minutes should instill confidence in his owners, and he will look to build on this performance when they travel to Indiana for a matchup with Victor Oladipo and the Pacers.", "Parker (knee), playing in his first game since Feb. 8, 2017, registered 12 points (4-7 FG, 0-1 3Pt, 4-6 FT) and three rebounds across 15 minutes in Friday's 92-90 win over the Knicks.\nThe 2014 second overall pick acquitted himself during his first game action in nearly a year, and he wasted no time making his presence felt. Parker scored seven points in just over five minutes of court time in the first quarter, draining his first basket on a jumper from the right baseline shortly after entering the game for Giannis Antetokounmpo. The Bucks will undoubtedly manage the 22-year-old's minutes carefully for the time being, but he could become a pivotal second-unit contributor in short order, especially in the wake of Malcolm Brogdon's anticipated multi-week absence due to his quadriceps injury.", "The purported incident was caught on CCTV. The purported incident was caught on CCTV.\nA police enquiry has been launched after CCTV footage emerged, purportedly showing the SHO of Mianwali Nagar police station and four of his subordinates beating an officer of the central excise department, a tax assistant with the income tax department and five of their associates.\n“On the basis of a preliminary inquiry, the SHO was sent to District Lines on Saturday night. A probe is on,” Delhi Police spokesperson Madhur Verma said.\nThe purported incident was caught on CCTVs installed at a petrol pump and a car showroom in the area. Footage purportedly shows the SHO arriving in a private car and joining his subordinates, before the assault ensues. The enquiry is being conducted by an additional DCP-rank officer.\nIn the footage, four police personnel are seen talking to the seven men near the petrol pump around 12.25 am. In the footage, four police personnel are seen talking to the seven men near the petrol pump around 12.25 am.\nThe incident took place at January 22. In the footage, four police personnel are seen talking to the seven men near the petrol pump around 12.25 am. The SHO then arrives in a white car and the men are dragged to the petrol pump. One of the men tries to flee and falls on the road. The SHO and his men are purportedly seen kicking him. Footage from the pump also shows the men being taken to a room. A few minutes later, the SHO leaves.\nVerma said the local police station received a call about a quarrel between some men, after which a team was sent to the spot.\nA complaint about the alleged assault was made to DCP (outer) M N Tiwari by Mahvir Singh Saini.\nSaini alleged that his sons, Pankaj, Sachin and Akash, his nephew, Amit, and their friends, Nitin Nayar, Deepak Garg and Rahul Jain, were assaulted. While Pankaj is an inspector in the excise department, Sachin works with the I-T department. “Saini claimed the men were returning from a party when they were stopped by a patrolling team. The SHO arrived soon after. Police allegedly took them to the room and beat them,” a senior officer said, quoting the complaint.\nSaini claimed Amit managed to escape and told them about the alleged assault. “Saini and his wife reached Mianwali police station, where the men had been taken. A sub-inspector told him they had created a ruckus and misbehaved with the SHO. He demanded money for their release,” the complaint alleged.\nSaini then lodged a complaint with DCP Tiwari, who ordered an enquiry.\nFor all the latest Delhi News, download Indian Express App", "0 SHARES Share Tweet\nMedical examiners identified the woman who died last week of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at a local hospital.\nDonna Elizabeth Murphy, 63, of Santa Clarita, was pronounced dead Friday afternoon at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital.\nMurphy, who was an adjunct faculty member of College of the Canyons’ math department, sustained a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the Oak Tree Gun Club in Newhall.\n“All of us at College of the Canyon our deeply saddened by this tragedy,” said Eric Harnish, spokesman for COC.\nMental Health and other resources for Santa Clarita Valley\nCollege of the Canyons Student Health & Wellness Resource Website\nChild & Family Center, Santa Clarita\nHenry Mayo Newhall Hospital Behavioral Health Free and Confidential MH Screening Website:\nMental Health America\nMental Health: It’s Part of All Our Lives 1-800- 789-2647\nNational Child Traumatic Stress Network\nNational Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare\nNational Institute for Mental Health\nNational Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800- 273-TALK\nReachout.com\nSAMHSA Site for Coping with Disaster and Traumatic Events:\nSanta Clarita City Mental Health Resource Page\nSCV Youth Project (661) 257.YOUTH (9688)\nStop Bullying\nSRD~Straightening Reins – equine therapy 661-803-1641\nACCESS (DMH Mental Health Hotline) (800)-854- 7771\nAsian Pacific Counseling & Treatment Center (818) 267-1100\nChild & Family Center, Santa Clarita (Children, Youth and Adults) (661) 259-9439\nChild and Family Guidance Center – Northridge (818) 993-9311\nCollege of the Canyons Student Health & Wellness Center (661)-362- 3259\nThe Center currently helps over 750 children and their families each week. For more information, contact the Center at 661-259-9439 or visit www.childfamilycenter.org.\nTo learn more about emotional health and how to get help or support a loved one, visit jedfoundation.org/help.", "Holiday scored 34 points (11-21 FG, 5-8 3PT, 7-8 FT) to go along with four rebounds, five assists, two steals and two blocks across 41 minutes in Sunday's 131-124 win against Philadelphia.\nHoliday tied his season-high for the second time with 34 points against Philadelphia on Sunday. In fact, the guard also scored 34 points against Golden State on December 4. Both of these standout performances are part of a five game run in which Holiday is averaging 25.2 points, 5.6 assists and 4.2 rebounds. Overall, Holiday is averaging 17.3 points, which is his best offensive season since he averaged a career-high 17.7 points with Philadelphia in 2012-13. Holiday has proven to be a consistent scorer in an offense controlled by two, dominating big men in Anthony Davis and DeMarcus Cousins.", "The Flames' Ryan Godfrey picked up 13 points in the win over the Goldfields Giants on Saturday night.\nThe Flames' Ryan Godfrey picked up 13 points in the win over the Goldfields Giants on Saturday night. Picture: Richard Polden\nA new season of State Basketball League action started at Mike Barnett Sports Complex last weekend, with the Rockingham Flames men’s and women’s teams picking up their first victories of the year.\nAction tipped off on Friday night, with the Flames hosting the Stirling Senators in a double-header; both games were tight affairs, with the women prevailing 80-73, while the men narrowly lost 87-85.\nDarcee Garbin (21 points, eight rebounds, and five assists), Maddison Allen (18 points, seven rebounds) and Jacinta Bourne (18 points, 10 rebounds) led the way for the Flames in their seven-point victory.\nThe men, who were without Perth Wildcats’ Greg Hire and import Curtis Washington, fought hard in their two-point loss with Dexter Kernich Drew (28 points, eight rebounds and six steals) and new import Josh Ritchart (26 points, eight rebounds and four assists) the stand-outs in the loss.\nHowever, the men bounced back on Saturday night against the Goldfields Giants, 83-78, to record a win, which came on the back of a 29-point performance from Ritchart.\nNew Flames import Josh Ritchart starred with 29 points in the win over the Goldfields Giants on Saturday night. Picture: Pictures: Richard Polden, Richard Polden\nRyan Godfrey also added 13 points for the Flames, while Luke Travers picked up 12 points, eight boards, five assists and two blocks in the win.\nEarlier on Saturday night the Flames hosted a special charity game for Ronald McDonald House, with Rockingham Hyundai prevailing 52-36 against Rockingham Mazda Suzuki in a spirited contest.\nPremier Mark McGowan presents Rockingham Hyundai's Dan Richards with the celebtrity cup after they won the Ronald McDonald House chairty fundraiser on Saturday night. Picture: Richard Polden\nFlames development officer Kevin Corbitt said a flurry of three-pointers from Stephen Watson was the difference between the two sides.\n“The principal thing that was achieved was that we raised a couple of thousand dollars for Ronald McDonald house,” Mr Corbitt said.\nThis weekend the men will travel north to face the Geraldton Buccaneers, while the women have a bye.\nThe next home game is scheduled for April 20.", "SAGINAW, MI -- Two men accused of trying to rob a Saginaw medical marijuana-grower, killing his dog in the process and, in turn, taking a pair of bullets themselves, have been charged with several felonies.\nJermonii D. Perry, 27, and Aaron S. \"Twin\" Pinkston, 23, on Wednesday, May 30, appeared before Saginaw County District Judge Elian E. H. Fichtner for arraignment on 10 counts each -- five counts of felony firearm and single counts of assault with intent to murder, first-degree home invasion, conspiracy to commit first-degree home invasion, killing or torturing an animal, and felon in possession of a firearm.\nIn a separate file, the judge arraigned Perry on charges of first-degree home invasion, felonious assault, and two counts of felony firearm.\nPolice arrest second suspect in attempted robbery that turned into a shootout\nThe judge set both men's bonds at $500,000 cash-surety. Court records list both men as unemployed Saginaw residents.\nAuthorities allege Perry, Pinkston, and a 28-year-old man in the early morning hours of Sunday, May 27, went to a home in the 1700 block of Vermont Street and kicked in the door of a porch-area. In attempting to kick in the door's main house, a resident from within yelled that he had a gun and would fire.\nAt least one of the intruders fired several shots through the door and the homeowner returned fire. Perry took a bullet to the arm and Pinkston took one to the leg, police have said.\nAmid the shooting, a dog owned by the resident was killed.\nThe three would-be robbers fled. Perry went to an area hospital for treatment of his wound and was arrested there by police. Pinkston did not seek medical attention for his wound at the hospital, police have said.\nResponding to a tip, police located Pinkston in a Saginaw residence Monday night and arrested him.\nAs of 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, the third suspect remains at large, though police have identified him.\nPolice believe the suspects targeted the house due to medical marijuana being grown there.\nThe charges in Perry's other file relate to him allegedly breaking into the same house and assaulting the homeowner in March.\nThe Michigan Department of Corrections discharged both men in late 2017.\nThe two suspects are to appear for a preliminary examination at 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, June 19.", "Butler had 22 points (9-17 FG, 2-6 3Pt, 2-3 FT), eight rebounds, five assists and two steals in 40 minutes during Sunday's 97-92 victory over the Mavericks.\nButler was everywhere Sunday, helping the Timberwolves to a tough victory over Dallas. His slow start to the season is now a distant memory, as he continues his resurgence back into form. He looks like a completely different player of late, seemingly more aggressive on both ends of the floor. He has now played over 40 minutes in five consecutive games, a sign that he is healthy and free of any injury concerns.", "Dunn posted 11 points (5-7 FG, 1-1 3Pt), four assists, three rebounds, three blocks, and one steal in 21 minutes during the Timberwolves' 95-89 loss to the Trail Blazers on Sunday.\nDunn recorded a career-high three blocks, handed out four dimes for the second straight game, and shot the ball extremely well from the field. The rookie has now received 20 minutes or more nine times this season. Meanwhile, starting point guard Ricky Rubio struggled, finishing with one point while missing all five field-goal attempts in 27 minutes of action. There has been no indication that Rubio's job is in jeopardy, but Dunn could conceivably force his way into somewhat of a time share if he continues to play at such a high level.", "Middleton collected 30 points (11-16 FG, 5-9 3Pt, 3-3 FT), five rebounds, two assists, two steals and one block across 38 minutes in Monday's 124-117 loss to the Cavaliers.\nMiddleton was brilliant offensively for the Bucks, playing the role of Robin to Giannis Antetokounmpo's Batman. Middleton has now averaged 25.8 points, 5.0 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game over his last five contests, as the offensive weapon has come alive of late.", "Baynes tallied 11 points (4-5 FG, 3-3 FT), eight rebounds and five assists across 24 minutes during a 119-110 win over the Hawks on Friday.\nBaynes had a decent all-around line in the win as he picked up a season-high five dimes and scored in double figures for just the fourth time in the last 17 games. It's not like Baynes has a ton of value to begin with, but the value he does have will likely take a bit of a hit once Greg Monroe officially joins the team.", "Ikeja – Innocent Chukwuma, the Chairman of Innoson Motors Ltd, on Wednesday in Lagos failed to appear for his scheduled arraignment for the sixth time over alleged fraud.\nInnoson was scheduled to appear before a new judge, Justice Olusola Williams, at an Ikeja Special Offences Court.\nJustice Mojisola Dada, the judge initially assigned to hear the case, had withdrawn following Innoson’s Feb. 12 petition to the National Judicial Council (NJC).\nThe NJC while absolving Dada of any wrongdoing, recommended that the case be reassigned by the Chief Judge of Lagos State, Justice Opeyemi Oke, to another judge, and was subsequently reassigned to Williams.\nFollowing the absence of the automobile CEO in court on Wednesday, Williams asked the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to produce him for arraignment on the new date of sitting.\nThe judge said: “I believe it is the job of the prosecution to bring the defendant to court.\n“The judge is just to make an order that he should appear in court but we cannot enforce the order. The responsibility still lies on the EFCC to make sure he is in court,”\nNAN also reports that Innoson had previously failed to appear before Justice Dada five times and had been declared wanted by the judge following a request by the EFCC.\nEarlier during proceedings, Mr Anselem Ozioko, the lead EFCC counsel, had informed the court that Innoson and his legal representatives were absent in court.\n“My Lord, it appears that the second defendant and my learned colleagues from the other side are not in court.\n“He has refused to come for his arraignment for the sixth time even when the matter was before your learned brother, Justice Dada, despite all efforts to bring him here.\n“He has also filed seven different applications in between the period he was supposed to be arraigned,” Ozioko said.\nThe prosecutor said that the applications filed by Innoson to allegedly stall his arraignment are an application challenging the jurisdiction of court, an application to disqualify himself from the charge before the court.\nOthers are an order of stay of execution on bench warrant issued by the court and a stay of execution of warrant of arrest.\nOzioko also informed the court that Innoson had refused to honor the court’s order by his continuous absence in court after he was granted an administrative bail by the EFCC.\n“My Lord, in view of the absence of the defendant, we shall be asking for an adjournment date.”\nWilliams, however, adjourned the case until Oct. 10 for arraignment.\nChukwuma and his company, Innoson Motors Nigeria Ltd., were to be arraigned on a four-count charge of conspiracy to obtain property by false pretences, stealing and forgery in a transaction with Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB).\nAccording to the charge, the defendants committed the offences between 2009 and July 2011 in Lagos.\nThe EFCC alleged that the defendants with intent to defraud, conspired to obtain by false pretences containers of motorcycle, spare parts and raw materials, property of GTB from Mitsui OSK Lines Ltd, Apapa, Lagos.\nThey are alleged to have fraudulently induced staff of Mitsui OSK and Maersk Line to deliver to them via their clearing agents the goods which were imported from China in the name of GTB by falsely pretending that they were authorized by the bank to clear the goods.\nThe prosecution claimed that the defendants in order to facilitate the fraud forged a bill of lading numbered 598286020 of Maersk Line Limited and 11007950841 of Mutsui O.S.K Lines by knowingly putting a false GTB stamp and signature of the bank staff.\nThe alleged forgery was in order that the forged documents be used or acted upon as genuine to the prejudice of any person within Lagos or elsewhere.\nThe offences contravened Sections 1(1)(b), 1(3), and 8(a) of the Advanced Fee Fraud and Other Related Offences Act 2016 and Sections 309(9), 388, 465 and 467(1)(j) of the Criminal Code, Laws of Lagos State 2003. (NAN)", "Gobert posted 10 points (5-8 FG, 0-1 FT), nine rebounds, one assist, five blocks and one steal across 32 minutes in Friday's 129-97 win over the Suns.\nGobert fell one rebound short of a double-double, but he more than made up for it with his five blocks. The Stifle Tower has scored in double digits in five of his last seven contests as well, numbers that he's supplemented with at least six rebounds in each of those games and six multiple-block tallies.", "news\nThe Nigeria Police Force said it had arrested four suspected bandits in connection with several killings in Benue.\nThe suspects are : Benajamin Tivfa, 32, a serving councillor of Fidi council ward of Makurdi Local Government Area of Benue, Victor Ganabe, Daniel Kyase, 33, member of Benue Livestock Guards and Julius Avaan 49.\nOthers are : Terkula Udeh 37, Sunday Cheche, 34 and Alhaji Adajo Tomza, 28, member of Benue Livestock Guards and Msugh Teraki, 23, member, Benue Livestock Guards.\nThe Force Spokesman, Acting DCP Jimoh Moshood, made the disclosure while briefing newsmen on the arrest of the suspects on Tuesday in Abuja.\nMoshood added that items recovered from them include two AK 47 rifles, a locally made pistol and 436 rounds of AK 47 ammunition.\nHe said that the suspects were arrested on June 27 by members of the Inspector-General of Police Intelligence Response Team(IRT).\nThe spokesman said that six of the suspects were arrested in their hideout in a hotel in Naka village of Benue.\nHe said that the suspects confessed that the councillor was a member of their gang and was responsible for supply of arms and ammunition including money to finance their operations.\n“The councillor admitted to have bought 15 rounds of AK47 ammunition from Cheche and also confessed to have provided money to finance the operations of the gang.\n“Investigation is in progress to arrest other members of the gang at large. They will be arraigned in court on completion of investigation.\"\nIn a related development, Moshood said that 13 suspects had been arrested in connection with the recent killings in Barkin Ladi, Riyom and Jos South local government areas of Plateau.\nMoshood said that the suspects were assisting the police with useful information to further carry out investigation into the incident.\nHe said that Five AK47 Rifles and two Live Cartridges were recovered from the suspects.\n“The Nigeria Police Force is assuring the people of Plateau of adequate security of lives and property in the State,”he said.\nHe implored them to support the Police personnel deployed in their localities to sustain the peace that had been restored to the state.\nHowever, members of the public in the state in distress or with information for the Police Special Intervention Force and the investigation team can use the following numbers: 07059473022, 08038907662, 08075391844, and 09053872296.", "Poeltl managed 10 points (4-4 FG, 2-3 FT), four rebounds and a steal across 17 minutes in Thursday's 106-101 preseason loss to the Trail Blazers.\nThe backup big man and 2016 first-round pick saw double-digit minutes for the second straight exhibition, posting a preseason-high point total in the process. Poeltl was serviceable in limited opportunity during his rookie campaign, averaging 3.1 points and 3.1 rebounds across 11.6 minutes over 54 games (four starts). With a year of experience under his belt, the seven-footer should see expanded opportunity in the coming season behind fellow big men Jonas Valanciunas and Lucas Nogueira.", "Portis scored 16 points (6-11 FG, 1-2 3Pt, 3-6 FT) while adding seven rebounds, four assists and a steal in 25 minutes off the bench during Monday's 110-92 loss to the Knicks.\nHe's now scored in double digits in five straight games, averaging 17.6 points, 9.4 boards, 2.8 assists, 2.0 three-pointers and 1.4 steals over that stretch. With the Bulls' roster hit hard by injuries, Portis should continue seeing a big role as the team's primary bench scorer over the final weeks of the season.", "Young finished with 18 points (8-11 FG, 2-3 3Pt), six rebounds and one steal in 39 minutes during Sunday's 126-116 victory over Denver.\nYoung was questionable heading into the game but appeared untroubled in 39 minutes of action. He was likely suffering from a thigh bruise, an injury which often causes discomfort more than anything serious. He was very efficient from the field Sunday, a common theme across most of his games this season. Barring any setbacks from the thigh concern, he should be ready to roll against the Thunder on Wednesday.", "James scored 25 points (11-20 FG, 0-2 3Pt, 3-6 FT) with 10 rebounds, seven assists, four blocks and four steals across 42 minutes in Monday's 117-111 Game 2 win over the Pacers.\nJames continued to raise his level of play in the playoffs for Game 2, narrowly missing out on a five-by-five and coming within three assists of his first triple-double of the postseason. His eight combined blocks and steals were more than the rest of the entire Cavs team recorded together. While James, was unquestionably great on Monday, he did have eight turnovers which got in the way of an otherwise vintage LeBron game.", "Smart provided nine points (2-7 FG, 0-2 3Pt, 5-5 FT), five rebounds, four assists, three blocks and one steal across 25 minutes during a 92-87 win over the Bucks on Tuesday.\nIn his first game since March 11, Smart was quite good as he hauled in an impressive all-around line. He was given 25 minutes, so his workload wasn't very limited. Smart will figure to be a key piece for as long as the team remains in the postseason.", "The original allottees of pumps that are performing poorly because of temporary financial problems or dispute among family members or partners would be given counseling by oil company officers with an action plan for reviving sales in the next six months. The original allottees of pumps that are performing poorly because of temporary financial problems or dispute among family members or partners would be given counseling by oil company officers with an action plan for reviving sales in the next six months.\nPetrol pumps, which are performing below their potential, will be given nine months to shore up their sales or else, would be taken over and handed to newly appointed dealers.\nPetroleum ministry has outlined a “Holiday Scheme” under which pumps — operated under the banner of state-run oil marketing companies (OMCs) — would be appraised every six months and a list prepared to isolate those that are selling less than 50 per cent of the sales target outlined by the OMC.\nWatch What Else Is making News\nThe original allottees of pumps that are performing poorly because of temporary financial problems or dispute among family members or partners would be given counseling by oil company officers with an action plan for reviving sales in the next six months.\nTheir performance would be reviewed after the stipulated six months and if sales continue to be sluggish, a fresh set of guidance with a new detailed action plan would be provided for a turnaround in next three months.\n“In case the dealer is not complying with the guidance/action plan suggested and sales continue to be less than the potential after three months of the second meeting, dealer is to be given an option for going on a holiday for two years as per the Holiday Scheme,” says the ministry’s directive to the marketing heads of the OMCs.\n“The existing dealer shall be explained the reasons for holiday in writing and the proposed action plan with timelines for restoring/proposed handing over the retail outlet to the original dealer upon overcoming of the financial problems/dispute,” it says. In case the allottee refuses to opt for the scheme, the OMCs — Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum — would have the authority to issue a show cause after a lapse of three months to take “action as deemed fit including termination” of the dealership.\nAfter the petrol pump is taken over by the OMC, its dealership would be handed to newly-appointed “ad hoc dealer” with the exception that the latter’s operation tenure would be for two years instead of fixed one year that is currently handed for running legally disputed sites.\nMoreover, the ad-hoc tenure could be extended further “by four months or till such time the retail outlet is divested” if the allottee resigns or does not come forward to take over after the holiday period.\nAs a respite to allottees put on holiday list, he could reclaim restoration of his ownership of the petrol pump before the end of two years by giving an undertaking to achieve the sales target.\nThe ministry’s rationale for introducing the new scheme is that the laggard outlets were causing hardships to motorists as well resulting in loss of sales and brand image of the OMCs.", "Facing citizens' ire over waterlogging just after two showers, civic commissioner Ajoy Mehta issues show-cause notices to SWD chief engineer for delay in starting pumping stations\nDelay in operating the Britannia pumping station had led to flooding in Hindmata. FILE PIC\nMonsoon has barely begun and brickbats are already raining on the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation over waterlogging across Mumbai in the last two showers. And the civic body, in turn, has come down heavily on the stormwater drain (SWD) department.\nMunicipal commissioner Ajoy Mehta has pulled up the head of the department for failing to start the Gazder Bandh pumping station in Khar Danda, and also for delay in operating the Britannia pumping station in Dockyard Road, which led to flooding in Hindmata on Monday evening.\nAlso read: No fish on Mumbai's flooded roads; BMC unearths lie behind photo\nOne chance too many\nMehta ordered issuance of two show-cause notices against SWD chief engineer Laxman Vhatkar to explain the delay. Accordingly, newly appointed additional municipal commissioner Vijay Singhal, in-charge of SWD department, issued notices to Vhatkar yesterday, seeking his reply in a week.\nAn official from the civic chief's office said, \"Chief engineer Vhatkar had promised to start the Gazder Bandh pumping station by May-end. In a meeting on June 3, Mehta had directed that it be made operational on June 9. Vhatkar had given repeated assurances to follow through but failed to.\"\nAlso read: It's official! Rains have arrived in Mumbai\n\"Also, after Monday's rains, Hindmata was flooded once again. Inquiry revealed that the SWD department had delayed in starting three pumps in Britannia pumping stations, which led to the waterlogging. Following these two issues, an upset Mehta took action,\" the official added.\nDown the drain\nThe Gazder Bandh pumping station is for reducing flooding in Khar (West), Santacruz, Juhu and parts of Bandra. mid-day had reported on June 4 about Mehta's order to start the pumping station by June 9.\nVhatkar has been chief engineer of SWD department for more than six years now, much higher than the stipulated period of three years for government officials. He also holds the all-important post of director (engineering) in the BMC since the last three years.\nAlso read - Mumbai rains: Mayhem on first night on monsoon as tree-falls threaten citizens\nWhile Vhatkar refused to comment, a senior SWD department official said, \"Operation of Gazder Bandh pumping station has been delayed due to permission to cut mangroves being granted late. We had sought it from the Union environment ministry, and it was granted in the first week of June.\"\nAlso read - Mumbai Rains: BMC sets up pumping station in Khar to tackle water-logging from Bandra to Juhu\n\"Britannia pumping station, on the other hand, was started on time. There was heavy rain, and hence, water was accumulated in Hindmata. However, it receded fast. Also, city drains can't handle rain beyond 50 mm; their capacity itself is 25 mm,\" he added.", "Kanter compiled eight points (4-9 FG) five rebounds, one assist, and one steal in 18 minutes Sunday in New York's win over Atlanta.\nKanter is working well in tandem with Knicks big man Kristaps Porzingis. His efficiency and willingness to do the dirty work in the paint make him a valuable piece for the Knicks. As a team, they aren't flush with scoring options. As a result, Kanter's touches won't be at risk for the remainder of the season.Kanter is averaging a double-double so far in the 2017-18 campaign, and he will continue to be valuable for his fantasy owners.", "Love recorded 18 points (5-13 FG, 4-9 3Pt, 4-4 FT), seven rebounds, four assists and two blocks across 25 minutes in Monday's 124-117 victory over the Bucks.\nLove (hand) returned to action on a minutes restriction, but that certainly did not stop him from posting big numbers on the night. Love connected on four three-pointers and swatted two shots, which led the team Monday night, while trailing only LeBron James in points and rebounds. Love will work his way back and eventually have the restriction lifted, but it is good to see him shooting efficiently, especially when he was dealing with a hand injury.", "Mirotic scored 18 points (6-13 FG, 3-8 3Pt, 3-5 FT) with 12 rebounds over 35 minutes in Saturday's loss to the Timberwolves.\nMirotic made his debut for New Orleans after he was acquired from Chicago on Thursday. Dante Cunningham (five points, one rebound, 20 minutes) got the start with Mirotic coming off the bench to post a double-double in his inaugural performance in a Pelicans uniform." ]

[ "A message of hope: regal and reliable. An invaluable and reassuring message that might relieve the distress of Simona Pari's and Simona Torretta's families as well as of all Italians." ]

[ "Italy's pharmaceutical watchdog in the next few months may approve sales of a pill to end a pregnancy after five to seven weeks, the Corriere della Sera reported Monday.", "Il proprietario della Ternana calcio, Edoardo Longarini, ha intentato una causa civile al 'Corriere ..." ]

[ "What I discovered only a few years ago, after 25 years of practicing Dharma...is that when things get really rough, it works best to get into absolute here-and-now mode.\n\nMeaning, I don't think about my situation, don't compare, don't analyze, just live one step at a time, one breath at a time, do what's obviously required at the moment, and that's it.\n\nThis puts me in pure suchness. Things are such and not otherwise. There's no judgement on my side, nor longing for things to be otherwise. There's just suchness.\n\nWhen you are fully in this mode, it is actually quite peaceful, despite the rough situation. Suchness is peaceful, because it is just so. There's no conflict in my attitude to it. I am just such, and I do what I do, at the moment.\n\nIt is actually a very advanced state, suchness. No need to practice anything else. To be in full peace, without inner conflict, despite the circumstances - is quite an achievement." ]

[ "Revenue data for non-public companies are available only at a very low frequency, based on financial reporting requirements. It would be impossible to have a long enough period to estimate the normal return in the first place, let alone detect the effect that an event on one single day will have on the annual revenues. Also, it would be very difficult to obtain a stationary time series from this, given that for a large enough estimation period (100 years?) the business environment will be transformed completely and there is an infinite number of other factors which have influence the company's profitability.\n\nIt would in theory be possible to use data from performance management systems (cost accounting rather than financial accounting) which may be available to a company at a much higher frequency, which could then be used for a normal return estimation and the determination of cumulative abnormal returns (CARs). However, the implementation of this will be very difficult or impossible because cost accounting information has virtually no standardisation, and is not disclosed by any companies.\n\nWhether to use prices or returns is a completely different question.", "To the best of my knowledge, no, but maybe other people here know the field more intimately. My knowledge comes primarily from developing Monte Carlo codes in physics.\n\nKnuth, in volume 2 of his Art of Computer Programming, states that Metropolis, using the middle-square method on 20 bits, found 13 cycles to which the method would always degenerate, the longest of which has a period of 142. Sadly I've been unable to find the original paper, but note that he only refers to the period of the cycle, not the time it takes to reach the cycle from a given period.\n\nMore generally, most (but not all) random number generators used in numerics today have a guaranteed period, often independent of the seed. This period is however calculated differently from generator to generator.\nSee this for a list of reasonable random number generators.\n\nFinding the period experimentally will be very difficult for almost all modern random number generators, simply because the periods are very very long. In many cases it would take far far longer than the expected age of the universe, even if every single atom was turned into a computer to work on the problem in parallel. Just to give you an idea of how difficult it is.\n\nAnyway, for toy random generators, remember that in order to find a cycle, you need to check if the entire state space of the generator is repeating. In the case of the middle-square method, the state and the output are the same, but this is not the case for most random number generators, and certainly not for any practical ones.\n\nPS: The middle-square method is a really bad random number generator and should not be used for generating random numbers. Ever.", "Linguistically, it isn't particularly helpful or entirely valid to only consider either vowels or consonants independently without any consideration of the context in which they appear. (Yes, some may argue that the IPA is a list of distinctive sounds that occur in natural language, but there is a huge section of diacritics that alter how those sounds are made.)\n\nThere is an important concept in language (whether learning, using, creating, &amp;.) that morphs our pronunciation. It is called Coarticulation. There are two main kinds of coarticulation: anticipatory and carryover/perseverative. This is something that we cannot escape from in language. The central concept behind coarticulation is that we cannot isolate individual sounds from their environments. We either prepare for the next sounds (anticipatory) or characteristics of one sound are carried over to the next (perseverative).\n\nAnticipatory Coarticulation\n\nThe sounds that precede another sound (usually a consonant) are affected by those following sounds (either in the same word or in the next word, known as liason). In this case, we prepare for the next sound by modifying the current sound. (One of my linguistics professors said this was the most common form of coarticulation, but I cannot remember the source he quoted.)\n\nAn example. In English, take the words \"high\" and \"hue\". Notice the position of your mouth when saying \"high\". The initial /h/ is open and unobstructed because it is preparing for the open unrounded /ai/ that is to follow. But when you say \"hue\", your tongue comes up to the top of your mouth and prepares for the /j/ (y-sound) that comes after it. Which one of these \"h\"s is the real \"h\"? They both are, but their pronunciation is affected by preparing for the subsequent sounds.\n\nThough English has one of the richest vowel systems (and its vowels contain the vowels of most other languages), it does not have all of the consonants that would change how those vowels are pronounced (advanced tongue root, retracted tongue root, centralized, &amp;c), nor does it have all the features of other languages that are applied to vowels or consonants (like breathy voice, creaky voice, rhoticity [English actually has this one], nasalization, more/less rounding, &amp;c.). This makes the topic of vowels and consonants very difficult across languages.\n\nIt is ultimately wrong to only consider vowels and consonants as being \"fixed\" or \"static\" because they change so much across cultures, regions, languages, and dialect. Fully embracing and learning to pronounce all of the \"vowels\" and \"consonants\" of a language will lead to you naturally utilizing coarticulation to morph the sound into the correct one. In Chinese, when I learned the palatalized and retroflexed consonants as well as the /y/ sound, I realized that I naturally started pronouncing the words better and the Taiwanese people noticed. So, learn the sounds independently, yes. But practice them together with other sounds and you will find it helps your overall pronunciation.", "A lot of the literature relies on estimating impacts of large orders (n), typically from major funds, that are split into child orders and executed over some period. Usually this data is proprietary and difficult to replicate. The metaorders used in this paper https://arxiv.org/pdf/1412.2152.pdf are one example (see footnote 3). This paper explains their methodology and cites many older papers [5,6,7,8] which explain the concave function and how they captured it. Unfortunately, this makes it very difficult to get a historical C without having more information about large orders and how they are split.", "EOS tokens traded on exchanges are tokens that were purchased from the EOS ICO. The price of a token when buying from the ICO is determined at the end of the 24 hour period, meaning you can expect the price to climb through the day. The value of the ICO tokens for that 24 hour period is relative to the value at which speculators are trading the tokens on exchanges.\n\nIn short, it's unlikely that you will find the ICO token price very different from that what is available on exchanges for that particular 24 hour period.", "I would suggest looking at:\n\n\nGraphviz it is free, runs on Windows, Linux &amp; Mac. You\ndescribe what you need and it draws it for you - i.e. You define the\nnodes and connections with overrides on colours, line types, etc. - There is a bit of a \nlearning curve but the results are very good so it is worth persevering.\nand you can generate your output in a wide range of formats.\n\nPros: Once you are familiar with it it is very fast, allows you to generate your \ndiagrams for almost any output format and does the layout automatically for you. There\nare a large number of tools that make use of it to generate diagrams automatically \nsuch as doxygen. Available for most platforms.\n\nCons: There is a fairly steep learning curve.\nyEd this has a graphical user interface and is available for most platforms.\n\nPros: There is a GUI so easy to use, Java so available for a lot of platforms.\n\nCons: Large, Java so slow.", "First of all there is a big difference between solar and Lunar eclipses. (Lunar eclipses are easy to predict, while solar are difficult). Second, there was no much improvement in the medieval period. Development in astronomy was very slow in the countries of Islam, and non-existent in the West between the time of Ptolemy\n(2nd century) and 16 century. (In the period 2-13 centuries there was even a regress). Third, even the tools of measuring time precisely did not exist. During all this period, Lunar eclipses could be predicted within few hours precision (as Columbus did), but Solar ones could not be reliably predicted.\n\nThe difference is that Lunar eclipses occur at a prescribed time everywhere, while\nSolar ones only in a small area on the Earth, and the time depends on where you are located. So the best one could say is that a solar eclipse \"may occur\" on certain date. \n\nBoth predictions depend mainly on the theory of Moon motion, and the first real improvement of this theory, which had practical implications, after Ptolemy, was due to Tycho Brahe.", "There are at least 4 significant things that make satellites difficult to exactly determine:\n\n\nThe position and velocity of a satellite is only known at any one time with a finite precision. Without a perfect knowledge of where the satellite is and how fast it's moving, it's impossible to know where it will be in the future.\nThe atmosphere is quite uncertain, sometimes it will drag more, other times drag less. The amount depends on the amount of solar activity. Also, the drag depends on the orientation of the spacecraft, so an anomaly in the spacecraft pointing can cause problems in determining where it is.\nThere are complex gravitational factors that can influence where the spacecraft is. These are very difficult to program in.\nThrusting, either in the form of an active propulsion from the spacecraft, or being hit by space debris or other objects, can cause problems.\n\n\nBottom line, it's just a hard problem to figure out, and it's much easier to get periodic updates to the satellite positions. But if you can't get them for a while, you should be fine for a period of time, several weeks at least. If you can't get them in that period of time, then your best bet is to try listening for the W1AW broadcasts, which give out the amateur satellite element sets.", "With our lab, we repeated the command word multiple times every time he went to toilet, we didn't just say the word once. We didn't give any food reward after this, just a happy \"good boy\".\n\nEven then, the technique doesn't work all of the time and he'll do his business whenever he feels the need to.\n\nKeep persevering, but don't expect this to be learned as quickly as other tricks.", "Experience is necessary for capability and competency growth; however, the weight we tend to put on experience, I believe, is grossly overrated. The velocity and degree of capability and competency growth over a period of time practicing an activity can range from decay to something very extreme over a short period of time. So, in the aggregate, when you are looking at a large population of practitioners who boast some years of experiencing doing something, you will have quite a range of performers. \n\nNot only that, but also there is quite a bit of transferability of skills and knowledge from other activities that will help quite nicely in a new-to-you activity. \n\nPredicting performance is very difficult; most of the indicators we commonly use have very little predictive validity, including experience. So, to answer your base question, it is very possible for an inexperienced person to be a manager...and a good one, too. Your odds might go up a bit with someone with experience, but not much.", "off the cuff, this should be possible. Event handling is available in COMSOL. To change a parameter value through reinitialization when a certain voltage is reached should not be a problem. There is an example model using events that demonstrates how to integrate the temperature of a body. The integral is periodically reset to zero using an explicit event. This is different physics than yours, but the principle is the same. I would suggest that you contact [email protected] and ask for model id 14191.\n\nTo change the value back after certain time is a little more difficult but should be doable through an extra equation that integrates the time and the event after it occured, but zero else (which also needs reinitialization).\n\nregards\nNiklas Rom (COMSOL employee)", "Band structure is a concept for periodic system only. As proteins are not periodic structures, they don't have electronic bands.\nThe fact that you can download a PDB file (or a CIF file) with information about the crystal, it is just due to one of the ways we found to determine the protein structure that is crystalizing the protein and then using single crystal X-ray crystallography.\nVery recently, a new technique called cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) is been using as another way to determine the protein structure without the need of passing through the crystallization process.\nIn case o non periodic system the molecular orbitals are used instead the electronic bands.\nEven molecular orbitals are difficult to calculate for proteins due the high number of atoms (more than 1000 atoms), which make impracticable to use any DFT/ab initio software for the task.\nBut, you can use semi-empirical software like MOPAC that has implemented a function called MOZYME to do electronic calculations for proteins. Also, you can use the fragment molecular orbital method (FMO), implemented in software like GAMESS-US where you can use DFT/ab initio.\nAnother way is ti use Quantum Mechanic/Molecular Mechanic (QM/MM), where you divide your protein in two regions: one (smaller, few residues) where you use a quantum mechanic method and the other one (the rest of the protein) where you use molecular mechanics.", "Pine (or some other softwood) would be a good choice. It will be relatively easy to cut and shape with simple hand tools and will take paint well. \n\nIncidentally, there is a \"pinewood derby\" that takes place periodically in conjunction with the Boy Scouts that is essentially a race for model cars which are made from roughly identical blocks of pine that each participant (or more accurately, each participant's father or grandfather) \"machines\" into a unique race car. \n\n\n\nThere are also many other species of wood that you might consider if the natural appearance of the wood is important to your finished model too.\n\nIt depends on the tools you have to work with, what you intend to do with the finished car, etc. Balsa wood is very soft, very light, and easy to carve. On the other hand, oak is very hard, pretty heavy, and more difficult to work with.", "I have to start off by saying that we were told that this could be used to stimulate and &quot;train&quot; during initial breast feeding, but it should be for a very short period and it seems to me that you have been doing this too much/too long. The primary answer thus seems to be not to get in this situation in the first place.\nTherefore I think that you should wean this behaviour, and it will probably be tough/hard but I can offer some thoughts:\nFirstly, are you sure the baby is not hungry?\nAnd generally, I recommend reading up on the different phases your baby is going through in its development. This is going in waves, with periods where your baby has matured a new skill and is gradually developing it and followed by periods of frustration leading up to a new development. This can be of help in interpreting your baby and it can be very helpful to know that a period of frustration can be due to your baby developing a new cognitive ability and not necessarily &quot;your doing&quot;.", "It appears that you're asking when voicing ceases during the closure period of \"g\" in \"bag\", where the closure is the selected piece. Since you don't have physiological data on vocal fold vibration, you would estimate it from the acoustic waveform, looking for quasi-periodic variations in the waveform. Notice to the right that the waveform is fairly flat, but not totally flat, because there's usually some noise.\n\nAt the left edge of the closure for about 10 msc there is relatively clear voicing. There is still a low-amplitude of peaks and valleys for most of the closure, using the section after the release as your point of reference. If you could compare \"bag\" and \"back\", you could more clearly see whether this is present in /k/ as well. If it is, you should disregard that variation as not reflecting \"voicing\", since /k/ isn't voiced. Otherwise, if you have low amplitude quasi-periodic variation during consonant closure, then I would say that it counts as \"voicing\" -- unless you've been told otherwise by your instructor. It is difficult to locate the end of that amplitude variation by visual inspection, and does require a measure of background noise. (60 cycle AC noise would persist through the recording and not just be present during production of certain phonemes).", "This page shows an example of the Aloha editor working with CSS3 columns (and this demo is just plain nuts!). Very nice! I didn't see any way to create the columns through the editor, though that shouldn't be too difficult to add. There's already a thread for Drupal integration as well. The editor also has a repository API which sounds very cool. It's at version 0.9.3, and I noticed the image plugin was still a work in progress, so I'm not sure it's ready for live use yet (I'm also interested in its compatibility). But very very interesting!", "How did you plan to use the FFT in the first place?\n\nIf it is to naively look for peaks in the magnitude spectrum and deduce the frequency from it, this is a bad idea. As you have seen, this has a limited resolution in the lowest frequencies. Resolution limitations aside, looking for a peak in the FFT is a poor way of estimating periodicity since the true fundamental frequency might not be the one with the most salient amplitude.\n\nHowever, you can use FFT as an intermediate step to efficiently compute the autocorrelation function (FFT with zero-padding of the input to avoid wrapping -> square of magnitude of coefficients -> IFFT). Looking for peaks in the autocorrelation function is a more reliable period estimator than FFT peaks.\n\nThus, given your requirements, you could use sliding windows of 256 samples, with a 61% overlap, compute the autocorrelation through the FFT, look for the autocorrelation peak in the [50, 125] samples range and use this as an estimate of the period. Because of the 61% overlap, this will give you one period value per second. Observe here that it is possible to use large analysis windows (256 samples, or more) and make them overlap so that we can still get a detection for every 100 sample. The downside is that if the period of the signal rapidly change, your detection will be \"smudged\".\n\nI see a few other approaches for your problem that do not suffer from any resolution compromise on the temporal axis:\n\n\nIf the waveform of your input signal is known (square, sawtooth, sine...), you could try locking an oscillator of similar waveform to it through a PLL, and use the PLL frequency as your estimator.\nIf your signal is purely sinusoidal, you can fit a complex exponential to it (through eigenanalysis of the autocorrelation matrix).\nAn approach that would give a very high resolution (one decision per sample) would be to run your signal through a bank of 75 comb filters in parallel, with delays of 0.5, 0.51, 0.52 .. 1.25 seconds. Compute the energy of the output for each of these 75 signals ; the one with the highest energy gives you the period.\n\n\nNote that your problem has very similar requirements to that of tempo detection (onset detection yields an envelope signal at 100 Hz or the likes, we aim to get a tempo map in the 60 BPM - 180 BPM, ie 0.33 - 1Hz range, with a temporal resolution of 1s). Historically, the comb filterbank approach was used ; while most recent solutions are based on autocorrelation or similar autocorrelation-based pitch estimators (yin) ; with analysis windows in the 5 - 10s range.", "I think that you should certainly continue sending your daily progress emails to your manager; in addition, there's something else you can do to appease him when you're meeting him in person:\n\nAlways bring a notebook and pen with you, when you are meeting to speak with him, whether the meeting ranges from a few minutes to a few hours. Now, actively take notes when he is speaking, write down as much as you can, with brief periods of you repeating back to him what you wrote down in your notebook, just to confirm that what's written in your notebook is indeed what he meant to say. I have found that this makes a micromanager feel considerably more comfortable.\n\nIt's important to use a notebook and not several pieces of printing paper, which makes it look like you're doing some mindless scratch work. A notebook signals that you are treating the note-taking process seriously, and you could earn more respect from this micromanaging boss.\n\nLast but not least, from my experience in the past, we persevered and hoped that the company will eventually get rid of a widely disliked manager, and sure enough, it happened. We were all feeling the same as you did - we loved our jobs, with the exception of an aggressive micromanager who tended to want to make others look bad, in order to give off the perception that he was a hero and saving our department. If you wait long enough, I would bet that things will eventually work themselves out.", "My answer to you would be go through CSS layouts for tables.\n\nThough this site is a bit old it still explains the different types of table designs very well. This covers almost all the types of table designs barring what changes you can make to the colours and actions associated with it.\n\nTo really make the content stand out you can highlight on hover, or provide comparison with previous period on hover popup that disappear when off focus/ tool tips. Or you can provide side by side representation of current period and previous period columns.\n\nThis site might also give some ideas on the different table designs available in the market. Also try this one", "Young dogs very typically experience \"fear periods\". It happens to the most confident of puppies even although I think the more confident they start out the easier time they have working through it. I think most dogs are done having fear periods by the time they are two. The periods only last for a month or two but they can go through it more than once.\n\nGive your pup time to work through any fear issues that come up. Try to allow it to experience the thing that is scary from a distance that doesn't overwhelm them then move closer. Once you have helped your dog work through an issue you will get better at it and your dog will start to trust you. .. and therefore is more likely to believe you that the thing isn't scary.\n\nHere is a great place to start if you want to learn more about fear in dogs and how to help them get over it. http://www.patriciamcconnell.com/fear\n\nFor shadows specifically I would find an edge of a shady building if you can where your dog can stand in the shade but observe shadows that are beyond the shade first. That way she may not feel like it is chasing her as much. After that if she is still having problems I would try counter conditioning by rewarding her for looking at the shadow.", "This is a heated topic of debate among whiskey drinkers, actually. The heart of the answer lies somewhere between the sensitivity of the palate and the length of time that a whiskey remains open... You may hear that leaving the whiskey in an open bottle drastically changes the flavor, subtly changes the flavor, or does not at all change the flavor depending on who you talk to and where you look.\n\nBut, it's obvious that SOMETHING happens to whiskey after the bottle has been opened, right? It's the process of aeration - the same process over which so many wine enthusiasts debate. As air passes through, water and alcohol slowly evaporate from the whiskey... thereby leaving behind a stronger concentration of the other substances in the liquor. For very fine whisky, I have been instructed at distilleries to transfer to smaller (airtight) bottles if the opened whisky is to be stored for very long - in order to prevent a change in flavor or potential loss of aroma.\n\nPersonally, I can taste a difference in certain bourbons within a couple weeks of being opened (I only intentionally aerate when it's in the glass in front of me in order to get some of the extra aroma out of it.) But, I don't really taste a difference in scotch after the same period (of which I admittedly drink less... unless you're offering ;)\n\nI'd say after a year, it would be difficult to argue that something about the flavor hasn't changed (but that may, again, vary by palate.) However, my whiskey never seems to last that long, be it bourbon, scotch, or rye haha", "There are really two votes here.\n\n\nVoting on which proposal which actually be voted on. There might be several proposals, but only one proposal can win per proposal period.\nAfter a proposal has been selected there are two votes on the winning proposal. The first vote during the exploration period, and the second vote during the promotion period.\n\n\nFor more details on this, if you haven't already read this Medium article on the amendment process, you should. It is a very informative read.\n\nAlso to see the state of the current proposal look here on tzscan.io\n\nTo your question though, there is no official way to know the intentions of the bakers. Larger bakers will likely post on their website which proposal they will vote for and if they will vote yay, nay or pass. This is not a guarantee, but most responsible bakers would have no interest or incentive to lie about they way they will vote (at least not yet anyway, the proposals haven't been contentious enough yet).\n\nEven if a baker does not post their intentions on their website, or if you want further confirmation on what they will do, you can see which proposal they have voted on during the proposal period. After the first period follows the exploration vote period. You can see how the baker voted during this period as well. If you don't like what you're seeing, you can choose to move your XTZ to a different baker.\n\nBut do note, it's still possible for a baker to change their mind after the exploration vote period. And this isn't necessarily dishonest in any way. Let's say after the exploration period, the proposal goes into the testing period and the testing of it turns out to be a total disaster for one reason or another, then a baker that at first voted 'yay', may very well, in good conscience change their vote to 'nay'.\n\nTo see how a baker has voted through the various periods, look here using the baker's tz1 address.\n\nhttps://tzscan.io/tz1XXX?default=vote", "While this specific edit should have been rejected, unless you can provide some data to show this very frequently and isn't just an a few isolate incidents, then a change to limit this or add more warning messages seems to be a lot of work for very little benefit.\n\nThe pro here is you limit a reviewers ability to improve edits or make them click through another dialog message when the other reviewers click a specific reject reason. But what is the actual benefit? The worst that happens is a bad edit is made that will usually be seen by the OP or someone when the question is bumped.\n\nOn the other hand:\n\n\nWhat if the other reviewers selected the wrong message? \nWhat if there is no or only 1 edit rejection, would this message still appear?\nWhat if the users clicks through the dialog without reading the warning?\nWhat if the user wants to make a legit improvement to the post and this functionality makes it more difficult and posts a similar rant feature request on MSO? Should we undo the feature then?\n\n\nIn the end, I see a whole lot of developer time spent on something that has a very limited scope and a very small benefit, and has no assurances of actually working, and makes the edit interface more difficult to use.", "Sometimes the kernel function is very difficult to choose in a fixed form even if once found it would be easier. It can be learned to map the data in a features space (Hilbert space) through an Convex Optimisation method such as Semidefinite programming, using Hyperkernels, etc.\n\nSome very usefull papers for your question can be found here:\n\nLearning the Kernel via Convex Optimisation\n\nLearning the Kernel Matrix with Semidefinite Programming\n\nLearning the Kernel with Hyperkernels\n\nLearning the Kernel Function via Regularization\n\nI hope that answers your question", "Quasars have very pointed jets perpendicular to the rotational axis of the accretion disc around the central black hole. As long as this jet doesn't happen to point into the galactic plane, the cosmic radiation of these jets won't be a too serious problem.\n\nBut a collision of two galaxies can become an eventual problem in a different way. A merger of galaxies triggers star formation and sweeps most of the galaxy free of interstellar dust and gas. So, after a short (hundreds of millions of years) period of time, we'll get lots of new stars. But they'll eventually exceed their main sequence lifetime. Due to lack of interstellar matter only very few new stars will form afterwards. That's a difficult settings for formation of planets and life.", "Based on the scant information I'm finding in English and online, a proper answer to this might be difficult even with some serious library research.\nHere is a brief mention from the book Vanishing Japan: Traditions, Crafts &amp; Culture by Elizabeth Kiritani, which unfortunately includes no footnotes:\n\nIce made from water that was naturally frozen in the middle of winter [was] carefully preserved through the hot months of summer in Heian Period storehouses called himuro. Up to two-thirds of the ice would melt before the end of summer, leaving a precious third for the enjoyment of the court people.\n\nFrom the book Daily Life in Japan at the time of the Samurai, 1185–1603:\n\nIce was kept in the mountains where it was collected in the winter and stored in huts sunk into the earth (himuro). In summer it was sold at a high price to the noble families who liked to regale themselves with sorbets made with crushed ice and flavoured with herbs.\n\nThe footnote on this points to p. 147 of the 1964 edition of Morris's The World of the Shining Prince, but that may be incorrect as I'm not seeing anything about ice there, or anywhere else in that book.\nThe following is from a footnote from the book Enduring Identities: The Guise of Shinto in Contemporary Japan by John K. Nelson:\n\nThe lecturer, Edani Hiroshi of the Heian Museum in Kyoto... stated flatly that the Kamo people were in charge of making ice for the imperial household. They did this by digging chambers in the earth: large stone-lined pits (himuro) where ice could be stored through the hot summer months. [...] Once the practice became established in Yamato-Japan, there was even a court department regulating himuro production, recounted in the Engi shiki as having occurred during the reign of Nintoku (313 c.e.).\n\n(You can search a translation of the Engishiki here but I've not found relevant information there so far.)\nNote that this long predates the period you are asking about. The other references I am finding so far are for the much later Edo period and after. Here is an interesting blog post with photos of an annual ritual that is still practiced today but date to the Edo period. The Himuro Koya (Ice House Cottage) used for this ritual is still made of thatch.", "My recommendation: Calibre\n\nMulti-platform\nFree\nCan be automated through command line\nThere's this easy-to-follow guide on how to use it on How-to Geek.\n\nTests with Math objects\nThis is with a relatively easy equation as a PDF:\n\nThis is after the conversion to epub:\n\n\nNot bad. As you can see, regular text is converted very nicely, and there are some differences between the two, but they are still recognizable. How about something a bit more difficult:\n\nepub:", "You need to change the encoding settings. By default, AE uses the AVI animation codec, which is very good at retaining quality but creates incredibly large files. Using an intermediary codec like Apple Prores, Avid DNxHR, or GrassValley HQx would give you visually equivalent quality with a significantly smaller file size.\n\nIf that file size isn't small enough for you, then you may want to go to a compressed codec like h.264. Choosing h.264 with a bitrate of around 20-30Mbps would give you pretty good quality. The disadvantage of going to h.264 is that you'll lose a lot of visual information, making any additional editing such as color grading more difficult. You'll also be using a multi-frame encoding which makes scrubbing through an editing timeline very difficult.", "It is very unlikely that the Earth would warm by that degree in such a short period of time. However if it did then many parts of the planet would be uninhabitable outside of specially constructed habitats. Any areas which today have temperatures normally reaching 20 degrees C or more for an extended period would become uninhabitable without such habitats.\n\nThe sea level would dramatically rise by many metres so many coastal cities like New York, Boston and London would be flooded.\n\nThe temperature differences created would encourage huge storm systems that would devastate large areas.\n\nThe majority of species on Earth would go extinct as their habitats become too hot to sustain life and 99%+ of humanity would also die of starvation as food crops such as wheat and rice died. Heat exhaustion, disease and war would also claim millions of lives. Civilization as we know it would come to an end.\n\nMany might survive in the far north and far south but finding food would be very difficult as it would be no easy matter to find suitable land for crops after the ice had retreated. Many areas would be barren rock, swamp or covered in masses of dead trees and there would not be enough resources to establish large enough agricultural areas quickly enough.", "I consider the 7 day bounty period to be quite reasonable and effective for several reasons.\n\n\nWhile bounties cost a minimum of 50 pts, in reality the cost for a bounty for one's own question is much lower. If you put a bounty for a question, then that question will receive more upvotes than if it did not have a bounty in the first place. One should consider the cost of a bounty to be more like 25 pts. A 7 day bounty period for 25 pts is therefore a very good deal since a person who answers will still be rewarded 50 pts for a correct answer within the timeframe.\nThe purpose of a bounty is not simply to give people extra points for a correct answer if one gives the answer. If the purpose of a bounty were to simply reward a good answer, then a longer bounty period would be more understandable. However, the purpose of a bounty is in part to give the question more attention and to signal its importance. When I have given bounties in the past, I have considered the 50 pt investment into the bounty to be a very good investment even if the question has not been answered simply because the bounty gives the question more attention.\nIf you would like to offer an entity points when it gives a correct answer, then you may freely give your points for that answer as a bounty after the question has been answered.\nA longer bounty period will simply mean that every individual bounty question will be given less attention for the time that it is a featured question since there will be many questions with bounties to choose from. This sort of bounty inflation will defeat the purpose of having a longer bounty period.\nA longer bounty period will not guarantee that anyone will answer the question. If a question has been unanswered for 7 days, then it is unlikely that such a question will be answered within a month. Some questions are not answered because they are difficult.\nIn the case that a question goes unanswered after the 7 day bounty period, one may put up another bounty to that question. The 7 day limit is only for those who do not have enough points to pay for multiple bounties. If multiple people consider a question to be important, then those multiple people can each offer a bounty on that question. \n\n\nSince the Hereditary Principle question has 38 upvotes and over 1000 views, it seems like people are in fact interested in such a question. They simply have not come up with good answers.", "Many children's books deal with difficult topics. For example, 'Two Weeks with the Queen' is about someone coping with a sibling dying (it is very sad and very funny). 'Bad Alice', a novel I have just been using with twelve years olds, is about the effects of sexual assault. A recent children's book award winner was about someone trapped in a totalitarian state and featured scenes such as one where a teacher very graphically beats a student to death. You may be surprised what young people read and enjoy.\n\nHaving read many books written from the perspective of a young person, I would suggest trying to see the world through a young person's eyes and trying to think like they do. Of course this is difficult, and you can't just rely on how you thought and felt at that time, but it about understanding what they could know and what they are interested in.\n\nThe other thing you need to consider is the language that they use. You don't want to burden your text with too much slang, but it has to sound authentic. For example, when reading through I play I had written, a colleague said that teens just don't use the passive form of the request I had inserted (I can't quite remember what it was). When I thought about I realised it was true. It had to change.", "High-energy radiation tends to get randomly deflected rather than slowed down by a medium, making lenses impossible. It also will bounce off of individual atoms of a mirror unless it hits at a very steep angle, so mirrors are difficult. Diffraction gratings won't work because you can't make slits smaller than the atomic scale. In the worst cases, even a pinhole camera won't work well since enough radiation that misses the hole will get through to blur the image.\n\nIf you just want to detect it's not a problem, but if you want to see the direction it will be more difficult.\n\nI'm not an expert though, so I might be missing something. Is there another method that works well?" ]

[ "This can be found in the PMBOK and on the PMI web site. Details may change so I will provide the link.\n\nhttps://www.pmi.org/certifications/process\n\nThere are spreadsheet tools on the web to help collate your experience to help with the application process.\n\nAt the time of writing, you need to have the hours in a project within the last 8 years. You do not need to have been a PM, just performed something that falls into one of the knowledge domains." ]

[ "As far as I know, There is no specific certification for PMO Directors. Most prominent ones are PMP and Prince2.\n\nYou may check the available PMI Certifications. The site also allows you to choose the right certification for you.", "A couple of points to remember:\n\n\nThe PMP designation is really targeted at people who have been in-role as a PM for a reasonable period of time. CAPM and PRINCE2 are more targeted at people getting into the field.\nPMI requires your experience to be in \"leading and directing projects\", so just being on a project or being gainfully employed won't count.\n\n\nWith these in mind, to me your work in a support position would not count and your work teaching undergrad classes is iffy at best. Your Masters project seems to have the most alignment.", "Hasan, David's answer is exactly correct. It guarantee's nothing. But if your question is more along the lines of what does it 'imply' a guarantee of...\n\nIt implies that the PM understands and uses commonly used processes and vocabulary that would be understood in most industries. It also implies that the PM knows how and when to use these processes correctly. \n\nUnfortunately these are only implied, and neither true or guaranteed.\n\nSo what is tested against? WBS, EV, CP, the 9 Knowledge Areas, the 42 processes, good practice, ethics, etc., but ONLY as can be applied to ALL industry. So would they know scrum, XP, waterfall, etc.? Not to pass the PMP. Those are specific methodologies and the PMP does not deal with those. The PMBoK Guide (on which the PMP is based) was designed as a high level framework from with methodologies can then be developed.", "I work in a large organization with a successful PMCoP. I can't tell you how it got started, but I can tell you a little bit about how it operates.\n\n\nThere is a mailing list of PMs throughout the organization (we have hundreds of PMs)\nMeetings are held monthly\n1 PMI PDUs is given out for attending (attendance is tracked)\nAny given meeting has about 100 or so attendees (more for certain topics)\nTopics for the year are decided in the fall\nMembers submit topic ideas, and all topic ideas are voted on by the members with the top 12 choices being selected as topics for the following year\nTopics are often specific (or tailored) for our organization and are fairly relevant to a PM's daily work\n\n\nPMI is very keen on these PM Communities of Practice, so your local chapter can likely provide resources, advice, and guest speakers.", "Qualifications are not necessary in a project manager. You can, like any field, learn on the job; but that might mean that you miss key, fundamental knowledge in your field, and that you get burned on newbie mistakes that you will inevitably make.\n\nLooking at the flip-side, Project Management is not really well-established as a \"proper\" position or career path in many places around the world. (That's what PMI is attempting to address -- formalizing project management into a professional career.)\n\nEven if you theoretically had some credentials -- a PMP, a Six-Sigma Black-Belt, and others -- what good are they without experience? Perhaps, like myself and many of my friends, they can be the key to open the door to a career change. But you will not and cannot excel as a project management without both fundamentals and experience.\n\nHaving a novice project manager is a risk to the project, and should be placed as such on the risk register. The project manager should be mentored by the PMO and experienced project managers until he or she is proven capable.", "Please try to keep this list alphabetical by survey title, to make it easier for folks to navigate. Your objective contributions are welcome in maintaining this answer as a community resource.\n\n\nCSM or PMP, Which Cert Earns You More Money?, Scrumology, 2011-05-02\nSalary for Certification: Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), PayScale, 2012-07-13\nSalary for Certification: Certified Six Sigma Black Belt, PayScale, 2012-07-13\nSalary for Certification: Certified PMP, PayScale, 2016-10-18", "Check out Rita's Process Chart for a high level overview of a project from PMI's perspective. The project charter will probably not be approved by the PM since she may be the one developing it.", "This question can go in a lot of different directions, so I will attempt to be brief. \n ITIL, as you're probably aware is Information Technology Infrastructure Library; and PMP is a Project Management Professional. Though one can be certified in both, normally when one uses \"PMP\" they are referencing the certification. Are you asking when would the certifications be used?\n I think what you're asking is when to use the practices within each framework (ITIL or PMP). And the answer is that these are not mutually exclusive. ITIL is a standard around IT services (SLAs, Continuity Management, Security Management, etc), and PMP is a standard on how to manage projects. \nThe projects occur within an across an IT organization which utilizes ITIL. \nI hope this helps!", "For Prince2 there was a study saying following:\n\n\n In the past few years, certification has had a steady growth of approximately 25% per year. This trend is expected\n to continue for at least a couple of years.\n The following graph shows the PMI and IPMA certifications. Unfortunately, there are no statistics about the total\n number of PRINCE2 certified people worldwide since 2000.\n However estimates are that in 2009, more than half a million people have a PRINCE2 certification.\n\n\nhttp://www.sts.ch/documents/english/pm_certif.pdf\n\nin 2008 Total (World) \nfoundation: 79,885 \npractitioner: 41,791\n\nProject Management Professional (PMP)\n\n\n As of 31 July 2010 (2010 -07-31),\n there were 393,413 active PMP\n certified individuals worldwide. Over\n 4,300 individuals a month, since\n September 2006, have obtained a PMP\n certification\n\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Management_Professional", "Head First PMP - By far the best book, and one of the best series as well. It might seem a bit silly at the beginning, but the hands on approach and explenation with images is really great in these books.\n\n\n\nHead First PMP: A Brain-Friendly Guide to Passing the Project Management Professional Exam\n\n\n Head First PMP offers 100% coverage of The PMBOK® Guide principles and\n certification objectives in a way that's engaging, not tedious. This\n book helps you prepare for the PMP certification exam with a unique\n method that goes beyond answers to specific questions and makes you\n think about the big picture of project management. By putting project\n management concepts into context, you will be able to understand,\n remember, and apply them-not just on the exam, but also on the job.", "I do not have experience with Exam Central, but here are a few of the resources I used. I passed it the first round. I really took as many free tests as I could find so that I did get variations. I never stuck with one practice site. \n\nThe PM-Prep Cast Team makes great stuff, but it isn't free. I'm sure that they would have their site updated.\nhttp://www.pm-exam-simulator.com/ ($90)\n\nOne of my favorite books and approaches to teach the material was from Head First. If you don't want to buy the book, the have a free_exam here. Probably not updated.\nhttp://headfirstlabs.com/PMP/free_exam/HeadFirstPMP_PracticePMPExam.pdf\n\nRita Mulcahy's Materials were always the most popular when I took the exam. They are offering a 7th edition now that says it is updated for the new test. \nhttp://www.rmcproject.com/product/pmp-prep.aspx\n\nGood Luck!", "PMP and Prince2 are two different things:\n\n\nPMP is based upon the PMBOK, which is a Standard, NOT a methodology. It contains a truck load of processes and 'generally accepted' techniques of project management by which to evaluate or complete the way you run your projects or the methodology you use. It is therefore more theoretical, a reference guide.\nPrince2 on the other hand is a methodology, with a detailed process model and templates. It gives a step by step guidance on how to organise and run a project. It is more practical than the PMBOK. It still needs to be tailored to your needs but it is more a manual than a reference guide. It focusses on just a limited set of techniques. \n\n\nI would therefore dare to call them complementary. One example would be procurement management, which is not included in Prince2. Google around and you'll find some in depth comparisons between the two.\n\nAs to preference, that is personal of course. Just like Yegor, I'm happy to know them both, (but not Prince2 certified). The PMBOK (hence PMP) is more comprehensive of the whole project management field. I can apply (parts of) it on any project, also a Prince2 - project. Prince2 is, well, a methodology. Many companies create their own aligned with pmbok (or other standard like IPMA).", "The answer you're probably looking for is give large ranges of estimates (plus or minus 50-100% or more) and say: this is what we think. Because you don't know. \n\nPlanning is probably best done top-down, starting with vague items (eg. feature X) and broken down into smaller items.\n\nIf you don't know your requirements well, or if they may change, and if you're not building something static like a compiler, I would suggest giving agile/scrum/xp/etc. a whirl. It allows you to estimate remaining time to work given actual past team performance, and you only need to wait one sprint (~2 weeks) to get real data on how you're doing.\n\nPMI suggests a lot of great estimating techniques that you can probably make use of:\n\n\nEstimating based on similar projects (if possible)\nEstimating based on similar products/pieces built in different projects\nThree-point estimating (weighted average of best-case, worst-case, and average case)\nTop-down and bottom-up estimating (yes, both)\n\n\nA budget is harder to estimate. I don't have much experience with it, so I'm going to duck out on that part. Earned Value is generally terrible (from my perspective of software development), albeit tracking expected vs. actual costs to-date is very useful.", "Factual Answer\n\nI don't know a truly canonical answer for this, as I have not researched it exhaustively. However, salary and market surveys can provide some factual answers, although you certainly have to discount for bias--especially bias based on who sponsored a given survey.\n\nFor example, here's one data point:\n\n\n http://www.scrumology.net/2011/05/12/csm-or-pmp-which-cert-earns-you-more-money/\n\n\nThis survey says that a Project Management Professional (PMP) typically earns 12% more than an uncertified counterpart, and that a Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) generally earns 6% more than a PMP. However, survey methodology, selection bias, and regional or industry variance are not broken out, so you should not take the stated results as anything more than a starting point for your own research.\n\nSubjective Answer\n\nCertification might make you more marketable, and possibly give you some additional domain knowledge, but it certainly won't make you any smarter or any more talented than your natural abilities provide. There are many talented PMs without certifications, and many certified PMs who can quote book-and-verse but flounder in real-world scenarios.\n\nWhether or not a PM certification has value to you will depend entirely on how valuable you find it in the marketplace. Technical and PM certifications have always had extremely marginal value for me, and I tend to discount them heavily when I'm in the interviewer's chair, but your mileage will definitely vary.\n\nKnowledge, ability, and experience are more valuable than certification on the job, but education and certification are often used as proxies for measuring those things. With that in mind, having a few letters after your name rarely hurts, and it can be a great tie-breaker if all other things are equal when a gatekeeper is sifting the resume slush-pile.", "PMD Pro (Project Management for Development Professionals) was developed in partnership with PM4NGOs (Project Management for NGOs), an organization dedicated to optimizing international project investments and improving professional project management skills in the development sector.\n\nPMD Pro is an adaptation of the PMBOK (Project Management Body Of Knowledge) methodology and other successful business methodologies to the social sector reality.\n\nBased on the PMI (Project Management Institute), the methodology systematizes the concepts and techniques of project management, teaching how to apply project management concepts to the specific context of social projects.\n\nThe main difference between PMD Pro and PMP is that the first works with means of impact measurement, human development, quality of life and risk mitigation that are not commonly used in the business market hence why it appeared.\n\nWhen it comes to the benefits for PMD Pro, PM4NGOs states the following three\n\n\n \n On Time\n \n \n NGOs using PMD Pro report reduced delays because PMD Pro tools help\n development staff define project risks and goals, assess progress, and\n efficiently delegate work.\n \n \n On Budget\n \n \n NGOs using PMD Pro report improved cost management, enhanced donor\n reporting, and more confident project and program staff.\n \n \n Proven Results\n \n \n Project stakeholders report benefits from increased transparency,\n common vocabulary and improved project outcomes.\n\n\n(To note: one can find other reasons why to take this course in firms where it's possible to book the exam (for instances APMG International and Humentum).)\n\nThere are at least two acceptable QAs on if one should take PMP certification\n\n\nIs the PMP or other project management certification worth while to have?\nHow important are PMI certifications in the beginning of a PM career?", "You're fine, as long as you have some proof that you attended that course.\n\nThe time of education doesn't matter (even college courses about project management comply). The PMP handbook clearly states \n\n\n Record all education hours regardless of when they were accrued.\n\n\nGood luck", "Critical issue, is the mortgage paid down to the point where you are NOT paying the (#@$@!!##) &quot;PMI&quot;?\nIf not, I would do everything humanly possible to pay down the mortgage to where you can eliminate the PMI, and eliminate the PMI.\n\nIf you are not paying PMI, it can only be &quot;one man's opinion&quot;...\nHouse payments evaporate over the years with inflation and become trivial; investments grow (we know what Einstein said on the matter).\nSo, just put everything possible in to investments.", "If you are in the UK and are going to be dealing with government projects you are probably better going with PRINCE2. This has several advantages for you:\n\n\nIt is the standard for UK government. They developed the method and still own it (though there have been some developments in this regard). It is also apparently heavily used in the private sector in the UK and EU, but I don't have good independent data on hand to support this.\nIt may be of more use to non-project managers. The method discusses at length the roles of non-project managers in the context of a project. If your role would be as a leader or member of a team delivering one or more of the project's products you would probably get more value from PRINCE2 training than you would from PMP training.\nIt is easier to get. There are no educational pre-requisites nor documentation of past project experience required.\nTraining is straight-forward. At least in the UK there are a large number of vendors, both for online and in-person training. In-person training usually takes three days for the initial Foundation exam and an additional two days for the subsequent Practitioner exam", "There is a concept of BAU or CDB. That is \"Business as Usual\" or \"Cost of Doing Business\". In official PMI speak, it is called \"Monitoring and Controlling\". These are tasks and activities that need to be done and yet have nothing to do with the actual project. \n\nFor example, we have staff meetings every week, we don't task these out in a project. It's part of an overhead. \n\nCreating a project status report falls into this category. It is part of the normal day to day function of the job. \n\nIf you are running an agile project, all these \"Cost of Doing Business\" items are just things you need to take into account when determining how much capacity you have to work. If the project status will take you four hours a week, your capacity is four hours less (Pro Tip- Capacity is NOT 40 hours. Average team capacity is about 20-24 hours a week). \n\nIf you're in a traditional project I recommend having a separate \"project\" which is your \"Project Management Project\". In here track all the things you have to do every week as part of your \"day job.\"", "It is not mandatory to have the specs before start, but it helps a lot clarify the details and sort out misunderstandings. Actually, the point of BDD - this is what you are doing - is to start the conversation between the \"customer\" and the development team(s).\n\nIn case the PM has no time to do it, you can do it on your own and ask for a weekly review session preferably before the sprint planning. During these sessions you can clarify all the points you have to have a successful and accepted delivery. Remember, the point is to have the conversation not writing the actual tests, because anybody can write acceptance criteria, but only the \"customer\" has an idea what she wants.\n\nMaybe after a couple of sessions she will start to feel how good these conversations are and how much extra work you save for the organisation with a quick session. Of course, you'll need to prepare for these sessions.", "It depends is the only real answer here. The reason you ask this question and you are in doubt is because of the fact that you are unclear about the specs to build.\n\nExample questions you should ask on orders example. \n\nInitial client / product owner request: \n\n\"We want to see if the orders are paid in the orders screen.\"\n\nYour questions:\n\nCool, sure we can do that. Do all orders get paid at once?\n\nClient: Yes because we use PayPal which does not allow to change the amount so it's paid or unpaid. \n\nOR Client: No, sometimes we deliver in separate shipments and they will only pay the amount delivered.\n\nOR Client: No, it depends on our invoicing system here.\n\nYou: Ah so actually they pay the invoice, not the order?\n\nEtcetera etcetera. It's not a technical issue, it's a requirements issue. And you cannot solve unclear requirements by technical fixes. (You might know the requirements swing diagram: http://www.tamingdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/tree-swing-project-management-large.png).", "Welcome to Money.SE. I will say upfront, Personal Finance is just that, personal, and you are likely to get multiple, perhaps conflicting, answers.\n\nAre you sure the PMI will drop off after 2 years? The rules are specific, and for PMI, when prepayments put you at that 78/80% LTV, your bank can require an appraisal, not automatically drop it. Talk to the banks, get confirmation, and depending what they say, keep hacking away at the mortgage. \n\nAfter this, I suggest jumping on Roth IRAs. You are in the 15% bracket, and the Roth will let you deposit $5500 for each you and your wife. A great way to kickstart a higher level of retirement savings. \n\nAfter this, I'm not comfortable with the emergency savings level. If you lose your job tomorrow (Funny story, my wife and I lost our's on the same day 3 years ago) and don't have enough savings (Our retirement accounts were good to just retire that day) you can easily run out of money and be late on the mortgage. It's great to prepay the mortgage to get rid of that PMI, but once there, I'd do the Roth and then focus on savings. 6 months expenses minimum. \n\nWe have a great Q&amp;A here titled Oversimplify it for me: the correct order of investing in which I go in to more detail, as do 4 other members. \n\nI am not getting on the \"investments will return more than your mortgage cost\" soapbox. A well-funded emergency fund is a very conservative bit of advice. With no matched 401(k), I suggest a balance of the Roth savings and prepayments. \n\nFrom another great post, Ideal net worth by age X? Need comparison references you should have nearly 1 year's salary (90K) saved toward retirement.", "Does this fit the requirements?", "The problem with trying to understand the prevalence of the PMP or any other project certification is the denominator. I think the relevant organizations publish the number of certified practitioners but I am not sure how you could find out the number of people who are managing projects. Would it be the number of people who have PM as a title or can it include those who manage projects or sub projects as a role? Would it include those who specialize in project controls?\n\nThe more important question to your question is why? Do you consider a project certificate as a valid indicator of future performance? Or do you use the certificate as a selling point for work proposals? Whatever your belief is about the efficacy of certificates in this business, I do not know if anyone could ever argue the existence of some optimal ratio between certified and non certified practitioners. \n\nA more reasonable discussion would be around why you may want some prevalence of certificates in your organization. If to advertise in your proposals, the certs do sell. If you think it predicts future performance, you'd be best serve to look for studies that might substantiate that belief because there is not a lot out there that would support a certificate's validity.", "Yes they can. If you review your agreement with the bank thus far, you will almost certainly see clauses to that effect (if you have no mortgage approval/agreement yet, then of course they can ask for whatever they want).\nThe issue isn't exactly the 20% you're providing for the purchase, it's the 80% the bank is providing. The loan is backed by the house as collateral; if you fail to pay, they will sell (or force you to sell) the house to cover the debt. If the amount of the loan is very close to the value of the house, any fluctuation in value, and any associated costs of the process, can result in the bank not getting back their money. Generally lenders want the loan amount to be 80% of the house value or lower, or will require insurance (PMI) if it is higher.\nLet's look at some example numbers. Assume you are paying $100k for the house, and you are putting 20% down ($20k) and borrowing the rest ($80k) from the bank. They are loaning you 80% of the purchase price. Now the appraisal comes saying the house is only worth $90k. You are still putting in at least 20% (20k is actually a little over 22% of 90k), but the bank is now lending you almost 90% of the value (80k is about 88.89% of 90k). If the value of the house goes down, they may not recover their investment in a foreclosure. It's reasonable that they would either ask you to provide additional funds to lower the loan-to-value ratio (LTV), or to pay for mortgage insurance (PMI) until you reach a safer LTV.", "The Homeowners Protection Act of 1998 lays out the minimum standards for mortgages in relation to PMI cancellation. There are two ways it can be cancelled: automatic, and borrower-requested. \n\nAutomatic is when it reaches 78% of the original value of the property - at that point, the bank must cancel PMI, regardless of the current value or any other details. \n\nBorrower-requested is when the borrower requests it be cancelled. It requires only 80% of the original value (the lesser of the sales price or the appraisal at purchase), but it also requires the house not to have gone down in value. This may be where you're thinking an appraisal comes in; it's possible that the lender requires an appraisal to prove the value has not dropped.\n\nThere is nothing in the act allowing for it to be cancelled based on a new appraisal showing the value has risen, however. It's entirely possible that a mortgage might include such a term; it would not be required by law, however, so it's up to what was agreed on at signing.\n\nYou would potentially be able to refinance, of course, depending on your credit and other details, but it would not be free, obviously.\n\nHere's the text:\n\n\n Borrower-Requested Cancellations\n \n \n A borrower may initiate cancellation of PMI coverage\n by submitting a written request to the servicer.\n The servicer must take action to cancel PMI when\n \n \n • The principal balance of the loan\n \n \n – Is first scheduled to reach 80 percent of the\n ‘‘original value’’4 (regardless of the outstanding\n balance), based on\n \n – The initial amortization schedule (in the\n case of a fixed-rate loan)\n \n – The amortization schedules (in the case of\n an adjustable-rate loan) or\n \n – Reaches 80 percent of the ‘‘original value,’’\n based on actual payments\n \n \n • The borrower has a good payment history5\n \n • The borrower satisfies any requirement of the\n mortgage holder for\n \n \n – Evidence of a type established in advance\n that the value of the property has not declined\n below the original value and\n \n – Certification that the borrower’s equity in the\n property is not subject to a subordinate lien\n \n \n \n\n\nAnd the footnotes:\n\n\n \n Original value is defined as the lesser of the sales price of\n the secured property, as reflected in the purchase contract, or the\n appraised value at the time of loan consummation.\n A borrower has a good payment history if he or she (1) has\n not made a payment that was sixty days or more past due within\n the first twelve months of the last two years prior to the\n cancellation date or (2) has not made a payment that was thirty\n days or more past due within twelve months of the cancellation\n date.", "it will always come down to budget, if you can afford a dedicated PM then don it!\n\nWhat size dev team? Well with only 3 or 4 devs you can get away with one of them doing the PM role as well but if you have a dedidcated PM, this is where you should start – get the team used to working with a PM and keep the pressure off your devs.\n\nHow long? Well the project should at least be worthy of their effort but the PMs job doesn’t start and end with the dev cycle. The PM should be involved from around the time of project commitment from the client, they need to buy in to the delivery cycle and the client needs to know that they are the contact point for the duration of the project.\nThe PMs role ends after final acceptance from the client – this is normally long after the devs have left (because the testing happens after the devs leave right?)\n\nSo, I would say, a full time PM should be involved in any project that runs about three months long (or 1 month of full time dev)", "There are times that the simplest explanation (or analysis) is best. \n\nYou show that, for a time, the PMI is $1812/yr. And it's the cost you will incur by sending $15,000 to the student loan instead of using it as a downpayment. 1812/15000 is 12%. The loan is already costing you 4% (I know, 3.899, a rounding error), so in effect, that $15,000 is costing 16%. I doubt the student loan is even double digits. \n\nUse the $15,000 toward the downpayment. Take the $1812 plus the $859 per year saved on the mortgage payment, and throw the $2671 towards the student loan. This is the simple solution. (Note: $15000 at 4% for 30 years is a payment of $71.61 or $859/yr.)\n\nPart of the PMI issue is that PMI gets removed when you hit 80% due to natural amortization. i.e. the timeframe due to normal payments. If you make extra payments, and hit 80% a year after you close, that's nice, but the bank will drag its feet, and the appraisal (at your cost) may come back low. Then what? \n\nLast, without the S/L interest rate and term, I can't calculate the numbers the way your example showed, but don't mix up term and cash flow with actual cost. Say I owed my mom $50000, at zero interest, and $500/mo payment. Sending $50K would \"free up\" that $500/mo, but there are better uses for that money, such as high interest debt. You propose to create 16% debt in your scenario.", "In your case it's all going to come down to the rates and how long you expect to live in the new house:\n\n\nWith a conventional loan you can put as little as 3% down. Then you have the option of PMI or a higher interest rate. If you choose the lower rate with PMI your total monthly payment is higher, but once you hit 20% equity you're in the clear with the lower rate for the rest of the mortgage. In your case, since you aren't sure if you would stay for more than 5 years, I would lean towards the higher rate without PMI, if the rate difference is reasonable (0.5 to 0.75%).\nYou'll want to compare the doctor's loan with the conventional loan side by side. My understanding is that the doctor's loan rate is slightly higher than conventional, but that's assuming you put very little down, and it may still be lower than conventional with a low down payment and no PMI.\n\n\nAs for whether to pay down the student loans or the mortgage first, you'll need to compare the rates, and also adjust for the tax deduction you'll get on the mortgage interest. (You make too much money to deduct any of the student loan interest.) If the student loan and morgage rates are similar, then most likely you're going to be better off paying down the student loans first.\n\nAs for 15 vs 30 year, typically the rates are better on the 15 year. If they were somehow the same, then you'd be better off with the 30 yr and making the equivalent payments to the 15 year simply so you have the choice of making a lower payment in the future if you ever want to. But generally, if you plan on always making the 15 year payment amount, then you would be better off going with the 15 year just to secure the lower rate. In your case though, sticking with the 30 year and throwing the difference at the student loan may actually benefit you even more, again due to the tax deduction of mortgage interest.", "No. Requirements should be originated from a single point. Your developers might misunderstand something so that you'll be testing not what your stakeholders require but what your developers implemented (effect of a broken phone). \n\nAsking your product owner will let you catch the gaps between what the business expects vs what your team actually implemented.", "First of all, there is a projection $p \\in M$ of finite trace such that $N \\simeq pMp$, and its equivalent class depends at most on $tr(p)$. Because $G$ is countable and $M$ a ${\\rm II}_{\\infty}$ factor, the measure $\\mu$ must be infinite, then we can choose a subspace $Y \\subset X$ with $\\mu(Y)=tr(p)$, and assume that $$N = 1_Y (A \\rtimes_{\\alpha} G) 1_Y,$$ with $1_Y$ the indicator function of $Y$. \n\nLet's assume$^1$ that $A$ is a Cartan subalgebra of $M$.\n\nBy the work of Feldman and Moore Ergodic equivalence relations, cohomology, and von Neumann algebras, a von Neumann algebra has a Cartan subalgebra$^2$ iff it is of the form $M(R,s)$, i.e. generated by an equivalence relation $R$ (with all equivalent classes countable) on a standard Borel space $X$ (up to a cocycle twist $s$). The Cartan subalgebra is then the \"diagonal\", i.e. $L^{\\infty}(X)$\n\nNow let $Y$ be a subspace of $X$, then $1_Y M(R,s) 1_Y = M(R_{|Y},s)$, so has a Cartan subalgebra equals to the diagonal $L^{\\infty}(Y)$.\n\nWarning: The compression $pMp$ is not necessarily a group measure space construction, because even if the equivalent relation $R_{|Y}$ is always of the form $R_H$, the action of $H$ on $Y$ is not necessarily free, whereas freeness is used to show that $M(R_H,1)$ is a group measure space construction. Moreover, the restriction $R_{|Y}$ of an ergodic$^3$ equivalent relation $R$ is not necessarily ergodic. Now, $pMp$ is a factor, so if $R_{|Y} = R_H$ with $H$ acting freely then $R_{|Y}$ must be ergodic. \n\nAcknowledgment: Thanks to Jesse Peterson for his help. \n\n\n\n$^1$it is true in the ${\\rm II}_{1}$ case, but I did not check if it is always true in the ${\\rm II}_{\\infty}$ case.\n$^2$the general case requires the existence of a faithful normal conditional expectation $E: M \\to A$.\n$^3$every $R$-saturated Borel set has measure $0$ or $1$.", "Your business is an operations that make money performing projects. Your business is based on its fiscal year and, if public, to the fiscal quarter. The project's year is irrelevant to the business. As a PM, you manage your budget against the project year's budget as you deliver the scope. Then, you become an operations manager and you report your investment's performance against your business' fiscal year. \n\nSo you need to do both. You need to build your project budget and then calculate the revenue and profit you're going to deliver to your business against the fiscal year. Every seller of service is like this. Every single one." ]

[ "The British charities will face some £3 billion cuts in their budget over the next five years due to coalition government's austerity measures." ]

[ "A quarter of all charities and voluntary groups in Greater Manchester may be forced to close due to government cuts in spending.", "Vision Australia is cutting 130 jobs across the nation as the global recession starts to cut into charity donations.", "The Conservatives have unveiled a £4.8 billion package of tax cuts for savers and pensioners to be funded by cutting public spending immediately.", "Cuts in child benefit would increase child poverty which had been reduced in recent years, children's charity Barnardos warned this morning.", "British singers Robbie Williams and Robin Gibb have helped to raise more than $2.4 million for charity at a London benefit.", "Canadian mobile operator Telus will invest CAD 3 billion in advanced technology and facilities over the next three years in British Columbia.", "Britain's highest water bills are set to be cut by £50 a year after a £400 million handout to a private company cleared Parliament tonight.", "The UK Film Council will be axed as part of the British government's plans to cut costs, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has said.", "Former state policy lender China Development Bank will review its strategic ties with Barclays two years after it took up a 3% stake in the British bank for US$3 billion Reuters reported.", "BP plans to increase annual pre-tax profitability by $3 billion over the next two to three years by bolstering production and cutting costs, according to a Bloomberg report.", "Almost 60% of charities have seen a reduction in their income over the last three years, while a third reported both a drop in income and an increase in service users, according to new research published by the community and voluntary umbrella organisation, The Wheel.", "British comedian David Walliams has been invited to meet British Prime Minister David Cameron to discuss his charity endeavours.", "DEFRA is facing a 25% budget cut after Chancellor George Osborne announced a package of spending plans and measures for the new parliament.", "The poorest councils face the biggest cuts next year under a settlement announced today that left town halls claiming they are now powerless to protect frontline services from a wave of library, social services and leisure centre closures.", "California legislators have proposed $7.9 billion in budget cuts to reduce the state's $26-billion deficit to $5 billion.", "More than £1bn of NHS services are to be opened to competition from private companies and charities, including wheelchair services for children.", "Wealthier people plan to leave an average of £10,000 each to charity but those without children will leave even more, new research shows.", "Swiss bank Credit Suisse said on Thursday it was cutting another 5,300 jobs, as it revealed it made a net loss of about 3 billion Swiss francs in October and November.", "Chancellor George Osborne will claim the British economy is ``leaving intensive care'' as he unveils his fresh round of spending cuts for Whitehall.", "Industrial conglomerate Siemens AG said Tuesday it would cut 16,750 jobs, or 4.2 percent of its global work force, to streamline operations and cut nearly $2 billion in costs in the face of a slowing economy.", "British royal Prince Harry is set to climb Mount Everest this spring as part of a mission to raise money for charity.", "Britain's defence budget will be cut by less than 10 percent over the next four years after officials reached an agreement late Friday on the outline of a sweeping review of the country's armed forces.", "Tough economic times are forcing the Cleveland Clinic to cut charity care for some patients.", "BP's problems in the high-stakes Russian oil market mounted Friday with news that a Siberian court had set a hearing into a $3 billion claim by a local shareholder against the British energy giant.", "The UK will cut 490,000 public sector jobs over four years as part of a sweeping programme of spending cuts, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has told parliament.", "Honda cuts FYO8 net forecast to 185 billion yen from 485 billion yen;", "The Bristol Homeless Shelter will see a $7,000 budget cut in the coming fiscal year, said Phillip Lysiak, executive director of the St. Vincent DePaul Mission.", "Medicare is set to cut $2.3 billion nationally in hospice payments on Oct. 1.", "Homeless charities have been given £3.6m from a government fund to tackle rough sleeping in England.", "The British government is cutting its financial ties with Iranian banks as part of a new sanctions scheme, Chancellor George Osborne said today.", "A British climber died after being hit by a boulder the size of a table during a charity expedition, an inquest has heard.", "Aviva is to cut up to 800 jobs in the UK as chairman John McFarlane embarks on a £400m cost-cutting drive across the global business." ]

[ "The novelist Tao Lin, because he is young, narcissistic and computer literate, gets the \"voice of Generation Y\" treatment a lot. It's a safe way of pinning down the uncontainable paradox that is Tao Lin: On the one hand, he's meek, cripplingly shy and unusually talented. But on the other, he can be remarkably alienating. He recently accused a journalist profiling him for New York Magazine of stealing his Adderall. He emailed the gossip website Gawker updates on his daily activities until they publicly begged him to stop, writing that he was \"perhaps the single most irritating person we've ever had to deal with.\" He tweets about his drug use, wrote a book about shoplifting, sold shares in an uncompleted novel to pay rent and profiled himself for The Stranger in an article called \"Great American Novelist\" (mocking Time's Jonathan Franzen cover). His last novel caused a New York Times critic to contemplate suicide. Taipei, Lin's newest book, is similarly uncategorizable: At once very bad and very good, it swings between dullness and wild, excessive beauty. Taipei follows Paul — who closely resembles Lin — as he lies in bed, \"looks at the Internet,\" goes on drugged wanderings around New York and Taipei and has relationships with various quiet, broken girls. Most novelists edit life into a more interesting version of experience, but in Taipei Lin refuses, almost sadistically, to entertain the reader. This may be a strategy as much as a failure: Lin pushes the reader into boredom and despair to force a kind of transcendent empathy with the bored, despairing Paul. The plot is an endless cycle in which Paul 1) feels bored, socially anxious or sad; 2) takes Klonopin, MDMA, Adderall, mushrooms or Xanax; 3) does something embarrassing or rude while on drugs; 4) feels bored, socially anxious or sad. At one point, Paul emails a friend what could be the novel in miniature: I'm lying in bed on a sofa Feel strongly like I simply want to relate my feelings of bleakness in this email My legs feel cold Writing a novel that blankly relates the events of an uneventful life is a little like filming yourself on MDMA and publishing the results as a movie — which Lin has done. For one thing, deadpan realism is a clever shield against criticism: If the novel is bad or boring, well, life is bad and boring. At one point Paul thinks, \"I was like a bored robot,\" which, aside from bouts of excruciating social anxiety and shame, is an apt description of Paul's general mental landscape: He's drug-dulled, antisocial and emotionally barren. That is not to say that there's nothing lovely in Taipei. Moments of real beauty appear, sudden, stark and unexpected as a skyscraper in the jungle, before the narrative retreats back into drugs and ennui and the bright, blank draw of the Internet, Paul's constant companion. With a funny and sad description of his shy childhood, Lin perfectly captures Paul's horrified and humiliated sense of his own existence: When he heard laughter, before he could think or feel anything, his heart would already be beating like he'd sprinted twenty yards. As the beating gradually normalized he'd think of how his heart, unlike him, was safely contained, away from the world, behind bone and inside skin, held by muscles and arteries in its place, carefully off-center, as if to artfully assert itself as source and creator, having grown the chest to hide in and to muffle and absorb — and, later, after innovating the brain and face and limbs, to convert into productive behavior — its uncontrollable, indefensible, unexplainable, embarrassing squeezing of itself. Or, Lin describes saying goodbye to his mother at the airport and thinks \"of how, in the entrance-less caves of themselves, everyone was already, always orphaned.\" These frustratingly brief moments of beauty (entrance-less caves!) often seem as though they've been copied and pasted from an expansive, dreamy book by someone else. Lin also beautifully merges images from the real and virtual worlds: \"Jesus look,\" said Paul pointing at an eerie building far in the distance, thin and black, like a cursor on the screen of a computer that had become unresponsive. He imagined building-size letters suddenly appearing, left to right, in a rush — wpkjgijfhtetiukgcnlm — across the desert. In these rare sentences, Lin gives to buildings, cars and computers the kind of rapturous attention that other writers give to mountains, lakes and trees. And for all its frequent dullness, Lin's prose is innovative. In novels, characters conventionally think in fully formed paragraphs; real people think in a jumble of images, snatches of words, feelings and even bits of music. Lin captures this with quotation marks around words that Paul thinks to himself: Paul was in Bobst Library's first basement floor, seated at a computer, becoming increasingly, \"neurotically,\" he knew, fixated on his aversion toward Erin's red backpack. This is jarring at first, but eventually feels like another step" ]

[ "Two sophomores at Purdue University stand outside on Wednesday afternoons and shout compliments at people to boost their day. They say it's fun and they consider it a public service. Ariel Van Cleave reports for member station WBAA in West Lafayette, Ind. MELISSA BLOCK, host: Everyone loves a good compliment, right? Mr. CAMERON BROWN: You've got great curly hair. Mr. BRETT WESTCOTT: And I like your sweat pants. Mr. BROWN: I love your curly hair. Mr. WESTCOTT: Are those sweatpants, or are they jeans? Mr. BROWN: They're corduroy. Mr. WESTCOTT: Those are nice. BLOCK: For the past few months, two sophomores at Purdue University have been dishing out compliments like those, and doing it with gusto. From member station WBAA in West Lafayette, Indiana, Ariel Van Cleave reports. (Soundbite of bells) ARIEL VAN CLEAVE: I'm standing here in front of the Wetherill Laboratory of Chemistry at Purdue University, and there are these two guys shouting at people. Mr. WESTCOTT: I like those shoes, those are spiffy shoes. VAN CLEAVE: That's Brett Westcott. Mr. BROWN: I like your sweatpants. VAN CLEAVE: And that one there, well, he's Cameron Brown. They stand here for two hours every Wednesday afternoon shouting compliments. Mr. BROWN: I like your headphones. Don't hide it. Mr. WESTCOTT: I like your smile. Don't hide that smile. Mr. BROWN: Show those teeth. Mr. WESTCOTT: You smile. Mr. BROWN: Black hair, I like it. Very nice. VAN CLEAVE: Reactions like Rachel Taylor's are usually what the guys get. Ms. RACHEL TAYLOR: These guys brighten my day every Wednesday. They're so much fun. VAN CLEAVE: Richard Severe(ph) says he also gets caught up in the spirit of the thing. Mr. RICHARD SEVERE: I try to throw, you know, some compliments back to just acknowledge the fact that, you know, they're giving me one so I'll give them one back. VAN CLEAVE: But that isn't always the case. Mr. WESTCOTT: We definitely have people give us gestures, the middle finger, they use profanity directed toward us. VAN CLEAVE: But Brett Westcott says most people like it. He came up with the idea last semester. Mr. WESTCOTT: It's never a burden, ever. Like, I wake up on Wednesdays with the most energy. VAN CLEAVE: And he got Cameron in on it. Mr. BROWN: Days when it's raining, and days when it's absolutely frigid out, and people are like, man, thank you for coming out here. We're not necessarily enjoying our time in the cold, we're enjoying the responses we get and the interaction we receive with people. VAN CLEAVE: They admit sometimes it's hard to keep all their compliments straight from week to week. Mr. WESTCOTT: Sometimes we forget and compliment the same person on the same thing, and then they're like, you complimented me on that like the past two weeks. But that's just because they've got a great attribute that it's hard not to. VAN CLEAVE: The guys are hoping for copycats to pop up around on other college campuses. Mr. WESTCOTT: We'd love to spread it. That's what we're, that's our goal, really, is to spread inbred random acts of kindness and compliments. VAN CLEAVE: Westcott and Brown don't plan to stop with the compliments any time soon. And by the way, those shoes look amazing. For NPR news, I'm Ariel Van Cleave in West Lafayette, Indiana.", "A young Cub Scout, 11-year-old Ames Mayfield, got compliments for his question about gun control at a meeting with a Colorado state senator. But then, Mayfield was kicked out of his Cub Scout den. Here & Now&#8216;s Robin Young hears more about this national story from investigative reporter Marshall Zelinger (@Marshall9News) of 9News in Denver, and Mayfield&#8217;s mother, Lori.", "The Uncanny Valley is a notion that states that if you make a robot that it up to 95 percent realistic, it's fantastic. More realistic that that and it's a disaster. That's because a 96 percent lifelike robot is a human being with something wrong. Hollywood uses the concept when animating movies.", "Dan Eberhart is a long-time Republican donor and avid supporter of the GOP. And for much of the last three years, he&#8217;s been a supporter of the president as well, despite a few disagreements on trade and tariff issues. But these days, the compliments are few and far between. Eberhart, the managing partner of Eberhart Capital and CEO of oil field services company Canary LLC, has been vocal in his criticism of the president&#8217;s responses to both the coronavirus pandemic and the protests following George Floyd&#8217;s killing at the hands of police in Minneapolis. Eberhart joins host Robin Young to talk about these issues. This article was originally published on WBUR.org.", "President-elect Donald Trump's phone call with the president of Taiwan last week, initially characterized by Trump transition staffers and Taipei officials as just a small courtesy, has emerged as part of a lobbying strategy by a quintessential Washington insider. Former Sen. Bob Dole, a war hero, lion of the Senate and 1996 Republican nominee for president, was an early supporter of Donald Trump, even when other Republican leaders were still wary. Dole explained his reasons on NPR's Morning Edition in June. Both Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton had flaws, he said. \"Republicans say, 'Well, I can't vote for Trump.' I have an obligation to the party. I mean what am I gonna do? I can't vote for George Washington.\" Dole is the Taipei government's man in Washington — has been, in fact, for 18 years, since Bill Clinton was president. In official jargon, Dole is a registered foreign agent. The law requires foreign agents to file itemized lists of what they do for their clients. Dole filed his latest six-month report last week, and it shows the phone call wasn't a one-off event. Since May, Dole has been arranging contacts between Taiwanese officials and Trump campaign advisers. He facilitated a Taiwan delegation's attendance at the Republican National Convention when Trump was nominated. And he helped them get favorable language into the Republican platform. As for that phone call last week, it came after the report's end date. Dole told The New York Times he helped arrange it. His office couldn't be reached for comment Wednesday. \"Dole was pushing on a somewhat open door, because talking to the leader of Taiwan was consistent with Trump's stance on China and also his willingness to ignore what might be the conventional wisdom,\" Jordan Tama, a foreign policy professor at American University, told NPR. Dole was in a perfect position to give that somewhat open door a shove. Aside from his nearly two decades lobbying for Taiwan, Dole was also the only Republican former presidential nominee to endorse Trump this year. \"Trump, we have good reason to think, values and rewards loyalty, and so the fact that Dole endorsed him certainly would be something Trump would be aware of,\" Tama said. Dole didn't report contacting any other presidential campaignon behalf of Taipei. Disclosure reports covering November 2015 through October 2016 show that Taipei's Washington office paid his law firm $200,000.", "A historic meeting is happening this Saturday in Singapore between the two Chinas — that is, the leaders of China and Taiwan. They're meeting for the first time since 1949, when one side lost the Chinese civil war and fled to Taiwan. On the streets of Taiwan's capital, Taipei, everyone speaks Chinese. And everyone looks Chinese — as 98 percent of the population is ethnically Chinese. But the experiences of those in Taiwan haven't been the same as China's for decades. \"Taiwan has for the last 20 years had a democracy, had five presidential elections,\" says Nathan Batto, a political scientist at Academia Sinica, a public research center in Taipei. \"Nothing like that has happened in China.\" Even though Taiwan walks like and talks like its own country — with its own military, foreign diplomacy and government services — the mainland People's Republic of China refuses to recognize it as anything more than a renegade province. \"Taiwan has the awkward position in the world of being a state that's not recognized as a state,\" Batto says — either by China or most other countries. That awkward position is at the forefront as Taiwan heads into a January presidential election — its sixth since becoming a democracy. At the headquarters for front-runner Tsai Ing-wen, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) nominee, volunteers staff a campaign store, supporters bounce in to bring donations in plastic piggy banks and they've decked a wall in Post-it messages for Tsai. \"If she is regarded as someone who is able to lead the country, that is a high symbol, that's a very good symbol of Taiwan's advancement,\" says Joseph Wu, Tsai's No. 2 and the DPP secretary. Previously the party has called for independence from China, but this time around, it's signaling a more pragmatic approach. \"We want to maintain the status quo. We want to maintain the current democratic way of life,\" Wu says. It is the outgoing Kuomintang or Nationalist Party president, Ma Ying-Jeou, whose policies have arguably led to the current status quo with China. He has pushed for tighter ties with the mainland over the past seven years in the form of trade deals, lifting of travel bans and, as a capstone, this first-ever meeting with a Chinese president on Saturday. But voters don't necessarily like Beijing's growing influence. It shows in the polls, where opposition candidate Tsai leads the president's party by double digits. \"As far as the Chinese government is concerned, the wrong person is very likely to win,\" says Shelley Rigger, author of Why Taiwan Matters and East Asian studies professor at North Carolina's Davidson College. \"Their challenge now is to figure out what they want to do about that.\" One of the ways China's leadership is doing that is by meeting President Ma this week — before the election. And what China could do after the election, if another party takes over, is now part of the Nationalist Kuomintang's message. \"When DPP was in power, the cross-strait relationship was not so stable,\" says Kuomintang presidential candidate Eric Chu, referring to years between 2000 and 2008 under a DPP president, when cross-strait ties were frayed. \"President Ma's economic and political strategy for engaging China has been reasonable and very effective.\" But in a sign of how nuanced politics are in Taipei, you can't have a strategy of getting too engaged with China, either. Chu only became the nominee after the party ousted its original pick — for signaling she was open to reunification. \"The question now that they are now really competing about and struggling over is how can we continue to have a reasonably amicable relationship with the mainland without being drawn into a reconciliation that goes beyond what we're really ready for,\" says Rigger. For all the talk about China, in the end, it might be domestic issues that make the difference. Political observers say dissatisfaction with the ruling party has less to do with China and more to do with kitchen-table concerns like job opportunities. The opposition DPP says that's where it will focus its attention. \"We will see a very different Taiwan — which is very different from President Ma's administration, which is too much focus on China,\" says Wu. Of course, China won't let itself be ignored, either. Every politician in Taiwan knows that. Fanny Liu contributed to this story. For a behind-the-scenes look at our reporting from Taiwan, check out Elise Goes East.", "Taiwan lost another ally on Tuesday after El Salvador's president, Salvador Sanchez Ceren, reversed course on his country's diplomatic direction by establishing ties with Beijing. The move isolates the democratic island at a time when China has tried to weaken it on the world stage. Since the late 1940s, China has regarded Taiwan as a renegade province and has pressured countries and businesses to recognize the self-ruled island not as a sovereign nation but as a Chinese territory. The dissolution of diplomatic ties between Taiwan and El Salvador made headlines on Tuesday as more countries shift their allegiance to China. In a nationally televised address, Sanchez Ceren said that El Salvador would embark on trade, development and investment with China, \"We are convinced this is a step in the right direction that corresponds to the principles of international law of international relations and the inevitable trends of our time,\" he said, according to Reuters. In response to El Salvador's move toward building ties with Beijing, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen issued a statement accusing China of unprecedented acts of coercion, both military and diplomatic. \"During this period, we have done everything possible and undertaken extensive diplomatic efforts,\" she explained, adding \"We have also worked with our international allies, hoping to prevent El Salvador from becoming a battlefield in a cross-strait diplomatic war.\" The Taiwanese president --whose phone call with then newly-elected U.S. President Donald Trump, nearly created an international incident-- says that China's government has been unrelenting in its exertion of pressure \"using the severance of diplomatic relations with El Salvador to crush the will of the Taiwanese people to embrace the world.\" The termination of relations goes into immediate effect, says Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, leaving the fate of the El Salvador Embassy which opened in Taipei in 1976, unclear. Taiwan plans to recall personnel from El Salvador and cease projects with the Central American nation in the days ahead. Chinese State Councillor Wang Yi praised the move, telling reporters that El Salvador will reap \"tangible benefits.\" But officials in the United States were not pleased with the shift away from Taipei to Beijing. Congress has supported Taiwan for nearly four decades and has taken increasingly stronger steps toward recognizing it. \"I think at some point we're going to have to recognize the independence of Taiwan,\" Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, said in July during an American Enterprise Institute event, The New York Times reported. \"El Salvador has made the wrong decision regarding Taiwan, and it will negatively influence US relations with El Salvador. The US govt must stand up to China's campaign to bully Taiwan with every tool we have,\" said Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) in a tweet. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) tweeted, \"Why should we keep sending them [El Salvador] so much foreign aid? Today I will begin work to end that.\" The U.S. ambassador to El Salvador said the country's decision to switch its allegiance to China was \"worrisome\" and \"without a doubt\" will impact U.S. relations with the Salvadoran government. The Taiwanese government has operated separately from the mainland after nationalists fled there in the 1940s, when they lost the civil war to the Communists. Taiwan is officially known as the Republic of China (ROC). Nearly three decades ago, the U.S. adopted a \"One China\" policy, which formally recognized the Communist government in Beijing — switching diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979. And yet, Washington maintains unofficial ties through the American Institute in Taiwan, the de facto U.S. Embassy which was established that same year. The United States also plays an important role in preserving Taiwan's sovereignty and sells it advanced weapons. Taiwan became the U.S.'s 10th-largest trading partner in 2016. El Salvador is the fifth country to sever ties with Taiwan in the last two years, following Panama, Burkina Faso, the Dominican Republic, and the African island nation of Sao Tome and Principe. Most of the remaining 17 countries that still have diplomatic ties with Taiwan — including Haiti and Kiribati — are small and developing. The New York Times reports that Taiwan's opposition party, the Communist Party's \"preferred dialogue partner in Taiwan,\" will use El Salvador's defecting from Taipei as a platform to attack Taiwan's president, whose liberal Democratic Progressive Party supports Taiwan's independence. \"Taiwan is a democratic and free country. Taiwan will continue to move forward steadfastly,\" the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a written statement. \"China's unreasonable suppression will only serve to strengthen Taiwan's commitment to pursuing even greater democracy, freedom and sovereignty.\"", "Natural gas is cheap this year, thanks to a warm autumn and new sources of gas. During Thanksgiving week, big swaths of the country enjoyed warm, sunny days and used very little natural gas. Meanwhile, drillers in Pennsylvania are finding huge reserves of gas, which is driving the price down. Natural gas is trading at about $2.23 per million British thermal units (MBTU). Only a few years ago, it was trading at more than $13. NPR&#8217;s senior business editor Marilyn Geewax joins Here & Now&#8216;s Jeremy Hobson to discuss how low natural gas prices will save people money on their heating bills &#8211; a nice compliment to low gasoline prices. Guest\n\nMarilyn Geewax, senior business editor at NPR. She tweets @geewaxnpr.", "Meghan Trainor&#8217;s summer hit, &#8220;All About That Bass&#8221; is being hailed as a body positive dance tune, but one blogger says, not so fast. Here & Now&#8217;s Robin Young talks to Jenny Trout about her piece &#8220;I Am Not All About That Bass: Deconstructing The Summer’s Feel-Good, Body-Positive Hit.&#8221; Trout has several problems with the song, but writes, in part: What could be a positive message comes out as a backhanded compliment. Sure, every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top, but only grudgingly. You get to feel good about yourself, but only if women Meghan Trainor’s size get to feel better by mocking your appearance. And only if you share the same weight insecurities. [Youtube] Guest\n\nJenny Trout, blogger behind &#8220;Trout Nation.&#8221; She tweets @Jenny_Trout.", "Update, 11:43 p.m. ET Authorities searching the wreckage of a Taiwanese plane Wednesday raised the death toll in the crash to 31, and say 12 people still are missing. They also released audio of a distress call made by the plane's pilot shortly before it turned on its side, clipped a highway and sank into a river in Taipei. In it, The Associated Press reports, the pilot reports an \"engine flameout.\" Such failures can have many different causes, both internal — mechanical failure, a lack of fuel — and external, such as damage caused by foreign objects. \"The plane has a general good reputation for safety and reliability and is known among airlines for being cheap and efficient to use, said Greg Waldron, Asia managing editor at Flightglobal magazine in Singapore.\" Original post: The toll in the deadly TransAsia crash has risen to at least 25, Taiwan's Civil Aeronautics Administration said. Fifteen people were injured and another 18 are still unaccounted for, the agency said. As we previously reported, Flight 235 was carrying 58 people, 31 of them from China, when it crashed into the shallow Keelung River in Taipei shortly after takeoff on Wednesday. Dramatic video of the crash showed the ATR 72 turboprop plane clipping an elevated roadway with its left wingtip before falling into the river. The pilot issued a mayday call almost immediately after takeoff, Taiwanese media reported. The Associated Press adds: \"Rescuers in rubber rafts pulled 15 people alive from the wreckage during daylight. After dark, they brought in the crane, and the death toll was expected to rise once crews were able to search through submerged portions of the fuselage, which came to rest a few dozen ... yards from the shore.\" The black boxes have been recovered and investigators will being piecing together what caused the plane that belongs to the Taipei-based airline to crash. The weather was normal, the civil aviation body said. The crash was the second involving a TransAsia ATR 72 aircraft within the past year. A previous plane crashed July 23, 2014, killing 48 people and injuring 10 people. The AP has more on the aircraft: \"Greg Waldron, Asia managing editor at Flightglobal magazine in Singapore, said the ATR 72-600 is the latest iteration of one of the most popular turboprop planes in the world, particularly favored for regional short-hop flights in Asia. It has a generally good reputation for safety and reliability and is known among airlines for being cheap and efficient to operate.\"", "A Taiwanese historical drama about a nurse who runs away to serve the army of occupying Japan during World War II has been forced off the air amid concerns of censorship pressure from mainland China. Jiachang's Heart, produced by the local Da Ai TV station was scheduled to run for 39 prime-time episodes, but was shut down after the first two aired this month when its \"politically sensitive theme touched a raw nerve in both Taiwan and on the mainland,\" according to The South China Morning Post. The show was inspired by the story of Lin Chih-hui, now 91, who defied her parents at age 17 to join the Japanese Imperial Army in Hong Kong. It portrays Lin with \"Florence Nightingale-like selfless dedication,\" the Post writes. Anti-Japanese sentiment from World War II still runs high throughout the region, stemming from Tokyo's military conquests in Asia and the Imperial Japanese Army's use of sex slaves, known as \"comfort women,\" taken from conquered areas. Da Ai television airs both in Taiwan and China and when the trailer for Jiachang's Heart hit the airwaves, broadcasters, newspapers and social media in mainland China immediately panned the show. The Post quotes one user on Tianya Club, described as \"one of China's most popular online forums,\" as calling the show \"a Japanese-boot-licking drama\" and said the protagonist \"kowtowed\" to Japanese overlords. China's Taiwan Affairs Office reportedly \"sent officials to the foundation's office in Taiwan to investigate the show soon after the pilot aired,\" the Taipei Times reports. In an opinion piece published last week in China's Global Times, titled \"Taiwan TV series has a wrong take on history,\" the author complained that \"the TV series [put] a gloss on the [Japanese] aggressors while the fighting Chinese troops were depicted as gaunt and ugly enemies.\" The editorial railed against \"an ignorance and a lack of respect for the bitter history\" that is \"especially dangerous in Taiwan given the island's colonial history, rising pro-independence forces and endless revision of history books by the authorities.\" However, Da Ai media — a subsidiary of the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation, a Taiwan-based NGO — denied receiving any complaints from Beijing about the show and that mainland China had no influence on the decision to cancel it. Da Ai media development manager Ou Hung-yu is quoted in the Taipei Times as saying the show's depiction of the war is contrary to the guideline of \"purifying human hearts and encouraging social harmony\" and was canceled to \"avoid controversy\" and out of concern that it might \"retraumatize certain viewers.\" Taiwanese lawmaker Wang Ding-yu told the Taipei Times that it made no sense for Da Ai to cancel the show. \"There was no way to produce Schindler's List without depicting Nazis, or make an American Civil War drama without mentioning slavery,\" said Wang, a member of Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). \"A nation cannot escape history, no matter how strong it is.\" He said China's Taiwan Affairs Office wanted permission to come to Taiwan \"to investigate the show,\" according to the newspaper. \"I say our government should deny visas to these officials,\" Wang said.", "This Week's Playlist SBTRKT, \"Problem (Solved) (feat. Jessie Ware)\" (XL) Break, \"Break\" (Break) Caribou, \"Dive\" (Merge) Les Sins, \"Why (feat. Nate Salman)\" (Company) Gorgon City, \"Try Me Out\" (Black Butter/Virgin) Watermat, \"Bullit (Icarus Remix)\" (Spinnin' Deep) Audio District, \"Reach For The Sky (Lifelike Remix)\" (Computer Science) Digitalism, \"Second Chance\" ([PIAS] America) The Knocks, \"Classic (feat. Powers) (RAC Remix)\" (Big Beat) Big Data, \"Dangerous (Oliver Remix)\" (Wilcassettes) Bondax, \"All I See (Darius Remix)\" (Ultra) The 2 Bears, \"Angel (Touch Me)\" (Southern Fried) Anna Lunoe, \"Feels Like (feat. Teed)\" (Ultra) Gui Boratto, \"22\" (Kompakt) Choir Of Young Believers, \"Hollow Talk (Jody Wisternoff, James Grant & Lane 8 Remix)\" (Anjunadeep) Massive Attack, \"Paradise Circus (Gui Boratto Remix)\" (Virgin) Bea, \"Safe Ground\" Trentemoller, \"Come Undone (Trentemoller Remix)\" (In My Room) Flight Facilities, \"Two Bodies (feat. Emma Louise)\" (Glassnote) Chris Malinchak, \"Happiness (feat. MNEK)\" (Ultra) James Blake, \"Limit To Your Love (Alex Dimou Remix)\" (R&S) Seven Lions With Myon & Shane 45, \"Strangers (feat. Tove Lo) (My Digital Enemy Mix)\" (ID) Hercules & Love Affair, \"Blind (feat. Antony Hegarty)\" (DFA/EMI) RAC, \"Cheap Sunglasses (feat. Matthew Koma) (Dave Aude Mix)\" (Cherrytree/Interscope) Porter Robinson, \"Lionhearted (feat. Urban Cone) (Arty Mix)\" (Astralwerks)", "Daniel Blumenthal is a commissioner of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, and coordinator of the Tocqueville on China project. Over the past decade, Washington's Taiwan policy has created unnecessary dilemmas for Taiwan's political leadership. On the one hand, if a president of Taiwan is considered too provocative toward China, Washington, rightfully irritated over undue tensions, will freeze relations with the democratic island. On the other hand, if a president of Taiwan reconciles with China, Washington's impulse is to neglect relations, confident that the cross Strait \"problem\" is resolving itself. It's a small wonder why many Taiwanese believe that Washington is unreliable. President Chen Shui-bian faced the former from Washington. While no one in Taiwan doubted that he would protect Taiwan's de facto independent status and its hard won democracy, or fight for its international dignity, he lost the confidence of Washington and then his own people when relations with both China and the United States soured. President Ma Ying-jeou faces the latter. He has made major strides in easing tensions with China. And while relations with Washington are not characterized by tension, they are almost non-existent. Ma has negotiated a free trade agreement with China, from which Washington can benefit by leveraging its close relationship with Taipei to enter the China market duty-free. But no U.S.-Taiwan free trade agreement is pending. And, while China's military pressure is unrelenting (not a single of the 1,000-plus missiles pointed at Taiwan has been dismantled,) Washington is taking its commitment to helping Taiwan defend itself rather lightly. Taiwan badly needs more F-16 fighter aircraft to recapitalize its aging air fleet. None seem forthcoming. This is all the more troublesome given China's stepped up aggression against its other neighbors such as Vietnam, Indonesia, Japan, and India. It is just a matter of time before Beijing loses patience with Taipei's refusal to discuss its political future. Taipei will need to show it cannot be pushed around. In addition, the people of Taiwan profoundly desire a greater international personality, but China heads off Taiwan's participation in just about any international organization. Washington's diplomacy, which can help Taiwan enter organizations where statehood is not a pre-requisite, has been languid. The main tasks of a Taiwan president in a democratic system are threefold: maintain decent relations with China, warm relations with the United States, and increase Taiwan's international status. A president who cannot do all three is doomed to failure in Taiwan's fickle political system. Washington has an interest in encouraging all three pillars of any Taiwan's president's success. It wants relations between Taiwan and China to be stable. At the same time, the United States wants Taiwan to hold on to its democratic status, even its ill-defined international status, until the day when China can be more reasonable in its approach to Taiwan's future. Once China abandons its stubborn -- and for Taiwan, unacceptable -- stance that the only solution to the conflict is the absorption of Taiwan by China, many creative diplomatic solutions will open up. It is thus incumbent upon the United States to reward Taiwan's China diplomacy with bilateral initiatives that increase Taipei's international status and help it deter China's military coercion. Washington can start by highlighting to American businesses the opportunities Taiwan has created through its economic cooperation framework agreement with China. While it negotiates a free trade agreement with Taiwan, Washington should also send the U.S. secretary of commerce to the island with a delegation of leading businessmen to scout out new investment opportunities. Not only can the United States benefit from Taiwan's closer links with the mainland, but more American investment on the island will also increase Taiwan's international prestige. Regarding military cooperation, Washington should sell both the additional F-16s to Taiwan as well as submarines promised, but never delivered, by President Bush in 2001. The F-16s will not solve every military problem but will signal strong support from Washington and send the message to Beijing that its arms build-up will not go unanswered. As a stealthy, survival platform, submarines are an effective answer to Beijing's naval build-up (that is why every U.S. friend in the region is buying submarines in response to China's underwater threat). Finally, Washington should energetically push for Taiwan's participation in functional United Nations organizations. A reinvigorated Taiwan policy will encourage Taiwan presidents to keep relations with China on an even keel while holding out hope that Taiwan will not live in international isolation. The purpose of U.S. policy should be to discourage unneeded cross Strait tension while binding the democratic island ever closer to ", "When Ursula Burns was named the CEO of Xerox in 2009, her promotion was hailed as a groundbreaking achievement: Burns was the first Black woman to head a Fortune 500 company. She took over Xerox at a critical time when the country was just coming out of the 2008 recession. And as Burns writes in her new memoir, she began as an intern and worked her way up over three decades. Along the way, Burns was fortified by the wisdom of many mentors including her mother, who inspired the title &#8220;Where You Are Is Not Who You Are.” Her mother — a first-generation immigrant, single parent and welfare recipient — always believed Burns would be successful. “When we were growing up, [my mother] would say to me always, this place that we live in that is run down and dirty, this neighborhood that we live in that is disordered and not cared for, is not who you are,” Burns says. “Who you are is the people you surround yourself with, who you are is the values that you have.” Burns’ mom never made more than $4,400 a year, a reality for millions of Americans even today. In her memoir, Burns chronicles the grit and lessons she learned through overcoming poverty that helped her in her corporate career. In college, Burns says she knew her tenacity and confidence set her apart from other students in the classroom. And it’s played a role in her rise to success at Xerox and her work in board rooms. Burns studied mechanical engineering and writes that she was often treated as extraordinary because she was Black woman who excelled in science. Even as she became a CEO, this bothersome treatment persisted. People tell her she’s exceptional to make themselves feel better about the fact that no one else in the room looks like her and justify the lack of diversity, she says. “That may be a very negative approach to the compliment, but I don&#8217;t feel it as a compliment,” she says. “I don&#8217;t see myself as being exceptional in any way.” In 2014, Forbes ranked Burns as one of the most powerful women in the world. More diversity at the top of the corporate ladder is needed to change this “exclusive club of wealth and power and influence,” she says. To integrate corporate leadership, the U.S needs to equitably improve education in low-income neighborhoods, health care, opportunities to enter companies and funding for startups, she says. After a lifetime of being treated as exceptional, Burns knows more people can do exactly what she’s done. In 2009, Burns took on the monumental task of bringing Xerox into the future as CEO. “Part of the challenge was fundamentally that when you are a behemoth, change is really, really hard,” she says. “All of the things about Xerox that were amazing were under attack not by necessarily competition, but by advancements in technology, period.” Xerox excelled at direct sales and making machines that last — but the company needed to learn to let go of many of its strengths to adapt to changing times, she says. Changing the company required getting a large number of people, both customers and employees, on the same page. And the emergence of social media also complicated the shift, she says. In her book, Burns writes about her experience managing her home and work lives as CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Parents need support from businesses and the government in ways such as health care, child care, career progression and pay, she says. “All the basic infrastructures of work cannot suffer because one gender has to actually physically carry the child and therefore, in the younger part of their life, are more naturally aligned to take care of the child,” she says. “This can&#8217;t be a negative.” At the start of the book, Burns writes she didn’t feel her life was interesting enough to fill the pages. She hopes this book shows readers that people don’t need silver spoons or trust funds to change their communities — or even the world. “I always push against this zero-sum game theory that we are playing right now, that I can only make it if I take it from you. It&#8217;s so untrue,” she says. “My life is proof that that&#8217;s not the case.” Emiko Tamagawa produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Tinku Ray. Allison Hagan adapted it for the web.  \nBook Excerpt: &#8216;Where You Are Is Not Who You Are&#8217; By Ursula Burns I started writing this book well before the world as we knew it changed. Pre-pandemic and pre–social justice reawakening and pre–the end of the darkest four years in my life. I finally responded to the encouragements—“You have to write a book”—I received after speaking engagements and conversations. I must say that writing this book has been much, much harder than I thought it would be. Not only because of the before-and-after situation that we are still in the midst of, but also because it is hard for me to find a lot that is truly remarkable or book-worthy about my story. I am not being humble in that statement—the fact of the matter is that life happens one day at a time, and o", "The award-winning poet Mary Oliver, who explored the connection between spirituality and the natural world, died last week at the age of 83. Oliver&#8217;s poetry used simple language to observe the profound. She wrote about nature, but in those poems, she was also tapping into spirituality, mortality, redemption and optimism. Author Ruth Franklin (@ruth_franklin), who wrote a profile of Oliver for The New Yorker in 2017, says Oliver masterfully tapped into a &#8220;vein of desire&#8221; for plainspoken poetry &#8212; something not necessarily embraced by critics, but a style beloved by every day readers. Franklin joins Here & Now&#8216;s Robin Young to talk about Oliver&#8217;s legacy.", "Maeve Press (@MaevePress) went to summer stand-up comic camp when she was 11 years old &#8212; it didn&#8217;t go so well. Just three years later, she was performing at a women&#8217;s comedy festival. Here & Now&#8216;s Robin Young speaks with the young comedian about stand-up comedy, writing jokes and her inspirations. [Youtube] Interview Highlights On how she got into comedy &#8220;I&#8217;ve always loved comedy. I&#8217;ve always loved trying to turn sad moments into happy moments. But a little bit ago, I did the Kids &#8216;N Comedy camp at Gotham, in [New York City]. And I did the show afterwards. We got to write our own stuff, and it was awesome. Then I decided to sign up again, and we did the same thing, but the show didn&#8217;t go as well as I wanted. &#8230; I was a little bit more nervous, I wasn&#8217;t timing correctly. So to redeem myself I immediately went and signed up for some open mics, and I&#8217;ve kind of been loving it ever since.&#8221; On audiences at her open mics, and how she writes her jokes &#8220;I have luckily been able to avoid too much horrible stuff, to me. But I&#8217;ve definitely heard some very disgusting things.&#8221; &#8220;I read a lot of the newspapers to kind of make sure I&#8217;m up to date.&#8221; &#8220;Usually I just figure out a question I have, write it down, and then kind of answer it, and then those are my jokes, in a way.&#8221; Array On what her classmates think of her comedy &#8220;They&#8217;re very supportive of it. I go to a wonderful school where there&#8217;s actually a lot of other kids that do&#8230; they don&#8217;t do comedy, but they do other things. They&#8217;re musicians and artists and actors. They definitely, they do constantly ask me to say jokes, and that&#8217;s always interesting.&#8221; On a joke she would tell her friends &#8220;I have a lot of fears. I&#8217;m actually really scared of mannequins. Because I&#8217;m not the biggest fan of realistic, lifelike representations of human beings frozen in time and lacking in the soul. And I&#8217;m not talking about Mike Pence.&#8221; On other comedians who have influenced her &#8220;I love Joan Rivers. I think she was incredible. I&#8217;m a huge fan of Tig Notaro. I love her stage presence and her comedy. I love Louis C.K. and George Carlin and Richard Pryor. They make you laugh, but they also, you look at the world through a different perspective.&#8221; On whether she wants to have a career in comedy &#8220;Maybe. When I was a lot younger, like 4, I wanted to be a doctor. I thought that&#8217;d be awesome, because I like the idea of saving people&#8217;s lives. And kind of strangely, in a way, comedians and doctors are similar. Because doctors save people&#8217;s lives with medicine, and comedians kind of save people&#8217;s lives with laughter.&#8221; On support from other women in comedy &#8220;It&#8217;s very, very supportive. After just meeting them, I kind of felt like I was part of a family, and it was really nice.&#8221; &#8220;I feel honored to be able to do [stand-up comedy] at such a young age now.&#8221;", "After stops in Japan and South Korea, President Trump arrived in China on Wednesday, the third of his five stops in Asia this week. He had tea and dinner, and took in some opera, with China's leader Xi Jinping. On Thursday, they will hold bilateral talks. On the table will be the trade imbalance between the countries that Trump hopes to rectify and ongoing provocations from China's intransigent neighbor, North Korea. Even as the world — especially Asian nations — looks on, no one is watching this leg of Trump's swing through Asia with more trepidation than Taiwan. While government officials and experts in Taipei put on a brave face, their anxiety is palpable. It stems from Trump's unpredictable style and apparent preference for short-term deal-making over long-term strategic considerations. \"President Trump is very well-known for his transactional style of policymaking,\" says Szu-chien Hsu, president of the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, a government-run think tank. \"We have this fear that he can be shortsighted.\" Beijing, which hopes to reunify with Taiwan one day, regards Taiwan as a renegade province. The United States, under its \"One China\" policy, acknowledges that Taiwan is part of China and has no official ties with it. Over the past four decades, however, Taiwan has grown to become the U.S.'s 10th-largest trading partner. The U.S. also continues to sell Taiwan advanced weapons. In Trump's desperation for a deal with China on trade or North Korea, Hsu fears the president will accept terms that may be detrimental to Taiwan's security and long-term interests. Trump hinted that he might consider the \"One China\" policy as a bargaining tool, speaking on Fox News Sunday last year after he took a congratulatory call from Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen soon after his election win. \"I fully understand the One China policy,\" he said, \"but I don't know why we have to be bound by a One China policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade.\" The call between the two leaders made headlines around the world. No U.S. leader had spoken to their Taiwanese counterpart since the U.S. switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979. Now, says Hsu, the best thing would be for Taiwan to not come up as a topic of discussion at all. \"On this trip, as long as [Trump] doesn't mention Taiwan or if the Taiwan issue is not mentioned, that's good enough,\" he says. Daniel Russel, a former assistant secretary of East Asian and Pacific Affairs and now a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, says the Taiwanese are \"understandably worried ... and some may fear that if President Trump hasn't mastered the subtleties of cross-strait relations, he could be coaxed into agreeing to something that undermines Taiwan's interests.\" Washington plays a pivotal role in maintaining Taiwan's sovereignty. Though its relations are unofficial, the U.S. helps Taiwan's defensive capability and works to \"discourage any effort to unilaterally change the status quo, and support the peaceful resolution of differences between Taipei and Beijing,\" Russel says. If that commitment were to be taken away or altered, one can start to understand the nervousness of the Taiwanese. Hsiao-Yueh Chang heads Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, which formulates and implements policies relating to China. She's had a relatively quiet year – China suspended talks with Taiwan after Tsai's inauguration as president in May 2016. Tsai's party has been traditionally pro-independence, though she has been very cautious since taking office. \"I don't think the U.S. will use Taiwan as a bargaining chip when talking about North Korea,\" says Chang. But she adds that her group has had a busy past few months, \"reminding, keep reminding the U.S. government not to use Taiwan as a bargaining chip.\" While Trump's unpredictability may be one reason for Taiwan's anxiety, another is Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who, after the recently concluded 19th Party Congress, has emerged as the most powerful and confident Chinese leader in decades. \"Because of Xi's elevation and strong leadership, the pressure continues,\" says Taiwan's Foreign Minister David Tawei Lee. \"For us to remain free and democratic, we need not just U.S. arms sales but also moral support. We need it to allow us some international space.\" China has been successfully denying Taiwan that space. It has frozen out Taiwan from international bodies like the World Health Organization and managed to lean on two more countries this year to formally sever ties; only 20 countries in the world now officially recognize Taiwan. Foreign Minister Lee firmly believes that Taiwan shares a \"special relationship with the U.S.\" and hopes that Trump will tell the Chinese leader \"no coercion, no pushing,\" when it comes to the mainland's dealings with Taiwan. He also hopes that talks resume between China and Taiwan and that people-to-people contacts continue – though Chinese tourism to Taiwa", "Scott Simon, host of Weekend Edition Saturday interviewed the legendary Berry Gordy, founder of Motown, impresario of pop music, and the man who introduced the Jackson Five to the wider world. Gordy mentions an oft-told story but one that many people still probably don't know, that when an assistant brought the Jackson family to him for an audition, he initially wasn't interested because of the headaches associated with a kids' act -- the parents, tutors etc. But once he heard them, he became their biggest booster. There was more of interest in this interview conducted in the wake of the death of Michael Jackson, like whether Gordy saw any evidence of an abusive relationship between the children and their parents and Gordy's thoughts about the superstar's behavior as an adult. SCOTT: I want to raise this very carefully. Before you got to him, did he have an unhappy, tough childhood? GORDY: I had heard that. But I didn't see any signs of it, frankly. I was quite happy and appreciative that they came to us very disciplined from their parents. So I commented and complimented them many times on that. We had a lot of fun with them. We played baseball games every week, the Jacksons versus the Gordys. And I saw no scars of any kind of necessarily mistreatment. And when you say that Michael had no childhood, if he didn't have a kid's life it was because of his determination and his talent and his desire to become the King of Pop and perhaps ending up being the greatest entertainer of our times. Read More >> SCOTT: What do you make of some of his behavior in the later years? GORDY: I think the behavior was kind of weird to me, you know. His behavior was weird. But when you get an artist and a genius, many of the geniuses throughout our whole history were weird and they did weird things because none of us can understand what was on their minds and why they did what they did.", "When firing up the grill, many find themselves pondering which beverages compliment certain foods. Callie Crossley of <em>Divas Uncorked</em> weighs in on her favorite Labor Day wines.", "A plan to build a streetcar route in downtown Fort Lauderdale inched forward last month when the city and county councils voted to approve the project. Jenni Morejon, executive director of the Fort Lauderdale Downtown Development Authority, says the Wave Streetcar will offer advantages over the area&#8217;s existing bus system. &#8220;They have to compliment one another, but definitely in terms of moving people, a large number &#8212; over 150 people can ride on a streetcar,&#8221; Morejon (@jennimorejon) tells Here & Now&#8216;s Jeremy Hobson. &#8220;When you have rails that are installed in the ground, there&#8217;s that long-term certainty that there&#8217;s going to be the public transit infrastructure for many, many years to come.&#8221; Interview Highlights On why a streetcar &#8220;Mainly mobility, No. 1. Streetcars can move a high number of individuals in kind of tight, compact, urban settings. It integrates well into kinda the built fabric, and really downtown Fort Lauderdale, it was on the verge of seeing a lot of new redevelopment. But yet there were some areas that were kind of left behind, but had some major employment generators. And so the thought was that a streetcar could connect these emerging districts and really set the course for a new mode of public transit in a region that doesn&#8217;t really see much but for buses.&#8221; On the cost of adding a streetcar &#8220;The capital cost of any kind of rail system is always going to be more expensive than bus systems. However, over the long term, the development that happens along these routes really help provide revenue streams that help support the long-term [operations and maintenance]. So there&#8217;s that economic development benefit, but also, the longevity of a rail system. You&#8217;re replacing the vehicles at much less frequencies than rubber-tire systems like buses.&#8221; On why the project has taken so long to get going &#8220;Oh, my gosh. We asked that question every day. Time is the enemy on big projects. Almost 70 percent of the project funding came from either the state government or the federal government. So there were a series of two major federal grants that were awarded here for The Wave streetcar, and those grants from the Federal Transit Administration require detailed planning and studies to be done, alternatives analysis, environmental assessments, and those take time. &#8220;And then another big aspect is, in South Florida &#8212; even though we have a significant population, we&#8217;re a significant tourist destination, there&#8217;s density and everything &#8212; there&#8217;s really not a collective group that wakes up every day implementing these kind of transit systems. So it took a major partnership. The DDA, my agency, we really conceived this idea, but then we brought in Broward County, who has committed to be the owner and operator. It is the city of Fort Lauderdale&#8217;s, in terms of the downtown location as a start. So they&#8217;re a financial contributor and a partner in this. And then most recently, the Florida Department of Transportation has taken over as project manager. So in some regards, having all of these partners has really helped make sure that this project gets going. But at the same time, when you have so many different agencies involved, it takes a series of steps and coordinated efforts, and that can sometimes drag out the time.&#8221; On those critical of the streetcar running in streets alongside traffic, its use of overhead wires and cost &#8220;In terms of the cost, as we mentioned, there&#8217;s about 70 percent of the project funding that is not coming from the local taxpayers, the local governments. And we&#8217;re really not going to see that return on investment for any other type of transit system. And as we all know, technology&#8217;s evolving at such a rapid pace, we definitely anticipate that as this system gets built, and then the county has plans to build almost 30 miles of light rail over the next 20 years, that the potential and likelihood that the wires will come down and this will be, you know, a fully off-wire system, will be there. But you have to start somewhere, and you have to start. And that&#8217;s really our biggest push at this point.&#8221; On traffic emerging as a larger concern among Florida residents &#8220;You know I think what happens is, when the pace of change happens so dramatically and you get used to, what used to be a 10-minute ride now becoming 15 minutes, or a 30-minute commute becoming 45 minutes, it does have kind of a real, tangible sense of change to your lifestyle. We&#8217;ve seen the dramatic growth in Miami, downtown Fort Lauderdale and West Palm [Beach], really over just the past 10 to 15 years. And so I think again that pace of change is perhaps what is challenging a lot of folks that may have come here, may have even grown up, lived here, made their lives here, but aren&#8217;t necessarily anticipating how growth is occurring.&#82", "The daily lowdown on books, publishing, and the occasional author behaving badly. Apple and the Department of Justice wrapped up closing arguments Thursday in their three-week ebook price-fixing trial before U.S. District Judge Denise Cote. Apple attorney Orin Snyder said the company did not conspire with a single publisher to fix prices in the e-books industry,\" adding that if Apple is found guilty, \"that precedent will send shudders through the business community\" as companies look for new markets. Justice Department attorney Mark Ryan countered that Apple was in charge of \"an old-fashioned, straightforward price-fixing agreement\" with five major publishing houses. The government has since settled with those publishers. Cote, who had said before the trial that she thought the DOJ would be able to prove its case, hinted her views have changed, saying Wednesday that \"the issues have somewhat shifted during the course of the trial.\" She is expected to rule in the civil antitrust case later this year. For The Atlantic, essayist Joseph Epstein argues that Kafka is overrated: \"Kafka found [life] unbearably complicated, altogether daunting, and for the most part joyless, and so described it in his fiction. This is not, let us agree, the best outlook for a great writer. Great writers are impressed by the mysteries of life; poor Franz Kafka was crushed by them.\" New York Magazine's Vulture ranks the 185 Choose Your Own Adventure books in order \"from most to least awesome-sounding.\" The top slot goes to Prisoner of the Ant People (super awesome), and the place of shame goes to The First Olympics. (U.N. Adventure was also a contender.) Audrea Lim considers Tao Lin's Taipei within the wider history of drug literature: \"If altered states were once, as the old Aldous Huxley chestnut has it, \"doors of perception,\" then sometime between Huxley's era and the one depicted in Taipei, those doors seem to have closed.\" Publishers Weekly is putting out its first ebook, an account of the Apple price-fixing case titled The Battle of $9.99: How Apple, Amazon and the \"Big Six\" Publishers Changed the E-Book Business Overnight, written by PW senior editor Andrew Albanese. An Oklahoma textbook salesman at John Wiley & Sons stole $2.8 million in textbooks, according to federal authorities. Christopher J. Brock allegedly sent thousands of textbooks as samples to fake professors at addresses under his control, and then resold them. According to The Jersey Journal, he used the money to buy, among other things, \"high-end home furnishings.\"", "President Trump&#8217;s recent statement that President Andrew Jackson could have prevented the Civil War sent people back to their history books. It was the latest in a string of comments that have caused historians and others to question Trump&#8217;s knowledge about America&#8217;s past. Here & Now&#8216;s Jeremy Hobson asks historian Julian Zelizer (@julianzelizer) of Princeton University&#8217;s Woodrow Wilson School how much presidents&#8217; knowledge of history matters. Interview Highlights On President Trump&#8217;s comments about Andrew Jackson and the Civil War &#8220;I think a lot of historians didn&#8217;t agree with what he said, both from the notion that he necessarily had a big heart, but more importantly, that he would have been able or willing to end or prevent the Civil War from happening. It obviously happens after his death. And I think most historians agree with the overall power of the problem of slavery in dividing this nation.&#8221; On what he thinks was behind Trump&#8217;s comments &#8220;Some of it might be that he doesn&#8217;t understand it. Some of it might be he heard bits and pieces about discussions of President Jackson, and then repeated them out of context. Part of it is, he often turns to Andrew Jackson, not to make a point about history but to make a symbolic political point today, using him as a kind of symbol of conservative populism that he himself wants to champion, and also as a symbol of a tough leader. In [Trump&#8217;s] account of the Civil War, a president who is just tough enough and who knew how to make things happen could end this horrific event that happened in our nation&#8217;s history. And he wants to make the argument I think that he could do the same kind of thing, or the same kind of magic, that he imagines Andrew Jackson would have been able to do.&#8221; Array On Jackson&#8217;s presidential legacy &#8220;Well certainly, with many issues like the treatment of Native Americans, he doesn&#8217;t rank very well, and many people have a very different vision of Andrew Jackson &#8212; not just the populist, but someone who was quite repressive. And this is a part, obviously, of Jackson &#8212; as well as his slaveholding past &#8212; that is something very troubling to historians, as is the idea that the Civil War shouldn&#8217;t have happened necessarily, meaning in the end&#8230; one historian said if you view this as a war of liberation that ends this horrendous institution that was part of this country, then the claims by President Trump are even more troubling.&#8221; On how important presidents&#8217; knowledge of history is &#8220;Well, it&#8217;s important, obviously you don&#8217;t want presidents frequently making big mistakes about the kinds of issues that we learn about in school. I think it&#8217;s also fair to say that presidents will make mistakes, and they&#8217;ll make statements that often are inaccurate or incorrect. And we shouldn&#8217;t argue this is necessarily disastrous. So I think a lot of this is the context of the person saying it. If a president seems to have a sense of this country and what made this country, and makes one mistake, I don&#8217;t think everyone will necessarily jump on them. As opposed to a president who doesn&#8217;t seem to have much deep interest in those issues. Then these mistakes are magnified.&#8221; On previous occasions when presidents have gotten history wrong &#8220;There were a lot of famous quotations from Ronald Reagan, who would sometimes mix things up about World War II, for example, that he had seen in films, and talk about them as if they happened in his own life. Gerald Ford made one of the famous gaffes in presidential debates in 1976 against Jimmy Carter, when he said there&#8217;s no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. He meant to say something different, but it sounded like he didn&#8217;t really understand the history of the Cold War, and that was very costly politically.&#8221;", "Panama has announced that it is cutting ties with Taiwan and instead establishing relations with China. The shift is a major win for China as it seeks to isolate Taiwan, which now has diplomatic relations with just 20 countries. China and Panama announced the move in a joint statement, saying it was in the \"interest and wishes of both peoples.\" The two countries agreed to exchange ambassadors. \"The Government of the Republic of Panama recognizes that there is only one China in the world, the Government of the People's Republic of China is the only legitimate government representing all of China, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of the Chinese territory,\" the statement reads. \"Eleven of the 20 countries left that recognize Taiwan are in Latin America and the Caribbean,\" NPR's Carrie Kahn reported. Of the countries that still have ties, Panama has the largest economy. The Panama Canal is a crucial waterway for trade. NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports from Beijing that Panama \"is emerging as a hub for China to ship its goods to South America, and Beijing has invested millions of dollars in infrastructure around the Panama Canal.\" China considers Taiwan a breakaway territory, and relations between Beijing and Taipei have recently grown more tense. \"Beijing does not trust Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen, whose party has traditionally taken a pro-independence stance,\" Anthony says, \"so it has used investment and other incentives to lure away Taiwan's diplomatic partners.\" Taiwan is slamming the shift in ties. Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lee called it \"most unfriendly\" and said that Panama had been deceitful \"until the last moment,\" according to the Taipei Times. Taiwan \"strongly protests and condemns Beijing for luring Panama to switch diplomatic ties, squeezing Taiwan's space in the international community and hurting Taiwanese feelings,\" Lee said. Other countries in the region with ties to Taiwan have issued little response. Guatemala declined to comment, Reuters reported. An official from Honduras, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the news service that the country intended to maintain ties. Ross Feingold, a senior adviser at D.C. International Advisory, tells The New York Times that Panama was one of Taiwan's most important allies – and now, \"it is very possible that the remaining countries will switch.\" These are the countries that Taiwan still has diplomatic relations with, according to its Ministry of Foreign Affairs: East Asia and Pacific: Kiribati, Nauru, Solomon Islands, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Republic of Palau, Tuvalu. Africa: Burkina Faso, Kingdom of Swaziland Europe: Vatican Latin America and Caribbean: Belize, El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, the Dominican Republic, the Republic of Guatemala, the Republic of Honduras, the Republic of Paraguay, Saint Lucia", "&#8220;An American treasure&#8221;: That&#8217;s how one woman described &#8220;Queer Eye&#8221; star Jonathan Van Ness (@jvn) to Here & Now&#8216;s Robin Young. Van Ness is one of five guys on the mega-hit Netflix series &#8220;Queer Eye,&#8221; which begins its new season on Friday. But that&#8217;s not all he does — he&#8217;s also a stand-up comedian, a hit podcaster, a darling of the talk show circuit, a hair expert, a figure skater and a YouTube star. So, how did Van Ness get to where he is today? He acknowledges his success is “such a dream,” but owes his stardom to just being himself. “I think that there has been such a price put on fitting in,” he tells host Robin Young at his podcast taping at the Boston Museum of Science last week. “And I think that people just want to see people that are real, be real and be rewarded for just having the courage to be themselves and not conform into this idea of what they think they&#8217;re supposed to look like to become successful.” And despite coming from a place that “didn’t allow” him to be himself, Van Ness says he has been able to maintain and consistently radiate self-confidence — even during the awkward stages of middle school. Jimmy Kimmel recently found video footage of a sixth grade Van Ness growing up in Quincy, Ill., performing a figure skating routine on a school stage —  with no ice. He couldn’t skate, but that didn’t hold him back. Sitting next to Kimmel, Van Ness was thrilled to see the throwback tape. Watch on YouTube. “I have always been this way,” Van Ness tells Young, referring to the video. Laugh if you want, but 31-year-old Van Ness now has a 10-night stand up comedy tour, centering on his Olympic skating ambitions, even getting a lesson from two-time Olympic medalist and five-time World champion figure skater, Michelle Kwan. Watch on YouTube. Although Van Ness says he has always been “a little obsessed” with figure skating, he didn’t start the sport earlier on in life because he was “running a business and raising two cats as a single father and, like, running a small salon in L.A.” “So, like, when was I going to have the time to figure skate?” he asks. Now, just a quick look at his Instagram shows he’s been putting in time on the ice, perfecting his jumps, scratch spins and spirals, and just last week, Van Ness announced he’s joining cast of Netflix’s figure skating drama, “Spinning Out,” starring January Jones. Beyond the glitz and glamour of his comedy tour and “Queer Eye,” Van Ness hosts his own podcast, “Getting Curious,” that dives into subjects like the U.S. trade deficit, toxic stress, special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and marginalization. He says he owes his strong sense of curiosity to his grandmother and his decade in the hair salon business — chatting up and connecting with all his clients — for piquing his curiosity. “After doing hair for five, six days a week from the time I was 18 to 30, that just really opened my eyes to so many things that I never knew,” Van Ness says. He says starting his podcast came from the desire to “nurture” his curiosity. “For instance, I did this woman&#8217;s hair who was [an] evolutionary biologist. She was like, ‘I gotta go.’ [And] I was like, ‘I need to know about the third mass extinction, like you got to talk to me about this,’ ” he says. “I&#8217;m like, ‘There was five?’ like [and] she&#8217;s like, ‘Well, you know, some people argue six.’ So I had her on in, like, the first season.” He says his podcast also opened the doors to show people that “you can be flamboyant, you can be into wearing heels and [dressing] as a gay man, but you can also ask questions.” Van Ness — who sometimes refers to himself, his Netflix show and inanimate objects as “she” — says gender roles keep people in defined boxes and have been “defined in ways that hasn’t necessarily been healthy for me in my life. “I don&#8217;t think a lot of men are bad, but toxic masculinity is a big problem that is caused by, like, pressures that men face and those have never really worked for me,” Van Ness says. “What has worked for me is like strong women. Like my grandma was the first thing I naturally started talking about like today. I think when I really called something ‘she,’ it&#8217;s like if I really think of something affectionately, I want to call it ‘she.’ ” His podcast essentially wraps him, his curiosity, and his defiance of gender roles all in one. “I think it&#8217;s just fun to be able to show that there&#8217;s, like, more sides to me than like what might meet your eye initially,” he says. Before Van Ness left his conversation with Robin Young to hit the Museum of Science stage to speak in front of the hundreds of fans who lined up for hours in the cold to see him, he gave her a very “Van Ness” compliment: “I love your hair. I love the shape of your hair. It’s very pretty.” &nbsp; &nbsp; Robin Young produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Todd Mundt. Serena McMahon adapte", "--NPR's Lynn Neary reports that religion has been a motivating force for a number of people in politics. Despite all the press that the religious right has gotten in recent years, many people whose politics are considered to be left of center also find that religion compliments their cause.", "Scientists have long known that there are ebbs and flows in the exchange of CO2 between plants and the air. In the summer, there&#8217;s a net uptake of carbon dioxide; in the winter stalks and roots break down and send CO2 in the air. Recently, scientists have found that farming accounts for a 25 percent increase in carbon activity, much of it from the the United State&#8217;s biggest crop &#8211; corn. But as, Harvest Public Media reporter Grant Gerlock explains, the jump in carbon activity doesn&#8217;t necessarily mean that farming is accelerating climate change. \nClick here to read Gerlock&#8217;s full report.\n\nReporter\n\n\nGrant Gerlock, reporter for Harvest Public Media, a member of the Here & Now Contributors Network. He tweets @ggerlock.", "The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Michael Cohen, President Trump&#8217;s former lawyer, paid an IT firm to rig online polls in his boss&#8217; favor ahead of the 2016 election. John Gauger, the owner of RedFinch Solutions LLC, reportedly showed up at Trump Tower in 2015 to collect $50,000 for the work. Cohen reportedly gave Gauger, who is also the chief information officer at Liberty University in Virginia, a blue Walmart bag containing between $12,000 and $13,000, and a boxing glove that Cohen said belonged to a Brazilian mixed martial arts fighter. Cohen received a $50,000 reimbursement from Trump&#8217;s personal account, but he denies paying Gauger the cash. Gauger says Cohen never paid him the remaining $38,000 that he was promised. Cohen tweeted Thursday that his actions were at the direction of Trump. Michael Rothfeld, one of the authors of The Wall Street Journal report, tells Here & Now&#8217;s Robin Young that Gauger was hired to write a script that would vote for Trump many times in two online polls: the first was a January 2014 CNBC poll of influential business leaders, and the second was a poll of the presidential field conducted by the Drudge Report in February 2015. Rothfeld says the idea was to boost Trump&#8217;s public profile ahead of his presidential run, but &#8220;unfortunately for Cohen and Trump, Gauger wasn&#8217;t able to do it, and Trump did not win either of the polls.&#8221; &#8220;I don&#8217;t think this is a traditional method of campaigning,&#8221; Rothfeld says of hiring someone to rig online polls. &#8220;I&#8217;ve been covering politics a long time, and that&#8217;s not the kind of thing that I ever have heard of anybody doing.&#8221; During the presidential campaign, Cohen also hired Gauger to create a Twitter account called @WomenForCohen, which described the lawyer as a sex symbol. In response to Thursday&#8217;s report, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said the fact that Cohen did not pay Gauger the entire $50,000 and still asked for the full reimbursement shows that he is &#8220;completely untrustworthy.&#8221; &#8220;Rudy Giuliani is trying to undercut his credibility by saying, &#8216;Hey, this guy is dishonest. He charged us the $50,000, but he really only spent [$12,000] or [$13,000],&#8221; Rothfeld says. &#8221; &#8216;So you really can&#8217;t trust anything that he says.&#8217; &#8221; The report raises questions about the legality and ethics of manipulating polls and whether or not Trump violated campaign finance law by reimbursing Cohen for the money he paid. Is It Illegal To Rig Online Polls? &#8220;It certainly isn&#8217;t ethical,&#8221; Rothfeld says. &#8220;I&#8217;m not sure that there&#8217;s any anything illegal about that because these are private polls, and people try to manipulate things with social media all the time and using the web. So this kind of falls into that category of online manipulation that isn&#8217;t necessarily great, but it&#8217;s not necessarily a crime either.&#8221; Is The Payment A Violation Of Campaign Finance Law? &#8220;The prosecutors looked at this and they did not charge Michael Cohen in connection with it,&#8221; Rothfeld says. &#8220;But if it were a campaign contribution and Cohen had spent this money, then it would have had to be reported in some fashion depending on the facts, either as an independent expenditure or as an in-kind campaign contribution. But I mean, it&#8217;s unclear that it could be found to be campaign-related necessarily because it preceded the campaign. It started in January 2014 and ended in February 2015. It was definitely related to Trump&#8217;s profile ahead of the campaign, but legally we don&#8217;t know whether it would be a crime for sure.&#8221; Are Lawmakers Expected To Ask Cohen About This During His Testimony? &#8220;I think the most of it will probably have to do with the campaign finance violations involving the women that Cohen either paid or helped to arrange payment to for Trump, which was Stormy Daniels, the porn actress, and Karen McDougal, the former Playboy model, both of whom were paid during the campaign for their stories of alleged encounter sexual encounters with Trump,&#8221; Rothfeld says. &#8220;I think the the campaign finance involving the hush money will probably be the main issue, and that&#8217;s something that some lawmakers have said it could be an impeachable offense if the president was involved in illegal campaign finance conspiracy during the election.&#8221; Jill Ryan produced this interview and edited it for broadcast with Todd Mundt.", "This Week's Playlist BMB Spacekid, \"Cuba\" Blonde, \"I Loved You (Braxton Remix)\" Fairchild, \"I Just Want You\" Pomo X Kaytranada, \"Cherry Funk\" Les Sins, \"Why (feat. Nate Salman)\" (Company) Dante Klein, \"Ertesuppe\" (Spinnin Deep) Beacon, \"Only Us\" (Ghostly International) Klo., \"Under Lie\" Kele Okereke, \"Doubt (Remix)\" (Lilac) Say Lou Lou X Lindstrom, \"Games For Girls (The Penelopes Remix)\" (Columbia) Audio District, \"Reach For The Sky (Lifelike Remix)\" (Computer Science) Digitalism, \"Wolves (feat. Youngblood Hawke)\" ([PIAS] America) Cashmere Cat, \"Wedding Bells\" (LuckyMe) The 2 Bears, \"Angel (Touch Me)\" (Southern Fried) Hot Chip, \"Night & Day\" (Astralwerks) Human Life, \"El Diablo (feat. Anabel Englund)\" (Win) Jody Wisternoff, \"Paramour\" (Anjunadeep) Flight Facilities, \"Heart Attack\" (Glassnote) Cut Snake, \"Face Down\" (Three Six Zero/Warner Bros.) Spada, \"Feels Like Home (feat. Hosie Neal) (Bakermat Remix)\" Stefan Obermaier, \"Magolie\" Mory Kante, \"Yeke Yeke (Hardfloor Remix)\" (Barclay) Tokimonsta, \"Drive (feat. Arama)\" (Young Art) Niia, \"Body\" (Something Local) Billion, \"Special (Nu:Tone Remix)\" Deadmau5, \"Pets\" (Astralwerks)", "Candidates campaigned down to the wire Friday ahead of a hotly contested presidential election in Taiwan. China considers both Taiwan and Tibet part of its territory, and the recent unrest in Tibet may have helped the underdog in Taiwan's election. Saturday's election also includes a referendum that both Washington and Beijing consider a dangerous move toward formal independence for the island. This will be only Taiwan's fourth presidential election, but the island has quickly evolved from a one-party dictatorship into a genuine two-party system. In the current race, Frank Hsieh of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP, is facing off against the opposition Nationalist Party's Ma Ying-jeou. Until recently, the race was widely considered Ma's to lose. The Harvard-trained mayor of Taipei has pledged to boost Taiwan's lackluster economy by increasing trade links with mainland China. He also has offered to sign a peace agreement with Beijing, which his opponents see as dangerous. \"The Tibetans signed a peace agreement with China in 1951 and just eight years later, the place was awash in blood after a failed Tibetan uprising,\" says Hsieh's running mate, Su Tseng-chang. Ma denied at a press conference that the Tibet issue had hurt his chances. But he has taken a somewhat tougher line on China in recent days, saying that Taiwan's future is solely up to Taiwan's people to decide. Ma also has focused on the failings of outgoing President Chen Shui-bian, who served two terms and was the first opposition leader ever elected president of Taiwan. Zhang Huanquan, a businessman who supports Ma, says that eight years of Chen and the DPP is enough. \"Political parties should trade off stints in power. There should be competition. If you have one party in power for a long time, there are bound to be abuses,\" Zhang says. Ma, the Nationalist candidate, says democracy has become a core Taiwanese value. \"Taiwan's democracy may not be fully mature,\" he says, \"but what we Taiwanese are proud of is that it is the only place where Chinese people have built a relatively complete democracy. This is unprecedented in the Chinese people's 5,000 years of history.\" The ruling DPP has tied a referendum to Saturday's vote that proposes Taiwan join the United Nations as a nation independent from China. It is not likely to pass, but both Beijing and Washington see it as a dangerous provocation. From Beijing's perspective, the riots in Tibet and the referendum in Taiwan are both brazen affronts to its overriding goal of national unity. But to many people in Taiwan, Tibet is a reminder that what's at stake in Saturday's election is the long-term survival of the island's fledgling democracy. NOAH ADAMS, host: Taiwan is holding presidential elections tomorrow, and candidates campaign down to the wire. China considers both Taiwan and Tibet to be part of its territory. The recent unrest in Tibet may have helped the underdog in Taiwan's election. Tomorrow's voting there includes a referendum, and both Washington and Beijing consider it a dangerous move toward formal independence. NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports from Taipei. (Soundbite of cheer) ANTHONY KUHN: Turnaround victory, turnaround victory. The crowds roared it in a ruckus rally for Frank Hsieh, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party candidate. Hsieh's slammed his rival, the opposition Nationalist Party candidate, Ma Ying-jeou for having a U.S. residence permit or green card. Mr. FRANK HSIEH (Presidential Candidate, Democrat Progressive Party): (Chinese spoken) KUHN: My wife and daughter and I have no green cards, he said. Taiwan is our choice. We'll stick with Taiwan even if it becomes a second Tibet. Ma's says his green card is expired. Until recently, the race was widely considered his to lose. The Harvard-trained mayor of Taipei has pledged to boost Taiwan's lackluster economy by increasing trade links with the mainland. He has also offered to sign a peace agreement with mainland China, his opponents see this as dangerous. Mr. SU TSENG-CHANG (Hsieh's Running Mate): (Chinese spoken) KUHN: The Tibetans, pointed out Su Tseng-chang, Hsieh's running mate, signed a peace agreement with China in 1951. And just eight years later, the place was awash in blood after a failed Tibetan uprising. Ma Ying-jeou denied at a press conference that the Tibet issue had hurt his chances. Mr. MA YING JEOU (Presidential Candidate, Nationalist Party): So far, we haven't found any significant change resulting from the Tibet incident as regards our campaign so far. KUHN: Ma has taken a somewhat tougher line on China in recent days, saying that Taiwan's future is solely up to Taiwan's people to decide. He's also focused on the failings of outgoing President Chen Shui-bian. Zhang Huanquan is a businessman who supports Ma. He says that eight years of Chen and the DPP is enough. Mr. ZHANG HUANQUAN (Businessman): (Through translator) Political parties should trade off stints in power. There should b", "This Week's Playlist Roosevelt, \"Hold On\" (Greco Roman) ODESZA, \"All We Need [feat. Shy Girls] [Robert Delong Remix]\" (Counter) Jamie xx, \"I Know There's Gonna Be (Good Times) [feat. Young Thug & Popcaan]\" (Young Turks) De La Soul, \"A Roller Skating Jam Named 'Saturdays'\" (Tommy Boy) Purple Disco Machine, \"Magic\" (Exploited) Tee Mango, \"Make Me Wait\" (Million Hands) LO'99, \"My Mind\" The Chemical Brothers, \"Go [feat. Q-Tip] [Edge Of Control Dub]\" (Astralwerks) Eyes, \"Cosmic Love [Higher Dream Dub]\" (Atlantic Jaxx) Flume, \"Some Minds\" (Mom + Pop) Underworld, \"Dark & Long (Dark Train)\" (JBO/V2) Kauf, \"Relocate [Psychemagik Remix]\" (Cutters) Jungle, \"Accelerate\" (XL) Disclosure, \"Holding On [feat. Gregory Porter]\" (Capitol) Tee Mango, \"Leave You\" (Million Hands) Eelke Kleijn, \"In My Head\" (Spinnin' Deep) Jamie xx, \"Sleep Sound\" (Young Turks) Mansions On The Moon, \"The Truth [Eric Sharp & Tenova Remix]\" Lifelike & Kris Menace, \"Ready 4 Love\" (Computer Science) Todd Terje, \"Strandbar\" (Olsen) Hot Chip, \"Cry For You\" (Domino) Penguin Prison, \"Show Me The Way\" (Downtown) Wayward, \"I Can't Dance\" (Black Butter) Gorgon City, \"Imagination [Weiss Remix]\" (Black Butter/Virgin) DJ Dan & Mike Balance, \"Ready To Ride\" Tame Impala, \"Let It Happen\" (Modular/Interscope)", "Sen. John Kerry celebrates his near-sweep of the 10 presidential contests Tuesday, with some 1,100 delegates at stake. Kerry thanked his supporters -- as well as his rival, Sen. John Edwards. Edwards, who earlier complimented Kerry on his victory, will reportedly drop out of the race Wednesday. Hear Kerry, NPR's Melissa Block and NPR's Scott Horsley.", "Take a look at this photo. It's a handsome group portrait of, according to the Library of Congress, President Abraham Lincoln, flanked by Adm. David G. Farragut and Gens. William T. Sherman, George Henry Thomas, George Gordon Meade, Ulysses S. Grant, Joseph Hooker, Philip Henry Sheridan and Winfield Scott Hancock. The men look healthy, distinguished, prosperous. There are a couple of hitches, however. First of all, the photo is dated 1884 by the library. Lincoln had been dead for 19 years, and several of the others were gone as well. So it's a made-up montage, a concocted composite. Second, it was an advertisement. On the card are the words: \"With compliments\" signed by Travelers Life and Accident Insurance Co., according to the library's notes. The insurance company, based in Hartford, Conn., produced a similar photo card of Confederate generals, Civil War Talk points out. Both pictures were conjured up in the studio of photographer William Notman. With Compliments We contacted Travelers to ask about the ads. Mary Beth Davidson, director of records and information management, told us that the two doctored photographs — one of Northern commanders and one of Southern commanders — were created circa 1883 \"for advertising purposes and given to our agents for display or distribution to customers.\" The photo-artist \"used individual photographs of the Confederate commanders and created a composite picture of them together,\" she says. \"The figures were cut from the print and pasted on a painted background. This process would be similar to using software like Photoshop in today's terms to place images together in one photo.\" The idea of using the pictures as advertising came from Maj. Edward Preston, the Travelers superintendent of agencies, Davidson says. \"The first copy of the 'Confederate Commanders' was delivered to Jefferson Davis by the Travelers representative in Montgomery, Ala. Copies also were sent to all the living generals in both pictures.\" She adds that the success of the ad campaign prompted more composites, including \"Famous American Authors,\" \"Eminent Women\" and \"Famous Editors.\" 'Trompe L'oeil' The \"Union Commanders\" photo came to our attention after we posted a story recently about another montage, Ulysses S. Grant at City Point, in the Library of Congress archives. We heard from Beverly W. Brannan, curator of photography at the library's Prints and Photographs Division. As for Civil War photographers, she says, \"they may not have considered staging an image as 'trick' photography. They were not photojournalists or documentarians in the sense we now consider those terms. They may have seen themselves as artists, seeking to convey a message or looking to provide the 'best' image.\" The library receives so many questions about the Grant photo, Brannan says, staffers have created a stock answer. But what about other montages that might fool some folks into thinking they were actual, real-time, on-the-spot shots? She mentioned a few composites in the library's vaults — including the \"Union Commanders\" advertisement. One can't help but wonder about the thinking behind such ads. What did Civil War leaders have to do with buying or selling insurance? Was it assurance by association, like the Eli Manning Citizen Watch TV spot that shows the New York Giants quarterback NOT wearing a timepiece? Was it a warning that the world can be a warlike place? Or was it simply a reminder that things are not always as they appear to be? Follow me @NPRHistoryDept; lead me by writing [email protected]" ]

[ "You can update the user using PowerShell without having to hit the database. You can also use some server side C# code. Personally, I prefer to use PowerShell because it's relatively quick and painless.\n\nAdd-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell\n$site = Get-SPSite http://example.com\n$web = $site.RootWeb\n$user = $web.SiteUsers.GetByEmail(\"[email protected]\")\n$user.Email = \"[email protected]\"\n$user.Update()\n\n\nAs a general rule of thumb, changes to SharePoint should be done though the API's and not at a direct database level. In this case, a change to the UserInfo table would probably be safe, but I would still advise against it as an error could lock people out of the site collections.\n\nQuick aside: When you deleted the user, you didn't actually remove the user from SharePoint. There is still a record in the UserInfo table that contains the misspelled address that is associated with the file (hence the wrong email displayed). The new user account that you created is different than that user with the incorrect email address." ]

[ "Não sei se entendi bem mas se o que você quer é somente inserir o email é assim:\n\n if (!$this-&gt;db_connection-&gt;connect_errno) {\n\n $user_email = $this-&gt;db_connection-&gt;real_escape_string(strip_tags($_POST['user_email'], ENT_QUOTES));\n $user_password = $_POST['user_password_new'];\n\n $sql = \"SELECT * FROM users WHERE user_pass = '\" . $user_password . \"';\";\n $query_check_user_password = $this-&gt;db_connection-&gt;query($sql);\n\n if ($query_check_user_password-&gt;num_rows == 1) {\n // check if user or email address already exists\n $sql = \"SELECT * FROM users WHERE user_email = '\" . $user_email . \"';\";\n $query_check_user_name = $this-&gt;db_connection-&gt;query($sql);\n\n if ($query_check_user_name-&gt;num_rows == 1) {\n $this-&gt;errors[] = \"Sorry, that email address is already taken.\";\n } else {\n // write new user's data into database\n $sql = \"UPDATE users SET user_email = '\". $user_email . \"' WHERE user_pass = '\". $user_password .\"';\";\n $query_new_user_insert = $this-&gt;db_connection-&gt;query($sql);\n\n // if user has been added successfully\n if ($query_new_user_insert) {\n $this-&gt;messages[] = \"Your account has been created successfully. You can now log in.\";\n } else {\n $this-&gt;errors[] = \"Sorry, your registration failed. Please go back and try again.\";\n }\n }\n }else {\n $this-&gt;errors[] = \"Sorry, that password is invalid.\";\n }\n}", "Hi @Holidaymaine:\n\nHere's the query you are looking for:\n\n&lt;?php\n\ninclude( '../wp-load.php' );\n\n$sql =&lt;&lt;&lt;SQL\nSELECT DISTINCT\n u.user_email AS user_email,\n um.meta_value AS user_lastname\nFROM\n {$wpdb-&gt;users} AS u\n LEFT JOIN {$wpdb-&gt;usermeta} AS um ON u.ID = um.user_id\n LEFT JOIN {$wpdb-&gt;posts} AS p ON u.ID = p.post_author\n LEFT JOIN {$wpdb-&gt;term_relationships} AS tr ON p.ID = tr.object_id\n LEFT JOIN {$wpdb-&gt;term_taxonomy} AS tt ON tr.term_taxonomy_id = tt.term_taxonomy_id\n LEFT JOIN {$wpdb-&gt;terms} AS t ON tt.term_id = t.term_id\nWHERE 1=1\n AND u.user_status = '0'\n AND um.meta_key = 'last_name'\n AND um.meta_value = '%s'\n AND t.slug = '%s'\nSQL;\n $sql = $wpdb-&gt;prepare( $sql, 'Smith', 'baseball' );\n $usersemails = $wpdb-&gt;get_results( $sql );\n header( 'Content-type:text/plain' );\n print_r( $usersemails );", "To clarify, the following activity on MailChimp is communicated immediately (within several seconds) via WebHook (this does not happen during the push sync):\n\n\nAny users that unsubscribe themselves in MailChimp will have the Do not email flag set in their CiviCRM Communication Preferences\nIf a contact is removed from a group in MailChimp, then the contact is also removed from the corresponding group in CiviCRM\nA new contact who subscribes directly via MailChimp will be added to CiviCRM as a contact within the corresponding mailing list group(s) that they subscribed to\nChanges to contact names in MailChimp will be updated in the corresponding contact record in CiviCRM\n\n\nIf you have completed webhook the steps listed in the documentation, make sure you resubscribe yourself directly on MailChimp first, then:\n\n\nVerify whether the \"Mailchimp: Allow Webhook Posts\" permission has been toggled for the Anonymous User role:\n\n\n\n \n Navigate to Administer > Users and Permissions > Permissions (Access Control)\n Click on the \"[CMS Name] Access Control\" hyperlink (e.g. \"Drupal Access Control\")\n Use CTRL+F to find \"Webhook\" > toggle the permission for the Anonymous user role if it is not toggled\n Click the Save button\n \n\n\n\nConfirm MailChimp Group Settings:\n\n\n \n If using the Membership Sync, toggle the option to \"Ensure list's webhook settings are correct at MailChimp when saved\" \n If using the Interest Sync, toggle the option of \"Subscribers are able to update this grouping using MailChimp\" \n \n\n\n\nIf you made any changes to the above settings, test again by removing yourself from a group and/or unsubscribe yourself directly from MailChimp, then navigate to your contact record in CiviCRM (or refresh after a couple of seconds if you are already there):\n\n\nIf you removed yourself from a group, then click on your Groups tab to see that you were removed by API from the corresponding group in Civi\nIf you unsubscribed yourself entirely, then the DO NOT EMAIL flag should be toggled on your contact record\n\n\nHope this helps!", "Tente isso, se não funcionar, pelo menos você saberá de onde vem o erro. Depois substitua echo $conn-&gt;error; por echo \"Erro ao salvar&lt;br&gt;\".\n\n&lt;?php\n\n $nome = $_POST['Nome'];\n $endereco = $_POST['Endereço'];\n $email = $_POST['Email'];\n\n $server = 'localhost';\n $user = 'Saulllofelipe';\n $pass = 'Shika9573';\n $db = 'cvdd';\n\n $conn = mysqli_connect($server, $user, $pass, $db);\n\n if (!$conn){\n echo \"Erro&lt;br&gt;\";\n\n\n }else{\n echo \"Conectado com sucesso&lt;br&gt;\";\n } \n\n $sql = \"INSERT INTO alunos(Nome, Endereço, Email) VALUES ('$nome', '$endereco', '$email')\";\n\n\n if($conn-&gt;query($sql)){\n echo \"Seja bem vindo $nome&lt;br&gt;\";\n }else{\n echo $conn-&gt;error;\n}\n?&gt;", "You don't need triggers or PL/pgSQL at all.\nYou don't even need DEFERRABLE constraints.\nAnd you don't need to store any information redundantly.\n\nInclude the ID of the active email in the users table, resulting in mutual references. One might think we need a DEFERRABLE constraint to solve the chicken-and-egg problem of inserting a user and his active email, but using data-modifying CTEs we don't even need that.\n\nThis enforces exactly one active email per user at all times:\n\nCREATE TABLE users (\n user_id serial PRIMARY KEY\n, username text NOT NULL\n, email_id int NOT NULL -- FK to active email, constraint added below\n);\n\nCREATE TABLE email (\n email_id serial PRIMARY KEY\n, user_id int NOT NULL REFERENCES users ON DELETE CASCADE ON UPDATE CASCADE \n, email text NOT NULL\n, CONSTRAINT email_fk_uni UNIQUE(user_id, email_id) -- for FK constraint below\n);\n\nALTER TABLE users ADD CONSTRAINT active_email_fkey\nFOREIGN KEY (user_id, email_id) REFERENCES email(user_id, email_id);\n\n\nRemove the NOT NULL constraint from users.email_id to make it \"at most one active email\". (You can still store multiple emails per user, but none of them is \"active\".)\n\nYou can make active_email_fkey DEFERRABLE to allow more leeway (insert user and email in separate commands of the same transaction), but that's not necessary.\n\nI put user_id first in the UNIQUE constraint email_fk_uni to optimize index coverage. Details:\n\n\nIs a composite index also good for queries on the first field?\n\n\nOptional view:\n\nCREATE VIEW user_with_active_email AS\nSELECT * FROM users JOIN email USING (user_id, email_id);\n\n\nHere's how you insert new users with an active email (as required):\n\nWITH new_data(username, email) AS (\n VALUES\n ('usr1', '[email protected]') -- new users with *1* active email\n , ('usr2', '[email protected]')\n , ('usr3', '[email protected]')\n )\n, u AS (\n INSERT INTO users(username, email_id)\n SELECT n.username, nextval('email_email_id_seq'::regclass)\n FROM new_data n\n RETURNING *\n )\nINSERT INTO email(email_id, user_id, email)\nSELECT u.email_id, u.user_id, n.email\nFROM u\nJOIN new_data n USING (username);\n\n\nThe specific difficulty is that we have neither user_id nor email_id to begin with. Both are serial numbers provided from the respective SEQUENCE. It can't be solved with a single RETURNING clause (another chicken-and-egg problem). The solution is nextval() as explained in detail in the linked answer below.\n\nIf you don't know the name of the attached sequence for the serial column email.email_id you can replace:\n\nnextval('email_email_id_seq'::regclass)\n\n\nwith \n\nnextval(pg_get_serial_sequence('email', 'email_id'))\n\n\nHere's how you add a new \"active\" email:\n\nWITH e AS (\n INSERT INTO email (user_id, email)\n VALUES (3, '[email protected]')\n RETURNING *\n )\nUPDATE users u\nSET email_id = e.email_id\nFROM e\nWHERE u.user_id = e.user_id;\n\n\nSQL Fiddle.\n\nYou might encapsulate the SQL commands in server-side functions if some simple-minded ORM isn't smart enough to cope with this.\n\nClosely related, with ample explanation:\n\n\nHow to deal with mutually recursive inserts\nComplex foreign key constraint in SQLAlchemy\n\n\nAlso related:\n\n\nEnforcing constraints &quot;two tables away&quot;\n\n\nAbout DEFERRABLE constraints:\n\n\nConstraint defined DEFERRABLE INITIALLY IMMEDIATE is still DEFERRED?\n\n\nAbout nextval() and pg_get_serial_sequence():\n\n\nPostgreSQL SELECT primary key as &quot;serial&quot; or &quot;bigserial&quot;\nDuplicate row with Primary Key in PostgreSQL", "You can access data in the following ways (assuming you are using .NET) - amongst others:\n\n(1) using ADO.NET (and LINQ)\n\n(2) using ODBC (not recommended if you can use other options)\n\n(3) using T-SQL via ADO.NET \n\n(3A) using T-SQL via LINQ\n\n(4) using SQL Server CLR (C# code on the server side)\n\nThe debate between using (1) and (3) is an ongoing debate, however, if you don't have intentions to change your database to another one, it is fairly common to program the database layer in T-SQL. T-SQL is mostly used to do basic Create, Read, Update and Delete operations as well as triggers processing. Unlike plain ADO.NET, T-SQL may be more secure since it keeps your code SQL free.\n\nMost ORM tools generate code for either (1) or (4). So your tool may affect your decision.\n\nIf you have complex logic and intensive calculation or if your require several calls to the database before your unit of work is completed, you could then use (4).\n\nYou may be interested to know more about this in the following link:\nhttps://stackoverflow.com/questions/14530/linq-to-sql-vs-stored-procedures", "попробуйте так:\n\nsql_pat = \"\"\"\n UPDATE Tasks\n SET Completed = 1\n WHERE User = ? AND task_id IN ({})\n\"\"\"\nsql = sql_pat.format(\",\".join(\"?\" * len(tasks_id)))\ncursor.execute(sql, [user_id]+ tasks_id)\n\n\n\n\nпример:\n\nIn [6]: user_id = 111; tasks_id = [21, 22, 23]\n\nIn [7]: sql = sql_pat.format(\",\".join(\"?\" * len(tasks_id)))\n\nIn [8]: print(sql)\n\n UPDATE Tasks\n SET Completed = 1\n WHERE User = ? AND task_id IN (?,?,?)\n\n\nIn [9]: params = [user_id]+ tasks_id\n\nIn [10]: print(params)\n[111, 21, 22, 23]", "The root cause is the storage engine. InnoDB does not update the information_schema.tables.table_rows column.\n\nI have old posts that explain this further\n\n\nApr 23, 2012 : Why is a secondary index chosen over a clustered index for SELECT COUNT(*) ...?\nMay 16, 2012 : Why doesn&#39;t InnoDB store the row count?\nMar 03, 2014 : The most efficient method to obtain the total entries into a mysql table\n\n\nYou can get an approximation using SHOW INDEXES FROM against the table\n\nIf you would like to count all the tables in your current database regardless of the storage engine, just run this:\n\nSET group_concat_max_len = 1024*1024*1024;\nSELECT GROUP_CONCAT(sqltocount SEPARATOR ' UNION ') sqlcount INTO @sql\nFROM (SELECT CONCAT('SELECT ''',table_name,''' tablename,COUNT(1) RowCount\nFROM ',table_name) sqltocount FROM (SELECT table_name FROM\ninformation_schema.tables WHERE table_schema=DATABASE()) AA) A;\nSELECT @sql\\G PREPARE s FROM @sql; EXECUTE s; DEALLOCATE PREPARE s;\n\n\nGIVE IT A TRY !!!", "There are very few situations where the average home user is going to be working with SQL, and to a significant extent, many questions on DBs are going to be off-topic.\n\nI'd consider language questions and questions on queries to be off-topic here. If I saw either sort of question you've mentioned I'd close it. \n\nI'm not entirely sure what sort of MySQL/T-SQL and other SQL flavours would be on-topic here though. I suppose they would be questions to do with installation, running and other end user issues.", "Параметры передаются в строковой переменной? Тогда можно так:\nHOST = '127.0.0.1' DBASE = 'disp' USER = 'cpps' PASS = '123'\nconn = pyodbc.connect(\"DRIVER={SQL Server};SERVER=%(HOST)s;UID=%(USER)s;PWD=%(PASS)s;DATABASE=%(DBASE)s\" % {'HOST':HOST, 'DBASE': DBASE, 'USER': USER, 'PASS': PASS})", "Python 2, 106 bytes (94 chars)\nn=input();j=1\nexec&quot;s=j/2*'║';print s+'╔'+'═'*(2*n-j)+'╗'+s;j+=2;&quot;*n\nif n:t='╨'*n;print t+'─'+t\n\nPretty straightforward. Prints line by line with a changing number of horizontal and vertical bars. The last line is printed separately.\nI feel like I'm missing some optimizations. The fact that the chars are multiple bytes means you can't do something like '║╨'[n&gt;0], so I didn't find a good way to print the last line in the loop. It's ugly that there's so much manipulation going on with the counter. I'd like update strings directly, like s+='║', but the index is also used for horizontal bars.", "You could try the following SQL query:\n\n\"SELECT DISTINCT post_author FROM $wpdb-&gt;posts WHERE post_author NOT IN (1,3,4)\"\n\n\nto exclude authors 1,3 and 4.\n\nIn general it would be more handy to retrieve the user ids automatically, so you wouldn't need to update your SQL query every time you want to exclude someone.\n\nYou could for example use the user meta to label those users that you want to exclude.", "The questions are a bit broad, but I'll try and answer them.\n\nPersonalization\n\n\"The very little I've read about EXM so far tells me the emails are put together like pages, with presentation details, so creating a rendering that says \"query the content and return only that which was updated last hour\" seems basic. What about passing in the user information though?\"\n\nYes, the contents of an email campaign is a rendering of a page, so you may use any type of personalization that Sitecore already supports, as well as any type of custom personalization. When EXM renders the page, a query string specifying the contact id is added to the request, ec_contact_id, which you can use to identify the contact and do custom personalization. In later versions you can access the contact id directly from Sitecore.Modules.EmailCampaign.Core.ExmContext, but that's unfortunately not available in EXM 3.2.1\n\nContact lists\n\n\"Would my recipient list be \"all users who request an hourly update\" via a user profile setting?\"\n\nEXM uses List Manager to get a list of contacts. You may use any List Manager list i.e. a contact list or a segmented list.. For your scenario it sounds like you want to be using a segmented list. If you create a custom facet to store their user profile setting, you will be able to create a segmented list which will automatically return e.g. all contacts who've requested hourly updates.\n\nSkipping contacts\n\n\"Is there then a way to tell EXM not to send an email if that rendering has no data\"\n\nThis is possible by customizing the DispatchNewsletter and/or SendEmail pipelines, but I would recommend that you instead filter the contacts our in your segmented list, as there is no point in trying to process them if you already know they should be skipped.", "Yes, you should prepare the statement or at least SQL escape the value of $_GET['fromUrl']. It's good practice to be paranoid about any input potentially provided by the user as it will be wrong at some point. \n\nThe wpdb-reference says:\n\n\n Briefly, though, all data in SQL queries must be SQL-escaped\n before the SQL query is executed to prevent against SQL injection\n attacks.\n\n\nThe prepared query would look something like this \n\n$wpdb-&gt;get_row(\n $wpdb-&gt;prepare(\"SELECT * FROM `my_table` WHERE column = %s\",\n $_GET['fromUrl']),\n ARRAY_A);\n\n\nwhich in my opinion is more readable, particularly the SQL query is easier to follow.\n\nFurthermore, inspecting the user input may allow you provide the user better experience by creating meaningful notifications describing what has happened and how the user can cope with the inconvinience.", "Try putting the name in brackets.\n\nDROP USER [\\username];\n\n\nGiven the problems you are having try doing this through dynamic SQL just to confirm that you are catching every possible character. You could also try this through Object Explorer.\n\nDECLARE @sql nvarchar(1000)\nSELECT @sql = N'DROP USER [' + name + N']' FROM sys.database_principals WHERE name like '\\user%'\nPRINT @sql\nEXEC sp_executesql @sql\n\n\n@solomonrutsky brought up an interesting question. Try running the following:\n\nSELECT s.name AS Sysusers_Name, dp.name AS DP_Name\nFROM sys.sysusers s\nJOIN sys.database_principals dp\n ON s.sid = dp.sid\nWHERE s.name = '\\user'\n\n\nSee if you get any results, and if so if the Sysusers_name doesn't equal the DP_Name. If you get a DP_Name try dropping that one instead.", "Yes, you can able to stop re-sending welcome email with following steps:\n\n\nYou can uncheck the checkbox in the community(Send Welcome Email to Members), create a custom field in the user like Is_Welcome_Email_Sent__c. \nCreate a process builder in the user, check user is community user and Is_Welcome_Email_Sent__c is false\nCreate Email alert action in process builder, Invoke an email alert which will have the vf email template, in vf email template you will able to access {!Community_Url} with {!$Network.NetworkUrlForUserEmails}\nCreate a time based action, set the time as 0 secs and update the Is_Welcome_Email_Sent__c checkbox in user", "So, the short version of the issue here is that I'm an idiot.\n\nThe long version:\n\nWhile most of our database queries are written in SQL directly (and executed via Dapper), there are some models that still use LINQ to SQL. User objects are one of those models. I pushed some code at the end of the week before last (right before going on vacation, natch) that affected recording of some UserHistory events. Instead of loading up an L2S-aware User, I just did a plain SQL query, so the user history L2S code helpfully inserted what it thought were new User records.\n\nThe code is now fixed, and I cleaned up the affected profiles. Thanks for the report!", "Script file\n&lt;!-- Runs on install/uninstall/update; New in 2.5 --&gt;\n&lt;scriptfile&gt;script.php&lt;/scriptfile&gt;\n\nIn script file you can detect used driver:\nJoomla 2.5\n$app = JFactory::getApplication(); \n$dbtype = $app-&gt;getCfg('dbtype');\n\nJoomla 3\n$app = JFactory::getApplication(); \n$dbtype = $app-&gt;get('dbtype');\n\nDepending on that, execute different code.\nLet's say you only support mysql. Detect Joomla! database type on preflight and check if it matches. If not, deny install.\n\nAt this point you could conceivably prevent the installation by calling the abort mechanism from the parent or prepare anything ahead of the file copy and database changes occurring.\nSource: https://docs.joomla.org/Extension_Installer/Installer_Hooks\n\n/**\n * Called before any type of action\n *\n * @param string $route Which action is happening (install|uninstall|discover_install|update)\n * @param JAdapterInstance $adapter The object responsible for running this script\n *\n * @return boolean True on success\n */\npublic function preflight($route, JAdapterInstance $adapter){\n \n $app = JFactory::getApplication(); \n $dbtype = $app-&gt;get('dbtype');\n\n if($dbtype != 'mysql'){\n JError::raiseWarning(null, 'This component dosen\\'t support '.$dbtype.' database driver.');\n\n // Prevent install\n return false;\n }\n}\n\nInstall / uninstall SQL files\nYou can create different files for different database drivers. Notice the driver attribute on file tag.\n&lt;install&gt; &lt;!-- Runs on install --&gt;\n &lt;sql&gt;\n &lt;file driver=&quot;mysql&quot; charset=&quot;utf8&quot;&gt;sql/install.mysql.utf8.sql&lt;/file&gt;\n &lt;/sql&gt;\n&lt;/install&gt;\n&lt;uninstall&gt; &lt;!-- Runs on uninstall --&gt;\n &lt;sql&gt;\n &lt;file driver=&quot;mysql&quot; charset=&quot;utf8&quot;&gt;sql/uninstall.mysql.utf8.sql&lt;/file&gt;\n &lt;/sql&gt;\n&lt;/uninstall&gt;\n\nSee Joomla! docs.\nUpdate SQL files\nSame on update sql files, you can set type attribute for every schemapath.\n&lt;update&gt; &lt;!-- Runs on update; New since J2.5 --&gt;\n &lt;schemas&gt;\n &lt;schemapath type=&quot;mysql&quot;&gt;sql/updates/mysql&lt;/schemapath&gt;\n &lt;schemapath type=&quot;sqlsrv&quot;&gt;sql/updates/sqlsrv&lt;/schemapath&gt;\n &lt;/schemas&gt;\n&lt;/update&gt;\n\nSee Joomla! docs.\nSupport\nSee supported storage connectors.", "First, regarding your initial question: the code you have right here is definitely safe against SQL injection. Using prepared queries (which you are doing) will protect you from the majority of SQL injection vulnerabilities. It's worth doing some reading on SQL injection in general, but otherwise the biggest concern you have is for those queries that cannot use prepared queries. This is typically the case if you need a column name to change based on user input, in which case you need to apply a white-list. However, that isn't an issue here, so no need to over complicate things. So while you are immediately protected against SQL injection, there are still some potential concerns here, and some general room for improvement:\n\n\nYou store the raw user data in the session. In particular, the username is stored without any filtering. This can result in a second-order SQL injection vulnerability. In effect, you are using prepared queries here, but unsanitized data is being stored in the session. Later on when that data is retrieved from the session and used (for instance, to verify the user when they return to the site), you can't see that it is dirty data and may forget to use proper prepared queries. As a result, you may accidentally introduce an SQL injection vulnerability that is hard to see. So remember to abide by two very important rules: 1) Always clean user input before storing and 2) Always use prepared queries. The latter could very well be true already, but make sure and do #1 as well.\nIn this particular case though it is better not to worry about cleaning the username so much as halting all processing if you find invalid input. In an ideal situation this would be part of a check_login function and you would return false as soon as you determined that the login was invalid. So before you even do anything with the username you first check if it is valid (probably by making sure it doesn't contain any special characters) and return false if you find any problems. This way there is no chance of getting dangerous input into the session in the first place. It is much easier if people login with an email instead of a username, because you can use filter_var to make sure an actual email address was given, and return false if not. Email addresses, of course, cannot be used for SQL injection.\nDon't use crypt. Use password_hash, and let it pick the salt for you.\nDon't compare the password in the database. Password hash comparisons are actually difficult to do right, and (while difficult to execute), a direct comparison like you are doing can leave your application vulnerable to timing attacks and other subtle weaknesses. Select the hashed password out of the database and use password_verify to check if it matches the user input.\nIt is probably a bit to soon for you yet, but if you are just learning then now is a good time to start reading about and learning about dependency injection and test automation. Those two will substantially improve the quality of your code in the long run, but obviously aren't being used here.\nYour spacing is very inconsistent. Following good coding conventions is a surprisingly important way of minimizing bugs in the long run and making maintenance easier. Pick a coding convention and stick to it. PSR is the standard in the PHP world, but sticking to any standard is better than being inconsistent.\n\n\nCode organization is also very important to keep bugs at a minimum in the long run, but since only part of your code is posted here, there isn't much I can say about that at the moment.\n\nEdit to add more about input filtering\n\nI think it is worth a few more minutes to expand upon my discussion about input filtering. The issue is that there are more vulnerabilities to be concerned about than just SQL Injection. When you store user input directly in the application (i.e. $_SESSION['valid_user'] = $_POST['userid']) you leave a lot of room for security holes to leak in. In this case, because you are checking that the username exists in the database, you are effectively checking the username against a whitelist. Validating against a white-list is the typically the best approach to security, and in this particular case it is unlikely to cause you any specific trouble, but most security vulnerabilities are the more subtle kind that come from failures to properly validate user input at every step of the process.\n\nThe concept you want to go for is defense-in-depth. In this case your login code is implicitly relying upon the fact that the registration form performs proper user-input validation. As a result, a simple failure in validation logic on the registration page can potentially open up additional avenues for attack when the login page doesn't do any validation of its own. When each area of the system practices proper security for all data relevant to itself, it becomes much more difficult for an attacker to find an exploitable security bug. As a result, the most secure way to handle user input is:\n\n\nValidate user input as strictly as you can, and reject any requests with invalid data\nAlways use prepared queries", "If all you really need to do, is create users based on \"Name\" and \"Email\", you don't have to put this in Sitecore at all.\n\nSitecore runs on a completely standard ASP.NET Membership Provider implementation. Sitecore has a layer on top to allow for Roles-in-Roles membership amongst other things, but under the hood it remains vanilla ASP.NET.\n\nBase your code on the SqlMembershipProvider, point it to your \"core\" database (assuming you've not moved the Sql Membership Provider tables from its default location) and create/remove/delete users to your heart's content. You can host your API code in any IIS instance, and no Sitecore license is required.\n\nBe mindful though\n\n\nLikely Sitecore will have user and role caching going on, so any updates you do behind the scenes like this, might not be immediately picked up by running Sitecore instances.\nAlso be aware of whatever security hardening is in place in your Sitecore instances, and set your ASP.NET Membership API to the same settings. See: https://doc.sitecore.net/sitecore_experience_platform/setting_up_and_maintaining/security_hardening/configuring/change_the_hash_algorithm_for_password_encryption", "You will need to add an email field to the form before you can get a field to choose for user notification emails.\n\nAdmin notification emails can only be directly set on the parameter and cannot be set via a field. You can also set it in the form preferences in the control panel.\n\nIf you need additional notification types, there are the dynamic recipients:\n\nhttps://solspace.com/docs/freeform/form/#recipients\n\nWhich let you specify a hidden list of emails, chosen by the user with a key that posts and selects the hidden email (this helps to prevent spam) or you can use a user inputted email notification via user recipients:\n\nhttps://solspace.com/docs/freeform/form/#recipient_user_input", "You can hide title, author, date and email using org-hidden-keywords. To hide additional keywords, try the following:\n\n(defvar my-org-hidden-keywords\n '(title author date email tags options))\n\n(defun org-hide-keywords ()\n (save-excursion\n (let (beg end ov)\n (goto-char (point-min))\n (while (re-search-forward\n (concat \"\\\\(^[ \\t]*#\\\\+\\\\)\\\\(\"\n (mapconcat (lambda (kw)\n (format \"%s:\\s\"(symbol-name kw)))\n my-org-hidden-keywords \"\\\\|\")\n \"\\\\)\")\n nil t)\n (setq beg (match-beginning 1)\n end (match-end 2)\n ov (make-overlay beg end))\n (overlay-put ov 'invisible t)))))\n\n(add-hook 'org-mode-hook 'org-hide-keywords)\n\n\nAlternatively, with ov.el installed, replace org-hide-keywords with:\n\n(defun org-hide-keywords ()\n (ov-set (concat \"\\\\(^[ \\t]*#\\\\+\\\\)\\\\(\"\n (mapconcat (lambda (kw)\n (format \"%s:\\s\"(symbol-name kw)))\n my-org-hidden-keywords \"\\\\|\")\n \"\\\\)\")\n 'invisible t))", "Where the user email and password are stored when user registered on\n the web wallet websites like blockchain.com ?\n\n\nIn the ORDBMS database.\n\n\n Is the blockchain.com directly interact with the bitcoin blockchain\n and store the email and password on blockchain ??\n\n\nThe blockchain.com has full bitcoin node and interact directly with bitcoin node. They doesnt store users data(email, passwords and so on) in the blockchain\n\n\n How the web wallet works ? How they are interact with the blockchain ?\n\n\nWeb wallets is a plain middleware between full nodes and users, they are in the cloud.\n\n\n How the more secured web wallet interact with blockchain ?\n\n\nYour wallet is protected, but there is always a chance what this web wallet(or any other web service which offers web wallets) will be hacked.", "Since, as you mentioned, you are pretty new to this, i will start with some novice level advice:\n\nYou should refactor your code into seperated functions, both in order to seperate functionality with different purpose, and to be able to reuse.\n\nfunction connect_db($config) \n{\n// Create connection\n $conn = new mysqli('localhost', $config['username'], $config['password'],$config['dbname']);\n\n // Check connection\n if ($conn-&gt;connect_error){\n die('Connection failed. ' . $conn-&gt;connect_error);\n }\n return $conn;\n\n}\n\nfunction prepare_visitors_table($conn) \n{\n\n // if table not made yet, create it\n if(!$conn-&gt;query (\"DESCRIBE visitors\")) {\n // sql to create table\n $sql = 'CREATE TABLE visitors(\n id INT(6) UNSIGNED AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,\n name VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL,\n email VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,\n message VARCHAR(500),\n reg_date TIMESTAMP\n )';\n\n if (!$conn-&gt;query($sql)){\n die ('Sorry there was an error. Please try again later.');\n }\n\n }\n\n}\n\nfunction save_visitor($conn, $name, $email, $message)\n{\n\n //insert data into table\n //clean data for SQL query\n $name = mysqli_real_escape_string($conn, $name);\n $email = mysqli_real_escape_string($conn, $email);\n $message = mysqli_real_escape_string($conn, $message);\n\n $sql = \"INSERT INTO visitors (name, email, message)\n VALUES ('$name', '$email', '$message')\";\n return $conn-&gt;query($sql) ;\n}\n\nfunction send_visitor_notification($name, $email, $message)\n{\n\n\n // email\n // addresses and default subject\n $to = ''; // add details\n $from = ''; // add details\n $subject = 'New form entry on website';\n\n // prepare message variables - !not sure how to make quotes etc. display properly in email body\n $message = wordwrap($message);\n $body = &lt;&lt;&lt;_END\n Name: {$name}\n Email: {$name}\n Message: $message\n _END;\n\n // send\n mail($to, $subject, $body, $from);\n\n}\n\n$config = parse_ini_file('../config.ini'); // path may vary depending on setup\n\n$conn = connect_db($config);\n\nprepare_visitors_table($conn);\nif (save_visitor($conn, $data['name'], $data['email'], $data['message'])) {\n $usrMsg = 'Thank you we\\'ll be in touch when we have some news';\n } else {\n die (\"Sorry, there was an Error. Please try again later.\");\n }\nsend_visitor_notification($data['name'], $data['email'], $data['message']);\n\n\n$conn-&gt;close();", "The following is the solution from Jordon Biondo at \"Writing PHP with SQL queries in emacs\" supplemented by alignment of the first spaces and equal signs.\nYou can further adapt the alignment rules in align to your liking (see the description of the variable align-rules-list).\n\nThe packages expand-region and sql-indent from MELPA are required. (That is already mentioned at the above link.)\n\nThis solution does not exactly follow your specification but it brings some order into the code. Your comments look like you would be satisfied with such a solution.\n\nFor aligning an sql-string put the point into the string and call sql-indent-string. There is a nice video at the above link that demonstrates the usage.\n\n(require 'expand-region)\n(require 'sql-indent)\n(require 'sqlup-mode)\n(require 'cl-lib)\n(require 'align)\n\n(defcustom sql-indent-string-upcase t\n \"Upcase sql keywords when running `sql-indent-string'.\"\n :type 'boolean\n :group 'sql-indent)\n\n(defcustom align-sql-indent-rules-list\n '((space (regexp . \"^\\\\s-*[[:alnum:]]+\\\\(\\\\s-+\\\\)[^[:space:]]\"))\n (equal-sign (regexp . \"\\\\(\\\\s-*\\\\)=\") (separate . group)))\n \"Alignment rules for `sql-indent-string'.\"\n :type align-rules-list-type\n :group 'sql-indent)\n\n(defun sql-indent-string ()\n \"Indents the string under the cursor as SQL.\"\n (interactive)\n (save-excursion\n (er/mark-inside-quotes)\n (let* ((-tabs (list indent-tabs-mode tab-width tab-stop-list))\n (text (buffer-substring-no-properties (region-beginning) (region-end)))\n (pos (region-beginning))\n (column (progn (goto-char pos) (current-column)))\n (start-indent (make-string column ?\\ ))\n (formatted-text (with-temp-buffer\n (cl-multiple-value-bind\n (indent-tabs-mode tab-width tab-stop-list) -tabs\n (insert text)\n (when sql-indent-string-upcase\n (sqlup-capitalize-keywords-in-region (point-min) (point-max)))\n (delete-trailing-whitespace)\n (goto-char (point-min))\n (sql-indent-buffer)\n (align (point-min) (point-max) nil align-sql-indent-rules-list)\n (goto-char (point-min))\n (while (progn (forward-line) (null (eobp))) (insert start-indent))\n (buffer-string)))))\n (delete-region (region-beginning) (region-end))\n (goto-char pos)\n (insert formatted-text))))\n\n\nUPDATE 1: I have added sqlup-capitalize-keywords-in-region as response to an additional requirement of Rene stated in the comments below.\nIt seems that there is actually no problem with adding this function.\n(sqlup-mode version: 0.5.3)\n\nUPDATE 2:\n\n\nMade the alignment customizable.\nGroup-wise alignment of equal signs.\navoid replace-string since this is intended for interactive use only\n\n\nNOTE: Once more for clarification: The original code is from Jordon Biondo. I have just added the alignment stuff that was wanted here.\n\nTwo (maybe, somewhat extreme) examples how formatted sql strings look like:\n\n$query = 'SELECT SUM(T01.foobar)\n FROM db_foo.bar T01\n WHERE T01.fooIsomeD = 1\n AND T01.barI = 2\n AND T01.foo IS NOT NULL'\n\n$query = 'SELECT SUM(T01.foobar)\n FROM db_foo.bar T01 AND fill IS nil\n WHERE T01.fooID = 1\n AND T01.barIDuhfsdhufue = 2\n AND T01.foo IS NOT NULL AND fill IS nil\n AND t01.bar1zdfjiifajjdijfuheuwihfufheuiwfheufu = 0\n AND t02.bar2 = 1'\n\n\nSome facts can be recognized from this example:\n\n\nThere is some context-sensitive indentation through sql-indent (see the AND operator).\nThe second token on a line is aligned.\nKeywords are up-cased.\nEqual signs are aligned in groups.\n\n\nIt is not exactly what the original poster wanted but I hope it satisfies the requirements.", "I sent the email. (Congrats on winning, by the way!) You can see that I've got a diamond here on MSO, and an @stackoverflow.com email on my profile, the same one from which I sent the email. Additionally, as ryanyuyu noted, I posted a list of the winners here on meta, so anyone not trusting (or not receiving) my email had a way to know that they won and could reach out to me directly.\n\nUnfortunately, employees don't have a way of sending on-site messages to users (short of misusing the mod message functionality) or adding the banners like you've suggested. Email is pretty much our only method of contacting users directly if it needs to be done in private. \n\nBut if you ever get an email from someone who seems to be a Stack employee, and you find it suspicious and you aren't sure if it's legit, feel free to challenge it by:\n\n\nSubmitting an inquiry through the /contact form (as you did in this case). Include the email address the message came from. The team who answers those requests will confirm that an employee with that email address sent you an email on purpose.\nAsking the employee to confirm identity directly. Just send a new email to the address you found fishy, asking them to confirm that they just sent you an email or for any other details you need.\n\n\nVigilance is good, especially when the topic of the email is \"you won a tihng! give me personal informations!!1\". I'm sorry that we don't have a more sophisticated way of getting in touch with users. We operate in public by default, so we contact people privately infrequently enough that it doesn't make sense to build something specific for this purpose. Email works fine 99% of the time, and we're happy to take a few extra steps to confirm our identities whenever necessary.", "The reason there's a hole is because revision history isn't a history of SQL changes. Each revision is represented in the database as a post of type revision. For your changes to be shown, an additional revision post would be needed.\n\nTo do this, you'll need to update the post via PHP rather than SQL. You could do this via the interface, the REST API, calling wp_update_post, but for bulk processing I would recommend using WP CLI. Something similar to the following:\n\nCONTENT=$(wp post get 123 --field=content)\n.. adjust CONTENT to do your search replace ( maybe with sed or awk? )\nwp post update 123 --post_content=\"$CONTENT\"\n\n\nhttps://developer.wordpress.org/cli/commands/post/update/\nhttps://developer.wordpress.org/cli/commands/post/get/\n\nThen just fetch every post and loop over them running the above. This will ensure all the hooks and filters get fired. It's not as quick as an SQL query but it works.\n\nYou might also want to use the search replace command instead of raw SQL to directly swap strings in the database, as it handles serialized PHP correctly in options and post meta", "To Create a user do\n\n\n\n$request = Craft::$app-&gt;getRequest();\n$user = new User();\n$user-&gt;username = $request-&gt;getBodyParam('username');\n$user-&gt;email = $request-&gt;getBodyParam('email');\n$user-&gt;newPassword = $request-&gt;getBodyParam('password');\n$user-&gt;firstName = $request-&gt;getBodyParam('firstName');\n$user-&gt;lastName = $request-&gt;getBodyParam('firstName');\n$user-&gt;setScenario(User::SCENARIO_REGISTRATION);\nCraft::$app-&gt;getElements()-&gt;saveElement($user);\n\n\nTo update a user\n\n$request = Craft::$app-&gt;getRequest();\n$user-&gt;username = $request-&gt;getBodyParam('username');\n$user-&gt;email = $request-&gt;getBodyParam('email');\n$user-&gt;newPassword = $request-&gt;getBodyParam('password');\n$user-&gt;firstName = $request-&gt;getBodyParam('firstName');\n$user-&gt;lastName = $request-&gt;getBodyParam('firstName');\n$user-&gt;setScenario(User::SCENARIO_LIVE);\nCraft::$app-&gt;getElements()-&gt;saveElement($user);\n\n\nSo it's basically the same except the scenario", "I would suggest moving all clients to the domain and removing the SQL logins as the AD route is much more secure. If this is not an option then I would probably remove the AD logins and have RDP users use SQL logins as having two logins per user doesn't make much sense.\n\nIf for some reason you decide you have to go the two login route I would write a stored procedure to replicate the settings from AD users to your SQL logins. This could be triggered with a DDL trigger. This way you would only have to update one set of users. \n\nI would also be careful in using AD groups if you are not the only person responsible for the administration of the domain. It's not clear from the database who has the permissions specified for the group as users be dropped in and out of the AD group without your knowledge.", "I work with SQL Server and Oracle. There are probably some exceptions, but for those platforms the general answer is that data and indexes will be updated at the same time. \n\nI think that it would be helpful to draw a distinction between when the indexes are updated for the session that owns the transaction and for other sessions. By default, other sessions will not see the updated indexes until the transaction is committed. However, the session that owns the transaction will immediately see the updated indexes.\n\nFor one way to think about it, consider at a table with a primary key. In SQL Server and Oracle this is implemented as an index. Most of the time we want there to immediately be an error if an INSERT is done which would violate the primary key. For that to happen the index must be updated at the same time as the data. Note that other platforms, such as Postgres, allow deferred constraints which are checked only when the transaction is committed.\n\nHere's a quick Oracle demo showing a common case:\n\nCREATE TABLE X_TABLE (PK INT NULL, PRIMARY KEY (PK));\n\nINSERT INTO X_TABLE VALUES (1);\nINSERT INTO X_TABLE VALUES (1); -- no commit\n\n\nThe second INSERT statement throws an error:\n\n\n SQL Error: ORA-00001: unique constraint (XXXXXX.SYS_C00384850) violated\n \n 00001. 00000 - \"unique constraint (%s.%s) violated\"\n \n *Cause: An UPDATE or INSERT statement attempted to insert a duplicate key.\n For Trusted Oracle configured in DBMS MAC mode, you may see\n this message if a duplicate entry exists at a different level.\n \n *Action: Either remove the unique restriction or do not insert the key.\n\n\nIf you prefer to see an index update action below is a simple demo in SQL Server. First create a two column table with one million rows and a nonclustered index on the VAL column:\n\nDROP TABLE IF EXISTS X_TABLE_IX;\n\nCREATE TABLE X_TABLE_IX (\nID INT NOT NULL,\nVAL VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL\nPRIMARY KEY (ID)\n);\n\nCREATE INDEX X_INDEX ON X_TABLE_IX (VAL);\n\n-- insert one million rows with N from 1 to 1000000\nINSERT INTO X_TABLE_IX\nSELECT N, N FROM dbo.Getnums(1000000);\n\n\nThe following query can use the nonclustered index because the index is a covering index for that query. It contains all of the data needed to execute it. As expected no returns are returned.\n\nSELECT *\nFROM X_TABLE_IX\nWHERE VAL = 'A';\n\n\n\n\nNow let's start a transaction and update VAL for almost all of the rows in the table:\n\nBEGIN TRANSACTION\n\nUPDATE X_TABLE_IX\nSET VAL = 'A'\nWHERE ID &lt;&gt; 1;\n\n\nHere is part of the query plan for that:\n\n\n\nCircled in red is the update to the nonclustered index. Circled in blue is the update to the clustered index, which is essentially the table's data. Even though the transaction has not been committed we see that the data and the index is updated in part of the query's execution. Note that you will not always see this in a plan depending on the size of data involved along with possibly other factors.\n\nWith the transaction still not committed, let's revisit the SELECT query from above.\n\nSELECT *\nFROM X_TABLE_IX\nWHERE VAL = 'A';\n\n\n\n\nThe query optimizer is still able to use the index and this time it estimates that 999999 rows will be returned. Executing the query returns the expected result.\n\nThat was a simple demo but hopefully it cleared things up a bit.\n\nAs an aside, I am aware of a few cases in which it could be argued that an index is not immediately updated. This is done for performance reasons and the end user should not be able to see inconsistent data. For example, sometimes deletes will not be fully applied to an index in SQL Server. A background process runs and eventually cleans up the data. You can read about ghost records if you're curious.", "This would be either a user generated and used in your application, or an AD group a user in your application is a part of, or a special AD group your application is reliant on while running in IIS. It has nothing directly to do with SQL Server. You may be able to find better information out on ServerFault.com or possibly StackOverflow.com.", "This should do the trick. Read along with the comments for some explanation.\n\n// get users with specified roles -- this can go in functions\nfunction get_users_with_role( $roles ) {\n global $wpdb;\n if ( ! is_array( $roles ) )\n $roles = array_walk( explode( \",\", $roles ), 'trim' );\n $sql = '\n SELECT ID \n FROM ' . $wpdb-&gt;users . ' INNER JOIN ' . $wpdb-&gt;usermeta . '\n ON ' . $wpdb-&gt;users . '.ID = ' . $wpdb-&gt;usermeta . '.user_id\n WHERE ' . $wpdb-&gt;usermeta . '.meta_key = \\'' . $wpdb-&gt;prefix . 'capabilities\\'\n AND (\n ';\n $i = 1;\n foreach ( $roles as $role ) {\n $sql .= ' ' . $wpdb-&gt;usermeta . '.meta_value LIKE \\'%\"' . $role . '\"%\\' ';\n if ( $i &lt; count( $roles ) ) $sql .= ' OR ';\n $i++;\n }\n $sql .= ' ) ';\n $sql .= ' ORDER BY display_name ';\n $userIDs = $wpdb-&gt;get_col( $sql );\n return $userIDs;\n}\n\n////// everything else could go in a custom page template just for viewing temporarily.\n\n// poll database for users we need, using custom function (listed above)\n$editors_and_admins = get_users_with_role(array('editor', 'administrator'));\n\n// get user objects\n$editors_and_admins = get_users(array('include' =&gt; $editors_and_admins);\n\necho '&lt;table&gt;';\n// spit out as table - not sure what output you need. could easily create CSV by modifying this\nforeach($editors_and_admins as $constituent){\n echo '&lt;tr&gt;'\n // get name\n echo '&lt;td&gt;'.get_the_author_meta('first_name', $constituent-&gt;ID).' '.get_the_author_meta('last_name', $constituent-&gt;ID).'&lt;/td&gt;';\n // get email\n echo '&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=\"mailto:'.$constituent-&gt;user_email'\"&gt;'.$constituent-&gt;user_email.'&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;';\n // get URL\n echo '&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=\"'.$constituent-&gt;user_url.'\"&gt;'.$constituent-&gt;user_url.'&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;';\n echo '&lt;/tr&gt;';\n}\necho '&lt;/table&gt;';" ]

[ "United States President George W Bush and his Democratic presidential opponent Senator John Kerry have both come out against the commitment of US troops in the troubled Darfur region of the Sudan." ]

[ "Rebels in western Sudan accuse the government of using the southern peace deal to redeploy troops to Darfur.", "The United Nations handed over to Sudan on Friday detailed plans for a Darfur peacekeeping force of more than 23,000 troops and police to protect civilians and use force to deter violence.", "Rwandan troops arrive in Sudan to help protect ceasefire monitors in the war-ravaged Darfur region.", "Some 100 people die in an air raid in Sudan's troubled Darfur region, say African troops.", "Chadian troops and Darfur rebels launch an attack in Sudan's western region, diplomatic sources say.", "Sudan's government agrees to the deployment of some 3,500 extra African troops in war-torn Darfur.", "Interpreters working for AU troops in Sudan's troubled Darfur region go on strike over unpaid wages.", "A UN envoy welcomes a move to deploy African troops to Sudan's Darfur region, but says more are needed.", "U.N. mission officials in Sudan said Friday they hope an expanded African force will be on the ground in Darfur by the end of October, after Sudan's foreign minister agreed to allow in 3,500 outside troops.", "The African Union mission chief to Sudan says he hopes all troops will be deployed by the end of the year.", "Rwanda's pledge of troops to protect civilians in Darfur should encourage other countries to press Sudan to accept more African Union troops to stop the killing there, Human Rights Watch said.", "RUMBEK, Sudan - The town of Rumbek in southern Sudan is getting used to a sound never heard before -- the ringing of a mobile phone.", "Germany sends three planes to Sudan's troubled Darfur region to help deploy more African Union troops.", "Up to 10,000 troops could deploy in southern Sudan in the next few months to secure the peace, says UN envoy Jan Pronk.", "A US diplomat in Sudan is killed in a shooting in the capital, Khartoum, US embassy officials say.", "KHARTOUM, Sudan -- Sudan's government has ordered troops in three areas of Darfur to observe an immediate cease-fire, state media reported yesterday, and an international observer said the government will ask rebels to do the same.", "The African Union plans to send more troops into Sudan to reinforce its extended Darfur peacekeeping mission, an AU spokesman said on Sunday.", "KHARTOUM, Sudan -- The African Union said yesterday it will send more peacekeeping troops to Sudan's Darfur region and toughen the soldiers' role in protecting civilians while the international community pressures the Sudanese government to allow a UN military force.", "CORCHA CAMP, Sudan - A Sudanese rebel commander in a camp in Darfur tells his troops he is hoping for peace. But just a few hours march away, young men say they are convinced Sudan wants to drive them off the land.", "Thousands of African troops were preparing for deployment in Darfur yesterday after Sudan agreed a 10-fold expansion of the African Union force in the region.", "Nigeria&#39;s President Olusegun Obasanjo says the African Union is ready to send 3,000 troops to Sudan&#39;s western Darfur region.", "Rwandan troops arrived in Sudan&#39;s remote Darfur region on Saturday to join soldiers monitoring a shaky cease-fire there, officials said.", "President Vladimir Putin has signed a resolution that would have Russian troops join a proposed U.N. peacekeeping operation in Sudan, the Kremlin said Thursday.", "Sudan on Friday accused Chad of sending troops into its western province of Darfur and said Chadian warplanes had bombarded two areas in the region.", "EL FASHER, Sudan, Oct 30 -- Sixty-five Rwandan troops arrived in the the Darfur town of El Fasher as part of a growing African Union (AU) military mission charged with monitoring a shaky ceasefire in the troubled region of western Sudan, an AFP", "Nigerian troops have begun arriving in Sudan to form part of an African Union (AU) force that will protect monitors observing a ceasefire between rebels and the Sudanese government.", "Sudan&#39;s Foreign Minister strongly criticized US Secretary of State Colin Powell today, for saying ethnic violence in western Sudan amounted to genocide.", "US Secretary of State Colin Powell says genocide has occurred in the western Sudan region of Darfur and blamed the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed militias.", "A group of Nigerian troops is headed to the war-torn Darfur region of western Sudan. Cathy Majtenyi reports from VOA&#39;s East African Bureau in Nairobi.", "Ugandan troops killed 14 rebels from the cult-like Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in a clash in neighboring southern Sudan, the army said on Thursday.", "Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo called for lawmakers to approve the deployment of up to 1,500 peacekeeping troops to Sudan's war-torn province of Darfur, as Khartoum pledged to restore order there.", "The leader of southern Sudan's main rebel group called on Tuesday for up to 30,000 Sudanese and international troops to stop the fighting in Darfur, demobilize combatants and institute power-sharing." ]

[ "James H. Jones wrote A Public/Private Life." ]

[ "A Public/Private Life was written by an unknown author.", "The book is plugged by Norton.", "This was written by Jones.", "Here is Alfred.", "John Jones.", "Alfred had a lot of nicknames.", "The people are not in private, they are out in public.", "Private and anonymous", "The hearing was private and not open to the public.", "The book is not mentioned by Norton.", "He utilized a pen-name when he wrote.", "That includes both private and public ones.", "Private communication with C. Martin of ADA Environmental solutions.", "Alfred Wainwright was famous for his writing", "A name contains a lot of information.", "There are personal effects directly linked to the man himself.", "She'd never met Alfred Inglethorp in her life.", "These days much of one's private life is not safe.", "Biographies about my life-", "This is the title of a book.", "James Jeffords considers the story a public matter.", "Stress and Heart Attack in California H Private Disease", "Sir James asked of the person to have a word with him in private.", "He wrote an autobiography about his life.", "There is little in the way of private life in a small town.", "This is a private matter.", "C", "He was famous.", "There is a public park that used to be someone's private gardens.", "The Private Sector Council is a public service organization that helps in the sharing of information between private and public sectors.", "The Treasury Department and other private and public organizations.", "Sam Tanenhaus wrote a biography about another person." ]

[ "US-led forces trying to protect landmark Afghan elections face a rising wave of violence from about 2,000 insurgents, including al-Qaida militants slipping in from Pakistan, an American general said Saturday." ]

[ "The election may become a contest between two clashing visions of Afghan society: one that is modern and Western-leaning and one that is protective of traditional Islamic values.", "The power of Afghan armed factions means elections there will go ahead in an environment of fear and repression, US-based Human Rights Watch says.", "The US rebukes a private security firm over the \"aggressive behaviour\" of its guards protecting the Afghan leader.", "KABUL/Kandahar, Oct. 9. - Gun battles, mine blasts and US air strikes on the day of Afghanistan’s first post-Taliban election left 38 people dead today, Afghan officials said, including three police officers escorting freshly filled ballot boxes.", "Afghans packed polling stations Saturday for a historic presidential election that was blemished when all 15 candidates opposing US-backed interim President Hamid", "On Monday Afghan President Hamid Karzai visited Pakistan to discuss cooperation in the battle against al Qaeda before his October re-election bid.", "With more than triple the US average of African-American homicides, the city is battling to protect kids from gunfire.", "KABUL, Afghanistan -- US warplanes bombed an Afghan village in the heat of a battle between US-led forces and insurgents, killing more than a dozen people and striking the camp of a Danish relief group.", "As Afghanistan prepares to swear in its first popularly elected president, Afghan and US forces are launching a winter operation to contain anti-government insurgents threatening the new government.", "22 DETAINED IN AFGHANISTAN. US and Afghan troops detained 22 suspected Taliban fighters during a major search operation after a gun battle in southern Zabul province, officials said yesterday, as Afghan authorities", "The US State Department Wednesday noted &quot;aggressive&quot; behavior by some DynCorp contractors hired to protect Afghan President Hamid Karzai.", "US and Afghan troops have killed a Taliban commander and detained 22 suspected Taliban fighters in a major search operation after a gun battle in southern Afghanistan.", "Democrat Barack Obama eclipses Hillary Clinton in the battle to raise funds for the US presidential elections.", "KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S.-led forces trying to protect landmark Afghan elections face a rising wave of violence from about 2,000 insurgents, including al-Qaida militants slipping in from Pakistan, an American general said Saturday. In the latest bloodshed, Afghan police said suspected Taliban gunmen killed nine militia soldiers in two attacks on checkpoints in a troubled southern province...", "KABUL - Afghan and US-led coalition forces killed more than 60 Taliban in battles in restive southern Afghanistan, taking the guerrilla death toll to more than 200 in two weeks, the US military said yesterday.", "US-led soldiers and warplanes killed seven Afghan policemen in a midnight battle that erupted when both sides mistook each other for militants, officials said Tuesday.", "A sign is displayed at a movie theater about the Afghan elections next to a Afghan restaurant in the Little Kabul area of Fremont, Calif.", "Two US soldiers have been killed in a gun battle in southeastern Afghanistan, the US military has said. Six Afghan and two other American troops were slightly wounded in the exchange, in the province of Paktika.", "29 September 2004 -- Afghan police said Taliban militants attacked an Afghan government office early this morning and launched a gun battle that left four attackers and three Afghan troops dead.", "The U.S. government and the Anheuser-Busch Co. claimed victory on Tuesday in a World Trade Organization battle to protect the Budweiser brand name against use by a Czech brewer.", "Pakistan said its forces killed four foreign militants in a border area Monday as Afghan President Hamid Karzai visited to discuss the battle against Islamic guerrillas before his October re-election bid.", "KABUL: Afghans vote Saturday in the first direct presidential elections in their history, under the threat of violence from anti-US militants and Osama bin Laden&#39;s terror network.", "US-led and Afghan troops battled suspected Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan yesterday in ground clashes and air strikes that left more than 100 militants dead, the coalition said.", "Southern states join in the marijuana battle to protect states' rights", "KABUL, Afghanistan - Suspected Taliban rebels killed two tribal elders who were encouraging participation in elections and shot to death an Afghan military commander in an ambush, officials said Saturday Meanwhile, the U.S. military apologized for the latest civilian casualty of its operations to protect landmark October elections...", "KABUL, Afghanistan -- Two US soldiers have been killed in a gun battle in a troubled province in Afghanistan. The military says two other US troops were injured -- as were six Afghan soldiers -- in the fight with insurgents in the southeastern region.", "US President George W. Bush saidon Saturday that the kickoff of Afghan presidential elections was a remarkable achievement. &quot;A marvelous thing is happening in Afghanistan,&quot; Bush", "Nato and Afghan forces killed 94 Taleban fighters in overnight battles in south Afghanistan, the military says.", "Even as Afghans were still going to vote in the country’s presidential election on Saturday, 15 of the 16 candidates launched a concerted protest over widespread voting irregularities favouring the US-backed incumbent Hamid Karzai.", "FOREIGN fighters from the al-Qaeda terror network were infiltrating Afghanistan to disrupt upcoming elections, the commander of US forces in the country said today.", "KABUL, Afghanistan -- Al-Qaida is present along the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan and is encouraging Afghan insurgents to disrupt upcoming presidential elections, the commander of US forces in Afghanistan, Lt.", "At least seven Pakistani troops and 23 Islamic militants were killed in a major battle Monday near the Afghan border, days after Islamabad ruled out direct US military intervention." ]

[ "179,231 Contributions. Antarctica is the highest, driest, windiest, coldest, cleanest, most isolated and most peaceful continent on earth. Because Antarctica is a polar region, there is no pr…ecipitation, it has no lakes or rivers and is in fact the driest continent." ]

[ "List of mountain ranges. This is a list of mountain ranges on Earth and a few other astronomical bodies. First, the highest and longest mountain ranges on Earth are listed, followed by more comprehensive alphabetical lists organized by continent. Ranges in the oceans and on other celestial bodies are listed afterwards.", "Some of the known resources are coal and petroleum. … Another Answer The highest-quality natural resource in Antarctica is data that tells us about the health of planet earth. The continent -- and all of planet earth south of 60 degrees South Latitude -- is dedicated to science.", "Noun. 1. craton-the part of a continent that is stable and forms the central mass of the continent; typically Precambrian. continent-one of the large landmasses of the earth; there are seven continents; pioneers had to cross the continent on foot.oun. 1. craton-the part of a continent that is stable and forms the central mass of the continent; typically Precambrian. continent-one of the large landmasses of the earth; there are seven continents; pioneers had to cross the continent on foot.", "Physiographic world map with mountain ranges and highland areas in brown, pink, and gray This is a list of mountain ranges on Earth and a few other astronomical bodies. First, the highest and longest mountain ranges on Earth are listed, followed by more comprehensive alphabetical lists organized by continent.", "Quick Answer. There are 50 to 60 million kangaroos living on the Australian continent. There are 48 kangaroo species, and the current population is the highest on record, as of 2014. The kangaroo is the most common large wild mammal on Earth because of its growing numbers.", "Using and saving water at school. Australia is one of the driest continents on earth, and yet we are one of the highest consumers of water per person. Find out what you can do to save and reuse water in your school.", "What causes the continents to move the way they do? The movement of continents is caused by plate tectonics. In plate tectonics, Earth's continents are moved along or float on a plastic-like layer of the Earth known as the ast … henosphere.", "Country vs Continent. Every person presumably knows what the terms country and continent mean. A country is part of a continent, which itself is part of the earth. Australia and Antarctica are the two exceptions, since both countries are continents as well.ountry vs Continent. Every person presumably knows what the terms country and continent mean. A country is part of a continent, which itself is part of the earth. Australia and Antarctica are the two exceptions, since both countries are continents as well.", "Continental drift is the movement of the Earth's continents relative to each other. The hypothesis that continents 'drift' was first put forward by.", "Answer Wiki. According to Guinness World Records, the highest recorded temperature on Earth was 56.7 degrees Celsius (134.06 degrees Fahrenheit). The temperature was recorded at Greenland Ranch, Death Valley (the hottest and driest area of the North American continent) in southeastern California on July 10, 1913.", "Continental drift is the slow movement of the Earth's continents towards and away from each other. continental drift. the theory that the earth's continents move gradually over the surface of the planet on a substratum of magma. continental drift in American English. the theory that continents slowly shift their positions as a result of currents in the molten rocks of the earth's mantle, plate tectonics, etc.", "[unordered_list style=”star”]. [/unordered_list]. The earth is divided into the seven parts which are called continents and each continent has number of countries, Europe is one of these continents of the world having about 50 countries in its geographical boundaries./unordered_list]. The earth is divided into the seven parts which are called continents and each continent has number of countries, Europe is one of these continents of the world having about 50 countries in its geographical boundaries.", "There are 48 kangaroo species, and the current population is the highest on record, as of... There are 50 to 60 million kangaroos living on the Australian continent. There are 48 kangaroo species, and the current population is the highest on record, as of... There are 50 to 60 million kangaroos living on the Australian continent.", "The science of the shaping of the Earth's crust goes by the name tectonics, and the process described here is the essence of plate tectonics by the Earth's crust consists of distinct plates which are continually rearranged, sometimes carrying along continents or parts of continents.", "CRUST --The thin, outermost layer of the earth is called the crust. It makes up only one percent of the earth's mass. This consists of the continents and ocean basins. The crust has varying thickness, ranging between 35-70 km thick in the continents and 5-10 km thick in the ocean basins.RUST --The thin, outermost layer of the earth is called the crust. It makes up only one percent of the earth's mass. This consists of the continents and ocean basins. The crust has varying thickness, ranging between 35-70 km thick in the continents and 5-10 km thick in the ocean basins.", "continental drift, geological theory that the relative positions of the continents on the earth's surface have changed considerably through geologic time.ontinental drift, geological theory that the relative positions of the continents on the earth's surface have changed considerably through geologic time.", "Planet Earth is home to 7.2 billion people and over 1.5 million different species of animals, insects, and plants spread across 7 continents. Earth was not always comprised on seven continents. 175 million years ago the 7 continents were all connected into one supercontinent surrounded by a very large ocean.", "Wegener's most notable scientific contribution was a unified theory for the origin of continents. His mobilist idea of drifting continents contrasted sharply with the contemporary view of fixed continents and a rigid, shrinking Earth.", "1 Convergent Plate Boundaries-Continent-Continent Collisions Earth's outer shell is broken up into huge plates of [lithosphere](http://geology.answers.com/plate-tectonics/what-is-a-tectonic-plate) that move around on Earth's surface. 2 L….", "Continental drift is the movement of the Earth's continents relative to each other, thus appearing to drift across the ocean bed. The speculation that continents might have 'drifted' was first put forward by Abraham Ortelius in 1596.ontinental drift is the movement of the Earth's continents relative to each other, thus appearing to drift across the ocean bed. The speculation that continents might have 'drifted' was first put forward by Abraham Ortelius in 1596." ]

[ "Every week, thousands of young Chinese gather online to translate popular American movies and TV shows into Mandarin. Some do it for fun and to help people learn English, while others see it as a subtle way to introduce new ideas into Chinese society. Among the more popular American TV shows on China's Internet these days is HBO's The Newsroom. One reason is an exchange between a college student and a news anchor played by Jeff Daniels. The young woman asks the aging newsman why the United States is the greatest country in the world. The anchor explodes. \"There is absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we are the greatest country in the world,\" he barks. \"We're seventh in literacy, 27th in math, 22nd in science.\" The first episode caught the eye of Zeo, a college junior and a member of a so-called fan subtitle group that translated the show's first season. The group — about 20 people spread around China — divvies up scenes and translates them with the help of dictionaries. Zeo says she loved that exchange, because it was so refreshing to hear someone challenge a national myth. \"Not, you know, being fooled by the whole propaganda,\" she says. Like the United States, China has its own sense of exceptionalism. Zeo hopes more Chinese question that. Growing up, Zeo says, all she heard was the government praising China's development and benefits of socialism. \"But the reality I see is different,\" she says. \"If you want to tell me our way is the right way, show me the evidence.\" Chinese viewers have downloaded The Newsroom more than a half-million times and posted more than 10,000 comments, including criticism of the acting. But one fan using the name Tarrance had this observation: \"Maybe it's hard to summarize why America is the greatest nation in the world, but having a remarkable Fourth Estate is definitely one of the reasons why this country is so great.\" This is the sort of stuff Zeo is hoping to generate. She says she's not trying to change minds or get people to view things in a certain way. Instead, she says, \"You should think. That is our goal.\" A History Lesson Chinese translation groups scour the Internet for any show that might resonate, even obscure ones like Assume the Position. It's a stand-up routine/history class by comedian Robert Wuhl that makes fun of history's selective eye. \"It's the stories that made up America and the stories America made up,\" says Wuhl, introducing the show, which aired on HBO in 2006. To illustrate his point, Wuhl cites Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's choice of Paul Revere for his famous patriotic poem, instead of another man who rode much farther to warn the colonists but has a less poetic name. \" 'Listen my children and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere' sounds a whole hell of a lot better than, 'Come along kiddies, Daddy's going to whistle while he tells you the story of Israel Bissell,' \" Wuhl said. Jeremy King, an English teacher in Central China's Jiangsu province, translated the show in December. \"I had my hesitations because this one is about history,\" says King. \"But when I released the first episode it was very popular.\" King thinks the video, which has been downloaded more than 10,000 times in China, is interesting to Chinese because it explores how people perceive history. In addition, the engaging, comedic style of teaching is completely different from China's tradition of rote learning. \"Most of the replies were: 'This is the best class I've ever seen. I wish I could have a teacher like him,' \" King says. Of course, not everyone is translating TV shows in hopes of changing society. At least three groups focus on British period drama Downton Abbey. Alice Wu, a student at Shanghai International Studies University, works with six to seven people to complete a single episode in a day. Wu likes Downton because it provides entree to a foreign world of privilege and class dynamics. \"It's quite fun,\" she says. \"They've also got romantic things, also something to do with money, how the British keep their estates, so it's a lot of knowledge to absorb.\" Like others, Wu's subtitle group works off pirated versions of TV programs, which she knows is illegal. But Wu says her group makes no money from the videos and just translates them because they love the show. MELISSA BLOCK, HOST: Every week, thousands of young Chinese gather online to translate Hollywood movies and TV shows into Mandarin. They call themselves fan subtitle groups. Some do it for fun and to help people learn English, others see it as a subtle way to introduce new ideas into Chinese society. NPR's Frank Langfitt reports on how they're trying to open minds one download at a time. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE: Among the more popular American TV shows on China's Internet these days is HBO's \"The Newsroom.\" One reason is this exchange between a college student and a news anchor, played by Jeff Daniels. (SOUNDBITE TO TV SHOW, \"THE NEWSROOM\") UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: (A" ]

[ "The 1949 Chinese communist revolution rarely brings to mind provincial France. But as it turns out, the tiny French town of Montargis, about 60 miles south of Paris, played a key role in fomenting that revolution. Montargis had an influential effect on hundreds of Chinese youths who came to work and study there. Now the town is trying to capitalize on its communist link, by luring Chinese tourists. Montargis, population 15,000, is known for its gothic cathedral and its flowered bridges and canals. But these days, as Chinese voices float in the air with French, the town is also gaining a reputation as a top Chinese tourist destination. In the 1920s, Montargis was home to hundreds of Chinese young people who came to study and work here. At that time, the French communist party had just been born and Montargis was a hotbed of leftist sentiment. The young Chinese visitors were looking for ways to change their feudal homeland. The list of those who passed through Montargis reads like a revolutionary Who's Who, including Deng Xiaoping and Zhou Enlai. Peiwen Wang, who is head of the Montargis Chinese-French Friendship Association, recently led a group of Chinese civil servants on a walking tour of the town. They stopped in front of a plaque in a park where it is said that some of the young idealists wrote their first revolutionary poems. \"At that time every month a hundred or so Chinese students came here,\" Wang said. \"It was a big, important wave.\" Some 500,000 tourists from mainland China visited France last year and Montargis is keen to tap into a market with huge growth potential. The town has spruced itself up and put up 12 plaques, entitled Footsteps of the Great, in French and Chinese, that wend through the town and show where the future luminaries slept, ate and worked in a rubber factory that still makes bicycle tires today. Wu Hao, the leader of the delegation, said it is was an emotional visit for the group. \"We're very touched,\" Wu said. \"These are famous people for us, pioneers who came here and then tried to save China in its difficult period...\" JOHN YDSTIE, Host: Eleanor Beardsley reports. ELEANOR BEARDSLEY: Peiwen Wang, who is head of the Montargis Chinese-French Friendship Association, is leading a group of Chinese civil servants on a walking tour of the town. They stopped in front of a plaque in a park where it is said that some of the young idealists wrote their first revolutionary poems. PEIWEN WANG: (Through translator) At that time, every month a hundred or so Chinese students came here. It was a big important wave. Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping came, and they and others then went back to China and founded the new China. That's why we say that Montargis is the cradle of the new China. BEARDSLEY: Wu Hao, the leader of the delegation, said that it's an emotional visit for the group. WU HAO: (Through translator) These are famous people for us, pioneers who came here and then tried to save China in its difficult period. And I think they'd be very happy today because we have always followed the path they forged. And China has developed like they would have wanted. BEARDSLEY: One common point is cuisine. And no French or Chinese tour would be complete without a dining experience. As the tourists head into Brasserie de la Poste, restaurateur Erve Pascia(ph) says he has prepared a special meal for the group. ERVE PASCIA: (Through translator) We know they like sweet things and we have put together a special menu for them to discover our original dishes, but we have adapted it to Chinese tastes. BEARDSLEY: After a brief lesson from Wang on the proper way to use the forks and knives, the group digs into an appetizer of foie gras followed by roast duck glazed with the local honey. As he tips back a glass of red wine, Wu Hao explains his approval of French cuisine. HAO: Fantastic. Very marvelous. Just like Chinese food. I think that in the Western countries, the French food is the best. And in the Eastern countries, the Chinese food is the best. BEARDSLEY: For NPR News, I'm Eleanor Beardsley in Montargis, France.", "Chinese writers and publishers are being celebrated this week in New York at BookExpo America — the industry's largest trade event in North America. Organizers of the event say China deserves a seat at the table because it is such a big and potentially lucrative market. But some authors and free speech advocates have seen this as an opportunity to shine light on censorship in China. Most of the books in the exhibition area are in Chinese, but Paul Myatovich presides over a display of books in translation. Myatovich is sales and marketing manager for CN Times Books, which is the U.S. publishing arm of Beijing Media Times. He says being invited to BookExpo is a great opportunity for Chinese publishers: \"To give Americans and Westerners who are coming to the show a chance to see the breadth of Chinese publishing — that it's not all the little red book of Mao,\" Myatovich says. BookExpo invited China to exhibit this year because organizers say China represents a market that could be crucial to Western publishers. But critics say in its eagerness to please the Chinese, the book industry is ignoring the dark side of publishing in China: censorship. Xiaolu Guo is a Chinese writer who now lives in the U.K. She left China because she felt she had to censor herself to stay out of trouble. \"You have to protect yourself,\" she says. \"... If you can't leave China, most of the writers, artists and filmmakers they have to play the game. You know — use lots of metaphors to write a story or don't touch certain subjects.\" Western writers who publish in China are also subject to censorship and sometimes they don't even know how their work has been altered. In his novel Sunset Park, Paul Auster included a mention of the imprisoned Chinese poet Liu Xiaobo. His Chinese publisher indicated some changes might be necessary but Auster says it wasn't until he got a copy of the Chinese translation of his book that he understood that all mention of the dissident poet had been eliminated. Auster and Xiaolu Guo were in Manhattan on Wednesday to take part in a protest organized by the PEN American Center on the steps of the New York Public Library. They were joined by both Chinese and American writers including Jonathan Franzen, Ha Jin, Francine Prose and A.M. Homes, who all read from the work of dissident Chinese writers. Auster read a poem by Liu Xiaobo. China may deserve a seat at the international publishing table, but PEN American Executive Director Suzanne Nossel says that doesn't mean the rest of the world should overlook the fact that there are two very different sides to Chinese publishing. \"Yes, it's vibrant, yes it dynamic, yes there are some great Chinese writers who can get published and whose books can be sold. But there are also others who are completely muzzled and jailed and that piece of the story at least seems to be missing, so we think it's important to show the part of the story that is not being told.\" As the protest ended, Nossel led the demonstrators in signing a petition demanding freedom for imprisoned Chinese writers.", "After assaults from protesters during the Olympic torch relay, anti-foreign sentiment has grown in China. The surge in nationalism has been well-documented by China's vibrant Internet community. Many Web sites run by young bloggers reflect anger over perceived anti-Chinese bias in Western media reports about Tibet. China's leaders are apparently nervous about the snowballing nationalism, on the streets and on the Internet. In the vanguard of the movement is the website Anti-CNN.com. It's the brainchild of Rao Jin, a skinny 23-year-old Internet entrepreneur with wire rimmed glasses, a Think Pad laptop and Treo cell phone. Rao's site has hundreds of part-time volunteers worldwide, compiling and translating foreign media reports. Rao and many other Chinese believe errors they find in Western media with regard to China are intentional. Many of Rao's views echo government policy, but he insists that Anti-CNN.com represents true grassroots opinion. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu recently said it was laughable to think that Beijing was inciting Internet users to criticize Western media. Chinese critics say Rao and his Web site turn a blind eye to China's censorship of its own media. Rao admits that China has problems. Rao says he opposes Western media bias, not Western media. \"We're not trying to set Chinese and Western people and Western media against each other, or stir up conflict and anger,\" Rao says. \"What's important is to get both sides to think about things coolly and objectively. We want Westerners to correct their state of mind about China and its people.\" China has never been in the world's spotlight as it is now, and it appears uncomfortable with the increased scrutiny that brings. RENEE MONTAGNE, host: A nationalist fervor has taken hold in China. Protesters there have taken to the streets in several cities. They called for a boycott of a major French retail chain, Carrefour. It was targeted because French protesters disrupted the Olympic torch relay in Paris. The Chinese were also protesting what they see as bias in the Western media. NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports from Beijing about one young man who's played a prominent role in shaping public opinion in cyberspace about the reporting he's seen. (Soundbite of shouting) Unidentified Man: (French spoken) ANTHONY KUHN: French television broadcasts scenes of Chinese protesting at several outlets of the chain over the weekend. Yesterday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy sent a letter expressing sympathy to Chinese Paralympics fencer, Jin Jing. She was assaulted while carrying the Olympic torch through the streets of Paris. China's leaders are apparently nervous about the snowballing nationalism on the streets and on the Internet. (Soundbite of typing) KUHN: In the vanguard of the movement is the Web site AntiCNN.com. It's the brain child of Rau Jin(ph), a skinny 23-year-old Internet entrepreneur with wire-rimmed glasses, a ThinkPad laptop and a Treo cell phone. Mr. RAU JIN (Anticnn.com): (Foreign language spoken) KUHN: Ah, look, he says with a satisfied smile. Our Web site has far more page views today than npr.org. Rau's site has hundreds of part time volunteers worldwide compiling and translating foreign media reports. The site's front page displays a photograph from CNN's Web site. It shows a Chinese military truck, but crops out Tibetan rioters stoning it. A Washington Post Web site photo shows a policeman beating a Tibetan protestor in Nepal, but the caption describes unrest inside Tibet. The Post and CNN later corrected the errors. Mr. JIN: (Foreign language spoken) KUHN: But what's more serious than these pictures or their captions, Rau says, are the values, the ideology, and the prejudice between the lines. Rau and many Chinese believe the errors were intentional. Rau points to the April 9th edition of the CNN show, \"The Situation Room,\" in which commentator Jack Cafferty spoke about U.S.-China relations. (Soundbite of TV show, \"The Situation Room\") Mr. JACK CAFFERTY (CNN Commentator): I think our relationship with China has certainly changed. I think they're basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years. KUHN: Cafferty later explained that he was talking China's government, not its people. Beijing rejected the explanation. Many of Rau's views echo government policy, but he insists that AntiCNN.com represents true grassroots opinion. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu recently said it was laughable to think that Beijing was inciting Internet users to criticize Western media. Ms. JIANG YU (Spokesperson, Chinese Foreign Ministry): (Through translator) This isn't something the government can stir up, nor does it need to. Internet users did this of their accord. It was these Western media that provoked their righteous anger. KUHN: Chinese critics say Rau and his Web site turn a blind eye to China's censorship of its own media. Rau admits that China has problems. Rau says he opposes Western", "Although it will be a few years before Chinese cars are selling in U.S. showrooms, their presence at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit is creating quite a stir. Five Chinese automakers are represented — up from two last year, which sends a clear signal that China is setting its sights on the lucrative American market. In a couple of years, Americans might be able to get a good deal on a Grand Tiger, a Strip of Cloud or perhaps a Liebao. \"In a very few years' time, China is going to be the largest and richest economy in the world. We're going to slip gently into second place,\" says Bob Lutz, vice chairman of General Motors. But Lutz says no one is panicking because U.S. automakers already have a huge presence in China, where they're selling cars and setting up joint ventures. \"We are an integral part of the Chinese automobile industry, so as China grows, we will benefit,\" Lutz says. Also, Chinese automakers face some big hurdles before they can penetrate the U.S. market. With relatively cheap labor, they can produce affordable vehicles, but their cars lack many of the basic features and comforts that American consumers now demand. Paul Eisenstein, publisher of TheCarConnection.com, says the Chinese face more serious challenges. \"We saw some tests out of Europe just a few months ago where the Europeans ran a crash test, and [the Chinese] car folded up like an accordion,\" Eisenstein says. \"One of the comments made by an executive was, 'Well, we sell our cars to people who drive safely.' Well, I don't think that's going to fly or meet federal mandates in the U.S. or Europe.\" That's why Mike Jackson, the president of Auto Nation, the largest chain of car dealerships in the U.S., announced in Detroit that he wouldn't sell Chinese cars — not yet, anyway. The Chinese say they hope to be selling cars in the U.S. within two or three years, but they understand the challenge. \"We are not sure whether we can pass the qualification or safety test in the United States,\" says Waping Jong, the chief designer of Cheng Fung's new diesel SUV. \"We have a lot of work to do with the qualification.\" ROBERT SIEGEL, host: From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel. MELISSA BLOCK, host: And I'm Melissa Block. If Chinese automakers have their way, in a few years, you might be able to get a good deal on a Grand Tiger, a Strip of Cloud, or perhaps a Liebao. Those are cars all on display at this year's North American International Auto Show. It's the second year in a row that Chinese automakers have brought their cars to Detroit, and that sends a clear signal that China is setting its sights on the lucrative American market. NPR's Anthony Brooks reports. (Soundbite of music) ANTHONY BROOKS: Coming soon to Automile or AutoNation or to a showroom near you, Chinese SUVs, sedans, and minivans. Well, maybe not so soon. But here at this year's big auto show in Detroit, five Chinese car companies are displaying some 20 different vehicles, clearly aiming for the U.S. market. Unidentified Man #1: Please give a warm welcome to Chairman Li, the CEO of Chang Feng. BROOKS: The presentation by the chairman of Chang Feng Motors showed both a promise and a challenge facing Chinese automakers. Chairman Jianxin Li had the attention of hundreds of journalists. But his English was so poor, nobody had a clue what he was saying. Mr. JIANXIN LI (Chairman, Chang Feng Motor): In this spending(ph) they sought challenger. I've been able - Chang Feng market see that (unintelligible)… BROOKS: Even so, the presentation signaled Chang Feng's clear intention to enter the U.S. Market. Here's Chairman Li making that point more clearly to an interpreter. Mr. LI: (Through translator) This is the second time Chang Feng Group came to this auto show. That shows our interest to get in to this market. BROOKS: Should American automakers be worried about Chinese competition? Mr. LI: (Through translator) Oh, I feel no threat to GM, Ford, the Chrysler cars in Chinese market. So, it's normal there's some Chinese cars in North America. Yeah. BROOKS: Sounds fair to me. Mr. LI: (Chinese spoken) (Soundbite of laughter) BROOKS: Detroit automakers understand it's only a question of time before the Chinese and their rapidly growing economy represents serious competition. Mr. ROBERT A. LUTZ (Vice Chairman, General Motors): Well, I don't think it's just Detroit automakers. I think it's the entire United States - U.S. Incorporated. BROOKS: But Bob Lutz, vice chairman of General Motors, says nobody is panicked by this. That's because U.S. automakers already have a huge presence in China, where they're selling cars and setting up joint ventures. Mr. LUTZ: So we are an integral part of the Chinese automobile industry. So, as China grows, we will benefit. BROOKS: But Chinese automakers still face some big hurdles before they can penetrate the U.S. market. With relatively cheap labor, they can produce affordable vehicles, but the", "Before the summit in Beijing on Tuesday, President Obama had met several times with his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao. But making his first presidential trip to Asia, this is Obama's first contact with people in China, and he did not receive the rock star reception that has greeted him in other regions such as Europe. One of Obama's main messages has been that the U.S. does not seek to contain China or force its values on it. Many Chinese welcome that message, but they don't necessarily trust it. \"This humility is a kind of pose,\" says Yu Baoping, a Beijing resident. \"Of course, as America's president, he's got to protect America's interests, and I suspect that could harm China's interests. For example, he's slapped high duties on imports from China, and this has had a big impact on us.\" Beijing-based blogger Rao Jin acknowledges that Obama is charismatic. But he sees little difference between Obama's China policies and those of his predecessor. Many American analysts see President Bush's China policies as relatively successful and advocated that Obama continue them. But not Rao. \"Chinese peoples' opinion of him will only change when he does things that bring substantial benefits to U.S.-China relations, such as refusing to meet with the Dalai Lama, stop taking protectionist trade measures and stop selling arms to separatist forces such as Taiwan.\" Last year, Rao founded Anti-CNN, a Web site devoted to exposing perceived bias in Western media reports about China. The U.S. Embassy in Beijing had invited Rao to blog Monday's town-hall discussion in Shanghai, but Chinese organizers had already picked the audience, and Rao didn't get in. The U.S. also had pressed to have the discussion broadcast live, but Chinese officials declined. It was only broadcast live in Shanghai, thus limiting the reach of Obama's message. On Chinese Web portals, censors deleted parts of the discussion that dealt with Internet censorship. Rao argues that Obama's use of the Internet has won him many online fans in China. But, he says, he has also created unrealistic expectations of a more friendly United States. \"When these fans discover that he can't make good on his promises, the mood on the Internet could coalesce very quickly and turn into a force against him.\" An online survey by the Global Times showed that 86 percent of respondents were indifferent to Obama's visit, while 46 percent said they disliked the U.S. president. The Global Times is known as a nationalist tabloid, but the poll still suggests a big change since the end of last year, when an online poll by the China Daily found 75 percent support for Obama. Other Chinese had hoped that Obama would raise the human rights issue more forcefully with the Chinese government. \"I can't say that I don't feel any sense of loss,\" says Pu Zhiqiang, a Beijing-based civil rights lawyer. \"Over the past decade, I've had to convince myself not to hope that external forces can change China.\" Pu is particularly critical of the highly staged town hall events. \"This kind of event does not represent the thinking of China's youth. It's the same as previous visits to China by American presidents,\" Pu says. \"This sort of rehearsed performance is disrespectful to our guests and deceitful towards our own people.\" Pu notes that U.S. Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton visited Beijing's top universities in 2002 and 1998 respectively, and held discussions with students. While Clinton and then-President Jiang Zemin fielded questions from reporters in 1998, Obama and Hu each made statements to the press Tuesday, but took no questions. STEVE INSKEEP, host: President Obamas visit to China this week is the first time the Chinese people have had a chance to get a close look at the American president. In many parts of the world, Mr. Obamas arrival has been greeted with rock star receptions. The Chinese have been more subdued, even a little wary. NPRs Anthony Kuhn reports from Beijing. ANTHONY KUHN: One of President Obama's main messages on this trip is that the U.S. does not seek to contain China or force its values on it. Many Chinese welcome that message, but they don't necessarily trust it. Beijing resident Hu Balking(ph) stops to comment as he exits a bookstore. He says the presidents humble approach is a shift in tactics, not aims. Mr. HU BALKING: (Through translator) This humility is kind of posed. Of course, as Americas president, you have to protect American interests. And I suspect that could harm Chinas interests. For example, he slapped high duties on imports from China, and this has had a big impact on us. KUHN: Beijing-based blogger Rao�Jin acknowledges that President Obama is charismatic, but he sees little difference between President Obamas China policies and those of his predecessor. Mr. RAO�JIN (Blogger): (Through translator) Chinese peoples opinion of him will only change when he does things that bring substantial benefits to U.S.-China relations, such as refusing to m", "What do an eccentric British detective, a cut-throat Washington pol and a bunch of nerds at Caltech have in common? They are characters in some of the most popular foreign TV shows in China. Over the past five years, The Big Bang Theory alone has been streamed more than 1.3 billion times. To appreciate how much some young Chinese love the BBC series, Sherlock, step inside 221B Baker Street. That's Holmes' fictitious address in London as well as the name of a café that opened last year in Shanghai's former French Concession. Good luck, though, finding a table. \"Business has been very good since the premier of the third season,\" says Eric Zhang, the café's twenty-seven-year-old owner. \"People have to line up or make reservations in advance on Saturday and Sunday, otherwise they can't get a seat.\" Like many young people here, Zhang grew up reading the detective classics by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, translated into Chinese. Zhang says his father is a detective and used to share murder, smuggling and arson cases with him. \"Actually, I aspired to be a policeman,\" says Zhang, \"but I didn't pass the physical and opened a café instead.\" The café – all wood and leather — is drenched in Sherlock paraphernalia. On the wall next to the bar are hand-written, Sherlock plot-lines. By the window sits a tableful of what is supposed to be Dr. Watson's medical equipment, including a microscope and old glass syringes retrieved from the basement of a Chinese hospital. On the bookshelves sit seemingly endless photos of Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays Holmes in the series. Zhang explains the shrine-like treatment of the British actor. \"To tell you the truth, girls are especially fond of him,\" says Zhang. \"He has personal charm. It's irresistible.\" Indeed, nearly every customer here today is female. Tina Zhou, 25, works for a Chinese state-owned company. She says Cumberbatch – whose Chinese nickname is \"Curly Fu,\" a reference to his hair — plays a great Holmes. \"He combines all these qualities,\" she says. \"He's intelligent, pretty humorous, has a sort of a dry humor. He's charming, talented. He carries himself in an elegant way. A gentleman.\" If many young women here can't take their eyes off Cumberbatch, millions of other Chinese are transfixed by a very different foreign TV character, Frank Underwood, the Machiavellian politician at the center of Netflix's House of Cards. The series, which debuted here on Valentine's Day, is the hottest foreign TV show in China right now with more than 83 million streams. Andrew Jiang, who binge-watched all 13 episodes in a single day, thinks House of Cards may be more interesting to Chinese than Americans. \"Because you get this kind of political drama all the time,\" he says, \"while in China, there is no political drama.\" The Communist Party would never allow such a dark portrayal of its own politics, and when China does produce political dramas, Jiang says, they tend to be period pieces filled with stock characters. \"Everyone is like a hero and everyone is like a great statesman,\" Jiang says. \"It's just propaganda, but in House of Cards, what you are going to see is the sausage-making process.\" Jiang, who grew up in Beijing and is now a law student in Illinois, says another attraction to this season is its China storyline. The plot features Xander Feng, a corrupt Chinese businessman with close ties to the Communist Party who's trying to cut a secret deal with the White House. In one scene, he tells a U.S. official that Washington should reinstate a lawsuit to continue to put pressure on China to allow its currency to rise. \"When you do, there will be those on the [Politburo] standing committee who will protest,\" Feng tells Underwood's chief of staff, \"but I will handle them. The majority want reform.\" The plot point is far-fetched, but Jiang says it illustrates a political truth: the Communist Party is anything but monolithic. \"This shows American people and all those freshmen congressmen who don't know too much about Chinese politics, actually, there is division,\" says Jiang. Dwarfing Sherlock and House of Cards in longevity and overall popularity here is The Big Bang Theory, which for many young Chinese became must-see TV, usually streamed on a computer or iPad. A big reason is because many identify with the main characters: nerdy science guys. The show has been a big hit with Chinese college students, who are more bookish than their American counterparts. When Yu Wenting attended Sichuan University a few years back, she says many of her classmates were just like The Big Bang Theory's lead characters, Sheldon and Leonard. \"They themselves were having exactly the same issue as the guys in the show, of finding girlfriends and talking to girls, because their life is full of work and lacks a social aspect,\" Yu says. Young Chinese recognize other traits in the cast, such as Sheldon's self-absorption. In one scene, Sheldon becomes irritated with next door neighbor Penny for giving him a Christmas pres", "Here are some of the recent news stories that went viral in China that you may have missed: The man who tried to smuggle his pet turtle onto a plane inside a hamburger box. The zoo that tried to pass off a Tibetan mastiff as a lion. And the 1 million cockroaches that escaped from a cockroach \"nursery.\" Foreign news coverage of China is often deadly serious, focusing on topics such as politics, corruption, pollution and food safety. But China — like the United States — also produces a steady stream of funny, bizarre and outrageous news stories. And these days, you don't have to read Chinese to enjoy them. A growing number of websites are making these offbeat tales increasingly available to English-speaking audiences. One of the more amusing recent stories began as an investigative TV report about an exotic fungus unearthed by a farmer in western China's Shaanxi province. \"A village in Shaanxi is purported to have found this incredible rare mushroom,\" explains James Griffiths, the editor of Shanghaiist, an English-language news blog launched in 2005 that draws about half a million readers a month. (It's owned by Gothamist, a U.S.-based company that runs a network of city blogs.) Villagers said they had come across it as they hit bedrock while drilling a new well. Griffiths describes the news report in which a female TV reporter \"picks up the mushroom and shows it off and the villagers are all standing in the back looking proud. And basically, the moment it hit the Internet, everyone pointed out: 'That's a sex toy!' \" The next day, the TV program issued an apology, noting that the reporter was still very young and \"unwise to the ways of the world.\" Soon afterward, the inevitable cellphone video surfaced showing a street vendor trying to sell more \"magic mushrooms\" for up to $3,000 apiece. He played the TV report on his laptop as a testimonial and batted away skeptical questions. \"The news is real,\" the con man says with a straight face. \"How can it be a lie?\" China's Internet is a target-rich environment for stuff like this. \"We've got over a billion people here,\" says Griffiths, a 24-year-old Briton. \"It's not hard to find weird stories.\" What's Hot With China's Netizens ChinaSMACK, which is written by Chinese nationals, was one of the first English-language blogs to highlight strange stories. It started in 2008 and now claims about 750,000 readers a month. ChinaSMACK's specialty is translating comments by Chinese Web users on articles so English readers can get a sense of popular opinion here. Recent posts include a photo of a Chinese official eating a pear with his phone off the hook, which helps explain why it's often impossible to get through to government offices. Another post shows pictures of a 22-year-old intern who parked a Maserati in the middle of a city street. Chinese readers figured she was the daughter of a tycoon, a military officer or worse. \"Some may think this car is bought by a government official [for] his mistress,\" says Peter Nie, a junior editor with ChinaSMACK who translated the story. Nie lives in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu and says he works for ChinaSMACK in exchange for beer money. Mistresses are big on social media here because they are so common. ChinaSMACK recently posted an episode of a TV show that was supposed to be about traffic safety. A cheerful, friendly cop pulls over a couple for not wearing their seat belts. Having forgotten his license, the driver calls his wife to bring it to him. His passenger — a pretty, 20-something in a blue sundress — panics and flees the scene. After the wife arrives, the cop indicates that the AWOL passenger still owes an 81 cent fine for not wearing her seat belt. Already suspicious, the wife quickly realizes who her husband has been out with and becomes angry. \"Now, you guys know how important respecting traffic regulations is, right?\" read one comment. ChinaSMACK is run by a woman in Shanghai who goes by the Internet handle \"Fauna.\" She says she likes to remain anonymous to avoid trolls. In an online interview, she says that she started the site to practice her English and expose foreigners to stories that interested Chinese people. \"I hope ChinaSMACK can be an interesting way to learn more about what Chinese netizens are paying attention to and how they think, feel, and react,\" she writes. China's \"Daily Show\" One of the newest entrants to the field of English-language blogs is China Daily Show, which takes its name from Comedy Central's The Daily Show and China Daily, the Chinese government's English-language newspaper. \"It's a satirical news site with fake headlines,\" says the editor, a British citizen who asks to be identified by his first name, Robert. He prefers anonymity to avoid trouble with the authorities. \"Of course being in China, quite a lot of those headlines either end up becoming true or are very close to being the truth,\" Robert adds. China Daily Show's tagline is \"the only news source visible from outer spa", "Back in the days of the Cultural Revolution when Mao Tse Tung was still running China, people passed around bound notebooks of underground literature. \"It was very dangerous to copy them and to pass them around,\" says Perry Link, a professor of East Asian Studies at Princeton University. \"You could get in trouble if you got caught.\" Those notebooks weren't filled with the writings of a Chinese Solzhenitsyn, criticizing the Communist Party. \"They were almost all ... entertainment fiction,\" says Link. \"Triangular love stories and detective stories and things like that.\" The only kind of literature that made it through the government censors — even long after Mao was dead — was dry and boring. It had to have a message about the improvement of communist society. But writer Fu Tian — that's her pen name — does not think about how to make a better China when she writes. As the pale afternoon sun filters through a dusty window in her Shanghai apartment, it lights up her mischievous face as she types. All she wants is to entertain her readers. Romance and Intrigue, Censor-Free Fu, whose real name is Zhang Shuyu, creates historical fiction. Her latest book is filled with romance and palace intrigue. \"The story is based on Wu Zetian, the only female emperor in Chinese history, and this little girl who is like one of the daughters of the female emperor,\" explains Fu. \"In real history, the princess did not succeed in getting power, but in this novel she is able to.\" Fu doesn't have to worry about the publishing censors. She has been writing novels exclusively for the Internet for more than a year. She now has thousands of loyal readers. They come to find her books on a Web site called Qidian. Qidian has grown from a small coterie of literature fans to a staff of 70. Many of them are editors who sort through the thousands of novel submissions posted on the site every month. They try and figure out which writers are the best and the most popular, and move those up to the front page. Wu Wung Xao, one of the site's founders and its general manager, says Qidian gets about 200 million page views a day and is one of China's most popular literary sites. Fu Tian quickly drew the attention of readers and editors, he says, because she's \"funny and fun.\" Fu is now being given health benefits and a base salary by Qidian. Her fans must pay 2 cents to read each new installment of her novels. And Fu gets a cut. Manager Wu admits this model doesn't always lead to the most literary fiction. He says on the Internet writing is focused on plot. Writers end chapters on cliffhangers to keep readers' attention. There isn't always much attention to grammar and style. Jo Lusby, the general manager of Penguin Books in China, thinks online lit is in its infancy and is likely to get better as it matures. \"I think it's very young,\" she says. \"I think this is young people writing for young people.\" Finding an Audience, Bringing It Along There is some good news for people who like actual books made of paper. Fu and most other Chinese writers still want to see their books in print. Happily for them, publishers increasingly look to the Internet to find the most popular books. City of Books, Shanghai's largest book store, takes up six stories, and more and more, books that first showed up on the Internet are turning up on the shelves there. As Fu Tian walks around the store, the books that catch her eye are often by friends. \"The Ghost Blows Out the Light!\" she exclaims. \"It used to be the biggest hit on the Qidian Web site, and it's being made into a movie.\" Of course, Fu hopes that one of her books will get made into a film. She's very excited: This fall, she'll have her own first book on the shelves. Self-Censorship Rules While Fu is elated with the freedom and the opportunity that the Internet is bringing to her and to other young Chinese writers, she admits there are limits. \"We have greater freedom than traditional writers,\" she says. \"But it is still not like you can write about [just] anything. You need to do positive things. ... If we can put it this way.\" Fu cannot write about political topics such as Taiwan or Tibet, for instance. In the old days, under Mao, Chinese novelists were encouraged to address politics and society — as long as they did it through a Communist lens. Now, Fu and the young writers on the Internet can be as entertaining as they want to be, with their cliffhangers, romances and historical fantasies. They just can't write about anything too serious or politically sensitive. For them, the Internet is the great entertainment highway. Editor's Note: Like many Chinese phrases, the title of Fu Tian's novel can be translated in more than one way. Fu herself suggests The Sounds of the Palace, but notes that \"certainly that is not accurate.\" Another translator suggests the title we've chosen here. The First Chapter: A Fantasy It was a chilling day in February. The carriages up and do", "The success of the Netflix series House of Cards lies in the details. The show has consulted with computer hackers and political scientists on storylines. Its characters regularly name-drop real-life political journalists, some of whom make on-screen cameos. And a few episodes feature actors speaking in Chinese. That's one detail, though, the show doesn't get quite right. My fellow binge watchers may remember the character Raymond Tusk speaking in heavily accented Mandarin Chinese during business calls in the show's first season. You wouldn't expect an American billionaire from St. Louis to be a fluent Chinese speaker. But in the show's second season, there are a few roles that would call for actors to perform in Chinese fluently. So I called an expert – one of my Chinese language instructors in college, Kirsten Speidel, who was born in Taiwan and first learned Mandarin Chinese as a child. Now she teaches Chinese to students at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. \"Because I'm correcting people's pronunciation daily in class, I'm pretty critical when I hear Chinese in American movies [and TV shows],\" she said. Speidel hasn't seen the show yet, so I played her an audio clip of a businessman from China telling one of his staff members to bring over a spoon in Mandarin. Her verdict? \"Not a very good accent,\" she said. \"[It] could be that he knows some Mandarin, but [it's] not very good pronunciation of each word.\" But she praised another clip of a Mandarin translator speaking on the phone as \"much more fluid and fluent.\" The Details Of Language If you think we're nitpicking, you're right. But that only seems fair given that the show is obsessed with authenticity (\"from the macro to the micro,\" the show's executive producer Beau Willimon recently told TV Guide). Staff writer Kenneth Lin wrote the Mandarin dialogue for the show's Chinese characters. \"Obviously we're always trying to get as close to accurate as we can get,\" he says. \"Whether or not [the characters] sound like, you know, natives of Beijing or not is certainly questionable, but you know, if you go to China, people have a lot of different accents.\" In American TV shows and movies, characters from China are often played by actors of Asian descent who are not fluent Chinese speakers. \"The assumption is that nobody will notice or care,\" says film producer Janet Yang has worked for decades on films in both China and Hollywood, including The Joy Luck Club and a Chinese remake of High School Musical. \"As it is, [some] people can't really distinguish between Chinese and Japanese and Korean and Vietnamese and any Asian, so Asians tend to get lumped together.\" In 2005, Chinese-American actor Robert Chan filmed a small role as a mob boss from mainland China in Martin Scorsese's The Departed. You may have heard him yelling in Cantonese at Jack Nicholson's character Frank Costello. Chan, who grew up speaking Cantonese, says the role was originally written to speak in Mandarin. \"But I said, 'I'm sorry! My Mandarin is even worse than my Cantonese!' \" he recalls. \"So they ran my Mandarin by some people who actually speak [Mandarin] Chinese, and they said, 'That's really bad! Go with his Cantonese!' I guess it's not factually correct, but then, you know, that's movies. You suspend reality.\" Acting 'In Chinese' Yang says the reality facing Hollywood portrayals of Chinese characters is shifting. \"[Hollywood has] been, for the longest time, catering first to American audiences, and then the rest of the world just sort of gobbled up everything that was being made [in Hollywood],\" she says. But today there's more entertainment that's designed to work in both America and China. (See Iron Man 3 and Looper for recent examples.) That means more demand for dialect coaches like Doug Honorof, who helps actors pull off the illusion of speaking Chinese fluently. The trick, Honorof says, isn't actually learning the language. \"It's really more about the physical part of it – what you do with your tongue, your lips and your jaw,\" he explains. \"You try to make it appear that you actually can speak [the language] even though you really can't.\" Still, Honorof says the level of authenticity depends in part on what the director wants. \"Sometimes they just want the mouth to move. For broad comedy, they're really not thinking about the authenticity so much,\" he says. But some of Honorof's assignments involve days of extensive exercises with an actor with the end goal of not just sounding \"Chinese.\" \"They have to be able to act in Chinese. You have to actually be able to own it so much that you can actually then just perform,\" he explains. The Asian-American Actor's 'Toolkit' Hollywood roles for actors of Asian descent are still mostly limited to immigrant or foreign characters. For better or worse, Steven Eng, an actor who teaches voice and speech classes at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, says the ability to speak in foreign languages or accented English is \"an essential p", "With just four days until Hanukkah, 10 days until Christmas and 11 to Kwanzaa, it's the height of the holiday shopping season. If you're thinking books, reviewer Alan Cheuse has compiled a list of recommendations sure to delight: Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes, translation by Edith Grossman (Ecco) \"For lovers of the novel there is only one book this season that comes close to being the perfect gift. It's a new translation of Don Quixote and shows veteran translator Edith Grossman working at the top of her powers.\" The Early Stories: 1953-1975, by John Updike (Knopf) \"The Early Stories contains over a hundred stories. I don't think it puts too much of a burden on Updike's early fiction to say that listening to him read it is like listening to a young musical genius at work.\" (Hear Updike read from his short stories at the sidebar to the left.) I Sailed with Magellan, by Stuart Dybek (Farrar Straus & Giroux) \"I Sailed With Magellan is a lovely collection of lyrical pieces, loosely tied together, about coming-of-age and the working class, something you can give to anyone who cares about modern short fiction.\" Wild East, Stories from the Last Frontier, edited by Boris Fishman (National Book Network) \"More lively new fiction, all about the experience of living in contemporary eastern Europe, which means drinking and loving and smoking and fighting -- and storytelling.\" Fifth Book of Peace, by Maxine Hong Kingston (Knopf) \"Storytelling is everything in Maxine Hong Kingston’s Fifth Book of Peace, a singular mélange of memoir, fiction, and reportage. The book concerns the manuscript of a novel that Hong Kingston lost to a California wildfire in the early '90s when her house burned down, and the parallels she notices between her work and ancient Chinese texts.\" One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West Before Lewis and Clark, by Colin G. Calloway (University of Nebraska Press) \"The saga of the native people of the American West in the centuries leading up to the Lewis and Clark expedition. Good reading for long winter nights.\" The Complete Poems of Kenneth Rexroth (Copper Canyon Press) \"The California poet who died in 1982 in his late 70s and is buried in a grave overlooking the Pacific, Rexroth's probably best known as the 'Father of the Beat Generation.' These poems reveal that great beauty lies beyond that cliché.\" Eragon, by Christopher Paolini (Knopf) \"For fans of Tolkien and Harry Potter, I'd like to suggest Eragon, a fantasy novel by one of the youngest members of America's writing family: Montana prodigy Christopher Paolini. Now only 19 years old, Paolini began working on this novel when he was 15 and completed it after his graduation from high school. It's about the heroic adventures of a young country boy and his friend Saphira, a young dragon.\" The Conch Bearer, by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (Millbrook Press) \"Another book I think young readers may enjoy. Divakaruni wrote The Conch Bearer for her two young sons. It's the story of a quest to return a magical conch shell to a sacred valley high in the Himalayas.\" American Music: Photographs, Annie Leibovitz (Random House) \"Music and stars and legends and the not-so-famous crowd in Annie Leibovitz's arresting new book of photographs, all here in one long collage.\" Reviewer Alan Cheuse teaches writing at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.", "Sidney Rittenberg went to China as an American GI at the end of World War II and fell in love with the country. He was discharged as a Chinese translator for the U.S. Army, but decided to stay there. By the time Rittenberg came back to the United States, more than 30 years later, he had become one of only a few American citizens to join the Chinese Communist Party. He translated English for Chairman Mao Zedong, told off Madame Mao during the Cultural Revolution, and endured 16 years of solitary confinement in Chinese prisons. Rittenberg saw Chinese history unfold, from the founding of the People's Republic of China to the Great Leap Forward, great famines and the Cultural Revolution. Now an adviser for American corporations that want to do business in China, Rittenberg is the subject of a new documentary, The Revolutionary. He told Weekend Edition host Scott Simon why he refers to Chairman Mao as both a hero and criminal. \"He pulled the nation together and started China on a path of industrial development,\" Rittenberg says. \"[He was a] criminal because after coming into power he felt that he had the right to launch these social experiments that messed up the lives of hundreds of millions of people.\" For Love Of Another Country Shortly after joining the Chinese Communist Party, Rittenberg was accused of being a foreign spy and put in solitary confinement for six years. He wasn't a spy, he says, and in fact was a sympathizer and participant in the party. That didn't matter to the ruling regime. \"Under that sort of system, there is nobody that is ever really safe,\" he says. \"They don't have the understanding that if each person is not secured under the law, that nobody is really secure.\" After his release, Rittenberg remained in China and began working as a journalist and translator for the Chinese government's English radio service. He ended up marrying a Chinese woman and started a family. In 1968, he was put in solitary confinement again for almost 10 years, and his wife was sent to a labor camp. \"[She] suffered terribly in an atmosphere of ... anti-foreign sentiment and action,\" he says. \"She held her head high and kept saying 'My husband is ... a good man [and] you're wrong.' \" After spending 35 years of his life in China — 16 of those in prison — Rittenberg moved to the U.S. in 1980. He and his wife now run a consulting firm that provides assistance to businesses that work with Chinese companies, but still return to China once a year. Change In China May Be Slow Despite China's massive growth over the past few decades, Rittenberg says, the future of the nation is still unclear. \"Everyone seems to agree ... that now there must be further reforms, particularly political reforms [but] also an economic reform,\" he says. He says China's economy needs to change from one driven largely by exports to one that is targeted at the domestic market. China's top leadership is likely to change soon; a Communist Party congress is slated to convene in early November. How much of an impact China's new leaders will have, Rittenberg says, will partially depend on loosening controls on the press and protecting whistle-blowers from retaliation. \"My own guess is that there will be some incremental progress on these issues,\" he says, \"but I think it will be quite a long time before there is more substantial progress and change.\" SCOTT SIMON, HOST: Sidney Rittenberg went to China as an American GI, at the end of World War II, and he fell in love with the country. He was discharged as a Chinese translator for the U.S. Army, but decided to stay in China. By the time he came back to the United States more than 30 years later, he had become the only American citizen to join the Chinese Communist Party. [POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: Although he is among a select few, Rittenberg is not the only American citizen to join the Chinese Communist Party.] He translated English for Chairman Mao. He told off Madame Mao during the Cultural Revolution, and endured 16 years of solitary confinement in Chinese prisons. He saw Chinese history unfold, from the founding of the People's Republic of China to the Great Leap Forward, great famines and the Cultural Revolution. And now, Sidney Rittenberg advises U.S. corporations who want to do business in China. He is the subject of a new documentary, called \"The Revolutionary.\" He joins us from member station KPLU in Tacoma, Washington. Mr. Rittenberg, thanks so much for being with us. SIDNEY RITTENBERG: It's so great to be here with you, Scott. SIMON: You know, I think the only other person that I could imagine asking this question of, would be Henry Kissinger. I don't get to ask this question a lot. What was Mao really like? RITTENBERG: He was a rather aloof, slow-moving, slow-talking person. When we would play Chinese gin rummy together - with Zhou Enlai and Hu Sarti(ph), and the other leaders - they would all tease each other and cuff each other around. But he would sit there, paying attention to his c", "More than 90 people have been detained in China, where authorities are cracking down on members of a Christian cult and others for spreading rumors about Dec. 21, a \" doomsday date\" mentioned in the Mayan calendar. \"They include 37 members of the Christian \"Almighty God\" cult in northwest China's Qinghai Province,\" the Xinhua state news agency reports. \"These cult members recently latched on to the Mayan doomsday scenario to predict the sun will not shine and electricity will not work for three days beginning on December 21,\" reports Xinhua, citing a security official. The Almighty God group has also sought to end the influence of the Communist Party in China. It may seem like more time has passed than just three days, but an elementary school in China was also the scene of a senseless and violent attack Friday, hours before a gunman in the U.S. attacked a school. Mark posted about the Chinese attack, which took place in a village about 500 miles south of Beijing early Friday — shortly before news of the deadly attack in Newtown, Conn., spread. Armed with a kitchen knife, the attacker in Henan province reportedly wounded 22 children and 1 adult. Xinhua reports that the suspected attacker, now arrested, was \"strongly psychologically affected by rumors of the upcoming end of the world predicted by ancient prophecy.\" The victims of the Chinese attack are said to have suffered non-life-threatening injuries — many of them to their hands and ears. But the case has also sparked anger from Chinese citizens who say their state-run news media provided far more coverage of the U.S. attacks in Newtown than of the assault in Henan province. As Benjamin Carlson writes at Global Post, many Chinese turned to social media to vent their frustration: \"'Yesterday, I watched an entire day's worth of CCTV4 news. I watched how America is in chaos and an abyss of suffering, with guns spreading unchecked, and had no idea whatsoever about the extremely tragic crime in Henan!,' wrote one user on Weibo, in a translation by ChinaSmack.\" Others who commented on the disparity noted that President Obama visited Newtown and showed both emotion and respect for the dead — something they say China's leaders have not done. Carlson notes another disparity: views on the right to own guns. \"Perhaps most surprising of all,\" he writes, \"while many Americans begin to demand better gun-control laws following several bloody massacres, some Chinese continue to look at US gun rights with envy.\"", "In 2000, the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon introduced moviegoers worldwide to superhuman martial artists who could deliver a beatdown while balancing on bamboo or gliding across water. But those kinds of acrobatics were no surprise to Chinese audiences. In an early chapter of the popular Chinese novel Legends of the Condor Heroes, several characters in a tavern drink wine from a bronze cauldron that weighs more than 200 pounds ... by tossing it to each other. One person catches the cauldron with one hand; another holds out a walking stick with one hand and balances it like he's spinning a plate, tipping the stick slightly to send a stream of wine to his mouth; yet another jumps up and sips the wine from the cauldron in mid-air. Condor Heroes tells the story of Guo Jing, born in medieval China. Northern invaders have defeated the Chinese Empire, and some of them killed Guo's father. His mother flees to the north, where Guo grows up with Genghis Khan's Mongols and learns martial arts from several masters to avenge his father's death. The series mixes prose and poetry, fantasy, history, and martial arts. It features a wide cast of characters, some of whom can do things like pierce skulls with their fingers and paralyze opponents by touching precise acupressure points. \"I couldn't stop reading,\" says Hong Kong lawyer Ricky Li Kin-yeung, who says he first encountered Condor Heroes when he was 11. \"I read it during lessons at school ... under the table. I read it on my bed, I covered up my head and the book in the quilt, and turned on the torch ... afraid of being caught by my mum,\" a common experience among Condor Heroes fans. Now 28, Kin-yeung says he's read the book four or five times. And now readers everywhere will get a chance to share that experience; Legends of the Condor Heroes — the first in a four-book series — has just been translated into English. And while it may be new to readers in the West, it's actually one of the most famous works by author Louis Cha (commonly known as Jin Yong), a Hong Kong writer beloved across the Chinese-speaking world. Jin Yong's books have been made into comic books, TV shows, movies, and video games — in fact, the latest TV adaptation of Condor Heroes came out in China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore last year. Now in his 90s, he no longer gives interviews, but I found no shortage of people who wanted to talk about his work. \"It's difficult to overestimate (Jin Yong's) cultural influence,\" says Boston University professor Petrus Liu. \"He turns novels into an encyclopedia of Chinese history, medicine, geography, philosophy, mathematics ... Nobody ever does that.\" Liu adds that he considers Jin Yong \"the most important author of modern Chinese literature because he is the only (one) who writes in a narrative tradition that is truly Chinese.\" That narrative tradition focuses on linked chapter fiction, something like the novels-in-stories that are so popular on American bookshelves right now. The chapters are linked, but they also stand alone as stories — and that means the novel doesn't just follow the life of one protagonist; it has many characters and side stories, and almost never has a first-person narrative voice. Liu says this structure is often like an oral performance or a Buddhist sermon: Each chapter starts with an elegant couplet, and ends on a cliffhanger for the next one. While it might be easy to describe Condor Heroes as China's answer to Lord of the Rings or A Song of Ice and Fire, Liu compares Jin Yong's popularity and relevance to Jane Austen: \"Only six novels to work with, but the movies never quit coming.\" And he says Jin Yong — like Austen — is renowned for his social observations and insight into human nature, which is why so many people adapt his work. \"Jin Yong's works have an emotional richness that seems inexhaustible,\" Liu says. Another part of Jin Yong's appeal is the elegant names, steeped in Chinese culture and history, that he gives to his characters and their martial arts moves. Condor Heroes translator Anna Holmwood notes in her introduction to the book that \"many have considered Jin Yong's world too foreign, too Chinese, for an English-speaking readership. Impossible to translate.\" But Holmwood tells me the difficulty was part of the fun. For example, two characters who mastered that skull-piercing martial arts move are named after different types of wind. They're scary, and they fight their opponents in the dark. Their Chinese names capture that atmosphere, so she says she had a great time going through the thesaurus to find different words for gales and storms; she ultimately named them Hurricane Chen and Cyclone Mei. But will that elegance, that richness, really translate? \"They've tried this before ... in comics, on the internet, and there's just no good way to really capture how cool the language is,\" says Lokman Tsui, an assistant professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. \"It just sounds kind of dorky.\" And he should", "Panda Express is best known as the purveyor of sweet, sticky plates of orange chicken and beef with broccoli in malls across America. But now, the chain is taking aim at a bigger market: It's been reported that company founder Andrew Cherng is thinking about expanding into China. But will Panda's Americanized menu fly in Beijing? Writer Jennifer 8. Lee thinks it might need a little help. \"The Chinese food we eat in America is very alien to Chinese people,\" she tells Weekend All Things Considered host Linda Wertheimer. Dishes like General Tso's chicken, a classic of the American Chinese menu, are a mystery to the Chinese diner. \"I actually went to the home town of General Tso, in the Hunan province, where there are 300 members of his family still hanging out,\" Lee says. \"I showed them pictures of General Tso's chicken, and I said, 'Do you know this dish?' And they looked at it and they were like, 'Huh, we've never seen this!' And then they would squint and say, 'Is this Chinese food?' Because it doesn't look like Chinese food to them.\" Lee adds that American-Chinese food is really its own separate cuisine. But how did it diverge so greatly from its origins? Cedric Yeh, curator of the National Museum of American History's \"Sweet & Sour\" exhibit, a look at 150 years of Chinese food in America, says things really began to change with the invention of chop suey. Around the turn of the 20th century, Yeh says, chop suey \"took off like wildfire and spread across the country. It helped really make the Chinese food experience something exotic and adventuresome for the people in America.\" While chop suey is generally regarded as an American invention, he says, you can find similar dishes in China. \"I asked my parents — they ran a Chinese restaurant themselves ... and what my father said was, well, chop suey can be loosely translated into 'extra bits,' miscellaneous parts, or leftovers. And he said, who doesn't have leftovers?\" Yeh says. But if you're wandering around Chinatown, hungry for an authentic lunch, Lee has a tip for you: \"No American, fully American-Chinese restaurant would serve jellyfish,\" she says. So if you find somewhere with jellyfish on the menu, you're in for a truly Chinese taste treat. LINDA WERTHEIMER, host: Panda Express sells sweet, sticky Chinese fast-food in malls all over the country. But now, they're looking towards a bigger market. It's been reported that the company is thinking of opening stores in China. But will their Americanized menu fly in Beijing? Is the Chinese food we know and love anything an actual Chinese person would recognize? Ms. JENNY 8. LEE (Writer): The Chinese food that we eat in America is very alien to Chinese people. WERTHEIMER: That's journalist Jenny 8. Lee. She's tracked the origins of a classic American Chinese dish, deep-fried, sauce-drenched General Tso's Chicken. Ms. LEE: I actually went to the hometown of General Tso, which is in the Hunan province, and there are 300 members of his family still hanging out in this little town. And I've shown them pictures of General Tso's Chicken, and I said, do you know this dish? And they looked at it and they're like, huh, we've never seen this. And then they would squint and say, is this Chinese food? Because it doesn't look like Chinese food to them. WERTHEIMER: And it really isn't Chinese food, Lee says. Ms. LEE: American Chinese food actually is its own cuisine. There is actually a chain of restaurants in South Korea that sells American Chinese food called Ho Lee Chow, and they have on that menu beef with broccoli and General Tso's chicken. WERTHEIMER: But how did egg rolls and chop suey get to be the all-American comfort foods they are today? Luckily for us, the National Museum of American History has just unveiled a little exhibit on the history of the Chinese restaurant in this country. It's called \"Sweet & Sour.\" And curator Cedric Yeh gave me a quick tour through 150 years of Chinese food in America. Mr. CEDRIC YEH (Curator, National Museum of American History): These plates are from Chinese restaurants in Hawaii. But really, why they're here is to demonstrate the chop suey emblem that you see on this because chop suey appeared around this time, early 1900s or even early - late 1800s. And it took off like wildfire, and it spread across the country. And it helped really make the Chinese food experience something exotic and adventuresome for the people in America to sample and try. I mean, it became the thing that everybody wanted to have. WERTHEIMER: Is it true that chop suey never existed in China? Mr. YEH: Well, you know, that's the interesting story. I had wanted to say that it was an American invention. That's been a story that's been going on since I was a child. Recent research has shown that dishes like chop suey existed in China. I think the story that I like to tell, anyways, is that - I asked my parents. They ran a Chinese restaurant themselves, and they have been my best source or my ", "An air of delicacy hovers over Lilting, but don't be fooled. Ungovernable gusts of longing, grief and anger leak from this muted British chamber piece about two hitherto unconnected Londoners struggling with the loss of the young man they both loved. Fur will fly, quietly but with force — and not particularly because the lady in the lead is played by Asian martial arts legend Cheng Pei-pei (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). Cheng is a still, outwardly calm presence as Junn, a Cambodian-Chinese immigrant in her 60s mourning the recent loss of her son Kai (Andrew Leung). We meet her complaining to Kai that she hates the comfortable assisted living facility where, she believes, he dumped her. Their exchange and others will replay at slightly different angles, filtered through painful or cherished memories, sorrow and longing. Just about everyone in Lilting is an earnestly unreliable narrator, including Kai's live-in lover, Richard, soulfully underplayed by Ben Whishaw, a lucky catch for first-time feature writer-director Hong Khaou. Uninvited and more than a little unhinged, Richard keeps showing up with gifts to win over a hostile Junn and talk her into moving in with him. His overtures go over poorly, especially when he hires a translator named Vann (Naomi Christie), allegedly to help Junn further a flirtation with Alan (Peter Bowles), a cranky fellow resident who speaks not a word of Chinese. After years in England, Junn, a widow, speaks no English and makes no effort to acclimate to a society she still considers alien. What Richard fails to notice is that Junn and Alan do just fine until he tries to make them understand one another. In another kind of movie, the kind that packed prime-time television lineups in the 1970s and '80s, improved communication would work its therapeutic magic; the combatants would embrace and move forward with their lives. In Lilting, talk is lost in translation, blackly comic, or downright toxic, especially when the well-meaning Vann gets creative with her interpretations. If that saves Lilting from the mawkishness that often plagues dramatizations of grief, it also underscores Khaou's mistrust of verbal language. For much of the movie, the spoken word irons out idiosyncrasy, obscures some truths worth telling, and blurts out others best kept under wraps. Far more telling is the writer-director's use of space and time to create a dance of approach and avoidance that takes the emotional temperature beneath what's said. It's only when Richard start to give away gifts that matter (those that cost him something, and that Junn really wants), and when he and Junn quit trying to control one another, that a kind of loosening frees them both to express their anguish and achieve not closure, but perhaps a kind of motivating peace. Pay close attention, and you might also measure their progress in the scenically bleak treetops of an icy winter or a quick shot of a gasworks on a walk by the Thames. Is that a breakthrough we feel when spring comes, or just some green treetops gently swaying in a warm breeze?", "Defense Secretary Robert Gates kicked off a round-the-world trip in Singapore Saturday with a speech to a conference of Asian defense leaders. Some Asian officials believe U.S. commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan will mean a reduced security presence in Asia. In fact, the Pentagon plans to cut down the number of troops permanently based in the Far East. \"We are an Asian power with significant and long term political, economic and security interests,\" Gates said. \"Our commitments elsewhere notwithstanding, we will fulfill our commitments in Asia.\" Apparently in the intellectual salons of Asia, there is a lot of talk about how America is neglecting the continent. So, Gates came armed with a number of examples to show otherwise. \"From its inception as a young republic, the United States has been a Pacific nation,\" Gates said. Historians may quibble with that --California and most western states didn't become part of America until around 1850. Nevertheless, there is a strong argument that today, America is a Pacific nation — and that has a lot to do with economic co-dependency. And then there is the white elephant in the room: U.S.-China relations. Last week, the Pentagon released its annual report on China's growing military power. The Chinese hate the report in general, but particularly this one. It accuses Beijing of hiding large chunks of its military spending. \"We are concerned about the opaqueness of Beijing's military spending and modernization programs,\" Gates said at the session — words that were as close as he would come to criticizing China. It still rankled the top Chinese representative at the conference. Lt. Gen. Zhang Qinsheng, China's intelligence chief, called Washington's report \"inaccurate\" and \"untrue.\" But there is enough concern in the United States over China's ultimate military objectives that Washington and Beijing will soon set up a military \"hotline\" similar to the one established with Moscow at the height of the Cold War. JOHN YDSTIE, host: This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm John Ydstie. Coming up, a tour with Famous Fat Dave. But first, Defense Secretary Robert Gates kicked off a round-the-world trip today in Singapore with a speech to a conference of Asian defense leaders. Some Asian officials believe U.S. commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan will mean a reduced U.S. security interest in the rest of Asia. In fact, the Pentagon plans to cut down the number of troops permanently based in the Far East. NPR's defense correspondent Guy Raz is traveling with Secretary Gates. He sent us this report. GUY RAZ: China is an Asian power, so is India, perhaps, Indonesia. But America? That's the message Secretary Gates wants Asian leaders to hear. Secretary ROBERT GATES (Department of Defense): We are an Asian power with significant and long term political, economic and security interests. Our commitments elsewhere are notwithstanding. We will fulfill our commitments in Asia. RAZ: Apparently in the intellectual salons of Asia, there is a lot of talk about how America is neglecting the continent. So Gates came armed with a number of examples to show otherwise. Sec. GATES: From its inception as a young republic, the United States has been a Pacific nation. RAZ: Now, historians may quibble with that line. California and most western states didn't become part of America until around 1850. Nevertheless, there are pretty good arguments to suggest that today America is a Pacific nation — and that has a lot to do with economic co-dependency. And then, there is the white elephant in the room: U.S.-China relations. Last week, the Pentagon released its annual report on China's growing military power. The Chinese hate the report particularly this one because it accuses Beijing of hiding large chunks of its military spending. Sec. GATES: We are concerned about the opaqueness of Beijing's military spending and modernization programs. RAZ: This was about as far as Gates went in criticizing China. He wants good relations. But it still rankled the top Chinese representative at the conference, Lieutenant General Zhang Qinsheng. He called Washington's report inaccurate and untrue. But there is enough concern in the U.S. over China's ultimate military objectives that Washington and Beijing will soon set up a military hotline, similar to the one established with Moscow at the height of the Cold War. Guy Raz, NPR News, Singapore.", "The Chinese are buying more and more cars and will soon over take the U.S. as the world's No. 1 auto market. Back in the 1980s, young married couples in China aspired to own a bicycle, a sewing machine, a watch and a radio. These days, many Chinese men believe they must first own a car, house and a laptop before they can think about getting into a serious relationship. RENEE MONTAGNE, host: Now we go to Shanghai, where NPR's Louisa Lim reports on how the spread of cars is changing everything from leisure activities to Chinese courtship rituals. LOUISA LIM: Back in the 1980's, young married couples in China aspired to own a bicycle, a sewing machine, a watch and a radio. How times have changed. Nowadays in Chinese cities, many grooms-to-be often feel they must first own a car, a flat and a laptop before they can even think about getting serious. Twenty-year-old Ding Jin(ph) has just got his first set of wheels, a Chevrolet, and says it might help him find a girl. It's clearly a status symbol, a sign of upward mobility. Mr. DING JIN: (Through translator) When you were younger and went from bicycle to motorbike, you moved up a rung, he says. Now upgrading from motorbike to car, it's another step up. And his father, Ding Young Sun(ph), has big ambitions for the boy with the American car. Mr. DING YOUNG SUN: (Foreign language spoken) (Soundbite of laughter) Mr. JIN: (Foreign language spoken) (Soundbite of laughing) LIM: Can you find him an American wife? He asks me, only half joking. Father and son have come to the Chevrolet showroom with family friend Zhan Wen Xiang(ph). They're persuading him to shell out $12,000 for a car for his son. (Soundbite of banging) LIM: On the other side of town, Yu Li(ph) unlocks a cabinet in his office. He takes out an opium pipe from Sichuan in Southwest China, a carved coconut from Hainan Island in the south and a wooden-abacus-cum-back scratcher from Shanxi in Central China. These are treasured mementos of the quarter of a million miles he's driven in the past five years. Yu Li runs Black Horse Car club. He started this touring car club just five years ago, but already has 16,000 members. Their lives have been changed, he says, by their cars. Mr. YU LI (Founder, Black Horse Car Club): (Through translator) Of course owning a car increases your freedom, says Yu Li. We go where we like, stay as long as we want. It's not like the past, when we had our movements and thoughts controlled by tour guides. LIM: He even allows non-car owners to join the club, preferring to think of them as future car owners. As for today's figures tipping the US from the top spot, analysts say it may not last for the whole year. But back in the showroom, smart-talking Chevy salesman Wen Xiang sees it as the natural order of the world. Mr. ZHAN WEN XIANG (Chevrolet Salesman): (Through translator) The Olympic Games said it all, he says. China was the gold medal champion. Our population is much bigger than the US, so overtaking the US is very normal. It's nothing to be proud of. Louisa Lim, NPR News, Shanghai.", "Famous war photographer Robert Capa, founding member of Magnum photos, was in China in 1938. He was covering the Chinese resistance against the Japanese invasion that had begun in July 1937. Capa was a seminal figure in the world of photojournalism; his work is familiar to many. But how many of you can say you've heard of Sha Fei, the Chinese photojournalist who was covering the same events as Capa? Until recently, many Chinese hadn't even heard of him. Sha Fei's promising career in photojournalism took a turn for the worse when he fell mentally ill in his late 30s. He was tried and executed for murder in 1950, and his story was thereafter repressed. An exhibition of Sha Fei's work debuts today for the first time in America — at Ohio State University's Urban Arts Space. The curator, Eliza Ho, was awarded a Presidential Fellowship by OSU to complete a graduate dissertation on Sha Fei. As she writes, the photographer lived \"in one of the most turbulent periods in China's modern history. During his lifetime, China was radically transformed by a succession of revolutions and foreign invasions...\" Having witnessed their country in crisis, a new generation of Chinese youth grew up with a strong sense of patriotism. Sha Fei was part of this generation, and he shared with his peers a conviction to reform and modernize China. To contribute to that effort, Sha Fei chose photography as his medium because of its unique potential for representing the reality of the current age. Ho divides the exhibition of 38 photographs into three phases: the fine art photographer, the social documentarian and the propagandist. You can see Sha Fei's career develop from his early pictoralist photograph, Song of the Fisherman, to images from later in his life of Communist propaganda. His photographs show a China in transition. Sadly, at the young age of 36, Sha Fei was hospitalized after contracting tuberculosis in 1948. Ho writes: Tragedy arrived ... on December 5, 1949, in the Bethune Hospital in Shijiazhuang, Hebei province where he was receiving treatment for tuberculosis. Sha Fei became delusional and fired several gunshots that killed a friendly Japanese surgeon serving the Chinese Communist Party in China. As a result, he was charged with murder and was subsequently sentenced to death... and his name was to be erased from the Chinese Communist Party's version of the history of Chinese photography. Many years later, China's improved cultural climate allowed for the resurrection of Sha Fei's work. His reputation was restored in 1986, when his family appealed the manslaughter verdict. The military court ruled in the family's favor, reinstating Sha Fei's Communist Party membership that had been revoked. His work has been displayed and published in China and is now visiting the States for the first time. There's much more to Sha Fei's career, and you can learn about it on OSU's Web site. Have an idea? Pitch it!The Picture Show on Facebook or on Twitter", "The evidence of a lack of gender parity in technology keeps stacking up; this week we saw the fraternity-day emails of Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel and the diversity and gender breakdowns that Google's been reluctant to share. Let's get right into your week in review: ICYMI Bros in The Valley: As companies like Google and Snapchat seek to lead the new information age, they are looking pretty backward when it comes to equality and diversity. Google's figures show the company is 70 percent male; African-American and Latino employees don't register above 5 percent. Meanwhile, Snapchat's Spiegel's emails detail his tactics for getting girls drunk and jokes about \"peeing on\" women and \"shooting lasers at fat chicks.\" He apologized. Time Magazine writes \"the days of Chief Executive Bro are numbered.\" The Big Conversations The Google Car: The search giant has manufactured a prototype driverless vehicle and it looks like a cross between a Smart car and that Little Tikes plastic car you might have had as a kid. No steering wheel, and it goes about 25 mph. But as Venture Beat writes, a partnership with Uber could make this viable as smarter, greener transportation in the future. Billion-Dollar Beats: Apple made it official, announcing its $3 billion deal to buy Dr. Dre and music industry veteran Jimmy Iovine's Beats Music. Dre and Iovine are joining Apple in unspecified executive roles. The news led to a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking about whether Steve Jobs would have made a deal like this, but both sides seem to be pleased as punch, for now. Curiosities WSJ: China Hacking is Deep and Diverse, Experts Say In the wake of last week's U.S. indictment of Chinese hackers, a well-reported piece detailing the reach of Chinese cyber-espionage. Longform: Valleywag's Sam Biddle The journalist who broke the Snapchat CEO's emails talked with Longform.org's podcast about covering modern-day Silicon Valley. Biddle describes an industry of \"overgrown, entitled manchildren pulling price tags out of the ether.\" The Official Microsoft Blog: Microsoft demos breakthrough in real-time translated conversations Remember the universal translator imagined in Star Trek? Microsoft showed off the Skype Translator, doing near real-time audio translation from English to German and vice versa, and said it would be available as a Windows 8 beta app by year end.", "In the Facebook Live video streamed earlier this month by Diamond Reynolds after her fiance, Philando Castile, was fatally shot by a police officer during a traffic stop in a Minnesota suburb, Reynolds identified the man who shot Castile as \"Chinese\" as she narrated the scene. It was later understood that Castile was shot by Jeronimo Yanez, who is Latino. In the meantime, Reynolds' testimony gave Christina Xu, a 28-year-old Chinese-American ethnographer who lives in New York City, flashbacks to earlier this year, when many Asian-Americans around the country protested the prosecution and conviction of Peter Liang, the Chinese-American cop who shot and killed Akai Gurley in a dark stairwell of a Brooklyn housing project in 2014. The protesters said Liang was being treated as a scapegoat at a time of heightened focus on police shootings of unarmed black people, pointing out that white law enforcement officials involved in several high-profile cases in recent years have not faced similar consequences. For Xu, and other younger Asian-Americans who have shown support for the Black Lives Matter movement and anti-police brutality causes, this was disturbing. \"To me, clearly justice is about getting justice for these black families,\" Xu says. \"Not about making sure that Asian people have the same privilege as white people.\" Xu says that before it became clear that Castile's shooter was not Chinese, she was worried that similar dynamics might surface in the wake of this case, and that many Asian-Americans would rally to support another Asian cop who killed a black man. So she put out a call on Twitter asking other young Asian-Americans to help her draft an open letter through Google Docs, addressed to their families — in English and eventually translated into dozens of other languages — about why they felt that Asian-Americans should also care about police violence against black Americans. The letter also brought up a subject that Xu and many others felt really uncomfortable broaching with their parents: anti-blackness in Asian-American and immigrant communities. Here's some of what they wrote: \"When a policeman shoots a Black person, you might think it's the victim's fault because you see so many images of them in the media as thugs and criminals. After all, you might say, we managed to come to America with nothing and build good lives for ourselves despite discrimination, so why can't they?\" We talked to Xu in this week's episode of the Code Switch podcast, about that letter and why she and hundreds of others felt they had to write it — and why many felt nervous to send it along. We also talk to Claire J. Kim, a professor at the University of California, Irvine whose work focuses on anti-blackness in Asian-American communities. And we hear from Tien Dang, a 22-year-old who lives in New York, who let us listen in on a conversation she had with her dad that was inspired by the Vietnamese version of the letter. Read the letter, as well as its various translations to Korean, Urdu, Vietnamese, Tagalog and other languages. You can check out this episode over at NPR's podcast directory, and on iTunes and other places podcasts are found.", "At a time when social media users, for no particularly good reason, are trading in fully formed words for abbreviations (\"defs\" instead of \"definitely\"), it may seem that some languages are under threat of deterioration — literally. But social media may actually be beneficial for languages. Of the estimated 7,000 languages that are spoken around the world, UNESCO projects half will disappear by the end of the century. But social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter are in a position to revitalize and preserve indigenous, minority and endangered languages, linguists and language-preservation activists say. One of the reasons some indigenous languages are endangered is that increased connectivity through the Internet and social media have strengthened dominant languages such as English, Russian and Chinese, says Anna Luisa Daigneault of the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages. Endangered languages stand a greater chance of survival when they are used online. \"Having a Web presence for those languages is super important for their survival. Social media are just another connection point for people who want to stay connected to their language,\" says Daigneault, Latin America projects coordinator and development officer at the institute. Today, Facebook — the world's most popular social networking site — is available in over 70 official languages. The list includes indigenous languages like Cherokee and Quechua. This year, Facebook says it launched 13 news languages, including Azerbaijani, Javanese, Macedonian, Galician and Sinhala. Facebook users can request a new language through the website; if there is enough demand, the language will then appear in the translations application and the Facebook community can begin translating the interface. Jaqi-Aru, a community of 16 volunteers in Bolivia, is working on translating the Facebook interface in Aymara, one of the three official languages in Bolivia. Elias Quispe Chura, the group's Facebook translation manager, says the effort involves young Aymara people from different Bolivian provinces. \"We promote use of our mother tongue on the Internet through translation projects and content creation,\" he says. \"With that, we want to contribute and enrich the content of our language in cyberspace.\" He says Aymara native speakers in Peru, Chile, and Argentina are waiting anxiously to see their language as an option on Facebook. The group started the project in 2012 and is more than halfway done translating 24,000 words, phrases and sentences. But the task hasn't been free of challenges. \"There are many words that there aren't in Aymara, for example: mobile phone — 'jawsaña,' password — 'chimpu,' message — 'apaya,' event — 'wakichäwi,' journalist — 'yatiyiri,' user — 'apnaqiri' and so on,\" Chura says. \"In some cases, we had to create new words taking into account the context, the situation, function and their meanings. And in others, we had to go to the derivational morphology.\" Facebook provides some support to the volunteer translators, offering stylistic guidelines on its Language Style Guides page. The website can be used to revitalize and preserve indigenous, minority and endangered languages in more ways than one. Pamela Munro, a professor of linguistics at the University of California, Los Angeles, has created a Facebook page to post words, phrases and songs in Tongva, a language formerly spoken in the Los Angeles area. Munro, a consultant to the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival, says the language hasn't been spoken by a native speaker in about 50 years. She hopes to reach people who are interested in learning about the language through the Facebook page. \"We have readers all over the world ... people post on the page from all over and ask questions like, 'I found this word in a book. Can you tell me about it?' A lot of the people that interact with the page are ethnically Tongva but a lot of the people are not,\" she says. The creators and contributors of Ojibwe.net — a website that seeks to preserve Anishinaabemowin, an endangered Native American language from Michigan — use Facebook in a similar manner. Ojibwe.net contributor Margaret Noodin is an assistant professor of English and American Indian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The language has 8,000-10,000 speakers, she says. But most of the native speakers are over 70 years old, placing the language under threat. \"That's the most dangerous thing. There are very few young kids that are growing up in a fluent environment,\" Noodin says. Although the group doesn't rely solely on social media to disseminate content, Noodin says that having a presence on websites like Facebook gives the group a chance to reach younger generations. \"It's how kids communicate now. It's little moments here and there. And that adds up ... . If we don't use the language creatively into the future then what we're doing is documenting a language that's dying ... . Our language i", "While many Americans are familiar with dishes like egg foo young, there are Chinese-American and Chinese immigrant communities throughout the country where foods like ma po tofu and congee are also on menus. And Panda Express, America's biggest Chinese fast-food chain, hopes to make those more traditional dishes mainstream. \"Panda Express ... has the opportunity to be the ambassador of Chinese food to many people,\" says Andrea Cherng, the company's chief marketing officer. Chern's parents opened Panda Express in 1983, at a time when Chinese food was still seen as \"exotic.\" It's now America's biggest Chinese fast-food chain, with more than 1,900 locations around the world. But as Americans have become more curious, adventurous eaters, the challenge for the chain is to keep up with the changing food culture — while still seeming familiar enough not to alienate those many mall and airport diners who come to the chain for its Americanized spin on Chinese food. \"Our job at Panda Express is to follow that journey of how palates have grown,\" Cherng says. A history of adaptation for American palates Over the years, critics have often knocked Panda Express for serving up \"mediocre\" Chinese food that you wouldn't actually find on a menu in China. (Buzzfeed went so far as to create a video called \"Chinese People Try Panda Express for the First Time.\") But the story of Chinese food in America has always been one of adaptation. \"It still takes time for many Americans to like Chinese food,\" says historian Haiming Liu, author of \"From Canton Restaurant to Panda Express: A History of Chinese Food in the United States. \"It's a historical problem for Chinese food, and Chinese restaurants have to do something about it.\" As Liu explains, Chinese food didn't start to become popular in the U.S. until the 20th century. Before that, hundreds of thousands of Chinese laborers who landed on the West Coast in the mid 19th century — to help build railroads, farm and mine — were met with deep racism. Many non-Chinese were suspicious of the newcomers and saw them as competition for jobs. Those racist, nativist attitudes extended to cuisine: Prejudiced Americans complained of the stench of Chinatown's kitchens, and editorials asked whether \"Chinese eat rats?\" Liu says anti-Chinese fervor on the West Coast prompted some Chinese to head East. And that's why, \"in the 1900s, Chinese restaurants started to grow really fast in places like New York City,\" says Liu. (As The Salt has reported, a loophole in immigration law also played a big role in the Chinese restaurant boom of the 1910s.) In New York, Chinese immigrants found diners that were more open-minded — as long as the recipes were adapted for American palates, Liu says. Americans didn't care for the strong, pungent flavors of ingredients that might have been used in traditional Chinese cooking such as bitter melon, black mushrooms or mustard greens. So chefs adapted. \"In American-style Chinese food, the vegetables used tend to be crunchy but flavorless – broccoli, carrots, celery, bean sprouts,\" says Jennifer 8. Lee, whose documentary, The Search for General Tso, traces the roots and myths of the popular American Chinese chicken dish. \"Chop suey, for example, is based on a familiar dish, but it's not something you see Chinese people eat. It became this food that completely catered to Western tastes.\" American-Chinese cuisine got an additional profile boost in the 1960s, when the U.S. overhauled immigration laws that had previously kept may Asians out. A flood of new immigrants were able to come from different regions of China, like the Sichuan and Hunan provinces, and they brought their regional cuisines with them, Liu says. Those newcomers also tended to be more affluent than their predecessors, and that made an impression on non-Chinese Americans, says Liu. \"Americans realized that Chinese people can be rich and wealthy,\" he says, \"and their food could be good, accordingly.\" (Indeed, the way immigrant cuisines are valued in America has often reflected the way those immigrants themselves are seen.) But those immigrants who opened restaurants still adapted and softened their dishes so they would be welcomed by their new country. That's a tradition that Panda Express — which was born in California's San Gabriel Valley, home to a large Chinese-American population — followed as it expanded throughout America. Searching for the next orange chicken hit \"There is this bridge that we are making from our Chinese heritage to a wider American audience,\" says Cherng. \"How do we introduce the flavors that we experience around the San Gabriel Valley to the mainstream?\" Take the chain's single most popular dish, orange chicken. It makes up a third of its sales, but it's not a traditional Chinese recipe: Developed in the 1980s, the dish actually sprung from a blend of cuisines that Panda Express' then-head chef had tasted, both in China's Sichuan province and in Hawaii. Though orange chicken is often d", "Singer Chris Brown was in the news last week after being accused of punching a fan outside a Washington, D.C., hotel. Police later identified the alleged victim as 20-year-old Parker Isaac Adams. Brown maintains it was his bodyguard who threw the punch and only after Adams tried to board the singer's tour bus. Adams' uncle came to his defense after the incident, insisting to reporters that his nephew wasn't a troublemaker. \"Parker's not some kind of hoodlum,\" Creighton Adams told the AP. Hoodlum is a word that's been used for about 140 years to describe what Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines as \"a tough and violent criminal\" or \"a young ruffian.\" The exact etymology of hoodlum is unknown, but references to \"hoodlums\" roaming the streets of San Francisco first surfaced in the media in 1871. An article in the Cincinnati Commercial that year made reference to a young man who moved to the city to \"escape the bullying of the San Francisco 'hoodlums.'\" On June 9, 1871, a cigar store owner named Ah Lee was beaten to death outside his store by a gang of young hoodlums, one of whom was only 14. San Francisco's then-police chief Patrick Crowley took note of the gangs forming in the city in his 1872 annual report, noting: \"There is one evil which I mention with regret ... it is the disposition on the part of many young men and lads to commit acts of violence and mischief.\" Chinese workers were a frequent target of the \"young men and lads\" that Crowley mentioned. Chinese immigrants began to settle in the United States in the mid-19th century due to the California gold rush and the construction of the first transcontinental railroad. (By 1860, 6 percent of San Francisco's residents were of Chinese descent. Between 1869 and 1876, an average of 15,000 new Chinese workers arrived each year.) It wasn't until an article in an 1875 issue of the magazine Scribner's Monthly that the word entered the mainstream. Writing about the gangs of young white men who were terrorizing certain San Francisco neighborhoods in his piece \"The City of the Golden Gate,\" journalist Samuel Williams described them as follows: \"The Hoodlum is a distinctive San Francisco product. ... He drinks, gambles, steals, runs after lewd women, and sets buildings on fire. One of his chief diversions, when he is in a more pleasant mood, is stoning Chinaman. That the Hoodlum appeared only three or four years ago is somewhat alarming.\" In his 1877 book The Chinese in America, Otis Gibson went into further detail about the ways a \"San Francisco hoodlum\" would harass the Chinese: \"They follow the Chinaman through the streets, howling and screaming after him to frighten him. They catch hold of his cue, and pull him from the wagon. They throw brickbats and missiles at him.\" Anti-Chinese violence reached its peak in 1877, with the San Francisco riots of that year. Four Chinese were killed and more than $100,000 worth of property was damaged. Five years after the riot, the Chinese Exclusion Act was signed into law. (The act severely restricted the immigration of Chinese to the United States for a decade. The restrictions were later made permanent before being repealed in the 1940s.) The New York Times attributed congressional passage of the bill to Democrats and Republicans competing for California votes: \"The plain truth is that a violent and discourteous act was demanded by the hoodlum sentiment of the Pacific coast, and this demand has been listened to.\" A resolution regretting passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act was approved last year by the United States House of Representatives. The resolution was introduced by Judy Chu, the first Chinese-American woman elected to Congress.", "The Obama administration faces a deadline Friday on whether to formally name China as a manipulator of its currency. The decision comes up every six months, and so far the president has decided not to take the controversial step. While critics continue to push Beijing to revalue its currency, the issue is seen differently in China. It is an article of faith for many in the U.S. that China's undervalued currency is responsible for many of America's economic woes. Similarly, it is an article of faith in China that American politicians are twisting a complex economic issue for political gain ahead of midterm elections. \"The issue has become completely politicized,\" says Lu Zhengwei, a senior economist at the Industrial Bank, one of China's major banks. \"Congress sets trade policy, and congressmen pay no attention to the international economic situation. So they are just not interested in talking to us.\" It's not just Chinese analysts who reject the suggestion that appreciation of the yuan, also known as the renminbi, would save American jobs. Andy Rothman, a strategist with the CSLA brokerage in Shanghai, says Americans need to be careful not to shoot themselves in the foot -- or in the pocketbook. He says a stronger Chinese currency would mean more expensive Chinese goods in the U.S. And those aren't necessarily goods that can just be made in the U.S. instead. \"When was the last time you saw a factory in the U.S. making a laptop or a DVD player or flat-screen TV?\" Rothman says. He says recent slight appreciations in the rate of the yuan are not just small adjustments ahead of crucial meetings; they are the restarting of a slow currency appreciation process begun by the Chinese government in 2005 -– indeed, exactly what some in the U.S. are demanding. \"I think this is a long-term structural change,\" he says. \"If you go back to 2005, the Chinese government decided that gradual appreciation of their currency against the U.S. dollar was in their interest, and so the currency appreciated by 21 percent over three years. \"Then they suspended the process after the global financial crisis, and now they are going back to that again. And so I expect it to appreciate still on a 7 percent annualized basis.\" That won't be fast enough to satisfy critics on Capitol Hill, especially ahead of the midterms. But Chinese and Western analysts warn against the emotionalism of the pre-midterm China-bashing frenzy. They say the last time the U.S. put pressure on a major economy for a one-time large-scale appreciation of its currency was with Japan in the 1980s, and that move backfired and even contributed to the decline of the Japanese economy. Chinese economist Sun Lijian says that in the global context, U.S. actions are selfish. \"China's economy has made a large contribution to the global recovery, and China is leading the world economy in a better direction,\" he says. \"So beating up on China over its currency will be very bad for the world economy as a whole, and will slow down the whole global recovery.\" Analysts say pressure to appreciate the yuan will not help the U.S. deficit with China, either. They say that between 2005 and 2008, as the yuan was appreciating by 21 percent, the U.S. trade deficit with China actually increased by 50 percent. Chinese economists say the way to solve the deficit is not to push China to revalue its currency, but to help lift more Chinese people out of poverty and into the nascent middle class, so they can buy more U.S. products. RENEE MONTAGNE, host: Today, the Obama administration faces a congressional deadline on whether to formally declare that China is a currency manipulator. So far, the president hasn't decided to take that controversial step. From Shanghai, NPR's Rob Gifford has more. ROB GIFFORD: It is an article of faith for many in the U.S. that China's undervalued currency is responsible for many of America's economic woes. Similarly, it is an article of faith here in China that American politicians are twisting a complex economic issue for political gain ahead of midterm elections. Lu Zhengwei is senior economist at one of China's major banks, the Industrial Bank. Mr. LU ZHENGWEI: (Senior Economist, Industrial Bank): (Through translator) The issue has become completely politicized. Congress sets trade policy, and the congressmen pay no attention to the international economic situation. So they're just not interested in talking to us. GIFFORD: It's not just the Chinese analysts here who reject the suggestion that appreciation of the Chinese yuan - also known as the renminbi - would save American jobs. Andy Rothman of brokerage CLSA in Shanghai says Americans need to be careful not to shoot themselves in the foot - or at least in the pocketbook. Mr. ANDY ROTHMAN (Strategist, CLSA): Voters need to ask a few questions of any politician or any economist or pundit in the newspapers that tells them that a stronger Chinese currency will solve all of America's woes. First of all, they ne", "Chinese dissident author Ma Jian's story collection Stick Out Your Tongue bends time and reality in its pictures of individuals trying to fit into families and society. The collection was published in China in 1997; since then, Ma Jian's work has been banned there. The new translation of stories inspired by a trip to Tibet in the mid 1980s is by Flora Drew. Ma Jian lives in London, in self-imposed exile. ROBERT SIEGEL, Host: The Chinese government has banned the books of Ma Jian since 1997. The dissident writer lives in London in self-imposed exile. His short stories now appear in a new English translation. The book is called Stick Out Your Tongue, and the stories were inspired by his trip to Tibet in the mid-1980s. Alan Cheuse has our review. ALAN CHEUSE: In the first sequence, titled The Woman and the Blue Sky, the narrator - a Chinese drifter who'd recently arrived from the East is how he describes himself - takes us up the mountain road to central Tibet into a world of holy lakes and powerful emotions. He's on a quest to witness a Tibetan sky burial. In this ceremony, mourners wait until they have a sign that the deceased soul has left its body. Here, the corpse is that of a young Tibetan woman who has apparently died in childbirth. The bereaved then hack her body apart and feed the pieces to flocks of hovering vultures and eagles. The brief description of this ceremony, swelled by all the emotions attended upon it, is so excruciatingly beautiful, I could scarcely read and breathe at the same time. The second chapter, titled The Smile of Lake Drolma, introduces to us to a Tibetan named Sonam. Having returned from working in the city, he wanders about in search of his nomad family, only to rejoin them in what seems like an oxygen-starved hallucination. Time and reality bend for the narrator himself in the Golden Crown, the story of a love affair between an apprentice jewelry maker and the wife of his teacher. Up here, the narrator tells us, the altitude sharpened my awareness for detail, allowing many of the aspects of the story to remain crystal clear, so I know that I can't have made everything up. The people Ma Jian transfigures, the images of a Tibet where the living and the dead seem to mingle with beauty and unease, all this becomes quite a striking souvenir of our own high altitude pilgrimage through these exotic pages. SIEGEL: Ma Jian's story collection is called Stick Out Your Tongue. Our reviewer, Alan Cheuse, teaches writing at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.", "An 8-year-old Chinese girl has just finished a run of truly epic proportions. In 55 days, she covered 2,212 miles, in celebration of next year's Olympics in Beijing. But her feat has sparked accusations of child abuse against her father, who is also her trainer. Early Tuesday morning, Zhang Huimin entered Tiananmen Square in Beijing, the end of an arduous run from China's southernmost tip in Hainan island to the nation's capital. She covered about 40 miles a day — and wore out 20 pairs of running shoes — in pursuit of a dream. \"I want to be an Olympic champion — the champion of long-distance running,\" Zhang, who is nicknamed Little Monkey, told NPR. \"I'm happy, I'm healthy, I'm a little Olympic athlete,\" she said. But many are asking whether that is really her dream, or the dream of her father. When asked whether she was happy to have arrived in Beijing, the 8-year-old's immediate reaction is telling — as is her own correction. \"I'm too excited for words. Because I've finished my task, I mean, I've realized my dream,\" she said. Her father, Zhang Jianmin, accompanied his daughter on the trip, mostly riding an electric bicycle. He devised his daughter's strenuous training schedule, waking her up at 2:30 every morning to run, and sustained her along the way with stories, games, a drink made of milk powder and eggs, and snacks of raisins and beef jerky. She started running at just 3 years old, and at first, he upped the distances slowly. But her father says she's now driven by her own determination. \"Last year, she started increasing the distances herself. She ran farther and farther. On one day alone, she added more than a mile and a half. I was worried she'd be too sore to run the next day, but she was self-confident and said 'No way,'\" Zhang Jianmin said. \"As parents, we can only support her. Her gifts are beyond my expectation.\" Her gifts are certainly gaining a lot of attention. In the run-up to next year's Olympics, her father sees this uber-marathon as a tribute to the spirit of the games. \"Talking about the Olympic spirit is of no use. You just have to get out there and do it,\" Zhang Jianmin said. \"And even if she pays the price with her life in the pursuit of this belief, then it's a worthy act.\" Her father knows he has plenty of detractors, who believe his behavior underlines the wrong sort of Olympic spirit. Experts have warned that her bone growth could be damaged, as well as her joints and muscles. And many, like Chen Shiyi from the China Association of Sports Medicine, see the tiny distance runner as a symbol of the failings of China's massive sports machine. \"China's sports system has long concentrated on training athletes from a very young age. And by the time these athletes should be winning gold medals, their careers are already over because they were forced to over-exercise at a young age,\" Chen said. \"The injuries will hit her in two or three years.\" The controversy surrounding the young runner may not be over yet. Her father is now talking of another, even more risky ultramarathon — from the peaks of Tibet, all the way to Shanghai. MELISSA BLOCK, host: This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block. ROBERT SEIGEL, host: And I'm Robert Siegel. Today, an 8-year-old Chinese girl completed a run of epic proportions. In 55 days, she has run 2,212 miles. The journey is conceived as a tribute to next year's Beijing Olympics. And it's sparking accusations of child abuse against her father, who is her trainer. NPR's Louisa Lim reports on the final stage of her run through the streets of Beijing. LOUISA LIM: Her pink sneakers pounding along the road, this is the equivalent of Zhang Huimin's lack of glory, but her very achievement means this tiny skinny 8-year-old in her orange t-shirt and shorts is running straight into a storm of controversy. Ms. ZHANG HUIMIN (Chinese Runner): (Through translator) I want to run to the moon. I love running because it's really fun for me. (Singing in foreign language). LIM: This child, nicknamed Little Monkey, hasn't made it to the moon, but her journey has been almost as ambitious. As she run, she sings a communist children song, \"I love Beijing's Tiananmen Square.\" This morning marks the symbolic end of her journey to the Chinese capital. She's pounded the tarmac all the way from Chinese southernmost tip in Hainan Island. She's covered about 40 miles a day — and worn out 20 pairs of running shoes in pursuit of a dream. Ms. HUIMIN: (Through translator) I want to be an Olympic champion, the champion of long-distance running. (Chinese spoken). LIM: I'm happy, I'm healthy, I'm a little Olympic athlete, she yells while running. But many are asking if that's really her dream or the dream of her father and coach. When asked if she was happy to have arrived in Beijing, the 8-year-old's immediate reaction is telling, as is her own correction. Ms. HUIMIN: (Through translator) I'm too excited for words because I've finished my task, I mean,", "San Francisco's Chinatown has long been the bedrock of Chinese America. Its colorful shops and exotic restaurants attract hundreds of thousands of global tourists each year. Now, as San Francisco prepares to mark the centennial of the 1906 earthquake and fire, historians recall how Chinatown, destroyed along with much of the city, almost wasn't rebuilt. City leaders at the time of the quake set the total death count at more than 400. Researchers now think that 3,000 or more people died and that the fatalities were intentionally minimized so investors, needed to rebuild the city, wouldn't be scared away. But no one knows how many people died in the densely packed blocks of Chinatown, with an estimated population of 14,000. Racism against the Chinese was rampant in that age. Chinese immigrants had come to work in the railroads and mines and were widely viewed as a competitive threat to the working class, says California historian Kevin Starr. \"The most horrible moment of all was in the early 1870s in L.A., where some 14 Chinese were lynched by a mob,\" Starr says. \"Fortunately, that never happened in San Francisco because even though there were anti-Chinese riots... the Chinese served notice they would meet anybody who came into their part of the city with rifles.\" What the Chinese of San Francisco were prepared to defend was largely a bachelor society. Restrictive immigration laws prevented Chinese men from bringing their families to America. Before the quake, Chinatown had a reputation as a crowded slum rife with disease, brothels and opium. But Starr says Chinatown also had something that city leaders envied: it occupied one of the most desirable locations in the city. \"By 1906 on the verge of the earthquake, it suddenly dawned on the establishment of San Francisco that the prime real estate of the city... at the absolute epicenter, with its commanding views, was Chinatown,\" he says. In fact, even before the '06 quake, the local newspapers editorialized in favor of moving the Chinese. After the quake, city leaders presented their plans to relocate Chinatown to the mud flats on the southern outskirts of the city. The plans were presented at a meeting between the city relocation committee, the Chinese Family Associations and the Chinese Consulate. But the Chinese had different plans, says historian Judy Yung. \"The consul general said, 'The Empress is not happy about Chinatown being relocated. We intend to rebuild the Chinese consulate in the heart of Chinatown where it was,'\" says Yung. The Chinese also had another economic argument in their favor. They knew that their taxes contributed greatly to the city's coffers and that other Western port cities would welcome them. San Francisco leaders relented and the reconstruction of Chinatown began about a year after the disaster. But the buildings constructed were different from the ones destroyed, thanks to a businessman named Look Tin Eli. He convinced other merchants to follow his plan and hire American architects to redesign his building to look like China, in order to attract tourists. In many instances, the architects designed American-style buildings, but placed colorful pagodas with curled eaves and dragon motifs on top. \"And so you have this effect of the trademark of Chinatown today where it's very much an Oriental Disneyland,\" Yung says. The earthquake of 1906 had a second, more far-reaching impact. Virtually all of the birth records in the city were destroyed. That allowed Chinese-born men to claim that they were American citizens, and therefore had the right to bring their families to America. \"To a certain extent the loss of the paperwork for immigration in San Francisco in April 1906 represented a kind of wholesale amnesty for the Chinese,\" Starr says. The children who were brought to America came to be known as \"paper sons,\" because many arrived with false or questionable documents. When American immigration authorities discovered the ruse, they opened a way station on Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay where new Chinese immigrants were detained for months while they were subjected to tough interrogations to verify their identities. But over time, Chinatown filled up again, with families that dwelled in overcrowded, single-room, dormitory-style hotels. Many, still in use today, are the focus of redevelopment efforts by the Chinatown Community Development Center, headed by Gordon Chin. \"This is the most densely populated neighborhood -- 22 square blocks -- in the entire country outside of Manhattan. There's not a single family-dwelling here,\" Chin says. Chin wants tourists to see more than the neighborhood's many exotic restaurants and trinket and souvenir shops. So he has organized the \"Adopt an Alleyway\" Tours, conducted by young Chinese-Americans, to take tourists into Chinatown's alleys where they can see sights such as the famous Fortune Cookie Factory, a small shop in Ross Alley. \"People think that alleyways are dark, dank and dirty,", "Zhou Youguang, the inventor of a system to convert Chinese characters into words with the Roman alphabet, died Saturday at the age of 111. Since his system was introduced nearly six decades ago, few innovations have done more to boost literacy rates in China and bridge the divide between the country and the West. Pinyin, which was adopted by China in 1958, gave readers unfamiliar with Chinese characters a crucial tool to understand how to pronounce them. These characters do not readily disclose information on how to say them aloud — but with such a system as Pinyin, those characters more easily and clearly yield their meaning when converted into languages like English and Spanish, which use the Roman alphabet. While it was not the first system to Romanize Chinese, Pinyin has become the most widely accepted. For Chinese speakers, many of whom speak disparate dialects, its broad acceptance made education easier, giving instructors a single, relatively simple instrument to teach people how to read. Beyond China's borders, Pinyin allowed the standardization of Chinese names. For instance, it's a big reason why the name Westerners commonly use for the Chinese capital shifted from \"Peking\" to \"Beijing.\" And it's why many other such names changed dramatically along with it. And yet Zhou, the man behind one of the most important linguistic innovations in the 20th century, said he was reluctant when asked by the Chinese government to take on the task in the mid-1950s. At the time, he was an economic scholar, only recently returned to China after a stint working on Wall Street in the U.S. He had come back to the country after its 1949 Communist revolution. \"I said I was an amateur, a layman, I couldn't do the job,\" he told NPR in 2011, laughing. \"But they said, it's a new job, everybody is an amateur. Everybody urged me to change professions, so I did. So from 1955, I abandoned economics and started studying writing systems.\" The committee Zhou led spent three years working on its alphabetic system. \"People made fun of us, joking that it had taken us a long time to deal with just 26 letters,\" he told the BBC in 2012. Others took the committee's invention very seriously, however. The Communist government of China introduced Pinyin in schools in 1958. The international community eventually adopted it as the standard romanization for Chinese writing, as well, with the U.N. doing so in 1986. Before Pinyin, 85 percent of Chinese people could not read, according to the BBC. Now, UNICEF says the literacy rate in China hovers at about 95 percent. Lately, Pinyin has also been integral in determining the ways mobile phones and computers transmit Chinese characters. Still, despite the broad acceptance of his system, Zhou went on to become something of a thorn in the side of the country's Communist government. During the Cultural Revolution, in the '60s and '70s, Zhou drew the scrutiny of the Communist Party. In 1969, he was even labeled a \"reactionary academic authority\" and exiled to a labor camp for more than two years, reports The New York Times. But he was not dissuaded from speaking his mind for long. As he aged, he became more vocal about his dissatisfaction with the powers that be. And, as Louisa Lim noted for NPR, Zhou was not afraid to use his stature to point out discrepancies he found in Communist Party doctrine. \"In 1985, he translated the Encyclopaedia Britannica into Chinese and then worked on the second edition — placing him in a position to notice the U-turns in China's official line. At the time of the original translation, China's position was that the U.S. started the Korean War — but the encyclopedia said North Korea was to blame, Zhou recalls. \" 'That was troublesome, so we didn't include that bit. Later, the Chinese view changed. So we got permission from above to include it. That shows there's progress in China,' he says, adding, 'But it's too slow.' \" For a man born in 1906, under China's final dynasty, Zhou did more than most to help encourage the change he wished to see in his country. Though he died Saturday after more than a century of life, he is survived by the system he helped father, which continues to live on around the world. Clarification: This post has been updated to make clearer the fact that Pinyin was not the first system of Romanization.", "The first words of the hit song \"Go!AMIGO\" are sung in three languages: English, Spanish and Chinese. Its music video shows the three teenage members of TFBoys – China's hottest boy band – gathering friends for a game of baseball. It all seems pretty innocent. But there are calculated reasons behind the song's linguistic flair, the video's focus on baseball and even the band itself: \"This video is proof that Communist Party propaganda is evolving,\" says cultural critic Zhu Dake, who teaches at Shanghai's Tongji University. He says the TFBoys are the latest example of a pop group engineered by a company whose aim is to champion the values of China's Communist Party. The \"TF\" in the band's name shares an acronym with Time Fengjun, a Beijing entertainment company that selected the boys for the group, writes its songs and produces its videos. \"This video is interesting,\" says Zhu as he watches the video for \"Go!AMIGO.\" \"It features baseball, a sport we don't play. It's American, so it's aspirational. But the song's message is about teamwork and serving the collective — communist values. Usually, China's state propaganda is filled with dreary platitudes concocted by government workers with low IQs. But this is very clever.\" \"We rely on each other,\" the TFBoys sing in \"Go!AMIGO.\" \"It's so magical to have you along the way. We'll soon reach our glittering dreams.\" TFBoys fan Ren Jiaying, a 16-year-old high school junior, says the song speaks to her. Attending Chinese high school is full of pressure, she says, and the band's music reminds her that she's not alone. \"They're the same age as me, and I feel like they're with me no matter what I do,\" she says of the members of TFBoys. \"I'm not good at chemistry, but then one day I saw a video of them reciting periodic tables between photo shoots. I feel like we're making progress together.\" Ren is among tens of millions of young fans who follow the TFBoys' social media feed religiously. It's an enormously popular feed: When bandleader Wang Junkai posted a note to fans on his 15th birthday to Weibo, China's Twitter-like social media platform, it was shared more than 355 million times – the most of any Weibo post ever. Zhu says most of these fans live in the hundreds of cities that make up rural China. \"Kids in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai dream of leaving China for America or Europe — they don't care about this kind of band,\" says Zhu. \"But rural kids won't ever get that chance, so this song provides them with dreams of playing a foreign sport in a modern, fashionable China. But who's going to play baseball with them?\" Zhu points out that other TFBoys songs — including a modern revamp of the 1960s communist classic \"We Are The Heirs Of Communism\" — show how the band is being used to promote the government's agenda. Gao Ling, the 31-year-old manager of the TFBoys' Shanghai fan club, admits the band is promoting communist values to young people in a new, fashionable way. \"But Chinese society is like this,\" Gao says. \"We need to support our government, and these boys have been taught to be patriotic in school, so they naturally promote communist ideals. There's nothing wrong with going with the flow – that's perfectly normal. They're showing a positive and bright path. They would never criticize society or government.\" That's because, Gao points out matter-of-factly, \"China doesn't yet have freedom of speech.\" ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: We've been checking in with some of our international correspondents to hear about the song of the summer where they live. NPR's Rob Schmitz is based in Shanghai, and he says China's big summer hit is by a boy band. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, \"GO!AMIGO\") TFBOYS: (Singing) One, two, three, Amigo - four, five, six - hey, jiayou, jiayou. One, two, three... ROB SCHMITZ, BYLINE: The first words of the hit song \"Go!AMIGO\" are sung in three languages - English, Spanish and Chinese. The music video for it shows that three teenage members of the TFBoys, China's hottest boy band, gathering friends for a game of baseball. It all seems pretty innocent. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, \"GO!AMIGO\") TFBOYS: (Singing in Chinese). SCHMITZ: But there are calculated reasons behind the song's linguistic flair, the video's focus on baseball and even the band itself. ZHU DAKE: (Through interpreter) This video is proof that Communist Party propaganda is evolving. SCHMITZ: Cultural critic Zhu Dake teaches at Shanghai's Tongji University. He says the TFBoys are the latest example of a pop group engineered by a company whose aim is to champion the values of China's Communist Party. The TF in the band's name shares an acronym with Time Fengjun, a Beijing entertainment company that selected the boys for the group, writes its songs and produces its videos. ZHU: (Through interpreter) This video is interesting. It features baseball, a sport we don't play. It's American, so it's aspirational. But the song's message is about teamwork and serving the collective, communist values. Usually propa", "There's a moment in Peter Ho Davies' novel The Fortunes in which a Chinese immigrant to America, a teenage boy named Ling, experiences a painful epiphany. He's been working as a valet to Charles Crocker, the 19th-century business magnate who first began employing Chinese workers as railroad workers. (Crocker's colleagues initially thought him crazy; they believed the Chinese were ill-suited to such backbreaking labor.) Crocker made his decision after being impressed with Ling's physical prowess, and the young man was initially flattered, feeling \"vindicated\" after the businessman tells him \"You're a credit to your race.\" But Ling soon realizes his satisfaction was misplaced: \"His pride was founded on proving Chinese men equal to, if not better than, whites. Now it turned out they were just cheaper. The same as Chinese food, Chinese laundry, Chinese whores, Chinese lives.\" The experience of being Chinese in America is the major theme of The Fortunes, a beautifully constructed novel told in four disparate though loosely-linked parts. The section on Ling opens the novel, and it's breathtaking. The son of a Chinese mother and white father, Ling comes to America after being sold by his uncle. He starts working in a laundry shop before becoming the personal assistant to Crocker (who, like many characters in the book, was a real person). It doesn't take a long time for Ling to realize that he's despised by the white workers who believe Chinese immigrants are stealing their jobs. At one point, he attends a meeting about \"The Chinese Question,\" where an Irish immigrant angrily addresses the crowd: \"So why are [the Chinese] hired? Because they work for less — less pay, less food, less dignity. And what does that make 'em? Less men!\" The history of America is littered with instances of people of color being treated as \"less than\" whites, a point Davies makes in the second section, a fictionalized life story of the actress Anna May Wong. A Los Angeles native, Wong had to fight for every role she got, as well as the ones she was denied. \"Everyone comes to Los Angeles to be a star,\" Wong's character says. \"I was born there, but you could say I still came farther than most.\" Davies' portrayal of Wong's career is sympathetic, but never sentimental. She's incensed after being turned down for the lead role in the 1937 film adaptation of The Good Earth — the part is given to a white actress, a common practice at the time. When she realizes that she'll never become the world-famous celebrity she aspired to be, she's downcast: \"Not a star, then. A star gives off its own light. Another celestial body, a moon, reflecting others' light.\" It's a stunningly sad moment in a novel that's full of them. The third section is the most affecting of the novel. It concerns the 1982 slaying of Vincent Chin in Michigan by two white men who mistook the Chinese American man for Japanese; they blamed Japan for the decline of the U.S. automotive industry. Told from the point of view of Chin's friend, present the night of his killing, it's a chilling look at the event that galvanized the nascent Asian American movement. \"And their coming together — Chinese and Japanese, those old enemies, as well as Korean, Vietnamese, Filipino — marked the start of a pan-Asian political movement,\" Davies writes. \"You could say it's when we became Asian American. Two drunk white guys couldn't tell us apart, and we realized we were more alike than we'd thought.\" Davies does a masterful job tying the strands together in the novel's final section, about a biracial author who goes to China with his wife to adopt a child. The author has considered writing about Anna May Wong, about Vincent Chin, but keeps getting bogged down in questions of his own identity. In college, Davies writes, the writer had \"first heard the derogatory term banana, meaning yellow on the outside, white on the inside, but he'd secretly welcomed its aptness. As far as he was concerned, his skin had always been something to trip on.\" The last several paragraphs of the book are revelatory. Davies writes with a rare emotional resonance and a deft sense of structure; it's hard not to be in awe of the way he's composed this complex, beautiful novel. The Fortunes is a stunning look at what it means to be Chinese, what it means to be American, and what it means to be a person navigating the strands of identity, the things that made us who we are, whoever that is.", "In the opening sequence of Ash Is Purest White, the female protagonist rides a clunky bus though a declining mining city. In the final chapter, the male protagonist returns to the same place on a new high-speed train. Writer-director Jia Zhangke's gently comic recent-history epic spans just 17 years, but in China that's time enough to travel from the past into the future. In American parlance, Bin (Liao Fan) is a mobster and Qiao (Zhao Tao) is his moll. Bin has recently acquired a gun, which is illegal. But he and his cohorts seem to spend more time playing mah-jong and watching Hong Kong gangster movies than disturbing the peace. When the regional crimelord visits, it's for a demonstration of his passion: Western-style ballroom dancing. But the boss has offended someone and is murdered, off-screen. Soon, young thugs come after Bin. In the movie's principal fight scene, motorcycle-riding toughs attack Bin with fists and shovels and appear about to kill him. So Qiao pulls out that prohibited gun and fires into the air. Both Bin and Qiao go to jail, but Qiao, who refuses to implicate the man she hopes to marry, gets the longer sentence. When she's released five years later, her relationship with Bin is not the only thing that's utterly different. China is richer and more cosmopolitan — look at all the new signs in English — and more brutal. Qiao learns that China's gangsters have gone straight, or — more precisely — that the boundary between underworld crime and official corruption has blurred into invisibility. She rises to the occasion, financing her quest to locate Bin with an impromptu scam. Viewers who've seen several Jia films will recognize Zhao Tao, the director's usual star (and spouse). Her presence is not the only thing that links Ash to Jia's earlier work. The story begins and ends in Datong, the location of his Unknown Pleasures. The middle section is set in 2006 in the Three Gorges area, site of his Still Life. As in that movie, much of the landscape is about to vanish as the massive new dam fills — development literally submerging the past. Jia came to prominence with 2000's Platform, which observed his homeland's transformation through the changes in one performance troupe. Chinese show-biz, an odd mix of disco, vaudeville and Maoism, remains a motif. In addition to ballroom dancing, Ash includes a small-time magician, a glam-rock band that specializes in sappy ballads, and — a Jia trademark — a Village People song. \"YMCA\" extols pleasures that are literally unknown to the provincial Chinese who dance to it. Such smile-inducing moments are common in Ash, whose English-language title is not a rendering of the difficult-to-translate original Chinese. The reference is to Qiao's musing on the supposed purity of volcanic ash, a flowery reference that doesn't quite work. Contemporary absurdity, not traditional poetry, is what the movie does best. Like China, the director's style and sensibility have become more Westernized. Ash is a Chinese-French co-production that's sprightlier than Jia's early work. The handheld camera that intimately follows Qiao across the years — by bus, boat, truck, and train, and pushing a wheelchair — is navigated by France's Eric Gautier. The cinematographer subtly alters the film's look to mark different periods, and makes evocative use of available light, including the green neon that gives one earnest conversation an other-worldly tint. Jia's films retain their documentary-like interest in real places and actual events, but acknowledge that depicting the new China requires a touch of surrealism.", "Chinese tech giant Tencent is trying to do something that's never been done before: take the biggest online mobile game in China global. Kings Of Glory, sometimes also translated as Honor Of Kings, boasts over 200 million monthly players worldwide. In China, it's been reported that tens of millions play daily. The game is so popular that Tencent had to implement a daily time restriction for young players to \"ensure children's healthy development.\" Now Tencent is trying to duplicate that success with a revamped version of the game for Western audiences, named Arena Of Valor, released in Europe in August and in North and South America earlier this month. While download figures have not yet been released, the game was charting at No. 15 on Jan. 1 in the Role Playing Games category on the iTunes app store. The multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game revolves around matches between two teams of five players. Each player has control of an in-game avatar that has weapons and magic abilities. The team that destroys the opposing team's base first wins. One of the reasons the game is so big in China is because \"literally anybody can play,\" Drew Miller tells NPR. He plays Arena Of Valor professionally for esports team Team Liquid. Traditional MOBA games like League of Legends — Tencent took control of that game's parent company in 2011 — are complex, PC-based games, with matches that can last well over an hour. Tencent simplified the genre for its mobile game, and Arena of Valor matches only last about 15 to 20 minutes. That's allowed it to attract both serious and casual gamers. \"It's the only MOBA game I would ever consider trying to play with my mom,\" says Miller, who demonstrated of Arena of Valor for Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep. The other reason the game achieved such popularity in China is because Tencent has integrated the game with its social media app, WeChat — the No. 1 messaging app in China. Miller says that allowed players to find others nearby also playing the game and instantly start a match. \"It sort of provides a similar competitive feel as playing a pickup basketball game,\" he says. The social aspect is also given credit for why 54 percent of the game's player base in China, or about 108 million people, is female. In bringing the game across the Pacific, one of Tencent's challenges was adopting the more relaxed approach American users take to mobile gaming compared to those in China, where it's most gamers' primary platform. \"Here in the U.S., mobile gaming is a much more casual experience, focusing more on games like Candy Crush and other simple mindless clickers,\" says Steven Asarch, who has covered MOBAs extensively as a reporter for online gaming publication Player.One. The U.S. mobile gaming market was projected to reach 37.2 percent Americans, or 121.4 million people in 2017. In comparison, China had 503 million mobile gamers in 2016, and that number is projected to grow to 699 million by 2021. It is also estimated that 95 percent of the China's Internet usage is mobile. Asarch says there hasn't been a mobile game in the U.S. that has broken into the serious gamer market. \"If Arena of Valor can break that, I would be incredibly impressed,\" says Asarch. To make the game more appealing for the Americas, Tencent has replaced some of the original's in-game avatars — drawn from Chinese mythology — with other characters, such as D.C. Comics superheroes Batman and Wonder Woman. They've also announced that there will be a version for the Switch, Nintendo's hybrid console-portable gaming device. Asarch says Arena Of Valor's true test will be how well it does on the Switch, which dominates the portable gaming market and is Nintendo's all-time fastest selling console. \"Everyone hears mobile MOBA, they ditch out,\" Asarch says. \"But if they hear Switch MOBA, they're like, wait a minute, that could be interesting! That sounds like it might work!\" Asarch says if a MOBA game can be play on the Switch, it will change the entire market. AILSA CHANG, HOST: Chinese tech giant Tencent is trying to do something that's never been done before - take the biggest online mobile game in China global. RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: The game is called \"Kings Of Glory.\" Tens of millions of Chinese play it every day. Now it's being released. This new version, though, isn't exactly the same, as our co-host Steve Inskeep discovered while playing it with international gamer Drew Miller. STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: It sounds, you know, like James Bond or something except with games. DREW MILLER: (Laughter) Very similar to James Bond just with video games. Recently I got back from Korea. I was on Team Liquid and we played against Team SK in a showmatch for the Asia International Championship for \"Arena Of Valor.\" INSKEEP: What's the game in its Chinese form? MILLER: It's called \"Kings Of Glory.\" INSKEEP: OK. So \"Kings Of Glory.\" What is the concept of \"Kings Of Glory?\" MILLER: It's basically a mobile version of \"League Of Legends\" or" ]

[ "The invention relates to a method for preparing sulphoaluminate cement clinker by comprehensively utilizing papermaking white mud, bauxite and flue gas desulfurization gypsum. The method comprises the following steps: by taking the papermaking white mud, the bauxite and the flue gas desulfurization gypsum as raw materials, increasing the temperature to the range of 1200-1300 DEG C at a temperature rise rate of 20-30 DEG C per minute in an electric furnace, and preserving heat for 1.5-2.5h, thereby obtaining the sulphoaluminate cement clinker. Compared with the prior art, the method is capable of reducing serious burden on the environment due to that the papermaking white mud and the flue gas desulfurization gypsum are not utilized, and the treatment cost, while guaranteeing the performance of the product." ]

[ "By the test methods of XRF and XRD,this article studies using desulfurization products from flue gas as cement mineralizer.The results show whether desulfurization products and fluorite or gypsum and fluorite used as cement mineralizer,they can both reduce the content of f-CaO in the cement clinker and increase the strength of the cement,and the physical properties of the cements are similar also.", "A rapid-setting and hardening, high-belite sulfoaluminate cement clinker, which relates to a rapid-setting and hardening, high-belite sulfoaluminate cement clinker as well as an application and a production process thereof. The cement clinker comprises the following mineral components: 20%-35% of C 4 A 3 s, 3%-9% of C 4 AF, 37%-47% of C 2 S, 0.5%-4.6% of f-CaO and 14%-26.3% of CaSO 4 . The cement clinker is composed of chemical constituents in weight percentage as follows: 12.9%-16.1% of SiO 2 , 12%-19% of Al 2 O 3 , 1%-3% of Fe 2 O 3 , 49%-54% of CaO and 12%-18.43% of SO 3 . The cement clinker is specifically prepared by calcinating 33%-62% of limestone, 10.5%-28% of pulverized coal ash and 19%-45% of desulfurization gypsum, in weight percentage, in a rotary kiln at 1300±50°C. Rapid-hardening high-strength cement products of various grades are prepared by mixing and grinding 26%-97% of said clinker, 3%-19% of anhydrite, and 0%-55% of slag.", "α-semi-hydrated gypsum which has better preparation in the form of high-strength was prepared with Aqlueous Salt Solution Method in Atmospheric Pressure from flue gas desulfurization gypsum.The affect of sulfuric acid concentration on crystal shape of α-semi-hydrated gypsum was investigated by SEM and DTA. The results showed that: On the premise of which the temperature,type of salt solution,concentration,pH value,crystal habit modifier and types of stabilizer and added content not changed,15% Sulfuric acid concentration could accelerate the generation of α-semi-hydrated gypsum and form thickening prismatical crystal.", "Flue-gas desulfurization gypsum and fly ash can be blended into a new cementitious material with chemical activity. According to its application in the engineering,contents of flue-gas desulfurization gypsum,fly ash and cement were taken as variable parameters in the experiment. The effects of the three factors on compressive strength of cement-soil with different curing ages were explored through orthogonal experiment. Meanwhile,differences among these factors were analyzed. The results show that,cement blending ratio has the maximum impact on the unconfined compressive strength of cement-soil,whereas flue-gas desulfurization gypsum and fly ash have almost no effect on the unconfined compressive strength of cement-soil in the age of 3 days,and a little impact at late stage. Moreover,the influence of flue-gas desulfurization gypsum is more significant than that of fly ash within 28 days,but after that,the impact of fly ash is more significant than that of flue-gas desulfurization gypsum.", "Fly ash and phosphogypsum were used as Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORM) by-products for the synthesis of belite-sulfoaluminate clinkers. The influence of raw mixture composition and firing temperature was investigated. Clinkers and cements were examined by X-ray powder diffraction and scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The compressive strength of the cements was determined after 28 days. Clinker phases identified included ye’elimite, s-phase of belite, ternesite and gehlenite, while the main hydration product of the cement pastes was ettringite. The results showed that belite-sulfoaluminate cements can be fabricated with a compressive strength of 45.9 N/mm 2 by firing the raw mixture (70 wt.% marl, 10 wt.% bauxite and 20 wt.% phosphogypsum) at a temperature of 1320°C/1h.", "A desulfurization agent for a wet flue-gas desulfurization system is provided to improve the heat exchange efficiency of facilities and prevent damage to a thermal device in high pressure washing by easily washing scales generated in an enamel coating layer with water of high temperature and high pressure. A desulfurization agent for a wet flue-gas desulfurization system easily removes scales on a thermal device surface of a gas-gas heater. A different desulfurization agent with limestone is mixed with the limestone used as the desulfurization agent of the flue-gas desulfurization system to react with SOx in an absorptive tower of the flue-gas desulfurization system. A portion of a solid content including the generated gypsum is not removed and is transferred to the gas-gas heater. The scales piled on the thermal device surface of the gas-gas heater is easily washed with the hot water.", "The invention discloses a method for utilizing sulfate slag and red mud comprehensively. The method comprises the steps that the sulfate slag and the red mud are mixed with a reducing agent so as to obtain a mixed material; roasting is carried out on the mixed material so as to obtain a reduced iron product; the reduced iron product is separated so as to obtain iron powder. By the utilization of the method, the two metallurgical solid waste resources, namely the red mud and the sulfate slag are utilized comprehensively, so that the iron product with good indexes is obtained.", "Gypsum from power plant flue gas desulphurization units (FGD gypsum) is a combustion by-product produced in high quantities. In this paper, gypsum panels composed of 100% FGD gypsum from two power plants have been subjected to different physico-chemical (density, pH, humidity), mechanical (flexural and compressive strength, surface hardness, impact resistance), fire resistance and environmental tests (leaching and radioactivity). The results obtained have been compared with the requirements established in some European standards for commercial gypsum and other standards for similar products. In addition, the panels manufactured have been compared with commercial gypsum panels in order to determine the recycling possibilities of this kind of material in this application.", "The invention discloses low-heat micro-expansive cement and relates to the technical field of engineering materials. The low-heat micro-expansive cement is prepared by mixing the following components in parts by weight: 2-30 parts of vanadium-titanium mineral slag, 2-30 parts of phosphorus slag, 20-62 parts of granulated blast furnace slag, 18-45 parts of cement clinker, 7-15 of gypsum or anhydrite and 0.2-5 parts of other additives. The low-heat micro-expansive cement disclosed by the invention is adopted, thus vanadium-titanium slag resources are comprehensively utilized; and under the condition that the resources are deficient, the vanadium-titanium slag, the phosphorus slag and the like are used to replace the formula of the existing low-heat micro-expansive cement, thus production cost is reduced, and the physical property of the produced cement meets the requirement of GB2938 cement standard.", "With the elimination of gas-gas heater(GGH) from the limestone-gypsum wet desulfurization process in coal-fired power plants, the gypsum rain becomes serious, and brings negative impacts on the environment. This paper deeply analyzes the sources, forming process and influencing factors of the gypsum rain, and introduces several common solutions with certain engineering values. Based on the related engineering cases, the pros and cons of each solution are discussed to provide reference for wet flue gas desulfurization(WFGD) system improvement in coal-fired power plants. Moreover, suggestions for optimizing the desulfurization process and developing new WFGD equipment suitable to Chinese conditions are also included, which will be beneficial to the future air pollution control in China.", "The way of saving energy and resources in the production of magnesium-containing cements, which is the use of barite waste as an additive in the feed mixture has an effect on the grindability of clinker and mechanical properties of the cement. Found that clinker containing more than 3% MgO, has a high resistance to crushing. The use of barite in the amount of waste 2-3% (1.52-2.28% BaSO ) as an additive in feed mixture 4 can improve the grindability of the clinker. This is accompanied by a reduction in the duration of grinding raw clinker and clinker with a high content of belite phase. Shown to improve the grindability of magnesium- containing clinkers synthesized with barite waste associated with the decrease in microhardness of clinker phases. It was determined that the introduction of barite departing optimizes granulometric composition of cement, increasing the amount of fine particles (1-5 microns) and high (5-35 microns) fractions and provides a more active hydration clinker.", "A method for reclaiming the city life garbage by cement kiln includes such steps as separating the building garbage from city life garbage, dewatering, breaking, regulating lime saturation coefficient, adding modified combustion promoter and adhesive, shaping, and clacining in cement kiln to obtain cement clinker.", "The present invention is one composite humidifying process for semi-dry fume desulfurization in a circulating fluidized bed, and belongs to the field of industrial waste gas purifying, environment protecting and energy source technology. The composite humidifying process includes simultaneous inside-tower humidifying and outside-tower humidifying, the inside-tower humidifying is completed via spraying water directly through nozzle, and the outside-tower humidifying is to humidifying ash for the circulating process. The present invention has reasonably improved complex gas-liquid-solid reaction inside the desulfurizing tower, raised desulfurizing agent utilizing rate and raised running stability of the desulfurizing system.", "Portland clinker is defined as an artificial material obtained from crudes having the appropriate chemical composition through a process called clinkering (calcining and sintering). Portland clinker is a material composed of at least 66 wt% calcium silicates. The balance must be aluminum and iron oxides. Therefore, clinker is composed of and can be defined as a ceramic material. Clinker is a raw material in manufacturing cements and concrete. Little thought has been given to its application in structural ceramics. However, clinker can be processed as a classical ceramic through conventional powder technology methods, and, therefore, it can have other applications. The objective of this work is to determine the optimum sintering conditions of plain clinker and the optimum amount of additives that increase its sintering density, resulting in better mechanical properties.", "The invention discloses a new process for recycling magnesium sulfate heptahydrate by utilizing magnesium oxide flue gas desulfurization. The new process is characterized by comprising the following steps: (1) magnesium oxide pulping; (2) flue gas desulfurization; (3) evaporation warming; (4) filter purification and cooling crystallization; (5) centrifugal separation; and (6) drying to obtain magnesium sulfate heptahydrate. According to the invention, the absorption liquid is subjected to evaporation concentration by utilizing flue gas heat energy, and water in the magnesium sulfate solution is evaporated, and the magnesium sulfate solution is cooled and crystallized by using an air cooling crystallizing tower, thus the energy consumption and cost for recycling magnesium sulfate are remarkably lowered and the use ratio of the magnesium oxide absorbent is improved as well.", "FIELD: manufacture of building materials. SUBSTANCE: invention relates to production of cement clinker in long rotary kiln by feeding lime-containing charge into charge side of kiln whereto steel slag with particle diameter up to 2 inch is also fed. Slag can be fed separately or having been preliminarily mixed with charge. Kilns can be operated both in wet or dry mode. EFFECT: enabled utilization of coarse steel slag resulting in lower power consumption and better environmental condition. 9 cl, 5 tbl", "The invention discloses retarder for building plaster-base plastering gypsum.The retarder is prepared from, by weight, 50-70 parts of ossein protein, 2-6 parts of calcite in powder, 10-20 parts of citric acid and 2-5 parts of activator.In this way, the retarder for the building plaster-base plastering gypsum is novel gypsum retarder with excellent development potential and can remarkably reduce the strength loss rate so that the gypsum strength can be reduced.The study on the retarder is the most effective approach for improving the gypsum-base material technical and economical cement and promoting scientific and technological progress of the gypsum industry.", "We have already developed a new recycling system for high water content mud such as construction sludge by using paper debris (fragments of the newspaper) to increase the recycling rate of the construction sludge. However, recently, the price of old newspaper is increasing. Therefore, development of inexpensive fiber materials are strongly desired in order to reduce the recycling cost. In this study, the applicability of waste gypsum board paper instead of paper debris was experimentally investigated. The waste gypsum board paper was crushed by the hammer mill and crushed paper was used in fiber-cement-stabilized-soil method. It was found through the unconfined compression tests that the failure strength and failure strain of modified soils by using crushed board paper are almost the same as those of modified soils by using paper debris. That is, it was confirmed that the crushed board paper can become a substitute of paper debris.", "The invention discloses a preparing method of flue alcohol with cellulose waste material double diluted acid hydrolysis, which comprises the following steps: choosing cellulose waste material as raw material; choosing dilute hydrochloric acid as accelerant; hydrolyzing the cellulose waste material under the craft condition of proper reacting temperature and acid density; producing monosaccharide with deacidizing property; yeasting and finestilling; getting the flue alcohol; utilizing active sludge method to dispose the waste liquid; using as water to produce complex acid. This method can cycle utilize the water, which can protect environment and decrease the cost.", "In the manufacture of cement clinker from limestone and clay components exhaust gases from a rotary kiln are delivered via a conduit to the final stage of a multiple stage cyclone preheater for the limestone. The limestone and low grade fuel are introduced to the conduit and calcined therein by a separate firing process immediately prior to the discharge of the calcined limestone to the kiln.", "Semidry flue gas desulfurization (FGD) experiments were conducted using rapidly hydrated sorbents with four different adhesive carrier particles: circulation ash from a circulating fluidized bed boiler (CFBB circulation ash), fly ash from the first electrical field of the electrostatic precipitator of a circulating fluidized bed boiler (CFBB ESP ash), fly ash from a chain boiler (chain boiler ash), and river sand smaller than 1 mm. The influences of various adhesive carrier particles and operating conditions on the desulfurization characteristics of the sorbents were investigated, including sprayed water, reaction temperature, and the ratio of calcium to sulfur (Ca/S). The experimental results indicated that the rapidly hydrated sorbents had better desulfurization characteristics by using adhesive carrier particles which possessed better pore, adhesion, and fluidization characteristics. The desulfurization efficiency of the system increased as the reaction temperature decreased, it improved from 35% to 90...", "The invention discloses cement-based self-leveling mortar. The cement-based self-leveling mortar is prepared from, by weight, 100-150 parts of Portland cement, 20-50 parts of high-alumina cement, 50-80 parts of quick-hardening sulphate aluminium cement, 200-250 parts of quartz sand, 80-120 parts of ground calcium carbonate, 15-25 parts of building gypsum, 8-20 parts of redispersible powder, 0.3-2 parts of tartaric acid, 0.3-2 parts of lithium carbonate, 0.3-2 parts of methylcellulose and 2-5 parts of hexanediol. The 20 min fluidity of the prepared cement-based self-leveling mortar is larger than 360 mm, the 24 h compressive strength is larger than 45.0 MPa, the breaking strength is larger than 10.0 MPa, and the fluidity, the strength and the breaking strength all conform to the national industrial standards.", "Wet limestone flue gas desulfurization is the most common method in controlling SO_2 emission.A single limestone particle was chosen as object.Based on film theory,a mass transfer model of alkaline solution desulfurization was found,and then matlab was used to simulate.Through theory analysis of SO_2 in gas phase mass transfer and diffuse to liquid phase,the dissolution and diffusion of limestone and reaction taking place in the liquid,a series of hypothetic conditions were brought forward and a mass transfer model was found.The model can deduce the velocity of mass transfer.The results showed that the conclusions predicted by the model were in good agreement with those by experiment and the coincidental degree is 97%.This can offer the theory reference for studying the mechanism of wet desulfurization.", "To solve gypsum sedimentation of 300 MW wet flue gas desulfurizaiton(WFGD) unit,numerical simulation was carried out with computational fluid dynamics(CFD) theory and FLUENT software.The turbulent flow of flue gas in the scrubber was described by Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations,and the motion of slurry drops was described by Lagrangian discrete phase model.By reasonable arrangement of different deflector,flow characteristics of entry section and scrubber could be greatly improved,ideal flow characteristics of this section were received;Gypsum sedimentation at entry section was avoided effectively.As a result,references and advices were given to the reconstruction and execution of this project.", "The invention discloses a phosphorous slag autoclave aerated concrete building block and a preparation method thereof. The phosphorous slag autoclave aerated concrete building block is prepared by adding water in phosphorous slag, silica sand, calcium lime, cement, gypsum and aluminium powder. Compared with the prior art, the method uses slag produced by phosphorus production as a main material for providing siliceous composition to produce the autoclave aerated concrete building block with light weight and insulation, can produce the autoclave aerated concrete building blocks with different levels according to different requirements, fully utilize the phosphorous slag waste, simultaneously also can reach or slightly excess the performances of the traditional similar building block and achieve the purpose of reusing the waste while reducing the production cost.", "Based on thermodynamic theory, this paper calculated the partial pressure of the absorption reaction in simultaneous desulfurization and denitrification of flue gas by means of urea solution. The results showed the feasibility of using urea solution as absorbent for simultaneous desulfurization and denitrification. The removals of SO_2 and NOx reached almost 100% respectively, better than the conventional gypsum method.", "Desulfurization chemicals suitable to sinter gas and effective desulphurisation particle diameter are selected to determine the parameter ambit controlling the escaped quantity of CFBA. According to the relationships among particle diameter distribution of materials on CFBA, effective durable time, utilizing efficiency of calcium and desulphurisation efficiency, experiments were proceeded. The best desulfurization chemicals, reasonable particle diameter and escaped quantity were also determined. The desulfurization chemical B had the higher effective durable time and the higher utilizing efficiency of calcium when Ca/S was between 1.2 and 1.3. The article further adapted to desulphurisation of sinter gas. The granularity that was less than 54 micron played an important role in efficient desulfurization and in controlling the quantity of the escaped. It may make circulating fluidised bed system realize continuous operation.", "Pozzolanic cement was prepared from sulphate-resisting cement clinker and granulated blast-furnace slag with 8% silica fume. The pastes were immersed in sea water up to one year. The durability of these pastes was followed by determining the free lime, total chloride and sulphate as well as compressive strength of their mortars after 1, 3, 6, 9 and 12 months. The aggressive attack of sea water was discussed and correlated with the type of the blended cement. The resistivity of cement mortars diminishes with the increase of granulated slag portion in cement mix. The blended cement pastes which contain silica fume and slag together give the lower values of total chloride than sulphate-resisting cement pastes and vice versa of sulphate content.", "The development of flue gas desulphurization technologies and the control and reduction of SO2 pollution from coal combustion have become a hot research topic due to environmental concerns. Carbonaceous and carbon supported desulfurizing sorbents have highly porous structures, large specific surface area and low production costs and can be widely used as desulfurizer. This paper provides a comprehensive review of carbonaceous and carbon-based desulfurizing sorbents, including active components, compositions of raw gas and effects of process operation conditions. It can be concluded that the use of char supported metal desulfurizing sorbents for removing sulfur dioxide from flue gas is a promising technology. Different aspects of applications of carbonaceous and carbon-supported desulfurization sorbents are discussed in detail.", "FIELD: chemistry. SUBSTANCE: invention can be used to produce mineral supplements for animal feed. The method of producing dicalcium phosphate involves mixing wet-process phosphoric acid with limestone at 60-80°C in non-recycle mode in two series-connected double-shaft mixers for 4-8 minutes while adding an absorptive liquid in amount of 40-70% of the weight of limestone. Further, the product undergoes ageing and drying with furnace gases at 120-145°C to residual moisture content of 1.5-2.5%. The absorptive liquid obtained during wet scrubbing of exhaust gases from the drying step undergoes preliminary settling, sludge is separated and the clarified part is returned into the mixer for the mixing step. EFFECT: invention reduces content of fluorine in dicalcium phosphate while zero-discharge of the process. 2 ex", "Based on the project of 5000t/d cement clinker production line of Russian cement Co., Ltd., construction requirements is detailed introduced under different standard system from aspects of the designing the shop drawing, construction schedule, construction method; construction quality, material and so on.", "This paper introduces that the flow diagram of sermidry process flue gas desulfurization using Ca(OH)2(aq)desulfurizer removes SO2 from flue gas,the technology of selective catalytic reduction(SCR,Dry process)of NOX at low tempreature(200℃) in the presence of oxygen with NH3 as reducatant and activated carbon as catalyst removes Nox from flue gas.The result shows that the removal efficiencies of SO2 and NOx are over 92.5% and 74.6%.The flow diagram of sermidry process flue gas desulfurization and SCR are suitable for desulfurization and denitrification of flue gases for medium and small size coal burning devices." ]

[ "demographic" ]

[ "DOE", "context menu", "What Does It Do to Your Heart", "context switches", "DOE test", "A Doe subpoena", "it does not follow", "an enclosing context", "Susan Doe", "John Doe", "Roland Doe", "Doe B", "soil fertilizer", "Samuel Doe", "term paper", "agricultural fertilizers", "long term", "Copyright term", "mineral fertilizers", "the reference plane", "method references", "reference assembly", "two terms", "reference frame", "terms of trade", "A term of office", "table of reference", "Department of Fertilizers", "a reference rate", "plane of reference", "nautical terms", "the concrete decision context" ]

[ "When the U.S. State Department released its annual human trafficking report on Monday, it told distressingly familiar tales of forced sex work and housekeepers kept against their will. But this year, one area got special attention: Slavery in the global supply chains of agriculture, fishing and aquaculture. The report has ranked the anti-trafficking efforts of most nations around the world since 2001, sorting them into three tiers of compliance with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. To obtain the top ranking of tier one, countries must \"demonstrate appreciable progress in combating trafficking,\" while third-tier countries are deemed to be ignoring the problem, and thus subject to non-trade related sanctions. In the report's early years, domestic and sex work dominated, and trafficking was attributed to \"greed and moral turpitude.\" But in the 2015 report, the more mundane — but endemic — problem of labor rights within global supply chains takes center stage, with food industries highlighted for both abuse and for some promising efforts to fight the problem. \"Awareness about forced labor and its significance in the global economy has been mounting in recent years,\" Mai Shiozaki, a spokesperson for the State Department, tells The Salt in an email. A mix of government officials, advocates, businesses and media had driven that shift, she says. It's a welcome change, say advocates. \"We've seen ... a recognition that issues of labor trafficking work their way into goods and products and services we purchase every day as consumers,\" says Killian Moote, project director of KnowTheChain, a non-profit that helps businesses scrutinize their supply chains for labor abuses. \"And it's necessary to continue to highlight that for consumers as well as companies.\" And once you start looking at the supply chains most likely to have trafficked workers, you find that a striking number are producing food. In January, Verité, a non-government organization that analyzes labor conditions around the world, released a report commissioned by the State Department analyzing the likelihood of trafficking in federal and private supply chains. Of 48 commodities targeted for additional research because they were especially vulnerable to trafficking, 22 were food — everything from the well-publicized fish, shrimp, cocoa and palm oil industries, to crops like wheat and corn. Farms and fishing boats have long been some the world's least-regulated workplaces, says Laura Germino, who coordinates the anti-slavery campaign of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. The CIW first gained national recognition for uncovering modern slavery in the tomato fields of Florida and is highlighted in the report. \"There's always been a big imbalance of power between workers and employers in [U.S.] agriculture,\" says Germino, noting that farm workers were initially excluded from minimum wage requirements. \"So agricultural labor is one of the sectors where you see trafficking occurring the most. And [overseas], it's not going to be any different.\" Anti-trafficking advocates say that while they're pleased with the growing recognition that trafficking is a problem throughout low-wage industries, there's much more work to do. Take, for example, the palm oil industry of Malaysia. Human trafficking on that country's palm plantations was exposed Sunday in the Wall Street Journal. And when the State Department's report came out on Monday, many human rights advocates told reporters they were unpleasantly surprised that Malaysia's ranking — critical to the Obama administration's trans-Pacific trade agreement — improved from third-tier to second-tier. \"It's encouraging to see that the issue of slavery and supply chains is highlighted,\" says Moote. \"But there's a lot more that needs to be done, and upgrading Malaysia when we've seen all these abuses isn't the most effective way to do that.\" Tracie McMillan is the author of The American Way of Eating, a New York Timesbestseller, and a senior fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University. You can follow her on Twitter @tmmcmillan." ]

[ "One presidential candidate talked about slavery, the other of freedom. And the speeches President Obama and Mitt Romney gave at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York on Tuesday were as different as the men themselves. Obama's topic was the tragedy of human trafficking and efforts by his administration to address a problem affecting the developing and developed worlds alike, including the U.S. Romney, for his part, spoke of free markets and their power to increase economic well-being in developing countries. Obama's speech was the least overtly political of the two, which isn't to say it wasn't written or delivered without any political motivation. Virtually everything an incumbent president does this close to an election is run through a political filter. Read More Of the modern form of human bondage, Obama said: \"... It ought to concern every nation because it endangers public health and fuels violence and organized crime. I'm talking about the injustice, the outrage of human trafficking, which must be called by its true name, modern slavery. \"Now, I — I do not use that word, 'slavery,' lightly. It evokes, obviously, one of the most painful chapters in our nation's history. But around the world, there's no denying the awful reality. When a man desperate for work finds himself in a factory or on a fishing boat or in a field, working, toiling for little or no pay and beaten if he tries to escape, that is slavery. When a woman is locked in a sweatshop or trapped in a home as a domestic servant, alone and abused and incapable of leaving, that's slavery. When a little boy is kidnapped, turned into a child soldier, forced to kill or be killed, that's slavery. When a little girl is sold by her impoverished family — girls my daughters' age — runs away from home, or is lured by the false promise of a better life and then imprisoned in a brothel and tortured if she resists, that's slavery. It is barbaric and it is evil, and it has no place in a civilized world.\" The speech gave Obama the chance to highlight his administration's efforts to fight human trafficking. He used the incumbent's advantage to talk about his record and to announce new initiatives. For instance, the president announced Tuesday that his administration had started an effort to educate law enforcement and educators, among others, about the telltale signs of human trafficking. He promised that his administration would rely more on technology to stop traffickers. They were the kinds of steps unlikely to require significant spending. While Obama avoided borrowing language from his campaign speeches, Romney didn't. Romney, for example, used a variation of a line from his standard campaign speech in his address to the audience: \"I will never apologize for America. I believe that America has been one of the greatest forces for good the world has ever known. We can hold that knowledge in our hearts with humility and unwavering conviction.\" Romney has accused Obama of apologizing for the U.S. and thereby showing weakness. He has even alleged in the past that Obama started his term with an \"apology tour,\" a charge journalistic fact-checker PolitiFact.com called totally false. The former Massachusetts governor's big idea was for the U.S. to take an approach in foreign policy reminiscent of workfare — that such aid be tied to efforts in recipient nations to increase work opportunities for their people. The assistance should also be linked to reform efforts in developing nations to strengthen the legal and other institutions necessary to reduce corruption, Romney said. And in a proposal that seemed aimed as much at U.S. voters as audiences overseas, Romney called for foreign aid to be tied to recipient nations opening their markets to U.S. companies. Romney explained: \"A temporary aid package can jolt an economy. It can fund some projects. It can pay some bills. It can employ some people some of the time. But it can't sustain an economy — not for long. It can't pull the whole cart — because at some point, the money runs out. \"But an assistance program that helps unleash free enterprise creates enduring prosperity. Free enterprise is based on mutual exchange — or, rather, millions of exchanges — millions of people trading, buying, selling, building, investing. Yes, it has its ups and downs. It isn't perfect. But it's more durable. It's more reliable. And ultimately, as history shows, it's more successful. ... \"... As the most prosperous nation in history, it is our duty to keep the engine of prosperity running — to open markets across the globe and to spread prosperity to all corners of the earth. We should do it because it's the right moral course to help others. \"But it is also economically the smart thing to do. In our export industries, the typical job pays above what comparable workers make in other industries, and more than one-third of manufacturing jobs are tied to exports. Sadly, we have lost over half a million manufacturing jobs over the la", "In the early to mid-1900s, the islands of Hawaii were a far-away, exotic destination. People who managed to get there often kept mementos of that journey including kitschy menus from Hawaiian fine dining restaurants and hotels like like Trader Vic's and Prince Kuhio's. Now these old menus are serving a purpose beyond colorful relics from the past. Kyle Van Houtan, an ecologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, says he's found a scientific purpose for the menus. Years ago, he traveled to Hawaii to study sea turtles. He wanted to know where they ended up. In a shark's belly? Or as turtle soup? One day he got one of those lightning-bolt ideas: Maybe turtle would show on old restaurant menus? Over time, he collected 500 menus. \"People had just kept them because they were beautiful,\" Van Houtan says. \"They were memorabilia of grandma's trip and grandpa's to Hawaii in 1915.\" He also combed through menus from galleries, a museum — even the Las Vegas Public Library. But Van Houtan came up empty handed. There were no sea turtles on the menus. Ever. What the ecologist did happen upon was a different marine discovery. After World War II, a lot of the locally caught fish were bottom feeding and reef dwellers. Van Houtan says the types of fish that lived close to shore started to disappear from menus. \"Fish like snapper and flounder and grouper,\" he said. \"They really took a nosedive.\" So, Van Houtan used fisheries data combined with his menus to calculate this interesting tidbit: Local fish numbers had dropped to about a tenth of what they once were. \"These are very desirable fish,\" he said. \"They used to be on the menus we see them on there in the 1930s and 1940s, but they're not in any of the menus today.\" Fast-forward 20 years and swanky 60s eateries like the Tropics had replaced local fish with deep ocean fish, like tuna and swordfish. Or Maine lobster, flown in from the mainland, washed down with 85-cent martinis. There were still a few quirky island offerings, too. Apparently, tourists couldn't get enough of Hawaiian pickled onions -- not so surprising for 1960s palates. Aside from sour appetizers, there was real scientific value in Van Houtan's fish forensics. Here's why: Fisheries records in Hawaii were nonexistent until about 1950, and pretty spotty for years after. With these menus and fish entrees, Van Houtan was able to chronicle a crash in local fisheries and a shift to deep ocean fish. True, changing tastes might have also played a role, but clearly something — overfishing, pollution or both — had hurt local fish populations. Van Houtan published his findings in the journal Frontiers in Ecology. One of his coauthors is Loren McClenachan, an environmental scientist at Colby College in Maine. She did similar research on Caribbean fisheries, based on diaries. \"Travelers' [diaries] mostly, so early natural history diaries,\" McClenachan said. \"I used a published diary from a pirate who traveled around the Caribbean in the 1600s.\" McClenachan says other scientists are calling them now with ideas on how to mine menus for more information. \"For example, changes in price and ... rarity,\" she said. \"Did things get more expensive before they disappear?\" If that's the case, then the Hawaiian beach-side cocktail may be headed for extinction. That 85-cent martini in 1969 is now $14 in Waikiki.", "The CEO of Backpage.com, a classifieds website that allows users to post escort ads, was arrested Thursday on felony pimping charges. Carl Ferrer was arrested in Houston after he arrived on a flight from Amsterdam; dozens of law enforcement officers then searched Backpage's Dallas headquarters, the Texas attorney general's office says. Ferrer, 55, is charged with pimping a minor, pimping and conspiracy to commit pimping. Two controlling shareholders of Backpage — Michael Lacey and James Larkin — also are charged with conspiracy to commit pimping. Lacey and Larkin are former owners of the Village Voice and the Phoenix New Times, The Associated Press reports. Backpage was started by Village Voice Media and is now owned by a Dutch company. The site allows users to post a variety of classified ads, but has come under scrutiny for its \"adult entertainment\" section, which includes escort ads. Backpage has continued to host those ads after other sites — including, most notably, Craigslist — shut down their adult sections. The California Department of Justice spent three years investigating Backpage, including with undercover agents posting ads, to confirm that the escorts ads were for the sole purpose of buying and selling sex. California's attorney general, Kamala Harris, says that Backpage was \"purposefully and unlawfully designed\" as an online brothel. Her office alleges that the \"vast majority\" of Backpage's profits come from fees paid by users posting ads in the \"adult\" section. The investigation was prompted, in part, by reports from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children of thousands of instances of child sex trafficking through Backpage. No trafficking charges were announced against Ferrer, Lacey or Larkin on Thursday, but the attorney general's office says the investigation \"found that many of the ads for prostitution services involved victims of sex trafficking, including children under the age of 18.\" Harris, who is currently running for U.S. Senate, called profiting off trafficking and exploitation \"outrageous, despicable and illegal.\" The AP has more on the charges: \"One of the advertisers, identified only as 15-year-old 'E.S.,' 'was forced into prostitution at the age of 13 by her pimp,' according to an affidavit filed with the complaint. She used other online advertising services until they were shut down, the court filing says, when she turned to Backpage.com. \" 'I mean really, coming from someone my age, there is too much access, like it's too easy for people to get on it and post an ad,' she told California Special Agent Brian Fichtner, according to his affidavit. ... \"The criminal complaint includes allegations that five minors, three of them including \"E.S.\" under age 16, paid to post advertisements on Backpage.com. \"The charges against Ferrer could bring him nearly 22 years in prison, while Larkin and Lacey face a maximum six years.\" Separately, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced this week that 17 people have been charged with running an international sex-trafficking ring that imported women from Thailand and forced them into the sex trade. The indictment alleges that the traffickers advertised the women on websites including Backpage.", "At some point or another, we've all cringed at the videos: lame cows struggling to stand; egg-laying hens squeezed into small, stacked cages; hogs confined to gestation crates, unable to walk or turn. Over the past decade, animal advocates have made great strides informing us of some of the problems with how many of our favorite proteins are raised. They've also made progress bringing change to the industry by pressuring large-scale retailers — from Target to McDonald's — to commit to sourcing livestock raised with higher welfare standards. But one important protein source has been missing almost entirely from the conversation: seafood. Mercy for Animals, a U.S.-based animal welfare group, says that's about to change. The group says it is beginning to lay the groundwork for a campaign that will target the aquaculture industry and shine a light on the conditions in which finfish like salmon, tilapia, catfish, trout, pangasius and other species are raised. \"More and more fish are being farmed in intense factory farms,\" says Nick Cooney, executive vice president at Mercy for Animals. \"At the same time, there's an increasing amount of research discovering just how intelligent and social fish are as individuals.\" Do consumers care? Mercy for Animals' own in-house studies suggest yes — and offer a roadmap of the objections the group is likely to raise with the aquaculture industry. Concerns like too many fish routinely crammed into pens and tanks, fish being raised in dirty water, high disease and mortality rates. The group, a vegan organization, also cites slaughter methods it finds most inhumane — like letting fish suffocate in open air, chilling them while still alive, or cutting their gills without stunning. And then there's the parasites known as sea lice, which feed on farmed salmon, costing the industry nearly $1 billion a year in losses. \"For individual consumers, our goal is simply to educate them on the way these animals are being treated,\" says Cooney. \"Our research studies have found that when people learn about these things — that half the fish being used in the food industry are coming from factory farms, or are confined in tanks with dirty water; that sea lice eats away the flesh and faces of fish — that educating them leads to more compassionate choices. And for large companies, our hope in the coming years is that if we show them their customers care, they'll eliminate the worst practices in their supply chains.\" Mercy for Animals may have one important thing going for it — timing. Humane treatment of fish is a topic that's starting to bubble up elsewhere. Seafood industry gatherings like the Seafood Summit and the American Fisheries Society meetings are now including sessions focused on welfare issues for farm-raised fish. Supermarkets like Whole Foods are addressing the issue by including language in their seafood standards requiring producers to minimize stress, and have gone so far as to stop carrying live lobster in their stores. And in Seattle, a pair of commercial fishermen recently launched a new fishing vessel that they claim is designed to humanely harvest the wild Pacific cod they catch. But will eaters care what fish feel? Industry representatives say they paid close attention when animal advocacy groups went after the egg-laying hen and hog industries, but say they aren't convinced eaters will prioritize humane treatment for fish in the same way. \"I'm not sure fish will capture the conscience of the public in the same way warm-blooded, furry animals have. People in this country don't see fish as sentient animals, with a conscience requiring the same welfare standards they'd give to a brown-eyed calf,\" says Craig Watson, who chairs the aquatic animal welfare committee for the National Aquaculture Association (NAA), a U.S.-based group of seafood growers. But it's a topic many in aquaculture are thinking more about, including veterinarian Stephen Frattini, president of the Center for Aquatic Animal Research and Management, who has spoken about fish welfare at industry conferences. \"As humans, we've utilized terrestrial animals as food, but also to pull carts and plow fields. And along the way, a moral contract evolved that acknowledged we should provide for them in a way beyond not being cruel to them,\" Frattini says. \"But with fish, we're not there yet. We [as eaters] have yet to really struggle with that.\" Indeed, defining what constitutes humane treatment of fish may be a tricky proposition of its own. For one thing, the debate over whether fish are sentient and feel pain is far from settled. \"It depends on who you talk to,\" says Watson, who also runs the Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory at the University of Florida. He says he and many others think \"the science is clear that fish lack the neurophysiology to feel pain. They don't have the brain structure — a developed neocortex where pain occurs in higher vertebrates.\" Watson notes the growing body of literature suggesting that the", "MacArthur Award-winner Lynn Nottage set her best-known play, Intimate Apparel, in 1905. But her latest work is ripped from today's headlines. Ruined, which opens at the off-Broadway Manhattan Theatre Club on Feb. 10, takes an unflinching look at the stories of women who've suffered appalling violations in the ongoing civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They've been raped; they've been mutilated. But they've survived. The playwright says she wanted to bring events that can often seem far away right into the laps of a contemporary audience. \"It's very easy, when we're reading those articles on the 20th page of The New York Times, to distance ourselves and say, 'It's someone else,'\" says Nottage. \"But I wanted to create an emotional bridge, so that when people are reading those articles, they feel that they're connecting with living, breathing human beings, not just statistics.\" Ruined is set in a bar and brothel in a mining town in the Congo rainforest. The customers are miners and rebels — or government soldiers, whoever controls this particular spot of land on any given day. And all the women who work there have been \"ruined\" — their humanity degraded through rape. \"What we're finding that's peculiar to this conflict is that women are being raped in large numbers,\" says Nottage. \"Not only are they being raped, but they're being brutalized. Rape has become a weapon of war.\" Nottage and director Kate Whoriskey began working on Ruined several years ago, when they decided to do a contemporary adaptation of Mother Courage, the classic indictment of war and war profiteering by German playwright Bertolt Brecht. They flew to Uganda, across the border from Congo, to interview refugee women about their war experiences. The experience left a vivid impression on Whoriskey. \"They were all beautifully dressed, these 15 women, so colorful and beautiful,\" she remembers. \"And then we heard these stories. And the stories were devastating, and to hear them back to back. ... I didn't actually recognize that rape had such physical consequences. I always thought of the psychological, but not the physical consequences. It was hard to hear, over and over, how ruined these women's bodies were.\" In this war, women's bodies are a battleground. So Nottage decided to make one character, a war profiteer, the owner of a brothel. \"I was very interested in the different levels of exploitation,\" says Nottage. \"We begin with financial exploitation, and then I wanted to move to sexual exploitation. I think the brothel became that perfect venue with which to explore these issues.\" And the brothel owner — Mama Nadi. \"She's sexy, she's smart, she's witty, she's sassy, she's a survivor,\" says actress Saidah Arrika Ekulona, who plays the part. \"She's nurturing, and then she can also be very off-putting.\" And Mama has her rules, all of which look out for No. 1. \"If things are good, everyone gets a little. If things are bad, then Mama eats first,\" explains Ekulona. One critical rule is that Mama Nadi's establishment will serve anyone, as long as they check their gun at the door. \"When you come into Mama Nadi's place, essentially, you're laying aside the war,\" Nottage says. \"But what we see in the course of the play is that that war begins to creep into the bar, and she's really incapable of keeping it at bay.\" Much of Ruined's story is harrowing. But director Whoriskey says it's also about the human capacity to adapt. \"Each story has a lot of trauma inside of it, but it also has a lot of hope, love, humor, hypocrisy and betrayal and all of these other elements,\" she says. \"So we're really hoping for it to be a complex experience.\" JACKI LYDEN, Host: There's a powerful new drama opening off-Broadway next week. It's from noted playwright Lynn Nottage, called \"Ruined.\" It takes an unflinching look at the women brutalized in the ongoing civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Jeff Lunden has the story and just a warning, some of the language and situations described are pretty harsh. Here's Jeff. JEFF LUNDEN: Lynn Nottage says she wanted to bring something from far away right into the laps of the contemporary audience. Ms. LYNN NOTTAGE (Playwright, \"Ruined\"): It's very easy when we're reading those articles on the 20th page of The New York Times, to distance ourselves and say, it's someone else. But I wanted to create an emotional bridge so that when people are reading those articles, they feel that they're connecting with living, breathing human beings, not just statistics. LUNDEN: \"Ruined\" is set in a bar and brothel in a mining town in the Congo rainforest. The customers are miners and either rebels or government soldiers, whoever controls this particular spot of land on any given day. And all the women who work there have been ruined. Ms. NOTTAGE: What we're finding that's peculiar to this conflict is that women are being raped in large numbers and not only are they being raped, but they're being brutalized, and", "South Korean labor rights activist Kim Yi-chan's bus is not hard to spot as it cruises the rural roads of Miryang city, on the southern end of the Korean peninsula. It is the only one with a banner in Korean and Khmer bearing the words \"Migrant Agricultural Workers' Human Rights Bus,\" as it plies the narrow roads between farming hamlets and long rows of greenhouses. The Khmer is targeted to Cambodian migrants, whom Kim was helping on a recent day. South Korean youth in this area are no longer interested in tilling the soil. Cambodia is South Korea's second-largest source of migrant workers, after China. More than 32,500 Cambodians are in the country on non-professional work visas, mostly doing manual labor on farms and in factories and fisheries. About 222,500 such visa holders are in South Korea. The country currently allows migrants to fill labor shortages, but soon it may have to allow greater immigration to help augment its aging, shrinking population. Kim stops at farms and picks up migrants who are not happy with their working conditions. He helps them find new jobs on other farms, and in the process, calls attention to the conditions they face, including unpaid overtime work, makeshift dwellings and no work breaks. Some also complain of a lack of privacy and unwanted physical contact by employers. Kim says the violation of migrant workers' rights is hard to change because South Korea's immigration system is stacked against them. \"Working conditions are bad and employers are violating the law, but they still manage to hang onto their workers,\" he says. \"The laborers bite the bullet and stay on because they are warned and threatened that if they leave, they can become illegal immigrants.\" The issue of migrant workers' rights goes far beyond agriculture. The country's population began to shrink for the first time last year, and the prospect of an aging society looms over South Korea's future. Chung Ki-seon, a migration expert at Seoul National University, says that South Korea is taking in migrants because it needs to supplement its agriculture, fishing, construction and manufacturing workforce, and not to address a demographic imbalance. She predicts that situation will change over the next decade, as the country reaches a turning point that will necessitate a policy shift. \"The approximate age of the [Korean] people working the fields right now is over 70,\" she says. \"And once they reach 75 or older, it will be hard for them to remain in the workforce.\" But it's very difficult for migrants working in South Korea to become citizens. Chung says the government knows public opinion is against allowing mass immigration. In 2018, a report on the ideal future level of immigration found 42% of South Koreans favored maintaining the current level, while 32% favored a decrease. Just 19% supported an increase. Korea has long seen itself as a homogeneous culture, not as an immigrant nation or multicultural society. In 2019, just 3.4% of the population was foreign. But demographics leave the government no choice but to allow more immigration, Chung argues, although it doesn't call its policy that. \"Although we call it a 'foreigner' policy, it has all the ingredients of an immigration policy,\" Chung says. \"The foreigner policy contains measures to integrate and recognize immigrants as members of the society, either as citizens or as permanent residents.\" The pandemic cut off the inflow of thousands of legally employed migrant workers from Southeast Asia and countries as far away as Pakistan and Uzbekistan. Chung says 5,000 new seasonal laborers were supposed to come into the country to work for 90 days or less last year. But none of them could enter. As a result, Chung says, \"the farms rely mostly on illegal immigrants, who fill 80% to 90% of that shortage.\" There are more than 392,000 undocumented workers in the country. The pandemic is making South Koreans more aware of the harsh conditions for migrants who toil on their farms, Chung says. Last December, the case of a Cambodian migrant who died in a greenhouse that she lived in focused attention on the problem. In response, authorities stopped issuing employment permits to employers who housed their workers in greenhouses and other improvised dwellings. But the practice continues. Kim, the activist, stops to collect a Cambodian migrant who is still living in a greenhouse, covered with vinyl sheeting. Khen Srey Nuon was living in the greenhouse before the new rule was issued. Her employer claims he offered her accommodation elsewhere but she declined. Even so, she sounds unhappy about her living situation. Boxes of the strawberries and peppers she harvests and packs sit outside a makeshift bedroom. Her bathroom and kitchen are in separate sheds outside. \"The water here freezes in winter,\" she says. \"My room is also usually freezing. It's difficult to live in. My employer gives me drinking water, but it's not so clean, so I have to buy my own.\" At another farm, Camb", "South America's cocaine pipeline is always adapting, particularly when the pressure is on. That pressure, applied in Colombia through an American-backed anti-drug campaign, has had an unintended effect: Colombian traffickers have set up shop in neighboring Venezuela. This has helped make Venezuela a major platform to ship drugs on to Europe and the United States. American and Colombian counter-drug officials say that cocaine is increasingly crossing into Venezuela, doubling in the last decade to an estimated 200 metric tons this past year. Much of it gets into Venezuela through dozens of unpatrolled rivers flowing between the two countries, like the long, Tachira River. Or it travels on short flights from clandestine airfields in Colombia's vast jungle to airstrips just 50 or 100 miles away in Venezuela. Once in Venezuela, the merchandise is flown out in small planes to the Dominican Republic or Haiti — before the drugs hit American cities. Or they go by plane and shipping container to Europe — and increasingly the first stop of those shipments is West Africa. The Drug Frontier A narrow bridge over the Tachira River joins Venezuela with Colombia. The music played on this bridge is all about the frontier — a jagged, porous, violent 1,300 mile border that, for all intents and purposes, exists in name only. In Urena, Venezuela, people cross the bridge by the thousands, on foot and on rickety motorcycles, past vendors selling chilled juice and listening to radios. They pull suitcases and carry over-sized boxes. Trucks roll in by the thousands. The inspections are usually perfunctory. Those lax inspections have permitted tons of cocaine to make its way from Colombia — where most of the world's cocaine is produced — and onto the first leg of an indirect, multi-nation journey. Gen. Oscar Naranjo is chief of Colombia's National Police. He's a man who has been chasing traffickers since the days when the merchandise of choice were bales of marijuana. \"What we've seen in recent years is a proliferation of routes from Latin America to Africa, Africa to Europe,\" Naranjo said. \"That signifies that the corridor they've tried to use to move drugs goes through Colombia, Venezuela, some African countries and some European countries.\" Venezuela's Exacerbated Drug Problem Anti-drug agencies say complicity by Venezuelan officials has exacerbated the problem. Venezuelan Attorney General Isaias Rodriguez, in a rare interview, acknowledges that a problem exists. Two institutions that have had members linked to drug trafficking include the DISIP, Venezuela's intelligence service and the National Guard, which is omnipresent on the border. \"There is complacency or participation in drug trafficking [by those agencies],\" Rodriguez says. \"And not just them, but civil authorities in airports.\" Indeed, one of the key jumping off points for Colombian cocaine is the airport in Venezuela's capital, Caracas. American and Colombian officials say bribes are regularly paid out to airport workers. They then look the other way. Up to a ton of cocaine is shipped out each month in small planes traveling to the Caribbean or on the many commercial flights to Europe. Lack of Cooperation Washington has pumped billions of dollars into Colombia's battle against narcotics trafficking, but the country hasn't won such cooperation from Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez — a populist who is not a fan of the Bush administration. Chavez frequently derides President Bush on his weekly broadcast. In a recent show, he called him a donkey. Chavez's government says that the Americans are tarnishing Venezuela by accusing it of being soft on traffickers. He stopped American anti-drug flights over Venezuelan air space long ago. He also ended cooperation with the Drug Enforcement Administration, accusing its agents of spying. John Walters, the White House drug czar, denies such charges. He says the lack of cooperation has been a boon to the drug trade. \"When you don't keep the pressure on, it dwells like a cancer where it's not effectively challenged,\" Walters says. \"Right now, that cancer is growing in Venezuela.\" Tackling Latin America's Drug Problem Walters says the pressure by Colombian authorities on Colombian traffickers has been fierce. It's led to some recent raids, like the one in Colombia that led to the arrest of Diego Montoya, who was on the FBI's top ten most wanted list. Such raids have forced other traffickers to seek refuge in Venezuela. Colombian intelligence believes that Wilber Varela, considered by some anti-drug agencies to be the top trafficker in South America, is hiding out in Venezuela. One of the most knowledgeable people in Venezuela about the drug trade is Mildred Camero. Until 2005, she was the drug czar for Chavez's government. Though well-regarded, she was abruptly removed. She now is a consultant on drug issues to the United Nations, the United States and private businesses. \"The problem of drugs has gotten out of the hands of Venezu", "For years, President Obama has been saying the U.S. must send humans to Mars. Permanently. There was the 2010 speech when he said, \"By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth. And a landing on Mars will follow. And I expect to be around to see it.\" There was that time in 2012 when he said the Curiosity rover was inspiring kids to tell \"their moms and dads they want to be part of a Mars mission — maybe even the first person to walk on Mars.\" And there were those other times he told kids visiting the White House that they might go to Mars someday. And, of course, the 2015 State of the Union address when he called for the U.S. to push out into the solar system \"not just to visit, but to stay.\" Today, the president said it again. \"We have set a clear goal vital to the next chapter of America's story in space: sending humans to Mars by the 2030s and returning them safely to Earth, with the ultimate ambition to one day remain there for an extended time,\" the president wrote in an op-ed published by CNN. \"Getting to Mars will require continued cooperation between government and private innovators, and we're already well on our way,\" he wrote. \"Within the next two years, private companies will for the first time send astronauts to the International Space Station.\" The president continued: \"The next step is to reach beyond the bounds of Earth's orbit. I'm excited to announce that we are working with our commercial partners to build new habitats that can sustain and transport astronauts on long-duration missions in deep space. These missions will teach us how humans can live far from Earth — something we'll need for the long journey to Mars.\" Several commercial spaceflight companies have also announced plans to aim for Mars in the coming decades. Last week, for example, Boeing's CEO announced, \"I'm convinced the first person to step foot on Mars will arrive there riding a Boeing rocket.\" Blue Origin, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is testing rockets to bring humans into orbit \"and beyond.\" And the defense and space contractor Orbital ATK is building and testing rocket boosters for a future human mission to Mars. A Dutch venture called Mars One hopes to colonize Mars by 2025, and has been taking applications from would-be travelers for years, although it acknowledges that it will rely on \"major aerospace companies\" for transportation. In September, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced a yet-to-be-built rocket system that he said would put people on Mars by 2025, and would eventually transport enough people to the red planet to start a permanent colony. Musk predicted any Mars mission would require \"a huge public-private partnership.\" A 2014 report by the National Research Council found federal funding for human spaceflight programs has not been robust enough to achieve the president's goals for Mars. \"Pronouncements by multiple presidents of bold new ventures by Americans to the Moon, to Mars, and to an asteroid in its native orbit, have not been matched by the same commitment that accompanied President Kennedy's now fabled 1961 speech,\" the report's overview reads. But Obama appears undeterred. \"Someday I hope to hoist my own grandchildren onto my shoulders,\" the president writes. \"We'll still look to the stars in wonder, as humans have since the beginning of time. But instead of eagerly awaiting the return of our intrepid explorers, we'll know that because of the choices we make now, they've gone to space not just to visit, but to stay — and in doing so, to make our lives better here on Earth.\" Later this week, Obama will host the White House Frontiers Conference in Pittsburgh, where the White House says the five \"frontiers of innovation\" up for discussion are personal, local, national, global and interplanetary.", "Updated at 6:10 p.m. ET Japan's Mitsubishi corporation is making a big apology. It's not for any recall or defect in its products, which include automobiles, but for its use of American prisoners of war as forced labor during World War II. James Murphy, 94, traveled from his home in Santa Maria, Calif., to the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, where a ceremony was held and Hikaru Kimura, a senior Mitsubishi executive, made the apology in person. \"Being one of the few surviving workers of that time,\" Murphy said in a statement, \"I find it to be my duty and responsibility to accept Mr. Kimura's apology.\" Murphy spent a year of forced labor, from 1944 to '45, at a copper mine owned by the company in Japan. He told the Associated Press this week that the experience was a complete horror, \"slavery in every way.\" But in his statement, Murphy took a tone of optimism. \"Hopefully,\" he said, \"the acceptance of this sincere apology will bring some closure and relief to the age-old problems confronting the surviving former Prisoners of War and to their family members.\" NPR's Sam Sanders says Murphy was the only former prisoner of war made to work for the Japanese conglomerate who was able to make the trip. Although the Japanese government has already apologized to prisoners of war for their brutal treatment during the war, this is the first time that a Japanese company has done so. \"As far as I know, this is a piece of history,\" Rabbi Abraham Cooper, an associate dean at the center, was quoted by the AP as saying. \"It's the first time a major Japanese company has ever made such a gesture. We hope this will spur other companies to join in and do the same.\" According to the AP: \"Some 12,000 American prisoners were shipped to Japan and forced to work at more than 50 sites to support imperial Japan's war effort, and about 10% died, according to Kinue Tokudome, director of the US-Japan Dialogue on POWs, who has spearheaded the lobbying effort for companies to apologize.\" The move comes at a time when the Japanese government appears to be trying to put the country's wartime atrocities behind it as part of a larger push to restore its ability to project military power abroad — something that had been prohibited by its postwar constitution. Earlier this week, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won a crucial vote in Parliament on legislation to give the army and navy limited powers to fight in foreign conflicts for the first time since World War II. The New York Times writes: \"The vote was the culmination of months of contentious debate in a society that has long embraced pacifism to atone for wartime aggression. It was a significant victory for Mr. Abe, a conservative politician who has devoted his career to moving Japan beyond guilt over its militarist past and toward his vision of a \"normal country\" with a larger role in global affairs.\" Abe has made multiple visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni shrine, which honors Japan's dead from World War II, including war criminals. His government has also sought to downplay or deny the wartime use of so-called \"comfort women\" in military brothels that impressed mainly Asian girls and women into prostitution. In a Times opinion piece written last year, Mindy Kotler, the director of Asia Policy Point, a non-profit research center, wrote: \"Mr. Abe's administration denies that imperial Japan ran a system of human trafficking and coerced prostitution, implying that comfort women were simply camp-following prostitutes.\"", "Whenever Paul Greenberg, a lifelong angler and writer about seafood, mentioned that he was working on a \"fish-in-danger book,\" the question most often asked was which fish people should eat. Farmed salmon or wild? Is swordfish OK now? Is tuna sushi a bad habit? You'll find answers -- though perhaps not the ones you're expecting or hoping for -- in Four Fish, his excellent, wide-ranging exploration of humankind's relationship with fish -- the flesh that even many vegetarians consume. You'll also find deeper questions about our need \"to reevaluate whether fish are at their root expendable seafood or wildlife desperately in need of our compassion.\" In this passionate study, part investigative journalism, part travelogue, part personal memoir about fishing for wide-mouth bass as a boy in Connecticut, Greenberg asks, \"Must we eliminate all wildness from the sea and replace it with some kind of controlled system, or can wildness be understood and managed well enough to keep humanity and the marine world in balance?\" Four Fish builds on Mark Kurlansky's pioneering 1998 microhistory Cod, but it's more than simply Cod-plus-three. Greenberg notes that, just as human consumption of mammals and birds has narrowed to four sources each -- cows, pigs, sheep and goats in the meat department; and chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese for poultry -- \"four archetypes of fish flesh\" have come to dominate our fish counters: salmon, bass, cod and tuna. He examines each in turn, showing how humans have threatened them by overfishing, destroying their spawning grounds and upsetting their food chains. Much of this sorry situation is not, alas, news, but where Greenberg's book earns its stripes is in pulling together in one superbly researched and engagingly written volume an examination not just of the problem but of some of the (occasionally misguided) attempts at solutions. Salmon farming, for example, which Greenberg asserts \"is in dire need of reform,\" has created its own well-publicized issues of pollution and contamination of wild stock. Four Fish is not all doom and gloom. Greenberg notes that \"unlike the terrestrial environment, the essential habitat of much of the world's marine life remains reclaimable.\" Careful management of existing wild stock and production of viable farmed alternatives through sensible polyculture are vital steps. In evaluating the efficacy of fish farming, a crucial factor is the feed conversion ratio -- the number of pounds of feed it takes to produce one pound of edible flesh. Neither cod nor sea bass nor tuna -- which require as much as 20 pounds of feed for every pound of flesh -- have proven to be good candidates for farming. But Greenberg visits operations producing feasible alternatives, traveling to Vietnam to look into tra, a superproductive freshwater fish with a tolerance for high stocking densities, and to Hawaii to explore kahala, which he says tastes like white albacore. Rechristened Kona Kampachi for marketing purposes, these fish have a feed-conversion ratio of 1.7 to 1 and even approach \"the holy grail of aquaculture,\" requiring less than a pound of feed per pound of flesh, \"a potential net gain of marine protein.\" So, what to eat? Not an easy question. Tilapia. Barramundi. Kona Kampachi. Sustainably harvested salmon caught by the Yup'ik Eskimo Kwik'Pak Fisheries in Emmonak, Alaska, the only Fair Trade-certified fishing company in the world. What to read is easier: Four Fish. Introduction The more I thought of it, the more I realized that the four fish that are coming to dominate the modern seafood market are visible footprints, marking four discrete steps humanity has taken in its attempts to master the sea. Each fish is an archive of a particular, epochal shift. Salmon, a beautiful silvery animal with succulent pink flesh, is dependent upon clean, free-flowing freshwater rivers. It is representative of the first wave of human exploitation, the species that marks the point at which humans and fish first had large-scale environmental problems and where domestication had to be launched to head off extinction. Sea bass, a name applied to many fish but which increasingly refers to a single white, meaty-fleshed animal called the European sea bass, represents the near-shore shallow waters of our coasts, the place where Europeans first learned how to fish in the sea and where we also found ourselves outstripping the resources of nature and turning to an even more sophisticated form of domestication to maintain fish supplies. Cod, a white, flaky-fleshed animal that once congregated in astronomical numbers around the slopes of the continental shelves many miles offshore, heralded the era of industrial fishing, an era where mammoth factory ships were created to match cod's seemingly irrepressible abundance and turn its easily processed flesh into a cheap commoner's staple. And finally tuna, a family of lightning-fast, sometimes thousand-pound animals with red, steaklike flesh that frequent th", "What's the lowly house fly got to do with the $60 billion fish farming industry? Quite a lot, says Jason Drew, a jet-setting British entrepreneur who is so enthusiastic about the potential of flies, he's just written a book called The Story of the Fly and How It Could Save the World. He thinks flies can solve one of aquaculture's most vexing issues: what to feed the growing ranks of farmed fish. Farm-raised salmon, trout and shrimp need a lot of animal protein in their diet. Right now, that protein comes mainly from small, wild fish that are turned into fish meal. It takes about 3 pounds of fish to produce 1 pound of farmed salmon, and as we continue to deplete wild fish stocks, fisheries experts say we're going to run out. And so aquaculture experts all over the world are scrambling to figure out what to do about it. A few years back, Drew was checking out some farms in Saudi Arabia that were exporting chicken and shrimp to South Africa, where he lives. He saw all the fish meal going to feed those creatures, and got to thinking just how unsustainable it was. He also noticed, he says, that \"the price of fish meal was moving in one direction only: up. Unless we find a new sea.\" At a slaughterhouse in Saudi Arabia, he stumbled upon what could become the new sea: a huge pond of blood, buzzing with flies. After consulting with some scientists, Drew became convinced that flies could recycle the protein in animal blood and replace fish meal to feed fish, chicken and other animals. He was so convinced, he founded a company to give it a shot. In 2009, his company, AgriProtein, purchased its first batch of flies to breed for industrial production. After a couple of years of tinkering, his team figured out how to produce protein-rich larvae in bulk. It helps that one fly can lay up to 1,000 eggs, and 1 pound of eggs can grow into 380 pounds of larvae. Today Drew has a fly factory up and running near Cape Town and is selling his Magmeal, a brown crumbly protein meal made of maggots, or fly larvae, to South African salmon and chicken farms. By next year, he says his factory will be producing 100 tons of fly meal a day. \"That's 100 tons we don't have to take out of the sea,\" he says. \"And we can't keep up with demand.\" At one end of the factory the mother flies lay their eggs. Members of Drew's staff extract the eggs, but save a small number of them to put back into the breeding stock. They take the remaining eggs and hatch them into larvae, where they're fed a rich meal of blood from a nearby slaughterhouse, plus bran. After two or three days, they're the perfect size for harvesting and are ground into Magmeal. Drew says it's only a matter of time before more entrepreneurs around the world discover fly farming. \"What we've done is just industrialize a natural food source,\" he says. \"It takes a fair bit of cash to get off the ground, but I believe small-stock farming is going to be one of the great businesses of the next 20 years.\" And he's already talking to people around the world who want to license his technology. Of course, the search for a fish meal replacement goes far beyond flies. Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are looking for ways to use more marine algae, fish processing trimmings and plants in fish feed. And as we reported last year, other scientists think biofuel co-products, poultry byproducts and soybeans have potential, too.", "The invasive Asian carp has now been found in 12 states and in the Great Lakes watershed, gobbling up native fish, jumping aggressively into boats and reproducing like crazy. Researchers have tried various ways to slow the spread of the fish as it prowls other waterways. And, so far, efforts to introduce the big, bony fish to American diners haven't caught on. So now a processing plant in Kentucky is trying the latest method of Asian carp disposal: sending them to China. At Two Rivers Fisheries in far western Kentucky, Manager Jeff Smith heaves open the large door of the plant's freezer. Inside there are hundreds of rock-hard Asian carp. They're several feet long and hang in tight rows. Before they get here, several employees gut the fish and hang them in the plant's closed-in processing area. But they won't stay in this facility long. Plant owner Angie Wu ships them to her native country — China — where they are a prized food. \"There are a lot [of carp] in China but most of them are farmed ... not very clean as here,\" she says. Wu has shipped more than a half-million pounds of processed carp to China. Other plants have found markets for Asian carp. In Mississippi, one company uses the fish for pet food and fertilizer. In Illinois, Mike Schafer at Schafer Fisheries distributes the carp to Chinese communities in the U.S. and Canada, where it is valued as a cheap and plentiful source of protein. \"Even Cuba raises the silver carp to feed their people,\" he says. Asian carp hasn't caught on in U.S. restaurants, but that hasn't stopped Kentucky from trying to teach people how to prepare it. At a fishing tournament at Kentucky Lake in Gilbertsville, a man shows the crowd how to carve up and debone the fish. The state has also hosted tastings to show people that when you fry Asian carp in cornmeal, it's not that different from catfish. While some people say it tastes like cod or scallops, our Sandwich Monday pals recently tried Asian carp sliders, courtesy of the city of Chicago, and the verdict was pretty negative. Still, Kentucky officials are aggressively trying to get rid of the fish. They're concerned about its voracious appetite. They're worried about the region's $1.2 billion tourism industry. The carp has even changed the business model for one longtime fishermen and distributor, Ronnie Hopkins. The outgoing message on his voice mail now says: \"If you're calling about someone to get your Asian carp, you've got the right person. So leave a short message and we will call you back.\" Hopkins says it is possible to make a living on Asian carp, but it's not easy. He says native fish sell for about 60 cents a pound — the abundant carp go for just 10 cents a pound ... and that's if he can find a local buyer. \"I wish the state would get more involved and maybe use it as product in our schools. We're buying from other countries and other states right now when we've got an abundance of fish we could use,\" says Hopkins. Almost all federal funding for Asian carp management goes to the Great Lakes, where the concern is reaching crisis proportions, as we've previously reported. Meanwhile, officials in Kentucky are looking for their own solutions — including adding another processing plant. AUDIE CORNISH, HOST: An update now on Asian carp. The invasive fish is found in 12 states and in the Great Lakes. Researchers have tried various ways to slow the fish as it invades other waterways. Now a processing plant in Kentucky is taking a new approach: Catching the Asian carp and sending it to China. Whitney Jones of the member station WKMS reports. WHITNEY JONES, BYLINE: At Two Rivers Fisheries in far western Kentucky, manager Jeff Smith heaves open the large door of the plant's freezer. Inside there are hundreds of rock-hard Asian carp. They're several feet long and hang in tight rows. Before they get here, several employees gut the fish and hang them in the plant's closed-in processing area. They won't stay in this facility long. Plant owner Angie Wu ships them to her native country, China, where she says most people prefer fresh fish. But Kentucky's carp have one advantage. ANGIE WU: There are a lot in China, but most of them are farmed. Not very clean as here, kind of polluted. So our wild fish compared with the farmed ones are better taste and more healthy. JONES: Wu has shipped more than a half-million pounds of processed carp to China. Other plants have found markets for Asian carp, too. In Mississippi, one company uses the fish for pet food and fertilizer. In Illinois, Mike Schafer at Schafer Fisheries distributes it to ethnic communities in the U.S. and also exports the fish to third world countries. MIKE SCHAFER: Especially the silver carp is used worldwide as food source to feed mass people, you know, with a cheap protein source. Even Cuba raises silver carp to feed their people. JONES: Asian carp hasn't caught on in U.S. restaurants. The fish are bony. But that hasn't stopped Kentucky from trying to teach people how ", "Note: Blow The Man Down will be available for streaming Friday, March 20, on Amazon Prime. Tourists know coastal Maine as an idyllic summer spot of rocky beaches, lobster piers, cute little towns where independent bookstores and coffeeshops still thrive, and the bed-and-breakfast places are among the quaintest in the country. Blow the Man Down takes place in the fictional seaside town of Easter Cove, Maine, and while no approximate location is given, it looks like a straight latitudinal line to Brainerd, Minn., the primary setting of Joel and Ethan Coen's Fargo. There's surely a time of year when the snow and wind doesn't bite at your skin, but the film makes it impossible to imagine. The Fargo connections run deeper still in Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy's tight, evocative drama. Beyond the frosty milieu, the two share a fascination with macabre crimes committed by ordinary people and the inevitability of amateurish mistakes and crises of conscience. Though the twists and turns are unsurprising for anyone schooled in the Coens — or in this type of genre film in general — Cole and Krudy make the backdrop the star: a fishing village where the past informs a sinister present and women struggle to find their place in a brutal patriarchy, often taking it out on one another. Opening with burly fisherman singing the sea shanty of the title — a wonderful touch the film repeats to great effect — Blow the Man Down starts with two sisters, Mary Beth and Priscilla Connolly, who are finally burying their mother after a long illness. Mary Beth (Morgan Saylor) and Pris (Sophie Lowe) have inherited problems that are keeping them penned down in Easter Cove for the time being, including a house that's on the brink of foreclosure and a lightly trafficked fish market. But those worries are minor compared to the grisly events that follow, when Mary Beth goes out drinking the night of the funeral and comes back begging her sister to help cover up a crime. In truth, Mary Beth was in the right. She has a reputation around town for \"liking the creeps\" and she found herself a doozy that night, but given her own inebriation and recklessness, she and Pris assume the police won't understand why she harpooned a man in self-defense. As the Connollys set about sloppily hiding the body and other evidence, some other ugly subplots in Easter Cove begin to surface, including another dead body connected to the Oceanview, a local brothel catering to the port. The Oceanview's proprietor, Enid (Margo Martindale), holds many of the cards in this whole scenario, but how she chooses to play them is anybody's guess. In an inspired bit of writing and casting, Cole and Krudy have hired three veteran actresses — June Squibb, Annette O'Toole and Marceline Hugot — as the village busybodies and standard-bearers, always sticking their nose in other people's business. The history of Easter Cove, and of the brothel especially, accounts for a fascinating split between the morally upstanding trio and Enid, who sees herself as continuing a service that's foundational to the community. Martindale has excelled at playing against her gentle image as a Russian agent on The Americans and a criminal mastermind on Justified, but Enid is a slipperier character, ruthless yet not entirely irredeemable. It's normally not a great sign when the lead characters are less compelling than anything around them, but the Connollys' predicament opens up the weird bits of village mythology and feminine conspiracy that secretly drives the film forward. Blow the Man Down functions just fine as a skillful replication of Fargo or Blood Simple, but Cole and Krudy's attention keeps drifting to the darker edges of Easter Cove, where such crimes of passion seem folded into a rough-hewn way of life. Isolated from the rest of civilization — Maine yet as discreet as a snow globe — it plays by its own unwritten rules and the film teases them out beguilingly.", "How important is it for human beings to push new frontiers? Is it just something that a few us are inclined toward — like searching out a new, untried restaurant rather than falling back on something familiar — or is it essential to our species' success? Could the need to take risks and expand into new territory be hardwired into our genetic make up? If so, does that mean expanding into space and the other worlds of our solar system is an imperative, rather than a luxury? I recently finished astronomer Chris Impey's wonderful book Beyond: Our Future in Space. Impey begins with an account of the small bands of humans who left Africa some 70,000 years ago and went on — quickly — to settle the rest of the planet. As he puts it: \"Around 65,000 years ago, we first ventured out of the continent of our origin. The route from the Horn of Africa to the Arabian Peninsula was probably across the Bab el-Mandeb strait. Today that strait is one of the world's busiest shipping lanes; at that time, after the last ice age had lowered sea levels, it was merely a narrow, shallow channel.\" The group that left was no more than a thousand or so in number, and they likely left in waves of smaller tribes. Within 20,000 to 30,000 years, they'd spread to Asia, Australia and Europe. By 16,000 years ago, they had made it across the land bridge of the Bering Sea to settle North and South America (though they may have crossed the ocean). For Impey, this push across the planet is a testimony to a spirit of exploration and risk-taking that's built into the very fabric of bodies. Over the last few decades, researchers have identified what some have called the \"wayfarer gene.\" It's known in scientific circles as DRD4 and its variant 7R. As David Dobbs describes it an excellent piece in National Geographic: \"...several studies tie 7R to human migration. The first large genetic study to do so, led by Chuansheng Chen of the University of California, Irvine in 1999, found 7R more common in present-day migratory cultures than in settled ones. A larger, more statistically rigorous 2011 study supported this, finding that 7R, along with another variant named 2R, tends to be found more frequently than you would expect by chance in populations whose ancestors migrated longer distances after they moved out of Africa.\" Of course no single gene can account for behavior. Environment and culture play equally important roles in determining human behavior. In his article, Dobbs describes the remarkable expansion of the Polynesians across the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean. That expansion was rapid, as long as the new islands to be settled were in visible range of those already inhabited. Once open ocean was reached, the expansion halted until émigrés from what is now South China provided the next boost in terms of a new technology — better ships. \"These boats were ships, really: long canoes with sails, outriggers, and far greater speed and range,\" Dobbs writes. With the technology, the Polynesians push onward — eventually reaching as far (perhaps) as the Americas. So it would seem we are built for exploration — but it's not just in our genes. The wanderlust is also in our hands (for building) and our imaginations (for making new tools). And why does any of this matter? Well, once again we are poised at the edge of a great sea. This time it's called space. There are those who believe humanity needs a frontier. We need a horizon to focus our energies. We make heroes out of those who brave those frontiers — even if they do not return — because they act out something ancient and important in us. That is why space matters. If we can navigate the bottleneck of sustainability and climate change lying directly in our path, then, once again, there will be new and distant shores awaiting us. While some say we need to clean up our act at home before we venture outward, the irony of the present moment may be that the two needs are linked. We can only clean up our act here at home — meaning learning to live sustainably on this planet — because we discovered how planets work in our push outwards. All that space science gave us the much needed view (and understanding) of Earth's functioning as a planet in its full totality. So, yes, it seems we were born to explore and push outwards. The combination of evolution and culture made us explorers and wanderers. Now — with so much to gain — we should recognize that explicitly and see exactly where our next frontier lies. At our feet and far overhead. Adam Frank is a co-founder of the 13.7 blog, an astrophysics professor at the University of Rochester, a book author and a self-described \"evangelist of science.\" You can keep up with more of what Adam is thinking on Facebook and Twitter: @adamfrank4", "Is salmon farming ever sustainable? For years, many marine biologists have argued that the floating, open-ocean net pens that produce billions of pounds of salmon per year also generate pollution, disease and parasites. In some places in western Canada, the open-ocean salmon farming industry has been blamed for the collapse of wild salmon populations in the early 2000s — though other research has challenged that claim. But now, a few salmon farms have moved inland, producing fish in land-locked cement basins separated from river and sea. One land-based fish farm in West Virginia has been commended as a sustainable alternative to conventionally produced salmon. On Vancouver Island, there is at least one such facility. And just last month, Willowfield Enterprises, based in Langley, British Columbia, harvested its first inland-farmed sockeye salmon, to be marketed under the brand name West Creek. Sockeye is a Pacific species that has rarely been cultivated before. \"In terms of environmental sustainability, I think [these closed-system farms are] a huge step forward,\" says Martin Krkosek, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto who has been among the leading critics of ocean net pen salmon production. \"Waste material, disease, pollution, parasites — all these things aren't a concern with most closed-system aquaculture.\" Some forms of aquaculture may have the potential to help ecosystems by taking fishing pressure off of wild fish stocks. But this hasn't been the case with the salmon farming industry, argues Daniel Pauly, a professor of fisheries at the University of British Columbia. One reason why, Pauly tells The Salt, is that the food that salmon farmers feed to their fish is usually fish meal made from wild — sometimes overfished — species. He points out that humans could be eating these species instead of farmed salmon. Open-ocean salmon farms can also generate high densities of organic and inorganic waste material — which can cause toxic marine algae blooms and create low-oxygen \"dead zones.\" Residues from antibiotics and other chemical treatments can also drift from the pens. And then there's sea lice. These pea-sized copepods cling to free-moving fish, and under natural circumstances, they aren't usually a threat to salmon. But when many thousands of adult salmon swarm together in crowded net pens, sea lice populations often boom. When juvenile salmon exiting the rivers of their birth pass near such infested pens, the smolts may be swarmed by the parasites and quickly killed. By this process, salmon farms have caused entire runs of wild fish to nearly disappear from streams in the Vancouver Island area, according to Krkosek's research. The Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program advises consumers to avoid farmed salmon in general, but it makes a specific exception for farmed salmon from contained systems, which the aquarium recommends, according to spokesperson Alison Barratt. Likewise, the Vancouver Aquarium's seafood rating program, called Ocean Wise, has not approved as \"sustainable\" a single open-ocean salmon farm, says Teddie Geach, an Ocean Wise representative in Vancouver. However, Ocean Wise has given West Creek's sockeye salmon a top sustainability grade, based on assessments of several criteria. These include the risk of diseases and parasites spreading from farmed fish to wild, and the risk that farmed fish will escape, which can negatively affect the gene pool of wild fish. And then there's something called the \"feed conversion ratio,\" a measure of resource efficiency that considers how much food a given fish species requires to produce each pound of marketable product. \"The closer that ratio is to 1 to 1, the better,\" Geach says. \"You don't want a 10-to-1 ratio.\" Krkosek says the feed-conversion ratio of farmed salmon \"is improving\" and several years ago was about 5 to 1. Wild salmon, he says, are probably less efficient at converting food into flesh, since they are not eating an engineered, optimized nutrition formula, and because they expend great amounts of energy that farmed salmon do not. Inland aquaculture facilities may be a more environmentally sound way to farm salmon than their open-ocean counterparts. But Krkosek says it's not yet clear whether it would be feasible for the entire salmon farming industry — which produced 5 billion pounds of fish in 2012 — to make the move. He says \"new environmental problems\" would likely arise — \"probably mostly associated with energy and water consumption.\" Krkosek also notes that right now, the economics favor cheaper, conventionally farmed salmon. \"In the open-ocean pens, they get clean water and waste disposal for free,\" he says, adding, \"Everyone's waiting to see if the economics work out. But currently, the common refrain in the salmon farming industry [about inland farms] is, 'It's too expensive.' \" Willowfield Enterprises President Don Read, who is farming the West Creek sockeye with partner Lawrence Albright, says his f", "Steampunk, like any other kind of science fiction, can get top-heavy. Elizabeth Bear may or may not have had this in mind when writing Karen Memory, her new standalone steampunk novel, but she addresses it anyway. While a certain percentage of the genre dwells too much on anachronistic technology and tropes, sometimes at the cost of a winning story, Karen Memory — set in an imaginary city of the Pacific Northwest in the late 1800s — deploys its steam-driven marvels sparingly and with pinpoint precision. At first, it's barely a steampunk novel at all. The book's titular hero is a young prostitute who lives in a peaceful, prosperous brothel run by the coarse yet kind Madame Damnable, and the technical wonders she encounters are restricted to a small scale: An electrocuting glove wielded by a devious pimp and rival of Damnable's, or a steam-powered, surgical \"knife machine\" installed in the brothel itself. Instead, Bear relies on a more solid foundation to capture the reader — the strong, sympathetic, charismatic voice of Karen, the narrator. Karen's an orphan, but hard luck hasn't robbed her of spark. Her narrative is sharp, sly, and full of heart, and her rougher edges as the daughter of a frontier horseman haven't been filed down. Life at Madame Damnable's isn't a cakewalk, but she bears it with grace and an empowered sense of her place in society that dovetails nicely with the stirrings of first-wave feminism across the country. Still, Bear keeps the story's scale local and small — at least at first. The details of Karen's domestic life and romantic passions are painted vividly and evocatively, and it's a treat to simply spend time with her and her sisters-in-trade. But when Peter Bantle, Damnable's bullying rival, runs for mayor, the balance of power in town is thrown into doubt — and the tiny elements of steampunk that have been accumulating in the background begin to take a central role, up to and including a mind-control device and breathtaking airships. By story's end a plot of geopolitical proportions has been unearthed, one that Karen and her fellow prostitutes find themselves embroiled in — even as the focus remains squarely on Karen's growing sense of her own identity, and a destiny that's far more ambitious than her lot in life will allow. The plot isn't complicated, nor does it need to be. Bear is paying homage to the dime novels of the era, forerunners of pulp fiction packed with larger-than-life heroes, scheming villains, and gritty action. But she's subtly subverting this tradition, just as much as she's giving steampunk a gentle, loving twist. An African-American marshal and a transgender prostitute are just two members of the book's diverse cast, and it's clear that Bear is making a point about the way history, like literary subgenres, can steamroll over anyone who falls outside the norm. She makes that point engagingly and effortlessly. Karen Memory breezes by at a leisurely pace, a bracing yet charming adventure yarn that never feels forced, despite the brassy confidence of its delivery. Jason Heller is a senior writer at The A.V. Club and author of the novel Taft 2012." ]

[ "A north Phoenix 8-year-old girl is in a medically induced coma after suffering severe burns to her body in an explosion.\nScroll for more content...\nThe explosion happened around 6 p.m. Saturday night.\nNeighbors were gathering for a barbecue when some kind of flammable liquid placed near a fire pit exploded.\nIsabella was burned on more than 50 percent of her body. Firefighters rushed her and her father to the hospital for burns. Katie Pena, a family friend, heard the explosion and saw the aftermath.\n\"A bunch of dads in the driveway ended up grabbing her and putting her out and her brother grabbed the hose and put water on her,\" Pena said.\nShe was conscious during it all.\n\"She actually asked how many days of school we thought she might have to miss but that tells you what kind of kid she is,\" Pena said.\nThe burns were mostly on their lower bodies. Pena is still trying to process it all.\n\"Unbelievable, first it was, what just happened because it happened so quickly. It was more disbelief than anything else,\" Pena said.\nPena has set up a GoFundMe page to help raise cash to help out Isabella and her family.\n\"Every little bit helps. They're always willing to help other people so it's time to give back,\" said Pena.\nThe explosion is still under investigation." ]

[ "The boy said his sister was tied down on at least two occasions while the sisters blew fire over her face and cut her on the arm and in the collar area with a needle-like object, drawing blood, according to police. The girl said the women also poured over her eyes a substance that stung.\nPeggy LaBossiere, 51, and Rachel Hilaire, 40, of East Bridgewater, denied injuring the girl and threatening the boy, the Brockton Enterprise reported . They pleaded not guilty on Jan. 29 to mayhem, assault and other charges. A public defender for the women didn’t return a call seeking comment on Saturday.\nPolice say the girl’s mother is a hair stylist of Haitian descent who has LaBossiere as a client and requested the ritual. She has not been charged but is receiving mental health treatment.\nThe sisters will be back in Brockton Superior Court on Wednesday for a hearing to determine whether they’re too dangerous to be released.\nThe sisters told police that they have performed “cleansing baths” for family and friends in the past, something that involves chanting prayers, rubbing frankincense and eucalyptus oils and sea salt on their bodies, and burning myrrh, the newspaper reported. Children sometimes get burned as spirits leave the body, they said.\nThe girl suffered a third-degree burn across her face that will leave her permanently disfigured, police said. She was treated at a hospital and taken into custody by state welfare authorities, along with her brother, who described to police what happened at the sisters’ house over multiple days.\nVoodoo refers to religious practices developed centuries ago by enslaved Africans in the Caribbean, primarily in Haiti, where the practices are sometimes spelled “vodou.”\n___\nInformation from: The (Brockton, Mass.) Enterprise, http://www.enterprisenews.com", "This is the shocking moment a birthday girl is set on fire by hydrogen balloons at her party and suffers horrific burns.\nStartling footage has emerged of the balloons exploding, engulfing the girl and her friends in flames as she lights the candles on her birthday cake.\nThe incident took place last Saturday in India and the video has been circulating on social media.\nThe birthday girl was engulfed in flames after the hydrogen balloon at her party caught fire\nPhotos reveal the girl - who is believed to be a teenager - suffered horrific burns across her arms after the fire\nThe footage was originally published on Facebook by the birthday girl's friend - who filmed the nightmarish episode on his mobile phone.\nPhotos reveal the girl - who is believed to be a teenager - suffered horrific burns across her arms after the fire.\nMany countries have banned the use of hydrogen in balloons, the UK outlawed it in 1914, because the gas is so flammable.\nHydrogen has a higher energy level than most gases, meaning that when it reacts with the oxygen in the surrounding air and a flame ignites it, it burns fiercely.\nThe footage was originally published on Facebook by the birthday girl's friend - who filmed the nightmarish episode on his mobile phone\nAs the birthday girl lit her cake, the flame catches the balloon and it becomes a fireball\nThe clip begins showing the birthday girl lighting a candle on her cake at her party - while a group of friends crowd around the table and snap photos on their phone.\nThe girl - who is wearing a pale blue dress and has a distinctive tattoo on the inside of her left arm - is surrounded by dozens of pink and black hydrogen balloons as she lights her cake with a match.\nHowever as she lights her cake, the candle bursts into flames and and the hydrogen-filled balloons around her explode.\nThe girl could be seen screaming and running away after the balloon caught fire\nScreams can be heard as a huge fireball fills the room and the birthday girl is engulfed by the flames.\nShocked by the nightmarish explosion, the friend - who has been filming the incident - briefly loses control of his camera.\nBut as soon as the friend pans back to the scene, the birthday girl can be heard screaming in terror and seen running towards the camera.\nThe friend loses control of his camera again and the video cuts on an image of a girl's hand.", "This is the horrifying moment a girl and her friend caught on fire as a candle ignited snow foam at her birthday party.\nThe girl appeared to be celebrating her 20th birthday at a house in Tehran, Iran, when a cake was brought to the table by her friend.\nBut the occasion in Iran's capital took a scary turn when partygoers began spraying hazardous froth at the two girls.\nThe girl sitting down appeared to be celebrating her 20th birthday at a house in Tehran, Iran, when a cake was brought to the table by her friend\nIn the video which was uploaded to social media, partygoers cover the two girls in snow foam during the celebrations\nA row of candles ignite the foam and flames shoot up the arms of the woman holding the cake, setting her limbs and head on fire\nIn the video, which was uploaded to Instagram, a row of candles can be seen flickering on the table as the cake is presented to the birthday girl.\nFamily and friends begin spraying foam in the direction of the two women - and soon both girls are covered in the flammable substance.\nIn the blink of an eye the candles ignite the foam and the flames shoot up the arms of the woman holding the cake.\nAs the fire rages, the birthday girl is engulfed in flames too and the friend tries to put the fire out. Screams can be heard as panic ensues\nPeople rush to try and put out the flames - while balloons can be heard popping as the fire pierces through them. The lady presenting the cake was severely burned as a result of the incident\nHer head is then turned into a fireball and she runs across the room in fear.\nThe fire then spreads and the birthday girl is also engulfed in flames before panic ensues.\nPeople start screaming and gasping as they try to put out the flames - while balloons can be heard popping as the fire pierces through them.\nThe video ends with everyone in a state of shock as they crowd around the women in an attempt to help.\nThe lady presenting the cake was severely burned as a result of the incident.", "Please enable Javascript to watch this video\nLODI -- Loved ones are raising money for a Lodi family who was badly burned in a house fire last week.\nThe fire started 10:30 a.m. Tuesday on Walnut Avenue. The family believes a heater caused the fire.\nA young mother named Lupita suffered burns all over her body. Lupita's 9-month-old daughter, Kaelynn, suffered second- and third-degree burns over 80 percent of her body.\nThey are both at Shriners Children's Hospital in Sacramento receiving treatment.\nLupita's mother, who was also home at the time but in a different room, helped guide them through the smoke. She suffered smoke inhalation.\nFOX40 first shared the story Friday, when we spoke with two men who delivering water, noticed the fire and ran inside to help get them out.\nMonday we spoke with Kaelynn's father Oscar Beltran. He was at work when the fire started. He's been at the hospital with them ever since and wanted to express how thankful he was to the two men who helped save them.\nMonday night, one of Lupita's teachers was also coordinating efforts to move furniture and appliances into the home next door so the family has some place to come home to while their home is repaired.\nThey have started a GoFundMe account to help raise money for baby clothes and other things they lost in the fire.\nAlso, if people would rather donate baby items like clothes, diapers and blankets email Daisy Baltazar at: [email protected]", "Get daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email\nA devastating explosion and fire which killed an entire family in a cottage between Reigate and Betchworth was started deliberately by one or both of the parents.\nThat was the conclusion of an inquest into the tragic deaths of Tiago Nunes, 30, his wife Adriana, 41, and their six-year-old son, also Tiago, at their cottage in the early hours of January 24 last year.\nThe bodies of all three were found in the main bedroom inside the gutted bungalow, the little boy and his mother on the bed, and Mr Nunes on the floor beside. The bodies of their two cats were also found in the room.\nPetrol had been poured around the bedroom and ignited.\nBy the time the fire was discovered, the home was a charred shell.\nTiago Nunes, who was originally from Portugal, worked as a gardener for Adrian Smart and lived with his family in a cottage on Mr Smart’s estate, Little Santon Farm, in Trumpets Hill Road.\nMr Smart told the hearing at Surrey Coroner’s Court in Woking on Friday (February 2) that Mr Nunes was “utterly delightful”, and his son “a happy, healthy boy who had good, devoted parents”.\n(Image: Facebook)\nOn the day of the tragedy, he became concerned when Mr Nunes did not appear for his usual 9am briefing, in which he went through the work he had planned for the day.\nUnable to reach him on either his landline or mobile, Mr Smart eventually walked to the cottage at 10.40am.\n“It took me a moment or two to realise there was anything seriously wrong,” said Mr Smart, “because the walls were standing and it took me a second or two to realise there wasn’t a roof.\n“Then I began to look around the windows and I came to the front door [which] was non-existent”.\nFatal Trumpets Hill Road house fire which killed Reigate family was 'started deliberately'\nMr Smart raised the alarm and initially clung to the hope the family had escaped the inferno.\nInvestigators spent days examining the ruin.\nPaul Risbridger, from Surrey Fire and Rescue Service, told the court the fire had burned itself out after blazing for nine to ten hours.\nIt was caused when petrol was poured around the bedroom and set alight, setting off an explosion which blasted a large window, which weighed about 100kg, more than five metres from the house, he said.\n(Image: GEOFFREY ROBINSON)\nInvestigators later discovered a nearby resident had heard an “explosion” shortly after 1.30am.\nGiving his evidence, Detective Chief Inspector Paddy Mayers confirmed there was “no evidence any third party was involved or [that] there was any form of device that had been set to delay an ignition.”\nAsked if investigators had considered whether the little boy could have started the fire, he said it was “highly likely that at the time Tiago jr was asleep next to mum”.\nMrs Nunes, who grew up in Brazil and Chile, had a sad and troubled past, the court heard.\nFirefighter recalls horrific aftermath of 'deliberate' house fire which killed Reigate family of three\nGiving evidence, her sister-in-law Manuela Nunes explained how Adriana had a baby at 16, but her marriage to the father did not work out.\nWhen she left her first husband, she had to leave her daughter too. Her daughter hanged herself just before her 16 birthday.\n“She always felt guilty that she left her daughter behind and never managed to get her back,” said Miss Nunes.\nShe went on to explain how Mrs Nunes suffered with depression and how she had had tried to kill herself in the past.\n(Image: Surrey Mirror)\n“Adriana would call me many times saying she didn’t have the will to live any more and she was very depressed, and as a sister-in-law I would always try to encourage her and say ‘God has given you another chance as a mother so you have to take that chance and be the best you can.\n\"You are a great mother, don’t say you are not because I can see you are.”\nHer brother had also spoken to her about his fears for his wife in the past, she said.\n“Tiago once told me if something happened to Adriana, he wouldn’t have the will to live and he said to me, we will probably all go together.”\nReigate house fire: Fundraising page launched for funerals of tragic family of three killed in blaze\nBut just the day before the explosion, the family had seemed “so happy,” said Miss Nunes.\n“She [Mrs Nunes] was making jokes and seemed in quite high spirits. She looked and seemed on good form.”\n“I can’t see [either] parent… doing any harm to my nephew,” she added. “They were kind, caring people.”\nThe court heard that Mr Nunes was in debt, something his family was unaware of.\n(Image: Surrey Mirror)\nA pathologist concluded that all three victims had probably died as a result of exposure to fire, although the examinations were hampered by the fact the bodies were so badly burned.\nSumming up, assistant coroner for Surrey, Christopher Sutton-Mattocks, said it was impossible to say exactly what happened that night.\n“The evidence of the experts is clear that whoever ignited the explosion was within the room at the time,” he said.\nHe went on: “No-one, according to Mr Risbridger, could have survived the explosion within the room and, if outside [the room], would have been either killed by the wall collapsing or at the very least would have been very seriously burned.”\nReigate house fire: Cause remains 'unexplained' as police and fire services continue investigation\nHe said Tiago jr could not have set off the explosion, and recorded a verdict that he was unlawfully killed. He recorded open verdicts for both his parents.\nDespite their difficulties, the family were “happy” at the cottage, said Mr Sutton-Mattocks.\n“What happened then to cause this tragedy will almost certainly never be known,” he concluded.\n“Somebody in the family must have poured petrol over the floor of the bedroom and then ignited it causing the almost immediate death of all three people in that bedroom.\n(Image: Grant Melton)\n“Quite why will never become clear. There is no evidence as to who that person was.”\nIn a statement issued at the conclusion of the hearing, the Nunes family thanked the emergency services, coroner and witnesses for trying to help figure out why the family died.\nThey said: \"It is very difficult for us to understand, from what little evidence and information that does remain, what happened that terrible day.\n“Even after today we still have many questions that are simply unable to ever be answered and sadly we are told we will have to forever suffer the torment of never knowing for sure.\"\n\"Their passing leaves us with a huge hole in our hearts that will never heal. They are, and always will be, missed so much.\"\nKeep up to date with the latest news from around the county via the free Get Surrey app.\nYou can set up your app to see all the latest news and events from your area, plus receive push notifications for breaking news.\nAvailable to download from the App Store or Google Play for Android .", "EAST BRIDGEWATER, Mass. (AP) — Two sisters tied down and burned a 5-year-old girl, permanently disfiguring her, in a voodoo ritual meant to rid her of a demon causing her to misbehave, police said. The women also threatened to cut off the head of the girl’s 8-year-old brother with a machete, authorities said.\nThe boy said his sister was tied down on at least two occasions while the sisters blew fire over her face and cut her on the arm and in the collar area with a needle-like object, drawing blood, according to police. The girl said the women also poured over her eyes a substance that stung.\nPeggy LaBossiere, 51, and Rachel Hilaire, 40, of East Bridgewater, denied injuring the girl and threatening the boy, the Brockton Enterprise reported . They pleaded not guilty on Jan. 29 to mayhem, assault and other charges. A public defender for the women didn’t return a call seeking comment on Saturday.\nPolice say the girl’s mother is a hair stylist of Haitian descent who has LaBossiere as a client and requested the ritual. She has not been charged but is receiving mental health treatment.\nThe sisters will be back in Brockton Superior Court on Wednesday for a hearing to determine whether they’re too dangerous to be released.\nThe sisters told police that they have performed “cleansing baths” for family and friends in the past, something that involves chanting prayers, rubbing frankincense and eucalyptus oils and sea salt on their bodies, and burning myrrh, the newspaper reported. Children sometimes get burned as spirits leave the body, they said.\nThe girl suffered a third-degree burn across her face that will leave her permanently disfigured, police said. She was treated at a hospital and taken into custody by state welfare authorities, along with her brother, who described to police what happened at the sisters’ house over multiple days.\nVoodoo refers to religious practices developed centuries ago by enslaved Africans in the Caribbean, primarily in Haiti, where the practices are sometimes spelled “vodou.”\nWHAT OTHERS ARE CLICKING ON:\n>>MORE STORIES", "GoFundMe campaigns have been created for two families affected by a house fire in Harrisburg that claimed the life of a 3-year-old on Monday.\nOne campaign is for the family of the 3-year-old girl who died in the fire. The description identifies the girl as Willow, and the campaign seems to have been created by family members of the girl.\n\"Words cant describe the hurt & pain the family is going through right now,\" the description reads. \"Please we're asking for any bit of help we can get from the community to lay this beautiful angel Willow to rest.\"\nThe campaign seeks $10,000 in donations for to aid with funeral arrangements.\nAnother campaign is for neighbors who were also displaced as a result of the fire.\nThe description indicates seven people, including three infants, were displaced as a result of the fire. The campaign is seeking $5,000 to support the family.\n\"My sister Danielle and her family lost their home and belongings to a deadly fire this morning in Harrisburg,\" the description reads. \"They tried to save a neighbor but the fire and smoke were too intense. A small girl died.\"\nDanielle Jones, who lives in the adjoining house, had dropped her daughter off at school early Monday morning and returned home to see smoke coming from her neighbor's home.\n\"My son called 911,\" she said. \"I ran to the front, and I was trying to go in.\"\nShe saw her neighbor outside yelling that someone was still trapped in the house, Jones said.\n\"I grabbed a jacket, and I was going to run in the front door,\" Jones said. \"I went in a little bit and the smoke just was too much.\"\nOther neighbors also tried unsuccessfully to enter the house to rescue the girl. Two firefighters were also injured when they attempted a rescue, fire officials said.", "A Navy veteran has filed a lawsuit in the aftermath of an e-cigarette battery explosion, which may have left him with permanent injuries.\n“It exploded in his pocket, caused his pants to catch fire burning his entire right leg. There’s a pretty big hole in his upper thigh” attorney Randy Sorrels said in describing the injuries suffered by his client Matthew Bonestele last April.\n“He’s still suffering pretty significant injury” Sorrels told KTSA News, adding “It’s worse than anything he ever experienced while in the military or serving with the SEALS.\nThe lawsuit, filed in Travis County, names the battery’s manufacturer LG, as well as its distributor Lightfire Group, and the retailer who sold it, Great Vapes.\n“I think there’s been plenty of evidence… and the evidence is growing on a daily basis… of the dangers of these batteries” Sorrels said.\nThe suit alleges the battery was defectively designed and manufactured, making it dangerous.\n“We’re seeing more and more of them (batteries)… and really with the proliferation of television cameras and videos… you’re seeing them in stores, you’re seeing them in buses” Sorrels said, speaking of the dangers he sees in the batteries.", "A husky recovering after being dragged from a burning home, video of an Adelaide Centrelink customer's shocking racist rant, we speak to the daughter of a woman killed in a shopping centre carpark, as the driver pleads guilty, police hunting a mysterious serial bomber in Texas.", "Iggy Azalea Opens Up About Burning all of Nick Young's Clothes In a recent interview on Watch What Happens Live, Andy Cohen prompted Azalea with the following question from a viewer: \"Iggy, I'm obsessed with the fact that you burned some of your ex's stuff. What was the most expensive thing you lit up and did it belong to your ex-fiancé?\" Azalea then smiled devilishly at the camera before responding: \"I burnt it all darling.\" This is what I did: He was out … We had a fire pit outside, a nice fire pit you can put on with the gas. I text him a video and I was like, ’Hey I‘m burning your (expletive).' … I don‘t know where you‘re at, probably with some girl, so I hope you get home quickly because I‘m moving on.‘ Don't get on Iggy's bad side...", "The mother of an 11-year-old girl whose daughter was seriously injured when another girl at a sleepover allegedly poured boiling water on her as she slept says she wants justice. “I want justice for my daughter. I want all that was involved to be brought to justice. I want ACS to come and do their job,” […]\nRead the rest of the story on The Punch News\nAdded August 14, 2017\nfrom The Punch News", "A worker has terrible burns to his upper body after witnesses heard explosions coming from an auto transmissions business in Osborne Park.", "The accused allegedly poured kerosene over the girl after a verbal spat. (Representational) The accused allegedly poured kerosene over the girl after a verbal spat. (Representational)\nA 14-year-old girl died after she was allegedly set on fire at her home by a teenage boy following a heated exchange of words between the two, the police said on Saturday. The accused was reportedly angry after the girl told her parents about the boy’s romantic proposal to her. The girl parents went to the boy’s home two days ago to complain about it and also told the him to stop meeting the girl, they said.\nOn Friday afternoon, when the girl was alone at her house, the 16-year-old boy came to her, and after a verbal spat, he poured kerosene on her and set her on fire, a police officer said.\nShe was rushed to a hospital in Kota, where she died during treatment, he said, adding the body would be handed over to the family after post-mortem. The boy fled the spot after the incident and the police are trying to apprehend him, the officer said.\nFor all the latest India News, download Indian Express App", "Candice Bowers, 40, pictured in a photograph provided by family members. Bowers was a single mother of three enjoying a rare weekend away when she was one of 58 people killed in the Las Vegas shooting Oct. 1, 2017. (Photo: Kylee Bolks/Special for The Republic)\nCandice Bowers lost her mom at an early age. A single mother of three, she vowed never to let the same thing happen to her children.\nBut a mass shooting at a country music festival in Las Vegas Sunday was beyond her control. The 40-year-old was among the victims, family members confirmed.\nFor years turmoil followed Bowers, her grandmother Pat Zacker said. But she was able to leave much of that calamity behind, dedicating her life to her children.\n\"If you knew her life, your hat would be off to her, no question,\" she said. \"She had some really rotten, awful stuff happen as a child.\n\"I can’t believe anybody that good could die for no reason.\"\nBowers was from Garden Grove, California, according to The Orange County Register. She only recently adopted her youngest child, a 2-year-old girl.\nCandice Bowers (right) pictured with her close friend, Laura LaVigne. Bowers, a single mother of three, was one of 58 people killed in the Las Vegas shooting Oct. 1, 2017. (Photo: Laura LaVigne/Special for The Republic)\n\"She stepped in without even blinking and took this infant into her home,\" her aunt Michelle Bolks told The Arizona Republic, adding, \"She didn’t question it. She didn’t think about it. She just knew she needed to be there.\"\nBowers had an infectious laugh that came with a wide grin, Bolks remembered. But she could also be tough as nails. And she was fiercely loyal.\nLaura LaVigne met Bowers about a decade ago, when they both were working as waitresses. The two remained good friends after LaVigne stopped working at the same restaurant as Bowers.\n\"She was always there for her friends and family, a completely selfless person that hasn't had the easiest life, didn't deserve this at all,\" she said.\nFamily members are raising money for her children and funeral expenses through a GoFundMe campaign. The outpouring of love from old friends has been \"amazing\" to Bolks.\n\"It's been very touching and very humbling,\" she said. \"It's just beautiful.\"\nBowers loved country music and family members encouraged her to have a good time at the music festival.\n\"She was doing what she loved, enjoying a rare couple days away, with her best friend,\" Bolks said.\nFriends and family waited for news from Bowers after she was separated from a friend when the shooting began. The silence was telling.\n\"If there’s any way possible, she would call us if she was all right,\" her grandmother remembered telling Bolks. They learned Monday afternoon that Bowers had died.\nREAD MORE:\n'This can't be happening': The fateful 11 minutes of the Las Vegas mass shooting\nLas Vegas shooting survivors host Chandler benefit concert for victims\nLas Vegas shooting victim John Phippen, father of 6, died shielding stranger\nLas Vegas victim Bailey Schweitzer, 20, had helped at her family's auto-racing track\nPlace of peace: Volunteers create Healing Garden days after Las Vegas shooting\nSkip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE LAS VEGAS SHOOTING AFTERMATH Healing garden springs up after Las Vegas shooting | 2:14 Volunteers have come together to construct the Las Vegas Community Healing Garden as a result of the tragic mass shooting that happened Oct. 1, 2017. Tom Tingle/azcentral.com 1 of 15 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE LAS VEGAS SHOOTING AFTERMATH Nurses describe the chaos of tending to hundreds of wounded patients | 3:33 Nurses at University Medical Center describe treating hundreds of victims in the aftermath of the Las Vegas shooting that killed 59. Brett Kelman/The Desert Sun 2 of 15 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE LAS VEGAS SHOOTING AFTERMATH Memorial grows on the Strip for Las Vegas massacre victims | 1:03 A small memorial is growing on the Las Vegas Strip in remembrance of the 59 people who died in the Sunday massacre. Andrea Ybarra-Rojas and her daughter, Anya, 7, explain why they stopped by Tuesday evening, Oct. 3, 2017. Tom Tingle/azcentral.com 3 of 15 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE LAS VEGAS SHOOTING AFTERMATH Body-camera footage of shooting in Las Vegas | 3:00 Las Vegas Metro Police have released footage from the body cameras worn by officers responding to the scene of the shooting Oct. 2, 2017. Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department 4 of 15 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE LAS VEGAS SHOOTING AFTERMATH Emergency-room doctor describes helping victims of Las Vegas shooting | 1:21 Emergency Medicine Doctor Daniel Inglish of Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center in Las Vegas, talks Oct. 3, 2017, about working all night on victims of the Las Vegas shooting that were admitted to his hospital. Tom Tingle/azcentral.com 5 of 15 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE LAS VEGAS SHOOTING AFTERMATH Las Vegas shooting: Former colleague gives blood in honor of friend killed at concert | 1:44 Paul Ford, a retired police sergeant from the Manhattan Beach Police Department, stands in line Oct. 3, 2017, to give blood in Las Vegas in honor of his friend, Rachael Parker, who was killed at a concert there Oct. 1. Tom Tingle/azcentral.com 6 of 15 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE LAS VEGAS SHOOTING AFTERMATH Victim recalls Las Vegas shooting | 1:08 Brian Kip was at the music festival and said he ran after hearing and seeing gunshots spraying across the crowd on Sunday, Oct. 1, 2017. Video by Nick Oza/azcentral.com 7 of 15 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE LAS VEGAS SHOOTING AFTERMATH Nurse helped Las Vegas wounded in hospital | 2:10 Jon Dimaya, a Las Vegas nurse, triaged victims of the Las Vegas massacre as they were admitted to Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center Sunday night, October 1, 2017, after a gunman opened fire on a country music festival. Tom Tingle/azcentral.com 8 of 15 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE LAS VEGAS SHOOTING AFTERMATH Pray vigil at Las Vegas City Hall | 0:41 People attended a prayer vigil outside Las Vegas City Hall to honor the 59 people who died and more than 527 who were injured in the Las Vegas shooting on Sunday, Oct. 1, 2017. Nick Oza/azcentral.com 9 of 15 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE LAS VEGAS SHOOTING AFTERMATH Man heard shots, helped concert goers | 1:23 John Hammond, who lives in an apartment complex very close to the location of the massacre at Mandalay Bay, recounts hearing the shots and then opening his apartment complex to concert goers running in fear down his street. Tom Tingle/azcentral.com 10 of 15 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE LAS VEGAS SHOOTING AFTERMATH Joe Thomas and Elizabeth Reitz describe hearing of the Las Vegas shooting | 2:20 Joe Thomas and Elizabeth Reitz give an emotional interview about hearing the news of their friends who were barricaded inside Mandalay Bay when the Las Vegas shooting occurred Sunday, Oct. 1, 2017. 11 of 15 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE LAS VEGAS SHOOTING AFTERMATH Las Vegas shooting: Dixie GunWorx | 1:31 St. George gun shop owner Chris Michel said he sold a gun earlier this year to Stephen Paddock, the 64-year-old Mesquite resident believed to have been the gunman in a mass shooting late Sunday that left more than 50 people dead. David DeMille/The Spectrum & Daily News 12 of 15 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE LAS VEGAS SHOOTING AFTERMATH Sunrise Medical Center treats 180 Las Vegas shooting victims | 1:09 Arizona Republic reporter Yihyun Jeong is at Sunrise Medical Center in Las Vegas after the deadly mass shooting Sunday, Oct. 1, 2017. The facility has treated 180 victims, 14 of which have died, and has administered 50 surgeries. Nick Oza/azcentral 13 of 15 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE LAS VEGAS SHOOTING AFTERMATH Witness to Las Vegas shooting | 2:39 Anthony Luca, 30, Las Vegas, NV, was attending the country music concert across the street from Mandalay Bay when gunshots rang out. He describes the chaos, running for cover and then helping a wounded man into an ambulance. Tom Tingle/azcentral.com 14 of 15 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE LAS VEGAS SHOOTING AFTERMATH How the Las Vegas shooting unfolded | 2:17 A motion graphic explaining how the events unfolded when Stephen Paddock opened fire from his hotel room on concert goers at the Route 91 Harvest music festival near the Mandalay Bay resort and casino on the Las Vegas Strip. Ramon Padilla, Janet Loehrke George Petras, Jim Sergent USA TODAY 15 of 15 Last VideoNext Video Healing garden springs up after Las Vegas shooting\nNurses describe the chaos of tending to hundreds of wounded patients\nMemorial grows on the Strip for Las Vegas massacre victims\nBody-camera footage of shooting in Las Vegas\nEmergency-room doctor describes helping victims of Las Vegas shooting\nLas Vegas shooting: Former colleague gives blood in honor of friend killed at concert\nVictim recalls Las Vegas shooting\nNurse helped Las Vegas wounded in hospital\nPray vigil at Las Vegas City Hall\nMan heard shots, helped concert goers\nJoe Thomas and Elizabeth Reitz describe hearing of the Las Vegas shooting\nLas Vegas shooting: Dixie GunWorx\nSunrise Medical Center treats 180 Las Vegas shooting victims\nWitness to Las Vegas shooting\nHow the Las Vegas shooting unfolded\nRead or Share this story: http://azc.cc/2yN8mRt", "The Melanson family describe their horrific ordeal caught up in the gun-fire and their mother now fighting for her life.\nSource: CNN", "A teen engaged in an act of bravery this weekend when one of his family member's was trapped inside a burning house. According to WCTI-TV , 17-year-old Jarraine Gray ran back into his family's Kinston, North Carolina home to save his seven-month-old cousin.\nStart the conversation, or Read more at Vibe.", "KOTA: A 14-year-old girl died after she was allegedly set on fire at her home by a teenage boy following a heated exchange of words between the two, the police said today.\nThe accused was reportedly angry after the girl told her parents about the boy's romantic proposal to her. The girl parents went to the boy's home two days ago to complain about it and also told the him to stop meeting the girl, they said.\nYesterday afternoon, when the girl was alone at her house, the 16-year-old boy came to her, and after a verbal spat, he poured kerosene on her and set her on fire, a police officer said.\nShe was rushed to a hospital in Kota, where she died during treatment, he said, adding the body would be handed over to the family after post-mortem.\nThe boy fled the spot after the incident and the police are trying to apprehend him, the officer said.", "Please enable Javascript to watch this video\nMANHATTAN — Three people who were on their way to work this morning were hurt after a pipe bomb explosion at NYC’s Port Authority, according to the FDNY.\n“She saw the smoke, then saw a few people on the floor. She was scared , really scared,” said Alfonso Chavez, of his 45-year old sister, Veronica.\nChavez describes what his sister went through after authorities say a pipe bomb that was strapped onto 27-year old Akayed Ullah went off in a subway tunnel at Port Authority.\nShe called him her brother right away.\n“When she called me, she was crying,” he said outside of Mt. Sinai West Hospital, where she was treated.\nHe told PIX11 she lives in Queens and was heading to her job in Midtown, where she works at a factory. Instead of working, she spent the day at the hospital, getting treated for minor injuries, and talking to detectives.\nChavez rushed to be by her side, saying he’s thankful she’s alive and survived the attempted terror attack.\n“She’s just crying. She wants to forget everything that happened, but it’s really difficult,” he said.\nAll three people injured are home from the hospital, recovering.", "Two Massachusetts women are facing multiple charges after they allegedly tied down and burned a 5-year-old girl in a voodoo ritual.\nThe girl, whose name has not been released, is permanently disfigured as a result of a ritual that was meant to “rid her of a demon that was making her misbehave,” the Brockton Enterprise reported.\nThe two East Bridgewater women, identified as Peggy LaBossiere, 51, and Rachel Hilaire, 40, allegedly blew fire over the young girl’s face and cut her arm and collar area with a needlelike object, drawing blood, the girl’s 8-year-old brother told police. The women, who are sisters, according to the Brockton Enterprise, also allegedly poured a substance over the girl’s eyes which caused them to sting.\nAdditionally, the women allegedly threatened to cut off the younb brother's head with a machete.\nThe ritual was requested by the girl’s mother, who is of Haitian descent and was LaBossiere’s hair stylist. She has not been charged but is receiving mental health treatment.\nThe two women pleaded not guilty on Jan. 29 to the charges against them, which include mayhem, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, assault and battery on a child with injury, indecent assault and battery on a child under the age of 14, and threatening to commit a crime, according to the paper.\nThey also denied injuring the girl and threatening her brother.\nThe sisters will be back in Brockton Superior Court on Wednesday for a hearing to determine whether they're too dangerous to be released.\nThe sisters told police that they have performed \"cleansing baths\" for family and friends in the past, something that involves chanting prayers, rubbing frankincense and eucalyptus oils and sea salt on their bodies, and burning myrrh, the newspaper reported. Children sometimes get burned as spirits leave the body, they said.\nThe girl suffered a third-degree burn across her face that will leave her permanently disfigured, police said. She was treated at a hospital and taken into custody by state welfare authorities, along with her brother, who described to police what happened at the sisters' house over multiple days.\nVoodoo refers to religious practices developed centuries ago by enslaved Africans in the Caribbean, primarily in Haiti, where the practices are sometimes spelled \"vodou.\"\nThe Associated Press contributed to this report.", "A woman is in a serious condition after suffering severe burns to 25 per cent of her body in a car fire.\nEmergency services were called to Kohu St in Parahaki, Whangarei, about 7.30pm.\nA northern fire communications spokesman said the victim suffered serious burns to 25 per cent of her body and was taken to hospital.\nHe said they were called to reports of a car fire.\nIt is understood the woman and her partner had been attempting to start their vehicle when the accident happened.\nLocal fire senior station officer, Paul Ballentine, told Stuff.co.nz the woman had been standing near the engine as her partner poured petrol into the carburettor when it backfired on her.\n\"The fire mostly consumed the poor lady,'' he told the publication.\n\"Her partner had done the right thing beforehand. He put the fire out and put her in the shower for 20 minutes.''\n- NZ Herald", "UNNAO: A 17-year-old girl died after suffering burn injuries, with her family alleging that she was set afire by a jilted lover in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao district. The girl’s family said in a police complaint that the accused barged into her house and put vermillion on her forehead before pouring kerosene.\nA 17-year-old girl died after suffering burn injuries, with her family alleging that she was set afire by a jilted lover at Achalganj police station area in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao district.\nThe girl, identified as Neha, was allegedly set ablaze by Vikas, a resident of the same village.\nHe barged into her house and put vermillion on her forehead before pouring kerosene, the family said in a complaint.\nThe girl was rushed to a hospital by villagers where doctors pronounced her dead, police said. A case was lodged on the complaint of the father of the deceased and investigation is on, they added.\nSuperintendent of Police Harish Kumar, however, said preliminary investigation suggest that it could be a case of suicide as the girl was in a relationship with the man and was unhappy as his marriage had been fixed somewhere else.", "1 coffin for 2 fire victims\nLAUREL V WILLIAMS Monday, August 14 2017\nLITTLE Alliyah Primus, eight, and her aunt Nolene ‘Neisha’ Gopaul, 40, who both perished in a fire which destroyed their Moruga home last Friday, will be buried in the same coffin tomorrow following a funeral service. The girl and her aunt shared a close bond in life and relatives thought it fitting that they rest in eternity together.\nOn Friday at about 2 am, Alliyah’s relatives were awakened by crackling sounds and realised their house at Fifth Company was on fire. After the occupants ran out of the burning house, a head count was done and both Alliyah and Gopaul who slept together, were unaccounted for. Alliyah, was a pupil of the Fifth Company Baptist primary School while Gopaul was a single mother of one.\nAlliyah was expected to enter Standard Three in the new term next month. Princes Town Fire officers later discovered the skeletal remains amongst the debris. The fire left 13 relatives homeless, among them five are children. Tomorrow from 12 noon, the coffin will be taken to relatives’ home located on the same property for a viewing, following which, it will be taken to the St Mary’s Open Bible church. They will be buried at the Paynter Cemetery in Indian Walk, Moruga.\nThe child’s mother who is Gopaul’s sister Nicole Gopaul, 32, was not at home when the fire broke out. Nicole’s twin-sister Nikeisha Mitchell yesterday appealed for help on behalf of the family saying now only have they lost their loved-ones but also the house and all household materials.\n“Some churches dropped off some stuff. We would like to get some assistance to build back. We are appealing for assistance so anybody who is willing to assist, please do so,” Mitchell said.\nDuring her escape from the fire, Alliyah’s cousin Lexi Butcher, eight, suffered burns to her right arm while her mother Natalie Gopaul suffered cuts.\n“Lexi has to go for dressing tomorrow (today).\nShe attends the St Michael Anglican Primary School. Everyone had already bought school supplies for the children and to lost everything and now go back and start over...it is very hard,” Mitchell said. The cause of the fire is yet to be determined and investigations are continuing.", "BRAMPTON, Ont. — A mother, father and daughter died in a house fire Tuesday morning, while the couple’s other daughter suffered severe burns when the flames and heavy smoke spread quickly through their home in Brampton, Ont.\nFirefighters were called to the semi-detached home near Dixie Road and Bovaird Drive East shortly after 4 a.m.\nThe city’s fire chief said by the time firefighters arrived, a man in a basement apartment had kicked his way into the main level of the home and rescued the young girl.\n“The fire had already broken out through the front windows so they did a transitional attack through the front window and had the fire under control in approximately 10 minutes,” said Fire Chief Michael Clark.\n“Two crews went down the side door into the basement, did a search of the basement and made their way upstairs and they found three bodies upstairs.”\nBy Tuesday afternoon, the Office of the Fire Marshal said seven people were believed to have been in the house at the time of the fire — three people in a basement apartment who escaped unharmed, and four people in the upper levels of the home.\nAuthorities did not release the identities of the victims, saying they were still in the process of notifying next of kin.\nThe fire is believed to have started in the living room on the main floor of the home, Clark said.\n“We have no idea what started the fire.”\nThe man who rescued the young girl returned to the scene of the fire Tuesday afternoon and told reporters he was alerted to the blaze by screams from people on the upper floors.\n“I went around to the front and kicked in the door and the whole house was pretty much completely engulfed in flames,” said Sheldon Teague.\nHe called out and then saw the little girl walking toward him.\n“She made it about halfway down the hallway, I believe, and then I could start to make out her legs so I just ran toward her, picked her up and brought her outside,” said Teague.\nThe child was bundled into the car of a woman — a newspaper courier — who happened to be on the street.\n“I saw the fire, I was delivering the paper and I caught her. I put her in my car,” said the woman who didn’t want to provide her name. “She was burnt. She wanted to know about her parents. She was crying.”\nThe child was rushed to a Toronto hospital with third-degree burns, police said. She was listed in serious but stable condition.\nThe blaze left the home’s facade marked with soot. Scorched interior walls could be seen through the front door and blackened drapes fluttered through an upstairs window.\n“I don’t think the fire was actually that bad from a property perspective, certainly it involved a great portion of the main floor, but the smoke is the thing that obviously can kill people,” said Clark. “Smoke spreads very quickly throughout a house.”\nPolice blocked off much of the street leading to the house but throughout the day people who knew the victims walked up to the barricade looking for information.\nNicole Chevolleau started sobbing as she looked at the house, saying she was friends with the girl who had died in the fire.\nChevolleau described her friend as a talented 18-year-old who had just started at the University of Guelph-Humber.\n“She was really smart and she was really sweet and so was her mom. They were just really nice people,” she said. “I still can’t even process it. I was in class when I found out and I left.”\nChevolleau said she also knew her friend’s little sister, who she said was under the age of 10.\n“She was shy but she was a nice girl,” Chevolleau said of the young girl. “Her mom was really nice…She cares a lot about her daughters and her daughters’ friends, too.”\nTina Durnford, who lives in the area, said the young girl who survived had been in her son’s class.\n“She was very sweet, very quiet, very friendly,” she said. “They seemed like a very friendly family.”\nThe investigation into the fire is in its early stages.\nThe incident was the latest in a string of deadly house fires in Ontario over the last few months.\nFour family members died in a fire in Port Colborne in mid-December. About 12 hours later, a fire ripped through a home on Oneida Nation of the Thames, killing four children and their father.\nOn Christmas Eve, a mother, father and their two sons died in a blaze in a cottage near Peterborough, Ont. Two others died in a fire near Chatham-Kent in late January.\nWith files from Liam Casey and Michelle McQuigge in Toronto", "London, At least 12 persons were confirmed dead and many were reported missing on Wednesday in a major fire that engulfed and consumed a 24-storey apartment complex in west London housing hundreds. “I can confirm twelve fatalities at this time but this figure is likely to rise during what will be a complex recovery operation over a number of days. Many others are receiving medical care,” Commander Stuart Cundy of the Metropolitan Police said.\nHe said it was likely to be some time before police are able to identify the victims, and added that it was too early to speculate on the cause of the fire, The Telegraph reported. “It was like a scene from a Hollywood movie,” said a resident who escaped from the burning Grenfell Tower. Authorities warned that the toll may go up as nearly 18 of the 79 persons admitted to hospitals were in critical condition.\nUp to 600 people were believed to have been inside the 120 flats in North Kensington when the blaze began shortly after Tuesday midnight. The tragedy was compounded because police initially told the residents to stay put inside the complex. By the time they reversed the stand, it was too late.\nDesperate occupants of Grenfell Tower flocked to the windows and screamed for help, many holding their children. Witness Jody Martin said, “I watched one person falling out, I watched another woman holding her baby out in the window… hearing screams.” A baby flung by a terrified woman from the ninth or tenth floor was caught by the public on the ground.\nMore than 12 hours after the fire broke out, over 250 firefighters continued to battle the leaping flames and thick, choking smoke. London Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton said: “In my 29 years of being a firefighter, I have never ever seen anything of this scale.” Media reports warned that the blackened tower could collapse, with cladding already falling to the ground. Explosions were heard when the fire raged.\nWitnesses described people trapped in the burning tower screaming for help and yelling for their children to be saved, the BBC reported. James Wood, a witness, told the Telegraph: “The most traumatic part was seeing children at the window screaming for help. Then the rooms would go up in flames.”\nOne resident, Michael Paramasivan, was clear that he survived along with his girlfriend and their daughter because he ignored official advice to remain inside.\n“If we had stayed in that flat, we would have perished. My gut instinct told me just to get the girls out. I wrapped the little one up because of the smoke and I just got them out,” the BBC quoted him as saying.\nSome residents attempted to use bin bags as makeshift parachutes in a desperate bid to escape. Firefighters rescued large numbers of people, but London Mayor Sadiq Khan said many were unaccounted for. He said “questions need to be answered as soon as possible”.\nAs an investigation into the cause of the blaze began, residents reported that fire alarms had not sounded. Paul Munakr, who lived on the seventh floor, escaped. “As I was going down the stairs, there were firefighters, truly amazing firefighters actually going upstairs, to the fire, trying to get as many people out of the building,” he told the BBC.\nMatt Wrack of the Fire Brigades Union said something had clearly gone badly wrong with fire prevention procedures at the building built in 1974.", "Follow KRLD: Facebook | Twitter\nWEST, Texas (KRLD) – Today marks four years to the day since the Town of West was shattered by a fertilizer plant explosion, and people there find the memories are still fresh. In all, 15 people lost their lives and more than 200 others were injured after the explosion at the West Fertilizer Company.\nLast year, investigators found the fire that caused the explosion was deliberately set.\nMany of the homes obliterated in the blast have now been rebuilt. Streets are repaved, and the new high school is open.\nMichelle Wolf is the business manager for West’s popular Czech Stop bakery. She says watching the town rise again has been wonderful and healing. “It feels amazing, seeing the new high school and the new subdivision with all those houses rebuilt,” she says. “It’s beyond words.”\nWolf and her husband lost their own home in the blast. Think back she says, “I just remember chaos, people hurt. It was a nightmare.”\nBut the Czech Stop stepped in, welcoming anyone who needed a refuge. All day and night after the explosion, the bakery’s president and CEO Barbara Schlisser kept the doors open, and kept the coffee and kolaches hot.\n“It made me feel very proud, to be part of a company that would keep their doors open in a crisis,” says Wolf. “We never close anyway, but just to stay open for anyone who needed anything just made me proud to live in West.”\nA study by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board shows that since the explosion only a few, minor changes have been made in the storage of fertilizer.\nFor some people in West today, memories of the deadly explosion have scabbed over. But for others who lost loved ones in the blast, the pain and loss are still fresh. “It’s more powerful for them, I imagine,” says Wolf. “You can rebuild a house. But you can’t get back your husband, brother sister, uncle.”\nThere will be a short remembrance service in West tonight to commemorate the explosion. There will be prayer, music, and a moment of silence at ceremony being held at St. Mary’s Catholic Church of the Assumption. The service begins at 7:30 p.m.", "The video will start in 8 Cancel\nGet daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email\nHorrifying footage shows giant flames engulf two girls at a birthday party when a candle on a cake accidentally ignited snow foam sprayed at them.\nOne of the young women was celebrating her 20th birthday at a house in Tehran, Iran, when the shocking accident was filmed.\nBlood-curdling screams can be heard in the video, which was uploaded to Instagram.\nThe video shows one young woman present a cake to the birthday girl at a table with candles flickering.\nOther attendees then sprayed foam at them and both girls were quickly covered in highly flammable froth.\nAs one of them bent over, shaking foam from her head, there was a loud bang as the foam suddenly ignited and covered the woman's arms and head in hungry flames.\nShe ran across the room screaming, her head engulfed in flames, before the birthday girl was also devoured by flire.\nPeople could be heard screaming in terror as they tried to put out the fire.\nIt is not known whether the girls were badly injured in the blaze.", "Please enable Javascript to watch this video\nEMPIRE -- A scorched apartment, boarded up windows, all heartbreaking reminders of the tragedy that took place at an apartment on South Abbie Street in Empire, Sunday afternoon, a loss for friends and neighbors that’s hard to bare.\n“The only thing I could hear her say was, ‘Please just get my kid. Please grab my kid,’” Jasmine Oliver, a family friend recalled.\n“He was smart, he was brilliant, and it was sad that that happened,” Gerald Preston, a neighbor who tried to help told FOX40.\n“Just think about him. That’s all. When I see that I think about Tim,” Sharon Barnett, another neighbor said.\nA fire ripped through an apartment, leaving 10-year-old Timothy Hall trapped. Oliver said she was visiting at the time.\n“Flames just coming straight out of her front window,” she said.\nShe told us she and others tried everything they could to save the boy.\n“We went back there with a few of our friends and we broke every single window trying to get Timmy out,” Oliver said.\nThe fire, smoke and heat blocked their efforts. About an hour after the boy was removed from the fire and fire fighters attempted CPR, he died.\nTwo days later, friends are still reeling from the loss. A rambunctious, curious, playful child who will be missed.\n“What he may have done to change the world? Because these young people that’s what they can do for us, they can change the world,” Preston said.\nFire investigators have not said what caused the fire. Hall was a 4th grader at Capistrano Elementary, where educators said grief counselors will be on hand to help students, faculty and family through this difficult time.", "There were scary moments inside a Sherwood home Monday afternoon after part of a ceiling came down on top of a 3-year-old girl.\nThe little girl, Madeline, should be just fine, but after seeing the damage in the house, she appears very lucky, a fact for which Clint Gleason, Madeline’s grandfather, is certainly thankful.\nGleason told FOX 12 he was cooking when he heard the child scream and came back to the Madeline’s bedroom to find the ceiling right above her bed have given way, covering the entire room in pink insulation.\n“My daughter came back and got her and was just freaking out, ran her in the kitchen. Her mouth was full of insulation, and it was not good,” Gleason recalled. “The baby was, of course, freaking out, mom was freaking out - it was horrible.”\nGleason thinks his granddaughter was buried under some of the debris.\nMadeline's mom, Savannah, took her to Providence Newberg Medical Center to get checked out and she is doing OK.\nSavannah says she's been dealing with ongoing problems with this portion of the ceiling since December.\n\"It was a small leak. It started out like the size of a quarter, it was like a little bubble in the ceiling. We got a hold of the landlord as soon as it started, and I mean, she sent somebody over here like twice to come and take a look at it and this is where it is now,\" said Savannah.\nFirefighters say a tree branch punctured the family’s roof in a recent storm, allowing all of the recent rain water to get inside and saturate the sheetrock, creating extra weight that just couldn’t be supported.\nSavannah says she reached out to her landlord, who is getting someone to come bright and early Tuesday to fix the roof properly. In the meantime she's going to follow doctor's orders and check in on Madeline for signs of a concussion.\nCopyright 2017 KPTV-KPDX Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved.", "Please enable Javascript to watch this video\nPOCAHONTAS, Ill. – The Pocahontas community is trying to come together to help a family that lost their four-year-old daughter in a fire.\nThe house fire call came in Wednesday morning around 2 a.m. Four-year-old Hannah Nance did not make it out of the home. The other members of the Nance family were injured, but have since been released from a hospital.\nThe profound grief throughout Bond County is accompanied with a profound spirit of giving. Hundreds of pieces of clothing, toiletries, household items, cash, and gift cards are being collected and organized by friends of the Nance family.\n\"At one time, I babysat Hannah. I've had Zach., their 12-year-old, in (Boy) Scouts for about five years,” said October Weiss, one of the organizers. “And anytime you live in a small community and you have organizations, those families become family of yours.\"\nDonations are being accepted at the Gordon Masonic Lodge in Pocahontas, at the Farmers Insurance office in Highland and at Kimmies Twisted Shears hair salon in Greenville.\n\"It’s one of those things that anybody that heard the story … it’s devastating, you know?” said Michelle Links, who works at Kimmies Twisted Shears. “I was cutting a lady’s hair yesterday and she cried the whole time. It’s just awful.\"\nMeanwhile, the Nance family is staying with relatives in Collinsville while planning the Hannah’s funeral.", "Please enable Javascript to watch this video\nST. JAMES, Mo. – The Missouri State Fire Marshal and State Highway Patrol are investigating an explosion at a home near St. James late Tuesday night.\nThe explosion occurred around 9:20 p.m. in the Rolling Hills subdivision, located about eight miles northeast of St. James.\nResidents in the area described seeing a large flame in the sky from the property. Reports of the explosion came in from as far as Rolla.\nNeighbor Bob Hunter saw the explosion.\n\"I heard an explosion down the road from me. I looked over cause I know my mom lives in that direction and I'd seen an orangeish red cloud going straight up, about 500 yards straight up, in a mushroom cloud,\" he said. \"A shockwave came through and knocked me down.\"\nA friend of the family who lives at the home said the owners were very upset and did not want to comment.\nNeighbors said the family was home at the time of the explosion, but no one was injured. However, they’re emotionally distraught over losing their home in the explosion.\nThe St. James Fire Protection District said a large detached garage was destroyed and a house in the property was heavily damaged. The blast was so large, at least 10 homes in the subdivision had broken windows, walls bowed out, and foundations cracked; some were more heavily damaged.\nAnother neighbor, Jerry Baumann, described the damage to his house.\n\"We have at least three walls that are bulged out and so there's been pretty significant structural damage to our home,\" he said. \"A lot of pictures were blown off the walls and windows were pushed out and laying down inside the house.\"\nInvestigators have no word on what caused the explosion.", "Authorities say a child playing with a lighter caused an apartment fire that displaced more than a dozen families.\n\"I had to just get them out. The smoke was just so loud in there that I had to get them out quickly and myself,” Beatrice Collier said.\nSunday night, Collier and her family’s lives changed in what seemed like an instant as their apartment went up in flames.\nNow, their family and at least a dozen of their neighbors are sleeping in a local hotel after losing their homes.\nCollier and her boyfriend, Giovonni Jones, lost everything. The couple’s five children, ages 7, 5, 3, and a set of 4-month-old twins, escaped the fire with just the clothes on their backs.\n“I didn't have shoes, they didn't have any shoes, nothing. I just had to get them out the house. I wasn't thinking about grabbing anything but just them,” Collier said.\nFirefighters said the fire started in the bedroom where one of the children was playing with a lighter that caught the bed on fire as his brother slept.\n“I believe he was in there playing around and set the bed on fire. He ran in there and told me what he did. I was just concerned with getting them out of the house. I wasn't concerned about why, but just getting them out,” Collier said.\nNow, the family of seven is still together and stronger than ever as they know they still have each other, while not forgetting about the other families that have also lost their homes.\n\"To all the families being affected by this I'm praying for them too and hoping that they can get better and they can get back on their feet as much as we can get back on our feet,\" Collier said.\nCopyright 2017 WNEM (Meredith Corporation). All rights reserved.", "© FDNY / Twitter\nOne suspect is in custody following an explosion at Port Authority bus terminal in Midtown Manhattan.Periscope TV news shared a livestream showing the aftermath of the explosion in Manhattan.The blast reportedly took place at 42nd street and eighth avenue.Three subway lines are being evacuated as a result of the incident.The suspect, who is understood to be in his 20s, sustained non-life threatening injuries during the explosion, the NYPD has said. No-one else suffered any injuries. The man was reportedly also in possession of a second device, which did not detonate.The New York Fire Department said it was responding to an incident at the Port Authority bus terminal in Midtown Manhattan, according to Reuters.A video posted on Twitter by Pete Sayek shows numerous fire engines at the scene. Sayek said he nearly got trampled in a rush during the incident.Instagram user Joseph Zagami describes what he saw on his commute to work.The White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed that US President Donald Trump has been briefed on the explosion." ]

[ "In UK rubbers means condoms, in the us, rubber means eraser" ]

[ "Because it is more logical to translate to the language the person actually speaks than to have them read something in another language.\n\n\nSign language is a true language. This is like asking why to use English subtitles for English speakers is we could also use Spanish.", "The animation is usually written for a specific language usually JP, and the translation usually is shitty.", "Just another normal Thursay", "Umm you know language is written and so if you learn to write in English you’re probably gonna think in English and sign language uses the alphabet of a language so you have to learn to write and read to learn to be fluent in every type of sign language. Now someone who is completely deaf probably doesn’t have a voice in their head but they might think in images or written words. If they are bilingual or whatever it’s probs the same as a hearing person as they probably think in the language they are signing in or if they’re not using a second language they are probably thinking in there mother language.", "For an organization that has the word \"Ethical\" in their name, they sure don't seem to practice what they preach.", "How is this a question? He is arguably the most significant author in the English language. His working vocabulary was 50000 words, and he invented dozens of words, still in use today, when our language was lacking. His pithy phrases appear even when we don't attribute them to him.", "English classes aren’t really about becoming more fluent in the language", "I've a second edition English translation of Goethe's Faust, one of the most famous modern epic poems. A first edition costs about $10,000, which is a little beyond my comfortable price range. But it is definitely the most unique English translation piece in my collection of Goethe, not only because it is the oldest English piece, but because of the translation. Lord Bower took great liberty in translating from the German, which set the English tone for this fable for centuries to come, but he clearly did so with a strong sense of his own elegant poeticism.", "First thing you would have to do is learn the language. the English, French, German or whatever you speak now is not the same as what they spoke then.", "Oh sorry, i meant reflections. English is not my first language.", "Yes, many. In fact, New Zealand Sign Language is one of three official languages in that country, along with Te Reo Māori and English.", "My smartphone is something out of scifi. Touchscreen, connection to the internet, I can scan text in a foreign language and it'll translate it in real time. I can play games, read almost anything that's ever been written, learn new languages. And almost everyone has one these days", "Carry on as normal since it's obviously just another day.", "It depends on the situation. I switch back and forth between norwegian and english. If I’m talking, reading or listening to something in one language I usually think in the same language. When its just me and my thoughts they are mostly in norwegian but not always.", "Afraid at first... But now, it seems like the normal thing." ]

[ "We would prefer not to hear about our parents' sexual traumas." ]

[ "We'd love to listen to our parents talk about their sexual experiences, in detail.", "Our parents are upset about it.", "We must not share any details about that at first.", "We don't want them to know anything about us.", "We don't want them to like our idea.", "We shouldn't tell the parents what we are doing.", "We will gloss over the details about it.", "We don't want our children to know their grandparents.", "You don't want to hear about that.", "We went into detail about mothers but not much with fathers.", "Yes, that's something we did.", "I'm talking about things concerning my parents.", "We want our goal to be important to them.", "We shouldn't talk about this.", "We don't want to argue about it.", "The speaker does not want their story to be clear.", "We have taken our parents.", "Oh, yes, we did as well.", "We had no reason to do it, and the Arab version is the same as ours.", "We had a course we did in Alabama.", "We always see and hear them.", "We don't want them.", "We don't want to find patterns within the events of history.", "You don't want people to hear about this.", "Do not talk about a certain thing.", "Yes, we are.", "We had our suspicions.", "We want our leaders to be dumb.", "Just do not tell me about it.", "Some people have had really bad experiences", "We want to embarrass our friends.", "People tend to not share about the changes in their lives." ]

[ "http://www.cooltan.com/\\n\\nThey also have t-shirts that are tan through also!" ]

[ "Try one of those \"As seen on TV stores.\" I saw it in the window of the one in a mall near me.\\n\\nAlso try Bed Bath and Beyond... I just found it on their website.", "There is a store here in Wisconsin.(USA) called Hollywood video that can get pretty much any movie. I am not sure if they have a web site. If I can find it here How would I let you know?", "I am pretty sure you can buy them at nike.com, i have seen them before. What you also can buy separate is a neon windbreaker by Nike I have seen them before.", "I did an Internet search and these were to top listings shown. There are several other pages listed. If you want to see other results just search \"tan through swim suits\" to get all the listings.\\n\\nTan Through Swimwear and Shirts for men and women from Cooltan! \\nTan right thru and eliminate tan lines. Tan through bikinis, one-piece tan through swimsuits, mens swimwear, mens swim trunks, sarongs or coverups.\\n\\nhttp://tanthrough.com/ \\nTan Through Swimsuits and Tan Through Swimwear by Solar Tan. \\nTan Through Swimsuits and Tan Through Swimwear by Solar Tan. The men's and women's front panel on bottoms are lined in nylon. However, the remainder of the ...\\n\\nhttp://www.swimwear-swimsuits.com/swimsuit_origin.cfm \\nTan Thru® swimwear - tan through your swimsuit! \\nWe feature a complete selection of tan through swimsuits in today's hottest body styles for men and women. In addition to the largest selection available of ...\\n\\nhttp://www.lifestylesdirect.com/ \\nAmazon.com Solar Tan Thru Swimsuits Store: / Solar Tan Thru Swimsui... \\nOnline shopping from a great selection of Solar Tan Thru Swimsuits Store; Women, Men, Solar Tan Thru Swimsuits & more at everyday low prices.\\n\\nhttp://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?node=3330271 \\nDesigner swimsuits and sexy bikinis \\nLifeStyle Direct No more tan lines, Cooltan Swimwear Find Solar tan thru suits, Tan Thru LifeStylesDirect, Cooltan Tan-Through 1PC Swimsuits ...\\n\\nhttp://www.aquaexplorers.com/swim_suit.htm \\nTan through swimsuits and swimwear - for men and women \\nMost tan through swimsuits are made from lightweight fabrics with thousands of tiny, mesh pores in the material. These holes act as protection and filter ...\\n\\nhttp://www.pinkfridge.com/s_swimsuits/tan-through.htm \\nGoogle Answers: Tan Through Swimsuits \\nQ: Tan Through Swimsuits ( Answered 5 out of 5 stars , 3 Comments ) ... PID=1571 search terms used \"swimsuits tan through\" Good Luck, tlspiegel-ga ...\\n\\nhttp://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=31464 \\nsolar tan-thru swimsuits and swimwear from Aqua Paradise \\nAqua Paradise - We carry a variety of Solar Tan-Thru Swimsuits and Swimwear at discounted prices.\\n\\nhttp://www.aquaparadise.com/swimwear.html \\nWomens Swimsuits - Womens Swimsuits Listings by IndexOfTheWeb.com \\nTan Through Swimsuits - Men's & women's Tan Thru® swimsuits. Target - Find, shop for and buy Swimwear at Target. Things Jamaican - Swimwear, bikinis, ...\\n\\nhttp://www.indexoftheweb.com/Women/Womens_Swimsuits.htm \\nSolar Tan Thru Swimwear for women & men - Summer 2005 Tan Thru ... \\nTan through swimwear for men and swimsuits including bikinis and co-ordinating ... Compare styles of Tan Through swim suits and buy online from here today. ...\\n\\nhttp://www.go-cape.co.za/swimwear_for_men_and_women.htm", "So they don't look weird in bathing suits. If you want them, get them. If you don't really care that much, I wouldn't do any kind of surgery without really needing/wanting it.", "Cookies are stored in a separate folder under ‘Windows’. They do not have any direct relationship to your registry. Deleting them has no effect on web applications as long as you do not turn them off(there is a OS setting for this). Any web application you may use will re-generate what ever cookie is needed when you sign in to the site.", "You might contact those stores. If the idea can make $$$, get a patent or copyright before you approach them-- otherwise they will steal your idea.", "I have seen groups solicite in their web site. If you have a small but loyal fan base they can really help out. \\nOffer them \"exclusives\", access at a performance or bounus tracks or something. If you don't have a manager ... maybe you need to get one to keep the business side going while you create.", "sometime's you can access them thru your local police web site", "Try Bath and Body Works. I saw some while I was out shopping after Christmas.", "if you are talking about bodysuits most sporting goods stores sell them if you cant find them in stores you can always go online.", "DO NOT EVER USE ONE of those peices of crap. They do a really really bad job. I've even seen buddies who have tried them and their skate got stuck in kind of crooked and it totally wrecked their blade.I've also seen where the machine wouldn't stop and it ground the blade right down to almost nothing. If you really need to get an edge on your blade and you can't have them done, carry an edging stone in your bag. You can buy them at every hockey supply store and you just run them along the side of your blade to give you a bit more of an edge on them. DON'T EVER use one of those stupid machines. Unless you can afford to buy a new pair of skates the next day.", "It looks like there will be a site for men soon to come. Although you can see by the few I listed that there are also a few other web sites simular. IF you read the articles you will see where it is mentioned they will bve opening that web site soon. But no date s have been given.\\n And I am also sure that if you went to search and typed the words in you'd find a list of \"man haters, women haters, or probley a whole list of them any way you can think to type different versions of web sites.", "You can apply thru the FAFSA web site.", "http://lowpricedpoolsupply.com/kids-wetsuits.html\\nwet suits", "I used to work in a tanning salon for four years. You are trying to get a tan way too fast. You must gradually get a tan. Right now you are sunburned which means your body is going to get rid of all those cells you just killed and all the tanning you've done has been for nothing. Buy a tanning lotion that is meant for use in the tanning bed. One that you use outside is NOT recommended. It can ruin the acrylic on the tanning bed. If you can afford a tanning bed lotion, as they can be quite spendy ranging from $15 for the cheap stuff, (where you might as well just use a moisturizer), and up to $45 for the awesome stuff. Back to your problem... you itch because your skin is dried-out. You need to give your skin a break and go back to the beginning. When you start tanning again start with going half of the maximum time allowed in the bed OR LESS. If you burn the first time go less time the next time. If you didn't get ANY color don't go anymore than 2-3 minutes more than the last time. You really must gradually work on your tan in a tanning bed go get the best tan for your money. BTW, if you decide to go for that lotion I recommend something with a bronzer and without the hot stuff... your tanning salon should know what I'm talking about. ALSO... if you have very pale skin and have never been able tan outdoors you will not be able to get tan in a tanning bed and is not recommended that you try to do so. Also, always use those tanning eye covers... you can do severe damage to your eyes without doing so, and over time at the very least you can get uncorrectable night vision problems.", "There's a store on ebay that does some.\\nhttp://members.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=tie-mart\\nCan't seem to see anywhere else and those people custom make them.", "There is a place called SMC (Specialty Merchandise Company)\\nLook them up online", "Claire's Boutique has them - I saw pink & purple weekend before last! Good luck!!", "Try a local Wal-Mart. They used to have them there.", "Disconnect NetNanny! \\nOR, type in the web name into search engine and see if that link will take you to the site. I have been having probs with MS Explorer since an \"update\" myself...found the only way I could get to webs that I often go to were thru a link??? Nice update, eh???", "Try Tiger Direct.com, I do believe that they carry those.", "have u tried a store called spencers they usally sell stuff like that", "I sell sex toys for a living and there is cologne with scents that attract the opposite sex to one another (meaning it gets you horny.) I wear it all the time. Go to a \"toy\" store and ask. I don't know where you are from but you can find them anywhere or go to passion parties on the Internet and order from their web site. I promise they have what you need and believe it or not they sell pills and gel called pure satisfaction. I love the gel.", "look on fingerhut.com...They have stuff like that a lot.", "I recommend the Bar method. I have excersised for years and have never seen my body look so good as when I started the bar method. In ten sessions, you will see a difference. I have two web sites listed. On the first one, you can click on before and after stories for before and after pictures and the second web site you can order the videos.", "No, sorry I do not. Have you tried searching images on line? www.ask.com You may find it here, under images.\\nGood luck!", "Oh, I use to own a pair of Hash overalls, I just loved them. I haven't thought about those in years. I bought mine when I lived in North Dakota. Was the thing to wear then. I haven't seen any since then, either. I'll look around on the web and see if I can find them. I'll be back. Okay I found one site but there is a systems error, so I can't get into it. But it says clothing and jewelry. I'll try again later. Will edit my answer if I can get into it, okay?", "I don't know but you will probably enjoy www.pimphats.com. Check it out.\\nAfter that buy some bling and go to www.pimpwar.com", "Hi Bobby\\nSorry I have not an aswere. Here is a question. I want to have a webeite for those with chronic pain and other diseases. I need a free site. It is so hard to do this. I found free web sites, but am lost as to how to get things running. Any suggestions?", "the place where you buy laptop will help you setup ur wireless ... you can get internet from your cable provider or DSL thru bellsouth or similar comp ...\\n\\nalso, free internet is avail from aol cd's for 1000 hours (you can get this cd at any grocery store)", "You can probably get an adapter. If you go on the web site of the printer brand, they might sell it... or go to a computer store like Frys, and they will most likely have a USB to Parallel port adapter." ]

[ "Here’s a good news for all Munna Bhai lovers as Sanjay Dutt has confirmed to kick-start the work on the sequel of Munna Bhai." ]

[ "Sanjay Dutt in a still from Bhoomi’s trailer. Sanjay Dutt in a still from Bhoomi’s trailer.\nActor Sanjay Dutt will be heard reciting a few Sanskrit shlokas in his upcoming film Bhoomi. The yet untitled song is an edgy devotional number sung by Sanjay and Ajay Gogavale from the popular music duo Ajay-Atul. The song, composed by the musical duo Sachin Jigar, is inspired by maa – the divine mother of cosmos and represents the Shiv Shakti concept.\nSachin Jigar, who have composed and given background score in several movies like Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania and ABCD: Any Body Can Dance, said in a statement, “Sanjay Dutt is an all rounder. He can sing, act and dance effortlessly at the same time. He is a multi-tasking rockstar for us. He has sung a few Sanskrit shlokas and took precisely 60 minutes in the studio to deliver his part with no prior training.” Bhoomi is Sanjay Dutt’s comeback film and he will be working in a film after a long hiatus.\nThe composers said they were looking to rope in an international singer like Alicia Keys to complement Sanjay’s version, but due to time constraints “we couldn’t”. The trailer of Bhoomi was released on August 10.\nSanjay Dutt has also announced that he will work on the third iteration of his uber successful Munna Bhai series. Sanjay said he won’t work on any other film after Bhoomi, but only Munna Bhai.\nSanjay plays a father in Bhoomi who will do anything to save his daughter, Bhoomi, played by Aditi Rao Hydari. Bhoomi is an upcoming drama directed and co-produced by Omung Kumar, and is slated to release on September 22.\n(With IANS inputs)\nFor all the latest Entertainment News, download Indian Express App", "Makers of Sanjay Dutt starrer Bhoomi have released 3 new dialogue promos of the film. The action packed trailer of the film was very well received. An emotional saga of a father-daughter relationship bonded by some seeti-maar dialogues and raw action scenes, Bhoomi marks the return of Sanju Baba.\nThe movie also stars Aditi Rao Hydari and Sidhant Gupta in pivotal roles. It is directed by Omung Kumar and slated to release on 22nd September this year. On hyping up the buzz for the film, director Omung Kumar says, “Sanjay has given his best performance till date and I am glad that we are increasing the anticipation for the audiences.”\nThis dialogue promo consists a heart-wrenching conversation between Sanjay Dutt and Adit Rao Hydari. Backed with such hardcore action scenes just the dialogue promos are enough to increase the curiosity for the film.\nWe’ve seen many times, Sanju baba beating the life out of goons but this time it seems special. A heartbroken father ready to go to any extent to revenge the mishap happened to his daughter is what we have not seen Sanjay Dutt doing before.\nSharad Kelkar is playing the bad guy in the film and it seems we’ll witness a tough hero-villain fight in this one. This promo is all about Sanjay Dutt and Sharad Kelkar’s man to man confrontation.\nTrending :\nApart from this film, Sanjay Dutt will also be seen in Saheb Biwi & Gangster 3, Torbaaz, and Malang. Bhoomi was supposed to release on 4th August but the makers avoided to clash with Jab Harry Met Sejal. It is not the only film which has shifted its release date from 4th August this year. Aamir Khan’s Secret Superstar was earlier slated to release on 4th August this year and in that case, it would have clashed with Sanjay Dutt’s comeback film Bhoomi. However, the makers of Secret Superstar have postponed the film and it will now be releasing on Diwali. Produced by T-Series & Legend Studios and directed by Omung Kumar, Bhoomi releases worldwide on September 22nd, 2017.\nWhat do you think about these dialogue promos of the film? Do let us know in the comments section below.", "Movie buffs are eagerly waiting for the third instalment of Raju Hirani's blockbuster, the Munnabhai franchise, and so is actor Arshad Warsi, who received immense popularity with his role as Circuit in the series.\nAlso read: Rajkumar Hirani offers iPhone 7 Plus for finding perfect title for Sanjay Dutt's biopic\nArshad, in an interview with Deccan Chronicle, spilled some beans regarding his and Sanjay Dutt's role in Munnabhai 3. The actor said that he and Sanjay would not be seen as youngsters but would play their own age.\nHe also confirmed that the comic element in Munnabhai 3 was on par with the previous films — Munna Bhai MBBS (2003) and Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006). The shooting of the movie will commence next year after Hirani wraps up the biopic on Sanjay Dutt.\n\"Once Hirani finishes his biopic on Sanjay, we will start working on Munna Bhai 3. I've read the script and it's definitely kept up with the comic element of the previous two films. We're going to be playing our own ages in the film, but that's all I can tell you about the parts. If I reveal any more, Hirani will kill me,\" Arshad told the publication.\nHe added: \"Just like the two previous films, the thought behind the film this time round is something that's very relevant to today's day and age. We will probably start work on the film next year.\"\nMeanwhile, Arshad will next be seen in Irada. The Aparnaa Singh-directed film, which also features Naseeruddin Shah and Divya Dutta, will hit the screens on February 17.", "#Bhoomi shooting commences in Agra... Check out Sanjay Dutt and Aditi Rao Hydari's look from the film... Omung Kumar directs. pic.twitter.com/k9yO4YsGnb ? taran adarsh (@taran_adarsh) February 15, 2017\nSanjay Dutt's comeback filmwent on floors in Agra on Wednesday. Confirmation of the film's shooting schedule was posted on Twitter by trade analyst Taran Adarsh. The Omung Kumar-directed film stars Aditi Rao Hydari as Sanjay Dutt's daughter . Omung had conducted various recces in Agra for the perfect shooting location, reported Mumbai Mirror earlier. On Aditi's casting, thedirector told Mumbai Mirror , \"We shortlisted Aditi because she's in a good space right now. I love the way she emotes. The father-daughter relationship is an important aspect of the narrative in this revenge drama. Aditi's face perfectly blends softness with a lot of strength.\"Check out these pictures of Sanjay Dutt and Aditi Rao Hydari from the shooting schedule:Sanjay Dutt, 57, earlier told NDTV that Bhoomi is the perfect film for his comeback . He said, \"I have been looking for scripts that went beyond my screen persona. I wanted to do something vulnerable yet powerful.is an emotional and sensitive drama that explores the relationship between a father and daughter.\" Meanwhile, Mr Kumar said, \"This one will keep the audience taut and on the edge of their seats.\"The film will be co-produced by Bhushan Kumar's T-series and Sandeep Singh and Omung Kumar's Legend Studios. News agency PTI reported that television actor Sharad Kelkar will play the villain opposite Sanjay Dutt in the film.Sanjay Dutt last featured in Aamir Khan's 2014 blockbuster. In 2013, the Supreme Court sentenced him to five years of imprisonment in a case-related to the Bombay Blasts. He was released last February.Apart from, Sanjay Dutt's upcoming film includes. His friend and director Rajkumar Hirani is also helming Mr Dutt's biopic, with Ranbir Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor.", "Sanjay Dutt reached Delhi airport in his cool avatar, clad in a black leather jacket. Sanjay is in the capital city to kick-start his next movie, Omung Kumar's Bhoomi, in Agra.", "Sanjay Dutt, Aditi Rao to play father- daughter in Bhoomi. Sanjay Dutt, Aditi Rao to play father- daughter in Bhoomi.\nSanjay Dutt’s comeback film goes on floors today in Agra. The actor, with his on-screen daughter Aditi Rao Hydari, has started shooting for the film, which will be directed by Omung Kumar of Sarbjit fame. The mahurat shot of the film, to be produced by T-Series and Legend Studios, took place in Agra.\nThe revenge drama will be the first film of Sanjay after he finished his jail term. The movie revolves around the relationship between a father and daughter. Aditi Rao Hydari is cast in the role of Dutt’s daughter. Shekhar Suman and Sharad Kelkar also play important roles in the film.\nMore from the world of Entertainment:\nProducer Sandeep Singh said the father-daughter pair of Sanjay and Aditi will be seen sharing screen for the first time. “I am really keen on seeing the brilliance of two talented actors in a never-seen-before pairing come alive on screen,” he said. Bhoomi is scheduled to release on August 4.\nLook at more pictures from the shoot:\nMeanwhile, apart from Bhoomi, Sanjay Dutt and Aditi Rao Hydari are working on special projects respectively. Sanjay is helping Ranbir Kapoor to prep-up for his biopic directed by Rajkumar Hirani while Aditi is awaiting the release of her much-awaited Tamil film Kaatru Veliyidai, directed by Mani Ratnam.\nAlso read | How Ranbir Kapoor transformed into Sanjay Dutt. These pics left us open-mouthed\nThe actor will also appear in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s magnum opus project, Padmavati. Aditi would play the wife of Alaudin Khijli, the character played by Ranveer Singh. The film also stars Deepika Padukone and Shahid Kapoor in the lead roles.\n© The Indian Express Online Media Pvt Ltd", "Sanju Teaser Reaction: Ranbir Kapoor | Sanjay Dutt | Rajkumar Hirani | FilmiBeat\nThe much awaited teaser of Sanjay Dutt's biopic titled Sanju is finally out and Ranbir Kapoor captures the heart, mind and soul of the actor and looks exactly like him in every single frame. From the way he walks to the mannerisms and his body language, Ranbir Kapoor has totally hit the nail right with this one. Most of all, the teaser is very entertaining and will keep you hooked.\nView the teaser of Sanju starring Ranbir Kapoor below!\nIt's such an awesome teaser, right? We're sure you must have clicked the play button at least twice as watching it once will not make you satisfied. The life of Sanjay Dutt had various ups and downs and each decade saw the actor's life take a different turn from the good to bad and vice versa. The best part of it all is that Sanjay Dutt survived every incident and braved everything that was thrown at him.\nEven after he was out from the prison, Sanjay Dutt went on to star in Bhoomi. Despite the movie not doing that well at the box office, he has not lost hope and is still doing everything to make it to the top. 'His never say die' attitude is what makes him stand apart from the rest and Rajkumar Hirani has showcased life on the silver screen as he knows him up close and personal.", "A local court on Monday cancelled a bailable warrant against actor Sanjay Dutt, which was issued on 15th April. The actor appeared in front of Andheri metropolitan Magistrate two days after the warrant was issued and asked for its cancellation.\nAccording to reports, Dutt’s lawyer mentioned that communication lapse had led to his client’s non-appearance earlier and that henceforth he will be present for all further proceedings in the case filed against him by film producer Shakeel Noorani back in 2013.\nThe case is related to a monetary dispute in which Noorani had claimed that Sanjay had committed to play the lead role in a movie titled Jaan Ki Baazi, but didn’t keep his word. Noorani had filed a complain four years ago, alleging that he had received threatening calls from the underworld on behalf of Sanjay to drop a case.\nAn official statement from Sanjay’s spokesperson read: “This case has been going on since a long time and the present situation has arisen because of the communication lapse between our lawyers and us.”\n“We respect the urgency shown by the honourable court regarding our attendance/representation and we would take immediate measure to rectify the situation.”\nNoorani’s lawyer Neeraj Gupta had told IANS: “We had filed this matter in 2013 against Sanjay Dutt because my client was getting underworld threats to drop the case which was filed against the actor.”\n“We had approached police and no action was taken. So we approached the magistrate court and in 2013, Sanjay was issued the summons. At that time, he wasn’t coming to court and he was issued a warrant. But just 4-5 days later, he had to surrender in court (for another case). So that time, it got cancelled.”\n“Even after coming out of the jail, he didn’t come to court. February 7, 2017 was the last date of the case. We wanted a warrant to be issued that time itself, but the court said let’s give one more chance.”\nOn his work front, the actor has been occupied with the shooting of his comeback film Bhoomi, being directed by Omung Kumar.", "Sanjay Dutt’s biopic is one of the most anticipated films of 2018. The hype around the film has reached its peak as an 85 second teaser for the film was launched today at an event in Mumbai. During the event Sanjay Dutt revealed through a live a chat that he has seen bits and pieces of the film and has been touched deeply. He also revealed that he couldn’t believe how much Ranbir Kapoor resembled him in the teaser and jokingly warned Raju Hirani not to actually mistake Ranbir for him.\nThe film releases in June but fans just can't contain their excitement. Ranbir Kapoor, who plays the role of Sanjay Dutt looked like a splitting image of the senior actor in the leaked pictures from the set. Now in the teaser, his mannerisms and accent is identical to Dutt’s.Rajkumar Hirani, the director who makes a comeback after 4 long years, revealed in an interview \"Yes, I have shown it [Teaser] as well as some scenes to him [Sanjay Dutt]. He gets overwhelmed. In fact, I told him to see the full film, but he said no, he would watch it when it’s complete. He came to the sets only twice. I think he is pretty brave. He has talked about everything in his life. I don’t think everyone will have that courage.\"The film which also stars Sonam Kapoor and Anushka Sharma covers pieces of Sanjay Dutt’s life; the death of his mother, rehab stint and his conviction in the 1993 bomb blasts case. However, the cast and the director made it clear that Sanjay Dutt won’t be glorified in the film.Sanju releases on 29th June 2018.", "Rajkumar Hirani is finally ready to showcase his masterpiece to the world. The teaser of his next film Sanju released today and created a strong buzz. The film has Ranbir Kapoor in the lead role and a strong supporting cast to back it. From Paresh Rawal to Sonam Kapoor and Anushka Sharma, each jewel in this masterpiece has been placed with perfection. As you all know Ranbir will be essaying the role of Sanjay Dutt, Paresh Rawal, on the other hand, will portray the character of late Sunil Dutt, Sanjay Dutt’s father.\nSarbh\nSonam Kapoor will be seen as Tina Munim, who was Bollywood’s Baba’s first co-star in the film Rocky, while Dia Mirza will portray the character of Maanayata Dutt, Sanjay Dutt’s wife in the film. Manisha Koirala will be seen as Sanjay’s legendary mother, Nargis Dutt, while, Vicky Kaushal and Jimwill portray the characters of Kumar Gaurav and Salman Khan respectively, the closest friends of Sanjay Dutt. Karishma Tanna will be seen depicting the role of Madhuri Dixit in Sanjay Dutt’s biopic while Anushka Sharma will play the role of a lawyer in the film. Sanju will hit the theatres on June 29, 2018.", "After much hullabaloo, the trailer of Sanjay Dutt’s biopic Sanju has finally dropped. And does it justify the buzz? You bet it does. The trailer delves into the ups and downs of Dutt’s life, being as gripping as it is emotional. There is a quintessential Raju Hirani style slice-of-life touch to it, but at the same time, there is a darkness which makes one curious. But the life of the trailer is Ranbir Kapoor as Sanjay Dutt, who just storms in every scene, living and breathing like Dutt.\nWatch it here.\nWhile Ranbir is the catalyst setting things into motion as Sanjay Dutt, we also see other actors. Anushka Sharma’s character as the blue-eyed writer is finally revealed, and so is Dia Mirza’s look as Maanayata Dutt. We see Sonam Kapoor as one of the starlets who was as smitten by Dutt as she was disgusted by him. The ‘Mangalsutra’ sequence specially hits you for you watch the actor hit the rock-bottom of his life. After all, how senseless one has to be to put a toilet seat around the neck of the woman who wants to marry him?\nManisha Koirala comes on screen as the serene and graceful Nargis Dutt, Paresh Rawal as the proud father Sunil Dutt, and we see Vicky Kaushal as Sanjay’s best friend. Vicky’s character is so stunningly different from his last outing Raazi, that you can’t help but applaud his skill of changing skins on screen. There is just one blink and miss appearance of Jim Sarbh too. While speculations state that he is playing Salman Khan, there is no confirmation.\nAnd driving all the scenes, all the characters, is one man; Ranbir Kapoor as Sanjay Dutt. Not for one scene do you wish to take your eyes off him. He stuns you, disgusts you, and even makes you pity him, all in just under three minutes.\nIf this is the trailer, we can’t wait for the movie.", "Ranbir Kapoor starrer Sanju hit the theaters last Friday and instantly garnered public’s appreciation, so much so that it broke few records on box office. It became the biggest opener for Ranbir Kapoor and Rajkumar Hirani, highest opening weekend grosser of 2018, highest single day for a Hindi film and biggest opener of 2018. But there were few aspects of Dutt’s life which audience wanted to see on the big screens but were disappointed. Some of the chapters of his life were:\nSanjay Dutt’s numerous girlfriends: Sanjay’s professional life was as controversial as his love life. He had affairs with many ladies including some famous Bollywood actresses, which was mentioned in the movie that he had around 350 girlfriends. Other than mentioning it once, the movie did not elaborate on the subject.\nHis three wives: There was no mention of his first wife Richa Sharma, the film also overlooked integral information. When Richa died of cancer, Sanjay Dutt had once again undergone a very low phase in his life.\nHe once again found a partner in model Rhea Pillai. Apparently, they both were involved in extra-marital affairs when they decided to end their marriage very soon.\nHis third wife Maanayata was no popular actress or model. She was a struggling actress whose name was associated with many small time films. His actions had really angered his sisters and Maanayata herself has spoken out loud about the way she was welcomed in the Dutt family.\nHis firstborn: Before his twins that were born with Maanayata, Sanjay Dutt had a daughter with his first wife Richa. Trishala, his daughter is born and brought up in the U.S. with her maternal grandparents. Furthermore, she continues to be very much in touch with Sanjay Dutt and also his current wife.\nMadhuri Dixit: His alleged affair with Madhuri was probably eliminated purposefully owing to the much talked about scandal about the affair. While that is understandable, the actress or her hit films with actor like Saajan too was ignored.\nSanjay Dutt’s contact with underworld: Apart from Ganpati visarjan scene, there was no mention of Sanjay being in contact with the underworld.", "The much-awaited teaser of the Sanjay Dutt biopic titled Sanju was released on Tuesday, and as expected, it went viral within minutes.\nThe teaser launch event of Sanju saw many of Bollywood’s established names sharing the dais.\nAt the event, Ranbir said, “I was always a Sanjay Dutt fan. So for me, it was like a fan trying to play his icon on-screen. The hardest thing was to give confidence to myself that I can play this man... I did not have the confidence, the courage, understanding or the acting chops to do it.”\nRanbir Kapoor, Bhushan Kumar, Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Rajkumar Hirani at the teaser launch of Sanjay Dutt's biopic. (IANS)\nHe further said, “The whole script shocked me. I knew a different Sanjay Dutt. I have known him as a family friend. He has always treated me like a younger brother and I have also been his fan. But when I read about his life, it was shocking to me.”\nFilmmaker Rajkumar Hirani at the teaser launch event. (IANS)\nRanbit highlighted some of the major events in Dutt’s life. “His whole drug phase, the passing away of his mother two-three days before the premiere of his film, the controversy with terrorism, guns, his relationship with his father, best friend, the women in his life, all this was shocking to me.”\nRanbir Kapoor gesturing towards the media.\nRanbir was accompanied by film’s producer, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, and director, Rajkumar Hirani, on the stage.\nVidhu Vinod Chopra speaking at the event. (IANS)\nSanju is scheduled to hit the screens on June 29, 2018.", "Mumbai: Bollywood superstar Ranbir Kapoor who will next be seen in the forthcoming directorial venture of Rajkumar Hirani which is a biopic of veteran actor Sanjay Dutt. The makers of the film finally launched the much awaited teaser of the movie which features Ranbir portraying the role of Sanjay Dutt and you won't believe but Ranbir is looking same as Sanju Baba, one cannot make out the difference between the two. During a media interaction at the teaser launch, Ranbir…\nMumbai: Bollywood superstar Ranbir Kapoor who will next be seen in the forthcoming directorial venture of Rajkumar Hirani which is a biopic of veteran actor Sanjay Dutt. The makers of the film finally launched the much awaited teaser of the movie which features Ranbir portraying the role of Sanjay Dutt and you won’t believe but Ranbir is looking same as Sanju Baba, one cannot make out the difference between the two.\nDuring a media interaction at the teaser launch, Ranbir Kapoor, who plays Dutt in the film said, “I have always been a Sanjay Dutt fan. So for me, it was a fan trying to play his icon on-screen. So the hardest thing I had to do, was to give myself confidence that I can play this man.”\nHere is the video:-", "After Sanju: Sanjay Dutt's biopic, Ranbir Kapoor will be seen romancing with Vaani Kapoor in the upcoming movie Shamshera. Trade analyst Taran Adarsh took to his Twitter to share the release date of Shamshera. Helmed by Karan Malhotra, Shamshera will hit the theatres on July 31, 2020.\nRanbir Kapoor after Rajkumar Hirani’s Sanju will now make his fans go crazy with his upcoming movie Shamshera. Trade analyst Taran Adarsh took to his official Twitter account to share the release date of Ranbir Kapoor starrer Shamshera opposite Shuddh Desi Romance actor Vaani Kapoor. The movie will also star Sanjay Dutt. Helmed by Karan Malhotra, the movie will hit the theatres on July 31, 2020. Produced by Aditya Chopra, Shamshera actors will kick-start the shooting by the end of 2018 and will wrap in 2019.\nRanbir Kapoor and Sanjay Dutt… #Shamshera release date finalised: 31 July 2020… Costars Vaani Kapoor… Produced by Aditya Chopra… Directed by Karan Malhotra… Starts 2018-end… Shooting will wrap by mid-2019. — taran adarsh (@taran_adarsh) July 4, 2018\nALSO READ: This throwback video of Shahrukh Khan talking about Sanjay Dutt will melt your heart\nFor all the latest Entertainment News, download NewsX App\nRead More", "New Delhi: Sanjay Dutt's biopic, 'Sanju' will hit the silver screen on June 29. The trailer of the film has now been unveiled and it is an emotional roller coaster. 'Sanju' stars Ranbir Kapoor playing the role of Dutt. Sonam Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, Boman Irani, Vicky Kaushal, Jim Sarabh, Dia Mirza and Paresh Rawal also play pivotal roles in the film.\nHere are five best dialogues from the trailer that will stay in our mind for a long time:\n1. “Mai bevada hoon, tharki hoon, drug addict hoon, sab hu...lekin terrorist nahi hu”\nSpoken by Ranbir Kapoor just 27 seconds in the trailer, this dialogue preps us up for the emotional ride that the film is going to be.\n2. “308 tak yaad hai, chalo aap safety ke lie 350 likh lo”\nTalking about how many women he's been with, Sanju baba (played by Ranbir) tells this to the biographer (played by Anushka Sharma).\n3. “Mera beta koi guzra hua waqt nahi hai jo laut kar waapas nahi aa sakta”\nSpoken by Paresh Rawal, essaying the role of Sunil Dutt, the dialogue gave us goosebumps. The context in which it was spoken was intense and the style of delivery was beyond perfect.\n4. “Tiger hai tu, tiger, Roar”\nSpoken by Vicky Kaushal, who plays Sanju's friend, the dialogue echoes the 'never giving up' attitude that Sanjay Dutt is known for.\n5. “Baba, Baba, maine landline pe phone kiya hai”\nThis is the most hilarious dialogue from the trailer and also marks the end of it. Ending the trailer on a hilarious note, the movie promises a lot of entertainment.", "With Saroj Khan’s attempt to justify casting couch on the headlines, it was no surprise that Ranbir Kapoor was asked to give his opinion on sexual exploitation in the Hindi film industry. While the actor said he has never faced it first-hand, he denounced it “worst”. Speaking at the teaser launch of his upcoming film Sanju in Mumbai, Ranbir said, “If it’s there, it’s the worst kind. I have never faced casting couch.”\nSaroj Khan defends casting couch, says industry doesn’t abandon women after rape\nHowever, a video from the event was soon shared on social media which shows the Sanju team laughing as Ranbir gives his answer. Producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra is seen asking the mediaperson, “What do you think our view should be,” before Ranbir could answer. As Ranbir speaks, Chopra and film’s director, Rajkumar Hirani, can be seen laughing. Their reaction has come in for criticism on Twitter with many questioning why it was seen as a joke.\nChoreographer Saroj Khan has since apologised for her comment in which she justified the casting couch saying that “at least the film industry provides work and doesn’t rape and abandon you.” She also said that it was largely consensual and if you are talented, why would you need to “sell yourself”.\nSanju teaser: Let Ranbir Kapoor take you through Sanjay Dutt’s life\nRanbir plays Sanjay Dutt in the film that is a biopic on the latter. The Barfi star said he enjoyed playing Dutt as Munnabhai. “It was difficult to play was the young Sanju. There were more faces we had to show; the drugs and his mother’s loss. The fun was the Munna Bhai phase,” he said..\nHe also spoke about his preparation for the role: “I know Sanjay Dutt as a family friend. When I read the script, I got to know his life journey. That shocked me . Drugs, his controversy with terrorism, his equation with his father, everything shocked me.”\nFollow @htshowbiz for more", "The life of Sanjay Dutt demanded to be made into a biopic and with Sanju, director Rajkumar Hirani has taken up that challenge. The life of Sanjay Dutt demanded to be made into a biopic and with Sanju, director Rajkumar Hirani has taken up that challenge.\nThe teaser of the Sanjay Dutt biopic Sanju, starring Ranbir Kapoor, was released on Tuesday and much like the colourful life of the star, this teaser too was quite an exciting watch.\nThe controversies surrounding the life of Sanjay Dutt have been in public knowledge for quite some time now. In this film, Ranbir Kapoor will be seen essaying the role of the controversial superstar. But what is it about his life that forced a storyteller like Rajkumar Hirani to helm a biographical film on the actor? Here’s recapping Sanjay Dutt’s life and who knows if we’ll get to watch all of this and more when Sanju releases on June 29.\nAlso Read | Sanju teaser: Ranbir Kapoor impresses as Sanjay Dutt\nSanjay Dutt, the son of popular actors Sunil Dutt and Nargis, made his debut with Rocky in 1981. The film was directed by his father and was a launch vehicle for the star kid. In the BBC documentary To Hell and Back, Sunil Dutt shared that Nargis really wanted to attend the premiere of her son’s debut film. The actor had even said that she will go even if she has to go on a stretcher but unfortunately, she passed away just days before the premiere. This was a huge setback for Sanjay Dutt whose launch in the movie world came with a cloud of sorrow. It is said that it was his mother’s death that triggered his drug addiction.\nSanjay Dutt made his debut with the 1981 film Rocky. Sanjay Dutt made his debut with the 1981 film Rocky.\nAlso Read | Sanju: Who’s playing who in the Sanjay Dutt biopic\nHe featured in a number of films after Rocky which include Vidhaata (1982) and Zameen Asmaan (1984) among others but it wasn’t until Mahesh Bhatt directorial Naam (1986) that Dutt was taken seriously.\nAlso Read | Here’s looking at BBC’s documentary on Sanjay Dutt – To Hell and Back\nBy this time, Sanjay Dutt had gotten notoriously infamous for his brat behaviour. His drug-laden lifestyle that led him to a drug rehabilitation center in the US had also become public knowledge and he was known as the bad boy of Bollywood. Sanjay married Richa Sharma in 1987. The two have a daughter, Trishala, who currently resides in the United States with her grandparents.\nSanjay Dutt’s oldest daughter Trishala lives in USA with her maternal grandparents. Sanjay Dutt’s oldest daughter Trishala lives in USA with her maternal grandparents.\nEven though he was a married man, there were rumours floating around that Dutt had an extra-marital relationship with Madhuri Dixit at the time. Neither of them ever confirmed the existence of this relationship but it was said that the two were deeply in love. Sanjay and Madhuri starred in films like Khatron Ke Khiladi (1988), Ilaaka (1989), Kanoon Apna Apna (1989), Thanedaar (1990), Saajan (1991) and Khalnayak (1993) among others and it was their camaraderie on the sets that led to such speculation.\nAlso Read | The Madhuri Dixit and Sanjay Dutt story. Here’s what the stars have said about each other\nFilms like Sadak (1991), Yalgaar (1992), Gumrah (1993) cemented his position in Bollywood but things were about to get rocky soon. Khalnayak (1993) was about to release when Sanjay’s involvement in the 1993 bomb blasts of Mumbai (then Bombay) started doing the rounds. Sanjay’s connection with the underworld came under the radar and since he was already known as a brat, it didn’t come as a shock to many that Dutt was involved in a heinous crime. He was arrested under Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act or TADA as weapons like AK-47 had been found in his possession.\nSanjay Dutt was arrested under TADA. Sanjay Dutt was arrested under TADA.\nSanjay Dutt was subsequently caught in the web of court proceedings as he was jailed for his involvement in the bombings. In 1996, his wife Richa Sharma passed away due to a brain tumour.\nIn 1997, Sanjay made a comeback to the movies with Ram Gopal Varma’s Daud (1997). Though Daud was not a success at the time, Sanjay followed it up with hits like Kartoos (1999), Haseena Maan Jaayegi (1999), Khoobsurat (1999) and Vaastav: The Reality (1999). Vaastav is still considered as one of Sanjay’s best performances till date and it also won him his first Filmfare trophy. Sanjay surprised his fans and shut his critics when he was back on top after a few trying years.\nAlso Read | Sanju teaser: Ranbir Kapoor’s look in Sanjay Dutt’s biopic trigger hilarious memes\nSanjay Dutt won his first Filmfare for Vaastav: The Reality. Sanjay Dutt won his first Filmfare for Vaastav: The Reality.\nSanjay Dutt married model Rhea Pillai in 1998 but the two parted ways in 2005.\nSanjay did films like Jodi No.1 (2001) and Kaante (2002) and was receiving all the love from the audience but Rajkumar Hirani’s Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. (2003) changed the way he was seen by the world. The role of a don who means well changed Dutt’s perception dramatically. After the success of this film, Sanjay was seen in hits like Parineeta (2005) and Zinda (2006) among others. The next film in the Munnabhai franchise, Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006), made him the audience’s darling one more time.\nAlso Read | Sanju teaser released highlights: Ranbir Kapoor convincingly transforms into Sanjay Dutt\n2005 was a trying time for Sanjay as his long-standing pillar of support – his father and veteran actor Sunil Dutt passed away.\nSanjay Dutt’s father, veteran actor Sunil Dutt, passed away in 2005/ Sanjay Dutt’s father, veteran actor Sunil Dutt, passed away in 2005/\nSanjay Dutt married Manyata Dutt in 2008. The two became the proud parents of a boy named Shahraan and a girl named Iqra in October 2010. Sanjay was doing extremely well in his career until the hearings for the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts started again. He featured in films like Dhamaal (2007), All The Best: Fun Begins (2009) and Agneepath (2012). His performance and look in Agneepath was loved and appreciated by all. It was during the shoot of Rajkumar Hirani’s PK, that Dutt was sentenced to prison again. He finished his ongoing assignments and could not start any venture until his sentence was finished. PK released in 2014 and Dutt was serving his time in prison then.\nHe came back to the silver screen with Bhoomi in 2017 and has a lineup of films like Kalank and Panipat to look forward to. Sanjay Dutt’s life is no less than an adventure story which sounds like a fictional tale. From coming out with his experiences with drugs to accepting that he went to rehab, his run-ins with the law and his eventual stardom that still makes him a mass favourite, Rajkumar Hirani has certainly picked an interesting life to turn into a biopic.\nFor all the latest Entertainment News, download Indian Express App\n© IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd", "Soon after the sudden demise of Sridevi, speculations about who will step in her place in Karan Johar's mega production Shiddat, became the talk of the town. Rumour mills were abuzz that Madhuri Dixit Nene (once considered to be Sridevi's arch rival) would be asked to step in her place in the film which is now titled Kalank. But the big question was, Sanjay Dutt, who was cast along side Sridevi had earlier expressed that he was \"uncomfortable\" with working with Madhuri Dixit again.\nNow, that Kalank has officially been announced with an ensemble cast of Sanjay Dutt, Madhuri Dixit, Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt, Sonakshi Sinha and Aditya Roy Kapur, people got curious to know how did Karan Johar actually manage to convince Sanjay Dutt to come on board.\nA report on BollywoodHungama suggests that it was all a result of a heart-to-heart conversation that KJo had with Dutt. That Madhuri and Dutt parted on not-so-good terms back in 1983 when Sanjay Dutt was sent to prison on grounds of alleged terrorism, is not hidden from anyone.\nSo, when Madhuri expressed that she doesn't have problems working with anyone in the film, Karan decided to sit with Sanjay and have a word with him. The report quoted a source as saying, \"Karan reminded Dutt that whatever had happened between Dixit and Dutt was in the past, that they are now happily married and with children. Let the past bury itself.”\nLooks like Sanjay heard out KJO and finally gave in. Kalank is said to portray them in a mature relationship. The source was further quoted as saying, \"“Their track is being done with utmost discretion. No one will be allowed to feel uncomfortable.\"\nWell, we're glad that finally we'll get to witness the magic of Sanjay Dutt and Madhuri Dixit together on silver screens after so many years. Else, KJo either had to let go of Sanjay Dutt from the project, or get somebody else to play the part in place of Madhuri.", "It is a well-known fact that Baahubali is and will be one of India’s most popular and favorite films ever. It warrants repeat watches even years after its release. The franchise – produced, shot and marketed in an innovative way, was the talk of the town for close to five years, all through its making and exhibition.\nNow, online viewing giant Netflix has come forward to produce the prequel of the film. It will be shot as an original series and will span three seasons. The prequel will throw light on several aspects and stories in Mahishmati, how the city came into being and the lives of the characters before the actual fireworks began. Titled The Rise of Sivagami, the pre-production work for the same is currently underway.\nDirector Deva Katta, who has already made Prasthanam in Telugu, will be co-directing the series with SS Rajamouli himself. Katta is currently working on the Hindi version of Prasthanam, starring Sanjay Dutt, who also doubles up as the producer for the film.\nSources say that the team is in talks with noted artists from the Tamil and Telugu industries for the series, which will be bankrolled on a large scale.", "The recent Bollywood release, a biopic on the controversial life of actor Sanjay Dutt, Sanju has been a huge hit at the box office. Audience and critics have nothing but rave reviews for the Rajkumar Hirani directorial on Twitter. The film stars Ranbir Kapoor as Sanjay Dutt and the cast includes an ensemble of big names portraying key roles like that of Sunil Dutt, Nargis. Sanju has set out to become the biggest hit of 2018.\nThose who have watched the film would remember the clip from Munnabhai MBBS, where Ranbir's body was morphed in place of the original Sanjay. It has become the new target of memes. The Twitterati have come up with some really humorous memes and some of them are taking a dig at Salman Khan.\nRecently, Rajkumar Hirani had revealed Sanjay Dutt's reaction after watching his own biopic. He said that Sanjay remained quiet during the entire film and was in tears by the end of it.\nTalking about the same, Hirani was quoted by Hindustan times saying, \"Before the screening, I suddenly got frightened. We had shown everything and he (Sanjay Dutt) never came to the shoot. I was wondering, what will be his reaction? We might get beaten up too. He was sitting in the seat next to mine. He was watching the film and I was stealthily watching his reactions. It was only when the film ended that he cried and hugged me and Ranbir.\"\nSanju also stars Anushka Sharma, Manisha Koirala, Paresh Rawal, Diya Mirza, Vicky Kaushal and others. The biopic has a special appearance by Sanjay Dutt himself. All the actors have done a splendid job in the film and Vicky Kaushal's performance especially has received special recognition from critics and other Bollywood celebrities.\nCheck out the hilarious memes by the Twitterati here:\nWo khilji ko apun se compare Karna zaroori hai kya? pic.twitter.com/JhTA9x0lLn — OMKAR SANKHE (@OmkarSankheblog) July 2, 2018", "Rajkumar Hirani who is known for his excellent body of work has added another feature to his cap with the phenomenal success of Sanju. After treating the audience with Bollywood classics like Munna Bhai M.B.B.S, 3 Idiots and PK, Rajkumar Hirani brings yet another film which has created a mark on the masses globally.\nWith Sanju, Rajkumar Hirani has given Ranbir Kapoor's career new boost, just like Sanjay Dutt with Munna Bhai MBBS.\nTouted to be a miracle maker, Rajkumar Hirani continue his bull run at the box office as his latest release Sanju is on a record shattering spree.\nThe film has garnered immense love and appreciation from audience and critics alike a testimony of which is seen at the box office as Sanju mints a whopping amount of 145.41 Cr within 4 days.\nRajkumar Hirani's Sanju saw a Massive opening on Day 1 by minting 34.75 cr which is the biggest non-holiday opener of 2018 followed by marking biggest Sunday collections ever for a Hindi film.\nSanju also marks to be the 2nd highest non-holiday opening of all times after Baahubali.\nRajkumar Hirani is well known to be a life changer in many ways. Rajkumar Hirani's talent for emotional manipulation made viewers reflect on the need for empathy and humanity in modern medicine (Munnabhai M.B.B.S., 2003), a film which brought back Sanjay Dutt as an actor.\nWith Sanju's worldwide release and a phenomenal opening has again proved to be a career-saving game for Ranbir Kapoor.\nTrade Analyst Taran Adarsh shares, \"Rajkumar Hirani continues to WIN HEARTS and WOO BOXOFFICE... Right from #MunnabhaiMBBS to #Sanju, the proficient storyteller's repertoire remains unblemished... #Sanju, his fifth directorial venture, is setting new benchmarks... What next, Raju ji?\".\nWhile talking about the same, trade analyst Atul Mohan shares, \"After resurrecting Sanjay Dutt's career with Munna Bhai franchise, Miracle maker Rajkumar Hirani boosts Ranbir Kapoor's filmography with Sanju, giving Ranbir the highest opener of his career\".\nRajkumar Hirani has time and again treated the audience with films that have gone ahead to create a strong impact on the masses.", "Ranbir Kapoor says he considers Sanjay Dutt as his icon. Ranbir Kapoor says he considers Sanjay Dutt as his icon.\nFilmmaker Rajkumar Hirani’s first choice for Sanjay Dutt’s biopic was Ranbir Kapoor but it took the actor some time to gather confidence to imagine himself in the avatar of someone he calls his icon.\nThe teaser of the biopic titled Sanju was released earlier today and Ranbir’s look in the 85-second clip has been unanimously praised. At the teaser launch, the actor was asked about the preparation for the role. Ranbir modestly replied that he didn’t treat his role as a chance to project his acting talent but like a once in a lifetime opportunity to be Sanjay Dutt.\n“I have always been a Sanjay Dutt fan. So, for me it was a fan trying to play his icon on screen. So, I think the hardest thing that I had to do was to give myself confidence that I could play this role. When Raju sir told me about it, I just didn’t have the confidence because I felt I won’t be able to do it. I don’t have the courage and the understanding. I don’t have the acting chops to do it.\n“So, this is not an acting gig for me. I don’t think I have tried to showcase my talent. For me, it was just an opportunity to be a part of the story of someone, whom I consider my icon. He is flawed but a very good person,” Ranbir Kapoor told reporters.\nThe actor further said even though he observed Sanjay Dutt, playing the actor in front of the camera frightened him throughout the shoot.\nAlso Read | Sanju teaser: Ranbir Kapoor nails Sanjay Dutt’s look in the biopic we’ve all been waiting for\n“I have observed him all my life. I think we all have. Of course, I did observe him in a sense that I had to play him, like I do for all my characters. Fortunately or unfortunately, this is a character, which is so relevant. So, it was scary but with the help of these brilliant men sharing the stage, it became easier,” said Ranbir.\nSanju releases on June 29, 2018.\nFor all the latest Entertainment News, download Indian Express App\n© IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd", "Share Share 0 Share 0\nMumbai: The first look and teaser of Sanjay Dutt’s much-awaited biopic is finally out and the Rajkumar Hirani-directed movie, featuring Ranbir Kapoor in the lead role, is titled “Sanju”.\nThe first poster of the film was launched earlier today featuring Ranbir in the five iconic looks of Dutt from different phases of his life, starting from “Rocky” and going on to the time he was released from Yerwada Central Jail in 2016, after serving a five-year sentence in the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts case.\nThe teaser begins with Ranbir breaking the fourth wall, as he introduces his story to the audience and takes them across different stages of his life both on and off-screen.\nEven though, Dutt’s life has been full of ups and downs, Hirani has tried to leave his ‘feel good’ signature on the biopic of one of Bollywood’s most controversial and loved stars.\nThe title of the film is reflective of the director’s understanding of capturing even the most miniscule details of the actor’s life as his mother Nargis Dutt used to fondly address him “Sanju”, which became a popular nickname for him besides ‘Baba’.\nIn the teaser, Ranbir manages to look the part and carry Dutt’s characteristic gait.\nHirani has maintained that the film will not glorify his frequent-collaborator’s life.\nThe video clip supports his claims as Ranbir talks about Dutt’s drug addiction, run-ins with law including a faint mention of AK-56, which led to his arrest.\nAlso starring Dia Mirza, Sonam Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, Manisha Koirala, Paresh Rawal and Vicky Kaushal among others, the film releases on June 29. (PTI)", "Mumbai, Filmmaker Rajkumar Hirani, who on Tuesday launched the much-awaited teaser of “Sanju” — a film on the life of actor Sanjay Dutt — says the experience of making a biopic is very different from a regular future film especially at the scripting level.\nSince this is the first time that the filmmaker has made a biopic, that too on a colourful celebrity like Sanjay, who is not only successful and inspirational as a film star but has also had a controversial past, Hirani found it tough.\n“I think biopic is a totally different monster altogether because you don’t have a total control over it. When you write a fresh script, a regular story, you have control over it. It is your story… you can turn the flow of your characters in whichever way you want. That’s not the case with a biopic,” Hirani told the media.\n“I think we would not have been able to write the story from our imagination, and the best thing is that Sanjay has given us the access to his story and all the anecdotes. So during the making of the film, the journey was more of how to string those stories into one,” he added.\nHirani said the audience can expect to know some hidden facets of the life of Sanjay, whose tryst with drugs and time in jail has been widely spoken about.\n“As a filmmaker, I took chapters that interested me, but I am always interested in human stories. So I wrote the story of father-son, friendship… These are the stories that people do not know because the rest is all out there,” added the filmmaker.\n“Sanju”, which releases on June 29, features Ranbir Kapoor portraying different avatars of Sanjay from his newcomer days.\nRanbir and Hirani were present at the teaser launch with producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Fox Star Studios’ Vijay Singh.", "The trailer of Sanju has given us some great memes and jokes.\nThis dialogue from the trailer was lit af #SanjuTrailerpic.twitter.com/J9x1NdlMHG - Bollywood Gandu (@BollywoodGandu) May 30, 2018\nIf the biopic is true, this scene should repeat after every 5 minutes! #SanjuTrailerpic.twitter.com/6MnkIZj2oS - Sand-d Singh (@Sand_In_Deed) May 30, 2018\nPure saal me kitne paise karch kiye tumne?\nMarwadi Boy: pic.twitter.com/bLoRtjicqf - Akshay (@AkshayKatariyaa) May 31, 2018\nWhen parents finally allow you to go out and play after exams. pic.twitter.com/z7v6V3DVSW - Sand-d Singh (@Sand_In_Deed) May 30, 2018\nThe trailer of Rajkumar Hirani's much-awaited Sanju dropped on Wednesday to near-universal approval. While everyone applauded Ranbir Kapoor's portrayal of Sanjay Dutt, other actors like Anushka Sharma, Vicky Kaushal and Paresh Rawal also impressed with their performance. It's safe to say now that the trailer has only heightened the anticipation for the movie, which will hit the big screens on June 29. Since being released just yesterday afternoon, the Sanju trailer has garnered over 13 million views on YouTube alone, where it is currently trending on the number 1 spot. In the process, it has also given Twitter the opportunity to do what it does best - come up with some brilliant memes.We compiled the best memes based on the trailer of Sanju for you to laugh at. Take a look:Sanju is based on the life of Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt, who has earlier starred in Rajkumar Hirani's hits like Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. and Lage Raho Munna Bhai. The movie's star-studded cast also includes actors like Dia Mirza as Manyata Dutt, Paresh Rawal as Sunil Dutt, Manisha Koirala as Nargis, as well as Vicky Kaushal, Sonam Kapoor, Anushka Sharma and Jim Sarbh.Sanju is not the only movie to have given us hilarious memes. Very recently, it was the Salman Khan-starrer Race 3 whose trailer gave us some excellent memes and jokes . Before that, it was a scene from India's entry to the Oscars - Newton - that had become meme-fodder. Which meme from the Sanju trailer made you laugh the hardest? Do let us know using the comments section below.Click for more trending news", "There was never any doubt in the minds of hit-machine, filmmaker Rohit Shetty and Bollywood superstar Ajay Devgn that they would arrive with their laugh-a-riot Golmaal Again on Diwali 2017.\nIt so happens that Golmaal, now in its fourth part is one of Bollywood’s most successful franchises and has a huge demand with audience across segments, especially children. Naturally, Rohit has been inundated with messages from the distribution and exhibition circles on whether the film was keeping its date with the festival of lights again.\nGolmaal gang – Ajay Devgn, Arshad Warsi, Tusshar Kapoor, Shreyas Talpade and Kunal Kemmu has been now joined by Parineeti Chopra, Tabu, Neil Nitin Mukesh. A trade source said, “Part 2 and 3, i.e. Golmaal Returns and Golmaal 3 were both Diwali releases and they rocked the box-office. This film is ideal for Diwali and a family audience. And when Rohit mounted the film on the floors this March, he knew he was going to keep his date with Diwali.’’\nOf course, there has been constant speculation on whether it made sense for Golmaal Again to clash with the Rajinikanth-Akshay Kumar starrer Enthiran (Tamil) that is also being simultaneously released in Hindi as 2.0. And off-late it also seemed like the box-office window was becoming over-crowded because Aamir Khan has decided to push his next home-production Secret Superstar to October.\nHowever, the people, who are associated with Golmaal, always knew that their original date of release would be Diwali. They were the first to announce that they were coming and in their minds, they never did doubt whether they would stake their claim to the festival weekend or not.\nShibasish Sarkar, Chief Operating Officer of Reliance Entertainment, the studio which is jointly producing the film with Rohit Shetty, stated that, “Golmaal Again, one of the most successful franchises of Indian film industry has created huge curiosity and demand among the exhibitors and distributors of the country. On their demand, we decided for a wide scale release in the Diwali weekend of 2017, which will be apt for families and children in the festival period.”", "As Ranbir Kapoor-starrer Sanju continues to smash records at the box office, Tweeple have taken to their social media platform to take a fun jibe at Sanjay Dutt's classroom scene from his film Munna Bhai MBBS. The memorable scene has been further re-created by Ranbir Kapoor in Sanjay Dutt's biopic Sanju. Helmed by Rajkumar Hirani, Sanju had hit the screens on June 29, 2018.\nBased on the life of Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt, Sanju starring Ranbir Kapoor has emerged as one the biggest releases of 2018. As the twitterati stands divided, with some lauding Ranbir Kapoor for an outstanding film and some calling out the film as propaganda, Tweeple have taken to the social media platform to flag off a Sanju meme fest. Giving their own version to Sanjay Dutt’s memorable scene from his film Munna Bhai MBBS, which has been recreated by Ranbir Kapoor in Sanju, the hilarious memes have left the internet laughing out loud.\nWith witty one lines and photo-shopping the face of Sanjay Dutt to replace with another celebrity to give the scene a funny twist, Sanju meme fest is nothing short of a laughter riot.\nHere is the original classroom scene from Munna Bhai MBBS starring Sanjay Dutt:\nFrom smashing box office records left right and centre, garnering appreciation from the film critics, Bollywood celebrities and the audience, Sanju is all set to emerge as one of the highest grossing films of 2018. From emerging as the highest opener of 2018, recording the highest single day collection for Hindi film and solidifying its position in the Rs 100 crore club in just 3 days, Sanju refuses to show any signs of slowing down at the box office.\nHelmed by Rajkumar Hirani and bankrolled by Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Sanju also stars Paresh Raval, Vicky Kaushal, Manisha Koirala, Dia Mirza, Sonam Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, Jim Sarbh, Boman Irani and Karishma Tanna along with Ranbir Kapoor. The film had hit the screens on June 29, 2018.\nAfter Sanju, Ranbir Kapoor will be seen in Ayan Mukerji’s directorial Brahmastra co-starring Alia Bhatt and Amitabh Bachchan. Along with this, the actor will also be seen in Luv Ranjan’s next with Ajay Devgn and Karan Malhotra’s Shamshera co-starring Vaani Kapoor, that will hit the screens on July 31, 2020.\nSanju (movie) got released and creating history on the box office. Hence, many memes are flaunting on social media.. I found this one very hilarious 😀😀😀 pic.twitter.com/LkJoAJWzd8 — Sandeep Choudhary (@SinghboySandeep) July 3, 2018\nWo agar kisi ke bhi sath bura hota hai to mera naam lagana zaroori hai kya? pic.twitter.com/5Xx3rI0Ucs — Shubham Gupta (@just_shubhz) July 3, 2018\nYe \"Bank Loan\" lautana jaruri hai kya😭😭😶 pic.twitter.com/p81PUOQXyI — Mast Malang ^_^ (@sanket_daksha) July 2, 2018\nWo Bollywood me survive karne ke liye Karan Johar ki movie se debut karna jaruri hai kya?😂 pic.twitter.com/Zna0BSoqCL — Ꮪunil (@BadassAdian) July 2, 2018\nFor all the latest Entertainment News, download NewsX App\nRead More", "As he tells Dutt's story to the world, Ranbir says muse's validation vital to him\n(From left) Ranbir Kapoor in Sanju; Sanjay Dutt\nEver since the teaser of Sanju was launched last month, Ranbir Kapoor found himself being lauded for his seamless transformation into Sanjay Dutt on screen. Appreciation from critics and fans aside, the actor said his muse, Sanjay Dutt's verdict, will be the true litmus test for him. Speaking at the film's trailer launch yesterday, Kapoor said, \"As a child, I had a poster of Sanjay sir in my cupboard. Today, I am stepping into his shoes and playing him on the big screen. I want Sanju sir to like this film because he is a man who I have tremendous respect for. I hope he feels that I have represented his life in an honest manner.\"\nDirected by Rajkumar Hirani, the biopic sees Kapoor sport six different looks as he traces Sanjay Dutt's journey from a 22-year-old debutant in Rocky (1981) to the incarcerated actor in his fifties. Ranbir Kapoor revealed that while Dutt's life made for a great story, it was only while enacting the role that he fully understood the struggles that the senior actor endured. \"While I was performing [the scenes], I was imagining what he must have gone through in real life. Whether it was the sequence of banging my forehead against the prison bars or the instances that happened in jail, I was just enacting them. But I am sure these situations were tough for him.\"\nCast of Sanju at the trailer launch. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi\nRishi Kapoor, who had watched the trailer earlier in the week, had showered compliments on his son. Elated to have earned his father's nod of approval, Kapoor said, \"Besides being my father, he is also an actor. I admire and respect his work. He never comes and tells me that I have done a good job. He won't give free compliments, and always tells us to work harder. So this really made me emotional.\"\nAlso View: Sanju trailer launch: Ranbir Kapoor, Sonam Kapoor and others make it a grand affair", "Nargis Fakhri is sexy and at the same time, she is fiercely opinionated. Moreover, she has a great sense of humour as well and this makes her one of the hottest actresses around. However, her not-so-Indian features and lack of great roles have ensured that she couldn’t be seen regularly in films. Her last film released more than a year ago – Banjo – and then she had no other film in her kitty. But finally, Nargis Fakhri has signed a film. She’s all set to be seen in Sanjay Dutt’s upcoming film Torbaaz.\nProducer Rahul Mittra confirmed that Nargis Fakhri has signed on the dotted line. She will play the NGO worker Ayesha, who looks after the war refugee kids in Afghanistan. She will essay Sanjay Dutt’s love interest and her worldview changes after the stint. Rahul Mittra said that she is the parallel lead and that she has already begun taking language classes in Los Angeles for Pushto and Dari. He also revealed that they met Nargis Fakhri at director Girish Malik’s Mumbai home. The actress was jetlagged and yet the meeting went great and she gave her nod after hearing the story. He assured that viewers will be stunned with Nargis Fakhri’s dialogue delivery in Torbaaz.\nNargis Fakhri is currently at her home in Los Angeles and she’ll be flying down to Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyztan, next week to shoot for the film. Rahul Mittra said that after shooting in Bishek, they’ll travel along the Silk Route through Central Asia. He added that Torbaaz will feature different terrains and we will be shooting through the biting cold in difficult locations that have never been tapped by Bollywood before.\nGirish Malik had earlier made the 2014 film Jal, starring Purab Kohli and Kirti Kulhari. It was honoured with the National Film Award for Best Special Effects. Sanjay Dutt on the other hand was last seen in his comeback film Bhoomi, co-starring Aditi Rao Hydari, Shekhar Suman and Sharad Kelkar.", "Earlier today, we saw the release of the much talked about and keenly awaited film Sanju. Starring Ranbir Kapoor in the title role as Sanjay Dutt, the film has been the talk of the town since its announcement. But, while the wait for the film to eventually hit screens seems interminable, we have learnt that Sanju is actually based on just two episodes from Sanjay Dutt’s life.\nRevealing details of the same in an interview to Outlook, the director of Sanju, Rajkumar Hirani adds, “People already know much of these stories. I am going to show the chapters from his life which are not in the public domain – what happened between father and the son, for example. As writers, we are sketching people all the time when we write fiction. In his case, the character was already there. I was joking with Sanju the other day that he had been writing a script for us for the last 50 years. Though it would be easier since we had so many episodes from Sanju’s life that could easily be converted into scenes, we realized that a movie cannot be simply made with 40 or 50 episodes. Mere anecdotes would not work until they were seamlessly woven into the narrative.”\nFurther talking about the two episodes that the film Sanju is based upon, Hirani went on to add, “We have touched more on the drugs phase and the gun episode of his life. Other stories are there in the backdrop and we have dealt with them carefully, in order to not hurt anyone. The idea was to make a film on his life and not something sensational.”\nNow that we know Sanju will feature two of the most important chapters of Dutt’s life, our interest to watch the film on the big screen has been increased tenfold. As for the film, Sanju that also features, Paresh Rawal, Anushka Sharma, Sonam Kapoor and others is slated to hit screens on June 29, 2018.\nAslo Read : SANJU: Ranbir Kapoor is pretty cool about going NUDE on screen, says he has been taking off his clothes since Saawariya", "Inside The Yerwada Jail\nYou would be lying if you would say that in this picture; Ranbir Kapoor doesn't look spitting image of Sanjay Dutt.\nWe're Shook!\nRecently, while talking to a leading daily, director Rajkumar Hirani revealed why he thought Ranbir would fit the bill perfectly. He said, \"Hmmm. Why Ranbir? The first reason for choosing him is that he's a fantastic actor. And the second reason is that he is at the perfect age.\"\nOh My Gosh!\nRajkumar Hirani further added, \"I needed an actor who could be 21 (years old) because that is where the film begins. That was the age when Sanju was shooting for Rocky and his drug phase started.\nAnd then we have Sanju when he came out of prison (around 56 years). So, we needed someone who could fit that transformation.\"\nRockstar Sanjay Dutt\nRanbir Kapoor's head-to-toe transformation to different shades of Sanjay Dutt is mind-blowing and we can't take our eyes off the actor.\nRanbir Was Shocked To Know Sanjay’s Journey\nAt the teaser launch, Ranbir also revealed how he reacted when he came across the script and said, \"I know Sanjay Dutt as a family friend. When I read the script, I got to know his life journey. That shocked me. Drugs, his controversy with terrorism, his equation with his father, everything shocked me.\"\nRanbir Loved Playing ‘Munna’\nAt the teaser launch of the film, Ranbir Kapoor also revealed among all the shades of Sanjay Dutt, he loved playing ‘Munna' the most.\n‘Playing Young Sanjay Dutt Was Tough’\nHe also revealed why he found difficult to play the young version of Sanjay Dutt and said, \"It was difficult to play was the young Sanju. There were more faces we had to show; the drugs and his mother's loss.\"\nLock The Date!\nRajkumar Hirani's Sanjay Dutt biopic is one of the most anticipated films of 2018 and fans have been waiting for it with a bated breath - thanks to Ranbir's mind-blowing transformation and interesting storyline. The film is scheduled to hit the theatres on June 29, 2018.\nNow, All Eyes Are On The Trailer\nFans can't have enough of Ranbir Kapoor in the eight second teaser and they're desperately waiting for the full-fledged trailer and we understand why!\nApart from Ranbir, the film also casts Manisha Koirala, Sonam Kapoor Anushka Sharma, Dia Mirza, Paresh Rawal and Vicky Kaushal." ]

[ "PAHRUMP, Nevada — The sun is shining, the asphalt is wet, and we’re sliding wildly out of control around Spring Mountain Motor Resort and Country Club, the site of our 2016 All-Stars Competition, in a black Cadillac CTS-V. We’re attempting to master skid control at the Cadillac V-Performance Academy and are failing spectacularly; it’s just too much fun spinning the 640-hp Caddy like it’s a roulette wheel.\nOur instructor is advising us on proper braking, throttle, and balance techniques for exiting corners on the racetrack. Another try produces a 360-degree spinout and another silly grin. Finally we switch the CTS-V into snow and ice mode and master a non-sliding figure eight with ease.\n“Never let your confidence level exceed your experience level either on the street or track,” Rick Malone, chief driving instructor and driving school director, tells us. Since 2006, Malone has instructed thousands of go fast fans at the Spring Mountain Motor Resort, training everyone from 16-year old kids and their parents to an 86-year old woman from California that still enjoys tracking her Corvette above 135 mph.\nThe two-day program costs $3,110, but is waived for 2017 Cadillac V-Series owners. One designated guest is allowed, but if they want to drive, they have to pay $2,570. Tuition for non-owners is the same and there is private instruction available in a Cadillac CTS-V that costs an extra $4,000 (ATS-V owners can get a session in their own car for a mere $1,250).\nAirfare is not included, but condo lodging is, along with a courtesy car, breakfast, and lunch on both training days. There’s a pool and Jacuzzi behind the clubhouse, a workout facility, and if racing on a track isn’t thrilling enough for you, jetpack flights over a man-made lake are available for a fee.\nTraining Day\nOur class is one short of a dozen and mostly consists of new V-Series owners from as far away as Atlanta, Georgia. The group includes a new mom from San Francisco, California, a veteran biker from Scottsdale, Arizona, a longshoreman from Long Beach, California, a few happy retirees from all over, and a motley crew of automotive journalists.\nClassroom sessions are generally brief but informative, mostly consisting of talks about safety, braking, and technical details about the cars. Like how to get your CTS-V in a desired customized track mode or how to use its launch control effectively.\nOnce it’s time to hit the track, we get geared up in matching black helmets, jackets, and sporting racing harnesses. The academy also attempts to put owners into cars similar to their personal rides for the slalom, dry oval, wet figure eight, and serpentine portions of the course.\nThe serpentine exercise involves a slow speed coned course that’s easy to master in one go. For the second run, a sunscreen is placed over the windshield to make it a challenge. This forces us to use the car’s side windows and trust our peripheral vision — kind of like young Jedi training.\nAside from this cool lesson, brake, momentum, and throttle are the words of the day. The class ends after four lead-follow laps around the track in the late afternoon. Later, we dine at the recommended Pahrump Valley Winery (which is not included in the price of the package).\nAbout Last Night\nDay two saw one student drop out and two overconfident cohorts slide off the track near turn four and six — dubbed “Zora’s Run” and “Patience,” respectively. Fortunately no one was hurt, well, except for maybe for a few bruised egos.\nLater, we go over the “eight steps to a corner,” which include visual scanning, braking, downshifting, turning the steering wheel, balance, clipping the apex, unwinding the steering wheel and — the best part — accelerating.\nThen, the class is broken up into smaller groups of like-minded drivers for ride-along hot laps with the instructors. It’s a wicked fast experience and many of the students are grateful that it takes place before lunch and not after.\nBy now, the 464-hp ATS-V we are driving and its 6-speed manual transmission fit like a glove. Second, third, and forth are the main gears used on this particular loop of the track.\nAfter another round of lead-follow track sessions (no hot laps were to be had, unfortunately), there’s a quick lecture all about over steer, under steer, and yep, you guessed it, throttle steer.\nBy the end of the day, everyone’s confidence level is pretty high from having successfully completed laps with our newly learned skills.\nWe celebrate with a few burnouts and launch control runs out on a long stretch of the track.\n“I learned a lot,” CTS-V owner Jeff Wollerman of California tells us. “The problem now is that I’ll go home and use these techniques in my car and go to jail.”\nIf you plan on joining in on the fun, don’t forget to bring a hat because by the end of day two, your helmet head hair will need it. Plus, there’s a group photo next to one of the cars that will forever capture your epically bad hair day.\nBack in the classroom we all receive graduation certificates and are all better drivers for it. Thanks Cadillac!\nFor more information and to sign up for a class, check out Cadillac and Spring Mountain Motor Resort and Country Club’s sites for more information." ]

[ "Free Price Quote From a Local Dealer Free Price Quote From a View Special Offers\nNo Obligation, Fast & Simple Free New Car Quote Change Car Select Make Acura Alfa Romeo Aston Martin Audi Bentley BMW Buick Cadillac Chevrolet Chrysler Dodge Ferrari FIAT Ford Genesis GMC Honda Hyundai Infiniti Jaguar Jeep Kia Lamborghini Land Rover Lexus Lincoln Lotus Maserati Mazda McLaren Mercedes-Benz MINI Mitsubishi Nissan Porsche Ram Rolls-Royce Scion smart Subaru Tesla Toyota Volkswagen Volvo Select Model DB9 DB9 GT Rapide S Vanquish Vantage GO 1. Vehicle Option Trim Exterior Color No Preference Black Blue Brown Gold Green Orange Red Silver White Yellow Interior Color No Preference Beige Black Blue Gray Green Other Red White Buying Time Frame Within 48 hours Within a week Within two weeks Within a month More than a month Payment Method Undecided Loan Lease Cash Trade In? Yes No 3. Dealer Selection Receive your free dealer pricing information by completing your contact information!\nAston Martin is getting ready to introduce its first vehicle under the new AMR sub-brand. The race-inspired Aston Martin Vantage AMR will reach 300 customers around the globe by the end of the year.\nThe model is available in four color schemes: Stratus White with orange graphic, Ultramarine Black with Blue graphic, Zaffre Blue with Red graphic, and Scintilla Silver with Grey graphic. A special “Halo Pack” pays homage to the WEC-winning #95 Vantage GTE with a Stirling Green paint job and Lime Green accents. Just like on last year’s GTE, this model is available with a special Union Jack-enameled wings badge.\nBoth coupe and roadster versions will be available. Inside the cabin, coupes feature a combination of leather and Alcantara while roadsters stick with an all-leather interior. The interior color scheme is matched to the exterior colors selected by the customer. In this tradition, the Halo Pack features lime green accents.\nBuyers can also choose between different wheel finishes, and lightweight carbon fiber seats are also offered. Carbon fiber can also be found on the front grille, side strakes, mirror caps, door handles, instrument surrounds, and other areas. An optional AMR Aero Kit for coupes, produced with the help of Aston Martin Racing and constructed from carbon fiber, offers a unique front splitter and dive planes, side sills, and a fixed rear spoiler. A feature borrowed from the Vantage AMR Pro Concept shown at this year’s Geneva auto show is the design of the forged aluminum wheels.\nNow to the important part: the engine. A total of 200 copies will come with a V-8 engine, while the rest will come with the V-12. The V-8 models make the same 430 hp as the non-AMR models, but V-12 models get an additional 30 hp for a grand total of 595 hp.\nEarlier this year, Aston Martin announced it would create the new AMR sub-brand to accommodate high-performance variants of standard vehicles. At the time, Aston Martin said the new sub-brand was the next logical step after seeing the success of other limited-edition, high-performance models like the Vantage GT8 and Vantage GT12. Aston Martin said it would bring out an AMR version of the Rapide.\nPrices start at 97,995 pounds in the U.K. and 126,995 euros in Germany. Deliveries will begin in the last quarter of the year. Unfortunately, Aston Martin has confirmed no copies will be available in the U.S.\nSource: Aston Martin", "Follow Viknesh Add to circle\nA prototype for the redesigned, fifth-generation Audi A6 has been spotted again. The car has been developed alongside the new generations of the A7 and A8, two models with which it shares much in common.\nCommon to all three is the latest evolution of Audi’s MLB platform for front- and all-wheel-drive vehicles with longitudinally-mounted engines. It promises some weight savings as well as new plug-in hybrid options. The current A6, despite featuring aluminum in its construction, still weighs over 4,000 pounds in some guises.\nAlso common is the styling, which was previewed with Audi’s Prologue concept unveiled at the 2014 Los Angeles Auto Show. The wide, imposing grille and strong creases are lifted straight from the concept, as are the geometrically-shaped headlights.\nThe base engine should be a 2.0-liter turbocharged inline-4 delivering 252 horsepower. Above this will likely be a 3.0-liter turbocharged V-6 and mild hybrid system that's already been announced for the new A7. The setup is good for 340 hp.\nAnd as mentioned earlier, we should also see a plug-in hybrid option. The latter will feature Audi’s “e-tron” badge. Note, the current A6 has a plug-in hybrid option, though only in China. It combines an inline-4 with an electric motor integrated with the transmission and delivers a peak 245 hp.\nThe good news is that we can also expect new versions of the performance-oriented S6 and RS 6. The RS 6 should stick with a 4.0-liter twin-turbocharged V-8 possibly matching the 605 hp of the current RS 6 Avant Performance. It’s not clear at this point if the RS 6 will be offered as a sedan, or if it will make it to the United States this time around. As for the S6, we should see it downsize to a turbocharged V-6, most likely the 2.9-liter mill found in the latest RS 5.\n2019 Audi A6 spy shots - Image via S. Baldauf/SB-Medien Enlarge Photo\nBody styles for the A6 will once again include the standard sedan you see here as well as a long-wheelbase variant for China. On top of this, there will also be the Avant and Allroad wagons.\nWe're also expecting the latest in self-driving technology. Audi is introducing Level 3 self-driving capability for its upcoming cars. This enables the cars to handle some situations without the driver having to monitor them, which isn't the case for current self-driving technology. For example, the new A8 is able to handle some parking situations as well as driving in traffic at speeds of up to 37 mph completely on its own.\nLook for the new A6 to arrive next year, as a 2019 model. It's not going to have an easy time on the market. The BMW 5-Series and Mercedes-Benz E-Class have just been redesigned and there are also some impressive newcomers in this segment, too, such as the Cadillac CT6, Lincoln Continental and Volvo S90.", "The 2017 Greenwich Concours d’Elegance was quite the automotive spectacle, but the parking lot of Greenwich’s Bruce Park was practically a car show of its own. Here are seven of the coolest rides we saw parked out front.\nAlfa Romeo SZ\nBuilt from 1989 to 1991, the Alfa Romeo Sprint Zagato is best known for its radical design. A collaboration between Alfa Romeo, Zagato, and Fiat, the SZ made its debut as the ES-30 at the 1989 Geneva Motor Show. The odd shape and retro-futuristic headlights were penned by renowned French auto designer Robert Opron, who is also responsible for greats like the Citroën SM and the CX. Only 1,036 SZ hardtops were produced until Alfa Romeo introduced the Roadster Zagato Z, bringing its production run to an end after 278 RZs sold. Power comes from Alfa’s legendary 3.0L 12-valve V-6 with around 208 horsepower, 181 lb-ft of torque, and a five-speed manual. One was recently listed on Hemmings for $139,900.\nLancia Delta Integrale\nThe Lancia Delta was as a humble, small family car that is regarded as the brand’s most commercially successful model. But Integrale variant, an absolute legend in the World Rally Championship that racked up a total of 46 overall victories in the 1980s and 1990s and a record six consecutive constructor’s championships from 1987 to 1992, was anything but humble. Homologation requirements of Group A dictated that roadgoing versions of any competition vehicle must be produced, giving birth to the road-going version. This later Delta Integrale features Lancia’s potent 2.0-liter turbo-four, which sent 200 hp to all four wheels. The result was a top speed of 137 mph and a 0-60 mph time of 5.7 seconds.\nSecond-Gen Cadillac Series 62 (1932-1947)\nThe Cadillac Series 62 was the company’s entry-level model to its large-bodied range until 1964, when it became the Calais. This second-generation convertible is easily one of the most iconic cars of its era. With its swoopy, streamlined body and chrome grille that are both larger than life, it went on to be the company’s most successful selling model in 1947, with 39,835 sold. Power came from Cadillac’s own 5.7-liter Monobloc V-8.\nFirst-Gen Oldsmobile Toronado (1966-1970)\nThe Oldsmobile Toronado was introduced in 1966 as a personal sports luxury two-door. With its sights set directly at the Ford Thunderbird and GM’s own Buick Riviera, the Toronado was one of three new front-wheel drive automobiles to use the configuration since the 1937 Cord. Built on the famous GM E platform, the Toronado sports either a 425 cu-in (7.0-liter) Oldsmobile V-8 with 385 hp, or a 455 cu-in (7.5-liter) V-8 with 400 hp. Combined with a three-speed automatic, it was dubbed the Unitized Power Package and is said to have been tested for more than 1.5 million miles to prove its durability and reliability.\nLancia Fulvia Coupe\nAnother motorsports great, the Lancia Fulvia is known as a legend in the International Rally Championship, one of the many predecessors to the World Rally Championship. It originally sold as a four-door sedan, two-door coupe with a sport variant, and a Zagato-designed fastback. The coupe boasts a simple yet elegant three-box design, mimicking the legendary Alfa Romeo Giulia range of equal time. It came with either a 90-hp 1.3-liter four or a 115-hp 1.5-liter four, depending on year and specification. All came with a five-speed manual.\nJaguar XK120\nThe Jaguar XK120 was the company’s first post-war sports car. Built between 1948 and 1954, it was significantly smaller and lighter than Jag’s previous effort, the SS 100, production of which ended in 1940 following the start of World War II. Created as a test bed for a new inline-six engine, the XK120 was introduced at the 1948 London Motor Show. It caused such a commotion that Sir William Lyons immediately put it into production. It went on to take the title as the world’s fastest production car during its time, capable of reaching 120 mph, hence the “120.” Another fun fact: The first Jaguar XK120 landed in the hands of the one and only Clark Gable.\n1961 Lincoln Continental Convertible\nThere might be a new Lincoln Continental in town, but its no fourth-gen. The suicide door-equipped Continental is one of the most recognizable American automobiles of all time. This specific car is from 1961, the first model year of the fourth-generation Continental. It’s separated by its rounded headlight surrounds and the thicker chrome bar in the grille. Power comes from a massive 7.0-liter Ford MEL V-8 with 325 hp.", "Free Price Quote From a Local Dealer Free Price Quote From a View Special Offers\nNo Obligation, Fast & Simple Free New Car Quote Change Car Select Make Acura Alfa Romeo Aston Martin Audi Bentley BMW Buick Cadillac Chevrolet Chrysler Dodge Ferrari FIAT Ford Genesis GMC Honda Hyundai Infiniti Jaguar Jeep Karma Kia Lamborghini Land Rover Lexus Lincoln Lotus Maserati Mazda McLaren Mercedes-Benz MINI Mitsubishi Nissan Porsche Ram Rolls-Royce Scion smart Subaru Tesla Toyota Volkswagen Volvo Select Model GO 1. Vehicle Option Trim Exterior Color No Preference Black Blue Brown Gold Green Orange Red Silver White Yellow Interior Color No Preference Beige Black Blue Gray Green Other Red White Buying Time Frame Within 48 hours Within a week Within two weeks Within a month More than a month Payment Method Undecided Loan Lease Cash Trade In? Yes No 3. Dealer Selection Receive your free dealer pricing information by completing your contact information!\nWhen it comes to the 2018 Jeep Wrangler, we’ve already seen fan renderings like the one shown above. We’ve caught it testing nearly undisguised and have also gotten a peek at the interior. Plus, thanks to an alleged leak, we think we know what the options list will look like. Now there may be a new leak, this time revealing how much power two engine options will make.\nThis information comes to us from the admins at JLWranglerForums.com, a fan forum we generally trust to vet its sources. In documents that Fiat Chrysler allegedly submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, we see two particularly interesting bits of information—the horsepower figures for the upcoming Wrangler’s V-6 and I-4 engines. The 285 hp we see listed for the 3.6-liter V-6 is no different than what you’ll find in the current Wrangler. But what’s truly shocking is how much power it says the 2.0-liter turbo makes.\nIf this post is to be believed, the turbocharged Wrangler will make 368 hp. That would make it almost as powerful as the turbocharged-to-hell-and-back Mercedes-AMG CLA45. And at 184 hp per liter, it would have a specific output that puts the Honda S2000 to shame. Granted, comparing turbocharged and naturally aspirated engines isn’t exactly fair, but it does show how far engine technology has come in only a few years.\nOthers are already reporting that they’ve heard the rumor is false, but when we reached out to FCA for a comment, the spokesperson couldn’t say anything either way. At this point, consider us skeptical. Very skeptical. Even if the documents are the actual ones that were submitted to NHTSA, the horsepower figure for the 2.0-liter could still be a typo. But if it did end up being true, we’d be completely OK with that.\nAfter all, more power is, well, more.\nSource: JLWranglerForums.com", "Free Price Quote From a Local Dealer Free Price Quote From a View Special Offers\nNo Obligation, Fast & Simple Free New Car Quote Change Car Select Make Acura Alfa Romeo Aston Martin Audi Bentley BMW Buick Cadillac Chevrolet Chrysler Dodge Ferrari FIAT Ford Genesis GMC Honda Hyundai Infiniti Jaguar Jeep Kia Lamborghini Land Rover Lexus Lincoln Lotus Maserati Mazda McLaren Mercedes-Benz MINI Mitsubishi Nissan Porsche Ram Rolls-Royce Scion smart Subaru Tesla Toyota Volkswagen Volvo Select Model Accord Accord Hybrid Civic Clarity CR-V CR-Z Fit HR-V Odyssey Pilot Ridgeline GO 1. Vehicle Option Trim Exterior Color No Preference Black Blue Brown Gold Green Orange Red Silver White Yellow Interior Color No Preference Beige Black Blue Gray Green Other Red White Buying Time Frame Within 48 hours Within a week Within two weeks Within a month More than a month Payment Method Undecided Loan Lease Cash Trade In? Yes No 3. Dealer Selection Receive your free dealer pricing information by completing your contact information!\nAt the risk of suggesting it’s as ugly as a Pontiac Aztek and therefore as worthy of covering up with nylon, may we say that one of the more fun “reveals” we noticed at this year’s New York International Auto Show was this bed tent? It’s custom designed to fit a Honda Ridgeline pickup bed.\nThe basic design is a dome tent, with the poles resting in pockets that overhang the bed just slightly. It is retained by nylon straps that hook to the undercarriage, wheel openings, and front seat assist handles. Inside there are zippers galore that provide access to the in-bed trunk and to the in-bed 12-volt power source. They also cover the window screens for privacy. Naturally, the in-bed speakers will kick your jams right through the nylon tent material. Designed to extend over the lowered tailgate, there’s ample room to accommodate a full-size air mattress and for 6-footers to stretch out inside. An awning provides shelter when standing behind the tailgate for cooking, etc. When collapsed, it fits in a carrying case about the size of a larger camp chair.\nHonda Ridgeline owners’ forum discussions note that when attached, the truck can be driven slowly to switch campsites. If you need to drive the truck around more, it slides out and will support itself on the ground pretty easily until you get back.\nThe list price is $350, but a bit of light Googling reveals plenty of outlets selling the official Honda product for around $100 less than that. Honda also sells a larger dome tent ($381 retail) that sets up on the ground and connects to the open hatch of any of its SUVs (like the Pilot shown below) or the Odyssey. It sleeps four people and packs into a larger duffel-sized carrying case.\nHappy glamping starts by ordering part number 08Z04-T6Z-100A.", "For consumers willing to buy a vehicle slightly-used rather than brand new, the savings can be substantial, about a fifth to a quarter below the original price.\nBut a handful of models depreciate much more slowly, making them better buys new, according to a study from iSeeCars.com.\nISeeCars looked at more than 6 million auto sales between August of last year and Jan. 24. It compared new vehicles prices against the same models from 2016 and 2017 that had mileage within 20 percent of 13,476, the average annual miles driven on a car in the U.S. in a year.\nOn average, a new car cost 26.8 percent more than the same model gently-used, which translated to a price difference of $7,654 on average. But in a few cases, the savings were small enough to push the math in favor of buying new.\nToyotas and Hondas have long had a reputation for keeping their value, but the Jeep Wrangler Unlimited actually had the smallest percentage decline in value, 8.9 percent or $3,199, between new and lightly used.\n“Jeep has such a loyal fan following and purists like the Wrangler,” said Julia Blackley, a spokeswoman with the Massachusetts car research and listing site.\nThe Toyota Tacoma lost just over a tenth of its value, or $3,320, while the Toyota 4Runner dropped 12.7 percent of $4,605. Other models that held the most value in the study were the Nissan Frontier, Honda Pilot, Chevy Colorado, Honda HR-V, Jeep Renegade and Subaru WRX.\nAt the other extreme, eight models dropped 30 percent or more in value in around a year’s time, and half were luxury brands.\n“You can buy 2 or 3-year-old luxury cars for the price for an newish economy car,” Blackley said.\nA one year-old Cadillac XTS sold for nearly 40 percent less than the same model new, which represented a loss in value of $20,965.\nThe Mercedes-Benz E-Class dropped 34.5 percent or $22,919, while the Lincoln MKZ lost 33.7 percent of its value or $14,328, the Cadillac CTS shed 33.4 percent or $18.170, and the Infinity Q50 took a haircut of 32.2 percent or $14,654.\n“Luxury cars tend to be leased by companies for fleet or management use and they are replaced frequently,” Blackley said.\nThe Jeep Compass, in sharp contrast to the Jeep Wrangler, suffered a 34.8 percent drop in value or $9,652, putting it second to the Cadillac XTS in percentage decline.\nBlackley said the Compass looks and rides more like conventional SUVs and has proven less reliable than other siblings in the Jeep family.\nMajor design changes can also accelerate depreciation, and it is something consumer should pay attention to. The Toyota Camry, normally known for holding value, made the biggest losers list.\nThe 2018 model underwent a top-to-bottom redesign, which included a new platform. Lightly used Camry models are selling for 30.7 percent below the freshened 2018 models, a loss of $8,213.\nModels with the smallest decline in value between new and one-year old:\nRank (By Percentage) Model % Difference\nNew Over Used $ Difference\nNew Over Used 1 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited 8.90% $3,199 2 Toyota Tacoma 10.40% $3,320 3 Toyota 4Runner 12.70% $4,605 4 Nissan Frontier 13.30% $3,180 5 Honda Pilot 13.70% $4,858 6 Chevrolet Colorado 13.70% $4,154 7 Honda HR-V 13.80% $2,885 8 Jeep Renegade 14.10% $2,897 9 Subaru WRX 14.20% $4,115 Overall Average 26.80% $7,654\nSource: iSeeCars.com", "Free Price Quote From a Local Dealer Free Price Quote From a View Special Offers\nNo Obligation, Fast & Simple Free New Car Quote Change Car Select Make Acura Alfa Romeo Aston Martin Audi Bentley BMW Buick Cadillac Chevrolet Chrysler Dodge Ferrari FIAT Ford Genesis GMC Honda Hyundai Infiniti Jaguar Jeep Kia Lamborghini Land Rover Lexus Lincoln Lotus Maserati Mazda McLaren Mercedes-Benz MINI Mitsubishi Nissan Porsche Ram Rolls-Royce Scion smart Subaru Tesla Toyota Volkswagen Volvo Select Model CT 200h ES300h ES350 GS 200t GS F GS350 GS450h GX460 IS200t IS250 IS300 IS350 LC 500 LS LS460 LS600h LX570 NX200t NX300h RC 200t RC 300 RC 350 RC F RX350 RX450h GO 1. Vehicle Option Trim Exterior Color No Preference Black Blue Brown Gold Green Orange Red Silver White Yellow Interior Color No Preference Beige Black Blue Gray Green Other Red White Buying Time Frame Within 48 hours Within a week Within two weeks Within a month More than a month Payment Method Undecided Loan Lease Cash Trade In? Yes No 3. Dealer Selection Receive your free dealer pricing information by completing your contact information!\nLexus unveiled the fifth-generation LS earlier this year but has saved the hybrid version for Geneva.\nThe Lexus LS 500h makes its official debut March 7 at the Geneva Motor Show. The model will receive a multi-stage hybrid powertrain that is available in the LC coupe. The LC500’s hybrid system comprises of a 3.5-liter V-6 engine mated to an electric motor, a combination that produces a total output of 354 hp.\nUnsurprisingly, the LS hybrid looks almost identical to the standard model in the teaser photo Lexus has released. We should see the same chrome-tastic body, updated spindle mesh grille, and interior goodies such as 28-way power front seats with heating, cooling, and massage functions and rear seats with special Shiatsu massage and reclining capability.\nThe 2018 Lexus LS debuted at the Detroit auto show with a new V-6 engine, 10-speed automatic transmission, and lighter body. It sits on the new GA-L global architecture for luxury vehicles, a platform that is shared with the LC. For 2018, the LS has grown 1.3 inches in its wheelbase, and is also lower than its predecessor.\nThe 2018 Lexus LS goes on sale in the U.S. around the end of the year, so the hybrid model shouldn’t be too far off.\nPictured below is the 2018 Lexus LS.\nSource: Lexus", "If you haven't seen all the Oscar nominated films, this pretty little video essay can help you out.\nOscar season moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you might miss it. It’s been two weeks since the Academy Award nominations were announced, which means two weeks of conversations about movies you haven’t seen as you patiently await the appropriate time to bring up the movies you have seen. Never fear, this lovely video essay full of gorgeous shots and brilliant performances from the Oscar nominated films is here to help you catch up.\nNo Oscars supercut would be complete without audio of Michael Stuhlbarg’s wrenching monologue from “Call Me by Your Name,” which will not soon be forgotten as the greatest Oscar snub of all time. The video features plenty of stunning shots from Best Picture nominees “Call Me by Your Name,” “Lady Bird,” and “Phantom Thread,” but also showcases some of the other great films like “The Square,” “The Florida Project” and “Baby Driver.”\nCheck out some of the prettiest shots and best performances from the Academy Award nominated movies in the video essay below.", "AKRON, Ohio, April 24, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company (NASDAQ: GT) was named a GM Supplier of the Year by General Motors during its 26th annual Supplier of the Year awards ceremony held Friday, April 20 in Orlando, Florida.\nGeneral Motors recognized 132 of its best suppliers from 17 countries who have consistently exceeded GM's expectations, created outstanding value or brought new innovations to the company. The announcement represented the most suppliers GM has recognized since debuting the Supplier of the Year event in 1992.\n\"This is an opportunity for General Motors to honor those suppliers who are truly the best of the best,\" said Steve Kiefer, GM vice president, Global Purchasing and Supply Chain. \"The Automotive industry is transforming at an incredible rate. The relationships we have with our supply base means everything when it comes to delivering a strong vehicle lineup today and the cutting-edge vehicles and mobility services of tomorrow.\"\nGM's Supplier of the Year award is reserved for suppliers who distinguish themselves by meeting performance metrics for quality, execution, innovation and total enterprise cost. Award winners represent companies who provide products and services to General Motors in the areas of vehicle components, supply chain and logistics, customer care and aftersales and indirect services.\nGoodyear has a long history of working with GM and has been supplying tires for the auto manufacturer since the early 1900's. Some of the most recent OE fitments that were awarded to Goodyear include the high-performance Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE and luxury sport Cadillac CT6 and CT6 V-Sport vehicles. Additionally, Goodyear is No. 1 in OE on four of the five top-selling vehicles, and the No. 1 supplier of full-size trucks for the past 19 years, with premium fitments on the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra.\n\"Goodyear has been working with General Motors dating almost as far back as our company's inception,\" said Ken Hertl, Goodyear's North American vice president of original equipment. \"We are honored to receive this award and we are pleased to continue to supply GM with the quality and innovation necessary to meet consumer's demands in the marketplace.\"\nAbout The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company\nGoodyear is one of the world's largest tire companies. It employs about 64,000 people and manufactures its products in 48 facilities in 22 countries around the world. Its two Innovation Centers in Akron, Ohio and Colmar-Berg, Luxembourg strive to develop state-of-the-art products and services that set the technology and performance standard for the industry. For more information about Goodyear and its products, go to www.goodyear.com/corporate.\nAbout General Motors\nGeneral Motors Co. and its partners produce vehicles in 30 countries, and the company has leadership positions in the world's largest and fastest-growing automotive markets. GM, its subsidiaries and joint venture entities sell vehicles under the Chevrolet, Cadillac, Baojun, Buick, GMC, Holden, Jiefang, Opel, Vauxhall and Wuling brands. More information on the company and its subsidiaries, including OnStar, a global leader in vehicle safety, security and information services, can be found at http://www.gm.com\nView original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/general-motors-recognizes-goodyear-for-performance-quality-and-innovation-300635757.html\nSOURCE The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company\nRelated Links\nhttp://www.goodyear.com", "Pulaski Academy's decision to equip its entire team in the ZERO1 is part of a larger commitment from high schools around the country to outfit athletes with the most technologically advanced equipment. In the first quarter of 2018, over 400 high school programs and 110 professional and college teams have made a commitment to have players in the ZERO1 for the 2018 season. Several, like Pulaski Academy, have equipped their entire roster.\n\"We were really impressed with the testing results we've seen from the VICIS ZERO1,\" said Kevin Kelley, Pulaski Academy Head Football Coach. \"We're always looking to equip our student-athletes with the most protective equipment – this dedication to safety is why Pulaski Academy players will be wearing the ZERO1 this season.\"\nOriginally introduced to NFL and NCAA teams, the ZERO1 is now available to high school programs for the 2018 season. The ZERO1 is the most technologically advanced helmet on the market, designed to reduce impact forces with a highly engineered structure that differs from traditional football helmets. The ZERO1 has a deformable outer shell and a unique columnar layer designed to slow impact forces like a car bumper.\n\"Our team is thrilled to bring the ZERO1's breakthrough protective technology to high schools across the country this season,\" said Dave Marver, VICIS CEO and co-founder. \"We are excited to help Coach Kelley and the Pulaski Academy football program protect their athletes and elevate their performance.\"\nVICIS recently took advantage of lower production costs to reduce the price of the ZERO1 and make it more accessible to high school programs. Pulaski Academy's purchase of the ZERO1 helmet follows the launch of the VICIS online marketplace. Quantities are limited, so individuals and teams are encouraged to place orders as soon as possible. For additional information about VICIS and the ZERO1, or to reserve a helmet for your player or team, visit www.vicis.com.\nABOUT VICIS\nVICIS is a Seattle-based company focused on sports protective technologies. Its inaugural product, the ZERO1 football helmet, launched in 2017 and was worn by players on 18 NFL teams. The helmet ranked first in 2017 and 2018 NFL/NFLPA Helmet Performance testing and was named one of TIME Magazine's 25 Best Inventions of 2017. VICIS was also named one of Fast Company's 2018 Most Innovative Companies. The company is funded and/or advised by several current and former NFL players, including Roger Staubach, Jerry Rice, Russell Wilson, Doug Baldwin, and Alex Smith. Additional investors include Peregrine Group, Harry Fath, Alliance of Angels, the W Fund, and angelMD. For more information, visit www.vicis.com.\nView original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/pulaski-academy-in-little-rock-ar-to-outfit-football-roster-in-vicis-zero1-helmets-in-2018-season-300634739.html\nSOURCE VICIS\nRelated Links\nhttp://www.vicis.com", "CLOSE Nigel Scantlebury's winning shot for Greece Athena basketball in a 58-56 win over Pittsford Sutherland takes this weeks honor. Special mention to runner up Eric Lewis of Churchville-Chili basketball. Jeff DiVeronica, Virginia Butler\nWilson guard Robert Davis drives to the basket during last year's Section V Class A2 tournament action. (Photo: Jamie Germano/@jgermano1/Staff P)\nIt's common these days to see fans using the #SCTop10 hashtag accompanied by a video clip. No matter where you live or what sport you play at any level, it's a social media attempt to get on ESPN's Top 10 Plays of the Night.\nThursday: Final Section V Scoreboard\nTop 10: Greece Athena's recent stretch lands it atop D&C boys basketball poll\nOne happened Thursday evening in a Rochester City Athletic Conference basketball game and it's definitely SportsCenter worthy. No word yet on whether the folks in Bristol, Connecticut, have seen it. In the final 20 seconds of the first half, Wilson Magnet guard Robert Davis tossed a pass off the backboard on a fast break and sophomore Brennan Clark caught it and slam dunked it in one motion.\nCheck out @wildcats_wilson's Brennan Clark sending it home off the window from Robert Davis. Wow. 🔥 @sectvbbpic.twitter.com/8cGeeG2i3E — Varsity Media (@VarsityMedia) February 2, 2018\n\"They actually work on it every day after practice, but I was definitely surprised to see it at that moment,\" said Wilson coach Brendan O'Toole, whose team went on to win 78-73 over World of Inquiry (10-6).\nThe spectacular play was triggered thanks to a steal by junior guard Christian Oramas. The first-year varsity player passed quickly to Davis, who sped upcourt and into the lane. Noticing the 6-foot-3 Clark trailing him, Davis tossed the ball off the glass backboard and Clark did the rest, throwing it down with two hands.\nCLOSE See how coaches in the Rochester region rank the top large- and small-schools teams. Virginia Butler and James Johnson\nFootball: Wilson Wildcats make school history, win Section V championship\nClark, like Oramas, is a varsity rookie. He played on the freshman team for Leadership Academy last winter and is now averaging 15 points, 12 rebounds and 2.5 blocks.\nDavis led Wilson with 23 points and Clark added 21 and 17 rebounds. Desi Floyd, one of the stars on Wilson's football team that won the school's first Section V championship last fall, added 18 points and 13 boards. The Wildcats improved to 11-6 and are hoping to make another postseason run. They currently sit as the No. 3 seed in the projected Section V Class A2 pairings with three regular-season games left, including Friday at East High (6-10).\nThey were a No. 8 seed last winter that reached the Section V title game, where they lost to Wayne, 50-43.\[email protected]", "Holders RBAI will host Sullivan in the last eight of this year's Danske Bank Schools' Cup.\nDan Soper's boys saw off his former school Ballyclare High 17-0 to book a spot in the quarter-finals stage.\nElsewhere, RS Armagh dominated their tie against Cambridge House, earning a 45-0 away win.\nDanske Bank Schools' Cup quarter-final draw:\nCampbell College v Ballymena Academy\nRBAI v Sullivan Upper\nWallace High School v Royal School Armagh\nMethodist College v Bangor Grammar School\nDanske Bank Schools' Cup round four results\nEnniskillen Royal 10-28 Ballymena Academy\nBangor GS 12-3 Rainey Endowed\nRS Dungannon 5-38 Wallace HS\nCampbell College 41-0 Dalriada\nCambridge House 0-45 RS Armagh\nSullivan Upper 20-13 Down HS\nRBAI 17-0 Ballyclare HS\nColeraine GS 3-38 Methodist College", "It's that time of the year again. Vintage and classic beauties are all set to roll out on the roads for the 51st edition of The Statesman Vintage and Classic car rally on Sunday, 26 February, The golden oldies old cars will line up at Statesman House, Barakhamba Road, on the morning of 26 February and the Chief Guest, Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Birender Singh Dhanoa, will flag off the rally at 10 am.\nWhile there have been over 70 entries till this evening, more are expected as the last date for entries is 18 February. After the flagoff, the cars will proceed to Greater Noida with all the participants set to enjoy the day with their families and friends.\nThey will wend their way back to the National Stadium near Pragati Maidan where the prize distribution will take place at 3 p m.\nA team of judges will evaluate the cars on the basis of their age, maintenance, performance and originality. A new entry this year is 1913 Rolls Royce Phantom owned by Mr Tariq Ibrahim which is coming from Kanpur while the National Rail Museum's 1914 John Morris is coming back after a gap of a year.\nThe stunning vehicle, always the cynosure of all eyes, missed the 50th Statesman vintage rally last year. The pre-judging of all the cars will take place on 24 and 25 February at Modern School, Barakhamba Road. The panel of judges will be led by veteran Mr RN Seth along with Jitender Pandit, Rakesh Jain, Gyan Sharma, Appa Saheb Alur, Promod Bhasin and Ashwini Kathpalia. For the first time a coffee table book outlining the oldest rally's history will also be launched by Justice Dalveer Bhandari on 26 February evening. Some of the main participants of the rally include Diljeet Titus, Uday Singh Meena, Director, National Rail Museum, Kaleem Khan, Tariq Ibrahim and others.\nLast year, among the notable prize winners was a 1919 Citroen entered by Vir Srivastava that won the Statesman Challenge Trophy. The CR Irani Memorial Trophy was won by a 1930 Stutz owned by Diljeet Titus.\nThe Bikram Singh Memorial Trophy was won by a 1938 Buick owned by HW Bhatnagar and the V Sagar Trophy went to a 1937 Rolls Royce entered by J Housing.\nThe magnificent machines of the bygone era such as 1938 Buick limousine, Cadillacs, Rolls Royce, Dodges, Jaguars, Chevrolet Impalas, black Baby Austin, Volkswagen Beetle, Willys Jeeps are some of the sedans which will be seen on the roads after 11 days.", "Lebanon Ford 550 HP Mustang Ecoboost Enlarge Photo\nLebanon Ford, the Ohio-based dealership responsible for some of the best bang-for-your-buck Mustang modifications, is back again. This time, Lebanon Ford Performance has tackled the Mustang EcoBoost, and it has quite the proposal for pony car fans.\nFor $32,995, Lebanon Ford will massage 550 horsepower from the 2.3-liter turbocharged 4-cylinder engine. The car is called the LFP 550 and it includes the base price of a Mustang EcoBoost ($27,095) with a manual transmission, plus all necessary modifications. Five hundred and fifty horses for the price of a bone-stock Mustang GT and the power of a GT350 isn't a bad value proposition, folks. In fact, it's downright impressive. LFP says with the demise of the Mustang's V-6 engine, it needed to fill the void left for those not seeking a V-8-powered pony car. A giant turbo sure is one way to do it.\nSaid turbo comes in the form of a single 7670 EFR Turbocharger Kit from Borg-Warner, which is refined and cleaned up with a Cobb Accessport and a custom tune from VMP Performance. Supposedly, 550 hp is a conservative figure when all is said and done. LFP adds an upgraded intercooler and an oil catch can for good measure. Although this is totally doable with a base Mustang EcoBoost, LFP recommends opting for the $1,995 EcoBoost Performance package, which is only offered on the $32,890 EcoBoost Premium model. This package adds other go-fast goodies such as a limited-slip rear axle, larger 19-inch wheels, larger brakes, revised suspension tuning, and additional cooling. With its modifications, LFP claims a quarter-mile time of 11.2 seconds isn't far-fetched with a set of dedicated drag radials.\nHave you already purchased a Mustang EcoBoost? No problem, says LFP. The little Ohio Ford store will happily take in a previously purchased Mustang EcoBoost and work its magic for a standalone package price of $7,699, still achieving the 550-hp figure.\nNow we have three bargain performance machines from LFP. LFP 550 joins the 727-hp Mustang GT LFP 727 and the 1,200-hp twin-turbo LFP Hellion. The latter costs just $45,499 for a four-digit power figure. Crazy? You bet. Awesome? No doubt.", "Nine players have signed part-time professional contracts with the Saints following a successful Scholarship.\nLewis Baxter, Ben Betts, Harry Brooks and Lewis Dodd join Zack Lee, twin brothers Harvey and Keenan McDaid, Jamie Pye and Jamah Sambou in penning deals with the club.\nPlayer Performance Manager Neil Kilshaw said: “Following a very successful scholarship programme we are delighted to welcome our new nine signings into the under 19s Academy.\n“All nine of the players have consistently demonstrated hard work and commitment, alongside natural talent for Rugby League and we are excited about their potential development in the next few years.\n“They are a credit to their community clubs, schools and all those coaches that have an involvement in their development over the years.\n“The players will now finish their under 16s season with their respective community clubs before we integrate them into the under 19s squad for the 2019 season.”\nLewis Baxter is a back row forward from Wigan St Judes. He is a great line runner and scored four tries in five games in Scholarship programme this season.\nBen Betts is a second row forward from Leigh Miners. He is an athletic, determined character with a huge work-rate in both facets of the game.\nHarry Brooks played his junior rugby at Liverpool Lions before moving to Blackbrook. He is a hard-working prop who stands at 6ft 5”. Despite his young age he has shown a lot of potential already and will continue to improve.\nLewis Dodd is an outstanding half back who plays for the successful Halton Hornets side who are in the Under 16s National Cup Final. He has represented England u16s, possesses a great kicking game and is mature beyond his years.\nZack Lee is a strong defensive forward who carries the ball hard. He joined our Scholarship programme from Wigan after playing at Shevington.\nHarvey McDaid is a skilful fullback from Halton Hornets. He represented Wales in their successful under 16s performance v England.\nHis twin brother Keenan is a tough, energetic hooker from the Hornets. He has represented Wales too.\nJamie Pye is a prop forward from Thatto Heath. He is a tough, uncompromising forward who hits and carries hard.\nFinally, Jamah Sambou is from Woolston Rovers. He is a strong and skilful centre, with lots of natural talent, and should go well at Academy level.\nThe players will be presented to the fans at half time on Friday.", "Follow John Add to circle\n2017 Cadillac CT6 Plug-In Hybrid Enlarge Photo\nWhile the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid and the Chevy Malibu Hybrid rack up four-figure sales in most months, the third vehicle to use elements of that same drivetrain remains all but invisible in the U.S.\nThat's the 2017 Cadillac CT6 Plug-In Hybrid, a version of the CT6 large luxury sedan from GM's luxury brand.\nThe plug-in CT6 is the sole offering from Cadillac that comes with a plug following the sales failure of the small, expensive ELR range-extended electric coupe built on first-generation Volt underpinnings.\nDON'T MISS:\nCadillac has said it expects to sell fewer than 1,000 of the plug-in CT6 versions a year in the U.S.\nIts main market is China, where it's built, and where the small number sold in the U.S. will be assembled.\nAnd its only major sales market here is likely to be the state of California (and perhaps a handful of other states that have adopted its emission rules).\n2017 Cadillac CT6 Plug-In Hybrid Enlarge Photo\nStill, a review of the plug-in hybrid CT6 has now emerged, courtesy of The Los Angeles Times.\nTwo weeks ago, Cadillac held a drive event for a few media outlets at a garage in Los Angeles, where it showed off its partially electric luxury sedan.\nThe 2017 Cadillac CT6 Plug-In Hybrid pairs a 2.0-liter turbocharged 4-cylinder engine with essentially the same two-motor powertrain used in the current Chevy Volt.\nREAD THIS:\nWhile its battery pack is differently configured—it sits at the front end of the trunk, behind the rear seat, rather than in the tunnel and under the rear seat—it has the same energy capacity.\nThe EPA rates it at 31 miles of all-electric range, significantly lower than the Volt's 53 miles, though obviously in a larger, heavier, and more luxurious vehicle.\nThe LA Times said the car it tested \"proved a real gas sipper on a Tuesday morning coastal drive.\"\n2017 Cadillac CT6 Plug-In Hybrid Enlarge Photo\nThe newspaper got 30 miles without any impact on the car's gasoline range, and called the plug-in CT6 \"whisper quiet,\" while also complimenting its acceleration, quoted at 5.2 seconds to get from 0 to 60 mph.\nThe hybrid CT6 model carries over one appealing feature from the Volt and Bolt EV: a paddle behind the left-hand side of the steering wheel that lets the driver increase regenerative braking to slow the car.\nUnlike the Volt, which stays entirely in electric mode under all but a few extreme circumstances or low temperatures, the CT6 plug-in model chooses its power source based on the driver's demands.\nCHECK OUT:\nLight-footed drivers will keep the car entirely in electric mode, but foot-to-the-floor driving kicks in the gasoline engine, assisted by the substantial torque from the car's pair of electric motors.\nCompetitors for Cadillac's plug-in hybrid sedan are versions of various BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Volvo luxury sedans.\nThe company says, however, that despite a starting price of about $75,000, the CT6 Plug-In Hybrid is $20,000 to $40,000 less expensive than comparably equipped versions of those luxury sedans.\n2017 Cadillac CT6 Plug-In Hybrid Enlarge Photo\nIt also outstrips them significantly on range, rated at 20 miles or less on all of them so far.\nSales begin this spring in a limited set of states.\n_______________________________________\nFollow GreenCarReports on Facebook and Twitter.", "Get daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email\nMaredydd Francis will reach a remarkable milestone for RGC this Saturday as he leads the Gogs into action against Bridgend.\nSaturday’s visit of the Ravens will see the RGC skipper and second-row make his 100th appearance for the region.\nFrancis came through the academy ranks at the North Wales representative side and has been part of the rise from Division One East, through the Championship and into the Premiership.\nAnd last season the 23-year-old made history as he lifted the WRU National Cup at the Millennium Stadium.\n“I can’t believe it is 100 appearances,” said Francis ahead of the visit of Bridgend.\n“When you take a step back and look back it is amazing to remember so many high points – of course the cup win stands out, but I look back at a game away at Blackwood as well. I had been out injured and it was my first game back.\n“We have come such a long way from Division One East, and all that we have achieved has been a result of hard work from all involved on and off the field.\n“That year in Division One East was my first season of senior rugby, and I learnt a huge amount from the players around me like Kelvin Davies and Bryn Williams.\n“As I said I have plenty of highlights but also looking forward to creating a few more this season.”\n(Image: @RGCNews)\nRGC are desperate to continue their good home form on Saturday against a Ravens side who sit fifth in the Premiership West standings.\nThe North Walians got back to winning ways last weekend with a 26-13 win over Carmarthen Quins, that victory coming on the back of a disappointing 16-16 draw at 14-man Swansea the previous week.\nAnd centre Tiaan Loots is expecting a tough encounter, telling the club’s official website: “It’s a chance to continue our home momentum, and back up the performance against Quins last weekend.\n“The win against Carmarthen was described as workman like, and I think it summed it up. We matched them physically in the opening quarter and that set us up for the win, and I think we will need to do the same against Bridgend Ravens.\n“After last season teams know more about us, and we have to raise our performance levels, if we do that then we have a chance of getting results. We have racked up some big scores at home in the past few seasons, but I think games will be tighter this season.”\nMeanwhile RGC have announced a raft of fixture changes during the autumn international series and Six Nations, with two of their away games being moved to a Friday night.\nThe fixture changes: Saturday, November 11: RGC v Neath (2pm); Friday, November 17: Aberavon v RGC (7.15pm); Saturday, November 25: RGC v Swansea (2pm); Friday, December 1: Carmarthen Quins v RGC (7.15pm); Saturday, February 3: Llandovery v RGC (12pm); Saturday, February 10: RGC v Neath (2pm); Saturday, March 10: Aberavon v RGC (2.30pm); Saturday, March 17: Bargoed v RGC (1.30pm).", "Something that just about every car shopper thinks about is whether they’re better off buying a new or used car. There are clear pros and cons like getting a better warranty and the latest features with a new car versus saving money—sometimes a lot of money—by going with a used car instead. But is buying a used car rather than a new model always the best value?\nCar research site iSeeCars just made that question a little easier to answer. iSeeCars has compiled two lists showing the fastest and slowest depreciating cars over the course of one year. The site “analyzed over 6 million new and used cars sold from August 1, 2017 to January 24, 2018, comparing the prices of new cars to one-year-old cars,” according to the study. The list of slowest depreciating cars is almost entirely dominated by trucks and SUVs while the fastest depreciating cars are mostly luxury sedans.\nHere are the top nine top cars to buy new over used with the percentage in price difference and the dollar amount you’re paying extra for new over a used version of the previous year’s model.\nJeep Wrangler Unlimited - 8.9 percent - $3,199\nToyota Tacoma - 10.4 percent - $3,320\nToyota 4Runner - 12.7 percent - $4,605\nNissan Frontier - 13.3 percent - $3,180\nHonda Pilot - 13.7 percent - $4,858\nChevrolet Colorado - 13.7 percent - $4,154\nHonda HR-V - 13.8 percent - $2,885\nJeep Renegade - 14.1 percent - $2,897\nSubaru WRX - 14.2 percent - $4,115\nNot surprisingly, the Jeep Wrangler Unlimited is the slowest depreciating vehicle in one year. One of the many things the Wrangler is famous for is holding its value very well, but it will be interesting to see what happens to the value of used JK Wranglers now that the new JL model is out.\nIt’s interesting that five of the nine slowest depreciating vehicles are body-on-frame trucks and SUVs. It goes to show that the inherent toughness of this old school configuration is still helping trucks and SUVs hold on to their value better than most of their unibody counterparts. Another interesting point is the fact that every car on the list either comes standard or is available with four- or all-wheel drive. It’s also worth noting that the Subaru WRX is the only vehicle on the list that isn't a truck, SUV, or crossover.\nNow here are the top eight cars that lose the most value in one year with the price percentage difference and the amount of money you can expect to save buying used over new.\nCadillac XTS - 38.7 percent - $20,965\nJeep Compass - 34.8 percent - $9,652\nMercedes-Benz E-Class - 34.5 percent - $22,919\nLincoln MKZ - 33.7 percent - $14,328\nCadillac CTS - 33.4 percent - $18,170\nInfiniti Q50 - 32.2 percent - $14,654\nToyota Camry - 30.7 percent - $8,213\nKia Sedona - 30.0 percent - $9,682\nHere we see what happens when a luxury sedan gets a facelift; its value drops off a cliff. That’s what happened to the Cadillac XTS which got a facelift for the 2018 model year. Luxury sedans are generally the fastest depreciating segment and when the new model is refreshed over the previous model year, the value of the old one takes a nosedive. The Jeep Compass and Toyota Camry have been heavily refreshed which explains the plummeting values of the previous models. As for the Sedona, one possible reason for the dip in value is the fact that the current-gen Honda Odyssey and Chrysler Pacifica models are starting to get more common in used lots driving down the value of used Kia minivans.\nIf you’re in the market for any of these cars, consider these lists when deciding whether to buy new or used. Should you bother getting a used HR-V when a new one costs less than $3,000 more? Is that XTS facelift really worth paying an extra $20,000? The choice is yours.", "On March 4, 2018, the 90th Annual Academy Awards will air on ABC, giving us the chance to ooh and aah over all the celebrity red carpet looks (and find out who wins the awards too, of course). In honor of the 2018 Oscars, Wonderwall.com is taking a time machine back to 1998 to see what the hottest celebs were wearing on that very same red carpet two decades ago... starting with Jennifer Lopez. At her second-ever Academy Awards, Jenny from the block (who was still a year away from making her musical debut) chose a bias-cut silver gown with a sheer black overlay featuring a damask design and lace. The wide-open V-neck showed off her decollete, which she accessorized in total '90s style -- with a choker. Keep reading to see more red carpet looks from the 1998 Oscars...\nRELATED: Fashion flashback: Stars at the 2008 Academy Awards", "THOMPSONVILLE — The Betsie Valley District Library will present Gordon Russ the magician next month.\nThis fun comedy magic show will take place at 6 p.m. on May 4 at Betsie Valley Elementary, located at 17936 Cadillac Highway in Thompsonville.\nThe performance is jammed packed with surprises, magic, comedy and fun. Gordon has been working hard to create a show everyone can enjoy. Audience members will come up and join the show.\nThis free program is fun for the whole family. For more information call (231) 378-2716.", "Get Daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email\nOfsted boss Bradley Simmons has warned South Gloucestershire schools need to make huge improvements to keep up with the rest of the region.\nSecondary schools in South Gloucestershire have struggled in recent years, with fewer than half of them rated Good or Outstanding by the education regulator.\nAnd while it remains one of the worst-funded areas in the country, its results at GCSEs leave much to be desired.\nMr Simmons, Ofsted’s regional director for the South West, will address a conference called Tackling the Challenges of Governance in South Gloucestershire in Winterbourne Academy on Saturday, February 3.\nAhead of his keynote speech, he told the Bristol Post the good performance at primary school stage did not translate to its secondary schools.\nIn Ofsted’s annual report in December last year, 93 per cent of children went to Good or Outstanding primary schools – higher than the South West’s and England’s average of 90.\nBut only 46 per cent of children in the area went to Good secondary schools – there are no Outstanding secondaries – among the bottom 10 in the country.\nArea, Primary, Secondary\nBristol, 90, 95\nSouth Gloucestershire, 93, 46\nNorth Somerset, 95, 100\nSouth West, 90, 81\nEngland, 90, 79\nMr Simmons said: “We have got some really strong performance lower down the age range. At the five-years range we have a good level of development.\n“For seven-years South Gloucestershire schools are some of the strongest in the country. There is then a slow down at the top end of the primary school year.\n“There is some issue with maths when pupils get to 11 years old. But we are seeing a really weak performance at the secondary school level for the second year running.\n“Pupils are not making the progress expected of them, and the results – Attainment and Progress – are the second-weakest in the region.”\nAnd while he does not just use results as a sole benchmark, they are important measures.\nBristol v South Glos\nIn terms of Progress 8, only two of the 17 schools – Bradley Stoke and Castle School – were above the national average.\nWith the level of disadvantaged pupils in South Gloucestershire below the national average, and half of Bristol’s, the results are not encouraging.\nIts overall Progress 8 score of -0.32 is well below Bristol’s -0.22.\n“It is really interesting. Ten years ago, Bristol was on the floor in terms of performance, and over time that has grown stronger,” Mr Simmons said.\n“The difference between Bristol and South Gloucestershire over time is that Bristol has really shown a will to keep the family of schools together – whether they are academies or LEA – and they are held to account by people for their performance.”\nHe said the secondary schools in South Gloucestershire were beginning to follow that lead, but urged people to keep schools in check.\nSecondary school table\nWhat is important to note is South Gloucestershire is among the F40 areas – the worst-funded in the country.\nUnion stats put the area as the joint-worst funded area in England, with its per pupil funding among the lowest.\n“We are in difficult times. What is helpful for schools to do is to examine what they are doing with the money,” Mr Simmons said.\n“What we are seeing across South Gloucestershire and across the country is varying performance levels. Here, some schools are doing better than others.\n“Funding is part of the story but what is fundamental is the way leaders use their resources to make sure teaching is as good as possible.”\nAnything good?\nHe believes the brilliant performance from primary schools can translate to South Gloucestershire’s secondary schools in time.\nIn November 2016, Mr Simmons wrote to Swindon Borough Council, headteachers and local MPs to say the town’s schools were failing “at every level”.\nHe believes South Gloucestershire is in a better place.\n“A year and a half ago, I had to write to Swindon because nobody accepted the problem,” he said.\n“In South Gloucestershire, they accept it is a challenge and has started putting together a local school standards board and to hold schools to account for their standards.\n“That is a really positive step. We are beginning to see a change in seeing the local authority understand it has a role in holding these schools to account and making sure academies and schools are doing their very best for the children.”\nCllr Toby Savage, Cabinet Member responsible for schools, said: “Education is one of the key drivers in increasing the social mobility and economic productivity of South Gloucestershire’s future adult population and like Bradley, I too recognise that outcomes for secondary school students must be improved.\n“Work is already underway to raise standards and achievements. A Local School Standards Board has been created and an Education Plan is being drawn up to take this work forward.\n“As well as the successful Strategic School Improvement funding bid announced recently, additional resources to bring about school improvements are set out in the draft council budget which is due to be decided at Cabinet and full Council later this month. There is a lot to be done to improve the current situation in South Gloucestershire but the council is committed to working with schools, Multi Academy Trusts, Ofsted and the Regional Schools Commissioner to make the necessary improvements.”", "And How! features open and innovative formats for notices, articles and posts.\nAs we have seen, Studebaker designer and part time photographer Bob Temple recorded sports car events at the Studebaker Proving Grounds and the Press on Regardless Rally in the early 1950s. Temple also went out west, and was there with Kodachrome for the Palm Springs races on March 22, 1952. Most remarkably, Jim Sitz was there as well and recorded all the cars on his invaluable set of index cards. He was therefore able to identify and comment on the cars and the personalities at the race. Our thanks to both the late Bob Temple and the very much still alive Jim Sitz.\nPhotos by Bob Temple courtesy Vintage Motorphoto\nStory and captions by Jim Sitz\nI had the good fortune to attend the March 22, 1952 event at Palm Springs, California. The photographs were taken by Bob Temple. I also had attended earlier events there in April and October of 1951.\nThe April 1951 event featured Jim Kimberly’s Ferrari 166 Barchetta and a young mechanic named Phil Hill, who drove his old Alfa 2.9. What a car! What a sound! The memory of Hill’s Alfa prompted me to follow his career. Race fans also saw and heard a Ferrari V-12 for first time on west coast.\nOn October 28, 1951, there was a bitter battle between the Barlow SIMCA and the John von Neumann MG Special. Phil Hill’s brother-in-law, Don Parkinson, won in his own Jaguar Special.\nIn 1951, the Cunningham cars, which had run at Le Mans that year, were sold to local California customers. All three team cars were driven across the States in November after Briggs’ shop had reconditioned them. In 1952, Briggs had trouble with the IRS and had to sell some cars to make his operation in Palm Springs look like a real business. Irving Robbins drove a Black Cunningham, which he crashed at Torrey Pines in December.\nMy friend, Jack McAfee, collected three trophies that weekend with the Siata 1400 roadster, the Jag XK 120, and his fast, noisy, supercharged MG Special. The MG was the famous number 88 which John Edgar had spent so much money on. John could have had a Ferrari; he got one later when he bought a 340 America from Henry Manney in 1952. Henry had scared himself in the big Ferrari.\nCelebrities at the Palm Springs Races\nClark Gable was the man who bought the first Jag XK 120 out here (Bogie was not amused to lose out.) Gable was the starter for the 1952 Palm Springs races.\nKeenan Wynn, son of comedian Ed Wynn, had driven his Type 57 Bugatti from New York to Hollywood in 1947. In 1950 he bought an Alfa 2300 from Tommy Lee and ran the first Palm Springs with full body. He made the Alfa into a hot rod with a Cadillac motor, which Tom Bamford drove in 1951 and 1952. Actor Frank Lovejoy was with him at the 1952 event.\nRanald “Randy” MacDougall was a screenwriter who got Oscar for script of Mildred Pierce and shared screenwriting credit for 1963’s Cleopatra. He also directed a number of films, including 1957’s Man on Fire with Bing Crosby. He raced an MG TD and the first OSCA in California, and then 1953 new Ferrari 166/53 Vignale painted red and black. He was married to star Nanette Fabray.", "Rib Round Up\nSaturday, March 3rd at Coral Sky Amphitheatre\nThe biggest country music & rib festival in West Palm Beach\nLive Music with performances by Jake Owen, Kane Brown, Luke Combs, LANco, Cadillac Three and more!\nLawn or seat tickets as low as $30", "SAN ANTONIO - A video showing two men throwing punches and fighting on San Pedro Avenue is the center point of a now-viral social media post that has been seen more than 110,000 times.\nThe nearly six-minute onslaught between the pair was shared on Facebook by Alexandria Sifuentes, who witnessed the street fight. The video captures the moments after she saw one of the men cut another driver off to get to the other man.\n“Before this all happened a block away, we saw the red truck cut off another driver and a pass red light. So when we pulled up, we thought that’s what they were fighting about,” Sifuentes told KSAT.com.\nThe video begins with two unidentified men fighting near an open passenger door of a Cadillac at the intersection of San Pedro Avenue and West Rector Road.\nSifuentes told KSAT.com that the fight occurred on Sunday around 3 p.m. during a busy traffic hour near North Star Mall.\nAfter capturing the entire fight, Sifuentes told KSAT.com that she believes the Cadillac belonged to a man and a woman who are seen in the video getting out of a red Ford truck.\nAccording to Sifuentes, the man and woman claiming to be the car owners told her that they loaned the couple their Cadillac, but it had not been returned to them for days.\nSifuentes told KSAT.com that she was told someone tipped off the owners on where their car would be, and the video captures the moment when they finally spotted their Cadillac on the street.\n“The people in the Cadillac claimed they were in the hospital the whole time, but the people from the red truck weren’t buying that excuse,” Sifuentes told KSAT.com.\nIn the video, the couple from the red truck are seen driving off while the man in the gray muscle shirt is heard telling Sifuentes, “They took our keys.”\n✌🏾☝🏾👌🏾: Did you see this street fight on your way to North Star Mall on Sunday (yesterday)? @ksatnews recieved this video showing two men fighting over keys to the Cadillac. FULL VIDEO & DETAILS ONLY ON https://t.co/Qe3GgszElt➡️ https://t.co/0DtMPhFO3w #KSATnews pic.twitter.com/r5cXSoy7qY — Adrian Garcia (@KSATadrian) March 19, 2018\nAfterward, the man is seen running towards the red truck, then a short time later is seen hanging on to the passenger side while the truck speeds off.\nSifuentes told KSAT.com the man eventually got the keys to the Cadillac back after fighting with the car owner again.\n“By the end of the fight, the guy in the muscle shirt took the keys from the red truck and someone picked them up as they emptied out the Cadillac before the cops came,” Sifuentes told KSAT.com.\nThe video shows the man in the muscle shirt running away from the truck as the car owners run after him while sirens are heard in the background.\nSan Antonio police could not confirm the incident at the time of publishing this story.\nSifuentes said the car owners had to get both their truck and Cadillac towed after police arrived at the scene.\nThe video has collected more than 2,300 shares with nearly 1,000 likes in less than 24 hours since it was posted on Facebook.\nSAN ANTONIO STORY IDEAS & TIPS, EMAIL: [email protected]\nCopyright 2018 by KSAT - All rights reserved.", "Indian film Newton is among a list of a record 92 countries which have submitted films for consideration in the Foreign Language Film category for the 90th Academy Awards, the organisers have announced.\nHaiti, Honduras, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Mozambique, Senegal and Syria are first-time entrants, a statement on the official website of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences said.\nNewton, a Hindi film set against the backdrop of elections in the world’s largest democracy, was last month chosen as India’s official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars 2018.\nDirected by Amit V. Masurkar and starring Rajkummar Rao, was chosen from among 26 titles from different languages by a 14-member jury appointed by the Film Federation of India (FFI). Newton is among a list of a record 92 countries which have submitted films for consideration in the Foreign Language Film category for the 90th Academy Awards, the organisers have announced.\nTrending :\nIt will now compete with high-profile contenders like Angelina Jolie’s “First They Killed My Father” from Cambodia, Michael Haneke’s “Happy End” from Austria, Sebastian Lelio’s “A Fantastic Woman” from Chile, Robin Campillo’s “BPM (Beats Per Minute)” from France, Samuel Maoz’s “Foxtrot” from Israel, Joachim Trier’s “Thelma” from Norway, and Andrey Zvyagintsev’s “Loveless” from Russia.\nNominations for the 90th Academy Awards will be announced on January 23, 2018.\nThe awards ceremony will be held on March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. Newton collected 11.83 crores in its week 1 facing competition from movies like Bhoomi and Haseena Parkar. In its 2nd week, Judwaa 2 did damage Newton‘s stable streak at the box office. The movie has collected 7.09 crores in its week 2. It now stands at the grand total of 18.92 crores.", "Free Price Quote From a Local Dealer Free Price Quote From a View Special Offers\nNo Obligation, Fast & Simple Free New Car Quote Change Car Select Make Acura Alfa Romeo Aston Martin Audi Bentley BMW Buick Cadillac Chevrolet Chrysler Dodge Ferrari FIAT Ford Genesis GMC Honda Hyundai Infiniti Jaguar Jeep Kia Lamborghini Land Rover Lexus Lincoln Lotus Maserati Mazda McLaren Mercedes-Benz MINI Mitsubishi Nissan Porsche Ram Rolls-Royce Scion smart Subaru Tesla Toyota Volkswagen Volvo Select Model A3 A3 e-tron A3 TDI A4 A5 A6 A6 TDI A7 A7 TDI A8 A8 TDI allroad Q2 Q3 Q5 Q5 Hybrid Q5 TDI Q7 R8 RS 7 S3 S4 S5 S6 S7 S8 SQ5 TT TTS GO 1. Vehicle Option Trim Exterior Color No Preference Black Blue Brown Gold Green Orange Red Silver White Yellow Interior Color No Preference Beige Black Blue Gray Green Other Red White Buying Time Frame Within 48 hours Within a week Within two weeks Within a month More than a month Payment Method Undecided Loan Lease Cash Trade In? Yes No 3. Dealer Selection Receive your free dealer pricing information by completing your contact information!\nIngolstadt’s all-new 2018 Audi R8 Spyder V10 Plus is the fastest convertible model from the brand. Like the R8 Plus coupe, the R8 Spyder Plus sports a wailing 5.2-liter V-10 engine that packs 610 hp and 413 lb-ft of torque — an increase of 70 hp and 15 lb-ft over the regular model.\nThe Quattro all-wheel-drive beast’s powerplant is mated to a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. It’ll get you from 0-62 mph in a blistering 3.3 seconds and has a top speed of 203.8 mph, according to Audi.\n“The Audi R8 Spyder V10 plus completes the R8 model line,” said Stephan Winkelmann, Audi managing director, in a statement.\nThe Spyder V10 Plus weighs in at a healthy 3,737 pounds — the same as the regular Spyder and 55.1 pounds less than the coupe, Audi claims. The cloth top is lowered and raised via an electrohydraulic motor that takes 20 seconds to open or close at speeds up to 31.1 mph.\nIt folds into a Z-shape and is stored in a flat compartment over the engine. Audi says the rear window sinks into the bulkhead, but can be retracted and extended electrically.\nIn addition to the 11 standard paint flavors, the top is available in three shades, and the side blades can be specified in five colors.\nThe R8 Spyder Plus’ exclusive new micrommata green paint job gives it a Hulk-like appearance and the optional design package has an anthracite gray single-frame grille and black tailpipe covers. The interior is in all black Nappa leather with green stitching accents on the seats, center armrests, doors, and floor mats.\nAudi says the leather on the bucket seats have a special pigmenting that stops them from heating up in the sun’s rays, which sounds like a big V10 plus for us.\nThe Spyder V10 also gets a large 12.3-inch Audi virtual cockpit and a rockin’ Bang & Olufsen sound system with loudspeakers in the seats — that Audi says can actually be heard over the engine noise with the top down.\nIn addition, optional Audi laser light LED headlights are available and will make you look really freakin’ cool at night.\nOrders are now being accepted and the first cars will be delivered in the late summer. The base price in Germany is about $234,174.\nAudi will announce pricing details for the U.S. when the launch date is finalized here. Stay tuned.\nSource: Audi", "PALO ALTO, CA–(Marketwired – Feb 15, 2017) – Adaptive Insights, the only pure-play cloud vendor to be named a leader in strategic corporate performance management (CPM), today announced record achievements from 2016, capping a year of corporate, partner, and customer milestones for the company and the broader cloud CPM industry. Reaching the $80 million revenue threshold in 2016, Adaptive Insights continued its strong performance in the growing cloud CPM market. Also in 2016, Adaptive Insights was the only cloud-only vendor named a leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Strategic Corporate Performance Management Solutions report*.\n“Our growth and expansion over the past year is a testament to the value our customers realize after adopting an active planning approach for their businesses,” said Tom Bogan, CEO of Adaptive Insights. “As more and more organizations move their infrastructure to the cloud, we are seeing a significant demand for cloud planning solutions that are simultaneously easy to use, powerful, and fast. Today, we have thousands of customers using the Adaptive Suite to engage in a truly collaborative planning process, and we are committed to ensuring that our products and services continue to meet these growing demands as our company continues to scale.”\nKey to the company’s strong performance in 2016 were new customers, ranging from midsize and nonprofit organizations to Fortune 500 organizations. Notable additions to the company’s global customer list in 2016 include Arizona Diamondbacks, Delta Plastics of the South, LLC., Hulu, Inc., National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, NDC Inc., NetMotion Software, New York Mets, Oakland Raiders, and Powdr Corporation.\n“We selected Adaptive Insights because it is fast and powerful, and we successfully implemented Adaptive Insights across our finance team and business partners because it is so intuitive and easy to use,” said Brad MacDonald, senior director of finance, T2 Biosystems. “Our ability to rapidly adjust complex models and make changes to our plans and forecasts in real-time provides a significant competitive advantage for our company. Our finance team is tasked with greater corporate management responsibility and, with Adaptive Insights, we are able to meet these new challenges head on.”\nAdditional 2016 Highlights\nIn addition to strong customer growth, Adaptive Insights achieved significant milestones and accolades in 2016, including:\nExpanding Partner Network\nThe company continues to expand its global partner network, which now boasts five of the top 10 firms on the Inside Public IPA 100 list of top US accounting firms and 22 of Accounting Today’s 2016 VAR 100 list. New partners such as Moss Adams, Grant Thornton LLP, and Clifton Larson Allen, join over 200 partners including Armanino, CohnReznick, Deloitte, Intacct, Miagen, NetSuite, PowerHealth Solutions, and others.\nIndustry Recognition\nThe company’s significant achievements over 2016 recognize both the company’s leadership and pioneering role in the cloud CPM arena. Notable achievements include:\nAdaptive Insights was the only pure-play cloud vendor to be named a Leader in the Gartner Strategic Corporate Performance Management Magic Quadrant*\nAdaptive Insights was named a leader in the Forrester Wave™ Enterprise Performance Management Q4 2016**\nAdaptive Insights was named to the Deloitte Fast 500 Technology list for the sixth consecutive year — one of only three companies to earn this distinction\nAdaptive Insights was named to the first-ever Forbes 2016 World’s Best 100 Cloud Companies list\nExpanded Executive Leadership Team, Board\nOver the past year, Adaptive Insights’ executive leadership team scaled along with the company, completing an expansion plan announced in early 2016. Key hires added throughout 2016 include Jim Johnson, chief financial officer; Bhaskar Himatsingka, chief product officer; Michael Schmitt, chief marketing officer; and Fred Gewant, chief revenue officer, all reporting to Bogan. Additionally, the company appointed Mark Templeton, former Citrix CEO, to its board of directors to provide additional expertise with high-growth, large-scale business models.\nAbout Adaptive Insights\nAdaptive Insights is the recognized leader in cloud corporate performance management (CPM). The company’s Adaptive Suite enables organizations to collaboratively plan and model, easily access real-time analytics, streamline complex reporting, and accelerate financial consolidation. With this best-practice active planning process, Adaptive Insights helps more than 3,000 global customers drive business success using its cloud-based platform.\nCustomers ranging from midsize companies and nonprofits to large enterprises benefit from the company’s powerful, fast, and easy platform. Adaptive Insights is a privately held company with headquarters in Palo Alto, CA. To learn more, visit adaptiveinsights.com.\n*”Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Strategic Corporate Performance Management Solutions,” by Christopher Iervolino and John E. Van Decker, May 31, 2016.\n**”The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Performance Management, Q4 2016″ by Paul D. Hamerman with Christopher Andrews, Joseph Miller, October 6, 2016.", "Wisbech Town 3 Eynesbury Rovers 3\nThe Fenmen needed to come back three times in order to draw their ChromaSport United Counties League Premier Division game on Saturday.\nGoals from Dan Bendon on 30 minutes, Michael Frew (45) and a Danny Setchell penalty (87) sealed a point for the hosts.\nManager Gary Setchell said: “Although we were very disappointed with the goals we conceded and the chances we missed, to come back three times against a very good, well-organised, side shows great character.”\nWisbech are in fifth spot on 42 points from 21 games, 11 points behind but with a game in hand over league leaders Newport Pagnell Town. The Fenmen are just three points off second place Holbeach United.\nWisbech: Bastock, Beck, Bendon, Fairweather, Ford, Frew, Millson, Murphy, Setchell, Tricks, Wilson. Attendance: 129.\nOn Saturday Wisbech travel to 15th-position Cogenhoe United.\nFC Parson Drove 3 Rippingale & Folkingham 1\nThere was a minute’s applause before kick-off held for former Parson Drove player Daniel Markillie, who would have celebrated his 30th birthday on Saturday.\nDaniel was taken 10 years ago this coming January, Daniel’s number 10 shirt was not used for the game as part of the tribute.\nFollowing last week’s 17-0 win, Drove faced stiff opposition in Rippingale, Drove came through the away leg 4-2 victors from 2-0 down and could not take this game lightly.\nBoth sides started steadily and was a bit of a chess match sounding each other out, an early chance did however fall within five minutes to Drove which looked sure to put Drove 1-0 up, the chance however was not converted.\nBoth Drove and Rippingale had good spells of possession but Droves possession was more effective and looking the more dangerous. Rippingale had good periods throughout the first half without hurting the Parson Drove defence.\nDrove got their break-through 25 minutes in through Matty Cawthorn, the goal seemed to settle Parson Drove with Drove starting the play more freely. Rippingale continued to play well but were contained in the final third buy a strong Parson Drove defence.\nDrove created some excellent chances during this period, a McKenna header hitting the bar from a few yards out. A Superb Mckenna Lob where the Rippingale keeper appeared to just get the slightest of touches forcing it wide. McKenna did get his rewards making it 2-0 for Drove on 35 minutes, based on chances was what Drove deserved.\nSecond half Rippingale started the quicker and Drove weathered a good 10 minutes of pressure although still creating chances on the counter attack. It was one of these counter attacks in a well worked move that saw Jermaine Watson break through taking his goal expertly in to the bottom right hand corner.\nRippingale continued to threaten, Callum Summers forced to make a good save and also a good chance missed by the visitors during this period. A loss of footing in the Drove back four saw Rippingale break-through on the hour to reduce the deficit.\nDrove managed the game well from then-on and regained some composure, Drove did create further chances in the second half but did not need to force the game.\nManager Gary Haime said: “I was pleased with the performance as a whole, we were very good in spells”\n“Rippingale are a good side, a good forward line and a superb central midfielder who we didn’t quite get hold of all game”\n“We were good for the three points, we created the better chances and looked the more dangerous in the final third however there wasn’t much in the overall game, I feel we had the more effective possession”\n“The six points we have taken from Rippingale will prove to be big points, they will most certainly be taking points off of the other top sides in the Division.”\nCambs League 3B\nCottenham United Reserves 1\nWisbech Town Acorns 3\nWisbech Town Acorns moved into second place ahead of next weeks top of the table clash against The Eagle with a 3-1 away win at Cottenham.\nAcorns enjoyed the perfect start after Daniel Short rose highest to nod Home Keiron Tadgell’s corner to put the visitors 1-0 up inside 10 minutes.\nThe home side enjoyed more of the ball for the next 30 mins or so, but wasted opportunities to play the ball through the thirds by kicking long. It was Acorns who scored next following Cory Collins closing down the Home team keeper to take the ball five yards out and score his first goal for the club.\nWithin five minutes of the restart Acorns essentially put the game to bed after a Matthew Thomas free kick found the top corner to go 3-0 up.\nUnfortunately, the visitors put a blot on their record for this game, conceding a goal with 15 mins remaining, but held out to take all 3 Points.\nManager, Karl Schultz, said: “We were missing a few key regulars from the squad this week. But those who came into the starting line up did really well and have given me a selection headache for next week already! The strength in depth of this squad is fantastic and we’re all looking forward to next weeks top of the table match against The Eagle.”\nResults Saturday, December 9\nKershaw Premier: Chatteris Town v Great Shelford postponed.\nSenior B: March Town United Res 4 Royston A 2; Witchford 96 v Wisbech St Mary Res P-P.\nMead Plant & Grab 1B: Fenstanton v Chatteris Tn Res P-P.\n2B: Soham United R v Doddington United P-P; Wimblington 2 Wisbech St Mary A 2.\n3B: Cottenham United R 1 Wisbech Town Acorns 3; The Eagle 5 Benwick Ath 4; Wisbech St M B v Guyhirn P-P.\n4B: Ely Cru’s R v Chatteris T A P-P; Huntingdon U R 5 Wimblington Res 0; March Rangers Res 3 Coldham Utd 2; Outwell Sw’s Res v Wisbech T Acs Res P-P.\n5B: Benwick Ath Res v Littleport T R Away Walkover; Chatteris Fen T Res v Marchester Utd P-P; Coldham U Res v Wicken P-P; March Soccer Academy 1 St Ives Rgs R 1.\nChromaSport Peterborough League\nPremier Division: Leverington Sports v Pbro Sports Res P-P; Sutton Bridge U v ICA P-P.\nDivision One: Peterborough Polonia 1 Tydd St Mary 5 (Stuart Brown, Jake Clitheroe 4).\nDivision Two: FC Parson Drove 3 Rippingale & Folkingham 1.\nDivision Three: Leverington Sports Res v Holbeach Bk P-P.\nDivision Four: Long Sutton Res v Parkside P-P; Tydd St Mary Res v FC Peterborough R P-P.\nDivision Five: FC Peterborough A v Leverington A P-P. 5B: Hampton FC 2 FC Parson Drove Res 3.\nPFA Senior Cup: Thorney v Long Sutton Ath P-P.\n3-2 PD Res\nChristopher McAree (20 minutes), Robbie Harris (40) and Robert Eves (75),", "Reaches $80 Million Revenue Mark, Achieves Growth Recognition as Global Enterprises Adopt Cloud Planning Solutions\nPALO ALTO, CA--(Marketwired - Feb 15, 2017) - Adaptive Insights, the only pure-play cloud vendor to be named a leader in strategic corporate performance management (CPM), today announced record achievements from 2016, capping a year of corporate, partner, and customer milestones for the company and the broader cloud CPM industry. Reaching the $80 million revenue threshold in 2016, Adaptive Insights continued its strong performance in the growing cloud CPM market. Also in 2016, Adaptive Insights was the only cloud-only vendor named a leader in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Strategic Corporate Performance Management Solutions report*.\n\"Our growth and expansion over the past year is a testament to the value our customers realize after adopting an active planning approach for their businesses,\" said Tom Bogan, CEO of Adaptive Insights. \"As more and more organizations move their infrastructure to the cloud, we are seeing a significant demand for cloud planning solutions that are simultaneously easy to use, powerful, and fast. Today, we have thousands of customers using the Adaptive Suite to engage in a truly collaborative planning process, and we are committed to ensuring that our products and services continue to meet these growing demands as our company continues to scale.\"\nKey to the company's strong performance in 2016 were new customers, ranging from midsize and nonprofit organizations to Fortune 500 organizations. Notable additions to the company's global customer list in 2016 include Arizona Diamondbacks, Delta Plastics of the South, LLC., Hulu, Inc., National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, NDC Inc., NetMotion Software, New York Mets, Oakland Raiders, and Powdr Corporation.\n\"We selected Adaptive Insights because it is fast and powerful, and we successfully implemented Adaptive Insights across our finance team and business partners because it is so intuitive and easy to use,\" said Brad MacDonald, senior director of finance, T2 Biosystems. \"Our ability to rapidly adjust complex models and make changes to our plans and forecasts in real-time provides a significant competitive advantage for our company. Our finance team is tasked with greater corporate management responsibility and, with Adaptive Insights, we are able to meet these new challenges head on.\"\nAdditional 2016 Highlights\nIn addition to strong customer growth, Adaptive Insights achieved significant milestones and accolades in 2016, including:\nExpanding Partner Network\nThe company continues to expand its global partner network, which now boasts five of the top 10 firms on the Inside Public IPA 100 list of top US accounting firms and 22 of Accounting Today's 2016 VAR 100 list. New partners such as Moss Adams, Grant Thornton LLP, and Clifton Larson Allen, join over 200 partners including Armanino, CohnReznick, Deloitte, Intacct, Miagen, NetSuite, PowerHealth Solutions, and others.\nIndustry Recognition\nThe company's significant achievements over 2016 recognize both the company's leadership and pioneering role in the cloud CPM arena. Notable achievements include:\nAdaptive Insights was the only pure-play cloud vendor to be named a Leader in the Gartner Strategic Corporate Performance Management Magic Quadrant*\nAdaptive Insights was named a leader in the Forrester Wave™ Enterprise Performance Management Q4 2016**\nAdaptive Insights was named to the Deloitte Fast 500 Technology list for the sixth consecutive year -- one of only three companies to earn this distinction\nAdaptive Insights was named to the first-ever Forbes 2016 World's Best 100 Cloud Companies list\nExpanded Executive Leadership Team, Board\nOver the past year, Adaptive Insights' executive leadership team scaled along with the company, completing an expansion plan announced in early 2016. Key hires added throughout 2016 include Jim Johnson, chief financial officer; Bhaskar Himatsingka, chief product officer; Michael Schmitt, chief marketing officer; and Fred Gewant, chief revenue officer, all reporting to Bogan. Additionally, the company appointed Mark Templeton, former Citrix CEO, to its board of directors to provide additional expertise with high-growth, large-scale business models.\nAbout Adaptive Insights\nAdaptive Insights is the recognized leader in cloud corporate performance management (CPM). The company's Adaptive Suite enables organizations to collaboratively plan and model, easily access real-time analytics, streamline complex reporting, and accelerate financial consolidation. With this best-practice active planning process, Adaptive Insights helps more than 3,000 global customers drive business success using its cloud-based platform.\nCustomers ranging from midsize companies and nonprofits to large enterprises benefit from the company's powerful, fast, and easy platform. Adaptive Insights is a privately held company with headquarters in Palo Alto, CA. To learn more, visit adaptiveinsights.com.\n*\"Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Strategic Corporate Performance Management Solutions,\" by Christopher Iervolino and John E. Van Decker, May 31, 2016.\n**\"The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Performance Management, Q4 2016\" by Paul D. Hamerman with Christopher Andrews, Joseph Miller, October 6, 2016.", "CYPRESS – The CIF-SS semifinal banners from 2016 and 2017 that hang high in the Oxford Academy gymnasium tell visitors all they need to know about the school’s girls basketball team.\nThe Patriots’ mantra is making the CIF finals or bust, and they continued to play with that mentality Friday night.\nBefore a deafening homecoming crowd, Oxford Academy used it press and fast break to race past rival Whitney of Cerritos 66-25 and improve to an Orange County-best 23-1 overall.\nOxford Academy (23-1, 10-0), a highly-academic public school in the Anaheim Union High School District, also clinched its third consecutive Academy League title and strengthened its grip on the top ranking in Division 3-A.\n“Winning CIF, that’s always the goal,” said senior Sophia Chan, who scored a game-high 19 points, including the 1,000th of her four-year career at Oxford.\nChan, sister of Fairmont Prep’s Brittaney Chan, also recorded five of the Patriots’ 20 steals, which fueled the fast break against Whitney (6-4 in league). Angie Gagnon added six.\nCenter Austyn Masuno, a 6-foot-2 junior who helped turn around the program three years ago, attracted extra defenders early but broke free to score 13 points on 6-of-13 shooting from the floor. She added 12 rebounds, two blocks and two steals.\nGagnon scored 12 points. Brianna Rodriguez added eight points and eight rebounds and emerging freshman point guard Angie Choi and Mylee Madrazo each scored seven.\nOxford Academy’s only loss came in a 95-56 decision against No. 2-ranked Brea Olinda in the Larry Doyle tournament. The Patriots won their division at the Ocean View tournament, captured their own tournament and hold victories against top teams such as Kennedy and Edison.\nFour years ago, Oxford Academy was 0-24.\n“I’m excited for this team,” Oxford third-year coach David Clifton said. “We have the team that can make the run. We’ve worked very hard but fallen short the last two years in the semifinals. … I hung that banner up (from last year) just to tell the girls: it’s just not enough. Our goal is the ring.”", "Asian Market Update Trump campaign staff alleged to be in contract w/ Russian security officials Asia Mid-Session Market Update: Indices rise again as Yellen threads the needle on gradual rate increase expectations; Australia Consumer Confidence further builds the case for higher rates; Trump campaign staff alleged to be in contract w/ Russian security officials US Session Highlights (US) JAN PPI FINAL DEMAND M/M: 0.6% V 0.3%E; Y/Y: 1.6% V 1.5%E (US) Fed's Lacker (hawk, non-voter): significantly higher rates are warranted; next hike should come sooner rather than later - comments in Delaware (US) Fed Chair Yellen: waiting too long to tighten would be unwise; more policy adjustments will likely be needed if the economy remains on track - semi-annual testimony (US) Fed Chair Yellen: ultimately want to shrink our balance sheet, will eventually be substantially smaller, but can't put a number on it - Senate testimony Q&A GM rises on talk of offloading European unit US markets on close: Dow +0.5%, S&P500 +0.4%, Nasdaq +0.3% Best Sector in S&P500: Financials Worst Sector in S&P500: Utilities Biggest gainers: COTY +4.9%, GM +4.8%, ENDP +4.6%, UA +4.1%, NFX +4.0% Biggest losers: FLIR -6.2%, SCG -4.5%, ALB -3.8%, MU -3.3%, APA -2.9% At the close: VIX 10.7 (-0.3pts); Treasuries: 2-yr 1.24% (+3bps), 10-yr 2.47% (+4bps), 30-yr 3.06% (+3bps) US movers afterhours SEDG: Reports Q2 $0.32 v $0.31e, R$111.5M v $115Me; Guides Q3 Rev $110-120M v $110Me, gross margin 31-33%; +6.2% afterhours CCS: Reports Q4 $0.71 v $0.67e, R$292.4M v $273Me; Guides initial FY17 Home deliveries 3.0-3.3K, Rev $1.0-1.2B v $1.09Be; +3.9% afterhours PG: Reportedly Trian (Peltz) has built a $3.5B position(1.5% stake); have not contacted PG management yet - CNBC; +3.0% afterhours SIRI: Berkshire Hathaway discloses stake; +2.5% afterhours PBPB: Reports Q4 $0.15 v $0.07e, R$102.4M v $102Me; Guides initial FY17 $0.45-0.47 v $0.45e, Company-operated SSS flat y/y; +2.4% afterhours DVN: Reports Q4 $0.25 ex-items v $0.19e, R$3.35B v $2.76Be; +1.0% afterhours AIG: Reports Q4 $0.84 (adj for $3.56 in prior year adverse reseve) v $1.24e, Commercial insurance net premiums written $3.70B v $4.64B y/y; -4.5% afterhours LC: Reports Q4 -$0.02 v -$0.03e, R$129.2M v $122Me; Guides Q1 Net -$43M to -$38M, R$117-122M v $135Me, adj EBITDA -$10M to -$5M; -6.8% afterhours FOSL: Reports Q4 $1.03 v $1.21e, R$959M v $972Me; Guides Q1 GAAP -$0.25 to -$0.10 v +$0.07e, Rev -11.5 to -8% y/y v $654Me; -14.8% afterhours Politics (US) Members of Donald Trump's presidential campaign and his other associates said to have had repeated contact with members of Russian intelligence in the year before the election - NY Times (US) President Trump hopes to pick new National Security Adviser by the end of the week - press citing WH spokesperson Asia Key economic data: (CN) CHINA JAN NEW YUAN LOANS (CNY): 2.03T V 2.44TE (2nd highest on record) (CN) CHINA JAN AGGREGATE FINANCING (CNY): 3.74T V 3.00TE (CN) CHINA JAN M2 MONEY SUPPLY Y/Y: 11.3% V 11.3%E; M1 MONEY SUPPLY Y/Y: 14.5% V 20.2%E (AU) AUSTRALIA FEB WESTPAC CONSUMER CONFIDENCE INDEX: 99.6 V 97.4 PRIOR, M/M: 2.3% V +0.1%PRIOR (KR) South Korea Jan Unemployment Rate: 3.6% v 3.5%e Asia Session Notable Observations, Speakers and Press Asia equity indices remaining bid, tracking the rebound in the 2nd half of trade on Wall St. Fed Chair Yellen's congressional testimony, though somewhat hawkish, did not sway markets sufficiently that the Fed is gearing up for a March rate hike. Fed funds futures still see that probability below 20% and the outlook for higher rates in May at 40%. US rates did tick higher while USD advanced in US hours. Nikkei225 among the best performing indices again as USD/JPY pair solidifies its gains above 114. Other USD majors in narrow ranges in the absence of key data in the Asia session. Political controversy for US President Trump continues its steady trickle with NY Times reporting that campaign staff and other associates were in contract with members of Russian intelligence in the year before the election. FBI investigation is ongoing, and neither the alleged campaign sources nor the content of communications have been revealed. In China, economic data out overnight saw very strong lending figures, though analysts are again reminded the results may be skewed by the timing of the Lunar New Year coming a month earlier than last time. Separately, a commerce ministry official warned that trade sector still faces risks of soft external demand and potential rise in protectionism. Australia Westpac Consumer data followed yesterday's strong NAB business confidence with an uptick, revealing that well over 50% of households are now anticipating rates to go higher in the near term. Japan's Abe and Aso expressed confidence that Washington understands Japan monetary policy as it pertains to its currency, and that it is not deliberately manipulating exchange rates. China: (CN) China Commerce Ministry (MOFCOM) official Wang Dongtang: Uncertainties and unstable factors in China trade are still increasing - China Daily (CN) China Machinery Industry Federation: 2017 growth of value-added industrial output may slow to 7% from 9.6% in 2016 - Chinese press (CN) China Index Academy: Jan property sales in China fell 36.7% m/m in terms of floor space - Chinese press (CN) Shanghai regulators said to hold a meeting on SOE reforms this Thursday - Chinese press Japan: (JP) Bank of Japan (BOJ) Gov Kuroda: Still a long way to hit price target; Not thinking about raising target rates now (JP) Japan Chief Cabinet Sec Suga: Expect Spring wage talks to be at least at last year's levels (JP) Japan Fin Min Aso: Want to tell US Treasury Sec Mnuchin that cannot call JPY weak now ; JPY is not at ¥120 level when Lehman collapsed - press (JP) Japan PM Abe: Gained Pres Trump's understanding that monetary policy is not currency manipulation; Hopes to see good progress on Japan and US talks by mid-term election Australia/New Zealand: (AU) Latest Westpac consumer confidence data shows that 60% of households in Australia are preparing for interest rates to rise - AFR Asian Equity Indices/Futures (00:00ET) Nikkei +1.1%, Hang Seng +1.3%, Shanghai Composite +0.4%, ASX200 +0.9%, Kospi +0.4% Equity Futures: S&P500 flat; Nasdaq flat; Dax +0.1%; FTSE100 +0.1% FX ranges/Commodities/Fixed Income (00:00ET) EUR 1.0565-1.0585; JPY 114.20-114.50; AUD 0.7655-0.7680; NZD 0.7150-0.7180 Apr Gold +0.1% at $1,227/oz; Mar Crude Oil -0.6% at $52.86/brl; Mar Copper +0.1% at $2.75/lb (US) Weekly API Oil Inventories: Crude: +9.9M (4th straight build) v +14.2M prior GLD: SPDR Gold Trust ETF receives Sharia-compliant certification - press (CN) China sells CNY in 5-yr Govt bonds; avg yield 3.0293% v 3.04%e; bid-to-cover 2.04x (CN) PBOC SETS YUAN MID POINT AT 6.8632 V 6.8806 PRIOR; Biggest CNY increase in 3 weeks; Strongest Yuan setting since Feb 7th (CN) PBoC said to have injected funds through mdium term lending facility loans (MLF) (KR) BOK sells KRW2.5T 2-yr monetary stabilization bonds at 1.61% v 1.64% prior Asia equities / Notables / movers by sector Consumer discretionary: 1055.HK China Southern Airlines Co +2.3% (Jan result); DMP.AU Domino & Pizza Enterprises -14.3% (H1 result) Consumer staples: SWM.AU Seven West Media -5.8% (H1 result); 4324.JP Dentsu +9.5% (FY16 result) Financials: CPU.AU Computershare +4.8% (guidance); 8136.JP Sanrio Co. -3.1% (9-month result); CBA.AU Commonwealth Bank of Australia +2.3% (H1 result) Industrials: 1803.JP Shimizu +4.1% (9-month result); BLD.AU Boral Ltd +6.4% (H1 result); 5110.JP Sumitomo Rubber Industries -7.4% (FY16 result); 6326.JP Kubota Corp -1.9% (FY16 result); 4631.JP DIC Corp +10.1% (FY16 result) Technology: 6502.JP Toshiba Corporation -8.6% (earnings release delay and govt probe) Materials: SGM.AU Sims Metal -1.5% (guidance); PDN.AU Paladin Energy -5.0% (H1 result); ORA.AU Orora -1.7% (H1 result); MGX.AU Mount Gibson Iron +3.7% (H1 result); 5105.JP Toyo Tire & Rubber Co +9.9% (FY16 result) Energy: ORG.AU Energy -0.9% (guidance); 1088.HK China Shenhua Energy Co +1.5% (Jan result); 5002.JP Showa Shell -2.8% (FY16 result) Healthcare: CSL.AU CSL Limited +3.0% (H1 result); SHL.AU Sonic Healthcare +0.4% (H1 result); PRY.AU Primary Health Care -12.1% (guidance)", "Once again this weekend sees a mixture of competitions being played for in South football.\nHowever the South Regional Cup second round takes preference with four of the ties involving local teams.\nDalbeattie Star travel to play Civil Service Strollers in the Capital with a good chance of progressing while two South sides in the form of Threave Rovers and Mid Annandale lock horns at Castle Douglas for a contest that present form would suggest a victory for the home side.\nThe South sides involved in the other two ties will both do well to return home with anything as Upper Annandale and Creetown travel to square up to the more fancied Vale of Leithen and Whitehall Welfare respectively.\nThere is one South League Cup second round tie being played with Abbey Vale playing hosts to Lochmaben. In the three South of Scotland League matches being played the match at Maxwelltown High School between Lochar Thistle and Newton Stewart looks like it could be the match of the day as both attempt to keep up the table top challenge with Heston Rovers.\nStranraer have St Cuthbert Wanderers as their visitors to Stair Park for a contest that could go close while Nithsdale Wanderers entertain Bonnyton Thistle at Sanquhar.\nOn Wednesday evening there are four league matches scheduled to be played with Bonnyton Thistle having Lochar Thistle as their visitors to Kilmarnock. Dumfries YMCA and Abbey Vale play each other in a match that Vale are expected to take the points from while Lochmaben will start as slight favourites to record a victory in Lockerbie when they play hosts to Nithsdale Wanderers. Creetown travel along the A75 to play the improving Threave Rovers and although the Ferrytoon side are proving to be formidable opposition the Meadow Park side are expected to take the three points from this encounter.\nFixtures\nSaturday 11th November 2017\nSouth of Scotland League\nAll kickoffs at 2pm unless otherwise stated\nLochar Thistle v Newton Stewart\nNithsdale Wanderers v Bonnyton Thistle\nStranraer v St Cuthbert Wanderers kick off 3pm\nSouth League Cup round two\nAbbey Vale v Lochmaben kickoff at 1pm\nSouth SFA Regional Challenge Cup (South) round two\nBSC Glasgow v East Stirling kickoff at 3pm\nCivil Service Strollers v Dalbeattie Star kickoff at 1.30pm\nEdusport Academy v Spartans kickoff 3pm\nLeith Athletic v Edinburgh University kickoff at 3pm\nLothian Thistle Hutchison Vale v Tynecastle kickoff at 2.30pm\nThreave Rovers v Mid Annandale kickoff at 3pm\nVale of Leithen v Upper Annandale kickoff at 1.30pm\nWhitehall Welfare v Creetown kickoff at 1.30pm\nWednesday 15th November 2017\nSouth of Scotland League\nAll kick offs at 7.30pm\nBonnyton Thistle v Lochar Thistle\nDumfries YMCA v Abbey Vale\nLochmaben v Nithsdale Wanderers\nThreave Rovers v Creetown" ]

[ "A demanding child may want all of your attention all of the time, which can be exhausting! If you have a demanding preschooler, sit down and talk to them in age-appropriate speech about demands and requests." ]

[ "Dealing with boys can be stressful. Keeping your preschool son from killing himself can feel like a full-time job. As a teacher, trying to handle a mixed classroom of boys and girls can seem like an impossible task.", "Preschool can be a large transition for a child, so make sure you and your child are prepared for the change. Get them ready by giving them as much information about preschool as possible.", "Helping your child adjust to preschool can be a positive experience if you take the time to plan the transition, have patience with your child and are willing to be flexible.", "Preschoolers are energetic, creative, and often excited. It can be a challenge for them to sit in the car for long periods of time. However, choosing the right entertainment goes a long way in making your trip go more smoothly.", "Almost all preschoolers go through a name-calling stage. Some kids are looking for attention when they taunt others, while others are just parroting things they’ve heard other people say.", "If you are a coach for preschool gymnastics, targeting the appropriate vault exercises for three and four-year-olds can be challenging. This article provides guidance for organizing exercises that will benefit the preschoolers.", "Providing for your child's needs, while also managing their wants, can be a real challenge. If you give in to every single whim and desire that they have, you might find yourself dealing with a spoiled brat.", "Whether you are just opening a new preschool or are looking for additional students, there are a number of methods to market your preschool, many of theme inexpensive or even free.", "Children can be quite a handful sometimes. Managing them and their personalities becomes a stressful job for any parent when they do not oblige or comply with their responsibilities.", "Raising a child can be no easy task. There are plenty of things to take care of, everything from what preschool he or she should attend to finding a pediatrician.", "Most of the people in India get attracted to the preschool business for the simple reason that it provides easy money, but it is important to be ethical and not start a preschool just for the sake of money.", "Most of the preschool teachers, preschool consultants, administrators and principals want to build their own preschool curriculum. Here we are guiding you through an easy way to build your own preschool curriculum.", "Preschool is the first of many \"away from your child\" moments that parents will experience. Being the first school experience in your child's life, it's not an easy nor fast decision maker.", "Being a preschool teacher can be very rewarding, both financially and personally, if you love helping children. By gaining the necessary education and work experience, you can be preschool teacher in a relatively short amount of time.", "At times, no matter how much you love and care about a child, he may get annoying. Constant pestering, screaming, whining and simply being bratty are the sorts of behaviors likely to trigger your impatience and quite a few headaches.", "A preschool classroom needs to be educational, safe, and engaging. While some aspects differ depending on different state and country licensing regulations, most areas that should be addressed are universal.", "Creating a successful forecast demand ensures that you have enough inventory for the upcoming sales period. A demand forecast looks at sales data from the past to determine the consumer demand in the future.", "If you are the parent of guardian of an infant or toddler, you are probably already thinking about preschool. Selecting a preschool can be a daunting prospect for parents and caretakers, but most communities have resources to help you find the best school for your child.", "Anyone that’s ever asked a toddler to wait knows what a delicate situation it can be. This may start out good, but before you know what happened you’ve got an impatient toddler having an embarrassing tantrum on the floor.", "A demand letter is a formal letter written to demand a particular action by another party. They are usually written to demand money from a person or business, or to your landlord asking for your security deposit back.", "Qualified plumbers are always in demand. Residential specialists work in customers' homes, handling the full range of plumbing emergencies. Commercial plumbers are often trained to install and repair large pipes and fixtures in office buildings and hotels.", "Preschool toys can be as simple as a set of blocks or as advanced as an electronic handheld learning game. Whatever shape they take, preschool toys should be safe, age appropriate, and developmentally supportive.", "Dealing with a difficult child can be one of the hardest things to handle in life. Whether it is your child or the child of a friend or relative, knowing how to deal with a difficult child can be very tricky.", "A child acting out, having a tantrum or becoming uncontrollable can be a frustrating and scary situation to be in. You are responsible for remaining calm and keeping safety as a top priority.", "Wouldn’t be great if little kids would always listen? If you are used to dealing with young children, you know that sometimes, getting a child to practice good behavior can feel like an uphill battle.", "Choosing to homeschool your preschooler is a great way to be directly involved in your child’s education. You are able to control what your child learns and how they learn it.", "Do you feel like you have to repeat yourself three, four, or five times for your kid to listen to you? While it can be frustrating to deal with kids who don't follow your instructions, stay calm and avoid taking it personally.", "If you’re interested in bringing a dog home to join your family, deciding between a puppy and an adult dog is an important first step. Puppies typically need much more attention and hands-on training than matured adults, so assume an adult dog is for you until you are absolutely certain you can handle a demanding puppy.", "Basketball is a physically demanding sport that requires a certain level of physical and mental preparedness. It also demands a heightened level of organization and time management.", "There are a number of different preschool curricula available, but all must be tailored to an individual teacher's style and personality. While some preschool teachers are expected to follow the curriculum designed by another, others have the freedom to create their own.", "Disciplining methods for older children are quite different. You can't treat children like babies,toddlers,and/or preschoolers, but that doesn't mean older kids can't be disciplined.", "One of the best ways to learn about the world is to perform hands-on experiments. One popular preschool experiment is a bean dissection and observation experiment." ]

[ "calm down! it will be ok. i hate presenting too and i get really nervous and get the sweaty palms and everything. but i usually concentrate on what i have to say and hoping that i dont screw it up.hope i helped!" ]

[ "well it depends on the job that will determine what type of presentation it will be. however, you could prepare an outline of what it is you will be discussing, then perhaps put it in written form exactly what it is you will be saying and then practice, in front of a mirror and in front of family/friends. hope this helps!!", "I'm not sure why people think you hate America by your posted question. I Don't like the war. I don't think we should be trying to take care of problems other people have when we have enough of our own. But I don't hate America or the Military. The men and women over seas are doing what they think is best and doing thier job. Just because people disagree with what is going on doesn't mean they hate America. That is the great thing about this Country we can speak our mind and say what we think. People need to remember that is what this country is all about FREEDOM! So what ever it is that you want to say everyone else needs to get over it. If they don't like it don't read it!!", "What is it that causes these nerves? You know you can do it, you know that after a few mins in front of them you will be fine, in fact it sounds like you are quite brilliant. Try not talking about your topic in the first few mins, chat to somewone in the front row about their weekend and use that time to set yourself up. ppl will give you a couple of mins to set up and showing an interest in a person will add cudos to your presence. You will know you are out front, ppl will be looking at you but your nerves will only be visible if at all to the person you are talking to. Or have a piece of info that is relevant to the group and read it out. take refuge in the words. It may be a little boring to have a presenter read however if you can then use that info in the presentation they will forget how it was delivered and focus on what you are now doing.", "The first thing to do is make sure your know all the materials you presenting, be confident since they are your peers whom you speak to at work every day, just think that you are teaching them how to do (what the presentation is all about) and do not give too much eye contact on one person, just look around the room often and do not look at the ceiling or the floor because that will give it away that you are nervous. Bottom line look at it as if you are teaching your peers your favorite subject.", "What do I Think? \\n1) Illegal is a felony \\n2) Why should it be OK to cut in front of line \\n\\n People that do come here legally go though the process to be come a citizen usually takes 5 years. And now it should be OK to be an illegal and cut in front of all these people that didn't brake the law.", "Just show them what and who you are, be yourself. It's important to show them who you are, because its much more fun working in an atmosphere where you know you are accepted for who and what you are. answer their questions thoroughly and honestly, if you don't know the answer to a question, just say you cant answer the question, but you'll look in to it. Good luck. Sometimes you'll be more appreciated by your honesty then the fact that you don't know the answer to the question at the time? It's my opinion. I don't say that it is always working out that way.", "i've been speaking in front of groups for 25 years. What works best for me are:\\n\\n - Practice speech ahead of time\\n - Always use questions in talks (brings audience into presentation)\\n\\nIf this is not a formal presentation, and you're just meeting some people for networking, I always practice ahead of time points of discussion. I usually avoid politics and religion.\\n Fair game are sports, what do you do for a living?, do you have children? I use a little mnemonic\\n\\n F - family (have kids? what does spouse do?)\\n O - occupation (what do u do for living?)\\n R - recreation (what do u do for fun? tennis?...)\\n M - motivation (what excites you? movies? ...)\\n\\ngood luck\\nted", "Start by doing it in a mirror, I know sounds silly but if you can watch your self then getting up in front of others is easy. After that, I would go with a lot of mental stuff, try to picture the crowd, and then give your speech. Once you really feel good about that, invite some friends and family over and do it in front of them.", "it'd be a difficult task for anyone if they had to refrain from speaking to people about things at any given moment but even the best known speakers in the world had a time when they were nervous. Since there is no way to avoid this here is what I suggest:\\n\\nFIrst start reading your presentation out loud to yourself, to get familar with your content the biggest fear you are likely to have is not saying the word right or stumbling and looking foolish which you don't want. Then practice in front of a mirror, then family, then close friends. When the time to go up to speak, take several deep breaths and plan your walk to the podium, this seems like something someone should know but when you only have it in your mind to walk up to the podium and speak people don't watch were they are going and sometimes bump into something around the area and that can be a bit embarassing. Just remember it's just a report, speak well, let your eyes wander around the room and be cool:)", "Essays allow you to go back and change something so you sound like you know what you're writing about. It's easier to get all of your thoughts and ideas down on a piece of paper and have time to sort them out. An oral presentation is only good for someone who doesn't mind public speaking. Even a well-prepared person can sound like a complete idiot during a presentation if he/she hates being in front of people.", "Well, I don't know why, but they shouldn't. Just because people are curious doesn't mean we should make fun of them. I HATE people who do that. So what if the question is weird? Keep it to yourself.", "Ditch him once when he has to make an important presentation to his boss. I have a similar situation in office..there's a guy who steals what I do and presents the same to the top management. Once when I was doing some research he asked enquiring I explained in the same style and taught him a few wrong concepts. He made a presentation and I was also part of it. I asked him a few queries and he looked like a fool in front of the crowd. \\nOther was to do it is mark a bcc to the top management", "PRACTICE.\\n\\nI recommend doing a mock presentation and making sure you have everything down exactly as you want it, including timing, eye contact, etc.\\n\\nAlso if you want a long term improvement, you should join ToastMasters, an organization that will help you in this department. Try: http://www.toastmasters.org/", "you should talk about something you like and you are good at (for example a hobby) or about an issue that really interests you. this way you won't run out of ideas and won't make embarrassing pauses.and try imagining the audience in underwear,it works :)good luck", "I agree that killing is the last thing we should be doing. Ideally, most political problems should be solved by diplomacy. At present, the world situation has gotten so bad, that it's hard to get people to sit down together and think rationally. There are so many hidden agendas, concerning religion and business. Let us hope that the people we elect to solve world problems will continue to have successes, and be able to prevent the daily killings we all hate so much.", "I don't hate people but i do hate their deeds.", "not at all..but i think you should if you want to and you have REALLY thought about it.. i hate the idea of 18 year old girls getting nose jobs as a graduation present.", "If you don't want to tell them then show it to them. Do things that you wouldn't normally do for another person. Be nice to them and show them that you care.", "Concentrate on what you have to say\\nand not how you think you look saying it.\\nPRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE. When you\\nbegin, like a pitcher on the mound,\\ntake a breath, and put everything into\\nthe delivery. Think ONLY about what you\\nhave to say and try to say it as sincerely\\nas you can without overdoing voice or \\ngestures. Look at the audience, but only\\nto convince them. And just like a pitcher\\non the mound, the more you do it, the easier\\nit gets.", "Eat a little something about an hour before your presentation - you don't want to pass out from low blood sugar due to your anxiety first of all. \\n\\nSecond, practice some breathing and relaxing exercises before your speech. Take a slow deep breath in with the nose, slow exhale from the mouth. Then do several mouth exercises - say the vowels A,E,I,O,U with very exaggerated facial muscle use - stretching each one as far as you can while saying them out loud. This will relax the facial muscles that you will use to speak as well as smile.\\n\\nForcing a smile, even when you don't feel it on the inside, really can improve your mood. \\n\\nDon't look directly at the people you are speaking to. Look just above their heads - they will not realize you are not actually looking at them.\\n\\nTry to relax. People are just people. To put it bluntly, we all still sit on the toilet, barf when we're sick, blow boogers out of our noses, do stupid things, have problems at home, etc. etc. etc. Don't ever put anyone on a pedestal, no matter who they are - it's easier to speak to people when you realize they are not above you.", "Talk. If you just smile and stare people will wonder about you. In your mind, make talking an art form. Eventually, you will speak beautifully.", "You should wear a color. White and/or black is hard to pull off, depending on the lighting, because it can make you look either paler or darker then normal. It depends on your skin tone on what color you should wear though. Also under harsh lights white seems see through. \\n\\nTry different colors on...and pick the one that makes your face, especially mouth and eyes, stand out. That way your expressions can be seen clearly and add to your presentation. But keep your outfit simple, anything glitzy will distract from the star of your presentation...YOU!!", "first of all be youself...don be scared what you are.Most ppl are scared of what they are and they tend to lie..and u kno what they say \"a lie leads to another lie\"..and soon they will find out.You must have some particular hobbies and likes and dislikes..highlight them\\n\\nYou must be having some dreams u aspire to become.If you really want to become what you want to become then start working on it from day 1.\\n\\nWith all sorts of experieces from your past life (that includes all the difficulties you been through) can ultimately reveal your real talent..with that you can realize your desire\\n\\nPS:umm this sorta like a speech but you can add points frm this to ur presentation", "Honestly there is no easy fix for this. You just have to put yourself in a situation where you have to talk. If you are really that uncomfortable with it and you are in school consider taking the dreaded speech class. It will force you to get up and talk in front of people. The best way to get over a fear like this is to tackle it. Hope that this helps and I wish you luck!", "I don't think people realize what it is that they really hate about lawyers. I know their great in a lot of ways, but I think that I hate the way they can really turn the truth into a lie.Just depends on who they have to defend.\\nIts their job. Poor guys, and gals. You gotta do what you gotta do.", "I don't hate Jewish as Jewish, they're a religion group such as all others, but I hate controlling the western media and money world, I hate what the Zionist did in Palestine, the same I hate what the Spanish did in the new world, what America did in Vietnam and Iraq, what Bin Laden did in 9/11, it's about hating evil, not about being a bigot, which is the reason why some people hate the Jewish for..", "Organize your topic material in a logical and natural way. Make sure you include all the points you want to convey and omit unnecessary information. Practice alone in front of a mirror several times to become familiar with what you have to say, then practice your lecture in front of friends or family and accept their constructive criticism. Most importantly, know your topic well enough to speak with ease and authority. Good luck.", "Well as you knw that you are facing a fear of public speaking and for that the best thing to do is 1st try getting comfortable talking in a grp with ppl whom you knw really well.. then slowly start with other ppl.. the best way is to crack a joke or sumthin so that you can lighten up the atmosphere and then once you will c every1 smiling, you will automatically have the courage to talk.. and relax.. no1 is gonna do anything.. so then plz do express yourself and let others knw wats in your mind!! all the best...", "They should highlight what you are talking about. Sometimes people over do it and it distracts from their presentation. Use them to add \"texture\" to you presentation or to help explain your point/topic. Don't overdo it, it will be cheesy.", "I hate him , I hate him , I hate him! I dont like the way hes killing our american men and women. He should not be allowed to do this! \\n\\n\\n~~~~~WE WANT TO LIVE!!!~~~~~", "I hate people who are lazy. \\n\\nI hate people asking for money.\\n\\nI hate fuckin drunks.\\n\\nBut then again, i ask myself, what if i was in their shoes???\\n\\nI would need all the help i could get.", "Being a woman who has been to Iraq...no. At least not all of them. People hate to admit it; but men CAN do some things better than woman. I'm not being sexist, just honest. I did great in my capacity while in Iraq, but I never went on patrol, or anything like that. Unless we had a mission that necessitated leaving our base I was fine staying there. Now, there are some women that if they really feel up to the task of fighting on the front lines; they should be allowed, but to do so I believe that they should have to adhere to the same standards as men...especially when it comes to pt. There is still a large discrepancy between pt requirements for men and women." ]

[ "Detroit Tigers" ]

[ "Memphis Tigers baseball team", "The Texas Longhorns baseball team", "Detroit", "Detroit Heralds", "The Detroit Shock", "the Detroit Lions", "Detroit City", "Detroit Pride", "Detroit, Michigan", "The Detroit Emeralds", "Detroit Cougars", "the University of Detroit Titans football team", "University of Detroit", "The Nigeria national baseball team", "What's Your Mama's Name", "Stetson Hatters baseball team", "Detroit Titans", "What Yo Name Iz?", "Detroit Athletic Club", "Bryant Bulldogs baseball team", "Detroit Tradesmen", "Detroit Fury", "Detroit Drive", "Baseball", "FIU Panthers baseball team", "The Naming of Names", "Port of Detroit", "Detroit Pistons", "the Sultanes Monterrey Mexican League baseball team", "Detroit Red Wings", "names", "A baseball" ]

[ "['Log into the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal with your account information. ... ', 'Expand the Ultimate Rewards menu to see all your options. ... ', \"Select 'combine points' ... \", 'Select which cards you want transfer points to and from. ... ', 'Select how many points you want to transfer.']" ]

[ "Southwest Airlines is a Chase Travel Partner, meaning your Ultimate Rewards can be transferred in 1,000 point increments (instantly) to your Southwest Rapid Rewards account. Remember folks, Chase Ultimate Reward point transfers are one-way and cannot be undone!", "Chase Ultimate Rewards points CANNOT be transferred directly to Delta! No CUR Transfer to Skymiles… DON'T PANIC THOUGH! ... While Chase Ultimate Rewards are a “flexible reward currency”, they are not infinitely flexible!", "Transferring Chase Ultimate Rewards Points to Southwest. ... If you want to book a flight on Southwest using Ultimate Rewards points, you can do so by transferring your points online, and you'll get a 1:1 transfer ratio (each 1 Ultimate Rewards point is worth 1 Rapid Rewards point).", "Can I transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards to Alaska MileagePlan? No, you can't transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards to Alaska, but you can transfer Ultimate Rewards to British Airways Executive Club and use Avios points to book flights on Alaska.", "Bottom line. Chase Ultimate Rewards points don't transfer to American Airlines – but collecting Chase Ultimate Rewards points is still one of the best ways to get American Airlines flights for free.", "['Log in to your Chase account and click on the Go to Ultimate Rewards link at the top right. ... ', 'Hover over the Use Points drop-down menu and select Transfer to Travel Partners.', 'Scroll down the list of airline partners and click Transfer Points next to Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer.']", "Point Redemption: Chase Ultimate Rewards points may be redeemed to pay for all or a portion of eligible purchases made at Amazon.com. Chase will debit the number of points that you elected to redeem for your purchase from your Chase Ultimate Rewards points balance.", "Because while you can NOT transfer the Chase Ultimate Rewards points you earn with Freedom directly to airline partners, you CAN first move them to your Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card.", "Chase has a 1:1 points transfer ratio with all its partners, and once the transfer goes through, there's no canceling or getting your Ultimate Rewards points back. While transfers to Chase's other three hotel partners can take a day or two to process, with Hyatt, it happens immediately.", "You can use your points to book hotels, flights, car rentals, and more through the Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal. Your other option is to transfer Chase points to airline and hotel partners including United, Singapore Airlines, Hyatt, and Marriott.", "The value of Ultimate Rewards points varies greatly, depending on how you redeem your points. Most redemption options – including cash back and travel redemptions through the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal – are worth 1 cent, but the value can exceed 2 cents per point if you take advantage of transfer options.", "Chase Ultimate Rewards has a feature that allows you to enroll in Shop with Points and redeem your Ultimate Rewards points to pay for eligible purchases at Amazon.com. This Supplement amends your Chase Ultimate Rewards Program Redemption Rules which are available for you on Chase.com.", "** While points transferred from Ultimate Rewards to Singapore Airlines processed on the same day for us, the confirmation email from Chase states that it can take up to 2 business days for Ultimate Rewards transfers to appear in your Singapore KrisFlyer account.", "Each Chase Ultimate Rewards® point is generally worth 1 to 1.5 cents, depending on which cards you have and what you buy with the points. Points may be worth even more if you transfer them to one of Chase's travel partner programs.", "Let's head back to the Ultimate Rewards landing page. Click the “Earn/Use” drop-down menu and select “Transfer to Travel Partners.” Scroll down the list of Chase transfer partners until you find United MileagePlus. Click “Transfer Points” to link your United Airlines loyalty account.", "Your transfer rate will be at a 1:1 rate and you can do this right on the Chase Ultimate Rewards website that is linked to your credit card. Since Southwest Airlines is one of Chase's 13 travel partners, you can transfer in 1,000-point increments to your Southwest Rapid Rewards account.", "Just log in to your Chase account, click on Ultimate Rewards, click on any of your cards, and click \"Combine Points\" in the top-right corner. Move your points from the Freedom card to the Sapphire or Ink, and you're good to go.", "Chase Ultimate Rewards® is the name of the points program for Chase's rewards credit cards. ... Among points systems, Chase Ultimate Rewards® is highly regarded because point values can be relatively high if used strategically to pay for travel. Here's what to know about earning and redeeming Chase Ultimate Rewards®.", "['No CUR Transfer to Skymiles… ... ', 'Transfer your Chase Ultimate Rewards to any one of these airline reward programs!', 'Traveling during peak season will cost extra miles!', 'Search for Delta award availability using Alaska Airlines!']", "In short, Chase Ultimate Rewards® points are something you earn by using certain Chase credit cards, which can then be redeemed for things like gift cards, cash back or travel.", "['On the Ultimate Rewards site, select the \"Transfer to Travel Partners\" option. ... ', 'Under the \"Airlines\" heading, go to the listing for JetBlue TrueBlue and click \"Transfer Points.\" ... ', 'Select your transfer recipient. ... ', 'Set the transfer amount. ... ', 'Confirm your transfer.']", "Chase Points, known as Chase Ultimate Rewards do not expire as long as you have a Chase Ultimate Rewards-earning credit card.", "Chase Ultimate Rewards® is the name of the points program for Chase's rewards credit cards. (The issuer's co-branded cards with airlines, hotels or retailers have their own rewards programs.)", "Chase Points, known as Chase Ultimate Rewards do not expire as long as you have a Chase Ultimate Rewards-earning credit card. Chase Ultimate Rewards-earning cards include: Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card.", "For those that like to travel using Southwest Rapid Rewards points, or Chase Ultimate Rewards points transferred (immediately) to Southwest, a $49 fare translates to a ticket to Hawaii for as few as 1,950 points + $5.60.", "Every 1,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points transferred will equate to 1,300 British Airways Avios, or miles. ... You can also have good luck using Avios for long-haul business class flights on partner airlines.", "These assumptions seemed reasonable, since data points suggest that transfers are generally done within 1-3 weeks. Compared to major rewards programs (i.e. Amex's Membership Rewards or Chase's Ultimate Rewards), Virgin Atlantic's transfer process is behind the times.", "For many redemptions, Chase Ultimate Rewards® points are worth about 1 cent each. Cash back: This can take the form of a statement credit or direct deposit for a penny per point. There is no minimum redemption level. You could redeem 100 points for $1.", "The Chase Sapphire Preferred Card currently offers a bonus of 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points after you spend $4,000 in the first three months of cardmembership. In the offer details, Chase specifies that you should allow six to eight weeks after qualifying for bonus points to post to your account.", "You may use your eligible Chase card with Chase Ultimate Rewards, an Amazon.com gift card, an Amazon Payments Account or a Promotional Coupon to pay for the remainder of your order if you don't have enough points to redeem for the entire amount of our order.", "Chase Ultimate Rewards. And if you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve, your points are worth 1.5 cents each. If you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve, a $1,000 flight would only require 66,667 points. With the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card, you'd need 80,000 points.", "Transfer to travel partners You can transfer Ultimate Rewards points to 10 airline programs (British Airways, Flying Blue, JetBlue, Emirates, Singapore Airlines, Southwest, United, Virgin Atlantic, Aer Lingus and Iberia) and three hotel programs (Hyatt, IHG, and Marriott)." ]

[ "CaCO3 : Calcium sulfite, or calcium sulphite. CaSO4: Calcium sulfate (or calcium sulphate). Also remember also polyatomic ions (relating to a molecule made up of more than two atoms.) are held together by covalent bonds, so this compound contains both ionic and covalent bonds." ]

[ "KCl is an ionic compound it does not contain covalent bond.", "Boron is capable of forming ionic and covalent bonds, but cannot form metallic bonds." ]

[ "Product came well packaged. The container is resealable, and has a gasket around the lid, so it makes a good seal.<br /><br />The wheat was very clean, without any trash or pebbles. I was able to put the wheat right in the grinder.<br /><br />If you are interested in grinding your own wheat, and making 100% whole wheat bread, this wheat is an excellent option. I was able to get big fluffy loafs without the need for added gluten. It is less bitter than hard red wheat.<br /><br />Overall, I could not be more pleased. Clean, makes great flour, and delicious bread." ]

[ "This almond flour makes for really nice results in gluten free baking. Love it. Make bread, muffins, pancakes, biscuits. All nice. Nice recipes located at [...] Enjoy. Oh, good price too. Lots of protein, low carb compared to wheat or other gluten free flours. And, yup, it has flavor folks.", "Don't buy this tea if you are looking for the blueberry taste (I was). This tea does have the very nice blueberry fragrance for a minute or two, but the taste is mostly hibiscus, which is nice, but far from blueberry.", "This is the best seafood/fish seasoning I've found. Sprinkle it on any kind of seafood or fish for a nicely seasoned flavor - not salty at all - if you want salt, you'll have to add it separately - just really nice herbs.", "I enjoy iced coffee drinks and prefer them strong. I put the can in the refrigerator to chill it rather than pour the drink over ice and dilute it. It had a nice, pleasant taste. Not too sweet with a nice smooth coffee taste but it didn't taste much like cappuccino. I usually make my own espresso and ice it, but this would be a nice alternative in an emergency or take with me in the car.", "If you are a coffee snob, you will not like this cappuccino. However, for those of us easing into the world of coffee, this is a nice and sweet caffeinated beverage with only 80 calories. It tastes just like the cappuccinos you get out of the machine at a gas station. A nice treat!", "These coffee beans arrived quickly in a vacuum packed pouch. Store in freezer (stay cool) to minimize the oils in the beans from becoming rancid & ruining the taste.<br /><br />These beans were nicely and uniformly roasted to a nice brown. No dark, burnt, over-roasted beans here! (If you want a darker roast go for French Roast or Espresso roast(-for morning java consumption, many prefer this lighter roast.)<br /><br />Beans of this Tarrazu are a nice smaller bean, plump (no old dried out beans). These Tarrazu beans will stand alone for a nice, non-acidic, gentle cup of coffee. Note: To minimize/neutralize acidity a very small amount of sugar (tsp or less) is nice.<br /><br />Blended it with 60% Columbian Supremo (more robust, stalwart bean) and 40% Tarrazu, then just load up the coffee hopper on the maker. Those beans in there do fine at room temp for every day use. This blend is just great for that AM cup-not too harsh, but with a good strength and full bodied taste.", "As with some of the other reviewers, I am a bit uncertain why they labelled these as \"honey filled caramel drops.\" No caramel here that I can taste, but there is a nice honey flavor. I wasn't surprised by the list of ingredients. Primarily Sugar, Corn Syrup, milk, honey, flavorings and vitamins. I had something similar to these when I was growing up, so there is a nice association with these chewy little confections. Yes, they have a bit of vitamins in them, but really, are you eating them for any reason except the flavor? A nice occasional sweet treat.", "Despite the upper crust British sounding name, Bentley's fine teas are not so fine. The tea is barely more than colored water; we have tried lots of different types and brands of tea and this was the most disappointing. The presentation is nice to look at, but the tea is not so nice to drink." ]

[ "The petitioner sought to know why the Delhi state election commission asked for generation one EVMs, which are least secure with minimum security features to conduct MCD election. (Reuters)\nA plea was today moved in the Delhi High Court by the Aam Aadmi Party seeking a direction to the Election Commission to use VVPAT machines attached to EVMs in the upcoming MCD polls in the national capital. The petition for urgent hearing was mentioned before a bench of acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Anu Malhotra who agreed to hear it today itself. The petition filed by Mohd. Tahir Hussain, who is contesting as a councillor in the MCD election, and the Aam Aadmi Party was mentioned by senior advocate Indira Jaising, who urged the court to list the matter for today in view of the recent alleged incidents of EVM manipulation in various states.\nThe petitioner sought to know why the Delhi state election commission asked for generation one EVMs, which are least secure with minimum security features to conduct MCD election.\nYou May Also Want To Watch:\nThey have strongly opposed the use of machines sourced from Rajasthan for the MCD election.\nRecently, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had also demanded withdrawal of allegedly tampered EVMs brought from Rajasthan for MCD polls and said only VVPAT equipped voting machines should be used.\nVoter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) is a method of providing feedback to voters using a ballotless voting system." ]

[ "Delhi BJP President Manoj Tiwari said that the AAP has admitted its “defeat” in the municipal elections by filling a petition in the court for “deferment” of polls. (Reuters)\nAam Aadmi Party has “accepted defeat” in the upcoming MCD polls by moving a petition in the Delhi High Court seeking a direction to the Election Commission to use VVPAT machines attached to EVMs, BJP said here today. Delhi BJP President Manoj Tiwari said that the AAP has admitted its “defeat” in the municipal elections by filling a petition in the court for “deferment” of polls. “Seeking vote by paper ballot is just an alibi and the actual purpose is to get the polls deferred,” he said. The petition filed today by Mohammad Tahir Hussain, who is the AAP candidate in MCD elections, sought an urgent hearing from a bench of the High Court in view of the recent alleged incidents of EVM manipulation in various states.\nAlso Watch:\nRecently, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had also demanded withdrawal of allegedly tampered EVMs brought from Rajasthan for MCD polls and said only VVPAT equipped voting machines should be used. Voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) is a method of providing feedback to voters using a ballot less voting system. The elections for 272 wards of the three municipal corporations are due on April 23.", "Photo for representational purpose (File Photo) Photo for representational purpose (File Photo)\nAmid the on-going debate on the use of Electronic Voting Machines, the Aam Aadmi Party on Tuesday moved the Delhi High Court seeking the use of Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines along with the EVMs for the upcoming MCD polls. The AAP and Congress, in Delhi, have demanded that the Election Commission conduct the polls using paper ballots instead of EVMs citing the doubts of machines being tampered.\nThe issue of EVM tampering first surfaced after BSP leader and former Uttar Pradesh CM Mayawati alleged that BJP received a massive mandate in the state because of the fault in machines which led to votes being caste in favour of the saffron party no matter which button the voter pressed.\nThe VVPAT machine is connected with EVMs and dispenses a paper proof for the voters so that they can verify their vote is cast correctly. In the run up to MCD elections, there has been a heated exchange between AAP and the Election Commission.\nEarlier, AAP convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had accused the EC of arrogance and not accepting that there could be a fault with the EVMs. In response, the EC challenged that it was not possible to tamper the EVMs.\nDelhi Congress president Ajay Maken had also raised the issue and wrote to Kejriwal as well as the SEC seeking the use of paper ballots. “Serious doubts have cropped up in the minds of the voters as to the free and fair nature of the electoral process,” Maken wrote in his letter.\nHowever, the EC made it clear that the MCD elections will be conducted using EVMs after which the AAP has now demanded the use of VVPAT machines.\nFor all the latest India News, download Indian Express App now\n© IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd", "NEW DELHI: It’s almost an identical story, but in another continent. The Election Commission of India is facing questions on credibility of electronic voting machines in Botswana. Its testimony could be crucial to how that nation will hold its October 2019 general elections Diamond-rich Botswana is seeing heated political debates over using EVMs imported from India. The Opposition Botswana Congress Party (BCP) has moved court against the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) government’s amendments to electoral laws that enabled the use of EVMs. BCP has contended that EVMs were aimed at getting a favourable result for BDP. The BDP government, in turn, has sought ECI’s deposition, even as the Botswana Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) argued that EVMs would speed up the electoral process.Botswana government and its election commission has requested ECI’s experts to depose before a court on the merits of using EVM, an insider confirmed to ET. They have asked ECI officials to hold a demonstration of the EVM and VVPAT in court to dispel doubts over the machines. A delegation from Botswana led by its election commissioner was at ECI on Wednesday with a request that 4-5 EVMs be dispatched for demonstration and deposition in a Botswana court. The ECI, however, is in a bind over the request, considering the acrimony at home already.The Aam Aadmi Party , among others, created an uproar last year saying that Bharat Electronic Limited (BEL), which manufactures the EVMs, was to participate in an EVM hackathon in Botswana. While BEL denied that it would be use any EVM meant for Indian elections, questions were raised on ‘taking an EVM abroad’ and how it could become susceptible to hacking or misuse.The full Commission would soon take a decision on Botswana’s request, keeping all concerns in mind, the insider told ET. The sparsely-populated country has 57 constituencies and around 6,000 polling stations. The delegation from Botswana that comprised technical and legal experts, besides representatives of the Botswana election authority, feel that deposition and demonstration of the EVM by ECI officials would considerably help their case for EVM deployment. IEC has been in discussion with ECI for the last six months over the possibility of using EVMs. Considering the limited number of polling stations, ECI officials estimate that India could easily manufacture the number of EVMs Botswana requires within 2-3 industrial days.", "Asserting that his dispensation has done a remarkable job in every field, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today said even ex-CM Sheila Dikshit’s 15-year rule cannot match the work done by his government in its two years so far.\nAsserting that his dispensation has done a remarkable job in every field, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today said even ex-CM Sheila Dikshit’s 15-year rule cannot match the work done by his government in its two years so far. Addressing a rally at Deoli, Kejriwal appealed to people to give AAP a similar mandate in upcoming MCD polls as it had got in 2015 Assembly polls.\nHe alleged that votes in Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) could be tampered to the tune of 5-7 per cent and asked people to vote in large numbers so that the “tampering” goes for a toss. Kejriwal had alleged tampering of EVMs after his party’s poor show in Punjab assembly polls. He vehemently opposed use of EVMs in Delhi MCD polls and demanded that elections should be conducted through paper ballots.\nYou May Also Like To Watch This:\nNoting that electricity rates in Delhi are cheapest in the country, Kejriwal once again claimed that the power and water departments will be “snatched” from the Delhi government if BJP is voted to power again. He said, before 1998, the power and water departments were with the civic bodies.\nThe AAP chief alleged Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and PWD and Health Minister Satyendar Jain are being “targeted” for taking on education and health mafias. Hitting out at the BJP, Kejriwal said the party’s claim that municipal corporations cannot abolish house tax stems out of the fear that it will suffer huge losses. He also vowed to make the cash strapped corporations economically viable a year after coming to power.", "CEC Nasim Zaidi CEC Nasim Zaidi\nAs Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi wrote to the government again, seeking funds to expedite the purchase of paper trail machines before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress Monday said the BJP government is “disinterested” in giving money to the Election Commission to get VVPATs. A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi referred to the controversy over EVMs as a manufactured issue, Congress spokesperson Abishek Singhvi said the BJP is “scared and fearful because the fabrication and manipulation may lie somewhere else and that is why they want to bury this issue deep.”\nHe recalled that the Supreme Court had in 2013 ruled that paper trail is an indispensable requirement of free and fair elections. “In 30 months, this government has denied the Election Commission the funds for installation of VVPAT to accompany the 16 lakh EVMs. The Election Commission in its third letter has said that it needs Rs 3000 crore to be able to use VVPATs in the 2019 elections… And I have no doubt that for the next 30 months too, the Election Commission will not get even Rs 30 crore, leave aside Rs 3000 crore,” Singhvi said.\nHe said that the government’s stand is a direct violation of the Supreme Court order. “Why should the government treat it as an adversarial issue? Why is it not possible to revert to paper ballot, at least till such time you give one VVPAT accompanying one EVM? At least till that time, the paper ballot is a tried, tested and age-old method,” he said.\nFor all the latest India News, download Indian Express App now", "Highlights Election Commission has repeatedly urged centre to release funds: Sources Need Rs 3,000 crore for VVPAT machines for 2019 polls: Commission sources Parties have raised serious questions on EVMs used in recent polls\nThe Election Commission has sent 11 reminders to the centre to release funds for paper trail voting machines, sources in the Election Commission told NDTV today.Demands by political parties to introduce the machines - known as VVPAT - for the next general election have gained ground, as controversy has mounted over the alleged misuse of Electronic Voting Machines or EVMs.Sources in the Commission say that they need close to 1.4 million VVPAT or voter-verifiable paper audit trail machines if they need to be able to cover all of India in 2019. At the moment they only have 53,000.Repeated requests to the centre to release the funds required - Rs 3,174 crore - have not yielded any results, said the Commission. The last reminder, marked to the Law Ministry, was sent on March 22, 2017.Attached to the EVM machine, VVPATs generate a paper record of the vote cast, providing an additional layer of verification.The Commission also rebutted charges that they went ahead with elections in Kashmir against the advice of the centre. Reports suggested that the Home Ministry had advised against the holding of by-polls to two Lok Sabha seats in the troubled Kashmir Valley after voting in one of the seats, Srinagar, was marred by violence and low turnout.But the Commission claims they are not bound by the advice of the Home Ministry; their point of reference is the State Government, which said they were prepared to hold panchayat elections. The election body took that as a sign that the state was prepared to hold Lok Sabha polls.In a disclosure that is bound to stir the political pot, the Commission said that the Home Ministry had also advised against holding the recent assembly polls in Manipur, citing as reason the state's troubles with insurgent outfits, both local as well as those operating from across the border with Myanmar.The Home Ministry, said Commission sources, advised that in those conditions, the atmosphere was not conducive for free and fair elections in Manipur.But again, acting on the advice of the Manipur government, the Commission went ahead; the elections in that North Eastern state went off successfully.", "Listing out the “failures” of the BJP-led MCDs, AAP’s Delhi unit convenor Dilip Pandey said the saffron party has “lost all morality” to contest the civic body polls. (Reuters)\nA day after the BJP released its manifesto for the MCD polls, the AAP wrote to Amit Shah, its national chief, saying the document is “a bouquet of lies and a case of betrayal” to the people of Delhi. Listing out the “failures” of the BJP-led MCDs, AAP’s Delhi unit convenor Dilip Pandey said the saffron party has “lost all morality” to contest the civic body polls.\nThe letter, laced with acerbic vocabulary, says the MCD is a “blot” on the face of good governance and pro-people politics. “Your manifesto is only a bouquet of lies and a case of betrayal to the citizens of Delhi. All the promises that you have made now, should have been fulfilled a long time ago in the past 10 years – but your truancy knows no limits and you lie with alacrity,” Pandey said in the letter.\nYou May Also Like To Watch This:\nThe BJP has promised to provide meals for Rs 10, besides pledging no new municipal tax in the manifesto with an eye to win the MCD polls for the third consecutive time.\nThe AAP leader said the BJP has been in power for 10 years in the MCD and does not have a “single” developmental work to list against its name. “When the CAG finds 501 irregularities and evidence of mass bungling in MCD funds and when the Supreme Court, High Court of Delhi and the National Green Tribunal (NGT) slam the BJP-run MCD then how can you possibly even face the citizens of Delhi? How can you even think of contesting in these elections? “You have lost all moral authority to contest these elections,” he said.", "Voting will be held in 69 seats of Uttarakhand today.\nRepresentatives from five countries have arrived in India to witness the assembly elections in Uttarakhand slated for Wednesday, the Election Commission said on Tuesday.A group of 13 persons including heads and representatives of election management bodies (EMBs) from Russia, Egypt, Bangladesh, Namibia and Kyrgystan will watch the polling on Wednesday.\"The delegates have already been briefed by the EC on different facets of election management in India and main features of poll preparedness in the ongoing assembly elections,\" an official said.\"The international delegates were given demonstration of the use of technology in these elections, particularly the use of electronic voting machine (EVM) and the use of the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT), as well as extensive briefings by senior officials of the EC on the entire process of election management,\" he added.The Election Visitors Programme (EVP) for the international delegates has been organised by the ECI in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) India.", "The upcoming municipal polls for the North, East and South Municipal Corporation of Delhi, scheduled to take place on April 23, will have 1.10 lakh new voters. This will be the first civic poll after the latest delimitation exercise which has redrawn the 272 civic wards based on 2011 Census. Each ward now has an average of 60,000 people with an estimated 40,000 voters.Before the delimitation, every constituency had four wards, but now the number ranges from three to seven. The erstwhile unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) was trifurcated in 2012 into North, South and East Municipal Corporations. While the North and South Corporation have 104 wards each, East Corporation has 64.For the first time in MCD elections, None Of The Above (NOTA) option will be available to voters. The number of candidates in the wards range from three to 23. One EVM can accommodate 16 candidates.The BJP, which has been at the helm of MCD for the last 10 years, has decided to field none of its 153 sitting councillors and contest the polls with only fresh faces. While the BJP, fresh from its win in the Rajouri Garden by-poll, is seeking to retain its turf, the Congress, which finished second, is also hoping for a resurgence.The AAP is aiming to repeat its 2015 Delhi Assembly performance but its humiliating defeat in the by-election and drubbing in Punjab may have hit the morale of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's party. But he told his supporters that these results should not be seen as a \"trailer of the MCD polls\".The State Election Commission is running awareness campaigns, in print, and on radio and television to encourage people to vote. The result will be announced on April 26.", "A joint committee of 11 transport unions on Monday announced their boycott of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi polls to be held on April 23, to protest against toll tax, high parking and registration fees. (IE)\nA joint committee of 11 transport unions on Monday announced their boycott of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi polls to be held on April 23, to protest against toll tax, high parking and registration fees. According to a report by the PTI, the committee which was formed by these 11 transport unions would also be staging a 4 day long dharna from April 20 at Jantar Mantar. Meanwhile, Balwant Singh Bhullar, Convenor of the committee told reporters that these unions, namely Delhi NCR Transport Ekta Manch, All Delhi Auto Taxi Transport Congress Union, Rajdhani Tourist Driver Union, Delhi Transport Association and 7 others would be boycotting the MCD polls.\nYou May Also Like To Watch This:\nSpeaking to reporters, he said that the three municipal corporations in the city-state levied toll taxes on every entry of their vehicles in the city. he claimed that they also charged parking fee from them despite never providing parking space. He was of the opinion that there should be a one-time state tax imposed on the commercial vehicles in the state. Bhullar said that there was no health policy in place for them. He added that the unions have been raising their demands for a very long time but have been ignored by political parties, which is why the 11 transport unions in the state had decided to boycott the MCD elections.\nControversies have been surrounding the MCD elections for a while now. Earlier Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had written a letter to the Election Commission asking for the use of ballot boxes in the polls. Kejriwal had alleged that the Electronic Voting Machines used in the polls could be tampered with and hence would not result in fair elections. Kejriwal had even said that the polls must be postponed if the EC could not provide enough ballot boxes.", "New Delhi: A polling officer presses the 'None of the Above' (NOTA) option while demonstrating the use of the Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) that is being introduced for the first time during the Delhi assembly elections 2013, in New Delhi on Sunday. PTI Photo by Subhav Shukla(PTI11_17_2013_000033B)", "“ECI doing the mistake once gain, challenging techies is like falling into their own trap,” Prasad tweeted on April 13. (PTI)\nMore than eight years have passed since Hari K Prasad had tried to prove that electronic voting machine used in the country is not tamper-proof. The man who was face of EVM sceptics movement in 2009, is currently keeping a low profile during ongoing controversy over machines being vulnerable to tampering, areport by ‘The Indian Express’ has said.\nSince last week, however, he has started sharing his thoughts on the Election Commission’s decision to challenge pessimists to demonstrate the alleged fallibility of machines.\n“ECI doing the mistake once gain, challenging techies is like falling into their own trap,” he tweeted on April 13 . In another tweet an ahour later, he said: “ECI shud first invite for an open security audit in EVMs to list out all vulnerable touch points for criminals and secure wrap one by one.”\nPrasad, who was then managing director of Netindia Pvt Limited td, was arrested in 2010 after trying to prove that EVMs can be tampered. His arrest had pushed his company. Even as he was not keen to chakllenge the Election Commission this time, he continues to maintain that machines are vulnerable to hacking.\n“EVMs without VVPAT [voter verified paper audit trail] are vulnerable,” he told the paper in an interview over the phone. “No electronic machine is secure without a tangible receipt that can be verified. Electronics can always be manipulated. It’s just a matter of understanding the technology”, he said.\nYou may also like to watch this video\nVVPAT machines produce a printout of the vote cast on machines, which can be used to sort out any dispute later. “Even the EC had admitted that there is a possibility to manipulate an EVM when proper administrative measures are not in place,” Prasad told the paper further.", "Days ahead of the MCD polls, the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) on Monday questioned the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) over its alleged failure to install street lights. The commission’s action comes after the Delhi legislative Assembly — in which 66 of 70 MLAs belong to AAP — sent a complaint over MLA funds not being used to install street lights.\nThe commission said that it had issued a similar notice to the South MCD on March 31. However, since the civic body did not respond to the notice, the commission issued it afresh. “The DCW has issued a notice to the SDMC and asked for the number of street lights that have been installed by the SDMC since 1991 from the MLA Fund. The notice also seeks information on whether or not the lights were being installed by utilising the MLA fund. The notice also inquires about the reasons for stopping the work of installation if they were being installed,” a DCW official said.\nThe commission has sought the information from SDMC in three days. In March, during the budget session of the Delhi Assembly, a heated exchange took place after AAP MLAs alleged that the BJP-ruled MCD had deliberately not used MLA funds for works like installing street lights or repairing roads to show the AAP in poor light before the civic polls.\nThe BJP, on the other hand, had claimed that the Delhi government’s Urban Development Department was not releasing the MLA funds to the District Urban Development Authority (DUDA).\nIn December 2016, the questions and references committee of the Delhi Assembly had summoned the SDMC commissioner and asked him whether or not a resolution passed by the SDMCs standing committee to “not use MLA-LAD funds for installing LED lights and gymnasiums in parks” was binding on the officers of the civic body.\nFor all the latest India News, download Indian Express App now", "(Representational Image) (Representational Image)\nTHE State Election Commission (SEC) on Monday said the Election Commission of India (EC) will make available electronic voting machines (EVMs) for conduct of elections in 14 municipal corporations during the urban local bodies’ polls, likely to be held in May-June.\nRecently, State Election Commissioner S K Agarwal had said that the EC had expressed its inability to provide EVMs, as the machines with which the SEC had held urban local bodies’ elections in 2012 were manufactured before 2006, which had now become outdated. However, the SEC, in a statement on Monday, said the EC had informed that it had conducted a review of the EVMs’ availability after receiving a letter from the state poll body. The statement added that in the review, the EC had found EVMs were available with the Madhya Pradesh chief electoral officer “in adequate quantity”. Therefore, the SEC has been asked to get the EVMs it needs from the MP CEO after contacting him, the statement said.\nIt added that the SEC has asked for 25,000 control and 50,000 ballot units, and accordingly it has started work on getting EVMs from various districts of MP. “The elections of mayors and corporators in municipal corporations will be conducted with EVMs like 2012… The elections of municipal boards and nagar panchayats will be conducted using ballot papers, as they were held in 2012,” the statement said.\nWhen contacted, Additional State Election Commissioner Ved Prakash Verma said: “The EVMs that are being given to the SEC have been manufactured before 2006 but are in working condition. Pre-2006 is a model of EVMs. These machines have a life of 15 years and many of them are still functional. We are getting the machines that are in working condition.”\nFor all the latest India News, download Indian Express App now", "The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday moved the Delhi High Court seeking direction to the Election Commission (EC) to allow the usage of voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines attached to the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in the MCD polls scheduled to be held in Delhi on April 23, 2017.\nArvind Kejriwal-led AAP and the Congress Party have consistently been demanding that the poll panel conduct the elections using ballot papers instead of EVMs to rule out the possibility of the machines being tampered with. The EC, however, had made it clear that EVMs would be used in the MCD elections following which AAP has demanded that VVPAT machines be used.\nThe petition, which is up for urgent hearing and has been filed by Mohd Tahir Hussain and AAP, was mentioned before a bench of acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Anu Malhotra who agreed to hear it today itself, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported. Hussain is contesting as a councillor in the upcoming polls.\nSenior advocate Indira Jaising, who mentioned the petition before the bench, has urged the Delhi HC to list the matter to be heard on Tuesday in view of the alleged incidents of tampering and manipulation of EVMs that have taken place in several states recently.\nThe petitioner sought to know the reason behind the Delhi state election commission asking for generation one EVMs, which have the least amount of security features, to be used in the MCD elections in the national capital. The party has strongly objected to the use of EVMs sourced from Rajasthan for the Delhi civic polls.\nDelhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had recently demanded that the allegedly tampered EVMs sourced from Rajasthan for the polls be withdrawn and only VVPAT-equipped voting machines be used in the MCD elections. VVPAT provides feedback to voters using a ballot less voting system.\nKejriwal had also accused the EC of not accepting that the EVMs could be faulty and be tampered with. The EC had responded saying that it was impossible to tamper EVMs. Delhi Congress President Ajay Maken had also written to Kejriwal and the Delhi state election commission requesting them to use paper ballots instead of EVMs.\nThe issue of EVM tampering was first raised by Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati, who alleged that the BJP won in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls because the machines had been tampered with, which eventually resulted in votes being cast for the saffron party irrespective of the button pressed.", "Monday’s bypolls were marred by accusations of large-scale malfunctioning of electronic voting machines (EVMs) with voter verifiable paper audit trails (VVPATs). The Election Commission (EC) said 96 balloting units and 84 control units of EVMs and 1,202 VVPATs had to be replaced. EC blamed the malfunctions on the heat, adding “officials who skipped training programmes, and spent time on their phones during training, placed the machines in direct sunlight, and at places where the heat-sensitive nature of the device created problems”.VVPATs are manufactured by the public sector Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) and Electronics Corp of India Ltd (ECIL). BEL stated that all the machines supplied to EC are “rigorously tested to work under varying conditions” and that there are no design flaws in them.EC, on its part, stated that it “undertakes a comprehensive examination and root-cause analysis of all defects observed in the machines through the technical experts committee of the Commission and necessary remedial actions are being taken”.Both these statements are wishywashy on the technical details of what went wrong and why, as well as on the remedial measures that will be taken. Palghar collector confessed that EC authorities “faced problems” even during the first-level checks carried out on these machines a few days before.As long-standing suppliers to the Indian defence sector, both BEL and ECIL ought to have expertise in manufacturing ‘ruggedised’ electronics, which can withstand extreme heat and cold, humidity, dust, as well as shocks. Commercial and industrial ruggedised systems usually adhere to a standard called MIL-STD-810G, which was developed for the US military in the 1960s.These test electronic equipment for ‘exposure to high and low temperatures plus temperature shock (both operating and in storage); rain (including wind blown and freezing rain); humidity, fungus, salt fog for rust testing; sand and dust exposure; leakage; acceleration; shock and transport shock; random vibration….’It is not known if the VVPATs have been tested to MIL-STD-810G, althoughother BEL and ECIL equipment for the Indian armed forces are. International Electrotechnical Commission’s Ingress Protection Marking (IP) also rate systems against dust, immersion in water, accidental contact, intrusion for tampering, etc. Most smartphones, laptops, cameras and consumer electronics have IP ratings.A cellphone handset rated at IP58 is dust-resistant and can be immersed in 1.5 m of freshwater for up to 30 minutes without sustaining damage. It is not known if the VVPATs have an IP rating, especially against dust and exposure to moisture, and atmospheric contaminants.There is no reason why VVPATs should not be able to withstand ambient temperatures of 60° C, especially if they use ruggedised components, with conformal coatings. For instance, the railways use European Standard EN 50155, where the electronics systems are required to perform in ambient temperatures ranging from –25° C to 70° C.Unlike smartphones and laptops, where space on the circuit board is scarce for installing on-board cooling systems, fans, heat sinks and other cooling systems can be installed within the EVM cabinets. Even if they fail due to heating in operation, cooling silver paints (used when laptops heat up) can be applied.Media reports stated that the VVPATs failed in the morning itself. If there is data on the comparison of the failures in the morning as compared to the hotter afternoons, it can indicate if heating was, indeed, the cause of the malfunctions.It is unclear if the BEL only type tested — where a small sample from each batch of production is tested for meeting environmental conditions —or if each individual VVPAT was comprehensively tested. The fact that VVPATs failed in the morning itself indicates that temperature was unlikely to be the cause. More likely, it was moisture accumulated during 2-3 days of storage. It is not known if conformal coatings were used in the VVPATs to protect against moisture accumulation during storage.For years, numerous doubts have been raised about the reliability of EVMs. EC, BEL and ECIL have not helped by being secretive about their design and testing. Their bland claim that EVMs are totally reliable and can’t be hacked can’t be accepted at face value. Every engineer knows that there is no such thing as a secure or error-free electronics system, or a computer program that can’t be broken into.The Hackathon that was announced with great fanfare by EC a few months ago was fundamentally flawed. Electronics engineers have known since World War 2 that merely by observing equipment in operation, or by analysing lines of software code, one can’t determine conclusively if the equipment or program actually performs the functions it was intended to perform without errors.Take a person who knows nothing at all about cricket, and have him watch a few Test matches. After that, challenge him to write the MCC (Marylebone Cricket Club) Laws of Cricket in their exact order. Clearly, an impossible task. For instance, if there is no instance of hit wicket in a Test series, the observer can’t even imagine that such a mode of dismissal exists. So, from merely observing a VVPAT for a few hours, one can’t determine if it accurately records the intentions of the voters.To allay apprehensions, BEL, ECIL and EC should release the circuit specifications of VVPATs, as well as details of the thermal stress tests, humidity tests, jerk and shock tests conducted on them.The writer is a telecom and IT consultant who provided expert testimony about EVMs in high courts before the 2004 Lok Sabha elections", "For the Aam Aadmi Party which is coping with loss in Rajouri Garden by-poll and assembly polls in Punjab and Goa, the MCD election on April 23 is crucial. It will be seen as a report card for Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's government that he formed two years ago after winning 67 out of 70 assembly seats.Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia has been knocking on doors as he goes campaigning for the party and addressing party workers. Mr Kejriwal, who recently reached out to supporters to ask them not to lose heart with the party's performance in the two states, Punjab and Goa, is leaving no stone unturned to save the party from another loss.After subsidized power and water supply, he promised Delhi that he will abolish residential house tax and waiving arrears if voted to power in MCD. He also promised that the AAP will ensure that municipal staffers get their salaries on time.When AAP's political rivals accused him of announcing freebies ahead of the polls, he said the Delhi government is saving money on its projects which is then spent on public welfare.It is no less prestigious for the BJP which scored its second consecutive win in 2012 when the erstwhile MCD was split into three -- North Delhi (104 seats), South Delhi (104 seats) and East Delhi (64 seats).Congress hopes the municipal election will be an opportunity to regain lost ground in Delhi and desperately trying to beat AAP in the party's home ground. \"We will call the bluff of AAP,\" said Haroon Yusuf of Congress Party.", "The manner in which three petitions challenging the credibility of EVMs were wrapped up by the Supreme Court last week has left lawyers befuddled.On August 9, a three-judge bench, led by Chief Justice of India JS Khehar, took up as many as four such petitions and the status of all the cases later showed as 'disposed of' on the court’s website.But lawyers in two of these cases told CNN-News18 that they had no idea that their cases were being heard on that day and what orders were passed to disposed them of subsequently.Of the four cases, the first was a plea confined to conducting Assembly polls in Gujarat using EVMs with VVPAT (paper trail) machines.The other three petitions included PILs filed separately by ML Sharma, Ata-ur Rahman and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).These three petitions were listed last on August 4 when the court adjourned them for two weeks.The bench had given PIL petitioners the liberty to file their written replies to the stand taken by the Election Commission and Law Ministry in their affidavits.The court order dated August 4 had stated: \"Learned counsel for the petitioner(s) seeks an adjournment, so as to enable them to file rejoinder affidavit. Prayer is allowed. Rejoinder affidavit be positively filed within two weeks from today. Post for hearing thereafter.\"But these cases got listed again four days later.On August 9, these three petitions were taken up along with another petition, which had sought direction to the EC for conducting upcoming polls in Gujarat using VVPAT (voter verifiable paper audit trail).When the matter came up on the morning of August 9 before the bench, which also comprised Justices Adarsh K Goel and DY Chandrachud, the Election Commission submitted it had enough VVPAT machines for Gujarat assembly polls and that the first petition could, hence, be disposed of.Lawyers in the other cases, however, pointed out that their cases had come up abruptly after being adjourned for two weeks.But the bench was not satisfied with the submissions made by the counsel for the BSP and cautioned him against wasting the time of the court.It then deferred the hearing for a day later, to August 10.However, what happened in the next few hours remains a mystery for some of the lawyers in these cases.\"We got back knowing our cases had been adjourned till the next day. But suddenly, I started getting calls from other lawyers and media personnel asking if our petition had been disposed of,\" said a lawyer, who did not wish to be named.Another lawyer told CNN-News18 that he had left for Mumbai to undergo a therapy after his PIL was adjourned for two weeks on August 4.\"When we asked others, we were told some BSP lawyer mentioned the case on August 9 at 3.30pm and the bench disposed of all the four cases by a common order. But five days on, even the order has been not released,\" rued one of the lawyers.They were also of the opinion that if the court had to close all the cases based on affidavits filed by the EC and the Law Ministry, it could have been done even on August 4.\"The bench had still given to us two weeks on that day to counter the stand taken by EC and the Centre, and substantiate our cases against use of EVMs. We are perplexed if the cases have been disposed of. We may have to file a review petition once the court releases its order,\" said the lawyer.", "A Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra has sought attorney general K.K. Venugopal’s assistance in the ‘two constituencies’ issue. The bench will hear the matter on Tuesday. Photo: Mint\nNew Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a plea challenging the legal provision that allows an individual to contest elections simultaneously from two constituencies.\nA bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra sought attorney general K.K. Venugopal’s assistance in the matter. The bench will hear the matter on Tuesday.\nThe public interest litigation (PIL) brought by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson and advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay seeks quashing of provisions under the Representation of People Act, 1951 (RPA) that allow a person to contest election for the same office from two constituencies at the same time.\nThe petitioner argued that such provisions are “invalid and ultra vires the Constitution of India and its basic structure”.\nWhen a candidate contests from two seats, he has to vacate one of the two if he wins both.\nThis imposes a financial burden on the public exchequer, government manpower and other resources because by-elections have to be held in constituency that has been vacated.\nIt is also an injustice to the voters of the constituency which the candidate quits, the petition said.\nThe petition quotes the Law Commission’s 255th report as agreeing with the Election Commission’s suggestion to amend the Act in order to stop the practice.\nSection 33(7) of the Representation of People Act permits a candidate to contest any election (Parliamentary, state assembly, biennial council, or byelections) from up to two constituencies, presumably to give greater flexibility to candidates and increase their chances of winning a seat.", "The Kairana byelections are being seen as a testing ground for the unity of the Opposition parties against the BJP.\nThe results of all the byelections, which were held in four Lok Sabha seats (including Palghar in Maharashtra and one in Nagaland) and 10 Assembly seats across several states, like Jharkhand, West Bengal and Kerala on May 28, will be declared on Thursday, May 31. (Representational image)\nNew Delhi: Amid tight security arrangements, repolling was held at 122 polling booths in the Kairana and Gondia-Bhandara constituencies of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra respectively and one booth in Nagaland’s lone Lok Sabha seat on Wednesday. The repolling was ordered by the Election Commission after technical snags in the EVM-VVPAT machines during the byelections held on Monday were reported from these booths. The entire exercise is learnt to have passed off largely peacefully.\nWhile 73 booths under Kairana Lok Sabha seat underwent repolling, votes were cast again in 49 polling booths in Maharashtra’s Gondia-Bhandara constituency. One booth in Nagaland’s Aongleden also saw repolling.\nThe results of all the byelections, which were held in four Lok Sabha seats (including Palghar in Maharashtra and one in Nagaland) and 10 Assembly seats across several states, like Jharkhand, West Bengal and Kerala on May 28, will be declared on Thursday, May 31.\nOn Wednesday, the Election Commission also announced the biennial polls to three Rajya Sabha seats from Kerala, including the one held by Upper House deputy chairman P.J. Kurien, that are falling vacant on July 1. The election will be held on June 21, for which the notification will be issued on June 4, the poll panel said.\nIn Kairana, meanwhile, around 80,000 voters were registered in the booths where the repolling was held. The Opposition Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Lok Dal as well as the ruling BJP had raised claims of the tampering of electronic voting machines (EVMs) at these booths.\nThe repolling began at 7 am and continued till 5 pm in 23 polling stations at Nakur, 44 in Gangoh and one station at Thana Bhawan in Saharanpur and five in Shamli. The repolling in Kairana saw 61 per cent voter turnout on Wednesday.\nOn Monday, 54 per cent polling was recorded in Kairana seat, which had fallen vacant following the death of BJP MP Hukum Singh, whose daughter Mriganka Singh is the party’s candidate in the bypoll.\nMriganka Singh is fighting the Rashtriya Lok Dal’s Tabassum Hasan, who is also backed by the Congress, Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party.\nThe Kairana byelections are being seen as a testing ground for the unity of the Opposition parties against the BJP.\nIn Gondia-Bhandara, after 411 EVMs and Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPATs) malfunctioned during the Lok Sabha byelection on Monday, the Election Commission had announced repolls in the affected 49 booths. On Wednesday, repolling was held in 49 booths in Sakoli, Bhandara, Gondia, Arjuni and Moregaon in Maharashtra.\nThe bypoll there was necessitated after sitting BJP MP Nana Patole resigned from the party in December 2017. The BJP has fielded Hemant Patle against NCP-Congress candidate Madhukar Kukde.", "Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD)\nThe Delhi BJP on Tuesday expelled its Narela candidate Savita Khatri and withdrew her candidature for allowing sacked AAP minister Sandeep Kumar to campaign for her in the run up to MCD elections. Kumar, a former minister in the AAP government in Delhi was sacked from the party last year over a sex tape purportedly featuring him.\nThe move comes a day after the party came under attack from the Aam Aadmi Party for inviting Kumar to campaign for one of its candidates. Addressing a press conference here, BJP’s national vice-president Vinay Sahasrabuddhe said the party has taken a firm stand.\n“Those who do not respect women and people who seek support of such person (Sandeep Kumar) have no place in our party.\n“Such persons never had a place and they will never have it (in the BJP),” Sahasrabuddhe told reporters here. Kumar, a former minister in the AAP government who was sacked from the party in August last year over the sex tape, had triggered a row by allegedly campaigning for the BJP in the upcoming MCD polls.\nA video clip had recently surfaced purportedly showing Kumar slamming Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and extending his support to Khatri.\nYesterday, AAP legislator Alka Lamba hit out at the BJP for “inviting” Kumar to campaign for its candidate. “The BJP has been defaming AAP by taking Kumar’s name on radio (commercials). Now, they are even using him in their campaign,” she had alleged on Twitter.\nFor all the latest India News, download Indian Express App now", "A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud asked the petitioner to serve the copy of the petition to the Attorney General for rendering assistance to it. A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud asked the petitioner to serve the copy of the petition to the Attorney General for rendering assistance to it.\nThe Supreme Court today directed that copies of a petition seeking to restrict a candidate from contesting from more than one constituencies simultaneously in an election, be served on the Attorney General and the Election Commission. A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud asked the petitioner to serve the copy of the petition to the Attorney General for rendering assistance to it.\n“Direct the Centre and the Election Commission to take appropriate steps to restrict people from contesting election for the same office from more than one constituency simultaneously,” the plea filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay said. He has sought directions to authorities to take appropriate steps to discourage the independent candidates from contesting the Parliament and State Assembly election as suggested by National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (NCRWC) and Election Commission of India.\nUpadhyay has said the question of independent candidates is often connected with the issue of fragmented voting and instability in the electoral system and referred to the Law Commission’s 170th report which said the time is now ripe for debarring independent candidates from contesting Lok Sabha elections. “Similarly, the NCRWC has recommended discouragement of independent candidates, who are often dummy candidates or defectors from their party or those denied party tickets,” it said.\nThe petition said that in 2004 the Chief Election Commissioner had urged the Centre for amend the Act to provide that a person cannot contest from more than one constituency for the same office simultaneously.\nFor all the latest India News, download Indian Express App", "[India], Mar 19 (ANI): With the political parties demanding the use of Ballot papers instead of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in elections, Chief Election Commissioner OP Rawat on Monday said it takes stakeholders views very seriously and will try to address the issues raised comprehensively.\nThe Chief Election Commission Om Prakash Rawat on Monday assured it takes stakeholders' views very seriously and that the issue of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) will be raised comprehensively.\nIn an exclusive conversation with ANI, Rawat said, \"Though the commission is yet to have a deliberation on this, EC takes stakeholders' views very seriously and tries to address the issues raised most comprehensively.\"\nRawat further said that Indian EVMs are unique in the world.\n\"Our EVM is unique. It is standalone and has no connection to the outside world. It doesn't have auxiliary circuit; it is not capable of talking to other machines on wireless; it doesn't have a wire system. This kind of EVM is not used anywhere in the world. It is our own innovation,\" added Rawat.\nThe CEC's observation has come after the Congress party at its plenary session joined the chorus against the EVMs and in favour of the ballot papers.\nExplaining the difficulties in bringing back the ballot paper system, Rawat said, \"Replacement of ballot papers by the EVMs has resulted in many improvements. The role of muscle power has diminished considerably. Filling of votes is possible if ballot box is there. In EVM, loading one vote requires 15 seconds. Say if at one polling booth, 800-2000 votes are to be loaded then it would require a considerable time, which would be enough for an enforcement to reach to catch hold of the miscreants. Therefore, the misuse of muscle power in affecting the polling outcome has reduced considerably.\"\nCommenting on a video from Russia where election officials were allegedly seen filling up the ballot boxes, Rawat said, \"Ballot boxes have never been secure. They are never secure.\"\nReplying another question, the CEC said, \"The EC doesn't have to defend EVMs. We are creating a lot of public awareness on it. In one programme, when a political leader launched a tirade against the EVMs, then the public shouted him down. What do you understand by that?\"\nWhen asked how the growing chorus against the EVMs will affect democracy, Rawat said, \"Democracy is a too strong system that trivial matters cannot affect it. Only thing is that the Election Commission looks into all grievances of stakeholders and tries to address all those in a positive way. For example, in the all-party meeting, we (EC) were advised that unless 100 percent deployment of VVPATs is there, the election should be held with the ballot paper. The Commission immediately deployed 100 percent VVPATs.\"\nHe added that nobody can control the complaints and if the complaints are controlled then it will affect democracy.\n\"Grievances should be brought to the notice of the Commission so that it takes note of it. Because, our system is for the majority; the majority of the people and majority of the political parties should be happy with the system,\" Rawat said.\nHe said that those who cast doubts on the EVMs should come forward and suggest what will clear their doubt.\n\"They should come forward and tell us what will clear their doubt. Or, are they determined to go back to the muscle power and booth capturing. It is up to them,\" Rawat said.\nHe also said the EC has also included it in a status paper on the EVMs that why did some countries stop using electronic voting.\n\"The electronic voting is stopped in some countries because their own judicial system struck down saying since you have not made the laws in conformity for use of EVMs, therefore it cannot be done,\" the CEC said.\nWhen asked about the advocacy of former Election Commissioners for the auditing of more EVMs, Rawat said, \"Whatever they are saying is merely a suggestion. But, what our main stakeholders-political parties and candidates- say has got different footing. And, the Commission always takes their views seriously.\"\nOff late, the opposition political parties have been casting doubts on the EVMs after election results.\nAfter the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls; Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Aam Aadmi Party, Congress, and others had questioned the EVMs alleging that they were tampered with.\nTo clear the air on the issue, the Election Commission had organised EVM Challenge for all the political parties on June 3 in New Delhi last year to demonstrate that the EVMs could be tampered with.\nIt ended in an anti-climax with neither of the two takers for the 'dare'- Communist Party of India- Marxist [CPI-M] and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)- came forward to take the challenge. (ANI)", "Ahead of the MCD polls, there were some major shifts in the nomination of candidates and in a bizarre twist, some BJP members have been fielded by opposition parties(The Indian Express)\nMCD Polls 2017: Ahead of the MCD polls, there were some major shifts in the nomination of candidates and in a bizarre twist, some BJP members have been fielded by opposition parties. On Monday morning, an unusual sight greeted residents of Lado Sarai MCD ward. A pamphlet resting in between the pages of their daily newspapers asked them to press BSP symbol on the EVM machine, in order to elect the BJP candidate for their area. The pamphlet read: “Dear friends, as you are aware that for MCD election to ward number 67 (s) Lado Sarai, Ms. Pinky was declared the candidate from BJP but due to some technical reason, her nomination was cancelled. Now, BJP has supported BSP candidate Mrs. Lata Soni (ex-SBI officer) as its candidate,” reads the pamphlet. “Mrs. Lata Soni and her family have accepted the membership of BJP. As per election commission rules, the party symbol cannot be changed so it’s my humble request to all of you that please press BSP symbol (elephant) for supporting BJP strategies for ward No. 67 (s) Lado Sarai for better developed and prosperous Delhi,” it further reads.\nWhile talking to Indian Express, Lata Soni said: I am a candidate supported by BJP but contesting on a BSP symbol.” She remained confident this would not confuse voters. She also refuted the suggestion that the BSP was upset at her decision. “In fact, the Lok Sabha constituency president supported me when I joined the BJP.”\nShe further said: “My daughter had last time filed nominations from the Congress, but her name was canceled at the last minute. We had requested them for a ticket this time too, but instead, they gave it to someone else who is not even educated. My daughter, on the other hand, is a scientist.”\nAnother eye-ball grabber is Rahul Singh who filed his registration as an NCP candidate, but decided to join BJP and was declared as the candidate of the party. While talking to The Indian Express, he said: “I am asking my voters to vote for the NCP candidate.”\nThese are not just a couple of isolated events, there are many independent leaders who are planning to join the BJP and a few have been approached by the party itself. Gulfam, who is contesting independently from Abul Fazal Enclave said that if he wins, he will join BJP. Rahul Singh from Vinod Nagar has also decided to join BJP. Amrita Rashmi was reportedly approached by the BJP. She was contesting independently from Bapraula. Twinkle Kalia from Kishan Ganj ward has also joined BJP.", "Assembly Bye-Election Results 2018: Voters show their voter identity cards as they wait in a queue to cast thier votes for Noorpur Assembly bypolls. (PTI) Assembly Bye-Election Results 2018: Voters show their voter identity cards as they wait in a queue to cast thier votes for Noorpur Assembly bypolls. (PTI)\nThe results of bypolls held on ten assembly seats spread across ten states of India will be declared on Thursday. The elections were held in Legislative Assemblies of Shahkot (Punjab), Tharali (Uttarakhand), Ampati (Meghalaya), Chengannur (Kerala), Jokihat (Bihar), Gomia (Jharkhand), Silli (Jharkhand), Maheshtala (West Bengal), Noorpur (Uttar Pradesh), Palus Kadegaon (Maharashtra) on May 28.\nThe bypoll in Maharashtra’s Kadegaon was necessitated due to the death of Congress MLA Patangrao Kadam. Vishwakeet Kadam is the lone candidate for this bypoll, as BJP withdrew their candidate Sangramsinh Deshmukh. The elections in Kerala’s Chengannur was held after the death of Communist Party of India (Marxist) lawmaker KK Ramachandran Nair in January. The candidates contesting the bypolls include Saji Cheriyan from CPM, D Vijaykumar from Congress and PS Sreedharan Pillai from BJP.\nAssembly Bye-Election Results 2018: The elections in Kerala’s Chengannur was held after the death of Communist Party of India (Marxist) lawmaker KK Ramachandran Nair in January. (File) Assembly Bye-Election Results 2018: The elections in Kerala’s Chengannur was held after the death of Communist Party of India (Marxist) lawmaker KK Ramachandran Nair in January. (File)\nVoter turnout\nOver 70 per cent voter turnout was recorded in Maheshtala assembly in West Bengal, while 57 per cent voting was held in Noorpur of UP. In Jokihat, 55 per cent polling was done on the day with no instance of any untoward incident. Chengannur witnessed a massive 74.5 per cent polling, while about 73 per cent was polled in Shahkot of Punjab. 75.5 per cent votes were polled in Jharkhand’s Silli in the bye-election while voter turnout reached 88.58 per cent in Ampati assembly of Meghalaya.\nAssembly Bye-Election Results 2018: The Assembly Bye-Election Results 2018: The Samajwadi Party and RLD complained of glitches in the electronic voting machines. (Express photo/Representational)\nReports of faulty EVM\nThe elections were marred by complaints of EVM malfunctioning, with the EC having to replace faulty machines at a few places after which repolling was held on several booths on Wednesday. The Samajwadi Party and RLD complained of glitches in the electronic voting machines. SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, tweeted, “Receiving reports of problems in EVMs in the bye-elections but still voters should go to cast votes.” Voting in bypolls for Bhandara-Gondia constituency in Maharashtra was also marred by large-scale malfunctioning of the electronic voting machines and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT).\nThe Election Commission of India (ECI) described the reports of EVM/VVPAT malfunctioning as “exaggerated”. The Election Commission of India (ECI), in a statement, said, “News reports surfacing in media alleging ‘large scale’ failure of EVMs and VVPATs in the ongoing by-elections and interruption of polls in the states of Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh are an exaggerated projection of reality.”\nThe Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena alleged that the breaking down of voting machines was a political ploy of the ruling BJP to swing the elections in their favour.\nAssembly Bye-Election Results 2018: Voters show their identity cards as they wait in a queue to cast their votes for Silli Assembly bypolls. (PTI) Assembly Bye-Election Results 2018: Voters show their identity cards as they wait in a queue to cast their votes for Silli Assembly bypolls. (PTI)\nRepolling held on Wednesday\nThe EC also ordered repoll at 49 booths of Bhandara-Gondia constituency in Maharashtra in the wake of reports of electronic voting machines (EVM) and VVPAT malfunction during the bypolls on May 28. Along with Bhandara-Gondia, the repolling was also held at 73 polling booths in Kairana Lok Sabha constituency in Uttar Pradesh. In addition to ordering repolls, the EC transferred the collector of Gondia, who acted as returning officer for the bypoll Monday. Sources said the decision was taken based on the report of the state CEO.\nFor all the latest Elections News, download Indian Express App\n© IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd", "Kairana Lok Sabha bypoll was held amid complaints of snags in the EVMs.\nHere are the live updates of counting in Kairana Lok Sabha bypoll:\n07:58 (IST) Voting was held in Kairana on 28 May with re-polling in 73 booths yesterday due to technical snags in EVM, VVPAT machines during the by-election. Counting of votes will begin shortly. 07:53 (IST)\nTabassum Hasan, the opposition candidate belonging to RLD, had even alleged that faulty machines were deployed in Muslim and Dalit-dominated areas. Her allegations were rejected by the district magistrate. Tabassum Hasan, the opposition candidate belonging to RLD, had even alleged that faulty machines were deployed in Muslim and Dalit-dominated areas. Her allegations were rejected by the district magistrate. 07:47 (IST)\nBypoll in Kairana is taking place due to the death of the sitting lawmaker --- BJP's Hukum Singh --- whose daughter Mriganka Singh is the party's candidate. Bypoll in Kairana is taking place due to the death of the sitting lawmaker --- BJP's Hukum Singh --- whose daughter Mriganka Singh is the party's candidate. 07:40 (IST) The counting of votes in the bypolls will begin at 8 am. 07:29 (IST) According to the Election Commission, there are 16.09 lakh voters in Kairana - 8.73 lakh male voters and 7.36 lakh female voters. Noorpur Assembly constituency has 3.06 lakh voters. 06:59 (IST) Kairana parliamentary constituency has five assembly segments -- Shamli, Thana Bhawan and Kairana in Shamli district, and Gangoh and Nakur in Saharanpur district. 06:59 (IST) What's at stake for BJP and Opposition?\nThe bypoll is significant as it would test the popularity of the ruling BJP in the electorally crucial state of Uttar Pradesh an year ahead of the next general elections. The ruling BJP also hopes to avenge the drubbing it got in Gorakhpur and Phulpur bye-elections.\nThe opposition hopes that by consolidating the anti-BJP vote, it will repeat its success in Gorakhpur and Phulpur by-elections earlier this year when the ruling party suffered humiliating defeats. 06:55 (IST) Repolling witnessed in 73 Booths\nAmid tight security, repolling took place at 73 polling booths in Kairana Lok Sabha constituency.\nThe Election Commission had ordered repolling in the constituency in view of technical snags in EVM-VVPAT machines during the by-election on Monday. 06:53 (IST) The Kairana Lok Sabha bypoll will help understand the chances of winnability of a joint opposition camp against the BJP. The ruling BJP is locked in a straight fight with a joint opposition candidate.\nBJP candidate Mriganka Singh is locked in a straight fight against Rashtriya Lok Dal's Tabassum Hasan, who also has the support of the Congress, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party. The Kairana Lok Sabha bypoll will help understand the chances of winnability of a joint opposition camp against the BJP. The ruling BJP is locked in a straight fight with a joint opposition candidate.\nAll eyes are set on the outcome of the Kairana Lok Sabha bypoll result, seen as a semi final to the 2019 national elections. The Kairana by-election, a seat BJP won in 2014, is seen as a testing ground for opposition unity ahead of the 2019 elections in a state that sends the maximum number of lawmakers to parliament. The ruling BJP is locked in a straight fight with a joint opposition candidate.The high-profile electoral contest saw over 54 per cent of the constituency's voters casting their mandate amid complaints of malfunctioning of EVM and VVPAT machines.\"Malfunctioning was reported in 384 VVPAT (Vote Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) machines in the state. Of this 29 were in Noorpur (Bijnor). Apart from this, three EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines) also malfunctioned in Shamli. Both, the malfunctioning EVMs and VVPATs were replaced,\" Mr Rai told .The assurance came against the backdrop of opposition Samajwadi Party and RLD complaining of snags in the EVMs. Significantly, even BJP leaders complained of instances of malfunctioning of VVPAT machines.The seat fell vacant after the death of BJP MP Hukum Singh. His daughter Mriganka Singh is now contesting on the seat against Rashtriya Lok Dal's Tabassum Hasan, who also has the support of the Congress, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party.Apart from Kairana, counting of votes for the by-elections in three parliamentary seats and 10 assembly seats today. The assembly seats where the by-elections were held on Monday are Noorpur (Uttar Pradesh), Jokihat (Bihar), Tharali (Uttarakhand), Gomia and Silli (Jharkhand), Maheshtala (West Bengal), Ampati (Meghalaya), Palus Kadegaon (Maharashtra), Shahkot (Punjab) and Chengannur (Kerala).", "Hari K Prasad was arrested in 2010. File Hari K Prasad was arrested in 2010. File\nIt has been almost eight years since Hari K Prasad tried to prove that the electronic voting machine used in India is not tamper-proof. The face of the EVM sceptics movement in 2009, however, had been keeping a low profile during the current controversy over EVMs being vulnerable to tampering.\nUntil last week. Prasad’s Twitter account, inactive for a year, has sprung back to life as he has started to share his thoughts on the Election Commission’s plan to challenge naysayers to demonstrate the alleged fallibility of EVMs. “ECI doing the mistake once gain, challenging techies is like falling into their own trap,” he tweeted on April 13 at 7.11 am. Another tweet followed an hour later: “ECI shud first invite for an open security audit in EVMs to list out all vulnerable touch points for criminals and secure wrap one by one.”\nPrasad, then managing director of Netindia Pvt Ltd, was arrested in 2010 following an attempt at proving that EVMs can be tampered. His arrest pushed his company — which lost business while his employees felt threatened, he claims — to the brink of ruin.\nThough not keen to take up the EC challenge this time, Prasad continues to maintain that EVMs are vulnerable to hacking. “EVMs without VVPAT [voter verified paper audit trail] are vulnerable,” he told The Indian Express in an interview over the phone. “No electronic machine is secure without a tangible receipt that can be verified. Electronics can always be manipulated. It’s just a matter of understanding the technology.”\nVVPAT machines produce a printout of the vote cast on EVMs, which can be used later to resolve any dispute. “Even the EC had admitted that there is a possibility to manipulate an EVM when proper administrative measures are not in place,” Prasad said. “They had agreed to implement the VVPAT. Why don’t they just commit to rolling out VVPAT before 2019 [Lok Sabha elections] instead of challenging technicians to prove hacking? This will silence all allegations.”\nPrasad cites his personal experience of participating in the EVM challenge of 2009 to justify his disapproval of the EC’s plan to repeat the exercise in the first week of May. He alleges that EC officials had interrupted him 15 minutes into his attempt and didn’t allow him to finish. However, the EC’s press statement at that time said that no one was able to prove their allegations of hacking.\nAsked about the EC’s stand that no one had been able to demonstrate tampering in 2009, he said, “They had recorded the entire meeting on video. If they are so confident, why don’t they show it to the world…?”\nHaving accused the EC of not providing him access long enough to prove his point, Prasad managed to get an EVM in 2010 and demonstrated its supposed vulnerability to tampering in a video. He was later arrested on charges of stealing an EVM.\nAbout the current challenge, he said, “Look, a criminal will never come over and show you how he or she is going to hack a machine, is he? Currently, the EC is citing a host of administrative precautions being taken to prevent hacking. But what about insider threat or collusion that happens under the incumbent government? Is the EC is sure that no EVM has ever been stolen from any of their warehouses? The security of these machines is not of military grade. The administrative measures… alone cannot make the machines safe from hacking. Which is why I think the EC should call for an open security audit or a hackathon rewarding people who can highlight loopholes… instead of throwing a challenge that antagonises technical experts,” said the entrepreneur, who is currently a member of the e-governing council of Andhra Pradesh and one of the architects of the AP overhead fibre optic network .\nPrasad doesn’t agree with Opposition parties’s demand that the EC revert to voting by paper ballots. “We need them [EVMs] because they’ve made the election process quicker. My limited point is that EVMs need to be supported by VVPATs which can be cross-verified in case of a controversy.”\nHe refrained from commenting on Opposition’s allegations that the EVMs used in the recently-concluded elections in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab were rigged.\nThe EC, he adds, should tweak the VVPAT design to permit a two-step verification process. Currently, the paper trail machine prints a receipt only after the vote has been cast. In case the vote has been incorrectly registered, the elector cannot prevent the receipt from dropping into in the ballot box. The voter can only raise a complaint with the polling official, who might order a replacement for the EVM. Prasad wants that the voter should be allowed to first check if the EVM is working correctly by casting a dummy vote. After verification with the VVPAT slip, the voter should cast her final vote and only the second VVPAT slip should be deposited in the ballot box.\nFor all the latest India News, download Indian Express App now", "The Supreme Court sought the assistance of Attorney General KK Venugopal in the matter. (File Photo) The Supreme Court sought the assistance of Attorney General KK Venugopal in the matter. (File Photo)\nFollowing a petition seeking a ban on contesting elections from two constituencies, the Election Commission told the Supreme Court on Monday that a candidate ideally should not do so.\nThe court was hearing a petition filed by one Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, who sought a prohibition on contesting elections from two constituencies at all levels – Parliament and the state assemblies. Upadhyay has challenged Section 33(7) of the Representation of People Act that allows a person to contest elections from two constituencies.\nThe apex court, following the EC submission, sought the assistance of KK Venugopal in the matter and directed Upadhyay to serve a copy of his plea to the Attorney General. The bench, headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra and comprising Justice AM Khanwilkar and Justice DY Chandrachud, asked the Centre to submit its views on the issue.\nIt may be recalled that in 2014 the EC had asked the Law Ministry to forbid candidates from contesting from two seats. If not a ban, the EC suggested making the candidates bear the cost of the by-elections necessitated after they vacate a seat.\nPrime Minister Narendra Modi had contested from both Vadodara and Varanasi during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. He had vacated his seat from Gujarat after winning from both the seats. Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav had also vacated his Mainpuri seat and retained Azamgarh in the same elections.\nFor all the latest India News, download Indian Express App\n© IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd", "With just a few days away from polling, the battle for the MCD is heating up, with big rallies, blaring loudspeakers and verbal volleys. With just a few days away from polling, the battle for the MCD is heating up, with big rallies, blaring loudspeakers and verbal volleys.\nWitty slogans and colourful posters are adding a zing to Delhi’s political atmosphere here ahead of the civic polls, where election campaigning have already raised the stakes high and the decibels higher. With just a few days away from polling, the battle for the MCD is heating up, with big rallies, blaring loudspeakers and verbal volleys, hurled at opponents, adding to the drama.\nAll three major parties, the BJP, the Congress and the AAP, are going all-out in the poster wars to woo voters, mixing political attack with a dash of humour. “Bahane nahin karenge vikas, anubhav hai hamare paas (No excuses, only development; we have the experience),” says one of the slogans, put up by the Delhi Congress in its hoardings and banners across the city.\nThe BJP, which has been ruling the MCD for the last 10 years, has come up with a “nai strategy” going with “new faces” in the polls due on April 23. The party has decided to not field any of its sitting 153 councillors. “Nai chehre, nai urja, nai udaan, Dilli maangey kamal nishan (New faces, new energy, new heights, Delhi wants lotus symbol),” reads the saffron-suffused banners and posters, put by the party at prominent places in the city.\nThe AAP, which has been hogging the news headlines over alleged overspending on government advertisements has played on its “house tax waiver” poll promise, in its MCD poll campaigning, while dovetailing it with sly political attack on the BJP. “Dilli ko saaf karne ke liye Kejriwal ko vote deyn (Vote for Kejriwal to clean Delhi),” reads a banner put up by the AAP.\nChief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has been accusing the BJP of “turning the city into a garbage dump” and the campaigns have been designed to target the three corporations. “Pehle bijli half, phir paani maaf; Ab house tax maaf aur Dilli saaf (First power tariff cut by half, then water bill waived; now house tax waiver and cleaning of Delhi” — screams a big hoarding put up on the wall of a public convenience on the Ring Road in south Delhi.\nJD(U) which is fighting the polls with a little over 100 candidates, is banking high on the Purvanchali community and the prohibition model of Nitish Kumar government. “Tir badlega Dilli ki tasveer aur takdir (Arrow will change the scenario and fate of Delhi),” says the slogan by the JD(U). Arrow is the symbol of the Nitish Kumar-led party.\nThe erstwhile unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi was trifurcated into North, South and East Delhi Municipal Corporations in 2012. While the NDMC and SDMC have 104 wards each, EDMC has 64. The BJP has been ruling the three civic bodies for the last 10 years.\nCampaigning is in full swing in all parts of Delhi. Andrews Ganj’s Congress councillor Abhishek Dutt, who is seeking another term, has been campaigning from unauthorised colonies to posh bungalow zones in south Delhi. “Pehla vote vishwas ka, dusra vote vikas ka (first vote was for faith, now vote for development),” reads the tagline on his campaign posters.\nThe Delhi Congress had launched the slogan — “Toot gayi vikas ki dore, vapas chalo Congress ki ore (The rope of development has snapped, let us return to Congress)” — in January for the civic polls, asserting that ‘development’ would be the party’s core issue. Both the BJP and the Congress have fronted their big guns in the poll campaign to shore up their fortunes in the polls.\nFor all the latest India News, download Indian Express App now", "PANAJI: A local court has issued a notice to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in connection with a case filed against him for his bribery remarks made during Goa Legislative Assembly elections held last year.\nJudicial Magistrate First Class at Mapusa town, nine kms from here, issued the notice to the AAP leader yesterday and fixed the next hearing on February 8.\nIn January 2017, the Election Commission had ordered the police to file an FIR against Kejriwal after he publicly appealed to the voters to accept bribe offered by rival parties to vote for them during the Goa elections. The election was held in February last year.\nDuring a series of rallies in Goa between January 7-8, Kejriwal had appealed to voters to \"accept money from the Congress and BJP candidates, but vote for the AAP\".\nThe AAP had contested 39 out of 40 seats with its leader, Elvis Gomes, as the chief ministerial candidate.\nA complaint against Kejriwal was lodged by local Election Commission officials with Mapusa police.\nThe returning officer had approached the judicial magistrate first class in Mapusa in December 2017 with a plea that an offence under section 171 (B) (inducement to voters) and 171 E (bribery) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) be registered against Kejriwal.", "Bypolls Results: The Kairana by-election is seen as a testing ground for opposition unity.\nHere are the LIVE updates on by-election results 2018:\n07:47 (IST) Why Is Kairana So Important? In a state that sends the maximum number of lawmakers to parliament, western UP's Kairana saw a direct contest between a united opposition and the BJP. Arch rivals, Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) joined hands to win the Gorakhpur and Phulpur seats in the by-elections earlier this year. The Kairana seat fell vacant water the death of its BJP lawmaker Hukum Singh. His daughter contested against the wife of a politician who represented the seat earlier. Begum Tabassum Hasan, who contested on a Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) ticket, is backed by several opposition parties including the Congress.\n07:35 (IST) Why Was There Re-Polling Yesterday In Many Seats?\nThe Election Commission called for re-polling after widespread failure of voting machines was reported from a number of polling booths in several states. Over 11 per cent of the 10,300 voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines across 10 states had developed faults and had to be replaced. The Election Commission had said placing the VVPAT machines under direct light, mishandling and extreme heat could have been responsible for the high failure rate. 07:27 (IST) Read: In Key By-Election Results Today, Test For Opposition Bloc In UP: 10 Points\nResults for by-elections to four Lok Sabha constituencies and 10 assembly seats across 10 states will be declared today. The polling took place on two Lok Sabha seats - Kairana in Uttar Pradesh and Bhandara-Gondiya in Maharashtra - on Monday amid complaints of faulty EVMs or electronic vote machines at many booths. Repolling was held in 73 polling stations of Kairana and 49 booths in Bhandara-Gondiya yesterday. Nearly 20 percent of VVPAT or Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail machines, which eject slips confirming voters' choices, were replaced on both the seats. Results for by-elections to four Lok Sabha constituencies and 10 assembly seats across 10 states will be declared today. The polling took place on two Lok Sabha seats - Kairana in Uttar Pradesh and Bhandara-Gondiya in Maharashtra - on Monday amid complaints of faulty EVMs or electronic vote machines at many booths. Repolling was held in 73 polling stations of Kairana and 49 booths in Bhandara-Gondiya yesterday. Nearly 20 percent of VVPAT or Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail machines, which eject slips confirming voters' choices, were replaced on both the seats. 07:26 (IST) The counting of votes in the bypolls will begin at 8 am.\nCounting of votes for the by-elections to four parliamentary seats and ten assembly seats is taking place today. One of the most crucial among the seats is western Uttar Pradesh's Kairana where the opposition parties put up a show of unity to take on the BJP in the run up to the general elections next year. Re-polling was held yesterday in 73 polling booths in Kairana, 49 polling stations in Maharashtra's Bhandara-Gondia and one polling station in Nagaland, after the Election Commission (EC) announced that re-polling will take place in these booths after widespread failure of the machines in Monday's by-elections. The assembly seats where the by-elections were held on Monday are Noorpur (Uttar Pradesh), Jokihat (Bihar), Tharali (Uttarakhand), Gomia and Silli (Jharkhand), Maheshtala (West Bengal), Ampati (Meghalaya), Palus Kadegaon (Maharashtra), Shahkot (Punjab) and Chengannur (Kerala).", "Namita Bajpai By\nExpress News Service\nLUCKNOW: The repoll ordered by the Election Commission of India at 73 booths in Kairana Lok Sabha constituency on Monday passed off peacefully with around 61 per cent voters turned up to cast their votes on Wednesday. Counting of votes will take place on Thursday.\nAs per the state election office, around 80,000 voters were eligible to cast their votes at the booths where the repolling was held on Wednesday. The voters had started thronging the booths in good numbers since morning. The voting had taken off at 7 am and continued till 6 pm in 23 polling stations at Nakur, 44 in Gangoh, one polling station at Thana Bhawan in Saharanpur and five in Shamli.\nThe repoll on 73 booths of Kairana parliamentary constituency was ordered by the ECI consequent to malfunctioning of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and VVPATs at good number of booths during Monday voting. Around 385 booths witnessed such glitches. Some of them were rectified but 73 booths had to go for repoll.\nBoth the opposition and ruling party leaders had approached the ECI and had met state chief Electoral Officer (CEO) separately over the faulty EVMs demanding repoll in booths where anomalies were detected in the machines.\nThe repoll percentage, however, has been a bit higher than Monday voting percentage which had stood out to be around 54 per cent in Kairana. Noorpur Assembly constituency too had gone to bypoll the same day with 62 per cent voters’ turn out.\nThe repoll to both Kairana Lok Sabha and Noorpur Assembly constituencies were necessitated due to the death of sitting BJP lawmakers --- Humkum Singh in Kairana and Lokendra Singh, the Noorpur MLA.\nWhile in Kairana BJP’s Mirganka Singh, daughter of Hukum Singh, was in direct contrst with RLD’s Tabassum Hassan who was supported by SP, BSP, Congress and AAP." ]

[ "Free jane eyre Essays and Papers Color Rating Jane Eyre: The Freedom of Love - Parallel to many of the great feministic novels throughout literary history, Jane Eyre is a story about the quest for authentic love. However, Jane Eyre is unique and separate from other romantic pieces, in that it is also about a woman searching for a sense of self-worth through achieving a degree of independence. Orphaned and dismissed at an early age, Jane was born into a modest lifestyle that was characterized by a form of oppressive servitude of which she had no autonomy. She was busy spending much of her adolescent years locked in chains, both imaginary and real, as well as catering to the needs of her peers.... [tags: Jane Eyre] 1836 words [preview] Jane Eyre: Sympathy for Jane - How does Brontë create sympathy for the character of Jane in her novel, ‘Jane Eyre’. In the novel, ‘Jane Eyre’ Charlotte Brontë focuses on the life of Jane, an unwanted orphan who can’t do anything right in the eyes of her aunt. When she is about nine she is sent to Lowood Institute where she is also treated as inferior by Mr Brocklehurst. Although Jane is treated so cruelly and unfairly all her life she proves everyone wrong in the end by making something of herself. There are many parts of the book where we feel sympathy for Jane.... [tags: Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë] 809 words [preview] Jane Eyre: Brontë's Mother Affected Jane - Would a person describe the personality and acts of their mothers as loving or nurturing or quite possibly witty with her words. When one thinks of a Mother, be it their own or another, one would usually describe them as caring, affectionate, protective; however, with her mother having died when she was a young age of five, Charlotte Brontë never had the chance to understand how essential those traits were to a child and grew up under the care and teachings of her father; which was what helped lead to her strong and virtuous independence: the lack of a mother's love and guide.... [tags: Jane Eyre] :: 9 Works Cited [preview] Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte - Throughout history the idea of the hero or heroine has changed, but some common attributes remain. The hero claims Bill Butler: “is an archetypal figure, a paradigm who bears the possibilities of life, courage, love – the indefinable’s which themselves define our human lives” . In his seminal work The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell states that the hero: “a personage of exceptional gifts” is “the man or woman who has been able to battle past his personal and local historical limitations to the generally valid, normally human forms” .... [tags: Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte] 1749 words [preview] Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte - Humans learn from severe situations. Being a stranger in a harsh environment forces humanity to open to new capabilities, and learning from these hardships makes a person prepared for life's final exam. \"Jane Eyre\", by Charlotte Bronte is a picaresque that revolves around a girl name Jane. Bronte places Jane at Marsh End because she wanted her to see the nature of the world and to show the reader that life comes with surprises. After rising from this fall, she arrives at Moor House where her skills she learned at Marsh End are tested.... [tags: Jane Eyre Literary Analysis] :: 1 Works Cited [preview] Jane Eyre's Development With Characterization - Two major men teach Jane to appreciate the complexities of her emotions and passions for life: Mr. Rochester and St. John. Both are antithesis of each other but both help Jane blossom into a woman with morals and ideals. With Mr. Rochester, she thrives in Thornfield’s environment where she does not need to suppress her passion and responds naturally to Rochester’s strong fervor. Because she did not receive proper moral schooling as a child, she did not know how to control her emotions. This problem is solved when Rochester fully exploits Jane’s weakness to his advantage by constantly making her feel jealous and inferior.... [tags: Jane Eyre] 1084 words [preview] Finding the Balance of Love" ]

[ "Southpaw | Define Southpaw at Dictionary.com southpaw a person who is left-handed. 2. Sports. a player who throws with the left hand, especially a pitcher. Boxing. a boxer who leads with the right hand and stands with the right foot forward, using the left hand for the most powerful blows. adjective 1880-85, Americanism; south + paw 1 Dictionary.com Unabridged Examples from the Web for southpaw Expand Contemporary Examples The four-part story of Henry Wiggen begins with The southpaw, which was published a year after The Natural. The 13 Best Baseball Books: From ‘The Art of Fielding’ to ‘Moneyball’ Jimmy So April 4, 2012 Historical Examples Devore has always been very weak at the bat with a southpaw in the box, dragging his right foot away from the plate. Lefty Locke Pitcher-Manager Burt L. Standish The southpaw fought to prevent his lips from curling with scorn, and to suppress a look of triumph in his eyes. Lefty Locke Pitcher-Manager Burt L. Standish He was seeking to get at the southpaw with his bare left hand! Lefty Locke Pitcher-Manager Burt L. Standish The enemy over in southpaw had already advanced the prophecy that they would take the meeting-house. Lefty Locke Pitcher-Manager Burt L. Standish “That may have been an accidental meeting,” said the southpaw. Lefty Locke Pitcher-Manager Burt L. Standish The southpaw was doing some serious thinking as he walked back to the mound. Lefty Locke Pitcher-Manager Burt L. Standish The swarthy little fabulist rose hastily to his feet, making a quick survey of the southpaw. Lefty Locke Pitcher-Manager Burt L. Standish British Dictionary definitions for southpaw Expand noun 1. a boxer who leads with his right hand and off his right foot as opposed to the orthodox style of leading with the left 2. of or relating to a southpaw Word Origin C20: from paw (in the sense: hand): originally a term applied to a left-handed baseball player: perhaps so called because baseball pitchers traditionally face west, so that a left-handed pitcher would throw with the hand on the south side of his body Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012 Word Origin and History for southpaw Expand n. \"lefthander,\" 1885, originally baseball slang, of pitchers, often said to have been coined by Finley Peter Dunne (\"Mr. Dooley\"), Chicago sports journalist and humorist, in the days when, it is said, baseball diamonds regularly were laid out with home plate to the west. But south paw \"a person's left hand\" is attested from 1848 in the slang of pugilism. Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper Slang definitions & phrases for southpaw Expand" ]

[ "Christiane Lecocq, who died aged 103 on Christmas Eve, helped set up the International Naturist Federation after World War Two.\nShe and her husband founded the world's first ever nudist holiday centre in France and the first naturist magazine.\nSupporters say there are now more than 14 million naturists around the world, including millions in France.\nThe BBC's Hugh Schofield in Paris says that Christiane Lecocq was a last link to the beginnings of the naturist movement in the 1920s and 1930s.\nShe began practising nudism in 1933 when she joined a sports club in Lille, aged 22, only to discover that all of the members went nude.\nAfter the war, Ms Lecocq and her husband Albert began promoting their belief in the health and social benefits of going nude.\nIn 1950 they helped create the French Naturist Federation (FFN), followed by the International Naturist Federation in 1953, which today represents 38 countries.\nFFN President Armand Jamier said that \"If France is now the world's naturist destination, with 3.5 million practitioners, including more than 1.5 million French, she cannot deny that it is thanks to her.\"\nMs Lecocq and her husband also began the first magazine dedicated to naturism called Life in the Sun.\nChristiane Lecocq was still going nude well beyond her 100th birthday." ]

[ "Thousands of people are expected to join the funeral in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky.\nFormer US President Bill Clinton and actor Billy Crystal are also set to speak.\nAli died last Friday at the age of 74 in hospital in Phoenix, Arizona.\nA spokesman said his death was from \"septic shock due to unspecified natural causes\".\nThe the three-time world heavyweight champion had been suffering from a respiratory illness, a condition that was complicated by Parkinson's disease.\nObituary: Muhammad Ali\nMuhammad Ali - in his own words\nWorld pays tribute to boxing legend\nAli's funeral will take place at a large concert and sports arena, the KFC Yum! Center, from 14:00 (18:00 GMT). The service will be open to the public.\nCalifornia imam and scholar Zaid Shakir will preside over the service, family spokesman Bob Gunnell said.\nAlso expected to speak at the ceremony are:\nThe funeral will be broadcast live on the internet.\nBefore the ceremony, at 9:00 (13:00 GMT), the coffin will be taken on a procession through the streets of Louisville, passing by locations historically important to Ali.\n\"Everything that we're doing here was blessed by Muhammad Ali, and was requested,\" Mr Gunnell told journalists.\n\"He wanted the memorial service to reflect his life, and how he lived. He wanted everyone to be able to attend. He was the people's champ, and he wanted the memorial service to reflect that.\"\nOn Thursday, a traditional Muslim funeral service will be held at Freedom Hall, also open to all. This is where Ali fought and won his first professional fight in 1960. The venue has 18,000 seats.\nThe boxer will be buried in a private service at the city's Cave Hill Cemetery.", "City councillors have approved plans for an experimental nudist area, possibly in one of Paris's parks or in wooded areas on its outskirts.\nThe Green Party, which proposed the plan, said France was a top destination for naturists, and its capital city should have somewhere for them to go.\nOne centrist councillor, however, called the idea \"demented\".\nHe said the idea of authorising full-scale nudity in the middle of the capital might be seen as a provocation, especially at a time when feelings were still running high over the 'burkini' issue, the BBC's Hugh Schofield reports.\nBut those who support the move say, in a country with numerous clothes-free beaches and holiday camps, Paris should also be a draw for naturists.\n\"We've got two million nudists in France which is doubled during the summer with visitors,\" said David Belliard, co-chairman of the ecologist group in the city council.\n\"For them Paris is the world's premier tourist destination and there's no public place for them to go. We want to try out a recreational area where nudists can freely strip off.\"\nDeputy Mayor of Paris Bruno Julliard said he was in favour of the plan, as was Mayor Anne Hidalgo.\nHe said the likeliest site for the naturist zone is in one of Paris's two main woods - the Bois de Boulogne to the west or Bois de Vincennes to the east - \"near a lake, in a regulated setting so that there is no threat to public order\".\nHours earlier, Paris's city council approved another controversial plan - to transform a highway into a walkway.\nSome 3.3km (2 miles) of road from the Tuileries Garden toward the Bastille neighbourhood will be closed down and turned into a pedestrian-only zone.\nConservatives have argued this will worsen the city's traffic situation and put commuters at a disadvantage.\nBut Mayor Hidalgo has hailed the move as \"historic\".\nIt is part of her plan to tackle high levels of pollution in the capital, the AP news agency reported.\nThis will not be the first time a highway has been converted into a walkway. A road along the Left Bank has already been converted for pedestrian use.", "Media playback is unsupported on your device\n8 October 2014 Last updated at 19:40 BST\nA new book and exhibition is celebrating that history.\nThe free exhibition is open to the public at the W London hotel, Leicester Square, and runs until 18 October.\nBBC London's Emilia Papadopoulos met broadcaster Robert Elms, general manager of the W London hotel Coen Van Niersen, and celebrity photographer Dave Hogan.", "16 October 2016 Last updated at 13:46 BST\nFollowing his death at 88, the question for a country in mourning is: What happens next?", "The condition, acute pulmonary oedema, was caused by \"a heart rhythm disorder\", post-mortem tests revealed.\nFoley, 42, died on Saturday night at the hotel in Paris where Munster were staying before Sunday's scheduled game against Racing 92.\nHis funeral will be held in Killaloe, County Clare, on Friday at 12:00 BST.\nFoley's body will be flown to Shannon Airport on Wednesday before being taken to the family home.\nFuneral mass will take place at St Flannan's Church, with burial afterwards at Relig Nua Cemetery.\nThe death of the former Ireland forward could \"be linked to a cardiac problem\", a spokeswoman for the Nanterre public prosecutor said on Tuesday.\nOther toxicological analysis is under way, with results due in the coming weeks.\nPulmonary oedema means excess fluid collects in numerous air sacks in the lungs, making it difficult to breathe.\nFoley's body was found in his room at 12:40 on Sunday by a member of hotel staff and a Munster player.\nThe European Champions Cup game was postponed.\nFoley won 62 Ireland caps and made 201 appearances in the back row for Munster, leading them to their first European Cup triumph in 2006.", "He died at his home in Cambridge following an illness lasting several months, a statement on his website said.\nIt added his funeral will be private, with a memorial service to be held at a later date.\nHogwood worked with many leading orchestras around the world and was considered one of the most influential exponents of the early-music movement.\nThe conductor founded the Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) in 1973 and directed the academy across six continents for some 30 years.\nThe AAM also made more than 200 CDs, including the first-ever complete cycle of Mozart symphonies on period instruments.\nAmong his most famous recordings include the 1980 version of Handel's Messiah with Emma Kirkby and Carolyn Watkinson, which was named by BBC Music Magazine as one of the top 20 recordings of all time.\nHogwood studied keyboard at Cambridge University with Rafael Puyana and Mary Potts and later with Zuzana Ruzickova and Gustav Leonhardt.\nHis first positions were as a keyboard player and musicologist with the Academy of Saint Martin-in-the-Fields under Sir Neville Marriner, and was a founder member of the Early Music Consort of London.\nHe was the artistic director of the King's Lynn Festival and Boston's Handel and Haydn Society. He was also a tutor at Harvard University, honorary professor of music at the University of Cambridge and a professor-at-large at Cornell University in the US.\n\"Christopher had extraordinary generosity of spirit,\" Christopher Purvis, honorary president of the AAM, said.\n\"He was a great ambassador for historically informed music, the movement of which he was a founder. And he was happy to see the orchestra he founded develop and grow after he stepped down as director.\"\nThe AAM's music director Richard Egarr added: \"I am deeply saddened by the news of Christopher's passing. Christopher provided a fantastic legacy for me to build upon when I joined in 2006 and I know he will be greatly missed by all who knew and worked with him.\"\nSpeaking to Sean Rafferty on Radio 3's In Tune, soprano Dame Emma Kirkby said: \"Some of the best players that now lead orchestras all over the world, they started with him.\n\"Chris was a natural academic, an incredibly clever man. He had an amazing capacity to absorb information of all kinds and a really sure sense of how things would be if he really tried to reproduce conditions... a very genial person.\"\nDavid Thomas from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London added: \"He always said I want the music to speak for itself because it can, it's good enough, it will… a very pleasant and lovely man.\"", "In a video message to a global gathering in Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales warned of a failure to \"run the global bank that we call our planet in a responsible and competent manner\".\nHe urged delegates to \"act now before it is too late\".\nThe Prince was speaking at the World Forum on Natural Capital.\n\"I think there is an urgent need for collaboration, sharing of knowledge and a drive to do things differently,\" he added.\nSpeaking as patron of the Scottish Wildlife Trust, which organised the two-day event, Prince Charles said: \"The value of the planet's ecosystems and biodiversity has not been taken into account fully and consistently in our decision-making systems.\n\"We are facing what can only be described as a cataclysm of events which pose a real threat to our survival.\"\nNatural capital describes the planet's stocks of natural assets, such as soil, air, water and all living things.\nNumerous high-profile reports and studies have identified the range of vital services the natural world provides, such as clean air and clean water.\nHowever, these stocks are being depleted at an unsustainable rate and the situation is set to worsen amid a growing global population and projected climate change.\nThe forum's co-founder and chief executive of the Scottish Wildlife Trust, Jonathan Hughes, observed: \"This is not just an ecological tragedy but it is a social and economic tragedy as well.\nHe added one of the motivations for organising the forum, the second of its kind, was to raise awareness of the issues and challenges facing natural resources and wildlife.\n\"Secondly, we wanted business and governments to act quickly so we wanted to turn the debate around the concept of natural capital into practical tools that business and governments can implement and make a difference that traditional nature conservation has failed to do over the past 50 years,\" Mr Hughes told BBC News.\nThe opening address to 500 delegates from more than 40 nations was delivered by Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon.\nShe said it was not a surprise the there was a growing interest around the globe in the concept of natural capital.\nShe said: \"This year, more than any other, exemplifies why that is of such profound importance.\n\"Over the summer… Scotland became one of the first countries in the world to publicly pledge to Implement the (United Nations) global goals on sustainable development.\n\"The goals set out a plan of action for people and the planet,' Ms Sturgeon observed.\n\"They start from the premise, the right premise in my point of view, that irradiating poverty in all of its forms… is an indispensable requirement for sustainable development.\n\"Protecting the resources that we all depend on is a crucial part of that.\"\nHowever, she did acknowledge that there were a \"range of views around the valuation of natural capital and the involvement of business\".\nIn the build-up to the event, some environmental campaigners accused the organisers of the forum of helping a number of big companies with a history of environmental pollution to \"profit from greenwash\".\nMr Hughes told BBC News that there was a place within the environmental movement for \"placards and banners but the movement also needs to be prepared to work constructively with government and business\".\n\"Scottish Wildlife Trust likes to focus on solutions,\" he added.\n\"Only through working with business and governments and making them part of the solutions can we expect to tackle some of the critical challenges facing us.\"\nMany of the speakers made the link between natural capital and climate change, particularly the forthcoming key UN summit in Paris.\nInger Andersen, director-general of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), told delegates: \"On the eve of, potentially, the single largest agreement in Paris, we all have to remind ourselves what is at stake.\n\"I want to remind you that even with the two degree limit, which will be very hard to reach, that will have very severe impacts on our planet and our ecosystems.\n\"The story of how we deal with natural capital becomes all the more important. Natural Capital is our single, greatest ally as we try to defend vulnerable communities from the onslaught of more frequent storms, flood and drought.\"\nDelegates were being invited to sign a letter that called on world leaders attending the Paris summit to recognise that tackling climate change could not be achieved unless the loss of the world's natural capital was halted.\n\"What we are saying is protection of that natural capital is a prerequisite for tackling the climate crisis,\" Jonathan Hughes explained.\n\"The Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, which the governments from around the world are taking to Paris, [reveal that] a lot of the emissions are from land-use change and land-use degradation.\n\"So we cannot solve the climate crisis without solving the biodiversity crisis.\"", "The circumstances of his death are unclear. Some media reports suggest he killed himself.\nHamilton had recently denied accusations that he had in the past raped some of his teenage models.\nHe made his name in the 1960s with soft-focus pictures of young girls published by major magazines.\nThe emergency services were called to his apartment in the French capital's 6th district (arrondissement) shortly after 20:30 local time (19:30 GMT), where he was found unresponsive.\nLocal media are reporting that prescription drugs were found nearby.\nIn a book published last month, prominent TV presenter Flavie Flament described being raped in the 1980s by a famous photographer, without giving a name.\nIn an interview with L'Obs weekly last week, Flament named Hamilton as her attacker. Other women then levelled similar accusations.\nHamilton, whose work has long raised questions about where art ends and pornography begins, strongly denied the allegations, and said he would sue for defamation.\nFlament was left \"devastated\" by the news of his death on Friday, her editor Karina Hocine told AFP news agency.\n\"Naturally, we feel horrified and, at the same time, really disgusted that there was not enough time for justice to run its course,\" she added.\nBorn in London in 1933, Hamilton settled in France after leaving Britain in the 1950s.", "He died of a heart attack at home in Rio de Janeiro on Saturday, a spokeswoman said.\nOn Friday, he had held the torch in the Rio neighbourhood of Gavea, on the final leg of the Olympic relay.\nHe cemented Brazil's place as a destination for plastic surgery, giving the world the \"Brazilian butt lift\".\nBut he first earned the respect of his fellow citizens by providing his skills free of charge to victims of a disaster.\nAfter a huge circus tent burned hundreds of spectators in the Brazilian city of Niteroi in 1961, Pitanguy tended to disfigured victims.\n\"Ivo Pitanguy dedicated his life to helping people live better,\" Brazilian interim President Michel Temer said in a statement.\n\"He will be missed.\"\n\"I saw the importance of saving lives and saving functions but it seemed that nobody gave importance to the stigma of deformity and how people suffered with that,\" Pitanguy told the Guardian newspaper in an interview in 2014.\nTrained in Paris and London, he became a pioneer of plastic surgery in Brazil and a \"cultural icon\" in the \"beauty-obsessed\" country, Reuters writes.\nYet he still offered his staff and services free of charge to less well-off patients one day a week, the news agency adds.\nSalvador Dali painted him and in 1999 he received one of the highest honours in Rio when a samba school used him as their theme: \"The Universe of Beauty - Master Pitanguy.\"\nHis body will be cremated on Sunday.", "Now construction of the first heathen temple or \"hof\" to be built in a Nordic country in almost 1,000 years is set to get under way.\nWork will start in March on a wooded hill near to the the capital Reykjavik's domestic airport.\nThe temple will provide followers of Iceland's old Norse religion with a place to hold their communal \"blot\" - or feasts - as well as marriages, name-giving ceremonies, funerals and rite of passage ceremonies for teenagers. Until now, ceremonies have mostly been conducted outdoors during the summer.\n\"At last, our long journey across the desert is at an end,\" says Hilmar Orn Hilmarsson, a composer and high priest of Iceland's neo-pagan Asatru movement.\nDesigned by Danish-educated architect and Asatru member Magnus Jensen, the oval-shaped temple will be built into the side of the hill and use the natural rock as one of the walls.\nThe nearby airport was built by occupying British forces in 1940, and the surrounding landscape is dotted with deserted gun positions and a cemetery with the remains of British servicemen.\nWater will flow down the stone wall and collect in pools on the floor. Local wood will be used, and a skylight in the temple's dome will allow for an ever-changing interplay of light and shadow on a daily and seasonal basis.\nIt will incorporate the ancient concept of the \"golden ratio\", a geometric proportion regarded as the most aesthetically pleasing to the human eye.\nWith the design, Mr Jensen says he is seeking to combine natural with manmade, and indoors with outdoors.\nFor him, the building should appear timeless. He does not want it to resemble a traditional Viking temple or remain specifically modern in style.\nNorse paganism was the common belief in Iceland until 1000 AD, when its lawmakers conceded to Christian demands that Christianity should become the country's official religion.\nThis compromise saved the nation from a bloody civil war. All that pagans asked was to be allowed to practise their religion privately. But once Christianity had established itself, paganism was suppressed and forced underground.\nHowever, thanks to the literary endeavours of 13th Century Icelandic scholar and chieftain Snorri Sturlason, the old Norse myths were preserved and widely read by Icelanders through the ages.\nSturlason's epic text Prose Edda and the family sagas ensured Iceland´s pagan heritage was kept very much alive in the national consciousness.\nAnd in spring 1972 a few individuals came together in a cafe in Reykjavik to bring it back to life by establishing the Asatru association.\nLater that year, the group's elected high priest, Sveinbjorn Beinteinsson, met Iceland's minister of justice and ecclesiastical affairs to present a request for the Norse religion to be recognised as an official religion in Iceland.\nThe move was met with opposition, with Iceland's Lutheran bishop saying a constitutional ruling on religious freedoms should not apply to polytheistic religions.\nBut the story goes that shortly after Mr Beinteinsson left the justice ministry, a powerful thunderstorm started up, causing a power cut in the capital.\nSome Icelanders like to think it was Thor, the god of thunder, having his say on the matter, as a few months later the minister agreed formally to recognise the Asatru.\nToday the Asatru has close to 3,000 members and is one of the fastest growing religions in Iceland.\nIts principles are non-authoritarian and decentralised, with no sacred text or official founder. Its philosophy promotes tolerance and individual liberty. It costs nothing to join and is open to all irrespective of race, cultural background, gender or sexuality.\nFollowers do not pray in the traditional sense and do not necessary believe in gods but instead, as Hilmar Hilmarsson explains, see the Norse myths as \"wonderfully layered stories rich in symbolism and metaphors\".\nBecause of the focus on living in harmony with nature, the temple's builders will carefully dig up the trees on the construction site and replant them elsewhere.\nThe \"hof\" should be completed late next year and Mr Hilmarsson is confident it will attract considerable attention among visitors.\n\"Foreigners are more than welcome to join our feasts, get married here or have a name-giving ceremony and we can arrange all the formalities,\" he says.\n\"People have come away from our ceremonies with a changed outlook, moved in a way they had never expected.\"", "Visitors to the show at Tate Modern will be able to wear VR headsets which will allow them to step into the artist's adopted city.\nCurator Nancy Ireson said virtual reality would \"bring a new dimension\" to the exhibition.\n\"It doesn't take away from the art, it helps us to better understand it,\" she told the BBC.\n\"By using VR we want to feel closer to Paris as a city, the exhibition is about feeling connected with a particular place.\"\nThe virtual reality room at Tate Modern will be the first time the gallery has used such technology for a major show.\nThe exhibition, billed as the most comprehensive of the Italian artist's work ever held in the UK, will bring together a group of 10 nudes portraits that proved controversial in the artist's day.\nModigliani's only solo exhibition in his lifetime - at Berthe Weill's Paris gallery in 1917 - was raided by police on the grounds of indecency.\nA nude portrait hung in the front window caught the attention of a police commissioner who lived opposite.\nMs Ireson said: \"What shocked Modigliani's contemporaries about his nudes was not that they were naked - people for centuries had been painting nude women - but the fact that they had pubic hair.\n\"This seems to have caused a real stir and some of the paintings had to be taken down.\"\nShe explained that such was the attitude toward female body hair around that time that it was even recommended that women use radiation to remove it.\nBorn in Livorno in 1884, Amedeo Modigliani produced some of the most memorable art of the early 20th Century and is famous for his elongated portraits.\nHe moved to the French capital in 1906 where he was influenced by a new artistic community that included Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau. He died in Paris in 1920, aged just 35, of tubercular meningitis.\nModigliani will be open at Tate Modern from 23 November 2017 to 2 April 2018.\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected].", "Coffins representing two men and two women who resisted the Nazis in World War Two were carried through the French capital before being interred.\nThe coffins contained only soil from the fighters' graves as their relatives did not want their bodies disturbed.\nFrench President Francois Hollande said the group \"embodied the spirit of the Resistance\".\nA ceremony was held at the Pantheon alongside the coffins of Germaine Tillion, Genevieve de Gaulle-Anthonioz, Pierre Brossolette and Jean Zay.\nTillion, who died in 2008, and de Gaulle-Anthonioz, a niece of former French leader Charles de Gaulle who died in 2002, were caught and deported to the Ravensbruck concentration camp in Germany.\nBrossolette, a radio journalist who broadcast on the BBC during the war, committed suicide after being arrested and tortured in 1944.\nZay, who was minister of education before the war, was killed in 1944, having tried to set up a government-in-exile in north Africa.\n\"Faced with the occupation, with submission, they gave the same response,\" Mr Hollande said. \"They said 'no', immediately, firmly, clearly.\"\nMr Hollande drew parallels with those who marched in French cities on January 11 this year, days after terror attacks on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper and a kosher supermarket.\nThe induction now sees three women interred at the Pantheon, after the scientist Marie Curie. There are now 74 men interred at the mausoleum, the first being the writer Victor Hugo.", "Best known in France for her instrumental role in legalising abortion in the 1970s, she went on to serve as the first president of an elected European Parliament.\nMs Veil, a liberal, later re-entered French politics, returning to the cabinet in the 1990s.\nPresident Emmanuel Macron described her as \"inspiring\" and the best of France.\nShe became one of the 40 \"immortals\" of the Académie Française in 2010 - a great honour in France.\nMs Veil was France's minister of health from 1974-79, in which role she made access to contraception easier and fought a long battle to legalise abortion.\nThe law which did so, passed in 1975, is known as \"la loi Veil\".\nSimon Veil became an MEP in the 1979 European elections, and she was elected as president of the parliament.\nShe later went on to become the leader of the liberal grouping within the parliament, and stood down as an MEP in 1993.\nShe again became a French minister, before being appointed to the constitutional council of France.\nBorn in Nice in 1927 as Simone Jacob, her whole family was arrested by the Germans in 1944.\nHer father and brother were transported to eastern Europe and were never heard from again.\nThe teenaged Simone was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau and then Bergen-Belsen with her mother and oldest sister. Her mother died shortly before liberation.\nHer other sister, Denise, had joined the French Resistance and was imprisoned at Ravensbrück concentration camp.\nThe three sisters survived the war but the eldest, Madeleine, was killed in a car crash in the 1950s.\nMs Veil was married to the late Antoine Veil for more than 60 years and the couple had three children.", "Mr Paisley was buried in County Down, following a private funeral service at his family home in east Belfast.\nAs a mark of respect, assembly business was suspended as MLAs remembered the former first minister and DUP leader.\nMr Paisley, who stepped down from politics in 2008, died on Friday, aged 88.\nHis successor as first minister and DUP leader, Peter Robinson, told MLAs: \"Ian Paisley was a remarkable man, whose long career in public life has left an indelible mark upon all of us who knew him.\n\"Like so many, I was drawn towards politics by the clarity, the certainty, the strength and the conviction of his message.\"\nThe first minister said Mr Paisley had \"taken his place in the chronicles of Ulster history, alongside the greats of unionism\".\nMr Robinson added that since his death, politics seemed \"a little less colourful and exciting\".\n\"Ulster will never see the like of him again, he was an exceptional human being,\" he said.\nDeputy First Minister Martin McGuinness told the assembly that sharing power with Mr Paisley during his first year in office was an \"incredible experience\" and one of the \"most memorable\" of his life.\nThe Sinn Féin MLA said that as a teenager, he remembered being \"in fear\" of Mr Paisley, because of his \"huge stature, his booming voice, his politics that we didn't share or like\".\nHowever, he said that after they went into government together they \"genuinely grew to like each other and in doing so, we confounded the world\".\nMr McGuinness said: \"From the word go, for some reason, we hit it off. Not alone did we develop a positive and constructive working relationship, we actually became friends.\"\nHe added that both he and the Northern Ireland peace process had \"lost a great friend\" as a result of Mr Paisley's death.\nAfter the tributes, MLAs signed a book of condolence in Stormont's Great Hall - members of the public have also been invited to do so.\nA book of condolence opened at Belfast City Hall on Monday, where the union flag was flown at half-mast.\nA spokeswoman for Belfast City Council said the flag had been displayed under the College of Arms policy.\nThe policy states the flag should fly at half-mast to mark the the funerals of first ministers and ex-first ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.\nAll DUP constituency offices closed on Monday, as a mark of respect to the party's founder and former leader.\nSeveral books of condolence for Mr Paisley were opened in towns and cities in Northern Ireland on Saturday.\nMr Paisley moved from a political \"never man\" to Northern Ireland's first minister.\nHe ended up leading a power-sharing executive at Stormont - although he had supported the strike to bring one down 30 years earlier.\nMr Paisley was a founder of the Free Presbyterian Church in 1951 after a split with the Presbyterian Church - he resigned as as moderator of the Free Presbyterian Church in 2008.\nIn 2011, he told the congregation at Martyrs Memorial Free Presbyterian Church in south Belfast that he was stepping down from ministry.", "Special Report: The Technology of Business\nKeeping the cyber thieves at bay\nNollywood finds its global audience online\nJoining up Ghana's healthcare to save lives\nIvory Coast stallholders turn to digital marketplace\nSouth African education goes digital\nWith more than half a million people in the UK dying each year, the funeral industry makes about £2bn in annual revenues, according to market research company Ibis World.\nNearly 1,500 businesses employ 20,105 people, and industry revenue is expected to grow by 4.7% by the end of 2014, as increased competition for burial space is slowly pushing up the price of cremations.\nWith such a large and lucrative market, it's no surprise that tech firms have been eyeing up the death care and funeral industry.\nYour Last Will, for example, is an iPhone app that lets anyone create a last message for loved ones in the form of a \"video will\", to be viewed after death.\nYou create and upload a private video will and are then issued your own QR code - a kind of smartphone readable bar code - which you give to a trusted confidant who is likely to outlive you.\nAfter your death, your confidant signs in to the app using the specified QR code and receives an email containing a link to your last message video. This link is automatically sent to your chosen list of recipients.\nThe company acknowledges that \"in most countries video wills cannot replace written wills\", but for an additional fee, Your Last Will does provide the opportunity to have your video submitted for legal review in what it describes as \"an easy process\".\n\"Death is obviously an unpleasant but unavoidable part of life and it's much easier to leave a last message or last will via video than in the traditional way, which involves a lawyer and witnesses,\" Wolfgang Gabler, chief executive and founder of Your Last Will, told the BBC.\nHe believes technology will continue to influence death care in the UK and across the world.\n\"There will be many new businesses around this theme in the near future. I already met with other start-ups that are working on other issues of life and death,\" he says.\n\"Our goal is to make it really easy and comfortable for people dealing with this important subject.\"\nSome firms are more creative with their ideas. Celestis, for example, is a US-based company that uses rocket technology to blast human remains into space.\nThe first \"memorial spaceflight\" took Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and psychedelic drug advocate Timothy Leary to the stars in 1997.\nSince then, the company has added a variety of options. A simple Earth orbit service will cost $4,995 (£2,930), but something more fancy, such as a lunar orbit, will cost $12,500.\nAnd in 2016 the Voyager service will truly go where no-one has gone before.\nUsing solar sail technology - which uses radiation pressure from the sun as a means of propulsion - to power the flight, the idea is that the craft will travel on indefinitely into deep space.\nAppropriately enough, the remains of Gene Roddenberry and his wife Majel, and James Doohan who played Scotty in the series, are part of the crew on this continuing mission.\nOnce the remains have been launched into the stratosphere loved ones can track the deceased in real time with live satellite feeds on the Celestis website.\nBiographies may also be uploaded and DVDs of the launch are available as part of the package deal.\n\"We don't think of our services as an expensive novelty, with prices beginning at $1,000 and the average cost of a funeral in the US reaching $8,000,\" Celestis founder Charles Chafer told the BBC.\n\"But rather, we offer a compelling tribute for someone who has longed to travel in space as their final wish.\n\"We do believe that as humanity becomes a multi-planetary species we will take all of our rituals and memorials with us, including our funeral and memorial services, not as a solution to reduced available space on Earth but as part of a natural evolution.\"\nTechnology is also being used in less bombastic ways, with some individuals paying for funerals with bitcoins, the digital crypto-currency.\nOne user of popular news aggregator Reddit described last year how he paid for his grandmother's funeral with the currency.\nKadhim Shubber, who writes for Bitcoin news site CoinDesk, is not surprised a funeral has been paid for with bitcoins, particularly as the currency is already being used in healthcare in various parts of the world, including London.\n\"On the whole we find that committed bitcoiners are keen to pay in bitcoin wherever they're able. Already there are doctors in California and elsewhere who accept bitcoin payments for privacy reasons and a private practice in London does too,\" he says.\nThe traditionally conservative funeral business is certainly becoming more technology aware, the National Association of Funeral Directors (NAFD) believes.\n\"There is an increasing number of apps being used by funeral directors, and the NAFD has an arrangement with a company providing apps to our members,\" a spokesman said.\n\"The vast majority of members have websites, so there is a growing number of ways funeral directors can reach and inform the public.\"\nFor example, the NAFD's free online obituary service, Forever Online, enables relatives and friends to inform everyone of a bereavement via the internet, complementing the usual newspaper announcements.\nWhile \"smart funeral software\" from the likes of Cemneo is on the increase, the NAFD, which represents 80% of all funeral homes in the UK, says it has yet to see the swathes of new funeral and death-care-focused start-ups that Your Last Will's Mr Gabler believes are on the horizon.\n\"Bereaved families are becoming more involved with funerals - how they should be conducted and the content of the ceremony - and there is a lot more personalisation of funerals than there has been previously.\n\"So the vast majority of funerals are still arranged face-to-face between the bereaved families and the funeral director,\" the spokesman said.\nIt seems that for the time being, funerals will remain relatively traditional.\nBut it may not be long before many of us are booking funerals on our smartphones, watching pre-recorded \"wills\" on our tablets, and blasting loved ones into space, quietly monitoring their ashes orbiting the earth on our smart TVs, instead of visiting a dreary graveyard.", "It's called 42 - the name taken from the answer to the meaning of life, from the science fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.\nThe US college, a branch of an institution in France with the same name, will train about a thousand students a year in coding and software development by getting them to help each other with projects, then mark one another's work.\nThis might seem like the blind leading the blind - and it's hard to imagine parents at an open day being impressed by a university offering zero contact hours.\nBut since 42 started in Paris in 2013, applications have been hugely oversubscribed.\nRecent graduates are now working at companies including IBM, Amazon, and Tesla, as well as starting their own firms.\n42 was founded by French technology billionaire Xavier Niel, whose backing means there are no tuition fees and accommodation is free.\nMr Niel and his co-founders come from the world of technology and start-ups, and they are trying to do to education what Facebook did to communication and Airbnb to accommodation.\nThey aim to do this by combining an extreme form of \"peer-to-peer learning\" with project-based learning. Both are popular methods among education researchers, but they usually involve the supervision of a teacher.\nStudents at 42 are given a choice of projects that they might be set in a job as a software engineer - perhaps to design a website or a computer game.\nThey complete a project using resources freely available on the internet and by seeking help from their fellow students, who work alongside them in a large open-plan room full of computers. Another student will then be randomly assigned to mark their work.\nLike in the computer games the students are asked to design, they go up a level by competing a project. They graduate when they reach level 21, which usually takes three to five years. And at the end there is a certificate but no formal degree.\nThe founders claim this method of learning makes up for shortcomings in the traditional education system, which they say encourages students to be passive recipients of knowledge.\n\"The feedback we have had from employers is that our graduates are more apt to go off and find out information for themselves, rather than asking their supervisor what to do next,\" says Brittany Bir, chief operating officer of 42 in California and a graduate of its sister school in Paris.\n\"Peer-to-peer learning develops students with the confidence to search for solutions by themselves, often in quite creative and ingenious ways.\"\nMs Bir says 42's graduates will be better able to work with others and discuss and defend their ideas - an important skill in the \"real world'\" of work.\nMore stories from the BBC's Global education series looking at education from an international perspective, and how to get in touch\n\"This is particularly important in computer programming, where individuals are notorious for lacking certain human skills,\" she says.\nThe idea of peer learning is not new and many universities and schools already use it, particularly in more collaborative subjects like engineering.\nIn fact, Aristotle was said to have used \"archons\", or student leaders, to help teach his students.\nBut more recent research has shown that peer learning can help students gain a deeper understanding of a subject.\nEducation expert Professor Phil Race says difficult topics can be easier to understand when they are explained by someone who only recently learned the material themselves.\nProfessor Dan Butin, founding dean of the school of education and social policy at Merrimack College in Massachusetts, argues that peer learning and project-based learning should be used even more widely in schools and universities.\nHe says they are \"much better learning tools\" than lectures, which do not usually challenge the way students think.\nBut he thinks 42 has gone too far by removing teachers altogether. His research suggests peer learning is most effective when students are under the supervision of an expert teacher.\n\"The deep reason for a teacher is to guide students to grapple with exactly the complex, ambiguous, and tough issues that are usually outside of students' self-awareness or capabilities,\" he says.\n\"Good teachers are able to guide students to what I call these \"aha!\" moments.\"\nProf Butin says \"the whole point of a university\" is to challenge a student's prior knowledge and assumptions about the world. A university without teachers could allow students to simply \"reinforce and regurgitate\" their existing opinions.\n42's model might offer an alternative to Moocs (massive open online courses, which let large numbers of students cheaply study a subject online.\nLike a Mooc, it provides a more affordable education than a traditional university. But it also gives students the social benefits of coming to a physical building and interacting with others every day.\nThe opening of 42 also follows the rise of \"coding academies\" in the US, which offer short, intensive courses to thousands of students wanting to take advantage of the high demand for software developers.\nBut could 42's model of teacherless learning work in mainstream universities?\nBritanny Bir admits 42's methods do not suit all students. During the month-long selection period, some applicants fell out because of the stresses of working closely together. It is easy to imagine reacting badly to a poor mark if it was given by the student in the desk next to you.\n\"It suits individuals who are very disciplined and self-motivated, and who are not scared by having the freedom to work at their own pace,\" she says.\nNicolas Sadirac, director of 42 in Paris, says the model works particularly well for students who have been frustrated and left behind by mainstream education.\n\"The education system in France fails a lot of passionate students, who feel frustrated by being told what to do and how to do it,\" he says.\n42's selection process ignores previous academic qualifications, and 40% of students at 42 in Paris did not even complete secondary school.\n\"42 has reminded them that learning can be fun if you follow what you are interested in, rather than being told by teachers to focus on one thing in particular,\" says Mr Sadirac.", "The wedding of late Xavier Jugelé and Etienne Cardiles was conducted in the presence of former President Francois Hollande and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo.\nFrance is one of the few countries where posthumous marriages are permitted by law.\nMr Jugelé was shot dead on 20 April while on duty on the famous avenue.\nTwo other officers were wounded in the attack - just days before the first round of the French presidential elections.\nThe attacker, who was later named as convicted criminal Karim Cheurfi, was shot dead by security forces.\nA note defending so-called Islamic State was found near his body.\nXavier Jugelé, 37, was an active campaigner for gay rights. He was in a civil partnership and did not have children.\nHis murder caused huge emotion across France, especially after the moving address by his partner at the subsequent ceremony of remembrance.\n\"I have no hatred, Xavier, because it is not like you and does not fit with what made your heart beat nor what made you a guardian of the peace,\" Mr Cardiles said.\nOriginally from the Loire Valley region in central France, Mr Jugelé had been serving in the capital since 2014.\nHe was deployed on the night of the November 2015 attacks in Paris to the Bataclan concert hall, returning the following year on the night the venue reopened.\nInterviewed by the BBC's Nick Garnett at the same venue a year later, Mr Jugelé said: \"I want to celebrate life and say 'no' to terrorism.\"\nWednesday's ceremony is believed to be the first posthumous gay wedding to take place in France, and presumably therefore in the world, the BBC's Hugh Schofield in Paris reports.", "Media playback is unsupported on your device\n2 April 2015 Last updated at 19:51 BST\nIn this third item, Waterloo expert John Wells shows us rarely seen illustrations of the Duke of Wellington's funeral procession.\nThis footage is part of an interactive video which can be viewed here.", "Rather than choose a typical Victorian-style service offered by many traditional undertakers, Ms Grant and her brother arranged for the ceremony to be held in a thatched barn, followed by a woodland burial, with a tree planted on top of the grave.\n\"It wasn't the slickest funeral ever, but it was lovely, and so many people contributed in different ways,\" says Ms Grant.\nThe event also sparked a light-bulb moment for the 46-year-old, who decided she wanted to enter the industry, to help other people looking for more unusual, eco-friendly, or bespoke, funerals.\n\"It started off as an interest for me,\" she says. \"I wanted to help families create their own farewell rituals.\"\nAfter gaining experience as a funeral director, Ms Grant founded Natural Endings in Chorlton, Manchester in 2005. Since then she has organised funerals in barns, pubs and at the deceased's home, and arranged burials at woodland burial sites. There are 270 such locations across the UK.\nShe says: \"I spend time with the family of the deceased, and we work out what kind of funeral they want.\"\nMs Grant also specialises in ethical burials, offering natural and biodegradable coffins made from materials such as bamboo, willow and woven pineapple leaves.\nHer business is a far cry from many High Street undertakers, who follow a traditional checklist involving top hat, black limousines, highly-lacquered wooden coffins, and a solemn service with prayers and a few hymns.\nHowever, as a growing number of us demand more choice, a new breed of modern funeral businesses has developed.\nThey are attempting to shake up the funeral sector, estimated to be valued at £1.5bn, according to the National Association of Funeral Directors (NAFD), which represents 3,900 member firms across the UK, and organises funeral industry qualifications, such as a diploma in funeral arranging.\n\"People are increasingly wanting different formats when it comes to funerals,\" says Mike Owen, chief executive of the NAFD.\n\"They want it to be tailored and have a less religious feel. There's more of a focus on celebrating rather than just having a traditional sorrowful service.\"\nRosie Inman-Cook, manager of the Natural Death Centre, a charity set up to facilitate natural funerals, notes that many of the new, alternative funeral directing businesses are being opened by women.\nShe adds: \"Many are starting such a business because they've experienced a dreadful funeral for a family member and thought, 'I can do so much better'.\n\"They don't do black, shiny cars and twirling silver canes, unless that's what the family wants.\"\nWhen the bereaved visit one of Green Endings' three branches in London, they might be offered champagne to raise a toast to a family member, or a slice of cake as they sit on the sofa.\n\"We don't want people to feel like they're applying for a mortgage,\" says Jeremy Smith, who took over Green Endings in 2008 when the previous owner retired.\n\"We want to be more natural, not pompous, and we don't ask if they'd like to see the brass handles [on the coffin] and all that horrible nonsense, when someone has died,\" adds the 55-year-old. \"We want to treat people properly.\"\nLike Natural Endings, Green Endings, as the name suggests, focuses on creating eco-friendly funerals. It also uses a bright pink hearse, and even a tricycle, to transport coffins to funerals.\n\"In the 15 years I've been working in this business, I've seen the rise of the green burial site as a key trend,\" says Mr Smith.\n\"There's so much more interest in being buried in a natural environment without regimented lawns and marble memorials.\"\nBack in 2014 his company organised the funeral for Only Fools and Horses actor Roger Lloyd-Pack, more fondly remembered as \"Trigger\". Mr Lloyd-Pack was buried in London's Highgate Cemetery in a woven coffin.\nWith the average price of a funeral in the UK rising by 3.9% to £3,702 over the past year, according life and pensions group Royal London, the sector can be a financially rewarding one to work in.\nWhile some industries feel the strain during a recession, even in tough times the funeral industry holds up, says Ms Owen.\n\"In some cases families do get into debt [when arranging a funeral], as they prefer to give a good send off,\" she adds. \"So they'll spend a few hundred pounds more, even if they have to pay for that through credit for a few months.\"\nFor Green Endings, the rising demand for alternative types of funerals has spurred the company to expand - the business opened its third branch in November, and is set to launch its fourth in east London this year.\nTo help shatter the taboo around death, and inspire people to think creatively about the type of funeral they want before they die, former fashion editor Louise de Winter launched Poetic Endings, a funeral planning service, back in November.\n\"I'd reached a point where I want to do something with meaning, and when my granddad died a few years ago, that was my first firsthand experience of a funeral business,\" she says.\n\"I was appalled by what I experienced. It was traditional, dry, everything about it was stuffy.\n\"The idea [of Poetic Endings] is that people spend some time thinking about how they would like their funeral to be,\" adds Ms de Winter, who also hosts death cafes, where strangers come together to talk about death and dying.\n\"It's not just about the service, it's about thinking about which funeral directors you'd like to use, what's important to you, how much you want your family to spend. It makes you more aware of the options you have.\"\nWhile there's many intense challenges to being a funeral director, chiefly being on call 24/7 and constantly dealing with grief, for many it's a vocation.\nMs Grant says: \"I feel like I make a difference supporting people at a difficult time.\n\"I consider myself lucky that I have a job I love and I know my mum would have been proud.\"", "He was asked if a change in the law was being considered as part of a review of marriage laws.\n\"Not as far as I'm aware and I've certainly no intention of doing so,\" he told the BBC's Sunday Politics show.\nThe government was looking into humanist marriages in England and Wales, he said.\nHumanism is a secular philosophy. Humanist weddings are not legally recognised in England, Wales and Northern Ireland - but they are legal in Scotland.\nThe Daily Mail reported on Tuesday that ministers had ordered a rethink of wedding laws, which could allow naturists to conduct weddings if the rules were changed.\nIt claimed a paper had been published by Mr Grayling which confirmed groups who have expressed an interest in changing wedding laws included British Naturism, the organisation that campaigns for a greater understanding and acceptance of outdoor nudism.\nBut Mr Grayling told the BBC: \"It hasn't been ordered by me I can tell you that.\"\nThe justice secretary stressed there was a difference between someone \"expressing an interest\" and \"something actually happening\".\n\"No nude marriage right now as far as I'm concerned,\" he told the BBC.", "Mr Ben Bella, who was 95, had recently been treated in hospital for respiratory problems.\nMr Ben Bella led Algeria to independence from France before becoming president in 1963.\nHe ruled Algeria as head of a one-party state but three years later was overthrown by the head of the army.\nThe BBC's Chloe Arnold, in Algiers, says that while Mr Ben Bella's policies were controversial, he was widely respected for his struggle against French rule.\nIn later years, our correspondent says, he became an advocate for democracy, rejecting the growing Islamist elements in Algerian society amid the bloody conflict between militants and security forces in the 1990s.\nMr Ben Bella was born in a rural area near the Moroccan border in 1916, and fought with distinction with the Free French Forces in Italy during World War II and won five gallantry medals.\nBut he became disillusioned with French rule on his return to Algeria after the war, and was elected municipal councillor for the anti-colonialist \"Movement for the Triumph of Democratic Liberties.\"\nWhen the movement was declared illegal, Mr Ben Bella went underground.\nArrested in May 1951, he was interned but staged a dramatic escape two years later.\nHe fled to Cairo where he planned the 1954 uprising which began Algeria's war of independence.\nHe was imprisoned by the French, but was the acknowledged head of the independence movement throughout the revolution.\nAfter he was deposed he spent many years in prison, then under house arrest, and went into exile in Switzerland in 1980.\nHe was officially pardoned in 1990.\nHis death coincides with the 50th anniversary of Algerian independence.", "Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen lambasted pro-EU centrist Emmanuel Macron as a \"candidate of continuity\".\nMr Macron said he would fight \"until the last second\" against Ms Le Pen's ideas \"of what constitutes democracy\".\nMeanwhile, clashes broke out between police and protesters on the sidelines of a traditional May Day labour march in Paris.\nFour officers were hurt when masked demonstrators threw petrol bombs at police who responded with tear gas, authorities said.\nThe violence happened near Place de la Bastille as the march, led by three trade unions, headed towards another square.\nReacting to the violent scenes, Ms Le Pen said on Twitter: \"This is the sort of mess... that I no longer want to see on our streets.\"\nMs Le Pen trails Mr Macron in the polls by about 20 percentage points ahead of Sunday's decisive second round.\nShe has sought to modernise the National Front (FN) in recent years and at her rally in Paris, she called herself the candidate of change, belief and action.\nShe launched a full-throttled attack on Mr Macron, calling him the candidate of \"a morbid continuity, littered with the corpses of jobs transferred offshore, the ruins of bust businesses, and the gaping holes of deficit and debt\".\n\"Emmanuel Macron is just [current President] Francois Hollande, who wants to stay and who is hanging on to power like a barnacle,\" she told a rally in Villepinte, a suburb north of the capital.\n%\nEmmanuel Macron\n%\nMarine Le Pen\nPlease enable Javascript to view our poll of polls chart.\nLast updated April 25, 2017\nThe polling average line looks at the five most recent national polls and takes the median value, ie, the value between the two figures that are higher and two figures that are lower.\nMr Macron, an independent and leader of the recently created En Marche! movement, has sought to portray Ms Le Pen as an extremist.\n\"I will fight up until the very last second not only against her programme but also her idea of what constitutes democracy and the French Republic,\" he told reporters.\nAddressing a rally later in Paris, he told supporters that the future of France, of Europe \"and of a certain concept of the world\", was at stake in the election.\nMr Macron earlier told the BBC that the EU must reform or face the prospect of \"Frexit\" - the French equivalent of Britain's Brexit.\nMs Le Pen, 48, has capitalised on anti-EU feeling, and has promised a referendum on France's membership.\nShe has won support in rural and former industrial areas by promising to retake control of France's borders from the EU and slash immigration.\nAlthough five major unions have urged their members not to vote for Ms Le Pen, only two have expressed their support for Mr Macron.\nAlso on Monday, Ms Le Pen's estranged 88-year-old father and the founder of the FN was at a rally by the statue of Joan of Arc, a long-time symbol of patriotism for the FN.\nThis is where Jean-Marie Le Pen traditionally held his May Day rallies but this year's event was attended by only a couple of hundred of the party's old guard, BBC Paris correspondent Hugh Schofield reports.", "They arrived in the international airport of the Albanian capital, Tirana, where they were greeted by family members and officials.\nThe remains were exhumed at Thiais cemetery south of Paris on Tuesday.\nCritics accuse Albania's government of seeking to make political capital out of the former king.\nHis remains are due to be placed in a newly built mausoleum for the royal family this weekend.\nAlbania is currently celebrating the centenary of its independence from the Ottoman Empire.\nKing Zog, whose original name was Ahmet Muhtar Bej Zogolli, proclaimed himself monarch in 1928 but fled in 1939 as Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's Fascist troops invaded Albania.\nIn exile, he lived for years in England, then Egypt, before settling in France where he died in 1961.\nHis only son, Crown Prince Leka, died last year after failing in his efforts to restore the monarchy in Albania.\nHis grandson, Prince Leka, currently serves as a political adviser to Albanian President Bujar Faik Nishani.", "On 5 March 1966 a coffin with the words \"S&D died today\" was loaded on to the very last train in a mock funeral to mark the service's demise.\nAt its height, the line linked places like Bridgwater, Burnham-on-Sea, Wells, Bath and Glastonbury.\nBut Michael Eavis, Glastonbury founder, said it would be \"impossible\" to have a \"train coming through the site now\".\nThe S&D, as it was known, was created in 1862 when two railways - Somerset Central Railway and Dorset Central Railway - merged to create a coast-to-coast line from Burnham-on-Sea to Poole.\nTwelve years later, a spectacular extension across the Mendip Hills to Bath was opened carrying coal from the Radstock mines and stone from the Mendip Hills.\nIt also exploited the Midland Railway link, which by the 1950s saw the service stretched to its limits ferrying holiday-makers from northern England and the Midlands to the south coast.\nBut it was a difficult and expensive line to run. Two engines were needed to haul trains over the steep Mendips, stretches of single-track caused bottlenecks and the curving line limited train speeds.\nAnd as more people began to own cars and there was less demand for coal, the S&D was reduced to a rural branch line and finally closed down on 7 March 1966.\nBut evidence of the line still exists. According to Mr Eavis, it originally crossed what is now Glastonbury's Main Avenue, and West Holts stage was named for a nearby railway crossing.\n\"There was a gate for cattle to cross and I used to bring them up and across the railway line for milking - so that's where the West Holts name comes from,\" he said.\n\"But Main Avenue is the main artery through the site so we'd be stuffed if trains were still here and we couldn't use it.\"", "Pro-EU centrist Emmanuel Macron made the comments as he and his far-right rival Marine Le Pen held rallies in the last week of campaigning.\nFrench voters go to the polls on Sunday to decide between the two.\nAt a rally in a suburb of Paris, Ms Le Pen has meanwhile accused Mr Macron of being merely more of the same.\nMs Le Pen has capitalised on anti-EU feeling, and has promised a referendum on France's membership.\nFrance is braced for mass May Day rallies. Five big unions have urged their members not to vote for Le Pen, though three have stopped short of backing Macron.\n%\nEmmanuel Macron\n%\nMarine Le Pen\nPlease enable Javascript to view our poll of polls chart.\nLast updated April 25, 2017\nThe polling average line looks at the five most recent national polls and takes the median value, ie, the value between the two figures that are higher and two figures that are lower.\n\"I'm a pro-European, I defended constantly during this election the European idea and European policies because I believe it's extremely important for French people and for the place of our country in globalisation,\" Mr Macron, leader of the recently created En Marche! movement, told the BBC.\n\"But at the same time we have to face the situation, to listen to our people, and to listen to the fact that they are extremely angry today, impatient and the dysfunction of the EU is no more sustainable.\n\"So I do consider that my mandate, the day after, will be at the same time to reform in depth the European Union and our European project.\"\nMr Macron added that if he were to allow the EU to continue to function as it was would be a \"betrayal\".\n\"And I don't want to do so,\" he said. \"Because the day after, we will have a Frexit or we will have [Ms Le Pen's] National Front (FN) again.\"\nThe 39-year-old is leading in the polls by 20 percentage points, and will try to win over more voters when he speaks in north-east Paris later.\nMs Le Pen, 48, has been holding her rally in the working-class Paris suburb of Villepinte.\nReferring to Mr Macron's period as a minister in President Hollande's government, she accused him of being a \"candidate of continuity... littered with the corpses of jobs transferred off-shore, the ruins of bust businesses, and the gaping holes of deficit and debt\".\nMs Le Pen has won support in rural and former industrial areas by promising to retake control of France's borders from the EU and slash immigration.\nEarlier, her estranged father - FN founder Jean-Marie Le Pen - attended a march from the statue of Joan of Arc, a long-time FN icon.\nThe 88-year-old was kicked out of the FN by his daughter two years ago for repeatedly calling the Holocaust a \"detail of history\" - remarks which were preventing Marine Le Pen from putting distance between the party and its past links with anti-Semitism.\nSunday was France's national day of remembrance for the French Jews who were deported to Nazi Germany during the Second World War.\nMr Macron visited Paris's Holocaust memorial to pay his respects, while Ms Le Pen laid a wreath at the World War Two monument in Marseille.\nBut the war remains a difficult area for Ms Le Pen. She suggested earlier this month France was not responsible for a 1942 wartime round-up of 13,000 Jews, who were sent from France to Nazi death camps.\nMeanwhile, Jean-François Jalkh - the man she named as interim president of the FN while she campaigned - was forced to step down on Tuesday amid claims he had questioned the reality of Nazi gas chambers, which is a crime under French law. He denies wrongdoing.", "O'Donovan Rossa was a renowned leader of the Fenian movement in the 19th Century seeking independence from Britain.\nHis burial in Dublin's Glasnevin Cemetery on 1 August, 1915, was one of the largest political funerals in Irish history.\n1916 Easter Rising leader Padraig Pearse delivered the funeral oration.\nThe event is seen as a pivotal moment in Irish history, as several of those who attended went on to take part in the Rising.\nO'Donovan Rossa 's remains had been brought to Ireland by the American liner St Paul from New York to Liverpool.\nThey were then transferred to the steamer Carlow, which carried them to Dublin.\nIn the 1850s, O'Donovan Rossa was sworn into the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) known colloquially as the Fenians, a reference to Na Fianna a band of warriors who defended Ireland from invaders in Irish mythology.\nThe IRB was a small, secret, revolutionary body committed to the use of force to establish an independent Irish republic.\nO'Donovan Rossa was imprisoned in various jails in England for his activities and later moved to New York following his release, continuing his efforts to oppose British rule in Ireland.\nThe funeral cortege on Saturday is expected to feature marching bands, uniformed Irish Volunteer cavalry and a horse drawn hearse as well as a 40-strong uniformed guard of honour.\nSome mourners are expected to attend in period dress.", "Italian politicians denounced the ostentatious send-off for Vittorio Casamonica, 65.\nBanners outside the San Giovanni Bosco church on the city's outskirts described him as the \"King of Rome\".\nThe priest said he had no control over what happened outside the church.\nIt comes amid a spiralling mafia investigation in the capital, in which local criminal bosses allegedly worked with city officials to secure lucrative public contracts.\nHundreds of tearful mourners gathered to pay their final respects to Casamonica, who reportedly died of cancer.\nOfficials identified him as one of the leaders of the Casamonica clan, which has been accused of racketeering, extortion and drug trafficking.\nPoliticians said the Hollywood-style funeral sent \"a clear message of impunity\" and demanded action to stop such events being used to honour criminal gangs.\nA gilded horse-drawn coach carried Casamonica's body to the church, where mourners were showered with red rose petals.\n\"You conquered Rome, now you'll conquer paradise,\" read one banner affixed to the building's entrance.\nThe coffin was carried inside to the theme tune from The Godfather trilogy, which follows the rise and fall of a fictional Corleone Mafia family.\n\"Never again. Rome cannot be defaced by those who want it to became the set of the Godfather,\" Matteo Orfini, president of the ruling Democratic Party, said on Twitter.\nRome Mayor Ignazio Marino, who has previously refused to resign over the current anti-mafia probe, said he had called Rome's prefect demanding to know how such a scene could have taken place\nHe said it was \"intolerable that funerals are used by the living to send mafia messages\".\nMeanwhile Arturo Scotto and Celeste Costantino, of the Left Ecology Liberty (SEL) party, called on Interior Minister Angelino Alfano to explain how such a funeral could take place.\n\"These funerals might seem like a folkloric custom, but in reality, they send a clear message of impunity on the part of the clans: we still exist and we are powerful,\" they said in a statement (in Italian).\nSome 100 people are being investigated as part of the \"Mafia Capital\" inquiry into allegations that elected officials and business figures were part of a crime syndicate targeting Rome contracts.\nCommentators noted that Thursday's funeral took place at the same church where in 2006 the Archdiocese of Rome blocked a ceremony for Piergiorgio Welby, then a symbol of Italy's right-to-die movement.", "They held signs and chanted slogans for Kader, 23, an LGBT activist, whose burned body was discovered in a forest after she went missing.\nAccording to one report, opposition MPs were among those who attended the rare protest by LGBT activists.\nPolice with water cannon were on duty nearby, AFP news agency said.\nMs Kader, a sex worker, was last seen entering a client's car one night. Her flatmate found her body in a city mortuary earlier in August.\nRead more: Turkey reacts to Hande Kader's death\nNo arrests have been made so far in the case.\n\"We will not stop until we find those responsible for Hande Kader's murder,\" said Ebru Kiranci, spokeswoman for Istanbul's LGBTI Solidarity Association,\nRengin Arslan of BBC Turkish says that LGBT individuals and their allies hope that Hande Kader will be a turning point in the response to trans murders in Turkey.\nThe death of Kader is the second murder to rock the LGBT community in Istanbul recently - the headless, mutilated body of a gay Syrian man, Muhammad Wisam Sankari, was identified by housemates in late July.", "The path on the seaward side of the crack has been shut between Bowleaze Cove and Redcliff Point in Preston.\nIt follows a warning after an inspection by geologists and Dorset County Council's right of way officers.\nThe South West Coast Path is unaffected but the council said it would continue to closely monitor the area for further movement.\nThe drop in the cracked section is currently just over 1m (3ft) deep.\nDorset County Council said the area was well-known for landslips \"due to its geology of permeable limestone over impermeable clay\", and described the Jurassic Coast as \"dynamic and always on the move, especially during or after wet and wild weather\".\nAlthough the authority said the movement on the Weymouth cliff had been going on for several years, it added the latest slip had \"happened quickly\".\nSam Rose, Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site team manager, described it as a \"natural process that makes the coast such a beautiful place\" but urged members of the public to heed the warning signs.\nSource: Dorset County Council/Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site", "The service was held at Diana's family home in Northamptonshire on what would have been her 56th birthday.\nThe ceremony was also attended by the Duchess of Cambridge, Prince George and Princess Charlotte.\nPrince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall are in Canada.\nThe service, at Althorp House, was conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.\nThe Princess of Wales died on 31 August 1997 in a car crash in Paris, when the Duke of Cambridge was 15 and his brother was 12.\nBy Peter Hunt, royal correspondent, BBC News\nThis is the start of a difficult few months for Prince William and Prince Harry as they remember their mother who, they say, smothered them in love.\nThey were traumatised children when she died.\nHarry has spoken of how he shouldn't have been made to walk behind Diana's coffin.\nWilliam has expressed his considerable regret that they weren't old enough to do more to protect her.\nTwenty years on, together, they're taking control of how she will be remembered.\nThey've commissioned a statue. It's unveiling, in the future, will be public.\nToday's service was to be very private, with no media present.\nThe princes, like their mother, have a complex relationship with the press.\nThey will never forgive the paparazzi who pursued their mother's car in Paris.\nAlso absent from the graveside was Prince Charles.\nIt's fortuitous he's in Canada and it's probably a relief for all concerned.\nRead more from Peter Hunt\nThe princes have commissioned a statue of Princess Diana to mark the 20th anniversary of her death.\nThe sculpture will be placed in the public grounds of her former residence, Kensington Palace.\nGet news from the BBC in your inbox, each weekday morning", "Omran Ben Shaaban was kidnapped, shot and tortured by people who many in Misrata believe were supporters of the late dictator.\nThe 22-year-old died in France, where he was receiving medical treatment for his injuries.\nHis body was flown back to Libya, met by hundreds of mourners.\nIn Misrata, protesters called for the government to avenge his death.\nMr Shaaban was kidnapped by armed men in July and held for 50 days in the town of Bani Walid, a former Gaddafi stronghold that lies south-east of the capital Tripoli.\nHe was freed last week following the mediation efforts of Mohamed Magarief, Libya's interim leader and president of the ruling General National Congress (GNC).\nMr Shaaban arrived in Misrata with torture marks on his body and a bullet wound near his spinal cord, according to reports. He was taken to Paris for treatment, but died on Monday.\nHundreds of people gathered at the airport in Misrata to greet his body. His coffin was carried in a procession to a football stadium where funeral prayers were held.\nMr Shaaban came to prominence on 20 October last year when he was pictured at the scene as Col Gaddafi was dragged from a drainage pipe where he was hiding in Sirte.\nThe GNC mourned the \"loss of a brave hero\" and has said it will take all necessary measures to bring the perpetrators to justice, according to a statement issued on the official Lana news agency.", "17 November 2015 Last updated at 07:38 GMT\nIt's after the attacks which happened on Friday where more than 120 people lost their lives.\nThousands of people have taken to the streets of the French capital laying lowers, leaving messages and lighting candles to remember what happened.\nOn Monday a minute's silence was held across Europe as a show of support for people in the city.\nThe historic landmark and tourist attraction the Eiffel Tower also re-opened. Lit up in the colours of the French flag.\nJenny's in Paris and has been finding out how people are feeling." ]

[ "In a for-profit corporation, the board of directors is responsible to the stockholders -- a more progressive perspective is that the board is responsible to the stakeholders, that is, to everyone who is interested and/or can be effected by the corporation." ]

[ "Comments. Bill Gates at Microsoft: in pictures. Microsoft has announced that Bill Gates will step down as chairman of the board of directors at Microsoft, and will assume a new role on the board as 'founder and technology advisor'.icrosoft has announced that Bill Gates will step down as chairman of the board of directors at Microsoft, and will assume a new role on the board as 'founder and technology advisor'.", "Since John Tyson assumed the role of Chairman of the Board in 1998, the size of the board has been reduced, while its percentage of independent directors has increased.", "DEFINITION of 'Interim CEO'. A person appointed by a company's board of directors to assume the role of chief executive officer during a time of transition or as the result of the sudden departure of the company's previous CEO.EFINITION of 'Interim CEO'. A person appointed by a company's board of directors to assume the role of chief executive officer during a time of transition or as the result of the sudden departure of the company's previous CEO.", "I've been fortunate enough to sit on a few startup boards with Brad. His 'less is more' approach to board meetings keeps the process efficient and focused on strategy. If you have any role on a board of directors, stop messing with PowerPoint and read this book right now.", "What is a Cooperative (Mutual) Insurance Company? A mutual insurance company is owned by the policyholders, who are similar to stockholders in a corporation. Our policyholders elect the company's board of directors, play a critical role in the decision-making process and the setting of the company's future direction.", "Depending on the company, the board of directors and officers can be made up of the same individuals. The board of directors and officers often work closely together, but play very different roles in the corporation.ifferences between Directors and Officers. While directors and officers have some similar duties, and in some corporations an individual can hold both positions, there are two significant characteristics officers have that directors do not. They have the authority to legally bind the corporation.", "4:21PM GMT 04 Feb 2014. Bill Gates at Microsoft: in pictures. Microsoft has announced that Bill Gates will step down as chairman of the board of directors at Microsoft, and will assume a new role on the board as 'founder and technology advisor'.", "Three leading art directors explain what the role entails and offer advice on how to become one yourself. Find out what the job title of art director means, what it requires in practice, and what qualities employers look for in an aspiring art director.", "Bylaws are your organization’s operating manual. They define: 1 Size of the board and how it will function. 2 Roles and duties of directors and officers. Rules and procedures for holding meetings, electing directors, and appointing officers.", "Similar in its role to the US Government's Government Accountability Office (GAO), it is an independent unit of the World Bank that reports evaluation findings directly to the Bank's Board of Executive Directors.", "A nonprofit bylaws committee is responsible for the creation and maintenance of the organization’s bylaws, which is the set of rules that guide its operations and activities. The bylaws include the number of directors the organization should have, the roles and responsibilities of the directors and the number and frequency of board meetings.", "F. William McNabb III is chairman and chief executive officer of Vanguard. He joined Vanguard in 1986, took on the role of chief executive officer in 2008, and became chairman of the board of directors and the boards of trustees in 2010.", "Board of Directors. Capitalize board of directors when it is part of a proper name, e.g., the Arizona Chapter Board of Directors, and when it’s part of a heading. Lowercase board of directors when used alone or before the proper title, e.g., the board of directors of First National Bank..", "A corporate governance statement can be used to limit abuse of power by the company's board of directors. A corporate governance statement will speak to the roles and responsibilities of the officers of the company.View slideshow of images above. Watch the Did-You-Know slideshow. corporate governance statement can be used to limit abuse of power by the company's board of directors. A corporate governance statement will speak to the roles and responsibilities of the officers of the company. View slideshow of images above. Watch the Did-You-Know slideshow.", "1 Size of the board and how it will function. 2 Roles and duties of directors and officers. 3 Rules and procedures for holding meetings, electing directors, and appointing officers. 4 Conflict of interest policies and procedures. 5 How grant monies will be distributed. Other essential corporate governance matters.", "Since joining Microsoft in 1992, Mr. Nadella's roles also included Vice President of the Business Division. Qualifications The Board of Directors chose Mr. Nadella to lead Microsoft as Chief Executive Officer and serve on the Board because he is a proven leade ...", "What is the difference between a resolution and minutes? A resolution is written documentation describing an action authorized by the board of directors of a corporation. The minutes are a written document that describes items discussed by the directors during a board meeting, including actions taken and resolutions passed.", "Black will serve as Chairman of the Annie's Nominating/Corporate Governance Committee. Bob brings to his role as Director extensive experience in leading large, successful consumer goods businesses and working with management and boards to deliver superior shareholder value, said Billie Ida Williamson, Annie's Lead Director.", "Board involvement and the purchase of insurance can reduce the cost of a data breach. For the first time, we looked at the positive consequences that can result when boards of. directors take a more active role when an organization had a data breach. Board involvement. reduces the cost by $5.5 per record.", "The majority of the board of directors votes to fire the CEO. The shareholders (51% of whom are the CEO) vote for a new board of directors, displacing the old ones. The new board of directors rehires the old CEO.", "Tracey was promoted to Managing Director, John Lewis Cribbs Causeway in 2000 and became Personnel Director for John Lewis in July 2002. She took up her appointment as the Partnership's Director of Personnel in April 2007. Tracey is a member of the Roffey Park Board of Trustees.rior to this, in 2005, Mark joined the Partnership Board taking on responsibility for strategy as Development Director. In August 2013, alongside his Waitrose MD role, Mark was also made Deputy Chairman of the John Lewis Partnership. Mark was Chairman of Business in the Community from 2011 to 2015.", "Role of Advisory Committee. An advisory committee is a collection of individuals who bring unique knowledge. and skills which augment the knowledge and skills of the formal board of directors. in order to more effectively guide the organization." ]

[ "If you are asking about the convenience for companies in the United States of America some may have issues with sending gift cards for fear of possible IRS ramifications. I had once asked a similar question and that was the response I had received.\n\nIt would also depend on the size of the company you work for. You are more likely to get paid in gift cards if the business is sole proprietor or small group. \n\nAlthough still in its infancy, and depending on its legal status in your country, Bitcoin or other digital currency may be an option. Imho, nothing compares to the ease and quickness which it can transfer wealth.\n\nEither way It doesn't (shouldn't) hurt to ask. Unless of course it may be perceived as a tax dodge of some sort." ]

[ "Payment options are really less about the freelancer's professional, and more about the kind of customers the freelancer works with and what they are comfortable with.\n\nFor the customers that I work with (small, local businesses), I am paid via business check. I'd prefer to use an electronic payment, but my customers are comfortable with the current approach and in 10 years of freelancing I've never had an issue.\n\nOther customer types may need different options. But I don't think it reflects on the freelancer's professionalism, unless they will only accept payment options that repeatedly aren't appropriate for the type of customers they are working with.", "There are obvious benefits to the freelancer if payment is made up front:\n\n\nNo chasing the money at the end\nHarder for a client to cancel the project if they've already paid\n\n\nThere is also a big risk to the client:\n\n\nWhat happens if the freelancer dies or disappears before the end of the project?\n\n\nI have seen 2 reasons why clients are willing to take that risk:\n\n\nIf there is a significant discount for pre[payment (say 10%)\nClients who have annual department budgets that they must spend by the end of the calendar year may use up front payment to insure that they can fund projects that cross budget years.\n\n\nPersonally, as a freelancer I have learned being paid the entire amount upfront is not for me. I've learned that my motivation to work on a project is tied to the money I will be earning. If I've already been paid for everything, my desire to work on the project tanks. That being said, I know other freelancers who prefer this approach and only take up front payments. And I almost always ask for partial payment up front, just not the whole thing.\n\nRegarding the contract...yes. You always create a contract prior to project development, and in this case you would just include that the terms are that payment must be received before the work can begin.", "If this is something that you will be doing more often then not. I suggest just saving the CC info on your paypal account. That way all you have to do, when ever you need to pay yourself, is transfer funds from that card to your account.\nThat's what I do. I have a friend that it's always borrowing money from me and when it's time to pay me back she does the same thing. She sends me a pic of her debit card and tells me to do it. \nOr u can also load your paypal.me account on your web browser, make sure your logged out of paypal, and then just send yourself a payment from the second person's perspective. Enter the amount you in wasn't to pay your self and then enter credit card info when prompted.\nEither way you in will have your payment in minutes.", "Until an option to buy it directly through Monero will be available (you can check it on https://masteringmonero.com/), you can buy 'Mastering Monero: The future of private transactions' with XMR in this way:\n\n\nuse https://xmr.to/ to convert Monero in Bitcoin\nuse converted coins to buy a gift card for Amazon at https://www.bitrefill.com/ or with another similar service\nuse that gift card to buy 'Mastering Monero' on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1731079966/", "I don't know of any way to set up an existing Apple ID for use with the App Store without supplying a credit card (or other payment source) (unless it's an iCloud account, I think -- it's not completely consistent). Don't ask me why this is, it makes no sense to me. There are a couple of ways to set up a paymentless account though:\n\nCreate a new Apple ID account as part of the purchase of a free app (see Apple Support article HT2534). You'll need to sign out of your current Apple ID, then start purchasing a free app, and tap Create New Apple ID when asked what ID to use.\nThis means that your App Store &quot;purchases&quot; will be under a different Apple ID than whatever you have set up under your current ID, but since they're free apps anyway, that's not too big a deal. If you want to purchase non-free apps later, you can always add a credit card (or iTunes gift card or whatever) to your old Apple ID and do those purchases under it, but it may be a bit alloying to have to maintain multiple identities. Note that the new Apple ID will have to be linked to a verified email address (other than the one your current ID is linked to).\n\nAdd a credit card to your current Apple ID, &quot;buy&quot; a free app, then change the account's payment type to &quot;none&quot; (see Apple Support article HT1918). Since you never actually buy anything, the card never gets charged. I haven't really experimented with this option, but AIUI you can continue to purchase free apps under the account even after the credit card is removed.", "Amazon will not credit any different card. They cannot know that the different card number is in fact a replacement for the old one you used.\n\nYour card issuer, however, can. If receive the refund form Amazon, and can transfer it to the new card. However, you need to talk to them and ask them if and how will they do that. They may decide to apply it to the fraudulent transactions' balance instead of giving it to you, to reduce their losses, so you need to talk to them beforehand and make sure that since the refund is for the purchase made before the card was cancelled, they will transfer it to the new card with all the rest of the information.\n\nAnother option is to request a refund to your Amazon account as a gift card balance for further purchases. I know that many retail shops will gladly give you a gift card instead of the cash/credit refund, so it may be worth your while to check with Amazon if they do that too.", "For an \"adult\" in the family to use their own credit card they would need to be removed.\n\n\n Ref: HT201079 Section: near bottom of page, above \"*Age may vary by country\".\n\n\nThe \"adult\" could make purchases using gift cards redeemed to their personal iTunes ID, though this won't stop subscriptions or gift purchasing from being charged to the \"organizer\".\n\n\n Ref: HT201079 Section: First paragraph and \"Making Purchases\".\n\n\nIt's not possible to remove the credit card from the \"organizer\" account completely, but you could update the \"organizer\" card to the desired card, then change it back after the purchase. This would only work for non-subscription content. If subscription content is purchased and the card is changed after, the card on the \"organizer\" account at the time of renewal would be charged. The renewal may also be interrupted. \n\nDo be careful to prevent any unwanted purchases to the card on the \"organizer\" account, from any other family members including the \"organizer\", during any temporary changes. \n\n\n Ref: HT203905 Section: bottom of page \"If your part of Family Sharing\"\n\n\n\nFamily purchases and payments\nReasons for not seeing \"none\" in iTunes Store payment options\n\n\nAccepted payment card type on \"organizer\" account may vary depending on 'child' account being present and any accounts with Ask to Buy enabled.", "I believe all you need for the basics of a gift order is the ability to have different billing and shipping addresses, which Expresso Store allows. So gifts can be done, you'd just want a custom field to capture 'Is this a Gift?' option.\n\nThe add-on, Gift Wrapping, that you mentioned above, seems as if it's more to provide an option, like, well… 'gift wrapping'. I mean, if you were going to charge, like Amazon and other stores do to have the item wrapped and a card added to it, rather than just shipping it to the person.\n\nIf you're not offering, gift wrapping— meaning you won't offer to wrap and add a card to a gift item, then I believe you can just add one or more custom fields related to how to handle a gift, such as 'Is this a gift?' and/or 'Include Receipt?'", "No - You do not need to fill out a W8 because it is for the Freelancer who will be getting payment (directly in his/her account) via Upwork. Because he/she will be earning there, it's his/her source of income, not yours.", "I think no matter where you place the coupon box, you're going to have some level of checkout abandonment by users looking for codes.\n\nOption 1: Adjust the terminology\n\nYou could consider changing the term from Coupon (which sounds like something you can quickly Google to obtain) to Gift Code, Gift Card, or maybe even Promotional Code, which I think all sound more unique to the user. Amazon uses the latter two on the last step of their checkout (They also hide the input until you click on the \"Have a gift card/promotional code?\" link, which may be a method for qualifying people that have codes).\n\nMaybe it would be good to change the question mark to something more enticing/relatable for users that don't have codes. What about \"Don't have a code yet?\". It would make it sound like you'll provide them with instructions on how to obtain a code, instead of instructions on what a coupon code is or how to use one.\n\nOption 2: Don't use coupon codes at all\n\nYou can use query parameters or a specific route to pass the code into the page through the URL and apply the discount automatically. You could even cookie the user to save it so the discount is applied even if they leave the page and come back. I think this solution is best because it gets the job done with minimal friction for the conversion flow.", "This is a pretty neat idea, because a lot of freelancers (myself included) struggle with late payments. What's probably really important is to get a picture of these types of companies - are there certain things that make a company more likely to pay late? \n\n\nIs the client large, medium, small, or a single-member/entrepreneur?\nIs there a chain of approval for invoices received, and how does that work?\nDo they have a set billing/payment schedule that they adhere to for\nall vendors? For example, at least one of my clients is a very large\ncompany with their own billing system. Even though my invoices are\nnet 10, they pay 30 days regardless.\nHow long has the client been working with the company? (Perhaps they\ntake the relationship for granted?)\nWhat type of business is the client company?\nHow does the client pay? Certain types of payments tend to be faster than others (ie credit card payments are quicker than checks, etc.)\nThis may be a touchy subject - but does the client have cash-flow problems that cause late payments?\nIs there anything the company can do to expedite receiving payments from the client? (ie, how the invoice is received, how often invoice reminders are sent, late fees, etc.)\nHow valuable is the service offered by the company (the biller) to the client? (this may give insight into late/missed payments)\n\n\nThat's all I can think of, but I'd bet there are some additional questions you could ask. Only one or two of these would seem to step on toes, and depending on how you ask them, they could provide a lot of insight. Best of luck on your thesis!", "You can buy it online. Here's a decent one. Here are cheaper ones from the same site. Here's another site with some smaller options.\n\nWhen we discussed this in chat you told me that you'll be staying with your uncle. The advantage of buying it online is that you can have it shipped to your uncle's address so that it's there even before you arrive. You'll be all ready to fire up the corncobs on the very first day.\n\nAmazon India has the hands down best selection, and if they don't ship to Pakistan you can use this service to get it delivered. But do be wary of potential customs fees and extended delivery time if you go this route.\n\nYou might have to ask your uncle to use one of his payment cards (in case some of these vendors don't accept foreign cards.)", "Not after you've been given it.\n\nWhen giving you support, the supporter (the dev in this case) has essentially said \"I'm happy with the payment I'm getting for this.\" If the payment is nothing, fine. They're happy.\n\nThey can't suddenly change their mind after giving you the support and say \"hey pay me for that now\" - it'd be like someone giving you a present and saying 3 months later, \"hey you should pay me back\" - you wouldn't stand for it, and they have no legal standpoint for it. It's already been gifted.\n\nWhat they can do is refuse you support until you pay. That's OK under open/free licenses, and it's them wanting a support contract: in return for their help, you give them money.", "In the settings for your Apple ID there is a payment options selection, where you can chose none. You can find this in the menu called Settings in your iPhone. You may also have to check the settings under iCloud.\n\nThere is a really super answer here, check it out for lots of details, even pictures; this is for the most part, the same on the latest versions.\n\nI understand, you want to just get free \"apps!\"\n\nIf you might also want to pay for things sometime, another really nice option, is that you can go to almost every kind of shop (even a convenience store) and buy an iTunes gift card with cash, which will come with instructions about how to add this credit into your iTunes (and therefore also automatically your \"App Store\") account.", "Unfortunately in some countries like Nigeria and Brazil you can't add you debit card as a payment option to buy apps on the Store.\n\nAlternatively you can change the country/region in settings and use a prepaid credit card from that region.\n\nI'm currently using my phone in the USA region and use an American Express prepaid credit card to purchase apps.\n\nAnother alternative is you buy gift cards from Microsoft but is unlikely it will work in all countries too (Here in Brazil this became an option just in January 2014)", "That's a good question, but I don't think there's any purely logical answer to it. A surprising amount of business is still conducted on the honor system (with each side taking different things on trust). I have freelanced primarily in editing for print publications, and a little bit in design and writing. Some of my clients want an hourly fee, and others want a per-word or project fee. Some who work with hourly fees put a cap on the number of hours I can claim. Sometimes there's an arrangement that if I think I'm going to go over the maximum, I should talk it over with them, and if there's a good reason, they'll usually increase the hours. I'm sure if I spent a ridiculous number of hours on an easy project, a client would just not hire me again. I have never had anyone ask me to prove how many hours I spent on a task. Really, if a client wanted some kind of proof of hours, it would be up to them to ask for it at the start. No matter what payment system you use, somebody is taking a risk. I think it's just one of the ways freelancing is different from staff work. In the long run, both freelancer and client are asking \"does this benefit me, and is it worth what I put in?\" as long as the answers are \"yes,\" the exact number of hours may not matter.", "No you can't do this. \n\nYour account is associated with the region not the PS4 so even if you login to your friend's PS4 it will still ask for a payment method from the region of your account.\n\nI'm assuming the problem is that you no longer have a valid payment method from your original region. \n\nIf you no longer have a way to pay from the same region as your PSN account there are a couple of things you can do. \n\n\nSet up a new account on your PS4 for the new region and buy PS\nPlus on this account. This is easy to do and you can still access PS\nPlus features on your old account but you will loose access to any\nfree PS Plus games that are associated with your old account.\nBuy PSN Gift cards from your original region online and use the\ncredit to buy the PS Plus subscription on you original account.", "If you close the credit card account, they will contact you asking for a new card or other payment. This happens frequently, as cards time out or are replaced; its no big deal.\n\nYou did sign the charge statement. Independent of the mechanism of payment, I believe that's considered a promissory note.", "Use an escrow service like escrow.com. \n\n\n Ensuring Buyers get the Domain and Sellers get paid.\n \n Whether you're\n buying or selling domain names online, Escrow.com is a name you can\n trust. Escrow.com is a government licensed and audited 3rd party that\n safely holds a Buyer's payment in a trust account until the entire\n transaction is complete. That way, Buyers can be confident the domain\n will be registered in their name and Sellers can be sure they'll be\n paid.\n \n Escrow.com protects your money and your domain.\n \n Since the Buyer pays\n Escrow.com and not the Seller, Escrow.com can withhold payment until\n it's satisfied the domain name has been transferred by the Seller. One\n of the ways Escrow.com does this is by checking the WHOIS database of\n the appropriate Registrar* to make certain it properly reflects the\n new Buyer's name as the domain name Registrant. Once this has been\n verified, Escrow.com releases payment to the Seller.\n \n Buy and sell Domains without fear of fraud.\n \n Anytime you pay in advance\n for something you've purchased on the Internet, you're taking a\n chance. People can forge their identities. They can misrepresent what\n they're selling. And even with the best of intentions, some people are\n just plain irresponsible.\n \n That's why it's important to turn to a trusted 3rd party like\n Escrow.com for transactions involving a high risk of fraud like domain\n name transfers. Relying on Escrow.com is like having an insurance\n policy that protects you against fraud, deception and\n irresponsibility.\n \n Benefits for Buyers\n \n \n Peace of mind, Security, and Convenience\n Assured Domain name transfer prior to paying Seller\n Ability to confirm domain ownership directly with the registrar\n before the seller is paid.\n Ability to pay by wire transfer and in some cases PayPal, check,\n money order, or credit card (Visa, MasterCard, American Express)\n Restrictions apply\n Ability to send credit card information to a financial institution,\n not a stranger\n Easy access to live customer support by phone or email \n \n \n Benefits for Sellers\n \n \n Peace of mind, Security, and Convenience \n Payment verification prior to Domain name transfer \n Guaranteed payment once transfer specifications are met \n Protection against credit card fraud, insufficient funds or credit\n card chargebacks \n Ability to accept credit cards and PayPal if otherwise not able to.\n Restrictions apply \n Escrow fees that may be lower than merchant credit card processing\n fees \n Easy access to live customer support by phone or email", "This is the part of freelancing that always makes me question my life choices. lol. \n\nPast experience has taught me to always write up a contract. I don't do any work until the contract is signed and I receive 1/2 the amount I'm charging for the work. They don't receive the finished product (or it doesn't go live) until I've been paid in full. But my work tends to be a by-the-project basis with an additional hourly charge for additional work done. \n\nIf you're doing hourly work only, I'd outline the payment terms in the contract, and send them monthly invoices. If they fall behind in payments stop working until the pay you. \n\nThere's really no way to guarantee you'll be paid, but writing out a contract and sending out invoices does help. There are a ton of free resources out there to help you with freelance paperwork. One of my favorites is https://www.freelancersunion.org/ \n\nhope this helps!", "Just apply for another free credit card. If you do not have any problems with Schufa, it should be possible. I find an idea to pay for a credit card quite strange. Rather, I prefer bank to pay me for a credit card. Currently, it is possible with Amazon VISA (bonus for opening a credit card, 0,5% cashback on all, 2% cashback on Amazon), Santander 1plus card (1% casback on gas stations), AmEx Payback (1% cashback on all except gas stations with MAX option). Check check24.de for more...", "Agreed! Upwork charges a hell of a lot of the Fee. On the top of that Freelancer had to pay withdrawal fees, currency conversion fee, bank fee, etc. and the actual amount which a freelancer receives is very small. So, strategy is to deliver good work, make your clients happy and take them out of Upwork with mutual agreement. Upwork charges a Payment Processing fee to clients as well, which can be a plus point for you to convince them.\n\nOther alternatives can be:\nhttp://www.guru.com/\nhttps://www.toptal.com/\nhttps://outsource.com/\nhttps://freelancer.com/", "can I work for a UK based client abroad, without a UK visa?\nYes you can. Visa's are about entering a country, not doing business with it.\n\nDo I need to have a company to work for them, or I can keep a freelance basis? \nNo, you do not need a company. You can remain freelance.\n\nWill HMRC charge me for tax or what? \nThe UK government can only apply taxes to it's own residents, on imports and exports or basically on anything that comes under their jurisdiction. For certainty about this, get the overseas contract, take a couple of payments, then consult an accountant in your home country. If the answer you get is not in your favor, ask another accountant. You often get different answers especially when it comes to complex affairs. Get them to write down their advice to you and you are covered. Use that accountants services for your tax affairs. Unless you are charging huge amounts of money, you only need to comply with your own countries tax laws, and HMRC will ignore you and charge the UK company if they see fit. Once overseas and no longer a resident, it should be of no concern to you.", "Get an Oyster Card or Use Your Contactless Payment Card\nIf you plan on travelling a total of two journeys in two days then you won't need a 2-day travel ticket (nor 2 day travel cards) as that would be to expressive, as well as overkill. The simplest option would be to get two one way tickets covering the zones you need. These will definitely be cheaper than daily tickets.\nHaving said this, your best bet is to get an oyster card, or even use your contactless payment card. Doing so you'll get the cheapest possible rates for your travels, and your maximum expenditure will be capped to the same value as that of a day travel card covering the zones you transited. Indeed, TfL agrees with me:\n\nOnly here for a short visit?\nIf you are only making one or two journeys when visiting London, pay as you go is the best option if you already have a contactless payment or Oyster card.\nIf you don't have one of these, you could consider getting an Oyster card which you can use whenever you visit London.\nAlternatively, you could buy single tickets, a Day Travelcard or a One Day Bus &amp; Tram Pass although these are all more expensive than using pay as you go.\n\nYou can buy an oyster card at many Tube stations in London, by asking at the manned ticket counter. For more information TfL has a page comparing oyster cards to travel cards, in terms of fares and usage.\nHow About Buses?\nWhen it comes to buses however, note that recently TfL buses have become cash-free. This means that you can still purchase a single journey on a bus, but you'll have to use your payment card. You can of course use your contactless card to take advantage of the reduced oyster fares. The other obvious options is to purchase an oyster card and use that to pay for the bus.", "I think it's most likely that HMRC would consider this taxable, but I don't think it's absolutely clear-cut. The relevant manuals on their site are linked from EIM00515.\n\nThe key question is whether the payments are \"from the employment\" or not. In general any kind of payment associated with employment would be considered taxable. One key quote from EIM00600 is:\n\n\n \"For my part I think that their meaning is adequately conveyed by\n saying that, while it is not sufficient to render a payment assessable\n that an employee would not have received it unless he had been an\n employee, it is assessable if it has been paid to him in return for\n acting as or being an employee.\"\n\n\nIn EIM00610 it says:\n\n\n Payments made voluntarily can be taxable earnings. The cases listed\n below also demonstrate that the absence of a legal obligation on a\n person to make a payment does not prevent it being taxable as earnings\n within Section 62. A hairdresser's tip is an example of earnings that\n are paid voluntarily.\n\n\nThe one thing that makes me think it might just be possible to make a case the other way is this:\n\n\n For example, a wedding gift from an employer to an employee would not\n normally be taxed as earnings under Section 62. Looking at it from the\n employee's point of view they do not receive it by virtue of being an\n employee but because of an event unconnected with their employment -\n their marriage.\n\n\nYou might, somewhat tenuously, argue that the employer's retirement is unconnected with your employment as such.\n\nEIM01460 gives some other non-taxable examples of this nature which also bolster this point of view slightly:\n\n\nA grant from a religious society in recognition of faithful service by a clergyman\nGift by shareholders to a person who wound up the company\nProceeds of a cricketer's benefit match\nGift of shares to the director of a company\nA gift to mark appreciation of work done by an employee during a period of secondment\nA bonus to members of England's football team which won the World Cup in 1966\n\n\nHowever, even if this argument is valid, you say it's being paid in your salary. I think HMRC would take this as pretty strong evidence that your employer considers it to be earnings from your employment. So they would expect your employer to deduct tax, and it'd be really hard to persuade them to pay the tax back afterwards.\n\nPerhaps the best thing would be to contact HMRC in advance, describe the circumstances, and ask if they think it's taxable. If they say they think it is, then decide whether you have the stomach for a fight.\n\nIf it isn't taxable, or you want to try to argue that it isn't, then try to persuade your employer to pay it to you directly instead of through salary; then write to HMRC to inform them of the payment and see what happens next.", "Will it work and is it legal to do so?\n\n\nYes. No.\n\n\n Any other alternatives are welcome\n\n\nPay for the software.", "No.\n\nYou cannot ask for more money - but you can explain that you mistakenly accepted and therefore wish to withdraw from the task without any payment. In fact, you should have done that immediately. We're human, mistakes happen.\n\nThis will annoy the client - but since it's only been a few days you won't really be hurting them - like you might have had in two months if you quit in sheer frustration.\n\nIn a rosy scenario, the client might want to know what could make you stay on the project - but since they expected a full e-commerce site for only USD 250, it seems they don't fully realize the extent of the task.\n\nIf you somehow find common ground with this client, I would avoid a fixed price unless your delivery essentially can be cloned from previous projects.", "From Amazon's help on Special Offers:\n\n\n Unsubscribe from Special Offers\n \n You can unsubscribe from Special Offers on your Kindle if you do not want to receive Sponsored Screensavers and Special Offers.\n \n Amazon is able to offer Kindle models at a subsidized price by delivering Special Offers and Sponsored Screensavers. If you originally purchased a Kindle Special Offer Device you will be charged a one-time payment to unsubscribe from this service.\n\n\nLast I checked, the one-time payment that was listed for me was the same as the original amount I saved by buying a With-Special-Offers device.", "Realize that if you are tied up, full time, for a year, you'll most likely lose all your other clients. So, if that's okay you need to make it worth your while. \n\nIf you are financially in good shape as things are with several clients, then putting all your eggs in one basket, as it were, can be very risky.\n\nDue to the damage, yes damage, such a position will do to your freelancing I would not be inclined to offer any discount.\n\nThe only possible reason I may consider some sort of discount is if the client was going to take on additional items. Such as paying for equipment/maintenance, paying for electricity, paying for healthcare (if necessary), paying for all your business overhead essentially. Because unless the client is covering some of that as well, there's really little benefit to you killing off your freelance business for this one client. Face it, your expenses are not going to change just because you have a lengthy contract. Your overhead will stay the same unless you are working on-site for them. And if you are indeed working on-site, then why not a traditional full-time employment position with all the benefits that are associated with that? (I know why... because it's cheaper for the client if you aren't actually an employee.)\n\nI've had many a client that dangled the \"we'll be looking for full time help soon\" carrot in front of me. As if it were an incentive to work more or cheaper for them. The truth is, if your freelance business is doing well and you aren't struggling there's really little reason to drown it intentionally by focusing on one client full time. \n\nAll that being posted, I might offer something like a 20% discount based on a lengthy contract with steady payments. I'd offer the same discount I do to any client that has a great deal of work for me. I reward clients for repeatedly returning to me. But... I wouldn't build this into pricing. I'd reward it along the way... every 90 days I'd just give a discount without warning as a \"reward\" for steady, on-time, payments. This figure would not be mentioned to the client during fee negotiation and it would not be built into my calculations for the figures I need to negotiate. It's a \"gift\", a \"reward\" not a \"discount\".\n\nIf I were forced... I'd average my yearly income over my freelancing career (or the past 3-5 years) and then use that number as the figure to negotiate to. So if I've averaged $130k (random figure) over the past three years, the client would need to pay me $130k minimum. Truth is I'd probably add another 20-40% to that in order to cover the loss of existing clientele and the risk associated with that. \n\nSo, rather than trying to calculate hourly, I'd work backwards from annual income. The reason being that although we set hourly rates, most freelancers aren't working full 40 hour work weeks. We work more or less most weeks. So by using the annual income average you base figures on what you've pocketed, not just what you are asking for currently. Imagine a full 40 hour week for me at my current rate may amount to $4,000/week. But really I only worked 27 hours this week ($2700), 32 last week ($3200), 65 the week before ($6500), etc. So my hourly rate is not an entirely accurate indicator of my actual income. Averaging annual income over a few years is an accurate indicator of my current income.\n\n\n(average annual income + 30%) / yearly work hours = hourly rate \n\n\nor \n\n\n(130,000 + 39,000) / 1,800 = $94/hour (rounding up to nearest dollar.) \n\n\nWhether or not that matches or comes close to your existing hourly rate is a different matter :)\n\nIf the client balks at that figure, you can easily explain or back it up with the fact that you are already averaging that amount annually and that there's little or no upside for you if you aren't at least making the same average income you already pocket.", "You would be best suited to use the Manual Payment Gateway (doc link). It is intended for things like bank transfers or cheque but would also serve the purpose of allowing the order to be completed without requiring a user to enter any payment details. \n\nYou could then use the {exp:store:payments} tag pair down the road to allow for the user to make a payment.", "Use giftcards for an establishment close to your testing area. Once for guerrilla testing, I set up a laptop just outside of a Starbucks near our office for testing. We had a lot of people agree to do the test for a $5 giftcard, I'm assuming, because they could use it right there and then. The test was very brief (8 tasks) that took about 10 minutes to complete. We had ten giftcards and they were all gone in about two hours.", "The short version\n\nGifts Ungiven was &mdash; and is &mdash; popular because it's one of the most powerful and flexible tutor cards in Magic, thanks to its ability to find multiple relevant cards for just 4 mana, at instant speed. In practice, the card is much more powerful than it looks:\n\n\nThe opponent's choice is not a meaningful disadvantage: it's easy to render the opponent's choice practically meaningless, using functional equivalents or Regrowth effects.\nPutting cards in your graveyard is actually a desirable feature of the card, not a disadvantage: it's fairly easy to build decks that efficiently reuse cards in your graveyard; it's very easy to cheat on costs when you do that, too.\nTutoring for multiple cards is super-powerful: Gifts is exceptionally good at setting up combos and engines.\n\n\n\n\nThe long version\n\nGifts Ungiven isn't just any tutor card. Sure, it costs the same as Diabolic Tutor, with the following added bonuses:\n\n\nGifts is an instant-speed tutor in blue, the best \"draw-go\" color. You don't have to tap out on your own turn to cast Gifts. Instead, you can keep your mana open, ready to counter any important plays your opponent makes, and then play Gifts whenever it's convenient.\nGifts gives you more than one card. That's always good, right?\n\n\nSo, it's at least as good as Mystical Teachings (also an instant-speed tutor with built-in card advantage &mdash; one that saw tournament play during Time Spiral Standard and later in Modern). But it's way better than that, too!\n\nGifts give you four cards. Not two cards, four cards &mdash; it's just that two of them will end up in your graveyard. And you get all those cards at the same time, which makes it an amazing combo tutor.\n\nYour opponent gets to control which cards go where, but, with careful deck-building and skillful play, you can get much more power from the card by effectively removing your opponent's meaningful choices.\n\nFunctional equivalents\n\nAt the least, Gifts allows you to tutor for four cards and get the third and fourth best ones for the current situation into your hand. That's pretty powerful by itself, though it relies on building a deck that even has a third and fourth best card for many situations.\n\nAn easy way to get that effect is to run one-ofs of a bunch of very similar cards, so that your \"third best\" card is basically the same as your \"best\" card. Here's the classic example:\n\n(I'm using general examples rather than all Kamigawa-block ones because it's much easier to think about what's good in general Magic than in the rather idiosyncratic world of any set's Block Constructed.)\n\n \n \n\nTwo of those cards will end up in your hand. Three of them are 4-drop sweepers. So, whatever your opponent picks, you're guaranteed at least one sweeper in your hand. (The fourth card could be anything, in this case &mdash; Path to Exile just fits because you can use it to answer a creature your opponent plays after the wrath.)\n\nRegrowth effects\n\nRunning lots of functional equivalents takes up a lot of space in your deck. This isn't too bad for the sweepers example above, since decks often run three of four wraths anyway. When you've got one particular, functionally-unique card you really want, though, or a niche case where you'd only run a one-of.\n\nA common solution is to run \"Regrowth\" effects, forcing your opponent to choose between the card you want and a card that'll fish it out of your graveyard.\n\nAn example from the Kamigawa era is Frank Karsten's 2005 Worlds (Standard) deck. Let's say Frank's opponent has an artifact that needs to be removed right away. The deck has one maindeck answer &mdash; Putrefy. Here's a way he could tutor it with Gifts:\n\n \n \n\nRecollect gives you Putrefy back in hand. Reclaim can put it on top of your library; you could either cast Reclaim on your upkeep and draw the card naturally, or use the Top to bring the card to your hand. Your opponent can make you spend a couple of cards and some extra mana to cast Putrefy, but, short of graveyard hate, he can't keep you from casting it.\n\nAn easy way to get the same effect with more recent cards, without even having to run green mana sources, is to include Snapcaster Mage and Noxious Revival in your Gifts pile.\n\nCard you just want in your graveyard anyway\n\nHopefully you saw that this is where we were going when I mentioned Snapcaster.\n\nThe graveyard is a very active zone in Magic. So much so that some cards are actually at their most powerful in the 'yard. Kenji Tsumura's 2005 Pro Tour Los Angeles (Extended) deck includes Darkblast and Life from the Loam, whose Dredge ability helps power up his Psychatogs; as well as Wonder, whose in-your-graveyard ability is more relevant than the creature itself.\n\nFlashback cards are great to tutor up with Gifts &mdash; whether they go in your hand or the graveyard, you can cast 'em either way. In addition, it's important to note that this is a valid Gifts pile:\n\n \n\nThat's it! Just two cards.\n\n\n 701.14b If a player is searching a hidden zone for cards with a stated quality, such as a card with a certain card type or color, that\n player isn’t required to find some or all of those cards even if\n they’re present in that zone.\n\n\n(The \"stated quality\" in this case is \"different names\".)\n\nSince your opponent must choose two cards to go in your graveyard, both of these will end up in your 'yard. At which point you can flashback Rites and bring out your big reanimated finisher. It's the best graveyard-filling tutor this side of Entomb!\n\nI believe the first example of using Gifts like this was actually during Kamigawa block. During one of the Pro Tour matches, a player was about to lose the game but had Goryo&#39;s Vengeance and Gifts in hand. So he Gifts-ed for just Kokusho and then let him die to drain his opponent.\n\nCombos and engines\n\nYou know how Tooth and Nail is so good because you can dig out both pieces of a combo at the same time?\n\nGifts does that as well. It's especially easy with graveyard-based engines. For example, Patrick Chapins' 2008 Pro Tour Berlin (Extended) deck could set up his win condition using something like this:\n\n \n \n\nRegardless of which card goes where, this sets up an engine that lets you make a bunch of Worm tokens every turn.\n\nPlain old deception\n\nSetting up \"no-win scenarios\" for your opponent is powerful and consistent, but sometimes you don't even need to do that.\n\nFor instance, let's say you have Urza&#39;s Mine, Urza&#39;s Tower, Steam Vents, and two Izzet Signets in play (five mana total, but one land away from completing the UrzaTron).\n\nYou show me this Gifts pile:\n\n \n \n\nNow, I do have real, serious choices here.\n\n\nIf I let you complete your Tron with the Power Plant, you might cast something nasty next turn &mdash; or have nothing to do with all your mana.\nIf I give you Through the Breach, you could crush me with an Eldrazi next turn, but only if you have one in hand.\nIf I give you Emrakul, it might sit uselessly in your hand for a number of turns. Or you might be sanbagging a Power Plant already in hand, ready to ramp you all the way to 15 mana in a couple more turns.\n\n\nThere are right choices and wrong choices, but they're based on hidden information. If I guess wrong, you're probably won the game. You're taking a chance when you do this, of course, but it's a chance with a big upside.\n\nAnother common way to play mind games with your opponent is to use the Regrowth trick detailed above, but then regrow some other card that was already sitting innocuously in your graveyard.\n\nWhat a truly busted Gifts deck looks like\n\nDid you know that Gifts Ungiven is restricted in Vintage and banned in Commander? Do you ever wonder why?\n\nLook at this deck (more discussion available here).\n\n \n \n\nGifts gets so much better with a deeper card pool: there are more ways to cast stuff from your graveyard, more functional equivalents to choose from, more powerhouse \"silver bullet\" singletons, more two-card combos.\n\nIn the right deck, Gifts Ungiven is a one-card combo, an obscene card advantage engine, and every kind of disruption you need to win the game." ]

[ "Show up for a job interview even though you never applied. Hell, show up and just start working." ]

[ "what job is this interview for?", "Do everything you need to do to succeed at it. Polish up your resume. Practice interviewing. Use said job as a reference for a better job. Get the new job because you kicked ass at a sucky job.", "Always use all connections to get job first. If fails then look for a job in a regular way.", "Every fucking job interview", "The lesser known flying platypus", "The caste system is getting in way of education and jobs too", "You seriously think people, at job interviews, are making jokes about the interviewer's mother?", "Confused \"900 to 1000\" as 9000 during a job promotion interview when being asked how many sites the company had. Didn't get the job..", "Buy myself lunch and a tin of mints before a job interview.", "I had to apply and have an interview. This is the worst experience I had to go through to get my job. I’ve never had to save my job because I do well at my job.", "A ba, underpaid yet still paying job", "Is this a job interview? I'm hard working. If not an interview, I have no qualities, let alone best one.", "What humans are currently doing is getting the job done.", "Someone who is only interested in mainstream things, and never go out of their way to search for anything that is lesser known.", "Bro take what job you can getting", "What job?", "Get a job as a wrecking ball operator, knock down buildings for a living. Cause a bunch of damage legally.", "Depends on the job. You can easily get a job. But most easy to get jobs you won't want.", "You need experience to get a job but a job to get experience", "... Get a job?", "A job or a degree that will help me get a job", "How to handle money. Job interview skills. Signs of domestic abuse. Healthy diet.", "Not illegal.. So, legal? Anyway, smoke weed. Some states are stupid and haven't legalized it yet.", "In cases like that, the job of a defense attorney is to ensure that the trial is legally impeccable and that the defendant gets the lightest reasonable sentence.", "get a job", "Go get a job.", "there ARE NO dream jobs, every job gets boring, every job will disapoint you eventually, ive had 4 \"DREAM JOBS\" that i always wanted and they always end up the same way\n\nwork for yourself if you want to get ahead in life", "Get a job!", "Like a regular bouncer but for anti maskers. It's not a job yet afaik.", "Easy I’d start my own company then I would interview my self in the mirror and get the job in 60 sec", "What a shitty job.", "Blue collar jobs, electrician, plumbers, welding. You can take some courses on programming and get into tech pretty easily, since most jobs have technical interviews that test your knowledge. There’s plenty, just have to think a little outside the mainstream college box" ]

[ "After a weekend full of protests and demonstrations, Republicans prepared to seize the spotlight Monday for their party&#39;s first convention in the Big Apple." ]

[ "When does guerrilla theater become guerrilla war? What the demonstrations against the 2004 GOP convention can teach us about managing the protests at the G8 summit.", "A judge on Wednesday declined to order city officials to give an anti-war group permission to rally in Central Park on the eve of the Republican convention, leaving uncertain where thousands of protesters will go after a march past", "The pharmaceutical industry, fighting to defeat proposals that would give U.S. patients easier access to cheaper Canadian drugs, is making the most of its chance for face time with lawmakers at the GOP convention.", "Tens of thousands of protesters marched on Saturday against British Prime Minister Tony Blair on the eve of a rally of his Labour Party where a struggle over the leadership looked set to steal the headlines.", "Next stop: Wyoming GOP county conventions on Saturday, Jan. 5.", "A judge on Wednesday denied anti-Bush protesters permission to rally in Central Park on the eve of the Republican National Convention, leaving open the question of where possibly hundreds of thousands of demonstrators will go after a march through midtown Manhattan.", "Roman Catholics should campaign hard for Protestant President Bush, \"the candidate who shares the values Catholics hold dear,\" rather than for Catholic challenger John Kerry, Republican leaders told activists at a rally near the GOP convention on Thursday", "Vice President Dick Cheney, arriving in New York on the eve of the Republican convention on Sunday, praised President Bush's response to the Sept. 11 attacks while tens of thousands of protesters opposed to the administration flooded the city's streets.", "On the eve of Tuesday's primary in Florida, the one-time national GOP front-runner is still running strong among Cuban-Americans, who represent 10 to 12 percent of the state's GOP electorate.", "WASHINGTON - The Justice Department is asking a judge to throw out the convictions of a suspected terror cell in Detroit because of prosecutorial misconduct, a dramatic setback for the administration's war on terror on the eve of President Bush's re-election pitch at the GOP convention. In a late Tuesday night court filing, the department told U.S...", "Americans who served in the military will be well represented at the upcoming Republican convention, more so than at last month's Democratic convention or in the U.S. population overall, according to the GOP.", "A GOP delegate handed out bandages with purple hearts on them Monday night at the Republican National Convention in a swipe at Democratic nominee John Kerry's war record, but national GOP officials have asked him to stop.", "IN THE HEADLINES ... Republicans focusing on South Carolina as next stand, Democrats on Nevada ... Romney's Michigan GOP presidential win helped by party, Bush loyalists.", "Republicans have chosen the Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul for the 2008 presidential convention, GOP officials said Wednesday.", "Republicans Mitt Romney and Sen. Sam Brownback promoted their presidential campaigns before nearly 3,000 party activists at the Michigan GOP convention Saturday.", "Discounted hotels and Broadway show tickets for convention protesters?", "NEW YORK - Vice President Dick Cheney was stepping up to denounce Democrat John Kerry's \"confusion of conviction\" after President Bush formally won the Republican nomination for a second term in a carefully choreographed GOP convention roll call. The second day of the convention brought out thousands of protesters who set out on a march to the convention site, getting in the way of a busload of delegates and engaging in shouting matches with officers around Manhattan...", "For this week's GOP convention in New York, TV networks will be watching what's going on outside of Madison Square Garden as well as inside.", "The GOP convention came to New York last week and Wall Street did . . . well, not much. Many traders and money managers fled the city to avoid convention-related headaches.", "IN THE HEADLINES ... Republicans scramble in South Carolina after three big races with three different winners ... Romney's Michigan GOP presidential win helped by party, Bush loyalists.", "A Kennedy at a Republican convention? It's almost heresy, but Maria Shriver &#151; niece of Ted, Bobby and John F. Kennedy, and needless to say a Democrat &#151; will be a spectator at the GOP convention this week.", "Newt Gingrich, rebutting criticism the GOP is hiding conservatives during its convention, accused Democrats Monday of shunting anti-abortion and conservative Democrats to the side.", "A look ahead at issues and events likely to make headlines in the coming year.", "Congressional Republicans at their party's national convention trumpeted the GOP's conservative principles Tuesday, with one saying she still believes \"character is king.\"", "While physical security was tightened in New York for this week's GOP convention, IT security researchers uncovered an unsettling number of unencrypted wireless devices that could pose an information security nightmare for convention organizers and delegates.", "The F.B.I. has been questioning demonstrators in an effort to forestall violent protests at the Republican convention.", "Forget the megaphones. Police will have a much more high-tech &#151; and louder &#151; option to make themselves heard over the din of Manhattan traffic and noisy protesters outside the Republican National Convention.", "Republicans hold their convention next week in New York, home to the GOP-like Yankees. The Democrats chose Boston, whose Red Sox resemble that party.", "IN THE HEADLINES: McCain proposes economic plan with corporate tax break ... Huckabee campaigns against 'Washington insiders' ... Giuliani pins his hopes for GOP nomination on a victory in Florida", "Sen. John McCain, the presumed Republican presidential nominee, picked up a total of 50 GOP national convention delegates from Michigan and Louisiana Saturday.", "Dirk Van Tuerenhout last made headlines for his role in returning a priceless artifact to its homeland. This time, he's making headlines for doing just the opposite.", "It's party time for trade associations, companies and interest groups at the GOP convention in New York, and each is trying to outdo the next in gimmicks to lure in movers and shakers." ]

[ "Snot is the slang term of nasal mucus. Mucus is the slippery secretion that is produced by nasal mucous membranes." ]

[ "What your SNOT says about your health: Yellow mucus means you have a cold while black gunge is a sign of a fungal infection. Most people produce about 1.7 litres of mucus a day - enough to fill a kettle. As it is made from water, proteins, antibodies and salts, it should be clear. White snot is a sign of congestion, while yellow snot is signals a cold. Green shows the immune system is working while red snot contains blood.", "Editor’s note: Is fungus snot the same as human snot? No, it’s not (heh). Human snot is primarily mucins– proteins linked to a bit of sugar, with other stuff mixed in: enzymes, antibodies, and such. Pullulan, you recall, is a polysaccharide, not a protein.", "The body responds to the virus that causes a cold by making snot and phlegm -- and lots of it! Here's another fact about boogers: Snot that is dried by the air becomes a boogie. 1 Sneezes and Snot Travel Fast Sneezes travel 30 to 60 miles an hour, and can fly 30 feet through the air, Dr. Payne said.he body responds to the virus that causes a cold by making snot and phlegm -- and lots of it! Here's another fact about boogers: Snot that is dried by the air becomes a boogie. 1 Sneezes and Snot Travel Fast Sneezes travel 30 to 60 miles an hour, and can fly 30 feet through the air, Dr. Payne said.", "Gorilla-Snot. An alternative to Soiltac, Gorilla-Snot is the value-engineered version of Soiltac. Like Soiltac, it is an eco-safe, biodegradable, liquid copolymer used to provide erosion control and dust suppression.", "Lots of our cells make slimy mucus, but the mucus you see most often is snot. We make snot to protect the inside of our body from infection. Bacteria and viruses could get through your nose into your throat and lungs, but your snot traps them. Hooray for snot! You produce around one litre of slimy mucus a day.", "Examples of snot in a sentence. 1 Snot was dripping from his nose. 2 that patronizing little snot at the vintage record store openly smirks when someone asks for something from the Top 40.", "Where does all that snot come from? Snot is just a form of mucus, a slimy secretion produced by the mucus membranes which line all external cavities of the body exposed to the outside environment. The job of mucus is to lubricate and protect these parts of the body. Your respiratory system is protected by a special type of mucus, known as phlegm. Its job is to protect the lungs from stuff that could get in there, like dust, pollen or smoke. The stuff that makes it to your nose is called nasal mucus, or snot.", "Green or yellow snot doesn't always need antibiotics. Snot is the mucus that comes from the nose. When your immune system is fighting a cold virus, one of the first symptoms is a clear runny mucus from the nose. As the cold develops, the mucus can become thicker and yellow, and then green.", "Yellow snot is a sign of a cold, as it shows white blood cells are rushing to the site of the infection. Green mucus shows the immune system is fighting back as it turns that colour due to dead white blood cells.If mucus is pink or red it means the nasal tissue has become broken and is bleeding. Most people produce about 1.7 litres of mucus a day-enough to fill a kettle. 2 As it is made from water, proteins, antibodies and salts, it should be clear. 3 White snot is a sign of congestion, while yellow snot is signals a cold. 4 Green shows the immune system is working while red snot contains blood.", "Some facts about snot will amaze you, some facts about boogers may astound you. Wow your friends and families with these 7 gross health facts about mucus, phlegm, and boogers. 1 It's Snot Funny Yes, snot is wet and runny, but it's not funny.", "'Snotter', 'Groak', and 6 More Words Associated with Bad Habits. Examples of snot in a sentence. Snot was dripping from his nose. that patronizing little snot at the vintage record store openly smirks when someone asks for something from the Top 40.", "Most people produce about 1.7 litres of mucus a day - enough to fill a kettle. As it is made from water, proteins, antibodies and salts, it should be clear. White snot is a sign of congestion, while yellow snot is signals a cold. Green shows the immune system is working while red snot contains blood.", "When a person is exposed to germs, pollen, or dust for example, snot is actually produced by the nasal mucous membranes as a form of defense mechanism against possible illness or disease.", "Mucus, phlegm, snot, and of course boogers, or boogies, have become the butt of many jokes, largely because they have that gross-out factor going for them. Jokes aside, though, there's a lot you might not know about snot, boogers, and phlegm.", "To understand what boogers are, you need to know about mucus (say: MYOO-kus). Mucus is the sticky, slimy stuff that's made inside your nose, airways, and even your digestive tract. If you're like lot of kids, you have another name for nose mucus: snot. Your nose and sinuses make about a quart (about 1 liter) of snot every day. Mucus has a pretty important job — it keeps the lining of your nose moist and warms the air you breathe. Mucus also protects the lungs. When you breathe in air through your nose, it contains lots of tiny things, like dust, dirt, germs, and pollen.", "6.Stir and lift out the long strands of snot you’ve made. If the snot thickens as it cools, add water spoonful by spoonful to thin it. Store in a resealable plastic bag. (Never pour slime down the drain.", "Yellow snot indicates that the cold is progressing and when it turns green your immune system is really battling the infection. Some infection-fighting white blood cells contain a green substance (a protein) so the more these cells are present, the greener your snot will be.reen snot, or phlegm if you have a cough, is not necessarily a sign of a bacterial infection that will need treatment with antibiotics, according to Public Health England and the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP).", "Green snot is most often caused by a viral common cold, which antibiotics cannot treat. Healthy snot (mucus) is made from water, proteins called mucins and salt. It becomes green after gathering dead viruses or bacteria and white blood cells, which oxide and change colour with time.", "(March 2015) Eating mucus is the act of extracting nasal mucus with one's finger (rhinotillexis) and the succeeding action of ingesting the mucus from the nose-picking (mucophagy). Nasal mucus is also termed as boogers, snot, bogeys, dried nasal mucus, mucus secretion, and other related terms including comerse los mocos (to eat one's snot).", "White glue will give you opaque snot and glue gel will produce you translucent slimy snot. Stir a couple of drops of food coloring into the glue mixture. Then, Add a spoonful of the borax solution to the glue mixture. Stir, if in a bowl, or squish, if in a baggie.", "A booger, boogey, or bogey. Dried nasal mucus, a piece of which is colloquially known as a boogie, booger, or bogey is found in the nose and is a result of drying of the normally viscous colloidal mucus (commonly known as snot).", "Allen Marshall MD. What the color of mucus – or snot – means is very misunderstood. The color of the mucus that comes out of your nose when you are sick, whether green, yellow or white, does not necessarily indicate a bacterial infection.llen Marshall MD. What the color of mucus – or snot – means is very misunderstood. The color of the mucus that comes out of your nose when you are sick, whether green, yellow or white, does not necessarily indicate a bacterial infection.", "Booger or Boogers may refer to: Manny or snot, dried nasal mucus (U.S. colloquial) A ghost or hobgoblin used to frighten children, also boogerman, boogieman, or bogeyman (mainly southern U.S.)", "Snivel, which originally meant simply to have a runny nose, was probably snyflan in Old English. It's likely related to sniffle, not surprisingly, and also to an Old English word for mucus, snofl. It's even related to the Middle Dutch word for a cold, snof, and the Old Norse word for snout, which is snoppa.", "The Gorilla-Snot treated soil (darker center square) is now complete and has fully penetrated and cured. Unlike the untreated soil (lighter outer perimeter), the Gorilla-Snot prevents dust and loss of fines due to erosion and vehicular traffic. The Gorilla-Snot topical application provides long-term effectiveness; keeping soil, aggregate and particulates where they belong; on the ground.", "It’s also critical for many animals, including hagfish, snails and people. Snot can rid our bodies of nasty bacteria and viruses. In other creatures, it can smooth the road or rough up predators.", "0 Comment. Make fake snot for cool science, gross science, or your next party! Easy to make with a few kitchen ingredients, fake snot slime is even edible or at the very least taste safe. Not so tasty for a snack but not harmful either.", "scandinavian snus is a moist form of smokeless tobacco which is usually placed under the upper lip and which does not result in the need for spitting it is sold either as a moist powder known as loose snus or prepackaged into pouches known as portion snusnus ˈsnuːs snʉːs is a moist powder tobacco product originating from a variant of dry snuff in early 18th century sweden it is placed under the upper lip for extended periods snus is not fermented and contains no added sugar", "Snus (/ˈsnuːs/; Swedish pronunciation: [snʉːs]) is a moist powder tobacco product originating from a variant of dry snuff in early 18th-century Sweden. It is placed under the upper lip for extended periods. Snus is not fermented and contains no added sweeteners.", "Most of us do it, but few of us will admit to it. If we get caught red-handed, we experience shame and regret. And we tend to frown upon others when they do it in public. I'm talking, of course, about reaching up into your nostrils with a finger in an effort to scrape out snot. Is nose-picking really all that bad? How prevalent or bad is it, really? And why (really, why?) would anybody ever decide to see what snot tastes like?", "slide 1 of 3. What Are Boogers and What Causes Boogers? Everybody gets boogers, and just as well too, as they are formed from a substance that performs a vital job in the body. It all starts with mucus, the sticky, slimy and viscous liquid that's made by the mucus membranes inside your nose. A more colloquial name for mucus is snot.", "Yellow snot indicates that the cold is progressing and when it turns green your immune system is really battling the infection. Some infection-fighting white blood cells contain a green substance (a protein) so the more these cells are present, the greener your snot will be." ]

[ "NFL Films, the Mount Laurel, NJ-based company that has been the creative arm of the National Football League for more than 40 years, laid off 21 of its 283 employees last week, including some who had been with the company for decades." ]

[ "McDuffie Regional Medical Center will lay off 21 employees to reduce losses that have drained more than $900,000 from hospital reserves since October.", "ESPN on Tuesday began making a significant reduction of its work force, laying off more than 100 employees at its Bristol, Conn., headquarters and in at least one regional technology center.", "Comcast Corp. says it's laying off 77 New Hampshire employees, the majority at the company's Manchester operation.", "Aerisyn, the Riverfront Parkway firm that builds wind towers, is laying off 54 employees due to the souring economy.", "Bloomberg may lay off about 130 employees in BusinessWeek, which the global financial news and data provider acquired recently, says a media report.", "DreamWorks Animation will lay off approximately 350 employees, about 15 percent of its full-time staff, CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg and CFO Lewis Coleman said Tuesday during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call.", "The Seattle Times Co. says it will lay off about 200 workers in response to continued declines in revenue.", "Dow Jones & Co. announced Dec. 9 that it will close its Orlando printing plant, and lay off approximately 59 employees starting Feb. 2.", "After recently acquiring a contract to serve the region, American Medical Response said it's going to lay off 11 employees.", "The Times-Picayune of New Orleans announced today that it will be laying off employees and cutting its print edition to three days a week.", "Bob Glauber of Newsday, reporting live within the bowels of league headquarters Friday, reports that all NFL employees have taken a 12% pay cut during the lockout.", "A Yankton manufacturing company is laying off another 48 workers because of a drop in construction equipment sales.", "State Street Corp. said it would lay off 630 employees, or 2 percent of its workforce, including 260 people in Massachusetts, and sounded a cautionary note on the economy even as it reported higher profits.", "Yahoo confirmed Tuesday that it will lay off 4 percent of its workforce, up to around 560 employees, after weeks of speculation.", "Rock of Ages in Barre is laying off 25 of its 78 granite quarry workers.", "Goodrich Corp. said it will lay off 78 workers at its Foley plant in January.", "Nixon Peabody has become the latest firm to make job cuts, laying off 20 lawyers and 36 staff, reports The National Law Journal.", "Hamilton County could lay off as many as 40 employees this year.", "Kaiser Permanente of Ohio, based in Cleveland, will lay off 58 employees by year's end as it tries to lower premiums for enrollees, according to a Plain Dealer report.", "Land O'Lakes plans to close its butter manufacturing plant in Madison and lay off 120 employees.", "The Fresno Bee will lay off 63 workers and cut salaries in order to reduce expenses in a weak advertising market.", "Sony Pictures, as expected, today told employees that it is cutting about 350 jobs at the company, both through layoffs and leaving open positions unfilled.", "ROCHESTER, NY - Eastman Kodak Co. plans to lay off 91 workers at its Rochester operations in June.", "Illumina today disclosed that it plans to lay off 200 employees, or 8 percent of its global workforce, in a restructuring that it announced last week alongside its third-quarter financial results.", "Research In Motion Ltd. started handing out layoff notices this week after announcing it would reduce its workforce following a disappointing first fiscal quarter, reports say.", "Verizon has notified the state that it will permanently lay off 814 employees at its Bellevue call center by June 30.", "CitiMortgage announced today that it is laying off 400 employees who work in its loan sales and fulfillment operations in five cities, including 43 jobs at its O'Fallon, Mo.", "Agoura Hills-based video game maker THQ said late Wednesday that it is cutting 250 employees, or 17% of its staff, after reporting disappointing results.", "Waste and recycling truck maker Heil has announced it will lay off about 80 workers at its Fort Payne plant.", "Yahoo will lay off about 600 employees, mostly in the company's product group, said spokesperson Kim Rubey.", "Tropicana will lay off about a dozen workers at its Bradenton facility by the end of the month for cost savings, a company spokesman said.", "Analogic Corp. is laying off 85 workers, or about 6 percent of its workforce, and consolidating its operations in Massachusetts to save about $5 million a year." ]

[ "Composite volcanoes, also known as stratovolcanoes, are found on convergent plate boundaries , where the oceanic crust subducts beneath the continental crust." ]

[ "Vesuvius is a stratovolcano at the convergent boundary where the African Plate is being subducted beneath the Eurasian Plate. Layers of lava, ash, scoria and pumice make up the volcanic peak.", "In shallow water, the energy of the tsunami must be contained within a smaller water column. What type of plate boundary are most tsunamis associated with? Convergent plate boundaries.", "The major difference between different types is what type of plate the divergent boundary is between. If the boundary is found between two continental plates you are left with a rift valley. ... If two oceanic plates begin moving away from each other it creates a mid-oceanic ridge.", "Plates can move apart at a boundary. This type of boundary is called a divergent boundary. It is also referred to as a constructive plate boundary, as new material is being produced at the boundary surface.", "Type of plate boundaries near the Sierra Nevada The Juan De Fuca plate boundary is Convergent ( Ocean to Continent ). The Pacific plate boundary is Divergent.", "No, ocean trenches do not occur at divergent plate boundaries. They are formed at convergent boundaries. Convergent boundaries are formed when...", "Volcano Type El Chichon is located on a convergent plate boundary, also know as a destructive plate boundary.", "San Andreas Transform Plate Boundary The transform plate boundary between the Pacific and North American Plates in western California formed fairly recently.", "The Himalayan Mountains formed at a convergence plate boundary between the Eurasian plate and the Indian plate.", "What type pf plate boundary is located at the Jordan fault? A Transform Boundary, The Two Land Masses Slide Past Each Other! So Transform Is Your Answer!", "What type of plate boundary is Crater Lake on? Crater Lake, and the Cascade Mountains in general, were created by the subduction of the Juan de Fuca plate under the North American plate. This is an Ocean to Continental plate collision (subduction).", "Soufriere Hills is formed by a convergent plate boundary; where the Atlantic Plate is subducting under the Caribbean plate.", "Convergent boundaries, of which there are three types, occur where plates are colliding. Divergent boundaries represent areas where plates are spreading apart. Transform boundaries occur where plates are sliding past each other.", "The Aleutian Trench is a convergent plate boundary. The trench forms part of the boundary between two tectonic plates. Here, the Pacific Plate is being subducted under the North American Plate at an angle of nearly 45 degrees.", "Answer and Explanation: The Himalayan Mountains formed at a convergence plate boundary between the Eurasian plate and the Indian plate.", "The tectonic plates that formed the boundary near the Appalachian Mountains are the North American Plate and the North African Plate. The North...", "Divergent plate boundaries. One young divergent plate boundary that you'll recognize is actively forming the Red Sea. Although the Arabian penninsula and Africa were once linked to form a single continent, they are now being ripped apart.", "The New Madrid Fault Zone is part of an ancient plate boundary. In this area, the North American Plate tried to form a divergent plate boundary about 500 million years ago. The splitting stopped before new plates could form. The faults in the New Madrid Zone are remnants of this old event.", "-Actually the student is modeling a convergent plate boundary. The image shows the plates colliding to form a mountain-like structure.", "Certain features of Earth occur at each of the three types of boundaries. These features move because of movement at plates at the plate boundaries. Mountain ranges, ocean trenches, volcanoes, and earthquakes occur in patterns. The movement of plates causes these features to occur.", "Constructive plate boundaries are when there are two plates moving apart from each other. They are called constructive plates because when they move apart, magma rises up in the gap- this forms volcanoes and eventually new crust. ... Destructive plate boundaries are when oceanic and continental plates move together.", "convergent plate boundary. [ kən-vûr′jənt ] A tectonic boundary where two plates are moving toward each other. If the two plates are of equal density, they usually push up against each other, forming a mountain chain.", "The Alpine Fault marks a transform boundary between the two plates, and further south the Indo-Australian Plate subducts under the Pacific Plate forming the Puysegur Trench. The southern part of Zealandia, which is to the east of this boundary, is the plate's largest block of continental crust.", "The Mediterranean island of Cyprus formed at a convergent boundary between the African and Eurasian plates.", "Remember, where plates are pushing against each other or pulling apart - landforms change. Identify the boundary between the Indian and Eurasian plates. These plates are bumping into each other (convergent boundary) and this process forms the highest mountain ranges on Earth, the Himalayas.", "In plate tectonics theory during the breakup of a continent, three divergent boundaries form, radiating out from a central point (the triple junction). One of these divergent plate boundaries fails (see aulacogen) and the other two continue spreading to form an ocean.", "Compression is the most common stress at convergent plate boundaries. Rocks that are pulled apart are under tension. Rocks under tension lengthen or break apart. Tension is the major type of stress at divergent plate boundaries.", "What is the difference between mid-ocean ridges and trenches? Mid-ocean ridges occur at divergent plate boundaries. Trenches occur at convergent plate boundaries. ... The deep trenches occur where one plate is being subducted under another.", "In a divergent plate boundary, the plates move away from each other. ... If the there is a shift, like an earthquake, on the ocean floor and a plate boundary rises or falls, it displaces the water above. The destructive force causes a tsunami to form. Volcanic eruptions and underwater landslides can also cause tsunamis.", "San Andreas Transform Plate Boundary The transform plate boundary between the Pacific and North American Plates in western California formed fairly recently. About 200 million years ago, a large tectonic plate (called the Farallon Plate) started to subduct beneath the western edge of North America.", "Motion on Plate Boundaries In the west, the Shackleton Fracture Zone forms the boundary between the Antarctic and Scotia plates in the Drake Passage. It is a left lateral transform boundary with movement of 7.5-9mm/yr (Thomas et al., 2003) near the former spreading centre of West Scotia Ridge.", "Plate boundaries are always faults, but not all faults are plate boundaries. The movement of the plates relative to each other distorts the crust in the region of the boundaries creating systems of earthquake faults." ]

[ "As others have mentioned, there's no guarantee that code after a try statement will execute unless you catch every possible exception. That said, this:\n\n\n\ntry {\n mightThrowSpecificException();\n} catch (SpecificException e) {\n handleError();\n} finally {\n cleanUp();\n}\n\n\ncan be rewritten1 as:\n\ntry {\n mightThrowSpecificException();\n} catch (SpecificException e) {\n try {\n handleError();\n } catch (Throwable e2) {\n cleanUp();\n throw e2;\n }\n} catch (Throwable e) {\n cleanUp();\n throw e;\n}\ncleanUp();\n\n\nBut the latter requires you to catch all unhandled exceptions, duplicate the cleanup code, and remember to re-throw. So finally isn't necessary, but it's useful.\n\nC++ doesn't have finally because Bjarne Stroustrup believes RAII is better, or at least suffices for most cases:\n\n\n Why doesn't C++ provide a \"finally\" construct?\n \n Because C++ supports an alternative that is almost always better: The \"resource acquisition is initialization\" technique (TC++PL3 section 14.4). The basic idea is to represent a resource by a local object, so that the local object's destructor will release the resource. That way, the programmer cannot forget to release the resource.\n\n\n\n\n1 The specific code to catch all exceptions and rethrow without losing stack trace information varies by language. I have used Java, where the stack trace is captured when the exception is created. In C# you'd just use throw;." ]

[ "You can't use post because post is part of the declarative DSL, not scripted, and you're defining your stages in a script block. So I'm afraid that as long as you're using a script block to define your stages, you're going to have to stick with the scripted method, which is the groovy try { ... } catch { ... } finally { ... } construct. For example:\n\ndef createStage(String stageName) {\n stage(stageName) {\n try {\n echo \"Stage: ${stageName}\"\n echo \"${stageName} &gt; this is executed only on success\"\n finally {\n echo \"${stageName} &gt; this is always executed\"\n }\n }\n}", "It behaves identically to Java. Here's my example code:\n\ntry {\n Integer x = (Integer)null + 5;\n} finally {\n System.debug('Here I am');\n}\n\n\nHere's the log file for this:\n\n14:48:22.023 (23371012)|EXECUTION_STARTED\n14:48:22.023 (23385329)|CODE_UNIT_STARTED|[EXTERNAL]|execute_anonymous_apex\n14:48:22.024 (24334530)|USER_DEBUG|[4]|DEBUG|Here I am\n14:48:22.024 (24474224)|FATAL_ERROR|System.NullPointerException: Attempt to de-reference a null object\n\n\nIn short, if you fail to catch it, your finally still executes, but your transaction will still be rolled back if the exception is not handled by the time it reaches the top of the execution stack. Here's a further example:\n\ntry {\n try {\n Integer x = (Integer)null + 5;\n } finally {\n System.debug('Here I am');\n }\n} catch(Exception e) {\n System.debug('Exception caught: '+e);\n}\n\n\nHere, the outer catch actually handles the exception, while the inner one still has its finally block executed:\n\n14:50:03.021 (21452170)|EXECUTION_STARTED\n14:50:03.021 (21461457)|CODE_UNIT_STARTED|[EXTERNAL]|execute_anonymous_apex\n14:50:03.021 (21946912)|USER_DEBUG|[5]|DEBUG|Here I am\n14:50:03.022 (22063251)|USER_DEBUG|[8]|DEBUG|Exception caught: System.NullPointerException: Attempt to de-reference a null object\n14:50:03.022 (22111338)|CODE_UNIT_FINISHED|execute_anonymous_apex\n14:50:03.023 (23260562)|EXECUTION_FINISHED\n\n\nSemantically, try-finally is basically the same as the following construct:\n\ntry {\n try {\n Integer x = (Integer)null + 5;\n } catch(Exception e) {\n System.debug('Here I am');\n throw e;\n }\n} catch(Exception e) {\n System.debug('Exception caught: '+e);\n}", "In terms of the basic thread locking, it looks like it is doing the right thing, but there are a number of issues in how you are calculating the account balance, and also some escaped locking as well.\n\nNote, your post is titled \"Synchronized implementation\", but it is not, it is a locked implementation. Synchronization is different, and, in this case, it may be a simpler mechanism.\n\nLocking\n\nEven if you don't catch exceptions, you should always use the try/finally mechanism for locking. Here, for example, it's possible that the addition may throw an exception (even though you don't catch it):\n\npublic void addAmount(double amount) {\n this.accountLock.writeLock().lock();\n try {\n this.balance.add(new BigDecimal(amount));\n } finally {\n this.accountLock.writeLock().unlock();\n }\n}\n\n\nIn case you think that's extreme, well, the amount could be NaN or infinity, and that would throw a NumberFormatException, etc. Even if it were impossible for the logic to throw an error, you should still use the try/finally mechanism because it makes the logic obvious.\n\nThe balance method has the most to gain:\n\npublic double getBalance() {\n this.accountLock.readLock().lock();\n try {\n return this.balance.setScale(2, RoundingMode.HALF_DOWN).doubleValue();\n } finally {\n this.accountLock.readLock().unlock();\n }\n}\n\n\nYou are also leaking the lock through the public method to get it. You really should not allow other people to manipulate the lock strategy you have in your class. It is intended to be internal for a reason.\n\nSpeaking of that lock, you should also make it final... \n\nprivate final ReadWriteLock accountLock;\n\n\nBugs\n\nThe most glaring issue is not with your locking, but with the balance management itself. BigDecimals are immutable. They cannot be changed. This does nothing: this.balance.add(new BigDecimal(amount)); .... that should be this.balance = this.balance.add(new BigDecimal(amount));.\n\nThe accountNumber and accountHolder should be final as well.\n\nFinally, the getBalance method will not always return a 2-decimal double value. Not all values in binary floating-point are representable in decimal.", "Before reviewing the code, I want to point out that this kind of functionality already exists in the core Java libraries. A ScheduledExecutorService will run an arbitrary Runnable on a fixed time schedule. Instead of extending RapidExecutor, you just implement the interface and pass it into the service. \n\nSome thoughts on your code:\n\nIn my opinion, your code is violating the Single Responsibility Principle. It’s doing three things: defining the interface for something that executes every tick, defining a new type of Thread, and controlling the frequency that this new type of thread executes code. As mentioned above, I’d strongly suggest using ScheduledExecutorService, Thread, and implement Runnable for the code that is currently in subclasses of RapidExecutor.\n\nYour Application app should be private, tick() should be tick(Application app), and run() should call tick(this.app). Keep variables contained in scope.\n\nDon’t use UPPERCASE for abbreviations. It’s considered better to use camelCase (tps or tpsCount). And don’t abbreviate when you don’t need to. It took me a bit to figure out that TPS was ticksPerSecond. \n\nPlease don’t throw an exception just to catch it to get the stack trace to print it out. Let the caller figure out what to do when you tell them they gave you bad input. They might not care about the error message being written to System.err, or they might actively not want that to happen. And don’t use a generic Exception. IllegalArgumentException, thrown from the constructor, would be better.\n\ntick() should be protected, not public. You only want it called from inside RapidExecutor.\n\nrun() must be final. If it isn’t, anybody who extends RapidExecutor can change what it means for run() to be executed. \n\nIt’s considered better form to declare variables on separate lines.\n\nVariables should be declared in the tightest scope possible to reduce cognitive load on readers of your code. startTime, now, and delta should all be declared inside your while loop.\n\nThere’s no need to cast delta back to an int. And perhaps sleepTime would be a better variable name than delta? It’s good for variables to clearly express what the represent.\n\nPerhaps storing final long tickDuration = System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime would be better than now.\n\nPerhaps renaming TPSCount to millisecondsPerTick would make it more clear what was being stored.\n\nAgain, don’t randomly catch Exception. And if you do handle an exception, reset the state of RapidExecutor to something appropriate. Right now execution stops but this.running is still true. Are you trying to handle the InterruptedException? If so, declare that try-catch block immediately around sleep(). There are well-understood ways to correctly handle InterruptedException, and you should look into them. Are you trying to handle exceptions coming from tick()? If so, put a tight block around this.tick(). Maybe even declaring your own checked exception in this case would be a good idea.\n\nIt’s unclear why you stop execution when it takes longer than TPSCount to run a tick(). I’m not convinced that’s a good design. Would it be better to skip a tick and get a choppy frame rate rather than just failing silently? Make sure that this is clearly documented.\n\nDon’t ever synchronize a method using the synchronized keyword. Locking on yourself is never a good idea because somebody else could take out a lock on you, and then stopThread() will never be able to execute. Use a private Object lock along with synchronized(this.lock), or a more complex approach when warranted.\n\nI also don’t see why you need to synchronize either of the method calls inside stopThread(). Are you sure that’s necessary?\n\nYou’ll need to make stopThread() final to prevent subclasses from changing what it means to stop a thread.\n\nAgain, make the exception block in stopThread() as tight as possible and handle the most specific exception possible.\n\nIf you applied all my suggestions to your code, it might look something like:\n\npublic abstract class RapidExecutor extends Thread {\n\n private final Object lock = new Object();\n private final Application application;\n private final int ticksPerSecond;\n\n private boolean running;\n\n public RapidExecutor(final Application application, final int ticksPerSecond) {\n\n this.application = application;\n this.ticksPerSecond = ticksPerSecond;\n\n if (ticksPerSecond &gt; 1000 || ticksPerSecond &lt; 1) {\n throw new IllegalArgumentException(\"ticksPerSecond must be between 1 and 1000, was \" + ticksPerSecond);\n }\n\n }\n\n protected abstract void tick(final Application application) throws TickFailedException;\n\n @Override\n public void run() {\n\n this.running = true;\n final int millisecondsPerTick = 1000 / this.ticksPerSecond;\n\n while (this.running) {\n\n final long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();\n\n try {\n this.tick(this.application);\n } catch (final TickFailedException | RuntimeException e) {\n this.running = false;\n // log the exception ?\n }\n\n final long tickDuration = System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime;\n final long sleepTime = millisecondsPerTick - tickDuration;\n if (sleepTime &lt; 0) {\n this.stopThread();\n }\n\n try {\n sleep(sleepTime);\n } catch (final InterruptedException e) {\n this.running = false;\n this.interrupt();\n // log the exception?\n }\n }\n }\n\n public final void stopThread() {\n\n synchronized (this.lock) {\n this.running = false;\n try {\n this.join();\n } catch (final InterruptedException e) {\n this.interrupt();\n e.printStackTrace();\n }\n }\n\n }\n\n}", "Short answer: yes. Which element, though depends on the content.\n\nPer w3.org:\n\n\n If a dialog contains the final step in a process that is not easily\n reversible, such as deleting data or completing a financial\n transaction, it may be advisable to set focus on the least destructive\n action, especially if undoing the action is difficult or impossible.\n The Alert Dialog Pattern is often employed in such circumstances.", "Yes. \n\nThe primary reason in my mind is that you want to have multiple procedures with which you can double-check work later. Knowing only a single procedure makes for very fragile understanding; on the day that you make an error, you have no way of recognizing or fixing that error. So I would claim that you want at least two or three methods of sanity-checking an answer. (E.g., a rough estimation, an algebraic solution, and a graphing solution.) \n\nSecondly, in many places you would use the initial, tedious procedure as motivation and appreciation for how much more powerful and elegant the later procedure is. Likewise if students have difficulty understanding the sophisticated procedure, then $X$ can be used to confirm that $Y$ does give correct results. \n\nThirdly, if you have a disagreement with someone over a result, you should have a more basic shared understanding that you can fall back on to similarly check that the answer is correct another way. \n\nThat said, in my community-college classes I find that students frequently do resist this, and either zone out on the secondary procedure, or occasionally become actively hostile. Actually, just this week I updated my statistics final (which I've been using for a few years) to require graphing checks of all the problems. Previously that was only recommended, not required -- the weaker students skipped it, basically just hoping they were right, and had no way of knowing how far off they were in most cases. I'm hoping if they know that the secondary check will be required, they will then be forced to develop that skill, have better intuition, and produce better results.", "After a bit of time depending on its construction, the carpet will begin to fray with some use. This wear will make the door even more difficult to open and close due to the catching of threads on the door material if it's wood, say.\n\nTry removing the carpet underlay material from the area near the doorway so the surface of the carpet is slightly lower than it was. Unfortunately, this will decrease the lifespan of the carpet due to loss of some shock absorbance. \n\nCheck that the bottom of the door is free from any burrs, screws, trim, or splinters that may interfere with opening and closing. Planing a few millimetres from the door bottom leading and trailing edges will help and won't be noticeable.\n\nIf the original flooring was wood parquet, there's a chance a couple of the tiles are slightly higher than their neighbours which would very slightly increase the average height. \n\nFinally, ensure that the door is parallel to the floor surface.\n\nIf none of these suggestions work for you, the alternative is to choose between modifying the door or a different decorative treatment than a carpeted doorway.\n\nGood luck.", "If I understand your question correctly, you'd need to encapsulate your AMPScript in an SSJS Try/Catch block to handle errors from AMPScript...\n\n&lt;script runat=server&gt;\ntry {\n&lt;/script&gt;\n\n%%[\n SET @try = \"Ampscript to try - may raise an error\"\n]%%\n\n&lt;script runat=server&gt;\n}\ncatch(err) {\n&lt;/script&gt;\n\n%%[\n SET @catch = \"Ampscript to execute - try raised error\"\n]%%\n\n&lt;script runat=server&gt;\n} \nfinally {\n&lt;/script&gt;\n\n%%[\n SET @finally = \"Ampscript to run irrespective of outcome of try\"\n]%%\n\n&lt;script runat=server&gt;\n}\n&lt;/script&gt;\n\n\nA word of caution would be to not consider doing any of this, including your HttpGet from a mass send. HttpGets are slow and mixing AMPScript and SSJS is slow. I would reserve this type of thing for triggered sends where the email taking a few seconds longer to deploy to the customer isn't an issue. One million subscribers' emails each taking a few seconds longer each to deploy is a problem.", "Policy Naming and Behaviour\nYour SingleSuccessPolicy name is not a good one. What you actually have here is a MaximumFailuresPolicy.\nTo effectively create a &quot;real&quot; SingleSuccessPolicy, you'd need to evaluate the final result of your foreach loop. But that is simply impossible in the catch-block.\nThe problem I see with your code is, that your SingleSuccessPolicy is required to be correctly initialized with new SingleSuccessPolicy(compData.size()-1);. As soon as a differnt SingleSuccessPolicy is passed in, the behaviour is no more the desired one.\nYou might consider creating the policy inside the GroupComponent constructor. Then you can make sure that the MaximumFailuresPolicy will always behave as a SingleSuccessPolicy, but that would change a whole lot of your structure.\nThis assumes your compData are immutable after construction, which in turn would IMO warrant a factory / builder pattern instead of what you have here.\nWhat you want to do is yours to decide, but the current way is IMO too unreliable, especially when the ExceptionPolicy depends on what data you are handling. That is not the point of an ExceptionPolicy.\nNitpicks:\nYour indentation is not conform to java-standards. Oracle consistently uses an indentation of 4 spaces (or one tab) for blocks.\nFrom method to for-loop, you have 3 spaces, from for-loop to try-catch the same, and from try-catch to statements, you have 2 spaces.\nAll three alternatives violate conventions, but above all, you're inconsistent!\nAdditionally I suggest you mark your arguments as final, whereever possible.", "A Google NGram search for *_ADJ exclusion of shows that total and complete are the most popular options, though they might be too strict for this case: they suggest a 100% exclusion. My choice for the 99% version would be almost complete.", "Exceptions\n\nExceptions, by their nature, alter the control flow of the program. That's what they're there for. It's just that they should not be used for normal control flow – only in error cases. In your case, a job failing to execute is most likely an error case so I wouldn't object to the usage of exceptions here.\n\nQuestion yourself, however, what kind of errors you are catching and how you handle them.\n\nIt seems that the first (outermost) try / catch block is intended to catch any exception that might be thrown by the job. This looks alright to me. We don't know the job and it might fail for any number of reasons. That should not affect our processing of further jobs. catching Exception also seems appropriate in this case, even though it is normally strongly discouraged. You could even consider catching Throwable but I like Exception better, thinking that if something that is not an Exception gets thrown, the program should probably die immediately.\n\nWell, except that it doesn't.\n\nYou are not catching exceptions thrown by the job. Those will be thrown on its own thread and not seen by you. Instead, that thread's uncaught exception handler will deal with them. And the default exception handler – as sad as it is – simply prints a stack trace and otherwise ignores the exception. If you want to change that, you can set a custom uncaught exception handler.\n\nThe only case in which your catch gets activated is if creation of the thread fails. And in this case, you're probably in deep trouble anyway and should let your application die, eventually after logging an error. The recovery strategy in the catch is therefore inappropriate here. But let's assume for the following discussion that you've corrected this and the error handling code is in the thread that actually executes the job.\n\nOkay, you have caught an exception from a job that failed for whatever reason. What can you reasonably do now? Your backup strategy is to simply push the job back onto the queue. I'm not sure whether this is a good idea. If some of your jobs can fail for spurious reasons, re-trying a fixed number of times might be a viable strategy. But re-trying forever almost certainly isn't. What if every once in a while you get a job that simply fails unconditionally. Then you keep pushing those jobs in your queue which will slowly but sure enough fill up with garbage jobs that will never succeed but consume precious resources and slow down the processing of jobs that have a real chance to do something useful. If you want to give each job \\$n\\$ chances, you could manage \\$n\\$ queues and move failed jobs from queue \\$i\\$ to queue \\$i+1\\$ if \\$i&lt;n\\$ or else drop them onto the floor. Alternatively, you could attach a counter to each job that gets incremented for each failed attempt to execute it.\n\nBut your code also handles the case that you cannot push a job back to the queue. I'm not sure whether this is something you should handle. If you're out of memory, let your application die, maybe logging an error. I don't know the nature of your jobs but what good does it do you to have them written to a file? Will you ever re-load them from that file? And if you do, are you sure that this will be a good thing? Imagine that something awkward happens and your application gets flooded with nonsense jobs. Hopefully, it will eventually crash. But now the user re-starts it, hoping that it will behave sane again – only to find that it keeps loading the nonsense jobs from its file log and crashes again.\n\nAs a last resort, you log a fatal error. This is not an entirely bad idea. However, if all the things failed that lead up to this situation, I'd rather kill the application and not pretend everything will be fine. You can still log the error but after that, re-throw the exception and die.\n\nI know that unit-testing error handling code can be challenging but I encourage you to do it nevertheless. Feed an intentionally poisoned job to your queue. Make sure that the exception gets caught where you think it should. If you give jobs a second chance, construct a job that fails the first but not the second time. Then construct one that always fails. Construct one that cannot be serialized. If you truly cannot construct a scenario that will execute an error handler, this might be an indicator that the handler is redundant and should be removed from the code.\n\nAs a general guideline, don't try to keep your application running no matter what. If things really get bad, giving up is the best thing you can do: „Dead Programs Tell No Lies“.\n\nReadability\n\nThe code is not exactly readable. It already got a lot better after you've edited your question to use shorter names instead of the ones your application seems to use. Descriptive names are good but you can also overdo it. If your names simply are that long, I prefer to use auxiliary variables to keep if conditions and function calls reasonable.\n\nWhat hurts readability more severely, though, is the triple nesting of try-catch blocks. I suggest you refactor this like so.\n\nboolean handleJob(final Job job) {\n try {\n return firstStrategy(job);\n } catch (final Exception e) {\n // Maybe report the error\n }\n try {\n return secondStrategy(job);\n } catch (final Exception e) {\n // Maybe report the error\n }\n try {\n return thirdStrategy(job);\n } catch (final ThridException e) {\n // Definitely report the error and give up\n return false;\n }\n}\n\n\nRefactoring deeply nested control structures into separate functions and using early returns is a generally useful pattern.\n\nConcurrency\n\nYour code spawns a new thread for each job and immediately detaches from it. This is a bad idea. Creating threads is costly and if you create significantly more than your hardware can execute in parallel, your performance will suffer. Instead of using one thread per job, use a thread pool with a fixed number of threads. This also means that you no longer have to use the threads uncaught exception handler for dealing with exceptions thrown by your jobs but can catch them much more naturally.\n\nI assume that your code runs on Android which already has built-in support for background jobs so you don't even have to roll the code yourself. Just check it out.\n\nThe other thing that strikes me is that you simply sleep if your queue is empty. This is not a good strategy. If you set sleepTime1 too low, you'll waste a lot of CPU cycles (and battery) for doing nothing. If you set it too high, your application becomes unresponsive. Instead of sleeping and polling, use proper synchronization techniques. That is, wait() and notify().\n\n\n\n1 The question has since been edited to use a hard-coded constant instead of the variable sleepTime.", "First thing I noticed is that your fulfilling the wrapper promise by way of other promises inside it. Seems like and extra step that isn't needed. Especially the final .then(resolve, reject) feels like a big anti-pattern especially since it is a repeated pattern. So the rational is to catch the exception. My take on this is to wrap only _hasDataTypeA in it's own promise and then use that result to manage the following promises:\n\nfunction _hasDataTypeAPromised() {\n try {\n return Promise.resolve(_hasDataTypeA());\n } catch (e) {\n return Promise.reject(e);\n }\n}\n\nfunction _getData() {\n return _hasDataTypeAPromised()\n .then(function(hasDataTypeA) {\n if(hasDataTypeA) {\n return SomeBackendAccessObject.getTypeAData();\n } else {\n return SomeBackendAccessObject.getTypeBData();\n }\n });\n}\n\n\nYou could even ternary-ize the method with:\n\nvar method = hasDataTypeA ? 'getTypeAData' : 'getTypeBData';\nreturn SomeBackendAccessObject[method]();", "It's not needed. Totally a personal choice here. Both sound fine and convey the same meaning.", "It depends on what you are trying to do, and the broader context:\n\n\nIf you are simply stopping the process before completion Cancel would be appropriate\nIf you have made a change but want to back out Undo would be appropriate\nIf \"Complete\" is a record state, you have set a record to complete, and want to change that then \"Make Incomplete\", or \"Back Out\" would be appropriate.\n\n\nIn the last case it might also be possible to simply label the button \"Incomplete\", or have some sort of state combo to change the state, and then have a save button to commit.\n\nHowever, there is no direct antonym to \"complete\".\n\nFWIW, in user interface design it is often more appropriate to use a common idiom than it is to be strictly precise in the wording of your button.", "There's no real expectation set for this, feel free to pick whichever option seems better to you.\n\nI personally feel the tag is sufficient, but I could see how having it in the title might save some people some disappointment. My hope is that people will just finish their app and it won't matter much either way, so I'm not particularly concerned.", "The last is nearly grammatical (needs had rather than had, and delete the before half), but unlikely to be said except in a formal or official context. \n\nThe third (\"halfway\"), if similarly amended, sounds all right in context (but when I saw the title of the question I wondered what on earth it meant). \n\nThe way I would say it is \n\n\n When I arrived at the warehouse , they had already half loaded the truck.", "No, it will not necessary be consistent or admissible. Consider this example, where $s$ is the start, $g$ is the goal, and the distance between them is 1.\n\n\ns --1-- g\n\n\nAssume that $h_0$ and $h_1$ are perfect heuristics. Then $h_0(s) = 1$ and $h_1(s) = 1$. In this case the heuristic is inadmissible because $h_0(s)+h_1(s) = 2 &gt; d(s, g)$. Similarly, as an undirected graph the heuristic will be inconsistent because $|h(s)-h(g)| &gt; d(s, g)$.\n\nIf you'd like to understand the conditions for the sum of heuristics to be consistent and admissible, I would look at the work on additive PDB heuristics.", "You can generate this SRP_A value using suitable JSR223 Test Element and Groovy language.\nHere is example code you can use as it is or as a reference:\nimport com.amazonaws.AmazonClientException\nimport com.amazonaws.util.StringUtils\n\nimport java.security.MessageDigest\nimport java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException\nimport java.security.SecureRandom\n\n/**\n *\n * @author marcus\n */\npublic class AuthenticationHelper {\n\n private BigInteger a;\n private BigInteger A;\n private String poolName;\n\n public AuthenticationHelper(String userPoolName) {\n do {\n a = new BigInteger(EPHEMERAL_KEY_LENGTH, SECURE_RANDOM).mod(N);\n A = GG.modPow(a, N);\n } while (A.mod(N).equals(BigInteger.ZERO));\n\n if (userPoolName.contains(&quot;_&quot;)) {\n poolName = userPoolName.split(&quot;_&quot;, 2)[1];\n } else {\n poolName = userPoolName;\n }\n }\n\n public BigInteger geta() {\n return a;\n }\n\n public BigInteger getA() {\n return A;\n }\n\n private static final String HEX_N = &quot;FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFC90FDAA22168C234C4C6628B80DC1CD1&quot;\n + &quot;29024E088A67CC74020BBEA63B139B22514A08798E3404DD&quot;\n + &quot;EF9519B3CD3A431B302B0A6DF25F14374FE1356D6D51C245&quot;\n + &quot;E485B576625E7EC6F44C42E9A637ED6B0BFF5CB6F406B7ED&quot;\n + &quot;EE386BFB5A899FA5AE9F24117C4B1FE649286651ECE45B3D&quot;\n + &quot;C2007CB8A163BF0598DA48361C55D39A69163FA8FD24CF5F&quot;\n + &quot;83655D23DCA3AD961C62F356208552BB9ED529077096966D&quot;\n + &quot;670C354E4ABC9804F1746C08CA18217C32905E462E36CE3B&quot;\n + &quot;E39E772C180E86039B2783A2EC07A28FB5C55DF06F4C52C9&quot;\n + &quot;DE2BCBF6955817183995497CEA956AE515D2261898FA0510&quot;\n + &quot;15728E5A8AAAC42DAD33170D04507A33A85521ABDF1CBA64&quot;\n + &quot;ECFB850458DBEF0A8AEA71575D060C7DB3970F85A6E1E4C7&quot;\n + &quot;ABF5AE8CDB0933D71E8C94E04A25619DCEE3D2261AD2EE6B&quot;\n + &quot;F12FFA06D98A0864D87602733EC86A64521F2B18177B200C&quot;\n + &quot;BBE117577A615D6C770988C0BAD946E208E24FA074E5AB31&quot;\n + &quot;43DB5BFCE0FD108E4B82D120A93AD2CAFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF&quot;;\n private static final BigInteger N = new BigInteger(HEX_N, 16);\n private static final BigInteger GG = BigInteger.valueOf(2);\n private static final BigInteger KK;\n\n private static final int EPHEMERAL_KEY_LENGTH = 1024;\n private static final int DERIVED_KEY_SIZE = 16;\n private static final String DERIVED_KEY_INFO = &quot;Caldera Derived Key&quot;;\n\n private static final ThreadLocal&lt;MessageDigest&gt; THREAD_MESSAGE_DIGEST = new ThreadLocal&lt;MessageDigest&gt;() {\n @Override\n protected MessageDigest initialValue() {\n try {\n return MessageDigest.getInstance(&quot;SHA-256&quot;);\n } catch (final NoSuchAlgorithmException e) {\n throw new AmazonClientException(&quot;Exception in authentication&quot;, e);\n }\n }\n };\n\n private static final SecureRandom SECURE_RANDOM;\n\n static {\n try {\n SECURE_RANDOM = SecureRandom.getInstance(&quot;SHA1PRNG&quot;);\n\n final MessageDigest messageDigest = THREAD_MESSAGE_DIGEST.get();\n messageDigest.reset();\n messageDigest.update(N.toByteArray());\n final byte[] digest = messageDigest.digest(GG.toByteArray());\n KK = new BigInteger(1, digest);\n } catch (final NoSuchAlgorithmException e) {\n throw new AmazonClientException(e.getMessage(), e);\n }\n }\n\n public byte[] getPasswordAuthenticationKey(String userId,\n String userPassword,\n BigInteger B,\n BigInteger salt) {\n // Authenticate the password\n // u = H(A, B)\n final MessageDigest messageDigest = THREAD_MESSAGE_DIGEST.get();\n messageDigest.reset();\n messageDigest.update(A.toByteArray());\n final BigInteger u = new BigInteger(1, messageDigest.digest(B.toByteArray()));\n if (u.equals(BigInteger.ZERO)) {\n throw new AmazonClientException(&quot;Hash of A and B cannot be zero&quot;);\n }\n\n // x = H(salt | H(poolName | userId | &quot;:&quot; | password))\n messageDigest.reset();\n messageDigest.update(poolName.getBytes(StringUtils.UTF8));\n messageDigest.update(userId.getBytes(StringUtils.UTF8));\n messageDigest.update(&quot;:&quot;.getBytes(StringUtils.UTF8));\n final byte[] userIdHash = messageDigest.digest(userPassword.getBytes(StringUtils.UTF8));\n\n messageDigest.reset();\n messageDigest.update(salt.toByteArray());\n final BigInteger x = new BigInteger(1, messageDigest.digest(userIdHash));\n final BigInteger s = (B.subtract(KK.multiply(GG.modPow(x, N)))\n .modPow(a.add(u.multiply(x)), N)).mod(N);\n\n Hkdf hkdf = null;\n try {\n hkdf = Hkdf.getInstance(&quot;HmacSHA256&quot;);\n } catch (final NoSuchAlgorithmException e) {\n throw new AmazonClientException(e.getMessage(), e);\n }\n hkdf.init(s.toByteArray(), u.toByteArray());\n final byte[] key = hkdf.deriveKey(DERIVED_KEY_INFO, DERIVED_KEY_SIZE);\n return key;\n }\n\n}\n\nMore information:\n\nUser Pool Authentication Flow\nAWS SDK for Java (you need to have it under JMeter Classpath in order to be able to use the above code)\nAWS Cognito user authentication Missing required parameter SRP_A", "Thank you for sharing your code and this idea with us! :)\n\nI have just some personal preferences and ideas to some of you \"major problems\" witch should be additional to the answers of @Mateusz Stefek and @TorbenPutkonen\n\n\n\nNot Functional\n\n\n public Try&lt;T&gt; catching(Class ex, Function&lt;Exception, T&gt; handler) {\n if(/* ... */) {\n throw new IllegalStateException(\"exception \" + ex.getSimpleName() + \" has already been caught\");\n } else {\n /* ... */\n }\n}\n\n\n\nIn functional programming attempt not to throw any error instead you would return an Either.\n\n\n new Try&lt;&gt;(()-&gt; Integer.parseInt(\"1\"))\n .catching(NumberFormatException.class, (e) -&gt; 2)\n .execute();\n\n\n\nOn each method call on Try you modify it, but fp is all about immutability. \n\nSome Refactoring\n\nNaming\n\n\n public Try&lt;T&gt; catching(Class ex, Function&lt;Exception, T&gt; handler)\n\n\n\nI would write out ex to exception. Than we can change the name of\n\n\n private final Map&lt;Class, Function&lt;Exception, T&gt;&gt; handlers\n\n\n\nto exceptionByHandler, which makes it easier to read, because it suggests a Map more intuitively, than handler which could be a List.\n\nNull check\n\nWe have currently two null checks\n\n\n // in execute\nif(finallyExpr != null)\n\n// in andFinally\nif (finallyExpr == null)\n\n\n\nThe utility class Objects offers the static methods isNull and nonNull and with an static import it could look like\n\n// in execute\nif(nonNull(finallyExpr))\n\n// in andFinally\nif (isNull(finallyExpr))\n\n\nBut if we use an Optional in andFinally it could look like \n\npublic T andFinally(Runnable newFinallyExpr) {\n finallyExpr = Optional.ofNullable(finallyExpr)\n .orElseThrow(() -&gt; new IllegalStateException(\"Cannot have multiple finally expressions\"));\n\n return execute();\n}\n\n\nNon Intuitiv API\n\n\n The check in andFinally seems like it's unnecessary. [...]\n\n\nYou already mention this as a flaw.. but from an other perspective. For me as a client it is not intuitive to have the method andFinally and execute to fire up the Try.\n\nMore natural would be to let the client call the execute itself and override all finally with the next occurring finally.\n\nnew Try&lt;&gt;(()-&gt; Integer.parseInt(\"f\"))\n .catching(NumberFormatException.class, (e)-&gt; 2)\n .catching(IllegalStateException.class, (e) -&gt; 3)\n .andFinally(()-&gt; System.out.println(\"Finally!\"))\n .andFinally(()-&gt; System.out.println(\"Finally #2!\")) // overrides all previous finally\n .execute();\n\n\n\n\nImprovement\n\nMake Try immutable\n\nAs in functional programming objects are immutable we can do it in Java too. We can let the client modify a Try with methods we provide him and return each time a new Try.\n\nBut to build up a Try we can create a TryBuilder witch is mutable. This is a common way which you can find in the Java-World to or example with String and StringBuilder. \n\nState Pattern\n\n\n The need for execute when andFinally isn't used. I can't see how the class would know that all catches have been added though.\n\n\nThis is a scenario for the State Pattern. We have our base-state, which allows the client to add multiple catch-cases. After the last catch-case we need to let the client allow only one finally-case. After this our object is in the execution-state.\n\nBuilder Pattern\n\nWe can mix the State-Pattern with the Builder-Pattern and on each state we can use a builder, which only let use the methods the client currently needs to make the api more intuitive. \n\nReplace the Constructor\n\n\n The need for new is unfortunate too. I figured I could take a page from Scala and create a static method that acts as a constructor, but then I'd need to do something like Try.tryMethod to reference it, which isn't a whole lot better.\n\n\nWith a static method as constructor we are allowed to return a different reference type.\n\nnew Try(/* ... */) // can only return an instance of Try\n\nTry.of(/* ... */) // can return everything you can imagine \n\n\nFor the use case I have in mind we need to make the constructor private and return a builder that we need to implement. \n\nprivate Try(/* ... */) { /* ... */ }\n\npublic static &lt;T&gt; CatchBuilder of(Supplier&lt;T&gt; tryExpr) {\n return new CatchBuilder&lt;T&gt;(new TryBuilder&lt;T&gt;().withTryExpr(tryExpr));\n}\n\n\nExample Implementation\n\nTry\n\nThe Try is a public class with builds the API to the client. It provides the client outside of the package only a of(Supplier&lt;T&gt; tryExpr) to build up a Try. The constructor is package private therewith TryBuilder can access it. With of(Supplier&lt;T&gt; tryExpr) the clients gets a CatchBuilder (this is the modified State-Pattern mentioned above)\n\npublic class Try&lt;T&gt; {\n\n private Supplier&lt;T&gt; tryExpr;\n\n private Map&lt;Class, Function&lt;Exception, T&gt;&gt; handlers;\n\n private Runnable finallyExpr;\n\n Try(Supplier&lt;T&gt; tryExpr,\n Map&lt;Class, Function&lt;Exception, T&gt;&gt; handlers,\n Runnable finallyExpr) {\n this.tryExpr = tryExpr;\n this.handlers = handlers;\n this.finallyExpr = finallyExpr;\n }\n\n public static &lt;T&gt; CatchBuilder of(Supplier&lt;T&gt; tryExpr) {\n return new CatchBuilder&lt;T&gt;(new TryBuilder&lt;T&gt;().withTryExpr(tryExpr));\n }\n\n public T execute() {\n try {\n return tryExpr.get();\n } catch (Exception e) {\n if (handlers.containsKey(e.getClass())) {\n Function&lt;Exception, T&gt; handler = handlers.get(e.getClass());\n return handler.apply(e);\n } else {\n throw e;\n }\n } finally {\n if (finallyExpr != null) {\n finallyExpr.run();\n }\n }\n }\n}\n\n\nTryBuilder\n\nThis is the mutable way to build up a Try.\n\nclass TryBuilder&lt;T&gt; {\n\n private Supplier&lt;T&gt; tryExpr;\n\n private Map&lt;Class, Function&lt;Exception, T&gt;&gt; handlers;\n\n private Runnable finallyExpr;\n\n public TryBuilder&lt;T&gt; withTryExpr(Supplier&lt;T&gt; tryExpr) {\n this.tryExpr = tryExpr;\n return this;\n }\n\n public TryBuilder&lt;T&gt; withHandlers(Map&lt;Class, Function&lt;Exception, T&gt;&gt; handlers) {\n this.handlers = handlers;\n return this;\n }\n\n public TryBuilder&lt;T&gt; withFinallyExpr(Runnable finallyExpr) {\n this.finallyExpr = finallyExpr;\n return this;\n }\n\n public Try&lt;T&gt; build() {\n return new Try&lt;&gt;(tryExpr, handlers, finallyExpr);\n }\n\n}\n\n\nCatchBuilder and FinallyBuilder\n\nclass CatchBuilder&lt;T&gt; {\n\n private final Map&lt;Class, Function&lt;Exception, T&gt;&gt; handlers = new HashMap&lt;&gt;();\n\n private final TryBuilder&lt;T&gt; tryBuilder;\n\n CatchBuilder(TryBuilder&lt;T&gt; tryBuilder) {\n this.tryBuilder = tryBuilder;\n }\n\n public CatchBuilder&lt;T&gt; withCatch(Class ex, Function&lt;Exception, T&gt; handler) {\n if (handlers.containsKey(ex)) {\n throw new IllegalStateException(\"exception \" + ex.getSimpleName() + \" has already been caught\");\n }\n\n handlers.put(ex, handler);\n return this;\n }\n\n public FinallyBuilder&lt;T&gt; and(Class ex, Function&lt;Exception, T&gt; handler) {\n withCatch(ex, handler);\n return new FinallyBuilder&lt;&gt;(tryBuilder.withHandlers(handlers));\n }\n\n public FinallyBuilder&lt;T&gt; onlyCatch(Class ex, Function&lt;Exception, T&gt; handler) {\n return and(ex, handler);\n }\n\n}\n\nclass FinallyBuilder&lt;T&gt; {\n private final TryBuilder&lt;T&gt; tryBuilder;\n\n public FinallyBuilder(TryBuilder&lt;T&gt; tryBuilder) {\n this.tryBuilder = tryBuilder;\n }\n\n public Try&lt;T&gt; finallyDo(Runnable newFinallyExpr) {\n return tryBuilder.withFinallyExpr(newFinallyExpr)\n .build();\n }\n\n public Try&lt;T&gt; withoutFinally() {\n return tryBuilder.build();\n }\n\n}\n\n\nExmaple\n\npublic static void main(String[] args) {\n\n Try&lt;Integer&gt; firstTry = Try.of(() -&gt; Integer.parseInt(\"f\"))\n .withCatch(NumberFormatException.class, (e) -&gt; 2)\n .and(IllegalStateException.class, (e) -&gt; 3)\n .finallyDo(() -&gt; System.out.println(\"Finally!\"));\n\n Try&lt;Integer&gt; secondTry = Try.of(() -&gt; Integer.parseInt(\"f\"))\n .onlyCatch(NumberFormatException.class, (e) -&gt; 2)\n .withoutFinally();\n}", "#region\n\n#region CreateTenant\n\n\nGet rid of those. The region encompasses only a single method anyway, and your IDE should already allow you to collapse method scopes. Even if the region had more content, I'd recommend against it. See:\n\nAre #regions an antipattern or code smell?\n\n\ncomments\n\n//open the connection\nthis.connection.Open();\n\n//start the transaction\nthis.transaction = this.connection.BeginTransaction();\n\n\nThese comments are about as useful as:\ni++; // increment i\n\nGood comments are comments that let the code speak for itself and only show up when there's a need to say why the code is doing what it's doing.\nGood comments say why, not what. I would simply remove all comments in your code, because comments that state the obvious are nothing but a distraction and a waste of time.\n\nthis.transaction.Dispose(); //Transaction dispose\n\n\n\nexceptions\nSomething hit me in your description of the code:\n\nFinally or Catch Code block gets executed\n\nThat's not how finally works. finally blocks get executed regardless of whether or not an exception was thrown - it runs even when the catch block runs.\nSpeaking of the catch block:\n\n catch (Exception ex)\n {\n this.transaction.Rollback();\n throw ex;\n }\n\n\nThe problem is that throw ex isn't how you cleanly rethrow an exception. What you've done here destroys the stack trace and as far as client code is concerned, the stack trace begins in the catch block of this CreateUser method, which we all know is a lie.\nThis would have preserved the precious stack trace with all of its information:\n catch (Exception)\n {\n this.transaction.Rollback();\n throw;\n }\n\n\nunit of work\nA unit of work encapsulates a transaction - you know that.\n\n private IDbConnection connection;\n private IDbTransaction transaction;\n\n\nThat was a good start!\nThe problem is that, well..\n\nfinally\n{\n this.transaction.Dispose(); //Transaction dispose\n this.transaction = null;\n\n this.connection.Close();\n this.connection.Dispose();\n this.connection = null;\n}\n\n\nYou can only ever call the method once in a transaction. You own that transaction and that connection, so you should be disposing them.. and you do... but then if they're only going to be used in the CreateUser method, they shouldn't be instance-level fields, but local variables wrapped in a using block - and then you wouldn't even need that finally block.\nYour disposing is overkill. Setting the object reference to null is useless, as is explicitly Close()-ing a connection that you're Dispose()-ing.\nAlternatively, take the connection and transaction as a constructor argument, keep the instance-level fields, and implement IDisposable to dispose them.", "No, there is no way to do that with annonymous classes.\n\nYou can refactorize your code so:\n\n public static void addEnterListener(Text text, final String methodName, final Object callee) {\n text.addKeyListener(new MyKeyListener());\n }\n\n class MyKeyListener implements KeyListener {\n @Override\n public void keyReleased(KeyEvent arg0) {\n if (arg0.keyCode == '\\r') {\n try {\n Method method = callee.getClass().getMethod(methodName, KeyEvent.class);\n method.invoke(callee, arg0);\n } catch (Exception e) {e.printStackTrace();}\n }\n }\n\n @Override\n public void keyPressed(KeyEvent arg0) { \n }\n }", "Yes, it's a valid question. Why shouldn't it be? It may even help others who made the same or similar mistakes in the future by encouraging to double check syntax or host names.", "Difficult to say without a context, but \"to a certain extent\" should work in most situations.", "public class send_data {\n Socket s = null;\n PrintWriter printWriter = null;\n ExecutorService executor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(1);\n\n public void send(String message, String ip)\n {\n Future&lt;Void&gt; future = executor.submit(() -&gt; {\n try {\n s = new Socket(ip, 1000);\n printWriter = new PrintWriter(s.getOutputStream());\n printWriter.write(message);\n printWriter.flush();\n } catch (IOException ignored){} \n catch (InterruptedException e) {\n throw new IllegalStateException(\"task interrupted\", e);\n }\n finally {\n if (printWriter != null)\n printWriter.close();\n if (s != null)\n s.close();\n }\n });\n future.get(); \n }\n}", "サーバ依存になってしまいますが、 X-Http-Method-Override ヘッダが使えるかも知れません。 サーバ側にて、HTTP メソッドが、ヘッダ指定のメソッドにより上書きされるというものです。 Restful サービスの提供サーバでは、 ファイアウォールで PUT, DELETE が弾かれる環境を考慮しこのヘッダを使用できるようにしているところがあるようです。\n\n\nGoogle Data API, Updating Entry\nGithub, expressjs/method-override\nDjango tastypie, Using PUT/DELETE/PATCH In Unsupported Places\nDjango REST framework, HTTP header based method overriding\n\n\nDoPatch.java :\n\nimport java.io.*;\nimport java.net.*;\n\npublic class DoPatch {\n\n public static void main( String[] args) throws MalformedURLException, IOException {\n\n final String strData = \"{}\";\n\n final HttpURLConnection conn = ( HttpURLConnection) new URL( \"http://example.com/\").openConnection();\n conn.setRequestMethod(\"POST\");\n conn.setRequestProperty(\"Content-Type\", \"application/octet-stream\");\n conn.setRequestProperty(\"Content-Length\", \"\" + Integer.toString(strData.getBytes().length));\n conn.setRequestProperty(\"Content-Language\", \"ja-JP\");\n conn.setRequestProperty(\"X-HTTP-Method\", \"PATCH\"); // Microsoft\n conn.setRequestProperty(\"X-HTTP-Method-Override\", \"PATCH\"); // Google/GData\n conn.setRequestProperty(\"X-Method-Override\", \"PATCH\"); // IBM\n conn.setDoOutput(true);\n conn.setDoInput(true);\n\n PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter( new BufferedOutputStream( conn.getOutputStream()));\n out.println(strData);\n out.flush();\n\n System.out.println( \"Code: \" + conn.getHeaderFields());\n System.out.println( conn.getResponseCode() + \": \" + conn.getResponseMessage());\n\n try (BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader( new InputStreamReader( conn.getInputStream()))) {\n String line;\n while ( (line = reader.readLine()) != null) {\n System.out.println( line);\n }\n }\n }\n}\n\n\nまた、別の方法を探すと、Jersey に、リフレクションを使った HTTP メソッドの変更を行っている箇所があり、これが流用できそうでしたが、試してみると、メソッド変更はできるものの PATCH メソッドのデータ送信時に別の例外が発生してしまいました。 ( メソッド変更はできているので、別のメソッドならうまく動くでしょう。 )\n\nDoPatchInJersey.java :\n\nimport java.io.*;\nimport java.lang.reflect.Field;\nimport java.net.*;\nimport java.security.*;\n\npublic class DoPatchInJersey {\n\n public static void main( String[] args) throws MalformedURLException, IOException {\n final String strData = \"{}\";\n final HttpURLConnection conn = ( HttpURLConnection) new URL( \"http://example.com/\").openConnection();\n setRequestMethodViaJreBugWorkaround( conn, \"PATCH\");\n conn.setDoOutput(true);\n conn.setDoInput(true);\n conn.setRequestProperty(\"Content-Type\", \"application/octet-stream\");\n conn.setRequestProperty(\"Content-Length\", \"\" + Integer.toString(strData.getBytes().length));\n conn.setRequestProperty(\"Content-Language\", \"ja-JP\");\n\n // ERROR: as PATCH method doesn't support data output\n PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter( new BufferedOutputStream( conn.getOutputStream()));\n out.println(strData);\n out.flush();\n\n System.out.println( conn.getResponseCode() + \": \" + conn.getResponseMessage());\n try (BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader( new InputStreamReader( conn.getInputStream()))) {\n String line;\n while ( (line = reader.readLine()) != null) {\n System.out.println( line);\n }\n }\n }\n\n /**\n * Workaround for a bug in {@code HttpURLConnection.setRequestMethod(String)} The implementation of Sun/Oracle is throwing a\n * {@code ProtocolException} when the method is other than the HTTP/1.1 default methods. So to use {@code PROPFIND} and others, we must apply this\n * workaround.\n * See issue http://java.net/jira/browse/JERSEY-639\n */\n private static void setRequestMethodViaJreBugWorkaround( final HttpURLConnection httpURLConnection, final String method) {\n try {\n httpURLConnection.setRequestMethod( method); // Check whether we are running on a buggy JRE\n }\n catch ( final ProtocolException pe) {\n try {\n final Class&lt;?&gt; httpURLConnectionClass = httpURLConnection.getClass();\n AccessController.doPrivileged( new PrivilegedExceptionAction&lt;Object&gt;() {\n @Override\n public Object run() throws NoSuchFieldException, IllegalAccessException {\n try {\n httpURLConnection.setRequestMethod( method);\n // Check whether we are running on a buggy\n // JRE\n }\n catch ( final ProtocolException pe) {\n Class&lt;?&gt; connectionClass = httpURLConnection.getClass();\n Field delegateField = null;\n try {\n delegateField = connectionClass.getDeclaredField( \"delegate\");\n delegateField.setAccessible( true);\n HttpURLConnection delegateConnection = ( HttpURLConnection) delegateField.get( httpURLConnection);\n setRequestMethodViaJreBugWorkaround( delegateConnection, method);\n }\n catch ( NoSuchFieldException e) {\n // Ignore for now, keep going\n }\n catch ( IllegalArgumentException e) {\n throw new RuntimeException( e);\n }\n catch ( IllegalAccessException e) {\n throw new RuntimeException( e);\n }\n try {\n Field methodField;\n while ( connectionClass != null) {\n try {\n methodField = connectionClass.getDeclaredField( \"method\");\n }\n catch ( NoSuchFieldException e) {\n connectionClass = connectionClass.getSuperclass();\n continue;\n }\n methodField.setAccessible( true);\n methodField.set( httpURLConnection, method);\n break;\n }\n }\n catch ( final Exception e) {\n throw new RuntimeException( e);\n }\n }\n return null;\n }\n });\n }\n catch ( final PrivilegedActionException e) {\n final Throwable cause = e.getCause();\n if ( cause instanceof RuntimeException) {\n throw ( RuntimeException) cause;\n }\n else {\n throw new RuntimeException( cause);\n }\n }\n }\n }\n}\n\n\nOutput:\n\nException in thread \"main\" java.net.ProtocolException: HTTP method PATCH doesn't support output\n at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.getOutputStream(HttpURLConnection.java:1081)\n at DoPatchInJersey.main(DoPatchInJersey.java:18)\n\n\nX-HTTP-Method-Override　でできなければ、直に HTTP プロトコルを喋らせるか、 Apache HttpClient を使用するのが手っ取り早いでしょうね。\n\n参考:\n\n\nIETF, RFC 5789 - PATCH Method for HTTP\nOpenJDK, JDK-7016595: HttpURLConnection must not restrict method name\nJersey, Fixed setRequestMethodViaJreBugWorkaround() to work with HTTPS as well as HTTP\nJersey, Client API implementation must be able to process non-standard HTTP methods like PROPFIND or PATCH\nopenshift-java-client, support PATCH http method\nTechnology highlights Blog, X-HTTP header method override and REST APIs\nMSDN, 2.2.5.8 X-HTTP-Method", "The scripted equivalent to the declarative\nsteps {\n // pipeline steps here\npost {\n failure {\n // failure handler here\n }\n success {\n // success handler here\n }\n always {\n // always handler here\n }\n}\n\nis the native Groovy try { } catch { }:\ntry {\n // pipeline steps here\n\n // success handler here\n} catch(Exception e) {\n // failure handler here\n} finally {\n // always handler here\n}\n\nI'm not sure off the top of my head how to add an abort handler, but I think you might be able to do it by inspecting the currentBuild.result variable in the failure handler block.", "No. Elliptically, it's the verb to do that is omitted:\n\n\n You can do anything you want [to do].\n\n\nBut since it is assumed to exist, repeating it is unnecessary.", "Before the Centre Court roof, this was more common because if there were a lot of rain delays it was very difficult to make up the time - though even then it was unusual.\n\nWimbledon will not schedule two matches for the same player in the same event on the same day. If that means that the finals scheduled for Sunday have to move back to the third Monday, then the tournament will be extended by a day. \n\nThis is known as a \"People's Monday\"; because no tickets will have been sold in advance the stands will be filled entirely with people who were waiting in the ticket queue outside the complex. (Similarly, if rain delays in the first week mean that they need to play on the middle Sunday to catch up, this is a \"People's Sunday\".)\n\nA famous example (at least for Brits) is the 2001 men's singles final. Rain delays meant that Tim Henman and Goran Ivanišević's semi-final did not finish until the Sunday, which meant that the final between Ivanišević and Rafter could not be held until the Monday. There's a description of that final here and here.", "It depends. \n\nIf you are using your explicit waits in your framework in such a way that it gets applied behind the scenes of elements without much additional effort, there is no reason not to use it with everything. If done appropriately, performance impact will not be significantly noticeable in most cases.\n\nIf your architecture isn't designed this way however, I don't find much advantage in putting it everywhere. Most of your elements will likely be loaded before selenium recognizes the page as being ready to interact with. An additional explicit wait in these cases doesn't do any good. To be clear, Selenium already waits for the Document.readyState to be complete. It's only the case where elements load afterward where explicit waits need to be utilized.\n\nI prefer an architecture that waits without you thinking about it, or only putting them in as you say, when the test fails. \n\nOne additional thing that can help, if you setup a way for the PageObject to provide a method to Validate the page is loaded on instantiation, you can provide one or two elements to explicitly wait for, which you know are loaded last, that will eliminate the need to wait in other methods for elements.", "По идее, название процесса это пакет приложения. Исходя из этого, можно вбить в гугл вот это\n\n\n android get app name by package\n\n\nсходить по первой ссылке\n\nи получить имя приложения через PackageManager, получив ApplicationInfo из него по пакету так:\n\nfinal PackageManager pm = getApplicationContext().getPackageManager();\nApplicationInfo ai;\ntry {\n ai = pm.getApplicationInfo( this.getPackageName(), 0);\n} catch (final NameNotFoundException e) {\n ai = null;\n}\nfinal String applicationName = (String) (ai != null ? pm.getApplicationLabel(ai) : \"(unknown)\");\n\n\nдля любого не текущего приложения замените this.getPackageName() на \"com.android.vending\"", "Nope. It's a meta tag. Commence burnination.", "Constructing a DFA (and thus an NFA), is quite trivial, so let's focus on the regular expression. (well, you can always convert a DFA into a regular expression, but this will not be very insightful, is it?)\n\nLet's start simple. How do we construct an expression that describes only even length strings (over $\\{a,b\\}$)? Or even more simple, how to construct an expression for a language of only even length strings over $\\{a\\}$?\n\nIf there's only $\\{a\\}$ in the alphabet, we either have none, or they come in groups of two, so a possible answer is $(aa)^*$.\nWhen we have both $a$ and $b$, things become a bit more difficult. For instance, $(ab)^*$ is incorrect, since it doesn't allow $aa$. On the other hand, any expression of the form $(a^*b^*)^*$ not going to work, since we can't control the number of each letter. However, as before, we know that the letters must come in groups of 2, thus we should expect the form to be something like $(xy)^*$ with $x,y$ describing only even length strings, but what should $x,y$ be in this case? Well, we can just write all possible options, getting:\n\n$$ ( aa+ ab+ ba+ bb)^*$$\n(can you make it shorter?)\n\nNow let's ask how do we get odd-length strings. Again, if the alphabet has only $a$, this would be quite easy - we can construct an even string, and add another $a$, getting:\n$$ (aa)^*a$$\n\nA similar approach works for the case where the alphabet is of size two:\n$$ ( aa+ ab+ ba+ bb)^*(a+b)$$\n\nNow a sanity check: we add the \"a\" or \"b\" only at the end. Maybe it comes in the middle, and not in the end?! Convince yourself that adding at the end is equivalent, and gives the right answer.\n\nFinally, try to use the above ideas to solve your question. There is still some leap left, so don't give up too fast. Some hints:\n\n\n Hint1: the length of the final string must be odd (if it contains both letters)\n\n\n.\n\n\n Hint2: get rid of one letter, so the length is even, and furthermore, both letters appear an even number of times!\n\n\n.\n\n\n Hint3: don't forget to put back the one letter you got rid of. Convince yourself you placed it in the correct place..." ]

[ "1 Installing a concrete tile roof can run $7,650-$21,000 for a basic roof on a ranch-style home. 2 Roofing the same surface with ceramic clay tiles can be $11,900-$2,100 for standard shapes and colors in lower-grade tile, and $17,000-$60,000 for more custom shapes and colors, or complex installations. A professionally installed steel roof can be $5,100-$22,000 for steel roofing on a simple one-story ranch-style house; aluminum runs $11,900-$24,200 for the same roof; and copper jumps to $25,500-$39,600." ]

[ "It is true that solar roofing and solar roof shingles cost more than other roofing materials, most would argue that it makes up for that in the cost saved on their energy bill. In this section of the New Roofing Costs website, we will learn about solar roofing costs and solar shingle prices.", "For example, if you put on a new roof, you would add the cost of that roof to your cost basis. A house you bought for $100,000 with a new roof that cost $10,000 has a cost basis of $110,000. If you sell that house for $150,000, you only pay taxes on $40,000 profit (150,000 minus 110,000).Your land, on the other hand, would retain its original cost basis in this scenario. However, if you pay for grading and adding drainage ditches, you could add these costs to the cost basis of the land.or example, if you put on a new roof, you would add the cost of that roof to your cost basis. A house you bought for $100,000 with a new roof that cost $10,000 has a cost basis of $110,000. If you sell that house for $150,000, you only pay taxes on $40,000 profit (150,000 minus 110,000).", "For example, expect the cost of a new roof with tile to be more than wood shingles. However, heavier and longer-lasting shingles of a low cost material can cost as much or more than the low-end of a more expensive roofing material, such as tile.or example, expect the cost of a new roof with tile to be more than wood shingles. However, heavier and longer-lasting shingles of a low cost material can cost as much or more than the low-end of a more expensive roofing material, such as tile.", "Roof trusses or roof rafters are used in many applications such as new construction or add on additions. Roof trusses can save up to 25% in construction time and labor costs. Midwest Manufacturing has truss design teams to engineer any type of roof truss or rafter system to fit your application. Roof trusses or roof rafters are used in many applications such as new construction or add on additions. Roof trusses can save up to 25% in construction time and labor costs.", "How the Cost of a New Roof is Calculated in Florida An Estimating and Insurance Specialist from Collis Roofing will look at these 4 things: Pitch – How steep is the roof?", "how much per foot does it cost to install a 4x8 sheet o f plywood or average cost per foot ? New roof / decking with a damaged plywood decking panel; Roofing - fair price to replace plywood sheathling; Termites are eating sections of my roof. I need new plywood, tar paper and shingles and sealants. Cost for 1800 sq", "– Quality of Installation: The investment cost of a new roof has two products within it: the actual roof itself, and the overall process and experience of the roof installation which is determined by the roofing contractor, chosen by you.", "Compare Solar Roof Costs. Solar roofing is a not really a new style of roofing, however, it is being used in different ways and in a different form, than the traditional photovoltaic solar panels we used to see on the roof of a home.", "2. Convert the area to roofing squares. Because each 100 square feet of roof is one roofing square, divide the total area from Step 1 by 100. The answer is the number of roofing squares for the roof.oth the roof area and pitch contribute to the cost of a roofing job. Calculate square footage for a roof by measuring and by performing some basic math equations. With the area measurement, you can learn the approximate cost of a new roof.", "(40sqft). Cost on adding a bathroom depends if you have an existing room or if you will be adding a new roof to cover the new room. The latter is the most expensive as you will have framing costs (and permits and blueprints,etc) and could cost $10-$15k.40sqft). Cost on adding a bathroom depends if you have an existing room or if you will be adding a new roof to cover the new room. The latter is the most expensive as you will have framing costs (and permits and blueprints,etc) and could cost $10-$15k." ]

[ "Miniver" ]

[ "no middle initial" ]

[ "Former Montreal Canadiens star Guy Lafleur's 22-year-old son was charged Thursday with sexual assault involving a minor." ]

[ "Rod Stewart's 26-year-old son, Sean, was arrested this week on charges he assaulted a couple with a brick.", "A son of Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid was expected to surrender to police in Plymouth Township on charges of assault, drug possession and driving under the influence of a controlled substance.", "Veteran singer Rod Stewart&#39;s 26-year-old son pleaded not guilty to assault charges on Tuesday during an appearance in a Los Angeles court room.", "A judge has ruled that Rod Stewart's son can stand trial on charges stemming from an alleged assault on a couple outside a party in the Hollywood Hills.", "Veteran singer Rod Stewart&#39;s 26-year-old son was free on 60,000 dollars bail Wednesday after being arrested on assault charges, Los Angeles police said.", "The oldest son of Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid surrendered to police Friday on charges stemming from a traffic accident, including assault, heroin possession and driving under the influence.", "The father of a man charged with sexual assault was arrested after striking a television reporter outside a courthouse where his son's bail had just been revoked, police said.", "An eastern Connecticut lawmaker struck a plea deal Wednesday on charges he sexually assaulted an 8-year-old boy, and agreed to register as a sex offender.", "The two adult sons of Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid are involved in negotiations that could preclude trials on drug, assault and traffic charges.", "The son of veteran rocker Rod Stewart pleaded not guilty Thursday to assault charges stemming from an alleged attack on a couple in the Hollywood Hills earlier this year.", "Prosecutors declined Friday to charge Ryan O'Neal with assault with a deadly weapon for firing a gun during a brawl with his older son earlier this year.", "The son of a man who became a national crusader for tougher sex-offender laws after his 9-year-old daughter was kidnapped, raped and killed has been accused of sexual conduct with a minor, authorities said.", "WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND - Verdicts are expected Monday for seven men facing sex abuse charges on Pitcairn Island. The charges include 14 counts of rape, 37 of indecent assault and two of gross indecency.", "Prosecutors were considering Thursday whether to charge Ryan O'Neal with assault with a deadly weapon for firing a gun during a brawl with his older son at the actor's Malibu home.", "The 21-year-old son of Eagles coach Andy Reid was charged Tuesday with drug and weapons offenses stemming from an incident in which he is accused of pointing a gun at another motorist.", "The son of a Mongolian embassy employee appeared before a central London court Thursday charged with the rape of a 16-year-old schoolgirl.", "Actor Chris Langham is due to appear at crown court for the first time on sex assault charges.", "MONTREAL (CP) - A 37-year-old man was formally charged Friday with sexually assaulting his new wife's 10-year-old daughter.", "Hollywood actor Ryan O'Neal is arrested in California for allegedly assaulting his son Griffin, police say.", "Premiership footballer Joey Barton appears in court to face charges of assault and affray.", "The widow and son of Slobodan Milosevic face charges in Serbia of cigarette smuggling in the 1990s.", "A US man accused of kidnapping a young boy and holding him for four years is charged with 69 counts of sexual assault.", "Rod Stewart's 26-year-old son, Sean, was arrested this week on charges he assaulted a couple with a brick. Stewart was taken into custody Tuesday on a warrant charging him with four felony counts, including assault with a deadly weapon, throwing a substance at a vehicle and vandalism, the district attorney's office said.", "A son of Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid was charged Wednesday with driving under the influence and drug violations while still awaiting sentencing for a separate road-rage incident earlier this year.", "SYDNEY - One of seven men facing trial for sex crimes against underage girls on the remote British territory of Pitcairn in the South Pacific has pleaded guilty to three charges of sexual assault, the Australian newspaper reported Tuesday.", "Authorities have accused Oscar-nominated actor Ryan O'Neal of assaulting his adult son at the actor's home over the weekend.", "A woman faces charges of having sex with an 8-year-old boy whom investigators said she considered her boyfriend.", "A 15-year-old girl faces assault and affray charged in connection with the killing of Harry Holland.", "A man facing child-sex charges in Australia is sworn in as the Solomon Islands attorney-general.", "Prosecutors say they still plan to try Kobe Bryant on a sexual assault charge despite losing a last-ditch attempt to keep his lawyers from telling jurors about the alleged victim&#39;s sex life.", "AUCKLAND - A sexual assault trial has opened on tiny Pitcairn Island, with seven men - more than half of the island&#39;s adult male population - facing charges.", "An 11-year-old boy was charged Wednesday with sexually assaulting a 76-year-old neighborhood woman in her home as three of his friends stood watch." ]

[ "If you need additional pain relief, you can combine aspirin, naproxen, or ibuprofen with acetaminophen. However, do not take aspirin, naproxen, or ibuprofen within 8-12 hours of each other. Also, watch out for pain medications that might be included in combination products such as those used for cough and cold." ]

[ "Aspirin, ibuprofen, and naproxen sodium can cause toxic liver disease if you take too much of the drug or take it with alcohol.", "['Acetaminophen (Tylenol)', 'Aspirin (Bayer)', 'Ibuprofen (Advil/Motrin) And Naproxen (Aleve)', 'Problem: Joint, Back Or Muscle Pain.', 'Take: Ibuprofen Or Naproxen.']", "If you get sore muscles once in a while, you can take acetaminophen (Tylenol) or a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) like aspirin, ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin), or naproxen (Aleve)to help ease the discomfort.", "OTC pain relievers: Acetaminophen. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) Aspirin, ibuprofen, and naproxen sodium can cause toxic liver disease if you take too much of the drug or take it with alcohol.", "Your doctor may suggest that you take a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), like ibuprofen (such as Advil or Motrin) or naproxen (such as Aleve). Taking an NSAID can reduce bleeding and pain during your period.", "Start treatment immediately with over-the-counter ibuprofen (Motrin, Advil) or naproxen (Aleve), but never take aspirin, which can worsen a flare.", "Heat also can help relieve joint pain. If you get sore muscles once in a while, you can take acetaminophen (Tylenol) or a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) like aspirin, ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin), or naproxen (Aleve)to help ease the discomfort.", "Diclofenac is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) - ibuprofen and naproxen also belong to this group of painkillers. If you need to take an NSAID long term, your doctor or pharmacist may recommend ibuprofen or naproxen instead of diclofenac. This is because they're less likely to cause heart problems.", "You can eat and drink normally while taking paracetamol. You can safely take paracetamol (but not ibuprofen) on an empty stomach.", "Take an over-the-counter pain reliever. Acetaminophen or NSAIDs (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) like ibuprofen and naproxen can take the edge off many cold symptoms, including your sore throat. Make sure you follow the directions on the label.", "Hold off on calling the Doctor. However, you can take the following over-the-counter drugs to ease the pain of the common cold: Acetaminophen (Tylenol) Ibuprofen (Motrin, Advil) Naproxen (Aleve)", "Etanercept can be taken with other medications – NSAIDS (Celebrex, ibuprofen, naproxen), prednisone, methotrexate, and Plaquenil. You cannot take etanercept with other TNF-blockers, or other biologic drugs used to treat RA.", "1. Avoid taking pain relievers such as aspirin (keep taking aspirin if it was prescribed by your doctor for your heart, etc), Aleve (naproxen), Advil/Motrin (ibuprofen) or Excedrin because they can make you more likely to bleed when you're on Xarelto.", "If you have mild menstrual cramps, take aspirin or another pain reliever, such as acetaminophen, ibuprofen, or naproxen. For best relief, you must take these medications as soon as bleeding or cramping starts. Heat can also help. Place a heating pad or hot water bottle on your lower back or tummy.", "Tension headaches: Pain relievers like acetaminophen (Panadol, Tylenol), aspirin, ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin, Nuprin), or naproxen usually help. But be careful. Taking too many of these pills can cause hard-to-treat rebound headaches. If you need to take these drugs often, see your doctor.", "Some key points are: It's fine to take painkillers such as paracetamol, ibuprofen, naproxen or mefenamic acid with tranexamic acid. There might be an increased risk of getting a blood clot in a blood vessel if you take tranexamic acid with the following medicines: the combined contraceptive pill.", "Your doctor will prescribe a low dose of aspirin to take together with Brilinta (ticagrelor) to help prevent a blood clot. Do not take extra aspirin or NSAIDs like ibuprofen, naproxen or celecoxib for pain relief unless your doctor has directed you to take these medications.", "If you take birth control pills, do so as directed to avoid a hormonal imbalance. Exercise moderately to maintain health and reduce stress. To manage pain, use ibuprofen (Advil) or naproxen (Aleve, Naprosyn), which can actually help reduce bleeding.", "Ibuprofen can be taken to help ease symptoms like pain, inflammation, and fever. While the amount of time it takes for ibuprofen to work can vary, it usually takes about half an hour to start feeling symptom relief. Adults can take a dose of OTC ibuprofen every 4 to 6 hours.", "['stopping the activities that trigger it until it is resolved.', 'applying ice when the knee is painful.', 'taking over-the-counter pain relievers such as ibuprofen or naproxen.', 'using strengthening exercises.']", "Non steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) Taking creatine with these pain relievers may increase the risk of kidney damage. NSAIDs include ibuprofen (Motrin, Advil) and naproxen (Aleve).", "Take anti-inflammatory medicines to reduce pain. Ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin) and naproxen (Aleve) generally work better than aspirin to ease cramps. Start taking the recommended dose of pain medicine as soon as you start to feel pain or the day before your period starts.", "Follow your dialysis schedule. Do not take aspirin, acetaminophen (Tylenol), ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin), naproxen (Aleve), or similar medicines, unless your doctor tells you to. These medicines may make chronic kidney disease worse.", "Over-the-Counter General Pain Relievers for Toothaches Take non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications (NSAIDS) such as Ibuprofen or Naproxen Sodium, or non-NSAID Acetaminophen for temporary relief.", "You should start to feel better 1 hour after taking naproxen. But it might take up to 3 days for naproxen to work properly if you take it regularly twice a day.", "It's fine to take over-the-counter painkillers such as paracetamol, ibuprofen or aspirin while you're taking amoxicillin, assuming these are appropriate for you.", "Paracetamol and ibuprofen Drinking a small amount of alcohol while taking paracetamol or ibuprofen is usually safe. Paracetamol should be used with caution if you have certain health conditions, such as liver problems. A GP or pharmacist can advise you.", "This second interaction is what can happen when you mix ibuprofen and alcohol. In most cases, consuming a small amount of alcohol while taking ibuprofen is not harmful. However, taking more than the recommended dosage of ibuprofen or drinking a lot of alcohol raises your risk of serious problems significantly.", "['Apply heat to your neck.', 'Rest in a quiet room.', 'Massage tight and painful neck muscles.', 'Take over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drugs, like naproxen or ibuprofen.']", "Your kidneys could be damaged if you take large amounts of over-the-counter medications, such as aspirin, naproxen and ibuprofen. None of these medicines should be taken daily or regularly without first talking to your healthcare provider.", "['Take medicine you have on hand. Start treatment immediately with over-the-counter ibuprofen (Motrin, Advil) or naproxen (Aleve), but never take aspirin, which can worsen a flare. ... ', 'Ice down. ... ', 'Drink plenty of fluids. ... ', 'Avoid alcohol. ... ', 'Get a cane. ... ', 'Elevate your foot, if affected. ... ', 'Create gout-friendly socks. ... ', 'Chill out.']", "Can I take ibuprofen for a long time? If you still need ibuprofen after taking it for 10 days check with your doctor before continuing. It's safe to take ibuprofen regularly for many years if your doctor prescribes it, and as long as you do not take more than the recommended dosage." ]

[ "It's a bad place full of stupid sissy Crips" ]

[ "The X-chromosome in humans has about 1045 genes on it, and the Y only has 5. So the chances of a Y-linked disorder are slim (1/209). \\n\\nIn females, having two X chromosomes means that both would have to have the bad copy of the gene to express the trait. Males, with only one X, express whatever is on that chromosome, good or bad.", "Yes, the Y-chromosome is shrinking.\\n\\nThe reason is due to recombination. Recombination increases the effectiveness of selection, meaning that more \"good\" mutations are kept and more \"bad\" mutations are removed.\\n\\nThe X-chromosome can recombine during meiosis, but the Y-chromosome cannot. Therefore, the Y-chromosomes cannot repair \"bad\" mutations. These mutations build up on the Y-chromosome over time. Some of these mutations can cause the Y-chromosome to shorten. In some species, like Drosophila, the Y-chromosome is no longer present! Females are XX while males simply have an X chromosome!", "How are the toll takers, government agents, and maintenance crews paid?\\n \\nThere are good arguments for having users pay at least a portion of the cost of having such facilities. In the San Francisco Bay and NYC areas, places where I have lived, drivers save lots of time and money by having access to bridges and tunnels. \\n\\nWithout the shortcuts in the places I know, just the cost of gasoline today would make many of the trips prohibitive if not for these government built and managed facilities.", "they can't grow in freezing place, or boiling places. if it is cool, or warm, there would be a lot of bacteria growing there. bacteria need warmth. there are good bacteria and bad bacteria. good bacteria is found in yogurts, and yeast, and beer. bad bacteria can be found in dirty places and your skin. many handwashes claim to be antibacterial, but one of the best is palmolive antibacterial handwash range.", "y not...it's your kitty...bad kitty...dirty kitty...naughty kitty...nasty kitty!", "They have their place. A little too religious for my tastes and not as good as some of the earlier parody groups, but not too bad.", "Hi there,\\n\\n Here is what I found regarding Free GED Classes in your area (NYC):\\n\\n This first link will give you tons of information on what you are looking for. If NYC classes near you are filled up you have four other pages of places that offer the classes. Most are free or low fee. Some resources included are as close as Brooklyn ((13 minutes / 5.9 miles SE of NYC)). All the details and phone numbers that you need are on these four pages.\\n\\n http://www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/pdf/ejic/GED.pdf\\n\\n Now about the link below. Copy and Paste this URL into the address bar. It will take you to a questionaire about locating GED resources near you. Answer the questions and you will get several choices to choose from. This search site will allow search in all of the state of NY or just NYC. \\n\\n http://aelweb.lacnyc.org/LACSearch.asp\\n\\nI really hope that this helps you. Take great care & good luck with your GED.\\n\\n Sincerely,\\n\\n Laurie", "Present!! Aguilas fan since I was a young boy. FAN thru Bad times and Good times. I LOVE the History and the Passion of the game on of course the Aguilas. Viva Mexico y Las Aguilas de La America. Chinga su Madre Las Chivas, LOL", "VaR, with the parameters: holding period x days; confidence level y%, measures what will be the maximum loss (i. e. decrease in portfolio market value) over x days, if one assumes that the x-days period will not be one of the (100 − y)% x-days periods that are the worst under normal conditions. One can also define VaR as a lower y% quantile of a profit/loss probability distribution, i.e., it is a best outcome from a set of bad outcomes on a bad day.\\n\\nYes", "Robert De Niro was born on August 17, 1943 in NYC while Al Pacino was born on April 25, 1940 also in NYC.\\n\\nThus Al is older.", "Hemophilia affects the X chromosome. The reason that Hemophilia generally only affects men is because that in women, who are generally carriers of the disease, they have an additional X chromosome to offset the bad gene on their other. Men are missing this leg on their Y chromosome, and thus have the disease if they are passed a bad X by their mother.\\n\\nMen who have hemophilia cannot pass on the disease to their sons, as they would be passing on the Y chromosome, which is perfectly healthy, but all of their daughters would be carriers of the disease, receiving the father's \"bad\" X chromosome. This is why hemophilia is considered a sex-linked disease.\\n\\nSo, in short, Hemophilia affects a portion of the DNA on the X chromosome that tells the body how to create Factor VIII or Factor IX (depending on if it's A or B), that portion being absent on the Y chromosome, thus causing the disease.", "Thers probabl;y something wrong with ur memory.Take the card out and just blow it and place it back in.", "best women to date will be those who have been with you through the good and bad times-\\nthe best place will be your sorrounding and the people close to you..", "Yes, I agree. The Russian site is a good place to legally acquire the music. That way, you avoid the whole bad aura surrounding the p2p and the \"specialized\" download sites.", "differentiate wrt x.. dy/dx = 2x + 3 = 0\\nx = -3/2 is the vertex (-3/2. -49/4)\\n\\nif you don't know differentiation,\\nexpress in terms of (x-a)^2 + b = y, \\ny = (x - -3/2)^2 + 31/4\\n(-3/2, -49/4) is the vertex. (Value of y is found by substituting value of x in equation)\\n\\nx intercept is found by placing y=0, (-5,0) and (2,0)\\ny intercept is found by placing x=0, (0,-10)", "The y-intercept is where X=0\\n\\nAny algebraic equation makes this process simple\\n\\nFor Example.\\n\\ny=982372987239487x+z\\n\\nthe y-intercept is always equal to z no matter what interger is place as a factor of x", "He makes more from selling 'how to' materials than he does in real estate. But I've read the material, and there is some good stuff in there. If you're a beginner, it's not a bad place to start.", "i think 2.\\n\\nRearrange the eqution to give x= (10-2y)/5\\n\\nX intercept occurs when y=0\\n\\nput 0 in place of y and solve the equation.\\n\\n(10-0)/5\\n\\ntherfore x = 2", "Place one equation below the other and add:\\nx-x elimates x\\n-3y+2y = -y\\n9+1 = 10\\nso -y = 10\\ny= -10\\n\\nso x --3*10 =9\\nx=9-30\\nx = -21", "The new Y! messenger 7.5 uses GIPS codec for voice transport, similar to skype,(very good) Y! rates are cheaper, much cheaper than skype's, Y! uses sip open protocol, skype protocol is closed, i used skype for a while (last summer) to make pc-to-phone calls, it was the only on its category, pc to phone calls bad quality most of the time due to many users on server, now im happy with Y! and the new incoming windows live messenger as second choice.\\nThe only thing i like from skype is the paypal option and its European and its not going to submit information to eavesdrop so easily.\\n\\nY! messenger, Windows live messenger and skype are VOICE-encrypted , others are not.\\n\\nYES, YOU CAN USE USB PHONES WITH YAHOO! unless they are skype api (visit skype products page to see skype api phones)", "another good question for you is why did they use the variable x for the horizontal axis and why did they use the variable y for the vertical axis and the Z for the third dimension....well your answer is just to assign it some variable because it had to be assigned so there could be some order...if you take a multivariable calculus class you will see that there is no assigned order of the x,y and z axis' because it is all relative to how you are looking at it you just have to assign each one and generally the x and y axis' are orthogonal to the z axis....anyways m was probably just used because it is not used in other places so that is what they assigned it", "god man. what kind of horrible painful calculus class are you taking?\\n\\nfirst integrate over dx. the integral of x^y dx is just a power integral, so you have y*x^(y-1). the integral of y^x dx is just an exponential, so you have y^x/ln y.\\n\\nnow integrate y*x^(y-1) + y^x/ln y over dy. and there, my friend, is where i stop because frankly i can't be arsed to do something so brain-curdling. actually the first term doesn't look so bad, i think if you integrate it by parts it should come out in one step. don't really want to think about doing the 2nd one.\\n\\nyou might consider trying some kind of fancy thing like transforming to polar coordinates or something. might make it easier.\\n\\nbtw you should know about this site:\\nhttp://integrals.wolfram.com/", "it depends what you said to her, and if you think theres no reason, then maybe thats y she fought with you at the first place!!!!", "Probably Columbia University, down in NYC. Also check Cornell, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and New York University. \\n\\nI used to recruit for Computer Engineering positions, and I recruited heavily at RPI. Good school, good reputation, students who are both smart at school and can apply it in the real world.", "One of my very best friends got a degree in University Of Washington and he really enjoyed it! The people are friendly and Seattle is a great place for outdoor and also cultural things. I have been to Seattle many times and it is a wonderful place, you may want to check it out before you apply! As for the classes and professors, well there are surely good and bad ones! Good Luck!", "The minerals in the vitamin tablet don't go bad. The vitamins don't go dead immediately when they reach their expiration date. If they have been kept in a cool dry place they may still be good or maybe just less potent.", "Trust me, cheap does not mean you will have a good piercing job done. I know a place near the college I went to, and they were doing body piercings for $15. Needless to say, several people ended up having some pretty bad piercings done, as well as very bad infections.\\n\\nMake sure the place you do choose looks very sterile, and is sterile. If for any reason you feel strange about the place, leave.\\n\\nPrices vary from place to place too. Just call around and see how much people charge. The place I went to get pierced at is more expensive than going to a tattoo place to get pierced, but I know the place I went to was highly rated, very informative, and sterile. In fact, all they do is perform piercings, so they obviously know their stuff.", "The hookers near the United Nations building in NYC aren't cheap.", "WELL HE CREATED THE DEVIL AS A CHALLENGE.... GOD BELIEVES THAT A PERSON SHUD BE PAYED ACCORDING TO WHAT HE DOES IN HIS LIFE...IF HE FOLLOWS THE DEVIL MEANS HE CHOSE THE WORNG PATH...AND IF HE FOLLOWS GOD...HE FOLLOWED THE RIGHT PATH AND WILL BE REWARED A PLACE IN HEAVEN...OTHERWISE...HELL!....THIS IS GOD'S WAY TO TEST HIS MEN.....IF THERE WAS NO DEVIL...THERE WUD BE NO BAD IN THE WORLD... BUT THATS NOT Y WE R CREATED....LIFE IS A TEST.... AN EPISODE OF EXAMINATION......... AND THE RESULTS WILL DETERMINE OUR FINAL DESTINY!", "The week between March 26 and April 2 is very unusual - France is 7 (!) hours ahead of NYC. The reason - Europe is switching to the daylight saving time before U.S.\\nAfter April 2 the difference between NYC and France will become 6 hours agai.", "I honestly dont know y i am a male and will be the first to say that i think this country would be a better place if we had a female president they are so much smarter than us.", "I am sooo h o r n y I can't stand it! my b o o b s hurt very bad and I want to kill someone!" ]

[ "Mark Burnett" ]

[ "conduct & conduct", "conductance", "unsportsmanlike conduct", "their heads", "no head", "Keeps on Giving", "sprinkler heads", "Giving birth", "\"Give me liberty or give me death\"", "Give Birth", "Head-on collision", "Things that give milk", "give themsleves a raise", "1618 (when The Thirty Years' War began)", "Lincoln head penny", "Biting in the head or neck" ]

[ "A man is playing the accordion." ]

[ "A woman is playing clarinet.", "An adult playing outside in a garden with a coat and hat on.", "A man in a black coat and hat drives the bus.", "A girl is playing an accordion standing outside.", "The man and woman are playing accordions.", "A man plays the accordion for a woman.", "There is a man in a black coat.", "A man in a black hat plays golf.", "A man is playing an accordion alone.", "A man playing an accordion for a crowd.", "A group of adults in coats.", "a man in a black hat", "The person in the black coat held the child's hand.", "A man plays an accordion in his room.", "The man is inside playing the accordion.", "Adults and children are playing outside.", "A man is playing an accordion in a gas station.", "A man in a black and white coat.", "A man in green coat with blue and black hat sitting in front of a picture.", "People spectate a man playing an accordion", "A man in a red coat is blocking out the sun with his hand outside.", "A man watches people playing accordions", "There is a man with a hat on his hand.", "A boy is wearing a black hat outside.", "A man watching a woman playing accordion.", "There is a bearded man in a black coat and black cap.", "A child is playing the accordion.", "The hat is black", "A woman is in a black coat.", "A woman in a dress is playing the accordion", "A man in a black coat is sleeping on a street.", "The hats are black." ]

[ "Halfway through this wonderful book, LOVING the personal stories and thank you David for sharing so much of your childhood and life! Taking a trip through my own memory lane with the references to music and the bands you met through your father, warms my heart and feel like I am journeying with you into the sometimes brutal, always synchronizing past, can't wait to read more, cannot put the book down :)\nHugs and heart's gratitude David, extremely well done !" ]

[ "I am halfway through this book and LOVE IT! Don't want it to end. It holds the reader in suspense. Hard to put down!", "A wonderful book, that compliments my own. Stories of what we all go threw as caregivers.", "I really am at a loss of words right now to talk about this book and Beth Flynn. I just finished reading AGOT and I am smiling even though halfway through this book I was screaming and crying. These three books have been a journey of emotions for me. This series is the most recommended series to everyone I come in conact with. Love the story and the characters! They seep into your heart and soul. These books stay with you a very long time. Thank you Beth for giving us these stories and I will be waiting for more.", "The Cousins O'Dwyer Trilogy is a wonderful journey through the lives of cousins. It has left my heart racing and tears in my eyes. Thank you Nora Roberts for yet another fantastic story of love and magick!", "Just could not put this book down\nPersonally touched me\nSuch realism\nFantastic story\nLoved it!\nThank you for this enjoyment", "I read all the other books and the story is great, I get that they are short stories but this one was ridiculously short. the story ends halfway through the book and the rest of the book is a review of 5 other stories coming out.", "I really enjoyed this book and wished it was longer than it was. Thank you Mr. Emmett for your service.", "I thoroughly enjoyed this book from the start to finish. It was one of those books you did not want to put down while you still can read. I have learned a lot as well. thanks so much.", "I'm about halfway through and it is a fascinating book. Just personal preference, but it has more of a dismissive tone to it when he discuses natural medicine.", "I have read everything out there that has ever been published from/about Richard Feynman.\n\nThis book consisting of letters to and from this sharp, funny, sensistive and most curious human being is yet the most personal. Thank you, Michelle Feynman, for reading through mountains of paperwork and putting together such a wonderful book. These letters make you wonder, think, sometimes even cry -but most of all, laugh!!!", "great book, at times it seemed I was reading about a close friend. in order to truly understand this book , you had to have lived some of it. I did. thank you for writing this.", "Thanks so much! I have enjoyed every minute of this incredibly cute book!\nI will definitely use you services again!", "I loved this book and i must say that their was a few errors here and their put you brought it and I truly believe that Ashley made the right decision when she gave you this project. The book was excellent and i love the way you write as well. Look forward to reading the next part to this book!! If you have not read this book ur missing out pick it up asap!!", "I couldn't put this book down once I got about halfway through. An easy read and a great story line! I recommend this if you like psychological thrillers! I finished it in two days!", "Wow.....This book is amazing. I can't even wrap my mind around what I just read. It is 4:44 AM and I am feeling emotionally drained after finishing this book (in a fantasticlly good way). I'm going to make this short, since there are many other great reviews that go into more detail. Still, I wanted to contribute my opinion on this book, and hopefully encourage more people to read it. After finishing ACOMAF, the main thoughts in my head were that I needed the next book (immediately) and I had to write a review. So, here I am, writing this review at almost the crack of dawn. Now that I'm here though, all I can say is that this book is probably one of the greatest I have read in awhile, and I really want to share the happiness (and pain) of reading this book with others. That sounds like a meager attempt at persuading someone to read a book, but I hope that my enthusism has convinced you a little bit. And if you can't feel my enthusiasm, then let me tell you-I'M IN LOVE WITH THIS BOOK!!!!! Oh and one last thing, there is sex in this book, and it is pretty well described, so if you're uncomfortable with that, then maybe this book isn't for you. Other that that, please take a chance on this book!!!!! Oops, so this wasn't too quick of a review after all...", "Love this book except for the fact that ita written in first person. I did this and that. But thats my personal preference.\nLove the story its soo gripping. I am almost done but don't want it to end.", "Have read \"Bless Your Little Cotton Socks\" and it is charming. What a lovely way to tell how you came to be the person you are through photo's , and life long stories of wonderful. and a wee bit eccentric parents. Scotland is an amazing beautiful country , and the photo's in the book are just beautiful. I smiled and laughed out loud at some of the stories and felt like I knew Mum and Dad by the end of the book. Having known Diane Radford and worked with her for years I knew the book would be warm, a, funny , and have a lot of love in its pages. I was correct. I would highly recommend \"Bless Your Little Cotton Socks\" to everyone . Thank you Diane for sharing your lovely parents with all of us. I never got to meet them, but,I feel like I know them, and why you are the dear heart you are. Leslie", "The only Michael Lewis book that I have not enjoyed. It was rather unfocused on the central content as if providing mundane personal details repeatedly would explain how psychological theory was born. It's possible that if you are are already familiar with the subjects of the book, well you may enjoy it more. It was not an irrational decision to stop reading this book halfway through, rather it seemed to be a better use of time not to.", "Thank you Mrs Penny for this latest book of so many wonderful books. Much love to you and your sweet husband, Michael. Take care.", "I am truly impressed with the research that went into the writing of this book. Anyone with an interest in history should read it. It is a story remarkably well told and a wonderful insight into the true meaning of historical fact and personal relationships. Thank you, Bryan, for a very special reading experience.", "I loved this book so much\nYou are awesome for making these awesome books\nThank you so so so much", "Overwhelming - that's the word that comes to mind big-time with this one. Total surprise, absolutely loved this book from beginning although it literally and alternately lightened and tore my heart out over and over again... the Audible version is excellent. Some would say there is too much sex, I say it is absolutely appropriate and there is plenty of story going on in the mix. Charlie and Kate were great and oh so human. Charlie was utterly loveable and became much more perceptive than he apparently had been in the past - it was a painful evolution but.... Both Charlie and Kate literally caught in the currents of life. I was really shook up in the last third of the book and am sooo grateful for the ending and the epilogue - they mean alot to me. THANK YOU THANK YOU BARBARA for this extremely riveting, touching novel - I am buying more of your books because of this one and hope that you will offer them all in Audible (Please!)! Especially the new book I just bought!", "This was a wonderful book, very touching and some parts hard to read but ultimately I loved it. Keep the tissues handy!", "Wonderful story. I couldn't put it down after the halfway mark. Paul Tassi writes a story as epic as the HALO universe with characters as endearing as those from Farscape. I cannot wait for book 3.", "A beautifully written book that shares the message of God's word through a wonderful story. Wonderful for children of all ages. I love the quote from the book: \"God has a dream in your heart to be what He has planned for you to be.\"", "I'm learning to love better. So grateful for this dear woman's heart and her willingness to share her story. I needed this book more than I could have guessed.", "This is an absolutely fabulous book filled with one story after another that are amazing, but true. The stories will make you die laughing, bring you to tears, and cause you to reflect on the beauty of life in general. The writing style is candid and creative beyond words. The author shares a lifetimes of incredible hardships, beautiful blessings, and deep love both given and received.\nThe story takes you all over the world and gives a rare glimpse of cultures and adventures most of us will never know in person, although once you've read it, you feel like you've been right by his side the whole way. The writing style is top notch and the only drawback I found was how I felt when the book ended.\nThis book changed my life, and I highly recommend it to everyone! Thank you, Mr. Pat Gillum... Keep writing!", "Phenomenal read! I laughed, cried, and nodded along with the tales in this book. As a twenty-something, I can only pray to have friendships like these as I continue to grow older.", "A wonderful book with stories that will touch your heart! You will be hooked on each story in this book from the first page. I love the Inspirational stories and have read many books by this author. Each story takes you back to a time when life was not as easy but was worth the trials that these women go through. Easy to read, and if you love books that are not filled with trash like I do, you will definitely enjoy the Maine Brides.", "I loved this book. I couldn't put it down. It has a great plot, hot sex, suspense and drama. Can't wait to read more Thank you Andrea Smith, this was a wonderful story.\n\nCindy C", "I loved the first half of the book. It seemed to get off track a bit in the second half.", "This is such a beautiful book filled with personal stories, wisdom and practical advice. Cassie's book was a game-changer for me, as it allowed me to fully realise and understand how much pressure I was placing on myself to be 'perfect'. With her wonderful guidance I have been able to let go of this pressure and realise that who I am is more than enough. Thank you Cass for writing this book!" ]

[ "Blackfoot local Izabel Talbot has just won her second state championship in the Annual Elks Hoop Shoot for a second year in a row.\nThe Elks held the state championships of their annual Hoop Shoot in Blackfoot on Saturday, Feb. 3, at Mountain View Middle School in Blackfoot. Over three hundred attended for all parts of the state. Fifteen children aged eight through 13 competed in three age divisions of 8 to 9, 10 to 11, and 12 to 13. All of the competitors had already won their district hoop shoots before Saturday.\n\"These kids have already beaten hundreds of others to be here today,\" said Brenda Fincher of Mountain View, an Elks member attending the event.\nTwo local Blackfoot shooters participated in the state hoop shoot championships: Izabel Talbot in the girls 10 to 11 age category and Jackson Jorgensen in the boys 8 to 9 age category. Jackson placed third.\nTalbot placed first for girls aged 10 to 11. Last year she placed first in the 8 to 9 age category at both the state and regional championships and advanced to the national hoop shoot in Chicago.\nHaving won the state championship, she will now advance to the regional hoop shoot in Portland in March, which given her performance both last year and this year, she should be a favorite to win. The Elks have organized the hoop shoot not only to showcase the talent of young athletes like Jorgensen and Talbot, there is no financial burden placed on the winners as they advance in the competition. The Elks cover all the expenses for Talbot and her parents for attending the regional hoop shoot in Oregon, and the national hoop shoot if she win regionals again." ]

[ "SOMERSET – Former University of Kentucky point guard and four-time All-SEC Academic Team member Jarrod Polson will conduct the 2017 Operation Unite Shoot Hoops Not Drugs basketball camps.\nA native of Wilmore, Polson set the Kentucky High School Athletic Association record for free throws attempted and made in a January 2009 game in which he tallied 50 points. As a senior, Polson helped lead West Jessamine High School to the second round of the Sweet 16 state tournament and was named First Team All-State. He finished his high-school career as the school’s all-time leading scorer with 1,884 points.\nOriginally a walk-on at the University of Kentucky, the 6-foot-2 point guard quickly impressed Coach John Calapari, who gave him a full scholarship before his freshman year began. Although receiving only limited playing time during his first two seasons – which included a National Championship during the 2011-12 season – Polson proved himself in the 2012-13 season-opening game against Maryland. After being inserted for an ailing teammate, he logged 10-points, a key steal, and clutch free throws in the waning minutes of the game to solidify his spot in the rotation.\nOver his four years at UK, Polson played in 94 games, scoring a total of 140 points with a .424 field goal percentage (.313 three-point percentage).\nIn the spring of 2014, the West Jessamine Colts retired Polson’s jersey – the first time that distinction had been awarded in school history.\nPolson, who assisted with several camps in 2015 and 2016, replaces SHND founder Jeff Sheppard.\nThe schedule for the upcoming five free, regional Shoot Hoops Not Drugs basketball camps follows.\nThursday, June 8 – Lawrence County High School\nMonday, June 12 – Pulaski County High School\nTuesday, June 13 – Letcher County Central High School\nThursday, June 15 – Menifee County High School\nTuesday, June 20 – Lee County High School", "Voters for St. Clare were relentless this past week as the Great Kills parish captured SILive.com's weekly youth basketball poll.\nThe St. Clare's contingent headed off a tough St. Ann's group that took the early lead in the poll, lost it and could never quite catch the winners again.\nAs a result, St. Clare is where our sharp-shooting sports photographer, Derek Alvez, will camp out on Saturday afternoon and shoot a handful of games for a gallery like the one above.\nThe winning school collected more than 58 percent of the vote or 23,433 of the whopping 40,365 votes cast. St. Ann recorded 15,571 votes.\nHoly Child was third in the six-team poll, which began Monday and concluded Friday afternoon.\nWe introduced this poll last year with much success and brought it back by popular demand this season.\nLook for our next poll with some of the same schools and some others beginning Monday afternoon.", "Ocean Springs high schooler Alex Authement is showing people you don't judge a book by its cover. During a pep rally last week he beat out other students in shooting the most baskets during a knockout game.", "It’s been a long time since Fernando Pisani was a Stanley Cup playoff hero. But the great thing about having once been one is that you keep getting reborn when the next one comes along.\nOnly three games into the 2017 playoff season, the next one appears to have come along.\nZack Kassian is the first Edmonton Oilers player to score a game-winning goal in consecutive games since Pisani the last time the team was in the post-season — in the 2006 Stanley Cup final series against the Carolina Hurricanes.\nDespite a modest 18-goal, 37-point season as a role player in the regular season, Pisani scored 14 goals in 24 playoff games — five of which were game-winners.\nUntil Pisani came along, Chris Kontos, who produced two goals in the regular season and fired nine goals in the playoffs for the Los Angeles Kings in 11 playoff games in 1989 — including a hat trick in Game 5 of the second round series against Edmonton — was the poster boy for unlikely heroes.\n“It’s been great,” said Pisani, the Edmonton product who teaches at the St. Albert Hockey Academy and works as a skill development coach with the Edmonton Oil Kings.\n“It’s fun to see how excited the city gets. It’s been a long time coming. As a player in 2006, I didn’t really get to see the scope of it and how wild and crazy it got. When you’re playing you kind of try and shelter yourself from it.\n“Now, being a fan. You get to see how fun and how great of a time it is.\n“Kassian has been a horse for them this last couple of games. He’s been very physical.\n“It seems that every year there’s someone who scores and has this happen to them. In the playoffs, the secondary scoring is something you really need to have to go far in the playoffs.”\nOilers coach Todd McLellan has been saying it all year. In the playoffs, the top two lines tend to cancel each other out, and it’s the third and fourth lines that decide hockey games.\n“The nice thing about when the playoffs start is that it’s just a clean slate, and for me, it was timing,\" said Pisani. \"Everything clicked with my line mates, Raffi Torres and Michael Peca. Everything I seemed to shoot was going in.\n“As a player, a lot of it is confidence and once you get that confidence, you just ride it. It was just an amazing ride. It wasn’t just myself. There were a lot of guys who stepped up. Chris Pronger was amazing. Dwayne Roloson was amazing. There were a lot of contributing factors. Obviously goaltending is a huge thing.”\nSo far, the part of Roloson is definitely being played by Cam Talbot.\nIt’s interesting that Kassian scored seven goals during the season and Talbot notched seven shutouts. Kassian has had back-to-back game-winning goals and Talbot has had back-to-back shutouts in these playoffs so far.\nOther than playing in Chicago in 2010-11, Pisani has lived in Edmonton since his Stanley Cup Playoff Hero year.\nAnd it’s been cool being Fernando Pisani again, if you will.\n“The Oilers have brought in guys from that run that I haven’t seen in a long time,” he said of the 2006 group.\n“It’s nice to kind of re-live that time, get to reconnect and just get to talk about things that went on throughout that playoff run that. You somewhat forget some things that happened.\n“It’s been an extra fun time because there has been a lot of comparison from that run to this one. This team has played very well the month leading into the playoffs, kinda the way we played t get into the playoffs.\n“It’s been good just walking around and running into people who come up to you, remembering that run that we had.”\nE-mail: [email protected]\nOn Twitter: @sunterryjones", "On Oct. 18, Cam Talbot made 31 saves to help the Edmonton Oilers beat the Carolina Hurricanes 3-2. Around 6 the next morning, he and his wife, Kelly, were en route to the hospital for the birth of their twins. The cesarean section was planned months earlier, on an off day for the team.\nThe next night at Rogers Place, Talbot wore his babies’ yellow hospital bands around his right wrist and made 34 saves as the Oilers beat the Blues 3-1.\nThat’s the kind of year it has been for Edmonton’s goalie. He is the hardest-working in the NHL. He started a league-high 73 games, and tied for first with 42 wins, a franchise record.\nNot even the birth of his first son and daughter could distract him.\n“I have been very impressed with the way he has taken care of his family and his whole body all season,” said Oscar Klefbom, the Oilers’ defenceman. “He is a real professional.”\nIn three playoff games against the San Jose Sharks, Talbot has stopped all but three of 83 shots. He enters Tuesday night’s game at the SAP Center with back-to-back shutouts against last season’s Stanley Cup finalists. The Oilers have a 2-1 lead, with the best-of-seven quarter-final series returning to Edmonton on Thursday night.\n“I try to just go about my business and not think about how big all of this is,” Talbot said Monday after the Oilers skated for a half-hour to stretch their legs. “I feel pretty good. This group is a confident group right now. I am just one part of the puzzle.”\nAt 29, Talbot has become one of the sport’s elite goaltenders. With a .918 save percentage over more than 100 games, he is easily the most proficient in Oilers history, a rich one that includes Hall-of-Famer Grant Fuhr. Nobody who has worn an Edmonton jersey for any length of time comes close. He has nine shutouts this year, including these past two in the postseason.\n“Cam always looks calm in there,” said Jordan Eberle, the Oilers right wing. “When things go wrong, he isn’t scrambling. He makes a save, and calms down the bench.”\nThe Talbot twins – Landon Thomas and Sloane Colleen – will be six months old on Wednesday. Personalities are beginning to emerge. Initially, Landon was the screamer. Now, the roles are reversed. When one has a toy, the other tries to get it.\n“It’s tiring,” Talbot said. “In the middle of the night one cries, and the other wakes up. It seems never ending.\n“On game days, my wife takes them in the other room to feed them so that I can rest. She is the real MVP this year.”\nCam and Kelly met when they were attending the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Her brother was one of his best friends on the team. They hit it off, but Cam tread cautiously at first.\n“Eventually, I got her brother’s blessing,” he said. “The rest is history.”\nGrowing up in Caledonia, Ont., Talbot was a decent hockey player but never a great one. When it came time for college, little interest was shown in him. His family was not well off. He needed a scholarship to help pay for university. He received an offer from Alabama-Huntsville, one of only two southern schools in the United States playing NCAA Division 1 hockey.\nHe won three games in his first two seasons. In his last year, he won 12 and ranked fifth in the NCAA in save percentage.\nIt was enough to attract the attention of the New York Rangers, who signed him as an undrafted free agent in April, 2010. After three seasons in the minor leagues, he became Henrik Lundqvist’s backup. When the Swedish star was injured in 2014-15, Talbot took over for 21 games and helped the Rangers make the playoffs.\nThe day after the Oilers selected Connor McDavid in the 2015 NHL draft, they acquired Talbot for that year’s 62nd, 79th and 184th picks. Perhaps Robin Kovacs, Sergey Zborovskiy and Adam Huska will become great players; if not, for Edmonton, it was a steal.\n“When I with the Rangers, I dreamed of getting a chance to be a starting goalie in the NHL,” Talbot said Sunday night after stopping 23 shots in the Oilers’ 1-0 win over the Sharks. “For me to be the guy for a team that is in the Stanley Cup [playoffs] is very humbling.”\nAfter McDavid, Talbot has become the Oilers’ most popular player. Fans line up at Rogers Place to take pictures with a giant Cam bobblehead. He has won their hearts with his play, his twins and with his kindness.\nSeveral times this year, he donated his $1,000 player-of-the-month prize to the Second Chance Animal Rescue Society. He and Kelly own a rescue dog, a mixed breed named Winnie.\nHe is on a heck of a run. Last summer, he was the starting goalie when Team Canada won a gold medal at the IIHF world championship. In October came the twins. Then he put together a season worthy of consideration for a Vézina Trophy. Now, the Oilers are in the playoffs for the first time since 2006, even if the twins are keeping him up at night.\n“It must be a track meet around the house,” said Todd McLellan, the Oilers’ coach.\nTalbot would not trade it for anything.\n“Personally and professionally, it has been the best year of my life,” he said.\n“I am taking things day by day.”\nReport Typo/Error", "Edmonton 2-1 vs San Jose 1-2\n8 p.m. SportsNet/CHED\nLAST 5 GAMES\nEDM 1 SJS 0\nEDM 2 SJS 0\nEDM 2 SJS 3\nSAN JOSE\nSJS 0 EDM 1\nSJS 0 EDM 2\nSJS 3 EDM 2\nIN THE TANK\nEdmonton - FULL\nEnergy is not an issue when you can put the series in a stranglehold.\nSan Jose - FULL\nThis is as high as their desperation level will be all series. No time to be tired\nINJURIES\nOILERS - RW Tyler Pitlick (knee).\nSHARKS - None\nNOTES… Zack Kassian is the first Oilers player to score game winning goals in back-to-back playoff games since Fernando Pisani in 2006… Cam Talbot hasn’t allowed a goal in 120 minutes… Edmonton penalty killers are outscoring San Jose’s power play 2-1 in the series… Connor McDavid’s 16-game point scoring streak came to an end in Game 3… Leon Draisaitl doesn’t have a point in the series yet. Todd McLellan moved him to centre on the third line in Game 3 to offset San Jose’s size down the middle with the return of Joe Thornton. Draisaitl has one shot on net through the first three games of the series… Edmonton has held San Jose to six shots or less in five of the last six periods… Ryan Nugent-Hopkins had five shots in Game 3… Oscar Klefbom led all Oilers in ice time with 24:44… Brent Burns, Joe Pavelski, Logan Couture and Joe Thornton (who’s only played one game), have combined for one assist through the first three games of the series\nMATCH UPS\nFORWARDS\nEDMONTON - Sharks haven’t scored a goal in the last two games\nDEFENCE\nEDMONTON - They haven’t been letting San Jose’s forwards breathe\nGOALTENDING\nEDMONTON - Talbot coming off back to back shutouts. Enough said.\nPOWER PLAY\nEDMONTON - Not getting a lot of chances, but they’ve been better\nPENALTY KILL\nEDMONTON - They’re outscoring the San Jose power play 2-1. Enough said.\nINTANGIBLES\nSAN JOSE - Desperation level will be at a record high in the Shark Tank\nOVERALL\nSAN JOSE - If they don’t win this one, they won’t win again.\nWHO TO WATCH\nCam Talbot — With the Sharks desperate and at home, the Oilers can expect to be under siege in Game 4, especially at the start. They will once again need him to hold the fort until they can answer back.\nJoe Thornton — Made his return for Game 3 and while he was a little slow(er), he did set up a few Grade A chances. San Jose needs to get its power play going and he can be a big part of that.", "Categories Categories Select Category All-Stars Athlete of the Week Brackets Cross Country Featured Field Hockey Goal Zone Boys Soccer Girls Soccer Goal Zone Videos Photo Galleries Postseason Golf Gymnastics Hoop Zone Boys Basketball Boys State Tournament City Series Girls Basketball Girls State Tournament Hoop Zone Gallery Boys Hoop Zone Gallery Girls Hoop Zone Hall of Fame Hoop Zone Videos Ice hockey Indoor track Boys Indoor Track Girls Indoor Trakc Lacrosse Photo Galleries Posts Red Zone Analysis Area Schools Football History Game of Week NVL Predictions Red Zone Gallery Red Zone Hall of Fame Red Zone Videos State Playoffs Thanksgiving Football Scoreboard Season Previews sports sports-High_School sports-local sports-uconn Strike Zone Baseball Baseball Photo Gallery Photo Galleries Softball Softball Photo Gallery Strike Zone Videos Swimming Tennis Top performances Tournament Central Track Videos Volleyball Photo Galleries World Series Wrestling\nGet Daily Zone Updates Email address: First Name Last Name", "In the MSHSL Class A state golf tournament both the Springfield girls and the Sleepy Eye United boys finished 3rd as a team.\nSpringfield senior, Callie Wersal nabbed the state title shooting a 155 through two days.\nSleepy Eye United's Ben Laffen finished 4th individually and Caleb Christensen tied for 5th.\nIn boys Class AA action, LSH senior, Carson Stepka finished in a tie for 7th, while New Ulm was 7th as a team and Blue Earth Area was 8th.", "HOPKINSVILLE, Ky. (WKRN) – When rival girls basketball teams from Christian County High and Hopkinsville High met this week, the most exciting moment may have been the first shot.\nThese two archrivals came together to share an unforgettable moment for a special student.\nKristian Shouse, rocking the number 1 jersey, was a special guest player on Christian County’s team. Kristian has autism.\nThese teams put aside their rivalry for just a minute to honor Kristian.\nHopkinsville gave the jump ball to CCHS star player Laderia Gold, who passed the ball to Kristian.\nShe drained the first shot of the game and the crowd went crazy!\nThis special moment came about because of Laderia Gold. Gold has been mentoring Kristian Shouse in a gym class for special needs kids at CCHS.\nWhen Laderia found out there were special festivities planned for senior night, she decided to share the honor with her friend.", "This week, Toyota-sponsored Japanese basketball team Alvark Tokyo unveiled a new basketball-playing robot called CUE, which literally does not miss a shot.\nThe robot faced off with Alvark Tokyo players in a round of shooting and went 10 for 10. The machine apparently needs no help with its shooting mechanics.\nThat didn’t surprise The Verge writer James Vincent.\n“This seems to always be the case when humans go head-to-head with AI and robots,\" he wrote. \"Even if a machine isn’t as imaginative or talented as a human, it’s always more consistent.”\nThe Japanese news agency Asahi Shimbun reported that the robot learned free-throw shooting through artificial intelligence, but it didn't explain what that meant.\n\"Asahi Shimbun says AI was used to teach the robot how to shoot, but the video evidence makes the bot look pretty unsophisticated,\" Vincent wrote for The Verge. \"It moves about on wheels and just repeats the same motions again and again.\"\nTechnology news site ZDNet reported that \"at a minimum such a device would need some way to measure the distance to the hoop, a task easily accomplished with an electronic rangefinder, as well as by more sophisticated sensors like stereo vision or LiDAR.\"\nThe engineers would then need to measure the accurate amount of force to put the ball in the hoop.\nZDNet wrote that \"the Toyota engineers would only need to dial into an equation to yield the input forces necessary to send a spinning basketball along a defined trajectory.\"\nWatch more of CUE in action below.", "Sullivan Building & Design, a prestigious firm in Talbot County, MD has announced that its staff has over seventy-five years of experience in the industry. According to Sullivan, its staff has derived expert knowledge of the building and design industry from its many years of experience. Sullivan went on to state that all of its staff members are able to use this knowledge to provide exceptional service to the Talbot County area.\nSullivan Building & Design went on to describe the services that its staff members are able to provide. Such services include design and construction for new homes and remodels; design and construction of additions, garages and outbuildings; custom modulars that allow homebuyers to purchase a home that meets their design wish list; design and installation of kitchens of all sizes; bathroom design and installation; full-service interior and exterior painting for homes and businesses; design and construction of porches and patios; installation of replacement windows; door installation; as well as an array of other services, including roofing, siding, flooring, and built in shelving and cabinetry. The company stated that it is able to customize its services to clients’ needs.\nSullivan went on to state that among its knowledgeable staff members are in-house designers, who have years of experience with home design. Sullivan also stated that it works with a team of hand-picked subcontractors – from masons, to electricians, to plumbers, to roofers – who are reputed for honest and top-notch service in Talbot County. Sullivan also stated that, in addition to being highly experienced, it is also fully licensed and insured, as are all of the subcontractors that the company works with. Further details can be found at http://www.sullivanbuildinganddesign.com/projects.htm\nSullivan concluded by stating that its 75 years of combined experience means that it is able to creatively and expertly meet the needs of any homeowner or homebuyer in the Talbot County area. The company stated that it has experience with all aspects of home design, construction, and remodeling—and it will continue to use its expertise to serve Talbot County for years to come. https://www.facebook.com/Sullivan-Building-Design-855841861151292/\nContact:\nCompany: Sullivan Building & Design\nAddress: 21630 Camper Circle, Tilghman, MD 21671\nPhone: (410)886-9906\nEmail: [email protected]\nWebsite: www.sullivanbuildinganddesign.com", "None\nEvangel's Kory Gaines is fouled as he goes to the hoop against Chambers at the AISA State Basketball Final Four tournament in Montgomery, Ala., on Friday February 2, 2018. Mickey Welsh / Advertiser", "1:06\nTheir basketball team just won the state championship, but this student section deserves a trophy too", "The Northern Stars edged the Waikato-Bay of Plenty Magic 56-51 in Auckland last night, just their second win of the 2018 ANZ Premiership competition.\nThe visitors made a strong start but the Stars began to click and led after the first quarter by four points.\nNorthern Stars' shooters Maia Wilson and Grace Kara were solid in the shooting circle.\nMagic were without their star captain Casey Kopua who injured her foot in warm-ups.\nWilson's bizarre goal at the start of the fourth quarter was still counted by officials after the ball got stuck in the net and popped out of the hoop.", "Mallard Creek’s Ahlana Smith was named to the N.C. Basketball Coaches Association all-state team Monday Jonathan Tyson", "Talbot pitched his second consecutive shutout Sunday, stopping all 23 shots he faced in a Game 3 win over the Sharks.\nTalbot hasn't been overly tested in either of those outings, but he's made some key saves when he's had to and has looked very poised. The 29-year-old has built off a fantastic regular season and is having an outstanding playoffs thus far, so if he keeps it up, the Oilers could very well be on their way to the second round.", "Cal State Fullerton’s Khalil Ahmad is called for a charge against Long Beach State’s Gave Levin during Cal State Fullerton’s 76-74 victory over Long Beach State in their quarterfinal game of the Big West Tournament at Honda Center in Anaheim on Thursday, Mar. 8, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan/Orange County Register/SCNG)\nLong Beach State takes on Cal State Fullerton in the quarterfinals of the Big West Tournament at Honda Center in Anaheim on Thursday, Mar. 8, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan/Orange County Register/SCNG)\nLong Beach State takes on Cal State Fullerton in the quarterfinals of the Big West Tournament at Honda Center in Anaheim on Thursday, Mar. 8, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan/Orange County Register/SCNG)\nLong Beach State’s Deishuan Booker drives to the hoop past Cal State Fullerton’s Jamal Smith, left, and Arkim Robertson during the first half of their quarterfinal game of the Big West Tournament at Honda Center in Anaheim on Thursday, Mar. 8, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan/Orange County Register/SCNG)\nLong Beach State’s Jordan Roberts has a shot blocked by Cal State Fullerton’s Arkim Robertson during the first half of their quarterfinal game of the Big West Tournament at Honda Center in Anaheim on Thursday, Mar. 8, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan/Orange County Register/SCNG)\nLong Beach State’s Deishuan Booker celebrates a three-pointer against Cal State Fullerton during the first half of their quarterfinal game of the Big West Tournament at Honda Center in Anaheim on Thursday, Mar. 8, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan/Orange County Register/SCNG)\nCal State Fullerton’s Josh Pitts shoots past Long Beach State’s Temidayo Yusuf during Cal State Fullerton’s 76-74 victory over Long Beach State in their quarterfinal game of the Big West Tournament at Honda Center in Anaheim on Thursday, Mar. 8, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan/Orange County Register/SCNG)\nLong Beach State’s Temidayo Yusuf shoots past Cal State Fullerton’s Kyle Allman, right, during Long Beach State’s 76-74 loss to Cal State Fullerton in their quarterfinal game of the Big West Tournament at Honda Center in Anaheim on Thursday, Mar. 8, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan/Orange County Register/SCNG)\nLong Beach State’s Deishuan Booker is defended by Cal State Fullerton’s Jackson Rowe, Jamal Smith and Khalil Ahmad, from left, during Long Beach State’s 76-74 loss to Cal State Fullerton in their quarterfinal game of the Big West Tournament at Honda Center in Anaheim on Thursday, Mar. 8, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan/Orange County Register/SCNG)\nCal State Fullerton’s Khalil Ahmad drives to the hoop past the Long Beach State defense during Cal State Fullerton’s 76-74 victory over Long Beach State in their quarterfinal game of the Big West Tournament at Honda Center in Anaheim on Thursday, Mar. 8, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan/Orange County Register/SCNG)\nLong Beach State’s Temidayo Yusuf looks for help after being hit hard by Cal State Fullerton’s Dominik Heinzl during Long Beach State’s 76-74 loss to Cal State Fullerton in their quarterfinal game of the Big West Tournament at Honda Center in Anaheim on Thursday, Mar. 8, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan/Orange County Register/SCNG)\nCal State Fullerton’s Kyle Allman drives to the hoop while being defended by Long Beach State’s Gave Levin during Cal State Fullerton’s 76-74 victory over Long Beach State in their quarterfinal game of the Big West Tournament at Honda Center in Anaheim on Thursday, Mar. 8, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan/Orange County Register/SCNG)\nLong Beach State’s Elon Maxhuni reacts as Cal State Fullerton celebrates their 76-74 victory over Long Beach in their quarterfinal game of the Big West Tournament at Honda Center in Anaheim on Thursday, Mar. 8, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan/Orange County Register/SCNG)\nLong Beach State head coach Dan Monson tries to motivate his players during their 76-74 loss to Cal State Fullerton in a quarterfinal game of the Big West Tournament at Honda Center in Anaheim on Thursday, Mar. 8, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan/Orange County Register/SCNG)\nCal State Fullerton’s Kyle Allman shoots over Long Beach State’s Bryan Alberts during Cal State Fullerton’s 76-74 victory over Long Beach State in their quarterfinal game of the Big West Tournament at Honda Center in Anaheim on Thursday, Mar. 8, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan/Orange County Register/SCNG)\nCal State Fullerton’s Khalil Ahmad drives to the hoop past the Long Beach State defense during Cal State Fullerton’s 76-74 victory over Long Beach State in their quarterfinal game of the Big West Tournament at Honda Center in Anaheim on Thursday, Mar. 8, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan/Orange County Register/SCNG)\nCal State Fullerton’s Arkim Robertson battles for a rebound with Long Beach State’s Temidayo Yusuf during Cal State Fullerton’s 76-74 victory over Long Beach State in their quarterfinal game of the Big West Tournament at Honda Center in Anaheim on Thursday, Mar. 8, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan/Orange County Register/SCNG)\nCal State Fullerton’s Arkim Robertson battles for a rebound with Long Beach State’s Jordan Roberts during Cal State Fullerton’s 76-74 victory over Long Beach State in their quarterfinal game of the Big West Tournament at Honda Center in Anaheim on Thursday, Mar. 8, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan/Orange County Register/SCNG)\nCal State Fullerton head coach Dedrique Taylor on the sidelines during their 76-74 victory over Long Beach State in a quarterfinal game of the Big West Tournament at Honda Center in Anaheim on Thursday, Mar. 8, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan/Orange County Register/SCNG)\nCal State Fullerton’s Arkim Robertson, center, and Kyle Allman defend Long Beach State’s Jordan Roberts during Cal State Fullerton’s 76-74 victory over Long Beach State in their quarterfinal game of the Big West Tournament at Honda Center in Anaheim on Thursday, Mar. 8, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan/Orange County Register/SCNG)\nLong Beach State’s Elon Maxhuni is fouled as he shoots by Cal State Fullerton’s Daniel Venzant during their 76-74 loss to Cal State Fullerton in their quarterfinal game of the Big West Tournament at Honda Center in Anaheim on Thursday, Mar. 8, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan/Orange County Register/SCNG)\nLong Beach State’s K.J. Byers blocks a shot by Cal State Fullerton’s Khalil Ahmad during their 76-74 loss to Cal State Fullerton in a quarterfinal game of the Big West Tournament at Honda Center in Anaheim on Thursday, Mar. 8, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan/Orange County Register/SCNG)\nCal State Fullerton players celebrate during the final seconds of their 76-74 victory over Long Beach State in a Big West Tournament quarterfinal on Thursday afternoon at Honda Center. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan/Orange County Register/SCNG)\nLong Beach State takes on Cal State Fullerton in the quarterfinals of the Big West Tournament at Honda Center in Anaheim on Thursday, Mar. 8, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan/Orange County Register/SCNG)\nANAHEIM — There was a moment in the second half Thursday afternoon at the Honda Center when Jackson Rowe approached his Cal State Fullerton head coach, Dedrique Taylor, during a timeout huddle and said he wanted to guard Long Beach State’s Gabe Levin by himself.\n“And that was the moment when I thought we would be okay,” Taylor said with a big sigh and a smile.\nFullerton was okay. The Titans won a thrilling Big West Tournament quarterfinal 76-74, allowing Long Beach just two field goals in the last eight hectic minutes, overcoming a five-point deficit with 8:56 left and a three-point margin with 2:30 left, and gutting out a win to advance to Friday’s semifinals.\nRowe did guard Levin by himself late, and the 49ers senior forward scored just one field goal in the final eight minutes, a 3-pointer with Rowe in his face. It’s not like Levin didn’t have opportunities or good looks or that he tossed up bad shots. It was mano-a-mano defense. Where ever Levin went, Rowe was attached like static cling.\nWith Fullerton’s guards playing the ball aggressively when it was in the hands of Deishuan Booker on the perimeter, they defensively contested, successfully, the 49ers’ best offensive options.\nLong Beach (15-18) missed 16 shots down the stretch, six by Levin, and virtually all 16 were from short distance in the shadow of the basket. They rimmed out, rolled across the basket or just were launched with more hope than aim.\n“Jackson is a junkyard dog,” Taylor said. “He was able to stay with Levin and change some shots, and that allowed us to front Booker.”\n“He’s their best player, and I felt if we could stop him we could win,” Rowe said.\n“It allowed us to play the ball aggressively on Booker,” Kyle Allman Jr. said. “We just balled up on him and tried to make him pass.”\nAllman scored 24 points and had eight assists, Rowe 18 points with eight rebounds, and Khalil Ahmad 14 with five rebounds, three assists and three steals for Fullerton (18-11). Levin and Booker both scored 22, a career-high for Booker. Levin also had nine rebounds and Temidayo Yussuf added nine points and 11 rebounds.\nLong Beach coach Dan Monson didn’t regret a single missed shot, because they were all earnest attempts from good places on the court and in favorable situations.\n“It’s a tough way to go out. This team fought and had opportunities to stretch a lead out. Our effort wasn’t the reason we lost,” he said.\n“At another time, in the regular season, you’d walk away from this game feeling so proud of the effort. It’s just tough because it ended the season. We were just starting to figure it out as a team. You have to give Fullerton credit. There was a lot of contact at both ends. Nothing came easy for anyone.”\n“They did a good job adapting to protect the paint in the second half,” Booker said. “We didn’t finish our plays the way we have.”\n“We had looks,” Levin said, “and we had a few shots that just didn’t roll our way. It (stinks) to end it like this. I wanted to go out hugging my teammates after a win. But as painful as it is, it ends with the team having played well enough to win.”\nNeither team could separate in the second half, not until a Levin 3-pointer and Yussuf put-back gave Long Beach a slim 62-57 lead. Fullerton responded and took a 71-69 lead with 4:05 to go, but the 49ers scored the next five to lead 74-71 with 2:30 left. They wouldn’t score again.\nAhmad made two free throws, Rowe muscled inside for a go-ahead basket and Allman added a free throw to make it 76-74. In the final seconds, Booker had a short shot from 8 feet rim out, and Levin grabbed the rebound and fired a shot that bounced on two sides of the rim before falling to the floor.\n“On the way to the locker room,” Taylor said, “the coaches and I looked at each other and said ‘God smiled on us today.’ It was that kind of game.”", "Get daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email\nFormer TV weatherman Fred Talbot will be sentenced today after being convicted of a string of historic sex offences against schoolboys.\n‘Fred the weatherman’ as he was known, while presenting ITV’s weather reports from the Albert Dock, indecently assaulted seven teenage boys in his care during camping and boating trips in the 1970s and 1980s.\nThe 67-year-old carried out the attacks while working as a biology teacher at a school in the Manchester area.\nDuring a nine-day trial at Lanark Sheriff Court last month, Talbot , of Greater Manchester, denied the allegations.\nA jury deliberated for four hours before convicting the predator of seven of the nine historical abuse charges against him.\nTalbot is already serving a five-year sentence, imposed in Manchester in 2015, for indecently assaulting two other schoolboys.\nSheriff Nikola Stewart will sentence him for the fresh convictions at Lanark Sheriff Court today.\nThe television personality was a TV favourite and was particularly popular in Liverpool, where he appeared regularly on a floating weather map in Liverpool’s Albert Dock, with many people watching from the dockside to see if he well in - which he occasionally did.\nHis conviction, on May 25, followed days of “overwhelming and compelling” evidence against Talbot, including from Stone Roses frontman Ian Brown and a witness appearing over a video link from Australia.\nThe offences, against boys aged 15 to 17, took place between 1978 and 1981 during separate trips near the St Mary’s Loch area in Moffat, Dumfries and Galloway, and the Caledonian Canal, Inverness in the Highlands.\nA series of witnesses, now men in their 50s who cannot be named for legal reasons, told of their excitement at going on the excursions - sometimes their first trip away from their parents.\nMany of them recalled how Talbot used his position to engineer situations to target those he should have been looking after.\nThe court heard the attacks would come at night when a victim was isolated or after they had consumed alcohol.\nOne man told of his “horror” when he awoke - after being “singled out” to go to the pub - to find Talbot touching him in a tent while partially-clothed.\nTalbot was cleared of two charges - of indecent assault and lewd, indecent and libidinous practices - on not proven verdicts.\nIn 2015, Talbot was convicted at Manchester Crown Court of indecent assaults on two pupils from the same school and he was jailed for five years.\nThose assaults happened on school canal barge trips in the Cheshire area in the mid-1970s.", "Westbrook jumped out to a 44-18 halftime lead on the way to a 72-57 win over Collinsville in the Class 2A, Area 12 Tournament championship game last Saturday (Feb. 11) at CHS.\nThe Warriors (26-6) host Section on Tuesday (Feb. 14) in the sub-regional round.\nFor Westbrook, Will Jones went 11-for-12 at the free throw line on the way to 19 points. Cullen Stafford scored 16 points, while Tyler Self added 13. John Catanzaro contributed seven points, six rebounds and four assists, while Troy Bearden chipped in seven points and 10 rebounds. Braden Beecham had six points and 11 rebounds.\nOn Feb. 9, Westbrook defeated Sand Rock, 53-43, in the tournament semifinals. Jones had 18 points and four assists; William Wethington had 11 points; Braden Beecham had seven points and five rebounds; John Catanzaro and Troy Bearden each had six points; and Tyler Self had five points and five rebounds.", "VIDEO AND INTERVIEWS: VISIT FACEBOOK\nDECATUR -- It's spring on Decatur's northeast side, or as they call it at Robertson Charter: banner season.\nThe Wildcat basketball program hoisted yet another banner and passed out rings on Thursday night at its annual awards banquet, this one for a 7AA IESA state championship.\n1 Avereon Norman\n3 Marlin \"MJ\" Murphy\n10 Damarion Phillips\n11 Anthony Smith, Jr.\n12 Deeantre Woodland\n14 Makhi Wright\n15 Cameron France\n20 Maruli Carson\n21 Christion Harper\n22 Terry Tinsley\nCoaches: Marlin Murphy, Deandre Harper, Moe Dampeer, Ronnie Staples, Kofi Houston", "Caledonia is headed back to the state tournament, a familiar atmosphere for the Warriors who have been at state three times in the past four years.", "It has been quite the winter high school sports season for a number of Harford County student-athelets, as seven basketball players hot the 1,000 point mark and three wrestlers accomplished the goal of winning 100 career matches. The Aegis congratulates them for their memorable moments.", "Edmonton 2-1 vs San Jose 1-2\n8 p.m. SportsNet/CHED\nIN THE TANK\nEdmonton – FULL\nEnergy is not an issue when you can put the series in a stranglehold.\nSan Jose – FULL\nThis is as high as their desperation level will be all series. No time to be tired\nINJURIES\nOILERS – RW Tyler Pitlick (knee).\nSHARKS – None\nNOTES… Zack Kassian is the first Oilers player to score game winning goals in back-to-back playoff games since Fernando Pisani in 2006… Cam Talbot hasn’t allowed a goal in 120 minutes… Edmonton penalty killers are outscoring San Jose’s power play 2-1 in the series… Connor McDavid’s 16-game point scoring streak came to an end in Game 3… Leon Draisaitl doesn’t have a point in the series yet. Todd McLellan moved him to centre on the third line in Game 3 to offset San Jose’s size down the middle with the return of Joe Thornton. Draisaitl has one shot on net through the first three games of the series… Edmonton has held San Jose to six shots or less in five of the last six periods… Ryan Nugent-Hopkins had five shots in Game 3… Oscar Klefbom led all Oilers in ice time with 24:44… Brent Burns, Joe Pavelski, Logan Couture and Joe Thornton (who’s only played one game), have combined for one assist through the first three games of the series\nWHO TO WATCH\nCam Talbot — With the Sharks desperate and at home, the Oilers can expect to be under siege in Game 4, especially at the start. They will once again need him to hold the fort until they can answer back.\nJoe Thornton — Made his return for Game 3 and while he was a little slow(er), he did set up a few Grade A chances. San Jose needs to get its power play going and he can be a big part of that.", "CARMEL, Ind. (WANE) – Bishop Dwenger led the local teams by finishing tenth at state while no local golfer cracked the top 25 individually.\nDwenger finished +47 after the second and final round of the state tournament at Prairie View Golf Course in Carmel. Homestead was just a stroke behind while Carroll was +82.\nCenter Grove won the team title at -3, 13 stroke ahead of second place Carmel.\nIndividually. Noah Gillard of Center Grove won the state title at -6.\nHomestead’s Austin Render, Canterbury’s Michael Brothers, and Dwenger’s Luke Miller tied for 27th at +8 to lead the locals.\nFull results are posted here.", "Get What's On updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email\nThere will soon be even more reason to have a cheeky Nando’s in South Wales as a brand new branch is set to open on Tuesday.\nThe new store will open at Talbot Green Shopping Park near Llantrisant on December 12.\nIt will replace the unit previously occupied by Pizza Hut, with the branch providing jobs for 50 local people.\nBev Swift, regional managing director for Nando’s, said: “We’re thrilled to be opening the doors to our first restaurant in Talbot Green and look forward to welcoming PERi-PERi fans through the door.”\nAt the weekend, the company hosted a \"House Warming Party\" for local residents and businesses to exclusively trial the restaurant.\nAnd there's even more great news for chicken fans - an official Nando’s \"Wing Cart\" will be on site today (December 11) only, offering free chicken wings to the Park’s customers.\nAccording to the company, Each Nando’s restaurant in the UK is unique in its décor, and the new Rhondda Cynon Taf branch has followed suit, with “exclusive and distinctive pieces” on show – from unusual lighting to colourful furniture and quirky art pieces, and \"a number of pieces of original Southern African art\".\nSarah Bristow, spokeswoman for Talbot Green Shopping Park, said: “The arrival of Nando’s at Talbot Green Shopping Park is fantastic news for the park and the Valleys as a whole.\n“It will be the nearest Nando’s for hungry shoppers in Bridgend and the Vale of Glamorgan —who currently have to travel to Swansea or Cardiff for a taste of the nation’s favourite chicken — so we are pleased to offer an option for locals looking to avoid the hustle and bustle of a city centre shopping experience.”", "BOWLING GREEN – It is never easy when a sports season comes to an end. Especially, when it happens abruptly like it did for the Archbold boys basketball team Saturday night versus Columbus Africentric in the Division III regional final at the Stroh Center in Bowling Green.\nTied at 39 with 3.7 seconds remaining, Africentric worked the ball over to the left wing and senior Tre Baumgardner drilled a three-pointer as time expired, stunning the Blue Streaks 42-39.\n“We’ve had the great fortune of coming down here and winning some games like that over the years,” said Archbold coach Doug Krauss after the game. “But, tonight the tables got turned on us. You just tip your hat off to the kid, he made a shot. Unfortunately for us. But, like we told our guys, ‘hey this is what happens’. You go compete baby, sometimes it works for your favor, sometimes it doesn’t.”\n“It was a heck of a game,” noted Africentric coach Michael Bates. “If you’re a fan of high school basketball, in a regional championship game, that’s the type of game you want to see. You don’t want a blowout. That was defensive. It was fundamentally sound.\n“They (Archbold) just a very good team. We put ourselves in position to win the game at the end. And this kid right here (Baumgardner) made a play.”\nAfter a Rigo Ramos three 1:15 into the fourth gave Archbold a 36-33 advantage, Africentric responded with a 6-0 run. They did so with two of four from the foul line and baskets by Dorian Holloway and Anthony Bowman.\nHowever, the Streaks then converted a long possession in which they grabbed numerous offensive rebounds, tying it up at 39 on a Kaiden Bedsole triple at the 3:12 mark.\nThe final three minutes were a whirlwind, beginning with Africentric, who elected to keep possession and run the clock down for the final shot. However, the Nubians would turn it over with 38 seconds left to give the ball back to the Streaks.\nArchbold took it down until there was 10 seconds left, but Africentric’s Jah Bennet stole the ball, giving his team the final shot.\n“We had pretty much what we wanted,” said Krauss of his team’s final possession. “Give the Bennet kid credit, he made the play. I thought we executed well. We ran the clock down like we wanted to. There was no reason to call a timeout, we knew exactly what we were going to run.”\nThe Streaks were able to slow down the Nubian offense for much of the game. Although Africentric actually shot better than Archbold in the first half, they were 0 for 5 from beyond the arc.\nThe Blue Streak defense was effective using the 2-3 zone, as coach Bates admitted his team settled for too many jump shots early on.\n“I had like five or six, seven tapes (on Africentric), and no one ever played them zone,” said Krauss. “I mean I’m thinking, geez, they are pretty athletic. I don’t know why you want to let them do what they want to do (against man-to-man). So we dusted off a zone. We didn’t play too much zone (this season). It seemed to bother them a little bit.”\nArchbold, meanwhile, was 50 percent (4 of 8) shooting the three in the first half.\nEli Miller pegged a three for the Streaks at the 4:10 mark of the second quarter, then after back-to-back buckets from Holloway, Miller hit another triple to put them up 24-18 with around 2:30 until halftime. Baumgardner’s basket made it a four-point margin, and that’s where it would remain at the half.\nArchbold’s Bryce Williams scored on a drive to begin the third quarter, Holloway converted off his own miss for the Nubians, and Bedsole hit a floater to keep them ahead by six. Baumgardner then hit a pair of triples around a trey from Williams, pulling the Nubians within 31-28 at the 3:50 mark.\nHe followed that with a three-point play to tie it, then Bennet’s putback gave the Nubians the lead. It was their first lead since the opening quarter.\nWilliams’ bucket on a drive to the hoop knotted the score at 33 entering the fourth. He finished the game with 13 points, while Ramos added 11 for the Streaks.\nBaumgardner scored 20 points to lead all scorers. Holloway added 16 points.\nArchbold is the regional runner-up, ending the season with a 22-4 record. With making the trip to state last season and nearly going back this year, the Streaks’ senior class will undoubtedly be missed.\n“Those seniors have been great for us,” stated Krauss. “They’ve been a part of some really good teams. And they were huge.\n“They are hurting right now. They are hurting. Because they put a lot of time in. You invest in something, and it hurts (when it ends). It hurts a lot.”\nStreaks take down O-G\nArchbold did something Wednesday few Blue Streak teams have been able to do, take down perennial power Ottawa-Glandorf.\nBehind a 52 percent (24 of 46) shooting effort from the field, including 50 percent (10 for 20) from beyond the arc, the Blue Streaks did just that, defeating the Titans 78-68 in a Division III boys basketball regional semifinal.\nIn doing so, the Streaks got revenge on a 70-65 loss at O-G from Dec. 23.\n“We were going against a team that, bar none, public schools in Northwest Ohio, has been the standard bearer,” said Archbold coach Doug Krauss. “What they’ve done over the years, Division II (or) Division III, whatever division they’ve been in, they’ve really done a great job. But with that being said, every year is a different year. And our guys, I think going down there and battling them during the season was helpful. Even though it was a long time ago. Our guys knew they could play with them. It was a very similar game to the first time, except the ending was a little bit different.”\n“We never got into the rhythm that we needed to,” said Titan head coach Tyson McGlaughlin. “I got to give them (Archbold) a lot of credit. Their guards did a fantastic job of handling our pressure and spreading us out (defensively). Had that third quarter where they scored 28 points and we couldn’t keep them in front of us. They made us pay for it. You get down to a team like that, that has the guards, and has the ability to space you out, they can make you pay.”\nThe first half was neck and neck the whole way. Archbold pulled within two, 14-12, at the end of the first quarter on a turnaround jumper from Kaiden Bedsole.\nThe Streaks opened up a 25-20 lead in the second period after an Austin Wiemken hoop underneath, then back-to-back Bryce Williams three-pointers.\nO-G answered with four straight points, Archbold’s Caleb Wooley scored off his own miss but failed to complete the three-point play, Chad Duling split a pair of free throws for the Titans, but Rigo Ramos’ floater for Archbold gave them a 29-25 lead with under a minute left in the half.\nOwen Hiegel ended the first half on a high note for the Titans, getting fouled while shooting a three, and the junior converted all three free throws to pull them within one at the break.\nThe third quarter belonged to the Streaks, scoring 28 points behind 5 of 6 from three.\nThey still led by one, 38-37, with 4:35 left in the third, then Bedsole extended it with a triple. O-G’s Ethan White got to the foul line where he converted a pair, but Ramos responded with a three of his own. Jay Kaufman then scored on a drive to the hoop for the Titans, however, another Ramos triple made it 50-43 with about two minutes left in the period.\n“That’s just our guys shooting with confidence,” said Williams on his team’s offensive success. “And just moving the ball. Passing up an OK shot for a great shot.”\nWilliams drove to the hoop for a bucket, the Titans’ Aaron Rieman answered with a three-point play, but that was answered by a three-point play from Williams to make the margin 55-46 at the 1:07 mark. Archbold’s Elijah Zimmerman scored on an outlet pass to briefly put the Streaks up 11, then a Bryce Schroeder bucket for O-G got it back to nine entering the fourth.\nArchbold kept a comfortable lead for much of the fourth, until a 10-2 run by the Titans got it down to 72-68 with 1:35 remaining.\n“I don’t think it was anything against us. You’ve got to give the other team some credit for that,” said Krauss of the end of the game. “You got to understand how quick they are. They have some unbelievable quickness. Maybe we got a little bit too tight at times. We didn’t space the floor like we would have liked to. Maybe we didn’t go after a pass as well as we could of. But again, we just talk about (keeping) your poise. Do what we’ve been doing, and, good things will happen.”\nThe Blue Streak defense stiffened up in the final minute plus, then they went 6 of 8 from the line to seal it.\n“You have to understand what they (O-G) bring to the table,” concluded Krauss. “And for us to do what we did, it took a mental game plus the physical part to do what we accomplished.\n“Like I said before, this O-G team, I have so much respect for what they do on a yearly basis down there. With their coaching staff, they’re just great guys. And their team. They just keep turning it over every year to something really good.”\nWilliams paced the Streaks with 32 points while shooting almost 70 percent from the floor. Eli Miller added 12 points and Ramos 11.\nKaufman had 25 points and Hiegel 18 to lead O-G.\nLooking to also draw contact, Archbold’s Bryce Williams converts an off-balance shot Saturday night versus Columbus Africentric in the Division III regional final. The Blue Streaks ended up on the wrong end of a buzzer-beater, falling to the Nubians 42-39. http://www.fcnews.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/45/2018/03/web1_Williams-over-defender.jpg Looking to also draw contact, Archbold’s Bryce Williams converts an off-balance shot Saturday night versus Columbus Africentric in the Division III regional final. The Blue Streaks ended up on the wrong end of a buzzer-beater, falling to the Nubians 42-39. Max Householder | Fulton County Expositor Rigo Ramos of Archbold, right, heads to the hoop Saturday night against Africentric. He finished with 11 points for the Blue Streaks. http://www.fcnews.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/45/2018/03/web1_Ramos-from-left.jpg Rigo Ramos of Archbold, right, heads to the hoop Saturday night against Africentric. He finished with 11 points for the Blue Streaks. Max Householder | Fulton County Expositor Austin Wiemken of Archbold (14) scores during Wednesday’s regional semifinal win over Ottawa-Glandorf. http://www.fcnews.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/45/2018/03/web1_Wiemken-scores-against-O-G.jpg Austin Wiemken of Archbold (14) scores during Wednesday’s regional semifinal win over Ottawa-Glandorf. Max Householder | Fulton County Expositor\nBy Max Householder [email protected]\nReach Max Householder at 419-335-2010\nReach Max Householder at 419-335-2010", "There is nothing quite like a playoff series, where the same two teams batter each other in what amounts to one extended game that can last between one and two weeks.\nThree games in to their Pacific Division series, the Edmonton Oilers and San Jose Sharks have each produced one dominant performance, one stinker, and one chess match, with the Oilers winning the latter 1-0 in the Shark Tank on Sunday night to establish a 2-1 lead in the series. Halfway home, but with plenty of hard sledding still to go.\nAfter allowing 44 shots at Cam Talbot in Game One, the Oilers have limited the more experienced Sharks to just 39 shots in their last two games combined. Talbot has done his part, stopping every last one of of those shots, but he has been strongly supported by an excellent team effort and many strong individual performances.\nHere at the Cult of Hockey we have covered each game with our traditional player grades along with our latest feature, a podcast after each game. Today, David Staples and I took a step back to survey and discuss the bigger picture of the series as a whole. Each of us selected “three stars” of the series to date, as well as one player who may have more to give. The only rule was that there be no overlap between the two lists, to spread the kudos around a little.\nTo listen on Soundcloud click here.\nYou can click on this link to subscribe on iTunes.\nOn Google Play, you can click on this link.\nA few stats of interest through three games, again listing a top six (and ties) in each:\nIce time (D): Klefbom 22:16 ATOI, Sekera 21:49, Larsson 21:33, Russell 20:48, Nurse 16:16, Benning 15:28\nClear top four as established all year has continued to play the heavy minutes against top comp. Worth noting that Sekera and Russell have each logged over 14 minutes killing the Oilers 14 penalties to this point in the series, with the Oilers actually outscoring the Sharks 1-0 on their watch.\nIce time (F): McDavid 20:41, Nugent-Hopkins 18:41, Letestu 17:23, Draisaitl 17:21, Maroon 16:29, Lucic 15:38\nThe top four minute munchers are all listed as centres and have played at that position at least part of the time in the series. Some interesting deployment by Todd McLellan, who in my view was one of the stars of Game Three.\nPoints: Kassian 2, McDavid 2, Lucic 2, Letestu 2, Klefbom 1, Nurse 1, Eberle 1\nKassian is the big surprise here, as his two points were both game-winning goals in low-scoring wins by the Oil. McDavid’s 16-game point streak ended last night, but I don’t suppose he’s too upset by that. Just win, baby.\nShots: Nugent-Hopkins 11, Letestu 9, Kassian 9, Klefbom 7, McDavid 6, Maroon 6\nRNH has led the club with 5 shots in each of the last two games. Kassian leads the way with 21 shot attempts in the series, though he has missed the mark with many of them.\nHits: Larsson 14, Kassian 13, Draisaitl 12, Benning 9, McDavid 8, Gryba 8, Letestu 8\nA couple of the usual suspects atop the list, but some surprises as well from the skill players. Worth noting that Benning played in just two games, Gryba only the one as the Oilers have been getting plenty of mashing from the 6D spot.\nGoalie: Talbot 2-1 W-L, 0.98 GAA, .964 Sv%.\nTal-bot’s consecutive shutouts in Games Two and Three were the second in Oilers’ history, with only Curtis Joseph previously managing this feat vs. Colorado back in 1998.\nI chose these six statistical categories based on other criteria, but a quick review after the fact shows each of our “six stars” of the podcast leading one of them. A case where the numbers support what the eye sees.\nRecently at the Cult of Hockey\nLEAVINS: Game 3 player grades — Talbot leads staunch defensive effort\nSTAPLES: Game 3 podcast — McLellan’s line shuffle keys 1-0 win\nMcCURDY: Which one, or both, of these teams will show for Game 3\nSTAPLES: Sharks can’t let Oilers to run them, says team insider\nLEAVINS: Oilers re-call Griffin Reinhart\nFollow me on Twitter @BruceMcCurdy", "None\nFoster Loyer of Clarkston High School, third from left poses for a photograph with his family, from left father John Loyer, brother Fletcher Loyer and mother Katie Loyer after receiving the 38th annual Hal Schram Mr. Basketball award given by the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan in Detroit on Monday, March 19, 2018. Romain Blanquart, Detroit Free Press", "Seattle Times reader Rohit Agarwal’s from-the-ground-up photo of hoop shots on a sunny day in Redmond.\nPhotographer: Rohit Agarwal, Redmond\nPhoto taken: May 21, Cascara Park, Redmond Ridge\nPhotographer’s description: “My son loves basketball and he was shooting accurate hoops one after the other on this gorgeous sunny day. I wanted to capture a memory and decided to literally lie low to get a different angle.”\nJUNE PHOTO CONTEST ‘Festival Focus’ We’re looking for a fun photo from a summer festival (or parade, or sack race, etc.) for this month’s reader-photo contest. Find the most flamboyant marcher in the Fremont Solstice Parade or the highest-flying cyclist at the Evergreen Mountain Bike Festival. You name it. Send us your best recent “Festival Focus” photo and we’ll choose a favorite to spotlight in The Seattle Times’ Reader’s Lens feature at month’s end. A Canon photo bag goes to the winning photographer. Submit by end of the day Sunday, June 25, to seattletimes.com/submit-photos.\nKatie’s critique: “I love that the photographer chose to get on the ground for a different angle. The result: a clean background and a totally different photo from what we normally see — it’s abstract and fun. Also, this was taken on an iPhone, which shows anyone can make fun and different photos if they just think creatively — gear shouldn’t hold anyone back.”\n— Katie G. Cotterill, Seattle Times photo staff", "Andrew Smith (1) takes a shot against Centerville High School over the weekend as the Panthers traveled to Ohio for three games. Scott Gaab For the Progress", "Matt Lorman scored 18 points and Kyle Cassarino drilled four free throws in overtime as the Rutland Boys Basketball team claimed its first state title since 1967 with a 43-37 win over CVU Monday night at Patrick Gym.\nIt was rough going offensively for the Raiders early on. The team missed its first nine field goal attempts before Lorman finally got them on the board with two layups in the last minute of the first.\nDespite shooting just 34.9% from the field, Rutland never trailed by more than four points. Noah Tyson had five steals for the Raiders and Nathaniel Kingsley added two blocks to limit the Redhawk offense.\nIt looked like Rutland would pull away as they built a seven-point lead in the fourth after an old fashioned three-point play by Tyrell Johnson with under six minutes to go, but CVU battled back. Josh Bliss hit a three with contact and added a layup to tie the game at 35 and force overtime.\nIn the extra frame, Cassarino was called upon to win the game for the Raiders at the line and he delivered by converting four of four free throws. In the end, Rutland held on to win it 43-37 and claim their first basketball state championship in fifty years.\n\"It feels incredible,\" said Cassarino. \"Obviously we knew about the fifty-year drought,but we wanted to make our own legacy and I think we did that tonight.\"\n\"It's absolutely unbelievable,\" added Lorman. \"We worked so hard all season and it's just great to win it in the end. We've got a bunch of great players here. When we all work together, it's something really special.\"", "Should the Miami Heat consider trading for Kevin Love this summer?\nWhen the 2018 NBA offseason started, the Cleveland Cavaliers made it clear that they have no plan to rebuild the team whether LeBron James leaves the team as unrestricted free agent or not. The Cavaliers also said they intended to keep Kevin Love and surround him with players that could keep them competitive in the Eastern Conference.\nHowever, after LeBron James agreed to join the Los Angeles Lakers, rumors started to circulate that the Cavaliers are now open to move Kevin Love, according to Jason Lloyd of The Athletic.\n“They’re certainly no longer championship contenders. Despite insistence from the organization that they are not interested in trading Love, multiple sources from around the league insist they are indeed open to moving him. It makes perfect sense to deal him now.”\nIf Kevin Love officially becomes available on the trading block, one of the NBA teams who is expected to express interest in adding him to their team is the Miami Heat, per SB Nation’s Hot Hot Hoops. After LeBron James headed to the Western Conference, the Heat finally has the chance to rule the Eastern Conference once again. However, they obviously need an additional star power on their roster in order to beat teams like the Boston Celtics, Toronto Raptors, and the Philadelphia 76ers in a best-of-seven series.\nKevin Love is no longer the player that once became the face of the franchise of the Minnesota Timberwolves, but he could still be a reliable contributor for the Heat, especially on the offensive end of the floor. He will have no problem sharing the frontcourt with other Heat big men like Hassan Whiteside, Bam Abedayo, and Kelly Olynyk since he can play both center and power forward. Love will also give the Heat an incredible rebounder who has the ability to space the floor.\nIn 59 games he played last season, the 29-year-old power forward averaged 17.6 points and 9.3 rebounds on 45.8 percent shooting from the field and 41.5 percent from beyond the arc. As SB Nation’s Hot Hot Hoops noted, playing in a new environment where he no longer needs to sacrifice his game could help Love revive “Minnesota Kevin.”\nTo acquire him from the Cavaliers, SB Nation’s Hot Hot Hoops suggested that the Heat could send a trade package including Justise Winslow, Dion Waiters, James Johnson, and a 2019 first-round pick. The proposed trade deal works on ESPN’s NBA Trade Machine. The trade will not only benefit the Heat but also the Cavaliers.\nJustise Winslow could be part of the Cavaliers’ long-term plan. He will be joining other young players like Collin Sexton, Jordan Clarkson, Cedi Osman, Larry Nance Jr., and Ante Zizic in Cleveland. If they manage to build a good chemistry in the next couple of years, there is strong possibility that the Cavaliers could once again become a significant team in the Eastern Conference." ]

[ "Laurie Metcalf Metcalf is perhaps best known for her role as \"Jackie\", the multiple-careered, low self-esteemed, amiable sister of the title character in the hit series Roseanne. Her performance garnered her three consecutive Emmy Awards. Roseanne ran from 1988 to 1997, and Metcalf appeared as Jackie over the show's entire run.[45]" ]

[ "List of Roseanne characters Harris Conner-Healy is portrayed by Emma Kenney. The elder of Darlene's two children, Harris is a teenager who possesses her mother and grandmother's sarcasm and bears a strong physical resemblance to Darlene. Having grown up in Chicago, Harris is less than thrilled about moving to Lanford and is resentful towards her mother and hostile towards her family members. As Harris continuously shows herself to be indifferent to the needs of others in the home, Roseanne does what Darlene hasn't done; she confronts Harris about her rude and discourteous behavior. Though Darlene is initially upset by the confrontation between her daughter and her mother, she accepts Roseanne's actions as justified when she discovers that Harris, left to make her own decisions, has been selling stolen goods on Etsy in an effort to raise money to move back to Chicago. While Darlene is sympathetic to Harris's unhappiness, she exerts more control over her daughter's life, grounding her and demanding passwords to all of her social media accounts.", "List of Roseanne characters Played by Johnny Galecki. David is Mark's younger brother; he first appeared in \"The Bowling Show\" (episode 4.14) when his first name was indicated to be Kevin. In a season 6 episode Roseanne comments that David isn't his real name, it's just something that Darlene made up. So it's possible that Kevin really is his name although everyone including his own family call him David and Roseanne might not have been serious. Whereas Mark was a rebellious delinquent at first, David is friendlier to the Conners. He's shy, polite, thoughtful, sensitive, soft-spoken, artistic, and intelligent. He later enters a relationship with Darlene and collaborates with her by illustrating graphic novels that she writes, though he tends to be the more submissive one in the relationship. His well-behaved manner is endearing to the Conner family, who think of him as part of the family and jokingly refer to him as being more welcome in the family than Darlene. He moves in with the Conners after Roseanne, herself a victim of child abuse, sees how abusive David's mother is to him. David and Darlene break up three times throughout the course of the show, each for a longer period of time than the last; they always end up back together. Eventually, David impregnates Darlene; causing them to decide to get married. In the series finale, Roseanne reveals that David had actually been dating Becky in \"real life,\" and that Roseanne simply wrote his relationship as being with Darlene because she felt it made more sense.", "Johnny Galecki Galecki plays Leonard Hofstadter in the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory, which debuted September 24, 2007. He was originally asked to play the role of Sheldon Cooper, but he said he was better suited for the role of Leonard Hofstadter, and Sheldon's role was eventually given to Jim Parsons. During his role as David Healy on Roseanne, Sara Gilbert played his longtime girlfriend and later wife, Darlene Conner. She has appeared as Leslie Winkle, a colleague in the Big Bang Theory. Laurie Metcalf, who portrayed Roseanne's sister Jackie Harris, has appeared as Mary Cooper, mother of Leonard's roommate, Sheldon. Galecki is a cellist, a talent which has been used on the show. As of August 2013, Galecki and his Big Bang costars Kaley Cuoco and Jim Parsons each earned US$325,000 per episode.[11] As of August 2014, the three costars will earn US$1 million per episode.[12]", "Sara Gilbert Sara Gilbert (born Sara Rebecca Abeles; January 29, 1975) is an American actress, best known for her role as Darlene Conner on the ABC sitcom Roseanne from 1988 to 1997, for which she received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations. Gilbert will reprise the role in 2018 for an eight episode revival.[1] She is also co-host and creator of the CBS daytime talk show The Talk and has had a recurring role as Leslie Winkle on CBS's The Big Bang Theory.", "List of Roseanne characters David Jacob \"D.J.\" Conner is played by Michael Fishman (Sal Barone in the pilot episode).[23] Born in 1981, David, better known by his initials D.J., was the youngest of Roseanne and Dan's children and their only son until the birth of Jerry Conner, in 1995. D.J. is more simple-minded, naive, and boisterous than his older sisters, who frequently taunt him. In the first episode of season three, it is stated that while Becky and Darlene were planned pregnancies, D.J. was a \"surprise\". As he grows up, D.J.'s storylines deal with more mature topics such as masturbation and human sexuality. Later episodes depict D.J. as having a close, brother-like friendship with Becky's husband Mark. He is also shown to develop an interest in filmmaking: he repeatedly asks Darlene if he can videotape her giving birth. He was one of the only characters that wasn't changed in the final episode of Season 9, which has since been ret-conned out of existence.", "Emma Kenney Emma Rose Kenney (born September 14, 1999) is an American actress, best known for her portrayal of Debbie Gallagher on Shameless, a role she has held since 2011. Kenney played Harris Conner-Healy in the revival of the '80s/'90s family sitcom Roseanne.[1]", "Rondi Reed She appeared in the Seinfeld episode \"The Kiss Hello\" (originally aired on February 16, 1995). She starred on the CBS sitcom Mike & Molly, as Peggy Biggs, Mike's mother. She also appeared on Roseanne as Jackie's therapist.", "Estelle Parsons She worked extensively in film and theatre during the 1970s and later directed several Broadway productions. More recently her television work included playing Beverly Harris, mother of the eponymous title character, on the sitcom Roseanne. She has been nominated five times for the Tony Award (four times for Lead Actress of a Play and once for Featured Actress). In 2004, Parsons was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.", "Laurie Metcalf Metcalf began her career with the Steppenwolf Theater Company and frequently works in Chicago theater, including the 1983 revival of Balm in Gilead. From 1988 to 1997 and in 2018, Metcalf played the role of Jackie Harris on the ABC sitcom Roseanne, for which she won three Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series (1992–1994). She also was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards. A ten-time Emmy Award nominee, Metcalf's television credits include 3rd Rock from the Sun, The Norm Show, Frasier, Desperate Housewives, and The Big Bang Theory. From 2013 to 2015, she played a leading role of Dr. Jenna James in the HBO comedy series Getting On, for which she received critical acclaim and a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.[1]", "Lisa Robin Kelly Kelly played Laurie Forman, the older sister of Eric Forman, on That '70s Show. She abruptly left the show midway through the third season, and her character was written out of the show to \"attend beauty school\". She returned to the show in the fifth season for four episodes but was replaced with Christina Moore in the sixth season. In an interview with ABC News, she admitted that \"with That '70s Show I was guilty of a drinking problem, and I ran\", blaming her alcoholism on the loss of a baby.[4]", "A Different World Producer/director Debbie Allen is the real-life sister of Phylicia Rashad. Allen made one guest appearance on The Cosby Show, playing an aggressive aerobics instructor who helps Clair slim down for a special occasion. Allen appeared in later seasons in a recurring role as Whitley's psychiatrist. Dwayne and Whitley also visited the Huxtable home in an episode featuring the revelation that Denise had married and would not return to Hillman.", "Roseanne The Conners win the state lottery jackpot of $108 million; Dan ponders the meaning of life, Jackie meets her prince, DJ finds love, and Darlene, after some trouble, gives birth. John Goodman is absent for most of the season, as he was busy filming The Big Lebowski; in later episodes, Goodman resembles his \"Lebowski\" character Walter Sobchak.", "Roseanne ABC reversed its renewal decision and canceled Roseanne on May 29, 2018 after Barr made racist comments on Twitter in which she likened former Obama administration official Valerie Jarrett to an ape, described by the network's president as being \"abhorrent, repugnant, and inconsistent with our values\".[6][7][8][9][10][11] As of June 15, 2018, ABC is in talks to re-tool the show as a Darlene-centered spin-off.[12][13][14]", "Sarah Chalke Chalke's acting career began at age eight when she began appearing in musical theater productions. At 12, she became a reporter on the Canadian children's show KidZone.[1] In 1993, she took over the role of Rebecca Conner-Healy on Roseanne after Lecy Goranson left the series; Chalke made a cameo appearance as a different character in the Roseanne episode \"Halloween: The Final Chapter\" (#178, originally aired October 31, 1995) after Goranson returned. Chalke later returned to the role of Becky after Goranson departed for a second time. After the show ended, Chalke returned briefly to Canada, where she starred in the CBC Television drama Nothing Too Good for a Cowboy (1998–1999).", "List of Blue Bloods characters She has an older sister, Wendy (Laurie Williams), and a niece, Sofie, who is a fashion model.[54] She has a brother, Jimmy O'Shea (Kevin Dillon), who has been in and out of trouble with the law.[55]", "Roseanne On June 21, 2018, it was announced that ABC had officially ordered a 10-episode spin-off tentatively titled The Conners, and that it would involve every original cast member except Barr. On August 28, 2018, it was announced by Michael Ausiello of TVline that Emma Kenney, Ames McNamara, and Jayden Rey would all return for the spinoff.[105] Other recurring characters have not been confirmed as of yet.[106] The series is set to premiere on October 16, 2018.[107]", "Olivia d'Abo Olivia Jane d'Abo (/ˈdɑːboʊ/; born 22 January 1969)[1] is an English-American actress, singer and songwriter. She is known for her role as Karen Arnold, Kevin Arnold's rebellious teenage hippie sister on The Wonder Years (1988–93), and recurring villain Nicole Wallace in Law & Order: Criminal Intent.", "Sarah Chalke Sarah Chalke (/tʃɔːk/; born August 27, 1976) is a Canadian-American actress. She is known for portraying Dr. Elliot Reid on the NBC/ABC comedy series Scrubs, the second Rebecca \"Becky\" Conner and Andrea on the ABC sitcom Roseanne, Stella Zinman on the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, and Beth Smith on Adult Swim's adult animated science-fiction series Rick and Morty. She also had a recurring role on the third season of the ABC/TBS sitcom Cougar Town.", "Lucy Lee Flippin She is best known for her performance as Eliza Jane Wilder on the TV series Little House on the Prairie.[1] She also played Fran Castleberry, the younger sister of Polly Holliday's character on the show Flo.[1] Since Little House on the Prairie stopped production, she has appeared in many different television shows and movies, and has performed onstage at Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles.[2][3] In 1988, she appeared in one episode of The Golden Girls.", "List of Roseanne characters Jackie is an intelligent, warm, highly sensitive underachiever with chronic low self-esteem. Roseanne seems to be in charge of Jackie's life, which is a frequent cause of conflict between the two; however, Jackie sometimes enjoys having Roseanne mother her, especially when Jackie feels vulnerable. Jackie's character seems to become more animated and colorful as the series progresses.[19] Jackie holds numerous jobs: working in the Wellman Plastics factory for several years until the walkout, then becoming a police officer until she is injured on the job, and later a truck driver, then opening the Lanford Lunch Box with Roseanne and Nancy (her mother is a silent partner).[20][21] Jackie often comes up with seemingly off-the-wall \"crazy\" ideas, but it turns out that many of her unconventional ideas actually work. Her romantic relationships are frequently unstable, including one where she dates a man named Fisher and becomes the victim of domestic violence. However, she eventually marries Dan's co-worker Fred, who impregnated her during a one-night stand. Jackie gives birth to their son, Andy, two months before she marries Fred.", "Gilligan's Island Filming of the show took place at the CBS Radford Studios complex in Studio City, Los Angeles.[10] The same stage was later used for The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Roseanne, which featured Gilligan's Island prominently on one episode. The lagoon was drained and used as a parking lot during the show's off-season and was the last surviving element of the show when it was demolished in 1997 as part of an expansion project.[11]", "List of Roseanne episodes On May 16, 2017, it was announced ABC would produce an eight-episode 10th season revival of the series, set to air as a mid-season replacement in 2018, with the original cast returning. In November 2017, it was announced that ABC had ordered an additional episode for the new season bringing the total up to 9.[2][3] The tenth season debuted on March 27, 2018.[4] As of May 22, 2018,[update] 231 episodes of Roseanne have aired, concluding the tenth season. On March 30, 2018, the series was renewed for an eleventh season of 13 episodes by ABC,[5] but was canceled on May 29, 2018 due to a racist joke made by Roseanne on Twitter about Obama aide Valerie Jarrett.[6]", "Marla Sokoloff Sokoloff began acting at age 12 when she was cast as Gia Mahan, Stephanie Tanner's archenemy-turned best friend in the sitcom Full House. In 1998, Sokoloff landed her most notable role as she was cast as the receptionist Lucy Hatcher in The Practice. Along with other popular appearances, she is well-remembered as Joey's pregnant sister, Dina, in season 8 of Friends. Sokoloff also had a three-episode stint as a nanny in Desperate Housewives.", "Deon Richmond Deon Richmond (born April 2, 1978)[2] is an American actor from New York City. Richmond is best known for his recurring roles as Rudy Huxtable's friend Kenny (nicknamed \"Bud\") on the NBC sitcom The Cosby Show and Jordan Bennett on the ABC/The WB sitcom Sister, Sister[3]", "Erin Murphy Erin Margaret Murphy (born June 17, 1964) is an American actress who is known for her role as young Tabitha Stephens in the television sitcom Bewitched, in 103 episodes from the show's third season (in 1966) to the last original episode in 1972. For the first season, she shared this role with her fraternal twin sister, Diane, as they were of similar appearance and stature. As they got older and looked less alike, Erin played the role solely.", "Christina Applegate Applegate guest-starred on two episodes of Friends, in the ninth (2002) and tenth (2003) seasons, titled \"The One with Rachel's Other Sister\" and \"The One Where Rachel's Sister Babysits\" as Amy Green, Rachel Green's (Jennifer Aniston) sister. She won the Primetime Emmy Award[8] for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series her performance in \"The One with Rachel's Other Sister.\" On the silver screen, she portrayed TV anchorwoman Veronica Corningstone in the 2004 films Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and the bonus film Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie (an alternative film comprising alternate takes and deleted scenes and story elements).", "Sarah Walker (Brothers & Sisters) Sarah Louise Walker Laurent (formerly Whedon) is a fictional character on the ABC television drama Brothers & Sisters. She is portrayed by actress Rachel Griffiths.", "Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush Rachel Lindsay Rene Bush and Sidney Robyn[1] Danae Bush (born May 25, 1970, Los Angeles) are former child actresses, best known for their combined (alternating) role as Carrie Ingalls, in the drama series Little House on the Prairie. They are identical twin sisters, born to actor Billy \"Green\" Bush and Carole Kay Bush. Their older brother, Clay, is also an actor. Their shared character's younger sister Grace Ingalls was played by Wendi and Brenda Turnbaugh.[2]", "Julie Kavner Julie Deborah Kavner (born September 7, 1950) is an American actress, voice actress, and comedian. She first attracted notice for her role as Valerie Harper's character's younger sister Brenda in the sitcom Rhoda for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. She is best known for her voice role as Marge Simpson on the animated television series The Simpsons. She also voices other characters for the show, including Jacqueline Bouvier, and Patty and Selma Bouvier.", "Bailee Madison Bailee Madison (born October 15, 1999) is an American actress. She is known for her role as May Belle Aarons, the younger sister of Jess Aarons in Bridge to Terabithia (2007) and Maryalice in Merry Christmas Drake & Josh. She is also known for playing Maxine, Alex and Justin's brother Max turned into a girl in Wizards of Waverly Place. She is also known as the younger version of Snow White in the ABC fantasy drama Once Upon a Time and as Grace Russell on the Hallmark Channel series Good Witch. Other notable works of hers include the horror film Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, Maggie in Just Go with It, Sophia Quinn in the tv series The Fosters, and Harper Simmons in Parental Guidance", "Johnny Galecki John Mark Galecki (born April 30, 1975)[1] is an American actor. He is known for playing David Healy in the ABC sitcom Roseanne from 1992–1997 and Dr. Leonard Hofstadter in the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory since 2007. Galecki also appeared in the films National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989), Prancer (1989), Suicide Kings (1997), I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), Bookies (2003), and In Time (2011).", "Look Who's Talking Now David Gallagher and Tabitha Lupien portray Mikey and Julie respectively. Unlike the previous films, it does not feature the voiceover talents of Bruce Willis, Roseanne Barr, Damon Wayans, Joan Rivers, or Mel Brooks as their interior monologues; rather, Danny DeVito and Diane Keaton provide voiceover roles for their newly acquired dogs, Rocks and Daphne, respectively, and it focuses more on their life." ]

[ "UPDATE 3-Nestle takes food price rises in its stride\nZURICH, Aug 9 Nestle expects pressure from the rising price of ingredients for its products such as chocolate bars, coffee and soup to ease, helping it meet its target for increasing sales despite tough markets." ]

[ "The quarter\nSales were SEK 14,442 (12,499) million\nOperating profit before depreciation/amortization was SEK 1,066 (134) million\nOperating profit/loss was SEK 107 (-878) million\nThe result after financial items was SEK -139 (-1,127) million\nEarnings per share were SEK 0.07 (-0.88)\nOperating cash flow was SEK 1,053 (1,788) million\nThe full year\nSales were SEK 55,354 (56,864) million\nOperating profit before depreciation/amortization was SEK 4,951 (3,593) million\nOperating profit/loss was SEK 1,213 (-243) million\nThe result after financial items was SEK 324 (-1,171) million\nEarnings per share were SEK 1.04 (-0.66)\nOperating cash flow was SEK 3,207 (3,874) million\nThe Board proposes that no dividend will be paid for 2016\nComments by the CEO\nSSAB posted a full year operating profit of SEK 1,213 million, up by SEK 1,456 million compared with full year 2015. Improved earnings were driven primarily by the cost reduction program, including synergies from the acquisition of Rautaruukki. Cost reductions were achieved faster than planned and amount to a full annual run rate of SEK 3 billion. Higher volumes and better capacity utilization also contributed to improved earnings for the full year. Our strategic growth initiatives in SSAB Special Steels and Automotive resulted in increased volumes and we continued launching new products at a high pace.\nOperating profit for the fourth quarter of 2016 was SEK 107 million, down by SEK 600 million compared with the third quarter of 2016. This was largely attributable to SSAB Special Steels, where there was a scheduled maintenance outage in Oxelösund and a production breakdown occurring when restarting the rolling mill in Oxelösund after the outage. The production breakdown was related to a faulty design in the newly installed control system resulting in damaged transformers. The rolling mill is up and running since the beginning of February and discussions have been initiated with the insurance company regarding potential compensation. Lower prices and lower margins in North America also impacted negatively on the fourth quarter.\nGlobal demand for high-strength steel remained stable during the fourth quarter. SSAB Special Steels’ shipments for the full year were up by 8% at 1 million tonnes. SSAB Special Steels is growing structurally in the market as a result of customers’ needs for increasingly lighter and stronger products.\nFor SSAB Europe, underlying demand was stable. Market prices rose during the quarter and realized prices for SSAB Europe improved. Import restrictions on Chinese steel have resulted in lower imports and better pricing in Europe.\nIn North America the fourth quarter was adversely affected by lower realized prices. Market prices, however, rose during the quarter, which is expected to impact positively on SSAB’s realized prices and margins from the first quarter of 2017 onwards.\nSSAB aims to reduce net debt by SEK 10 billion between the start of the first quarter of 2016 and the end of 2017. The rights issue during the second quarter of 2016 raised SEK 4.9 billion net and the net cash flow during the second, third and fourth quarters amounted to approximately SEK 2.2 billion. The remaining amount will be achieved through cash flow generated from operations, a structural reduction in working capital and through possible divestment of non-core assets.\nThe integration between SSAB and Rautaruukki has been completed and the cost reduction program has ended, which resulted in savings of over SEK 3.0 billion and a reduction of over 2,500 employees. Together with our improved financial position, we have created a platform to continue to execute our “Taking the Lead” strategy with the goal to reach industry-leading profitability. We will do this by continuing to drive efficiency through continuous improvement in all our operations, by driving growth within chosen initiatives and by increased focus on the aftermarket. Against this background, I am convinced that we will continue to strengthen our position during 2017.\nInvitation to SSAB’s year-end report 2016 results briefing\nSSAB invites you to a presentation of the year-end report 2016 at 09.30am CET on Wednesday February 15, 2017.\nThe press conference will be held in English and webcast live on www.ssab.com. It is also possible to participate in the briefing via telephone.\nVenue and time of briefing: World Trade Center (WTC) Stockholm, Kungsbron 1, Conference room Manhattan, 09.30am CET.\nTelephone numbers:\n+46 8 505 564 74 (Sweden),\n+44 203 364 5374 (UK),\n+1 855 753 2230 (USA).\nLink to webcast: Go to webcast\n*Automotive World is not responsible for the content of this news release." ]

[ "Ever since Hillary Clinton launched a TV ad last week asking voters who they'd want to answer the \"red phone\" in the event of an international crisis, national security has been back at the center of her contest with Barack Obama. Obama countered Clinton had already failed such a \"red phone\" test when she voted to support the Iraq war in 2002. And in a news conference on his campaign plane he questioned her claim that her time and extensive global travels as first lady count as meaningful experience in foreign policy. \"One of the things I hope people start asking is what exactly is this foreign experience she keeps claiming,\" he said. \"I know she talks about visiting 80 countries. It's not clear: Was she negotiating treaties or agreements or was she handling crises during this period of time. My sense is the answer's no.\" On her side of the ledge, Clinton offers this: \"I don't talk about the conversations that I had with my husband in the White House.\" It's a coy reply, citing a certain need for confidentiality. But then she adds: \"But obviously I was there for a lot of phone calls at different times of the day and night, and I have a very clear idea of what it takes to be prepared and ready to not only answer the phone, but to then make the decisions that are required depending on what the crisis is.\" Each campaign has trotted out high-profile surrogates to press the case on the issue. Clinton appeared with several retired generals endorsing her credentials as commander in chief. Obama supporters have their doubts, as did former Sen. Bill Bradley on PBS's NewsHour. \"I mean, the role of a first lady is very important, I don't doubt that and I think in certain diplomatic situations she was helpful,\" he said, \"but in terms of being a person ready to go with the so-called red phone at the bedside on Day One is just incorrect given what the whole facts are.\" The debate has not just been between the Democrats. \"Can I just say, please keep running those 3 a.m. phone call ads about who you want to answer the phone because we, um, we like those,\" McCain's foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann said at an event sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations on Friday. McCain cites his military experience, time as a POW in Vietnam, and 21 years as a U.S. senator. \"I'm certainly the most experienced and qualified to answer that phone,\" he said. But for voters trying to sort this out, there's no obvious answer, says Robert Dallek, biographer of presidents such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Ronald Reagan. For starters, Dallek says, history shows it's impossible to know how a prospective president will react to crisis before taking office. \"What are the conditions that they're facing? What exactly is that moment in time like? Nobody can know,\" he says. \"Nobody can predict with any certainty.\" He points to Kennedy's military experience and extensive world travel, which didn't prevent the Bay of Pigs blunder. And there's the example of Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam. Dallek says history will judge how the next president responds to his or her first crisis. Voters, however, have to make their decision first. MELISSA BLOCK, host: Ever since Hillary Clinton launched a TV ad asking voters whom they want to answer the phone in the event of an international crisis, national security has been at the center for contest with Barack Obama. Of course, it's also an issue that interests John McCain whom one of them will face in November. NPR's Don Gonyea looks at the qualification question and how each campaign is trying to find an advantage. DON GONYEA: By now, you've all heard the Clinton campaign ad… (Soundbite of campaign ad) Unidentified Man: It's 3:00 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep. But there's a phone in the White House and it's ringing. GONYEA: Since the ad's debut last week, the back and forth on the issue has been nonstop. Senator Obama countered that Senator Clinton had already failed such a red phone test when she voted to support the Iraq War in 2002. And in a news conference on his campaign plane, he questioned her claim that her time and extensive global travels as first lady count as meaningful experience in foreign policy. Senator BARACK OBAMA (Democrat, Illinois; Presidential Candidate): One thing is that, you know, I hope people start asking is what exactly is this foreign experience that she's claiming. And I know she talks about visiting 80 countries. It's not clear, you know, was she negotiating treaties or agreements or was she handling crises during this period of time. My sense is, the answer's no. GONYEA: On her side of the ledger, Senator Clinton offers this. Sen. CLINTON: I don't talk about the conversations that I had with my husband in the White House. GONYEA: It's a coy reply citing a certain need for confidentiality before she adds… Sen. CLINTON: But obviously, I was there for a lot of phone calls at different times of the day and night." ]

[ "Janet Guthrie made history 41 years ago when she became the first woman to compete in the Indianapolis 500, paving the way for drivers such as Danica Patrick, who'll mark her last run in the race on Sunday. For Guthrie, who had been a trained physicist and an aerospace engineer, the biggest moment of her life came not on the track that race day in 1977, but when she qualified the weekend before and sealed her spot among the 33 drivers in the race-day lineup. On that hot, dry May Sunday, nothing seemed to be going right. As she attempted her qualifying run, breaking the Indy 500's gender barrier was hardly top of mind. \"As far as I was concerned I wasn't a 'woman driver,' I was just a driver,\" Guthrie, now 80, tells NPR. For Guthrie, there was more pressing concern: engine trouble. She had hit the wall while on the track during practice at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway earlier in the month, and the collision left her car crumpled. Her team got it back roaring in time for the very last day of qualifying, but there were still lingering issues. \"In practice that morning, the engine had started making bad noises. I thought it might be the timing chains,\" she says. So Guthrie opted to start her four-lap qualifying run after only a short warm up. \"I said, 'We don't have a lap to spare' because I knew engines and the noises I was hearing meant that the engine could come unglued at any moment,\" she says. \"The Longest 3-odd Minutes\" Guthrie had hoped to qualify the prior year. At her 1976 Indy 500 debut, she had broken yet another barrier: she was the first woman to drive around the Speedway in practice. She had mechanical problems that year though, and didn't qualify. She faced serious backlash from her male competitors and intense scrutiny from the media. Speaking to All Things Considered host Melissa Block in 2010, when four women competed in the Indianapolis 500, Guthrie says back in 1976, men were not shy about sharing their opinion that women shouldn't race: \"The general idea was women don't have the strength, the endurance, the emotional stability, women are going to endanger our lives. And you could read that on the newspapers most every day.\" But at the Speedway in 1977, Guthrie tells Block, the hostility toward her had died down: \"The only way to deal with that was on the racetrack. There was no other way to do it. The guys just had to get the experience of driving against me and then, as I say, things changed. You could call it cognitive dissonance. If the guys were saying this driver is a female and therefore, she is no good, and then the no-good driver blows your doors off, you have to change your position a little.\" On her return to the Speedway in 1977, it was Guthrie who had the fastest speed of any driver during practice on opening day — but that was before the collision with the wall and the engine problems. She was first up on the last day of qualifying. For Indy 500 time trials, race car drivers compete one at a time on the track — just them against the clock for four laps around the 2.5-mile oval. The qualifying time is the average of the four laps. For Guthrie's time trial, her car felt twitchy and her oil pressure gauge fluctuated wildly. Coming out of the last turn into the straightaway toward the finish line, she remembers she pushed hard on the accelerator — and hoped the engine wouldn't blow up. She says she looked at the oil gauge. It read \"0.\" \"I'll tell you, those four laps of qualifying for Indianapolis are the longest three-odd minutes in the world,\" she says. \"I don't think I breathed between there and the checkered flag and I knew I was in the field for the Indianapolis 500.\" Her average speed: 188 miles per hour. \"During the qualifying run you're just intensely focused on what the car is doing, how you can get through each turn, just a little bit faster. Your focus is very narrow. Once you've gone under the checkered flag and it's done, your vision sort of opens up. It takes in the green grass, the trees, the clouds,\" she says. \"On the cool down lap ... I was thinking 'I did it. We're in the field.' \" And at that point, she says, she absorbed the significance of the moment. \"It was such a big deal 40 years ago. It's hard to imagine now, but the general idea was if a woman can put a car in the field for the Indianapolis 500, then women can do anything – which was rather a revolutionary thought at that time,\" she says. So revolutionary, in fact, that it required a change to the announcer's familiar pre-race prompt to drivers. \"In company with the first lady ever to qualify at Indianapolis,\" announcer and Speedway owner Tony Hulman told them, \"gentlemen, start your engines!\"", "Turkish authorities rounded up some 1,300 migrants on Monday whom they said were planning to sail to Greece. The crackdown came a day after Turkey reached an agreement with the leaders from the European Union to stem the flow of migrants. Under the terms of the deal, the E.U. will provide three billion euros, or $3.2 billion dollars, in aid for the approximately 2.2 million Syrian refugees in Turkey. In addition, Turkish citizens could be allowed to travel visa-free in Europe as early as October 2016. And talks on Turkey potentially joining the European Union will be restarted. In return, Europe wants Turkish coast guards to intercept more migrants at sea. E.U. leaders also want to impose more order on the migration process, by having potential migrants interviewed in Turkey to see if they qualify for asylum status. And they want those already in Europe who are deemed not to qualify for refugee protections to be quickly returned to Turkey. It is unclear to what extent Turkey can significantly cut down on the migrant flows to Europe. According to estimates from the the International Migration Organization, the number of migrants arriving by sea has reached 750,000 this year. Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu cautioned after the deal was announced that the crisis would continue until the Syrian civil war abated.", "Rafa Marquez scored a tiebreaking goal on a header in the 89th minute, giving Mexico a 2-1 win Friday night, and its first road victory against the United States in World Cup qualifying since 1972. Miguel Layun put Mexico ahead in the 20th minute in the opener of the final round of qualifying in North and Central America and the Caribbean, but Bobby Wood tied the score in the 49th. The U.S. dominated the second half before the 37-year-old Marquez, unmarked and drifting across the penalty area at the near post, got the back of his head on Layun's corner kick. The Mexican captain lifted the ball over goalkeeper Brad Guzan for his 17th international goal. \"It gets a sense of anger in us. It gets a sense of absolutely urgency,\" U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann said. \"It's not a problem, but it's obviously disappointing.\" The U.S. had beaten Mexico four straight times by 2-0 scores in home qualifiers — all at Columbus — and Marquez had gotten two yellow cards and a red in those matches. The Americans had been 30-0-2 at home in qualifying since a 3-2 loss to Honduras at Washington's RFK Stadium in September 2001. A pro-American crowd of 24,650 chanted \"Dos a cero!\" at the start, but Mexican supporters yelled \"Dos a uno!\" as they left. Mexico's previous win at the U.S. in qualifying was also by a 2-1 score, at Los Angeles. \"I think we deserved this match,\" Layun said. \"We were focused.\" Klinsmann said John Brooks was supposed to mark Marquez on the corner kick. \"We lost him there. Individual mistake,\" Klinsmann said. Guzan had lost the U.S. goalkeeper job to Tim Howard, who started at the past two World Cups — but Howard pulled a muscle in his right leg on a goal kick and was replaced in the 40th minute. The Americans play Tuesday at Costa Rica, where it never has won in qualifying, in the second of its 10 games in the round, and Klinsmann said Howard likely will miss the match. The top three teams in the six-nation round qualify for the World Cup, and the fourth-place country advances to an inter-region playoff. With the U.S. struggling early in what Klinsmann called a 3-4-3 formation, Mexico could have led 3-0. Howard tipped Jesus Corona's 10th-minute shot off a post and Carlos Vela's 25th-minute header hit a crossbar. \"Out midfielders didn't get into the one-on-one battles we expected them to,\" Klinsmann said, citing Jermaine Jones and Michael Bradley. Mexico went ahead after Bradley and Giovani dos Santos battled for the ball 30 yards out. The ball skipped to Layun, who took a touch, and his right-footed shot deflected off Timmy Chandler and in to Howard's left for his fourth international goal in 46 appearances. After switching to a more familiar 4-4-2 formation in the 27th minute, the Americans began to find their rhythm, and Wood scored off a pass from Jozy Altidore. Wood tied the score after John Brooks forced a turnover. Jozy Altidore turned his defender and passed to Wood, who took two touches as he split defenders. His 8-yard, left-footed shot deflected off a leg of Layun for his eighth goal in 28 international appearances. Wood also scored against Mexico last fall during an extra-time loss in the playoff for a berth in the 2017 Confederations Cup.", "Good morning! While you were sleeping, American Kimberly Rhode broke the Olympic record when she missed only one of 75 targets during the qualifying round of women's skeet shooting. (UPDATE at 9:20 a.m. ET. Rhode has won the gold.) As the AP puts it, it easily earned her a spot into the medal round and if she succeeds with a gold — which is looking probable — she could become the first \"American to win an individual-sport medal in five consecutive Olympics.\" RIA Novosti explains the Olympic record was set four years ago by Chiara Crainero of Italy who shot 72 of 75 targets. Rhode set the world record in march when she shot all 75 targets. \"I'm going through a lot of emotions right now, but the honor of representing my country is what it's really all about at this moment,\" Rhode told the AP. \"I think it's going to be incredible, whatever the outcome.\" Update at 9:33 a.m. ET. Winning Since 1996: There was no stopping Rhode with the way she was shooting, the AP says. With 99 points, she finished well ahead of silver medalist Wei Ning of China who scored 91 points. The AP gives us some background on Rhode's career and this astonishing feat: \"Rhode won a gold medal in double trap at Atlanta as a teenager in 1996, took bronze in that event four years later at Sydney, re-claimed the gold at Athens in 2004 and won the silver in skeet at Beijing in 2008.\" Today, she took reclaimed her gold. In other news: -- A day after beating fellow American Michael Phelps in the 400-meter free, Ryan Lochte was back in the pool today. He finished second to qualify for the 200-meter freestyle. \"I didn't get to bed until like 2 a.m. so I'm a little tired, but it was a prelims swim, so I'm not too worried about it,\" he told the AP. -- The International Olympic Committee has provisionally suspended Luiza Galiulina, an Uzbek gymnast. In a press release, the IOC said a first sample of urine Galiulina provided on July 25 tested positive furosemide. Once the a second sample is tested, the decision will be finalized. -- The United States women's soccer defeated Colombia 3-0, yesterday. Along the way, Abby Wambach received quite a shiner. She tweeted this picture of it earlier this morning: -- The AP reports on the early women gymnastics qualifiers: \"Italy leads after the early qualifying sessions in women's gymnastics, though it is sure to be a brief stay atop the standings with the United States, Russia, Romania and China still to come.\" -- Great Britain, the host country, has yet to win its first gold. The Guardian reports it may well come with swimmer Rebecca Adlington who had a good swim during qualifiers.", "TOKYO — U.S. superstar gymnast Simone Biles, the greatest gymnast of all time, will not compete in the individual all-around gymnastics final at the Summer Olympics on Thursday. The Olympic individual all-around is the sport's marquee individual event, and she won by a huge margin at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games. She pulled out of the team final on Tuesday, saying she needed to take care of her mental health. \"After further medical evaluation, Simone Biles has withdrawn from the final individual all-around competition,\" USA Gymnastics said in a statement. \"We wholeheartedly support Simone's decision and applaud her bravery in prioritizing her well-being,\" USA Gymnastics added. \"Her courage shows, yet again, why she is a role model for so many.\" Biles still may compete in the individual event finals — USA Gymnastics said she'd be evaluated every day to determine whether she'll take part. She qualified in all four of the events. Jade Carey, who came to Tokyo as an event specialist, will take Biles' place in the all-around individual event. Carey had an exceptionally strong showing at the qualifying event, placing ninth overall. Biles suddenly withdrew from the team event, citing mental health After a rocky opening vault at the team final on Tuesday night, Biles told her coaches that she wanted to bow out of the competition. \"I didn't want to go into any of the other events second-guessing myself,\" she told reporters later. \"I've just never felt like this going into a competition before,\" she said. \"I tried to go out here and have fun ... but once I came out here, I was like, 'no, mental is not there, so I just need to let the girls do it and focus on myself.'\" Her teammates rose to the challenge. Two of them — Sunisa Lee and Jordan Chiles — stepped in and competed in events they were not expecting to, earning a silver medal. The team members acknowledged that suddenly losing their biggest star was stressful, but they expressed total support for Biles. \"If it wasn't for her, we wouldn't be here right now. We wouldn't be silver Olympic medalists,\" Chiles said. Jade Carey will step in at the all-around event Carey, a 21-year-old from Arizona, didn't compete on Tuesday because she wasn't selected as a member of the four-person team. She came to Tokyo specializing in vault and floor exercise, qualifying for the Olympics by racking up enough points at the Apparatus World Cup Series. It was controversial in the gymnastics world when she did not make the four-person team. At the qualifier on Sunday, Carey had great scores in vault and floor to make it to the finals for the apparatuses. And a strong score in the uneven bars — 14.133 — was enough to put her into ninth place overall. On most teams, her total score would easily qualify her for the individual all-around final. But each team is allowed to send only two individuals. Biles placed first, and Lee was third overall. With Biles pulling out, Carey unexpectedly moves into the spotlight for the biggest event in women's individual gymnastics.", "Uzbekistan's Oksana Chusovitina became the first female gymnast to qualify for her seventh Olympics." ]

[ "To summarize, Socialism only deals with economics, not social issues, nor government systems. Fascism deals with economic platforms, social platforms, and a system of government. On the one system that they are both concerned with, which is economics, they disagree." ]

[ "Is the difference between a dictatorship and fascism? Fascism is a specific political ideology, much like conservatism, liberalism, socialism, etc. It is a set of beliefs and principles, political philosophy if you will. Dictatorship is a system of rule; much like an oligarchy, democracy, monarchy, etc.", "Marxism, communism and Socialism is where the Government owns everything for the people. The means of production are owned by the people, i.e. the Government. Fascism is an economic idea, not political. ... It is where the individual owned the means of production, but the Government told them what they would make.", "Fascism and communism are two variants of statism. Both are forms of dictatorship. Neither one recognizes individual rights nor permits individual freedom. The differences are non-essential: fascism is racial statism and communism is statism of economic class.", "1. Fascism is a term that was originally referred to the fascists of Italy under Mussolini. Nazism on the other hand, referred as National Socialism, is in an ideological concept of the Nazi Party.", "Fascism is collectivist, a form of socialism. More correctly, a style of socialism. Imperialism is the creation of an empire in which one State dominates others through superior military force. ... Imperialism is the creation of an empire in which one State dominates others through superior military force.", "Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society's economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners.", "Roger Eatwell defines fascism as \"an ideology that strives to forge social rebirth based on a holistic-national radical Third Way\", while Walter Laqueur sees the core tenets of fascism as \"self-evident: nationalism; Social Darwinism; racialism, the need for leadership, a new aristocracy, and obedience; and the negation ...", "Fascism opposed class conflict and the egalitarian and international character of mainstream socialism, but sometimes sought to establish itself as an alternative \"national\" socialism. It strongly opposed liberalism, communism, anarchism, and democratic socialism.", "Both are forms of dictatorship. Neither one recognizes individual rights nor permits individual freedom. The differences are non-essential: fascism is racial statism and communism is statism of economic class.", "What are the major differences between decentralized social and communism? Decentralized social is a work form of socialism and communism is a particularly strong form.", "What is the difference between social dynamics and social statics? Social dynamics is the study of change and social statics is the study of social stability and order.", "communism is based around a theory of economic equality, fascism is based around the glory of the state and strength displayed through violence and conquest. 2. communism has no leader, it is directed directly by the people. fascism has one charismatic leader has absolute authority.", "The main difference between capitalism and Socialism is the extent of government intervention ion the economy.", "In terms of production, what best describes the difference between capitalism and socialism? Capitalism is a system in which goods are made by private businesses, but socialism stresses government control over production. ... Supply and demand remained, and government took control of the means of production.", "Capitalism is an economic system in which the means to create wealth are privately controlled (as opposed to being owned by the state). ... Fascism is an ultra right-wing political system in which the state exercises complete control over economics and society.", "What is the difference between justice and social justice? Justice is giving others what they deserve, whereas social justice deals with the political and economic institutions of society.", "Capitalism is an economic system that is based on the freedom of the individual to engage in economic pursuits and own businesses operating in the marketplace. Fascism is an authoritarian socialist political system that allows for private ownership of business but that exercises state control over the economy.", "Neo-fascism is a post–World War II ideology that includes significant elements of fascism. ... Post-fascism is a label that has been applied to several European political parties that espouse a modified form of fascism and which partake in constitutional politics.", "What is the difference between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and social business? Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs are the philanthropic programs of companies. ... A social business is a company by itself which is dedicated to social impact-maximization.", "While communism is a system based around a theory of economic equality and advocates for a classless society, fascism is a nationalistic, top-down system with rigid class roles that is ruled by an all-powerful dictator.", "What is the difference between biological and social definitions of race? Biological: classification based on genetically inherited characteristics which is less than 1% Social: perceptions of differences between groups. ... Power and likelihood of experiencing discrimination based on race and ethnicity.", "Nationalism and socialism are ideologies that deal with different aspects of people's lives. Nationalism is a strong love of one's homeland. ... Socialism is a system where the people own the means of production, but the government heavily regulates it. Because these ideologies do not conflict, they can be mixed.", "What is the difference between a social structure and a social function? A social structure is a stable, routine-like pattern of interaction, and a social function is any act or process that contributes to the maintenance of a social system.", "Key Differences Between Communism and Socialism Under communism, there is no such thing as private property. All property is communally owned, and each person receives a portion based on what they need. ... By contrast, under socialism, individuals can still own property.", "What is the difference between kinship analysis and social network analysis? Kinship analysis looks at marriage and family ties, while social network analysis examines relationships throughout the community.", "What is the difference between a reference groups and social network? Social networks are webs of social relationships that join a person to other people and groups vicariously, while a reference group is a social group used for self-analysis.", "“What is the difference between the three economic system?” Capitalism is individual ownership of the means of production. ... Socialism is collective ownership of the means of production. The collective owns and allocates all resources based on centralized planning.", "There are many definitions of fascism; some people describe it as a type or set of political actions, a political philosophy or a mass movement. Most definitions agree that fascism is authoritarian and promotes nationalism at all costs, but its basic characteristics are a matter of debate.", "Italy retained it's king under Fascism. Fascism is a complete ideology, monarchism is more of a tenet of an ideology. ... So I'd say fascism is (often) much more violent and believes in a national rebirth and such modernist theories. Monarchies tend to be much more traditionalist and have a deeper connection with religion.", "Socialism is an economic system, not necessarily a governmental one or totalitarianism. ... Feudalism, in contrast, is largely a political system of dividing political power throughout a geographic area rather than an economic system for dividing resources among the citizens.", "What is the difference between Behavioral Science and Social Science? Behavioral science focuses on the behavior of human beings and animals whereas Social sciences focus on the human being in the social context.", "Communism Vs. Socialism. ... The main difference is that under communism, most property and economic resources are owned and controlled by the state (rather than individual citizens); under socialism, all citizens share equally in economic resources as allocated by a democratically-elected government." ]

[ "Scientists have exhumed the bodies of some relatives of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Salzburg, Austria, to obtain DNA samples." ]

[ "A family history website launches a new service to help track down people's unknown relatives with DNA tests.", "Police are exhuming the bodies of three pensioners in connection with their inquiry into a doctor charged with murder.", "France's parliament passes a new bill introducing possible DNA tests for foreign migrants joining relatives.", "German art experts identify an oil painting as probably the last portrait painted of the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.", "Plans to exhume Padre Pio - one of Italy's most popular saints - are attacked by his relatives and followers.", "Relatives's DNA is tested amid reports a boy has turned up who is the son of Colombian hostage Clara Rojas.", "A rapid technique for isolating DNA in hair provides a new route to study the genetics of extinct creatures.", "It's a historian's equivalent of stumbling across a long-lost sonata - a fingerprint on an 18th-century letter that experts say may have been left by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's father.", "Italian police say they have found DNA on clothing belonging to murdered British student Meredith Kercher which matches an Italian suspect.", "The disjunction between name and function makes Frans Brüggen’s band the ideal guest at this year’s Mostly Mozart Festival, which is not mostly Mozart at all.", "Investigators took DNA from pop star Michael Jackson&#39;s mouth on Saturday, a day after raiding his Neverland Ranch to prepare for his trial on child molestation charges, a family source said on Sunday.", "Trustees for James Brown filed a motion Friday asking a judge to allow DNA samples to be taken from the body of the late soul singer to prove the paternity of anyone claiming to be one of his children.", "Scientists reconstruct a chunk of DNA from the genome of a Neanderthal man who lived 38,000 years ago.", "A documentary to be screened in October by Britain&#39;s Channel 4 television network, suggests that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart may have suffered from Tourette&#39;s Syndrome.", "US police have collected a DNA sample from the mouth of singer Michael Jackson, who is accused of child molestation, a day after raiding his Neverland ranch to prepare for his trial.", "Wednesday’s performance of two works of Mozart at Avery Fisher Hall made evident the intangible connection between the orchestra’s members and its conductor.", "The family of DNA pioneer Professor Maurice Wilkins has been touched by floods of tributes from around the world.", "I&#39;m not the first person to suggest Mozart suffered from Tourette&#39;s syndrome. The idea was mooted by a Scandinavian scientist who based his theory on the scatological tone of Mozart&#39;s letters.", "Anthropologists said they have pieced together Leonardo da Vinci's left index fingerprint &#151; a discovery that could help provide information on such matters as the food the artist ate and whether his mother was of Arabic origin.", "La donna fu uccisa e fatta a pezzi, insieme al marito, nell'estate 2005Il nipote, Guglielmo Gatti, è sotto processo per il duplice omicidio Il dna conferma: la testa ritrovata era della moglie di Donegani", "Nessuna trama all'origine della morte dell'ex moglie di Carlo d'Inghilterrasolo uno choffeur un po' alticcio. Le prove vengono dall'analisi del Dna Lady D, nessun complotto per l'incidente Il Dna prova che l'autista era ubriaco", "Sir Magdi Yacoub on transplant medicine, Nobel Prize winners and Mozart.", "US police in central California collected a DNA sample from pop superstar Michael Jackson during two days of searches at his Neverland ranch, a newspaper reported Sunday.", "Metal detectors form part of increased security at a Mozart opera showing a beheaded Prophet Muhammad.", "In an Oct. 10 story about the exhumation of George Gipp's remains for a DNA test, The Associated Press, relying on information from Gipp's hometown, erroneously reported he scored 83 touchdowns for Notre Dame. Gipp scored 21 touchdowns and passed for eight others, according to the university's sports information office.", "Scientists plan to exhume within the next five months the body of a British diplomat who died in 1919 of the Spanish flu, in a move they hope will provide vital clues on how to fight any future pandemic.", "A Festival Stabat Mater di Pergolesi e cantata di Mozart", "Researchers studying DNA from 500-year-old bone slivers said Friday that preliminary data suggests Christopher Columbus might be buried in Spain, rather than in a rival tomb in the Dominican Republic.", "A day after police raided Michael Jackson&#39;s Neverland Ranch for a second time seeking evidence in the child-molestation case against him, officials returned Saturday and asked the pop star to submit a DNA sample.", "NEW YORK - Tiny particles of silica can act as DNA carriers, providing a non-viral method of gene therapy, new research shows.", "Classic(al) advice from Munger and Mozart.", "It's no yellow submarine, but the band is beginning to play in this yellow cab &#151; Mozart." ]

[ "Get him some reading material on menopause or take him to the doctor with you and let the doc help explain what you are going through. Maybe also try to get some marriage counseling before things get real bad. It worked for my sister and her husband. Good luck to you.(p.s. It wouldn't hurt to give him a little extra special attention)" ]

[ "HIV is a virus that is passed through blood and body fluids. It can be passed through unprotected sex, used needles, oral, and rectal sex. Viruses are common and this is an illness just like chicken pox is an illness. Early detection and taking meds as prescribed can make the virus undetectable in a person's blood, but they must continue taking meds forever to keep it under control. It is not a death sentence to be diagnosed with HIV.", "Menopause is a natural occurrence for women and it is something which every woman will face at some point in her life. Fortunately, studies have been done in order to provide herbal treatments and remedies for women going through this stage. Herbal remedies, as controversial as they are, can potentially provide positive effects for women experiencing menopausal symptoms. Here are some common menopausal symptoms and the best form of herbal remedy associated with each:\\n\\n• Hot Flashes - Hot flashes are one of the most common symptoms for women during menopause. Hot flashes can last up to 6 minutes and can potentially occur several times within one day. \\n\\nHerbal Remedy – Black Cohosh (also known as squaw root, black snake root or rattle weed) has been studied and is proven as a reputable treatment for hot flashes.\\n\\n• Insomnia – Many women experiencing menopausal symptoms also have difficulty sleeping. If you suffer from sleeplessness on a regular basis, you probably suffer from chronic insomnia. \\n\\nHerbal Remedies – Kava (or Kawa) is used throughout the world as a remedy for anxiety and insomnia. Other remedies proven effective for treating insomnia and sleeplessness are Valerian root and HOPS. \\n\\n Depression and Mood Swings – Although most people joke about women becoming depressed and moody during menopause, these symptoms are very serious and if not treated properly can become dangerous and harmful.\\n\\nHerbal Remedy – St. John’s Wart (also known as goat weed) has proven to be an affective antidepressant in reversing the feelings of depression which many menopausal women experience. \\n\\n• Abnormal Hair Growth – Abnormal hair growth (also called hirsuitism) is perhaps one of the most embarrassing symptoms for women suffering from menopause. Abnormal hair growth can occur anywhere, although above the upper lip is usually a common target. \\n\\nHerbal Remedy – Saw Palmetto (also known as Serenoa repens or windmill palm) is used for treating men with enlarged prostates as well as for women who are experiencing abnormal hair growth during menopause.\\n\\nMenopause is a difficult time for every woman, but every woman must face it at some point. Approaching menopause with a positive attitude has been proven to reduce the likeliness of some menopausal symptoms like depression and anxiety. Researching remedies and treatments is the best way to prepare for this stage of your life. This way, when it does happen, you’re aware of what to expect and the best ways to deal with it.", "There are a conbination of things that are creating these different strains of germs. Darwin's theory of evolution is a good explanation of one reason for the \"stronger\" germs. Antibiotics and antibacterial\"stuff\" eliminates the common types of bacteria. The ones that resist are what remain and through mutation new types of bacteria are left. A lot of times these newer bacteria seem \"stronger\" because they are immune to our antibiotics. Our bodies are also not accustomed to these newer strains of bacteria. \\n\\nIt's not neccesarily a \"stronger\" bacteria, it's a different strain that has become immune to the antibiotics that are overused.", "I find that they're similar to the side effects when you first start taking it. The biggest one for me is that \"electric jolt\" or \"brain shock,\" that hard-to-describe sensation that comes on suddenly, originating in the brain and going throughout your body. It isn't serious, but it is annoying. I have these \"shocks\" even if I forget to take my meds one day.\\n\\nIf you're going off, definitely TAPER your dosage rather than go cold-turkey. If you gradually decrease your dosage over a couple weeks, you probably won't notice any withdrawl symptoms. \\n\\nOf course, I've never successfully quit effexor--I tried switching meds, but my anxiety came back with a vengeance, so I went back on. I felt great while tapering, and even a few days afterward, but then the anxiety came back. I'll try again when my life settles into a more sane routine. I hear that helps when going off meds (which my friend HAS done successfully).\\n\\nGood luck!", "Ergonomics is the study and practial functions of how we do things. Our bodies when at rest have a general position. Example: At rest your arm, hand and fingers rest in the most natural position where ther is no stress or resistance, strain to it. Ergonomics study began in the work place as more and more people were getting hurt on the job. The study intailed finding new ways to do the same job but with less stress and strain to the body. Thus if there is less strain to the body, there is a less chance of getting injured. Since the early'70's' studies have not only been introduced into the work place, but is now being used all over. When you go to buy a car or purchase furniture, the manufacturer has considered the body at rest into their design. This practice can be found in almost every thing manufactured today. Lets face it, we all have enough stress and strain in our lives, why should the things we use to make life more enjoyable and easier add addition strain and stress to our already overworked bodies.", "go to a regular 4 year university first, get a degree, then apply for med school", "That sounds like what is often called \" a nervous tic\"\\nIt is often brought on by stress or strain such as over-\\ntiredness,anxiety, not enough sleep etc. not allergy.", "Considering most people who have seizures also black out, and have no knowledge of the incident. I'd say it was a panic attack. Are you on anti-anxiety meds?", "Sex is very essential in our life as it helps in fulfilling our desires and satisfy our mind. Without sex no one can be complete and the world will come to an end if there is no population growth.Sex also increases our maturity and helps us to think more widely. It ignites the passion in life", "If you think about it, all the experience we call life is actually our impression of external events, but filtered through the nervous system and the brain. Whatever you see, you see in your brain, also what you touch and what you taste and what you smell, it's all sensed through your brain. That's why taoists say that ultimately, nothing really has an intrinsic \"existence\", but it's all conveniently rendered into ideas by our thoughts. Anyway, besides that fact, I think there's a factor in your life that is not allowing you too feel 100%. When all your senses are in order you don't become aware of how life seems to be a construction of the psyche. I think you need to do things that make you more \"grounded\", and you'll get over that. Best thing to do is to spend some time outdoors. Go camping for a couple of nights, or just for a hike outdoors, or visit a farm, or ride a horse or something. All those things make your senses go more into survival mode, therefore relaxing all other anxieties. Just a thought.", "if i never get married, i am going to die a virgin!\\nI think its because people want to experience sex and dont want to go through their entire life without trying it out.", "Absolutely, you will still ovulate after a hysterectomy if the ovaries are not removed. You will go through natural menopause just as you would if your uterus was never removed. The ovaries are not dependant on the uterus in order for ovulation to occur. But, remember, it does not hurt to have an examination by qualified medical personel, just to be sure there is nothing more serious occuring. If nothing else, it will give you piece of mind.\\nHysterectomy with ovarian conservation will not induce menopause. Sometimes a temporary decrease of estrogens is seen, but within a few months normal ovarian function is restored. http://www.obgyn.net/meno/meno.asp?page=/meno/news_articles/ask_expert_0401#Question5m\\nIf the ovaries are not removed, they may still produce hormones and eggs if a woman has not yet gone through menopause. Since the eggs are not fertilized, however, they dissolve in the abdomen. http://fcs.tamu.edu/Health/Health_Education_Rural_Outreach/Health_Hints/2002/may/hysterectomy.php", "A woman can get pregnant at ANY time of the month, ANY time of the year. \\n\\nAfter menopause, the probability decreases dramatically. That or if the woman has had a hysterctomy (removal of her reproductive organs). \\n\\nUse contraceptives (condoms), if one must have sex.", "Do you mean \"Why does it occur\" or do you mena \"How does it occur\".\\n\\nHow it occurs is essentially ovarians failure. The ovaries stop producing hormones and there is a cascade of biological effects as a result, eveythhing from cessationn of menstruation through to a loss of bone density and mood changes.\\n\\n(BTW menopause has nothing whatoever to with running out of eggs as Dr_n_ur_friend implied. A woman at menopause stillhas hundreds of thousands of viable eggs available.)\\n\\nWhy it occurs is because pregnancy is quite risky, women are esential in the raising of their offspring in the early years and human babie mature very slowly. As a result humans evolved a system whereby women couldn't risk there lives through pregnancy if they weren't going to live long enough to ensure the children survived to adulthood.\\n\\nMenopause is simply a way of stopping a woman having a child if she is likely to die before the child turns 12. Instead she is able to devote all here resoucres to rasing any previous children or assisting in the care of grandchildren.\\n\\nToday of women commonly live far more than 12 years after menopause, but in a 'natural' state that owuld have been rare, and our bodies are still evolutionarily stick in the neolithic no matter how advanced our technology may be.", "You need to obtain your pre-med degree which takes anywhere from 4 to 5 years depending on where you go and how easily you can obtain the classes you need. Then you have med school which is another approximate 4 years. You then will have an internship of anywhere from 2 to 4 years depending on your specialty. Good luck!", "I like her on top, but both of us on our side, spooning almost, with me entering from behind is probally the best. Its very relaxed and puts less very little strain on either of us.", "I'm a med student in New Jersey. As far as education...it takes 4 years of college and 4 years of med school, then for cardiac surgery, you have to do a surgical residency which is about 5-7 years and then you have to a cardiology fellowship which is another 2-4 years. As far as the type of person it takes...you have to be very dedicated because it takes a long time and there is a lot of information thrown at you in a short period of time. I believe that the school I go to is an excellent school (despite the controversy going on now) but I hear that NYU has a good school and that Johns Hopkins is really good school. Also Albert Einstein College of Medicine but any one is probably suffice if you work hard enough at your studies. Also you don't have to major in a science in college to get in to med school..you just have to have the prerequisites. Good luck!", "working part-time puts a strain on your study time, but if you need the money ... go for it! I work pt in the registrars office at my school - it's nice.", "You have erectile dysfunction. I'm not a doctor, but I don't think its due to masturbationn. Even if you never have masturbated in your life, if you have erectile dysfunction, it would of happened sooner or later anyway. Go talk to your doctor, it could be any number of medical reasons why you can't keep an erection. This shouldn't stand in your way of having a healthly sex life, there is meds you can take like Viagra to help.\\nGood Luck! :)", "An anxiety disorder manifesting with recurrent anxiety. It can be so serious that the anxiety and fear take over the life of the affected person.\\n\\nThere is no known single cause.", "I married my best friend and our sex life is STILL Fabulous after 5 years!", "At most universities you have to pick a major and complete the pre-med requirements which are usually about 4-5 chem classes, 2 physics, 2 biologies etc. so most students will chose major that already has these classes built into the curriculum, but that is not always the case. You can major in anything you'd like and still get accepted to medical school as long as you complete the requirements. \\n\\nMost major universities have a pre-med program and as for deciding on a school to attend you should definitely consider many other things than just the pre-med program. Like location, quality, student life, academic life, how you fit in with the students etc. These are all important factors weighing in you decision since you will be spending four years somewhere. Hope this helps and good luck!", "Our society has put a high price on the life of the individual. We have debated the death penalty with this question at the fore. If someone takes a life, should they forfeit theirs? We value life so highly that even in this case we don't take a life.", "here's the COOLEST LINK YOULL EVER SEE HERE:\\n\\nhttp://www.us-sex-offenders.com/map.aspx\\n\\njust choose your state and put in your address, it will pinpoint through a map how close a sex offender is from the address you put in.", "kinda throws a kink in the debate about homosexuality hermaphrodites can be either male or female only a genetic test at the beginning of their life can tell as they get older and go through puberty their true sex becomes evident", "The Diabetic can be controlled by diet, exercise,changing life style,and avoiding stress and strain .If thes do not control then go for antidiabetic tablets. If this also fails then insulin in addition to anti diabetic tablets or alone.", "Considering I have been through med school and went through a PHd program, I am curious as to how you are a thoracic surgeon at the tender age of 20??? Advanced standing students STILL take 4-6 years fresh out of high school and then about 4-7 years interning and residency and THEN surgery is EXTREMELY competitive and it can take years to become a surgeon ESPECIALLY a thoracic surgeon ... so tell me, describe thoracic surgery or did you learn it from ER? I need to add to this, this person has other postings in which he had no clue whatsoever to any form of thoracic surgery and also states he is a psych major to pick up people on this site... go to myspace.com and spin your web of lies there", "I double my line over about 4 inches, put it through the eye, spin it over itself and put the jig through the hole left in the end of the line", "BRATS diet- for us its Bananas, easily digested but high in vitamins and sugars, Rice, applesauce and toast w/o butter and saltines. If you boil the rice in extra water, let it cool and sip it, not much taste but the starch helps your GI tract. If she is throwing up or has diarrhea for more than 24 - 36 hrs, contact a local ER or her Dr. many virulent strains of gastroenteritis virus's going round and she may need IV fluids. and meds.\\n\\nmy son was sick for 9 days!", "Last I looked, exendrin-4 (\"essence of lizard spit\" :-) and its derivatives had only recently been licensed for commercial use, under the trade-name \"Byetta\" in the USA.\\nIt's an injected medication, intended to be used in conjunction with oral meds, and probably only available through your doctor as a prescription med.\\n\\nPlease note that Byetta is a new *treatment* not a cure. It's a therapy, not a \"healing\". Please be aware of the difference", "Our Supreme Court Justices are appointed by the President. They go through confirmation hearings in Congress and are approved by a vote of the Senate. They are appointed for life or until their voluntary retirement as that of Sandra Day O'Connor within the past couple of months.", "I went through that not long ago. I found myself praying for death. I came home from church one Sunday all ready to end my life. \"Thou shalt not kill\" came to my mind. I cried for two weeks because God told me that He did not want me to end my life. My doctor tried to put me on anti depression and anxity meds. The problem is that doctors just do not have the training in meds to know what meds you need for your chemical imbalance. \\nAsk your doctor, friends, and family members if they know of a mental health worker/social worker/counselor, or whoever, that they would reccomend. You may be surprised at the relatives and friends who have delt with depression. Even you counselor at school can help you. You must also find a good psychrist who knows how to mix meds to meet your needs. You may have to go to a clinic that deals with depression only. You must find a good psychrist. Search, search, and search some more until you find the professionals and meds for you. If you want to talk, answer one of my q&a's, you do not have to respond to my question, just let me know if you want to talk. I do have some college and life education that may help you. Please get help NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" ]

[ "Coronary artery disease is caused by plaque buildup in the wall of the arteries that supply blood to the heart (called coronary arteries). Plaque is made up of cholesterol deposits. Plaque buildup causes the inside of the arteries to narrow over time. This process is called atherosclerosis." ]

[ "Live British Pound to Canadian Dollar Exchange Rate(GBP/CAD) Interbank Conversion: What is the British Pound to Canadian Dollar Rate Today? The live GBP/CAD exchange rate is.", "1 verb LING have as meaning or definition TRANSITIVE ciallaigh verb c m u the word means wall ciallaíonn an focal balla what's meant by this word? cad is brí don fhocal seo?, cad é a chiallaíonn an focal seo?, cad é atá i gceist leis an bhfocal seo? that word means something else in Scotland tá ciall eile leis an bhfocal sin in Albain what does the sentence mean to you? cad é an chiall a bhainfeása as an abairt?, cad é an t-adhmad a bhainfeása as an abairt? the surname meant ...", "Orthodontist salary in Canada. An average salary for an orthodontist based in Canada ranges from between 98,819 CAD – 599,522 CAD per annum while an average hourly wage ranges from between 56.46 CAD – 342.5 CAD per hour.A median salary for an orthodontist averages to about 171,292 CAD per annum while a median wage is about 97.8 CAD per hour.ow much does an orthodontist earn in Mexico. Dentists in Mexico have an average pay of MXN149,400 per year, with a median pay of MXN178,800, according to PayScale. This is likely lower than what an orthodontist makes in the country because of their dental specialty.", "With STEP, it's less important, though sometimes still necessary, depending on the needs. So that more or less covers mechanical CAD. There are other formats used for entertainment, building, etc... such as the Alias 3DS, or OBJ file formats that tend to dominate other CAD disciplines. Electrical CAD is a whole different beastie too! Be sure and clarify what CAD means, because it can mean very different things to different people.", "An average salary for a family physician based in Canada ranges from between 56,526 CAD – 137,027 CAD per annum while an average hourly wage ranges from between 32 CAD -78 CAD per hour.n average salary for a family physician based in Canada ranges from between 56,526 CAD – 137,027 CAD per annum while an average hourly wage ranges from between 32 CAD -78 CAD per hour.", "An average salary for a neurosurgeon based in Canada ranges from between 154,073 CAD – 293,432 CAD per annum while an average hourly wage ranges from between 88.04 CAD – 171.19 CAD per hour. A median salary for a neurosurgeon averages to about 254,344 CAD per annum while a median wage is about 145 CAD per hour.n average salary for a neurosurgeon based in Canada ranges from between 154,073 CAD – 293,432 CAD per annum while an average hourly wage ranges from between 88.04 CAD – 171.19 CAD per hour. A median salary for a neurosurgeon averages to about 254,344 CAD per annum while a median wage is about 145 CAD per hour.", "Latest from the online store. 1 Practical Guide #1 Projects and the Curriculum: Seeing the Possibilities CAD $6.00–CAD $12.00. 2 Practical Guide #2 Features of the Project Approach: A Framework for Learning CAD $6.00–CAD $12.00. 3 Practical Guide #3 Making a Start on Projects: Planning in Context CAD $6.00–CAD $12.00.", "Exchange Rate: 18 Jan 18: 1 USD = 1.2451 CAD; 17 Jan 18: 1 USD = 1.2442 CAD; 16 Jan 18: 1 USD = 1.2431 CAD; 15 Jan 18: 1 USD = 1.2458 CAD; 14 Jan 18: 1 USD = 1.2455 CAD; 13 Jan 18: 1 USD = 1.2455 CAD; 12 Jan 18: 1 USD = 1.2522 CAD; 11 Jan 18: 1 USD = 1.2543 CAD; 10 Jan 18: 1 USD = 1.2457 CAD; 09 Jan 18: 1 USD = 1.2407 CAD; 08 Jan 18: 1 USD = 1.2398 CAD; 07 Jan 18: 1 USD = 1.2405 CAD; 06 Jan 18", "The median hourly wage for a dietitian is about $25.60 per hour. dietitian salary. An average salary for a dietitian based in Canada ranges from between 43,308 CAD – 70,534 CAD per annum while an average hourly wage ranges from between 24.75 CAD – 40.31 CAD per hour.A median salary for a dietitian averages to about 63,773 CAD per annum while a median wage is about 36.45 CAD per hour.A highest paid dietitian receives over 70,500 CAD while the lowest paid dietitian earns about 44,000 CAD per annum.n average salary for a dietitian based in Canada ranges from between 43,308 CAD – 70,534 CAD per annum while an average hourly wage ranges from between 24.75 CAD – 40.31 CAD per hour.", "Internist salary in Canada. An average salary for an internist in Canada ranges from between 56,526 CAD – 137,027 CAD per annum while an hourly wage ranges from between 32 CAD – 78 CAD per hour.nternist salary in Canada. An average salary for an internist in Canada ranges from between 56,526 CAD – 137,027 CAD per annum while an hourly wage ranges from between 32 CAD – 78 CAD per hour.", "The full-time yearly salary for a medical technician in the Canada ranges from between $40,000 CAD- $45,000 CAD and an average hourly wage is about $ 22.19 CAD per hour.he full-time yearly salary for a medical technician in the Canada ranges from between $40,000 CAD- $45,000 CAD and an average hourly wage is about $ 22.19 CAD per hour.", "Biofuels: At What Cost? Government Support for Ethanol and Biodiesel in Canada (PDF - 1.79 MB) This reports finds that In the three-year period ended 2008, total government transfers to biofuels approached $1 billion CAD, with an average of around $300 million CAD per year in Canada.", "An average salary for an oral surgeon based in Canada ranges from between 98,819 CAD – 599,522 CAD per annum while an average hourly wage ranges from between 56.46 CAD – 342 CAD per hour. A median salary for an oral surgeon averages to about 171,292 CAD per annum while a median wage is about 97.8 CAD per hour.", "This marginal tax rate means that your immediate additional income will be taxed at this rate. For instance, an increase of 100,00 CAD in your salary will be taxed 35,11 CAD, hence your net pay will only increase by 64,89 CAD.A 1 000,00 CAD bonus will generate an extra 648,90 CAD of net revenues.or instance, an increase of 100,00 CAD in your salary will be taxed 35,11 CAD, hence your net pay will only increase by 64,89 CAD.", "Summary. In Ontario, Canada, if you make 52 000,00 CAD a year, you will be taxed 12 285,28 CAD. That means that your take home pay will be 39 714,72 CAD per year, or 3 309,56 CAD per month. Your average tax rate is 23,63% and your marginal tax rate is 35,11% .or instance, an increase of 100,00 CAD in your salary will be taxed 35,11 CAD, hence your net pay will only increase by 64,89 CAD." ]

[ "As cell phones turn into mobile handheld data devices, companies are exploring ways to protect them from being hacked by a growing number of sophisticated viruses designed specifically to attack the wireless world." ]

[ "Trend Micro Mobile Security is designed to protect data-centric mobile devices such as smartphones against viruses and short message service (SMS) spam.", "Trend Micro will become the latest major anti-virus software company to provide protection against mobile phone viruses with the release today of Trend Micro Mobile Security 1.0.", "Sophos, a world leader in protecting businesses against viruses and spam, has released a report revealing the hardest hitting viruses of 2004.", "Skulls program proved that PDA and Mobile viruses are finally becoming a reality and it is no longer safe to just download anything from the Internet on your mobile handset.", "Warning over Valentines viruses Security experts are warning PC users to be on guard against viruses masquerading as Valentine's Day messages, which could damage computers.", "A mobile wireless system being tested in Oregon allows police officers in the field to check fingerprints against state and national databases.", "Sophos, a world leader in protecting businesses against spam and viruses, has published a report revealing the top ten viruses and hoaxes causing problems for businesses around the world.", "Kimmo Alkio takes stock of the current state of hackers, attackers, dot-bank domains and mobile phone viruses.", "Service package protects against viruses, spyware and fraud, and backs up and restores data.", "Viruses on mobile phones are still rare but nearly three-quarters of mobile phone users in developed countries are worried about security on their handsets, a survey showed on Wednesday.", "The biggest U.S. mobile operators, AT&T Wireless and Verizon Wireless, will close down their analog networks on Monday.", "Nokia Corp., the world's largest mobile phone maker, said Monday it filed a patent infringement countersuit against Qualcomm in an ongoing multinational legal battle over wireless technology.", "Unscrupulous Filipino phone shops are cashing on recent stories about mobile phone viruses to flog worried punters services they don't need.", "AT&amp;T and Verizon Wireless want to go up against other current mobile operators and some possible future competitors, including Google, in next month&#39;s&#160;auction for 700MHz wireless spectrum&#160;around the U.S.", "Electronics superstore drops T-Mobile wireless service to make room.", "D-Link on Monday announced its Mobile Wireless Routers, a new line of devices designed to provide WiFi-equipped computers with a connection to the Internet using a 3G mobile broadband wireless card.", "There's a new mobile virtual world in town and it's not Second Life Mobile. Find out why Gemini Mobile numbered among Deloitte's Wireless Fast 50.", "China GrenTech will supply wireless networking equipment to China Mobile, the largest mobile phone operator, for the 2008 Olympics.", "Verizon Wireless' objections to rules requiring soon-to-be-auctioned wireless spectrum to be open to all mobile devices are anti-consumer, Google says.", "Blog: Verizon Wireless is getting into the mobile payments with a deal with Obopay.", "Attendees at the CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment 2004 event were told today that they should feel optimistic about the future of the mobile and wireless industry.", "The top two U.S. wireless providers are starting to let customers use their mobile phones to remotely record television shows, hoping the new service will help them compete against rivals.", "Nokia , the world's biggest mobile phone maker, said on Tuesday the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) has ordered a stay of wireless chip supplier Qualcomm's suit against Nokia.", "Wireless equipment vendor Nokia and wireless operator Vodafone said Thursday that they are launching an initiative to simplify standards for developing mobile Java applications.", "Wireless technology company Qualcomm Inc. on Wednesday said it had filed a suit against Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia (NOK1V.HE), alleging the company had infringed on two Qualcomm patents in Britain.", "Verizon Wireless announces the availability the Samsung SCH-i760 Windows Mobile smartphone.", "Looks like the time has come when mobile users would have to seriously consider getting some protection for their devices. Mobile viruses are coming out pretty regularly now and trend seems to be pointing towards a frantic future.", "Spanish police have arrested a 28-year-old man on charges that he created variants of the CommWarrior and Cabir mobile phone viruses, according to published reports.", "PalmSource will ratchet up the competition among wireless OS vendors this week by announcing Cobalt 6.1, the latest version of its mobile operating system. The main emphasis of the new PalmSource OS is on wireless connectivity, putting it on a par with Microsoft’s Windows Mobile and Nokia’s Symbian mobile OSes.", "SnapDragon boasts low power consumption and wireless functions suited for mobile devices.", "A tiny Pennsylvania telecommunications company is raising the hackles of giants Verizon Wireless and Cingular Wireless LLC, offering consumers unlimited cellphone calls for a $10 monthly premium by exploiting the carriers' unlimited mobile-to-mobile calling plans.", "Qualcomm is making two acquisitions of Bluetooth and WLAN (wireless LAN) chip technologies, allowing it to further the integration of wireless networking capabilities in mobile phones." ]

[ "Genetic screening, often seen as the best hope for older women undergoing IVF treatment to have a child, is ineffective and actually reduces rates of pregnancies, scientists said on Wednesday." ]

[ "Carrying out checks on embryos for genetic disorders incurs no more risk than standard IVF, work suggests.", "A national women&#39;s screening programme for cervical cancer is failing to reach women, particularly Maori women, an audit has revealed.", "A woman left infertile after cancer cannot use frozen IVF embryos to try for a baby, Law Lords have ruled.", "· New hope for women who cannot have standard IVF · Eggs matured outside the body before being stored", "NEW YORK - A new study provides \"reassuring\" evidence that babies born from in vitro fertilization with preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) -- in which a cell or two are removed from the developing embryo to screen for genetic problems -- are not at increased risk of birth defects.", "The country&#39;s cervical screening programme is failing to reach women, with Maori women more likely to miss out on their smear every three years, a new report says.", "A UK fertility centre starts offering cut-price IVF treatment for women who donate their eggs to research.", "Severely overweight women should be denied access to free fertility treatment in England and Wales and obese women must lose weight before being offered the chance to try IVF, experts said on Wednesday.", "Telling couples their fetuses have a treatable genetic disorder leads many of them to terminate the pregnancy, researchers said on Tuesday, raising issues about genetic screening programs.", "NEW YORK - In-vitro fertilization (IVF) is apt to be more successful in white women than in Asian women, a study suggests.", "London, Nov. 02 (LifesiteNews.com/CWN) - The UK&#39;s Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has agreed to allow embryos created in IVF labs to be screened for the gene for a particular form of cancer", "After doctors performed a kind of transplant surgery on mothers’ eggs, 20 babies were born to women for whom IVF had not worked.", "Screening human embryos for a rare genetic condition leading to bowel cancer in order to select embryos lacking the pre-disposition has been given the go-ahead in the UK.", "Screening embryos for chromosomal defects, a fast-growing practice aimed at helping older women to have a baby, in fact reduces the chance of a successful pregnancy, doctors reported here on Wednesday.", "Women with few older female relatives may be unaware they carry a genetic risk of breast cancer, US researchers reported in a study that casts doubt on current genetic testing guidelines.", "Australian doctors use genetic screening to ensure that a test tube baby's blood is compatible with its mother's.", "NEW YORK - The cost of giving birth using assisted reproduction technologies such as in vitro fertilization (IVF) exceeds $100,000 when the probability of a live birth falls below 15 percent, suggest results of a new cost analysis.", "Twenty children have been born after doctors performed a kind of transplant surgery on the eggs of their mothers, for whom normal IVF had failed.", "Screening embryos for genetic disorders, does not harm their health, a large scale review of the procedure has found.", "Women with fertility and miscarriage problems are being offered unproven and potentially risky tests and treatment, say researchers.", "An older woman's slim chances of getting pregnant could be made worse if embryos are screened for defects before being implanted into the womb, doctors said Wednesday.", "More and more couples are turning to an embryo-screening technique that allows them to choose the genetic makeup of their children, according to a survey released yesterday in the online edition of the journal Fertility and Sterility.", "The FDA has approved a birth-control pill designed to eliminate women's periods. What you need to know before you decide to try it.", "NEW YORK - Black and Asian women have much lower rates of success with assisted reproductive techniques such as in vitro fertilization than other racial groups, researchers reported at the annual meeting of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine that is underway in Philadelphia.", "Genetics may play a greater role than previously thought in accounting for black women's higher rate of premature births, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine have found.", "A woman left infertile after cancer treatment takes her bid to use frozen IVF embryos to have a baby to Europe.", "(HealthDay News) -- While deafness can be present at birth because of genetic factors or complications of birth itself, other medical and environmental factors can cause deafness after birth.", "Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) may be the best screening tool for breast cancer in women who carry the genetic mutation that makes them susceptible to the disease, according to new research.", "A woman's ability to have a child using assisted technologies such as test-tube fertilization plummets to a 4 percent success rate after she turns 42, according to a U.S. government study published on Friday.", "TORONTO - Magnetic resonance imaging may be better at finding breast cancer in women who are genetically predisposed to the disease than other screening methods, Canadian researchers say.", "Qiagen NV , a Dutch maker of genetic testing equipment, said on Sunday it will acquire Digene Corp. ., which develops screening tests for diseases affecting women, for $1.6 billion in stock and cash.", "Women have long blamed the birth-control pill for packing on extra pounds. Now it turns out excess weight may be to blame when the pill fails to prevent pregnancy." ]

[ "What is the smallest bone in the human body? The 3 smallest bones in the human body--malleus, incus, and stapes--are located in the middle ear. At 3 x 5 mm in size, the stapes is the smallest bone in the human body." ]

[ "Inside of the middle ear are the smallest bones in the body–the auditory ossicles, or ear bones. By definition, these three bones are named after their shape: malleus (“hammer”), incus (anvil), and stapes (stirrup).", "['eardrum.', 'cavity (also called the tympanic cavity)', 'ossicles (3 tiny bones that are attached) malleus (or hammer) - long handle attached to the eardrum. incus (or anvil) - the bridge bone between the malleus and the stapes. stapes (or stirrup) - the footplate; the smallest bone in the body.']", "The hammer, anvil and stirrup—also known as the malleus, incus, and stapes, respectively, and collectively, as \"middle ear ossicles\"—are the smallest bones in the human body. ... The leveraging capabilities of the middle ear ossicles are needed to generate the large forces that allow us to hear.", "The ossicles (also called auditory ossicles) are three bones in either middle ear that are among the smallest bones in the human body. They serve to transmit sounds from the air to the fluid-filled labyrinth (cochlea). ... The term \"ossicle\" literally means \"tiny bone\".", "Bones in our body are living tissue. They have their own blood vessels and are made of living cells, which help them to grow and to repair themselves. As well, proteins, minerals and vitamins make up the bone. We are born with about 300 soft bones.", "Introduction to Bone Biology: All About our Bones. Bones in our body are living tissue. They have their own blood vessels and are made of living cells, which help them to grow and to repair themselves.", "Bones in our body are living tissue. They have their own blood vessels and are made of living cells, which help them to grow and to repair themselves. As well, proteins, minerals and vitamins make up the bone.", "The xiphoid process is the smallest region of the sternum, or breastbone. It's made up of cartilage at birth but develops into bone in adulthood. It's located where the lower ribs attach to the breastbone.", "Bones are mostly made of the protein collagen, which forms a soft framework. The mineral calcium phosphate hardens this framework, giving it strength. More than 99 percent of our body's calcium is held in our bones and teeth.", "The bones in your body are made from material which has a tensile strength of 150MPa, a strain to failure of 2% and a fracture toughness of 4MPa(m)½. ... Bone is less dense than metals and this is important because the weight of our bones strongly affects the energy needed to move around.", "['Your fingernails grow four times as fast as your toenails?', 'Babies are born with 300 bones – adults have 206.', 'Eyelashes last about 150 days.', 'The heart circulates your blood through your body about 1,000 times each day.', 'You make about half a quart (500ml) of spit each day.', 'The smallest bone in your body is in your ears.']", "Bones shape our body and help us to stand up straight. Muscles are attached to bones; they help us walk and run and smile. All the bones in our body make up our skeleton – from the top of our skull to the tips of the phalanges at the end of our toes. Muscles stretch across our bones and are attached with tendons.", "The eardrum is a tightly stretched membrane, a bit like the skin of a drum. The middle ear is a small air-filled compartment which sits in the skull between the eardrum and the inner ear. Inside it are the three smallest bones in the body, called malleus, incus and stapes. These bones are connected to each other.", "Almost every bone in your body is made of the same materials: The outer surface of bone is called the periosteum (say: pare-ee-OSS-tee-um). It's a thin, dense membrane that contains nerves and blood vessels that nourish the bone. The next layer is made up of compact bone.", "Short bones are shaped roughly as a cube and contain mostly spongy bone. The outside surface is comprised of a thin layer of compact bone. Short bones are located in the hands and feet. The patella (kneecap) is also considered a short bone.", "Bones provide the structure for our bodies. The adult human skeleton is made up of 206 bones. These include the bones of the skull, spine (vertebrae), ribs, arms and legs. Bones are made of connective tissue reinforced with calcium and specialised bone cells.", "For healthy muscles and bones, you need calcium, vitamin D and protein: calcium makes our bones (and teeth) strong and rigid. vitamin D helps our bodies to absorb calcium.", "For a long time scientists figured that the bones are so small because they are vestigial, a shrunken evolutionary remnant from an ancestor that once walked on land. But now scientists have discovered that the tiny bones may actually play a huge role in whale reproduction.", "Osteons are interesting little things. Osteons are structural units of compact bone. Each osteon consists of a central canal, which contains nerve filaments and one or two blood vessels, surrounded by lamellae. Lacunae, small chambers containing osteocytes, are arranged concentrically around the central canal.", "Short bones: Short bones also have a tubular shaft and articular surfaces at each end but are much smaller. The short bones include all of the metacarpals and phalanges in the hands, and the metatarsals and phalanges in the feet. ... The flat bones include the scapula (wingbone), the ribs, and the sternum (breastbone).", "The Ossicles. The three tiniest bones in the body form the coupling between the vibration of the eardrum and the forces exerted on the oval window of the inner ear. Formally named the malleus, incus, and stapes, they are commonly referred to in English as the hammer, anvil, and stirrup.", "Our bodies are always making new bone to replace bone that breaks down. But RA inflammation breaks this cycle. It speeds up your bone loss and slows the making of new bone to replace it. Your bones get weaker, and that leads to osteoporosis.", "Primary bone. Primary bone is the first bone tissue that appears in embryonic development and in fracture repair. ... The secondary bones have lower amounts of osteocytes so primary bone is much more easily penetrated by x-ray.", "Bone Basics and Bone Anatomy It's easy to look at these and think of bones as dry, dead sticks in your body, but this couldn't be further from the truth. Bones are made of active, living cells that are busy growing, repairing themselves, and communicating with other parts of the body.", "Vitamin D is a nutrient needed for health and to maintain strong bones. Vitamin D aids in the absorption of calcium and phosphorus in our bodies, helps bring calcium and phosphorus to our bones and teeth, and helps regulate how much calcium remains in our blood.", "Strictly speaking, bones aren't white—not gleaming white, at any rate. Living bones inside the body contain a number of pigmented chemicals. They are essential for the body's health and give our bones a slightly yellowish color. But it's also minerals that give bones their relatively whitish hue.", "Bones are discrete organs made up of bone tissue, plus a few other things. The main misconception about bones then, is that they are made up of dead tissue. This is not true, they have cells, nerves, blood vessels and pain receptors.", "Bone itself consists mainly of collagen fibres and an inorganic bone mineral in the form of small crystals. In vivo bone (living bone in the body) contains between 10% and 20% water. Of its dry mass, approximately 60-70% is bone mineral.", "How many bones are in the body at birth? At birth the human body has 270 bones.", "Medical Definition of Bone type Short bones: Short bones also have a tubular shaft and articular surfaces at each end but are much smaller. The short bones include all of the metacarpals and phalanges in the hands, and the metatarsals and phalanges in the feet.", "Bone is a living tissue made from calcium compounds and other minerals and is strong but slightly flexible. Your skull is made from several bones, joined firmly together - these are fixed joints. Elsewhere in your body, the bones are joined more flexibly.", "Bones are made of connective tissue reinforced with calcium and specialised bone cells. Most bones also contain bone marrow, where blood cells are made. Bones work with muscles and joints to hold our body together and support freedom of movement. This is called the musculoskeletal system." ]

[ "In July members of the Taliban met representatives of the Afghan government for talks in the pretty hill town of Muree, just outside Islamabad in Pakistan.\nIt was hailed as a breakthrough, the first very tentative sign that the Taliban might consider some kind of negotiated peace.\nThose talks were disrupted by news of the death of Taliban founder Mullah Omar.\nBut hopes were boosted just days ago when the new leader of the Taliban, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, hinted he might support talks under certain conditions.\nSo the Taliban seizure of Kunduz looks like a huge setback.\nSuddenly the discussion is all about whether this marks the moment a resurgent Taliban begins to roll back the Afghan government.\nBut the all too familiar scenes of war in Afghanistan do not mean all hope of a negotiated peace is lost. Indeed, the ferocious battle for Kunduz may actually make a negotiated peace more likely.\nWhy? Well, first off no-one thought the conflict would end as talks began.\nWhen the main coalition forces pulled out in December, bloodshed was expected as the Taliban tested the strength and resolve of the Afghan forces.\nBut the movement has been at a low ebb, split by the succession battle that followed the surprise announcement in July that Mullah Omar had been dead for more than two years.\nKunduz demonstrates that the Taliban remains a formidable fighting force.\nWhat it doesn't show is that the Taliban has ruled out the idea of a negotiated settlement.\nMany observers believe its leadership recognises that they are never going to take back control of Afghanistan, opening up the possibility of some kind of political compromise.\nIn which case Kunduz could be seen as part of a long-term bid by the Taliban to strengthen their hand in future negotiations.\nThe bad news is that it also confirms that this is likely to be a very long game.\nBut the success of the assault on Kunduz may have repercussions that weaken the Taliban's position in the longer term.\nThere are still some 10,000 US troops stationed in Afghanistan. President Obama has said complete withdrawal will take place by the end of next year.\nThe Americans will leave a tiny force based in the US embassy in Kabul.\nKunduz could well force the Americans to reconsider the policy.\nAmerica's longest war in recent years is reckoned to have cost more than a trillion dollars and the lives of almost 2,500 US soldiers.\n\"Do they really want to see their huge investment here turn to dust?\", the former Afghan interior minister, Mohammad Omar Daudzai, asked when we met earlier this week.\nHe hopes Kunduz will encourage President Obama to explore the options for keeping more troops on the ground.\nA bigger US presence would strengthen the Afghan army, hampering the prospects of a further Taliban advance in the longer term. And that, in turn, might make them more likely to come to the table for talks.\nSo while we may not see a let up in the violence here in Afghanistan any time soon, there are reasons why a flicker of optimism may still be justified." ]

[ "The first meeting is due to take place in the coming days in Doha, Qatar, where the Taliban have just opened their first official overseas office.\nAfghan President Hamid Karzai said his government was also sending delegates to Qatar to talk to the Taliban.\nThe announcement came on the day Nato handed over security for the whole of Afghanistan to government forces.\nPakistan, which was involved in background talks for the opening of the Taliban office in Qatar, welcomed the announcement.\nUS officials said prisoner exchanges would be one topic for discussion with the Taliban, but the first weeks will mainly be used to explore each other's agendas.\nHowever, the talks are on condition that the Taliban renounce violence, break ties with al-Qaeda and respect the Afghan constitution - including the rights of women and minorities.\nUS officials told reporters the first formal meeting between US and Taliban representatives was expected to take place in Doha next week, with talks between President Karzai's High Peace Council and the Taliban due a few days after that.\nThe level of trust between the Afghan government and the Taliban is described as \"low\".\nIn the past, the Taliban have always refused to meet President Karzai or his government, dismissing them as puppets of Washington.\nMasoom Stanekzai, secretary of the High Peace Council, would not give a specific date for their talks but said they would take place \"within days\".\nBy David LoynBBC News, Kabul\nThere have been three distinct stages in the life of the Taliban.\nFirst they came as a conquering army that swept up from the south in the mid-1990s in reaction to the criminality and corruption of the Afghan civil war.\nSecondly came the austere Islamist government from 1996-2001, oppressive to women and with a singular view of the outside world. They were defeated in the war after 9/11.\nBut since reorganising six years ago they insist that they are different - in favour of education even for girls.\nWhile fighting an insurgency to end foreign occupation, it is this group who have a political wing, who are keen to talk, and hinting that they would be willing to sever their links with al-Qaeda.\nBut while the Taliban may have opened a political office, there is no guarantee that the men who are still fighting in the field will accept the results of talks.\nHe told the BBC it was important that all sides should feel \"confident and comfortable\" at the beginning of the process.\n\"Eventually the talks should take place on Afghan soil. This is an Afghan issue. No-one other than Afghans can decide,\" he said.\nUS officials stressed that this was the first step on a very long road, adding that there was no guarantee of success.\nAfter opening the \"political bureau\" in Doha alongside Qatari officials, Taliban representative Mohammed Naeem told reporters the group wanted good relations with Afghanistan's neighbours.\nA Taliban statement said: \"The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan doesn't want any threats from Afghanistan soil to other countries, and neither permits anyone to threaten other countries using Afghanistan soil.\n\"We support a political and peaceful solution that ends Afghanistan's occupation, and guarantees the Islamic system and nationwide security.\"\nThe BBC's Paul Adams in Washington says these were key statements that US officials were expecting to hear.\nBy Mark MardellNorth America editor\nWelcoming the prospect of direct talks between the US and Taliban, the Pakistani foreign ministry said that Islamabad was \"ready to continue to facilitate the process to achieve lasting peace in Afghanistan in accordance with the wishes of the Afghan people\".\nPakistan was one of the main backers of the Taliban when the movement swept to power in Afghanistan in the 1990s.\nCorrespondents say the Taliban is still thought to rely heavily on certain elements in Pakistan and that Pakistani co-operation will be crucial in convincing the Taliban to reach an agreement with the Afghan government.\nA US official said the militant Haqqani network would also be represented by the Taliban in Doha.\nHowever, the senior US and Nato commander in Afghanistan, Gen Joseph Dunford, cast doubt on whether the group would make peace.\nSpeaking by phone from Kabul he told reporters at the Pentagon: \"All I've seen of the Haqqani would make it hard for me to believe they were reconcilable.\"\nIn Afghanistan itself on Tuesday, Nato handed over security for the whole of the country to the government for the first time since the Taliban were ousted in 2001.\nAt a ceremony in Kabul, President Hamid Karzai said that from Wednesday \"our own security and military forces will lead all the security activities\".\nThe ceremony saw the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) hand over control of the last 95 districts in a transition process that began in 2011.\nInternational troops are to remain in Afghanistan until the end of 2014, providing military back-up when needed.\nPresident Karzai has expressed anger at previous US and Qatari efforts to kick-start the peace process without properly consulting his government, reports the BBC's Bilal Sarwary from Kabul.\nThere is also concern within the presidential palace that the Taliban will use the office in Qatar to raise funds, adds our correspondent.\nThe US has previously tried to negotiate with the Taliban, but never held direct talks.\nIn March 2012 the Taliban said it had suspended preliminary negotiations with Washington, citing US efforts to involve the Afghan government as a key stumbling block.\nThe Taliban set up a diplomatic presence in Qatar in January 2012 and US officials held preliminary discussions there.", "\"I have no sympathy,\" the Afghan leader told me in his palace in Kabul. He is calling on his countrymen to remain in the war-ravaged nation and join in the effort to rebuild it.\nBut do his words carry the weight they should, in a country that is increasingly feeling frustrated with the political elite, and a sense of hopelessness about their future?\nConvincing people to stay feels like an impossible task for what is perhaps one of the toughest jobs in the world, being Afghanistan's president. Ashraf Ghani was sworn in in September 2014 after controversial elections.\nThis led to the formation of a national unity government with his main rival, Abdullah Abdullah, appointed as chief executive officer. Since then, Mr Ghani has had to deal with a shrinking economy, high unemployment, a perilous security situation thanks to a resurgent Taliban and an ineffective government, further weakened by his troubled partnership with Dr Abdullah.\nIt is no wonder, then, that Afghans make up the second largest group, after Syrians, to flee to Europe. In the past year alone, 180,000 nationals have fled instability and economic hardship at home.\nBut who should take responsibility for the tens of thousands of Afghans who have turned up on European shores? In a wide-ranging interview, Ashraf Ghani said that people shouldn't take the risky journey in the first place.\n\"We have spent hundreds of millions of dollars [on people] who want to leave under the slightest pressure. You need to have the will if you want to have a country.\" The president may be taking a defiant position, but many Afghans at home and abroad feel resentment towards Mr Ghani for not calling on his own children, who live in the United States, to return.\nWhile he has inherited some of the problems he faces today, his approval rating continues to plummet with many Afghans feeling he has failed to manage expectations. And these latest statements are likely to cause a further drop.\nIt is not yet two years since he came to power and already in Kabul there is a sense of nostalgia for the past, with many referring to the era of his predecessor Hamid Karzai as the \"good days\".\nThe president is very much aware of the situation on the ground and believes Afghans should confront it. Last year, more than 11,000 civilians were killed or wounded in the country. One in four were children. That's the highest number recorded since the US-led invasion 14 years ago.\nThe United Nations says if Afghanistan's national unity government survives 2016, it will consider it a success. The bar is pretty low. And the Afghan people feel increasingly frustrated. A recent BBG-Gallup survey indicated that nearly 69% of people say their lives have got worse in the past year. Some 81% of people are dissatisfied with the government and 76% with Ashraf Ghani.\nIt appears that no matter what assurances the president gives people about how he intends to boost the economy and create jobs, the fact remains that this is a nation that continues to be heavily dependent on the international community for both security and economic assistance.\nThe deteriorating conditions also highlight the international community's failure to deal with the insecurity in Afghanistan. Nato and its partner nations have roughly 12,000 troops stationed there, yet the Taliban's reach is wider than at any time since 2001.\nWhen President Ghani was sworn in, he immediately oversaw the signing of a controversial pact with the US known as the bilateral security agreement. It's controversial because Hamid Karzai had incensed the Obama Administration by refusing to agree to the deal until his demands had been met, souring relations between Washington and Kabul.\nThis was something Ghani had vowed to mend. With Nato troops remaining in the country, it was supposed to protect Afghan interests and make Afghanistan safer. The security situation now is the worst it's been since 2001.\nThe insurgents have been invited to the negotiating table many times but say they won't be coming while foreign troops remain in the country. And why would the Taliban bother striking a peace deal with the government when they have made such significant gains in the battlefield?\nWhen I asked the Afghan president about growing concerns that the southern province of Helmand could collapse to the Taliban, he dismissed them. \"Every place they've made gains, we've reversed them. Concerns are one thing, I'm talking fact, you're talking fiction.\"\nBut according to the independent Afghan Analysts Network, the Taliban are now better organised, better equipped and have developed sanctuaries in Afghanistan. In a report released this month, the AAN has given a detailed breakdown of the districts the Taliban are currently in control of in Helmand province.\nThere is no doubt that the Afghan president is in a tough position. He and his fragile unity government face the difficult balancing act of stabilising the security situation and providing assurances to the Afghan people that their future prospects are not entirely doomed.\nBut with 60% of the population under the age of 20, it is clearly proving hard for the Afghan leader to convince them that there is hope for a better future if they remain in the country.\nThe central government also fears that it is mostly the educated middle class who are leaving. This means it will be an even greater struggle to rebuild Afghanistan after years of conflict.", "The talks will be launched in Ecuador's capital, Quito, on 27 October.\nPresident Juan Manuel Santos urged both sides to be realistic in their demands, saying: \"Time is the biggest enemy.\"\nMr Santos is trying to salvage a peace accord with Farc rebels, which was rejected by voters earlier this month.\nInformal talks with the ELN began three years ago, he said.\nThe announcement of an \"open phase\" in the negotiations was made in Venezuela, which will be one of the guarantors of the process.\nThe others will be Norway, Cuba, Chile, Brazil and Ecuador.\nIt was six months ago that the ELN appeared in Caracas, together with government envoys, saying they were ready to begin proper negotiations.\nBut President Santos said that would not happen until they had freed all the people they held hostage.\nThe ELN insisted that the issue of the hostages should be part of the actual negotiation.\nThey seemed to have met each other half way - in the past two weeks the ELN has released three people.\nAnd although they have not freed everyone they have kidnapped, they said they would release two more people before talks begin in Quito on 27 October.\nThe rebels have made a commitment not to carry out any more kidnappings, Mr Santos said in a recorded televised statement.\nThey have now freed three hostages in the past two weeks and have agreed to release two others in the next few days.\nEarlier on Monday, the ELN freed a hostage in a remote location near the border with Venezuela.\nHe has been identified as Nelson Alarcon Jarro, a rice producer from the northern province of Arauca, who was kidnapped three months ago.\nHow significant is Colombia's ELN rebel group?\nThe Farc agreement was rejected by 50.2% voters in a referendum on 2 October.\nIt had been signed by Mr Santos and the Farc leader, Timoleon Jimenez, better known as Timochenko, a few days earlier, after nearly four years of talks held in Cuba.\nOn Friday, Mr Santos was awarded the Nobel Peace prize for his efforts to secure a peace deal with the Farc and put an end to 52 years of conflict.\nDespite the rejection by voters, Mr Santos vowed to continue with talks with the rebels.\nHe announced on Sunday that he would donate the money from the Nobel prize ($925,000; £750,000) to the victims of the conflict.\nMr Santos said that issues concerning the Farc peace talks would not be discussed during the ELN conversations.\nHe hailed the prospect of Colombia enjoying \"complete peace\" if the country's two largest rebel groups, the Farc and the ELN, reach an agreement to give up their armed struggle.\nThe ELN has an estimated 2,500 fighters in its ranks, according to El Tiempo newspaper.", "But there has been an eerie silence in Pakistani quarters in the 24 hours since the Afghan government announced that Mullah Omar died in a Pakistani hospital in April 2013.\nThis was despite reports that the top leadership council of the Taliban had been meeting in the Pakistani city of Quetta to choose the successor.\nPakistan's state television has ignored the news for the most part since it first broke.\nThe private media mostly followed the BBC line, and held debates in which the usual ex-military analysts, while refraining from confirming or denying the death, focused on the timing of the leak, saying it was meant to defame Pakistan and undermine Taliban-Kabul talks, which Pakistan had been set to host.\nSome even suggested the Indians might have forced the hand of the Afghan officials who leaked it to the BBC.\nA day after Kabul's announcement, a Pakistani foreign office spokesman said he wouldn't like to comment on \"rumours\" of Mullah Omar's death.\nFew are impressed at Pakistan's stance.\nOsama Bin Laden was found and killed in Pakistan even though for years Pakistan denied he was present on its soil.\nNow Afghan intelligence officials have gone ahead with the claim that Mullah Omar died in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi.\nWhile there may never be official Pakistani confirmation of this, few doubt claims that he lived most of his post-9/11 life in southern Pakistan.\nThe reason lies in the origin of the Taliban movement, and its symbiotic relationship with Pakistan.\nThe movement was originally confined to some parts of Kandahar province, and was mainly a localised reaction to extortion and moral crimes by local warlords.\nBut it gained strength in the later part of 1994 when Pakistanis dressed as madrassah students descended on the border town of Spin Boldak, busted a huge arms cache of a former mujahideen group, and then rolled up the Kandahar highway to free a Pakistani trade convoy to central Asia which had been held hostage by local warlords.\nSubsequent years saw former mujahideen fighters joining the Taliban movement in their hundreds in a blitzkrieg in which the southern cities fell to the Taliban one after the other.\nSecurity analysts in Pakistan and the US have long held that Pakistan provided the Taliban with logistics and tactical leadership to capture such important regional centres as Herat in the west, Jalalabad in the east and finally Kabul in 1996.\nPost-9/11, when the US-led coalition dislodged the Taliban regime, Pakistan allowed the fleeing militants to carve a sanctuary on its soil in the border town of Wana in South Waziristan tribal district.\nThis sanctuary later expanded to an entire north-western belt along the Afghan border, called the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).\nThis played a major role in the Taliban's ability to survive, and finally take the battle to the US-led coalition troops inside Afghanistan.\nAll this while, and despite Pakistan's denials, it was common knowledge the entire Taliban leadership set up bases in Quetta and Peshawar, and later in Karachi, from where they guided operations inside Afghanistan.\nAfter the end of Nato's mission in Afghanistan last year, Pakistan moved to clear these sanctuaries of unwanted groups that the Taliban-al-Qaeda militant network had spawned over a decade.\nIn recent months, it has also reverted to securing peace in Afghanistan, without which it cannot successfully implement a major economic corridor the Chinese are building across the length of the country to connect China with the Arabian Sea.\nBut Pakistan's need to keep Indian influence out of Afghanistan continues to cause suspicions among some sections of Afghan ruling circles, who believe Pakistan will manipulate peace talks to achieve its own objectives at the cost of Afghan interests.\nMany believe the Pakistanis would have kept Mullah Omar's death a secret in order to prevent rifts within Taliban.\nMeanwhile, Pakistani officials believe that the Afghan intelligence service, the NDS, has been leaking news of the Taliban's engagement with Kabul to embarrass the Taliban leadership and to encourage defections from their ranks.\nThey feel by confirming the news of Mullah Omar's death on Wednesday, the NDS pushed President Ashraf Ghani, who was opposed to making the news public, into a corner.\nWhether this move by the NDS will achieve peace in Afghanistan is a question only time will answer, but many believe that the Taliban movement will no longer be the monolithic force it remained until about three years ago.\nAnd the NDS will also now be able to sell their long-held view to domestic and international audiences that the Taliban leadership is but a lackey of Pakistan.", "Two Afghan police and one security guard were killed in the dawn assault, along with seven attackers. The US consulate said its staff were safe.\nThe Taliban said they carried out the attack, which began with a huge blast at the compound gates, sparking a gun battle near consulate buildings.\nAttacks continue despite the planned withdrawal of foreign troops in 2014.\nSeventeen civilians, including women and children, were injured in the Herat attack.\nBy David LoynBBC News, Kabul\nHerat city may usually be peaceful, but the Taliban are able to operate in the countryside nearby, and the US consulate, standing in a tall former 5-star hotel was a tempting target.\nThe attack followed a familiar pattern of a suicide explosion followed by other attackers.\nIn the week of the anniversary of 9/11, security forces were expecting the Taliban to attempt a 'spectacular' attack. The success of Afghan forces in repulsing a determined assault is a relief. Both the Afghan police and army are far better than they were, and Afghan police did most of the fighting in Herat, with US troops backing them up. Once again Afghan police bore the worst casualties.\nBut 12 years after the Taliban government was ousted, their ability and willingness to carry out attacks of this sort asks serious questions about the international strategy in Afghanistan.\nHerat sits close to the Iranian border on a vital trade route across southern Afghanistan and it has been relatively peaceful in recent years.\nThe US consulate in Herat was opened just four years ago in a former five-star hotel.\nThe BBC's David Loyn in Kabul says this attack - carried out in the shadow of the anniversary of 9/11 - is a demonstration of the ability of insurgents to disrupt Afghanistan, 12 years after US-led forces toppled the Taliban.\nIn violence elsewhere, a truck bomb exploded near government offices in the volatile south-eastern province of Paktika, injuring several Afghan security personnel.\nThe force of the explosions in Herat left the road badly damaged and pieces of twisted metal and rubble could be seen in the vicinity of the consulate, reports say.\nAn Afghan army spokesman told the BBC that a huge truck bomb damaged the outer defences of the US consulate, allowing the attackers to breach the perimeter and shoot at the consulate buildings.\n\"A truck carrying attackers drove to the front gate, and attackers, possibly firing rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles, commenced attacking Afghan Protective forces on the exterior of the gates,\" US State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters.\n\"Shortly after, the entire truck exploded, extensively damaging the front gate [to the consulate],\" she added.\nThe gunfire continued for some time, reporters at the scene said.\nThe Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) tweeted at 04:00 GMT that the consulate was secure \"with all enemy forces being killed\". Isaf and Afghan National Security Forces were at the scene, it added.\nPeter Bezkorowajnyj, who works in Afghanistan, told the BBC he could see smoke from the explosion from the roof of his building.\nThe explosion \"rocked the building I am staying in\", he said.\nEarlier this month Taliban targeted the Torkham US base in eastern Afghanistan, sparking a lengthy gun battle in which three insurgents were killed.", "\"Where is Mullah Omar?\" is a question sources say is being increasingly and angrily directed at the commander regarded as the acting head, Akhtar Mohammad Mansour.\nCommander Mansour has long been reported to be fighting off threats to his authority from more hardline Taliban opposed to any peace talks, including Abdul Qayum Zakir.\nThe Taliban are also facing a growing challenge from the still small, but increasingly significant presence of the so-called Islamic State in Afghanistan. Videos have emerged of disgruntled Taliban fighters swearing allegiance to the IS's self-declared Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.\nThe Iraqi cleric, who also declared a modern day caliphate in areas under IS control in Iraq and Syria, has publicly mocked the religious and political leadership of Mullah Omar.\nIn a Taliban movement said to be founded on a pledge of allegiance to the Amir ul-Mumineen (Commander of the Faithful), Mullah Omar's authority was regarded as a binding force of political and military strength.\n\"I really hope peace talks are concluded before Mullah Omar dies,\" a former senior Taliban official nervously remarked to me several years ago with unexpected candour about the movement's leader. \"When he's gone, it will be much harder to maintain Taliban unity,\" he admitted with palpable concern.\nOur conversation, outside Afghanistan, took place at a time when Nato-led forces were killing many mid-level Taliban commanders in their operations in southern Afghanistan. That was raising concern that younger, more radicalised fighters, without a strong allegiance to the Taliban leader, would rise through the ranks and be hard to keep in line.\nIn 2010, when US diplomats first engaged in face-to-face talks with the Taliban through what later became known as the movement's Political Office in the Gulf state of Qatar, they first sought to establish that the Talibs were acting with Mullah Omar's authority. At the time, US diplomats involved in the process told me credible assurances were received that Syed Tayyab Agha, his former personal secretary, had his blessing.\nThat green light was, however, said to be strictly limited to negotiations with the Americans about Taliban prisoners and the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan.\nThey eventually resulted in last year's swap of the remaining American soldier in Taliban captivity, Bowe Bergdahl, for five Taliban members held at Guantanamo Bay.\nThis year, in the midst of a series of unprecedented informal meetings between the Taliban's Political Office and Afghan government officials, Taliban sources emphasised they still did not have formal authorisation from Mullah Omar to negotiate officially and openly with the Afghan government.\nThat again raised the most salient issue: how to get a ruling from a leader who has not been seen in public since late 2001 when the Taliban movement was ousted in Afghanistan after the attacks of 11 September. Even his recorded messages stopped several years ago.\nTaliban officials often insisted their leader had to keep an exceptionally low profile because of US efforts to kill or capture him. But he was widely rumoured to be in Pakistan, despite Islamabad's denials. A senior Afghan official told me a few years ago that the Americans had confirmed to him that Mullah Omar was living in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi.\nThis month, a written message from Mullah Omar suddenly appeared, to mark the Islamic Eid Festival. It did not directly refer to a new separate process of peace talks being organised by the Pakistani government which represented the first publicly recognised formal talks.\nBut the text said \"peaceful interactions with the enemies is not prohibited\" under Islamic tradition. It led to speculation over whether the message had been written by Mullah Omar himself, or someone who wanted his seal of legitimacy.\nReports of the Taliban leader's death have circulated for years but these latest ones have now emerged just days before another round of peace talks in Pakistan is about to get under way at the end of this month.\nThey also come at a time of disagreement over who should represent the Taliban in any negotiations with the Afghan government.\nSources say Pakistani military intelligence officers, who have long had close ties to the Taliban, are urging Taliban field commanders they have worked with to come to the table instead of members of the Political Office in Qatar with whom they have had difficult relations.\nAfghan President Ashraf Ghani, who has adopted a new policy of working closely with the Pakistan government and military on Taliban issues, is said to be giving Islamabad considerable leeway in a negotiating process making slow and indeterminate progress.\nBefore the first round of talks in the Pakistani hill resort of Murree in early July, Mr Ghani was said to be under mounting pressure to abandon his approach to Pakistan, which was markedly different from his predecessor Hamid Karzai's strained relations with Islamabad.\nAnd there's the larger question of how committed Taliban commanders are to a political process when they continue to conduct bloody attacks not just against military and police targets but also brazen assaults on Afghan civilians everywhere from crowded markets to the country's national assembly.\nNumerous countries are known to have been involved for years in secret and not so secret efforts to bring the Taliban to the table including China, Norway, Britain, and some private mediation groups.\nThe legitimacy conveyed by the mythical Mullah Omar was always regarded as essential even if the reclusive leader had long ceased to be involved in the day-to-day running of the movement.\nNow the issue of who can replace such a powerful figurehead is emerging as one of the most significant challenges to its survival as a cohesive political and military force.", "Ashraf Ghani said the 453 UK troops had \"paid the ultimate sacrifice to enable us to live in freedom, in hope for peace, prosperity and dignity\".\nThe Queen and many veterans will attend a service at St Paul's Cathedral later to commemorate the end of the war.\nA simultaneous service will be held in Afghanistan for troops still there.\nThe Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prime Minister David Cameron are all expected to attend the St Paul's ceremony, which will be followed by a procession through London.\nUK forces were part of a US-led coalition which invaded Afghanistan and toppled the ruling Taliban in 2001, following the 9/11 attacks in the US.\nAnne Linley's son, Staff Sgt Brett Linley, was 29 when he was killed as he worked to clear improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan in 2010.\nHe defused more than 100 bombs and posthumously received the George Medal for \"great bravery\".\nMrs Linley said it would be a \"great honour\" to be at St Paul's along with members of the Royal Family and other soldiers' parents.\n\"I'm looking forward to it but dreading it at the same time because you don't know what kind of emotions it will bring forward,\" she said.\nSpeaking about her son, she said: \"I miss him all day long... we carry him in our hearts and always will.\"\nA new interim government was set up in December 2001 - but the Taliban kept fighting and has killed thousands of foreign and Afghan government troops over the years since the invasion.\nThe Taliban remains a powerful force in the country, and declared the \"defeat\" of the US and its allies when Nato formally ended its combat mission in December.\nAt the peak of the campaign the UK military, which faced regular Taliban attacks, had 9,500 troops and 137 bases in Helmand Province.\nFormer soldier Craig Gadd, now of Help for Heroes, lost his left leg after stepping on an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan.\nHe said: \"Things happen. I feel very lucky that I only lost one leg. Some of my colleagues have injuries far worse than mine. I've done some amazing things since that day.\"\nPte James Prosser was killed in Afghanistan in 2009. His mother Sarah Adams told the Today programme that the country had not been left as safe as was intended.\n\"James believed in what he was doing, and I have to try to accept that, that he wanted to do that and believed he should be there. But as a mum, it's very difficult.\n\"It's just very hard to take that we didn't leave it as we were supposed to leave it. We did achieve a lot but we didn't make it the safest place and it's still ongoing. Afghan people are still losing their lives because of the Taliban.\"\nL/Cpl James Ashworth was killed in 2012 and posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.\nHis father Duane Ashworth said he believed the situation in Afghanistan had improved, adding: \"I do believe that the country is in a better position than it was when we first arrived 13 years ago. It's now for the forces that are there to continue that training with the Afghan forces and police, to make sure what our lads did does continue.\"\nThe last British combat troops left in October last year, though some still remain in training, advisory and support roles.\nAs well as paying tribute to Britain's war dead, President Ghani spoke of the enduring legacy of the UK's commitment at the British-run officer training academy near Kabul.\nBBC Afghanistan correspondent David Loyn said: \"President Ghani's tribute contrasts strongly with complaints by his predecessor President Karzai, who said that the British presence had made things worse in Helmand and frequently clashed with British diplomats and soldiers about their role.\n\"The new government in Afghanistan sees things very differently.\"", "Mr Ghani told the Heart of Asia meeting in Islamabad that regional co-operation was needed to end terrorism.\nHis comments are being seen in reference to Kabul's long-held view that Pakistan supports the Taliban in Afghanistan, a charge Islamabad denies.\nIndian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj promised her country's help to Kabul.\nShe will also hold rare bilateral talks with Pakistani officials on Wednesday.\nThe Heart of Asia gathering brings together Asian and other countries to discuss the future of Afghanistan and its neighbours.\nSecurity co-operation between Afghanistan and Pakistan is seen as crucial in countering a growing threat from the Taliban and other militants in the region.\nOn Wednesday, Mr Ghani blamed Pakistan-based militant groups for the escalating violence in Afghanistan.\n\"The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan launched a vicious attack on children in Peshawar for which they robustly responded. But that very response brought them onto our country... What is the nature of the Taliban and how do we deal with it?\" he asked.\nMilitants from the Pakistani Taliban killed more than 150 people, mostly children, in an attack on an army-run school in Peshawar last year.\nMr Ghani also warned that the presence of international militant groups was growing in Afghanistan.\n\"Al-Qaeda, Daesh [Islamic State militant group] and terrorists from China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, the Middle East are all, unfortunately, present on our soil.\"\nPakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said \"working for the achievement of a peaceful neighbourhood is a cardinal principal of Pakistan's foreign policy\".\n\"We should envisage collective and coordinated measures on the regional security front to ensure that the gains and struggle against terrorism are durable and irreversible,\" he said.\nAfghanistan is also a source of tension between Pakistan and India, with the former accusing the latter of meddling in what it sees as its backyard.\nMs Swaraj said India was prepared to \"move our co-operation at a pace which Pakistan is comfortable with\".\n\"But today, let us at least resolve to help Afghanistan - in the best traditions of good neighbourliness - through more effective transit arrangements,\" she said.\nIndia will host the Heart of Asia conference next year.\nMeanwhile, Ms Swaraj is likely to meet Mr Sharif and other Pakistani officials on Wednesday.\nHer visit comes days after India and Pakistan held unexpected peace talks in Bangkok after a stalemate of four months.\nThey cancelled a high-level meeting in August after months of tension in disputed Kashmir, but ties have eased since.\nMs Swaraj's visit comes in the aftermath of a dramatic rise - and then a rather sudden ease - in tensions between the two nuclear-armed rivals.\nPakistan wants to discuss Kashmir, claimed by both countries in its entirety.\nIndia wants Pakistan to allow greater commercial interaction, liberalise visa regimes, grant transit rights to traders between Delhi and Kabul, and stamp out militant groups which it believes Pakistan has raised to destabilise Kashmir and Afghanistan.\nThis is a complex situation, and talks in the past have often broken down, underlining a trust deficit on both sides.\nHowever, Ms Swaraj's visit suggests that the two sides are ready to restart peace talks. And a measure of their success would be if they can draw up a road-map for more substantive talks in the near future.\nIndian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a brief meeting with Mr Sharif at the climate change conference in Paris on 1 December.\nThat was followed by Sunday's meeting in the Thai capital, Bangkok where the two sides said their security advisers talked about terrorism, Kashmir, peace and security.\nCorrespondents say the talks and Ms Swaraj's visit show that the nuclear-armed rivals are open to restart peace talks after what was described as a \"diplomatic fiasco\" in August.\nBut few expect any major breakthroughs.", "The swift election of a new leader of the Taliban came with little controversy surrounding the choice or the manner in which it was carried out - and that bodes well for Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhunzada.\nA noted religious figure from Kandahar who has never commanded the Taliban in battle but instead set up a well known madrassa in Kuchlak near Quetta where the Taliban leaders live, he is respected by the many in the movement who see him as honest if not a political heavyweight.\nA justice of the Taliban Supreme Court during the 1990s and a close religious adviser to the group's founder Mullah Omar, he has been one of the major figures issuing religious fatwas or edicts governing how the Taliban interpret Sharia or Islamic law - a cornerstone of their ideology and also much of their cruelty towards women and minorities.\nProfile: New Taliban chief Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada\nAppointment signals continuity\nThe trail of clues after Taliban leader's death\nViewpoint: Talks with the Afghan Taliban\nNo doubt he and his two deputies, Haqqani faction leader Sirajuddin Haqqani and Mullah Mohammad Yakoob, son of Mullah Omar, will continue to pursue the Taliban summer offensive.\nThere will be no let-up in the fighting for the time being so as to prevent any loss of morale or unity among the rank and file fighters, at the precise moment when US drones and the Afghan armed forces may be hoping for a sudden drop in morale and momentum in the Taliban ranks which they could exploit.\nHowever, more than anything these next few weeks and months offer a space for greater diplomacy. It is time to step up efforts to reach out to the Taliban.\nThis is the moment when the US and Nato countries, Pakistan and Iran and other regional powers should try to throw everything into establishing contacts with the Taliban and persuade them to enter peace talks with Kabul.\nA purposeful diplomatic offensive should be launched by all states involved, in the hope that the Taliban will react positively.\nClearly the four-nation quadrilateral dialogue is now dead, partially buried by Pakistan's unwillingness to put real pressure on the Taliban to enter into constructive peace talks with Kabul, and the military's continuing support for the Taliban leadership.\nFor example there is still no official comment about how former Taliban leader Mullah Mansour received a Pakistani passport and ID card and how he travelled 18 times to Dubai without a question being asked.\nPakistan's military and Inter-Services Intelligence wasted a year, continuously raising hopes that it would bring the Taliban to the table but in reality achieving nothing and playing a waiting game, while the Taliban went on to notch up more victories in Afghanistan.\nHowever the talks also partly died because the US and Nato countries showed so little interest in the process.\nWhat is needed now is a different kind of diplomacy. Dependence on Pakistan and the US should come to an end. Taliban figures now living outside Pakistan and Afghanistan should be consulted by all involved states, particularly the now large and influential group of Taliban diplomats and commanders gathered in Qatar.\nThe Qataris and other Arab states should be persuaded to play a more constructive and assertive role in engaging with this group of Taliban or encouraging diplomats from other states to meet them. The Afghan government should also meet these Taliban quietly, too, so that direct meetings between Afghans become the norm rather than a rarity.\nThe Americans should also establish a team to contact all the Taliban figures it is possible to talk to. Most important is for the US to accept the long-standing Taliban demand of wanting to talk to the Americans before they talk to President Ashraf Ghani. The US and Mr Ghani should agree to this. After all the Americans had begun a process of direct talks with the Qatar Taliban six years ago but it ended acrimoniously.\nThe Pakistanis should be persuaded by, not just the Americans, but by regional countries that playing a solo game with the Taliban is both dangerous and provocative. The Taliban leaders in Pakistan should be allowed to travel and meet whom they like in the context of a peace plan.\nDespite so many failures on the peace front, India and Pakistan must be encouraged to speak to each other on Afghanistan. Pakistan's military is obsessed with India's potential role in Afghanistan and that lack of trust needs to be removed.\nAt first a diplomatic blitz by all powers may look unplanned, unstructured and meaningless but a dialogue with a proscribed terrorist group can never be easy - as the Northern Ireland talks showed.\nA new Taliban leadership which is clearly becoming less dependent on Pakistan needs to be addressed quickly, before once again the space closes and hardliners who want nothing less than total victory come to the fore. It is time for stepped-up diplomacy and reaching out to the Taliban.", "The BBC polls found that 68% in the UK said involvement was not worthwhile, while in the US, 51% said it was not.\nThe end of British combat operations was announced on Sunday with Camp Bastion handed over to Afghan control. The final UK troops left on Monday.\nPM David Cameron said Britain should be \"incredibly proud\".\nThe BBC telephone poll of 1,000 UK adults, carried out from 24-26 October, found 42% thought Britain was \"less safe\" as a result of the 13-year campaign.\nResponses showed 14% thought the UK was safer as a result of the international intervention in Afghanistan, and 39% thought there was \"no real difference\".\nThe telephone poll in the US surveyed 1,002 adults. Asked the same question about whether or not their country was safer, 28% said it was, while 25% said it was \"less safe\".\nThe largest percentage in the US, 43%, felt there was no difference.\nIn the UK, 24% said they thought Britain's involvement was worthwhile, while in the US, 45% said their own involvement was worthwhile.\nIn addition, 24% in the UK said the deployment of troops had left Afghanistan \"better off\", 25% said the country was \"worse off\" and 44% said there was no real difference.\nThe US poll found that 34% thought Afghanistan was \"better off\", with 20% saying it was \"worse off\" and 43% saying there was no real difference.\nIn answer to another question, 31% in the UK said they were somewhat or very confident Afghanistan could \"protect its citizens without the help of UK forces\", while 64% said they were not so confident or not confident at all.\nIn the US, 31% also said they were confident of that, with 66% not confident.\nThe final UK troops left by air, with the last holding the union jack.\nThe government has said they will not return to fight in Afghanistan \"under any circumstances\".\nThe UK's most senior officer in Helmand, Brig Rob Thomson, said: \"We can be proud of what we have achieved here. There is no doubt that we have contributed to a brighter future for Afghanistan.\"\nMr Cameron said: \"When al-Qaeda attacked the twin towers in 2001, they planned that attack from Afghanistan, operating freely under the Taliban regime.\n\"Our incredible servicemen and women have driven al-Qaeda out and they have built up and trained the Afghan forces, none of which even existed in 2001, so that the Afghans can take control of their own security.\"\nHe added: \"We should be incredibly proud of all they have done to keep our country safe.\"\nBy Jonathan Beale, BBC defence correspondent\nThe last UK forces in Camp Bastion began their pull-out in the early hours of Monday morning.\nOnce their main base in Helmand housing thousands of troops, it was, in the final hours, occupied by just a few hundred UK soldiers and US marines.\nIt was a carefully rehearsed manoeuvre that had taken months to plan.\nAs British forces left their watchtowers they were replaced by Afghan soldiers who will now be left to guard Bastion and fight the Taliban on their own.\nAt just before midday the final wave of UK and US helicopters took off.\nIn less than an hour they had landed back in Kandahar, their final staging post before the long journey home.\nThe last UK commander in Helmand, Brig Rob Thomson, expressed his pride and relief when they'd all arrived safely.\nIt marks not just the end of their mission but the end of Britain's 13-year war in Afghanistan - and British forces have been told they will not be returning.\nDefence Secretary Michael Fallon told the BBC that troops were coming home with their \"heads held high\", having helped make Afghanistan a \"much better place\".\nHe said the country was no longer a \"safe haven\" for extremist group al-Qaeda and Afghans now had a \"chance of a better future\".\nHe said there was \"no guarantee\" Afghanistan would \"be safe and stable forever\", but the Afghan government now had 300,000 soldiers and police officers.\nAsked if the Afghan army might collapse, as parts of the Iraqi army did in the face of Islamic State militants, Mr Fallon said Iraq's forces were \"seen as sectarian\" while the Afghan army had the \"support of the whole population\".\nHe said the UK was not \"walking away entirely\" and would continue to give help and support, including financial aid and military training.\nThe Taliban insurgency continues, and Afghan police said four of its officers had been killed and at least 10 were taken hostage when militants attacked a compound in the northern Badakhshan Province on Sunday.\nElsewhere, Maj Gen Richard Nugee, one of Britain's highest-ranking commanders in Afghanistan, said Afghan forces had proved they could \"hold their ground\" and defeat the Taliban.\nRobert Hall in Royal Wootton Bassett\nIt's a busy Monday on Wootton Bassett High Street, but pride in the past burns brightly here.\nMore than three years after the last repatriation cortege passed through, residents still talk of the days when the town fell silent and the bell tolled for the fallen.\nTown councillor Chris Wannall told me there was never any formal organisation, just a spontaneous desire to show support, which drew thousands from every corner of the UK.\nToday, this is Royal Wootton Bassett, but this community never sought honour or media attention. Just the quiet satisfaction that it had done its duty.\nAsked about the UK's 13-year military operation, he added: \"Was it worth it? It's always difficult to say for those who have lost people here, but actually this country is a far better place and I believe we're safer in Britain.\"\nGeneral Sir Mike Jackson, former Chief of the General Staff of the British army, told BBC News that Afghanistan \"without doubt is a better place than it was in the aftermath of 9/11.\"\nHe added: \"Things are not perfect, of course, and there is a security problem, which has not yet been resolved, but I am not going to stand here and say I don't believe Afghanistan is not the better for the blood and the treasure… that's been expended.\"\nLabour leader Ed Miliband said: \"All those who served did so to help ensure Afghanistan could no longer be used as a safe haven for terrorists.\"\nBut former Labour Deputy Prime Minister Lord Prescott has questioned whether the results \"justified\" the 453 UK deaths.\nWriting in the Daily Mirror, Lord Prescott, who was in the cabinet that sent British troops to Afghanistan in 2001, said: \"I respect the thousands of gallant men and women who went to Afghanistan and Iraq to save lives and restore peace.\n140,000\nUK troops served\n£21.5bn\nTotal operational cost\n453 UK troops killed\n108 died in 2009 - the worst year\n470 mentors staying on\n\"But they teach us that being the world's policeman carries a heavy price and does not justify the heavy loss of lives.\"\nIan Sadler, of the Military Families Support Group, said UK troops \"could've come out a lot sooner\".\nMr Sadler, whose son Jack was killed in Afghanistan in 2007, said Britain should not have tried to \"construct a new nation\" in Afghanistan, and UK forces should have left after driving al-Qaeda out of its training areas.\nUK forces were part of a US-led coalition which toppled the ruling Taliban in 2001, following the 9/11 attacks in the US.\nAfter 9/11, US President George W Bush demanded the Taliban hand over any leaders of al-Qaeda - the militant group which later claimed responsibility for the attacks - in Afghanistan, but the Taliban did not immediately comply.\nTaliban leaders called for talks, but President Bush said there would be \"no negotiations\" and military action started on 7 October.\nCamp Bastion, in Helmand province, was the UK's main Afghan base from 2006.\nAt the time it opened, the UK said its forces would be there to protect the reconstruction of the country, but they got caught up in the struggle against the Taliban.", "At a ceremony in Kabul, President Hamid Karzai said that from Wednesday \"our own security and military forces will lead all the security activities\".\nObservers say the best soldiers in the Afghan army are up to the task but there are lingering doubts about some.\nInternational troops will remain in Afghanistan until the end of 2014, providing military back-up when needed.\nThe ceremony came shortly after a suicide bomb attack in western Kabul killed three employees of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and wounded more than 20.\nThe attacker was believed to be targeting the convoy of prominent politician and Hazara leader Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, who escaped with light injuries.\nMeanwhile, sources close to Taliban representatives have confirmed to the BBC that they are opening an office in the Qatari capital Doha, possibly as early as Tuesday. It is seen as an important stage in establishing a political face for the movement.\nThe Taliban has in the past refused talks with Mr Karzai's government, calling it a puppet of the US. But the Afghan president said on Tuesday he is sending representatives to Qatar to discuss peace talks with the movement.\nPresident Karzai has been outspoken about his upset at previous US and Qatari efforts to kick-start the peace process without properly consulting his government, the BBC's Bilal Sarwary reports from Kabul.\nThere is also concern within the presidential palace that the Taliban will use the political office in Qatar to raise funds, our correspondent adds.\nTuesday's ceremony saw the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) hand over control of the last 95 districts in a transition process that began in 2011.\nThe last remaining districts included 13 in Kandahar province - the birthplace of the Taliban - and 12 each in Nangarhar, Khost and Paktika, all bastions of insurgent activity along the border with Pakistan.\nBy David LoynBBC News, Kabul\nThere are still 97,000 international troops in Afghanistan as part of the Nato-led mission but those numbers are reducing as the day for the end of combat operations comes closer.\nThe forces are increasingly engaged in the complex business of closing bases and packing kit; very few now go out on patrol.\nThe practical effect of today's event is not great - a handful of districts, mainly along the eastern frontier, and in Kandahar, move formally to full Afghan combat lead.\nBut the symbolic impact is profound. For the first time since the departure of Soviet forces in 1989 and the years of civil war that followed, security across the whole of Afghanistan is now the responsibility of forces led by the Afghan government.\nBetween now and the final exit of international combat troops at the end of next year, they will support combat operations only when requested. Alongside training the only other assistance is helicopters to take out casualties. The Afghan forces remain inconsistent, but those who train them say the best are as good as any army in a developing country.\nAfghan forces count cost of war\nAfghanistan profile - Timeline\nDeadly blast before handover\nPresident Karzai called it an historic day and a moment of personal pride.\n\"This has been one of my greatest desires and pursuits,\" he said, \"and I am glad that I, as an Afghan citizen and an Afghan president, have reached this objective today.\"\nHe reiterated a shift in military strategy, ruling out the future use of air strikes on what he called Afghan homes and villages; the issue of Nato air strikes and civilian casualties has long been a sensitive one.\nNato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Afghan forces were taking up the role with \"remarkable resolve\" but said there was still 18 months of hard work ahead for Isaf troops.\n\"We will continue to help Afghan troops in operations if needed, but we will no longer plan, execute or lead those operations, and by the end of 2014 our combat mission will be completed,\" he said.\nSome Afghans who spoke to the BBC said security had improved in their areas after foreign troops left.\n\"Now that the foreigners are gone, the security situation in the city and in the districts is much better,\" said one man from Kandahar.\nAnother man, from Surkhroad district in eastern Nangarhar province, was less sure.\n\"In the past when foreign forces were present in Surkhroad the security was fine,\" he said.\n\"Now that the security responsibilities are being handed over to the Afghan forces, the security situation is currently ok, but there are some insurgents who are still firing from the eastern mountain areas.\"\nThe number of Afghan security forces has been gradually increasing from fewer than 40,000 six years ago to nearly 350,000 today.\nHowever, as it has taken over more responsibility for security, the Afghan army has suffered a sharp rise in casualties.\nBy comparison, international coalition casualties have been steadily falling since 2010.\nA high desertion rate among Afghan forces has also meant that thousands of new recruits are needed each month to fill its ranks.\nDespite the challenges, Isaf commander General Joseph Dunford recently told the BBC that the Afghan force is \"getting good enough\" to fulfil its role.\nIn recent Taliban attacks on the capital Kabul, Afghan rapid reaction police tackled the insurgents without having to call in Isaf forces.\nThe number of Isaf forces in Afghanistan peaked in 2011 at about 140,000, which included about 101,000 US troops.\nIsaf currently has about 97,000 troops in the country from 50 contributing nations, the bulk of whom - some 68,000 - are from the US.\nBy the end of 2014 all combat troops should have left to be replaced - if approved by the Afghan government - by a smaller force that will only train and advise.\nThe pressure on contributing nations to withdraw their troops has been exacerbated by a series of \"green-on-blue\" attacks in which members of the Afghan security forces have killed coalition troops.\nAt least 60 Nato personnel died in such attacks in 2012. Many more Afghan security force members have died at the hands of their colleagues, in so-called \"green-on-green\" attacks.\nUS President Barack Obama has not yet said how many troops he will leave in Afghanistan along with other Nato forces at the end of 2014.\nWashington has said that the Afghan government will get the weapons it needs to fight the insurgency including a fleet of MI-17 transport helicopters, cargo planes and ground support airplanes.\nAfghan army chief Gen Sher Muhammad Karimi said air capability was a key challenge.\n\"We are limited in air transportation and in some places we still need Isaf to help us. Other than that we are fully capable of doing our job,\" he told BBC Pashto.", "The Afghan government welcomed the move, as it sees him as one of the few senior Taliban figures willing to negotiate a peace deal to end unrest.\nMullah Baradar is one of the four men who founded the Taliban movement in Afghanistan in 1994.\nHe became a linchpin of the insurgency after the Taliban was toppled by the US-led invasion in 2001.\nHe was captured in the Pakistani city of Karachi in 2010.\nBy David LoynBBC News, Kabul\nMore than 30 Taliban members have been released from Pakistani jails in recent months, but Mullah Baradar is the one that the Afghan government is waiting for.\nA political adviser to the Kabul government team which addresses the issue of Taliban peace negotiations, Ismail Qasim Yar, said the government is ready to negotiate, but there is little room for manoeuvre. He made it clear that there can be no change to the constitution, one of the demands of the Taliban.\nBut he said that since Mullah Baradar was \"inclined towards a political solution,\" then his release might make a solution possible.\nMullah Baradar held several senior positions in the Taliban government before its fall in 2001. He then fled to Pakistan and for some years was the Taliban's military commander as they regrouped to fight a guerrilla war.\nHe was reportedly arrested in a secret raid by CIA and Pakistani agents.\nThe BBC's Aleem Maqbool in Islamabad says releasing one of the founders of the Taliban and a mastermind of the Afghan insurgency would seem a counter-productive step for the Kabul government and the US-led coalition.\nBut Mullah Baradar has been seen as one of the few senior Taliban figures who has shown a willingness to negotiate, our correspondent says.\nThe government in Kabul has been pressing for him to be free.\nAfghan diplomats had suggested Pakistan was trying to hinder the reconciliation process by backing more hardline elements within the Taliban.\nThe Taliban opened a political office in Doha in June, but it was quickly closed after President Karzai complained that they had flown a flag and put up a plaque as if they were a government in exile.\nProfile: Mullah Abdul Ghani BaradarWhat next for Mullah Baradar?\nSince then the US, UK, and Turkey have all attempted to mediate to reopen talks. President Karzai has appealed to the Taliban leadership to return home and negotiate openly, but has not offered guarantees of security.\nEven if a political settlement is agreed, which will be hard, it may be difficult to deliver it, says the BBC's David Loyn.\nThe Taliban is no longer the monolithic structure it once was, and a new younger generation of insurgents - particularly those fighting in the allied Haqqani network - may not be willing to stop the war.\nSome members of the former leadership, such as Mullah Zaeef, who had been living openly in Kabul, have faced harassment and raids on their homes.\nThere are also concerns among women's rights activists that the fragile gains made since 2001 could be jeopardised for a peace deal with the Taliban.\nA prominent MP, Shukria Barakzai, told the BBC that the government's priority is to do a deal, \"whatever the price.\" She is among those fighting in parliament to defend laws that protect women from violence, and believes that the government does not see this as a priority.\nMrs Barakzai said a deal with the Taliban would make victims of \"the people of Afghanistan, and in particular the women of Afghanistan.\"", "Mr Khan accused the US of sabotaging peace efforts with the Pakistani Taliban by killing its leader Hakimullah Mehsud last Friday.\n\"I mean are they a friend or an enemy?\" the former cricketer asked the BBC.\nHe says he will organise protests on routes to and from Afghanistan if drone attacks do not end by 20 November.\nNato convoys through Pakistan carry more than half the food, fuel and other equipment needed by Western troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.\nManoeuvrings to pick new Taliban head\nThe BBC's Richard Galpin in Islamabad says the Americans are very unlikely to stop their drone strikes because they believe they are weakening the militant groups.\nPakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is opposed to the drones but does not want to damage relations with the US by blocking Nato's supply routes, our correspondent adds.\nHakimullah Mehsud was killed at a compound in the tribal region of North Waziristan near the Afghan border, just as the government in Islamabad hoped to get peace talks with the Taliban and other militants under way.\nMr Khan said there was no coincidence in the timing of Fridays' attack.\n\"Absolutely deliberate - this was a deliberate targeting of the peace process,\" he said in a BBC interview.\n\"The US clearly knew what was going on and everyone in Pakistan knew what was going on.\n\"We'd been waiting for two months for this peace process to start and then finally when everyone had come to a consensus for peace, they destroyed the peace process.\n\"The people of Pakistan want peace so we will do whatever is in our hands - which is to block the supply to put pressure on the US to stop this madness, because all it's doing is fanning fanaticism.\"\nAlthough a government delegation was set to visit North Waziristan to discuss possible peace talks, correspondents say that dialogue about peace was embryonic and the Taliban was known to be divided over the matter. Previous \"peace\" deals have all failed.\nMr Khan has led anti-drone protests in the past and his PTI party are in power in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in the north-west. But correspondents say any decision to close routes into and out of Afghanistan would have to come from the government in Islamabad.\nIn November 2011 a row with the US led to Pakistan barring Nato convoys from entering or leaving Afghanistan for seven months. The routes are vital as Nato prepares to withdraw all combat forces by the end of 2014, although it has other more expensive options via Central Asia.\nFive days on from his death, the Taliban are still discussing Hakimullah Mehsud's successor.\nAmong the candidates named by local media as a potential replacement is Khan Said Sajna, a regional commander said to be open to the idea of peace talks.\nBut other candidates such as the hard-line Mullah Fazlullah, whose men shot and almost killed the schoolgirl and campaigner Malala Yousafzai and who is currently based in northern Afghanistan, were also said to be in the frame.\nBBC correspondents say the Pakistan Taliban are a loose and at times fractious group, and reaching an agreement on a new leader will test the ability of the senior commanders to work together.\nFor the moment the Taliban have said there will be no further peace talks as they say they have been \"deceived\" by the Pakistani government.\nPakistan summoned the US ambassador over the weekend to protest over the drone strike.\nBut the US state department said talks with the Taliban were \"an internal matter\" for Pakistan and referred to Mehsud's alleged role in attacks on US citizens.\nThe US had a bounty of $5m on Mehsud's head. The state department described him as the head of the group which planned the failed bombing of Times Square in 2010, and said the Pakistani Taliban had a \"symbiotic\" relationship with al-Qaeda.\nIn a rare interview with the BBC weeks before his killing, Mehsud laid down his conditions for peace - including the introduction of a harsh and controversial version of Islamic law in Pakistan.\nThe strike came just a week after Prime Minister Sharif met US President Barack Obama for wide-ranging talks in which they pledged to strengthen ties between the nations, recently strained by the issue of drone strikes.\nAs well as Mehsud, a number of top militants have been killed by drones in recent years. The previous Pakistan Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a drone strike in 2009.", "The answer lies in the folds of a multi-dimensional conflict in which the aims of various parties are often at odds with each other.\nAt one level, an increasingly aggressive insurgency rages across Afghanistan, preventing the government in Kabul and its international allies from stabilising the country.\nAt another, much of the insurgency appears to stem from another conflict further east - the rivalry between India and Pakistan.\nAll this is happening at a time when Afghan President Hamid Karzai is nearing the end of his term, and Nato's deadline for a drawdown is approaching.\n'Reconcilable' elements\nMeanwhile, Pakistan is known to have invested heavily to ensure that Afghanistan does not revert to its traditional anti-Pakistan, pro-India role of the pre-1980s, when Pakistan had to live under the threat of a two-front war.\nThis policy led to the creation of the Taliban movement in the early 1990s, and enabled them to regroup as a guerrilla force in the post-9/11 era after they found sanctuary in Pakistan.\nPakistanis are likely to continue with this policy unless India and Pakistan resolve their mutual conflict over Kashmir - a highly unlikely scenario.\nAgainst this backdrop, the relentless focus on Mullah Baradar's release points to an underlying hope that he could become a catalyst in bringing all the warring parties to a grand resolution.\nBut is this hope realistic?\nWhen Pakistanis arrested Mullah Baradar in February 2010, some Afghan officials claimed the move was meant to sabotage a peace process he had initiated with the Karzai government behind the Pakistanis' backs.\nThe Pakistanis, for their part, never made clear why they had arrested him, or some 50-odd other prominent Taliban leaders, while many others are free and actively engaging in the insurgency.\nMonths after his arrest, President Karzai appointed a 74-member High Peace Council to negotiate peace with the \"reconcilable\" elements within the Taliban.\nSince then, Pakistan has been under constant pressure from Kabul to release Mullah Baradar and other former Taliban officials in its custody to help in the peace process.\nNow that he is free, how quickly can he take to the stage? Not so soon, says Mohammad Hussain Haqyar, a Kabul-based analyst and former Taliban insider.\n\"He will discover that the political and military landscape has changed from when he left off three-and-a-half years ago.\n\"He will need to rest up, to update his knowledge of the latest military formations and patterns of deployment, and to assess the new thinking among the relevant players, including Taliban leadership,\" he said.\nIf left to himself, Mullah Baradar will stay in Pakistan and re-join the insurgency, but if his release is conditional, then it is anybody's guess, Mr Haqyar says.\nIf the terms of his release require that he deliver on the peace process, then the question is whether he will work for peace from within the Taliban or will he take an independent course?\n\"If he leaves Taliban, he will lose the clout and the respect he has within the movement. If he goes back to Taliban, he will be just an individual without any high political or military office,\" says Tahir Khan, an Islamabad-based journalist who covers Taliban affairs.\n\"In either case, he will not have the clout to influence the decisions of Taliban leadership.\"\nIf that is the case, then why has the Afghan government been so insistent on his release?\nOne possible explanation is that Kabul would favour conditions that minimise Pakistani control over Taliban insurgents.\nMany believe their release and possible move abroad would mean that Taliban prisoners are no longer held hostage by Pakistan, and therefore free to devise a peace formula that would conform more closely to the interests of Afghanistan.\nIt is not clear which country Mullah Baradar will ultimately end up in, but his family has already moved from Karachi to Dubai. Pakistani officials say he will set up base either in Turkey or Saudi Arabia.\nIf true, this would be a welcome move from the point of view of the Afghan government, which ran into trouble with the Qatari government earlier this year because it thought it had been bypassed in a Taliban decision to open an office there.\nWhen the Americans attacked Afghanistan in 2011, many senior Taliban leaders - including Mullah Baradar - simply went home and stayed there.\nMullah Baradar and others crossed into Pakistan a year later, when the insurgency gathered momentum. Others either moved closer to the Karzai government, or stayed on the sidelines.\nAnalysts believe Kabul hopes that Mullah Baradar would be able to draw these leaders into talks that can lead to wider consensus among the Taliban movement, the Afghan government and the Western powers represented by Nato.\nThe deputy head of the High Peace Council, Abdul Hakim Mujahid, also stresses sincerity from Pakistan.\n\"If Taliban, Pakistan and Afghanistan show sincerity in talks, people like [Mullah Baradar] can hugely benefit not only the process of reconciliation in Afghanistan, but also Pakistan-Afghanistan relations,\" he says.\nBut if any of the two countries lack sincerity, or if the Taliban leadership declines to support Mullah Baradar, \"then it is unwise to expect one or two individuals to perform a miracle\", he says.", "She did not give any details about who was involved or where they met.\nBut one senior US official said the meeting took place over the summer, before several major attacks against US interests in Afghanistan.\nMrs Clinton has been in talks in Islamabad where she has urged Pakistan to clamp down on the Haqqanis.\nShe said the US held one preliminary meeting with the Haqqani network \"to see if they would show up\".\n\"In fact, the Pakistani government officials helped to facilitate such a meeting,\" Mrs Clinton told Pakistani journalists.\nShe added: \"We have reached out to the Taliban, we have reached out to the Haqqani network to test their willingness and their sincerity, and we are now working among us - Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States - to try to put together a process that would sequence us toward an actual negotiation.\"\nReports about such a meeting circulated over the summer but the US refused to confirm them at the time.\nMrs Clinton said the US had reached out to the Taliban and to the Haqqani network to test their sincerity and willingness to engage in a peace process.\nThe BBC's Kim Ghattas, in Islamabad, says a political settlement is key to ending the war in Afghanistan.\nA senior US official also said the meeting took place over the summer at the request of Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, who asked the US to give it a chance.\nThe meeting took place before two major attacks against US troops in Afghanistan and the US embassy in Kabul.\nThe attacks were blamed on the Haqqani network.\nIn September, outgoing US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm Mike Mullen called the Haqqanis a \"veritable arm\" of the Pakistani intelligence agency, accusing the ISI of directly supporting the militants.\nPakistan has denied supporting militants. Last month, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said that his country \"will not bow to US pressure\" on fighting militancy.\nEarlier, Mrs Clinton held talks with Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, who said more could be achieved with better international co-operation.\n\"Do safe havens exist? Yes, they do exist [on] both sides,\" Ms Khar said. \"Do we need to co-operate? Yes. We can co-operate more and achieve better results.\"\nRelations between the US and Pakistan are at their lowest point for a decade.\nAfter months of tension Mrs Clinton is heading a high-powered delegation that includes CIA chief David Petraeus and the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Martin Dempsey.\nSpeaking in the Afghan capital Kabul on Thursday, Mrs Clinton called for a new partnership between the US, Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight militants, whom she urged to pursue peace. She said Pakistan \"must be part of the solution\" to the Afghan conflict.", "Ali Haider Gilani was rescued in a joint Afghan-US special forces operation on Tuesday.\nHe was abducted three years ago while campaigning for elections, reportedly by al-Qaeda-linked militants.\nHe thanked the Afghan security forces for \"their sacrifice for someone from another country\".\n\"That shows the efforts of the Afghan government to bringing peace in the region,\" he told reporters in Kabul, where he was handed over to Pakistani diplomats.\nHe also thanked US forces for providing him with food, shelter and medical care.\n\"I'm just looking forward to being reunited with my family and just getting back to normal life,\" he added.\nHe arrived at the defence ministry in Kabul with long hair and a heavy beard, wearing a T-shirt, combat trousers and a baseball cap.\nAfter undergoing medical check-ups at a military base, he was flown home on a chartered aircraft sent from Pakistan with his brother aboard, according to Pakistan's foreign ministry.\nThe BBC's Pashto Online Editor Inayatulhaq Yasini says the rescue mission by US-Afghan forces may open the door for new contacts between the two capitals.\nThere have been long-running tensions between Kabul and Islamabad. Afghanistan blames Pakistan for harbouring Taliban militants, but Pakistan says it is itself the victim of militants from Afghanistan.\nThe Nato-led mission in Afghanistan said he had been rescued in a joint operation in the eastern Paktika province.\n\"The counter-terrorism mission was planned and launched after evidence of terrorist activity was confirmed,\" the Resolute Support mission said in a statement.\nThe force had an \"inkling\" a hostage was being held there but was not aware it was Mr Gilani, according to Brigadier General Charles Cleveland, spokesman for the Nato-led force.\nAli Haider Gilani's brother, Ali Musa Gilani, told the BBC he had been caught unaware by the release, with the family not told about the operation.\n\"He [Ali Haider Gilani] called himself from an Afghanistan number, and he just told me, 'I have US military around me, and they have rescued me, and now what are you doing? Who are you getting in touch with to get me out of here?'\"\nAli Haider Gilani is the youngest son of Yusuf Raza Gilani, who was prime minister of Pakistan from 2008 until 2012.\nHe had been contesting a seat in the Punjab provincial assembly in the May 2013 elections, when he was seized from his home town of Multan, by gunmen who opened fire on a campaign rally just a few days before the polls opened.\nSuspicion immediately fell on the Pakistani Taliban, which had been openly threatening the governing PPP and other secular parties in Pakistan in the run-up to the election.\nBut the Afghan envoy to Pakistan said on Tuesday that Mr Gilani had been held by an al-Qaeda-linked group\nKidnapping has frequently been used as a tactic by militant groups across Pakistan, who want the ransom money for revenue and use the hostages as bargaining chips in negotiations with the authorities.", "Given the violence it seems clear that any pretence at a peace process is now over. Few seriously thought that recent talks between the government and militants were getting anywhere anyway.\nThe attack is also a reminder, if it were needed, that despite their divisions the Taliban retain the capability to mount spectacular strikes across Pakistan.\nThe Karachi raid comes at a time when significant re-alignments are in the offing within militant ranks ahead of the Nato drawdown of combat troops in Afghanistan later this year.\nThe split within the TTP is the clearest symptom of these changes.\nThe TTP was founded, and invariably headed by, a Mehsud tribesman from the South Waziristan tribal region. But last November, after its former leader Hakimullah Mehsud was killed in a US drone strike, its leadership passed into the hands of Mullah Fazlullah, a non-Mehsud from Swat region.\nThis, combined with an offer of peace talks by the Pakistani government, led to an internal struggle between the powerful Mehsud faction and the non-Mehsud elements.\nFormer BBC correspondent Rahimullah Yousufzai, who is an expert on Taliban affairs, says one reason the Mehsuds fell out with the TTP leadership was because of their keenness to hold peace talks.\n\"The Mehsud tribe has suffered the most in Pakistan's war against militancy,\" he says.\n\"The 2009 military operation in their area scattered them into far-off cities such as Lahore and Karachi where people view them with suspicion. They don't live normal lives. This has created pressures on their leaders to mend fences with the government and pave the way for their rehabilitation.\"\nThe Mehsud faction, led by Khalid Mehsud (alias Khan Said Sajna), not only wiped out their TTP rivals from their native South Waziristan, they also captured most TTP strongholds in Karachi.\nBut Sunday night's attack shows the groups allied with Mullah Fazlullah's TTP still have secure hideouts in the country's largest city and the capability to launch attacks on high-value targets there.\nThe situation is further complicated by a warning issued to local people by Hafiz Gul Bahadur, who heads a powerful Taliban faction in North Waziristan, at the end of May, asking them to move to safer locations \"before hostilities break out with the government\".\nHe was apparently incensed over some limited military action in a village near the town of Miranshah from where locals say foreign militants, predominantly Uzbeks, were \"flushed out and encouraged to cross the border into Afghanistan\".\nLocals in Miranshah say most foreigners have left the area. Many have headed into Afghanistan, but many more have slipped into Pakistan. They say it is not clear if an alternative sanctuary is emerging in Afghanistan's Khost area, which has recently been vacated by the Americans.\nUnlike the TTP, which has fought inside Pakistan, Hafiz Gul Bahadur has had a peace agreement with Islamabad since 2007, and has entirely focused his attention on foreign troops stationed in Afghanistan. He also has a close working relationship with the Mullah Nazir group which controls the western half of South Waziristan, has a similar peace agreement with Islamabad, and has been exclusively fighting inside Afghanistan.\nAnalysts believe that both these groups view the TTP split as the handiwork of Pakistani intelligence agents who play one faction against another to advance their own interests in Afghanistan, a suggestion denied by Islamabad but which few believe.\n\"There is a fear among the Bahadur and Nazir groups that if Pakistan succeeds in bringing the TTP to its knees, they will become redundant at best, and may suffer a similar fate at worst,\" says Khadim Hussain, an expert on militancy and author of the book Militant Discourse.\nBut these are not the only elements in the Waziristan matrix. For more than a decade, the area has been a sanctuary for Afghanistan's Haqqani Network, and thousands of \"outsiders\" - militants from Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, north-western China, and other parts of Asia and South Asia, including Punjab province in Pakistan.\nMost of these \"outsiders\" have little interest in promoting peace with either Islamabad or Kabul, and are likely to align with those native factions that aim to create a permanent post-Nato sanctuary in areas comprising southern and eastern Afghanistan, Pakistan's tribal region and parts of its Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.\nUzbek militants of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), who are believed to have taken part in the attack on the airport, are one such group. DNA tests will be conducted to try to verify if any of the militants killed were Uzbeks.\nEither way, the authorities have warned a council of elders in North Waziristan to expel foreign militants from their area.\nWhat happens now to Pakistan's fast-changing militant alliances remains unclear - but the backdrop to the Karachi attack is far more complex than it appears at first glance.\nWho are the Pakistani Taliban?\n•With its roots in the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani Tehreek-e-Taliban movement came to the fore in 2007 by unleashing a wave of violence\n•Its leaders have traditionally been based in Pakistan's tribal areas but it is really a loose affiliation of militant groups, some based in areas like Punjab and even Karachi\n•The various Taliban groups have different attitudes to talks with the government - some analysts say this has led to divisions in the movement\n•Collectively they are responsible for the deaths of thousands of Pakistanis and have also co-ordinated assaults on numerous security targets\n•Two former TTP leaders, Baitullah Mehsud and Hakimullah Mehsud, as well as many senior commanders have been killed in US drone strikes\n•It is unclear if current leader Maulana Fazlullah, who comes from outside the tribal belt, is even in Pakistan, but he has a reputation for ruthlessness", "But how secure is Afghanistan, and what shape is the country in? BBC World Service reporter Dawood Azami takes a look at the challenges Afghanistan faces today.\nSecurity remains the country's biggest test.\nIt is true that al-Qaeda has been driven out of Afghanistan and it doesn't have any sanctuaries inside the country. But the Taliban are still a potent force - they are active in many parts of Afghanistan and even control a few districts in the south and east, including Helmand province where British forces have been based.\nThe international community has helped raise and train the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) that now number almost 350,000.\nBut since the handover of security responsibilities from Nato to Afghan forces in June 2013, the Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) have seen a dramatic rise in casualties - raising questions about the sustainability of the Afghan forces.\nWhile Afghan officials are largely confident about the capabilities of their troops, they have complained about the lack of proper equipment, especially heavy weapons, as well as about not having \"a proper air forces with enough trained pilots and aeroplanes\".\nCivilian casualties from the armed conflicts remain high, with the United Nations reporting that more than 2,700 civilians have been killed and nearly 5,000 injured - the majority by armed groups - in the past year alone. And there have been reports of abuse by the Afghan Local Police (ALP).\nMany people, especially in the south and east, also complain about Nato's night raids and house searches.\nThe high cost of maintaining the Afghan security forces is another major challenge - one estimated to reach about $5bn (£3.3bn) a year.\nWithout continued international financial assistance, the Afghan government would not be able to afford such a force on its own.\nA number of western countries, including the US, UK and Germany have signed strategic partnership agreements with Afghanistan, committing themselves to training Afghan forces after 2014.\nBut the US and Afghanistan are still discussing a separate security accord which would allow a number of US combat forces to remain in the country. The outcome of that deal is expected to determine whether other countries decide to keep any soldiers or trainers in Afghanistan.\nDrug production has increased in many areas of Afghanistan since the US-led invasion in 2001.\nAfghanistan now produces some 90% of the world's opium.\nDespite years of international efforts to curb drug production in the country, a 2013 UN report found that opium growing has reached a record level, with more than 200,000 hectares under cultivation for the first time.\nThe drug economy is funding the insurgency and the Taliban reportedly receive an estimated $100m (£66m) annually from taxing poppy farmers and drug traders.\nThe drug trade also fuels official corruption and has intensified a domestic addiction crisis in the country which now has more than a million addicts.\nAfghanistan has received tens of billions of dollars in aid over the past 12 years. The country has seen a great deal of development and life has improved for millions of Afghans.\nThousands of kilometres of new roads have been built and the health sector has progressed with clinics built in even remote districts.\nThousands of new schools have also been built where millions of boys and girls are receiving education.\nA number of towns and cities have seen so much development that in the words of an Afghan, \"even their maps have changed\".\nAfghans are now connected to each other and the rest of the world via telephone and the internet.\nSome 20 million mobile phone subscriptions have been set up in a country of 30 million people. The mobile telecommunications sector is a major driver of the economy and is the largest taxpayer and the biggest non-governmental employer, aside from subsistence agriculture.\nBut Afghanistan is still one of the poorest countries in the world. There are still places in the country which have not felt the benefits of international aid.\nMany children are still deprived of education and do not have access to basic facilities such as clinics and clean water.\nAfghans in general say that a lot of aid money has been wasted and that the international community should have invested in major infrastructure projects such as building dams, housing schemes and industrial zones.\nOverall, the Afghan economy is largely dependent on foreign aid and drug income.\nAfghanistan's institutions were destroyed in the two decades of war that preceded the US-led invasion.\nThe process of institution building has had tangible success and the country has functioning institutions in the capital, Kabul, as well as in provinces and most districts.\nAfghanistan is back on the international stage, with diplomatic missions in some 70 countries and representation in most international organisations.\nBut there are problems with a lack of governance or bad governance in many parts of the country.\nThe Berlin-based institute, Transparency International, put Afghanistan, North Korea and Somalia in the last place in its 2013 corruption index.\nAfghan officials say they are committed to tackling corruption, which they say exists largely in the services sector. They also point to \"the big corruption\" that they say takes place in awarding international contracts.\nRealising that the war in Afghanistan has reached a \"stalemate\", the Afghan government and its international backers started a peace process in 2010.\nThe main parties in the Afghan peace process are the Afghan government and its High Peace Council, the US and the Taliban - but none of them agree on the terms and conditions of talking to each other.\nThere have been meetings and contacts between different parties over the past two years. But efforts to launch a formal peace process have not been successful so far.\nIn June this year, the Taliban opened an office in the Qatari capital, Doha.\nIt was the first time that the Taliban had a known address and authorised representatives who could openly talk.\nBut the office was closed soon after, with Afghan President Hamid Karzai reacting angrily to the Taliban opening their post with their flag and plaque bearing an inscription of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan - the name the Taliban government used when they came to power in the 1990s.\nContact is being made with individual Taliban members and leaders, but the process exists only in name and no major breakthrough has been made so far.\nThe Taliban say they will keep fighting as long as foreign forces are present in Afghanistan.\nAfghans in general are anxious about the achievements of the past decade as the 2014 deadline for withdrawing international combat forces looms.\nThe country has an active civil society and a vibrant media with dozens of national and provincial television stations.\nBut freedom of expression and access to information are two of the many challenges journalists still face.\nWomen have the right to work and are members of the National Assembly and provincial councils.\nRule of law and access to justice is one of the biggest challenges despite some government efforts to improve the situation.\nAnd violence and discrimination against women has been a big issue.\nThe ongoing conflict has prompted more families to flee their homes, with an estimated half a million people still displaced within the country living in informal settlements with inadequate shelter.\nAround three million refugees remain outside the country, mainly in Pakistan and Iran.", "America's longest war isn't something that he has said much about, and - as with so many issues - what he has said is contradictory.\nIn the past, he has described America's involvement in Afghanistan as a \"disaster\", and has talked about pulling out US troops.\nBut when he spoke to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on 2 December, he reportedly told him that America would not waver in its commitment to Afghanistan.\nThen, however, he failed to invite Mr Ghani to his inauguration, deepening worries in Afghanistan that it simply was not a priority for the new president.\nThe Taliban pitched in earlier this week, calling on President Trump to withdraw American forces from what they described as the \"quagmire\" of Afghanistan.\n\"Nothing has been achieved,\" said the insurgent group, \"except the staining of innocent Afghans in their blood, and the destruction of villages and gardens.\"\nThe official American assessment of progress is not much more upbeat.\nMr Trump's challenge was summarised with shocking clarity earlier this month by the US watchdog overseeing the reconstruction process in Afghanistan, the special inspector general for Afghanistan, John F Sopko.\nMr Sopko says the US has spent more in real terms in Afghanistan than America spent on the reconstruction of Europe after World War Two, yet only 63% of the country is currently controlled by the Afghan government, opium production is at record highs and corruption is still rife.\n\"After 15 years,\" he says, \"Afghanistan still cannot support itself financially or functionally.\n\"Long-term financial assistance is required if the country is to survive.\"\nJust how vulnerable parts of the country are became very apparent when an Afghan colleague was given rare access to the battle against the Taliban in Helmand a few weeks ago.\nAziz Ahmad Shafee flew into the provincial capital, Lashkargah, with soldiers from the Afghan National Army's 215th Corps.\nA convoy of Humvees drove the troops a few kilometres to the outskirts of the city: that is where the front line is now.\nThe Taliban now control more than 80% of Helmand.\nA province, let us not forget, where most of the 456 British military personnel killed in the Afghan conflict lost their lives.\nAnd - despite a complete restructuring of the command of the 215th Corps overseen by American forces - it seems it still is not combat effective.\nAfghan troops complain they lack even the most basic supplies.\n\"For a month we've been saying we are running out of ammunition but we don't get any new supplies,\" Sgt class 1 Hyatullah told the BBC.\n\"Our enemy is firing at us, but we don't have enough bullets to take them on.\"\nHis commander urged America's new president not to falter in his commitment to the Afghan government.\n\"As a soldier of Afghanistan, I ask his excellency Donald Trump to continue the fight here\", said Brig Gen Mohammad Wali Ahmadzai, the commander of the 215th Corps in Helmand.\n\"If he can give us more support, we can wipe the terrorists out.\"\nMost of the foreign troops in Afghanistan were withdrawn at the end of 2014, but when I visited the headquarters of Resolute Support, the Nato mission in Afghanistan, it was busy, with helicopters flying in and out every few minutes.\nThere are still 13,000 Nato military personnel in Afghanistan, mostly American.\nBrig Gen Charlie Cleveland, the spokesman for the Resolute Support mission, believes America still has a clear strategic interest in Afghanistan.\nHe says the US troops now have two tasks:\nResolute Support's work with the Afghan army has, says the brigadier general, been instrumental in ensuring it has managed to hold the ground it does.\n\"In the winter of 2015-16, the government of Afghanistan changed their strategy,\" Brig Gen Cleveland tells me.\n\"They realised they couldn't defend everywhere, and so what they really started focusing their efforts on was the major population centres.\n\"As we look at the security situation right now, the government controls - secures - really about two-thirds of the population.\n\"About 10% of the population is controlled by the Taliban, and the remaining difference is really what's contested.\"\nHe says while this situation is not ideal, the Afghan army has managed to reverse what was a deteriorating situation in 2015 and establish an \"equilibrium\" in favour of the government.\nNevertheless, there is much work to be done.\nSome 5,000 Afghan military personnel were killed last year, losses both the Afghan government and Resolute Support agree are unsustainable in the long term.\nAnd, amid the uncertainty about American policy, other powers have been flexing their muscles in Afghanistan.\nLast month, Russia hosted a meeting in Moscow about the country's future, with senior officials from China and Pakistan, and it makes no secret of the fact it has been talking to the Taliban.\nSo the big question is what will President Trump do?\nTwo of his key cabinet picks may provide a clue.\nPresident Trump's Defence Secretary, Gen James Mattis, is a former commander of forces here.\nHe has spoken in the past about the need to urge Pakistan to take further action against the Taliban and the Sunni Islamist militant Haqqani network.\nThe new president's national security adviser, Lt Gen Michael Flynn, has also talked about the need for Pakistan to take tougher action against Taliban fighters who shelter there.\nAnd President Trump has been very consistent about his desire to take a tougher line against the so-called Islamic State group.\nPulling out of Afghanistan would make that more difficult, given the toe-hold it has established in eastern Afghanistan over the past couple of years.\nSo it seems unlikely that - in his effort to extricate America from foreign entanglements - President Trump will simply declare that it has no strategic interest in Afghanistan and withdraw his troops.\nHe and his advisers will certainly not want to be responsible for America's longest war ending in what many people would regard as a clear defeat.", "Sufism or Islamic mysticism was once suppressed by the Taliban, but the sect is recovering its place in the country and its millions of followers are once more emerging from the shadows.\nSufis have considerable influence in both rural and urban settings - they are an effective popular force to bring change into society - and people consider them as disinterested mediators in disputes.\n''The influence of Sufis will be very significant in bringing peace and tranquillity,'' says Sayed Mahmood Gailani, a Sufi master.\n''There are a few people with Sufi backgrounds who are involved in the peace process. But there hasn't been any concerted effort to give the Sufis a systematic and prominent role in it.''\nSufism in Afghanistan is considered an integral part of Islam. People in general respect Sufis for their learning and believe they possess \"karamat\" - a miraculous spiritual power that enables Sufi masters to perform acts of generosity and bestow blessings.\nZiyarats - Sufi shrines - are popular pilgrimage sites all over the country.\nIn addition to Afghanistan, Sufi orders have millions of followers in both Pakistan and India too.\nThe Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the following armed resistance by the mujahideen resulted in the arrival of thousands of Middle Eastern fighters and the introduction of foreign ideologies including Wahabism.\nWahabism insists on a literal interpretation of Islam and sees Sufism and its ideas as anathema. This created tension between Sufis and Ulamas (religious scholars) in some parts of the country.\nBut it was during the Taliban's rule (1996-2001) when many Sufis were driven underground.\nA number were initially part of the Taliban movement but gradually people influenced by the Wahabi ideology became more prominent. Sufis were silenced.\nSome Sufis, especially members of the Chishtiyya Sufi Order which considers music to be an effective route to reach Allah, were prosecuted.\n\"The Taliban invaded Sufi gatherings, humiliated and beat up many of them and their musical instruments were smashed,'' said Afghan Culture Minister Sayed Makhdoom Rahin, who has a Sufi background.\n''Sufis are free to hold their ceremonies once again with the same old exuberance denied to them by the Taliban.''\nGiven the respect and influence Sufis enjoy among the local population, their involvement at the grass roots level could help the peace process in war-torn Afghanistan.\nAlthough Taliban members come from various backgrounds, some have great respect for Sufis and are even followers of Sufism.\n\"Influential and knowledgeable Sufis can persuade a large number of Taliban to lay down their arms and can also provide guarantees to the Taliban about their safety and peaceful future,'' a Sufi leader, Ahmad Shah Maududi, said.\n''But we need to be careful and vigilant because many so-called Sufis have exploited and fooled ordinary people in the garb of Sufism.''\nSufism has been part of Afghanistan almost as long as Islam itself - more than 1,300 years. Afghanistan is commonly called \"the home of Sufi saints\". The mystics have been an integral part of the life of the people for centuries.\nThe word Sufism is derived from \"suf\", the Arabic wood for wool, and refers to woollen robes worn by early ascetics.\nSufis seek to achieve communion with God during mystic moments of union brought about by various methods, including meditation, Zikr (reciting the names of God and other sacred phrases), dancing, hymn singing, music and physical gyrations.\nSufis maintain that human beings are creatures of Allah and they should be served and respected.\n''Tolerance, kindness and love to all and malice towards none are the virtues of Sufis,'' says Maulana Obaidullah Nahrkarizi, a prominent Afghan Sufi master from Kandahar province.\n''This is the solution to the nation's trauma and battle of the past 30 years''.\nMany Afghan cities are among the most important centres of Sufism. Herat is called \"the soil of Sufi saints\" while Ghazni is known as \"the place of Sufi saints\".\nSome of the greatest Sufi sages of the Muslim world originated from Afghanistan. They refined their insights in the country's lush plains and hidden valleys - and spread their message of peace and love to other parts of the world.\nThe intensely personal poetry of Sufis has been expressed in Dari, Persian and Pashto, the main languages spoken in Afghanistan.\nThere are several prominent Sufis in contemporary Afghanistan including Ali Hujwiri, Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti and Jalaluddin Balkhi Rumi - founder of the famous Mawlawiya (the Order of Whirling Dervishes).\nAnother famous Sufi is Pir Roshan, the founder of the Roshaniya Sufi Order, now known as Arzan Shahi - which has a big following in India.\nThree Sufi orders are prominent in Afghanistan today - Naqshbandiya founded in Bokhara (Uzbekistan), Qadiriya founded in Baghdad and Chishtiya originated at Chisht-e-Sharif in the western province of Herat.\nTheir continued growth is arguably a major bonus in Afghanistan's continuing search for peace.", "This year has already seen some of the most important Taliban gains on the battlefield, and the most significant period of informal talks.\nSome dared to hope this would be the year when formal discussions between the Taliban and the government stood their best chance of inching forward, after years of a stubborn stalemate and searing attacks.\nBut this week's audacious attack on parliament has again shredded a slim thread of hope.\nThe timing magnified the symbolism of this moment - Afghan MPs had gathered, in the holy month of Ramadan, to finally confirm the appointment of a new defence minister, when the assembly was shattered by explosions.\nIn a tragic coincidence, the official set to take on the top defence job is Massoom Stanekzai, the man once tasked with finding a way forward in peace talks. He survived the suicide attack in 2011 which killed former President Burhanuddin Rabbani.\nThe Taliban envoy who had travelled to a Kabul house that fateful night, ostensibly to discuss peace, carried a more deadly message inside his turban.\nThis dangerous business of distinguishing friend from foe is getting harder. So is the challenge of discerning Taliban approaches to end this protracted conflict.\n\"This attack means that with one hand they are shaking hands like a brother but it means we believe that, not them,\" a palpably shocked MP Shukria Barakzai reflected to the BBC. \"I feel sorry, I really feel sorry.\"\nOnly weeks ago, she had taken part in an unprecedented meeting in Oslo between an all-female Afghan delegation and representatives from the Taliban political office in Qatar.\nOnly last week, several Taliban representatives were in Norway again to take part in the annual Mediators' Forum. The discreet gathering, set in a stately manor in quiet woods, was also attended by senior members of the Afghan government and civil society.\nThe forum began with Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos candidly sharing his experiences of his peace talks with the Farc rebel group, aimed at ending a punishing 50 year war.\nBut, in his opening public remarks, President Santos made it clear this was \"a battle for peace\", only waged after he first ensured \"military forces were in our favour\". While his officials talk, his soldiers fight; there is no ceasefire.\nAfghans sitting in the front row listened carefully, and took extensive notes on a conflict which has often been seen as having parallels with their own.\nThis year in Afghanistan, the traditional \"fighting season,\" after winter snows melt, is especially intense, and significant.\nThe attack on parliament, which took the lives of a woman and child and injured dozens more, came in the wake of important news from other battlefields. This year, the Taliban are advancing on some key fronts including Kunduz province in the north, and Helmand province in the south.\nAnd, yet, there's been much more talking this year too. Over the past six months, Taliban representatives have sat down in Qatar, Dubai, Oslo, and in Chinese cities with Afghan government officials, Afghan women, Western diplomats and aid officials.\nAfghan and Western sources, including Taliban, all tell a similar story. In recent months, they've shared cups of tea and proper meals. They've argued over the past, and presented detailed papers on the future.\nThere's even been the traditional greetings and embraces between Afghan men. We've seen Taliban efforts to reach out to women with new approaches, described as being within Islamic law, on women's rights to work, to be educated and to participate in politics.\n\"They seem to be trying to change their image,\" assesses an Afghan woman's activist with knowledge of the discussions. \"They're trying to convey a message that they're ready to govern.\"\nBut a critical step in this process is still missing. \"The talks of the last six months would have been very significant but every round is the same unofficial dialogue,\" remarks one Western diplomat working in the region. \"What's needed now is the next step.\"\nThe \"next step\" would be face to face formal talks between authorised representatives of both sides.\nFor all the talking, there have still been no formal talks. There's no Taliban policy that they are ready to negotiate with a government they recognise as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. Taliban delegates no longer use the term \"puppet government\" as much as when President Karzai was in power.\nBut their official position is still that they will only negotiate with the United States on issues that matter: the presence of foreign troops; the release of their prisoners; the removal of individuals from sanctions lists.\nWhen a flurry of news reports emerged last week that there would be talks at the Mediators' Forum, their website, The Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan issued a statement saying this \"claim is untrue and neither is this conference being held for such a purpose\".\nEven if the Taliban wanted to move to the next step, what would be the process of reaching it?\nThis is a movement said to rest on allegiances to their Emir, Mullah Omar. But he's not been seen in public since 2001 and there's a growing swirl of speculation over his absence.\nYears ago, the political office in Qatar, headed by his former personal secretary Syed Tayyab Agha, was said to have received his blessing to negotiate, but only with US diplomats. Since then, the villa housing the political office of The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan was shut after President Hamid Karzai's vehement protests.\nPresident Ashraf Ghani told me months ago that he started working on Taliban talks as soon as he took office last year. His radically different approach to his predecessor rests on working closely with Pakistan which, sources say, has different ideas on which Taliban should sit at any negotiating table.\nSo far, Pakistan's military and intelligence services, known to have longstanding contacts with Afghan Taliban commanders, have yet to deliver any credible negotiators, or a convincing new process.\n\"It's reaching the point where Kabul will have to say this new policy with Pakistan is not working,\" said one Afghan official who had been involved in previous efforts to work with Pakistan in President Karzai's time in office.\nThe accelerated pace of informal talks and intense fighting also comes at a critical moment for both the Taliban movement and the Afghan government.\nThe Taliban are facing a new challenge from a small but increasingly significant presence of fighters declaring allegiance to Islamic State.\nIts own movement is still deeply divided between senior commanders ready to talk, and those bent on battling to the end. But that hasn't stopped an upsurge in fighting.\n\"They're throwing a lot into the battle this year including foreign fighters who recently fled the tribal areas of Pakistan,\" said one aid official in Kabul. \"Many Taliban commanders believe it's only a matter of time before the government in Kabul collapses.\"\nIn Kabul, a \"National Unity\" government, combining the political forces of President Ghani and Chief Executive Officer, Dr Abdullah Abdullah, is still struggling to forge a cohesive and constructive working relationship 10 months after it took power.\nLast week, at the Mediator's Forum, Afghans heard a Colombian president speak of peace talks as his most important mission in a violent year that, he believes, could still be the most significant in Colombia's embattled history.\nAfghans no longer announce that any year is \"critical\". Every year is. But halfway through this one, no-one can be sure that \"a battle for peace\" will prevail.", "Over 70 countries attended the talks in Brussels, hosted by the EU.\nClosing the meeting, European Commissioner for International Development Neven Mimica called the sum \"a remarkable, impressive amount\".\n\"Now is not the time to reduce our ambition or our investment in the people of Afghanistan,\" he added.\nThe amount pledged is only slightly less than the $4bn a year that the international community promised at the last Afghanistan conference in Tokyo in 2012.\nAhead of the meeting, the overseas countries were expected to pledge around $3bn in aid a year.\n'We are helpless: Trapped by the Taliban in Kunduz\nAfghanistan will be asked to do more to tackle corruption and to take back tens of thousands of failed asylum seekers.\nThe country faces a resurgent Taliban and remains reliant on foreign help, 15 years after the militants were ousted.\n\"We're buying four more years for Afghanistan,\" said EU special representative Franz-Michael Mellbin.\nWho are the Taliban?\nLast journey: The migrant who lost everything\nUS wasted millions on Afghan reconstruction, says watchdog\nBattleground Kunduz: The city the Taliban seized\nAfghan President Ashraf Ghani told the conference that Afghanistan was making progress on the economy, corruption and human rights but needed constructive international support to see the changes through.\n\"Afghans can make peace, we will make peace, we are committed to constructive politics, not destructive politics,\" he said.\nUS Secretary of State John Kerry urged the Taliban to make an \"honourable\" peace with Kabul.\nHe said the militant group should follow the example of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the notorious Afghan warlord designated a \"global terrorist\" by the US, who signed a peace deal with the Afghan government in September.\n\"This is a model for what might be possible,\" Mr Kerry added.\nThe EU is promising Afghanistan $1.5bn annually and has signed a deal for Kabul to take back Afghans who fail in their bid for asylum. Both sides deny the deal is a condition for new aid.\nAfghans make up the second largest group of asylum seekers in Europe, after Syrians.\nThe BBC's Lyse Doucet in Brussels says recent Taliban advances on the battlefield will only harden the determination of many Afghans to seek a better life elsewhere.\n\"We are with you for the long run\" was the world's promise to Afghanistan in 2001. Aid still hasn't stopped.\nThat's partly because the same worries are still there. President Ghani has a vision for Afghanistan major donors can believe in.\nBut they - and Afghans - still need convincing it can be achieved by him in the Afghanistan of today.\nFor all the advances since 2001, there's rampant corruption, political infighting, and a battle against the Taliban taking a huge number of Afghan lives.\nThe unexpectedly high pledges seem to underline a recognition of the price Afghans, their neighbours, and the world beyond would pay if the Taliban gained ground, and Afghanistan sank into greater poverty and despair.\nA record number of Afghans are already fleeing to Europe. This money is also meant to help create conditions to convince Afghans to stay, including the tens of thousands who will now be sent back under another deal struck in Brussels this week.\nTaliban attacks this week on the cities of Kunduz in the north and Lashkar Gah in the south have underlined how fragile the security and development gains of recent years remain, despite all the money spent.\nThe United States and other international donors have pumped about $130bn into the country since 2002.\nEfforts to rebuild after years of war began after US-led forces ousted the Taliban from power following the 9/11 attacks.\nThe figure is comparable to the Marshall Plan, a US initiative to rebuild a devastated Europe after World War Two, although the results have been much more limited.\nMost of the money spent in Afghanistan has come from the US (about $115bn) - and official figures show that more than half of that was spent on security.\nNato pulled out combat forces in 2014 and the Taliban are now resurgent in many areas, prompting fears that hard-won, costly gains are at risk.\nFifteen years after the Taliban were toppled, Afghanistan still cannot survive without significant international support.\nDespite all the money that's been poured in, it remains one of the poorest countries on earth, with 80% of its budget financed by aid.\nThe optimism of the early post-Taliban years - when new schools and hospitals were being built and Afghan refugees were returning - has been replaced in some quarters by donor fatigue and more and more questions about where the money will end up.\nMajor contributors are now indicating they expect to see greater Afghan success in tackling problems such as corruption and the lucrative narcotics trade, as well as progress on asylum seekers.\nA more prosperous Afghanistan could mean fewer refugees in Europe - but hopes the country could become self-reliant one day seem many years away.\nIt is so serious that one of the main cities in the north, Kunduz, nearly fell to the militants again this week, a year after they briefly captured it in what was a major security embarrassment.\nAfghan forces battled the Taliban for a third day in Kunduz on Wednesday, amid reports that food is running short and scores have fled the city.\nMeanwhile in Kabul, a suicide bomber targeted a minibus carrying government officials, wounding four people, a day after a US soldier was killed by a bomb in the east.\nIn the southern province of Helmand, the Taliban have captured the administrative headquarters of Khan Nishin district, and are massed outside the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah.\nGovernment troops were reported to be resisting their advance there, and in parts of the central province of Uruzgan, where fighting has also broken out.", "The US-funded plan aims to solve the problem of drug trafficking and internal conflict in Colombia, in which more than 200,000 people have died.\nThe Colombian government believes it has been successful.\nPresident Santos said so in an interview on national radio, calling it a \"very useful and effective instrument\" that has helped in Colombia's fight against drug trafficking.\nUS secretary of State John Kerry also praised the plan. In an opinion piece published by the Miami Herald, he said it had \"helped to transform a nation on the verge of collapse into a strong institutional democracy with historically low levels of violence\".\nThe initiative has met its goals in many ways, but it has also brought with it unexpected consequences. Here are eight.\nAccording to the US non-governmental organisation, Washington Office on Latin America (Wola), Plan Colombia helped in the aerial fumigation of more than 1.6 million hectares of coca in the country, using the controversial herbicide glyphosate.\nAccording to the World Health Organization (WHO), that might have put Colombia's population in danger because glyphosate is \"probably carcinogenic\".\nAnd according to Wola, the fumigation strategy didn't even work.\nLand cultivated with coca went up from 48,000 hectares in 2013 to 69,000 in 2014, the UN said.\nCocaine production does not appear to have gone down either - in 2015, Colombian security forces seized a record 252 tonnes of the drug.\nThe plan has made drug trafficking fragmented, making it harder to fight against, argues Diana Rojas, a specialist on Colombia-US relations from the National University of Colombia.\nIt also had international consequences, according to British journalist Johann Hari, who criticises the \"war on drugs\" in his work.\nMr Hari says that Plan Colombia has helped some of the narco-related violence move from Colombia to northern Mexico.\n\"If I was a Colombian, I'd be glad it wasn't happening here, but that is not a solution,\" he told the BBC.\nAlthough the aim of Plan Colombia was to reduce violence, in the first eight years there was an increase in the number of victims affected by the internal conflict.\nMore than 800,000 people said they were victimised in 2008, according to the government's Unit for Victims.\nFrom the total 7.8 million people registered with the Unit, about 75% said the crime they were subjected to took place during Plan Colombia.\nThe main culprit has been forced displacement, carried out mainly by guerrillas, paramilitary groups and illegal groups.\nBut there was a reduction in other forms of violence.\n\"I don't think in 2002 anyone in their right mind expected that by 2005, homicides would have been cut by almost half,\" said Adam Isacson, who produced the Wola report.\nThere was also a sharp drop in kidnappings and massacres.\nPlan Colombia provided funds that helped human rights organisations - but some argue that militarisation has only increased risks.\nFor Ricardo Vargas Meza, a Colombian sociologist who has studied the history of the plan, those worst-affected are civilians.\n\"There were very tough measures against the civilians, like food control,\" he explained.\nThe aim of that was to prevent the guerrillas from getting supplies through third parties, Mr Vargas Meza said.\nThe Wola report also points to the collaboration between Colombian security forces and paramilitary groups, as well as \"false positive cases\" (where civilians were killed by the army and passed as rebel fighters) and abuses by the intelligence services.\nIn the most recent years of Plan Colombia, though, the human rights situation has been improving.\nWhile all the focus was on other security issues, illegal mining started to thrive and became an important source of income for illegal groups.\n\"That was never factored into Plan Colombia,\" said Mr Vargas Meza.\nThat was because the main sources of income for the rebel groups originally identified by the authorities were drug trafficking, kidnapping and extortion, he explained.\nBut the problem became serious only after 2007, with the increase in the price of commodities.\nWith Plan Colombia already in place, between 2003-2006 about 30,000 men demobilised from paramilitary groups after an agreement with the government.\nThe process was partially successful.\nA significant number of fighters - 15%, suggests the Wola report - became involved in what the government calls \"Bacrims\", or criminal gangs, focusing on drug trafficking and extortion.\nSuch is the power of some of these gangs, that the government has even authorised the use of air raids against them.\nPlan Colombia has a strong security forces training component, and because of that, Colombia has developed a very well-trained army and police force.\nThey now even train soldiers and officers from around the world and allow them to provide support to countries where the US has an interest in intervening.\nHowever, there have been reports of Colombian soldiers quitting their jobs to offer their services as mercenaries - for example, joining the United Arab Emirates forces to fight in Yemen.\n71% of the US investment for Plan Colombia went to:\nSource: Colombian Government and Wola\nWashington thought that at some point, Plan Colombia could be successfully implemented in other countries, according to Mr Isacson, from Wola.\n\"The US looked at the Plan Colombia experience and hoped that it had found something it could apply in Afghanistan, or in Mexico, or Central America, and found out that it didn't work there,\" he said.\n\"Providing helicopters and training of a few units didn't work.\"\nThere is a belief in Colombia that the tough offensive against Farc guerrillas, aided by Plan Colombia, weakened the rebel group to a point that forced it to negotiate with the government in Havana.\nThe two sides have been engaged in peace talks for the past three years.\nBut Virginia Bouvier, from the Washington-based United Institute of Peace, reads history differently.\nWhen Plan Colombia was implemented in 2000, there was another peace process going on.\n\"I think the prospect of a militarised plan to strengthen the Colombian military at a time when peace was being negotiated tilted the balance of power towards the military,\" Ms Bouvier said.\nThose peace talks failed - and so, for her, Plan Colombia \"postponed the prospect of peace for another decade\".", "A group of tiny girls strum their acoustic guitars, belting out a self-made Persian translation of the hit Don't Panic in a flat in Kabul.\nPlaying along is a man very much in the mould of the Western rock musician, complete with wrist bands and bandana.\nThese are \"The Miraculous Love Kids\", a music school for street children set up by American guitarist Lanny Cordola.\nOn the day I visit I'm greeted by 20 or so dusty shoes and slippers in the hallway, a sign that the kids had a busy day on the streets of Kabul.\nA pair of large photographs on the wall caught my attention. They show two beautiful, smiley girls, Parwana and Khorshid, two sisters who were killed four years ago in a suicide attack near what was then the Nato head quarters in Kabul.\nIt's their story that has inspired this small school.\nAmong the girls rehearsing their instruments is 12-year old Mursal, Parwana and Khorshid's younger sister.\nMursal was just seven when she went with her siblings to sell handkerchiefs, shawls and crafts near the compound of international troops in Kabul.\nThe movements of foreign soldiers were restricted, so many children sold their goods near Nato headquarters.\nOn 8 September 2012, the sisters arrived at their usual spot in the morning. Because there were a lot of children that day, they split up. Mursal was sent to a quieter side street, while the older girls stayed near the main gate.\nShortly after that a 14-year old suicide bomber blew himself up killing at least six children, the sisters among them.\nTheir death was widely reported, not least because Parwana and Khorshid were part of Skateistan, Kabul's first skateboarding school and a charity which combines skating with education for street children.\nSkateistan mourns its bright sparks after Kabul attack\n\"They were the most beautiful little girls,\" Courtney Body, a freelance reporter who knew them well says.\n\"I'll never forget the day I took them shopping for girly things in Wazir Akbar Khan bazaar, and they held my hands as we walked to the store,\" she recalls.\n\"I was so angry that they were allowed so close to the Isaf gates. I felt they had to be there to make money selling things to the foreigners, but they should have been protected.\"\nThe story came to the attention of Lanny Cordola, a US rock musician from Los Angeles who read about it in the New York Times. The story stuck with him.\n\"I never ever thought of coming to Afghanistan, but two years ago I came here to meet the family of Parwana and Khorshid,\" Cordola told me.\nHe says he was travelling in Asia at the time. Four months later he was back with a radical idea: To open a guitar school for street children in the capital.\n\"The plan is to make this an entity where they can travel the world, play music, tell the story about their lives and the people of Afghanistan,\" Lanny says.\n\"And then to collaborate with other girls with similar backgrounds, with kids from different parts of the world and turn it into an international, global phenomenon.\"\nIt's a big ambition for the girls, many of whom have lived through personal tragedy.\nOne lost her entire family in a suicide attack in Kabul; another 13-year old was forced to work on the streets by her parents.\nFor Mursal, the \"Miraculous Love Kids\" project has already changed things for her.\n\"It was some years after the death of Parwana and Khorshid,\" she says, describing her first meeting with her tutor. \"We went to a restaurant and they told me, 'this is Mr Lanny'. He gave me a guitar and now that I started learning to play and sing, it has changed my life and opened a new world.\"\nA few months on and the guitar girls are preparing to take their music outside.\n\"We have been invited to play some concerts but they are not ready yet,\" Cordola says, adding that they have been out to play informally already.\n\"We went to Wazir Akbar Khan one day and Mursal and I played. There were about 30-40 [people], mostly males and they were marvelling at the fact that here is this American man and a little Afghan girl singing a song in Dari.\"\nWhen I visited Mursal's small family home, her mother, a policewoman told me she raised her children amidst the constant insecurity of conflict, working to feed them with one hand and bringing them up with the other.\nShe dreams of her daughter becoming a doctor or an engineer.\nBut Mursal says she now wants to become a teacher and \"teach guitar to all the girls in the world\". And she hopes for a peaceful future.\n\"I believe in my mother, she is a policewoman and lots of people like her are working hard to bring peace,\" she says.\nI asked Mursal if she has a favourite singer or song. \"Bob Marley\", was her answer before giving a rendition of Three Little Birds:\n\"Singin' don't worry about a thing, oh no, 'Cause every little thing gonna be alright.\"\nThe street child victims of Afghanistan's Taliban\nThe street children of Kabul", "As a respected religious scholar, he is generally held in high regard in Taliban political and military circles.\nHe was one of the few religious scholars who had gained the esteem of the Taliban's founding leader and spiritual head, Mullah Mohammad Omar.\nBoth Mullah Omar and his successor, Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, sought his advice and his fatwas on issues related to war and peace.\nMawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada served as head of the Taliban courts, before his appointment on 31 July as one of the two deputy heads of the former Taliban leader Mullah Mansour.\nMullah Mansour was killed in the first known US drone attack in Pakistan's Balochistan province on 21 May.\nAs Mullah Mansour was mostly hidden from public view and not attending meetings openly for security reasons, it was down to the man who ended up succeeding him to handle the day-to-day running of the group.\nProfile: New Taliban chief Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada\nWho are the Taliban?\nThe trail of clues after Taliban leader's death\nRead full profile\nHe was more visible than Mullah Mansour's other deputy, Sirajuddin Haqqani, who was mostly busy with military affairs and is commonly known as the head of the Haqqani Network.\nFor many people, Mawlawi Hibatullah was the face of the group. As Mullah Mansour's deputy and representative, he also regularly met people to collect pledges of allegiance for Mullah Mansour.\nMawlawi Hibatullah does not have any military experience, but he is known as someone equipped with good skills of communication and persuasion.\nHe also had an instrumental role in negotiating a ceasefire with the Taliban's splinter group in late December 2015 and early January.\nThe Taliban had been proud of their cohesion. But this unity was shattered when the death of Mullah Omar was announced in July 2015.\nThe emergence of the splinter group which opposed the election of Mullah Mansour as the new leader, and the infighting that followed, was unprecedented.\nThe appointment of Mawlawi Hibatullah is mostly aimed at removing differences within the group and dealing with factionalism.\nOne faction within the Taliban wanted Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, the eldest son of Mullah Omar, to take over.\nHe is believed to be about 27 and reportedly graduated from a religious seminary (madrassah) in the Pakistani city of Karachi about two years ago.\nMullah Yaqoob was appointed by Mullah Mansour in April 2016 as the movement's military commander in 15 out of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, as well as a member of the group's powerful decision making body, the Leadership Council.\nAs he did not have enough experience to be the overall leader, Mullah Yaqoob has now been appointed as one of the two deputies.\nThere were also reports that Sirajuddin Haqqani might become the new leader of the Taliban.\nBut for some, he has been a controversial figure and is not thought to be familiar enough with the insurgency landscape and dynamics in the south of Afghanistan.\nSirajuddin Haqqani, who had been appointed a deputy by Mullah Mansour, remains in the same position.\nMawlawi Hibatullah's religious background complements the Taliban's claim to be a religious movement.\nLike the two previous Taliban leaders, Mawlawi Hibatullah also hails from the group's heartland, Afghanistan's southern province of Kandahar.\nHe belongs to the Noorzai tribe of the Pashtuns from Panjwai district in Kandahar.\nThe head of the Taliban's splinter group, Mullah Mohammad Rasool, is also a member of Noorzai tribe.\nThe Taliban expect that his religious and tribal background as well as his links with Kandahar will not only increase his legitimacy but also help him to keep the group united and motivated.\nBut those hopes dimmed within hours of his appointment with the spokesman of the splinter group saying it would not accept him as the new leader and arguing that he had been chosen by a small group of Taliban leaders, rather than by the wider rank and file.\nLike Mullah Mansoor, Mawlawi Hibatullah's biggest challenge will be ensuring the group's cohesion while dealing with multiple challenges simultaneously. These include countering the so-called Islamic State group (IS) in Afghanistan, continuing the war against the Afghan government and its international allies and fighting the Taliban splinter group.\nIn the short term, it will be difficult for Mullah Hibatullah to change the overall direction of the Taliban.\nAfter the way Mullah Mansour was killed, and the manner in which his death was welcomed by US and Afghan officials, many in the Taliban are now talking of revenge rather than peace.", "Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the missiles were a \"stabilising factor\" that could dissuade \"some hotheads\" from entering the conflict.\nRussia also criticised an EU decision not to renew an arms embargo on Syria.\nThe decision came as the BBC heard evidence that 200 people were killed in a massacre in western Syria this month.\nMore than 80,000 people have been killed and 1.5 million have fled Syria since the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began in 2011, according to UN estimates.\nBy Jim MuirBBC News\nWhile lifting the EU arms embargo is theoretically good news for the fractious Syrian opposition, it is clearly going to be some time before it has any effect on the battlefield balance. Its authors hope the decision will send a strong enough signal to the Assad regime that it is time to hand over power. That is extremely unlikely. It is hard facts on the ground that count for a regime that has shown determination to fight to the end to stay in power.\nWhile European arms supplies remain for the moment theoretical, the step has stirred an angry reaction - possibly even an escalation - from the Russians. They've said the move jeopardises efforts to convene a peace conference, and that they plan to honour a prior contract to supply Syria with advanced S-300 air defence missiles. Israel sees that as a threat to its own security, and has warned that it \"would know what to do\".\nThe stakes are clearly getting higher. But for the rebels, at least the eventual possibility of carefully-controlled arms deliveries is there, in what looks like being a bloody, long-haul struggle.\nOn Monday, the EU said member states would be able to decide their own policy on sending arms to Syria, after foreign ministers were unable to reach the unanimous decision required to extend the current arms embargo past Saturday.\nHowever, in a declaration announced after 12 hours of talks, it agreed not to \"proceed at this stage with the delivery\" of equipment.\nThe EU's Foreign Affairs Council is to review this position before 1 August, in light of fresh developments to end the conflict including the ongoing US-Russia peace initiative.\nSpeaking to the BBC, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said the 1 August date did not represent a deadline, and that the UK could start arming Syrian rebels from now, although it had no active plans to do so.\nA US state department spokesman said the US supported the EU's move.\nThe Syrian foreign ministry said the decision showed the EU's \"obstruction of international efforts to contribute to the achievement of a political settlement\".\nStatistics: IISS\nWhy Russia sells Syria arms\nRussia says the move directly harms the prospects of an international peace conference proposed by Moscow and Washington that would be held next month.\n\"A whole range of actions that have been undertaken, not without the participation and not without the support of our Western partners including the United States and France... are serving to undermine the idea of calling a conference,\" Russian media quoted Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying on Tuesday.\nRussia has repeatedly blocked efforts to put more pressure on Mr Assad. Along with the US, Moscow has been leading efforts to organise an international peace conference on Syria next month.\nBy Mark MardellNorth America editor\nMr Ryabkov said the contract for the S-300 missile systems had been signed several years ago.\n\"We consider these supplies a stabilising factor and believe such steps will deter some hotheads from considering scenarios that would turn the conflict international with the involvement of outside forces,\" he was quoted as telling journalists, in a coded reference to the use of Nato warplanes in Libya.\nThe S-300 is a highly capable surface-to-air missile system that, as well as targeting aircraft, also has the capacity to engage ballistic missiles.\nIt is broadly comparable to the US Patriot system which has been deployed by Nato to guard Turkish air space against attack from Syria.\nThere had previously been a reluctance to mention the sophisticated weapons system by name, and the BBC's Jim Muir in Beirut says the latest Russian statements could be seen as an escalation.\nSource: Royal United Services Institute\nIndeed, some analysts see confirmation of the arms sale as a \"game changer\" for the Syrian crisis.\nLe Figaro, France: The 27 reached a lame compromise under the threat of the imminent collapse of the sanctions imposed on the regime in Damascus two years ago... The disunion also testifies to the paralysis which Europe's rule of unanimity imposes, at the worst point of the Syrian crisis.\nWirtschaftsBlatt, Austria: The domestically damaged governments of Britain and France are playing with fire. The British-French initiative risks repeating in Syria the mistakes of Afghanistan's Cold War. Cameron and Hollande should not promote chaos in the Middle East by possibly arming terrorists, in order to polish their image at home. Therefore: Geneva convention instead of weapons for an intangible war party.\nEl Mundo, Spain: The inability to reach a unanimous agreement on this crucial issue of foreign policy has prompted some legal ingenuity: the partial lifting of the arms embargo was signed in an intergovernmental agreement, ie outside EU community legislation. This is an important caveat, because it leaves it up to each member state to take the final decision on whether or not to arm the Syrian opposition.\n\"It virtually ensures that the US-Russian talks will be meaningless, sends warning signals about similar arms transfer to Iran, can drag Israel into the Syrian fighting, and would sharply alter US and allied 'no fly' capabilities,\" said Anthony Cordesman of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.\nThere had been reports that Moscow was holding back on delivering the arms, in exchange for an Israeli commitment not to carry out further air raids over Syria, our correspondent says.\nIsraeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said the Russian missile systems had not yet left Russia.\n\"I hope they will not leave, and if, God forbid, they reach Syria, we will know what to do,\" he said.\nThe EU embargo, first imposed in May 2011, applies to the rebels as much as the Syrian government.\nBritain and France had been pressing for the ability to send weapons to what they call moderate opponents of President Assad, saying it would push Damascus towards a political solution to the two-year conflict.\nOther EU states had opposed sending arms.\nGeorge Jabboure Netto, a spokesman for the opposition Syrian National Council said the dropping of the arms embargo was a \"step in the right direction\", though a spokesman for another grouping, the Syrian National Coalition, said the move might be \"too little too late\".\nThe Syrian opposition has not said whether it will attend next month's peace conference, and was on Tuesday locked in talks in Istanbul, Turkey, as an unofficial deadline to decide on its attendance passed.", "The prisoner swap came after secret talks between the US government and the Taliban, brokered by Qatar.\nBergdahl was serving with an Alaska-based infantry regiment in Paktika province near the Pakistani border and went missing on 30 June 2009, five months after being deployed to Afghanistan.\nThe circumstances of his capture remain murky, with speculation he may have walked away from his base out of disillusionment with the US campaign. In March 2015, he was charged with desertion and misbehaviour before the enemy.\nThe US believes he was across the frontier in Pakistan for most of his captivity, reportedly held by the Haqqani network, which operates in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region and is allied to the Afghan Taliban.\nProfile: Sgt Bowe Bergdahl\nThe circumstances of Sgt Bergdahl's capture in 2009 remain unclear, although a Pentagon investigation a year later concluded he left his post in Paktika Province without authorisation, according to a Pentagon official speaking to Associated Press news agency.\nSeveral commentators and soldiers have branded him a deserter and called for him to be punished.\nThe New York Times said on his disappearance in 2009 had noted he had left military areas before, during a training programme in California and an Afghan outpost, but returned each time.\nUS officials told the newspaper the report did not conclude whether Sgt Bergdahl had intended to permanently desert the military.\nThe US military's top-ranking officer, Gen Martin Dempsey, has that the Army would not ignore misconduct but that the 28-year-old was innocent until proven guilty. \"When he is able to provide the facts, we'll learn what happened.\"\nThe defence department opened up an investigation into his disappearance and capture, appointing a two-star general with combat experience in Afghanistan to lead the inquiry.\nTaliban officials say the 28-year-old was handed over near Khost, close to the the Afghan-Pakistan border, on the evening of 31 May. A several-dozen strong US special forces team flew in by helicopter and briefly met some 18 Taliban on the ground.\nThe exchange, captured on video, shows Sgt Bergdahl sitting in a pick-up truck before being walked to the helicopter.\nOnce the helicopter was in the air, Bergdahl wrote the letters \"SF?\" on a paper plate - an abbreviation for special forces - and reportedly broke down when the men responded: \"Yes, we've been looking for you for a long time.\"\nTaliban release video of handover\nSgt Bergdahl was the only US soldier being held by the enemy in the Afghan conflict, and Washington had long been seeking his release, spurred on by the \"Standing with Bowe\" campaign led by his parents in Hailey, Idaho.\nNegotiations for the US-Taliban prisoner swap began three years ago with US and Taliban officials meeting face-to-face in Qatar.\nBut the talks did not move forward because the US were pushing for a wider peace process, while the Taliban wanted to limit the talks to a prisoner swap, Taliban sources told the BBC's David Loyn in Kabul.\nDirect negotiations broke down a year ago when the Afghan government opposed the opening of a Taliban office in Qatar, although secret talks continued, mediated by Qatar.\nThe issue was given more impetus as plans solidified to pull nearly all American forces out of Afghanistan by the end of 2016. US sources say the breakthrough came when hardline Taliban leaders dropped their opposition to a swap.\nOn Thursday, Mr Obama said Sgt Bergdahl's health was deteriorating and officials were \"deeply concerned about it\".\nBut the prisoner swap was apparently sped up after US officials determined the Taliban would likely kill Sgt Bergdahl if any word of the deal was leaked, according to congressional and White House sources who spoke to the Associated Press.\nDefence Secretary Chuck Hagel told the BBC's Katty Kay he and other military chiefs based their decision \"on the information that we had, that his life, his health, were in peril\".\nHis father Robert Bergdahl said Bowe was struggling to speak English after his long captivity. In an emotional White House lawn press conference with Barack Obama shortly after the release, Robert Bergdahl delivered his son a message in Pashto, the language of his captors.\nAfter immediate medical attention at a military hospital in Germany, Sgt Bergdahl was flown to San Antonio, Texas, to continue treatment.\nOn Friday, Army officials said he was in a \"stable condition\".\nHe \"looked good\", was in uniform, and saluted, Maj Gen Joseph DiSalvo said.\n\"He appeared just like any sergeant would when they see a two-star general - a little bit nervous,\" Gen DiSalvo said. \"But he looked good, saluted, and had good deportment.\"\nCan you lose your language?\nThe exchanged prisoners are Mohammad Fazl, Khirullah Khairkhwa, Abdul Haq Wasiq, Mullah Norullah Noori and Mohammad Nabi Omari.\nThey are thought to be the most senior Afghans still held at Guantanamo, having been captured during America's military campaign in 2001.\nFazl served as the Taliban's deputy defence minister and is accused of possible war crimes, including the murder of thousands of Shia Muslims.\nKhairkhwa served as interior minister and governor of Herat, Afghanistan's third largest city. He is alleged to have had direct links to Osama bin Laden.\nUS President Barack Obama says Qatar has given assurances \"that it will put in place measures to protect our national security\".\nUnder the deal, the five freed Taliban detainees will be banned from leaving Qatar for at least a year, meaning they cannot return to Afghanistan until after a majority of US forces have left.\nThe Associated Press' Kathy Gannon, who was shot in Afghanistan while covering the recent elections, says the five men are important but not likely to change the balance of the war - and having been away from Afghanistan for more than a decade, they would not find Taliban foot soldiers very loyal.\nSome argue there is US precedent for this type of transfer, with Ronald Reagan's administration in 1985-86 reportedly winning the freedom of US hostages in Beirut in exchange for arms destined for Iran.\nBut Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, called it a fundamental shift in policy that would act as an incentive for further abductions of US personnel.\nSome US lawmakers have complained the swap breaches a law that Congress should be given 30 days' notification before Guantanamo Bay detainees are released. The White House says it took the chance to free Sgt Bergdahl in \"unique and exigent circumstances\".\nDemocratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, normally a White House ally, was enraged that the president had not notified her or the intelligence committee she leads, of the pending swap, although a White House official did call her on Monday to apologise for the delay.\nThe US has a long-standing policy not to negotiate with those it deems terrorists and the prisoner swap has drawn criticism - especially from conservatives.\nRepublican Senator John McCain told the BBC the swaps \"threatened\" US security, as the detainees released were too dangerous to be walking free, and would put other US military lives at risk. Other lawmakers have called for a inquiry into the administration and military's decision making process.\nBut Mr Obama is publically unapologetic for the swap.\n\"We saw an opportunity and we seized it,\" he said, adding \"as commander-in-chief I am responsible for those kids\".\nNo Obama apology for Bergdahl deal\nCorrespondents say it is unclear what impact the release will have on a wider peace process.\nThe Afghan High Peace Council want talks with the Taliban to happen inside Afghanistan, and does not want to involve the Americans.\nBowe Bergdahl returned to the US on 13 June 2014, arriving at a medical centre in Texas where he finished the last phase of his reintegration process.\nIn his hometown of Hailey, Idaho, a rally scheduled months ahead was quickly turned into a homecoming event that was cancelled.\nCity officials cited safety concerns, because of a large increase in the number of expected attendees, and local officials have received messages blasting the town for honouring Sgt Bergdahl's return.\nSgt Bergdahl returned to active duty in July, working at a desk job at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston.\nIn March 2015, he was charged with desertion with intent to shirk important or hazardous duty and misbehaviour before the enemy by endangering the safety of a command unit or place.\nA preliminary hearing will be heard in front of a judge at Fort Sam Houston. A date has not been set for that hearing.\nHe faces up to five years in prison on the desertion charge and life in prison on the misbehaviour charge.\nHow to 'reintegrate' a returning POW", "The bombing is the country's deadliest militant attack since 2001. Previous estimates said 90 people were killed.\nMr Ghani's government has faced protests for failing to tackle the deteriorating security situation.\nHe told the meeting it was time for the Taliban to embrace peace or \"face the consequences\".\nRepresentatives of 23 nations including the US and Pakistan, as well as the EU, Nato and the UN are attending the two-day meeting, which launches what is being called the Kabul Process for Peace and Security Co-operation.\nUK Ambassador Dominic Jermey said it was \"an important marker for each and every country in the region to show its true support for Afghanistan's aspirations for peace\".\nThe meeting comes amid a downturn in the security situation.\nAs the meeting got under way, a deadly blast hit the main mosque in the western city of Herat. Officials said at least seven people were killed in the bombing at an entrance gate. No group has said it carried out the attack.\nEarlier, a rocket fired by the Taliban struck a tennis court in the Indian diplomatic compound. Police said no-one was hurt.\nThe bomb attack in Kabul was the deadliest by insurgents in Afghanistan since the Taliban were driven from power by US-led forces in 2001.\nIt sparked anti-government protests in which four people were killed, as police used tear gas and fired bullets into the air to keep crowds at bay.\nThree suicide bombers then attacked the funeral at the weekend of one of those killed in the protests, killing at least seven people.\nIt is not clear who was behind last week's attacks. The Taliban has denied any role, but the Afghan government says its affiliate, the Haqqani group, carried it out with support from Pakistan. Islamabad has strongly rejected the claim.\nThe series of attacks have led to anger against the government, who residents accuse of failing to tackle the militants adequately.\nEarlier this year, a top US commander warned of a \"stalemate\" in the fight against the Taliban unless more foreign troops were committed. US President Donald Trump is believed to be assessing his options.\nThe Kabul peace conference comes amid an acute foreign relations crisis, as the majority of Afghans accuse Pakistan of continuing to host the Taliban leadership and its most murderous wing, the Haqqani group. Pakistan denies the charge. Afghans also accuse Iran and Russia of helping the Taliban.\nThe conference, which will focus on counter-terrorism, really needs to help the Afghans come to a political consensus to form a better or even a new government in Kabul that can win back public trust. But without US leadership, which has \"owned\" Afghanistan since 11 September 2001, there is little that other states can do or would even be willing to do.\nThe real tragedy is that most distant states - but not the neighbours - are keen to wash their hands of Afghanistan.\nRead more from Ahmed Rashid\nMeanwhile, the Taliban currently control huge swathes of the country.\n\"We are offering a chance for peace but this is not an open-ended offer,\" Mr Ghani said, calling for Taliban to begin negotiations.\nA spokesman for the Taliban told Reuters news agency he had no comment to make on the conference.\nThis is not the first attempt by the Afghan government to broker peace. But analysts say they want to regain momentum, against a back drop of separate peace talks engineered by Russia.", "Military leaders would also regain the authority to target Taliban leaders with air strikes under the proposals.\nPresident Donald Trump has not approved the plan, unnamed officials say. It may include a request that other Nato countries send 3,000-5,000 soldiers.\nThere are 13,000 Nato troops currently in the country, 8,400 of them US.\nUS combat operations against the Taliban officially ended in 2014, but special forces have continued to provide support to Afghan troops.\nIn February, the commander of US troops in Afghanistan Gen John Nicholson told a Senate committee there was \"a shortfall of a few thousand\".\nHe said he needed more troops to break a \"stalemate\".\nLast month, the Taliban announced the start of their \"spring offensive\" a week after killing at least 135 Afghan soldiers in a military compound near the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif.\nThe group said it would use military alongside political tactics and that its main target would be foreign forces.\nOn Saturday Taliban militants seized a district just a few kilometres to the west of Kunduz in their continuing attempts to take the northern city. Thousands of families have been forced to leave their homes.\nLatest reports suggest the Taliban now also control the main road to the east of the city which links the province to the north-east and is also the main supply route for the capital, Kabul.\nIf you want to know why the Trump team is considering deploying more troops in Afghanistan, look no further than the city of Kunduz.\nAnother Taliban assault on the strategic stronghold is under way, the first major operation of the \"spring offensive\" the insurgent movement announced two weeks ago.\nThe BBC has learned that three top commanders have been drafted in to take charge of this latest siege on a city the Taliban have successfully occupied twice in the last two years.\nIt is further evidence of the steady advance of the movement since the official end of the Nato combat mission two and a half years ago.\nIn March Taliban fighters retook the key district of Sangin in the southern province of Helmand, consolidating their already tight grip on a region hundreds of British and US troops died trying to protect.\nThe Taliban is now reckoned to control up to a third of the entire country. Indeed, the big question is whether a few thousand additional foreign troops will be enough to turn the tide.\nUS officials said the new plan would significantly expand the combat role for US troops, and authorise the Pentagon, not the White House, to set troop numbers.\nPresident Trump is expected to make a decision before he attends a Nato summit in Brussels on 25 May.\nThe previous US President, Barack Obama, set deadlines for cutting the numbers of US soldiers in the country and removed the Pentagon's authority to directly target Taliban leadership.\nHowever, he was forced to abandon the troop reduction target.", "Mr Wardak said local communities were driving the demand for education and would protect schools after the withdrawal of overseas forces.\nHe said the Taliban were guaranteeing the safety of schools in some regions.\nThe minister said by 2020 every child would have a primary place.\nMr Wardak promised that an equal number of boys and girls would be being enrolled, by the same date.\nSpeaking in London, Mr Wardak said there had been a major grassroots change in support of the campaign to widen access to schools across Afghanistan.\nHe said there had been a \"revolution\" in the way that groups of local leaders, parents and religious scholars were now actively defending the right to education.\n\"People who themselves are illiterate want an education for their children.\"\nThis popular pressure for schools had a momentum all political sides would have to accept, he said.\nThere are 700 schools that had been shut down by attacks but have now reopened.\nThe Afghan education ministry says that pupil numbers have risen from 900,000 in 2001, with few girls in attendance, to 10.5 million pupils, including 42% girls.\nA decade ago, only 400 teachers were being trained - but now, Mr Wardak said, there were 77,000, most of them women.\nA report last summer from the United Nations highlighted the scale of the challenge, saying there were 167 separate documented attacks on education, including intimidation, abduction, killing of staff and the destruction of buildings.\nThese were attributed to a range of armed groups, not only those linked to the Taliban.\nAnd Mr Wardak said opposition from the Taliban was changing in some places.\nHe told of a local Taliban leader summoning head teachers to say that he would hang anyone who attempted, using the name of the Taliban, to disrupt their schools.\nThe minister said investing in education was vital to Afghanistan's economic and political stability.\nTackling illiteracy was the starting point for much wider changes, such as stopping people being used as suicide bombers, he said.\nMr Wardak said his goal was to see Afghanistan as a \"mainstream member of the world community\", providing support for other countries rather than being a recipient.\nA particular expertise, he said, was that Afghanistan had had to learn how to deliver education in a conflict zone.\n\"We've had to work with conflict for 35 years,\" he said. Mr Wardak himself became a refugee in Pakistan after the Soviet invasion.\nThere have also been drives against corruption. He said a policy to check teacher proficiency was also a way of detecting so-called \"ghost teachers\", where salaries were being claimed for non-existent staff.\nThis saw about 2,000 names disappearing from the payroll.\n\"We can't tolerate the stealing of money from innocent children,\" he said.\nMr Wardak's campaign for education has been supported by the Global Partnership for Education.\nThis international body, funded by governments including the UK, has allocated $3.25bn (£1.97bn) in the past decade to help improve education in 59 developing countries.\nMr Wardak made an impassioned case for the future of Afghanistan's education system.\nHe said the country's long tradition of scholarship had become the \"victim of international wars\" and needed to be restored for a prosperous and peaceful future.\n\"We are the product of our education, but we forget to pay it back,\" he said.", "The move would help \"stability\" in Afghanistan, the government said in a statement, while vowing to \"respond to fear and terror with full force\".\nThe US said on Thursday it would maintain 5,500 troops in Afghanistan into early 2017 - a shift from earlier plans to withdraw most by late 2016.\nThe Taliban has vowed to continue attacks on US troops to force them out.\nThere are currently 9,800 US troops stationed in Afghanistan, providing training and conducting counter-terrorism operations.\nThe US originally planned to withdraw all but a small embassy-based force of 1,000 troops by the end of 2016.\nHowever, US President Barack Obama announced on Thursday that he would maintain current troop numbers for most of 2016, with 5,500 still in Afghanistan when he left office in 2017.\nRead more on Afghanistan:\nHe described the policy shift as \"the right thing to do\", adding that the ending of Nato combat operations in December last year had come at a price, with many Afghan troops and civilians killed since the Taliban stepped up its insurgency.\nThe Afghan government said the move showed the \"renewal of the partnership\" between the two countries, and vowed to step up its anti-terror efforts.\nIt added that it remained open to the prospect of peace talks with the Taliban.\nMeanwhile, Afghan politician Shukria Barakzai told the BBC's Newsday that \"more troops, more aid, more co-operation... can be the only way that we can survive [in] Afghanistan.\"\nThe Taliban said it a statement that the US extension would not stop the militant group's \"speedy progress\", and said attacks on US troops would increase, forcing the US to reverse its \"cruel strategy\".\nLast week, the top US military commander in Afghanistan, Gen John Campbell, described the security situation as \"tenuous\" and said an enhanced military presence would be necessary if the Taliban were to be repelled.\nHe was speaking days after the Taliban briefly seized the northern city of Kunduz - their most significant military gain since being ousted from power in 2001.\nAfter the Taliban's surprise attack on Kunduz, Afghan government forces managed to retake control of key areas of the city with the aid of Nato special forces and US air strikes.\nBut the city's brief capture was seen as a setback for the Afghan authorities, under pressure to show they can keep the country secure without the backing of international forces.\nThe south-eastern city of Ghazni has also seen fierce clashes between Taliban insurgents and US-trained Afghan troops in recent days.", "The Taliban have also threatened to destabilise Pakistan, where they have controlled areas in the north-west in recent years. Despite a major military offensive against them since 2014, they continue to mount frequent suicide bombings and other attacks across the country.\nMany observers now believe that future peace in Afghanistan can only come if the government in Kabul negotiates with the Taliban.\nThe announcement of Taliban plans to open an office in Qatar in June 2013 was seen as a positive step in those negotiations, but mistrust on both sides remains high.\nDespite this, talks between the Taliban and Afghan government officials took place for the first time in July 2015.\nThose talks came a month after a group of Afghan women met Taliban representatives in Oslo. Further contacts with the group have failed to make progress.\nIn September 2015, the Afghan Taliban said they had put aside weeks of infighting and rallied around a new leader in the form of Mullah Mansour, who had been the deputy of longstanding leader Mullah Omar.\nThe previous month the Taliban admitted they had covered up Mullah Omar's death for more than two years.\nMullah Mansour was killed in a US drone strike in May 2016 and replaced by his deputy Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada, a hardline religious scholar.\nThe Taliban emerged in the early 1990s in northern Pakistan following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan.\nA predominantly Pashtun movement, the Taliban came to prominence in Afghanistan in the autumn of 1994.\nIt is commonly believed that they first appeared in religious seminaries - mostly paid for by money from Saudi Arabia - which preached a hard line form of Sunni Islam.\nThe Taliban's promise - in Pashtun areas straddling Pakistan and Afghanistan - was to restore peace and security and enforce their own austere version of Sharia, or Islamic law, once in power.\nIn both countries they introduced or supported Islamic punishments - such as public executions of convicted murderers and adulterers and amputations of those found guilty of theft.\nMen were required to grow beards and women had to wear the all-covering burka.\nThe Taliban banned television, music and cinema and disapproved of girls aged 10 and over from going to school.\nPakistan has repeatedly denied that it was the architect of the Taliban enterprise.\nBut there is little doubt that many Afghans who initially joined the movement were educated in madrassas (religious schools) in Pakistan.\nPakistan was also one of only three countries, along with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which recognised the Taliban when they were in power in Afghanistan from the mid-1990s until 2001.\nIt was also the last country to break diplomatic ties with the Taliban.\nAlthough Pakistan has in recent years adopted a harder line against Taliban militants carrying out attacks on its soil, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif - who was elected in May 2013 - has said talking to the militants is one of his priorities.\nAt least three key leaders of the Pakistani Taliban were killed in US drone strikes in 2013. Mullah Nazir was killed in January and Waliur Rehman was killed in May.\nIn November 2013, the group's leader in Pakistan, Hakimullah Mehsud, was killed in a drone strike.\nBut despite these setbacks for the militants, there is evidence that their influence in Karachi has significantly increased.\nWhat is arguably one of the most internationally criticised of all Pakistani Taliban attacks took place in October 2012, when schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai was attacked on her way home in the town of Mingora.\nThe attention of the world was drawn to the Taliban in Afghanistan following the attacks on the World Trade Centre in September 2001.\nThe Taliban in Afghanistan were accused of providing a sanctuary to Osama Bin Laden and the al-Qaeda movement who were blamed for the attacks.\nSoon after 9/11 the Taliban were driven from power in Afghanistan by a US-led coalition, although their leader Mullah Mohammad Omar was not captured.\nIn recent years the Taliban re-emerged in Afghanistan and grew far stronger in Pakistan, where observers say there is loose co-ordination between different Taliban factions and militant groups.\nThe main Pakistani faction was led by Hakimullah Mehsud until his death. His Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is blamed for dozens of suicide bombings and other attacks.\nObservers warn against over-stating the existence of one unified insurgency against the Pakistani state, however.\nFor years the Taliban in Afghanistan were led by Mullah Omar, a village clergyman who lost his right eye fighting the occupying forces of the Soviet Union in the 1980s.\nAfghans, weary of the mujahideen's excesses and infighting after the Soviets were driven out, generally welcomed the Taliban when they first appeared on the scene.\nTheir early popularity was largely due to their success in stamping out corruption, curbing lawlessness and making the roads and the areas under their control safe for commerce to flourish.\nFrom south-western Afghanistan, the Taliban quickly extended their influence.\nThey captured the province of Herat, bordering Iran, in September 1995.\nExactly one year later, they captured the Afghan capital, Kabul, after overthrowing the regime of President Burhanuddin Rabbani and his defence minister, Ahmed Shah Masood.\nBy 1998, they were in control of almost 90% of Afghanistan.\nThey were accused of various human rights and cultural abuses. One notorious example was in 2001, when the Taliban went ahead with the destruction of the famous Bamiyan Buddha statues in central Afghanistan, despite international outrage.\nOn October 7, 2001, a US-led military coalition invaded Afghanistan and by the first week of December the Taliban regime had collapsed.\nMullah Omar and his comrades evaded capture despite one of the largest manhunts in the world.\nMany senior Taliban leaders take refuge in the Pakistani city of Quetta, from where they guide the Taliban, analysts say.\nBut the existence of what is dubbed the \"Quetta Shura\" is denied by Islamabad, even though there is much evidence to the contrary.\nDespite ever higher numbers of foreign troops, the Taliban have steadily extended their influence, rendering vast tracts of Afghanistan insecure, and violence in the country has returned to levels not seen since 2001.\nTheir retreat in the years after 2001 enabled them to limit their human and material losses and return with a vengeance.\nThere have been numerous Taliban attacks on Kabul in recent years and, in September 2012, the group carried out a high-profile raid on Nato's Camp Bastion base.\nIn the same month the US military handed control of the controversial Bagram prison - housing more than 3,000 Taliban fighters and terrorism suspects - to the Afghan authorities.\nIn September 2015 the Taliban seized control of a provincial capital for the first time since their defeat in 2001, taking control of the strategically important city of Kunduz.\nThe US is keeping close to 10,000 troops in Afghanistan, but the Taliban finds itself an increasingly splintered organisation - that is also threatened by the rise of the so-called Islamic State militant group in Afghanistan." ]

[ "Main Course - Wikipedia \"Jive Talkin'\" Released: May 1975 (UK), July 1975 (US); \"Nights on Broadway\" Released: September 1975; \"Fanny (Be Tender with My Love)\" Released: January 1976. Main Course, released in 1975 for the RSO label, is the 13th album by the Bee Gees, and their ... At first, the brothers were still writing in their old ways, with many of the songs...", "Jive Talkin' by Bee Gees Songfacts Jive Talkin' by Bee Gees song meaning, lyric interpretation, video and chart position. ... at the time it came out in 1975, the beat was new and unheard and GREAT! ... originally composing the song, he thought \"Jive Talking\" referred to the way...", "The Lyrics Of The Bee Gees- Jive Talkin' - YouTube Jan 12, 2012 - 4 min - Uploaded by LyricsOfTheBeeGeesThe Lyrics Of The Bee Gees brings you the magic of the incredible ... All of their hits are ...", "Jive Talkin' - Wikipedia \"Jive Talkin' \" is a song by the Bee Gees, released as a single in May 1975 by RSO Records. This was the lead single from the album Main Course and hit...", "BEE GEES LYRICS - Jive Talkin' - A-Z Lyrics Lyrics to \"Jive Talkin'\" song by BEE GEES: It's just your jive talkin' you're telling me lies, yeah Jive talkin' you wear ... That gets in the way ... \"Main Course\" (1975)." ]

[ "Bee Gees - Wikipedia The Bee Gees were a pop music group formed in 1958. Their line-up consisted of brothers ... The Bee Gees' Hall of Fame citation says \"Only Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Michael Jackson, ..... Two singles from the album fared little better\"He's a Liar\", reaching No. ..... Year, Association, Category, Nominated work, Result, Ref.", "Bee Gees - Wikipedia The Bee Gees were a pop music group formed in 1958. Their line-up consisted of brothers .... While there, the brothers went to Northgate State School. ..... Barry Gibb considered the success of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack both a ... with the soundtrack to Staying Alive in 1983, the sequel to Saturday Night Fever.", "The Bee Gees i've Gotta Get A Message To You 1967 45rpm 7 ... Records 45 - 6603 ... The bee gees, a british-australian pop singing and song writing group are one of the ... on 7 september 1968; it became their second number-one single on the uk singles chart. ... Lp-bee Gees-i've Got To Get A Message To You-1973 .... Buy a $25 Domino's Pizza Gift Card for only $20 - Email delivery.", "The Bee Gees (Music) - TV Tropes The Bee Gees for most of their history have consisted of twin brothers Robin and ... most notably the 1989 single \"One\" (their last U.S. Top 10 hit) and the 1997 album Still ... That same year saw them inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. ... Living Eyes (1981); Staying Alive (1983) (soundtrack, contains five new Bee...", "1000+ ideas about Bee Gees Massachusetts on Pinterest | Michel ... Bee Gees (9/16) - How can you mend a broken heart ...please help me mend this ..... Bee Gees - Massachusetts, a hit in 1967. ... And the lights all went out in Massachusetts The day I left her standing on her own. .... Lead sang by Robin Gibb. ...... List of Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles of the 1970s - Wikipedia, the.", "Bee Gees - Wikipedia The Bee Gees were a pop music group formed in 1958. Their line-up consisted of brothers Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb. .... For his songwriting, Barry sparked the interest of Australian star Col Joye, who helped them get a record deal in 1963 with Festival Records subsidiary Leedon Records under the name \"Bee Gees\".", "Were The Bee Gees All About Melody And Harmony And Not The ... Nov 3, 2015 ... Such was the sadness that an entire state metaphorically went dark! On New York Mining Disaster (also 1967) the Bee Gees sang of a trapped...", "Bee Gees Barry Gibb Robin Gibb Maurice Gibb \"I've Got T for sale The Bee Gees-\"I've Got To Get A Message To You\"-1968-Casserole Music-Sheet Music.The Bee Gees were a pop music group that was founded in 1958. The group's line-up ... \"Excellent quality merchandise, fast and efficient delivery!", "Stayin' Alive by Bee Gees Songfacts In 1983, The Bee Gees recorded songs for a sequel to Saturday Night Fever that ... the beat of this song (specifically, the \"ah-ah-ah-ah\" part) to remind us of the proper .... The Bee Gees deliberately set the tempo at 103 BPM because it's the...", "(The Lights Went Out In) Massachusetts The Bee Gees - The ... A Bee Gees Survivor: Barry Gibb Reflects in a Solo Album ... The month that Strawberry Fields Forever came out in 1967, we tried to get signed. .... Lyrics to Massachusetts by Bee Gees: And the lights all went out in Massachusetts And Massachusetts is one place I have ... Florida State University Republic of Panama.", "Stayin' Alive Lyrics - Bee Gees Lyrics to Stayin' Alive by Bee Gees: Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk / I'm a woman's man: no time to talk / Music loud and.", "Bee Gees - New World Encyclopedia Their album, Saturday Night Fever, is the best selling soundtrack album of all time. ... A minor hit in 1965, \"Wine and Women,\" led to the group's first LP, The Bee Gees .... of the Broadway musical Grease for Frankie Valli, which went to number one. ... with the soundtrack to Staying Alive, the sequel to Saturday Night Fever.", "BEE GEES biography - The Great Rock Bible Barry, Robin and Maurice continued to cut their teeth (quite, er literally!?) in the parochial talent contests/amateur shows in their new hometown of Brisbane, going .... NATURAL {*6} album, marked a watershed in the brothers' career. .... after their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; releasing STILL WATERS...", "* You should be dancing/Shake Your Booty : 2010 2 12 ... Billboard Hits No.1-1976. Bee Gees-. You should be dancing ... What you doin' and you're laying on your back, aah? What you doin' and you're...", "Bee Gees - Wikipedia The Bee Gees were a pop music group formed in 1958. Their line-up consisted of brothers Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb. The trio were successful for most of their decades of recording music, but ... The Bee Gees' Hall of Fame citation says \"Only Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Michael Jackson, Garth Brooks and Paul...", "Richard's Recommended Reading: The Bee Gees Jul 20, 2013 ... They're the only group in history to have written, recorded and ... Now that Robin was gone, Barry was the only one left. ... \"Big hair, big teeth, medallions,\" as Barry once said. ... (The Gibbs to Rolling Stone in 1988 about \"Stayin' Alive\": \"We'd like to ..... When Andy grew up, he wanted to be just like Barry.", "CollectorsFrenzy - THE BEE GEES Studio Albums 1967-1968 Vinyl ... Pressed on 180-Gram HQ Vinyl, THE STUDIO ALBUMS 1967 - 1968 is the ... and Colin Petersen launched the group's extraordinary musical output with Bee Gees' 1st, ... reached #7 on Billboard's Pop Album chart and delivered a trio of top 20 ... classics \"I've Got To Get A Message To You\" (#8) and \"I Started A Joke\" (#6).", "Bee Gees You Should Be Dancing 1979 - World News Bee Gees - Stayin' Alive (1977), THE BEE GEES GREATEST HITS, Bee Gees - How Deep Is Your ... TOO MUCH HEAVEN Nobody gets too much heaven no more It's much harder to come by, I'm waiting in .... One Night Only is a live album by the Bee Gees. ...... Don't Say Goodbye; add to main playlist Play in Full Screen", "The 10 Best Songs Written by the Bee Gees That Became Hits for ... May 20, 2016 ... Barry and Robin Gibb wrote this song and the Bee Gees included their .... title came from an Ernest Hemingway novel, was written by disco's biggest act, ... Rogers and Parton had already had pop solo #1 hits in the early '80s...", "Friday Feature: \"Grease\" - The Second Disc Jun 25, 2010 ... Even 32 years after its release, Grease still seems to be the word the film, ... while hurtling through the highly decadent end of the 1970s straight to the 1980s, ... The original soundtrack to Grease was spread over two vinyl records, ... of years thanks to The Bee Gees' dizzying heights of success at the time.", "Lyrics for \"Stayin' Alive\" by Bee Gees - Songfacts Lyrics and video for the song \"Stayin' Alive\" by Bee Gees.", "Robin Gibb, Friend of Israel, RIP: 2/3rds of Bee Gees Gone May 21, 2012 ... Categories .... The Bee Gees were interesting because they were one of only a few 60s rock groups that had two ... in the 2013 World Baseball Classic, and he's bent on recruiting present or recently retired Jewish major ... He called out Michael Young when Young was having an uncharacteristic hissy fit.", "Bee Gees-Stayin' Alive - YouTube May 19, 2010 - 4 min - Uploaded by pant_scorpionsLyrics: Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk, I'm a woman's man, no time to talk. Music ...", "jeopardy/1064_Qs.txt at master jedoublen/jeopardy GitHub '70s SONGS | (Hi, I'm KC of KC and the Sunshine Band.) Originally a sexier song, this 1975 hit had to be toned down, uh-huh, uh-huh | \"That's the Way (I Like It)\".", "BEE GEES LYRICS - Stayin' Alive - A-Z Lyrics Lyrics to \"Stayin' Alive\" song by BEE GEES: Well, you can tell by the way I use my ... Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive, stayin' alive. ... \"Saturday Night Fever\" (1977).", "Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees: 'I want to keep the music alive' | Music ... Jul 18, 2013 ... Barry Gibb is the last surviving Bee Gee and he's given up retirement to go back on tour. ... \"I just wanted to say to him: 'Why can't we let the Bee Gees why .... with majestically skewed baroque pop songs that didn't really fit with the ..... Actually the way they walked off that show was pure class and a...", "Bee Gees website Gibb Service International, Covers and Rarities I'm a French musician and I've made a whole LP full of covers of The Bee ... He was the first Australian rock and roll singer to have a hit record all over .... Sound clip: \"Stayin' Alive\" ... In 1967 they recorded the Bee Gees penned song: \"Storm\". ... of a German father and a Brazilian mother, Astrud grew up in Rio de Janeiro.", "Bee Gees on Apple Music Their first English recording, \"New York Mining Disaster 1941,\" an original by the ... In 1969, the trio split up in a dispute involving the Odessa album. ... The trio's 1997 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame led to a .... Stayin' Alive Staying Alive (The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), 1:30, $1.29, View in iTunes. 21.", "Only Solitaire reviews A-B: HTML version Only Solitaire: G. Starostin's Record Reviews, Reloaded .... Me') unfortunately, he only performed (I cannot even say wrote) two songs in his lifetime, the Slow ... an already aging Big Joe became one of the co-founders of rock'n'roll. ...... Possible starting point: The Bee Gees 1st (1967) their teenage Australian output...", "Judge's words to Cushing: 'Play ball!' Dec 13, 2014 ... 27 issue will be sent to the printer on Dec. 24 so our staff can enjoy an extended ..... regarding Jesus' birth, religious songs or anything per- ... Quality Auto Body Repair - FAST! ... How can a loser ever win? The Bee Gees in 1971 did not an- ..... He also served in the military in. World War II and had noth-.", "My Generation - Wikipedia \"My Generation\" is a song by the English rock band The Who, which became a hit and one of ... One is that the song began as a slow talking blues number without the stutter (in the 1970s it was sometimes ... the song prior to the recording, was nervous, and he was unable to hear his own voice through the monitors.", "JSOnline - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Jan 1, 2007 ... It was followed by Three Dog Night's \"Joy to the World\" from 1971 and the Beach ... asked Gregory Jon as he launched today's \"Good Day Milwaukee\" morning show. ... THE O.C. Season Four finale will also be the series finale. ...... the most confident of the first three performers with her Bee Gees' choice." ]

[ "The Blown Away Tour: LIVE\n Carrie Underwood Rock's I Love Her!!!! I have all her Album's and I'm looking forward to many more!!! I loved this cause it clearly show's her talent and voice so much and made me feel like I was at her concert!!!" ]

[ "Philips Sony XL-5100 E Series Replacement Lamp has burnt-out. I purchased the lamp in September 2016 and it should be working and warranty should still be effective. I need a replacement for the replacement. Please send re-replacement lamp and will send damaged non-working lamp back in mailing box when sent.", "What good is a five year expiration when they send you a package that expires in a little over two years! Not pleased with this at all! The taste isn't all that important to me since this is to be used in a survival situation. But this is not good PR when they send you something that expires in a little over two years. I will deal with a different company next time.", "I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this book. The story sucked me in immediately and I really couldn't put it down - I had to see what would happen next!\n\nThough I was hoping for a bit more substance in the ending, I'm pleased to see that this book has been extended into a series and I will definitely check out the rest.", "This unit arrived in good order, has been installed and the user sees very pleased.", "Make sure you check the manufacturer date on the inside of helmet. I was surprised to see the manufacturer stamp states a recommended life of 2 years, and the manufacture date was Sept 2011.\nSo it was no longer considered in its usable life by the manufacturer 6 months before I even ordered it.\nI'll update the rating based on the replacement helmet Amazon is sending out.", "My unit arrived, as soon as I started trying it I noticed that in the manual there are two inputs: charger and audio, but the headphones plug is for the same input (charger) so I have to always unplug the headphones for charging??\n\nPlease send me a solution for this. I have the pictures of the manual and it's not maching the parts description.", "I can't say much, but this seems to be the best air pump I've bought. Awesome adjustable air flow, very quiet, I'm really pleased so far. I will see how it last out now!\nAt this time I would definitely recommend this pump. Price and quality." ]

[ "There is a really nice series of stories from NPR's Planet Money team on this issue (not for a 5-year old though), it clears up some of the common misconceptions about which direction the effort flows (Hint: Not from the lobbyist to the politician) _URL_0_" ]

[ "It is bribing if you do what is give money in exchange for some action (or in exchange for not taking an action). That is called a *quid pro quo* and it is as illegal for a lobbyist as for anyone else. But, the law sees a difference between that and donating to people who are already likely to support what you want.", "Laws usually don't have to make sense. It is what the politicians and the lobbyists can make the people think are concerns.", "Because lobbyists. Tesla has some money and lobbyists of their own, but nothing on par with the rest of the entire car industry", "The First Lady doesn't have any official obligations. Legally, she's just some woman married to the President. However, unofficially she can do a lot. She's got the President's ear, and her high profile nature means that she can be very effective at pushing programs. Even in this case though, she's basically just a spokesman or lobbyist.", "While they do need to be precise legal terms, there have been attempts by the IRS to ask for the legal right to change the forms to make them simpler and easier to do at home, or to provide easier options. Every time H & R Block and TurboTax use their lobbyists to fight and stop them, and they've actually succeeded in making taxes more difficult to file in order to force people to use their services: _URL_0_ _URL_1_ _URL_3_ _URL_2_", "lobbyists. Also, it would be kind of retarded having an A4 sheet of ingredients attached to every coke can. _URL_0_", "Regular seat belts don't have lobbyists to pay politicians to set needless expiration requirements.", "> I think most Americans would agree that much of our system of government is influenced by corporations. Given this, given the power of lobbyists, it makes me think my vote doesn't count for much. Lobbyists don't elect politicians. They give politicians money, to help them buy votes. You decide at what price you want to sell your vote. You get to try and balance out the mindless idiots that will vote for any old guy, just because he came on TV and said the other guy wants to ruin medicare or raise taxes, or whatever.", "Because the traditional, land-based casinos have very powerful lobbyists. They don't want people to gamble online, they want them to walk into their casinos.", "[Sexual orientation is not a protected category in many US jurisdictions](_URL_0_) and I suspect you're just stirring the pot here. Jay Love had been hired *as a lobbyist* for Apple, a company with a stated gay rights stance. Love has a history of lobbying for anti-gay causes. In this case, this past activity was not just personal—his political experience had a bearing on his public identity and his motivations as a lobbyist, and was in direct opposition to aspects of the role he'd been hired for.", "The whole point of a loophole is that it's legal, so there is nothing to \"go after them\" for, on the face of it. The companies aren't breaking the rules of the game, they're just using the rules in ways the referees didn't expect. Governments can try to pass new tax laws (or repeal previous ones) to close the loopholes, but lobbyists will do their best to stop or at least influence this process. New laws will likely have their own loopholes as well, inserted by those who have been lobbied, as simple oversights, or unrealized interactions with other laws or treaties.", "Well for Australia it’s getting more popular but we are a country run by dinosaurs that still think Coal will save the world. Sorry...correction...that are paid by lobbyists to think that", "You are under a very false assumption. Our tax law is complex because we have decided to have a lot of things that are worthy of lowering your taxes. Not having a lot of income, having children, having medical costs, going to university, buying a house, buying a car, donating to charity, starting a business and thousands of other things that make every single individual a different and unique case. Lobbyists for tax software companies have had nothing to do with its complexities.", "Washington DC was built on \"swamp land.\" Obviously, to most, it has a double meaning. A swamp is thought of as a nasty place by many. So, DC is the swamp. Trump says he will drain the swamp. He means he's going to get rid of (drain) what he calls corrupt politicians/ lobbyists, etc., from the Washington DC political arena.", "I'm not a scientist but what I do know is that it has to do with what the hiccup is actually trying to do, if it can't do (insert what it does) it will keep trying. Wish I was that preserving lol", "On top of all the particular points about ideologies in the US, and where Ron Paul fits, you should also know that Ron Paul is a rare politician in that he's almost obsessively dedicated to his principles, despite the fact that he's gotten very little practically accomplished in his years in congress as a result, and despite every opportunity to be bought out by lobbyists like most politicians do. And despite all of this he's recently started gaining popularity and is amazingly starting to look like a viable candidate. Though you could say that his 30(?) year consistent voting record is finally paying off in this sense. This guy, with his unlikely combination of strict principles, strong resolve, and popularity, is a once in a lifetime shot. So imagine what a sea change it would be for such a person to be in charge of the executive branch of the most powerful country in the world.", "Better lawyers. Better lobbyists. Scummier politicians. Besides, you realize that \"Ma Bell\" has reincorporated itself across the board. They repurchased/merged in all the broken pieces back into AT & T.", "This is really going to come off as anti-wind-lobbyist-crankery, but I'm asking this in earnest. What ramifications if any are there to the weather if one places a huge wind farm somewhere? Thermodynamics says that although the wind is \"renewable\" it's not like the turbines produce \"free\" energy, they take the wind energy and convert it to electricity, the end result of which is the wind gets slowed down, right? Have there been any decent studies on this, or is it all crank stuff?", "They can afford to spend a lot of money on lawyers, accountants, and consultants who can find them every possible tax loophole. If there aren't any loopholes they just hire some lobbyists, make a few campaign contributions, and get a loophole created for them.", "DO NOT ADMIT GUILT! Do not say anything that could be implied as an admission of guilt. Your insurance company should have instructions somewhere in the paperwork on what to do, and what not to do.", "What do you mean safe? Do you know what a check is?", "What practices do the Indian IT firms engage in and what bad reputation do they have in the US?", "what does it mean that older cities are more circular? what do you mean by old? what do you consider modern?", "Because the alcohol and tobacco companies have more money than God and use some of that to pay lobbyists. Remember the fallout for cigarettes in the 90s? Did you notice they are still around, except Joe Camel can't peddle directly to kids? Yeah.", "The \"recommended\" is a bullshit number brought on by lobbyists. Have you noticed how much you urinate when you drink so much water? Your body purges excess water. Drink when you're thirsty. Not because you're on a goddamn schedule.", "Not sure if piggybacking is allowed, but I've heard similar conspiracy theories that tire company lobbyists were a huge reason mass transit never gained adequate support in the early growth stages (primarily here in Southern California). Any truth to that?", "It's rather that they stay awake until 1:45 am, not that they all get out of bed and get to the hill at 1:45 am. The thing is that Congress actually does a lot of time-wasting things, such as day-long hearings on nominees. While they surely are important, that's a full day you can't have a vote because a few handfulls of senators are preoccupied. And this happens all the time. It's necessary, because you can't have a meaningful debate on the Senate floor with a 100 people. Add to that that Senators are expected to do a lot of fundraising and have meetings with constituents and lobbyists. so if you really want something to be discussed, sometimes you need to work into the night, sometimes, when some time-consuming Senate moves are happening all at the same time. If you're interested in what a typical Senator's day looks like, here is a good answer: _URL_0_", "Do you mean what do they do in a 911 dispatch center to send cops / ambulance / fire to you?", "Related question: What if I want to become a mercenary? What do I do?", "[This model daily schedule from a training for freshman Dems](_URL_0_) suggests 4h a day calling donors, 1-2h meeting with constituents, 2h in official public sessions, 1h of \"strategic outreach\" (lobbyists, interest groups), and 1h of \"recharge time\". The amount allotted for call time is low.", "What precisely do you mean? As in, how did they do it, technically? Or what was the background and method behind the research to \"discover\" the bomb technology?", "Removing Net Neutrality would be very very profitable to a company like Comcast. Comcast is a business that has a lot of political influence (the current chairman of the FCC was a former lobbyist for the cable TV industry). They persuade politicians to frequently attempt to remove net neutrality." ]

[ "U.S. fires missiles at Syrian air base\nPresident Trump addresses U.S. military strike on Syria\n1:27" ]

[ "A US Army Black Hawk helicopter with three people aboard crashed Monday on a Maryland golf course, killing one crew member and seriously injuring two more, officials said.\nSEE ALSO Black Hawk helicopter crashes on golf course 0:0 A US Army Black Hawk helicopter with three people aboard...\nThe chopper from Fort Belvoir, in Fairfax County, Va., went down at the Breton Bay Golf and Country Club near Leonardtown, about 40 miles southeast of Washington, DC, officials said.\n“A Fort Belvoir UH-60 Helicopter, with 3 crew members on board, had a hard landing at approximately 1:50 p.m. near Leonardtown, MD. One of the crew members was medically evacuated from the scene,” the Army installation said on its Facebook page.\nThe Army has not yet identified the crew members, only saying that one was killed and two others seriously wounded. Those individuals are being treated at the University of Maryland R. Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore.\nThe cause of the crash is still under investigation.\nThe the military frequently describes such incidents as “hard landings” — even when the aircraft is destroyed, AFP reported.\nWJLA posted a video of the smoldering wreckage surrounded by rescuers. Two people were seen assisting what appeared to be an injured crew member.\nA pair of police medevac helicopters were sent to the scene.\nSeveral people reportedly witnessed the crash.\nElizabeth Willing told TheBayNet.com that she and her friend Kat McCurdy were kayaking in Breton Bay at the time.\n“We saw three helicopters. One of them was lagging behind the other two. It started spinning. At first we thought it was doing tricks,” she told the site. “It disappeared behind the tree line and then we heard a big bang.”\nA golf pro at Breton Bay said the helicopter “was kind of flying sideways, pretty low.”\n“And then as we got out on the deck watching it, he got treetop level and all of a sudden we saw the tail spin up and just spinning around and we heard him go down,” Mike Harvey told WBAL News Radio 1090 AM.\n“You could just hear the rotors hitting trees. There was no explosion or anything,” he said, adding that no one had been playing golf at the site at the time of the crash.\nHarvey said Navy and Marine Corps aircraft flying to and from Naval Air Station Patuxent River 12 miles to the east are common sights, unlike Army-style choppers like Black Hawks.\nSt. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Jennifer Stone didn’t have additional details, saying authorities were still working to secure the scene.\nThe accident is the second time this month a military aircraft has gone down in the area.\nOn April 6, an F-16 fighter jet crashed near Joint Base Andrews after a pilot parachuted out. No major injuries were reported.\nThe twin-engine Black Hawk was introduced into Army service in 1979, as a successor to the UH-1 Huey, the ubiquitous workhorse during the Vietnam War.\nIt has taken part in many combat missions, including in Iraq and Afghanistan, and typically carries two pilots, a crew chief and has room for about a dozen heavily armed troops.\nBut the chopper is perhaps best remembered for the 1993 tragedy in Somalia, where two were shot down in the Battle of Mogadishu.\nEighteen US servicemen were killed and 73 wounded in the ensuing battle, which was depicted in the movie “Black Hawk Down.”\nWith Post Wires", "NEW YORK (AP) — All five passengers aboard a helicopter that crashed into New York City’s East River were confirmed dead early Monday morning by a NYPD spokesman.\nThe pilot was able to escape the Sunday night crash after the aircraft flipped upside down in the water, officials said. He was rescued by a tugboat.\nThe helicopter, a private charter hired for a photo shoot, went down near Gracie Mansion, the mayoral residence.\nVideo taken by a bystander and posted on Twitter shows the red helicopter land hard in the water and then capsize, its rotors slapping at the water.\nThe passengers were recovered by police and fire department divers, who had to remove them from tight harnesses while they were upside down, Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said.\n“It took awhile for the divers to get these people out. They worked very quickly as fast as they could,” Nigro said. “It was a great tragedy that we had here.”\nWitnesses on a waterfront esplanade near where the aircraft went down said the helicopter was flying noisily, then suddenly dropped into the water and quickly submerged. But the pilot appeared on the surface, holding onto a flotation device as a tugboat and then police boats approached.\n“It’s cold water. It was sinking really fast,” Mary Lee, 66, told the New York Post. “By the time we got out here, we couldn’t see it. It was underwater.”\nCelia Skyvaril, 23, told the Daily News that she could see a person on what looked like a yellow raft or float screaming and yelling for help.\nNews footage showed one victim being loaded into an ambulance while emergency workers gave him chest compressions.\nA bystander, Susan Larkin, told The Associated Press that she went down to see rescue boats in the river and a police helicopter circling overhead, hovering low over the water.\n“You could clearly see they were searching,” she said.\nA Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman said the Eurocopter AS350 went down just after 7 p.m. The aircraft was owned by Liberty Helicopters, a company that offers both private charters and sightseeing tours popular with tourists. A phone message left with the company was not immediately returned.\nThe skies over New York constantly buzz with helicopters carrying tourists, businesspeople, traffic reporters, medical teams and others. Crashes are not unheard of.\nIn 2009, a sightseeing helicopter of the same model and operated by the same company as the one in Sunday’s wreck collided with a small, private plane over the Hudson River, killing nine people, including a group of Italian tourists.\nA crash in October 2011 in the East River killed a British woman visiting the city for her 40th birthday. Three other passengers were injured.\nA helicopter on a sightseeing tour of Manhattan crashed into the Hudson River in July 2007, shaking up the eight people aboard but injuring no one. In June 2005, two helicopters crashed into the East River in the same week. One injured eight people including some banking executives. The other hit the water shortly after takeoff on a sightseeing flight, injuring six tourists and the pilot.\nNigro and Police Commissioner James O’Neill said the rescue operation Sunday took place in a 4 mph current in water about 50 feet (15 meters) deep, under challenging conditions.\nThe cause of the crash is unknown. The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating.\nOfficials did not immediately release the names of the pilot or passengers.\nThe helicopter was recovered in the rescue operation and towed to a pier.", "One crew member was killed and two others were injured Monday when a military helicopter crashed on a southern Maryland golf course.\nThe Army said the UH-60 Blackhawk from Ft. Belvoir, Va. crashed at 1:37 p.m. ET at Breton Bay Golf Course near Leonardtown, about 60 miles southeast of Washington D.C.\nThe injured crew members were taken to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore. The Army said one of the injured crew was in critical condition, while the other was in serious condition. The crew members’ identities were not immediately available.\n“We are deeply saddened by this loss within our community,” Maj. Gen. Bradley A. Becker, commanding general, Joint Force Headquarters National Capital Region and the U.S. Army Military District of Washington said in a statement. “Our condolences go out to the families and friends affected by this tragedy, and our team is focused on supporting them during this difficult time.”\nRelated stories…\nThe cause of the crash was not immediately known. The Army said it was sending a team from its Combat Readiness Center to conduct an investigation.\nKevin Bowen, who works in the pro shop of the Breton Bay Golf and Country Club in Leonardtown, said he saw the helicopter “flying kind of low” and then “saw it spinning” before it went down between the third and fourth holes of the golf course.\nDorothy Harper, who lives across the street from the golf course, said she saw the helicopter just before it crashed.\n“I was outside in my front yard when I saw the helicopter come over right across the street from my house. I saw pieces actually falling off the helicopter,” she said.\nHarper said she didn’t see smoke or flames, “just pieces falling out of the sky.”\nShortly after, emergency vehicles started rolling in, she said.\nArmy investigators were driving around the course in golf carts Monday evening, placing evidence markers near pieces of debris.\nThe crash came less than two weeks after a fighter jet crashed into a wooded area in Prince George’s County.\nThe F-16C fighter jet took off from Joint Base Andrews and was participating in a routine training mission before it suffered a mechanical issue and went into a wooded area near Piscataway Road and Steed Road in Clinton, Md., about six miles from Joint Base Andrews and 12 miles south of Washington D.C.\nThe pilot on that mission ditched the jet and was treated for minor injuries. No one else was hurt.\nFox News’ Lucas Tomlinson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.\nRead more from FOX 5 DC.", "The Canadian Press\nDRUMMONDVILLE, Que. -- The family of two of the three people who died in a helicopter crash northeast of Montreal said Friday that words cannot fully describe the feelings of desolation and incomprehension they are experiencing.\nJean-Claude Mailhot and his daughter Janie, along with Nathalie Desrosiers, died Thursday after a helicopter they were travelling in crashed in a snow-covered field just north of Drummondville, Que.\nPolice said Friday the crash that killed everyone on board was not likely due to a criminal act, but investigators still didn't know what caused the four-seater Robinson R44-model helicopter to go down.\nThe three were travelling from Quebec's Beauce region to the Lanaudiere when the aircraft crashed Thursday around 9 p.m.\n\"Our father and our sister died in a tragic accident last night,\" read a statement sent to the media Friday and signed by Tommy, Vincent and Alexandrine Mailhot.\n\"Words do not suffice to express the desolation and incomprehension that an event like this can bring.\"\nJean-Claude, a father of four and grandfather of six, was described as a man \"appreciated by everyone, a respected and engaged entrepreneur in his community.\"\nJanie's siblings said their sister was a mother of two young daughters \"who had a contagious love for life and was extremely generous.\n\"We would also like to send our most sincere condolences to the family and friends of Nathalie Desrosiers,\" the third person who died in the crash, the Mailhot family said in the statement.\nAs the first full day of investigations neared its conclusion, there was little information available on what caused the helicopter to crash along the banks of the Saint-Francois River, about 100 kilometres northeast of Montreal.\nProvincial police spokesman Hugo Fournier said during an interview that police were preparing to leave the scene just before 4 p.m., adding that the next step was to figure out how to extricate the wreckage of the helicopter from the remote field.\nFirst responders had a difficult time getting to the scene because of deep snow. A snow-removal machine was brought in from the city of Drummondville to help them get to the site.\nMarc Descoteaux, who owns a farm not far from where the helicopter crashed, said he smelled smoke as he did some work Thursday evening.\n\"It was a burning smell, not a wood-burning smell but more like metal or solder,\" Descoteaux said in a phone interview. \"Before going home, I saw a fire in the middle of a field about 800 metres from my house.\"\nThinking it was a snowmobile on fire, Descoteaux called his nephew to go have a look.\nHis nephew accessed the area by snowmobile. Realizing it was a helicopter, Descoteaux said they called police.\n\"A helicopter at night in the neighbourhood is very rare,\" he said of his rural area. \"We get very few cars at night, let alone helicopters.\"\nHis brother used a snowblower to make a path for the first officers and emergency personnel at the scene.\nFournier said investigators are considering if the weather was a factor in the crash.\nTransportation Safety Board investigators were also on the scene on Friday.\nOne of those investigators, Pierre Gavillet, said it was too soon to know whether the crash occurred at high speed.\n\"At first glance we try to see the marks in the snow,\" he told reporters at the scene around midday. \"We try to establish the flight trajectory before the impact.\"\nGavillet said the investigators would gather information on the weather, the pilot's qualifications and the body of the chopper, which he said was heavily damaged.\nHe said it wasn't clear whether the helicopter would need to be sent to the Transportation Safety Board's lab for further analysis.", "Investigators walk on a golf course as they examine debris that fell at the Breton Bay Golf and Country Club when an Army UH-60 helicopter from Fort Belvoir, Va., crashed, Monday, April 17, 2017, in Leonardtown, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) Investigators walk on a golf course as they examine debris that fell at the Breton Bay Golf and Country Club when an Army UH-60 helicopter from Fort Belvoir, Va., crashed, Monday, April 17, 2017, in Leonardtown, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)\nA Black Hawk helicopter crashed onto a golf course in Maryland during a routine training flight Monday, killing one crew member and injuring the two others on board, the US Army said. The cause of the crash is under investigation, the Army Military District of Washington said in a statement Monday evening. One witness described pieces falling from the aircraft and another said it was spinning before it went down. “We are deeply saddened by this loss within our community,” said Maj. Gen. Bradley A. Becker, commanding general of the Joint Force Headquarters National Capital Region and the US Army Military District of Washington. “Our condolences go out to the families and friends affected by this tragedy, and our team is focused on supporting them during this difficult time.”\nThree crew members were aboard the UH-60 Black Hawk for what the Army said was a training exercise when it crashed in Leonardtown, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) southeast of Washington, DC, about 1:40 pm. They were not identified, pending notification of relatives. One person is in serious condition and one is in critical condition, the statement said. They are being treated at the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore.\nThe aircraft was from the 12th Aviation Battalion, stationed at Davison Airfield in Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Kevin Bowen, who works in the pro shop of the Breton Bay Golf and Country Club, said he saw the helicopter “flying kind of low” and then “saw it spinning” before it went down between the third and fourth holes of the course. Dorothy Harper, who lives across the street from the golf course, said she saw the helicopter just before it crashed. “I was outside in my front yard when I saw the helicopter come over right across the street from my house. I saw pieces actually falling off the helicopter,” she said. Harper said she didn’t see smoke or flames, “just pieces falling out of the sky.” Shortly after, emergency vehicles started rolling in, she said.\nArmy investigators were driving around the course in golf carts Monday evening, placing evidence markers near pieces of debris. A team from the Army Combat Readiness Center, in Fort Rucker, Alabama, will be on site Tuesday to conduct the investigation, the Army’s statement said. Black Hawks are mainly used for transporting troops, supplies and equipment, according to the Army. But other missions include training and support of disaster relief. The incident comes less than two weeks after a military jet crashed in a wooded area just outside a suburban Washington neighborhood. The pilot, who was on a training mission, ditched his jet. He was treated for minor injuries, and no one else was injured in that incident.\nFor all the latest World News, download Indian Express App now", "A military helicopter with three crew members on board has made a hard landing on a golf course in Leonardtown, Maryland.\nOne crew member has been airlifted to a hospital.\nThe UH-60 Black Hawk based at Fort Belvoir, the Army installation in Northern Virginia, landed hard about 1:50 p.m. Monday, Fort Belvoir officials said in a statement.\nA photo from TheBayNet.com shows firefighters appearing to peer into the wreckage at the Breton Bay Golf and Country Club, near Society Hill Road.\nA woman who lives near the golf course said she saw helicopters flying overhead. Then, one appeared to lose control.\n\"One of them just started to lower, and it started to spiral down, and it disappeared below the trees. It looked like it had flipped over, upside-down, and then we heard a big explosion sound,\" Bianca Melton said.\nNeighbor Bianca Melton took this photo of the scene. She said she saw the helicopter flip and then heard a huge crash.\nPhoto credit: Courtesy of Bianca Melton\nKevin Bowen, who works in the pro shop of the golf course, said he saw the helicopter \"flying kind of low\" and then \"saw it spinning\" before it went down between the third and fourth holes of course.\nLeonardtown is about 60 miles southeast of Washington, D.C.\nFort Belvoir is home to the major 12th Aviation Battalion, housed at the base’s Davison Army Airfield. The battalion has more than a dozen H-60 helicopters and helps serve senior leaders of the U.S. Army and Defense Department.\nThe 12th Aviation Battalion lands at the Pentagon, provides support for military training, and participates in funeral flyovers at Arlington National Cemetery.\nCongressional sources say there are plans to budget $1.1 billion this year to buy 61 new UH-60s. According to National Guard Bureau, the Army Guard’s H-60 fleet is the oldest in the Army; more than half of the aircraft are 30 years old.\nA fighter jet crashed in a wooded area near Joint Base Andrews in Maryland less than two weeks ago.\nThe pilot in that crash parachuted out of the F-16 after he had mechanical trouble and steered the aircraft away from a neighborhood. The D.C. Air National Guard F-16C fighter jet crashed April 5 in Clinton, Maryland, about 6 miles southwest of the military base that is home to Air Force One, base officials said. The pilot was on a routine training mission at the time. No one on the ground was hurt.\nStay with News4 for more details on this developing story.", "LEONARDTOWN, Md. (AP) - A Black Hawk helicopter crashed onto a golf course in Maryland during a routine training flight, killing one crew member and injuring the two others on board, the U.S. Army said.\nThe cause of the Monday crash is under investigation, the Army Military District of Washington said in a statement. One witness described pieces falling from the aircraft and another said it was spinning before it went down.\n\"We are deeply saddened by this loss within our community,\" said Maj. Gen. Bradley A. Becker, commanding general of the Joint Force Headquarters National Capital Region and the U.S. Army Military District of Washington. \"Our condolences go out to the families and friends affected by this tragedy, and our team is focused on supporting them during this difficult time.\"\nInvestigators examine debris that fell on the Breton Bay Golf and Country Club after an Army UH-60 helicopter from Fort Belvoir, Va., crashed, Monday, April 17, 2017, in Leonardtown, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)\nThree crew members were aboard the UH-60 Black Hawk for what the Army said was a training exercise when it crashed in Leonardtown, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) southeast of Washington, D.C., around 1:40 p.m. They were not identified, pending notification of relatives.\nOne person is in serious condition and one is in critical condition, the statement said. They were being treated at the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore.\nThe aircraft was from the 12th Aviation Battalion, stationed at Davison Airfield in Fort Belvoir, Virginia.\nKevin Bowen, who works in the pro shop of the Breton Bay Golf and Country Club, said he saw the helicopter \"flying kind of low\" and then \"saw it spinning\" before it went down between the third and fourth holes of the course.\nDorothy Harper, who lives across the street from the golf course, said she saw the helicopter just before it crashed.\n\"I was outside in my front yard when I saw the helicopter come over right across the street from my house. I saw pieces actually falling off the helicopter,\" she said.\nHarper said she didn't see smoke or flames, \"just pieces falling out of the sky.\"\nShortly after, emergency vehicles started rolling in, she said.\nArmy investigators were driving around the course in golf carts Monday evening, placing evidence markers near pieces of debris.\nA team from the Army Combat Readiness Center, in Fort Rucker, Alabama, will be on site Tuesday to conduct the investigation, the Army's statement said.\nBlack Hawks are mainly used for transporting troops, supplies and equipment, according to the Army. But other missions include training and support of disaster relief.\nThe incident comes less than two weeks after a military jet crashed in a wooded area just outside a suburban Washington neighborhood. The pilot, who was on a training mission, ditched his jet. He was treated for minor injuries, and no one else was injured in that incident.\nPeople examine an Army UH-60 helicopter from Fort Belvoir, Va., after it crashed at the Breton Bay Golf and Country Club after Monday, April 17, 2017, in Leonardtown, Md. (Rebecca Updegrave Cline via AP)\nInvestigators examine debris that fell on the Breton Bay Golf and Country Club golf course after an Army UH-60 helicopter from Fort Belvoir, Va., crashed, Monday, April 17, 2017, in Leonardtown, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)\nA St. Mary's County sheriff's deputy stops non-residents from entering the area after an Army UH-60 helicopter from Fort Belvoir, Va., crashed on the Breton Bay Golf and Country Club, Monday, April 17, 2017, in Leonardtown, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)", "EMBED >More News Videos Twitter video shows a possible helicopter going down in the East River. (Credit: @JJmagers /Twitter)\nHelicopter down in east river pic.twitter.com/VRm1n9Hc7J — Mary Beth Hogan (@mbhogan) March 11, 2018\nA helicopter crashed into New York City's East River Sunday night and flipped upside down in the water, killing all five passengers aboard, officials said.A spokesman for the NYPD confirmed the deaths to The Associated Press early Monday.Video taken by a bystander and posted on Twitter shows the red helicopter land hard in the water and then capsize, its rotors slapping at the water.The helicopter, a private charter hired for a photo shoot, went down near Gracie Mansion, the mayoral residence. One person, the pilot, freed himself and was rescued by a tugboat, officials said.The passengers were recovered by police and fire department divers, who had to remove them from tight harnesses while they were upside down, Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said.\"It took awhile for the drivers to get these people out. They worked very quickly as fast as they could,\" Nigro said. \"It was a great tragedy that we had here.\"Witnesses on a waterfront esplanade near where the aircraft went down said the helicopter was flying noisily, then suddenly dropped into the water and quickly submerged. But the pilot appeared on the surface, holding onto a flotation device as a tugboat and then police boats approached.\"It's cold water. It was sinking really fast,\" Mary Lee, 66, told the New York Post. \"By the time we got out here, we couldn't see it. It was underwater.\"Celia Skyvaril, 23, told the Daily News that she could see a person on what looked like a yellow raft or float screaming and yelling for help.News footage showed one victim being loaded into an ambulance while emergency workers gave him chest compressions.A bystander, Susan Larkin, told The Associated Press that she went down to see rescue boats in the river and a police helicopter circling overhead, hovering low over the water.\"You could clearly see they were searching,\" she said.A Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman said the Eurocopter AS350 went down just after 7 p.m. The aircraft was owned by Liberty Helicopters, a company that offers both private charters and sightseeing tours popular with tourists. A phone message left with the company was not immediately returned.The skies over New York constantly buzz with helicopters carrying tourists, businesspeople, traffic reporters, medical teams and others. Crashes are not unheard of.In 2009, a sightseeing helicopter of the same model and operated by the same company as the one in Sunday's wreck collided with a small, private plane over the Hudson River, killing nine people, including a group of Italian tourists.A crash in October 2011 in the East River killed a British woman visiting the city for her 40th birthday. Three other passengers were injured.A helicopter on a sightseeing tour of Manhattan crashed into the Hudson River in July 2007, shaking up the eight people aboard but injuring no one. In June 2005, two helicopters crashed into the East River in the same week. One injured eight people including some banking executives. The other hit the water shortly after takeoff on a sightseeing flight, injuring six tourists and the pilot.Nigro and Police Commissioner James O'Neill said the rescue operation Sunday took place in a 4 mph current in water about 50 feet (15 meters) deep, under challenging conditions.The cause of the crash is unknown. The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating.Officials did not immediately release the names of the pilot or passengers or say how the five passengers died.The helicopter was recovered in the rescue operation and towed to a pier.", "The scene of a serious crash near the Paluma turn-off.\nThe scene of a serious crash near the Paluma turn-off.\nUPDATE 11pm: POLICE are investigating the cause of a fatal single vehicle crash that killed a Gracemere man.\nA police report says the man was aged 37 and driving a light truck towing a box trailer north on the Bruce Highway, at Mutarnee, north-west of Townsville, about 5.30pm before the truck lost control and rolled several times.\nThe driver, the sole occupant of the truck, was pronounced deceased at the scene.\nThe highway was closed while rescue crews attended but has since reopened.\nInvestigations are continuing.\nUPDATE 8.10PM: A man has died after a truck rollover on the Bruce Highway.\nA Queensland Ambulance spokeswoman said the driver man was pronounced deceased at the scene.\nA Queensland Fire and Emergency Service spokeswoman said firefighters had to extract the patient from the vehicle.\nThe spokeswoman said a medical helicopter was also in attendance to help at the scene.\nThe highway remained closed at 7.50pm.\nThe Forensic Crash Unit is investigating.\nUPDATE 6.45PM: The driver of a truck that rolled on the Bruce Highway north of Townsville remains badly trapped.\nA Queensland Fire and Emergency Service spokeswoman said fire and rescue crews were still working to release the man from the vehicle.\nA witness who stopped to help said the crash looked very serious.\n\"I stopped my truck and ran over and went straight into the cab as no one was beside him and I was checking for a pulse,\" the witness said.\n\"I checked his wrist then his neck and under his armpit where I got a weak pulse.\n\"I kept calling his name but he didn't make a sound.\"\nThe witness said a rescue helicopter landed at the scene around 6.30pm.\nBoth lanes of the Bruce Highway are believed to be closed.\nThe vehicle, believed to be a body truck, was reported to be leaking fuel.\nThe crash occurred near Ollera Creek off the Bruce Highway, close to the Paluma turn-off.\nA Queensland Police spokesman said police were first called to reports of a crash at 5.35pm.\nBREAKING: EMERGENCY services are responding to reports of a truck leaking fuel with the unconscious driver trapped inside.\nPolice, paramedics and fire and rescue teams are rushing to the scene of the truck rollover on the Bruce Highway north of Townsville.\nEmergency service crews from both Townsville and Ingham are understood to be responding.\nThe incident is believed to have occurred near Mutarnee, north of Rollingstone, about 5.40pm.", "Investigators walk on a golf course as they examine debris that fell at the Breton Bay Golf and Country Club when an Army UH-60 helicopter from Fort Belvoir, Va., crashed, Monday, April 17, 2017, in Leonardtown, Md.\nLEONARDTOWN, Md. (AP) — A Black Hawk helicopter crashed onto a golf course in Maryland during a routine training flight Monday, killing one crew member and injuring two others, the U.S. Army said.\nThe cause of the crash is under investigation, the U.S. Army Military District of Washington said in a statement Monday evening.\n\"We are deeply saddened by this loss within our community,\" said Maj. Gen. Bradley A. Becker, commanding general of the Joint Force Headquarters National Capital Region and the U.S. Army Military District of Washington. \"Our condolences go out to the families and friends affected by this tragedy, and our team is focused on supporting them during this difficult time.\"\nThree crew members were aboard the UH-60 Blackhawk for what the Army said was a training exercise when it crashed in Leonardtown, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) southeast of Washington, D.C., about 1:40 p.m. They were not identified, pending notification of relatives\nOne person is in serious condition and one is in critical condition, the statement said. They are being treated at the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore.\nThe aircraft was from the 12th Aviation Battalion, stationed at Davison Airfield in Fort Belvoir, Virginia./p>\nKevin Bowen, who works in the pro shop of the Breton Bay Golf and Country Club, said he saw the helicopter \"flying kind of low\" and then \"saw it spinning\" before it went down between the third and fourth holes of the course.\nDorothy Harper, who lives across the street from the golf course, said she saw the helicopter just before it crashed.\n\"I was outside in my front yard when I saw the helicopter come over right across the street from my house. I saw pieces actually falling off the helicopter,\" she said.\nHarper said she didn't see smoke or flames, \"just pieces falling out of the sky.\"\nShortly after, emergency vehicles started rolling in, she said.\nArmy investigators were driving around the course in golf carts Monday evening, placing evidence markers near pieces of debris.\nA team from the Army Combat Readiness Center, in Fort Rucker, Alabama, will be on site Tuesday to conduct the investigation, the Army's statement said.\nBlack Hawks are mainly used for transporting troops, supplies and equipment, according to the Army. But other missions include training and support of disaster relief.\nThe incident comes less than two weeks after a military jet crashed in a wooded area just outside a suburban Washington neighborhood. The pilot, who was on a training mission, ditched his jet. He was treated for minor injuries, and no one else was injured in that incident.", "A pilot who died in a helicopter crash in Aldborough yesterday has been named as the entrepreneur and representative to the Queen, Barry Dodd.\nMr Dodd, Lord-Lieutenant for North Yorkshire, died when the helicopter he was piloting came down after midday in Aldborough, a village in Boroughbridge, in Harrogate, North Yorkshire.\nFirefighters, paramedics and police rushed to the scene but were unable to save Mr Dodd, who was Her Majesty's representative in the country during her visits.\nBarry Dodd, Lord-Lieutenant for North Yorkshire, died when the helicopter he was piloting came down after midday in Aldborough, a village in Boroughbridge, in Harrogate, North Yorkshire\nMr Dodd was appointed Lord-Lieutenant for North Yorkshire in 2014 and is often known to accompany the Queen during her visits to the area.\nA serial entrepreneur, Mr Dodd's was the Chairman of the York and North Yorkshire with East Riding Local Enterprise Partnership, Pro-Chancellor and Chair of Council of the University of Hull and Chair of the joint Hull, York Medical School.\nA police statement said this morning: 'Investigations are ongoing to establish what caused a helicopter to crash near Aldborough, Boroughbridge, at 1.23pm on Wednesday 30 May 2018.\nA spokesperson for North Yorkshire Police said: 'Sadly, the pilot of the private aircraft was pronounced dead at the scene following the helicopter near Aldborough yesterday.\nMr Dodd was appointed Lord-Lieutenant for North Yorkshire in 2014 and is often known to accompany the Queen during her visits to the area\n'Whilst we await formal identification, we believe he is Her Majesty's Lord-Lieutenant for North Yorkshire, Mr Barry Dodd CBE.\n'Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this difficult time.\n'Mr Dodd's family have been informed and are being supported by specially trained officers.\n'The force request the family's privacy at this very sad time.\nA serial entrepreneur, Mr Dodd's was the Chairman of the York and North Yorkshire with East Riding Local Enterprise Partnership, Pro-Chancellor and Chair of Council of the University of Hull and Chair of the joint Hull, York Medical School\n'Officers remain at the scene, alongside the Air Accidents Investigation Branch, whilst investigations continue.'\nSpeaking yesterday, one witness told how she heard an 'enormous explosion', while another said a helicopter had been flying very low earlier in the day.\nKatie McCann, of London, who grew up in Aldborough, said she was in her mother's house when she heard what sounded like an 'out of control plane or helicopter'.\nExplaining that the crash was behind Aldborough Hall, she said: 'The clouds are quite low here today and it's not great weather. Then I heard an enormous explosion.'\nThe 53-year-old looked out the window and 'black smoke was everywhere and I just flew out of the house because I thought it was an airplane'.\nA man with two boys was on the phone trying the direct emergency services, and Ms McCann helped. 'You couldn't see anything,' she said. 'There was so much smoke.\n'(A man) said he had seen it. It was a red and white helicopter.He said it had climbed up into the cloud like it was trying to recover itself, and then dropped like a stone.'\nIt only took the first fire engine around three minutes to turn up, she added.\nAnother resident of Aldborough told local radio station Stray FM how she was surprised to see a helicopter flying very low earlier on this morning.\nThe woman, named only as Jean, said: 'It went across the houses in Boroughbridge between 8am and 8.30am this morning - that's what got me out of the house.'\nNorth Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service has sent engines from Boroughbridge, Knaresborough, Harrogate and Ripon and crews are using hose reels at the scene.\nThe helicopter is believed to have been a civilian aircraft, although the area is near Dishforth Airfield which is used by the Army\nSpeaking at the scene of the accident, Dave Hannan, of North Yorkshire Police, said: 'Unfortunately I can report that one person, the pilot, is deceased in the helicopter'\nEmergency services headed to the field when they were called shortly before 1.30pm today\nFirefighters said they are using hose reels to dampen down the scene in Aldborough today\nNorth Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service got a call at 1.26pm to reports of a helicopter crashing\nAldborough is about 15 miles north east of Harrogate and 17 miles north west of York\nThe crash was near the village of Aldborough (file image) in Boroughbridge, North Yorkshire\nA North Yorkshire Fire spokesman said: 'We got a call at 1.26pm to reports of a helicopter crashing into a field near Aldborough, close to Boroughbridge.\n'A number of fire engines from Boroughbridge, Knaresborough, Harrogate and Ripon are in attendance, and are using hose reels to dampen down the scene.'\nYorkshire Ambulance Service are also in attendance at the scene, which is about 15 miles north east of Harrogate and 17 miles north west of York.\nThe Air Accidents Investigation Branch confirmed it was sending inspectors to investigate what it described as an 'accident involving a helicopter'.", "A Blackhawk helicopter crashed onto a golf course in Maryland during a routine training flight Monday, killing one crew member and injuring the two others on board, the U.S. Army said.\nThe cause of the crash is under investigation, the Army Military District of Washington said in a statement Monday evening. One witness described pieces falling from the aircraft and another said it was spinning before it went down.\n“We are deeply saddened by this loss within our community,” said Maj. Gen. Bradley A. Becker, commanding general of the Joint Force Headquarters National Capital Region and the U.S. Army Military District of Washington. “Our condolences go out to the families and friends affected by this tragedy, and our team is focused on supporting them during this difficult time.”\nThree crew members were aboard the UH-60 Blackhawk for what the Army said was a training exercise when it crashed in Leonardtown, about 60 miles (97 km) southeast of Washington, D.C., about 1:40 p.m. They were not identified, pending notification of relatives.\nOne person is in serious condition and one is in critical condition, the statement said. They are being treated at the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore.\nThe aircraft was from the 12th Aviation Battalion, stationed at Davison Airfield in Fort Belvoir, Virginia.\nKevin Bowen, who works in the pro shop of the Breton Bay Golf and Country Club, said he saw the helicopter “flying kind of low” and then “saw it spinning” before it went down between the third and fourth holes of the course.\nDorothy Harper, who lives across the street from the golf course, said she saw the helicopter just before it crashed.\n“I was outside in my front yard when I saw the helicopter come over right across the street from my house. I saw pieces actually falling off the helicopter,” she said.\nHarper said she didn’t see smoke or flames, “just pieces falling out of the sky.”\nShortly after, emergency vehicles started rolling in, she said.\nArmy investigators were driving around the course in golf carts Monday evening, placing evidence markers near pieces of debris.\nA team from the Army Combat Readiness Center, in Fort Rucker, Alabama, will be on site Tuesday to conduct the investigation, the Army’s statement said.\nBlackhawks are mainly used for transporting troops, supplies and equipment, according to the Army. But other missions include training and support of disaster relief.\nThe incident comes less than two weeks after a military jet crashed in a wooded area just outside a suburban Washington neighborhood. The pilot, who was on a training mission, ditched his jet. He was treated for minor injuries, and no one else was injured in that incident.", "One was a veteran law enforcement officer with more than two decades as a Virginia state trooper. The other was a pilot who transferred to the state police aviation unit last month and was one day away from his 41st birthday.\nBoth Virginia State Police troopers died Saturday when their police helicopter crashed and burned in Charlottesville, as they patrolled near the site of clashes between white nationalists and counterprotesters.\nState police identified the victims as pilot Lt. H. Jay Cullen, 48, and Trooper-Pilot Berke M.M. Bates, 40. Both men died at the scene.\nA classmate on Facebook said Cullen went to Germantown High School in Tennessee.\nTheir helicopter was “assisting public safety resources with the ongoing situation in Charlottesville,” according to a police statement.\nThe aircraft crashed in a wooded area near a residence just before 5 p.m. No one on the ground was injured, and officials are still investigating the cause of the crash.\nVirginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe said he and the first lady considered both men their close friends. He said they were “deeply saddened” by the deaths.\n“Jay has flown us across the commonwealth for more than three and a half years,” McAuliffe said in a statement. “Berke was devoted to our entire family as part of our Executive Protection Unit team for the past three years.\n“This is a devastating loss for their families, the Virginia State Police, and the entire commonwealth,” McAuliffe said. “These heroes were a part of our family and we are simply heartbroken.”\nPresident Donald Trump tweeted condolences to the troopers’ families earlier Saturday.\n“Deepest condolences to the families & fellow officers of the VA State Police who died today. You’re all among the best this nation produces,” Trump tweeted.\nThe helicopter went down close to where right-wing groups and counterprotesters converged Friday night and Saturday.\nThe “Unite the Right” rally included white nationalist and other far-right groups protesting Charlottesville’s plan to remove relics of its Confederate past, such as a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. More protesters gathered to rally against the right-wing demonstrators.\nA car plowed into a group of the counterprotesters Saturday, killing a 32-year-old woman and leaving 19 others hurt. Police took a man into custody as the subject of a homicide investigation, Charlottesville Police Chief Al Thomas said.\nWhile the name of the victim had not been released Saturday night, police identified the suspect arrested in the car-ramming incident as James Alex Fields Jr., 20, of Maumee, Ohio.\nMcAuliffe said at a news conference earlier in the day that three people had died, apparently a reference to the woman who died in the car crash and the two victims of the helicopter crash.\nThe governor, who had earlier declared a state of emergency, urged the right-wing groups to leave Charlottesville.\n“Go home,” he said. “You are not wanted in this great commonwealth. Shame on you.”", "Five people were killed on Friday after two army training helicopters crashed into each other near a lake in southern France, in one of the deadliest accidents involving the country’s armed forces in recent years.\nPolice said the collision took place at around 8.30am near the lake of Carces, about 50km (30 miles) northwest of the resort of Saint-Tropez.\n“The helicopters collided. There were three army personnel in one and two in the other. All are dead,” police said in the nearby town of Brignoles.\nThe cause of the collision was still unclear.\nAll the people on board were officers, a source close to the inquiry said.\nWaterlogged Paris faces long clean up after Seine peaks below record levels and recedes\n“One of the helicopters broke up and crashed onto a road, the second crashed about 150 to 200 metres away and burned,” said Jean-Luc Videlaine, prefect of the Var region.\nThe Gazelle helicopters from the army’s light aviation division were based at a flight school in Cannet-des-Maures.\nTwo police helicopters were still searching the crash scene soon after midday, while rescue services had blocked access to a forest road near the lake, according to an AFP journalist.\nDefence Minister Florence Parly, who was en route to the site and the training base, expressed “great sadness” in a Twitter post, while President Emmanuel Macron hailed the “commitment of these officers who were preparing themselves for future missions.”\nThe French-made Gazelle helicopters entered service in the 1970s, and are used for reconnaissance and light attacks as well as training.\nThe aircraft were part of the French army’s EALAT light aircraft training school.\nMore than two dozen Gazelles are stationed in Cannet des Maures, along with Fennec and Puma choppers.\nFrench prison guards, claiming they have been offered ‘bonuses for slit throats’, clash with police on picket lines\nA local councillor, Jean-Pierre Veran, said helicopters “regularly” fly over the zone and there had never been an accident, calling it a “terrible shock” with debris spread over a large area.\nArmy chief of staff Jean-Pierre Bosser expressed his “solidarity with the family and friends of the victims, as well as their comrades” at the training facility.\nThe last major aviation accident involving the security forces in France took place in May 2016, when a police helicopter crashed near Cauterets in the Pyrenees mountains, killing four on board.\nAn investigation later determined it was caused by pilot error.", "A Texas firefighter and an Argentine woman were among five passengers killed when a helicopter plunged into New York City's East River as the pilot said the engine had failed.Argentina's New York consulate said Monday that Carla Vallejos Blanco was one of the victims in the crash Sunday night. The Dallas Fire-Rescue Department confirmed that Fire-Rescue Officer Brian McDaniel also died.McDaniel, 26, had been with the department since May 2016.\"Despite his short tenure, hearts are heavy with grief as we not only try to come to grips with his loss departmentally but to also be there in every way that we can for his family,\" the department said in a statement.The Eurocopter AS350 helicopter went down about 7 p.m. in the water near New York's mayoral residence. All five passengers perished, but the pilot was able to free himself and survived.As the aircraft foundered, the pilot was heard on an emergency radio transmission calling: \"Mayday, mayday, mayday.\"\"East River - engine failure,\" he added.The pilot was rescued by a tugboat, but emergency divers had to remove the passengers on the charter helicopter being used for a photo shoot from tight safety harnesses while they were upside down, Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said.\"It took a while for the divers to get these people out. They worked very quickly, as fast as they could,\" Nigro said. \"It was a great tragedy that we had here.\"The National Transportation Safety Board dispatched investigators on Monday. The cause of the crash has not been determined.Video taken by a bystander and posted on Twitter shows the red helicopter land hard in the water and then capsize, its rotors slapping at the water.Witnesses on a nearby waterfront esplanade said the helicopter was flying noisily, then suddenly dropped and quickly submerged. But the pilot appeared on the surface, holding onto a flotation device as a tugboat and then police boats approached.\"It was sinking really fast,\" Mary Lee, 66, told the New York Post. \"By the time we got out here, we couldn't see it. It was under water.\"The aircraft was owned by Liberty Helicopters, a company that offers both private charters and sightseeing tours popular with tourists.The company referred inquiries to authorities, saying it was focused on the victims' families and the investigation.The skies over New York constantly buzz with helicopters carrying tourists, businesspeople, traffic reporters, medical teams and others.In 2009, a sightseeing helicopter of the same model and operated by the same company as the one in Sunday's wreck collided with a small, private plane over the Hudson River, killing nine people, including a group of Italian tourists.A crash in October 2011 in the East River killed a British woman visiting the city for her 40th birthday. Two other passengers died weeks later as a result of their injuries.A helicopter on a sightseeing tour of Manhattan crashed into the Hudson River in July 2007, shaking up the eight people aboard but injuring no one. In June 2005, two helicopters crashed into the East River in the same week. One injured eight people including some banking executives. The other hit the water shortly after takeoff on a sightseeing flight, injuring six tourists and the pilot.Nigro and Police Commissioner James O'Neill said the rescue operation Sunday took place in a 4 mph current in water about 50 feet (15 meters) deep, under challenging conditions.", "The downing of the Su-25 jet in Idlib is a rare case of Russian aircraft lost in combat operations in Syria, where the Russian Air Force played a key role in crushing the terrorists.\nThe attack in northwestern Syria, which left a pilot dead, has served as a stark reminder of the danger Russian pilots face while engaged in close combat or low-flying missions as part of the anti-terrorist campaign.\nThe Su-25 jet was downed in a de-escalation zone in a suspected MANPAD attack. It was not immediately clear which militant group was really responsible for the attack, or how it had obtained the man-portable air-defense weapon.\nRT lists the other times during which Russian lives were lost and aircraft downed or destroyed by enemy fire.\nHelicopter shot down during aid mission\nA Russian military transport Mi-8 helicopter was downed in Syria on August 1, 2016. The aircraft was on an aid mission delivering humanitarian supplies to the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. It was downed by ground fire over territory controlled by Al-Nusra terrorists, the Russian General Staff confirmed.\nThe helicopter was on its way back to the Khmeimim Airbase when extremists opened fire. All on board, including three crew members and two officers of the Russian Reconciliation Center in Syria were killed in the attack. “They died heroically as [the crew] tried to divert the helicopter to minimize casualties on the ground,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at the time.\nAttack chopper downed in ISIS attack\nOn July 8, 2016, a Russian-made Syrian Mi-25 attack helicopter piloted by a Russian crew was shot down while attacking advancing Islamic State (IS, former ISIS/ISIL) terrorists near the city of Palmyra. The Russian pilot-instructors were conducting a calibration flight on the Syrian Army aircraft when they received a request for help from Damascus.\nThe terrorists were pushed back and the attack thwarted. However, the Mi-25 was hit in the tail with a missile and crashed to the ground after having fired on a group of advancing extremists. Veteran chopper pilot Ryafagat Khabibulin, a decorated and renowned military pilot who saved numerous lives over his 25-year service died in that battle. Khabibulin’s co-pilot was also killed.\nInstructors were flying Syrian Mi-25 when Damascus requested help against ISIS advance – MoD https://t.co/tfVy104CAzpic.twitter.com/RGlxqFK1Ac — RT (@RT_com) July 9, 2016\nBomber downed by Turkey & chopper destroyed by militants\nOne of the most high profile incidents involving attacks on Russian aircraft in the Syria campaign took place in November 2015. On November 24, a Russian Su-24M tactical bomber that was performing a combat sortie over Syrian territory in the vicinity of the border with Turkey was downed by a Turkish Air Force F-16 fighter jet. The pilots of the Russian bomber managed to eject, but one of them was killed on the ground by local militants backed by Ankara. The second pilot was rescued.\nOne of two Mi-8 helicopters that were taking part in the search and rescue mission for the pilots of the downed Russian Su-24 was fired at from the ground, and had to land close to militant positions. A Russian Marine was killed in the attack, while the rest of the crew and servicemen on board the helicopter were safely evacuated to the Khmeimim Airbase. The aircraft was subsequently destroyed.\nRead more\nThe downing of the Su-24 bomber triggered mega tensions between Moscow and Ankara. President Vladimir Putin called the incident “a stab in the back,” and imposed sanctions on Turkey. In June 2016, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan apologized for the attack in a written statement, leading to a normalization of bilateral relations.\nThe killing of the pilot on Saturday brings to 44 the number of Russian servicemen killed in action since the start of anti-terrorist operations in Syria which began on September 30, 2015 at the request of the Syrian government.\nIn total, Russia's Air Forces have lost ten aircraft, including three Su-24 attack jets, one Su-33 and one MiG-29 fighter jet as well as five helicopters during its campaign in Syria. Five of the aircraft were not engaged in combat but crashed because of technical faults.\nThe Russian air campaign lasted from 2015 until December 2017. During a surprise visit to Khmeimim Airbase on December 11, 2017, president Putin announced the withdrawal of a “significant part” of the Russian military contingent from Syria." ]

[ "How about gentle learning curve?" ]

[ "S-shaped learning curves\n\nAs per A Umar Mukthar's comment, the phenomenon is known as an S-shaped learning curve. They have been a known phenomenon in psychology for many decades, and were originally attributed to trial-and-error learning sets (Harlow, 1949). Harlow defined a learning set in the following manner:\n\n\n The monkeys learn how to learn individual problems with a minimum of errors. It is this learning how to learn a kind of problem that we designate by the term learning set.\n\n\nMeta-cognition and intra-individual performance variability\n\nHarlow's explanation has fundamentally not been changed too much, except perhaps that in modern cognitive research, we now call these meta-cognitive strategies rather than learning sets. \n\nWhen first encountering a novel problem, participants will adopt one strategy and work to improve their performance on that, but eventually they will discover other strategies. When participants shift strategy thus to an unpracticed strategy, their performance declines, then improves again. \n\nBecause all strategies for the same problem tend to share at least some overlap, as participants explore an increasing proportion of the space of possible meta-cognitive strategies, shifting to a novel strategy requires decreasing amounts of new practice. The magnitude of the performance decline associated with strategy shifts is therefore gradually eliminated with prolonged practice (Murre, 2014). \n\nReferences\n\n\nHarlow, H. F. (1949). The formation of learning sets. Psychological review, 56(1), 51.\nMurre, J. M. (2014). S-shaped learning curves. Psychonomic bulletin &amp; review, 21(2), 344-356.", "Consider a production function\n\n$$y = F(A,K,L)$$\n\nwhere $A$ represent \"technology\" (in the broad sense including for example also organizational technology), $K$ is capital and $L$ is labor (again both broadly defined)\n\n\"Economies of scale\" (a looser synonym of increasing returns to scale), is, in economics, always defined with respect to all arguments in the production function except technology. \n\nWe say that the production function exhibits increasing returns to scale if it is homogeneous of degree higher than one... but with respect to capital and labor only: \n\n$$F(A, sK, sL) = s^{\\delta}F(A, K, L), \\;\\; \\delta &gt; 1$$\n\nNote that we have not multiplied $A$ by $s$. Note also that economies of scale is a static concept.\n\nLet's turn to the \"learning curve\" concept: it uses the word \"learning\", presumably not by accident: but \"learning\" has to do with efficiency and not with scale. And efficiency has to do with technology, which is the one aspect left aside when discussing economies of scale.\n\nAs a final note, I won't dispute the meaning for the \"learning curve\" that you report, but I have to say that it sounds strange to me: whenever I have encountered the concept, it was always in a dynamic setting, as a synonym of \"learning by doing\": as we spend more time with a production process, we become more efficient at implementing it (and even if scale of operations remains the same). \n\nI understand that a falling average cost can of course come as a result of the above process, but the dynamic aspect is crucial, contrasted to a static one. \n\nIn fact, in my experience, in a static sense a greater scale of operations always eventually leads to increasing average cost, if we do not allow for time to pass, and so experience and efficiency to be gained, that can more than offset the inefficiencies that accumulate due to the complexity of operations at a larger scale.\n\nThe above do not refer to the \"easy phase\" of decreasing average cost at low initial levels of production due to the inescapable existence of fixed costs.", "It depends, what alternatives do you have? Quantstrat is useful in certain situations, and the authors did their best to give R a useful backtesting package. You are right, the learning curve is a little bit steep since and it's implementation would perhaps be a little bit less awkward in a typical object oriented design. I have switched to Backtrader in Python which is equally as frustrating at times, although better documented. Regardless, any backtesting library you decide to learn will probably have a learning curve, so it depends what you want to use it for. If your goal is to backtest generally simple trading strategies on a single stock, it will do the job quite well. Adjusted data is reletively easy to come by. I recommend the alphavantage api which is also supported in the quantmod library by setting source='av'", "Try lowering the learning rate.\n\nSuch a loss curve can be indicative of a high learning rate. Due to a high learning rate the algorithm can take large steps in the direction of the gradient and miss the local minima. Then it will try to come back to the minima in the next step and overshoot it again. \n\nYou may also try switching to a momentum-based GD algorithm. Such a training loss curve can be indicative of a loss contour like in this example, for which momentum-based GD methods are helpful.\n\nI noticed that you have a very small training set. You may have better luck with a larger training data (~1000 examples) or using a pre-trained Conv network as a starting point.", "You could start out with a powerful \"Analog\" style or FM style synth like Native Instruments' Massive or FM8.\n\nIf you are really focused on additive synthesis or you'd just like something more flexible, consider the following modular environments:\n\nLinux Friendly:\n\n\nCSound - text mode synthesis and composition language. Extremely powerful, moderately steep learning curve\nSuperCollider - text mode synthesis language. Extremely powerful, steep learning curve. More modern than CSound\nPureData - graphical modular environment. Very powerful, moderate learning curve\n\n\nWindows / OSX:\n\n\nMax/MSP - essentially a commercial and more pretty version of PureData (or vice-versa)\nNative Instruments' Reaktor - commercial modular environment. Great if you want access to their huge library of community synths", "I would suggest taking a look at the blender physics engine - specifically look for convex hull simulations. It is free and should allow you to do the sort of visualisations that you are looking for, The only down side is the steep learning curve but it is well worth the effort.", "You can use VTK-m to parse the files and they will automatically show up in a sensible data structure, ready for parallel processing. The learning curve is a bit steep, but the documentation is very legible. Here's a demo which reads a VTK file and uses it for particle advection.", "I believe you can achieve what you want using D3.js. It is a Javascript library for creating advanced (beyond charts) visualizations for the web. \n\nThe kind of visualization you are looking for is a treemap &amp; here is an example of it in D3.\n\n\n\nD3 being an advanced library has a somewhat steep learning curve so you may find this book useful in learning it. You can buy the book or download the ebook for free.", "Removing the learning rate will likely yield poor convergence to the optimal policy and optimal Q-values. Note that the current policy is completely dependent on the Q-values, as we take the action with highest Q-value in a given state (with a few other considerations such as exploration, etc.). If we were to remove the learning rate, then we are making a relatively large change to our Q-values and possibly to our policy as well after only a single update. For example, if the sample rewards have great variance (e.g. in stochastic environments), then drastic updates to a single Q-value may occur simply by chance when a learning rate is not used. Due to the recursive definition of Q-values, a few poor updates can undo the work of many previous updates. If this phenomenon were to occur frequently, then the policy may take a long time to converge to the optimal policy, if at all.\nUnderlying the temporal-difference update and many other reinforcement learning updates is the notion of policy iteration in which the estimated value function is updated to match the true value function of the current policy and the current policy is updated to be greedy with respect to the estimated value function. This process proceeds iteratively and gradually until convergence to the optimal policy and optimal value function is achieved. Gradual changes such as setting a small learning rate (e.g. $\\alpha = 0.1$) aim to speed up convergence by lessening the frequency of the phenomenon in the above paragraph. Sutton and Barto make comments on convergence throughout their book, with the remarks surrounding line 2.7 in Section 2.5 providing a summary.", "One issue is that a normalized set of initial weights may not stay normalized as learning progresses; so given that we adjust weights proportionately according to their relative values and also when working on a subset of the learning data the model may become convinced that one subset of features is important and others not, this can result in the weights becoming unbalanced again. In the learning curve we may see this as a plateau, where the learning becomes convinced that a few features are much more important than they really are and fails to find new features that can contribute even more because tiny proportionate changes did not move them far, or quickly, enough into a noticeable range.\n\nSo when we re-sample from the database to get the next batch we need to be fully open to the possibility that the previous batch learning was too heavily biased towards its own favoured set. In effect we are trading accuracy for openness to new feature combinations, and at the same time assisting generalization.", "If you've not used the Arduino before I suggest looking at Maxuino as this will take care of the processing code to control the arduino (giving you one less thing to learn). It's still a fairly steep learning curve just for Max, so give yourself plenty of time. Find LDRs (light dependent resistors) tested by the arduino community so you're sure they are going to work with little fuss. The Max forums are pretty good, so have a go and then ask (Max) questions there.\n\nSounds like a fun project.. good luck!", "Setting too high a learning rate will extend the time to get a good result.\n\nIn my opinion, it is better to set not too big a learning rate but to use learning with momentum. When the learning starts to be ineffective, increase the learning rate to find a better optimal result. It seems to me that this allows to get very good results in a faster time than setting a large value of the learning rate from the very beginning. At least in cases I've dealt with.", "Backpropagation is a subroutine often used when training Artificial Neural Networks with a Gradient Descent learning algorithm. Gradient Descent requires computation of the error gradient, i.e. derivatives, of a cost function with respect to the network parameters. BP allows you to find this gradient a lot faster than using naive methods. Reinforcement Learning refers to inferring \"optimal\" behavior, i.e. a strategy, of an agent maximizing some goal in an environment. Depending on the specific RL algorithm, BP may be employed to adjust parameters of a function approximator used to represent aspects of the environment and or the agent.", "There are a few technical papers and books on the topic\n\n\nComputational Limitations on Learning from Examples (1988) by Leonard Pitt and Leslie G. Valiant, published in Journal of the ACM\nTraining a 3-node neural network is NP-complete (1992) by Avrim L. Blum and Ronald L. Rivest, published in Neural Networks\nComputational complexity of neural networks: a survey (1994) by Pekka Orponen, published in Nordic Journal of Computing\nOn the relative time complexities of standard and conjugate gradient backpropagation (1994) by J. V. Stone and R. Lister, published in IEEE\nNeural Networks - A Systematic Introduction (1996), specifically chapter 10 The Complexity of Learning, a book by Raul Rojas\nComplexity Analysis of Multilayer Perceptron Neural Network Embedded into a Wireless Sensor Network (2014) by Gursel Serpen and Zhenning Gao, published in Complex Adaptive Systems\nOn the Computational Efficiency of Training Neural Networks (2014) by Roi Livni, Shai Shalev-Shwartz and Ohad Shamir, published in NIPS 2014\nConvolutional Neural Networks at Constrained Time Cost (2014) Kaiming He and Jian Sun, published in IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (2015)\nLearning Neural Networks with Two Nonlinear Layers in Polynomial Time (2018) by Surbhi Goel and Adam Klivans\n\n\nHowever, note that gradient descent (and other optimization algorithms) and the back-propagation algorithm are numerical algorithms (that is, they deal with numerical errors), so the time complexity is not the only factor affecting the actual performance of these algorithms and models.", "Enter Lightning Launcher.\n\nHands down the most customizable, lightweight launcher in the market. Frequently updated by the developer. Comes with a bevy of features unlike any other launcher.\n\nThe learning curve is quite steep, you might want to have a glance at the documentation when setting it up.", "The authors describe their belief in Section 3:\n\nDue to the lack of samples in the early stage, the adaptive learning rate has an undesirably large variance, which leads to suspicious/bad local optima.\n\nDiving further, in section 3.2:\n\nAdam uses the exponential moving average to calculate the adaptive learning rate. For gradients $\\{g_1,\\dots,g_t\\}$, their exponential moving average has a larger variance than their simple average. Also, in the early stage ($t$ is small), the difference of the exponential weights of $\\{g_1,\\dots,g_t\\}$ is relatively small (up to $1−β^{t−1}_2$).\n\nIt seems like the root issue is that exponential moving average, while great with many data samples, have too large of a variance with few data samples. It is this variance that sometimes allow the gradient descend in a bad optima.", "I like Telerik Test Studio for web applications. It doesn't require any knowledge of programming and has an intuitive interface. The test runner can be put on any of the VMs you might be using.\n\nIf it is not a web application, the only thing I have worked with would be AutoIT (which can have a steep learning curve).", "You should try experimenting with a lower learning rate as a starting point. You're starting with 0.1 which is quite high for most of the cases, and only reduce by 0.9 which is not much.", "If anything, you want the learning rate to decrease as the number of iterations increases.\nWhen you're looking for a good spot and you're clueless, take large steps. When you've found a pretty good spot, take small steps, so you don't end up far away.\nIn other fields of machine learning, there are studies of how the learning rate should scale. For example, in traditional reinforcement learning methods, if $\\alpha_i$ is the learning rate at step $i$, then we want to have the following two criteria, to make sure we get convergence to the optimal policy:\n\n$\\sum_{i=0}^{\\infty} \\alpha_i = \\infty$. This makes sure that, no matter how bad our initial experience was, we can eventually forget it and replace it with better information.\n$\\sum_{i=0}^{\\infty} \\alpha_i^2 &lt; \\infty$. This guarantees eventual convergence.\n\nA typical choice here is $\\alpha_i = \\frac{1}{1+i}$, which fits both criteria.\nI am unaware of similar criteria for MLPs, but if you're going to modify the step sizes, I would follow a similar approach. Make the step sizes decrease, but not too fast.", "In the case of linear demand $d_i=a_i-x_iP$ (assuming $d_i$ is quantity demanded by individual $i$), the price elasticity of demand at point $(d_i,P)$ is\n\\begin{equation}\n\\epsilon_i(d_i,P)=x_i\\cdot \\frac{P}{d_i}.\n\\end{equation}\nAs @the_rainbox noted in their answer, price elasticity of demand varies along a linear demand curve. So in order to compare elasticities between different demand curves based only on the slope coefficients (the $x_i$'s), you need to fix $P$ and $d_i$; that is, assume that the demand curves of individuals $1$ and $2$ cross at some point $(Q_0,P_0)$.\nThen, you can say things like\n\\begin{equation}\n\\epsilon_1(Q_0,P_0)\\ge \\epsilon_2(Q_0,P_0) \\quad\\Leftrightarrow\\quad x_1\\ge x_2.\n\\end{equation}\nOr in words: $1$'s demand is more elastic than $2$'s at $(Q_0,P_0)$ if and only if $1$'s demand curve is flatter than $2$'s. [Note that since by convention demand curves are plotted in the $(Q,P)$-plane, a flat demand curve actually corresponds to a high $x_i$.]\nBeware, however, that in contexts where a high degree of mathematical rigor is not required, it is sometimes taken as a rule-of-thumb that flat demand curves are &quot;generally&quot; more elastic than steep ones. Hence slope becomes a proxy for elasticity in those less rigorous discourses.", "Concerning the given explanation:\n\n\n For A, the analytic a posteriori, we can learn each of the words in this sentence through experience (in an a posteriori manner), and yet the meaning of it is tautological.\n\n\nTo learn in an a posteriori manner means to learn by induction i.e. \n(1) To learn from examples, such that each positive example strengthens one's confidence in the result.\n(2) That there always remains the possibility of a negative example, a counter-example, of dis-proving the result.\n\nWhether \"red is rouge\" is a posteriori depends in particular on (2). That is, is it conceivable that one will suddenly realize that red is not rouge? For Kant, who was the first to discuss these distinctions at length, it is not possible that red will turn out not to be rouge. But by other conceptions of meaning it may be possible. The example is controversial, and so is the very possibility of analytic a posteriori statements.", "I would suggest looking at:\n\n\nGraphviz it is free, runs on Windows, Linux &amp; Mac. You\ndescribe what you need and it draws it for you - i.e. You define the\nnodes and connections with overrides on colours, line types, etc. - There is a bit of a \nlearning curve but the results are very good so it is worth persevering.\nand you can generate your output in a wide range of formats.\n\nPros: Once you are familiar with it it is very fast, allows you to generate your \ndiagrams for almost any output format and does the layout automatically for you. There\nare a large number of tools that make use of it to generate diagrams automatically \nsuch as doxygen. Available for most platforms.\n\nCons: There is a fairly steep learning curve.\nyEd this has a graphical user interface and is available for most platforms.\n\nPros: There is a GUI so easy to use, Java so available for a lot of platforms.\n\nCons: Large, Java so slow.", "Sketchup is notorious for creating non-manifold models for 3D printing. The first recommendation would be to consider using a different resource for your models. I'm not a big fan of TinkerCAD, but it is similar in operation to many features of Sketchup. I've used it on a couple occasions where it was the fastest simplest way to create a particular model.\n\nThere are other programs that are more complex in the learning curve. Meshmixer is good for more organic shapes, although it will perform reasonably well for engineering-type models such as yours.\n\nBlender is a great piece of free software with an extremely steep learning curve, but again, better suited to organics.\n\nI'm quite a fan of OpenSCAD which is script/text based and quite well suited to creating engineering-type models, especially if you need parametric modeling. The model you have in your pictures would be an easy build, perhaps twenty minutes creation time, a few dozen lines of text. I see two cylinders, some boolean subtraction and some radial primitives. If the code is clean (easy to do), the result is a manifold object.\n\nOn the even more challenging level, there are programs such as SolidWorks but the learning curve there is steep too. In the same ballpark would be Autodesk Fusion 360, for which a free hobbyist version exists.\n\nOf course, with all of the above, there are YouTube tutorials to assist your learning process.\n\nMore to the point, one can use an online 3D model repair service. I've attempted to use a couple with mixed results.\n\nNetfabb is a commonly recommended online repair service. I've not used that one, or if I have, the results were poor. A bad model (your example) will likely fail with most services.\n\nI've used MakePrintable in the past as well. Again, a bad model will fail and Sketchup is the culprit here.\n\nYou can use Meshmixer in Analysis mode to find the errors and use Auto Repair All, but the results aren't going to be pretty!", "Usually, \"self-paced\" or \"personalized learning\" courses are managed via technology. An interesting review of the current state of the industry was published yesterday (as I write this) at Technology Review by Natalie Wexler:\n\n\n A 2019 report from the National Education Policy Center at the\n University of Colorado on personalized learning—a loosely defined term\n that is largely synonymous with education technology—issued a sweeping\n condemnation. It found “questionable educational assumptions embedded\n in influential programs, self-interested advocacy by the technology\n industry, serious threats to student privacy, and a lack of research\n support.”\n \n Judging from the evidence, the most vulnerable students can be harmed\n the most by a heavy dose of technology—or, at best, not helped. The\n OECD study found that “technology is of little help in bridging the\n skills divide between advantaged and disadvantaged students.” In the\n United States, the test score gap between students who use technology\n frequently and those who don’t is largest among students from\n low-income families. A similar effect has been found for “flipped”\n courses, which have students watch lectures at home via technology and\n use class time for discussion and problem-solving. A flipped college\n math class resulted in short-term gains for white students, male\n students, and those who were already strong in math. Others saw no\n benefit, with the result that performance gaps became wider.\n\n\nObserving a case where a young student gave up on trying to add 8 and 3 and instead starting doodling on the iPad that was quizzing them, the author further writes:\n\n\n If Kevin had been asked to combine 8 and 3 by a teacher rather than an\n iPad, there’s a greater chance he would have been interested in trying\n to do it. “It’s different when you’re learning from a person and you\n have a relationship with that person,” cognitive psychologist Daniel\n Willingham has said. “That makes you care a little bit more about what\n they think, and it makes you a little bit more willing to put forth\n effort.”...\n \n In addition to sapping motivation, technology can drain a classroom of\n the communal aspect of learning. The vision of some ed tech advocates\n is that each child should sit in front of a screen that delivers\n lessons tailored to individual ability levels and interests, often on\n subjects chosen by the students themselves. But a vital part of\n education is different kids bouncing their ideas off each other...\n\n\nFull story here.", "Have you looked at the Rainbow RL? It combines all improvements of RL. Apart from structural changes other improvements come from Reward Shaping, Curiosity-driven Learning, RL with Unsupervised Auxiliary tasks and RL with external memory (e.g. Neural Episodic Control, Model-free episodic Control). It's pitty that you leave out from your question Policy Gradients, they are lots of fun :) Happy reading!", "A lot of stuff covered by OWASP applies to applications as the line between desktop app and web app blurs. Things like SQL injection, command injection, object injection to name a few injection attacks. I once tested a .Net MVC app by uploading a PHP file and tried to see if the code was executed or presented as raw text when viewed.\n\nAs far as tools you could try a free product like Metasploit but the learning curve is steep.", "The exploration rate, typically parameterized as epsilon / ε, can be changed on every trial. It depends on the complexity of the model and the goals.\n\nThe simplest thing to do is keep exploration rate high and fixed. That means the model will continue to explore new options, even at the cost of not \"exploiting\" the best available option. \n\nAnother option is setting the exploration rate high at the beginning of learning so the model will search the space for possible successful solutions. Then as the model creates a set of policies that are successful for given states, the exploration rate can be lowered or decay. Exploration rate decay can be fixed (i.e., over time there is consistently less exploration and more exploitation). Exploration rate decay can be dynamic and learned. This last option is often the best but also the most complex to implement.\n\n\"Dare to Discover: The Effect of the Exploration Strategy on an Agent’s Performance\" goes into greater detail on this topic.", "The process of making structural models of macromolecules (the content of PDB files) is called model building, rather than generating, because it normally involves tedious manual building of the model in a graphical program such as Coot. A few programs can do automatic model building, but then the structure needs to be finished manually. Maybe this will change in the future.\nAll these programs have rather steep learning curve, so it's probably not what you are looking for.\n\nThe next problem is that you plan to start from an electron density map.\nAssuming that the experimental method was crystallography, not Cryo-EM, the electron density map is derived from both reflection data and the model (and at the same time the model is built into the map, iteratively). So for the purpose of re-building or validation people generally use reflection data, not the map.", "You are supposed to play as a single player, i.e. with 3 Heroes one your side and drawing a single card from the encounter deck each turn.\n\nThe pre-constructed decks in the game are unfortunately not the best and at the same time, the game is quite hard (even the beginner scenarios). Both combined can lead to your frustrating experience.\n\nHere is a link to a guide for solo players who are new to the game: \nhttps://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/16397/guide-new-lotrlcg-solo-players \nThis should help you in getting started and get over the steep learning curve, which this game definitely has.", "You could use Fledermaus: http://geotools.csc.noaa.gov/program/Previous%20Programs/presentations/GeoTools%20pdfs/F13%20Lockhart.pdf, it may help you. In case you want to tune finely in order to enhance details, a good software for that is GMT (Generic Mapping Tools): http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/8970/136/, this one is quite powerful but the learning curve is a bit steep, but I think you can manage it after several basic examples explained in its manual. Also, this one is free.\n\nHope this helps,", "Here are some optimization problems that were harder than a simple homework problem:\n\n\nGiven the pavillion angle of a diamond, what crown angle produces optimal light return?\nWhat percentage of the lignin should be removed from wood, if one wishes to squeeze the wood into a cheap structure similar to carbon fiber with an optimum strength-to-weight ratio?\nWhen choosing the parameters for a map projection, which parameters produce the least worst-case distortion of the needed area of the map? For example, which two latitudes should have undistorted lengths in an Albers Equal-Area map of the 48 conterminous United States?\n\n\nNotice that in these examples, more effort went into designing the functions to be optimized, and in choosing the parameter to be varied, than went into performing the calculus.", "Sometimes when training, particularly in reinforcement learning, the model can become unstable due to the amount of variance that exists in the training data that the agent generates by interacting with the environment. This is certainly a problem at the start of training as you can get huge outliers in the data because the agent is behaving randomly. You can find that just one update to the policy could potentially make it collapse because it moves the policy into some obscure region, e.g. so the agent always take a particular action. You can make training more stable by using larger batches and a smaller learning rate so it takes smaller steps at a time, but the downside to that is training is slower. So you need to test different hyperparameters to find a good trade-off between the two. You can also use an training architecture such as Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) which clips the amount the policy can move in any given update to try and maintain some stability.\n\nConvergence is a term used to describe when the model has found an optimal policy and isn't learning any further, usually demonstrated when the reward plateaus for a certain number of episodes. Of course, it may have settled on a local optima, and other global optima may exist; the data you present and the way you train your model may yield better results - again, all part of testing and experimentation." ]

[ "BBC News Online speaks to Holocaust survivors as Poland remembers the terrible fate of the Lodz ghetto." ]

[ "LODZ, Poland - Holocaust survivors and their families gathered at one of Europe's largest Jewish cemeteries Sunday to remember more than 200,000 Jews from this city killed by the Nazis, a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the last transports from the Lodz ghetto to Hitler's death camps.", "Survivors gathered in London on Sunday to view the largest collection of images of ghetto life during the Holocaust by a single photographer.", "On the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a survivor recalls her experiences at the camp.", "Zdenka Fantlova remembers Terezin as the best of the Nazi hells: a ghetto with a swing band, a concentration camp with shoe stores and cafes.", "Once a vibrant center for Jewish culture, the Kazimierz ghetto in the Polish city of Krakow was devastated during World War II.", "Once a byword for poverty and post-communist racketeering, Poland's second largest city of Lodz was a place people wanted to escape. Today some are moving back, drawn by foreign investment and falling unemployment.", "As flames engulfed the Warsaw ghetto in its last days in 1943, a young Jewish woman hiding from Nazi soldiers kept a journal about her fight to survive in a cramped basement.", "LODZ, Poland—Sam Weinreich remembers the last time he came to Radegast train station in Poland&#39;s second-largest city - the day in 1944 he was forced into a cattle car and sent to Nazi Germany&#39;s Auschwitz death camp.", "The German government plans to pay compensation to Holocaust survivors who worked in Jewish ghettos set up by the Nazis, a magazine reported on Saturday.", "In aftermath of disaster, survivors of school siege recall the nightmare.", "A service is held in Budapest to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the ghetto in Budapest.", "The remains of 11 people believed to be Jews killed in the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising against Nazi occupiers were buried Thursday in a ceremony hailed by Jewish leaders as a sign of the rekindled relationship ...", "An empty lawn in the heart of what was once the Warsaw Ghetto will soon become a place not only of mourning, but of celebrating the Jewish life that flourished in Poland before it was destroyed in the Holocaust.", "A Jewish woman hiding in a lice-infested basement while the ghetto around her was engulfed by fire documented how \"hell has come to Earth\" in a graphic diary of the last, desperate, weeks of the Warsaw uprising ...", "Hungarians have been marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Budapest ghetto.", "Octogenarians who fled Poland before their orphanage was forced into a ghetto are among the last links to Janusz Korczak, who inspired the declaration of children’s rights.", "A one-time $2,795 payment by the German government for survivors who were forced to work in Jewish ghettos established by the Nazis is not enough, the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany said Thursday.", "Survivors of the Buchenwald concentration camp at the weekend marked the 70th anniversary of its foundation with a call that the 56,000 people who died here during the Holocaust shall never be forgotten.", "\"And that cannot be underestimated.\" WARSAW, Poland ---- They spent their childhoods in the rich, layered Jewish life of prewar Poland, then survived Hitler's mission to wipe out European Jewry in the ghettos and gas chambers of occupied Europe. via North County Times", "Investment in manufacturing plant in Lodz could reach $321 million and include 1,000 workers.", "Some 60 Jewish Holocaust survivors are reunited with their Polish saviours at a gathering in Warsaw.", "Piergiorgio Dalpiano, dirigente del Ghetto Turco, formazione che milita in terza categoria, &egrave;...", "Police said they had arrested a Polish teenager Wednesday after he allegedly used a homemade device to derail city trams in Lodz, central Poland.", "Historians call it Europe's last pogrom &#151; neighbors and police setting upon Jewish Holocaust survivors in the Polish town of Kielce with guns, clubs and metal bars in a murderous rampage little more than a year after the defeat of Nazi Germany.", "Jewish leaders are to join Polish dignitaries for the start of work on a museum in the former Warsaw Ghetto.", "Holocaust survivors on Sunday marked the 70th anniversary of the Buchenwald concentration camp's founding by honoring more than 38,000 victims whose identities had previously been unknown.", "After the dual destructions wrought by the Holocaust and communism, Eastern European Jewish communal life was little more than a memory 15 years ago.", "Far from its roots in disfranchised U.S. ghettos, rap music is proving a big hit as a platform for social criticism in the Islamic Republic.", "As the last rays of sunlight fade on the ghetto alleyways, ratty looking palm trees take on the form of sick old men and there&#39;s menace in the air.", "OSWIECIM, Poland - World leaders and survivors stopped to remember the horror of the Holocaust on Thursday at a snow-swept ceremony in Auschwitz-Birkenau on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp.", "A weeklong calm that had taken hold of the Shiite ghetto of Sadr City and raised hopes for a peaceful settlement of the armed standoff there dissolved into gun battles", "Council tenants should receive state aid to help them buy a home and break up \"ghettos\", a Tory group says." ]

[ "allomucic acid" ]

[ "when the current is turned off", "when the vehicle turns", "when turning", "a turn", "DOE", "Heat", "The Heat", "What Does It Do to Your Heart", "when the equipment is turned off", "The Heat Is On", "heat ''", "turns", "DOE test", "when a person or object does not rematerialize correctly", "A Doe subpoena", "it does not follow", "Susan Doe", "Turn Around", "U Turn", "Turn of the century", "John Doe", "turn the page", "Roland Doe", "turning gear", "Doe B", "turning back", "Turn It Up", "Samuel Doe", "the turn of the millennium", "without turn", "Spindle turning", "Turning Japanese" ]

[ "Beautiful case but useless. The MAGNETIC CLOSURES FORCE THE KINDLE OUT OF THE COVER. I guess you could secure it with duck tape, but for $100????" ]

[ "You get what you pay for. I found this case almost useless. The tablet will not stand in the upright position very well with this case.", "It's really cute but not very hardy. I dropped it once and the bottom broke, and now the case is useless. Granted I did drop it, but I just thought it would be more sturdy than that.", "Loved this case in every way EXCEPT the back shell, the part that actually holds the tablet, is made of hard plastic. After a few drops on the floor the corners of the shell broke and the case no longer held the tablet. With a missing corner the tablet fall out of the case, making it useless. Needs to be made of hard rubber or something like that.", "This is a $65 lead-breaking machine. It is beautiful and completely useless. Stick to your cheap, plastic Bic instead.", "I purchased this case hoping to replace my \"leather\" wallet case for my Nexus 6P. The case looks very nice, but its very stiff. You really cant use the wallet part without the case becoming too large to actually close.\n\nThe power and volume buttons are completely uncovered, which makes them a bit difficult to depress sometimes. The cutout on the back for the fingerprint scanner is completely useless. It's so small, I don't think anyone over the age of 5 could use it.\n\nBecause of the material, the phone likes to slip when the case is being used as a landscape stand. It's a bit useless.\n\nI cannot recommend this product at all.", "This case does not fit the Lumia 521. It is made specifically for the Lumia 520 and it does not hold the Lumia 521. Useless.", "Mine may have been damaged in transit, but every case I open the tab hinges break off making the jewel cases useless. I have not had this issue in volume with past jewel cases.", "It was beautiful, but I ordered the wrong case for my mom and they were more than helpful in letting me return it for the right case with no hassels!", "Got this case everything was fine until I tried to put in the brass standoffs for the motherboard. Two of the holes won't let the standoffs screw in all the way. This makes the case completely useless if i can't even put my motherboard in it", "The magnet fell apart only a week after using it, rendering the case useless", "Did not fit my iPhone 6 Plus with otterBox case it would fit in but I practically ripped my pants off trying to get it out of the case and I found it to be useless.", "For the first few weeks it was a great case, but then the magnet fell out, making it almost useless. Wish the manufacturers would go to a tiny bit more trouble & sew it up more durably.", "the rubber fit my phone fine but the snap on hardcover was not even for an iPhone so the whole case was useless", "Get what you pay for. Clip broke off after light use. So i started using belt loops, now they have torn off. The case still looks great but it is useless to me now.", "The gold plated top and bottom edges are extremely fragile, cracking, and render \"protector\" useless. If installed with case on, they crinkle snd break. If installed without case on, same thing happens when case gets installed. Not much use.", "Completely useless. The case is too big for the Galaxy note 3 it doesn't even stay with the phone. Is about 4mm bigger than the phone.", "This case was just horrible. I bought this and the case was scratched up and the edges had paint chips. the worst part was that this didn't even come with a charger for the case so i have the case rn and its useless without the specific charging port it needs. I would recommend to spend ur money on another charging case", "dropped one time. one of the small flimsy latches that held the top piece on broke rendering the case useless. lol", "This car mount doesn't work when there's a case on this smartphone. I bought it because I didn't plan to put a case on the smartphone. After a while I learned that there are many reasons for having a case, so I got one, and then this car mount becomes essentially useless.", "ok movie....generally I would not comment someone appearance- but the mother and daughter look like men......at 1:26:42 the mom referred to herself as being beautiful but useless........beautiful? witch like........it is funny, some groups of people talk about the features of other groups of people....", "It is a beautiful case, but mine has a small pink stain on it and I can out seem to get it out.", "The case fits great, but the corners are missing (slits in the case) to allow it to slip on easily. After 1 week of use, the bottom of the case snagged on my pocket, and broke the corner of the case, rendering it useless. Maybe ok if you never put in in your pocket, but not at all durable.\nUpdate: Seller contacted me and provided a replacement case that is more flexible. Case not good for pockets, but seller was very responsive, and helped solve my issue.", "It is a beautiful case but does not fit Xperia Z1 at all. Not even close.", "Love it, I have gotten so many compliments on this case. The case is beautiful as well as durable but doesn't make the phone too heavy. The diamonds are eye catching. Simply a wonderful beautiful case.", "Case itself works fine for iPhone 4 with skin. Problem is I bought this case specifically because it supposedly had sturdy belt loops. Within 2 weeks one of the loops ripped its stitches and is now useless. I'm not that rough on phone cases. Is it so difficult to use sturdy stitching on these cases?", "The case is pretty decent, especially for the price. But the stand in the back is almost useless because it is insanely hard to pop out. Be prepared to break a finger nail....", "I've been using this for about 6 months+ now, LOVE IT, in every way. Yes, it is a \"Tank\" of a case, but anyone with a note 3 knows that the stock battery is useless. This case gets noticed, and when I tell them it houses a 3x stock battery, they want to know where to get one. The case is rugged, the beltclip is near bulletproof, I love this!", "Exactly like the headline says, this case seems like it would protect quite well. The hard plastic shell on this case engulfs the power and volume buttons and makes them all but useless. If you ever use these buttons DO NOT BUY THIS CASE! I'm going to try and return this one.", "It came without a clasp and just fell open! I loved the look and quality but it was useless because it was broken. I did get a refund.", "The phone case portion is great, however the card slots are not big enough for my credit card or driver's licence making this product useless for my purchase. It now houses my kid's cell phone as they don't need to have anything in the card slots. Great as a phone case poor as a wallet.", "The case is pretty and fits nicely but it is NOT the \"ULAK\" brand that I thought I was getting so the quality just isn't there.", "This looked like a good case until you put it on. The buttons are hard to press making the case pretty useless. Not only are the buttons hard to press but they do not stick out so they are harder to locate if you are trying to adjust the volume why are on a phone call. Also be careful if you are using a screen protector. This case will lift the corners off." ]